Chapter Text
He’s still too young to be sent out on his own, but he knows the mother across the den will be hoping he’ll decide to go. Her pups crawl over her forelegs as she lays with them in the hollow, tiny needle teeth snagging at her jowls, little tails whipping back and forth rapidly.
Her ear flicks with each swipe of a stubby forepaw that grazes over it, with more irritation each time, but she doesn’t snap at them. She’s watching Tommy. He knows, should he ever approach close enough to swipe at her ears, it might cost him an eye or worse.
The real wolves know there’s something wrong with him. They aren’t… unkind, really. Not cruel, just wary. And Tommy doesn’t blame them. There is something wrong with him, after all.
It’s cold outside by this time of year, but Tommy goes anyway. He’s getting tired of being leered at.
Sure enough, the chilled stone against his paw pads sends a shiver up his frame. It’s not snowing now, but the sky looks suspiciously gray. And it’s certainly cold enough for it.
Tommy trudges across the stretch, giving the wolves lounging in the rare winter sun a wide berth. His tail glues itself to his belly every time a pair of yellow eyes stares too long.
But no one bothers him. One pale wolf curls her lip warningly at him as he passes too close, shuffling backwards, but she doesn’t even growl. Tommy is allowed to make his way to a quiet corner without any trouble.
All of the sunny spots are taken, so Tommy curls up in the chilly shade beneath an outcropping of rock. He can still feel eyes on him, can hear the unsettled shuffling of claws on stone, but at least he isn’t so caged in out here. Tommy flits an eye open to check his escape routes from here, or maybe just to ensure they’re still there. They are.
He can also see all the clusters of wolves around the clearing from where he is. They lay together in groups of two or three, grooming or lounging or huffing at each other. Two lanky–limbed juveniles are taking turns bowling each other over, sneezing and play-bowing as they dart back and forth. Something twists painfully in his chest. Tommy closes his eye again.
The alpha pair of this pack won’t be out to ask anything of Tommy until late. Winter hunting demands larger parties, and they’ll move more swiftly under the cover of darkness. Tommy won’t ever go out during the day, though, not even when summer comes around, assuming they tolerate him until then.
He twists his head around to study his golden pelt reproachfully. It’s turned an awful sort of mustard in the shade of the outcropping, but out in the open, he’s as bright as a dandelion.
No one really likes hunting with Tommy. Not even night hunting.
Tommy can’t say he blames them. The experience isn’t all that great for him either.
When a great brown head appears from the shadows of one of the dens, Tommy heaves a sigh through his nose and pushes himself to his feet. Many others in the clearing also rise, and he lets them take the lead towards their alpha, trailing behind a good few meters. He’s had enough of snapping teeth for a lifetime.
Time to earn his keep.
The hunting party is large; Tommy can’t see anything over all of the taller haunches and shoulders moving through the snow ahead of him. They move as a unit; he trails after them. He doesn’t really care; he can walk through the trails they leave in the slush and keep most of his forelegs dry.
It’s twilight, still early yet, but they must be having a lucky night, because the wolves ahead of him are dropping into crouches while there’s still some light in the sky. Usually it’s well past dark by the time they find something.
Tommy drops too, shivering as the snow immediately begins to cling to his belly. As he moves forward, the clumps tug at his fur, and the melt is a cold shock against his skin.
He shivers again. Tommy hates hunting. He doesn’t even know what he’s doing . Isn’t instinct supposed to kick in or some shit for stuff like this?
The wolves ahead of him are making a good pace, and Tommy struggles to keep up and stay as low to the ground as they are. He’s not too young to be hunting, apparently, but he’s much, much smaller than any of the other wolves here, and dragging his legs through the snow drifts is hard for him.
He’s panting quietly by the time the group begins to fan out, surrounding whatever it is they’ve found. Tommy doesn’t recognize the scent; he’s not gotten very good at that yet. It was another one of those things he’d just expected to know automatically when he’d been bitten, but it hadn’t turned out that way.
All in all, Tommy’s made a pretty lousy wolf so far. It was probably stupid of Dream to choose him.
The hunting parting is circling around a patch of hedges. Tommy cautiously pushes his muzzle through the undergrowth, winter-dead sticks snapping quietly under the force of it. A small cluster of elk are stripping the bark from the aspens in the valley.
Something in Tommy still grimaces at the prospect of such a meal, but more and more now, he just doesn’t care. He’s hungry , they’re all hungry, and the wolf now constantly yipping at the base of his brain is very excited about this potential kill. All they’ve been catching lately is rabbits and rodents, and Tommy’s low ranking and general uselessness has netted him only scraps of those meals.
Their party leader is slinking forward, and Tommy clumsily tries to follow his cues. He slips in with one of the groups moving to flank the elk, trying not to step on anyone’s paws. He doesn’t, thankfully, but it doesn’t matter. Hunting is a silent activity by necessity, so no one growls at him for being too close, but they don’t need to. He knows what flashing teeth means, and he falls back to the back of the group again.
He feels like whining, isolated even during the hunt, but he doesn’t. Tommy knows how important this is. He just anxiously licks his lips and tries to keep an eye out for any further instructions.
He can’t really see their patrol leader from this far back, though, so maybe it would be okay if he just inched up–
There’s a root hidden beneath the snow, and it catches him on the foreleg, just above the paw. Without even thinking, he goes down with a yelp.
All three heads of the elk lift, swiveling this way and that. Big brown eyes inspect the shadows with a desperate kind of fear. Tommy immediately presses his belly as hard as he can to the ground, cold be damned, and his party members slink further back from the lip of the hill, but it’s too late.
It’s not dark yet, not completely, and any light is enough to reflect off his bright-colored fur. They spot him. The biggest one begins to bark, but they’ve all already seen him and are turning to dart deeper into the woods.
A big black shape—Tommy’s party leader—crashes through the bushes, tearing after the elk on frenzied paws. After a moment, they all remember to take off after him. There’s no point in being quiet anymore; there’s snarls and snapping teeth on all sides, and Tommy knows the aggression is in part pure annoyance thanks to his…contribution.
They run until Tommy’s legs are shaking beneath him, following the hoofprints and scent when the elk inevitably disappear out of view. Tommy feels just about ready to collapse by the time their party leader calls them off with a bark. They’re all winded, all growling and upset, but no one is as shaky as Tommy. He hopes they’ll go home after this. He’ll happily go to bed on an empty stomach if at least he can sleep .
Then his party leader rounds on him with a snarl, and the hope dies. The rest of the group is quick to join in, circling around him with their lips curled up from their teeth. Tommy, blue eyes wide, drops back down to the ground on trembling legs. He whines and cries frantic apologies, licking his lips anxiously. The big black muzzle only grows closer, teeth flashing in the half-light, gums pale against his dark fur. His growl ramps up, and the wolf at the base of his skull wails.
Bad-bad-beenbad! Bequiet-bestill-packangry!
Tommy’s own whines ramp up with the other wolves’ snarls, and they begin to drown him out with proper barks, warning barks, furious barks. He twists onto his back to show his belly, tilting his head back to expose his throat so far that his nose brushes the snow.
The barks turn impatient. Tommy’s instincts—his shriveled, useless instincts, capable of only this—shriek louder: notfovigen-bad-bad-bad! Tommy’s heart is racing, beating so quickly it hurts. He can’t tell even quite which fear is worse: being gored by his pack members, split open and left for the crows, or having to live in such awful stress for a moment longer. He feels trapped, drowning in the rapid beat of his heart and frantic panting of his breathing.
The patrol leader lunges at him and the spell breaks. There’s a sharp sting in his right ear as Tommy scrabbles to get his paws under him. The other wolves crowd around him, snarling and growling, encroaching in, eating up the distance with every step Tommy takes away. There’s no let up from any of them; whatever tentative place among them Tommy once had, it’s gone now. He turns and bolts, too-large paws clumsy, churning up the snow in his wake. He’s still so, so tired, but the stress hasn’t yet waned, and one of these problems seems far more urgent than the other.
No one chases him. His racing heart doesn’t get that memo until he’s long since crossed the border out of the territory.
He doesn’t know what’s supposed to happen when a wolf is kicked out. Tommy doesn’t actually know that much about wolves at all. There was never a reason to know until he was bitten.
What a stupid thing to have to regret.
He figures he’s probably safe enough here. He’s been plodding along all night, limping as fast as he can with one twisted paw and bone-deep exhaustion. He’s still hungry, getting a little dizzy and nauseous, and he’s been moving all night.
Everything hurts. He has to keep swallowing the petulant whine that wants to build up in his throat. It’s a distinctly pup urge, to cry for somebody to save him; it’s something a normal wolf would have grown out of by the time they’re out hunting, Tommy thinks, but he’s not sure the urge is still there because he’s a werewolf, or because he’s just especially pathetic.
Scared-tired-lonely-packwhere? his instincts demand. He quickly squashes the self-pity; it’s fueling the wolf at the base of his skull that’s demanding comfort and speeding up his heart rate again, and he’s not sure how much more of that he can take.
He pauses, lifting his nose to the breeze. He can’t smell anything. Maybe… maybe it’s okay to stop here and regroup.
His instincts want him to find shelter, find a den (and preferably a caretaker–), but Tommy doesn’t care. He’s just going to rest for a moment, let his legs stop throbbing so badly, and figure out what to do.
He flops down right on the ground with a sigh, trying to ignore the wailing of his instincts that it’s tooopen-tooexposed-danger-packwhere! Lying down hurts as much as it feels good. Suddenly he’s a little worried he might not be able to get going again, now that he’s stopped, but it’s too late now.
A quiet scared-lonely-packwhere-help whine escapes his throat, and he doesn’t have the energy to stop it. What is he going to do ?
He can’t– he can’t just go be Tommy again. Tommy, with his two long legs and sticky fingers and city street . He’s– human Tommy is as good as dead. He doesn’t even really know who that is anymore, or if he could ever approximate him again. He’s bitten now, he’s wrong . There’s no place in the city for human Tommy anymore. Tommy is– something different. He can’t go back. People were disgusted enough by Tommy before the bite—he doesn’t even want to wonder how they’d treat him now.
But–
Tommy isn’t a person anymore, but when he had been, he’d been outnumbered on the street almost 3 to 1 by the stray dogs . Tommy is about as good as a dog now. And sometimes people had actually treated the dogs better than they’d treated person Tommy.
Tommy doesn’t really want to be treated like a dog, even from those kinder few. He knows he is one, now, and that he probably deserves to be treated however real people see fit, but he doesn’t want it. But he also doesn’t want to starve to death in the wilderness, or, worse yet, be mauled to death.
The city might be his best bet. And he’s heading the right direction for it.
Probably. He thinks.
He manages to lift his head, turning his muzzle in the probably-direction of L’manburg, but his legs won’t get the memo; they remain limp below him. Well, at least he tried. He’s far too tired to fight them; he just sets his head down on the frozen earth beside them. They can take their time—in the meantime, he’ll just rest for a little bit. Not for long, just until they decide to cooperate.
The sleep that comes is probably inevitable, but Tommy doesn’t see it coming until it sweeps over him.
His limbs aren’t any less sore when he blinks awake, but he hasn’t been murdered in the night, so that’s something, anyway. He squints; the sun is bright overhead, and he’s back to dandelion status. He whines frustratedly. Everything sees him from a mile off with his golden fur in full sun like this, and he’s a lousy hunter even without that. There won’t be any breakfast today.
All the more reason to get moving to the city. He won’t have to hunt for a dumpster behind the grocery store. He’s already familiar with how to find that.
Tommy’s entire body protests when he stands. His ankle has swollen more overnight, or maybe it’s been swollen this entire time and he’s just been too exhausted to notice. It’s throbbing sharply with every heartbeat, but Tommy doesn’t exactly have the luxury of time to rest it. The sun is already high in the sky, and he’s hungry and tired and his instincts are whining unsafe-exposed-danger and it’s definitely past time to get moving.
So Tommy walks. Or, limps, really. His face is twisted in a determined grimace—or as much of a grimace as a wolfish muzzle can make—and pathetic whines spill from his lips with every shaky touchdown of his good forepaw as it jostles the bad. He doesn’t care. This is wilderness, no-man’s land, pressed between a true wolf territory and what he’s really hoping is L’manburg; there won’t be anyone out here to hear him anyway.
There’s nothing out here. Truly. No roads, no people, no prey. No movement in the foliage except that of the wind. No scents but the snowmelt seeping into the soil and the sap of long since elk-stripped alder trees, and his own misery-scent.
Until, suddenly, there is something.
The sun is beginning to set, Tommy’s whines have been increasing steadily and carelessly in volume, and the change of the wind brings a new scent that halts him in his tracks.
He doesn’t even catch it for a good several steps, because that’s his scent. Wolf-scent, and magic-scent. Werewolf scent . He freezes.
So. Important discovery number one: L’manburg, assuming it’s still actually in this direction, is much further away than Tommy thought.
Important discovery number two: Tommy may very well be mauled to death sometime within the next day or so, and there’s not that much he can do about that currently.
Werewolves are territorial. Very territorial, even more so than true wolves, and if there’s anything he learned from being bitten, it’s that no one likes turned Wolves . Dream had hated born Wolves, and he had hated Tommy even more. Tommy will never belong with either of them; Dream reminded him every day that he was no longer human, no longer a person. And the bite, crookedly placed on the side of his throat, means he will never have a place here either. Here or anywhere else.
They’re probably both as likely to kill him, now that he thinks about it. L’manburg and whoever lives in this territory.
He wonders which death would be worse, and then, with a shudder, promptly decides to stop wondering.
But no one likes the stray dogs, either, he reasons, and many of them are able to slip through the cracks. Plus, Tommy still has his human intelligence, whatever that’s worth. The city is still his best bet; at least no one will be able to smell him out like these fuckers will.
Well. No more than anyone can smell out a regular stray animal.
He’s going to L’manburg then. Even having made his mind up about that, that still leaves this current obstacle to figure out. Tommy paces back and forth along the border a few times, barely choking back anxious whines, befores he tires too much to even do that. He flops back on his haunches, panting from exertion, pain, and stress. He’s so tired . His mind wants to fog over, wants to let the wolf at the base of his skull call the shots for a little while, wants to whine and cry for help. Which is stupid , because the only help Tommy might get from anyone around here is help into an early grave:
Oh, hello there, strange puppy! Welcome to my territory. Tell me, how would you feel about being six feet under?
He shakes himself off, trying to dispel some stress. Okay. Okay. Think logically . The wolf in his skull hates logic. Logic is Tommy’s best friend right now. He forces his brain to re-engage with the situation, and tunes out the indignant complaining of tired-tired-hungry-lonely .
He can go around, or he can go through. Both are…not great options.
Trespassing is a crime, a serious crime, among werewolves. Territory is sacred, almost as sacred as pack. But werewolf territories can also span miles, and Tommy is losing steam fast. It could take weeks to slowly stumble his way around, and Tommy won’t survive that. Not with a busted paw, and maybe not even in perfect health. He’ll starve, or fall down into a ditch, or be discovered close enough to the border to be mauled anyway.
If he goes through instead of around, the chances of survival are just about the same level of abysmal. But Tommy is tired , and he doesn’t want to walk all the way around. At least if he gets mauled, it’ll hopefully be quick. Werewolves are vicious, and violently protective of what’s theirs, but they’re also efficient, and ruthlessly deadly. They won’t waste time torturing him, probably.
He shudders; he’s changed his mind about logic. Logic is stupid.
But logic is all he has, so Tommy shifts his weight anxiously from paw to paw for several moments, then carefully picks one up to place it down within the border.
He half expects that paw to burst into flame or disintegrate immediately, but of course it doesn’t. He crosses into the werewolves’ territory completely without problem (unless you want to count his heart beating frantically out of his chest), and then he’s off again.
He doesn’t make it very far, all things considered. His new wolf instincts are at war with his human brain, as per usual. The constant battle raging behind his eyes is a whole separate level of exhausting. His instincts have been demanding he whine and cry for help, for comfort, for pack since the very first day, since they crawled in and made a home for themselves at the base of his skull, and they’ve only gotten louder every day. Tommy’s become well accustomed to tuning them out, but that skill is all but useless to him this time; they’ve been shrieking with an entirely new level of intensity ever since Tommy crossed the border. It’s giving him a headache.
Packwhere! Pack-lonely-scared-help!
He has to actively focus on clenching his jaw shut to keep the cries from climbing any louder in volume. The quiet whines are impossible to stop. His teeth hurt. Everything hurts.
His empty stomach is catching up with him too. The stupid twisted forepaw isn’t helping either, of course.
This sucks .
It’s nearing nightfall by the time he comes across any fresh scents. He’s made poor progress; a healthy wolf his size would probably have made two or three times the distance. A full-grown wolf could’ve easily done ten times.
His instincts have quieted a little, thank the gods, whining morosely but no longer demanding , but they pull at him with renewed intensity when he catches this scent. It’s a werewolf-scent, for sure. Fresh. Maybe from today, or last night.
Maybe. Tommy’s a pretty lousy wolf; he’s generally more likely to be wrong than right. He thinks sometime sort-of-recently though, at least.
It smells… To Tommy’s brain , it doesn't really smell like anything in particular at all. It’s a strong smell, but there’s no parallel for it that he knew as a person. The closest thing he can think of is just a really fucking weird tree. Damp moss? Wet dog? But not... really any of those things.
Tommy’s instincts love this smell. Alpha-safe-pack-help! Another helpless, hungry whine slips out from between his aching teeth, a little louder this time. He freezes, then redoubles his efforts, molars creaking under the pressure. Stop. Fucking. Whining.
The forest around him offers no response. It’s as quiet as ever. Tommy nearly flops to the ground right there, dizzy with relief. Whoever’s scent this is, they’re not here now. They didn’t hear him.
Actually.
If the wolf is gone now, this might be a good place to take shelter, just for a little while. He’s never had to patrol one himself, of course.. but wolf territories are big, miles and miles; surely whoever patrolled this section won’t be back for at least half a day or so.
And now that he’s stopped walking, Tommy’s legs don’t want to get moving anymore. They’re shaking beneath him, sore, one of them still swollen. The whiplash of constant fear to relief and back to fear of this whole journey is wearing on him, and even though he’s only been awake for maybe half a day, Tommy wants nothing more than to just lie down for a few hours.
Surely he has a few hours before anyone patrols here again?
He won’t even sleep. He’ll just get off his twisted paw for a little bit.
Yeah.
There’s not much cover, but Tommy finds a spot beneath the bend of a fallen fir to wedge himself into. The ground is mossy and protected from the snow, and he sinks down into it with a sigh. His instincts have quieted; this is as close to another werewolf he’s been since he was turned, and they seem to be content, for now, to just soak in the scent. They still pull at him every so often, urging him to cry for help, urging him to call back whoever this scent belongs to, but they’re soothed enough by the scent alone for him to ignore them again.
He releases the pressure on his teeth with a pained intake of breath. For the first time today, his instincts don’t take advantage of his parted maw to bully any pathetic noises out of him.
Sore all over, his eyes slip closed. He’ll just keep an ear out instead, for a little bit.
This time, when Tommy pries his eyes open, cool midmorning light splotches the ground pale blue outside his makeshift den.
Well, it could be worse. Midmorning is better than midday.
Improvement.
He wriggles his way out from under the fir, trying to be mindful of his still-tender forepaw. Must’ve been a pretty bad twist; maybe it’s sprained? Fortunately, it’s been a pretty bad winter to be a wolf, and he’s thin enough to squeeze his way back out even accounting for the injury.
He’s so hungry. Scratch “fortunately;” his stomach feels like it's trying to eat itself.
He really shouldn’t hunt here, and he won’t , but his complaining stomach has him lifting his nose to the breeze habitually.
(Not instinctually, habitually . His instincts are whining again, insisting that his pack should be feeding him, that he’s little and he can’t hunt on his own yet. Stupid things. Weren’t they paying attention all winter, when Tommy was hunting for himself?)
He doesn’t recognize all of the scents in the area around him, but he can pick up a few things he has eaten before: rabbits and mice, mostly. The wolf scent is still there too, of course. Although–
It seems even more present this morning than it did last night. And newer. And–
Tommy twists around.
There’s a big blond wolf standing at the crest of his hollow. Or, rather, the wolf’s hollow. The hollow Tommy is trespassing on. He stares, frozen.
For a moment, they both just watch each other, Tommy completely stiff and wary, and the wolf standing passively, projecting ease.
Well. Naturally. He’s at least three times Tommy’s size, probably more, and much better built. Tommy can’t help but marvel that a wolf with a pelt so similar to his, only a few shades lighter, a few shades more muted, looks so much less starved than Tommy must.
Another reason for the fucker to look so relaxed, he supposes. He wonders what the wolf must be thinking as those blue eyes rove over Tommy’s own boney flank.
Finally, the wolf tilts its head at him, in a very aware fashion, the sort of aware that the true wolves had never behaved with. There’s a person behind those eyes, as much of a person as Tommy is anymore, anyway. It’s downright terrifying . Tommy hasn’t had to interact with anyone quite so sentient since Dream, and–
Tommy shudders involuntarily, and the wolf takes a step forward, ears half-pinning. Tommy flinches the same distance away.
He should run , he wants to run, but the wolf is blocking the way to the border, and Tommy doesn’t know what it would do if Tommy turned and trespassed some more . A scared-sorry-pleasedonthurtme whine slips between his teeth. For once, his instincts are quiet, maybe also unsure about the situation, and Tommy has to take the reins.
Great.
As soon as he whines, the wolf is moving forward again. Tommy drops, pressing his belly to the ground and shuffling backwards until his haunches brush the fallen fir behind him. His tail is tucked firmly beneath him, and a string of plaintive whines escape his throat in a constant stream, but he can’t bring himself to flip over and bear his underbelly, or twist around to show his throat.
Neither are an opportune position to book it the hell out if he needs to.
The wolf doesn’t seem to care about his efforts, still approaching on quiet paws. He reaches about a dozen meters away and Tommy’s quiet whines ramp up into a true cry: sorry-sorry-scared-terrified-sorry! And the wolf halts again.
Then a rumbling noise, a calm-peace-bestill noise, rolls out of the wolf’s throat from deep in his chest–
–And the uncertain quiet from Tommy’s instincts is immediately over.
They’re as relieved as they are desperate, wailing pack-help-lonely and calm-safe-safe! in equal measure. The conflicting halves are dizzying, and in the time it takes Tommy to regain his bearings, the wolf has approached another several meters, and his rumbling is closer, louder, and Tommy wants .
He wants what the soothing sound promises him. He wants the wolf’s gentle posture to be honest. He wants to relax his crouch, splay out in the dirt and be calm, be still , and let the wolf come closer, come do as it will, and he wants whatever that is to be kind.
But it won’t be.
His instincts are soothed with every step closer the wolf takes, but Tommy is more afraid. And his instincts were always sort of pathetic things, whiny and childish and small, even when being as loud as this.
He scrambles at the dirt, getting his paws under him and propelling himself forward in the same frenzied movement. The wolf gives a startled bark as Tommy tears away from the hollow, darting further into the territory because no way in hell is he getting any closer to that massive fucker.
There’s a few rapid pawsteps for a moment, another alarmed bark demanding his attention, but the wolf doesn’t chase him once he crashes back through the treeline, and Tommy is too dizzy with relief to want to question why.