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Sure, Clint was born in rural Iowa, but he grew up surrounded by fields and fenceposts, the only trees that couldn’t be got rid of surrounded by miniscule patches of wilderness only as big as a tractor's turning circle. So far as he's concerned, trees is trees is trees, and trying to navigate by them is doing him no good at all.
Another disadvantage of growing in goddamn Iowa - he hadn't accounted for mountains, hadn't expected the twilight to fall into darkness so quick and so steep. Now he's stumbling through endless midnight-black woodland, the weak circle of light thrown by his flashlight only just enough to stop him breaking any bones. He's got his bow slung across his back, sure, but there's no light to shoot by even if he runs into anything he needs to shoot.
He's kinda hoping that if he keeps walking in the same direction long enough he'll hit some sign of civilisation, can work his way back to the circus along any road he finds, even if it takes him all night. He's performed sleepless before, performed sick and injured and halfway to dead. One night in the woods isn't gonna kill him.
Of course, that's when he hears the growling.
Clint's watched nature documentaries. When he can afford the subscription - or when his internet connection quits shaking enough that he can pirate - he likes to fall asleep to the old British guy. He's watched lions tearing into their prey, watched orcas tossing penguins and breaking their necks, seen the charge of an enraged moose. But the tiny speakers of Barney's ancient laptop have never conveyed the way this sounds.
The deep growl must start subvocal 'cos it's like he feels it before he hears it, vibrating at the base of his spine and turning his knees to water. Clint swears, his voice high and unfamiliar and shaking, and would start running immediately if he had any goddamn clue which way he should run. He casts his flashlight around, the circle of light flashing unsteady across the trunks of the trees, catching on things that shine like eyes only to be leaves, or rocks or -
Or eyes. Oh, shit, those are eyes, and Clint swallows a whimper because those're close enough that the teeth catch the light too; they're close enough that they're gonna end up in his throat before he can even turn around.
His shaking light delineates it, catching on its pale eyes, its dark fur, the incongruence of its front leg that reflects almost white with the amount of scar tissue snarled through the fur. Its upper lip is curled up as its deep growl takes Clint and shakes him by the back of the neck, sending trembling down all of his limbs until he almost drops the flashlight.
"Fuck," he says, "oh, fuck, I'm gonna die." As last words go, they lack a certain something, and Clint shuffles backwards as the wolf prowls forward, grateful at least that there's no one around to hear them. His awkward shuffle is gaining him no ground and he knows that the wolf could take him down at any second; he half wishes it would, because his heart is beating in his throat and he can't breathe around it.
Clint lets out a startled yell as something catches him in the back of his ankle, a tree root rising out of the forest floor to hobble him and trip him onto the ground, his quiver a stripe of bruise across his back that won't have time to form.
The wolf bounds forward before he can even gather his scattered thoughts enough to scoot backwards, straddling his body with its head lowered and its hackles raised. It's enormous up close, almost as long as he is, and a high desperate sound catches in his throat as its cold snout touches his neck. Clint tilts his head back, waiting for the rush of tearing pain and heat, and wishes like hell he believed that anything came after.
He's not prepared for the soft snuffling, the wolf's nose moving across his skin. He's not expecting the soft, high whine as it buries its snout into the crook of his neck and the lap of a gentle tongue.
"If you're gonna kill me," Clint says, a yelp easing out between his words when he feels the barest scrape of fangs against his skin, "you should -"
His voice cuts out abruptly as the wolf backs off, and he gropes around at his side for the flashlight that's somehow still glowing, misshapen shadows formed by leaf mulch and tree roots adding a little more surreality to the scene. He eases up onto his elbows, watching as the wolf stands square, shaking its head and hunching its shoulders, shivers running through its limbs and its powerful haunches. There's a great cracking sound that startles Clint into dropping the flashlight again, the light disappearing this time and making it almost impossible to find. Every second he's fumbling for it he's imagining those huge teeth sinking into his fragile flesh, the growls and snarls and painful crunching coming out of the darkness making him imagine impossible things.
Nothing could've prepared him, though, for switching the dim light back on and finding that it's met by pale skin in place of dark fur, those gray eyes set in an entirely different face.
The man's sprawled on his side, his chest heaving painfully and his lip still curled in the snarl the wolf had worn. He's got heavy stubble and long ragged hair, his skin pulled tight over muscles and ribs, and Clint isn't distracted enough by his nudity to ignore the way his left arm is hanging useless and covered in as many scars as the wolf's leg had been.
"I - hi?" Clint says, and the man's eyes flick up to meet his. There's something wild in them, something feral and hot. "Hi," Clint continues, shuffling a little more upright, although he stops moving just as soon as the man makes a noise that can't be interpreted as anything other than a growl. "I'm Clint," he says.
The man moves his jaw, a frown between his eyebrows like he's trying to remember something long forgotten.
"Clint," he says after a second, his voice deep and scratchy and only halfway to human. "You smell like mine."