Chapter Text
It is dark inside the hunter’s mansion.
You can’t even guess how a hunter could ever make enough to buy a mansion. Maybe he inherited it from a family member. Or maybe, just maybe, the hunter has a side business that makes him profitable amounts of money, like kidnapping young women. Oh, just an example, of course. It definitely isn’t your reality or anything.
And the room isn’t exactly dark. The hunter left a candle on the ground for you when he locked you in this room, and a full moon shines through a small window near the ceiling. But it just feels dark. The room is pristine and is devoid of furniture. There’s no dust to be seen and the air carries traces of lemon, probably from whatever soap someone used to clean. There's something off about this place that makes you shiver and wrap your white cloak tighter around you.
Before you can do anything else—not that there would be much to do in an empty room—the lock clicks and the door swings open, revealing the hunter that had brought you here. You immediately take a couple steps away from him, back straightening.
The hunter doesn’t move. He only stands in the doorway, hands behind his back, studying you.
You glare back, ignoring the plague doctor mask that covers the bottom half of his face.
“You’re filthy,” he says. You look down at yourself, taking in your wrinkled dress and the mud that has crusted over the pale green cloth, all from struggling to escape the hunter when he came upon you in the forest. His outfit—a full suit, the type noblemen wear—is perfectly clean and crisp, even though he had kidnapped you in it.
“At least your cloak is clean."
It is, and you have no idea how.
“Change into this and keep the cloak on.” He pulls out a set of clothes for you—all white—from behind his back and tosses them at you. You don’t move to catch them, watching as they land on the ground. He throws a pair of white slippers on top of the pile. “You have two minutes. I’m afraid it won’t be pleasant for you if you make me wait.” He exits the room and shuts the door behind him, turning the key in the lock.
You hesitate for a second. Can you escape? But the only exit besides the door is the window, and it's so small that you won't be able to fit your shoulders through it even if you could reach it. So you take off your cloak, letting it drop to the ground. Two minutes isn’t a lot of time to change, especially with the layers you have on, but you manage. You finish with getting your feet into the slippers and fastening your cloak around your shoulders just as the hunter reopens the door.
“Come,” the hunter says, moving back into the hallway.
You follow.
The hall is just as clean as the room you were in, though it’s even darker because of the lack of windows. You follow the hunter in silence, slippers quieting your footsteps. As you turn the corner, the wall to your left is replaced by a railing as the hallway opens into a balcony at the top of a staircase.
A door is at the bottom of the staircase. Your heartbeat quickens.
The hunter walks closer and closer to the stairs. He passes the wooden railing of the staircase and you throw yourself into action, pushing past him and flying down the stairs, skipping three steps at a time. Chest heaving with every breath, you sprint to the door, nearly tripping in your haste. With trembling fingers, you struggle to slide open the bolt, and a heavy thump behind you makes you whip your head around to look.
The hunter is now on the same floor as you. How? you wonder as you manage to slide open the bolt. He must have jumped over the railing. What kind of monster is he? You wrap your hand around the doorknob, turning it all the way, pulling the door open, you’re free–
But your entire body jerks away from the door as the hunter yanks on your cloak. One gloved hand wraps around your throat, pulling upward so you struggle to stand on your toes and air no longer flows freely into your lungs. “It’s such a pity,” he says, watching as you scrabble at his fingers, trying to pry them away. “I was expecting so much of you. I’m disappointed that you tried to escape; you were the purest one I’ve found yet.”
Anger burns in your veins, as powerful as your fear. And though you gasp for air, chest burning, you manage to spit out two words. “Screw. You.”
The hunter tightens his grip in anger. A wave of darkness overtakes your vision and your body goes limp in his hand, struggling no more.
Chisaki Kai lets go of your throat, watching your body fall to the floor. “Filthy,” he mutters, pulling a handkerchief out of his pocket, wiping his gloved hand on it. “Such crude language, too. It matters not; I will cure her. And I will cure the beast as well.” He folds up his handkerchief, taking care to fold the used part on the inside, and tucks it back into his suit pocket.
“Chronostasis. Bring her to where our other guest is residing. I’m afraid you’ll have to chain her up. She’s a bit flighty at the moment.”
“I’m sure you’ll fix that soon, Overhaul.”
You first feel the cold stone leaching warmth from your back. Shivering, you slowly sit up from the ground and look around, immediately freezing when you see a massive wolf lying halfway across the room.
Room? It’s more like a dungeon. Stone floor, stone walls, and stone ceiling. An array of sharp tools hang from one wall and heavy chains dangle from metal rings attached to the others. You shudder, this time not from the cold air.
The hunter walks into the room, not sparing you a glance as he strides towards the wolf. Looking at him makes your throat pulse and you wince as you gently press on your skin. If you could look into a mirror, you’re sure that five finger-shaped bruises ring your throat. You start to move towards the nearest wall as quietly as you can to avoid drawing the hunter’s attention to you, but the rattle of chains makes you freeze. There’s weight attached to your left ankle. Before you even pull up the hem of your white dress, you know that you’ll see a metal shackle wrapped around it. Your eyes follow the chain to an iron ring in the wall, and your heart sinks when you realize that it’s impossible for you to break free.
The hunter moves to the wall that has all kinds of deadly instruments of torture hanging from hooks embedded in the stone. He stops in front of a table pushed up against the wall. His gloved hand plucks a syringe off the table and deftly twirls it in his fingers as he approaches the wolf. Your heart skips a beat as gleaming crimson eyes snap open and the wolf starts to growl, a low rumble filling the air. It struggles against the cuffs wrapped around each limb, the thick silver collar around its neck, and the band of metal clamping its muzzle shut. The hunter bends over the animal, jabs the needle into the wolf’s neck above the collar, and pushes the plunger, emptying it of the misty purple solution.
The hunter steps back and places the empty syringe onto the table. He stands and watches the wolf. Waiting.
The wolf starts to shake, rattling the chains attached to its limbs. Its growl grows in volume until it tapers off into whimpers of pain.
Your heart aches for this beautiful, wild creature that is now subject to the cruel hands of the hunter. “What are you doing?” you cry out over the wolf’s misery.
Yellow eyes gleaming in satisfaction, the hunter does not look away from the wolf as he answers, “I am curing him. I’ll purify him from the disease that has taken hold of his body! And when the filth is purged, he will thank me for it.”
The wolf growls again, which grows quieter in volume, before he collapses onto his side and his red eyes close.
“But you’re hurting him!”
“No one is ever redeemed without a little pain,” the hunter says, almost poetically. He leaves the room, pushes the door shut, and locks it behind him.
You get up from the ground, wincing when sore joints pop and shift as you stretch. You want to see how long the chain running from your foot to the wall is, so you walk toward the middle of the room, toward the unconscious wolf. When you’re right in front of the wolf, the chain is at its limit and you can’t move your left foot forward anymore.
If the wolf were awake, you wouldn’t even think about trying this. But it hasn’t shown any signs of waking up, so you sit down on the ground in front of him. You sit there for a bit, studying him.
The first thing you notice is the color of his fur. It’s a cream color, just a few shades off of pure white, but most of it is matted and dirty, or is clumped into spiky tufts, held together by dried blood. It makes you sick to think about the amount of time this animal has been in captivity, subject to the hunter’s cruel experiments. And if the hunter can do this to an animal without feeling remorse, what will he do to you?
The next thing you notice is the size of the wolf. Looking at him from the tip of his muzzle to the end of his tail, he’s definitely longer than you are tall, likely the length of the larger horses people own in your village. If he stood up, you think his back could reach your waist. He’s certainly larger than any of the dogs that people in your village own. And even though he's likely been a captive for a long time, there’s still muscle on his bones. If you met him in his full glory in the middle of the woods, you’d probably run off screaming.
In addition to the sorry state of his fur, the areas around his restraints look strange. You reach out a hand towards his head and use a finger to gently stroke a line between his ears, past his eyes, and stop at the silver band that is tightly wrapped around his muzzle. Anger heats your blood as you take in the puffy flesh around the band. The hunter had tightened it so much that the band digs into the wolf’s muzzle, and when you try to gently nudge the band down to get a glimpse at the fur underneath, the band doesn’t budge.
You eye the sliding bolts on either side of the muzzle.
It’s dumb to even contemplate it, but the silver band looks painful. Besides, the wolf hasn’t stirred at all since he fell unconscious. Even if he does wake up, he’s held in place by all the other shackles, and surely you’d be able to tell when he is starting to come to.
You fumble with the first bolt for a minute before it slides open and the right half of the band loosens.
The wolf shifts. You freeze. He doesn’t move again, but lets out a noise of pain. Your panicked expression softens and you work on the next sliding bolt.
It opens, and the band is loose enough for you to gently pull it off with one hand. Your other hand supports the wolf’s head off the ground until you finish taking the band off and set it down by your side. Your breath hitches and your eyes widen in horror at the sight that the silver band—no, the sight that the torture device reveals.
A ring of exposed skin goes all the way around the wolf’s muzzle. There’s no fur left, as if the silver band had burned it away. The skin is pink and angry like your hand was after you once spilled a kettle of boiling water over it.
Is there poison or something on the inside of the silver band? You shudder and rub your hands on the stone ground. You didn’t touch the inside of the band when you removed it, right?
Are the other shackles doing the same? You move until you can get a good look at the wolf’s front legs. Thankfully, the silver cuffs aren’t as tight around his legs as the band was around his muzzle. You slide one of the cuffs up his leg a bit, taking in the missing fur and irritated skin that rings his leg where the cuff was. A quick peek under the cuff on his other leg shows the same thing.
It just looks so painful. You’ve only been wearing the metal shackle around your ankle for a couple hours at most, yet it’s already growing uncomfortable. The wolf seems like he’s been here for a while now, and if there is some sort of poison on the inside of his shackles that eats away at his fur and skin, he must be in so much more pain.
You can help him, you decide. The dress the hunter made you change into has multiple layers and is frilly with ruffles and lace. It makes you sick to think that he wanted you to change into the dress and keep your white cape because it made you look "pure." You shudder and push away the thoughts of the hunter.
If you rip the lace off the hem of your dress, the hunter surely will notice with his observant, amber eyes and might deem it necessary to punish you for it. You don't want to find out what that entails. So you lift up the outer layer of the dress and rub one of the thinner layers underneath between two fingers. This will do.
It takes a bit of effort, but you manage to rip three uneven strips of cloth that work as makeshift bandages.
You pick up one of the wolf’s paw with gentle hands, noticing the size of it compared to your own, and set it into your lap. You start wrapping a strip of cloth around the exposed skin, taking care to not press down hard. The cloth goes around the wound a couple of times, before you tuck the end of it under the rest.
Sliding the shackle back down the wolf’s leg so it covers the bandage, you let out a little hum of satisfaction. It shouldn’t hurt the wolf so much anymore.
Now onto the other leg. You move the wolf’s leg off your lap, take up the other one, and start bandaging it too. You’re concentrating so hard on covering all of the wound that you don’t notice the wolf starting to shift.
A growl fills the air, and before you can try to move out of the wolf’s reach, sharp teeth latch onto your left wrist, freezing you in place.
Your heart pounds heavily in your chest as you slowly look into the wolf’s crimson eyes. You wriggle your left arm just a little, trying to pull your hand out of his mouth, but he’s biting down hard enough that it stings—although he hasn’t broken skin.
“Hey,” you say softly, trying to keep your fear from bleeding into your voice. “It’s okay. I’m sorry if I startled you–” He growls, causing another spike of fear to shoot through your veins, but you continue. “I was just trying to bandage your legs so the shackles won’t hurt anymore. I think the hunter put something on them to eat away at your fur and skin, maybe some kind of acid.”
You continue to explain what you are trying to do, keeping your voice low and even, finishing with “–you’re so...so magnificent, and wild, and I don’t like seeing you suffer at the hands of such a monster.”
The wolf stops growling and lets go of your hand. You quickly pull it back against you, looking at your wrist. There’s little imprints of where his teeth were, and it does sting, but there’s no blood.
“Thank you,” you tell him, meeting his eyes once more. “I think it’s better if we help each other here, don’t you? It’ll be easier to escape if we’re both in good health. Would you let me finish bandaging your leg?” You wait for a second, then huff a small laugh, wondering why on earth you’re talking to this wolf like he can understand you.
Then the wolf shifts and you freeze, but he just places the leg you were bandaging back into your lap. You look at him for a moment, amazement shining in your eyes, before continuing where you left off. When you finish, you make sure the cloth doesn’t peek out from under the shackles, so the hunter won’t see them and remove the bandages or do something worse.
You have one more strip of cloth left, and you look at the wolf’s muzzle. “Would it be okay if I bandage your muzzle too? The silver band that was around there looked like it did the most damage.” The wolf huffs and turns his head to the side. “I’m sure you can handle it,” you say with a smile, “but there’s no need to make it worse.”
He turns back to face you, red eyes boring into your own. You reach out a hand slowly with your fingers curled towards you and let him bump his nose into the back of your hand. “Okay then,” you say, and start wrapping the cloth around his muzzle over the injury.
You’re just tucking the end of the cloth under the rest of the bandage when the wolf’s ears perk up. A low rumble fills the air and the wolf turns his head toward the entrance to the dungeon, baring his teeth even with the bandage on.
“What is it?”
His head snaps around toward you and you’re taken aback at the ferocious expression on his face. He lowers his head so his nose points at the silver band on the ground next to you. You pick up the band, looking at it, then at the wolf. “This?” you ask. His growling grows louder as he nudges hard at your hand. Your eyes widen. His growling stops. And then you hear them.
Footsteps.
They’re growing louder and louder with every step.
“Shoot, shoot, shoot.” Your heartbeats pick up speed as you slide the silver band over the wolf’s muzzle. Despite your haste, you try to not let it touch his muzzle any more than necessary until it’s over the bandaged part. You fumble with the sliding bolts for a moment before you get them closed, grimacing as the silver band tightens again, digging into his muzzle. At least it shouldn’t burn his skin anymore. “Sorry,” you murmur, stroking him behind his ears. You reflexively press your lips to the top of his head before you scoot back against the wall, pulling your chain with you.
You don’t see the wolf’s red eyes widen in surprise, but you watch him shift onto his side, returning to the position he was in when he collapsed from the hunter’s injection.
The hunter enters the room, still dressed in a full suit with the plague doctor mask covering his nose and mouth. He’s carrying a plate, though you can’t see anything that is on it from your position on the ground. He sets the plate on the ground a couple of steps to the side of the wolf. “I’m sure you’re hungry,” he says. “It wouldn’t be good for my guest to starve to death.”
Guest? You stifle a scoff. If this is how he treated his “guests,” you don't want to see how he treats his enemies.
The food on the plate is clearly scraps left over from a meal. But the sight of food makes your stomach growl in hunger. Hours must have passed since you last ate—an early dinner before you headed to your grandmother’s house.
You’re hungry and you need to eat, even if it is those scraps on the plate. But you’re not going to do it until the hunter leaves the room. You won’t allow him to watch you scarf down leftovers like some pet, eager to take whatever he gives.
So you stay in your spot against the wall, watching as the hunter moves to the other side of the wolf.
He eyes the still animal.
You hold your breath, wondering if he can tell that the wolf is faking it.
The hunter turns his back on the wolf, and you exhale in relief–
But he spins around, swinging his right foot forward, pointed toe of his boot smashing into the wolf’s side. The wolf jerks, eyes snapping open, a yelp of pain leaving his throat. He gets onto his feet and lunges for the hunter, straining against the chains, a low growl rumbling in his chest.
The hunter only looks at the wolf before he turns around, moving to the table. He picks up a syringe filled with the same purple fluid as before. As he walks back to the wolf, you recall the immense pain that the wolf experienced after the last injection.
“Hey! Stop!” you shout, getting to your feet.
Both the hunter and the wolf turn to look at you. You freeze for a moment, having no plan in mind to prevent the hunter from administering the syringe. But you can’t just not do anything. So you march toward the hunter, going as far as the chain around your ankle allows, then cross your arms over your chest. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, huh?” you sneer, “Trying to pick on something you’re so afraid of that you chained him up so he can’t fight back?”
The hunter closes the distance between you and him with two long strides and his empty hand suddenly grips your face, holding you in place. You glare at him defiantly, despite the nerves coursing through your veins.
“I was not planning on working on you tonight, but if you insist, we can get started,” the hunter says, fingers tightening on your skin. You don't let yourself flinch. “Unless you will behave?”
You keep your eyes on his own as your lips curl up in a smirk. “How about,” you say, body tensing, “you go screw yourself!” With that, you push your weight into the hunter’s body, snatching the syringe from the hand by his side, and throw it to the ground. A hard stomp with your right foot shatters the glass, and you hold back a whimper of pain as shards pierce through your slipper and cut into your skin. Misty purple liquid pools on the stone, soaking into your shoe and seeping into cracks in the floor.
Chest heaving, you straighten up and glare at the hunter. His yellow eyes meet yours before they narrow into slits. “Very well," he says.
The air is forced out of your lungs as the hunter drives his fist into your stomach.
Gasping for breath, you fall to the ground and curl up on your side, disregarding the glass and liquid. Over your rapid inhales, you can hear the wolf snarling and pulling against his chains.
“You’re lucky I still have more of the cure left. It would have been worse for you if I had to stop and make more.”
You can only work to pull air into your lungs and watch through watering eyes as the hunter returns to the table and picks up another syringe. You manage to choke out a weak “No!” before the hunter drives the needle into the wolf’s neck and presses the plunger.
As the hunter places the empty syringe back onto the table, the wolf starts to convulse, sinking to his belly. The hunter looks on for a moment with satisfaction before he leaves the dungeon.
You stay on the ground for a few more moments to catch your breath, letting the pain in your stomach recede to a dull ache before slowly sitting up. Crawling to the wolf, you sit down in front of him, frowning as his body twitches periodically. He’s unconscious now, and you hope that he can’t feel the pain that the injection causes him. But you can make him a little more comfortable.
In smoother movements than the first time, you slide open the bolts on either side of the silver band. Removing it from his muzzle, you set it to the side. You rub your fingers over the copper pin that keeps your cloak on your shoulders before you unclasp it, sliding the cloak off your back. A shiver runs down your spine when that extra layer no longer warms you, but you ignore it as you fold up the cloth. You raise the wolf’s head, slide the folded cloak underneath, and gently lower his head onto the makeshift pillow.
Sighing, you move to where you had shattered the syringe, glass and liquid still on the ground. With careful movements, you pick up the needle and as many pieces of glass that you can. You get to your feet and hobble over to the wall that your chain connects to, wincing each time your injured right foot hits the ground. At the wall, you move as far along it as your chain allows you to, before bending down and letting the needle and the glass pieces slide off your hands. The shards tinkle like bells as they hit the ground.
With your hands empty, you’re able to crawl until you return to your spot in front of the wolf. You take off your right slipper, now partly stained red, to examine the cuts on the bottom of your foot. Thankfully, you can't find any glass in your cuts. Ripping up a strip of cloth from one of the under-layers of your dress, you bandage up your foot as well as you can, and put the slipper back on.
Your foot stings, your stomach aches, and your ankle is getting rubbed raw by the shackle. Everything that has happened since the hunter kidnapped you weighs down on your shoulders and chest, making it hard to breathe. You just want to be free.
Tears start forming at the corners of your eyes and you blink hard, trying to hold them back. I can be brave, you think to yourself, I’ll make it.
But you’re tired, and in pain, and you’ve had to witness and experience cruelty at the hands of the hunter. So you lay down, head resting on part of the cloak that the wolf isn’t using, ignoring the cold, hard floor that draws the warmth from your skin.
Your shoulders start to shake and the tears finally fall, and you can’t stop them from streaming down your face.
Keeping one hand over your mouth to muffle the sobs, you let out all the sorrow and anger and fear in those salty tears, before exhaustion overtakes you and you slip into a deep, still, sleep.
Bakugou Katsuki is barely conscious from the injection, but the smell of salt is so heavy in the air that he notices it immediately and it wakes him up further. He slowly raises his head from something softer than the stone floor, a quick look revealing a familiar folded cape that was not there when he fell unconscious.
His ears twitch when he hears your teeth chattering, even in your sleep. He ignores it and tries to fall back asleep, but the sound continues right next to his head because you're also on the makeshift pillow.
A displeased rumble fills his chest. Annoying, he thinks. But you helped him when you saw the burns from the silver band and shackles, and Bakugou does not like being indebted to anyone.
So he shifts to his human form, wincing as the cold air of the dungeon brushes across his naked skin. “Fuck!” he hisses. No wonder your teeth were chattering. He lifts your head from the cloak and pulls it out from under you, then sets your head back down on the ground. Shaking the cloak out, he drapes it over your still form.
His own body starts to shiver so he turns back into his wolf form, wincing at the unnatural pain that wracks his body as his bones and muscles shift. It’s those goddamn experiments from that fucking Plague Doctor. I won’t have much time left if it continues, he thinks. His red eyes look over your sleeping body.
You certainly showed bravery—or stupidity—today, willing to bandage his wounds despite the fear he could smell on you when he took your wrist between his teeth. And you stood up to the hunter, although it was useless to try and stop the injection.
Maybe, Bakugou thinks, maybe we’ll make it out of this shithole before it’s too late.
He shifts his paws under your head so you’re not pressed against the floor, and rests his own head next to yours. The warmth of your body seems to alleviate some of his pain, and sleep is quick to pull him under, taking him to a better time and a better place.