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Ted was never going to let him live this down. Well. Assuming he had a chance to live anything down after this. But Ted, Ted in particular was going to hold this one over his head for the next fifteen years. At least.
Not that he wouldn’t have a point. It was going to be a little difficult to tell Ted off for getting himself caught and into trouble all the time when Jack was out here doing exactly the same thing. But still. It was the principle of the thing. Jack didn’t get into trouble nearly as often.
He might, possibly, get into trouble a lot worse, but not as often. And that had to count for something, right?
He huddled back further against the wall. Honestly, he wasn’t sure if that made it better or worse. The stone wasn’t any less cold or wet than everything else around here. With hypothermia, you weren’t supposed to get in contact with the floor, right? Try to stick to something dry and elevated? But sitting out in the middle of the well wasn’t any warmer, and at least he could imagine his body warming the stone at least a little bit, rather than venting heat uselessly into the air.
Probably it wouldn’t matter either way. Not when he was sitting in half a foot of frigid water.
He should stand. He knew he should. But he’d been standing for … a long time now. He had no way to know how long, but more than long enough to get tired. He was nearly sure it wasn’t supposed to take this long. He was supposed to drown down here, not freeze to death. The water, as he’d understood his captors, was supposed to be rising. But if it was, it was doing it so slowly that he would be well dead from hypothermia before it so much as reached his hips.
It was possible he was supposed to bleed out, either. They’d left enough small wounds scattered across him, for what had felt like no more reason than sadism. Perhaps blood loss had been meant to speed things along? But the cold had slowed that too.
Honestly, Jack was almost offended. He hadn’t been to begin with, but the longer this took, the more it crept up on him. If you’re going to kill a man, you could at least do the job properly. He’d met hunters before, even witch hunters, and this lot were most certainly a very poor example of the breed. Wrong, obviously, in all ways from the moral on down, he wasn’t even the right type of monster for them, but they were also just bad at their profession. What had they done, forgotten to pay the electricity for the pump?
He curled his arms around his knees and breathed frigid air from frigid lungs onto frigid skin. It hurt. He wasn’t good at the cold. Never had been. He might have preferred to drown. At least it would have been shorter.
He needed to stand. He knew that. He needed to get up, to move, to try and keep the blood flowing in his limbs. Try the chain again, maybe. He’d lost all feeling in that foot, the chill of the metal and the chill of the water leaving it a numb lump on the end of his leg. Vaguely, he wondered about trench foot. It was a uniquely horrifying thought, his feet just rotting out from under him, and it wouldn’t be an issue if these people would just get on with it. If they could manage to do a job right for once in their lives.
The anger helped. A little. Vaguely. It was a warm, motivating sort of emotion, and he needed something to motivate him. He didn’t know what he could do about being chained to drown at the bottom of a well, but it would be nice to try and do something.
All right. Let’s start with moving again. Let’s start with uncurling. Ignore … Ignore the blinding agony. Worse than a transformation. Well. Nearly. Bear with it. There we go.
He hissed through his teeth. He could feel … pins and needles. In his feet. The feeling before pins and needles, that terrifying numb weight that told your brain do not, under any circumstances, move this limb. If you do it will hurt. If you do, you might die. Jack grit his teeth and ignored it. He used his hands, and carefully lifted his feet to new positions. Tried to chafe them, a little. To get some semblance of blood flow into them.
It was agony. Absolute agony. He would take a transformation faster. The snapping of all his bones, the shedding of all his skin. It would be quicker. And leave him stronger in the aftermath. This, this just hurt. And he wasn’t sure it was working.
The skin under the shackle was … ugly. There was almost no light down here, he was half certain he was only seeing what he expected to see, more than what was actually there, but he thought it looked … pallid. Dead. The foot underneath was purpled and swollen. That, he was very certain, wasn’t good. His foot did wake up, though. Nauseatingly, agonisingly, but it woke up. When he tried, he could flex it a little bit. So hopefully it wasn’t rotting just yet.
He shuffled sideways and gripped the wall, the stone slimy under his hands, the air freezing over his bared back. He breathed again, a gulp of air, and tried to push off from it. Tried to push upwards, and get his feet under him. The water sloshed around him. Maybe his body heat had been warming it slightly, he didn’t know, but the shock of the freezing air over his naked hips was painful. His hips and … other things. His feet were not the only appendages he was currently concerned about. Hence, huddling into a ball. Curl everything up together, and hope it kept it all warm enough.
Honestly, what kind of hunters just left their prey bleeding and naked at the bottom of a hole and left? What had happened to pride, huh? To killing your prey up close, in person? What about this was a triumph? What about it could they be proud of? They hadn’t even proven he was anything, not even a witch, let alone a werewolf. They’d just cut him up, chained him up, and left.
In theory, to drown or not drown, proving if he might be a witch. But that would probably work better with more than half a foot of water.
He started shuffling around the edge of well, the chain clanking horrifically along behind him. The noise grated. The cold grated. The wet seeped through his whole skin. He wanted to claw at it. Tear his skin off, get down to the fur beneath. For the first time in his life, he wanted the wolf. Wanted the strength of it, the warmth of it. He would kill for fur, right now. For power. For the strength to rip the chain from its moorings and scale the walls to freedom. Out. He wanted out. Of the well, of his skin, of the endless, agonising cold. He couldn’t even feel the wounds anymore. If he clawed himself, he wouldn’t feel it. It probably wouldn’t even make him bleed any faster.
He almost wished that Elsa was here, with her Bloodstone to turn his flesh inside out. Or Ted. Ted’s power wouldn’t work on him, he’d never been afraid of his friend, but maybe if he wanted it to? It would be lovely to immolate right now. To feel heat rushing through him, fatally or otherwise.
Also, he would just … like to see them. Just for a minute, even. Just for Ted to say ‘I told you so’. There’d been no one for hours. Longer than hours? The hunters had left.
He didn’t … He didn’t want to die alone down here.
He could almost imagine them. The distant lumbering of Ted’s footsteps. The faint traces of Elsa’s scent on the air. He laughed tightly to himself, hugging his arms around his torso and leaning into the wall. No good. He should keep his feet moving. Keep them alive. Just … Just a little second. Just a moment to imagine, yes? To think of …
Of rescue. Of not freezing to death. Of not being alone.
He shuddered, and closed his eyes. Pressed his head into the stone. It was cold. Painful. He wanted to laugh again. Or cry. He rocked his forehead along the wall instead. Imagined angry, worried voices above him. Imagined light, and warmth, and friends. Someone to come for him. Someone to get him out, before his feet rotted, or the cold leeched all the animation from his skin.
Tears prickled, and he pressed his eyelids tighter closed against them. He knew his arms were clutched tight around himself. He should be worried, he knew, by how little he could feel them. But right now …
Right now, he was beginning to think, it was a little late to be worried about much.
So he stood there, instead. Standing in his half a foot of water, huddled into the wall, his face pressed to the stone. He stood there, and he breathed.
Listening to the faint drips of water. Down his body, down his bones. It might be blood, not water, but he doubted it. None of the wounds were deep, and his blood flow had vanished too far into his core. The drops were water, plink-plonking away in the darkness behind his eyes. And the banging …
Wait. Banging?
He froze. Metaphorically, not … He’d done the other one already. He went still. Strained his ears, trying to reach above the well, the sound of water. Had he heard …?
Yes. God, yes. There was movement up there. Noise, somewhere not too far away. Hunters probably, but he would take it! He would take anything right now. Perhaps if he shouted enough, they’d actually grow a spine and come down here to kill him in person.
Not that the first attempt went well. Whatever the noise was, it was closer to a croak than a shout. He coughed, the vibration painful in his skin, and tried again. A little louder, a little clearer.
“Hello? Hello up there? I think your p-pump is broken. You’re going to have to c-come down here and kill me!”
It wasn’t a lie. Their pump was broken. Assuming they’d actually had one.
But then …
“Jack?!”
Someone called his name. Someone that sounded … that sounded like Elsa. He flinched, almost certain he had imagined it, that he’d manufactured it out of the air, and then …
Ted’s roar. Unmistakeably. Ted’s roar.
His heart soared. And then … pitched again.
Because it couldn’t be right. It couldn’t be right. Not … Not both of them. This was a hallucination, an imagining. Ted, yes, Ted might look for him, but why would Elsa be here? Why would they be here together. No. No, that couldn’t …
“Jack? Jack, you bloody idiot, where are you?”
A laugh flinched out of him, an odd little bark of noise. That … That sounded very much like Elsa. The little he’d seen of her. It sounded exactly like her.
And, look. It was probably someone, right? Even if his brain was putting friendly voices over it? So it wouldn’t do any harm to … to help them over here. To help them find him.
But. If it was Elsa. If it was Ted.
“… I’m here!” he croaked roughly. Standing back into the middle of the well, the better to shout up the length of it. “The centre room! There’s a … There’s a hole, in the floor. I think it’s a well. I … Elsa? Ted? If. If that’s you. I don’t know where they went. The hunters. They left, and I don’t know where they went. You have to be careful!”
Not that these particular hunters would be able to make so much as a dent in either of them. Significantly sterner prospects, both Ted and Elsa. But if you were stumbling around in the dark, and someone caught you by surprise …
Ted rumbled. Monstrously. Deliberately monstrous. A definite promise. And Elsa’s voice, a moment later, was no less dark.
“Oh, don’t worry,” she said, sounding closer. “If anyone feels like coming back, we will be more than happy to welcome them. What the bloody hell are you doing in a well?”
Ah, well, Jack thought. Dying? But that probably wasn’t politic to say.
“I think it’s meant to be a d-drowning test,” he said, beginning to huddle again in the centre of the well. Not only from cold. Now that there was a prospect of actually being rescued, there were … other things, creeping in. Shame, a little bit. “They’re, uh. They’re witch hunters. I’m supposed to drown or not drown, I think. But their, their pump is broken. There’s only half a foot of water in here.”
It rankled, even still, just a little bit. All this pomp and circumstance. Taking him. Stripping him naked. The knives. The ceremony of drowning. Chaining him down here. And then it didn’t even work. It was … aggravating. Just a little. Could he not at least be murdered by someone competent?
Though, if he had, this would be a very belated rescue. So perhaps he should rein in the aggravation a touch.
Something squealed above him, a horrendous dragging noise, metal on stone. The grate. Jack half flinched down into a crouch. Not just at the noise. Light came tumbling down as well, blinding after the strain of darkness, and he hunched instinctively, crouched in the water with his arm thrown up to shield his head. His eyes. Above him, Ted roared. A guttural rumble, shock and clear horror in his voice. And, behind it, anger. Red and livid.
“What. The hell.” That was Elsa. Short. Disbelieving. And perhaps, a little, also angry. Jack chanced a look upwards, squinted against the halo of light from the opening of the well. It was Ted he saw first, the looming mass of him, already reaching down with one massive arm. Elsa knelt next to him, a smaller, darker figure against the light. Staring down at him. He couldn’t read her face as well. But yes, he thought. There was horror there. And anger.
It was a very warm emotion sometimes. Yes. Enough to keep a man warm when he was dying.
“Right,” she said, crisp and distant. Tight. “You know what? I don’t want to know. Hold on a minute. I’ll get a rope and we’ll get you out of there.”
Jack grinned. As much from the sight of them as anything else, wide and bright and relieved. He straightened up, at least a little bit. But he had to point out:
“You need to find a key first. They’ve chained me. Under the water, there’s a chain. I need to get out of that before I can get out of here.”
He also wasn’t entirely sure if he’d be able to climb. Walking had been trouble enough, with his feet the way they were. A rope might be … difficult. But Ted abruptly made either point moot.
Elsa’s face had changed too. Glowered, darkened. But Ted heard the word ‘chain’ and apparently decided that was too much of anything. The next thing Jack knew, there was quite a lot of monster falling down at him. He yelped, and staggered backwards, falling against the wall. Ted was too big. He wouldn’t even have thought Ted would fit in the hole. But he managed, slithering down one wall and landing with an almighty splash less than inches away from Jack. A wave of water rushed over him, freezing him, blinding him. Rushing into his mouth. He spluttered, flailing upwards. And then Ted was there. Then two hands seized around him.
Jack shuddered. Flinched, half out of his skin. And then he was pressed to Ted’s chest, against the massive, mossy expanse, sheltered under Ted’s tentacles.
Warm. He sobbed, involuntarily. Ted was warm.
He tried to crawl closer, to pull himself through the moss and mushrooms as far into Ted as possible. His legs came up, trying to curl. His feet. His numb, frozen, useless feet. The chain clanked, and Ted snarled. Wrapped one arm around him to pull him forcefully closer, while the other hand reached down and seized around the chain.
To pull it up, Jack thought. His power wouldn’t work, chains didn’t feel emotion. But maybe Ted’s own fury was enough to fuel the reaction. Light glowed, half blinding him all over again. Metal ran into the water. And then nothing bound him to the bottom of the well.
Two seconds. In less than two seconds, Ted had freed him.
He really was never going to live this down.
But it didn’t matter. Ted’s arm curled under him. Lifted him, curled him into the space beneath Ted’s chin. His arm and tentacles draped across Jack’s back, almost fully shielding him. He smelled of moss, and wood, and warmth. Jack tucked his face into his chest. He had to hide …
Hide how it was enough to make him cry.
Ted rumbled. Worried. Reassuring. And gathered him close while he crouched, powerfully, at the base of the well. A jump, Jack thought. It would be narrow to climb. But it might still be too narrow—
He cut off, clinging desperately, as Ted made the leap. Made the attempt. He would have shouted, almost did, honestly, but it startled him enough that he lost his voice. Ted made it … probably half way up the well? Maybe more than that. Grabbing desperately for the rim with one massive arm. But not … quite. Making it.
They slid back down, landing with yet another splash, a jar through all of Jack’s bones and skin. For a second, everything hurt. Pins and needles, across everything. He made a noise, something strangled. And then … then he laughed.
“It might,” he started. “It might be too narrow, Ted. We might need a rope.”
Ted huffed. Blew out a massive, disgruntled breath. And then shook his head determinedly, his tentacles swinging across Jack’s back.
No, he said. Emphatically. And gathered himself to jump again.
Jack squeezed his eyes shut. Held on, with what little strength he had left. He curled his fingers, and would have tried curling his toes too, if he could feel them, and they were likely to be any use at all. He could feel his whole face scrunching, his whole body trying. But this time Ted, having judged his mistakes from the last time, did significantly better.
They hit the edge of the rim. Ted hit, his massive body slamming into the stone, side-on, to protect Jack as much as possible. It still nearly knocked Jack loose. Out of his grip, a lovely tumble back down the well. Jack had already half-shouted at the possibility of it.
And then Elsa was there. Then there were hands on his shoulders, under his arms. Then she had him in her grip, and hauled up across the rim. Ted letting him go, Ted giving him a boost from behind. Elsa … Elsa pulled him up. Pulled him over.
He tumbled forward. Shaking. Naked. He was abruptly very conscious that he was naked. And the wrong way up, too. A little bit on display, and not in impressive fashion. He thought about being ashamed. The hunters and their knives hadn’t managed it, but Elsa was … Well. Elsa was different. Elsa was Elsa.
But honestly? Without Ted’s warmth, he was too cold. And too tired.
She hesitated. Elsa. While Ted hauled himself laboriously over the rim as well. She looked at him, landing abruptly naked before her, and she froze, just a little bit. Unsure, Jack thought. What to do with her hands. What to do with her face. But then her eyes caught his, and her nerves seemed to crumble.
She tugged her jacket off, the leather red and warm, and started propping him up to try and get him wrestled into it.
“What was the point of this?” she hissed, her lip curling as she glanced down at the rest of him. His frozen legs. His swollen feet, the shackle and remnants of melted chain still dangling from one of them. The traceries of knives across his skin. Not damaging, not really. Just meant to cut. To terrify. To pain. Her hands were rough, trying to chafe his skin back to life, and her voice harsh, but the intent. Oh. The intent was so gentle. So warm. “For god’s sake. What was any of this meant to prove?”
Jack smiled at her. A wry, exhausted crease of his eyes. “That I’m a witch, I think,” he said, with full knowledge of the foolishness, almost the joke of it. The wrong monster. The wrong monster by far. “I don’t … I don’t think they’re very good hunters, this lot. I don’t think they’re very good at their job.”
You had to have gotten things a little bit confused to lock a werewolf in a puddle that’s never going to rise, in order to prove he is or isn’t a witch.
“You think?” Elsa growled. Her eyes were hot and angry, her face fixed and rigid. She had a turtleneck on under her jacket. She pulled it off, one hard, angry movement, and started gently bundling the fabric around Jack’s feet. Jack was entirely frozen. Entirely frozen, well past the point of any hope of showing physical interest. That did absolutely nothing to stop something in his chest, if not further south, from trying.
Fortunately, Ted was there. Ted was back again, safely out of the well. He reached down around Jack. Arms again, warmth. He scooped him up, jacket and all, Elsa following to keep the sweater wrapped around his feet, and tucked Jack safely back in against his chest. The rumble he made shuddered its way all the way down through Jack’s bones. It felt like home.
The tears sprang bright and instant and unwilling. Jack closed his eyes, and pressed his face hastily into a warm, mossy chest. Ted chirred again, and pulled both arms protectively, defensively tight. Curled around him, a shield against the world.
Familia. Ted was family. Better than blood, a thousand times.
“We need to get him somewhere warm,” Elsa said quietly. To Ted, Jack thought. Mostly to Ted, now. “We need to get him back up to normal temperature. The rest of it … It’s small. I think the cold and the water are the worst problems.”
Yes. Jack could have told her that. He was just … a little bit too tired.
And crying. Also that.
Yes, Ted rumbled, and Jack was beginning to think that Elsa understood him, or was beginning to, almost as well as Jack did. He felt her hand skim across him. Along his flank. A gentle, reassuring touch, that he really wished didn’t make him curl tighter into Ted.
Her hand vanished. Pulled away, the instant he shuddered. He wondered if he’d ever felt a regret as powerful. But her voice was as brisk and certain as always.
“All right. I’m going to scrounge around for whatever blankets or material they’ve got. You get him out of here. Wait for me outside. Once we’ve got him bundled up, we’re going straight for mine.”
Ted rumbled agreement, his tentacles moving across Jack with his nod. It possibly shouldn’t be such a reassuring sensation. Not only the movement, but the vibration, the sensation of Ted alive and warm under his cheek. Jack huddled into him, and let Ted straighten to his full height, ready to … to carry him out of here.
But Elsa wasn’t … quite finished. Not quite.
“And Ted?” she asked, something strange and dark in her voice. “If any of his hunter friends do show up? Leave them to me. You just keep going. I’ll make sure they don’t follow.”
Ah. And Jack had to curl his face away again. He had to hide it. But not tears, now. Something just as small, something just as private, but not tears.
A smile. A curl of warmth in his chest. Metaphorical. Only metaphorical. But so welcome, all the same.
Anger really was such a warm emotion. At least … when it happened to be on your behalf.
Enough to keep a man warm. Enough so he didn’t die.