Work Text:
'The evil, it spread like a fever ahead
It was night when you died, my firefly'
Sabro was paralyzed. His claws were stained with blood—the blood of his enemies, the blood of the enemies of justice. Sabro had gravely wounded the foolish deer who believed the mafia was child's play. He was on the ground, bleeding out and smiling with the same warmth as the sun: pure and innocent. Certainly a deer... But why were Sabro's hands trembling so much? Why were his eyes filled with tears? Iruma’s fur was warm, bright, and well-groomed; it shone even when matted with his own blood. His white clothes were no longer white; they looked like a mural of gore and tattered fabric.
His antlers remained intact, but his eyes were losing their luster. Sabro wished that if there were another reality... he wished that he and Iruma could have been friends. He wished things had been different, that they weren't natural enemies—that he wasn't a predator hunting the prey of justice. Sabro knelt beside the deer's body and his teeth ached; he needed to bite his neck and finish him right there. It’s what his bosses would expect of him. But Iruma turned his face and smiled with such softness and sweetness that Sabro could only sob in pain. Why did he have to kill something so pure?
"You are beautiful, Sabro... But don't cry, okay?"
"I’m not crying."
Sabro let out a broken laugh and leaned down to rest his snout against Iruma’s neck, without biting. Without attacking. Iruma was bleeding out, yet he raised a paw and stroked Sabro’s long black locks with a soft, lullaby-like hum. Iruma looked toward the stars and the moon; Sabro wept in silence. That hand and its touch were comforting—something he didn't know he needed until he felt it on his fur. He didn't bristle, he didn't growl; he simply closed his eyes and breathed slowly.
Cars began to arrive, voices shouting Iruma’s name. Sabro stood up and bared his teeth, his maw still crimson and his eyes frantic, but he didn't see them as prey—he saw them as a threat. He stood over Iruma, his fur bristling violently, making him look even larger than he already was. Iruma hugged his neck and sighed into his ear. Sabro relaxed slightly and retreated on all fours, watching fixedly as they took Iruma away. The deer gave him his most beautiful smile despite his weakness, and then they vanished. Sabro vanished, too.
'Well, you do enough talk
My little hawk, why do you cry?
Tell me, what did you learn from the Tillamook burn?
Or the Fourth of July?
We're all gonna die'
Sabro was still crying. His hands and fur were clean now, but he felt filthy and empty. Was Iruma crying just as he was? He shook his head, his long black hair falling over his face, hiding a gaze full of emotions he couldn't quite decipher. Enough talk. He stood up and abandoned everything he knew—everything he was—to enter enemy territory. He fought with fang and claw until he stopped right beneath the window where Iruma rested, behind an oxygen mask and empty eyes. Sabro sat and watched the window for hours upon hours.
What did waiting matter when you had your whole life? He didn't want to dedicate it to anyone but "him"; it was clear now. The one who embraced him even when he bit his chest and sank in his claws. The one who told him he was beautiful... Sabro had never truly stopped to think about how handsome he was. As a male, he was large and strong, but too intimidating and energetic. He tried to be accessible and playful to avoid causing fear, but in reality, he was serious and efficient, loyal to his own causes. He saw the police as a noble and just cause; he saw the finger but missed the flower. And when he finally saw its beauty, it was too late—he had already plucked it to observe it.
Iruma’s pack was furious. They couldn't attack Sabro without losing strength, and Iruma was too weak to even open his eyes, yet something made them think he would tear their heads off if they touched the great golden wolf. Sabro only left to hunt, returning to stay in the same spot for hours, barely seeming to breathe.
Sitting at the bed with the halo at your head
Was it all a disguise, like Junior High?
Where everything was fiction, future, and prediction
Now, where am I? My fading supply
Sabro knew he might be exaggerating—that his loyalty was morbid and being warped by a deer with beautiful blue eyes. But... there was nothing else in his chest but Iruma, his beauty, and his smile. Above all, that gentle nature inherent to prey made his fangs ache to tear flesh, though he didn't know if it was his own or Iruma’s. He felt filthy, evil, deserving of nothing, yet there he was: in the garden, licking his paws and watching Iruma’s window. Usually, it was covered by a blue curtain. But other times, he could see the eyes of the albino snake watching him with hatred from behind it. It didn't matter; Sabro hated himself too. The future was for the living, but Sabro had died the moment Iruma embraced him with such warmth and sang softly as if trying to console him. Sabro Sabnock, high-ranking police officer, was dead. Now he was only Sabro, the lone wolf who would kneel only before Iruma. Even if Iruma never wanted to see him again after he had almost killed him, his loyalty belonged to the deer. If Iruma asked him to burn the world, Sabro would do it gladly.
The hospital asked: Should the body be cast?
Before I say goodbye, my star in the sky
Such a funny thought to wrap you up in cloth
Do you find it all right, my dragonfly?
The albino snake finally gave in. Perhaps out of pity, or perhaps because the scent of death was beginning to permeate the courtyard; every time they opened a window, the harrowing smell of death and grief flooded their nostrils. Sabro remained still in his vigil. But he didn't react as expected when they allowed him inside. Sabro looked at them with golden eyes—cold and void of life—as if he considered the sound of spoken words unnecessary to communicate. Or perhaps he felt it wasn't worth it, because if Iruma died... he would follow him. And he knew many of them would, too.
Upon entering the room, the sound of machines was the only heartbeat left. Iruma seemed smaller amidst the white sheets; his antlers, once a symbol of silent pride, looked heavy against the pillow. Sabro pinned his ears back and bared his teeth in a grimace of despair. He couldn't look at the light of his path like this without feeling so wretched he wanted to tear his own chest open.
"You told me not to cry..." he whispered. "But the world is running out of light, Iruma. How can I not cry if I'm taking the sun with me?"
Iruma opened his eyes slowly. They were no longer the vibrant blue of the ocean, but the pale hue of the sky before a snowstorm. He reached out a hand, connected to tubes and wires, searching for the wolf’s cheek. Sabro didn't pull away. He let the deer’s cold skin touch his golden fur, now dull with guilt.
"Sabro..." his voice was a silk thread about to snap. "The lights in the sky... they were beautiful, weren't they?"
Sabro remembered the thunder of gunshots, the screams, and the blood under the fireworks. For Iruma, the chaos had been light. For Sabro, it had been the fire that consumed everything.
"They were beautiful because you were beneath them," Sabro lied, holding Iruma’s hand against his face, wishing he could transfer his own life force, his own predator’s heat, to the fading prey.
We're all gonna die
Iruma let out a small sigh, a sad smile dancing on his cracked lips. There was no hatred in him, only an acceptance that terrified Sabro. Iruma wasn't afraid of death—he had danced with it his whole life—but... leaving his pack alone? He couldn't think straight. Leaving Sabro alone in the darkness after giving him a ray of light? Devastating.
"Make the rest of your life... worth it. Even if it’s not with me."
But Sabro knew there was no "after." If the deer died, the wolf would simply sit before his grave, waiting for winter to cover him as well. Because in the world of the mafia, loyalty is paid in blood, but love... love was paid with eternal emptiness. Sabro bowed his head and rested it beside him on the gurney; he was massive, and Iruma was so small. Wagging his tail sadly, he closed his eyes and let Iruma gently brush his black hair. There was no world without Iruma, and there would be no peace until Sabro could take revenge on everything that had forced him to hurt his new world: first the police, and then... his own body.
Sabro learned something from that world without light. He learned that the justice he pursued was a paper structure that burned easily, but Iruma’s life was the only forest worth reforesting—the one he would protect, whether his family wanted it or not, whether Iruma wanted it or not. He would be there for the deer, forever loyal. Sabro realized his loyalty was no longer to a badge or a law. His law was the steady thrum now echoing from the machine—the heartbeat he himself had nearly stopped.
He rose from his vigil, his movements slow and heavy with resolve. He walked to the small metal table where surgical instruments rested and picked up a hunting dagger—a blade designed for skinning, for marking territory. He returned to Iruma’s bedside.
"The white snake gave up his face because he loves you with pride," Sabro whispered, looking at Iruma’s hands, so small and fragile under the sheets. "But I... I love you with the shame of the executioner who fell in love with his victim."
Sabro extended his right hand—the hand that had dealt the near-fatal blow. With a slow, deliberate motion, he plunged the tip of the dagger into the base of his own claws, right where the bone meets the flesh. He didn't scream. The pain was a gift, a way to feel a fraction of the suffering he had caused the deer.
One by one, Sabro ripped away the means to ever be a predator again. Thick, golden blood dripped onto the floor, staining his feet. He was left without claws. He still possessed his fangs, but now his fingers were flat and empty. It didn't matter if this meant certain death; he would fight if Iruma wished it, and die if he wished it too. There was no path for the hunter without Iruma.
The metallic clang of the dagger hitting the floor rang out like a gunshot in the room. Sabro stood up with difficulty, his body trembling from hemorrhagic shock, but his gaze remained fixed, obsessive. With a slow movement, he gathered the fragments of keratin and bone—his own claws, torn from the root—and wrapped them in a piece of white cloth that was already beginning to soak through with crimson.
"Why are you still here, scum?" Alice hissed. Clara tugged gently on his sleeve, staring at the great wolf.
Sabro did not retreat. He did not show his teeth. Instead, he knelt before Sullivan, ignoring Alice’s threat. With hands wrapped in improvised, blood-soaked bandages, he held out the small bundle toward the Alpha.
"Alpha Sullivan," Sabro’s voice was a guttural whisper. "I have come to deliver the tribute for the life I nearly extinguished."
Sullivan looked down, confused for a moment, until Opera leaned in and untied the knot in the cloth. When the contents were revealed, a deathly silence fell over the hallway. Kalego took a step back, his eyes dilating with the professional horror of an enforcer who knows exactly what that gesture means. Because as a wolf... he understood everything.
"They are my claws... the tools that wounded Iruma. I have torn them out so they can never again close into a fist against him."
Alice stood paralyzed. Sabro was turning himself into a domestic animal just so Iruma could be safe.
"You’re insane," Kalego muttered, his voice full of bitter respect. "A wolf without claws is no wolf. You are asking for us to kill you. Any of your enemies will come for you now, and you will be defenseless."
"I know," Sabro replied, looking through the cracked door to where Iruma rested. "My only defense is his forgiveness. If he does not want me alive, I don't need my claws to die. But if he decides I am his, I will be his shield of flesh, even if I have to tear his enemies apart with my own teeth until I have no jaw left."
"Then you have signed your sentence, Sabnock," Sullivan said, his voice echoing through the hallway. "You have ceased to be a free man to become property of the family. Alice burned himself for love. You have broken yourself for devotion."
Sabro returned to Iruma’s side, like a shadow that refused to leave. It was clear to him, etched into his muscular and spiritual memory. When Iruma woke up, the first thing he saw was Sabro’s matted fur and his golden eyes—half-asleep but watching him with exhilarating intensity. There were tears and hugs when the pack entered. Sabro became an outcast, but not a lonely one; he was there like a shadow, and while no one held him in high esteem, Iruma smiled at him with the brilliant strength of a thousand suns. For Sabro, that was enough. Without claws, his fangs were his only defense, and aside from his raw strength, he wasn't assigned missions. Instead, he took it upon himself to lead the police right into their traps to make their work easier. Like a solitary shadow. And though they hated to admit it, with his knowledge of police tactics, Sabro saved their lives more than once, simply saying:
"He would be sad if you died, and I cannot allow him to be sad."
He went from being the crippled wolf to the guardian of the house. There were men more than capable of protecting Iruma, and yet, the pack felt more comfortable knowing Sabro was there. One day, Iruma approached him with a bright red box. Opera was at his side, Kalego at the other. Sabro looked up from his clawless hands and smiled slowly at Iruma—only at him. Iruma leaned in, and when he opened the box, Sabro was surprised. It was a Shimenawa, bright reddish in color, with a pair of bells and shide. It was Iruma’s welcome gift to Sabro into the pack, for now Sabro would be the protector wolf of the Babyls mafia and pack.
Over time, Sabro’s presence in the mansion stopped being a cause for suspicion and became a comforting constant. He was often seen in the garden, helping Iruma with the flowers—though his bandaged fingers were clumsy—or sitting at the door of Sullivan’s office, a statue of muscle and devotion.
One afternoon, as the sun set, Iruma sat beside him on the porch.
"Are you happy here, Sabro?" the deer asked, resting his head on the wolf’s shoulder.
Sabro looked at his hands; the scars where his claws once were were now marks of honor. He looked at the Shimenawa around his neck and then into Iruma’s blue eyes.
"I don’t know if I’m happy, Iruma," he replied with an honest smile. "But for the first time in my life, I am exactly where I belong."