Chapter Text
Neil was running.
It wasn’t an unusual thing for him to be doing. He always had someone after him.
This time, it was two someones.
Neil dodged and weaved through the trees, wanting to make it out of the forest, needing to get somewhere public where he would be safer. He heard heavy footfalls behind him and he could tell the two were gaining on him. Quickly.
He risked a glance behind him and immediately regretted it when his foot snagged on a root and he toppled face first to the ground below. His duffle bag flew from his shoulder. Bright pain flashed through his right ankle and he bit his lip to stop himself from crying out.
“Fuck,” He muttered. He shouldn’t be making such stupid mistakes.
He pushed himself up and turned around, only to be pushed onto his back by rough hands. The barrel of a gun pressed to his forehead, the man was sitting on his legs, and the other man caught up and grabbed Neil’s wrists. He was truly and utterly stuck.
The first man sneered. “Where do you think you’re going?”
Neil closed his eyes, halfway to resigning and halfway to a plan. His mother had just died a week ago and he still wasn’t over it. She would have wanted him to fight, wanted him to struggle, even if it meant a bullet in his brain. That was better than returning to his father. But Neil…Neil was so tired. He was so done with running and with being chased and always looking over his shoulder. It would be over soon if he just gave in. All he had to do was-
And that was when something weird happened.
Neil heard what sounded like a growl to his left, loud and vicious. Whatever made the noise must have been big. And suddenly the weight was gone from his legs, his wrists were released and the cold metal pressed to his head fell to the ground next to it.
He sat in shock as he watched a huge black shape frankly rip out the throats of the two men, easy as biting into a dinner roll. Its stark white teeth shone in the moonlight, now stained with blood, and Neil shivered at the sight. It tossed the lifeless bodies farther into the woods and then turned to look directly at Neil.
Its eyes were golden, shining in the night and locked on Neil. Almost everything in Neil screamed at him to run, but there was a small part that whispered don’t move. He fought the urge to scoot backwards as what he could now recognize as a wolf stalked towards him. He had never seen a wolf in real life, but he could’ve sworn they didn’t get this large. It was almost as big as a horse, but nothing about it suggested it had the same skittish nature.
Neil clenched his fists in the dirt as the huge animal reached him and started smelling him. Sniffing him all over, but especially at his neck. Neil found he was holding his breath and slowly let it out, trying to calm his frazzled nerves. As big as it was, it was just an animal, right? If Neil didn’t scare it or try to hurt it, it wouldn’t bother him. Sure, it had just ripped two grown men apart like it was nothing, but…But what? They weren’t hurting the wolf, they were threatening Neil. Could the wolf sense their violent intent or something?
Neil moved to stand up, slowly, and jumped when the wolf put a paw on his chest, pushing him back down. It was a gentle pressure, but claws poked through Neil’s shirt nonetheless, and Neil in his surprise and fright, whimpered, low in his throat.
Immediately, the weight was gone from his chest and the dark wolf took a step back. Neil looked at it in confusion, but also in relief. It seemed the animal was ready to move on, had deemed Neil not a threat and Neil could leave and never see it or this place again.
Neil grabbed his duffle bag from where it had fallen and the gun that had been left near his head. He flicked the safety on, tucked it in his bag and stood up. He was careful to not make any sudden movements, but cried out in pain when he tried to put weight on his right ankle.
The wolf cocked its head, intelligent eyes searching Neil from head to toe until it found where he was keeping his foot off the ground. It moved forward again to sniff at Neil’s ankle and Neil was shocked. Could this wolf tell that he was injured? Could animals do that?
Suddenly Neil’s right arm was around the wolf’s neck as said wolf pressed against his side. Neil automatically leaned against it for support and the wolf started walking slowly, prompting Neil to move with it. He found he could walk easier with the wolf holding part of him up and he wondered at the fact that this animal was helping him.
He hesitated though, when the wolf turned to the right to head deeper into the woods. Neil knew that civilization was the other direction, but he supposed it made sense that the wolf wouldn’t be going there.
“Wait, I have to-...” He paused when the wolf actually stopped walking and seemed to be listening to him. He furrowed his eyebrows. “Can you understand me?”
The wolf just looked at him. Of course it didn’t, because it was a wolf. It couldn’t understand a word he was saying and Neil Josten was an idiot. He sighed, but continued his train of thought anyways. “Nevermind, just…I need to get back into town. Or at least to a road.”
The wolf tilted its head.
“I’m saying I can’t go with you,” Neil clarified, as if the animal was asking for clarification.
The wolf continued walking.
Neil stumbled a few steps before he pushed away from the wolf as gently as he could, not wanting to make the animal angry. He winced as pressure was applied to his ankle once more, but he ground his teeth and took a few steps in the opposite direction.
A low rumbling growl came then and Neil’s head whipped back in the direction of the wolf. Its eyes glinted and Neil clutched the strap of his bag. “I’m sorry, I just can’t-”
The animal took a step forward, closed its jaw around the hem of Neil’s shirt, and yanked him back over to itself. Neil tripped on his useless ankle and hissed in a pained breath. He landed against the wolf once again and this time he clung to it to keep himself upright.
The wolf waited until Neil fully righted himself and then continued its slow walk further into the woods. Neil sighed and resigned himself to his fate. It seemed he would see where this strangely smart animal was taking him.
– –
A hospital.
The wolf took him to a hospital.
Neil wished he was joking, but he couldn’t make this up. Apparently the path the animal took was a short cut into the city, and right at the edge of the forest was a street, and across that street was a hospital.
Neil could’ve laughed in disbelief, but held himself back. This was insane. He looked at the wolf, who backed off from him, leaving him to put his hand on a nearby tree for support. “Seriously?”
The wolf huffed like Neil was being intentionally stubborn and nudged the small of his back with its nose, pushing him forward a few steps.
“Okay, okay,” Neil relented. There was no chance in hell he was going into a hospital, especially not for what was probably just a sprain, but he felt like he had to reassure the wolf. For whatever reason.
“I’m going, okay?” Neil limped a few steps towards the road and then looked back. He saw bright eyes in the darkness, heard the rustle of dead leaves on the ground, and then the wolf was gone.
Neil ran a hand through his hair, still processing whatever the fuck had just happened. Then he headed down the road, away from the hospital to find a place to spend the night. He would leave the next morning.
– –
The next morning, his ankle was worse. It was swollen, bruised, and he could barely put weight on it at all. He didn’t quite know what to do. He could barely walk in this state, let alone run. So he definitely needed to find someplace safe to hunker down and let his ankle heal. But first, he needed something to get this swelling down.
That’s how he ended up at a drugstore, searching the aisles for painkillers and an ice pack.
The ice pack was fairly easy to find, as were the painkillers, but the problem was picking which kind of pill to get. They were all so expensive for no reason. Neil picked up a bottle to check how many pills were in it, when his wrist knocked the box next to it off the shelf. He groaned and bent down as best he could to pick it up, then black boots were suddenly in his field of vision.
He startled back and stood up quickly, grabbing onto the shelf to his left for balance. His gaze moved from the boots to the face of the man wearing them and was immediately struck by his eyes. They looked as if gold had been melted into liquid and injected into the irises. Neil was so encapsulated that he didn’t even think of how quietly the man had snuck up on him.
The man, whose hair was a lighter gold than his eyes, cleared his throat and Neil was shook out of his stupor. Neil looked away quickly and put the box back on the shelf. He adjusted his grip on the bottle in his hand and decided he had wasted enough time here, he’d just go with that bottle.
“Excuse me,” Neil muttered, moving to step around the man.
The man inhaled deeply as Neil passed him, then Neil heard him mutter, “Idiot.”
Neil’s eyebrows scrunched together and he turned around and responded before he could stop himself. “I’m sorry?”
The man turned to face him. “You should get that checked out, you know.”
Neil’s confusion deepened. “What?”
“Your ankle,” The man looked pointedly to where Neil was holding his foot slightly above the floor and back up at him. “You’re limping.”
“I can manage fine on my own, thanks.”
The man only shrugged.
Neil held back a scoff, not wanting to start anything, and headed to the cash register with his items. Nosy people.
– –
He iced it, elevated it, and tried his best to keep weight off it. But it might take two weeks at least for it to heal completely. Neil supposed it could’ve been worse. He could’ve broken it. He could have a bullet buried in his skull right now. He could be in his father’s basement.
But he wasn’t. Thanks to that wolf.
It got stranger and stranger the more he thought about it. How the wolf protected him, how it knew he was injured, how it supported him so he could walk. It was almost…Human-like. But that was impossible. Maybe it had just been around a lot of humans? Maybe it was more like a dog than a wolf? But even though Neil hadn’t had any dogs in his life, he didn’t think they acted quite like that.
And the look in its eyes…It seemed so incredibly intelligent. Like it could understand him. Neil knew it was crazy, but…He kind of wanted to see the wolf again.
But that was stupid. It was beyond stupid actually. That was a wild animal and Neil was lucky he got away from it unscathed. He shouldn’t go looking for trouble. Enough trouble seemed to find him without him trying.
He fell asleep on the cold floor of an old, seemingly abandoned house, his leg propped up on his duffle bag, leaving nothing to rest his head on. But he was out of the rain, and that was the biggest thing.
He would see where life took him tomorrow.