Chapter Text
When Doey returned to Safe Haven, hands empty and heart heavy at the lack of food to bring back, the toys were in a tizzy. A new toy had arrived. They were hurt, but had helped Daisy when she’d been jumped by a gang of rabid Nightmare Critters. Even if it meant another mouth to feed, that lightened his mood a little. Finding another sane toy out there was getting more and more rare.
His joy froze in his veins though when they told him who had saved her.
DogDay. One of the Prototype’s pets. The toys knew to fear CatNap who drugged them before and hunted them even now, but didn’t realize what Doey knew – that DogDay was just as dangerous. He was manipulative and deceitful. Though he didn’t hunt like CatNap did, he knew how to get information and relay it to his master.
Doey leapt into action, cutting through the ventilation instead of the hallways the other toys had to take. Don’t act rashly, he told himself. He couldn’t upset the little ones. But he needed to know they were safe.
Quietly, stealthily, he oozed out of the vent into Safe Haven. DogDay was chatting with a collection of small toys who gathered around the shiny new thing. Not much good happened nowadays, so Doey understood their excitement.
DogDay looked rough. A bandage was wrapped around his thigh, and other injuries all along his back and legs had been stitched together with rainbow yarn. The medic was binding up his palms. Though he wasn’t emaciated, so clearly he’d been eating well. Maybe a little too well.
He looked up, directly at Doey reforming in front of the vent, then climbed unsteadily to his feet. If Doey wanted, he could shove him right over and drag him inside and feel him struggle and suffocate and die –
“Doey?”
“DogDay,” he said, voice carefully level. “What are you doing here?”
“This place is amazing!” DogDay said – intentionally avoiding the question? His tail wagged a mile a minute. “After – I hadn’t realized there was anywhere safe lower than Playcare. But this place is like a fortress! No cameras. No security grids. You’re not even hooked into the main power supply!”
“Yeah, I’m really proud of what we made,” Doey allowed. He needed to maintain his calm, until they were away from the others. DogDay had identified Safe Haven’s biggest weakness already. He had to get rid of him. “I’ll give you the tour. You wanna walk, catch me up on how things are up top?”
DogDay nodded and let Doey lead him away from the others. He waved at them as he went, and got a chorus of goodbyes. Doey clenched his fist so hard that his fingers started merging together. This was how DogDay worked, by seeming so trustworthy and friendly. Already he’d inserted himself into Safe Haven’s dynamics, and he'd only just arrived.
Doey led him through the infirmary, stopping briefly to check on Daisy, before directing him to duck into the hole he'd been working on that connected to the sewer system. He needed to be far away from Safe Haven, and the water would wash away any blood before it could attract rabids.
“This is… also a part of Safe Haven?” DogDay asked, stepping carefully over the rushing water. Doey didn’t answer, but grabbed his arm when he started to slow, sensing the danger he was in.
"What are you doing!" DogDay demanded, getting dragged along at an even faster pace, tripping as he tried to keep up. "Let me go!"
This was far enough. DogDay twisted in his grip. Doey only squeezed tighter.
“Why are you really here?”
“What?”
“I won’t let you destroy Safe Haven.” He grabbed DogDay’s thin neck when he began to kick at him. Desperate fingers dug into his flesh and slipped right off.
“I won’t – Doey – I can’t breathe –”
He could rip DogDay apart right now, eat him, and nobody would be the wiser. Blame it on an attack, or even an accident. But he had the audacity to pretend to play dumb, to whimper and writhe in growing terror. Did he think Doey wouldn’t realize the threat he posed?
Doey threw DogDay to the side. He landed in the gully and splashed pathetically trying to right himself. “The Prototype can’t find us,” he told DogDay. “I’ll do whatever I need to to ensure that.”
“I won’t tell him,” DogDay lied, chest heaving as he gulped down air, paws held up appeasingly. They were burnt and lacerated behind the loosened bandages. His thigh wound was bleeding again, flavoring the air. “I won’t tell anyone – I don’t even know where we are.”
Lies, lies, lies. Lies like he told the employees. He ate them, same as so many other rabid toys. He followed the Prototype, even now.
Doey dragged him back by his leg as he clawed futilely for any purchase in the brickwork flooring. A rainbow of colors began to crawl up his thighs. “Is CatNap near here? Is the Prototype monitoring you?”
“No! Nobody knows I’m here.”
“Then why are you here?”
DogDay shoved at Doey’s face as it inched dangerously up his stomach, teeth all visible. “I was running away!”
Doey wanted to bite off DogDay’s hand. But his words did slow him. Not halt him completely, as he caught DogDay’s paws by the wrists and yanked them above his head. “From the Prototype?”
DogDay whimpered, trying to twist into a position less likely to dislocate his shoulders.
He was lying. He had to be lying. Dogs were loyal, and that held true for DogDay, too. But the trembling was real, and the pained shifting and wincing were real. Doey was hurting him. A toy who had already been hurt and abused, who was looking for the sanctuary he was meant to provide.
He pulled back, cringing in sympathy as DogDay yelped at the tug against his injuries. Doey pulled the length of bandage he’d accidentally suctioned off out of himself and, after a moment's thought, tossed it aside. It wouldn’t be good to reapply to an open wound, now.
He reached down to help DogDay up, even when he refused to take his hand, and look over the wounds he’d irritated.
“What the…”
DogDay cried out when Doey grabbed his leg again, yanking it up closer to his eyes. The thump of his head hitting the ground echoed, and he hissed like a cat, curling his arms over his head.
“Property of Dr. Sawyer?” Doey read out slowly. He thought the Prototype's pet was bad enough, but Sawyer's too? How did that even work? “Is that who you ran to?”
“No! I – can you let me down? I think I’m going to be sick.”
Doey dropped him. DogDay dragged himself a few feet away before he vomited. Chunks of meat and fabric, Doey couldn't help but notice. He spent some more moments heaving until nothing was left, then flopped over with a splash and lay there, shivering.
“DogDay?”
“It’ll pass. Just give me a moment.”
Doey crept closer. DogDay’s eyes were shut, and he hugged himself, tail curled between his legs. His breath trembled with the effort to keep it steady and full.
The small clumps of colored dough in his fur stabbed guilty little pangs through Doey, marking the damage he’d caused, added to what had to be injuries from Yarnaby and Dr. Sawyer and who knew who else.
He reached tentatively down to touch DogDay’s shoulder. DogDay smacked his hand away.
“Don’t touch me!” He scrambled gracelessly back until he was arrested by a tumble of rocks and bricks, where he hunched down protectively. “Don’t – it’ll pass. It’s fine. It’ll be fine. He helps those who help themselves.”
DogDay wasn’t talking to Doey by the end, there. He sounded more like when Doey had a disagreement with himself and needed to soothe his more anxious parts. Sometimes all it took was a conversation with oneself to calm down. Doey sat heavily on the ground and picked up a little rock to scratch a game of tic-tac-toe into the ground. The nice thing about three people in one body was that he always had a play partner.
He listened carefully as DogDay muttered to himself, prayers or comfort or maybe both, but pretended to be entirely engrossed in his game.
It was only when he heard DogDay climb to his feet and begin inching his way around the rocks that Doey looked up.
“Where are you going?”
“Somewhere. I don’t know. I won’t tell anyone about your home.”
Doey frowned. He had wanted DogDay gone – dead, preferably – but now guilt twisted up inside at his state. “You’re bleeding. Those rabid toys will find you if you go out like this.”
“Lucky you.”
Doey sighed to keep from snapping back at him. “You can… stay in Safe Haven until your wounds are healed. Then I want you gone.”
“Fuck off,” DogDay growled. He swayed briefly and clung to the wall.
Doey made a small sound of surprise at DogDay’s language. He wasn’t going to win over anyone with that. Doey followed after at enough of a distance that DogDay wouldn’t feel the need to run. “You can barely walk. I think you’re hurt worse than you realize.”
“Wonder how that happened.” DogDay tripped on a rock. He wasn’t even looking at Doey trailing behind him. “You could have killed me right away if you wanted me gone so bad. But you didn’t. So what were you going to do? Torture me? I’m not going to stick around for you to try again.”
When DogDay slipped again, right at the edge of a pipe that drained deeper down, Doey snatched him up before he could fall in and solve this whole conundrum. DogDay kicked and shoved, but he was one of the weaker toys, and Doey easily corralled his limbs. DogDay growled quietly but stopped fighting.
He couldn’t leave DogDay loose in Safe Haven. But he did need help, and that was what Doey was here for. Even for toys like DogDay, somewhere between sane and rabid. Doey hoped he wouldn't regret this.
“Here’s the deal. You’re coming back to Safe Haven, but you’re staying in my room. It’s not used much, and I can lock you in. I promise I won’t hurt you,” he added when he felt DogDay’s heartbeat speed up. “It’s just until you’re healed enough to go – wherever. I don't care. But I want you to walk back in there of your own accord, okay?”
DogDay contemplated the terms for several moments. It wasn't like he had much room to negotiate in his current state. “Okay.”
Doey let DogDay down just before the infirmary. He kept a hand on his lower back just in case he collapsed again or found the strength to bolt. The medic looked over DogDay’s more obvious wounds again as DogDay apologized for the extra effort and patched up the one on his thigh without comment.
Once he was given a clean-enough bill of health, Doey led DogDay through the storage room, to a side room he’d long ago claimed as his own. It had a vent, a single bulb, and one door with a grate in it that Doey could push out if he needed to pass things in for DogDay. At one point, he’d tried to make it cozy with pillows and sheets, but he spent so little time here that it never got the personality the rest of Safe Haven did. Dried, old clay clung at some of the corners.
DogDay stood awkwardly in the middle of the room until Doey invited him to sit by him on the pillows. DogDay sat very stiffly, paws clasped reflexively into a prayer position. He wasn’t looking at anything in particular. Every line in his body screamed that he was on the verge of freaking out.
“I can bring some crayons or something, if you want to decorate,” Doey offered. Doing things for others generally made him like them more, though DogDay was the hardest sell he'd had to make to himself. “Or food. We don’t have a lot, but I can find something. If I need to find one of the rabids –”
That got DogDay’s attention. He shook his head. “I don’t eat. Especially not – I won’t eat meat.”
Doey looked down at his stomach. DogDay covered it with his paws. “I said no meat,” he snapped.
“Fine. That makes it easier for me,” Doey agreed peaceably. He was trying to do the right thing. DogDay just had to let him.
DogDay sighed. “I’m sorry. My mood fluctuates – my current state makes it difficult to keep it controlled. Something to write or draw with would be nice.”
Doey tipped his hat and left the room. He locked the door, then, just to be extra safe, dragged a shelf in front of it.
When he returned with the supplies, he peeked through the grate on the door first. DogDay lay curled up in the nest, a CatNap pillow hugged to his chest. His breathing was slow and steady. He must have been exhausted, or he hit his head harder than Doey thought.
Doey carefully and quietly fed the paint and chalk he found into the room, turned off the overhead bulb, and left.