#wolf may be touch averse but hes also hella touch starved so hes got complicated feelings on hugs (from Harrison only)

[whumpacabra]

23. Daymare

Nightmare, comfort, fear for others’ safety, referenced gunshot wound, referenced head injury, referenced nonsexual nudity, referenced needle use [IV], vaguely implied past noncon and anticipated violence

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The Wolf could hear him whimpering in his sleep. Harrison was nearby - to his right, closer to the ground (he was on a bed?). The Wolf pulled himself into his elbows, ignoring the pulsing pain from the gunshot wound in his right arm.

With his enhanced hearing, the Wolf had been listening to the man’s unsteady breathing; gasps and winces of pain betrayed by the smallest of sounds. Looking down at him (the Wolf's right eye still smothered in gauze) he was clearly still asleep.

Dreaming.

The Wolf couldn’t remember the last time he dreamed. (The was probably for the best, given how upset Harrison looked.)

The room was empty, save for them. He could hear movement and words nearby - the clatter of ceramic on wood (a table?). The voices were talking about him.

The Wolf shied from his own name, sitting up and taking inventory of his body. He still had no clothes (very bad) but the itch and sting of his injuries had faded. The blood bag attached it his IV line had been bled dry.

He removed the needle cautiously, hands steady. He didn’t want the IV stand rattling as he moved around. There was a second bag on the stand - clear fluids running down a line to Harrison’s right hand. It seemed, even in spite of his dreaming, Harrison didn’t toss or turn in his sleep.

The Wolf waited a moment for his fuzzy vision to clear after he sat up, legs swung over the side of the bed. He needed clothes. Rummaging through the dresses found him fresh pants and trousers and an oversized shirt that wasn’t too painful to fit his injured arm into.

Harrison’s breathing was turning labored, sweat beading on his forehead. The voices outside - talking about him, about Harrison - would hear his whines soon enough. The Wolf’s chest clenched at the thought.

His sleeping quarters had always been safe, had been predictably his own space - had been. Until they weren’t.

Would it be the same here?

Were they just lulling the pair into complacency, into false security?

All so they could smile and laugh as they ripped it away again - ?

Harrison needed to be quiet. He needed to wake up.

The Wolf crouched next to Harrison’s cot in a half kneel, putting his body between him and the door. His left hand hovered, fingers shaking. Did Harrison want to be woken? Did he care if their saviors (captors?) invaded this room?

The Wolf wanted him awake. The Wolf cared deeply about keeping the voices on the other side of the door out.

He laid his left hand on Harrison’s shoulder and gently squeezed. The sleeping man tensed, breathing short and pained.

“Wake up. You’re dreaming.” His hoarse whisper didn’t stir Harrison, who only whimpered, eyes twitching behind his eyelids. “Harrison, wake up.”

Shaking his shoulder a little harder, the Wolf flinched away as Harrison gasped awake, grasping at his arm. Harrison’s eyes were wide, tears threatening to spill as he looked between the Wolf and the bed and the late afternoon sunlight filtering between the window shades.

“Oh god I thought - he was - ” Harrison’s whispers shuddered in his chest. The Wolf settled, Harrison’s grip on his arm firm but not bruising. Harrison leaned forward, resting his head against the Wolf’s shoulder as his breathing evened.

And the Wolf let him.

He should have been scared of that, knowing how even gentle touches could wound as deep as any knife. Was it bad that he wasn’t frightened of Harrison’s trembling fingers? Harrison hadn’t hurt him - not even when he was stripped and beaten and weak.

Maybe he had just wanted the Wolf clean. But Harrison had brought him his clothes and hadn’t asked him to take them off. If he had wanted the Wolf dead, it would have been efficient to abandon him after finding the vehicle bay. Why had he come back? What did he want?

At the moment, it seemed he just wanted the Wolf to stay beside him, something steady to cling to. The Wolf would give it to him. He leaned against Harrison’s weight, the embrace alien in its painlessness. He wasn’t scared of giving Harrison this moment of peace and security.

He should have been scared, but he wasn’t.

Harrison was soft. He was gentle and warm and even when his voice had venom it was a balm compared to the vitriol the Wolf’s handler had for him. The Wolf wasn’t made to hold soft things, he wasn’t worthy to sap that warmth and accept that gentleness in turn.

(What creature carved from such violence could be? What rebirth was without blood?)

There were others he had seen, crafted to be sheep in appearance and behavior until their teeth were needed. He hadn’t qualified for that program. His teeth and claws couldn’t be tucked away in cottony wool long enough for that kind of assignment.

Looking back, the Wolf had been envious of those projects. Even when he saw them break apart, shattered and liquidated, he envied their brief performances. How he had wished he was still enough of a person to remember the mask, to be anything but a blunt instrument meant to inflict pain. He had resigned himself to his collar and leash, until -

Until his handler gave him a mask and told him to play the part of a person. The Wolf was cast in the role of human cruelty, a role he knew well as its victim in an earlier production. (His handler was not a person of soft things and gentle eyes, but he was a person nonetheless.)

Maybe the Wolf could play that part a bit longer. He would wait and see if the wool stuck around his sharp edges long enough to let Harrison sleep.

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(An AU of my Freelancers series)

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