Wolf's Rain Fan Fiction ❯ Useless Runt ❯ Chapter 1

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Disclaimers: Kita and Subu-chan own very little except a computer and a slowly recovering manga and anime collection. (It’s been in intensive care-due to hurricane Katrina) We in no way own any of the characters in Wolf’s Rain. That honor belongs to Studio Bones and Bandai. The only one here that we own is Gray.

The story doesn’t exactly follow canon. So if you see a place in the timeline of the anime where you think it might fit, feel free to mentally file it there. The whole pack is here, including Cheza and Blue. All we can say is it takes place before they reach Jagara’s Keep.

USELESS RUNT


They were coming!

Toboe could hear them close behind as he skidded around a corner and pelted down the narrow alley between two crumbling buildings. He was panting desperately as he searched for an escape route. The walls were too narrow here and there was nothing he could gain a purchase on to leap for the rooftops high overhead. The urge to howl for the others rose in his throat, but he choked it back to save his breath. It wasn’t like they’d come to his aid anyway, he thought bitterly, darting around a pile of trash and into another narrow alley.

Too late he realized his mistake. The alley dead-ended against a tall brick wall. Toboe bit back a whimper of fear and doubled back. They were so close he could hear their breathing. He yelped in panic as bullets ricocheted off the bricks behind him. A rush of tearing pain in his hip forced a cry through his clenched teeth. Limping now, he redoubled his speed and managed to gain a little ground, but at a painfully high price. The bullet wound tore from the abuse and he knew he was leaving a trail behind even a blind human couldn’t miss. He needed to find a place to hide and fast. If he didn’t, he was dead.

The alley let out between two warehouses and he hoped to lose himself among the bales and stacked crates littering the area. His wounded leg betrayed him as he tried to leap onto a pile of crates and he crashed to the ground with a pained yelp. Scrambling back to his feet, he darted between two towering stacks of bound bales and nearly fetched up against another stack of crates as his injured leg gave way beneath him.

Toboe braced himself against the crates, knowing he was done running. Let them come for him! He would fight to his very last breath. They would kill him, there was no doubt, but he would make it a costly victory. A snarl built in his chest as he braced himself for a fight he could not win.

Toboe yelped, legs wind-milling wildly as he was roughly hauled atop the stack of crates behind him. A heavy weight pinned him against the splintering slats. “Quiet! Keep still or they’ll find us!”

He stifled a whimper and froze obediently even though the brutal grip on his neck was drawing blood. He could hear the booted footsteps of the hunters in the narrow corridor below. He tensed at the sound of human voices directly beneath his hiding place, but they moved off. When the sounds below had faded into silence, the pressure on his back eased. The hold on his neck remained for another long moment before he was released. Toboe painfully turned to face his rescuer.

His scent gave him away even before Toboe saw him. An older, scarred wolf grinned down at him. “Looks like I found me a little lost cub, eh? What are you doing in place like this? Those humans will get you if you’re not more careful, pup.”

Toboe backed away as far as the crates would allow. “M’not a pup,” he protested warily. The older wolf smelled funny. Not bad-just strange. Kind of like the old man Blue loved. Alcohol and a sort of odd musky tang.

“Course not.” The stranger wolf offered a lopsided grin. “Where’s your pack?”

Toboe flinched, the argument with Tsume still stinging as bitterly as the wound in his leg. “Don’t have a pack,” he answered sullenly. It was true. They weren’t really a pack, just a handful of strays and loners bound together only by the flower maiden and the search for Paradise. Tsume had made that all too clear.

“Hmph.” The older wolf snorted. His eyes were strange, too bright and a bit glassy. Toboe didn’t like his look but offered his thanks for the assistance.

“You’re welcome, pup. You should get back to your friends then. It’s not safe here.”

Toboe nodded and leapt down from the stack of crates, yelping in agony as his full weight made his injured leg scream abuse. He landed on his rump with an anguished whine. His rescuer made a disgusted sound. “Cub.” It wasn’t an endearment.

The older wolf leapt down gracefully and helped Toboe limp into one of the warehouses through a warped door hidden behind another stack of crates. Toboe didn’t want his assistance, but his injured leg wasn’t cooperating. He could barely limp along, whining under his breath as the older wolf chivvied him along to where a dusty bale had split, spilling a tangle of cloth onto the stone floor.

Toboe sank down on the soft cloth with a sigh of relief. The other regarded him for a moment before shaking his head. “Stay here.” He trotted into the shadows of the warehouse as Toboe did his best to clean his wound. He returned a moment later with a white box.

“First aid kit,” he growled between his teeth as he worried the case open. “Don’t know what all’s safe for us, but I know enough to get by.”

Toboe couldn’t stifle a pained howl as his rescuer spilled alcohol over his wound. “Owww!”

“Hurts like the blazes, pup, but it’ll clean the wound better than anything else.” He shook his head. “The last thing you want with those soldiers after you is to be slowed down by a festering injury.”

“Thank you.” Toboe managed through tears of pain. “I’m sorry, I don’t remember your name.”

“That’s cause I didn’t give it to you. Call me Gray. It’s as good a name as any.”

“I’m Toboe. Thank you for helping me.”

“Don’t thank me, pup.” His eyes had gone strange again and Toboe huddled further away from him. He didn’t know what was wrong, but he didn’t trust Gray.

“So where are your friends? You shouldn’t get separated from your pack, pup.”

Toboe ducked his head, ashamed and angry. “We’re not a pack! They don’t need me. Even you think I’m a useless puppy and you don’t even know me!”

Gray shook his head, drawing in a deep breath. “Someone doesn’t think you’re useless or a puppy, cub. Which one of them is your mate?”

Toboe froze with a baffled snarl. “That’s not funny, Gray. I don’t have a mate!”

Gray shook his head and leaned in closer, taking in Toboe’s scent. “Yes, you do. His scent is all over you, marking you as his.”

Toboe snarled. “Don’t lie! I’m just a useless runt to all of them.”

Gray’s eyes were glazed and unfocused as he pressed his nose first to Toboe’s throat and then-somewhat lower. Toboe yipped and twisted away. “Get away from me!”

Gray laughed deep in his throat, a disturbing sound full of madness. At last Toboe recognized why Gray made him uneasy. He had seen one of the dogs in Freeze City succumb to this illness when he was just a tiny puppy in Granny’s arms. Granny had called it brain sickness. Before the dog’s owner had taken him out into the snow and returned alone, smelling of gunpowder and blood, the dog had acted like this. One moment calm and normal and the next snarling at enemies that weren’t there.

Toboe shied away as Gray loomed closer. “Maybe not your mate yet, pup, but he’s marked you as his. It’s in his scent all over you.” Gray’s eyes refocused and he pulled back with a soft snarl. “You should get out of here as soon as you can, Toboe-pup. It’s not safe for you here.”

“I don’t think I can get up.” Toboe whined softly under his breath.

Gray chuffed a sad sort of laugh. “Rest for now. I’ll keep watch for the soldiers.” His grin turned sly. “Maybe lay them a false trail or two. They don’t know there’s two wolves in this area.” He slipped out through the warped door, leaving Toboe alone in the dusty darkness of the warehouse.

Toboe curled around his injured leg and tried to nap, but his thoughts wouldn’t let him rest. Tsume and the others thought he was still just a useless cub. And Tsume was furious with him for trying to defuse the argument with Kiba. Toboe whined miserably. He hated it when they fought. It scared him. He was always afraid the little pack that he had come to think of as his own would break up and he would be left alone again, like after Granny died. He didn’t want to be alone. Never again.

His thoughts turned to the strange things Gray had said to him. How could he have a mate? Hige was the only one of them with a mate. He and Blue were devoted to each other, even when they pretended not to be. And Kiba might as well be mated to Cheza for all the attention he paid anything else. That left Tsume.

Toboe barked a painful laugh. As if! Tsume couldn’t stand him. How many times had he heard the scarred loner say he didn’t need friends? What use did someone like that have for someone he thought was a worthless pup? Toboe whimpered again and fought back tears of despair. He tried to be brave, but it was never good enough for the older wolf.

Did he really smell like he had a mate to the crazy Gray? Toboe sniffed, but all he smelled was the dusty warehouse and the lingering scent of the other wolf. Maybe the brain sickness was affecting Gray’s sense of smell. He was crazy, regardless.

Toboe wasn’t aware of when exhaustion dragged him down into sleep’s dark embrace, but he woke to the scent of food. The cured meat was sitting on the dusty cloth right next to his nose. His empty stomach woke with a pain-filled growl, reminding him just how little he had eaten lately.

“Eat, cub.” Gray’s voice growled softly from the darkness. “I’ve had my fill. And a growing cub needs meat.”

Toboe didn’t wait for a second invitation. The meat was tough and salty but it was food; and after the first few bites, the taste didn’t even register. “Thank you,” he growled around a rather over-large mouthful.

“Slow down, pup. It won’t be taken away from you. And the food’s not going to do you any good if you choke on it.” Gray’s voice was rich with amusement. At last Toboe could make him out in the darkness. He was sitting on another cloth bale, watching Toboe eat with calm amber eyes. He seemed more lucid than before, his madness under control for the moment.

Gray chuffed a laugh. “Those fool humans are following a dozen different false tracks. By the time they figure out there’s not a wolf at the end of them, they be in the Noble’s territory, and he doesn’t take kindly to interlopers. You needn’t worry, pup.”

“Thank you,” Toboe said again.

“You’re welcome, cub. But you shouldn’t linger here long.” Gray snorted, a humorless sound. “You’ve figured it out, then, haven’t you?”

Toboe forgot the meat and raised his head to watch the other wolf alertly.

Gray shook his grizzled head. “You’re a bright one. I know I’m sick, cub. Known it for a long time, in fact. I can feel it growing. I can control it most of the time, but one day, it’ll win and… Well, I’m sure you can figure out the rest.”

Toboe shook his head. “But you know about human medicines. Isn’t there something you can do?”

Gray laughed. “There’s only one cure, cub, and you can’t find it in a first-aid kit.”

“Cure?”

Toboe flinched as the other wolf mimed a gunshot with a mocking grin. “There’s no cure for me but death, pup, and I know it all too well.”

Toboe whined under his breath. For all his illness, Gray had treated him kindly, more so than his so-called pack. “I don’t want you to die, Gray.”

“Oh, cub. You are too kind-hearted for your own good. Let me tell you something. Long ago, before the cities and the hiding, we were hunters, not scavengers. The animals we hunted, the deer and elk, lived in herds. Wolves weeded out the weak and the sick, and kept the herds healthy and strong. Those that lived were made stronger for that.” Amber eyes bored into Toboe’s. “Do you understand, Toboe-pup?”

Toboe didn’t want to, but he did. Solemnly, he nodded. Gray gave him a satisfied grunt. “Good.” He nodded at the abandoned meat. “Now, eat, and get strong so you can be a hunter again. There are already too few wolves in this world, and like a herd of deer it has grown sick and corrupt without our influence.”

Toboe obeyed, gnawing over the new concept as much as he gnawed on the salted meat. Was that what had happened to the world? Was that why they needed Cheza to lead them into paradise?

When he was done eating, Gray urged him to his feet and encouraged him to try his injured leg. “You can’t let it stiffen, pup. You have to be ready to move at a moment’s notice.”

Toboe staggered to his feet and shook unsteadily, resting more weight, a little at a time on his injured leg until it protested with a stab. Gray supported him and helped him outside to where rain had collected in a broken stone fountain. Toboe drank eagerly, craving the water after so much salt. Gray sat on the broken statuary that had once graced the center of the fountain and grinned down at him.

Toboe shook himself and grinned back at the older wolf.

It was that way the humans found them. Toboe yelped and darted away from the bullets that chipped the rim of the stone fountain. Gray leapt to attack, jaws crunching through armor into flesh. “Go! Run, Toboe!” With a snarl, he plowed into the ranks of the soldiers again.

Toboe scrambled away from another round of bullets. “Gray!”

“Get out of here, pup!”

Toboe snarled at one of the soldiers, dodging the spray of bullets directed back at him. “Not without you!” He howled back at Gray.

“Stupid pup!” Gray’s snarled reply was overridden by an answering howl that made Toboe’s heart leap in his chest. “Kiba!”

The white wolf leapt into the fray, ripping furiously at the soldiers. Hige followed, using his weight to bowl over a group of the humans. Blue called encouragement to him from where she guarded Cheza. A bullet chipped the cement in front of Toboe’s nose and he leapt at the human with a snarl. He took that one down but another clubbed at his injury with the butt of his rifle. Toboe screamed in anguish and tried to twist away.

A streak of gray fur resolved itself into Tsume, who ripped the human’s throat out and used his momentum to spring at another who had gotten close enough to attack Toboe. Toboe snarled and used his teeth to rip the gun from the man’s hands just as Tsume plowed into him.

In moments it was over. The few survivors had chosen discretion as the better part of valor when faced with a pack of maddened wolves. Kiba flung away the body of one soldier as Blue leaped to Hige’s side; worrying about a small wound he had taken from a knife. Tsume stood over Toboe, poised to continue the fight.

Toboe struggled to his feet, favoring his throbbing leg, and looked for Gray. He was ripping at a dead human in a fit of battle madness. “Gray?”

Gray looked up from his kill, but his amber eyes did not register their presence. Bloody lips lifted from fangs in a menacing snarl as he stalked stiff-legged toward Tsume. “Gray?” Toboe called again, uncertainly.

“He doesn’t hear you, runt.” Tsume said with a snarl. He never took his eyes off the advancing wolf. “He can’t hear you anymore.”

Kiba lifted his head, but didn’t move, knowing he could provoke an attack from the maddened wolf if he did. “He can’t hear anything anymore. At least nothing real.”

“He’s sick!” Toboe panted. “Don’t hurt him!”

Tsume growled under his breath. “I know he’s sick! I can smell it on him.” His lips lifted in a silent snarl. “As for not hurting him, I don’t think that’s my choice.”

Toboe whimpered softly under his breath and limped a halting step past Tsume.

“Gray?” He called softly. “Please, Gray, it’s me. Toboe. Please calm down.”

He wasn’t sure his words were registering on the older wolf until he saw the tiniest relaxation in his snarl. “I know you can hear me. Calm down, please. We have the flower maiden with us. Maybe she can help you. Please let her try.”

What happened next was a blur too rapid to sort out. Tsume shouldered him aside as Gray leapt at them with a roar of madness. Cheza cried out, but the sound was drowned out by Toboe’s own anguished yelp as his leg gave way beneath him. He heard a pained yelp that he recognized as Tsume and he struggled to get back to his feet.

“Tsume! Gray!”

Gray’s roar cut off in a series of choking coughs as Toboe found his feet and turned toward the battle. Tsume, bleeding freely from a badly slashed shoulder, stood over the still form of Gray, panting harshly. Toboe lurched toward them, painfully aware of the spreading pool of red growing on the ground beneath the older wolf. “Gray?”

“Don’t come any closer,” Tsume growled under his breath. “His blood’s poison.”

Toboe didn’t hear him, focused only on the shaggy head that lifted with a dying surge of strength, bloody jaws gaping wide at the unprotected throat above him. “NO!!

“TSUME!” Toboe lunged, knowing with a sick feeling that he would never make it in time to save Tsume from a fatal bite. He threw himself at the two wolves, heedless of his own injuries.

Pain swallowed him whole and spit him out, shaking and weak. He had no strength to lift his head, even though he could hear a frantic voice calling his name. He managed to drag open an eye to see Tsume hovering over him. Good. He was safe. He felt Cheza’s gentle hands lift his muzzle and let himself sink into her rich scent as she sang softly to him. Paradise must be like this, he thought fuzzily, someplace warm and safe, where a gentle voice sang lovingly to you while you were surrounded by your pack and the heady smell of lunar flowers.

His pack? Toboe jerked, jolted out of pleasant dreams of paradise by concern. Were they safe? He pried his eyes open. Cheza’s sweet face, damp with tears, was the only thing he saw. “Cheza? Why are you crying?” He asked wonderingly.

“This one is glad you are all safe.” She replied, stroking his head. “This one is sorry she could not help him before this happened.” Fresh tears spilled from her strange eyes.

Toboe lifted his head. He lay sprawled next to Gray on the cold ground, blood making his coat sticky. Gray’s head was twisted at an unnatural angle that bespoke only of death. Toboe whimpered softly. “What happened?”

“You don’t remember, runt?” Tsume’s gruff voice asked softly.

“He was going for your throat.” Toboe said quietly, “I saw him reach for it.”

“You got between them.” Blue put in. “I thought he would go for your throat instead, but…”

“He chose not to.” Kiba told him. “Sanity came back into his eyes and he twisted his head away so hard that he broke his own neck, trying to keep from biting you.”

Toboe watched Cheza stroking Gray’s lifeless head, tears spilling down her cheeks. “He would rather have died. This one felt him regain his senses at the end. He chose to end it.”

“He’d rather have killed himself than hurt you.” Tsume said gruffly. “He knew you through the madness and refused to attack you.”

“Gray…” Toboe pushed himself to a sitting position and howled for the fallen wolf. One by one, the other’s voices rose to join in the song of mourning for the dead.

They left him there among the fallen soldiers, a testament to his bravery. When they were well away from the site of the battle, Cheza gently stroked Tsume’s savaged shoulder. “The madness that filled him died with him. This one does not sense the illness in your wound.”

Toboe breathed a silent sigh of relief. He did not want Tsume to fall victim to the illness that had killed Gray.

They traveled that night as far as Toboe’s wounded leg would allow. Hige found a safe shelter under the skeleton of a rusted-out warship that had been abandoned longer than any of them could imagine. The hulk provided black shadows beneath deep enough to hide them in the brightest daylight. Blue and Hige curled together into a single heap of black and russet fur, asleep almost as soon as they stopped moving. Kiba kept watch alertly, Cheza resting against his side. Tsume lay on a spur of twisted metal, while Toboe curled around his throbbing leg. He stifled a whimper of pain. He would not let Tsume think him a weak pup anymore.

“He was protecting you, you know.” Tsume said thoughtfully. “Or at least he thought he was.”

“I know.” Toboe answered mournfully. He would not cry! “He broke his own neck to keep from killing me.”

“Before that. When he attacked, he was trying to protect you. His madness made him see me as a threat to you. I took a step toward you, and in his madness, he saw that as an attack.”

“Really?” Toboe raised his head to stare at the other wolf.

“Yeah. He didn’t know I wouldn’t hurt you.” Tsume lifted his head to stare into the dark shadows of the warship. “That I could never hurt you.”

Toboe blinked rapidly. Tsume-Tsume sounded like Blue did when Hige was hurt. Could Gray have been right after all? “Tsume?”

“Yeah, runt?”

“I-I’m cold. Can I sleep next to you?”

Tsume was silent for a long moment. Toboe was afraid he’d overstepped himself when Tsume’s voice growled softly from the darkness. “Yeah. Stay there. I’ll come down.”

Toboe didn’t breathe as Tsume gently settled down next to him. Daring greatly, he licked the torn flesh of Tsume’s shoulder, ready to be rebuffed with a snarl. Tsume sighed and let him minister to his wounds. After a very long moment, he returned the favor, cleaning the abused bullet wound on Toboe’s leg. Maybe Gray was or wasn’t right, but for the moment Toboe didn’t care. Tomorrow might bring more snarls of ‘useless runt,’ but for the moment, he was happy. He curled against Tsume’s side, resting his head on his uninjured shoulder and drifted off to sleep, happier than he’d ever been since Granny had died.


Akita: Aww! Kawaii! That was so sweet I couldn’t stand it!
Subu-chan: Hmm… Who are you and what have you done with the real YAOI obsessed fangirl?
Akita: What?
Subu-chan: You haven’t threatened to make those two do the ‘horizontal mambo,’ was it?
Akita: Oh, that? Maybe later. You wrote such a good love story I can’t even mess with it right now. That was so cute the way they curled up together. Oh! *sniffs and wipes away a tear* I love you, Subu-chan!
Subu-chan: Have you taken your medication today? You’re starting to scare me.
Akita: It’s just so sweet!
Subu-chan: And on that note, I’m going to say goodbye while I see if she’s been in the medicine cabinet. As always, please review. We’ll see you next time.