Chapter Text
It's dark when Hook leaves the house. The streetlights glow sickly yellow across the pavement, making each shadowed crevice look even more ominous than if it had been pitch black.
Besides, the streetlights aren't a good thing for Hook. It may be legal for a werewolf to wander about on their own now but that doesn't mean it's anywhere close to acceptable. Maybe if Hook were like Haru or Pring, approachable and friendly in both appearance and demeanor, he wouldn't have to worry so much about being seen. Then again, that might have had the potential to make everything worse.
A half-blind werewolf with no owner around? Practically screaming 'easy victim' unless that same wolf is scarred and notably agressive looking.
So, maybe Hook's rougher look gives him a slight advantage in that regard. He still doesn't want to be seen be the streetlights though.
Hook walks through back alleys carefully, stepping around miscellaneous broken glass and needle tips, only hastening his step in those brighter areas. It makes him dizzy to jog underneath the yellow light, whether from blood loss or fevered infection he isn't sure, but he soldiers through it.
His coat feels heavy on his shoulders and reeks heavily of coppery blood. Hook knows it will be sticking to him when he gets back home, that he'll have to peel it off and listen to that awful wet sigh that damp material makes when pulled away from each other but still, he doesn't take it off.
A covered werewolf is one thing, one covered in blood is another.
It's taking him longer than he's like to get to Miss Hana's house. Usually, he has a better sense of direction but he's only been there a couple of times and usually by car. That and his mind feels like it's cloaked in a heavy layer of fog.
The moon looks heavy tonight, swaying low like a corpse from a noose or like when Hook's master hangs him up from the chains in the basement. The light of it feels like blood, like guilt. A reminder that Hook shouldn't be out right now, should have asked for permission.
Werewolves may legally be allowed to roam the streets as they please now but the word of the law and the law of master are two different things.
It makes Hook hunch further and pull his coat tighter around himself. He stumbles once or twice, always managing to catch himself on the side of a building or fence, grazing the flesh of his palms. It's the most minor of his current injuries and yet somehow it's the one that makes him want to cry out.
Hook walks through the entrance of a park and despite his reluctance to be in the light, he stays on the path. The grassy ground would no doubt be uneven and without anything to catch himself, Hook would be left to crash to the dirt painfully. If that were to happen, Hook's not sure if he would be able to drag himself up again.
It's a nice park. The grass looks mercifully short (perfect for the flat foot of a crutch) and around the perimeter there's plenty of large trees that would make swathes of shade in the daytime (he images a werewolf with lilac hair lounged beneath them) and plenty of space as well (here he thinks of two werewolves, a large hulking one and one leaner both racing across the grass). He wishes, not for the first time, that summer break could have lasted a day or two longer. Wouldn't it have been nice to have a picnic in the sun?
Hook follows the path with little trouble, only pausing when his ears pick up on crying. Loud but shallow gasping, tiny hiccups followed by sniffles and then wailing. And it repeats, over and over again.
Hook crouches, putting himself low to the ground despite how the wounds on his abdomen burn in complaint. He can't risk being seen and the path and the crying are in the same up-hill direction.
He tries shuffling but torso flares up in agony at the stretching skin on his back and the folded skin at the front. It takes a moment for him to catch his breath and wait for the stinging and throbbing of his flesh to stop.
The wailing sounds more like words now and for some reason, it sounds familiar.
It's hard to place it. The voice is high and sounds young which isn't common among the few people Hook interacts with. The closest he can think of is Sliver but even then, Silver has a sort of whine to how he speaks and has the rasp of a smoker. This voice in comparison is clear.
There's Choco, Hook thinks before immediately throwing the thought aside. The kid's master would never leave the kid crying like that.
Gasping, the voice is gasping now. Hook stays on the ground slightly down the hill.
Maybe the kid got away again, led off by strangers like last time, Hook thinks. It wasn't all that long ago that he had to save Choco from being shocked by a pair of cruel teenagers.
Wet, snotty hiccuping now.
Although Hook would hope that the kid had learned from last time.
"Please, come back! I swear I'll be good and I'll eat less and-"
Deciding he's heard enough, Hook pushes himself off of the ground and walks the rest of the way to behind the bench. There he sees Choco sprawled out on the path, crutch more than an arm's reach away from him.
"Kid?" Hook walks around the bench and goes to pick up the crutch.
Choco looks up, big fat tears streaming down his red face and snot dripping from his nose. "Hook?" He asks hesitantly. "Is that you?"
"It's not that dark, kid, obviously it's me," Hook clasps the crutch under his armpit sideways and then bends down to hoist Choco up to a standing position. He lets out a hiss of pain as he does. "What are you doing out here without your owner?"
"They left," Choco's bottom lip wobbles as he speaks. "They said they would come back but they haven't."
Hook takes the crutch out from under his arm and passes it to the kid. "They?" Hook asks.
"Oh, my master's parents. Sorry, I should," Choco voice breaks off into a whine as he rubs his swollen eyes roughly. "I should have said that first."
Hook shakes his head. "It's fine. Do you know your way home?"
"They... they told me to wait."
"Of course they did," Hook mumbles under his breath. And then louder, "have you considered that maybe they haven't came back because they can't?"
There's no way leaving the kid wasn't purposeful but Hook's not about to say that.
Choco looks up, no longer crying, and stares at Hook. "Why wouldn't they be able to come?"
Because maybe they got caught in a deservingly grisly accident and died after leaving you alone here is what Hook wants to say. But Hook's trying out the whole being a nicer person thing so instead he decides to blatantly lie to the kid's face. Road to hell being paved with good intentions and all that.
"People get lost constantly, especially if it's their first time someplace," Hook says. "Most likely, they were looking all day before having to go home because it got dark."
"Really?" Choco looks up at Hook with big hopeful eyes, looking more like his usual chipper self already.
"Really," Hook hopes his grimace comes off as more of a smile. All he can think is that if Choco goes back now and gets personally thrown out, it'll break the poor kid's heart. But there isn't any other place he could go-
"You know... I was actually planning on paying Haru and Miss Hana a visit. You can come along if you want."
Miss Hana's father is a werewolf rights activist, surely he'd help an abandoned werewolf in need, right?
"I'd love to!" Choco makes a step forward but his knee buckles. Hook kneels down to catch the kid, biting into his lip to stop him from crying out in pain.
"Are you alright?"
"Yeah," Choco smiles self-deprecatingly. He's still leaning heavily against Hook's chest, face half hidden in Hook's shirt. "My leg's just a bit funny after falling earlier, I guess. Sorry."
"Why are you apologising?"
"I won't be able to go with you to visits Haru and his master..." Turning his head to hide it completely from Hook's view, Choco holds onto the fabric of Hook's shirt tightly.
"You can still come with me," Hook's not going to leave the kid out here. Doing that would be the equivalent of painting a neon target on the kid's face.
"But I can't walk..." Choco sounds like he's about to start crying again so Hook cuts him off by hoisting the kid up into his arms and standing up. His chest burns at the pressure of Choco's body against his but he ignores it.
Hook has an arm around the kid's back and the other under the kid's knee, hands meeting somewhere on Choco's side in a strange sort of cradle.
"You think you can hold your crutch the entire way there?" Hook asks and isn't at all surprised when Choco blankly nods.
Hook almost takes off until he catches sight of a familiar hemp bag on the bench. "That yours?"
Choco nods, smile coming back to his face, so Hook walks them both over so the kid can grab it.
"And now time to head to Miss Hana's."
"To Miss Hana's!" Choco cheers and, although it makes his head throb, Hook can admit he's missed this. The camaraderie, the happiness, the other werewolves...
Mostly, it's nice to just be wanted: not for something he can do or say but for his presence. For just being him.
He's never realised just how lonely he feels even with his master's collar across his throat.
Footsteps now heavy on the ground because of the added weight, Hook starts walking. The lights are a little less intimidating with Choco in his arms, to the point where he wonders whether part of it was just his unoccupied mind playing tricks on him.
The lights aren't sickly formaldehyde in colour, instead just a dullish yellow. And the moon isn't hung heavily in the sky, it just sits there weightless. Everything that was once so threatening is now innocuous, almost anticlimactically.
Hook stops for breath a couple of times resting his aching head against Choco's. The kid's forehead is alarmingly cool which, while a relief to Hook's feverish skin, is probably something Hook should do something about.
"Kid, you're cold," Hook puts Choco down, propping the kid up against the wall of an alleyway. Choco shrugs, tugging at his jacket lightly.
Sighing, Hook peels off his own coat and tries not to recoil at the smell of fresh blood it has on it. Hopefully, the kid isn't too familiar with the scent of blood and doesn't recognise it. In the low light, any stains or damp patches shouldn't be identifiable.
There is a positive to it being bloody: blood is warm when wet and doesn't dry cold like water or other liquids.
"Kid, lean forward," Hook watches Choco lean forward on his arms and is quick to pull the coat around the kid's shoulders. Choco looks up, confusion clear in his eyes, as Hook manoeuvres the kid's arms into the sleeves.
"But Hook, this is your coat," Choco states,
"Kid, I know that. I was wearing it less than thirty seconds ago," Hook feels a dizzy spell coming on and braces himself on the wall beside the kid.
"Won't you get cold?" Choco's words sound unnaturally quiet and muffled, like listening with ears full of water. Hook tries to look at the kid but gives up when Choco's face look like translucent hydra heads weaving between each other.
"I'm warm enough. Losing the coat will probably do me some good," Hook wipes a hand across his forehead, frowning at the sheen of sweat that comes away with it. "We'll take a five minute break before we get going again."
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Choco knows something's wrong with Hook. If the weirdly breathless sound of his voice wasn't enough to think that then the strange outfit - if you’re warm, why would you wear full coverage clothes and a mask of all things? - is. Hook's injured again (because this isn’t the first time, he came to school injured on that second day and then that break off school only to come back with bandages poorly concealed under his shirt).
Choco knows all this but decides not to say anything, even as Hook leans against the brick wall like he'll topple over if he doesn't. He remembers the last time he had asked Hook about being injured; remembers the closed off look in Hook's eyes more than he remembers the slap and knows asking is the last thing he should do.
He and Hook may be friends (best friends, he thinks as he plays with his bracelet) but that doesn't just mean talking to each other and being understanding - is also means understanding that there are times to not talk to each other. And Choco thinks he knows Hook well enough to know Hook isn't ready to talk just yet.
The coat over Choco’s shoulders is warm, the sleeves rolled up so much over his arms it looks like the wrinkled body of a chinese finger trap. It feels slightly wet. Choco looks over at Hook, at the sweat dripping off his friend’s face and chin, and decides it must be just be sweat. He tries not to think about the metallic smell.
There are strange dark patches on Hook’s jumper that almost seem to stick to him as he moves. Choco refuses to believe it’s blood.
If Hook were that injured, he wouldn’t be outside, right?
The five minute break goes quickly and before Choco knows it, he’s being bundled against Hook’s chest again. Hook’s coat protects him against the chill well and it’s large enough that Choco is almost entirely covered from neck down.
Every footstep is loud against the pavement, drowning out the sound of wind and the occasional bird. The only thing louder is Hook’s heartbeat against Choco’s ear, thundering like a war drum.
Soon, Hook’s brisk walk slows as he crosses a completely empty road only to halt in front of a house with a large garden and gate. It’s no where near the size of Hook’s master’s house but it’s much larger than Choco’s home.
Hook slides the gate open.
“Hook?”
“This is Miss Hana’s place. We’ll wait by the door,” Hook slides the gate door closed before walking up the thin path to the door of the house. Hook slides to the ground, letting his head rest beside the hinge of the door, still with Choco in his arms. Choco doesn’t bother moving, simply lying on Hook’s chest.
Finding his eyelids heavy, Choco closes his eyes. He falls asleep to the sound of breathing and the rise and fall of the other werewolf’s chest.