Chapter Text
Legosi snapped awake in a bed that wasn't his own. He was covered in the scent of a woman who's smell he recognized but who's name he could not remember. For most men his age, this would be something to brag to his friends about, once the hangover cleared. For Legosi, it sent him into nothing short of a panic. The metal muzzle clamping his jaw shut didn’t help.
Don't imagine kicking, screaming, rattling against restraints. Hold onto that image, but know it's how an amateur panics - Legosi was a wolf with years of experience in panicking. He had limited qualifications - no job, no work experience, an explusion from the only college he'd ever attended - but his exploits in anxiety could fill a CV all on their own. He could stress with the best. So he was going to calmly panic. Panic calmly. He started by surveying the room, but his eyes had hardly searched the foot of the bed before he heard a metal clanging and suddenly his skull was yanked back.
The muzzle over his mouth wasn't just scrap metal and leather; it was a full package cage-and-collar affair, attached to a chain fastened to... hm. The bed frame? Still in a half-asleep daze, he lifted his head again, his brain smushing against his skull as it was suddenly pulled back. A radiator? He lifted his head again. His senses told him "No, nope, stop doing that" after one particularly firm yank that invited no resistance. It was a radiator alright.
Now remember that kicking, restraint-rattling image from earlier? He's not there yet, but he's getting there.
Legosi's eyes widened, all early morning grogginess washed away by the ancient instinct that had saved his ancestors from being preyed upon as they slept. It was amazing how quickly you could sober up when you realized you were tied up in a stranger's bedroom. He wriggled around beneath the covers, feeling immense weight in his limbs accompanied by an undercurrent of stabbing pain, as if he'd ran himself ragged then tripped into a bed of thorns. He went to lift his hands to his mask, only to find his shoulders wiggling impotently and a blood-starved numbness beginning in his finger tips. They were bound behind his back.
Then - perhaps realizing just how bad this was- Legosi gasped deeply, inviting the smells of the house inside.
Meat. Lots of it. Hot. Oozing. It rushed into his nostrils like a wave and flooded his brain, firing long-abandoned neurons and awakening deadly impulses. There was a culinary undercurrent to the smell - it wasn't just thrown on a fire until it could almost trick the carnivorous mind into thinking it was a fresh kill still struggling between their teeth, rather than cold, long-dead game. This was no trick. It was art - drizzled with oil, seasoned with spices, some left to simmer while others were tossed in flour and carefully browned. It was a herbivore's dish with a carnivore's decadence and a professional's experience.
And it all gave Legosi some trouble when he came down from the scent and realized he was drooling. This was a problem, because he could not wipe his mouth, and also, because it highlighted just how deeply he swallowed when he realized he was going to be murdered.
That image from earlier? The kicking, restraint-rattling one? Now's the time.
He was in some butcher's shop. You couldn't so openly cook meat anywhere but the dark corners of society, and - a quick glance around the room confirmed - this was no ordinary bedroom. There were no windows, just four walls with peeling wallpaper, pipes weaving in and out as if they had right of way. A single stool sat alone in a corner, alongside a shelf of long-dead flowers. All together, it was hardly more than a prettied-up boiler room. Legosi immediately began to toss and turn, his legs - worn but unbound - finding the edge of the bed and lifting off. His neck snapped back as his body fell, him clumsily urging himself back into bed rather than strangling himself further.
His muzzle wrapped only around the lower half of his skull, leaving his wide-eyes exposed to the world, irises vibrating quickly as every self preservation instinct failed him. For he was not the beast in the jungle his ancestors had been, low to the brush and exposed to the elements; the environment that forged the instincts that were trying to save him now. He was a beast in a cage, as far from the open plains as could be. These thoughts - and many more like it - rushed through his mind.
Of course the room was a dump - what use did people have for comfort if they were going to be butchered soon?
Why would they give him - meat-to-be, what was the word, err, livestock, livestock!
Why would they even give livestock a bed? So they could be more tender when the time came to-
The door creaked open.
The floorboards creaked quietly under a series of quick steps. His eyes were shut, but he could tell it must've been someone tiptoing. Even the smallest carnivores couldn't be so light on flat feet. They must have heard him thrashing. Must have been wary of him. A voice in the back of Legosi's head mused it was probably the right thing to do - for his would-be-butcher to be cautious. A deep, instinctual voice in his mind - the same one that told him to bite, to tear, to rip when he'd earlier smelled meat - reminded him he was a gray wolf, powerful and dangerous, and that anyone would be right to be cautious around his kind. That voice had a point, but regardless drowned under the much louder voice repeating a very herbivorous self-preservation mantra in his head; be still, breathe naturally, don't tense, don't twitch, be still, breathe naturally, don't tense-
The room was silent again. Through sharp kinesthesia and a bit of guesswork, he could tell something was moving beside him, as lightly as a shadow and with about as much sound. It paused. It waited. And then-
"Hey, hey, Mister Wolf. You're really bad at pretending to be asleep."
Legosi's eyes snapped open. They swiveled slowly to the side.
Legosi had been imagining... well, lots of things - this is a professional panicker we're talking about - but mostly it had been bears. Brown bears, polar bears, the occasional panda, each with scars across one eye, a bloodied apron across their chest, and a meat cleaver clutched in one hand. What he was looking at was as far from that as possible; mostly because it wasn't an animal but the ceiling. He lowered his eyes- along with his expectations for the stature of his prospective killer - and kept lowering them until eventually, at nearly eye-level with his laying body, he found a rabbit.
She was the color of snow in the morning sun. Even in the dim light of the room, she practically glowed. There were no scars to be seen, with not so much as a bruise on her untouched white fur. That did, however, make the few faults in her otherwise pristine coat stand out. It wasn't one single thing. It was many subtle details, the patterns the conscious mind passed over but the subconscious didn't, that together conveyed her beauty just wasn't as high a priority as it had once been. She was far from rough-looking, make no mistake, but her standing out so much from her grim surroundings was what drew attention to the few areas where she... fit in.
Not only was she no bear, but her apron had no blood spatter either. It was stained instead with cooking oil, wine, and the remnants of flour too eagerly poured out - all fresh, obviously recent additions to her outfit. Combined with what her outfit actually was - an oversized T-shirt draped over a skirt that was short for reasons more ergonomic than aesthetic - it gave her a sportier look than her size should've allowed. But she was holding a meat cleaver, so at least Legosi had gotten that right.
That reminded him that he should probably panic. His body was way ahead of him, already shaking beneath the covers, the edges of his eyes blurring, urging his pupils to dart around the room and find an exit he'd somehow missed.
My instincts are failing me again! They weren't made for this!
His breath was shallow and quick despite all his attempts to reign it in, panic greater than even he could manage taking hold. Thoughts like 'worrying won't solve anything' somehow didn't seem comforting nor appropriate anymore, and he found his instincts urging him to think instead of how many seconds he might have left in one piece; ten? Twenty? Would she drag him out into a cellar or something first before they did the deed? That'd be pretty impressive, a part of him noted with detached serenity. She'd surely need help - how did she even get him inside in the first place?
With his heart thumping inside of them, Legosi's typically attentive ears missed the silk shifting.
Even if there was a way out, I'm tied down, but my genes don't know that...!
Then, as quickly as it had came, the nerves wracking his body vanished. In their place? A deadly calm. The kind of calm someone feels when they see a silhouette pass by their window, then remember they live on the third floor. He froze like a deer wondering if it'd been spotted. She'd pulled the covers down. Her hand - gentle, soft, tiny - roamed across his bare chest as if searching for something. Legosi swallowed deeply, then-
Searing pain shot through his chest and he lurched upwards. The rabbit retreated, dark eyes darting about and taking a noticable detour to meet the glint of her weapon. Breathing heavily, Legosi fell limp and weak across the bed, having caught in his thrashing a glimpse of his own body. It... wasn't pretty. Barely closed gashes criss-crossed his chest, a few threatening to spill open and begin gushing blood - begin gushing blood again if the scent oozing from them was any indication. He'd missed it for stewing in his own wounds for so long, but searching the air for it now, the iron tinge in the air was impossible to miss. Now that he was looking for them, he could detect other smells that filled the room.
Wool... polyurethane... some sort of adhesive... and is that disinfectant underneath them all?
"All that and still moving around this much?" She muttered, apparently to herself but very obviously meant for his ears, "Large carnivores really are something!"
Without further ado, she approached him again and traced her open palm along his chest.
When it comes to carnivores, some are very obsessed with the idea of 'skinship.' Maybe it'd be more accurate to say some are very obsessed with misunderstanding personal space. So big and powerful are they that they can handle it when someone suddenly tackles them from the side or loops their arm around their neck, and so hard-headed does that power make them that they think everyone else can handle the same. It's the sort of thing that - beyond threats of being eaten or trampled to death - makes herbivores cross the street when they see a pack of tigers coming.
Legosi was ostensibly powerful and undoubtedly big, but he believed that in his perfect world, he'd never be within five feet of another person. Most herbivores would agree; in their perfect world, Legosi would be at least that distance from them at all times. And yet, this rabbit was touching him, and he felt... bizarrely fine with it? The iron muzzle and bound wrists he could do without, but they were the most alarming thing about the situation, not the fact he was trapped in them AND a stranger was exploring his body.
Her touch was soothing - gentle, soft, weak, all the things you'd expect from her species and stature - but it was something more than just being physically pleasant. There was a certain intent that came through her fingers, in the same way there was a killer intent in a predator's claws or a fleeing instinct in a spooked deer's feet. If he tried to put a name to it - well, he wouldn't if he could get away with it, but for want of any in to conversation and still not entirely sure where he lay, he could busy his mind with things like that. If he tried to put a name to the intent in this rabbit's touch - it was a healing intent. A nurturing intent. She wanted to see what was beneath her fingers grow, heal, and flourish.
Now that was rare.
This rabbit tending to him now wasn't some crazed butcher. She'd patched him up. She'd taken him in from the cold. The memories were coming back to him now, bit by fragmented bit; Legosi had passed out in the black market after... something happened. Again, fragmented, but he'd found a corner piece, and from there could make a start on the puzzle.
He'd collapsed in the black market and she'd obviously taken him in, and it dawned slowly on Legosi as he sat there frozen that she'd probably saved his life. Be they carnivore or herbivore, rich or homeless, there was a name for unconscious animals on the streets of the black market - free product.
"Your breathing's getting steady," the Rabbit mused, her voice sounding the way warm wind through an open field feels, "Hm... but your heart's just as fast."
His senses began to return to him, no longer addled by a blend of fear and semi-consciousness. The existential panic was - for the most part - gone. It had been replaced by the more mundane but somehow more palpable panic stemming from a member of the opposite sex touching parts of you not strictly inappropriate, but that still went hidden from view most of the time. It was a paralyzing panic, no doubt, but not sense-addling - Legosi knew the difference. Panic professional. With his newly recovered senses, he could see once-useless pieces of fuzzy information for what they were. A jumble of light in the corner was now a spool of bandages, a collection of polyester stuffing, bottles of disinfectant, and other things all gathered in a quick "Shit, what in this house could help stopping a man dying?" pile.
Obviously all off-the-shelf first aid products, but, hey, it had stopped him dying. The roof over his head did that as well. So, technically, this mystery herbivore had saved him twice.
The irony wasn't lost on him.
Legosi turned his head slowly on his pillow, earning a beat of the brow from the obviously wary rabbit. Still, it was hard even for her to take him as a serious threat. He was injured, only recently conscious, and had no method of attacking her besides rolling over. Which might actually do the job if he got lucky. But she was obviously willing to take her chances. They even almost exchanged eye contact. Legosi tried desperately to do at least that much. He tried. That was her cheek. He tried again. Her chin. Neck. Shoulder, bicep, down her arm. He failed. Instead, his eyes just settled heavily on the hand still clutching a cleaver - obviously for self defense rather than for work, but, the blood...
Not much of it was staining his bandages, so, he supposed it had to go somewhere.
"Ah, so that's..." He muttered aloud, nearly unconsciously.
That was reassuring. Well. It was relatively reassuring. Between finding out that the cleaver-carrying mystery rabbit standing beside your bed had done some amateur surgery on you, and finding out she was a crazed cannibal about to chop you up, the former was better. Definitely. Probably. From a certain point of view? At least he couldn't say he'd ever lived through the latter to be able to judge from experience.
Suddenly, he was snapped back to reality by the rabbit's giggle. She tapped him on the chest - earning a slight spasm - and then hissed to herself, tapping him again but... more gently this time.
"So... you really like staring," She noted. It wasn't untrue.
Legosi's eyes went wide and his cheeks flushed. He felt the sudden urge to stand up, just so he could bow his head, "P-please excuse me. I jumped to conclusions, miss... ah... Rabbit..."
The rabbit's eyebrows knit together with a good-natured sort of annoyance.
"My name's not 'Rabbit,'" The rabbit who's name was not Rabbit insisted, "and if you jumped to anything, you didn't tell me about it."
"It's just - I realized that's just the blood from my wounds staining your hands. I thought it was..." He bobbed his head back and forth awkwardly, "so... your name...?"
She looked curiously at the bloodied meat cleaver in her hand, "Oh, no, this isn't yours; you're a wolf. And my name's Haru - I sell rabbit meat!"
She smiled brightly.