Chapter Text
For the first time in weeks, a customer in this hellhole is actually paying attention to him, and Tommy decides immediately that he hates it.
The customer is tall and broad, looming over Tommy’s pitifully small cage. He has long hair pulled back in a braid, and sharp eyes. His nose is crooked, like it was broken and wasn’t properly reset. He smells human, but underneath, there’s a stench of blood, like he just got done killing shit and didn’t wash himself afterward. Everything about him is making Tommy’s fur stand on end, and he hugs the back of his cage, wishing there was something more than metal bars between him and this man’s scrutiny.
“Hey, Phil,” the man calls. “Over here.”
Fucking great. Another person to ogle at him. Tommy snarls, exposing sharp teeth, but the man doesn’t seem at all intimidated.
Sure enough, another guy—Phil, he assumes—walks over from where he was browsing the shelves of books and potions and stops outside of his cage. He’s shorter than the first, and kinder-looking, face marked with crow’s feet and smile lines.
“Hey, mate,” he greets, looking between Tommy and the other man. Tommy lifts his head from where it was resting between his front paws and glares at him. “You actually want to buy something from here?”
“You know I’ve always wanted to start a hound army,” he says, and fuck, is this guy serious? He’d better not be.
For once in his life, Tommy is thankful when Rick (or as Tommy likes to call him in his head, Dick) shows up. Maybe his asshole-ry will be enough to scare away these guys. At least, he can hope it’ll be.
“Oh, are you interested in this one?” Dick asks. “This is one of my special finds— a direwolf.”
“Looks a little small for a direwolf,” the scarier one says, and Tommy has to stop himself from baring his teeth at that. Okay, yeah, he might not be the biggest wolf ever, but it’s not his fault he hasn’t had a proper meal in months, or that he isn’t even a real direwolf. He just hopes that the guy chalks it all up to malnutrition instead of misidentification— if he realizes that Tommy isn’t what Dick thinks he is, then he’ll want to test him, and if he does, he’ll find out Tommy is a shifter, and then it’s all game over.
“Yes, it’s a bit of a runt,” Dick says, “But I assure you, it’s the real deal.”
There’s a moment, where the pink-haired guy stares at Tommy and Tommy stares back, that he’s terrified the man won’t take Dick’s word for it, that his secret will be exposed. If it is, he knows what’s in store for him. Shifter parts go for a lot these days, and even worse, some of those parts grow back. Which allows them to be harvested over and over and over—
Then the guy shrugs and looks away. “Okay,” he says, and Tommy lets himself relax somewhat. Not all the way, of course, because apparently this man wants to recruit Tommy into some sort of wolf army, which sounds like absolute shit. Better than his fate if he were being marketed as a shifter, that’s for sure, but still not good. “If it’s a direwolf, won’t it just, go for my throat as soon as you let it out?”
Dick grins and pulls a keyring out of his pocket, flipping through a few keys before finding the right one and unlocking Tommy’s cage. Tommy huddles towards the back, knowing what’s coming and already hating it. It makes his fucking skin crawl.
“Allow me to demonstrate,” Dick says, then he opens the door.
Phil jumps back, and even the terrifying one takes a step backward.
But Tommy doesn’t jump at them and rip their throats out, no matter how desperately he wants to. Because he has the worst luck in the world, and Dick has a sorcerer contact who spelled this fucking collar around his neck. He’s already tried to fight its spell countless times, but it’s impossible. He can’t attack anyone here.
“It’s the collar,” Dick explains. “The spell stops it from attacking its owner, and makes it very obedient. Give it a command and it has to follow, whether or not it understands. Here, I’ll show you. Come .”
Reluctantly, Tommy slinks out of his cage. It’s more than he’s walked in two long weeks, but the fact that it isn’t of his own free will sours the moment. Dick waves a hand at him and he instinctively flinches away, half expecting a hit, despite not doing anything to provoke him.
Both of the customers look impressed, although there’s something more to Phil’s expression, something darker that makes Tommy uncomfortable. Tommy wishes they would just stop looking at him and leave him the fuck alone. He doesn’t want to leave this place with either of them, even if it means being away from Dick and his violent tendencies and sporadic meals. He just wants to go back to the woods, back to before he was stupid enough to get caught by hunters.
“How much for him?” the taller man asks, and any hope of being left alone evaporates.
“1200,” Dick says.
Phil whistles. “You’re sure about this, Techno?”
“C’mon, Phil,” the man, Techno, says. “It’ll be fun. Just think: a whole army of dogs, all ready to do our biddin’.”
Please say no, Tommy internally begs. Please move on, please forget about me, please leave and never come back —
Phil sighs, adjusting his bucket hat. “Maybe just the one,” he replies, because Tommy has the shittiest luck ever. “But you’ll have to be the one to train it and shit, and get Wil on board.”
Techno scoffs. “Easy. He loves dogs, right?”
Phil chuckles at that. “I’m not so sure about that, mate.”
“So are you looking to buy it?” Dick asks. Tommy wishes he could bite him, could fucking rip him limb from limb, but he can’t. He physically can’t. Not with this stupid fucking collar, anyway.
Techno hums. “Maybe. But he’s kinda pathetic-lookin’, don’t you think, Phil?”
Who are you calling pathetic-looking, bitch? Tommy wants to snap at him, but he can’t speak in this form, and he can’t transform just to give a retort, no matter how much he wishes he could. That would just be a death sentence, or worse.
“Yeah, mate,” Phil replies. “All tiny and scrawny and shit.”
Tommy scowls, glaring at Phil as well. Why were they both being such assholes? Sure, to their knowledge he couldn’t understand them, but it’s still rude , innit?
“Exactly,” Techno agrees I don’t really think he’s worth that much.”
Dick’s eye twitches. “Excuse me? It’s a genuine direwolf! I’m offering you the deal of a lifetime here!”
“More like the scam of a lifetime,” Techno mutters. “600, max.”
Oh, this Techno guy is really trying to bargain for him? It’s— It’s disgusting, honestly, to listen to them debating how much he’s fucking worth, like he’s just some mindless animal, or a fucking slab of meat. He hates it.
Dick sputters. “600? For a direwolf and a state-of-the-art obedience collar? You must be out of your mind!”
Techno frowns. “Fine. 800.”
“1100.”
“900.”
“1050.”
“Deal,” Techno says.
Tommy wants to throw up.
He barely pays attention as they complete the transaction, Dick passing control of the collar’s enchantment onto both of them as soon as Techno passes over the money. Tommy has to fight to hold back a whine the entire time. He has two new masters now. Two new people to dictate his every move. Two new owners to beat him and starve him and control him.
“
Follow us
,” Techno says, and the words force Tommy’s feet into motion. He pads after them, legs stiff and sore, head low and tail tucked between his legs, out of the dimly lit store and into the unknown.