Chapter Text
Chris had always been told that beyond the Black River lived ruthless bloodsuckers who would not look twice at the fact that he was the son of the elder of a pack of werewolves. They were said to be able to hypnotize with a single glance, taking complete control of a person's will and body, and then sink their fangs into their throats, draining them of every last drop of blood. He had always been told, "It is better to die than to fall into their vile, bloodthirsty clutches, where they know nothing but the thirst for blood."
But it's so interesting for a young werewolf, and in his free time, when no one can see what he's doing, Redfield likes to climb up to the thickest branch of an old willow tree, stare intently at the opposite bank, and wait for a long time, imagining how those terrifying eyes will stare back at him from the depths of the lush greenery, and how he will be able to withstand their power, because the essence of verbena, which he consumes daily, will protect him from the deadly vampire's enchantment.
However, all the confidence in the protective tincture is reflected in the sparkles in his eyes, as Chris's gaze is finally captured by someone else's eyes on the other side, like sharp fangs piercing through the young man's fingers, which are frantically trying to stay attached to the branch, either due to the excitement and increasing sweating in his hands, or from the force of the compulsion that is relentlessly breaking through the protective barrier of the herbs. Or perhaps he is just imagining things.
Life flashed before the werewolf in bright, gnawed-away images, as his body fell from a height of several meters and was swallowed by the icy spring water, which uncompromisingly entered his mouth and lungs. Fate had always been kind to him, but today it seemed to be testing his strength, which was fading with each passing second.
The cub remembers only the piercing cold, the surgical needles that run across his skin, the flash of hellish pain in his thigh and arm, the temperature of the key water, and the vigorous compressions that push through his ribs to reach his heart, which had betrayed its owner and was too quiet to function properly and pump his soul through his body.
Then there was nothing.
The bright room, which resembles a hospital ward, is unusually spacious and clean, unlike anything Chris has seen on the werewolf side, and it instills an irrational fear that gradually progresses in his fragile mind. He begins to search for bite marks, feeling himself from head to toe. When his hands reach his thigh, he feels a neat, palm-length scar, and his touch causes Redfield's features to contort in unbearable pain. Fortunately, he has not been bitten. The werewolf had thought that he would wake up hanging from dirty hooks in a torture chamber, watching his blood accumulate in a large wine barrel that would not be able to satisfy even the weakest, most unattractive bloodsucker. Now, blinded by the sterility and comfort of his bed, he knew that once he regained his strength, he would be disemboweled like an unknown animal, and his hideous carcass would be displayed as a testament to the superiority of the vampire race over the werewolves.
Thoughts of immediate escape break through the veil of sleep, but they are immediately shattered by the pain of the steel handcuffs that firmly encircle one of his wrists. His muscles ache as if they have been beaten with a blunt object, turning them into tenderloins. His gaze wanders from his legs, barely covered by a thin hospital gown, to the door. He waits for it to open and for a nurse to arrive to treat his stitched wound. But the nurse doesn't come — a man in a lab coat enters the room, startling Chris with his pale skin color and dark glasses, which Redfield has never seen on anyone in his life. He adjusts the straw of his short, back-combed hair in an involuntary gesture, and gives the frightened werewolf an appraising look.
— You're awake, — the doctor approaches the patient's bed, while Chris's heartbeat moves to his eardrums. "How are you feeling?"
The cub swallows when the man, still waiting for an answer, takes out a bean-shaped iron bowl from the locker and puts gauze, tweezers, and a small bottle of green glass liquid into it.
"When I ask you, it means I want to get an answer," the glasses hide some of his emotions, but Chris can feel the doctor getting angry on his skin.
"My leg hurts." And cold.
The werewolf's hot forehead shivers at the touch of a cool hand checking his temperature.
"You have a fever," the doctor says, rummaging through the medical cabinets again to find a cure.
Chris drinks the syrup from the spoon, which leaves a bitter aftertaste on his tongue. This man in the robe didn't look too hostile, and it was unlikely that he would give the young man poisonous wolfsbane instead of medicine. Redfield wasn't entirely sure, but he assumed that the man was also a vampire.
"I'll treat the wound," the man said in a reassuring voice, and the young man nodded obediently, watching the man's gloved hands with keen interest.
A long hiss escapes Redfield's mouth as a cloth soaked in carbolic acid solution is wiped wide from the center to the periphery, taking care not to touch the sutured gauze that has been meticulously embedded into the patient's flesh. The used materials, stained with pinkish blood, are discarded into a tray using tweezers, while the young wolf squints and wrinkles its nose at the antiseptic's concentrated гуашь-like scent.
"What's your name?" The guy doesn't think ignoring is the best option when a pair of tweezers hangs over his injured leg, looking sharp and menacing in the stranger's hands.
"Chris," the werewolf's voice is too hoarse, and he clears his throat, staring intently at his doctor.
"You're not very talkative, Chris-s," the man hisses, opening his mouth wide enough for a moment for Redfield to see the vampire's fangs, which are missing. "If you're interested," the doctor says, placing his hand under Redfield's knee and lifting his injured leg, causing the doctor's shirt to slide slightly higher, "you were found on the beach with a branch in your thigh, unable to breathe. It's fortunate that I removed the branch and stitched you up while you were unconscious, otherwise you might have contracted an infection."
Although Chris was born into a noble family, he had never seen a surgeon as neat and well-mannered as this man with his impenetrable glasses and strange dark lenses. Every move he made was as precise as the beat of a heart, as if he had been the one to draw the first lines of the human body, giving his blueprints to God. Even though the bandage had already been applied, Redfield still felt uncomfortable from the stranger's touch, even though it was professional. In the boy's memory, they were treated by middle-aged women who could barely tell a broken bone from a small bruise. Perhaps it was because Chris's family couldn't afford good doctors, as they struggled to feed their nine mouths, with the wolf cub, who had yet to experience his first transformation, being one of the youngest.
"Why are you helping me?" The expression on his pale face changes, his thin lips, compressed into a non—absorbable thread, faintly curl into a thoughtful smile, which makes Chris feel ashamed of his question.
— This is my duty, — no, the werewolf does not begin to trust the man in the bathrobe unconditionally, but the seed of trust still seeps inside, because he wants to believe the doctor more than ever.
The doctor leaves, promising to return soon, but as he goes, Chris's clear mind begins to fade away as his body temperature rises and a fever sweats him with a chilling chill. Through the haze of illness, he barely notices the pain in his chest muscles, which remain from the direct massage of his heart and remind him with every breath that he could have died. Curiosity is a deadly sin.
While Redfield is in a feverish half-sleep, he sees a white angel without wings hovering over him, cooling his forehead with wet bandages and taking his temperature with a thermometer under his arm. At times, Chris imagines that the angel has taken off its glasses, looking at him with icy eyes and sighing wearily as it wipes the dark lenses. However, when the patient regains consciousness, the doctor's eyes are always hidden, leaving the werewolf uncertain about the distinction between reality and dreams.
It takes a week. It takes a week for Chris to be able to look at the man tending to him without a haze in his eyes, to raise his eyes without a sharp throbbing in his head, and to breathe deeply without feeling a tug in his muscles. Surprisingly, aside from the doctor, Redfield didn't see anyone else entering his room, even to remove the dirty bandages or bring him the rich chicken broth that the doctor carefully fed him. The man did all the work himself, as if intentionally keeping others away from the boy. Over the course of the week, the handcuffs had somehow disappeared from the young man's wrists. Now, as he awoke in a state of alertness, Chris attempted to stand up, but with his right thigh still healing, it proved challenging. His eyes were fixed on the door, but what awaited him beyond it? With his injured leg, he doubted he could escape, but all he could do was wait for the door to open and reveal his savior. Chris was impatient.
As he limped to the doorknob, which of course didn't budge, Redfield began to recall all the tales and legends his ancestors had told about the county beyond the Black River. About how ruthless they were, how they drank the blood of stolen infants on holidays, and how they didn't care about anyone else's life. About how their count, the most feared and ferocious vampire alive, enjoyed tracking down werewolves and impaling their heads on stakes around the family mansion. Maybe this doctor will take pity on him and not let him fall into the Count's clutches. That was all Chris could hope for.
The doctor returns with a tray and finds Chris sitting and examining his stitches. The man senses the wolf's apprehension from the moment he enters, places the breakfast on the table by the bed, and takes a seat across from the patient, spreading his legs wide and looking at him questioningly, causing Chris to feel uncomfortable and unsure of where to put his hands.
"Go on, ask," the man's fingers twirl a gold ring with a blue stone on his finger, while his eyes, hidden behind his glasses, study the boy as he struggles to form words.
Everything about the man seemed to have hardened since the first time Redfield had accepted his help, as if the black lenses had become a couple of millimeters thicker, the wrinkles deeper, and the curve of his lips sharper. Now, Redfield sensed a hidden threat in the man's relaxed posture and the casual way he greeted him. Although the wound was healing, Chris's time confined to this small room was bound to come to an end. At least, that was his hope.
“My leg seems to be getting better,” the wolf cub began from afar, deliberately delaying the most important question for him.
The doctor, after a couple of seconds of scrutinizing Chris, rises from his seat, in one step approaching the guy so that his knee touches someone else’s bent, making Redfield open his mouth in amazement, barely noticeably squeezing the sheet in his five fingers.
"Yes, your thigh is indeed healing quickly," the man's index finger slowly glides over the young man's skin, scratching it a few inches away from the healing wound, while the boy's eyes fix on the man's inscrutable face, marred by a menacing grin. "So, what did you want to ask?"
"I wanted to ask," the boy's dark eyelashes flutter with excitement, hiding his eyes, which were filled with fear of receiving a negative answer, "if you would allow me to leave."
It seems like an eternity passes before Redfield feels the cool pads of thin fingers on his chin, which slide up, lifting the werewolf's face to get a better look at the concerned gaze of his blue eyes. The guy wants to look away, but he can't, thinking it's hypnotism. However, it's just the strange, unsettling proximity of the doctor and the hand preventing him from turning away.
"No, I won't allow it, Chris-s," the snake-like hissing "s" sends chills down his limbs, and he feels like the doctor is about to remove his glasses and turn him into a statue like Medusa. "They're not in a hurry to find you. In fact, they've already found a corpse and are probably rehearsing your funeral," he tactfully omits the fact that he personally ensured that the dismembered body resembled Chris.
Redfield's tightly compressed lips twitch slightly, but the guy does not show tears, looking at the man with the remnants of stubborn pride. Now they will not look for him, but only mourn, throwing two flowers on an empty grave once a year. Chris is released from the humiliating grip, finally saying that he needs to eat.
"Will you give me to the Count?" The question slips hopelessly out of his mouth, forcing the doctor, who is already standing at the entrance, to turn around.
"What are you talking about?"
"He's going to drink all my blood, and then he's going to rip my head off, right?" Chris wants to know what awaits him, and the adrenaline in his system unwinds a young tongue.
The guy doesn't know what scares him more: the booming laughter of a man in a bathrobe or his own nasty tremor from an unexpected sound. He puts his hand on the doorknob, giving the werewolf a condescending grin.
"It's too tasteless for him," these words inspire a bit of illusory hope that Chris will stay alive. — Don't be bored, young wolf, I'll be back soon.
The young wolf.
Redfield shuddered at this special treatment, which exposed the nature of the werewolf. How much do they know about them? How could he use it, when he wasn't even a full-fledged wolf yet? And while his older brothers had undergone their first transformation at the age of fifteen or sixteen, Chris had been waiting and hoping for his own transformation every full moon since he was seventeen. It was terrible to feel weak and incomplete.
His stomach growled with hunger, and the tray of porridge and bread moved closer. He waited for the next decision of his fate, thinking about the fact that he had not done anything important in his life — he had not succeeded in anything, and he had not learned anything. He had disgusting thoughts about the fact that he was a burden to his family. Perhaps his death would make their situation a little easier. Redfield lay in thought for several hours, feeling the acid eating away at his insides, before the heavy door opened again, revealing the familiar figure.