Suitable Wereiness (Hetalia)
Author: Ashynarr
Summary: An otherwise routine day working as a wildlife vet is interrupted by the arrival of the most unusual wolf captured by a poacher's trap. The oddities of the whole scenario just don't add up, especially when more and more odd occurrences start happening around the building, and Alfred's determined to get to the bottom of things.
Disclaimer: Hetalia's not mine.
Warning: 1pAme2pCan, werewolf!Alex, human AU
(Holy shit the second AmeCan fic from the IceCreamery I'm actually gonna expand on! What a shocker, yeah?)
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It would not be a shock to anyone who knew him that Alfred liked to consider himself a hero. It also wasn't a shock that that, combined with his deep affection for animals of all shapes and sizes, was what led him on the path to be a wildlife veterinarian.
Sure, it wasn't all dramatic last-minute rescues like in all those hospital dramas his older brother vehemently denied watching, but there was something satisfying with how unconditionally happy a lot of the animals brought in were, whether lost strays or injured wildlife. Not all of them were happy about check-ups - most people weren't either - but helping sick animals get better always gave him a warm fuzzy feeling in his chest.
He worked with several others at the small building just inside the local national park - Basch and Erzsebet, two of the rangers who patrolled regularly and alerted him to when his help was needed; Toris, who generally helped him out tending to the animals under their care when he wasn't busy with his other duties; and Yao, the resident ecologist who could usually be found in his office writing up his studies when he wasn't out with the rangers following the locals around to make sure the populations were staying stable.
During his six years working there he'd cared for everything from eagles to deer to bear cubs, and couldn't have been happier. In fact, when Toris scrambled into the clinic with news of a new temporary resident, he was just caring for the pair of wolf cubs who'd been separated from their pack by a run-in with a bear and almost starved to death before their rescue.
"An adult?" Alfred frowned lightly - they rarely brought in adult animals, who were much less willing to trust than their younger counterparts.
Toris nodded, tucking some stray hair back as he handed over a sheet. "They say he was caught in a bear trap, already out cold by the time they literally stumbled over him. We're hoping to help him recover and find out who was trying to poach in a protected area."
The young American frowned more, wishing that there weren't people out there who thought they were above the rules and could do such cruel things to animals who'd never done harm besides existing. "Right, I'll get the table ready for surgery, can you go grab the tetanus shot and the suture?"
"On it." With that the slighter man dashed back out the door, Alfred already grabbing a clean cloth to throw over the operating table before grabbing out two pairs of gloves, surgical masks, and a set of sterilized tools, along with a needle for blood sampling.
(They couldn't risk missing something that could leave the poor thing sick for months or even longer, after all.)
It wasn't ten minutes later that Toris and Alfred were ready, just in time for the rangers to haul in what was possibly largest wolf either had seen; even from there the two could see the injured leg, red still visible against the silver-grey fur. As soon as the other two left the room again the duo set to work, shaving the fur from around the wound so they could better clean the wound before applying some antibacterial ointment and stitching the holes shut. Only once the task was done did Alfred turn to check on the blood tests, which Toris had started just as he was finishing the stitches before leaving the American to finish up while he wrote out a report to send in on the incident.
At first glance everything seemed in order, though the longer he looked over the results the more he frowned. There was something - off - about a few of the results, and while normally that would indicate disease, these readings didn't at all match what he was used to seeing when that was the case.
Shaking his head and telling himself he would come back to it once he'd had a chance to clean up a bit and grab something to eat - he'd had to skip lunch for the emergency - he'd barely made it down the hall before running into Basch.
"Is he okay?" The ranger asked, relaxing when Alfred grinned and gave him a thumbs up.
"He'll be just fine." His smile faltered a little at the memory of the odd test results, shaking his head to get rid of the thoughts and turning back to his coworker only to notice something odd. "What's that on your hands?"
"Hmm?" The Swiss man looked down to look at the black stains on his hands with a frown. "I think they're just oil stains."
"You sure?" Alfred asked with a frown. "They look like you were holding something for a while."
"The last thing I was carrying was the trap we pulled the wolf from…"
Both of them came to a similar conclusion at the same time. "Shit, that's what was throwing me, there was something on the trap-"
"I'll go get it so we can find out what it is."
"Hurry up!" Alfred immediately turned back to return to his patient, figuring his best shot was the Internet at this point.
By the time Basch had returned with the trap - this time wearing gloves - the vet had narrowed it down to a likely candidate of silver nitrate - an absolutely odd answer, but the one that fit best with the stain, especially when it barely washed away with thorough scrubbing until they added ammonia to the mix.
"Why in the world would they use that, though? It's not even toxic at these levels or for short exposure..."
The ranger shrugged, reclaiming the trap with much more caution. "Maybe they mixed it up with another chemical?"
"Possibly," Alfred frowned in thought as the man left to report to Toris, looking back to the unconscious wolf. "Weird mistake for a poacher to make, though."
It was an irritant in some cases, sure, but surely not something capable of causing a near-allergic reaction, right?
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AN: So hey, haven't posted AmeCan stuff outside the drabble collections in a while, huh? But I guess as I find things I want to write out they can be moved from the drabble collection to my main page so that more people can see them. God I have so much stuff I wanna write you guys don't even know.
Anyways yeah this is a repost of the first chapter from the collection, edited a bit to catch the few mistakes I missed first time around. Second chapter should be showing up soon. I have no clue how long this will be, but I hope I can make an old trope feel new and interesting again. Enjoy!