Disclaimer: I do not claim ownership over Wolf's Rain, any cannon characters who may make an appearance or the Wolf's Rain universe. Any characters who are created in this story are strictly figments created for this story.
Notes: This story takes place after the conclusion of the anime Wolf's Rain and in the modern suburban time period.
I took out the songs for this chapter to get it up faster.
Chapter Six
Break Stuff
"Daddy, I have something for you," Caleb mumbled, clutching the folded sheet of crinkled drawing paper to his chest. If Jay hadn't liked his father's day present, then maybe he might want something like what Cailean had made for him.
"What the fuck do you mean foreclosed? I made the payment!" Jay snarled into the phone that he held pressed against his ear. "No! No, you listen to me! I know I put the money in on time."
"Dad, I-" Caleb held out the drawing, but Jay paced past him, reaching into the cabinet. He set a clay dish on the counter, soft enough not to harm it, and dropped a couple of slices of bread onto it as he rummaged through the cupboard in search of the peanut butter.
"What do you mean laundered bills?" he growled, slamming the plastic jar down. Yet the container caught the edge of the clay plate, sending it flipping over the wood edge of the countertop. It hit the floor, and Caleb watched as it shattered, splintering shards of clay that spread around his feet, skittering to a stop at the carpet of the hallway. "God damn it! Caleb, don't move. I'll get a broom. Yah, this is a bad time. I'll call you back."
Heedless to Jay's warning Caleb turned and fled the kitchen.
"Caleb! I told you to- Ah, forget it," he snapped. Jay dropped the phone onto the table, kneeling to pick up a shard where his son's tiny, fragmented fingerprints lingered in the clay. With a sigh he swept the pieces into the garbage, certain that it could not be fixed, and set back to the task of making lunch for his kids.
Igor Tamaska pushed the empty swing again and watched it rock forward in its leisurely, graceful arch before sliding back towards his waiting hands. It creaked with the motion, ringing eerily as the nuts and bolts that just barely held it together cried out with its use.
"What are you doing?" Igor pushed the swing again before turning towards the speaker. He was large for his age, dotted with freckles on his white face. A shock of brown hair stuck up from the crown of his head, despite the fact that he reached up more than once in the following silence to press it back down.
"Playing," Igor stated, pausing just long enough to push the vacant swing again. "Wanna play, too?" The boy puffed out his cheeks thoughtfully, his lower lip squelching out much farther than necessary for the simple question.
"Nah, I'll watch," he said as he settled down against the metal post where the swing set was imbedded in the dirt. "Those seats hurt my bum."
"You don't sit in the seat, silly."
"Isn't that what you do when you swing?"
"Only if you want to do it like everyone else," Igor replied. The swing arched back and he gave it another shove. "You don't want to be like everyone else, do you?" The boy's mouth scrunched, mirroring the image of the face he had made before.
"No, I 'spose I don't," he grumbled.
"You're a smart boy," Igor said, and for the first time in so long he grinned back at another child. But the looked appeared somehow frightful on him—feral. With his wild black hair and startling blue eyes it completed the image of the untamed boy named Igor. Still, the child smiled at the compliment, blinking away the startled expression that had initially taken over.
"I am?"
"Of course you are. I know it's hard to think anything of ourselves here." Igor let the swing continue its momentum, this time without his aid. "The caretaker's aren't mean, I guess, but they don't think anything of us, either. We have nothing if not each other, right?" The boy looked up at Igor, his brown eyes curious of where the other orphan was taking this conversation, or perhaps where he came up with such things. The other kids had always said that Igor was strange, and so in the five years he had shared sleeping quarters with him he had not taken the opportunity to actually speak to the other boy. "What's your name?" Igor asked, crouching down in front of him.
"Jeric."
"Come on, let's give it a try, shall we?" Igor stood up, offering a hand to Jeric. The other boy hesitated, but it would certainly be nice to have a friend after being alone for so long. After a moment's hesitation he took Igor's hand, and the boy helped him up. Pulling him over, he gestured to the still swinging seat. It had been beginning to lose momentum, but as it neared Jeric he shoved it hard, sending it jerking wildly forward, like the convulsions of a dying animal.
"This in't any fun," Jeric mumbled. Igor tilted his head, not quite understanding what he meant.
"But it isn't about fun, Jeric."
"What's it about, then?" Igor pouted.
"It's about dedication."
The dusty little house seemed the same since the last time he had visited it, smelling strongly of wood and earth. A small spider made homage in one corner of the high beamed ceiling to a spot on its web where it had caught a struggling fly. Thriving—everything in the little town seemed to thrive, from what he had seen, one way or another. But that was when the dissimilarities began to creep in—this wasn't the same home he had been taken to the first time around. There was far more dust in this house, and the grimy smell of blood clung to the sheets of the cot he lay on.
"So you're awake, then?" Cailean craned his neck to find the source of the sound, but the angle of the cot prevented a good look. With a grunt, he pushed himself up, struggling until he leaned against the wall the cot was pushed against. The speaker was an elderly man, whose gray hair was cut short and wore a neatly trimmed moustache.
"Does every man in this town have an animal growing on his lip?" Cailean grumbled, seating himself cross-legged as he offered a helpless smile. His arm was stiff, trapped as it was in a sling and the pain in his shoulder was something he would definitely feel again in the morning. The man sat back in a wooden chair that creaked as he folded his leg over his knee thoughtfully. He leaned his elbow on a desk filled with papers and took a bite out of a banana he must have been eating with his lunch. Now that he could get a better look, the room was small, occupied by no more than a cabinet, the desk the man sat at, and Cailean's cot. A door on the far wall must have led to the next room, and it was slanted open enough to let a tabby cat slip through it, tail waving in the air over its back.
"You're an interesting character, you are," the old man said, his voice a little worn with age, but still clear and distinctly professional.
"How so?" Cailean asked, his curiosity piqued in spite of himself. He glanced down at his arm and lifted it, attempting to pull it out of the sling.
"I wouldn't do that if I were you. There was a lot of damage to the nerves. I'm not sure you'll ever have dexterity in that hand again." Cailean cringed, settling his arm back into the sling and glancing up. A cold sweat began to bead between his shoulder blades at the news.
"What about painting?" The man turned towards him, sliding around in his chair as he furrowed his brow.
"You don't look like much of a painter to me," he grumbled.
"What do I look like?" Cailean asked. The man scoffed, twisting his moustache as he wrinkled his nose in disgust.
"You look like a bad person. I've seen a lot of bad people in my days. Mostly city folk like yourself. I've seen 'em, tended 'em, saved their damn worthless lives. And you look like one of 'em." Cailean rocked back in his seat, raising his eyebrows at his latest companion. The silence stretched on uncomfortably, enunciated by the gentle ticking of a wall clock somewhere in the next room.
"So you're a Doctor, then?" Cailean asked.
"Damned right I'm a doctor, you-"
"Thank you."
"What?" It was the doctor's turn to be alarmed by the turn of events. His bushy grey eyebrows quirked upward, surprised by the response.
"I just thanked you," Cailean replied, situating himself into a more comfortable position on the bed. "Seeing as how I'm in your house and not dead and you're a conveniently placed doctor, I'm guessing you're the one who fixed this." He shrugged his shoulder, attempting to enunciate his meaning, but winced as he felt the sting of the freshly tended area.
"My name's Mockic. Doctor Mockic," the man huffed, turning back towards the array of papers strewn across his desk. Cailean glanced out the window, surprised to see the trees looming close by the home. It seemed strange that a plant was anywhere near a household structure. Time stretched on for eons, making him feel ancient before he finally chose to speak.
"I paint scenery," Cailean said. Dr. Mockic grunted and turned back towards him. His eyes were crinkled with confusion, but they lingered with an inquisitive nature. "I do, I paint scenery. But my scenery has always been the city, so it's always ugly. I'm not sure I'm even capable of painting anything beautiful anymore." Mockic twitched his moustache thoughtfully and reached up to scratch at his chin.
"You know what's really beautiful?"
"What?"
"Self-sufficiency," the doctor replied. Cailean's brow furrowed in consternation, working deep lines between his dark brows. The doctor shuffled a few papers on his desk and dropped his banana peel into the trash before he turned back towards him. "That's what this town is, don'tcha know? We make our own goods: our own food, our own fabrics, our furniture-"
"Where's this going?" Cailean murmured, unable to contain his impatience any longer. Dr. Mockic quirked a brow, a curious smile touching his face as he peered over the rims of his reading glasses at the lad he had saved. He reached towards a flat silver pan that sat on one corner of his desk, pinched something in between his fingers, and lifted a wiry piece of tangled black thread off of a pile of similar strands.
"-even our own thread." He dropped the piece back onto the silver tray and tapped his pen against his chin. "Of course, I'd recognize my work anywhere. How is it that you got that wound?"
"I got sh-"
"Shot? Yes, I thought so." The doctor turned in his seat, redirecting his attention back to the job he had been completing at the desk. "You're free to move around the town, but I suggest you don't overdo it."
"Can I go? Home, I mean?" The doctor made a noise in the back of his throat and didn't look up. Cailean struggled off of the cot, careful as he could manage not to jostle his arm.
"The mayor is deciding if you should be punished," Dr. Mockic replied, scratching some notes down onto the paper. Cailean ambled towards the door, pausing to brush his hands over the wood frame and releasing the scent it held. It didn't seem to matter where he was—his future would always rest in the hands of another.
"Fine. I'll be back in a bit."
"It's funny," Dr. Mockic mumbled to himself. It was loud enough for Cailean to catch, and he paused in the doorway, his hand lingering on the wooden frame.
"What is?"
"How you're seldom right when you judge someone by the way they look."
It wasn't as simple as a drive-by attack—the Kadzaits rarely left the city if they could help it. Somehow the Fifteens had anticipated it; somehow they had thought to set it up. But how had they known?
Everyone knew of the other's hideouts, but no one simply marched into a nest of snakes. Code dictated that whatever fights took place, they took place outside of the den. After all, they couldn't really afford to have the police led straight to their homes, could they? It just didn't work that way.
It was a tiny bar nestled in the center of district five before Igor Tamaska scared away the owner and took custody of it to serve its purpose as the hideout of the Fifteens. Squat, insignificant, and as filthy gray as the rest of the city, its faded blue lettering had peeled away with time, leaving the grimy black outlines to stand out vividly against the stucco.
Tattered, torn—a madman wearing his bandages with fury, Cailean did not hesitate to push through the bar door and into the midst of his enemies. They were startled, nonetheless, by his appearance, much more so when his jaws closed on the throat of the nearest Fifteen and tore through the paper-thin skin and iron-corded tendons until his fangs found the artery he sought.
"No guns!" Cailean heard the shout as though through the tunnel. While the bellows and cries and flurries of movement broke out amongst the Fifteens, that voice stood out above the rest, like the whistle of the train coming down the tracks as it headed for him.
The men moved as though through molasses, scrambling across furniture, reaching for something to defend themselves with. Amongst them, Igor did not move—instead he watched, a curious sort of fascination in his blue eyes. But it wasn't Igor that Cailean focused on. For there, standing right at his side, was a man that he never expected to see in the Fifteen lair beside the Kadzait's most hated enemies.
A stool crashed down on Cailean's back, and he staggered under the weight of it. When he didn't fall immediately it landed a second time, shattering into pieces, and the room began to close in on itself, slipping staggeringly into perpetual darkness.
"Don't hurt him. He's just a kid…"
"For now…"
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