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The first night, he had stayed in the town, had hung around outside the bars and brothels he was so familiar with, had drifted aimlessly through the dirty streets, cold and afraid and too scared to stray too far. He hadn’t known where to go, what to do. He’d never left the town before, never left even the area around the tavern, the slums which were filthy and cruel but the only place he could remember calling home.
What do I do? What do I do?
The question had pounded through him like pain.
He’d belonged to John since before he could remember. He’d known no other life than the one he’d been living, meager and degrading as it was.
To be thrown out of it felt like being murdered.
He didn’t cry, that night. He’d cried that evening, before John got rid of him, had sobbed that he was sorry, had begged to be allowed to earn back his favor. But he didn’t cry that night, after it was all over, after John was finished hitting him and had thrown him out alongside the trash.
He just wandered in circles like a dead leaf, tossed around by the wind and the street’s inclinations, in shock, in pain, in silence.
People recognized him from the tavern, knew what he was. It was a small neighborhood. Some had scowled at him and told him to move on, looking at him like he was something revolting they had stepped in accidentally. Some had catcalled him, jeering drunkenly from the stoops they sat on.
They all thought they knew why he was here, wandering the streets in the middle of the night. John sent him out, sometimes, when there weren’t enough customers at the tavern, to make money on the streets.
It would have been smart to try to ply his trade again, to try to make some money now that he had nowhere to go.
He didn’t, that night. He was paralyzed by confusion.
He’d had sex twice anyway, because when he hadn’t responded to the catcalls two men at separate times had come over and grabbed him. He hadn’t resisted, and had gotten fucked behind the brothel and behind the blacksmith’s house. The rough walls had felt like agony against his ripped back, but he hadn’t made a sound.
One of the men had thrown a few coins at him after he was finished. The other hadn’t.
As morning neared, he’d seen Alistair, which had sent a bolt of fear so strong through him that it had shocked him out of his stupor. He’d hid, terrified, behind the public well, had waited until the man was out of sight.
It had occurred to him then what was waiting for him if Alistair found him, if he realized John had decided he didn’t need him anymore. The man had been threatening to buy Dean for years, had promised him he’d get him one day, would take him home and lock him up and do things to him that he couldn’t do in the evenings he rented Dean at the tavern.
Dean couldn’t begin to think of how Alistair could hurt him worse than the ways he already had, but he had no doubt that the man’s imagination was not as limited as Dean’s. He knew that if Alistair caught him, he’d be begging for a death that wouldn’t be granted within a matter of hours.
Minutes after the man was gone, Dean had run out of the town as fast as his legs could carry him, with nothing but the clothes on his back and the few coins that had been tossed in his direction.
******
The second night after John throws him out, he lies down by the side of the road and cries until the sun comes up. Then he gets up again and keeps walking, having slept not a wink and having no destination in mind.
He thinks he is probably going to die.
******
He eats snow to quench his thirst, but there is no food. It’s hard to keep walking because he is so tired, and so cold. It’s hard to keep walking because he’s not going anywhere.
*******
The third night, he is far enough away from the town to really be afraid. It’s so dark that he can’t see his hand in front of his face. He hears wolves howling and he starts crying again, because he doesn’t want them to eat him. He’s alone. He’s so afraid, and small, and he feels like the prey he is. He tries to cry quietly so the things hiding in the dark don’t hear him.
*******
The fourth day he finds some small wild potatoes growing in the dirt off the road. He eats them raw until he vomits, then eats some more, slower this time. He picks up the few that are left over and carries them with him. He tries to eat them slowly over the next few days, but it feels like no time at all until they are gone.
*******
Sometimes he passes people traveling, but they ignore him.
*******
It gets colder. The snow that had been melting slowly stops melting and turns to ice. One night, it snows again, and Dean wakes with a fine coating of it on him and toes he can’t feel. He spends the morning trying to rub sensation back into them, wondering if he has the nerve to cut them off if he can’t. He wonders which kills you faster, sepsis or gangrene.
Eventually his toes go from sensationless to excruciating, and Dean knows he will live, at least for now. He spends another hour curled up, frozen with pain, before he forces himself to get up and keep moving.
******
There are kind people in the world. There aren’t many, but Dean knows they exist, because he’s met a handful in his life. Sam is kind, was always kind to him, would sneak him bread and hugs and words of sympathy that Dean starved for more than food. Dean doesn’t think there’s anyone in the world as kind and as good as Sam, but a few times he’s met people similar.
There was a nice lady working at the brothel down the street who tutted at him when he was sent out, and sometimes warned him to stay away from the rougher customers. There was a teenage girl who worked at the bakery who would pretend not to see him when he went through their trash instead of shooing him away. There was a homeless man who came to the tavern sometimes for a cup of ale, who would smile at Dean and talk to him like he was normal instead of a slut.
Once, Dean had met a kind man who’d been just passing through, who’d come to their tavern to stay the night. Dean had been maybe seven, and had offered himself to the man as he ate, because finding customers to fuck him was part of his job. The man had looked at him in disgust, and Dean had withered. But the man hadn’t hit him or yelled at him. He’d yelled at John instead, told him he should be ashamed of himself, had said that Dean didn’t deserve to be treated the way he was being treated. He’d tried to buy Dean, and Dean had started crying, because he hadn’t wanted to leave Sam. John didn’t let the man buy him though, had punched him so hard he’d been rendered unconscious, and had dragged his limp body outside.
Dean had been afraid he’d been killed, but in the morning his body was gone and Dean saw footsteps in the mud, so he must have been alright.
John had beat him badly that evening, angry at him for what the man had said, but Dean hadn’t minded. Or, he had, but he was so grateful to have heard the words “he doesn’t deserve this” that he’d have willingly suffered much worse in exchange for hearing them again. They weren’t true, Dean knew, but he liked to hear them anyway.
On the ninth day after John throws him out, Dean meets another kind person. An older lady driving a mule-drawn cart spots him walking on the side of the road, and she stops to speak to him. She asks him if he’s alright, which Dean doesn’t know how to answer. She gives him two apples and a piece of dry liver, and he offers her the coins he’s still carrying though he doesn’t know what they’re worth. She doesn’t take them. She offers to let Dean come with her, but she’s going back to the town he’d come from, so Dean has to say no.
She tells him that the road splits in a few miles, and tells him to go left. The path going right will lead to another town sooner, but it has bandits guarding it who won’t hesitate to kill him if he has nothing they can steal.
Dean thanks her, and they part ways, and a day later he sees the split and goes right. If he doesn’t get to a town soon, he’s going to die.
********
He does encounter bandits. The first pair spot him from where they are sitting next to a fire, and stand. Dean freezes, and they make eye contact with one another. Dean watches them take him in, watches them process that he has nothing at all for them. He watches them consider whether they are going to kill him.
They don’t. Eventually they turn away, and sit back down, deciding to ignore him instead.
Dean scurries past them as fast as he can.
*******
The next group of bandits don’t ignore him. They take his handful of coin and laugh at how little it is, and then they rape him, and then they pretend they’re going to kill him and laugh again when he cries, and then they push him away and Dean runs as fast as he can even though even walking hurts.
*****
He walks in the forest after that instead of the road, trying to keep the path close enough that he doesn’t lose it. He doesn’t like walking in the forest. It’s harder, and there is more snow, and he’s scared he’s going to get attacked by an animal. But the bandits he passes don’t spot him, though he can hear them drinking and talking. And eventually he stops passing bandits, and he risks walking on the road again.
*****
On the eleventh day, he sees a small house, of some farmers who must grow their own food. Dean tries to steal some turnips from their trash, but the woman who lives there spots him and screams at him, and he bolts without the food, so scared of being hurt again.
He’s too afraid to try to steal again when he passes the other houses, though his hunger starts to get so bad that Dean can tell he’s dying.
*****
It starts snowing, and Dean starts crying, because he knows he is going to freeze to death.
******
He keeps walking because if he sits down he’s not going to get up again.
******
He sees a tavern.
He thinks maybe he is imagining it, but it doesn’t disappear or waver as he gets closer to it.
He’s so cold. The numbness that had been present in his heart since John got rid of him seems to have finally seeped into the rest of his body. He hugs himself for warmth, but his arms are as cold as the snow and it does nothing to help him at all.
The inn doesn’t look like John’s inn. It’s pretty, and nice to look at. Nice to be in, probably.
Light spills from the windows, bright against the darkness, shining through the haze of the falling snow like a beacon. Light comes from fire. Fire is warm.
He approaches the tavern though he doesn’t belong in it, like a moth approaches a flame.
Maybe he can hide. Maybe no one will see him. Maybe he can get some men to fuck him and he will make enough money to buy some food.
Maybe.
The inn looks like an inn from a children’s story.
That’s not the kind of story he belongs in.
He forces the door open and forces himself inside anyway, because it’s warm inside, and Dean would very much like to be warm. If even for just a moment before he is noticed and thrown out once again.