Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/ works/5992117. Rating: Explicit Archive Warning: Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Rape/Non-Con, Underage Category: Gen Fandom: Fallout_4 Character: Silas_King_(Male_Sole_Survivor), Quinn_(Male_Sole_Survivor), Cait_ (Fallout) Additional Tags: Psychic_Wolves, Psychic_Wolves_For_Lupercalia, Abuse, Child_Abuse, Canonical_Child_Abuse, Cait_-_Freeform, cage_fighting, heat_-_Freeform, non-con, Cait's_life_was_horrible, Slavery, Sexual_Abuse, Cait_gets saved, Rescue, Drug_Use, Drug_Addiction, Underage_Prostitution, Really_it gets_better_at_the_end, Psychic_Bond Series: Part 4 of Like_Good_Soldiers Collections: The_Sun_in_a_Jar, Psychic_Wolves_for_Lupercalia Stats: Published: 2016-02-13 Words: 2997 ****** An Unknown Definition ****** by EgoDominusTuus Summary Cait has never known kindness, other than her wolf-sister, Fire. She's beginning to think that pain is truly all there is.     The only good thing in my life was my wolf-sister. I was nine when I first met her, and she was the only reason that I didn’t run into the night to completely forget what had just happened to me - my body still ached from it, my clothes were still stained from it… and I felt like it was a shame that I would never be able to wash off. It colored me scarlet, the same color as my hair.   My run down piece of shite town was only a bottle throw away, but I made a point to veer to the left, spilling instead into the ruins of a settlement that the raiders had burned a few weeks prior. My already skinned knees burned when I fell amongst the wreckage of an old house, and I felt hot tears streaking down my cheeks, mixing with the blood running from my scalp and making my hair stick to my face.   I knew that my parents were a bunch of fucked sociopaths, but I hadn't realized that they were thisfucked. As soon as I started bleeding like a 'real woman', they made plans. I didn't realize what was happening until a week after when they dropped me off at the gun store. The owner was a fat, balding man who smelled like tobacco and stank of sweat - and when he was finished with me, I smelled the same.   He shoved a fistful of caps into my ruined dress and told me to run home to my parents. I'd run to the ruins instead. I heaved, my stomach lurching to send bile screaming hot up my throat, and that was when I heard the whimper. It was soft at first, like a voice calling me up from the depths of my sorrow that threatened to keep me here for the molerats and mutant hounds to find. But it grew stronger, and I heard rustling in the ruined fireplace in front of me. I looked up, my eyes blurred with the liquid shame that traced through the dirt on my cheeks, and I saw her.   At first, I thought that she was an ember, a flame left alive in the fireplace. Then I saw moonlight glisten off of liquid black eyes, and I realized that the red was her pelt peeking through the soot that covered her slender frame. My mind wondered what kind of shite would leave a little girl like her behind, and I crawled forward, my arms held out.   She spilled forward, and the warmth of her tongue licking the blood and tears from my cheeks was a settling sensation of belonging that I'd never experienced before. The ragged wounds that burned inside of me seemed just a bit more tolerable as her tongue continued to work, soft against my skin, the sooty smell of her fur filling my head with peace. Her dark eyes urged me to get up, because staying here wasn't safe for a little girl that smelled like dirt, tears, and liquor.    "Come with me?"    Of course.    And she did. ---   I didn't understand what was happening when I started to get ill every morning, or why my parents seemed greedy at the way my stomach slowly began to pudge outward, a lie to the lack of nutrition that I was receiving. When they noticed my stomach, they gave me more than a meal every other day, though they never stopped the steady stream of men that came through the door, looking for the little girl with the red hair. The only difference was, now they brought their wolves, and my parents looked eagerly at my little Fire with the same expectancy that they stared at my waist.   I should have questioned it when they let me keep my wolf-sister without bitchin' and moanin' about another mouth to feed. I should have questioned it when they stopped punching me in the ribs for the Hell of it. I should have, but I didn't - I wasn't quite that jaded yet.   Fire became more and more anxious as the months passed, the small red bundled that I'd carried home all those years ago growing into a sweet girl that came up to my thigh.   When I woke up in the middle of the night, screaming from pain ripping through my torso, Fire was by my side, whimpering in sympathetic pain - and then my parents were there.   And then I understood why they'd been so excited all along. They ripped the tiny bundle of screaming newness from my arms before I even had time to work out the fact that it was my baby, and even Fire's snarling, snapping teeth couldn't keep them from dragging the babe from the room.   I never knew if my first child was a boy or a girl - I never saw their face. --- I was rounding my tenth birthday when Fire went into heat for the first time - the men had been frequenting the house more often, and I hadn't understood why. When my mother and father took me to an abandoned warehouse in town, Fire whimpering and whining in anxiety beside me, I didn't understand why. When the men's wolves began to circle my sister, I still didn't understand why.   When the men - the wolves brothers - began to circle me, they made me understand. ---   I had 7 children while I lived with my parents, and I never held one of them. My sweet Fire had more litters than I could keep count of, and her pups were yanked while still suckling at her tits. It was almost a blessing when my parents sold me into slavery at eighteen - almost, but not quite. The men who they sold me to had as much decorum as the men that circled me in my settlement. The difference was, Fire and I both decided that it was time for freedom... and for five years, we stole back the money that my owners made from selling my body. Finally, I had enough to buy our freedom... and once I had it, I realized that I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with it.   Except for one thing.   I remembered the way back to my home settlement like a distant memory, scattered with ragged glass and sprinkles of blood and broken innocence. I found the red door that so many men had come through, and when I opened it… my mother and father were sitting at the kitchen table. Fire’s low growl beside me told me that we were in perfect sync - we moved together.   I’d picked up a baseball bat along the road, and the way that it made bones splinter and blood spatter was just as satisfying to me as Fire’s teeth ripping into throats and tearing away flesh. Her nimble body made quick work, and between the two of us, we painted the peeling kitchen crimson.   Like my shame. Like that first blood that I could never get back. Like my hair. Like her fur.   I picked up what they had been huddled around at the table - a needle full of psycho. I shoved the dirty metal into my arm, and I never looked back. ---   I ran into Tommy Lonegan in the same way that I ran into most things - with bad luck and bad fortune. I’d been caught by a group of raiders not two weeks out of killing my parents. Strung out on psycho and trying to forget the things that battered me in my nightmares, the fuckers snuck up on me and Fire with ease. My poor sister’s senses were dulled by my own addictions. The fuckin’ ghoul came sidling out of the back of the group, handing over a bag of caps to buy my freedom - a contract. As long as I was living and breathing and capable, I belonged to him.   He was impressed by my fighting spirit, and he was more than a little pleased to take me to a place called the Combat Zone - in a few short weeks, I’d become his star attraction.   Raiders came from all around to watch a rough and tumble Irish girl with her Red Bitch smash the guts out of anyone who stepped into the ring. After the lights went down, the real show began - Tommy Lonegan made more caps than I could count from selling ringside seats to the raiders, those who had wolf- brothers and sisters alike… to watch anyone who could pay enough caps take me on in the ring in a completely different sense. Sometimes it was one man, sometimes it was a dozen. Tommy told me that I could fight back, but in the end… I had to let them win.   The only time I was given a break was when I was too pregnant to fight… and even then, there were raiders with a preference for mother’s milk.   There wasn’t enough psycho in the world to make me forget the way that their hands against my body felt - and it only got worse when Fire was in heat. Laying in the middle of the ring, my corset on the ground and my fingers playing with my breasts in an attempt to entice the circling crowd into fucking me, filling me… the things that I did… the things that I said…   Some things can never come clean, and my soul was too stained to see anymore.   The only thing that kept me kicking, breathing, that kept me from giving up was Fire by my side, her liquid black eyes full of sorrow… but begging me to last just one more day.   One more day. ---   Gunfire wasn’t a strange thing to hear in the Combat Zone, but even I could tell that something was wrong when Fire pulled her head up, teeth bloody from the fight we’d just had, to look at the entrance of our little club. I’d only crawled back into the ring a week ago - I’d dropped another babe whose face I’d never seen two weeks before that. Tommy thought two weeks was enough time for me to recover - I thought that his face would look great smashed on the concrete. I’d never seen the face of any of my children - never knew their cry, their eyes, the smell of their skin or the way that their warmth felt against my aching breasts. My parents had made sure of it, my slave owners had made sure of it, and Tommy seemed to be keen on the same practice. Anything for a few caps - that was his motto… and apparently my children sold for a price. I could only hope that they found a better home than I had - a life that I could only dream of.   A streak of white and gold spilled through my eyes, ripping me from my thoughts, and twin snarls told me that there were new wolves. More gunfire, and then… silence.   The Raiders, who had been Tommy’s perpetual stream of income at the Combat Zone, lay dead around the ring. In their place, two men stepped forward - one was handsome as the devil, with bright blue eyes and scars on his face that only added charm. The other was his short counterpart, green hues blazing with curiosity. Silas and Quinn, they called themselves. And Tommy handed them my contract without the bat of an eye, saying he didn’t have the time to feed me, since they’d taken out our clients. A low grin, and he told me that he’d found another, younger contract anyway. 26 was too fuckin’ old to draw in the same crowds. I was useless.    Fire whimpered low in her throat beside me, slipping forward and looking at the great white wolf that stood beside the man named Silas with inquisitive eyes. I could hear the soft echo of their conversation in my head, though the psycho made it hard for me to talk to my sister at times.   Safe?   Pack.   Home?   Come.   Liquid black eyes turned back to beg off the argument that I was about to give - I didn’t want my contract passed off - I didn’t want to belong to anyone anymore… but Fire was at my side, her paw on my leg, her wet nose pressing to my stomach.   Please?I could hear that word. It echoed through the haze of psycho and made me swallow my argument as it bubbled from my chest.   “Fine.” My answer was audible, but it was to my sister. The white wolf seemed to be speaking to her brother, and by the look that washed across his face, I wondered how much Fire had told his bitch. I didn’t need his pity, or his sympathy.   I just needed a way out, a hit of psycho, and for the memories that clung to me like tar to dissolve into the shadows. The shorter man offered me a charming smile. “Your sister’s gorgeous, like a fox.”   “I don’t know what the shite that is, and I don’t fucking care. If we’re going to go, let’s get going.” For some reason, my tone didn’t make him recoil.   I followed them sullenly out of the Combat Zone, and it was only the steady and stern eyes of the men’s bitch wolves that kept me from picking the caps straight out of their pockets and leaving. ---   It was when I felt Fire’s heat approaching that I realized my situation was something completely different than what I was used to. Silas and Quinn had been nothing but kind - they’d given me my own bunk, split their loot with me, and told me they were taking me to a place called Sanctuary Hills, where I could do whatever I pleased. Silas spoke of freedom like it was a word that I knew, but I didn’t have a feel for it to believe him. Besides, I’d learned long ago that believing in people was one way to get bitch slapped when you weren’t looking.   I could tell her heat was coming on, probably by sundown, and I was damn well intending to be out of their presence before it happened - I wasn’t going to be passed around and sold again. This Sanctuary Hills was only a few miles off, and I wasn’t going to be the new plaything there. It was as I was creeping out of camp that I heard a voice behind me.    “You don’t have to go, Cait. You’re safe here.” I turned, my eyes narrowing as they met with Silas’ blue hues.    “Yeah, right. I’ll be better off on me on, if you don’t mind me saying. I’d like to get out of here before Fire gives you boys the excuse you need to pass me around.” Something twitched through his eyes, but he shook his head.   “I won’t keep you here against your will, but if your sister’s going to go through a heat, you shouldn’t be out. This place is thick with raiders. There’s a bunker close by - at least let us take you there and keep them off of you while you go through it.” He paused, searching my face, “If that’s what you want.”   I was stunned into silence. He was lying - he had to be. No one had offered to let me have my peace during the heat. What I wanted at the time never coincided with what I wanted after. My body was tired, my mind was tired… and even Fire could understand that I needed a break.   But I couldn’t trust him.   Please? Beside me, I could hear her voice soft in my head again, before she leaned against my leg. Even through the desire that was slowly starting to boil beneath my skin, my sister could read my needs. Trust. Please?   I looked between liquid black and sky blue… and I felt myself cave. “Fine.” My answer was audible again, but this time, it was for the both of them. “But if you so much as lay a hand on me, I’ll smash your fucking face in, got that?”   Silas answered me with a soft nod of his head, and then he was calling to Quinn. We needed to get moving if we were going to make it to the bunker. ---   Three days later, and though Fire felt more unfilled than she had in her entire life… I was left unscathed. I’d camped out in a bunker, half pounding on the door to get out so that the raiders that Quinn and Silas constantly fought could get at me, and napping when Fire did the rest of the time. Psycho helped us both to get through it - took the edge off of the need and the want.I was shocked, though… shocked, because Silas King had kept his word. Sanctuary was only a quarter mile further, and I know that he could have made a pretty bag of caps off of my body between the raiders and his settlement.   But he didn’t. He’d brought me food and water in between the lulls, he and Quinn. He’d done nothing but keep me safe.   I didn’t know how to understand that. Kindness wasn’t a thing that I was used to. But it was there, and when Fire pressed the word trustsoft in my mind again, I let it trickle into the cracks of my soul. Maybe…   Maybe…   Trust… that word again, this time from a cool voice that I didn’t recognize. Icy blue eyes were Valeriya, Silas’ bitch. Fire trotted to her side, her head gently gliding along the larger females side. Pack.That soft voice again. It was like Fire had been waiting for Silas to prove himself before allowing us to be looped into their pack. I frowned at my sister, shaking my head to clear it from the pounding remnants of the psycho.    Trust. It was a word I didn’t know. Pack - like family. They both had unknown definitions. But for the first time… I was curious about the meaning.  Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed their work!