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I wrote a little ficlet for my Caught in the Undertow Fox!John Verse. With thanks to @vulptexvenator for letting me steal her Fox!Rip to write about.

TW: Child abuse, mentioned but not described.

***

Caught in the Undertow

Rip and John met in a piece of woodland near Rip’s home. They were both foxes at the time, and Rip had been playing amongst the trees on his own quite happily. Rip was just past his tenth birthday and Mary was nearby, keeping an eye on him, but not so close that she had him in sight every single moment. Ten-year-old foxes were pretty good at looking after themselves. He had been following interesting smells, chasing the rats and rabbits, although not really hungry enough to actually follow through on any of his quarries. Then he picked up a scent which he’d never detected before. It was another fox-shifter, but not Mary or one of the other shifters that he knew.

Following another scent, probably Rip’s own, nose down, was a slightly sandier fox. He was clearly shocked to even see another fox, but Rip was mainly curious about who the newcomer was. He seemed to be roughly the same age, although perhaps not quite as long in the legs as Rip. The sandy fox was very interested and gave Rip a thorough sniff, as if he’d never come across this type of scent before. Fox shifters didn’t smell like other foxes, it made them easy to identify even when in fox form.

The two foxes played for a while, but the other fox seemed to need to leave. He led Rip back towards a pile of clothes and shifted back into his human form. Rip watched as the fox turned into a blond haired boy with brown eyes, who began to pull on trousers and t-shirt. Rip decided to shift himself because he needed to know who this other shifter was. The boy’s eyes were wide at the transformation.

“I thought I was the only one,” said John. “My Dad said I was a freak.”

And Rip shook his head. “You’re not a freak. You’re a fox shifter like me. There’s quite a few of us, actually.”

“Er, I’m John,” he said, and held out a tentative hand.

“Rip,” replied the other, shivering a little. It was so much warmer with fur.

“Will you be back? Here, I mean?”

Rip nodded. “It’s near my house. Same time tomorrow?”

John gave Rip one of the most dangerous grins he’d ever seen. “Tomorrow it is.” He finished putting on his clothes and dashed away, back towards human civilisation before Rip could say more.

And that was the start of a tentative friendship, which became more solid as time wore on. Rip was never quite sure why John hung out with him, especially after he’d answered all of John’s questions about being a fox shifter. He’d assumed that John only needed him for that, but John was still there even after he’d run out of questions to ask. They started visiting each other’s houses and it became clear that whilst John loved having another shifter around, he considered Rip to be his friend for no other reason than he liked him.

Rip didn’t think too much about John’s home life. John mentioned that he lived with his Dad and it took a while before Rip found out that his mother was dead and not just missing. John didn’t even remember her, he’d been a baby when she’d died. He was reluctant to talk about it anymore than that. It was obvious that his Dad didn’t have a lot of money. He worked as builder, John explained, but there wasn’t always a lot of work and anyway, his Dad had fallen out with almost anyone who’d employ him. John’s Dad didn’t seem to be big on housework or paying bills, so it was quite variable as to whether the house was clean, warm or even had light. John looked after himself a lot of the time, and he wore second hand clothes and got his school uniform from the lost property (when he bothered to turn up at all).

They knew him by name at the local corner shop, because he usually did the shopping and had since he was eight. He counted every penny carefully, and had a notebook where he wrote down exactly what the price of everything was. John even cooked for himself. Mostly he seemed to eat pasta with cheese or tomato sauce, or frequently, baked beans on toast, but there was a neighbour who occasionally cooked something for John and his dad. Apparently, she’d known his mum before she died and still worried about John.

Rip found it all very strange, but assumed that humans just lived this way. In his own house, Mary was very thorough about keeping the place tidy and providing varied and nutritious meals for a growing fox. She expected him to help with chores, but not to do them on his own, and he wasn’t allowed to use the stove at all. Rip always had clean clothes and never went hungry, and he knew that John couldn’t always say the same.

Rip did worry that John seemed quite accident prone. He often seemed to have bruises, although they faded rapidly. Shifters were fast healers, even in their human forms. John was always tripping up, hitting his head on cupboard doors or just not looking where he was going. Or at least, that was what John said, Rip never actually saw John do any of those things. He mentioned it to Mary and she got a worried look on her face.

But things continued on uneventfully, as they do in everyday life, until one Friday evening towards the end of March. It was late, probably after nine, and Rip was settling down to sleep when someone rang the bell. Mary answered the door and Rip could hear a voice that he recognised. It was John, and he sounded unhappy. Rip opened the door of his room and padded down the stairs, deciding that he could take Mary’s wrath in order to satisfy his curiosity.

“John…?”

Mary had brought John into the hall, and closed the door behind him. John was in a t-shirt, tatty jeans and a pair of trainers with no socks. It was freezing outside, and he was shivering. He was also cradling his arm.

“I didn’t know where else to go,” he said. “I couldn’t fix it, and it hurts.” Rip could see that he was trying to be brave, but there were tears in his eyes, that he was desperately blinking away.

“You did the right thing coming here, John. Come into the kitchen and let me take a look,” said Mary, gently. She manoeuvred John into the kitchen and sat him down on one of the wooden kitchen chairs. She carefully unfolded the arm, as John shivered. The boy bit down on his lip, and Rip could tell from the way his face paled that even touching his arm hurt. He was worried for his friend.

“John, this arm is broken,” said Mary, worriedly, and Rip could see that it had a strange bulge to it and somehow looked wrong. “How did you do this?”

“I fell,” said John, looking away from Mary.

Rip recognised the look that Mary was giving John. She didn’t like it when she was being lied to and he suspected that John was about to be in trouble. Then her expression changed and now Rip was wondering if Mary was actually about to give John a hug. She’d raised a good number of shifters over the years, and Rip was only her latest foster child. She probably already had a good idea of how this had happened.

“Rip, please can you get John a blanket,” said Mary, glancing up.

Rip nodded and went to find the blanket. He grabbed his own favourite from the end of his bed. He returned to find Mary talking quietly to John, and him nodding occasionally. He was scrubbing at his eyes with his good hand, but tears were still leaking out and down his cheeks.

“I brought the blanket,” said Rip, feeling like he was interrupting something.

“Thank you, Rip,” said Mary, and she helped him position the blanket around John’s shoulders. “So, this is what we’re going to do. I’m going to give John some medicine to stop his arm hurting, and that will make you sleepy, John. I need to set the arm so that it will heal properly, and once I’ve done that, you’ll be best shifting into your fox. When you’ve shifted, I’ll give you more medicine, put a splint on the leg, and then you’ll sleep for a few hours, probably the whole night. Rip, John will need your bed tonight, he’s too sore to share at the moment. I’ll make a bed up for you on the sofa.”

“Right, of course,” said Rip. Normally when John stayed over, they’d just share Rip’s bed, one at each end, or curled up together as foxes. Rip felt terrible that John was hurt so badly that sharing the bed would be uncomfortable for him.

Mary went to work. She boiled milk and added a powder from a jar that she kept on the top shelf in one of the kitchen cupboards, one of the cupboards that Rip wasn’t tall enough to reach yet. Rip thought he detected a touch of something magical to it. Human painkillers didn’t tend to work so well on shifters, so it was normal to visit the local witch to get something for headaches or more serious wounds. Mary always kept a well-stocked first aid cupboard, not that Rip had ever needed anything from it himself. His wounds had always been minor and his ability to heal took care of them. Mary occasionally mentioned that previous foster children had fallen out of trees and broken bones. Something that serious could take an entire day to heal.

She poured half of the warm milk into a cup and the other into a bowl, and placed both on a tray. Then she helped John upstairs and into Rip’s bedroom, sitting him on the bed. Rip brought the tray up behind them, being careful not to spill any of the liquid.

John was too quiet. Normally his friend was loud, and arrogant, always talking, but tonight he seemed to be using all his strength just not to break down. Rip didn’t like seeing him like this. It felt wrong, and it made him concerned for his friend.

Mary handed John the cup of milk. “Drink all of it, please.”

He accepted the cup with his good arm, but then hesitated.

“It’ll be okay,” said Rip. “Mum knows what she’s doing. She’s looked after a lot of kids.”

John looked up at Rip and seemed to accept that. His voice was small and hardly audible, but he spoke. “Okay,” and then he drank the contents of the mug.

“Good boy,” said Mary, taking back the empty mug, “now lie down for me. We’ll give that a moment to work. Tell me when you start to feel sleepy, and then it should be working.”

John toed off his trainers, the usual battered pair that he wore when not in school uniform. Mary gave him an unobtrusive hand to lie down, guiding him back onto the pillows. Rip could see that his friend’s eyes were already getting heavy, and he blinked up at them worriedly.

“Sleepy,” he murmured.

Mary ran hand over his hair, affectionately. “This is still going to hurt, but it won’t be as bad as without the medicine. Rip, go and get me the first aid kit from the bathroom. I’ll need the bandages from it.”

Rip once again left Mary with John, and he saw the way that Mary began to carefully probe the break, assessing how it would need to be reduced. He heard John bite down on a moan, but left to get the requested first aid kit. He knew where it was kept.

He returned to find John wiping at his eyes again and Mary holding the broken arm. It seemed to be at a much better angle now, and without the strange bump under the skin.

“John, you were very brave,” said Mary, soothingly. “You don’t have to hide your tears from me. You’re allowed to cry when things hurt or you’re sad. Now, you need to shift for me, and I know you’re tired and sore, but this is the best thing to help you heal right now.”

Rip had never seen John cry, he’d never seen him even upset really. Rip was just beginning to understand that maybe his friend had been hiding how he felt in a number of circumstances, and that things must have been truly dire for him to come here tonight. John was always so defiant and apparently indestructible that seeing him with tears in his eyes was just terrible, and it made Rip feel like he would cry too. He was doing his best not to though - he didn’t want to distract Mary from dealing with John, because he needed her more right now.

John shook his head. “I can’t.”

“Yes, you can,” replied Mary, sternly. “You’re a shifter, it comes naturally to all of us, but in times of stress it can be more difficult. Your body knows what to do, you just have to let it remember.” She stroked a hand down John’s cheek, trying to comfort the boy. “You’re safe here, John. Rip and I will take care of you.”

John gave Mary a small nod, and a look that contained just a little of his normal determination. Then John shifted, more slowly than usual, and when the fox appeared, he whimpered as his head poked through John’s t-shirt.

“The rest of the milk, please, Rip,” said Mary, as she stroked the fox’s head. Rip understood now. They had needed John to shift before he could have the rest of the medicine, because he would probably fall asleep once he’d drunk it.

“Right, yes,” said Rip. Once John was asleep, then they could splint the leg so that it would heal in the right position as he slept. He picked up the bowl, and put it down beside the fox’s nose, holding it so that John wouldn’t spill it as he drank.

“You need to drink this, John,” said Mary. John should still understand, recently transformed as he was. It would be a while before his fox nature took over.

The fox didn’t need much prodding, and lapped at the milk in the bowl until it was all gone. Rip put the bowl back on the tray, and turned back to his friend. The fox whined again, making small unhappy noises.

“Can I do anything else?” asked Rip. He wanted to be of help. Specifically, he wanted to help John, but he was worried anything he did would hurt him more, and the fox sounded so sad.

“Stroke him, Rip,” said Mary, “it’ll make him feel better while I splint his leg.”

Rip nodded, and Mary made room for him to kneel beside her while she worked. The fox seemed to frown at Rip, but he let his friend stroke his head, even turning into the strokes a little, and the sad noises ceased. The fox closed his eyes, and his breathing evened out and deepened.

Mary finished her work. “He’ll sleep for a good long while now, and hopefully be without pain. I’ll need to remove the splint before he can shift back, but I’ll stay here and watch him tonight. Let’s get these clothes off him and then we can get you settled downstairs.”

Rip helped his foster mother remove the human clothes from John, folding them up ready to be worn again in the morning. His mother tutted at the hole in the t-shirt he’d been wearing and at the fraying edges of the jeans, but at least they were clean. Then Mary made up a bed on the sofa for Rip. Under other circumstances Rip would have thought that it was quite cosy, but tonight he was just worried about John.

“How did he break his arm?” asked Rip, as Mary tucked him into bed. He was too old to be tucked in really, but it felt necessary this evening.

Mary had never lied to her son, not even when it came to the hard questions that she would have preferred not to answer, and she was not about to start now. She pulled up a chair beside her son’s makeshift bed, apparently understanding that he would have other questions.

“His father drank too much and was angry, and he hit him,” said Mary. “His father was wrong to do that, and I don’t think it’s the first time that it’s happened. If John was a human then his bruises would be visible for longer and I think someone would have noticed what his father was doing, but because he heals quickly, his father has got away with it until now.”

“But you’re going to do something about it and stop him?” asked Rip.

“I’m going to try,” said Mary. “But it won’t be easy. There are no medical records of John being hurt and the humans need evidence before they’ll take a child away from their parent.”

“What about the shifter council?” asked Rip, knowing that shifters acknowledged other authorities too.

Mary shook her head. “John is a shifter, but his father is a human. They won’t interfere in human affairs. I’ll just have to talk to John’s father and hope that he sees sense.”

“He could come and live here, with us,” suggested Rip. “If his father hits him, maybe he doesn’t want him.”

“We’ll see,” said Mary, and from her tone, Rip already knew that John would probably not be coming to live with them. “I’ll do what I can, but I am not making any promises. Perhaps all we can do is offer John a place to come when he needs it.”

Rip suddenly felt the need to hug his mother. He occasionally forgot how lucky he was that he’d been found by her and taken in, but not today. His mother kissed him goodnight and then went upstairs to sit with John.

Rip took a while to fall asleep, but awoke early and padded upstairs. He put his head around the door of his room, and saw Mary asleep in the armchair in the corner under a blanket. Whenever he was ill, Mary always slept in the chair in his room. John was awake, but still in his fox form. He tried to get up and move forwards towards Rip when he saw him, but the leg splint was in the way. Rip sat down on the bed and John crawled over to him with some difficulty. He put his head on Rip’s leg, and looked up at his friend.

“Feeling better?” he asked, as he put a hand on the fox’s head and scratched John behind the ears.

John pushed his head into Rip’s stomach, and waved the splinted leg awkwardly.

“I know, it’s getting in the way,” said Rip. “I could wake up Mum and see if she thinks you’re healed enough for it to come off?”

The fox squeaked at Rip in what sounded like an affirmative noise, and gave him a rather pitiful look.

“Mum?” Rip asked, and his foster mother stirred, and opened her eyes. Even asleep she had acute hearing.

“Oh, I’m sorry, you’re both awake,” said Mary, rubbing sleep from her eyes. “How is our patient?”

“I think he’s feeling better,” said Rip, looking down at the decidedly more lively fox.

“The leg should be healed by now. Let’s get that splint off and then we can all have some breakfast,” said Mary, folding up her blanket.

She moved across to the bed, and didn’t comment on the fact that John was pretty much on Rip’s lap. Instead she ruffled his fur, and set about removing the leg splint. She gently probed the area where the bone had been broken before removing it completely.

“It’s healed nicely,” Mary declared, undoing the rest of the bandages that held the splint in place. “You’re going to be absolutely fine.”

John stretched his legs experimentally, and sat up on the bed, testing whether he could put weight on his front paws. Everything seemed to be fine, from what Rip could tell, and John butted his head into Rip’s shoulder, playfully.

“Human forms for breakfast, please,” said Mary, collecting up the bandages. “You can play after you’ve eaten.”

Rip huffed a little at that. He’d hoped to shift and play games with John as their foxes, but he was hungry and he expected John would be too. Healing was tiring when it was a big injury.

“I’ll go and get things ready while John shifts and you dress,” said Mary.

Rip nodded, and went to his chest of drawers to find fresh clothes and start getting dressed. Mary left them to it and he heard her going downstairs. The fox made a noise that sounded a little disappointed. John was often reluctant to shift; his Dad hated him being his fox, but once he’d transformed he was unenthusiastic about returning to human form. Rip had noted this before about his friend.

Rip turned back to him. “It’s okay. We’ll be foxes together after breakfast. You need to shift now or we’ll both be in trouble.”

The fox sighed and then buried itself under the duvet. Rip rolled his eyes, as he removed his pyjama top and grabbed a t-shirt from the drawer.

“Stop it! Aren’t you hungry?”

The fox’s head appeared and gave a short yip noise. That was definitely a question and Rip was fairly certain that he knew what had been asked.

“Yes, I’m pretty sure that she’ll make us pancakes if we ask nicely.”

That elicited some rather happier noises, and the fox disappeared under the duvet again. This time a blond human head appeared from under the covers. Rip picked up John’s clothes and tossed them at him.

John groaned but moved and started to dress. “I am starving.”

“After last night, I’m not surprised,” said Rip.

John said nothing to that, which was unusual because John always had a smart comeback. Rip finished getting dressed, and when he turned around John had also pulled on his jeans and t-shirt.

“You didn’t have any socks on,” said Rip, and handed John a pair from his drawer.

“Thanks,” said John.

“Or a coat…” said Rip. “You must have left in a hurry.”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” said John. “I just needed someone to fix my arm.”

“After your Dad broke it,” said Rip, crossly.

“He just drinks too much and gets angry sometimes,” said John, with a shrug. “It’s my fault.”

Rip frowned. “How is it your fault? You’re the one who had the broken arm.”

“I’m a shifter. I should have been born a human,” said John, as if that was completely obvious. He looked down. “I’m a freak.”

“You’re not a freak,” said Rip. “Not unless I am too, and Mary, and all the other shifters.”

“To him I am. And usually there’s a reason. Last night I wanted to watch something on TV, but I should have remembered that there was football on, and I didn’t ask, and well, I deserved it.”

“John, you don’t deserve to be hurt, and you certainly don’t deserve a broken arm,” said Rip, trying desperately to make John see his point.

John shook his head. “You don’t understand, he doesn’t mean to do it. He’s always sorry afterwards. He just misses my mum a lot and it’s hard for him raising me on his own.”

“Mary never hits me and she’s raising me on her own,” said Rip.

“Just drop it, okay. I said I don’t want to talk about it,” replied John, and finished putting his socks on. “Come on, I want those pancakes.”

Rip let out a sigh, but followed his friend down the stairs. At least he could offer his friend somewhere to come when things were bad, and a good breakfast. It was all forgotten anyway when they came down to discover that Mary was a step ahead of them and pancakes were already being made. And breakfast was followed by fox Hide and Seek around the house, as Rip did his best to prove to John once again that there was no where he could hide that his fox nose couldn’t find.

John did have to go home eventually, but he went with the knowledge that Rip’s house was always open to him. He wasn’t alone anymore. He always had somewhere to go if he needed it.

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