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The places where demons fight aren’t meant for anyone to come out alive. They’re not supposed to happen. The kinds of brutal, tearing each other to shreds brawls that go down in fight rings are deemed inhumane by even the species that owns them like property. But, so long as the owner keeps quiet enough, no one will stop them. No one will shut it down.
Sanemi’s body is covered in scars. He can hardly remember a time when it wasn’t. He hurts, hurts, hurts more often than not, but he’s gotten so used to it that the absence of pain is almost worse than its presence. Pain is comforting, in a way. It means he survived. It means he’s still alive.
Through willpower alone, he’s become one of the strongest demons his ring has ever seen. He doesn’t lose. When a demon is put in front of him, he tears it to shreds. There’s no room for mercy— if anything, wrecking them so bad they get chopped is kinder than letting them keep living the permanent hell that is their lives. No one really comes out ahead in these fights. You either win or get beat so bad your owners will make it worse when the fight is done because you dared to cost them money. You dared to be weak.
And Sanemi’s done just fine for himself like that. His body is a mess of scars and old wounds, but they’re all because he won. He never let anyone take him down. Sanemi doesn’t care if he lives or dies, not really, not when every waking moment is what it is, but for whatever reason, he can’t stop. Fighting until his inevitable end is the only thing that seems quite right.
It’s a fitting way of life for the beast he’s become.
But the same hair-trigger aggression that’s kept him alive for so long turns out to be his undoing as well. A week ago, a handler startled him. He’d lashed out on instinct... and taken a chunk out of the human’s arm with his claws as a result. And that’s the kind of shit that fucks a demon over, bad.
As in, this time, Sanemi’s facing what he’s pretty sure will be the last fight of his life. The guy he hurt was a friend of his owner, and that part means that Sanemi can either earn his worth back or get thrown away for good. They’ve pitted him against a demon nearly twice his size, a champion from another circuit that Sanemi’s heard of before. They’re the type who doesn’t leave enough of their opponents to be worth fixing.
Crouching across from the other demon, Sanemi knows, knows that this is where it’s going to end. Even he can’t beat this one. His owner hasn’t fed him in a while, he’s still beat to shit from his last fight, and yeah, he has no doubts that this is meant to be a show where he’s the main act.
The thought of dying doesn’t bother him as much as he thought it would. He’ll hurt again— not that it’ll be new—, then while he’s still too wrecked to think about it, the humans will chop his neck and end it all.
The starting whistle blows. He doesn’t plan to go down easy.
And he doesn’t. The fight doesn’t last long, but Sanemi puts everything he has into doing as much damage as possible before his ass gets put down. He fights like he used to, like when he was on his own before humans ever owned him. It doesn’t do him much good. The other guy is bigger and stronger, and while Sanemi gets a good few hits in, he’s on the ground before he knows it from a crushing hit to his upper back.
It definitely shatters some ribs. He can’t fucking breathe well enough to make himself get up and move, and that’s where it’s over.
The next few minutes hurt. Since this is where he’s supposed to die, no one breaks it up. The other demon kicks him around like he’s one of the chew toys used to rile up the real fighters, and Sanemi’s broken body won’t cooperate with biting back. He can’t make himself move.
By the time he’s seeing black spots in his vision and hacking up blood every time he tries to breathe, Sanemi knows that he’s done for. He won’t die from this much, no matter what the other demon does to him, but when the fight is finally called, he’ll be taken to be put down. Put out of his misery, maybe. When the next hit to his head leaves the world spinning, Sanemi starts to laugh — a hysterical, gurgling thing through the blood in his throat.
Eventually, they call the other demon off. By that point, he’s so beat to shit that twitching a few fingers is about the extent of what his body’s willing to do. The pain is an all-consuming throb, down through broken bones and deep gashes all over, but it hardly matters. Pain is familiar. Maybe dying will hurt worse. Maybe it’ll feel like nothing at all. He’s about to find out.
Someone drags him off while he’s still seeing too much black to tell where they’re going. There’s movement, the feeling of rough concrete scraping up his skin, then, a loud, sharp noise that cuts through everything.
He’s dropped. His head hits the ground hard enough that something cracks. The wailing sound continues. Through the way the world is spinning, Sanemi can make out flashing lights in the distance. Shouting. A whole lot of noise. He closes his eyes. All of that racket is making his throbbing head hurt worse. When someone comes to kill him, it’d better have stopped. He doesn’t want to die in the middle of this much racket.
Slowly, the black creeps over everything. The sound fades out.
. . .
When Sanemi opens his eyes, it’s to a whole lot of white. The bright, glaring kind that makes him wince and squint his eyes. The air smells like disinfectant and blood, and the next thing that sinks in is that he has absolutely no idea where the fuck he is. This isn’t the fighting ring.
Following that is the pain. A lot of it. When his nerves finally get the message, Sanemi groans. Fuck. His everything hurts to hell and back.
His vision slides into focus a little more, enough for him to make out the shining, silver grate of a cage in front of him. Then, the mint green and sterile white, checkerboard tile floor underneath. This is new.
There are people talking in the background, but Sanemi’s head hurts too bad for him to make out the words. He slowly becomes aware of the light scrape of bandages against his skin, tugging at things whenever he tries to shift around. One of his eyes is covered and his head is wrapped up tight. He’s lying on a crinkly, plastic-feeling sheet that smells like cleaning products, and there might be something trying to be soft underneath it.
When he fights to remember what happened before, it makes a little more sense. This place with fluorescent lights flickering overhead must be where they take demons to put them down. He’d assumed they’d just get dragged off behind a shed somewhere, but whatever. He could be wrong.
Sanemi rolls onto his side, ignoring the sharp sting and pull his wounds give when he moves. He inhales more of the weird, sterile smell in the air, then closes his eyes against the too-bright lights. Passing back out sounds good. No one’s around to bother him right now, so maybe he’ll be able to get some more sleep before they come to kill him.
. . .
The next time Sanemi wakes up, he’s moving. Someone who has to be built like a bear to do it is carrying him, and the next thing he knows, he’s being set down on something weirdly soft. Fabric. There’s enough space to flop over onto his side, so that’s what he does, whining at the stab of pain.
Then, there’s a different kind of moving, coupled with a rumbling that Sanemi’s pretty sure is a car. He’s in a car? That part doesn’t make any fucking sense, but as tired and achy as he is, Sanemi is all out of fucks to give. The killing part should have happened a while ago, though, and that’s where he’s starting to have questions. Are they keeping him alive just so he can suffer? Sanemi grumbles a low, discontented noise into the fabric next to his cheek. He’s too worn out for this. Maybe they’re not gonna kill him. Maybe he got sold to someone else and is being hauled off to be used as bait or a chew toy or whatever else the new owner feels like. That’d suck.
He lies there until the car comes to a stop. At that point, the door opens and the same weirdly strong person picks him up so gently it’s kind of creepy. There’s more moving, to which he doesn’t bother to open his eyes, and then, he’s being set down all over again, this time onto something so incredibly cushy and plush it makes him jolt. What the fuck is this ?
There are more voices. Again, Sanemi can’t quite make out what they’re saying, but one of them sounds... kind. Not like any of the shouting, cursing, rough-voiced men who hang around the fight rings.
Then, a door shuts, and one set of footsteps approaches him.
Sanemi is instantly on his guard. He growls under his breath when the person gets too close, trying to get his arms under him so he can sit up and tell whoever it is to fuck off. His body doesn’t cooperate, though, and he winds up just pushing himself onto his side to look up at—
A person who seems so utterly normal it’s weird. You look like the kind of average human Sanemi’s only caught glimpses of before. No scars, no old wounds, no glaring, cruel expression, or displeased scowl on your lips.
“Hi there. You waking up okay?” Your voice is gentle. Sanemi growls.
He wants to reply, but his throat feels like someone lined it with sandpaper, so he can’t muster up any more than a glare. So he has had his ownership transferred. Wherever he is now... well, something has to go wrong eventually. Sanemi’s eyes dart around to take in what kind of place he’s trapped in now, and what he finds is beyond confusing.
It’s a living room. An indoor, normal living room that doesn’t have any cages in it at all. Just this pile of blankets in the corner, padding an already carpeted floor. What the fuck? What kind of bizarre trick is this?
You get up and quickly come back with a glass of water from what he can assume is the kitchen. You hold it out to him and Sanemi stares with distrust. It’s probably drugged or something. It looks way too clean not to be some kind of trap. Even so, with his throat as parched as it is, Sanemi doesn’t give much of a fuck. He still feels like he got hit by a truck... and backed over a few times after that. What’s a little bit of poison now?
So he downs the water in four huge swallows. It’s cold and utter mercy on his throat and dry, sticky mouth. When it’s all down, he licks his lips a couple of times, passes the glass back to you, and finally finds his words.
“Where the fuck am I?” is the first thing out of his mouth. “You’re the one who owns me now, yeah? What’s with the cushy set up.”
Pain and a weird, hazy feeling over his head loosen Sanemi’s mouth enough that blunt things come spilling right out. Normally, he’d be a little more guarded, but that hardly seems to matter right now. What’s the worst you’ll do? Kill him? He was expecting that to happen soon anyway, so the threat has lost most of its bite. Even getting beat hardly seems scary.
“You’re in my house,” you explain patiently, not scolding him for his tone at all. There’s a moment where you look like you’re considering saying something or not, but then— “Where you came from doesn’t exist anymore. The fight ring got shut down, so you’re not going back. This is foster care where you’ll stay until you recover, then be assessed for a new home somewhere else. You’re not going back there. Ever.” Even though what you say makes logical sense, Sanemi is left blinking with utter confusion.
“They seriously fuckin’ think I’m gonna go to a home ?” he spits, leveling an unimpressed glare at you. “Just kill me now. It’d save some trouble.” A dry, low laugh wells up in Sanemi’s throat, but instead of getting angry, you just look vaguely sad. For some reason, he doesn’t like it.
“We’ll see,” you say. “For now, you’re just going to heal.”
“I’m fuckin’ fine—” he tries to bite back, but he also tries to move, and the stabbing pain that tears through his everything changes Sanemi’s mind a little about what he just said. It’s enough to make him curse and flinch.
“You’re not going to die, but you’re hurt enough and weak enough that healing is going to be slow, by demon standards. When they found you, you were more blood than unhurt skin,” you explain, “skull cracked in too. If you were human, you’d be dead.” It’s blunt (you’ve probably given up on anything otherwise), but that’s more tolerable than trying to sugar-coat it.
Sanemi grumbles something unhappy in response and lets himself drop back to the blankets. So he’s got people playing pity with him. Great.
And yet, as much as he wants to be dismissive of every part of this and wait for someone to turn around and start acting like they’re supposed to, Sanemi can’t quite make his heart stop pounding or his hands stop shaking. Being somewhere he’s not at all meant to be has him on guard and tense all over, and he gets the feeling that’s not going to change. He’s already hurt. If someone decided to beat the shit out of him, he’d have to just roll over and take it. And outside of the ring, the rules will be different.
The prospect of being turned into a house pet is vaguely terrifying. He doesn’t know what to do with a cushy life. He’ll fuck something up and get thrown out for sure— and being on the streets would be worse than where he came from. He should be sold off to somewhere nasty before anyone can waste the time trying to fix him. This nice shit just isn’t right.
You watch him for a while before getting up again. Sanemi tenses all over when you do, but again, you come back soon enough. This time, with a little bowl in your hands and a smile like you know something he doesn’t.
When the bowl is placed in front of him, Sanemi’s stomach does a vicious lurch. It’s meat. He hasn’t been fed in longer than he wants to think about, so looking at that is pure torture. His claws dig into the closest blanket, tearing thin lines into the cloth, and no matter how much he hates how pathetic it has to look, he can’t tear his eyes away from the red flesh in front of him. Fuck, fuck, fuck. So you are going to torture him.
“Eat,” you tell him instead. “I want you to heal, remember? You have to get some strength back if you’re going to heal.” You push the bowl a little closer to him, and Sanemi snarls. This isn’t fair. If he eats, he’ll owe you. You’ll have a reason to hurt him. He hasn’t done anything to earn it yet—
But hunger soon gets the better of common sense, and in no time at all, Sanemi snatches the bowl away from you and stuffs the first hunk into his mouth almost whole. He has to eat it before you take it away.
And— the meat turns out to be human. Real, proper meat, not the cheaper stuff from animals that demons are forced to live off of. Just the taste of it sends a blinding bolt of hunger and need through him. He’s swallowing before he can think about the consequences of doing so.
The rest of it goes down just as quickly. Desperately.
When it’s all in his gut, sitting heavy and full, Sanemi doesn’t know what to think at all. Looking down at himself now, he can see the reddened, fresh wounds covering his arms where the short-sleeved, medical-looking shirt on him doesn’t reach. He’s fucked. As weak as he is, getting thrown right back into a fight ring would be a death sentence. But getting set up in a real home wouldn’t be much better. He’d never fit in somewhere like this.
Licking over his teeth, Sanemi’s eyes dart around the living room all over again. You don’t seem to be ready to do anything that hurts, and... he’s full now. It’s been so long since that was a thing that it’s quickly making him drowsy. Or maybe that’s just the lingering pain and exhaustion left over.
You take the bowl. “I’ll let you rest a little,” you say. “There’s no one here but me, so don’t worry about anyone sneaking up on you.”
Sanemi huffs at that part, even though he knows you have a point.
When you’re gone, he’s left with a pile of way-too-soft blankets and no idea what to do. The only places he’s ever been put are concrete-floored cages and shacks set up in people’s backyards. Never indoors. Never with anything to pad the ground underneath him. His aching body is grateful for the cushioning, but Sanemi himself just wants to growl at your pity.
And yet, eventually, he’s too tired to care. If you’re gonna leave him somewhere so nice, he’ll take advantage of it for as long as it lasts.
Lying down on the softness, though, makes him shiver all over. It’s the nicest thing he’s felt— ever, probably. His palms drag over the fluffy fabric, and on some weird reflex, he rubs his cheek against the closest bit of it.
Sleep comes quickly.
. . .
When Sanemi wakes up, you’re in the room. His body jolts to attention instantly. Disoriented as he is, his mind scrabbles for a reason why he hasn’t been kicked awake yet, instead of allowed to float comfortably back to consciousness. The next thing that catches up to him is that he’s warm all over. Even though he hurts, there are soft things underneath him, sparing his joints from resting on bare ground. Every part of him is so lethargic that he can’t make himself move no matter how hard he tries. He’s weak.
Maybe a minute or two after you notice him awake and looking at you, you grab a few things off a side table next to your chair, get up, and come to kneel next to Sanemi’s little space in the corner. On reflex, his jaw clenches. His body is expecting a hit even though he doesn’t think one’s coming.
“Hi there. You were out for a while,” you say, as if that doesn’t instantly send a sharp bolt of panic deep into his gut. How long ?
“Fuck off,” is all he manages in return.
You just look amused. “Sure. Now, I’ve got some stuff here for your injuries. They’re still pretty nasty, so we can try to make things hurt a little less while you’re still healing. It’s just some cream, nothing major.”
Sanemi eyes the tube in your hand like it’s going to bite him. You aren’t serious, are you? No fucking way. “I don’t need that,” he growls.
“I know you don’t need it. I’m just asking if you’re okay with it.”
“The fuck’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t want you to hurt, so I’m offering to lessen the pain. That’s it. No catch, no trick. If you don’t believe the cream is safe, I’ll put some of it on myself too.” The look in your eyes is completely genuine... but that just makes Sanemi bristle even more. He doesn’t need that. You have to be trying to pull something by offering— the question is just what ?
And yet, as he eyes the tube, it’s tempting. The way he is now, just breathing makes his muscles pull in painful, uncomfortable ways. Even the brush of impossibly soft blankets against his skin hurts. Considering how beat to shit he knows he is, it seems about right. The idea of something that will take away some of the residual aches sounds too good to be true— unfair. A trap. No one’s ever wanted him to hurt less before. Not ever.
“Just your hand to start,” you venture. “Just to prove that it’s okay. We don’t have to go any further than you’re okay with. It’s up to you.”
And Sanemi is tired. Too tired to resist for long. With an unhappy grumble that might be consent, he tips his head away from you and holds one hand out in your direction, ignoring the way his shoulder protests.
You smile. You screw the cap off the tube and squeeze just a little bit of off-white goop onto your fingers. Sanemi takes in the scarred skin of his hand— bruised purple and black in places, scabbed over here and there with pink, healing places where the flesh was split open and torn apart.
The next thing he knows, you’re taking his hand in yours with a grip so gentle it hardly feels real. The light brush of your palm, though, is nothing compared to how tenderly you rub the cream into his knuckles, all the way down the tendons and thin bones in the back of his hand. A tingling, almost numb feeling follows in its wake. Sanemi almost flinches away, but— he realizes just as quickly that the weird sensation takes the hurt away with it.
You carefully, slowly rub the cream into every bruised, bloody part of his hand, until it’s tingling down to his fingertips. Until it’s the only part of his body that’s not in active pain. The difference is incredible.
When it’s done, you trace your touch over his knuckles once again. This time, seemingly just for the sake of touching him. “Does that feel okay? I can do more. It’s whatever you’re okay with.” Even as you speak, Sanemi is all but hypnotized by the light drag of contact you’re giving him.
It’s, he thinks, the first time a human’s touch hasn’t hurt.
“Feels fine,” he grumbles, not letting himself look at the point of contact any longer. When it comes to your second question, he hesitates. He wants it. The fact is sinking in much too quickly, but he shamefully does.
“Just the healing parts on your arm next,” you gently urge. “You can stop me whenever you want. It’s not bad, right? It’s okay?”
Sanemi has a distinct feeling that you’re trying to manipulate him. He’s too tired to care. If you’re this set on ‘helping’ him, whatever. With a huffy sigh, he holds out his arm, pointedly ignoring the soft look in your eyes when he does. And soon enough, your fingers are there too, rubbing cool cream into a long tear in his skin where the flesh is just starting to heal. That same strange feeling follows, and the lingering pain that Sanemi had hardly been aware of ebbs right along with it. That one place doesn’t hurt.
And you keep going. From his wrist up to where you have to roll his sleeve out of the way, you scoot in close and rub the cold stuff into his skin until every wound and bruise feels a little less awful. When he flexes his fingers, the sharp, tugging bolt of pain is nothing more than a little twinge.
When you’re done, with one more request for permission, you move on to his other hand. Again, again, you rub the cream into all of the hurting places while Sanemi watches every point of contact like something will go horrifically wrong at any second. It doesn’t. Nothing bad happens. You don’t yell at him or laugh because he’s trusting you. You just keep touching him.
All of that touching is quickly becoming a problem, though. Sanemi is shivering all over— and not just from how his skin is tingling. Your fingers are warm, warm, warm, and something about the gentle friction of them is making his breath come a little shorter. It doesn’t make sense. This isn’t even bad. He’s been through so, so much worse. Why is a little bit of contact leaving him so twitchy and tense? It’s wrong. He’s being weak, and yet—
“I’ll stop here,” you say when you’ve finished with his other arm. “I hope that feels better.” He’d hardly noticed you’d gone so far, but fuck, the relief of being able to move his arms without shooting pain is nice.
He doesn’t answer you. His throat feels too tight, and now that you’ve pulled away, the ghost of your touch won’t stop leaving goosebumps behind.
Your face does something way too tender. Sanemi almost flinches away from the look in your eyes, and he does flinch away when you reach for him. For a second, his body is sure that he’s going to be hit, but all that happens is that you run your hand through his hair.
It’s choking. A wave of sensation strangles him on its intensity, and Sanemi can only freeze up and take it. Is this what housepets get? Is it supposed to feel like this just to be petted? It’s awful .
And yet, he can’t pull away. For another long moment, you keep petting him. Sanemi’s eyes slip closed against his will, and a low rumble rises in his chest. No one’s ever, ever touched him like this. There’s no pain at all, just so much contact that there’s no room around it to think. He’s just pinned there, even though it’s nothing but a couple of fingers in his hair.
When you finally stop, he’s frozen. You say something that he doesn’t quite make out, and then you’re standing up and walking away.
He’s left there, too stunned to fucking think.
. . .
Eventually, Sanemi manages to get ahold of himself. Even though shame is eating him alive at this point, he huddles up in his blankets and tries to enjoy the feeling of some parts of him not hurting.
He knows he’s healing. He can feel his body knitting itself back together, and that means that soon enough, according to what you said, he’ll be judged for some kind of real home. As if that’s gonna go well. Something that’s spent its life surrounded by violence isn’t going to just roll over and adapt to something different. There’s no way he’ll ever fit in as a housepet. After all of this, he’s just going to be discarded, in the end.
Thinking about those kinds of things occupies him until you come back. Dreading the future is a good way to make time fly, apparently.
When you’re sitting by his blanket pile again, Sanemi doesn’t bother to look up. “You should just sell me off to another ring,” he mumbles. “I’m gonna get killed anyway, so at least make something off of it.”
“Why do you think you’re going to be killed?” you ask.
Sanemi bristles. “You said I was going to be ‘assessed’ for a new home. How do you think that’s going to end? I’ve never been anywhere but those rings, so you’re fuckin’ crazy if you think a housepet’s life’ll work out. Just spare everyone the trouble and send me back where I belong.”
“You’re doing fine,” you say gently, though. “The assessment started from the moment you got here, and you’re fine. Trauma responses are to be expected from your situation. You haven’t done anything bad. I mean... look.” Your hand goes to his hair again. Sanemi jolts all over. “You’re okay with me touching you. That’s a good sign. You’re perfectly receptive.”
A strange, hot feeling prickles behind Sanemi’s eyes. You’re petting him again, and it feels so disgustingly good he can’t find the words to snap back at you. And you keep doing it. You keep stroking his hair like—
When your fingers dip down to the nape of his neck, some awful, pitiful sound tears out of his throat. Sanemi feels his eyes flutter as his body slowly goes limp. Was he so starved for this that it does this much ? You’re hardly touching him, but the drag of your fingers over his skin makes his whole chest tie itself up in knots. And this is what you want. This is being good. Such a thing is a foreign concept, entirely. There was no ‘good’ at the fight ring. Just worthless and tough enough to stay alive for a while.
In what feels like no time at all, he’s trembling. All of the hurting all over his body feels pushed away by just the little point of contact of your fingers on his skin. And thinking that he could have this— that he could be put into a home where someone would repeat this moment if he behaves— it puts a downright pathetic need into his heart that he hates.
All too soon, you pull away. Sanemi actually tries to lean into it on some awful reflex. His whole body is tingling worse than when that pain-relief cream was on his arms. He can’t think straight at all.
“See?” you say pointedly. “That’s a good response. You’re not aggressive toward humans when they treat you decently.”
Sanemi wants to spit back some kind of retort, but his mouth isn’t working very well right now, and he doesn’t manage more than a choked little noise. After everything, after all of the fights and hurting and struggling to stay alive, is this what he gets, in the end? It hardly feels real.
“We’ll get you some food again soon. Need you to heal up, yeah? Just relax for now. I’ll be back in a little bit.” With one last sickeningly affectionate ruffle of his hair, you get up and leave him there in shock.
This can’t be happening.