Chapter Text
The night’s not comforting for him, especially not when he’s being hunted down by hounds that bark after him as he runs, weaving around whatever rocks and holes he can. That doesn’t save him from his own lack of situational awareness as a lake catches him by the foot and pulls him into its strong current, knocking him into icy water which sends him downstream, bashing him against multiple lake rocks that don’t provide enough of a hold on him as he gets pushed further and further along.
He stuggles, but he can’t pull himself out. Even when his hands clench onto soggy grass buried in mud, all it serves to do is pull the grass from its roots. It’s impossible for him to see as he’s thrown upside down by the waves, deafening him as he feels the current turn into more of a suction. His panic worsens, but it gets him nowhere as he is thrown down a waterfall.
He screams, he shouldn’t because they’ll hear him- but it escapes him as he falls.
The sound of his impact on the water below the final thing he hears in short before its cut off by a eerie dark silence.
Oliver was one for long walks when he had time, or was in the mood. Turns out today he had both time and the mood. There wasn’t really anywhere he hadn’t explored before on the island MANTRA rested on, but that didn’t bother him, sometimes familiarity with the land made him feel like there was less of a rush to find what was hidden, though, even then he always had the feeling he was missing something - despite knowing the area like the back of his hand.
The trees he walked between rustled in the wind, their dense green leaves letting through only the slightest glimmers of light which were cast onto the stone path below that cut through the grass. It was nice to hear birds chirping too as they flew above him, often times landing in those very leaves above his head. The ocean wasn’t far now, that was what he was really here for.
The islands edge that overlooked the most pristine ocean waters. The path didn’t continue for long, soon escaping the cooling shade and ending back up in the warm sunlight. Though as he stepped out onto grass, ready to look for a spot to sit to overlook the stone beach below, he stilled. There was something lying there on the beach, curled up in soiled off-white.
What was that? Was it clothing someone had dumped from the main island? Was it an animal? Had someone escaped through the ocean— no. They wouldn’t run from MANTRA. They wouldn’t want too, they loved MANTRA. They loved him.
Shaking off the possible thoughts that it could be dead, if it was once alive, he steps down the small wooden steps to the beach, slow and careful as to not slip. Whatever it was within his sights they were lucky they weren’t hidden within the high tides.
As oliver gets closer he notices the shape, the subtle movements. It’s a human.
Their outfit has straps, covered in old looking blood. Their soggy wet long brown hair (technically only medium length, but it was longer than olivers, so it was long either way.) only slightly blows in the wind, almost as dense as the tree leaves. He notices the small blonde pieces in it as he gets closer, squatting down beside the body to watch the very subtle motions of their breathing.
Whoever it was, they seemed to be an escapee of a kind. They didn’t look like an ordinary prisoner, so they must be from a mental hospital. That would explain the outfit, possibly the blood.
Hesitantly, not out of fear - more so out of simple curiosity in dragging the situation out, he turns them over. They have a few scrapes and bruises on their face which has a bandaged wrapped around and stapled to their forehead, blood seeping through it. Their hands have scrapes too, a few minor bruises and some blood stains. Their feet however seem the most damaged; soaked in blood and cut almost all over.
So they must have ran from something. Ran through rough terrain.
Oliver hums as he puts a semi curled finger under his lip as he looks the person over.
They were on his island. They were his responsibility in a way…yet, not really. He could throw them out into the ocean and watch the waves swallow them and spit them out elsewhere- the ocean wouldnt care if they had oxygen in their lungs or if their head had been dunked underwater a little too long- it’d spit them out either way. But something told him that this was important. They were important. This had happened for a reason.
Whatever they were running from must have been a large threat to them for them to not even care about their cut up feet and keep running despite the immense pain. With a huff oliver pushes himself to stand.
“Come on then. Up you get.” He says to the unconscious person as he pulls them up and flops them over his shoulder. Once he’s got a full hold of them he starts to make his way up the wooden stairs and back through the forest. His peaceful walk would have to wait for another day.
Pushing the doors to the warehouse-mansion open with his foot as the scanners recognise his face he makes his way in. Men and women rushing to him and greeting him, welcoming him back. There were a few that ignored the existence of the person soaking his shoulder, yet the rest seemed curious. Poking at the person, patting him, picking at his outfit.
“Stop that.” He tells them and they all obey his order, looking to him, the mass apologising as he pulls the man off his shoulder to hold him close. “Mira, Take them to the nurse. Jacob, get a plate of light food with water and take it to the nurse as-well. I will be there shortly, I must change.” He bosses them about, and just like before, they obey. The brown haired woman takes the unconscious body away , a small group of other women helping her.
Oliver takes that time to head off up the main and most gorgeous gold plated stairs and into the hallway ,then his secondary room.
The secondary room he owns is simple in design, with the most basic furniture and items needed for a bedroom.
Shuffling off his red-ish pink blazer he drops it onto the bed, not actually all that worried with drying it first, he had plenty of other blazers. With a soft sigh he unbuttons his shirt, dropping that onto the bed along with the blazer. The wardrobe is beside the bed, when undone it shows a large array of the same exact blazer and shirt, one of each is picked out and laid down on the clear part of the bed, the wardrobe being closed as his left hand rubs at his right shoulder which remains damp despite the clothing that had been atop it, that had been between the skin and the unconscious weight.
He casts a glance to the mirror and stops for a moment, keeping his hand on his shoulder as he peers at his own tattooed chest, marred by a very small wound on his right side which still stung to this day- never healing. That damn wolf… - shaking his head he rubs his shoulder and turns away from his reflection, picking up the shirt and pulling it off the clothing hanger to put it on once the damp feeling had dissipated and button it up, the blazer soon joining it.
With himself redressed in dry clothes he picks up the rotary dial phone the bedside table and dials in a number, one of which has him greeted by a mans voice.
“Good afternoon!”
“Barry, do you mind collecting and washing my clothes from my room? I would bring them to you, but I’m in quite the hurry.”
“Sure thing! Up the gold stairs?”
“Yes. Thank you, they are on my bed, return them there.” He hangs up the phone and makes his way down those very same gold stairs mentioned. He takes a left and goes through the door into a room, takes another door into a hallway which has him walking straight down until he’s greeted with the nurses rooms door. He knocks and pushes it open before stepping in and closing it behind himself.
The nurse notices who has entered and smiles , her hands holding a small unrolling bandage as she kneels beside the unconscious persons feet, one of which was wrapped up already, the other of which were cleaned of blood and stitched up, yet not wrapped yet. Clearly he had interrupted that, maybe he should apologise.
“Sorry for the interruption, Marie. I hope I’m not being a hassle.” He remains by the door as he says that, watching her wrap the bandage around the foot carefully.
“Oh not at all, Oliver!” She chimes, that’s enough for him to make his way over to the two, standing beside the resting as he looks down at them. “He is stable , other than his wounds which will be stable soon. He is lucky that you bought him into the warmth, he was at risk of hypothermia!”
“He… well I couldn’t just let someone die on my beach, could I?” Oliver chuckles and marie nods, beaming.
“You’re too much of a gentleman for that, my lord!”
Oliver feels himself smirk at that, holding a lower chuckle back in his throat. “Do you think he will wake up soon? Have you given him a dose of mantranol?”
“No dose yet,I was bandaging him up and stitching the wounds” she’s already onto getting the syringe from the table and opening a new box of mantranol, pulling out a single small vial and stabbing the needle into it. The syringe is full of the dose and the vial is cast aside into a rubbish bin as she jabs the sleeping man in the arm, injecting the pink liquid into his elbow. It doesn’t cause him to wake, yet his body flinches in reaction. “There we go!” She smiles at oliver. “All dosed up!”
“Is there a way to wake him? I have an idea in mind of where he should rest. We shouldn’t keep him in here, we don’t know enough.”
“Are you sure that you would like to move him into the main building if that’s the case?”
Oliver squints ever so slightly at her, it’s not a glare, but it must feel like one as she starts to stutter and apologise, like they always do. It makes his heart flutter.
“I didn’t mean it like that!” She all but cries. “I-I just-“
“I know, I know, don’t fret.” olivers cold squint melts into a smile that must feel sincere. “But, I think I know the perfect place. Do you mind?” He goes to pick up the man, she shakes hear head.
“Not at all! He is all yours!” She smiles as she pulls a curtain to access another patient. A member who had a cast around their leg.
“Thank you.” He picks him up in a different hold this time, both arms holding under him, either at his shoulders or under his knees. As he makes his way out of the nurses room he almost bumps into another member of the group, a stream of blood running from their nose. They apologise, he nods and lets them pass as he too passes into the main room from the hallway.
He makes his way to that second bedroom, finding his clothing that was once on the bed missing. Barry had been then, good. He places the man down on the top end of the bed ,managing ot pull the covers out from under him to then drape over him before kneeling down to take in more of the mans face.
It was similar, very similar, almost identical to his own. The feather, the dots under they eye, the mole near the mouth, the scar over the nose. It was identical, except for the forehead tattoo under the bandage and more signs of age around the eyes. Identical…so this was one of them? How did he end up here, because he certainly wasn’t from the main island.
With a curious sound MANTRAs leader stands, stretching and making his way to the seat opposite the bed, sitting into the arm chair and crossing his leg over the other as he leans back and picks up a small journal and pen.
The sleeping man doesn’t take much longer to wake up surprisingly. However, when he does wake the first thing that catches olivers attention is the two different coloured eyes that catch the setting suns light. One brown, the other blue. Now that, that was noteworthy. Oliver puts down the journal once he spots those eyes , but he doesnt move.
Instead he lets the man wake up slowly. He looks around curiously, but surprisingly he doesnt panic, more interested in pulling the sheets closer to keep warmer. Oliver decides to introduce himself with that.
“You’re awake, good afternoon.” Oliver tried the normal approach, and they turn to him. They look- confused, but not genuinely confused, just rather out of it. “My name is Oliver. You’re currently in my room after I rescued you and patched your wounds. Do you have a name you can recall?” The man blinks and nods, yet doesn’t speak it. “Then what is it?”
“Oliv—-“
“Oli. Nice to meet you, oli.”
“Oli…” they cast their eyes down slightly before looking back up at what would now be their lord, but he didn’t need to tell him that yet.
“That’s what you said.” Oliver smiles sweetly at them and they don’t react by much, they just blink at him. “Do you remember anything important?”
“Important?”
“What do you remember last?” Well, oli was already irritating oliver, but he had to show him patience. If he didn’t then he would lose a rather valuable asset, that and it would have been a waste of his resources. “Anything at all.”
“The dogs…I was running from the dogs…I was - fell through something somehow and ended up in a forest before that. The dogs followed me.” The man looked lost despite his focus. “I ended up in water, then I fell.” He stops there and oliver hums.
“So you fell down a waterfall after escaping dogs which followed you from one world to another.” The whole idea of the other worlds (islands in reality if you actually bothered to care about the difference) intrigued oliver, but it also hurt his brain, still, he knew what he needed to know so this information wasn’t all that surprising. “That waterfall threw you into the ocean. You then ended up on my beach, no you’re in my room.”
“I can go-“ oli goes to get up. He doesn’t need to.
“Stay.” Oliver gestures he sit back down with a motion of his pointer finger pointed towards the man which then swiped downwards. Oli did as he was told, remaining under the covers.
“This is your bed though…” oli starts as the leader stands and pushes the armchair he was sat on out of the way, pulling on a small handle embedded into the wall. The wall then cracks open and reveals a small bed similar to the one oli was currently borrowing.
“You’ll be staying in that one. I’ll be staying in this one so don’t feel too guilty.” He pats the bed and readjusts the blankets and pillows before walking around it to go to oli, pushing him to lay down on his back. “you really need your rest.”
“I just woke up…”
“Then go back to sleep.” Oliver orders and oli seems to confused to argue, simply laying there holding onto the edge of the blanket as oliver goes to the bedroom door, locking it before turning to the windows, checking their locks before switching on the work-desk lamp and closing the curtains. Once the room was set he sits on the pull out bed, facing oli, who is watching him curiously as he starts pulling off his blazer and shirt.
“Do you sleep naked?” Oli asks, definitely confused by the idea.
“Doesn’t everyone? Other than the boxers, course.”
“I don’t?”
“That’s because you, my dear, are strange.” Oliver chuckles and oli smiles, just slightly. Huh, so he does have proper emotions, they’re just …buried by the looks of it. Either way, he was tired, so as he stepped out of his shoes and pulled off his socks he rubbed his eyes with his wrists as he yawns. He can feel olis eyes boring onto his tattoos. “It’s rude to stare.”
“Sorry…” there’s a shuffle and when oliver can see from blurry eyes he sees that oli has his back turned to him, he can’t help the smile at that as he lies down and pulls his sheets atop him, lying to face the newest unofficial, for now, member.
The thought of tying the mans legs and arms for safety crossed olivers mind, but his gut told him that wouldn’t be necessary as he begins to fall asleep to the subtle sound of the others snoring.