Liberated
#16 of Sold
The air was cold, which would have ordinarily bothered him, but given how hot the last few weeks had been the cold morning air provided at least some measure of comfort to the bunny. His brown fur stood up due to the cold but didn't provide enough of a buffer to block it out completely.
Sitting up he reached for his neck and began to massage the part where his collar sat. The metal prods connecting the collar, and by extension, its internal battery to his neck were the bane of his existence. They prevented any night from being anything close to restful, at least for someone used to sleeping on his back.
Getting up he grabbed the tablet from his nightstand and sighed as he read a message from his master announcing his visit today for inspection and maintenance, whatever that meant. As if the hyena would actually set a paw into the mine to look around. He'd just sit in his office, look through a few reports and then expect the bunny to ...
He didn't finish that train of thought. The actual experience would happen soon enough, no need to worry about it. He sat out a small bottle of mouthwash and continued to get ready for the day, looking at the list of workers and grumbling to himself as he saw that dreaded number 458. He had wondered for some time now whether the bear was a test of his abilities to run the mine or if his master had actually bought someone this useless. At least his behaviour had gotten somewhat better.
In his office he sounded the siren, reminding the workers that they were expected to be in the mine in 15 minutes to start their shift and then began his daily task of keeping the mine running productively. Looking through the records for the last few days he adjusted the required workloads of each worker, requiring a bit more from people already doing well while reducing the workload of people with injuries or those who seem to struggle with the hard manual work.
After that came the inventory list, making sure the mine was properly stocked was no small task. Planning the monthly supply shipments was tedious at best, a nightmare when there were unexpected things happening, like the heatwave that was currently torturing the workers and him. The water supply wasn't planned with something like this in mind, yet he had to somehow make it last.
Buried in his work he didn't hear the door open behind him. The hyena waited a few seconds before clearing his throat, sending the surprise bunny to his knees.
"I'm sorry Master, I didn't notice you."
The hyena didn't reply and just moved in closer to the bunny, wordlessly staring down at his slave.
"Sorry to interrupt," came an unknown voice from behind his master, "but I'd like to get started if possible."
"Fine. I want you to set up a room for the doctor, he'll be checking my workforce. You are to treat him like you would me."
"Understood Master."
"I'll be back tomorrow for the results. Also feel free to use the slut," the hyena smirked as he looked down at his kneeling slave, knowing how much he'd hate to obey the order, "he has a wonderful ass and he just loves the taste of cum, don't you slut?"
"Yes Master."
"Thanks you, I'm sure to give it a try." said the unknown voice.
Quickly glancing up he saw that the voice belonged to a dalmatian, standing a few feet behind his master. His master's feet moved out of his field of vision and the door to his office closed, then a hand appeared just in front of his face, offering to help him up.
"I'm Leon, this is Nate," the dalmatian said while pulling the bunny to his feet and putting his arm on the overseers shoulder, "and you don't need to worry about anything, I won't do anything to or with you unless you want to. Not to sound too stuffy, but please treat us like equals, if it's not too strange for you."
The overseer took a quick look at the nervously looking white bunny standing in the corner before looking back at the dalmatian. Equals sure sounded nice, but in the bunny's experience that meant he would have to endure some touching and then he'd be expected to recuperate leading to the inevitable, but just in case he decided to test it.
"In that case please remove your arm... Sir."
"Right, sorry, and Leon is fine."
The bunny was surprised when the dog actually removed his arm and took a step back.
"What kind of room will you be needing?"
"Anything is fine."
"Follow me t-."
"Actually," Leon interrupted, "your... the hyena said we could borrow one of your workers while we're here, it's a polar bear that he bought a few months ago."
The bunny went to his table, pushed a button and spoke into the microphone, "Number 458 report to the overseer's office."
"What do you want with him?"
"Me? Nothing, but he has some unfinished business with him" Leon mentioned towards the shivering bunny.
"What kind of unfinished business?"
Looking at the bunny something stirred in the overseer. He wasn't sure what to make of him. He was shivering, which obviously wasn't due to the weather, more likely it was his nerves getting the better of him, but for what reason. His master wouldn't buy someone so tiny for the mine, and the dalmatian didn't seem intimidating enough to cause that level of nervousness in anybody. Additionally the way he had introduced the the shivering mess by his name he doubted the dalmatian was his master.
"That bear used to be his owner."
That certainly explained his nervousness, not why he was here though.
A shadow moved in front of the frosted glass window by the door, followed by a knock.
"Enter!"
"Reporting as req- What the hell are you doing here!? Stay the fuck away from me!" the polar bear almost fell as he took a few steps back, keeping his eyes fixed on the now smiling dalmatian. The brown bunny watched with interest as he reconsidered the first impression he had of the dog. Clearly there was more to him than met the eye, going by the bears reaction at least.
"Nice to see you still remember me Mister Swift, oh sorry, it's 458 now, isn't it?" Leon said while making sure to keep a pleasant, but clearly fake smile on his face.
"I want you to show the doctor to the rec room, then come back here."
"Yes overseer."
As the door closed the overseer looked towards the bunny. Nate had moved a bit after the bear had entered, to make sure the bear didn't see him, or, almost as likely so he didn't have to see the bear.
"So, why exactly are you here ... Nate was it?"
"Y-yes sir. I ... I .."
"Think about your answer a bit, I have to take care of something."
Instead of pushing he decided to let the bunny collect himself a bit, there was something else he needed to take care of after all. He grabbed the microphone off his desk and pushed the button, causing a few bells to sound through the speakers.
"Attention workers. There will be a medical examination of the workforce today and most likely tomorrow. As such I'd like team number one to report to the rec room for examination. After your team has been examined please let the next one know, so this will have as little impact on today's workload as possible. As this is mandatory your quotas will be adjusted accordingly. Have a nice day."
Looking back at the bunny he noticed that the shivering stopped. Grabbing a bottle of water out of his fridge he slowly walked over and sat down at the table in the corner of his office, holding out the bottle towards Nate.
"Thanks."
"So, let's try again, why are you here."
The bunny started to tell his story. Skipping over his time with the bear as much as possible he chose to focus on the time after he had been sold and how his new master had worked hard to reduce the damage the bear had caused only to run into a wall whenever there were actual bears involved.
"... and now I'm here to face my fear so to speak."
The overseer nodded.
"You seem to have found a good new master. You should be glad."
"Boyfriend by now, actually."
"What?"
"He set me free."
"And you stayed? Not something I'd do, but then again not something that'd happen to me. Each to their own I guess."
A knock at the door announced the bears return. He entered and looked around before noticing the two bunnies sitting at the table that was half hidden by the open door. Once his eyes fell on Nate though his whole face changed the usual blank look changed to a menacing grin as he stepped towards the table, causing Nate to jump to his feet. The bear's big white paw reached for the bunny, but stopped before even touching his fur as the bear fell to the ground. His face looked like a silent scream as his whole body looked like it was cramping.
Nate looked at the other bunny. The overseer was slowly getting up and walking towards the bear. Just as he pulled his hand out of his pocket the bear's body began to relax.
"That's no way to greet a guest 458. What did you think you were doing?"
"He's mine!"
"Not according to him."
"Nate, does he own you?"
Nate didn't respond, his eyes were still wide as he stared at the bear on the floor.
"Answer me boy!"
"No sir!" Nate's training kicked in, causing him to push aside the panic and obey the command he was given.
By now it was clear why the dalmatian had brought the bunny here. He clearly needed some way to work though what happened, the only thing that wasn't clear to the overseer was what he was supposed to do about it. Just leaving the bunny alone in the room with the bear seemed like a bad idea, the bear clearly had some sort of control over the bunny, but how else was he supposed to work through it.
"I don't know exactly how this is supposed to help you but whatever," The brown bunny reached into his pants, pulled out a tiny remote control and offered it to Nate, "push the button and it will shock him, like it did just now. See it as a safety measure if he comes to close or does something you don't like. Do whatever you want with him, I'll be over there, working. And 458, I suggest you show some respect to the one holding the remote, because I won't stop him."
With that the bunny walked over to his chair, sat down and began his work. He did occasionally glance over to the pair, but the picture rarely changed. The bear obviously had decided that the best thing he could do in this situation was to remain on his back on the ground, while the bunny only moved one time when he sat back down at the table all while staring at the bear. No word was spoken and, to the overseer's surprise, the bear neither got additional shocks nor a well deserved kick.
The clock was rapidly approaching noon and still nothing had happened. Finished with his daily housekeeping the overseer turned towards the two in the corner. The heat was slowly getting to the bear, who had started to keep glancing at the water bottle on the table. The white bunny seemed oblivious to that, which was understandable seeing how his paws gripped the table so hard they left claw marks.
"Why?" Nate finally broke the silence.
"Huh?"
"Why did you pick me?"
"Give me that water and I'll answer"
The overseer hopped out of his chair, causing the bear to flinch and turn towards him as he quickly made his way over, grabbing the water bottle out of Nate's hand just before he could hand it over to the bear.
"You know the rules 458. No work, no water."
"But it's his water! If he want's to give it to me, you shouldn't interfere."
"I won't, if he actually wants to, but that's something he'll have to decide AFTER you answer his question."
"There was no reason I picked you" the bear said turning to Nate.
"Bullshit," the overseers foot quickly came to rest on the bear's groin, "so you think you can actually still lie to me?"
Slowly the bunny's foot began to press down causing the bear to groan and twist until finally he gave in.
"Ok, OK! I bought you because you were cheap."
For a second the overseer thought he'd finally see the bunny use the remote, but the look of anger quickly vanished and was replaced by a blank stare. He let out an audible sigh as he moved a hand to the back of his neck, slowly massaging it. Nate's eyes followed the movement.
"What?"
"I... if you .. if you'd like I could give your neck a massage, if it hurts I mean. Matt says I'm pretty good at giving them."
"Thanks, but no. There's nothing you could do anyways, this damn thing, " he knocked on his collar, "keeps poking the same spot every day. Anyway, I need to go into the mine in a bit, can I leave you alone with him or do you want me to take him with me?"
"I-I think I'll be fine." Nate faked a smile.
This was going to be a long day.
Opening the door to his office he was greeted with a mess. The bear was on his back on the floor with a nasty looking wound on his forehead. The floor was wet with water and some of the bear's blood and in the far corner of the room cowered a shivering bunny mumbling to himself.
Making his way to the bear he crouched down next to him, careful to avoid the reddish water as best he could. Close up the wound didn't look as bad, most of the blood had already clotted. He turned the bear's head towards him, his eye's were a bit sluggish but tried to focus on him and after a quick check of his pulse he was satisfied that the bear wasn't in immediate danger.
He walked over to the corner, leaned against the wall and let himself slide to the floor next to Nate, silently listening to the mumbling of the disturbed bunny. Even while listening he could barely make out what the shivering mess next to him was saying.
"What happened?"
Even though he had said that in a calm and quiet voice it seemed to hit Nate like a punch in the stomach, causing the mumbling to stop and the tears to start. He sighed, moving his arm to the Nate's shoulders, slightly hesitating before finally putting it on and pulling the crying bunny closer to him. Nate buried his head in the overseer's chest, who tensed up in turn.
"I'm sorry, please. I didn't mean to, please... I'm sorry."
"Tell me what happened."
Between the sobs and apologies Nate slowly managed to paint a picture of how the bear ended up where he was now. It had started with him asking for some water again, to which Nate agreed simply to shut up the bear. But when he reached for the bottle his paws touched Nate and he panicked and quickly pushed the button on the remote for a fraction of a second, jolting the bear and sending the water bottle to the ground.
After that the bear had started to growl and tried to reach for Nate, to which the bunny's only response was to press the button again, longer this time, causing the bear's body to seize up, slip on the spilled water and quickly fall over. On the way down his head had hit the corner of the table, knocking him out before even hitting the floor.
"All that because he touched you?"
"I'm sorry!"
"Is he still that intimidating to you?"
Nate barely nodded.
"You know that it's over, right? He won't leave this place, nobody does. I think I have an idea, get up."
The overseer got up himself and walked over to the blood covered bear, kicking against his leg," Get up!"
Shaking his head a few times to get rid of the dizziness he felt the bear complied. The overseer brought both of them closer together, grabbed the bear's arm and placed it on Nate's shoulder. The bunny's eyes widened immediately.
"I want you to grab his wrist and push your fingers in, really hard on these two spots." the overseer said while pointing out the spaces he meant, one near his thumb and the other one opposed to that. Nate did as he was told and as soon as he started pressing down the bear first groaned, then fell to his knees trying to twist his arm away.
"Very good, now that you have him like this there are several things that you could do, but the simplest would probably be to use your other hand to give him a quick, hard jab right about here." Again he indicated the area he meant, this time in the center of the bear's chest.
Nate again did as he was told and watched in amazement as a second after his hand had made contact the bear's eyes rolled back into his head and he simply collapsed to the side.
"How? What...?"
"Pressure points. I think some self defense classes would do wonders for you."
"I-I don't like hurting people."
"They only teach you the basic moves, what you do with them is up to you."
Nate looked nervously at the bear, "Is he ok?"
"Do you really care?"
Nate shrugged.
"Up for trying again? I know a few more places like that" Nate nodded.
Pulling off the examination gloves and throwing them into the garbage the dalmatian looked over to the both bunnies and smiled, "He's going to be fine. From a medical standpoint he should take it easy for a few days, but on a personal level I don't really care if he starts working again tomorrow."
The overseer nodded before dismissing the bear for the day. A beep from his tablet announced that the work day would be ending in 15 minutes, and a quick tap on the screen displayed today's quota, which was, to the bunny's surprise, still met. Grabbing the microphone he made a quick announcement, telling the workers that today there would be no punishments handed out and that the day tomorrow everyone would have an hour of free time added.
Behind him he heard the snap of latex gloves being put on.
"What are you doing?"
"Your boss told me to check everybody, that includes you I'm afraid. Anything bothering you?"
The overseer rolled his eyes. Of course this was going to happen. He undid the button holding his shorts and stepped forward. The dalmatian carefully grabbed his arms and began moving them around, checking the bunny's range of movement. After that came some reflex checks as well as a surprisingly cold stethoscope.
"Ok, all done."
"What?"
"You're in perfect working condition, as far as I can tell. Why are you naked though? Did you want a prostate checkup as well?" Leon laughed.
"You really aren't going to ... ?"
"Not everyone wants to make you uncomfortable."
"You are a strange one."
"I've been called worse.", Leon laughed as he closed his bag, "You'll have the report on your workers tomorrow, but for now I'm exhausted, mind showing me where I can get some sleep?"
"Sure... follow me."
It was almost noon again before the overseer saw either of his two visitors again. The door to his office opened without a knock, which could only mean one thing.
"... our way to go over the results with your overseer sir."
"I hope he was ... hospitable."
"Oh yes sir, quite an eager bunny you have there."
The hyena chuckled as he sat down in the bunny's chair looking over the stack of papers the dalmatian had just handed over.
"So, how is my work force doc?"
"Most are doing great. There are a few minor things, which I noted in the list, but nothing that should affect your baseline. Most of that stuff will be taken care of within a week if they rest or two if they don't. There is just one that might need some surgery."
"Surgery?"
"Well, your overseer shows signs of a developing nerve entrapment. Nothing to bad just yet, but if it develops he could lose the feeling in his hand and arm. Surgery to correct that would take a few hours, but the recovery would take a while."
"And who is supposed to run the mine in that time?"
"If he's such an integral part of this mine there is another option. You could remove his collar, as that's probably what's causing it."
The hyena throw the papers on the table, leaned back in the chair and closed the eyes for a bit. When he sat up again a low annoyed sounding growl left his throat as he opened up his suit, pulled out a small metal bar and mentioned for the brown bunny to come closer. He grabbed the collar, pulled it, and by extension the bunny's neck, closer to his eye level and held the small metal bar close to the spikes pushing against the bunny.
A small beep and something that sounded like two small explosions later the two collar pieces fell to the floor, leaving a confused looking bunny to prod his fingers into the two dents the spikes had left in his skin.
"We done here?" asked the hyena in an annoyed tone.
"Yes, I'd just like to quickly go over the list with your overseer, in case he has any questions. We'll meet you at your car in 5 minutes if that's ok with you sir."
The hyena left the office without another word, slamming the door shut behind him.
"That was easier that I had thought." chuckled Leon.
"What? Why did you...?"
"Nate told me that thing was bothering you. I know it's not much, but with how you helped him I at least wanted to do something."
"No! It's plenty, believe me. That was one of the two things I don't like about working here."
"There are only two?"
"Yeah, after starting out as the hyena's sex slave this is actually kinda nice."
His hands moved unconsciously back to his neck, touching and rubbing the parts previously obstructed by the collar. He began tearing up, never had he imagined to get rid of that collar, and as much as he didn't like it, the only way to properly thank the dalmatian for what he had done, could only be on thing. He closed the distance between them and pulled Leon into a hug, then repeated it with Nate.
"Thank you, both of you."
Matt was pacing near the arrivals gate at the airport. He couldn't wait to see his Bun-bun again, even though he had only been gone for four days. Four days he had spent worrying about Nate. He still wasn't sure whether or not it had been a good idea to agree to this. While it had become obvious that something had to be done about Nate's fear of anything bear related, Matt wasn't certain this confrontation would be good for his bunny. What if that would do more bad than good, and cause the bunny to spend even more time at home than he already did. Not that Matt minded having the bunny around.
The glass doors opened and people flooded the hall. Matt kept his eyes open, scanning every new arrival, until he found who he was looking for. Once their eyes met both of their faces lit up and the bunny quickly fought is way through the mass of people, only to pull his otter into a tight hug as soon as he reached him.
"Welcome back Bun-bun."
Nate didn't respond, he was content just staying here like this, oblivious to the worried look in Matt's face when he didn't answer. Turning to the dalmatian that had now joined them he asked, "How is he?"
"He did great. I don't think his trouble with bears will last much longer."
"That true Bun-bun?"
Nate nodded, head still buried in the otter's chest.
On their way to the exit Matt listened to his bunny, as Nate told him about his trip, the other bunny he had met and how he finally had brought the bear down to his knees. Matt was surprised how easy it had become for the bunny to talk about the bear, but the best part was when Nate spotted a polar bear working at a coffee shop close to the exit. Instead of hiding behind the otter he had let go of Matt's hand, told him to watch him and basically ran towards the shop.
Matt watched as the bunny spoke to the bear, he still tensed up after the bear had turned, but no more shivering or running away. Instead Nate came back with three cups of coffee a minute later, handing one of them to Leon and the other to Matt, who still wasn't sure whether or not he should believe his eyes.
"I'm proud of you Bun-bun."
Nate took a sip of his coffee before letting his head fall onto Matt's shoulder, smiling.