[Dated to Christmas]
Lloyd preferred New Year's to Christmas for a pretty simple reason -- Christmas was a family thing, and Lloyd had been a lone rider for a real long while now. His last two Christmases he's spent locked up in fucking Brownsville, and they had been bittersweet days; sweet on account of the screws at least pretending to give you a break, bitter
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"Someone ought to tell that fellow that it's Christmas. Wrong holiday, and in some respects, the wrong religion if you get right down to it." It was unclear whether Glen meant Easter or Christmas or both, but for once it looked like he wasn't about to elaborate.
"Happy Christmas Lloyd," Glen said diplomatically, although he didn't smile.
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He had no clue what the hell Glen was going on about, with the whole wrong religion thing, but he supposed it didn't matter all that much. "Naw, I think it was aiming for Christmas, actually," he decided, though he had a feeling the rabbit neither knew what holiday it was nor cared very much either way. "Short of appearing inside a stocking, it made a pretty spot on entrance."
Standing there talking to the guy he'd killed and cradling the rabbit he'd accidentally starved to death, Lloyd wondered how much weirder life could get.
"Merry Christmas, Glen," he echoed after a beat, pretty much meaning it.
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He didn't know what he'd expected. He'd followed Lloyd with no plan at all.
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"But no, it, uh," he started, then got stuck for a second; making dumb jokes was easy, but a genuine answer was a real fucking challenge. "It used to be mine, when I was a kid." There, simple enough, right?
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Glen just stared at him for a moment, and then it dawned on him. He'd heard of things like that happening. Kojak had shown in such a way, why not a rabbit. "Does the fellow have a name?" Glen asked, treading lightly.
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He hesitated a bit before answering. "Nope. Not yet, anyway. I guess I didn't know I was supposed to name him, back then." He couldn't remember a name, at any rate; could only remember the terrible smell and the maggots and the bloody paws. But that memory had stuck with him more vividly than almost anything else in his entire life. His breath caught in his chest for a second, and he had to look down just to make sure he wasn't holding a tiny corpse. But the rabbit looked just fine, and he looked up again, relief written plainly on his face.
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He frowned as Lloyd's face changed, and felt a little unease that he actually felt concern. "Something the matter Mr. Henreid," he asked cautiously.
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Lloyd wasn't used to miracles (unless you counted Randy Flagg's bag of tricks or the Hand of God, neither of which were the kind of miracle Lloyd was eager to see repeated), but this was a good thing - hell of a good thing - just, well, overwhelming as fuck.
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He didn't immediately elaborate, but after watching the rabbit for a few moments Glen said, "Kojak came to me in such a way, although he came to Stuart first. Jane," well there it was, Stu's wife who had come to him in distress after learning about Lloyd, "had care of him, and the stubborn son of a bitch came back to me again."
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"Can't get rid of him, huh? It's like that Odyssey guy," Lloyd said, smiling appreciatively and feeling pretty fucking proud of himself for making an educated reference like that. "And you're Penelope."
The only other part of that story Lloyd was familiar with was the Cyclops, but he wasn't sure who he could to liken to that fellow. Andros, maybe. But that probably wasn't very nice.
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Glen turned back to fix his eyes on Lloyd and the rabbit, having an inkling of an idea that it was not merely an island Christmas present. "And this fellow?"
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The question gave him pause, sobering him up some. He stroked the rabbit's fur, taking some time to answer. "He... he didn't end up well, back then. I fucked up pretty bad." That was pretty honest, he thought, and Lloyd didn't want to say anything more on that subject. "I guess maybe he's part of the whole second chance thing." Lloyd hoped so, anyway. He couldn't think of any other reason the island would decide to stick him with a long-dead pet, except drive a point home.
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Glen nodded. "Could be, could be." If this really was a place for second chances, it was certainly giving them to Lloyd Henreid in spades. For a rare moment, Glen could think of little to say. Speaking with Lloyd felt taboo even though they had a sort of uneasy truce. But it was Christmas, and despite the old nature loving pagan that he was, he still appreciated a good Christmas gift. And in Glen's estimation, this was certainly a good one.
"Have you given him a name?"
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He didn't know shit about naming things, rabbits included, but it coming up with certain associations was easy enough.
"I'm thinking Playboy," he told Glen, with a practical tone of voice. "That way he won't feel like a geek or something."
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"An appropriate name as any," Glen commented, thinking suddenly of a book that had been in his personal library back in Woodsville.
"Ever read Watership Down, Lloyd?"
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"Nope. I'm not much of a reader, Glen, except for the kind of magazine this guy's named after," he admitted with a wry half-smile, trying to joke around a certain discomfort he was feeling. The man was a fucking professor, after all, and Lloyd hadn't even graduated from high school. As a kid, he'd tried reading some books, but he'd kept drifting off after a couple of pages, repeating the same paragraph over and over, until he'd reached the conclusion that it was just too much for him and deciding to stick to comic books. After he'd quit school, he'd pretty much given up on books altogether.
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