L'amour de deux lapins: A première vue, Ch. 2-A Prequel to L'amour de deux lapins, Caskett FLUFF
Title: L'amour de deux lapins: A première vue, Chapter 2
WC: ~1800 this chapter, ~4100 total
Rating: K+
Summary: "He's not . . . He wants to explain that he's not. That he didn't even know what he was walking into. He didn't even realize this place was here. Even though he must have walked past it a hundred times, he had no idea."
A/N: So, you've all read the "Shameless" disclaimer, right? Yeah. This is SUPER without shame. This has not heard of shame. You can blame Cora Clavia for that.
A short-ish epilogue to go after this, which I'll post by the end of the week. THANK you for being as enthusiastic about my bunnehs as I am and being kind and generous with your reviews.
Once again, Dedicated to Berkie Lynn and the RL Batman.
Castle catches so little of it at first. Too many things happen at once to really take anything in. A tremendous bang draws his attention to the street entrance. The shelter door stands open, apparently caught in the wind. A sudden gust drives in a determined patter of rain that hits the floor, the aluminum folding chairs, and a handful of plastic carriers like small-caliber gunfire.
A dismayed chorus goes up from the people nearest the door. Chairs clang together and screech over tile as people crowd back away from the sudden spray.
The howling cat loses it completely then. The noise scrapes over Castle's eardrums and the carrier jerks mightily. The man loses his grip. The carrier falls, tips, and just manages to right itself before it skids across the wet lobby floor. The little boy is beside himself. He shrieks something ridiculous-something only a small child with naming rights to a pet would think of-as he stumbles after the carrier.
Castle turns and wonders briefly why the damned door is still standing open. He starts toward it, but there's yet another incredible noise. It stops him in his tracks. It starts low. At first it's hardly there. Barely audible underneath everything else, but it builds.
Castle feels the sound pulling him back around and he sees the brindle dog. His head is low, and the fur across his shoulders stands at full attention. It's a snarl. Deadly serious, even though it seems impossible that it's coming from the happy, affectionate creature of two minutes ago.
The dog's hindquarters bunch and he lunges. The makeshift collar is no match for his sudden fury. It jerks open, and the woman is left, open mouthed and aghast, holding the dangling leash.
The cat carrier skids into the dog's path, followed by the little boy. Everything on two legs sucks in a breath at the same time, waiting for the worst to happen, but the dog breaks hard to his left at the last second. He somehow veers around them.
Castle is just trying to figure out how to wedge himself into the dog's path-how to do anything useful-when something hits him in the shins. An incredibly solid something.
He can't make any sense of it. He lurches back and registers the pain of a blossoming bone bruise. He bends at the waist and tries to find his feet again. It's tan, whatever it is, and enormous. It's broad and front loaded with a positively huge head and shoulders, and the brindle dog hates it.
He skitters into a cluster of suddenly empty folding chairs and digs in again. He's headed directly for Castle and the other dog. Dog. That's what it is-an absolutely massive bulldog cutting Castle off at the knees.
Castle grabs for the bulldog's collar. That's his entire plan. There's no phase two, but no one else seems to be doing anything. And anyway, it doesn't matter. The bulldog has momentum and determination on its side. Castle misses the collar by a millimeter. The bulldog broadsides him and sends him crashing backwards into the mid-sized enclosure. It topples, table and all.
Suddenly it's raining rabbits.
Castle doesn't know that immediately. That it's rabbits that the bulldog has lost its mind for. He doesn't know much in all the confusion, just two things: The bulldog is charging toward the small furry things tipping out of the cage in a frantic stream, and the brindle wants nothing more than to end the bulldog.
Castle's back hits the reception desk and finally-finally-someone else is moving. A squat man in bermuda shorts waddles after the bulldog all too slowly. His voice gets the dog's attention for a brief moment, though.
The brindle dog gets his body between the bulldog and Castle and the rabbits. His head and shoulders are low to the ground. He's barking furiously and snapping. He's deadly serious, even though the bulldog must have thirty pounds on him.
The bulldog hauls his bulk around to face the brindle, thankfully distracted from his would-be prey for just long enough. A couple of red-shirted volunteers approach from around the sides of the scene, calling out information to one another in low, surprisingly calm voices.
There are rabbits everywhere. They dive under Castle's bent knees and clamber over his shins. His lap fills and empties again and again. He feels a squirming rush at his lower back where it doesn't quite meet the wood of the reception desk. A fawn-colored streak races up his arm and across his chest, pausing briefly to twitch its nose at him curiously.
They all seem to be headed in the same direction. They hop and scrabble and make for a dark corner off the reception desk that leads into a short hallway. Off to that side, Castle sees another volunteer snatching up the tiny bodies and depositing them behind the safety of the waist-high door that allows entry behind the desk.
The man in bermuda shorts has the bulldog by the collar now, a snapped leash in his other hand. He's sputtering mad, though it's not entirely clear at whom. Two of the volunteers stand between him and the brindle dog. The woman who brought the stray in is crouched beside the dog, trying to calm him down.
Castle hears his name. He lets out a breath and his head sinks against the reception desk before that strikes him as strange. Several things strike him as strange all at once, but it's hard to sort them out.
"Yeah?" He looks up to his right to find a woman about his age looking down at him. She's . . . excited? "Sorry, yes?"
"I thought it was you!"
She crouches next to him. She's definitely excited, and that's not getting any less strange. She's chattering all of a sudden. About books. But she's thanking him, too. And saying she loves him. And asking him for something.
"What?" Castle's heart is pounding harder than ever. He has no idea who this woman is or what she wants. All he knows is she's doing nothing for the panic hangover he's nursing after the adrenaline.
"I just . . . I can take them. The little one first," she says. And then, as though it explains everything, she adds, "otherwise, she'll run right at them and he'll follow."
"Little one?"
He follows her gaze down to his own lap, more than a little startled by that particular turn of events at first.
"Oh. Little one," he breathes.
His lap-all of him from the waist down, really-is kind of a confusion of fur. Pure white and charcoal grey and every imaginable shade of brown. And . . . oh . . . it's not really any better from the waist up. He's covered in fur. A lot of it seems to be remnants of the stampede, but not all.
Some of the fur is on the move.
One of his legs is still half drawn up and there's a tiny, tiny, black tuft of determination scaling it. Getting as high as she possibly can to face down the bulldog. She's making a fortress of Castle's body. The angle of his hip and the crook of his 's pacing the perimeter like she's biding her time, stealing peeks over the top of his wrist and using the folds of his jacket sleeve as a blind.
And she's not alone. There's something else going on down between his ankles. Something circling on the floor, knocking at the insides of Castle's legs and thumping the tile, but Castle only has eyes for the little one at first.
She's a little more than half the size of his fist. She's beautiful. He sees that, but it's not what captivates him. It's the fact that she's absolutely without fear. At least a dozen of her kind streamed over and past and around her, every one of them wild-eyed and panicked. And here she is, this little thing, calm and absolutely focused.
Castle touches her head tentatively. She twitches but her attention never wavers. She doesn't spare him a look. The brindle dog is still dancing and whimpering, though the woman's presence is clearly settling him down. The little rabbit has zero interest in the brindle dog, Castle, or anyone else right now. Zero interest. She wants the bulldog.
Black ears twitch up, just clearing the wall of his forearm. The big rabbit thumps the tile loudly. The bulldog whips around again. He snaps his jaws, whipping a string of drool against the bare legs of what must be his owner.
Castle feels muscle bunch against his thigh. The rabbit is airborne, headed straight for the dog. Given everything still ringing around in his head-the confusion of it all and the reality that she's just so tiny-Castle has no idea how he manages to catch her.
But his hand comes up. He intercepts, and his fingers close around her. She twitches madly in the confines of his palm. He cups his other hand around her, giving her more room, but not enough to get loose. She's chattering and so furious that Castle jerks back from the force of it.
There's another sudden flurry down between his knees. He almost loses the little one at the alarming sensation of something heavy scrabbling up and landing solidly in the middle of his thigh.
Castle looks down at the big rabbit. Immense rabbit.
He's easily four times the size of the dark, angry force of nature currently pummeling Castle's palms. His fur is all dappled shades of brown where she is uninterrupted dark. The freckled expanse of the rabbit's head swings left to right. Stubborn determination when he looks at Castle, and something helpless and urgent-something familiar-when he looks at the little rabbit.
Castle lowers his hands, carefully bringing the little rabbit down to him. The big rabbit raises up, wobbling a little on the shifting plane of his thigh. He lands his paws on Castle's thumbs. He touches his nose to the little rabbit's and smiles. There's no other word for it. He smiles.
The little rabbit startles back. She chatters her teeth a few times and bumps the big rabbit grumpily with her nose. She settles then, calm all of a sudden, and she rests her nose against his.
"Mr. Castle . . . Mr. Castle, I should probably . . ."
The volunteer shifts nervously on her heels. She's still crouching next to him. Castle had forgotten about her. About the dogs and the near-death experience. He'd forgotten about the rain and the day's frustrations. About the sadness and hope and worry winding all around him.
He'd forgotten about everything except the love story unfolding in the palm of his hand.
"I should probably take them, Mr. Castle." The volunteer finally finishes. She looks apologetic and starstruck and a little wary of him.
"No," he says quickly. He pulls his elbows into his sides. His shoulders curve protectively around the little rabbit. The big rabbit climbs fearlessly upward, taking shelter, too. As near to her as he can get. "No. I've got them. I've got both of them."
A/N: Oh, hi! Me again. So, yeah. While I was sitting with my brindle friend, he was SUPER-sweet with every other animal in the place. Curious, but totally cool to cats, other dogs, the squawking parrot etc. UNTIL this guy came in with this massive, unfixed American bulldog. Brindle dog HATED that bulldog from instant one. His ratty not!collar thing did come apart, but I managed to bear hug him before he got away from me and he then was totally ashamed of himself for losing his cool. Guy with the bulldog was a total wang, too.
Sadly, no ruggedly handsome writers covered in bunnehs. But happily also no bunnehs in peril. I do not do well with animals in peril.