(no subject)

[mywarrenmyrules]

One very long nap later, Bunny was well enough to make a quiet exit. He had a few errands to run - among them, dashing home to eat something not in cookie form.

He returned just as quietly as he'd left. He wasn't being eaten or on fire this time, so it was a better return than his last. Still, something - maybe several things - seemed to be bothering him as he loped off in search of a few people.

Comments

[spellitonce]

Nico was holed up in the part of the workshop where the Yeti kept the clothing. While she could sew things up from scratch, it usually took a lot longer, and it seemed silly to do so when there was pre-made stuff already available.

Plus, if she worked from pre-made stuff, she could use the scraps to make extra pockets on Howard's outfit, which he'd probably appreciate.

She looked up at the sound of someone approaching, then whipped around and began sorting through the sweatshirts with the intense concentration generally reserved for locating the venomous spider hiding in one's bedclothes.

[mywarrenmyrules]

Yeah, he hadn't forgotten the glare from earlier. Not that excess time made it any easier to figure out the best way to approach an angry teenager.

He opted for the direct approach. "Right. So, I owe you an apology." He paused only briefly. "I asked a lot more of you than I should've. You rose to it though, so - thank you. And I'm sorry."

He waited, monitoring Nico's response.

[spellitonce]

Nico stopped moving and took a deep breath, holding it for a count of ten.

The apology was nice. She'd probably even feel bad later about what she was about to say.

"The day before I got yanked over to this universe," she said, turning around to face him, "an alien invader literally burned alive in front of me. He was invading the planet and trying to kill me and my friends in the inferno at the time, so fine, whatever. Own petard, see: hoisted. The day before that, I was a minute too late to stop a bomb from exploding on top of all of my friends. A couple days before that, me and my friends helped put out a fire in a 1900's sweatshop; and a few hours before that, a guy with a rocket launcher blew up the roof one of my friends was standing on while he waited for us." She paused to let all that sink in. "So you can understand how very, very sick I am of people being on fire. Especially where Molly can see."

The last one was definitely a low blow, but Nico was still pretty pissed.

"So while I understand the necessity of the 'ruining-barbecue-for-everyone' plan, I refuse to like it." She pursed her lips, and added grudgingly, "thanks for realizing that it was completely messed up, I guess."

[mywarrenmyrules]

That he'd scared Molly was already a needle in his conscience, but he couldn't get angry at Nico for pushing it in deeper. What a storied and unfortunate life this pair of girls seemed to have been pulled from. Bunny filed each anecdote away as one more reason to investigate Nico and Molly's home world, when they'd managed to put Kuk away for good.

He nodded, and spoke without a trace of sarcasm. "I'll keep it in mind."

There was no point in saying he'd never set himself on fire again for Nico or Molly's sake. He was a Guardian, and if that was what it took to protect the children, he'd set himself on fire again in a heartbeat.

But if he had to yell for someone to turn Molly away, and not call on Nico to help fix him up afterwards - Molly and Nico were children, and he'd protect them as best he could, too.

[spellitonce]

"Fine," Nico said, when that seemed to be all he was planning to say. "You can thank me by figuring out some way to make some form of communication technology work in your tunnels. Katherine said conventional stuff probably wouldn't work, but I've got a do-anything magic Staff and I'd like some warning next time so I can avoid getting blood on my shirt."

The torn sleeve of which, incidentally, she had already cleaned and repaired.

"I put a lot of work into this outfit and I have better things to do with it than clean blood out of it."

[mywarrenmyrules]

That was all she wanted? But that was so . . . logical a course of action.

"Sure, we'll work something out."

Bunny paused a moment, considering Nico thoughtfully.

"Y'know, you don't have to wait until you've saved my skin to ask for something completely logical. Long-distance communication is a good idea."

One the Guardians hadn't thought to implement yet. Cell phones were a technological flash in the pan in all of their lives.

[spellitonce]

She wasn't sure if he was calling her out on her unsubtle manipulations or if he was just trying to encourage her to share more ideas, but she turned her flinch into a shrug.

"If I'd known you guys weren't up to walkie-talkie technology before this whole thing went down, I'd have said something. With so many of us not in on whatever Guardian loop you and Jack have, I figure you're going to want something to call us on when we're out past curfew."

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam had hit the library after everything. He needed the time to clear his mind and focus. Research helped with that. Getting himself focused was the first part of trying to figure out what the hell to do with these new powers of his.

New. Old. It didn't make that much of a difference, really.

He looked up when he heard somebody enter the library, reaching unconsciously for the gun he'd left on the table within easy reach. He relaxed, though, when he saw who it actually was, withdrawing his hand and closing the book he'd been reading. "Hey, Harvey. You're looking better."

[mywarrenmyrules]

"Harvey" again?

"Is that supposed to mean me?"

There was a joke here Bunny wasn't getting. He shrugged it off. He'd gone looking for Sam for a reason. A couple of reasons actually.

"Most people look better when they're not being eaten, " he agreed wryly as he loped over. He glanced at the gun as he did with more than a little curiosity. "Speaking of, I wanted to talk to you about that. Got a moment?"

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam smiled and shook his head. "It's a play and later a movie about a guy who drinks a fair amount and has an imaginary friend who might not be so imaginary. The imaginary friend's name is Harvey and...well, he's a six foot three-and-one-fourth inch tall rabbit. Phooka, actually."

He raised an eyebrow and sat back. "I'm not sure I know that much about being eaten, really. But I'm happy to talk."

[mywarrenmyrules]

For a flash of a moment, Bunny looked surprised. More than surprised - almost stricken. But it cleared almost instantly.

"You really do know your stuff, don't you?" His tone, and his expression was appreciative. At least someone in the new party did. "That's why I wanted to talk to you. That little pest I brought home- I hadn't seen one in centuries. I thought we exterminated them all in the Dark Ages."

He frowned. He didn't like being wrong about much, and he really dislike being wrong about that.

"Since I'm wrong, we need to be better prepared. If you're up for it, I might have a task for you."

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam wasn't used to reading rabbit faces, but he could see that much. It was long, long habit with Dean that kept him from pursuing that part of the conversation.

He put the book aside, leaning forward. "I do my best. Knowing stuff, I mean. That's what keeps me and Dean alive, either knowing it or knowing who to ask or where to look." Both of which were getting thinner on the ground these days. "What was it, then? And...yeah. I'll help out however I can."

[mywarrenmyrules]

"Ace."

There was loose paper on a couple of the tables in the library. Bunny slid one over, but pulled a paintbrush from the holsters on his back rather than reaching for a quill. With a few quick, smooth strokes, he had painted something football-shaped on the paper. "You seem like the best shot so you'll probably have the best chances at this. We see one of these in the field -" he painted a few marks on the football shape that somehow, despite the simplicity of the strokes, distinguished it with a clear pattern. "They're pretty much impervious until they latch on to someone. Best chance to destroy them before someone gets hurt is to get an incendiary inside them when the maw opens, but you've only got a split second to take the shot."

He painted another shape next to it, this one with the markings on the exterior starting to extend into the digging feelers that had been flaying him alive not a day ago. A mouth had opened on the front of the elongated shape, with rings upon rings of barbed teeth. "I'll see with the yetis about developing some explosive bullets. Unless - How's your metallurgy? You didn't make this, didja?"

He gestured to the gun with his paintbrush. He wasn't under the impression that humans generally crafted theirs personally, but Sam could be an exception.

[fromfryingpantofire]

Sam glanced over to the gun, then picked it up and checked, again, that the safety was on and the chamber was empty. It was easy enough to chamber a bullet, but he didn't want one there when he wasn't ready to shoot. Then he put it down again. "The gun? No, I didn't make it. I'm...fair, I guess, when it comes to metallurgy. Dean and I have to make our own bullets a lot of the time. You don't find consecrated silver bullets in Wal-Mart, after all."

He leaned forward, taking a good look at the drawings. "What are they, then? They look kind of like a changeling...or maybe a lamprey with those teeth."

[letskicksomeice]

Up in the rafters, with the sounds of a busy workshop muffling it, there was someone crying. They were trying to hold it in as well, so only someone with the keenest of hearing might look up and see an embarrassed Jack sitting up there with his knees drawn up to his chin after his encounter with Howard, trying to get his many, many feelings under control.

[mywarrenmyrules]

It was a number of far leaps to reach the rafters from any floor of the workshop, but Bunny covered them easily. He bounced from foothold to foothold to snag and pull himself up one of the beams, loping sure-footed along the narrow wood to where Jack sat.

Part of him was astonished. He'd never seen Jack cry this much, not even when he himself had given the Frost Spirit reasons to. Jack's distress was enough that he didn't even ask what was wrong before reaching out to pull Jack into a hug. Carefully, because they very high up.

"Hey, c'mere mate." He ruffled Jack's hair gently, hugging him close with his other arm. "What's the problem?"

[letskicksomeice]

Jack jumped slightly at the touch and the sound of Bunny's voice.

"Nothing," he said, voice cracking, frantically wiping at his cheeks, and pulling his hood up over his face, drawing the strings so tight that only the red tip of his nose was really visible. "Nothing, I'm fine."

Total lie. Lying liar stuffed full of lies.

He didn't really turn down that hug, though. He didn't hug Bunny back because that would have implied something was wrong, but he let himself be hugged. Luckily the beam was wide enough that the two of them could sit side by side.

"You shouldn't be up here. You could've strained something jumping up."

[mywarrenmyrules]

"Mate, you're a terrible liar. And I'm fit as a Mallee bull."

The last part maybe was a slight exaggeration. He could still be a little more susceptible to injury, but for all intents and purposes, his nap had done him good.

"C'mon." He kept his arms around Jack, straddling the rafter because while heights didn't exactly scare him, he certainly preferred to feel secure in his footing while he was up a ways. "Don't keep it all in."

Privately, he thought of what he'd learned on his quick trip away from the pole, and bit back a sigh at the thought. Bad news would have to wait. Jack was down enough as it was.

[letskicksomeice]

"Nope, perfectly fine here. Right as icy rain in Moscow, that's me."

Except it wasn't fine. Sobs kept trying to bubble out of him and he didn't even know where they were coming from.

"Except where - I'm blubbering like - a teenage girl - at a Beatles concert. I don't - know what's - wrong with me," was all he could manage to gasp out in between hiccuping breaths.

He never lost it like this. Never.

[mywarrenmyrules]

"Ah well, let's look at the list, shall we?" Bunny commented drly, as he pressed Jack into another hug against the thick ruff of fur over his chest. "Or better yet - let's not."

They had a lot - a lot - of reasons to lose it. That they didn't lose it after all was important, but equally important was that they let it out before it spilled out at the wrong time.

"You gotta let it out sometime. Might as well be now."

He was well-healed, and frankly, the nap had done his emotional state good. Cuddling with his only remaining friend - his only remaining family - had done him good.

Now that his emotional and physical reserves were built back up, it was time to attend to Jack's.

[letskicksomeice]

It was mostly muffled and held in but Jack finally let go a bit, clinging to Bunny as if he was the only thing not keeping him from falling.

[lifelinked]

Mami's days were spent in the library, for the most part. She worked at constructing various toys---a train set, stuffed animals of all types, and a few whirling tops. She spun them idly when she finished, watching the colors dance across the desk.

When she spotted one of their leaders, she scooped up the spinning top and lifted her hand to catch his attention. "You're better, right?"

[mywarrenmyrules]

"Fit as a Mallee bull," said Bunny, loping over. He tried to keep his expression light as he crouched at her level, masking his concern. Was she upset? Or, even more to his concern - was she used to that sort of gore?

As for him, he was well, and that helped. "You did good back there," he said, letting the compliment be just a compliment. He could get around to being concerned at how she'd gotten so competent against horrors at her age later. "We'dve been a lot worse off without your cover. You weren't lying when you said you were a fighter."

[lifelinked]

"It's too important of a situation to lie," Mami sighed, gently tying a bow around a toy dog. "Overconfidence can easily get someone killed."

She gently pats the stuffed dog's head once, then twice, then folds her hands and looks up at him fully. "I used to be a healer as well, but I've found that part of my power isn't working. I'm sorry. I would've done more---I'm just glad you're safe, sir."

[mywarrenmyrules]

That could easily have been a dig at him, seeing as he was the one who so recently almost died. But he was in no mind to accuse himself of overconfidence. He knew his limits. He knew how far he'd pushed them.

"So'm I, but I'm no sir. Bunny'll do." He turned his attention to the toy briefly, allowed himself to appreciate the craft of it. "You've got nothing to be sorry for. Like I said - we'd have been a lot worse off without you. Just as you told us we might."

Her confidence was not unwarranted. Bunny watched to see how the compliment would fall.