Rabbit Hearted

Some say that the Black Rabbit hates us and wants our destruction. But the truth is — or so they taught me — that he, too, serves Lord Frith and does no more than his appointed task.

-Richard Adams, Watership Down

…

              "Don't worry, I can make the bodies disappear."

Maci frowns at the girl, doubt plastered across her face. 

“Still, couldn’t hurt t’ take a second…”

She places her other hand on the girl’s opposite shoulder, a little more firm than before, and tries to steady the swaying of the other. Maci feels somewhat responsible for the girl’s run in with the sapling- likely due to the fact that, well, she is.

“Seriously babe, I’m goooood...” Actually, when she’s being forced to hold steady like this, it only makes her more aware of how much her head is spinning. She tries to focus on Maci, blinks at her, looks her up and down, and slowly smiles again. “Hey, you this pretty when I don’t gotta concussion?”

At the mention of the tree she’d hit, Tess turns her head to look at it like she’s just remembering it’s still there, still holding onto Maci’s arm for support.

The taller girl rolls her eyes, keeping the pace up as she walks away from the shorter one. Honestly, she couldn’t care less if someone caught her walk of shame from the night before- but the prodding from the wannabe baby punk yipping at her heels is becoming grating.

“What’s it to you, gremlin?”

Max stops short, wheeling around to frown deeply at her.

Tess increases her pace, practically skipping as she pulls up alongside Max. Her day had been a particularly boring one until Max had shown up, and there’s few things Tess enjoys more than bothering someone that annoys her. Even that little jab she throws only gets the smug grin to drop from Tess’ face for a moment.

“Fuckin’ excuse you?!”

This is turning out to the the worst fucking day. All Tess had wanted to do after the battle was raid the kitchen and maybe find somebody to bum a smoke off of, but now something’s going on. Somewhere in the base an alarm is blaring, made all the more distressing by the fact that everything else, lights and all, seems to have been shut down. The Scout goes around most days wound like a spring, and she’s got an active imagination.

So it’s got to be some sort of punishment from God for what she did at midnight mass that one Christmas or something that currently the worst thing happening to Tess is standing next to her in a suit in this fucking stuck elevator. And it’s being condescending.

Somebody up there has to hate her for something.

“Well fuck you ginger minge, didn’t ask for your input anyway!” She whirls away from the upsetting sight that encompasses Stian’s entire… thing and again faces the elevator door like she’s about to challenge it to a fight. “I’m gonna kick it down!”

“Is that a good idea?” Stian asks automatically. The definition of minge just tags it as “vulgar”; even after fiddling with every override he can access, it seems like his dictionary files are just expurgated, so it’s good that he doesn’t want to use naughty words in the first place, but it is annoying when half the things out of people’s mouths are “vulgar” and nothing more.

She said she’s going to kick down – the door, most likely. Stian doesn’t have a lot of technical information about elevators, but he does know some things that should be useful to him to know, such as that her actions will be pointless if they’re between floors right now. Letting her do it probably shouldn’t compromise their safety, either; it’s not a load-bearing door. Therefore, he can ignore her.

Tess’ voice is high and sharp in that teetering-on-the-edge-of-panic way, and she’d probably snap at Stian no matter what he said at this point. She’s not exactly thinking logically, either. 

Look, it’s not that she’s afraid of tight spaces, she just doesn’t like them, and she especially doesn’t like being stuck in one with this guy, the creepiest Spy on RED. Tess can’t put her finder on it, but there’s just something weird about him.  What is his deal?

Anyway, her foot’s already in the air and she’s past the point of thinking. Tess kicks the door as hard as she can, and three things happen; there’s a loud, metallic bang, Tess falls over, and the door absolutely fails to do anything but acquire a dent.