sanctuary.

She's a stone-cold straight-faced killer and a lover

And she won't put up with another

Brute who only wants to bruise her

Take her love and then abuse her

//

Heaven help ya, I'm telling the truth

Heaven help ya, she's coming for you

Heaven help ya, the girl likes to fight

Afraid of nothing and she carries a knife

He had to admit, looking back over the crumpled body lying in the middle of the yard, that this felt different from every one that had come before it. Michael, Dennis, Cameron-- those had all been done out of pure necessity. He wasn't proud or elated that he had to take them out of the world, only relieved that he no longer had to worry about them. They weren't his problem anymore. Desmond had never really been his problem in the first place, but the spatter of blood where it spread out over the grass and arced against the wooden fence looked to him like a work of art. He did feel pride, and a whole lot of it.

Walking back over to him, he grabbed Desmond by the wrists and started to drag him backwards. The man's face was practically nothing but pulp anymore-- that rusty shovel Alex had paid cash for at a flea market across the state line had done its job as well as could be expected. There wouldn't be any use in cleaning up the blood or hiding the murder weapon, since he'd documented it for Rabbit to find, anyway. The only thing he needed to do was sweep the place for his own fingerprints and get out of dodge.

He left Desmond lying in the living room next to his parents. Alex had shown up just that morning, knocking on their door and claiming to be a journalist who wanted their side of Jack Stone's story. He'd known Desmond was hungover and probably passed out upstairs, and figured he'd deal with him last. He hadn't entirely expected to get away with taking a knife to his parents without getting caught, but he supposed maybe they'd known it'd all come back to bite them in the ass, one day.

He washed up in their bathroom, changed his clothes, and spent a while wiping down surfaces to blot out any evidence. Then he retrieved his camera, gave the polaroid a cursory glance to see that it'd developed bright and clear, and left. A package was dumped at the post office by the mid-afternoon, the return address Rabbit's old house. Tucked inside, safe and sound, was a well-loved paper back. Alex had left three polaroids between the pages, sticking just slightly out of the top edge. He didn't sign his name anywhere-- he figured Rabbit would know who had sent it.

"What if it's like-... anthrax?"

Bobby and Rabbit both shot an annoyed sort of look at their band mate, causing Andy to frown. "Would you put it past Des? C'mon, man, he's-"

"He's too stupid to even know what anthrax is." Bobby argued, "I wouldn't put it past him if he had the capacity to come up with the idea."

"You're not giving him enough credit! Remember when he dumped a box of mice in Mrs. Ramirez's desk? He-"

Drowning the two of them out, Rabbit reached for the package and gave it a soft shake. It didn't sound like anything particularly dangerous. And although he didn't want to entertain the argument his friends were having, he also didn't think Desmond could be intelligent enough to mail something that harmful. So, he ripped the top.

"Jon!" Andy stopped mid sentence and started grabbing. Rabbit held him back with a palm to the forehead, using his other hand to finally shake the contents onto the coffee table. The book hit the glass with a soft thud. Bobby's brows furrowed low enough to dip from under the hair in his eyes. Andy blinked before his expression shifted to something almost disappointed. "Lord of the Rings? What kind of mind game is he playing?" He muttered, "Jon- Hello?"

The concern on Rabbit's face had disappeared. He recognized that book-- In fact, he knew it well. It was his own copy. Scooping it up into his hands, his thumb found the scrape in the spine where he'd dug into it with a pencil during study hall. Did Chris send this? For a moment, he felt something giddy sparkle in his chest. It was plausible, right? In the interview, he'd asked her to get in touch. -- Except, he'd read what came out of that, and Alex had cut that exchange out completely.

Rabbit felt his chest tighten. Alex had tried to kill him that day, making his obsession with him known in nearly a biblical sense. Mentioning Chris might've put a big target on her back. No. No, nonono-

Cursing under his breath, he started fanning through pages, looking for a note or a letter of some sort.

"Jack- Something fell." Bobby bent over and grabbed it off the floor. A picture? Flipping it over, it took only a moment before it was falling again.

"Bobby?" Andy frowned and reached for it then, his eyes squinting as he pulled it up to his face. A beat passed and the man choked, shoving it away from him, towards Rabbit like he couldn't bear to keep holding it any longer. "Oh, god-"

"What? What is it?" Snatching it from him, Rabbit pulled his glasses from where they'd been perched in his hair down onto his nose. A sharp breath filled his lungs. The Polaroid in his hand was... gruesome. Desmond Baker posed in the living room next to his parents-- All three of them dead. Desmond himself looked like he'd been beaten to death with a-... With a shovel. It'd been as if someone had shown up and finished the job he'd started almost a decade ago. They'd been brutal. Passionate. It made him sick to his stomach.

Looking at Bobby, he watched the man take a half step back, and then another until he'd walked himself out of the room. His eyes then found Andy, who was staring at him in a way that suggested concern. Glancing away and then back to the photo, he tried to ignore the sparkle bubbling back up in his chest.

------

"You can't go."

Rabbit stared at Andy, at the pout on his face. They were already at the airport-- He knew well enough that he wasn't going to be able to stop him. Bobby had already left them a few days ago to visit extended family. They had a funeral to prepare for. On top of that, he felt an obligation to check on Chris.

He'd scrolled for hours through every social media site he could think of. He even called the high school, but nobody had heard from her in a long time. Still, he couldn't help but worry. He'd gotten The Bakers killed by mentioning how terrible they'd been to him-- It scared him to think about what Alex might do to someone who sort of liked him. He'd already been in contact with her once if he was bold enough to send that book. He just- He had to make sure she wasn't dead because of him.

"...Good luck with the press tour, Campbell."

------

He still could find her. Rabbit had searched the whole goddamn town and outskirts and nobody knew or had talked to Chris in years. It didn't make him feel better. Not at all.

Scrubbing hard at his face, he sat down on the couch. Baby was pacing in the kitchen-- This was just the sort of place she preferred over their home in LA. She loved a good small town cottage where the walls where papered and smelled like home cooking. He did too. If he hadn't been here for something so terrible, he might've taken the time to enjoy it.

The hound sneezed. Circling the kitchen table, she lifted her big nose into the air and started to sniff. Wrinkled brows pushed together, her heavy lips started to twitch into a low growl.

"Relax." Rabbit sighed and stood back up. "I'm gonna get changed and then we're ordering pizza." He told her, "Okay? But you've gotta go lay down."

Alex frowned to himself. He sat in his car just down the road from the place Rabbit was supposedly renting, the engine quietly idling. Protective wasn't the way he felt about Rabbit, he didn't think. He didn't kill the Bakers because he thought they were a threat. It was just that it didn't feel fair for them to still be walking around. It'd been the same with his own dad. Nathan had just bit the dust before Alex could get to him.

His hometown hadn't grown up at all since his last visit to collect his father's things, which meant word got around quick when a big name came in. He'd seen the man himself returning from a grocery trip to confirm the address, and now he just has to decide what he was going to do about it. He didn't want a repeat of their first meeting.

Rabbit needed to go. For the past several weeks, all Alex could do was think about the man. The way his weight had felt settled over Alex's hips, the taste of his mouth, his voice-- Rabbit had done the unexpected in the midst of press for his new album and released a solo EP that Alex couldn't stop listening to, even when it made him sick. He wasn't sleeping and he certainly wasn't getting any real work done. The songs on that EP felt like they were some kind of tease. It was like Rabbit wanted him to pay a visit. He didn't understand why the man hadn't just reported him for what he'd done.

The backdoor hit the kitchen wall, jolting the dog resting in the living room back into attention. Paws and claws clambering at breakneck speed across the hardwood floor, her head thrown back in the loudest bay she could manage, Baby threw all ninety pounds of herself without a second thought. A heavy shoulder came into contact with strange legs, pushing until they both hit the tiles. She didn't bother warning him. In a snap, her large teeth had ripped through the fabric of his pants and sunk into flesh.

Across the house, Rabbit had changed out of his clothes for the day, leaving himself dressed in a loose tank and boxers shorts. Pulling his hair up behind his head, he perched in front of the sink to brush his teeth.

A crash.

Brows furrowed, he hit the faucet to turn off the water and listened. A bay-- He didn't wait. Scrambling out of the bathroom, he sprinted for the kitchen and skidded to a halt in front of the archway.

"You."

The recognition was immediate-- As was the hot, bubbling anger that filled his chest. Fingers up at his lips, he forced a shrill whistle, causing the dog to pull back from her attack. Rabbit took a step towards the figure on the floor, looming overhead for just a moment. Silent, he bared his teeth and reached out to yank him off the floor. He hit Alex once with a closed fist, knuckles coming hard down against his temple, sending his glasses flying across the kitchen. Rabbit growled and shoved him towards the table, the fixture shaking upon impact.

"Jesus fucking--!" Alex yelled out and struggled against her, trying to instinctively kick out at the dog with his other leg. The appearance of Rabbit in the other doorway didn't even catch his attention until Baby was called off. Alex laid back against the floor, panting, and only gave Rabbit a cursory glance before he was jerked to his feet. Pain cracked across his face and sent his head spinning, and when he was shoved against the table, the metal of the gun dug rignt into his spine again. He had the feeling he'd have a pistol-shaped bruise across his lower back for at least a month.

Rabbit was pressed in close to him. He was pinned between the table and the man, his whole body aching, a wide hand gripping so hard at his jaw that it hurt. A heat that Alex couldn't identify as sickly or needy curled in his stomach as he looked up to meet Rabbit's gaze. Maybe it was both. He still remembered how his own blood had tasted from the last time that they'd kissed.

The question made him bark out a short, pained laugh. Alex held Rabbit's gaze, his eyes hard and flinty. "Friend gave it to me," he managed, before giving Rabbit a ghost of a smile. "'Cause I told him the library didn't have a copy. He brought it to lunch the next day."

Rabbit's face hardened as he replayed what Alex said over in his mind. He'd spent the last few days staring at pictures of Christine Marsh, remembering her face clearly after ten years of letting it fade into a feeling instead. Looking at Alex now, there was someone familiar staring back at him. -- Changed. It wasn't Chris exactly, but more like what he could imagine an older brother of hers might've looked like. But he knew she had none. She didn't have anyone, not even a father anymore.

"...I told you last time."

Rabbit let go of his face to hold him by the collar of his shirt, fingers balled in the fabric. He felt hot. Confused. He was till so deeply angry with the man in front of him, but he couldn't deny the relief washing over him. Christine wasn't gone; she hadn't died. She'd changed her name and... a lot more, but he didn't need to mourn her. Eyes falling, he found the pink puckered scar where he'd sunk his teeth into his lip the last time they'd met.

"Chris is-..." He hesitated, "...You're important to me."

Rabbit bit the inside of his cheek, his lips twitching. "...Why didn't you say anything?" Out of everything, he felt like that was pissing him off the most. Why didn't he just say who he was? Clearly he was important to him too.

Getting the recognition now somehow hurt worse. That heat he'd felt before had moved up into his chest, making his lungs tight and his heart feel stuck between beats. To try and claim he'd been important after failing to notice him in a crowd or when he'd had his tongue down his throat was something of a mixed signal. And for Rabbit to have that angry rumble in his voice about it just felt unfair.

A grunt of pain pushed from Alex's throat. The pressure against his leg made his eyes water, and he gave an involuntary jerk to try and pull himself out of Rabbit's grasp. That fucking dog had done a number on him. He wondered if he'd need stitches.

"In order to stalk you, I'd have to know where you are," Alex ground out, his voice strung with tension. "You just disappeared."

"It was one." The words tumbled out before he could give them a second thought. Was he wrong though? He remembered that first big single. It'd been one about Chris.

Jaw set, Rabbit stared at him. Feeding into his delusional ideas of what their relationship was wasn't something he should be doing-- But they weren't delusions if they were true. He should've been terrified right now. Alex was reminding him over and over that he wasn't stable and had a capacity for true, homicidal violence. From everything he'd told him between their first meeting and now, he could say in confidence that he was some sort of... compulsive murderer. And as much as it disgusted him, he couldn't fault him. He barely cared. The only thing that made the two of them different was someone held him back before he could go through with it.

"...I hope my last one was more explicit." Rabbit looked away from him, hesitated, and finally let him go. Taking a step back, he crossed the kitchen to peek outside before closing the back door. He didn't need any of the neighbors to call the cops on them. "...You've been on my mind." He said, folding his arms across his chest. "Even after that fucking stunt with the book, I still-... You left a lasting impression."

He had to admit, looking back over the crumpled body lying in the middle of the yard, that this felt different from every one that had come before it. Michael, Dennis, Cameron-- those had all been done out of pure necessity. He wasn't proud or elated that he had to take them out of the world, only relieved that he no longer had to worry about them. They weren't his problem anymore. Desmond had never really been his problem in the first place, but the spatter of blood where it spread out over the grass and arced against the wooden fence looked to him like a work of art. He did feel pride, and a whole lot of it.

Walking back over to him, he grabbed Desmond by the wrists and started to drag him backwards. The man's face was practically nothing but pulp anymore-- that rusty shovel Alex had paid cash for at a flea market across the state line had done its job as well as could be expected. There wouldn't be any use in cleaning up the blood or hiding the murder weapon, since he'd documented it for Rabbit to find, anyway. The only thing he needed to do was sweep the place for his own fingerprints and get out of dodge.

He left Desmond lying in the living room next to his parents. Alex had shown up just that morning, knocking on their door and claiming to be a journalist who wanted their side of Jack Stone's story. He'd known Desmond was hungover and probably passed out upstairs, and figured he'd deal with him last. He hadn't entirely expected to get away with taking a knife to his parents without getting caught, but he supposed maybe they'd known it'd all come back to bite them in the ass, one day.

He washed up in their bathroom, changed his clothes, and spent a while wiping down surfaces to blot out any evidence. Then he retrieved his camera, gave the polaroid a cursory glance to see that it'd developed bright and clear, and left. A package was dumped at the post office by the mid-afternoon, the return address Rabbit's old house. Tucked inside, safe and sound, was a well-loved paper back. Alex had left three polaroids between the pages, sticking just slightly out of the top edge. He didn't sign his name anywhere-- he figured Rabbit would know who had sent it.

"What if it's like-... anthrax?"

Bobby and Rabbit both shot an annoyed sort of look at their band mate, causing Andy to frown. "Would you put it past Des? C'mon, man, he's-"

"He's too stupid to even know what anthrax is." Bobby argued, "I wouldn't put it past him if he had the capacity to come up with the idea."

"You're not giving him enough credit! Remember when he dumped a box of mice in Mrs. Ramirez's desk? He-"

Drowning the two of them out, Rabbit reached for the package and gave it a soft shake. It didn't sound like anything particularly dangerous. And although he didn't want to entertain the argument his friends were having, he also didn't think Desmond could be intelligent enough to mail something that harmful. So, he ripped the top.

"Jon!" Andy stopped mid sentence and started grabbing. Rabbit held him back with a palm to the forehead, using his other hand to finally shake the contents onto the coffee table. The book hit the glass with a soft thud. Bobby's brows furrowed low enough to dip from under the hair in his eyes. Andy blinked before his expression shifted to something almost disappointed. "Lord of the Rings? What kind of mind game is he playing?" He muttered, "Jon- Hello?"

The concern on Rabbit's face had disappeared. He recognized that book-- In fact, he knew it well. It was his own copy. Scooping it up into his hands, his thumb found the scrape in the spine where he'd dug into it with a pencil during study hall. Did Chris send this? For a moment, he felt something giddy sparkle in his chest. It was plausible, right? In the interview, he'd asked her to get in touch. -- Except, he'd read what came out of that, and Alex had cut that exchange out completely.

Rabbit felt his chest tighten. Alex had tried to kill him that day, making his obsession with him known in nearly a biblical sense. Mentioning Chris might've put a big target on her back. No. No, nonono-

Cursing under his breath, he started fanning through pages, looking for a note or a letter of some sort.

"Jack- Something fell." Bobby bent over and grabbed it off the floor. A picture? Flipping it over, it took only a moment before it was falling again.

"Bobby?" Andy frowned and reached for it then, his eyes squinting as he pulled it up to his face. A beat passed and the man choked, shoving it away from him, towards Rabbit like he couldn't bear to keep holding it any longer. "Oh, god-"

"What? What is it?" Snatching it from him, Rabbit pulled his glasses from where they'd been perched in his hair down onto his nose. A sharp breath filled his lungs. The Polaroid in his hand was... gruesome. Desmond Baker posed in the living room next to his parents-- All three of them dead. Desmond himself looked like he'd been beaten to death with a-... With a shovel. It'd been as if someone had shown up and finished the job he'd started almost a decade ago. They'd been brutal. Passionate. It made him sick to his stomach.

Looking at Bobby, he watched the man take a half step back, and then another until he'd walked himself out of the room. His eyes then found Andy, who was staring at him in a way that suggested concern. Glancing away and then back to the photo, he tried to ignore the sparkle bubbling back up in his chest.

------

"You can't go."

Rabbit stared at Andy, at the pout on his face. They were already at the airport-- He knew well enough that he wasn't going to be able to stop him. Bobby had already left them a few days ago to visit extended family. They had a funeral to prepare for. On top of that, he felt an obligation to check on Chris.

He'd scrolled for hours through every social media site he could think of. He even called the high school, but nobody had heard from her in a long time. Still, he couldn't help but worry. He'd gotten The Bakers killed by mentioning how terrible they'd been to him-- It scared him to think about what Alex might do to someone who sort of liked him. He'd already been in contact with her once if he was bold enough to send that book. He just- He had to make sure she wasn't dead because of him.

"...Good luck with the press tour, Campbell."

------

He still could find her. Rabbit had searched the whole goddamn town and outskirts and nobody knew or had talked to Chris in years. It didn't make him feel better. Not at all.

Scrubbing hard at his face, he sat down on the couch. Baby was pacing in the kitchen-- This was just the sort of place she preferred over their home in LA. She loved a good small town cottage where the walls where papered and smelled like home cooking. He did too. If he hadn't been here for something so terrible, he might've taken the time to enjoy it.

The hound sneezed. Circling the kitchen table, she lifted her big nose into the air and started to sniff. Wrinkled brows pushed together, her heavy lips started to twitch into a low growl.

"Relax." Rabbit sighed and stood back up. "I'm gonna get changed and then we're ordering pizza." He told her, "Okay? But you've gotta go lay down."

Alex frowned to himself. He sat in his car just down the road from the place Rabbit was supposedly renting, the engine quietly idling. Protective wasn't the way he felt about Rabbit, he didn't think. He didn't kill the Bakers because he thought they were a threat. It was just that it didn't feel fair for them to still be walking around. It'd been the same with his own dad. Nathan had just bit the dust before Alex could get to him.

His hometown hadn't grown up at all since his last visit to collect his father's things, which meant word got around quick when a big name came in. He'd seen the man himself returning from a grocery trip to confirm the address, and now he just has to decide what he was going to do about it. He didn't want a repeat of their first meeting.

Rabbit needed to go. For the past several weeks, all Alex could do was think about the man. The way his weight had felt settled over Alex's hips, the taste of his mouth, his voice-- Rabbit had done the unexpected in the midst of press for his new album and released a solo EP that Alex couldn't stop listening to, even when it made him sick. He wasn't sleeping and he certainly wasn't getting any real work done. The songs on that EP felt like they were some kind of tease. It was like Rabbit wanted him to pay a visit. He didn't understand why the man hadn't just reported him for what he'd done.

The backdoor hit the kitchen wall, jolting the dog resting in the living room back into attention. Paws and claws clambering at breakneck speed across the hardwood floor, her head thrown back in the loudest bay she could manage, Baby threw all ninety pounds of herself without a second thought. A heavy shoulder came into contact with strange legs, pushing until they both hit the tiles. She didn't bother warning him. In a snap, her large teeth had ripped through the fabric of his pants and sunk into flesh.

Across the house, Rabbit had changed out of his clothes for the day, leaving himself dressed in a loose tank and boxers shorts. Pulling his hair up behind his head, he perched in front of the sink to brush his teeth.

A crash.

Brows furrowed, he hit the faucet to turn off the water and listened. A bay-- He didn't wait. Scrambling out of the bathroom, he sprinted for the kitchen and skidded to a halt in front of the archway.

"You."

The recognition was immediate-- As was the hot, bubbling anger that filled his chest. Fingers up at his lips, he forced a shrill whistle, causing the dog to pull back from her attack. Rabbit took a step towards the figure on the floor, looming overhead for just a moment. Silent, he bared his teeth and reached out to yank him off the floor. He hit Alex once with a closed fist, knuckles coming hard down against his temple, sending his glasses flying across the kitchen. Rabbit growled and shoved him towards the table, the fixture shaking upon impact.

"Jesus fucking--!" Alex yelled out and struggled against her, trying to instinctively kick out at the dog with his other leg. The appearance of Rabbit in the other doorway didn't even catch his attention until Baby was called off. Alex laid back against the floor, panting, and only gave Rabbit a cursory glance before he was jerked to his feet. Pain cracked across his face and sent his head spinning, and when he was shoved against the table, the metal of the gun dug rignt into his spine again. He had the feeling he'd have a pistol-shaped bruise across his lower back for at least a month.

Rabbit was pressed in close to him. He was pinned between the table and the man, his whole body aching, a wide hand gripping so hard at his jaw that it hurt. A heat that Alex couldn't identify as sickly or needy curled in his stomach as he looked up to meet Rabbit's gaze. Maybe it was both. He still remembered how his own blood had tasted from the last time that they'd kissed.

The question made him bark out a short, pained laugh. Alex held Rabbit's gaze, his eyes hard and flinty. "Friend gave it to me," he managed, before giving Rabbit a ghost of a smile. "'Cause I told him the library didn't have a copy. He brought it to lunch the next day."

Rabbit's face hardened as he replayed what Alex said over in his mind. He'd spent the last few days staring at pictures of Christine Marsh, remembering her face clearly after ten years of letting it fade into a feeling instead. Looking at Alex now, there was someone familiar staring back at him. -- Changed. It wasn't Chris exactly, but more like what he could imagine an older brother of hers might've looked like. But he knew she had none. She didn't have anyone, not even a father anymore.

"...I told you last time."

Rabbit let go of his face to hold him by the collar of his shirt, fingers balled in the fabric. He felt hot. Confused. He was till so deeply angry with the man in front of him, but he couldn't deny the relief washing over him. Christine wasn't gone; she hadn't died. She'd changed her name and... a lot more, but he didn't need to mourn her. Eyes falling, he found the pink puckered scar where he'd sunk his teeth into his lip the last time they'd met.

"Chris is-..." He hesitated, "...You're important to me."

Rabbit bit the inside of his cheek, his lips twitching. "...Why didn't you say anything?" Out of everything, he felt like that was pissing him off the most. Why didn't he just say who he was? Clearly he was important to him too.

He had to admit, looking back over the crumpled body lying in the middle of the yard, that this felt different from every one that had come before it. Michael, Dennis, Cameron-- those had all been done out of pure necessity. He wasn't proud or elated that he had to take them out of the world, only relieved that he no longer had to worry about them. They weren't his problem anymore. Desmond had never really been his problem in the first place, but the spatter of blood where it spread out over the grass and arced against the wooden fence looked to him like a work of art. He did feel pride, and a whole lot of it.

Walking back over to him, he grabbed Desmond by the wrists and started to drag him backwards. The man's face was practically nothing but pulp anymore-- that rusty shovel Alex had paid cash for at a flea market across the state line had done its job as well as could be expected. There wouldn't be any use in cleaning up the blood or hiding the murder weapon, since he'd documented it for Rabbit to find, anyway. The only thing he needed to do was sweep the place for his own fingerprints and get out of dodge.

He left Desmond lying in the living room next to his parents. Alex had shown up just that morning, knocking on their door and claiming to be a journalist who wanted their side of Jack Stone's story. He'd known Desmond was hungover and probably passed out upstairs, and figured he'd deal with him last. He hadn't entirely expected to get away with taking a knife to his parents without getting caught, but he supposed maybe they'd known it'd all come back to bite them in the ass, one day.

He washed up in their bathroom, changed his clothes, and spent a while wiping down surfaces to blot out any evidence. Then he retrieved his camera, gave the polaroid a cursory glance to see that it'd developed bright and clear, and left. A package was dumped at the post office by the mid-afternoon, the return address Rabbit's old house. Tucked inside, safe and sound, was a well-loved paper back. Alex had left three polaroids between the pages, sticking just slightly out of the top edge. He didn't sign his name anywhere-- he figured Rabbit would know who had sent it.

"What if it's like-... anthrax?"

Bobby and Rabbit both shot an annoyed sort of look at their band mate, causing Andy to frown. "Would you put it past Des? C'mon, man, he's-"

"He's too stupid to even know what anthrax is." Bobby argued, "I wouldn't put it past him if he had the capacity to come up with the idea."

"You're not giving him enough credit! Remember when he dumped a box of mice in Mrs. Ramirez's desk? He-"

Drowning the two of them out, Rabbit reached for the package and gave it a soft shake. It didn't sound like anything particularly dangerous. And although he didn't want to entertain the argument his friends were having, he also didn't think Desmond could be intelligent enough to mail something that harmful. So, he ripped the top.

"Jon!" Andy stopped mid sentence and started grabbing. Rabbit held him back with a palm to the forehead, using his other hand to finally shake the contents onto the coffee table. The book hit the glass with a soft thud. Bobby's brows furrowed low enough to dip from under the hair in his eyes. Andy blinked before his expression shifted to something almost disappointed. "Lord of the Rings? What kind of mind game is he playing?" He muttered, "Jon- Hello?"

The concern on Rabbit's face had disappeared. He recognized that book-- In fact, he knew it well. It was his own copy. Scooping it up into his hands, his thumb found the scrape in the spine where he'd dug into it with a pencil during study hall. Did Chris send this? For a moment, he felt something giddy sparkle in his chest. It was plausible, right? In the interview, he'd asked her to get in touch. -- Except, he'd read what came out of that, and Alex had cut that exchange out completely.

Rabbit felt his chest tighten. Alex had tried to kill him that day, making his obsession with him known in nearly a biblical sense. Mentioning Chris might've put a big target on her back. No. No, nonono-

Cursing under his breath, he started fanning through pages, looking for a note or a letter of some sort.

"Jack- Something fell." Bobby bent over and grabbed it off the floor. A picture? Flipping it over, it took only a moment before it was falling again.

"Bobby?" Andy frowned and reached for it then, his eyes squinting as he pulled it up to his face. A beat passed and the man choked, shoving it away from him, towards Rabbit like he couldn't bear to keep holding it any longer. "Oh, god-"

"What? What is it?" Snatching it from him, Rabbit pulled his glasses from where they'd been perched in his hair down onto his nose. A sharp breath filled his lungs. The Polaroid in his hand was... gruesome. Desmond Baker posed in the living room next to his parents-- All three of them dead. Desmond himself looked like he'd been beaten to death with a-... With a shovel. It'd been as if someone had shown up and finished the job he'd started almost a decade ago. They'd been brutal. Passionate. It made him sick to his stomach.

Looking at Bobby, he watched the man take a half step back, and then another until he'd walked himself out of the room. His eyes then found Andy, who was staring at him in a way that suggested concern. Glancing away and then back to the photo, he tried to ignore the sparkle bubbling back up in his chest.

------

"You can't go."

Rabbit stared at Andy, at the pout on his face. They were already at the airport-- He knew well enough that he wasn't going to be able to stop him. Bobby had already left them a few days ago to visit extended family. They had a funeral to prepare for. On top of that, he felt an obligation to check on Chris.

He'd scrolled for hours through every social media site he could think of. He even called the high school, but nobody had heard from her in a long time. Still, he couldn't help but worry. He'd gotten The Bakers killed by mentioning how terrible they'd been to him-- It scared him to think about what Alex might do to someone who sort of liked him. He'd already been in contact with her once if he was bold enough to send that book. He just- He had to make sure she wasn't dead because of him.

"...Good luck with the press tour, Campbell."

------

He still could find her. Rabbit had searched the whole goddamn town and outskirts and nobody knew or had talked to Chris in years. It didn't make him feel better. Not at all.

Scrubbing hard at his face, he sat down on the couch. Baby was pacing in the kitchen-- This was just the sort of place she preferred over their home in LA. She loved a good small town cottage where the walls where papered and smelled like home cooking. He did too. If he hadn't been here for something so terrible, he might've taken the time to enjoy it.

The hound sneezed. Circling the kitchen table, she lifted her big nose into the air and started to sniff. Wrinkled brows pushed together, her heavy lips started to twitch into a low growl.

"Relax." Rabbit sighed and stood back up. "I'm gonna get changed and then we're ordering pizza." He told her, "Okay? But you've gotta go lay down."

Alex frowned to himself. He sat in his car just down the road from the place Rabbit was supposedly renting, the engine quietly idling. Protective wasn't the way he felt about Rabbit, he didn't think. He didn't kill the Bakers because he thought they were a threat. It was just that it didn't feel fair for them to still be walking around. It'd been the same with his own dad. Nathan had just bit the dust before Alex could get to him.

His hometown hadn't grown up at all since his last visit to collect his father's things, which meant word got around quick when a big name came in. He'd seen the man himself returning from a grocery trip to confirm the address, and now he just has to decide what he was going to do about it. He didn't want a repeat of their first meeting.

Rabbit needed to go. For the past several weeks, all Alex could do was think about the man. The way his weight had felt settled over Alex's hips, the taste of his mouth, his voice-- Rabbit had done the unexpected in the midst of press for his new album and released a solo EP that Alex couldn't stop listening to, even when it made him sick. He wasn't sleeping and he certainly wasn't getting any real work done. The songs on that EP felt like they were some kind of tease. It was like Rabbit wanted him to pay a visit. He didn't understand why the man hadn't just reported him for what he'd done.

The backdoor hit the kitchen wall, jolting the dog resting in the living room back into attention. Paws and claws clambering at breakneck speed across the hardwood floor, her head thrown back in the loudest bay she could manage, Baby threw all ninety pounds of herself without a second thought. A heavy shoulder came into contact with strange legs, pushing until they both hit the tiles. She didn't bother warning him. In a snap, her large teeth had ripped through the fabric of his pants and sunk into flesh.

Across the house, Rabbit had changed out of his clothes for the day, leaving himself dressed in a loose tank and boxers shorts. Pulling his hair up behind his head, he perched in front of the sink to brush his teeth.

A crash.

Brows furrowed, he hit the faucet to turn off the water and listened. A bay-- He didn't wait. Scrambling out of the bathroom, he sprinted for the kitchen and skidded to a halt in front of the archway.

"You."

The recognition was immediate-- As was the hot, bubbling anger that filled his chest. Fingers up at his lips, he forced a shrill whistle, causing the dog to pull back from her attack. Rabbit took a step towards the figure on the floor, looming overhead for just a moment. Silent, he bared his teeth and reached out to yank him off the floor. He hit Alex once with a closed fist, knuckles coming hard down against his temple, sending his glasses flying across the kitchen. Rabbit growled and shoved him towards the table, the fixture shaking upon impact.