(no subject)

[thecatinahat]

WHO: Cougar Alvarez
WHERE: Outside Bungalow #22
WHEN: Mid-day, March 17
OPEN TO: All!
WARNINGS: Discussion of animal butchery
STATUS: Open

---

Sometimes, Cougar really feels for his ancestors. He knows he's had rough situations before and has had to rough it, but that just means camping and surviving on minimal rations. Being in this place is a whole other game. It means building things from scratch and unearthing old skills he barely remembers. The chickens had been easy enough to build a coop for, but the rabbits had been a little harder. It's more than that, too. Keeping himself and his house fed means keeping the animals fed, which means long days, like he's gone back to his early days in Spec Ops, but this time, at least the only yelling that happens is by angry animals and not angry lieutenants.

Lately, he hasn't been able to do much hunting in the fog, which means he's turned to work closer to home. He'd managed to find several rabbits a few months back and has been treating them as best as he can, prodding and waiting for them to breed. He'd even brought them into the house, using the spare room, but now that the temperature seems to be stable, they're back outside.

That, and there are little ones.

"Aquí, pequeña madre," he says, leaning over to pet the mother for a job done well, offering out small pieces of foliage for the five little ones. He's not naming them and he's not raising them for pets, but right now, they are very small and very helpless and maybe Cougar has just a little bit of a soft spot for them, especially when they're this little, and this adorable.

Now, though, the trouble is that he's only built his hutch for four rabbits to grow and he has a fifth. He's sure he can convince someone to take it off his hands, but it will be hard to part with it, especially given that his future meal is very cute right now.

Comments

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana wasn't doing a lot since her fall. She was bruised and sore. Sitting hurt just as much as walking did so she ended up pacing, cutting a small path through the village, pausing and turning back. She was heading back to the inn when she heard a strange language. Curiosity got the better of her and she turned to discover who the voice belonged too.

She was a little surprised to see Cougar. For someone who doesn't love easy, he was wearing a very sweet expression.

Moana cleared her throat softly behind him, a bit of a smug smile tugging at her lips. "It's nice to see you again. They're very cute." She pointed down to the bunnies though her eyes were more focused on Cougar.

[thecatinahat]

He can't help it, he's a sucker for something so little and adorable, even if he knows that later, he might have to take off its head. He's good at compartmentalizing that way, shutting down one part of his brain in order to do the harder parts. The army teaches you that very well. "It makes them easy to take care of," he promises, turning to sight Moana, giving her a nod of greeting.

"Have you raised rabbits?"

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana stepped a little bit closer, peering down at the cute little creatures. "No. We had pigs and chickens and a few other animals but no rabbits." She reached forward, brushing one with her finger tips. "They look a little bit like a mongoose." Mongoose's were very hard to catch.

A smile reflected in her dark eyes as she looked up at Cougar. "Are you raising these to eat?" She felt like it was important to ask.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar rubs his thumb back and forth over the top of the furry head, fond right now, but also because this isn't one that he's going to end up eating, down the road. "Yes," he agrees, gesturing to the four that are comfortably set up in their hutches. "I only have room for six. Parents, babies," he says, lifting up the one in his palms.

"This one needs a home, before Jake wants to adopt it as a pet. I don't want to have to make fiction about the rabbits always running away, when they're older."

[chosenbytheocean]

Moana nodded her head. She understood, she had managed to adopt Pau and Heihei but those were the only ones that she'd been allowed to keep as pets. "I'd offer but I live at the inn. I don't know if I could keep a small creature there. Have you thought to ask Kate? I know she has room for chickens. I don't think the two of them wold hurt each other."

She really didn't know.

[thecatinahat]

"It will not be small long," is what he says, because that's his problem. He needs to give the animals room to graze and eat and grow, especially if they're going to grow up with enough fat on their bones to actually be worth something. Still, he feels better knowing that he's helping to manage the population at least a little.

If only he could figure out how to do it with the fish. Maybe he'll need to talk to Finnick or Hook again. "So long as Jake doesn't see it," he says. "Then it will never leave."

[ottimismo]

Sometimes, it feels like there's very little for him to do around the village. He makes sure the church stays cleaned up and taken care of, and prays there each morning before starting his day. It's not quite the same without the altar and the stained glass, and a priest to confess to and confide in, but he makes do. What's important is that he believes God is listening, and he does. That won't ever change.

Still, after he's helped out at the inn in the mornings, unless there's something else specific going on, there's not much for him to do. He checks at the fountain to see if anybody new has come up, and then, for the most part, his day is free. Usually, he occupies his time by wandering around, chatting people up and helping them with whatever tasks they have going on.

It's not a lot, but it's something, one of the only ways he feels he can contribute.

Today, he's wandering through the fog, avoiding the fireflies and making sure everyone else does too, when he comes across Cougar outside. Cougar is easily one of the people he's found himself closest to in the village, and Sonny's quick to greet him with a smile and head over in his direction.

Before he can get out a verbal greeting, though, he sees the hutch and its occupants, and he sounds oddly like a kid on Christmas when he says, "You have bunnies."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar glances up at the sound of Sonny's voice in greeting, his mere presence reminding him that he needs to get to the church at some point, otherwise some of that old Catholic guilt might start to bleed back in. "I have bunnies," he agrees with an amused smirk, holding up his palm with the little creature in it so that Sonny can see, the others nestling in their grass that he'd put together. It's far from the best he can do, but limited supplies mean limited abilities.

"Very small ones," he admits, "but rabbits."

[ottimismo]

The closest he's ever gotten to seeing a real life rabbit was probably his sister's hamster when they were kids, which she paid attention to for exactly three days, then forgot about for some length of time, and only remembered it after it had died. That was the last time any of them were allowed to have pets, even though they'd all made the argument that Gina was the irresponsible one out of them, and the rest of them could totally take care of an animal, no really Ma, we promise.

These days, back home, he doesn't have the time for a pet. His job keeps him too busy and away from home too often. Otherwise, he might have a dog. He'd love a dog.

"They're so small," he says, leaning down so he can get a better look at the fragile thing in Cougar's hand. "Were they just born?"

[thecatinahat]

"Some weeks ago," he admits, because he would not touch them when they were too little, but now they have enough fur on them and are grown enough that he feels fine separating them from the mother (who needs time to get pregnant again, if Cougar's scheme is going to work). He gestures at Sonny's hands with a nod of his head.

"Open," he says, because he needs to finish up with the other little hutches, it will be better if Sonny holds onto the animal for now.

[ottimismo]

Sonny hasn't a single clue what newborn rabbits look like. He would assume like newborn puppies, with short fuzzy fur and closed eyes, small enough to fit in the palm of your hand, but then he would assume wrong. They're even smaller than that, smaller than they are now, and it seems impossible to him for something so tiny to be able to live.

"Oh." His voice is soft, and he obediently opens his hands for Cougar to put the tiny bundle of fur inside. He feels a little like he did the first time he held a baby, but this feels even more fragile in his hands.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar sets the little rabbit in Sonny's hands so he can crawl over to the other side of the hutches, where he's got a little door that he's been fiddling with, a place where he can deposit food. Glancing up in the middle of this, he gives Sonny an amused look, with how tenderly he's holding it. "I don't think it will break," he advises, though it probably would if you squeezed too hard.

Lucky, then, that Sonny doesn't look like he's going to. "This is how they get you," he warns.

[teen_angst_bullshit]

"That is so wrong. You could at least be indifferent about it."

Veronica stands behind him, arms crossed over her chest. The transition has been gradual, but she is slowly toeing back into the realm of the normal. She's not wearing one of Ren's sweater's today, at least, and she's been going to the spring to help heal the branching scar left up her arm and shoulder by the lightning.

And she is, apparently, still a suburban girl underneath her scrubs pants and wool coat.

"I get the reasoning, but I can barely stand to look at those things, knowing what's going to happen to them."

[thecatinahat]

Cougar turns with a smirk, cupping his palms so that the tiny little bunny is facing Veronica, bowing its small little head to butt up against his callouses. He knows that he's going to be manipulated by this tiny thing, but he's okay with it (and maybe that speaks a little to his relationship with Veronica, in general). "This one is not dinner," he says, being very literal about which ones he's going to raise for dinner, later.

He gestures for her to come closer with a tip of his chin, lifting up his palms. "I don't have room for five."

[teen_angst_bullshit]

Like most small, furry animals, the bunny is adorable, but for the moment Veronica resists its siren call, rooted in place as she arches a thoroughly skeptical eyebrow.

"Okay, you don't have room for five," she echoes with a flick of her gaze over Cougar's shoulder to the hutch. "What are you going to do with it?" It's not like he could just set it free into the wilderness; the thing wouldn't last ten seconds.

[thecatinahat]

He shrugs, because as he stares down at the little bunny (the one trying to rub its ears over his palm), he doesn't actually know. "Release it to the wild," he admits, which is his first option, though it's not the one he likes most. "Best to give it to someone else." Ideally, someone else that will also raise it to be a meal and make sure that someone has some food, but he can't stop them from keeping it as a pet.

"Anything that gets it away before Jake sees," he says with a pointed look. If that happens, then he will spend his days doing nothing but arguing about this.

[teen_angst_bullshit]

"The dog would kill it," Veronica points out, in the event that Jake does actually attempt to come to the rescue of the tiny thing and let it loose in the house. Not to mention it would probably leave little pellet shits all over and Veronica would be forced to kill him.

"If you're going to let it out into the wild to die, you need to stop petting it," she insists with a little more urgency. He knows better, she knows he does, but a line has to be drawn somewhere, and even if they give it away, it's probably going to become someone's dinner.

[thecatinahat]

If Baby does kill it, then Cougar is going to be a very proud dog-father, seeing as he's worked very hard to make sure that animal does more than sit around, spoiled, cuddled and without a real purpose. He likes having the dog curl up at his feet, of course, but it needs to do more than that. He glances down at the animal in his hands, tapping it with his thumb twice before setting it down in one of the main hutch areas.

"It's good to see you out," he says, shifting topics as he works up the heart to lift up the gate and let the little thing into the wild.

[bewaretheniceboy]

Peeta has been spending most of his time cleaning, since he'd moved into the house next to the bakery and had decided to reactivate and/or take over the business as well, seeing as no one else here really knew how to do it, but cleaning isn't the only thing he does all day. Every day he helps with food preparation and feeding the starter he had slowly growing in the inn's kitchen, but he also spends some time moving around the village, exploring and memorizing and watching the people there. It isn't the most fascinating of studies, but it's also a bit eerie how much this place reminds him of home. Smaller, yes, the architecture a little different, but overall? It's similar enough to sometimes make him double-take.

One of the similarities are the little runs and hutches people have for animals just outside their houses. His own family have a pig to eat all their food garbage, the Everlarks had their goat, and more besides. Seeing the man bending into what can only be an animal pen, he leaves the road to wander over and look in himself. "Rabbits?"

[thecatinahat]

Cougar glances up from the hutches to see a boy coming through the fog, turning over the little rabbit in his palm so that he can let it hop slowly away from him onto the other. "Very small ones," he confirms, though he does have the two breeding pair that he's hoping will give him new ones soon, a steady supply. By then, maybe he'll have worked down enough wood to build more hutches, but right now, he's got limited space.

He gestures for the boy, offering a look, if he'd like. "You can come and see," he says, remembering that not everyone can interpret Cougar's actions so easily.

[igotacrossbow]

Leaning over the rabbit hutch the same as Cougar is, of course Jake. Jake, who has had no compunctions about naming the bunnies, who tries to sneak them up into his hands whenever Cougar's back is turned, who coos over them and strokes big fingers over tiny little skulls and soft little ears.

Baby is very interested in the bunnies, too, but Jake is careful not to let the dog get any unsupervised time with them. He's a hunting dog, and the babies are very tempting prey, and the last thing Jake wants is a massacre on their hands.

"You're killing me here, Bugs," he intones gravely, watching the rabbits hop around each other before he reaches into the pen and scoops up a bunny of his own, ostensibly the Bugs he was talking to, but as their names seem to rotate with his moods, it's hard to tell for sure. "God, Beth would lose her mind if she saw these guys." And there goes the little baby rabbit, cradled carefully in Jake's big hands, lifted up to his face so he can nuzzle it and it can whuffle at the edge of his beard with interest.

[thecatinahat]

Cougar had been afraid of this. He glances up from below the rim of his hat to where Jake is already giving them names. It's not stopping him from eating them, he decides, but maybe he can time the new bunnies well enough that Jake will barely even notice there are new ones. Cougar sets the one in his hands back in the free hutch, rounding on Jake and his arms at his sides and a firm look on his face. "No," is all he says, a grunted word in English.

He plucks his hat off his head and sets it on Jake's so that he can lie on the ground and make sure the boards under are going to hold up, but now he also has the problem of his sucker of a boyfriend. "I don't think it's just Beth," is his grumbled complaint.

[igotacrossbow]

"No, what?" Jake asks, the picture of innocence while the little brown bunny in his palms sniffs away at his face and hands. C'mon, Cougar, you know you can't actually say no to this face.

Cougar's hat getting plonked on Jake's head gets a big smile, but it doesn't distract him from his new companion. Quietly, like he thinks Cougar won't notice, Jake ducks his chin to kiss the little bunny, overcome by how adorable it is. He's totally right, Beth isn't the only one who may or may not have lost their mind at the appearance of tiny little fluffballs.

"You weren't around for the Princess Little Piddles Incident of '08," Jake grumbles darkly, and uncharacteristically doesn't elaborate.

[thecatinahat]

"You know what," is Cougar's accusatory reply, since the last thing they need is a pet rabbit around that contributes nothing and needs food that he's not so willing to give. He leans up in time to see Jake kissing the rabbit, making a mental note not to let Jake kiss him until he washes his face, because he's not even sure when his last shots were and this is the last thing he needs.

"What is a piddles?" he asks, accent heavy. "It sounds like a baby had an accident."

[igotacrossbow]

Jake maintains his innocence. "I don't know what you're talking about," he huffs, and pointedly goes back to cuddling the little rabbit in his palm.

"Princess Little Piddles was Beth's pet rabbit," he explains finally, after snuggling the bunny in his hands one last time before letting it loose back in the pen with its siblings. "It got loose one day and I had to go around their neighborhood calling for it. Predictably, that ended in tears for everyone." The rabbit had been discovered eventually, half-eaten and completely dead. It had been a rough week for them all.