Chapter Text
The first time that you touched me
Oh, will wonders ever cease?
It started like all good things do, innocuous if a little unexpected. The feeling, much like a tug on your heart, pulled from somewhere too far to perceive and yet somehow not far enough. It’s abstract, a metaphysical sense that you can’t explain in words, but it’s there. Tugging incessantly—demanding to be felt.
This could potentially be a mistake. This is probably a mistake. You should turn back now, go home and get back under your blanket, cocooned under it’s comforting warmth with k-pop meme videos to keep you company but no—
A pet.
You are standing in front of a shelter about to adopt a pet.
Uncertain of what that pet will be, all you know for sure is that this is a terrible idea.
You are a struggling medical student—overworked, exhausted, in debt and drained in every conceivable way, the last thing you need in your already shit-storm of a life is the responsibility of another life. Even worse, an animal life, a life that will very much depend on you for its every basic need.
It is entirely too much responsibility. You shouldn’t do it. You are too busy, too tired–hell–too poor to adopt anything and yet here you are; about to take home a pet.
Perhaps the loneliness that always claws the hollow of your heart has finally got a hold of you.
—Or maybe you have lost whatever last specks of sanity you had left; a highly plausible scenario.
Letting out a shaky sigh, you nervously fiddle with the end of your tee, twisting and clenching the soft material until wrinkles start to appear and then before you can swallow it down, another sigh slips out.
Dammit you can’t back out right now! You’re bringing home a pet, not a freaking husband. Pull your shit together!
The internal pep talk (yelling) doesn’t quite work as you had hoped. The anxiety is still there. The hesitance and fear of quite possibly not being a good owner—a glaring possibility at the forefront of your mind, one you do your best to ignore.
Failing to push back the stubborn hesitance, you move forward with quivering lips and a torn heart, the creek of the old door resounding shut behind you
“Welcome to pet-paws! Would you like to adopt a pet?”
Your eyes lock onto the owner of the cheery greeting, her name tag reads ‘Tiff-Paw’ under her full name, and you know it’s some weird pet shop policy that made her wear it. Throat going tight, you dry gulp as you hear her question, internally asking yourself the same. Are you ready to adopt a pet? Is all your hesitance a sign that maybe you shouldn’t?
You had hoped being inside would make you feel calmer, more decided, but you are no better. If anything, being surrounded by walls makes your heart race more, hands growing clammy as your shirt starts to stick uncomfortably to your back. You are tempted to blame the heat but there’s no denying the fact that it’s your nerves.
“um…yes, please.” You reply back meekly, still unsure but determined to push through the nerves swimming somewhere underneath all that tension.
“Great!” She beams, “Do you have a specific pet in mind?”
The shy shake of your head is negative. Two hours before you didn’t even know you wanted a pet.
This is too impulsive, too unlike you—a cautious voice whispers inside your head but you ignore it, its implications jarringly accurate. You are someone who likes to plan things, plan them to the very last, tiny, irrelevant detail but this time…it feels…different somehow. You can’t explain it, can’t say why, but there is something, some part of you, that is assuring you that this is the right choice.
"That’s okay. Let’s take a look around and you can see what we have. Maybe that’ll give you an idea of what you’d like?“ Tiffany’s smile is soft and reassuring.
You hesitate—take a second too long—but smile back and move to follow her as she makes her way inside the shelter to where you assume the pets are. If your smile is a tad wobbly, she doesn’t comment on it.
"Is this your first time adopting a pet?”
Your gaze snaps back from where it was observing a bunch of Labradors play with a rubber ball, “I had a rabbit growing up, but nothing since I moved out from my parents’ place.”
She hums and moves to a secluded room at the back of the hallway.
“I don’t know if you are interested in them still, but we have some pretty cute rabbits if you would like one. Usually, we recommend buying them in pairs because we don’t believe in neutering them here and for a solo owner having a rabbit couple in heat can be hard to deal with. You could always just buy one, but it might become lonely for the rabbit without a friend.”
Biting the inside of your cheek, you mull over her words.
“—however, we do have a male rabbit who’s been pretty much a lone ranger ever since he was rescued and brought here. He’s reticent for a rabbit but he’s healthy. If you are interested in adopting a pet you already know your way around—he’s your best bet.”
You pause. Not having any prior plan of getting a pet, you hadn’t really thought beyond just wanting someone to keep you company. While your youtube feed was usually filled with dog and cat videos, your first ever pet was a rabbit and you had a soft spot for them. Plus getting a rabbit did have the added bonus that you would know your way around him.
“Yeah, sure! I’m okay with a rabbit.” The smile you give tiffany this time is a lot warmer than the one you had given her just a few minutes prior, visibly put to ease by her friendly demeanor.
She grins, twisting the handle open and walks inside while you follow behind, gazing at all the fluffy rabbits around you, eyes jumping from one to another in quick succession afraid to miss anything.
The room has numerous bowls scattered across its floor filled with vegetables and grass while random knick-knacks and a few jump hoops and playsets specially designed for rabbits have been placed around at random.
“Okay! Let’s see where the little bunnzie we want is hiding today. You are free to look around and play with them while I go find him.” Tiffany is all soft smiles and twinkling eyes as she leaves to search about the corners in hopes of finding you a–possible–future pet.
Humming you tread carefully, cautious not to step on any little bunny toes as they hop throughout the room. The edges of your lips stretch into a slow, soft smile, the sight ahead almost enough to make you squeal. The anxiety is still there, burning like a hot flame and licking the edges of your conscience, but seeing all the fluffy, floppy-eared creatures jump and tumble around, you know you want to take one home.
Your feet carry you to a playset placed at a lone corner of the room. You don’t really understand why you are walking towards a playset that—as far as you can see—doesn’t have a single rabbit playing on it. Still, you forge on, pulled towards it for some reason that you can’t think of, but too tired to bother probing the motivation you walk on.
Circling the playset, you observe the small doors and rubber hoops. Randomly scattered on the rubber surface are indentations, proof that some rabbit had nibbled on them too hard.
You squat down to look closer at the nibble marks and catch a tail peeking out from the corner.
Curious, you scoot closer and then like a dam bursting open, your vision narrows reminiscent of spider cracks spreading too quick to stop and suddenly it hurts-hurts-hurts, your vision tunneling to one dark abyss. Fire engulfs your hands when you back away, hands scraping against the floor harshly.
The pain is intense, loud in your ears and tight in your chest and you can’t breathe.
But then the pain abates just as swiftly as it had come and you’re left reeling from the aftershocks, phantom waves of hurt hitting you in the solar plexus.
Someone is calling your name, asking if you are okay and you want to answer back. It’s Tiffany, the one with pretty blue highlights, and she’s sweet and you just wanna answer back—reassure her somehow but you can’t.
Nausea claws at your throat, slithers and tightens over your gag reflex like a viper and it takes every ounce of strength that you have left to not empty your stomach on Tiffany’s shoes.
You fist the ends of your tee and try to register how the material feels under your touch, try to anchor yourself to something—anything.
Breathebreathebreathe comes a whisper, faint as though from somewhere far and you hold onto it.
in-out-in-out, you’re doing great love, just focus on your breathing.
Gripping the voice with a single-minded drive, you make it your anchor.
One breath in.
Another out.
Shuddering, you release a breath from somewhere deep inside your lungs, feeling your chest lighten by a ton and slowly your surroundings start to come back into focus. You force your mind to count and catalogue the room’s features, to do what all your med books always told you to do in a situation like this and hope that it cements your anchor.
The concrete is hard and unforgiving under you, trails of warm tears running down the side of your cheek and you can feel them slipping into your hairline, can still hear the voice whispering inside your head, reassuring you, soothing you and slowly, wary and half-afraid you breathe in.