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As a noble family, one of the activities the Nightray family engaged in somewhat often was hunting. They would ride out into the forest that connected with their property, with servants and guests, and bring down, hopefully, a boar or a buck, and then afterwards they would all have a grand feast, in the style of nobility in centuries past. It was a relatively uncommon activity, as the Nightray family had drifted apart in recent years what with all the deaths and the cult-joining, and it was also an activity in which it wouldn’t be noticed if you happened to vanish in the middle of it.
Not that Elliot and Leo had intended to vanish, of course. It had been a spur-of-the-moment thing—Elliot had seen a stream that he wanted to let his horse drink from, and so they’d dropped back from the group, and as they were moving to catch back up they caught sight of a lovely flower meadow off to the side.
This lovely flower meadow did not contain Vanessa and Ernest cooking up new tricks to humiliate and possibly actually murder Leo, and it did not contain Vincent either actually hitting on or pretending to hit on his literal biological older brother, and it did not contain Bernice suggesting that human sacrifice was the way to go when you wanted to bring dead family members back, and it did not contain Gilbert getting all squeamish over the idea of killing an animal and somehow ending up the pathetic butt of everyone’s jokes. This lovely flower meadow, in fact, contained wildflowers, and a couple butterflies, and a soft-looking black bunny that gave off the impression of having come to life out of a child’s nursery, and a hare that looked like it probably had rabies and that bolted off into the shadowy trees as soon as Elliot and Leo stepped into the meadow. The bunny, though, stayed, like something out of a picture book, and Leo started attempting to lure it over with strawberries as Elliot started hunting around the meadow for the sort of nice flowers he never would have dared pick anywhere his siblings might find out about it.
The flowers were lovely—beautiful enough that Elliot might have started considering that the old legends were right about this being an enchanted forest—but Elliot was sixteen and did not believe in magic, and so he put the old legends out of his head and focused on the flowers and did not notice the silhouette of a young girl standing in the trees where the hare had dashed off to, her eyes fixed on him and Leo.
By the time Elliot had gathered a nice bouquet, Leo had managed to coax the bunny into his lap and was feeding it the strawberries he’d brought for their dinner, and he made quite the picture, sitting there as the sun began to turn the world around them gold. Elliot watched for a moment, drinking in the beautiful vision, before he finished arranging the flowers and grinned.
“But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?” he called. “It is the East, and this Leo is the sun. Arise, fair sun, and kill the envious moon, who is already sick and pale with grief that thou, her maid, art far more fair than she. Be not her maid since she is envious. Her vestal livery is but sick and green, and none but fools do wear it. Cast it off. It is my dear friend. O, it is my love! O, that he knew he were! He speaks, yet he says nothing. What of that? His eye discourses; I will answer it.”
“My eye says that you’re a dumbass, Elliot,” Leo said, but he was blushing, and grinning just a little as the bunny’s nose bumped against his fingers, searching for more berries.
Elliot sighed, and rolled his eyes. “I am too bold,” he continued. “’Tis not to me he speaks. Two of the fairest stars in all the heaven, having some business, do entreat his eyes to twinkle in their spheres till they return. What if his eyes were there, they in his head? The brightness of his cheek would shame those stars as daylight doth a lamp; his eye in heaven would through the airy region stream so bright that birds would sing and think it were not night. See how he leans his cheek upon her hand. O, that I were a glove upon that hand, that I might touch that cheek!”
Leo obligingly put his hand on his cheek; the bunny followed it, still searching for treats. “Ay me,” he said, half-teasing. Elliot grinned, and continued the soliloquy.
“He speaks. O, speak again, bright angel, for thou art as glorious to this night, being o’er my head, as is a wingèd messenger of heaven unto the white-upturnèd wond’ring eyes of mortals that fall back to gaze on him when he bestrides the lazy puffing clouds and sails upon the bosom of the air.”
“O Elliot, Elliot, wherefore art thou Elliot?” Leo said, taking what appeared to be Elliot’s sandwich out of his bag and beginning to feed it to the bunny. “Deny thy father and refuse thy name, or, if thou wilt not, be but sworn my love, and I’ll no longer be a Capulet.”
“You literally do have a family name,” Elliot pointed out.
“Baskerville is a different species, technically,” said Leo. “Can’t exactly shrug it off like you can yours.”
“Fair,” said Elliot. “Shall I hear more, or shall I speak at this?”
“Tis but thy name that is my enemy,” Leo continued. “Thou art thyself, though not a Nightray. What’s Nightray? It is nor hand, nor foot, nor arm, nor face. O, be some other name belonging to a man. What’s in a name? That which we call a rose by any other word would smell as sweet. So Elliot would, were he not Elliot called, retain that dear perfection which he owes without that title. Elliot, doff thy name, and, for thy name, which is no part of thee, take all myself.”
“I take thee at thy word,” said Elliot. “Call me but love, and I’ll be new baptized. Henceforth I never will be Elliot.”
“If you go around cosplaying Edwin Holy Knight again I’m breaking up with you,” Leo said dryly.
“Fuck off, Edwin’s cool as hell,” said Elliot. “Also, is that my dinner you’re feeding that bunny?”
“Not anymore,” said Leo remorselessly. “You have a manor home full of food to go home to, this bunny just has the cold woods full of predators…unless we catch it and kill it and turn it into soup, but either way you aren’t getting your dinner back.”
At the words catch it and kill it and turn it into soup, the bunny started desperately trying to get out of Leo’s arms, but Leo had already caught it and was holding it tightly and stroking its soft fur. “You’re the worst,” said Elliot, watching this spectacle. “And we aren’t killing and eating the goddamn baby bunny that you’ve fucking Snow White’d into being your best friend for the afternoon, what the hell? It looks like it hopped out of a kid’s book into this meadow, I think Gilbert would actually have an aneurysm if we clubbed it and brought it home.”
“Gilbert has an aneurysm if he sees any sort of dead small animal,” said Leo. “He cries when he hears you talk about the Holy Knight series. I swear to God I saw him wet himself when he unexpectedly encountered a cat once. I think he probably has an especially severe anxiety disorder, and maybe some kind of head trauma, and that’s somehow related to tiny woodland creatures in some way.”
“Yeah, and let’s not traumatize my brother even more by feeding him the Velveteen Rabbit here,” said Elliot, gesturing to said rabbit, which had stopped trying to get away around the time Elliot and Leo had started talking about Gilbert and his various anxieties. “It’s not Gilbert’s fault he’s got the mental fortitude of a Nature Valley granola bar. He’s going to have a hard enough time with whatever it is the rest of the family catches today. He might cry again, if it’s small enough.”
“If he cries, let’s use it as a distraction to get us a pet bunny,” said Leo, holding the bunny up in the air. It nosed at his wrist, little feet kicking slightly, and Elliot had to physically restrain himself from cooing over it.
“I think we should get a cat instead,” he said.
“I thought you were just talking about not traumatizing your brother more.”
“I’m just saying,” said Elliot. “It’s a wild animal. ”
“An adorable wild animal,” Leo shot back. “He likes strawberries.”
“You do know that if we bring him home my siblings are going to try to kill him to fuck with you.”
Leo grinned up at him. “That’s why we’re going to be saying he’s your pet!” he said. “Your emotional support bunny, Strawberry.”
“Why the fuck are we naming him Strawberry.”
“He likes strawberries and he has red eyes,” Leo pointed out.
“So what? We don’t want to mix him up with what his favorite food is called,” said Elliot. “I think we should call him Velveteen, like in the book.” He paused. “Also, I didn’t say yes to keeping him and I resent the implication that I need an emotional support animal.”
“The Velveteen Rabbit? Nerd,” said Leo.
“You knew exactly what book I was talking about, you can’t call me a nerd!”
“It’s a children’s classic, of course I know what book you’re talking about, stupid,” said Leo. “I’m calling you a nerd for wanting to name our new bunny after it.”
“Velveteen’s a better fucking name than Strawberry!” Elliot crouched down, dropped the bouquet in Leo’s lap, and carefully took the bunny from his boyfriend’s hands. “Hey, c’mere, come to daddy,” he said softly.
“Gross.”
“Shut up, Leo. Come on, come to daddy. Which name do you like better, huh? The classic, literary Velveteen or stupid Strawberry?”
The bunny started chewing on Elliot’s sleeve, which wasn’t great, because his jacket was expensive. All of his clothes were, really—the Nightray family was swimming in cash—but it was the principal of the thing.
“He’s eating me because he doesn’t like the name Strawberry,” said Elliot.
“Or maybe he’s eating you because he’s a bunny, which means he has fluff in his head instead of brains,” said Leo. He held one of the flowers in front of the bunny’s mouth, and the bunny started chowing down. “See? He’s just hungry. He needs us to give him a good home.”
“Fine, okay, whatever,” said Elliot. “He’s our son now. But I am not naming our son fucking Strawberry. ”
“Strawberry Velveteen. A compromise,” said Leo, feeding the bunny another flower. Elliot couldn’t help but notice that, aside from the strawberries, Leo’s dinner was wholly untouched, but whatever. Fine. They had a bunny son now. Elliot could give up on dinner to feed him. He’d just beg something off of Gilbert, who was an amazing cook, later, if Gilbert wasn’t having a breakdown when they got back.
“Fine, but I’m just calling him Velveteen,” said Elliot, stroking the rabbit.
“Loser,” Leo said. “You’re just jealous that you didn’t think of Strawberry first.”
“I didn’t, it’s a stupid name, ” said Elliot.
“Strawberry doesn’t think it’s a stupid name,” said Leo. “Do you, boy?”
Strawberry Velveteen sniffed at Leo’s fingers.
“See?” said Leo. “He agrees with me.”
“You’re insane, ” said Elliot. “Weren’t you the one who said that bunnies just have fluff for brains?”
“Yes, and I stand by that, but it’s still more brains than you have.”
“Fuck you!”
“Not in front of our son!”
“That’s true, we don’t want him to turn out like Gilbert,” said Leo, and Elliot snorted, and did not notice the bunny’s head pop up at the name. “Though we should start heading back now, the sun’s nearly down and I don’t want your siblings to kill me for getting you lost in the woods.”
“Fuck off, I never get lost,” said Elliot. “You’re the one with an ass sense of direction.”
“If things in the woods were less interesting, my sense of direction would be far better,” Leo said haughtily. He stood, taking the bouquet with him. “But seriously, we’ve got a bunny to sneak in and if we’re too late Gilbert definitely won’t be having enough of a breakdown to provide a smokescreen for us.”
Elliot stood as well, adjusting his grip on Strawberry Velveteen. “Aren’t we going to be telling people he’s my emotional support bunny?”
“Yes, if we’re caught,” said Leo, who was the one of them with the plans for getting what they wanted out of the Nightrays. “If we just walk in with him out in the open right now, though, he is going to end up rabbit stew whether we like it or not, so we’re going to need to smuggle him in.”
“I guess we’ve already gone this far,” Elliot said. “Alright, Velveteen, are you ready for your daddies to smuggle you into their house like a fluffy brick of cocaine?”
“Elliot, I swear to God if I hear you call yourself ‘daddy’ one more time I am going to sue you for custody and go straight back to Fianna’s House,” said Leo.
“I included you in it this time!”
“That’s even worse!”
Elliot and Leo bickered like this as they got back onto Elliot’s horse and left the forest in the dying light of the setting sun, Leo carefully cradling their new bunny as Elliot took the horse’s reins. Neither of them noticed the two girls watching them leave, one all in white and one all in black, even as the piercing violet eyes of the girls never left them, even as, though they never moved, the girls were never further than ten feet behind them until Elliot and Leo left the forest, not noticing the girls standing at the treeline, staring after them intently as they carried the rabbit further and further away from the wood that some people, once upon a time, had claimed was enchanted.