Krueger

Krueger had a problem.

A very big problem. Or maybe a small one. No. He is small when it happens, that was the problem.

"Fucking hell," he muttered, staring at the sky through the open door of the equipment shed. Grey clouds stacked on top of each other like a bad omen. The air smelled like wet earth and cold metal. Normally he would have loved it. Rain storms were one of the few things that made this shithole base bearable.

He stood in the doorway with a cigarette between his lips, veil pushed up over his nose, and watched the first fat drops hit the gravel. He took one long drag and stepped back from the doorframe. Back into the dry, as if the rain was a dog that might bite.

"Nicht heute, du Arschloch (Not today, you asshole)," he told the sky. "I've got a schedule."

He did. Gear check, knives, a briefing he had no intention of enjoying. Three hours of peace.

Three weeks ago, a woman in a village he couldn't pronounce had spat at his boots and said something in a language he didn't speak. He had laughed.

The next morning, it had started raining.

He hadn't laughed since.

The first time had been a Wednesday.

He had gone into the washroom for a shower. Nobody had told him the boiler was dead. Nobody ever told him anything. The water had hit him ice cold, and for one confused second he had just stood there thinking oh, that's rude.

Then the floor had gotten rapidly closer.

"Was zum Teufel (What the hell)?" he had wanted to say. What came out was a squeak.

He remembered looking down at two tiny grey-brown paws on wet tile and thinking, very calmly, that he had finally lost his mind. Then he had looked at the drain. It was the size of a sewer tunnel. He had been briefly, genuinely afraid of it.

So he had left.

He had no pants, no veil, no dignity, and no plan, so he had gone with the only thing he had left, which was spite.

Bunny mischief, as it turned out, came naturally to him.

It wasn't on purpose. Mostly. He had slipped under the door of the mess hall because he was cold and hungry and the smell of some fried heartattack was louder than his pride. Nikolai's sandwich had been sitting there. Innocently.

He ate the lettuce. Just the lettuce. Out of principle.

*Then he found the coffee. Maxim's coffee to be exact, in the big black mug that said WORLD'S OKAYEST BROTHER. Krueger sat on the edge of the table and looked at it. Looked at the mug. Looked at his own tiny paw.

Don't, he told himself.

He pushed it off the table.

It hit the floor with a crash so satisfying he nearly forgot he was a bunny. Brown liquid spread across the concrete. Somewhere down the hallway, someone yelled. Krueger's ears swiveled. Every instinct he owned said run, and for the first time in forty years he agreed with his instincts.

He bolted. Down the hall, under a cot, through a crate of spare cables, which he chewed on for good measure because it felt incredible. Mhh, spicy hay. Then he skidded around a corner and left a few small round gifts in Dmitry's boots.

That one had not been on purpose.

Probably.

By the time he found the washroom again, he was freezing, exhausted, and quietly furious at his own biology. The door was cracked open. Steam was pouring out. Someone had run a bath in the old iron tub, a luxury this base had maybe twice a year.

Warm.

He didn't think. He ran across the tiles and leapt, a spectacular, graceless little arc, and hit the water face first.

It took about three seconds.

The heat poured through him like a sigh. His body stretched, and his bones popped back into place. He surfaced, spluttering, and found himself sitting in a steaming bathtub, fully human, naked, and holding a rubber duck someone had apparently put there as a joke.

"Na super (Well, great)," he said to the duck. His voice was hoarse. "Einfach wunderbar (Just wonderful). I'm cursed, I'm clean, and I've shit in Dmitry's boots."

He sat there for a long time, letting the water go lukewarm around him.

Warm water turns him back. Cold water turns him into a bunny. Okay.

He could work with that.

He had been working with it ever since. Mostly by avoiding every raindrop on the continent.

Which was why the gutter was so deeply unfair.

He was in the shed, checking his rifle for the third time. Bolt. Optics. Bolt. His hands knew it so well his mind had wandered off, and that was exactly how it happened.

He didn't notice the rusted seam above the shelf until something cold hit the back of his neck. Then a lot of something cold.

The gutter gave way and dumped a whole winter's worth of collected rainwater straight down onto him. It soaked through the veil, down his collar, into his boots, everywhere at once.

"Scheiße! Nein, nein, nein, nicht jetzt (Shit! No, no, no, not now)—"

He felt it start.

The world went tall and sideways, the shelves stretching up past him like skyscrapers. His shoulders folded in. His hands stopped being hands. His voice cracked on the last word and came out as something thin and ridiculous.

Then it was over.

Quiet.

Rain dripped steadily from the broken gutter. Krueger sat in the middle of a heap of damp clothing, a tangle of tan cargo pants and tactical shirt and one army-green veil that had landed half over his head like a sad little tent. His ears were heavy and soaked. His whole body was trembling, and he hated that he couldn't tell if it was cold or rage. Probably both.

He pushed the veil back with his nose.

The shed looked enormous.

Okay, he thought. Okay. This is fine.

His nose twitched involuntarily.

Fuck you, he thought. Fuck the village. Fuck the woman. Fuck the gutter. Fuck every single person who ever told me I should relax more.

He tried to hop and tripped over his own belt. Tried again. Got tangled in a sleeve. His ears flopped forward over his eyes and he sat back down with as much dignity as a middle sized bunny could manage, which was none.

Warm bath, he thought. Warm bath, warm bath. Just get to the washroom. It's four hundred meters. That's, what, a hundred hops? Two hundred? Fuck.

He could still hear the rain. It was the only sound until the sound of boots.

Footsteps.

Coming across the gravel. The door creaked wider. Krueger went completely, perfectly still, just how he does in the second before a shot, except this time he was the one in the crosshairs.

No. No, no, no.

He considered the options. Hide under the pants. Bolt for the shelves. Pretend to be a very small, very quiet rock.

The footsteps stopped just inside the doorway. He could feel someone's attention on him, on the abandoned pile of gear, on the single wet veil lying in the middle of it all.

And on the tiny pair of hazel eyes peeking out from underneath it.

{{user}}.

Krueger's heart hammered against his ribs, fast and frantic and absurdly small.

Say nothing, he thought desperately, and pressed himself deeper into the pile of clothes. Say absolutely nothing. Turn around. Walk away. This never happened.

His nose twitched again.

Fuck.