Just A Dream

How I Met You

Thank you to AriggyandDannofan (now VampyfindmeonAO3plis) for suggesting this chapter. X3

TW: Blood-implied panic attack

Dark

It was all dark again. Danno shook his head. How long had it been? He didn't remember the sun setting... he must've either fallen asleep again or just zoned out. Okay, that was kind of scary; his foggy brain couldn't even tell the difference between getting lost in his own thoughts and actually passing out. He was just getting up when there was a loud ripping noise like someone was tearing paper nearby. Then there was a crashing noise, and a short, sharp yelp echoed through the woods, followed by a low whimper of pain. Danno froze. Someone was HURT. Someone was hurt in the FOREST. Someone was hurt in the forest at NIGHT. Oh gosh, that's literally the WORST possible time AND place to get hurt! He started running toward the sound, tripping over every root and rock in his path. After a minute he came to a fork in the path. Danno skidded to a halt, breathing hard; his instincts were going crazy—kinda like Spider-sense, but y'know, without the whole radioactive spider thing. And right NOW his instincts were telling him to go left. He took off running left; eventually he tripped over a rock and fell to the ground, cursing. When he finally hit the ground, the air was forced out of him with a painful woosh. Danno just laid there for a few seconds, completely dazed. It took him a moment to even notice his hand was wet. Danno pulled himself into a sitting position and rubbed his fingers together. "Why on earth are my fingers wet?" He thought. "It hasn't rained recently, and I'm not near a river... or I'd be able to hear it..." Then he put his hands up to his face to rub his eyes. BOY, he was tired. But he accidentally smelled them; his wet hand smelled...metallic...almost like...blood... Danno jumped and desperately started rubbing his nose with his clean hand, trying to get rid of the smell... He absolutely hated the smell of blood - and honestly, who wouldn't after getting their head bashed in by an art supply shelf?, but then he paused. WHY did his hand smell like blood? In his panic he had forgotten why he had gone stampeding into the woods without a flashlight. Someone was hurt. He listened closely as he wiped the blood on his clothes. He couldn't hear any breathing... "Hello?" he asked softly. "Is anyone there?" No reply. Danno reached out and felt something wet and...furry? "Injured animal maybe?" he thought. "But animals don't make human noises." Then he thought back to the bunny girl from a few weeks ago. "What if this is the same situation...?" He felt all the creature's bones. Legs fine. Hips are fine. Ribs and spine fine. Arm's fine. Head blood. A shiver went up Danno's arm, and he desperately resisted the urge to scream like a kindergartener and then throw up in the bushes. Blood on someone's head... like him. He shrank back and pulled himself into a ball. Images he'd tried to repress suddenly resurfacing rapidly and VERY vividly. Blood. Blood on the floor. Bandages. The heavy feeling of the shelf pressing down on him. He didn't know how long he sat there panicking, but what he DID know is that he eventually managed to push the memories away and pull himself together. There was a creature in infront of him that needed his help... he had to help it... he crawled back over to the animal and felt it again. Its body temperature had gone down considerably while he had been gone, but he could still feel a (albeit faint) heartbeat under his fingers. He picked up the creature as one would pick up a baby carefully and slightly gingerly. The creature was very light... almost like he was holding nothing at all...

***********************************************************************************************After he got to his house, he turned on the lights in his room and got the first look at the creature. It was a bunny with blue bloodstained fur and white gloves (somehow NOT stained with blood?? That was probably one of the most confusing things about this creature: that it had a long monkey tail AS WELL AS rabbit ears. It also wore red shorts. "What ARE you?" Danno whispered he was STILL puzzling over the question as he walked to the bathroom to get some bandages and disinfectant. He cleaned up the creature and then promptly fell asleep on the bedroom floor.

*********************************************************************************************** So... MAN, this one was long... (780 words). Thank you for reading :). Like I said, the idea was inspired by AriggyandDannofan, so thank you to them! (Also, when I typed "monkey" when I was describing Riggy, it autocorrected it to "money," which is... fitting... lol.)