"Are you sure this is a good idea?"
E.B.'s voice came from below as I clung to the steering wheel, my back paws barely touching the driver's seat while I struggled to reach ten-and-two in the front. I could just barely see over the dashboard. But it was enough for me to drive the car that had started all of this, because I had my mate working the pedals, switching whenever I told him to from pressing his whole body weight against the gas to doing it on the brake. He trusted me, but even so, it had taken some effort to persuade him to help me out with this. And he still wasn't convinced.
"Look," I chittered down to him, "I know this thing almost killed both of us. But if you think about it, we never would have met if it weren't for my car. I don't want to leave it to rust in the driveway forever. It deserves a good home."
"I know that," he replied. "You explained it a hundred times already. I just mean that this giant beast of yours feels like it could blow up at any moment. Plus, it smells awful down here. You sure I can't handle the job you're doing up there?"
It was about noon on Monday. It had taken us a while to figure this out, and only now were we finally ready to try going down the road for even a short distance like this. It wasn't easy to stay in a lane when the steering wheel was as big and as heavy as my entire body. And I was desperately hoping no cop would come along and try to pull us over, only to find a car being operated by two little white rabbits. Not that we were likely to get arrested in that scenario, but still.
"I'm having a hard enough time with it," I said, "and I actually have a driver's license. You don't even know what that is, do you? Oh, uh, press on the gas a little harder. We're going like twenty miles an hour."
"I have no idea what any of this is," E.B. said as he leaned a little further forward against the pedal he was sitting on. "So you better know what you're doing, because I'm just trusting whatever you tell me to do. Now, could you please explain what this is all for?"
I sighed. That part, I knew I had also explained a hundred times, but I understood that it might not be easy for him to grasp it all. The two of us came from completely different worlds, even though we had technically grown up in the same town. The more I thought about it, the more convinced I was that I wouldn't miss being human. But there was a lot I was gonna have to explain to E.B. if I wanted him to understand me, and I was already struggling. How was I supposed to describe the concept of an extremely annoying radio advertisement with a song that gets stuck in your head, telling you to donate your car to help kids in need?
"Remember when you said that were-rabbits have a special gift, and it's our responsibility to share it with the world? For the children, and all that?" This was the explanation I'd settled on. It was the best I could come up with. "It's like that. It's a gift, it's for the children, and it's just the right thing to do."
"You said that already, too," he replied patiently, "but I still don't get it. How is this loud, angry, smelly beast-thing of yours supposed to help the human children? They're about the same size as us when we're in our were-forms. They're not even big enough to 'drive' this thing, or whatever you call it."
I chuckled, which came out as more of a soft huffing sound. I had always wondered the same thing when I heard those commercials, and I still didn't know the answer. "Well," I said, "we'll both just have to trust that the voices on the radio know what they're talking about." I gestured toward the dials on the dashboard, which I currently couldn't reach, with a paw. Then I saw the car starting to drift out of its lane again and hastily put both paws back on the steering wheel.
And because I couldn't reach the stereo, it was still tuned to the same station it had been on that fateful night, which was now broadcasting some local news and traffic updates. I wasn't paying much attention, instead thinking about how I'd never need to worry about stupid things like traffic, or other human current events, ever again after this was done. And the weather report? Pfff. I could sense, deep down in my bones, that it was going to rain this afternoon. But by then, we'd both be curled up in his underground burrow, and probably making sweet, sweet rabbit love. But suddenly, my ears swiveled into an alert position on my head when I heard the start of the next story.
"Local man Dirk Johnson has been reported missing. We spoke to his roommate, who called the police after Johnson failed to return from a recent hunting trip as expected on Sunday morning."
"Honestly, I wouldn't be too concerned about him," a different voice spoke, "if he hadn't put so much effort into preparing for what he was gonna do yesterday. He was totally convinced that this merchandise business of his was gonna be a huge hit - he custom ordered all this stuff with something called the Easter Puppy on it. Said that by the time he got back from his trip, it was guaranteed to start selling like hotcakes. Now, he's not paying his half of the rent anymore, and there's like a hundred boxes of this stuff lying around our apartment. Nobody's gonna want it now that the holiday's over. I don't know what I'm supposed to do."
I rolled my eyes as I listened. Really? The ulterior motive of his whole plan was just to sell a bunch of cheap plastic crap? But the darker implications of what they were reporting soon hit me. Maybe I really had killed those wolves, or something worse than just knocking them out cold like I meant to. I nervously glanced down at E.B. again, but he didn't seem to be paying any attention to what the radio was saying. I knew I would have to explain everything to him eventually - who Dirk was, how I knew him, what happened between us - and I couldn't shake the feeling that everything I'd done was going to come back and bite me someday. Maybe literally. I was so preoccupied with those thoughts that I almost missed the turn.
"We're here!", I shouted, yanking the steering wheel to the left with every ounce of strength in my body, watching as the opposing lanes of traffic slammed on the brakes and honked their disapproval of the way I was cutting through. But we'd made it to the donation site parking lot without crashing the car, which was an impressive feat all by itself. I hopped down off the wheel, shoved the gear shifter into park, and padded over to the glove box. I pulled out the title paperwork, glancing at the name "CHRISTENSEN, JOSHUA H" emblazoned across the top, and left it on the dashboard. I was positive this wasn't how you were supposed to donate a vehicle, but it would have to do. Hopefully it wouldn't raise too many questions, or launch too many investigations.
"We're done?", E.B. called up from the pedals below.
"We're done," I said, leaving the keys in the ignition as I opened the driver's side door. We both jumped eagerly into the grass alongside the parking lot, overlooking the forest. Our forest. Home. I felt giddy, forgetting all about whatever it was that happened to Dirk. I leaned in and nuzzled my nose to E.B.'s, excited by the thought that there would be many more kisses like that one in our future. We ran through the forest, E.B. leading me back to the burrow. It had a lot less creature comforts than any human house I'd ever seen, but I didn't care. The only creature I needed to comfort me was right there.
And then we fucked like... well, you know.