Musophobia (Gunnar)

[Rhea Hartman]

Rhea was not someone who spent a lot of time loitering around town. If she wasn't in one uniform or another, she was at the gym, and if she wasn't at the gym she was out with friends, and if she wasn't out with friends she was at home falling asleep in front of The Bachelorette. As such, she felt distinctly out of place hovering outside The Ark, still in her workout clothes with her purse over one shoulder. She had been dawdling more than a minute now, and she was starting to feel ridiculous. She spent her career charging into flaming buildings and open gunfire, and here she was scuffing stones outside of the door of a pet shop.

Several weeks ago, she had asked her brother if he thought Haden would like a pet. Daniel and his wife owned a farm, and Haden had spent his life helping out with the sheep, goats, chickens, and various sundry livestock that they tended. He was getting old enough to handle more responsibility now, and Rhea thought an animal of his own to take care of might be good for him. Daniel agreed enthusiastically. So at their next playdate, Rhea scooped up her nephew under the armpits and, after some tickling and wrestling, asked him how his week had been, and if his friends had any cool pets.

Whoever Johnny Brentson was, Rhea wished his parents had just bought him a damn hamster. But Haden had been so excited. She wavered at the door for a moment longer, then pushed it open and stepped inside. A tone chimed, and Rhea was greeted by the faint smell of dog food and animal bedding, and the chirping of birds. No armies of mad rodents charging towards her so far. To her right were the dog and cat accessories, to the left were glass-front cages. Mephit could use a new toy. She'd just take a quick look around that section first.

[Gunnar Frey]

With a Rhinelander buck held with one arm and a Syrian hamster creating a nest in the front pocket of his hooded jumper, Gunnar was only just about able to pick up the bag of kitten food that had fallen off the shelf and shove it back on where it was supposed to be. Yesterday had been the store's close day, as every Thursday was, and whilst Gunnar had enjoyed the breather it was always good to see the doors open again. Especially when trade was flowing as well as it had done that morning. The voucher in the e-newsletter had clearly had some positive effect, and he was already in the process of working out what to include in the next edition.

Juggling animals was a skill he had gotten rather good at over the years, and it was little effort for Gunnar to balance the rabbit and monitor the hamster as he made his way around the store. It was great for the animal's socialisation skills and many of the customers seemed to appreciate being able to meet the animals up close and personal, although he did make a conscious effort to be very careful with some of the less cute and cuddly animals.

As Gunnar was cutting back through the dog section on his way back to the small mammals he caught sight of the police officer who had been present when the downtown district had been vandalised. She appeared to be rather aimlessly looking at the dog toys, and he made a slight detour to approach her, shuffling the large buck rabbit to a more comfortable position leaning against his shoulder. “Good morning officer, it's good to see you again. Are you here about what happened a while back? I haven't heard any updates for a while.”

[Rhea Hartman]

Rhea jumped at Gunnar's approach, and the green knobbly bone-shaped toy in her hand let out a sharp 'ee-hee!' She hastily returned it to the display. "Good morning, Mr. Fray," she replied with a small clearing of her throat. "No, I'm not here about the vandalism." She had collected Gunnar's statement the afternoon of the event, and then the paperwork was handed off to someone else in her department. Besides, she didn't usually show up on police business in her sweatpants and windbreaker. "All I can say about it is that investigations are ongoing," she added with a small roll of her eyes. "But people around town really came forward to help, so the repairs went smoothly."

Though her visit had nothing to do with the vandalism, she was grateful that Gunnar had brought it up. It put her back in her police frame of mind, which did not pussyfoot around problems. The large, fluffy rabbit was also helpful. She pulled herself to her full, formidable height and smiled. "Actually, I came to ask about pets," she said. "I have an eight year-old nephew who lives on a farm, and I think he'd like something of his own to take care of. Something that comes in a cage, you know, hardy, friendly." She hesitated for a moment before continuing. "He has a friend with rats that he loves to play with. I don't suppose you have anything like that in stock?" A part of her was already hoping that he didn't.

[Gunnar Frey]

Gunnar had not meant to spook the police officer, and he quickly held up a hand in apology as she replaced the squeaky toy on the shelf. “Sorry officer, didn't mean to scare you. But please, call me Gunnar. Mr Frey is my father.” Technically that was a lie, considering his father was actually Mr Brandt, but she did not need to know that. Gunnar hadn't really had much of a statement to make about the vandalism; he wasn't in the area at the time and his store had taken very minimal damage. The Ark's damage appeared to have been collateral, unlike poor Ivy and Josef who's places had been trashed. “Yeah, it was great seeing everyone getting together to do the repairs like that.” He chuckled softly. “Would never have seen anything like that where I used to live.”

The officer's sudden subtle shift up to her full (and perhaps to some rather daunting) height seemed to clash a little with the smile on her face, but Gunnar matched it with a soft smile of his own that brightened a little as she mentioned why she was here. “Ahh, rats sound like they would be a great choice for him. They're easy to care for and very easily tamed, and most are smart enough to learn some tricks if you put the time into teaching them.” Gunnar gave the large buck rabbit a gentle scratch on the head as he spoke. “We've always got a good selection of rats in; I breed them myself. Are you looking to get them today, or are you just wanting some advice?”

[Rhea Hartman]

There was a part of Rhea whose instinct was to puff herself up and bark that she hadn't been scared, just surprised. She didn't do this, because she was an adult. Instead, she just nodded and said, "All right, Gunnar then." She gave another cursory sweep of the store. "The place looks great. You didn't have much mess to clean up if I remember right, but it looks like you took care of it without any trouble." She smiled again. She had a warm smile, dainty and ladylike, that contrasted oddly with her broad shoulders and boxing tattoos. The effect wasn't unpleasant, just a little jarring at first. Like most of her, frankly. "That's one of the nice things about Pilot Ridge," she continued. "There might be nothing open after 7 o'clock and no Ethiopian food for fifty miles, but someone's always willing to help out." She poked at the display of dog toys again. "Makes my job a lot easier."

Apparently, 'great choice' and 'easy to care for' were not traits that Rhea was looking for in a pet. Her expression grew steadily grimmer as Gunnar spoke until she looked more like a general receiving news from the front than a doting aunt shopping for her nephew. "Buy them," she said with a glance towards the glass cages on the other side of the store. "I'm going to visit tomorrow." She was trying not to think about falling asleep tonight with a cage of scuttering rats in her living room. "So, they're over there?" She pointed across the fish display. "And you've got hamsters and gerbils too, right?"

[Gunnar Frey]

Gunnar gave the officer a small smile, nodding his head. Perched on his shoulder, the big buck rabbit snuffled against his ear. “That's right, we didn't get hit bad at all. It was only a little cosmetic damage outside – seemed to have been a bit collateral.” A fact that was made clear to Gunnar by just who the damage had obviously been aimed at. He knew there were groups that disliked meta-human's but he hadn't imagined there'd have been much fuss about it in a town as small and remote as this. A town that he was quickly learning had more than its fair share of powered humans. More and more often lately he found himself wondering just who had what ability. Could officer Hartman be reading his mind at this very moment? “Yeah, I've only been here for a few years but it feels more homely than anywhere else I've ever been. I've never heard of a problem like that happen here before.”

As Gunnar spoke about the rats and the reasons why they make great pets, he could see her expression changing and the previously fairly smooth pale orange waves of her voice take on a slightly rugged edge, and he inwardly sighed. It was an expression he'd seen so very many times over the past few years – the expression of a mother as her son insists that he really, really wants a pet tarantula. Granted it didn't tend to happen quite as often with rats, but it wouldn't be the first time. “Yeah, they're in the first three glass cages after the big one with the degus in.” He shifted the rabbit over to the other arm, scratching the top of his head gently. “Yep. Rats, mice, hamsters, gerbils, chinchillas, a couple of ferrets.” He got the vibe that this was not going to be straight-forward. “If you'd like to go over and have a look, I'll be right with you in two minutes once I've put the rabbit back.”

[Rhea Hartman]

"Nothing quite like that, no, but there's always weird stuff in a town like this." Rhea maintained her military expression, and nodded curtly at Gunnar's suggestion to return the rabbit to its cage. "That would be fine, thanks." And with that she began picking her way out of the dog toys section and towards the ominous glass cages.

The degus were the first thing she saw, which were actually quite cute. They looked like gerbils. Maybe Haden would be content with one of those. And then the rats. Rhea came to a purposeful halt in front of the rat cages and backed up against the aisle of rodent bedding behind them. There seemed to be an army of them, the fat, squirming things climbing all over each other, with their wormy tails dragging along behind them and oh God one was looking straight at her, with its giant fang teeth showing underneath its twitchy, wart-looking nose...

She pressed her fingertips to her forehead and tried to talk some sense into herself. It didn't work. When Gunnar returned she was still standing with her face in one hand, and without opening her eyes she asked as calmly as possible, "So, do you have anything that...looks like a rat, but isn't a rat?"

[Gunnar Frey]

“Yeah, I had noticed that.” Since his arrival in Pilot Ridge Gunnar had been rather lucky in that he'd not had anything overly dramatic happen, but he knew that this place wasn't quite... right. He knew of Meta's and was pretty good friends with a couple, but this place seemed to be teeming with them and they seemed less reserved than in other places he'd been. Like they weren't concerned about being open about what they were. Not that they should be of course, Gunnar was far from prejudiced, but odd things occurring seemed far more commonplace here than they had ever been at home. Still, he was happier here than he had been anywhere else before.

Taking the large buck back to his pen, Gunnar shut the rabbit safely back away and made sure that it had plenty of hay and water available. On his way over to the rodent section he brought the sable coloured hamster out of his pocket, giving it a little bit of a fuss.

Based on Rhea's reactions when he had been speaking about rats to her, Gunnar wasn't entirely surprised when he saw her physically recoiling away from the critters, despite the fact they were behind glass and clearly couldn't get to her even if they wanted to. He bit back the chuckle at her question, keeping his face and voice quietly polite. “Well, we do have some pretty big show mice... Or you could get a ferret and shave it's tail, but I think he might notice the difference.”

[Rhea Hartman]

It didn't matter that the rats were inside cages. She could see them. She knew they were there. They knew she was there. It was like swimming in a zoo exhibit tank with sharks. Oh but the sharks are behind a layer of glass, it's fine. Like shit it was fine.

“Can you do that?” Rhea's eyes snapped up, and the grasping hope in her voice was almost comical. “I mean, he's only eight...” Look at that, Gunnar had an adorable little hamster on his shoulder. Why didn't Haden want a hamster? Or a kitten? Or a lizard, or a tarantula, or a mastiff-pitbull mutt or a boa constrictor or a komodo dragon or anything that wasn't a fangly squirming nightmare rodent.

((I apologize for shortness, I just didn't want to break the conversation into any more pieces. ))

[Gunnar Frey]

There had never really been an animal that Gunnar feared. Respected, certainly. It was difficult to work with any animal more complicated than a worm if you held no respect for it, but that wasn’t the same as fear. He wouldn’t go charging up to a crocodile, but at the same time he wouldn’t bolt in terror from it. Admittedly he did find it a little difficult to understand people who had such intense fears of something as placid as a domestic rat (wild ones he could understand a little clearer; those things carry everything), but he had been working in pet stores long enough now to have seen it enough times that he had a better clue how to handle it.

Gunnar’s posture was soft and relaxed, and he fully managed to keep the look of ‘are you kidding me?’ from crossing his face. He could hear the rising panic in the woman’s voice, could see it in the way the yellows of her voice were peaking and changing shade as her tone became slightly more desperate. He kept his own voice quiet, his tone patient. “I don’t think that would work, sorry. The ferret would get very pissed off with the process, and I think your nephew would be a bit upset too if he found out.” Giving the hamster a gentle fuss, Gunnar pondered the best way to approach this. “Hmm... If you don’t mind investing in a travel box as well as the actual cage, I could get them out and load them in there, and they’d be alright until you get them to your nephew’s, as long as you are going there tomorrow. You wouldn’t have to touch them, or even look at them if you didn’t want to.”

[Rhea Hartman]

The shop owner's patience only made Rhea feel more ashamed of herself. Why had she suggested that? Of course it wouldn't work. But the rats in the cage had her rattled, and she really just wanted to go back to the other side of the store. Or better yet, home.

She tried to mentally pull herself back to the adult part of her brain, where the boxer and the firefighter and the police officer lived, and not the four-year-old part where the rats lived. "Yeah, he would be," she said with a pitiful attempt at a jocular tone. "He's a little firecracker, that one! Ha ha."

Her voice settled back into the upper orange range at Gunnar's suggestion. "A travel box? That would be great, actually." She'd need one to get it to Daniel's anyway. "In fact, why don't we go look at them right now?"

[Gunnar Frey]

Gunnar was very lucky in that there wasn’t any animal he was particularly afraid of. Sure if he ever came face to face with an angry crocodile or grizzly bear he might want to amend that statement, but it wasn’t a general fear to the point of phobia like this poor woman seemed to be suffering from. Granted he hated wasps with a burning passion, but then again, who didn’t?

Rhea’s attempt at lightening her mood was met with a smile from Gunnar, and he chuckled softly. “If it helps, you’re not alone. I once had a woman in here who was trying to convince her kid that a hamster was a baby rabbit; turned out she’d been kicked by a buck when she was a kid and she’d been nervy of touching rabbits since.”

Gunnar nodded in agreement to Rhea’s suggestion to go and look at the travel boxes straight away. “Sure thing; they’re just around here.” Leading the way away from the store cages and over to where the travel boxes lived, Gunnar pondered an idea. “You know, if you’re gonna be coming round this way before going there tomorrow, I could always keep them here overnight so you can pick ‘em up quickly tomorrow, if you wanted?” Overnight holding of animals wasn’t something that Gunnar usually offered, but he was willing to make an exception in this case. She was an officer of the law, after all.

[Rhea Hartman]

At first, Gunnar's comment only intensified Rhea's embarrassment. There was some tiny, delusional part of her brain that hoped she was successfully hiding her discomfort and would be able to walk out of the store with her persona as a fearless agent of the law intact. However, it made her feel a bit better to hear about the mom who was afraid of rabbits, and the storekeeper remained courteous and friendly. "Yeah..." she laughed awkwardly. "Well I'm fine with rabbits."

She ran her fingers through her hair as they migrated back towards the other side of the store. "Mine's pretty much the same," she admitted as they passed the aquariums. "When I was five we stayed in temporary housing for six weeks while they renovated the new place, and the building was infested with rats." She gave her head a little shake. She could still remember the scuttering in the wall next to her bed and the flash of beady eyes in the dark. She gave another wry smile. "Not a great spot to have your own room for the first time."

She had just started evaluating the travel cases (wall thickness and number of latches being the first thing she looked at) when Gunnar suggested overnight holding. Her voice peaked into yellow with a note of surprise and she turned to face the man. "Really? You can do that?" Her face started into a broad smile of relief. "That would be fantastic, actually! Honestly I was planning to sleep in my car tonight," she said with a laugh. "I'd be happy to pay extra for it, if you like."

[Gunnar Frey]

Whilst Gunnar did admittedly find phobias of small, harmless animals a little difficult to understand, he was not the sort to mock or belittle anyone else for it. Granted eight or nine years ago he might well have been a bit of a dickhead about it, but he was quite literally not that person any more. Time could change many things, and it had certainly helped hammer into him the practices of proper respect, compassion and empathy. It was so much easier to understand and care about the thoughts and feelings of others now that he wasn't just obsessed with fulfilling his own selfish desires every waking moment.

As they moved away from the rodent cages and towards the less scary carriers, rodent cages and other accessories, Gunnar's lips gave a twitch of a smile as the tones of her voice audibly and visually settled and became smoother, blending in with the undulating pale greens and blues coming from the classical music playing low over the store radio system. “Ahhhh, I see. I think that'd be enough to give anyone a fright.” Triggering, his therapist referred to it as. Past trauma haunting present day reactions to things reminding of it. Like the way he got twitchy any time anyone mentioned having a stomach ache. “Well... If you ever wanted any help with maybe coming around to them a bit, I'd be happy enough to spend some time with you slowly getting used to them from a distance, or something, maybe? I mean, I'm not a therapist or anything, obviously, but...” He trailed off, giving a small shrug of his shoulders. If she was up for it then it would certainly help in the future when he hoped to be able to open up an exotic animal meet-and-greet type area nearby the store, since it'd give him a better idea how to help people who are nervy of the animals, but if she didn't take it up then he was never going to push it. That'd be probably the least helpful thing he could do.

Gunnar matched her soft laugh with a smile and a laugh of his own, selecting out the sturdiest and most secure of the carriers and offering it out to her. “Sure, just don't go advertising it out, hmm? Not usually something that's offered, except in special cases.” Usually only when Gunnar was certain the person would actually come for the animal the next day and wouldn't just make arrangements and then bugger off never to be seen again. His hand gave a small dismissive wave at the offer of extra money. “Nah, don't worry about it. There's some empty cages at the back they can overnight in, and I'd be feeding them and such if they weren't being sold anyway. Do you want a hand picking out a cage for them?”

[Rhea Hartman]

"What? No," Rhea said a little too quickly, then backpedaled into courteous consideration. "That's sweet of you to offer," she added graciously. "I'll think about it. I'm sure Haden will want to drape them all over me," she said with a chuckle that concealed a shudder that went to her very bones. She would consider it. Possibly if Gunnar ever rescued her from gangsters who had tied her to train tracks or gave her a winning lottery ticket, she would actually agree. "That's sweet of you to offer," she repeated as she examined the two-inch thick carrying cage with approval.

She nodded at Gunnar's request for discretion. "Of course." He obviously took good care of the animals here, and she doubted that he tolerated careless pet owners very graciously. Separated from the animals themselves and knowing that she wouldn't have to interact with them for another 12 hours, she was almost pleased at Gunnar's suggestion to look at cages. Haden would love it. "Yeah, that'd be great. Something big, they've got plenty of room, and maybe some toys and things. Haden loves building stuff, do you have anything you can customize or put together yourself?"