Title: Communication is Key

Summary: Being a prey animal in a predator family can cause some problems.

Words: 1,466

Rating: G

A/N: This one is all about Bunny!Blaine. It's actually kind of short though. Really very short so I may or may not post an additional one later tonight or early tomorrow morning.

To the person who signed in as a guest and send me the lovely long review: I am steadily working on sprinkling in bits about the rest of how their society, religion, and philosophy works. In fact there's a little of that in this one. And I do plan on mentioning the fish thing too. Your review was amazing and I hope I meet your expectations.

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In the Animal Kingdom, the real one, there were certain species that just didn't interact with one another. Carnivorous animals didn't play with herbivores. Lizards didn't cuddle up to squirrels for warmth at night. In the wild there was a very definitive order to things. With people it wasn't so easy. You could choose who you hung out with and who you dated and married. But you can't choose who your kids are going to be. You can hope and dream and nudge them into activities that might influence their change, but nothing is set in stone. Your children will turn out the way they do with or without your help.

It can't be helped. So families with natural predators have to make things work. It doesn't have to be difficult. They're not really animals. They're people. They can think and rationalize and put nature aside. Blaine wishes his family were better at it. Blaine was the odd one out, a rabbit in a family of predators. His father was a coyote and his half brother Cooper was a huskie. His mother was a kit fox. When Blaine was little they just naturally assumed he'd be something in the canine family. Except for Cooper who generally teased Blaine with different animals like buzzards and moles. Turning into a rabbit was just something else that made him stick out. Its not that his parents don't love him, its just that they don't know what to do with him most of the time. It was disappointing for them to find out he was gay because they had all these dreams for him. It was awkward bringing it up in conversation because of the bashing and the way Blaine held himself. So they just left it alone. It was the pink elephant in the room. When they saw him with rabbit ears it went the same way.

They congratulated him on his transformation and told him that the ears suited his face. Then it was business as usual, like Blaine wasn't a giant sore thumb in their otherwise normal family. It could have been worse though. He could have been an actual black sheep. If that had happened he'd just have to suck it up and never talk to Cooper ever again. Because there's no way he'd ever let that go. It was just sad. Sometimes Blaine felt lonely. He didn't want much from his parents, just a little more affection, or recognition. They tended to just let him do what he wanted. They bought his love and let him be and that stopped being fun once people found out he was gay. After that he would have given anything for a more affectionate family. Dalton was nice, it was great, but he could have gotten by with a nice tender hug and a different public school.

Since his transformation dinners have been a little weird. His mom and dad love red meat and Blaine never had a problem before but now he finds himself gravitating to more vegetables. And it's really hit or miss on pork after what happened with Kurt and the bacon. It's not that he doesn't like meat anymore, he just has other tastes and considerations now. He doesn't want his parents to worry about how they eat. It's their house too. He's tried to make it apparent that he doesn't care, that the copious amounts of meat don't offend him, but they're not getting it. Meat hasn't disappeared from the dinner table but it's different. Mom is cooking things in ways she never did before and she's trying to cut back on the amount of meat she puts out. It's a nice gesture and Blaine's glad they're at least trying to connect with him in some way but he feels like a burden too. Like he's forcing them to change their lifestyle.

He doesn't want it to stay like this. Pretty soon, not soon enough unfortunately, he's going to be moving out. He's going to move to New York and live in a dinky apartment with Kurt and Ohio is going to turn into a footnote. Blaine really doesn't want to spend his last years at home feeling like an estranged guest. Communication is key. Blaine takes a deep breath and centers himself. His parents are just on the other side of the wall, sitting in the living room. He can do this. If he can tell Kurt that he likes to poop with his pants entirely off he can talk to his parents about dinner. He can do this. Blaine nods to himself and walks into the living room. They glance up at him instinctively then turn back to the tv. They're watching Bruce Almighty. For a minute Blaine lets the movie pull him in. Morgan Freeman's black bear features have been removed with CGI and it's so striking. A person who looks entirely human past their twenties.

"Is there something you needed honey?" His mother is staring at him with a small frown. He's been standing there for a few minutes rocking on his heels.

"Yeah. I wanted to talk with you and dad." He smiles at them to show it isn't serious and waits patiently for his dad to turn off the movie and focus on him. Blaine takes a deep breath and stands in front of the television, his hands working together in front of his stomach. "I feel like we're not on the same page. We usually aren't. I don't...I don't always know how to talk with you." Blaine looks right at his parents, his face wide and earnest. "And it's not because you scare me or anything. I love you and I know you love me it's just...we don't um communicate very well I guess. But there's been something bothering me lately and I would feel better if it was all out there in the open." His parents don't speak but his dad sends him a small smile that gives him courage.

"I don't want you to change dinner. Or plant a garden in the yard. I still like meat, I'm just starting to like more vegetables. I like the stuff we usually have for dinner. And the whole thing with the pork roast that was...well the night before Kurt ate some bacon by accident and freaked out. It was a mess and I was just thinking about it. I'm not off of it entirely but sometimes it bothers me. Beef is good though, and deer. I still like that. And we don't need a garden. Really mom, we don't. We wouldn't be very good at keeping it up and it'd be ridiculous to hire someone to take care of a few tomatoes and beans." Blaine bites his lip and tries to gauge what his parents are thinking. It's his mother who breaks the silence.

"Okay. That's fine...was there..." His mother frowns and gestures vaguely with her hand. "It seems like there was something else too. Or is that...I didn't know the food was bothering you so much Blaine." She sounds genuinely upset about it and it makes Blaine want to backpedal. He didn't want to upset them.

"I just...I'm a rabbit. But I'm not an actual rabbit you know. I don't want you guys to feel weird just because coyotes and foxes eat rabbits. I know you love me and you're not going to eat me. This is just like me being gay. I'm still Blaine."

"Who else would you be?" Blaine's father says it like it's obvious, like Blaine was talking crazy just seconds before. "We just wanted you to feel like it was okay."

Blaine rocks on the balls of his feet, excited with the direction this has turned. "I do feel okay. I felt okay before and I feel okay now. I don't want a fuss but you know..." Blaine scrunches up his nose and looks up at the ceiling. "I want to talk with you more. About stuff. Like my life. I don't...we don't do that enough. And I know that your busy and I'm busy and—"

"Blaine." He stops his rant and looks over at his father who has a deadpan look on his face. Then to his mother who looks like she's trying not to laugh. "Come watch the movie with us okay." Blaine's ears droop over with a lazy happiness and his tail starts to wag. He sits next to his mom, letting her pull him in and tuck him to her side like a little kid. While his dad starts bargaining with his mother for pizza he gets comfortable. Maybe tomorrow he'll ask them about what the transformation can do to your sex life. Kurt certainly isn't going to ask his dad.

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I wanted to do a fic forever ago dealing with little quirks and things that Blaine and Kurt would figure out about each other once they lived together. And the pants thing just came to me. Some people's legs get hot when they poop and they pull their pants entirely off and well it can be an embarrassing thing to admit to your lover. And since I can't seem to get that domestic fit out, I plan to sprinkle those things around in here.

Also I wanted to tackle a little bit of what religion would be like. The way I see Christianity in the Animal Verse is that God is the only being that is entirely human for his whole existence. And Christians believe people develop animal traits because they're made by God like the other animals. But I don't know. I have to flesh it out. It doesn't help that I'm agnostic. I just have too much headcannon to not include these types of things.