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Abel leans against the old brick of the alleyway, the yellow spray paint against the brick framing his body like he was a piece of art. The sky was getting darker by the minute, the singular streetlight across from him growing harsher.
He hears a loud clanging sound and then a door opening. The scent of cigar smoke thickens the air. The building he's learning against is an old convenience store, but the owner smokes like a chimney so the area around it stinks.
He hears the owner lock the front door, cough loudly, then curse as he heads down the stairs. The old Buffalo watches him as he walks by "I got my eyes on you creep."
Abel sticks his tongue out at the Bison playfully. Except he doesn't close his eyes. The Bison snarls and calls him a creep again before skittering away. Abel laughs.
He pulls out his phone and starts scrolling through social media. It's the same old posts. News, memes, people getting violently gutted, cute critters. He scrolls for a few minutes before looking back up.
This section of the city is the bad side of town. All sort of crime happened around here: thievery, drug dealing, kidnapping. Abel was an eager participant, especially of the last kind. He's snatched a drunk or two off this very street, meat for his boss's butcher shop. And it's where Juniper is supposed to meet him. He was going to take her to a very special restaurant today. But she's late.
He looks across the street into the old park, although calling it that feels unfair to other parks, there's just a few trees, a bench, and an old playground. But the playground has signs and caution tape left over from The Feral Plague many years ago that nobody's removed, so no kits are going down those slides. To his right is more businesses, to his left are also more businesses, but a shady motel as well, half the neon lights no longer working.
He sighs and sends a text to Juniper "Where r u?."
He sees the three little dots pop up at the bottom of the screen and a few seconds later he gets her reply "Sorry I forgot how long it takes to walk in these cities LOL. Be there in a minute!"
Wait, she's walking here? She's utterly insane. A few seconds later he gets another text "Almost got mugged back there I think. You sure you want to eat at a restaurant in this area of town?"
He chuckles to himself "The food's worth it, trust me'. He types out quickly. Then he hops over to Greyfang's texts 'You wanna grab a bite to eat?" and "At Mandy's rn, got a friend showing up in 5."
It takes a minute for Greyfang to respond, but when he does he gets a gif of a man wheeze laughing and the words "AHAHAHA A friend? You're hilarious Meatbag."
"It's Juniper", "The one who I got to taste pepper spray?", "She's hilarious, I'm going to try and feed her people meat and see if she notices." He smiles at the memory.
"Oh her. Yeah I'd love to come over and mess with her but I'm really busy right now. Maybe next time you could, y'know, give me a little forewarning if you want me there."
Abel types back rapidly "Comeonnnnn", "She's so stupid >:D", "u would have so much fun", "Like seriously" He sends the messages one after another, then pauses and types out a few more "Also they have ribs tnght","The ones with the sauce u like." He finishes with an emote of a fork and knife.
A car drives by and his head whips around, but he quickly realizes that it's not a cop and relaxes. It's gotten dark really fast.
He looks back to the screen and sees that Greyfang has sent back an alpha chad meme of a shredded wolf standing in front of a mirror with the caption "the wolf does not listen to the cries of the little rabbit". Greyfang loves to send that meme to him. Greyfang quickly follows up with "Seriously, I'm in the middle of something VERY important. Stop texting me."
Abel gets a wicked grin on his face.
"Oh"
"Really"
"What"
"A"
"Shame"
"Guess"
"I"
"Have"
"To"
"Blow"
"Up"
"Your"
"Phone"
"Now"
Finally Greyfang breaks "FINE!" Then a few moments later "I'll be over there in FIFTEEN MINUTES!"
Abel sends him back a little smiley face. Works every time.
"I should have eaten you when I had the chance." A gif of a man flipping over a table follows.
"Tehee" Abel sends the smiley face again. Greyfang sends a gif of a cartoon man cussing.
"Oh hi Abel!"
Juniper finally arrives. She's a Harebit, half hare half rabbit that has a mostly tan and cream coat with some brown and black speckles. Her ears look far too big for her head, and her limbs are lanky. He suspects that they're about the same age, but he hasn't asked. She wears a simple jogger's pants and jacket.
"Hi! Sorry again for being late." She waves.
"You're not late, our reservation is in five minutes." He rolls his eyes "My boss on the other hand is going to be so late."
"Oh yeah you mentioned you work at a butcher's shop. Is that how you got into eating meat? I thought that was kinda weird, I mean most hares I've met don't do that." She holds her hands up defensively "Not that there's anything wrong with that! I'm just curious."
Abel smiles, a warm reminiscing smile as he remembers "Yeah, I guess you could say he got me into it."
Juniper pauses, looking unnerved, before continuing "So are we going to the restaurant?"
"The restaurant's further down and around the corner. A real hidden gem. I just wanted to wait until right before our reservation so we're not awkwardly waiting around inside." Abel gestures broadly.
In truth the restaurant's doorman really didn't like him, so he preferred to not hang around outside the place if he could help it.
"Oh okay! I think you said our reservation is in five, let me see…" She pulls out her phone and turns it on, stares at the screen, then swipes away multiple notifications "Sorry my friend's yelling at me over text, it's not important. Anyways we have three minutes now."
"Sweet." Abel smiles "Have you ever had meat before?"
"Oh no, this will be my first time trying it. I've always been curious though, so I'm excited to try."
"I'm glad to hear it. Eating some meat is actually good for herbivores. It helps balance out your system, and helps prevent a bunch of diseases. It's also really good."
"What does meat taste like?" She asks.
"It depends on what kind of meat we're talking about. Some of it is really rich, others are really gamey, or may not have much flavor at all. Some of it is soft and delicate, while others are tough. It's all good though. I recommend trying the Mama's Homemade Stew at the restaurant. It's got some vegetables, mushrooms, and meat so you can get accustomed to the taste easier.
"That stew sounds good, I'll have to give it a shot when we-"
Suddenly Abel sees car headlines shine on him and he realizes that they have company. The car stops, and in a panic he scrambles back. Have the cops found him? No that's not a cop car, that's a civilian, and the rabbit woman who climbs out doesn't look like a vigilante or rival criminal. She's just a smaller eared rabbit wearing a red shirt, and a black skirt and scarf. In fact she barely even seems to notice him, her entire attention on Juniper.
"Juniper Thorncliff!" She yells like a mother scolding her kit.
Juniper shrinks back "Autumn? What are you doing here? I didn't tell you where-"
"I can't believe this, I seriously can't believe this?!" She throws up her hands in the air "A strange man wants you to meet in a dark alleyway and you just go along with him?"
"Hey, he's nice, and he offered to buy me dinner!" Juniper defends.
Autumn marches right up to her and grabs her by the arm "It's always the food." She then starts dragging Juniper to the car, as Juniper tries to argue but doesn't resist.
"Just who do you think you are?!" Abel demands, but is ignored.
Autumn opens the passenger seat door and lightly shoves Juniper in "What's next? Get kidnapped by a serial killer? Getting involved with the mafia?"
She closes the door, taking a moment to glare at Abel before storming back into her car and driving off.
He goes into the street and watches as the car speeds off. How dare this woman keep him from having his fun tonight? Furthermore, how dare Juniper just go along with it?
Abel pulls out his phone and immediately starts blowing up Juniper's phone.
"How dare u"
"I take time out of my busy schedule"
"To take you out to dinner"
"Which I was going to pay for"
"And you just run off"
"W/o my permission"
"What am I? Chopped liver?"
"Juniper respond"
His messages sit at unread. He calls her. She doesn't pick up. He calls three more times in a row and sends a few more texts but she doesn't pick up or read her texts.
"I never liked you anyways."
The absolute gall of this woman. He's not sure what to do. He could try and catch up to them, but that probably would make him look more suspicious.
His phone starts ringing and he looks to see who the caller is, and to his disappointment he sees that it's Greyfang. He accepts the call and puts it to his ear.
Abel hears a bunch of garbled speech before "Abel- On my way! You have no idea- elbow deep in blood.". Then the speech becomes clear "I'll be there soon! Hopefully this Juniper girl is worth the trouble."
He lowers the phone down to his mouth "She got dragged off by a friend so she won't be joining us."
A pause, he lifts the phone to his ear, than a very loud and garbled "What!"
He brings the phone to his mouth once again "Look I-"
Greyfang starts cutting in and out, his voice difficult to hear as he cusses Abel out.
"I can't hear you."
Greyfang curses "Talk- restaurant." Then he hangs up.
Abel kicks a rock, cursing. Then he heads down to the restaurant. He's about to get chewed out hard, and yet he didn't get to get Juniper hooked on his favorite stew.