Counseling: puppy plushie

"Aww, look at the fuzzy bunny!" Hizashi grabbed the plush out of the bin, rubbing it on his cheek. "So soft." He closed his eyes, grinning hugely.

Elly laughed. "C'mon, Zashi, we're here to buy a gift for th - ohhhh." Her face grew very still and her purple eyes wider than wide. 

"Babe? You okay?"

"Puppy," she said softly, moving around a display of stuffed animals to the next that had caught her eye. He watched her move, transfixed, to a shelf of pink, paisley-patterned puppy dogs and pick one up in her trembling hands. "I found you again. You ... you look almost right? Maybe." 

"Hey, princess." He was careful not to startle her by talking too loud. Living together for awhile had taught him how to read some of her moods by now, and she was fragile right now. Hizashi wrapped an arm about her waist. "You want to adopt him?"

She nodded shyly, her face burning with embarrassment. "Yeah."

They picked the gift they needed up and her new plush friend. When they got home she tucked him carefully on the bed on top of her pillow and stood there staring for a few minutes.

"Hey, do you want burgers tonight, or what hon?" He called out from the bathroom, startling her out of her reverie.

"Um. I don't care. Whatever's fine."

She didn't hear him step into the room or move behind her. "Was it bad?" He asked sadly.

"Ah!"

"Sorry," he apologized. "Should've realized you were in another world."

"Shit," she laughed weakly, her hand grasping her shirt over her heart. "You really got me that time!"

He smiled and pointed at the stuffed animal. "Babe, I've never seen you so attached to something like that so fast. What's up?"

Elly sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed.  "Well," she began, "My step cousins had this puppy plush. He was old, he was pink, and he had been so loved his cloth was like velvet." She glanced over at her new friend and smiled, though a tear slipped down her cheek.

"I loved this puppy. I can not tell you all how much. <i>So much</i>, okay? I - I loved, and still do, things that people don't want. Rejected, broken things."

Hizashi raised one eyebrow. "I think I can see why."

"I was drawn to him, something  that had been so loved and then cast aside. Like me." 

The voice hero bit his lip and swallowed hard, kneeling down in front of her. He took her hands in his and stared earnestly into her eyes. "Oh god, baby." 

She tried to smile at him but her mouth couldn't hold the curve and she  sobbed instead. "They gave him to me and she <i>threw him out</i>, Zashi! I couldn't save him!"

This time her tears were so violent he jumped up and crushed her to him, his own running down his cheeks. "I love you, princess," he choked. "It wasn't your fault. You didn't know. You couldn't save yourself. You had no control. But you do now."

"Y - y eh - hes," she panted, sniffling. "Yes. That's why he's so important. I'm doing what I couldn't do then - saving myself, doing what I want without having to worry if my happiness will be stolen away for a stupid reason."

"Reason?"

"Their house had fleas, so she said she threw it away because it had fleas. But we visited there all the freaking time! She would spray us when we got home and hot wash our clothing. <i>She could have done that to him and not thrown him away</i>!" Her anger finally unleashed, she snarled, her fangs showing. "Hizashi, she could've told me, even! I blamed myself, I thought I had misplaced him! She let me think that and I was frantic for a long time, I thought I had gone mad!"

He was stunned by the ferocity of her anger, once unlocked. "There's more to this, isn't there? More than wanting to save things because you couldn't save yourself."

"She always pressured me into getting rid of my toys," she admitted grudgingly. Her voice took on a sullen note, almost childish. 

"Is that why you only had the one from the studio that you bought?"

"Yes. Well, him, and Michael -" she gestured to the cockatiel he had given her one day when they had been sick, "They're the only ones I have. Oh, and now puppy."

"So she robbed you of your childhood, and then the toys that were another symbol of that." 

Elly's tear-streaked face was stricken. "Hizashi."

"It's gonna be okay, I promise," he told her, gently dabbing her face with a tissue from the nightstand. "An' hey, maybe you found a hobby. I collect records, right? You can collect the stuff as an adult. Take back what she took from you."

"But it's so useless and..."

"Is that what you think or what she told you?" He gave her the squinty eye look and she smiled.

"Yeah, I know. It's her again."

"We've got room for a shelf of your goodies. Babe, you hardly have anything in this place. If it makes you feel better, why not?"