Yes, I went off and wrote some shite which Im now gonna wack right here cuse I want some critism, yes be liberal, yes be harsh, I need the pokes. and yes its fanfic... of Buffy, gosh I look like a total dweeb, but there is no slash, and prolly will never be.
Lonewolf and Hyenaboy
Chapter One. Pallet on the Floor
Weeding is calm work. Playing little games of “one of these things is not like the other” singing strange half songs under his breath, he could do this all day. It is lucky that he was so unruffled about the work, because he does have to do this all day.
“Someone has been neglecting you, little potatoes.” He was almost done in this bed, easing weeds from around the tuberous rhizomes and tossing them in a pile to be composted later. Next were the tomatoes. Hopefully this year the petite tomatoes would be as delicious as they were last year. Danny spent the next few minutes daydreaming about little yellow cherry tomatoes, his mouth watering in anticipation.
When he stood in a stretch to loosen sore muscles from crouching all morning, he felt the air change, signaling a late spring shower, and thought about bringing in the laundry before finishing on the vegetables. If it didn’t rain too hard he could still weed while it drizzled.
Danny was satisfied with his life here in these half-wild woods, it was a wonderful change from the Hellmouth. Here, it was calm, not surprising, far as he was from any civilization really. Yes, there was lots of hard work, to keep the little Maine cabin cozy and snug against the weather, but each night he would sleep the untroubled sleep of the weary. There was very little to trouble him, except the age-old problems of rain and pests.
And the full moon.
It was not longer much of a problem, now that he was so isolated, but he made it a point of not becoming attached, the teachings he had learned in Tibet held him in good stead and he could control his changes. He had chosen this cabin for its isolation, in fact, a retreat from the world. Tthe woods behind his property were protected national forests, and this place was peaceful enough, so that he could go untroubled through his life. He had a beautiful place to meditate, he had long tracks of land in which he could safely run, and he had his work, the surplus of which could always be sold at the market, or bartered for thing he couldn’t make himself. He had enough. He was content.
He never asked himself anymore if he was happy. Happiness came at too high a price. Willow had shown him the danger in that and now, he no longer wanted close intimate human interaction. The contact he had with the outside world was strained and stilted enough when he made his weekly summer journeys into town for the market. In the winter his isolation became even more acute, when he could barely leave for months on end, snowed in, as he was wont to become.
While lost in thought he quickly bundled all the laundry inside before the first fat drops of rain started to fall, it was still damp, but he could hang it back up later, and it would still have time to catch the afternoon sun. And weeding in the rain is really no hardship, mud made the weeds easier to pull. It was while he was weeding in the rain that his life changed again, between one breath and the next.
When he thought about it later, Danny would wonder why he had not caught the stranger’s sent earlier, but the man was suddenly at the edge of his garden clearing when the rain started to fall harder and Danny was thinking about going inside to dry off. Maybe he would have a bite to eat. He looked up, startled a twig snapping, and looking at the man standing there, tall, dark and wary. Danny doubted the twig was an accident. It was Xander, a feral and strange Xander, not truely a stranger, but a man long removed from the boy he knew in Sunnydale
Danny motioned his guest to follow him to the cabin, for it seemed hardly appropriate to leave Xander standing out in the rain when he himself was about to be warm, dry and full of decent food. Xander followed after a moment, like a stray dog, leaving a fair distance between him and any possible threat. At the threshold of the door he paused again, recognizing the shorter man’s reticence as the test it was, before stepping silently into the cabin.
In a room barely large enough for the few furnishing and the two men, Danny bustled about doing the normal things one did when entering a cabin, after shucking his wet outer layers of clothing. He coaxed the banked coals in his fireplace back to full flame, stirred a covered pot, from which the welcome smells of stew wafted about the place, lighted a kerosene lamp, and pushed his still wet laundry all bundled in a wicker basket into a far corner.
All the comfortable necessary movements of home might have been acts of strained normalcy but in doing so Danny made his small home welcome to his visitor, who had standing resolutely silent just across the lintel during the whole operation.
Danny was saddened and surprised at the silence of his guest. Xander, it seemed had run some pretty difficult trails; he was silent and lean the way a half starved fox was lean. When he finally deigned to step into the light, Danny saw he had lost more than his jokesters personality, or some weight: he had lost an eye somewhere along the way. Danny had not noticed it before, because the taller man held his face in such a way that his empty eye-socket had been shadowed by his hat. Motioning again, not seeing a need for words, Danny sat his guest on the only chair, close to the fire, and cut a half loaf of bread, and a wedge of sharp cheese. While the werewolf’s back was turned Xander had pushed the chair up against the wall in a move, Danny noticed, which left the taller man guarded at his back.
He hadn’t heard from the gang in a long time, he truly hadn’t felt the need, but in some cases, he wondered if he had not done his once friends justice by his long silence.
Why had Xander come here? Well, perhaps he wouldn’t get an answer from this new quieter, more wary version of an old friend, but he could at least put some food in front of him.
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