S.P. Wayne's Blog: STUFF IS HAPPENING, page 16
September 17, 2013
One of my favorite time sucking hobbies is to go through the wishlists and prior reviews of people...
One of my favorite time sucking hobbies is to go through the wishlists and prior reviews of people who leave me feedback on Winter Wolf’s amazon page. This is mostly because I love browsing random shit to buy on the internet. I can sort of excuse this as almost useful, in that I learn things like: a surprising amount of guys are reviewing this book, and that’s awesome/unexpected given current ideas about the demographics of the romance genre, and many of those dudes are gamers, which is super awesome because my Inner Secret Fantasy Life features a lot of me writing video games and comic books.
Which is to say, one day I will write a video game script and submit it to Obsidian or something and beg everyone I know on the internet to e mail them about how great I am and how they should hire me. Look, you should totally be able to play a gay werewolf in a fantasy RPG. Why not, yo?
But mostly it’s that, like, in a world where someone successfully made a pigeon dating sim, I, just. Look. Success is attainable. Someone made a pigeon dating sim. Follow your dreams, children. Someone made a pigeon dating sim. Nothing you want to write is too outrageous. Just do it.
nbchannibal:
NEW CLIP: Hannibal Season 1 Gag Reel
Preorder...
NEW CLIP: Hannibal Season 1 Gag Reel
Preorder Season 1 on DVD: http://amzn.to/1fGIuG0
Honestly, a cute golden retriever carrying a dismembered human arm around as Will Graham utterly fails to get it back is BASICALLY CANON. Like, I’m surprised that wasn’t in the script. Bryan Fuller, step up your game! More puppy scenes, please.
September 16, 2013
Tweet from SP Wayne (@writethiswayne)
SP Wayne (@writethiswayne) tweeted at 8:09 PM on Mon, Sep 16, 2013: YEEEAAAH WRITING CAR CHASES AND FIGHT SCENES. #fuckyeah Good day for me, bad day for our MCs. (https://twitter.com/writethiswayne/status/379758958480994304) Get the official Twitter app at https://twitter.com/download
Internet is down. Reduced to typing on ipad. Too fussy to do e mails this way.
In other news, my...
Internet is down. Reduced to typing on ipad. Too fussy to do e mails this way.
In other news, my personal trainer quit to be an IT guy. I’m very happy for him and all, but this propels me into a sort of existential crisis—WHAT AM I GOING TO DO (to work out)? WHAT IS THE POINT OF ANYTHING (besides lifting really heavy things while your spotter talks about zombies)? WE ARE ALL WAITING FOR GODOT THE BUS MEANING A GOOD WORKOUT ROUTINE.
I should note that my trainer’s last day was Friday; I was his last client ever; and his girlfriend calls him Captain America, because, yeah, that’s what he looks like. What, you’re telling me that you wouldn’t miss lifting weights with the Captain? You liar, you.
So anyway, instead I went to yoga.
I always forget that yoga is a) really fucking hard/strength based and B) super soothing.
Despite maintaining my usual flippant and cherry tone—I think—I am actually quite soothed.
Like, I can easily imagine a future where I do this more often and I slowly become more one with myself/the universe and develop poise and calm and, I don’t know, stuff. It’s awesome. Positive. Good.
Which is probably why we’re going back to a CrossFit gym next month. Twitchy motherfuckers like me spring towards noise, not peace.
September 14, 2013
September 13, 2013
Conversations with lover in fine dining establishments, OR: Shit My Boyfriend Says
Boyfriend: I got this. Winter Wolf Four: BALTO EDITION. “Axton, please save the sick children, please!” “Okay, townspeople.”
Me: So is Axton doing this alone? Or is Leander in the sled—
Boyfriend: Leander’s whipping him, OBVIOUSLY.
like this but with more whippings
September 11, 2013
nbchannibal:
WINSTON IN A FLOWER CROWN. I REPEAT, WINSTON. IN....
WINSTON IN A FLOWER CROWN. I REPEAT, WINSTON. IN. A. FLOWER CROWN.
This is the best fandom.
September 10, 2013
September 9, 2013
City Wolf, Preview
"Werewolves. We don’t really do air travel." He paused. Was that good? Was the phrasing okay? _Do air travel_ sounded sort of—pretentious? Spoiled. High maintenance. Something like that. Werewolves, in the main, were certainly not high maintenance. Axton in particular thought of himself as many things, with "a cheap date" chief amongst them. He would try again.
"Werewolves," Axton said, striving for a more conciliatory tone. "Do not enjoy traveling by plane." No, that was too stuffy—professorial, almost. It sounded ridiculous.
"Werewolves," Axton started, trying to be more casual, "We don’t groove with planes, you know?"
God.
Who said groove anymore? What did that even mean? Was he saying that werewolves didn’t dance on airplanes? Of course they didn’t. Jesus. Axton closed his eyes, embarrassed even in a room by himself, and sighed angrily.
There were only a few hours to go until his planned phone call with his sort-of-maybe boyfriend, and Axton had to figure out how to gracefully turn down plane tickets.
"I’m doomed," he informed the empty room. "Completely doomed."
++
A thousand miles away from Axton, the very human Leander Avilez glanced at a clock, adjusted his cufflinks, and went back to composing a legal brief.
++
After a lonely and reclusive decade, Axton had finally made a friend—true, that friend was human, and thus forbidden by which the rules Axton had been raised by. But after a natural disaster or two, and blizzards both emotional and meteorological, Leander had become more than a friend. Leander was his lover. Leander was both human and male and thus doubly forbidden, and beyond that, he also knew about Axton’s lycanthropy: he was forbidden three times over.
Oh, well. Axton had been exiled from werewolf society ten years prior to even meeting Leander.
That was convenient. For the first time in his life, Axton had something to feel cheerful about when he considered his packless and reclusive existence.
The only other bonus to Axton’s half feral hermitude was his land, which he had much more of than he would have had he still been affiliated with a pack. He was the sole werewolf in at least a hundred solid miles of wilderness, master of his wild and untamed domain, undisputed steward of his territory that he could tend and shape as he saw fit.
Axton spent a lot of time rescuing a colony of feral cats from rising floodwaters every spring.
Hopefully Leander wouldn’t make fun of him if he found out. If he found out. If he ever came back. If he wasn’t so irritated by Axton’s fear of planes that they broke up. If they could _even_ break up, given that maybe they weren’t actually dating, because it wasn’t like they’d ever really had an official conversation about it—
"Fuck this," Axton said, as if he had to voice it out loud for it to count. He glanced at the windows, judging the position of the sun by the angle of the sunlight filtering in. Was there time? Surely, he had some time. He shucked off his sweater. The shift was done before he hit the floor; Axton landed on his big paws with hardly a sound.
The werewolf leaped out the front door.
++
By the time Axton pranced away from chasing some foxes away from his cat colony, it was dusk. The sun was setting, the sky was beautiful, and—
Axton pricked up his ears.
And his phone was ringing, _shit_.
A mad dash back to the cabin followed, and thanks to Axton’s speed and Leander’s persistence, the phone was ringing anew. It did Axton no good, though—he was so keyed up from his run that he couldn’t easily change back to human. He was going to miss his phone call! _Again_.
Axton paced back and forth, impatient and agitated, then hopping around on three legs as he anxiously chewed the fur off of his back leg. He broke off every now and then to let loose with a sharp, short howl of frustration, like he was yelling at the phone to hold on. Of course, the phone stopped ringing.
Axton slumped down on the floor in despair. These things did not happen to other werewolves. They did not. He was sure of it.
Five minutes later he finally hit whatever internal switch did the trick, and now Axton was a flustered naked human on the floor. Getting up with a slight wince—he had chewed into his leg more than he’d thought—Axton went and picked up the phone. What was the number? God, he hated the fogginess that persisted for a few minutes after changing shape. Number, number, what was…
The phone rang in his hand.
Relief coursed through Axton as he looked at it. Good. Excellent. The phone rang again. Axton stared at his thumbs. How did—was it—there, yes, that was how to push the talk button.
"Hi," he said, shyly, happily.
"I am going to buy you a wrist watch," Leander said immediately, without preamble, "I am going to buy you four wrist watches and tie one to each of your furry legs, but not before I set alarms on them so that when it’s phone call time, all four watches beep at you while you’re busy chasing rabbits."
"That's good," Axton said, preoccupied with his announcement and not really paying attention.
"Hi, Ax. How are you?" Leander asked.
"So," Axton blurted out, "Werewolves don't really do planes," he finished, because he'd been thinking so hard about saying his prepared phrase that he missed everything Leander said.
There was a short pause. Leander shifted gears in his head to follow the conversation.
"Ah," said Leander. "That so?"
"Yes," Axton confirmed.
"Then how do they get places?"
"We drive," Axton said.
Leander made a small strangled half sound that might have been a laugh. Axton huffed. What was funny about that?
"Uh huh," Leander said.
"No, seriously," Axton said. "We're not an air travel friendly people. Or boat friendly. Or any kind of group transit friendly."
"Ah. I see," Leander said. The line went quiet. "So, does this mean you're not flying down here?"
"No, I--yeah," Axton said, swallowing thickly, "Yeah."
"Hmm," Leander said, and then there was nothing for a slow, suffocating moment.
Axton fidgeted against the silence. He was not going to panic. He was going to stay relaxed. He was going to play it cool.
Or, no, he was not, actually.
"I'm sorry," Axton burst out, unable to take the quiet, "It's not that I don't appreciate the plane tickets, and--and I'll pay you back, if--"
"They're refundable, Ax," Leander said, "It's not really an issue."
"Oh." Axton paused. "That was very responsible of you."
"Yes, and I always file my taxes early," Leander sighed, "Look, babe--"
--Axton felt a tiny flushed thrill at the casual term of endearment--
"You don't need to apologize, but is this really about planes or nervousness--"
--_Both_, Axton thought to himself, both--
"--Or is it that I'm coming on too strong here and making you uncomfortable, or you don't really want to visit, or what?"
Axton reeled. _What_. What was going on? What had Leander just said? What was even happening?
"What," he managed to say out loud. He was proud of himself for succeeding in saying anything at all.
"What to which part?"
"All of it!" Axton said, "All of it--why wouldn't I want to come see you?"
"I don't know," Leander grumbled, "I'm new at this."
"I don't believe you," Axton said, "You've dated--or, I mean--you've--you must have done the long distance thing before."
Silence.
"Not with a _werewolf_," Leander said.
"Well," Axton conceded, flushing slightly, "There's that, I guess, yes."
"And not with a _dude_, though that's less unusual. By a wide margin. In general. Not in my life in particular."
"I know," Axton said, "I know." He fought down the butterflies in his stomach. Being Leander's first--and therefore currently only-- in that way, being the only man to ever interest him...was that good or bad? Was the fluttering of his insides because he felt so special, or was it because he worried about being a novelty?
Both. It depended on the time of day. Axton knew that.
"Just...you've been a little weird, the past few weeks," Leander said softly, "When I mention you visiting, even in passing. I can tell when you're uncomfortable, Axton. I know you."
The fluttering inside Axton swung towards the feeling special end of the spectrum.
"You do," he told Leander.
"But that doesn't mean I know why," Leander finished. "Is it the plane? Or is it me?"
"It's the plane," Axton said.
"Anything else...?" Leander prompted.
"And...I didn't want to seem ungrateful," Axton added hesitantly.
"I don't care if you don't like planes," Leander said, "I just care that you like _me_."
"I do," Axton said throatily, "I do."
"I know," Leander said, "I just miss you. I miss you so much I--" he stopped.
"What?" Axton asked, "What?"
"It's so fucking melodramatic," Leander sighed, "It's stupid."
"I don't mind," Axton said, "I could use some stupid melodrama about how much you miss me."
"I miss you so much it hurts," Leander murmured, "In the middle of my chest, in the place where on your chest you took my knife."
Axton reached up to touch the part of his chest where he no longer had a scar.
"Over your heart?" Axton whispered.
"Over my heart," Leander agreed.
"I miss you so much it hurts there, too," Axton said quietly.
"'In which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close,'" Leander murmured.
Axton made a soft, almost wounded noise in the back of his throat.
"Where is that from?" he asked, because something in the cadence told him Leander was quoting.
"Neruda," Leander said.
"It's very pretty," Axton said, "You know it from memory?"
"Of course," Leander said, "He was from Chile. His poetry was required reading in my house."
"Why?" Axton asked, fascinated.
"Because we're half Chilean," Leander said, "Obviously. Ailvez?"
"You're Hispanic?" Axton asked, surprised.
"Ailvez," Leander repeated.
"It could be French," Axton said.
"Well, it isn't," Leander said.
"But you're blond," Axton said.
"Yeah," Leander said, "I know."
"Do you speak Spanish?" Axton asked, fascinated.
"Do you speak Werewolf?" Leander asked.
"What," Axton said, "Yes--no--we don't--what?"
Leander laughed.
"Sorry," he said, "I had to. Yes, I speak it. Yes, I'm blond. It happens."
Axton waited.
"Well?" he prompted.
"You're into this, aren't you," Leander said. "Is this a fetish thing?"
"No!" Axton exclaimed, "No! But." He bit his lip.
"Mmm?"
"I might be into it," he allowed, "A little."
"Sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres, tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía, tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño."
"Oh," Axton said, "Yes. I'm into it."
"It's better in person," Leander said, promises lurking in his tone.
"I bet," Axton enthused back, but then they both got quiet again. They were not, after all, in person. They were not likely to be in person for a long time, if Axton was not visiting.
"Sorry," Leander said, "That dragged the mood down more than I expected."
"No, I'm sorry," Axton said, "I--just--I miss you. I mean, I've always missed you when you go, but--"
"No, I know," Leander said, "So much changed. Even more than I would have expected."
"Yeah." Axton kicked at his floor morosely.
"It seems impossible," Leander sighed, "That I know how you smell and taste, that I know the press of your lips to mine, that the stoic Davy Crockett motherfucker from my vacation cabin turned out to be in love with me."
"I'm no Davy Crocket," Axton said. "I don't kill bears. I'm very gentle with bears."
"Is that the only part of the story you'd like to dispute?" Leander asked wryly.
"I haven't told you I love you," Axton said after a short silence.
"Axton, you haven't told me you love me in the same way that people caught in a thunderstorm don't mention that they're wet."
For a moment, Axton mulled the comparison over in his head. It was, he decided, fairly apt.
"I concede," he said.
"And I'm crazy about you, too, doofus," Leander muttered, "In case you haven't noticed by how I call you ten times a day in hopes of catching your werewolf ass between forest patrols."
"I'm sorry I'm bad at phones," Axton said sincerely. "And planes."
"It's fine," Leander said, "I--just--god--did I mention I miss you?"
"Yeah," Axton sighed.
"What are we going to _do_," Leander asked the world as a whole. "This is so stupid."
"I'll figure something out," Axton said, "Nothing can stop me from getting to you."
"Except passage on a plane," Leander pointed out.
"Love doesn't specify that kind of vehicle, okay."
"We're kind of gross," Leander told Axton. "I wouldn't want to be friends with a couple like us. We'd be insufferable."
"We were having a moment there," Axton said, "It was nice." A beat. "You ruined it," he clarified.
"I'm overworked and underslept and undersexed," Leander said. "I am not at my best right now."
"Wait," Axton said suddenly, "We're a couple?"
Incredulous silence.
"_Yes_, you incredible asshole, what did you think we were doing?"
"Oh," Axton sighed in relief, "Good."
++
Winter was fading softly from Axton's territory, storms abating even as they snow refused to melt. Too soon it would be spring, and Axton would be busy tracking down all the new population pockets, taking count of all the offspring, carefully making sure to not eat the young or the fit. Spring was the hungriest time of year. There was so much to do every spring, and fewer sources of food to fuel him.
Axton wondered how long he could put off visiting Leander.
++
Thirty six hours passed before they managed another phone call. They were exploring other transit options--or, rather, Leander was.
"Greyhound tickets," Leander insisted, "I'll buy you greyhound tickets."
"You don't have to buy me anything," Axton protested softly.
"I don't have to make out with your stupid handsome face, either," Leander said, "But I'd like to."
"Yeah," Axton said with a sigh, "I'd like to make out with your stupid handsome face, too."
"Bus tickets," Leander hummed, offering. "Sucking face requires physical proximity."
"What if I go wolf in the middle of the ride?" Axton said, nervous about being trapped in a narrow metal cylinder with strangers, though at least a bus was on land and not a narrow metal cylinder in the air. "What then?"
"Then you burst out of the windows and run the rest of the way to LA on four paws," Leander said. "You're in shape. You can do it."
"I don't think that would work."
"Why not?" Leander teased, "You don't have to pack anything. I've got condoms and lube. What else do we need?"
Axton made a soft, scandalized sound.
"Please," Leander scoffed, "As if we could pretend that I'm not inviting you down here to have sex."
"I can't believe you call me from work," Axton said, burying his face into his free hand, "To say that kind of thing."
"What, I have my own office," Leander said. "It's big. It's soundproof. And you're a difficult man to get a hold of."
"I am not," Axton said.
"You are _too_," Leander countered, "If I don't get you at dawn or dusk I don't get a hold of you at all."
"Not true!" Axton protested, a little too indignantly because: it was kind of true.
"We're both busy men," Leander said, "I get it. I'm just saying. Gotta get in all my quips and come ons in at once."
"Absolutely untrue," Axton said.
++
He missed the next three days of phone calls because he had to carefully herd an unseasonable bear back to his cave and rescue his colony of cats from a snowdrift. Again. When Axton got back to his cabin, padding in on silent deadly paws, he saw the blinking light of his answering machine flashing accusing red.
_Stupid bear_, Axton thought, and he sighed.
++
"Okay, so," Axton said at their next phone call, having lost track of how much time had passed since the last one, "What if I drove?"
"Hell of a drive," Leander said, "It's over a thousand miles."
"Well, you do it several times a year," Axton pointed out.
"Actually, no, I don't," Leander said, "I fly as close as I can and pick up the car I leave in a garage for the rest of the year. And it's still a hell of a drive."
"Oh," Axton said. "Well. Fuck."
++
With the end of winter nearing, there was the occasional intrusion at the edge of Axton's territory. He knew when hunters--with their orange jackets and their guns--had strayed into his land, and Axton, swifter and surer than they, always made sure they found no game. He could chase away every moose and elk and rabbit before they even spotted a wolf in the snow.
Axton knew they would all shoot him if they could. The hunting ban on wolves had been lifted in his state.
Frustrated and fruitless, they would leave, usually to never return to what seemed to be an oddly barren stretch of forest. If there was usually something wrong with their vehicle, too, making the trip even more of a pointless disaster--
Well.
Then they were all the less likely to return.
It was tricky, turning human just long enough to pop hoods and disconnect engine pieces with rapidly numbing fingers.
++
Axton avoided taking phone calls that day on purpose, because human hunters always left him with a bad taste in his mouth. As easily as Axton could smell a storm on the horizon, he could tell who was hunting for food and who was hunting for sport. He'd grown up in a poor little town with wolves and humans alike barely scratching by, and he knew the look of hunger. He knew the gauntness of someone's face, the determined set to their brow, the gleam in their eye that said: _don't press_. Axton knew these things in people's faces because he himself had known them from the inside out.
Sportsmen in their all new gear and never scuffed boots would have been easy to pick out, in any case.
A hunter himself, Axton was in no position to judge anyone who hunted for food, even if only to diversify their larder--he hunted carefully, to be sure, but he hunted. He killed animals for food and probably enjoyed it more, too, with the sweet taste of wilderness trickling like blood down his throat. Hunting for food was the way of things.
But killing for sport was not.
++
"Absence must indeed make the heart grow fonder," a faintly surprised Leander told him the next day, "I've never heard you this affectionate."
"I miss you, I miss you, I miss you," Axton said feverishly, "I miss you like I've never missed anyone before. And I know a lot about missing people."
"I miss you, too, Axton," Leander said softly, "Are you okay?"
Axton shook his head, knowing that the action would not be seen.
"Just tell me," he said, "Tell me about how you miss me." _Tell me you wouldn't shoot me, tell me you've never shot a wolf, tell me you would never shoot a wolf just for the fun of killing something so beautiful and dangerous. Tell me you don't need to do that; tell me you don't have that to prove. Tell me that's not what manhood means to you._
Leander was silent, and Axton knew he hadn't fooled him at all. There would be a talk later about what was bothering him--
"I miss you like the tides miss the surf," Leander said.
--but, mercifully, that talk was not going to be right now.
"I miss you like pearls on a gold chain miss the sea," Leander went on.
Axton flushed, pleased.
"I forget," he said, "That I'm from the forest and you're from the sea."
"I haven't surfed in months," Leander sighed, "I miss you like _I_ miss the sea."
"Why not?" Axton asked, happy to have a distraction from his own wild and tangled thoughts.
"Busy," Leander said, "And I don't live on the beach anymore, so it's kind of a trek."
"What do you do all day?" Axton said curiously, "For work?"
"Stuff," Leander groaned, "Things. Most of it's so boring. You'll see, I guess, when you come down here."
"I will?" Axton asked, surprised.
"Yeah, if you want," Leander said, "I mean, _I_ wouldn't, but if you'd like to see the office that I'm calling you from half the time, then sure."
_But you have coworkers_, Axton thought, _what are you going to tell them?_ Out loud he said, "I think I'd like that." Really, Axton had no idea if he would or not, but he thought it best to leave the option open.
"You say that now," Leander muttered darkly.
"What do you do when you're not at work?"
"Train, mostly," Leander said, offhand, "When you get right down to it."
"What?" Axton asked.
"At the gym," Leander clarified.
"Ah," Axton said, no closer to understanding. "Weights?" he guessed.
"Doesn't take up nearly as much time," Leander said, "And that's at a different gym. I meant martial arts, mostly."
"How many gyms do you go to?" Axton asked, baffled.
"Only three," Leander said.
"Is this a human thing?" Axton said, squinting his eyes, trying to picture it, "Because I don't really get it."
"No, it's a me thing," Leander said. "Maybe a jock thing."
"It's good to get stronger, though," Axton tried. "With the weights."
"Nah," Leander said, "I do that mostly to look hot."
"You succeed," Axton said sincerely.
Leander laughed, and it was a good sound. Axton let himself relax minutely.
"You're not so bad yourself," Leander teased, "A little on the tall, dark, and brooding side some days, but easy on the eyes."
"I'm not tall," Axton said, "You're taller than me." It was a difference of perhaps half an inch, at most.
"As usual, look at which one of those you dispute, babe."
"Do I brood?" Axton asked, "I mean, really?"
"You lead a secretive existence out in the middle of nowhere," Leander said, "It's sort of the same thing from an outside perspective."
Axton tasted something sharp in his mouth and realized it was blood. He continued to bite down on the inside of his cheek anyway.
"The shotgun in your cabin," he said, not caring that this would seem to come out of nowhere.
"Yeah," Leander said immediately, already treading carefully.
"Do you know how to use it?"
"Sure," Leander said, and Axton's stomach sank, "I mean, I'm not amazing at it, but I know how to use it."
"Ah," Axton said, his hand over his heart. He should just give up. He should give up right now. He was going to get shot. It was not a rational thought, but a pressing feeling, a flare of future pain over his heart. Men with guns who had food shot for sport.
"I keep on meaning to shoot skeet more often, but I never do."
"Skeet?" Axton said, "With the clay disk things?"
"Pigeons, they're called pigeons. At the range," Leander said, "Yeah."
"Have you ever shot anything else?" Axton asked.
"No," Leander said, "Should I be practicing or something?"
"Oh," Axton sighed, and he sat down on his bed in relief, "No."
City Wolf, Preview 1.5: Leander Actually Gets to Talk
Relief coursed through Axton as he looked at it. Good. Excellent. The phone rang again. Axton stared at his thumbs. How did—was it—there, yes, that was how to push the talk button.
"Hi," he said, shyly, happily.
"I am going to buy you a wrist watch," Leander said immediately, without preamble, "I am going to buy you four wrist watches and tie one to each of your furry legs, but not before I set alarms on them so that when it’s phone call time, all four watches beep at you while you’re busy chasing rabbits."
"That’s good," Axton said, preoccupied with his announcement and not really paying attention.
"Hi, Ax. How are you?" Leander asked.
"So," Axton blurted out, "Werewolves don’t really do planes," he finished, because he’d been thinking so hard about saying his prepared phrase that he missed everything Leander said.
There was a short pause. Leander shifted gears in his head to follow the conversation.
"Ah," said Leander. "That so?"
"Yes," Axton confirmed.
"Then how do they get places?"
"We drive," Axton said.
Leander made a small strangled half sound that might have been a laugh. Axton huffed. What was funny about that?
"Uh huh," Leander said.
"No, seriously," Axton said. "We’re not an air travel friendly people. Or boat friendly. Or any kind of group transit friendly."
"Ah. I see," Leander said. The line went quiet. "So, does this mean you’re not flying down here?"
"No, I—yeah," Axton said, swallowing thickly, "Yeah."
"Hmm," Leander said, and then there was nothing for a slow, suffocating moment.
Axton fidgeted against the silence. He was not going to panic. He was going to stay relaxed. He was going to play it cool.
Or, no, he was not, actually.
"I’m sorry," Axton burst out, unable to take the quiet, "It’s not that I don’t appreciate the plane tickets, and—and I’ll pay you back, if—"
"They’re refundable, Ax," Leander said, "It’s not really an issue."
"Oh." Axton paused. "That was very responsible of you."
"Yes, and I always file my taxes early," Leander sighed, "Look, babe—"
—Axton felt a tiny flushed thrill at the casual term of endearment—
"You don’t need to apologize, but is this really about planes or nervousness—"
—_Both_, Axton thought to himself, both—
"—Or is it that I’m coming on too strong here and making you uncomfortable, or you don’t really want to visit, or what?"
Axton reeled. _What_. What was going on? What had Leander just said? What was even happening?
"What," he managed to say out loud. He was proud of himself for succeeding in saying anything at all.
"What to which part?"
"All of it!" Axton said, "All of it—why wouldn’t I want to come see you?"
"I don’t know," Leander grumbled, "I’m new at this."
"I don’t believe you," Axton said, "You’ve dated—or, I mean—you’ve—you must have done the long distance thing before."
Silence.
"Not with a _werewolf_," Leander said.
"Well," Axton conceded, flushing slightly, "There’s that, I guess, yes."
"And not with a _dude_, though that’s less unusual. By a wide margin. In general. Not in my life in particular."
"I know," Axton said, "I know." He fought down the butterflies in his stomach. Being Leander’s first—and therefore currently only— in that way, being the only man to ever interest him…was that good or bad? Was the fluttering of his insides because he felt so special, or was it because he worried about being a novelty?
Both. It depended on the time of day. Axton knew that.
"Just…you’ve been a little weird, the past few weeks," Leander said softly, "When I mention you visiting, even in passing. I can tell when you’re uncomfortable, Axton. I know you."
The fluttering inside Axton swung towards the feeling special end of the spectrum.
"You do," he told Leander.
"But that doesn’t mean I know why," Leander finished. "Is it the plane? Or is it me?"
"It’s the plane," Axton said.
"Anything else…?" Leander prompted.
"And…I didn’t want to seem ungrateful," Axton added hesitantly.
"I don’t care if you don’t like planes," Leander said, "I just care that you like _me_."
"I do," Axton said throatily, "I do."
"I know," Leander said, "I just miss you. I miss you so much I—" he stopped.
"What?" Axton asked, "What?"
"It’s so fucking melodramatic," Leander sighed, "It’s stupid."
"I don’t mind," Axton said, "I could use some stupid melodrama about how much you miss me."
"I miss you so much it hurts," Leander murmured, "In the middle of my chest, in the place where on your chest you took my knife."
Axton reached up to touch the part of his chest where he no longer had a scar.
"Over your heart?" Axton whispered.
"Over my heart," Leander agreed.
"I miss you so much it hurts there, too," Axton said quietly.
“‘In which there is no I or you, so intimate that your hand upon my chest is my hand, so intimate that when I fall asleep your eyes close,’” Leander murmured.
Axton made a soft, almost wounded noise in the back of his throat.
"Where is that from?" he asked, because something in the cadence told him Leander was quoting.
"Neruda," Leander said.
"It’s very pretty," Axton said, "You know it from memory?"
"Of course," Leander said, "He was from Chile. His poetry was required reading in my house."
"Why?" Axton asked, fascinated.
"Because we’re half Chilean," Leander said, "Obviously. Ailvez?"
"You’re Hispanic?" Axton asked, surprised.
"Ailvez," Leander repeated.
"It could be French," Axton said.
"Well, it isn’t," Leander said.
"But you’re blond," Axton said.
"Yeah," Leander said, "I know."
"Do you speak Spanish?" Axton asked, fascinated.
"Do you speak Werewolf?" Leander asked.
"What," Axton said, "Yes—no—we don’t—what?"
Leander laughed.
"Sorry," he said, "I had to. Yes, I speak it. Yes, I’m blond. It happens."
Axton waited.
"Well?" he prompted.
"You’re into this, aren’t you," Leander said. "Is this a fetish thing?"
"No!" Axton exclaimed, "No! But." He bit his lip.
"Mmm?"
"I might be into it," he allowed, "A little."
“Sino así de este modo en que no soy ni eres, tan cerca que tu mano sobre mi pecho es mía, tan cerca que se cierran tus ojos con mi sueño.”
"Oh," Axton said, "Yes. I’m into it."
"It’s better in person," Leander said, promises lurking in his tone.
"I bet," Axton enthused back, but then they both got quiet again. They were not, after all, in person. They were not likely to be in person for a long time, if Axton was not visiting.
"Sorry," Leander said, "That dragged the mood down more than I expected."
"No, I’m sorry," Axton said, "I—just—I miss you. I mean, I’ve always missed you when you go, but—"
"No, I know," Leander said, "So much changed. Even more than I would have expected."
"Yeah." Axton kicked at his floor morosely.
"It seems impossible," Leander sighed, "That I know how you smell and taste, that I know the press of your lips to mine, that the stoic Davy Crockett motherfucker from my vacation cabin turned out to be in love with me."
"I’m no Davy Crocket," Axton said. "I don’t kill bears. I’m very gentle with bears."
"Is that the only part of the story you’d like to dispute?" Leander asked wryly.
"I haven’t told you I love you," Axton said after a short silence.
"Axton, you haven’t told me you love me in the same way that people caught in a thunderstorm don’t mention that they’re wet."
For a moment, Axton mulled the comparison over in his head. It was, he decided, fairly apt.
"I concede," he said.
"And I’m crazy about you, too, doofus," Leander muttered, "In case you haven’t noticed by how I call you ten times a day in hopes of catching your werewolf ass between forest patrols."
"I’m sorry I’m bad at phones," Axton said sincerely. "And planes."
"It’s fine," Leander said, "I—just—god—did I mention I miss you?"
"Yeah," Axton sighed.
"What are we going to _do_," Leander asked the world as a whole. "This is so stupid."
"I’ll figure something out," Axton said, "Nothing can stop me from getting to you."
"Except passage on a plane," Leander pointed out.
"Love doesn’t specify that kind of vehicle, okay."
"We’re kind of gross," Leander told Axton. "I wouldn’t want to be friends with a couple like us. We’d be insufferable."
"We were having a moment there," Axton said, "It was nice." A beat. "You ruined it," he clarified.
"I’m overworked and underslept and undersexed," Leander said. "I am not at my best right now."
"Wait," Axton said suddenly, "We’re a couple?"
Incredulous silence.
”_Yes_, you incredible asshole, what did you think we were doing?”
"Oh," Axton sighed in relief, "Good."
++
Winter was fading softly from Axton’s territory, storms abating even as they snow refused to melt. Too soon it would be spring, and Axton would be busy tracking down all the new population pockets, taking count of all the offspring, carefully making sure to not eat the young or the fit. Spring was the hungriest time of year. There was so much to do every spring, and fewer sources of food to fuel him.
Axton wondered how long he could put off visiting Leander.
++
Thirty six hours passed before they managed another phone call. They were exploring other transit options—or, rather, Leander was.
"Greyhound tickets," Leander insisted, "I’ll buy you greyhound tickets."
"You don’t have to buy me anything," Axton protested softly.
"I don’t have to make out with your stupid handsome face, either," Leander said, "But I’d like to."
"Yeah," Axton said with a sigh, "I’d like to make out with your stupid handsome face, too."
"Bus tickets," Leander hummed, offering. "Sucking face requires physical proximity."
"What if I go wolf in the middle of the ride?" Axton said, nervous about being trapped in a narrow metal cylinder with strangers, though at least a bus was on land and not a narrow metal cylinder in the air. "What then?"
"Then you burst out of the windows and run the rest of the way to LA on four paws," Leander said. "You’re in shape. You can do it."
"I don’t think that would work."
"Why not?" Leander teased, "You don’t have to pack anything. I’ve got condoms and lube. What else do we need?"
Axton made a soft, scandalized sound.
"Please," Leander scoffed, "As if we could pretend that I’m not inviting you down here to have sex."
"I can’t believe you call me from work," Axton said, burying his face into his free hand, "To say that kind of thing."
"What, I have my own office," Leander said. "It’s big. It’s soundproof. And you’re a difficult man to get a hold of."
"I am not," Axton said.
"You are _too_," Leander countered, "If I don’t get you at dawn or dusk I don’t get a hold of you at all."
"Not true!" Axton protested, a little too indignantly because: it was kind of true.
"We’re both busy men," Leander said, "I get it. I’m just saying. Gotta get in all my quips and come ons in at once."
"Absolutely untrue," Axton said.
++
He missed the next three days of phone calls because he had to carefully herd an unseasonable bear back to his cave and rescue his colony of cats from a snowdrift. Again. When Axton got back to his cabin, padding in on silent deadly paws, he saw the blinking light of his answering machine flashing accusing red.
_Stupid bear_, Axton thought, and he sighed.
++
"Okay, so," Axton said at their next phone call, having lost track of how much time had passed since the last one, "What if I drove?"
"Hell of a drive," Leander said, "It’s over a thousand miles."
"Well, you do it several times a year," Axton pointed out.
"Actually, no, I don’t," Leander said, "I fly as close as I can and pick up the car I leave in a garage for the rest of the year. And it’s still a hell of a drive."
"Oh," Axton said. "Well. Fuck."
++
With the end of winter nearing, there was the occasional intrusion at the edge of Axton’s territory. He knew when hunters—with their orange jackets and their guns—had strayed into his land, and Axton, swifter and surer than they, always made sure they found no game. He could chase away every moose and elk and rabbit before they even spotted a wolf in the snow.
Axton knew they would all shoot him if they could. The hunting ban on wolves had been lifted in his state.
Frustrated and fruitless, they would leave, usually to never return to what seemed to be an oddly barren stretch of forest. If there was usually something wrong with their vehicle, too, making the trip even more of a pointless disaster—
Well.
Then they were all the less likely to return.
It was tricky, turning human just long enough to pop hoods and disconnect engine pieces with rapidly numbing fingers.
++
Axton avoided taking phone calls that day on purpose, because human hunters always left him with a bad taste in his mouth. As easily as Axton could smell a storm on the horizon, he could tell who was hunting for food and who was hunting for sport. He’d grown up in a poor little town with wolves and humans alike barely scratching by, and he knew the look of hunger. He knew the gauntness of someone’s face, the determined set to their brow, the gleam in their eye that said: _don’t press_. Axton knew these things in people’s faces because he himself had known them from the inside out.
Sportsmen in their all new gear and never scuffed boots would have been easy to pick out, in any case.
A hunter himself, Axton was in no position to judge anyone who hunted for food, even if only to diversify their larder—he hunted carefully, to be sure, but he hunted. He killed animals for food and probably enjoyed it more, too, with the sweet taste of wilderness trickling like blood down his throat. Hunting for food was the way of things.
But killing for sport was not.
++
"Absence must indeed make the heart grow fonder," a faintly surprised Leander told him the next day, "I’ve never heard you this affectionate."
"I miss you, I miss you, I miss you," Axton said feverishly, "I miss you like I’ve never missed anyone before. And I know a lot about missing people."
"I miss you, too, Axton," Leander said softly, "Are you okay?"
Axton shook his head, knowing that the action would not be seen.
"Just tell me," he said, "Tell me about how you miss me." _Tell me you wouldn’t shoot me, tell me you’ve never shot a wolf, tell me you would never shoot a wolf just for the fun of killing something so beautiful and dangerous. Tell me you don’t need to do that; tell me you don’t have that to prove. Tell me that’s not what manhood means to you._
Leander was silent, and Axton knew he hadn’t fooled him at all. There would be a talk later about what was bothering him—
"I miss you like the tides miss the surf," Leander said.
—but, mercifully, that talk was not going to be right now.
"I miss you like pearls on a gold chain miss the sea," Leander went on.
Axton flushed, pleased.
"I forget," he said, "That I’m from the forest and you’re from the sea."
"I haven’t surfed in months," Leander sighed, "I miss you like _I_ miss the sea."
"Why not?" Axton asked, happy to have a distraction from his own wild and tangled thoughts.
"Busy," Leander said, "And I don’t live on the beach anymore, so it’s kind of a trek."
"What do you do all day?" Axton said curiously, "For work?"
"Stuff," Leander groaned, "Things. Most of it’s so boring. You’ll see, I guess, when you come down here."
"I will?" Axton asked, surprised.
"Yeah, if you want," Leander said, "I mean, _I_ wouldn’t, but if you’d like to see the office that I’m calling you from half the time, then sure."
_But you have coworkers_, Axton thought, _what are you going to tell them?_ Out loud he said, “I think I’d like that.” Really, Axton had no idea if he would or not, but he thought it best to leave the option open.
"You say that now," Leander muttered darkly.
"What do you do when you’re not at work?"
"Train, mostly," Leander said, offhand, "When you get right down to it."
"What?" Axton asked.
"At the gym," Leander clarified.
"Ah," Axton said, no closer to understanding. "Weights?" he guessed.
"Doesn’t take up nearly as much time," Leander said, "And that’s at a different gym. I meant martial arts, mostly."
"How many gyms do you go to?" Axton asked, baffled.
"Only three," Leander said.
"Is this a human thing?" Axton said, squinting his eyes, trying to picture it, "Because I don’t really get it."
"No, it’s a me thing," Leander said. "Maybe a jock thing."
"It’s good to get stronger, though," Axton tried. "With the weights."
"Nah," Leander said, "I do that mostly to look hot."
"You succeed," Axton said sincerely.
Leander laughed, and it was a good sound. Axton let himself relax minutely.
"You’re not so bad yourself," Leander teased, "A little on the tall, dark, and brooding side some days, but easy on the eyes."
"I’m not tall," Axton said, "You’re taller than me." It was a difference of perhaps half an inch, at most.
"As usual, look at which one of those you dispute, babe."
"Do I brood?" Axton asked, "I mean, really?"
"You lead a secretive existence out in the middle of nowhere," Leander said, "It’s sort of the same thing from an outside perspective."
Axton tasted something sharp in his mouth and realized it was blood. He continued to bite down on the inside of his cheek anyway.
"The shotgun in your cabin," he said, not caring that this would seem to come out of nowhere.
"Yeah," Leander said immediately, already treading carefully.
"Do you know how to use it?"
"Sure," Leander said, and Axton’s stomach sank, "I mean, I’m not amazing at it, but I know how to use it."
"Ah," Axton said, his hand over his heart. He should just give up. He should give up right now. He was going to get shot. It was not a rational thought, but a pressing feeling, a flare of future pain over his heart. Men with guns who had food shot for sport.
"I keep on meaning to shoot skeet more often, but I never do."
"Skeet?" Axton said, "With the clay disk things?"
"Pigeons, they’re called pigeons. At the range," Leander said, "Yeah."
"Have you ever shot anything else?" Axton asked.
"No," Leander said, "Should I be practicing or something?"
"Oh," Axton sighed, and he sat down on his bed in relief, "No."
STUFF IS HAPPENING
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