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wordingg · 2 years ago

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Early Retirement Ch. 3

// Summary: Tim grows a lot of pumpkins and thinks about the last time he spoke to Barbara Gordon. //

Fall came and with it the last big harvests of the season.

It was a ton of work. Corn and pumpkins and squash and sunflowers all ripened within days of each other. Tim felt like he spent every waking hour harvesting and loading produce into his truck. He gave food to his neighbors and he gave to food banks and he sold produce like crazy at his tiny roadside stand, but he still had pumpkins rotting in his fields by the time October was coming to a close.

The little farm was beautiful in the fall blush when the thick woods that his land butted up against turned a ruddy red and the grass started to turn brown and crunchy. With the cooler weather, he started enjoying sitting on a rusted out lawn chair by his back door and working through some ratty novels he picked up at the local church yard sale.

His apple trees gave up loads of small hard apples. They were barely the size of his palm and tart and sweet. He thought they were perfect and his neighbor lady took baskets full and made him probably half a dozen apple pies for his trouble. They were so good that he ended up asking for the recipe and probably made another half dozen himself. He found that the precision needed to make beautiful pie tops was too time consuming, so he just rolled out one big piece of dough, poured the cooked apple filling inside and then folded the edges toward the center and voila! He called it a galette and no he was not taking notes. It tasted delicious and that was about all he cared about.

To his shame, he just about lived off of apple pie, roasted butternut squash and corn pudding for almost two months. His stomach was very happy with him, though a part of his head still screamed about carbs and too much natural sugar and whatever else he had trained himself out of eating when he still lived only for being a vigilante.

Then one day just a week before Halloween, there was an alien invasion just off the east coast and it was all over the news.

Out in rural Pennsylvania, they didn't see any of the action. The neighbors all talked about how they had seen fighter jets streak across the sky from a nearby airbase, but otherwise there was no notable change from every other day before. But, you couldn't turn on a TV or a radio without hearing wall to wall coverage of what was happening.

Despite knowing better, Tim carried a portable radio out into the fields and listened to the live coverage of how the Justice League, aided by various other Gotham vigilantes, fought to take down the invaders. The main invasion force had touched down on the Delaware coast, so close to Gotham that it sounded like most of the bats and birds had responded, in addition to some nearby atlanteans and the on-call Justice League force.

Tim's stomach remained tied in knots while he pulled ripe pumpkins and laboriously loaded them into his truck until he had a full load. By noon the truck was full, so he jumped in and switched to the truck radio while he drove the pumpkins into town. His hands shook where they clutched the steering wheel the whole way there.

In town, Tim delivered the pumpkins to a big harvest festival in the town square. Somehow, networking still came naturally to him even way out in the sticks. He had struck up a conversation with the organizer of the festival a few weeks ago on a quick trip into town for supplies about how he just couldn't get rid of his pumpkins quick enough and had ended up selling her a truck load.

The radio remained on while he pulled up to the square and helped a few other older men to unload the pumpkins and artfully arrange them on hay bales along main street. If he seemed nervous and upset, well he wasn't the only one and nobody took special notice.

By the time he was driving home, the sun was going down and the radio reported that the aliens were leaving after a thorough beating from Earth’s mightiest heroes. There were not yet any reports as to who, if anyone, on the responding superhero teams were injured.

Tim parked his truck and turned off the radio. He sat in his dark truck with his forehead pressed against the worn leather of the steering wheel for a long time trying to will his breath to slow before he was able to exit the truck and make the short trek into his house.

His laptop was sitting on the old beat up kitchen table right where he had left it.

He didn't let himself think about it. He opened his laptop and started downloading the tools he would need. He went to the fridge and he cut himself an obnoxiously large slice of apple pie that he inhaled in record time and then cut himself a slightly less obnoxious slice of pie to carry with him to the table. By then, the tools were downloaded and he was ready to hack into the batcomputer.

As he steadily pulled apart the protections on the cave’s network, he told himself that he just needed to know if they were okay. The comm logs would tell him quickly if anyone he knew was hurt and, if he needed to, he could probably access the cave’s med bay remotely to check read outs. He told himself that even if someone noticed him in their network, and someone would notice, that he would leave as quickly as he entered and leave nothing to trace back to his physical location. He told himself that Babs would immediately recognize his hacking style, so they wouldn't freak out about being breached for very long.

He told himself all of that up until the moment that a small black window with green text popped up on his laptop with only the words:

Tim? Is something wrong?

Tim snatched his hands away from the keyboard like he had been burned. He slapped the laptop lid shut, like he could just put her away after she had been summoned. Then, he held down the power button until the sound of fans whirring finally stopped. Tim sat there staring at his laptop for a long frantic moment before, in a fit of panic, he snapped the laptop in half over his knee.

Tim threw the laptop as far away from himself as he could and ran up the stairs into the cold dark of the second floor and threw himself onto the queen sized bed that he never slept in. He proceeded to cry like he hadn’t since he was eight years old and his parents had just told him they wouldn't be home in time for Christmas. He sobbed and cried and choked on nothing until he finally blissfully passed out on top of the covers in the dark.

♠

It was pouring rain the last time Tim saw Barbara. It was midnight or close to it and Tim was flying high on the adrenaline of an amazing tip that he was eager to share. The rain made the ledges slippery and the edges of corners soft and fuzzed out, but Tim didn't slow down or proceed with caution. He flew to the clocktower as fast as he could on just two feet and a grapple line.

He let himself in through a window in the lower level of the tower that he suspected Barbara left unlocked because she was confident that only a bat or a bird could reach it, so difficult was its positioning. He bounced up the squeaky worn steps two at a time until he reached the top level and the slightly raised platform that acted as Oracle's command center. The lights were off, but it was bright in the room. A bank of slim and slightly curved monitors lit up Babs from every angle as she sat in the center, her fingers pecking languorously at a keyboard and mouse. Behind her, the clock face itself was lit up in soft gold light, the clock face showing in reverse from their side, and cast a soft yellow illumination over the worn floorboards and the carefully turning gears of the clock mechanism above.

Tim made sure to make noise as he approached Barbara from behind, purposefully stepping on creaky floorboards. He was sure she would have known he was there even without him doing that, but it was only polite.

Before he had taken more than a few steps, Barbara said, "Hey, Tim. What do you need?" She didn't turn around to face him or stop slowly clicking what Tim could now see was a series of security cameras pointed at an old brick warehouse, the footage grainy and unfocused. It was unlike her not to turn around or at least say she was busy if she was. Some part of Tim warned him that something was off with her, but he was so excited about the information he had to share that it barely registered.

"I have some really great information that I was hoping you could send to the rest of the bats," he said, jogging the last few steps to her circle of desks and failing not to pop up on the balls of his feet like an eager kid.

"Why didn't you radio it in?" she asked, still not turning to look at him, though a notch appeared between her two thin eyebrows.

"It's not urgent, but I think it would be a good idea to bring a handful of people in to hit multiple spots at once," Tim barrelled on, still excited. He pulled a small thumb drive, barely the size of his thumbnail, out of a hidden compartment on his suit and held it up to the light. "I was able to pull a ton of info off-"

Babs glanced over, saw the thumb drive, and frowned a little harder before interrupting Tim. "If it's not urgent, why not just email it to me after you finish your patrol?" she asked, looking distinctly exasperated.

Tim froze and found himself suddenly wrong footed. Babs was acting like he did something wrong by coming over, but had he? He ran over her words again in his head. He asked himself why he hadn’t just emailed it to her after his night was over. The answer resoundingly was because he had been excited, right?

Embarrassment washed over Tim like a wave and he knew his fair skin was easily showing how flushed he was beneath his domino.

"Well, it's," Tim fumbled, watched Babs' expression become steadily more thunderous, and quickly pushed out the only thing he could think of, "it's about the triads, so I thought-"

"The triads?" Barbara asked. Her expression shifted quickly from frustrated to intent and she snapped the thumb drive out of Tim's hand and shoved it ruthlessly into a port on the side of the nearest computer tower.

"Yeah, I remember Steph saying they've been giving you guys trouble," Tim explained as Barbara began opening files, rifling through data at a speed that impressed even Tim. "I was investigating an old abandoned hat shop that I thought was probably a storage spot for this new club drug I've been trying to trace and-"

Barbara interrupted him again, "I don't need the novelization, Tim," she said flatly. "This is a list of all their warehouses, illegal gambling dens, brothels, et cetera. This could be everything," she said faintly.

"Yeah, that's why I thought we should try to pull everyone together as quickly as possible so we can hit as many high target spots at once. I don't know if they noticed me in their systems, so the faster the better. You can-"

"Dammit!" Barbara spat, flinging her glasses from her face to clatter loudly on the counter among a detritus of keyboards and mice and empty coffee mugs. She put her face in her hands and rubbed hard, like if she just rubbed hard enough she could scour away whatever emotion she was dealing with.

"Babs?" Tim asked with uncertainty. Any remaining excitement he had was fully gone by then. He had somehow completely bungled this interaction, though he couldn't for the life of him figure out how. Not that it would be the first time.

"You know Steph has been working on the triads for months," Barbara said mostly to her desk.

"Yeah," Tim said slowly, "I know Steph and Cass have been investigating them with you at the helm. That's why I thought you would be the best person to bring this to."

Barbara pulled her face out of her hands and gave Tim a truly furious look. "This is going to crush her, you know," she said.

"What?" Tim asked, now truly lost.

"Steph has been trying to blow the lid off the triads for months and you just happen to stumble onto the golden egg that will topple their whole organization without even trying," Barbara said with scorn, real unexaggerated scorn in her voice. She pushed her fingers into her hair, pulling soft fluffy orange hair out of its previously tight ponytail. "If it had been anyone else, it wouldn't be so bad, but of course it's you," she muttered, low enough that maybe Tim wasn't supposed to hear her. But, he was standing barely two feet away from her so of course he heard her crystal clear.

He was aware that his mouth was hanging open and quickly clicked it shut. He swallowed a few times while Barbara massaged her temples. He couldn't manage to put a thought or emotion together beyond shock.

"You could give it to her and she could tell people she found it. I wouldn't say anything," Tim said quietly. It wasn't fair, but it was for Steph. For how rocky their relationship had been since the beginning, he still counted her as one of his best friends and probably one of the few people who knew him best. God, he didn't want to destroy her . If he knew that getting this win was that important to her, he would have just given it to her himself. But, he didn't know. She had never said anything to him, not in any of their late night texts or lunch time video calls or even the last time she came over to watch The Bachelorette and eat nasty take out. When she had brought it up the triads to him, it was just to vent about what a pain they were. But, she never let on that the investigation was actually getting her down.

"Do you really think she would do that? Take credit for something that she didn't do?" Barbara asked, shaking Tim out of his thoughts. The scorn was back. Tim felt like a little kid sent before the principal, being reamed out for something he had no idea was wrong. He no longer knew what to say to fix the conversation.

"No, no of course not," Tim agreed quietly. Barbara was right, of course, Steph would never take credit for something she didn’t do no matter what the situation.

Barbara turned back to her computer, copying files and opening up more camera feeds, dismissal clear in the line of her shoulders. "I'll coordinate with the others," she said, a coldness suffusing her voice. "I'll let you know when we plan to do the raids."

"Okay," Tim said as meekly as he could manage, which was pretty meek considering how he was feeling. He took a step back before quickly pivoting on his other foot and left the room completely silently avoiding every creaking floorboard until he got to the window and could retreat back into the pouring rain and the unforgiving blackness of night.

Barbara never called him about the raid. He read about it in the papers a few days later.

Steph never brought up the triads, though she did bring up the raid. She told him that Barbara had told everyone else he was busy with another mission and that was why he couldn’t help out. Steph asked him what the mission was and Tim was so embarrassed over whatever he did wrong that he just smiled and made up some vague story about an undercover mission gone wrong to explain away his absence.

In time, his embarrassment and shame from the encounter faded and he was left with nothing but questions. He had only done his job. He had only tried to be a team player. He had only tried to communicate well with his team mates. But, instead of thanks and approval, he had been met with coldness and anger. He had never thought of Babs as unfair, but he had to reevaluate how he saw her after that.

While Bruce had been Steph and Cass’ first adult vigilante mentor, he had a lot of shortcomings. An unusual amount when it came to the two of them and it was hard not to see the one thing they had in common and imagine why Bruce was so useless with both of them. Barbara had swept in to be the adult that the two of them needed when Bruce failed to measure up.

Tim couldn't begrudge them the tiny family they had built for themselves. He wasn't blind to the way that Bruce treated the women in their group. They deserved to have their own safe space and their own team. But, maybe that meant that he couldn't trust them anymore than they felt they could trust him (which was apparently not very much). To them, he was a threatening outsider, so they weren't going to shelter him from any storms.

Maybe, when it came to Steph and Cass, fairness went out the window. Maybe, because he wasn't one of them, he could just fuck off if he got in the way.

He crossed Babs off the list of adults he could trust.

♠

The next morning dawned and nothing had changed while he slept.

No bats had broken into his house in the night, nobody had come to haul him away to the manor or Arkham, he hadn’t received any phone calls or texts except to thank him for the pumpkins. Nothing had happened.

Tim walked downstairs and turned the corner into the kitchen. The two pieces of his laptop were still chucked onto the floor and a cold piece of half eaten apple pie still sat on the table.

Feeling numb and empty, Tim threw the broken laptop into the trash can and swept up the little bits to throw away as well. Then, he sat at the table and ate the rest of his pie.

If Barbara had traced him far enough to be able to hack him back, she surely had traced his IP back to his address. The knowledge that the bats knew where he was was scary. He didn't know what they would do with that information. But, then he hadn’t tried to make himself impossible to find when he planned out his retirement to the farm. In fact, he was fairly easy to find for someone like Barbara or Bruce. That was kind of the point of the whole gambit, he thought. His disappearance had to very clearly lack malicious intent for the bats to believe he had left on his own and not been kidnapped or something.

Even so, he had made contact, however brief, and they hadn’t moved.

If they hadn't showed up yet he suspected that they probably wouldn't ever show up. They had had nearly eight hours to get to his house since he attempted to hack into the batcave and it was barely a three hour drive from Gotham doing the speed limit.

No, they weren't coming and he honestly wasn't sure how he felt about that.

#dcu comics #batfam #tim drake #barbara gordon #fanfiction #early retirement #anxiety #depression #starting over #wordinggwrites

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calmdowncolb · 7 years ago

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I wrote a very dumb little short Seth/Finn story that I am calling a “A New York Christmas” and it is dedicated to and also a present for @artemidi who is my favorite human.

this is 2071 words of pure indulgent Christmas goodness.

“Babe, come onnnnn.” Seth gently headbutted against Finn’s shoulder for the third time.

“Hey! You almost made me mess up the window frame!”

Finn was on a roll again.

He was sat at the dining room table, shoulders hunched and eyes intently staring at the gingerbread house before him. He held a bag of icing carefully, like a grand paint brush, as he decorated the side of the house with delicate loops. He had bowls of four different colored icings surrounding him, each with a butterknife stuck inside. A white plastic tray with different compartments held all sorts of colorful candies. Besides that was a box of toothpicks that Finn used for, in his words, “detailing”.

This was the third gingerbread house he had created that week.

Finn was inventive and creative all year-round, from the Lego masterpieces he could effortlessly create or the elaborate drawings he’d whip up when he had spare time.

Seth could watch him all day, if even just for the faces he made while applying details.

Today, however, Seth had a plan. A very important plan, at that! But it was never going to work out if Finn didn’t take a break from his work and pay attention to him.

“Where’s that foundation brush?” Finn asked, mumbling. He was only able to take a breath after he completed the row of delicate piping.

“The what?” Seth made a face.

“I bought like, a makeup brush so I could apply the edible glitter. You didn’t see it? I left it somewhere... “

“Baby, I wanna go pick out a tree.” Seth reminded him. Again. “Come on, you promised.”

Finn still didn’t look at his pouty partner. He was considering something… Perhaps changing the color scheme of the gumdrops on the roof or the placement of the candy reindeer on the cotton-candy front lawn.

“I know, baby, gimme ten minutes.” He said absently.

“I did! Thirty minutes ago!” Seth groaned and let his body fall into the chair next to Finn with a thud.

Finn finally shot him a glance, but only because of the way the table shook from impact. However, once he saw the pure despair painted all over the puppy-faced boy, he couldn’t help but giggle.

“I’m sorry, hon.” Finn took Seth’s chin in hand. “You wanna go get ready?”

“I’ve been ready.” Seth gestured to himself. He was dressed cozy in a black sweater; his jeans ruffled slightly at his ankles to reveal the warm socks Finn had knitted him before starting his gingerbread craze.

Finn let out a sigh; more loving now.

“Alright, baby.” He, albeit reluctantly, gave his creation another look-over before pushing himself away from the table and padding back to their bedroom.

Apartments in New York City were known to be small, sometimes even cramped, but that didn’t bother the couple. Their bedroom was mostly just that… a room with a bed. The queen mattress took up the entire room, leaving only space for a walkway to the closet where their clothes hung.

A few garments of Seth’s were strewn over the comforter and floor. Finn, on his way to the closet, picked up one of the many black tee shirts and brought it to his nose to inhale the sweet residual smell of Seth’s skin.

In the dining room, Seth pounced on his opportunity.

He hadn’t been able to get enough privacy within their small space to pull his peacoat on and slip the box inside his pocket. It was slightly bigger than his fist and threatened to not fit at all, but with quiet and gentle perseverance, he tucked it in and snapped the pocket button closed. As if on cue, Finn came back out, now with a light grey sweater pulled over his muscled frame.

Cartoon-like, he walked past the table where his obsession sat, only to then walk backwards and re-examine it. With a look of horror, he snatched up a toothpick and went back to work, correcting some frosting or crunchy candy bit.

Seth’s hands fell flat to his sides from pure frustration.

“BABY.”

“Sorry, let’s go!”

Finn was already vaguely familiar with New York City after having visited a few times as a child. He had told Seth time and again the story of his first trip to Rockefeller Center and how he had been so entranced by the beauty of the magnificent Christmas tree there.

He knew the location of a local Christmas tree nursery after determination to make his own perfect tree lead to intensive research.

Seth’s new fascination with picking out a tree was an unexpected one. Being on the high-maintenance side, maybe even bratty sometimes, Finn didn’t think his boyfriend would want to seek out a freshly cut real tree. It would have to sit and relax in the apartment for a few days before they could even decorate it. Branches would have to be cut and reorganized, then sap would leak everywhere…

It just wasn’t Seth’s style.

Despite that, Finn was never one to complain. He knew without being told that Seth was probably only daring to leave his comfort zone for his own sake. Admittedly, it was cute.

With any other destination in mind, they could take an Uber, giving them the chance to make out in the backseat and make any local driver despise them. But since the tree would have to be escorted home, it was Seth’s turn to drive.

Finn, who must have had energy pent up from sitting and focusing on his gingerbread house for so long, incessantly poked and tickled at Seth’s ribs while he drove, earning playful scolds until finally his offending hand was captured and held for the remainder of the drive.

The nursery was a little out of the way from their tiny apartment, and finding parking was a nightmare, but Seth knew it would all be worth it in the end.

They stepped inside, hand-in-hand, after complimenting the white and gold lights that adorned the outside.

Inside, the lobby had four massive trees set up in each corner. They were decorated in different color schemes: silver and gold, red and green, blue and silver and rainbow. Classic Christmas tunes played over a speaker system.

Finn immediately gravitated to the blue and silver tree, ooh’ing and ahh’ing at the incredible sparkling lights and shiny orbs hanging from the branches.

Seth joined him in observation, but merely pretended to look while his hand made its way to inside his pocket to stroke at the hidden box inside.

The trees for sale were kept in a side room, accessed by a long hallway.

Inside, the smell of fresh pine instantly hit whoever entered like a smack.

The trees were set up in columns, each with their own stand, all held together by a metal fence. Little price tags were stuck to one branch of each tree.

A small station was set up in the center of the room, with an employee greeting and helping customers. At her table was mix to make hot cocoa and a plate of sugar cookies for anyone to grab. Seth and Finn shared a cookie and a few extra-sweet kisses as they shopped.

Being tender-hearted as always, Finn was instantly attached to a delicate looking tree. It was smaller than the rest and had a few bare spots from missing or twisted branches.

Seth, on the other hand, chose the tallest and strongest looking tree, not concerned with how it towered over his own body.

After an hour of playful bickering and teasing, and <i>several</i> laps around the entire room, they found and selected a beautiful happy medium- a 6 foot tall Fraser Fir, plump and gorgeous emerald green.

They informed the attendant of their selection and she happily called an assistant over to bag and carry the tree for the boys. They were told to head back to the lobby to pay and they raced each other there.

Instead of getting in line at the checkout desk, Finn returned to the silver and blue tree.

“Baby, pick out an ornament!” Seth suggested when he noticed.

“Really?” Finn looked back with a smile bright enough to envy the tree itself.

“Yeah! Somethin’ you can remember today with…”

Without another word, Finn grinned again and began fluttering around the tree, carefully considering and examining each ornament.

Seth now felt the weight of the box in his pocket, as if it were a hundred pounds. He pretended to look around the ornaments with his boyfriend, feeling his pores break a slight sweat as he waited for the perfect time.

“I like this one… and this one… Seth, they’re all wonderful, I dunno how I could ever choose…”

“Maybe there’s one over on the other trees you’d like more?” Seth heard his voice crack as his nerves seeped in. He quickly cleared his throat and for once, was thankful that Finn’s attention was not directed at him.

“Mmm… Maybe…” Finn drifted away, in the direction of the equally stunning rainbow tree in the opposite end of the room.

This was it. Seth’s chance had made itself known.

Hastily but carefully, he whipped the box from his pocket, looking frantically over his shoulder every five seconds or so. He opened the box, took the plastic ball out- an ornament of his own- and searched for an unoccupied branch to hang it on.

As if on cue, Finn returned a second later, muttering something about how he just liked this tree better.

Seth could feel every nerve in his body dancing about his skin. His stomach was performing somersaults as Finn went back to his searching. He pretended to hum along to Rob Thomas’ “A New York Christmas” until he couldn’t stand the suspense any longer.

“Baby… Wha-What about this one?” Seth stuttered.

“Which?” Finn perked up.

“Right here…” Seth pointed to what he had just planted on the tree.

Finn’s eyes followed the direction of his finger and when he noticed what had not been there a mere minute before, his jaw dropped open.

What was once a simple plastic ornament had been messily decorated with one of Finn’s own glitter glue pens from his many art projects.

In a brilliant blue glitter, nearly the same color as Finn’s own eyes, Seth had drawn on the ornament:

Finn, Will you marry me?

“Oh… my... “ Finn brought his hands up to cover his agape mouth.

“Do you… like that one?” Seth offered, feeling the urge to cry or vomit or perhaps even both growing with each excruciating second that passed.

In a flash, Finn was on him.

Seth felt strong legs wrap around his waist as his face was assaulted with wet kisses.

Wet, both from the patternless frenzy Finn’s lips made and from the tears that spilled from his eyes, down his cheeks, and all over Seth.

“Yes, yes! Of course, yes!” Finn cried into Seth’s ear. His words were interrupted both by hiccups and giggles as he continued his loving attack.

“I love you, I love you…” Seth repeated like a holy mantra as he patted and rubbed Finn’s back.

The other customers in the lobby must have caught on to what had happened, as a chorus of ‘aww’ sounded. A few people even applauded.

Seth and Finn heard them but could not stop to acknowledge. They were much too busy exchanging kisses and I love you’s over and over until their lips and voices were sore.

Finn reached over Seth’s shoulder to pluck the homemade ornament from its branch. He stared at it, sloppy handwriting and glitter smudges included, as if it was made of pure gold- like nothing in the world was more precious.

“This is the most beautiful ornament I’ve ever seen…” He whispered so only Seth could hear.

“For the most beautiful guy I’ve ever seen.” Seth said, grinning against Finn’s ear before giving it a bite.

Finn, not seeming as if he was even considering climbing down from Seth’s chest, squeezed his shoulders a little tighter.

He brought the still-plain side of the ornament to his lips to kiss it before nuzzling his head under Seth’s neck.

No matter if the gingerbread house at home was still a work in progress- their plans for the night would now be dedicated to celebrating what would surely be the most blissful marriage and the happiest Christmas they had ever experienced.

#sethfinn #ballins #my fanfic #freddie #artemidi

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trixterdark · 4 years ago

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Lycanthropy and Me, Part 1

I’m thinking of deleting this story.. But I’ll leave this here on this site in case I feel the need to revisit it again.

Day 1. Monday, Waning Crescent

It was the perfect time to start classes. The moon was waning, his bones were shifting back into place, and his urges were dying down. The Fall semester had actually begun a week prior, but the stress and his condition would have been a horrible combination--making a late admittance ideal. Honestly, this school had been a godsend--far enough from home to feel like an escape but with enough resources so that he could properly adjust.

There were enough early classes and night ones to take around his stages, and enough long walkways and ramps that he could navigate with his forearm crutches. He had to rely on them for a week each month, or longer depending on the pain.

At the request of his family, he checked in with the school's support group. It would be smaller than back home but he was sure having some sort of network would come in handy. After all, he was going to be stuck at this campus for another four years.

Hopefully.

He limped his way to the Grimwald building, across the large green lawn of activities and meetups. Leaves and earth crunched under his sneakers and a thousand smells wafted through his nostrils, but he kept his focus. His teeth poked into his bottom lip. Annoying, but he was used to it by now. He pushed the heavy wooden door open, and it creaked as he stepped inside. The tile floor had a layer of dust, the lighting was dim, as if the bulbs weren't getting enough power. He took off his shades, hooking them into his knit cap. Low lighting was good. He always got looks for wearing his shades on sunless days. People either thought he was blind or putting on some kind of 'cool guy' persona. Both were assumptions he tried to roll with.

Compared to the other buildings this one was eerily quiet and much older. There was a weird smell in the air, possibly chemical, like the rot of an old science lab. He wondered if any classes were actually held in the building. He found the door he had been looking for, 112, slightly ajar.

"Is this the Lycan..." His eyes scanned the room quickly. Inside there were four people seated in a semicircle. In front of them was a desk occupied by an intimidating, hairy, pale individual. They all looked back at Hunter, and a familiar jolt ran down his spine.

There was a large calendar with the phases of the moon on one wall, a stack of pamphlets on back and nerve pain atop a small bookshelf. The same bookshelf contained books with such lovely topics such as Pack Dynamics in Modern Society, Managing Phantom Limb Pain, and the biggest tip off title: Lycanthropy and me. "Got it. Nevermind." He put his crutches aside took his seat in the only vacant chair, next to a girl with fake wolf ears on her head adorned with multiple piercings.

"This should be everyone." The pale man said. "You may have sensed others on campus." He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for a moment."They are not new, so their presence at this meeting was not required." He gathered several of his long, blond dreads and set them over his back. "My name is Jermaine Garou. I act as Lycanthrope counselor. As for my official position, I am an English professor here. Do not hesitate to contact me if you have any problems adjusting." Despite his words, his gaze was steely and his tone was cold. Hunter wondered if it was a predatory thing. He had heard that happened when a Lycanthrope from another area appeared.

Professor Garou pushed several pamphlets forward. "This is a compilation of advice and information left behind by previous students. Also, this." He produced several blue whistles from a box. "Blow this in an emergency. Unexpected phase changing, especially. I expect that you have your own binding materials, but we do have a small budget in case you need quick entrapment. We want to avoid any dangerous situations. Everyone's shift is different."

Hunter couldn't agree more. Between the four students gathered two appeared completely unfazed, one had a cane, and one was trying not to drool. His time of complete normalcy would come next week, definitely not last long enough, and end with the half moon.

"Take a good look at the individuals in this room. They will be your allies--your network. There is no better support than your own kin. While you may be of different breeds, you are still in the same situation. Now, let us take a moment for short introductions. Just your name, associated pack, and field of study." His eyes fell on the boy sitting furthest from Hunter. "You first."

The first student was a tall, African-American teenager. A crescent shape was shaved into the right side of his haircut. "Malcolm Dupereon. Transfer student." His right leg bounced up and down. "I'm from the Waker Posse in Georgia...I'm studying Engineering." He gave Garou a nervous glance.

The professor gave something close to a smile and nodded. His eyes fell on the next student, a heavy-set young man of Mexican descent with a pudgy face. The young man appeared immensely bored. "Uh hi, my name is Tomas Martinez. I'm studying Graphic Design and Oh, I'm from the Albuquerque pack."

The next student, a girl, scratched at her arm."Serena Song. Massachusetts alliance. English Literature." She seemed less than thrilled to be there, her nose wrinkled and a glare in place. The girl with fake wolf ears was next. She seemed perky and her bell collar jingled when she spoke. "Ashley Smith from the Texas Reds. I'm studyin' Nursin' but my minor is Animation. I'm not sure if I'll switch yet."

When eyes fell on him, Hunter resisted the urge to slip down in his seat. His hormones were a bit of a mess, but he reminded his biological urges that these people weren't enemies and did his best to keep still.

"I'm Hunter Reeds, S- Sisss...Syracuse pack...S-Studying...Education...?" His tone reflected his confusion as even he wasn't sure what he wanted to do yet.

"I suggest you exchange contact information." Professor Garou advised. "As for myself, I am available for council during my extra office hours, 6:15-7:45 in this building, Monday through Friday. I can also be reached via university email. Do not use your personal e-mail, it will be recognized as spam." His eyes trailed over them. "Are there any questions?"

Ashley raised her hand. "Do we have any club activities? Bake sales? Howl-offs?"

"In the past the Lycanthrope students here would gather for a camp retreat over Winter break," Garou said, exposing his teeth before setting them back. "However due to several incidents, those trips were canceled. Howling is also not permitted on school grounds. It leads to law enforcement tracking down wolves in the area. To avoid any hunting of our brethren, I ask that you stifle yourselves. Be mindful of the fact that you are not at home. You must be aware of your surroundings at all times, and your shifting must remain discreet. This school will not shield you from harm. This is not a place for your...Bake sales." He repeated the words with a hint of venom. "This is your support group, not a social club."

"Aw." Ashley and Tom both looked somewhat disappointed but Serena was incredibly relieved. Hunter exchanged glances with Malcolm, who shrugged.

After an awkward exchange of phone numbers, Hunter hobbled back out of the building and put his shades back on. His eyes were sensitive to sunlight, another deficiency he held. Luckily for him, Fall was almost in full swing and cloudy days were ahead.

Redwood University's campus sprawled out around him, acres of grass, buildings of old and new designs, cement and cobblestone paths, and tall oak trees.

The campus was bustling with life and Hunter had no choice but to shuffle along with it, ignoring the throbbing in his legs. The occasional jolt made him freeze on the spot and gum up the foot traffic around him.

He took shelter from the sun and bustle in the school library, a three-floor annex full of books, school artifacts, and other media. Libraries were a frequent refuge for him as they were quiet, book-filled, and always had seats.

The first floor had stained glass windows, remnants of the building's former life as a church. The pews and the clergy were long gone, but the atmosphere was still there and students often reported seeing the ghost of a pastor wandering between the bookshelves.

Hunter sank into a seat at one of the many long wooden tables, put his crutches aside, and put his headphones on. He dozed off for a few minutes, to recuperate his strength. It had not been long since the last moon. His mind was much clearer, but his body was still worn out.

With some energy restored he awoke a few moments later. Hunter opened his eyes and stretched, yawning a little too loudly. He quickly looked around. No one was looking his way but his face burned with embarrassment. He grabbed hold of his crutches and slipped into a corner.

Ever since he had arrived on campus, he felt as if someone's eyes were constantly watching him. Often when was in public spaces, someone looked at him pity, perhaps moved by the sight of him hobbling on crutches. Often he was asked if he had been in an accident, and prayers or well wishes were sent his way, but he never alluded to the truth. What could he say? Oh, don't worry about it, just that darn Lycanthropy acting up again.

He adjusted his headphones and started a song to distract himself. It was too early in the day for self-pity. At this rate, he would be crying in an hour. It was the wolf edging him on, the moon still heightening his emotions.

While alone in the anthropology section, the smallest and tightest squeeze between two rows, Hunter was startled when something rubbed against his butt. He yanked his headphones off and whipped around.

There was a young man behind him trying to squeeze past. He looked to be around the same age, late-teen to twenty-something-or-other. the stranger blinked down at him in surprise.

"Oh, sorry."

With Hunter facing him they were almost groin to groin, and stomach to chest. Admittedly Hunter wasn't very tall...

The guy was slim but built, suggesting a background in sports. He was of Asian descent with brown, almond-shaped eyes and jet black hair, kept neatly spiked. The stranger's aftershave, sweat, and toothpaste hit Hunter at once. It was a strange combination of smells, with something salty underneath. Hunter blinked at him, well up at him. The guy was easy on the eyes, to say the least.

"It'sss alright." Hunter's speech was slurred. "It's a pretty good surprise."

That definitely sounded like a come-on.

But in the time it took to process it, Hunter knew he couldn't take it back.

The stranger's eyebrows shot up so fast, Hunter thought they'd disappear.

His face grew hot. He could only blame his actions on the lupine side of the brain. The moon was still waning and his mind was currently closer to wolf than guy. And that meant making his interest in any person known, whether he wanted to or not. The fact he had just run into several of his kind didn't help.

"Really?" An amused smile. Not what he had expected.

"Yeeeaah...?" The word was dragged out as he attempted to go with the flow of conversation.

A chuckle ebbed out from the stranger. Chuckles were good, right?

"I suppose from where I'm standing..." His voice lowered an octave. "I could say the same."

His bass tone hit Hunter like a ton of bricks. Was he flirting? Were they flirting? In a corner? In a library? What?

"I'm Grayson Lee."

"Hunter." Came the quick reply, coupled with nervous laughter. He was sure that this guy now thought he was a psychopath.

Grayson didn't think that at all. "Are you new too or--"

"Just started today." He clenched his teeth to keep control. There was a flood of inappropriate comments filling his mind and self-perseverance was the only thing keeping them at bay. He moved away from Grayson, his crutches clinking against the bookcase behind him.

"Oh, late transfer?"

"Something like that..."

As his teeth were clenched, his canines were cutting into his mouth. Now that he was away from home he could have them filed down. "So, what brings you to...Anthropology?"

Grayson smirked. "A textbook hunt. My professor said I could use an old edition instead of buying one." The look in his eyes changed. "Are those--"

Hunter stared at him, unabashedly as the wolf side memorized as much as possible. There were so many things he could do now that he was away from the pack--

"--Your real teeth?"

The comment came like a smack in the face. It wasn't the first time he had heard it, but it stunned him nonetheless. "Y-Yeah u-um..." While part of him decided it wasn't a big deal, another part decided that was the perfect time to cry. His vision warped.

"I...I'm gonna--" He began to quickly shuffle back out of the tight space. "J-Just go, so..."

Grayson's face fell. "Oh, I'm sorry. I didn't mean anything by it."

Hunter continued his quick retreat. He looked back for a split second and ignored the stinging in his joints he received from moving too fast. "Nope. no big deal!" His voice echoed in the mostly quiet library and he shuddered at the several 'shh's' that seemed to come from nowhere. He thought he heard Grayson say something else, but he continued on.

Several hours later Hunter rolled out of bed in his dorm room. In truth, it wasn't so much a 'room' as it was a repurposed closet. There was enough space for a desk and a twin-sized bed, and a small rug, and a wardrobe. To make it homier, he had put up blackout curtains and changed the light bulbs to keep things not-so-bright. His strategy worked all too well, as he dozed off and overslept.

His first class took place that night--in ten minutes. He moved as fast as he could, aware that his destination, the Rosewood building, was at least a twenty-minute hobble. He slipped the strap of his messenger bag over his shoulder, hooked his sunglasses into his hat and grabbed his crutches. The odds weren't great, but at least he could try.

He arrived twenty minutes late.

He opened the door and it groaned. The door was located at the front of the room, and several pairs of eyes went from the professor to Hunter's face. Not many had signed up, something he expected from a night class. He pushed his shades down for a moment to squint at his new teacher; a tall individual with a paper white complexion. The tips of his eyes and nose were red as if he had just been pinched. His dark brown hair was slicked back in place. His attire, a three-piece suit, reminded Hunter of the teachers he had seen in old movies.

"Is this English 1245?" Hunter asked.

Rather than answer the question, the man stated the obvious. "You're late."

Hunter bore his fangs then. His wolf side didn't like the man's tone. He covered his mouth with his hand in an effort to suppress it. "Sorry, it took me a while to get h--"

He was cut off. "Take a syllabus and have a seat."

Hunter snatched a paper from the stack, causing several to fall off the professor's desk and onto the floor. The man sighed in irritation as Hunter braced one arm against the desk and tried to bend to pick the handouts up. His knees buckled, his left leg throbbed, and his shades fell off his face.

His professor did not move.

Two students rose from their desks to help retrieve the fallen papers and sunglasses, putting a quick end to what could have been a ten-minute struggle. He thanked them and took a vacant seat in the front row by the wall. He put his shades on and read the board; Professor Lugosi English 1245-2110A.

"Now." Lugosi turned to the second page of the handout. "Before we were interrupted, where was I..."

Hunter snapped a pencil in half.

Lugosi looked away from his syllabus. "Is there a problem Mister...?"

"Reeds. And no." He sucked in his breath before muttering. "Nothing I can fix anyway..."

He spent the next twenty minutes glaring at Lugosi, who closed the class with a lecture on the importance of time management, at which point Hunter growled audibly. When the class ended Hunter shuffled out quickly, assured by a few whispers that he would be known as the 'crazy handicapped guy'.

That night he had a dinner of beef jerky and potato chips before breaking down and taking an antidepressant. This wasn't how he expected his first day of college to go. Things will get better, he told himself as he wrapped himself in several blankets. There was no way tomorrow could be any worse.

Days 2-7, Waning Moon

Day 2-Tuesday-Waning

Fat raindrops dribbled down the window of Hunter's dorm room. The sky was wonderfully gray. Hunter gathered his things and headed to the showers. The hot water felt amazing. He would have stayed in the shower longer, but there were only eight stalls and a line was forming outside.

Hunter stopped at the mirror. His reflection showed dark skin, bags under his tawny eyes, brown bed head hair poking out from under a thin shower cap. Several beige scars crept up near his neck, disappearing beyond the neck of his t-shirt. As he brushed his teeth alongside a row of other students, Hunter felt an odd sense of community. He didn't know anyone in his dorm, but if they made eye contact they would exchange hellos and good mornings. People made space when they saw his crutches, no questions asked. The generally friendly mood was already helping him forget the previous day's chain of events.

He decided to splurge and have breakfast in his dormitory cafeteria. It wasn't as big as the main one, and the food was limited, but the smell of sausage was enough to get him to fork over his cash. He sat by a pillar, using it as a rest for his crutches. He paid for extra meat and eggs--one large breakfast was all he needed daily due to his small frame. Just as He shoveled a forkful into his mouth, a voiced called to him.

"Reeds?"

Hunter looked up, his mouth full. Standing across from him was a somewhat familiar face--Malcolm Dupereon. He also had a plate of mostly meat. "I didn't know you dormed in here." He smiled, sitting down. "I thought I smelled some kin."

Hunter chewed and swallowed. The taste of meat had overtaken his other senses. "Mm. Did you start classes yet?"

"Started on the seventh last week," Malcolm said, stabbing a sausage link. "Phased in an' out. Mine get real short in the fall y'see. But longer in the springtime."

"I'm just about done riding it out." Hunter enjoyed another two forkfuls of meat and eggs. "Mine can be long."

"Yeah? Like what, a day?"

Hunter felt a stab of jealousy. "Oh yeah, something like that..."

They wolfed down their food in silence for a moment.

"So..." Malcolm came up for air. "How big is your pack?"

"About thirty near me."

"Nice."

"You?" Hunter chewed.

"Mm." Malcolm gulped down his orange juice. "About the same. You know how it is. People move in, people move out."

"Yeah. People are always moving from one pack or tribe to another..." Hunter kept his gaze on his food.

"Can't wait until next week." Malcolm kept the conversation going. "Then it's goodbye cane!"

Hunter gave him a small smile, not worried about his teeth for once. "Yeah, same for these crutches." Phases aside, they could both be ecstatic about the coming week. The new moon approached--a point at which their Lycanthropic urges would dwindle down to near non-existence.

"Bless the new moon." Malcolm sighed. "Smooth sailing for the rest of the month for me! How about you?"

"Well..." Hunter scratched his head. There was no reason he couldn't be honest about his condition. "I start to get back pain when the full moon creeps up. Then I'm ticked off 24/7 until the half moon is back."

Malcolm nodded in understanding. "Same thing here! I'm a rage monster during big moon week! Aw man, I dunno how I'm gonna do it." He shook his head. "My Momma's worried about me. She's trying to come down here with a cage. I don't know how my roommate's gonna feel about that..."

"That's one thing I'm not worried about." Hunter replied with a sudden need to boast. "My room might be the size of a shoebox, but at least I'm by myself."

"Ha! Lucky you! You got room for your binding stuff?"

Hunter's smile waned. "I've got space by the window..." He inhaled and exhaled. He had told himself that he could do this, but suddenly the thought of shifting alone sounded scary.

Malcolm could sense his fear. "If you feel yourself flippin' out early, let me know. I got your back."

"Thanks. And uh, same here. I'll help if I can."

Malcolm checked his wristwatch. "I thought had more time. Gotta book it." He shoveled the rest of breakfast into his mouth, chewed and swallowed as he left the table. "See you around!"

Hunter waved at Malcolm as he left and finished up his breakfast. He had managed to have a coherent, pleasant, conversation. Things were already looking up.

He got to his next class early, sat in the back, and blended in. For the following one he tried to do the same, but a leg cramp made him ten minutes late. However, his professor was understanding and carried on with the lesson as if nothing had happened.

At the end of the day, he returned to his dorm feeling more optimistic. He could do this, he decided. He could make things work.

Day 5-Friday-Waning Crescent

It was early in the morning, hours before sunrise. Hunter was awakened by a text message. He blinked at the bright screen in the dark. It was from the wolf-eared girl.

Hey Y'all it's Ash♡ I'm tryin 2 put a trip 2gether 4 ~*winter break*~ Let me know if ur interested ;) ;○((Redwood pack))

"Redwood pack..." Hunter closed his eyes. "Is that supposed to be the five of us?"

Malcolm seemed nice enough, but he felt closer to the people in his dorm than he did to the others. But maybe that would change with time. After all, they were all separated from their respective packs. Maybe there were plenty of his kinfolk, bonded into a larger pack, and awaiting their arrival. Garou had confirmed that there were more of their kind on campus. He wondered how many there were.

Day 7. Sunday, Waning Crescent

Hunter's shoulders tensed. Something wild drew near. He knew that scent. Another werewolf. While it was hard to put into words, he could pinpoint it instantly. He braced himself. The moon's effects were still waning. Would they be hostile? Territorial? He turned around.

"Hey. You like anime?"

Hunter looked down at the flyer in the individual's large hand. Today was the day of the club fair.

The campus lawn was covered with booths and tents for groups and clubs varying from such subjects as Tennis and Fencing to Air Hockey and Hamboning. The half moon had passed several days prior, and Hunter was already feeling much better. He had abandoned his forearm crutches for a hinged leg brace and wandered across the campus lawn. While in line for free food he found himself behind another of his kin--Tom Martinez. The stocky teenager was sweating heavily, a large patch of sweat was spreading on the back of his band t-shirt. He wiped his face with a small towel as he waited for a reply.

"Not really...Some of them, I guess." Hunter shrugged. "Why, did you join?"

"That wolfgirl Ash, is in the anime club." Tom blinked and adjusted his sunglasses. "If you get too close to their table, she'll make you dance with them." He warned.

Hunter tried not to laugh. Was that why Tom seemed so worn out? "I guess she already caught you then. Thanks for the tip."

The line moved ahead.

"Did you get that text the other night?" Tom asked, looking back again.

"Oh, yeah...The trip." Hunter shrugged. It seemed like Tom was trying to make conversation, so he figured he should oblige his kin."I don't know if I'm going back home for Winter Break or not. I mean, it seems like she wants to make it a group thing but--"

"We aren't a pack." Tom said flatly. He rubbed his neck. "I mean, no offense, but we just met a few days ago. We don't know if we have anything in common besides...y'know."

Tom's response took Hunter by surprise. "Do you miss them a lot? Your pack?"

"Well yeah." Tom's voice went up an octave as if it were obvious. "Don't you?"

Hunter pushed his sunglasses back. "Yeah...some of them anyway. I wasn't in the best terms with everyone when I left."

"What happened?"

Hunter gave an irritated stare, lost behind his dark sunglasses. Tom was giving him a strange vibe. He couldn't tell if Tom was genuinely interested in the conversation or not. Still, he gave an honest reply. "Alpha trouble."

"Oh..." Tom blinked and turned back. They had finally made it to the front of the line.

"Sorry folks!" One volunteer hollered. "We're out of hotdogs!"

Tom and Hunter both grumbled in disappointment before glancing at each other and laughing.

Hunter's phone rang then. He looked at the screen. "Oh, hang on. I gotta take this." Stepping off the line, he answered the call. "Mom?"

"Hi, Baby. How are you doing?" He could hear the worry in her voice. "Is everything going okay?"

"I'm okay." He tried to assure her with a confident tone.

"Are you still on crutches or can you walk now?"

"Brace today, so I'm doing good. You?" He walked near a tree. Tom was walking towards him with a styrofoam plate of hamburgers. "Are you in the city?"

"Yeah, I'm still down here. I have to go back in a few days."

Hunter heaved a heavy sigh.

"They aren't gonna get anything out of me." She assured him. "I don't care who shows up on my lawn. Bring the Alphas, Cops, the full pack--They're gonna get knocked out if they try to mess with my baby. Lena Reeds don't play."

Hunter bit his lip to suppress his snickering. He knew she wasn't joking. While his mother was not a Lycanthrope, she could still take one down. "Stay out of trouble. If anything, you can always stay down there with Auntie."

"And who is going to take care of my garden? Miss Luna's gonna kill my plants. Look, I was just calling to make sure you're okay. If you need me to I'll come up for the full moon."

"No thanks." He took a burger off the plate Tom held towards him. "I think I've got this."

"Okay, sweetie. Gotta go. Love you."

"Mmhm." He chewed. "Bye."

Day 8. Monday, Waning Crescent

Heavy rain set in midday, prompting Hunter to stay indoors. He swathed himself in blankets and checked through his messages. Much to his surprise, there were inquiries from his pack members about his whereabouts. Hunter kept his replies limited to short text messages. He wanted to tell them more, but it was too risky. There was no telling who might read or overhear his location. He tried to distract himself by binge-watching a show on his phone, but loneliness crept up on him. He looked at Ashley's text again. Sure, they weren't a pack, but they could at least be friends.

He awoke that evening to rumbling thunder. The sky was dark. He checked the time.

Unfortunately, he was going to be late to Lugosi's class again.

He moved as quickly as he could across the lawn. His leg brace didn't make things easy. Hunter slipped in the grass, landing on his butt in the wet dirt. His hands stung from dragging himself up, but he continued on his way.

He arrived twelve minutes late.

Lugosi didn't seem surprised. His permanent pinched expression had not changed. "I thought you would have taken heed from last week's lecture--"

"I'm....ugh...sorry..."

"You already have one absence--"

Hunter leaned against the door frame."I transferred late--"

"And two latenesses already." Lugosi continued as if Hunter never spoke. "As written in the syllabus, two latenesses equal one absence. After 3 absences you will be removed from the class. Redwood University's rules are very clear. Perhaps you would be better off at a smaller institution? Something that would cater to your..." He looked down at Hunter's muddied jeans. "Condition."

Hunter's eye twitched. If they had this exchange a week earlier, his wolf side would have sent him charging across the room. Perhaps he would have tackled the thin man to the ground and bit down into his neck. Would campus security be called? Would it be on the evening news?

"Are you with us, Mr. Reeds?"

Hunter staggered over to a seat in the front row. "I'm sorry Mr. Lugosi." Frustration made his eyes water. He kept his gaze on the desk. "It won't happen again."

After the class ended, Hunter was in a sour mood. There was no special lecture on attendance, but the remark about his 'condition' did a number on him. None of the other students had said a word either. As his class was held in the same building as the English department, he decided to go up to the office and make a complaint. He tried to remain optimistic. If complaining didn't work, perhaps there was still time to change classes.

Other late classes had just come to an end, and only a handful of students and faculty remained in the building. The occasional set of footsteps echoed as Hunter made his way to the office.

Not only had the office closed, but a notice on a bulletin board told him it was too late for course changes. He leaned his head against the department door for a moment and took a deep breath. His vision was blurring again, with tears threatening to fall at any second.

Normally he wouldn't feel so emotional, but he knew it was his wolfside edging him on, making every small issue much bigger. With a frustrated growl he turned quickly, causing a loop on his messenger bag to snag onto the door. Hunter yanked at it with too much force and the bag flipped, scattering his belongings across the floor.

He paused and stared at the mess he created. How hard did he have to fight to make this work? He steadied himself against the wall and tried to crouch down. While his joints were better due to the coming new moon, bending his knees was far from a walk in the park.

He sucked in a deep breath through his teeth and wiped his eyes with the sleeve of his sweatshirt. As he reached for his planner he heard footsteps against the linoleum.

A stranger knelt down in front of him. "Let me help."

Hunter blinked away his remaining tears. He recognized the person helping him. It was the boy from the library. Sadness was replaced with embarrassment and confusion as Hunter watched the young man collect his belongings from across the floor.

"We meet again." Grayson smiled.

Hunter looked at him over his sunglasses, speechless. The last time they had met he couldn't get himself to shut up. Now, he couldn't speak at all.

Grayson's smile drooped. "Do you remember me?"

Hunter nodded his head slowly, still trying to remember how to talk. This doesn't have to awkward, He told himself. The wolf isn't even here to mess things up. Now speak.

"I remember. Thank you." He blinked. "Uh, for helping me...not for before, uh well..."

Perhaps being silent wasn't so bad. Hunter stuffed his things back into his messenger bag and closed it tight. "Sorry. It's been a long week."

"Already?" Grayson raised an eyebrow. "Good luck with the rest of it then."

"Grayson!"

Hunter looked down the hall. A small group was watching them. One guy in a letterman jacket asked, "You still coming?"

"Yeah! Go on ahead!" Grayson called back before returning his attention back to Hunter. "We're going to the mess hall over in the Green building. You wanna come?"

Wallow in self-pity or eat with strangers? It didn't take long for Hunter to think it over. "I can go."

Hunter tried to pull himself up, but Grayson offered his arm. He was everything Hunter wasn't--tall, muscular, he had a normal set of teeth....It didn't seem fair.

Grayson's friends had gone on ahead. It was understandable, as the hour was late and the Green building's mess hall would likely stop cooking within the hour. The other kitchens on campus had closed hours before, and Hunter felt bad for any hungry individuals who didn't possess any rations of their own.

He followed Grayson into an elevator.

"So." Grayson tapped the L button. "About the other day...I'm sorry--"

"They're real." Hunter rubbed his hands together, drawing out nervous energy. "It's a valid question, it just doesn't come up as often as you would think. I mean, I'm from New York." He gave Grayson a sideways glance. "I'm far from the weirdest thing you're gonna see there."

"Ah. Gotcha. I'm from Boston." Grayson replied. "What brings you out here to Redwood?"

"Not too far, yet not too close to home." Hunter shrugged. The elevator doors opened. They stepped out, following the remaining teachers and students back into the night air. The campus grounds were mostly hidden in the dark, except for spots lit by old-fashioned lamp posts.

Hunter caught a glimpse of the tiniest sliver of the moon before it was covered by the clouds.

"And uh, why did you come Redwood?"

"A recruiter came to my school."Grayson shrugged. "I didn't have anywhere else in mind, so it seemed like a good idea."

They walked side by side down a concrete path that ran alongside the grass. The land sloped downward, leading to a stone staircase, and at the foot of a hill sat their destination.

The Green building was the heart of the Redwood campus. It was large and mostly green tinted glass, connecting to several smaller buildings by short bridges of more glass and steel. It was often the host of parties in bad weather and featured the largest cafeteria on campus, earning it the nickname the 'mess hall'.

After quickly moving down the sloping path, Grayson looked back to see Hunter still making his way down. He wasn't sure what to say. When they first met, Hunter had been on crutches but with no visible injury. He wanted to ask, but he was worried he would get a negative reaction.

"Tired?" Was the best he could come up with.

"A little." Was all Hunter would say.

They entered the building and crossed the lobby filled with Redwood maps, awards, banners, and other forms of 'propaganda' for the college. Hunter half expected a small tour of starry-eyed teenagers and parents to come waltzing by, but it was too late at night for that to happen.

The mess hall was a wide circular room filled with long, lacquered wood tables and matching benches. Food and beverages were either acquired by using one of many vending machines or joining one of three lines for sections against the wall labeled 'Meals', 'Snacks', and 'Salads'. A closed 'Juice and Coffee' stand sat in one corner. Speakers pumped in upbeat music, and several flat screens found around the room displayed different shows.

The room was crowded. Grayson looked around for his classmates until Hunter tugged on his shirt and pointed to the far left. They made their way over to the table and squeezed onto the remaining space at the end of two benches.

Introductions were short, as one of Grayson's classmates launched into a rant about their shared class. Hunter felt alienated instantly. The group ate from shared bowls of chicken strips, wings, and fries, but Hunter kept his hands on his lap all the while. It reminded him of his first trip to New York City. He had gone with a small group to see some relatives, and came through on a train to Grand Central station. While making their way around, he had been separated from the group in Grand Central's largest hall, the main concourse. There he was surrounded by more noise, light and people than his eight-year-old self had ever seen in his life. Never before had Hunter had never felt so truly alone. So he howled.

Now, Hunter kept his mouth shut. His English class already thought he was crazy. There was no need for Grayson or his friends to think the same. He rubbed his hands together again. Did everyone get this feeling when they moved away from home? This strange, creeping loneliness?

"Do you have any teachers bugging you?" Grayson asked, looking directly at him. Perhaps that was the topic of conversation.

"Yeah." Hunter joined in to escape. "Lugosi. He's the worst."

"What did he do?" Grayson asked, staring at the fry basket.

Hunter realized he had not seen Grayson eat since they arrived, but thought nothing of it. "I showed up late to class last week. My legs were bothering me, you probably noticed the crutches I had." Grayson nodded and he continued, feeling multiple eyes on him. "Anyway, he made a big deal out of it and gave a speech on the importance of attendance. Then this week, he suggested I wasn't right for Redwood because of my...'condition'."

"Because of your condition?" One person repeated. "He sounds like a jerk."

"My friend had him last semester." Another person chimed in. "He made some dude cry. He has tenure here though, so the school won't kick him out no matter what he does."

"Is that why you were by the English office?" Grayson asked, looking concerned. "Were you going to complain?"

Hunter rubbed the back of his neck. "Something like that." Part of him wanted to cry again. "Or just switch classes."

"The deadline was yesterday, dude." Another person replied. "Sorry."

Hunter let out a heavy sigh. "I guess..I'm just going to have to deal with it." He rubbed his hands again in a nervous gesture. "Maybe camp outside the door for a few hours. Get the door opened by maintenance. Sit at his desk. Wait until he walks in. Tell him I'm the teacher now." He spoke with a deadpan expression and monotone delivery, causing several people at the table to laugh, Grayson included. Hunter ignored the warm feeling in his chest and adjusted his sunglasses. They spent the next hour swapping stories about weird teachers past and present, until the kitchen was officially closed, and the mess hall began to empty out.

To their dismay it was raining again, albeit lightly.

"So, which dorm are you in?" Grayson asked, unfazed.

"Howard." Hunter replied as he hooked his sunglasses on his t-shirt. It was dark enough that he could see without them.

"I'm headed that way."

"Oh--kay."

Their group had dispersed, leaving them alone. As they began to trek back up the hill, the rain grew heavier. Hunter fumbled with the railing. He stopped on a step to rub the fat raindrops away from his eyes. Grayson stopped two steps above him.

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah--" Hunter tried to pull himself up onto the next step, but his right foot slipped and he toppled forward. Hunter was expecting to hit the pavement. Instead, his face smacked into Grayson's chest. He could feel two hands holding him steady. "Nice catch." He said into the taller boy's shirt. As he pulled away he found himself staring into earnest eyes. "It's okay." Grayson smiled, his hands on Hunter's shoulders. "I've got you."

Hunter was grateful for the rain just then. It hid his tears well. What Grayson had done seemed like a simple gesture, but he had done more than keeping him steady. He was keeping him grounded.

"Thank you." He reached for the railing. Grayson let go of his shoulders, but offered his arm. Something in Hunter's eyes suggested he could use some support in more ways than one.

It wasn't necessary, but Hunter took it anyway. He'd take advantage of Grayson's kindness, if only for a moment longer.

Once they had finished climbing the stairs, the rain lessened to a slightly lighter amount. Hunter took a moment to look at the dark, soggy campus. The once intimidating buildings looked worn and welcoming.

The Howard dormitory sat only a few feet away. The next closest dorm was another ten-minute walk and across the green--The Fox building.

"Well, that's me." Hunter said, squeezing some of the water out of his hat.

Grayson nodded. "Mmhm." He gave the Howard dormitory a pensive glance, as if he were trying to figure out its secrets. The rain had finally stopped.

"I guess I'll..." As Hunter turned to walk towards the building, Grayson fell into step with him again. "See you around?" They were both headed to the front door.

Grayson frowned as he pulled his wet t-shirt away from his stomach. "I don't have anywhere to hang this in my dorm. Is the laundry in Howard still open?"

"Yeah."

"Great. I just want to throw this stuff in the dryer for a minute."

In the blink of an eye, Hunter found himself in the basement laundry room. The room was small despite the large number of students living above--121 to be exact. There were only four washing machines, three chairs, three dryers, and two folding tables. Hunter leaned against one table, next to the heater that their bags rested on. He watched as Grayson lifted his shirt and began pulling it over his head. Was this weird? He asked himself, his eyes darting away quickly. Grayson was only trying to get dry. What was Hunter doing down here anyway?

"Uh..." Hunter looked at the door. "Do you want me to go get a towel, or...?"

"Hm?"Grayson looked back him over his shoulder, arms still raised. "No, I'm good."

"Oh? Okay." He found himself watching Grayson's reflection in the mirror. More voyeurism. Control yourself. He chided mentally. He was glad this was happening now and not a week before. There was no telling how bad his behavior would be closer to a full moon. But why? the less scrupulous side of his mind asked. If he's going to put on a show, you might as well watch. He kept his eyes on the mirror. Broad shoulders and a nice torso? Definitely his type. Guys like Grayson Lee were the reason he had watched soccer since junior high.

Grayson tossed his sneakers in one dryer, and his socks and shirt in another. He looked down at his soaked jeans.

Do it. Hunter thought, watching Grayson via the mirror again. Wow. The minute I get away from Colton and the pack, I turn into a total creep. Go figure.

"Are you going to throw something in too?"

Hunter blinked at that question. Clothes. Dryer. Of course. "Oh..." Standing half naked with another half-naked guy in an empty basement? "Yeah." Apparently, that was happening.

He lifted his shirt and hoodie over his head. They snagged on his sunglasses, and he was stuck in a wet clothing cocoon. He heard Grayson laugh. "Ah. Great."

"Do you need some help?"

Hunter tugged to no avail. "Ugh...no..I just..."He felt Grayson tugging at his shirt. Perfect. Now they were undressing each other, in a basement, all alone. Would every meeting they had be fraught with strange, sexual tension?

He heard the flapping of a set of flip-flops enter the laundry room, just as Grayson pulled the shirt over his head. A girl with a small cloth hamper of clothing and laundry related supplies regarded them with a sleepy stare. Her eyes snapped open as she assessed the situation. "I can come back--" She said, starting to turn away.

"No, you don't have to do that!" Hunter insisted, perhaps sounding a little too panicked.

The newcomer still seemed reluctant to wash her clothes, but quickly flip-flopped her way over to an empty machine. Hunter tossed his clothes into the dryer and looked back at Grayson, who had adopted his pensive look again. They stood in front of a table in awkward silence.

Hunter crossed his arms over his chest and tried to appear nonchalant. "So...What are you studying?"

Grayson looked down at him, his mind was clearly somewhere else. "Nursing." Was the slow reply. "For now anyway. I'll probably change it next semester. It's not my thing."

"What do you want to do?" Hunter queried and immediately regretted asking. It was a loaded question. Some people went to school for years before discovering what they truly wanted to pursue.

"Sports medicine." He looked at the ceiling. "I don't want to be a nurse or a doctor really, but I do want to do something that helps people. I want something hands-on. If my Mom has her way, I'll probably still end up as an M.D. but I don't want to be in school forever... Maybe I'll be a medical assistant..."

Hunter gave him an incredulous look. Nice, tall, and he wants to help people. Also, partially naked. What kind of dream is this?

Grayson stared down at him. Not sure how to react, Hunter clung to the topic at hand. "Uh...How about physical therapy? The physical therapist I know seems happy I guess. He's definitely helping people. I don't know how I could have made it through highschool without him."

Grayson frowned. "Did you see him often?"

"Yeah. Like twice a week. At first, it was really painful. I have..." He paused to choose his words carefully. "An issue with bone and muscle structure. There was a point where I was stuck in a wheelchair and I didn't think I would walk again. Whenever I did try to walk, I got muscle spasms and migraines. My nerves were getting pressed down as well, so I'd get these shooting pains at random. It was either lay still or be in constant pain."

"How did you deal with it?" Grayson asked.

"Not well." Hunter watched the laundry tumble. "I gave up a lot. There were days that I was so doped up on pain meds that I couldn't feel anything at all. I hated that feeling. So I stopped taking them. I stopped trying to walk. But my therapist didn't stop trying. He tried to make things as easy as possible for me. It took awhile, almost three years, but now I can walk much better. I still need to use crutches a week or so each month, and the pain comes and goes, but things are way better than before."

"Good." Grayson looked genuinely relieved. "I can't imagine what that was like." His gaze fell on the old checkerboard tiles that covered the floor. "But I'm sure it was really hard."

Hunter's shoulders slumped. "I guess. I'm sorry. Things got really serious out of nowhere."

"I'm glad." Grayson smiled. "I don't think we would have been able to talk like this anywhere else. I haven't been able to have a real conversation like this since I got here."

"Oh." Hunter tried smiling back, hoping he didn't look creepy. "I'm glad it was with me then."

"Me too." Grayson's voice lowered.

Damn, He could feel goosebumps on his neck. His heart thudded in his chest.T he extra bass in Grayson's voice left him reeling.

Grayson stepped forward. "The clothes are done." He handed Hunter his shirt and hoodie. Hunter put his clothes on slowly, feeling like a jerk for eyeing Grayson like a piece of meat earlier. He tugged his head through his shirt.

Grayson slipped his sneakers back on. "Toasty."

Hunter was glad to be fully clothed once again. His jeans were still a bit damp, but they would be easily dried.

"What about you?" Grayson asked, slinging his backpack over his shoulder. "What do you really want to do?"

"I want to teach. I didn't have the best grades, just a little above average, but when I was younger I liked going to school. It was the one place I was treated like everyone else. I think I'd like to teach History, or maybe English."

"You should be an English teacher." Grayson decided. "Just to balance out Lugosi's existence."

Hunter laughed. "I'd have to be a saint."

Dressed and drier than before they headed back up to the main hall. Hunter walked with him past the vacant welcome desk.

Grayson let out a defeated sigh. "Back to Marconi then."

"What?" From what Hunter had heard, Marconi was a townhouse originally used as living quarters for Redwood's faculty. Currently, it was used as another dormitory, but with larger rooms. It was also on the outskirts of the campus, nowhere near Hunter's place of residence, the Howard dorm.

"I thought you said your place was close."

Grayson shrugged. "I lied." He pushed one of the glass double doors open.

Hunter leaned against the frame. "If you wanted to talk, you could've said so."

"I suppose." Grayson stepped out onto the pavement. He looked back at Hunter. "But then again, I didn't come here with pure intentions."

Hunter's mouth dropped open. By the time he remembered how to talk, Grayson was already walking off.

Days 9 and 10: Waning Crescent and New Moon

Day 9. Tuesday, Waning Crescent

Hours later, long after the day had ended and the sun had risen again, Hunter was still contemplating what Grayson had said. He stirred his off-brand cereal with a spoon, courtesy of the cafeteria and watched the puffed pieces of grain float around in his milk. He didn't go in with pure intentions. What did that mean? Their previous meeting contained weird flirting courtesy of his lupine side, but had it not been mutual? Hunter looked at his warped reflection in his spoon. Short guys with fangs who wore sunglasses indoors and hobbled around on crutches were rarely thought of as 'hot'. Perhaps Grayson had been being nice. That made more sense, but it didn't explain his less than pure intentions.

A familiar set of scents wafted through his nostrils--soda, breakfast meats, the wild scent of a wolf.

"Havin' fun with your food?"

Hunter looked up from his mushy cereal to see Malcolm Dupereon with a plate of mostly breakfast meats. He tried not to drool. "I'm having a blast. How've you been?"

"Doin' good, doin' good." He sat down across from Hunter. "Been talkin' to Serena Song."

Hunter vaguely remembered her from the previous week--short like him, long straight black hair, pale complexion. Like Malcolm, the waning moon didn't seem to affect her at all. "Oh yeah? Talking, huh?" He wasn't sure if something was being implied there.

"Yeah." Malcolm proceeded to stuff his face.

Hunter still wasn't sure what they were actually talking about. His reasoning and deduction skills were still tied up with Grayson's impure intentions. Here he was at a time when the moon was reduced to the tiniest sliver, struggling to think straight.

"She seems kind of...cold." Was the best he could come up with

Malcolm smiled at that. "Yeah, but I like it."

"Oh." Hunter looked to the side. "Great?" He didn't know how to respond to that.

Malcolm laughed. "It takes some time to get used to I guess, but once you get to know her the whole act makes more sense."

"You know her well?" Hunter was skeptical. The semester had only begun two weeks ago.

"We actually met before school started on one of the tours. I sniffed her out, you know that feeling."

"Yeah." Hunter understood. Their kind seemed to give off a scent, easily distinguished from normal people. It was second nature to seek each other out in a crowd. "Was she the only one?"

Malcolm shrugged. "Not sure. I thought there was another person around, but I didn't sniff anybody about. Garou said we aren't the only ones on campus, so it musta been one of 'em."

"I haven't met any of them yet, but I do sense them from time to time."

"I wonder how the normies would react." A lazy grin spread across Malcolm's face. "Knowin' there're a bunch of monsters on campus."

"Massive panic, no question." Hunter swallowed more soggy cereal. "But hey, let's keep the ruse going, shall we? I'd like to avoid being tranq'd or shot."

"Lord, yes. This kid I know went wild a few moons ago, broke into a studio lot in Atlanta. They don't play that mess. They shot him, thinking he was a wild animal. Cops found him whining an' bleedin' out. Pack had to bust him out of the hospital the next day, and it wasn't easy. They had him handcuffed to one of the cots in the emergency room. Long story short we had to run off with the whole bed. Good thing Brother Michael had that moving van."

"Yeesh. All that because he ran across a lot? That's nuts."

"They're still lookin' for him. Has his own creepypasta on the internet now."

"Cool. Not so cool how he got it. Does he remember anything at all?"

"Nah. His mind goes completely blank during the shift, he isn't in his right mind until the next morning. Mine are kinda the same. I don't really remember much, maybe smells or tastes but that's it. What about you?"

Hunter looked up at the ceiling. There were no answers there, just paint and plaster. "Feelings." It was the simplest response he could come up with. "Usually I'm mad from being tied up, or just upset about not being able to move."

"It's almost like bein' asleep." Malcolm mused before devouring the rest of his food. "Well, I better get going. See you around."

Hunter gave a half-hearted wave as Malcolm left, and looked at the remains of his breakfast.

He thought about what Malcolm said. Shifting was like being asleep. Except the real nightmare didn't occur until he was awake.

Day 10, Wednesday. New Moon

Hunter awoke at midnight to his cellphone's buzzing. He cracked one eye open and rolled over, extending his arm to reach the desk. Gripping hold with the tips of his fingers, he gingerly pulled the device towards him. It fell into his wastebasket. With a small growl, he rose from the bed to retrieve it, admonishing his laziness.

He had two messages.

The first one was from Ashley.

°~* H A P P Y N E W M O O N *~°

Hunter crossed the room and moved the curtain aside. The sky was clear. No moon to be seen. Back home there were probably a few "New Moon" parties going on. The lack of a moon was cause for celebration, a guaranteed last night of freedom but the shift began again. After this night, the moon would come back bit by bit. Emotions would bubble, tempers would flare, lines would be crossed. He walked over to his closet.

A large army green duffel bag sat inside. He pulled it open and surveyed the contents; Bandage wrap. A pair of ankle restraints, cushioned and soft to avoid discomfort, but held together by a belt made of leather and a small snapping lock. Foam wrist restraints. Hand mittens made of cloth and plastic, easy to remove when he was coherent. A straight jacket, not likely to be used unless someone else would be there to help him out. Lastly, there was the human muzzle. It was unused as he never needed it at home, but more or less a gag gift, as it looked like something out of a BDSM catalog.

If he was too loud during the shift, anyone who found him would assume he was in the middle of some weird sexual ritual. He prayed that didn't happen. The last thing he needed was to be caught rolling around, growling and drooling. The authorities would probably cart him away, with onlookers whipping out cellphones, videos going viral, hospital experimentation, news footage--

He shook his head. If he kept thinking like that, he would be up all night. He closed the bag and walked back to the bed. Why was he up again? His gaze went back to his cell phone. Oh, right.

There was another message for him to read. He squeezed the phone, his hand trembling. While no name was displayed on the screen, he knew the number well. The message was short, but enough to send him into a rage. He chucked the phone across the room, startled when it broke the glass and sailed out the window.

Hunter blinked at the broken glass. He heard a thud, followed by an alarm. He grabbed a pair of sweats from a pile of clothes on the floor, got his keys from his desk, and ran down the hall barefoot.

Hunter's room was located in a corner on the second floor of the Howard dormitory, easily mistakable for a closet. To the casual observer, he would have looked as if he popped out of the wall.

He quickly ran down the stairs, down the hall, and outside. Most of the campus was shrouded in darkness, with the occasional lamplit patch, dotting across the area. With the amount of light reduced, Hunter could see without his sunglasses. While a wolf's eyesight was relatively close to that of a human, those of his kind were often sensitive to light.

The lawn was not empty despite the late hour. Hunter could see several people in the grass, a couple here, a woman with a telescope, and a group of five sitting in a circle and chanting.

He recognized one of the chanters as Ashley, the girl with the wolf ears. Tonight she sported a faux tail as well. Looking closer, he noticed each person in the group seemed to be wearing something animal related. There was a woman with cat ears, a man wearing wings made of leather, a person in a bear-shaped onesie, and a teen wearing fox ears and paws.

Hunter shifted his focus back to his phone, hoping the screen would still be lit and easy to spot. Hunter stood at the edge of the lawn. There was shattered glass right outside his window, but the phone was nowhere to be found. He growled, perhaps too loudly. The chanting stopped. Ashley's eyes fell on him and Hunter looked around, trying to appear nonchalant.

"Is that you, Hunter Reeds?" she squinted.

"Oh, uh...y-yeah..."He scratched his head. "Sorry for interrupting your...thing." He honestly had no clue what to call it. Meditation group? Midnight society meeting?

Two members of the circle looked at Ashley for some sort of explanation. "Sorry y'all. This is Hunter, another child of the wolves."

"Hello, wolf child." They said in unison, startling him.

"Uh..hi.." He took a step back. "Don't mind me, just looking for my phone. I kinda threw it out the window and uh...I'll just look or it quietly now."

"Do you want some help?" The winged man asked.

Before Hunter could decline, they were all getting up from the grass.

"Oh, you don't have to do that..."

The others began to search the grass, using their phones as flashlights.

Ashley walked up to him. "Happy New Moon!"

"Happy New Moon..."Hunter repeated. "So, what's going on here? Just hanging out?"

He knelt in the grass and began feeling around for his phone.

Ashley did the same. "It's first monthly meetin' for the Redwood Therian Society."

"Therian?"

"Y'know, people a little closer to their former selves. Same as us with the wolves." "Oh..." Hunter continued to search. "You believe in that old theory then, the one where we descended from wolves?"

"The one where we used to be wolves." Her tone was more serious than he expected.

Hunter said nothing. The urge to disagree was there, but he preferred not to argue over beliefs. He was not the wolf. He was not the snarling, growling thing that had to be locked up to avoid hurting others. He was the person who woke up in pain, the one with spasms, mood swings, seizures, fits of depression and tears.

He looked at the pierced faux fur ears that sat atop Ashley's head. It was clear that she loved the animal side. Perhaps her shifts weren't long and painful. It could be that she waited all month for them to occur. Maybe she lived in an area where she could run free with her pack, howling at the moon and hunting at night. Whatever the case was, he could not share her sentiment.

He looked down at the grass, he would have tried sniffing the phone out, but he didn't want to be caught doing so, and his conversation with Ashley had left him sour.

"Found it!" The person in a bear-shaped onesie held Hunter's phone up with a paw.

"Thanks." Hunter appraised the phone. Large cracks ran across the phone's case. He would have to buy a new one. "Again, I'm sorry for interrupting."

"We always have time to help!" Ashley's enthusiasm seemed genuine and Hunter could see how she became the spokesperson for the group. "Do you want to join us?"

"I'm actually kinda tired." He looked back at the Howard building. "Well, thanks again." With a wave he retreated back to his dorm. Once alone, he looked at the phone again. The other text message he had received was still on the screen.

Miss you

--Colton

Hours later Hunter awoke again. The New Moon was still in effect. There were no aches or pains. He felt blissfully normal.

One quick shower and lumpy oatmeal breakfast later he was in class. The lecture went smoothly as his professor broke down the basics of lesson planning for a young audience. Hunter scribbled notes through the entire class. It seemed that becoming a teacher had more obstacles than he thought. Still, the idea of crafting lessons sounded like fun.

With his classes completed he walked across the lawn towards the Green building. There at the bottom of the hill, he could see a group of students lining up outside.

Among its other amenities, Redwood offered free rides off campus for its students and faculty. A set of vans made multiple stops between the nearest bus depot and the campus. He figured now was as good a time as ever to replace his phone case. The school had yet to comment on his broken window. At the same time, he had yet to figure out how to tell his mother. A jaunt into town to distract him wouldn't hurt.

He took his place in line, one earbud in, mumbling along to verses too quick for him to repeat. His heartbeat quickened suddenly, and his fangs pressed against his lower lip. There was a familiar scent of aftershave, bacon, and--

Something nudged his shoulder. "Hey."

Hunter flinched. He turned around slowly. Standing behind him was the one and only Grayson Lee, the one that didn't have pure intentions.

"H-Hey." Hunter replied with a crooked smile. He glanced up at Grayson through his shades. "Going into town?" Hunter asked. Obviously. He chided himself mentally. Get a grip Hunter. You've got no moon to blame this time.

"Yeah. Gotta pick up some stuff."

The line moved as a van filled with students. Hunter found himself in front of the van doors. The van only had room for one more passenger. It was a tight squeeze but he could do it. The van door was being held open by a sleepy-eyed student. "You coming?"

"I..."

He had an out now, a way to escape this awkward situation. But did he really want to?

"I'm good."

The door closed with a slam. He stepped back from the curb, bumping into Grayson.

"Oh hey. Again."

Another van pulled up. This time Hunter headed to the back row. Maybe he could find something to say to Grayson back there. As Grayson and another girl slid into the back row Hunter's eyes immediately went to the window. This time they were fully clothed. No rain, no tight bookcases. Both times he had been not just Hunter, but a little canine. As much as it annoyed him he couldn't help but wonder, what would the wolf say in this situation? He tried to summon its thoughts.

Round Three.

"So, are you really going into town, or are you following me?" Hunter asked. He regretted it as soon as he said it.

Grayson's eyebrows shot up once more."You caught me." He smiled. "Can't get anything past you, can I?"

With the van now full, they headed off the school grounds. Redwood was a twenty-minute drive away from civilization, and Hunter and Grayson spent that twenty minutes discussing all the issues they had with the school.

"Why can't we get brand name cereal?" Hunter complained. "We have flatscreens and laptops for rent, but I can't have Lucky Charms?"

"Brand name food? Ha. Next you'll want more than two bars of wifi. It takes so long to stream anything that I keep studying just to pass the time."

Hunter laughed. "I don't know, that might actually be a good thing."

Grayson's wore a look of mock concern. "But what if it's on purpose." His gaze went off into the distance. "What if that was their plan all along...Keeping us isolated from the real world with only textbooks and homework for entertainment. Naturally, our grades would go up, and make the school look even better. It's brilliant."

Hunter couldn't help but smile at his theatrics. "That's it. You've cracked it. But be careful, you don't want them to overhear you."

Grayson nodded. "You're right. They might take it out on my tuition." "You sure? I don't' think it can get much higher..."

There was snickering throughout the van. Their ride came to a stop outside a large shopping center. The structure was a large selection of shops connected by an outdoor plaza. The wide array of stores made it a popular hangout for locals, as well as a rest stop for passerby.

Hunter hopped out of the van. The shopping center was bigger than he expected.

"This place is huge."

Grayson stared at a large kiosk. "There's like one of everything here. Ooh, there's a Target." He looked back at Hunter. "You wanna go?"

"Sure."

They walked past a myriad of shops and shoppers. The weather was cool but pleasant. The two walked at a regular pace. With full control of his legs, Hunter was able to walk alongside Grayson. It was a good feeling. On his darker days, Hunter would stay inside to avoid lagging behind his friends with his crutches. They would often look back or walk slowly to keep tempo with him, which only made Hunter feel like a burden.

If Ashley lived for Full Moons, Hunter lived for New Moons. Days he could spend riding his bike or taking long walks. Days he could ride the train or climb the stairs. Days he could hang out with his friends and not worry about getting lost in a crowd.

They stepped into the department store. Hunter flashed his disability card before sitting on a motorized cart.

"I always wanted to ride one of those." Grayson admitted.

"Hop in." Hunter patted the metal cart attached to the front. "I'm sure your butt can fit in here." As he drove forward, Grayson walked alongside him. "Been looking at my butt, huh?"

Hunter felt his face heat up. He rolled his eyes to play it off. "Yeah, whatever."

They trekked deeper into the large store.

"So, What're we here for?" Grayson asked."Or are we here for nothing. That's happened to me a lot in this place. But then--"

"You come out with a bunch of junk you don't need?" Hunter surmised.

"Every. Single. Time." Grayson replied, exasperated. "It's like they brainwash you with that bullseye, I swear."

"Another theory huh?" Hunter looked up at him as he drove the cart. "You're gonna have a lot of people after you if you don't stop."

"It's too late for me." Grayson crossed his arms, stopping to pose. "I have to let the people know Hunter. I have to share these secrets with the world!"

They continued to wander until they eventually made it to the food-related isles. Grayson stopped in front of a row of mini muffins.

"What's wrong?" Hunter stopped the cart. "You look like you just saw your Ex."

"Kinda." Grayson pulled on the strings of his hoodie sweatshirt. "I used to eat this stuff all the time. My parents made me stop."

Hunter gave him a look of skepticism.

Grayson continued. "I mean, in their defense, I was a pretty heavy kid. I didn't see anything wrong with it, but my Grandparents overfed me. A lot."

Hunter looked at the boxes of baked goods. "Well, you're okay now...?"

"I guess." Grayson sighed.

"You don't sound like you're alright."

"I'm not," Grayson admitted. It was a weird thing to suddenly talk about, but he supposed he brought it on himself. "When I was a kid my Dad was always coming home late, and my Mom was in the middle of a campaign. They were pretty stressed out at the time. Which stressed the rest of us out--My grandparents, my sister and me. We all live together. Anyway, whenever things got rough I would eat. When I started packing on the pounds, my parents realized I had a problem."

"So they locked the fridge and made me keep a food journal. Even with that, they would ask me the same questions all the time, 'what did you eat today?', 'What's in your backpack?', 'Where did you go to eat after school?'. It was really annoying. My Grandma used to sneak me stuff, but then they got mad at her. So I stopped eating so much. But even years later, they treat me the same way. My Mother still asks what I'm eating or when I'm exercising. It's like to her I haven't changed at all."

He continued down the aisle.

It definitely wasn't a revelation Hunter had been expecting. He tried to digest it the best he could. Just as his Lycanthropy was hidden in plain sight, so were many other afflictions.

Hunter didn't move. "Grayson."

He turned around. "Yeah?"

"Do you want to get something?"

They were both quiet for a moment.

Grayson looked at the colorful boxes. His inner turmoil was clear from the look on his face.

"Yeah." There was hesitation in his voice.

"Just one thing." Hunter replied. He wasn't sure what Grayson needed to hear, but he knew he needed to hear something. "It's not like you're going to eat the whole box."

"Right." Grayson still didn't sound confident.

"Or...Not." Hunter eased the cart forward. "You don't have to if you don't want to. No pressure."

Grayson cracked a smile. "You sound like a therapist."

Hunter shrugged, unsure of what to say next.

Grayson gave the boxes another glance. "Not today." He decided. "But I appreciate that you asked."

"Anytime. If you want I'll keep some twinkies stashed away for a special occasion."

Grayson rolled his eyes. "Gee, thanks." He continued to walk. "I think I'll settle for some granola for now."

With the mood light again, they continued on until they found an unpopulated area. Several empty carts were strewn about The only noise was the rustle of carts in the distance.

"Did the apocalypse start?" Grayson asked. "Spooky."

Hunter's eyes rested on a row of abandoned carts. "Empty lanes. Abandoned carts. You know what that means..."

Grayson was genuinely confused. "What?"

"Oh you poor child." Hunter shook his head, his voice full of pity. "Let me show you."

Even after the rules has been explained, Grayson was still confused.

"A race? In here? Won't we break something?"

They stood at the ends of two long aisles.

"No, not if you know how to drive in a straight line." Hunter had abandoned his motorized cart for a regular one. "Now. On your mark...Get set...Go!" They both charged down their respective aisles. Divided by rows of pet food, Grayson slowed down a bit. As he reached the end of his aisle he saw Hunter jet by, standing on the back of his cart as it wheeled away---straight into a wall of laundry detergent.

"Hunter!"

"Don't worry kid." A veteran of Target cart racing, Hunter made a sharp turn. "You're dealing with a pro--" Before he could finish his sentence his cart collided with a column. The force caused him to fall forward into the cart. Despite the pain, the absurdity of it all caused him to laugh hysterically.

Grayson appeared at the side of the cart. "Oh my God. I thought you were gonna break your neck. Are you okay?"

Hunter had yet to stop laughing. "I'm-f-fine. Next time I'm filling it with pillows first."

Grayson shook his head. "You're something else, you know that?" He offered Hunter a hand.

"Oh yeah. Definitely something else." As Grayson pulled him out of the cart, Hunter felt like a child. He held on to Grayson's shoulder for leverage and found his face inches away from his. That was enough to get him to stop laughing. "You're really strong." That was the most coherent thing he muster. It was either that or, 'You have really long eyelashes'.

"You have nice eyes."

Hunter blinked. He didn't say that. Grayson did.

"Uh..."

They had come full circle. And as Grayson brought his face closer, Hunter remembered his own not so pure intentions. He closed his eyes.

"Are y'all using this cart?"

Hunter's eyes snapped open.

A bored employee stood in front of Grayson's abandoned cart with a blank expression.

Grayson stared at the newcomer. "No."

Hunter suddenly remembered what brought him off campus in the first place. He sat down in the cart. "Excuse me, which way is electronics?"

"To the right."

As the employee disappeared beyond the endless aisles Hunter stared at the floor.

Did he read that mood right? Would Grayson have kissed him then?

His train of thought was interrupted as Grayson began pushing the cart along. He looked back at Grayson over his sunglasses.

"To electronics then..." Grayson stared ahead, disappointment evident in his voice.

Hunter tucked his knees to his chest. What was he doing here again? How many days had passed since he had first met Grayson Lee? They had only spoken twice before now. Wasn't it a little too soon for Target makeout sessions? Things were moving too fast. Just because he was away from the pack didn't mean he had to act like this...

His stomach churned.

Grayson brought the cart to a stop as they passed the men's clothing section. He said something about grabbing a few things, and Hunter nodded as he watched him appraise several graphic laden t-shirts.

He felt as if he were sobering up from a hangover--not that he had tried drinking since new years--one glass of champagne was apparently enough for him. Maybe this was part of pack detachment--the phenomenon that sometimes occurred when a werewolf left his pack for long periods of time. He was running wild without any Alphas or guardians watching him.

He closed his eyes for a moment.

Was that really the case? Was he running wild? Or was that the pull of the Alphas again? The thought of that being true made him angry. Disobeying an Alpha always lead to confusion, self doubt, and sometimes sickness. And right now, he was certainly disobeying an Alpha's wishes--An Alpha he wanted nothing to do with.

So what if he didn't know much about Grayson Lee. He could fix that.

As Grayson dropped two sweatshirts into the cart, Hunter squinted at him over his sunglasses. "What's Boston like?"

"Wha?" He had caught Grayson by surprise. "That's random." He replied with a smile. "It's okay I guess. Some parts of it are cool like Back Bay or Brighton. Almost everything is a piece of history, you can't go far without being near this tavern or that monument."

"Sounds cool." Hunter looked ahead, catching the eye of a woman pushing a baby in a cart. She gave him a look of disapproval and he ignored it. "I'd like to go. Now that I'm away from home, I feel like I can go anywhere."

"We should go." Grayson's brow furrowed as if he just decided on a future trip, a sight that Hunter enjoyed. "I gotta admit, I don't get out much, but if you want to see Revere's house or Fenway, I'm your guy. Maybe I'll take you on a duck boat ride."

"A duck boat?" Hunter repeated.

"Oh yes, the premier form of Bostonian nautical travel. A metal bus and boat combo decorated with a duck."

That was enough to make Hunter snicker. "Oh my gosh, yes please. I gotta see that."

Once they reached the electronics section, they waded through the numerous tv show sets, movies, and specials. Grayson was especially enamored with the $5 season bundles of a few old british sitcoms and when Hunter admitted he had never heard of them, Grayson demanded he come over to his room to watch.

With a future meetup planned Hunter was a little more relaxed as Grayson continued to push him through the store.

When they finally made it to the self checkout, an employee asked how old Grayson's 'son' was, at which point Hunter proclaimed he was a big boy and asked to be let out of the cart.

With a few unnecessary purchases in tow they headed over to the food court, scarfed down a few slices of pizza, and wandered around the shopping complex. By the time the sun had set they had held another shopping cart race in a different store, were kicked out of the toy store for getting carried away with a lightsaber battle, and wasted thirty bucks at a tiny arcade.

The ride back to Redwood was peppered with plans for the future and reminiscing their earlier exploits. Caught up in their reverie, they were the last ones out of the van once it pulled up on campus. It was already after dark, and the grounds were once again lit by patches of lamplight.

"I can't believe we spent the day running around a strip mall." Grayson said. "My Mom would disown me if she caught me doing any of that."

"Ha. My Mom wouldn't. Who do you think taught me my mad cart drifting skills?" Hunter raised an eyebrow.

Grayson shook his head."I don't think you're done learning."

"Hey, that pillar jumped out of nowhere!"

"Do inanimate objects attack you often?"

"You'd be surprised."

They walked up to the Howard building. Hunter stopped at the front door, not ready for things to end. "Well, that was fun." He rubbed his neck sheepishly. "We probably shouldn't go back to that Toymart though, the manager was so red I thought he was going to explode."

"Gross." Grayson had his conquests for the day slung over his shoulder, his other hand on his hip. "I'd rather not see that." He towered over Hunter, the lamp post behind him casting shadows on his face. There was something about the dark that made his grin all the more charming. And as he leaned in to kiss Hunter on the lips, the werewolf couldn't refute his advance.

It was a short kiss, over before Hunter could get his bearings.

"Today was totally a date by the way." Was the line that brought Hunter back to reality. "I'll text you." Was the one that prompted him to say goodbye.

And as Grayson walked off into the night with Hunter's heart, the smitten werewolf realized he had forgotten about his phone case.

#Lycanthropy and Me #Werewolf fiction #self pib #writeblr #original story #soon to be deleted #available on etsy #wattpad #werewolfweek #Halloween

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humanegardener · 5 years ago

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To save wild nature, we have to attend to human nature, too. Here’s how to garden for all your neighbors, domesticated and otherwise.

Chairs, paths and other simple cues add a human element to our roadside wildlife habitat. (Photos above by Nancy Lawson)

[dropcap]Y[/dropcap]ears ago, a colleague was relaxing in his backyard when he heard a noise. Upon investigation, he discovered a stranger heading through an open window and toward his couch. It wasn’t a traditional home invasion, though. The squatter had taken one look at the property and assumed it was unoccupied: Why else, he reasoned, would the yard be so “overgrown” with wild plants?

This was not the scenario I’d envisioned when my workmate first asked for wildlife gardening advice. While offering ideas and plants from my habitat, I’d assured him he’d see butterflies and other animals taking up residence. It never occurred to me that his efforts would also encourage fellow humans to climb through his windows.

The problem was that the new gardener had implemented only half my suggestions, putting his plants directly into the old lawn that sloped to a busy sidewalk. He didn’t feel like bothering with part 2, which would have involved digging out the turf around his plantings or smothering it with newspaper and mulch. Instead, he let that old lawn grow high. The result was not the layered native plant garden I had imagined but a smattering of wildflowers engulfed in out-of-place fescues and invasives gone to seed. (Adding to the abandoned-home effect was an ascetic and nearly opposite approach indoors, where all walls, tables and shelves were bare.)

Though the front-yard planting was partly intentional, it didn’t look that way to other people. Without “cues to care”—a phrase coined by landscape architect Joan Iverson Nassauer to describe visual hints of human stewardship—the property resembled an abandoned lot or roadside ditch. While I find such free-range, self-willed patches beautiful because of their high value to wildlife, most suburbanites accustomed to mowed-down yards and sterile office parks see them as aberrant.

“Cues to care,” a concept first described in the 1990s, refers to visual signals of human intention. At Molly McElwee’s home in Catonsville, Md., a Baywise certification sign alerts passersby to the landscape’s ecological purpose. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

As an environmentalist and wildlife advocate, I alternate between pushing for the world as it should be and accepting modest improvements to the one we’ve already created. Knowing how important a “messy” garden is to animals large and small, I’m often tempted to blow off the mass appeal of homogenized landscapes entirely. But if my quest to help nature doesn’t also attend to human nature, I risk something greater than the encroachment of an intruder just looking for a place to sleep: I risk losing the chance to influence the broader community. Research shows that neighborhood norms strongly influence landscape choices, and if well-maintained ecological gardens are more prevalent, they may have positive ripple effects across a community.

In replacing lawn with this new pathway to my front door, I’m nurturing an inviting space for neighbors and friends as well as habitat for wildlife . (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

And helping wildlife and meeting community standards aren’t mutually exclusive goals. “For way too long, I’ve heard from plenty of gardeners that the reason they don’t want to use native plants is that they’re messy-looking, and that’s just not true,” says James Faupel, the restoration ecology coordinator at Missouri Botanical Garden’s Litzsinger Road Ecology Center. “The wildlife will still use all these native plants, even if we design the plantings in a more traditional fashion.”

Most of my own 2-acre habitat is less of a garden now and more of a nature preserve. But in the areas of the front yard that are visible to neighbors, I put a bit of thought into appealing to the senses of the human animal as well. I know there’s no pleasing some people, like the couple in the cul-de-sac who cut down all their trees. But many more neighbors are open and at least mildly curious about this little wildlife paradise, stopping now to inquire about the flowers, admire the bees and butterflies, and even ask if I have any extra plants they can take home to their yards.

By incorporating the following visual signals of intentionality and care that I’ve learned from landscape designers and artistic friends over the years, I’ve been able to ensure we can fit in with our neighbors, both wild and otherwise, as well as inspire the creation of more oases for animals.

Let plants lead by example.

Winterberries are more palatable after freeze-thaw cycles, so they brighten the landscape late into the season before finally serving as emergency food for wildlife. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

When a highway planting of winterberry hollies bore beautiful red fruit, excited homeowners called the Delaware Center for Horticulture for more information about the stunning shrub. The response surprised University of Delaware professor Sue Barton. “By planting something on the roadside,” she marvels, “I could make a bigger impact on people than anything I could ever write or lecture about.”

Long after the leaves have fallen off the winterberries, a mockingbird guards his fruit. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Adding native plants with colorful fruit or flowers to your own front yard can produce similar results, providing priceless PR for wildlife gardens while also nourishing their visitors. Those winterberries burn bright through much of the cold season because they become more palatable after a few freeze-thaw cycles; in late winter when other food is scarce, the fruits are emergency food for birds and mammals. In the summer and fall garden, plants that serve as both wildlife feeders and people pleasers include mountain mints, Joe Pye weeds, milkweeds, bonesets, coneflowers and many other native wildflowers.

Blooming as early as March and as late as November, the native coral honeysuckle vine (Lonicera sempervirens) invites our neighbors to admire its lush blooms and hummingbirds to feast. Hummingbird moth caterpillars rely on the foliage, and chipmunks and Eastern comma butterflies enjoy the fruit. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Frame the view.

Layered plantings are essential for creating wildlife habitat, drawing much more life than the large lawn across the street from us. They also add sloping lines for human eyes to follow. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Think about how you and your family might use the space, and design your wildlife plantings accordingly, suggests Faupel. Look out the window to see the garden from another perspective, and consider where you’ll need pathways for walking and access to beds. “It doesn’t have to be this big, beautiful blueprint kind of drawing. It can be a lot simpler,” says Faupel. “But if you start with that design element from the get-go, it’s going to look a lot more intentional to people. They will see that you are trying; they will see a more layered effect.”

The view from Molly McElwee’s front door is open and formal but also overflowing with wildlife-friendly plants. In addition to natives, she includes more conventional garden plants that are recognizable to neighbors, a strategy that Faupel employs in his home garden as well. Read more about the McElwee garden here. (Photo by Molly McElwee)

Mulling over plant choices and layout also helps ensure you have enough food and shelter for different types of wildlife throughout the seasons. Habitat hedgerows provide winter shelter and summer nesting sites for birds and small mammals while conveying neatness and order—traits considered desirable in the landscape since ancient Roman times. Rows of low-growing native flowers, grasses, sedges and ferns help define the edges while nourishing bees, butterflies, and many other animals. A mowed strip along the road in front of all these plants “frames patches of greater biodiversity with clear signs of human intention,” Nassaeur wrote, and makes unconventional plantings seem familiar.

A hedge keeps our streetside planting more uniform and provides cover for birds and rabbits, But it also creates a screen that helps me privately experiment with cultivating wilder spaces. This one started with a planting of red buckeyes, grey dogwoods, ferns and other native groundcovers, and soon enough staghorn sumacs and Eastern red cedars made themselves at home, too.

Plant in drifts.

Large drifts of just a few low-growing native plants—Pennsylvania sedge (Carex pensylvanica), roundleaf ragwort (Packera obovata), and sensitive fern (Onoclea sensibilis)—provide habitat within the context of a formal garden at the Missouri Botanical Garden’s Shaw Nature Reserve. (Photo courtesy James Faupel)

Too often gardeners treat a trip to the nurseries or native plant sales like a run on Filene’s Basement and fill their cars with anything that catches their fancy, only to get home and wonder where the heck they’ll put everything. (I’m guilty as charged.) Avoid the “collector mentality,” advises Faupel, because it almost always results in a hodgepodge that’s confusing not just to human eyes but also to pollinators. Many native bees spend their time gathering pollen only from certain species, and even those who are less discriminating can’t afford to expend too much energy flying around in search of more flowers. To create a planting that’s readable and functional for both human and wild neighbors, aim to start with a dozen plants, recommends Faupel: three that bloom in early spring, three in late spring/early summer, three in mid-summer, and three in fall.

An exuberant groundcover, golden ragwort (Packera aurea), helps tie together multiple gardens across my front yard, including in this grove of sassafras trees edged with sedges next to the driveway. After flowering, it stays evergreen nearly all year. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Many gardeners pull fleabane (Erigeron spp.) despite its value to bees, rabbits and groundhogs. Two years ago, I moved some from the pathways to create a clump at the edge of the rain garden, where it’s still free to reseed. The large drift makes the planting look intentional, elevating the status of a native species often dismissed as a “weed.” (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

As a longtime home gardener before I started working in ecological landscaping, I know how expensive it can be to buy multiples of a single plant at retail prices. Many native wildflowers are easy to grow from seed, and I also encourage gardeners to allow as many plants as possible to spread naturally in their gardens; you can always transplant or give away extras if your space fills up. An increasing number of companies—from Izel Plants to Missouri Wildflowers Nursery—offer small plants or plugs that can be much more affordable; check with your state native plant or botanical society for regional recommendations.

Create pathways.

Taming the wild: Human-friendly paths define the wilder plantings at the McElwee residence. DeKay’s snakes like to hang out under the arborvitae to the right of the milkweed. (Photo by Molly McElwee)

Paths through our meadow enticed our niece to go exploring on her own. When she returned after spending some time under a tulip poplar at the bottom of the slope, she said, “I found a special place!” (Photo by Will Heinz)

Though I’ve spent my whole life yearning to be surrounded by plants whenever possible, some people have a more claustrophobic reaction to lush vegetation. Impenetrable plantings can exacerbate fears of nature and feelings of separation from the natural world. Walkways winding through gardens have the opposite effect, inviting interaction with the landscape. When my niece was 7 years old and spotted a mowed path through our meadow, she fired up her wheelchair and took off by herself to explore, finding a new favorite spot under a tree all on her own.

Wildlife follow routines, too, traveling the same paths every day. By edging those paths with vigorous plants they can nibble, including goldenrod, sassafras and black raspberry (above), we’ve fed deer and other mammals enough to deter them from other plants. I also mix in scented natives they don’t prefer, including the lavender-colored wild bergamot (Monarda fistulosa) shown in the planting below. (Photos by Nancy Lawson)

Paths are just as well-trodden by wildlife, including deer. You can use this knowledge to help design a space where you and the herbivores can more easily coexist. When staghorn sumacs, ticktrefoils and goldenrods volunteer along pathways, I leave them, knowing they’ll get browsed soon enough. If certain plants are growing near a path that I want to protect from browsing (such as tasty Joe Pye weed, whose flowers will later feed butterflies and bees), I often add scented native plants in front of them—mountain mints, monardas, blue mistflowers, bonesets—to create an effective deterrent.

Use wood and rocks as habitat-rich natural sculptures.

When a neighbor cut down trees, my husband placed pieces of the trunk around the gardens. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Lining pathways and beds with rocks or branches creates navigational cues as well as hiding places for amphibians and other small animals. “I’m a huge fan of using found objects within the property,” says ecological landscape designer Jesse Elwert Peters of Jessecology, based in Saratoga Springs, N.Y. “The land that we live on is really rocky. Whenever we’re gardening, we dig up huge boulders.” Peters artfully arranges these unearthed treasures among plants.

Peekaboo! Leave fallen logs, and many animals will find them. (Photo by James Faupel)

Tree snags, logs, and pithy stalks are essential to cavity-nesting bees. (Photo by James Faupel)

At the Litzsinger Road Ecology Center, a fallen log provided a home this summer for broad-headed skinks, and Faupel also watched a mason bee checking out a tree snag as a nesting site. “It was just going around to every single little hole, stopping and seeing if it could fit, trying to find the perfect-sized hole,” he says. “These things are incredibly important, and it just goes to show you how many things wildlife are using. … A lot of people complain about carpenter bees in their home, going into porches and thing like that. Well, it’s because they don’t have anywhere else to go. We remove any kind of habitat for them.”

Logs and branches line beds and create art pieces in my habitat, where I sometimes hang bird baths from the dead limbs. (Photos by Nancy Lawson)

Our stumps are home to woolly bear caterpillars. PIleated woodpeckers snack on beetles and ants living in the decaying wood. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

By placing a bat house atop a tree snag, Maryland artist Melinda Byrd created a sculptural habitat. Though bats have yet to roost, woodpeckers have excavated holes in the dead trunk, building homes for nesting chickadees and bluebirds. Stumps in my own garden offer shelter to woolly bear caterpillars, one of whom crawled into a crevice last year to make his home for the winter.

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Bluebirds and chickadees nested in this snag following excavation by woodpeckers. Growing a vine on the snag would also create a natural trellis. (Photos by Melinda Byrd)

Add functional ornaments, and have a seat—or two.

While visiting the native plant area at the Massachusetts Horticultural Society’s Gardens at Elm Bank, I felt right at home. But for those intimidated by tall plants, a trellis and seat made of natural materials provides a calming, “we-meant-to-do-this” effect. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

A fountain by our walkway pleases people and birds. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Arbors and trellises suggest a planned landscape in addition to offering support for climbing native vines. Birdbaths and water dishes on the ground are also recognizable cues of human influence. “It looks really nice, and it’s really a kind thing to do for wildlife,” Peters says. Even the suggestion of human habitation can ground a garden and help people feel more in their element. Adding chairs and tables near unconventional plantings lets them know that they, too, have an open invitation.

A chair among the grapevines, wild senna, trumpet creeper and hickory trees gives me a secret spot to watch wildlife without disturbing them. While I don’t expect anyone else to get this cozy with my plants, this simple addition to an otherwise “wild” spot never fails to inspire expressions of delight when visitors come upon it. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

From this roadside vantage point in our informal front-yard garden, we see squirrels peel walnuts, hummingbirds drink from cardinal flowers, monarchs lay eggs on milkweed, and neighbors out for a walk who stop to chat. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

In Sue Arnold’s Indianapolis garden, the backyard is also a front yard of sorts, visible to other neighbors who live around the lake. A seating area is all it takes to remove any sense of randomness from the natural plantings of grasses and wildflowers. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

Post signs of the times.

Not long after I installed my Monarch Waystation sign, a male hatched in the milkweed patch and sat for a spell on the sign to dry his wings. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

When my signs became unruly, my husband and father conspired to create a totem for them, complete with a carved bird my dad made for the top—whose shape a visiting reporter deemed “half-cardinal, half-kookaburra.” Several neighbors have inquired about where they can find such signs for their own gardens. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

“Pollinator Habitat,” “Monarch Waystation,” “Humane Backyard,” “Bat Friendly”—at my house I refer to these signs as my 37 pieces of flair, but they’re more meaningful than the tacky pins Jennifer Aniston’s waitressing character is forced to wear in the film Office Space. Habitat signs from organizations like the Xerces Society, the Humane Society of the United States, the Audubon Society, the National Wildlife Federation, and the Save Lucy Campaign let your neighbors know your property is in transition to a more life-sustaining landscape. It even helped Texas master gardener Mary Karish fend off misguided demands to replace her garden with grass, “making it very difficult for the HOA to overturn what the city thought was a great thing,” she says.

Driving by a house in Newark, Delaware, last year, I was delighted to find a garden packed with native plants. At the corner of the property, in easy view of passersby, a sign from a nearby Audubon chapter explained the importance of the garden to birds. (Photo by Nancy Lawson)

You can contextualize your efforts by posting explanations of the importance of dead wood, available from the Cavity Conservation Initiative, and signs declaring your yard “pesticide-free.” These visual anchors can also help you spread the seeds of an idea—along with the seeds of your milkweed and other wildlife-friendly plants—far beyond your own habitat.

RELATED STORY: A Small Garden with a Big Heart

Wild by Design To save wild nature, we have to attend to human nature, too. Here's how to garden for all your neighbors, domesticated and otherwise.

#ecological design #wildlife garden

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