FIC Repost: Western Lovers: Cowboys & Biologists (2/34)
Title: Western Lovers: Cowboys and Biologists <2/31>
Author:sassywitch
Beta the lovely charlieisagirl
Pairing: OB/DW
Rating: NC-17 for the series, PG-13 this chapter.
Summary: David is a hard, jaded warrior, Orlando is a biologist tracking Big Cats on the Double L.
Feedback: Feedback is my writers crack, which is not to be confused at all with plumbers crack.
Disclaimer: Not at all true in reality. These men whilst adorable and perfectly happy to slash themselves, their actual relationship is something that they only know. This story is adapted from a series of books that I adored when I was younger written by Elizabeth Lowell.
Word Count: 1248
Previous Story: Can be found here
Posted to: fellowshippers and ordaisy
Header Art: Courtesy of the incredibly talented loki_girl.
Author’s Notes: Thank you to everyone who has pushed and prodded me into working on this. Y’all know who you are. Special thanks to Dylan_dufresne.
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Baby’s ululating howl brought Orlando to his feet in a rush of adrenaline. The wolf had been running free all day, for Orlando hadn’t yet needed Baby’s keen nose. He would put him to work after the storm had passed, leaving a fragile shawl of white over the land. Then Orlando would roam widely, noting and recording the cat tracks that would show clearly in the fresh snow. Once the snow melted away, Baby’s nose would make certain that Orlando could follow the cats even across solid rock.
A steaming cup of coffee in his hand, Orlando went to the cabin door, opened it and listened. The slow glide of snowflakes to the ground and muffled sounds limited his visibility to less than a hundred feet.
Baby howled again, calling out in the eerie harmonics of his wolf father.
Orlando listened closely. “Not his hunting song; not his lonely song; not his great-to-be-alive song.”
The haunting cry rose again, closer now, piercing the snow’s silence.
“I hear you, Baby. You’re coming back to me.”
A black shape materialized at the edge of the snowfall. With the ghostly silence of smoke, Baby came across the clearing to the cabin. There was a brief hesitation in his gait, a slight asymmetry in his stride: the legacy of the steel trap that had maimed him years before.
Instead of greeting Orli and going about his business, Baby caught his hand delicately in his mouth and looked at him with intent yellow eyes. Curiosity leaped in Orlando. Baby rarely insisted on having his attention. When he did, it was to warn him that they weren’t alone any longer - men were somewhere near.
“Company is coming, hmmm?” After what had happened the previous fall in Helm’s Deep, Orlando was glad for the presence of the huge, dark wolf. “Well, don’t worry: I just made a big pot of coffee. Come on in, Baby. We’ll greet whoever it is together.”
Orlando tried to withdraw his hand. Politely, gently, Baby’s jaws tightened.
Curiosity gave way to a fresh rush of adrenaline in Orlando. A picture condensed in his mind - eyes of pale, icy blue, a thick pelt of strawberry-blond hair and beard, a face that was too hard to be called handsome and too fiercely good-looking to be called anything else.
Stay away from me, Orlando…I want you more than all the men in that bar put together.
It wasn’t the first time Orlando had thought of the dark stranger who had come to his aid. His image condensed between Orlando’s eyes and the hearth fire, the wild sky, the rugged land. David’s kiss haunted him with questions that couldn’t be answered.
Who are you, David? Where are you? Is it your scent on the snow wind that is calling to my wolf?
As soon as the hopeful thought came, Orlando pushed it aside. David hadn’t looked back after he had walked away from him. He hadn’t left any message for him the following morning. He hadn’t even told Orlando his last name.
Orlando looked into Baby’s eyes and wished futilely that he could truly communicate with him. Baby had been this insistent only once before, in Alaska, when it was a silvertip grizzly sniffing around downwind rather than a lonely trapper smelling smoke and hoping for a cup of fresh coffee.
“Are you sure it’s important, Baby? Dr McKellen personally assured me that there were no bears left in this part of the lower forty-eight. That’s why I left my rifle with Mark.”
Baby made a soft, somehow urgent sound deep in his throat and tugged on Orlando’s hand. Then he released him, trotted away about twenty feet and looked over his shoulder.
“You’re sure? Compared to the Yukon there isn’t enough snow to mention, but I’m really not dying for a hike in the white stuff. There’s not enough snowpack for cross country skis or snowshoes which means…”
Baby whined softly, pleading in the only way he could. Then he threw back his head and howled. The hair on the back of Orlando’s neck stirred in primal response. Not even for the grizzly had Baby been so insistent.
“Baby. Stay.”
Knowing without looking that the wolf would obey, Orlando spun around and ran back into the cabin. He grabbed a canteen, filled it with hot coffee, banked the hearth fire, yanked on two layers of snow gear, shrugged into the backpack he always kept ready to go and ran out the front door in less than three minutes. Orlando glanced at his watch, wondering how long he would be gone. If necessary, he could live out of his backpack for several days. He would just as soon have the comforts of the cabin, however.
“Okay, Baby. Let’s go.”
The wolf didn’t waste any time. He set off at a purposeful trot across the meadow and through the evergreens. Orlando walked swiftly behind, pacing himself so that he would neither tire quickly nor become sweaty. Sweat was one of the greatest hazards of snow country, for when a person stopped moving, sweat froze, creating a layer of ice against the skin that sapped warmth dangerously.
Baby was careful to never get out of Orlando’s sight. Nor did he run with his nose to the ground as though following a trail. Gradually, Orlando realized that Baby was retracing his own steps - in places where snow had gathered, his tracks went in both directions.
Orlando had been following Baby for ten minutes when he saw the first hoof-prints in a patch of snow. Two horses, one with a rein or a rope dragging. They were headed roughly southeast and he was headed roughly north. Baby ignored the horse sign even though Orlando could see it was very fresh. The softly falling snow hadn’t yet blurred the crisp edges of the tracks. He stopped, stared off through the snow and thought he saw a vague shape that could have been a horse standing in the shelter of a big evergreen.
“Baby!”
The wolf stopped, gave a short, sharp bark and resumed trotting.
After only an instant of hesitation, Orlando kept following Baby. He would trust the half-wild, half-tame animal’s uncanny instincts. If Baby wasn’t interested in the horse, it was because he had more important game in mind.
Without turning aside even once, Baby retraced his own tracks. The forest ended at the foot of a scree slope. Automatically, Orlando checked the barren slope first. Even beneath the veil of falling snow the story of what had happened was clear: at least one horse had come skidding and rolling down through the scree, starting a small rockslide in the process. Hoof-prints led away from the disturbed ground. There was no sign of any horse nearby.
Baby never hesitated. He darted over the loose debris left by the slide and sat near a massive boulder ten yards from Orlando. There the slide had parted like water, leaving behind larger rocks before closing around the downhill side of the car sized boulder.
“Baby? What-”
Orlando’s breath broke, then came in harshly as he realized that something lay half-buried in the loose stone that had piled against the huge boulder.
A man.
His body blended with the rubble from the recent slide. Fresh snowfall was rapidly blurring all distinctions between stone and flesh. The man was motionless yet hauntingly familiar. His bearded face was turned up to the chilly softness of falling snow.
“David!”
No motion answered Orlando’s cry.
Chapter 3