silence challenge snippet by exbex
Author: exbex
Character(s): Dief
Length: 232 words
Rating: G
A/N: Thanks to lucifuge_5 for her insightful beta.
Dief remembers Benton's grim face, back in their early days in Chicago, and being told that it was "easier" for him to adapt to their new surroundings, regardless of the noise levels.
Benton thinks that life is smoother for a deaf half-wolf who can't be kept awake or be rattled by the constant roar of machines. Dief allows him to believe this, just as he lets Benton think that his fondness for city life revolves around eating the easily acquired, sugary human foods. The truth is that Dief misses the sounds that meant home: yips and howls, the rustle of leaves, the squeak of prey. Here in the south, he can feel the hum of human interaction, the vibrations of cars and steps beneath his feet but it is not the same.
Benton is smart for a human, but there are things he believes that aren't true, like that silence and solitude are always good for him. Prior to now, Benton had taken posts farther and farther north, more and more isolated from other of his kind. Dief suspects that Benton was trying to keep himself safe. Humans, after all, have ways of hurting each other that are unique to their species.
But lone wolves don't survive for long in the wild. Chicago is good for Benton, especially the loud one called Ray. Besides, one can‘t exactly hunt pizza in the tundra.