AN: Once again I borrow Danny Reyes from Judas Kiss and Carlos Pedraza.
Of man and beast
Ivo wasn't yet doing Alaska when he had Danny but they had spent a summer in New Mexico in the Apache Canyon where Ivo was researching Triassic fauna, specifically holotype theropods. Danny was supposedly working on a script for his senior thesis but he was fascinated by the local wildlife and spent hours in the canyon shooting footage he would never use.
"Are you making a movie on Wild America?" Ivo asked, thoroughly amused at the change in focus. He was less amused when the critters found their way into his living quarters.
"What is that?" He pointed to a small brownish ball in a cardboard box.
"That is an orphaned jackrabbit," Danny said matter-of-factly. "I am nursing it back to health."
"I see." And Ivo frowned a little at the concept of wild things in his bedroom.
The addition of the bull snake, the tortoise, the quail with the broken wing, the over-sized scorpion forced him to say something.
"For heaven's sake, Danny, let nature take its course! These animals were meant to die!" They were in serious danger of facing an overcrowding problem if things continued this way.
"It isn't 'nature', Ivo," he turned his back to pick up the crippled kit fox and hold it. "This is man's work - unnatural disasters in the natural world."
Ivo sighed in exasperation but not two days later he was cursing tourists for their nefarious deeds in the canyon. "One of our dinosaurs is missing!" he huffed.
Danny smiled and added the large blind lizard to the menagerie.