thanksgiving (i)

[Danicka] It wasn't even a week ago that they were in his room at the Brotherhood arguing about Martin, arguing about not wanting to argue about Martin, arguing about Katherine, arguing

as they always are, when they argue

about themselves. About each other, and what they have, and about what they can and cannot change about themselves. Going to his parents' for Thanksgiving has been the plan for long enough to give Danicka time to get used to it. Some women, sitting on the plane beside Lukas, would be staring out the window, fidgeting. Nervous. Asking questions. Worrying about whether or not they'll be liked. Fussing over what to wear when they meet The Parents.

She's met Jaroslav and Marjeta before. Granted, this was when she wasn't yet ten years old, but she remembers them. And likely they remember her as the little girl who was the age of their daughter but physically smaller than their son. Likely they remember that she was hospitable, polite, respectful, quiet, and well-behaved. Likely they remember Anezka whining that Danicka was mean and wouldn't share and liked Lukasek better.

They may or may not remember that she flinched or jumped or froze whenever Jaroslav raised his voice. They may or may not remember that she was stiff and distant with Marjeta more than Jaroslav, which would be notable only because it might seem strange to most people who knew them.

What they know about her now, other than that Lukas wanted his childhood library sent to her apartment quite some time ago, she isn't quite sure. What he's told them about her in his letters, she has no idea. That, should he die one day, it is going to be her responsibility to give them the news, is something she knows though Lukas may never have told her.

Danicka reads Functional Materials: Electrical, Dielectric, Electromagnetic, Optical and Magnetic Applications on the flight. She yawns a few times. She takes some notes in the margins. Lukas thinks to himself about Christmas gifts, maybe a SmartPen. Nah, she probably already has one.

In the car he's rented for the trip, much later, their luggage rides in the trunk and she mentions: "You know, I remember when I first met your family, we were upstairs in my room and you said something..." She shrugs, shaking her head, the memory vague at best. "You wanted me to come over to 'your house' to play next time. I don't remember if your sister was there at the moment or not, and I know now why that never happened, but it's still sort of sad, don't you think?"

And her eyes turn to look at him, his profile as he navigates New York City's streets. "That your parents wouldn't go for it, I mean. We were kids. I wouldn't have cared about the size of the place you were living in."

[Lukas] On the flight over, Lukas mostly sleeps while Danicka reads. It's a 767, and they have seats next to each other, Lukas on the aisle and Danicka on the window, and the divider armrest is up so she can turn in her seat and put her shoulderblade against the outside of his arm, leaning against him as she studies ... whatever she's studying. He barely understands the titles of her texts, much less the contents. He knows his mate is smart, though. It makes him happy in a way he can't easily explain or quantify,

just like he won't be able to explain or quantify why it'll make him so happy, a little over a month from now, to know he's going to marry her.

Later, when they've landed at JFK and gotten their luggage and rented their car, he drives them to the Bronx where his parents still live. Truth is Lukas generally hates driving in New York, will probably take the subway and the sneaker express everywhere after this initial arrival, but he almost always drives in when he comes back. He likes seeing the skyscrapers loom up. He likes being on the surface, on the ground, amidst those buildings that stretch on and on, layer after layer, for a hundred blocks or more.

So he's rolling quietly down the streets, slowing and stopping often, driving more by rote memory than by map, when Danicka tells him a little fragment of a story from their childhood. He glances at her -- it's early evening, and his face is all shadows and the glow of the streets, the instrument panel -- and the corner of his mouth pulls up in a sad little smile. On impulse he reaches out, hugs her against his side across the center console of their rented Camry, kisses her hair.

"It's sad," he agrees. "I wish I knew you all my life. I wish we didn't lose track of each other for fifteen years. And I wish you had come over to my house to play." A pause. "I had Legos."

[Danicka] There are many details of Lukas's trial in the underworld last spring that he hasn't shared with her, or has forgotten to mention. Things that weren't important at the equinox bonfire. That this little boy who had her pointed chin and her golden hair but his searing blue eyes -- the child who, though his personality was utterly different from both of theirs, had the most physically in common with his parents -- played with Legos on the couch and on the living room floor.

Danicka smiles at the mention of Legos, after the quick hug which makes her chuckle. "I always liked Legos," she mentions. Then: "We should get some."

They aren't going to a hotel first, aren't checking in. And Danicka hasn't said anything else about his parents, about their childhood. She just smiles to herself then, looking out the window as he drives.

"I think we'd be very different people if we'd known each other all this time," she says after awhile. "I don't know that we'd be together. I'm glad it happened like this." And a beat. "We should stop and pick up a bottle of wine."

[Lukas] "We'll have to eBay the older sets," Lukas says. "The new ones are all Harry Potter and Star Wars."

Then he glances at her; smiles when he sees the edge of a smile on the curve of her cheek. He reaches over, finds her hand, squeezes it.

"I'm glad, too. But I still missed you."

Bottle of wine, Danicka suggests. "Nah," says Lukas. "I brought them my last bottle of Wyborowa Exquisite. If they're not happy with that, they can BYO damn B. Anyway," he nods up ahead, "we're like three blocks away."

Everything looks old in New York. A little rundown. Anezka, living out in L.A. where everything has to be new, has to be commercialized, has to be conformist and clean and hypermaterialistic, talks about it every time she visits: my god, this city is so grungy. Lukas learns to ignore it; when she goes back to SoCal, there's always an email a few days later: I fucking hate materialistic LA bitches. And that term is gender-neutral here.

The brownstones Lukas's parents live in now, though, is genuinely old. A good hundred years or so, perhaps, with stairs that creak no matter what Lukas's father tries to do. The streets are narrow and crusty with salt and snow, crowded with parked cars. At least one of them looks rented. It has Massachusetts plates, and sitting on the dashboard is --

"Hey," Lukas says suddenly, "that's Anežka's GPS. What the hell, why did she drive down from Massachusetts?"

[Danicka] "No, they have some of these huge bins with five hundred pieces or whatever. They don't have to be sets. But they have little medical helicopters and stuff and...I... absolutely have not looked on Amazon for any of this," she ends, breezily.

He glances at her. She glances at him out of the corner of her eye, but then smiles as he takes her hand. She squeezes it back. She says nothing to that. She doesn't need to.

"I have to admit I'm curious about it," she muses. "If it's the same house you lived in after you left the little apartment, it's... where you grew up."

But he's saying Hey and he's looking at a car parked in front of a brownstone and Danicka, not familiar with this neighborhood, not knowing what they're looking for, is a bit startled. She looks around, looks back at him. "What? I -- she lives in L.A." She's frowning. She's confused. And yet, also nitpicky: "Also, it's not like GPS devices are custom-made, honey, they make millions of those things and they're all pretty much identical."

[Lukas] "Yeah but," Lukas points at the brownstone down the street, multitasking now, trying to calculate whether or not the Camry will fit into a miniscule place between a truck and an old domestic sedan, trying to figure out why Anezka drove down from Massachusetts, trying to explain things that are so natural and obvious to him that he completely forgot to bridge the logical gaps for Danicka, "this is my parents' house. So I'm pretty sure that's her rental car, but I'm not so sure why she drove from Mass.

"Also," he puts the car in reverse, throwing his hand onto the back of Danicka's seat to twist around and check behind himself, "this is, in fact, the house we moved to after we left the little apartment. So -- " he catches her eye briefly, smiling, " -- yeah, this is where I grew up. Between age 8 and 13, anyway."

[Danicka] "Why would your sister be in Massachusetts to begin with?" Danicka presses, still at a loss despite his attempts to bridge these gaps.

[Lukas] "That's what I want to know," Lukas replies, squiggling the car into the tiny space and throwing it into park.

[Danicka] "Oh," she says, sitting quite neatly in the passenger seat, processing this. She looks at him, narrowing her eyes in mock displeasure. "You had me so confused," she chastises him.

When the car has gone still, she unbuckles her safety belt. It's rough, going from home to O'Hare to JFK to the car to his parent's brownstone, but so it is. Danicka didn't seem to have any trouble finding an outfit that was both suitable for the first meeting with her mate's parents since she was about nine years old and comfortable in terms of getting through airport security and several hours in the air.

Her slacks are charcoal-colored houndstooth pants, closely tailored, and Lukas knows her ankle boots are covering a pair of rose-colored stockings because she slipped her feet out during part of the flight as she curled up beside him. The blouse under her gray trenchcoat is a pale pink, almost peach-colored work in silk, the sleeves short and loose, the neckline draped and low

but only just.

She slides her purse on over her shoulder, insisting again, perhaps just to be an ass: "It's still conjecture that that's her GPS, regardless of the fact that the car is parked at your parents' house."

She waits for him on the sidewalk, waits for him to circle around to grab the Wyborowa from his checked bag, waits for him to join her, and she extends her bare hand to him, smiling. That smile. The one that seems so easy, the one he knows even now only really comes easily when she's alone with him. "I'm excited," she confesses.

[Lukas] Lukas seems mildly surprised, looking at his mate over the top of the trunk. Then he shuts the lid with a thump and takes her hand. It's cold in New York City, but no colder than Chicago, and besides, it's not quite December yet. He's in jeans, a finely knit sweater. A shirt. A knee-length coat. Definitely no tie, and no gloves. His hand is warm. He pulls her closer, arm to arm, side by side.

"I'm just hoping I don't get horribly embarrassed in the next few hours," he quips, then squeezes her hand. "I'm excited you're here, too," he adds, softer.

They cross the street. His parents live in a primarily eastern-european part of the Bronx -- an old, old enclave of Slavs who have been around for generations. Since the early 19th century. The streets are narrow. There are some trees, naked with encroaching winter. Ice and hoarfrost cracks under foot as he bounds up on the curb in a single, loose, athletic motion -- then stomps up the concrete steps to the porch.

They can vaguely hear voices inside, see lights. Lukas rings the doorbell and then stands with one hand gripping the vodka, the other holding his mate's hand. The last time he was here was a month or so ago. The time before that, a year ago. The time before that, three or so years ago. His parents are happy about this. Happy about seeing him more often. He thinks about it, reflects on it; decides he's happy about this, too.

There's a commotion inside; footsteps. Then a male voice calling, I got it! Beside her, Danicka can feel Lukas stiffen in surprise. They get about half a second's worth of warning before the heavy front door flings open and a stranger -- a man neither Danicka nor Lukas has seen before -- is standing there, grinning.

"Hi!" he says. He's tall and thin and sort of ruddy-cheeked and sandy-haired and affable. Slightly weak-chinned. "You must be Lukas and Danicka." That's how he pronounces it. "I'm Dan." He sticks his hand out.

Lukas just stares, frowning. Danicka can almost imagine him starting to growl in the back of his throat. Or maybe that's not her imagination.

[Danicka] "Oh," she says, sitting quite neatly in the passenger seat, processing this. She looks at him, narrowing her eyes in mock displeasure. "You had me so confused," she chastises him.

When the car has gone still, she unbuckles her safety belt. It's rough, going from home to O'Hare to JFK to the car to his parent's brownstone, but so it is. Danicka didn't seem to have any trouble finding an outfit that was both suitable for the first meeting with her mate's parents since she was about nine years old and comfortable in terms of getting through airport security and several hours in the air.

He told her to be comfortable. He told her that they were lucky he wasn't just going to show up in pajamas. He told her he was wearing jeans, and so when Danicka met him at the Brotherhood before they took a cab to the airport, she showed up in a pair of dark indigo bootcuts. They are, as far as jeans are concerned, luxe. On the flight she wore a pair of simple ballerina flats, but after they got into the car she changed into a pair of equally simple gray suede pumps. The blouse under her trenchcoat is a pale pink, almost peach-colored work in silk, the sleeves short and loose, the neckline draped and low

but only just.

She slides her purse on over her shoulder, insisting again, perhaps just to be an ass: "It's still conjecture that that's her GPS, regardless of the fact that the car is parked at your parents' house."

She waits for him on the sidewalk, waits for him to circle around to grab the Wyborowa from his checked bag, waits for him to join her, and she extends her bare hand to him, smiling. That smile. The one that seems so easy, the one he knows even now only really comes easily when she's alone with him. "I'm excited," she confesses.

[Lukas] Lukas circles around behind the car, popping the trunk and digging around in his luggage for a moment before coming up with his last, prized bottle of Wyborowa. Then he shuts the lid with a thump and takes her hand. It's cold in New York City, but no colder than Chicago, and besides, it's not quite December yet. He's in jeans, a finely knit sweater. A shirt. A knee-length coat. Definitely no tie, and no gloves. His hand is warm. He pulls her closer, arm to arm, side by side.

"I'm just hoping I don't get horribly embarrassed in the next few hours," he quips, then squeezes her hand. "I'm excited you're here, too," he adds, softer.

They cross the street. His parents live in a primarily eastern-european part of the Bronx -- an old, old enclave of Slavs who have been around for generations. Since the early 19th century. The streets are narrow. There are some trees, naked with encroaching winter. Ice and hoarfrost cracks under foot as he bounds up on the curb in a single, loose, athletic motion -- then stomps up the concrete steps to the porch.

They can vaguely hear voices inside, see lights. Lukas rings the doorbell and then stands with one hand gripping the vodka, the other holding his mate's hand. The last time he was here was a month or so ago. The time before that, a year ago. The time before that, three or so years ago. His parents are happy about this. Happy about seeing him more often. He thinks about it, reflects on it; decides he's happy about this, too.

There's a commotion inside; footsteps. Then a male voice calling, I got it! Beside her, Danicka can feel Lukas stiffen in surprise. They get about half a second's worth of warning before the heavy front door flings open and a stranger -- a man neither Danicka nor Lukas has seen before -- is standing there, grinning.

"Hi!" he says. He's tall and thin and sort of ruddy-cheeked and sandy-haired and affable. Slightly weak-chinned. "You must be Lukas and Danicka." That's how he pronounces it. "I'm Dan." He sticks his hand out.

Lukas just stares, frowning. Danicka can almost imagine him starting to growl in the back of his throat. Or maybe that's not her imagination.

[Danicka] "Baby," Danicka says in a reassuring tone, considering his potential embarassment, "I strongly doubt there's anything that they're going to say or do that will give you any cause to feel embarrassed. However," she goes on, as he steps off the curb and helps her across a mush of ice and frost and sludge hanging around the gutter, "if you do feel embarrassed, I'll know, and I'll stop it."

Stop... it. Stop the line of conversation. Stop laughing at something he doesn't think is all that funny. Stop whatever it is that's making him -- however overt or under the surface his reaction may be -- feel the way he feels when embarrassment twists with frustration or hurt or even a bizarre sense of loneliness.

She'll stop it. She may as well have said: I'll protect you.

Lukas bounds -- no, not a step, not a hop -- up onto the curb on the other side and all but lifts Danicka after him where their hands are joined. She, in fact, does hop, rather than bound. She's smiling, holding to his hand perhaps a bit more tightly than she was when they were on the other side of the street, but then the bell is ringing or buzzing or chiming and a voice that is too young and too lacking in any form of a Czech accent to be Jaroslav makes Lukas's back get up.

Danicka looks at him, and she might say something about how well that explains -- but they don't have more than half a second before the door opens. She looks ahead again, still smiling, though she has no idea if Lukas still is or not.

Well, that's not true. She's actually quite certain he's not, but does not squeeze his hand or link their arms to try and calm him, or snap him out of it, or nudge him towards amicability. She remains as she is. Excited, if surprised, and prepared for essentially anything by expecting absolutely nothing, which has gotten her through more than a few mind-altering situations in the past and will get her through plenty more to come.

Whoever this man is, he seems not just affable but pleased as punch to meet them, shucks. Danicka, who is not holding vodka and knows damn sure she's not going to let go of Lukas's hand right now, takes Dan's hand with her free one.

"Hello," she says, cordially. "You look a little old to be the Kvasničkas' newly adopted son," she adds, teasing, though there's a hardness to her voice that is so faint the man himself might miss it. It's a slight push, chiding him without chiding him for not completing his introduction.

[Lukas] Of the two currently standing at the Kvasnicka's door, Danicka is easily the friendlier, the more outgoing; easily labeled the nicer. That's not entirely true, though. She's a Shadow Lord too, and she spent her formative years more or less ordering a Silver Fang around. The steel fist was in a velvet glove, to be sure, but --

she knows something about command. Perhaps not so much demanding obedience the way a creature like Lukas would, but getting it anyway. By suggesting. By giving slight pushes, so faint they're almost subconscious, but no less effective.

"Oh," 'Dan' says instantly, "I'm sorry, I just assumed -- I thought -- " he aborts, starts over, "Hi, I'm Daniel Adamczyk. Shadow Lord kin. I'm, uh -- I'm Anne's boyfriend."

He's finished shaking Danicka's hand by then, extended it to Lukas instead. Lukas's hand is still in Danicka's, and he makes no move to extricate it. He stares at Daniel Adamczyk's hand for a second, then at the man himself.

"Anne?"

The single word comes out a demand. He starts forward; for a second Danicka might think he's going to simply shove Dan Adamczyk over. But no. He simply brushes past him. 'Anne's' boyfriend is more or less eye-to-eye with 'Anne's' brother, but far lankier. The brother has a good forty or sixty pounds on him, all muscle and bone. And the brother shoots him a glare as he passes, wiping his feet off on the entrance mat.

The house is smaller than the Musil's. It's cheek to jowl and back to back with its neighbors, a townhouse rather than a house. No yard, no driveway. The front room is almost too small to be called a living room. A flight of stairs leads straight up to a second story. Through an open archway they can glimpse a small dining area, a kitchen branching off from it; behind that, a den. Everything is small, compacted, New York style. Neat, though, and clean, the hardwood floors swept, the furniture dusted. They can smell buttery mashed potatoes and homemade spiced cider; turkey in the oven -- and, yes, kolaches.

"Anne? Her name is Anežka. And this is Danička. And I'm--"

"Rude as hell. Jesus Christ."

The last time Danicka saw Anezka, they were 9 or 10 and Anezka was insufferably bossy. Lukas was still noisy and constantly underfoot, shooting up by the inches nearly every time they looked away. Anezka wasn't as -- well, wild -- but she was every bit as vociferous, winning pretty much every argument with her younger brother either with unrelenting 10 year old knowledge. Because it's just blue, duh. Because rubber bounces, duh. Because I said so, duh.

She's not 10 years old now. She's closer to 30, and like Danicka, looks a few years older than she actually is. If one were being absolutely honest, Lukas is the more classically handsome of the two; what Anezka is something a little more unusual, a little more rooted in sheer force of personality. Her limbs are long and thin; she'd be elegant if she weren't running down the stairs two at a time in socks to skid to a stop on the entryway rug. There's a glass of spiced (spiked?) cider in her hand, which she balances admirably all the way down before handing it smoothly, with the ease and thoughtlessness of long practice and long familiarity, to Dan.

"Seriously, it's like you've forgotten every last scrap of courtesy you had."

On that note, she flings her arms around Lukas's neck, drags him down into a grumbling hug. Lukas, muffled: "You could've at least warned me he was going to be here. Or that he existed."

"I did," she says, blithe, letting go, "You just forgot. As usual. And mom told you about him like last year. You forgot that, too." She turns to Danicka: the hug she gives her is scarcely more reserved. "Hey, Danička -- wow, look at you. The last time I saw you, you were tiny and Lukášek was kicking you out of your dad's oak tree."

"I didn't kick -- " Lukas protests; is ignored.

"Introductions. Dan, Danička. Danička, Dan. I can't believe you guys have the same name. Dan, Lukáš. Lukáš, Dan. Lukáš and Danička met when they were yea high. They're together now. It's so cute I could harf." She pauses to take a drink; starts talking again almost before she's swallowed her mouthful of cider. "Do you guys want drinks?" A loud stage whisper, "I spiked it. Mom doesn't know yet."

[Danicka] "It's the holidays," Danicka says, explaining Daniel's assumptions and forgetfulness for him in a way that almost sounds like forgiveness, as she shakes his hand. Her other one leaves Lukas's so that he can take the hand that Dan extends

and

Lukas

acts

like a prick.

Anne? he repeats at Dan, and brushes past him, glares at him. Danicka just stands on the stoop for a moment with her purse, too poised to do something like stare after him with her mouth open. Indeed, her lips are together and her eyes are a dark, feral green as he walks in. She catches Dan's eye as she steps over the threshold, but she doesn't say a word. There isn't much time, anyway -- Lukas is correcting 'Anne's' boyfriend on 'Anne's' name before introducing his mate, and then Anezka is coming downstairs with a drink, chastising her brother.

As the siblings are embracing, sort of one-sided and cranky as it is, Danicka is shifting her purse to one side as she quietly undoes the belt and buttons of her trenchcoat. Dan offers to take it for her, and is thanked, while Anezka talks like someone who is either far younger or actually from Los Angeles and Lukas is grumbling and then there's Anezka, who she hasn't seen in fifteen years, hugging her before she even has her purse resituated.

Anezka doesn't get the sort of stiffness that indicates annoyance, or harshly imposed distance, or intimates instantly what the fuck do you think you're doing? But Danicka receives the hug more than she returns it, warm -- though at least one person in the room can tell the warmth is at least partly feigned, and if Anezka's a halfway decent lawyer, she can sense it too. If she's not three sheets to the wind, which is -- at this point -- Danicka's guess.

"He didn't kick me," Danicka says, but she's ignored as well, and Anezka is breezing through introductions. Lukas can see the tiniest pull of a muscle in his mate's cheek at that, and at Anezka babbling about how they met and how it's so cute and is cidering herself up again before telling them all that it's spiked.

"Shocking," Danicka answers, in a tone easily mistaken for dry wit, for that practiced friendliness, a tone Lukas hears more like warning sirens on a still spring day that seethes with coming storms. "I'll just have some water for now, please," she adds, smiling.

[Lukas] They've been in the door about thirty seconds, and there's already tension zinging every which way. While Anezka breezes through introductions, Dan stands there sort of awkwardly after hanging up Danicka's coat, Lukas steps out of his shoes and strips out of his own coat, and Danicka covers irritation so easily that Anezka either doesn't notice or pretends not to notice or is too drunk to notice. Lukas, meanwhile, has switched from outright aggression to ignoring Adamczyk.

Danicka asks for just water. Lukas swings around from tucking his coat into the closet by the door and holds the bottle of Wyborowa out to Anezka. "Take it to Dad," he says, and then plucks Anezka's cider out of her hand. "I'm confiscating this."

His tone is vaguely playful -- but there's an undertone of I mean it there. He takes a sip, then another, then more or less drains it and sets the emptied glass down on the little table by the door, where a woven basket waits for loose change and keys and junk mail and other coming-home paraphernalia.

"Mom's in the kitchen, Dad's in the study?"

"Mmhm. Go say hi to Dad, you two. Then come help with the potatoes. I'm on turkey basting duty, if you want to trade. D, can you get Danička a glass of water?"

"Nice to meet you," he says to Lukas by way of temporary farewell, to which Lukas replies with some vague grunts. Then his sister and her boyfriend are gone, disappeared through the archway and around the corner to the kitchen, leaving Danicka and Lukas alone in the tiny front room. He's quiet a moment.

Then, "Vím, že jsem byl hrubý. Bylo to jen nepříjemné překvapení."

[Danicka] If the holidays are not for tension, then they're for nothing. Tension between the elder sibling and the Garou sibling. Tension between the mated couple. Tension between two young males. Tension between two young females. They haven't even introduced Lukas's parents into the mix yet, and already hackles are up -- at least where the two from Chicago are concerned.

An eyebrow flicks up on his mate's face when he takes Anezka's cider and puts the vodka in her hands, but Lukas isn't looking at Danicka, so it's likely that the only person who notices is poor Dan. Danicka at least has the courtesy not to share a glance with the near-stranger who is, in all honesty, probably in a similar state as she is --

but she can't be sure of that. For all she knows he's out here every other weekend hanging out with the Kvasnickas. For all she knows, he thinks Anezka zooming around sloppy drunk is charming. For all she knows, he's just doing well right now not to piss himself while Wyrmbreaker is in the room. For all she knows, he secretly hates Lukas and all the man stands for, which means he is nowhere near her ally.

She smiles at him, though, as he goe to get her some water. They're alone, and Lukas says what he does. Danicka half-smiles, more genuine than the expression she wore with the other two around. "We really need to teach you Russian," she says, and reaches out to touch his hand. "Bylo to nepříjemné, protože jste dělal to nepříjemné," she says, as gently as she can, holding his hand now. What cautioning is in that is far softer than what she gave even Dan earlier, and she leaves it at that. She does, at least, understand.

Some things can be jarring, so instinctively, it's nearly impossible to react more... civilly.

"Nejste jediný, kdo byl hrubý," she goes on, very quietly. They aren't entirely alone, and they certainly aren't the only people in this house who speak Czech. "Alespoň nejste ne dělat prdel ze sami," she mutters, sliding her purse down her arm to her hand and taking a step further into the foyer.

She smiles. It's a little thin, but it's all right. "Introduce me to your father."

[Lukas] Lukas isn't human. He pretends remarkably well, all things considered, but the pretense takes time, it takes effort, it takes thought and planning. He doesn't handle surprises very well. There was the time he walked in to find Danicka's then-roommate having a get-together with his friends. There was some joke about Danicka, and it wasn't even a particularly offensive joke, and it didn't even come from a man who could viably pose any sort of threat to either her safety or her virtue.

The response was still so sharp, so sudden, so viciously animal that that particular roommate didn't really speak to him again after that. And moved out not much later.

So -- he came home to his parents tonight, and he expected to see Jaroslav and Marjeta and Anezka and Danicka. No more, no less.. He expected turkey and cranberries. He got some lanky, weakchinned stranger standing in the doorway introducing himself as Dan, calling everybody by the wrong name, wanting to shake hands,

and his hackles went up, he growled, he snapped at the stranger who was, so far as his instincts were concerned, invading his family-pack's turf. It wasn't a rationale response. It was rude. He acknowledges that much ... but Danicka might notice it wasn't ever quite an apology.

It's hard to apologize for his intrinsic nature, in the end.

He does take her hand, though, his fingers faintly damp with condensation from Anezka's glass. Danicka comments on rudeness, and there's a faint stiffening in Lukas's manner. He pauses, one foot on the first step of the stairs.

"Are you talking about Anežka?"

[Danicka] Danicka can remember a time when she was living with a friendly sound engineer named Paul who, though he had a backbone of steel from a lifetime of taking shit from everyone who had a problem with his sexuality, still balked and went pale when Lukas all but snarled at him. Lukas hadn't been prepared to meet him, hadn't realized the man would be flippant and chatty and a bit too familiar with the way he talked about Danicka, however friendly he was trying to be -- just like Anezka tonight, really, setting Danicka's teeth on edge.

She's not trying to be rude.

But Danicka remembers how well Lukas handles situations when he's not prepared to have to wear that mask of civility, that pretense of humanity. At least in here he doesn't have to act like he isn't a werewolf. Everyone knows. That doesn't mean he can act like an animal. In his home, with his mate, he's encouraged to drop all those structures of politeness. He's let to behave as what he is, not the most controlled, most humane version of it.

Her hand is still in his. For all his admitted rudeness, she's with him, and she understands. He has no idea what she would do if a stranger was in her home, if a stranger was with her family and she didn't know why or who or what was going to happen. He has seen Danicka level a firearm and aim for the head when they've attacked him. He might have... an inkling.

She understands. And walks with him. Pauses when he does. He stiffens a bit and she looks at him, not surprised, and not backing down from what she said, either. Gently, though, she gives a single nod and says quietly: "Yes. I am." There's a slightly pause, a small sigh. She's all but whispering: "Lukáš, don't get upset. I'm not judging her and I'm not going to be a bitch to your sister or refuse to share my crayons with her or something, all right?"

Her hand tightens on his a moment. "It's just a rocky start. We'll all be fine."

[Lukas] There isn't a lot of room for privacy in this small home. There are three bedrooms and a study, true, but these are New York-sized rooms: scarcely big enough to be called a closet out in Chicago.

Lukas's parents had wanted him and Danicka to board here for the duration of their stay. They've already managed to convince Anezka and Dan to do just that. Never mind that Anezka's old bedroom contains only a small twin-sized bed alongside their mother's sewing supplies, and their unmated and unmarried status prompted Lukas's rather traditional parents to put Anezka in her bedroom and Daniel in an airbed in the study. Lukas's refusal was more or less sheer pragmatism: his own childhood room contains a twinsized bed and storage boxes, and six adults under one roof means that the only real privacy they have is --

well, something like this. Murmuring to each other in a stairwell.

"I'm not upset," he answers, whispering. "Anežka's toasted. I'm surprised my father hasn't grounded her, adult or not. But she wouldn't be acting like this if she didn't think of you as family. Which means if you think she's being obnoxious, you can and should just tell her to simmer down. She won't take it badly. I'd tell her for you, but I think she'd actually be offended by that -- like you were hiding behind me, or something."

He resumes climbing -- the staircase narrow and dark, that one floorboard creaking loudly as they pass over it. Upstairs, there's a small banistered hallway and five doors crowding every possible corner: a bathroom, a study, three bedrooms. There's light coming from the study.

"Anyway," his tone is closer to normal now, "let's say hi to my dad, and then I'll give you the tour."

[Danicka] It isn't fun, being in Lukas's position. Between family and mate, then with a stranger thrown in. The relationships to navigate are mindboggling at best. The rules are confusing, when his parents call him by his deedname and Danicka calls him by his childhood nickname and Anezka doesn't seem like she could give a fuck. As they climb, she's talking quietly to him, her hand held in his though their bodies absolutely cannot fit side by side on the stairs.

"That's fine for her," Danicka says, revealing some of her frustration now that she knows Lukas isn't angry with her, offended by her. "But this is why I always hated playing with her," she says, the air of complaint so far in the past it's bordering on childish, and it's understandable even as it's funny as hell. "She thinks that how she feels and what she wants is how everyone feels and what everyone else wants. Like she just doesn't get that not everyone is like her."

And that may be the crux of it, refusal-of-crayons to the tension downstairs. Danicka is not like Anezka. That, and something far more simple that he's seen time and time again with his mate: she despises it when people behave with overt, unearned familiarity with her. Oddly enough, for someone who is so warm with him, she seems to prefer that slightly aloof distance between herself and... anyone else. Anyone she isn't close to, and there aren't many people in her life she's ever been that close to. Lukas may indeed be the first who can say he truly knew her. She hates it when people act like they do. Her teeth go on edge almost as much as they do when she's compared to a Fang or when someone just starts whining and simpering about how harrrd everything is.

They'll be staying at a hotel. A bit of a drive, to be sure, but worth it. The twin bed doesn't bother Danicka much -- she sleeps with Lukas occasionally in the Brotherhood, and the bed there is no bigger and the number of other people far greater -- but he knows her. He knows how much more at peace she is when they're at her place, or -- even moreso -- when they're in their den. However much things have changed for her, there's still an element of hypervigilance, a sense of being watched all the time, that creeps into Danicka here and there. He knows she would stay here, if his parents wished it and he went along with it.

But he knows. So he protects.

"I don't want to have to tell her to not be obnoxious," Danicka says under her breath, as they reach the top of the stairs. "I want her to just not be obnoxious in the first place. I'm your mate, that doesn't mean she and I are suddenly sisters or best friends." She's annoyed. More than offended or anything of the like, it's simply been that since Anezka came sloshing down the stairs. Danicka's face is screwed up, uncomfortable with all the tension that cropped up as soon as they got here as well as with her own reaction to it.

"I'm sorry," she says, her expression almost sad. "I don't want to make a big deal out of any of this. I'm just... uncomfortable."

[Lukas] So he pauses again. And he turns to her, and he lowers his voice, and they're talking to each other again in the only little bit of privacy there is to find in this house tonight.

"My sister might not understand that the rest of the world doesn't think the way she does," he says, low, "but she's not selfish, and she's not doing it to be self-centered. If anything, I think she's trying to include you.

"Danička, my sister and I are close. Our parents are our parents. This Daniel Adamczyk character has apparently been around long enough for him to have become a familiar face to everyone but you and I. You're the only person anywhere close to a newcomer here, and I think she just didn't want you to be the only one standing on the outside of the family circle. That's why she came on so strong."

At least there's this: he understands why Danicka's uncomfortable now. It wasn't just that Lukas snarled at the new male; it wasn't even really that Anezka was helping herself copiously to spiked cider. It was the intimation of closeness where there was none. And he can understand that on a more intuitive, baser level.

He shifts a little, standing on the staircase, one foot a step up, coming a little closer to his mate.

"Look, if you want me to tell Anežka to stop acting like you're best friends when you're not, I can do that. But please, be straightforward about it. Or about anything else my family might do to make you uncomfortable, or anything else I might be able to do to help. I don't mind any of that. But I didn't like it when you snarked at me about my sister, and I really didn't like that you did it so ... underhandedly."

[Danicka] They stop at the top of the stairs, Lukas facing her, and Danicka glances aside during part of it, not to hide her expression or to avoid him, but... maybe just to compose herself. It's not a considered gesture, and it's not a denial. It's just what she does at first, exhaling quietly before she looks back at him as he goes on.

"All right," she says, but there's slight color in her cheeks, and though it isn't anger, it's definitely heightened emotion. She just shakes it off. "We can't stand here talking about it all night, though," she says. "Let's go say hi to your father."

[Lukas] [EMPAFEE]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 5, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Danicka] [The most obvious emotion is that she's embarrassed and sad. Just beneath that is a sense that now she's feeling lonely or isolated. A bit deeper, and being buried by the surface emotions, is that she's hurt and somewhat frustrated.]

[Lukas] No, they can't stand there talking about it all night. But when Danicka starts to turn away to say hi to his father, Lukas holds on to her hand.

"Hey," he says softly. Just to get her attention. When he has it, he moves closer, wrapping his arms around her, pulling her against his chest. It's dark in the little hallway at the top of the stairs, quiet and dark with the sounds and smells of dinner filtering up, with Jaroslav either so engrossed in his books and newspapers as to not notice his son and his son's mate are standing out there or -- far more likely -- having the good grace to let them have a moment alone without eavesdropping.

Not that there's anything to eavesdrop on right now. Lukas is just holding Danicka, doing his best to convey without words that --

well. That he loves her, one supposes. That she belongs here, in his childhood home, with his family.

A few moments go by. Then he kisses her temple. Whispers, "I'm sorry. It's not that I think you're a snarky, underhanded bitch. Nothing like that. It's just ... everything I was ever taught says if you have a problem with someone, confront them directly.

"But more importantly, I also want you to feel like you fit in here. I know it's at least partly my own fault that you don't -- I'm the one that kept you hidden away for almost two years. Now that you're finally here, though, I don't want you to feel like you have to censor yourself, or like you can only talk to me if someone here upsets you.

"I want you to know you have the right to be here. I want you to feel like you belong here."

[Danicka] Once upon a time, Lukas called Danicka damaged. That word infuriated her. Sometimes she wonders if it makes her so angry to be called damaged because it's true. Perhaps a better word would be wounded, because it suggests that she can heal -- a creature that will bear a scar, stronger than fresh tissue, instead of a broken toy that will always be cracked no matter how many times you glue it back together.

But all the same, broken is how she feels when she stands in this narrow house and knows that she's the only one outside of this circle, the only one who doesn't know how to act here, the only one who is so used to acting different than this that she balks at all of them.

...she wouldn't be acting like this if she didn't think of you as family, Lukas said a minute ago, walking up the stairs with her. It may be just now, with the color high in Danicka's cheeks and her emotions painted as vivid across his mind as if she were able to speak them aloud, that he remembers how fundamentally different a concept family is to her. At least in terms of parents, of siblings, of houses you grew up in.

Dinner at the Musil household was a cold, formal thing, no matter how casual the trappings or their manner of dress. Even putting on a tuxedo and cufflinks to have a meal at Katherine's house was more relaxed than the way that Miloslav, Vladislav and Danicka ate together. There was the sense that her half-sister and her half-sister's children had a different way, that the stiffness of it all was uncomfortable to them, and perhaps over the summer Danicka experienced that with them, but

that was her family. Just children and one sick woman. No one to threaten her. No one to judge her. No one to hurt her. The sad thing is that no matter how easy it might be to imagine Danicka more relaxed, Danicka warm with all of them, it's even easier to know that even then, her guard was never completely down.

Remembering this, or maybe just seeing that Danicka -- so very guarded, so very smooth in so many social situations -- is on the verge of tears, he holds her hand and pulls her back to him. Against him. Into his arms. She goes instantly and easily, craving exactly the contact he's offering, her arms wrapping around his middle. Sometimes she hugs him and her arms go around his neck, his shoulders, as though she's the one protecting him, drawing him near, letting him relax his strength for a moment to lean into her warmth. Right now, though, she holds onto him, putting her face to his chest and relaxing gently as he kisses her temple through her hair.

Danicka doesn't stiffen or sigh or shake her head as Lukas talks. She just curls against him, and it's rare that she would be so vulnerable, particularly when -- for her -- this constitutes being 'in public'. But she is, and she kisses his chest through his sweater and shirt when he's done, looking up at him.

"I can't walk in the door and feel that way," she whispers back, her brows tugged together. "I don't think I can spend one holiday or a week or a month here and feel that way, Lukáš." She aches, and it's easy enough to see why: this is what he wants, and she's telling him that he can't have it. Simply because she isn't capable. "Every time you tell me to be direct or tell everyone here when they do something that bothers me, I feel..."

She struggles for the word, and finally gives up and chooses the one that's most honest, however dramatic it might sound: "...panicked." Danicka slides her arms around him more tightly once again, laying her head on his chest. "I don't expect anyone else here to be patient with that, much less understand it."

Which may as well be: I don't want them to understand it. Just like she never wanted Lukas to know what her brother was really like, what he really did to her.

"But I need you to be patient with it," she adds, quietest of all.

There's a stretch of a pause while they embrace, and then an exhale, more of a relieved sound than a sigh. A release of some kind. "I didn't even mean anything bad by what I said. It was offputting, but I didn't... it wasn't something that was a big enough deal to me to need to address. I don't have a problem with her or dislike her or something, I was just venting."

She's still frowning at herself. "I really wasn't trying to be a bitch, Lukáš."

[Lukas] Of all people --

and that may as well be literal. Of all the people on this planet, human and kin and otherwise, Lukas stands alone on this.

-- Lukas should understand why it's difficult for Danicka to be so open, so direct, so blunt as he is. That he didn't understand made her feel all the more isolated, alone, humiliated,

wounded.

He saw that, though. He saw it in a flash, in that look on her face before she turned away. Let's go see your father. They still haven't -- they're still up in the little walkway upstairs, where they can hear voices from downstairs, where they can feel heat from the heater collecting. The study door is still ajar and Jaroslav, inside, occasionally clears his throat and turns a page in his newspaper.

Like father, like son. Jaroslav is the direct sort, too. He wouldn't hide his presence there; wouldn't eavesdrop; wouldn't pretend he wasn't aware of the pair out in the hall. The Kvasnickas, despite their polite friendship with the Musils and their roots in the same nation, the same tribe, are very much unlike Danicka's family.


Out in the hall, Lukas holds his mate steadily as she buries her face in his chest, kisses him through his sweater and his shirt, tells him in whispers why what he asks is hard for her. She can't see the aching frown on his face, but she can feel the way his arms tighten around her when she says panicked. When she says I need you to be patient with it.

"Samozřejmě," he says. His hand strokes her back once, then wraps closer around her.

"Je mi líto, jsem ti ublížil, láska."

[Danicka] They have taken far too long to get from the foyer to the study, but hopefully Anezka is too tipsy to notice or care much, and Danicka is willing to guess that Daniel and Marjeta are too polite to gossip, and Jaroslav clearly is able to control his desire to see his son.

Meet, though not for the first time, Danicka. Meet, for the first time, his son's mate.

No one here cares that Danicka and Lukas aren't married -- at least, she doesn't think they care. It would not surprise her if they did any more than it would surprise her to confirm that they don't, but the point is: legally she is not a member of their family. Quite obviously, she wasn't prepared to walk in and be treated like one. In a sense, perhaps one that saddens or catches Lukas off guard, her connection and committment -- her joining -- is to him alone.

Her father left his family behind when he was mated to Laura, but the Dvoraks had no interest in him.

Emilie essentially had no family when she married Vladik, but she was never entirely a member of the Musil family either.

Danicka came to Lukas, and her brother frankly disowned her.

It's possible she hasn't even thought about this, hasn't questioned it. But more and more it becomes obvious that she had zero expectation of being 'brought into the circle', and really no consideration of it. No desire for it. No antipathy for it. Just... no thought given to it one way or the other. And when it was thrust at her as though the most natural, most obvious thing,

it became -- ironically but vividly -- clear to her that she was somehow fundamentally and deeply different from all of these people.

Danicka does hold him, because with all of that swirling around in her at the moment, stirred up rapidly and suddenly as it was, she is in need of an anchor she genuinely did not think she would have to rely on when she came here. She remembers thinking on the doorstep that she had no expectations, she was ready for anything, and would roll her eyes at herself if she could muster it.

She squeezes him. The truth is, what she wants to do right now is apologize. For being weak. For being strange. For being different. She wants to apologize for not overcoming this, she wants to try and apologize for the way things so rapidly downspiraled. Danicka knows better than to say any of that. She cannot apologize for being the way she is the way that Lukas can apologize for having expectations of her that were unrealistic. It would be like Lukas apologizing for the way his family is, for the way he is.

Danicka kisses his chest again, drawing back. "Je mi lito, že jsem přehnaně," she murmurs. "Budu pokusím se být více otevřený. Ale já mohl potřebovat vaši pomoc.

Patience, she means.

Protection, she doesn't know she means.

Danicka leans up on her toes and lays a kiss on his cheek. Whispers in his ear: "Your father has cleared his throat six times in the last minute. I think we should probably go in and see him."