solstice.

[Danicka] Sometimes two years seems like forever. More than he ever expected or looked for; more than he could have hoped for. And sometimes it's painfully small, a fraction of his lifetime. Of hers. She's just a little bit older, not much, not enough for him to feel like he missed that much more of her growing up, of her changing, of her becoming who she is now. Two years isn't very long at all, when he thinks of how little he knows of her life even now. Of how hard it is for her to talk about it,

and of how little it all matters to him, in a way. He looks for problems to fix, he looks for things he can do to help. She tells him about Christian, about the times she got pregnant, and she tells him about Vladislav and the way he beat her. Lukas controls the urge to find her brother and break his neck, but barely, and even then that's where his focus is: find the source of the pain. Fix it. End it. And with Danicka, so much of her life... there's nothing like that for him to hang himself on.

No villain. No source. Just the way that it changed her, the way it affects her now, and sometimes he seems woefully incapable of even knowing how to respond, understanding what she might need from him, or what -- barring need -- might draw her closer to him,

closer to this moment,

with all of that in the past.

What Lukas can do, and does do, is get as close to her as he can. There are gulfs between them, endless chasms because he is what he is and she is what she is. The fact that he cannot change tonight doesn't change the fact that his life is ultimately far, far away from hers, and hers from his. If he never changed again, it would not take away the fact that once, he could. Once, he did. Once, he was the Ahroun and Shadow Lord elder, leader of his pack, warrior surrounded by other wolves, and even with the ability to shift taken from him, it would still be a part of him, inextricable.

That is part of what she might have tried to say. To teach. She isn't talking anymore.

Danicka gasps, softly, against his mouth when he cups her breast and makes that sound against her lips. She flows up into his arms and there's color in her cheeks when he draws away from her, sees her face. This isn't rapid, isn't frenetic, but still, the decline is as steep as it always is. She invites him in, she brings him into their den and kisses his mouth and puts his hands on her and he submerges himself in this. In her. In all this warmth between them, melting into it as quickly and cleanly as he could melt into another form

on any other night.

That skirt is full and long and thick, stretching under his hands as he pushes it up and out of his way. Danicka just exhales at what he says, perhaps a whisper:

I know

or nothing at all. His hands find nothing past the expanse of her thigh, the curve of her hip. Like last year, she wears nothing underneath this gown of hers, ritual or just beautiful, and she's moaning into his mouth, pressing closer to him even from against the wall. No dirt in her hair tonight, no dirt on her dress, her feet. No bonfire out in the woods. Just Danicka, taken with him to the spirit world she's always tried to touch, and Danicka

his mate, closing her legs around him again, holding his face in her hands,

not knowing how long it's been. She never counts the days anymore.

[Lukas] In some strange way, he feels farther apart from Danicka tonight than he does on any other night. Maybe it's the season. Maybe it's the solstice, and what it means. The descent into the darkness. The testing of the faith. The turning of the sun, but also the coming of the cold. The coldest, darkest season, which will not break again until the equinox.

Or maybe it's the change in him. The very change he wanted to keep, so he could keep her closer: it shakes him at the core. He has not asked her why she thanked him. He has not asked her what it is, really, she wants to tell him. Teach him. He tries to be close to her in the most basic, elemental way he knows -- as though the loss of that most crucial aspect of his primal nature has driven him to rely all the more on the rest.

So there are no words now, except i want and i know. He presses her against the wall and she rides on his body as he pulls her skirt up in drags and pulls, that thick, soft fabric stretching in his strong hands, sliding caught between their bodies, a friction that pulls and pulls and then is abruptly gone.

She's wearing nothing underneath. His hands have rucked her skirts up to her waist, and when he looks down he can see her, the bare length of her legs, the way they wrap around his denimclad hips. He gasps, runs his hand under her dress, his palm warm and rough over her stomach, her belly, his thumb sliding down to her clit. He kisses her like that, grinding against her, worshiping her mouth with his, her pussy with his hand.

They have to separate a while for him to get his pants down. He lifts her, and her hands go to his belt. They manage. He's impatient by then, panting against her mouth, whispering hurry and baby and when she finds him under his jeans, his boxer briefs, he's hard and hot in her hand, jumping from the touch of her skin, shuddering all down his back when she guides him to her opening.

He lets out a long, low groan when they come together. When she sinks down on him, when his arms wrap around her. They're still mostly clothed. He kisses her neck, bites at her shoulder. He fucks her against the wall, slow and hard, deep, heavy. Her fingers dig at his shirt, pull at his biceps, and after a while he leans back, supporting her one-armed, and with the pressure of his hips to hers, while they push his shirt up together, and then off.

As soon as his head is free again he leans forward into her. He's almost totally bare now, his pants around his ankles, nothing but skin everywhere else. There's something strange and savage about this: the way he slides his hands under her dress, finds her skin beneath that cloth, or velvet, or silk, or whatever it is she wears when she is -- if only briefly, and luminously -- not jaro, but zima.

[Danicka] He's far away from himself -- or feels that way, at least. Everything that touches his life is, then, that much harder for him to reach.

Except she's so close to him now, her legs tight around his waist as he finds his way back to her, into her. Those sounds she makes -- the plaintive-seeming gasps, the near-whimper as her back slides against the wall every time he pushes his cock into her. The heat builds between them, humid and swirling against their chests, their throats. When he kisses her neck he can taste her sweat. When she kisses his mouth she can taste his moans.

No telling when this started. When he realized his packmates were alive and that this wasn't an attack, and when he picked up his mate and knew she was warm and safe and close to him, no matter what. When he stood in the umbra and her hand was there in his, the whole time, just as real as anything there. When he saw her waiting for him in the car, the heater running shamelessly, saw her eyes open slowly from her drowsing and meet his. Maybe it didn't begin until she touched his hair, so similar to the way she caresses him sometimes when they've made love, bringing to his mind thoughts of her laying naked underneath him, languid and spent, bringing to mind the way it feels to cover her then, his head on her breasts, listening to her heart.

Which led him back to this, to wanting that, to feeling her standing between his feet and pressed to his body. Her braid is so loose it's almost fallen apart completely, the ribbon on the end brushing over her chest as he fucks her up against their living room wall. Their living room. Their wall. Their den. And it's just the same, the way she grabs onto him, the sounds she makes, the way that even now she fucks him right back, grinds down on his cock and bounces slightly when he thrusts a little harder, moves a little faster. The way her eyes flash is the same when his shirt comes off and she folds over him, her hands running over his bare skin, her mouth open to his shoulder, gasping.

They crush against one another like that. Her dress is already off the shoulder and it's easy enough to tug it down, easy enough to bend his neck and put his mouth on her breasts, sucking one into his mouth and gasping for breath when she twists like that, when he licks her nipple and it makes her shudder up against him. But when they start to go faster, when they start to just

fuck, goddammit,

her head's tipped back and his body is pushing hers that much harder to the wall, pounding at her, every thrust a new groan from his throat. She's clutching at his hair, at his back, the moan that's nearly wailing turning to panting little gasps

I'm gonna come, I'm gonna come, I'm gonna --

and spurring him on faster, harder, watching her face as he drives her up to the edge and over it, fucks himself into her until she shatters around him, quaking, quivering, squirming between his chest and the wall.

[Lukas] To trace the origin of their want is often as fruitless as tracing the edge of the ocean. In some ways he wanted her before he knew he wanted her; long before he knew want wasn't the same thing as lust. Perhaps from the moment their hands touched at the club, in the swirl of multicolored lights and lasers, with the bass pounding through them and her name, her scent, her eyes, everything about her speaking to him and telling him

home. thunder. jaro.

He has her now, even if sometimes it doesn't quite feel like it. Even if sometimes they fight, and it's devastating; and sometimes they don't quite connect, don't quite make that contact, and it's

well, devastating.

He has her, though: and right now he doesn't doubt it. He holds on to her, her dress rucked up almost to her ribcage, his hands under it clutching at her back, pulling at her as she tips her head back for him, or for herself, or simply for those moans escaping her as he presses his mouth to her throat and fucks her, slams her, pounds her against the wall until she's crying out, falling apart,

and he's biting her shoulder, falling apart, fucking into her and holding himself there, right there, panting and groaning against her skin as his senses spin apart into incoherence.


It's the same. Still the same, whether or not he has the wolf. Whether or not she's seen the other side of the mirror.


Their den is still quiet and dark, but growing warmer, as they come down from that nameless peak. He's nuzzling her now, gently, rubbing his nose and his mouth and his cheek against her shoulder, her neck, finding her mouth to kiss her through his own gasping pants. After a time he goes slowly to his knees, bringing her with him; kneels on the floor with her on his lap, her skirts pool around them, black as night, black as winter.

He leans her against the wall. Leans his brow to the cool wall, himself. His hands move gently over her ass, rubbing, caressing; his breathing slows.

"Why did you thank me earlier?" he whispers.

[Danicka] Might've been just like this, actually, had he caught her hand before she and Gabriella left the club, held her wrist a little too tightly and told her he wanted her. Told her to come back there after dropping the girl off, told her to come find him. The truth is he knows now -- has to know -- that Danicka wouldn't have needed a threat. Only an invitation. He has to know, now, that whatever came of it later he could have had her that very night, maybe just like this

up against a wall, her skirt pushed up not just so he could get to her cunt but pushed up high enough for him to see her body fucking him like, making him sweat for it, taking him.

Like she does now. Fucks him to her orgasm, makes him sweat to his, takes him and digs her nails into his back and groans when she comes, riding up higher against his chest and trusting his strength the way she always does, the way she's never had to stop herself from doing. She's never thought to hold back, to restrain herself. She dissolves against him long before he lowers their bodies to the floor, making a caught little cry when his cock moves inside of her from the descent.

Danicka just holds onto him, though, and lays her head on his shoulder as she catches her breath, drowsily permitting his nuzzling, his kisses, murmuring nothings in response, sighing a wordless whisper. Lukas just touches her. Rubs his hands on her body, feels her on him. They don't move much, beyond that.

"Mm?" she answers, at first, before she remembers language. He's talking. Using words. She just rubs her face on his skin, and then her head drifts upward, and she finds his eyes. "Because you did it for me."

[Lukas] Their faces rub past one another before she finds her words again. She finds his eyes first, blue like a glacier's heart, a color so easily cold. Never cold, when he looks at her. All warmth right now, sleepy and spent, opening to hers,

smiling when his mouth smiles, when she answers him. It's so simple he wonders why he didn't know it already. His hands shift her a little closer; that movement shivers through his eyes like a shadow, like shook velvet.

"Oh," he whispers. His brow touches hers. He closes his eyes again.

[Danicka] Her arms slide more fully around his neck, folding him closer again. She closes her eyes and lays her head back where it was, so easily, so smoothly, as though that's where she's been for hours and he stirred her just to ask this little question: why? And the answer was so simple.

Not because she needed it. He frenzied and she stayed and it gurgled up to the surface later that she was having nightmares and she wasn't quite so fine as she'd seemed and even now sometimes she feels so far away, like something's broken between them and it casts his heart to chaos, but she never wished he wasn't this. She's thought about it. She's thought about what if they'd met and he'd just been a kinsman, her brother would have been alright with that, if he was well-bred and strong as Lukas is. She's thought about it, but she knows it's just aimless wondering. The reality is that she's never wished him to be anything but what he is.

And all the same, tonight he said give me til dawn. I'll be grateful. and Danicka is the one telling him thank you. Not because she needed something and he gave it to her for a few hours. But because something in him just wanted to be closer to her, to make it okay, to be with her and know she didn't have to fight down fear and instinct. He did it because he loves her. He did it because he wants to show her that.

Her dress covers her thighs now, her bared breasts covered by his chest. She holds him with her black-clad arms, breathes in softly when he moves her closer.

"We should do that again," she murmurs finally, then draws back and smiles at him, a little loose, more than a little lazy. She nuzzles him, her voice low and musing, lips brushing by his ear. "You can give me a bath... and eat my pussy. Turn me over and take me like that."

[Lukas] Another few moments and it's warm enough that the heater shuts off. Vent pipes tick, then fall to silence. It's just them now: their breathing, the soft rustle of her sleeves over his bare skin.

And that murmur she tucks into his ear like a secret, just before she gives him that lazy smile. His eyes darken when his eyes fall to her mouth. He puts his hand on her face, gently, his thumb riding the movement of her lips as she says

everything else she says, which makes him draw a breath swiftly enough that she sees it in the rising of his chest. Feels it when his cock stirs inside her, as though even now, in the moments immediately after a sudden, summer-storm fuck like that, he still hasn't had enough.

He leans forward and kisses her mouth, right where his thumb had touched. His tongue touches her lips, gentle, almost experimental. Then his mouth closes over hers, and it's a long kiss, drawn-out, slow, and when it's over her gathers her skirts up and pushes her dress up and pulls it all off over her head, her hair tumbling down her back like gold, like burnished cloth-of-gold, like silk.

"Okay," he whispers, smiling. Another moment -- his hand tracing her side, cradling her breast as though her body were precious to him,

which it is.

Then he lifts her off his lap, sighing. He gets up with her, stepping out of his jeans, leaving it and his shirt and her dress on the ground where they lay. He holds his hand out to her.


The truth is, Lukas asked the spirit for a few more hours because he thought it might be different. The truth is, he was also afraid it might be different. Afraid that without his wolf, Danicka would behave differently toward him. Treat him differently. Treat him as less, or more, or simply safer; open herself more, close herself up. Afraid of finding a shred of proof, a shard to an arrow in his heart that would say to him that she was terrified of him.

But it wasn't different. It was the same. It would have always been the same, whether he took her home that first night or not, whether the first time they had each other was in a dingy motel or a five star hotel or

right here, at home, in their den.


On the stairs, on the way up, he says, "I'm glad you were with me tonight. I'm glad you went with me to the other side."

[Danicka] Lukas says nothing to that, not at first. He watches her mouth like it fascinates him, and she parts her lips over the pad of his thumb, as it brushes across that paper-thin flesh, those soft curls of warmth. She watches his eyes, keeps them open while he kisses her. Silence as he strokes her lips with his tongue, then a sigh when he gives her his whole mouth. Danicka moves on him while he's sealed to her, rocking gently once, twice on his lap. She moves again when he parts from her and lifts her dress; her arms rise over her head and the fabric peels off her skin and she's naked, long and lean and warm to the touch.

Now: [i]okay,[/i] he says, the word little more than a breath. She moves into his hands and kisses the corner of his mouth, kisses his jaw, touches him as he runs his hands along her side.

They slide apart finally, Lukas's hands on her hips guiding her upward and holding her balance while Danicka rises to her feet. She doesn't bother to bend for their clothes; they leave them where they are, like they always do. She waits for him while he steps out of his jeans, and once upon a time she wouldn't have waited, would have let him watch her walk across the room and up the stairs, but that was a long time before they had this room, these stairs.

His fear is going away. Danicka's hand in his feels like it did when they were in the spirit world, and Danicka's body felt the same as it did on all the other full moons that he's made love to her, though -- truth be told -- stronger than the first time, the second, the dozenth. So much stronger. She leans on him less. Painfully, almost: she needs him less, though one of the things that drew him to her was the sense that she never really had to lean on him, would never really need him. The sense that she was strong, and that anything she gave him would come from want, and not in some warped bargain, exchanging her love for his protection.

The instinctive knowledge, that exists even now, that she [i]could[/i] love him. If she wanted to. That it would be, regardless of what a liar she seemed to be, always and deeply honest...

if it was there at all.


They walk upstairs, the same as the last time they were here, which was a long time ago. He hasn't had enough; she asked for more. And it's not different from then. The fact that he frenzied and things have been unsettled since then is still there. The fact that some parts of her are brittle, and fragile, is still there. The fact that they make themselves as close as they can despite all the gulfs and gaps between them is still there. The fact that they surmount all of it to be together is still there.

It's not any different, because he isn't a wolf tonight. It's not any different, because it's the solstice. She's looking at him over her shoulder at the top of the stairs when he speaks, her hand laced loosely with his, and she's guiding him around the corner so they can to into their bedroom. Her eyes are thoughtful, but really, they often are.

"That was... unexpected," she says, the breathy, almost laughing way she says the word indicating she's aware of how paltry it is, how far from perfectly accurate it is. She walks through the half-open bedroom door. Winter bedding is out, all thick and warm. In some ways it has the feeling of a guest house, left peaceful and clean while they're not here, waiting quietly for them to return, waiting

silent and secret, sacred.

"I didn't think it was possible." She doesn't sound troubled, just musing, maybe even a little confused. "Before death, at least."

[Lukas] One of the things that drew him to her was the sense that she never really had to lean on him. One of the things that never would have drawn him at all would have been a sense that she did. That she was so weak, so fragile, that she would cling to him for strength. Bow to him for her own life.

He could have never loved that. Respected that. Or, really, even borne that -- not so much out of disgust or hatred, but out of a sort of fear. That warped bargain, her love for his protection, was something he always feared, at the beginning. Feared again, after the frenzy. Now, tonight, perhaps it can finally be buried.

So much is changing tonight, and so quickly, so quietly, that they hardly have time to process. It could be weeks before the aftereffects ripple to the surface. It could be months, or years.

For now, he holds his mate's hand, the way he did on the other side, in the face of a spirit who -- if not an avatar of gaia herself, if not a voice of the universe itself -- was at least immensely powerful. It means something that it brought Danicka with him. It means something to Lukas that it was benevolent, and good, and that it wanted to teach and give and affirm.

There's a small pause before Lukas answers, speaking carefully, as though afraid to hurt her. "I've heard that some powerful Theurges, Adren-ranked or higher, can pull others across the Gauntlet with them almost at will. I thought maybe when I was Adren I could trade a favor with a friendly Theurge and ask to have you brought across, but ... I didn't tell you because I didn't want to put out false hope.

"Anyway, I'm glad it happened this way. It would have been different, if someone else was dragging you along in their wake."

[Danicka] There should be nothing in this life that frightens someone -- something -- like him. They're at the apex, aren't they, Garou? They can, particularly if they work together, kill almost anything. Danicka seems to awaken so many fears in him, though. So many new worries that his fosterage didn't prepare him for. New fronts to fight on, and little knowledge of how to defend them. The niggling feeling, over and over, that this is one area of his life that works so differently that all the familiar tactics have to be tossed out.

They walk into the bedroom and she lets loose his hand, reaching up to finally finish the untying of the little ribbon, last binding keeping her hair in that braid. She combs her fingers gently through it til her hair is completely undone, washing across her shoulders.

She looks at him when he mentions Theurges, Adren-ranked or higher. It's hard to read her expression as he tells her what they can do -- might be able to do. He says [i]I thought maybe when I was Adren --[/i] and her lips take on a small, aching smile. Tender.

"You know I wouldn't have wanted you to trade the favor, too," she says, and that's the truth: put himself in someone's debt. Friends turn too easily to enemies. Favors are too easily turned into deeper, more dangerous debts. She reaches for his hand again. When he takes it, sliding his fingers into hers, she smiles. No ache, now. "I don't think I've really processed what happened tonight yet. I might never. I might just have to let it be something that happened, and not try to work out my feelings on it."

[i]How do you reconcile yourself with yourself?
I don't.[/i]

She closes her hand into his, around his, with his. Folds them together. "Let's take a bath," she says, her voice a little lower, something of a reminder. "Later we'll find you some food."

When was the last time he ate? Really?

"Maybe we can just stay here until that dinner with Katherine," she adds, more hesitant, like a request. "We don't have a tree or anything this year, but we should still have Christmas here. And your birthday."

[Lukas] So easily their hands come together again and again tonight. When she reaches out, he wraps his fingers through hers. She smiles at him and he smiles back.

The top of the stairs is warm and dark -- chimney effect drawing heat up from downstairs. He vaguely and briefly reminded of that makebelieve house in the Underworld; the one that looked nothing like this one but felt everything like it. For a second he can almost convince himself he hears a little girl's nonstop chattering; a little boy's legos clicking together. A chubby baby's wordless yell for attention.

Just his mate and himself, though. And a pack out there somewhere, complete with the sister that can't wait for the excuse to throw another formal dinner where Lukas will dress up but show up no more rigid of manner than on any other night, and quite possibly with vodka and wine. Just his mate and himself, with her reminding him of that bath,

that promised lovemaking,

and food. Suddenly his smile broadens. He laughs, "Wait a second. Are [i]you[/i] trying to make sure [i]I've[/i] eaten? Am I in the twilight zone?"

-- and before she can answer, Lukas leans down to kiss her firmly, smilingly.

"Let's get a tree," he whispers after. Holds up his hand, thumb and forefinger six inches apart, "A little one. And Kando. And let's stay here 'til Christmas."

[Danicka] It's not yet Christmas. In a few days it will be. Danicka's family was traditional, was old Czech, never adopted the American way of celebrating the holiday, as Lukas's family seemed to. Christmas Eve is for gifts and for the big dinner, close family close by. Christmas Day is for visiting, for seeing friends, for looking on the world fresh and bright and joyful. In a few days she'll want to curl up with Lukas and give him gifts, make him wait til midnight to open the one for his birthday, smile as he does.

Last year she made up for lost time. This year it doesn't seem that she needs to bring him home and show him piles upon piles of presents. This year they have a little more time: time to spend quietly at home together, alone.

Time is what he told his packmate he wished for more of. Just a little more time. He might wonder now if that would be an equitable bargain: his wolf for more time. He might not have an answer, even thinking to himself now about the children they could have, the life they could make.

Are making.

Danicka screws up her face as he asks if he's in the twilight zone. He's never going to let go of that. "[i]You[/i] haven't eaten for [i]hours[/i]. I ate at the r--"

He kisses her, smiling through it, the stretch of his lips keeping them from sealing perfectly, so she just goes on talking while his mouth is on hers, though her voice is muffled: "-- rite. You burn two thousand calories a minute just [i]existing[/i], and --"

Lukas kisses her again, more firmly. More deeply. Slower. Danicka relents, stepping closer, wrapping her arms around his neck. Their bared bodies touch, press gently together for the first time since that sweaty afterglow downstairs. When they part, she keeps her arms around him. He keeps one around her slender waist, holds up his hand. A tiny tree, his hand shows her, and she laughs at that.

Nods. "Okay," she says softly, her eyes deep, and lit,

evergreen.