car, nightmares, unexpected acts of mercy.

[Lukas] "See you, Simon," Lukas says, shrugging into his jacket.

"Sadly," he replies, "I haven't seen that movie. So that pop culture reference is going to have to fly over my head." He holds the door open behind himself -- out they go ahead. Lukas's Beemer, a six-year-old M3, is chilling on the driveway. "So where'd you last remember seeing your van?"

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] You can practically see her mentally adding something to her bucket list. 'Make Lukas watch a lot of movies.' She sighs as she slips out behind Lukas, shutting the door and making her way toward the Beamer. "Last thing I remember about the van was being inside the back. I was really damn tired and just needed a place to sleep where I wasn't...waking people up." She frowns and shrugs. "I semi-woke up at a hotel near the University of Chicago, so that'll be a good place to start."

She gets into the car. "I think I might have called Amy. I don't really remember, it was all that sort of half-place where you're not asleep but still semi-dreaming."

[Lukas] They get in the Beemer, and Lukas is a little more somber when he looks at Sarita. His seatbelt slides over his shoulder, clicks into place. "Waking people up?" he repeats, slowly. "Semi-woke up? Semi-dreaming? Sarita, what the hell is going on?"

The engine turns over. The car's not new, wasn't new when he bought it, but it runs smoothly. Lukas wouldn't buy a lemon; he's far too careful for that.

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] She's quiet for several moments, before she looks out the window. She slumps a bit, the grinning, cinema-referencing Ragabash slipping easily away. That wasn't going to hold up forever anyway. She looks tired again. Physically and psychically.

"I just...we fought some thing the other night. Kate, Adara and I." She's quiet, staring at the pavement outside the car. "In the middle of it...something happened. I saw some sort of...vision, maybe. I dunno. Things that might've been if not for fate. Don't ask what, 'cause I'm not telling." There's a finality to that. "I just haven't been able to sleep since longer than the amount of time it takes me to hit REM before I wake up screaming."

[Lukas] Things that might have been if not for fate.

"Wha--" Lukas begins, but Sarita's final. Not telling. Nope. He glances at her a moment, then shrugs. "Fair enough."

Couldn't sleep after that, she goes on. He puts his hand on the back of her seat to back out of the driveway, turning the wheel, dropping into gear. As they cruise toward the university -- Lukas is familiar with the area because Danicka goes to school here -- he's quiet, thinking.

"Kate mentioned that battle. She mentioned some sort of psychic attack, but it didn't seem to hit her nearly so hard. Maybe you ought to get Cleansed, just to make sure there isn't some lingering taint in you causing these visions. Other than that... I don't know. You say you saw things that might of been if not for fate. Maybe part of exorcising your demons is going to have to be trying to make sure those things never happen because of what you do, not because of blind luck."

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] She listens, frowning. To her credit, she looks apologetic when Lukas reacts to her refusal to tell him. Some things you just can't talk about. If only because voicing them aloud might push you right over that edge you're tap dancing along.

She actually chuckles a little when Lukas says she needs to make sure the things never happen. "Yeah, I'm on that. Been on it for a while now. I just gotta do it better. Or let it go, one of the two." She sighs and nods. "Getting Cleansed might be good. Carter's twitchy enough, he doesn't need his sleep getting interrupted every half-hour or so by the crazy bitch in the next room."

[Lukas] There's a sort of fondness in the way he glances at his newest packmate. "I know you have. You're not the sort to let crap fester and just cry about it without doing anything. I just meant -- maybe that's a way to put this to rest. I know if I'm hung up on something, usually I just need to do everything in my power to make sure things go the way I hope. Then even if it doesn't, I know I've done my best, and I'm at peace with myself.

"Maybe it'll be something similar with you. Maybe things won't right themselves immediately, but eventually.

"As for Carter -- I think he's actually getting a little better. He hasn't burned Kate's house down yet. He even showed some interest in protecting the Caern today. I'm letting him go to Imogen's meeting. If he doesn't completely implode there, maybe he's not a completely lost cause after all."

[Lukas] [bbiab, shower!]

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] "Well, that's good. Massive smoke inhalation isn't good for my complexion." She smirks a little, then sighs.

"If you can fix that one, I'll be impressed, I'll tell you." She shakes her head. "He's definitely improved. But in all honesty, I've found that it takes just a little twitch, something minor, to send them way over the edge. They try to do something good--maybe the wrong way, but they've got the right idea. And everybody freaks out over it because it's not the way it quote-unquote 'should' be done. And then when their attempt to reach out and try what we're guiding them to is rejected, they have a poor reaction, which gives the some of the Trueborn who have been predicting all along that they would fail every little bit of ammo they need to show that indeed, it's all fucked up and there's no point in trying. Which just sends the kin further over the edge."

She looks at Lukas. "What I'm saying is, Carter's headed in a good direction. But the first step isn't the hardest by a long shot, no matter what the old adages say. It's the first step that they lose their footing on. That's the hardest."

[Lukas] "True," Lukas says. "It's not an easy path he's on. And I even understand the argument that it's not all his fault that he's on the path at all. He turned out this way because he was brutalized. But the problem is that that's like arguing we should let serial killers walk because they were abused as kids. Plenty of kids get abused without turning into murderers. Plenty of kin get brutalized without turning into rabid racists. It can't all be nurture; some of that is nature. And I suppose from my perspective, that sort of nature is weak.

"I guess all of that is just me saying: I know every step of his life is going to be an uphill battle. But then so are our lives. And if he's strong enough he'll save his hatred for those that really deserve it."

They're down around the UoC's vicinity now. These streets, so bustling and busy by day, are quiet at night. Used bookstores, cafes and quirky-trendy little shops pepper the streets. Flyers for parties, clubs, organizations and demonstrations flutter on lampposts.

"Any of this look familiar to you? Any memory bells ringing?"

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] "No, I get what you're saying. I'm not making any excuses for what he's done...because you're right, you can't blame it all on what's happened to you. Or that he should be coddled for the whole of his existence. What I'm saying is, right now is critical. If he's starting to make overtures, he's testing the waters and waiting for someone to prove his old instincts right. Just like Kora and her insularity, he needs to get a bit of reassurance that when he trips and falls, we're not just there waiting to give him the big ol' boot party he's waiting for."

She looks out the window and frowns. "Vaguely, but I've been here before. Amy and I were gonna get a..." She pauses, and blinks.

"Oh hell. Make a right at the next light, go down the street. There's an apartment complex down there. I think that's where I parked it."

[Lukas] "Huh." There's a quiet; it's obvious Lukas is mulling this over. "A second second chance? I can see the benefit there, both from a compassionate and a practical standpoint. But I suppose the way I was taught, you give one warning, and that is the second chance. After that it's time for discipline. The philosophy there is that they should be expecting a boot party if they falter again. And if you don't give it to them, then you'll have nothing but empty threats ever after."

Sarita says make a right. Lukas gives her a look of some skepticism, but complies. Around the corner they go.

"My mate goes to school here," he comments. "Funny thing is, I think once upon a time she gave me similar advice. About second-second chances."

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] "Your mate's a smart woman." She smiles a little. "And you're right. Most people, you give one chance to. After that one chance, they fuck up again, there's an ass-kicking coming. Either figuratively or literally if warranted. But then there's other people. The people who have every reason not to trust you, who are trying to find their way onto the path again. They have to be handled differently. And I'm not saying that if he tries to shoot one of us that we should take the gun and gently explain 'No, we don't do that.' But when--and I ~do~ think it's a when, not an if--when he is given a reason right out of the gate by some idiot cliath with a power trip that justifies everything he thinks and he reacts badly, he needs to see there's a different side."

A little smile. "Different strokes for different folks."

As they approach the apartment complex at the end of the street, the one with the big ad for new places, she groans and facepalms. "God, I'm a fucking idiot. Yeah, we're gonna be here, inside the parking lot. I must have been trying to pull some fucking Elm Street/Inception shit. Change the dream and all, do what I thought I should have."

[Danicka Musil] And standing outside those apartments, those big ads for new places, is a slim blonde woman in ankle boots, cream-colored tights, a knee-length leather pencil skirt, and a somewhat loose silk blouse in pink. And there's jewelry and there's her pulling on a trench coat and a Dunhill held between her lips, releasing a faint curl of smoke upwards. She's got a bright yellow satchel, some dainty Kate Spade bag, and is talking to a woman about her own age.

That woman is white, barefoot, dreadlocked, hair-kerchiefed, pierced, hand-tattooed, bangled, broomstick-skirted, handwoven alpaca cardigan'd, and incensed. And shivering. She's doing most of the talking.

[Lukas] "Huh," Lukas says again.

He doesn't say anything more than that -- not I'll think about it, and not maybe you're right. He doesn't need to say that. Sarita can tell by the sound of his voice, the faint furrow to his brow, that he's heard her. She hasn't known him that long, all things considered, but she knows him well enough already to know he will consider what she's said. Counseled. And the next time Carter trips up, he just might find a little more slack in the figurative rope. Maybe.

He's turning into that complex then. Sarita's referencing two more movies. Lukas, amused: "Do you just sit in your van and watch movies or something?" The headlights wash over Danicka. Lukas blinks. "What the."

That frown isn't a thoughtful one. The Beemer comes to a stop a little harder than necessary. He barely knocks the gearshift into neutral and pulls up the handbrake before he's out of the car, barking.

"Hey!" Camera pans over: Lukas standing in the V of his opened car door, one hand on the hood, the other on the door. Glowering. "What the hell?"

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] She laughs. "Hey, I had a good solid sixteen years before I had any freaking idea about this shit. Had a lot of bad habits I built up during that time, and a fascination with pop culture was one of them."

And then all of the sudden, Lukas is up and yelling at someone. Sarita doesn't ask questions; she just hops up and takes the same pose on her side of the car. Instant back-up, just add Strider.

[Danicka Musil] The woman in the alpaca sweater and long, swishy skirt startles when Lukas jerks the BMW to a stop and glares, glowers, barks. She blinks, deer in the headlights, then glares right back.

Danicka takes a drag of her expensive little cigarette and exhales smoke to the side a moment later, relaxed as she was before. "Sometimes," she answers, "I smoke," as though this is what he's barking about. Which it might be. She gestures to the woman next to her. "Lukáš, this is Kumari Dawson. She's working on her PhD in Environmental Science and Public Policy. Dr. Whitby introduced me to her after I heard about the groundbreaking over by the docks."

She doesn't raise an eyebrow or inflect her voice pointedly as though to say hint hint, honey. She just introduces the woman calmly, then: "Kumari, this is my partner --" god, she knows her audience, doesn't she, "Lukáš Kvasni&+269;ka, who only likes it when I smoke earthier fare." Smiling, she drops the cigarette, crushes it under a bootheel, then picks up the butt with a tissue from her purse and tosses it into a wastebin as though making a peace offering. "With him is our friend Sarita."

Kumari has stopped glaring. "Dani," and she doesn't say Danny as Sam Modine or Ilari Martin would, calls her Dahni, merely leaving off the harder-to-pronounce part of her name, "says the whole thing sounds shady as hell," says the woman, speaking with the sort of clarity that compensates somewhat for her urgency, her passion, her anger, "and I think she's right. They're not even pretending to care anymore."

[Lukas] Well, at least the anger, so defensive, so ready to defend, is gone. In its place is bafflement. She's talking about earthier fare. Her -- not attacker, it turns out, though it's vaguely absurd to even worry about someone like Danicka, with glory notches on her belt and a mother who was literally legendary -- new friend starts right into something being shady as hell. And she agrees. And 'they' don't even pretend to care anymore.

"Uh," says Lukas. Great first impression. Now the Ph.D. candidate in Environmental Science and Public Policy thinks Danicka's partner is a great lumbering lummox. Who's wearing old jeans and a t-shirt under his jacket, at that.

"Uh." The penny drops at last. "Of course they don't even pretend to care. The Republicans are back in Congress. They don't have to pretend anymore."

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] Sarita can't help it. She's very good about hiding her grin at Lukas' reaction. Even if dark brown eyes sparkle with laughter, forgetting all the trauma of the last forty-eight hours for just a moment, her expression is calm, relaxed nodding. She's a freaking pot dealer, for Christ's sake. If she doesn't know how to deal with environmentalists rebelling against THE MAN, then she's in the wrong line of fucking work.

"No shit, dude." She nods a little bit to Lukas, head bobbing just a touch. "We're deep in the shit now. Fuckers are gonna turn it into another chance to bulldoze our children's future into some kind of fuckin' landfill for a few extra bucks. Fuck that shit."

Yes, she's playing the less-educated one in this group. Every rant against [b]THE MAN[/i] needs one of those. Meanwhile, inwardly she's laughing.

[Danicka Musil] Uh, says the Adren Shadow Lord, Alpha of his pack, Alpha of his tribe, Alpha of his auspice. Driving a Beemer and wearing scruffy clothes under his jacket. Christ only knows what that hippy thinks of him now. Except that he has it backwards. Kumari sees someone not worried about labels or the newest car -- though really he could have chosen something a bit greener, people are so lazy -- but also someone who's 420friendly and not so macho to mind being an equal partner with his legally defined companion rather than some patriarchal husband insisting on her changing her name.

After another Uh, he grouses about the Republicans, and Sarita starts tossing all kinds of F-bombs and acting like a moron. Danicka, for her part, doesn't mind wearing leather around her hippy acquaintance. She's aware that Kumari may try to convert her to unshaved legs and a SmartCar if she works too much with the woman, but she's confident that once Kumari starts talking to other students and once Danicka starts giving classmates of hers Kumari's number

there's going to be one hell of a protest at the construction site for that reporter at the Chicago Sun-Times to cover. After all, the weather's starting to get tolerable.

Kumari's eyebrows flick a bit at Sarita, but she nods to the two newcomers, and Danicka's speaking up again, reaching to shake the woman's hand. The woman hugs her. Over her shoulder, Danicka rolls her eyes at Lukas -- and Sarita, really. But then she smiles, and Sarita, who has never seen how effective a liar Danicka is, may indeed be surprised at how smoothly, how quickly, how convincingly her expression changes, right up to the light in her green eyes as she draws back, hands on Kumari's shoulders.

"I'll be in touch," Danicka says. "I have some friends who live in that area who started looking into all this business and then soon as they did, bam. Suddenly the place they live needs a state inspection."

She and Kumari both shake their heads, angry and weary together. She squeezes the hippy's shoulder, says her goodbyes, and tells her to get inside before her feet freeze. Then she's striding over to the Beemer, raising her eyebrows at the Unbroken.

"I'm going to pass this along to Matthieu, too, but just in case cameras arrive, I think the Kin and Garou should stay away from the protest. We don't need our people's names and faces in the media; it just makes them targets."

[Lukas] Kumari departs. Lukas holds up a hand in farewell. Then Danicka is coming over to the Beemer, and Lukas is stepping around the door to give her a quick hug.

"You got a protest set up in twelve hours?" He looks a little gobsmacked. And impressed. "I talked to Imogen Slaughter and Kora a little earlier. Imogen she'd try to get all the kin together to hear everyone out and get a plan to Deal With This. Obviously, you and Matthieu are invited. I'm letting Carter go too. He had some ideas. Not sure if they're feasible, but he's actually trying to protect the Caern, and I think I should probably encourage that. Let me know if he actually contributes or if he tries to start another anti-Garou rally.

"On the way over Sarita and I were talking about unexpected acts of mercy, by the way." A quirk of a smile, "I told her you talked to me about something like that once."

[Danicka Musil] "No, I talked to someone who will set up a protest," Danicka corrects, cautious as ever to Lukas's sometimes surprising optimism. "The wheels are in motion, though. I have one semi-influential person angry and one semi-accessible reporter interested. It's going to take time for that to turn into something concrete."

She is hugged, and she stands on her toes and gives him a kiss on the cheek. She took exactly one drag of that cigarette. She doesn't exactly smell like Essence of Lung Cancer quite yet.

She nods to the rest, though, about the meeting and Imogen and Carter and so forth. Glances over at Sarita to smile at her, give a little wave, then raises her eyebrows at Lukas. "What?" she asks, clearly clueless as to what he could be referencing.

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] "Yeah, keeping our peeps away from any kind of public action is probably a good thing. No need establishing a pattern of behavior that a paid-off court of law can come in and persecute over." Some people might assume she used the wrong word and really meant to say 'prosecute.' They'd be wrong.

When Lukas mentions the unexpected acts of mercy conversation, she just grins a little and shrugs. "Great minds think alike, I guess. Hola, by the way."

[Danicka Musil] [put my post after Sarita's!]

[Lukas] The light in his eyes, the sort of surprised-pleased-happy look he gets when he runs across Danicka unexpectedly, dims a little. There was a reason he never got into the details with Sarita -- though it wasn't secrecy. Something more like shame, a willingness to forget the specifics.

"It was a long time ago," he says quietly -- unflinchingly honest, "when I told you not to lie to me again or else. And you told me sometimes positive reinforcement works better, because negative can only escalate to stay effective."

[Sarita Ecos de la Risa] "Hey, that's the best kind action," she says with a grin when Danicka speaks of what she has and hasn't done. "Actions with built in plausible deniablity. That stuff doesn't happen every day, so take it when you can, y'klnow?"

[Danicka Musil] Not anything recent, then. Not when he talked to her about Ray and Marni, not when they argued about Martin, nothing like that. Back all the way to the Blue Chalk Cafe, a place he doesn't even like to go anymore because of some memory, some shame. And her brows flick together but not in much of a frown

because Sarita may be Lukas's packmate but so was Sam, backhanding her in the Brotherhood, stalking her to her apartment and following her around Grant Park. So was Kate, when Kate was the monster appearing out of nowhere in Danicka's home, chasing her roommate around, snarling at him, tying him down. So was Mrena, who saw the slightest subterfuge and convinced herself it was a plot to destroy the pack from within, not just an attempt to hide the fact that she wanted to do something nice and make Lukas happy. So was Theron, foolishly thinking Danicka could tell him how to stop chasing tail and get the sort of bond she has with Lukas, as though there was some secret to it she could unlock for him.

Sarita doesn't have Danicka's trust. She's the devil Danicka doesn't know yet.

So that frown is a flick, and then it's gone. She puts her hand on Lukas's face for a moment with a gentle smile. What she wants to say, she doesn't say in front of Sarita. Her hand slides back and she smiles again. "I was going to take the El back to my place, but since you're here," she implies, waggling her brows.

[Lukas] Danicka doesn't know Sarita yet. Lukas hopes she'll get to, though. Because -- let's be honest -- Lukas knows that this pack has its core. Its true, dependable brothers and sisters. And then at any give time it has some assortment of wolves that run more on the fringes, that never quite dovetail with the unspoken ideals and vision and character of the pack. Oftentimes there's no way to tell just which side of that line a Garou will fall on until they've joined.

With Sinclair, they got a winner. With Sarita, they hit the jackpot again. And Lukas wants his mate to get to know this Ragabash -- this smart-alecking, playful, ineffably wise Ragabash. Who knows how to love her sister without smothering her. Who knows how not to pretend she's Danicka's best friend the second or third time they ever meet.

Sarita doesn't really comment on what Lukas and Danicka talk about. She keeps her response aimed toward the more public, less raw part of the conversation. That's wisdom, too, and Lukas is thankful for it.

And then -- grinning again, a little crooked, covering his mate's hand on his cheek for a second.

"I suppose you won't be taking the El after all," he says. "Sarita," he nods to the painted van parked inconspicuously in the corner of the lot, "is that it, or are there two vans that look just like that in the city?"

[that's my last post! i'ma stick around for a bit to see if Sam is awake enough to post again, but then i'm zonking!]

[Danicka Musil] [zonks are imminent here, too]

[Lukas] [OKAY, time to pile drunkfrend into back seat.]

[Danicka Musil] [*SIGH*

*helps Damon carry Sam to car*]

[Lukas] [*opens door, stuffs in*]

[Danicka Musil] [*tosses keys over to Damon*]

[Danicka Musil] [THANKS FOR THE RP! :] ]

[Lukas] [*slams door, zooms off*!]

[cricket] [ACK *exits*]

[Lukas] [thanks for RP! *LOL*]