love the ones you love.

[Lukas] It's true: sex isn't at the forefront of Lukas's mind as he holds his mate like this; touches her like this. He's touching for the sake of touch. For the sake of closeness, which he never used to allow himself. Even after he finally gave in to what he wanted, to what he'd wanted since the very beginning -- even then, it was a long time before he simply allowed himself to enjoy ... being with her. Allowed himself to show her that he enjoyed this.

All that said: she knows him. She knows how even changing the way she's touching his leg would make his blood stir. She knows that simply dropping such a mention, warm and drowsy and languid, would make him --

well. Do exactly this. There's a pause in his hand -- his arm wrapped around her, his palm stroking gently over her side. And then a quiet laugh as he turns toward her, wrapping his other arm around her as well, turning so that he hugs her against his chest almost like they were in bed already, and he was holding her, and they were about to sleep.

Or fuck. That, too.

"Oh, were we having sex?" he asks, gently joking. Kisses her earlobe, kisses her neck. "I hadn't gotten the memo."

His hand shifting then: moving up, cupping her breast. The feel of her makes his breathing shift. He's nuzzling her now, nuzzling her neck, the side of her face as he caresses her. "I'd like it," he murmurs, all polite tonight, "if you bent over the couch."

[Danicka] Crepes and ice cream after sex, Danicka says, and instantly the mood shifts slightly from warm and languid to something else. Lukas is softly laughing, suddenly more playful, where even his politeness is feigned, is part of the game.

Danicka smiles lazily, because she wasn't playful when she brought it up and she still isn't, has no intention of the sort of gleeful romping that occasionally marks their lovemaking, though truth be told it isn't the norm any more than tying each other up is. She tips her head as he nuzzles her, kissing her earlobe and her neck, giving him more room to do so. Her hand hasn't reached between his legs or touched his thigh, but continues playing idly along his knee. She smiles wryly at his gentle joking, saying in response: "Well not yet..."

There are three layers of fabric, not including linings of this or that, between his hand and her breast, but it hardly matters. He can feel her there, warm through her clothes, soft in his palm, and she hears and feels his breathing shift as he leans into her, rubs his face against her like an animal.

"I was thinking," she murmurs, languid as ever, "about the very first time we made love. How I wanted you like that, sitting up with me on your lap. I love it like that," Danicka admits in whispers. "You're not so far away as when you lie back while I ride you. I can feel your chest on my breasts. Hold onto you when I come without folding in half. I can still look at how beautiful you are. And I can see your eyes, and kiss you, and feel you holding me or grabbing my hips and moving me on you." She sounds thoughtful almost, at this: "I suppose you can't move as much as you can in other positions. But I really love being with you like that."

Her fingers still trace patterns on his jeans. She tips her head back to look at him, her smile warm and quiet. "Would you mind bending me over the second time? I want to see you tonight." At least the first time -- first time, she says, as though crepes and ice cream will simply be a break before they have each other again, as though if he'd just checked his inbox he'd have gotten the memo and read all about the agenda. She nuzzles him again, eyes falling closed, her lips pressing a kiss to his jawline. "Not that I'm saying we have to make love this way or that. Just. I want to be able to see you."

[Lukas] It's quite possible that before Danicka, Lukas had never met a woman who discussed sex so frankly. Or at the least -- had never discussed sex so frankly. What he likes. What she likes. How to tie each other down. What colors meant.

Sex was always a rushed, feverish thing before this. A need that was shunted aside, left in the Unimportant pile until it had grown to such a degree that he stalked nightclubs for one night stands like a wolf stalks forests for prey. A quick trip to a motel or a bathroom. Clothes pulled aside, all but torn off, a hard silent fuck, and a hollow, cool politeness in the aftermath. Shirts put back on, dresses zipped again, the occasional unmeant exchanging of numbers that would never be called. No attempt to learn about each other. No attempt to connect on any level at all.

And then there's this. A long warm picnic on her living room floor. Sex not even really on his mind until she mentions afterward we'll have crepes. Positions talked about so frankly, though not lasciviously: simply in context of

I remember when we did this.
I really like it like that.

The truth is, the first time she wouldn't let him on top of her, he thought it was some fear of dominance, some refusal to submit. The first time she bent over a bed for him, he was very nearly shocked; he'd thought she would have considered it degrading somehow. He barely understood her, then.

He understands her better now. Better than just about anyone on the planet, perhaps. She talks to him softly about what she likes, and why, and he nuzzles against her, eyes almost closed, shivering once in anticipation or stimulation when she says

when I come.

Near the end his eyes open. He kisses her as she's saying it's not that they have to make love some one way, it's not that. She just wants to be able to see him. He kisses her and her words blur a little, and he kisses her again as she's finishing. "I know," he whispers. And, though this is only tenuously related, "I love you."

He unwinds his arms from around her, but only to stand. They leave their food where it is. He pulls her up after him, holds her hand as he goes over to the armchairs, holds her hand as he sits on it, holds her hand as she straddles him. He's smiling a little as he leans back, looking at her. Something about that courteous, half-chivalrous holding of the hand, as though he were helping her out of a car, onto a ship, something. Something about the way she looks, coming over him. His hands pass down her sides, past her hips to her thighs. On the way up, his hands slip under her skirt, and he shifts her closer, close enough that he need only tilt his head up to kiss her.

[Danicka] Until Lukas, Danicka never discussed sex so frankly. She put up with what she didn't like; she led by example. She'd guide wordlessly, or she'd roll over, but with Lukas, suddenly it mattered. Suddenly it was important that he know. Suddenly, she cared that he understood what she felt, what she wanted, so that she would not have to simply drift away and ignore him while he fucked her. Suddenly she wanted to be there, entirely.

See him, and hear him, and kiss him after the first peak of her orgasm, after the first wild moan.

The first few times they made love they always stayed so close together. Him sitting up so she could feel him everywhere, all over her, against her. Lying and facing her. Lying on his side behind her. Getting her on top of him again. And even after that, weeks later, when he wanted -- against his own expectation and hers -- to see her face instead of bending her over, he held her against the wall and they were never more than a few inches apart. It was as if, having denied themselves true closeness not just since meeting but their whole lives, they were realizing that they were starved for it, and could not let it go.

He understands her better now. Doesn't grow wary when she wants it rough, when she wants him to fuck her like an animal. Doesn't get defensive when she's playful, when she wants to tease him into near madness. He knows now how her mood shifting doesn't mean she's pushing him away, or that the world is ending, that his love is crashing down around his ears saying no, no, never, all a lie, always was, never will be again.

Danicka feels the words she's saying kissed from her mouth as Lukas begins to lose himself to the thoughts she's stirring. She kisses him back after a moment, chases his mouth as he withdraws, kisses him again before she tells him that she just wants to see him. And he knows, and he loves her, and her hands are on his cheeks because she's turned a bit now.

They part, and stand, and instead of lifting her onto his body he holds her hand like he's going to take her on a walk. A walk of courtship, a stroll around the park at night where he might steal a kiss, too honorable to try anything more. But he's taking her to one of those lush leather armchairs of hers, sitting down and drawing her towards him. Danicka comes easily to him, parting her legs and pressing each of her knees into the cushion. She does not sink down on his lap just yet, standing on her knees close, very close to him. As she does, she reaches up and undoes the band in her hair, letting it all fall down around her shoulders.

Lukas's hands are warm where they drift up under her skirt, urging her nearer, and she lowers herself onto him as his fingertips touch the seamless edges of her panties. The smell of her hair is rich around him, wafting around him as she leans into that kiss, the softness of her mouth belying the force of it, pushing his head back. Her hands are on his shoulders now, and covering his chest, and then sliding up to wrap both arms around his neck.

"Undo my sweater and feel me up," she whispers in his ear, their mouths parted for a moment. Her tongue traces his ear then, her teeth graze it. Her hips roll, ever so gently.

[Lukas] The way he's drawn her onto his lap, the way he's slid his hands under her skirt, one might expect him to pull her panties aside, get his cock out of his pants and bounce her on his lap then and there.

It's not like that, though. There's something slow and warm and tender about all this. They nuzzle each other. They exchange kisses, slow firm things that push his head back against the cushions. Her hair comes down around him, soft and fragrant. He strokes his fingers into it, combing it back, shadows coming and going with the swing of her hair.

She tells him to feel her up. He laughs quietly at the terminology, happy; happy to comply. That single button of her sweater comes undone easily, and he peels it back. For a moment her arms are behind her. Unbidden, electric, the image comes to him: her on his lap, arms folded behind her, wrists in his hands, telling him

green.

His hands go under her top and he's kissing her a little harder now, back lifting from the armchair cushions with his rising fervor. He finds her breasts, finds her bra, caresses her through that soft, plain undergarment. Sometimes she wears mindblowing lingerie. Sometimes she wears these things: plain and cotton, soft and comfortable, and his mind is blown anyway. He pushes her shirt up -- with his hands, and then with his nose, nudging it aside like an animal as he wraps his arms around her. Her back is warm under his forearms; his biceps are warm against her sides, even through his shirt. He dips his head to kiss her breasts, to suck at her nipples right through her bra.

He only leans back when she starts undoing his shirt. Leans back then, gives her the room to undo those small buttons, leaning up and kissing the underside of her jaw when he doesn't want to wait any longer. His hands are exploring the waistband of her skirt now, trying to puzzle this out by touch. He finds a clasp and undoes it, hopes that'll be it, but it's not; there's something else where, and his fingers go back to exploring.

[Danicka] It takes no time at all. She knows this, knows how animal he is, how his slowest, most patient self is still a rushing tide compared to some men. It isn't his tribe, his auspice, nor his rank. It isn't even that he's Garou. It's him. At his most human -- the unchanging, rageless self he became on the night of the eclipse -- his want for her was still like this: carnal and total, rising up out of nothing to consume him. And like everything else, her love and want for him in return is not about in spite of, not even about because of. It is simply: him. And she loves him.

feel me up, she whispers, and he laughs softly. It reminds her of that night over Thanksgiving, when they had their long, heated discussion and decided to stay in his parents' house. When he went from tenderness to restraint to muttering to her that he didn't care, he didn't care who heard her coming for him, when he felt like the sort of teenaged boy he never could have been with the teenaged girl she never was. What she means is just: touch me. touch me right here and don't stop.

Danicka works her sweater off a moment after that pause, that thought that races through Lukas's mind and flickers in his eyes. She doesn't know how to read minds, but it's close -- goddamn close. She kisses him hard then, yanking the sweather off her arms behind her and touching him again, running her hands over his chest with a faint gasp.

Lukas isn't undressed at all, isn't in the process of undressing. Danicka isn't undressing him. And he isn't just tugging her underclothes aside, fucking her right there. She kisses him, slower now, riding him through their clothes while he works her top up her slender body. Breaks away when he bends her back, wanting his mouth on her breasts, and he only leans back

when Danicka pushes on his shoulders, pushes him back to the chair again, puts her mouth back on his again. She doesn't reach for his buttons then, but wraps her arms around his neck once more, kissing him without stopping. Without wanting to stop. When she reaches down, it's not to undress him, but to help guide his searching fingers to the hidden button in her waistband, the last thing keeping her skirt around her hips.

The button slips out of the eye, and the skirt -- now just a long, faintly pleated stretch of fabric -- falls down Lukas's legs to the floor, joining her sweater. Danicka takes a breath, sitting back, and reaches down to pull her top off completely, dropping it behind her and reaching for him again, kissing him again, clad in her underwear and not worried, not hurried, in getting him undressed alongside her.

[Lukas] At the beginning, almost every conversation they had was fraught with misunderstanding and strife. Sex seemed to be the one place where they could communicate unequivocally -- and even then, it wasn't always perfect. It was rarely perfect.

Still. It makes sense. They don't just talk about sex now. They still talk through sex, and this is still a sort of communication. He sees how for a moment she leans back against his arms, waiting for him to take her bra off and suck at her breasts the way he does; feels how she pushes him back and kisses him again. Feels how she's in no hurry to undress him, even though she's all but naked now, down to her underwear.

There's something faintly decadent about that. The woman down to her underclothes; the man still all but fully dressed. All but his shoes, really. He's leaning back again, leaning where she pushed him, and as she comes back to kiss him his mouth lifts to meet hers. His hands rub over her body, up her back and down again, into her panties, over her ass. He works her panties down little by little until they're stretched between her thighs, and his hands urge her to straighten up a little, to put her knees together for a moment so he can push them all the way down. She slips one foot out. The simple cotton panties hang off her other ankle for a moment before some slide or movement of her body drops them to the floor, and then

his hands are pushing her bra up off her breasts, and he's whispering against her mouth, let me taste you, and really it's not sure whether he means her breasts or her pussy or her mouth or --

only that he's wrapping his arm around her, urging her up on her knees, clasping her against his body with her abdomen to the solid wall of his chest, his arm around her thighs, his hand opening over her ass. He puts his mouth to her breasts, mmming aloud as he pulls her nipple into his mouth. Consonants and vowels are all that remain of their spoken tongue now. He sucks on her long and slow, making low sounds in his throat, somewhere between want and satisfaction.

It's his free hand working between their bodies, then -- the smooth front of his shirt and the silky texture of her skin. His fingertips find her cunt. He holds her firmly, holds her tenderly in place, right there, when he strokes apart the lips of her pussy. When he slips his fingers into her, he has to let go her breast and groan against her sternum, biting gently at her skin there as though overcome by the very feel of her.

[Danicka] There are a lot of connotations that could be taken from Danicka straddling him in her underwear, Lukas lounging in a leather armchair still full dressed. It once would have made her look all the more a whore -- if there's decadence to this, the sick truth is that it's fully on the male side of things. Decadent for him, to have a woman like this, to still be clothed and invulnerable, protected from eyes and elements while she is quite the opposite. And if being a whore concerned Danicka, if there was really any chance of her being made to feel like one, then it might matter.

It turns Lukas on. For Danicka, she's simply taking her time. The possibility that it might arouse him to be clothed while she's nearly nude is, in reality, a side effect.

She lets him run his hands all over her, shuddering slightly when he puts them under her panties and caresses her ass, the invisible elastic stretching around his wrists as he pushes the cotton down. Wordlessly he wants her to move, and wordlessly she complies, lifting up. She does not draw her knees together, doesn't end up turning her legs to the side or awkwardly tumbling around on his lap, but stands on her feet. Lifts one, then the other, as he takes her underwear off her ankles.

Sinking back down onto his lap, she kisses his mouth, and he murmurs for her taste, and she -- for once -- reaches up with her hand and stops his from pushing the cups of her bra up. "That's actually really uncomfortable," she laughs softly against his mouth, because she's never bothered to tell him this before, because a moment later she's drawing his fingertips to the slanting edge of the cup, helping him draw it down, away, the strap over her shoulder falling to her upper arm. "That's better," she whispers, and then her fingers are in his hair and it's his mouth and not his hand on her, his tongue rolling warm and soft against her nipple.

Her eyes close then, her head tipping back a bit as she tries to control her breathing. HIs hand moves between her legs, and she gasps, folding over him, her brow furrowing as though in ache.


They make love like that the first time, slowly and -- yes -- decadently on the armchair, in front of the windows. Danicka grabbing his shoulders, hands clenching in the fabric of his shirt as he makes her come with his hand, murmuring to her as he brings her off just like that, luxurious, unhurried. She's clinging to him during it, her gasps turning to moans, moans to whimpers, whimpers to a single loud cry as she buckles forward, panting for air.

It's when he's easing his fingers out of her, kissing her, that Danicka asks him to take her to the couch. At some point or another Kandovany slinks out of her hiding spot and trots around the corner to the second bathroom. She's ignored by Lukas, who is lifting his mate up onto his body to carry her across the room, and ignored by Danicka, who wraps her long legs around him and finally removes her bra completely, dropping it on the carpet on the way over.

He sets her on her knees on the cushions and she smiles at him when she undoes his shirt. All he can see is the top of her head and the city outside of her apartment when she unfastens his belt. Can't see anything at all when she tugs down his pants and his boxer-briefs, takes his hard and aching cock into her mouth, because his eyes close with a groan when she does that. It doesn't last long -- he can't bear for it to, but he doesn't get to the point of gasping for her to stop before Danicka senses, somehow, the nearness of that invisible precipice between Lukas and inevitability.

His shirt comes off -- half-shrugged by Lukas, half-pushed by Danicka's warm hands -- and his pants are stepped out of, kicked aside when he kneels on the couch with her, pushes her back, turns her around.

They can see dim, ghostly reflections of themselves in the glass behind the couch, hovering over the city. Danicka's head tipped back onto his shoulder, face half-turned towards his jawline, her hair a gold aura. His eyes on the glass, bright blue beneath the shadow of his hair. The ghosts don't cease to exist when Lukas closes his eyes and presses his mouth to her throat; they open their mouths and cry out when Danicka and Lukas do, clutch at the back of the couch the way she does, rock into her with slow, hard, firm strokes just like he does.

But it's Danicka who comes, even before the ghosts, riding back against Lukas eagerly near the end, bringing him off seconds after her, moments, a heartbeat or two. There's a pillar behind the couch -- Lukas's hand is on it as though to brace himself, hand flattening out against the cold, smoothly curving surface as he buries those last hard thrusts into her, as he digs his teeth into her shoulder, overcome.

The amount of words they've said to each other in the past hour barely make a handful. They're silent now except for their breathing, elevated and relieved at once. Lukas starts to lean into her, press her to the back of the couch, overwhelmed, and her back arches, shoulderblades pushing against his chest til he remembers himself, wraps his arms around her, and all but collapses sideways on the couch with her

held between his body and the back cushions. Safe.

[Lukas] Inexperienced isn't really a word one associates with Lukas. In the reckoning of the Nation, he's halfway up the totem pole; as far as some Garou ever get, no matter how old they live to be. The truth is Lukas has too much drive, too diligent a work ethic, to ever idle at some terminal rank. If doesn't stop him first, he'll keep rising -- but we digress.

The point is: he's hardly inexperienced when it comes to war and battle. And he didn't exactly come to their bed a virgin. Still, there are times, flickers and flashes of moments, where it becomes so clear that he was telling the truth, the absolute truth, when he told her she was his first real girlfriend. His first real relationship.

Once, a long time ago, he wanted her and needed her so badly that he all but mauled her every time he got her alone in his bed. Once, she had to tell him -- half-exasperated, almost irritated -- to slow down. To be patient, and gentle, and take her bra off and lick her nipples,

slowly.

Tonight she tells him not to push her bra up. That's actually really uncomfortable, she laughs, and he draws back, almost startled, quite regretful. He immediately reaches to undo her bra all the way; he had no idea; she stops him again. She shows him how to do it properly: slide the strap down, ease the cup aside. His expression is almost rapt, as though she were showing him some great secret, some piece of precious knowledge to be treasured. His eyes flick up to her; he almost looks thankful. He kisses her against before he lowers his face to her breast, and

a little later, she gasps, her brow furrowing the way it did the very first time she couldn't help but kiss him.


The first time he brings her off, she hears him laughing and murmuring to her, yes, that's my baby, that's it. Later, sitting back, letting a little space open up between them so he can see her face clearly, he licks her taste off his fingers. When she kisses him, she can taste herself on his mouth. They go to the sofa, and the second time is a little harder, a little more primitive, his hands grasping at her shoulders and her hips, cupping around her arms as he takes her bent over the back of the couch. He's not at all above watching himself fucking her. Watching the two of them in reflection, the way she moves, the way she takes him, the way he looks behind her and over her, so much larger and darker that his slender, golden mate.


And later: tilting sideways, collapsing on the couch. Holding her between his body and the back cushions, laying his leg over hers, wrapping his arms around her as though it were cold, though it's not. As though he was going to protect her, now, tonight, forever and ever,

though he wouldn't even be able to name what from if she asked.

His chest still moves quick and deep against her back. His breath is warm against her neck, and every now and then an exhale edges toward a groan as though it's all just too much to keep in his mind, in his skin.

[Danicka] She's thought about asking him what he thinks he's protecting her from -- because she knows that's what it is, she knows what's in him that makes him always turn her towards the wall, towards some other surface, whatever is Outside in his mind. She senses it in his arms around her, his head against her shoulder, his leg crossing over hers, mine, mine, nothing will hurt, nothing bad will come, she is mine. There are times when it makes her ache for him, wondering if he'll ever realize that sometimes there's nothing, and he doesn't have to, and that doesn't need to be the beginning and end of who and what he is.

Down in the core of the realm he went with his pack, maybe he learned that. She still amuses herself by thinking that if she asked him what he thinks he's protecting her from, he'd just hold her tighter and mutter, only half-kidding:

Everything.

But the truth is, she doesn't think he think he's protecting her from anything. She may be wrong. Protectiveness may not be the end-all, be-all of who and what Lukas is, but it is twined throughout his very core along with threads of childlike delight, ruthlessness, overwhelming warmth. The truth is, Danicka doesn't think Lukas thinks much about it in times like this. Not consciously. Not coherently. It's just there.

So she doesn't ask. She accepts it.


Danicka is warm where she is, just an inch or two from the back cushions, her eyes closed while she tries to get her breathing steady. Lukas is a breathing, sweating thing behind her, his skin scorching. She touches his hand thoughtlessly, as earlier she touched his leg, and breathes.


Some time later, she doesn't turn around and smile cutely and ask him if he'd like to have crepes and ice cream now. His breathing has calmed, too, but not to the point that she thinks he's about to fall asleep. When she turns a bit to look at him over her shoulder, he's still inside of her, and she's reaching back and up to touch his face.

"Lukáš..." she murmurs, as though he were, in fact, sleeping, and she were about to tell him they should clean up and go to bed, go sleep somewhere safer, darker, go sleep in her bed. It's possible that later, waking in the middle of the night, Danicka will turn over to try and fall asleep again on top of his chest, and feeling him against her hips, her belly, ease him to wakefulness and roll onto her back, pulling him over her. Later, though, and only a possibility.

But her voice would sound something like it does now. Her fingertips stroke a lock of his hair, tucking it back, then again, and again, hypnotically slow. "I'm glad you went on that quest. I'm glad you came back."

[Lukas] Given a little more time, he really might fall asleep just like that. It has nothing to do with exhaustion, inability to stay awake; everything to do with how content, and full, and happy, and home he feels. They're in a den. Maybe not the den, the one where spirits are awakened and oaks are planted, but -- a den, nonetheless, a safe quiet space that smells like her, smells like it's hers.

They're in a den, and they're fed, and they've made love, and now every joint is loose, every bone is liquid. His breathing slows. His arm is heavy over her side. He's so warm behind her that they could sleep like this and never get cold, and in truth if she gave him another minute she'd hear his breathing start to roughen again, roughen and slow at once as he drops off.

She turns. He stirs, and she can see his smile in the half-dark: slow, warm. His lips move. No sound, just a hi mouthed. It might remind her somehow of the way Kando meows sometimes, a soundless pantomiming of her mouth: something like that, animal and very, very quiet.

She strokes his hair. His eyes close. This is why she can't touch his hair without him growing heavy and warm and affectionate and wanting: because it's muscle memory now, the way he feels, the way she touches him. And it's instinct to seek this sort of sated laxity.

He opens his eyes again, though, when she speaks. There's a little more clarity in his eyes. He cups his hand over her arm, turns and kisses her cheek, the corner of her mouth.

"I don't think," he says quietly, a little bit blurrily, "it's really going to change how I act very much. Who I am. But maybe if I remember it ... what happened, what was said and done ... maybe I'll protect because I want to. And like to. Rather than because I feel like if I don't, something terribly will happen."

He yawns. And then he wraps his arm around her, nuzzling Danicka gently.

"I like protecting you," he murmurs. It's perhaps the first direct acknowledgment that yes, what happened in that realm applies to more than just his pack. Applies here, too. And with his sister, and his parents, and ... everything. "I know you pretty much don't need me to, but ... I like that we protect each other. It's what mates do."

Another pause. Ruminative. Then, whispering, "I liked making love like that. You on my lap, facing me. It felt close. We should do it again, but this time you should take me inside you."

[Danicka] It would not be out of place if they just fell asleep here. There's no throw blanket over the back of Danicka's couch, but they wouldn't need one. The back of the couch would block the most direct rays of sunlight from their face come morning. They could sleep, and Danicka would wiggle herself off of his cock at some point or another, maybe turn to face him, to listen to his heartbeat in her sleep. Wake up with cricks in their necks, backs stiff and hips sore. Wake up stretching, and uncaring, and lazing.

They're all but facing each other now, twisted around, propped up, altered so they can see each other's faces. And Danicka is touching him that way she does that so often leads to Lukas wanting her, wanting to be in her, wanting to be close, wanting exactly this -- as though the sex is just a passageway, as though orgasm is just a gateway to this. Which, in a way, it is.

He talks to her, and she's thoughtful, nuzzled and murmured to. It's a strange thing, talking about protection. About who and what he is, what he wants to do, what he likes. They've never really discussed if Danicka likes being protected -- she likes to be safe. She feels safe with Lukas. She's never quite equated the two in talking about it. It matters more to him, she hears in his blurred, sleep-fuzzed voice. To be a protector, to do this. It's why she senses it in him every time, every single time, that he holds her.

"I don't want you to always be protecting me," she whispers, tenderly as she can. "To have it always there with us, a part of why you hold me like this. Sometimes it gets hard to see everything else that's there, because that's so much at the forefront." Her fingers still move in his hair, and she leans to him, curls against him. "I don't want it to change how you act. But it might be okay if changes a little bit of how you think."

[Lukas] Lukas hasn't quite propped himself up. He remains as he is, stretched out, prone, a rather large mass: the continent of Thunder, perhaps. He lifts a hand and touches her face as she speaks, though, touching her cheek and her lip as though he might better understand her like this.

And after she finishes, he's quiet a while. A little more alert now. Alert and aware and thinking, mulling this over, taking his time with it before he answers.

"I don't think it's always at the forefront," he says after a while, quietly. "Protecting you. When I'm with you like this, I'm thinking -- I'm not thinking very much at all. I love you." It's not spoken as a statement, a declaration, but as a description. "I feel warm and happy and ... loved. Safe. Loved." It's worth saying twice. His hand moves on her face, stroking, tracing, thoughtless. "I'm not thinking of how to best protect you."

A faint furrow to his brow, though. A little puzzled. A little sad. And a shifting of his weight, moving just a little on the couch.

"Do you feel ... " he takes another moment to think, " ... smothered? Like I'm always trying to protect you, make your safety my first and foremost concern?"

[Danicka] His thumb passes her lip; Danicka kisses it as it sweeps past, a gesture so thoughtless it's unspeakably tender, so warm it would be enough to ignite his blood if he hadn't already spent himself inside her at least once. Her eyes drift closed there for a moment, but open again to swivel and find his.

"No," she says easily, though not quickly. "Not smothered. But when we're like this I can just sense it sometimes. It may not be the first thing you feel, or the only thing, but it's such a strong thread. No matter where we are or how safe we are, I'll feel like... part of the pleasure you're taking in it is because I'm protected. Not even just that you're protecting me."

She nuzzles him then, trying to get closer to him, looking up at him for the same reason. "I don't really mind it," she whispers, "not really. But I wonder why it's there with all the warmth and happiness and love. I wonder what you think you're protecting me from."

[Lukas] Thoughtlessly -- protective, because she has the truth of it there -- his arm wraps around her as she moves closer. He holds her closer. They nuzzle each other like that's as much a part of their conversation as anything.

And it is.

Another hesitation; another question not so easily answered. "I ... " he begins, and falls quiet a moment. "I don't know." A whispered confession, that. "All the things I couldn't protect you from before, maybe. Or maybe all the things I know are out there."

A pause, and it must cost something to admit this: "All the things I know won't get in here. Shadows and fears. I just -- " his words fail him for a moment, so he touches her instead, touches her face and kisses her brow. "You're so precious to me," he says then, falling back on what's been said before: a trailhead that's familiar even if what comes after it is not. "Maybe I'm just protecting what we have."

[Danicka] It's important that she tells him she doesn't really mind that he's so protective, that it always seems to be a part of the way he holds her. It matters that he at least understands she's not rejecting something in him that is such a deep part of his self, she's not rejecting him, she's not coming out after over two years together and telling him ugh, having just put up with it all that time.

But she does wonder what he thinks he's protecting her from when they're like this. In her apartment, in his room at the brotherhood, at their den above all. What could he possibly be protecting her from?

It also matters that they keep touching, stay so close, nuzzle each other warmly and reassuringly. She kisses him softly here and there, mere brushes of her lips across his skin wherever her mouth passes. And he admits, struggling for the words, that he doesn't know the answer to her question. The first thing that comes to his mind, though, is her past, and her brow furrows a little in ache, her eyes glancing down briefly before coming back to his.

It's harder, then, for him to admit that a lot of it just fear. Shadows. Phantoms of what was, what could be, what might be, but isn't. Is so unlikely as to be nearly unthinkable. A warm kiss comes pressed to her brow, and she leans into him when it passes, unwilling to slide off of him and turn around to face him but wanting to face him all the same. So she twists.

"We're the only ones who can destroy what we have," she whispers to him after a little while. "You don't need to protect what we have from me. Or from yourself. We're what makes it."

Her hand is on his face again, in his hair again. Her eyes open to his fully, deep and verdant green touching on his skylit blue. "I know it will be hard to let go of my past, especially because I kept so much of it from you for so long. Some of it is still hard for me to move on from, every so often." Not frequently, to tell the truth; Danicka has, in terms of emotional maturation and leaving her past behind her to surge like a wave into her new life, been going t something of a breakneck pace. A ravenous, knowledge-devouring pace. An eager, long-repressed pace. But what she means is simple in the end: knowing what he knows now of where she comes from and what she's endured, it will take him longer than a few weeks or months to get over it, come to terms with it in a deeper way than he already has. And she knows that. And it's okay. Just because it didn't happen to him doesn't mean he doesn't have a right to be haunted by it.

She nuzzles him again, under his jawline, laying a kiss on his throat. "I'm not telling you to stop," she whispers, meaning his protection, his arms around her now, all of it. "Just remember what the spirit said to you on the way up and out." Her eyes are closing again, her fingertips drawing tiny circles against his scalp, her body arched in front of his so that she can half-turn and kiss him like this, touch him like this. "Love me."

[Lukas] They shift, and shift again -- try to face each other while staying close. Staying joined. His arm lifts a little as she turns in its circle. His eyes follow her, clear and dark at once in this light.

She speaks of they themselves being the only ones who can destroy what they have. He could deny that; he could name any number of dangers, threats, foes, that could tear what they have asunder, and he would be right. Yet in another sense, she's absolutely right. Such evils could kill him, kill her, end their time together in this world and this lifetime. Such things could not, however, destroy what they have. Not completely. Not so long as they remember his promise to her, which may well be the only promise he's made to her that will take longer than a lifetime to keep:

homeland, spirit-cubs, a den. Waiting for her there.

His eyes close as she nuzzles him, kisses the gentle pulse in his throat. He thinks about what she's said. The past, and letting go. His calf slides gently over hers, the texture of his skin so different from hers -- hairier, for one, though the thought of that makes him laugh quietly for a moment. Love me, she whispers, kissing him, and that laugh comes to a natural end against her mouth. She's turned far enough that his hand finds her breast easily, holds it, holds the heartbeat beneath.

"I do," he murmurs, an answer to the first: remember. And then an answer to the second as well, "I do, láska."

[Danicka] There's a fearlessly unsubtle grace in the line of Danicka's body before his, arching the way she does, twisting to caress and embrace him while his chest moves against her back with every breath. She knows she's beautiful, knows how to intensify it, accentuate it, downplay this to enhance that, restrain one feature to reveal another, quieter one.

Going back to school has not robbed her of the time it takes for her to improve herself in other ways. She asks her accountant for books to read to understand her own investment portfolio better; watches the news until the strings of numbers that used to mean nothing start to take on a sort of pattern. She finds she has a skill for it; her rapid talent with numbers aids her. She takes a class in basic accounting; it pads her GPA because she does well in it; she saves her real energy for the engineering courses that truly challenge her.

Yoga is twice a week, more in the summers. Her classes are later in the day, and she doesn't spend her days on the mats with the trophy wives who have nothing better to do than perfect their warrior pose. Her first teacher noticed that she was not there for relaxation, that she was striving for something, that she was always reaching, and recommended a new studio under a teacher with a bit more... push. Even then, it's one of the most relaxed, gentle things in her life. The way Danicka reaches for greater flexibility, strength, and balance is, in fact, very chill compared to how she plays World of Warcraft.

Her alt is getting near 85, too.

Lukas might be surprised to find out that kung fu is three nights a week on top of midday training on Saturday and Sunday, regardless of what time of year it is or if there's snow or if finals are coming up. She does not care about rank. She cares about skill, and strength, and understanding. He would not be surprised, or disappointed, to find out that once a week, usually on Sunday evening, she goes to the firing range. She's noticed that in terms of schoolwork, her focus tends to be better on Mondays afterward.

It takes effort and careful planning to keep her nights mostly free. She doesn't want to be leisurely anymore. She doesn't want to laze about, waiting for her life to begin. But she tries to get morning classes, does homework as much as she can in the breaks between, sometimes takes a quick powernap between school and whatever kind of training she has that evening, does most of her work on the weekends before and after kung fu. She goes to one class instead of two on the nights she does yoga or training. She doesn't spend more than a half hour to an hour at the range. She tries to be home, or seeking out her mate, when the moon is up and the night is dark.

Often he comes to her and she's in bed half-asleep, breathing in satisfaction and relief when she feels him come around her. Often he comes to her earlier and he brings takeout of some kind or another because Danicka rarely cooks even when she has the time and energy to do so. Sometimes he makes sandwiches or they heat up leftovers, because the point of him being there is not for her to drop everything; the point is just to be together. Sometimes he reads while she does homework. Sometimes he convinces her to take some time off and watch some DVR'd episodes of something-or-other. Sometimes he doesn't get to come to her at all, and she works harder so she doesn't miss him as much.

One day all her hard work will pay off. It is paying off now. Her body is so much stronger, sleeker than it was when they met. She's not quite so physically fragile, not so determined to conceal her strength of will. She grows sharper, faster, smarter, and she does a great deal of it on her own. She does a great deal of it because no one is stopping her now. The only person who really could stop her other than herself is, in fact, the firm foundation she stands on while reaching for these things, the Garou -- of all people -- agreeing that she is a Shadow Lord, and so there is almost nothing she cannot conquer.

He does not give her permission, really. But she would be lying if she said that Lukas's love for her, his presence in her life, his protection, do not deeply inform how much she's grown in the past two years.


Her body arches, and he can feel the growing strength in her, the grace, the ambition. He kisses her throat and feels her pulse a trace, a trifle faster than before. He kisses her and it slows, deepens by her doing. His hand finds her breast and she moves herself on him, moves him inside of her. "Love me," she whispers again, more insistently, rolling her hips.

[Lukas] Lukas is only peripherally aware of and involved in much of Danicka's daily life. He knows she takes classes with more and more intimidating names. He knows she goes to yoga. He might know about the kung fu, but will likely still be surprised if he sees her flip someone twice her size someday. He knows she's doing something with that futuristic weapon-stick in that other bedroom, and he knows

that she's not lazing about anymore. She never was lazy at all. The truth is, if he knew just how much she had on her plate, he'd probably worry. But he'd know better than to try to dissuade her. And now -- he'd know to tell himself,

stop worrying. just love.

And Lukas loves that he isn't aware of every tiny ripple in Danicka's life. He loves that she has a life outside of the Nation. Outside of him, even. She's not bound to him, held in lockstep to his needs and desires. When they spend time together -- and they do spend time together, as much as they can -- it feels like a smaller slicer of a greater whole. A piece of their lives, and not the end-all-be-all.

Sometimes he comes over just to spend time with her. Just to be near her while she does homework, and while he holds conversations with his pack in his mind. Just to be near her while she muses about things that are not quite in his realm of understanding, while he listens and tries to learn.


There's a strength in her body that wasn't there when he met her. There's a strength in her will that always was there, but she didn't display nearly so readily when he met her. She arches as he kisses her, presses into his hand and presses against her body, and she can feel him draw a quicker breath, pant it out in a warm rush.

Love me, she says, differently this time. His eyes open, and he smiles, and

he kisses her, warmer and deeper this time as he slides his knee between hers and opens her thighs, reaches down between her legs as he murmurs wordless sounds into her mouth. When that kiss falls apart those sounds become words after all:

"Turn around and face me, baby. I want to see you."

[Danicka] The day will come, likely sooner than either of them expect, when Danicka will want to show him what she's been working on for already more than a year with that futuristic weapon-stick. They will have to drive a very long way away from civilization, she'll say. He's seen it in use. He has not seen what Danicka has in mind, or how in due time her pistol will be packed away, a memento of one of the first times he ever wanted to give her something and the night she hid under a blanket because she was drunk and cranky. He's going to be so surprised, out in the woods or something somewhere. He might worry.

And he'll know then, too, not to fear for her. Not too much, at least.

Right now she has this much figured out: they have a limited number of charges, as any pistol has a limited number of rounds it can carry. They need to be 'reloaded' with new charges. She guesses its capacity is something well over a dozen. She knows they need time to activate and 'rev up', so to speak, just as she needs time to draw and load her nine millimeter. She knows, from experience, that the kickback is hell on her shoulders and elbows but actually not as bad as some of the heavier firearms she's felt before. She knows she could get them through even stringent security, which is perhaps their greatest appeal. She knows that she is rather far away, yet, from figuring out how to build some kind of charger so that using them does not turn them rapidly into useless, though pretty, rods.

She knows exactly what she'd tell airport security, or anyone else, if they ever questioned them. Personal massagers. Obviously.


Not that she needs them. Has several, absolutely, and Lukas has yet to have his bewilderingly innocent mind exposed to the treasures in tidy, clean boxes under Danicka's bed because they've never bothered to take the time for anything more exciting than manacles. Which, truth be told, and plenty exciting when Lukas couldn't hold himself back any longer and snapped them, rolled her under him, took her once hard and fast, rolled her again and fucked her from behind with barely a breath in between, barely more than a moment to make sure she was all right, she was okay, she could handle this, she wanted this.

Like she wants this now, moving herself on his cock as she stirs him again, wakes him again. She doesn't stop after that first roll of her hips, and fucks him slowly for a few seconds, gently working him hard again while he kisses her, moaning into his mouth when he finds her clit and starts to make her skin hot again, make her pussy wet for him. The first time she clenches around him it's involuntary, a slow, tight ripple of muscle flexing around him, holding him inside of her. They might lose themselves then, let go and fuck just as they are, but Lukas's lips depart hers and he manages murmurs, tells her in not so many words what he didn't get a chance to earlier:

that he likes making love like that, Danicka facing him on his lap. That it feels close. That he wants it like that again, but that he wants her to take him inside this time.

If he got a chance to say exactly that, she might feel bad for not taking him earlier just that way, just as she, in fact, had asked for. She might tell him she couldn't help herself once he slid his fingers into her, once he put his mouth on her breast and sucked each of her nipples into hard, tender little peaks. She might tell him she loves it when he does that, brings her to orgasm without so much as touching himself, lets her just get off on him while he watches, while he holds her, while he murmurs to her that she's so good, that's his baby, yes, that's it. She'd tell him after that all she wanted was to fuck him, wanted him hard and rough and right then and she wanted to give him anything, anything to make him happy, wanted him to have her any way he pleased. Wanted him to give it to her then.

Of course if she tells him any of this, now or later, the words themselves will arouse her all over again. Make her ask him if he'd like to do it again, maybe this time in bed, maybe this time with him atop her, maybe slow this time, filling her with firm, steady flexes of his hips. Oh, and then the things she'll say then, overcome by a night of repeated lovemaking which is still such a luxury, a rarity, and yet

a thing they sometimes simply stumble onto, unable to keep themselves from each other for another moment, as though if they fuck three, four times it will somehow satisfy them.


Now he asks to face her, all but gasping it, and Danicka moans at the thought of having to let go of him, bounces herself on him a few quick, sweet times as though to urge him now, now, please, baby til his hand moves to her hip, holding her there for him to grind his cock into her, which dissolves her, makes her limp with sudden pleasure.

She's not quite sure, moments later, whether Lukas just slid her off his cock with a groan, turned her around, and planted her back on him again or if she had something to do with it. She knows he's holding her thigh around his waist and rubbing his cock on her, and she knows she's squirming, holding onto him,

and she thinks she's begging him for something, but she can't even make out her own words except for the pleading, needful note in her voice. They kiss, and their hands meet between her legs, both of them trying to get his cock into her again, their minds losing coherence too rapidly to even laugh. He fills her up again with one long thrust, holds himself in her for a moment til she's ready, til he can bear to start moving in her.

There's something simultaneously mind-meltingly hot and achingly tender this time. Danicka is a wreck, clinging to his arms and fucking him back so eagerly that for once it's Lukas moaning for her to slow down, baby, slow down, feel me. Yet when she comes, it's after they've worked themselves back to that near-frenzied pace, after a long and torturous ride towards it, and she's quivering and bucking her hips, clutching at him with her hands, letting out gasping whimpers and tattered cries. When he comes, he's holding her hard on his cock, right there, groaning louder than he has all night, still thrusting into her even after the peak of his orgasm has passed.

It takes them awhile to be still. They rub their faces together, softly, eyes drifting open and closed, touching each other with their noses like animals. And like humans, with gentle hands stroking sweaty, hypersensitive skin.


Danicka and Lukas do eventually make it to bed. She's sleepy and happy and affectionate, wrapping herself around him when he picks her up to carry her. She mumbles something about needing to have the couch cleaned just before gnawing tenderly on his shoulder, which makes him laugh. In the shower she remembers their picnic still laid out and this remembrance, likely, precludes any other bathtime shenanigans that she's all too inclined towards. Danicka, wearing a towel and saturated hair, kisses Lukas over and over while he protests, telling him to go to bed, go wait for her in bed, she'll be right back.

He starts to follow her out to the living room anyway, staying as close as a dog to its mistress -- a wolf to his mate. But she laughs, pushing on his chest, urging him back. Go to bed, she says again, kissing him, and he finally relents.


Lukas can hear, through the open door, Danicka quickly putting things in the fridge. Can hear her refill Kando's water dish, hears a cabinet open and close, and a brief moment where, if he's very keen on listening, she gives that silly feline several moments of snuggling, nuzzling affection. Can imagine, if he likes, that she was getting the little treats that he bought out to offer one to the patient pet. It's like her to keep such things private. Even with her cat, who she is so strict with.

When she comes back to bed, she drops her towel but her hair is still wet. No matter. They stay up awhile, because Danicka brought crepes. And the pint of vanilla ice cream. And spoons.


She sleeps on his chest long before they get the chance to rouse each other again. Her hair dries in ripples across his skin, their legs intertwined under the sheets.