She loves him so dearly. Sometimes she thinks he can't possibly know how much. She thinks maybe she doesn't show him enough or say the words enough. Maybe she's too aloof, maybe she's too much like Kando, who pretends that she doesn't need the furless two-legged foodgivers. She wonders sometimes if Lukas realizes, even a little, how ardently she feels everything she feels, how deep the emotions go, how powerful they are. She would tell him it's like the Vulcans and how they only fixate on logic and reason in order to keep their relentless passions from ruling them, but he would probably laugh at her, fondly tease her for being a nerd. She doesn't know how to tell him, or show him, just how... vital all this is to her.
But she does hold him in the bathtub, her eyes closed, her arms and legs wrapped around his body, her face buried against his neck, feeling him come down from the orgasm she just gave him. She holds him while he regains his breath, as though there's some danger of him passing out and she knows that she has to keep him near lest he shatter apart, lose all gravity, float into oblivion.
Afterward he's so limp, so warm, so lazy. He's also heavy. Danicka doesn't care right now. She waits til he stirs, yawning and arching a little with it, the sound of it echoing off the tiles. It makes her laugh softly against his shoulder. She kisses him -- wherever, it doesn't matter right now -- and eases him up. They end up standing as the bathtub drains. They end up showering instead, and now Danicka doesn't wait for Lukas to say if this is what he wants or not, but she takes off the manacles for him as she washes him again.
And as he washes her.
Now her hair does get thoroughly saturated, and she's massaged his wrists tenderly under the water, and he's moved those broad palms of his all over her, leaving streaks of soapy lather in their wake. She leans against him, kisses his chest, breathes a little differently as he slowly -- gingerly, almost -- washes her cunt for her, spreading his fingers carefully, cupping her in his palm as though worried that she might get cold. Something could change, with her taking the manacles off, dropping them outside the tub, but really -- something had already changed, felt different, and that's why they came off.
When they leave the water and shut it off, they're wrapping towels around each other, drying each other off. Of course it's practical and necessary but right now it's loving, it's caretaking, it's like animals grooming each other in the wild. Lukas sniffs and finds more food, the good food he had before, and he offers Danicka the last one but she smiles at him, shaking her head. Her hair is wet -- she doesn't like to sleep with wet hair, but right now she doesn't seem to mind. She combs it out carefully, separates the strands to dry on their own if they will.
And when he asks if they can go to bed --
she smiles, huffing out a soft laugh because he's still asking permission for things, he's still so young and so sweet right now, and she can imagine how shy he would have been if she'd met him when they were younger, how he probably would have asked if it was okay to kiss her even if she could feel tremors of desire for so much more than that going through him, making his fingertips tingle. She can imagine him on his birthdays and Christmas as a child, learning early to be very polite and grateful despite his eagerness. She wonders if he knows how much of his life, even before Istok, was all about his mentors -- his parents included -- teaching him to restrain all the vigor and emotion and temper and wildness he was born to.
It's really no wonder that the two of them found each other. Really no wonder that now, with each other and alone, they get so close to what is wild and untamed inside of each of them.
Danicka nods, slipping out of her towel and pulling a hotel robe from its hook. She slips her arms into it and wraps it around herself, coming over to him. They leave the box there, and the manacles on a towel to dry. The present is sitting sitll on the end of the bed, and it's still so early for them, just past nine, but with the cartwheels of the last few days, it wouldn't be surprising if they slept sooner rather than later. As she climbs up onto the bed and scoots over to make room for Lukas, Danicka wonders if the only times she's going to get a decent night's sleep after having children is if she gets a babysitter and takes her husband to a hotel.
When they're settled, she hands him the present, and she isn't nervous or anxious, just smiling to herself. It's that knowing smile, that patient one. "It's sort of a birthday gift and first-anniversary gift in one," she admits, as she hands it over to him. She does not mention that the traditional gift on first anniversaries is paper. And that is what she gave him.
The ribbons on the corners come off easily, then the lid. And inside, without even tissue paper to decorate them, are some papers folded in half. They're just print-outs from Danicka's computer, in fact. What they are is evident before the full weight of it hits: confirmation e-mails sent to her personal Gmail account. Airfare. Hotel. Rental car. There's some printed GoogleMaps, too, of various areas around the location they're going to, places they absolutely have to visit when they go -- which won't be for a few months, actually, given the date on the travel itinerary he has in his hands. "I didn't want to give you less than a week's notice," she explains, "and I didn't want to go in winter." A beat. "Or miss school."
They have to visit her other nieces and nephews, of course, and Sabina. Her father's family's vineyard. As Lukas is looking it all over, sifting through the carefully marked maps, she adds: "I had to ask your parents about going back to see where you were born. Where you all used to live. They said they didn't know who was living on the estate now, but they gave me the address. We can make sure it's okay before we fly over."
Her hand moves onto his knee, holding there while she leans against his side. "You don't have to say anything. I know you're probably about to cry." Another beat. "Again."
LukasDanicka is right: something has already shifted between them. Shifted sometime between the living room and the bathroom, dinner and the bath - shifted sometime between the time she washed him clean and the time she got him messy all over again.
By the time she takes the manacles off, it feels a little like a formality. There's a sense of cooperation again, and coordination through familiarity. He gets up and she turns on the shower and he grabs the soap and
they get clean again.
By the time he asks to go to bed -- well; it still sounds like he's asking for permission, but not for the same reason. Not because she's dominating him and he's giving himself over to her, but because... well, because it's Christmas, and he's happy and warm and trusting. Because it's polite. Because he was brought up to be polite and grateful, and not grabby and bratty.
He was never a brat, though. Even when he was young and reckless and wild and yelling, Lukas was never really a brat. There was always a warmth in him, a generosity that she saw in him even when they were so young all they could share were crayons and toys. He shared his colored crayons with his sister. And when Danicka fell out of the tree, he was so startled, so scared, so sorry. Danicka was upset when he got spanked. He wasn't. He totally deserved it.
Anyway; past and gone. They get ready for bed, side by side, and she catches him smiling because now that they're done destroying each other they're so close and tender; he feels so much like her husband when they brush their teeth together. He takes a moment to wash the manacles out, getting rid of the last of the soapy bathwater. Even that feels oddly tender and domestic, now.
The hotel robes and luxurious and thick. They each wrap themselves in one, and then Lukas wraps himself around Danicka, hugging her as she comes close. They go to bed with their arms wrapped around each other, and rather than each getting on from their own sides, Danicka gets on and then Lukas follows, and they scoot over to make room, scoot together to get close. Under the covers, his feet playfully bump hers. He leans over and nips her shoulder through her robe, and
then she's handing him that last present, which is light and a little rustly, and he's getting that look on his face, that oddly innocent, oddly pure expression of animal curiosity. He's shaking the box himself and sniffing at it because he's trying to guess, but all he smells is paper.
So he tears it open, and at first he's just confused. Just until he starts reading, though. Just until he sees the confirmations, the reservations, the addresses - a travel itinerary to Europe, to the Czech Republic and some locations near that tiny little homeland of theirs. The look on Lukas's face is complex, overcome: gratitude, bone-deep; something like amazement; something a little like trepidation too, because it's been so long, he doesn't even remember, he doesn't know what he'll find or what memories it might spark.
Something a little like ache too. Once upon a time she couldn't even give him herself without setting a time limit on it. Giving herself an out in case something goes awry, or just in case
one of them died. They were so afraid to commit, and at first they were afraid of being hurt, and then later they were -- he was, especially -- afraid of hurt itself, afraid of hurting her, afraid of hurting if he lost her. That's behind them now. The tiny sparkly glove in their closet proves it. That house of twigs proves it. And this, this itinerary set for months in the future, with no certainty whatsoever of what might happen in those months, proves it.
She's right again: his eyes are stinging again, but he doesn't want to embarrass himself, and even though he knows there's nothing to be ashamed of, even though in another form he doesn't mind whining, moaning, howling at the moon, some things run deeper than logic. He bites it back, blinking a few times, but then she says it: you're probably about to cry again, and he bursts into a sort of cathartic laughter, all those complex emotions of a moment ago releasing all at once as he pulls her hard against his side and kisses her hair.
"Dekuji ti, láska," he murmurs. "Uz se nemuzu dockat."
DanickaOriginally she climbed atop the covers, curled up in her robe, but when Lukas starts tugging them down, intending to get under, she simply... sheds it. Drops it to the floor and slides between the sheets with him, handing him his present while she curls up next to him. The feeling between them shifts and changes, as fluid as her moods and her whims often seem, and here they are husband and wife, brushing their teeth beside one another at the double sinks. Here they are boyfriend and girlfriend, looking each other's mostly-naked bodies over with unspoken but almost tangible appreciation. Here they are mates, going to the same warm spot together, curling their bodies up together.
Here they are just each other, he and her, exchanging this one last gift, knowing they are going to sleep in this bed soon rather than going out to party all night. Family again tomorrow: one last day with everyone together, one last day full of portraits and photographs inside and outside, one last day of sharing meals and plowing through leftovers. One more day of the elderly gentlemen playing Othello or Go, one more day of the kids on their scooters or with their new games or Emanek trying to make a really really really really good drawing for Lukas and Danicka, then feeling bad and deciding he should make one for Daniel and Anezka too in case they're jealous, and one for Lukas's mom and dad, too, because he doesn't want to be rude. And because he likes drawing. One more day of Lukas jostling with his sister verbally, or everyone curling up in the couch to watch a movie with bowls of beef stew on their laps.
Danicka is smiling at him while he looks at the gifts, his eyes stinging, his laughter an expression of more than just humor. She is thinking of that family, and those places, this part of her life she's never explored and will discover for the first time with him, the parts of his life he's forgotten and will remember with her right there beside him. He wraps his arm around her waist and pulls her close, kisses her hair, and she huffs a laugh. She doesn't say anything -- doesn't need to, really. What she does is take all the papers from him, setting the box on the nightstand so that when she wraps her arms around him, there's nothing in the way, nothing to topple off the covers.
"Let's not talk too much about it tomorrow around the kids, okay?" she asks him gently. "I know they all miss it, and... I just don't want them to be sad that we get to go, not when they don't have any privacy. Sarka and I talked about it already."
LukasOne more day with the family. One more day with the den full of laughter and noise and the inevitable little spats, the inevitable little accidents. There's already a splotch of dark red by the couch where Anezka spilled her wine. And Irena is accruing a nice little collection of scabs from skidding off her scooter. It's icy outside, after all.
Lukas is going to miss them when they're gone. He's going to miss how packed and busy their little house always seems to be these days. He's going to miss the constant smell of someone cooking, the constant sound of someone talking, the physical warmth that comes from so many bodies packed into a small space. He's going to miss the warm of having his family-pack near, too - all these kin and cubs that are his to protect, his to love, his.
And yet at the same time: he's a little ready for quiet again. For privacy, and lazy mornings. He's ready for a return to normalcy - however many years of it they have left before they start having their own cubs. That no longer seems like such a distant dream, nor such a daunting possibility. That seems... well.
Attainable. Real. And reasonable, just a matter of time.
"Okay," Lukas says. As Danicka shifts the papers aside, he scoots down in the bed, reaches out to turn his light off. Exhaling, he settles: the sheets cool on his warm skin, his warmth suffusing the bed. "This was an amazing day, baby," he says softly. Smiles up at her, "Thank you."
DanickaShe's stroking his hair. She wasn't, a minute ago. That seems so far away suddenly. Even the words he knows he just said, telling her thank you, telling her that a great day this has been, feel like they are as ancient as Greek inscriptions in weathered marble. Because she's lying there next to him, her stomach to his side, her small patch of fur to the outside of his leg, her feet tucked under his calf, and she's stroking his hair in the dark. Somewhere in there, they became naked and they pulled the covers up and turned out the lights. Vaguely, he can even remember Danicka setting her alarm on her phone, plugging it in to charge on the nightstand, but this:
this, now, is everything. He can hear her breathing in the dark, just like last night and the night before and the night before because all this time they've been together at home, sleeping in their bed so much that the sheets smell like them, which is still a rarity. He can tell the difference between her awake-breathing and her sleeping-breathing, knows that she almost never has nightmares but sometimes she does, just like anyone, and is dazed and upset til she goes back to sleep, forgetting it ever happened.
She kisses his cheek, her fingertips moving the strands of his hair. She could ask him to love her right now. Seems only fair to tell him to do his husbandly duty and please his wife. They used to barely be able to occupy the same space without fucking three or four times just to work out everything there was that was fucked-up between them.
The truth is, she doesn't want that right now. She strokes his hair like she's putting him to sleep, or putting herself to sleep -- one or both of them is being gently hypnotized. Her eyes drift closed, slowly open again. She says nothing. She agrees, though. He can almost feel in in the air. In her hands. In her closeness.
LukasPeaceful now. Quiet and close, intimate without any necessity of sex. He makes room for her as she slides down. She tucks herself against his side, he wraps his arm around her. She touches his hair, and it's hypnotic, it's soporific, he finds himself drawn down into warm unconscious almost immediately.
Just for a moment, Lukas resists. Just long enough to lean over and turn off her light for her. Just long enough to turn the alarm clock away so even that slight light doesn't disturb their sleep. Just long enough to settle again, and settle his matewifegirlfriend close, and
and he can't remember where that thought's going anymore. She smells so familiar, he muses. She smells so his, and so herself, and...
Morning comes slowly, the sun rising over the lake. They left their curtains open last night. Winter's light is pale and golden, washing over them in their sleep. It's not the alarm that wakes them after all but the simple satiation of ten, eleven hours of rest.
Traces of last night still linger everywhere. The itineraries on the nightstand; the promise of a gift that, really, is for later. The manacles and ring dried in the bathroom, oddly beautiful in their white-on-charcoal, their gleaming chrome. The boxes of mostly-eaten food, which Lukas will nom on while they get dressed to go home and take pictures.
The scents in the air, his and hers, theirs. This room was theirs for a night. This bed was theirs. He stirs in it now, turning on his side to face his mate; puts his face close to hers, drowses until the alarm does, in fact, wake them again.
It is the day after Christmas, the dead of winter. Somehow, Lukas thinks, spring doesn't feel so very far away.
DanickaThe nights they spend together can be so quiet. Startlingly so, considering how short a time -- from one perspective -- they've been together. There are nights when he finds her at her apartment or their house or surprisingly, lounging in his bed at the boarding house, and they barely speak at all. They crawl into bed together. She waits up for him sometimes. Sometimes she falls asleep before he gets there. When he knows she's coming somewhere, he tries so hard to stay awake, but the War is long and he is not a creature who regularly stays awake during daylight hours. Sometimes she feels the rage as soon as she walks in her door and she has her hand on her gun before she sees his coat, his shoes, his keys on the counter, markers that it is not just An Ahroun but
her Ahroun.
They sit in separate rooms, a door open between them, and they read. She does homework. He tries to take up very little space and make very little noise while she works in her lab, when she has the time, but he does want to be near her. She goes to the other room and watches t.v. while he's on the phone with his family, or staring into the distance listening to conversations in his head with his packmates. Sometimes hours will go by with the only words between them an exchange about what to make for dinner, or where to order from:
Spaghetti?
With meat sauce?
And she doesn't even nod or say yes then, she just smiles at him, shaking her head in amusement at the way he perks, the way he warily makes sure that she's not trying to feed him vegetables. She scritches him and goes to the kitchen, and he comes in and helps brown the meat, stir the sauce.
Wine?
There's a malbec over -- yup, there.
And a stopper being removed, glasses being taken down along with plates and forks and a bowl for Danicka's little helping of salad.
The thing is, what they acknowledged early on is still true: words are the sources of misunderstandings. Words are also the only way they have of communicating the more complex of their thoughts with each other. Sometimes the words pour out of them, tortured and difficult, but most of the time, it turns out that they are not terribly complicated with each other anymore. They have ways of communicating other things they need to: that he wants to be close. That she was afraid and refuses to voice it lest she feel even weaker, even more vulnerable, than she already is. That he is exhausted and can't stay up any longer, can't even make love to her. That she's stressed about school.
That they are happy to be home together, or in her apartment or his room together, curled close and drowsy and warm. Well-fed. Safe in their den. That they are happy. That they love each other.
Like now, Danicka does not speak to the slowly waking Lukas. She watches him finally beginning to stir, knowing that they have a little over two hours before the photographer shows up at their house in Stickney and at least half an hour of that will be driving so they shouldn't laze around here too long. Her body is a little bit stiff from such a long sleep, but she's warm and languid, waiting for him to open his eyes, waiting for him. She wonders if it's her energy and her impatience that wakes him, as much as the light.
He stirs, and she exhales, elongating her body alongside his. He puts his arms around her, puts his face close to hers, nuzzles, and tries to just go back to sleep. Her hands move across his chest, her lips parting against his jawline, and he can feel it then, sense it in the passage of her hand over his pectoral muscle, the trail of her mouth down to his throat, the warmth and wetness of it when she starts kissing him there, licking him.
The sheets go tangled when he rolls onto his back, pulling her over and onto him, his eyes still lazily closed even though his mouth is opening to hers. He's so warm that Danicka's first soft moan is due solely to the way he feels underneath her, his heat suffusing her entire body. He's sleepy and slow to wake, but his body responds long before his brain, and one of his first truly self-aware thoughts of the morning is that of her hand around him, her pussy sliding onto him, the way she gasps, starting to move almost immediately,
but gently, slowly, achingly.
Near the end he's arching his back, holding her hips to keep her right fucking there, he's groaning those exact words, gasping at the end as she moves her body in such a way. Near the end she's riding him faster, still staying close to his chest, clutching the pillow under his head, moaning, moaning the way she does. And he's got his eyes open now, can't take his eyes off of her, and it turns her on so keenly that she starts bouncing on him, really fucking him now, her panting little cries getting tighter and higher-pitched until she comes. She comes sweetly, each pulse of her orgasm torturously slow, wracking her, demolishing her.
Lukas rolls her under him then almost to hold her together, to keep her safe. She's so limp then, her cheeks pink, her eyes liquid, her lips so red when he starts moving in her again. He wants to fuck. He wants to grab the mattress and clutch the sheets and hold her in his teeth and fuck her until he comes, but there's something vulnerable in her expression, something she doesn't even intend or maybe even need that yanks on his protective heart. His mouth goes to her mouth instead of her shoulder, his hand cupping her breast as gently as he can bear while his other hand holds tight to the sheets in his fist. Slowly, at least at first, slow enough to drive him out of his mind, he works himself back up to that precipice, and it's seconds, mere seconds, before he's gasping, panting, losing himself in her and trying not to hurt her all at once, melting into her, dropping a sweat-soaked brow to her shoulder when he can't anymore, he can't, he can't even breathe, and his cock is still jumping inside of her, his own involuntary spasms trying to kill him with pleasure.
They do not move for a very long time. He drowses off, so typically (stereotypically) male in this that Danicka can't help but laugh -- as softly as she can, though. She rolls over onto her side and closes her eyes, too, holding him between her legs still, sleeping in a tangle of twisted sheets and heavy limbs and sweaty skin with him
until the alarm does, in fact, wake them again.
Danicka breathes in deeply, her eyes opening, and Lukas is growling, refusing the alarm and the sunlight and the movement away from sleeping in a post-sex tangle with his mate. His hands grasp at her and she just gently, almost tenderly, performs the trick she learned ages ago: her hands cover his, hold them for a second, and then ease them firmly away. She doesn't know how else to push him away without making him sad, and he seems to understand this isn't a no, certainly not an I don't love you anymore. It's just a neutral lemmego, something he's going to have to deal with once his cubs are closing in on their first year and eager to be put down, crawl around, pull themselves up, move their own bodies according to their own rules.
"Baby," she's saying, tucking hair behind his ear though his hair isn't long and so this gesture really has no purpose other than giving meaning to their lives, giving meaning to their survival, giving meaning to each breath. "Lukášek, probuď se. Musíme se dostat domů."
And so they do, says the clock. They need to shower and they need to pack their stuff up and then go, maybe grab some coffee and breakfast sandwiches in a drive-through, because at home they have to change and help the kids get ready.
One last day with them. The kids. The family. Two or three hours with a photographer, the sort of family photo session reserved for reunions like this, but then lunch and the rest of the afternoon just to be together. Tomorrow they're going to the airport rather early, but the flights out are staggered, so they'll be hanging out in O'Hare for several hours. Lukas will probably buy travel games and puzzle books for the kids at the shop, even though it's a short flight and they are already going to have trouble packing all their presents. Danicka will probably cry when she hugs her father goodbye, but she'll try so hard not to, and she'll excuse herself after he heads off so that she won't break down in front of everyone, and Lukas will be torn between following her and staying with his family, protecting them, not embarrassing her further. Lukas will find it difficult to let go of his sister when she hugs him goodbye, and this will surprise both him and poor Anezka, who will pretend not to have Gooey Emotions as she fakes a laugh and pats his back and tells him she can't breathe. Danicka will tease the kids about a special project they need to help her with around May or June.
But today, they have one last day all together. A zoo trip that will end up relatively brief, just because of the cold and everyone being tired. A lot of time spent lazing at home. A walk to a nearby playground where Irena will go to town on the swings. Where Emanek will -- wisely -- distrust her when she says that if he licks a pole there will be a perfect imprint of his tongue on the metal. Lots and lots of cocoa at home. Kids in the front yard, destroying the snow, piling it up, throwing it at each other. Danicka obliterating everyone's challenges with eight simple words:
Mr. Green in the kitchen with the revolver.
At which point Anezka will just throw her pencil and pad of paper up in the air in defeat.
One more. Which begins -- for the second time -- like this. Danicka's hands on his arm, shoving him back and forth like she's rocking a vending machine. And him grinning, keeping his eyes closed, pretending to still be asleep while she jostles him, til she gives up and sits on him, til he can't help it and starts laughing, grabbing her in both arms, growling happily as she squirms away, jumps off the bed, tells him firmly I am going to shower and you can just go on lazing in your own filth, then! which doesn't come off that firm because she's laughing, and he's laughing, and the sun is shining, shining.
