danička.

[Lukas] "I'm almost positive," Lukas interrupts, quite abruptly showing up out of the organic masses with a collins glass in hand, "this is an over-21 club and you are not."

The hour's still early. He looks like he may have just arrived. His coat's checked somewhere, but there's a scent of the cold night on him when he throws himself down on the seat beside Gabbie, setting his drink aside to unbutton the sleeves of his button-up shirt -- casual, deliberately rumpled, striped in greys and blues. When he's done he rolls the sleeves up, one and then the other, then picks his drink up again to take a sizeable sip.

Whatever he's drinking is turquoise blue, the color incandescent when the light hits it right; dark otherwise. "Don't worry," he assures Gabbie, "your sister isn't marching behind me." A glance at the other girl, older, mostly likely over 21. "You going to introduce me to your corrupter, here? At least I assume she's the one that got you in."

[Gabbie Bellamonte] The older woman keeping her company tonight pointed out that she's never once advised her to be good, and that could be taken any number of ways, especially after the brief and somewhat fuzzed display of initiating intimacy on the dance floor that had left the younger Kinfolk mildly confused and purposely oblivious. She also pointed out that not giving people something to worry about didn't necessarily mean not doing anything wrong, but instead not letting them know about anything that would cause them to worry.

Gabriella pondered this, took her eyes from the doorway to look quite hard at Danicka, her blue eyes studying the woman's green ones, as thouhg trying to pry deeper to find out intentions, to hunt down clarifications and drag them out onto the table where she could see them, where they wouldn't be hidden behind vague statements and coy, sharp gazes. Her lips had parted for her to speak, then a somewhat chilling and very familiar voice reached her ears.

Lukas had appeared out of nowhere, seemed to have materialized as though he'd just stepped out of the Umbra rather than a crowd of bodies. He startled her a little, and it showed by the way that her shoulders, left bare by the bold blue cocktail dress she had chosen for tonight, tensed up, by how her eyes had snapped away from Danicka's face to lift to Lukas's. It couldn't be heard or noticed in the throbbing bass of the club's music, but her heart rate increased as well. The Shadow Lord eased himself onto the couch beside her, so now she was sandwiched between two Shadow Lords-- ironic? Maybe a little. She watched him sit, watched him roll up his sleeves, and huffed quietly when he asked for/demanded an introduction.

Shaking her head a little, she reached for her glass, sliding her gin and tonic away from Lukas's curious blue drink. "That would be a first, that Katherine isn't using you as a compass toward me." She lifted her drink then, swallowed some of the alcohol, and set her glass back on the table before speaking further, gesturing between Danicka and Lukas. "This is Danicka Musil, a friend from the past come back anew." Then, as the second part of that. "This is Lukas, my brother's Beta." Introductions passed, she then looked over to the Garou lounging beside her, her expression only mildly darker than before, out of habit rather than real emotion. When Lukas was around, more often than not a scolding was following close behind. Pavlov's dogs and all.

"Just invite yourself to comfort, don't you?" Snarky as that was, there was a hint of a grin to the question. She wasn't necessarily trying to be mean or shoo him away, it just sort of came off like that.

[Danicka Musil] Facing the way she is, though her attention is primarily on Gabriella, Danicka sees Lukas coming. At first it's just a flash of grey and blue, dark hair and height, a preparation of a few choice phrases, and then something ice-cold crawls up her spine. She doesn't shiver, but the plans for what to tell this man walking their way go out the window. Whoever he is, something about him takes away the relaxation that was gained by that stretch she gave a moment ago. She looks from the girl she's with to the man walking over and watches him stroll up, sit down, and roll up his sleeves as though he's about to go to work.

His attention, at first, is on Gabriella, who is holding a highball glass with a slice of lime and some ice in clear liquid. There's a bottle of water on the table between them, half-empty and currently capped. They were about to speak to one another further before Lukas came in, and then Gabbie's tension spiked visibly. Danicka's chest rises and falls with breath still elevated from dancing, her back is straight, but her eyes haven't snapped. She saw him when people parted to let him by, and did not have to turn her head to see him, as Gabriella did.

Her eyes are indeed green, though just a wide band of color around a pupil dilated to take in what little light there is. He chides Gabriella for being 18 in a club that is reserved for the 21-and-over crowd, reassures her that Katherine isn't behind him, and wants an introduction to her 'corrupter'. Danicka's eyebrows lift slightly at that, but not in offense. Sitting straight rather than leaning back now, she returns his gaze only for a moment when he looks at her and then drops her eyes slightly. Not off his face, but to his cheekbones, so that she is not staring directly at him.

This is Lukas, her brother's Beta. Danicka finds some conversational reference point in that, when she looks at Gabriella again and back to the man who just arrived. Rather than tell Gabbie to be nice, or to be more polite since he's 'family', she smiles and reaches past her, offering her hand to Lukas. She noted the pronunciation, not LOO-cuss but something that is actually more familiar to her. "A pleasure. Gabriella was just mentioning you."

[Lukas] Lukas doesn't so much sit as he sprawls, propped on one elbow, the other shoulder to the wall. His body stretches away from Gabbie and her new/old friend, one foot up on the couch, the other on the floor. He's usually so terribly proper, so polite, so courteous, such a goddamn honorable fuck that it's strange to see him like this. Off-duty. Relaxed. Getting buzzed. His eyes hooded, like a leopard in the sun, his attention idly on the girls on the dance floor.

Of course, Danicka wouldn't know any differently. She'd probably be surprised the next time she met him; on-duty.

"Actually," Lukas tosses down another mouthful that leaves his drink down to a third, "I think you're invading my territory here. You underaged brat."

He's careless in his banter as well; there's no real vitriol there. As far as he knew the issue with the Unsuitable Suitor (tm) had blown over; until he heard otherwise, she was a relative of a packmate, no different from Sampson's many wives.

There's no surprise as he's introduced as Lukas, the Beta. Danicka, after all, had a touch of the supernatural herself; the je ne sais quoi that marks a kin of particular good blood. "Oh yeah?" he says, stretching an arm in front of Gabbie. It's a lefthanded handshake he offers; by necessity not so much a clasp of hands as a brief grasp, unless Danicka offered her left hand too. "Dare I ask?"

The skimpily clad girls immediately on the other side of Danicka and Gabriella stand up and walk elsewhere. For no reason they can name, they cannot look him in the eye, the dark-haired guy with the wide, sharp cheekbones and the cold blue eyes. A small bubble of space is opening up slowly but surely: a region that the humans simply do not, or cannot, bear to be in for long.

[Gabbie Bellamonte] Gabriella might be eighteen, but tonight it was understandable how she got let in. Her hair was curled loosely and pinned up off her neck, and this combined with the fact that the dress she chose was strapless, with an empire waist and loose fabric that fell to mid-thigh, made her neck appear longer, her legs longer, her mostly-grown-but-not-quite-finished-yet body adult and mature. Her make-up was done more adult as well, her eyebrows darkened just a touch, eyeliner sharp and eyeshadow in faint blues to match her dress. This was quite the contrast from the sparse use of blush and lip gloss that she often sported.

This all combined with her regal bone structure, her confident movements taught in her youth (eyes level, chin high and proud, balance the book), and the blood that sang to many made her more than just some eighteen year old girl looking to cause and/or get into some trouble tonight.

Lukas corrected her, stated that she was in his territory, and called her a brat. She wasn't too worked up over this, it was no secret how Lukas felt about her-- an attatchment, baggage that came with her siblings, and ungrateful baggage at that. They tolerated each other just fine, even with that fact in play. So she leaned back a little when hands clasped in front of her, shaking, gripping, greeting. She took another drink from her glass-- mostly gone now, just a little left-- and leaned back in her seat, foot still bouncing to the music, head bobbing to it as well now, though just faintly, and lapsed into quiet while she let the two talk.

[Danicka Musil] The hand that Danicka offered to Lukas was her right, in fact, her left still resting comfortably on top of the cushion between her left thigh and Gabbie's right. So it is a somewhat awkward clasp. Thumbs don't slide easily together that way. However, Danicka compensates. Almost immediately, when she sees his left hand extended, she turns her own wrist so that her fingers fold over the top side of his fingers. In another century the next step would go without saying, his lips on her knuckles, but the touch doesn't last long enough for that. They squeeze, briefly, draw back their arms.

Her hand is warm. Either she and Gabriella have been sitting here for awhile in the heat of collected bodies or they have already danced up their core temperatures enough to combat the brutal cold outside. Then again, she may be one of those women who doesn't have poor circulation, whose feet and hands aren't always cold and pleading to be warmed up.

As far as she knows, Lukas is always like this. Sprawling, monstrous, taking up space, casual. Rumpled, even, much like his shirt. For all he knows, this is who Danicka is: a club hopper. She has a silver clutch with a thin strap around her wrist and no jewelry but a pair of pearl drops from her ears. Her hair is down and wavy, a few strands stuck to the back of her neck with sweat. He never saw her in New York City, does not likely know the Sokolovs though he may very well know of them. She's a stranger to him. It's entirely possible that no matter what else they see of each other, he'll be rumpled and drinking something electric blue in the future to her just as she'll be bright-eyed from dancing and wearing brilliant white to him.

People around them start to drift off, back to the dancefloor, or to the door, anywhere to get them away from Lukas.

Danicka is certainly older than Gabbie, looks older than Lukas. She appears to be somewhere in her late twenties. One corner of her lips curls up into a faint smirk at his Dare I ask? "Just some good advice," she says, and pushes her hair back off her face with the hand that just shook his left. "Are you alone tonight, Lukas?" she says, and damned if his name doesn't sound like it was the easiest part of that question for her to say. Correctly pronounced and everything.

[Lukas] At that, Lukas pulls his eyes off the girls in their club gear on the club floor in the club lights for a moment. He considers Danicka, something faintly sardonic about his surprise, eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch.

Then, rather droll: "You didn't just proposition me, did you?" It's a joke; it must be.

[Danicka Musil] [Perception + Empathy: You can call me whatever you want, baby.]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 5, 5, 9, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Gabbie Bellamonte] Gabbie seemed to be more intent to pay mind to the people fluttering away-- now the long couch lining the wall was completely vacant. She watched girls gather their drinks, eyeballing the man that took up as much room as he pleased, and make their way to the bar, or out onto the dancefloor. She watched people who walked by as they eyed Lukas warily (when not too wrapped up in themselves or the oppertunities that lay ahead) as they made way from entrance to dance floor.

Danicka asked if Lukas was here alone tonight, and Gabriella answered that in her mind. Yes, she thought. Were he not here alone, then someone would be on the couch beside him by now, and it would probably be a member of the Circle out for a good time-- perhaps Edward or Sam. He was certianly alone, up until this point, she was sure. Lukas's response made Gabriella chuckle and shake her head.

A hand lifted to sweep a few loose curls away from her mouth-- they threatened to stick on her lips and get caught in her mascara-enhanced eyelashes-- and push them back closer to her ear. She couldn't help but add something to that. "Are you so sore for company, Lukas, that you need to try and sweep mine away?"

[Danicka Musil] She is considered. Every time a different strobe hits her, her dress is a different color and there are flickers of rainbows on the silver of her clutch, the silver straps around her feet. There is nothing about her that is so lovely she must be looked at, started at, observed, but she draws the eye. Her features are classic but somehow familiar. At the same time there's something unassailable, as though she is not now nor will ever be changed. As another packmate so briefly met noticed, something about Danicka feels -- especially to one of Lukas's and Mrena's Tribe -- known.

Not cold and dark and thriving despite unspeakable odds. But koláče, hearth, a certain atheistic prayer to the earth rather than to god sung quietly at night. Something about Danicka feels like home, feels like it...fits.

He drolly asks -- jokes -- if she just propositioned him, and one of her slight eyebrows lifts along with the corner of her mouth. She has no idea that if he were not utterly alone in his venture out tonight that it's almost certain that other person would be right at his side. She doesn't know the Unbroken Circle. When she knew the Bellamontes, Edward was still human and Katherine was...no less prim. "I would certainly hope that if I did 'proposition' you that you wouldn't need to ask me that," she says, almost chidingly, and reaches for her water bottle.

As she does so, her other hand moves over and assists Gabriella, tucking a few strands behind her ear for her. Danicka sips from the square plastic bottle. The gesture towards the younger woman was idle, thoughtless. Almost protective.

[Lukas] There's a moment when Lukas does not respond; when he simply watches Danicka, this newly discovered kin of his tribe; when Danicka might wonder if she has grossly miscalculated what he wanted to hear.

Then, abruptly, he laughs. He turns away to toss down the last of his drink, which was, if they are the type to recognize it -- which Katherine Bellamonte likely hopes Gabriella is not -- the particular ghastly concoction known as an Adios Motherfucker 151.

He sets the emptied glass aside, props himself a little more upright against the wall. "What an inventive, polite way to say no. I am here alone," he confirms, "but I wasn't intending to leave with you, if that thought occurred to you. Nor Gabriella here, if only because her siblings might crucify me from the nearest streetlight.

"By the way, is that Danicka, or Danička?"

[Gabbie Bellamonte] Gabbie wasn't one to snort. While not nearly so prim and concerned with appearance as Katherine was, she still maintained at least a certain level of ladylike behavior, kept in mind that she wasn't a slob, that she was raised better than that, thorughout her daily activities, even when relaxed. However, she couldn't help but make some sort of a noise at Lukas's comment about leaving the club with Gabbie at his side. She didn't speak on that point, didn't need to. Lukas was far from an image of romance in her mind. He felt like a relative of some sort-- like her brother's friend that had grown up with him, like someone she'd known forever and was too familiar with to see as anything but. He felt like a brother-in-law, he felt like a young uncle. Whatever comparison you set him up to as far a relationship with Gabriella went, it was always platonic. The thought of going to bed with him made iron doors slam closed in her mind, like when someone mentions your parents or siblings getting busy under the sheets.

Danicka reached over to touch Gabbie's face for a third time (third? was she losing count, or was that right?) that night, brushing free hair that had escaped her up-do while dancing back behind her ear. Gabbie smiled faintly to the woman, the expression brief, a non-verbal thanks and show of appreciation, then looked back out to the dance floor.

Accustomed to Lukas as she was, accustomed to Garou as she was in general, she felt an urge deep down to move away from him, give him more room on that couch, perhaps even leave him there alone. He made the dance floor and the lecherous inhabitants it held seem safe and tame, almost desirable in comparison.

[Danicka Musil] If she's wondering whether or not Lukas is going to sneer, or lurch forward and grab her around the throat, it doesn't show in a flash of concern through her eyes or a lessening of the soft smile on her lips. Her shoulders are rounded with relaxation; she looks quietly amused, but there's no twinkle of mockery in her expression. Unless, of course, that's what he's deciding to see there. She doesn't know him; she doesn't comment on his drink and the fact that he took it back in roughly three mouthfuls.

"Mmm," comes the rather noncommital, humming reply to his assurance that he is not entertaining ideas of throwing either woman over his shoulder or into the backseat of a car. She doesn't come off as annoyed, nor even disinterested. If anything, that unresponsive response was just...dull.

His request for clarification on her name, however, makes her eyebrows flit upwards with perked attention. It's understandable, with the music thumping and voices raising, if Gabriella's quite-good-but-not-entirely-perfect pronunciation didn't quite get the origin of her name across. Her hands are loosely draped over her crossed legs, and her head tips to one side to regard him. "Danička," she repeats for him, confirming the latter. It's so very slightly, barely different from how Gabriella said it, how everyone says it. Most Americans call her Danicka and shorten it to Danny, not knowing that Danička is already a diminutive, already a nickname. The way he says it, he might just.

[Lukas] "Hm." A glimmer of actual interest now. He removes his foot from the couch, straightens himself, though he's still sprawled with his shoulders to the wall. "Czech parents?"

[Gabbie Bellamonte] Lukas knocked back his electric blue beverage, and Gabriella finished off her gin and tonic, though not in a terribly similar manner. He slugged his back, while she was just taking the last drink, finishing what was left at the bottom of her glass, which remained tipped until the lime slice slid to the edge of the glass. The lime slice was grasped with her lips and teeth, and the glass itself, now empty save for some ice, was placed on the table.

Danicka sat with her back straight to her right, Lukas sat sprawled and more than comfortable, like this was a sofa in his own living room, to her left. Gabbie, in the middle of these two, found a common ground between the two postures. She was leaned back against the wall but not slumping or sprawling. Her shoulders were relaxed, her legs crossed-- differently now, at first right over left, now that changed to left over right-- and a slice of lime now held in her fingers for her to suck and nibble at.

The two conversed about Danicka's name and its proper pronunciation, about the fact that he was here alone. Just-introduced-to-one-another banter. Gabriella's attention faded away from their words, slowly but steadily, and became more invested in watching people on the dance floor. She'd pick a person, man or woman, it didn't matter, and watch them for a minute-- how they danced, who they danced with, how they reacted to propositions and how scandilous they decided to be tonight.

[Danicka Musil] This is Lukas, my brother's Beta.

Gabriella is not an ugly American, incapable of learning or speaking a foreign language or of acknowledging other cultures. She's an artist, that much Danicka knew even seven or eight years ago when she watched the eight year old painting or drawing. Not many children even of that age cover an entire piece of paper with color, layering and mixing, blending edges. They used to play a game: a note on the piano echoed by the girls. Gabriella cannot dissemble like Lizzie; Yelizaveta never had Gabbie's perfect pitch.

However, 'Lukas' is not precisely his name, and when he says her own, Danicka realizes this. He goes on to ask her, an actual hint of interest showing now -- whether it was there before or not, she doesn't know and likely would not reveal an opinion on it if she did -- if her parents were Czech. And she realizes that while Gabbie has an educated mind, she does not know the language or the culture from which the Full-Moon's name came.

Danicka pauses for a fraction of a second, then nods once. "My father," she confirms, though she does not get so specific as to tell him where he is from or whether he was born in America or the region that was once Bohemia. She could be first generation. Or second. Or third... "So then you're Lukáš," she says, more as a statement than a question, and with that burgeoning knowledge comes another clue -- this is hardly the first -- that he is no more a Silver Fang than the other member of Edward and Katherine's pack that she's met.

She reaches for her water again and takes a long drink. There's no bright reaction in her, an excited babble of another language, a conversation over somewhat shared origins. That would be horrifically rude to Gabriella, who is already being near-ignored in these scant minutes of introductory drivel. Her eyes go to the blue-eyed girl as she caps her water and sets it down. "Are you satisfactorily re-hydrated, sweetheart?"

[Lukas] "That I am," he confirms: Lukáš, with the sharp -sch on the final consonant. "Mluvíte česky?" -- and no matter the answer, he drops back into English, out of consideration for their companion. "My family name is Kvasnička, once a junior branch of the House of Žerotínové -- not that familial connections matter much to our tribe. We used to live not too far from Prague, though. These days my folks are in New York."

And there his brief biographical sketch ends: a handful of trivia, no real detail at all. He turns his attention to Gabriella as well, his mild curiosity extending to her as well. "How did the two of you meet? 'A friend of the past', you said?"

[Gabbie Bellamonte] Danicka turned a question to Gabriella-- bless her, she saw that the younger of the now-trio was getting anxious, getting bored. She asked if she was re-hydrated, and Gabriella had to chuckle. Gin and tonic was the kind of drink you were supposed to nurse, her glass was meant to last her an hour, and she'd finished it in about ten minutes. Her eyes were a bit brighter, her muscles looser, and it showed as she relaxed her posture from a straight sit to a lean against the wall. When she had released the glass, her hands didn't default to fiddling with the fabric that fell loose from the bow under her bustline, but instead dropped to the cushion she sat on, one hand on either side of her. Danicka's hand rested here as well, to her right, so their fingers grazed just slightly.

Gabbie didn't care. Physical contact didn't bother her.

"Quite," she answered Danicka. Then Lukas voiced a question. How did they know each other? She turned to look at him now, her blue eyes on his-- so similar, but the only thing about them that was. "She used to watch over a girl that I grew up with. But that was then, and this was now." She slapped her hands lightly on her knees, then rose to stand in those inch high heels(relatively low, considering Danicka's three inch tall shoes) and step out from behind the oval table in front of them. Smiling, not just to one or the other, but to both at the same time, she smoothed her hands down her sides and over her hips, adjusting the loose sheer sheets of fabric that fell over the single opaque under layer that kept that small cocktail dress at least somewhat modest, and gestured both with her head and shoulders toward the dance floor.

"I, for one, came here with a mind to get some dancing done tonight. I'm sure Danicka did as well," she paused to grin at Dani-- of course she did, that was the reason they agreed to go out together tonight, neither wanted a boring Saturday evening. She now addressed Lukas more exclusively, looking at him directly. "I don't know if you just come here to drink, but I wouldn't be too bothered if you came too."

[Danicka Musil] He has heard her family name, Musil and that is all. Her father is Czech, and he knew the moment he saw her that she was a Shadow Lord. Danicka cannot look at Lukas and know instantly what he is, could only have guessed upon learning that he was a werewolf that he was probably from one of the Tribes she knows of and has interacted with, but his breeding manifests to her only as a certain 'air' about him. It's like an accent on his speech or a certain way of gesturing, like little markers that tell you someone is from a certain area of the country. It's sort of like how people can look at Danicka walking down the street and know that she's not from around here. Big city, yes. Chicago, no.

Mluvíte česky?

"Ano," Danicka cuts in to answer, though he goes on in English if only out of consideration for Gabriella. He goes on about his family, but this doesn't spur her to respond with her own lineage, if she even knows all of it. Where her father is from, who her mother is (was), the name her brother goes by. He eyebrows do lift in interest when he says that 'we' -- meaning he as well -- used to live near Prague, but there is still not a lot of detail there. She does not even know his moon.

Though she can feel it. Attention moves, and both she and Lukas ask Gabriella a question. It is as if they both realized around the same time that she was being somewhat left out; or else simply that left out or not, it was time to draw her back in. Draw themselves back to her. Something. Danicka smiles as Gabbie tells Lukas what her job used to be. 'That girl' was one of the highest bred Silver Fangs in the city, only child of one of the richest households among anyone in New York City, never mind among the Garou alone. Not that it matters. What Gabbie says is true: that was then.

Danicka's not a governess anymore.

She watches the girl speak, she watches her get up, and Danicka follows her cue. She rises as well, in heels that take her up to 5'9", her swishing skirt falling around her thighs. She smiles at Lukas, looking friendly...enough. She offers Gabriella her hand, as she did the last time. "Are we waiting for you?" she asks him, an eyebrow up.

[Lukas] "That was informative," Lukas replies to Gabbie, drily, but he doesn't press for more. Either he didn't care, or he was still off fucking duty.

"Actually," he bestirs himself to sit up, picking his emptied glass up, "I think I'm going to go play big bad wolf with the redhead over there. I just came over to say hello." He gets up, and he does not sway, but there's a looseness to his joints now, the beginnings of a buzz uncurling through his veins. He pats his pockets to make sure his keys and wallet hadn't fallen out; pauses to nod at Gabriella. "You're all right for a ride home? I can call Katherine and have her pick you up at closing time."

And Gabriella's right. Earlier quip or not, there's a decidedly familial slant to his regard for her. Not quite a brother; not that close -- but a cousin, perhaps.

Assured that she has her own means of getting home, Lukas turns his attention to Danicka instead. This is different: there's a sort of recognition in the way he looks at her, not of her but of her blood. "We'll talk again," he tells her, and just for a moment, he is focused, steady; it is a promise.

[Gabbie Bellamonte] Lukas turned down the invitation to go onto the floor with them, chose instead to go scare the shit out of some redhead and, possibly, intimidate his way right into her bed tonight. He stood, his joints and movements more fluid now, more relaxed, a hint of that savage drink affecting his rapidly-healing system, but paused to speak to the ladies before he left-- a question for Gabbie, a promise for Danicka. Gabbie answered by nodding her head to Dani, who had taken up post at her side. "Danicka drove us here, she'll be my way home tonight."

And as he would stalk away toward the aforementioned redhead, Gabriella would grin and wave her fingers of the hand that Danicka didn't take a hold of after him. "Best of luck," she wished to his back, then tugged at Danicka's hand, lightly, to encourage her back to the dance floor. Her feet and ankles had recovered, her drink had loosened her up, and she was fond of the rhythm of the new song that was playing.

[Danicka Musil] Big bad wolf, he calls himself, just as Danicka called the mortal men accosting women on the dancefloor in much the same way that Lukas is about to. Danicka is giving him her attention as Gabriella slides her hand into her proffered one. The way he looks back at her after patting down his pockets is familiar to her, or at least does not make her shudder, look away, or shrink in on herself.

"I look forward to it, bratr mé krve," she says with a nod, her tone sincere and the Czech she slips in sounding more like a respectful title than an implication of anything personal. Gabriella sends him off with luck, but Danicka waits until he has let go of her gaze and moved after the redhead before she walks with Gabbie into the dancefloor.

Her hand is tugged. Gabbie's is squeezed, and Danicka exhales. Her smile is faint at first, then grows as they slip into the crowd again. "Now," she says, leaning in close to the girl's ear as they walk to a suitable space in the center of the dancefloor, "who said I was taking you home tonight?"

[Gabbie Bellamonte] The squeeze of her hand was the answer she sought. Danicka waited until Lukas had turned his back and started walking away before she turned to move out onto the dancefloor with Gabriella. They slid between bodies that wriggled to the beat, dodged elbows every now and again. Gabbie's method was to gently touch her fingertips to the small of peoples backs, alert them that she was there and passing through so that they wouldn't make an erratic motion in their dancing, or step back onto her toes or anything like that. It was small, hardly initiating, and the touch would be gone as soon as it had landed. Harmless, easily forgotten, people didn't seem to care.

In the middle of the floor, a space between one cluster of girls facing one another and dancing (see Dane Cook's comedic piece about dancing around shoes and handbags) and a wall of bodies that were difficult to distinguish from one another, all dancing together it seemed, Gabriella turned about to face Danicka and began to dance. Not flush with the woman, not necessarily with her again, but dancing near, near enough to be able to speak with. She smiled brightly, almost cheekily at the question the woman presented, and answered with a shrug of swaying shoulders. "Silly me for assuming," she'd responded.

The rest of the night would, no doubt, fade away into a blur of dancing, perhaps more with each other, and no doubt plenty of fending off of the big bad wolves that Danicka spoke of. Maybe they saw Lukas when they decided it was time to leave, either alone or with the redhead he was persuing on his arm. However, the night would end at about two in the morning, roughly. Despite the quip, Danicka would wind up taking Gabriella back to her home, and after plenty of jests, friendliness, and possibly a little more subdued flirting that Gabriella would force herself to be oblivious to, the night would end on a promise: We've gotta do this again sometime.