dishonor.

[Sam Modine] When Sam's voice had come over the phone it was recognizable as his but only just barely. There's been a gravely tone, a bass in it that he never normally possessed. Perhaps she knew the reason, and perhaps she's unfamiliar with the more obscure forms her shifting cousins take.

He'd been affable though, and had asked if they could get together for a few hours sometime. She'd relented to the advance and that led them here. It's not quite the same as the downtown place where they'd made their first date. The differences are easy to spot, the prices here are lower, the lighting is a little worse, the furnishings are simpler and until spring a small sign near the counter reads there will be no wireless internet access. But there is good coffee. Sam Modine sips at one, black from a white styrofoam cup. Even at the lunch hour a place like this has few sit-in customers, mostly it's just dock workers coming in for a cup on their fifteen minutes an hour and rushing back out to the heavy lifting and biting cold. So it is, too that he's got the place to himself.

There are a few different things to note about Sam today, his jacket and a hooded sweatshirt both hang on the back of the chair he's sitting in and in just a light grey t-shirt the bulges of multiple large bandages are visible. Every few minutes he can be caught rubbing a purple black, crescent shaped bruise that's just visible along his neck and clavicle. If she knows as much she'll see this as the first part of a well healed laceration, and a deep one. A similar bandaged bulge is visible under his leans on the rear of his right calf, which upon closer examination may look as though it's been mangled to hell and back but one can't truly tell with his legs covered.

The other thing though, and the one impressed on her is what he didn't come in here with. That fire, while not gone is dimmed by half it's intensity. If it were a blast furnace before it may now only be a simple winter's hearth. No wonder then, that in his battered form he finds it so easy to smile.

It's that-
or the company.

[Danicka Musil] That was one thing Danicka didn't talk about at dinner, or over drinks most certainly. He doesn't know her favorite color or her favorite book or where she went to school; he doesn't know about her family, her Garou relatives, her familiarity with all things precious or private to their kind. Maybe it's occurred to him over the past few days how very little he learned about her on that date, or maybe all he has been thinking has been tinged at turns with bloody wounds and silk under his hands.

On Tuesday he'd woken up in a room not his own, in a bed too narrow for two people to really sleep comfortably together anyway, without a trace of the woman he'd first gone to that bed with. No purse or coat lying on the desk, hinting that she was just in the bathroom or sitting in the common room. No earring dropped to the floor. And, though he might not have been expecting one, no note. The only thing he had left of her were hints of her scent, on the sheets and on his own skin. The bed was not warm except where he laid on it; she had been gone for some time.

Though when he called, she sounded pleased to hear from him, and does not comment on his voice. She is the one who suggests coffee when he says they should get together. She is the one who agrees to come meet him closer to the Brotherhood than to her apartment, and that's her, the one in the dark jeans and the cream-colored sweater, walking over to where he's waiting and giving him a small wave before going to the counter to get her coffee. In only a matter of minutes, she's sitting down across from him, her hair straightened.

"How have you been?" she asks, still fresh from the cold, her cheeks pink.

[Sam Modine] He stops running at his neck when she approaches from the counter, setting his palm evenly down on the table. "Better now." He replies. He takes a sip of his coffee as an excuse to just be quiet and admire her for a few seconds.

You've got to spend some time love

"I'm glad you could get all the way over here." He offers naught but a warm smile, grateful, genuinely. "I can't walk that well right now." The Fenrir mentions it as though he's suffering from a simple muscle spasm rather than having half of his calf ripped away in the teeth of a sickly dire wolf not a night before last. "How about you?" Sam counters. "How've you been?" He doesn't bring up that she was gone when he'd awoke, that he'd been puzzled at first, then a bit hurt before he'd rationalized things into a perspective amid memories of body heat and friction. No, he just makes conversation, she's here after all, isn't she?

Gotta spend some time with me

[Danicka Musil] "It's no trouble," she assures him, crossing one leg over the other under the table. She's not in a skirt; that was one thing Sam may very well never have noticed, but Danicka only ever crossed her legs at the ankle when she was in that green dress, ladylike. Modest. Considering how the night had ended, it might seem incongruent.

But she's in jeans today, well-fitted to her legs and dark enough to be new, or cared for more than most people care for their dungarees. Her eyes are as green as ever, the pupils widening to adjust to the dimmer lighting in here after being outside. Not that it's terribly bright outside: the sun is covered by clouds, lonely and missing the world as much as the world misses it. She shrugs out of the leather coat she's wearing, letting it drape over the back of the chair she's chosen, and then she tips her head, her smile faltering.

"What happened?" she asks, with immediate concern.

[Sam Modine] "Katherine and I ran into some trouble in the park." He brethes through his nose for just a moment, his head lightly shaking off an image. "Nothing I couldn't handle, though." A weak attempt at a smile slowly turns into a genuine one albeit not a shining example of openness. He adds though after a second.

I know that you'll find love

"Do me a favor and don't walk that way alone after dark." This, she'll have picked up by now is the way he deals with her. It's not conventional in the sense that he doesn't demand, doesn't force. He asks her to do him a favor, he takes from her when she gives permission. He seems to, in her limited experience at least, dote upon her.

I will possess your heart...

Regardless though Sam doesn't dwell overlong on the injury, simply brushing it off by moving along to the next thing. "You left early the other night," his grin goes wry for a second, twisting up one side of his face, "you missed one of Miss Locke's better breakfast performances."

[Danicka Musil] Do me a favor.

Pretend it's your choice.

Danicka's eyes don't flash wide open at the mention of 'trouble'. She knows what Katherine is and she sure as hell knows what Sam is, and 'trouble' in the park could mean anything. He was injured; that's implied if not explicitly stated. Danicka doesn't gasp, or reach over the table to grab his hand. There is no handkerchief waving, no token tied to his arm, and she does not cover her mouth in horror to guess that he's been wounded. That does not mean she is completely detached: her brow is furrowed, her mouth pulling slightly with a look of concern and acceptance mingled.

He dotes on her. She is kind to him. It is not the same. Danicka just lifts her brows slightly. "I don't walk many places alone after dark," she informs him, with a tone of reassurance more than dismissal. I won't, she may as well have said.

And then he finally goes back to it: the other night. The fact that she was there for perhaps an hour and a half before she slipped out of the Brotherhood, leaving him and not taking breakfast. Danicka laughs lightly and lifts her coffee to blow on the surface. "I didn't exactly bring a change of clothes, Sam. Might have looked a little odd, showing up to breakfast in a dress and last night's makeup."

[Sam Modine] "Next to my hair at ten a-m?" He chuckles. "I doubt anybody would have been the wiser."

He gives half a shrug, again letting loose on a thread of conversation. He sips at his coffee a little more, he's been here just long enough not to be retaining the cold from out of doors anymore and so the drink's warmth is merely a simple pleasure rather than a toll in the arsenal against the elements. It doesn't seem like he's quite so nervous as normal today he isn't falling on his words, isn't afraid to let it be quiet between them for just a second. The rest is the same, he didn't suddenly become cocky overnight, simply more assured than before. He doesn't speak for a time, giving her the opportunity if she'd like it.

After all. It had worked well enough before.

[Danicka Musil] He does have hair sort of like straw. This is how Martin had described it, in fact, when she was slipping into her heels before going downstairs. The Don't wait up had been a joke; he wouldn't have. The Silver Fang Kinsman had launched into a rendition of a song from The Wizard of Oz as she was getting her coat on, and yelled Wrap it up, Musil! behind her as the front door opened. The entire floor would have heard that shout as she left to go on her date, if the walls were thinner. As it is, only their immediate neighbor Charles Cravey had heard it.

But that has nothing to do with anything: Danicka can imagine, and is in fact imagining at the moment, what someone with hair like Sam's would look like in the morning. Sticking up everywhere, matted on one side, a cowlick over his forehead...she can see it clearly because his hair had been halfway there when she left him on Tuesday morning. He wouldn't know, but she did not pause to brush a lock off of his brow in the manner that she did when he was lying on his side with her, his hand slowly rubbing the outside of her thigh and hip, his breaths still coming fast after holding himself up over her.

That had been somewhat tender, that push of hair off his face, but she had not done it again. Nor had she kissed his cheek before slipping out the door and closing it quietly behind her. He doesn't know. All he remembers is that she was there when he fell asleep, on his side because of the thinness of the bed, and she was still facing him. That was the last thing he would recall, looking back, is Danicka smiling drowsily at him. Then waking up, and that side of the bed being cold.

"If I were all that worried about people knowing we slept together," she says, sipping her cooling coffee, "I wouldn't have gone to the Brotherhood with you, of all places." Her smile is somewhat wry as she sets the cup down again, looking up and finding that meeting his eyes isn't quite as hard as it was on Monday night. Fancy that.

[Sam Modine] "I was hoping,"

Sam begins speaking, holding her green eyes effortlessly with his own, noting the way her shoulders didn't tense when he did. It's earnest his tone, hopeful. "You'd be up for a repeat performance." He stops himself short, realizing his mistake. "I mean a second date, not necessarily the sex." He's not speaking loudly enough that the flighty looking college aged woman behind the counter turns her head when he says it, but it's close enough to draw a sort of 'oops' expression across his face. It's easy to see how given different circumstances this could have been a completely different person. The underlying personality is still there if not covered up by years of relentless training and more on that of living with the brother, the sister and their pack.

"Not," he appends. "That i'd be at all against it." His own ice blue orbs for just a moment reflect the same way they had at the beginning of the week. Wanton. But this time the man's passions outweigh the beast's. "Anyway, I was thinking maybe just a quiet night, you pick the place." The question is eveloped with humor and slid across the table. In the same metaphor she'll cross off one of three crayon boxes and send it back.

[Danicka Musil] There's always going to be tension. As burned-out as he can be, as weak, as wounded, as close to death and therefore as close to his mortality as he can ever come, he is still Garou. There is no removing that boundary, even with all the poetic staples and songs about how Kin and Garou are meant to be together: a werewolf parent cannot be near their children without making them run for cover, convinced that Mommy or Daddy is going to hurt them even when they have never laid a hand on the little one. Even if they bore them.

Sam is never going to stop being a Fenrir, never stop being a Modi. His Rage will only grow as he gets older, the battle will only harden him more and begin to scar him over time. He will not get easier to be around, will not become gentler or calmer with age. More than likely he will die years before the prospect of losing the wolf is even a dim shadow on the horizon. This may or may not be something Danicka already knows, but she seems to know quite well what she is. What he is. Even if they never talked about any of that, he is fooling himself if a temporary reprieve in the wake of a skirmish gives even a hint of peace.

He's Garou.

She's not.

And though she doesn't draw back when he meets her eyes this time, even though her shoulders are rounded with relaxation, there is still a spark of instinct in the back of her mind that is simultaneously drawn to and terrified of what he is, underneath all the pretense: skin, smile, human clothes. Fucking coffee.

Danicka, politely, does not cover her face with her palm and shake her head in embarrassment. She doesn't cringe or grimace at his too-loud mention of a 'repeat performance'. Not that he's just talking about the sex. Not that he would mind having sex again. Danicka just smiles with increasing amusement, tipping her head and lifting her cup of coffee towards her mouth while he stumbles all over his words. Her hands are warming against the sides of the cup as she waits for him to get to a stopping point. She is, if nothing else, incredibly patient. Maybe it's a natural trait.

I like you. Do you like me? Check one: Yes / No / Maybe

She sips slowly, since her coffee is still quite hot, and then puts the cup down again. Her body language doesn't change much; she doesn't lean towards him or lean back in her chair away from the man she's facing. She does drop eye contact for a moment as she thinks; that should be his first hint. When she finds his eyes again, her own are slightly more closed off. Not that they were ever particularly open to begin with, even when --

"I really enjoyed being with you," she says, not specifying whether she means dinner, or the tequila, or the hour and a half she spent trying not to cry out too loud and alert everyone in the warehouse-turned-pub what they were up to. "And maybe it was just selfish of me to go to bed with you...if it was, I'm truly sorry. But I just don't see this going anywhere more serious."

As nice as that sounds, as genuine as her apology, as softly sad as her expression, that doesn't change what he sees when in his mind he unfolds the returned slip of paper:

No.

[Sam Modine] "Wh-" The bottom lip on his face presses upward, pulled back in a way that makes his his jaw stick out that much further. "Selfish?" He doesn't provide any contxt for the question outside of the growing frustration in his voice. His eyes cat down toward the table between them, at his hands that flex inward on the surface, balling against themselves. He buries whatever it is deeply, in place where he won't even likely find it for awhile before he can address her again.

"I guess I don't understand. You enjoyed yourself, you liked being with me, I liked being with you... so no?" One of his fists unravels itself again to become fingers that scratch underneath his hair slowly at his recently cleaned scalp. "I just... that doesn't make a lot of sense Danicka." He sits up in his chair, large, lanky frame sitting a little straighter as though he's suddenly exposed.

[Danicka Musil] His frustration is not, intrinsically, the same thing as his Rage. That doesn't mean Danicka does not tense, in her thighs under the table where he can't see and with her toes curling up in her shoes where he won't be alerted to the effect that flareup of irritation has on her. Her hands don't turn into fists, she does not stab herself with a fork, and she does not even use the tongue-to-teeth trick she had to resort to in the car with Lukas. She sublimates. She buries that reaction as far down as she can and even resists the urge to take a slow, deep breath in order to stay sitting in that chair.

Even with him burnt out, he is still not strictly safe. He's not tame. And nice as he has been, she doesn't know how he is going to act, whether or not this will escalate. Danicka tips her head to the side as he gets control of his words and speaks. He is reacting, and she takes it.

It doesn't make a lot of sense. Not to him, at least. She takes a drink of coffee and thinks for a moment, looking at the table and then lifting her eyes to his. Does he want her to argue with him? Expect her to give him reasons that will make sense? She just looks at him, apparently -- as far as he can tell -- unruffled, and taking a moment before she answers. "I did enjoy myself," she says, with excruciating patience. "And I would honestly like to spend time with you again, but I don't want you thinking it's going to become something it's not."

[Danicka Musil] [So I don't have to IM both of you: making a run to the office real quick. Back in 5-10.]

[Sam Modine] You reject my-

He just shakes his head, slowly. She'll note that for maybe the longest time since they've met he won't look at her. Part of this surely is his upbringing. He grew up with them, around them, one of them. And Gaia knows, he still feels like they do, experiences the whole range of things that humanity is cursed to have alternately exalt them and twist their very guts about in ways that they sometimes never get untangled. There's another large part of the equation though, one battled with at first and then a thing they all finally accept in one manner or another. He isn't one of them. Will never be a human being. And even half dulled and out of the reach of slavery to it, the beast beneath him roils.

-advances and desperate pleas.
I won't let you-

"I don't remember asking to have and to hold." And he hadn't. He wasn't being coy when swaying just a bit on his feet and telling her that he'd like to see where their relationship went. That he enjoyed her company. He sits back again and tries to take just a little of the edge off halfway to the bottom his styrofoam cup. When it audibly taps on the tabletop he's still not making eye contact with the woman across from him.

-let me down
so easily.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The door to the cafe swings open. Winter has one interesting consequence: it makes it so that it's no longer even a figure of speech to say that the temperature drops a degree or three when Lukas comes in. Humans near the door draw into themselves as though to escape the chill, but what they're really trying to escape is the rage.

Which sweeps a clear path around him as the Ahroun advances. Which breaks against Sam's own corona, and harder against Danicka, who has no such supernatural buffer of her own.

The Shadow Lord looks wholly unsurprised to see Sam here, in the way that packmates are never surprised by one another's presence. However: he also looks wholly unsurprised to see Danicka, though his eyebrows lower and his brow knits, faintly, as though displeased. It's a microexpression, there and then gone.

Normally he would approach now. Clap Sam on the shoulder. Sit beside him. Not today. It's not just that Sam's with a girl -- normally, that wouldn't stop him at all. It's not even that Sam's body language says he's having a Serious Discussion with a girl; normally, that wouldn't stop him either. They were packmates, and theirs is a closer pack than most, bound by a totem that was in and of itself a pack, a flock, a whole that's greater than the sum of its parts.

Still. Something about today, Sam, Danicka, all this: something about it makes Lukas change his mind halfway to their table; to turn his back and face the counter instead. He gets in line to order an espresso macchiato.

[Danicka Musil] One more, she's thinking. One more and I'll go. One more what isn't defined in her thoughts; it's such an old, familiar thing that she does not need to necessarily name it. Danicka just watches, almost too placid. Too calm. Considering what she is sitting across from, how little she is fooled by the picture of normalcy and humanity they make, her surface is too untroubled. It's like there isn't even wind, where she is. There isn't even air.

How can she breathe?

Thoughtfully, she blinks at him even though he won't look at her. That's an odd turn, that he can't look at the woman who should be -- and may be -- afraid of him. Perhaps he's sparing her seeing what's in his eyes right now, but she can't tell and wouldn't be able to make an educated guess. "Well, then there's really no problem," she says mildly, her tone lightening but remaining gentle as before. As ever, with him.

The nuance is what's important, there: she is not mocking him, nor dismissing him. She is, however, lifting some of the gravity of her own bearing and waiting to see if he joins her. "If you know what to expect from me," and what not to expect "then I don't see any reason why we can't hang out." Beat. "A repeat performance. Not necessarily the --"

In the middle of what is perhaps an ill-advised (never know til you try) venture towards an earlier, less difficult moment for Sam at least, Danicka stops. She doesn't look behind her when the gust of cold air comes in and when something far, far more intense than the Fenrir feels at the moment slams into her spin. She does stop talking, and this time she does press her tongue into her incisor. This time she takes a breath. She won't look. She won't look. She keeps her eyes on Sam.

[Sam Modine] It takes a few beats before the fact that she's stopped talking has his brows climbing and his eyeline drifting up her way. His fingernails tap quietly between them, tucked under his hands. Had he felt the presence wash into the room like a force of nature? Sure. He'd felt it from before Lukas had even touched the handle to the door like a part of his own spirit being made closer to a whole. But right now the kinwoman is the Fenrir's concern and nothing else is really going to deter him from meting this the rest of the way out.

[Sam Modine] ((shit that's incomplete, one sec))

[Sam Modine] It takes a few beats before the fact that she's stopped talking has his brows climbing and his eyeline drifting up her way. His fingernails tap quietly between them, tucked under his hands. Had he felt the presence wash into the room like a force of nature? Sure. He'd felt it from before Lukas had even touched the handle to the door like a part of his own spirit being made closer to a whole. But right now the kinwoman is the Fenrir's concern and nothing else is really going to deter him from meting this the rest of the way out.

His voice is lower, subdued as compared to before, but it's clear. He doesn't choke or trip or any of the other stumbling he's become accustomed to in himself around the woman. "I kind of thought that was the point." What is clear is an abiding something creeping in. Something very unlike him. It's not anger, or joy. No, this is an abiding middle. A verbal sulk. "To learn what to expect." And what time have they had? comes the subtext, the underlying question still that he's asked half a dozen different ways at this point.

Why?

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is still waiting in line.

He shifts from one foot to the other, impatient. He draws a quiet breath and lets it out -- hardly a sound at all. The man in front of him edges away until he's nearly crowding the man in front of him into the counter.

[Sam Modine]

[Sebastian] The gent's door at the back opens, and Sebastian emerges, absent mindedly wiping his hands dry on the seat of his jeans. How long he's been in there is anybody's guess, though neither Danicka or Sam saw him enter after they arrived. Coat folded over his arm, he drifts forward, gaze moving over the two Garou with mild interest, pausing on Danicka, and then settling on an empty seat to one side of the cafe. Pausing by it, he drapes his coat over a chair back, and then pulls down on his gray sweater, straightening it by tugging on the hem. He's wearing a rumpled white shirt beneath, button up, no tie. Arms of the sweater tugged up, cuffs of the shirt rolled back up and over. Dark jeans, black hiking boots.

Coat deposited, he steps forward, moving past other tables with absent minded sways of his hips, and fetches up like flotsam at the counter, gazing down at the goods and pastries arrayed therein like jewels and Faberge eggs.

Unmindful of the glances his ruined face draws from the man and woman working behind the counter, the already nervous fellow standing before Lukas.

[Danicka Musil] "You just learned."

Those words, calmly spoken, are perhaps the bluntest thing Danicka has said. They are not flat from her lips, or harsh. Her tone of voice hasn't changed, but there is simply something about the way she responds that strikes him like a slap across the face...or more accurately, like a ruler across the knuckles. It isn't anger, not really, not even frustration. Impatience.

With his sulking.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has an Ahroun's awareness of the space he occupies. Details of the world around him are constantly filtered through his subconscious, the vast majority of it -- the young mother whose child is now crying in the corner; the barista who just spilled someone's cafe latte all over the counter -- are caught and released, passed through without retention. Once in a while, though, something blips into his conscious mind, relayed from the thalamus to the cortex, catches his attention.

Like Sebastian, coming out of the men's room.

The man ahead of Lukas places his order and steps aside, juggling his change as he goes. The Ahroun steps up to bat, orders his espresso macchiato, pays, steps aside for the next paying customer. But instead of stepping discreetly off to wait near the racks of mugs and tea steepers for sale, he heads rather directly toward Sebastian.

"I recognize you," he says, and with a face like that, perhaps Sebastian is self-conscious of such words. Or perhaps he would have been, were he not what he is. "From the street the other day. I think my friend spoke to you. Mrena?"

On that street, that other day, Lukas had seemed within a hairsbreadth of tearing Katherine's pretty little head off. Katherine had seemed rather the same: not so pretty after all, a vicious and snarling animal herself.

There's little sign of that now. Lukas is composed and contained; well dressed; civilized. He keeps his back to his packmate across the room even now, because if he put his back to anyone, he'd rather it be Sam.

[Sam Modine] "Yeah."

His tongue traces the inside of his lip momentarily. The tic helping him run through some unvoiced thought. He raises the cup again and finishes it's contents and gathers himself fully upright in the chair. The sudden motion brings with it an angry wince as weight is firmly deposited on his leg and he holds the table for just a second to steady himself. He finally resumes the eye contact, even smiling a little when he reaches up to try and ease the pain on what had a day previously been a bleeding wound.

"Alright, as long as you're serious. We can you know, put the brakes on. Try friends or you know..." He avoids the whatever at the end of the sentence, his tone hushed now a little more than it had been. That same something though still right behind those icy blues.

[Sam Modine]

[Sam Modine]

[Sebastian] Lukas may have an Ahroun's awareness of the space he occupies, but Sebastian has any Garou's awareness of the Ahroun that occupies the space. With a near tangible aura such as the Shadow Lord exudes, it's impossible to not notice, such that when Lukas steps directly over to the Theurge, he's met by an appraising glance, a sober acknowledgment.

The Theurge looks rumpled, half of his long, dark-chocolate brown hair pulled back in a rudimentary ponytail, the rest escaping to fall past his ears, frame his face. Partially obscure the mottled scar tissue that circumnavigates his blinded eye. Where the Ahroun is tense brutality sheathed in casual elegance, the Theurge seems to be absent mindedly playacting at being human, wearing the trappings but not quite bringing enough presence of mind to the role to play it convincingly. There is something of the beast to him, the inhuman, that stems from more than the scars. It comes from the raw manner in which he seems to inhabit his flesh, to be imprisoned by his clothing. As if at any moment he might shuck both, in favor of spirit.

"Mrena," he says, confirmation in his voice, matched by a slight nod. Lukas is directly before him, face presented in full, and Sebastian takes a moment to study it, frank and direct. "And I recognize you," he continues. "I've seen you twice now."

He doesn't continue. Content to see where the Ahroun wishes to take this, if anywhere at all.

[Danicka Musil] It isn't often that Danicka will meet a Garou's eyes for more than a moment. It is almost impossible that she will choose to make and keep eye contact if the conversation is anything but perfectly calm, perfectly amicable. Sam got to look into her eyes quite a lot on Monday night, at least when they were in public. When she smiled and when the shots of tequila took her tension level down, notch by notch.

The verbal rap on his knuckles passes without a backlash; Danicka doesn't find a Fenrir's hand flying across her own face. Instead Sam leans forward and there is simply too much Rage around Danicka for her to do anything then but lean back slightly, before she catches herself. It's in that moment where she realizes that she's showing her tension that she meets his eyes, and forgets at least two of the sentences he just said.

Danicka looks at him, and doesn't say anything. While Sebastian and Lukas catch up on the other side of the small coffee shop with its bad lighting and cheaper drinks than one would find in Danicka's area of the city, Sam locks his eyes on hers and she doesn't jerk away. She doesn't duck her eyes to avoid the appearance of challenge or defiance. She looks in his eyes and her lips, after a few seconds, part slightly.

Now, another woman -- or Danicka in another situation -- might have run her foot up the inside of his leg, touched him under the small table with no cloth. Might have reached over and traced his lips like they were something magical. Might have said something coy or flattering or dropped a key in front of him. Danicka takes a breath, and then gets out of her chair, skirts the miniscule round table, and climbs onto Sam Modine's lap. He's had her in this position before, only there's nothing on either side of him to brace her knees on. There's just him, and now her on top of him.

Kissing him.

In public.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (sorry guys, i kept crashing my computer futzing with my new sound card.)

Twice now.

Lukas can't remember the first time, but he knows for a fact that he was not on his best behavior the second. As such, perhaps Sebastian doesn't even know what Lukas is like, typically. He can see, anyone can see, that Lukas is not wholly settled at the moment, but perhaps Sebastian just attributes it to Lukas' moon. His nature.

Still. It says something that Lukas chooses to focus his attention on this, the new(ish) acquaintance. The Garou. Business.

"We haven't really been introduced," he says, taking a step closer, just outside arm's reach now, comfortable conversational distance between near-strangers. "Are you heading somewhere, or do you have a minute to grab a coffee with me?"

[Sam Modine] Did that just...?
Yeah. It did.

Sam's whole form straightens beneath her, one leg straightening again to relieve the pressure on a leg that should by all rights be a foot long and secluded in an out of the way room to heal. For just a few moments as she straddles, no, rides atop the Garou he loses himself and kisses back, letting his hands ride their way up her back. But it takes only a few more seconds to use those same hands and simply lift her up and off, setting her on the table as he stands himself to full height in front of her. He leans forward, kissing her cheek lightly but moving on quickly to simply get his lips, his breath right up close to her ear.

Then it's just a matter of a single step backwards, away from her. His hand the last thing to leave, drawing itself off from the spot on her stomach where it had braced him in a whisper. "I'm leaving Dani." He sounds guilty, even as he uses an abbreviated name to address her intimately.

[Sebastian] The Theurge doesn't respond at once. Instead he looks over to where Danica has mounted Sam, face blank, no judgement made, and then back to the Ahroun. Fatigue is apparent in his face, the rawness of his unshaven jaw, the shadows beneath his eyes, the drawn nature of his face. He's been awake for long hours, and been drained in some subtle, more intangible way. Bled something other than blood, something that solid food can not so easily replenish.

But coffee might make a good start.

"Sure," he says, and smiles. His smile is particular, idiosyncratic; it's quiet, lopsided, an acquiescence to the vagaries of the world, the unexpected visccisitudes. "Let me order and I'll be right with you. I've grabbed that table in the corner. Next to... Sam? And his friend."

[Danicka Musil] There are many, many pairs of eyes that stopped looking at what they were looking at and stared instead at the blonde woman climbing onto the straw-haired man across from her and kissing him as though they were not in a cafe or even in a car but in a bedroom, as if they weren't wearing sweaters and jeans but only their own skins. That is, indeed, how Danicka kisses Sam, with her uncalloused fingers sliding up into his hair and her eyes closing upon contact. And as the kiss goes on, as Sam decides to kiss her in return rather than shoving her to the floor or pushing her away immediately, people who were not looking that direction start to turn, to find out what everyone else is staring at.

They're staring at a rather lovely, gentle-looking woman arching her back as the young man's hand runs up towards her shoulderblades, her hips pressing against his and a small noise leaving her throat. A matter of seconds ago she was across the table looking patient but losing that patience, looking amused if a little tense, calm and maybe just hoping this would be over with soon or he would stop sulking. And now? Now she's finding herself lifted up onto the table like a doll and the dreamy look hasn't gone out of her green eyes, it's only intensified, as though he is putting her on mattress instead of a cafe table that can barely hold her weight.

Her eyes close again when he leans in to whisper to her, and whatever he says makes her smile in a sleepy fashion, but it's still bright. Oh, it's bright and genuine and almost happy to hear it.

Everyone uses a nickname with her. Every time they call her Danicka, even, they're using a form of name that is not what's on her birth certificate. Most people don't know it, and she's never really gone by anything else. But that he calls her Dani instead has no special meaning, at least not to her, even if that's how he means it. Martin calls her Danny Boy, after all. He's leaving. Her brow furrows quizzically, her smile tightening at the corners but fading so, so slowly the shift is almost imperceptible til it's done.

"Why?" she asks, her hands still resting on his shoulders, sliding off the table til her feet touch the floor; the table can't hold her for long anyway without being imbalanced and spilling coffee everywhere.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas half-turns to follow the direction of Sebastian's glance. We all know what he sees.

Now would be the time for dramatics. Now would be the cue for Lukas to leap across the room and attack Sam for mauling his kin. Or attack Danicka for toying with his packmate. Or throw a tantrum, pitch a fit, break something, break someone.

Instead, there's a single pulse of rage -- there, then controlled.

Then he turns back, and he's smiling of all things, quizzically, lopsidedly. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but they were just talking ten seconds ago, weren't they?" The barista calls out his order, and he heads over to pick it up. "I'll meet you at the table."

This is the sort of place that serves in-house orders in big earthenware mugs and saucers purchased via some free-trade agreement with the indigenous peoples of wherever. The barista's staring too, not at the Ahroun but past him at the young couple suddenly making a spectacle of themselves; and as Lukas approaches, the mug starts to chatter against the saucer.

Then it's stilled. Lukas' hands close over the items and still them. He thanks the barista, politely, and brings his coffee to Sebastian's table. When he passes Sam, he glances at the other briefly -- the two Ahrouns of the Circle could not be more different in coloring, one dark, the other bright. If there's one trait that much of the Circle has in common, though, it's a penchant for pale eyes, and Lukas' lock with Sam's for a second, two, inscrutable, before he simply walks past.

And takes a seat at Sebastian's table. And reaches over to the empty one beside them to pick up a discarded copy of the wall street journal, which he peruses idly while he waits for the Theurge.

[Sam Modine] "Because..." his hands take her arms in each, not roughly but her delicate structure feels when he sets her arms at her own sides that it's no a request he's making. They're a small spectacle, yes. But does Sam take any notice of this? It doesn't seem likely. He does hear the clatter of a mug on it's ceramic counterpart and meet his packmates eyes for just a moment. His lips purse and his eyebrows rise to indicate that this perhaps is not a good time.

He doesn't finish the statement though as he grabs his outer coverings from the back of his chair and tosses them on quickly. Other than the brief encounter with his packmate though his focus is intently and entirely on Danicka. Seemingly he has nothing further to say and turns away.

Those strong, wiry hands go roughly to he pockets of his jacket and he begins taking those first few steps toward the door.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (1 hour warning, folks! i'll be back later tonight (like 10pmish my time, i think))

[Sebastian] The Theurge watches the Ahroun go, observes the exchange of glances as he passes the other Ahroun, and then turns back to the counter, linking his hands behind his back. Connections are made in his mind, tentative but there, assumptions tested, discarded, stored for later verification. Then the woman is asking him what he would like while averting her eyes, and smiling politely, he orders a double shot of espresso and three chocolate chip cookies the size of dinner plates.

Waits. Moments pass as he gazes absently out through the front windows at the winterscape beyond, and then hands over the cash, accepts the change, and takes his items back to his table.

Sets the cookies between the two seats, clearly indicating that Lukas should help himself if he so chooses, and takes a seat, pulling back his chair, causing the backlegs to screech against the floor. Lowers his lanky frame into the chair, and sets the saucer of the espresson on the table, resting the base of the large espresso cup against the palm of his hand, as if nurturing a small flame there.

"Feels good to sit down on occasion," he comments, and then raises the espresso to his lips. Sips. Sets it down, leans forward and breaks one of the cookies in half, that into quarters, and brings back a piece which he demolishes in three bites.

[Danicka Musil] There is a lot vying for Danicka's attention at the moment. Sitting across from Sam was one thing. Lukas walking in made her feel trapped, not because of the man himself but the sheer amount of Rage she was pinned between. Sebastian's exit from the restroom and entrance into the rest of the coffee shop, her awareness of him -- that was enough to limit her patience and make her want to get out of here. And then Sam did something that made her forget everything else she might have wanted at the moment.

A werewolf never knows how a mortal is going to respond to that arousal of some primal instinct. Fear and disgust are just about as likely as sudden attraction. In Danicka's case, Sam should have known. He should have known better from the beginning, but after Monday night (Tuesday morning) he should have known better than to test those waters. Or maybe he did, and that's exactly why he brought that side of her out.

Only to leave it.

Danicka doesn't fall to her knees or run after him. She stands there as he starts to walk away, jackets going on and her hands placed at her sides. The rejection seems to puzzle her, not out of pride but something she can't even put her finger on. Her brow furrows, lips pursed, and after a few seconds her eyes slide from one corner of the cafe to another, asking the walls and the inhabitants, What the Hell just happened?

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Only on occasion?" Lukas might be lauded for his focus, if that focus weren't so absolute that it could only be an act of will. He looks directly at Sebastian, though with frequent enough cuts of his glance to the man's hand, his mug, the cookies, that his regard cannot be mistaken as challenge.

He does help himself to the cookies as offered, breaking one in half and dipping the jagged point of it into his mug. It wasn't quite the same as warm cookies and cold milk, but it's not an unpleasant contrast.

"Are you looking for something in the city, then?" It's not an unreasonable guess. Mrena was looking for something in the city; she's scouring the city low and high.

[Sebastian] Strange how innocent questions can flip casual conversation to business. How quickly the focus can shift from the banal and empty platitudes to delicately probing inquiries. The Theurge swallows, clears his throat with more espresso, and then settles further into his seat, somehow finding a more comfortable position in what should be a basic proposition, given the bareness of the chair.

"That's one of those questions, my friend." The tone of weary resignation is undercut by his smile. It's like a knife blade seen at dusk, or seen glittering at the depths of some wintry pond. "People like me, like Mrena, we're always looking, exploring, keeping an eye out."

Something about Lukas' gentility, politeness and etiquette eases what might otherwise be a tense situation, the Theurge seems inclined to speak. "But yeah, generalities aside, I am. Though I doubt it's the same thing that Mrena's after. I'm looking for sign of..."

He trails off, and the location they're in impinges on their conversation. A moment as he translates into innocuous terms that can be used in public. "I'm writing a book. In which homeless men get dropped in their tracks, or other transient types. They look normal, just frozen to death, but if you look at their reflections in a mirror? A lot more going on."

Another chomp of cookie, sip of espresso. "Something strange going on. Just starting up. But you know how it goes. I'm trying to get some information, and then bring it to the Caern."

[Sebastian] [*laughs* Man, Sebastian's fatigue isn't imaginary. Change 'Caern' to 'Publisher', please.]
to Danicka Musil, Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Sam Modine

[Sam Modine] Tables, metaphorically and nearly one of those in a low-end coffee shop have turned. Most would take pride in the fact that their own confusion in a situation was now mirrored hyperbolicly with that of it's source. Sam doesn't seem to. That confusion is contagious, spreading to the few other customers who've watched the sordid display only to see him scowling and walking in the opposite direction of the beautiful woman who been throwing herself at him not half a minute prior.

The door to the outside swingsopen hard enough to rattle and report like a firecracker against the doorstop. The Fenrir stepping through it doesn't turn around to hit the act break in a movie of the week wherein the leather clad boy from the wrong side of the tracks sweeps the closed off rich girl from her feet with a passionate kiss. Hell, he doesn't even look. He can't.

So he leaves in his wake a mystery. If one continues however to watch him through the glass of the shop's fourth wall they will see him crossing the street to become a customer again, this time at a liquor store that after work serves the same dockworker clientele drinking coffee on their lunch break. One to keep you going, the other to make you forget why you try.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Can't have a plot without something strange going on," Lukas replies, wry.

It's business that eases Lukas, ironically or not. He settles into this role as easily as others settle into their favorite pajamas, their favorite armchairs, their favorite books and movies. He bites into the cookie, now slightly soggy, washes it down with a swallow of his macchiato.

"A few of us," he says, settling into Sebastian's translated language with only a slight hitch, "are getting together tomorrow night to brainstorm on a couple joint-author books we've been thinking about. If you're interested, we're gathering at the usual dinner spot, then heading down to the Mile after to see where inspiration takes us.

"Mind if I ask if you're working solo?"

[Danicka Musil] Now, she could go running across the street after Sam and jump into his arms. She could pull out a compact and check her makeup, put on a nice little show of not caring. Or break down. Shiver in fear. Danicka glances over at Lukas and Sebastian for a second, but only as if to confirm their location before she shakes her head to clear it, sits back down, and lifts her coffee to finish drinking it.

A moment later, she's pulling her phone out of her purse and messing with it in between sips.

[Sebastian] "This would be your writing circle that's getting together? Your The one I saw you with, last time?" Sebastian finishes his espresso, and sets the cup down on the saucer with but a slight clink. Another deep breath which turns into a barely masked yawn, held back behind hermetic lips, the expanded jaws stretching his cheeks taut. Blinking, he sits up, takes another chunk of cookie, inhales it.

"But yeah, I've been working by myself thus far. I'd appreciate some feedback. What time are you guys getting together?"

[Danicka Musil] [All right, folks. Since Damon's leaving soon and I'm betting Phil's gotta go before too long, Danicka finishes her coffee and then heads out. Thanks for the RP!]
to first aid kit, Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Sam Modine, Sebastian

[Sam Modine] likewise, gracias!
to Danicka Musil, Lukas Wyrmbreaker, Sebastian

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Yeah, the writing circle." There's a shade of humor on Lukas' mouth, ironic. "Hm -- tomorrow, say around 6? You might want to bring your laptop. And any other tools you like to have on hand.

"We're going to be delving under the surface quite a bit. Looking at the structure of the narrative from the other side. So," he takes a sip, then folds the foam from his upper lip with one of the cafe's scrap-sized napkins, "it'll be good to have you along. Mrena mentioned you have a knack with the subtleties."

[Sebastian] Sebastian snorts, folds another cookie into quarters, and demolishes it in short order. It's becoming clear that he didn't order them for the taste, but rather for the quick energy it might give him, some sort of emergency fuel to tide him over till he can get some real sustenance, or sleep.

"Excellent. If there's one thing I like, it's literary spelunking." The raw boned Theurge takes up his own napkin, swipes it across his lips, and then tosses it onto the table. "In which case, I'm going to go and crash." Another yawn, and this one escapes him, distorts his face into a silent howl, causes his blind and good eye to crinkle closed, the scar tissue to warp and fold. With a snap he shakes his head, shakes the weariness away, and stands.

"Lukas, it was good to meet you. We should introduce ourselves properly next time. I'm going to go sleep, and then prepare for tomorrow. I'll see you there." And with that, he scoops up his coat, and leaves.