drawn.

[Danicka] In the past hour and a half, Danicka has accomplished quite a lot. She did not shriek downstairs when Sam reached for her in the dark kitchen even though his Rage was like a living, twisting thing coming out of her from emptiness bereft of even starlight. She did not fall while climbing up to the second floor, did not sway or have to remove her heels in order to walk quietly upstairs. When she whispered for Sam to lead the way it was not because she did not think she could get up there on her own but because the idea of him walking behind her was wrenchingly intolerable.

Her hair was down when Lukas saw her at half past three, her earlobes adorned with small diamonds set in cold, glinting as she turned her head towards the second source of Rage in the room for a spare moment. Her eyes were bright from alcohol though she did a decent job of walking in a relatively straight line. Wool coat, revealing dark green silk underneath. She only looks at him for a moment; any conversation occurs only between Sam and his Beta, if at all.

Given the fact that on at least a couple of occasions a noise escapes the bedroom beside his own, what the Fenrir and the Kinswoman are up to in there doesn't even bear analysis. What's perhaps sad -- for the Fenrir, at least -- is that the man sitting on the couch in the common room can understand what's being whimpered, what's being cried out, but he cannot. He can only infer from body language that no, she doesn't want him to stop.

Maybe she's expecting that the common room and the upper floor will be mostly deserted when she slips out of a normally empty bedroom around five in the morning. Her coat is folded over her arm, her clutch at hand. The door is closed almost silently, but there are footsteps towards the bathroom before she comes into the common room again. Danicka is in the process of fixing one of her earrings back into her ear, head cocked, when she steps through the door and sees that the Shadow Lord is still there. Or there again, given that his clothing and appearance has changed. Hers hasn't, much. Her eyes are calmer, she's splashed a bit of water on her face and her hair is actually less tousled than it was when she came upstairs. No tears in her stockings.

No bruises. Not that he can see, at least.

"I suppose you don't sleep," she says quietly, out of respect for anyone else that might be, finishing with her earring and tossing her hair off her shoulder.

[Lukas] Lukas was reading when Danicka arrived; Lukas is still reading now, as Danicka is leaving.

There have been changes. The food on the table -- more lamb -- has been cleared away. He has changed out of his street clothes, into his comfortable pajama bottoms, his white undershirts. His hair is damp, as though he had recently showered, and his jaw is freshly shaven. Also, he is now closer to the end of the book than the beginning.

The title is, appropriately enough, Lying Awake.

"Don't be silly," Lukas replies when addressed, quiet himself. "Of course I sleep."

He closes the book, his finger inserted to hold the page. The Ahroun is stretched out full-length on the sectional couch, his head pillowed on the armrest, his feet against the back cushion of the cornerpiece, his body taking up all available real estate between. The lamp at his head is on, its shade directed at his book.

"I'm heading to bed in about an hour," he adds, and looks at her now, turning, his regard cast over the arm of the sofa, upward and back. His eyes are unnervingly clear, a pale blue like ice. He regards her for a moment; there is no question that he knows she knows he knows what she's been up to. There's a pause; then, "Do you need a ride home?"

[Danicka] The first time they met, it was crowded and loud and they barely got a decent look at one another in the flashing lights and shadows. It's a little easier now, with the lamp on even though the rest of the room is dark. Rather than a throng of 21-and-ups gyrating and avoiding getting close to the Ahroun, there's just the two of them. No Fenrir. No Fangs. It doesn't take much to assume that she left Sam Modine sleeping; otherwise a man like that would probably be escorting her downstairs, probably driving her home himself. Once that assumption is made, it isn't more than a half-step to the knowledge that he doesn't know she's leaving.

Considering that she's been up all night, enduring a several-hour date with a Garou that frightens her, downing tequila, and getting laid, Danicka looks remarkably fresh. If it were five in the evening rather than five in the morning it would look like she was getting ready to go out all over again. She doesn't smell quite so much like tequila. She looks composed rather than ruffled. If anything she looks somewhat relieved, even though she just walked out of the fire and into the storm.

When he uses his finger as a bookmark, she notes the cover. "That's good," she says, more observantly than to convey any particularly important information. Her eyes go back to Lukas's. The first time they really met, she was supposed to sit on the floor and color with him so they wouldn't bother the adults while they played cards. But if she remembers the boy, there is no path from him to Lukas on her mind's long map of experiences. There is no bridge.

His question actually makes her pause, and give it some thought. "Actually, I think I would." Danicka gives a little shake of her head, and unnecessary information: "I hate cabs."

[Danicka] [Correction: "Actually, I think I'd like one". *facepalm*]

[Lukas] Lukas was a happier child than he is an adult. That's true for many Garou. There had been little indication then that he would turn out this way: focused, determined, so tightly controlled.

She indicates his book, and his eyes flicker down toward it. His mouth twists, a humorless sort of smile. "Yeah, it is. Sometimes I think the humans know more than they let on. Writing books about how you keep your faith in something after you've lost every last shred of evidence that any of it matters, and all."

He sits up then. The Garou that inhabit this house are by and large young, with the faces of college kids, the bodies of athletes, the minds and hearts of hardened veterans. Lukas is no exception. He can look young when he laughs, when he jostles with Sampson for space at the table; but here, now, his eyes are driven and steady, without a shred of tiredness. The book is set aside beneath the lamp, closed rather than set upon its face.

It's hard to read his expression, if only because Lukas himself isn't certain what to feel to see the kin of his tribe come out of a room where she'd lain with his packmate. Who had asked permission for a date, but perhaps not for this. Who had brought her here, instead of to a motel or her place. Who had not even used his own room. Who had fallen asleep, leaving Lukas to chauffeur her back.

He's not certain whether this should upset him; if it should even matter.

"Let me go get a coat," he says. A pause. "I can wait if you want to take a quick shower."

[Danicka] There are vestiges of Danicka at seven in Danicka at twenty-four, but none that are readily apparent. In front of Lukas is a woman who looks older than she is, which is the way that Kinfolk bear their weight. The onset -- the unfurling -- of his Rage when he was an adolescent led him to this, to this relentless control. That's easy enough to guess at, even if that isn't the full story. Danicka is not the first Kin, especially of their Tribe, that carries years she hasn't earned yet. In her it manifests in small ways; she does not look like a fresh young teenager, as Gabriella does.

Sometimes. When she smiles in the way she has, in the way she did many times last night and several hours ago before she and Sam ended up back here. But Lukas hasn't seen more than those small upturns of the corners of her lips, a care and hesitation in the way she regards him that is not at all surprising: she's a Shadow Lord. And she's not like Andrea.

He could not have done anything else at that moment to make her listen more, than to say what he does about the book. About faith and its loss. She just tips her head, though, with an unspoken invitation to go on if he wants. Her attention and interest are there, subtle in her eyes rather than a quick nod and Go on motion of her hand. It passes; he sets down the book after he sits up, his face inscrutable and hers so placid that it verges on empty. Maybe she should be ashamed.

One date. Drunk. She's older than Sam, and if Lukas knows him well he knows how long it's been since he's had a woman. It's hard not to look at her and know that she knows at least some of what the hell she's doing. Maybe she should feel bad for going to bed with the man and leaving less than two hours later without waking him. This was not part of the permission Lukas gave to him, permission Danicka doesn't know about. If she should be upset, guilty, ashamed...embarrassed...she isn't showing it. She's saying that a ride would be better than calling and waiting for a cab to take her home.

Danicka nods; she'll wait for him to get his coat. The smile she gives him then is a half-smirk, not malicious or mocking. It's almost sad, but the context doesn't support that. "I have a shower at home," she says quietly. "I'll wait downstairs," she adds, nodding her head towards the stairs and then heading for them, coat still folded over her arm.

[Lukas] Lukas nods; he doesn't say anything more. He leaves the room.

They reconvene downstairs in the darkened kitchen no more than a minute or two later. Lukas has not bothered to change at all; he has simply thrown his overcoat on, and is still buttoning it as he comes down the stairs. His feet are bare in their winter boots, his keys jingling in his hand.

"Come on." He has a lightness on his feet still; he descended the stairs quickly, hits the ground at a loose trot that slows to a walk. The back door opens with a crack of unfreezing hinges, and he steps aside for Danicka to exit first.

To say it's cold outside is a gross understatement. Lukas hisses between his teeth as the wind cuts right through his pajama bottoms. Fortunately, his car isn't far -- it waits in the alley itself, a dark Ford sedan, a late-model crown victoria or something of the sort, sedate, unremarkable. It unlocks with a flash of its foglights.

"Where do you live?" he asks over the froststrewn roof, then ducks in. It's no warmer inside, but minus the windchill it feels marginally more survivable. The engine turns over for a while before catching, and Lukas lets it idle for a moment or two, warming up, while he buckles in and adjusts the heater. Nothing but cold air for now -- he shuts the vents.

[Danicka] When Lukas gets downstairs, Danicka is wearing her coat, has buttoned it up, and is putting gloves on her hands. She looks up immediately when she hears him at the top of the stairs, her eyes sharp for a moment and the turn of her head not unlike a deer that's just heard a twig snap nearby, too close. If he were closer, if he were touching her, he'd be able to hear the way her heart slams suddenly against her ribs with a jolt of adrenaline. She knows what the thing at the top of the stairs is, and rather than the lack of mystery lessening her fear, it's all too tangible in that brief snap of a reaction.

Beneath the heavy wool of her coat, he can't see the muscles in her upper back tense when he walks out of the Brotherhood behind her. Not that this means much, not that he isn't used to people being afraid of him. The sun isn't anywhere near up yet, but the lights of the city and those outside the building make the parking lot easier to navigate. Her coat falls to mid-shin on her legs, but she just inhales as it hits her skin wherever it's bare. It just makes her walk faster towards the car, which is parked straight in a slanted spot because...well.

Sam had been a little eager to get out of it.

"Five-twenty North Kingsbury," she answers, somewhat breathlessly and biting back a curse at the icy cold.

This time Danicka gets to open her own door, and there's not a shred of hesitation. She is not waiting for him to open it for her before she grabs the handle herself and gets in, shuddering on the inside and breathing out. An hour and a half of just sitting there has sapped the interior of all warmth, has turned the air almost as cold inside as out; at least they're out of the wind. She breathes out, flicks her eyes at him and around the inside of the car. "You know, it feels like I was just. Here," she says mildly, sardonically, before reaching for her seatbelt.

[Lukas]

[Lukas] (THE GREAT INVISIBLE POST.)

[Danicka] [Oooh!]

[Lukas] Lukas makes some faint sound like a laugh, or the imitation thereof. When the engine rpms drop closer to its usual baseline of 800 or so, he pulls away from the curb. Compared to Sam, Lukas is probably a more careful driver -- though then again, Sam might've been extra-careful not to crash his beta's new(ish) car.

They roll out of the alley. The shocks absorb the small dip at the end, and the tires crunch through the last of the snow to ride onto the plowed blacktop. Lukas flicks the vents open, the arm warming now, and reaches up to adjust the rearview mirror.

"Can I ask you something?" There's no warning before this question, and he gives her only enough time to nod, or otherwise acquiesce. "Where do you see this going, with Sam?"

[Danicka] If questioned of how Sam had comported himself on their date, Danicka would have a glowing review to present. He did well. Tried a little too hard. Controlled himself. He was nice to her. He was a gentleman. He drove carefully, especially when inebriated, though she might not mention that he sped up the last few blocks and what she had to do with that. It would not be the first time she gave some kind of report as to how a 'suitor' of some kind had behaved and she would have taken no offense to it.

After a little while in the car, Danicka reaches forward and opens the vents on her side -- if only to preclude Lukas reaching across in front of her. The air is getting warmer, and she breathes a soft sigh of comfort at that. Suddenly, there's a question, and it's not about how Sam drove his car or whether or not he made sure she was having a good time. It's about the sort of thing usually not discussed on a first date.

That is, if either of the people in this car were human. If, even without knowing almost anything relevant about one another, they were not both aware of the fact that he has some burden of responsibility when it comes to her, some kind of connection. So he requests leave to ask her a question, and she turns her head to look at his profile. Danicka just nods, quietly murmuring Of course.

Barely sobering up, internally tired if physically just sort of worn out, in the presence of someone who makes her skin crawl, there is no obvious explanation in her own mind for why she takes a breath before answering and says, quite sincerely but with no particular relish: "Absolutely nowhere." Her voice is pitched low, just above the hum of the engine, the heater, the road.

[Lukas] Lukas' brow furrows at that, but his thoughts are his own.

In the end, he merely says: "I think Sam genuinely likes you." And he leaves it at that, to see what she will say.

[Danicka] What Lukas doesn't know, can't tell, is that it took profound effort to say those two words to him just now. It took effort to admit that she would rather get a ride home, even in a car with him, than call a cab and wait downstairs for it to show up with its upholstery stinking and its driver talking too loud and the radio going and she's getting a headache already. It took effort not to run when he came down the stairs, and she hasn't bothered much with disguising that just being around him is difficult. She's only made it harder on herself and she couldn't explain why if she had to..

Danicka is still watching him as he drives, stating that he believes his packmate actually does like her. She nods a little, unnecessarily. "I know," she replies quietly. And then, after a moment, she silently takes her eyes off the side of his face and looks out the window.

[Lukas] Lukas drives on, quiet for a while. The streets are nearly silent at this time of night. Day. Whichever. The buildings hulk to both sides, snowcapped, washed in the monochromatic light of streetlamps. With the lights off they seem monolithic, ancient -- this hardly feels a living city at all. It could be the ruins of some great and bygone civilization, the tottering remains of ozymandias just around any given corner.

At length, he has another question: "Did you bed him out of fear of retribution, otherwise?" A glance, his eyes pale even in this light, a stark and glittering blue. "Or did you want to?"

The regard can't last long out of necessity: he returns his eyes to the road. Lukas drives with one hand wrapped through the bottom of the wheel, casually but not quite negligently. He stops when lights turn yellow and looks both ways before taking a turn against the red.

"I'm asking because I need to know what to do in case this ... escalates," he explains, then. "Sam is my packmate, but you are my kin."

[Danicka] [Perception + Empathy]

[Danicka] The glance that he gives her isn't met; a moment ago, it would have been. As it is, she sees him turn out of the corner of her eye but isn't looking back; she's looking at the buildings they're passing, heading inland and uptown. The buildings get taller, glossier, and yet remain surrounded at their bases by squat ones in greater disrepair and repute fallen ill. Chain stores butt up alongside holes in the wall. The sun is turning over, asking for another five minutes that will be more like fifteen or twenty. At least the sunrises are coming earlier, by seconds and minutes at a time every day.

So what Lukas sees is the ghostly reflection of Danicka in the glass, and Danicka herself, the side of her neck bared and pale while streetlights glint off the diamonds in her earlobes. And he might, in that brief glance, see that her eyes flick in his direction but do not really see him; the movement of her eyes is an almost unconscious reaction to knowing she's being looked at.

Or did she want to.

Danicka doesn't answer at first, sensing or maybe even hoping that he has more he wants to say. The woman hasn't bristled with offense at being asked these questions by a near-complete stranger. If anything, she seems pretty relaxed, which is partly the residual effects of alcohol on her system as much as a release of physiological tension that he had the delightful luck of being aware of when it happened. That and she's tired. If she were concealing her relaxation, if she weren't allowing her head to tip slightly so the side of her forehead rests on the cold glass, there's no telling if Lukas would even be able to perceive it.

Apparently, to him, she is not getting rankled or riled at this line of conversation. If anything, she accepts it as easily as if she saw it coming the moment she looked past Sam's shoulder and saw him lying on the couch reading that book.

She thinks before she speaks, longer than she might need to if she were not affected by his presence, not tired, not coming off of a very long and rather taxing night, but she does take her time considering what he's asked and considering him and considering how to phrase what she is going to say. She takes her brow off the glass and looks at the palms of her gloves thoughtfully, then lifts her head and turns to observe him as they approach her neck of the woods. "I don't believe that Sam, or anyone else, would have hurt me somehow if I hadn't had sex with him."

There's one down.

"I wanted to."

There's two, much more simply put, without elaboration or explanation going any further than that.

"You know him much better than I do," she says, tipping her head slightly. A few locks, waves untouched by the brushing she gave it, slide off her shoulder and hang in midair. And then she's blunt, sounding almost wry, but not happily so: "How bad do you think he has it?"

[Danicka] [Pause!]

[Lukas] (percep/subt)
to Danicka

[Lukas] He watches her as she answers, insofar as he can -- the glances brief, tossed her way, but intent for all that. He listens carefully; he looks hard; and when they reach a stop sign, he pauses entirely too long to study her.

It's fine. There are no cars at the intersection anyway. The Ford idles in place, the engine running smooth enough for a car of 4 or 5 years. Lukas wouldn't buy a lemon. He's too fucking careful for that.

When she questions him back, the edge of his mouth twists -- it's not quite humor here, either. He returns his attention to the road, rolls past the stopsign. She doesn't have to give him directions. He knows the city already, has taken the care to know it. He is entirely different from his packmates; from most of his auspice; perhaps from most Garou. He is methodical, and thorough, and -- yes -- controlled.

So it's perhaps no surprise that he doesn't answer her. But perhaps it is a surprise that he doesn't even bother evading. Instead, outright: "I won't discuss my packmate with you. I'm sorry."

Simple as that.

Then -- and perhaps this is hypothetical, or perhaps she'll take this as an answer of sorts after all: "What if Sam wanted to take you as his mate? Would you accept?" He looks at her: this is like any other, a glance, a glancing blow. "Pretend the choice is yours."

[Danicka] She's tired. The hour is closer to six than five now, and if only judging from the sounds coming from the room Sam appropriated tonight, none of the time she was at the Brotherhood was spent sleeping. Even resting. He'd cried out her name, once, near the beginning, shortly after a burst of gasping, near-whimpered Czech from the woman now sitting calmly -- and rather quietly -- in the passenger seat of his car. No, Lukas knows what she was up to in there. He could hear her.

So when he pauses at the corner to study her, he can see that much. There are no heavy, dark bruises under her eyes bespeaking exhaustion and her sclera are, for now, still pristine. It shows in an odd sort of serenity about her, and a slowness to her responses. But she is looking at him when she answers his questions, and looks at him when he studies her, though her gaze drops after a second to his cheekbones rather than remaining direclty on his eyes.

He's quite different from his packmates, and she's met a surprising number of them in a very short amount of time, picked up on things they do not say overtly. She knows things about them from years before, in some cases. And he's certainly unlike them as far as she can tell, though it doesn't have much to do with his asking her for directions or not.

Danicka just gives a small shake of her head, dismissive not of his answer but of the I'm sorry that follows. It is as polite, as unnecessary, and subdued as the apology itself. Simple as that.

What if, Lukas asks, and she is still observing him in profile as he drives, not to stare but as one more indication that he -- not the city outside, or her fingertips, or her own physical state -- has her attention. If there is a certain rigidity in her spine, it doesn't show with the way she is enveloped in her coat. She remains leaning back, shoulders tight but, at least, hidden. Pretend, he tells her, and in that brief glance he can see her lips pressed slightly together, the corners turned up. It's something of a smirk, an attempt not to smile more broadly than that.

"I suppose I would be his mate," she says. "Unless...or until...the claim was challenged."

[Lukas] "I said if the choice was yours." There's a frisson of irritation in him; there and then gone. He raises his free hand to the wheel and grips briefly, then drops it back atop the transmission.

[Danicka] A moment of his irritation is met by a press of the tip of her tongue to the point of one incisor, not to stop herself from mouthing off but to distract herself. Pain works remarkably well for it, and she doesn't simply flick her tongue on one tooth. Lips closed, smile dead, she pushes until she is sure she's about to taste blood, and this all makes her jaw tense but her eyes are unblinking as she looks away, to the windshield now rather than the ...man.

It passes, the irritation as well as the need for a distraction for the fear that it brings. And Danicka breathes out.

She wants to ask Why. And she knows where that leads. So she just looks out the window. When she speaks, her breath clouds the glass for a second, and her voice is pitched so low it resonates. "No."

[Lukas] A beat.

"Why not?"

-- and that's not spoken the way it would normally be, on a descending note, a demand. This is a question; rising at the end. He stares ahead, and she does or she doesn't. If she looks at him, he's as he always is --

(only not. because when she first met him, it was at a club, it was dark, they were lit in flashes and streaks, in colors and hues, and he had an electric-blue drink, and he sprawled beside gabbie, relaxed, easy, as if he didn't have a care in the world)

-- his profile chiseled, his dark hair bearing just a trace of curl, his collar turned up against the wind. He is young, nearly at the bottom of the long totem pole of rank, but he is already every inch a shadow lord.

[Danicka] [Manipulation + Subterfuge: *whistles*]

[Danicka] She knows Shadow Lords.

Night Warder died before he ever Changed, but they were still singing about her when he was fostered, even outside of her home sept. They sang about her lineage, about the line of warriors she came from. They sang about her uncompromising fury, her protectiveness, how when her Alpha fell she led her pack to such glory. She made the stars weep with her Rage, unfurling like a miasma around her whenever she entered a space. They pointed to stories of her to teach the new Ahrouns, and words like ruthless and merciless and uncompromising were whispered in the cubs' ears to teach them what it means to be a Full Moon.

Heals by Pain made several journeys to the small Shadow Lord sept himself, with an easy smile but his mother's features: the fair hair, the same blue eyes. A Theurge by moon, he was known for his advice, for his guidance to those younger than him. He always faced forward, head high, when the moon would rise and the Galliards would speak of the one who made him, who birthed him. Proud, yes, but so charming that he could convince spirits to all but tie the knots on their own bindings. Skilled. Incredibly skilled. Hardly even matters if he was liked, though he was. Is.

Danicka knows Shadow Lords, and though they are not much like Lukas, either, she can recognize certain factors of her own Tribe's tendencies even though she cannot smell his breeding on him the way that her own veritably throbs in her veins with every -- quickened, somewhat -- beat of her heart. Why not, he wants to know, his once-wet hair curling as it dries and his face as hard as though carved from rock. Why wouldn't she accept a nice young werewolf like Sam, who she apparently enjoyed fucking, as her mate?

She smiles softly; a little sadly. "Because I wouldn't ever really make him happy."

[Lukas] And Lukas snorts.

It's not that he doesn't believe her. It's not the sort of snort that says: you're lying, and I noticed. It's the sort of snort that says --

"And what world do you live in, Danicka?"

It's derision on his tone. Which, if Danicka knew him at all (which she, of course, does not), she would know is a strange thing. Lukas is nothing if not polite; respectful; courteous. Even to kin. Even to the kin he physically 'chastises'. There was no hatred in him when he backhanded another kin of their tribe -- twice. There was little enough anger, really; only an awareness that her behavior needed discouragement.

Another red light. They're rather close to her place now, which she shares with her roommate. Or someone she calls her roommate, anyway. Perhaps Lukas has his own thoughts on that issue. Whatever they might be, he keeps them to himself. After that one scornful outburst, the Ahroun is quiet now, driving grimly on.

[Danicka] "I'm sorry," she says, softly and not quickly, her eyes leaving the glass and going to him again.

She sounds calm, rather than afraid, and certainly not upset by his apparently derision. If anything, she sounds deferential to the point of afraid, as though expecting his knuckles to connect with her face for this reminder, but then...she doesn't know him. How could she expect that? Maybe she's just trying to speak her mind while still sounding demure, even if she isn't. She looks it. She looks softer than Andrea does, bereft of the other Lord Kinwoman's particular breed of pride.

"For the purposes of that question?" Danicka probes quietly. "The same world where the choice is mine."

[Lukas] Her answer is, of course, perfectly logical. Truth be told he'd seen his error even before she replied -- but after he'd spoken. In short: too late.

He grimaces. Then he shakes his head. "Don't apologize."

An inhale, slow and subtle, but filling his chest until his ribs strain. Then an exhale, just as slow, just as silent. She's a perceptive woman; she can tell when a man, or a Garou, is under tension, even if Lukas himself can name neither the what nor the why. What she cannot tell is whether or not this is simply how he is: full-moon that he is, ever the authors of chaos and destruction.

Then again, she may not know that, either. His auspice. His rank. There are things he doesn't even bother to say about himself anymore -- he simply assumes the other will glean them from his demeanor, the way he holds himself, the light in his eyes. He does not keep her guessing on purpose. He is not accustomed to kin interactions, period. He avoids it as much as he can. They're unnecessary, troublesome.

It's not worth it.

They're at her building now. He notes the numbers, pulls to a stop, double-parked. The street is empty, but perhaps not for much longer. 5:30am. Early birds are already up and headed to work. When she undoes her seatbelt he turns to her, streetlights slanting through the windshield lighting half his face.

"The choice is not yours," he says, quiet. "But it is mine. Do you want me to tell him to leave you be?"

-- the truth is, this may be as much a test as anything.

[Danicka] [Perception + Empathy: Oh, can't I.]

[Danicka] Her nose isn't broken. Nor, really, does it look like it ever has been. He can't claim to have the more complete knowledge that Sam does, but she looks pristine. In fact there is something unassailable about her in general, as though she is precisely the same as she was yesterday and will be the same tomorrow and in ten years she will be just as she is now, unchanged. He knows better. Though mortality seems to be a matter of degree -- by nature he is 'less mortal' than she is, for instance -- nothing living remains as unalterable as she seems.

She is also terribly alive. Vibrant, energetic, vital. This is how she is when tired, when worn out and even aching for a shower and sleep and a break. It was even more evident at the nightclub, despite the dark and the obvious tension that his walking over introduced to the little scene. It isn't that she's buzzing or gregarious, just that there seems to be so much bright potential in things as little as the way she tucked Gabriella's hair back or -- more recently -- tipped her head to fix an earring into her lobe.

So. If she's that alive, then the only thing that makes her seem untouched and untouchable has got to be that she's just...well. Really pretty.

Danicka is a perceptive woman, as even those who haven't known her well or known her long can attest to. She communicates a great deal with eye contact, with small touches, and picks up on such communication. It's important to note how a jaw clenches or the nuance of a certain type or another of eyebrow flick. You have to know these things, you have to pay attention, and Danicka does to the point that she seems to realize what people are going to say and do -- or how they are feeling -- before even they know exactly what is going on.

520 Kingsbury Plaza. The building is surreally tall, all glass and gloss and luxury.

She is watching him briefly, noting that she did not get slapped but not putting a whole lot of stock into that. It isn't as though everyone she speaks to, Garou or otherwise, smacks her across the face every time she dares to remind them of their own context. She is told that the choice isn't hers, again, and then something new: it's his. Danicka doesn't bristle, which maybe noticable only given the sort of Lord Kin he's been encountering in Chicago so far. Though after she thinks over his question for a moment, the seatbelt sliding away from her form, she shrugs one shoulder slightly and lifts an eyebrow.

"Actually, I was going to ask you if you wanted me to speak to him," she says, calmly if not all that casually. "I was planning on talking to him, but if you'd rather..." She trails off, her lips - still retaining only a hint of the gloss she wore the night before - closing.

[Lukas] "About?" -- it seems he wants the answer, explicitly.

[Danicka] Someone else might have pointed out to Lukas that half a second after telling her that it's his choice, not hers, he asked her what she wants. Apparently she does not see the discrepancy...or simply does not see it as incongruous. There is a way it doesn't have to be.

She hasn't moved to get out of the car, other than unbuckling her safety belt. It's too cold to sit there with the door open, brushing up against her bare legs and her uncovered head. Danicka's eyebrow lowers, her shoulder rounding back down. "...He told me last night that he wanted to see where this goes," she says after a moment of longer eye contact than she has dared make with him before. "And I was going to talk to him about the fact that I don't."

[Danicka] [Correction: cold air brushing up against her bare legs]

[Lukas] The truth is: Lukas is not a philodox. He is not a perfect lie-detector, or even close. He is not even a caring man; he does not care enough about others to sense when their emotions are genuine, and when they're hiding something.

The truth is: Lukas is an honest man, an honorable one, but not a naive, guileless one. The truth is: he's as much a liar as any shadow lord. The difference is what he lies about, and how. Control is a form of dissemblance. It's denying the baser urges: rage, lust, greed, all the seven sins and more.

The truth is: sometimes he knows a liar because he is a liar. The truth is: he thinks he recognizes her brand of calm, because it is something akin to his brand of control.

The truth is: he is not a man at all.

None of this matters, here and now. Not explicitly, anyway. But on some level, perhaps he does not quite trust this woman: because she is so perfectly submissive, because she told him she would never make Sam happy, as if happiness were ever a point of consideration for their tribe; because, above all else, he finds himself inexplicably, inextricably, and inexcusably drawn to her. This woman that he's met once before (...or more; but that was then, and this is now.); this woman, with her placid demeanor and her hidden layers, that he does not know at all.

He turns away. Before he does, she can see the flash of reaction in his eyes. It's anger and gladness both; one for his packmate, the other far more selfish than that.

"You shouldn't have fucked him, then." He speaks quietly, but harshly, and he could be speaking for either now. "It was a cruel thing to do."

A beat. And now it is clear again whose side he stands on; and clear again, he turns to look at her. "I will not let you toy with my packmate twice."

[Danicka] She doesn't let on. The thing she hides best is how much she sees, how much she's learned in the course of a simple ride from the area around the docks to one of the nicer buildings in the city. It gives that surreal calm, that almost detached placidity. It is good to be quiet, and to sit still, and look at your hands instead of at the person speaking to you. That she can do this without her hands shaking or her lips trembling but with a soft, content smile...there are Kin who have been broken to submission and there are Kin who insist on rising above it, and she seems to dwell happily, peacefully, and easily within it.

If a bit fearfully, when she has to answer a difficult question. When she tries not to get into more trouble by telling him she was just following his instructions, pretending that she had a choice, pretending that it was a world where the happiness of a Fenrir Ahroun made any goddamned difference to anybody or was even achievable. There's an edge of fear that she does not hide, and even the decision not to conceal it is telling.

Or would be. If he cared. If, when he looked at her in study for long moments at stop signs, he even had the ability to look that deeply beyond what anyone would be able to see: refinement. Quiet. Deference. Pale skin and classic features. The fact that her breathing gets slightly faster when she senses as much as sees that flash of anger.

She thinks about not answering, about just nodding and leaving the car and going for the front door of her building. Steven is standing out there by the door already in his blue uniform and coat, hiding a yawn behind a grey-gloved hand. She looks at Lukas though, oddly and quite suddenly looking several years younger than she is. Than he is, even. It's in the eyes, in the softnes of the corners of her mouth.

"I wasn't toying with him, or using him," she says quietly, almost low enough to be a whisper, but she leaves off the perhaps expected note of coy attachment or frail helplessness. What she says, quiet or not, is simple fact, and stated as such: "I told you...I wanted him. If I didn't, I would have called for you, Lukáš."

[Lukas] There's room for a parting shot here. A last word on the subject. Perhaps this tells as much about Lukas as anything: he forgoes that right, and leaves the conversation where it is.

There's light in the east now. Lukas is polite to the bitter end: "Goodnight, Danicka."

[Danicka] Were she a different woman than she is, Lukas and Danicka could get into quite the argument. It would most likely, at some point, dissolve into a language unintelligible to anyone around them and sound damn close to the harsh growls of fighting wolves if they got going. The thing is, though Lukas has the temper of any Garou -- of any Full Moon moreover -- Danicka is not a spitfire. She never has been; at this point in her life it's unlikely she will ever be the sort to toss her hair and snap a cutting remark at someone who is irritating her.

Especially a Shadow Lord Ahroun.

The end is less bitter, at least for her, because she's home. Up twenty-odd floors she has another date with a hot shower and a large bed and not a werewolf in sight to touch her, talk to her, so much as look at her or even exist within the same space as her. That's what she needs right now, and that's as sweet a thought as the sun coming up, starting to lighten the sky by degrees from black to blue to purple and upwards to ever-warming colors.

And the parting shot is withheld, the frustration and anger on behalf of his packmate, who is not here or even awake to tell either of them his thoughts or feelings on the subject. Danicka nods slightly, her eyes untroubled and her mouth curving into a small, wearied but not insincere -- he thinks, at this point he might be questioning everything -- smile just as polite as his farewell.

"Dobré ráno, Lukáš," she says, and lets herself out of the car, closing the door firmly behind her before heading off towards her doorman. Her silver clutch dangles from one wrist as she walks, the other hand lifting to run fingers through her wavy hair. She smiles at Steven as she approaches, says in English the same thing she just said to a wolf of her Tribe:

Good morning.