chess.

[Lukas] Dusk on the Mile; blue shadows, cloudy skies. There's a cafe here. There are many cafes, and they're all expensive, glossy, furnishings in warm earth and wood tones, the scent of rich brews wafting out onto the frozen sidewalk. This one in particular has a Danicka Musil sitting within, visible from outside, framed in the large double-pane window like a picture, a still life, a portrait.

Passing on the sidewalk outside, Lukas looks at her for a moment, expressionless, collar turned up, newsboy cap jammed down low until his face is a slice of angles and planes between: wide cheekbones, a cut jaw; a line of muscle running from one to the other that tenses when his jaw moves.

It feels like a different world, inside and out. The colors and warmth within; the paleness, the darkness, the falling night without. He turns his attention back to the street, and it seems for all the world that he will walk on until, of course, he stops, turns around, and comes up the steps to pull the door open.

Conversation takes a hitch. One wonders if he's even aware of these things anymore, when they happen around him all the time, everywhere. Is the awkward silence even noticeable when there's nothing to compare it to? Nevertheless, there it is, clear enough to Danicka: that beat of silence, that collectively caught breath.

He comes straight to her table. This cafe doesn't serve their fare in fashionably crude earthenware; this one's all fine ceramics, sleek minimalist cups in black with a red interior, faintly japan-inspired. He looks at what she has in front of her while he undoes his coat, tosses it onto an empty chair, sits down.

It's getting warmer. Maybe it's early spring; maybe it's just a fluke. Either way, Lukas doesn't wear quite so many layers. It's a simple turtlenecked longsleeve inside, the color dark, the material fine and densely woven, thin but heavy, draping from his shoulders. He takes his cap off too, tosses it atop his coat.

A moment's regard. It's not fair, really: Lukas is often solemn, but rarely rude. Rarely bad-tempered. She's seen flashes of his better nature toward Gabriella, perhaps toward his packmates last night; perhaps even toward her, very early on.

No sign of that here. He looks at her as though faintly puzzled, faint displeased by her, his brow slightly creased, his regard heavy and shuttered.

Eventually: "Could I ask you something?" He never really waits for an answer. "Even before what happened at the coffee house, you'd already made up your mind about Sam. Why?"

It's not a new question. But he poses it again anyway.

[Nessa] Wifi! Free!

Nessa only has to purchase something, and here she is to do it. The sky is nearly faded now, and so has her clothing; from the lighter colors of earlier to something darker, easier to fade into the shadows. She was careful to avoid Style, skirting the edge of plain, forgettable and unfashionable enough to not get a second glance, to be written off the Interesting list in the company of others.

Work clothes, for her work, this layer, anyways.
At the counter, she chooses quickly, settles for something boring like just.. a latte.
No flavorings. Just sugar, added later. Also unimpressive. And.. a muffin.
Which don't really compare well to Andrea's. Lukas might agree, were he so inclined to have sampled both.

What IS impressive is what she is going to do with her laptop in a corner of the room, using someone else's bandwith. Bless them, in their ignorance.

She approaches them, smiles to both, "Privyet, Lukas, Danicka!" And then moves on, picks a table quite near them, and sets her things down at the table in the corner, her screen away from passers by or the windows of the place.

On the other side, the riotous, multicolored SHOW continues, unlined by black, one night of cleasing and fighting past. Nearby, thuogh, the threat remains, could swell the darkness in the midst of the millions of lights and the sparkle and sheer overwhelming noise and color and threaten, in time, to put it out.

So Nessa's little crimes, maybe not so bad, in the face of all that.

[Danicka] The Magnificent Mile is where Danicka goes often, where there are entertainments and distractions. She goes out and has coffee even though she has a coffeemaker at home. She buys clothes when she has too many already. She has lunches that cost fifty dollars a plate when she knows very well how to cook her own meals. Danicka is not sitting beside the window, where passerby might turn and stare at her as though the glass somehow obscures them while revealing her, where their arguments or cell phone conversations would distract her. She's sitting a couple of tables back, in view of the window as well as the door but with walls to her back rather than more people.

Her hair is down, loose, wavy, and her chin is resting on the back of her hand as she reads, her other hand on top of the pages to keep the book open. She has one of those black-and-red cups on a saucer in front of her, half-full. She hasn't been here too long; just long enough to get comfortable. A black coat is across the back of her chair, the lining facing up, and she is wearing a soft yellow shirt that cuts most of the way down her sternum yet does not seem in danger of falling off of her. Her slacks are black and sit low on her hips; her shirt's hem, however, reaches past the waist even sitting down.

Yes, the interior of the cafe becomes tense when the door chimes open. Danicka doesn't look up at first, not until she hears that people have gone slightly quiet. Then she lifts her eyes -- not her face -- and it occurs to her that she should earn a medal for not sighing obviously when she sees the cause of the silence. Walking. To her table. He sits himself down as she closes her book, leaning back in her chair since she is no longer leaning over the pages. There's a man on the cover, a green border: The Collected Poems of Ted Hughes. She waits, but she doesn't have to wait long.

He isn't waiting for an answer to the question of whether he can interrogate her again, but she nods anyway. It's just polite. Danicka thinks, tips her head to the side, regards him with both of her hands resting on the edge of her book. "Why I didn't see it going anywhere serious, you mean?"

Lukas may nod, but that would have to come in between her question and Nessa's entrance, her Privyet getting Danicka's attention off of the Ahroun for a moment. She smiles and nods, lifting one hand in a small wave. There's no rings on her hand or necklace around her throat, but the are hoops in her ears. She looks back at Lukas.

[Lukas] Lukas looks up as Nessa passes, and the kinwoman can see in his face that sort of distracted politeness one develops when obligated to say hello to an acquaintance -- when one's attention is, really, on other matters.

"Hey, Nessa," he says. And she moves on. And he does not call her back, though perhaps this is rude.

Instead, he returns his attention to the woman across the table. "Specifically," he says, "when you told me 'I couldn't make him happy,' I didn't think that could possibly be all there is to it."

[Armstrong] She had been here.
Not here specifically, but some parts of the mile started to blend together. One cafe sounded like another; the clientelle all started to seem the same. Different shades of blue and green and browns and peachy yellows or oranges amde all of them look the same. She was almost certain, when she walked into the cafe, that she had seen that same man in the corner; eyes afixed on hisa laptop, thick-rimmed glasses and a drink that cost more than Armstrong's shirt.

He'd been working on that manuscript for months now. It was all a show, really; you weren't a successful writer unless people witnessed you writing. Then? There was the unavoidable barrista, who would and could wax poetical about the superiority of independent film. Who swore by movie reviews, who had no mind outside of Ebert and Roper and bucking their decisions. This barrista was an Individual- unique like everyone else.

Which, of course, was where Mrena came in. When it came to coffee shop patrons, it was hard to really categorize her. She wasn't a college student- there were no books and the Theurge actually tipped the wait staff in places. She was not a writer- there was no laptop, no inspiration, no self-satisfied smirk with her work. She was no business woman nor job applicant. When she came in, she just didn't quite fit It didn't matter if the clothes were right, it didn't matter if everything about the young woman said that she was just another face in the crowd. She came into the coffee shot and she didn't fit- she didn't fit in a similar way that Lukas didn't fit. People could look and see that something wasn't quite right, something was a little off-settling about her.

maybe it was the focus, the intent, who knew. Who really cared, but she walked into the cafe and her intention was to get something to drink and then wander the mile. Then watch the Show.

attire? Jeans. Pea coat. And a scarf that matched her eyes. The shirt didn't matter- her coat was buttoned.

[Danicka] Her regard from him moves momentarily but doesn't leave, doesn't stay on Nessa. Nessa is not the one inviting herself to Danicka's table and sphere of influence; she's only met the woman once, and it was extremely brief. It was yesterday, and yesterday is yet now a world away. Green eyes meet blue, one gaze murky and indistinct and the other crystalline and vivid. One placid. One ever, always, unavoidably intense.

It isn't easy to have a werewolf's attention focused on you.

"Of course not," she says, more gently than flippantly, as though this was obvious. And truly, it was. He didn't believe her in the car, and moreover, Danicka damn well knew he didn't quite buy it. It had ended there, though...or so she thought, til he showed up here and sat himself down to bring up his packmate again. She blinks once, slowly, and if her vital signs have become a little more elevated than they were five minutes ago, no one would blame her, or be surprised.

"Why are you asking?"

[Lukas] There's a pause; Lukas' eyes drop to the tabletop, to the vivid red of the inside of her cup, the sharp contrast against the black. To her book of poetry, and back to her.

"Would your answer change depending on my reasons?"

[Nessa] The laptop comes out, is booted up with the familiar whining of electronics being badgered into working again. It's a good machine, stolen not long ago at all. Just before that shop was blown up by Zeke...
Unfortunately, it had Vista, and she'd actually shelled out money to get something better than the HijackMe OS. Never know who might be out there watching, waiting.
People like.. Nessa, for example.
Her coffee is adequate, the froth decent, but there is neither lime, nor toasted-marshmallow nor pumpkin or any of the other wierd ass combinations she usually takes. Nessa dreams, while the screens settle down, while she may or may not be listening in on the conversation so near her; she'd chosen this table for Lukas's nearness.
Ahrouns are great at keeping humans people away. Damn near repellant.

[Danicka] Whatever Danicka's drinking is a creamy color, smells of spice and honey and -- (chai). It doesn't take much effort for the nose to pick it up, even less effort than it takes to realize that she isn't wearing perfume. Lukas hasn't smelled perfume on or around her any of the times they've met, not the harsh, synthetic chemical scents applied to wrists or throat. Doesn't mean she hasn't worn some at some point, but maybe the times he's been around her it's just worn off from dancing or --

The book isn't new. The paperback spine has a long crack down the center, the edges are fraying. She's had it for awhile, she reads it often, there are dog-eared pages.

Danicka pauses. If her tension goes up in that moment, it looks like a strange sort of fear. Not the sort where you stare in stark terror, but where her eyes tighten slightly at the edges. She's afraid of something but facing it. Maybe even, considering the fact he's looking at her again, literally. But that would be assuming he's what's frightening.

She nods. "Yes."

[Lukas] Lukas sits opposite Danicka, his posture relaxed, his balance not quite centered. He sprawls a little; his left leg is extended into the space beside Danicka, but his right is drawn in to avoid crowding her. His hands are on the table, empty, and as she answers -- one word -- the fingers of his right hand, the dominant one, drum briefly on the tabletop. Irritation; tension; frustration: take your pick.

"Why don't you just tell me the truth," he says, "for once."

[Armstrong] There was another survey. Packmate. Kin. Kin. Lukas. Danicka. Nessa.

She observed for a moment, and then decided to make her way over to Nessa. There was a definite purpose in the movement. That particular Shadow Lord had come to partake in the free wifi. This also had another purpose; she had walked in the door and could tell that something Did Not Make Lukas Happy.

Were it anyone other than her packmate? She would have never noticed. She would have noticed the tension in muscles, the body posture, but the emotional connotation would have never registered.

"Nessa," she said. Her usual mezzo soprano, tone implying pleasure. She was glad to see her.

[Danicka] [Perception + Alertness: Big Sister Is Listening // +1Diff (No one knows where the hell Nessa is in relation to their table)]

[Lukas] (alert roll!)

[Nessa] (NEssa Listening~~)

[Lukas]
to Danicka

[Nessa] Her laptop booted up, she has literally nothing better to do, than to open her ears to the rise and flow of conversation around her as she pulls up the connection to her nearby security system. The club is rather close, and quickly, the front and back door are on screen as employees will soon be entering to get started on readying the place for the night's crowd.
Her eyes are on the screen, not Lukas, not Danika.
But spies have certain habits...
Nessa presses a key, takes a screenshot, then nibbles a berry out of her muffin.

[Danicka] "I didn't say that if I knew your reasons my answer wouldn't be the truth," she says, her brow furrowing. She looks almost hurt at what he's said to her.

Danicka pauses, just before she's about to say something else. She takes a breath, chest lifting slightly to accomodate the intake, and turns her head. It's because of Mrena that she notices, feeling the new surge of Rage, and it's because she notices Mrena that she sees Nessa and that furrow in her brow actually smooths rather than creases further.

And it's because of Danicka turning, breathing to alleviate her own tension and noticing the other two women, that Lukas notices something else, right before she turns back to look at him, to ask him a question he doesn't know she already has the answer to. "Why does it matter to you?"

[Nessa] "Mrena!"
Damn it, now she cant overhear as easily.
"Is good to see you, please sit." Nessa indicates the chair nearest her, so that Mrena can watch the club on teh screen too.

[Danicka] When she breathes in deeply, her shirt shifts slightly away from her collarbone, though it remains fitted neatly around her breasts. There's a mark on her left, in the soft spot under her clavicle, a deep purplish-red. It doesn't take a genius to see what it is, to tell that it's the size and shape of a mouth, to envision teeth pulling the flesh in past lips to suck hard enough to bruise.
to Lukas

[Lukas] "Will you answer," Lukas says, very low, the words bitten off, "the fucking question, Danička."

[Danicka] [Manipulation + Subterfuge: You Wanna Know Why?]

[Danicka] Her back is very straight, but Danicka seems to be calming down. She licks her lips thoughtfully, glances again at Nessa, then meets Lukas's eyes for a rather intent second. Only ever a second, really, before they drop to the bridge of his nose or the swoop of his cheekbone, away from direct challenge. At least she doesn't stare at the table instead of at least pretending like she has a spine.

"Because I knew going into it that I was going to use him, that he wasn't my type, and I thought he could handle casual sex." She is speaking lowly, aiming her voice at his chin, and she damn near sounds annoyed. Beaten. Then her eyes drop down to his sternum, away completely from his face, her expression somewhat sullen. "Apparently not."

[Lukas] (i need to learn truth of gaia.)

[Nessa] Surveillance is... boring.
Danicka however can make it much more interesting. The muffin continues to lose its fruit to the Russian woman, who pulls up another window, mins it, and starts making useful lists, while waiting for Someone to do SOMETHING at the club.

[Lukas] There's a long, critical silence.

Sam is ultimately a simple creature. He takes things at face value. He listens to what he's told; he weighs it, and then he believes it or he doesn't. He doesn't look for more. He doesn't delve deeper. He doesn't suspect any depths beyond the superficial, perhaps because he hides so little himself.

Sam wears his heart on his sleeve. In the end, he is perhaps incapable of believing Danicka has any motivation but those she reveals; has any truths beneath those she gives him.

Lukas is different. He has his layers, the little acts of politeness and courtesy he puts on. He has his honor at his core, but between the one and the other is a darker sea, with the potential to conceal, to hide, to obfuscate, to lie. He knows all about the careful withholding of information, and though some part of him despises it, the greater part of him recognizes its necessity.

It's perhaps this that puts doubt in him, that makes him stare at her like this even when he can find no fault, no crack, no lie in her.

After some time, he straightens. He reaches to pick his cap up, pulls it on, tugs it low over his eyes. Then he stands, puts his coat on as well. She might think he's let her off the proverbial hook -- but no:

"Take a walk with me, will you?"

[Danicka] One of these days, he'll drive himself mad staring at people, trying to see lies when what they give him sounds and feels like the truth. He wouldn't be the first Shadow Lord to refuse to accept the truth, won't be the first who lashes out in a fit of Rage because everything he hears is a lie, is a mask, is a veil to the real reasons and the true answer. The Fangs seem to be born half-mad these days; the Lords find it because they are nurtured towards it from their fostering. Or in Danicka's case, from childhood.

Considering the fact that he came in here, sat down, and immediately brought up the only topic of conversation they have engaged in other than a few moments at a nightclub where they learned each other's names and parentage...Danicka doesn't believe for a second that she's off the hook. She'd be a fool to think that day is ever going to come, and she learned that lesson a lot younger than a lot of Kinfolk.

Lukas makes it sound like a question, and though she has only been around him for minutes at a time -- the longest, so far, is still a ride in a car when she was almost too exhausted to buckle her seatbelt -- Danicka seems to know already that it's not. That may or may not have anything to do with Lukas as he is or has shown himself to be. She flicks her eyes up, then takes one final drink of her chai before rising, pushing her chair back. The coat she pulls on is a knee-length revere, black wool tapered at the waist. Danicka fastens the buttons and puts on a rather cheerful knitted hat that, in color, is not far off from her eyes. It has a tiny brim, for fashion more than real purpose.

Her bag goes in her right hand. Her book goes in the bag, and she wordlessly starts for the door.

[Nessa] God. Shes' gonna be bored again. Nessa watches them prepare to go, then sighs, long and heavy, as she turns her laptop to make sure no one can see into it from another table.
If either glance at her, in their leaving, in their preoccupation, Nessa smiles easily enough, maybe gives a wistful smile, in fact.
Must find new entertainment. Soon.

[Lukas] Lukas nods a farewell to Nessa and his packmate as he leaves. It's brusque; formality only. Then the door swings open, he steps aside for Danicka to exit first -- these small politenesses are so ingrained as to be thoughtless. The door shuts behind them; the cafe breathes a little easier.

Outside, and for a long time, a walk is all this is.

He doesn't stroll at a polite, gentlemanly pace. He walks -- long strides at a clip that would make anything but an athlete pant with effort before long. He walks like he might want to leave something behind, or walk something off, or --

He makes a right at the corner. Then it's a straight shot down to the waterfront, which is dark and cold. He crosses the busy street, jaywalking, glancing back only once to see whether or not Danicka has been run the fuck over. Then, gaining the opposite sidewalk, he slows at last at the edge of the lake, where the rail keeps pedestrians from toppling down the sharp ten-foot drop to the water's edge.

The lake is frozen over at the shores this time of year. Even the past few days of above-freezing temperatures has changed that little. Ice extends almost as far as the eye can see, grey-white under the overcast city night.

The wind is very cold. He faces it, eyes narrowed; after a moment he pulls his hat off and stuffs it in his pocket, lets the chill rake over his bare head.

"I think you must already know," he says at length, "every time I ask about you and Sam, I'm not really asking for Sam's sake at all."

[Danicka] She hopes Nessa doesn't hold it against her that she didn't nod to her on her way out, that she didn't say it was good seeing her again, albeit briefly, and they'll have to get together for tea sometime. She doesn't stop to ask the other Shadow Lord Kinswoman a question about this 'party' she's heard of, but goes for the door in boots that make her 5'9" instead of her natural 5'6", her stride long and purposeful, like she knows where she's going. She doesn't, because supposedly she is only going to be following Lukas on this 'walk' he wants to take.

And apparently he is the one taking the walk. As long as Danicka's legs are, as even her pace, she does not take quick, nearly-running steps to keep up with him. He may have to look back more than once not just to make sure she didn't get hit by a car but just because the farther he goes and the faster he walks, the harder it gets to hear her footsteps on the sidewalk or the street behind him. She walks, she follows, but she doesn't rush. Whatever reason she has for getting up and leaving her chai still half-drunk when he 'requested' her company, the reasoning does not demand she run.

One might think she has no pride just as she has no shame, but that isn't the truth. Also, Lukas should try running in three-inch heels sometime, if he's going to complain.

He doesn't.

At least Danicka is not huffing and puffing for air when she catches up to him. She waited for the WALK when they crossed the street, and since she seems used to keeping a rather rapid pace, he is not standing there for very long time before she comes to stand to his left, perhaps eighteen inches away from his arm. And she, like him, faces the water. Looping her bag over one wrist, she pulls out her gloves and slips them onto her hands while the wind ruffles his hair and makes her much longer tresses flip slightly off her shoulders, behind her back. A lock tangles in one hoop earring as she secures the gloves.

"There is no 'me and Sam'," Danicka says after a moment, shifting her eyes from her own hands to the frozen water. She breathes in the icy air, and rather than making her shudder, it seems to bolster her. "And yes."

[Lukas] On some level, Lukas might have been just fine if Danicka had decided fuck-it-all and refused to follow. Wandered off somewhere. But she does, eventually, make it to the water's edge. And they stand side by side, eighteen inches apart, the polite distance of not-quite-strangers.

Yes, she says. He glances at her, briefly.

"It would be easier if you didn't know," he says then. His tone is light; detached perhaps. His brow is thunderous though, furrowed deeply, his pale eyes narrowed into the wind. "It would be easier if you were too damn stupid to know."

There's a long silence.

Then, abruptly: "I envy Sam his ignorance. It would be so much easier if I could close my eyes to the inconsistencies and the just believe you are what you pretend so well to be: a silly, submissive, thoughtless, careless little kin. I wouldn't give a fuck, then. You'd be yet another kinwoman, pretty, charming, a good fuck, but ultimately more trouble than you're worth.

"I think if I could be satisfied with what you show and never look for more, I think if I were stupid enough to believe the pretty little act you put on, I wouldn't be -- " it's this word again, this vague, amorphous word that somehow embodies everything he means, " -- drawn to you at all."

And silence again. She's perceptive. She's more than perceptive. She can tell when he wants a response, and when he simply wants silence, and time to sort out his own thoughts.

This is the latter.

"Why don't you just tell me this. We're not talking about Sam anymore. We've never been talking about Sam. So why don't you just tell me: would you have rejected any Garou as you did Sam?"

-- but no. That was still a shield, an obfuscation, an act of deliberate cowardice. Lukas grimaces; then he turns to look right at her, and says:

"Would you have rejected me?"

[Danicka] Of the two of them, it doesn't take much effort to tell who has the real talent for dissembling. Of the two of them, it's clear who understands the motives and desires of others better. Of the two of them, one is a second-class citizen of an unrecognized Nation, and when it comes to figuring out what he wants to hear and giving that to him in a manner most convincing, Danicka essentially runs circles around Lukas. This, not surprisingly, infuriates him for reasons he isn't getting into right now, though some are as obvious as the others are hidden.

Sometimes all she needs is a scant second of eye contact, or a moment or two of observing the miniscule cues evident in a person's body language -- in his body language. Sometimes she doesn't even have to look at someone to get a sense of what they are about to say, or do, or what they're looking for. Why they're holding back and how long she has to get out of the way and whether or not it will be worse for her if she flinches.

At least for right now, as Lukas starts speaking, Danicka doesn't try to probe his thoughts in a sidelong glance or by the way he shifts at her side. As far as he can tell, she is quite intent on the water they're both seeming so very, very interested in. She listens. That alone may encourage the protracted expulsion of all this from the Ahroun, or she might as well just be a wall for all her behavior has to do with his decision to speak. Danicka isn't looking at him, but she's listening, and if anyone understands the value of that, she does.

Besides. She likes it. Maybe it doesn't even matter what he says, as long as he's talking.

None of the silences, then, are interrupted. None of the things he calls her, even when he's acknowledging that he thinks it's an act, get a flick of her eyes or a scoff, a huff of air. She does take a deep breath and sigh it out quietly when he says the word drawn, but not really out of anxiety. It's almost like relief, as if there. There it is. He isn't watching her closely enough and he simply isn't empathetic enough to understand what she hides so easily, with such practice and aplomb. It's as if she does it without thinking, and she -- unlike Lukas -- has no apparent problem with her own deliberate cowardice.

We've never been talking about Sam, he says, but that's not quite true. He's never been talking about Sam. Danicka's eyes are sad on the water for a brief span of seconds as he gets to asking her to just tell me, the corners of her lips tightening with the potential and not the reality of a smile. It passes, and he looks at her. The right side of her face doesn't tell him very much, as she's folding her arms over her stomach. Because it's cold. It's very, very cold.

He waits a very long time for three words, but there's no fear in her...at least, none evident in her profile.

"I don't know."

[Lukas] There's a long pause. Then: "That's all you can say?"

[Danicka] Perhaps contrary to expectation, Danicka does not immediately ask Lukas what he wants her to say. She doesn't turn to face him with a look saying the same thing. She runs the tip of her tongue over the edges of her top teeth, lips barely parted as she thinks for a moment, then gives a single tight, small shrug.

Hloupý kdo dává,

"You're not Sam." And then, because she isn't silly or thoughtless, and most certainly not careless...because she knows that's not really enough: "I don't know what I'd be rejecting," she explains, a little more bluntly.

hloup&+283;jší kdo nebere.

Still without looking at him.

[Lukas] (OK FOLKS, if you're gonna watch, at least start a scene somewhere else!)

[Danicka] (YOU hush, they can do what they want. You have a post to write.)

[Lukas] He turns away, his face to the wind again. Their tribe has its origins in the Carpathian mountains of eastern europe; jagged monoliths of black rock and white snow, bitterly cold. Their people wore the whole pelts of their prey and their enemies for warmth. Built raging fires around which to gather, but held their greatest rituals and rites on treeless mountaintops, exposed to the storms.

They are not afraid of the cold. The cold is in them, deep in the blood.

She doesn't know what she'd be rejecting. She doesn't ask, but he answers anyway: "I don't know what I'd want." Something like a laugh, mirthless, a little at loss. "That's the irony of it, Danička. I don't fraternize with kinfolk because it so easily gets complicated. Messy. They want more of me than I can give. Devotion. Fidelity. Genuine interest in more than just what they can give me in the bedroom. They want more, but I prefer it -- casual, I think, is the word you used. Romance is the least of my concerns; nothing but a distraction."

Sometimes it feels like there's a disconnect here, as though he were wrestling with phantoms she couldn't see, playing a chess game where she's in the opening moves and he's in the endgame; speaking in a conversation she only catches in flashes and glimpses. As though, for all that he's saying, the greater bulk of it lay beneath the surface, wound up somewhere so deep that he cannot find the words for it.

He tries anyway. Because that is how he is.

"But with you," he says then, laying the words out carefully, "I am interested. I don't understand how, but I am beginning to understand why. Still, even were it not for Sam, I don't think that I would act upon this ... attraction. Because I can't tell if you're capable of anything beyond the casual, and it might drive me mad if you weren't. If I allowed myself to grow to care."

There -- it's said; and somehow this seems to take a load off Lukas. The Ahroun draws a breath, and then he straightens up, raising his forearms from the railing, gripping it in his gloved hands instead. He turns to her. Startlingly, and with surprising and genuine warmth, he smiles.

"So I guess that's the core of the question: are you capable of anything beyond the casual?"

[Danicka] All this time they've been standing here, Lukas has been leaning on the railing, forearms balanced, and Danicka has been standing, arms wrapped around herself, face forward. He keeps glancing at her, the way he did in the car when he drove her home, though this time the only thing taking his eyes away are his own thoughts and the frozen water, rather than the need to keep his attention on the road. The other difference is that here, Danicka doesn't watch Lukas the way she did when he was driving. Then, she'd only looked away a couple of times.

He's been playing chess for days, moving pieces closer in amidst his opponent's. Danicka's not in the opening moves nor his endgame because she's not, truly, even on the board. It's his game, against himself, both white and black, pawn and knight and king all together. If it seems that she's even there, she's just leaning over his shoulder, and his mirror's shoulder, watching him agonize over where to slide his bishop but not whispering in his ear what step he should take next.

She huffs a breath of air out of her nostrils when he mentions how getting involved with Kinfolk can get 'messy'. It's not quite a snort, nor quite a laugh, though one corner of her mouth pulls out wryly. It's gotten complicated, and messy, and that smirk and that near-laugh seem not quite all-knowing but ...understanding. Oh yeah. She understands.

More of me than I can give.

As he goes on, she goes on listening. A gust of wind comes up and blows her hair back, tugs at her hat, but she just reaches up calmly and holds onto it til the gust dies down. The flaps of her coat dance around her thighs for a moment, then relax again, and her arm lowers, returning to her midsection as though she is trying to hold herself in even though all she can really be doing is holding her body heat in. Her Self is a little more unruly, a little wilder, a little less willing to submit to the containment required for her survival. But survival wins out. It has to.

A different woman -- hell, probably more than one woman in this city -- would be thrilled to hear him say that he's interested. The relief at hearing that he's drawn to her would come from a completely different place, one requesting validation and reassurance and feeling need for some evasive release. Danicka hears it and her eyebrows pull together slightly, briefly, but tightly. It's there and gone again, but almost seems...pained.

Danicka doesn't say anything in reply to his question. Not only for a long time, but at all. She lets the silence sit for awhile as she processes what he's saying, because it's a lot, because he is essentially unloading his mind onto her. Eloquently or not, there is a great deal to absorb there. If it had nothing to do with her it would be one thing, but...every single word matters, not just in the sense that the feelings and thoughts of others intrinsically matter but in the sense that it's not some girl he met that he's talking about and it's not a friend (packmate, one night stand) they're dancing around, hiding behind, it's her.

And he straightens, turns, and smiles. And she just stands there, until she pulls the inside right corner of her lower lip into her teeth and gnaws on it for a second, frowning until she releases it. Danicka takes a breath, turns her head without turning the rest of her body, and gives him a wide-eyed, thin-lipped smile. "If I'm capable, then it's worth trying. And if I'm not, then it isn't."

Her eyebrows go up. "That about what you're saying?"

[Lukas] The smile doesn't drop off his face. It doesn't fade to a frown. It plays itself out: it lingers as long as it would have, otherwise. When it's gone he seems faintly embarrassed -- but only briefly.

Then he's as he is: hard and cold, and ultimately, as ruthless and exacting as any Lord.

"That's exactly what I'm saying," he replies. And he could throw in qualifiers here: if Sam didn't take it too hard. If enough time to be polite goes by, and he remains drawn. He could pad his justifications: that he has to watch out for his own interests and welfare. That he has to cut his losses if a loss it is.

He doesn't say any of it. That's exactly what I'm saying, he says, just like that, and he faces her fully now, his side to the railing, to hear her response.

Perhaps she's angry now. Perhaps she should be, to be reduced to a calculation in his cold mind.

[Danicka] She could be angry, at the appearance that she has been reduced to a very simple either-or decision. But.

That would be assuming she's ever been anything but calculating on her end. That would be assuming that when he thinks about something that all but makes his teeth grind he's wrong, and she cried out in Czech one night not quite a week ago for reasons other than messing with him from behind a closed door. That would be assuming he's been seeing lies where she's been telling the truth, evasion where she's actually been trying to be open, deception where there's really something else entirely going on. Like confusion.

Neither one of them is a Philodox, or a judge of any sort, but this seems to be very black-and-white, and for reasons not apparent on her features she doesn't seem bothered by that. (Chess pieces, and chess board. White pawn takes black king, or black knight takes white queen, or --) Whether something -- whether a person -- is worth the trouble or not. Oh, she picks up fast. He could be glad that she understands so easily. He could just as soon be currently thinking of what a reminder this may be of how little effort it takes her to see. Right. Through him.

The first time she's looked at him since leaving the cafe doesn't last. He answers, his smile gone now, and Danicka blinks, looks back out at the water, and stares. She thinks for awhile, thinks before speaking, and he knows by now she may never do otherwise. (Maybe not [nekončí!] never.) She takes her time, as he did when she was standing there listening to him talk, and then...suddenly...it's his turn.

"I don't think I want your devotion, or fidelity, or genuine interest in what I had for breakfast or how my day went or what curtains I'm thinking of getting," she says, each word evenly laid down, as carefully as tiles that have to be flush together in order to make anything workable, or beautiful. "I am not terribly interested myself in being romanced," she adds, with more wryness than overt cynicism. She unfolds her arms and lays her gloved hands on the railing, wrapping black-clad fingers around the icy metal bar. Her purse hangs from her right wrist.

All of which could add up to a No, to Then I'm probably not worth it, to laughing in his face at the idea that she is capable of anything more than random fucks at nightclubs, dorm rooms, hotels...whatever the hell she's used to. "But...

"I am capable of caring," Danicka says slowly, lowering her voice a bit as though this is something just between them, not quite a secret but not something to broadcast to the whole damn street. "Of having certain people who...matter a little more."

She takes a breath, turns around, and this time not just her head but her entire body, purse sliding easily into her right hand and arms remaining at her sides as she looks up at him with slightly lifted eyebrows. The expression is not unlike one that could be seen on the face of a teacher, or a babysitter, half expectant, as if she is silently asking him There. Does that answer your goddamned question?

[Lukas] i hate you for turning me into a non-combat roller!
this is percep/subt.
to Danicka

[Lukas] and this is empathy. ish.

[Lukas] (EMPATHY FFS.)
to Danicka

[Lukas] He interjects once, flatly:

I am not terribly interested myself in being romanced--
"--I am not asking about romance. I am asking whether you are capable of anything but a casual fuck."

This is a sort of defense mechanism, too. This deliberate crudeness; all these many and myriad ways he has of divorcing himself from the stark, raw truth of it all.

And then she answers, quietly, and he watches her while she turns away, then turns back; he watches her while she answers him with the truth and nothing but the truth, but not the whole truth.

Which is the crux of it. Lukas has never, not once, caught Danicka in an outright lie. And he probably won't. She's good at that. Sins of omission. Because even the best liar gets caught, but the best withholders -- that's a different story.

She gives him a look that's as much expectancy as it is exasperation. He gives her a look that's as much dislike as it is fascination. He's silent for a long while.

Then: "One more question. Why the fucking Czech that night, Danička?"

He has a way of saying her name -- as though he'd already made the choice he will not allow himself to make.

[Danicka] When he interjects -- it's not an interruption, her speech has paused, she's thinking something through -- she just gives a small nod, a yes, fine that's as patient as it is dismissive. Danicka doesn't lash back that he's the one who used the damn word to begin with, just as she left out what it doesn't take a genius to infer: Sam did his best to romance her, just leaving off the flowers and a poem written in her honor, and look what all the effort he put into playing gentleman for a night did for him. One might say it got him laid, but it's become somewhat evident that this wasn't..enough.

She just lets it go, deliberate crudeness and all. If she knew what he'd been saying about her at the nightclub she would categorize it all together as Shit Lukas Pulls To Protect Himself and clear it off her desk otherwise. It doesn't seem to hurt her, or crawl under her skin, making her doubt her value or question her self-image. Nor does she make a show of turning it on him, shoving it in his face that it doesn't bother her. The words and the intent both just...are, and she leaves them there.

He might be thinking now, and might accept later, only to argue with himself about in the future again and again before he truly resigns himself to the fact that it's possible he will never get the whole truth out of her. Self-disclosure does not seem to be her forte; she is obviously uncomfortable with telling him even what she did, even holding something back. Lukas has his reasons for revealing what he has been thinking of and what he has really been talking about all this time; he can easily enough assume she has her reasons for doing otherwise.

Of course they won't be as good or right as his reasons, but that's beside the point.

The leather of Danicka's gloves creaks softly as her hand tightens around the straps of her purse. Could be a reaction to the question. Could be a reaction to the way he says her name. She exhales, her voice low, and echoes to him: "Why do you think."

[Lukas] There's an irony in this as much as anything else. All this thought, all these chess games he plays with himself, all these moves and gambits and sacrificial pawns and traps and lines of control, corridors of movement -- this entire long and torturous conversation full of what-ifs and hows and whys, and all the ones that came before it --

He plays the whole game to its bloody conclusion, to the checkmate or the resignation, plays it over and over in his mind in all its possible permutations. He tries to find the one path, the best outcome, the best way to fucking deal with this and, as she would think of it, clear it, and her, off his desk.

He does all this, and in the end, he arrives at the beginning. Looking at her, the way she exhales, thinking of the bruise someone's mouth had left on her collarbone. Thinking to himself:

I want this woman in my bed.

He is facing her now, and has been facing her for some time, but something about the air between them changes now. He shifts his weight so that it rests evenly between his feet. He is of a height with Sam, but broader across the chest and shoulders, not so svelte. His rage burns stronger, but his control is more fierce. He will be husky one day, massive and powerful, a warrior amongst warriors; even now, in his winter clothes, he is imposing in his silence, in the long and unwavering regard he subjects her to.

"I want to hear you say it."

[Danicka] The best chess players play against themselves to practice. Back and forth, back and forth, spinning the board, clocking their moves, using every single route they can think of to block their own efforts. And then they go up against someone they don't know, a player who could be a novice or a grand master, and they're ready. Those muscles are honed, those pathways are memorized. Perhaps the worst thing that could happen, the most disconcerting, would be for an opponent -- or partner, depending on how one looks at it -- to simply tip their head to the side, smile, and smack the board from the table, scattering pieces everywhere, and then all that practicing doesn't mean anything because you were never even playing the same game.

It might be giving too much credit to Danicka, or not enough, to look at it like that though. It took effort for her to tell him all she did, and he knows it. She may not be seeing this as a game, even against herself. She knows he's gone over this more than once or twice in his head; that much may as well, to her, be written all over his features just as much as the unspoken but still vivid desire that's lurking around the edges of his eyes and in the corners of his mouth and in the stance he takes while facing her.

Now that she has turned to him it seems the air has indeed changed. She's not half-turned away from Lukas anymore, looking at the water; she and her shoulders and hips and toes are all pointed in his direction, and her eyes are meeting his for...a scant few seconds before she has to drop them. His control is that much nearer to slipping than it would be if he were not focusing so very, very much of his attention on just figuring out what the hell is going on behind that indefinite green gaze.

Danicka looks at his shoulder instead, closer to her eye level.

She speaks so evenly she almost sounds annoyed. "Chci tě."

[Lukas] The words are scarce out of her mouth before he reaches for her. A werewolf can have a terrifying, blinding speed; the Ahrouns most of all. In this instant, it's terribly clear how exactly the power distribution falls between them.

She can talk circles around him. Lie circles around him. But if he wanted to, he could tear her face off before she even knew it had happened.

He doesn't. His hand comes up and cups behind her neck, the fragile joint of spine to skull, and he pulls her forward so hard and fast she might stumble, pulls her up until she must stand on her tiptoes, even in her heels.

There's a second where she thinks -- where it seems utterly inevitable that he should do anything but kiss her, tear at her mouth with his.

But he arrests. Holds her still, her face an inch from his. The leather of his gloves is cool and soft; the fingers beneath, hard as steel. His other hand to her face now too, his thumbs along the line where her jaw meets her neck, his fingers wrapping behind. There's an iron strength in him, vibrating just beneath the surface like a living thing. They're close enough that she can hear him breathing, the swift inhales, the slow exhales that vie for control. She can see his eyes, the dilated pupils, the pale blue rims around them -- not ice blue after all but gas-flame blue, afterburner blue.

He thinks of her, fucking Sam.
He thinks of Sam.

A beat; two.

Then he drops his brow forward to hers. This is the only contact they have had, skin to skin -- tonight, and perhaps ever. His latent rage makes it an electric, searing thing, a jolt like a static shock crossing the point of contact. They are too close to see one another easily now, and for a second, a fraction of a second, he closes his eyes.

(enough. enough.)

A second after that he releases her and lets her step back. Straightens. He watches her a moment -- then, a dismissal: "Goodnight, Danička."

[Danicka] [Willpower]

[Danicka] Give her this: she doesn't scream.

And this: she doesn't cry.

Perhaps it's the speed with which he moves that does it, but he has no more time to question whether or not she means what she just said than she does to give any reaction that is not heavy with instinct. Danicka breathes in sharply, and not with anticipation or surprise but unadulterated terror at this thing coming at her. Her limbs go rigid and when his hand cups around the back of her neck, all but cradling her head, she is so tense it feels as though underneath his hand she's turned to stone. She's already cold enough for it.

She can't see his eyes revealing his thoughts because her own are tightly closed, her face a mask of silenced fear and expectation that is not at all the warm waiting for his lips against her own. Danicka Musil is waiting, as she is forced onto her toes, for his hand to tighten, to throw her by her hair, to strangle her, to do something but she knows it's going to hurt, it's going to hurt and he's --

-- touching her face, breathing against skin going numb from the cold. The warmth of his exhalations almost stings, and her expression flinches, lips trembling because it does indeed take effort not to whimper. But give her that: Danicka also does not make a sound of pleading, of fear. Lies of omission. She can keep herself from fleeing, from fainting, from screaming, from weeping, but she cannot put on a face so brave and so calm right now that he would be unable to see through it. The way the air changed between them when she spoke those two words that he can only assume were honest...it's broken. For now.

It's almost as if she's not breathing until he lowers his forehead til they touch. His eyes close; her eyes open. Their faces aren't aligned so closely that he feels the lashes against his skin, so he has no way of knowing. Danicka breathes in deeply, able to see -- for a second, a fraction of a second-- that his eyes are closed, and exhales a carefully-measured breath as silently as she can. They've touched before now. When he clasped her hand at the nightclub in front of Gabriella Bellamonte, briefer even than this.

They've touched before that, but it was a very long time ago, and one of them doesn't remember it, doesn't even know about it.

Danicka's heels fall again quietly to the pavement when she's released, her backbone still straighter than it was before he moved but her shoulders rounding down slightly. When he dismisses her she seems neither ruffled nor disappointed. She is standing now with both hands around the straps of her purse, holding it before her, hoping that her grip on the leather will keep it from being obvious how badly she was shaken, and she simply nods as though she's...a maid. Or some kind of servant. Her farewell is quieter than his, before she steps back, turns, and walks back along the path they took earlier to get here:

"Good night, Lukášek."

She has a way of saying his name.