selfish.

[Lukas] This is not the first time Lukas has been to 520 North Kingsbury, or even the second.

It is, however, the only time he parks his car properly -- if hurriedly -- at the curb. It's the only time he gets out, slamming the door on his way, and walks up the curb to the stoop, up the stoop to the intercom.

It is night time. It is cold, though not so frigid as it was. His breath huffs white out of him. He presses his palms to the wall as he scans the lists of names; when he finds Martin/Musil at 23-C he jams his thumb into the button, three times in long succession.

Lukas has not bothered to call ahead, and whatever unspoken etiquette preventing him from calling on her here has, apparently, failed.

[Danicka] The doorman in his dark blue uniform would prefer it if Lukas were not coming straight towards him, he really would. He keeps his eyes forward and tries to ignore the man, his gloved hands clasped tightly behind his back, but his breathing is elevated by the time Lukas gets to the wall bearing line after line of names labeled in white against black. He has never gotten this far. Every time he's brought Danicka here, he's stopped, let her out, and driven away.

If he didn't already know, this would be the first time he'd be seeing those two names together: Martin/Musil says the label, and a few moments later, it is Musil who answers. Danicka's voice, unheard for over a week now, comes through clearly; the system is not aged.

"Yes?"

[Lukas] Somehow, the sound of her voice, disembodied through this sleek little intercom machine, makes him swallow twice in quick succession. He squeezes his eyes shut for a moment, and a bolt of muscle stands out in his cheek.

He has to remind himself that it happened a long time ago, and it's past and done, and --

"It's Lukáš. Let me in."

[Danicka] On the other end, the faceless and bodiless, expressionless voice is silent for a moment. If he wants, he can imagine her marshalling her energy, her reserves, something. But it's easier, when he's not right there. She knows she could not stop him from hauling up here and just breaking the door in, or using Katherine's method of getting into the apartment. So she knows it's useless.

If he has learned anything about her by now, if he can see through whatever it is that makes him swallow twice or remind himself of whatever, then it may do better for him to imagine her forcing herself to not treat him as though she expects him to behave like a mindless beast. There's a hint of a breath, then, lightly:

"Excuse me?"

[Lukas] "You heard me. Let me in."

[Danicka] There's another pause, not as long. "Are you asking to come into my home or are you demanding it?"

[Lukas] The doorman's getting an eyeful tonight.

The well-dressed young man with the eyes of a serial killer bends his elbows now, his palms still flat on the wall. He bends them until he can press his brow to the wall, and he taps it there, once, twice, gently.

"Danička, please. I'm still asking. Don't make me demand it."

[Danicka] Most of what Lukas says is cut off by the immediate response to the second word out of his mouth. The doorman, and not the woman, gets to see the way he lightly beats his head against the granite, and were he not frightened by Lukas, he might find it funny. Danicka doesn't interrupt Lukas, not with words. He gets to I'm and there is a sharp buzz and the telltale click of the door coming unlocked.

[Lukas] So that's as far as he gets. I'm--bzz.

Lukas pushes off the wall. He passes the doorman without so much as looking at him. The door swings open so hard and fast that the doorman has to put a hand out to stop it, lest it whacks him on the nose.

The elevator up is swift and silent, as Lukas knew it would be in a building like this. There's glass everywhere -- entire faces of this building are nothing but glass, glittering and gleaming by day, dark and lustrous by night.

The 23rd floor is very quiet. It reminds him of an expensive hotel, though it is not. He's at her door mere moments after the conversation at the intercom. He knocks on it forehandedly, his knuckles resounding off the wood.

[Danicka] The lights along the hallway walls are sconces, no fluorescent tubing to be seen or heard, none of that sickly glow and telltale buzzing at the back of one's mind. The carpeting is thick and patterned, and the elevator slides to a smooth stop without jarring him inside. There are ten doors here, A to J (skipping I, of course). Down at one end is H. At the other end of the hall: C. The letter and number on the door are in silver, and the hallway is silent. The walls here are thick; you cannot stand in the hall and hear what your neighbors are doing, what music they're listening to.

Lukas knocks, and it isn't more than a few seconds before the lock is thrown and the door opened. Facing him are two things: a view of the city that stretches eight feet from floor to ceiling, down at the other end of the apartment, and a young blonde woman with her hair in a low, loose ponytail. She's wearing thick gray socks, a pair of jeans that have seen better days, and a dark blue babydoll t-shirt with a power symbol on the chest. There's music playing behind her, a male voice of the indie-rock variety singing: ...learn to play the most ridiculous, re-pul-sive games...

She doesn't say anything, but steps back, holding the door open for him.

[Lukas] And it's the same thing all over again: the necessity to remind himself that it happened a week ago or more, not yesterday, not last night, not a minute ago. Lukas has to try hard so as not to reach out and grab her, check for injuries, run his hands all over her to look for the broken bones are torn flesh and bruises that he knows damn well are not there.

He would have seen them nearly a week ago, that night at the Affinia.
(He should have known nearly a week ago, that night at the Affinia.)

But he hadn't. Not even the faintest guess. And that night had played out as it had, and -- here he is now, standing in her doorway, his leather coat open, his chest moving visibly as he breathes.

He steps in. Though Danicka cannot know this for certain, perhaps she can infer or suspect it: Lukas is not the type to kiss in greeting. This is, nonetheless, the second time in a row that he has simply walked in, simply put his hands on her face and steps into her.

A moment later he turns his face away and brushes past her. He leaves a jagged trail of lightning behind him, his rage dissipating and crackling in the air. He goes to the enormous windows overlooking the city and he stands there, he looks out, he looks past the city and its buildings that this one towers over, and he looks at the dark lake.

"For god's sake, Danička," he says, low, "why didn't you tell me?"

[Danicka] Inside, it's clear that she hasn't lived here long -- that they haven't lived here long. There are no knick-knacks on shelves, no pictures on the walls. There's a pair of sneakers -- dark blue Nikes -- by the door, but no umbrella stand. The hall closet is closed. The living room, from this angle, doesn't look to have more pieces of furniture than the edge of a couch, with a dark red, fuzzy throw cast over the arm. There is a MacBook glowing gently on the coffee table, barely visible. Not a lot of furniture. No curtains covering the wall of windows.

The music is pretty loud, but coming from an unseen corner. He can smell the lingering traces of Chinese food in the air, perhaps and hour or two gone. Danicka does not get grabbed and checked for bruises that were not there when he fucked her against the hotel room door, not there in the shower afterward, not there when she laid in the hotel bed with a green blanket over her body, not there in the morning when there was sunlight streaming in and silk slipped off her shoulders and onto his knees before his mouth went to her breast.

Danicka isn't inferring anything right now. She tenses slightly when he puts his hands on her face but does not fight, does not turn her head to the side or pull away. She lets him kiss her. But she isn't kissing him, and he'll know. By now he knows the difference, and by now she isn't pretending. So it comes as no surprise that he brushes past a moment later, and she closes the door behind him. Her hand never left the knob. She locks it again and then turns around, looking at his back. She only walks part of the way down the hall, stopping beside the kitchen.

She doesn't bother hiding her sigh. "Tell you what?"

[Lukas] Danicka would not know this, but Lukas went from a conversation to Kate to this, directly, nothing intervening. He'd had the presence of mind to finish his fucking conversation, to not jump up and run here like a madman, but only just. The moment the Silver Fang was out of his sight he was putting his outerwear on, picking his keys up, walking down the stairs and to his car.

He didn't run, but it was a near thing.

And now, standing with his back to her, facing the window, he finds it hard not to bash his forehead lightly into the glass as he had downstairs; he finds it hard to believe that she doesn't know what he's talking about when really, from her perspective, he could be talking about anything at all.

"Why didn't you tell me about what happened at the Park," he says. He grinds this out between clenched teeth, a question so tense it doesn't even lilt at the end. "Why didn't you tell me about that, Danička."

[Danicka] Lukas wouldn't find it so hard to believe that she doesn't know, instantly, what he's thinking of...because she so often seems to be able to tell by the line of his mouth or the set of his shoulders what he is thinking or feeling. She seems inexplicably attuned to the people around her, enough to make them uncomfortable, enough to keep her circles of friends remarkably small and usually only briefly held. And he would not find it so hard to believe if he were here when the ambulance came, if he had seen her yesterday curled up in a hoodie and workout clothes in a hospital hallway, if he were wondering right now where her erstwhile roommate was.

She leans against the counter and watches him, her eyes unreadable. Even if he were watching her, she is wearing a mask as unaffected and reserved as she was when he was kissing her, when she was like an empty body against his lips. And she doesn't answer for a few seconds, long enough to sigh again.

"I don't know. It didn't seem important."

[Lukas] "Not important?" The words veer surreally out. He turns away from the window, the city at his back now, and he faces her. A million things crowd his mind at once and then they all peel away, and all that remains is: "Not important?"

[Danicka] When he turns around, the woman who could arguably be called his girlfriend but is undeniably his kinfolk is resting her elbows on the counter by the sink, and she is otherwise mostly hidden by the lifted shelf of the bar around the kitchen. He can see her ponytail, and he can see her rounded shoulders, and he can see the fact that after his first repetition of her words thrown back at her, she reached up and rubbed her fingertips up the sides of her nose and between her eyebrows, creating a brief triangle. Her eyes are closed, her expression weary. The heels of her hands come up and rub over her eyebrows, outward, massaging her temples for a moment before she drops her hands again.

It takes her a moment before she straightens up again, takes her elbows off the counter, and lifts her head. Her features read as Tired, but her eyes are Placid. "Explain to me what good you knowing would have done."

[Lukas] He's somehow defeated by her refusal to rise to the bait, or the challenge, or whatever it is he's come here for. He's infuriated by the placidity in her eyes, which is less of a mystery; he's always, on some level, been infuriated by that.

"Fuck, I hate it when you close up like that," he says, all on a single exhale, low, like a sigh. He sinks back against the enormous window, and the glass is large enough, wide enough, that it flexes minutely out under his weight.

It doesn't matter. Glass like this is designed to withstand pressure changes during thunderstorms and blizzards. Glass like this would never break under a human's weight -- and even if it did, falling twenty-three stories wouldn't kill a creature like Lukas.

Danicka, however, is a wholly different story. The amount of damage she can take is considerably less.

"It's not about doing any good," he adds. "It's common fucking courtesy, Danička. A Garou has a right to know when Black Spiral Dancers threaten his own kin."

[Danicka] He hates it when she closes up like this. Her hands are resting on top of the counter and he cannot see them. There is no reason for her to try and hide it completely, so she pushes her tension at that remark down her arms and into her fingers, which curl inward and tighten into white-knuckled fists for a few seconds. She counts to three.

"Then tell that Milo guy," she says levelly.

[Lukas] His hands come up; he folds his arms across his chest, tucks his hands under his arms, and now his face is tight, a low-grade wince.

"What I meant was," he says, quietly, "a man has a right to know if the woman he cares about almost gets torn to shreds, Danička. Jesus Christ."

[Danicka] Unseen again, one of her hands uncurls. The other is tight. If he looks to his left he'll be able to see a login screen for a rather popular massive multiplayer online role playing game, a heavily armored zombie-like toon looking around semi-impatiently. The sound is so low that it can't be heard over the vocalist of the Shins singing about how you had to know that he was fond of you. Fond of Y-O-U. It apparently has not distracted Lukas yet, and likely will not.

There's a flicker in Danicka's eyes that she doesn't want to be seen. She doesn't want it to be seen because she doesn't want it -- or the reason for it -- to exist. It feels pathetic. It feels oversimplefied. That easy, huh? He says he cares about her, and it's the first time it's been aloud, and it doesn't really matter that she already knew this because hearing it makes a difference, and she doesn't want it to make a fucking difference.

It takes her a few moments to put aside a half-dozen things she could say, and find what she should. Or what is the least useless: "...I honestly could not see what good telling you would do, Lukáš," she says quietly, her other hand uncurling, her arms relaxing slightly. She seems sincere. Seems. "Especially the last time I saw you."

[Lukas] Lukas is quiet for a while, frowning. There is music, not quiet; there is a computer and a game. He doesn't even look at these things. They barely even scratch the surface of his focus. His eyes remain on her, and even across a room she can see their color, the paleness and the glittering clarity, like gemstones. Like crystals, cold and hard.

He bites the insides of his lips for a moment. Then:

"You're right. It would have done absolutely no good at all. It would've made me angry and irrational. Very likely it would've scared the fuck out of me. But that's not the point. The point is, I still would've liked to have heard it from you. Instead of Kate, a week after the fact, because she just happened to remember."

A beat.

"Danička, you cannot possibly fail to see why I would want to know. At least know."

[Danicka] It is terribly uncomfortable, being the object of a Garou's focus. And that's with a Ragabash, a Theurge; it's patently unnerving to be the sole real thing in a panorama of possible subjects when the eyes turned on you are a Full Moon's. Somehow it fails to soften her to hear that he would have been frightened, but that is likely because she already understands that the irrational anger would not even be born if not for the bonechilling fear. She remembers the word necessary, the word pieces, and there is more than that to it, but Danicka understands exactly what would have scared him, and why, and how that would have led to frenzy-inducing wrath.

Not at her, really. The universe, for having the rules it does, for being as unfair as it is. But regardless of where his anger was truly directed, she would have -- at the time -- made a truly handy scapegoat. He's made her his scapegoat before, used her for the unity of his pack, and she doesn't believe for a moment that whether he had any reason to be mad at her or not, it still would have hit her. The universe being, as it is, so difficult to pin down and pummel.

"All right," she says, not because she is trying to play nice and get along, but because she just isn't naturally argumentative. "A little over a week ago I was walking through the park with Martin with a smoothie when three Spirals came out of nowhere. I was told to run; I ran. I got home safely, and after awhile I left here and went to the Affinia. The next night I saw you."

She recites this all calmly, but without the hard-edged flatness of bitterness or annoyance. It is what it is. She doesn't seem upset by it now.

[Lukas] At least Lukas was honest when he said he would angry. And irrational. And scared. Because he is -- all three things, and all at once, even when he knows damn well what happened, and that she was about to tell him details.

He can't help it. No more than the sun can help rising in the east. No more than an Ahroun can help his rage rising with the moon.

It makes him turn away. He straightens up, and he turns his back to her, puts his hands against the windows. He'll leave faint handprints there for the maid to find, if they had one; for Martin to find, otherwise. Briefly, Lukas wonders where Martin is, because clearly the man wasn't home, because if he was home he's sure he'd be out here and yapping again, because that's what Martin does, and --

He recognizes that he's redirecting his anger. He recognizes this and stops it, closes his eyes for a moment, does not thump his head against the glass.

"Were the Dancers after something or someone in particular? Or were they just ... raiding?" He manages this levelly, steadily. "Who else was there? And what happened to the Dancers?"

[Danicka] [Willpower]

[Danicka] Once again he turns away, looking not at her but at the city. The windows are relatively clean; they don't get much attention from within and the rain a week ago has them relatively clean from without. He can see the river from this view, most closely. The city is a wash of different-colored glows: orange and yellow and green, red from the streetlights, white here and there. Certain windows shine with people working late or getting home late. There is a balcony towards his right. There's no furniture on it. If he went out there he'd see an ashtray tucked away near the wall.

No, Martin is not here. Martin is not sneaking around in the other room or sleeping. He is not in the shower singing his heart out to Jimi Hendrix. He is not working at his desk. He is not trying to get out of the apartment without being noticed. Oh well. The man has a life. He's just not here right now, luckily. Because he would be running off at the mouth, and Lukas would likely snap right now, and Danicka would --

-- he doesn't know how Danicka would react if he lost his temper with Martin, or 'disciplined' Martin somehow. He doesn't know if she'd forgive it a second time, when she was so ferocious in her anger because he did so much as give the older Kinfolk a swirlie. He really has no idea even why she's living with that guy.

"I really don't know what they were doing or what they wanted. I saw Doctor Slaughter, Martin of course, and I think I saw Miss Malikoff and someone else. And I don't know what happened. I told you, I ran."

She won't leave the kitchen. She bends over and rests her elbows down again, rests her forehead on her palms and stares at the granite. "Could we just...not talk about this anymore?" she asks, far too carefully.

[Lukas] His back faces her. She faces his back. Neither of them have any idea what the other's expression is, though she, at least, has the advantage of seeing his back, reading his body language.

Both palms are on the glass now, shoulder-height, a little above. Elbows straight. He bows his head between, and the muscles in his upper back bunch visibly even under his jacket, changing the way the leather falls. There's a pause. Then he turns around, comes over to her -- she can feel this in his footsteps, in his rage crackling through the air even as she stares at the granite counter.

He climbs up on one of the swivel-stools. For a moment Lukas mirrors Danicka; he too sets his elbows on the counters, leans his head on his hands.

Just a moment.

Then he lowers his hands. Looks at her like that, his palms on the breakfast bar, shoulders a little hunched, not quite his usual civilized self.

"Danička," he's losing track of how many times he's said her name tonight, and how many ways, but this is by far the gentlest, "I know sometimes I push and push when I should just shut the fuck up and let you be. But I swear to you, I'm not asking you these questions for my own edification, or because I want to drag the answers out of you no matter what it'll cost you.

"I'm asking because I'm trying to figure out how likely it is that they're going to come back for you. I'm trying to figure out if they know where you live and who your friends are. I'm trying to figure out if you're in any immediate danger. All right?"

He draws a breath, lets it out slowly.

"So please. Try to think."

[Danicka] [Willpower: Totally different problems now]

[Danicka] From where he is, the dark wood back of the barstool pressed against his spine, he could lean forward and reach out to her. He could cup his hand over her crown, touch her hair, let his fingers dip down towards her cheek. He does not. Danicka does not look up. She remains bowed over the granite countertop, half-empty Chinese food containers on the counter by the fridge. There is a list on the whiteboard on the fridge, written in green marker:

toothbrush
cheese
eggs
cadbury eggs!!!
beef stock

but his eyes are on her and her eyes are on the granite, and they are neither making eye contact nor touching. The only time they have touched tonight she has been withdrawn to the point of being cold, to making him think she wanted to turn her face away from the kiss he wanted to give her. She has never rejected a kiss from Lukas, has never pulled back or winced in response. There have been times when he could tell she was not there with him, was not giving herself over to whatever it is that causes them to do that, what happens when they do; but tonight she did not even pretend to want his lips on hers.

She breathes in deeply, her back and her shoulders moving with the effort, and she exhales slowly. She lets him speak without interrupting, but she rarely does interrupt him, even when she's angry. He knows he pushes even when he should leave her alone, but this isn't curiosity about her motivations or her past. This is something different, and she's heard it before. By god, she's heard so many versions of this same speech and she looks so tired there, the way her head is bowed and the way she takes a second, more ragged breath inward.

"...There was a bag, or something. I don't really know. Utekl jsem, Lukáš, would it have been better if I stayed?"

[Lukas] There's a look in his eyes --
but of course, she can't see it; so it doesn't matter.

There isn't any hesitation. He replies immediately, quietly, but fervently: "Ne. Absolutně ne."

A beat or two. Then he folds one hand up, presses the heel against the corner of his forehead. He watches her; she watches the granite. This goes on a while longer.

"I'll ask Nessa about it. Or her brother, Milo." He straightens, getting up off the stool. A hesitation now, a look around. "Has Katherine been staying here?"

[Danicka] She does it again, slipping in and out of Czech as though it is the same to her as English, as though it's only separation and significance is that the vast majority of people she meets cannot even recognize what language it is, think it is Russian or something, and certainly cannot tell what she is saying. Conversation flows back and forth between English and the tongue he was born to, when he talks to her. There seems to be no reason for it, no reason but comfort, but a relaxation of her speech that she condemns in herself and yet cannot stop, all the same.

Danicka senses him moving again, following in her mind's eye the shift of his body from chair to floor. Leather creaks, jeans slide across upholstery and wood, and he asks a question that makes her sigh as much as any other.

The answer, however, is simple: "No."

[Lukas] He's standing now -- his voice comes from a slightly different position. He doesn't move for the door yet.

"Then I'd prefer if you didn't either until I know more."

[Danicka] [Willpower: Oh my god, Danny Boy]

[Danicka] He does not wish she had stayed and learned more. He does not want her to stay here until he knows more. He comes here, not truly asking yet pretending not to demand, as if he wouldn't have just come up if she'd refused him. He comes into her home and asks her every question but how she is, but what has happened to her, and comes very close to snapping at her or bashing his head against glass because she has not told him what has happened to her. Danicka still will not look at him, and cups her hands over the back of her neck.

"Get used to disappointment," is all she says.

[Lukas] Lukas makes some sound like a breath, like a laugh, not a hint of humor in it.

"Goodnight, Danička," he says. He hadn't bothered to take off his coat or shoes, and so doesn't need to put either back on on his way to the door.

[Danicka] [...AUGH.]

[Danicka] When she speaks this time it's close to a sob. "Why did you even come here?"

[Lukas] And like that, Lukas' tenuous hold on his temper snaps. He's halfway to the door when he turns and shouts at her, shouts it,

"Because you could have died!"

and in all this time, all this tempestuous, unstable time, she has never quite heard him speak in that tone before. Not the volume; not the fury; certainly not the fear. Ahrouns are not supposed to be afraid -- that's what they say, anyway. Lukas never quite bought into that, either.

A jagged silence follows. It wasn't even a reason; it didn't even make sense, and he knows it.

Then, a sort of forced calm, laid out piece by piece:

"I just heard. Thirty fucking minutes ago. From Katherine. So I came here to see you. I couldn't think of anything else to do. I couldn't think. Christ, Danička -- " his control's slipping again, he clutches for it, hangs on by the skin of his teeth; he turns his face away, and then back, " -- why don't you just come with me? Huh? Please."

[Danicka] Again, she's crying. Not because he shouts, because he snarls, whatever it is he does when he snaps like that. It's not because he's hurting her and it's not because she wants him to go. It isn't even, truthfully, because she's tired, and she isn't crying because she's scared of him. The sob was the first gasp, the struggle before the release, and now Danicka -- bent over the counter by the sink, elbows on granite and hands on her neck and hair falling to one side -- just shudders as she tries to get a handle on herself, because this won't do. She can't just fall to tears every time he sees her, that's not just pathetic, it's disgusting, and so she fights it. Fitfully, angrily, she fights it, and sucks in breaths through her teeth to try and calm down.

She cries because she's afraid, but not of him. Worried, but not for him or herself or even 'them'. It's everything. And 'everything' is a hundred things he doesn't know, can't know, because she can't tell him and he wouldn't think to ask.

Have you ever --

Danicka won't even finish the question in her mind. She exhales raggedly and quiets slowly, hunched over the counter. It's disturbing, how quickly she can bring herself back under control, how rapidly she can silence her tears, but he's noticed that before. Surely he's noticed by now how strange it is for her to cry at all and how, bizarrely, she keeps so very quiet when she does.

She sniffs, and stands straight, aligning her back and lifting her head, but not turning to look at him. Yes, there are tears in her eyes and on her cheeks, but they're ignored. She cracks her neck, blinks, and takes a breath: "Where? The Brotherhood?"

There's doubt in her voice.

[Lukas] Even if he'd wanted to, he wouldn't have had time to go to her, comfort her, do ... something.

Even if he'd wanted to.

Which he does. Which is the confusing thing, for him. Which is the almost-unbelievable thing, for him.

Amongst Shadow Lords, Lukas is perhaps unlike most, but in the end, he is what he is; he is what his blood and his breeding and his upbringing makes him. He despises weakness, cannot stand the thought or the sight of it. He flushed her friend's head down the toilet not because he backtalked him, not because he didn't get that his actions harmed Lukas' packmate, and thus his pack; not because of any of that, ultimately, but because he was weak in his eyes; he was weak and unworthy, and therefore shit, and therefore deserving of exactly the treatment he got.

He is unforgiving of weakness, and this may make him cold, or insensitive, or callous, but he does not care. He is not cruel to a woman in tears -- in fact in recent memory he can remember giving comfort to no less than two -- but his kindness toward one was born out of some basic obligation, some basic courtesy that overcomes a much more intrinsic disgust for such a display. The other was his packmate, which is a different thing altogether.

Danicka is not his packmate. Danicka is, perhaps, not really his anything, except kin to his tribe, and therefore held to higher standards than most.

For all that -- when she speaks on the edge of a sob, when she lowers her head and shudders with silent weeping, it makes something deep in him crumple in on itself. He does not watch her because he cannot. He looks out at the city instead, and anyway, it's over in seconds, she straightens and she speaks and her voice is -- well. Nearly normal.

"Just for a few days," he says, quietly.

[Danicka] Her answer is simpler than his motivations for the offer. Danicka presses her lips together, turns and looks across the line of her shoulder right at him. Her eyes, when she is this tense, when there is this much going on under the surface, are that color that probably made him think that she already is what she wants: that newness, that vivid greenness that takes over even the grass coming up through the cracks in the sidewalks.

"That bed really isn't big enough for two people," she says mildly, rather quietly, subdued to a point that may disturb him more than crumple him. She waits a moment, then adds: "...Thank you for not just showing up in here."

[Lukas]

[Lukas] There's a silence; he's looking at her the way he does when he's trying to figure her out, when he's trying to take a glance below the surface and figure out just what is going on in the dim and indistinct recesses beneath her smooth and impenetrable shell.

At the end of it, he's scarcely better off than when he began. So he shakes his head, a touch of impatience perhaps. "Why would I do that?" he asks; it's largely a rhetorical question. And for the rest, "So I'll sleep on the floor, Danička. I just -- " he breaks off there.

A pause.

"I know it's absurd. Chances are if they were going to come after you they would've already done it. But I don't want to ... I can't take a chance on this."

[Danicka] Because that's what Katherine did. Because that's what she always did, what he could always do, no matter where I --

That's what she could say. Danicka chooses not to answer his largely rhetorical question. She rubs the back of her neck, not out of necessity or inability to stop herself but because she is tired, because it aches, and because that is where her hands are. There is energy in her despite her exhaustion that needs release, and it finds a way down her arms and into her fingers, rubbing at skin, at muscle, even at the knobs of her cervical spine.

Her hands do indeed still hang there, though her arms are relaxed. She finally drops them to her sides and turns to face him. She's almost completely inscrutable; what he can tell of her is written all over the surface. It would take a blind man, a deaf man, not to see that she is so tired, so stressed, that she can barely handle one more thing on her plate. Even if that thing is --

Danicka doesn't go to him, or touch him, and all but rejected the one touch he's given her since walking in. She sighs instead, again. "...Do you at least realize that this is more for your comfort than my safety?"

[Lukas] The corners of his jaw flex. He controls his breath so as not to suck an inhale through his teeth. His nerves are still jangling. She's exhausted, she's stressed, something's up and he doesn't think it's just him, but the truth is right now he can't deal any more than she can, and --

"Look." As quietly as he can, this. "Stay or come with me. It's your choice. You know my preference."

[Danicka] She's still looking at him, her eyes that color, filled with that look, and one of the myriad reasons he cannot tolerate that shadow across her features is because he cannot tell what is going on with her. Surely it isn't just the fact that he's here, or that she was caught up in something before he showed up and interrupted. Surely there's something else, surely she didn't kiss him only because she was frustrated, that has to be all it is.

Danicka blinks, winces slightly. "I want to stay here." Beat. And this is harder, especially because of the unspoken 'but' that comes before it: "Neviděl jsem vás v týdnu, Lukáš."

[Lukas] The same expression flickers over his face -- a wince, very slight.

"Vím. Byl jsem zaneprázdněn." A small pause. "Je mi to líto."

Another pause, longer. He's still halfway to the door; he hasn't moved an inch towards or away in all this time. There's a second where he seems to be wrestling with himself; he might say anything or nothing.

Then: "Danička, co je špatně?"

[Danicka] "Nejsem obviňují vás," Danicka says quietly, leveling her eyes on him as though to make sure he can somehow sense her sincerity even though her voice is soft enough to be considered gentle, or maybe even tender.

Whatever is wrong is not anger. Maybe it was at the door, maybe when he waltzed in and kissed her with almost no pause, no thought of how she might be, but not now. Not because he hasn't been around for a week. She would never blame him...after all. She hasn't called or gone to him, either. The words hang in the air for a moment between them, and then she walks out of the kitchen, into the living room, to go shut down the laptop sitting on the coffee table.

"Jsem velmi unavená. A já mám stýskalo."

[Lukas] She's not blaming him. He never thought she was. All the same, close on the heels of her words -- not hard enough to be an interjection, but close, close behind nonetheless:

"Velice rád bych tě vidět každý večer."

There's a pause. She gets up in the meantime; she speaks, and his eyes flicker as he listens, and then she's going to shut down her laptop and he's watching her, and then not watching her -- watching the lights of the city darken one by one as evening turns to night.

"That night at the Brotherhood," this is very nearly abrupt, but very quiet, "when I came home and you were waiting there. I would love to have that every night. But I don't think it's ... possible." Tonight's full of pauses, both brief and long. "For people like you and I."

Another few heartbeats; silence. By then the laptop is closed and she's either sitting on the couch or standing or walking away or going to the window or -- any number of things, really. Lukas can predict Danicka no better than he can predict the weather, the storms, the whims of nature itself.

"I was going to go find Milo and his sister. Get some answers about the night at the Park." He can look at her again, and does, and there's a question in his eyes that makes it out of his mouth a moment later, "But if you prefer, I can call him from here instead."

[Page from Ken] HADOUKEN

[Danicka] She's broken down once tonight, and he doesn't really know why. I'm tired is not enough to cause Danicka Musil to cry. Maybe when she was a child, maybe when she was very young and the night going past her bedtime or someone scaring her when it got dark, maybe then being weary would be enough to send tears rolling down her cheeks. Not now. She cries when she is hurt, but not when the pain is physical. When the pain is physical, she accepts it as though it is her birthright, her inheritance, her fate.

Which it is.

The MacBook -- how many computers does she have? -- is in the process of being shut down within a matter of moments, but those moments can't conceal the pause that freezes her for a split second, almost imperceptible, at his first words. That he would love to see her every night, to come back from dismembering and hiding the bodies of mutated, twisted, cursed Garou and find her in his bed, comforting and welcoming and...belonging there. She pauses before continuing, her eyes on the screen, then the lid closing, and the light dying. The stereo remote is picked up, a button pushed, and the sound from the other side of the room silenced.

Which leaves nothing but the two of them, again, and only one of them speaking. Danicka sits on the couch where she parked herself just a few seconds ago, looking at the Apple emblem rather than at Lukas. Her hair is messy, and she reaches up to pull the ponytail holder out. It is wound about her wrist, and then she runs her fingers through her hair, thoughtfully.

He has no indication of just how frantic she is on the inside, how fast her heart is suddenly racing or...any of it. Even, perhaps especially, when she looks at him, Danicka is unreadable. "Well," she says softly, "even if it were, that bed is still too small."

It's not really an answer, and it's not a condemnation of his words, people like you and I, as if he really knew what type of person she is. She doubts sometimes he completely knows what kind of person he is, but ultimately it won't matter. He very likely won't live to be as old as her mother was, and her mother lived to her mid-forties. The war wasn't as brutal then. It's only been getting worse, decade after decade, generation upon generation. One day the Rite of Passage will be abandoned, because they will die so young. And eventually they will simply...lose. You can't hold back a flood forever, or the sun burning up, or convince the world powers that World War III is a bad idea.

She thinks for a second, then takes a breath.

"You can stay here tonight," Danicka says finally, "make whatever calls you need to. Tomorrow...I need you to go again. And..."

Another deep breath. She stands up, walks around the coffee table to the hallway again, and turns off the light behind her. She pauses at a doorway to her left, his right, one of two and wider than the one he can assume to be a closet. "...This is my home. I can't ...handle you just showing up here. Especially if you're upset."

One of her hands has been trailing on the wall. That hand curls slightly, becomes almost a fist, unravels again. Even saying that makes her nervous. She expects the reaction to be...bad, whatever it is. If she were a Garou, she would have snarled it, and he would have been law-bound to obey, but she's not Garou and she has no true right in their Nation's eyes to growl:

Stay out of my territory.

[Lukas] The air between them is still volatile. His mood is still ragged at the edges, combustible. She tells him he can stay here tonight like it's a concession, like some sort of honor, when some part of him would really rather be gone from here, this home of hers with its ridiculously large windows and excellent views and air stinking of her roommate -- and, for that matter, his alpha -- and

and he takes a long slow breath, quells himself.

"If you'd rather I go," Lukas replies, "I'll go. And if you don't want me to charge over here unannounced, Danička, then don't make me the last to know the next time shit hits your fan."

[Danicka] Perhaps forty-five minutes ago --less than an hour, certainly-- Katherine told Lukas that both her Kin and his had been chased through Grant Park by Spirals. Martin nearly had his arm torn off at the shoulder. Danicka is untouched, was untouched the day after an there's been no word, no mention of anyone healing her.

You don't have to be careful when --

But still. And he's said that she can't fail to understand why he would want to know, even if he falters by calling it common courtesy, by speaking of his rights, if something bad happened to her. If she nearly got torn to pieces. If she nearly got taken. Raped. Bred. Like she doesn't know. Pretty as she is, but that doesn't matter, not to the Spirals. The breeding tickling his nostrils teases at theirs, too. She's young.

No, Danicka doesn't fail to see why he bolted her after hearing about it, why he's angry that he didn't know, why he's angry that even if he did know, even if it had been worse, there's nothing he could have done or can do now. She understands. She also will not comfort him. He is not the one spending the night alone in an apartment like this...with its huge windows and its missing roommate...knowing that if she had not run, or if Imogen and Martin had not gotten lucky...

Well, plainly put, Lukas is not the one who, in this room, has much right to feel afraid. Though why didn't she call him? Why didn't she --

She says he can stay with her tonight breaths after telling him she missed him, moments after he's claimed that he would love to see her every night, not once every couple of days or once a week or once every two goddamn weeks. She says it in his mind like a concession, a gift, and in her own she hears the echo of surrender.

Danicka closes her eyes, opens the door to the hallway leading to the south bedroom, and glances at the door behind his back, checking the locks. Her eyes flick back to him. "Lukáš, jste-li zlobit se na mě, pak byste měli jít," she sighs. "Pokud chcete být tady, chci, abys zůstal."

[Lukas] For some minutes on end now he has stood exactly where he is as though pinned to the spot, turning only to follow her with his eyes.

For a while longer he stands there, his brow furrowed, frowning at her.

Then -- rather suddenly -- he exhales. He looks down to put his hands into his pockets, find his cell phone. Taking it out, he flips it open and begins to scroll through his address book to find the entry titled MILO MAEVSKY.

"Nejsem naštvaný s vámi," he says; this is something like resignation. "Jsem naštvaný se všichni ostatní. Jsem naštvaný na sám. Protože jsem tam nebyl, a protože jsem ani neznaly."

A pause before he hits dial. He looks at her again, and his brow has cleared; his eyes are clear and frank.

"Are you going to bed?"

[Danicka] There is not anything she can say to him right now that he wants or needs -- and she does consider this, almost automatically, what he might need even if he doesn't want it at the time -- to hear tonight. Such as

'Všichni ostatní' mi zachránil život.

or

Nechtěl jsem vám to tam být.

or, perhaps most of all

Nikdy jsem nechtěl, abys věděl.

Danicka watches him, trying to believe in the fact that the door is locked securely without checking again. She tries to believe that somehow she is safer in her own home than at the Brotherhood or a hotel room, whether Lukas is with her or not. Trying to tell herself that she called him that night only because it was nearly a full moon and because she wanted him, she craved the feel of him against and inside her, trying to make believe that it had nothing whatsoever to do with not being able to tolerate another night in an empty expanse with no one at the other end of the apartment, no one sharing the wing of the house, no one down the hall, just her, alone, and no one coming.

She tries not to tell him now to please just come, please just stop it and be with her, before she changes her mind, before she reasserts her sanity and refuses to let him into her bed. Danicka takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly. All she does is nod, and walk down the hall, closing the door behind her.

[Danicka] [SARONG!]

[Lukas] So: Danicka goes into her room, and she shuts the door. And depending on how thick, how soundproof that door is, she may or may not hear Lukas making his phone calls outside.

He doesn't bother to keep his voice down for fear of waking her, or fear of her eavesdropping. He doesn't mind if she hears him; what's one more piece of knowledge amongst the piles and piles she's already mined out of him -- bloody ore torn from his bones, smelt into readable plates, beaten into decipherable form?

The first phone call is to the man he calls their tribal elder in this city, this Milo she's never met. His tone is level and polite, but firm, businesslike. It's not a long call; he's mostly listening, though he asks a few questions, and at one point, breaks off and talks about an unrelated subject.

He stands at the window the whole time, his jacket doffed over the couch, his hand in the pocket of his jeans, his silk-knit pullover rolled up to the elbows. There's nothing underneath the sweater; he hadn't bothered to put an undershirt on. Had barely bothered, in truth, to change at all.

The second call is to Katherine, and it's voicemail. His message is short and simple: "Kate, I'm not going to be back at the Brotherhood tonight or tomorrow. I'm going to have a look around Grant Park in the morning to make sure we didn't miss a fourth or a fifth Dancer Umbralside."

The last call is to Sam and Sampson's room at the Brotherhood. It's even simpler. "Hey, Sampson. Would you meet me in front of the Aquarium tomorrow, say around 11am? Totem me if you can't make it. Thanks."

He thumbs the phone off then, clips it gently shut. Puts it in his pants pocket. The city outside is darkened now, only a few lights left in the highrises, the skyscrapers, the streets; only a few lonely cars streaking down largely deserted boulevards. Lukas watches the city for a while, and then he watches his reflection, dimly suspended against the vista.

It occurs to him that on some level, no matter what he'd snarled at Kate, he's now doing exactly what she shouted at him for. His place is with the pack; at the Brotherhood, where most of the pack is. His place is not here, up on the 23rd floor of some obscenely tall skyscraper with his kin in the next room, because she won't leave and he, for reasons not entirely clear to him, will neither force her to nor leave her.

He's brought nothing with him. No computer, no books, nothing. He can't find anything to read in her living room either, and he wouldn't think of simply popping her computer open and surfing the internet. Checking his stocks. Reading up on the news. Killing a few dozen Alliance scum or so.

So in the end he settles for the contents of his own mind: stretches out full-length on the sofa and, though he isn't remotely sleepy yet, closes his eyes and pillows his head on his folded jacket.

[Danicka] There isn't a whole lot going on in the south side of the apartment after Danicka closes the door behind her. She goes to her bathroom and brushes her teeth, washes her face. She strips out of her jeans and closes the door to her walk-in closet as she passes it. She crawls into bed, the lamp on her nightstand turned on, and there's no book she wants to read. It has been a long day; longer than Lukas knows. She slides under the covers, she pulls them up to her waist, and she lays her head down.

But she doesn't sleep.

[Lukas] A couch in a strange apartment with vast, curtainless windows -- a couch that stinks pretty strongly of ex-addict, cardiac-infarcted sweat at that -- is not the most comfortable place to sleep by any measure. Nonetheless, eventually, and inevitably, sleep must and does come.

The last thing he recalls is pondering, in rather minute detail, the layout of the jogging paths in Grant Park. Did the north path fork off the east, or the south? Was the popcorn stand before the copper fish fountain, or after? And where was the ...

... the first thing he's aware of in the morning is the light. The back of the couch faces the window, thus protecting him from the worst of the glare, but there's no escaping the dawn. She's high up enough that her view of the horizon is almost uninterrupted; there are few other buildings this tall to get in the way. And the horizon is glowing from edge to edge, a rim of scarlet red with oranges, yellows, lilacs, and the deepest, richest blues layered over it.

The entire living room is dully aglow with light when Lukas opens his eyes. The sun isn't up yet. This is only reflected light, but his window at the Brotherhood faces an alley, and there's nothing like this in an alley. He's not used to the brightness and he's briefly puzzled, dazed, uncertain of his bearings.

By the time he sits up he remembers. Memories don't exactly come rushing back. They don't trickle either. They simply are, as they always were, only the screen of sleep has been drawn back now, and they're once more accessible.

Lukas gets up, finds his way to the non-ensuite bathroom. Martin's door is either open or shut; in either case, he can detect no sign of the man being there, or having ever been there at all since he himself arrived last night.

He washes sleep off, rolling his sleeves up to his biceps, cupping water to his face with his hands, scrubbing until water dribbles off his elbows onto the floor. He borrows Martin's mouthwash too, if it's lying around on the counter, and he gargles for a while, ducks his head under the tap to rinse.

It's a little before 7am. The sun is on the verge of rising when he returns to the living room, and he watches it in mute appreciation, watching as the wisps of clouds over the horizon come afire, watching as the sun rises blood-red, and soon thereafter, becomes golden, white, too bright to look at.

A little after 7am, then. If Danicka hasn't roused herself by then, Lukas goes to her bedroom door and knocks.

[Danicka] There is a silk-soft but fuzzy blanket thrown over the back of the beige couch, a deep merlot. Lukas doesn't pull it over his body to sleep; the apartment's interior air is cool but not constantly running, and his body heat is considerable. The plasma-screen television hangs on the wall dark and silent; Danicka's MacBook is a silvery rectangle without even a pale blue light to draw his eye, completely off. There is a space, eight feet up, where one can get curtains to hang over the enormous windows, but Danicka and Martin never bought any and so the windows are constantly uncovered.

When the sun rises, it rises through those windows and destroys the illusion of darkness in the room, and Lukas's protection doesn't last very long. The sunlight hits the chrome logo on the bottom of the television and glitters at him. The sunlight warms the apartment by degrees, kicking on the air conditioning. The twenty-third goddamn floor is not the top of Kingsbury Plaza, but it is up there, and the beginning of the day gleams.

Danicka has always woken before Lukas, on those occasions where she has fallen asleep with him. She wakes at dawn, he could assume, and only once has she crawled back into bed with him and slept some more because for some reason she could not bear to leave him and also could not tolerate just sitting there waiting for him to wake up. She was up before him the last time as well, playing a game on her computer and snickering wickedly until he drowsily inquired as to her activities. She'd answered by thoroughly distracting him from any task or question more complex than untying the loosely-wound belt of her silk robe and helping it leave her skin.

This morning, however, they do not sleep in the same bed, and they do not return to their own beds. Lukas sleeps on her couch, seeing the closed door as a No or a Stay out because he has no other map for why she might do that. She is not awake at five, or at six. She is not awake when he goes to Ilari Martin's bathroom and discovers that the only mouthwash available is Dr. Fresh Firefly MouthSwoosh Anti-Cavity Mouth Rinse with a light-up cap that blinks until it's time to spit. Why a man nearing forty would have this instead of Scope or Listerine is mind-boggling...unless one remembers.

Mouthwash for kids is alcohol-free. Scope and Listerine are not.

And Martin is a recovering alcoholic.

By seven in the morning on Tuesday, Danicka has not stirred, or at least has not come out of her bedroom. There is no answer when he knocks.

[Lukas] Lukas gives her a polite ten seconds or so after he knocks. His hands are still wet, as is his hairline, his mouth and chin. He rolls his sleeves back down over his forearms.

The short hallway before the door of her master suite is not quite in the glare of the newly risen sun, and therefore, darker. His shadow is indistinct on the wall as he listens for movement, and, finding none, raises his hand again.

This time the knock is insistent, sharp. He adds her name, not a question but a statement, firm: "Danička."

[Danicka] Now, Lukas doesn't know this, but that first knock should have woken her. Her internal clock should have stirred her at five, six at the latest. She should have woken easily, not only because of what her lifestyle has been for so long now but because there is a monster in her home and she knows he does not quite belong there. This should be keeping her awake, or close to the surface of wakefulness, as anything. There's no sound coming from the other side of the door.

When he knocks again, however, this time saying her name, the warm body lying in the large bed at the end of the suite's hall moves. She breathes in silently but she moves, and a few seconds later there's the sweeping sound of blankets and sheets being moved aside. It's only just before she gets to the end of the hall that he can see a flicker of shadow at the crack under the door, can hear and feel her bare footsteps on the carpet. Danicka turns the knob of her door and opens it just enough to look out and up at him, her eyes sleepy as they always are when she wakes, but the color clear.

Her hair is in a loose, messy braid over one shoulder. She's wearing lime green cotton boyshort underwear with the same navy-blue power-symbol shirt she was wearing last night, though the difference there is in the lack of bra underneath it. Danicka leans her left shoulder against the wall, the door still half-closed, and gives him a puzzled look. "...What time is it?"

[Lukas] "Sunrise," Lukas replies, as though this were a valid response. And then, a beat later, "About a quarter past seven."

He looks at her for a moment. He doesn't not lean on the wall, or the doorframe; he doesn't even smile at her. Lukas can be cold, terribly controlled -- he's certainly living up to that possibility this morning.

"I called Milo last night. It seems the three Dancers were after some sort of package intended for the Grand Elder. Nessa attests the package was successfully delivered, and all three Dancers were confirmed dead. Most likely there were no other Dancers waiting in the wings to follow or track the survivors, but I'm going to go down to the Park today and try to make sure."

It's a lot to lay on a woman who looks barely awake; who had barely managed to wake up at all, for that matter, despite always having been the first to wake whenever they've spent a night together. He tells her anyway, steadily, levelly, not rushing, but not repeating himself either.

[Danicka] Not shockingly, Danicka does not interrupt Lukas while he's speaking, but she drops her eyes and ponders his chest instead. It's a quarter past seven; he has gotten to some sort of package by the time she gets straight in her exhausted mind how much time she has. He goes on speaking; Danicka goes on leaning against the wall without saying a word. There's no indication that she's even hearing him, though. She lifts a hand and covers her mouth to yawn, her eyes squeezing shut briefly, and then nods as her hand drops.

"Okay," she says, and blinks a few times. She looks up at him, mostly blocking her doorway, and cocks her head to the side. "'Scuse me," she says, moving her head in a wiggle to suggest she'd like to get past him.

[Lukas] The nice thing about jeans and silk-knit sweaters is that neither rumples appreciably after a night on the couch. The nice thing about being an Ahroun is that you're born with the ability to snap from sleep to awareness in an instant, if and when necessary.

For all Danicka can tell, Lukas might not have slept at all, nor needed to sleep.

He doesn't step aside just yet. "Until I'm sure you weren't followed," he says, "I'd prefer if you weren't alone here." And then he steps back, turning sideways to let her past him in the hall.

[Danicka] [Willpower: Augh]

[Danicka] Either because she is still too tired or too half-asleep to get too riled, Danicka does not panic when he won't immediately let her past, just as she did not panic when she opened her door and found an Ahroun there. She doesn't snap at him to back off, or get out of her way, or anything like that. Her reaction is similar to that of his recitation of what happened in the park or what was going on or...she's forgotten by now.

He steps out of her way, she doesn't say anything, and she walks across the hallway to the kitchen, going to the coffee maker on the counter and flipping it open. She reaches up, opens a cabinet, and starts getting out a filter, the grounds, a mostly-white mug with a vivid graphic design around the top half. She fills the carafe with cool water from the fridge, pours it into the machine, pops the filter in, and heaps four big scoops into it before closing the top and hitting the Start button.

Still silent, but yawning again, Danicka walks around the kitchen counters, goes to the coffee table, and picks up the remote sitting there from yesterday. Within a few seconds, buttons are finished being pushed and the first chords of 'I Can See For Miles' start out from the speakers, quickly followed by

I know you've deceived me, now here's a surprise...

[Lukas] Lukas follows her. When she starts turning the stereo on, he's inexplicably and suddenly annoyed; as soon as she puts it down he reaches over and turns it off. Doesn't bother stopping the CD first; doesn't bother fiddling with buttons and dials. Just finds the power button and pushes it.

In the newfound silence, he regards her as she sets up her coffee drip.

"Did you hear a thing I said?"

[Danicka] Not inexplicably; Danicka may as well be ignoring him, going about her morning as though he is not there. She is sitting down on the couch, where Martin sweated and Lukas slept, and reaching for her laptop. Then he grabs the remote, shuts off The Who, and while this could be considered sacrilege, Danicka doesn't throw holy water on him or gasp in shock. She pulls her hands back from her computer, though, and looks up at him. She doesn't stand up again.

"I heard everything you said," she intones, her voice still scratchy from disuse and her affect low from a dozen different things.

[Lukas] There's a beat of pause. Then: "What the hell is the matter with you?"

[Danicka] [Willpower: That Is The Best Question Ever To Ask A Woman, Luki-Baby]

[Danicka] He pauses, and Danicka doesn't need to. Quite smoothly she slides her eyes down him, picks up her laptop, opens it, and begins booting it up. "I just woke up," is her explanation, "and haven't had coffee," she adds, leaning forward over her computer, "and to be frankly honest, I could not care less about the Grand Elder's package, Black Spiral Dancers, Miss Malikoff, or your plans for the day if I took a handful of Quaaludes and washed them down with half a bottle of pinot noir."

[Lukas] For a moment Lukas is so angry he has to close his eyes.

For a moment Lukas is so angry a vein bulges down the center of his brow, and the definition of the masseter muscle strapping his lower jaw to his cheekbone stands out like a marble relief. For a moment he says, and does, absolutely nothing.

Then he crosses the room in three huge steps, the third of which strides right over the coffee table, and if she weren't ... whatever the hell she is to him, he would've surely struck her hard enough to break something.

Break everything.

But then: if she weren't whatever the hell she is to him, he wouldn't be this angry, either. He wouldn't be angry enough to sweep her laptop up and out of her reach -- jerking the AC adapter out of the wall -- and slam it shut in front of her, between his hands, the way one might slam a very old, very heavy encyclopedic tome shut.

He drops it on the couch beside her with very little care. Then he sits down on the coffee table in front of her, his feet bracketing hers, and he holds his hands out for hers.

As if he really expected her to put her hands in his. As if he really expected her to put her hands into what may as well be bear traps right now. Wolf's teeth. The heart of a fire.

"Danička," he says, very, very quietly, but his anger seethes in him like so many vipers in a pit, "do you honestly believe I'm doing all of this, or any of it, for my own good?"

[Danicka] [Willpower: Inside Voice, Daniela]

[Danicka] Sensing him coming, Danicka does not brace herself for impact. She remains relaxed, and moves to set her computer on the cushion beside him. It wouldn't do to drop it, if he hits her hard enough to jar her hands. He gets to it first, yanks it out of her hands, which pulls the plug, and slaps it shut without ceremony. That is when she tenses, when something vivid and furious lashes through her eyes. It takes effort not to bear her teeth, but it's effort gladly expended.

Not only does she not take his hands, she leans back on the couch, her hands on her knees, as loose and limp as she can make them, her expression going even more stoic, more level. Even the fire dies in her eyes, and when she speaks, her voice is light.

"You sound like Katherine," is all she has to say to him.

[Lukas] "Answer me," he fires back at her, immediately.

[Danicka] This woman -- he has called her that, and he has also called her other things, to her face and behind her back, to his packmates and to his own mind -- looks at him blandly, like someone half-dead. "Yes," she says after a few moments. "That's what I believe."

[1 WP]

[Lukas]

[Lukas] For a single beat of his heart, his fury is so immense it threatens to consume him.

It passes. He's still in control of himself. And controlled, if only barely, he stands up and picks his coat up from the couch.

"Then you're blind," he says, flatly, and he doesn't bother to loom over her to make this pronouncement -- he says it on his way to the door, where he was headed six, seven hours ago, only he hadn't had the good sense to complete his journey then, "and there's absolutely no reason for me to be here right now."

[Danicka] They are both barely in control; it is always like this. And that is why what he says he wants, what he would love to have, probably isn't even possible. Not when every time he does see her they seem to be standing on the brink of utter disaster. The sun is up and the room is bright, even cheerful, and he could easily imagine it filled with music. Could be a pleasant day, a good morning. He could imagine waking up with her, even though he doesn't know the layout of her room or the color of her sheets, even though he doesn't know that she made two cups of coffee, one of which she won't drink.

He says what he has to say, the way he has to say it, and she doesn't seem surprised or perturbed by it. If anything, she relaxes; this is more comfortable than coming with him. This is going back to a familiar pattern, to the known universe, to the way thing have always been. Danicka finds something like serenity in this, but that isn't happiness, and it isn't even rightly relief. This is the opposite of what made her cry at the Affinia; this is home.

As Lukas walks away, Danicka closes her eyes briefly, exhaling in as much silence as she can muster, and doesn't move. She doesn't call out some passive-aggressive retort, or wheedle with him to stay. So he goes. And she stays behind.