primacy.

[Marrick] She was downstairs.

She was downstairs because she was tired of sitting upstairs.

Marrick was tired of sitting upstairs because there was no food up there. And, well, she had heard good things about the roast beef. She wasn't sure about this; there was apprehension in the thought, but then Marrick realized that it couldn't help but not be good because, well, it was beef. In her eyes, there was very little you could do to beef that could make it bad. And, if you managed to do that? Well, you just shoved it into a casserole dish, covered it with french fried onions and egg noodles, and you called it a Tuesday Night Surprise.

So, this, ladies and gentlemen, is where we open our night, with the Fury retrieving (in)famous roast beef.

And wondering if Danny would give her a beer if she asked for one.

She wasn't sure.

[Lukas] Common misconception holds that the Brotherhood has two entrances, one for the public, one through the alley and into the kitchen. It's got three, and Lukas enters through the third, rooftop door.

His footsteps are heavier on the steps than usual, his breathing coarser. It changes halfway down. By the time he comes into view of the second floor he's himself again, or the mask he wears for everyday life. There's blood on his shirt, blood on his hands, and whatever's in the plastic grocery bag he carries is slowly smearing the white plastic red.

He goes straight to Andrew's door and begins knocking. It isn't an angry knock, but it's insistent and loud, and can probably be heard downstairs. He knocks for a long time. When there's no answer, he moves to Hatchet's, then to Marrick's.

And so on.

[Marrick] someone's knocking upstairs, and with that the Fury gave pause.

Food could wait, despite the fact that her stomach seemed quite insistent that, yes, it could wait. The blonde girl inhaled slowly, and then started to head off to go see what the commotion was about. Her stomach growled more than she did, and the sound was more intense than she had recognized.

So, it was up the stairs with her.

---

The thing about Marrick going up the stairs was this: when she game up, she sounded much larger than she actually was. She moved and it was based more on her presence than her actual size; she headed up the stairs, boots thumping, and she sounded like a two-hundred-twenty pound lumberjack as opposed to a one-hundred-whatever pound teenage girl.

Admittedly, though, she came up the stairs and her presence was felt more than seen. Rage was a glorious marker, and was the herald of her arrival.

Someone was knocking, and she headed down the hall to see who it was. Attire was comfortable- worn out jeans and a tee shirt that was maybe a size too large for her. It hung wrong; she didn't care.

[Lukas] When Marrick comes into view, Lukas is just turning away from the door she shares with Boy. He controls his surprise well. There's a tic of pause. Then he nods to her: the new Ahroun Elder of the Sept.

"Bones-yuf. Don't suppose you know the Rite of Cleansing?"

[Marrick] She looked at him for a moment, cocking her head to the side and then looking at the plastic bag. From plastic bag, back up. She shook her head no.

"Sadly, no. Not yet," she said. Not yet didn't help him right now though. She indicated the bag with a slight nod. "Where did that happen?"

[Serafine] There was this whole being social thing... and Serafine was making a greater attempt to do so. The moot had reminded her what it felt like to be a part of something, and since then her moods had improved considerably. There was less midnight pacing around dark neighborhoods in the city and waiting for trouble to find her. Less of that restlessness. Less of the dark memories that sometimes came during long silences when she had too much time to think.

Less, but not none. Cabin fever settled in far too easily, so tonight when Serafine had begun to feel a bit twitchy inside of her apartment, she'd flown out the door, hopped into her car and driven to the brotherhood. When she arrived, she made her way in through the front, stopped by the bar for a beer, and carried the bottle up with her to the common room upstairs. Tonight she was dressed as most any of the other garou might be, in a pair of jeans and a black cotton tank. Nothing fancy, though unlike Marrick, her clothes tended to hug the graceful lines of her body rather than hang loosely.

[Lukas] "Your packmate? Is he home?"

Asked, Lukas hefts the bag up, looks at it. Definitely some sort of battle trophy; a piece of a ... something.

"Bronzeville." There's an awkwardness in the air. Lukas knows very well how to submit of his own free will. He does not know how to lose. A moment passes. "Do you want the address? There's been a spate of wyrm activity southside, lately."

[Marrick] "He's on the north side right now," she said.

She then looked at the bag; she couldn't help him and that, for her part, seemed to bother her. The Fury stood in the hall, and it was a little awkward. Admittedly, she was a little awkward in her own right. She looked over at the bag, and something about that made her nod. She looked back at Lukas and responded.

Does she want the address?

"Yeah, sure," not flippant. She genuinely did want the address. "So, what happened?"

She was asking for intelligence. More importantly, she was asking for the details of the hunt because, well... who knew why she wanted to hear it. The Fury was an open book- if she was happy she was happy, if she was sad, she was sad [No, if she was sad, she was furious.] , and when she was curious she was insatiable.

Gee, one would think she spent time around Uktena.

[Katherine] The crunch of an apple being bitten into sounded from the foot of the staircase leading down to the Brotherhood's public dining area and softer footfalls belonging to one Katherine Bellamonte padded up toward the common room area. She sniffed with a great amount of theatrics when she caught sight of her pack-mate and lift her forefinger and thumb to peg her perfectly shaped nose.

You are a cocktail of undesirable smells, Lukas. What have you been playing in, tonight?

Eyebrow raised, the imposing Silver Fang gave off effortless charisma. There was a certain degree of sophistication in the manner she moved, held her head up, even carried that apple in her fingers -- as if it were as important as royal jewels.

[Wendy Berber] *The bookwormish kin scurries through the front door, bags clutched close. The elbow of her sweater is torn open, face pale as she hurries up the stairs with a shy wave to danny. Her head down as she puffs a little. Damn stairs.*

[Serafine] Up the stairs she went, and once in the empty common room, she flopped down to settle herself on the sectional without any preamble, leaning back and resting the heel of one foot up on the edge of the cushion. For such an aristocratic figure, she cut a rather casual look tonight, especially when you accounted for the beer in her hand, which she drank from now before giving a little sigh of contentment. Back home, she hadn't been much of a beer drinker, but since coming to the states, she was starting to pick up the habit.

(We'll forget for a moment that she's not actually old enough to drink at all here.)

Serafine was quiet, cocking her head slightly as she listened to the muffled voices out in the hallway.

[Lukas] Katherine appears. Lukas is at Marrick's door, which places Katherine, coming up the hall, behind the Fury. Lukas's pale eyes flick past his Auspicemate to his packmate.

"My sister, Katherine Truth's-Meridian," he says, a simple introduction. Marrick, one supposes, needs none.

"A few fomori were attacking a bum. Not very powerful." He thinks for a moment, gives Marrick an approximate address. Adds, "I killed the bum too. Saw too much. I left the bodies in the lake, but truthfully, this Sept needs a better way to dispose of bodies. I was thinking of speaking to the Ritesmistress about making some sort of deal with ... carrion-bird spirits or the like."

A pause.

"Your call, though."

[Wendy Berber] *She stops short when she reaches the top of the stairs, blinking behind her spectacles at all the people. Until of course she sees Katherine talking to marrick, and those eyes get wide. Wendy swallows, approaching the group slowly, head ducked low.*

[Marrick] "Vultures might do it... not sure if ravens would. Honestly, though, we can't keep puttin' 'em in trash cans and storm drains and the lake. We could always burn 'em, but sometimes that might draw too much attention."

but Gaia, the smell of burning fomor was disgusting. It didn't make her flinch, it just made her pause. Made her suddenly not-so hungry.

"I'd keep our options open, and be flexible. Wouldn't call too heavy on th' spirits unless you have to. Can't write a check yer ass can't pay, ya know? If there was some way you could, y'know, get one t'help you out for a month or so, give 'em their due, and then call it? Should be good."

A pause.

And then? An introduction.

"Marrick, Bones to Dust, Black Fury-" she nodded some to Katherine. "S'a pleasure."

[Danicka] [Intelligence]
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 4, 6, 6 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lukas] The corners of Lukas's mouth twitch faintly. "Yeah, I think the lake's filling up." A nod, then. "You mean bind a spirit for a month or so, part ways amicably, bind another? I like that. Maybe you could suggest it, y'know... officially."

There's a pause. Then he just comes out and says it.

"I don't hold a grudge. I wish I'd won. I don't ... I'm not used to losing, and I don't even know who you are. But I don't hold a grudge, and I'm not going to try to undermine you."

[Danicka] You should just drop by unannounced.

All of her life has been lived according to that word: 'should'. Or more accurately, her entire life and the entire history of her bloodline has been lived according to a somewhat similar word: 'must'. It's just that when most people say 'you should', they mean 'you must'. They mean 'you must, or else'. If that were the case this time, though, if she felt that way about the words, if her memory about the suggestion were painful instead of lovely, she would not be entering through the alleyway door this time.

She does not bring kolache this time, either all of a kind or an assortment. She is wearing an orange peasant-style tunic, a keyhole opening at the collar and faint, swirling embroidery in pale blue and white thread at the hem, neckline, and wrists. It is partnered with dark-wash jeans and a pair of boots with narrow heels that take her up to about 5'9". Her hair is in a low ponytail, slightly pulled to one side so that the curled ends rest on top of her right clavicle. Over her left shoulder is the wide strap of a semi-shapeless purse with brass rings connecting bag to strap.

Danicka is dropping by unannounced. That is very nearly the only way she has ever come here, really. All the same, she feels invited tonight, in an odd, roundabout way. Her steps up the narrow staircase are light, unhurried, and they pause just before she moves from stairway into common room. Where there's Serafine, sitting alone on the couch. She came shortly after both Katherine and Wendy, but now that both have moved into the hallways, it's just her and the Black Fury.

She tips her head to the side, gives a small smile. "Hello," she says. Her eyes glance at the door to the hallways, hearing voices familiar and otherwise, and then back to the younger woman. "Mind if I sit?"

[Katherine] Katherine steps around Marrick, and takes another dainty bite of her apple, sinking fine white teeth into the flesh of the fruit and chewing thoughtfully as the two discuss the options for getting rid of the stinking mess wafting throughout the Brotherhood and wrinkling Garou and Mortal noses alike.

When she is introduced, the elegant blonde Philodox dips her head in something of a make shift curtsey and purrs throatily as only she could: "Enchanté, je suis sûr, Bones to Dust-yuf," with a delicate curve of a smile and her free hand curling the long string of white pearls around her neck.

The long pale lashes lower a smidgen as she notices the creeping figure of a familiar kinswoman in the hall and waggles her fingertips toward her in amused greeting before glancing back to her newly appointed Alpha with something shy of an outright smirk.

"I must add my congratulations to a well won victory."

Her eyes are dancing, she was perhaps teasing her pack-mate.
A little.

[Wendy Berber] *A Sharp intake of breath as Katherine waves at her, Wendy's footfalls becoming a little more tentative as she continues towards Marrick, digging in her satchel, papers appearing in her hand.*

[Serafine] Katherine and Wendy both had moved past the common room and into the hallway. Serafine had let them go without word, merely flicking her eyes in their direction briefly. Now a third figure stood at the entrance, and it was one that seemed... vaguely familiar.

Giving a little cant of her head, she gazed at the fashionably dressed blond with eyes that seemed thoughtful in a wolfish sort of way, then Serafine nodded. "It is a public space, after all." And she smiled, attractive and polite, if a bit aloof.

"You and I seem to be the only ones not congregating in the hallway, tonight," she mused before taking a sip from the bottle in her hand.

[Marrick] "Ya wouldn't have challenged if you didn't wanna win," she stated. To the point. "Fact that you're standin' around talkin' to me instead of glaring daggers at th'back of my head says a lot."

Acknowledgment of his statement. He wasn't going to undermine her, and he didn't hold a grudge. The Fury gave an upward nod; he didn't know her. The only impressions she had of him were the few words they had shared about Caleb's wife and the words he had spoken at the moot.

Marrick wasn't one with a way with words. And now? Well, now she had to talk. A lot. Katherine spoke about... something. She was speaking French and, from what she had seen, she knew that it was a good phrase. Or at least an amiable one. Wendy got a nod of acknowledgment One moment it said, and then? She saw papers. She looked almost hopeful for a moment, but then? It was back to talking.

Because, after all, Lukas did not know her.

"Well, I guess we should get to know each other, then," as though it was that simple.

[Lukas] (that totally didn't rub me wrong, kate!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 4, 5, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Lukas] For whatever reason, the hallway is the place to be tonight. The walls of the Brotherhood are thin. Where they stand, at the corner where room 10 meets the hall, they can hear voices in the common room, though they can't make out words.

Katherine adds her congratulations. Lukas's eyes flick her way again, and then the corner of his mouth moves again. "Stop being such a fucking Silver Fang, Kate."

He glances at Wendy -- impersonally curious -- and then back to the Garou.

"I'm going to take this upstairs," he says, meaning the bag of ... whatever the fuck, "until our Theurge comes back to clean it up. I'll catch up with you guys later." And that's what he does, his footsteps receding up into the empty rooms that once belonged to a kinswoman of his tribe.

[Danicka] "Hmm," is Danicka's response to the second comment. Her smile is still in place. "I --"

And then Lukas comes through the door from the hallway, on his way to the stairwell to go up to the third level of the building. Danicka turns to regard him, somewhere between stairs and coffee table.

Her eyes flick to the bag he's carrying, then back to his face. She lifts an eyebrow. "Normally they put the sauce for the brisket in a container. I don't even want to know where you're getting yours."

[Lukas] (MAPFAIL.)

[Danicka] (DAMONFAIL.)

[Lukas] (KAIFAIL. *gets absurd*)

[Katherine] (GTF back IC....fail.)

[Danicka] (JACQUICAPSFAIL.)

[Katherine] (YOU AND I ARE FUCKING DONE PROFESSIONALLY FAIL)

[Lukas] (*adds to post* ahem--)

"I'm going to take this upstairs," he says, meaning the bag of ... whatever the fuck, "until our Theurge comes back to clean it up. I'll catch up with you guys later." And that's what he does, his footsteps taking him down the hall, around the corner and into the common room.

It's a short distance between the door to the hall and the stairwell. It's still enough time to catch sight of Danicka and vice versa. Lukas pauses, one foot on the steps; it's possible he doesn't realize the edges of his mouth are creeping inexorably upward.

"Bronzeville. They do things differently down there." He looks past the blonde kinswoman, nods to Serafine. "L'Ange Noir-yuf, can we have a word later?"

[Wendy Berber] *She nods obediently to Marrick, shrinks under Lukas's gaze, and bites her lip as Lukas snarks at Kate, inching a little closer to the ferocious Fury she usually keeps well clear of. Frightened, but not even remotely insistent, papers held against her side for privacy, until Marrick is good and ready for them..*

[Serafine] She watched the woman interact briefly with Lukas as he started to climb the stairs, then smiled and gave a little nod of her head in acknowledgment of his request.

"Of course."

But then... later was going to have to be some time other than tonight, it seemed, because just at that moment, a call came in on her cell phone and she sighed in a manner that was...exasperated before getting up and walking out of the room as she answered it. Gradually her voice drifted down the stairs and out the back door.

[Katherine] What Lukas says is evidently the reaction she was hoping for. How utterly delicious. After her previous evening's activities she lets out a gurgle of delighted laughter that rings, light and airy along the hallway in the rankled Shadow Lord's wake.

"I shall do precisely that the moment you stop rising so wonderfully."

(*throws a post in hastily!*)

[Danicka] Hearing a familiar voice ring from the hallway, a note of tension uncurls up Danicka's spine. Her small smile does not abate; her eyes follow Serafine briefly as she exits, then move back to Lukas. "The elder Miss Bellamonte has come back," she says blithely, one corner of her mouth tightening in a smile that is less mild, more...amused-looking.

She nods up the stairs. "Have you moved?"

[Marrick] She took the opportunity to adjust her space to Wendy. It was odd, because she had to look up; Wendy was a very tall young woman. A tall young woman who had a very difficult time being around Marrick as it was; the presence of so many other garou couldn't have been pleasant.

"Whatcha got fer me, Wendy?"

A pause. Katherine spoke, and the Fury looked at her with bright blue eyes and her jaw set. Her tone, however, did not have the same tension. It made for an interesting combination.

"Knock that shit off, he's your packmate."

[Wendy Berber] *Wendy murmurs shyly.* Um.. l-last bit of, um, paperwork. From the c-city. *The chicken necked kin looks down at Marrick, swallowing audibly.* T-two Signatures, um. M-miss Marrick mam. *She draws a pen from behind her ear like magic, offering it as she tries to put as much distance between herself and the Silverfang as possible.* S-Sorry to um, interrupt. *She chews a nail.*

[Katherine] Katherine cocks a brow, her expression as saucy as her tongue.

"Do not presume to order me around, Bones to Dust-yuf. You are nobody to who I owe reasoning for my actions." Her eyes flick over the Black Fury, head to toe and back again. She tugs idly at her pearls as if bored by the woman altogether.

[Lukas] Lukas's smile turns closer to a smirk. "Yeah. Still a pain in my ass." The truth is, there could be a lot more rancor in his voice. Could be, but there isn't. He sounds wry, if anything; a little resigned, a little amused. Which is how he sounded when he could've really snarled at her in the hallway: stop being a fucking Fang.

She's his packmate, after all.

"No." The plastic bag rustles in his hand. "I was just going to stash this upstairs until Caleb gets back. And then I need to take a shower. How long have you been out here?"

[Danicka] "Maybe a minute," Danicka answers. She pauses for a moment, then lowers her voice to a whisper, one hand on the strap of her back. The walls are thin but no one other than Lukas is listening to her. The walls are not transparent; they cannot see the way that hand flexes tightly then is forced to relax. They can't hear:

"May I come with you?"

[Lukas] (wut u want)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Marrick] She looked Katherine over, head to toe. She was a lovely woman, with nice pearls and perfect hair and well-manicured nails. Marrick? Well, Marrick wasn't. She was a pretty girl who tanned well, whose hair was down, whose jeans had seen better days and the shirt probably came from Goodwill. She looked her over, and her eyes were sharp. The air was too damned warm; she was every bit a full moon.

Who looked at Katherine, with her nice pearls and perfect hair and well-manicured nails, and snorted.

Marrick turned her body away from Katherine to regard Wendy fully, but the message to Ms. Bellamonte was clear: you aren't worth my time.

"Marrick's jus' fine, Wendy," she said, and then got to giving her the signatures.

"And it's okay, you ain't interrupting anything."

[Marrick] (*"You ain't interrupting anything important.")

[Wendy Berber] OK.. *Wendy nods, taking a deep breath and takes the papers back.* Thank you. *Her eyes flick to Kat an instant, before she backs away from Marrick.* B-be careful.um.. Kay? *That twitch of her mouth would be a smile if it wasn't so quick.* G-Goodnight.

[Lukas] Maybe a minute, she says. Lukas was turning to go upstairs, not bothering to say goodbye since he'll be back down in a minute when she adds -- may I come with you?

And he pauses, two steps up now, the edge of the stairwell wall starting to cleave into his view of her. He studies her for a moment, quizzical. Then he nods. "Don't get too close to me," he cautions. He precedes her up the stairs by a good two yards or so.

The apartments up here have been empty for months. The door stands ajar; there's an air of disuse inside. The windows have not been opened in some time; the air conditioner is off. The attic retains the heat of the day, stuffy, a little musty. It's a simple floorplan, a living room, a kitchen, a short hall and some rooms that might be bedrooms or bathrooms at the end. Lukas doesn't go far into it. He leaves the bag at the kitchen sink, washing his hands, looking at Danicka over the breakfast bar.

"Are you all right?"

[Katherine] Katherine is singularly un-intimidated by the full moon's attempt to cower her. Who did she believe she was dealing with, anyway? This was no ordinary Silver Fang, no mere Philodox of the nation. She was the direct decent of Frances de Bellamonte, founder of the House of Bellamonte, child of two great joined bloodlines bound by marriage. She was the eldest child of Christopher Adrien Bellamonte.

"Autant que pourrait être prévu d'une Fureur. Toute fanfaronnade, ne non mener à terme. " She says in a voice as sweet as warmed honey, dripping with something that seemed close to dismissal. She pushes her weight off the wall, and rises to her full height to look Marrick in the eye.

"I am Katherine Isabella D'Albret Bellamonte, I am the daughter of Kings past and you are nothing to me."

The last few words she spoke after a step taken, tossed over a haughty shoulder.

[Katherine] (er, that should read 'eldest daughter of..')

[Danicka] Her only response when he tells her not to get to close is to lift an eyebrow and say dryly: "Darling, why would I want to? You smell like Death."

Which he does.(Which he is.)

She follows him up the stairs, not knowing where they are going. She assumes the caretakers of the place live up here -- which they do, in an apartment down another hallway from the top of the stairs -- and never really met Andrea, so she doesn't know that the woman once owned this place, much less inhabited it. She looks around, noting that though it's mostly empty the decorating is stylish and earth-toned and above and beyond the sort of expense spared for the other floors.

Her tracking eyes, calmer now, go back to Lukas. That flicker of fear he picked up on in the common room is gone. It's washed away. "Of course," she says, and smiles gently. "You?" This is not politeness. It's concern.

[Marrick] "If yer gonna fuckin' insult me, do it in English," not irritated. Unimpressed. No clue what she had said, but that tone was all she needed. "Fuckin' coward."

She rolled her eyes, and then turned to look at Katherine. At the back of her head, at her too blue eyes. She didn't look away, and she didn't back down. She didn't flinch at her name, didn't act like her breeding did more than make a good initial impression. The Fury is something else entirely; she and Katherine were roughly the same size.

She aid that she was the eldest daughter of King's past.

And of all things that she could do? Marrick tried not to laugh, as though being the daughter of a king meant anything to her.

"Stand on your own feet, Katie, not th' back of someone else's greatness," no pause, just words.

[Lukas] He laughs a little, under his breath. "You always ask me that." He looks up again, his shoulders moving as his hands scrub one another under the tap. "If I were somehow injured beyond my ability to heal easily I'd tell you, Danička."

He turns the tap off but stays where he is, lowering the bag of severed bloody something into the sink. "Why does Katherine frighten you?"

[Wendy Berber] *Wendy's eyes get WIDE, and she looks from Marrick to Katherine as though suddenly unsure which one was more dangerous. Her hands grip white knuckled on her satchel of books and she draws a deep breath, squeaking.* "m-Marrick.. sh-should I, um, Do you w-want me to, um. to go..now? *Please?! The word implied in the weak wavering of her voice.*

[Marrick] "Yeah, you might wanna go Wendy. I'll see you tomorrow," she turned. She she seemed genuinely concerned. She's just like Sarah played over in her head and she softened. "Thank you again for helping, I really do 'ppreciate it."

[Katherine] Here she pauses, turns a pretty half pirouette and tuts under her breath, her lovely features set to a mask of frighteningly cruel beauty. "Oh," She says with false surprise. "If you do not comprehend my words how then do you know I insulted you, Bones-yuf? Do not suffer the sin of presumption. And I would not imagine that any of the names I gave you would mean a great deal to you."

She absently plucks a piece of lint from her blouse, and tilts her head with faux sweetness. "Again, my heartfelt congratulations on your new appointment." Her lip curled at one side, and she made a brief noise of something close to amusement at the fact before turning and continuing on her way, her infuriatingly golden waves dancing against her back.

[Danicka] The smile is back, small and even a little tender. "I don't believe you," she says simply, and then he asks her about Katherine. She huffs out a soft breath. "This is probably not a conversation you want to have as much as you think you do."

[Marrick] "What's your moon, daughter of kings?"

[Wendy Berber] *Flicker smile. Nod. The thin Glasswalker kin no where near as comfortable as she seemed with Boy. But then, Marrick was a frightening beast, when it came right down to it.* Th-thank you.. *Wendy ventures a glance at Katherine as she storms off like a snot, unable to stifle a small frown, backing slowly away from the confrontation.*

[Katherine] "I was born under the Half Moon. Why, have you some insight into my soul to give me?"

[Lukas] Given how viciously he called her liar all those months again: as though it were the worst insult he could spit at her, worse than coward, worse than slut, far worse than whore, his reaction isn't unpredictable. Lukas's eyebrows draw together. His smile fades into a frown, and there's a moment of silence.

"You should believe me."

He straightens up behind the sink, starts to come around the counter. "I'm not going to parade my every little scratch around you, Danička. But if it was serious, something that a few days' rest couldn't heal, you'd know."

The front door still stands ajar. He nods her toward it. Somewhere in the annals of Garou law there's probably some stipulation that the apartments of a departed kinswoman fall to the eldest of her Trueborn cousins, etcetera etcetera, but Lukas, for all his superficial refinement, is a more primal creature than that. He never felt any deep bond, any true sense of claim or possession, over the woman that once lived here. These rooms do not feel like they belong to him, either.

"Let's go back down," he says quietly, and nods her down the stairs ahead of him. As he pulling the door to Andrea's apartments shut, but not latched, he asks about Katherine, "Are you telling me to leave it be?"

[Danicka] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Marrick] "Yeah, behave with a little honor."

A pause. And very suddenly, the ahroun moved, and she was close... So very.. very close.

She was in Katherine's space. She spoke quietly, but there was such intensity there.

"You wanna trot around and act like you're better than everyone else? Prove it. Until then, grow up. You're pathetic."

She was in Katherine's space.

Because space was respect.

[Katherine] "I do not have to prove what was mine by birth alone."

She does not back down. "Perhaps, you simply feel the need to prove yourself."

[Marrick] "That a challenge, Katie"

[Marrick] (Katie?")

[Wendy Berber] *Wendy puts her hand up to her mouth to mute a gasp. She'd been moving slowly so as not to end up drawing the attention of two huffy garou, and now she completely freezes. Don't even twitch. There was about to be a whole lot of doom happening.*

[Katherine] A slim shoulder rises slowly, and she lifts a hand to rotate her wrist, flicking her fingers outward in a motion so very Quoi que sera, sera. "Ahroun, why must everything be a challenge to you? Oui, if you desire. Call it that."

[Marrick] "I accept, then."

(INITS!)

[Danicka] "It's a goddamn simple question, Lukáš," Danicka snaps, as he's moving towards the door, nodding her towards it. That said, she starts towards that very door, her hand tight on her purse's strap. "If you're alright, just say... I don't know, maybe just a simple 'I'm alright'. Ježíš Kristus, I'll stop fucking asking."

[Katherine] "Wonderful." She enthuses, as if pleased at the very idea of a challenge. She glances at Wendy in passing, returns her eyes to Marrick. "May I suggest we do this outside, where there is less chance of sending that poor child to the grave."

[Lukas] Blame it on the battle. Blame it on his packmate's temper downstairs, seeping across the totemlink into his own. Blame it on --

There's any number of reasons; the outcome is singular. Lukas's eyes flash in the dimness of the apartment. "Please do," he snaps right back. "I'm not a fucking weakling you have to baby, Danička."

[Marrick] "Fabulous. You pick the location," she said. Seething with quiet rage; it made her presence suffocating. The ahroun stopped and looked back at Wendy. She winced.

"Wendy, go home," she insisted.

[Wendy Berber] Th-thank you. *Thats all she needed. The kin skitters down the hallway and down the stairs, secure in the knowledge she wasn't needed to bandage or otherwise assist. She's out the door before she has time to wonder if hse maybe should have wished Marrick good luck. Too late now. Go Go Go.*

[Katherine] It was somehow fitting that she find herself in the midst of a challenge at precisely the same location she had, in her brief duties as Master of the Challenge, supervised one only months ago. So, it is with a vaguely amused smile that she gestures toward the stairs and says calmly: "May I suggest the Umbral space just outside the Brotherhood. I've visited it once before on a similar purpose and it's quite fitting for our needs."

You'd think they were at a tea party, organizing how best to butter the scones.

"I will show you, follow me if you would be so kind."

[Danicka] She doesn't know about the battle, other than that Lukas came out of it and whatever he was fighting probably did not. She doesn't know about Kate's temper rising, doesn't feel it the way he does. She only feels her own. Be that as it may, she turns and looks across the line of her shoulder at him, her eyes harder than most Garou have had the pleasure of seeing them. Him. Sam. Maybe some others, a long time ago.

"To je, jak se cítíte, když jsem vás požádat pokud jste v pořádku?"

[Marrick] She looked at her with a slight smile. Something too sharp and visceral to be born to a lovely young woman's face. The girl could have been adorable- with her tan and her freckles and her bright eyes, but she was a warrior. And she was, for lack of better wording, born into war. She was war.

"Lovely, then," she said as she followed Katherine out. "But I want someone there to moderate. Impartial philodox."

[Lukas]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 6, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 8)
to Lukas

[Katherine] "Ah," Katherine utters a quiet, resigned laugh. "I know precisely the man for the job, then. One moment." And she retreats and makes her way to the bedroom door of none other than her best friend in all the world (sarcasm trademark) Buried Hatchet. Two sharp raps are accompanied by Truth Meridian calling: "If you are in there and hiding, Oscar, I have reason enough for you to emerge. I have been issued a challenge."

A beat, she waits.

"Well, if that did not ferret him out, he is most definitely not in there. We will find a Philodox at the Caern."

[Lukas] Words are the source of misunderstandings, they quoted to each other in a hotel bed in an anonymous room some unremembered stretch of weeks ago. Sometimes the only communication between them is ...

... the very form barred to them right now. There's a gulf of distance between them. He won't even come within six feet of her.

And it's an act of will not to snarl at her: yes. That's precisely how it feels, that she thinks he's so fucking weak that a tussle with a few fomori will leave him somehow not all right. It's an act of will not to snarl at her because he's angry, and destabilized; it's an act of will not to lie in anger simply because he's angry.

It's also an act of will to stay where he is and not go to her. Reach for her somehow.
Communicate.

So there's a silence. And her eyes are hard, and so are his; the air between is hard and bladed. Then, abruptly, he blows a breath out and closes his eyes for a second.

"No." He tells the truth after all. "That's not how I feel. I'm just ... "

Open. "Look. Let me just clean this shit off myself first, okay?"

[Danicka] Once upon a time, covered in blood and trying to wash it off, Danicka had not only come within six feet of Lukas, she'd hopped into the shower with him fully clothed and touched the blood itself. He'd hated that, stopped her, pulled her hands away as though he couldn't stand for her to see him like that, much less touch him. So now he won't touch her, and even though she snapped at him and he snapped back she is not cowing, nor lying. If anything, her tone gentles slightly when she switches to his native language. It's still firm. It's almost aloof... except that she's watching his eyes.

And there's so few times when she does that. So few things they can be doing when she will make eye contact for more than a flicker of a second. And it almost never happens unless they're alone.

She gives him a nod. "If you'd like, I can wait in your room."

[Lukas] His reply is nonverbal. He reaches into his pocket, fishes his keys out. The lanyard trails behind the keychain like a comet's tail as he tosses them to her. Then he heads downstairs, and she either precedes him or follows him. They part in the hall.

He doesn't go directly to the showers after all. The commotion draws him outside, where he witnesses the challenge silently, and rather impassively.

--

[Hatchet] [+6]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 5

[Katherine] (init) +7
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Hatchet] [Punch to Katherine's face]

[Katherine] [Dodge! RUDITY]

[Katherine] (Dodge!)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Hatchet] [Dex + Brawl]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 6, 8, 9 (Success x 3 at target 6) [WP]

[Hatchet] [Damage]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 7, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Katherine] (Soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 4, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Hatchet] Oscar, she calls him, and all he can think of is Ryan. The door flies open while Katherine is mid-sentence, suggesting they seek a Philodox at the Caern. And the next thing to fly out of Room 7 -- he was in Room 9 before, when she was lost in the Umbra, no reason for him to be in a 3-person room with only 2 people -- is Hatchet's fist, hard-knuckled and striking her solidly but not brutally in the face.

He doesn't follow it up with another. He just looks at her, wearing a pair of navy pajama pants and a glare. "Please tell me the challenge is a throwdown, you whey-faced princess."

[Marrick] "Katherine Isabella d'Albert Bellamonte has challenged me, Rhya. She thinks I got somethin' to prove, an'... well... I wouldn't want to disappoint the daughter of kings."

A pause, and then? She folded her arms across her chest. Marrick wasn't a tall creature, but she was an imposing one.

"I think that, as the challenged, I get t'set the ground rules."

[Katherine] She bares her teeth at his outrageously unprovoked and undignified assault, her nose aching and pale eyes watering from the impact. "Please tell me that is not what you call impartiality."

[Lukas] Out in the common room, Lukas heads downstairs for the second time tonight. He goes directly to the hall, pauses by the laundry room to grab some clean towels. He heads in the bathroom through the northside doors... hears the commotion through the southside.

And comes out into the hall. There's curiosity on his face. Irritation, too.

His mind reaches out to Kate's: What's going on?

[Marrick] "Quit whining an' shift up fer a minute. S'just a bruise," she rolled her eyes.

[Hatchet] "I am as impartial as the day is long," he drawls, standing in the open doorway and crossing his arms over his chest. His upper body is bare, like his feet. "When, of course, we're in the midst of a challenge. Not, of course, when you're knocking on my door, waking my ass up, and calling me by a name you've never been given leave to call me which you call me solely to get on my nerves."

He cocks his head to the side and exits, closing the door behind him. "If you want impartiality right on my doorstep, I suggest not trying to piss me off."

Gray eyes go to Marrick. He nods, brow furrowed slightly. "That is usually the way of things," he says dryly, with perhaps a trace of exasperation...or mockery. He ignores Lukas for now. "I'm guessing the time is now. Where's the place?"

[Katherine] A baleful glare is turned on the woman. "Set your rules, Si vous s'il vous plaît."

To her Alpha, comes the haughty response: Bones to Dust ryha challenged me, we are going to settle our dispute honorably outside the Brotherhood in the Umbra.

To Hatchet again, with slightly narrowed eyes: "I suggested outside the Brotherhood in the Umbra, there is space enough."

[Hatchet] He lifts his hand, snaps his fingers at Katherine. "Shut up," he says, eyes on Marrick, "if I was asking you I would have said 'why no, actually, the challenger sets the terms' and then asked you."

[Marrick] "In the umbra outside th' brotherhood. Don't mind goin' out there, plus then we don't have to go too far t'get back."

She nodded with that. Katherine glared at her, but her eyes were on Hatchet and even.

[Katherine] Katherine crosses her arms over her chest and delivers him an arch look, she turns her face to the side, huffing quietly.

[Lukas] Lukas's ice-blue eyes study Katherine's bruised nose for a moment.

If you doubt his impartiality, there are other Philodoxes, and this isn't a Moot or a Sept office challenge. But we'll probably still have to explain why we turned down the Master of the Challenge in favor of another Half-Moon.

And:

For what it's worth, I think he'll be evenhanded once he's done being an ass.

[Hatchet] He throws up his hands when Marrick says that yes, Katherine's suggestion is acceptable -- and why. "Fan-fucking-tastic," he mutters, and walks down the hall to the restrooms to use their mirror.

Before he steps sideways, he futzes with his hair for a moment. He may never be done being an ass.

=========

On the other side, he heads down through the ghostly reflection of the Brotherhood's building, past the spirits that come to the kitchen to sleep in the penumbral fireplace, past the epiphlings of comfort and industry, out the alleyway and into the parking lot. This is where he took a member of his own tribe once. Not for judgement. For punishment.

He turns to Katherine and Marrick down there, glances at Lukas if he's followed, then looks at Marrick. "If you have any other terms, set them now. Mine, which I think you'll both agree to, is not killing each other over petty bullshit."

[Marrick] "Breed form. No gifts. And Katherine takes her pearls off."

[Hatchet] Hatchet turns to Katherine. "I would love to hold your pearls for you, since Lukas seems to be just positively sticky from battle," he says, holding out his palm.

[Katherine] Grudgingly, looking at her pack-mate, she seems to cede her agreement. He does have his moments, I will say that much for him. Will you come watch? If nothing else, you might find it amusing. And you can make sure she does not steal my pearls if I am knocked out.

--

On the other side, outside in the Umbra beneath moonlight Katherine is the white-blond picture of her tribe, standing with her chin held aloft and her hands on either hip. Marrick states her terms and the Philodox inclines her head in a noble fashion. "I accept your terms."

Her pearls.

If Lukas has followed, he is cast a singular look as she reaches to unclasp them.

[Lukas] "I'll take her goddamn pearls," Lukas replies, flat. Temper, temper. And he holds his hand out to accept them. At least he washed them.

And he doesn't reply to Kate. Of course he's watching.

[Hatchet] With a smirk, Hatchet pulls his hand back, crosses his arms over his chest again, and goes over to stand to Lukas's left. He looks terribly amused by all this, and once he's in place, he gives a nod to Marrick and Kate.

"Go."

[Inits!]

[Marrick] (6+1d10)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 1

[Katherine] (Inits! + 8)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 7

[Marrick] 1a: punch!
1b: reserved for a block
r1: yet another punch
r2: grab her hair
r3: if yes? Keep a grip and knee her in the stomach

[Marrick] (remember when I do that thing where I delete a rage action? r2 is GONE)

[Katherine] Okay, here we go:

1a: Claw face!
1b: Claw face!
r1: Hairpull
r2: Punch in nose
r3: Punch again
r4: Crunch down on that foot

[Katherine] 1a Claw face!
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 2, 5, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Katherine] Okay, second try. First claw!
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Katherine] Second Claw!
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 1, 3 (Botch x 1 at target 6)

[Marrick] (Block, -3)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Marrick] (punching?)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Marrick] (Damage?)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Katherine] Soak!
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Katherine] Rage 1!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 3, 3, 4 (Failure at target 6)

[Marrick] (Punch!)
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Marrick] (Damage!?)
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Katherine] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 5, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Katherine] Punch!
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 6, 7, 7 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Katherine] (Damage!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 3, 7, 8, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Marrick] (soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 1, 3, 7 (Failure at target 6)

[Marrick] knee to the gut!
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 7, 7, 7, 8, 8 (Success x 6 at target 7) [WP]

[Marrick] (Damage!)
Dice Rolled:[ 9 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 4, 4, 5, 8, 8, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Katherine] (plz soak!)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Katherine] (stomp that foot!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 8 (Failure at target 7)

[Marrick] (6+1d10)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 3

[Katherine] (inits! + 8)
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 4

[Marrick] 1a: try to take her to the ground
1b: block
r1: then punch to the face!
r2: and another one!

[Katherine] 1a: Punch
1b: Punch again for good measure!
r1: Leg-sweep, knock her on her ass

[Katherine] (1st Punch!)
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 3, 4, 7 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Katherine] (Damage!)

[Marrick] (soak)

[Katherine] (2nd Punch -3)

[Katherine] (Damage)

[Marrick] 1a: GET DOWN ON GROUND (because she's done this in sex, it should work in combat)

[Marrick] (facepunch!

[Marrick] (oww)

[Marrick] (OWWW!)

[Katherine] (changing to another try at smacking her +1 Diff)

[Katherine] (Damage!)

[Katherine]

[Marrick] (SOAK THAT! PLEASE!)

[Marrick] (Punch in the face!)

[Marrick] Rage 1 damage

[Katherine] (SO NOT SOAKING THIS)

[Marrick] Rage2: abort action, but not getting off of her yet

[Hatchet] Two minutes, maybe three, of... a fucking slap-fest. Hatchet stands next to Lukas and, surprisingly, he's silent. He does not laugh. He doesn't roll his eyes. He doesn't sigh heavily and look around the penumbral parking lot looking for more interesting things to pay attention to. He's watching Katherine and Marrick as though they are in warform, as though this claws and teeth, as though this is just as serious as the Ahroun challenge he ran during the full moon. It's not. It's a pissing contest. And it's not going very far very fast.

Katherine holds her own, for awhile. Marrick keeps going even when it's obvious that she's hurt. Neither of these two things are terribly surprising. In the end, though, the slightly bruised Silver Fang is taken straight to the dirty, dirty ground and tackled.

With a single punch, Marrick slams Katherine's head so hard into the pavement that blood erupts from her nose, her head head bouncing once on the earth. It's not enough to break skin, but barely. Were she not Garou, this would be the point where she would need to go to the hospital. Hatchet doesn't need to call an end to the challenge. Marrick, Kate's blood on her fist and reminders of Kate's attacks on her own body, stops. She remains on top of the Silver Fang whose coloring so closely matches her own.

Hatchet doesn't say a word, not until it becomes clear that Marrick is not going to take this any farther. He doesn't need to raise his voice when he does speak. He just nods to the Black Fury. "You're done," he says, and turns to Lukas. "When your packmate comes to, tell her she owes Bones to Dust due respect. The Full Moon can name how. If Katherine refuses, or you or she determine that Marrick's price is unfair, come see me."

He turns to walk away. "If she calls me Oscar again I won't stop where the Fury did."

[Lukas] Lukas watches Hatchet go. Then he turns to Marrick.

Simple: "What was that all about?"

[Lukas] (ugh! *scrubs* sorry, i need to add a line. i skimmed too fast.)

Lukas's eyebrows rise a notch. "She won't. But don't threaten my packmate, Hatchet-rhya. It's not necessary, and not appreciated."

When Hatchet has replied -- if he replies -- Lukas listens. He likely doesn't speak again. When the Philodox is gone he turns to Marrick.

Simple: "What was that all about?"

[Hatchet] He glances over his shoulder at Lukas and lifts an eyebrow. "It wasn't a threat, Wyrmbreaker. To spell it out: I'll take her calling me that name in the future as a direct challenge, and I will do more than bruise her head or break her nose. Tell her, if you like, that it's childish. Tell her, if you want, that it makes her look petty. But tell her, because I am telling you to, that if she does it again, she will be humiliated for it."

And off he goes.

[Marrick] She got off of Katherine at that moment, moving to start to pull her up. The Fury was a strong creature, and she made sure to get Katherine in some sort of presentable manner. She was tired, but she would endure. Katherine wasn't too heavy to pick up.

"It's..." complicated. She wiped some of the blood off on her shirt. It was a subconscious gesture.

She regarded Hatchet.

"I'll think 'bout it," she said. And then, she was back to regarding Lukas.

"She seemed to think I had to prove something to her," she stated. Judging by her tone, Marrick wasn't sure if this had proven anything. "She ain't better than me just because she's from good stock."

Katherine was picked up and gathered, and Marrick was surprisingly careful with her.

[Katherine] Katherine lays on the ground, unmoving. Her beautiful face distorted by bruising and blood; it is perhaps the only time she does not appear anything more than a girl barely out of her teens, strangely small and vulnerable. Of course, she and all of those present were anything but.

Small.
Vulnerable.

She is surprisingly light in the Fury's arms, as limp as any rag doll.

[Lukas] Lukas watches how Marrick treats her fallen opponent for a moment. He's suddenly reminded of the last time he met this Fury, which was very nearly the first time they met except for a brief chat in his room. He's reminded of Hatchet saying:

Think of them not as your rivals, but as your packmates.

Or something like that, anyway. The Shadow Lord steps forward and takes Katherine over -- patiently. He does not yank the battered Silver Fang over covetously, or possessively, or protectively, as though Marrick might wound her further. He knows she won't.

"No, she's not. And she should not have insulted you, and if she did then I apologize." A pause. "But then, neither is she lesser than you because she could not best you in combat."

Perhaps words such as those between these two Full-Moons carry more weight than otherwise.

"Just wrong to mouth off," he adds. "If you think of something, some recompense you'd like for her insult, let me know."

About to go back within, Lukas hefts Katherine higher in his arms, her weight rather effortlessly held. He doesn't cradle her like a child. He carries her like a sister-in-arms. Abruptly, and unexpectedly, Lukas smiles. "Oh -- and I'll let you know how the spirit-binding idea works, for body disposal."

[Marrick] But then, neither is she lesser than you because she could not best you in combat.

Something about that made her not and made her smile a little with a sort of nostalgic familiarity. She regarded him for a moment. They had passed his packmate on; truth be told Katherine was the second Silver Fang she had ever met. The first that she'd had more than a couple words with; both were members of his pack.

"No, really doesn't. All we proved tonight was that she's got a sharp tongue and I've got a hot head."

She was starting on her way. She was wiping her hands off, she was making sure that all of her effects were in order. There was blood in her hair, but only where she'd touched it. Were she human, she would have a black eye for awhile. Some facial bruising, yes, and some ribs that she seemed protective of; Marrick was always protective of her left side, though. Neither here nor there. He couldn't have known that.

Abruptly, he smiles. She seemed almost taken by surprise, but it makes the expression return.

"Thanks, I look forward to hearing back."

And with that? She started to head back to the Brotherhood.

--

[Danicka] They have seen what happens when they strike against one another like fists, like flint and steel, like teeth locking on throats. They know how far they can push one another, and how easy it can be to push one another away. There's an odd balance to the way they withdraw: the eye contact, the Czech, the silence before he speaks that keeps him from snarling at her instead of speaking to her. Maybe he remembers what she said last time, about the things he says when he's upset. Maybe he thinks about the week without her, which was not as long as some of the separations they've known but was so much more aching because there was no knowledge that he would see her again, or touch her, or be able to survive her if he did.

See her. Touch her.

Maybe Danicka thinks about how hard she tried to shove him from her in the W that night, wearing lingerie, her inner thighs wet still, her mouth tasting of mint, her body momentarily satisfied but still aching for him. Maybe she thinks about the ache that spread through her arms and legs and stomach, wrapped around her heart, choked her throat, made her eyes burn night after night. Maybe.

Either way they pull back, rein in, and he tosses his key to her. Danicka catches it only because they're still close together and because lately she's becoming more coordinated, more attentive. She waits for him to go ahead of her, then follows him downstairs and goes to his room when he goes... outside. Danicka sighs faintly, enters his bedroom, and closes the door behind her.

[Lukas] It's perhaps fifteen, twenty minutes before Lukas is back, which is perhaps ten minutes longer than he would've taken had he gone straight to the showers.

His door isn't locked. It's his door, after all. He knocks anyway, a mild rap of his knuckles before he turns the knob. She's seen him like this before, toweled, damp. He shuts the door behind him, gives her a wry sort of smile, and goes to his dresser to get out his shaving implements.

This feels familiar to him. I've grown accustomed to this.

"Kate decided to get into a fight with a Black Fury," he says by way of explanation. "It didn't seem right not to witness it when I was right there."

[Danicka] This time, Danicka is not lying on his bed, propped up on his pillow, wearing a t-shirt and underwear. She is not reading a book. She is still in the orange top and the dark jeans. Her purse is sitting on the floor by the corner of his bed, and she is still wearing her boots, even. She has been waiting for awhile but she waits quietly, patiently, and without roaming around. She's sitting on the edge of the mattress when he comes in, and when he does, going to get his razor and so forth, she looks up at him and smiles faintly.

The last time she saw him, they were arguing. She has no idea that over the past fifteen, twenty minutes he's been watching a catfight in the penumbra. For her, things are as they were left, only...maybe calmer. She nods to what he says, but her concern for Kate is nil and her consideration of an unknown Black Fury is beneath even that. She watches him, as he begins to shave or as he stands there, and then says quietly:

"You frightened me."

[Lukas] Lukas begins to shave. She's seen this often enough that it's perhaps growing familiar to her, as well: the deft, practiced motions of a ritual he's performed for most of the last decade.

Which pause for a second as she speaks. "When?"

[Danicka] He has done this at hotels with her there, standing at sinks or blindly in the shower. He has done this here in this room. He has done it, even, at her place. Once. Usually when he's there -- and he's not usually there, at all -- he is rushing out in the morning or didn't bring a bag and probably isn't keen on using her razors or shaving foam. But she's seen it before, and she knows the motions.

Her father uses a straight razor, too.

"Upstairs," she says softly. "When you told me to stop asking you, because you don't need to be babied." She pauses there, faint color in her cheeks the only indication that even talking about this has her heart beating a little too fast, a little too hard. Just thinking about it again. She calmed down, over the last fifteen or twenty minutes. Thinking about it makes that difficult to hold onto. "It reminded me of what we said to each other at the W that night."

When you left me.

[Lukas] The sole light in the room comes from behind him, dusting the curve of his shoulder, catching in the terrycloth of the towel wrapped around his neck. His frown is more clearly intuited than seen.

"What did we say at the W?"

[Danicka] "How tired I was of being reminded constantly that I'm weak."

A beat. She blinks a few times, looks down at her side, plucks a string off his bedspread.

"How tired you were of... whatever it was I was doing that made you feel weak, too."

[Lukas] Sometimes realization literally seems to dawn on Lukas. It comes over his features like a sort of light, changing the shadows and the contours. A wince, something like pain, chases understanding across his face.

"You don't make me feel weak, Danička. You never really did. I was seeing weakness where there was none."

He's quiet a while. When he finishes shaving he wipes his face with a damp patch of his towel, then cleans the blade of the straight razor carefully, folding it back into the handle. After, he stashes razor and cream back in his dresser, leaving the brush out to rinse later.

There are two possible seats in his room. One is the desk chair. The other is the bed. After a moment's indecision he chooses the latter, and the thin mattress dips as he sits beside her, elbows on knees.

He looks at his hands, pressed gently together, fingers loosely laced. "The only time you ever made me feel weak was when I thought you were leaving me. The only time I was ever weak because of you was when I left you."

[Danicka] Upstairs, he frightened her. She never thought he was going to strike her, even when he snapped at her. Hurt her, though. Maybe. Maybe hurt her.

She sees his wince in the mirror, but only out of the corner of her eye, and only because he flickers somewhat in her peripheral vision in the pause before he answers her. Danicka has nothing to say to the first; they've talked about it, or else they both simply understand it, but it does not bear re-hashing. It doesn't change the fact that upstairs, what he said made her think...

They would not be here, right now, were it not for both of them stepping back from that anger, that fear she felt. They would not be here if he had not calmed himself down and told her No, that's not how she makes him feel. Danicka knows. She is not stupid, nor so blind that she did not realize as soon as the word left his mouth that the moment of fear and hurt was a memory, not a recurrence of the same theme. Not a blow to the old wound, the weak joint.

He sits by her, and she looks at him, her back straight where his is slightly curved, and she reaches over to run the tips of her fingers thoughtfully up his spine. Feel, he says. Was. There's a difference.

"If you're ever injured beyond your ability to heal easily, Lukášek, the only way I will know is if your packmates think to tell me how you died."

[Lukas] "I meant if I were ... poisoned, or tainted somehow, something that doesn't heal easily ... "

He trails off. She's right, of course. He exhales, and then rather suddenly he turns to her, turns his face to her shoulder and rests his brow against the rounded outcropping of bone where her arm meets her torso. It's an odd position; he's so much larger than she is, and taller, and he has to bend to her.

A moment passes. Then he kisses her arm, the slender deltoid beneath whatever clothing she might wear tonight. Straightens up.

"If you want, I'll tell my packmates to tell you." A brief hesitation. "The night Mrena died, I wanted to ask you to be the one to tell my family. If I died."

[Danicka] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 4, 7, 10 (Success x 1 at target 7)

[Danicka] Poisoned, tainted... everything, for their kind, heals 'easily'. It may take a healer. It may take talens. It may take a visit to a special realm of the Umbra or a sacrifice to the right spirit but in the end, it's the same. Wounds that would destroy a human being are gone in days -- if not moments -- from the body of one like him. It all heals easily, and the day it doesn't, it means he's dead. It means he hasn't Raged back. It means it's over.

Lukas breathes out, turns to her, and does something she cannot imagine him ever doing in public. She would not want him to, though this is of course not what she chooses to say. When he rests his forehead on her shoulder like that she reaches her hand up and lays her palm on the side of his head, behind his ear. She isn't holding him there. She is just, as she can...holding him.

For a moment. It passes.

Danicka's hand slides away from him, down his freshly shaven jaw, as he straightens up. And what he says makes her brows pull together slightly. What he says makes her eyes bright with tears she has too much dignity, or too much self-control, to shed tonight. "I'm not sure I could bear it," she says, a single breath of somewhat desperate-sounding laughter unscoring, rather than covering, what she feels at the thought of...

...not telling his family. Not being told.

Him being dead.

[Lukas] "I know," he replies, gently, though he's not sure what, exactly, she means she cannot bear. The details didn't seem to matter. They were together for a moment, a sort of strange contact, a sort of half-embrace. They're apart again, with enough distance between that he can see the brightness of her eyes, and she can see the clarity of his.

"I still want you to be the one to tell my parents, if you knew. And Anežka." He turns away to think for a moment, his brow faintly furrowed, frowning at his desk and the lamp atop it. "I think you'd be ... kinder. Less 'he died gloriously' and all that shit."

Another pause. "And I think I'd want them to know, on some level, what you meant to me, too."

[Danicka] Her eyes close when he mentions those words: 'he died gloriously', and all that shit. For a moment she's not in his room. She's not in Chicago. She's on her front lawn, she's fourteen years old, and her hair was much longer then, the curls thick and nearly unmanageable, her clothes rather shapeless because she'd been cleaning and had thrown on a cardigan over her waistless housedress to go outside and talk to the Cliath who had come to her. She had grown up with him, sort of; he was a few years older than her, but they'd known each other for a long time.

She remembers, for a moment, what he'd said to her. How he'd told her.

Danicka exhales, the tears dimming from her eyes, and opens her eyes again to look at Lukas. She doesn't remember his parents' eye colors, nor his sister's. She doesn't know that Anezka's gleam like his do, flaring blue just as capable of heat as cold. He never met her mother. Her eyes were always green, did not turn blue in the sunlight, did not have those odd little flecks of amber and brown and gold here and there, like treasures or secrets hidden underwater. In so many other ways, though, she and her daughter looked more alike than Vladik looked like his father, more alike than Vladik looked like his Garou parent.

It is her mother, Night Warder, that the Shadow Lords see in her... even those who never laid eyes on the woman.

All she can do is nod slightly, the words, "I will," the only vow she can give in answer to all that. It is nearly everything she can do to take a deep breath and tell him, looking at his chest as though she can see straight through to his heart: "Can we stop?"

[Lukas] "Yeah." The word is a breath. "Let's stop."

Lukas straightens his back, pauses to whip the towel off his neck and toss it at his desk chair, where it pools on the seat. His tiny little bed, she called this, and while it's not quite tiny, it is definitely small: a college-length twin-sized bed, narrow and long, with a mattress cheap enough that all the springs are interlinked and a jostle at one end affects the other; thin enough that the bedframe is occasionally palpable beneath.

When he hoists himself farther onto the bed, his knuckles meet the bedframe through the mattress. Then Lukas stretches out full-length behind Danicka, his left shoulder pressed against the wall. He reaches his hand up, his palm warm against the center of her back. At this angle she eclipses his desk lamp; the light turns the loose strands of her hair molten.

"Come here," he says. "Dovolte, abych vám držet."

[Danicka] Stop. Stop talking about him dying. Stop talking about things that make her thing of what it was like when her mother died and Vladislav became the Shadow Lord in charge of her family. Stop talking about telling his family that he died, being kind to them when she knows all she'll want to do is scream. Stop talking about things that have not happened, may not happen soon, will inevitably happen whether they make her scream or not.

Just stop.

He moves back on the bed and quietly calls to her to come with him, come to him, let him hold her. Danicka watches him as the bedsprings creak and wonders silently how they ever got away with fucking in here since not a single time have they tried to go slow, go careful, keep the bed from shrieking and moaning as much as Danicka was wont to do.

The neckline of her shirt is wide, and it's clear that today at least, her small breasts are unbound underneath it. She smiles softly at him, as though to cover over previous sadness, and leans over to pull her boots off. Her socks are pale green. She sets the boots aside, where they won't trip on them when they get up, and crawls over to lie on her left side, finding her place in the hollow between his arm and his body, a place to rest her head on his shoulder, his bicep. She tucks both her feet around his right ankle.

"Do you still want to know why I dislike Katherine so much?"

This is an offering; this is peace, as much as it is closeness.

[Lukas] From the very start, there was always a strange familiarity in being close to Danicka, as though some part of him recognized her. He supposes he could attribute it to growing up with her, or to a shared culture. Shared bloodlines. He doesn't bother to question it. She finds her place against his side. He holds his arm open until she's at rest, and then it folds around her shoulders.

Her feet twine around his. His moves as though to say, hello. Then it subsides. Lukas thinks for a moment.

"Yeah." He wants to know. "Tell me."

[Danicka] He's asked about Danicka's dislike of Katherine before, at the W, a long time ago. A week is a long time, to them, when a week may be the time since he died and the time it's taken anyone to tell her. Months are like lifetimes, it seems. Months are beatings of mothwings, sometimes; occasionally she feels as though she just met him, which is an odd feeling to pair with the strength of how much she cares about him. They don't match up, the calender and her intuition, but they rarely do. The clock never ticks according to her comfort in letting him put his arm around her.

That night in the motel, the first time they fucked, he laid behind her and kissed her shoulder as though to let her know he was coming back, and the strange thing was not that it was new and novel and exciting...the strange thing was that it made sense. It felt familiar. She knew that he would kiss her like that, knew what that kiss meant without a word, and it was one of the first times she answered a direct question and he did not doubt her answer. She wasn't cold. He held her anyway; she slid her feet under his to keep them warm.

And he came back.

Danicka smiles against his arm as his foot wiggles in greeting. She takes a breath at his answer, and explains what she flat-out refused to explain back in March, when he asked her what was between her and Katherine. "After Sam hit me, she sat with me at a cafe and 'asked' me to refrain from getting involved with any other members of her pack. She spoke of you all as though you were idiot adolescent boys."

She shifts slightly. "And her way of dealing with Martin's addiction was worse than yours."

[Lukas] Lukas didn't know that. There are a lot of things he doesn't know. He didn't know Kate had once tried to warn Danicka off the males of the Circle, as though they were idiot adolescent boys ... or somehow hers to ward. He doesn't know Kate is still living with Sam. He doesn't know Sam saw Danicka again a week after he hit her, a week after Lukas told him never again.

He knows Sam loitered on her doorstep, and followed her in the park. He knows about Kate now, too.

There's a subtle tensing in him. If they weren't like this, side by side, lying together in his tiny little bed that barely has room for his frame, let alone his and hers, she might've --

no; she wouldn't have missed it. She reads him like an open book even before he let her in like this. He tenses: his arm under her head, his side against hers. He's nearly naked, but there's no shame; no lasciviousness either. They're like animals. They are animals, not quite tame, wolves and wolf-kin in human skins.

The bed creaks quietly as he turns to face her, his arm moving from under her cheek to grab the pillow and stuff it under his head. He shares it with her; his left shin covers her right now, their lower legs crisscrossing back and forth.

"She had no right," Lukas says flatly. "You are not her kin, and I am not hers, period.

"What did she do to Martin?"

[Danicka] It doesn't matter if I'm her Kin or not, Danicka wants to remind him. It doesn't matter if she's a Shadow Lord or a Silver Fang or a Bone Gnawer. Garou always outrank Kinfolk, can always order them around, can always step in and make demands. That is how it works. She could no easier disobey Katherine directly and magically have no consequences than she could get away with telling off the Grand Elder. But Danicka doesn't tell him that by virtue of birth, Katherine can do and say whatever she wants to Danicka if no one is around to stop her.

That gets a little too visceral to talk about, and she is worried about how he will take that. Plus...it's petty. It's morose. It's maudlin. And Danicka does not whine. She cannot fucking tolerate it in anyone else. She cannot bear to hear it out of her own mouth. So she shrugs it off, and if she moved right now she would be rolling her eyes at herself. She doesn't move.

His tension moves through him and she stays close despite it, and if anything shifts closer to her lover when he turns on his side. She shares his pillow as they've shared each other's beds several times now, and looks up at him to meet his eyes. "On Valentine's Day she showed up and I think they were... making out or something, at first. I stayed in my room because I didn't want her to flip out when she found out we lived together. But then... I guess they started fighting? And after things quieted down I snuck out and went to a hotel. When I got back..."

She shakes her head, closes her eyes, exhales. Her breath hits his chest. Her eyes open again, but she looks at his sternum instead of his eyes this time. "She kept coming back, and getting furious because Martin had gone out drinking, or gotten some blow, or something. I hid, most of the time. I tried to stay at hotels or just stay out of the apartment, because she didn't seem to know I lived there and never saw me. One day I come out of my room after she's gone and she's tied Martin to his bed and just... left him."

Danicka sounds not horrified, not appalled. Those emotions are there, or were, but that was months ago. Mostly right now she sounds angry.

"He could have fucking died, left like that to withdraw from alcohol. Alone."

[Lukas] There's something like a wince at the edges of Lukas's expression. He's silent for a while; there are shadows in his eyes. It would be easier, much easier, to look away, keep his own counsel until he found a way to hide what he thought, or felt, or believed.

He doesn't. He looks at Danicka steadily for a moment.

Then, quietly: "You're probably not going to like what I'm about to say. But Kate wasn't acting out of ... malice. She wasn't trying to punish Martin. It was ignorance, and it was dangerous, but she was trying to help him.

"I'm not asking you to forgive her. Or anything like that. But it wasn't malice."

There's a pause. He shifts slightly, drawing a deep breath. His back flexes; it's subtle. And lower down on the bed, his shin moves over hers as though to reaffirm their contact, or remind himself where they're joined. The hairs on his legs brush coarse against her smooth ankle.

"If he were my kin," and the wince isn't merely at the edges of his expression but clear now, tightening the corners of his eyes, changing the slant of his mouth, "I would've likely told him to choose between his life and his addiction. He could break himself of the habit however he wanted or however he could, but I would've rather killed my kinsman than let him continue enslaving himself to the Wyrm like that."

[Danicka] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 7, 7, 7, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Danicka] To her credit, Danicka does not smoothly untangle herself from her boyfriend, put on her boots, and walk out the door. She has before.

To her credit, Danicka does not snap at him verbally, lashing out at Lukas the way she did at Sam, the way she did upstairs. It's a strange reverse of her usual behavior, that with Lukas it is sometimes too easy to let herself... be herself, whether she is angry or sad or otherwise. It takes effort for her to make herself be honest with most people, especially if they could hurt her. Especially if they're Garou. With Lukas she exerts effort to keep herself calm, to keep her words from becoming whips. But she has done that before...over and over again.

To her credit, Danicka does not pretend that everything after You're probably not going to like what I'm about to say does not anger her. It does, and intensely. Every. Damn. Word. She won't look at Lukas's eyes after he informs her that 'Kate' wasn't trying to punish Martin. She stares at his chest, and does not move. Nor does she tense. She is extraordinarily still as he speaks, and when he rubs their legs together slightly, the movement shifting the hem of her jeans so she does, indeed, feel anything other than denim against her ankle, Danicka does not return the gesture.

Another woman's eyes would flash, or she would huff, and that's how he would know that she's angry. With Danicka, he knows because she doesn't have to tense, or move away, or say a word. She just goes away, goes quiet, and yet this time, she does not make him tug her back out from behind that wall.

It just takes her awhile to decide that it's safe to come out on her own. Not for herself. She's not afraid of him. She's afraid for him, for what she'll say if she doesn't control herself first, for which weapon she'll use: passive aggression, physical rejection, pretty obedience... she really does have several knives and arrows at her disposal, a hundred lies she could tell him, because she knows that that would hurt him. That would punish him.

"I know," she says finally, and rather gently, considering that her cheeks are literally flushed with color and her blood pressure is spiking with something akin to Rage. But her voice is calm. "I spoke to her when I came back from the clinic to get Martin some personal effects. She had appeared, as she always did, in my home. She had sniffed through the apartment while we were gone. She tore Martin's mattress up while throwing what I can only assume was a tantrum because her toy was not where she left him."

God, her voice is so level.

"I know that in her way, she was trying to help him. She seemed very troubled, after she informed me that what she did was right, and wanted me to tell her why she felt as though she had failed before telling me that being associated with him would damage her name and reputation. I know she wasn't being malicious."

Danicka arches her back slightly, stretches out, and finally looks at him, her expression almost serene. It's disturbing, how soft that smile, even when she's not trying to lie, not really, not hide. She just is trying to control herself. "To be blunt, Lukáš, my problems with Katherine begin with her treatment of my friend and end with the fact that she is a stupid, selfish, arrogant, cruel, psychopathic cunt."

She doesn't even address what he would do with his own Kin. Her eyes are such a pale green they resemble the juice of limes.

[Danicka] [-1 WP]

[Lukas] They're trying so hard not to do what's second nature for them: lock down, harden up, ice over, withdraw.

His leg stays where it is. They're turned toward each other like lovers sharing secrets, and though that is, in a sense, exactly what they are, their relaxation is a product of control. They are not drowsing in the aftermath of some worldshaking orgasm. They are not cuddling.

After a moment, he reaches out to her. His left hand finds hers and covers it, brings it to the sheets between them. He looks at her for a moment, his brow faintly darkened. He thinks about Sam; or more precisely, he thinks about telling her:

I know Sam isn't as good as I wish. But he's my brother, and I have to pretend that he is.

And how she said:
I don't.

And how a few weeks later, Sam had gone to her again, and again; and Lukas couldn't even pretend anymore; and Sam wasn't even his brother anymore now. There's a sense of deja vu. He wonders if he'll look back on this night in a few months' time with a sense of premonition, too.

"Sometimes I wish you weren't so right about my packmates," he says; it's nearly a whisper, "because they are my packmates."

[Danicka] It gets easier. With him, at least, it gets easier. She's noticed that she has started wanting to get closer to her new roommate, actually talked to her. She's noticed that she feels cold when she stands at the aquarium and no one can touch her, rather than feeling safe. She realized something in New York. She cannot put it into words yet, or she might tell Lukas what the epiphany was. It is still fragile, and she is afraid to touch it, because it might explode and blow away like the puffs on a dandelion, breathed on too harshly.

She does not have to pretend that people are better than they are in order to tolerate them. She just has to pretend to be what they want, to make them think that she is not a threat to them, because when they see her as one, they can and will take everything from her. She refuses to pretend that Sam's repeated offenses were not signals of some deeper defect, some flaw that might never be resolved. Even if she knows that people grow, especially people in their twenties, Danicka knows that people don't always change. Even if they will grow, even if they will change, it does not mean she has to put up with them, accept them, forgive them for the things they do while young, stupid, or insane.

Danicka is warm, and capable of nurturing, but she will give that up before her own survival, her own safety.

Lukas takes her hand and she does not pull it away, but most likely he knew she would not. If Danicka were going to leave him, she would have left. If she were going to reject him, they both know that this would be on the verge of ending. She moves her hand under his, and the contact actually, despite this conversation, makes a flicker of a tight, aching smile tug at the corner of her mouth. It's faster than the snapping of fingers, though, a momentary reaction to touching and being touched.

She is immensely good at reading people, of seeing through them. She could tell him: The man who was once your Alpha desired his sister. She could tell him: Caleb is a pompous man but a good one. She could tell him: I think one day Sampson may turn on you, but I don't know why I think that. She could tell him: Gabriella will never be happy, and she will do everything she can to share that.

And sometimes she would be wrong. It happens all the time, and that is part of why she does not speak out, often or easily, against people who send a chill up her spine or make her eyes narrow by what she sees in their yes. Danicka watches him as he touches her hand, finds his eyes as he whispers, and does not tell him what she sees of him, either. He does not ask. He has asked too many times about Katherine. He has an answer now.

"Kdo se moc ptá, moc se dozví," she intones, as though in conspiracy, their heads near one another.

The old proverb is not much comfort. If anything, it is something of an apology...or at least an understanding.

[Lukas] Danicka has never told Lukas what she sees of him. This is a small mercy. She sees far too much, and she's always seen more than he was ready to admit to himself.

She gives him a proverb. It's far from the first, and each one has meant something that she won't say directly. That's a small kindness, too, because through proverbs she's told him, I won't come between you and your pack. She's told him, You're a fool for not taking what's offered when you want it yourself.

The corners of his mouth flirt upward. His palm is very warm against the back of her hand. His fingers tighten infinitesimally; relax.

"Where do you get all your proverbs from?" he wants to know. "Your father?"

[Danicka] When Danicka had given him her phone number on a slip of paper, she had been referencing Sam with that proverb as much as Lukas himself. Sam, giving himself so freely, so stupidly. Sam, refusing to accept a No. She had referenced herself, a fool for offering Lukas anything, a glance or a number or minutes upon minutes of her thoughts and energy when she knew what he was, when she feared him, when his attention was as likely to destroy her as arouse her. Lukas... for being a goddamned idiot and not taking her for himself as soon as he knew she wanted him.

Anger passes into gentleness, passes into understanding. That happens more often these days, and it happens more often when the moon is waning like this. Danicka smiles softly at him, wiggles her fingers away from his and moves her hand to his hip, on top of the towel. "My mother didn't speak Czech, and we didn't have any extended family nearby. He used to rattle them off sometimes while he worked. I got into the habit."

[Lukas] Anger passes into gentleness. Passes into understanding. This happens more often, but it wasn't a sure thing. It's never a sure thing.

Lukas was quite certain, even before he spoke, that what he said would anger her. He said it anyway -- not to anger her, not to hurt her, not to goad her or rile her, but because it was the truth. Because he knows how to lie, and lie rather well, but he does not want to lie.

Not to her. Least of all, to her.

Her hand escapes his and moves to his hip. His body is built differently from hers, the hip narrow and angular, the arch of bone a fixing-point for the long fusiform muscles of his thigh, the sheeted muscles of his side. His torso does not dip and swell; it's a firm, descending wedge, shoulder to hip.

He reaches out to her as well. His hand follows the shape of her torso, which is consummately different from his. His hand comes to a rest at the inturn of her waist, and his thumb sweeps her skin through her shirt.

"I want to tell you something else," he says quietly. "And I don't know if it'll make you think less of me."

[Danicka] There is no denying how much softer than him she is. The muscles in Danicka's body are not hardened from training or use; she leads a fairly relaxed life. She doesn't go to the gym religiously. She goes in fits and starts. For a few weeks she'll go regularly, then get bored and do something else. Her waist is slender but soft, her arms are slim and have almost no tone. She is, physically, incredibly weak even if she does have a natural flexibility and balance, even if she can make herself keep going despite weariness or alcohol. She is not built for war.

Her eyebrows lift slightly at that. A flicker of tension reveals itself in her eyes, still pale green even in the near-darkness. Danicka doesn't say a word. She just looks at him, questioning. Waiting. She doesn't give him reassurance that she will not think less of him. It doesn't occur to her to comfort him in anticipation.

[Lukas] It's possible he never wanted -- wants -- comfort from her either. Not quite that. She reminds him of something he's never known before; this is true. She reminds him of hearth and home, of springtime, of warmth. She is soft, but sometimes she can be incredibly strong. He does not know what she said to Sam that day in the park. If he knew he would be equal parts appalled and shocked and disapproving and scared out of his wits.

And impressed. That too.

He does know she took a shot at a monster in the street, a vampiric creature the size of a Crinos. He does know she would've shot the pretty thing that tried to drink her blood, too, if he hadn't torn its leg and half its side off first.

He knows she can stand to be close to him even when the moon is full. She can stand to fuck him; she dares to tell him to let go, to not only withstand his lust but return it.

Sometimes she's incredibly strong. Sometimes she's incredibly feral.

And right now, she's merely quiet. A little tense; but quiet. And so is he: tense, but quiet. A moment passes. Then he goes on.

"At the last moot," he says quietly, "the Grand Elder -- the leader of the Sept -- called for Garou to challenge for eldership of each auspice. I stood for the Full Moon challenge. And I failed."

There's one light on in his room. He has a sudden memory of fucking her in this sort of half-dark; the light glancing over his shoulder, his body over hers, her slenderer self cast into his shadow like an eclipsed moon.

"It occurred to me afterward that it was the first time since ... I don't even remember when, that I stood up to take something for myself. I've been beta, or second, or stand-in a dozen times over. I've put this Garou into this position or guided that Garou into that a dozen times over. I've ended up alpha, or first, or absolute, but only because it has fallen to me by duty or inheritance. Even with you; when I fought Milo for you, it was to be your guardian. Second to your brother. The moot was the first time I can easily remember standing up and saying, I want this. I want to be first.

"And I failed."

There's a pause.

"I don't need or want you to comfort me. I just wanted to tell you." His shoulder moves, something like a shrug. "Because I can."

[Danicka] [Perception + Empathy]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Danicka] Oddly, comfort is one thing that Danicka is actually somewhat practiced at giving. She is not the sort of person to make herself a doormat, but the fall of her hand when she strokes his hair is too natural, too easy, to be forced or even learned. It's an instinctive, primal sort of comfort he can find with her, neither entirely gentle nor her first and only response to his troubles. He knows that she is equally likely to snap her jaws or turn him away or make a mistake and not see that he might like to feel her palm warm against his cheek, even if he doesn't realize himself that he wants such a touch.

But. Danicka is, indeed, warm. She smells like a home he barely remembers, in a way that is not floral or earthy or even a true scent. No one but a Garou would be able to understand why she makes him feel the way he does, why something in her calls to him: keep. Hold. Protect.

He tells her about the last moot, and her lips flicker into a near-smile when he says Grand Elder. But she knows more than a lot of Kin; she was her brother's confidant through childhood. That kept up for some time even after he Changed. She knows things, but she doesn't interrupt him. That smile is just a flash, an expression asking for permission to Be, and she quietly says No and sends it on its way.

Danicka listens, and listens well, as he surely knew she would. Danicka watches his eyes and his lips, attentive. She genuinely is interested, curious at first where this is going and then gradually understanding how he feels...even before he really gets there. She understands -- her eyes flick to the side when he mentions fighting Milo for her -- and she touches him only idly as he speaks. Her hand moves to his back, fingernails roaming up and then down again. He tells her what he does not need, and does not want, and she just nods, a bit thoughtful.

It is not something she can easily empathize with. There's no such comparison in her own life, no analogous experience she can call on to share with him. She thinks it over, mulling what she sees, then lets her hand wander up his side, moving to the damp hair on his brow, pushing back an errant curl. "Did you do well in the challenge?"

[Lukas] Lukas's first instinct -- which he begins to give voice to -- is to scoff. Half a breath escapes him before he catches it. He catches her hand as well, bringing it to his mouth, pressing a kiss to her palm.

It's slow. And warm. And not quite soft. This is the woman he loves. His love was never a soft thing; it was always a wild thing, savage and nearly brutal, with flashes of thoughtless tenderness, of instinctive protectiveness, that are as intrinsic to him as his changing nature.

His love never was a civilized thing, even when he's pretending to be civilized with her.

"I lost," he says, simply. "I think that's all that really matters in the end."
...we're Shadow Lords.

[Danicka] "If that was all that mattered to me, I wouldn't have asked," Danicka says blithely, catching that near-scoff and lifting an eyebrow. She doesn't resist as he kisses her palm, but she's detached from it for the moment, focused on something else.

[Lukas] So he lets her hand go. He shifts his head on the pillow, turning it away and back without taking his eyes from her. It's a curiously animal gesture. Sometimes the inhumanity in him shows through in glimmers and glimpses.

Other times, there's no disguising what he is.

"Are you going to tell me as long as I tried, there's no shame?"

[Danicka] There is definitely something feral, even monstrous, about the way he keeps his eyes on her own even while his head moves in the dark. The light is behind her, setting loose hairs on fire, turning stray strands into ignited filaments. Her body and his position shadow his face, create peaks and valleys, the illusion of mountains, his eyes crystalline pools of melted snow. Somehow when her eyes drift over his mouth, though, all she can think of is his teeth setting lightly in her thumb, grazing her flesh as though he is barely restraining himself from devouring her.

Her other eyebrow comes up as he speaks. "I'm of a mind to not tell you shit right now, since that seems to be how you'd prefer it," she says dryly, and takes her hand back from him.

[Lukas] Effortless, his speed -- it's almost grace. He catches her hand before she can withdraw completely.

[Danicka] [WP]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 6, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Danicka] [Fuck. WP -1]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Danicka] His hand lashes out to grab her so fast that she tenses, then immediately relaxes every muscle in that caught hand. It's instin--

-- it's not instinct. She learned this. Instinct says fight, or run. It does not tell her to go limp and accept what is about to happen. Danicka has never told him what being grabbed by wrist or hand makes her think of, where her mind goes immediately, what she expects. There's no reason for him to question her on it. Who likes being grabbed like that? All it means is that whoever is doing the grabbing does not want her to move, or leave, or do what she is about to do with her hand... at least, that's what most people would assume such a thing means. There would be no other layer to it.

Danicka looks at him, nostrils flaring and a muscle in her cheek moving as her jaw clenches briefly before it, too, relaxes. She looks at his chin.

[Lukas] So he lets her go.

It's as fast as that. She hasn't even had a chance to relax her jaw when his fingers have loosened. From grasp to relaxation to loosening -- it's a flicker of a thought, a half a second at most.

And silence.

And then he winces, though she might not see this. He turns onto his back suddenly, jostling the mattress. Exhaling, he pushes his left hand -- the hand that had tried to hold hers, keep her from drawing away from her -- into his hair. The bed is small enough that there's barely enough room between them for air, so he leaves his right arm up as well, wrapping behind his pillow.

His frustration is abrupt, and almost a taste in the air. After a moment he speaks. "I'm sorry. I'm being a fucking asshole."

Another moment.

"I did better than most. Obviously not as well as some." His mouth twists, wry. "I came in second, I suppose."

His hand tenses in his own hair for a moment, pushing back through the thickness. Then he turns his head to look at her. "Was it worse for you if you resisted Vladik?"

[Danicka] She withdraws her hand when he lets go of her, as she was going to. She pulls away from him, to the edge of the mattress, when he rolls onto his back. There is not a lot of room left for her unless she curls up against his side, and Danicka... doesn't. She props herself up on her left elbow, watching him exhale, push his fingers into his hair. She is close enough to smell him, to smell the soap he used lingering on his skin. She is not close enough to do more than brush against him, now. Even when he apologizes, Danicka remains where she is.

That could translate as lingering anger, as fear, as any number of things. Lukas, maybe, understands it better. Then again, maybe he doesn't. He can't always see through her, can't always reach behind her head and untie the strings on the well-shaped but blank masks she uses to cover her face.

And if there was something she was going to say to that answer to her question, that there is no shame as long as he tried, that she is proud of him for challenging, Danicka does not offer it now. She just lifts an eyebrow as though to say: How ironic, and then it falls again. And he asks her about her (goddamned) brother (again).

She scoffs. Doesn't cut it off, as he did. "What do you think?"

[Lukas] His head shifts slightly on the pillow. He looks right at her, unflinchingly, steadily.

"I didn't stop you to prove a point. I didn't do it because I wanted you to know you couldn't draw away unless I let you. I didn't do it to frighten you, or to exert power over you, or to remind you of your frailty.

"I did it because I didn't want you to withdraw into yourself exactly the way you've done."

[Danicka] Her eyes narrow at him, brows pulling together. It's not anger so much as frustration, or confusion, or some blend of the two. "I know," she says to all of that, her voice quiet.

Even though she looks irritated, or irritable, she sounds sad. Maybe resigned, though with the emphasis on the second word in a falling intonation, it has an odd comforting layer to it. Danicka's voice is and has always been expressive, conveying meaning in the way she breathes as much as when a consonant drifts away from the end of a sentence to hush against his ear.

"...Lukáš," she sighs, "I hate it when you do that to me. The only time it didn't make me feel like I was a child again was when I didn't care if you snapped my wrists."

[Lukas] That does make him flinch. It's a microexpression, a wince that skates across his eyes.

"I'm sorry." It's the second time in perhaps as many minutes that he's apologized, though this is for another reason. "I'll try not to do it again." He's thoughtful for a moment, quiet. "I just hate it when you pull away." His echoing her doesn't seem to be purposeful; a one-upping. But echo her he does -- then, and again, "It frightens me."

[Danicka] It could be seen as competitive. I hate this, well I hate this more than you hate that, well I hate that more than you could ever hate anything I do, ever. They are not like that, though; Danicka does not see Lukas's quiet echo as an attempt to conquer her, to push her down, to justify himself. He rarely does that, anyway. She lies there on her side, her shoulder against her cheek.

And he doesn't ever tell her that he won't, or that he promises... he says he'll try. She knows he may fail. She accepts it. Like before, she does not tell him I forgive you, but it's possible that neither of them think it necessary.

"What are you scared of?"

[Lukas] "You," he replies, bleakly simple, "leaving."

[Danicka] Silence answers him. Or doesn't; he speaks into the silence and doesn't hear an echo, at least not this time. Danicka watches him, wordless for a few seconds, then looks at the wall past his chest for another couple of seconds. It takes her that long -- five, six ticks -- before she can summon the will to answer him as honestly as she does.

"Promiňte," she says quietly, slowly looking over at his face now, or at least three-quarters of it. "You were dodging, and assuming you knew what I was thinking, and it was pissing me off. For what it's worth, I didn't feel like I needed to... withdraw like that until you grabbed my hand." A beat. "I don't like to think about him when I'm with you."

[Lukas] "Vím."

He knows she doesn't like to think about her brother. He knows what it's like to some degree, to not want to think about her brother.

After a moment Lukas shifts again. He rolls back onto his side, his back to the wall, which is cool, but -- facing Room 3 as it is -- not unbearably cold. He tucks his right arm under the pillow and leaves his left on the mattress between them, watching her a moment.

"I was dodging because it's hard for me to admit failure," he says quietly, "even to you. And I was trying to preempt you because -- "

That's harder to explain. A quiet; a frown. He keeps his eyes on her, lets her see the thoughts sift through the clarity.

Eventually, "I've always thought I've relinquished primacy by choice, Danička, not by incapability. That it was otherwise makes me angry at myself, and angrier still when I think someone's trying to give me an excuse for my weakness. So when I thought you were headed that way, I wanted to cut you off before you got there." There's a beat. Now he's echoing someone else entirely, "It was arrogant of me."

[Danicka] Thinking about her brother makes Danicka that much more likely to break down, to be unable to bear being touched, to not want him to look at her, to want to withdraw. Thinking about her brother makes Lukas that much more likely to lose his temper, either because he knows now what she did not want him to: he knows that the Theurge who used to destroy her, heal her, do it again... was the man who is so far above Lukas's rank now that he can't honorably challenge him to win...

...primacy,

at least as far as Daniela Musil is concerned.

He rolls on his side and she stays where she is, still against his motion, flopping from back to side to back to side. Danicka does shift a bit, sliding her elbow down and propping her head up on her hand now. It eases the tightness in her shoulder; she has a slight crick now. Her head is still slightly above his, shielding him from the light behind her. She looks at his face, her right hand resting on her hip, while they lie around and bed and talk. And almost argue. And talk.

"I don't excuse weakness in anyone, Lukášek... why would I begin with you?"

They're cold words, the sort of words that underline again how strong her breeding is, how fierce her bloodline... at least on one side. Her mother's people were from Russia, from Poland, and they were warriors. The heroes and spirit-workers and judges in black fur with piercing green and blue eyes all come from the branches behind Night Warder. It is the softness in the way she says these cold words that comes from Czechoslovakia, from the Musils. It's a sort of sighing resignation, not in her tone of voice but in the lines of her face, the traits she has in common with Miloslav, with Sabina, with Sarka and all those behind them.

She does not excuse weakness. But she does not, necessarily, punish it.

[Lukas] To say that what she says doesn't hurt on some level would be untrue. But to say that he wanted her to excuse weakness, to comfort him, to gather him to her breast and say there there, you did your best would be utter and complete falsehood.

What she says makes his jaw tense briefly, reflexively. It passes.

Lukas reaches to her, then. The movement of his hand isn't sudden; it isn't the startling swiftness of the last time he reached out to grab her, to hold her fast. It's not hesitant, either, nor shy. His palm finds her cheek, his thumb against the arch, his fingers curving past her ear, into her hair.

It's just contact. Contact for the sake of contact: no more or less.

"Tell me what you meant to tell me," he says, "when you asked me if I did well."

[Danicka] So he touches her like he knows her, like she did not draw back after he kissed her palm and like he never grabbed her hand and made her think, in a flash, of another Shadow Lord with not nearly as much Rage as the one she's lying with. Paler eyes, lighter hair, skin more like her own and a smirky yet almost bewildered-looking way of smiling rather than Lukas's shockingly youthful, almost mischevious flashes of good temper.

That make her heart skip. That make her chest flutter. That make her a little breathless with a sudden and ludicrous delight.

Danicka watches his face, notes the subtle clench at the side of his face. He touches her though, slower this time but without timidity. There's never been much, or any, of that between them. She doesn't move away. She closes her eyes, briefly, then opens them and finds his. "You said you weren't sure if it would make me think less of you." A pause. "I was curious. I just wanted to know what I won't ever really get to see for myself."

This pause is longer. "I would not think less of you even if you fell on your face."

She finally, again, lays down, shifting closer so they share the pillow, so that his arm is under her neck or her cheek, whichever. So they are closer. The light on the desk shines on him now, but dimly. She doesn't tell him any lies: that she has never thought less of him, that she never would.

[Lukas] His laugh is short and quiet, just a huff of breath, but real enough. When she speaks her jaw moves against his palm. His thumb sweeps her cheek.

Lukas does not, for even a second, wonder if she's telling him the truth, that she wouldn't think less of him even if he failed utterly and made a fool of himself. He doesn't wonder if she's lying to spare his feelings; he doesn't wonder if she's lying to spare her own neck, only to sneak away before dawn and leave him to wake alone.

He doesn't wonder because she doesn't lie and say she'll never think less of him. He doesn't wonder because the one time he can remember that she thought less of him, she told him to his face on a cold wintry street, half a block from the Blue Chalk Cafe.

She told him as much as she could manage then, anyway.

"I did very well in combat." He'd answered her already earlier, but that answer was as much a dodge as not answering. He fills in the blanks now in broad, unadorned strokes: as objective as he, so close to the event still, can be. "I stayed in control of myself and the situation. I bested my opponent easily.

"But in the verbal part of the challenge, I made unfounded assumptions, which is a blind, arrogant, dangerous thing to do in war. And I gave an answer that was well-planned and well-defended, but ultimately lacking in wider vision.

"The one who won was the one I defeated. Her answer was simpler, but it saw farther and deeper than mine. And she proved her courage in defeat."

[Danicka] Something about the end of what Lukas says makes a smile twitch across Danicka's lips. It's probably the one who won was the one. That reaction is momentary; more than that brief amusement, she seems keenly interested in what he's telling her, alluding to a combat. His claims as to his prowess are not spoken with arrogance, mere simplicity, but she has no way of knowing how accurate his view of himself or the challenge is. No matter; Danicka's eyes are alight with attention, as though she is attending a lecture.

They both know that his treatment of Martin lowered her opinion of him. Kate's behavior has lowered Danicka's estimation of her, as has Sam's. She is not above judging others, though few people know how big of a change this is from a long span in her life where she had no right, and so never judged. She is changing.

And they are learning. It was a cruel lesson, what happened at the W and the week that followed. It was jarring, to realize that when his packmate died he would call her to see her again, just in case. It was startling, to realize that she would go to him. Knowing now how easily it can happen, how their arguments spiral out of control, how they lose their way in flashes of temper and withdrawals of affection, they are more careful now.

They stay in control of themselves and the situation.

Danicka listens, nodding slightly when he says the part about unfounded assumptions, that this is blind and arrogant and dangerous. She agrees, and openly, but a moment later that flicker of a smile is crossing her expression, and a moment after that, she's absorbing the rest of what he's told her, the whole of it. "...I'm glad you did well," she says finally, and softly.

[Lukas] Lukas's first reaction is...

...ironically, the same reaction he has when she calls him amazing. He wants to laugh; he wants to dismiss it out of self-deprecation. But she didn't say I'm glad you did the best. She didn't even say I'm glad you did your best, and in a strange way, that would've been far more patronizing, far more humiliating, than anything else. She said, I'm glad you did well.

It takes him a moment to realize this is the truth.

In that moment the beginnings of his wry grin fades. The scoff fades before it leaves his lips. He looks at her for a moment. She's lying down now, and the light reaches his eyes, glitters through the pale. His hand moves on her cheek; he watches the shadow of his thumb move across her flawless skin.

"Jo. Ale uvidíme příště udělat lépe."

A quiet for a while. His hand moves from her face eventually, settles on her shoulder. He doesn't raise his voice at all; he's not quite whispering, but he's speaking quietly as though to respect his neighbors, as though he were afraid to let what they're saying to one another travel beyond his four thin walls, as though his neighbors would even understand a word.

"Chceš zůstat tady dneska?"

[Danicka] Across the room and through a wall sleeps a thin, mousy girl with nowhere else to go. On the other side of the wall where Lukas's bed is situated is a Philodox that Danicka has never seen nor met. It's possible that they, or anyone walking down the hallway, has been listening to the muffled tones of Danicka and Lukas's voices as they've spoken to one another in bed tonight. It's possible that Gael, like Mrena in that room before him, could overhear the creak of bedsprings as the Shadow Lord has moved around on the mattress.

Danicka draws her right hand up her body and moves it to cover Lukas's hand on her cheek for a moment as he tells her that next time, he will do better. It doesn't make her smile. She just accepts this, as though it is no more and no less than she expected from him. I will try, he says. I will do better. The only true weakness, she thinks, is the one that cannot or will not be risen above. Conquered. Overcome.

This is how she knows she is truly weak: she will never conquer some of her own frailties.

Their hands slip apart. Hers goes to the spare, scant space between their chests. His goes to her shoulder. The fabric of her shirt is soft, thin, and textured against his palm. Her answer is a nod, a slight wiggle of her head to indicate that yes. She wants to stay here with him tonight.

Danicka glances down along his body, bare except for the towel still wrapped around his waist. Her eyes blink slowly, her expression vaguely thoughtful. Without looking back into his eyes, she reaches for his hand, pulls it off her shoulder and to her mouth. Eyelashes fall as she kisses his palm, flicker back upward as she looks into his eyes and draws his fingers to trace a line from her sternum to her stomach, her navel, the waist of her jeans.

"Take them off," she whispers.

[Lukas] All this time he's been wearing a towel, and a faint dampness that's slowly lifted from his skin.

Lamplight makes his swarthy skin something closer to golden; it makes her golden skin glow. His breathing quickens as she looks at him, as she blinks like an animal. It's as easy as that: to quicken his pulse, to make the rhythm of his breathing ramp up. She can see that, too. Shirtless, the movement of his ribs is obvious, the rise and fall of his chest plain to see.

His fingertips flicker against her skin when she kisses his palm. They look at each other. She looks at him; he's been looking at her all along, his eyes fast on her face as though she were the answer to some riddle just barely out of his grasp.

Fabric shifts and folds and springs back into place when she draws his hand down her body. She draws his hand, but his fingers drag; they flex into her skin beneath her clothes here and there, catch at the cloth. He doesn't look away from her eyes. The centers of his open, the black eating into the blue, and when she whispers what she does --

-- his lips part an instant before he leans across what little space there is.

Slow, heavy, this kiss: unfolding lazily, like a hothouse flower. Unseeingly, but not blindly, his hand moves at the waist of her jeans. He undoes the button onehanded, draws down the zipper. He's not so deft as she is, but nor does he fumble. When the teeth part to the bottom he turns his hand around, the heel of his hand to her lower abdomen, the fingers reaching into her jeans.

Tenderly, he touches her. Tenderly, and very softly, and all the while the kiss is growing like a hurricane, building like a storm. He's eating at her mouth, drinking her breath, and his hand is so careful on her, so gentle when he finds her clitoris.

He strokes her for a while. On its way back up her body, his hand slips beneath her shirt. He presses it up, pushed ahead of his wrist. She'll have to raise her arms for him to get it off. They'll have to break the kiss.

But not yet. For now -- for a little longer -- his mouth moves on hers, and his hand cups her breast beneath her shirt. Over and over, as gently as he'd stroked her between her legs, the base of his thumb passes over her nipple; strokes that, too, until it draws tight and taut against his touch.

[Danicka] Why would she come, if not to stay? Why touch him, if not to love him?

Danicka's touch has never been angry on Lukas's body, or even insistent. She's hurt him, and more than once has made him bleed, though both times they were far, far removed from any other werewolves. They were far, far above even the city, the streetlights, the prying eyes or ears of anyone else. There was only him; no one to save her if he lost control, no one to notice how slack the leash he has on her is, how in reality the leash everyone else sees is an illusion. It's the only lie that Danicka and Lukas really tell together.

But what remains, far longer than any scratch down his back or slice from a stiletto heel, far longer even than the bite marks he's left on her shoulder or her neck, is the fact that whenever she touches him, it's done in love. Other than a handshake, other than standing perfectly still and terrified when he grabbed her once, the first time they touched each other in adulthood was the first time they kissed, ever.

There is no point, now, to denying to anyone what they are to one another. They can pretend certain things with displays of dominance and control, they can withhold affection in public for the sake of privacy and not flaunting themselves about -- it is a matter of pride -- but everyone knows that Danicka belongs to him, that she's his, and even though the last time they were together in this room was two months ago almost, most of the people living at the Brotherhood are aware that Lukas fucks Danicka. Plenty of them assume that she is, therefore, his mate.

He's claimed her. He fucks her. Most of them don't care that in truth, he's getting away with something he wouldn't if they were in New York. Lukas cares.

His breathing quickens, though not because he is getting away with something, not because she's forbidden. In this city she's his, and he can take what he wants, and no Garou in Chicago is going to argue that he's doing something wrong or dishonorable. His fingers try, almost, to pull at her shirt, to sense the flesh underneath, and his pupils dilate, and her movements and her words speak to some primal part of his brain saying not Touch me and not Take them off but

Fuck me.

Danicka kisses him back with moist lips, her hips shifting on the thin mattress to open to his hand. She breathes in sharply because his fingertips, clutching the tab of her zipper all the way down, graze her through her panties or are just close enough to intimate the ghost of a touch. She leaves his mouth for a scant second to breathe, kisses him again -- harder this time -- when he pushes his hand underneath that slip of cotton she's wearing under her jeans. The moon is so thin that he is capable of tenderness, of patience, of these little things that are missing but not necessarily missed when the moon is heavier.

And she whimpers into his mouth, her breathing faster and so the kiss quickening in its own right. They do not make out like teenagers this touch, with furtive touches and daring caresses. They kiss like well-acquainted lovers, and Lukas strokes her with a familiarity that quickly became skill and is starting to turn into something of an art, useless on almost any other body because they would not be Danicka, would not make those same noises, have those same reactions. They would not, as she does, squirm slightly in protest when he slides his hand up her flat stomach and over her chest. They would not, as she does, gasp when he rubs her nipple to hardness, flicks it slowly with his thumb as slightly wet, incredibly hot fingers caress the curve of her breast.

Most of the women he has fucked, if any of them, would stop kissing him, look in his eyes, and smile the way she does. Quirky, lazy, wanting. Would not call him:

"Lukáš..."

Would not say: "Prosím ... přijmou moje džíny pryč."

[Lukas] Over the months, Lukas has developed something like skill with Danicka's body. He's a quick study, and she's a subject of particular interest. It doesn't make him an expert lover. Everything he's picked up from her would not do him an ounce of good for another woman, because they would not be Danicka.

They would not pronounce his name like that, thoughtlessly and accurately. They would not stop kissing him to look him in the eye -- and smile. They would not smile the way she does, and they would not smell the way she does; feel the way she does. The muscles in their thighs would not quiver and tense like hers; the ones in their stomach would not snake and flex under his hand quite like that.

They would not walk into his room and loop their arms over his neck and kiss him in greeting, silently, simply because they were happy. They would not put their hands on his shoulders and climb him like a tree. They would not sprawl in front of wall-to-wall windows overlooking the city of cities, legs apart, heels still on, and let him fuck them with his mouth like that.

And he would not want to.

Right now, right this moment, Lukas cannot even fathom wanting another woman like this ever again. There are sayings about wolves, that they mate for life; there are theories about humans, that they were never meant to be monogamous. Lukas is somewhere between one and the other, and he doesn't care about sayings or theories. What he knows is cold hard fact; practicality.

What he knows is: the week he spent apart from her, he fucked half a dozen women and every time, every last time, he was cold inside. They may as well have been puppets. He may as well have been a puppet, reacting to physical stimuli in prescribed ways; getting hard because that's what you do when a woman sucks your cock or strokes it; fucking because that's what you do when your cock is hard. What he knows is: afterward he hated himself, and he hated them, and every time left him a little colder, a little emptier.

I hate you, she thought of her last man that week, the black haired, blue eyed one. I hate you so much.

He would have understood.

--

But he's not thinking about that right now. Any of that. He's thinking of the way she smiles, and the way she says his name, and the way she tells him to:

take her jeans off.
please.

And he catches her mouth across the newfound space between. He kisses her again, briefly but firmly, and when he lets her go he pushes himself up, shifts her to lie on her back under him, suddenly, a little roughly, laughing under his breath when his blankets rumple and his sheets slide on the cheap mattress.

"Promiňte," he murmurs, because he's a little rough with her; as if he didn't know she could take it. He tugs at her jeans, then, pulls them off her hips, down her thighs -- moves down the bed himself, straddling her legs, then pulling her legs out from the fork of his to tug her denims up and off her feet. He tosses them over to his desk chair.

It's her panties next, and by now his towel has been pulled loose, is coming undone. The scrap of cloth that serves as her lingerie is easier shed than her jeans; he pulls it right off and flings it over to the chair as well. Then he crawls over her body and pushes her shirt off, doesn't stop to kiss her flesh, to suck at her skin; simply wants her naked, bared, as soon as possible. He pulls her shirt over her head and tosses that over to his chair as well, and he's long since stopped looking to see if his aim is even accurate, which of course means all her clothes are flung at random all around the room, draping off the desk, pooled on the floor.

Then she's naked, and he's looking at her body, his hands following her soft shoulders, her small breasts, narrow ribcage. He touches her in sweeping strokes, as though forming her anew in his mind, molding the image of her indelibly into his memory only to renew it again the next they meet like this.

"Oh god..." he breathes. He's found her breasts again. He covers them with his hands, rubs them, caresses them, tugs gently at her nipples and fondles their small curvature in his palms. He's crouched over her on his knees, back bent, animalistic; he bends down to her suddenly now and kisses her mouth again, and then, moving down, straightening his legs, lowering himself over her and then between her legs, takes her breast into his mouth, sucks as much of her flesh into his mouth as he can, licks and sucks at her.

As though he were starved for want of her. As though she were a feast.

[Danicka] She rolls onto her back easily, and for almost every woman he's ever touched that would be the end of it. That would sum up the entire story, the whole night, the ultimate point. Exposure of belly, of throat, of cunt, each one a sort of terrified submission, even tremor under her skin a signal of the clamoring in their own minds: I don't trust you I don't trust you I don't believe you won't hurt me. But they would go easily, more frightened of telling him no than of anything else. And he knows, because the first night they were together was not only a full moon but a night on which he nearly frenzied, that when she lets him move her on the bed like that...

...she is letting him. Danicka moves, and she smiles as he kisses her, undresses her piece by piece, tosses clothes wherever the fuck they want to go across his room. The last thing on her mind is the phase of the moon, the likelihood of injury, the other wolves listening, the nature of monogamy or polyamory, the loss of him. He has made her happy again. He kisses her, apologizes to her either because her jeans are not off yet or because he pushes her onto her back, but it doesn't matter. Neither was necessary.

She chuckles, low and restrained, and reaches down to help his towel in its bid for escape, dropping it to the side of the bed. It slips, and falls, the terrycloth failing to catch on his bedspread tightly enough to keep itself from puddling on the floor in a heap. And he has her down, finally, to nothing but a pair of pale green socks slouched around her ankles. She doesn't bother to wiggle them off with her toes or reach down and peel them off with her fingers. Danicka just lifts her arms so he can get her top off and lifts her head so she can kiss him while he stares at her with his hands, drinks her in with his palms wandering over her like a desert landscape, the sand turned solid by moonlight.

With a sigh she falls back to his pillow, leaves his kiss, and arches her back slightly to both get more comfortable and receive his mouth and his touch. Her hands, finally, move to him. She can't be a feast, a spread, anything to devour the way he does, because she touches him back: the nails of her thumbs trace up his biceps, her hands discover his shoulders and the muscles of his back like undiscovered country. While he's bent, kissing her instead of tearing her apart like an animal would its prey, Danicka is sucking softly on his tongue, flicking it with her own, bending her hands around his waist and pulling him, urging him to...

...do exactly what he does.

She shudders as he unfolds between her legs, parts her thighs to make room for him, welcomes him as he suckles at her. Danicka starts to wrap herself around him, starts to spread her legs wider, starts to roll her hips to rub against his abdomen, his hip, starts to wriggle downward. She touches his chest and is about to urge him physically to --

"Kondom," she breathes out, all in a rush. "Lukáš, dostat kondom hned."

[Danicka] [Fuck you, tags. I'll fix you. I'll fix you ALL...later.]

[Lukas] Just a breath, the laugh he looses. She can feel it uncurling over her skin, warm where she's dry, cool where his mouth has left her wet. He lifts his head from her breast for a moment.

"Je to v pořádku, lásko," he murmurs -- murmurs it and returns his mouth to her breast, holding her gaze still, holding her eyes with his as he circles her nipple with his tongue, draws it into his mouth, sucks at her. Gently. Jemně, lásko.

His eyes fall shut. He kisses her breast, tenderly, very lovingly; kisses her like he were kissing her. When his eyes open again he adds, smiling, "Vzpomněl jsem si tento čas."

And then he plants his hands on either side of her and pushes himself up along her length. He presses her thighs apart with the upward momentum of his body, like a ship parting ice floes. He settles his weight on one elbow, reaches over to pull his nightstand's drawer open with his left hand, feels his way past cell phones and mp3 players and books to find the box of condoms, from which he removes one. He hands it to her, takes the time to kiss her, and then -- with a sense of having been here before, though not quite like this, and having done this before, though not quite like this -- lifts himself on his arms, opens a space between their bodies for her to unroll the condom onto him.

[Danicka] A faint smirk uncurls across her ilps as he tells her it's okay, he remembered, and she breathes in as he kisses her breast, breathes out: "I'm not telling you because I think you forgot."

Danicka's thighs tense against the outsides of his body. "Nyní, prosím," she says with a shudder. She presses herself against him then, arching her back to push her breast harder against his mouth, her belly against his chest, her cunt against his cock.

When he lifts himself up finally to get the damn thing she immediately runs her hands up his stomach and chest, making a low, pleased sound at both the sight and feel of him. "Miluju své tělo, kotě," she purrs, slowly turning her hands and raking her fingernails -- jemně, lásko -- down him again.

He works a condom into her hand, kisses her mouth. She bites his lower lip when the kiss parts, drags it between her teeth, opens her eyes to his as she opens the condom and reaches between them.

Truth be told, Danicka does not particularly like putting Lukas's condoms on for him. She's never said this, and has in fact simply done it sometimes whether he's handed the small packet to her in the first place or whether she's taken it from his hand. It's a small aversion, connected to a small fear that used to be perfectly valid and is now somewhat irrational, given the fact that she is so... well, practiced. Danicka knows how to open a condom and get it onto a cock without tearing it with a fingernail. She shouldn't have those vestiges of concern, and she knows it.

So she turns the mundane, almost irritating little necessity -- which she insists upon, for the same reasons why she feels flickers of unwanted, unnecessary worry and distaste -- into foreplay, into a slowly tightening grip of her hand on his cock, into a caress and a tease and an endearment.

"Nečekejte," she all but growls, her left hand running around his body to his hip. "Jsem mokrá. Chci tě."

[Danicka] [I can SO close an italics tag. You just WATCH me.]

[Lukas] Necessity more than any particular attachment to her performing this small chore for him drives him to hand her the condom every so often. Necessity, because he needs to hold himself up over her and does not want to crush her under him while he fumbles on a condom; or necessity, because he's out of his mind with lust, because he can barely stand to touch himself, because he's way beyond complete sentences and fine manipulative tasks.

It would be a lie, though, to say that he doesn't enjoy the way she unrolls the condom onto him. The clenching of his fingers into the sheets proves that lie. The way he gasps through his teeth; the way the muscles of his abdomen tighten spasmodically; the way his cock jumps of its own accord beneath her touch.

Then she's finished, and she's pull him into her, and she's telling him that she's wet and he believes her, he knows this because she was rubbing her cunt against him a moment ago and he felt it then. Lukas lets out a low groan all the same to hear the words loosed in the air between them, hanging in the half-dark.

"Zábal tvůj nohy kolem mě." Low, barely more than a whisper. "Dotkni se mě, jako jsi udělal. Spustit ruce přes mém těle."

He finds her by touch, rocking his hips gently into hers. He slides his cock over her again and again, slow, until the head of it nudges against her cunt, and a shift of his hips changes the angle, and a slow push slides him inside her. He watches her eyes as he moves into her, a gradual penetration that parts his lips and furrows his brow, makes him draw his breath in short, quick sips, release it again slow and silent.

"To je vše," a whisper in truth now, soft, sibilant. "To je vše, láska."

[Danicka] Out of his mind.

Yes, she would say, she so often thinks, this is how I want you.

Her legs spread, wrap around him even as the words are working their way out of his throat and into the air. Even as he's trying to recover from the first touch of her warm hands on his cock tonight. Once upon a time he would have shown more control, would not have let her seen so much of the effect she has on him, has always had on him. Once upon a time he might've tried to pretend that he didn't enjoy it quite as much, or that it doesn't push him as hard as it does. He gave that up some time ago, if he was ever even aware of how stringent his attempts were, how sparse his reactions.

Danicka keeps her right hand on him as he's rubbing against her. She gasps, writhing gently on the bed with him while they drag out what sometimes they cannot wait for, can't be patient for. Seeing her in lingerie once at the door he'd started pulling off his clothes and asked her, please, to not expect him to go slow. She had understood: please, don't expect me to be able to go slow. She had not expected it. She had not wanted him to wait.

Tonight they take some time. They rub together, keep their breathing slow, and Danicka's left hand follows Lukas's body, runs up his back. When he starts to push against her she groans softly, biting back louder noise, and guides him into her. Her right hand is slightly slick from her own cunt when it joins her left on his back, pulling him closer to her, holding him as he goes deeper with that long, slow roll of his hips.

The words he whispers to her make her shiver. Danicka's eyes close, her mouth opening as her head tilts back slightly. "More," she says, in English for some reason, then: "Více."

Her legs wrap fully around his waist, socked feet crossing at the ankles, pulling him hard against her. "Více, Lukáš. To mě poser." Her cunt clenches around him, her ankles loosen again so he has more room to move. "Jdi pomalu. Ale tvrdý." Danicka's eyes open, find his, as she shudders.

"Tak, kurva tvrdý," she moans, as though she is talking about something else entirely.

[Danicka] [GOD. DAMMIT.]

[Lukas] Willingly -- more than willingly -- he goes to her as she pulls him. He comes down over her and their bodies seal together and she wraps around him, her arms, her legs; her feet crossing behind the small of his back and pulling her against her; into her; hard.

The word in english makes him pant against her ear. The word in czech makes a shiver go up his back, and then he shifts over her, balances himself on one forearm, plants the other hand, opens up enough space, just enough, to look down the seam of their bodies. She's letting him go a little, giving him room to move, and he takes it. He takes it and he uses it, and when her eyes open he's looking down, watching himself, watching his cock slide into her; the slow dragging withdraw; the swift, sure plunge.

They have a little patience tonight in some things. They have none at all in others. He doesn't work gradually deeper; he doesn't start tenderly, gently. He fucks her from the very start, his hips moving against hers hard, purposefully, his cock sliding deep, pounding into her on every slow stroke, every deliberate swing.

So fucking hard, she says; she's moaning; the walls are thin. It's almost reflex, his hand flying to cover her mouth, his fingers barring her lips. "Shh," he tells her, and he must not be that worried about noise after all because he never stops, never stops fucking her, never even slows his rhythm or gentles his stroke. Shh, he tells her, fucking her, slamming his cock into her, and, "Tak kurva vlhký," and there's no doubt what he's talking about.

He kisses her mouth before she can reply. He kisses her through and between the splay of his fingers, and then without his fingers between because his hand is going to her breast instead, fondling her, cradling her flesh and rubbing her nipple while he fucks her; fucks her for the sake of feeling her breath catch and shudder into his mouth, for the sake of swallowing whatever sounds she might make.

[Danicka] Resistance became willingness became eagerness, and sometimes becomes desperation. Wanting not to want each other, wanting each other, craving each other to the point that separation quickly starts to feel like need, like something necessary is missing and the structure is going to collapse in on itself if they don't satisfy this one, basic, foundational requirement. Apart, invested in their own lives, busy with letters home or the gun range or the War or school, it is nowhere near need, nowhere near a constant a painful desire.

But now, when he is over her and inside her and her legs wrap around him just like that the idea of stopping is anathema, pulling back is an apocalypse unto itself, considering the very idea of interruption is to face down a certain kind of death.

Lukas pushes hard into Danicka, who is as relaxed as to be boneless except for the fierce pounding of her heart, the tension in her thighs, the way her hands flex on his body. She chokes off a moan before it makes a noise, simply because of the way he holds himself up and looks at her, simply because of the way his shoulders curve and the way his arms tense, simply because of the light and shadow hit his flesh, reflect, disappear, move. She tries not to make a sound, knowing he's looking at their bodies coming together, sliding apart, again... and again, driven by the thrust of his hips, the counterthrust of her pelvis up to meet him.

Pomalu and jemně are not, for them, synonyms or even absolute partners. This is slow. This is not gentle. This is what she wants.

Her hand splays on his chest, massages the muscle underneath in open and wanton appreciation. He does not exactly duck his head or scuff his toes when she calls him amazing, ignores it rather than blushing when she tells him that he is so fucking hot, or that she loves his body, but Danicka is not ever looking for his approval or trying to please him with praise. She groans at the feel of his cock against her, inside of her, because it is as unfettered and unstoppable a reaction as laughter when she's amused, tears when she's overcome, a shriek when she's in pain.

That is to say: this is Danicka, and she could stop herself if she had to, if she was afraid of how he might respond. She could stop herself from so much as gasping, so much as moaning. She would do nothing but breathe heavily if, for some reason, she did not want to him to know that the mantra rolling through her mind right now is yes, yes, fuck, yes, you're so good, fuck yes.

She wants him to know. And knowing, he covers her mouth, shushes her even though the sound of her voice shuddering in lust is exactly the reaction he wants as he moves into her. Danicka told him some time ago that he might 'have' to do this; he didn't. He pulled her face to his shoulder instead, almost tenderly, and she stifled her screams in his skin. Now she moans only louder against his palm, licks his fingers, and arches her back so she can fuck him harder, make him fuck her harder.

Pomalu. But not jemně.

When he kisses her, Danicka bites his fingers, then his lips, nipping at his skin with abandon. When Lukas fondles her she squirms underneath him and against him, seconds unfurling into minutes, and sweat building on her skin to leave the traces of her scent all over his sheets, his blanket, his room. She doesn't rake her fingernails down his back this time but she does mark him. She envelopes him, annihilates him, destroys herself in the process because it is the only way for them to really join in any meaningful way.

She kisses him like a bomb going off, like a bridge giving way underfoot, like all the air rushing out of a room. She kisses him like it's the end of the world, and fucks him like they're at the very beginning.

Or like they're fucking, in his bedroom, trying to keep quiet so his neighbors don't complain.

Or like they're making love in the dark, and there was never anything else in existence to destroy or build in the first place.

"Rychlejší," she purrs, her hands running down the sides of his lean torso to grab his hips and urge him to do exactly what she says. "Rychlejší, prosím...!"

[Lukas] When they kiss like that

(like power lines tangling in the rain)

sometimes he's not sure she isn't pulling him out of himself somehow. He's not sure he isn't giving himself over irrevocably, everything; he isn't sure he didn't give everything over the very first time, the very first night, when he tried to make her undo his pants and pull down his boxer briefs and fuck him, just fuck him, make it impersonal and physical and meaningless. When he did that, and she refused, and she kissed him instead, and pulled everything he had out of him. Gave it back.

That was the first time she has ever merely refused him, refused him instead of sliding sideways out of his grasp, agilely slipping out of his snares and his nooses of words and terms and conditions and claims, all of which were so fucking useless against her. Because she's a liar, always has been. Because she's more than a liar, more than what she appeared to be. Always has been. And she always just walked right through them, the walls he set up against her; showed him how flimsy and pale they really were against the all-consuming flame of --

this.

They kiss. They fuck each other -- generously, unselfishly. Their bodies speak to one another. They make love -- ungently. Nothing close to softly.

Rychlejší, she says, and his mouth is still on hers, his lips moving to hers, and when her hands grab his hips his eyes open. She pulls him into her and his eyes falter, they close, he gasps against her mouth and kisses her a second after, so fucking hard, and her last syllable, the last trailing sound of her please is caught on his tongue.

Lukas shifts his hand off her body. He braces himself on his elbows, brackets her against the bed, lifts his body until they're barely brushing. Faster now, his hips rock against hers, and sometimes his rational mind tells him pomalu, pečlivě, jemně, tells him to mind the difference in their size, their strength, their very blood and nature.

And then he remembers the way she bares her teeth at him. He remembers the way her eyes gleam in the dark. He remembers her fingernails ripping down his back, he remembers her riding him in this bed until he thought he was going to lose his mind, and he remembers her saying:

Dej mi to.
Všechno.

and his rational mind is like every other wall he's every tried to set between him and her: disintegrated, decimated, blown the fuck away.

Their mouths come apart. He can't hold the kiss any longer. He has to fucking breathe. He's gasping for breath, he shifts, he puts his weight onto his knees and his hands, rises over her, and when he bends his head to watch himself fucking her -- hard, fast, pounding her legs open, pounding her until she's wet and slippery and hot; pounding her clenching cunt -- when he bends his head he's all massive shoulders, broad frame, a perfect arch of strength from hand to arm to shoulders to arm to hand.

"Dotkni se mě," he says. "Chci, abyste se mě."

[Danicka] The first time he confessed that he could not give everything to her, because it would be lost, and she'd told him she'd give it back, they had not discussed exactly what she meant. Giving him back himself. Or giving him something of equal value, something else, something of hers. Something of her.

Everything.

But it didn't matter which she meant, because he hadn't believed her, and she had walked away because it had hurt. It had hurt enough that even when the initial sting had passed, she couldn't stay in the same damn room as him, the same building, the same part of town. She left him in the room she'd purchased for both of them, and she thought about that day when she paid her credit card bill.

Now it seems something to strive for, something to conquer, the walls that keep them from giving themselves over. She feels flashes of distrust, of fear, and she remembers times that he has hurt her more than a backhand to the face ever really could. There have been times when Danicka has remembered: he is an Ahroun, and she knows what their love looks like, what it turns into, what he can and very well may become. She tries to make herself believe that he will never give her anything that he cannot take back, he will never let her in past the doorway, because sometimes, still, it is terrifying to consider being with him.

This is not one of those times.

This time, Danicka is whimpering, her mouth uncovered now, her head thrown back, her throat bared to him as she urges him to fuck her harder, faster, more, everything. And he is fucking her -- harder, faster, giving her more, giving her everything, and sweat's slick on her forehead, her breasts, her stomach. She runs her hands up his back, rakes her nails down slowly, a counterpoint to the insistence of his hips flexing between her thighs. Her eyes lock on his, color flushing her cheeks underneath that soft golden tan, and her lips move as though she's saying something.

It's lost. He looks down, he curls and bends over her like a beast, and she lets out a high moan, a gasp of unmistakable meaning, a clarion call of pleasure. Danicka's motions slow slightly as his speed up. Her muscles tremble as his tense. She leans into him, curls around him with legs and arms and lips finding his ear, whispering:

"Kde?"

[Lukas] "Všude."

As hard as he's fucking her now, as hard and fast as he's taking her, there's something like tenderness in that word. In the way she wraps around him, all four limbs tightening to bring her close, bring him close; in the way his arms shift to curl beneath her back and press her close in return. They hold each other and they whisper into one another's ears, raggedly, even as he's fucking her

so hard

that he can feel the echoes of his movement all up her body; can feel her reaction in her thighs gripping his hips, in the press of her calves against his sides and his back. When she cries out again he catches her mouth on his before the sound is half out of her mouth, swallows it. Swallows it, eats at her mouth, draws back to raise himself over her again, cresting into the lamplight, which catches on the side of his face, the curve of his shoulder, the sweep of his upper ribs, the lower cut of his pectorals.

"Láska, dej si ruce na mě." His murmur is broken by a gasp here; a muttered groan there. "Dotkni se mě. Běh ruce nad mé kůži.

"Oh god, Danička ... "

Something synergistic about this. Complementary. He moves into her ever faster, his strokes falling ever harder; she slows, trembles, opens to him, holds onto him. Like he were some sort of lifeline, or some source of strength, some source of energy. She holds him like she trusts him not to let her

(fall/go)

down, like he were something she could trust when even now, every so often, she's certain that one day, unless he dies first, he will hurt her again; one day he will become a monster in truth, isolate her with his protection, break her with his love, terrify her, terrorize her, crush her with, quite simply, what he is. Sometimes, even now, she's certain of this -- and perhaps she's right.

Very likely she's right.

" ... turn over for me." He says this, but he doesn't give her room to move; he doesn't slow; he doesn't falter. He looks down to watch himself, to watch the twist and flex of her muscles under her skin; he looks up, finds her eyes. "Otočte přes, miláčku." It's a confirmation. A moment later he draws out of her, the loss of her so stark and sudden that he winces, winces even as he sits back on his heels and takes her hips between his hands, her body between his hands, and urges her onto her stomach, on all fours.

He reaches his hand around her hip and between her legs almost as soon as he can. He finds her wetness there -- his mouth is on her shoulder, burning, his body covers her, he bends over her -- he groans to feel how wet she is, how wet and hot and thoroughly fucked her cunt already is.

"Chci tě. Chci, že píčo. Bože, lásko."

He whispers it like a prayer. His teeth catch at her ear, at her neck. He bites into her shoulder firmly, touching her, still rubbing his fingers between her lips and against the opening of her cunt, rubbing her until his fingers are as slick and wet as she is and pressing gently, firmly against her clit now as he moves in behind her -- his knees nudging hers apart -- and pushes his cock back into her.

The groan he muffles against her shoulder is harsh and raw. His teeth clamp hard on her flesh for a moment, then relents. He licks her shoulder, kisses it. Moves in her.

[Danicka] The first time, when she said no to him it wasn't because he was hurting or even just because he was pushing into her without a condom. The first time Danicka laid on her back and invited him to make love to her like that, it nearly overwhelmed him. Every single time they come and her legs and arms wrap around him like that it's like coming home, like being given a gift, like letting her protect him... and that's why she couldn't stand it, the first time, when she knew he would not let her do so. For Danicka, the vulnerable party in missionary position isn't her.

Earlier tonight, less than an hour ago, she told him Jesus Christ, she'd stop fucking asking him if he was all right, if he was okay, when she saw him covered in blood or holding back from her because of a wound. Less than an hour ago he snapped back that he wasn't a fucking weakling. A month and a half ago he told her he was sick of being reminded that he was weak.

They've talked it over, and moved past it, but it's like walking through a prayer labyrinth, not a hedge maze. Every turn at the end of the path brings them back inexorably to the center, and they can always see what was before, what has fallen to either side. It is still there.

Danicka hears a certain ache in his voice when he breathes, moans, speaks that word and wraps himself around her. Všechno. Všude. She runs her hands up his back, his neck, into his hair. She tangles her fingers in black hair gone curly from sweat and length and kisses him. Her hands are on him, she wants to say. She wants to tell him again: You're so fucking hot, baby, tell him sometimes she wishes she were waking in her bed to find him there, every inch of skin bared, every touch met with a shuddering, gasping reaction.

Her kiss is ferocious, and hungry, and she is thinking about telling him to turn over, let her ride him, lie back and watch her. Danicka doesn't tell him that, though. She runs her hands down his chest, teases one nipple, moves her mouth to his neck and sucks at his skin until it starts to discolor. When he tells her to turn over, begs her to, orders her, asks her, whever the fuck it is he's doing, she puts her hands on his waist and all but pushes him away. She unfolds her legs, panting for breath, and is turning onto her hands and knees before his hands have even gotten a solid grip on her hips.

There's little resistance left between them, not much I'll do it because I want to, not because you tell me to impudence, little need for either to assert themselves in something that works as naturally for them as sex. Danicka fucking turns over, that low and curled-end ponytail still over one shoulder, the back of her neck mostly bared to him. She looks at his pillow and headboard, now, not him, though she knows that creature in the dark is coming up behind her and over her, feels him reaching for her cunt before anything else, groaning against her shoulder.

"Don't make me wait, baby," she whispers, turning her head to one side, catching him in the periphery of her vison. "Don't fucking make me wait, I'm almost there."

Danicka squirms back against him, against his hand, physically and unabashedly demanding him. She rubs her ass and her cunt against his body, her back a clean, subtle arch glittering where the lamplight refracts of her sweat. When Lukas slides back into her she pushes herself onto him harder, her head turned, her profile open-mouthed and brow furrowed.

Lukas is biting her. Danicka is fucking him, before he can get his wits about him to swing his hips the first time, and the bedsprings protest that this is not how it's to be, this is not how it goes, what are they doing to each other up there?

"Nekončí!" she pleads, whimpers, prays. "Jestliže jste přestal budu křičet."

[Lukas] Nekončí! she tells him, and the sudden grind of her hips back against his, the turn of her head and the word that whimpers out of her mouth makes his teeth lock down on her shoulder again.

"God," he says, muffled, and she says she'll scream if he stops and his hand between her legs simply moves to cup her lower abdomen, to shift her hips suddenly. He slides that much deeper. He groans again into her flesh, and then his hand is following her body up, up to her breasts.

One arm wrapped around her chest, her left breast cradled in his right hand, he starts to move against her. He doesn't stop. He braces himself over her and starts to fuck her, fucks her with short, sharp swings of his hips that rapidly spirals into ferocious, grinding thrusts of his entire body. His chest rubs over her back as he fucks her; he clasps her against him, holding her close, as though she were precious to him, as though he would protect her from --

everything

-- and all the while he's pounding her like that, like she isn't breakable, like he can't hurt her, like there's no reason, none at all, to hold back. Her left breast is still in his hand. It's still cradled, held firmly; her heart is hammering against the heel of his palm. Her right breast rests just over the corded line of his forearm, and when he moves into her hard, which is the only way he's moving into her now, the impact transduces up her body, bounces her breast against his arm.

Mine, he thinks. Mine, mine, mine. Ona patří ke mně.
And then, Já patří k její.

"Kiss me." It's a growl in her ear, soft, but a growl. "Dej tvůj paže kolem můj krku a polib mě." Whether or not she turns he kisses her: presses a sucking, nipping kiss to the tender skin beneath her ear, behind her jaw, where her pulse beats.

"Chci abys polib mě když ty přijdu."

[Danicka] Lukas is a monster. The moon's going to be gone soon, the solstice is almost upon them, and right now the chances of him losing control are almost nil. Sometimes, compared to the nights when his birth moon is in the sky, crescent and new moons are surreally free for them. She can growl and even if it arouses some bestial response in him, he doesn't feel the urge to rip her throat out. She opens herself to him and he does not have to think constantly about that sheer, fatal dropoff between control and frenzy.

Even now, when the moon's full, it's hardly safe for him to be around her, when she acts the way she does. She tells him no, or bares her neck, or bends over the bed and he can smell her and feel her and it's sometimes, still, almost too much. Danicka knows he's a monster. Even in the body he was born to, his hands holding her hips are strong enough to crush bone, and she can feel that strength humming in him like electricity. She can hear it in his breathing, hear his restraint, almost hear the tick-tock mantra

slowly

carefully

gently

that he doesn't always listen to, anyway. That she bites out of his thoughts with her gasping, with her moans for more, with her legs tightening around him to pull him deeper, with the way she tells him oh, fuck me, fuck me harder Lukáš you bastard. He tries to remember; Danicka urges him to forget.

Her body encircled by one arm, framed by another, Danicka swivels her hips back against her lover and their flesh makes soft smacking noises the higher they get, the faster they go, the more they sweat and the louder Lukas groans, struggling now to keep them quiet --

-- or not struggling. Danicka isn't. He's not covering her mouth and she's crying out as he slams into her. He knows those sounds, those sharp whimpers of a vowel: oh or ah as she gets closer to that tipping point where everything is a brief second of levitation before the fall. Whoever the fuck is next door or in the hallway can hear her, can hear what he's doing to her, and Danicka doesn't care, she wants them to know she likes it, she doesn't feel a shred of guilt for the way each note sharpens, hardens, reaches for the same thing her body is.

He growls and kisses her neck. Danicka lets out a long, loud moan and twists, her arm folding behind his head. She grabs him by the hair and kisses him, opens her lips and pours the rest of the sound into his mouth, her orgasm breaking like a wave, pulling at him like an undertow.

[Lukas] The last time they were here, fucking, he covered her mouth at the desk. She bit his fingers and licked them, tasted herself on them, moaned into his hand with a sort of abandon that was almost relief.

The last time they were here, fucking, he didn't cover her mouth in bed. He couldn't even hold his own tongue. He gasped aloud; moaned aloud. He fell into her and she shattered around him like a frozen tree, like the branches of some winter tree laden with icicles, brittle and fragile, broken into a thousand pieces by a single, sharp blow:

He doesn't love her. He never did.

Which was not the truth then; is not the truth now. But it might have been, and that broke her; and a few weeks later, he thought she made him weak, which was not the truth then or now, but might have been. And that broke him. And broken, and mended, and broken, and mended, they're here again, and this time, this time --

apart from that first, abortive attempt, his fingers caging her mouth, he hasn't tried to hush her again. When she starts to cry out like that, ah-ah-ah, the thought flickers through his mind thatMaija is next door, fucking hell, Gael is next door, and he should have the good grace, the courtesy, the basic politeness to not let the whole fucking second floor know that ...

that he's fucking her in here.
that she likes it.
that he fucking loves her.

and he can't for the life of him remember why he should hide these these, any of them; what there might possibly be to be ashamed of. He can't remember any of that. She's crying out and even that's something sharp and wild; even that's not quite human, not quite the demure, submissive mask she wears when she's in public and surrounded by the Nation; even the way she whimpers and moans has an edge to it, has teeth and claws, a flicker of something predatory, herself.

Lukas doesn't cover her mouth. His arm tightens around her. He clasps her against him and he hammers into her, and the bedsprings are a cacophony, and she's twisting suddenly beneath him, agile as a cat or a weasel, and her fingers twist into his hair and he knows why; his mouth is seeking hers out, opening to accept the kiss, the sound, the moan she lets out.

Danicka kisses him when she comes, just as he'd asked her to, and he kisses her as she comes, accepts her kiss and builds it and multiplies it until she's shuddering to the end of her orgasm. Her hand is losing its ferocity in his hair. His moves off her breast because if he held her like that now he would hurt her; his hand wraps around her side instead, the whole of her torso wrapped in his arm, and he's eating at her mouth now, biting at her lips and sucking at her tongue. All of a sudden some flint's edge of pleasure strikes the steel of his will -- it sparks, smoulders, catches and takes hold. The bottom drops out from under him. His fingers grasp at the lean flesh of her side. He fucks her so hard the headboard ricochets off the wall with a gunshot report; stills; gasps into her mouth, comes into her cunt.

The kiss falls apart. He's just panting against her mouth now. His chest is moving sharply against her back; he sucks breath after breath in as his cock jumps and jerks inside her, as his hips thrust and buck against her. All that strength, all that control, and he may as well have been reduced to a collection of impulses and reflexes, out of conscious control, out of control. Slowly his mouth drifts past hers. He lowers his head over her shoulder, like one animal bending to another, lets his head hang and his eyes shut.

When he remembers his right hand, his fingers are stiff from clutching her. He pries them loose. Lazily, his hand drifts across her chest, to her shoulder. It smooths down her arm. He sets his hand against the mattress, braced over her on all fours now, trying to catch his breath, trying to remember what it is to breathe, trying not to just fucking die when he rocks his hips against her again, moves inside her, because he's so hypersensitive now that even that, even so gentle and gradual a motion makes him gasp. He doesn't care. He moves anyway, because if he doesn't move inside her like this he might just fucking die too.

[Danicka] Long before that car ride at the crest of dawn, with questions and recriminations seething in the air between Ahroun and Kinfolk, Danicka knew in her marrow before she knew in her mind that she wanted him to know the truth. So over and over again she refused to give it to him, and over and over again she disobeyed herself. She cried out in Czech while she rode Sam Modine, not knowing it would make him try to find something to do with himself that would not make him want to put his packmate's head through a wall.

She told him, when he asked, that she did that because she wanted him. Told him she didn't want Sam, because he asked, and that was the truth: she never really wanted Sam. She wanted to fuck, and he was a sure thing, and she wanted to fuck in a way she never had before, but even though he knows he's her first boyfriend and damn sure the first werewolf she would call a boyfriend at all, he does not know or need to know that that idiotic Fenrir was the first Garou to ever take her to bed.

Lukas doesn't know if he will be the last. He knows that when he dies, he wants Danicka to tell his family. Implicit, whether he intended this or not, is the idea that in one way or another she will be a part of his life until his life ends. That when she dies, she will still mean something to him, enough so that he wants his family to know. And he may not realize about himself, what Danicka saw so clearly in the words:

when there is nothing left he can give to his family, protection or honor or love, he can send a message to them. I loved, and I was loved. I knew this feeling, finally.

But he may not realize how important that will be to them, to know that.

Danicka wants Lukas to know: I'm glad you did well. And she wants him to know: I can't handle thinking about you dying. She wants him to know: I trust him; he doesn't lie to me. Sometimes she comes at these things sideways, sidling up to him and allowing him, after awhile, to hold out his hand and touch her hair, follow her body with his palm. But she does want him to know the truth, when she is not warring against an equal and often even stronger urge to deny him that very thing.

Right now, though.

Oh, right now.

It is all right if Lukas knows everything. It is safe, for him to cover her body like this and see and feel the way she trembles in the wake of her orgasm. It's all right. He can listen to her breathing; she doesn't have to hide from him that she liked that, that she wanted it, that she was thinking about getting fucked when she got on the subway and headed towards the edge of town, right up to the edge of the lake. Danicka's ribs are pushed out as she breathes, and his chest presses against her back; their skin sticks and then peels away.

They are ragged and worn through. Their mouths cannot hold one another any more than they could cling to sanity a few seconds ago, coming together, coming one after the other. She doesn't care, right now, if she never fucks another person in her life. She doesn't care if she ever leaves this room. Right now, she doesn't want to so much as leave his arms.

She rocks with him, curls her hips and makes a small, almost keening sound behind her lips as they move together. Her head tilts back, rubs against his shoulder, his neck, his jaw. Her eyes are closed. She nuzzles him blindly, primally, this male who would be her mate if it were not the thin chance that such a thing --

that she

-- could be taken away from him. She growls softly in appreciation, the sound rattling in her throat and brushing up against set teeth. "Tak kurva dobře," she purrs.

[Lukas] Every last fiber in Lukas's body wants to simply collapse right now. Simply wrap his arms around Danicka and collapse onto her, onto his narrow bed, onto the pillows and the rumpled sheets and blankets, into sleep. Wants to sleep for a hundred years or more and never let her go. There's a moment where his bracing hand is moving, the elbow unlocking; a moment where he might've done just that, or gave it his best shot.

It passes. The muscles of his back tense; he straightens up instead, and when he wraps his arms around her middle he pulls her back against him, keeps her against him as he sits back on his heels. Blindly he moves against her, the tip of his nose nudging behind her ear, into her hair, against her neck. His mouth presses to her skin there, at the juncture of neck and shoulder; then up along the tendon to the angle of her jaw. Gently, his teeth catch at the lobe of her ear, and then gentler still, on the cartilage.

They nuzzle each other like animals, shamelessly, with total and slow abandon. His arms are hot and unyielding around her. He holds her against him, holds her back firmly against his chest and her bottom nestled against his groin; holds himself inside her still as though to separate now would be ...

... unthinkable.

"Mmm," he agrees. At least it sounds like agreement. It sounds like satisfaction, and satiation, which is exactly what it is. His eyes are closed. Time passes. Breathing slows. His heartbeat is a second rhythm in her chest, pounding straight through his ribcage, straight through her spine. It's slowing, too.

His hands are exploring her now, the left secure around her, the right drifting down to sweep her abdomen, and then her thigh. When he touches her between the legs he's very careful, mindful of her sensitivity; but he touches her all the same, in delicate strokes of his fingertips, and then in a firmer, warmer cupping of his palm.

"Jsi úžasná," he murmurs. And he bites at the line of her jaw again, softly.

[Lukas] Every last fiber in Lukas's body wants to simply collapse right now. Simply wrap his arms around Danicka and collapse onto her, onto his narrow bed, onto the pillows and the rumpled sheets and blankets, into sleep. Wants to sleep for a hundred years or more and never let her go. There's a moment where his bracing hand is moving, the elbow unlocking; a moment where he might've done just that, or gave it his best shot.

It passes. The muscles of his back tense; he straightens up instead, and when he wraps his arms around her middle he pulls her back against him, keeps her against him as he sits back on his heels. Blindly he moves against her, the tip of his nose nudging behind her ear, into her hair, against her neck. His mouth presses to her skin there, at the juncture of neck and shoulder; then up along the tendon to the angle of her jaw. Gently, his teeth catch at the lobe of her ear, and then gentler still, on the cartilage.

They nuzzle each other like animals, shamelessly, with total and slow abandon. His arms are hot and unyielding around her. He holds her against him, holds her back firmly against his chest and her bottom nestled against his groin; holds himself inside her still as though to separate now would be ...

... unthinkable.

"Mmm," he agrees. At least it sounds like agreement. It sounds like satisfaction, and satiation, which is exactly what it is. His eyes are closed. Time passes. Breathing slows. His heartbeat is a second rhythm in her chest, pounding straight through his ribcage, straight through her spine. It's slowing, too.

His hands are exploring her now, the left secure around her, the right drifting down to sweep her abdomen, and then her thigh. When he touches her between the legs he's very careful, mindful of her sensitivity; but he touches her all the same, in delicate strokes of his fingertips, and then in a firmer, warmer cupping of his palm.

"Jsi úžasná," he murmurs. And he bites at the line of her jaw again, softly.

[Danicka] Blasted in the wake of that which is worth it, worth everything to them -- and it's not a guess, they've said it, in murmurs or snaps, more than once -- Lukas curls back, pulling Danicka onto him. And she goes, her back leaning to his chest, her head turning til she presses her brow against his temple, or his forehead. Her eyes are closed so she gentles to him by touch and smell, a sense of warmth and scent of his sweat, his breath.

She thinks of waiting for him in here, and thinks that sometimes she wishes...

... and that's where she stops, unable to consider for long something that terrifies her as much as it tempts her to indulge in fantasy. She thinks I don't really want that. But he is not the only one who goes from coming inside of her to holding her in sleep and thinks that he could get used to this, he wants to get used to this, he is getting used to it despite himself and despite reason and despite the fact that it only happens every couple of weeks, at best.

Danicka breathes in deeply, breathes out slowly. She shudders when he touches her, lets out a thin whimper, and re-settles when he simply cups his hand over her cunt and holds her. She exhales again, curls of hot air on his cheek or mouth, and nods in... agreement? In an equal but unvoiced compliment? It doesn't matter. She sits on him still, her knees to either side of his, arms limp at her sides, for a few moments.

Then, with a deep intake of air, she peels away from his chest, turns her face from his, and leans forward. She puts her hands on his pillow, dents it, slowly pulls herself off of his cock. Danicka sighs at his withdrawal, slumps downward, and then rolls onto her back, splaying her legs on either side of his hips. She smiles lazily up at him, her right arm folded back, fingertips barely curled against her cheek, her left arm loosely folded over her lower ribs.

"I kind of want more," she confesses, a whisper in the near-dark.

[Lukas] Shadow Lords are an odd breed. A tribe of the ruthless and the cutthroat, the truest acolytes of dominance and hierarchy. The ends justify all means. For the best of the tribe, the ends are noble; for the worst, the ends are selfish. In the long run, the difference between the two is perhaps negligible. The weak are trampled and the foolish are used; they're discarded by the side of the long and bloody road to victory. All of which goes to say, there isn't a whole lot of room for comfort or closeness or affection under Thunder's auspices. Such things could be mistaken for softness. Such things can be twisted against a man, or a wolf; such things can be seen as weakness, and exploited.

Lukas cannot remember many instances when his parents showed open affection to one another, and every last one of them was in the privacy of their own home, far from prying eyes and ears. They were merely kin. Lukas doesn't really ask about Danicka's family, about her parents' relationship, but what little he knows makes it impossible for him to imagine that it was a loving one. Whether or not Night Warder and Miloslav loved one another, were attached to one another, is irrelevant. He doubts they were loving. That they demonstrated it. That they revealed it to one another, like ... like baring one's throat to another. Like rolling on one's back and exposing one's underbelly.

And yet --

And yet in public, the tone between Danicka and Lukas is starkly different. She could not, earlier, imagine him bowing his head to her shoulder like that. She would not have wanted it. He cannot imagine holding her as he did a moment ago, tightly and securely, as though she were a treasure, something to be protected and cherished and never, ever let go of. He cannot imagine nuzzling her like that, closing his eyes to all the world and turning his senses to her, her alone.

He can barely bring himself to embrace her if there's even one member of the Nation about; even if there are none; even if he desperately wants to. She has initiated almost every single true show of affection in public. And he's a Shadow Lord raised in the new world, in new york city, far from the old tribe and the old septs and the old ways. He's a Shadow Lord from a multitribal pack, in a young city with a young caern, and he's this cloistered. This controlled. This restrained.

It makes him wonder sometimes. Lukas wonders what goes on in the bedrooms and the homes of his tribesmen. He wonders if what he has with Danicka is unique, utterly unique, or if there are others like them, other moments like these, privately, behind closed doors, in secret.

He wonders if he's an utter pessimist, or a hopeless idealist, or both.

Danicka stirs, then. She draws away from him and he lets her go, leaning back as she leans forward. Their skin parts from one another's. He plants his knuckles beside his ankles and sucks a slow breath in as she draws herself off of him. As she folds to the bed, rolls, opens her legs to either side of him he relaxes as well, settling into a hip-centered slouch. His left hand comes to her ankle, to her shin, as she opens her legs to either side of him.

There's a casual, familiar intimacy to this. They share one another's space, brush past one another, touch. Her smile is lazy. His is a little quirky. They wear each other's faces.

She might expect him to laugh at her when she confesses to wanting more. And his smile does tilt a little wider, but it's a sort of alert, curious expression -- like an animal listening. He thinks for a moment. Then he looks down to strip off the used condom, tossing it into his wastebasket. In the lamplight, his body gleams with sweat. Each roll and flex of his muscles under his skin is smooth and delineated. He looks at her again, eyes open, expression open.

"Okay," he says, quietly. His smile doesn't change; neither falters nor grows.

What he doesn't tell her is that while he held her in the passing moments, touching her, feeling her breathe against his hands and shift against his body, shift on his cock, he'd thought to himself:

Chci víc.

[Danicka] His questions tend to come out of the blue. His questions come when the moon is heavier and his interest in her sharpens along with his Rage. He asks her things out of nowhere, like an ambush, like making her answer is sort of like winning a battle against her.

Or losing one against himself.

It's unlikely that he'll ask her, tonight or anytime soon, if Night Warder ever showed Miloslav affection, if Miloslav was always the one to initiate contact or if there was any contact to be had outside of the Ahroun punishing the Kin or using him to breed. Danicka does not expect him to ask her: did your parents hug each other? Did she touch his face? Did he lay his hand on the small of her back in passing? But some of the evidence is there, whether he ever asks or not.

Danicka herself is physically affectionate in a comfortable, unselfconscious way. It's unfolded gradually with him, from almost never touching him to things like the way her hand floated up to caress his face when he rested his brow against her shoulder. When he lays in bed with her, this narrow one or her own or some hotel's expansive King size, after sex she runs her fingers through his hair, scritches his scalp, kisses him slowly and softly while their legs tangle. Somewhere along the line she learned, or re-learned, how to communicate affection and intimacy with her touch.

It had to have come from somewhere. If not her family, somewhere.

She knows how to love.

She has to have known love, for that to happen.

In front of everyone, he rarely touches her. She sometimes does. If there are Garou watching they both hold back somewhat. On some level there has to be an awareness of the posibility of loss. Shadow Lords look for weaknesses; do not hand out favors easily. Loving something means you will be hurt if it's taken away, if it's hurt, if it's threatened. If Kin are mere tools then you don't hurt when they're hurt, when they're gone, when they're risked. And he has thought it, if not said it: he wishes to god she were just a body to use, a face to look at. A tool. An adornment.

Not a weakness, or opening, or 'in' for someone to use against him, for his own pack to call him out on when they dislike his behavior. If only she were not more than she seems to be, if only he did not love this about her. If she were not his, half-sprawled on his bed, legs open to him and wearing a feminized, lovely version of his very own satiated, half-tired smile. If only his bed would not smell of her in the morning, if only his room would not smell of sex and comfort long after she leaves it. If only he did not belong to her, belong inside her, belong with her.

Danicka tilts her head a bit on the pillow, rolling it to one side, against her curled fingers. Her lips echo the widening of his smile. She is about to ask What? in a whisper, or the birdline murmur of Co? when he looks down, and she doesn't say it. She watches him -- not his hands but his ducked head, the shadows across his shoulders, and thinks that he looks like a portrait, like a sculpture, like a work of art for one... still... moment. Then his head lifts and she is sighing, the smile on her lips fading to an almost wistful expression, as he says:

Okay.

His smile doesn't change. Hers returns, and spreads into an almost girlish grin. Danicka reaches up, takes hold of the band holding her hair, and pulls it out, lifting her head from the pillow to do so. She puts the band on the night-table, tucks her legs in, and starts to peel off her socks finally, dropping them off the side of the bed. She sits up, kneels on the bed, faces him. He sits on his heels, he slouches, but she is lifted completely on her knees, offsetting the difference in their heights.Her hair is askew around her shoulders, her head tilted up a bit to meet his eyes. Her hands move to the sides of his face, are warm against his skin, are smooth against his newly shaven jaw.

"Víte, jak moc tě miluju?" she asks him: a useless question, a needless one... the most important one.

[Lukas] There are still gaps in Danicka's history. If he looked like a portrait, like a sculpture for a moment in her mind, then sometimes in his mind she's a moving image, an abstract and lovely work of surrealist art, a diagram of a thousand facets, each reflected back through her past.

In that past there are shadows; there are entire stretches that are blank to him. He knows of some of the horrors. He knows where they intersected once, and then again. He knows even some of the seemingly innocuous memories are horrors. He does not know the day he threw up from each kolache, her brother took her upstairs and bruised her for defending him. He does know she fell out of the tree because she couldn't eat because she was too damned stressed by her own mother.

He does not know who taught her to love. Her father, surely; but perhaps not entirely. Because she knows more than the love of one family member to another, a father to a daughter.

She knows how to open herself to him like this, physically and otherwise. She knows how to comfort him, not when he's fraught or distressed, because they are Shadow Lords and Shadow Lords do not seek comfort; not then, but after he comes in her, after he shatters on her, loses himself in her, comes undone. She knows how to hold him together. She knows how to put him back together, and how to move to him like this, and how to put her hands on his face and ask him:

Do you know how much I love you?

She knows how to love.

He covers her hand with his. His palm is broad and warm, faintly calloused. She has never seen him use a weapon, but he knows how, and to great and deadly effect. Of course he knows how. He is one of the warrior class of a warrior race, after all; and part of an extended family that tolerates no weakness whatsoever.

"Vím," he replies; simple.

He's learning how to love.

[Danicka] She started smoking when she was thirteen. She was an old hand at it by the time her mother died. She cried as she packed to move to New Orleans for a period indefinite; she cried because she could not go to college. She cried silently because it was what she had to do, because she did not want her father to hear, because she knew the meaning of her family name as well as she knew how to mold dough by hand around fruit fillings, as well as she knew how to hold a child on her hip with one arm and cook a meal with the other.

She could climb the oak tree in the back yard before the last time she saw Lukas and Anezka. She used to go there when she was an adolescent and drink stolen shots of vodka, stare at the moon, imagine what it would be like not to be tucking other people's children into her bed because their parents were at moots or guarding the moots, rending the Veil or repairing it.

She never locked her door at the Sokolov's either.

She used to close her eyes when he would breathe on the back of her neck and tell her she was not clean enough, to go wash again. She used to marvel that he did not hit her when she closed her eyes. At home, she probably would have been struck.

Danicka's palms mold to his face as though she belongs there. She watches his eyes, blue even though the light is so tinted yellow and so dim. She listens to his voice, murmured now where for a little while they spoke only in groans, in vowels, in her whimpers and his growls. She listens to him find words again, one by one, in two languages. She pulls him to her and kisses his mouth like, perhaps, she would have kissed him when they were young, as she would have kissed him if they had grown up together instead of growing up apart, as she might have kissed him after years of wondering.

So it's slow. And soft. It's almost timid, at first, but then intensifies as though discovery is opening a door, turning on a light, granting courage. She kisses him as though suddenly and without any fair warning, she knows why people ever kiss one another.

And then she is climbing onto him, her thighs opening and her body sliding onto his lap, her lips opening and her tongue seeking his taste. Danicka flows up to him and against him like water rushing up the shore, liable to retreat if some welcoming depression in the earth does not hold it. She moves their bodies back together, where they are meant to be. Her hands slide through his hair. Her arms wrap around his shoulders.

She makes love to him as though they could have died tonight.

Because that is the truth. Every night.