presents.

[Danicka] In the Czech Republic, Christmas Eve is often the more celebrated day. Family comes over. Presents are opened. Rituals both ancient and amusing are enacted, and enormous meals are eaten. Christmas Day is for other things.

But this year, Danicka is not going to her mother's house, her once-home. She is not playing the piano in the living room for Vladislav's pleasure, not scooting over on the bench for him to join her. Both of the slenderly formed, blonde children of Miloslav Musil and Laura Dvorak have long fingers and agile hands. Both of them have a surprising attention to detail and rather analytical minds. Both of them could, very likely, have grown to great skill on any number of instruments. What Danicka knows of the piano was taught to her by her brother, who was taught by their mother.

There is no piano in her apartment, and no piano in the den she now shares with Lukas. He has never heard her play. He knows she can. He also knows things about her past they never talk about, things he doesn't ask about and things she seems like she just might not want to talk about. Yet Lukas knows more about Danicka, now, than anyone she has ever met. He knows her more deeply than anyone she has ever let look into her eyes.

It's been a few days since the solstice. It's been a few days since he realized: she comes here when he's not there. She comes here for the silence and the solitude and the secrecy of it. She comes here because it's his place, too, and so the feel of him is already seeping into the walls and glinting on the windows. His handprint marks the wall in the first room, beside hers.

It's been a few days since he realized: he would have found his mate warm and safe in their den, if she'd left him in the longhouse on the longest night of the year. She would have still been his.

Danicka sounds slightly winded when she calls him on Christmas Eve at about nine. The sun is long since down; the city growing more still and more quiet than it usually is on a Thursday evening.

"Come home!" she says, breathy but delighted. "I want to show you something." Home, she says. Not 'my place'. There's a difference. There's always been a difference.

When he gets to the little boxy house out in Stickney, there's no Christmas lights strung up in the eaves, but there are candles in the windows. There is a wreath on the door: winterberry, fir, cedar, and skimmia. Some of the downstairs lights are on, the upstairs lit only by flickering candlelight. When Lukas comes in, he can smell evergreen. And koláče. And turkey.

When Lukas comes into the living room, the most notable change is a tree -- a live one -- in the corner. The lights on it are red, the bulbs contained in small glass spheres that diffuse the light and look like berries strung throughout. As far as ornaments go, it's mostly just baubles of various colors and shapes and sizes, though there's a prevalence of white and silver and gold. You could buy it all at any store this time of year. There's no tree skirt but a fleece blanket wrapped around the stand to hide it, and yet:

there's somewhere in the neighborhood of two dozen wrapped gifts piled underneath. And small cream-colored envelopes stuck here and there in the boughs of the tree.

Danicka's voice, then: "Kuchyň!" Which is said in a tone more like: "Pojď sem!"

[Lukas] The word home makes Lukas's heart skip a beat. Every time he thinks of it, driving there, he smiles.

--

The garage is detached, so she doesn't hear the telltale rumble of the door opening. What she does hear is the front dor coming unlocked, and then Lukas's footsteps on the short half-story entry stairway.

It's cold outside; a white christmas. There are a few specks of snow on his shoulders and in his hair, quickly melting. He hangs his coat and scarf up in the closet, tosses his gloves atop the old TV as he passes. The smell of the tree fills the living room, spicy and aromatic. He goes to it curiously, crouching to look at the presents underneath; the envelopes caught in the needles.

In the kitchen, koláče and turkey overpowers pine. Lukas comes directly to Danicka, wherever she is, rapping his arms around her waist and bending to kiss her softly at the neck, first; then the mouth.

"Jsem doma," he says, completely without wryness or mockery. There's a quiet tenderness there, and a pleasure in saying the words.

He holds her another moment. Then, letting go, he starts looking for the koláče he can smell. Over his shoulder, "Proč existuje tolik dárky pod stromeček?"

[Danicka] There's this blessing, too: no Christmas music playing. The television is off, so A Christmas Story is not playing on loop on TBS, muted or not. There are no names on the envelopes in the boughs, no labels on the gifts. They are all, presumably, for him. Danicka's sweater is sitting on the rocking chair, dark green and soft.

Danicka has the oven open and is basting a turkey. It's a lot of meat for two people, even if it's barely eight pounds. She's wearing an apron, of the same plain style he's seen her wear in her apartment. This one is red, though. Her hair is twisted up in a clip, tendrils held back with a couple of smaller barettes. She's dressed casually, in jeans and socked feet and a thin, plain white t-shirt.

She looks over her shoulder at him when he comes in, smiling. She stands, closing the oven again, setting baster aside and quite simply welcoming him into her arms, wrapping them around his neck and receiving one kiss, giving the other back. Danicka laughs when he starts to let her go, looking for the koláče. They're on a pair of cooling racks on the counter, covered now with tea towels. There are differences in the kitchen: she's brought a rolling butcher's block counter for the corner between stove and wall, an extra surface to work on. There's no knives. There is, however, a rack installed above another counter where 4 mugs hang: two straight-sided and black, two curved like bowls and white bursting with yellow flowers.

A small flowered mat on the floor in front of the sink.

Towels hanging from fridge and oven bars, yellow and white checkered.

There is a large steel bowl on the butcher's block, contents steaming. Danicka reaches over and grabs his forearm as he looks for the pastries, jerking her head at the bowl. "Nope. You're mashing potatoes.

"And," she answers, lapsing easily back into English as she walks over to the stove and checks on what smells like some form of dark green vegetable boiling there, "because it is Christmas Eve and Baby Jesus brought you presents. I told him it was your birthday tomorrow but he said he didn't have time to bring any others, so I got some for you, too."

[Lukas] Lukas laughs aloud, redirected to mashing potatoes -- which is a task he undertakes with the sort of eager glee that, in truth, one only sees in those who don't cook regularly.

He watches her, though, eyes following her as she goes to check on the vegetables, smiling when she answers him. Mashing potatoes is not a job that requires much attention or accuracy. He works methodically, crushing boiled potatoes with the crusher, if they have one, and with a large fork if they don't.

"You didn't have to get me so many, baby," he replies quietly. "But thank you."

When she's finished with the vegetables, he nods her over. "Come here," he says. And if she does, he doesn't stop mashing, but steps in beside her all the same, their bodies side by side, pressing together; the steady flexing of his arm and back a soothing rhythm against her.

"My parents never really told me about Santa or Baby Jesus or anything." There's no reason or agenda for this; he merely gives this to her as a piece of his past. Something she missed. Something they missed of one another.

"I heard about it at school," he goes on, "but I never really believed any of it. I still liked the presents, though." His grin is a quick, flitting thing. "Even if I only ever got one a year. Supposedly it was one big present instead of two little ones, but when you're a child, quantity means more than quality."

A beat.

"And maybe that's why there are twenty presents under the tree, huh?"

[Danicka] There is, in fact, a potato masher sitting beside the bowl. Softened butter on a small plate. No cream or milk in sight, but then, it wouldn't be there. And he might not think to use it. Danicka, quite obviously, cooks a great deal more than Lukas does -- and even that isn't much. Usually it's for him. He might think she cooks more often just because she does when he's there, feeding him because she cannot always protect him.

They are Yukon Gold, for what that's worth. Fluffy, yellowish, boiled to the point that they fall apart as Lukas crushes them in the bowl.

The vegetables checked on, Danicka is moving to untie her apron when Lukas thanks her, and she smiles. She could tell him why she got so many, but instead she listens. The apron is hung on a brass hook by the door leading to the backyard -- another new installation. She wipes her hands on a towel then, walking over and standing not beside him but behind him, wrapping her arms around his waist. The towel goes flipped over her left shoulder. Her cheek goes to his back. She holds him while he works.

"Hmm," she says when he informs her that his parents never trafficked in the pretty cultural lies surrounding midwinter celebrations. "I never believed in Baby Jesus either," she says. "Or Santa, but I pretended to for awhile."

Pieces. Differences.

"Twenty-three under the tree," she corrects gently, and rubs her face slightly against his back. "But that's mostly because I'm indecisive and I've never gotten you a gift before."

[Lukas] That makes Lukas momentarily sad; that as children, he relished the spoils of the season and ignored the reason while she ... pretended to believe what the other children did.

It doesn't surprise him, though. And though he takes his hand from the bowl to cover hers over his midsection briefly, he doesn't say anything.

He likes it when she holds him like this while he's working, though he can only think of one other time. That was at her apartment, a long time ago; when Martin lived with her. When Martin had his heart attack. When he slept in her bed the first time, and she made him koláče, and he made ham and grilled cheese sandwiches.

She didn't hold him very long, then. This time she holds him longer, and nuzzles the center of his back, between his shoulderblades, over his heart. And he draws an inhale.

"You have," he replies. "Sort of. One year we went to your house for Christmas. Your father made me a toy soldier. Articulated joints and everything. You tied the bow on it." He smiles; she can hear it in his voice. "It was a very well-tied bow."

[Danicka] She pretended to believe what the others did. She pretended to believe what she was told, thinking it would please those doing the telling. She could see through a lie even as a child, though truth be told, most children can until they're taught that this is rude. Danicka has never lost that innate skill for reading others, for knowing when they are pretending to be other than they are. In fact: she's gotten better, and better, with time.

This story makes her laugh, makes her pull back gently, hands sliding over his stomach to his waist. She steps back. "I don't even remember that." A pause. "I remember the soldier. And the little dollhouse, for Anežka."

She smiles gently, steps back, and steps around him to put the towel over her shoulder on the counter. Her steps move to the fridge, opening it to get out a small carton of table cream. "But that was not to you from me. This is different."

[Lukas] When Danicka starts to draw back, Lukas reaches down to catch her hand, bring it to his mouth. He kisses her palm once, softly, then curls her hand in his; presses it to the center of his chest. A moment goes by. Then he releases her.

"This is different," he agrees, and goes back to mashing.

She comes back with cream; he stops to let her pour it. And then, on a whim, he dips his fingers in the bowl, sucks cream and potatoes off his fingers. Gets to work again, churning cream into potatoes.

"Don't tell your dad," Lukas says, grinning, "but Anežka didn't play with the dollhouse much. 'Borrowed' my soldier all the time though."

[Danicka] There's a smile, and a moment of pretended shock when he dips his finger into the bowl to taste. But it's not an issue of sanitation: "They're not even salted yet," she chastises him, and adds that and pepper while he's mixing.

"Oh, I'll take that secret to my grave, I promise you," Danicka says dryly, peering over. "He probably doesn't remember anyway. That looks about done."

She smiles at him. "Are you hungry?"

[Lukas] "Starving," he replies, with a laugh. There are globs of potatoes clinging to the masher, which he flicks off by tapping it against the side of the bowl. Then he hands her the bowl of mashed potatoes for her to garnish as she will, going instead to peer inquisitively at the turkey; the vegetables.

"Baby," he says, "you didn't have to do all this. But I'm happy you did."

[Danicka] Green beans on the stove; a dish of cut, raw sweet carrots. Turkey so close to coming out of the oven that the scent of it is mouthwatering. Danicka goes to the cupboards and starts taking down plates: they are, like the mugs, a mix. Some are square and black and gleaming. Others are round and white with explosions of abstract yellow floral, splashes of color. It turns out, as she moves around the kitchen, that she's brought napkins and silverware here. Danicka's been shopping. The knife block on the counter is the same one from her apartment; it does not seem permanently placed.

He'll know in a few days that she wanted nicer knives for this place, that she bought them and watched them ruined by contact with protrusions of warped bone. He'll know that this, for some reason, is as upsetting to her as the fact that she had one goddamn bullet left in her gun when the leeches died. And that she thought, over and over:

I'm going to die I'm going to die I'm going to die that was so stupid.

Wine glasses. A corkscrew. She smiles over at him. "Do you mind setting the table and carving the turkey? I'd just like to go wash up before we eat."

It is all... a bit picturesque. Small, modest house. Two chairs at the table, together at the corner. There's no tablecloth, no runner, just emptiness waiting for food. Danicka has done things with the kitchen, bought a tree and set it up, added books and computer to the upstairs and some clothes, but she's never eaten with Lukas in the dining room before. She's never cooked a complete meal and had him eat it. She's never been this domestic in her life out of sheer will to be so, rather than expectation.

And yet she doesn't seem giddy over it, or deeply pleased with herself. She seems so comfortable with it that it aches, so at ease in this role that he knows is not, could never be, the entirety of her.

But it is a part. And not an act. Not solely a role being played.

"And if you want, you can pick a gift to open first at dinner." She grins. And laughs, making sure the stovetop burners are off and exiting the kitchen.

[Lukas] When Lukas first saw Danicka --

well. No. When Lukas first saw Danicka in his adult life, at SmartBar, at 1:20am, with Gabriella, he saw a beautiful, cosmopolitan woman with a

[Lukas] (shit!!)

[Danicka] [I SAW NOTHING.]

[Lukas] When Lukas first saw Danicka --

well. No. When Lukas first saw Danicka in his adult life, at SmartBar, at 1:20am, with Gabriella, he saw a beautiful, cosmopolitan woman with a certain urban edge; a certain ease in amidst the crowds of clubbers, the walls of bass. He saw a woman whose smile could be a brilliant flash, but was demure and submissive to him because he was a Garou. He saw a woman whose beauty could easily be vicious, could cut with its intensity, but did not that night because

she was taking care of the younger girl with her.

He did not, however, see a woman that he would've expected in a million years to bake him koláče after fucking him all night. A woman he would've expected to buy and decorate a tree; to roast a turkey; to prepare an entire Christmas meal for him not because he expected it of her, not even because this is who she is, but because this is part of who she is. And part of what this is, between them.

The domesticity of this, the unassuming normalness of it all, aches in his chest. He catches her before she goes, taking her by the hand and reeling her back, gathering her close to kiss her mouth gently, gently, and to sway against her a second, brow to hers.

Then, soft as the kiss:

"Děkuji vám, Danička."

[Danicka] Appearances aside, Danicka was also hitting on the younger girl with her. It wasn't even a matter of actual attraction so much as a certain perverse pleasure in the thought of sexualizing the barely-legal Bellamonte, making her enjoy things she'd never even contemplated before. But, like her sister, Gabriella was so disinterested as to be utterly oblivious. So instead: Danicka took care of her. She let her drink a little. She drove her home.

As for the Garou who had interrupted their evening and all but bragged that he was about to go bang some redhead on the dancefloor -- leaving out the if she can stand me, leaving out the if she's weak enough that I can push her -- Danicka knew as soon as he sat down that he was a Shadow Lord, that he was the packmate of Fangs, that he would thenceforth rather likely be her connection to the tribe in this city.

Maybe her guardian.

Maybe an informant to her guardian.

And she knew, shaking his hand, that if he had come onto her, if he had suggested that it would be best for her if she fucked him in some motel or against the bathroom wall or came to his room at the Brotherhood and let him use her, that she would have done it. That she would have recognized the ambient wrongness of it. That a part of her, stronger than she would sometimes like, would have enjoyed pretending to be obedient and submissive and thoughtless underneath him because of that wrongness. And because he would not have been able to tell. Because he would have had her, and never known her, and never really gotten inside.

Not like he is now. Kissing her in a kitchen, bending so he can reach her mouth when she's so much shorter than him, potatoes still a faint taste on his tongue and smelling her face lotion and her shampoo when he rests his head against her... like this, here, Lukas is is more deeply inside of her than any lover she's ever taken, anyone she's ever given permission to know who she is, what she's like.

He knows the parts of her that are wicked and cruel, and he knows the parts of her that are domestic and soft. And he loves.

Everything.

Danicka smiles, eyes closing at his words. "Uložit to," she says, at least half-teasing.

[Lukas] And his mouth quirks suddenly, a grin. "The appropriate response is 'you're welcome'," he says, and opens his eyes, and draws back a little. "Some governess you must've been."

He kisses her again: his mouth to her forehead this time, her skin smooth and soft beneath his lips. There's a faint scratchiness to his chin, his jaw. He hasn't shaved in the last day or so. When he lets her go, and she leaves to wash up, he calls after her:

"Nevím, jak rozkrájet krůta!"

[Danicka] "I am not your governess," she says primly, and starts to wriggle away, a brief wrinkle to her nose at his jaw scratching her brow. She does slip away eventually, because he lets her go, and the next thing he knows of her is the indescribable sensation of impact and sound, neither one really overt, telling him that she's bounding upstairs.

"Pak jsme v jsou prdeli!" she calls back, one can imagine with a dismissive flourish of her hand over her shoulder.

It takes her less than five minutes to come back down, to come back and walk through the arch into the dining room rather than around to the kitchen. She's wearing her sweater, now. Her hair is down. She's still not wearing shoes, but she's washed her hands and splashed water on her face and she entirely expects to find him not trying to figure out how to carve a turkey but stuffing his face with candied orange-filled pastries.

[Lukas] Lukas
Sat 6:05 am
Roll valid
>_>
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 5, 8, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6)

*coughs* wrong room.

[Lukas] Danicka cannot be blamed for thinking Lukas might struggle to carve the turkey. She might even go upstairs expecting to hear meaty thuds as he tries to pound a cleaver through the long bones. She certainly can't be blamed for expecting to find him stuffing his face with pastries.

But when she comes back down, the table is set. The bowl of mashed potatoes is on the table, as are the green beans, the carrots, and, of course, the turkey.

Which is carved. Beautifully. Slices of white meat unfold gracefully away from the right side of the breastbone; slices of dark, from the right thigh. The rest of the bird remains intact, rich basted brown.

Lukas is sitting rather proudly in one of the two chairs. "I lied," he says when he sees her. "I have a black belt in turkey-carving."

There's also a dab of orange filling at the corner of his mouth. He snuck one.

[Danicka] The t-shirt she was wearing before is gone; the V-neck of her sweater dips with nothing but flesh underneath, and she laughs at the sight of him sitting there, ever so pleased with himself. She notices that he's set the place at the head of the table for her, and this means something to her, but she doesn't comment on it.

It means something that every detail of this house was considered with her in mind. Her safety. Her comfort. Her pleasure. That isn't to say that he disregarded his own input or thought entirely, and she wouldn't think so, but Danicka is equally aware that Lukas, thinking only of himself, would have not worked so hard, cleaned so thoroughly, repaired and repainted and furnished with such attention to detail.

This place is theirs. But she has never had a place where she wields such power, where she has such freedom. Danicka notices that he's set her a place at the head of the table, and this strikes her as right. Just as, bizarrely, her luring him into the dark on the summer solstice and mounting him, taking him as her mate, was right. Just as every turn of the traditional order on its head has come naturally to them, has made sense, is okay.

She comes to his side first, though, and touches his hair, and smiles. "You did a very good job," she agrees, and neither wipes his mouth for him nor kisses it from his skin. She leans over to kiss his temple instead, whispers in his ear as her lips start to leave him: "You have filling on your face."

As though they are not in private.

Danicka skirts the corner and seats herself, then. Pours wine for him, for herself. They each serve themselves, pass bowls and plates where necessary. It's a very, very late dinner. Dessert is even later, Danicka running to the kitchen to get a plate of pastries both orange and strawberry for them. It's close to eleven when they're leaning back in their chairs, Danicka's leg entangled against his under the table, through the corner. It's snowing a bit more heavily outside; they can see it through the window behind her. Her eyes are bright from wine and happiness; and she is smiling a great deal. There is some twinge of relief in it all, given what happened on the solstice.

She is relaxed now. She was relaxed before, actually; now she is almost limp, as she reaches over the corner of the table and offers him her hand. Just to hold it. Just to touch. "I want you to open presents," she confesses. And laughs, because it's so blunt, because it's so out there now. Because she's had wine. "I want to watch you."

[Danicka] [*folds only one paw!*]

[Lukas] Neither of them are socially awkward. Lukas pretends humanity and courtesy very well; he can be witty; he probably knows how to make a good toast. Danicka is a master of keeping the conversation going -- of filling in spaces with something a little deeper and more interesting than mere small talk. More than that, they've eaten together before, in public and in private. They've talked of their everyday lives, sharing slices of themselves with one another with more candor and honesty than any mundane dinner party would get.

They don't talk much tonight, though. There's too much food. It's too good. And besides that: they're comfortable in their silences now. Their legs touch under the table. Their hands brush when he passes her the gravy, or when she passes him the potatoes. He smiles at her sometimes, for no reason other than to smile at her.

There's such unconsidered fondness in it. Such quiet intimacy, much like the way he turned his head into her touch when she stroked his hair was intimate.

Eventually dinner winds down. There's still a good half-a-bird left on the table. They finished the first bottle of wine between them, thoughtlessly taking turns pouring; they opened another, which is a third of the way down. Lukas only manages two more koláče, both of them candied orange, and a bite of one of the strawberry ones. When Danicka offers her hand, he takes it, folding her fingers delicately over the curve of his index first. Then more firmly: covering her hand with his, warm.

"All of them?" Lukas's smile is a slow, spreading thing. "Is it midnight yet?"

[Danicka] "You know," she says thoughtfully, "I've never opened presents on Christmas Day. That was always the day for visitors and rest and playing with gifts. We always opened everything on Christmas Eve."

Danicka smiles as she says this, musing aloud about her childhood, her history, the Czech traditions that lingered in her family because the only parent who cared about mortal habits was the parent who was most often present. Miloslav did all the cooking: Danicka speaks of this as they eat, that he taught her how. Miloslav taught her tricks of cleaning to make it go faster and more efficient. Miloslav's mind, once sharp and detailed, gave birth to the attentiveness of his two children. He was, to a degree, a perfectionist about his work, patient with young hands because they were not so practiced.

Sometimes he would show little scars on his fingers from a time when he was not so skilled at his craft, when he'd slip and cut his hand, when he'd have an accident that would nearly take his ability to give his family any kind of income. Danicka reveals in small slices, at dinners and tonight, that her family was not wealthy. They had a house and furnishings because of inheritance from the Dvoraks, a blended line of Czech and Polish and Russian. Day to day life, though was spent carefully considering the price of things, the economy of grocery shopping, the art of negotiation.

Lukas learns: she had no idea how to behave when she first started working for the Sokolovs, how to handle their wealth. She watched them all carefully. She paid more attention at school to the wealthier children, found links and became friends with kids from private schools, learned how to move smoothly in higher ranks of social class. And she did it in a matter of weeks, a couple of months, until the first time she was mistaken for a Fang was before her seventeenth birthday, before she'd been working for the Sokolovs even a year.

And now he learns that in her family, you opened gifts on Christmas Eve.

"We can save the ones for your birthday for after midnight, though," she concedes, and squeezes his hand, starting to push her chair back.

[Lukas] Listening, Lukas holds her hand, his thumb stroking over her knuckles thoughtlessly. He listens to her family traditions, to the conditions she grew up in -- a hazy memory for him now, though at the time he must've thought her wealthy as god to afford such a large house; such nice furniture; such a climbing tree in the backyard.

He listens to how she learned her masks of social graces, and the truth is she can already piece together how he learned his: some from his genteel ancestry; some from his mentor; and some from Edward and Katherine, thoughtlessly privileged scions that they are.

Christmas, he tells her, wasn't really celebrated in his house until he and his sister were well into their school years. And even then, the tree was largely there because their mother thought it was a pretty thing to have. The presents under the tree were rarely a surprise because his parents typically asked outright what they wanted for the holiday. If anything, it was the Kvasnička children who, in mimicry of their classmates and friends, kept the tradition of waiting until Christmas.

Lukas remembers conversations from his childhood:

"Lukášek, if you can't stop looking at the box, you may as well open it and play with it."
"No! I'm waiting for Christmas!"

They were taught frugality from an early age, though; learned it by osmosis and by rote. He can't remember a single time their presents cost more than ten or fifteen dollars. Lukas was allowed to choose a larger present than his sister for his dual holidays, but there was a certain shame associated with greed, and so his gift was usually scarcely more extravagant than Anežka's.

There's no resentment when he tells Danicka this. There is, oddly, a certain nostalgia.

And when she concedes, the corner of his mouth hooks up. He takes her hand more firmly and rises from the table.

"No, let's open them now," he says. And, a little apologetically, "I only got you one present. It's out in the car. Want me to get it?"

[Danicka] She looks slightly caught off-guard as she rises, her hand slipping from his so that she can tuck her chair back in under the table. It's a moment of practicality: if the chair is tucked in, nobody will stub their toe or trip. Danicka thinks as though there are more people here than one preternaturally graceful beast and one woman incredibly aware of her surroundings. It's habit.

It pleases her, oddly, that their earliest teachings had them considering the cost of things, that they were careful with money and other people's money from the start. It pleases her that both of them now uphold a higher standard of living, even to the point of luxurious purchases that may or may not be beyond their means. It pleases her that privately, though, they both come back to those original tenets of economy: he bought the best house in the nicest neighborhood that he could afford but did not throw himself into a financial tailspin to do so. He furnished it from used sources but for the bed. He knew what to spend his money on, what not to. She knew where to look for stylish but very cheap dishes and towels, knows she wants to spend more on things like knives and cookware than decor.

But it surprises her, for some reason, that he mentions a gift. Her eyes follow him as he gets up, her hands on the back of her chair now that she's released his. Then she gives a slow, quirking smile, surprised but quietly happy, a smile that is to him as much a gift as anything wrapped in bright paper. "Thank you, Lukášek," she says softly, warmed.

[Lukas] Whatever he said earlier, Lukas doesn't say you're welcome now, either. Somehow the thought of such formality makes him faintly abashed. Instead, he tugs her close, wrapping his arm around her shoulders and kissing her temple, firmly, on their way into the living room.

"Let me go get it," he says. He leaves his coat where it is, but grabs his keys out of the pocket. It's a quick dash -- his footsteps fading down the short staircase, and then out.

When he comes back in, he's not carrying a gift, per se. He's carrying -- a box. It's not large; a little bigger than the one he'll give her a few days hence, filled with talens to keep her safe. This one's not full of spirit-shards, though. It's dense. It's likely a book. Something else too, though, small, that rattles around the box slightly if she shakes it.

Lukas hands it to her, flushed slightly from the cold and from running through it. Then, one arm around her waist, he lifts her against his side, a brief and unrestrained show of --

happiness, perhaps. and affection. and adoration.

"Come on," he says. "Presents."

[Danicka] Every chance he gets, it seems, Lukas pulls her close. Wraps his arms around her, holds her the way he once couldn't, the way he perhaps thought she would not let him. There wasn't even a question, the first night they spent together, of holding her. Sleeping with her. The closest he came was lying behind her, his arm loose and limp over her waist, hand on the bedspread, her feet wriggling underneath his for warmth. And then he wasn't even holding her so much as recovering from fucking her, catching his breath after pulling himself out of her.

She hadn't made a sound that time, hadn't moaned or whimpered or gasped at his withdrawal. She'd breathed carefully, but silently, and held herself back from showing him a hint of what she felt every time their bodies separated.

Even after that, even after they started meeting in hotels or his bedroom or her living room to fuck with a hungry, desperate intensity -- each convinced that it would not and could not last -- embracing each other was a rare and rather hesitant thing. Danicka holds him randomly even now, sometimes with a gentle quietness. Sometimes with sharp vulnerability, clinging to his chest as though one or both of them are close to death. And yet still, so often, she holds herself back. She refuses to show affection as though it will reveal some weakness in herself, as though to let him know

I missed you

I worry about you

I need you

will leave her exposed and open to all kinds of abuse and hurt.

Not always. Sometimes, as in the kitchen, it comes easily. She holds him without fear, without consideration, without anything but desire followed by fulfillment. She is inconsistent. She always has been. There's a lack of tension about it in her these days though, less fear that it will lead to hatred, less pressure to have to explain herself to the one person permitted to see just how different she can be on a given day, to a different group of people.

So:

Lukas steps her around the corner of the table and wraps her close, kisses the side of her head, keeps his arm there as they exit into the living room. And Danicka leans into his side as they walk, matching her pace to his as best she can.

So:

She feels coolness through her sweater when he lets her go to dash out to his car, stops herself from telling him it's cold, take his coat. Laughs when she hears him all but jogging down the stairs to the front door.

So:

She's curled up on the end of the couch when he comes back in, legs tucked up and body turned towards the door, waiting for him. Looking for him as though he was gone longer, as though she's some sort of dog eager for their best friend in the entire fucking universe ever oh my god to come back. And she brightens when he does come in, closing doors behind him to shut out the cold -- and she knows he considered that when he bought it, that the stairway between front door and living room would insulate it better, keep them warmer, keep them safe -- looking eagerly at the gift she seemed so surprised to hear about a minute ago.

Danicka takes it, but does not open it. She sets it on the coffee table and stands up on the cushions so that, when Lukas wraps his arm around her waist and lifts her to him, she's well more than head and shoulders above him, grinning down at him, legs against his front and hands on his shoulders as they were on the back of her chair in the dining-room-for-two. Danicka laughs. Presents. She laughs again.

She slides down when he lets her. Wraps her arms around his waist. Embraces him as she sometimes does, sudden and tight and delighted as an animal or a child or any number of wild things she could be compared to.

Kisses his chest through his shirt, chuckles before she pulls away. "The ones under the tree are birthday gifts," she specifies. "The ones on the tree are Christmas gifts. So you can open the Christmas gifts first. Because it's not your birthday yet."

[Lukas] Even without his coat, Lukas is in layers tonight: a zip-collared pullover, some heat-retaining synthetic material, charcoal grey; an undershirt beneath in an unlikely shade of bright yellow. She can still feel his heartbeat beneath his clothes. He can still feel her kiss him, and inhales at it.

Then she's pulling away, and he's leaning over to grab two of the sofa cushions, tossing them to the floor in front of the tree. "Okay," he says, amenable to her ever-changing rules.

A long time ago, though Danicka herself is not aware of this, she came within a coin's toss of a being possessed by a spirit of the Wyld, old and powerful, drawn to her by her innate affinity to that same aspect of the Triat. Strange that between the two of them -- the werewolf and the kin -- she's the one that's less predictable, more spontaneous. Early on it confused and angered him; made him think she was playing some sort of game. How do you reconcile yourself? he asked her.

She told him about children and pets. And how she was neither.

Near the tree now, the dozens of lights amongst the boughs casts a faint ruddy hue back on Lukas. He reaches out quite at random and plucks down a handful of cards, then sits down to open them. It's not a coincidence that the two cushions are placed very close. And that he sits facing the other, so that she can sit near him, or in front of him, leaning back against his chest.

[Danicka] There are more birthday gifts than Christmas gifts, though truth be told: it's all the same day. It's all a mountain of presents, in the end, more than he ever received as a child, more than have been focused at him all at once. Danicka can be excessive, can be uncontrolled, and she all but bounds over to the second cushion, sitting down on it to face him. She's cross-legged, straight-backed, gleaming in her smile.

There aren't too many of the cards in the boughs, really. And a few of them have gift cards: a coffee shop, a bookstore, iTunes, Home Depot. There's a thin sheet of wood turned into a bookmark, abstract designs burnt into it. One envelope just has a wallet-sized photograph of Danicka. Its edges are worn, and the girl herself -- because she was a girl then, eighteen and straight-haired, even thinner and less curved than now -- is in front of a boring, everyday background. She looked graceful even then, wearing a boat-necked black shirt with three-quarter sleeves and a pair of flare-legged jeans, seated on an assortment of blocks, her arms wrapped around her knees, a charm bracelet dangling from one thin wrist.

She was a senior. And he knows that by then she'd already been conscripted to work for the Sokolovs, she'd already been told she was being moved to New Orleans because of their panic over 9/11. He knows she'd already had a miscarriage by then. She looks older than eighteen, just as she looks older than twenty-five now.

Something he missed.

There's also a couple of subscription slips, the address typed onto them giving his first and last name but telling him the magazines -- Smithsonian and National Geographic -- will be sent to the den, rather than the Brotherhood.

And a copy of her college transcript so far, folded into an envelope. She's not through with her first year yet, but she's maintaining a 4.0 GPA. She looks thoroughly pleased with herself when he opens that one.

[Lukas] There are so many gifts. It's more than he's ever received at once as a child; more than he's ever received at once as an adult; maybe more than he ever received, period. Lukas doesn't tear through them greedily. If anything, he's a little hesitant, lingering over each, studying the gift cards, the bookmark.

The photograph makes his smile turn a little aching. Because he missed this. Because she was so thin. Because it would be years and years between the girl in the picture and the woman he met in SmartBar.

"Tell me about the Sokolovs someday," he says quietly. "Tell me about New Orleans."

The subscription slips make his smile return, though. He's happy she's having them sent to the den, just as he's happy they have colorful, whimsical plates and pans; sturdy utensils; a bed, a shower curtain, a live christmas tree.

When he sees her transcript, he laughs. He isn't surprised. He folds it carefully, slips it back into the envelope with her old photograph folded within. Then Lukas leans forward, but not to kiss her.

Just to nuzzle against her face; her cheek and her temple. And he closes his eyes for a moment.

"I'm proud of you," he murmurs.

[Danicka] So it takes time, for all the cards to be opened. For future shopping trips to stack up beside him on the floor. She remembers seeing his iPod once at the aquarium, and she knows there's likely still work to be done on the den and explains, almost hesitantly, that maybe they could have a little bit of a garden in the back, or just keep the money on the card in reserve for repairs. The bookmark she just saw and thought it was nice, thought of him.

When he gets to the picture and tells her she should tell him about the Sokolovs and New Orleans, a brief but aching expression crosses her face. She nods, though, says just as softly: "Yeah. Okay."

Nine years of her life were spent with the Sokolovs. Not as long was spent in New Orleans, but she'd never been away from home, away from Shadow Lords, away from the constant eyes of those who watched her for any mistake, any lie. New Orleans changed her, in a hundred different ways. She doesn't sound like she doesn't want to.

It just doesn't sound like those memories are, overall, any happier than most of her others.

But perhaps he knows that.

She beams softly when he nuzzles her, tells her he's proud. It's closer, much closer, to midnight now. It's taken over half an hour to get through all the cards, because Lukas took his time, because they had words over each. She nuzzles him back, smiling. "I am, too."

Her eyes drift to the wrapped boxes under the tree. "I know it's not midnight yet," she whispers, "but if you want to sneak one I'll pretend I didn't notice."

[Lukas] The smile that spreads over Lukas's face then starts small; grows slow and warm. Then he laughs aloud.

"Ne," he quotes himself, nearly twenty years later, "já čekám na Vánoce."

Then Lukas nods at the small box, meager compared to the piles on and under the tree. "Open yours," he says, smiling.

[Danicka] This compromise, clearly, pleases Danicka. She all but hops up to go back to the coffee table and pick up her box, gleefully carrying it back and dropping back down onto her cushion in front of the tree.

Her hair reflects red lights, glimmers of reflections off of ornaments. She licks her lips and undoes whatever wrapping there is, if any, even if it's just a bit of tape holding the lid down. "What is it what is it what is it," she muses aloud, the words taking on a childlike rhythm. She peers inside.

[Lukas] Somehow, Lukas can't imagine Danicka chanting quite like that as a child. He can't imagine her showing her glee and excitement aloud. He has vague memories of running through her house, shouting or shrieking; he has no memories whatsoever of Danicka making a similar din.

Even when she fell out of a tree, she didn't cry.

That's not what Lukas wants to think about right now, though. He watches her with the box instead, smiling faintly, leaning back on his hands with his legs crossed indian-style atop his cushion. There's no wrapping; there's no tape either, but the box is the sort that has tabs inserting into the sides, which must be pulled loose before the top can be lifted like a clamshell.

Lukas bites the insides of his lips for a moment while she examines the contents. There's a book, first; that much is expected. It's actually one quite familiar to her: The Collected Poems of Ted Hughes, though this copy has a different cover. It's new, a hardback fresh from Borders or Barnes and Noble or perhaps some local bookstore, the bindings tight, the pages smelling of ink and paper.

"To replace the other one," Lukas explains.

There's also something else in there, and Lukas is quiet now, watching with a sort of nervous anticipation that most would reserve for a hidden engagement ring; something of the sort. It's not that, though.

It's a USB drive, an ordinary little Kingston, plastic-shelled, a gigabyte or two of storage space.

Quietly, Lukas interjects, "Want me to get your laptop?"

[Danicka] She has such a potential for happiness. For sheer, all-encompassing delight. The depth of all of Danicka's real emotions is staggering, the perfection of her masks equally unnerving. She learned to lie so well partly because she had so much it was important to hide, so much it was important to keep subdued. Her intensity is part of her vulnerability, just as much as it's part of her strength. She lets him see everything, tonight.

Her eagerness to see what he got for her for Christmas.

How touched she is by the gift of the book, when he has her old one, frayed at the corners and stained in places. She runs her hand over the cover, flips through the pages, smiles tenderly down at it, then at him.

"Thank you," she says, when he explains, and it isn't until she leans forward to kiss him softly on the cheek that she hears the rattle of the flash drive. Danicka blinks, sitting back down, and reaches into the box to take it out. She peers at it in confusion. It isn't big enough to be a special gift, something for her to use that he would hope she'd be impressed by.

She looks at him. And at his question, some awareness dawns, turns rapidly into ravenous curiosity. A somewhat nervous smile touches her lips, curves them. She nods. "Yeah," Danicka murmurs, looking at the drive in her hand, the light reflecting off its sides. "It's upstairs in the study. In the green slipcase on the desk."

[Lukas] Now they're both nervous, which of course makes him laugh. He gets to his knees, leans forward, kisses her again -- not the cheek but the mouth, firmly.

"Be right back."

He pounds up the stairs. She can hear -- and feel -- his footsteps overhead, thumping into the study. When he comes back, he has her laptop, which he hands to her with a sort of quiet, barely-banked eagerness.

Then Lukas drops down on his cushion again, carelessly, comfortably, leaning back on his hands again to watch her puzzle it out.

The USB drive is, indeed, not a special gift; not something that would at all be useful in an emergency. It's missing that je ne sais quoi that marks even the smallest of his talens; a sense of the spirit within that seems to make inanimate objects glow, or quiver, or shimmer, or radiate warmth in the palm of the hand. It really is nothing but a USB drive.

But not an empty one.

When Danicka plugs it into her computer, she finds three folders within, labeled October 2009, November 2009, and December 2009.

In each folder are literally dozens of video files, compressed into MPG format. Each bears a date. Some days have more than one; some days are skipped altogether. By and large, though, nearly every day has a single recording. Some are short, only a few seconds. Some are minutes long. When she opens one -- or several -- they're all of Lukas. In most, he's on his back in his bed at the Brotherhood, and it's nighttime. In some, he's elsewhere: cafes, restaurants, clubs; the deep wild. Sometimes the sun is in his face. Sometimes it's snowing behind him. Sometimes he's in his car, and it's morning, and she can see the W behind him, or her apartment.

"I wrote my parents a letter today," he says in one. "I still haven't told them about you, but I think my mom suspects." He laughs. "She keeps asking-without-asking, you know what I mean? Anyway..."

And in another:

"I should go get an oil change tomorrow. And go to Charles Schwab. Talk to Chuck. I hate those commercials. Do you remember the ones they had a few years ago where eminently annoying, rotoscoped people talked to each other about Charles Schwab? Was that Charles Schwab? Maybe it was TD Waterhouse."

And:

"It is freezing out here! Why aren't I indoors? I'm going indoors."

And:

"I just left your place. I miss you already."

And:

"It's four thirty .... " (he looks offscreen) "two a.m. And I miss you."

And:

"I had to clean up the most disgusting wyrmling today. It was even worse than the worms -- did I tell you about the worms? I'm going to tell you..."

And:

"I just came home from a night out with the pack. And I miss you."
"I wanted to call you, but I think you're sleeping because tomorrow's Tuesday. I miss you."
"I love you."
"I miss you."

The first one is dated October 11th.

"Hi, Danička," says the Lukas on her computer screen. "It occurred to me that we don't see each other very often, and I miss you much more than I see you. So ... here's a little bit of the time we spent apart."

Beside her, Lukas, nervously watching her watch, speaks up quietly.

"I tried to make one every night we were apart," he says. "I was going to send them to you at the end of every month, but ... Christmas was just around the corner. So I waited."

[Danicka] Downstairs, Danicka waits with the USB key, turning it over and wondering what's on it. To her, a special gift would be a drive with as much storage space as a decent hard drive. That would be impressive, that would be suited to her way of computing, which involves multiple pieces of machinery for various purposes and destinations. The laptop in the green slipcase, for instance, is her MacBook, all slim and white and with its glowing apple on the lid.

It's off when he finds it, and when he brings it down, so they have to wait a few seconds while it powers up and another few seconds while she plugs in the drive and opens it up, her brow faintly furrowed with that same curiosity.

The first file she views is actually the one from October 11th. The first one. The one he made just after he took her as his mate, took her from Vladislav where his only true challenge was extreme restraint in the face of knowing she'd been hurt, knowing she was being shut out, forcing himself to accept the necessity of a sort of surrender in order to keep not just the claim on her but...

...her. Her trust. Her faith in him. Everything.

His voice from her small speakers, then. Danicka breathes in. She watches that first one to its entirety. Then clicks at random, opens file after file, does not always watch them completely. She barely even blinks, her eyes taking in his surroundings, his dress, the look of him from day to day to day to day. And it's only after a few that she begins fighting tears, obviously and valiantly, her breath shuddering in her nostrils and her throat, her slender body quivering slightly with the effort.

"I miss you," he's saying again on her laptop screen, as she turns to him, setting it down on the cushion and taking his face in her hands, kissing the words -- the explanation -- out of his mouth as she starts crying. Kissing him again. And again. Laughing softly, but still weeping. The feel of the tears is entirely different tonight than it was when he first brought her here, showed her the den.

There is so much they cannot have.

So much they missed.

She's given him a photograph. He's given her night after night that she could not see him, did not talk to him, wasn't sure if he was okay or if he was warm or if he was thinking about her as constantly and achingly as she was thinking about him. So Danicka can't stop kissing him.

[Lukas] "Baby -- "

That, softly, between kisses; between moments where her lips muffle his, and their breaths mingle. Her hands are on his face, and his are on her body almost of their own accord, bracing at the curve of her waist, thumb and forefinger splayed over the lowermost curvature of her ribcage.

"Baby," again, softly, scarcely more than a whisper, "don't cry. Baby, no. Don't cry. I wanted you to be happy."

His forearm comes around her rear. He scoops her up suddenly and all at once, hoisting her onto his body, onto his lap. Lukas wraps both arms around her then, holding her close against his body. As he has so many times before, he turns his face to the curve of her neck; buries it there, against her skin.

[Danicka] Down on the small speakers of the MacBook, Lukas's voice comes out sounding thinner than it is. It lacks the depth and the warmth it has when he's right there, holding her or lying beside her or even sitting across from her at dinner. It plays though as background to what is going on in real time between them, his arm drawing her up and close, her thighs parting around his lap, her arms tucked in close to his chest though her hands don't leave his face.

"I am," she insists, kissing another protest to silence before he can get it out. She trembles, kissing him lingeringly, slowly. "I am. It just hurts."

[Lukas] "I know," he says softly. He does. That's why he made those videos in the first place, one after another, night after night, speaking into the tiny eye of a webcam clipped onto his laptop screen, or into the tinier eye of his cell phone cam.

Because they were apart so often. Because days go by without either of them hearing from the other. Because weeks go by without them seeing one another, touching, talking, loving.

Because he misses her.

He clasps her closer, now, holding her as though to still her trembling; to heal the hurt that, truthfully, he cannot hope to heal. So he strokes her back instead, gently. And he whispers to her -- shhh and it's okay. And he kisses her; then her neck. Lukas holds her, his mate, his love; keeps her near; keeps her close.

[Danicka] They cannot live here together.

They cannot see each other every night.

They can't even manage to talk on the phone once a day, or rely on each other to send an email even just to let the other know: I did not die today. I fought a zombie and I shot it in the head and I cleaned up a wyrmling with sagging teats but I did not swallow mouthfuls of toxin that will leave me twitching in bed for days. I did not die today. I love you. I miss you. It might hurt more if they did, if every day they counted on some kind of message. What would happen the day it was impossible?

They can't come here and start planning for cubs one day, discuss using the current study as a nursery and later turning the downstairs room into a bedroom for a child who is old enough to sleep that far from its parents. They cannot start talking about Danicka going off of birth control, buying a crib or mobile or rattle for what they hope for, arguing over whether or not to find out the child's sex beforehand so the know whether to get pink shit or blue shit or try to convince people buying gifts to buy the supposedly neutral colors of yellow and green or whatnot.

They are not going to have a family together. They are not going to live together. It isn't going to happen.

Which is what is turning Danicka's tears of joy and gratitude into near-sobs of ache. Dinner together, cooking together: these aren't pretenses. Shelving books here or having a tree here: they aren't games. But they are echoes and shadows of what normal couples could and do have.

And some nights she cries herself to sleep because she doesn't know if he's alive or not.

Some nights she sees him and runs her hands over him and is scared she'll find a new scar, when she knows very well what that means.

There are times, too, when the bitterness she has to swallow because of what they are is enough to make her want to scream in rage, in loss, in resentment, at the unfairness of it all. At the cruelty of fate and her own heart and the choice she made, and kept making, every time she wanted to see him more than she wanted to stop herself.

Danicka holds tightly to him as he buries his face against her, wraps her arms around his shoulders and cries as the current video plays itself out and clicks to silence. There are two dozen unopened gifts under the tree, all for him, all for his birthday, more than he ever, ever had as a child. The lights burn. Snow falls. Danicka cries, wordlessly releasing the ache of the better part of a year. She has never told him how much she hates this. She has never tried to explain how badly it hurts. She doesn't need to.

Nor is it necessary to put it into words now. It is released, all the same, as weeping turns to sobbing into his shoulder, as her arms tighten, both clinging and protecting, joy at what they do have mingling inextricably with grief at what they can't.

[Lukas] They never speak of it -- the threat of death that hangs over them. That constant spectre of impending doom, his, hers, their entire people's. It's not so much avoidance as it is ... simply a lack of necessity.

It's not necessary to name that which both of them know, and understand. It's not necessary to speak of it when they both know full well that all the preparation, all the planning, all the talens in the world can't make them invincible. That any given morning they part might be the last time they see each other.

Add that to all the rest --

that they cannot live here, together, even though this place was made just for that. That she will never bear his children, and he will never come home to them nightly. That in the end, the sacrifice they make to be together is, ironically, to not be together.

-- and it's no surprise that Danicka weeps. It's no surprise that as happy as he's made her with his small offerings, a few minutes every day, it's also

heartbreaking.

So Lukas holds her, and she cries, and he holds her tighter, and she sobs. He doesn't try to shush her now. He rocks her gently, soothingly, and lets her cry.

When her sobs die down and her tears slow, he strokes his palm over her back, up and down again.

This is a murmur: "Chceš jít do postele a otevřete zbytek v ráno?"

[Danicka] They are both of them startlingly, sometimes viciously pragmatic. What must be done often can and does eclipse personal desire and interest. It is how they were raised. It is how they have lived. It is in every drop of their pure strains of blood, bred into them through generation after generation of practicality, brutality, and ingenuity.

They want: home. Love. Family. The networked, balanced closeness that is not quite like that of a pack, both more and less than friendship. The seat of memories so thick that over time they seem like they must be brushed from one's eyes in order to see the present clearly. The cauldron of development, of personality formation, the origins that set the stage for responses to every. Single. Thing. That ever happens in the future.

They want: these stupid little things that familially-oriented couples have, that are so sickeningly sweet in a photo album or movie montage. Raising children together. Coming home together. Arguing about the goddamn peanut butter. Becoming so intimately familiar with the mundanity and seeming boringness of everyday repetition until the lack of it seems like losing not just a limb but a piece of one's heart, a chunk of one's soul.

They want: to be together. To have each other.

It does take time for Danicka's grief to subside. For her to stop sobbing so hard that she has to fight for breath. Even after her tears run out she's shaking. It's easier for her, in a way, because not talking about it means she can start to force herself not to think about it. If she just makes herself forget -- Danicka, whose memory is long and unforgiving -- then she can bear it. She can hold him, and her tears can stop, and she can start to breathe normally again. After awhile.

"No," she murmurs, rubbing her wet face on his shirt. "I really want to watch you open them."

She bites back: I'm sorry. I'm happy, I promise. I'm going to watch them all, over and over, and laugh and love you. I promise, they're not what made me sad.

And lets herself say: "Thank you, baby." Quietly. Softly. "I really love it."

[Lukas] Lukas's reply: the press of his mouth to her temple, a firm, warm kiss. And then he draws a short breath, loosens his arms, lets her draw away.

"Miluji tě," he says when she's far enough that he can see her eyes. It's quiet; a reply or an affirmation or ...

... just something he wants to say. Here. Now. With pine in the air and lights glowing softly on her skin, in her hair. A moment; then he shifts, turning to reach under the tree for the rest of the presents.

He opens them one by one, carefully, with the sort of curiosity and delight that children and animals have. Some of them he shakes gently, or sniffs; others he turns over and over in his hands before undoing the wrapping.

Gradually, the pile of boxes and paper around him grows. His presents he leaves mostly in his lap, an ever-expanding heap of them.

[Danicka] As she withdraws back to her own space and her own cushion, Danicka wipes her eyes with the sleeve of her sweater, sniffing. Her sclera are slightly reddened, her cheeks pink from the rush of blood to her face. She kneels first, then shifts backward and rests her ass on the couch cushion on the floor, drawing her legs up and crossing them to watch him open gift after gift, birthday after birthday.

These are more varied: clothes, in some boxes. Shirts or pullovers she saw and thought would look good on him, thought he might like to feel against his skin, thought might be useful to him. Dark colors, mostly deep blues and rich black. When he tries them on he may or may not be surprised at the excellence of the fit, at the care taken in choice, the attention paid to what else she's seen him wear, what will let him move easily and comfortably.

Or he might not be surprised at all. It's Danicka, and to find that she's a talented gift-giver may not be that shocking.

An iPhone 3G. At which point she says somewhat nervously: "I wasn't sure if you're on AT&T or not, but we can go get you something else, if you want."

There's a small tower of books, each wrapped in tissue paper and the lot tied with long ribbons, that Danicka insists only counts as one gift. Some of them are young adult paperbacks that weren't in his collection that he shipped from New York, and they spend a great deal of time going over the various titles, Danicka giving him synopses and mentioning characters. Maniac Magee. Wise Child. Hatchet. Bridge to Terabithia. And here's Animal Farm. And then Twenty Love Poems and a Song of Despair, by Neruda. There's Stranger in a Strange Land. Here's Catch 22. And there's The Oxford Russian Grammar and Verbs.

Gift after gift reveals a new set of bed linens for his room at the Brotherhood: higher thread-count sheets for an extra-long twin bed. A thick down comforter. They won't do, come summer, but it's not summer now. It's winter. And he's got the body heat of a living furnace; but she knows he has several quilts stacked on his bed right now, even so.

Sunglasses. At random. She laughs when he opens them. "I have never seen you wear shades. I just wanted to get them."

A computer game. Rome: Total War. "I don't know the specs on your laptop but it should be okay," she muses, as he looks at the box. "If not you can leave it here, the desktop in the study will handle it fine."

Another one: Civilization IV. As though he'll have time to play computer games. It doesn't really matter though, if he does or not

Another one. Rollercoaster Tycoon 3. Danicka laughs. "Okay, that one's at least partially just a joke. But it's actually kinda fun. I once made this ride that was like a bazillion-foot drop and I had to have like seven maintenance guys just for that one..."

The gifts closest to the base of the tree are some of the smallest, other than the phone. The boxes are not wrapped but are flat, glossy black, and have thin purple ribbons that cross about two inches from the corner. There's no insignia to tell him what stores they're from. Danicka hands them over herself, as Lukas is now sitting in a pile of clothes, bedcovers, books, and literal toys.

Upon working the ribbons off the corners and opening the soft-to-the-fingertips lids, some might think Danicka's gotten gifts for the wrong occupant of this house. Except: that isn't the case. One set involves stockings, garter belt, bra and thong. The sheer panels have little polka dots on them, touched by plum-colored taffeta ribbon wound through. One set's just a bra and panties, blue and black lace. The thong is overlaid with a black lace skirt.

She isn't sitting there biting her lower lip nervously as he opens these, as he -- maybe -- takes the pieces out and runs his fingers over silk and over Chantilly lace and taffeta and bits of ribbon here and there. She just smiles softly to herself as he gets through his last birthday gifts, well after midnight now.

But they aren't the last. The last is a small rectangular box, bigger than one for jewelry. Nestled inside on a cotton cushion are a pair of Christmas tree ornaments made of -- because silver would be unthinkable -- steel. Each hangs by a black ribbon. Each is carved with swirls and stars and spirals inside that light might shine through. One is full and round, the other a crescent. These make Danicka smile most. All the other ornaments on the tree are meaningless baubles.

"Sort of... first Christmas ornaments," she says quietly, when he's looking at them. "Because of the moons we were born under."

[Lukas] It does not, after all, surprise Lukas at all that the clothes fit perfectly. That they fall well from his shoulders, mold to his chest and arms, look good on him. That they feel nice against his skin, and move well on him, neither restricting his motion nor hanging too loose.

It's Danicka. She's a talented gift-giver. And besides that: she knows his body; has felt it against her hands and over her body, in the circle of her arms, against and inside her.

He doesn't try them all on. He pulls his pullover off, though -- his undershirt astoundingly yellow under it, a thick fitted thermal that doesn't quite cling suffocatingly to his skin -- and tries on a blue shirt scored with the thinnest of silver threads; a deep red one, too, with a faintly tribal pattern embroidered in the lower left corner. That one he leaves on as he moves onto the rest of his presents, tags notwithstanding.

The iPhone makes him grin suddenly; she doesn't get past we can go get you something else when he breaks in, "No! No. Absolutely not. I love it."

He doesn't have his laptop with him. That's probably for the best; otherwise the iPhone would have marooned him for an hour at least while he set it up, activated it, downloaded his music onto it.

As it is, the books cause a delay: Lukas reads the flyleaves interestedly; browses through Neruda's poems. Hatchet makes him grin a little by its title alone. The Russian dictionary makes him smile, privately, tenderly, before he opens it up and makes her laugh with his butchery of her mother's language.

"Я хотел бы иметь," he says -- a pause, as he flips pages, "картофель."

Then there's bedding for his room, which makes him ache a little at the thoughtfulness of it. She's never complained about his rough sheets. He's never really minded. But he's not insensate, and neither is she, and there's a world of difference between the 200tc cotton-polyester blends he sleeps on most nights and the luxurious, silky-smooth bedding he finds at her apartment; in the hotels.

And here, for that matter. The sheets he put on their bed upstairs are not $500 a set, but they're pure cotton, and a decided cut above what's at the Brotherhood.

"I love the smell of down," he says when he gets to the comforter. And he pulls it out -- the first instance of unbridled messiness, when up until now Lukas has been so careful and so neat about his gifts -- stands up and shakes it until it fluffs up, and then lets it rumple to the ground around the cushions: a nest.

Sunglasses. He puts them on immediately, of course, tags dangling over his nose, and laughs at his reflection when she produces a mirror or a makeup compact.

Games. "My sister loves this one," he says, holding up CivIV. "I only played CivIII. Addictive as hell."

The sunglasses are clipped through the collar of his shirt when he gets to the lingerie. Lukas goes quiet then, opening the boxes, running his fingers gently over the materials, drawing a slow breath. "Jste tak kurva horko," he says. "Víte, že který?"

His voice has gone quiet, gone husky the way it does when he draws down her jeans or pushes up her skirt to find --

well. To find lingerie like this on her body.

The last gift, then. The steel ornaments for the tree. The first one he opens is a round disc carved in stars and arcs and helices; he doesn't get it at first. It's not until the second box yields a crescent moon that he understands the first is a full. She's explaining, then, and he's reaching for her hand to draw it to his mouth and kiss her: not the knuckles but the palm, her fingers curving over his cheek.

Then he puts one of the two moons in her palm. The full. Standing, he holds his hand out to help her up -- the comforter falling from his shoulders to rumple softly on the carpet.

"Let's put them up," he says.

[Danicka] Bit by bit, Lukas gets covered in his gifts. Danicka lifts her eyebrows as he tries on clothes, at the bright color of his undershirt, which does not quite look that good with the dark red shirt he chooses to keep on, at least mostly buttoned up. She does laugh out loud at the sunglasses perching on his face, the tree's lights reflecting off the lenses.

They both have iPhones now. She didn't get him a slipcase, has a thin silicone black one on hers that, for now, will help them tell them apart when they're sitting on nightstands or getting set aside on counters and desktops. The books take forever, and she does laugh at his attempted Russian, gently correcting his vowels, the pronunciation of the syllables of the word 'potatoes'. It has the harsh consonants here and there of Czech but is rounder, fuller, feels heavier in the air. The way Danicka speaks it, though, both languages are lyrical, lilting, familiar.

Comforting.

Like the bedding, which he shakes out and wraps around them. Danicka just grins, moving closer on the cushions, pushing clothes and books out of her way gently. They nest together while he opens the rest.

"You're really going to like Rome," she tells him, almost ominously. "It is so up your alley."

Then lingerie. She's not leaning against him now, not settled into his lap or against his chest the way she will be later, when he gets to the box with the mated pair of ornaments side by side. She's watching him still, smiling at his quiet lust, all the more appealing to her because of the restraint he shows with it, the way he half-controls it even as he's fingering the lace, his eyes flickering with evidence of what his imagination is doing.

Danicka licks her lips. She nods twice, silently, to answer his question. Yes. I did.

But when she hands him that last box, Danicka is leaning against him as he opens them, nestled against his front, the fabric of one of his new shirts slightly stiff because it has never been washed, because it was just recently unfolded. It doesn't smell like him yet. She smiles and lets him have her hand, and that smile grows as he kisses it. When she sees what moon he places into her palm, though, the grin fades gently, becomes slightly aching.

They move. She sits up, twists; he rises, pulls her up with him. She grins again, almost laughing, and stands on the cushion on her toes to kiss his cheek.

And they put them on the tree, hanging the heavy ornaments by those ribbon loops onto boughs that bend slightly with the weight. Danicka puts his moon just a few inches from hers, the sharp points of the crescent facing his ornament. Reaching for it. There's red lights behind them each, gleaming bloodred and ethereal through the various shapes cut through the metal.

"Miluju tě, Lukáš," she whispers. "Všechno nejlepší k narozeninám."

[Lukas] It would be storybook for them to stand there now, gazing at the tree and the ornaments with giftwrapping littered around their feet.

He doesn't look at the tree, though. After the ornaments are hung, after he's looked at them and seen the way the crescent faces the full, and the way the full hangs a little in front of the crescent, Lukas wraps his arm around Danicka's shoulders and pulls her against his side. He turns his face to her hair, closing his eyes as he simply

rests against her for a moment.

"Veselé vánoce, Danička," he whispers back. Then his other arm wraps around her as well; he pulls her against him entirely. The fabric of his new shirt is still a little stiff; it smells like textiles and the sheet of cardboard that kept its shape, and not very much like Lukas at all.

It's warming with his body heat, though. It still feels like him.

[Danicka] Her eyes are on the ornaments for awhile, the light coming through them and the scent of pine and giftwrap and down and Lukas all mingle together every time she inhales. Lukas rests his face to her hair, breathing her in, whispering to her, and she strokes the back of one of his hands where it rests on her torso, tired from dinner and wine and joy and grief and delight and warmth.

They don't go to bed immediately after, though. Danicka starts kicking gift wrapping at him when he starts to try cleaning it up. They don't end up bundling up to go outside and play in the snow hours before most people will be waking up to open their own gifts, but they do mash up balls of tissue paper and hurl them at each other, tackling, rolling around on cushions and bedclothes and piles of what will ultimately be trash.

The cushions don't end up back on the couch and only some of the gift wrapping ends up in the garbage back Lukas brought from the kitchen. Gifts are taken off the floor, though, shirts and pullovers and even socks set on the rocking chair. Longing looks are given to the iPhone as he wishes out loud he'd brought his laptop with him. Gift cards are neatly stacked on the coffee table next to the books, while her picture disappears into his pocket or wallet at some point. They pile the bedcovers onto the last remaining cushion on the couch, put the sunglasses on top of the stack of computer games.

Danicka starts to put dinner away only to have Lukas come in to help, saying she cooked. But she doesn't leave. She covers platters and wipes off the table while he's finding some way of fitting what's left of the bird into the fridge. They don't do dishes, tonight. Lukas double-checks the locks, Danicka blows out the candles in the windows.

Some things, they take upstairs. Danicka plucks them out of the piles of presents and murmurs to Lukas -- as though the hour demands softness to their voices after the boisterous wrapping-paper-fight of earlier -- that the Christmas lights are on a timer, he can leave them on. She has a book, and a USB drive, and small stack of thin black boxes that are only partly hers. He has ...whatever he wants, really, if there are books he would rather leave here or games he only wants to play here or so forth.

They go through the study. She puts the book on the bookshelf, the flash drive by the desktop. The room is cold. In the bathroom as they pass through he discovers towels hanging, thick and new and fluffy -- shades of blue. There's a lush black mat in front of the tub. On the counter: a toothbrush holder with one blue and one green, never used, a bottle of hand soap that smells like waterlilies. There's shampoo and conditioner and bodywash in the shower, large bottles of herbal and shea-butter-enriched toiletries.

Danicka comes here when he's not there. She fulfills what she promised: if he would find it, she would make it warm. It is looking more decorated, more lived-in, more important than the apartment she's inhabited for almost a year. This place is hers, is theirs, is secret and safe and somewhere she has power and freedom she has literally never known.

Soon they're undressing each other in their bedroom, the doors closed and the candle in the window blown out, the shade drawn down. She starts kissing him as she's unbuttoning his shirt, as her warm hands are leaving it hanging on his shoulders so she can reach up under the yellow thermal to lay palms on his chest. Danicka feels his heartbeat while she tastes his lips, her kisses soft, her breathing quiet. It's dark in their room, the moon striking off the snow outside and making what light that comes in through the shades a pale, wintry blue.

Making the shadows dim and soft.

Making his skin the color of stone, hers like silver, the both of them like mountains seen from a distance, shrouded in low-hanging clouds that promise storms and snow alike.

They don't end up dressing Danicka in either set of lingerie tonight as it is. Any intent to do so is forgotten the longer the kiss, the closer their bodies get as they sink into each other: seeking warmth, seeking closeness, seeking to alleviate some unnameable ache that brought grief shuddering out of her earlier. Seeking, simply, to touch each other the way they once hesitated to.

Danicka breathes in suddenly when Lukas lifts her, his broad hands on her lean hips, bringing her against him so he can crawl up onto their bed without having her leave his arms, without losing her mouth on his. His shirt is off now, her jeans dropped to the floor seconds before he picked her up. Her socks rustle on his jeans when he lays her down on top of the covers, her legs folding around his waist.

Remaining clothes are struggled with: the fly of his jeans, the tug of her sweater up over her head, off her body. His mouth follows his hands to the lace of her bra, fingers hooking under and pulling it down, away from her nipple. It brushes over his lips, hard from arousal and the coolness of the air both before his tongue covers it, before his mouth engulfs it in saturating, drenching warmth.

They end up making love like this. Her socks on, her panties around one ankle, his jeans and his underwear shoved down his legs so he can cover her on the bed, her bra's straps hanging off her arms and the cups pulled down so he can put his mouth on her, trailing between her breasts, using his hand to cover one while the other is being sucked

hungrily

to the point that she moans for him, tips her head back and closes her eyes, puts her fingers in his hair. She gasps to him in the dark that she's ready, losing English as something no longer necessary between them at that point.

This is how they make love. Deeply, and somewhat slowly for all the impatience they showed getting there. Somewhere in there, in the crush of their mouths, the last lingering scraps of fabric clinging to them are unclasped and unhooked and flung aside, til there's nothing but them, nothing but the heavy darkness of the middle of the night surrounding them like water surrounds an island.

Those waters don't recede. They pant quietly together in the end, his brow to her breastbone, his weight on his forearms, sweat a faint slippery slick over his shoulders. Which she kisses, softly, as she kisses his temple and his cheek with long, lingering, warm presses of her mouth that leave her lips tasting of salt. Lukas ends up rolling off of her after awhile, bringing her with him, sliding out of her with a small sound of loss until she comes to rest on top of his chest again.

Which is how they sleep: Danicka draped over his body, her head and her loose hair on his chest, her hand over his heart, his arm wrapped around her to keep her warm until air starts to wick heat away from their skin. She drags herself off of him, even as he's trying to tug her back, to pull the throw blanket at the foot of the bed up and over their bodies, resettling herself in the crook of his arm with a meaningless sound of sleepy, satisfied comfort.

When they wake it's sometime late in the afternoon on Christmas. They'll have missed most of the daylight, and discover themselves under the comforter they fell asleep on top of. Bewildering as that is, they do not leave. Danicka wraps arm and leg around him, holding him near to her, pretending sleep until hunger or necessity drives them from bed, drives them into the shower and down to breakfast, laughing.