exposed, objectified, vulnerable.

[Danicka] They didn't talk about it. There was no totemic conversation, as with a packmate, nor did they need such a supernatural bond for Lukas to see Danicka drifting out of the kitchen at the Loft and say to Theron and Kate: We're taking off. The vibe was different from the times she's excused herself or gone quiet just because of Kate's mere presence. She became as hard to read as a banked fire, as ashes, as cold bricks stained with soot. Not from effort, just... a certain blankness that settled over her like a cover.

She gathered up her things in the living room, pulling her coat on over her clothes and slinging her backpack over one shoulder again. Like this, Danicka is a strange cross between belated college student and the Manhattanite she was for about ten years. She said a pleasant goodbye to those at the Loft, and walked out into the cold with Lukas, slipping back into his M3. She hasn't ridden in any other car since she opened the door to her G37 and monsters and odor spilled out of it. She could only stay at the den one night before taking a cab back to the city so she could get to and from classes on transit.

Which is how she usually gets to and from classes, anyway. So her routine, such as it is, isn't that broken. Hardly even shaken. And it's not that stable to begin with: Danicka is the last person to expect order and consistency. She's never had it, she hardly believes in it, she doesn't even really want it.

She's quiet on the drive. They don't need to discuss where they're going, perhaps: he told her he'd drop her off at the dealer's in the morning, and she doesn't ask him to take her to her apartment. Danicka sits in the passenger seat, her backpack in the backseat, slipping out of her coat as the interior of the BMW heats up. Her elbow is on the armrest, her chin against the heel of her hand, her fingers curled towards her lips. She watches Chicago fade away into suburbia.

Not all the way to Stickney, though. She comes out of it after maybe ten minutes, shifting in her seat and turning around. Tells him about her class. About how she was nervous about taking it because she figured she'd be so far behind, but that it turns out a lot of the information is ...well... she compares it to algebra, which gets them onto a conversation about mathematics.

Danicka tells him then the scores she got on her AP Calc exams. Tells him she thought about taking Statistics, too, but when she found out the Sokolovs were sending her to New Orleans it didn't seem like there was any point, and besides she wasn't sure she'd need it for college anyway, and now she wishes she'd gone ahead and taken Physics and CompSci, because -- as she puts it:

"I guess I'm actually pretty good with computers."

Danicka tells him about how she's actually gotten a pretty good rapport with Dr. Whitby, her faculty advisor, who handles a lot of undeclared students but is pushing for her to go Pre-Law, which she says she's thinking about, but:

"I don't know. I really like the programming class I'm in. It's kind of basic, but I've talked to some upperclassmen who were telling me about diffy cue --" a beat, when he looks at her funny and she explains: "Diff E-Q. Differential equations," and continues, "and systems design and some of the other higher courses, and it sounds pretty interesting. There's this one lab for semiconductor device physics..."

And so on. But then, for the rest of the drive, she's talking about the device they found underground, the rod that became a blast weapon, the reason she now owns a fireproof combination lockbox stashed in the lowest drawer of her desk

which now has a false bottom, she lets him know,

and how she hasn't attempted to fire it again but that she's spent plenty of nights just staring at it, trying to figure it out, and maybe if she sticks on this track of courses and majors in some kind of engineering she can figure out not only how to work it but how to charge it -- because she's figured out it has to be charged, apparently -- and maybe even make other ones,

and then

and then

and then they're at the driveway of the den, and she's concluding: "I'd make a really good lawyer, I think. But I'd have to deal with a lot of people I don't want to deal with. And that's why I decided not to go into psych, too, really. So maybe I just need to take it off the table and Dr. Whitby can cope."

[Lukas] So they don't talk about what happened in the Loft after all. They don't talk about why Danicka went quiet, went into the kitchen and stood over the sink with her hands braced, saying nothing. Lukas wonders. It's quite possible later, Lukas will ask. But for now --

She talks about school. And her major. And her natural flair for math and physics, for engineering. She talks about how her advisor wants her to go into law, but she's drawn to digits and equations and manipulations and How Things Work and How To Make It Better.

He listens quietly as he drives. Lake View's north of city center and Stickney is way, way southwest, so they've got time. A good forty minutes or so, even though the dealership is actually in River North and her apartment was ten minutes away from Lake View and...

he just wants to take her home. Because she went quiet. Because he doesn't know why yet, but he has a few good guesses.

He's rolling the car into the garage. "I think you'd make a fantastic lawyer," he says quietly, and it's a bit of a relief -- to himself, at least -- that he sounds normal again. That his voice doesn't keep jerking and yelping and breaking no matter what he does. That his throat doesn't feel tight and scratchy all the time. "You're smart and personable and you know how to put your words together into a weapon of war. But I think you're right. I don't think you'd be all that happy doing law.

"I can't imagine you doing anything so boring as administrative or regulatory law. I don't think," wry, "you're so altruistic as to want to campaign for civil or environmental rights. I think you'd make one hell of a prosecutor in criminal law, but that's a hard frustrating life and you'll spend your entire career trying to herd idiots in a jury box. I can't imagine you working defense and having to willingly defending someone even if you know he's guilty.

"And everything else that remains is just... secondhand. Corporate law means you know business but you don't actually do business. Intellectual property law means you know engineering but you don't actually engineer anything. So on, so forth."

The engine shuts off. Lukas smiles suddenly, crookedly. "Also," he adds, "you have to really like arguing to be a lawyer. Anežka? She seriously picks fights for fun. You, on the other hand," he gets out of the car, finishes his sentence over the roof of the beemer, "are reverse-engineering an instrument of the Vhujunka for fun.

"So. I think you should tell Whitby to fuck off and let you be an engineering geek."

[Danicka] This conversation gives Lukas insight into Danicka he might not have had before: she isn't a liar because she's a natural at it. She's not constantly withholding information and ferreting out secrets because that's who she is, what she's drawn to. It is, and always was, a survival tactic. She likes to know about people, which is why she thought about going into psychology. But she, more basically, just likes to understand things. She likes the odd peacefulness of an elegant system that feels nothing but its own efficiency, its own breakdown. Even were she to go into engineering, it seems, it wouldn't become who she is.

She is so much more than what she does. What she wears. What games she plays, what she studies, where she works. But: she may as well do something she enjoys. And she seems to enjoy it.

Her eyes flicker when he says weapon of war, and seems like she's about to look to the window again. She doesn't. She looks at the dashboard, and then out the windshield, at the road coming to meet them as they drive forward in the dark. He says all the reasons she's come to realize on her own that law isn't for her. There are fields she couldn't bear to work in. Even estate planning would frustrate her.

She lifts an eyebrow at him when he tells her about how his sister picks fights just for the sake of picking fights. Her lips curl a bit into a hint of a smile as they exit the car, Danicka taking her backpack and closing the door. "He's not pressuring me," she says levelly, "and he and I get along. I'm not going to be burning any bridges by choosing a different major."

Heading towards the door, Danicka asks as she digs her keys out of her pocket, "What's a Vhujunka?"

[Lukas] Lukas glances at Danicka briefly. Something about that word from her lips; a profane name from her mouth. Then he follows her, shutting the side door of the garage behind them, pacing her to their door.

"The thing we met underground," he says. "The creature in the black robes. I didn't know it for what it was then, but I asked the Warder when we got back. They're ... alien things, from somewhere so deep underground or so far in the Umbra that even other wyrmlings don't understand them. Their ways, their motives, their technology.

"They built that thing you scavenged."

[Danicka] "Oh," she says.

It's all she says for awhile, as she's unlocking the front door. For a moment he sees her hands shaking, but then they steady, and she twists the knob and pushes it open. The interior is cool, but not as cold as the outside. She wiggles out of her shoes right there in the entryway, setting them aside on a little mat near the door that seems to be precisely for that purpose. It's in socked feet that she heads upstairs, toting bag, wearing coat. Her ponytail bounces slightly against her back.

And then they're inside, and she's sighing as she puts her backpack on the couch with relief. He's turning up the heat; she's shrugging out of her coat.

"I don't think it was much of a compliment, what you said in the car about putting my words together," she says quietly, as the heater furnace thrums to life beneath them. And because she understands it might not have been meant as one: "You've looked down on that exact ability enough times that it came off as... backhanded."

[Lukas] Lukas frowns; turns from the thermostat. His coat is still on. He looks at Danicka over the fine, rich wool covering his shoulder. A moment later his hand drops and he turns to face her altogether.

"Dani&+269;ka, I didn't mean it as an insult," he says quietly, with a note of surprise. "And I don't look down on that skill. Maybe I misphrased it: maybe I should have said you know how to use your words as tools. You know how to convey your meaning simply and clearly, and how to sway others. That's all I meant."

There's a pause. Across their living room, he looks at her, his eyes clear, his expression troubled.

"Dani&+269;ka, co se špatný?"

[Danicka] "You didn't say tools, lásko," she murmurs. "You said weapon. Of war. And it stung. I don't want to be a weapon."

There's no anger in how she tells him this, even if in the car there may have been. Danicka's temper is an odd thing: it burns itself out quickly when it flashes, but there are times when he knows full well she can hold a grudge that simmers for a long, long time. He's only known her for about a year. He has no idea just how long, yet. Months, at least.

She's quiet as she folds her coat over the arm of the chair, hair falling past her shoulder, spilling out onto the lapel of that pale, elegantly cut jacket. She isn't looking at him. But he can hear her sigh again, quietly. "All that talk at Katherine's stirred a lot of things up." Barely even a beat before her voice is firmer, before she's turning, her hand palm-down but fingers slightly upward, a forestalling gesture of calculated gentleness.

"I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to talk about Ezra, or about Lonna, or about the tribe, or about How Things Are. I don't need to be told. Hearing it was just a reminder as it was, and I don't want to try and... hash it out, or end up fighting with you over it. I just want to be here with you. I'll get over it."

[Lukas] She knows him. When she holds out her hand, he's already inhaling to ask --

-- and exhaling as she forestalls him. His frown is deeper. He thinks for a moment, and then he nods: a very faint gesture.

"I'm sorry," he says. It's the previous subject. "I spoke without thinking."

He's taking his coat off, then, hanging it up in the downstairs closet. He holds his hand out for her coat if she wants to hand it over; lets her leave it over the couch if she doesn't. This is a far humbler abode than Katherine's million-dollar loft, but where they are doesn't matter

except in this case, because where they are is home. He pauses another moment, and then comes forward, his hand lighting gently at her waist as he bends to nuzzle his jaw against her temple, close his eyes. A second or two or ten, lingering. He smells like fine wool and soft cotton; like his expensive shaving cream and the very inexpensive soap and shampoo at the brotherhood; like himself: untamed and rather savage.

Then Lukas moves away, toward the kitchen. "I'm going to make some light coffee," he says. "Do you want some?"

[Danicka] She smiles. It's a soft, warm thing. Like her. She leaves her coat where it is and steps towards him herself, standing beside him as he's hanging up his coat, waiting for him to turn again so she can wrap her arms around him and hold him for a moment. That's when he bends, when he touches her slender torso and nuzzles her temple. That's when they smell each other, sniffing past detergents and soaps and such things to find the scent that is male, the one that is female, the unique traces that simply mean

mine.

She tugs on him a bit when he starts to pull away, then gives him one last squeeze before letting go. She looks up at him, arms loosening, and smiles. "Yes," she says, but also: "You okay?"

[Lukas] So he comes back, even as her arms are loosening. Something in his face relents, or softens. He strokes back her hair and kisses her forehead, eyes closing.

"It makes me sad to think that I've hurt you," he admits softly, "or reminded you of things that hurt. But I'll be all right."

They're Shadow Lords.
They're resilient.

When he draws away this time, he takes her hand. If she comes with him, he holds her hand as he goes into the kitchen, releasing her only when he has to reach for the cabinets, take down the mugs. They're a set, but they don't match exactly: whimsical, colorful, durable ceramics, just like everything else Danicka has added to their den.

He added the coffeepot, stainless steel and programmable, and the airtight canisters of coffee. The one he's slowly working through is in the freezer, and he takes it out and puts two scoops of coffee into the maker, adds enough water for three generous cupfuls to dilute the caffeine content. It's late, after all.

[Danicka] There are fine gold hairs to be pushed back when he strokes his large hands over the curve of her crown. They've frayed away from her ponytail over the course of the day, because she didn't bother to slather gel or spray across her scalp. Her hair smells like her hair. She closes her eyes as he kisses her brow, and holds him loosely -- gently -- around his midsection. Of course they'll be alright. They don't speak of it again: the hurt, or the memories.

She does stay close to him, though. She not only holds his hand but stays alongside his body, going with him into the kitchen. He gets mugs: she gets the coffee out of the freezer. He makes the coffee itself; she rinses out the mugs to remove even the faintest traces of dust that might have gathered since the last time they were used, washed, put away. She slips out of her little jacket as the heater starts to fill the house with warmth, and hangs it on a hook by the back door, takes her long necklace off and hangs it over the jacket, too.

Their mugs are the same size and shape. His is a plain, smooth matte black. Hers is white with a sprawling, graphically implied yellow flower with bits of black hinting at pollen stems, edges of petals. Sometimes she uses the black mugs. Sometimes he uses the white ones. They're just mugs. But they don't have them anywhere else but here; they're part of home.

Like the mat on the floor in front of the sink. Like the little rug for their shoes. Like the hooks beside the back door, which he remembers screwing into the wall. Like the way the sun comes into the study at different times of day. Like the places where the couch and the stairs creak, spots they're slowly memorizing.

"You want to watch something?" she asks, while waiting for coffee to brew, coming over to lace her fingers with his, to turn his hand over palm-up in hers and bring it to her cheek, smiling.

[Lukas] The coffee pot slurps and sputters as it drips. Lukas has his back to the counter, his thumbs hooked in his front pockets. He's relaxed, strong of body and straight of limb, lounging about as he waits. His eyes are brilliant, their clarity astounding; the color, the hue, and the way they follow Danicka around the kitchen are wolflike.

She comes to him and he shifts slightly, uncrossing his legs at the ankles, setting his feet apart to make room for her. She brings his hand to her cheek and the joins it with the other, drawing her to him.

Lukas's arms wrap around Danicka. He holds her to his chest, the beat of his heart slow and steady beneath his shirt. She might recognize it. She bought it for him back in December.

"Yeah," he says quietly. "But I wanted to ask you something."

[Danicka] Underneath her jacket, the light heather-purple camisole hugs her form. It accentuates how slender she is, despite the slight weight she's put on that makes her a little less frighteningly thin for her frame. Lace dusts across her breasts, cotton rucks around her hips, held snug by those tight, ink-dark bluejeans.

Her socks are familiar to him, though he's only seen them once before. A very, very long time ago, in fact: they're white. They're covered in a fleur-de-lis pattern. He knows they go up to her knees underneath her jeans, that they feel soft as silk when they rub against his ass where her legs cross over his back.

Strange, how a memory can last so long, remain so vivid.

She comes close, he holds her, and she smiles up at him again. She's much shorter than he is, but she's said it finally: she loves how big he is. She didn't mean his cock.

Well. Not just.

Her eyes are greener than usual in this light. The kitchen starts to smell like coffee. "Okay," she says, her smile fading, but not from wariness. She just waits.

[Lukas] Memories are a strange thing: elusive and vivid all at once. Lukas can't look at Danicka's slouched leather boots now without remembering Spring, remembering her blue-sky umbrella and the way she held his hair as he ate her out in the handicapped stall of the women's restroom. The smell of candied oranges makes him think of kolaches, of Danicka, of learning to make kolaches with her one morning at her apartment. Prism-rainbows make him think of her bedroom. The beanbag chairs in the Brotherhood make him think of the beanbag chairs upstairs, here.

It's all interconnected. Associations, links, mind-paths from one to another.

He sees her stockings, and he remembers the way they feel against his bare skin. He remembers the way her bare skin feels against his, and when she wraps her arms around him like this, he remembers the way she feels

wrapped around him like that, taking him in.

Which makes him careful, though not wary. Which makes him nuzzle his jaw against her temple thoughtfully, slowly, silent for a while. Then he speaks, low, barely more than a rumble in his chest and a whisper from his lips.

"A few times now when we make love," he says, "you've drawn away when I turned you around. I know you said once that you don't want to turn away when we haven't been together for a long time, but ...

"Would you rather I didn't turn you around?"

[Danicka] The question is a little out of the blue. She thought he'd ask her about Katherine's, that he was asking permission to question her because it was something she'd said she didn't want to talk about. She thinks: he wouldn't need to ask, otherwise. But now that they're holding each other, and they're here, she can start to put together how his mind has gotten to this place. This question.

Danicka considers for a moment. Her head rests on his chest, heartbeat under her ear. She can remember the first instance of this, when he came over and it had been so long and he was holding her on top of him and yanking her shorts down and pushing her shirt off and just getting inside of her. But the positioning wasn't why she turned away, that time.

"That's part of it," she says after awhile, her voice quiet. "That most of the time it's just... we haven't seen each other for weeks. Literally. And missing you just..."

hurts.

Danicka closes her eyes, is still for a moment, but he can sense there's more. She speaks lightly, and it isn't feigned as far as he can tell: thoughtful, but not upset. "It's not all that comfortable, really. I mean it's one thing if we're kneeling on the bed or on the couch. And I don't mind bending over for you." A beat. "I like it like that. Not when it's been awhile. Not when I want to see you and hold you. But I like it.

"And reverse cowgirl's not bad, either. It's not really my favorite, but it's kinda fun sometimes." She huffs a small laugh, smiling to herself, holding him a little tighter. "But... sitting up and facing away from you, if we're close I have to arch my back all funny, and it's not that easy to move around. I can't see you. It's hard to touch you or kiss you. And you can touch me but I can't..."

The first real quiver of tension appears in her lithe little body against his. Not a shudder, not a shiver, just... tension.

"I feel exposed like that. And ...I do like facing you when you make love. But it's really not that. Because I love it when you fuck me from behind. I can't really explain why that one position, specifically, makes me feel ..."

She takes a sip of air, uncomfortable with the thought, a trifle embarrassed. She, of all people, talking about sex and saying I don't like that. She, of all people, who has spent so much time in utter control and confidence of her sexuality, refusing to let it be abused, saying: "Vulnerable. And objectified. I don't feel close to you like that."

Quietly, then: "I can't tell you why. That's just... it always feels that way." She's still again, and then finally answers the actual question: "Sometimes when you're the one turning me around, it feels like you don't want to look at me. Or know me. I know we talked about how you feel sometimes like if it doesn't go my way then I ...reject you."

An ache, there. Because: she doesn't like thinking she's hurt him, either. Doesn't like knowing she's made him feel pushed away. "But maybe... just let me turn myself around, if that's what I want. Or ask me."

[Lukas] Before Danicka, there wasn't a whole lot about Lukas that was openly protective. To be sure, he would defend his packmates if they were attacked -- viciously, furiously, and sometimes even when he knew they were wrong. But defense is not quite the same thing as protection, though it wasn't until he met her that he understood what that difference is.

Nothing's attacking Danicka right now. They are safe in their kitchen. She's safe in his arms. And yet when she tells him how missing him just....

(hurts.)

or how when they make love like that, seated or lying back with her turned away from him, she feels exposed -- something clenches in his chest, twists, makes him ache as though he had been physically injured.

Resting against him as she is, she can feel his heart give a single hard thump; beat faster. He wraps his arms around her tighter, keeps her close. He thinks she feels tenser now. He thinks she feel so small and slight and vulnerable that he can't help but want to protect her. Not merely to defend against threat and danger, but to protect: to make safe and to keep safe, to keep, to hold.

Exposed, she says. Vulnerable. Objectified. He winces on every word, though she can't see it. And when she says I can't tell you why, he interrupts softly --

"You don't have to."

It always feels that way.

"Chápu."

Lukas's arms stay around her shoulders and her upper back, warm and tight, as she finishes. He's bent to her; his legs bracket hers; his mouth rests atop her hair, and her voice must be muffled now with how close he's holding her: as if by holding her now, he could heal what hurt was caused in the past when he made her feel exposed, and when she made him feel pushed away.

Then she's finished, and they're both quiet, and behind them the coffeemaker is sputtering and coughing out the last of the coffee, and then quieting as well. No sound now but the soft hum of their refrigerator, the gusts of late winter wind against the windows. Her breathing. His heartbeat.

His voice:

"I'm sorry. I didn't understand before. I didn't think of it that way." She knows that. If he'd thought of it, he would've never done that. She knows that, too, now, though perhaps at the beginning of all this she didn't. "I'll ask you now. Or let you turn yourself around. I never meant to make you feel that way.

"I know you must already know this, but it's never because I don't want to look at you, or know you. It never was. It's just ... easier for me to touch you like that, use my hands to get you off. That's all. I just never thought... "

"I never meant to make you feel that way."

There's a quiet.

"Even that time I told you to shut up and fuck me. It wasn't because I didn't want you, or to know it was you. It was because you were still sort of angry at me, and you called me a fucking bastard or something stupid like that, and I didn't -- want you to call me that while we were making love. Not right then. I didn't want to think you were fucking me out of anger."

It's his turn to feel awkward, embarrassed, uncomfortable: that he's complaining about names when he called her a whore before the first time they fucked. There was a time when he would've drawn away. Drawn into himself to protect himself, to hide his shame. Now he rubs his cheek gently against her hair; his jaw along her temple. Draws some strength or comfort from their very contact. The feel of her body against his. Her arms around him, and his around her.

"That was all it ever was," he finishes, soft.

[Danicka] She likes that he never tells her he'll keep her safe. Likes that he doesn't lie about what he's capable of doing because it's what he wants to be capable of doing. She knows by the way his arms tighten, the way his heart beats, the way his voice -- his normal, warm, rich, deep voice -- sounds when he speaks that a part of him howls to do protect her at any cost. And she is grateful that he doesn't give in to that instinct entirely, lock her up in their den, take away her life for the sake of saving it.

Idly, Danicka thinks to herself as she holds her arms close around her lover's -- her mate's -- waist that they should watch Finding Nemo tonight. Hook up her laptop to the t.v. downstairs and curl up on the couch and order sushi. For the irony.

Thinking all this -- of her gratitude, of her love, of the night they can spend together here -- Danicka relaxes once more against him and listens to him speak. She missed his voice. And she always misses him, when a part of her knows he should be near and he isn't, when a part of her paces inside and searches and waits and howls softly while the more rational side of her soul tries to remember why it is that they cannot and do not live together.

Doesn't ever entirely quiet the howling.

But he's here now, and telling her things she did not know. And so she gives that, too, right back to him: "I wasn't ever really angry at you that night," she murmurs. "I was drunk." A faint laugh that fades quickly, bursts and dies quietly against his shirt. "And... I hated how quiet you always were, back then. I really did. Then you flipped me around and it'd been a long time and you started fucking me and I felt... well. Fucked."

Which they've known from the beginning, the first night, makes a difference. Danicka likes fucking. She refuses to just get fucked. "I wasn't fucking you in anger," she concludes. "I was angry that we were so warm and close even though we'd argued and it was kinda... silly and comfortable and I was already falling in love with you and that hurt, and then I couldn't see you while you were inside me and you weren't making a sound and I felt alone, and I thought you weren't ever going to let yourself love me back."

All of which is to say what they both understand at this point: even back then, it's doubtful that Lukas would have knowingly and willingly gone on, heedless, if he'd known how she really felt. It's doubtful, too, that Danicka could have told him back then how she really felt. Even six months ago this conversation couldn't have happened, much less almost a year ago. She doesn't feel awkward and uncomfortable. She stands there with him, smelling the coffee past what she smells of him, and then quietly:

"That was a long night."

[Lukas] His agreement is quiet, just a sound in the back of his throat: mn.

Lukas seems perfectly content to stand like this. Like an animal, he seems perfectly content, sometimes, to do absolutely nothing at all. To simply lounge about in the presence of his mate, to pass time listening to her heartbeat, or the rain outside, or ...

simply be for a while. Until the drive of their human halves, or perhaps their shadow lord blood, the part of them that gives them ambition and drive and a sense of what must be done, wakes again and rouses them to productive action.

Lukas stirs after a while.

"I think I know that now. That it wasn't really... hate sex." He laughs a little. Breathes. His chest is wide where it expands against her body, against her encircling arms. Relaxes again.

"Do you know why I was so quiet, early on?"

[Danicka] It isn't that she's getting tired, or that today was a long day. It isn't even that being over at Kate's was all that draining. It was difficult, but not nearly enough to deplete all of Danicka's energy. It's that she's in her den, which is warm, and as safe as they can make it, and smells of familiar and comforting things. It's that she's with her mate, who is warm, and holding her and letting her hold him, and whose heartbeat is a strong, steady, thudding drum buried in the living, thriving art of his body. It's that despite pangs and aches in this brief conversation, it feels... good. To say it, and heard it said. To wash it away, smooth it over, run their fingers through the memories like a bag of grain or a bowl of water without spilling either across the floor.

She would be content to stay like this, til the coffee burns away, til the rains come and go again, til she has no choice but to let him lift her feet from the kitchen floor and carry her upstairs to bed before she falls asleep standing there. And it wouldn't be from exhaustion. Just.... contentment. Danicka stirs and resettles slightly when he breathes, his chest displacing and then welcoming her back. "Never," she murmurs, at first, agreeing and reassuring at once.

At his question, she's silent for awhile, then: "I think so." He told her, that same night as the city lights played across her naked skin, that he was afraid of what he'd do to her if he let go. Afraid of what she'd do to him, if he let her in even that far. "You were afraid I'd take everything, and give nothing back."

[Lukas] This time, Lukas's laugh is quiet, a little surprised; more happy than amused. "Yeah," he says softly. "That about covers it.

"I mean, I've never -- shown anyone how I feel, like that. But with you especially, I was just ... afraid."

A quiet. He smells coffee; then he bends his head to hers and smells only her shampoo, her hair, her. Eyes closed, he nuzzles her for a while, gentle and thorough, exploring her by scent and touch.

"Nebojím se ještě."

[Danicka] "Of course I knew," Danicka whispers, smiling against his shirt, eyes closed. "I wouldn't have wanted you to let go so badly if I didn't know what you were holding onto."

A long pause, as he's holding her, nuzzling her. As they breathe each other in. "I do love the way you sound when you're fucking me, though."

[Lukas] That makes Lukas go quiet, and still. That makes his heart jump a little faster. After a few seconds, he lowers one arm from around her. The heel of his hand presses to the counter for a moment. Then he straightens, puts his hands on her waist, lifts her from the ground.

The light of the kitchen isn't particularly romantic. Two or three CFL bulbs in a ceiling lamp: a plain, white light cast down on sink and refrigerator and knife block and dishwasher and the drapes still tied back from the black square of the window.

It doesn't matter. When he closes his eyes and turns his face up to hers, it's the same warm red darkness. Her mouth tastes the way he remembers, which is to say: like Danicka. Her hair falls around his face and suddenly the light is that much warmer, strained through honey and gold.

She folds her legs around him as they kiss. He carries her from the kitchen -- not to their bedroom, nor to the couch, but through the archway and the dining room to one of the rooms they rarely inhabit: the den, the family room, the empty space beyond their dining table with its two chairs and two chairs only.

Lukas lays her down on the floor there, going first to his knees, then leaning her over. The carpet here is so untouched it still bears the markings he left behind when he vacuumed the place out after painting the walls and the ceilings. The curtains are open here too, letting in the wan light of sodium lamps on the street.

There are no wavelengths in that light that their eyes can use. His merely look clear; hers merely look murky, and depthless, and full of shadows. They speak to each other in whispers --

here. take this off.
lift your hips.
touch me.

-- and he sheds his clothes, reveals warm skin, the hard defined contours of his body. It's been more than a year. There will always be a certain fragility to her body, a slenderness stamped into her by a difficult childhood; a mother who was literally too frightening to suckle from. When his hands run over her torso, though, up her sides and over her breasts, she doesn't feel so achingly thin as she used to. She feels sleeker, healthier. He can smell her health when he leans down to her, kisses her neck, pushes her clothes up

and aside

and apart

and off.

They make love on the bare carpet. The empty room reflects their sighs back to them. He stays close, their arms wrapped around one another, her legs holding him right there, right there, as he rocks into her. It's been more than a month since he's let himself moan softly in her ear like this. Since he let himself tell her how good she feels, and how much he loves making love to her. Fucking her. Fucking her senseless and wild and arching beneath him, grabbing at his back, clenching around his cock

just like that.

When he comes, he groans against her shoulder again and again, all the weight and force and power of his body driving between her thighs, rocking into her, pistoning into her as he fills her up.

Afterward, he holds her like he might never let go.

And after that, supports himself on his forearms, braced over her with his back bowed, his body heavy where it joins hers: just enough room between for her to run her hands over him and explore the moving planes of his body as his breathing slowly returns to normal.

They don't bother to get dressed after that. They pick their clothes up. He throws his over his shoulder. She puts hers under her arm. They meander up the stairs, saying little, smelling like each other, smiling. Their laundry goes in the hamper. It might be the first time they've used it. The shower takes a long time to warm up, and in that time Lukas sits on the edge of the tub and watches Danicka do whatever Danicka might do -- eventually holding his hand out to her, drawing her between his knees and then down on his lap.

This kiss is slow and lingering and warm. The water's warm, too, when it finally parts. Lukas plugs the tub and when it's filled up enough they get in, and the bathroom is full of steam, and he washes her back as she leans forward and she washes his leg as he lifts it from the water.

They soak in the bath together for a while, the water lapping gently at the edges of their bodies. Behind Danicka, Lukas relaxes slowly and utterly. By the time she decides to get up and let the water out and shower, he's protesting that he hasn't the energy to get up. He sprawls there, eyes shut, one hand shielding his mouth and nose from the spray, letting the shower blast him clean where he lays.

Then he seems reenergized. He gets out of the bath and towels off. While she dries her hair, he shaves in front of the mirror, the straight razor flashing and expert in his hand, a tool rather than a weapon, an art rather than a skill. When he's finished he smiles at her in the mirror, sudden and bright. There's coffee downstairs, he reminds her, and they were going to watch a movie.

She brings her laptop down. Finding Nemo it is. He pours coffee, which is not quite burnt, but certainly not so fresh as it was. That's all right. Lukas pours a lot of cream in. He lays his damp towel over the rocking chair and shakes the quilt out; after Danicka hooks her computer up to the TV, they huddle under the quilt together, her back to his chest, his leg crossing hers.

Lukas is asleep before ten minutes are out. The shark sequence wakes him again. He watches for a while, interested and charmed. Dory makes him laugh. Bubbles makes him laugh. He tells her his favorite part is Dory speaking whale, but

they don't get that far. By the jellyfish sequence, Danicka is nodding off, and Lukas is carefully stretching to turn off the laptop, and when it's quiet and dark he gathers her up, quilt and all, and takes her to bed.

They have the rest of the night together, their bodies recognizing one another as they sleep. They have the early morning, making love under the covers before they shower for the day. Lukas discovers he forgot to turn the coffeepot off: now it really is burnt. They have milk and cereal for breakfast, and when they're walking out to the car that he'll drive her to the dealership in, he tells her:

"I hate leaving you. It makes me sad until I remember I'll see you again. And then it's all right."

It's just before 9am when he drops her off at the dealer. He waits at the curb, idling and watching, until she gets her keys and waves them at him. Shows him it's all right. I have my keys. I'm safe; I'm all right. Then he waves back, and she gets in her car. They drive off in different directions.