Lukas will see his pack tomorrow. He doesn't need to see them tonight. He will see them tomorrow, and fight beside them, and he will die beside them if need be. Though -- let's be honest: he's no Fenrir. He does not dream of a glorious death, nor tell himself he does. He will not take foolish chances tomorrow. He will not strive for glory. He'll strive to win, and to maximize results at minimal cost. He does not expect to fail. If he did, he would not undertake such a strike.
Sometimes war for Lukas is such a calculated, cold thing. It makes him a good warmaster. A good Ahroun elder. It makes him a sight you want to see beside you in battle, not only because his presence means his strength is added to yours -- but because it also means he's got a levelheaded, coolminded plan to win.
Sometimes.
And then, sometimes:
he's tearing a vampire in half for snapping its teeth at Danicka. He's ripping overgrown spiders into pieces for spinning their webs in her car. He's taking down shrieking, vomiting fomori down one by one by one
because they're trying to go after Danicka.
Not so fucking cold, then.
--
Regardless. Nighttime. 2 in the morning, maybe later. He doesn't go to the den, though he might try that next if she isn't home. 520 N Kingsbury is closer, though, and at any rate -- he has a key now, and a card, and a code, and the thought of using it makes him ache quietly.
So he drives to River North. He passes the Magnificent Mile, the Loop across the river; he passes into a neighborhood of sleek highrises sitting atop independent, overpriced restaurants and shops. He parks on the street, and then he grabs laptop backpack out of his passenger's seat as he gets out. It's charcoal grey, trimmed in orange. Riding on his back, it makes him look like a recent college grad, maybe a law student or a business student, all casual urban chic in his distressed jeans, his crisp shirt.
He lets himself in with a swipe of the card. Another, to select floor 23. The elevator's quiet and swift this time of night. Coming out, he takes a right, finds unit C, unlocks the door and lets himself quietly into his mate's den.
[Danicka] When was the last time they saw each other so soon after the last meeting? Danicka had to leave him on Friday afternoon, to skip out on a meeting for a group project and just take herself home to get some more rest, play her computer game, and do some more reading for Monday. She wants her weekend free, because she knows Lukas will be fighting, and she doesn't want to be trying to focus on homework. He had plans to make with other Garou. They had lives to attend to, they did, lives that don't always leave room for them to have such things as nights together sharing a pizza.
Usually when they part, it's a week or more before they see each other again. Sometimes, when they're very lucky, it's just three or four days. Rarely, almost never, is it something like twelve, sixteen hours, however long it's been since she left his room at the Brotherhood. She isn't expecting to see him, even knowing that the raid is tomorrow night, that he'll be fighting, that she'll be at home
trying to sleep.
Right now, though, Danicka's not trying. She's just sleeping. She took a hot bath and soaked her arms a little longer, her sore, sore arms. She's on her left side in her bed. Still: she sleeps in the middle, the way she always has. Danicka only moves over to the side when he's there. Her desk and her computers and the bookshelf have all moved to the north bedroom, now a study. There's a second nightstand, which matches the first. There are some of his childhood books stacked on the second one, as though to stand in for him because he is not there.
But in any case: Danicka sleeps. Last night was exhausting.
Last night it became crystal clear to her, the difference between firing a gun and fighting for her life and the lives of other Kinfolk or other Garou
and firing a gun at something that has swiped its claws at Lukas, hit him with a dart or a bullet, snarled at him, attacked or threatened him in some way. At the Blue Chalk Cafe, it was Lukas's presence that had her coldly aiming, firing, and then walking over to the body of the fomori and slamming one last bullet home into its skull to make sure it stayed down. It was Lukas's presence and voice in the main room that had her focusing intently on what she was doing to the surveillance footage without her hands shaking.
It was Lukas's presence after it all that had her able to stop screaming in the aftermath.
She knows, now, the change that comes over her when Lukas is involved as opposed to when she is on her own. It isn't solely that her vision goes red and her limbs go rigid with wrath when something attacks him, though that is a clear enough part of it. Danicka's temper, usually so quickly burnt out, becomes a cold, ruthless thing when what she loves is breathed on wrong. But that isn't really it. That isn't why, when Lukas is fighting with her, her hands don't shake and her world doesn't feel like utter chaos. And it isn't that she blindly trusts he will save her, that nothing bad will happen as long as his strength is on her side. It is simply:
when she is fighting alongside Lukas, she does not feel afraid.
She does not feel weak.
Downstairs, a little light turns green and a faint beep sounds politely as Lukas passes the yawning doorman and lets himself in to the lobby. His shoes are quiet on the marble. The elevator rises smoothly with him in it, not stopping anywhere else. A Friday night it may be, but this place isn't full of college students. Danicka is one of the youngest residents. Nobody is partying, tonight. Things are still. Her door is at the end of the hall; her floorplan is one of the largest available in the building, with the stunning views and ample interior space.
If she were a different sort of Kinfolk, the entire experience of coming to see her would be an exercise in subtle intimidation. Manipulating anyone invited: see? See how powerful I am, how protected, how far above it all. See my wealth. See my decadence. See what I surround myself with to convince myself that I am worthy.
Danicka, who has never had her own apartment before, is only marginally aware of what sort of opulence this really is. Then again, Danicka thinks she needs to keep a workstudy job in order to help pay for it, and she really needn't.
The key slides easily into the lock. The knob turns, the metal silky under his hand.'
There are no curtains over the vast windows. There never were. The moon and the city shine into the living room without hindrance. Everything is still, and quiet. There are a few dishes in the sink. A pair of sneakers by the door. There's a load of laundry going in the dryer, so she can't have been asleep too long. Maybe half an hour? Forty-five minutes? Thump, thump, thump, tumble the clothes, down the hall that used to lead to
The door leading to her bedroom is closed. And the last time he was here and that was the case, and she was inside her bed behind it, he didn't know how to read that. He slept on the couch.
Now he locks the door again behind him. And knows there is nothing more he needs to read but the weight of the key in his hand.
[Lukas] They fought over that: the closed door, the night on the couch. They were both angry about it: he because he thought she was playing hard to get, or sending mixed signals. She because she thought he was being a douchebag and snitting the night on the couch as some sort of object lesson.
Ironically, after their anger passed, they understood each other better. And felt safer about each other. Because he learned: she was giving him privacy. Not shutting him out. And she learned: he will not force himself on her like that. He will not disregard a closed door; much less a locked one. Much less the sanctity of her den, which is hers to him, even if she and everything she owns and is is his to the Nation.
Which is why, even with key in hand, he's quiet as he slips his shoes off. Which is why, even with key in hand, he hesitates before her door before knocking quietly. That, and the fact that he doesn't want her to wake to a terrifying, looming presence in the dark, in her own den, in her own bedroom and bed. He wants to give her some warning, some signal to begin to wake, before he turns the doorknob and lets himself in.
Big windows in her bedroom. Great panes of glass open to the night sky, the city lights, the gibbous moon. His shirt is pale tonight, a shade very close to white, and it's a blur in the not-quite-darkness, aglow. It's warm enough that a brief walk in the midnight chill was bearable; he has no coat. He has a change of clothes in his bag, which is the first time he has ever done this, though it's not because it is also the first time he has ever come here with his own key. The reason behind that is simpler, and more pragmatic: he doesn't want to have to drop by the BroHo when he leaves tomorrow. He wants to be changed into his dedicated wargear, and he wants to drive straight from here to battle
and back.
He sets the backpack down on the floor, beside the second nightstand in her room. The desk has been cleared out. He supposes it's in the other bedroom, or maybe the living room. He didn't check. The mattress sinks under his as he sits on the edge to unbutton his shirt.
[Danicka] Truth be told, when they argued about it, Danicka was mostly just hurt. She wanted him to come to bed with her. Even though they'd argued, even though they'd been tense, even though she was frustrated and worn out and just fed up, she'd wanted Lukas to come into her bed and sleep beside her. Long before she could understand or explain such a want, she wanted that peace and warmth that settles onto them when, even if they all but bared their teeth at each other earlier, they shared a bed to sleep.
Afterward, it came very close to making her tremble, realizing that he would not impose like that. That her space was her space. That her room, her den, was... hers. Not his. That if it was even possible that she didn't want him, he would not force himself on her. She had trouble believing it. And, believing it, she had trouble coping with what it meant
and how she felt about that.
Now, the knock and the knob and the click of the door closing and the closeness of footsteps each notch her a bit closer to wakefulness. Danicka is not a terribly deep sleeper, nor a skittish one, but she wakes easily and can find alertness quickly when necessary. Lukas can hear her breathe in suddenly, sharply, before consciousness is entire.
It is dark in her bedroom. The moon is heavy, and the air is suddenly thick with rage. She's at home and there's something in the dark coming towards her and she's very, very still, because she knows it isn't okay to startle or gasp.
A moment of tension. And then Danicka remembers where she is. When she is. She breathes, but the shift of it tells him she's waking. She turns slightly under her comforter and sheet as though to signal him that she's not unconscious, and then turns onto her right side as he rounds the foot of the bed and comes to the side with the new nightstand, the side closest to the windows and, therefore, the moon.
Danicka moves her arm under her pillow, eyes open but bleary, watching him as he sets his backpack down, sits his body on the edge of her mattress, and starts to unbutton his shirt. She doesn't speak. She waits for him.
[Lukas] She is not his packmate. He does not have a mystical bond to her, a river of unity coursing between them. He is not bound to her by totem, by spirit, able to speak into her mind, able to find her no matter where she is by simply turning his attention inward.
The bond he has to her is both less and so, so much more than that. Sometimes he imagines he really can find her across a room, a city, the world. Sometimes he imagines even though he can't speak into her mind, she can look at him and read every thought he has, everything he is, from his eyes.
All of which is to say: that moment of tension crystallizes the air between them. He pauses for a moment; doesn't freeze, doesn't tense, but merely pauses. When she breathes, he comes forward again. When she turns, he sits on her bed and unbuttons his shirt. And slides it off his shoulders. And leaves it on the floor.
His undershirt after that. No belt tonight; just a button that comes easily free and a zipper that hisses faintly, and then he's pushing his jeans off as well, the denim heavier, making a muffled thump as his keys and his wallet weighs it to the ground.
Then his socks, then his boxer briefs. All his clothes, all his trappings of social graces or his armor, everything he wears to project this image or that; all of it. Cast to the floor, left there til morning. Til afternoon. Til whenever the fuck. When he's naked he draws the comforter back, and it's already warm beneath the sheets because she's been in bed for forty-five minutes, maybe an hour, and he's warm as well because he's a werewolf, and a shadow lord, and an ahroun: a creature born and bred to stand vigil through frigid mountain nights.
Under the covers now, he reaches for her, moves toward her slowly, as though pushing through a dim ocean. Once, they made love in his room and in the aftermath, which his mind fractured into a thousand glistening pieces, he fantasized that they were underwater, that moonlight was sunlight cast through a hundred meters of saltwater, that loving her made him capable of breathing water and descending away from the sky, and...
he wraps his arms around her and gathers her close. He nuzzles her with heavy, thoughtless affection, inhaling the smell of her, and the warmth of her, and the life that is in her, still in her, still in them both.
"Lodní důstojník," he murmurs, a whisper of a word barely grounded in voice. "Moje."
[Danicka] She doesn't usually sleep naked. With him, almost always. With him, sleep comes usually after lovemaking, and he is so warm that all she has to do to is curl a bit closer to him. He's seen her wearing pajamas in bed when she was sick, when she had a bout with the flu and went to their den to recover. The rest of the time, for whatever reason, she strips herself down to flesh when she sleeps with him. It's warm outside, for nighttime in Chicago, especially in early April.
Danicka is wearing little striped shorts of some light fabric. She's wearing a plain blue tank top, gray in the moonlight. Her hair is in a braid. She blinks once or twice slowly as he's undressing. She reaches over and brushes the backs of her knuckles over his lower back as he's taking off his shoes. It's as much of a hello as she's given him. Her hand drifts back away, because holding it up and out is tiring, when she's half asleep.
When he comes to join her under the covers, Danicka smiles a little, and then he's exhaling and wrapping his arms around her and breathing her in and holding her. Danicka, too drowsy to be anything but accomodating to him, closes her eyes and hums softly in recognition, in answer, draping her own arm around his waist and tucking her feet almost immediately under his legs. She buries her face in his chest, rubs back and forth a couple of times, and seems quite content to do nothing more than settle in to sleep again, now that he's here.
As though they do this every night. As though it is not the very first time.
[Lukas] Earlier, when she reached out and brushed her knuckles over the lean columns of muscle low in his back, Lukas had neither flinched nor startled. He smiled, though she couldn't see it, and continued undressing.
Now, they're curled together; her feet seek refuge under his calf. He's naked, bare and warm. It doesn't seem to bother him that she is not. He wraps his arms around her and she burrows into his chest and she makes a sound, a soft, drowsy little hum, that makes him draw a breath so deep his chest expands against her. And out again: a slow exhale, his eyes closing.
They seem content to sleep like this. He is content to sleep like this. As though tonight were nothing special. As though they do this every night. As though this were not the very first time he's let himself into her home, into her room, and wrapped himself around her simply to sleep.
A fragment of a sentence drifts through his mind:
come home to you.
Lukas is quietly, overwhelmingly happy. She's here, his mate. So is he. He presses his mouth gently to her brow, and then he closes his eyes.
