first date.

Danicka

The morning after Danicka's birthday -- the morning after the fight with the vampires, the morning after Lukas ran past the Gentlemen and climbed up the side of the mansion to find her, to reassure himself that she was okay, the morning after he ended up naked in bed with her but not making love to her -- she shooed him out of her room not long after the house began to stir. They were whispering, and like as not a few people in the mansion were more than aware that he was in there, but still, she was clutching a sheet to her breasts and getting him to bundle up his clothes and gogogogogo.

Kissed him, though. When he had yanked on his jeans and was about to duck out the veranda doors, she reached up and cupped her hand over the back of his neck to draw him to her, kissing his mouth in a way that, truthfully, she never has before. There was no hesitance in it, no holding back like it was in New York. It wasn't fevered and rushed or forceful like it was in the club. She kissed him slowly, deeply,

and not for the first time in a twenty-four hour period, he showed her he was willing to wait for her. To be close to her, to feel her mouth and see her skin and be this close,

but not push.

The pack recovered quickly at the plantation, but they didn't stay very long after that. Lizzy, growing mature enough to not throw a fit every time Rolf leaves, gave him such a hug when he left that the true adults in the mix -- this being the two Fianna kinsman -- shared a Look. There isn't much concern, though. She won't stay in New Orleans forever, and Rolf may be dotty but he seems honorable and good. Even if the day would come when the girl were older and viable for romancing, they don't worry about Rolf taking advantage of her, pursuing her, risking everything to defy a powerful family of Silver Fangs.

But they do know Yelizaveta. No matter, though.

Danicka embraces Lukas when he leaves. She tells him she'll come see him in the city soon, if it's okay. And in a couple of weeks, that's what happens. First there's texting and a few phone calls. It isn't anything terribly intense; they just talk. The way they used to through their letters, really, before things got shot to hell. The moon wanes and begins waxing again, reaching a glowing half as May works towards its middle and the days get hotter and hotter. Texting one night she asks him if he's planning on doing anything on Friday night, and he asks her why, and she asks him if he wants to go see X2. She said she heard it was really good. And maybe they could get some food, too.

Lukas

The morning after, Lukas is waking up way earlier than he wants to and getting kicked out of bed, and it's really only the second time he's ever slept naked with a girl, and this alone makes it kinda suck. He's hopping into his jeans and she's pushing his shirt into his arms and he's mock-grumbling about how he knew it, she was just using him for his body, and

she stops him and pulls him back and kisses him so slow and deep, and he almost loses himself in it. His eyes close and he drops his shirt and he puts his arms around her and

god, the way she feels, and

afterward he's a little dazed and she's saying go, go! and Lukas is naive enough to think maybe if he goes back to his room nobody will suspect a thing and Danicka, at least, is still young enough to think even if they suspect not having proof will make a difference. Though, really: they're surrounded by friends, here. It would be different in New York.

Later on, leaving, there are hugs, and at least one or two last long enough to cause Exchanged Glances, and then the pack of young werewolves is making their goodbye waves and walking away down the path and getting in Benny's car. Somehow this time, leaving, Lukas isn't crushed. It doesn't feel like the end of the world. It helps that they keep in touch. There are texts, and phone calls, and then one day she asks if he wants to go watch X2, and he says yeah! because he saw the first one on Benny's laptop and it was really good. Maybe they can get some food, too, and he says yeah! because he found this awesome place on Canal St with really awesome bourbon chicken.

And Friday night rolls around, and Lukas gets home from patrol and showers and rolls into his favorite pair of rumpled jeans, pulls on his favorite Yankees t-shirt, and starts strolling out the door. This requires that he passes through the common area first. The pack apartment's called a loft, but really, that's just a nice way to say it's a bare-walled rectangle of concrete. They've hung up little curtains to cordon off little private spaces, and Hana bought some pseudojapanese screens to divide her own quasiroom off. In the middle, they have a $50 couch and a $25 TV, and this serves as their living space, and his packmates are lined up on the couch watching Boston Public (which Benny claims to love, but everyone knows he just watches it for seven of nine), and Hana takes one look at him and kind of... raises her eyebrows.

That's what you're wearing?

And Lukas looks down, and wonders if his pants accidentally split at the seat, and shrugs. Yeah?

Do you remember what she was wearing on her birthday?

...Yeah? And then his eyes widen. Benny snickers. Lukas is red. Oh. Wait -- OH.

When he walks out from behind his curtain again, he's changed. And he's flustered, and he's red, and he's still in jeans but they're nicer, and his shirt is a button-up and he's buttoned it all the way up, and Benny sighs loudly and comes over and unbuttons the top two buttons and pops the collar, and then Hana shoves him aside and folds the collar back down, and Benny slips a condom in his breast pocket and Lukas takes it out and throws it at his face and Rolf is just grinning because for once, he wasn't the last one to figure something out. Lukas asks to borrow the car. Benny balks; that's his baby! Lukas calls Alpha privilege, grumping, and Hana grabs the keys out of Benny's pocket and shoves them at Lukas and tells him to go, already, you're gonna be late.

So it is that he pulls up to the plantation in Benny's car. The Gentlemen rustle as he drives by. Lizzie comes downstairs, hoping Rolf is tagging along, but as soon as she sees Lukas get out of the car alone she flounces off. Lukas goes to the door and knocks; he doesn't know why he's nervous; Danicka comes out and he's stumbling over his words, almost trips down the stairs, he's never been on a date before. She puts her hand in his as they're walking to the car and smiles at him, and his heart skips a beat and then

settles. He smiles back.

Danicka can tell Lukas didn't realize this was a date until about ten minutes before he left. He didn't put dinner before the movie, for one. The movie starts at six twenty, and they're five minutes late because parking in the French Quarter is atrocious on a Friday night. They get in and the lights dim and Lukas remembers popcorn, jumps up to get some, and sometime in the middle of the movie their hands find one another, and her head rests on his shoulder.

Lukas gets a little misty-eyed when Jean Grey drowns, but later in the lobby he insists he didn't, really, he didn't. They wander out on the streets, and it's nearly nine pm, and the city's just coming alive. Someone's playing a sax on the corner. There's a light drizzle again, on and off. The asphalt is wet, the sidewalks are gleaming, all the gaslamps of the Quarter are reflecting off the streets, and it's all so beautiful. Lukas walks with his date,

his date,

and life is beautiful. They stop to watch a street performer juggle random objects passerbies are tossing him - keys, a can of coke (mercifully unopened), a wallet, a shoe. A tourist asks Danicka for directions to some jazz club. A pack of drunk sorority girls shriek and giggle their way across a street to join an equally drunk pack of frat boys. The place Lukas takes Danicka for dinner turns out to be a streetcorner joint with seating so packed that they have to buy their bourbon chicken and shrimp gumbo in takeout containers and stand on the sidewalk to eat, and Lukas is embarrassed, apologizes that he didn't take her somewhere nicer, they can probably still get a table at Galatoire's, but she tells him

it doesn't matter where we are

which is a truth across several lifetimes. They end up eating while strolling the Quarter, their meandering pace bumping their shoulders together now and then, watching locals and tourists mingle, watching the bars and clubs ignite for the night.

"The first time we met in New York," he tells her, holding his box of chicken out so she can snag a few pieces, stealing some shrimp from her box in return, "I would've been really happy to just walk around all night. Grab a pastrami-wich at Katz's, check out the drunks in Times Square at 3am, watch the sunrise from the subway out in Brooklyn. I don't know if I ever told you that.

"Want some more chicken?"

Danicka

At the plantation, when a chime goes off alerting the people in the house to a car at the gate, Lizzy squeals and starts to run downstairs and Danicka physically grabs her, half-dragging her back to the stairs. "No," she says firmly, as the girl protests, "he did not bring Rolf to visit, he's just picking me u-- OW! Giselle! Could you come get Lizzie, the little tart just KICKED ME IN THE SHIN!"

But by the time Lukas gets to the door and knocks Danicka is alone in the front hallway. Rick, Christian, and Giselle all know better, though the Fianna did tease her earlier about waiting with some of their guns and reminding Lukas to bring her back by eleven and Danicka covered Yelizaveta's ears and swore at them so viciously in Russian that Rick's ears turned red. Christian, oblivious to the language, just knew That Tone and whistled his way out of the room. Rick, on the other hand, just chided: "Language," before exiting as well.

So she answers the door. No guns. No twelve year old. No nanny or bodyguards. Just Danicka in a little yellow dress and a pair of black-and-cork wedges that tie around her ankles. She has a purse, too. It's nowhere near as swank as her birthday dress, not shiny or flashy, but if he'd shown up in rumpled jeans and a Yankees shirt he'd probably be hoping for a wyrmhole to just open up on the porch and suck him into Malfeas because she has her hair up in a little ponytail and there's a white ribbon and her lips smell like some kind of fruit or flower or something when she leans over and gives him a tiny kiss on his cheek. Her hand slips into his as they descend the stairs and walk down that long path, passing under the branches of the Gentlemen as they go towards Benny's car.

Which is not a fancy car. It's not exactly a BMW or a brand-new anything. Frankly, a group of teenagers are lucky to have any car at all that runs. He holds open her door and she's grinning, and frankly she doesn't care if they're going to a movie first -- she likes talking about movies afterward at dinner, anyway. But they get there, and they go inside and find seats and Lukas starts to jump up and Danicka laughs, tugging him back down.

"No, we don't need it. You'll miss the trailers."

Her arm wraps around his. She does lean on him. Danicka laughs at inappropriate moments, like when Wolverine's skull pushes a bullet right out of his forehead, but she's discreet enough to cover her mouth with her hand. That was sad, when Jean Grey drowned, she mentions, but Lukas eyes her and says he has no idea what she's talking about. Which makes her grin. They are excited. It turns out Danicka knows a lot about Jean Grey and the Phoenix Saga and she saw that shadow of a bird and she is rather geekily stoked about what the next movie will be like

and neither of them know just how disappointed she will be. So they walk, and hold hands. They watch the juggler, and Danicka tells Lukas to check his pockets after the tourist asks for directions. This time it's lucky -- it wasn't a con, a distraction while the pickpocket came up behind Lukas. "Oh, this place is good," she says of the street joint, but Lukas barely hears her, apologizing, fretting inside, til Danicka laughs and kisses his cheek again. She tells him

what she tells him, which is the truth: it doesn't matter.

Later on, in a quieter corner, they stroll, eating slowly, talking in between bites. Her hair is a little frizzy from the heat and humidity and occasional rain, not quite as sleek and perfect as it was when he picked her up, but that doesn't matter either. She is getting tired, not so much from the night but simply from walking, but she doesn't want to tell him she'd like to sit down because then he'll fret, he'll fuss and worry and apologize all over himself for not thinking, I should have known, ack, ack, ack. She wants it to stay like this. So easy. So calm.

"You didn't," she says, and shakes her head, laughing. "Okay, if we're going to hang out, you have to stop trying to shove food down my throat all the time," she adds. "But if you want to finish mine," she tells him, showing him her half-empty container of shrimp, "you're welcome to it."

Lukas

The truth is, Danicka doesn't even have to tell Lukas she's tired for him to fret about whether or not she's tired. He's sort of fascinated by her shoes, because he's never really seen shoes like that on a real person. But they don't look very comfortable, the soles don't even bend, how does she walk on them? So they don't stroll very far, and they stop often, and she's offering him the rest of her shrimp gumbo and he worries that she hasn't eaten enough, but she assures him that no, really, she doesn't burn five thousand calories a day just existing and shifting, and

he rather gratefully eats the rest of her food. Saves her a piece of his chicken, though, which Danicka probably understands has more to do with soothing his primitive provider-instinct than anything else.

They toss their empty containers into a friendly trashcan. And then it's just them on this crowded street, and the night feels the way it does in New York in August, warm and humid and alive with summer. She looks so pretty in her yellow dress, and sometimes inebriates walking by stare at her, and Lukas is sort of caught between being protective and grr, and being ... rather foolishly proud, really, that she's with him.

"There's a cafe up ahead," he says, sort of proud, too, of his area knowledge after just a couple months in the area, "with seating up on the balcony. They're open forever and they don't mind if you just sit around. Maybe we can get some coffee there."

Danicka

In another lifetime, years in the future, Danicka would likely eat that last bite of chicken. It would be a gesture of understanding and bonding, accepting what he is and showing him that she is his mate. A small, tender little ritual that is never put into words. But Danicka is nineteen, and only barely so. Lukas is seventeen still, months away from even being legal, and neither of them understand mateship as it really is. Neither of them quite grasp these sorts of rituals. And there is still that quiet tension between them, everything that has been and might be.

She feels things for him, wants things from him, but there is still that pressure, that worry. When he frets, she feels it, too. He 'thinks' he 'might' be in love with her. And they both know there is no thinking about this, there's no mights or maybes. Without ever quite putting this into words either, Danicka wonders if Lukas would feel this way about her no matter what, forever, even if she pushed him away. She wonders, too, if she's already gone. She can't imagine a time in her life when she wouldn't miss him, wouldn't long for him to be close to her, and she doesn't know what to call that feeling.

"That sounds awesome," she says, smiling, her arm looped around his again -- still, really. "Maybe we could go there next time, though. I kinda... I was thinking we could go somewhere we could be alone," she says, glancing down, her smile flickering at the edges, but her cheeks don't quite turn red.

Lukas

Lukas is seventeen. He sometimes forgets that Danicka is a bit older than that at a age where two years still makes a big difference in maturity. Likely she notices it more, because between his youth and his inexperience sometimes he gets so unsure, like he's trying to pull in seven different directions at once. When she says next time his smile falters a little; he thinks she's calling an early end to the night, he thinks maybe she had a terrible time, maybe she dislikes him now, maybe --

he has to take a deep breath, remind himself to slow down. Chill out. Not everything has to be taken to the extreme. Not every kiss is an invitation to ravish. Not every no is a never, we're over, done.

And anyway: then she says what she does. Her cheeks don't quite turn red. He doesn't know what to think. He thinks maybe she wants to talk. He thinks maybe she wants to cuddle up and sleep again, oh god, he doesn't know if he can survive that. He thinks for a blazing moment about the condom Benny tried to put in his pocket, maybe he should have kept it, oh, the eternal spring of hope. Lukas lets out a slow breath.

"Okay," he says. And he thinks for a minute. "You know Maison Dupuy over on Burgundy and Toulouse? The manager owes me a favor 'cause we helped him clear a vampire out of the honeymoon suite last week. He might put us up for a night."

The Veil's thinner here in New Orleans. Or the Masquerade; whatever it is the vampires call it. So many unquiet dead and undead. So many odd occurrences right on the scarlet fringes of human society, and some of the locals see too much; move away. Others see too much and keep on going, try to maintain some semblance of normalcy in the face of a world bigger and stranger than they'll ever understand.

So when some paleskinned cowboy casanova shacks up in the honeymoon suite and keeps bringing pretty young things home for dinner, it's best to turn a blind eye. But when some pack of savage-eyed teenagers roll up in your lobby and one of them, the dotty one, is not-so-subtly sniffing at the furniture and the wallpaper and the lights in their sconces, it's best to slip them a note pointing them toward the honeymoon suite; best to turn up the music in the lobby a little to cover the thumps and crashes going on upstairs. Best to thank the youngsters when they troop back downstairs, flush-cheeked and their clothes a little awry, though you know it wasn't for the usual reasons teenagers might disappear into a room and come down flushed and clothes-awry.

Rules are a little different down here. Rules are a little more bendable, a little stranger. Just ask the Gnawers of the Sept of the YMCA. Just ask Danicka, growing as wild and strong as the magnolias in her garden.

Danicka

Multiple times tonight, Danicka has kissed Lukas. Kissed his cheek, so close to his mouth that it's maddening. Her hand has held his, fingers interlaced. She's held his arm, leaned against it, and yes, let's say it again: he's seventeen. He is very, very aware of how, when she leans just so against him, he can feel the curve of her breast against his arm and that, too, is maddening. It makes it hard to focus on staying relaxed, but the longer they walk, the less they talk, the easier it is.

And they haven't talked much tonight. On the drive from the plantation to the city she told him about Lizzy hoping to see Rolf, and how she hopes he -- Rolf, that is -- knows how big of a help his friendship to the girl has been for all of them. She didn't mention what everyone at the house knows: that Lizzy is hitting puberty at Mach 5 and Rolf is attractive (enough) and he is nice to her and he understands her and spends time with her and her hormones are starting to turn her into a whole new kind of hellion and this can't end well, she hopes to god Rolf remains oblivious and that by the time Lizzy is sexually mature they are a hundred or a thousand miles away from each other,

but she did mention that Lizzy kicked her in the shin.

And after they left the movie they talked about the movie, about comic books and how many now they'll start making decent comic book movies, and about which ones they'd like to see, and how Lukas would like to see a Batman without stupid nipples on his costume or AHNOLD playing Mr. Freeze. As they got food they peoplewatched more than they talked. They talked about their food, and about what Lukas did today, and they just strolled, hanging out. It's been nice.

She wants to be alone with him now. She keeps kissing him and he has to remember it doesn't mean he can turn his head and capture her mouth and hold her face there, just like that, while he groans past her lips. She holds his arm but he has to remember it doesn't mean she belongs to him, it doesn't mean she feels everything he feels reflected perfectly back to him. And she tells him what he does and his head spins through a half-dozen new thoughts, all of them gut-twisting.

Danicka looks over at him, and he starts talking about a hotel, and she sucks in a little breath as he tells her. "Oh," she murmurs, and hesitates, and says: "I just meant... I wasn't saying we should..."

Lukas

"Oh," Lukas rushes into this, well and truly red now, "I wasn't thinking -- I didn't mean -- I mean, I didn't think it'd be like last time, and -- " he flashes her a desperate look, "I just don't have anywhere else we can be alone. I guess we can go to my packhouse but it's like, one big room and everyone can hear everything," and that sounds wrong again and he wants to smack himself on the forehead. "Not that there'd be anything to hear. I wasn't thinking ... that."

He shuts his mouth on that note. Enough. Enough stupidity coming out of his mouth. Her arm is still around his, and if he were to tell the truth he's had about a hundred hard-ons tonight already, most of them thankfully in the movie theater where no one could see, but if he doesn't stop thinking about hotels and beds and her breast pressing into his arm that was about to change.

Danicka

They both stammer over this. He was just thinking of going someplace where they could be alone, anywhere, and he doesn't have his own room at the packhouse-loft-thingy and they can't drive all the way back to the mansion full of kinfolk. The truth is that Danicka is remembering, tonight, what she felt the first time she met him. She walked around with him, holding his arm, sensing his anxiety, feeling his warm bicep against her, and she wanted him. She wanted to take him somewhere and have sex with him, and then they almost didn't, and then they did and she knows they fought but she really has trouble remembering what they fought about.

There were moments in the movie theater when Lukas felt all the blood rush out of his head and pool in his groin. Something about the way Danicka was breathing when she was leaning against him in the theater, steady and close and reminiscent of the way she breathes when she's asleep, her body

naked

and warm

pressed up against his under the covers.

Or watching her lips when they close around a straw, or just watching her lips, or seeing this sort of dark, soft look in her eyes that sends arousal slamming through him for no rational reason. Multiple times tonight, Lukas has stirred with lust, thought about her breasts, thought about how she felt when he was inside her, because he'll never, ever forget that. And multiple times tonight, Danicka has noticed. In the dark theater, something about the way his breathing changed or how he exhaled carefully, shifting subtly in his seat. Or how he stroked her shoulder when he put his arm around her. She can see things like this so clearly, but when he mentions going to a hotel, she misreads him entirely.

And they stammer.

"Oh," she repeats, and this time she does turn bright pink when he mentions the one big room, everyone can hear everything, not that there'd be anything to hear and she wants to ask him wanna bet but god, that would drive him crazy, that's cruel, even if she does want to ...do stuff.

Danicka licks her lips and swallows, then exhales a small, breathy laugh. "Maybe we could just... go back to the car and drive around somewhere. Maybe... go look out over the river and just sit and talk."

Granted, she has no idea what they might talk about. But they'd be alone. And without a big, soft, clean bed right there it would be easier not to jump his bones. It would, frankly, be easier to remember why having sex with Lukas makes her uneasy, makes her worry about how he'll be afterward, makes her tense up with the thought of consequences. No bed, no problem.

Lukas

And there's that careful exhale again, and it's as much to hide his arousal as it is to hide that he's disappointed. He doesn't want to be, but he is. Whatever he said, whatever he thought, even, he would have liked to get a room with her. Not just because it'd be, well, a room with a bed where they might do stuff but just because last time she paid for it, and he couldn't, and this time --

well, he still can't pay for it, but he has other means now. Some part of him wants to show her that, the same way some part of him wanted to show her tonight that see, he knows New Orleans, he knows the French Quarter because this is where he works; he's not the country bumpkin from the backwaters of New York State, so out of touch with modern life that he barely remembers how to behave in a restaurant. Lukas is seventeen; Lukas isn't cruelly proud the way so many Shadow Lords are, but Lukas does have pride, and it's as delicate as any seventeen-year-old boy's. He wants very badly to be able to impress the girl he likes. To at least seem cool to her. To at least seem not-retarded.

But she suggests driving around, looking over the river, and that's okay too. Because at least then he's with her, and it reminds him a little of the night they could have had, but didn't: gallivanting around New York City, watching sunrise from a subway car. He finishes that careful exhale of his. All those thoughts raced through his mind in those few seconds, fast as light. He nods.

"Okay," he says. And it's all backwards, really, almost laughably so: the first time they met they made love. Then they slept together naked. And now, for the first time, they're having a first date. And of course you don't have sex on a first date. You might not even kiss.

Danicka

She's thought about that, too: how backwards this is. This is their first date, but they've already broken up. She has no idea that he wants to prove all these things to her, or show her that he has ways of taking her someplace nice, too, no clue that he wants her to see how he knows his way around, this is his city too now, see. But she's never thought of him as a country bumpkin, even when he compared himself to her in Manhattan and thought himself so. Danicka would be shocked if she knew all of his thoughts right now.

What she knows is that if she were to get into a room with thick walls and a locking door and a bed they would end up on that bed, and he'd end up on top of her, his thigh between her legs, heavy and warm and his mouth on hers, making her moan, his hand sliding up to cup her breast, his cock growing hard and hot and pressing against her,

which is the imagery that filled her mind when he talked about getting a hotel room. Doubtless some instinct of his is picking up on her arousal even if it's concealed, even if it's not quite as obvious as an animal's or as his own. Doubtless it's in her scent or her body language even if he can't puzzle it out, only senses it primitively, in the back of his mind and underneath his own skin. It makes no sense why she rejects him, unless she's trying to train him to never make the first move, never ever dare kiss her without asking or her initiating it, never touch her unless she tells him where and how.

There are issues at play here from her childhood, certainly. Power and control, the inability to trust that someone stronger will not take advantage, the need to know that if he really cares about her he'll always respect her and she can always say no and she can change her mind and and and. But neither of them understand that.

All they know is want and fear.

Danicka smiles. It's slow and spreading and warm. "Really?" she asks, though of course it really is okay, even if she can sense traces of disappointment. "Have you ever... gone parking before?" she thinks to ask, when they turn and start going a new direction, heading back to Benny's car.

Lukas

Lukas doesn't know quite what that means. He thinks maybe it means learning to park...? Maybe? No, that can't be it; that's ridiculous, and it must mean something more than that. He thinks a moment and

all they know is want and fear

and some part of him fears her mockery more than anything. He knows she won't. He knows that. But he's still afraid of it; afraid she'll see what a country bumpkin he really is, how far out of touch he really is; afraid he'll say something and she'll see right through him, be disgusted at the truth.

But he has something more than fear. He has trust, too. He trusts her, and he doesn't know why or how, and if he'd met her x years later he would not have had this foundation to build from. He would know what going parking means, then, but even if he didn't, he would never let on. He would believe - or at least tell himself he believes - this one brutal tenet: in what world are kinfolk superior to Garou in any way?

That's not Lukas now, though. Lukas, now, is uncertain and confused; he's a little worried, but he still asks, "What's going parking mean?"

Which, one supposes, is an answer in and of itself.

Danicka

A bit of pink to her cheeks now. She grins, ducking her head, and her ponytail swings to the other side of her neck. People have looked at them a few times tonight: the obviousness of their first-date-ness, their youth, the simple fact that they are purebred and he is Garou and they are beautiful: people have looked. Men have looked at Danicka, and one does just now, calling out something about her ditching that kid she's with and coming to hang out with him and his friends.

Lukas reacts to that however he reacts to that, but as he does, Danicka is holding his arm tightly, squeezing it with her hand, ignoring them, continuing to walk. But there it is: people stare. Most of them are not jackasses, many of the tourists think they're adorable, Lukas so obviously kind of nervous and Danicka so pretty. Everyone else who sees them sees how twitterpated they are. That every time he's looking at her and she isn't looking at him he looks like his heart is going to break in his chest and they see how she holds onto his arm, keeps her body really close to his even though it's not even remotely cold out here, nor is it a bad part of town.

She grins, and she's holding his arm as they walk away from some random catcaller, and she says: "It's... went you go out with someone and you want to be alone but you can't go to your place because you share your room with your brother or something and you can't go to her place because, say, her brother might kill you, and you can't even go sit on a couch and be left in peace because someone's mom will just walk through every five minutes to make sure your feet are on the floor and everyone's hands are visible, so... you just get in the car and drive. Maybe to some nice scenic spot or a parking lot nobody really uses and then you can just... be alone together and relax."

Danicka leaves out the other parts.

Lukas

Lukas reacts to the catcalling with a scowl, that's how he reacts. It's a thunderous scowl, and he directs it at said jackass, and said jackass suddenly decides to go catcall at some other pretty girl somewhere, but through all of this Danicka does the most mature, devastating thing possible:

she just ignores the jackass. Like he doesn't even exist, and isn't worth the energy of acknowledgment. But she squeeze's Lukas's arm, the bicep that's gone hard with tension, and his gaze breaks from the guy he's glaring at and he looks at her. He's thankful, quite deeply grateful to her, but he doesn't really know how to say it so he just covers her hand with his for a moment and so of course other passerbies who think they're just adorable think maybe the girl was a little rattled by the rude guys, and her date is reassuring her, when in reality it's closer to the other way around.

And as they're walking away from the catcaller she tells him what going parking means. And he laughs at the thought of his mom cruising through every five minutes to check for feet on the ground, hands kept to selves; he smiles at the idea of driving around and just relaxing. Danicka leaves out the other parts. Lukas's mind heads that way for a moment, and he pulls it back. Be alone together and relax, she said.

"That sounds nice," he says. "I'd like that."

They're starting to leave the most crowded parts of Bourbon Street behind. Even these side streets are alive and populated, but it's no longer a constant stream of people to walk through and around. They can hear the music of streetside pubs and bars better now; smell the mingling scents of po'boy joints and world-class restaurants alike. When they get to Benny's car, Lukas opens the door for Danicka like a gentleman, then circles around to get in himself. It was used but pretty decent when Benny first brought it to Stark Falls, but since then it's made the roundtrip between Stark Falls and NYC several times, and then marathoned all the way down to New Orleans. It's starting to show its age now, the engine turning over for a long time before catching, choppy at idle.

"Wanna go to the Fly?" he asks. "We can park off the road and if you wanna get some air we can sit on the benches by the river."

Danicka

They are both young enough that the idea of trying to hang out and his mom coming in pretending to put away laundry is funny but not endearing, more like funny because it would be just too horrible. They can't consciously tie that to their own arousal at sneaking around, or at least they can't separate it from all the other arousal they feel. So he laughs, and she grins, and she doesn't tell him about making windows steam up even in summertime or cops shining a light in and asking if maybe you two ought to just head home, now, unless we need to call your parents.

She smiles. And they walk. Lukas helps her into the car just like before and she grins to herself as she waits for him to get in. He suggests the Fly and she shrugs a little. "Sure, that sounds good," but she's not thinking about the benches or wanting air, she's just laughing and asking if he minds if she takes off her shoes, and of course he doesn't mind. So the ties come undone and she unwinds them from her ankles, slips her feet out of the shoes and crosses her legs at the ankle, getting some lip balm out of her purse and quietly applying it while he drives, and while the radio plays the Counting Crows remake of Big Yellow Taxi, Vanessa Carlton suppling the ooh-bop-bop-bops.

It doesn't take nearly as long to drive from the French Quarter to the Fly as it did to drive from the plantation to the French Quarter, but Danicka doesn't try to fill it with conversation. She looks out the window, and she looks at him, and she smiles at him. "I'm really glad you could come out tonight," she tells him quietly, when they're nearing the end of the drive.

Lukas

It's not a long drive at all. It takes a while to get out of the Quarter, but after that it's just a drive down the winding riverbank - the last recognizable branch of the Mississippi, anyway, because the rest of that great river has already fanned out into innumerable tiny inlets to the ocean, giving this area its distinct wetland character. Audubon Park is almost as famous as the Quarter, but they skip the zoo and the gardens, drive along the riverside until they find a nice place to just pull off the road and park half on the grass. There's a shallow embankment down from there to the riverbank, and there are old-fashioned streetlamps lining that bank at distant intervals; benches set between.

"Me too," Lukas answers, parking the car, pulling up the brake. "It's my first date ever," he admits then, a little shyly, but of course she already knew that. "I didn't even really know it was a date until I started walking out and Hana was all, are you going to wear THAT?"

But he doesn't want to talk about Hana. Or any of his packmates. He loves them, he likes them, but they're not here and he doesn't want them to be. He's here with Danicka. That's special. They've already broken up, but she's still here, and it's like a second chance in some ways, and in others it's like the first real chance they've had. He looks out at the river, the lights of the far bank glittering on the dark surface, and then he looks at Danicka.

"Do you think you're going to work for the Sokolovs forever?" he asks quietly.

Danicka

There is no one around her. Lukas at least got the main idea: somewhere deserted and dark. This is why couples in cars get killed in campfire stories, because they go to do naughty things in dark and deserted areas. Danicka isn't concerned. Most tourists are going to be in the city this time of night, and only come out to places like this when the sunlight touches the scenery. She isn't worried about transients or any of the others -- they all stay in the city, too, where it's safer, and where they have more of a chance to get a buck or a drink or a meal. Besides, she's with Lukas.

And Lukas understood one thing, if nothing else: parking is where you go somewhere to be alone. And 'relax'. And this is perfect. She can hear wildlife and insects and she exhales, smiling. She doesn't roll down her window though. She raises her eyebrows when he says it's his first date ever because even though she knows he was in the Stark Falls sept for years, it's still weird for her to remember that his experience mostly begins and ends with her. She doesn't know about the girl in New York, the girl he smoked a joint with and then ended up ...doing stuff with, and she doesn't know about the girl at the sept who gave him a blowjob. The first time they had sex it wasn't her first time, but then she says, before he asks her about the Sokolovs:

"It's... sort of mine, too," she tells him, looking at her hands in her lap. "I mean, I've gone out with people before, but usually it's just going out with a group of friends or ...hooking up with someone at a party or whatever, or sneaking out. This is the first time it's been... you know. The right way, I guess?" Danicka glances up and over at him. "The way normal people do it, where one person asks someone else out over the phone and then you get picked up at your door and you go do something nice. And hold hands," she finishes, looking down again. She smiles after a second, amused and half-blushing, looking at Lukas. "But seriously, how could you not know it was a date?" she asks, teasing.

Lukas

Lukas flushes a little, though it's harder to tell out here. Someplace deserted and dark. Not quite so deserted tonight - there are other cars parked at polite distances, other couples who came out here for a little peace and quiet and privacy. But dark, yes; dark enough to hide most of the blush, not quite dark enough to hide the way his eyes drop for a moment, then rise to hers.

Not dark enough to hide the clarity and color of his irises. He looks at her frankly, and with an odd tenderness; says softly and without defensiveness, "I just didn't, I guess."

And after a moment, "Can I hold your hand?"

Danicka

She thinks about teasing him more, or was thinking about it. What were you going to wear, a poncho? perhaps. She's glad he didn't get upset, didn't shoot back at her that it's hard to know if it's a date when she drags him into her bed at three in the morning, makes him undress and shows him her naked body and then nothing. She is glad that even in the darkness she can see his eyes so clearly, so brightly. So she doesn't tease him. Danicka just smiles, slow and lopsided.

Lukas asks what he does and it falters a little, but just a tiny bit. Reaching over, she slips her hand into his and says: "You don't have to ask."

Lukas

"I don't -- " and there's a break here, an involuntary sort of swallow, " -- I don't really know what I can or can't do, Danicka. Not when what I want to do is so far on the side of can't."

Danicka

Her fingers lace slowly with his, curl between his digits. She looks at their hands and not at his face now. It's a few seconds, two questions fighting in her, but she asks the second one: "Do you resent me?" she murmurs, her eyes on his knuckles.

Lukas

There's a twist in him, a physical flash of ache like someone reached in and yanked some tender connection between his heart and his gut. A frown wrinkles his brow for a second, then goes away. He looks at her and he shakes his head. "Never," he whispers.

"I'm confused a lot," he admits a little later, "and sometimes I wonder what you want from me and that night you took me to your room I was angry, and I wondered if you were trying to prove something or ... what. But no, Danicka. No. I don't resent you."

Danicka

A soft smile, then. She smiles at his knuckles, reassured. Gentled. And glances at him then, meeting his eyes across the parking break. Most couples that might be out here are already steaming their windows or making out on a bench by the water. Danicka and Lukas, who met one night and ended up fucking three times in a hotel room before dawn, sit holding hands and talking as though they are not seventeen and nineteen but perhaps fourteen and sixteen, maybe younger, maybe middle schoolers who have no idea what they're supposed to do when hand-holding makes their hearts pound.

"I think it's about just learning... timing. And watching body language. I know I'm not the easiest person to read, though. Or understand." She looks down again, rubbing her thumb over his hand gently. "I think some of it is just that I like this so much. Neither of us have gotten to have anything be normal. I know maybe that ship has sailed, because... well. The first time we meet and we can't keep our hands off of each other, and then we had all this complicated bullshit and everything, but a part of me wants all of this normal stuff. Going on dates and just being together and... maybe sex being something you wait for because it's special and it's important and not just... something you do because you're bored or horny or curious or whatever."

Hearing herself, she looks down at her lap, her thumb stilling on his hand. "I guess that's more my story than yours," she whispers. Then, realizing something else, she winces, looking at him quick. "I wouldn't want to have all this with you if you weren't already special though, Lukas. It was so different with you in New York, and even with all the drama and confusion you're still so, so different for me. I just don't want to be with you like it's been with anyone else."

Her brow is furrowed a little, her mouth soft at the corners. She gives a tiny, one-shouldered shrug, close to her body. "I just want more nights like this one. I want... to start over. Not just with you, but... who I am."

Lukas

What Danicka says makes Lukas sad. It makes him hold her hand very tenderly, stroking his thumb over the side of her forefinger as though he'd like to rub her back like this, tenderly and softly and reassuringly, while he listens. She talks about how neither of them have anything normal in their lives, which is true. His life, short as it's been, has been full of upheaval. The fall of his family, the hard years in the Bronx which were also, ironically, some of his happiest; the sudden transplantation to a new home, a new world, a new life; the separation from the world, right when he was learning to be his own person, so deep and complete that even now he's not sure he knows how to act normal. He's not normal. He's a goddamn vampire hunting werewolf, and he's here because he

(let's just say it)

fell in love with a girl he met exactly twice, plus a handful of times when they were kids. It's more than that, even. He fell into her, period, like his soul recognized her somehow, which it did and does; he'd follow her to the ends of the earth now but he can't tell her that because that'd frighten her because

it's so abnormal.

And there's been so little normalcy in her life, too. He doesn't even know her life, doesn't know most of it; knows only that her mother was a terror, knows it would have been kinder if a monster had eaten her mother up, but no; a monster simply took her mother over. The same with her brother, though those terrible, cruel details he doesn't even know yet. Maybe she doesn't want him to know, doesn't want to expose that terrible secret, doesn't want to see pity in his eyes, doesn't want to ruin him, or what they have, somehow.

He does know that she's the governess of an odd little Fang girl. That she's getting paid a lot of money to be - in the end - a servant to a mad house. Some part of him grates at that; wants her to have the very freedom she speaks of having. It's sad, and not normal at all, that the only freedom she's really known has come about only because of servitude.

She wants normalcy. She wants more nights like this one, gentle and sweet and pure, like they weren't in their late teens, like they haven't already had each other over and over. She wants this, and so does he even though he also wants her, is burning up for her; he wants it and he doesn't have the heart to tell her that they could never, ever really be normal. Besides, she must already know that.

It breaks his heart a little that she speaks of sex as possibly being something you do just because you're bored or horny or curious. He can't imagine that. Not with her, anyway. It breaks his heart when she says she wants to start over; reboot who she is. Wipe that clean, too.

"Danicka," he says softly, "who you are is wonderful. What could you possibly want to start over?"

Danicka

Of course she knows. And he grasps that, even without knowing some of the more horrific details. Even without knowing about what her brother did to the books, or about becoming pregnant when barely older than Yelizaveta, or about how savagely her brother beat her then. Even without knowing about threesomes, about cocaine, about sex with strangers. Even without knowing some of the absolute worst, he knows that Danicka is too smart, too savvy, to believe they could ever truly, completely be 'normal'. He's a werewolf and she's his kin. He is in love with her, to the depths of his soul and the ends of the earth. They can't go to her place because she lives on a plantation with a crazy little girl and three people she's had sex with. They can't go to his place because he lives with three other kids, all of whom are just as weird and vampire-hunting-werewolfy as he is. It has nothing to do with nosy mothers or overprotective brothers.

She can see the sadness in his eyes and it furrows her brow even more, her hand holding his tighter. She can see some of why, too: the talk of sex at its basest, without real connection, with motives so much less pure than the ones he feels when he's with her, and he's basically only been with her, and regrets the times he was with anyone else. It makes her twinge inside, with regret for mentioning, with shame.

But she can't explain that shame to him without telling him everything. Telling him a dozen things he might need to know one day and a hundred that he never needs to hear. It hurts that he tells her she's wonderful, that he asks a question she can't answer, doesn't want to answer and ruin everything, make it all sad and dark and horrible.

She takes a breath, sighing softly. And doesn't speak for awhile. They're holding hands but there's a slight disconnection nonetheless, a withdrawal in Danicka while she tries to come up with something to say. Eventually it does come, and with it the return of that tenderness in her touch, that connection, however faint it is at first: "Maybe... understanding all of what I just said and why I feel this way is something else you just have to wait for. It's not something I can really explain. Not easily. Not in one night." She looks at him, her hand warming further in his, and squeezes it. "Just trust me, okay? I'm not talking about becoming a different person or messing with your head.

"I just never had much innocence, Lukas," she whispers, her voice a little rough. "I know I'm asking you for a lot just for my sake, but this feels ...so different to me from anything else. I want to savor every part of it. Even the sexual tension part." A beat. "Especially that, actually."

Danicka

[Addendum: Those last few words are said with an expression that almost transitions from ache to arousal, quiet as that transition may be, a smile hinting at the corners of her mouth, tender and fond and maybe (just a little) shy.]

Lukas

They're both intelligent people, capable of deductive and inductive reasoning both. And pieces start to fit together for Lukas, even if Danicka doesn't tell him everything sad and dark and horrible. Things like: her brother turning into a monster, and her mother throwing her father through a wall, and how she was so afraid of him when they met because she didn't know him, but she knew he was a werewolf.

Things like: he wasn't her first, not by far; she was gentle with him and loving, even nurturing, but she knew what she was doing, and she talks about sex without connection, and she talks about the rarity of sexual tension. And he looks away for a moment, raked over his own personal bed of coals; thinks of her suddenly with all those strangers who looked at her or stared at her or called out to her tonight,

leave the little boy, baby, come party with us,

and it takes effort, it takes strain, for him to close his eyes and put that from his mind and open his eyes again and look at her. Maybe by then that tender, quirky little smile of hers has died away in worry, and if it has that makes him sad, too. He doesn't want to be sad. He was -- they were both -- so happy.

He touches her cheek. The backs of his fingers first, then the pads. His hand cups her cheek and he leans across the divide and he kisses her, very gently and very slowly, does not think of who else she may have kissed and how; doesn't think of that. Kisses her tenderly without escalation, and then rests his brow to hers for a moment.

Draws back again, breathing carefully and slowly, measuring his inhales and his exhales.

Danicka

But he does think of it. For a moment. She can see it in his eyes before he looks away and before they close, and shame collapses her insides like skyscrapers being demolished, the ground shaking and everything tumbling down. That quirky smile does die away in worry, and her eyes are stricken, this isn't what she wanted at all. And this is always what happens when she lets someone in. Always what happens when she tells anything close to the truth. Even if he isn't disgusted with her, even if he isn't angry at her, it's there. For a few seconds that idea of maybe getting back some semblance of innocence and having something sweet and new with Lukas is so much of a joke it makes her sick.

Danicka looks away. So maybe Lukas does reach for her and touch her but he doesn't kiss her, can't kiss her when she's withdrawing like this, pulling away even when her hand is still in his, looking out the window at the darkness.

Lukas

He can't kiss her. He doesn't even try - not when he turns back and her smile is gone. It's worse than gone. There's shame in her eyes and then she's turning away, closing herself off the way he's never, ever seen her do before.

Her hand is still in his. It feels immaterial somehow, like she's willed herself out of that appendage. He holds it anyway, holds on to it even as he's sitting up, leaning and turning across the gear shift, taking her hand in both of his. Maybe he thinks if he warms her hand between his he could call her back into it. Bring her back with him.

"I don't care about what happened before," he says, quiet, fervent. "Danicka, I don't care what you've done or what was done to you or how bad you think all of it makes you. I don't care, and neither should you. None of it changes what we have, or who we are to each other, or how I think and feel about you. None of it changes who you are, or who you want to be. Danicka...

"Danicka, vrat se ke mne."

Danicka

It's hard not to see her behavior like that of an omega wolf who, trying too soon to reach over and swipe a bite of meat from the kill, was smacked down by larger, stronger wolves. She slinks back to the corner of the den, tail tucked and body made smaller by shrinking into itself, submission by way of hiding. Only she's not an omega wolf. She's this pretty girl in a yellow sundress and a ponytail who is just as close to him as she was before but suddenly not even there anymore.

She doesn't do it to punish him. She doesn't even recognize it, couldn't see it from his perspective unless he could explain it to her somehow. It's self-protective to the core, the emotions so chaotic she can't even put them into words for her own mind to organize. She just feels bad. She doesn't want to fight with him and make it worse. Not for a second did she think that what she said would 'tip him off' or make him think about other people, about why she's so jaded. All she wanted was for him to not be so confused about how she can want him so badly but not want to go to bed with him -- at very least, not think she's just doing it to exert control over him.

To understand how precious tonight is for her. Her first date, too.

He holds her hand, unnerved and perhaps bewildered by how far away she seems all of a sudden, and the way he covers the top of her hand is the first thing that makes her turn back to him, looking furtively at him, like she's not sure what he's going to do. Like she's wary of what he might say.

Danicka is looking at him all the time he's speaking, telling her he doesn't care about all that, it doesn't change it. A part of her, twisted and angry and hurt, wants to ask him how he can say all that when he doesn't know, when he has no idea what she's done or what's been done to her, it's nice to say that and all but he doesn't know. Another part of her reminds her that if Lukas didn't at least have an idea, if she hadn't seen that idea in his eyes, she wouldn't be feeling like this to begin with.

And in the end she says to him, very quietly: "Just forget about it, okay? It was stupid."

Lukas

"It wasn't." Though he barely raises his voice, Lukas is so adamant about this; says it so firmly, so honestly, that he nearly cuts her off. "It wasn't stupid. It was -- it is a beautiful thing to want. Danicka ... I want it too. I'd like it if we could be innocent together. And start over like that."

His hands move, refold over hers. He brings her hand to his mouth and kisses it, as fervently as he'd insisted that he doesn't care what's happened before. Presses his brow to it for a moment, like a wordless plea.

Lifting his head again, he whispers, "Danicka, I think you think I'm innocent and pure in a way that you're not anymore. But that's not true. There's blood on my hands and not all of it deserved to be spilled. There are things I've done that I hope you never, ever find out about, but I'll tell you anyway if and when you ask. And maybe that's not the same as the things you want to reboot, but I don't think it's any better by any stretch of imagination.

"I think you also think I might resent you or hate you if I found out any of these things you won't tell me. And that's not true either. Maybe I'll be shocked for a while, or even angry, but I couldn't ever hate you. I just ... can't do that.

"So let's just put all that aside together, okay? What you've done, and what I've done, and all the crap that might've been done to us. If you want to talk about any of it someday, then I'll be here. But for now, let's just look at each other, see one another's shadows, and then put them aside and start over together. And be normal. And have innocence. At least with each other. Okay?"

Danicka

Instead of her mouth now, he kisses her hand. It's a gesture Lukas has never performed before, not to Danicka, probably not to anyone else. It isn't even a gesture so much as seeking some kind of contact, pressing his lips to her hand, holding her hand close to his face. It wasn't stupid, and it's beautiful, and she wants it.

The real punishment for a liar is not being never believed. It is never believing. Danicka always waits for the rug to be yanked out from under her, for someone who 'cares' for her to trick her into humiliating herself or trick her into a corner, into a cage. It is hard to look at Lukas and believe him when he says that it isn't stupid. It's nearly impossible for her to believe that he doesn't care about all the rest, that he'll like her anyway. She swallows hard at one point, while he tells her -- though in more words -- that he has more insight into her than she thought, and that his inexperience is not the same as innocence.

And they are different, the two of them, in the ways that they lost their childhoods before they'd even begun. But they have this in common: neither of them can claim that everything they may regret was thrust upon them, that they were victims, that they had no choice. In point of fact, the greatest sign of their loss of innocence is how aware they are that they chose these things, and how they both understand that regret is usually tied to responsibility.

In the end, she does believe him, and not because of how fervent he is. It's that last part. He doesn't want to lie. He doesn't even claim to want to pretend. Lukas can grasp, young as he is, the difference between seeing something and setting it aside as unimportant

and just ignoring it altogether, lying to yourself to pretend it doesn't exist. That could never work for them. They could never truly pretend to be normal, or innocent, when at any given moment he might have to go slaughter something by pulling its limbs off and she might have to visit her brother and suffer a beating if he sniffs another wolf on her. But for awhile, those can just be shadows. For awhile -- Danicka is too cynical, even at this age, to believe it can be forever, to believe that it could one day be a mark of their relationship, that it could be something they find sanctuary in together -- they can just be in the light.

When they're together.

She gives a small nod at the end. Okay. And then, bare feet and all, she climbs over the parking brake and into his lap, sitting sideways with her back to the driver's side door, looping her arms around his chest and laying her head on his shoulder in a firm, warm hug.

Lukas

There isn't a lot of room in Benny's little subcompact. But Danicka is slender to the point of thinness, and Lukas's legs - his entire frame, actually - are longer than most grown men's, let alone seventeen-year-olds. There's room enough for Danicka to get over the parking brake. There's room enough between the wheel and Lukas's body for her to curl up in his lap and wrap her arms around him.

His arms wrap around her, too. He holds her like that, as firmly as she holds him, laying his cheek to the top of her head as she lays hers to his shoulder. They can be in the light together, he thinks, and this seems so very precious, so very unexpected and rare a gift. Not because they're pretending the shadows don't exist, but because they do. Because they'll set them aside anyway, for each other.

After just holding her for a very long time, Lukas smiles a little. Opens his eyes and looks out over the dashboard, down the embankment, over the river to the lights on the other side. "This is a nice first date, don't you think?" he whispers. The smile grows a little bit bigger.

Danicka

It's quiet in the car except for their vioces. The engine is off, the radio silent, the doors locked and the windows still clear. It's a tiny car, and amazing that four Garou were able to drive from New York to New Orleans in it with all their worldly possessions -- even if their worldly possessions don't add up to much more than a backpack each. Danicka's bare legs stretch out over the parking brake, her feet resting in the passenger seat. Her slender arms can give surprisingly strong hugs, though, and her hands remain warm behind his back, under his shoulderblades.

Chances are that when he gets back to the pack'house' he's going to be teased about that condom, about the date, about whether or not he 'messed up' Benny's car somehow. It's their job. It's their job to hunt vampires with him, and their job to let him know he can't wear a Yankees t-shirt and stained jeans on his first date with The Girl Of His Dreams, and their job to mock him relentlessly about it when he gets home. They are his packmates, but -- and this is something he does not realize yet that few Garou have within their pack -- they are also his best friends.

But they aren't here. Danicka is. Warm, lovely Danicka with her sunny dress and the white ribbon in her hair, the ends dangling down. She just... cuddles with him there, encircled completely in his arms, potently aware that she's sitting on his lap. And they just sit there, their warmth mingling until it becomes a single, fused thing, until Lukas murmurs what he does. She can only see his neck, including a small freckle on the side, including the shadow where he would actually grow a beard (or at least some very rakish stubble) if he hadn't started learning to shave with a straight razor in Istok's home bathroom, his mentor looking on sternly as though this were as much a lesson as how to butcher prey.

A smile spreads across her lips, slow and pure. She nuzzles him, her nose stroking a little over his throat, and snuggles a little closer. That is answer enough.

Lukas

It was, indeed, Istok who taught Lukas to shave. It didn't seem like much at the time, not at all some symbolic instilling of the fundamental values of manhood that a father would do for a son. It was only much later, on one of those rare trips home when he happened to see Jaroslav shaving, that he realized his father did it differently. All the little things were different. His father used his right hand exclusively to wield the razor. His father brushed shaving cream on in longitudinal strokes instead of circular swirls. His father started with his neck, and not his right cheek, and all these differences were because his father was taught by his father's father, and all the way back,

but he was taught by Istok.

None of this occurs to Lukas right now. The truth is, he didn't even shave before coming out because, well, he didn't know it was a date. And his pack - his best friends though that fact is so absolute that he doesn't even overtly think of them as such - managed to save him from showing up in dirty jeans and a rumpled t-shirt, but they couldn't save him from showing up with a slight five-o-clock shadow. Or from smelling faintly of bar soap and cheap man-shampoo instead of some aftershave or other.

He doesn't think Danicka minds, though. It never even occurs to him that she would.

So they sit there for a while, just like that, saying nothing, needing to say nothing. After a while he says here, and then he pulls the lever on the side of the seat and lowers the back, and they tilt back together and he paws some stuff - a can of Red Bull, some god-knows-how-old empty frappuccino cup that Hana left in the car - out of the way so Danicka's legs can stretch more comfortably across the seats. And he closes his eyes and they lie there together and after a while Lukas opens his eyes again and asks Danicka if she thinks Jean Grey was actually dead.

Which leads to a conversation about that shadow of a bird, and the whole Dark Phoenix saga, which leads to the revelation that Danicka is actually sort of a geek, which makes them talk about computers and stuff, which leads to the revelation that Lukas actually played Warcraft III and really loved it, can't wait for the Frozen Throne come July, and Danicka asks if he's heard about World of Warcraft and he says he hasn't, and

that starts a whole new tangent.

And eventually, somehow, they end up talking about whether or not Rick and Christian and Giselle and Lizzy knew what a geek Danicka really is, which leads to them talking about whether or not anyone at school knew what she was into, which makes Lukas ask what high school's like, really, because of course he's never gone and everything he knows he knows from TV and hearsay.

"It would've been cool to go to high school together," he says, a little wistful. And then, laughing, "I would've totally let you wear my letterman's jacket. Especially if you let me copy your math homework."

Danicka

Over the time they spend in the car, they talk a lot. Lazily, and with Danicka shifting around a little so that they lie more on their sides together than her atop him, which is a little safer anyway, but they end up talking. Because Lukas brings up the movie again, which they already talked about earlier -- including the Phoenix Saga -- but it doesn't last too long. Danicka admits she was never much into comic books because she never bought them and the whole Phoenix thing happened before she was really old enough to be into it anyway. But she does mention she was always more into games.

What kind of games? Lukas wants to know,

and then he finds out that Danicka really liked computer lab in high school. That Danicka and a friend of hers once hacked into the PA system to play Get What You Give throughout the halls and they never found out it was her. She talks about this like it was easy, not in a self-conscious or breezy way but giving the sense that she honestly doesn't realize this might be something other students wouldn't even begin to know how to do. But she likes games. He knows one, is eager to show her he knows something about what she likes, so he mentions Warcraft III. Danicka lights up. She knows the whole story arc, and asks him if he knows about the MMORPG they're making

which means she has to explain what an MMORPG is. She does so delightedly, her eyes bright green across from his vivid blue, her hands gesticulating a little between them, bumping his chest occasionally. She tucks her bare feet between his shins as the night outside gets just a degree or two cooler, but it's warm in here, so it must be just for closeness. She seems very excited about World of Warcraft, which no one calls WoW yet. He's teasing when he asks if the other Kin know how big of a geek she is, and she laughs aloud, which is a wonderful sound.

She got a laptop awhile ago and she usually plays after everyone has gone to their separate rooms or if they aren't going out or while Yelizaveta is getting tutored. She tells him about the glasses that she and Giselle are going to take online this summer, which is one of the reasons she got the computer. One of them is an introduction to programming, which she never got to really get into as much as she would have liked in high school. He asks her about high school and what people knew; she tells him no, not really. She didn't excel too much. She certainly didn't drop below a particular average. She tried not to stand out or draw attention to herself. She was cordial with everyone; friends with one or two, other Kinfolk mostly. But they didn't come over to her house and after her junior year she sort of just did her own thing mostly, because she was working.

It is not a particularly happy perspective on Danicka's life, and she shies from much of it. When he asks her about what high school is really like, she's obviously uncomfortable, less relaxed than when talking about games and computers and things she wants to do, far away from the laughter when he teases her for being a nerd. Her eyes shift and she has a lonely look to her mouth, uncertainty that makes his arm around her get a little closer, unconsciously.

She smirks a little, though, at what he says, a little wistful and aching herself. But the last comment gets a quirked eyebrow and a slightly more amused smirk. "I certainly would not, and I'd still wear whatever I want," she says archly. "But I'd tutor you," she adds. "I'm actually pretty good at math."

Danicka does not realize that 'pretty good at math' in her book is '4.0 at MIT' good-at-math, or 'future Department of Defense codebreaker' good-at-math. She also does not realize that for most people she would be a miserable tutor. Her brain, when it comes to numbers, simply works differently, some steps done so fast they seem skipped entirely. Breaking it down for someone without that talent would be difficult for her, panic-inducing for them. But, that's all she says. She's a little good at math.

Her head rests on the seat, on his arm, wherever. She thinks for a moment, then: "High school is kind of horrible and stupid, actually," she says quietly. "There are people who take it all really seriously, and then t.v. and movies and grown-up's nostalgia is all really warped and not what it's like. There are some fun parts, but... for Kin and Garou it's really not like it is for anyone else. So I was there but I still don't totally know what high school is 'really' like, you know? But... I kind of wanted to ask if maybe you like... wanted to learn some of that stuff. It's not fair you guys don't get that kind of education."

Lukas

It surprises Lukas a little to hear how isolated Danicka was in high school; to see, vividly, how lonely that memory makes her. After all, she's pretty and blonde and charismatic, and everything he's ever seen in pop culture tells him that of course, she must be popular, she must have thousands of friends, she must have had at least a dozen BFFs surrounding her in high school.

Yet it makes sense that she didn't. It makes sense in context of everything tonight, the normalcy and innocence she wanted so much to share with him; the lost youth she wanted to reclaim. It makes sense in context of the first time they met, and how lost and lonely they both were.

He holds her a little closer. They're side by side, squeezed into the reclined bucket seat. When she was excited and happy about World of Warcraft her hands bumped his chest as she gesticulated. It's just as easy, now, for him to reach across and touch her mouth, stroke his thumb over her lower lip as though to wipe away the loneliness.

"It's not fair," he replies, "but maybe it's for the best. If you couldn't even have a real high school experience, then there's no chance for me there. Maybe it's better for me to have grown up with others like me. I might not get the education, but at least I get the social support.

"Besides," he smiles a little, "I read a lot. I mean, not just novels but textbooks too. I don't wanna be an ignoramus, you know? I don't wanna be that Ahroun that only knows how to curbstomp people but still thinks the sun orbits the earth."

Danicka

She blushes when he touches her mouth, ducking her head a little. The sadness and discomfort were momentary -- high school was complex. She was lonely but she knew everyone. She was isolated but she snuck out regularly, got into trouble, got out of trouble. She was smart but she couldn't let herself stand out too much. She knew too many geeks to ascend into higher strata of the social scene. And then there was the pregnancy. Stephen. Then there was her mother dying -- finding out her mother died -- literally a week or so before the start of her freshman year. She keeps so much of the underbelly of why it was complex and painful from Lukas, needing him to understand that she doesn't want to talk about it, needing him to comfort her without knowing what really happened.

And he strokes her mouth, talking about how maybe it was better to grow up with people like him. Her eyes light up a little -- she wants to say something to that, it's clear, but she waits. He tells her he read a lot, and he reads a lot still. He didn't want to be stupid. She grins.

"I actually meant... not that it's just too bad, but... you know. There's no reason you guys shouldn't be able to learn more stuff. And not just reading it out of books, but actually having a teacher and having to write things. Any education where you don't have to write and analyze isn't worth much. I had a History teacher who said that all the time. She threw a stack of papers down and started ranting about how if we couldn't take our knowledge and share it with others, we were wasting our time in that class and wasting our time in life. She had some really crazy rants."

Lukas

"That does sound a little nuts," Lukas agrees, "saying it, I mean. But I sorta agree. I mean, if you can't analyze and compose for yourself, you're always just repeating other people, you know?"

He shifts, propping his head up on an elbow, his forearm resting comfortably, warmly over Danicka's midriff. Quite seriously, he says, "Hey, no pressure, but -- if you wanna like, come over to the packhouse once in a while and just, I dunno. Just teach me stuff? I'd like that."

Danicka

Danicka gives a little laugh. They are, quite frankly, lying together as close as lovers. They have clothes on. It's not the first time they've been this close, and the last time they actually were naked and postcoital, but it feels different now. She has her feet tucked close to his legs, his arm over her waist, warm and close, his chest within inches of hers. She grins at him. "God, you're a little obtuse -- that's kind of what I'm talking about. Well, sort of. I don't think I'd be a great teacher. And it might be weird if we're like... dating. But, um, Lizzy has all those tutors. And she's actually doing stuff that's meant for sophomores and juniors in high school. Sometimes I sit in and learn a lot, and I even went to high school. I just want you guys to know you're welcome."

She settles again, looking up at him. "But I've wanted to come hang out with you guys...well, basically since you left the plantation. But we weren't really, um. Talking." She touches his shirt, the fold where one half meets the other, thoughtful. "I just like the idea of like... curling up on the couch with you and hanging out with everybody, watching t.v. or whatever. And maybe if it gets too late for me to get a cab or you to drive me home I could stay over."

Lukas

Lukas nods so eagerly to both proposals that it's almost comical. "I'd love to sit in on lessons," he says. "I'll see if Rolf wants to come too. He likes learning stuff. I don't think he really learns the way the rest of us do - he doesn't memorize or analyze or whatever - but he just likes letting new information, like, flow through him or something."

And they will show up. Mostly Lukas and Rolf, sometimes Hana and Benny too if they're bored. The former two will actually end up keeping something of a schedule, showing up nearly every Saturday afternoon when Lizzy has her weekly review session with her tutor. Lukas will actually buy and bring notebooks for this; he'll scribble notes furiously as the tutor skims through the high points of the week. Rolf will just show up and lean back in his chair and listen, a big smile on his face. Lizzy will be miraculously well-behaved, and always sitting next to Rolf, and sometimes just to show off she'll flick out answers even before her tutor's done asking questions, and gradually as Lukas gets to know her better he start coughing ahemteacher'spet and ahemshowoff under his breath,

which will get him kicked under the table by the girl, which will get her sternly looked at by her tutor, and

it'll all be rather fun, really. Afterward they'll wander down to the kitchen and usually Lizzy can't wait to show Rolf whatever Cool Thing she's found on the plantation that week, while Lukas hangs out and munches on lunch leftovers and hopes Danicka will come by and just. Y'know. Say hi.

Sometimes they'll have time to go out to the gardens before dusk. Wander around and see cool things themselves. Walk amongst the old trees and crumbling fences; climb trees, wade in brooks. At some point he puts up a rope-and-plank swing for her, tossing the rope over the wide-sprawling branch of a live oak. Once, he leads her behind ancient magnolia, its leaves dark and glossy, its flowers huge and fragrant, and they kiss there hushed and wanting until they heard Giselle coming across the lawn, calling them in for dinner, and they're having lamb tonight so won't you stay, Lukas?

That's in the future. In the now, Lukas is smiling, saying, "It would be so awesome if you'd come hang out with us. And you know you're always welcome to stay over, any time." He hugs her a little closer, reducing those few inches to an inch or two. Softer, "I'm sorry we kinda stopped talking for a while. I missed you."

Lukas

[no idea why that one line break is all funky!]

Danicka

It might be like that, too. Come one week and learn from the economics tutor. Come another week and hear what they covered in history. Come another week and be completely confused by all the Latin. Sit in the parlor one afternoon while Danicka and Lizzy practice on the baby grand. The plantation always has a sort of lazy busy-ness to it, a warmth even as the weather chills. They remember that even from the day or two they first spent there, every time they go there for respite.

Maybe Lukas will begin to see what Rick and Christian and Giselle and Danicka have, that Lizzy is old enough to have crushes, and that Lizzy wants very badly for Rolf to smile that smile of his at her, so she will show off and try to impress him and grow frustrated when her skills at mathematics do not make him awestruck, do not make him sweep her away to give her her first kiss. It's doomed. But for the meantime, sort of sweet. Maybe she'll turn up her nose at Lukas and his notebooks, roll her eyes at him leeching off of her tutor til Danicka drags her aside during a break and lectures her in a hushed, fervent Russian that if she is going to be any sort of woman she needs to learn a little bit of grace and courtesy to her guests, that if she wants to hold the name of her family over people's heads then she should learn a little noblesse oblige, snap at her that if it weren't for Lukas and his pack Danicka and Giselle and Rick wouldn't be here and if it weren't for Rolf everyone would think Lizzy was crazy.

It will be very harsh. And Lukas will never find out about it, but he will notice Lizzy becoming more polite. Grateful. Instead of pointing out his mistakes she will ask him if he wants help. And for this, Rolf will -- all obliviously -- be smiling at her, pleased at her kindness in a way she's been taught no Shadow Lord would ever care about. She'll take him to the Cold Spot she found by a certain tree and he will help her talk to the former slave that was hung there, help her so she is not so terrified, not so traumatized by the spirit's anger and loss.

And in the parlor where the lessons are, Danicka will sit nearby to make sure Lizzy behaves while Lukas tries not to take advantage of the kindness, puzzling things out for himself or simply writing them down so he can try and figure them out later, because this is not his tutor, he shouldn't ask questions, til the history tutor sees his furrowed brow and asks -- albeit a bit nervously -- if he has a question. And then, gradually, it will be okay for him to ask. And when Lizzy answers, she will have some humility about it. And in the corner, mending a blouse, Danicka will smile.

Yes, all of that is in the future. Maybe Lukas actually will make a swing, which will get them talking about the oak in her family's back yard, climbing and her falling and him running inside for HELP HELP and getting spanked and Danicka crying over that when she didn't even sniffle at her scraped knees. Lukas won't ever have to wait to see Danicka at the plantation, though. Won't ever have to hope that she'll come see him. She'll be there, in the corner of his eye or greeting him at the door or calling him and the others for lunch. And she'll be there, convinced that the swing is going to break til he climbs on it and proves otherwise, and then

well. We will leave future kisses to the future, along with the wading and the gardens. There are no guarantees.

Right now there's just the two of them. Like this.

Danicka breathes in as he pulls her a little closer, thinking Lukas must not be processing what she just said very much if he's able to think about her lying there in bed with him, listening to his packmates' breathing while feeling her body in his arms. She huffs a little breath of a laugh, and then it fades, somewhat sadly. "I missed you, too. Let's not talk about that, though, okay? I just don't want to think about any more sad things tonight."

Her hand rubs up and down his arm for a moment, then settles. "I'm just glad we can do all that now. I always wanted you -- and the others -- to come visit the plantation often. Even when you first moved here, I wanted that. Even if we were just friends. The same with visiting you guys wherever you ended up living. I liked the thought of going and hanging out with all of you."

Lukas

"Okay," Lukas promises. "No more sad things tonight."

Her hand passes up and down his arm. He's wearing long sleeves, but all the same the hairs on his arm stand up. And in fact he has, and does, think about what that would be like. If she came over; if they watched TV and argued over whether to watch Fear Factor (ew, gross, Benny!) or Sex and the City (ugh, seriously, Hana?) and then ended up watching Lost; if they ordered pizza and debated what the Black Cloud was until it was too late for Danicka to go home -

if they separated to their curtained little alcoves, and she went with him to his, if she lay beside him and under his blanket, as close as they are right now. What that would be like, having her so close, knowing his packmates could hear everything so obviously they can't do anything. A little like madness, he imagines. But worth it, just to have her near, sleeping close, warm and safe and with him.

"It's really nice," he says quietly, slowly, as though just realizing this himself, "to have friends that aren't just the people you live and work with. It's nice to have you guys nearby, and to be able to visit you guys on the plantation and stuff. I really like it. I really like the thought of you coming to visit us, too.

"You should bring Lizzy and Giselle sometime too," he adds. "And maybe even Christian and Rick."

Danicka

It's nice to hear him mention Rick and Christian like he doesn't hate them. It makes her feel a stab of guilt at the same time. She hasn't done anything with any of them since January, but January is five months ago and it might not matter. Lukas said he might be shocked, might be angry. He'd never hate her, though. She just doesn't want him to hate them, either. They're her friends.

But no more sad things tonight. They'll get there. And he might be furious with her for not telling him sooner and she might ask him what was she supposed to do, tell him every horrible thing all at once so they could never really talk about any of them, just unload and sweep them under the rug? That may very well be a fight for the ages, but tonight, no more sad things. No more fear. And preferably not too many thoughts about what they wouldn't be able to do atop his mattress on the floor in his little alcove in the loft. Or, you know.

Doing stuff. Very quietly.

"Maybe," she says, smiling, watching his eyes. She agrees that it's nice, but she's just watching him right now, lazy and sort of quietly happy and tense all at the same time. She is quiet for a few moments, then glances at his shirt and then his face.

Lukas

The quiet tension in her puzzles Lukas a little. He understands the laziness, the happiness. That makes perfect sense to him. But the way she watches him doesn't, and when her eyes flick to his shirt he looks down, too, wondering if maybe he spilled a glop of bourbon sauce on his collar when he didn't notice.

"What is it?" he asks.

Lukas

[look, i grew another dot of empafee pool! :]]] ]

Dice: 3 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 8) ( success x 1 )

Lukas

It's when his eyes come back to hers that, somewhere in Lukas's sometimes very obtuse brain, a switch clicks over and a circuit closes. There's a flicker in his eyes - a flare, a match lit and burning. "Oh," he says, very quietly.

And then there's a breathless tension in him, too, uncertain where to go with this: how far, which way, what was allowed and wanted and what was not. A few seconds go by. Then, very carefully, he puts his hand on her face, threads his fingers into Danicka's hair and

very, very gently tries to kiss her.

Danicka

They kissed on her birthday a couple of weeks ago, but she was so confused and he was so desperate -- hell. They were both desperate, both confused. She pushed him away that night, after two kisses so searing they felt like being crushed to death inside, felt like soaring, felt like they were alone and the club was falling away, they could just find the nearest flat surface and that was the first kiss they'd had since almost a year ago in New York City. This isn't their first kiss, and it isn't even the first since her prom night, but it feels like it somehow.

Because she does want him to kiss her. She is still when he asks what, maybe he can't figure out what's going on, a little hesitant, and then a second later it clicks for him. Oh, he murmurs, just like that, and something about the look in his eyes and the sound of that word makes her insides clench, makes heat pool in her thighs, makes her nearly breathless with anticipation. She watches him, breathing carefully, as he gets nearer.

As he touches her face, feeling the sweep of her hair going up into its tail, the ribbons brushing his knuckles.

And as he kisses her. So gently at first, like it really is the first time he's kissed her or anyone else, like he's unsure what is okay, how far this is going to go. Danicka's eyes slowly close, her mouth softening on his. They kiss for awhile, very slow and very soft, not even using their tongues. It could go on forever like this. (But not really.)

Lukas

Like they're living backwards: from making love the night they met, to kissing like they could have devoured each other whole at the club, to this. This kiss, as gentle and soft and uncertain as any first kiss, is nothing but slowly lowering eyelids; slowly parting lips. Their tongues never even touch. Their breath mingles, though, and after a while he's no longer even sure which breath is his and which is hers. It could go on forever like this, only not really, and so eventually he draws back a little, just enough.

His forehead touches hers. His lips are still close enough to hers that a kiss is barely more than a thought away. He's touching her hair, combing his fingers into her hair until her ponytail starts to come loose. His eyes are closed and his body is close to hers and he's warm to the touch, warm where his shins lie to either side of her feet, warm across that almost-inconsequential space between. When his eyes open they're warm, too. He smiles at her, and this time when he kisses her his eyes are open for a while; the way he looks at her is as gentle as his hands, his kiss.

When his eyes close again, his tongue traces her lower lip. Just once, and very lightly, like a question.

Danicka

At first when Lukas draws back Danicka looks startled, surprised, her lips in a small round shape, her eyes asking him what's wrong, why he's stopping. Just a second, though. When he starts to dishevel her hair she gives a soft laugh near to his mouth, her hands moving to his shoulders, her body that much closer to his. She's smiling. He can see that where they lie together, in the dark, the moonlight just barely touching them through the windows. Even some of the other cars have left this area, after all the time they spent talking.

(Which is, supposedly, what parking is all about.)

And he kisses her again, her eyes closing though he keeps his open. She closes her eyes every time he kisses her, lost in it. As slow and easy as they move, as gentle as their mouths are, she can feel her heart pounding. It flutters when he uses his tongue, and under his hands he can feel her melt a little, feel her intake of breath.

Lukas

The first time they kissed - the real first time - Lukas followed Danicka's lead almost entirely. He had no idea what he was doing. He had never done this before, and she was so patient with him, so gentle, until every kiss he gave her was a little more confident.

It's different this time. There's no sense that she's leading him, teaching him, showing him how to do this. There's a sense that she's letting herself drift into this kiss the way he did nearly a year ago. Like this is her first kiss. Like she trusts him to lead, this time.

His hand is warm on her cheek again. Warm against the angle of her jaw, which moves as one kiss ends and the next begins. His hand moves: now it's over the side of her neck, the pulse of her carotid beating against the heel of his hand, and it's quick, it's so quick, a flutter that makes him think of the beating of wings. Her breath draws in and he shifts a little closer and now their chests are pressing together, he can feel her breathing against his body. His lips close over her lower, release; the next kiss is open-mouthed, and a little deeper, and there's a soft sound at the back of his throat and

somehow his hand has found its way to her breast, and when he touches her he draws back himself, startled at himself, gasping against her mouth, his eyes finding hers. He looks to see if this is okay; if she wants him to stop. If she wants him to go on. He has no roadmap for any of this; no guidance beyond her reaction.

Danicka

There's no sense that Danicka is leading him because, this time, Danicka doesn't want to lead him. She doesn't want to be some stony gatekeeper of what is Yes and what is No. She just wants to feel a little... new. And she doesn't want to teach him tonight. She doesn't want to show him to put his hands here, to kiss her like this. Deliberately, in fact, she remains just short of passive, patient even though what her instinct and desire are craving is so much more than this.

Lukas touches her lips with his tongue and she gives that tiny gasp, melts a little in his arms, and so he deepens it. He likes to touch her face, she's noticed. He always cups her jaw like that, strokes her cheeks. It's different; she would know it's him kissing her no matter how long she kept her eyes closed, even if she couldn't hear his voice or look up and see his bright blue eyes. Not many people have kissed her like that. Even so, she can feel in him how fervent it is, how much longing there is for intimacy with her. How much he just wants to hold her, how precious she is, how close he wants to be, how gentle his hands are. It almost makes her wish she liked it more, rather than finding it uncomfortable and confining.

So there's a flicker of that. For a moment, there's also a little tension in her, worry about how easily she can make him feel rejected, how much pressure there is to not make him feel pushed away when he's already so uncertain, but should she just go with it or should she do this,

and it's frustrating. Lukas might even feel Danicka a little less lost in his kiss, a little distracted, when he cups her jaw in his hands like that. Sense how different it is from how she melted when he licked her lips, or earlier on when he put his arm around her waist. She was saying something earlier about body language and timing, more than is this okay and what's wrong. He'll learn. She breathes, and she runs her hand up his arm to his hand, gently shifting it further back, closer to the base of her skull, the back of her neck. She relaxes a little more, less forgetful of their kiss. Her arms come up, wrap around his neck,

which brings her body almost flush to his. Their kiss deepens and he makes that noise, which makes her warm inside. Danicka feels what Lukas is unaware of long before he realizes it: she feels him running his hand down her side, and she moves a little closer, the sort of signal his brain doesn't have enough blood now to recognize. It slides up again, tracing over her breast, and she shudders, her lips losing his for a second as she catches a breath. When his palm finally cups over her breast, Danicka is dizzy with arousal, kissing him a little harder, moaning softly.

Danicka

There's no sense that Danicka is leading him because, this time, Danicka doesn't want to lead him. She doesn't want to be some stony gatekeeper of what is Yes and what is No. She just wants to feel a little... new. And she doesn't want to teach him tonight. She doesn't want to show him to put his hands here, to kiss her like this. Deliberately, in fact, she remains just short of passive, patient even though what her instinct and desire are craving is so much more than this.

Lukas touches her lips with his tongue and she gives that tiny gasp, melts a little in his arms, and so he deepens it. He's more confident now than he was when they met. He's less hurried than he was in the nightclub. She trusts him to lead. She wants him to lead. She wants him to know it's okay. She wants him to know it makes her feel good.

He likes to touch her face, she's noticed. His hands move over her cheeks and brush her neck, dishevel her hair. She smiles into the kiss, briefly, her hands holding his forearms, her fingertips stroking between his knuckles. She would know it was him kissing her no matter how long she kept her eyes closed. She would know it was him even if she never opened her eyes to look at his bright blue ones. She would know it was him kissing her even if he never made any of those low, warm sounds in his throat. She can feel in his hands as much as his mouth how close he wants to be to her, how gentle he tries to be, how precious she is to him.

Her arms come up, wrap around his neck, which brings her body almost flush to his. Their kiss deepens and he makes that noise, which makes her warm inside. Danicka feels what Lukas is unaware of long before he realizes it: she feels him running his hand down her side, and she moves a little closer, the sort of signal his brain doesn't have enough blood now to recognize. It slides up again, tracing over her breast, and she shudders, her lips losing his for a second as she catches a breath. When his palm finally cups over her breast, Danicka is dizzy with arousal, kissing him a little harder, moaning softly.

Lukas

Lukas loves it when Danicka wraps her arms around his neck like that. No one else has ever done that; that's simply not how friends hug. It's an intimate thing, a very close thing, and it presses her against him in a way that makes the world spin under his feet.

The same way it spins when she moans like that into their kiss. It's been so long since he's heard her make a sound like that, but he remembers it, it's so vivid in his mind every time, a blaze of arousal right down his spine.

And they're kissing a little harder now. He's breathing harder, and she had to catch a breath in the midst of it all, and when she presses to him his hand is firmer on her breast; he touches her with a little more confidence, a little bit of boldness. His calf slides between hers. Then his knee; and then his thigh between hers. He shifts, raises himself on one elbow, turning over her, his shoulders wide over hers, his weight pressing her gently into the seat. He wants very much to pull her pretty yellow dress down and put his mouth on her breast. He wants very much to get between her legs and rub against her mindlessly, to pull her panties down and unzip his jeans and be inside her again, but

he doesn't do any of these things. He kisses her. He touches her breast very gently, almost reverently, cupping its curvature in his hand, brushing his thumb over her nipple, kissing her, kissing her,

kissing her forehead, and then sinking back down on his side beside her. Exhaling a sigh, ragged at the edges. His hand is still on her body. Their legs are still entwined, and they're so close that she can probably feel his erection inside his jeans, hard against her hip. He can't quite will himself to draw back entirely yet, even as he breaks the kiss and opens his eyes and looks at her and whispers,

"I should stop. Danicka, we should stop before I can't stop myself anymore."

Danicka

They are well and truly making out at this point, and it sends thrills up and down Danicka's spine. It isn't just his hands on her or the way they're kissing, not just one or two bursts of passion but this long, drawn-out thing, building steadily to a fevered pitch; it's the conscious fact that she's making out with Lukas. They're lying in the car he borrowed from his friend after their first date and making out.

She's touching him, stroking his hair and moving her hands over his back. Frankly, she's squirming a little against him, her body moving around as though she could somehow get closer to him. It moves the front of her body against the front of his, rubs her against his chest and his stomach and his groin. Their kisses have gotten rougher, their breathing ragged at the edges, and Danicka shivers with pleasure the more he touches her, caressing her breast through the snug bodice of her dress.

There's a second where she pulls her face back, gasping softly, and pants out: "You know this is what parking is really for now, right?" before putting her mouth back on his, moaning a little as his leg pushes up between her thighs a little. She knows she shouldn't rub herself against him wantonly when he does that, shouldn't end up dryhumping him in Benny's car, but she can barely help herself. He's so good when he's like this, rolling her a little under him, their legs trying to find room in the front seat, his weight warm and hard against her. It reminds her vividly of having sex with him and she feels -- literally -- quite dizzy for a moment.

He thinks of what he wants and it blazes through him so hotly that Danicka can feel it, the thought transferred somehow through body heat. She thinks about ending up in the back seat and she feels how hard he is, thinks about even just rubbing their bodies together until they lose their minds, and her skin tingles everywhere. But in reality he's being so gentle, so careful, his kisses harder and more forceful than his hands. She all but purrs.

Then:

Lukas stops. He rests his brow to hers, their mouths separating, and she looks dazed, bewildered, a little lost. He's trying to relax, though he can't pull his body away from hers and Danicka isn't exactly moving away of her own accord. She almost asks him what's wrong, but he's still touching her breast, he's still tangled up with her and she thinks she can almost feel his cock throbbing in his jeans. She's panting softly, wanting to know why -- and he tells her.

"No," she murmurs, half a whine, sinking closer to him again, tilting her head to kiss his neck, that soft spot just below his earlobe, "not yet..."

Lukas

Not yet, she says. He groans; it sounds tortured and surrendering both. His head tips back and he lets her put her mouth to his neck, a Shadow Lord Ahroun lets someone put their teeth close to his jugular, only here he's not a Shadow Lord Ahroun and he doesn't have to worry about teeth and veins and danger and all that crap because

here they see each other's shadows and leave them behind. Here they can be in the light together, and be as normal as they'll ever be.

And yes. He knows what going parking really means now, and earlier when she asked him that he laughs aloud and it's amusement and mirth but it's also just for the joy of it, and then his hand is on the back of her head and he's pulling her forward for another kiss, harder, pulling her forward just long enough to instigate that kiss before his hand is back on her breast

which is where it is now, caressing her even as she's sucking and nipping at the thin skin of his neck, up where his neck meets his jaw meets his ear. "Oh, god," he groans, and then his hand slides down to her hip and he pulls her against him, pulls her body firmly to his and wedges his thigh between hers, grinds himself rather shamelessly against her hip even as she's very likely doing the same to his thigh. He's back half-atop her again. He's kissing her again, well and truly making out: hot, long, deep kisses that seem to dredge arousal right out of the core of his being to pour molten into hers. He's moaning muffled into that kiss, and his hand is tugging up the hem of her dress so he can reach under and rub his hand up her thigh, over her ass, urge her to move against him, rub against him,

"Oh, god, I want you so much,"

his mouth on her neck now, his mouth on her breast right through her dress; he doesn't even care.

Danicka

He warned her. Just a second ago, even. They should stop before he can't bear to anymore. But the truth is, Danicka isn't afraid in the slightest that Lukas won't be able to stop himself. She isn't scared that they'll hit a point where he literally cannot hold back anymore. And she doesn't want to stop yet. It feels like they've only been making out for a few seconds when, in actuality, it's quite a bit longer than that. They've been in this car for something like two hours now, talking and then snuggling and talking some more and now this, but she wants more. More, in particular, of this.

It gives her a little rush when he dissolves like that, surrendering entirely. She licks his earlobe, wraps her lips around it and suckles, kisses her way down his neck while his hands grasp at her. She almost climbs on top of him, but he's putting his hands on her hips and she gasps, moving into his grip,

another signal that, right now, instinct recognizes before his brain needs to. It's a yes, not just the lack of a no but an enthusiastic, eager yes, as he pulls her lower body to his and starts grinding against her. Danicka moans again, louder now, rubbing herself on his thigh just like she thought she shouldn't. It rucks up the skirt of her dress, which is fine because Lukas does that himself a few moments later. His hand finds what he'll learn quickly is a hot spot for her, cupping her ass and feeling the way she starts squirming all over again, whimpering a little like he just struck a match to a line of alcohol. She thinks she's going to pass out from the way he's moving her against him, encouraging her to use his body to pleasure herself.

Which she does.

This is what she wanted. Walking through the French Quarter she thought about it, and sitting in the movie theater she thought about it. When he suggested a balcony and coffee, when he suggested getting a hotel room, when they stammered over finding a place to just be alone, when she suggested they go parking, this is what she wanted from the start. To make out like a couple of horny teenagers -- normal teenagers, even. She has been fantasizing about this most of the night. This. Exactly like this.

Also, the windows are steaming. The way they're jostling around, rubbing against each other, is making it rock slightly. She protests with a noise when he stops kissing her, gasps a laugh when he starts kissing her breast through her dress. Her fingers are in his hair, her ponytail a complete wreck now, but she doesn't care. His arousal is making her own go off like fireworks every few seconds, his lust finding an answering clench deep in her body.

"Come back up here," she breathes, pulling at his shoulders, tugging him up to her. She wraps her arms around him again, kisses him, knowing that any second now she's going to lie back and her legs are going to slide up his sides, wrap around him, and he's going to reach down and unzip his jeans and rub his cock against her panties until he can get then down and

oh god they can not have sex in Benny's car this is not okay.

Danicka moans anyway, whimpering something in his ear about how much she loves his body, something about how good he feels, something.

Lukas

Come back up here, like he's fallen into a hole somewhere and she wants him back out of it, and that thought's so absurd it makes him laugh, he's laughing because he's happy. He comes back up here. He pushes his hand through her hair and undoes the very last vestiges of her ponytail and he likes her hair loose like this better anyway, combs his fingers through her hair and cups the back of her head and

oh, they're kissing again. He's mmmphing into her mouth and she's riding his thigh blatantly, shamelessly, her arms are wrapped around his body and he thinks of the last time they made love, which was also the only night they ever made love; thinks of her arms around him, her legs around him, pulling him into her, there, she'd said when he wasn't even sure where to go, where he was supposed to be, and he'd looked at her with such sudden gratitude because she could've made it humiliating and confusing and sad for him but she didn't.

And now she seems as uncertain and eager as he is. She seems as new as he is; they both feel so new, and truth is this is still so new. This is so new and no, no, they cannot have sex in Benny's car but

god, he wants to and

now he's almost on top of her, rubbing his thigh actively against the grind of her body, his hand on her breast again, stroking her as he's kissing her, kissing her as he's rubbing himself against her thigh, her hip, moving like if they didn't have clothes on he'd be inside her already

which is probably true. And not okay. Because this is Benny's car, and more importantly: because she said she wants a little innocence. She doesn't want this to turn into some sordid affair where once in a while they get together to fuck in some hotel room. She wants something he thinks maybe she's never had before either, no more than he has: dating, young love, a boyfriend who'll take her to the movies and hold her hand and fumble through literally steamy makeout sessions in some little junk car.

This time when he pulls back he actually pushes up on his hands, so fast that he bonks his head on the ceiling. He's panting. He's so hard he thinks he might pass out, or worse, come in his pants. He doesn't want her to feel rejected so he comes back, he kisses her mouth quick and light and her forehead, harder and more fervently. He leans his forehead against the seat's headrest, he pants for a while, and then he says, "We have to stop. Baby, we gotta stop or we're just... not gonna stop."

Danicka

Earlier she thought of undoing her hair. Unwrapping the ribbon and taking out the band and shaking it all out as, perhaps, some sort of signal -- like taking off her shoes, like suggesting they go park, like lying there and looking sweetly into his eyes until he figured out that he should kiss her, dumbass -- to tell him to get closer to her. He does it himself now, fumbling with the ribbon because long story short, her hair has the least of his focus. She shakes her hair out anyway, losing the hairband, the ribbon falling to the seat behind her as they go back to the kissing that is dominating their entire lives right now, taking over every memory, turning their whole existence into one long makeout session.

It feels that way, at least. She wouldn't change it for the world. Danicka isn't passive anymore, not even in the slightest, writhing around and rubbing on him like she doesn't even care that her skirt is hiked up to her hip, that his hands are all over her breasts and ass, her hands running up and down his sides, caressing him through that rumpled button-down shirt of his, probably the only one he owns and it's a little snug. She thinks that since he's undoing her hair and pushing up her skirt it's only fair if she urges him to take off his shirt, or at least open it up so she can touch his chest, see him half naked,

god, she wants him.

They are making out. And dry humping. It makes her terribly happy to be doing these things, or it will later when she can use her brain again and think. Right now all she can think of is how fucking hard he is, how rough his jeans rub against her, and how nice his thigh feels, how hot it would be to get herself off on him like that, maybe one of these nights he'll put his hand between her legs and she can teach him how to make her come with his fingers, oh

god, that would be hot.

Danicka is surrendered to him right now, which is strange and almost unfair. It's so hard for him to resist her, he said a couple of weeks ago. It's been so long. He wants her so much. It's maddening to do things like sleep naked with her or hold her hand or make out in a car on a deserted road without being able to make love to her, without the promise of getting inside of her and being able to fuck her, preferably with more control than the first time, so it could last longer. So it could last forever. And yet, as mad as she's driving him, she wants him to lead a little. She wants him to push so that she can say no, perhaps.

No. It isn't like that. He understands better than he thought he did. He understands better than she could explain it. Danicka wants a little innocence. And Danicka wants more than a hotel room every couple of weeks where they fuck and eat takeout. She wants everything they've had tonight. Have, right now.

Danicka doesn't feel remotely rejected when he pulls back. She's been expecting it, at some point or another -- the moment when Lukas knows that if he doesn't stop he's just going to lose his mind, come in his pants, or say to hell with it and fuck her in his best friend's car, which is not okay. She gasps as he leaves her though, her hair a mess and her cheeks flushed, a small wet spot on the front of her dress from his mouth on her breast, her skirt up so high he can almost see her p--

don't look don't look don't think about it don't look

Her eyes widen a bit as he bonks his head. "Oh, are you oka--" And he kisses her, which she starts to melt dangerously into just before he pulls back again, kissing her brow. Their bodies are still entangled, Lukas hard and hot and heavy against her, Danicka quivering with longing underneath him. She pants softly, her hands on his chest, as he finally finds words.

Still trying to breathe, she nods, closing her eyes. "Okay," she whispers. "Okay."

Lukas

Okay. That was practically his refrain, the first night. Still is sometimes. It's a good word, and he likes it. It's so versatile, and a gentle word somehow - one he can use to check if something is okay, if she's okay; one he can use to agree to something without being demanding.

He thinks about these things, silly things like semantics, because it keeps his mind off her body so close to his. It keeps his mind off the way her breast felt in his hand, small and shapely and soft; it keeps his mind off the way her ass felt, and whatever panties he felt under her dress, and the fact that if he looks down now he'd able to see exactly what she's wearing, and if she's wet from rubbing against him like that. He thinks she might be. Must be, the way she was gasping and moaning and all but shaking with want.

She's still all but shaking. So he wraps his arms around her and rolls on his side again, lays his leg over hers as though to anchor or protect her, holds her against his chest as they both try to learn how to breathe normally again.

Okay, he thinks. He might die or explode or pass out any second, but okay. They're okay. They're more than okay. They're happy, and he can feel her hands on his chest or on his back.

Gradually, little by little, his breathing steadies out. His heart doesn't hammer so hard anymore. He's still got one hell of a hard-on but he can survive that, and that won't last forever either. He holds her a little longer, holds her until her breathing has steadied as well, and in a way it almost feels like they've made love, reached their orgasms, are now gently drifting down together. A deep breath in, and out, and then he leans down to kiss her very softly. Softly, the way this all began.

"Should I take you home?" he asks. "Or do you wanna maybe spend the night at my packhouse? I promise I won't... y'know. Try anything."

Danicka

A Lukas who never had this pack, who stayed rather isolated through his training and didn't learn til his twenties how to see past himself, who met the Bellamontes and tried to be a Beta, would not just say 'okay' over and over, would not simply like that word and go on using it. No, he'd have to be more eloquent, use his words like weapons and shields both, every breath given over to demanding respect from other wolves. He would not talk like a child, would never admit that in some ways he still thought like an animal.

This Lukas, seventeen and holding The Love Of His Life in his arms, his heart pounding with joy and desire and a mindblowing mix of frustration and satisfaction all at once, likes the word 'okay'. It can be a question and a confirmation, a plea for reassurance and the answer to that plea, it can end a huddle with his packmates, it's good. He likes hearing Danicka say it, probably thanks god that she says it now and relents because chances are if she said no, I don't want to stop again they wouldn't stop and it isn't just for Benny's sake that he wants to stop. Ironically, for Danicka's. Danicka, who licked his ear and whimpered when he pressed his thigh between her legs and didn't want him to move away.

She is panting softly for breath, coming down from those peaks of arousal as though -- yes -- they just came together, they already made love, they're sated. Lukas is thinking, then trying not to think, about those soft cotton panties he felt and whether or not she's wet, she's probably wet, she's almost certainly wet and he could just rub himself on it til he's slippery and then slide right in, oh god.

Danicka has her eyes open, then they close again, her head turning to rest against his shoulder, her chest moving with the in and out of her breaths. She has her arms tucked close between the two of them though she isn't even slightly cold, is actually sweating a little from the near-summer night and the heat they've built up in the car. But it's close. It's tender, and subconscious surrender to those protective instincts of his, surrender even moreso to her own vulnerability.

They don't say anything for a long time. Their breathing gradually slows. His cock stays pretty hard. She tries to pretend she doesn't notice. He offers to take her home or take her to his home, promises not to try anything, and for a moment her eyes open, finding his. "You sure?" she whispers back, something slow and lazy about her tone. There's a soft, dark look in her eyes that could make the world drop out from under him, but she closes her eyes and exhales, long and slow through slightly pursed lips. "Oh, god," she murmurs, in gentle incredulity at her own desire for him. She nuzzles the side of his neck tenderly, settling down. Her hand comes to rest on his side, curled over his ribcage.

"I think," she says slowly after a moment, "I should go home," this with a little laugh. She lifts her head again, smiling at him, her eyes dark green and twinkling, her smile lopsided. "I mean I can't sleep over on our first date."

Lukas

That lazy sensuality in her tone makes him groan aloud; he doesn't even try to hide it. He buries it against her neck, though, even as she's nuzzling the side of his, and in his jeans his cock gives a rather noticeable jerk, and he drops his head to the cushion and grips himself through his pants like maybe this will calm him down.

None of this is hidden from her either, even though it makes him laugh a little in embarrassment. He doesn't try to hide a lot of things. Not the way he would have if he'd grown up rather isolated, and then decided to make himself beta to a Silver Fang - a man that he would, for years, try to look up to. And because he'd be so hellbent on following this man that his deeper instinct whispers to him is unworthy, because he'd have no real idea what friendship should really be like, he'd feel the need to hide things away. He'd hide who he is, so that he can be more than Edward Bellamonte, or who he thinks Edward Bellamonte should be, or who he thinks the Beta to Edward Bellamonte should be. He'd hide any scrap of what he perceives as inferiority or weakness. He'd hide tenderness away, gentleness, anything that wasn't in keeping with the stern strength of a Shadow Lord warrior, the emotionally callous privilege of a Silver Fang playboy.

That is not him now, though. That may never be him, now. And he is not afraid to say okay over and over just because he likes the word, because it encapsulates so much so easily. He is not afraid to be almost out of his mind for wanting, and to stop, and to let Danicka see how desperately he wants to roll her under or atop, to pull her panties down, to be inside her, he could be inside her, they could come together so easily and --

she thinks she should go home. He laughs too, a little breathlessly. He kisses her. It's light and gentle, and then as he draws back he gingerly takes his hand off his crotch, gingerly shifts away from her and reaches to fold the seat upright again.

"That would just be wrong," he agrees, deadpanning unsuccessfully. He helps her climb back into her seat and

let's be honest, he totally leans over and bites the curve of her ass gently, runs his hand down her leg as it's swinging over the gearshift. Then she's settled and he's taking a deep breath and blowing it out and rolling down his window - it's a crank window, that's how small and cheap Benny's car is - to let in the night air, let out the humidity and the steam.

"You'll come over soon though, right?" he asks as he starts the engine. "Just to visit?"

Danicka

Both of them have enough selfish darkness in them to enjoy the thought of breaking the rules, sneaking under the covers at his packhouse and muffling their groans and gasps, touching each other and maybe even fucking each other on that cheap, narrow mattress. But both of them, also, care enough about the pack to know that really wouldn't be okay, that would be pretty awful of them, it'd be awkward in the morning. That doesn't mean the thought of it isn't one more stab of arousal through their bodies.

Danicka doesn't laugh. Not at his groan, not at the way he grabs himself. She wants very much to cover his hand with hers, move his hand on his cock, and it is a real challenge for her to stop herself. She bites her lip instead, rather hard, watching him with a glaze over her eyes. Danicka nuzzles him instead, under his ear, her eyes closed and the gesture infinitely tender. She isn't hiding her tenderness for him, isn't quite so withdrawn and emotionally distant as she might be in another six years if she'd never met him. She can't imagine Lukas using her tenderness against her. He's Lukas. Occasionally she remembers him as a little boy, but not right now. Not when he's warm and masculine and so very hard next to her, his arm around her waist.

They kiss so softly like this, so sweetly. Her hair is all mussed up, and he can smell her shampoo which is not man-shampoo but is something herbal and light, botanical but not floral. She's smiling, and shifting around with him. He lifts the seat up. She tugs her skirt back down, laughing softly. When she crawls over him to her seat he bites her through her skirt, runs his hands over her, and she lets out a little shriek, reaching back and swatting at him. "Lukas!" she says, laughing as she thumps down into her seat.

Danicka shakes her head at him, smoothing her skirt over her legs. She looks around for her hair ribbon, since her hairband is lost in the darkness and the back seat somewhere, and starts smoothing her hair up and back, fingercombing it as best she can into some semblance of the ponytail it used to be in. She ties it blindly while he turns on the car, blushing slightly with happiness at -- all of this. Looks at him suddenly when he speaks.

"Oh, of course I'm going to," she says. "I come to the city every week or two anyway. And you guys are going to start visiting the plantation more." She checks herself in the mirror, and then reaches down for her shoes, slipping her feet back into them. "And, um... I still want to go out with you," she adds, glancing at him again. "I liked... going on a date with you."

Lukas

They exchange that look over the gearshift and the parking brake, while she's tying her hair up and he's turning on the engine and he's asking if she'll come over and she's saying of course. He grins. She's flushing with happiness. He's leaning across, his seatbelt in his hand but not clicked in yet, and he kisses her again, quick and soft, before he leans back.

"Okay," he says, and there's that word again. "Maybe I'll come out next Saturday and sit in on a lesson or something. If Lizzy doesn't mind," he hurries to add.

And as she's putting her shoes back on he's putting his hand on the back of her seat and backing off the grass, back onto the road. Most the other cars are gone now. It's late, and there are curfews, and sometimes the riverbank isn't so safe at night, but they never have to worry about that. He turns the lights on and pulls carefully back onto the road, and then they're heading north and west, away from the city, toward the plantation.

"I had a really good time tonight," he answers quietly. As soon as he can take one hand away from driving, he reaches for hers. "Maybe after the lesson on Saturday we can go on another date." The word still feels so new to him. Date. Dating. They're dating, and he wants to grin ear to ear at the thought of it. "Maybe we can take one of those horse carriages," he adds. "The group ones, so I can sit way in the back and not freak the horses out."

Danicka

Danicka blushes again when he kisses her, blushing more tonight than she has in years. It's sheer pleasure rather than shyness, happiness every time he kisses her, every time he makes her heartbeat flutter, every time he holds her hand. She feels the way she did earlier tonight, purer somehow than the infatuation she felt right after making love to him. She wouldn't call that a crush. She probably couldn't call this one either, because it makes sense to have a crush on the guy you're dating, but it feels like that. "She won't mind," she says, "unless you don't bring Rolf along. Then she'll be a little brat."

She bends at the waist, wrapping ties around her ankles, tying bows in front of them, as Lukas pulls out and gets back onto the road. She looks out the window, seeing who else -- if anyone -- is out and about. Not many. She grins to herself, and their hands bump into each other in the center of the car as they're both reaching for each other's hands. It makes her laugh. They have a rather long drive home, which is nice, too. She fiddles with the radio a little, turning the volume so it's not too high.

"Saturday?" she says, confused, then shakes her head, explaining -- in brief -- what Lizzy's tutoring schedule is. Who comes on what days and for how long, how Saturdays and Sundays are open. She mentions that, say, if he came by on a Tuesday afternoon or Friday morning he'd sit in on a lesson on economics...for example. "I could write it down for you, in case there's something you like... want to learn about in particular," she offers, then looks over at him, her eyes perked. "We can still go out on Saturday, I mean. You could still come visit, and stuff. Saturdays and Sundays are nice. Lizzy works on any compositions she has, we might practice piano or do some kind of cooking project. We do chores. And I'm sure she'd just love playing school with you. But she does have tutors year-round, even in summer. That's why she's so far ahead."

Danicka finishes her shoes and leans back, looking out at the river, then back to him. A date. Dating. Another date. She grins, too. He brings up going on a carriage ride, and she bites the inside of her lip, smiling to herself. Growing up in what is arguably the most important city in America but also a major tourist destination, Danicka has Opinions when it comes to horse-drawn carriage rides through anywhere. There have been boys who asked her out like that, and the Looks they got from her told them their error better than any awkward 'no' would have. But Lukas mentions it, and mentions taking a large carriage with a group so he won't spook the horses, and it makes her heart break a little. In, strangely, a good way.

"That'd be nice," she says, lacing her fingers through his. "I'd like that."

Lukas

Of course, Lukas lacks the experience to know that asking a girl out on a horse-drawn carriage ride through the French Quarter is possibly one of the more foolish, corny, touristy things he could possibly think of. He thinks it's a great idea. He's never been on a horse-drawn carriage ride, unless of course he went on one back in Prague when he was really too small to remember. He's seen them passing through the Quarter, though - sometimes the little ones that only seat two or three, almost invariably a couple; more often the bigger ones that seat eight or ten, tourists that squeezed on and craned their necks and laughed at the tour guide's jokes.

He talks about one of the latter, even though the former would be more classically romantic. Because he doesn't want to scare the horses. And Danicka's heart breaks a little, because it's sad that a seventeen year old boy needs to plan his second date with the girl of his dreams around what might or might not frighten horses - but in a good way, because he thinks of the horses at all. He thinks of creatures other than himself, which is something so rare amongst his kind that it's possible Danicka didn't think it existed at all.

Their fingers lace. And this feels pure, too. Everything about this feels pure, washed clean again. He's so glad neither of them tried to pretend their past doesn't exist, that the darkness that's there doesn't exist. He's so glad, too, that neither of them clings to that darkness.

They hold on to each other instead. Loosely, gently, with their fingers lightly entwined. There's music on the radio, some top40 song or other, but it's turned down low enough that it's really just a backdrop to the night, to the long drive he's also grateful for, because it's a little more time with her.

"Me too," he says. "I'd really like that."

The drive isn't that long, in the end. Nearly an hour, but it seems to pass in a flash. And soon enough Lukas is pulling onto that private road into the plantation, and from the private road to the great gates, and through the gates onto the actual entry boulevard flanked by the Gentlemen, guarded by the heron and the fountain.

He parks at the very end of the drive, and whether or not Danicka tells him to just stay in the car, it's fine, he shuts off the ignition and gets out and walks around and opens her door. Up on the second story Lizzy looks out the window at them, and maybe she starts daydreaming about Rolf again, putting poor dotty Rolf in Lukas's shoes, herself in Danicka's; growing herself three or four years, three or four inches, a bustline, and some hips in the process. She'll have to satisfy herself with imagination, though. Lukas walks Danicka to the door, under the shade of the porch, and they're out of sight.

At the door he keeps holding her hand, and he doesn't really want to let her go. He keeps smiling, and he turns to face her, and he's awkward and unsure only for a second before he takes her other hand in his, too, and steps into her so he can kiss her goodnight. It goes on for a while, sweet and slow, gentle because he wants to be careful, he doesn't want to careen out of control again.

Danicka

With Lukas, the corniest, cheesiest, most touristy thing he could suggest makes Danicka's heart swell and thump. And that actually does mean something. They are not stupid. They are not foolish or corny. They are not tourists. Nor are they innocent. But it doesn't matter. They will go on a ride in a horse-drawn carriage and hold hands, sitting in the back corner and kissing softly instead of listening to the tour guide, listening to clop-clop-clop of the horses' hooves and occasionally looking up at the moon. She wishes they had cooler weather -- maybe they'll have a cold snap one night -- so they could drape his coat over their shoulders and laps and snuggle together like that, veiled a little from view.

All she wants is to be close to him. She isn't old enough yet to be thinking about how much she wants him to be a good man as well as a good Garou, can't even pin that desire in her own mind or name it for what it is. She just knows she really likes his packmates and how close he is to them. She likes that he's patient and tolerant with Lizzy when she's around, and that even though she could tell he sort of hated Rick after her birthday he talks about seeing them and how it's nice to have friends outside of his pack. It's nice for her to have friends she can be honest with, friends outside of her coworkers, and a boyfriend to boot. It's nice that her boyfriend is a decent guy.

Who won't fuck her in his best friend's junky car, who promises not to Try Anything if they snuggle and sleep in his bed sometime, who wants to take her on a nice date but not spook horses or mortals, who at the same time will lean over and bite her ass, touch her thigh, sniff at her as though the scent of her skin and her sweat and her arousal is sustenance in and of itself. She likes that he's an animal, too.

Danicka leans over and puts her head on his arm while they drive, one more long stretch of time in the car. The radio plays lowly; she turns it up for a song or two, then down again. Lukas takes his time driving, and she notices but she doesn't say anything. She just smiles, holding his arm gently in her hands as she rests against him.

Lizzy is waiting up, tiptoeing out of her bed and down the hall to a window and peeking out the front of the house when she hears tires on the gravel. It's so silent out here she could hear it plainly. She watches, fascinated by this sort of romance that is far, far from her experience or even her hopes -- she knows it's a dream. But she is young enough to believe in such things, and so she does. She wonders what it would be like to be the girl that is helped up out of the car, wonders if they're going to kiss, because Danicka certainly looks blushingly happy as Lukas shuts the door and walks with her up to the porch. She bets they're going to kiss.

Danicka swings her arm with his a little, grinning, drunk on all of this though they didn't try to get anyone to serve them. She has her keys, because the door is locked -- just like the gate was, though she leaned across him to punch in the code when they got there -- but she doesn't go to the door handle yet. It's a little awkward, when Lukas reaches for her hands, so she just steps closer to him, wrapping her arms up around his neck again, just like before. He kisses her softly, and she deepens it, slow but still a little bit hungry,

because she wants to leave him with that til the next time.

When she draws back, gradually and only when they do reach that precipice of heat and danger all over again, she catches a breath or two and follows that kiss with a much gentler, more tender one, soft on his lips. "Dobre noc, Lukas," she whispers, sliding away and unlocking the door as quietly as she can. She steps in and looks back at him, smiling, just before she closes the door and locks it again.

Upstairs, Lizzy hears the door close and bolts back to bed, diving under the covers. From her room she can hear murmuring outside: Giselle greeting Danicka, the two older girls whispering as they vanish into Danicka's room.