dinner date.

Danicka

A few nights go by. Three, in fact. St. Patrick's Day is celebrated, or cursed by anyone who has to clean up green booze-vomit. He works, and he works some more, and he cuts people open and he touches their bare beating hearts and that is raw, that is naked, that is exposed. They are so vulnerable then, a tube in their mouth and their eyes closed, their blood on his hands,
life in his hands. It is easy, very easy, to focus intently and lose himself in that deep, physical reality that he works in.

He comes home one day and there is a crow perched on his terrace. When he comes home it's there, and it hops a few times on the railing, side to side, keeping balance by flaring and fluttering its wings. Ignored, it stays out there for five, ten, fifteen minutes. It caws a few times at him. Its beady little eyes follow him through the windows.

Lukas's cat is displeased.

KA-kaw.

The crow remains, cawing, flapping, staring occasionally. He goes outside and shoos it eventually, snapping a towel at it. The bird cries something, taking flight, but all it does is circle the building a few times before settling back down on that same perch. It cries out again, two ...'syllables'. Loud, then low. It maybe shooed repeatedly, but it keeps coming back. It keeps repeating that odd, stuttered caw.

KA-kek.

After awhile it really does start to sound like a word. But this is no parrot. This bird strangles on the word that tries to leave its mouth. It begins to sound like a familiar word.

KA-tek.

It bounds around his terrace, not shitting or pecking but hopping, flapping, taking brief flight, demanding that he notice, that he listen.

PA-tek. PA-tek.

It may even be late, his brain tired and frazzled, before it hits him: Pá-tek.

Friday.

It's a yes. It's a confirmation. And as soon as his mind absorbs that information, as soon as recognition dawns, the terraces goes silent. Neighbors stop shouting at that damn bird. That damn bird goes silent, staring at him from the railing, and then lifts its broad wings and swings out into the sky again, flapping a few times, vanishing into the distance, quickly lost in the darkness.

A few nights go by. It's Friday now, the night after the new moon.

Lukas

Hudson 192 is a pretty nice building. The brick and granite make it look vintage, but it's really very new, with all sorts of cutting-edge architectural developments. The heating is steam, non-drying, but customizable by unit. The walls are thickly insulated against sound and temperature both. The windows are enormous and the ceilings are high; the lobby is beautiful.

For all that, the neighborhood is sketchy at best. Hudson 192 is an obvious attempt at gentrification, but Columbia's medical school and hospital are located in a rough part of town - just north of Harlem, right in the middle of Washington Heights. Poverty is rife here. Everyone knows someone - or is someone - who's been mugged, assaulted, and sometimes worse. Oftentimes Lukas comes home and there's a panhandler on his stoop. Sometimes it's a pack of local gangbangers. Once the street was cordoned off, and there was a corpse on the asphalt.

Gunshot wound to the head. Some cynical part of Lukas was glad; if it was in the chest, he would've felt an obligation.

Nothing so exciting these few days, though. One day he comes home and there's a crow on the terrace. He sees it out there, lurking and staring with its beady bird eyes. It annoys him, especially when it won't stop cawing, so he goes out and tries to shoo it. It takes wing. He comes inside. It comes back and he just gives up, lets it stay, ignores it while he's fixing himself a quick dinner because he's back on call that night.

And little by little the cawing of the crow is changing, forcing itself into something that Lukas suddenly realizes sounds exactly like a word. As soon as it hits him the bird goes silent. He's not sure he didn't just imagine it, but well: it's not like he can ask the crow.

Soon enough the bird is gone. Lukas wonders if he's losing his mind, but in the end he puts down a note in his planner:

Buy steaks + wine?

Friday, then. Six o'clock rolls around and he's still in the middle of something; six thirty and he's finally hanging up his white coat, changing out of his scrubs, exchanging his stethoscope for his tie and walking out of there. The A train takes him up a couple stops to the190th street station, where he gets off and walks the block or two to his place. It's Friday, almost 7pm, when he lets himself into his apartment. He remembers what day it is. He's a little apprehensive. A little ... well; excited, perhaps.

A small orange feline comes to greet him when he steps in. She is elusive, a little standoffish even a year or two after he took her home from the kitty rescue. She sniffs at his fingertips, winds around his ankles, and then goes to curl up on the back of the sofa to watch him go about preparing.

Lukas's apartment is small, but he keeps it neat, and he tries to buy with an eye toward quality. The floors are smooth hardwood. There's a sectional couch in the corner of the living room, and a low coffee table. There's no television. The breakfast bar isn't really large enough to serve much purpose, so he's put a dining table against it instead, which can seat up to six if he pulls it away from the wall. He pulls it away from the wall tonight, but he takes away the other chairs, leaves only two. He wipes down the surface. Thinks about setting candles out, but no; maybe that's too much.

Down the hall is his bathroom and his bedroom, the latter of which contains only a bed and a desk and a desk chair. His cookware is heavy, durable, expensive. There are two tumblers in the bathroom, a double set of towels, but that seems to be for show. Most of his accessories are glass or brushed steel; most of his furnishings are dark, neutral tones, masculine without being oppressive. Both bedroom and living room open onto the terrace, where he has a set of heavy teak furniture and a fairly large gas grill.

It's a little after seven. He decides he has time, and he takes a shower. When he gets out it's sufficiently dark inside that he closes the vertical blinds in his bedroom; leaves the windows in the living room open. Boxer-briefs, charcoal grey; then jeans. Dark ones, nice ones, which he buttons a shirt over. His hair is still wet, curling behind his ears, when he goes to get the steaks he bought and marinated last night out of the fridge. He didn't skimp, and he certainly didn't get a wimpy little filet for a werewolf. Two porterhouses, two inches thick apiece, well over a pound of meat on each. He sets them out on the kitchen counter. Then some wine. Some potatoes go on the stove to be mashed later. And last, he feeds his cat and cleans out the litterbox.

Danicka

Six o'clock rolls around and she has begun winding things down with the pack. Stella, in particular, has to be wound down, worked backwards from whatever point of agitation she's gotten up to. She has to be given outlet. Tonight it is Josef's turn to help with that, because Danicka has an engagement. Josef, notably, is the only one who gives her a hard time about that, and he's earned it. The rest of the pack knows what's going on. They know about the challenge, about the family, about ...well, a great deal, in fact, though much of it is inferred. They know that she spoke with that -- Josef's preface -- Ukrainian douchebag, Oleksandr, requesting permission to dine in the home of one of the protected kinfolk he's never even met.

Josef had things to say about that, but Josef has Things To Say about everything. Only to the pack, though. Only when they are together, apart from the machinations of the tribe and sept. Stella was shocked the first time she heard him actually vent his true opionions, but one cannot be impartial all the time. One cannot walk that thin of a line without some kind of release valve. This is why, deep in her heart of hearts, the young full-moon likes it when Josef hunts with her. He can be so satisfyingly vicious with his violence.

Seven o'clock, and she is in her own den, changing her clothes. Yes, she considers multiple options. She considers how much to do with her hair, and what augmentation of her eyes or lips to employ. She considers this outfit, and thinks: no, maybe that's too much. She takes it off and puts on another. And in the end she leaves, heads towards the address Lukas gave her a week ago. She takes the subway. She walks. And then

she stands on the steps of his building until precisely 8 o'clock before pressing his buzzer.

It's Danicka.

Come on up, he says, and there's a whirr and the sound of tumblers shifting. She opens the door and steps inside, her stomach in a knot, her face as placid as a lake in the heavy, motionless heat of summer.

When she finds 8Q, she gives a knock on the door. When Lukas answers, she's ...well, quite casually dressed. Her shoes have a bit more heel than the ones he's seen her in before, and she's in bootcut jeans. Her shirt is black, button-down, a bit rumpled but meant to look that way. The sleeves are folded up above her elbows, kept there by a couple of small straps that button to her sleeves. She's unbuttoned the first three buttons. Her hair is loose, like he's always seen it. Well. 'Always' -- the two times they've met.

As soon as he opens the door, she gives a slight blink, and exhales the breath she just took, not even a deep one: "You have a cat."

Lukas

Lukas imagines that Danicka probably lives in a downtown highrise, one of those glass pinnacles with a thousand anonymous residents. Compared to that, his building is small, even intimate: eighty or ninety units in all, many of them housing just a single tenant. When he got here in the late summer, sometimes he and his neighbor would share a beer over the dividing wall between their terraces. These days, with the weather not quite warm enough to coax people out of their homes, he's often the only one out on the terraces. Sometimes he likes to look at the stars. Sometimes he likes to look out over the Hudson river, which by night doesn't look quite so filthy.

The intercom rings while he's firing up the grill on the terrace. He hasn't used it for some time, and it takes a little coaxing. He has to run to catch the intercom, and a little black and white video of her pops up. It's Danicka, she says. "Come on up," he says. She knocks a few moments later. He was standing next to the door, waiting, and the knob turns almost immediately.

A single breath tells her he has a cat. It tells her he keeps his apartment a little cooler than the hall outside, which in turn tells her he burns a little hotter than the average human. It tells her he doesn't scent his home with potpourri or plug-in air fresheners or anything of the sort. He does have some plants in the corner. He just took a shower. He uses spicy, lightly scented shampoo and bodywash. He is wearing aftershave, but just a little of it, and his clothes are very clean. His home is very clean. He doesn't cook very often, but he's cooking right now.

And it tells her: he's healthy, he's strong, he's tired after a day of work but not exhausted. That night she met him must have been extraordinarily bad. He looks fresh, almost, after that shower. Stepping aside, he lets her in, then closes the door behind her.

"I do," he confirms. "Her name is Kandovany. She's hiding somewhere, but she might come out later." He smiles, a wry quirk of his mouth. "Don't you ever wear a coat?"

Danicka

His imagination isn't far off, to tell the truth, but neither is it quite on the money. Her clothing is fine but not extravagant, but... really, he has so little to go on when it comes to her. Maybe some dim memory of a house that seemed like a mansion compared to where he and his family were at the time, but not much more. There's a bracelet around her left wrist, made of curls and zags of copper and brass wire pressed flat. It's quite interesting, and not the sort of expensive bangle one might associate with the upper class. It looks handmade, but neatly so.

There's a great deal of information to be had by temperature, by sight, by scent, but most of it is presence. The feel of this place tells her reasons he might have chosen it. The way he looks tells her that she might be a little underdressed if this were a date, but that she chose well considering what it actually is, what it's supposed to be, what she promises herself it will be. They could just be two pals hanging out for a meal, relaxing. Good. That's good. That's a good place to be, she thinks, as he's stepping aside to let her in.

Danicka brings heat in with her. It's springtime now, technically, but only barely. The weather still clings to the chillier side of things, and yet Danicka's presence in his entry feels like August. It all but radiates off of her, melding against his own internal body heat. He has a cat -- female -- and he cares for plants as well, and though she picks up on the soap, the shampoo, the cat, the dinner cooking, she mostly smells him.

This is his den. Something very deep and very primal stirs in her, makes her somber, and makes her

very fiercely aroused, at the same time.

Danicka takes a breath and stops looking around to look at him again. "Of course I do," she says, as though that's a silly question. "When it's cold." So the forties do not count as cold. A beat: "You named your cat candy?"

Lukas

Something about Lukas's smile is almost a little playful, like he's telling a secret riddle and waiting for her to guess. "She's orange," he says, as though this were an explanation.

And, since she isn't wearing a coat, he gestures her into his living room without hanging anything up. "Come in. Make yourself comfortable." Outside, the grill is heating up; he glances at it to make sure it's not billowing smoke or anything of the sort. "Dinner's nothing fancy; just steak and potatoes. The sauce is canned, but it's meant to be good."

She can see the steak, too. Smell it in its rich beefiness: beautifully marbled, deep red meat. Nothing compared to what she's brought down herself, the hot flesh she's sunk her teeth into, but better than average. Better than most. However casual Lukas is playing it, he put a little effort into this.

"Can I offer you a drink before I put the steaks on the grill?"

Danicka

She's orange. Kandovany. Orange. Danicka's brow furrows a moment, then her eyes spark. "Oh!"

And she would say something else, too, but it might be presumptuous, he might be offended, he might be creeped out if she told him that she remembers how much he loved candied orange kolace, that he ate so many once he threw up. Wore her brother's old clothes. They were still very little then, though, and that was long before she ever... noticed him. Long before she realized that her heart, already stronger and quicker than everyone else's, beat just that much faster when he held the stethescope against her chest or her back.

Danicka huffs a small laugh at that, but she can't see this orange cat, so she lets it go. She can smell the cat, could track it down, but the truth is, even the best hunters among the Garou don't even bother when it comes to cats. There are Athro Ragabashes who couldn't track down and catch a cat if they tried, and many have.

She takes a few steps inside, then looks down at his feet. Danicka pauses, and takes a step or two back, slipping her feet out of her shoes. She does this wordlessly, and without embarrassment or apology, but it's only then that she walks further in, her slender form somehow seeming to make the apartment feel... smaller. Closer. She looks at the terrace through the windows, the tray holding the steaks, and to one side he's offering her a drink. She turns her head to look at him, gives a nod. It's quick and decisive, almost short, but then she remembers, remembers that he is not hers, and that in every sense she is walking in the territory of another wolf, even if that wolf has never set foot here

and has no right -- no right -- to lay claim on a den or a family or a male he has no real care for.

That anger is very, very subdued tonight. She submitted so much of herself despite that anger, but she must remember. Tread carefully. Remember things like saying:

"Please," when someone else's kin offers her a drink.

Perhaps then he goe sto the kitchen, but she only waits a moment or two before she ends up following him there, slowly drifting in that direction, looking at what he's doing. The bottle, the corkscrew, the glasses. She keeps a respectful distance, doesn't invade his immediate space, but she follows, and she watches, and she does not quite know how to proceed, since the whole point of this is to get to know each other a little -- presumably -- and yet it feels so constructed, so counter to her instinct, and

she is not used to instinct running this high.

Lukas

Lukas does not own a wine cooler. He has something more old-fashioned: a sleek little brushed-steel bucket for ice, in which he's set a rather good Bordeaux red. There is a corkscrew next to it, one of those fancy things with a lever and clasps. One would assume that is what he would serve, but

it's not.

He goes into the kitchen instead. She can see him over the breakfast bar. She fills the small apartment with her presence; he fills it with his sheer size. He has to bend almost double to open the bottom freezer compartment of his refrigerator, and his hands are briefly out of sight. When he straightens up, he has a crystal-clear bottle in his hand, the top artfully twisted forty-five degrees from the base.

And he reaches up to get shotglasses from a cupboard that, frankly, Danicka would have a bit of trouble reaching. He sets those glasses down atop the breakfast bar, twists the cap off the Wyborowa Exquisite, and pours out a shot each. Sets the bottle beside it, rapidly frosting over with sheer cold.

"I think neither of us knows quite how to behave right now," he says. "At least I don't. So." That quirked half-smile of his again. "Here's to social lubrication. Na zdraví, Danicka."

Danicka

She is expecting him to pour that wine, but

he gets out shotglasses and vodka instead. Straight, clear, above-top-shelf Polish vodka. She exhales at the sight, a spartan sort of laughter. She reaches for the shot glass that he leaves behind and simply nods. "Na zdraví," she echoes back to him, before tipping the glass back and pouring the clear liquor down her throat.

A moment later the shot glass is set -- gently, really -- on the countertop. She exhales again, a pleasant burn running through her, a warmth in her belly that she can at least define. "I was surprised that you invited me," she confesses, though he may already know.

Lukas

He likes how she drinks the vodka. He likes that she doesn't gasp and pretend shock, or worse, get coy with him. He likes that she laughs, and then she takes the shot effortlessly. His eyes are watching her as she sets the emptied glass back down, but they flick back to hers with that confession.

"I was a little surprised I invited you," he admits. They're talking over his kitchen counter, over the breakfast bar. He has his hands on the granite surface, his shoulderblades pushed gently against his shirt with the lean of his weight.

The potatoes are done. He turns and flicks the fire off. For all his size, Lukas has a certain ease of motion. His bones fit together well. He moves well. He takes the pot off the fire onehanded and unlids it, puts it in the sink to cool, taking down a large earthenware bowl to mash the potatoes in.

"I suppose I wanted us to get to know each other, now that the cards are on the table - more or less. Somewhere where we wouldn't have to watch what we're saying."

That's not quite true, though. There are other places they could have gone. New York is a city that knows to mind its own business. They could have talked in a cafe. They could have met in a museum. They could have had dinner at a restaurant and the waiters wouldn't have eavesdropped. They could have gone for a walk. Lukas thinks a moment, looking at his empty shotglass. Then he pours another shot for each of them, the bottle ice-cold to his palm.

"And I wanted to invite you over." He looks at her again, frankly, shrugging in a smooth lift. "I just wanted to."

Danicka

She knows what that means. Elementally, instantly, she grasps that instinct. This is why she had to ask permission, and had to be so careful even in how she did that, because he hadn't simply invited her to dinner: he had asked her to come to his apartment for dinner. He's not a wolf, but there is blood in him that moves that way, is driven by instinct and not by reason. Danicka can recognize it, understand it: he wanted to bring her back to his own den, where it is private and warm and safe, and give her food. Meat, and lots of it.

It is a distinctly animal sort of courtship ploy. Were he a wolf, he would be showing her how good his den is, how it is protected and it is clean and a good, warm den. He would be showing her that he can fill her belly and the belly of cubs with fresh red meat. Even among humans, these things remain true, however prettily woven into the fabric of life. They make it about money, about stability, about all these other words that coalesce into a gut feeling. It's arguable that this is the whole reason for anything that's a status symbol: it's just plumage. Sometimes, it all comes back to this basic, base drive.

And if Danicka were in her wolf form, sleek and black and sharp-eyed, it's entirely possible that her tail would be wagging, that she would begin bowing, arching, circling him til her scent drove him mad, laying down for him.

It is a good thing that the moon is so very thin. She shifts, standing at a right angle to him rather than with the counter between them. It feels better. It feels less divided, less stiff, even if she knows quite well that stiff and divided is very important tonight. She watches him, how he moves and simply how close he is after so many times of seeing him far away, and she is so intent on this that it is hard to come up with words to use, with things to say.

Another shot is poured, and that is a relief. Danicka thinks to herself before she lifts the glass: she must not go too fast, lose her wits, lose control. Surely she could change her state of mind with a single shift, but she knows there is a point where her will would not be able to force her to do so.

"I'm glad you did," she says quietly. Then, politely: "You have a nice home."

It's a rather stale thing to say. Danicka can't think of anything to follow it with. So she drinks.

Lukas

They're both being so polite right now. For a moment the conversation dipped into something honest and bare: she was surprised. He wanted to. But now she's in his home and he belongs to some other Garou that he has never even met. She compliments his home. They're small-talking, they both know it; his smile says he knows it but he'll indulge it for a while. He has to mash the potatoes, anyway, and rolls up his sleeves to do it.

"Thank you," he says. "I like it," and he talks a little about how it's close to work, but not too close. And a safe building. New. Nice management.

Meanwhile he's putting cream and butter into the potatoes. Salt and pepper. It is an exceedingly simple dinner he's throwing together for her, but he is cooking for her when he could have ordered in. Even his resident's salary, minus his student loans, could have handled that. It would have meant less, though. He wanted to cook.

He puts the earthenware bowl up on the bartop when he's done. "Could you put that on the table, please?" he asks her, washing his hands quickly before picking the tray of steaks up. There are only two, but it's more than enough: they're enormous, twenty-four, twenty-six ounces apiece. Enough, he thinks, even for the wolf in his den. "How do you take your steak? Rare, I imagine."

Danicka

Polite, in her world, is another word for careful. Cautious. For a moment she was honest, offering what she could think of because she's not sure how one goes about just... 'getting to know' another person when it doesn't happen naturally, doesn't evolve easily on its own terms and timeline. And roughly ten seconds after that she was overcome, was forgetting her rank and her pack and Oleksandr and everything that is in place to keep them all from becoming pure monsters, and she was so very close to not caring.

It isn't as though she's virginal, inexperienced and uncertain. It isn't as though she's so undersocialized that she doesn't know how to behave, how to operate smoothly -- enough -- and pass for something like human when the situation calls for it. But this is different. Those cards are, as he said, on the table. They both know the reason she started this. They both know where it may possibly head.

He talks a little about his apartment. She watches his forearms as he mashes potatoes. And then his face. When he's done, he asks her to set it on the table. Her eyebrows lift slightly, an expression that seems almost affronted. She stiffens for a moment, then relaxes, takes the bowl, holding it without walking to the table as he washes his hands. Her head tips as he asks her about the steak.

"Because I'm a wolf?" she asks him, actually rather quiet. It's almost as though the expectation bothers her, somehow. "Not burnt," she says. "But ...cook them together. I will eat what you eat." This sounds almost soft, almost like an entreaty, though what she's asking for has very little to do with the food itself.

She moves to the table, which has no candles, and sets the bowl down. She blinks, realizing it has no spoon, and goes back to the kitchen to find one. That's quick enough work -- there are only so many drawers, and she has a good instinct for where to find one. She knows, now, what she really wants to say to him. What she wants to ask. But he's outside now, setting the steaks onto the hot grill. And she is inside, deciding:

to bring the wine and the glasses to the table as well. to wait, standing by the table, for him to come back.

And she is deciding, a half-moment later, to go outside instead. With two glasses of wine.

Lukas

Shadow Lords are known for their power struggles. Their mind games. Another Shadow Lord kin, and asking her to set the bowl on the table would be exactly that. A subtle jockeying for position. A subtle play for power.

Lukas's eyes are clear and without ulterior motive, though. He asks her to put the potatoes on the table because he's about to take the steaks outside. And because otherwise she has nothing to do at all, and it never occurs to Lukas that some people might actually enjoy being useless. He would hate it.

So after a second she takes the bowl. And he washes his hands quickly; glances at her when she says what she does. Straightening, drying his hands on a dishtowel, he nods.

"Yes. That was the assumption." That she's a wolf. That she likes meat bloody. It seems shameful now, a little like racism. He frowns a bit. "Sorry; I shouldn't have assumed. I like my steaks medium-rare; pink near the edges and juicy in the middle. How's that sound?"

She'll eat what he eats. It's an odd thing to say. It throws him off and touches him at once, but by then she's moved to the table, so he goes outside. He slides the door most of the way shut to keep the smoke out.

There is wine chilling in a bucket. There are hot potatoes on the table. She finds his silverware drawer with little difficulty. His belongings are nice, all of it heavy and well-made, but none of it fancy or overwrought. There's a spartan, minimalistic art to it all.
While Danicka is considering whether to bring the wine to the table or simply to wait, Lukas's cat makes an appearance. She is small, and slender, and does not seem very afraid of the much larger predator. She pads silently from the bedroom; studies Danicka for a moment from the mouth of the hallway. Then, ignoring Danicka, the orange feline pads to the scratching-board rather cleverly attached to the side of the shoerack and spends a few moments sharpening her claws. By the time Danicka decides to go outside instead, Kandovany has leapt nimbly up to the back of the couch and sits there, tail tucked around her small paws.

Lukas is just lowering the lid after turning the steaks when Danicka comes out. She's opened the wine and poured it. It is a deep garnet-red in the glasses. He turns, feeling her before he sees her. "Just another moment," he assures her, and she's passing over a glass, and he takes it. "Thanks."

The steaks smell good. Grilled fast, the surface deliciously charred, the juices locked in. Lukas takes a sip of wine, then sets it down on the little platform beside the grill chamber. They can hear intermittent hissing, crackling, as meat drippings fall into the fire. It's cool out on the terrace, but the grill is warm, and there's a slight breeze coming off the river.

"I run there whenever I can," Lukas says, pointing at the park that lies between his building and the river. It's just a little tidbit, something he tells her, nothing of significance and importance. Something she didn't know about him, though. "It's nice; not as crowded as Central Park."

Danicka

The cat comes out of her own accord, on her own time, and with little to no concern for the fact that there is a monstrous canine lurking about in her food-giver's den. She looks at Danicka. Danicka looks down at her. She flicks her tail and proceeds to her scratching-board, the apartment filling with the sound of sharpening claws for awhile. Danicka watches her, head tilted, for just a moment. She glances outside, and then she goes to the kitchen for the wine.

The door slides open, then closed again. It's difficult to manage while holding two glasses -- holding a bit more than what would normally be poured -- of red wine, but you wouldn't know it. She manages it deftly, and holds the second glass out toward him as he tells her it will be just another minute. Not long now. She can smell the steaks. The roasting meat, the searing surface, the fat hitting the fire. Her pupils dilate due to the darkness as well as the scent. Her mouth waters, throat moving as she swallows.

Somewhere out there, felt on the fringes of Danicka's mind, a familiar and steady presence balances the vibrant hum of a newer one. They are hungry, too. They are eager for blood. They are watching, sniffing, hunting. She feels her own hunger, feels their hunger like a shadow.

He points at the park by the river. Her head turns to look, scanning over the mostly barren treetops. He runs. She wants, for the sake of honor and honesty, to tell him I know but then she also wants, for the sake of comfort and selfishness, to keep that secret to herself.

What he tells her is unimportant. She says nothing, because of the argument going on in her own mind, but then -- quite abruptly, in fact -- she asks him about something completely different. Her eyes stay on the trees, though, finding them through the shadows.

"You said last week you could think of worse things than to be arranged into being my mate," she says, not using or bothering with the word he used, which was marriage. "Like you wouldn't be all that bothered by it."

Danicka turns then, looking at him. Her eyes, which turn nearly black in the lack of light, seem troubled. Funnily enough, the amber flecks and golden outline he hadn't even notice before seem only more enhanced in the dark. "Did you mean that?"

Lukas

This makes Lukas frown, rankled. A faint frisson of -- irritation, maybe, slithers through him. He glances quickly in on the steaks, determines that he has time to talk before they're overdone, turns to Danicka.

"I wish you wouldn't do that," he says. "I wish you could just... relax and take this moment by moment.

"To answer your question: yes. That's what I said and that's what I meant, but maybe not quite the way you heard it. I can think of worse things. To be wholly superficial about it, I don't have a lot of time to date. You're a beautiful woman. I'll finally get away from colleagues subtly trying to introduce eligible bachelorettes at Christmas parties ... though they might think I've taken a Russian mail-order bride."

It's not much of a joke, and neither of them really laugh. He goes on,

"The truth is I'm not completely naive to how our ... our Tribe operates. When other kids got the birds and bees talk, I got the 'one day you might be called upon to stud for your betters' talk. I generally try to ignore it, but that doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

"You did make me feel a little stalked. And I don't like that so much of this was done behind the scenes, behind my back, before I could even form an opinion about it. But you aren't cruel. You aren't brutal. So, yes. Whoever decides I'm a fitting mate could be a lot worse than you."

Lukas pauses a moment to sip his wine. He sets it down again, and then - Excuse me, he says, reaching past her to get the first of the two waiting dinner plates. A billow of heat rises out of the grill when he opens the lid, taps the steaks to judge their consistency and doneness.

"But I didn't say I wouldn't be bothered at all," he goes on, quieter now. "Of course I'd be bothered, Danicka; wouldn't you be, if some man you didn't know at all suddenly made himself your intimate partner for the rest of your life? If some stranger came in out of the night and just ... announced that he's been in love with the idea of you for years, and now he's just waiting for permission - and maybe not even from you - to 'claim' you?

"We don't know each other. That's what I keep trying to say to you. There's chemistry between us, but that's not what you build a lifelong relationship out of unless you have no other choice. I am drawn to you. I don't know how else to say it. But it doesn't mean I want to marry you tomorrow. It doesn't mean I wouldn't be a little upset if you decided to go over my head and claim me anyway.

"It means I want to get to know you - without expectations, without pressure. Like you said. There's interest. It might lead to something more. But it might not as well.

"I don't know if what I'm asking is possible. Or if it's even my choice. But if it is, then I just want to have dinner with you tonight. I want you to tell me about yourself. What you like, what you do, what you find interesting. I want to be able to enjoy your company without having to think about 'forever and ever' every two minutes, without having to worry if you'll read too much or too little into every word I say. Give me a little room, Danicka. Give 'us', if there's even an 'us', a little bit of time."

Danicka

What he says -- and how he says it, though that's more the sudden outpouring of a hundred words than intonation or expression -- makes her frown, too. Her brows draw together. But he doesn't feel the whip of her rage lashing out toward him. She doesn't overturn anything, threaten him, and her eyes don't turn red. It takes effort on her part to keep her mouth shut until he's finished. Even when he pauses to take the steaks off the grill, unwilling to let them char just because he got annoyed with her, Danicka holds her tongue and waits. She doesn't even drink her wine while he's speaking.

When Lukas is finished, imploring her to just relax and give it some time, she exhales slowly. On her next breath she takes a moment to gather herself -- her thoughts, and the words she might be able to find for them.

"If I don't relax and just enjoy your company," she says, her tone very quiet, quieter than he pitched his, "then you'll be annoyed -- or worse, bored -- and all of this will be a waste." She pauses for a moment. "But if I relax too much, then I may make a mistake, overstep, and never see you again.

"That's the position I'm in." She gives a slight, single shake of her head. "It's not an easy line to walk, and it's not how I would do this if I had the choice. Understand that, when my behavior seems... unnatural."

As though anything about her could be 'natural'. She does take a sip of her wine now, moistening her throat, glancing at the steaks. She's very calm, but then the moon is little more than a thread of light, barely visible above a city like this one. Her eyes come back to him. "I cannot get to know you without expectations or pressure. They aren't on you, though. I feel them because they are very real for me. I apologize if it is... leaking onto you. That isn't something I want."

Danicka hesitates again, clearly thinking, because when he was talking, she wasn't considering how to answer him. She wasn't waiting for him to stop so that she could jump in and tell him how and where he was wrong. She was only listening. It means that now, she talks slower, talks more carefully. Thinks.

"I think you misunderstood my question. I don't think you know how I heard it, or why I was really asking." Her eyebrows lift a little at him. "It's unfair of you to rant at me over it, telling me I'm the one reading into every word you say, Lukas, when that is exactly what you just did." Her frown returns, but less deep, less hard. "It's also certainly not going to help you get a nice, relaxed evening if I ask a question and you all but melt down because you don't like all the implications of it -- which, for the most part, you're making up yourself."

She has her arms folded, low over her stomach, one hand loosely holding the wine by the bowl of the glass, the stem between her fingers. "We could spend the evening making polite small talk, which I'm both horrible at and bored by, we could behave as though I don't have to be extremely careful how I act with you, which is a risk I don't want to take, or we could be ourselves and speak honestly. That, in fact, was all I was trying to do. Drop the facade a little. Have a conversation about something other than siblings and hobbies. Be myself, so that you could get to know me."

One more beat. One more last pause, to let that sink in. "The way you said that the other night made it sound like it didn't even bother you. Nothing I'd seen of you so far matched with that. Nor could I quite stomach the idea of someone so blase, so passive. I wanted to know if that's what you meant when you said it. I wasn't asking if you wanted to get married tomorrow. I was trying to make the best of an awkward situation by not pretending it doesn't exist." She's worked herself into a sort of terse, cold anger that works itself into every syllable. She lifts the glass, hearing it in her own voice, and nearly bites through the rim as she takes a drink.

Lukas

There's a silence, then. It is touched, but not quite interrupted, by the sounds of the city: cars, subways, the ventilation of nearby buildings, construction somewhere. All of it blending together, all of it summing into an endless monotonous brown-noise that every native New Yorker learns to ignore before they learn to speak.

"Fair enough," he says after a while. "I did jump to conclusions. I'm just -- afraid," the word takes effort, "of being herded toward some fate I have no say in. So I react badly to any sign that that may be the case, whether or not it is. I misunderstood you. I thought you were angling toward something you weren't: a quick resolution, a rapid mateship. A done deal. And you deserve an apology for that."

He seems to be constantly apologizing to her, he thinks, which sits ill with him. He has to consciously let go of the irrational urge to be stubborn, to refuse to apologize even when he's wrong, just so he can avoid the feeling like he's always bowing to her, always scraping, always sorrying.

"But for what it's worth," he adds, "I'm not asking you for small talk. I'm asking you to not be so guarded. And I know you're afraid of 'overstepping', but I don't even know what that means. Most the time, I have no idea what you mean, what you're thinking, what's going on inside you."

He's getting frustrated again, so he stops. Lukas takes the steaks off the grill, sets one on each plate. The plates are large, but the meat nearly fills it nonetheless, seared, smoky. He turns the gas off, then bends to crank the valve shut.

"Let's go in," he says quietly, picking up his wine and the bottle, nodding at the door. The tray he'd marinated the steaks in, the tongs and the brush - he leaves those behind; he'll clean up later. They leave the sliding door open a little, exchanging conditioned and heated air for fresh.

Danicka

They dodge a bullet. It doesn't erupt before they've even taken a bite. Danicka just nods when he invites her back in, and she slides the door shut behind her, grateful somehow to do so. Grateful, in way, to be back inside. Maybe she thinks it's more private. Maybe she just likes it here.

The potatoes are still waiting on the table, the earthenware bowl keeping them quite warm. The bottle of wine is there, ready for refills. He hasn't made a single non-starch vegetable, but Danicka doesn't care. She thinks suddenly that she should have offered to bring something. Bought a... Sara Lee cake or something. But she didn't think of it, not with everything else going on, and it's no use regretting.

He mentioned that he doesn't know what she means by overstepping. Danicka doesn't answer that, but outside, when he said he hardly knows what's going on inside of her, she lifted her eyes to his, the glance clear and firm but no more open than anything else she's given him. That comment is part of why she's so quiet as they walk inside, back to the table, Lukas setting down plates heaped with meat.

Danicka inhales deeply, setting her wine glass down. She fights salivation again, seating herself across from him. No candles. They don't obstruct the view across the table. His cat watches them from across the room, and as Lukas seats himself, Danicka looks at her.

"I understand why you named her that now," she says, just before her eyes come back to him. "Not... because of watching you or anything. I just remember." She looks at her plate, but she doesn't reach for the potatoes yet. She doesn't want to serve herself first, doesn't want to walk all over him, doesn't want to take what most Lords would consider rightfully theirs. "You loved candied oranges. You asked my father if he knew how to make them into kolá e." She looks over at him, a faint smile hinted at on her lips for a moment. "So he did."

Danicka

[KOLACE THEN >:[ ]

Lukas

Actually, Lukas did buy a salad. As in: he bought a bag of mixed raw veggies - Herb and Garden Mix! says the label - and he has a glass bowl to pour it in, two bottles of dressing to set beside it. While their steaks are resting, he sets the salad out and the silverware; twists the cap off that storebought steak sauce. It turns out to be a tangy berry-cognac sauce that offsets the smokiness of the marinated and grilled beef.

They seat themselves. She doesn't reach for the potatoes, but he picks the bowl up and offers it. "Please," he says. As for the salad: he puts about three cherry tomatoes, a few slices of cucumber, and exactly one lettuce leaf beside his steak. As he's refilling her wine, she tells him what she remembers, and for the first time in some minutes Lukas smiles. It comes easily across his face, unfurrowing his brow, spreading across his mouth.

"That is absolutely why I named her Kando. You know, there's a Bohemian beer garden not too far from the Met that makes pretty good kolaches," he says. She passes the potatoes back. He adds a scoop next to his steak. "No candied orange, though.

"How's your dad, anyway? I don't think I've seen him since I was about ten years old."

Danicka

He offers; she accepts, taking the bowl from his hands and serving herself without any further concern. But she is in his territory, which strictly, lawfully speaking is Oleksandr's territory, and Lukas may not realize that he could go complain to Oleksandr anytime if she 'oversteps', but he could. So she wants to be careful. Wants to be polite. But also: wants to drink, and eat, and laugh, and show him she really can be warm and sane and pleasant, wants very much to end up in his bed and against his body, but

that would absolutely be overstepping.

Danicka looks at the salad thoughtfully. In the end she does scoop some of the veggies onto her plate, a fractional amount compared to the steak and potatoes. It would be rude to refuse, though, and occasionally the taste of some green things pleases her. She doesn't add dressing -- at least, not at first. She dabs her fingertip onto a puddle of the berry-cognac sauce and tastes it first, before putting some on her steak.

She glances at his plate. Three cherry tomatoes, a few slices of cucumber, and exactly one lettuce leaf. A wry twist of her mouth follows, just before she reaches for the wine he refilled and takes a sip.

"I never eat kolache from stores or restaurants," she says, more musing than judgemental. "It's never really the same. And it's too easy. Bez práce nejsou koláce," she recites, and shakes her head. "I don't trust it when no effort is required on my part."

How is her dad. She pauses a moment, thinking. She picks up her knife and fork, twisting the former in her hand a bit. "He's well, I think," she decides, and begins to cut.

Lukas

A bit of a smile: "Do you always have a proverb to quote?"

Lukas uses his silverware with a sort of understated elegance. He rarely needs to look to see where his fork and knife are, and so keeps his eyes on his dinner partner. His etiquette is not perfect by European standards - he holds the knife like a pencil, and sometimes trades it for the fork. But his motions are neat and efficient, and he doesn't spill so much as a drop on the table.

What she says about her father is a little difficult to reply tactfully too. So he opts for a sort of honesty instead: "I guess you don't see your folks often. Mine are always complaining about the same thing."

It feels like small talk again. He wants to ask her what, exactly, she does with her days that she has time to make kolaches but none to see her parents. He wants to ask her if there's really some sort of war going on, and what she does in it, but it's not really the war he cares about. His eyes drop to his plate for a moment. He eats a cherry tomato, then sets his fork down and reaches for his wine.

"So ... where's the line, anyway? That you don't want to overstep."

Danicka

She looks at him, quirking a brow as she saws into the steak. "Dobrá rada nad zlato," she says archly, cutting off a piece of porterhouse and putting it in her mouth. Chewing gives her an excuse to not tell Lukas about her mother. Her folks, plural. Gives her a good reason not to tell him that her father doesn't exactly complain about not seeing her very often. She knows how dark that line of conversation could become, and so quickly. She chews instead, and so does he, and she doesn't worry about the silence. Not much, at least.

Danicka swallows. She is moving to slice off another bite, thinking of dipping it in the mashed potatoes, when he asks her that.

Her cheeks don't burn, nothing that obvious or embarrassed, but she does keep her eyes on her knife, which she didn't need to do before. "Fucking you," she eventually says, plain and matter-of-fact as daylight, and the first time he's ever heard any raw word come out of her mouth. She takes a bite of steak, forgetting to put it in the potatoes as she'd intended.

Lukas

Danicka discovers something about this male sitting across the table from her, this male of her species (...sort of) who invited her into his den and shared his food with her:

he is not so unflappably bold as his direct stare, his spikes of temper, his steady hands imply. There is modesty in him, perhaps surprising. Fucking you, she says, and he laughs like he's a little embarrassed; his eyes flick down to his plate again. He slices a bit of mashed potatoes off the mound, and then he looks at her again.

It's not funny after all.

"There are people who would care about that? Who you fuck on your own time?"

Danicka

It may be submerged beneath the awkwardness that results from her just coming out and telling him the bluntest truth possible, but there is this fact to consider: she is so worried about overstepping that boundary, crossing that line, that she can't relax 'too much'. She can't settle in and completely enjoy his company because she might let her guard down too much, might let her control slip, might decide to just stop caring. Yes, fucking him is a far limit, but it's also a very realistic one. As though, at least for her, it would otherwise be a distinct possibility. Even probability.

She can't tell him how even him saying that he doesn't have to work on Saturday made lust go through her like a shot of something strong, sending blood rushing to her skin, warming her belly, making her feel momentarily reckless. She's embarrassed by the fact that she had to tell herself, right then, that he wasn't implying anything. Wasn't offering anything. It just meant he didn't have to sleep early, and for fourteen hours. It just meant he had a night to relax, and he was going to allow her to share it with him. But all the same, the words set off that thought, and she can't help that, but she can

keep it to herself.

She glances quickly at him, and she feels ashamed for embarrassing him. She looks back down at her plate, taking a bite of mashed potatoes. Licking her lips after, she reaches for her wine glass, looking directly to Lukas again. "No. There are people who care about Garou fucking you." This, she can't say as though she doesn't know the effect it can have. How much it will make him feel like chattel. She frowns, those eyes of hers troubled again, and she shakes her head. "I'm sorry." A beat. She frowns deeper, shakes her head again. "No, I'm not. This is all the truth. But I am sorry it's not... a better truth."

Lukas

Neither of them tell the other what they thought when Lukas mentioned he had Saturday off. She didn't want to tell him because she didn't want to put pressure on him, maybe, or because she didn't want to vocalize temptation lest it grow worse. Or maybe just because she's not completely feral, she is socialized, she knows it's somehow shocking to tell someone you really only met that

when he said he had Saturday off, she thought about fucking him

all night.

But the thing is, he said it, and the thought was in his mind too, vague and half-formed. Friday night. Dinner. Wine. And then the night, the next morning: no obligations on him, nowhere he had to be. They had the whole night to themselves.

And now here they are, sitting across from each other. There are no candles. Dinner isn't some artistically presented morsel on some vast white plate. It's meat, reddish at the center. Wine, dark as jewels. She draws the line: fucking you. He looks at his plate, embarrassed, but when he meets her eyes again there's heat in his, too. He thinks about her skin that night he met her, golden above that button, golden below that button.

"Let's not worry about that," he says quietly. It's hard to say what exactly he means.

Danicka

Unfortunately, that much is true: vocalizing it has made it worse. He didn't look affronted, shocked, appalled -- he didn't recoil and ask her what the hell she thought this was about, what the hell did she think of him, that he'd just drop his pants on command, what the hell, what the fuck -- when she told him where that line really was for her. Even without telling him the effect that his schedule tonight and tomorrow had on her, the mere fact that he hasn't told her the very idea is insane at this point is nagging at her, tugging at her, making her wonder if that means that he might if she could.

Danicka exhales, and takes another drink of wine, trying to cool away that line of thought. She nods to his suggestion. Images that have been with her for days now keep playing in golden loops in her mind, fuzzy at the edges as though even her mind's eye is disoriented by the heat. But let's not worry about that, he says, and she decides to brutally, absolutely kill those thoughts:

"You're right," she goes on, more lightly, "I don't see my father very often. He's... quite far along in years, and it's confusing for him and a little upsetting to see me. I resemble my mother strongly." It implies what she does not say. "My brother visits him regularly though, when he can. He has many friends among the immigrant community, too."

Lukas

And that line of conversation is dead. Lukas sits back in his seat, a certain wryness to his mouth suggesting he knows very well that that change in subject was deliberate and calculated. He picks his knife up again, cutting into his steak. Some surgeons have trouble eating meat. Lukas is clearly not one of them.

"Maybe my parents could visit your dad too," he offers. No more your parents. That implication has been noted, processed, and silently filed away. "It'd be good for them. They don't have many ties to the community. Neither do my sister and I, for that matter. Which is a shame, because it's our heritage too."

Steak. Wine. Potatoes. He has a piece of cucumber; the lettuce stays where it is.

"So ... what do you do every day, anyway? Do you have a ... human job?"

Danicka

She hasn't had any of her 'salad'. It's there, but she's eating her steak and potatoes at a healthy pace, pausing for conversation. She eats neatly, restraining the desire to simply pick up the meat and gnaw on it, fill her mouth with it, revel in the juices rolling down her chin, across her jaw, trickling down her neck. The wine is going quickly, nevermind the vodka earlier and the fact that he refilled her glass before she finished her first one. She is feeling the alcohol, warm under her skin and mellow in her limbs, though it's little more than a pleasant sense of relaxation to accompany the food.

Yes, the shift was calculated. For a moment there all she wanted was to push her chair back, circle the table, and get on top of him. Taste what his mouth is like when he's had wine, red meat, feel any part of his body, anything.

They shook hands last week, and it's nowhere near enough.

That moment is gone now, and it needed to be. She doesn't trust her own control, not in this area, not now. She doesn't know how much is too much for him, if that spark of want she sensed a second ago would be snuffed out if answered too strongly, too quickly. She just doesn't know him well enough yet to guess. So: she talks about her father, and her libido melts away a bit. So does his. It's a relief

and a disappointment.

She quirks a bit. "Which community?" she wants to know. Czech. Shadow Lord. There's no way to guess. But either way: she shrugs. "I think he would like that." This is odd territory as far as the discussion goes, too, but it comforts her. Maybe she will complete this challenge, and his family will be under her wing, and maybe they will spend time with her blood-kin. Even if nothing else happens with Lukas, even if it only becomes her responsibility to make sure no unsuitable female takes him, that is comforting to her. That makes her feel good, to think of all those kin, gathered together, talking and drinking coffee and playing cards together. Warm and safe in her territory, warm and safe and her kin. Her family.

In a manner of speaking.

The question makes her look up and over at him, vaguely surprised. But then, she knows what he does for a living. She knows he's a first-year resident. She knows the hospital he works at. She knows he's a cardio-thoracic surgeon, and because she went and read about it, she knows what all that entails. And he has no idea what she does, where she lives, who she spends her time with, how her days are spent. Which parents are alive. Any of it.

Something sinks in to her mind, finally. Something that she was abstractly aware of but unconcerned with. She had no empathy for it, only vague knowledge. For a moment she's still, absorbing this, then she huffs a small laugh. "There is no routine," she says. "There are three other wolves in my pack. That brings its own new excitement from time to time. I'm part of a council of Theurges at the sept, which requires my attention occasionally and sometimes a great deal of it. I'm currently trying to engineer bringing some of my extended kin over from Prague, but that means many exchanges of favors."

Danicka reaches up, running her fingernail idly in a small scratch above her brow, thinking. "I do... work, in a manner of speaking. I do freelance technical consulting when the work is available and I have time to do so. It pays well enough, partly because I charge exorbitant fees. The price tag -- among other things -- attracts some unsavory, powerful clients, which is part of the point." A pause. She seems almost hesitant to mention this: "And there are some Garou who, when they need something I can give them, are not opposed to paying chiminage to me in purely material ways. It's looked down upon by some, but... I like to have a view."

She sips her wine.

Lukas

He'd meant the Czech community earlier. He does not consider himself part of the Shadow Lord community, though this is no more something he can choose than the color of his eyes, the genetics of his blood. It is a different world to him, though. A shadowy realm that he has had no contact with until now. Until her.

What he asks her could be more small talk, but it's not. He's genuinely interested. He wants to know how she spends her days. He wants to be able to picture her outside of the few times he's seen her as an adult. Those memories from childhood are so far away now, and apart from that, all he can bring to mind is the Manhattanite sitting at the opposite booth, staring at him. The wolf-in-woman's-skin in his parents' living room, her long legs crossed as she waited

for him, one supposes.

But now he has a little more. He has the way she looks when she cuts her steak and eats it. Neither of them are sloppy eaters. Their table manners bears evidence of a good upbringing, and possibly a slightly strict one. He has the way she sips her wine, and how her eyes had looked outside on the terrace, where it was darker. He has, in his mind's eye, an image of her dressed the way she dressed the first time he saw her, consulting for the sort of unsavory, powerful clientele who might - in their offtime - play with their pet nightclubs.

Chiminage, she says, the word meaning almost nothing to him. He has an image of tollkeepers on ancient bridges, but that isn't what she means. Sept. Theurge. He pieces it all together slowly, some parts blank. He'll ask his parents later, he thinks. He wonders what they think of all this; if they're worried, if they're pleased. And he laughs quietly.

"You're a consultant," he says, understanding, "in both worlds. And - I thought you'd live somewhere with a view." A faint smile, "You seem the sort."

A small silence, not uncomfortable. His forks clinks lightly against his plate as he sets it down again for another sip of wine.

"Can I ask you a personal question?" And if the answer is yes, "Have you had other mates?"

Danicka

That makes her frown a little, when he says she's a consultant in both worlds. It's a brief expression, but a solid one, one she doesn't quite try to hide or quickly shoo off of her features. "It's not uncommon for Shadow Lords," she mentions, as far as having a view goes, wanting a view, wanting to stand at the top of the summit and look down at it all. The silence isn't meant to be uncomfortable, shouldn't be, but she feels it somewhat. She eats her mashed potatoes.

Her eyes merely flick to him when he asks if he can ask her a personal question. She gives him a small nod: you may. And the question is not a terribly hard one to answer, or even think about: "No," she says. "Though some might say I've waited too long."

Lukas

"I was going to ask that next," he admits, and then asks it anyway: "Why not?"

Danicka

She gives a soft huff of laughter. She's about half done with the food on her plate, maybe a little more. She looks at him, though, settled in by food and wine -- and vodka -- and a sort of mutual understanding that's evolved between them of what they will try not to talk to much about, but not avoid entirely to the point of stiffness, and what they can share and where the lines are where it becomes...weird. It's evolving, and developing, and he hasn't kicked her out yet, and the food is very good. Simple without being basic, filling without being too heavy. He chose good wine.

Her head tips. If she were a human woman, he wouldn't be asking her when she's twenty-seven why she hasn't gotten married and had kids yet. Look at him -- he's almost her age and he hasn't. His sister is several months older than Danicka and she hasn't popped out any kids yet. But she isn't human. She's a female of the tribe, and the pressure is on so much earlier for them to be mated, to breed. Either he knows that, or he intuits it, or he simply inferred it from what she just said about waiting too long.

"I didn't want to settle," she finally says, exhaling the words in a sigh. "As a Cliath -- that's... at the beginning of our ranks. You might say an 'intern' -- I wasn't expected to take a mate, and in fact it would have been unusual for me to do so. But if I had, it would have been difficult to the point of impossible to find a kinsman who was not much older, already mated once or twice before, probably not very ...appealing," she says, instead of any number of other things she could choose to say. "As a Fostern, which is more like a resident I suppose, it's a little more common to begin looking, to make overtures, to begin giving gifts to Shadow Lords whose kin you're interested in, and if you play your cards very, very carefully, you can perhaps win a decent mate of good standing, perhaps a little breeding, valuable contribution to the tribe... all those things. But you have to jump through just about any hoop set before you.

"I'm an Adren," Danicka says. "I have been for some time now. It's not common anymore for Garou of my rank -- particularly a female of my age and rank -- to be unmated, and over time it begins to affect one's renown among our people. I've waited because... " she takes a breath, and the exhale is another sigh. "I do not enjoy jumping through hoops to get what I want. At this point, a Garou who flat-out denied me challenge for kin or mate would be suspect, would be seen as petty and dishonorable unless he or she had very good reason. I'm an Adren Theurge, Alpha of my pack, member of the Crescent Consulate, and from two well-known, well-renowned bloodlines. I've more than proven myself, and with that in hand, I do not have to look around and see who I might be able to 'get'."

There's strength in all these words, and she is even leaving out a double-cupped handful of titles and accomplishments. She is proud of them. She worked hard, fought well, waited patiently for all these things. Damn right she will claim what pride is rightfully hers. But she's looking at him as she says all this, and only at the end, realizing what she's saying, does she drop her eyes to her plate and notice she's running out of potatoes.

"I can go after who I want," she says, less strong, less certain, more...embarrassed, perhaps, or shy. She doesn't blush, but she reaches for the potatoes and she spoons more onto her plate.

Lukas

He learns more about her. A lot more. He learns her rank, he learns her position. A few of her titles. He learns that 'Theurge' is a classification much as Adren is one. He learns that she is not insignificant, that she is in fact rather powerful, and that she is proud of this without being boastful.

Lukas wonders if she's disappointed that he doesn't ask more. Doesn't want all the details, tell him, tell him how powerful she is. He suspects not, though. Again: she doesn't seem the sort. He listens quietly, and meanwhile he's devoured more and more of the strip side of his porterhouse. He's saving the tenderloin for a little later, when he's more full and the robustness of the strip wouldn't go down as well.

And after everything she tells him, the answer comes down quite simply to this: she can go after who she wants, now. She's waited, long enough that some are beginning to mutter about it, some are beginning to think maybe she should contribute a little more to the cause,

so she wouldn't have to settle.

He understands that. It makes sense to him on a basic level. She looks away - it's one of the first times he's seen her eyes drop to her plate. And sensing her momentary awkwardness, Lukas reaches over the breakfast bar and picks up the bottle of Wyborowa.

Anyone else, and one might suspect him of plying her with alcohol. She's a werewolf, though. And besides: just listen to that accent. Another shot for each of them, crystal-clear in a clear shotglass. He picks his up and offers a casual little toast: "To knowing what you want, then, and not settling for less."

Danicka

No one can deny her what she wants. Not out of hand, not just because they don't like her. She's too powerful for them to do that, too well-connected now, too esteemed by her brethren. It would be a mistake to simply tell her no. Give her an honorable challenge, sure. Even a tough one, because she's talking about a family of very well-bred kin that have been traded around the sept for years now as pawns in a political game they're not even aware of, but an honorable one. Give her one she has a chance of winning if she proves she's worthy.

What the challenge is doesn't matter much. Not in Lukas's world. It takes a month. One crescent moon to another, and that moon is waxing outside, and she is literally days away from knowing if this was all worth it or not. She wishes he could have had a Friday night free and a Saturday off next week, instead.

But she's glad to have this, too. Because if she fails...

Danicka smiles as he goes for the vodka again. Not the wine for this. She lifts her glass to him, taps the rims together in the first toast they've shared all night. "Trpelivost ruze prinásí," she says. It sounds like agreement. She tips the vodka into her mouth.

And now she is getting drunk.

Lukas

Truth be told, they've had quite a bit to drink. They've been drinking steadily through the night, starting from that shot of vodka all the way through ... well, this shot of vodka. It's starting to go to their heads a little. Lukas is sitting a little lower in his chair, not so proper and presentable. When they were kids, he got scolded for slouching at dinner, or worse, for propping his cheek up on his fist while he ate. Danicka might remember that. He doesn't do that anymore, doesn't do it now either, but:

leaning back, now, his legs relaxed under the table, smiling at her as she quotes yet another proverb. "Keep that up and I'll think you have a book of Czech proverbs."

And he downs his vodka, too. Exhales a slow breath afterward, picks up his fork, eats that damnable lettuce leaf. There. He's had his fiber. He goes back to his porterhouse, which is beginning to cool now. He doesn't mind. He dips it in sauce, lets the excess drain. Eats.

"So when will you know?" He lifts the bottle of vodka; lifts an eyebrow too, a silent question: does she want a refill? "About the challenge, I mean."

Danicka

In this form, she does not have superhuman tolerance, superhuman healing. She burns hotter. Her metabolism is faster. She is stronger. So her tolerance is higher than average, much higher in fact, but she can still get drunk. She can still get lazy in her eyes and with her mouth. She can even get completely smashed, though that's far off at this point. Danicka has, indeed, noticed Lukas's relaxation of pose, how he blinks slowly and a little more often. She huffs a laugh, setting her glass down and returning to her steak. She eats slower now, but she does still eat. Steadily.

The question is on the serious side. It's reality. She looks at the vodka for a moment, then at him, raising an eyebrow. It's not really an answer one way or another to that question.

"Tuesday," she says, and it's shockingly soon, coming up so fast.

Lukas

It is shockingly soon. She can see it as it registers on him: the sharpening in his eyes, the awareness. A small silence.

"Can I ask what your task is?"

Danicka

Danicka is eating. She's quiet, too, during that period where Lukas registers just how soon that is. It's less than a week from now. Who his family's 'guardian' is has never made a difference in his life before, it shouldn't now, except

it's so very different now. It's worlds apart.

She looks up after awhile, taking a sip of wine, thinking to herself that she'll finish this glass but then, no more alcohol, not a drop, or else she won't be able to trust herself to do the sane thing, the right thing, the honorable thing. She exhales. "There's many parts to it. Proving to an impartial Philodox -- they are our judges -- that I had not had... inappropriate contact with you already and that I was not simply challenging for your family after the fact. Explaining, as well, why I chose to challenge for your family and not just you alone.

"It was decided that since I was taking on the responsibility of four new kinfolk, it meant that I and my pack were too strong to be guarding a territory as small as the one we've claimed as our protectorate, so we were tasked with expanding that to certain boundaries. That, to tell the truth, has been the most strenuous and time-consuming part of it all. There's fighting, and there's cleansing, and there's ...well, imagine if you tried to investigate and purchase a few miles of real estate in a month's time, and the current occupants try to kill you. That may give you an idea."

She stirs her mashed potatoes idly. "There was personal chiminage, as well. Earning favors for your current guardian, fulfilling favors he owed, performing certain favors with no expectation of return... he hasn't the clout to really make me leap through ridiculous hoops, so it's been limited in that area, but it is a part of the challenge."

Danicka lifts a forkful toward her mouth. "And of course, protecting you and your family. Thankfully none of you have been in harm's way during this month. But I've had to watch closely. Check on you and your parents and your sister. Just... to make sure you're all okay."

A beat. "Setting spirits to watch over your homes," she explains. "They extracted their own prices, but it allows me to be in several places at once, so to speak."

Lukas

Lukas quirks an eyebrow at that last bit. "You haven't been spying on me, have you?"

And - sometime in the midst of all this, for whatever reason, he's cut another piece off his steak and decided to simply set his fork down. And his knife. His next bite he simply eats with his fingers, picking the meat off the plate, tilting his head back to pop it in his mouth.

"And the crow the other day. Your doing too?"

Danicka

She looks startled -- affronted, perhaps a little, but mostly worried. She frowns as it fades, a little unhappy. "They only tell me if you're in danger. And if you were, they'd react. It's not as though I've set up cameras and stare at you all every night."

Danicka lowers her eyes, swirling a bite of steak around in the sauce. She eats it, chewing slowly, and watches as he just gives up on cutlery altogether. It's a little amusing. It's also a little comforting. He's relaxed.

She nods. "Of course."

Lukas

He wasn't terribly concerned that she was. She can tell: if he had really thought she'd been spying on him, he wouldn't have relaxed. He wouldn't have picked up food with his fingers, the sort of thing that would have gotten him scolded once upon a time. He would have gotten angry.

That might be refreshing, after a lifetime of dealing with far more subservient kin. With humans, who can barely meet her eyes. He meets her eyes without trouble. He argues; sometimes he's outright rude.

Refreshing. And frustrating. Sometimes it's like he doesn't know how dangerous it is.

"Well," his smile is lopsided, a bit of a smirk, "I tried to shoo it away. I hope it wasn't affronted."

Danicka

Her eyebrows quirk. "It's dealt with worse. It didn't shit on your terrace, did it?"

She picks up a bite of the salad, finally, considering it on the end of her fork. "I gave it very firm instructions not to shit on your terrace."

Lukas

"It didn't," he confirmed, "though up until now I thought it was because I was just that intimidating."

Danicka

"Not compared to me," she says mildly, biting through a leaf of lettuce.

Lukas

His mouth moves a little at that; he leaves it unaddressed. The lettuce, though: "You don't have to eat it if you don't want. But I assure you it's not poisonous."

Danicka

[empathy! -1 cuz drunknow]

Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 3, 5, 8, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 4 ) Re-rolls: 2

Lukas

[I be write here too!

Lukas is generally relaxing. He's being a little playful, a little flirtatious even, but the comment that she's more intimidating threw him a little bit. He knows it's true; still, Lukas is a bit of an alpha male in his own world, and it's odd for him to have to acknowledge that she is, in fact, significantly stronger than he is. He's not exactly resentful that she pointed it out, but he still doesn't really like that that came into play.]

Danicka

She sees him so clearly. Truth be told, she's not used to that. It isn't that she doesn't care about the feelings and thoughts of people around her -- in fact, much of what she's accomplished has depended on being able to see them clearly. But every time she notices some expression on his face, some flicker in his eyes and she chooses to look deeper, she sees right through to the core of him and it's

unsettling. It makes her feel as though she's intruded, far more than watching him or sending a crow to his terrace, showing up at his parents' house, any of that. Oddly, it makes her feel protective, even when -- as yet -- she has no right to be. She doesn't like that this rankles him, an idle comment while, frankly, quite mellow from drink. She wonders if he'd be angry if he were sober, or actually annoyed rather than just ...put off, or whatever it is exactly. Thrown.

Her eyebrow moves. "I know that," she says, the words coming slowly. She's quiet a moment, then: "Would you rather I called you?"

Lukas

"Yeah," Lukas replies, quietly and honestly. "Or just come over."

Maybe that's a little too far. Maybe that's too much to ask. He knows the terms of the challenge now. He knows that one of the terms of the challenge is that she cannot have transgressed against the territory of this supposed guardian of his that he's never met. In other words: no funny business, young lady. He asked her quite a while ago what 'too far' would be, and she told him. But some part of him intuits that even this might be borderline. Coming into his home, which is technically another wolf's territory. Having dinner with him. Sitting at his table, eating his meat, drinking his wine.

Talking to him, in these meandering loops of conversation that get a little more relaxed with every passing moment. Every sip of wine. Every bite of steak. Talking about their families, and her 'job', and the challenge, and

calling him. Coming over. He's quiet for a moment, rubbing his fingertips on his napkin. Then:

"I was ... attracted to you when you came into the cafe that night. If I hadn't been so tired, I would have asked for your number."

Danicka

That yeah could make her chagrin only grow deeper, more encompassing: she should have asked for his number and just called him, or texted him, or something, rather than sending that crow. She doesn't even know for sure that she wasn't just showing off. She does know for sure that she wasn't really thinking. It was a quick, easy way to communicate with him without having to pretend she didn't already know multiple ways of getting in touch with him. So clever.

But again: no point in regrets.

If he left it at that, she might feel that way. Except he follows it with telling her to just come over, which is... surprising. Even her packmates rarely come to her place without some kind of notice. There are few places that she goes without alerting the person there ahead of time. Showing up on the Kvasnickas' doorstep was an exception to the rule. She's met this man three times now, and no, he is not the way he was when he was ten. But he tells her he'd rather she just come over.

Danicka is looking at him, the alcohol and a full stomach making her blink slowly, lazy as an animal. She feels the movement of his hand on that napkin as though he's touching her instead. He tells her that he was attracted to her. That he would have asked for her number.

The right thing to say right now is to make some joke about Really? Even though I was being a creepy stalker?, laugh, maybe fall into a soft sort of smile, tell him she would have given it to him. Keep it light, just a little flirtatious, all of that. But she can't find it in her to do this, can't find that unbearable lightness in herself right now. She exhales suddenly, lifting her hand and rubbing it over her face. For a moment she's obscured, her hand a half-mask, but then it trails down, and her fingertips touch her lips, run across them, splay loosely over her mouth and her chin as she looks at him again.

For a moment.

And then she breathes in, lowering her hand to the table and pushing her chair back a bit, leaning away from the table, moving to get to her feet. "I should go."

Lukas

Just like that Danicka seems to have crossed some personal threshold. She doesn't simply state her intentions; she starts to move, pushing herself back from her unfinished meal, her wine, her vodka.

Lukas understands. It's not that he doesn't. He gets it. She told him: there's a line. She can't cross it. He senses it: she's on the edge of stepping over. And if she does, it's not just a matter of personal control or accountability. It's her challenge. It's her right to see him again after tonight. There are Garou who would simply ignore a failed challenge. Who would skulk and sneak and sniff after a kin they've been forbidden. She is not, however, one of them.

Even after three encounters, he knows that. He can sense the depth of her honor.

So she gets up. And he lets her, his eyes falling from her face because watching her hand trail over her mouth is not helping. "Okay," he says quietly. "I understand."

And she steps away from the table, and she goes to the door where her shoes are. She didn't even bring a bag; not even a clutch. His chair grates lightly against the hardwood floor as he stands. Perhaps he's being a good host, hospitable to the bitter end. He comes to where she's stepping into her shoes, and when she has them on her feet and she straightens

he leans down and kisses her. No other part of his body touches hers; not his hand, not his torso, none of it. Just his mouth on hers. It's not a light kiss, though. It is not sweet; it is not gentle.

Danicka

If she doesn't leave soon -- now -- she will stay and maybe sip the rest of that wine. She'll ask if he wants to watch something, and when they sit on his rather comfy-looking sectional couch she would not be against tucking her legs up, sitting close to him, sharing some quiet closeness and warmth.

In the dark. On a perfectly servicable horizontal surface.

She knows that the more comfortable she gets here, the more welcome he makes her feel, the more relaxed she is, the harder it will be to say no to all those instincts that cannot understand any reason why she shouldn't allow -- invite -- this very worthy, very strong male to, well, mount her. Every single instinct, in fact, is saying yes. The drive is perhaps one of the more powerful ones on earth, up there with the struggle for air, for water, for food. Her instincts do not understand why she can't satisfy them. And she knows this: if she ignores them too long, they will win out in the end. They always do.

Then an impartial Philodox will ask her if she trespassed on the territory of another Garou, and no rationalizing, no raging, will stop what happens then.

He understands. And even that shoots through her, makes her long to stay, makes it that much harder to walk away. So she rises, and tucks in her chair, walking toward the hallway because there's no point in wasting time. She bends, hand on the wall, and steps into her shoes, lifting a couple of inches. Though she can hear him as well, mostly she senses it when he follows her. Her pulse quickens a little, just for that.

Lukas doesn't say anything. She stands up, unfurling her spine, and he leans to her before she can speak, before she can excuse herself to go, just go. His mouth comes to hers then, the kiss firm but his lips soft. He doesn't touch her, doesn't let his body come to hers, which is a relief that makes her ache with gratitude

and a disappointment that makes her want to howl.

Even the kiss is, perhaps, over the line. It doesn't stop her from taking a sharp breath just before he's there, just before he kisses her. She could shove him away in that time, make him stop, or even just move aside and say no. She doesn't. She sucks in that breath, and he doesn't give her a peck or a soft, hesitant touch of his mouth to hers. It isn't sweet,

oh, but it is.

She knows she couldn't bear it if he touched her right now. If he pulled her against him or pushed her to the wall, if he put his hand on her face, slid his fingers into her hair. It takes everything she has not to groan. It takes everything she has not to whisper Chci te, which would, for her, be just another way of telling him yes.

This is not a quick kiss. She gives it back to him, her eyes flickering once before closing, her chest lifting with her breath and -- a moment or two later -- her mouth opening a little to his. She lets her tongue touch his briefly, sensing him, tasting the wine and vodka more than the steak. Tasting him, more than anything else. For a little while, the world narrows down to the dark heat shared in that kiss. She forgets who she is. Where she is.

When she remembers, her body is flush against his. She's stepped close to him, moved to him. Her hand is cupping the slope where his head joins the back of his neck, not pressing, not grabbing, simply touching him there. She can feel his entire body against hers, and she is still kissing him.

Danicka shivers. She stops. She takes a deep breath, opening her eyes. She doesn't move, otherwise.

"Do you want to walk with me?"

Lukas

These little things have a way of building up, running together. It was just the kiss; just that, because they both know anything more would be too far. Even this is too far. But then it goes on, and on, and somehow her hand is on the back of his neck and her body is against his. He is tall enough that even in her heels she has to stretch up a bit, but that only sets the arch of her torso more firmly against his, and -

he is firm, he is warm, his hands are at her hips now. Somehow. He hadn't intended to touch her, but now he's touching her, and his thumbs are grazing the tops of her jeans where denim ends and skin begins.

He tastes like vodka. He tastes like wine. He tastes like himself, and he kisses like he's kissed before. She's not the first. That's not the case for either of them. But he also kisses like he's never kissed anyone quite like this before. It's never quite been like this before, and when she stops

when she stops he leans into her a second, then opens his eyes. He doesn't ask her why. He knows why.

"Is that a good idea?" he whispers back.

Danicka

If he'd touched her to begin with, she knows she couldn't have been able to stand it. If he touched her more now, enveloped her in his arms instead of simply cupping his hands on her hips, she's not sure she would be able to pull away. As it is she's still standing right there, so close, and some very small part of her wants to curse him for following her to the door in the first place, but that part of her is quiet, falling quickly to total silence.

Neither of them are strangers to this. She knows how to kiss, lingering and molten. She wouldn't imagine that she's the first, that he's anything close to virginal, but it might surprise him how she kisses. Not the confidence, the lack of hesitation -- he can feel her want for him all but radiating from her, knows that the only thing holding her back is that line, that guardian, that possibility that she might be forbidden to see him.

The only thing containing her want for him is her want for him.

But the simple skill of her lips, the deftness of her tongue, the soft way she introduces herself to his mouth like that -- it may surprise him. She's never had a mate, no. But no one cares who she fucks on her own time, unless they're a kin belonging to another. Otherwise: she does as she pleases. She does who she pleases. When. How. She knows how to kiss him to make the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

Her hand remains right above those standing hairs when she stops. He leans into her and it takes effort not to tremble again. Her heart is racing, but also pounding. It doesn't feel like something this body, this form, was meant to survive.

"I can't stay here," she tells him, and then -- a smile, lopsided and a little loose, a huff of laughter: "And I don't have permission to bring you back to my d-- place." The smile fades, softening to nothingness, and she closes her eyes, tipping her brow against his.

Neither of them pretend they're innocent of what's going on here. Neither of them need to tell the other how much they want each other. The only thing that she wonders, far in the back of her mind, is whether or not he'd feel like this, kiss her like this, if he weren't drinking. He's right, though: she doesn't know him. She can't.

Eyes still closed, brow to brow, she sighs. "But I'd like to stay with you a little longer."

Lukas

So Lukas leans forward just a little. This time his hand cups her cheek. This time, the kiss is gentle, and slow.

"Okay," he murmurs. And they draw apart. She has no coat, which he thinks is ridiculous; he gets two coats out of the closet. One is light wool, a sort of medium gray, falling to just above the knees on him. The other is a tan leather jacket that would stop at his hip, but would probably drop all the way to mid-thigh on her. He hands her this second jacket.

"Let's go down to the park," he says. "We can walk along the shore. The Hudson's pretty at night."

It's true that he's had a lot to drink. He's not unsteady on his feet - not quite - but he feels the alcohol, warm in his blood. He can still feel her fingers on his skin, her mouth on his, the way her kiss filled him through and through with want. Hers is not the only pulse running faster than it should, though his is not so ferocious. He remembers, suddenly and distinctly, listening to her heartbeat when they were children. How fast her heart beat even then, how hard. It's a memory he thought he'd forgotten.

His hand is on the doorknob. Before he turns it - because it seems important that she knows this: "Thank you for having dinner with me tonight. I was happy you came."

Danicka

They kiss again. Softer, but he can feel the restraint in the way she hangs back from returning it fully, the ache that is very close to turning over and becoming agony. She cannot be so soft. Not right now. Not so easily. It only lasts a moment before they draw apart. Danicka steps away from him.

She reaches for the door but he's opening the closet, so she waits. Two coats come out, one coming towards her, and she just lifts her eyebrow at him. A huff of laughter: she isn't cold. Won't be. Will, too, be surrounded by the smell of him in that leather, which is torturous. But though it takes her a moment, she recognizes that it might mean something to him. Danicka takes the jacket, slipping it on, moving her hair out from under the collar. He says, putting on his own, that they can go to the park.

It makes her brows go up, but she doesn't explain why. The truth is, she'd only meant to invite him to walk with her out of the building, perhaps. Maybe down the street, like he did at his parents' house. To the subway station. She's going home, or going to find her packmates. But he's offering to just go on a walk with her, a stroll at nine or nine thirty, whatever it is. So far it's been a painfully short date. The only reason she's leaving his apartment is so she doesn't end up lying under him, gasping, helping him work out of his clothes as he pulls hers off of her body. She doesn't want this to end so soon.

A small smile comes to her mouth. She gives a nod. The thought comes to her, adolescent in its eagerness and hope and fear, that maybe he'll hold her hand. It makes that heart of hers, so powerful and so vibrant, skip. They move to the door again, leaving Kandovany to bound lightly off the couch and walk to the entryway, peering at them, wondering where the food-giver is being taken by the wolf.

They pause. He thanks her. Danicka smiles. "I was happy you asked."

Lukas

It does mean something to him, that she accepts his jacket. Intellectually he understands that she's a wolf; she doesn't fear the cold. She burns hotter and brighter than anyone else he's ever known. But he looks at her and he sees -

well; it's not even that she's slender, that she's nearly a foot smaller than he is in bare feet, that she looks like she would get cold if left coatless. It's not that. It's that inexplicably, in the space of three short and tumultuous meetings, Lukas has come to care for this woman. So he gives her his coat. And she accepts, and this makes him happy, just as it made him happy that she came to his den. Ate the food he provided, drank the wine, shared his company.

They smile at each other for a moment. And this is sweet: which is something that may be foreign to both of them. A moment later he shrugs into his coat, buttons two of the buttons, and grabs his keys off the hook near the door. Kandovany peers after them, curious and just a little forlorn, as Lukas follows Danicka out and closes the door.

It's not a long walk, in the end. The park is near, and he takes her to the path overlooking the river. They can see the lights of New Jersey across the way. By day they'd see the pollution in the river, the bare and unpretty banks of the opposite shore, but by night the view is serene, even beautiful. They walk a while with their hands in their pockets, talking about trivialities. He mentions that he told his sister about Danicka; that Anezka wants to have lunch with her sometime. He gives her his parents' phone number to pass to her father, in case their families wanted to reknit those long-ago ties.

A wind rises off the river. They walk a little closer and, after a while, with no comment or discussion or even much in the way of acknowledgement, his hand finds hers. He puts his hand in his coat pocket, their fingers laced in the warmth.

They agree to speak again come Tuesday. Call him, he says, as soon as she knows. And he gets off work at midnight, goes back at eight the next day, so that doesn't leave a lot of time, but -

come by, anyway, he says. If she can.

They part at the subway station. They did this in another life, not knowing if they would ever see each other again. The ache is the same here, bittersweet, even though they barely know each other. He kisses her again at the top of the stairs, and then he watches her go. The shine of her hair is the last thing he sees before he turns and goes back to his apartment, to the dinner they didn't even quite have a chance to finish.