They don't see each other on the first of June. He doesn't come to Denver that weekend. Jimmy and Ian come, driving the second of Calden's three ranch trucks. Calden goes east that weekend, out to where the last of the scrubland starts to blend into the plains. Cattle auction. Selling a few cows. Taking a look at the bulls, since the eldest of his herd was starting to get up there in years.
He does call, though. He's not apologetic -- they've never promised each other every single weekend, after all -- but he does sound disappointed, himself, that he won't be seeing her. They stay on the line awhile. He's driving, and the road is long and straight and dull, and he doesn't mind talking with her. he likes it. He tells her again,
come by if she wants to. Whenever she wants to.
He promises he'll call again soon. Next time he comes to town. Two weeks.
It's not two weeks. It's one. And it's not the usual mid-morning call, as he's loading the stock into the trailers. It's 9:30pm, which is still early for a Saturday night, but late for a cattleman usually up with the sun. Hell: it's not even a call at all. It's her intercom chiming, and when she answers:
it's him. Her Fianna lover, or at least her three-night stand: one arm extending off-screen where it braces against the wall, leaning down to speak into the tiny camera and mic mounted into the downstairs unit. He's not smiling, nor smirking. He looks -- tense. Drawn. And a little damp.
"Avery, it's Calden," he says unnecessarily. "I'm sorry about dropping by unannounced, but -- "
a tiny pause; a flick of his eyes up, a glance directly into the camera.
"Listen, can I come up?"
Avery ChaseBetween one visit and another, Avery does communicate with Calden. She texted him roughly a week after kissing him at her door and putting his hand on her breast -- as though to make him remember what he'd be missing, or to make him drive with an erection, god knows -- only to tell him that while his home is lovely, she considers it quite too far. There's no request implicit in that, though perhaps there's some apology: driving or running, getting out to Calden's place on a whim is a rather large investment of time, and perhaps he'll forgive her for not taking him up on his generous offer. He calls her when he gets the text. They talk for a little while; she's charmed by his voice, by his old-fashioned habits, by the way his breathing changes when she murmurs to him, in a certain tone of voice, that she wishes he were there. Right then.
And a week later, he calls her again to let her know that he won't be making it down to Denver that night. She sounds so pleased when he calls, as delighted as she ever is at the prospect of going out with him again, or staying in. The thought of being ashamed or hesitant about their status, their casual but tender activities, never seems to occur to her: He comes to town. They entertain each other. It's simple. And it's pleasurable. So Calden isn't the only one who sounds disappointed on that phone call; she handles it gracefully, with little more than a somewhat crestfallen Oh before light laughter, forgiveness, a playful entreaty that now he certainly has to invite her over formally.
Calden stays on the line a while, though. She's less light, less surface. He wants to know what she's up to, and she tells him: she was, when he called, looking at upholstery samples. She tells him she's thinking of leaving the condo at the Ritz; he laughs because she just moved in. She says it has no outdoor space. Privacy is one thing, being unable to go out and look at the moon is quite another. She'll sell it, or rent it out; she can afford to take a hit on it, if need be. Where will she go? Avery laughs at him, because she has other residences. She tells him she's also been reviewing house plans for her land closer to the caern. I'm thinking something Farnsworth-esque, Avery says, assuming he knows what the Farnsworth house is, which he should, because it's nearly as famous as Falling Water,
which is precisely what she tells him if he doesn't know what the Farnsworth house is.
They part after talking about architecture and house plans and local builders and so forth. She promises she'll tell him if she moves out of the condo that he has been inside of just once; he jokes that every time he sees her it will be in a new place. They are both smiling, if perhaps a little wistfully, when they hang up.
--
One week later, Calden stands outside of the Ritz-Carlton, then inside the private lobby of the Residences. He can be seen on camera but when he presses the button to call her address, marvels of technology take over. The call forwards from within the condo directly to Avery's cell. It just so happens that it also forwards to the phone of her steward, but as her steward's instructions on when to pick up such calls are quite clear, it isn't a servant he's never met but the woman he's calling, the woman he actually wants to talk to, who presses Accept.
The screen on her phone is smaller, but it shows the picture just as clearly -- if not moreso. She can make him out by the span of his shoulders. Instantly her pulse quickens, something between precognitive wariness and outright lust speeding her heart rate. As far as he knows, she's upstairs in her condo, and she is suddenly very sorry that she's not.
Hello? she says, then a moment later he tells her it's him. He's sorry, but --
his eyes, so tiny on the screen, meet hers. She smiles at him, as though he could see it.
"I'm not there," she explains. "The intercom forwards to my phone." There's a beat of a pause. "Stay there. There's a lounge right around the corner from you; do you see it? I'll be right there."
--
The lounge is quiet, dimly lit, well-appointed. The light feels gold and the music is inoffensive. Bluesy, jazzy, slow and languid as summer. There are people there, sipping martinis, dressed to the 9s, who give him odd glances. The armchairs are leather and low and supple. After about five minutes, a waiter in a black vest and slacks over a crisp white shorts comes over to him, not with a menu, but with a tray. On it is a footed glass mug with a steaming amber-colored liquid inside; there is a stick of cinnamon and a paper-thin slice of lemon as garnish. The waiter also brings him a wooden platter laden with charcuterie, fresh bread, slices of gourmet cheese, a tiny pot of honey, another tiny pot of relish, a third tiny pot of spicy mustard, and a bowl of Marcona almonds.
"A hot tottie," the waiter informs him, setting the mug on a slate coaster atop the table by Calden's chair, "and local charcuterie and cheeses." He seems like he wants to go into the exact farms and vendors from the area who provided the honey and relish and mustard, but stops himself. It isn't any look on Calden's face or interruption; he was given instructions to leave him alone. So he does, though he hangs back and complies if Calden has questions or wants something else. It's taken care of, he says, if Calden reaches for his wallet or is hesitant about partaking.
The food is good, if he eats it. The tottie is made with brandy.
--
It takes twenty minutes for Avery to get from her house to her condo. Well: around fifteen minutes. The other five are spent making sure she's not an utter mess, even if this is a bit last minute. When she enters the lounge she's not in some slip of a sundress or a pair of yoga pants, but a set of tailored charcoal-colored shorts that end a few inches above her knee, thin leather sandals, and a cream-colored sleeveless top trimmed with eyelets across her neckline. Around her left wrist is a watch with a multi-wrapped leather band and a gold face; her hair is down, in waves that make it look like she just came from surfing -- which is impossible, of course, in a land-locked state like this. It's too warm for jackets, even at night. They went straight from winter into full summer, it seems.
She goes directly to him like she can smell him. Which she can. She sits beside him, and she takes his hand.
Avery doesn't say a word.
Calden Whitei'm not there.
The look on Calden's face then -- just a flicker, just a flash -- goes beyond mere disappointment. A second later it's gone, and he grimaces; pushes off the wall and straightens up. But she's going on: stay there. Lounge around the corner. He swings around on that tiny screen of hers, looks over his shoulder, scans the well-appointed residents' lobby. A lounge. He laughs; it's a bit humorless. But he turns back.
"Okay, Avery."
The line cuts out. A quick wash at the edge of the lake has rid him of the worst of it -- the smoke, the soot, the blood, the flecks of broken glass in his hair -- but god, he still does not look fit for a fancy lounge bar. His jeans are sturdy workman's attire, and stiff from getting wet. The collar of his shirt is still damp, as is his hair. He looks like he's just seen a minor form of hell.
Which, really, he has.
They let him in anyway. He garners his share of glances, and tonight they're bewildered and alarmed. No one looks particularly interested in him; at least, not the way people look interestedly at each other on Saturday nights with the help of alcohol. Calden finds himself a seat somewhere dark, away from even the dim gold-hued lighting that sets jewelry asparkle, makes everyone look beautiful. In five minutes a waiter comes with food and drink, prompting him to sit up and begin to protest,
I didn't order this,
but he's assured it's been taken care of. And Calden lets out a huff of a laugh, settling back. Well. Thank my mysterious benefactor, then.
He's not so proud that he ignores what has been given him. He's not too proud to pick up the hot tottie, which is surely one of the more ridiculous drink names ever invented, and sip it. Drink it, actually, once he tastes the alcohol in it. When the mug is empty he studies the smoked cuts and the cheeses. You're supposed to nibble at these things. Put a slice of cheese on a piece of bread. Add perhaps a roll of prosciutto, or a dab of foie gras. Top it with a dollop of mustard. Enjoy the experience. Calden knows how it goes. He's eaten at the steakhouses he supplies, and at the chic establishments that line those streets. He's perhaps even been to a few dinner parties with other old names, old families in the state.
He doesn't feel like enjoying the experience right now, though. He puts meat and cheese on bread; he builds himself a sandwich. And so
when Avery finds him, sees him,
she finds him sitting with his elbows on the tiny table, eating a duck confit-camembert-olive kalamata bread sandwich. He does not give a single fuck who sees, or what they think of him.
Calden sees Avery coming just seconds after she sees him and begins to move toward him. She can find him by smell: by his scent, and by that faint tracery of stagsblood in his veins. He can find her because there's no one else like her in this entire building. On this entire block.
His head turns. He looks for her before he even realizes he's looking for her, and when he sees her he puts his makeshift sandwich down. It falls apart a bit. He stands up, because of course he does, and when she comes closer she can smell smoke, gasoline, blood. Not his; not much, anyway. Tainted blood.
He looks scuffed and bruised. He looks like he washed in lakewater and dried off stiff. She takes his hand and he grips her hand and
then people are looking politely or judgmentally away because he
has his arm around her waist, and he's kissing her like it's been three years since the last time they met.
That wasn't how he imagined greeting her. That wasn't why he came to her. It wasn't lust; it wasn't the overpowering need to feel alive by fucking someone. He's not sure why he came to her. It's not that he's just so rattled that he can't stand to be alone tonight, let alone drive two and a half hours home. It's not ... any of that.
His mouth parts from hers. He breathes quietly against her for a moment. Then he kisses her again, and this one is less urgent; warmer. God, he does love the way she tastes. He loves the way she feels, whether she's wearing silk or cotton or lace or nothing at all. When it's done he draws away and they sit down and he's still holding her hand, leaning against the back of that low leather couch, studying the spread before him with new eyes. The food really is rather good. He's wasting it, devouring it the way he is.
"Thanks," he says quietly. And then the corner of his mouth tilts; he finds an excuse to thank her: "That's the second time you've fed me."
Avery ChaseA minor form of hell.
It's the truth. There was even a devil, lording over his demons, speaking in tongues in the ears of the not-quite-innocent to corrupt them. Calden saw a man's head torn off of his body in an eyeblink, thrown to one side like the blossom of a rose being methodically clipped. He saw a teenager, no more than seventeen, pulled through glass and torn to pieces. He heard her screaming, and he saw them digging their fangs into her as they pulled limbs from her body, flesh from bone. Bloody claws raked down a windshield not two feet from his face, a rakish and wolfish grin greeting him through a veil of balefire. He has had tinnitus off and on ever since he walked away from that scene after hearing the repeat of Eva's firearm over and over and over. A full-grown fostern thrown with bone-shattering force through the air. A wolf, skin charred where it was not simply gone completely, lying in the road.
A minor form of hell. That's one way to put it.
Maybe she knows. Maybe news has already gone out to the garou of the sept. Maybe she saw him and intuited that something was wrong without knowing a thing. So she sends him a hot drink laced with brandy, the sort of thing no one would order on a summer night, and food that, however fine and well-plated, breaks down to Meat and Bread. Calden eats, leaning over to rest his arms on the table, chewing thickly through the artisanal bread and the locally-sourced duck. And in a little while,
Avery arrives, and goes right to him, and she would sit with him and hold his hand and wait for him to tell him that he's all right, but Calden doesn't wait that long. He rises up and she gets a good look at him. The picture is better than the feed to her phone; the way he looks is not better at all. Worse. It's worse in the flesh. When he kisses her she's shocked by it, stands almost stiffly in sheer surprise before her hands come down and rest on his upper arms, gentle as a lamb. She can taste terror and survival in his mouth; she won't tell him that, but she knows its flavor. She can feel the strangeness of his body, the way a body feels when adrenaline has had its way with you and then abandoned you to your own vulnerability.
She draws away, and he lets her mouth part, and she looks at him, wondering, waiting for him to speak. Calden doesn't speak. He breathes. And kisses her again, not as fierce, more the way she is used to being kissed by him. Avery doesn't stop him, but she doesn't slide her arms around him or press her hips closer to him. Some of the people in this lounge are her neighbors, by god. She does draw away, at least a half-step, without quite extracing herself from his arms. Calden moves like he's going to sit down but she doesn't. She holds his hand, keeping him on his feet, keeping him near, and nods her head towards the exit.
Wordlessly: Let's go upstairs.
She smiles at what he says, quirked to the side. "Is it?" As though she really doesn't remember. Maybe breakfast doesn't count. "Come. I'll have them send it up if you like it. We'll get a bit more, as well. I'm a bit peckish myself."
Calden WhiteHe thinks he might be behaving bizarrely right now. He knows he looks bizarre; he knows that kiss, that first one, tasted too much of urgency and desperation not to be bizarre. He felt the way she nearly stiffened, and how for once her arms don't slide lazily around his neck, and
he wants very much not to be bizarre. To be normal. It's hard not to let the damage show, though.
He starts to sit. She doesn't let him. Her hand still holds his, which he's grateful for. She tilts her head exitward, and he's all the more grateful for that; exhales, his eyes falling to the spread as she says they'll have it sent up. That, and more. Food, safety, succor. A good stiff drink, maybe. Maybe that's why he came here.
His hand squeezes hers. "Okay," he says.
Twenty minutes after he walked in to strange looks and speculation, he walks out again. In the private residents' lobby he stands with his eyes on the elevator indicator, not looking around. In the elevator he stands with his back to the wall, watching the numbers move. When they get close to her floor -- he discovers he remembers which one it is -- he straightens. All this time he has not let go her hand, but at the door he has to: she has to open the door.
And after she does,
and after he follows her in,
and after they close the door,
he leans heavily against the wall and drags his boots off one at a time. The insides are soggy. His socks are wet, too, and probably don't smell too great. He doesn't smell too great: like terror and adrenaline and, yes: smoke and blood. Fire, and not the red-burning, natural sort. He pulls his socks off, he has his shirt half-unbuttoned before he looks at her, remembering suddenly to try not to act so strange.
"Can I take a shower?" His voice is low. "I'll ... explain what the hell's going on after."
Avery ChaseOh, he's behaving bizarrely, indeed. In a sense. The kiss is so urgent, so desperate, and he looks like hell and now he tastes a bit like duck confit and brandy. But Avery is, as always, gracious: she doesn't mention it, and she lets it slide. He exhales and she looks past him at the waiter, giving a nod to the food and then a nod to the door. He understands, gives her a nod as she holds up two fingers. Double that. Bring it to her room.
But while he packages it up, she leads Calden out of the lounge, holding his hand and taking him away from strangers who give him equally strange looks. They walk across the lobby to the elevator. They go inside and she enters her passcode and presses her floor and up they go, Avery stepping closer to him and slipping her arms around his waist from his side, his arm hugged between them. She puts her chin on his shoulder as they ascend.
Her hand never leaves his. Even as they leave the elevator and walk to her door and as she inserts her key and takes him inside to the cool, dark interior. She can do all that with one hand. Calden, however, lets go. When he leans against the wall of the entry alcove and hauls off his boots. Avery watches him, setting her keys on a small table within a small jade bowl. She tips her head to the side, watching as he starts to undress. The cant of her mouth is bemused; this is the second time he's entered her condo, and the second time they haven't gotten out of the foyer without someone being half-naked.
"Oh, darling," she murmurs. "Of course you can. But no need: I received an alert from the city's warder not so long ago. I was about to go but the warning said absolutely no cliaths. In caps." Her eyebrows lift a bit, then fall, then frown. "And you were there," she says, walking over to him lifting her hand to his face.
Calden WhiteThere's just an instant, a flicker when she's walking over when he didn't see her coming, wasn't expecting her to approach, and he
nearly
flinches.
But it passes, so quickly. He straightens, his hands undoing the buttons of his shirt by touch. She touches his face. If she doesn't -- if she halted, wary or respectful of his startle -- he moves a little closer. He takes her hand and, without even a hint of a flinch this time, lays it to his face.
He's unshaven again. But then, he didn't think he'd see her tonight.
"I've seen worse," he says; it's almost automatic. Then he laughs -- this stripped, raw sound. "No, actually, you know what? I'm not sure that I have. This wasn't my first scrape, but ... it was bad. I wasn't in the thick of it though. There was only one Dancer anywhere near me, and I think he was just... toying. They weren't out to kill, I don't think."
A pause.
"Two of the Garou are dead. I don't know if they were from Cold Crescent or Forgotten Question. I didn't see it very clearly. But they were just kids. One of the Guardians was taken. I don't know why or for what."
His hand is still over hers. Slid down a little now, the fingers curving over her wrist, her forearm. He turns his head, kisses her palm with his rough jaw and his lips cracked by panting, by running, by trying to stay alive.
"I'm gonna go shower," he says, and lets her hand go.
Avery ChaseAvery notices that almost-flinch, that rising tension, as keenly as she noticed his odd behavior when he kissed her. She knows about what happened; she didn't know he was there. She was never expecting him to show up at her doorstep, or one of her doorsteps, seeking succor. Truthfully, Avery doesn't expect kin to seek succor from her at all, despite how easily giving it seems to come to her.
But then: she was kin once. Thought she was, for a very long time.
She notices, and she hesitates, not quite sure yet if he wants her to come near him, to touch him. But it passes, and still she doesn't continue toward him. Calden straightens up, and moves toward her, taking her hand and lifting it. Avery smiles softly, looking at his eyes with their hint of green -- as though to match hers with their hint of silver -- and skims her thumb gently over his cheekbone. Rough. Scratchy. 'Rugged'.
When he says he's seen worse, Avery isn't sure whether to tell him that the machismo is appalling... or take him literally and wrap him in her arms. He backs down from that. It isn't true. He wasn't even in the middle of it and this was pretty bad. They weren't out to kill, but they certainly did: anyone who got in their way. Anyone who was a real threat. As Calden tells her what he does -- some of which she knows, some of which is news -- her brows knit together, hard and tight over those lovely eyes, so effortlessly innocent in a face that can be just as effortless in its savagery. She doesn't like the thought of him being there. Seeing that. Being toyed with.
It makes her very angry, and underneath her care, her gentility, that is what he senses in her. That may very well have helped cause that near-flinch. He calls Slaughter, like Wind on Concrete, just a kid, and well he might -- Slaughter was only Avery's age, though thrice her rank. She blinks slowly, her expression deadened by what went through the sept after the kinfolk and the injured were taken away from the scene: Champion of Honor was taken. One of the more well-liked garou of either sept, with an easy demeanor and good leadership skills, dragged away without any understanding of why.
Avery exhales, shakily, as Calden strokes her arm and and turns his head to kiss her hand. She frowns tenderly at him, wanting to do something. She's not sure what.
"I'll wait out here for the food," she tells him quietly, though he wasn't inviting her anyway and she's hardly thinking of his presence there in that way. She does what is practical. And more than most, Avery understands the need for solitude, even if you want someone there. Just... maybe not right there, just yet.
"Would you like me to call anyone on your behalf?" she asks him.
Calden WhiteThere's a flicker of a smile. Strange; in that moment -- though he's the one that's bruised and bloodied, he's the one that's seen a shade of hell that the Warder wouldn't even let Garou of her rank approach -- he feels her anger and her ache as keenly as his own. More keenly.
"No," he says gently. His hand stays on hers a moment longer. "It's probably better if I call my dad myself. But thank you."
He lifts her hand, kisses her knuckles lightly, softly. This may be the only time, or at least the first, that there isn't a shred of mockery or mirth in him. Their hands slip apart. He knows where the bathroom is. Remembers it from the last time he was here, when he walked in the door and dropped to his knees and all but ate her alive. When they wrestled through a strange, painful night of her own. When they made love before dawn, and had breakfast, and then fucked again -- enjoyably, memorably, though not quite the same as it was in those pre-light hours -- before parting without the faintest hint of drama.
Light. Casual. That's what this is supposed to be right? Which doesn't come close to explaining why he's here, now, half an hour after sitting in a car and thinking to himself,
well, this is it. this is how i die.
The bathroom fills with steam as he's pulling off the rest of his clothes. There are some unpleasant bruises on his side, on his shoulder, across his chest where the seatbelt cut into him as he whipped Eva's car around and around. They ache as he peels his shirt off, but really -- it could be worse. He has a flash of one of those Garou, one of those kids ten or fifteen years younger than him dying: head pulled off just like that. It could be a lot worse.
He balls his shirt up. There's a bit of blood on it too, and on his jeans. His boxers are relatively clean. It all comes off, all of it stiffened from airdrying after a soak in lakewater. He leaves it balled up on the counter; maybe he can borrow her washer and dryer later. For now, he opens the door to that enormous shower stall of hers,
steps into clean steam.
He's not in there very long, all told. A bit longer than he was the last time, though; a few extra minutes to scrub himself clean, and to clean those shallow scrapes and cuts on his face, his knuckles. When he steps out, he looks for that robe he wore last time if he can find it. Wraps a towel around his waist, drapes another around his shoulders, if he can't.
Quiet as her unit is, Avery can hear the bathroom door open deep in the master suite. She can hear his footsteps, solid with the weight of that rather magnificent physique. She can hear, too, when he stops just outside her bedroom door. A moment later she hears his voice, but he's not speaking to her. It's a phone call, a message left on a voicemail:
"Dad, it's Calden. Something came up and I'm going to be staying in Denver tonight. Everything's fine. We'll talk about it tomorrow, okay? Goodnight."
Then he's coming into view, thumbing the screen of his phone off. He leaves it in the corner of one of her kitchen counters, along with his wallet, his keys. That bundle of discarded clothing goes temporarily on one of the barstools. He can smell food. He looks at it, doesn't think he has much of an appetite but feels his stomach rumbling anyway. His eyes shift; he finds Avery instead
and goes to her after a moment, saying nothing, offering no explanation as he slides his arms around her waist; wraps them around her back if she lets him. He smells clean now. Like piped-in water, without the green scent of the lake. Like her toiletries -- the more neutral ones, anyway.
"Thank you," he murmurs. "You didn't have to do any of this, but I'm glad you did."
Avery ChaseHis smile flickers: he aches, and something in her revolts without knowing that his pain seems to be a reflection, an amplification, of her own. Avery's frown deepens, and she holds his hand, but lets him go. Calden shows himself to the bathroom. In the meantime, Avery collects the food that is brought up just minutes after their arrival in the condo, including two hot totties, the remainder of Calden's charcuterie plate, and a second one for Avery. She give the waiter a tip from her purse and closes the door after him, locking it. Her mind is on the series of alerts that she got from the Warder, the texts that mysteriously delete themselves shortly after being sent, the spiritual tingle that goes through her fingers when they make contact with the phone after receiving one. She looks at the boots by the door and the mud on them; she drinks the hot tea with lemon and honey and brandy and thinks of Calden dying.
In the bathroom, it takes some looking, though not much; there is the shaving kit in a cabinet, though now missing the straight blade and the disposable and carrying only the safety razor, the cup with its circular bar of glycerine soap, the boar-bristle brush with the polished wooden handle. The toothbrush he used last time is in there, neatly put away in a little travel case of its own. The robe is folded as though on display in a boutique, as soft as though brand new. It's all shadowed, hidden, out of sight, but still there. Still kept.
Avery can hear him when he walks down the hall. She can hear him when he calls his father. Not because he's particularly loud, though a man of his size can only carry himself so lightly, but because she's aware. However unattached she is to it, this is Avery's own private space. She has only been here a number of weeks, is already thinking of getting rid of it and moving on, but she knows it. She knows when the air changes, and she turns to look at him when he walks in. The charcuterie and bread and spreads are neatly laid out. They were carried here on platters and in cups, not in takeout boxes. One benefit of living in a place that is part hotel: you can, in fact, get room service to your front door and have the dishes whisked away just as easily. The hot totties are still steaming. Avery's is half gone.
As he enters, she slips off the barstool. As he sets his clothes down, she takes a step toward him, hoping he won't flinch this time. He doesn't; he moves to her, into her, and wraps his arm around her. Avery allows it, even leans into it, slipping her lean arms around his neck and letting her body rest fully against his own. He thanks her. She huffs. "Would you think I would deny you?" she murmurs back to him, the words hitting him warm against the side of his throat.
Calden WhiteThey fit together so well like that: her arms around his neck, his arms squeezing her close for a moment, then relaxing again to enclose her lower back, her sides. Calden loves her body: not just those oft-lauded breasts and those long, smooth legs, but the rest of it as well. Her athleticism, her toned limbs and her squared-off shoulders; the intimation of strength and surety that gives potency to her poise, her posture, her effortless royalty. He even likes -- a ridiculous little detail, really -- that she's tall; that he doesn't have to bend so very far
to do just this. To hold her in his arms and bury his face against her hair, the side of her neck.
"I didn't think much at all when I came here," he admits. "But ... no. I didn't think you'd turn me away. I wasn't sure, but I didn't think you would."
He holds on another moment. A long one, lasting. Then he kisses her where he can reach her -- behind her jaw, beneath her ear -- and then Calden's arms loosen, unwind. He steps back with an exhale. Doesn't quite let go: his hand is still at her waist. He glances at the food. His eyes come back to her.
"Still," he adds, "I'm sorry for showing up out of the blue like this and making you drive over. Did I interrupt anything important?"
Avery ChaseThere is something different about this embrace. Avery does not doubt that. What she does wonder is what exactly is different about it. Certainly it's not the first time he's wrapped his arms around her or squeezed her gently like that, and not the first time she has laughed softly, inwardly, at how a 'gentle' squeeze from Calden's arms is enough to steal her breath a bit. He's quite strong, you see, and his arms are very large. She smiles as he burrows his face against her neck, her hair draping over his nose. He can smell her soap, her lightly-perfumed body cream, the product in her hair. She can smell him, too: her soap. Clean water. And the indefinable scent that warms and twines all the others, the one that marks him not just as a son of Stag but a well-familiar male. One she's permitted in her bed.
Avery's body melts slightly when he holds her like that, squeezes her like that, and kisses her neck just beneath her earlobe. He can feel the way she sighs, soft and light. He can feel the way that kiss makes her suppress a shiver. He can see the way she looks at him when he first draws back, her eyes revealing an animal ferocity she doesn't even seem aware is showing. His hands are still on her waist; her hands have slid down to his upper arms, touching him just above his elbows.
By the time he glances at the food, she has recovered a bit, looks at him more normally,
including with some measure of concern,
and then smiles at what he says. "It's forgiven," she says, simultaneously allowing and even accepting the apology while also dismissing its necessity. "And no: I was discussing some reading with my father." She didn't hear his phone call. His voice, yes, but the specific words, no. Avery strokes her arm against his arm where it already rests, more in a comforting, companionable gesture than as a caress. "I hope you know you're more than welcome to stay here this evening," Avery tells him, her brows furrowing a bit. "In fact, I insist on it," she goes on, much more decisively. "I'll call one of the maids to come turn down the larger guest room and en suite for you. You'll like it; it's the one with the plaid throw at the end in sage and rust and blue. Very understated, very masculine. The furniture is oak."
Calden WhiteShe was talking with her father, discussing a book they'd both read. Something tender squeezes through Calden's heart. He remembers saying, an hour or so after he'd met her: you seem like a woman who likes to read. It was the first compliment he ever gave her. That says something about the both of them.
And they've drawn apart a little, but not completely. His hand touches her side. Hers strokes his arm. She tells him very seriously that she'll have the guest room prepared for him; it's very understated and masculine; nothing frilly or lacey about it, and
almost in spite of himself, Calden feels a small smile quirking the edge of his mouth. "Avery," he says, with a gentle mock-gravity, "are you barring me from your bed on account of recent emotional trauma?"
Avery ChaseDespite the smile curving the edge of his mouth -- and it is quite difficult to do anything despite the smile, anything but smile back -- Avery watches him seriously. Her hand stills on his arm, though to be fair it stilled before he smiled.
"I'm not asking you for anything," she says quietly, correctively, gently. She gives a small shake of her head. "I wasn't even going to stay here tonight. I thought you might appreciate some time alone."
Of course she would. Avery is not the sort to experience trauma or pain and want to be close to anyone. Avery does not want to be surrounded by family and pack and friends and lovers and kin when she is at her worst, when she feels her most terrified, her most unstable. Avery is the one who retreats, locking herself away or running away. Of course she would think that, traumatized or mocking his own trauma, Calden might just want to be alone.
All the more reason to have him stay here. No one will find him here. No one will bother him here.
She is mad. But even in her madness, she tries to be thoughtful. She tries to be kind.
Calden White"I don't want to be alone."
That comes so instantly, so easily, so naturally to his lips that it falls close on the heels of her words. There's scarcely room for a breath between what she says and what he says: quiet, steady, sure. Then his eyes flicker down. Slowly, gently, inexorably, he draws her close to him again. Close, until his chest brushes hers. Close, until his arms come around her again, clasp her to him.
"I don't want to be alone tonight." He says it again, and it's even quieter this time; little more than a whisper. "I want to be close to you, if that's all right." He makes this realization as he speaks it: "That's why I came here looking for you."
Avery ChaseHe says it so quickly. He draws her back with his arms, though they never quite pulled away from each other, and folds them behind her back once again. Avery is paused, stilled, and then her hands leave his biceps and her arms wrap around his shoulders again. Those manicured fingertips of hers stroke, lightly scratching, the back of his neck.
At first, she simply does not know what to say. He seems so... rattled. So unusual, so different from the smirking, cocky, yet decent-hearted and hard-working cowboy she's been with a handful of times now. It does not bother her. Well: it bothers her that he is troubled. His distress sets something off in her that is half noblesse oblige and half... mere affection.
"I will stay, then," Avery says finally, her fingernails still drawing aimless, swirling patterns on his skin. She says it softly, a wavering of the confidence and courtesy that she spoke to him with just a few moments earlier. "And you will stay in my bed again."
Calden WhiteAnd so: she doesn't leave him. Her fingernails trace over his skin; send little prickles of sensation up and down his arms. Which tighten around her again, giving her another one of those slow, gentle, squeezing hugs as she says,
you will stay in my bed again.
"Thank you," he murmurs.
And -- quite some moments later -- his arms loosen. He lets her go, turning to look at the food, the totties. A faint exhale of humor, then: "I want you to know, this is the first time I've ever had a hot tottie."
Avery ChaseShe wonders if he wants to scrub his brain clean. If when he stood in the shower he rubbed his brow, trying to get those images out. She wonders if he found it quite easy not to think about it; to focus on washing, or to not focus at all, to simply practice mindful mindlessness. She wonders if he's just too tired to do either, if he wants to pretend everything is normal, even though he isn't here because she invited him and he isn't here to get chained to the bed and satisfy her and even though she is not entirely certain what to do with him beyond feed him, wash him, and make sure he is safe for the night.
Garou protect their kin. But they do so by slaughtering the things that would hurt them. Making them feel safe, offering them succor... these are things she is not sure she can still do, even when she spent the majority of her life preparing to do them for her future mate, her future mate's pack.
Avery watches him withdraw after he squeezes her again, watching him attempt a good humor. Her brows are still drawn together, watching him with a mix of curiosity and concern and, of course, simple attention. He says he's never had a hot tottie. "My nurse used to give them to me when I had a cold," she tells him, and gives him a small smile. "Not that I am offering to be your nurse."
Calden White[LET'S DO THIS EMPATHY REROLL THING AGAIN AND SEE IF IT WORKS.]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 2, 3, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )
Calden White[>:| it wuz twree succ.]
Avery Chase[1: Stuff in post! She's not sure how to approach him/what he needs.2: But she cares about him and she's worried about him.3: And I think she's a little surprised that he would want to see HER, specifically, after that, but it doesn't really bother her but she's also kind of ACK, FEELINGS about that. Stuff I've talked about before! Her history/not wanting to get too serious/inner conflict about him, etc!]
Calden WhiteAll their smiles are small tonight. Wounded, tender little things. Another one flickers onto Calden's mouth now. "Of course not," he says. Another day and he would have deadpanned it, but -- it is simply what it is, tonight. A gentle, small shred of humor.
He pulls a barstool out, then. He pulls one out for her, too. And he wraps his hands around one of the hot totties, holding it in his lap as he faces her. His eyes scan her countenance for a while. He looks at her: because he likes to look at her, even now, and because on some level he senses the conflict in her. Sometime passes. He sips. Then:
"Is it weirding you out, me being here?"
Weird you out. One of his odd little turns of phrases. Last time he used it, he was talking about -- well. Something quite different.
Avery ChaseAnother night, he might have suggested white fishnets and an even whiter miniskirt, even just to gently mock her with his banter, but tonight they aren't playing like that. Not really. Look at them: the way he holds her in his arms, the way he keeps folding her closer to squeeze her. Look at the way she strokes the back of his neck and cradles his head close to her shoulder, even though
she does not think she quite has the right to do this. For many reasons.
His arms do unfold, as do hers, and he moves to sit. Avery gets onto it, with their crostini and spreads and charcuterie spread out and ready for eating, their hot totties still quite piping. As she's sliding herself to her seat, he asks her what he does, and her head turns, her eyes alighting on him like bluebirds. She seems surprised.
And horrifyingly, doesn't say anything for a few moments. She watches him, and then after a while she slowly shakes her head. "No, darling," Avery says quietly. "You being here is no cause for distress."
Calden WhiteThose few moments are tense ones. Calden can count every second in his mind. He wonders -- briefly and bereftly -- what he'd do if she admitted that yes, yes, her fuckbuddy coming to her for succor and shelter was quite weirding her out, thank you very much. He'd leave, of course; but then the rest of it. Where they would go from there, if it would ever be anything but awkward between them again; all of it.
Then she shakes her head. It's slow, but it doesn't seem uncertain. It makes him want to smile again when she says what she says. How she says it. Darling. No cause for distress.
They're both quiet for a while. He drinks his spiked tea. She dines the way she always does, neatly and elegantly, except of course when she dines draped off the side of a bed, nipping meat from his fingers. Calden wonders how it's possible to remember things like that, moments like that, right alongside those flashes
of green fire melting through the engineblock of a car. A face disturbingly midway between man and beast leering at him through the glow.
"It helps me to be here," he says after a while. It seems to be quite out of the blue. "I feel better, being here."
And then he shrugs. There's no followup to that; no explanation.
Avery ChaseThis is Calden's second hot tottie tonight. Maybe she's trying to drug him to sleep. Whatever it is, she goes about sipping her own from its footed glass mug and layering cheeses and meats and honey atop her bread, making a neat little nosh to enjoy in a moment. Her thoughts are her own; her flashes are of things far worse, things that warrant the phrase minor hell, things that a Warder might want cliaths to stay away from lest they die. She knows they took a Fostern, a respected one of her own auspice; she wonders if he's dead. She imagines that if the guardians feel him cut off from them, the howl from the umbra will wake her with the power of their mourning.
Calden also thinks of her elegant, wearing silk, drinking wine from bottles, biting meat from his fingers, and how there was something tender about the way she let him hand-feed her, tender without feeling bizarre, because
she's not a dog,
and he's not her master,
and they both know that.
After a time, he speaks. She looks at him again, but nothing he says seems strange. He feels better. It helps. Just as simply, she smiles and says: "I'm glad, Calden." And just as genuine. She lets her foot rest against his foot where they both dangle from the barstools. She doesn't try to initiate conversation. She doesn't try to ask him questions. She makes herself a little open sandwich. The condo is quiet around them, and the food is good. The prosciutto is as thin as tissue paper.
Calden WhiteSo a silence settles. And considering nearly every waking moment they've spent together to date have been spent conversing, or bantering, or flirting, or fucking -- perhaps it's surprising that this silence settles as warmly and as comfortably as it does. Neither of them feel the need, it seems, to fill it with unnecessary chatter. Avery doesn't feel the need to push for details, explanations, a recounting of what the hell happened -- and Calden, in his quiet way, is grateful.
He doesn't want to think about the details. Or the explanations. He doesn't want to recount the incident. Not tonight, anyway. Not while it's fresh and bloody and horrible in his mind. He wants to move away from it. Put some distance between himself and the carnage, like running from a wildfire, like leaving a diseased carcass behind to avoid contaminating the living.
He puts meat on cheese on bread. There are fancy names for all of it, and Calden likely knows most of them. Might know more about the making of fine meat than the consumers know or ever want to know, perhaps. It doesn't matter right now, though. It's hearty fare, in its own way: about as hearty as a Silver Fang would serve. That makes a small curl of humor coil through his heart, too, which
is a small relief. That he can still feel these things, normal things, sane things, when an hour ago he was -- for a moment -- completely and fully prepared to save a bullet. To accept a saved bullet. Because death might just be better than whatever might happen, otherwise.
"I was with Eva."
This, some three or five or ten minutes later. After they've eaten half the platter. After he's drained his hot tottie to the bottom of the mug. After he'd all but convinced himself he doesn't want to talk about it, doesn't want to think about it, she wouldn't want to hear about it. This, anyway: it comes out from somewhere deep inside him, like poison oozing from a wound; a toxin he had to clear from his system before it festered.
"She's my friend, a kin to the Shadow Lords and a lawyer. The widow of ... an Ahroun, I think." A tiny pause. "And the mother of three children.
"I met her at that Beltaine thing I told you about. She's damn well connected. I mean, she actually works at making connections, cultivates them. She knows a lot of people in the Sept and she knows a lot of people in the city. So she has a lot of information on the crap going on with the Dancers and the bodies and ... all that. We've been exchanging notes a bit. I think she's just keeping me in the loop and keeping me out of trouble." A dry, humorless huff there. "Tonight was just social though. Dinner. She was driving me back to my car, afterward. I was thinking about calling to see if you were free tonight.
"Then we see this ... van. And there's a goddamn Crinos on top of it. So Eva has me text her friend at the Cold Crescent, and meanwhile she's following the van, and then --
"Then the van pulls over. I guess they must've seen it or felt it or -- something. They fucking pull over, like idiots, and it must've been a trap because then they're just everywhere. The Spirals, I mean. Coming out of the lake, swarming out of the shadows; some guy comes out of the van, a wolf, and he moves like he knows what he's about but they just pull him apart in seconds.
"Eva's pulling out a gun. I figure I have to do something, I have to help. I can't just watch it happen. What sort of monster would that make me? So I take the wheel, and now the van's moving again, and the Spirals are chasing, so -- I drive after them and I run one of those bastards over and Eva puts half a clip in him. But he's still moving. I back the car up and I go at him again, but this time he jumps on the hood and --
"They breathed fire, Avery. Who the fuck does that? This Spiral, he lights the car up. He punches through the windshield and Eva and I empty our clips into him. He laughs at us. He could've melted our faces off if he wanted to. I thought he would. I didn't think I'd live; I just wanted him to die too. I was so fucking angry. My dad, my brothers, my cousins, my friends, you -- all the sweat and blood and the thirty-five years that made me who I am, and it's all over like that. I just wanted to kill him too.
"But we weren't what he was after. He takes off after the van again, and we ... follow."
It's one of those sounds again, stripped bare, raw, a ghost of a laugh.
"I don't know what I was thinking."
He lifts his mug again. He's forgotten it's empty. He discovers it anew, and he sets it aside, and he folds his hands atop the counter instead to keep them from quivering.
"The van's stopped again by then. One of them stopped it. I didn't see how. But now the Dancers are just swarming all over it. And Eva and I are walking toward it, and she hands me her last spare clip and tells me to save one for her. And that she'll save one for me too.
"And I think that's the best idea I've ever heard."
This time the silence is longer. It goes on a very long time, until somehow Calden finds a way to frame the rest. Words that make sense to himself, when what happened didn't even make sense.
"Then for a while it's just... chaos. Everyone's shooting, fighting, clawing, biting. Maybe a few seconds. Maybe a few minutes. All of a sudden -- I don't even see where from -- the Guardians show up. The Dancers are jumping in the van; they're dragging one of the wolves from the van with them, and that fucked-up girl-cub that seems to be mixed up in the middle of all this is either going with them or getting taken with them. They're just gone. The Guardians are trying to save one of the wolves that got ripped up in the fight. I don't know if they got him back, because by then there were people talking to me, asking me if I was all right, if I was hurt, if I was okay, and --
"How do you even answer that? So I told them I was. And they told me they'd escort me home. I didn't want to go home. I didn't want them to have to run a hundred fucking miles back, either. So I came here."
Beat.
"I wanted to see you," he amends. "That's why I came here."
He's done. He unlaces his hands. He lowers his face into his hands, elbows on the counter. Rubs, scrubs, rakes his fingers through that thick hair of his that her fingers have combed through, clenched in, gripped, stroked so many times. His shoulders move with a deep breath, in then out. He lowers his hands, forearms along the countertop, then sliding off the edge as he leans back.
"Take me to bed," he says, quiet; looks at her. "Hold me, talk to me, sleep with me, fuck me 'til I stop thinking about this shit. I don't care. Just take me to bed."
Avery Chase[empathy!]
Dice: 4 d10 TN6 (4, 6, 9, 10) ( success x 3 )
Calden White[calden's pretty rattled. he can repress it, and he was earlier, but maybe not indefinitely. right now, he's letting it show. there's trust implicit in that. it's also cathartic for him.
as for what he wants: he really doesn't know, himself. not specifics anyway. now that he's kinda werdvomited it all out, he kinda just wants to put it away and forget about it. Not Think About It, if only for a while.]
Avery ChaseThey eat companionably. Bread and thinly-sliced meats, gourmet cheeses, all sorts of locally-sourced and fancy spreads. When she sees he isn't using it, Avery nudges the ramikin of balsamic reduction his way. "It's good," she murmurs, nodding at it, dipping her own bread in it, even dipping an olive in it. Try it. It's nice, her gaze and her nod says. Eat. Eat the thing. Be full, says the wolf in her eyes, scooting food closer to him.
If she were a true wolf, she might be nudging bloody hunks of dead elk in his direction in much the same fashion. She isn't, though. She's a garou. She's a Silver Fang. And he is a guest in her home.
--
When he chooses to speak, Avery is a little startled. Not so much that she jumps or even looks up quickly, but she blinks to herself just before her head turns to look at him, to attend to his words. She has no idea who Eva is. She feels a strange clench deep in the center of her body, tightening around her stomach. She wants to ask him who Eva is. She wants to ask him why he would tell her that. Why. Why, even if they're just casual, would he think she'd want to hear about --
She's my friend.
-- oh.
Avery, too elegant to show that moment of crestfallenness, that moment of surprisingly sharp pain that is at least three-quarters memory and not current experience, just listens from then on. It surprises her that he's talking about a Shadow Lord as his friend, but does not surprise her that this Shadow Lord knows a lot of people, works at connecting herself with them, and learning things about... everything. It warms her a little, more than it should, that after dinner with his friend he was thinking of calling her, since he was in the city anyway.
And he tells her what happened. The details. Not the broad, garou-focused strokes from the Warder's messages. Through the eyes of someone who could, comparatively, die so easily.
She never reaches over and lays her hand on his, or strokes his shoulder, or tries to hug him. Avery listens carefully, and quietly, and watches him without scrutinizing him. It is easy enough to meet her eyes, or avoid them. It's hard not to reach out to him when he talks of dying. When he talks of everything he is wiped away, burnt up, just like that. Including everything with her. That surprises her a little, too. It's hard not to touch him when he clasps his hand like that, a gesture that strangely reminds her of one of their servants, who does that to hide the tremors that go through him sometimes.
After Calden speaks, there is silence. Because he runs out of things to say. Because she does not rush to fill the void.
Her hand is soft on the back of his neck when she does touch him, finally, after he has lowered his elbows to the island and covered his face with his hands. He scrubs his fingers through his hair, rakes them against his scalp, and her hand rubs firmly, surprisingly strong in its brief massage. The condo is, as the other time he was here, kept rather cool. By contrast, Avery's hand is a warm balm.
And he asks to be taken to bed. He asks to be held, to talk, to sleep, to fuck, anything to clear his mind and bring him back to reality, to the here and now. Just take me to bed.
Avery, looking at him from where she has moved to stand beside his barstool, her hand on the back of his neck, pauses a moment, watching him, looking into his eyes. She leans forward, drawing him to her with that soft hand, and kisses him. She tastes like honey and salt and brandy. She kisses him slowly, and patiently, and steadily, then rests her brow on his brow, hand resting on the back of his neck still.
"Come," she says, after a long moment resting together like that. Her head lifts. She meets his eyes once more. Her thumb strokes where it sits on his skin. "We'll get into bed and you'll lay your head on my chest and pretend to listen while I talk about the new apartment I'd like to get."
Calden WhiteHis spine straightens a little as her hand comes to the back of his neck. He turns to face her, sliding to the edge of his barstool, putting his feet on the ground. She is looking into his eyes, her irises blue as a clear sky, blue as can be. He looks back fearlessly, hiding nothing, meeting her eyes until she draws him forward.
Calden's eyes close when her mouth meets his. He returns that kiss. It's unlike any other first kiss they've ever had, and perhaps unlike any other kiss. It is slow, and patient, and steady; washes through him like rain. He feels like he can feel his heart beating again. He feels like his lungs breathe clean air again.
Come, she says. He nuzzles her for a second, his face to hers. Then the corner of his mouth lifts, weary, wry.
"You're starting to mean something to me, Miss Chase," he says, and slides from the barstool. His hand finds hers.
Avery Chase"Starting?" she says back, softly, smiling. He's so large. When he rises he towers over her, a bit. He eclipses her with his torso. She enjoys that about him, since she does not have to find it threatening. Their hands lace, and she smiles up at him. She realizes she didn't mean to say that.
And her smile falters, and her brows tug together, and she opens her mouth to breathe, and then to whisper:
"Kiss me."
Calden WhiteThose smiles falter at once. She calls his bluff. Then she realizes she didn't mean to. And there's a quiet, there's a silence,
there's a whisper,
and he closes the gap. Kisses her, achingly, with all the terror and exhilaration of survival.
Avery ChaseThey aren't speaking much truth tonight. Not in volume. In depth, however, they plunge as deep as they can go for a moment before letting themselves rise back to the surface. He tells her that he almost died. He would have killed Eva. He would have let her kill him. He just didn't want to die without taking something with him. He also tells her she means something to him. And she knew that, even before.
Right now, though, she still doesn't tell him more than what was in her eyes. She doesn't tell him that he means something to her, too, that he has since the night he stayed with her despite her madness, and perhaps before. She just tells him to kiss her, and he does,
and she can feel in that kiss how close he was to thinking he might never see her again. Or his father, his brothers, his stock, the sky, the sun, the mountains,
light and shadow,
anything at all.
Avery slides her arms around his neck. This kiss goes on and on, harder and deeper than the last, til she's pressing her body against his through her clothes, his robe. It isn't even that she wants to have sex with him, or at least it isn't simply that. It's that she wants to feel him: warm and alive. She wants to feel his heartbeat. She wants him to feel it, too.
Calden WhiteAnd he does feel it. His heartbelt, tripping in his chest, surging down his arms. Those arms fold around her as hers slide around his neck. He's kissed her before to feel her wrap those arms of her around him like that. He's felt her press her body to him like that before, and never once, not once, stopped to think
this could be the last time.
His own mortality looked him in the eye tonight. Strange that he, who confessed to caring just now, so rarely thinks of hers. But he thinks of it now: he thinks of her life, and his, and how short the days are, how short the years. Something urgent comes into that kiss. He presses her back, his hand braces against the kitchen island -- then he thinks of her bedroom again. The vast bed and its blue and silver. The four posts. The window that let in the light in the morning,
which gilded her skin,
which shone in her hair like sunlight itself.
"Come on," he whispers. His mouth moves against hers. Things have changed. It seems he knows what he wants right here, right now, after all. "Let's go to bed."
Avery ChaseTwice now he has woken with her, in two different beds. He's had her fall asleep on his shoulder, he's carried her under the covers, he's seen her coming toward him, hair wet and body wrapped in a robe, telling him there would be coffee and bananas, if he wanted them. And yes: still asleep next to him, golden in the light, her arm over her middle, her chest rising and falling in steady, even pulls of breath.
He thinks of that. Avery thinks only of how he feels pressing back against her like that, holding her against his body. Flames ripple through her, just under the skin. She pushes against him more firmly from the hips, her arms tightening around him, pulling her closer.
He has to breathe. She pulls back a few inches, eyes opening to find his, her pupils blown, her lips parted to breathe. Come on, he says, an echo of her Come from just moments ago. Avery gives a small nod. That's all. And then, kissing him again, presses her feet from the floor and gives a small, well-practiced jump onto him, legs wrapping around his middle.
Calden WhiteLike dancing.
She steps from the ground. His arms catch her up. Her legs wrap around him, and for the first time in longer than he can remember Calden laughs, a low shiver of sound muted under his breath.
And then muted against her mouth. He kisses her, sighing. His hands cover her ass; squeeze and rub. He carries her from the room, leaves the mugs and the trays and the meats and the cheeses and the breads. He has a good memory for this, an unerring sense of direction: carries from through the rooms and the halls, doesn't spare a glance for that very tastefully masculine guest room of hers. It is darker in her suite. He leaves the lights off, leaves the door ajar, leaves the chaise where it is and the bedspread covering the bed.
Her knees slide against the covers. He sits, his arms around her waist. He kisses her again, eyes closed, drinking from her mouth. Her breasts press against his upper chest. She can feel his heartbeat too, solid and real, still present. His hands are looking for inlets to her clothes, access to her skin, but he doesn't touch her buttons and her zippers.
Not yet. He leans back; he looks at her across the small space. His hands come to her face, bracket her cheeks gently. His fingertips sweep her brow, follow her eyebrows, touch her cheekbones and her lips like he's learning her by touch. Reading her like braille. Those fingertips drop to her neck, her collarbones, skim down her shirt to its hem
and there, finally, begins to gather fabric between his fingers. Lift her clothes from her body.
Avery ChaseHe's been here before. Only once, that's true, but that night she gave him the full tour. He came and went from her bedroom at least a couple of times. When he left, they kept the robe, the shaving kit, the toothbrush, either just in case he came again or because Avery told them to. He remembers the way to her bedroom, largest room in the condo, all blue and white and gold and mahogany. It's dark in there, the curtains closed against the lights from the city. Most of the light they have to see by comes from the door he leaves cracked, and casts them both in deep shadow.
Avery's necklace and earrings and bracelets are in the way, though not by much. She settles against him as he sits, lowering her arm to her side for a moment nudge the bracelets past her wrist and let them slide off. They clatter in overlapping circles on the carpet, but the only sound they make is against each other. Her necklace, then, but that only needs to be looped up over her head. She leaves her earrings on, at least for now, because her arms miss the way he feels, encircled by them.
She is coming to kiss him again, molten against his mouth, when he draws back. She pauses, watching him, watching his eyes, perhaps about to tell him that it's all right, they don't have to do this. Or perhaps about to ask him if he's all right. His hands cradle her face. Touch her. A look of ache transforms her features under his fingertips. Avery, touched, reaches up and slides her hands along the backs of his wrists, between his knuckles, drawing his hands gently down. She brings them to her breasts. Her heartbeat thuds against the palm of his right hand when he cups her; she kisses him again. He begins tugging her clothes up, coiling cotton in his fists.
Her hands slide under the collar of the robe he wears, smoothing over his shoulders, pushing it back. "You're so lovely," she murmurs, a far cry from the filthy fucking bastards of most of their meetings. Her lips aren't gone from his very long; she kisses him again, forcing his hands from her clothes and her body as she pushes that robe down his arms, off his arms, baring all the heat and firmity of his upper body to her.
Calden WhiteCalden's breathing changes a little when Avery shimmies those bracelets down her wrists. Off her hands. He loves that she wears jewelry, that she wears silk and lace and satin and finest, smoothest cotton. And not because he finds it erotic
(though he does)
or because he's superficial like that, or because she's vain like that. It's because she wears her jewelry and her finery like she has a right to such things. Like they are symbols of her rank, the trappings of her position. She wears jewelry the way monarchs wear their crowns. And just like a crowned monarch, she does not lose her nobility or her power or her beauty or her presence
when she sheds such things. Casts them to the floor.
His hands on her face. That aching look she gets, then, which he can just barely see in the dimness. She brings his hands to her breasts. His breathing changes again, his spine straightens, he would have found her mouth even if she had not given it to him. But she does. And he partakes: kissing her, cupping her breasts, holding her like she is sweet as honey, like she is holy.
Cool air prickles his skin as it is bared. She strips him to the waist, which doesn't take much effort. He drags his hands loose from their moorings, and now
he is lifting her shirt over her head, tugging it free, dropping it behind her. His hands support her, lift her to stand on her knees. He opens the fastenings of her shorts, backs her off the bed to tug them down. Then his arms welcome her back against him, and he's undoing her bra with one hand, not nearly so deft with it as some casanova might be, though not quite a novice either. It comes loose. She tugs the sash of his robe open. He stands, and the last of their clothes fall away; he lifts her and they are naked, turning, he sets her down on her back. She pulls him down to her.
It's a slow thing tonight. It is quiet, the sounds he makes muffled against her skin, caught in his chest. He looses a groan into her mouth as he enters her. Her legs lift around him, tighten. His arms tighten around her. There's hardly any space between, and hardly any light, but the feel of her is a revelation in and of itself. The muscles in his back flex and release under her hands, rhythmic; he kisses her as he loves her, until their mouths fall apart, until she turns her face to pull air to her lungs, until his mouth finds her neck, her chin -- comes back to hers.
He comes kissing her: holds that kiss even as his climax pulls quietly and wrackingly through him. He hardly makes a sound tonight. A few caught sounds in his throat. The harsh rush of his breath through his nostrils, and through his mouth when it parts from hers for a moment. The faint sounds of the bedspread shifting, the mattress absorbing the solid, firm push of his body into hers. He grasps a handful of the sheets toward the end, when his mouth falls from hers to gasp against her collarbone, when he rolls onto his back
and brings her with him, sprawled atop him now, their positions reversed, the sweat in the dip of her spine lifting suddenly into the new coolness of the air. His hands stroke over her back, slow and aimless. His head falls back. His eyes are closed. He thinks,
blessedly, mercifully,
of nothing at all.
Avery ChaseIt's different tonight, too. As it has been only once before between them, when she was caught up in her madness, tightened inside by it, dragged into abyssal isolation by it. When that tide began to recede she came back to him in the dark and -- though neither of them might want to say it, or acknowledge it to themselves even -- made love to him. This is like that, on more than a few levels. He comes back from something unthinkable, and comes back to her, and in the dark,
he makes love to her.
There's an urgency in him, an exhiliration that is not far removed in many ways from the sort of panic he would not, could not let himself indulge in on that lonely lakeside road. Avery holds him in her arms and in her legs, and he can feel a bit of tension, a moment of wariness in her that she either cannot or chooses not to hide from him, even now. She has nothing to fear from him, though. Even like this, even after what he went through tonight, Calden is not mindless, is not reckless. Maybe because of what he went through tonight. She doesn't know. She doesn't ask. She closes her eyes and kisses him, feels him as he pushes into her, slow and firm and for a single mad moment, she believes: life-altering.
--
Tonight, Avery's nails don't rake down his back or up his flank. Tonight she doesn't bite him or call him filthy or moan fuck me, you son of a bitch, any of that. She turns her face to the side to gasp for air as his hand slides up her thigh, pushing her leg a little higher, easing his way deeper into her. She listens to him groan, listens as he starts panting, as that rhythm starts to become ragged, as it starts to shatter apart.
Despite the coolness of the room, she's sweating. Despite the fact that tonight, Avery is not engaging in some kind of wild acrobatics, she's not flipping him onto his back and riding him, she's not squirming overmuch or play-fighting with him, she's hot to the touch moments after he enters her. She can't keep her hands off of him, and her palms roam over his flesh, anywhere she can reach, just to feel him. Just to feel the flex of this muscle, the stretch of another. To feel his sweat, too.
He's starting to mean something to her. And what she's most afraid of, thinking that, is that it might be transference. In moments like this, which would break her heart, because, ironically,
she cares for him. She feels close to him. Connected, as he says, and even more than she does not want to hurt him,
she doesn't want that to be untrue.
--
Faster, then. And Calden holding onto the sheets and Avery holding onto Calden. She's panting but he kisses her; she can't breathe, she puts her hands on his shoulders and wraps her legs high and tight around his waist and breaks her mouth from his, gasping toward the ceiling as he comes in her, her back arched and her body taking him, taking all of him, as his breathing hits her clavicles, humid and forceful and ferociously alive.
Those hands start to smooth down his back as he starts to come down, as he realizes he will not be able to hold himself up over her. He rolls but he takes her with him, and she stays pressed to him, stays close to him, cuddled, if you will. Her hair spills all over his chest and arm when she lays her head down on his shoulder, nuzzling herself under his jaw. Her arms fold to either side of him, her hands under his back.
Calden WhiteTucked under his back, her hands are kept warm. Kept warm by his body, by his heat: that miracle of life that transmutes sugars and proteins and fats to biochemicals, to nerve impulses, to circulations and pulses and homeostasis and
that intangible thing, that spark of soul and consciousness that makes a collection of atoms and molecules alive. Living. Aware.
He is alive. He could have died, but he didn't. He's alive. He's warm. He moves. His heart pounds still beneath hers, pounds through his body, can be felt in the pulse at his wrists, his throat, his thigh, the topside of his feet. His breathing lifts her slightly on every inhale. She lays herself on him, uses him as a pillow, nuzzles him like he means something to her, too. And his arms fold around her back, the dip of her waist; close there, keep her close.
After a while his eyes open. And his hand rises; slides up her back to push into her hair. His fingers close; he grips a handful of her hair but he doesn't pull, he certainly doesn't yank. It's a gentle pressure, and then relenting. His fingertips knead her scalp. Comb through the gold. Cup her back of her head; hold her near.
"Tell me about your scar," he whispers. There's no explanation; no connection other than that tenuous, fragile link of survival. "Tell me what happened to change Avery Chase into Reverence of Dawn."
Avery ChaseThe grip of her hair only makes her eyes close, her body relax. It's like a scritch, almost. When he massages her scalp she makes a low, drowsy noise. For a moment she was worried he would be frantic that she didn't come, make it a thing, but he doesn't. When he breathes to speak, she wonders if he'll ask, but he doesn't. He wants her to tell him about her scar, and how she changed from Avery to --
"No," before he has even finished saying her deedname. It's unequivocal. She takes a breath, exhales it and it tremors against his skin. "No, Calden, I'd really rather not."
Calden WhiteDice: 5 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 5, 6, 8) ( success x 2 )
Avery Chase[That question made her very tense, very quickly (hence the immediate 'No'). That tension is part anger/frustration and part recoiling from pain; it's like having an open wound poked at, and (probably because intense/conflicting emotions trigger her derangement) makes her want to get away.]
Calden White[DLP!]
Calden WhiteAnd just as he didn't panic, didn't make her orgasm or the lack thereof a thing -- he doesn't panic now. Doesn't ask what he did wrong, what he shouldn't have said, is she okay, is she all right, did he mess it up.
There's only a moment of quiet. And then his arms loosen; he gives her room to draw away if she wants to. Raises himself up on his elbows, if she does.
"All right," he says quietly. "It's all right. I won't ask you again."
Avery ChaseFor Avery, these questions are like poking at an open wound. She is tense against him where a moment ago she was molten, sighing. She is jarred now, even frustrated, some small and unfair part of her angry with him because he has asked things like this before. And she has told him before what it is like: talking about a death. Not almost dying, but truly losing your life, and every relationship and thing you had built for that life, gone in an instant,
and then having to get up and keep walking, watching your own funerals, watching the world -- or parts of it -- go on without you.
Yes. Some part of her is angry at him for asking again. For touching that wound again, and making her flinch from the pain, because he wants to know her better. Or know her at all.
--
Calden's arms loosen around her, though perhaps it is in his instinct to tighten them, hold onto her lest she slip away, touch her lest she disconnect from him entirely. Another woman might feel rejected, might feel punished: she told him No, and now he's letting go of her. That'll show her to speak up.
Avery, instead, feels at once guilty and grateful. She does draw away, but not completely. Her hands slide out from under him, resting on the covers. She puts her brow to his sternum, sighing softly, the exhale rebounding off of his skin. There is some space between their torsos, though not as much as there might have been.
Tension still thrums in her, but it's tempered. She breathes in the smell of him, caught so well in the hairs on his chest. She rolls her forehead side to side against him, slowly. After a while she comes to rest on him again, the way she was a moment ago, exhaling slowly and wrapping her arms around him and under him again,
perhaps a little tighter now, her body curled more closely to his, her cheek resting on him like he's a pillow yet again.
"Is there something else I can tell you?" she whispers.
Calden WhiteThere are a few moments of quiet. Another woman, a weaker woman who might have felt rejection in his release
(or perhaps simply: a woman whose mind didn't bear an indissoluble flaw)
might tense at that silence. Think he was dragging out for effect, or to punish her, or because he was angry, or -- any number of things. It's not that, though. He's quiet, but it's not tense. And as she comes back to him, his arms settle around her again. A little looser this time: his hands on her back instead of his arms wrapped around her.
When he does speak, she can hear the smile there, slight but unmistakable: "Tell me about that new apartment."
Avery ChaseEven with the cool air wicking sweat off of her back, cooling her sex-heated skin, Avery is warm. Very warm. She doesn't mind the cold. Even coming from House Wyrmfoe, her blood has ties to those most ancient homelands of her tribe, the first houses and clans of their people. Snow and ice do not concern her. Cool air is nothing to her.
She offers to tell him something else. What would he like? And he smiles, and though she cannot see his face from this position she certainly hears it. She has seen him smile often enough. She knows the way he sounds.
Avery huffs a light, dry laugh. But she doesn't hesitate. "It's a two-story penthouse just northwest of downtown." She breathes in deeply. "Fifty windows, a lap pool on the terrace, five bedrooms. It's much larger than this place, and filled with light. My steward and my accountant are having spasms, I'm afraid. For one thing, they're convinced I'm going to lose money on selling this condo so soon, but they have to understand my priorities. Buying this place was a lazy, rushed decision, and I do have upstairs neighbors, and neighbors to the sides of me. What sort of privacy is that?"
She snuggles closer. "It has a fireplace, and outdoor space. There's a loft in one of the rooms -- I can't remember if the realtor called it a lounge or a den or whathaveyou -- that's full of built-in bookshelves. My father might be jealous, but he has his own library in the house, so I don't see why he should complain. The kitchen is stainless steel, and there's a wine cooler that's nearly the size of the entire fridge. I'm rather sure my dining room can seat fourteen, and there's a fireplace in there, as well."
And so it goes, though not forever. She tells him about cantilevered stairways, which she adores, and the sort of lighting fixtures she wants, modern in the kitchen and living areas and more traditional in the dining room and bedrooms. For a place that she wants because it is private and her own, she seems to be preparing for it to be ready for parties of a dozen or more people, or perhaps as many as she could fit. It makes her happy to talk about it.
And the art she'll buy for it, and the rugs, and the table settings and the linens. Avery talks, quite a bit, about the things she'll shop for. To the point that it seems she might just get out of bed right now and get started. She can shop online. She even mentions getting some things from overseas.
Calden WhiteWhat sort of privacy is that? she asks. It's rhetorical, but Calden laughs anyway -- low and quiet, his arm tightening for a moment around her shoulders. A hug. "Not much at all," he answers, mock-solemn.
And so she goes on. And he closes his eyes after a while. Pictures it, this soaring two-story penthouse with fifty windows and a lap pool. In his mind, Calden counts the windows in his house; isn't quite sure what, exactly, fifty implies. Does a small skyscraper even have fifty windows? His mind shears sideways, skips, now he's imagining bookshelves, a library even if the realtor called it a loft or a lounge or a den or what have you. What have you, he repeats to himself. What have you, what have you. It's a phrase rather quintessentially Avery, like darling and might I inquire and all the other things she says.
Her lips move against his chest. It's a nice feeling, a soft and subtle sort of tickle. She's talking about the stairways, and the light fixtures, and the rugs, the art, the linens, the tables and chairs she'll put on the terrace, whether she should invest in a pool cleaner or one of those mechanical 'dragons'.
And Calden is listening, he is listening to her voice if not quite her words, and at some point -- he reaches to the side and pulls the comforters loose from where they're tucked, hotel-like, under the mattress. How paradoxically tedious it must be, he thinks, to have servants. To have everything put in its place, always. To never see a mess or clutter just because. The comforter is light but warm, and he wraps it around the two of them without bothering to get under. And she might be all but about to get out of bed to shop, but Calden
finds her hand somewhere. And wraps his fingers through hers. And holds her hand like that, loosely, as he lets her words get more and more distant. As he lets his mind unravel. As he lets himself sink.
Avery is somewhere in the midst of discussing her drapery when something about the way her lover is breathing, something about the way his muscles relax and his bones grow heavy, tells her he has fallen asleep.
Avery ChaseLike a bedtime story or a lullabye, Avery's talk of all the wonderful things she can buy put him gradually to sleep. Nevermind that she's talking about spending multiple millions on this penthouse. Nevermind that there are good reasons why her steward and her accountant sometimes wake in a cold sweat because of her. At least she enjoys, to every possible height, the things she gets for herself. The things she buys, or takes in tribute.
Calden doesn't interrupt. He runs her words over and over in his mind, the way a weary brain does. He thinks about tangential things like servants picking up clutter for you. He does notice that she's getting excitable talking about shopping, and holds her hand, wrapping them up in the bedcovers. Avery laughs softly, mid-thought, and realizes without asking that she's not going to be able to convince him to move his body and get under the blankets. So she goes back to talking about her pool and the landscaping they'll do around it. She admits she hates terra cotta planters but they'll come up with something that will weather nicely.
He drifts off. He is loosely wrapped around her, or near her, and somewhere in there she did slip off of him so she doesn't have to do it now when he's out like a light. Avery lies beside him, quieting, and then murmurs a few random things:
and then I'll make a rhubarb pie wearing nothing but a pink frilly apronI'm thinking of turning the upstairs part of the penthouse into a stable for a Shetland ponywe'll invite Cirque du Soleil to perform at my birthday
just to see if he's pretending, or if he's going to stir to wakefulness soon. He doesn't. She smiles at him, but that smile slowly fades and falters. He nearly died tonight. The only reason he didn't was that the Spiral found him unimportant, or got distracted by something else. He watched garou get torn limb from limb. Avery's throat moves, hard, as she swallows. She was thinking of slipping out of bed to go shop. Instead, she moves closer once more. Her arms wrap around him. Her leg covers his.
She does not sleep for a long time.
Avery Chase[wtf there were spaces there! WHERE DID MY LINE BREAKS GO!]
Calden White[here i thought you were being ARTISTIK!]
Avery Chase[I WAS. BUT MY ART HAD LINE BREAKS.]
Calden WhiteCalden's exhaustion runs so deep. Nothing wakes him: not the threat of Shetland pony stables or Cirque du Soleil shows; not even the enticement of pink frilly aprons and nothing else. Not a sudden terror in the night, either. His sleep is deep and all but dreamless. He hardly moves. At one point he stirs, he seems to wake, he mumbles something incoherent and raises his head and
drops it again, turns heavily and a little clumsily on his side. That's how she knows he's still asleep. Calden is very large, and rather burly, and far from graceful. He is not clumsy, though. He is not uncoordinated or bumbling -- except, it seems when he's not really awake, when he's turning in his sleep, when he's moving in her bed and settling against her body and
going still again. His breathing deepens. He doesn't move again until morning.
And when morning comes, it finds him still asleep in Avery's bed. His hair has dried on the pillow. Thick as it is, it's utterly unsalvageable now; won't look proper again until he's showered again. His eyes are closed, his face lax. He breathes quietly, in slow pulls and releases, until for no reason other than some internal sleep-quota filling, some invisible sleep-timer running up, it changes. There's a breath out of time with the rest, and lighter than the rest. A moment later his eyes open.
Calden looks at her. Not all there yet. Uncomplicated and innocent as an animal. He doesn't startle to see her; he knows who she is. He recognizes her, even if in this moment he hardly recognizes himself, or where he is. A few moments go by, and then gradually something in his eyes sharpens, focuses. He raises his hand to her cheek, touches her.
She can read him like a book. He's had quite the crush on her for weeks now. The look in his eyes is different right now, though. Deeper, and more complex. There are threads of trust there. There are traceries of
some genuine, deep affection, a treacherous trap for the heart. An ache comes into his eyes a moment before he leans forward and kisses her. You weren't just starting to mean something, he tells her.
Perhaps they make love again in the morning light. Perhaps she draws him over her, or pushes him gently on his back. Perhaps the sunlight sets her aglow. Perhaps her skin pulls all light into itself, the way it seemed to pull the moonlight in the first time he saw her. Perhaps his hands on her body are rough and sun-dark, but she pulls them to her anyway, covers her breasts with his palms, wraps her fingers around his wrists to hold his palms against her heartbeat.
Or perhaps they don't. Perhaps they simply lie there awhile, kissing softly. His hand on her waist. Her hand on his cheek. Either which way, sooner or later they have to get up. He finds his toiletries in her cabinets and he brushes his teeth, he washes for the day. She feeds him breakfast. He makes her eggs. There might be bananas. There might be pastries, light delicate delicious things.
He's quiet, when it's time to go. He wraps his arms around her at the door and he kisses her; he holds her a long time, bending a little to press his lips to the side of her neck, to hide himself there for a little longer.
When they draw apart he smiles at her. It's small, and a little wan; he misses her already. I'll call you, he tells her. It's unnecessary. She knows he will. There's a moment where he wants to kiss her again, but he thinks that'll be an endless thing; it'll always be just one more kiss. So the moment passes, and he straightens.
"Be careful out there, Avery," he says. It's a goodbye without having to say the words.
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