It is not so very late in the day when Calden receives a phone call from Avery, but lately it does not need to be very late for the sun to be setting and a chill to be settling over the land. It's colder now, when one stands on that land of his, than it is in the city. Somewhere, perhaps even in his line of sight, the sun is a searing, molten line on the western horizon, blurring the edges of the mountaintops against the sky.
His phone rings and does not chime; she calls instead of texts and her voice sounds weary and exhilarated at once.
"Darling," she sighs, fondly, as though by picking up the phone and saying hello or whatever clever or loving thing he's thought to say he has broken her heart with his sweetness, his masculinity, his stoicism, his lustiness -- whatever quality or set of qualities he possesses that she believes both admirable and inimitable.
"May I come see you tonight?" she asks him, with no suggestion in her tone that she expects refusal or delay, despite the request for permission. She likes, as she has said, to hear him say yes to her. She likes to ask. Tonight of all nights, she wants to remember how precious kin are, how needed, how many ways one must protect them and guard them and show them respect, how much
better she is than Iron Tooth.
Calden WhiteCalden doesn't know who's on the other end when he picks up the phone. He's out on the ranch, it's noisy in the background with shouting men and lowing cattle and loud bangs and thumps, and he is talking into a tiny bluetooth earpiece that leaves his hands free to do his rough work. So there's no clever or loving thing: there's only a Hello! half-shouted across the phone. But then: she sighs it, darling, and he knows her. He knows her at once, knows the thrill that runs up his legs and through his spine.
"Miss Chase," he says,
and his ranch hands have heard him say the name often enough now, heard the way he says it often enough, that they exchanged a silent, amused glance. Go on, Ian calls, go talk to your lady-love. We'll hold down the fort.
Calden's lady-love hears him swear -- playfully, but rather blisteringly -- at his cousin. Then a door closes and the noises recede to a dull roar in the background, and his voice is there, right there in the foreground, warm as well-sunned oak.
"I would be delighted if you were to come see me tonight," Calden replies, smiling. "I'm going to be done here in a little bit. You should come whenever you like. And bring a few changes of clothing. Just in case a happy flood prevents you from going home again."
Avery ChaseMay I?I would be delighted.
On the other end of the line, Avery's lips open in a slow but broad smile, bright and warm and titillated all at once. She does not tell him, of course, that she has already packed a bag. "I half-expect I should come upon you doing a rain dance," she teases, but fondly.
Nor does she tell him that she is already in her car, and not the bouncy little mini-SUV that she would normally drive out to his place, because that car is in Las Vegas and no longer owned by her. She hasn't had time to get a new one, so it's the Model S that Avery is in, and talking to him via bluetooth as well through the car's dash. He may hear the engine, but given that it is as silent as a hunting shark, it's improbable. Avery pulls toward the gate as it opens, and out, north onto Polo Club Lane, and she will go east until 25, then farther and farther north until she gets to him.
"I won't interrupt your work any longer," she tells him, the smile evident in her voice. "I wouldn't want to delay you from seeing me once I reach your latitude."
They say their goodbyes, their see-you-soons, and from then on, Avery drives... perhaps a bit illegally. She waits until she gets to the interstate before tearing a hole in the space-time continuum, though. She is truthfully not in the mood to drive, certainly not for two hours, but requiring Chauncey to drive her to Calden's ranch seems a bit much, even to her.
--
So it is that a couple of hours later, or a bit less than, around eight in the evening, it's that midnight-blue Tesla that slides into some fitting spot in front of Calden's house. So it is that wherever he is, he may only hear the car because of the silence that places like this have apart from cities and towns. So it is that he more than likely, in fact, hears the thump of the front door shutting.
Oh, she wanted to dress up a bit. It would be a lie to say she didn't feel a pang this evening that she could not simply call him and see him then, see him there, have him come home with her and celebrate with her family at some fine restaurant and then, perhaps, drive just a short while to his home and spend the night with him there. Take him to brunch the next day and sit on the same side of the booth, nuzzling and even kissing over their egg dishes with appalling lack of concern for anyone else in the restaurant. Go back to his place or her own and spend the rest of the day in bed, making love and dozing off in turns. It ached a bit to think of how far he was, how separate their lives are, how many days they spend apart compared to how many days they spend together.
Avery did not dress up, though, or call to see if he could both magically finish his work and then teleport himself to her doorstep. She drove out here, and she wears a pair of leg-skimming jeans with discreet pyramidal studs up the outer seams, tucked into riding boots and worn with a sleek black top and a three-quarter-sleeved, cropped wool jacket. It is not quite the flannel and cotton she wore the last time she was here, but it does appear that Avery does own denim and is not afraid to wear it. Her hair is straight. Her purse is a bright gentian blue. Her bag is in the trunk.
As soon as he sees her, he knows something is different about her. As soon as she sees him, as soon as he is within reach, she puts her hand on the back of his neck, pulling him down to kiss him, hungrily, devouringly, groaning softly into his mouth when their chests, when their bodies, finally meet.
Calden WhiteThe front of Calden's house is far more low-key than the interior, where everything gleams with quality; the back, where vast soaring windows open onto the deck and the land beyond. That says a lot about the man himself: private, unostentatious, not the type to put on a show.
From inside, it is impossible to hear that stealth fighter of a car she drives. He does hear the door thump, though. Or at least: his favorite cattledog napping at his feet hears it. Patches is her name. Her head comes up, her ears cock forward -- and then fold back sharply. She gives a whine. Runs off somewhere into the house, or perhaps out.
Avery is approaching the door when it opens. It has grown quite chilly since the last they met. Her lover is wearing jeans. He is wearing ridiculous shearling house slippers. He is wearing a sweater in darkdarkdark brown, and it is cable-knit, thick and warm and cozy and old-fashioned.
His eyes smile even before his mouth does. His eyes skim over her, spark with appreciation and recognition and -- something, some curiosity. "You look -- " he begins, but then her hands are pulling him down and he goes without resistance. He greets her with a kiss, a hard hungry one right there on the doorstep. His arms wrap behind her waist; he lifts her feet off the floor and turns with her, closes the door with his back against it.
Sets her down, her bootheels touching the floor between his slippers. And he smiles at her there, his face close to hers.
"You look wonderful," he finishes. "I think you're actually glowing."
Avery ChaseIt would make her ache if she saw the way that slightly-more-spoiled-than-the-rest cattledog whined and ran off to hide. Avery knows that feeling, has known it since she was young, and Changing only intensified her understanding of the animal expression of it. But Patches takes off before Avery's boots are even tapping softly on the deck. Calden is expecting her; Calden knows that sign, the way his animals seize up and bolt or dissolve into panic when she is near. He knows she's here.
Avery is lifting her hand to knock when Calden appears. And perhaps it's the sight of him, or her own happiness, or her long travel and weariness and the things she saw and the things she did, or maybe it's simply those ridiculous house slippers that endear her so instantly to him, but instead of knocking, her hand reaches for him.
They kiss. She can feel the cables of his sweater through the thin black shirt she wears hugging her breasts and covering her arms. She gives that soft little groan of wanting and relief and tenderness and lust against his lips as he pulls her in, probably grabbing the handle of her waiting suitcase and hauling into his house right along with her body. The door closes; her suitcase totters over and thumps to the ground as Calden lets her slide back to earth. Avery rests her hands on his arms, smiling up at him when her feet touch the floorboards again.
"Hello, my darling," she murmurs, and he tells her she looks wonderful. Glowing.
Avery's eyes spark delightedly; there is a wicked little moment when she thinks, simply due to that word choice, to tell him that she is with child, and she'll say it just like that, oh he'll panic, he'll just lose his mind, and she cannot help but grin at these mischevious little curls of imagination. Calden has never told her that One Day he would like to be a father, that he does want children, that Eva said she'll let him borrow her kids now and again, that he may not panic quite as she imagines, but the same reason Calden hasn't brought this up is the reason Avery doesn't make this particular joke; they are not there yet.
"That's such a nice thing to say," is what she says instead, that momentarily impish grin becoming warmer and softer. She leans into him, veritably snuggling against his chest right by the door. "I am very happy," since that was somehow not obvious, "as I have just returned from a quest to be recognized as being of greater rank." Avery's smile becomes closed-lipped, pleased, still glowing but like embers and not the sun. "I wanted to see you. Share it with you."
Calden WhiteCalden doesn't seem to mind snuggling with Avery right by the door. He leans back against that door, relaxing into it with a thump. Some people raise walls and doors to keep some threat out, keep the world out. Calden: he raises walls and doors because he feels their strength in his bones. When he stands in his home like this, feet planted, back to the wall, he strengthens this house as much as it strengthens him. And that strength is in his arms, warm, unmalignant, freely shared, as he holds his lady close to his heart.
"I didn't realize you were going to challenge," he admits, "but I am not the least bit surprised to hear you've succeeded. Congratulations, Miss Chase. I'm sure it was well-deserved."
He straightens, then. Drops one arm, slides the other around her shoulders as he toes her fallen suitcase up from the floor and grabs the handle again, wheeling it behind them as they leave the foyer. "Come on," he says. "Let's go put your things down. Do you want slippers? I got you a pair."
The sky outside is darkening already. Overnight temperatures have plunged below freezing; in the morning Avery'll see frost on the window, the whimsical and mysterious patterns and whorls on the glass. Winter, holt and haven of her tribe, is coming upon the land. The great room is dimly lit; the heat is not so high as it could be because sometimes Calden likes to feel the chill a little. Likes to bundle up a little. Loves to light fires. There's a small one there right now, dwarfed by the size of that enormous hearth; small and merry and crackling, casting warm shadows through the open spaces of the home. A book there too -- an electronic one, a kindle with a small booklight clipped atop, and a mug of something-warm.
Avery Chase"It was on the horizon," she says thoughtfully, of challenging. "I knew it was time when more and more of my own rank were giving me the honorific of a fostern and more of higher rank were looking to me as their equal. I spoke to Javed about it and he was quite faithful that I would triumph."
Avery smiles. "And I did."
She squeezes to him, sliding her arms around his waist, closing her eyes for a moment against his chest. She listens to his heart beating beneath that thick sweater, that warm skin, those slabs of muscle across his chest. "Nooo," she whispers, murmurs, when he moves from the door. For a moment it seemed she might simply drowse off there and then, but he's straightening and she's sliding backwards a bit, only very slowly opening her eyes, looking up at him.
Calden is walking and she is going along with only mild disgruntlement. He mentions slippers and she is about to laugh, to tell him that's lovely, she would love to match, but her nostrils flare slightly as they're walking into the den where the fire crackles and the ereader's screen is dimming and turning itself off. She pauses in step and closes her eyes a moment.
Something else changes about her. Nothing so clear as a smile or something that makes her seem to glow. It's warming, though, and intrinsically a part of her, like it comes from her blood. Her father, her mother, the aunts and uncles and grandparents and beyond who gave her those arched brows, those full lips, those bright eyes, refined generation by generation. Inhaling deeply, Avery opens her eyes and pauses a moment, then... whistles.
One steady note, then three quick ones of a note, and a final one quick on their heels that lowers just a titch. It's a call, and not the sharp two-note whistle that would be heard out on the field, maybe not even one that Patches has ever heard before, but she hastens to it. Arrests, wherever she is, floppy ears cocking upward, tail swishing with recognition that does not make any sense, except that for thirty thousand years her kind have known those sounds and those smells, have answered them because Food, because Pack. She remembers, through some spirit-memory of her own that she cannot voice, and moments later, the steady trot of her paws brings her loping back to
Avery. Not Calden.
Avery, who is slipping her arm from around him and lowering herself to a crouch before the cattledog, smiling as graciously as a queen to her subject as she reaches for the beast's ear. And curls her hand behind it, and scritches her there, and smiles broadly, glowingly, as Patches turns her head into the affection without hesitation. Licks her chops and licks Avery's wrist and gives a happy little whine, her tail swishing through the air in involuntary expression of her comfort and her pleasure. Then her haunches lower so she can go on enjoying it, and her tail begins to thump.
From her crouch, Avery turns and looks up at Calden, smiling. She's pleased with herself, but more than that, she's seeing how he reacts. Seeing if he's pleased, too. Seeing what this does to his heart, to his joy, to see one of the many domesticated creatures he both cares for and protects and relies on and rules answer to Avery, too, as a master.
Calden WhiteCalden has lived alongside Garou for enough years to recognize and understand that indefinable sensation of their magic. Because it is magic: old magic, wild magic, neither magic of the light nor the dark but simply: primordial, ancient magic, whose roots entwine with the roots of the world itself.
He becomes quiet, and curious, and watchful, as it suffuses his lover. If his ears could move, they too would perk to the strange, unfamiliar-yet-familiar whistle she gives. And then: then the click of claws on wood, the soft swish of long fur, the happy panting of a canine coming to the call of
her mistress.
Calden gives a quiet, surprised, happy laugh. He comes to crouch beside Avery, and beside this slightly-more-pampered cattledog. Patches is downright blissful, leaning into Avery's caresses, tail thumping-thumping-thumping the ground as she lowers to a sit, to a crouch, to outright rolling on her back as though she just can't take it anymore.
"I thought you didn't know that Gift," Calden says, smiling.
Avery ChaseAs Patches collapses, Avery just smiles and smiles, gladly rubbing the dog's proffered belly with a low coo of admiration for what a pretty, pretty girl she is, yes she is. She feels Calden beside her, watching as for the first time since he's known her, and the first time since her change, an animal such as this does not all but piss itself in terror or bare its teeth and snap its jaws at her.
"I didn't," she murmurs back to him, which is all the confirmation he might need, if he lacked it to begin with, that she learned this for him. Or them. Or herself, so that she could have this moment. And plenty of others.
Avery leans over to him, her hand pausing on the dog's belly but remaining buried in her fur, to give Calden a soft kiss on his mouth, which he so considerately lowered to her reach. "I'm glad to see you're pleased," she says softly, truthfully. "Now would you like to hear what I would like to do to celebrate?"
Calden WhiteCalden is a considerate gentleman, indeed. So considerate, in fact, that he even turns his head and leans in a little for that kiss. That soft, sweet little kiss on the mouth, shared between the two of them, glimmering in his eyes as she draws away. She sees him lick his lips softly; sees him smile.
"Before you tell me," Calden says, "let me just tell you that we've been culling for the winter. And I just might have set aside an entire fresh veal loin for you after you called to let me know you'd like to see me tonight.
"So." That smile curls into a faint, playful smirk, "Take that into consideration, Miss Chase."
Avery ChaseShe grins at him. Her tongue pressing into the backs of her front teeth, her lips spread wide. That smile is worthy of a camera commercial but it's paired with a gleaming flash in her eyes, a savagery that is nigh unto bloodlust. Freshly killed. Young. Tender. Hers.
Avery takes a breath, laughing out that smile. "You darling man," she says, ever so fond, embarrassed a little by her own hunger even in the midst of her gratitude. She tips her head over and nuzzles him. "Truthfully, Calden, I was going to say that what I want most is to eat with you, have some wine with you, wear those very cozy-looking house slippers with you by the fire, and when I simply can't keep my eyes open another second, I'd very much like to go to your bed and sleep in your arms for... oh, perhaps only a year or two."
She smiles again, softer and warmer as her eyes drift close, her head tipping against his til brow touches temple. "My challenge began at dawn." A beat. "Yesterday. I slept for a few hours in a car either late last night or early this morning, and my heart is thrilled, but I find that the longer I'm here with your fire crackling and your dog wanting to be stroked and the smell of you near me... the more difficult it is to keep myself awake." Her brow and her nose rub gently against his face, his jaw, til she tucks herself under his chin, breathing his scent in from his throat.
"I hope all that doesn't sound too terribly dull, dear one."
Calden WhiteTenderness, and a bit of ache, comes into Calden's eyes as Avery admits that she's slept very little in the past thirty-six hours or more. They are there, somewhere amongst his sturdy furniture, warmed by his fire. She nuzzles against him. She curls up against him, as though she were ready to drop into sleep right here and now,
meal-less, wine-less, slipper-less,
and he, to be perfectly honest, isn't entirely opposed to the idea. His arm drapes heavy and secure around her shoulders. He kisses her between her eyebrows, rests his chin gently as she tucks beneath. Resists -- barely -- the urge to just slump back against something and stay there.
"It doesn't sound dull at all," he murmurs. "It sounds like a perfect way to spend an autumn evening."
--
A few moments later he does, in fact, summon the will to rouse himself. They help each other to their feet, laughing quietly. Patches the dog jumps up and tails them, claws clicking, all the way up the stairs where Calden sets Avery's suitcase on the bed for her to unpack her things. While she's doing that, he builds a fire in the bedroom hearth, banking it for later. He drops a pair of snug, cozy slippers by her feet, too, and now they match. He looks at her feet in those slippers and then he wraps his arms around her, kisses her on the cheek.
Later on they come back down the stairs. They stop by the cellar; they come back up to the kitchen. Where, as promised, resting on a bed of ice beside a sturdy cutting board and an enormous carving knife, is the fresh and freshly trimmed loin of some unfortunate young bovine deemed too weak to survive the winter. There's a certain cold arithmetic in the operation of a cattle ranch. The weak die first, the strong die later, and the fertile die last of all when they're almost past their usefulness. In some ways that hard, practical way of figuring seems almost at odds with the warmth and generosity of the man Calden is. But then: sometimes one might say that savagery, that bloodlust that sometimes flickers in Avery's eyes, is at odds with her radiance, her charisma, her laughter, her politesse.
They are, to some degree, creatures of duality. They are, to a greater degree, simply complex. Simply possessed of more facets than one.
Avery ChaseOf course he aches: this is the man who fussed over her because she ran through the rain. Granted, during some disastrous and life-destroying rain that accumulated enough to break apart asphalt and wash out roads, but he's not the sort to turn a blind eye to suffering. One way or another, he does something about it.
Or tries, at least. Sometimes, she has seen that he is willing to do nothing at all, when that is what is most needed, and wait with her for it to pass.
--
Avery goes upstairs with him. They take (he takes) her suitcase, and Patches follows after, happily swinging her tail and hopping up the stairs with them, staying out from underfoot but following following sniffing waiting to see what's going on. She sniffs curiously, trotting back and forth between the suitcase and ...as it turns out, not just a drawer in the dresser but space in the closet and a drawer in the bathroom. Avery keeps glancing over at Calden as he shows her these spaces, smiling in amusement and fondness as he makes it more clear than he ever has that, should she just move in one day that would probably be just fine with him. Just fine, indeed.
So she puts away some clothes, here and there. She puts the small hair dryer she brought last time and this time in her drawer. Not quite six months or so after meeting, she leaves enough there to last a weekend. Maybe more than a weekend. Rather likely more than a weekend.
Avery changes, too, slipping out of her boots and even out of those skin-tight jeans. Surely Calden sees her underwear, pink and white striped this time instead of black and white but of the same cut and style as those iconic underthings. She slips out of the wool crop jacket over her black longsleeved shirt and puts on a pair of ... pajama pants. Slightly swishy, jersey-cotton pajama pants in dusky blue that could almost be slacks worthy of going out in if one squints and ignores the comfortable waistband, but they are in fact cozy, soft, comfy pajama pant from which, in a few more moments, shearling house slippers peek out.
Downstairs, they get wine. They go to cook -- well, Calden does. Avery's eyes spark at the sight of the meat, and she looks at him with such a smile, eager and grateful and impatient and adoring, unashamed of her hunger, or how it makes her lick her lips when he begins slicing it into steaks. When he begins to talk of how he'll cook it, which is all charming mundanity but makes her stomach growl. She nods at his suggestion, the rarity of the meat he intends, and watches him cook, all but staring at the meat as its smell fills the kitchen.
Calden WhitePatches adores Avery now. The small, pretty cattledog with the bright eyes and the soft fur is following Avery everywhere, everywhere, swishing her tail as she watches Avery's things being settled in here, there, everywhere. The hair dryer lives in the bathroom drawer now. The clothes live in the closet! The underthings live in the drawer, and this is all well and good and proper and right, because Patches adores Avery-master and Avery-master is claiming territory amongst Calden-master's things. Good.
The truth is, Calden probably adores Avery just as much. And is just as pleased with Avery settling her things here. He's just a little quieter about it, and a little bit less obvious. Just a tiny bit. When they're going down the stairs again, though, he slides his arm around her waist once more. God, but he just loves the feel of her close to him,
even if all they're going to do is eat, and drink, and curl up, and sleep. Even if he had to control himself when she stripped down to her iconic panties, even if these ones are pink and white.
Pink. She wears pink. That endears him so utterly; he smiles to himself.
--
In the kitchen he carves steaks. He washes and dries the knife and the board. He fires up the flat grill. He unwraps a stick of butter and presses it onto the hot surface, melting down an artery-clogging amount of it, and then he salts the grill just to make sure hypertension comes along for the ride. Pepper, too, and then
the steaks: raw, red, and so fresh that even Calden could probably eat it completely uncooked and be just fine. The meat sizzles as it hits the hot metal; the scent of it rises, a delicate beefiness that makes poor Patches audibly lick her chops. Calden wasn't kidding: he lets the steak sear long enough to brown each surface and no more, pulls it off the fire immediately after to rest on the cutting board, covered by a thin aluminum foil.
He goes to dig around in the pantry, then, pulling out a can of dog food and a jar of horseradish. "Do you want to feed Patches?" he asks Avery, and if she does, then he shows her where the little-used indoor dog bowl is, and the can opener. Meanwhile, Calden softens butter in a small dish; stirs horseradish into it. Plates the steaks -- two or three in every plate, and a few more spares on the side -- and lets a spoonful of horseradish-butter melt over each one.
Avery gets the wine. And the glasses. Calden nods her out of the kitchen. "Upstairs?" he offers. "Or do you want to stay down here for a while?"
Avery ChaseAt first, Avery assumes that Calden means meat and bones for Patches. He asks her if she wants to feed the dog and she just assumes that means sharing the kill with her. But she only sees enough steaks for the two of them, and looks at Calden with some measure of bewilderment before she sees the can of dog food and blinks. Her head rears back slightly as though to get a better look at the thing, and though she tries so hard to be so gracious, he can see the little twitch of her nose as it wrinkles in distaste.
Perhaps he laughs. Feeds Patches himself, while Avery leans over from her seat on a barstool to see. She does not like the smell of dog food. Patches, however, seems more than content to go over to her bowl and stick her face into the stuff, happily licking it up. Avery just shakes her head a little; a true predator's marveling at how these long-domesticated, perpetually-immature canines are so pleased with so little. Maybe it's condescending. Then again: the chasm between a cattledog and a garou is so vast it is a wonder that she even understands the other creature's body language as well as she does.
Patches is happy. Her tail and ears and her relaxed back and soft fur and bright eyes all say this to Avery as clearly as if it were being spoken aloud. And Avery is happy, and she knows that it is so much easier to conceal than it is for the dog, and thus that much more important to say aloud.
But she does not want to say it aloud. Selfishly, childishly, she just wants Calden to know without her having to use all those silly words. So she goes over to him while he's melting butter for horseradish, sliding off the barstool and padding over to him in the slippers he got for her, wrapping her arms around his body from behind, soaking up his warmth, shuffling with him from spot to spot while he cooks. She most certainly does not get the wine. She keeps snuggling him, wordless and yet very close, til he's having to disentangle himself from her arms in order to move anywhere at all.
It takes some time.
--
In the end, they eat not at the kitchen island or at the vast table but in front of that still-crackling fire. Calden stirs it back to life for a little longer and they eat on the floor or at the coffee table and use glasses instead of drinking straight from the bottle. Patches comes in after eating to flop in front of the fire where she can see and smell them and hear them. Avery
tells Calden about her challenge.
She tells him about Anvil of Justice sending her after a ragabash of their tribe, and the broad strokes of what he'd been accused of. That already she could feel a bias against him growing in herself for such cowardice; right or wrong, guilty or innocent, Avery's disappointment and frustration to hear that he ran doesn't even need to be spoken for it to be quietly, easily felt. That she tried not to give in to such bias barely needs to be noted, for this is Avery, who believes the best of people, even when it sorrows her to see them fall short.
She tells him about the pack: the Alpha's anger, the Beta's faith, the Gamma wolf's mentions of things Midsummer had said that got Avery thinking. She tells him -- quite clearly pleased with her own cleverness already -- that she was beginning to suspect that Midsummer faked the kinswoman's death in order to give her an escape route from her mate. A foolish plan, wanting to run off into the sunset together. Iron Tooth, she tells Calden, was no more or less than she already suspected. She admits that she held out hope for him at first, that he would turn out to be a warm and loving mate, that he would be honorable if not kind, that he was not abusive, even if he was firm. Not, Avery clarifies, because that would make judgement easier. But because she would want to see him, a Shadow Lord and Adren, and know that his mate was not abused in truth.
She tells him about driving down to Fort Garland, and there are mentions of Bright Spear sprinkled throughout this story: the questing stone and gum-chewing, the advice, the girl's obvious eagerness to get out of the caern for a while. She tells Calden all about meeting Ilyana, and how much that changed her perception of the woman herself, and of the situation. Then: the long, long drive to Las Vegas.
The anger that grew in her on the way for Midsummer.
The confrontation. Which is said so simply: that he burst out of his hotel room, ran, and so she told him to stop. And he stopped. Avery does not seem to think anything of that, does not brag about it, but it is not hard to imagine the sight, and how stunning it must have been: a glabro-formed werewolf bolting for his life and limb, throwing her against a wall, skidding to a stop at a single word from her.
Avery is quiet then, on her second or third glass of Bordeaux, when she tells Calden of the things he said. The way it broke him to hear the truth, and the way it breaks her heart,
and the fact that it would have broken her heart more to leave the truth unspoken.
She tells him inevitably of her judgement upon the ragabash. But she describes it so coldly, so dispassionately: it is the only way she can tell someone aloud, outside of a ritual challenge, that she found this delusional, cowardly fool and felt pity for him in the midst of her anger and disgust for him, and systematically removed from him the blessings of all but their highest god. That she took even his name, giving him another, and a shameful one at that. That she exiled him.
Before -- though Avery does not say it quite this proudly -- she saved his life.
Then all the hanging ends: what she did with (for) Ilyana. The jet trip home, the culmination, the assurance from Anvil of Justice that Iron Tooth would be judged and punished.
--
Avery sighs, leaning against his arm, because it is such a very, very nice arm, holding her wineglass in her palm of her hand to subtly warm the red with her body heat. She is watching the fire, and she has destroyed the steaks he carved and cooked and gave to her. Her belly is full of red meat that still tasted faintly of lifeblood and youth, full of red wine that tastes like luxury and refinement and an older world. Slowly, she sips, and slowly, her eyes close and open again.
"I have a new name," she tells him, with a small smile. She is tired. The meat and wine and fire and dog and lover and the retelling have all left her even more primordially comforted, more ready for a long, deep sleep. With a slight lift of her chin, a new clarity of her wine-lowered voice: "I am Reverence of Dawn, From Whom the Stars Shall Not Be Hidden By Sunlight, Radiant Honor, Whose Virtue Shines Unwaveringly Through the Night." A little wry tilt of her mouth, though she can't hide her pleasure at the name itself, the meaning of it, the rhythm and the poetry of both together. Those blue eyes drag off the fire, the flames still reflected in her irises, and meet his.
"I suppose you would have seen me named something about how incorruptible and brave I am," she teases, even though she knows, she knows how deeply he means it when he tells her these things about herself. How remarkable he thinks she is. How utterly, how completely, he adores her.
Leaning over, she kisses him. On his cheek. On his mouth, though, if he turns his head towards her. Soft. Slow. Bold.
Parting, her eyes -- which fell closed at the touch of his skin to hers -- open again. "I bought you souvenirs."
Calden WhiteIf the Fangs are renowned for their silver tongues, then the Fianna are doubly so: golden-tongued bards, one and all, if the stereotype is to be believed. And to be sure, Calden does not lack for eloquence, plainspoken though he may be. He has no trouble translating his intelligence and wit into spoken words.
Yet for all that, his greatest quality is perhaps the ability to listen. To wait, to be patient, to give space where space is needed. Avery knows that: knew it from the moment she very nearly gave herself over to madness and needed him to stay,
and saw that he stayed. He came no closer, drew no farther away. He stayed, and he waited, and he listened to the silent language of her body until she could bring herself to welcome him again.
--
He listens again now: listens as they gather over their food, their fire. Can't think of a better way to spend an evening, he'd said the first time they met, of trading stories by the fireside. He said something similar tonight of her proposition: red meat, red wine, warm fire, warm bodies.
And a tale, it turns out. Her tale: the saga of how Reverence of Dawn became Radiant Honor; of how her name became a poem. Calden smiles often through that tale. When she speaks of Bright Spear. When she speaks of the gum-popping, and the girl's wonder at being out in the world, out driving, out in Vegas.
When she speaks of her return, too. When she speaks of the praise, well-deserved, that was given to her. When she speaks that name of hers, lovely, fitting: oh, he smiles then, a slow warm thing that spreads over his face like a sunrise.
The darker parts of her tale: they touch him too. They put a furrow in his brow. They put thought into his eyes. Yet in the end it's the quiet, abiding, deep joy that lingers in his breast; hangs in the air like the last note of a symphony.
"It's a beautiful name," he says softly, "and you earned every syllable of it. As for 'incorruptible' and and 'brave' -- well; I'll suggest it to your next challenge-master. In the meantime," the smile grows, "I'll have to satisfy myself with Honor and Unwavering."
A pause.
"Virtue, too. I like that. It's a good word for you." There's perhaps just the tiniest edge of warm humor here: "It sounds very demure and pure and clean and ladylike."
His eyes spark with laughter, then. "A souvenir? From Vegas? You didn't buy me a lottery ticket, did you?"
Avery ChaseIn answer to all these things, Avery just
snuggles closer to his side, tucking herself between his arm and his ribs, closing her eyes as she rests against his shoulder, his left pectoral muscle, her warm arm draped over his middle. The clothes she wears, even pajamas -- especially pajamas, really -- are so soft. So fine. Touching her is sometimes a bit startling, as though one wasn't aware before she existed that clothing could feel that way. She is so wealthy. She is so enamored of pretty and lovely things, the pleasures of robust wine and rare meat, a fast car and a sunny home. Granted, she is also enamored of things rough and low and and a bit filthy, and it's this adoration that Calden sweetly teases her about.
Avery laughs, scritching at his side to tickle him, kissing his chest through his shirt before she tips her head back to look at him. "I am demure and pure and clean and ladylike. I'm not the one who smells of livestock a majority of the time, for one thing. And for another, I think it's quite ladylike and pure to come the way I do when you're worshipping me on your knees."
Which is a slightly less vulgar way of describing Calden eating her out. Licking her senseless. Burying his face in her cunt and moaning at the taste of her. All of which, mind, would have been equally if not more accurate.
She stops tickling him. Resumes snuggling. Pauses. "No, but that would have been so clever! They're all in my suitcase."
They. Because she said souvenirs. Plural.
But for now she yawns, deeply and satisfyingly, curling against him as though she is perfectly content to sleep here, like this, with Patches occasionally thumping her tail on the floor in mute happiness and the fire dying down and Calden's heart going lub-dub beneath her ear. Which she is, of course: content. And perfectly so.
Calden WhiteI am demure and pure and clean and ladylike, she says,to which he protests: "You are! I'm not saying otherwise." -- and then laughing, because she accuses him of smelling of livestock (which he does. faintly: but he does); reminds him that he's the one that worships her on his knees."I do," he agrees, affably, and gives her a firm squeeze of his arm; lays a kiss on her temple. "It's a very good way to worship someone so pure and clean and demure and ladylike as you."He leans back against the couch. They are not sitting on the couches; they're on the rug in front of the fire, their steaks sliced and devoured. All but a small piece. A few sips of wine; maybe a glass left in the bottle. They are warm and replete and full and drowsy from alcohol, from the company, from the cold night and the warm fire and the dog at their feet."Thank you for thinking of me," he says, quieter and more seriously. "I'm sure the souvenirs are lovely."
Avery Chase"They're tchotchkes," she says sleepily, blissfully, which is neither agreement nor argument with his surety.
There is quiet, for a while. Quiet deep enough to hear only the breathing of the dog and the crackling of the fire. Quiet that lasts long enough to wonder if Avery's breathing has turned steady and slow and unconscious, but then:
"I think of you a great deal, and more often than I say," Avery murmurs. "I thought of you when Charlotte and I were back in time. There was a deputy --" she arrests for a moment, can't remember if she told him this, but she tells him now, maybe tells him again, "-- who looked like your brother. Even your twin. His name was Trevor Clay. Every time I saw him it was like catching a glimpse out of you from the corner of my eye. There were moments when I was not sure if we would ever be brought back home, and in those moments, I wondered if he was Gaia's way of making it up to me, and if she could know how insufficient that would be.
"All through my challenge, I thought of you. Of how much garou like Iron Tooth," and Calden cannot know this, because she has never appended 'rhya' to that wolf's name in his presence, but this is the only occasion that she does not and will not, unless he should be brought down below his current rank, "disgusts me. Of how the treatment of kin as no different from a protected territory of land and how the laws are warped to support this appalls me and makes me fear for the degradation and corruption of my people. Of how deeply I want to guard you from ever being so insulted, even by other garou.
"When we drove through sunsets and sunrises, and when I was alone for a moment after punishing Stray and felt so very sad, and when I flew back, I thought of you."
There is a deep breath in and a slow breath out, a gentle sigh. "I do believe I've fallen quite in love with you, without even realizing it until I was somewhere in the sky over Utah this afternoon."
Her hair brushes over his shirt as she readjusts how she rests on him, pillowed by his body in the way that she fully intends to sleep tonight. "But I am in love with you. Entirely and ardently."
Calden WhiteI am demure and pure and clean and ladylike, she says,
to which he protests: "You are! I'm not saying otherwise." -- and then laughing, because she accuses him of smelling of livestock (which he does. faintly: but he does); reminds him that he's the one that worships her on his knees.
"I do," he agrees, affably, and gives her a firm squeeze of his arm; lays a kiss on her temple. "It's a very good way to worship someone so pure and clean and demure and ladylike as you."
He leans back against the couch. They are not sitting on the couches; they're on the rug in front of the fire, their steaks sliced and devoured. All but a small piece. A few sips of wine; maybe a glass left in the bottle. They are warm and replete and full and drowsy from alcohol, from the company, from the cold night and the warm fire and the dog at their feet.
"Thank you for thinking of me," he says, quieter and more seriously. "I'm sure the souvenirs are lovely."
Avery Chase[
Avery Chase"They're tchotchkes," she says sleepily, blissfully, which is neither agreement nor argument with his surety.
There is quiet, for a while. Quiet deep enough to hear only the breathing of the dog and the crackling of the fire. Quiet that lasts long enough to wonder if Avery's breathing has turned steady and slow and unconscious, but then:
"I think of you a great deal, and more often than I say," Avery murmurs. "I thought of you when Charlotte and I were back in time. There was a deputy --" she arrests for a moment, can't remember if she told him this, but she tells him now, maybe tells him again, "-- who looked like your brother. Even your twin. His name was Trevor Clay. Every time I saw him it was like catching a glimpse out of you from the corner of my eye. There were moments when I was not sure if we would ever be brought back home, and in those moments, I wondered if he was Gaia's way of making it up to me, and if she could know how insufficient that would be.
"All through my challenge, I thought of you. Of how much garou like Iron Tooth," and Calden cannot know this, because she has never appended 'rhya' to that wolf's name in his presence, but this is the only occasion that she does not and will not, unless he should be brought down below his current rank, "disgusts me. Of how the treatment of kin as no different from a protected territory of land and how the laws are warped to support this appalls me and makes me fear for the degradation and corruption of my people. Of how deeply I want to guard you from ever being so insulted, even by other garou.
"When we drove through sunsets and sunrises, and when I was alone for a moment after punishing Stray and felt so very sad, and when I flew back, I thought of you."
There is a deep breath in and a slow breath out, a gentle sigh. "I do believe I've fallen quite in love with you, without even realizing it until I was somewhere in the sky over Utah this afternoon."
Her hair brushes over his shirt as she readjusts how she rests on him, pillowed by his body in the way that she fully intends to sleep tonight. "But I am in love with you. Entirely and ardently."
Calden WhiteCalden did not, in fact, know about Trevor Clay. He didn't know -- though the notion intrigues him, fills him with a queer sense of both elation and awe -- that somewhere in the annals of time there was an echo of him. And perhaps another, and another; and so maybe the Garou mythologies are right, after all, and we each have an undying spirit reborn again and again into different bodies and different times.
He didn't know, either, that Avery thinks of him so often. So often as he thinks of her, in truth: though perhaps in moments less mundane, and more emotionally strained, than those random flickerflashes he has of her
when he sees the sun glaze the land a certain way;
when he hears a certain song on the radio;
when he reads a certain passage in his book.
And he didn't know that she loved him. Yes, perhaps he had a small suspicion. He is, after all, not a wholly insensate man. He is not entirely devoid of emotional intelligence. He knows how she looks at him and he knows how it feels -- how it felt recently, more and more -- to make love to her. He didn't know, though; and he didn't know either that she would even know it herself. Recognize it. Allow herself to quantify it.
Love: for someone who once feared that she was doomed to abandon all that mattered to her. Who once feared she was mad and broken in that terrible way.
--
For a long time Calden says nothing. There is no sense of chill from him, though. No sense of awkwardness, or distance, or that she may have said something wrong or inappropriate or terrifying.
They rest together comfortably. Tenderly. She resettles against him, unfrightened by her own confession, and his arm tightens ever so gently around her; a tiny little mirror of what she just voiced. A moment later, a slow gentle sigh of his own. He nuzzles his nose into her hair, closes his eyes.
"You're in love with me," he whispers; not incredulously, but -- tastingly, in a way. Trying them out, hearing them in the air. And then: "I'm in love with you."
Like a poem, that. Reciprocal, measured. Like her name.
Avery ChaseCalden does not tell Avery the thoughts he has of her, or when they fall, or how out of the blue they are. It's hard to tell someone why a certain verse in a certain song brings them to mind or how a thought of them washes over one's mind for no reason at all or no reason that can be named. Easier to describe the moments as she did, when there's no question to be asked about why then, why that thought, why him.
A little more vulnerable and even silly-feeling to tell him how frequently she has an errant surge of almost painful longing for him, while driving or sitting to dinner or even zoning out a little while someone talks: suddenly the image, almost the sensation itself of fucking, of his mouth at her breast, his hand between her legs, his entire body moving between her thighs. And maybe embarrassing, in her odd little way, were she to tell him the little fantasies she has of him, poignantly simple and mundane and normal, while listening to classical music or waking up and having breakfast: if he were there, and if they were cooking something together, and if they were to go on errands afterward and the little arguments they'd have about what they think of something on NPR.
They think of each other far, far more than they say.
--
But: loving him does not remove the fear that she will be unable to be near him one day. Joining a pack does not erase the concern that she will desert them out of sheer derangement. These things cannot unmake madness any more than her love for her family or her care for her kin are able to. But Avery would never call herself broken. Would never suggest that she is damaged or incapable somehow. Even if -- and she knows it may be when -- she begins to slip easier and more frequently into these foggy states of self-isolation, she would never call herself doomed. As cliche as it might sound, Avery truly believes that you are only beaten when you surrender.
The truth is, Avery's slow settling into this, with him, has nothing to do with her flickers of insanity. She may indeed be doomed to abandon everyone who matters to her, one day. But that has never stopped her. It has never even slowed her down. Only heartbreak, of a painfully human sort, and the wounds left by it, have held her back from this. From him.
--
He repeats it. Lovingly, tenderly, softly. It makes Avery laugh quietly, a smile breaking over her face though her sleepy eyes never open. "Like a schoolboy reciting a lesson," she teases him. She does not lift her head to look at him. She does not let go of him. She only exhales, breathing steadily beside him.
"Oh, darling," she whispers. "Take me up to your bed."
Calden WhiteIt would make Calden ache if he knew that she feels vulnerable, and a little silly, thinking of telling him the lust-touched fantasies that sometimes flicker through her mind. It would make him ache if he knew that she feels a touch embarrassed, thinking of telling him the simpler ones, the mundane ones, the normal ones that have nothing to do with sex at all.
Thoughts of them, cooking together. Going shopping for groceries and maybe a new shirt for him, not a red plaid one good god, and shoes for her. Debating something on NPR. Arguing whether french toast is better with syrup or powdered sugar; whether steak is better with horseradish or bleu cheese.
In some ways those are the moments even more precious to Calden than the ones where she's arched and crying out,
the ones where he's buried deep and moaning against her throat,
the ones where her legs lock around him and her arms hold him so tight and her teeth grip his skin, tattoo his flesh, show him in the most elemental way possible that she accepts him, he is hers.
--
These moments, too, precious to him: Avery pillowed on his broad and besweatered chest, eyes closed, smiling. Her arms wrapped around his torso, enclosing him in her scent. Take me to bed, she whispers, and he unravels one of those arms to lift her hand to his lips. He kisses her knuckles: it's almost courtly. But when he whispers --
"Come on."
-- it's tender, it's soft. He lifts their plates and stacks them, collecting a last few scraps of meat and feeding them to Patches. Their glasses he leaves on the coffee table. The wine he leaves uncorked. They can clean up tomorrow. They have all the time in the world.
Calden gets to his feet and he helps his lady up. Then he thinks better of it and he scoops her up instead, laughing with her if she laughs at his silliness, his chivalry. Smiling if she only tucks herself against his body.
He takes her up the stairs, and then through his bedroom door. It's warmer in here. Heat rises; heat remains in enclosed spaces. He closes the door softly behind them with his heel. There's a fire lit here too, banked from when he built it, and after he sets her down he goes to stir up the flames a little more. No other light but firelight, and in the dancing shadows the room, the son of Stag, and the very air between him and the daughter of Falcon seems a little lost in time. Antiquated; ancient.
Avery ChaseSpoiled, spoiled pup. Patches, lapping red juices off Calden's fingers gratefully and eagerly, following them to the stairs as they walk that way.
Avery gets up only slowly. Avery makes a little moaning sound when he pulls her, and so a moment later he scoops her up. Avery does not laugh this time. Avery just makes a low, settled hum in her throat, behind her lips, curling up against his chest with her arms looped loosely around him. The stairs are wide and the door opens easily when he takes her inside. The air is comfortingly warm, and will stay so, even with air slipping up the chimney from his bedroom's hearth.
It occurs to her half-sleeping mind that they should just drag pillows and blankets before the fire and sleep there instead. She would change her shape and sleep beside him as a wolf, her body heated and her fur thick. She could keep him warm even if the chill encroached. She would have claws and teeth ready if anything came for him in the night.
They are drifting thoughts, neither human nor animal, and fixated on the guardianship that she and all of her kind have been tasked with. They slide from her mind as Calden sets her down on the side of the bed that is, when she comes here, becoming Her Side. She should brush her teeth. She should drop the slippers from her feet to the floor. She should tell him that if he's going to stir up the fire then he should undress her so she doesn't get too hot, because he knows by now how hot she gets in her sleep, how her always-warm skin turns luxuriously hot, an utter glory in the winter, like holding a sunbeam. But she just
says his name, into his pillow, muttering it and calling to him because she doesn't want to fall asleep before he's holding her.
Calden WhitePatches only rarely gets the privilege of coming up here. Of not merely entering the house but going upstairs; of not merely going upstairs but entering this, the den of dens. She is rather beside herself right now, tail swinging, swinging, swishing wide, nose to floor and sniffing everywhere.
The humans -- or at least the human-shaped ones -- are far lazier and less energetic than the dog. Avery is already curling into the pillows like she might drop off to sleep any second. Calden stirs the fire up a little, but then he closes the glass doors to even that heat out a little. Shut out the baking heat; shut in the convective warmth that would otherwise escape up the chimney.
It's not cold enough to need the basement furnace yet. With a fire in the hearth, the night won't chill them, but the bedroom will, by morning, be cool enough to justify the winter bedding; the dog that is even now thinking of jumping onto the bed and curling up at the foot. Cool enough, too, to justify
holding her the way Calden intends to: arms wrapped around her, his larger, huskier body wrapped around hers. She is perhaps not the only one who fixates on guardianship of loved ones.
--
He laughs as she mutters for him to come to bed. It is a low sound, and one that fits amongst the heavy woods, the ruddy fire. "Coming, coming," he says, indulgently, as he sets the fireplace poker back on its stand. He takes a detour, shedding his clothes and dropping them in his hamper; stepping out of his slippers. A moment later she feels him taking her slippers off as well, dropping them by the bed where she'll be able to find them should she rise in the night.
"Do you want this off?" he asks her, whispering, tugging at some article of clothing or other,
and if she nods, he helps her undress; helps her get under the covers instead of merely sprawling atop them. Eventually his side of the bed dips. He crawls in under the sheets, his rough hands sliding around her waist, his warm chest against her warm back.
I love, I love, I love, he thinks. Like a schoolboy reading a lesson. Then he draws the sheets up, and he closes his eyes.
Avery Chase"Mm," is her answer, only barely coherent as an affirmative. So he tugs down those loose, silken-feeling but soft cotton pajama pants. She is still wearing those striped pink-and-white panties beneath. It's really the bra -- white -- that she wants off when he helps her sit up and peels her out of that close-fitted longsleeved top, but Calden takes care of that, too. And Avery mutters something about brushing her teeth, maybe something as simple as the whispered warning of: my mouth's gonna be gross before she's lying down again, sighing at the feel of the pillow cradling her head.
And the man cradling her body, drawing the covers up over her but not tucking them too tight, slipping his arm over and around her.
And the dog giving a little leap when they're both still enough that she doesn't think she'll be shooed off, flopping down at their feet and thumping her tail softly, happily against the covers. Avery, even more animal than Calden and perhaps more animal -- in a way -- than Patches, thoughtlessly tucks her feet against the dog's side, their bodies separated only by the winter bedding that will keep them so very warm tonight.
She puts her hand over Calden's hand, murmuring:
"Love you,"
like they say this all the time. Every night.
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