no one's exempt.

Calden White

It's a very long way to the Whites' ranch from Golden, and once Calden came to in the truck

(the very, very battered truck, we might mention, which will surely need either a major repair or a junkyard very soon)

he made a fairly valiant effort to convince Baklava Republik that they really didn't need to drive him all the way there. He was feeling fine, thanks to them. Really. And in the spirit of full disclosure, it must be said that a few times Erich looked like he was just about ready to pull over, let Calden into the driver's seat, flag Charlotte down, and go back home. With Melantha. Who was also almost dead, ffs.

She won't hear of it, though. She refuses to let Erich pull over, and she refuses to let Calden drive, and so in the end the tinypack takes Calden all the way to his door. Where he tries to thank them, tries to invite them in, tries to ask them to stay the night, but --

-- by then Erich is almost howling with impatience to be home, to go home, to curl up warm and safe with his packmates, his preciousprecious packmates, curl up near Melantha and reassure himself with the sound of her breathing. The beat of her pulse.

So that's where they part. That's where Calden stands, framed by his front door and the strong timbers of his house; waving to the tinypack as they drove away.

--

When the door closes, the quiet that settles around Calden feels surreal. His father is asleep. His cousins are somewhere out on the ranch. The hearth in the great room is cold. The kitchen is dark.

His cattledog-turned-pet unfolds herself from her doggiebed at the foot of his bed and comes trotting down the stairs. She bounds up to him, worry-wagging her tail as she sniffs him over very carefully. Calden gives her ears an absent rub. He's hardly even injured anymore. Bruised at best. The same can't be said for his clothes. Those: those are a horrific mess, torn and ragged, blood-drenched. He should probably change, he thinks. That's a good starting point.

And so he strips. He starts with his jacket, but once he starts he suddenly can't bear the clammy chill of coagulated blood on his skin. There goes his sweater, his shirt, his jeans, his socks. His underwear. All of it, stripped off, stuffed into black trash bag and sashed tight, dropped by the front door to throw out in the morning. His watch is still banded around his wrist. He pulls that off, too, stands naked in his kitchen washing blood and dirt from between the bands,

realizes he left his wallet and his phone and his keys in his pants,

abandons the watch under the stream of water to dig the rest of his personals out of the trash bag. Comes back and washes his credit cards, the coins and the bills, his proof-of-insurance for his wrecked truck, the wallet itself. The keys. The phone, too, the best he can without destroying it.

Goosebumps are standing up on his arms when he finally shuts the tap off. He is, he realizes, behaving like a madman. Standing in the dark, in his kitchen, bare as the day he was born, washing blood off his personal effects. He grips the edge of the counter a moment, bracing his hands, lowering his head, taking a breath.

Then, swiftly and methodically, he gathers his things up. Goes up the stairs, Patches running at his heels, to drop phone and keys and wallet on his nightstand. He turns the shower on, sets the water as hot as he can tolerate, steps into the spray and washes

himself

clean.

--

Better, after. Steadier. Brushing his teeth over his sink, turning on a light at last to inspect the damage. What remains of it, anyway. Ugly bruises; no lacerations, no gross trauma. Aches and pains, but nothing catastrophic, nothing that takes his breath away. He still looks pale to himself, though. Drawn and taut and exhausted. He flicks the light off and he leaves the en-suite bathroom, goes to his bed, throws back the covers.

There is a moment when Calden considers not telling Avery at all. He wouldn't want her to worry. There's nothing left to be done. He doesn't know if he has it in him to talk to her right now, either. To try and explain what happened. To calm her, if she was frantic; to reassure her, if she was angry or terrified or --

he's being selfish, he realizes. And if tables were turned, if she brushed the brink of death and was brought back from it, he would want to know. Even if he worried. Even if he was frantic or angry or terrified. Even if there was absolutely nothing he could do: he would want to know.

And one more thing:

he does want to see her. He wants to see her very badly indeed.

--

It is quite late at night, closer to dawn than to dusk, when Avery's phone chimes. A text message from her lover:

Had a close call tonight. Ran into some sort of wyrmhound(?) in Golden, got roughed up. Was with Melantha & her friends patched us up. Would like to see you soon but it doesn't have to be now. Don't worry, I'm okay.

Avery Chase

There is a moment when Calden considers completely disrupting the trust he has with Avery, for the sake of just not having to Deal With It. That moment passes quickly, because he is not some idiot in his twenties. He is not an inherently selfish man. He is not a liar, and he remembers that Avery is not some shrieking, fluttering bird of panic. He remembers: of course she may be worried, frantic, angry, terrified. But she is permitted to be. He nearly died tonight.

Avery is asleep when her phone chimes. It actually chimes a few times, because Calden's text is very long and breaks up across multiple messages. She would not have woken to the first one, but she wakes to the second, wakes fully to the third, pawing at her nightstand for her phone, drawing it over without lifting her head, squinting painfully at the screen. She smiles, though, drowsily, to see that the chimes are coming from Calden. She imagines teasing him that booty calls are best placed earlier in the night, not so soon before dawn.

The smile dies on her face. Close call. Wyrmhound. 'Roughed up', which she knows is a euphemism because if he ran into something he thinks was a wyrmhound he would be more than 'roughed up'. She knows who Melantha is only through her assocation with the little Baklava Republik pack's other members, knows now that Charlotte and Erich deserve even more of her undying loyalty, affection, and gratitude, and she is sitting up in bed with the blankets falling away from her satin pajamas without even realizing she's moved. Her heart is slamming in her chest, her mind racing to tell her that he's texting, for goodness sake, his mind and hands work, he is okay, he is okay, he's okay, he's okay,

while she shudders to take a breath, wanting to cry when he says he wants to see her but it doesn't have to be now.

Avery closes her eyes and tries to calm her swimming thoughts, setting the phone on her lap. She takes a few deep breaths, still shivering when she exhales, and then reaches for her glass of water, taking a few sips before she hits the Call button.

"Darling?" she says, as soon as it stops ringing, and she still sounds a little breathless and she still sounds a little raspy from sleep, but still: harmonious, lovely, as solid and cool as marble and gold.

Calden White

When the text is sent, Calden sits on the edge of his bed a moment, phone in his hands. Maybe he shouldn't have texted right now. Maybe he should have called in the morning. Called now. Something --

the phone vibrates in his hand. He blinks. Avery Chase says the caller ID. He swipes to answer and puts the phone to his ear.

Darling?

His eyes close. Relief and wanting and ache rushes through him, a flood. He thinks one of these days he'll have to tell her --

"I love that you call me that."

No; not one day. Right now. He'll tell her that right now because he almost died tonight, for god's sake, and when he was staring his own death in the eye he was full of regrets. That he never told his father that he's a mean, horrible human being but he loved him anyway because you're my dad. That he never sent Ellie a cowboy hat for her birthday or for christmas, whichever came first. That he never told Avery Chase

that he loves it when she calls him darling.

Calden drops back on his mattress, the droplets of water still on his back dampening his bedspread. He scrubs a palm over his face, closing his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to wake you."

Avery Chase

Her heart breaks a little, sweetly and beautifully, and she can't help but smile. She wishes he could see the smile that puts on her face, because there's no words she can use to describe how that makes her feel. She just huffs a soft little sound, something like a laugh, and just says again:

"Oh, darling."

Which has the feeling, and the smile, all wrapped into three syllables.

"I'm glad you did," she murmurs, keeping her voice down even though the entire house is asleep, and even though her father's and brother's rooms are far from her own and even though she doesn't think they would hear her through the walls anyway.

Avery is quiet for a moment.

"I'd like to come see you now," she whispers to him. "But I don't want you to force yourself to stay awake if you're tired. Would you mind if I just... slipped in when I arrive?"

Calden White

Calden is a man who enjoys tradition, who sees value in old things and old ways, but -- god, the marvels of technology. To be able to reach out and connect like this across such distances. To be able to close his eyes and hear her voice in his ear like this, warm and near: there are arguments in favor of the Weaver after all.

"I don't think there's anything I'd love more than that right now," he says. "I'm going to leave a key under the doormat. I want you to keep it. I might be asleep when you get here. Just ... come upstairs and find me. Okay?"

Avery Chase

She is about to tell him that she didn't mean a key. She meant drifting through the walls of newer portions of the construction, pushing through them on one of many other sides of reality, and entering his bedroom that way, slipping into his bed, being there as soon and as tangibly as she could be.

But he tells her he wants her to keep it. And Avery blinks, and her heart flutters, and she is not ashamed of that but she is a bit startled that the man she's been seeing for only seven months would like her to have a key to his house. She doesn't know what to say, only:

"Okay," she whispers. "Go to sleep. I'll see you in a couple of hours."

Calden White

The truth is, Calden knew full well what she meant when she said she'd slip in. And it's not that he minds, or that he'd feel threatened or barged in upon or like his privacy had been violated. It was simply that he wanted her to have a key to his house. Like anything else he's offered her, he wants her to have this. He gives it to her freely, as though it was always her due.

--

They hang up. Calden plugs his phone in to charge. He scuffs his hair a little drier, and he takes a quick quiet detour downstairs to slip a key under the doormat. Wearing as little as he is, he's shivering even from those few seconds of exposure. He's grateful for the warmth and heaviness of his comforter by the time he climbs back into bed.

His head scarcely touches the pillow before he's out. Sleep, heavier and warmer still than his bedding, pulls him under.

Avery Chase

Calden sleeps. Down in Denver, in her palace of a home with its brick courtyard and gardens that were lush in summer and falling dormant now, Avery leaves her bed and puts her fingers to the buttons of her pajamas, swiftly, deftly undressing. She goes to her bathroom to wash up briefly, brushing her teeth and splashing water on her face, combing her hair, then gets dressed. She wears simple things, pulling on a pair of grey slacks, a camisole, and a v-necked sweater in deep sapphire blue. She slips her feet into a pair of flats and throws her still-warm satin pajamas and a few other items into a small overnight back, shouldering it and walking swiftly, quietly downstairs.

She writes a note in her curling, elegant script and puts it in the fruit bowl among the apples, oranges, pears and bananas that she knows her brother and father will both be plucking from when they wake up. It isn't necessary, but she tries. When she can, she likes to let them know.

Avery takes her Tesla from the garage, and when she gets on the freeway, she takes full advantage of the cover of darkness and the sheer speed that machine is capable of. When the sky begins to lighten she slows down, but it still takes her some time to get up to Calden's ranch. To drive through the gate and up to the house. To park alongside his truck.

Getting out, she sees the broken, bloodied windshield. She sees the dents on the hood and the roof, the damage done by something large and strange, no known animal, only a nightmare. Avery's throat moves as she swallows, the breeze bringing scent of her lover's blood, and the blood of an unknown but terribly pure kinswoman, and the blood of a monster all into her nostrils at once. She chuffs it out through her nostrils, a flash of rage coming with the breath.

Avery gets her bag and walks to the door, reaching for the key under the mat, turning it as silently as she can in the door and slipping inside. She looks around, pauses, listens as she quietly, quietly closes it behind her, putting the key in her bag. She knows where he is. She smells blood again: the bag of clothes, her eyes flicking to it in the dark. She passes by, going upstairs, coming to his door and -- despite herself -- giving it a gentle tap. It is probably too quiet to wake him, but all the same, she does it before she lets herself in.

Seems silly, to have dressed herself at all. Now that she's here, she just sets her bag down on the couch before his hearth, opening it up to pull out her pajamas. Avery undresses swiftly, changes back into those white satin things edged in sky blue, and comes to the side of the bed where there is more room for her. She pulls the comforter back only a little at the corner, enough to give her legs room to slide down, enough room for her to enter his bed, laying down beside him, covering him with her arm.

All these things are hard. She wants to turn on a light and find his wounds, care for him if she can, feed him if she can't. But at the same time, she feels unspeakable relief just to be here, to see him breathing, to smell him whole and intact, to feel him warm against her skin through that thin layer of satin.

Calden White

Dawn is washing across the wide-open spaces of northern Colorado when Avery parks in front of Calden's house. His truck is there as well, which is not where it usually is, but clearly whoever was behind the wheel couldn't be bothered with parking the truck in the garage. It's not even parked well: it sits at an angle in the small cement turnabout in front of the house, as battered and bloodied as its owner.

Totaled. Or close enough to it not to matter. In the growing light of day, the damage done to the truck seems surreal and obscene, not at all synchronous with the sturdy architecture of Calden's home; the unrefined, barren beauty of his land.

She finds the key under the doormat, right where he said it would be. The house is still quiet when she lets herself in. She doesn't run into Calden's father, and she doesn't have to explain herself or her presence. Her footsteps are light on the stairs, light in the upstairs hall. That little tap on the door doesn't even begin to stir her lover from his sleep.

Patches is looking at her when she opens the bedroom door, though. The small, pretty border collie is curled in her bed, ears pricked, head raised. Recognizing Avery and Avery's Gift, her tail begins to thump almost frantically, but she doesn't get up from where she lies. After a while, she puts her chin on her paws, watching with bright, dark eyes as Avery changes back into her pajamas

and comes to bed.

Calden does wake when his lady slips into bed beside him. Her legs brush his. He stirs, murmuring something incoherent. Her arm covers him, and he is as large and warm and solid and alive as can be. As though on instinct, his arm slides over her waist, pulls her near.

This time when he murmurs she can make out the words. "Beloved," he calls her, sleep-fuzzed; such a funny, archaic thing to say. He nuzzles her loosely, and then his eyes close again.

Avery Chase

The scent of the dog's presence made Avery pause outside the door. Just for a moment. Just long enough to feel the sudden, quivering tension of the animal and long enough for Avery to call on the gifts of her ancestors, all those born to the human skin, all those born in cultures that have domesticated animals as food and stock and companions for eons. She settles into the gift before she enters, and when she does, Patches does not whine or retreat but thumps her tail happily, and with relief.

Avery slides one satin-clad leg over Calden's shin, feeling him murmur and move, chest expanding with new breath as he pulls her closer. He mutters something, just recognition, and Avery smiles gently, achingly.

She rests her head on his chest then, in the crook of his arm, even as they hold each other. It does not take him long to slide back into sleep. It does not take her very long, either. She thought it would: that worry and anxiety would rule her, that she would want to stay up all night to watch over him, but she knows there is no safer place than this right now. He is far from everything that might threaten him. And he is with her. No depth of sleep could stop her from protecting him, if he faced harm again tonight.

So: she sleeps. She holds him, comforted simply to feel him breathing with her, and follows him a few minutes later.

Calden White

Calden sleeps for a long time. Long after he'd usually be up, long after he'd usually have his morning coffee, put on his working clothes, saddle up or get in the truck, go out on the ranch amongst his men and his animals --

long, long after the sun has risen and day has broken, Calden sleeps. In his bed. In the arms of his lover. His sleep is dreamless, which is a mercy. It is heavy, and deep, and restorative, and when finally -- sometime closer to noon than to dawn -- he stirs to wakefulness, he feels ... better, again. Like stable ground has reasserted itself beneath his feet. Like sanity has reasserted itself in his life.

Sometime in the night he has rolled on his back. He opens his eyes to his ceiling, and to the four posts of his familiar bed. The woman next to him is familiar too, though by modern standards they've only been seeing each other a short time. He spreads his arms and he stretches, yawns, folds his hands behind his head.

He smells clean. Perhaps Patches's sensitive nose can still pick up whiffs of blood and terror, but -- to Avery's human nose, at least, he smells like soap and warm water, and like himself. Like health and vigor and muscle and heat; and faintly, ever so faintly, like the wildness and savagery that demarcates a kinsman from a man.

He says nothing, even if she has awoken. One hand comes down; one arm wraps around her. He is quiet, feeling her against his side, her warmth suffusing him right through those sheer satin pajamas. One does not always equate a wolf in one's bed with safety, with contentment, with calm: but right now, she makes him feel all those things. He is quietly, uncomplicatedly grateful. Happy that she came to see him, even when he was too courteous to ask such an inconvenience of her.

Avery Chase

No one comes to wake Calden. No one comes pounding on his door after the sun rises, wanting to know where he is. Perhaps his phone buzzes. But anyone living in or coming by that house would see, clear as day, the truck that must have barely made it back to the ranch, the blood on the windshield and front seat. The midnight-colored luxury car nearby, which no one would recognize but anyone who has seen or heard of Calden's lady friend would easily assign to her, dripping with luxury and beauty as she is. Perhaps even, should someone come to his door, they feel the rage on the other side, coiled and protective, sleeping but never far from alertness, and think better of it.

Maybe no one sees anything. Maybe no one, this morning, is waiting for him.

Avery wakes shortly after dawn. She opens her eyes and looks over at him, how he has turned onto his back and how his chest moves as he breathes. She closes her eyes again, sleeps again, falling gently into that familiar rhythm. But some time later, she wakes again, and Calden is still heavy with unconsciousness. Avery eases away from him as gently as she can, padding over to the door as Patches drops softly off the bed to follow her. She opens the door up to let the pretty collie out to traipse downstairs and out into the open to relieve herself. Avery relieves herself, too, ducking into Calden's master bath for a few moments. She plucks a sleek little 7-inch tablet out of her bag as she returns to bed, tucking herself in with her back against Calden's side, playing a game of Plants vs. Zombies with the sound muted.

She dozes off after a while, though, the tablet on the nightstand, her head on his bicep, her butt nestled against his hip. Patches comes back, sniffing at the door, but she's too polite (trained) to whine or scratch or howl to be let back in. She flops down in front of the door instead, head on her forepaws, while Calden sleeps and Avery naps.

And it is a nap, and not a sleep: she wakes very easily, mildly, when Calden starts stirring, when he yawns and stretches, when he turns back to her after, wrapping his arm around her. She smiles, turning to look at him past her white-clad shoulder.

"Morning," she says fuzzily, tucking her feet in between his beneath the covers. "Darling," she adds, with a greater smile, gently teasing.

Calden White

She finds Calden looking at her, half-lidded, sleepy, lazy, quiet. His faint smile grows to her words. He leans over, lifts his head a little, bends to her and kisses the lee of her shoulder.

Settling again, he exhales. The truth is he's quite naked under the covers. She feels absolutely luxurious; the satin of her pajamas, the velvet of her skin. His arm unfurls for a moment, fingers reaching thoughtfully for nothing in particular; then returning, wrapping around her again.

"Careful, Miss Chase," he murmurs, his smile furring the edges of his words, "I could get used to this. I might want to wake up to my golden lady of the royal tribe every morning. And then where would you be, hm?"

The humor ebbs. He grows serious, his head shifting on his pillow, his eyes meeting hers over her shoulder.

"Thank you for coming here," he says softly. "I didn't want to be a nuisance. Or demanding. Or high-maintenance. But I really wanted -- maybe even needed -- to see you."

Avery Chase

"I should be wherever I like," she murmurs back to him, archly, decadently, the way he must have known she would. Even if he wants her every morning. Even if he is used to this. She wiggles against him a little, snuggles in fact, and even though she pretends that all she wants to do is curl up and sleep a bit more, she has had quite enough sleep. She has been in her pajamas, for the most part, for the better part of twelve hours. She is ready to get up, and eat, and see if her gift allows her to ride his horses, and she is ready to behave as normally as possible, to be as happy as she can be, to simply spend a day or so with him, to show him:

see? the world has not changed so much.

He peers over at her, and she rolls onto her back, looking up at him from his pillow, her hair in swirls all around her and above her on the linens.

"My darling," she says, not teasing this time, not even realizing she's used the word again until it has left her mouth, "you could never be a nuisance to me." Her dark brows have tugged together over those pristine eyes of hers, saying this. Her hand has lifted, still quite warm from sleep, to stroke the backs of her fingers over the bristly shadow across his jaw. "I think it would wound me a bit," she whispers, her voice falling as she looks into his eyes, "if you did not ask for me after such a night."

Avery's stroking fingers turn, her fingertips coming to rest over his lips. She quirks the smallest smile, out of the blue, murmuring: "Kiss," even though her clear eyes are shadowed still by her concern.

Calden White

There are shadows in their eyes. A solemn undercurrent to their lightness and their teasing. In a way, that lightness is a sort of mutual fiction. Or at least, an unspoken pact of normalcy; a purposeful attempt to do what they always do because they have to prove to themselves,

or he has to prove to himself,

that the world has not changed so much. That the world has not changed at all, really. He has been relatively lucky, Calden: sheltered up in his high plains, far away from the precious things that the Wyrm covets and attacks. He is not immune to the war, but he has come through his life mostly unscathed.

Unscarred too, though. Untoughened, in some ways. In ways that still leave him undeniably rattled when the safe constructs of his life bend a little. When the darkness outside comes in and touches him as it did last night.

There's a shadow in his eyes as she admits that it would have wounded her if he hadn't asked for her. And then she is touching his lips, her fingertips soft on the softness of his mouth. And his mouth is soft: his lips parting, his teeth gently scraping the pads of her fingers, even if his jaw is bristled; even if he is wholly unfit to worship her as he does. She doesn't ask for that, though, and neither does he. She asks for a kiss. His eyes soften. He raises up on an elbow and he complies; he indulges, his mouth soft and slow on hers, his hand touching her side just beneath her breast.

When it tapers to a close he rests his brow to hers a moment. Settles again on his side, facing her.

"There was a moment when I almost didn't call you," he confesses. "I didn't want to worry you. I'm ashamed to say I also didn't ... want to have to deal with it, either, if you were frantic and inconsolable. I was so tired. But I called you because ... because it was the right thing to do. And because if it had been you wounded in the night and me a hundred miles away, I would have wanted to know. I would have wanted to know it had happened, and that you were okay."

His hand cups behind her head. He drops his brow to hers again, sighing.

"I hate to think of you fighting creatures like that -- worse than than -- nearly every day of your life. I hate to think of you laying your life on the line. I know you, I know who you are, and I know I could never ask you to preserve yourself at the cost of all else. Not without destroying something in your or between us that I love.

"But Avery, if I could snap my fingers and magically exempt you from the war, I would. Even if it meant depriving our desperate cause of a brilliant warrior and leader -- I'd do it in a heartbeat."

Avery Chase

The things he gives her when he mistakes what she is asking for delight her. The Sunshine, on what could be called their 'first date'. This kiss on her mouth, when she intended only for his lips to press against her fingers. Avery just smiles, her eyes falling closed, her arms wrapping around his neck and shoulders in a rustle of satin, her breath lifting her chest when his hand caresses her so very close to that perfect curve. She melts slightly when the kiss parts, opening her eyes to him.

He confesses a few selfish thoughts, and then bends back to her, as close as he can be to her, til they're breathing the same air. Her forehead is furrowed; he sounds tired, still, and the way he is curled up with her like this, brow to brow, speaks to his vulnerability.

And why shouldn't he be vulnerable?

She feels a little bad, not telling him how close she came to death that night out with Erich. She feels a little bad that after she was healed, she didn't even think much of it. She did not need him. It wasn't even a conscious decision, only an assumption. Listening to him now, she realizes she understands that anticipatory weariness: she would not want, every time she came back from a battle, to have to console and comfort and reassure him. She would not want to deal with it.

Oh, she feels very guilty, and that informs how wrinkled her brow is even as he's telling her that if he could get her a pass from the war, somehow, he would. He wouldn't even think about it.

Avery smiles at him when he lifts his head, but the smile twists with ache. "If you had power like that," she admonishes him, "I would certainly hope you'd simply end the war instead." The smile fades, but gentles too. "Even if I were exempt," she whispers, "you know I would still fight."

Gradually, slowly, she sits up in his bed, the blankets gathered around her waist, her hair tousled, her warm skin welcoming the touch of cooler air. "We must all shoulder the burdens we are equipped to bear, in hope that we will deliver others from being crushed by them." Deeply, then, she breathes in, watching him anew, looking over him, finding the bruises that still discolor his skin, even though sleeping all night has healed a great deal of them already. Her eyes find his again.

"A couple of weeks ago I jumped in front of a friend of mine during a battle. If he had not laid a talen on me to renew my strength, and had I been struck again, it is very likely that I would have died." It is a blunt, simple confession. She watches his eyes as she says it, because watching his eyes is the last thing she wants to do as she tells him this.

"I did not call you, or go to you," Avery says quietly. "I did not even think of it. I was healing; I thought more about the edification I offered to my friend than I did of my wounding, or about calling you just to let you know. I was not afraid." She frowns, thoughtful, realizing the truth as she says it: "I was not shaken, because my faith was in him, that he would kill the beast or heal me if I fell, and he did not fail me. So when I returned home, it didn't even occur to me to feel concerned for my life. I rested, and I healed, and... I admit some degree of the same fear. I did not want to 'deal with it' if you were afraid for me. I didn't want to have to reassure you. I don't want to have to reassure you every time I take a wound. I do not want our time together to be spent in fear, or regret, or the stress of what might come of war."

She sighs, slowly and painfully, looking at him. "My love, I am truly sorry. I should have told you. It was selfish of me, and... aloof, and I want to be neither of those things with you." Her head shakes slightly. "I didn't know how you might react, and so I didn't even give you a chance to. I am so sorry. Will you forgive me?"

Calden White

There's ache in her smile, and ache in his, as she tells him the truth he already knows. He cannot keep her from the war. She would fight it, even if he could magically will her free from her obligations. She would fight and she would be brilliant, a true leader, a hero, a beacon of hope,

and she would jump in front of her friends protect them from death. Even if it meant she dies in their place.

Calden's hand follows Avery as she rises. His broad palm, his rough callouses: brushing from her side to her midriff, rubbing slowly and intoxicatedly up her other side. He touches her as though the very feel of her was addictive to him. As though his mind were not, in fact, tangled up in the what-ifs and the almosts; as though his heart were not twisting in his chest at the thought of her grievously wounded,

nearly dead,

nearly lost to him when he didn't even know.

"Don't apologize," he whispers. It is a sort of reflex. His wraps an arm around her waist, haphazardly: she is sitting up, after all, and he is still on his side, sprawled and lazy in his bed. His eyes are on her skin, on the rise and fall of those perfect breasts. Proof of life. He looks up at her then, meets those remarkable eyes of hers. "Of course I forgive you. There's nothing to forgive. I only just now told you that I would want to know if you had a brush with death. It's absurd and unfair for me to resent you for not telling me before."

There's a quiet. His eyes trailing down her body again; and then past her to the wall, the reflected light, the middle distance as he takes counsel with his own thoughts.

"I think," he says at length, quietly, "close calls are different for you and I." A painful twist of his mouth; a smile that doesn't quite make it, "For you, it's probably more commonplace than I'd like to think about. A fact of life. Nothing pleasant, but nothing to lose your mind over. And maybe ... maybe I think I would want to know every time I nearly lost you, but maybe if you did tell me every time, then that really would be all we'd ever talk about. Maybe we really would spend all our time together in fear, in regret, in worry over what might or might not happen."

Calden shifts, his lower body moving under the covers; the bedding shifting. Something oceanic about that: as though he were some sea creature, some benthic being stirring to her. Rising on an elbow, kissing her atop her thigh. Atop the crest of her hip. At the curve of her waist, rubbing his face -- scratchy scruff or not -- against her smooth skin.

"I love you," he says; nearly a sigh. "And maybe what I really want is just for you to tell me if and when I can help you share a burden. If and when something happens that isn't commonplace, isn't something you just shrug off, isn't something that you can or want to deal with by yourself. I just want to ... be there for you when you need me.

"As for the rest of it -- the close calls, the times you face death because you have to: I think I just need to deal with that myself. Come to terms with it myself, and accept that this is a small price to pay in return for the privilege of loving you. I don't think it'll be easy, but to make you talk it out with me every time you flirt with death -- I think that's just me trying selfishly to share an unfair burden with you."

Avery Chase

Through that satin, the feel of Avery is rather addictive. She is so smooth, so warm, the softness of her skin and the gentle give of certain parts only a sheath over the strong core muscles and the athletic limbs he noticed the first time she walked up from his guest room and he realized that the white wolf who had destroyed an elk right in front of him was also... this woman, who he looks at sometimes like he would happily fall down and worship her for the rest of his days.

He tells her not to apologize, and she aches, she starts to tell him no to that, but he tells her: he forgives her. She still wants to argue with him, but she doesn't. It would be a childish, plaintive argument anyway.

Close calls are different for the two of them. More commonplace for her, gauged differently. Had she been alone that night, she would have been deeply shaken upon her return. Had she not been distracted by socking Erich in the jaw and telling him to believe in himself, god dammit she might have been more vulnerable. He wonders if, were Avery to tell him every single time she nearly died, that would end up being their entire life.

She cannot tell him that isn't the case. At first when she came here, nothing seemed capable of touching her. Now it happens more regularly. Now she is also stronger. Now she cannot tell him that she doesn't think it won't happen with some frequency. She lifts her arms as he moves around, waiting for him to get comfortable again, even if that means he's sticking his face up under the hem of her pajama top and rubbing his face on her. Avery quirks, curious and fond and amused at his behavior, lowering her arms to settle them across his shoulders. She strokes his back with her fingertips, her fingernails occasionally, delicately running over him.

"I love you too, darling," she murmurs. "And I believe we've discussed it a bit before, in some way," she goes on, realizing it. "I am not very practiced, nor very good, at sharing things that burden me." For what it's worth, she looks a little apologetic about it, her eyes down on him, shining the way they do even in dim light. "But I will try. And I will try not to keep things from you out of some selfish purpose."

Her hand moves up his back and into his hair, sweeping it off his temple. "I love you, too," she murmurs again, wholeheartedly.

Calden White

Calden laughs, muffled -- muffled because he's nuzzled her until he's found skin; muffled because he's laughing against her skin. He draws back, then, raising his head to her as she combs his hair back from his temple. They are making pledges to each other, he realizes: unselfishness. Love. The sharing of burdens, which is in its own way a form of love and unselfishness.

"Well, you should practice, Miss Chase," he replies, his smile alight in his eye, "so you get better at it. After all, it's as you said. We should share our burdens when we can so we aren't crushed by them."

Which isn't exactly what she said. Which is actually the reciprocal of what she said, but -- oh, he's nuzzling her again, his nose stirring the satin over her skin, his eyes closing, his lips pressing to her body beneath it.

"I adore you," he murmurs. "It's like my world lights up a little more when you come around. But we should get up, because if you let me, I'll find a way to convince you to loll around in bed until lunchtime. And then we'll both be starving."

Avery Chase

Oh, the gifted, silvery tongues of the Fianna. She lights up his world. He turns her inspiring sayings around on her. He warns her -- oh dear, no! -- that he might just keep her in bed.

Avery smirks at his admonishment to practice, and she even tells him, albeit gently: "That is not what I said," because what she said matters deeply to her. It is not that he is wrong, simply that he is saying she said something she did not.

Her hand smooths his hair back again. "How do you know that I didn't get out of bed hours ago and have breakfast?"

Calden White

The corner of Calden's mouth curls up, slow, warm. "No, it's not," he admits. "But it's a very good corollary, I thought."

He rolls onto his back, then: broad chest opening, one arm folding behind his head against as the other hand catches hers. Pulls her fingertips to his mouth. Kisses her there, softly, finally and inadvertently paying her that kiss that she'd asked for.

"I suppose you might have," he allows. "But if you ate hours ago, then I'd imagine you'd very nearly be hungry again by now."

Avery Chase

He lolls in bed, and Avery watches him, head tilted. She allows him her hand, her fingertips soft on his lips, as he talks a big game about getting out of bed and getting food but does nothing but roll around in his covers. She lets her glance fall across his chest again, the remainders of bruises and the rainbow that partial healing has left on him. He probably catches her, looking at him, frowning, her brows tugged tight together before her gaze makes its way up to his eyes again.

"Please tell me what happened," she says quietly. It has nothing to do with lunch. Everything to do with sharing burdens. Or if not that: just knowing. Knowing, the light that casts out fear.

Calden White

Of course he sees her frown. Those vivid dark eyebrows tugging together; the downcurve of that mouth that he could wax poetic on. And seeing it, his hand rises; his thumb touches her lip, traces just beneath the edge of it.

He grows serious. Her expression mirrors onto him with her question; he's quiet a moment. Then his hand reaches for hers, though his eyes never leave her face. He finds her by touch, and then he pulls her down, closer, close to him. Pulls her to rest against his chest, head pillowed on his shoulder, if she'll let him.

"I was in Golden," he says quietly, "having a late dinner and drinks with some business partners I'd also call friends. We broke around eleven, maybe a little later. I ran into Melantha out on the streets and recognized her. We started talking, so I suggested that we go grab a cup of coffee. We had just started walking when the lights on the street started to black out.

"We were lucky to be near our cars. I had guns in mine, so we went for my truck. I thought if we were lucky we'd get away. If not, then at least we would be armed, and at least we'd be somewhere away from the town center. We started driving, but we could hear that ... thing following us. Its breathing. Almost like it was right there over our shoulders, closing in.

"And then the car went dead. I think it must have been able to ... disrupt technology. Or maybe its very presence disrupted technology. Anyway; we were stranded, so I gave Melantha my handgun and grabbed the rifle off the rack. And then it was on us.

"It broke the windshield. It clawed for us. It bit at us. It got me pretty good, and Melantha didn't exactly get off lightly either. I didn't get this being chivalrous and protecting her; we were both fighting with every ounce of our strength. Fighting for our lives. I don't know how many rounds we put in it, but in the end, finally, it went down.

"I remember Melantha holding pressure on me. Trying to stop the bleeding. I remember her telling me she was calling her friends, and I remember telling her it was going to be okay. I remember thinking her friends wouldn't make it on time, and maybe that thing had friends of its own, and maybe it wouldn't be okay at all but I didn't want her to lose hope. I didn't want her to die in terror and despair. So I lied to her, and then --

"The next thing I remember was waking up on the road. I don't know how she did it, but she called her friends and they came. They healed us up. The boy was driving and Melantha was with us. The girl -- your friend Charlotte, I think -- was following in their truck. They took me all the way home, safe and sound, and then they went back to Denver.

"And I called you.

"And you came."

Avery Chase

It's best that she didn't shake him awake and demand to know what happened last night; the story is an unsettling one. The entire thing was short and brutal and unfair, and had the guns jammed or the thing had friends or had any number of factors been different, it would simply be another nightmarish story to tell kinfolk to keep them indoors and away from the possibilities of such danger. Avery's brow does not clear as Calden talks. In fact, there are moments when it only furrows deeper, when her mouth's corners are tighter and lower and her eyes -- and yes, they could be compared to blue skies and sapphires and the glint off of icicles -- look only more troubled.

She does go to him, easily enough, but not to lay her head on her shoulder. She lies on her side beside him, where she can see his face, which she is starting to think he is almost deliberately hiding from her, all these brow-to-brow touches and him nuzzling her waist and wanting her to lie down on him. But if it is deliberate, it would have to be unconsciously so. Still, this time she resists that, and watches him instead, where she can see the telling of the story on his features and he can see its impact.

What amuses her, bizarrely, is that he points out: he did not attempt chivalry for the young kinswoman whose blood is so pure it very nearly intoxicated Avery just to catch a whiff of it, even terrified and drying on Calden's truck. He didn't get hurt by throwing himself in front of a friend, which is only amusing because she just told him that she nearly got herself killed... throwing herself in front of Erich, the friend of the woman Calden was with. It's all a little funny, but she doesn't laugh even as the amusement at the thought flits through her mind. It isn't that funny.

Her hand rests gently on his side, away from one particularly mottled bruise, then smooths over his chest as she wraps her arm around him. She doesn't tell him the sheer debt she feels she owes Baklava Republik now, particularly Charlotte, or of the immense gratitude she has for them now that is somehow, stunningly, greater than it was already.

Avery's hand moves up from his chest and touches his face. If he is not looking at her, she gently turns his jaw towards herself so that he is. And she leans over him, her hair falling in loose, cool waves, as smooth and soft as the satin she's wearing, and she kisses him. For a long, long time.

Calden White

Her touch leaves a scintillating sense of awareness in its wake. A hyperacuity of his senses, until even the slightest shift of air feels crystal-clear. He turns his face as her hand turns it; closes his eyes and accepts that kiss, deepens it, returns it.

It's a long kiss. Warm and drenching and thorough. His hand rising to slide into her hair, smoothing down over her shoulder. That satin is soft and sheer; he can almost feel the texture of her skin through it. The warmth. The kiss could escalate, but it doesn't. He could escalate it, he could lean up to her or roll her under or move over her

(and some part of him wants to. always wants to.)

but he doesn't. When it draws to a close his hand is on her cheek, his thumb rubbing a smooth arc over her skin. He is smiling a little, achingly.

"I'm okay," he whispers. "Are you?"

Avery Chase

To this, she just smiles, looking down at him from so very close. There is a molten warmth in her to be this close to him, to have kissed him like that, to feel him and smell him in bed with her, to know he is naked under the sheets with her, to think of his hands on her body.

But she smiles, and she nods, her whisper equally soft. "I am."