best duckface ever #bestie #hottie #OMG

Erich

[I NEVER GET THE COOL HELLO. *throws things*]

Melantha

[LOG OUT AND BACK IN AGAIN :D]

Erich

So they're up on the 43rd floor again. And it's still pretty quiet up here these days, despite that there's maybe a half-dozen Garou and kin who come here on the regular, and maybe another half-dozen who occasionally stop by.

That sense of organization from before, from when Cold Crescent was an invincible well-oiled warmachine, is gone. That sense of wolves always watching, wolves always thinking and planning, wolves always out enforcing their dominance and their territory -- that's all gone. Still gone. Not back yet.

Erich has been thinking about that more and more. He's been thinking about how to get the place to mesh again. He's floated the idea of another warmoot to a Ragabash he met here one night, but then it didn't quite feel right. There's no real war here. Not right now, anyway. And also:

"I think I'm gonna bring this up at the moot."

That just kinda comes out of nowhere. He's kinda made himself a little camp up here: moved that sleeping bag that used to roll around the back of the Mustang here, added a $3.99 pillow from Ikea. He has some books, at least one of them a ridiculous lurid bodice-ripper. He has a spare charger for his phone, and he is thinking about getting a minifridge for ice cream, and

right now he is lying on his bedroll, and Melantha is nearby, and he is sort of quietly content and quietly thinking and this just come out of his mouth.

"I mean," he looks over at her, "Garou coming back to the Cold Crescent. Keeping watch her. Sort of ... getting a watchtower started again, if not a real Sept. I think I should bring it up at the moot. 'Cause it feels wrong, kinda doing this on the down-low. It's not like I'm doing anything wrong, but I'm acting like I am.

"We should talk about it openly. And also, plan. Like right now there are no schedules, there's no coordination, people are just doing whatever. No one knows what anyone else is doing. I don't even know if there are spirits watching over this place again, or if the security systems are working again, or... anything. We should all put our heads together and just talk about it.

"I wish you could be there though. And Eva. I wonder if they'll let me bring you guys." He lapses into a grump, "Probably not."

Melantha

They were not here when the guardians died here. They were not part of the many, many cleansings that happened afterward. Erich and Melantha do not look at this room, at the way light comes through the glass, and remember what it looked like the night that so many were so... violated.

The Theurges did their work well, and exhausted themselves doing it. This place does not hum with sickness and taint anymore. It feels almost normal, but with no garou living here, no life to fill the void, it is only slowly regaining its vibrancy. The more who come, the healthier it becomes. But it is slow work.

Melantha was reminding him, earlier, that all they really gotta do is plug in the fridges downstairs in the dorm floor if he wants to keep ice cream there, I mean, she's pretty sure they could just do that, but he likes to stay here. It's the center. It's where the shrines used to be.

And where a new one is, lately. Melantha's, though not the personal shrine she keeps in her alcove at the tiny house. This one is a tiny, makeshift version of a new shrine to Luna, at the apex of the triangle, where the old (and far grander) one used to be. She has made it out of a large, shallow bowl made of beaten metal that mottles and distorts any reflection the water inside may give. This bowl sits atop the most basic end table ever you can get at Ikea covered with a black cloth that drapes to the ground. She's surrounded the low-edged bowl with crystals and geodes she's picked up or gotten on ebay, a clustering ring of silver and grey and white and even some purplish ones. When she and Erich visit, she carefully empties and replaces the water.

Often, she prays, though it is hard to describe the prayers of a Fury in a society that worships an aloof, judgemental white-man sky-god. Melantha wouldn't even call it prayer. Maybe communing.

Right now, however, Melantha is not praying, and she already gave the shrine clean water. She's propped up against Erich's $3.99 pillow, knees drawn up, reading something that doesn't suck, ie, anything but Erich's ridiculous lurid bodice-rippers. Plural. That's what she's doing when he speaks up, and she glances over, pausing, then setting the book pages-down so she can pay more attention to him. "Bring what up at the moot?" she asks, frowning.

She doubts he means a minifridge.

And he answers, and she tips her head, and her frown stays. It's a thoughtful frown, though.

"I don't think you're acting all that sneaky or secretive about it," she points out. "You kinda blast text messages to everyone you know. Pretty sure that the grown-ups know what's going on here, especially with their people in the basement."

But: we should talk about it openly. And plan! Schedule! Coordinate!

Melantha nods. It may be one of the only things they don't argue about. "Well -- why do you assume they won't let you bring kin to the moot? There were kin everywhere at the rites earlier this month. I think some of the kin who are like, rangers and stuff? They keep an eye on the bawn borders during moots."

Erich

Erich makes this thoughtful-noise, this hmmm that lives more in his throat than his nose. "I haven't really seen any kin at the moots," he says. "But I haven't really been looking that hard? It's just that they're so old-school, so I guess I assumed... well. Maybe this next moot I'll just try to bring you and Eva and see what happens. I mean you at least they should let in. You're my packmate."

She is propped against the $3.99 pillow. She is reading. So he is flat on his back, head cushioned on his hands. He waggles his feet back and forth in thought, then turns his head to look at her again.

"Not gonna lie, it'd be nice to have more people coming here so we don't have to come so often. It's so far from Evergreen. And I really like Evergreen, I don't wanna move back to the city. Yet, anyway."

Melantha

Melantha laughs. "I mean, you could try asking first, and finding out if there's a rule against it before you just go and do it." She pauses, and frowns a little, thinking to herself as Erich goes on, talking about how he doesn't want to come here so often, and he likes where they live now, and maybe there's a thread of thought to follow there: the future, living arrangements, and so on, but that's not where Melantha's mind is going. She rewinds after his yet, anyway, folding her arms on top of her knees and placing her chin on those arms.

"Erich... I think you kinda assume that people are gonna smack you down all the time for doing what you think is right. And even if that happens a lot, I wonder if you going in expecting it, all ready to dig in your heels or whatever... sorta creates a self-fulfilling prophecy."

Erich

"I don't -- " he starts arguing: it's just instinct. It's just reflex. He argues with Melantha all the time. They keep each other sharp. But this time, at least, he stops after those first two words. Sort of blinks.

"Huh." And he sits up a little, props himself up on his elbows. He's wearing that Throwed Rolls shirt again, and the logo is starting to fade a little across his chest from the stretching, the washing, the wear and tear. "I kinda do do that, don't I. I guess I've just ... spent a lot of time getting shouted down. And sometimes it's easier just to expect it and go in with your dukes up. Y'know?

"But I dunno. Maybe you're right. Maybe I'll ask someone if I can bring you and Eva. But if they say no, I'm totally gonna argue."

Melantha

Melantha does not instantly get riled up when Erich kneejerks to arguing. She watches him, head cocked. She wasn't hesitant about bringing up her Very Astute Observation. She just said it calmly, thoughtfully, curiously. As though it isn't really as personal as it actually is.

Erich stops, blinking, sitting up a bit. Melantha lets her legs drop to either side, folding them at the ankles instead, sitting cross-legged, hands on her knees. She's wearing jeans, boot-cut jeans that fit pretty well but aren't skin-tight because skin-tight is uncomfortable but really-baggy isn't that fun to wear either. They just look good on her, and she likes that. She's wearing a tank top underneath a hoodie, her very own hoodie, which is black and has white feathers screenprinted on it. It's thick, and it is warm, especially when the weather is like it has been lately.

Y'know?

All she can do is nod. If anyone understands I'm so used to this thing happening that I sort of see it happening even when it's not and I don't know how to react otherwise, it's probably Melantha. And she nods, too, smiling, when he says he's gonna argue if they say no. "Well, I'd be disappointed if you didn't."

Erich

"You should be." He sort of lean-rolls over, bumping his brow against her knee, nipping her through her jeans. "I'm a pretty good arguer. I learned from the best."

And then he flops back down, smiling. "When'd you get that hoodie? It's pretty."

Melantha

Rolling over, Erich closes the distance between Melantha's reading-spot and his bedroll, blaming her for his arguing skills. She feigns innocence, which she does better than anyone, batting lashes on eyes that have gone suddenly wide and youthful, her lips soft and full and in a tiny o.

"Who! Shadow Lord elders?"

She grins, savagely, as her eyes take on their sharper shape, as she shows her teeth, as her hair swings over her face while her eyes follow his passage. He flops, and smiles, and says her hoodie is pretty. She looks down at it, then at him, shrugging. "Outlet mall a week or something ago." She tosses her hair back, shaking it out and primping, fluffing it and blinking way-too-rapidly as she flutters her lashes, beaming a smile. "I'm so glad you like it!"

Erich

"Well," Erich concedes, "they're probably pretty awesome arguers too. But no. YOU. Since you're making me spell it out."

She primps. He grins, big and wide, all teeth. Humans would be fucking terrified. But she's not human, and she's beaming, and he reaches over and bats at her hand, catches it, gives it a playful sort of shake.

"Stahp," he says. "Before you start duckfacing."

Melantha

In answer, she instantly duckfaces.

Erich

"Oh my god!" Erich claps his hands over his eyes. "Oh no! It BURNS!"

Melantha

"I'm going to start taking selfies in the bathroom mirror," Melantha says, threatening and ominous, while he covers his eyes. "I'm going to be on Instagram all the time. I will communicate with you only via Twitter, hashtag-bestie hashtag-hottie hashtag-oh-em-gee."

Erich

"NOOO!" One hand still over his eyes, Erich starts fumbling with his sleeping bag. "I can't -- I can't even! You've found my kryptonite! I MUST HIBERNATE TO REGAIN MY MIGHT!" And he zips himself up inside his sleeping bag, like a bug going into a cocoon.

The staunch saviors of Cold Crescent, ladies and gentlemen. The youth of the Nation and the hope of the War.

Melantha

Scurrying, Erich climbs into his sleeping bag, hiding inside its fluffy, flannel-lined interior, saying he has to hibernate, which is not how Superman regains his strength after a run-in with kryptonite, but Melantha thinks Superman is sort of boring anyway so she doesn't argue this lest it suggest she has more interest than she does in superheroes with no real flaws.

She waits. She waits til everything is quiet again. Then she pokes him in his back, through the sleeping bag. Then she leans over him, finding his ear and whispering into it:

"We fucked in that sleeping bag."

Erich

It's not like he's actually sleeping. He's just cocooned up, eyes wide open, grinning, doing his best not to laugh aloud. In fact, when everything goes quiet, Melantha can hear him quiet-laughing, can see the sleeping bag shivering around his body as he tries to hold it in.

She pokes him. He yelp-laughs. She finds his ear and she whispers and his eyes go even wider and he flops his top half out of the bag, pushing up on his hands as he sits up.

"That," he says -- with utmost gravity, mind you, "is why this is my sleeping bag of superpower regeneration."

Melantha

Erich pushes up on his hands, and says That with utmost gravity, and Melantha

leans over and kisses him, firmly, breathing in deeply as she does so.

Erich

Surprise, but no startlement. He doesn't jerk back, he doesn't flinch. He shuts up, is what he does, and his eyes close and his fingers curl where they press against the sleeping bag.

An instant later he is kissing her back, sharing that inhale with her. His hands are planted and his elbows are locked; he doesn't flag at all, a solid wall of warm muscle that she can lean against all she wants. Well; until he sits up a little more, pushes back against the firmness of that kiss. There's a bit of ferocity mixed in with his tenderness when he brings a hand up to her face, his fingers combing into her hair.

Melantha

Any moment, she may withdraw. That indrawn breath may turn to a soft gasp, a sudden rising of her nerves. It can't be discounted, everything she's been through, everything she is still going through. It's not like there is some magical, passionate moment that is going to 'fix' her, that is going to make everything easy forever hence. But maybe that is why Erich is accepting the kiss at first before he returns it, and returning it for a moment before he leans into it, and leaning into it for a moment before he touches her, pushing his hand into that thick, dark, endless hair of hers.

Melantha was not leaning against him all she wanted. She just kissed him, her lips soft and her breath warm, and kept kissing him until he kissed her back, until he sat up and moved closer to her, until he started touching her, rough skin against her face, palm warm on her cheek, scalp tingling under his fingers. Then her hands, formerly braced on the ground or her own knees, move to his sleeping bag, and maybe there's a reason why this placement is as it is, and maybe that reason is that it kinda holds the sleeping bag over him so he doesn't grab it and flip it back and tumble her under him before she knows what's happening, which, frankly, is fair of her to be wary of.

But she kisses him, leaning over him, leaning into him, until she's pressing him to lie down, and lying on top of him, even with the top of his sleeping bag between them. Along with all their clothes.

Erich

They are on the 43rd floor. These are common areas, this is free-for-all land. That means they should really be a little more discreet, they should go downstairs to the dorms or something.

He likes it up here, though. He likes the big windows, the view, the challenge mat with its faint echoes of glory and savagery. He likes his little campout here. He wants to put a minifridge here. It is close to the heart of -- well; this place was never a caern. But it is close to the heart.

So he doesn't think to move. Actually, he doesn't really think of very much at all. Her hands keep the sleeping bag between them, consciously or otherwise, and maybe it's good that she does because he really might have flipped it back and tumbled her under. He doesn't, though, and when she does lean over him, and into him,

that iron strength in him relents after all. He sinks down slowly, not flopping or falling but reclining -- the controlled, measured, thoughtless smoothness of true strength. She is atop him, then, and he is drawing back for a moment to look at her, to take a breath, to lift his face to hers

so he can kiss her again.

Melantha

Melantha doesn't want him to draw back like that. She doesn't want him to be looking at her, she doesn't want to be analyzed, she doesn't want to be read, she doesn't want to be explored, she doesn't want to exist in someone's thoughts, to be anything now but physical. As long as he is kissing her, she is okay. She's afraid of what will happen if they stop. She closes her eyes and follows him, that frission of anxiety going through her like the anticipation of a shudder that never manifests.

Even though the sleeping bag is thick and cozy, it's as well-worn as anything else Erich owns, and has thinned. She can feel him warm through it already. She can feel where his thighs are, and the juncture between them. She just kisses him, though, long and deep and searching, until at some point, she reaches between them, unzipping her hoodie the rest of the way and tugging and shrugging it off, without ever truly breaking her lips from his.

Erich

Erich is not the most astute creature in the world. But he's better now than he was. He's learning. And besides: he knows her. He does know her very well, even if sometime he's not sure of it.

He reads that thread of anxiety. Intuits, thoughtlessly, the reason behind it. She follows him and he meets her, their mouths meet and open, he kisses her with as much patience as he can. Which isn't very much at all, truth be told: there's an ocean of adoration and hunger beneath it.

Her hoodie comes off. That pretty thing with the white feathers on it. He particularly likes the feathers, but he didn't get around to telling her that because then she was duckfacing and he was hiding in that sleeping bag that they

once

made love in. Or fucked. Had sex. However you want to put it: it is what it is in Erich's mind. She is taking her hoodie off and he is shivering beneath her, his big hands rubbing down over her arms to help her with that garment. It goes by the wayside. His hands come back to her torso, hold her by the waist a moment before daring -- venturing -- upward. That first touch, his fingers to her breasts, is so delicate, cat-soft. It's only a moment later that he brings his palms to bear, cups her in his hands, lets go the first quiet sound into her mouth.

Melantha

Not the first time or the last time, but some other time in there, Erich came to Melantha's hotel room and she was wearing lingerie. Like, really hot, really good, really amazing lingerie and it drove him out of his mind a little. And she was okay with it at first. And then later she wasn't, when she was touching herself and he was looking at her and he wasn't saying weird yeah baby do it for me stuff and he wasn't trying to make her feel gross at all but she shrank in on herself a bit, retreating from that displayed feeling, crawling out of her skin a bit from it. They got past that, but the point is: it's not the first time Erich has picked up on Melantha feeling uncomfortable with being... viewed, really. Even in the most innocuous of ways, her reaction is overwhelming.

And he knows this much: she can't help it.

--

Erich wants that hoodie off as much as she does. More, probably, because even though he tries so hard to be patient he can't help how much he wants her, either. He can't help how long it's been, and how every day and week that timeline gets longer. He can't help the fact that he lives with her scent and her closeness and her showering and shaving her legs and changing her clothes and sometimes he can see her silhouette through the curtain over her alcove and he can't help the fact that he doesn't really even have much privacy in the tinyhouse to get himself off. He cannot help how much he adores her, how he loves her and is probably kinda totally in love with her too and he cannot help these things any more than Melantha can help the fact that she isn't sure anymore how to enjoy what she enjoys without feeling stabs of hatred or fear or revulsion out of nowhere, how to love him without wondering who she is, and if she still belongs to herself if someone else is enjoying her, too.

He is all but shaking as he helps her out of that hoodie. No: not 'all but'. He is shivering, his breath coming quicker, his hands going to her waist. Melantha is tensing at his eagerness, wary of it, shying slightly. He feels that, too, and waits a little longer. Waits until she relaxes again. Rubs his hands up her back instead, gentle, like... well. Like she asked him for that time they tried the hotel thing. Like the way that put her to sleep in his arms. Until she breathes softly in exhale. Until she rests against him again. Still: it takes time before he ventures up her sides like that, and all the while they are kissing each other like they can't go on breathing if they stop. Kissing until all they know is one another's taste.

This time it's Melantha who shivers, when his fingers graze her breasts. Melantha who kisses him a little harder, then, as he's covering her breasts with his palms, making that sound into her mouth, one that echoes back to him from her.

She doesn't stop. She doesn't pull back and ask him if he wants to go anywhere. She doesn't get under the covers with him or pull off her tank top or try to get his t-shirt off. She just stays where she is, while he feels her breasts in his hands through her clothes, kissing him a little more hungrily than she was before.

Erich

It wouldn't be fair to say that he's cautious around her now. It's not that. He's not cautious, like she's some sort of crazy wild thing that could blow up if he poked her wrong. He's just ....

he's careful. He tries to be attuned. He tries, very hard, to meet her where she's at; to not push, to not be impatient, to not be selfish, to try to remember that she is his friend, he loves her, he is kinda totally in love with her, and if all of those things are true then she deserves all the patience and adoration and care he can give her. Especially since, as strong and perfect as Melantha looks and feels and smells and seems, she is clutter right now. She is trying to pick herself up and put herself back together, and sometimes,

(okay. maybe a lot of times,)

that means she's a little weird about stuff like this. Sexual stuff. Stuff where she's sharing herself with someone else, when for so long she didn't belong to herself at all.

So anyway: she tenses. And again, like the first time, he relents. He doesn't stop. He doesn't screech to a halt and sit up and demand to know what's wrong, what, what, how can he help, how. He just -- slows a little. Gentles a little. Neither of them stop kissing, but those kisses get a little smaller, a little more tender; little nibbles of their lips together, barely the faintest strokes of tongue. And his hands move away from her waist, rub her back, gentle, gentle.

Eventually he feels her relaxing again. Her body pressing to his again, allowing him to support her. Eventually he is touching her again, stroking his palms up and down her waist, stroking them up her sides,

panting, moaning softly into her mouth as he touches her breasts. She shivers. Her kiss is a little hungrier. He meets her where she's at now, too, lifting his head a little from the sleeping bag; kissing her back just a little harder. Touching her just a little more firmly, a little more boldly, lifting her breasts in his hands, caressing them in his palms.

Melantha

It's hard to say if either of them would notice if anyone walked in right now. If Javed or someone came up the elevator and found them making out on a sleeping bag over against that one wall support, Erich feeling Melantha up and Melantha squirming slightly on top of him while they make out. It could be that any potential someones could come in, do an about-face and go back out, and neither Erich nor Melantha would realize they'd ever entered.

Several minutes have passed since Melantha poked him and whispered in his ear. And in some of those minutes, she's let her mind come back on. She's thought:

I'm not letting him do this because I have to or because I hate him

and she has thought, too:

I'm letting him do this because it's what I want him to do

and she has thought the latter over and over and over, like a mantra, because she knows it's true, even if sometimes she has trouble connecting that knowledge, that truth, with the feelings that are trying not to be swallowed up by fear. As though her emotions, things like love and trust and friendship, were on a life raft in the middle of the ocean and that ocean is made of ack and sometimes, sometimes, it storms.

I'm letting him touch me because it feels nice. I'm letting him touch me because I want him to touch me like this.

She says it over and over in her thoughts, and it might make him sad if he knew that she has to tell herself this, but that's only because Erich's brain isn't necessarily the labyrinth of analysis that Melantha's is. There are no boundaries, at least no admitted ones, between what he knows to be true and what he feels to be true. It might be hard for him to understand at first. But he's no idiot. He'd figure it out. She just doesn't want him to try and figure it out right now.

She wants him

to keep making her feel good.

--

More time has passed. Melantha is panting softly, whisper-soft, when she pauses kissing him just to swallow, just to breathe for a second before she lowers her mouth to his again. Before she reaches for his body, running her hand down his arm, tangling their fingers together gently as she guides his hand to the hem of her tank top, and underneath it. She pauses, just for a second, whispering against his cheek:

"You can undo my bra if you want."

and kissing him again.

Erich

It probably would make Erich feel bad to know Melantha was mantra-ing in her head. He wouldn't immediately get it. He'd think she was forcing herself to go through with it, or talking herself into believing she actually wanted to go through with it, or something like that.

Which isn't what's going on at all. But then: Erich's brainwiring is pretty simple. There are few waystations, few filters, few valves and breakers between the input and the processing. He knows what he feels and he feels what he knows. He wouldn't understand having to tell yourself something you already feel, over and over again, just so your mind doesn't run away from you and overanalyze and topple you right into that ocean of ack.

It'd probably make him sad to know she was floating over an ocean of ack, too. Though in that regard -- whether or not he knows it or admits it -- they are perhaps a little more similar than he believes.

--

He doesn't know any of this, though. She isn't telling him, and that's probably a good thing because he would actually have to full-stop to sit and process it. Which isn't what she wants. What she wants is to keep kissing him like this, and for him to keep touching her like this, and maybe even --

undo my bra if you want.

-- maybe even that. Erich hesitates for just a second. His eyes have been closed for an eternity, but they open now for a second, clear and blue. He looks at her, and then he turns his head and kisses her cheek, kisses her earlobe, kisses her neck and jawline and chin and all the way back to her mouth again.

He finds a small undiscovered treasure-trove of bare skin under her shirt. His fingers spread, his fingertips grip at her body for a moment. Just for a second, and then he reins himself in. His wrist and his forearm stretch her shirt; he fumbles with her bra-clasp for a little while, and then he gets it open. His other hand is still on her breast, mind you: it lets go for a moment to let the bra fall free a bit, and the truth is the straps are still over her shoulders and it's still going to take a bit of work before he can get it off entirely.

So he doesn't get it off entirely. He slips both hands under her shirt, and under her loosened bra. He touches her like that instead, his wrists rucking up her tank-top, his palms roughish on her skin. He finds her breasts again, moans again to feel them like this, bare in his hands, velvet-soft to his stroking fingers; her nipples hardening as he rubs his palms over them in slow, gentle circles.

"Do you want to get in the sleeping bag?" he whispers. It's the first thing he's said -- as though some part of him is afraid that speaking too much will break a spell.

Melantha

It is taking all the energy Melantha has to maintain her own equilibrium and make out with him at the same time. It is work, dammit, to reconnect pieces that were so forcibly detached. You try putting together a million-piece puzzle while explaining to your best-friend-packmate-maybe-boyfriend what each piece means and what it takes to fit them together. Well, don't try; it won't work. So Melantha doesn't even try. She focuses on herself, on what she needs to hear from herself, and

on how Erich's hands and mouth feel.

Which is really nice.

--

Erich looks at her, and she looks at him back this time, breathing the way she is, quickened and heated. Her eyes fall closed and her head tips back as he starts kissing her face and her ear and her neck, all over, and she sighs from the pleasure of it, panting softly. It doesn't even make her tense when he holds onto her the way he does, before reaching up under her tank to find the clasp of her bra. It's just two hook-and-eyes, and he gets it after a second, caressing under the lycra and cotton until he finds her breasts again, shifting it upward and... moaning.

Melantha makes a small sound, too, sort of like a whimper, as he just feels her like that, pleasuring her by touch. That goes on for a little while, Melantha sighing and holding herself over him until he whispers his question.

Truth be told, it's sort of chilly up here. She doesn't feel it too much, but getting inside the sleeping bag doesn't sound like it will suck. Still, she hesitates a second, watching his eyes, feeling his hands on her breasts every time her lungs expand to take in more air. Then --

then she wiggles, using her toes to get her socks off, since her sneakers were cast off some time ago. She climbs in with him quickly, once the decision is made, and she lies on her side while she strips down one strap,

then the other,

then tugs her bra off from under her shirt, shoving it behind that $3.99 Ikea pillow.

Melantha puts her hands on his face when she kisses him this time, drawing him close to her, chest to chest.

Erich

It actually makes Erich pretty stupid-happy when Melantha decides to get under the covers with him. Not because he thinks this might lead to sex or anything gross like that, but just because -- well. It's winter. It's kinda chilly up here, because this is an office building and office buildings are usually kept around 72 degrees or so, and that's if there are actually warm bodies and computers around. So: it's nice that she gets in the sleeping bag with him. It makes him feel like he's helping her keep warm, and now they'll survive the winter, and ...

... all sorts of silly things like that.

He smiles at her, though, when she climbs in with him. He helps her, holding the top half open while she slips in over the bottom. And the truth is with the sleeping bag mostly zipped like this there isn't a lot of room for the two of them. His arm settles around her. She tugs her bra off, stuffs it somewhere. He puts his free hand under her shirt, and so when she puts her hands on his face,

when he closes his eyes,

when they kiss again with their bodies pressed together, his hand ends up trapped between them. That's okay, though. He keeps touching her, holding her breast in his palm, her heart beating against the pulse in the base of his hand.

"I love you," he whispers against her lips, and she can feel him smile. No real reason. Just feels like saying it. Just feels right to say it.

Melantha

"Take off your shirt," Melantha whispers back.

--

It's not the most romantic thing she's ever said, or that has ever been said in response to I love you. And really, they're in a sleeping bag in a floor that has seen as much violence and atrocity as it has seen worship and camaraderie, but there's also the thin sliver of crescent moonlight coming in through tall glass walls, and that sleeping bag is the first place they made love, and it is cool outside and warm inside and they are -- for now -- alone and together.

To be fair, she was thinking about asking him to take his shirt off as soon as she found her body against his, his hand still caressing her breast, and -- let's be honest -- his erection pressing through their jeans as though it is trying to be closer to her whether Erich does anything about it or not. She thinks he's gorgeous, and that he's got an amazing body, and she's thinking about that day he helped move her from a hotel room into an apartment, mostly shirtless and flexing occasionally as he lifted this, shoved that. She's thinking about all those times she's laid in bed in the tinyhouse and seen him coming out of a shower wearing just boxers. All those times he's come down or gotten up into his loft without use of the ladder, and the way the muscles in his back and shoulders and arms shift under his skin to make it happen. She's thinking about getting into the Hay-Adams that one time and not even making it more than a few steps past the door before his jeans were around his ankles and her back was against the wall. She's thinking that he's hot, and that she wants him, and so he says

I love you

and not even half a beat later she's saying

take your shirt off

and she feels a little embarrassed and huffs laughter, ducking her head, her brow to his chin, panting softly still. After a moment she lifts her head again, looking up at him, smiling, her hand moving to the back of his head and into that short-shorn hair of his.

"I know," Melantha whispers, drawing him near again. "I love you, too." Kissing him again.

Erich

Well; yes. More romantic things have been said in response to a declaration like that. Erich's seen movies where entire speeches preceded and/or followed such a declaration. He's read books -- oh, books -- where any number of ridiculous, absurd, questionably romantic occurrences were triggered by an ILY. This, though:

this is not romantic, but it is so very Melantha, it is so very them, and it makes Erich laugh suddenly and joyfully. It muffles when he kisses her; turns into a grin while he hurries to do her bidding. The Throwed Rolls logo stretches and deforms and then goes inside-out as he whips the shirt up over his head. It doesn't quite make it behind the $3.99 pillow, but it does land on top of it, and then he's looking not unlike the way he did on moving day back in D.C., all bare-chested and all beltless jeans and all full-moon muscular, hard-bodied, eager. While she's putting her hands into his hair he's gathering her up in his arms, wrapping her up and pulling her against him and,

let's admit it, he is in fact rather unmistakably turned on. It's been a long time, there've been a whole lot of false starts, he hasn't had all that much privacy to tend to his own needs, so to speak. Somewhere in the back of his mind he's hoping he doesn't go off in his pants, this is a real concern,

but then she tells him: she loves him, too. His grin spreads, then closes on that kiss. They are side by side, their lower bodies sort of a tangle of denim and bedding; his hands, though: his hands are irrepressibly drawn back to her body, under her shirt, up to her breasts again where they cup, caress, gently squeeze.

And then -- slowly, giving her plenty of time to stop him -- his hands trail back down. He catches hold of the hem of her tanktop; starts rolling it up and off.

Melantha

There was no question, no request. She didn't tell him it'd be nice if he took off his shirt or tell him she wanted to see his body. She didn't start feeling him up until he was purring. She didn't put it poetically. She just told him: shirt. off.

It's almost as though she knows that Erich would love, love, love to be naked with her again, and again, and again. Almost as though she can feel how much he would love, love, love to have fewer clothes between them every time she shifts her hips. Almost as though she knows that if she asked, the answer wasn't going to be no. Still. A bit rude, missy.

--

Melantha smiles as she draws back, giving Erich room to pull that shirt off. Even in the dim light from Luna, the city itself gives them plenty to see by. The emergency lights don't work on the 43rd floor, a sacred space where darkness is permitted. The shadows they are wrapped in are deep and velvety, sometimes glinting multicolored from the city's illumination. Those shadows and those hints of light wrap around Erich's body as he stretches his t-shirt up and over his head, coming back to her, wrapping his arms around her again, eagerly, but she breathes in a little, draws back an inch,

slows down. Slows him down. Leans in slowly, kissing him slowly, even though she can feel how hard he is, how he thrums with wanting. She slides her arms around his neck slowly, kissing him with the same beginning flares of sensuality that they started with tonight. So far, no one has walked in on them. She's beginning to think no one will.

Erich slides his hands up her shirt again, feeling her breasts in his palms while they go on kissing. She slides her thigh softly against his groin, panting quietly in his mouth, as he reaches to roll her tank top up. Melantha pauses, glancing towards the elevator doors, then turns back to him and lifts her arms from around his shoulders as he draws her shirt up, past her arms, over her hair, off. She comes back to him yet again, flows against him like warm water, their chests touching once more, their skins bare, their mouths meeting.

There is almost nothing she likes more than this feeling.

--

This time there is not quite as much of a protracted stretch of kissing, settling into this new layer of sensation, though there are several moments where all Melantha can do is make out with him while reveling in the way his chest feels against her breasts. It may shock him, though, how soon it is that she draws back, licking her lips, whispering: "Do you want to start taking off my pants?"

Erich

Erich has long since stopped thinking about the possibility of being discovered. Frankly, since Melantha crawled into the sleeping bag with him, he wouldn't even care if people did walk in on them. They wouldn't see anything of import. They would get the impression that those two were getting intimate, though, and if they had even an iota of courtesy about them, they would also turn right around and walk out again.

So they keep making out in these shadows, with the city glittering outside those sprawling windows. With his worn-thin old sleeping bag sometimes rustling around them. She turns to look at the elevators. He takes the opportunity to kiss her neck, that exquisite flash of tendon that runs from the hollow beneath her ear to the dip between her clavicles. She raises her arms, then, and he rolls that tank top off. He wants to dip his mouth to her breasts, but she comes back to him,

sea to shore,

and as their bodies meld together his eyes darken. He looks intoxicated by the feel of it. I love that, she said to him once, out in the wilderness. While they were rolling around in this very sleeping bag, actually. He wraps his arms around her, amazed all over again at the way she feels: the strength wrapped up in that softness. He hasn't known a lot of girls. The sheer dimorphism of her body, how different her proportions are, how much smaller she is in general, still fascinates him.

She kisses him again. He settles a little onto his back, and she pours over him, and he tries his best not to reach down, to undo his pants, to just start jerking off or something utterly uncouth like that. He doesn't have to, though: she gives him something else to do. Do you want to, she asks, and his lips flash into a quick smile, a huff of a laugh.

"Do I want to," he repeats, wry. And then: finding her jeans, undoing the button. Both hands. He doesn't want to mess it up and throw things off. The zipper, next, pulled down almost achingly slow. When it's open, when her jeans are loosened, he wraps his arm around her waist. Turns entirely onto his back, sliding his hand down into her pants to start working them off: one hip and then the other, and down her thighs.

Melantha

If Erich and Melantha had an iota of courtesy about them, they wouldn't be making out like this, half naked, getting intimate, in a room where a couple dozen people died a few months ago, where there's an Awakened challenge floor trying its best not to fall into Slumber. They wouldn't be writhing in a sleeping bag in the very place where just about anyone could stroll in. To be honest, if we're going to talk about courtesy, everyone would have some explaining to do in that situation.

Melantha ends up sighing, instead of protesting or suggesting they go somewhere else, when Erich starts kissing her neck. Her eyes drift closed, she melts slightly, and truth be told she would love it if he put his mouth on her breasts right now, if he kissed her and licked her and nuzzled her nipples with his lips, but she doesn't realize he's wanting to and she wants to kiss him after she gets her shirt off, so that's what happens instead.

Erich rolls them a little, laying on his back instead of his side, and Melantha offers to let him undress her a little more, and Erich can't believe she's asking such a dumb question when she's really smart. Melantha smirks at him, lifting her hips off of him, then, frankly, just rolling onto her side again because her arms got tired of holding herself up over him before she even got in the sleeping bag, thanks. Her bare back is to the windows, seen only through a V of the mostly-done zipper to the sleeping bag.

That's where she stays, lifting her hip off the ground as he gets her jeans unfastened and starts inching them off her body, until his arms don't reach any further, and she does the rest, pushing them down and off, into the very end of the sleeping bag, leaving her nearly naked now, nearly but not entirely.

Melantha wraps her arms around his body, kissing his neck. His collarbone. His chest. Lays her leg over his calf.

Starts undoing his jeans. Without even asking.

Erich

Briefly, absurdly, Erich is concerned about jeans getting crammed down to the end of the sleeping bag. What if they forget? What if they can't find it later! But: oh, then she's coming back to him again. She's wrapping her arms around him, kissing his neck, kissing down to his chest where his heart is beating so so so fast and he

is making this sound, this stifled low sound of absolute wanting, and meanwhile while she's undoing his jeans he's running his hands all. over. her body, all those slope and curves and smooth expanses that are quite miraculously exposed now.

Her back is to the open part of the zipper. Some overprotective part of Erich wants to zip that closed too, so they're both cocooned up and safe from cold and prying eyes and god-knows-what-else. The slightly more logical part recognizes that they would barely be able to move like that, they're so crammed in here already, and anyway,

anyway,

anyway her hands have gotten the button of his jeans undone and his hands have forgotten what they're doing. "Oh god," he whispers, just because he has to invoke the name of something right now to survive. Her knuckles brush him through the denim as she's taking down his zipper. "Oh god," he says again, a little more overcome, and then: finding her mouth, kissing her firmly, a little fiercely, more than a little needfully.

Melantha

"Shh," Melantha whispers to him, against his chest, sliding her hands around once his jeans are undone to the back, nudging them downward, over his boxers, urging them past his hips. "Shh, Erich, it's o--"

he kisses her, hard and fierce, needful, wanting, and she shudders softly in response, because he's still running his hands all over her body, her back and her waist and her breasts and her arms and her thighs, god, her thighs.

"--kay," she murmurs, finishing, her leg coming to cover his waist as she works his jeans down a little more, feeling the waistband of his boxers against her inner thigh.

Erich

The truth is some part of Erich is afraid, terrified, of ruining this somehow. Not because he might die of thwarted wanting -- okay, well, that is part of the worry too, but only a small part of it -- but because of what it might do to Melantha. That same scared part of him is afraid that with every successive attempt Melantha makes and fails at... at intimacy, at reconciling her own intimacy with her individuality, she might fall a little further into clutter. She might find it that much harder to believe that she isn't a mess, she isn't weird or crazy, she isn't abnormal or strange, and she certainly isn't doomed to be like this forever.

He worries about that. Erich, despite being an Erich and generally being affable and happy to roll with things as they come, actually has a deep well of things he worries about. Things he's afraid of, things that hurt him to think about. Stuff like that.

But:

she tells him, it's okay. She shushes him. And she works his jeans down, and he automatically lifts his hips up to help her; rolls onto his back again so he can pivot his weight to his feet, his shoulderblades. Her leg crosses his midsection, rides that rise and fall of his body as they get his jeans down together, as he, taking a cue from her, kicks it down to the bottom of the sleeping bag.

He settles back onto his back. Rolls toward her again. His boxers are as thin and old and worn as anything else he owns, and they do nothing at all to disguise how hard he is, how hot and ready he is, how much he wants to just... just...

He skims his hands down to her waist. To her hips. He pushes her panties down the way he'd pushed her jeans down before, getting them to her thighs before she has to take over and kick them down to that convenient space at the bottom of the sleeping bag, which is kinda getting crowded now with all the clothing they keep stuffing down there.

His hands follow her thighs, stroke up and down her leg; his mouth is on her neck again, on her collarbones, and this time he follows his urges. His arms are warm and strong around her. He slides her up a few inches, lifting her shoulders out of the sleeping bag, raising her breasts to his mouth. It feels a little like holy communion to him. He kisses her first, once over her breastbone, and then once over each breast. He rolls her very gently, very slowly onto her back, and then,

watching her face to see if this is okay, if this is what she wants, he puts his mouth to her breasts. He licks her, long and slow and soft; can't help the slow shudder down his spine, or the way his hips flex of their own accord to rub his cock against her thighs.

Melantha

There's some truth in that fear. When people are babies, they trip and fall and fail over and over, a dozen and a hundred times, and it doesn't stop them. They don't pause and consider that maybe they're not meant to do things like walk or talk or run or throw or climb. People learn that idea: fall down seven times, stop standing up. You're not meant to stand up. You don't have 'standing up' in you; leave the standing up to the stronger, smarter, better people.

Erich really doesn't want Melantha to start thinking that way about herself. Her sexuality, her body, her intimacy, her identity. Melantha doesn't, either. She doesn't want to feel broken; she's seen many women in her life face that, coming to the Black Furies with awful things behind them. She's seen women born to other tribes who came to Pegasus because their first change overtook them during abuse at the hands of men... men who did not ever survive that first frenzy. She has seen the tribe take in women who witnessed the warform but did not submit to the Delirium, women who otherwise had no connection to the garou. She's seen young girls crying because they think they're damaged. She's watched cubs face their fear that they could not be warriors and shamans and women all at once, because not a single arena of human society allows for women to be anything but women, primarily and solely, with any other pursuit a mere shadow. Melantha knows it is called biological determinism, and has always been disgusted by it because it usually just means

well you have a cunt, that's why you're fucked upmentallyphysicallyemotionally

and always will be.

Melantha has never thought she would feel that way, be that way, because none of the things that happened to those women happened to her. It didn't make her better than them, nothing like that, but she was raised from such an early age by the Furies. She was protected from so much of that. She did not face those abuses, she was saved from those twisted ideals

except....

except.

Except while she was still in puberty, she was immersed in them, learning them, studying them while trying not to internalize them. Learning how to fake it, how to lie, how to pretend. While still in her mid-teens she was sent into that world, into those people who were targeted specifically because of the abuses they were doling out upon women and upon Gaia. She lived in the filth of it, and these days she is starting to finally wonder if maybe, maybe, she was not as inoculated as she thought. If there's a chance that wounds were given, damage done, when she was too young to protect herself and too young to realize she wasn't invulnerable.

If her tribe -- or at least, the sept she was raised in -- sacrificed her to the world and to men a long, long time before she realized they had no more use for her.

--

None of that is on Melantha's mind right now. Only a dim shadow of Erich's fear, which is also her fear, that she's carrying all these bruises and if they aren't careful they're going to poke one and then she'll be too hurt to keep trying to heal. And right now that shadow is very, very dim. She does worry that she's weird or crazy or a mess or abnormal or messed up or maybe doomed, but right now it doesn't quite feel like it. She's down to her panties and in a sleeping bag and making out with Erich for like ever and she's taking off his pants and so far she hasn't freaked out at all.

They get his jeans off, down, shoved to the bottom of the sleeping bag, and Melantha all but wraps him up in her leg, pulling him close and his erection is felt through thin, thin layers of cotton between them. She feels his cock jump at the feel of her and feels his hands on her underwear. There's no hesitance. There's no tension, no slowing down just then because, well, he's not rushing. Her thigh leaves his waist so he can work that last bit of clothing off of her, and she is naked now in his sleeping bag and she smells so good, she feels so soft and strong and warm and welcoming and he feels so... hard.

That's about all she can think. That he's hard. His muscles and his dick and the way he kisses her. Hard and hot. Melantha shivers, but certainly not from a chill.

Melantha breathes, licking her lips, as he's stroking her leg, then her back, lifting her up so he can lower his mouth to her breasts. When he looks up, he sees her head falling back, answer enough before he starts to lick her. She can't stand the way he's just kissing her at first; she moans when he runs his tongue over her, the first unstifled, full-throated sound she's made all night. Her brows are tugged together, her lips parted; it's almost as though it pains her.

"Oh god, Erich," she breathes out, while he's licking her other breast, while he's taking her nipple in his mouth, whatever he's doing. "Erich," and the thought that's in her mind makes her start shaking, trembling in his arms. She can barely get the words out, pleading: "Erich, touch me."

Erich

Maybe it's for the best that neither of them are thinking too much about the past right now -- and they have such pasts. Neither of them escaped their lives unscathed. None of them: not Erich, not Melantha, not Charlotte. They all have their skeletons and their demons, their secret little seeds of doubt that sometimes blossom in poisonous tangles of maybe they're just not good enough. They all have their reasons they can't go home again.

Melantha's, though. Maybe they're particularly painful. Or maybe Erich just loves her so much he hates to think of anything bad happening to her. It was hard, even in D.C. when she was so angry and so fierce and so sure of what she was doing, to think about her giving herself up like that to ensnare evil men. It was hard for him to realign his perceptions, to see the glory in what she did, to think of her as a super secret agent and a vessel of Gaia's vengeance.

It's even harder now to think that after she was done doing everything she did -- giving everything she did -- to further the Cause, her tribe just sort of turned their backs on her. It's hard to think that maybe in a way they used her, the same way all those evil men used those weaker than them.

And the thought that maybe, just maybe, what she was taught and what she was sent to do and what she allowed to be done to her in order to do what she had to do -- maybe all that affected her in some way,

damaged her in some way:

he can't even begin to contemplate it. He hasn't even thought of that yet. Though if he did, or if she told him that she's thought of it -- well, then. He'd understand, painfully and starkly, why she called herself a mess. Why she worries that she's broken.

--

She's not, though. She's not broken. She is whole and miraculous and she tastes like blazing wild purity. And he's just kissing her at first, this is true, but almost as soon as he puts his mouth to her flesh he can't help it: he's licking at her, he's lapping at her breasts and suckling at her nipples like she's nectar, like she's ambrosia, like she's the honey of the gods. Her head is falling back. He's making these low, muffled sounds against her body, and she's saying his name over and over and over and he doesn't even register what she's asking for at first,

he's just holding her, wrapping his arms tight around her as though he might be able to protect her from shaking apart. He's just licking her, tasting her, pausing only to pant against her skin and rub his face against her breasts. She can barely get the words out, and those words can barely filter through his mind, but eventually, eventually he does get it. He gets it and he fumbles, his weight shifts over her and she's asking for him to touch her but what he does instead:

well. The first thing he tries to do is scoot down. But the sleeping bag is finite, there's stuff at the bottom, so he does the next best thing. He moves her up, slides her up out of the bag like aphrodite rising out of the foam or something.

Moonlight and citylight dim on her breasts, gleaming off her abdomen. He kisses his way down her body, not because he's trying to be smooth or anything like that but because he can't bear to let a single inch of her go unadored. He kisses his way past her navel, he kisses her legs open, he sort of gets lost for a while just rubbing his face on the insides of her thighs, and then he remembers what he's here for.

Right at the moment Erich can't remember if he's ever done this before -- for her or for anyone -- but it seems simple, natural, as thoughtless as eating, drinking, breathing. He nuzzles his way back to her: nuzzles shamelessly, hungrily against her cunt, as driven and drawn as an animal. Then his lips, nipping, nibbling at her delicate flesh. His fingers, parting her, spreading her; his mouth on her clit, then; his tongue licking sweetly, gently, inexorably, relentlessly at her, as though the very taste of her intoxicates.

Which it might. The look on his face right now: intensity, rapture. Eyes closed, brow furrowing -- his hands reaching up her body to spread over her abdomen; close over her breast.

Melantha

That is not what she was expecting. That is not what she even meant to ask for. She didn't even remember, realize, that Erich had talked about this before, said he kinda wanted to, if she wanted him to, and maybe he could try, since he apparently wasn't sure of any of the above. All she thought was that right now she really, really needed to feel him closer, to have him touching her.

Melantha gasps when he moves her up. The cool air hits her shoulders and her breasts, and Erich begins kissing her ribs and her belly and her thighs, urging her thighs to part, and her eyes open wide and sudden at the ceiling. She doesn't tense though. She doesn't tell him to stop, or beg him to come back up. She closes her eyes, tipping her head back again, her fingers digging at the sleeping bag when Erich just nuzzles at her thighs, rubbing himself in her scent and her skin, torturously close to her. She bites her lip, brow furrowed, on the verge of telling him that if he's not going to kiss her pussy he needs to at least let her back under the covers, christ.

And then he does. And then he rubs his face on her, kisses her, touches her like she asked, breathes over her, licks at her, and she gives a tiny yelp and he realizes whoops too hard and gentles, slows, feels her relax and shiver as he slides his hand up to feel her breast.

Melantha pants into the darkness.

Melantha reaches down and moves his hand; adjusts his fingers, whispers some correction, pushes her hand into his hair and rubs at his scalp while he goes on tasting her.

Melantha groans quietly when he starts tracing his tongue around her clit and not directly on it; he feels her grinding slightly back against his mouth when he flattens his tongue, softens it, presses it against her and moves it in a circle.

Melantha shivers again, this time definitely from the cold, and starts to shift downward into the sleeping bag again, squirming back into his arms, enveloping herself in his warmth. She doesn't tell him good job, baby or ask him if he liked that or thank him or... anything, really. She kisses him as soon as she can reach his mouth again, her hands on his hips, pushing his boxers out of the way.

Erich

So there's a bit of trial and error there. So he discovers he can't quite go at her quite as hungrily as he wants to. Can't suck right on her clit or she'll yelp; can't lick her so hard or she'll shudder, and not in a good way. She guides him, though. And he's not too proud to take good advice, even if it's nonverbal -- moves his fingers where she shows him, listens to her when she whispers to him. When she starts grinding on his mouth he

sort of

gets this electric drizzling excitement all down his spine, making his hairs stand on end, making his skin feel tight and hyperaware. He groans against her cunt. He shifts his hands under her hips and he starts to lift her up to his mouth, starts to really get into it, but then she shivers, she starts to slide downward, he lifts his head and wipes his mouth haphazardly on his shoulder.

She's kissing him, then. He's smiling and he's kissing her back, he seems sort of proud of himself, he thinks he did all right. She's pushing his boxers down. His smile drops off and his mouth opens and he gasps; the elastic snaps free and his cock sort of just springs out there, ready to go. He laughs at himself, lifts his head, kisses her. There's genuine hunger in it, raw and strangely innocent. The force of that kiss presses her back a little, sinks her into the cushioning sleeping bag, but

it's not a vicious thing. It's not mean or cruel or anything like that. It's just eager, and then he's drawing back just a little and whispering sorry like he knows maybe he's pushing too fast, too far. He shifts over her, and now his chest presses to hers again. One arm slides under her, around her waist. A quick glance down: his free hand rubbing its way down her body. His fingertips slip and slide between her lips. She's so wet, and the feel of her makes him a little lightheaded. He finds her, and then he finds himself, and then he guides his cock to her opening and --

"...okay?" It's a sort of verification, panted, a little ragged. He punctuates it with a quick, soft little kiss. Wants to show her, somehow, that it'll be okay if it's not okay. Even here, even now.

Melantha

She laughs, whisper-soft, at his mouth-wiping. "You don't have to do that," she whispers, just in case that's what he thinks. Just in case he thinks she minds his mouth being wet, his mouth tasting like her. She doesn't. She kisses him fully, openly, and the taste of her own arousal on his tongue only makes her shudder again, reaching down for the last of his clothes, soaking in the warmth from the bedding and his body.

Erich's body. Erich's body, which has been ready for her for so long now she wonders how he has been able to bear it. She feels his precum on her skin where he rubs against her, runs her hands down over his ass and squeezes him, enjoys him in a way she hasn't for --

and later she will realize that today is the 30th, that it has been exactly

-- nine months.

Melantha gets pushed down from Erich's kiss, and she resists. It's different from tensing up with fear, tightening up, suddenly wary. She simply doesn't let him push that hard, shifting her head away, giving him a little half-smile when he says he's sorry, leaning her head toward him to nuzzle their brows together. "It's okay," she whispers back, as he's sliding his arm under her waist, as she's running her hand around his hip to touch him. Erich has his ideas, his eagerness to kiss her and touch her and touch her some more, but Melantha is already wrapping her hand gently around his cock, stroking him once, twice, soft but certain, lifting her lips to meet his again.

Erich does not get the chance to feel how wet she is with his hand again, or to take himself and align with her. Erich doesn't need to ask okay. Erich doesn't have to wonder, or doesn't have the space to wonder. Just like the first time, Melantha touches him, and Melantha kisses him, and Melantha guides him into her. He is pressed against her, so warm and so wet and so tight, pressing into her, and she is groaning into his mouth, but he can feel her just

a little tense, afraid to relax, afraid he'll be overcome, afraid he'll lose his mind and be uncareful and hurt her,

just as he can feel her kissing him anyway, holding him with her hand on his lower back and her hand behind his head, keeping him close and begging him without a single word to please, please help her. Show her he's okay. It's okay. They're okay.

He loves her.

Erich

He doesn't have to do that.

So he stops, looking momentarily sheepish, mouth still sort of mid-smudge against his shoulder. But then she's pulling him back down to her, he's going happily and a little gratefully, she's kissing him without a hint of disgust; with more than a hint of arousal. Her hands run over his skin, and a shiver follows her touch like a wake through water. He gasps a little when she -- frankly put -- grabs his ass. Laughs a little,

kisses her,

gentles when she gentles him. Sorry, and it's okay, and then he wants to touch her and touch her and touch her some more but she touches him first: wraps that slender hand of hers around him. Makes him drop his brow to hers, close his eyes, open his mouth, gasp again, harsher. She caresses him and he follows that motion, pumps his hips almost reflexively, quite mindlessly, for those one, two strokes.

He's quite literally shaking when she guides him to her. He's trembling with anticipation, and he's a little embarrassed by this: by his eagerness and his excitement, by the way he's reacting as though they've never done this before. As though he's never done this before. He tries to hold still. He tries to go slow. They are kissing again, he's moaning softly into her mouth even as she is groaning into his, and

oh, he is not so far gone that he doesn't sense it. That tension; that frisson of fear. There is a plea in her body, in the way she is holding him and kissing him and opening to him, and he is not deaf to it. His hands grip the sleeping bag as hard as he can to ground some of that tension in his own body. Siphon it away somewhere safe. "It's okay," he whispers, a brush of his mouth against hers. "It's okay. I'm with you."

And he kisses her again, slow and soft; a drenching, tender thing. He is entering her, moving into her so slowly, in gentle, gradual ebbs and flows; shivering still now and then, quivering with restraint, kissing her a little more deeply with every slide. Every passing moment.

Melantha

She does trust him.

He must know she trusts him. He has to know, even though she'd understand if it were difficult to tell sometimes. Like when she's wary, or uncertain, or when these things come right in the wake of total certainty, total fearlessness. But she does trust him, or she wouldn't be able to relax so easily in response, when he pushes his own tension and eagerness somewhere other than into her body, when he kisses her and whispers to her that it's okay, it's okay, he's here,

another way of saying that he feels her. He knows she doesn't want him to lose her in his own lust. He's right there. He's paying attention, he's tuned in, he's with her and not simply on her, not simply in her.

Melantha's hands run over his back, up from his hips and down from his neck, wrapping around him. She wants him to hold her, but she doesn't try to get him to let go of that fistful of sleeping bag that is keeping him from losing his grip on reality. He holds her with his other arm. He feels her starting to relax again, open to him, until he begins to move: so slowly, so carefully. She whimpers softly, though not in pain, trembling

but accepting him.

Erich

It breaks his heart a little. The sounds she makes; the way she opens to him. The way she trembles, even as he's trembling. It breaks his heart, but not because he's sad for her or scared for her -- though sometimes he is both of those things. It breaks his heart because his heart swells with tenderness, and adoration, and it is quite too much for him to bear.

Her arms have wrapped around him. Around his shoulders, or around his torso: either way, she pulls him closer yet. His chest is pressed to hers again, and his stomach. They are close enough that they can feel each other moving almost before they move; can feel the genesis of that motion deep in the muscles of their core, echoing out to the skin.

"I love you," he says, the second time tonight, and the millionth time since the first time he said it. It feels important, though. He wants to say it now, wants her to hear it now, even though he thinks she can probably feel it. Can probably intuit it from the way he is loving her, right now: the deep, gentle roll of his body against hers and into hers; the shuddering patience, the breath he shares with her.

And -- eventually, carefully -- loosening his hand, untangling his fingers from the bedding. Wrapping both his arms around her, bringing her up a little from the ground, and closer. Kissing his way along her jaw to her ear; burying his face in that thick, boundless hair of hers, and against the softness of her shoulder. "I love you," he whispers again. The words are like a pulse in his mind, beating into his heart, transducing through his veins into a rhythm between their bodies.

Melantha

Melantha's arms are around his shoulders. So he can use his hands. For whatever he needs, really: to caress her breasts, to hold her by the hip, to grab the sleeping bag or that $3.99 pillow from Ikea so he doesn't grab at her too fiercely. She does like it when he touches her. She likes it when he's pressed to her like this, her breasts against his chest, his body between her legs, and she likes that he's so warm and she loves how slow he's going, how she can feel every motion and every precursor to motion, every shift of every muscle he's using right now.

She nods, whispering to him as he says it: I know and kissing him, lifting her face to his and hiding her moans in his mouth. They don't have a lot of room to move around in that sleeping bag, but she slides her thighs up the outside of his legs, relaxing by degrees, letting him come a little deeper into her, running her hands down his back just to feel him.

Erich lets go of their 'bedding'. He wraps her in his arms, holds her off the hard ground beneath his sort-of-thin sleeping bag, moving his mouth to her neck and her shoulder. Melantha, too, turns her head into him, her gasps falling against his neck just beneath his ear, while he's telling her again that he loves her, the words echoed by his body.

"I love you, too," she murmurs back, the words tattering apart into a groan near the end, her back arching gently within his arms.

Erich

He loves her.

She loves him, too.

In the end, that's what matters. That's all that matters, all that drives their lovemaking, all that should drive it. Not where they are; not whether or not they're in a nice hotel room, or the back of his truck, or deep in the wilderness. Not whether or not they saved up for it, planned for it, had a romantic evening all scheduled and blocked out. All of that: it left them both feeling strange, out of place, a little obligated, even. Unable to connect the way they do,

and the way they always have.

Spontaneously. Thoughtlessly. A seamless transition from laughing together, being friends, being kids together in a way that neither of them, in a way, were ever really able to when they actually were in their teens -- to this: moving together under the covers, holding onto each other, murmuring and moaning into one another's ears;

putting away the very last of childish things together.

--

Her back arches. His arm wraps under her waist. Their gasps fall past shoulders, necks; scatter into cool air. Her hands fan down his back. He moves into her in answer, full of strength held carefully in check; full of a wildness that recognizes hers and complements hers in a way that goes beyond structure and tribe. He kisses her neck. He kisses her mouth. They hide the sounds they make in that kiss -- the soft groans, the caught moans, until all that remains is the shuddering of breath. The sibilant hush of the sleeping bag moving against itself.

Her legs are wrapped high around his sides near the end. His ribs are straining against her thighs as he pulls breath after breath from the air. Her arms are tight around his shoulders, and his are tight around her body; he moves deep and steady in her until he can't anymore, until steadiness gives way to need; until he's pushing into her and gasping against her neck and tautening in her arms, making these low, ragged sounds like he's lost, like he's losing himself in her, like he lost her long ago and just now found her again.

No one comes up the elevator to catch them in the act. No one stumbles in on them and turns and wheels out again. They have their privacy, and their quiet, aching intimacy. They make their love and find their release there in the dim spaces of the 43rd floor,

where so much atrocity happened,

where so much rage and vitality used to live,

where there are now only shadows and emptiness and spirits falling into slumber.

All these things are mere echoes around them. The two of them: they feel real, and vivid, and immediate. In the aftermath Erich is panting for breath, shivering with release and strain. There is sweat on his back, sweat on his temple. He'll need to wash this sleeping bag again, but he doesn't care right now. He rubs his cheek slowly, heavily against Melantha's. He kisses her where he can reach her, anywhere at all, and then he relaxes, goes lax and heavy atop her, eyes closed.

He could stay here forever.

Melantha

Melantha's arms are around his shoulders. So he can use his hands. For whatever he needs, really: to caress her breasts, to hold her by the hip, to grab the sleeping bag or that $3.99 pillow from Ikea so he doesn't grab at her too fiercely. She does like it when he touches her. She likes it when he's pressed to her like this, her breasts against his chest, his body between her legs, and she likes that he's so warm and she loves how slow he's going, how she can feel every motion and every precursor to motion, every shift of every muscle he's using right now.

She nods, whispering to him as he says it: I know and kissing him, lifting her face to his and hiding her moans in his mouth. They don't have a lot of room to move around in that sleeping bag, but she slides her thighs up the outside of his legs, relaxing by degrees, letting him come a little deeper into her, running her hands down his back just to feel him.

Erich lets go of their 'bedding'. He wraps her in his arms, holds her off the hard ground beneath his sort-of-thin sleeping bag, moving his mouth to her neck and her shoulder. Melantha, too, turns her head into him, her gasps falling against his neck just beneath his ear, while he's telling her again that he loves her, the words echoed by his body.

"I love you, too," she murmurs back, the words tattering apart into a groan near the end, her back arching gently within his arms.

Melantha

[FUCK >:[[[[ ]

Erich

[ :[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[[ ]

Melantha

They are alone. The only noises they hear are the city, distant around and outside and below them, the hum of the building's mechanicals, the rustle of the sleeping bag, the way Erich groans, the way Melantha gasps, the way she cries out against his shoulder. As her legs have risen around him the cover of the sleeping bag has fallen away from his skin, slumped to his waist or below. Anyone who might walk up would now get quite the eyeful of the two of them making love.

Ask them if they care. They can't even think right now. Thinking, as far as this is concerned, hasn't gotten them anywhere.

--

Faster, Melantha whispers at one point, whimpers, and it must drive him mad to hear that, he can barely stand how slow they're going, but he's found a rhythm he can tolerate, a way to get lost in it, but then he lifts her closer and quickens that rhythm and she is so warm, and so close, and her sweat makes her slippery and she is so tight. She whimpers again, the sound falling apart as they move together. This is less steady. This is less sustainable.

Her thighs tighten around him. He knows it as the encouragement, the urging, that it is.

--

Melantha's orgasm starts slow and deep in her. It washes through her, wavelike, making her hold him more tightly, moan louder into his shoulder. She is quivering under him then, half-crying his name into his skin, as he comes in her, collapses in her, falls to pieces with her. He is still moving, groaning, and she is still whimpering, grinding her hips with his, until neither of them can stand to move anymore.

Her head falls back against the pillow. Her hairline and breasts and shoulders and thighs are sweating, her legs turning to water as they slide off of him, her arms barely draped around him now. She pants, eyes closed. As he nuzzles her, her head moves with it, lazy and unresisting. The same with his kisses, all his longing kisses, til he goes boneless, unable to go on telling her even in these wordless ways how much he adores her.

Erich

Actually, for a while Erich can't do very much at all. He just kinda sprawls there, panting, heart hammering. And even after his heart stops hammering and his breathing evens out he can't really summon the will to move. It seems so much nicer to just ... lay here.

Just for a while.

Just until...

Impending chill, or possibly Melantha shoving at his chest to get him to stop smooshing her, wakes Erich. It's only been a few minutes. The sweat on his back has dried, though, and the parts of him not covered by sleeping bag or Melantha's arms feel cool. He opens his eyes; he lifts up on his forearms and he rubs his eyes and he rolls aside. Flops onto his side, almost immediately putting his arms around Melantha and pulling her close again. Flipping the edge of the sleeping bag up to cover them both. Pulling the $3.99 Ikea pillow down to cushion their heads.

He wishes they had a campfire. Or a little lantern. Something, so he could see her face. The remarkable stormy-sky color of her eyes. His arm is slung loose and lazy over her waist; he looks at her anyway through the darkness. After a while he smiles.

"I'm glad it was ... like that," he whispers.

Melantha

You cannot have a campfire here. Well you can. The smoke alarms don't work on this floor, just like the emergency lights don't work on this floor, just like a lot of human trappings don't work on this floor unless the garou running it -- meaning no one -- want them to.

Melantha does not shove Erich off of her. She curls up as best she can under him, even if she wiggles her hips a bit til he has withdrawn from her, which is one of the last things he knows before he zonks out on her breasts and shoulder. She snuggles, content for now to just drowse, to come down, to let her breathing return to normal.

Erich, however, gets cold. And he sniffs when he wakes, pushing up on his arms and rubbing his eyes and Melantha is watching him through slitted, sleepy eyes that have gradually become more aware that they are naked in a sleeping bag on the 43rd floor of Cold Crescent where pretty much anyone might walk in. She lets him glomp her up a bit more though, the lights from Denver only barely illuminating her skin and her eyes and her expression.

She smiles softly at what he says, and nods. And whispers: "We really need to get out of here. I bet the water's still on at the dorm floor. You could wash your bag down there, too."

Erich

She's right, of course. But at the moment Erich barely wants to move. He definitely doesn't want to leave. He doesn't want to climb out of this tiny little cave of warmth and closeness and Melantha-ness. He doesn't want to unravel himself from her. He doesn't want to wash, he doesn't wants to do laundry, he doesn't want to act like a responsible discreet adult who doesn't do things like make love to the girl he really really really likes for the first time in nine months out in a public meeting area.

So he makes this low, grumbly, nnngh-y noise. And he closes his eyes and snuggles closer and nuzzles her face and wraps her up and just... sort of... pretends like they don't have to get out of here at all.

"Two more minutes," he whispers.

Melantha

"Um,"

Melantha says, raising her eyebrows at him. She looks at him. Then at the elevator door across the vast empty space. She looks back at him. "We are really lucky no one walked in on that, Erich. I don't think the fact that we've stopped is gonna mean anyone who might walk in now won't be like 'oh hey those two just boned'."

She lowers her head to his, bumping her forehead gently to his, rolling it side to side. Her arms are looped around him, her eyes closing. "Come on," she whispers. "We'll find something to bundle up in while our stuff is washing and we can snuggle down there and make out more."

Her lips brush his, kiss him softly. "We can shower."

Erich

Let's be honest. Telling Erich they need to get out of here, or that someone might walk in on them, or that they're lucky no one walked in on them so far, or that they need to wash out that sleeping bag, ew: none of that really puts a dent in his urge to just curlupcuddlezonkzzz right now.

Melantha figured this out a long time ago: he's an animal. When he feels safe and warm and content and happy, sometimes he just ... goes to sleep, because what else would he do? And right now, right this moment, Erich -- eyes closed, Melantha-who-is-his-favorite-thing-ever all wrapped up in his arms -- looks like he's about to go to sleep.

And then:

she says shower. And we. And there's a beat of stillness. Then his eyes open.

"Okay." He's suddenly very agreeable: sits right up, throwing the top flap of the sleeping bag aside, reaching down to sift through the jumbled clump-of-clothing down at the bottom. He finds her shirt and hands it to her. "Together?"

Melantha

Only after throwing the sleeping bag aside and starting to grab for clothing, telling her jeans and his apart (hers are smaller and newer and darker, so that helps) does Erich clarify whether or not she means they could shower together.

Melantha is propping herself up on her elbows, unafraid as ever and always about her nakedness because suddenly she thinks that if anyone were to walk in and be aghast she might just lecture them on the natural state of any living creature's body, especially under the eyes of Luna, and how dare they shame any of Gaia's living creatures for following perfectly acceptable instincts,

but her nipples harden and Erich's behavior has her smirking at him, bemused.

Basically what we're saying is she looks really hot like that r/n.

He hands her a tank top. It falls in a dark blue puddle on her belly. She's still smirking. "Maybe," she says, and flashes him a grin, pulling the shirt on without bothering to look for her bra.

Erich

Melantha always looks really hot to Erich. She even looks hot when she wakes up and she's late for work and her hair is a mess and she's all rumpled and she hasn't showered in a couple days because their tinyhouse's tank is out of water and they haven't been able to "borrow" more from someone's garden hose. She looks hot when she's slumping around in one of those socialist sweatshirts of theirs that everyone seems to take turns wearing. She looks hot when she's planting stuff in the windowboxes are her hands are dirty and there's a smudge on her cheek where she scratched an itch without thinking.

She. ALWAYS. Looks hot to him. But yes, one must admit: she looks particularly hot right now, leaning back on her elbows, all naked and warmskinned and naked and boobs and smirking and naked. Naked boobs. He smirks back, sort of wolfishly, and her tanktop flops onto her belly and he crawls over her with his weight on his knuckles like he's some sort of gorilla. She flashes her grin. He leans down and kisses her, and we'd be lying if we said he wasn't sort of half-hard again.

"Together," he says, not a question now but a request, pretty-please-and-sugar-on-top. "Totally together."

Melantha

Melantha slides back down to the pillow when he crawls over her like that, lifting her hands to his face, and she's so molten and welcoming and she's kissing him so warmly that for a second it looks like he's just going to get pulled back down and all her talk of people walking in and washing the sleeping bag didn't mean anything, but that doesn't happen.

She flops her arms back after she kisses him, smirking. "Maybe," she says, and finishes putting her tank top on. She digs for her underwear after that, and her jeans, tugging clothes on quickly now, shrugging into her hoodie, glancing occasionally at the elevator bay.

Kissing Erich occasionally, her hair mussed and her skin still so warm, her hands trailing over his body sometimes, just... to feel him.

Erich

Her arms flop back. She smirks again. He leans down, his elbows bending; bends his mouth to her like he's bending down to freshwater. He gives one of those lovely bare breasts a single lazy lick, and then:

Maybe.

For some reason, her insistence on that particular answer makes Erich grin. It's lopsided; it makes him look young and happy and in love. Which sort of does describe him, so. He pushes off his hands, sits up, sits back. She finishes putting her tank top on, and while she gets the rest of her clothes on he just sits there on his heels, kneeling amidst the mess of his sleeping bag + their clothes.

She touches him sometimes. And kisses him sometimes. And he's quite happy to just sit there and be kissed and be touched, even if once in a while he touches her back. His hand on her elbow. His hand at her waist, or curving over the outside of her thigh. When she's more or less dressed, he's still just sitting there, smiling at her.

"I love you," he says yet again. He sounds happy about this, too.

Melantha

Oh, that makes her sigh. She likes that. He might have missed it earlier, rubbing his face on her breasts and suckling at her, but she likes that a lot. She sighs and lifts her breasts into his mouth with the breath, then exhales, smiling at him, opening her eyes again as he draws back.

He isn't getting dressed. He's just naked and kneeling and happy and half-hard and after a while she pauses, hoodie not quite all the way on, pushing her hair back out of her face. She laughs at him, leaning over and hugging him.

For a minute there, Melantha just lays her head down on his shoulder, holding him. She doesn't say anything.

Erich

There's a sort of hard sparsity to his strength. Robust bones, well-defined musculature; nothing in excess. When she hugs him, he feels solid and without give, his arm sliding around her a band of steel. And still: she lays her head on his shoulder so easily, as though he were her own personal pillow. And still: they do fit together so very well.

He doesn't say anything either. He wraps the other arm around her too after a minute. Her hair is everywhere, everything, a tumbling glorious mass scented like night, like darkness, like primordial wildness and legends of antiquity. He closes his eyes and loses himself in the smell and feel of her for a while.

When they draw apart again, he seems ready to move at last. He is still smiling, but quieter now. He tugs his t-shirt on and steps into his jeans and picks up his boxers and socks and oh, his shoes are over there too. They bundle up the sleeping bag and he carries that too, rumpled up under his arm. She helps him grab his phone, sticking it in the front pocket of his jeans because he has no hands to spare.

They ride the elevator down to the living quarters. She leans against his shoulder. He kisses the top of her head. The dormitory floor is as quiet as it has been for the past few weeks, but there's still power. There are still clean linens in the closets. They take up two washers, one for the bag, one for their clothes. They plug the appliances in and empty some inexpensive powder detergent in and their things start churning.

They find a shower. They shower together, but it turns out they don't do anything in there after all. Well; they don't do much more than hold each other, and kiss, which is all Erich really wants to do right now anyway. When they're squeaky-clean and warmed up they climb out and dry off and wrap themselves in multiple layers of clean sheets that nevertheless have a faint smell of disuse about them. There's a TV and there are couches in the common areas, and so they camp out there for a while, watching reruns of Parks and Rec or whatever else might be on.

Until their laundry finishes washing. Until everything's fluffed and dried. Until it's growing not just a little late but quite late, and they're changing back into their real clothes, riding the elevator all the way back down to 1,

climbing into Erich's truck,

turning west into the mountains. There's a certain quiet joy in that, too: they're going back to Evergreen, back to their tinyhouse, back to their beloved Charlotte, back home.

i respect the guts that took!

Erich Storm's Teeth

It is well after business hours, so at least there's that. Still doubtlessly there are people Working Late in Eva's law offices despite that it is 1) Saturday and 2) Saturday night. So perhaps the young savage emerging from the emergency stairwell from somewhere above-stairs still manages to draw a glance or two as he makes his way through the halls, past the partners' offices with their nice oaken doors and nice mahogany furniture, past the cubicle farm where the lessers sit, all the way to the tiny little mecca of the kitchen.

There is a Keurig machine there, and lots of those little K-cup packs tucked up in the cupboard above. Erich has long since discovered the stash. He pops a nice Tully's French Roast in, then raids the fridge for pastries. Maybe they have apple turnovers. Or if not, maybe he can at least make himself a PB&J.

Eva Illeshazy

This time of year there are always pastries. A constant supply of them baked by the staff or brought in by clients or vendors as holiday gifts. Never forget the breadbox full of bagels and the tiny little packets of peanut butter in individual containers, the sort one usually finds on the breakfast buffets in medium-rate hotels, the sort with a waffle machine and a tiny fridge full of tiny yogurt containers and the saddest selection of Red Delicious apples you'll see this side of Wal-Mart.

There is also - somewhere in that fridge - a tuna sandwich named Kevin.

The door to the kitchen opens behind Erich while the Keurig is still warming up. It drifts off to sleep when left unattended over the weekend, so he has an extra minute or two to spend perusing the contents of the fridge before it is time to pop in the Tully's.

"You've made yourself at home." A woman's voice, mildly ironic but without asperity. "I trust you've found everything you require?"

Lola Hawkes

This time of night Lola would typically be back around The Homestead by now, bringing in a final armful of wood for the furnace or trying to teach Hector to speak Spanish while he, in return, tried to teach her how to pluck chords out on a guitar. She'd been in the city visiting her cousin, though, sharing a cup of something warm while she forced information about the Nation and their current events down the reluctant relative's throat. As she was driving back home a thought occurred to her, a snap decision was made, and the rusted 1980-something truck ventured to the heart of the city rather than making its way to the freeway.

Some twenty minutes later, Lola had convinced the front security man (thankfully a Kinfolk) to let her in even though she didn't have a key card to badge her way through the doors. Somehow, she'd also gotten him to help her check the cameras and figure out approximately Erich had been most recently, as the Uktena was hunting for him specifically and was unwilling to go trolling an entire skyscraper looking for him.

The Kinsman assisted by checking cameras with a reluctant frown on his face, but was able to pinpoint a broad-shouldered blond-headed figure cutting across a screen in the last ten minutes and directed Lola which floor to go to. She thanked him gruffly (although there was nothing personal about it) and was on her way.

This is how she ends up making her way through the entrance of the law firm that Eva worked at, looking some mix between cautious and very self assured, but clearly unprepared for how large the office that she'd stepped into was. Desks, workspaces, offices, computers.... It seemed a maze to her. So, slow and with a frown etched into her face, Lola's hands went into the pockets of her open coat and she started to stalk along the perimeter of the office with half the lights turned off that she'd found her way into, not saying a word and hunting with her eyes and ears instead.

Erich Storm's Teeth

Erich yelps.

He not only yelps, he fumbles with the two K-cups he has in hand, because obviously he's decided to brew himself not one but two cups of Eva's firm's coffee. Also he has a little paper plate stacked with two apple turnovers, a lemon bar, and two brownie bites.

So yes. He's made himself at home. And found everything requires. Once the fumbling is under control and the K-cups are picked up off the floor, he turns to Eva.

"You scared the crap out of me! I thought Susan from Billing, who said she was going to call security next time she saw me stealing food. I mean, sharing food."

Erich Storm's Teeth

[I FORGOT ERICH ONLY EATS MEAT. his plate is actually stacked with those hillshire farm sausages and stuff.]

Erich Storm's Teeth

[fuck my life. i meant HICKORY farms.]

Eva Illeshazy

"Susan from Billing has no reason to be here after dark on a Saturday night. I'm sure she has a date with a Lifetime Original Movie and a bowl of popcorn tonight, and has to be up early for mass in the morning."

The kinswoman's attire is decidedly more evening than weekend tonight. She wears a bodyskimming little black dress with a cashmere wrap thrown over her bare arms against the office chill. The deep, blooded red of Mozambique garnets at her ears and her throat. She's barefoot, though.

Must have kicked off her somewhere in her office.

"I will make you a deal, though. If you confine your commissary raids to the opposite of ordinary work hours, I will endeavour to ensure that whatever you require is available, when you require it.

"And, Erich?" The brief, dark grace of her eyes on his profile. The slicing edge of an incipient - something. Call it a smile. "You're a Shadow Lord. I refuse to believe that I frightened you."

Lola Hawkes

Somewhere past a few rows of flimsy temporary walls and desks lined with drab pictures of marriages and children and pets, voices start to leak their way into the hallway. Lola's steps aren't loud, she's wearing simple soft-soled white sneakers instead of heavy boots today. Boots are best for hiking, for traversing the terrain, but on pavement and sidewalks and tiled floors sneakers were just the better option all around.

Eva's expressing that she doesn't believe she frightened Erich when Lola wraps her way around into the open doorway of the kitchenette. She has no business being here, and it would be no doubt startling for either of the Shadow Lords to see the vaugely familiar face there. All the same, Lola stands in the doorway like she has every right to be there, one hand on the door frame and the other resting in the pocket of the simple open black jacket that she was wearing. Under that she had a white T-shirt with a screenprint image of something colorful or another on the front of it, and the shirt was tucked into the high waistband of a navy blue cotton skirt that she wore, which was stitched in a way to flow out from the body without being drastic, and the hem stopped at the middle of her shins.

Jeans weren't cutting it for her these days-- she only had one pair left that would button up in any comfortable way, and even then leaning or bending while wearing them was uncomfortable. Her dense mass of black hair was in a knot at the nape of her neck, and her cheeks and nose were still just a touch reddened from the cool outside.

Her expression was only the tiniest bit surprised-- for some reason she hadn't quite expected to see Eva there. But all the same, she jerks her chin up in greeting to the both of them.

"Evenin'."

Erich Storm's Teeth

"Yeah well," Erich looks a little uncomfortable, "I guess I'm not a very good Shadow Lord. Anyway, you didn't scare me. The apparition of Susan from Billing scared me." He scans her for a beat, and then his brain-mouth filter fails again: "Why are you dressed like that, anyway? Or well. Why are you here, dressed like that?"

Lola appears. If she looks surprised, Erich looks doubly so. Then Erich looks sort of disgruntled.

"Hi," he says, a little stiffly.

Eva Illeshazy

"I'm here because Congressman Wildborn's nephew was arrested for DUI and possession with intent to distribute and I intend to have him out before sunrise."

A quiet huff.

"I'm dressed like this - "

Whatever she was going to say (she is a Shadow Lord, she was going to say nothing) is forestalled, as Lola appears in the dark offices, in the hall outside the kitchen. The floor is virtually empty at this hour, though a few industrious, foolhardy, or masochistic associates are no doubt holed up in their offices. Those with a hope of reaching 2000 billable hours for the year, anyway. The rest have given up.

A brief, winging look from Erich to Lola, and back again. Her finely arched brows rise in an elegant curl of query.

"Good evening. May I help you?"

Lola Hawkes

[[ Sorry about that! Man got home and had to check some stuff. Typing now! ]]

Lola Hawkes

Lola had clearly surprised the pair of them, although for one the expression of surprise is clear and for the other it's more felt, assumed, figured than anything else. Erich's greeting was stiff, naturally, and Eva asked if she needed some sort of help from her. Lola's dark eyes cast from Kinfolk to Garou. She didn't smile to either of them, but greeted the pair of them none the less.

First, to Eva: "No, thanks though. I'm here huntin' for him--" She nodded her head toward Erich when she said this, then continued-- "though I wasn't sure if you ever heard 'bout what happened with that Nina gal or not?

Second, to Erich: "Ya got a minute?"

Erich Storm's Teeth

"I hope his uncle's paying you really well for coming to save his ass instead of enjoying whatever it is you dressed up for."

He glances at Lola again. And, heart-on-sleeve creature that he is, he frowns again. At least he doesn't yell NO and run off somewhere, though. He just gathers up his yummies and his coffee.

"Whatever you wanna say to me, you can say in front of my tribeswoman." Well isn't he just the Thunder loyalist tonight. "Let's go back upstairs, though. C'mon, if we take the stairs it's quicker than walking all the way to the elevators and waiting."

Milton Kegler

"No need to get up!" He says passing security. "I got this!" In this world there are doers, and there are... Not doers! Milton is one of the first, and in this case what he was DOING was walking and he sure as fuck didn't need some security guard telling him how to walk! This was his life and he would live it his way without the man telling him how to live it!

Soon enough he was onto the elevator and headed up, up, up to... Well, see who might be around. Someone's around right? This place wasn't exactly the kinda place you could abandon, not with the great white tentacle living far below them! Nope, this place was an active threat that required a garou presence so... Milton figured he'd find an army in the section set away for the garou. However, there was a hint of surprise on his face when he found the place empty.

"Uhm... Hello?" He calls out softly as he steps off the elevator and begins wandering around. Clearly this was not a Glasswalker operation, shit would have been handled, organized, and there would be teams up here even now planning the next set of steps for the folks in this city. Hmm... Children of Gaia are running the show maybe? It's hard to say, but Milton wasn't gonna give up that easy, there had to be someone around here tonight!

Eva Illeshazy

"His uncle is not paying me overmuch." Erich's tribeswoman replies, her voice low and quite nearly instructive. Cool, assuredly, quite as cool as her glance when Lola allows that she has found her way into the offices of Éva's law firm because she was looking for Erich.

A glance then, at the Ahroun's profile, as he frowns so openly, a plate of smoked sausages and a double-mug of Keurig coffee in hand.

"But he will owe me."

Some things, after all, are more valuable than money.

Family. One's good name.

Favors, assuredly.

"The back stairwell is around the corner."

That instruction is for Lola. Éva's reasons for accompanying the duo are her own, but accompany them she does: out the door of the kitchen, to the back stairs, echoing and industrial. And up and up and up.

Lola Hawkes

Erich explains that anything Lola needs to say to him can be said in front of Eva, and that they should head upstairs. Lola glanced to the plate of smoked and dried meats and the two cups of coffee that Erich was managing to balance and raised one expressive eyebrow just a little, but her attention was pulled away by the older Kinswoman who explained they could use the back stairwell that was that-a-way, around the corner.

Lola shrugged one shoulder and stepped back out of the doorway, and would wait for the pair to pass before bringing up the rear and following to the stairwell.

She doesn't wait to start talking. Apparently she was completely comfortable with having her conversation with Eva around. If there was one thing that Lola was unfamiliar with (up until very recent events, at least), it was a solid sense of shame.

"I was gonna wait 'till the moon was thinner, but I was in town already," she begins explaining, and catches the door from whoever passed before her when they enter into the stairwell and start making their way upstairs. "I owe you an apology, man. I shouldn't have pushed ya like I did."

Erich Storm's Teeth

Well, color Erich surprised. Not so surprised that he drops his coffee and sausage plate down the stairs, but -- surprised enough that, marching up ahead of the kinswomen, he turns and kind of just ... looks surprisedly at Lola.

"Wow." He sounds genuinely impressed. And maybe Eva, who thinks in terms of what people owe her and what those favors could amount to in the future, also thinks Erich is totally wasting a chance to hold this over Lola for some future gain, but -- "That was pretty cool how you just owned that. I respect the guts that took.

"And well. I'm pretty sure I had a part in escalating that too. Like I'm pretty sure I jumped down your throat a couple times. So. I'm sorry I didn't even try to make peace or anything."

Eva Illeshazy

They walk that brief stretch of hall to the stairwell. Éva opens the door, Lola is bringing up the rear. But before the security door snaps closed behind them, the eerie, almost rather angular sound of a phone ringing in a silent office. Just the rush of forced air from the furnace, the hum of the electronics. The whirr of some machinery, somewhere far away.

Still, that ring. Éva snaps her head up, pauses on the rough, concrete stairs, a narrow frown knit between her brows.

"It sounds like the two of you can work this out own your own." Mildly spoken, all told. "If you'll excuse me, I do have to get that. Good night."

Lola Hawkes

Lola had just let go of the door to let it smack closed behind her when Eva declared that she needed to go get the ringing door. Erich was already partway up the first half-flight of stairs. So, the Uktena snatched the door by its handle and held it back open for Eva, and waited until the woman had passed through before letting it close again. She provided Eva with an off-handed kind of: "Goodnight, then," before the heavy security door thwacked back into place in its frame and the pair born under the Full Moon were left to ascend the staircase as a duo instead.

Erich was clearly surprised by what Lola had to say. Perhaps he thought she was seeking round two, or that she was going to try and better define the ground that she was trying to stand on when they'd gotten into their argument a week ago. He says that the's impressed with her and apologizes as well. Lola just looked up at him evenly, but didn't offer any smiles.

Rather, she began that climb up the staircase and nodded her head to urge him to come along as well, though he was probably starting the journey himself already. "Ain't your place to be making peace," she said dismissively. She kept close to the right and let her hand trail along the railing to help along the way up. Lola was a solid creature, built to last and weather the worst of storms, but her body was forever exhausted these days and after three flights she's slowed, is taking her time with her steps, but refuses to pant or break a sweat. She was a proud thing, after all.

She'll be waiting for his guidance as to which floor they're stopping at, and so stays a few steps behind him.

"I don't think we're gonna agree on what we were fighting about, so I ain't even gonna try with that subject again. But... I know what your Kinswoman was gonna say before I... 'eh... left. Wanna set that straight, at least. That I don't hide behind bein' a Kinfolk, and that wasn't what I was tryin' ta say." That thread of pride gleams bright, and there's a disgruntled edge to her words. "But I figure that's a conversation for her and not you."

It seems Lola had a number of full and pseudo apologies to make following her actions last weekend.

Milton Kegler

Milton was seated in the hallway at this point, with a smile on his face as he wandered around the building's internal security system curiously on his iPad. How the iPad was interfacing with the local security system would be anyone's guess, but Milton seemed to be having a blast peeking around and seeing what this building had in the way of defenses. It was surprisingly easy for the new moon to lose all interest in what he was doing and find himself sucked into something else.

Erich Storm's Teeth

"Night, Eva," Erich calls after the departing kinswoman who is, he supposes, sort of his ward. Or something. Weird thinking about her like that. Weird and somewhat ill-fitting, especially since Erich is fairly sure Eva has more money, connections, resources and wiles than he ever will. So it's not like she exactly needs to be looked after. "You should come visit upstairs sometime. I mean, you were half the reason our showdown with the Beloved Horror was even the semi-success it was. So. Yeah."

Then she's gone, and it's just him and Lola. And they're trudging up the stairs, and after three flights Erich is obliged to stop because Lola was clearly winded. "Just four more," he assures her, which might not be all that assuring because four more ffs.

"Melantha's not my kinswoman," he adds, almost reflexively. "She's my packmate, but she doesn't belong to anyone but herself. Anyway, yeah. I didn't think you were hiding behind being a kinfolk. At all. I mean I sort of thought you maybe ... should a little more almost? 'Cause dude, challenging full-moons to throw down on a full moon is gonna get you beat up or killed someday. 'Cause some of us have totems that tell us we can't refuse a challenge, you know? Plus, tempers."

He starts climbing again. Four stories. Five. Six. He pauses again:

"Anyway what I'm saying is: I know you weren't hiding behind that. But yeah, that's probably something you and her should talk out. You guys might actually have some common ground. A lot of differences too though.

"C'mon," he says. "One more flight."

Up at the top, an unremarkable steel door opening into the hallway of the ex-Sept. Erich has been camping out there for a while now, and while he doesn't sleep here often, and doesn't even come here every single day, he's here often enough that his scent lingers in the air. Some of his stuff can be found lying around -- a cellphone here, a bag of chips there -- particularly near what used to be the challenge circle.

They don't get that far, though, before they run into Milton. Who is a stranger to Erich. Which instantly prompts the young Ahroun to call, "Hey! Who are you?"

Eva Illeshazy

If Éva understood that Erich thought of her as, sort of, his ward, the look she flashes him before the security door swings shut would be considerably cooler and rather more guarded. Instead, there's a quiet beat of her steady regard, the mild twist of the beginning of an ironic little something that reacts not-at-all to the compliment, so much as the invitation.

"I will."

Is all she says, then. There are no other farewells.

Lola Hawkes

"I think ya knew what I meant, given ya knew who I was talkin' about," Lola countered when Erich corrected her to say that Melantha was not his Kinswoman. She sounds a little aggrevated, but Erich's probably able to pick up by now that this is Lola's default. She huffs and pulls on the railing to get herself around the corner.

She was about to ask more about the Black Fury Kinfolk that he'd somehow decided to fold into his pack with a Silver Fang, of all tribes for a Shadow Lord to be gelling with, but the length of her pause gave Erich the floor again and he explained that he was pretty well aware that she wasn't making an effort to hide behind anything. After all, if she was going to use being a Kinfolk as a shield, she probably wouldn't have tried so hard to put her face directly into his in the first place. She would have accepted it when Hector tried to steer her away and when Javed tried to be a buffer and told her to leave.

"I'm comin'," she said somewhat impatiently as he encouraged her to keep going up that last flight of stairs. She had an expression of minor strain on her face, and took a second to pause at the top of the stairs. Her hand had moved toward her lower stomach, brushed against it briefly before she quickly, self-consciously tugged her skirt out and made like she was just wiping sweat from her fingertips onto the fabric before straightening up and following the Shadow Lord through the door.

"I've been fighting with Wolves my whole life, so I suppose I didn't think much of it. I've been bitten a couple times before." She may have had more to say, but Erich's asking about an identity and Lola peers at the body sitting on the floor against the hallway wall. There's a glint of light against thick glasses, and Lola blinks once before greeting simply: "Hey Milton."

Milton Kegler

He hears someone speaking and he holds up his hand. "Sh, sh. One sec..." He says to the man while he fiddles around on his iPad for a second or two, before pausing and lowering the screen. "There we go!" He says, before grinning in Lola's direction and tilting his head back a bit. "S'up?" He asks the kin, in his best attempt to look cool while slowly rising to his feet.

"I was just lookin' around the building, you'd be surprised how defensible this place is when you put your mind to it. You folks actually got attacked in here?" He asks, looking between them.

"Oh right! Pokes-the-Mind's-Eye! We, uhm, worked together a little when you all led the battle in the basement a while back. I was also the fool at the moot a little while back..." He adds that last part with a little smile figuring the Ahroun would recall him sooner or later. Ahrouns were like Boxers, touch as nails, and sometimes pretty cool, but expecting them to remember things, or know much about stuff was going a little far, and Milton had no problem helping to jog the Ahroun's memory.

"What're you two doin' here so late?"

Erich Storm's Teeth

"Yeah well, I've been stung by a bee before," Erich replies. "Doesn't mean it's really a great idea for me to go around bashing beehives to get stung again, y'know?"

Erich's having memory issues lately. First he forgets Lola was at some warmoot that he sort-of-called; now he forgets Milton was involved with the basement bonanza. "Oh, right." This isn't any more convincing than what he claimed to remember Lola, either. "I remember you now.

"I'm just trying to maintain a presence here," he says. "Javed, Avery, me and a couple others don't think we should close down this Sept entirely. I think Lola was just here to talk to me. What about you?"

Lola Hawkes

Milton had shushed them at first, finishing something that he was doing with the tablet in her lap. Lola was in no hurry to rush him to conclude what he was up to-- there was no urgency about the woman save for a vague and constant itch to get herself back home, back out to the land that she lived on and planned to die protecting one day as well. The fact that she was up more than thirty stories high made her uncomfortable too, but she made herself stand with a straight back and shoulders to prevent that from betraying her too severely.

When the bespectacled young man was up and greeting people, he'd asked Lola, simply, 'Sup?. Lola slipped her hands back into the pockets of the unbuttoned jacket she was wearing and answered back with a rolling shrug of one shoulder. "Just needed a word with Erich here, but that's pretty much done."

She'd heard that Hector had kicked the shit out of Milton a little while ago, shortly after having to retrieve her from a hospital bed due to the fact that no healing talens were present on the mission she'd accompanied the Ragabash on. There's a mild crease between her eyebrows that reflects the thought when she looks upon the younger man, but she doesn't speak to it. Clearly he survived the ordeal, after all, with no lasting damage.

Her attention next shifted to her right, up past her shoulder to where Erich stood.

"If I'm gonna make it home before sleep takes me I need to be going. Figure I'll excuse myself if that's the case."

Erich Storm's Teeth

[just gonna toss my snippet out for Lola so kenna can hit the sack!]

"Thanks for coming by," Erich says. He means it. "Listen: I know you don't think this Sept is worth keeping around. But if you change your mind, or even if you don't, your helping hand's always gonna be welcome here. All right?"

Milton Kegler

If Milton holds any ill will towards Hector it doesn't show. To be honest, a Ragabash who doesn't expect to get the shit kicked out of him for absolutely no reason, really isn't gettin' into their role as much as they should be! Hurt bodies, and feelings, heal, and Milton was one hell of a lot stronger than he appeared on the outside!

"Honestly, I figured this place'd be locked down and crawling with true-borns planning our next step. I mean, I understand giving things a little time after a great battle and all, but I can't sit around on my ass any longer! We've got people out there who are probably pissed as hell at us, and I, for one, don't wanna wait until they start choking us to death in dark alleys one by one after catchin' us with our pants down." He shrugs his shoulders.

"That's really neither here nor there at this point though, is it? I mean, the war party I expected to find turns out to be little more than a skeleton crew. So I guess I've gotta rethink that, though... I suspect I could do somethin' for security around here to make things a little easier on the folks who are hangin' out atound here." He says back to Erich, he was ready to go, he didn't require much prompting to immediately tear into whatever happened to be on his mind at any given moment, such was who he was.

Lola, however, wants to excuse herself, and he gives a little nod. "If you gotta go, don't let me stop you!" He says with a little smile towards the kin.

Erich Storm's Teeth

Erich snorts. "You, me, and like about half a dozen others are the only ones who think like that. The Great Elder thinks we should just shut this place down, and in fact he ordered everyone else out of here. That's why the security's all quiet, the spirits are all Slumbering or gone, and the place is deserted. Those of us still hanging around here are almost doing it in defiance of the Great Elder. I mean, no one's come and told us to stop, but ... yeah.

"So if you're worried about pissing the Great Elder off -- and I'm not gonna look down at you at all if you are -- you probably should avoid the place too. But if you think maybe keeping a guard on a portal to god-knows-what, especially when half of a REALLY powerful Dancer pack is still romping around out there hoping to get in and open that portal wide, then I'm gonna tell you what I told Lola just now. Your helping hand's always gonna be welcome here.

"Especially if you think you can shore up the security here again. 'Cause right now, we don't have shit. We just have some of us volunteering to take turns watching over stuff."

Lola Hawkes

Well, at least he acknowledged that Lola feels like the Spire Sept really should just be evacuated until whatever it was in the basement could be completely sealed off forever. All the same, he was inviting her to come and lend her hand to the efforts here in this impossibly tall and unsettling building. One corner of the Kinswoman's mouth pressed and pulled, almost into half a smile, but that faded quickly enough. Instead, she just nodded and looked over to Milton.

For the Ragabash, she reached out and slapped a hand against his shoulder a couple of times. She could stand there and talk battle tactics and start making plans to go after what remained of Beloved Horror, but now was not the time. She'd see him again, she was sure.

For Erich, he got a nod of the head and a mirroring thwack on a shoulder that was considerably beefier than Milton's.

"No promises on guarding this perimeter unless that sinkhole in the basement starts coughing up monsters again. But I'll see you around."

And with that said, the Kinfolk found an elevator this time to take herself back to earth.

Milton Kegler

He gives a little laugh and a smile. "Well you all go against the Grand Elder's wishes and you're probably gonna want a New Moon around to take the blame in the first place. I mean, with us it's kinda expected... Besides, it's my job to take action when I feel my elders aren't making good decisions... I mean we just watched a bunch of them getting punished for their poor decision making skills, but abandoning this place would be just as poor a decision. Whatever the hell is down there... We can't let the Wyrm have it, right?" He asks before looking around.

"These places have lots of choke points. Stairs, Elevators, even the Ventilation system needs to be pretty big to get the air up here. So knowing when people are coming up and down any of those places, especially as they get closer, would be a good start. I mean, it doesn't matter if you bring twenty Full Moons in to attack this place if they can't send more than one at a time at us, right? So I could probably get some equipment set up to let people know when shit's coming up and down, so they can keep an eye on things. Shouldn't need too many people to defend this whole place if you can keep any battles limited to choke points. So I suppose I can get us started there." He says as he looks up and down the hall. "I'm gonna need to do a little more planning, but that's at least a good place to start!"

Erich Storm's Teeth

Erich cracks a grin of his own, a little lopsided. "Well I wouldn't let you take the fall for me," he says, "but I agree with everything you just said. We can't let the Wyrm have this place. And if we can make choke points and put up some security cams or something, that'd be a start.

"I should probably talk to the Theurges too, see what they can do about coaxing some of the old guardian spirits back. And I bet Eva downstairs can help us with the legal and financial aspects of keeping this place open. Hmm. Do you think we should have another warmoot?" Erich looks a little wary at the idea. Maybe -- if Milton was at the last one -- he can understand why.

Milton Kegler

He nods along with Erich and then his lips turn into a smile when he hears a War Moot mentioned. "Fuck man, I saw that shit... He took a sword through the chest and didn't even blink. He smashed the skull of one of our own in war form with a fuckin' backhand. I'm not sayin' I don't think you could take him in a fair fight, but... I am sayin' he's not gonna give us an opportunity for a fair fight when he comes back, and he will be back. We can't give him the chance to start snatching us one by one in dark alleys, or let him father more recruits for another assault on this place. We won the last battle, and sent his ass limping home... He's wounded, and we're wolves... We should be takin' this battle to his doorstep, we should be chasing him down. We can't allow him the chance to turn us into the prey again. So, yeah, I think we need a war moot, cause... This isn't even close to over yet. It's not over until their Champion is in the ground." He says with a nod of his head. "We took some pretty heavy hits to our morale lately, it's time we gave them one they won't be recovering from anytime soon."

Milton was young, he didn't look particularly tough, but he was smart enough to know that their enemy would be back, and he was smart enough to know that they weren't going to do well if they just kept letting their enemy hit them over and over again.

Erich Storm's Teeth

"All right," Erich says, nodding. "We'll do it, then. Gimme your cell number. I'll start putting out word again like before, and at some point we'll have ourselves a get-together.

"Maybe right here. Maybe if we start using this place like a Sept, people will start remembering why they should protect it like one."

Milton Kegler

He pulls out his phone and holds it out for the Ahroun to read it. "I think here works just fine. I mean it's what we're fightin' over... Doesn't matter if there isn't a Caern here, if the Wyrm wants what is in our Basement, then we don't want it to have it... Just like we don't want it to take one of our caerns. Besides, my Tribe has always done a little better in town anyway!"

Erich Storm's Teeth

Erich has a phone too. It's a nondescript Android smartphone, one of those with a modest-sized screen and similarly modest hardware that you can get as a pay-as-you-go plan. It looks small in his hand, but he uses it with surprising adeptness, quickly entering Milton's digits into the address book.

"Cool," he says. "I'll text you when we start getting this together. It was nice talking to you, man. Again."

Milton Kegler

He nods his head. "Cool, I'll see you there, and I'll see what I can't do about gettin' somethin' set up for us to monitor what's goin' on both up here and all the way down in the basement. See ya 'round man." He says before offering a little wave and heading down one of the halls to explore the floor a little more.