Evening that he found her in the cafe reading cards, they went back to her place. Had heated, loving sex that somehow seemed to leave her strange and sad. She curled against his side and hid in the hollow between his arm and his rib-bones while they dozed together. Rain fell, of the type that has permeated the late spring of the city: heavy, cold, flooding, hinting at hail. A storm and a full moon lingered outside while they napped, their bodies tangled and her bedsheets tangled and, perhaps, their half-dreamed thoughts tangled.
Brief showers. The rain was petering out by then and falling softer, having ushered in the sunset and moved on now that it was dark outside. Naomi never came home, because, as Devon ended up explaining it, she was out of town. They ate leftovers from the fridge: pizza, Thai food, a half-eaten slice of apple pie from some deli. Devon quiet, Devon staying close to him physically but seeming not quite as close in any other way.
Fell asleep in her room on the futon where they'd been watching some movie on the television in there. She didn't want to fuck again, but maybe he didn't even think of it.
He only sleeps for a while. Lives mostly nocturnal. Woke later, despite being well fed, despite being well fucked, despite being curled in bed next to her, sleeping and heavy and warm. Something foul lingered in his nostrils, called at his senses. Some whisper of his spirit. Some itch turning gradually into something like a migraine. Rage pricking at the insides of his eyeballs, piercing his vision with flecks of red. A sudden urge to tear everything around him to fucking pieces, furniture and walls and all. A sudden urge to fill the room, and the city, and the night, and the world with growls. Roaring, howling.
Left her then. Had to.
Tore some things to fucking pieces.
--
It is satisfying, to come inside of the girl he loves. To wrap her up in his arms after and hold her, eat with her, sleep beside her.
It is satisfying, in some ways even more so, to hear and feel and even smell the separation of flesh as one piece of a thing is torn from the rest of it. The blinking out of an existence, the silence after a last rasping breath. The tightness in his shoulders, in his arms, across his chest, as bones splinter and snap in his claws.
--
Moon wanes after that. Girl lives her life. He lives his. She doesn't live in his den with him. He sees her perhaps, visits the place where she works or sees her in his hunting grounds, buying oils, buying candles, buying what-have-you.
Comes back to his house, one of those early mornings when he's been out all night and his shirt is stuck to him with... something best left uninvestigated. Been a long night. Things had to be disposed of: buried, burnt. No massive lake handy to dump bodies into, after all. Comes home and the sky is pink and orange and still tinted with violet. The sun is still drowsy, slow to crest, but the light is glory itself.
House is dim. And girl he loves is curled up in his chair, the recliner reclined fully. She's hugging a liter bottle of water, only about half full. Cap is off, so luckily she hasn't rolled over and sloshed it everywhere. Dark, heavy eye makeup, smeared as it sometimes is. A hint of shine and sparkle on her lips where there used to be lip gloss. Hair tousled but was once straightened, is so very thick and so very dark. Freckles somehow seem more striking and more real in this dim half-light of his house than they do normally.
She's dressed in this blue shirt with the sleeves gone and the back chopped up into strings, looks like a spiderweb. Can see her bare back underneath it, can see that she managed to reach back up there and unsnap her own bra but she apparently never took it all the way off. Strap falls down her upper arm. It's tied up or cut off or something, exposes her belly. Tiny gemstone dangles from her navel, though he knows it's not pierced. Wait: just stuck on there. Okay. Has some short black skirt on, fluttery and soft.
Apparently managed to take off her shoes and socks before she crashed out: they are mismatched and they are very long and they are horizontally striped. The socks are. The shoes are just high-top Converse, kicked aside by the door just like the socks were peeled down and dropped on the floor by the recliner. Her mouth is open. Her head is resting on her wrist. She smells like alcohol and sugar and the sweat of dozens of people and smells like the dirt and smells like night air.
Also on the coffee table there is a half-eaten giant soft pretzel and a little plastic cup of spicy mustard. Because of course there is.
RafaelLeft to himself he keeps the strangest hours. Lives like an animal does: sleeps when he wants to and wakes when he does. Active in the crepescular hours, dawn and dusk. Hunts in the night. Hunts in the early morn.
Comes back when the sun is cresting over the land, bone-tired and worn and crackling, charged with violence. The rush of dismemberment and death.
Anyone else in his house and he would know immediately. He'd smell them. Girl, he has to rely on other things: sounds, sights. Doesn't even notice at first. Comes in through the garage and doesn't see the shoes by the door. Girl's sleeping and he doesn't hear her breathe. He goes to the kitchen, pulls open the fridge, gets out a bottle of milk. Bottle. Glass. His dam kept certain standards of living, and his servants, given no other direction, have upheld them.
Drinking milk from the bottle, then. Leaning against the counter, which abuts the breakfast bar. Is staring vaguely over the living room when suddenly he realizes
girl's there.
Heart pounds with sudden startlement. Then something more like excitement. Wolf sets the bottle down and comes into the living room. Girl's such a fucking Fianna sometimes: just look at her. Freckles and smeared, smoky eyes. Hair dark as night, infused with the questionable fragrance of beer and probably-cheap whiskey and god knows what else. Smoke. Dirt. Wolf picks up the half-eaten giant pretzel, rips off a chunk indiscriminately. Dips it, eats it as he lowers himself to the recliner. Sits on the edge, feet braced wide, elbows on his knees. Unbalances it with his weight, tips her up a bit.
Maybe she wakes. Maybe she doesn't. If she doesn't he eats her damn pretzel. If she does ... he looks at her and eats her damn pretzel.
DevonDevon smells like all the things around her, but never like herself. Her self is something else entirely, elusive and ephemeral, sensed only in the briefest ways when her magic works. He has to know it for what it is now: it's not the summoning of spirits, nor their gifts. It's not even low magic, the sort that real wizards would sneer at. It has its own DNA, seemingly inherent to Devon herself, living in her blood and soul more than her mind. And sometimes, when it works, when he feels it working, he can almost catch something that might be her true scent.
Almost. Never quite.
So most of the time, she reflects: after he's loved her or slept beside her, she smells like him. When she's been out partying, she smells like clubs and throngs and music and liquor and smoke. When she washes, she reflects the water. When she works, she reflects the earth. As though the entire world cannot stand her scentlessness, the entire world tries to attach itself to her, stick to her, re-absorb her. Make her stay.
It is easy enough for her to wash it all off.
--
Devon has no scent of herself, but Rafael does. Smells like the hunt and the disposal of the hunt. Has stuff on him, on his clothes or hands or body or even in his hair perhaps. No matter: he thumps in and chugs milk from a glass bottle. Heart jumps when he looks into his living room and sees her draped loosely over his recliner like she is. He starts to eat her pretzel, which is no longer warm but still soft and chewy. He sits on the edge of the recliner and tips her up, and the water in her open liter bottle sloshes a bit but doesn't -- quite -- make it out the opening.
Her breathing deepens for a moment: a longer inhale, a sighed exhale. But she sleeps the sleep of children and -- rightly so -- drunks. It is heavy and still where she is, and she stays there, content with some random motion around her, random sounds, all of them meaningless to her. Wherever she is.
RafaelIs there anything so perfect a post-binge snack as a giant pretzel? Wolf can't think of much. Perfect for post-alcohol binge. Perfect for post-violence binge too. He eats it undisturbed, as girl doesn't wake: tears it and dips it and chews it. When it's all gone he reaches over and -- shameless creature -- lifts the liter bottle out of her hand and takes a good swig.
Pours some out on his hands. Washes blood off like that, messily, splattering on his hardwood floors.
Then he gets up. Recliner tips back again. Rocks. He sets the bottle aside. Dries his palms on the seat of his pants; reaches down and slides his arms under girl. Unceremoniously, unromantically, and yet with the greatest care he lifts her; curves her into his arms and against his body. So much skin in contact with skin: her bare thighs under the little skirt, above those ridiculous socks. Her bare back beneath the crisscrossings of that deliberately slashed shirt. The things she wears.
Morning light catches them on the stairs. Scans down his face and hers, down their torsos, follows her dangling arm to the tips of her fingers and drips off. Upstairs they're out of the reach of the sun again. He takes her into his room.
DevonLifting the bottle doesn't get much reaction. Her arm curls a different way to fill the space beside her chest and she goes on sleeping, her breath steady and deep, each exhale a relief. He washes his hands on top of the floor, disgusting thing that he is.
The recliner rocks again, slightly, as he gets up. Devon is stirring, but not waking. She's limp, like even peripheral awareness of what's going on around her only exhausts her more. Which isn't the case: she's just drunk. Very very drunk. Which, as he knows from personal experience, takes a profoundly large volume of alcohol.
It's his arms coming down under and around her that finally wakes her. She drowses her eyes open, little slits of white and hints of black and gleaming, brilliant blue that only seems to sparkle more in her intoxication. She peers at him as he lifts her, and a lazy smile curls across her lips.
"What'er you doing here?" she murmurs, trying to lift her hand to touch his face but giving up, hand falling again against his chest. Her other arm is hanging limply down, but has forgotten about it. Her eyes close again, and she breathes sleepily. "Did I text you?"
RafaelWolf wasn't really expecting conversation. Figured she was passed out. Looks down at her when her hand flops against his breastbone. Smirks.
"Where do you think you are? I live here."
DevonDevon looks confused, yet also disgruntled. "Not my place?"
By which she means: We're not at my place?, which is not even her place but her friend Naomi's place. Devon does not have a place of her own, nor has she ever. Family, friends, hostels, and the kindness of strangers. But for right now, Naomi's place is her place. And that is where she thinks she is.
And she is both confused, and disgruntled, as she tries to wrap her head around the fact that she is not. And that Rafael is here. Her finger twitches against his chest. She closes her eyes, exhaling through her nose and telling him, as heavily and as regretfully as if she were informing him of terrible test results:
"'M... sodrunk." 'Sodrunk' is one word, with emphasis placed firmly on the penultimate syllable. In fact, for a moment, it almost sounds as though she's about to announce that she is soda.
That hand on his chest curls inward, knuckles to his skin. She stays curled up in his arms, keeping her eyes closed. Is quiet a bit while he carries her, her head swimming.
"You smell so gross," she sighs, muttering it.
Rafael"Nope. No shit. Don't smell so hot yourself."
He answers her in tandem, one monosyllabic sentence per topic. They're at the top of the stairs now. They're at his bedroom door. They're in his bedroom, which is dark, curtains drawn and blinds closed.
"Gonna wash," he adds. "Putting you to bed. Don't puke."
DevonDevon tries to scowl at him. It is... weak. Especially since her eyes are closed and the lower half of her face tries to pout instead of scowling. He's walking steadily now, no up-the-stairs motion that makes her dizzy. They enter a dark room, safe from the prying attentions of the dawning sun.
He tells her he's going to wash and he's putting her to bed. Tells her not to puke and the entirety of her face joins the pouting. She wrinkles her brow and makes a low noise, a little whine of protest. "Be nice," she says, because don't be mean seems suddenly very difficult to make her mouth form. Words are hard. "M'drunk," she reminds him, as reasoning for why he has to be nice to her.
Her eyes flicker open and she tries to look around, but it's dark and looking around is uncomfortable. "My water --"
Rafael"Yeah, and whose fault is that?" says wolf, merciful and compassionate creature that he is.
She touches down on the bed. Ass first, then heels, legs; last shoulders and head, sinking into those decadent pillows. His rough hand smooths her hair into some semblance of order. He straightens.
"Be back," he says. His footsteps recede; thud down the stairs. Girl's probably too far away to hear the fridge open.
Cool wet side of a plastic bottle touches her forearm. Wolf's handing her a fresh bottle. "Don't puke," he cautions again. "Gonna go shower now."
DevonDevon is a rag doll when he sets her down. He's being such a dick that her face contorts in that scowl-pout again. He's laying her down gently though, and her limbs ease effortlessly onto the bed. Her eyes finally reopen. She's looking up at him when he touches her hair, and there is something
knowing
in those gleaming, liquid eyes. Drunk as she is, they don't swim terribly; she just looks at him, straight and at least somewhat clear, and there is something in them that does not name itself right away. She wants to catch his hand against her face and hold it there, hold him there, and sleep again, but her wrists are like... super heavy right now. She wonders if he knows that, and understands that it is really not her fault that her wrists are momentarily made of lead, and if they were not, that she would touch him softly and tell him she loves him, tell him that she really, really adores him, and he would believe it, and...stuff.
Her eyes close again, tiredly. Doesn't really hear him when he says he'll be back. She just feels that soft bed enveloping her, the sheets clean and cool and perfect.
Devon does notice when he comes back. Her arm jerks slightly, barely, when he lays the bottle against it. Brow wrinkles in an upset frown for a moment, then eases. She has to try a couple of times to get the bottle, and breathes in, and is about to tell him with all her vino veritas gravitas: thank you but he's telling her not to puke again and she just scowls at him, taking the bottle.
"I...
"am a Fianna," she informs him, as firmly as any drunken girl has ever informed some bro of anything. "I don't puke when I'm drunk."
There was that one time. He could bring it up. He could tell her she did.
But they both remember that, and they both know it wasn't the liquor that turned her stomach.
Devon, instead of drinking the water, curls it up in her arms and hugs it for now. She will drink it when she, you know, has arms. That work. Again. For now it is quite nice to hold the cold wet bottle and drowse on Rafael's bed. She doesn't even mind that her bra is still on.
RafaelGirl's eyes open. They're arresting; incomparable. The color, yes, but also: the gleam, the clarity, the limpid, surreal knowledge glimpsed in those
very drunken
depths. Like a primordial fish in the early oceans. Like secrets. Wolf leans down and maybe he does hear her after all because his hand and all its callouses smooth over her forearm, interlace with her fingers. He kisses her softly.
--
Later on she tells him she never pukes while drunk. He smirks. She hugs the bottle and he snorts, amused. Recedes from the immediate sphere of her consciousness, comprehension. Goes take a goddamn shower.
Bathroom and bedroom are open to one another. Steam and the scent of his soap drifting through. When he comes back he's damp, towel-clad, rubbing his face dry on a smaller hand towel. Drops that on the nightstand as he comes to stand beside her.
"You okay?"
DevonWhen he kisses her,
Devon sighs. She's been waiting for him to kiss her. Didn't know she was waiting for him to kiss her until he kissed her, soft and sweet and even sort of chaste on the lips, making her feel all manner of tender things. He touches her hand, and she can't hold his hand, but she wants to.
--
When he goes to shower, she's curled up on the bed, hugging her water bottle, dozing. The sound of the water falling in his bathroom soothes her; the humidity added to the air-conditioned climate eases her muscles. She drifts off, but doesn't fall hard into a heavy sleep again. So when he comes back, wrapped in a towel and wrapped in steam, she's at least dimly aware of him.
He has no idea what he looks like. Well, he does: the way that people know what they look like from glancing in a mirror. But it isn't just him. It's the surroundings: this house, in this area of town, set up in the highlands with the heart of the city of Denver sprawled at his feet. The darkness of the room and the way he gleams within it. The utter luxury of his bedroom, his clothes, the plush softness of his towels, the curling steam from his bathroom. Walking casually in this place, wearing only a towel and idly drying his face with another, his body scarred by wounds that nearly killed him but which he treats as inconsequential now -- he is every inch the Silver Fang.
Even has a mistress from the peasantry lying in his bed.
--
Devon's eyes are bright slits as she watches him approach, thinking of him like this. Looking at him and lusting after him. God, she wants to touch his cock. Almost makes her laugh how suddenly and how total the desire is, how perfectly she can picture it -- both the object and the act. Thinks of how warm he is, and how good he feels.
She sighs again. All her breath is sighing tonight, each one different in tenor and sound but each one just... so terribly... important.
Is she okay?
Devon smiles a little, small and tender. She nods against his pillow, which is getting bits of her eye makeup on its high-thread-count case. "Sleepy," she tells him quietly. "Horny," she adds, in the same tone.
"Love you," she also says, in a slightly different tone, her eyes falling closed again.
RafaelMistress from the peasantry.
That's not how he thinks of her. That's not -- he hopes -- how she thinks of herself. But god, anyone else looking in, anyone else seeing them with the clear cold knowledge of history would think --
He sits on the edge of the bed, bare back to her, torso torqued. Massive and finely chiseled; grecoroman statuary may come to mind. His mouth quirks, not quite so sardonic as a smirk.
"Drunk," he amends, to her sleepy-horny. The smile slips a little; his eyes dark with tenderness. He puts his hand on her head, palm to the curve of her skull, fingers in her thick hair. "Too," he whispers.
"Gonna just sleep?" a little later. "Or you wanna wash and get out of those clothes first?"
DevonHe amends her sleepy-horny, but she has her own. And he hears that, shadows her, touches her the way he did when he laid her into his bed. She smiles at the contact, driftingly, dreamily. Oh, he believes her. He toos her. Devon floats on that for a few moments, his hand and his nearness and all of it, and to see her breathing one might think she's asleep, but when he speaks, she doesn't have to wake up to hear him, answer him.
She just nods. Which, for a moment there, is terribly unhelpful: is she going to sleep or wash? Yes.
"Was just..." she murmurs, head turned, lips now on the mound of his palm, "sleep." Breathes in deeply, smells his soap. Smells him. What a luxury. What a gift. And from the look of things, she seems content as she is: smeared makeup, falling asleep in her clothes in a location she did not consciously intend to end up at.
But you know, she's with him. And that does make her smile.
RafaelWolf grunts this sort of laugh. "Okay," he says; sort of a giving-in tone. Fine, then.
Comforter under her tugs until it slips free. Now she's on the sheets. Now the comforter is covering her. Now wolf's getting in the other side of the bed, stretching out, closing his eyes as well.
After a moment he rolls over. She smells like exactly the sort of night she had, but he doesn't seem to mind. Weighs her down with his arm over her waist; nuzzles against the back of her neck, and sleeps as well.
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