[Kora] It's after midnight before she comes home, slips in through the front door of Trent's apartment with the scent of winter on her skin, in her hair, the metallic promise of new snow and blood spilled in the back of her throat. She promised her pack and tribe a hunt, after all, a furious harrowing through the hard, flat lands of her territory, some half-remembered ritual reinacted against the blasted landscape of the city's umbral reflection - the barren lands claimed by the Eagles, the core of which remains the territory anchored by the old, ruined church.
She promised her pack and tribe a hunt, and now she returns after, human again, chilled enough that she pauses just inside the threshold, clenching her jaw as the warmth of the apartment begins to thaw her skin and bones.
Outside the dark windows is the brief fury of a passing snow squall. It seems separate from the warm chaos of the interior. The furniture left awry, the dishes consumed and forgotten - all the usual chaos of a holiday party amplified by the underlying truth - that his guests were animals.
She can hear the rush of water in the kitchen sink as Trent works through the mountain of dishes left behind. A slurry of mud, salt, and melting slush drops from her boots to the floor of the foyer as she toys them off. Her winter coat and hoodie follow, and she hangs them neatly on the rack between Eric's battle-issue army coat and Trent's dark wool peacoat. Three in a row.
The apartment smells sharply of cleaning products, and the lights are low enough that her shadow moving across the dark planes of the windows in the living and dining room is illuminated mostly by the brighter overhead light still burning in the kitchen.
He's arm-deep in soapy water, maybe listening to the play by play of the Aloha Bowl in Hawaii on the radio when she comes in, following the sound of movement. Touches him with her finger tips, the flat of her hand against the small of his back and leans forward to kiss him through his shirt on the muscled curve of his shoulder. "Hey," she says, voice muffled against the fabric, skin cold, breath warm. Her eyes are bright from the hunt, her heart is still beating faster, double-timed, but underneath is a core of sleepiness that insinuates itself into the tone.
[Trent Brumby] He's stripped out of his shirt, wearing only the white undershirt across his frame. His shirt is thrown over the arm of the couch back in the living room. He had wanted to spare it from any stains that he'd find in cleaning. This leaves him in the undershirt, slacks and now barefoot. Socks are in the wash and his shoes already in the closet. There are several different bags already filled and filling; one for scraps, another for rubbish and recycling.
It's not the radio. It's Nirvana from the album of the same name, playing out of the stereo system in the living room, not loud, just loud enough to hear more then the clank of crockery as he goes through the piles like a processing line. There's not enough space on the dish rack to fit them all, so he's had to pause and dry some off to stack away before going back to the next load. He's on his second when she comes in, finds the warmth of his shoulder with her cooler mouth, and kisses him there.
She gets a quick smile over his shoulder, glancing to see her, before looking back at what he's doing. "Good hunt?" It doesn't feel strange to ask it. Not anymore anyway. It's part of who she is, and now him.
[Kora] "Yeah," she says, quiet, affirming, mouth sliding from the deltoid to the trapezius. The thin cotton of his undershirt transmits the cool of her closed mouth, the heat of his skin underneath; the scent of the evening, the sharp, humid aura of the dish water with the bright, clean underlying scent of his phosphate free detergent. Kora slips her arms briefly around his waist, lines her cold body against his warm frame, holding him against the sink and soaking in his heat like some cold-blooded thing sunning itself on a hot rock, some summer's day.
"It was good." She finishes with a low, quiet sound in the back of her throat, laughter swallowed down, still and wry. He can feel her heart beat if she is still enough, the lingering exhilaration of the hunt. "Though if we were out in the country somewhere, I could've brought you back a haunch of venison."
With a last squeeze, she releases him to his work, backs up to her familiar perch on the kitchen counter and reaches back, bracing herself with flat palms before levering herself upward until she's sitting on the edge, her legs swinging down, bare heels against the flat wood of the cabinet doors. "I don't suppose anyone other than Eric stayed to help clean up, did they?"
[Trent Brumby] "You can do that when we go camping in the spring." He hadn't forgotten about that conversation. He was looking forward to being out somewhere with her, under the stars and away from the city. Trent was horrible at camping but it won't stop him. The times he had spent out in the woods had been in cabins and the like, not under a tent pegged into the earth.
Dishes are lifted out of the water, the cloth having been run over it until it was squeaky clean, and they are left, one by one, standing in the rack. Water slides off them. He has one of those two sink counters, one filled with the soapy water and the other just plain cold water, that rinses them off as he goes along. "Drew tried to," he tells her with a quick glance, "but I kicked her out, told her to go home." He doesn't say why. The woman had tried to help out in the kitchen, and he'd caught her and told her to scoot, but she'd still went against it anyway, just trying to help. He has certain ideas about hosting dinner parties, and that is, guests are not meant to help out. Family is another matter, but this wasn't quite that.
[Kora] "Maybe we should go in the winter," Kora tells him, quick and sure in response, though there's a wistful note in her voice - an undercurrent. Winter brings out the want in her, and she wants to see snow fall someplace still and quiet, wants to hear it disappear into half-frozen water. Wants to see the stars as she remembers them in Hjaltland in winter, sharp and cutting as diamonds, indomitably clear. "I dunno, I might not be able to shift come spring."
Her hand does not go to her stomach, but her eyes drop. Seated like this up on the counter, hips forward, her body compacted around expanding stomach - well, she looks strangely pot-bellied. The fabric of her dedicated t-shirt strains to cover, is pulled at the seems, the weft of the weave visible where the thin nape is pulled fine. She needs to learn the rite soon.
Drew tried to - he tells her, and Kora breathes out. In that quick glance, he can see the wistful, wreathing half-smile still on her mouth. Her eyes darken, this brief and clouded look. "She was Joe's mate, you know?" Kora's voice is low for that question - still and threaded with tension, swallowed anger and more she cannot quiet name.
The room is close and warm; outside, the wind blows eddies of powdery snow up along the lakefront, in these moving arctic squalls so familiar that she can also taste the salt that should be suspended in the chased air.
[Trent Brumby] Joe's mate. He doesn't want to know anymore. It's really enough. It doesn't raise anger in him but there's a thread of tension that settles in the time of silence that is offered after. More dishes find their way into the rack in a seeming rhythm. When it's stocked up, he rinses his hands off and grabs the hand towel that is tucked into the front of a hip, like chefs do, wiping his hands dry on the bottom of it.
Turning away from the waiting piles, he approaches where she sits and runs his hands over her thighs. He doesn't question anymore, knowing his boundaries and that she likes for him to do this; touch her as he likes without holding back, and show her open affection. In public is a little different. But Trent has never pawed at her anyway. "We can go whenever it is you like," he tells her, leaning forward to leave a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Just let me know, so I can take a few days off." Weekend or not.
Drawing his hands up over her hips, he feels across her belly and offers a slow smile. His eyes warm. He doesn't need to say anything. The glow in him is enough. It hasn't faded from when she first told him that there was their child growing inside of her. "How are you feeling?" He asks her this, regularly enough.
[Kora] "He's dead." He doesn't want to know any more, and she can read the tension in his shoulders, in the line of his back, the way the big planes of muscle bunch around his spine. She tells him anyway, her voice low and steady. He has seen her in the throes of a grief so raw it seemed as if her body could not contain the swell of it; there's none of that here, now - none of that in her voice, quiet against the rigid line of his shoulders.
There's none of that here, now when he stops the rhythm of the domestic work, drying his big hands on the towel he has tucked into his jeans. Her eyes are on him when he turns around. She watches him with something more than hunger; she watches him to see him move. To see him fill space, to see him bend the waves of light. The fluorescent pot lights in the ceiling reflect as pinpoint bright circles in the dark surface of her eyes when he turns back to her - her expression still, sober, serious until he reaches for her, sliding his hands up her thighs. She curves cool fingers over his larger hands as he caresses her, familiar and intimate - warm - but her touch falls away as he moves his hand across her stomach.
She draws in a breath, sharp, one she doesn't realize she's holding until she has to expel it to answer the question he asks her so regularly. Sometimes she tells him she's fine. Sometimes she complains that she's hungry, that she's always hungry. "Strange," is what she says tonight, exhaling that spent breath after. Her eyes are quick on his face as his are on her stomach, radiating the warmth of that smile.
There's a note of odd wonder to her voice. As if his hands on her stomach, that radiant glow about him, were all somehow disconnected from the self she is underneath. "And - " a moment's hesitation, a narrow frown across her brow. " - protective, yeah? Like: I want to rip the head off anyone who comes to close. Anyone who - " there's a spike of something underneath, raw and fierce. "I just - " she pauses, still and briefly hesitant before she finishes, confessing. "I don't know what comes next."
She promised her pack and tribe a hunt, and now she returns after, human again, chilled enough that she pauses just inside the threshold, clenching her jaw as the warmth of the apartment begins to thaw her skin and bones.
Outside the dark windows is the brief fury of a passing snow squall. It seems separate from the warm chaos of the interior. The furniture left awry, the dishes consumed and forgotten - all the usual chaos of a holiday party amplified by the underlying truth - that his guests were animals.
She can hear the rush of water in the kitchen sink as Trent works through the mountain of dishes left behind. A slurry of mud, salt, and melting slush drops from her boots to the floor of the foyer as she toys them off. Her winter coat and hoodie follow, and she hangs them neatly on the rack between Eric's battle-issue army coat and Trent's dark wool peacoat. Three in a row.
The apartment smells sharply of cleaning products, and the lights are low enough that her shadow moving across the dark planes of the windows in the living and dining room is illuminated mostly by the brighter overhead light still burning in the kitchen.
He's arm-deep in soapy water, maybe listening to the play by play of the Aloha Bowl in Hawaii on the radio when she comes in, following the sound of movement. Touches him with her finger tips, the flat of her hand against the small of his back and leans forward to kiss him through his shirt on the muscled curve of his shoulder. "Hey," she says, voice muffled against the fabric, skin cold, breath warm. Her eyes are bright from the hunt, her heart is still beating faster, double-timed, but underneath is a core of sleepiness that insinuates itself into the tone.
[Trent Brumby] He's stripped out of his shirt, wearing only the white undershirt across his frame. His shirt is thrown over the arm of the couch back in the living room. He had wanted to spare it from any stains that he'd find in cleaning. This leaves him in the undershirt, slacks and now barefoot. Socks are in the wash and his shoes already in the closet. There are several different bags already filled and filling; one for scraps, another for rubbish and recycling.
It's not the radio. It's Nirvana from the album of the same name, playing out of the stereo system in the living room, not loud, just loud enough to hear more then the clank of crockery as he goes through the piles like a processing line. There's not enough space on the dish rack to fit them all, so he's had to pause and dry some off to stack away before going back to the next load. He's on his second when she comes in, finds the warmth of his shoulder with her cooler mouth, and kisses him there.
She gets a quick smile over his shoulder, glancing to see her, before looking back at what he's doing. "Good hunt?" It doesn't feel strange to ask it. Not anymore anyway. It's part of who she is, and now him.
[Kora] "Yeah," she says, quiet, affirming, mouth sliding from the deltoid to the trapezius. The thin cotton of his undershirt transmits the cool of her closed mouth, the heat of his skin underneath; the scent of the evening, the sharp, humid aura of the dish water with the bright, clean underlying scent of his phosphate free detergent. Kora slips her arms briefly around his waist, lines her cold body against his warm frame, holding him against the sink and soaking in his heat like some cold-blooded thing sunning itself on a hot rock, some summer's day.
"It was good." She finishes with a low, quiet sound in the back of her throat, laughter swallowed down, still and wry. He can feel her heart beat if she is still enough, the lingering exhilaration of the hunt. "Though if we were out in the country somewhere, I could've brought you back a haunch of venison."
With a last squeeze, she releases him to his work, backs up to her familiar perch on the kitchen counter and reaches back, bracing herself with flat palms before levering herself upward until she's sitting on the edge, her legs swinging down, bare heels against the flat wood of the cabinet doors. "I don't suppose anyone other than Eric stayed to help clean up, did they?"
[Trent Brumby] "You can do that when we go camping in the spring." He hadn't forgotten about that conversation. He was looking forward to being out somewhere with her, under the stars and away from the city. Trent was horrible at camping but it won't stop him. The times he had spent out in the woods had been in cabins and the like, not under a tent pegged into the earth.
Dishes are lifted out of the water, the cloth having been run over it until it was squeaky clean, and they are left, one by one, standing in the rack. Water slides off them. He has one of those two sink counters, one filled with the soapy water and the other just plain cold water, that rinses them off as he goes along. "Drew tried to," he tells her with a quick glance, "but I kicked her out, told her to go home." He doesn't say why. The woman had tried to help out in the kitchen, and he'd caught her and told her to scoot, but she'd still went against it anyway, just trying to help. He has certain ideas about hosting dinner parties, and that is, guests are not meant to help out. Family is another matter, but this wasn't quite that.
[Kora] "Maybe we should go in the winter," Kora tells him, quick and sure in response, though there's a wistful note in her voice - an undercurrent. Winter brings out the want in her, and she wants to see snow fall someplace still and quiet, wants to hear it disappear into half-frozen water. Wants to see the stars as she remembers them in Hjaltland in winter, sharp and cutting as diamonds, indomitably clear. "I dunno, I might not be able to shift come spring."
Her hand does not go to her stomach, but her eyes drop. Seated like this up on the counter, hips forward, her body compacted around expanding stomach - well, she looks strangely pot-bellied. The fabric of her dedicated t-shirt strains to cover, is pulled at the seems, the weft of the weave visible where the thin nape is pulled fine. She needs to learn the rite soon.
Drew tried to - he tells her, and Kora breathes out. In that quick glance, he can see the wistful, wreathing half-smile still on her mouth. Her eyes darken, this brief and clouded look. "She was Joe's mate, you know?" Kora's voice is low for that question - still and threaded with tension, swallowed anger and more she cannot quiet name.
The room is close and warm; outside, the wind blows eddies of powdery snow up along the lakefront, in these moving arctic squalls so familiar that she can also taste the salt that should be suspended in the chased air.
[Trent Brumby] Joe's mate. He doesn't want to know anymore. It's really enough. It doesn't raise anger in him but there's a thread of tension that settles in the time of silence that is offered after. More dishes find their way into the rack in a seeming rhythm. When it's stocked up, he rinses his hands off and grabs the hand towel that is tucked into the front of a hip, like chefs do, wiping his hands dry on the bottom of it.
Turning away from the waiting piles, he approaches where she sits and runs his hands over her thighs. He doesn't question anymore, knowing his boundaries and that she likes for him to do this; touch her as he likes without holding back, and show her open affection. In public is a little different. But Trent has never pawed at her anyway. "We can go whenever it is you like," he tells her, leaning forward to leave a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Just let me know, so I can take a few days off." Weekend or not.
Drawing his hands up over her hips, he feels across her belly and offers a slow smile. His eyes warm. He doesn't need to say anything. The glow in him is enough. It hasn't faded from when she first told him that there was their child growing inside of her. "How are you feeling?" He asks her this, regularly enough.
[Kora] "He's dead." He doesn't want to know any more, and she can read the tension in his shoulders, in the line of his back, the way the big planes of muscle bunch around his spine. She tells him anyway, her voice low and steady. He has seen her in the throes of a grief so raw it seemed as if her body could not contain the swell of it; there's none of that here, now - none of that in her voice, quiet against the rigid line of his shoulders.
There's none of that here, now when he stops the rhythm of the domestic work, drying his big hands on the towel he has tucked into his jeans. Her eyes are on him when he turns around. She watches him with something more than hunger; she watches him to see him move. To see him fill space, to see him bend the waves of light. The fluorescent pot lights in the ceiling reflect as pinpoint bright circles in the dark surface of her eyes when he turns back to her - her expression still, sober, serious until he reaches for her, sliding his hands up her thighs. She curves cool fingers over his larger hands as he caresses her, familiar and intimate - warm - but her touch falls away as he moves his hand across her stomach.
She draws in a breath, sharp, one she doesn't realize she's holding until she has to expel it to answer the question he asks her so regularly. Sometimes she tells him she's fine. Sometimes she complains that she's hungry, that she's always hungry. "Strange," is what she says tonight, exhaling that spent breath after. Her eyes are quick on his face as his are on her stomach, radiating the warmth of that smile.
There's a note of odd wonder to her voice. As if his hands on her stomach, that radiant glow about him, were all somehow disconnected from the self she is underneath. "And - " a moment's hesitation, a narrow frown across her brow. " - protective, yeah? Like: I want to rip the head off anyone who comes to close. Anyone who - " there's a spike of something underneath, raw and fierce. "I just - " she pauses, still and briefly hesitant before she finishes, confessing. "I don't know what comes next."
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