birthday girl.

[Sinclair] It's been cloudy all day, after a brief sunny respite at the end of the week proper. There's been rain off and on, pattering down from dark clouds overhead. The sun's shone briefly in between bouts of cloud cover, as though to promise everyone down in the city that, no really, Spring has come and it will start to get warmer. It's above freezing. The snow is melting, albeit slowly. With or without acknowledging it, the people of Chicago cling to these realities, some of them not even noticing that their moods are improving, their energy is rising.

Saturdays are fight days. Saturdays, Alex is usually bruised and battered and planning on hitting the gym early Sunday morning. Sinclair knows this, because though it's been two and a half weeks since she's seen him, they haven't exactly been out of contact. They're Glass Walkers. They talk over whatever instant messenger program they're playing with and trying out at the time. Sinclair's called a couple of times, just to say hello. Just to talk. She told him about getting toasted at her packmate's birthday party and says she's pretty sure she got in a fight but she's not sure with who. She tells him she went to the bonfire but didn't stay long because it was snowing, what the fuck, who wants to stand outside in Tekakwitha when it's snowing?

She's told him the sept is going to war. She's said: I know this might sound stupid, but... just please be kinda extra careful, okay?

It's become evident that their schedules rarely match up perfectly. Sinclair sleeps when she can, and sleeps for obscene lengths of time. She takes her turns at the Caern helping the Guardians. She's been at meetings figuring out evacuation plans for the Brotherhood. Sometimes she's awake all night, sleeping during the day. Sometimes she talks to Alex for maybe ten minutes before it's his bedtime and her time to go get breakfast. And that's alright.

But come Sunday, he should be expecting her. Because the last time they talked, whenever that was, Sinclair asked if she could come over. And they worked out when, because he has a gym to go to. And she told him she'd be there, if something insane didn't come up. Like an attack. Or a hunt. Or a pack meeting, because those are sometimes called at the last minute with zero notice and take precedence over almost everything else.

She does show up, though. Banging on his door with the toe of her boot, at around eleven in the morning. She has two large brown paper grocery bags in her arms, her hair down and damp and windblown, a bright smile on her face.

"Hi! Take the left one. Your left. My right. It has ice cream cake. Quick. Freezer. Gogogo."

[Alexander] Alexander's handle on GW.net is avaughn, which is the handle his parents made for him way back in the day. Actually, it was amvaughn, for Alexander Madoc, and his brother was acvaughn, for Aaron Cedric. When acvaughn became nightfalls_edge, Alex took over avaughn, and the rest is history.

Alex's handle on AIM, though, is almightyololrus. And an ololrus is, he explains if she asks, a fabulous mythical beast composed of the body of a walrus and the head of a lol. If she asks wtf a lol might be expected to look at, he doesn't really answer: he tells her he had a hashbrownie half an hour ago and he's really feeling it now and then his sentences stop making sense and soon thereafter she gets a phonecall and he blathers at her about god knows what for an hour and a half, because it's mostly unintelligible.

That conversation ends: shit my landlord's here!

A few days later they're talking on gchat, where his handle is w00talexw00t, and in the middle of their conversation she goes afk, and then suddenly has to take a shower, and he says lawl. Later she comes back and he asks if she beat someone up and she says yes and he says LULZ.

Which might explain his skype handle, vap0rizedbylulz0rs, and it's probably a relief that most times when he's on skype they're webcamming rather than typing, because it'd be a lot harder to have a serious conversation about the sept, and the war, and please be kinda extra careful if one was talking to vap0rizedbylulz0rs.

He laughs that off all the same. Though, after they get offline, her phone buzzes with a text:

u be careful 2.

They make plans to meet on Sunday across facebook chat, where his relationship status changed to in a relationship a few weeks ago to a chorus of boo you whore!s. Afterward, they have a poke war that ends when Alex snatches up his cellphone and calls her and bellows STOP, I GIVE UP!

Come Saturday, he batters some other guy's brains out and gets his battered out.

Come Sunday late-morning, he's back at home, and his apartment is small and stuffy enough that when he opens the door to her boot-banging she can still smell the steam and shampoo of the shower he just took mingling with the smell of ramen. They juggle grocery bags, she tells him it's ice cream cake, he says "Ooo!" and then walks all of two steps over to his fridge and sticks it in the freezer.

"I'm totally cooking 'cause I knew you were coming over," he says, "and I never cook. So you should be flattered."

His idea of cooking appears to be a small pot of ramen, aggressively boiling. There's are two eggs in there. Also some spinach. And a loop of budget polska kielbasa out on the cutting board. He thumps the freezer closed, then turns to Sinclair, holds his arms out, and grins.

"C'mere, baby. If you were a Sim, I'd totally click on you, click on me, and click Leap Into Arms now."

[Sinclair] The ice cream cake comes in a white box with a clear plastic top. There's a sticker on the lid with a date, and it also tells him that the cake is vanilla ice cream with chocolate cake and the frosting seems to be an oreo mousse with oreo cookie bits sprinkled across it and whole oreo cookies stuck in tufts of frosting here and there. In glossy chocolate icing across the top of the cake, it says

Happy Birthday!
LOL!

Sinclair comes in with the other bag, kicking the door closed with the sole of her boot, and laughs. "Oh. I was gonna make lunch." She sets the bag down on the coffee table while he's closing the freezer, biting her lower lip as she smiles to herself, not knowing he's already turning around. "I can leave it here. Or make dinner later or something. Also, I am totally flattered, omigawd, like wowzorz."

Straightening, she shows herself to be wearing a denim jacket that she's probably had for a trillion years, a black skirt, a pair of heather-gray tights, black boots, and a pink babydoll tee. It has a cupcake on it. The cupcake has a candle and sprinkles. The lettering is perky and sparkly and says Birthday Girl. She wears it with irony. Maybe. It's entirely possible Sinclair adores the color pink.

"Okay," she says, grinning, when he jokes about Sims. "Stand back." And she backs up towards the door. Which is when he might notice the faint glow to her cheeks, the way her hair being damp only seems to make it frame her face more appealingly, the way even her playful motions have a sort of effortless, catlike grace. The way, somehow, she's more beautiful than she was the last time he saw her.

He might not think: well of course. The moon is waxing at the tail end of her phase, and tomorrow it will be full.

Sticking the tip of her tongue between her lips as though deep in thought, Sinclair screws up her forehead and then runs up to him, boots thumping on his floor, throws her arms around his neck, and hikes her legs up for him to catch on his arm. She clings to him, fluttering her eyelashes, beaming in exaggerated infatuation.

[Alexander] "Wait -- "

He didn't expect her to take a running start. But then she comes barreling at him like she's an olympic gymnast and he's a pommel horse, and Alex barely has time to brace for impact before she's quite literally sailing into his arms.

He catches her more out of sheer instinct than intent, and momentum staggers him backwards a step. Her bootheel knocks into the pot, sloshes ramen soup into the fire with a hiss. He grabs for the handle, stabilizes it. They're lucky it doesn't fly off the stove and scald the fuck out of them.

"Oof!" he grunts then, rather exaggeratedly. Then he tosses her up higher and more securely in his arms, laughs, smooches her. "Mmm. You can totally help make lunch. I probably didn't make enough anyway. And why the hell are you wearing a birthday cupcake on your shirt? Wait," he remembers the ice cream cake, "is it your birthday? It is, isn't it! Daw. Happy birthday, Sinclair."

[Sinclair] It says something about her -- or them -- that Sinclair doesn't immediately screech to a stop when he says Wait like that. It isn't that she doesn't hear him, and it's certainly not that she doesn't care. It's that he can take it. And she knows it. And the way she can show him that she knows it is, apparently, but throwing herself into his arms whether he's ready or not. She laughs as he staggers, an arm flying out to keep her head from knocking into the range hood or the cabinetry, then wraps it back around him.

Settling. Against him. She chuckles as he readjusts her, and truthfully though she's mostly muscle she's still slender as the gymnast she just got mentally compared to. Sinclair is ridiculously fit, a veritable monster, but it's a lot of power contained in a small physical space. She's like a bomb, that way.

They kiss, and it seems like she was about to kiss him when he kisses her, because their mouths collide at first with far more force than would really be necessary. She grins against the smooch, kisses him more softly a second time before separating, and wiggles her legs to indicate lemme down.

"Noo," she says, "you make lunch. I'll make something later. I got cake." Which he knows. Which she seems absurdly happy about, even proud of, nonetheless. Because it's ice cream cake.

Her boots touch the floor. She stares at him while he figures out what day it is, and she shakes her head at him, laughing. "You're sharp as a tack, arencha?" There's color in her cheeks. Not a blush. Not arousal. Just... glee. Effervescent, enthusiastic happiness. "It's my birthday! And it's my moon! Barely. But it is! So yes. Hee."

She moves forward, suddenly, puts her palms on his cheeks, and kisses him again, grinning. "And I'm twenty-two. And double numbers are lucky. In sports, at least. So. Hi. Hi!"

[Alexander] It's her birthday. And her moon,

"Just like it was -- "

and she's twenty-two.

" -- twenty two years ago." She kisses him again, and they're both grinning, their lips closing on one another's between smiles. "Hi," he replies, and then suddenly wraps his arms around her and lifts her an inch or two off the floor again, squeezing. Sets her back down.

"Okay. Get some bowls! Up there." He points. "Didja get candles?"

[Sinclair] For a moment, when he has his arms around her waist and is lifting her against him in a tight squeeze, Sinclair slows a bit. She turns her head and rests her cheek on his shoulder and just breathes. In deep, out slow, once. It moves her chest on his, so that he can feel the expansion of her ribs and the lift of her breasts. Like the wolf that's an inextricable part of her, she speaks in body language as much as anything else, and this seems to say:

I missed you.

He sets her back down, and she smiles again, then turns about to get bowls. "Nope," she answers, and pokes herself in the temple twice. "You'll have to use your imagination. It's that thing that makes the pictures of lesbians for you when you're jerking off."

[Alexander] "Pfft." While she's getting bowls, he's turning the fire off, taking the pot off one burner and putting it on the other so he can mop up the spilled broth with a handy dishrag. "These days I picture you, so there. And if I want lesbians I just picture two of you."

Squeezing by her, Alex swats her on the ass with the end of his dishrag. Then he goes down the short hall, tosses the soggy rag in his laundry pile. Coming back, he continues, "Anyway, I've got bamboo skewers. Like for shish kabob. We'll totally just light those on fire. Here," he hands her a pair of forks and a ladle. "I'm gonna cut up the sausage."

[Sinclair] "Now that," Sinclair says, taking down two bowls and unstacking them, "is loyalty. You're not even fucking other girls in your head."

But something about that, bizarrely, endears her. Or touches her. Or turns her on. Of course, then he's trying to slap her with a soggy dishrag and she's grabbing it in midair. "Ew, no, that's got juices all over it. How many skirts do you think I own?" Though it doesn't really matter. Because they both know she has a change of clothes here. Just one, really, a pair of jeans and a t-shirt, and two pairs of underwear, one of which is a little thong of dark blue cotton and black lace. She could change, if he got broth all over her pretty black skirt.

When he gets back in the kitchen, she's looking through drawers for a ladle, and then he hands her one, and she goes Aha!, snatching it out of his grasp. "Are you seriously going to light almost two dozen skewers on fire? I don't need candles. I have ice cream cake. It's pretty birthday-riffic on its own."

[Alexander] "Honestly?" he retorts, "I would've guessed zero. But I guess now I have to amend it to one. How many skirts do you own?"

And, while slicing kielbasa up on the cutting board, "I'm totally gonna light twenty-two skewers on fire. It's gonna be epic. So indulge the little pyro in me, 'kay?" He leans over and kisses her cheek, then finishes with the sausage. "C'mon, let's eat. I'm starving. All I've had all day was a protein shake."

[Sinclair] "I own three." It's a low number, which is how she can toss it back without having to think. "Not including whatever ones are in my room back home. Because then I don't know. Probably a lot." She's ladling as she speaks, as he slices kielbasa. "And I don't know if we're counting dresses. Cuz then I don't want to try and count. Cuz I had metric fuckton of dresses."

She licks a bit of broth off her thumb, looking at him over her shoulder. Which is when he kisses her. And she breaks into a smile, cheeks coloring. The blush is from happiness. And, yes: infatuation. Worn on her sleeve, because Sinclair truthfully has no other place to put it. "Okay. You should get the camera. If it's gonna be epic." She quickly pecks his cheek before he pulls away, and picks up both bowls, balancing them like someone who has worked in food service before. "Coffee table?"

To which he nods, because there's no other table, and every time she's been here, they've eaten at the coffee table, sitting together on the couch. She sets the bowls down and, while he's adding sausage, takes the second grocery bag to the kitchen to put whatever is inside in the fridge. It takes about two seconds, since she mostly just shoves the bag in the fridge and comes back, plopping herself down on the couch and picking up her bowl.

[Alexander] "Coffee table."

Alex doesn't sit on the couch. He sits on the floor, back against the couch, shoulder against Sinclair's leg. It turns out he's a loud slurper when it comes to noodles, pausing now and then to hiss through his teeth because the ramen, quite frankly, is burning hot.

"I am such a good cook," he says more than once. It's actually not true. The ramen is edible, but that's about it.

When he's done, his cheeks are flushed from drinking hot broth. Alex sets his bowl atop the coffee table with a loud sigh of satisfaction, then leans back and spreads his arms along the couch cushions, the right one wrapping behind Sinclair's back. "Ah," he says, "good meal."

And a little later, "Hey." He looks up at her, smiles. "Thanks for spending your birthday with me."

[Sinclair] Sinclair's got better manners than Alex. In theory. She doesn't use them anymore, seems awkward and uncertain when she tries. So there's slurping, and not much talking, because they're both hungry, and every time he insists he's a good cook she rolls her eyes, and at least one time says "Yes, baby, you're a fucking amazing cook. This ramen is making me see god."

And she reaches down at one point, and strokes her palm across his scalp, her fingertips trailing behind his ear, and just holds him near her leg for a moment, loose and comfortable, before withdrawing and returning to her own makeshift meal. He's done before she is, shifting forward a little to make more room behind her backside for his arm.

She smiles down at him, lips wet, licking them. "My packmate's birthday party, he like... got this whole club for it, and there were tons of people there who barely knew him or anyone else, and it was just... I dunno. Stuff like that's weird to me. I don't like big fusses over birthdays and whatever. I just wanted to come hang out with you." Beat. "And have ice cream cake."

[Alexander] "I don't get that either," he says. "I always figure you oughta spend your birthday with people close to you. I mean a party's nice and all, but if you have to party, you should at least invite people you know. But then some people like throwing huge parties to make themselves feel popular or something."

He's done eating, and she's not. He rubs his hand gently, idly over her knee. The remote control isn't far off, but Alex doesn't turn the TV on. He's actually not much of a TV watcher. Movies, sure. Xbox, all the time. Broadcast television, though, doesn't hold his attention long.

"Who's this packmate, anyway?"

[Sinclair] She shakes her head, holding up her bowl to take a sip of the last of the broth before setting it back down on the table, empty but for a tablespoon of broth and a couple of tail-ends of noodles, a fleck of floating spinach. "Guy named Theron. He's had something like a half-dozen loves of his life since I met him, makes promises he never follows up on, issues retarded challenges -- including trying to take leadership away from our Alpha -- then loses them, then blames other people for his failure, all the while acting like he's so contrite and like he's Really Learned From His Mistakes This Time, Guys."

Sinclair sounds disgusted. It's because she is. She shifts on the couch, twisting onto her side and propping her head up. She tucks her legs up, shins to the arm of the couch, her free arm over her front, just below her breasts. She shrugs one shoulder. "He doesn't get it. Like, anything. And that'd be okay if he ever actually learned anything. But he doesn't. You can just see him internally flailing, trying to tell you whatever he thinks you want to hear, when all you really want to hear is something genuine. Or not even that. Just... see some real change."

Out of nowhere, or perhaps because their faces are close now, she leans forward and kisses the corner of his mouth, then again, more fully. "I can tell he's running out of chances with Lukas. You just never know how many straws it'll take to break the camel's back. From here on out I'm just letting Kate and Lukas talk to him, though. I'm done trying reason when I deal with him. I'm just going to beat the everloving fuck out of him every time he says or does something stupid, and see if that that works.

"Since," she goes on, with a lopsided grin, "we learn pain-avoidance behaviors like, a hundred times faster than reward-seeking behaviors. True story."

[Alexander] Alexander has never met Theron. Or Lukas, or ... most of her pack, really. He's met Kate once, and his memory of that Silver Fang remains: batshit insane, unhinged, dangerous. He wasn't even aware Sinclair was packed with her.

All in all, Alex is fairly ignorant of the ins and outs of Garou society. He doesn't mind. He knows he can probably look up the information somewhere if he really wanted it, but for now, he's content to just sit on his ugly carpet in front of his ugly couch and...

listen. While Sinclair vents. Part of him wants to tell her to think about it later, it's her birthday, but somehow that strikes him as patronizing behavior, as though she weren't strong enough somehow to handle a little irritation on her birthday.

She stretches out sideway on the couch, and he turns around to face her. A moment later, while she's telling him from here on out, he crawls up on the couch with her, and it's an even closer fit than it was on their Brotherhood beds, and they both have to lie on their sides like this and even then, there's not enough room to fit without draping their limbs over each other.

Which is what he does. Which makes it that much easier for her to lean forward and kiss the corner of his mouth, and then more fully. His skin is warm as she remembers, nearly hot, and he's faintly sweaty from drinking too much soup too fast.

"He sounds like a pain in the ass," Alex says, and Sinclair can almost hear the automatic association forming in his head: Theron = P.I.T.A, "so I think beating his ass every time he pisses you off is a great idea. It might not teach him anything, but at least you get to blow off steam. Heh."

She quotes him back at him, then, and he grins suddenly. He's still grinning when he leans forward to kiss her again, his hand coming up to cup the back of her head. This one's longer than the rest combined; parts reluctantly.

"So, birthday girl," he murmurs, after. "Do you wanna fuck now and have cake later, or the other way around?"

[Sinclair] If she knew his estimation of Katherine Bellamonte, Sinclair would say: yes, yes, and very. Kate was originally one of the only hangups Sinclair had about joining the Unbroken. Now she's her closest friend, if Sinclair could say to have friends who are also packmates. She's her sister, which seems to be a merge of both. But still: Kate is insane, unhinged, and dangerous. Sinclair is at least one or two of the same, so she doesn't judge.

Anymore.

She smiles when Alex comes up on the couch with her, shifting backward and then straightening out and basically adjusting so that they both fit on there at once. She's hot to the touch -- so is he -- and it's hard to remember that winter is still clinging to Chicago outside, hanging on by fingertips. She doesn't seem irritated, even talking -- venting -- about Theron; just vaguely, distantly disgusted with him, as though the irritation is outside of her, left in a box back in Room 3 of the Brotherhood.

Her knee is between his knees. Her arm is over his waist. His is over hers. She mmms softly when he kisses her long and slow like he does, his hand on her hair, which is dry now, and soft as silk against his fingers. Sinclair licks her lips when he pulls back, as though to taste what's left of him there, to taste what's left of the kiss.

"Actually," says the Galliard slowly, fingertips trailing up the valley of his spine through whatever shirt he has on today, her voice low with nearness and gradually rising lust, "I was going to ask you... when you're jerking off and picturing me -- or two of me, as the case may be --" she ducks her head and kisses his neck, murmuring: "what am I doing?"

[Alexander] Alex laughs. It's quieter now, and with a rough, burred edge. "I don't really imagine two of you," he says. "I was just kidding.

"I do think about you, though."

She can see him swallow, his throat moving as his want for her awakens. Alexander's nearly always cleanshaven. It's part of the immense amount of care he devotes to himself, his body. There's no stubble on his throat or his jaw. Nothing to scratch her when he rubs his face against hers, his cheek along hers, to murmur in her ear.

"Sometimes," he says, "you're sucking my cock. Sometimes you're bent over my bed pulling at the sheets. Sometimes you're riding me and telling me to fucking that pussy harder, come on, fuck it."

He pauses, bites the cartilage of her ear lightly, bites very gently for a moment. Kisses her neck.

"Sometimes you're under me and holding on to me and ... moaning the way you do when we fuck nice and slow.

"And," he adds, "sometimes I just think about you sitting by the pool in your bikini."

[Sinclair] Slowly, Alexander travels his mouth across Sinclair's cheek. And slowly, he murmurs in her ear. And slowly, he bites at her ear, kisses her throat. Not so slowly, Sinclair's breathing starts to become more noticable, her eyes closing as though she's visualizing for herself what Alex is describing. There's no comment about whether or not he fantasizes about two of her, no encouragement nor judgement. It passes. She forgets.

And she gets wet, though there's at least five layers of fabric between his lower regions and hers. She doesn't start rubbing herself against his thigh, doesn't squirm on the couch cushions, but her hand flexes where it lays on his back. Her tongue slides out so she can lick her lips again. Alex can see her pant out a very soft breath when he bites her between one piercing and another, the metal brushing his lower lip as he withdraws and moves his mouth to her neck.

The words coming from him soften and stop, and it takes Sinclair a moment to slow her own thoughts down enough to answer, though she doesn't open her eyes. "I usually," she says, thinking about every single word, "wear a racing suit when I swim."

Which is a confession of sorts, thought not an obvious one, not at first blush. There's color in Sinclair's cheeks, though it isn't embarrassment now, or even delight. She rubs at his back, wanting to touch him, wanting to set some kind of rhythm, but there's so many clothes in the way and truth be told, she's not sure if she wants him to keep talking or if she wants him to start touching her or both.

So she kisses him, holding him close enough that their bellies touch through their shirts, opening her mouth to his and mmming louder than before, simply... making out with him for several long seconds before she slowly, reluctantly pulls away,

an aching slide from the tip of her tongue to her lips, a silky passing of their mouths from one another.

Her eyes open. Her legs are tight together, hips shifting just a little bit, rolling just a little bit, trying to get some kind of friction to soothe the edge of her lust for a little while longer. "Do you think about coming in me?"

[Alexander] Alex's hand has drifted down her side by now. It's passed over her hip, found the edge of her skirt, found her thigh beneath it. When she tightens her legs on one another, he pulls her knee over his waist instead, wordlessly encouraging her to move closer.

There's a quick, hot gleam in his eyes when she asks that. His eyes are hazel, and rather dark in this light, the brighter flecks of gold and green and grey lost without the sun's direct light. A warm, affable sort of color -- not really what one would associate with who he is.

"Yeah," he says, and catches her mouth. Kisses her rather deeply, rather hard. Nips her lower lip as he draws back to look at her again. "And I think about you coming on my cock.

"Here," he finds her hand, guides it to the hem of his shirt. "Take it off."

[Sinclair] Though the first time Sinclair had sex with him -- the first time Sinclair had sex, period -- she was hesitant to the point of ragged stops and starts, and though even after he took her to bed they went so, so slowly, it's never been like that since. Most times it's as though all she's doing is waiting for some kind of permission, spoken or intuited, to let herself go a little. The moon is high and heavy in the sky, her moon, and as of tonight her pack's totem will finally, finally be back. She didn't mention that in her list of things making her happy this afternoon. It's possible she doesn't know exactly when Perun will return.

What remains is this: Sinclair is already glowing, her eyes shining and vivid in color, her skin so soft it's almost slippery under his fingers, and he's never -- they've never --

not when she's like this. Not when she's at her most powerful, her happiest, her strongest, her most beautiful. Sinclair is at a kind of zenith, which will reach a peak at moonrise and begin to slide downward again at moonset, the end of her bright time. Alex has seen her like this, fought with her -- twice -- when she's like this, but he's never kissed her, or held her, or fucked her when she's like this.

Letting herself go might be more of a risk. It always is, on her moon, just because her rage rides so close to the surface. But it's hard to imagine anything setting her off to a bout of frustration or fury right now. She's aching, pawing her hands up under his shirt when he kisses her, hard, just like that. Her nails rake slowly, gently -- for now -- down his back, then grab the hem he's guiding her towards to take it off.

She rucks it up and he lifts his arms and Sinclair moans when it's off completely, his arms stretched up over his head, his body all but laid out for her. A second later, the fabric still around one of his wrists, she's got her mouth on him, wrapping her soft little lips around his nipple and licking it, eager and hungry. His hand under her skirt has those warm, soft, but otherwise infuriating tights to contend with, but he had no trouble getting Sinclair to put her leg around his hip, though as soon as he did she was using her calf to press him closer, to get him between her thighs. She's on the verge of eating him alive, set off like the aforementioned bomb.

It takes excruciating effort for Sinclair to slow herself down. She opens her mouth against his chest, making a small, almost pained noise in her throat, panting softly and giving his nipple a last lick. She opens her eyes then, looking at him, stars going supernova in the blue rings of her eyes. "I wanna do all of that." A kiss, fast and hard and breathy, eager. "Can we? I just... fuck, Alex, it's been so long." And she kisses him again, just as hard, this time not fast, this time moaning, riding her body up against his.

[Alexander] Her waxes and wanes -- he's beginning to notice them, though he hasn't thought to attribute them to the cycles of the moon yet, and may never think to do so. He isn't Garou. He isn't bound to the moon the way she is, instinctively aware of its moods, its changes, it face every night.

He probably thinks it has more to do with whether or not she's hunted lately. Won a fight lately. Hell, he might figure it's something to do with her menstrual cycle or something -- which comes ironically close to the truth without quite skimming the surface.

Whatever. The point is: he does see it. He sees how she all but glows today. How she's brilliant and beautiful and happy and bold, and when she peels his shirt off he rolls on his back, rolls her atop him, tips his head back and groans as she puts her mouth to his chest.

"Oh, my god, I love your mouth," he breathes. His chest rises against her lips, a fast inhale. "Yeah, that's it, baby."

She slows down -- he opens his eyes. He's about to ask her what's wrong when she kisses him and he rises off the sofa to kiss her back. Both his hands are under her skirt now, searching for the tops of her stockings or her hose, peeling the elastic down. "Mmph," he says, and nods. "Yeah. Let's fuck, baby. I want you on top."

[Sinclair] So far, Sinclair has outright and consciously avoided Alex when her phase is waning. Truthfully, it isn't that she turns suddenly ugly, or is suddenly weak. On her worst day, Sinclair is still one of the best fighters in the sept...probably. Best of her rank, without disclaimer. She's just so tired, and she feels so wretched, the last thing she wants to do is go near The Boy She Likes, which is what Alex indisputably is, as well as the many other things he may be to her.

Eventually, though, he might see her like that. A little paler, her eyes a lot more sunken, her attitude sour and her mood flattening out into a sort of groggy unhappiness. And Alex might think she has PMS, except she'll be nauseated and dizzy and all sorts of things that only humans and Kin ever are, the sort of symptoms no Garou ever complains about unless they've been hit by some kind of toxin. Eventually, it might come up somehow that since her firsting, Sinclair has been inexplicably tossed to and fro by Luna, up one week and down the next.

Sinclair is, without a doubt, very up right now. She's rolling on top of him -- let's just say it, he's her boyfriend -- and he's moaning underneath her, telling her something he fucking loves, and she grins around his nipple when she hears it, flicks him again and again with her tongue. But of course she slows down, either because she thinks it's too much or because it's too much for her or something, and in response he starts tugging on her tights, which isn't going to get him very far because she hasn't taken off her boots.

"Oh," she says, heavily, breathily, a little taken aback. "I was gonna ask if I could suck on you first."

[Alexander] Which, of course, just makes him drop his head back again and make a sound like she's already doing just that.

"Fuck," he says. "Fuck yeah. Oh my fucking god."

And then he's leaving her tights and her panties alone, because now he's fumbling with his jeans. That's what he was wearing today: t-shirt, jeans, and the heat turned up really really high because god forbid it not be 80 degrees inside. He could tell her stories about steam heating and underground tunnels at Harvard, and how you could get from one end of the campus to the other without ever coming aboveground. He could tell her about the endless summers of Florida -- but then, she could probably imagine. She saw him in Florida. She lived in San Diego.

He arches his hips up and pushes his jeans down. His boxers are plain, striped in blue and grey and white, and he pushes them down too, kicks them and his jeans off his bare feet. Then he's just laying there, rather suddenly naked, breathing quickly, watching her.

[Sinclair] It's hard for Sinclair not to laugh a little at his eagerness, how fucking quickly he gets himself naked, all but ripping his clothes in the process of getting them off, out of the way. It's almost as though it's been nearly three weeks since they've gotten together, and god only knows how long since the last time he had a blowjob. Over a month?

It doesn't matter. Sinclair's not thinking about it, and the urge to laugh goes away as soon as she starts helping him with his clothes, though she's not that helpful. She keeps stopping to run her hands over him, crouched over him on the couch like a lioness over prey, the springs underneath them creaking with their rather raucous movement. She traces the muscles of his torso while he's kicking his boxers away, caresses his chest, looks at him with her own hungry, intent brand of anticipation.

Not easy, being the utter focus of all her attention. Not something like her. Something that seems so far away from human, especially right now, that she may as well be immortal.

She shifts, and moves not between his legs but slides to the floor, onto her knees on the carpet, her bootheels under the coffee table, her hands parting his thighs and a grin playing at the corners of her mouth. If Alex doesn't immediately re-angle his body, Sinclair's hands are on his hips a second later, urging him to do so, and then he might recognize that look on her face

if he's even remotely coherent, which is debateable

as the vague nervousness that's sometimes in her, strange only because it seems to concurrently hold no fear. Sinclair's hands wind back over his hips, stroke down the fronts of his legs, run lightly up his inner thighs. Maybe she's too inexperienced to know it's pretty unnecessary to tease, but then, she doesn't seem like she's teasing him. She's just... touching him. Exploring, because this isn't exactly new, but it's been a long enough time to be unfamiliar, and it's Alex, and she's never asked to do this before. And he's never asked her to. Which may be important.

Fuck it.

Sinclair leans over him, notices something, smiles. "That's neat," she says, and runs her palm over the head of his cock, smearing precum across it, quite openly pleased with the texture, and with the newness, and with the way it makes him react. She licks it not off of him but off of her palm, tiny flicks of her tongue. First to taste. Then to taste again. Then to lick clean, like a kitten tidying its paws. Sinclair doesn't leave him for long. She wraps that palm, wet now from her mouth, around his cock and just... strokes. Slow. Not too lose, because last time he told her not to be afraid, go a little tighter, and she did, and he loved it, and she likes the way he yells when he fucking loves it.

Out of nowhere, after one or two or three or seven or fuck, who cares how many strokes of her hand up and down his cock, Sinclair leans over and wraps her lips gently, almost demurely, around his head. "Mmm," is what she thinks of that, and sucks softly, jerking him off a couple of more times.

[Alexander] Alexander doesn't mind one bit that Sinclair isn't much help. He doesn't mind that her hands are wandering all over him, that she's tracing the definition of those muscles he didn't build for her or any other girl, but that he likes that she likes all the same.

He doesn't mind it. He likes it. He likes that she likes his body, that she'll enjoy him with every part of her: her mouth, her hands, her own body, head to toe.

Sometimes after they fuck, he can feel her just ... winding her body on him, sliding her body over his, moving with him as though to imprint him into her skin.

He likes that, too.

And -- he tells her so. Sinclair is a Galliard. If Alex had changed, he would've been a Galliard too. The other side of the moon, to be sure, the waning and not the waxing, but -- a Galliard nonetheless, and with a mouth to match. God, but they're talkative sometimes, him even more so than her: she's touching him and looking at him like that and he's muttering,

"I love it when you look at me like that. Fuck, you're so hot."

And she's shifting to the floor and he's following her immediately, planting a hand to push himself up a little, slouching against the cushions, knees open to either side of her. She's touching him again, hands on his thighs, and he's sucking a slow breath through his teeth and saying,

"I love how you touch me. Like you're learning me all over again every time. Baby..."

...that's neat. A blurt of laughter escapes him. "What -- " he starts, and then she's running her hand over the ultrasensitive head of his cock and he throws his head back so hard the sofa thumps; his hands are digging into the couch cushions.

"Fuck," he manages, a gasping sort of exclamation that dissolves into panting as she starts to stroke him.

He doesn't yell out then, though. He watches her, eyes half-closed now, one hand moving to cover her free hand on his thigh. When she finally leans in and wraps her mouth around him: that's when he flexes his head back again and lets out an unmodulated moan: an open, louder echo of her own muffled mmm.

[Sinclair] Oh, she likes him. His muscles. And his eyes. And the fact that he never really shuts up, which doesn't and never has seemed to bother her. Sinclair likes that he'll argue with her and that he'll tell her this is what I want, uncompromising and unapologetic. She likes that he is fucking fascinated with her nipple piercing, though she didn't get it for him, though she didn't get it thinking about anyone else enjoying it. But she likes that he likes it. All the same.

In the sack, whether the sack happens to be a bed or a shower or the couch -- at the moment -- it's true that they're both energetic, athletic, playful as little animals. They're very rarely quiet, and they're very rarely still, and it takes a long time for them to slow down and take a breath. Sinclair does squirm all over him, rub not just her hands and her cunt but her breasts and her belly and her thighs and her legs all over him, because it feels good, and it makes her skin tingle all over, and it makes her happy.

Sometimes she's painfully simple.

A flash of a smile, when he tells her she's so hot, because it pleases her.

A flicker of her eyelashes downward when he says learning me all over again, because it's true, in a way.

A shiver of enjoyment when he swears, when he throws his head back, when he moans, which she answers by licking him, by taking him a little bit -- just a little bit -- deeper, her mouth wet and ...uncertain, truth be told. She's learning him, definitely, taking her time to do so, slowly bobbing her head because she has some idea of what to do, but ultimately,

she's guided by instinct as much as anything else. She follows the twitch of his cock and the muscles in his thighs. She follows the sounds he makes, the effort he expends in not thrusting, the clench and roll of his abdominal muscles under her hands when she runs them up his torso, her head bent over his lap, her hair stroking his legs.

In this, too, there's an unfettered enthusiasm in her, an almost playful yet lazy exploration, a willingness to experiment, an attentiveness that wants to learn.

What he does, for example, when she cups her hands around his balls. Or what he does when she tickles the slit at the tip of his cock with her tongue. Or what he does when she goes faster, her hand wrapping around the base and her lips stroking over saliva and flesh, tongue sliding up and down the underside of his cock. Because she'll remember. For next time.

[Alexander] Alex has to know she's inexperienced. She isn't a complete n00b, as he'd say, and the way she handles his cock tells him she's at least fooled around with a few high school boys in her day, but --

Alex is sharper than most people give him credit for. He sees more than he lets on, mainly because he doesn't want people to confuse understanding with caring. He sees her enthusiasm, and he sees her uncertainty. He sees that she's experimenting, and fortunately for her, Alex is no more shy about giving her direction and encouragement than he is about muttering

the filthiest things in her ear while they're fucking.

Which is to say: when she fondles his balls, he murmurs that he likes it. When she licks him like that, his head falls back and he lets out a sound that's equal parts wracked and relieved. When she goes faster, he says yeah, yeah, and when she goes too quickly he draws a sip of a breath and murmurs,

slow down. suck it slow... yeah. just like that, baby. nice and slow. oh my god, your fucking mouth is so good.

And,

oh, ... fuck. you're so hot.

And, a little later, his hand going to her cheek to ease her off his cock --

baby, baby, stop, please. you're gonna make me come if you don't stop.

-- a note of strain there, now. All the muscles of his torso tight under her hand, and his breathing uneven and staggered.

[Sinclair] She doesn't think to be grateful that he murmurs encouragements and guidance to her while she's going down on him in his living room, with all of her clothes on and all of his off and their ramen bowls cooling and drying on the coffee table. It's not the first time they could be compared to a college-aged couple, though if she had stayed human Sinclair would only now be preparing for graduation and Alex graduated with a dual degree from motherfucking Harvard University something like five or six years ago. But the fact remains: they might as well be a much younger couple,

with their avoidance of talking about anything long-term,

and with the ramen,

and with his immaturity, and her inexperience,

and the utter eagerness and playfulness with which they go at each other whenever they get the chance.

Sinclair doesn't think to be grateful, but she is certainly turned on. When he murmurs what he likes, and when he throws his head back and makes that gasping noise that's very nearly a groan, and when he mutters yeah, fuck yeah, that's it. She reaches under her skirt with her free hand, which happens to be her left, and she reaches into her tights, and she moans around his cock when she starts to play with herself, awkward and out of rhythm because, well,

she's focused on sucking his cock,

but it feels good, nonetheless. She rubs at herself while she she pleasures him, and soon enough his breathing is ragged and there are clenches of his muscles that weren't there before. Sinclair opens her eyes and looks up at him, lips red and wet around him, and he tells her to stop. Almost immediately, she slides her mouth off of him and is about to ask what's wrong when he just comes right out and tells her, warns her, that he's going to fucking come in her mouth if she doesn't stop blowing him.

She blinks a couple of times, her right hand still wrapped around the base of his dick and her left hand still tangled between her clothes, and then she flashes a grin up at him. For no reason. She's just... glad.

And then she's getting up, wriggling her feet out of her boots and stepping out of them with a dancing sort of hop, reaching up under her skirt with two slightly damp hands and tugging her tights off and down and all but falling onto the couch cushions as she strips them off her legs.

[Alexander] When Sinclair started touching herself, it just seemed to turn Alex on more. Made him roll his head back against the couch; made him stroke his fingers into her hair and tighten them against her scalp ever so slightly. Made him mutter, That's it. Touch yourself. Play with that hot little pussy while you suck my cock.

And when she stops -- nevermind that he asked her to -- it makes him groan aloud. Makes him thump his head back against the couch, drop his hand back on it.

"Oh my fucking god," he says.

Then she's getting, and his eyes are all over her. He watches her hands disappear up until her skirt, watching that flash of skin, of her hips and her upper thighs, and then she's peeling her tights off and falling onto the couch cushions beside him and she's barely managed to strip them off her toes before he's reaching to peel her panties off from under the skirt, tossing them to the floor too.

He catches her up by the waist a second later. Swings her over his lap, tilting his face up to kiss her, eyes closed, mmming low in his throat. His hands push under her Birthday Girl shirt, push under her bra, cup her breasts as he kisses a path down her neck, nips at her while he nuzzles at her.

"Sit on my cock, baby," he breathes. "Just reach down and put it inside you. Oh my fucking god, I wanna be inside you."

[Sinclair] On her knees on the cushion next to him, Sinclair tumbles to one side and then onto her back when Alex comes after her, hands up her skirt and fingers under her panties to get them off. She laughs, arching her back and lifting her hips as she watches him undress her from the bottom up. Catching her lower lip between her teeth, she grins at him, his hands hot and rough on her bare skin.

"It's okay if you wanna leave my skirt on while you fuck me-eee!" she says, and then yelps, laughing again as he grabs her up and pulls her onto his lap. Her legs spread easily for him, straddle over his thighs, hands on his shoulders.

They kiss, and she can feel his cock wet from her mouth and hard from arousal and hot from the sheer living reality of him. It brushes against her inner thighs, rubs slightly on her pussy. Her shirt is tight, clinging to his hands when he tugs it from her skin to get up under it. Her bra is soft, but the wire digs through the cotton into the backs of his hands as he pushes and then digs into her chest when he gets the cups up off her breasts. All the same: Sinclair shudders softly, leaning forward til her breasts fall further into his palms.

Her breath is humid on the side of his face, her hair brushing his jawline, her lips moving gently against his brow. "I want to." Her throat works as she swallows, from want -- and, to be blunt, an increased production of saliva -- rather than hesitation. "But condom, baby. We need a condom."

[Alexander] "Oh, fuckface."

He's not calling her that. He's not calling himself that. He might be calling the condoms that, but mostly, he's just expressing dismay. His head drops briefly against Sinclair's shoulder, then rises. He pulls his hands from under her shirt and exhales a laugh.

"I forgot completely. Shit. Here," he lifts her off his lap, "lemme go get a box. Take your shirt off. And your bra."

And as he's getting up to go get the condom, "Leave the skirt on."

He grins suddenly. And then he goes. He's back twenty seconds later, an entire fucking box of Durexes in hand as promised, shaking them out on the sofa next to Sinclair.

He throws himself down a second later, bouncing the cushions, leaning back and sprawling out and grabbing his cock like a goddamn joystick in his hand while he tears a condom packet open with his teeth. For a moment his face is drawn with pleasure, tight and focused with it, as he strokes the condom on. Sinclair can imagine him looking a little like that, maybe, when he jerks off thinking of her.

Which he did. Several times. Many, many times in the x weeks between the last time he saw her and now. Downside of monogamy, and all.

Then the rubber's on, and he's grinning at her again, white grin in a tanned face. "Come on. Come come come." Grabby hands at her, literally. "Get on this cock before I die of wanna-fuck, baby."

[Sinclair] A box, he says. Not lemme get one. Maybe that's what makes Sinclair gasp, right on the verge of moaning, as he's taking his hands off her breasts. She sounds dismayed, herself, pressing against him again. He lifts her to move her and she bites at his face, playful and yet... not, somehow. She's snarling softly in her throat as she does so, breathing heavily and trying not to follow her instincts this time.

Because her instincts are telling her to mount him where he sits on the couch, take his cock and rub it over herself until she feels like she'll die if she doesn't get him inside of her, then sink down with roll after roll of her hips, fucking him til he arches and comes, til he fills her up, til they do what nature fucking screams for them to do. Supposedly every single human endeavor can be boiled down to the urge to continue the species. Sinclair would believe it, right now, when not even the denial of reproduction makes a goddamn difference in how badly she wants to fuck Alex, and fuck him until he comes, and then fuck him again.

So she bites at him, snarling, teeth on edge as she forces restraint on her hunger. A box, Not just one. She could eat him alive right now, from the look in her eyes. She wants to.

When he comes back, Sinclair's in her black skirt. It's a little bit swishy. A little bit flouncy. Not too short. Short enough to be wary of a stiff breeze. It wasn't obedience, or fear of loss of approval, or anything of the sort that had her stripping her t-shirt off and wiggling out of her bra as fast as she could when he told her to. Nor did the thought of rebellion for no reason, self-determination by way of adamant denial of another, occur to her as she was tossing fabric wherever it might land. So: her breasts are bare and her nipples are hard and pink and she's kneeling on the couch, hair pulled over one shoulder, eyes on the hallway he just went down and is coming back out of. Her toenails and her fingernails are black and she's

got one of those hands between her legs again, the skirt in folds over her wrists, her fingers doing god knows what because he can't see them past the skirt but by god she seems to be enjoying it. Her brow is furrowed and she's playing with herself, maybe even fingering herself, panting quietly while he rips open the condom and rolls it on.

"Oh," she moans aloud, toppling over him, holding herself up with one hand on the cushions, waiting for him to be ready, not thinking about him jerking off or thinking much at all, period, except that when he lifts his head she wants to kiss his mouth, which she does, hard and loud, taking her hand out from between her legs. She has to let go of his mouth to gasp, just to breathe, laughing breathily while he grabs at air and at her skin and at what little remains of her clothes, demanding as a fucking child, which

she doesn't mind.

"Oh," Sinclair says again, softer this time, kissing him again, putting her wet hand with its hot little fingers on his chest. "Hold my skirt up, Alex," she murmurs, and uses her other hand to touch him, positioning herself over him, breathing more deeply. "You should watch. And suck on my tits. And bounce me on your lap like you do." She's muttering it all as she does what she thought of earlier:

taking hold of him. Rubbing him over and over on her clit, across her pussy, moaning softly in between her own words, placing him right

there

and rolling her hips, holding her breath for a second and then gasping it out as she pushes downward, taking him inside inch. By inch.

[Alexander] He doesn't hold her skirt up. Not right away. He doesn't, because as soon as he has her on his lap she's tearing a kiss into him and he's reaching down between her legs to twine his fingers with hers and pull her hand from herself

right to his mouth.

There's no shame, no flash of disgust or uncertainty, before he's sucking on her hand, licking her taste off her fingertips, sucking her fingers into his mouth right down to her knuckles. "Mmph," he murmurs, as though that taste, the sweetness of her pussy were satisfying a hunger in him deeper than what ice cream cake and all the ramen in the world could touch.

He's gathering her skirt up, then, grabbing it up in fistfuls, hiking it over her hips. She's taking hold of his cock and rubbing him on her, using him like a fucking sex toy, and that's what finally makes his mouth open around her fingers, makes him gasp and moan around her fingers

until she tells him to watch, to suck her tits, to bounce her on his cock

like he does.

"Put me in," he whispers. "Please, Sinclair, for fuck's sake -- oh."

She sinks down on his lap. So fucking slowly. His eyes are closed, jaw clenched, breath held until she's taking him in, every bit of him, and then Alex flexes up off the back of the couch, curls forward, bends her back over his arms wrapping tight around her, buries his face in her tits. He rubs his face all over her like an animal, like a blind thing, until he finds her nipple. He sucks on her tits hard then, hard and hungrily, grabbing her by the hips now, rocking her on his lap

slowly, slowly, gasping against her skin as he does.

"Oh, that's so good," he pants. "Oh, fuck, that's such a good little pussy. Fuck me just like that, baby. Just like that, birthday girl."

-- that makes him laugh. It pulls a tattered, breathless laugh out of him, and then he lifts his face to hers and kisses her.

"Birthday day," he murmurs again, as though that's who and what she is. Then, "My girl."

[Sinclair] Truthfully, Sinclair can't think of the last time she's heard Alex say the word Please. Surely he's said it to her before, maybe even outside of a sexual context, and she knows she's openly pleaded with him, begged him to do this or that or the other, to fuck her, fuck that pussy, don't stop, please don't stop,

but suddenly, whether it was five seconds or five minutes or five weeks or never ago, she can't recall any other time he's groaned her name like that and said Please like that, and it lights her up. She doesn't go as slowly as she could. Doesn't go as slowly as she has before. She's getting the hang of this. Slowly, because it's not like they get to do this every night or even every couple of nights.

Alex is, in a very real way, a treat for her that's quite a bit harder to come by than an Oreo ice cream cake. She's young -- younger than Alex by half a dozen years, younger than many of her packmates -- and she's inexperienced when it comes to sex, though hardly uninitiated into its mysteries, and she's got a lot to learn even among the Garou. Conversely, she's self-aware enough (now) to realize that she's young, and that she will probably not see thirty. Definitely not forty. She has no idea how old Alex is, and she might not care. She knows that age has little to do with how much wiser she is than some of the other Unbroken. She knows:

she has had, and will have, precious little happiness in her life. It will be bloodstains and agony, for the most part. It will be shame and failure. It will be wrestling with the knowledge that everything passes away but working all the same to hold on to some kind of history, some scrap of glory, for all the good it will do her and her people.

Alex makes her laugh, and makes her heart flutter in her chest when she sees him, and he makes her come, and he does things like tell her he likes having her stuff over at his place or that she makes him happy. He does things like this, hard arms folded around her waist as he kisses her, calling her My girl, and though that's also sort of who and what she is --

Alex's relationship status has changed to In A Relationship
(Boo, you whore!)

-- it makes her melt to hear it, and it makes her glow, and it makes her happy, and she knows that's something precious, which is greater wisdom than some reach in their entire lives.

She arches her back as he adores her breasts. And she runs her hands up the back of his neck and puts her fingers in his hair and holds him there and moans, rocking on his couch with him, squeezing his cock inside of her. She doesn't laugh, but she moans softly at the things he calls her, as though it turns her on more deeply, fucking him like this with her skirt on and his hands on her ass and with him calling her birthday girl, my girl.

"Yeah," she whispers, almost certainly an answer, an agreement. "Yeah, baby," harder this time, gasping, starting to ride his cock in earnest, kissing him again. "Fuck my pussy, baby. Fuck your good little girl."

[Alexander] Conversely, Alex's life is almost nothing but --

well. Maybe not happiness. But pleasure and frivolity. He might keep himself to a tight schedule, but ultimately he's managed as few ever have to carve out a life for himself doing pretty much what he likes. Happiness, though, true happiness: that's a rarer thing, and he recognizes that as well.

He was happy when she came to see him in Rio. He was happy wandering around the city with her, kissing in the rain, standing under awnings eating barbecue on skewers, climbing to Christ the Redeemer and snapping silly pictures on his rather overpriced DSLR camera, the features of which he barely even understands.

He was happy when she came to see him after they parted so abruptly in Rio. He was happy she left her things at his place, and that she added two hairbands last time.

He was happy when she came to see him today. And he was happy -- beyond anything he could easily explain or reason out -- that she came to spend her birthday, of which she's only had twenty-two, of which she might never have thirty, with him.

He's happy with her. Most times, anyway. And that's a rare thing.

Which he'd be more aware of right now if she weren't blowing his mind. But she is. She's arching her back for him, and then she's starting to ride him. He's pulling her hands up his chest, holding them to the solid slabs of his pectoral muscles, sliding them up over his shoulders to hold into the back of the couch

which brings her over him as she's bouncing on his cock, and her breasts are bouncing in his face, and he's leaning forward to fondle them in his hands and cup them to his mouth

so he can suck on them while he plants his feet and raises his hips off the sofa

and fucks her as she asks, his body slapping lightly against hers, thrusting in counterpoint to the rocking of her hips.

"Oh, fuck," he breathes as she says it: fuck your good little girl. That makes his head fall back briefly, makes him find her mouth and kiss it while her tits bounce against his chest, makes his hands land on her ass and pull her against him rather hard, once, before letting go and letting her ride. "It drives me nuts when you say shit like that."

[Sinclair] So happiness is rare, and they sometimes find it with each other, often at the same time, more often than with most other people they've met, and it results in actions that perpetuate the very same happiness: trying to carve out a few nights a month to spend together. Sharing food. Talking, even if it's just online or on the phone. Showing up with birthday cake, because it's her birthday, and she should be happy, and the thought of sharing her birthday with him made her so. The thought of going to bed with him tonight did, too. Just in a quieter way.

There is nothing quiet about Sinclair's joy right now. She's energetic enough on top of him that the springs of the couch are crying out every time she gallops on his lap, fucking him like they're running out of time, holding onto the back of the couch. Her breasts hit his face a few times as she bounces, before he's caressing them and licking them and just... playing with them, which pleasures her as much or more (more) than him. By now he's figured out how fucking sensitive she is, how wild it makes her when he sucks on her tits, how long and loud she'll moan when he cups them in his hands and runs his tongue

all

over.

Reaching back, Sinclair grabs his hand and keeps it on her ass, moaning as she starts bouncing faster, skirt flouncing on his lap with their motions. "Yeah. Fuck me, Alex. Fuck me, gimme that fucking cock, make me come on it, fuck!" She folds over him, getting louder, and the walls here are just as thin as they are at the Brotherhood, his neighbors can hear her just as clearly, probably can tell just as easily as he can that she's getting close. She presses against him, breasts on his face and pussy sliding fast and slick on his cock, clenching all around him on every downstroke.

"You need to fuck me all fucking day. You need to fucking give it to me, oh my fucking god, fuck, Alex, fuck, I'm gonna come, oh my fucking god!"

And she is, sudden and wild and tight, a hard and searing orgasm that doesn't even stop her riding him for the first few seconds, not til it really catches her and she starts screaming, grabbing onto his shoulders and riding him hard in a few last, aching grinds.

[Alexander] His neighbors are going to be hammering on the walls if this keeps up. They're going to hitting the ceiling with a broomstick, or turning up their music really loud, or banging on the walls and yelling shut the fuck up because my god, if it wasn't bad enough that he's up and banging around at 6am every day of the week, he has to bring a girl over every couple weeks and scream like they were killing each other.

Which, in a way, they are. They're taking each other apart with sheer pleasure. They're wrecking each other, breaking each other to piece, leaving each other washed up and washed out and blasted and destroyed and

it is

fucking

awesome.

"Yeah," he pants as she's hitting her peak, as she's grabbing onto him and pressing against him and riding him like that. "That's it, yeah, fuck me, fuck that cock, ride it, come on it, fuck! Yeah! Don't fucking stop! Don't -- fuck -- fuck -- "

it's incoherent from there on out. She's bouncing on him in hard, irregular grinds, and he's fucking up against her, slamming into her, and she's screaming and clutching his shoulders and he's grabbing at her ass, smacking it with the flat of his hand, squeezing her sweet little ass in his hands as his teeth go on edge from how fucking good it is.

They're still for a second or two. She's panting and going liquid. He's rigid, waiting, waiting, and when she starts moving on him again, even if it's just the slightest shift of her hips,

he grabs her and lifts her and puts his weight on his feet and his shoulderblades and just starts fucking her. Hammering into her, panting, groaning now, a rising series of grunts on every single thrust of his cock until he's throwing his head back against the couch and dragging her hips against his and stiffening into a singular arc of tension as he

quite simply

loses his mind.

The neighbors will hear this, too. He doesn't hold back a bit. He flat-out roars with pleasure, bellows at the top of his lungs as he comes into her. It's not even a word. It's just noise, just shouting, and then a second of breathless silence, and then more: wordless moans, or obscenities, or her name, or senseless fragments: oh my ... you're so ... fuck ... yeah. -- while he's thrusting against her, grinding into her hard, shuddering against her and pulsing inside her with the last of his orgasm.

When it lets him go at last, he sinks down on the couch. His eyes are closed. His heart is hammering and he's panting and he's lightheaded from it all. It's been a long fucking time, and now pleasure is melting slowly through his bones, and there's ice cream cake in the freezer, and there's Sinclair in his arms and on his cock and he's just suddenly

so fucking happy.

Alex opens his eyes. And then he laughs. And then he leans up, or down, or wherever the hell her face is now in relation to his, and he kisses her sweaty brow. He sprawls. He spanks her ass again, lightly, playfully, and bites her ear.

"I'm really happy," he tells her. "I'm really glad you're spending your birthday with me."

[Sinclair] Alex has the presence of mind to let Sinclair come without going at her like a train even while she's in the throes of it, screaming from it, clutching and clinging at him like she's losing control of her hands and her throat. She cries out like a fucking sorority girl, which she might have been if she hadn't Changed, if she weren't a GlassWalker, if a dozen things were different that would have led to her never meeting him, and never being here,

right now,

collapsing onto his shoulder and gasping past his neck, panting for air after fucking his brains out on the couch. On her birthday.

Chemicals are rushing through their minds and bodies, turning them limp and liquid after two orgasms made up of their combined loud and vibrant energy. Sinclair is rolling her forehead on his shoulder, making happy, contented little noises and smooching his skin every so often. Her shirt falls around his wrists and her hips, covers them where they're joined, holds in the sweaty, slick heat of what is sometimes called 'union'.

He swats her, and she laughs, and turns her face, and he kisses her brow. And they relax again, her arms limp around him, her body limp on him, his cock softening in her. And she smiles, blissful, maybe even a little tired. Though if he knows anything at all about Sinclair, he knows that in short order she will probably want more. And more. And she'll fuck him again and again as though doing it half a dozen times and making as much noise as possible will make up for the fact that every two weeks or so they fuck. And in the interim, he jerks off and she finds times and places where she can get off and that's how they get by.

Til the next time they're in the same room, alone, private or semi-so, and Sinclair all but claws and bites him into bed. Or, well. Couch, in this case.

She closes her eyes and holds him, and he's happy. And so is she.

"Me too," murmurs Sinclair, drowsy with pleasure. "I'm happy when I'm here." A beat, because that isn't what she means, quite. "I'm happy when I'm with you. And I wanted to be happy on my birthday. And with you."

Her incoherence, near enough to it, makes her laugh softly. She squeezes him in her arms. "Even when I realized I liked you," she says, when her arms loosen, "I didn't know I'd like you this much." And she laughs. Again. "Let's have cake."

[Alexander] "Mmmm," he agrees: happy, birthday, with him. With her. Something.

Then her arms are loosening, and his are tightening a little, holding her. "Wait," he murmurs. His lips touch her neck, her shoulder. Linger there -- thoughtful. A moment or two go by.

"Why don't you come by more often?" he says then: not so much a question as a suggestion. Not so much a suggestion as a request. "I mean... why don't you just drop by? Like in the afternoons. Or at night. And hang out when you can, for however long you can? You know my schedule."

[Sinclair] She doesn't go far. Would have slid her arms away from where they stay wrapped around his body, would have put her hands on his shoulders for balance as she gradually lifted herself off his cock, would have panted out one soft breath as he slid out of her, and would have wanted him all over again because of the sudden lack of him. But she doesn't.

Wait, he says, and Sinclair simply flows back against his chest, holds him more closely again, breathes in and out slow and deep while he caresses her here and there with his lips. While he talks, her fingertips draw lazy, aimless circles and whorls across his scapulae.

"Because," she answers, as though there's a reason why she doesn't, and as though this really is a question rather than a request. There's no because, though, not immediately forthcoming. Sinclair closes her mouth. And licks her lips. And thinks about it. And thinks a little more.

"Because," she says again, more thoughtfully, "I've usually been the one asking to come over or see you, and I know it's not like you don't want to see me or anything. I just didn't know you might want to hang out more often."

[Alexander] "Well," Alex replies slowly, "I don't know your schedule. Or if you're out kicking ass or something. So I didn't want to impose." There's a pause. Then he admits: "Also, I didn't know before if I wanted to hang out more often or not. But now I do. So."

He leans back a little, enough to see her face. Enough to see her eyes, vivid blue that they are, and the rather lovely contours of her face.

"You should come by more often," he repeats: a statement now. "You should just drop by. I'm home around lunch most days. And after dinner." And his mouth quirks. "We'll have ramen and shit."

[Sinclair] He doesn't know her schedule because she doesn't have one. Truth be told, Sinclair 'knows' his schedule in only the barest terms. She didn't pay attention when he lived at the Brotherhood, he didn't have one during that day and a half in Rio. They haven't spent enough time together, before or after he took her virginity, before or after they got themselves to admit that giving this whole monogamy thing a try was actually a pretty appealing thought. She doesn't know his routine in her bones, and she doesn't have one herself to compare it to.

"Even if I have to say no," she says during that pause, "I wouldn't feel like you were imposing."

Except that's not really the only reason, or necessarily even the real one. Alex goes on. Sinclair's eyebrows pull together, but given the way she's straddling his lap and a bundle of melted limbs on top of him, given the way she's laying her head on him, it's hard to see that flicker of a frown, or tell it for what it is. It's gone when she and he both pull back and look at each other. Her arms are a loose loop around his neck, forearms resting on his clavicles.

All Sinclair does is look at him for a moment, thinking through something. Then she leans forward, kissing him softly. Her body shifts and his cock shifts in her and it makes her take a sip of air even while she's kissing him, slow and explorative, easing his lips apart so she can taste his tongue. Lightly, with slow laps of just the tip of her tongue.

Maybe that's an okay. I'd like that.

[Alexander] It's Sunday. It's noonish. It's a lovely clear day outside, cold as fuck, but you can't really tell through the window because the sky is dazzling blue and the trees are just beginning to bud.

Light in coming in the window, falling across his dingy carpet, falling on his lean shins and his knees, on her knees folded beside his hips. It's falling across her face and lighting up her hair, and this is what he sees in his mind's eye when his eyes close because she's leaning forward to kiss him in that way she does, as though she were exploring; as though she were learning him by taste.

They kiss each other for a while like this. Not quite lazily; not with the mad eagerness they go at each other with before fucking, either. Just: like this. Slowly and lingeringly. And it's nice, Alex thinks to himself. It's nice to kiss Sinclair just like this,

on a sunny sunday,

on her birthday.

When they part, he nuzzles her for a moment, then grins. He whispers it like a secret: "Cake?"

[Sinclair] Late March. It makes her an Aries. In like a lion, out like a lamb, and though it's hard as fuck for most anyone to so much as think of things lamblike or gentle or innocent when it comes to Sinclair, Alex has something of a unique experience when it comes to the girl. No, not even something: he's seen her after sex, been with her when she's completely out of control from sheer pleasure, held her as she's come back down. He's the only person on Gaia's green earth who has woken up to find her with her arm and leg draped over and around him, her body naked under his bedcovers, her lips parted slightly as she breathes.

The girl looks like an angel when she sleeps. Looks a little bit lost and bewildered when she wakes up to him, though not unhappy. Far from just groggy or disoriented or annoyed. Sometimes when she comes at him in lust and want it's a little like being torn apart by a lioness, eaten alive, shredded to ribbons because she's so fucking intense, but then afterward,

when she's doing something like kissing him in this way, or falling asleep in his bed,

she's certainly as soft and as gentle as a lamb. And as backwards as that seems, it's also true. It's also saying something, that she would let her guard down that much just because he's Kin, just because he's her Kin, just because he's got little words appended to his existence like 'first' and 'only'.

In this light, Sinclair seems all but surrounded by an aura of white gold. It will get stronger even as the sun sets, as night comes on and her moon comes out to dazzle the sky. She's gorgeous, no getting around it, and no amount of ink under her flesh or metal tearing through it can detract or distract from that when the talesinger's moon is waxing overhead. She's lovely, soft, and damn near perfect right now, and she wants him again, and he can tell because her breathing is a little bit faster when their mouths drift apart,

nevermind the fact he hasn't even withdrawn from her from the last time.

Slowly, three times, she nods, licking her lips and swallowing, a smile toying with her lips, which are pale pink and shine like mother-of-pearl, and they've kissed enough that right now it can't even be attributed to gloss. "Okay." Sinclair kisses him again, and starts to pull away finally, which takes far more control and willpower than one could think she even has. She's smiling, and touching his shoulders and lifting her hips and panting out softly when he slips from her, and her cunt clenches under her skirt at the loss of him, and yet then she's casting about for her bra and t-shirt, climbing off of his lap.

[Alexander] Sinclair climbs off Alex's lap, and he leans forward on impulse and kiss her skin wherever he can reach her. It turns out to be the smooth slope of her side and lower back, just below where elaborate scarification interrupts the otherwise flawless stretch of her skin.

He kisses her there, and nips at her gently, laughing when he sees her twitch or quiver, ticklish. She rummages around for her bra and t-shirt and he kicks his boxers up off the floor, catching them and pulling them on.

"I'm gonna go grab my camera to record this for posterity," he says. "And some skewers."

Which is exactly what he does. He gets the same DSLR camera she saw in his room in Rio, and later slung around his neck as they roamed the city and its landmarks. He leaves it on the coffee table while she ferries the ramen bowls back to the kitchen. From the back of what looks like his utility drawer, Alex finds a box of footlong skewers and counts out twenty-two. One of them is half-snapped. He tosses it and gets another.

"All right," he says, "let's do this."

They bring the cake to the coffee table. Alex sets the camera up on a tripod. They stick the cake with twenty-two skewers; it looks like some sort of frozen, mutant porcupine. And then, after they light the skewers with a Bic firestarter, like a frozen, mutant, flaming porcupine.

"Okay," Alex says, snapping a picture and then toggling the DSLR over to video mode, "make a wish!"

She can see him grinning behind the camera, one eye squinted shut to peer through the viewfinder. The slender skewers are really burning now, shedding small billows of oily black smoke.

[Sinclair] Sinclair is folded over, stretched out, grabbing at her bra when Alex kisses her. She doesn't giggle, or twitch away, or swat at him. She does reach back, though. And her hand cups over the back of his scalp, tender and soft, fingertips rubbing against his hair and skin. Back and forth, back and forth, a brief and gentle and blind massage. Sinclair looks back at him as she draws her hand away, smiling.

It takes her longer to put on her bra and t-shirt than it takes him to yank on his boxers, not as long as it takes him to go get his camera from wherever it's stowed. When he comes back she's finger-combing her hair, not out of vanity but in thoughtless, habitual self-grooming. Her cheeks are still pink from exertion and orgasm and sheer enjoyment. It makes her glow gently when she smiles up at him, at his return.

She stays barefoot, her tights balled up and shoved into one boot, stepping over the corner of the coffee table to take the bowls to the kitchen. She doesn't just set them on the counter but rinses them out as Alex is sticking skewers in the cake. Sinclair is smiling more and more, glancing at him here and there, til she's quite simply grinning just as big as she was when she came over and literally leapt into his arms.

"Oh, my," she says, when he sets the skewers on fire. "This is going to end badly." And laughs, so that his video begins with Sinclair's outright laughter.

Make a wish.

She grins in a flash at him, flipping off the kitchen light so that they're illuminated solely by the frozen, mutant, flaming porcupine that says Happy Birthday! LOL! on top. "We're going to set off the smoke alarm," she says, shaking her head in the near-dark.

Sinclair leans slightly over the cake, hair held back, having trouble pursing her lips to blow out the 'candles' because she can't stop laughing, can't stop grinning. Of course she doesn't tell him her wish, or say it aloud. She just closes her eyes, stills herself a moment as the fire makes her face ghostly and almost creepy, then takes a deep breath

and blows them all out.

In the dark: "Aaah. Quick. Fan! Fan!" As she starts bouncing up and down, waving her hands over the wildly smoking skewers to keep the curls from reaching the smoke alarm over the oven. "Turn on the range fan!" she laughs.

[Alexander] There's something about birthday candles in the dark. So Alex lets down the drapes, which casts the living room into a sort of semidarkness. There's still light enough for the camera to focus by; the skewers' flames are brilliant, casting light back on Sinclair's face.

When they look back at the tape later, this is what they'll see:

that Sinclair is laughing from the start of the clip. That the lights go out, and the camera struggles to focus in the dimness before zeroing in on the makeshift candles. That Sinclair comes into the frame, grinning, and Alex's voice comes from behind the camera: smile and wave, birthday girl and she either does or she doesn't, and if she doesn't maybe she flips the camera off.

Make a wish, he says. And she tells him they'll set off the smoke alarm, and then she does

her smile fading into a sort of stillness, a real wish,

before she blows all the candles out.

Then it's just blackness on the frame, and the dimmest impressions of moving shadows. Sinclair is yelling quick, fan! fan! and Alexander is laughing and then suddenly there's light again, washing the picture out, as he throws the curtains open and then the window, but of course this just makes the smoke go inward, and then all of a sudden the smoke detector is blaring, earsplitting, and Alexander's standing in the frame covering his ears and laughing out loud in his boxers, and the skewers are still smoking atop the cake so he picks them all up and throws them out the window, environmentalist that he is.

It takes them a minute or two to calm the smoke detector off: Alex standing on a chair under detector, fanning it with a magazine while he covers his ear with the other hand. The camera records a lot of laughing and blaring and distant, indistinct conversation. Then it's quiet again, and Alex is handing Sinclair plates and forks and a carving knife, putting the chair back in his bedroom, coming back to sit on the couch, sunbathed and smiling, watching her cut the cake,

which is when he finally remembers the camera and looks up at the lens and smiles and waves, then throws his arm over Sinclair's shoulders and leans in to kiss her cheek before standing up to turn it off.

Beep-beep, says the camera, the red recording light going dark. Alex sits down next to Sinclair again, taking the slice of cake she hands him. "Mmm, ice cream cake," he says, and digs in.

[Sinclair] Either Alex will send Sinclair a digital copy or she'll ask him too. She has requested and been given extra storage space on GW.net more than once; her personal archive contains her own life history and that of a few others she had the opportunity to sit down with and listen to. There are folders bearing names, and inside those folders are recordings of some Garou telling their life story. Next to it: Sinclair's own retellings, version after version. Some of them are from her training, some of them are from after she left the sept that fostered her and struck out mostly on her own.

Her own histories are varied: pictures and recordings, videos and text files, spreadsheets, tagged maps, programs. Every piece of information that she knows exists about her is either already a part of this archive, or being added to it. Normally when Sinclair has nothing else to do, she is working on adding to those files. Everything she can think of. Everything she can find.

This is who I am.

And for whoever is given the encryption key to use upon her death:

This is who I was.

Sinclair would want to add this video, these pictures, this day, to that archive. Alex is already in there multiple times, mentioned in both daily records -- which are objective, impersonal, and simple recountings of events in her day -- and journal entries. Those are where the story of Sinclair's opinions and feelings unfolds, page after page, line after line. There will be one attached to this day that tells posterity what she wished for when she blew out the skewers in that .avi or .mpeg or whateverthefuck:

I wish to be this happy again.

Simple as that. Because she does not expect much from life, does not even expect life to be that long, but she is happy right now in a way she hasn't been in a long, long time. And it feels pretty awesome. So if she could feel that way again, so goes her logic, that would be nice. Doesn't matter when or why.

Preferably with Alex. But only if he's this happy, too.

Which is getting pretty specific and demanding of the birthday wish gods, so she stops there and blows.


She does smile and wave for the camera. With her middle finger, a beaming and mock-forced grin on her face for a moment before that wish makes her still and beautiful against the makeshift-candle light. Of course a little bit later the video has her clapping her hands over her ears and letting out a human-voiced impression of a lupine howl that damn near matches the tone of the shrieking alarm perfectly. After that: fanning the smoke out the window, grabbing a pot holder from the kitchen to help.

What the video won't pick up on is her telling him Fine! Jesus! Next year I'll get candles!

What it will hold for as long as it lasts, on every copy, is Sinclair leaning into his side a bit when he comes back and sits down, while she cuts into her birthday cake. And that her cheeks color, head ducking slightly from pleasure rather than embarassment, when he kisses her face. And that she stops, knife covered in cake and frosting in one hand, turning to him to close her eyes and kiss his mouth. It isn't a very long kiss, because she knows the camera is going, but it's sensual and unafraid and

the camera can't warn Alex that she's totally about to smear a knife-full of frosting across his chest. But it can record her laughing again, scooting away to put the cake on plates.

One for Alex. One for her. Forks for both. And her tucking her legs up on the couch, curling to his side like she's his girlfriend and this is something either of them are used to, and taking her first bite. "Om nom nom."

[Alexander] Alex doesn't think often of Sinclair's unavoidable mortality. He knows, of course, but in a distant, clinical fashion. He doesn't think of Sinclair the Galliard, Sinclair the werewolf, Sinclair who turns into a monster and wades into battle

possibly to never return. Possibly to die.

He doesn't think about these things, perhaps because it's just so far outside his daily schedule. Perhaps because it makes him uneasy, uncomfortable to think of it. It made him ache a little when she said, a few nights ago: be extra careful, okay? It made him ache after they hung up to think of War and what it meant until he had to pick up his cell phone and send off the text.

He doesn't think about these things now, either, though. He doesn't think about where she might be keeping the Rio pictures he sent her, nor where she'll keep this mpeg. He doesn't think about whether or not there'll be a next year.

Sinclair is almost painfully simple sometimes. Straightforward and direct. Alex can be too. Right now, all he thinks of is:

that the ice cream cake is delicious. That Sinclair is warm and happy. That they're eating on the couch cuddled together like they're really a couple, like she's really his girlfriend, rather than whatever amorphous mutually-exclusive deal they've got going, and that they're used to this at all, when they're not.

She omnomnoms. He leans into her and smooches her again, his lips cold and sticky with sugar. "Hey," he says. "Happy birthday, baby."

[Sinclair] On the list of things they don't talk about and try not to think of often: their relationship, her death, The War, taxes, parents, siblings or lack thereof, drama, etcetera. It doesn't mean they don't have a relationship, it doesn't mean Sinclair won't die young, that The War is her reason for existence, that they don't have to do their taxes, that her parents aren't constantly on her case and confused about why she stays so distant, that Gaia really fucked up when she decided to separate Alexander and Aaron in such a vast, fathomless, cruel way.

Right now none of that really matters. Sinclair's utterly delighted at the moment, so far from Warrior or Beast that the gulf is obscene, in her little skirt and pink t-shirt and with a speck of chocolate on her lip as she digs into her birthday treat while sitting next to her other birthday treat, who will live forever in that video half-naked. It's cold outside, the window still letting smoke seep out, and Sinclair's body is turned Just So, as if to shield him from any chance crossbreezes that come through.

She eats the frosting off his chest in between bites of her own slice of cake. "Om nom nom nomnomnomnom," she repeats, licking and suckling until he's clean. Ish. If saliva can be counted as cleansing.

So she's cold, and sticky, just like he is, when they smooch. She grins lopsidedly into the kiss, presses her lips back against his, and nuzzles her nose alongside his. "Thanks," Sinclair says. "It is."

As she's finishing off her slice, though: "How old are you, anyway?"

[Alexander] As Sinclair goes for the frosting on his skin, Alex leans back, holding the cake slice aloft to afford her unimpeded access. He laughs quietly, and then he doesn't laugh at all, eyes closed, mouth smiling.

His eyes open again when she draws back. They kiss, cold and sticky and sweet. There's a chill breeze coming in the open window, and they're both underdressed, but then they both run warm, and frankly -- he's still cooling down from the last round, and from running around his apartment fanning smoke away from the detector.

He's in the midst of another bite when she asks how old he is. He looks at her for a moment, amused. Then he says: "Twenty-seven. I'm twenty-eight on the fifteenth of April."

[Sinclair] It isn't a lack of affection or contact that makes the difference between Sinclair and any other girl -- or Alex himself -- so undeniable. It's the method. It's the insatiability. It's the way every time she licks at his chest it seems like her teeth are just barely sheathed by her lips. He told her once that some part of him would always be afraid of her, and she'd better get used to that. Not just from him. From any kinfolk foolhardy enough to get in the sack with her.

On the other hand, taking a step back from the presence of a predator's teeth so close to his heart, his belly, the feast that he would make for any creature desperate and wild enough to tear him apart, there is the fact that this is Sinclair. And that not so long ago she was grinning at his camera and blowing out 'candles' on her birthday cake. A little while before: arching her back and screaming with orgasm on his lap. And before: jumping into his arms and cuddling for a moment against him, pleased as punch to see him again.

He wants her around more often, and she wants to come around more often. And she made a wish, smiling quietly to herself. It's getting harder to remember that speech he gave her about always being afraid.

She's warm against his side, thighs pressed together. Even with ice cream cooling her off from the inside-out, Sinclair's feverishly hot. He tells her his age, and his birthday, and she blinks. "Really?" Because when you're twenty-two, that's a bigger difference than it is when you're twenty-eight. Or something. Or maybe because he's immature as fuck.

"Wow," she says, and picks up her fork again, digging in once more to finish off her slice of cake.

[Alexander] "Mm-hm. Really," he affirms, scraping his plate clean.

Wow, she says. Which makes Alex laugh again, leaning sideways to bump his shoulder into hers. "Wow, what? Feeling cradlerobbed now?"

Then he reaches for the knife and the cake to cut another slice. "You want more?" he asks, holding his hand out for her plate. If she gives it to him, he dumps another slice of cake on, passing it back before cutting his own.

[Sinclair] "No," she says, scoffing. "I just. Y'know. Wouldn't've pegged you as being a grown-up."

She grins at him, half-wicked and half-happy, leaning over and kissing his cheek with cool, chocolatey lips. "Yes. More noms. We should watch a movie."

[Alexander] "But I'm not a grownup," Alex protests lazily. His hands pause on knife and cake; she kisses his cheek, but he turns his head and catches it on his mouth, eyes closing. "I've got two more years before I have to be a grownup."

His own slice of cake falls over sideways. He puts it aside, reaches under his coffee table, and pulls out a massive DVD binder. She might recognize it: it used to sit on his bookshelf at the BroHo.

"Pick one." Fortunately, it's not the porn binder he handed her. "We should fuck again, too. And shower. And cook dinner. I defy you to make something yummier than my masterpiece ramen.

"And," he adds, "you should totally stay the night."

[Sinclair] "Oh good," says Sinclair, because he's not a grownup. Neither of them are, really. Which is alright. Maybe for the best, in point of fact. She grins on his mouth, and they get more cake. Sinclair licks some frosting off her thumb and takes the DVD binder from him, unzipping it and letting it fall open at random, slapping her hand down on one of the sleeves. "Terminator! Fuck yeah."

She's sliding it out of the clear sleeve when Alexander's going on, and looks over her shoulder at him. Is quiet a moment. Bats her eyelashes in a single quick blink. "I accept your challenge," she says solemnly. "And... I wasn't kidding when I said I wanted to do all of it. What you were talking about earlier. So by my count," Sinclair leans over towards the DVD player, pressing the power/open button, "we should fuck two more times. At least."

Settling back on the couch, grabbing up the first remote she sees, Sinclair slouches on his couch and picks up her plate, too. She's smiling to herself, waiting for the menu to Judgement Day to appear. "I'd like that. I really like sleeping with you."

[Alexander] "Twice more," Alexander agrees, all mock-solemn, "at least."

His living room is so small that Sinclair doesn't even need to walk to the DVD player. She can just roll off the sofa and stretch out along the floor and reach it. She pops it in, and he turns on the LCD TV, and while she's coming back he's picking a $2 Ikea throw pillow off the ground and handing it to her.

They grab their plates. As they're sitting back, Alex holds out his arm, waits for her to snuggle up against his side, wraps it around her. There's a throw blanket at the far end of the sofa, too. It's conceivable that some nights Alex is just too damn lazy to make the trip to the bedroom and decides to sleep here instead, some boom-crash action movie flickering on the screen still.

"I know," he says, and she can hear the smile. "I like it too." He takes a bite of cake as the DVD menu appears, the T-101's metal skullface glowers out at them, red eyes and all.

"I really like finding your stuff around my place," he adds, which is something of a confession coming from him. "And putting it away next to my stuff."

[Sinclair] Catching the pillow, Sinclair looks at it funny, then bops him gently on top of the head with it before setting it aside. She has cake to eat, after all. Snuggling against his side, curl-sprawled on the cushions, she eats her cake while his arm settles around her shoulders. She tucks her feet under the mess of a blanket at the end of the couch, and Alex murmurs that he likes sleeping with her, too. And he likes finding her stuff around. And he likes keeping it here, put away next to his stuff

like it belongs there.

Sinclair smiles, her face lit half by midday sun and half by the television, lips closing around her fork as she takes her bite of cake. "Maybe I should leave more than one change of clothes here," she says thoughtfully. "If you don't mind, I mean. Especially cuz... yeah. I want to be here more."

He can fill in the rest of what Being Here means to her, because it isn't much, and it isn't hard to figure out. Coming over to play games with him. Eat with him. Curl up on the dingy couch and watch movies with him. Fuck him, because god knows Sinclair seems to be all but addicted to that. Sleep in his bed, or on his couch, their arms and legs folded over one another and their heads close enough to share a pillow, even if they go ahead and use two anyway.

They hit Play.


At one point or another, they have to close the cake box and stick it back in the freezer. Only after they've both finished two pieces, forks scraping plates. And though neither of them could be said to care overmuch, they go ahead and take the plates and cutlery to the kitchen when the cake has to be put away. The movie's paused, Sarah Connor motionless on the screen, her mouth open in a silent shout. Sinclair is closing the window, but not all the way, because -- as she says -- she likes it being a little chilly, and the apartment needs air.

So they go back to the couch, the window open a crack but the blinds closed to block out the midday sunlight, and Sinclair resumes her original positioning, curled up against Alex's side. She pulls the throw blanket over them. She wraps her arms around the pillow he handed her earlier, hugging it to her chest. She listens to the steady lub-dub of his heartbeat through his ribcage, and feels something in her own chest move sleepily, as though in answer.


Sinclair is at Alex's place for hours. After the movie they play on his Xbox for awhile. Sinclair says it's weird playing video games without Twizzlers. So they stop, and Alex throws on clothes, and they walk down the street -- no matter that it's drizzling -- and buy some Twizzlers, because Sinclair seems to focus better when she's gnawing on something. She tells him, while they sprawl on his couch and his floor and game, about the Red Bulls. Dietrich. Joey. How they met, what they did, how they fell apart, what she learned from the whole mess, which has a lot to do with impulsivity and pride.

She tells him about the Storm Chasers. What they did. How Joey was too busy running around emo-ing over this metis she was infatuated with to notice or care that Sinclair vanished for two weeks. How Lukas approached them as a twosome, and how they disbanded, each of them going their own ways afterward. How the things Joey said after the Red Bulls fell apart were almost identical to what she said when she spoke up at Sinclair's Stone of Scorn rite. And she tells Alex, as they're switching to MarioKart and the Wii for awhile, what she learned from all of it, which has a lot to do with what it means to be a pack.

There's so much anger in her, talking about Miss Josephine Oliver, that she nearly breaks the controller in her hand. Goes quiet for awhile, her thoughtful and meandering ramblings taking her to a very tense, sore place for awhile. She tucks her legs up and decides to play Wario for awhile on the Rainbow Road.

After awhile, she starts asking Alex about college. Harvard. What Boston's like. Sydney and Tokyo, which ends up leading to him showing her photos he took while he was in Australia and Japan. Sinclair smiles a lot, though quietly, while they go through the pictures of places she'll never see. Quite unselfconsciously, which is rare for her, much like his occasional confessions of liking her stuff being at his place, Sinclair points to a few thumbnails of pictures that have Alex in them, and asks him to send them to her.

Just cuz.


What Sinclair brought to make for lunch -- well, dinner now, since someone just had to cook her lunch even though he didn't know it was her birthday -- isn't fancy, but it's also not ramen and sausage and spinach and eggs. She makes risotto, which she tells him is Italian for keep stirring, and Sinclair isn't lying. She makes this chicken concoction that involves some light breading, rosemary, and pulverized almonds, and then -- the part that has her sticking her tongue out between her lips, furrowing her brow with concentration -- a thin strawberry sauce.

"You should make a salad or something, if you want," she says, while she's stirring the sauce and he's stirring the risotto. "Ooh! If you have more spinach. Then definitely. This is kinda good as a dressing, too. It's good-good. It's the nicest thing I know how to make."

And it is so, so much better than Alex's awesome meal. Sinclair's hardly an expert chef, and it's been a long time since she's cooked anything, but she's got a good sense of timing, a great nose, and she tastes what she's making often. This time, taking their plates to the couch, she sits cross-legged and smiles all but blissfully as she eats. This time, they watch The Big Lebowski, pausing to get more cake, coming back to curl up under the blanket again, just as they were for the first movie.

The sun sets. The air coming through the cracked window gets colder, and Sinclair wraps her arms around Alex's middle, as though to keep him warm. After awhile they shift onto their sides, Alex behind her, Sinclair pressed back against him on the narrow cushions.

They don't make it through the movie. They don't make it very far at all after they've eaten dinner and eaten cake and snuggled together under the blanket like that. Hard to say if it's Sinclair or Alex who starts it, her shifting her ass gently against his lap and him moving his hand up from the cushion to cup her breast through her shirt, through her bra, slowly fondling.

They also don't bother to turn the movie off for awhile after they start making out, Sinclair's head turned over her shoulder to kiss him. Alex's hands start to move under her clothes, the motion of her hips starts to be more and more deliberate, and their breathing starts to get more and more pronounced, softly panting.

"Let's go to your bed," she breathes, her lips parting wetly from his, her hand covering his, guiding it under the waistband of her skirt, all but pushing his fingers beneath her panties. She kisses him in between words, moaning certain vowels, gasping when his touch finds hot flesh, waiting wetness. "Let's go fuck on your bed... bend me over the mattress... make me grab at your sheets... "

Just like he said.

Just like she wanted.


Clothes stay on...mostly, because they can't be bothered to take the time to strip themselves down. His shirt gets whipped off, tossed down to the floor, but Alex barely gets his jeans and boxers down before Sinclair is arching her back and groaning in front of him, her skirt pushed up and her hands already curling in his bedding, grabbing fistfuls of it for leverage. He rolls a condom on, watching as Sinclair -- bent over the edge of his bed, as promised -- gets her panties yanked down to mid-thigh, just barely out of their way.

If there was an element of delight and playfulness and sheer, agonizing want the first time around, the ache of having gone so long without touching each other, this round is rough. Sinclair's getting used to this, getting used to the act itself, the feel of his body, the way he grabs at her hips and grinds into her sometimes, and she doesn't yelp in pain or surprise as Alex is slamming into her from behind, gasping and muttering the dirtiest things his mind can churn up.

And Sinclair is groaning aloud, looking back at him over her pink-clad shoulder, watching him fuck her, fucking him right back until he's toppling, folding over her, holding himself up on his elbows and pressing her down into the mattress. She squirms as he's panting in her ear, licking her flesh, kissing her neck and groaning that he's gonna fucking come, oh my fucking god.

She begs him not to stop, but the edge is too close, and her cunt is so fucking tight, oh fuck, oh my fuck, ah, fuck, and he's rigid atop her, one arm under her, holding her against his chest, hips flexing again and again as though maybe if he just keeps going through his orgasm he'll survive it. A moment later he's furrowing his brow and letting out a rushed

ohgod

to feel Sinclair wriggling her hand down under her body, playing with herself while he's still hard inside of her, whimpering and bucking her hips, all but using him to get herself off. Alex grunts, clenching his fists on the bedspread, holding on for dear life, swearing at her, pumping into her as she finishes herself off. Sinclair comes with her mouth open, wordless and overcome, burying her face in his sheets as it takes her.


It takes them awhile to drag themselves off the bed. Sinclair is breathing heavily, sweating through her clothes, laughing under her breath. It's past nine, now. Her legs are trembling as she rolls over and watches Alex draw her panties all the way down her legs, dropping them to the ground. She wraps her legs around him, stilling a bit, pulling him down to her chest. They kiss for awhile, until they can breathe normally again. Until one or the other mentions how good a shower sounds right about now.

Sinclair is grinning when they put their clothes in the same hamper. She comments as she hangs her bra off the doorknob that it's the first time she's been naked with him today, and while they're standing under a stream of hot, pelting water a few minutes later, she wraps her arms around his waist and stands body to body, kissing his mouth over and over again

as their muscles relax

and as their sweat gets washed away

and as Sinclair murmurs things like I love your body.

I love being here.

I want to fuck you again.


At the end of the night, with the sky dark outside and all the windows closed and the bedroom door shut, Sinclair sits naked on the edge of Alex's bed and tells him to open the blinds. Moonlight floods them then, heavy and full and silver on their skins. They sit in the center of the bedspread when he comes back, legs crossing and covering each other, mouths drawn together, and Sinclair's hand going to his cheek. The comforter rustles as she lays back, rustles again as he comes down over her, shifting his legs between hers, holding himself up.

For awhile, he suckles on her breasts, flicking her piercing with his tongue, while she rubs herself on his stomach, legs parting to either side of his body. But not for long. Because she wants to kiss him when he finally pushes himself back up. Because she wants to unroll the condom on his cock herself, eyes flicking between her hand and his face as she strokes it onto his erection, watching his cock twitch and watching his face pull with pleasure.

"I really love fucking you," she breathes, pulling him back down to kiss him again, groaning into his mouth when he pushes inside of her. Moaning

the way she does

when they fuck like this, nice and slow.


Sinclair clutches at Alex when she comes under him, her back arching savagely and her cunt bearing down on him, pulling at him, holding him inside. She has her head tipped back and turned to the side, his mouth falling on her neck and jawline and lips til she manages to turn enough to kiss him again, whimpering in pleasure. Her hands hold to his shoulders, stroke over his back, grab at his flank while he quickens his own pace at the tail end of her orgasm, panting out incoherencies til he goes rigid, spending himself in her,

or rather, in the condom,

bucking his hips a few last times, shuddering to a stop. They're sweaty again; no matter. They'll shower again. They'll fall asleep as soon as they're under the covers, limbs limp and eyes drowsy. It won't matter that the windows are open and the moonlight is still keeping the room from pure blackness; they're worn out, finally, and nestling together under his sheets and blankets until they drift off in a tangle of two bodies.


Around ten in the morning, when Alex comes back from the gym, the bed is made and Sinclair's boots and jacket are gone, her spare clothes taken. The cake is still in the freezer, leftovers still in the fridge. There's a note on his pillow: Had to set up a playdate with a Fang. See you again. Soon! Don't eat all the cake. And a smiley face. And:

<3,
Sinclair