Lola Hawkes
It's been terribly cold all day long,
compared to the weeks before -- even when it had been raining and
flooding it had been much warmer than this. The temperatures didn't
peak outside of the fifties around The Homestead, and since the cold
front pushing the storms and rain clouds in it has only gotten colder and
windier.
Lola had done her patrols as usual, though. Weather
rarely stopped her, especially not if it's something as simple as
temperature. She just bundled comfortably in jeans, layered shirts, and
a canvas jacket. Her ears were covered with a knit cap, and she opted
to walk for the physical activity helped keep her much warmer than
driving on a dirtbike could ever hope to.
The winds picked up and
started whipping and howling around the early evening, though, and the
clouds rolling in from the West seemed heavy and dark and full.
Remembering the last time she ignored the weather for too long, Lola
made a beeline for home.
Now, closing in on eight o' clock, there
wasn't any rain or snow happening yet (although the promise of it was so
heavy in the air you could taste and smell it strongly when you
breathed). Despite that, the wind moaned and howled at the log sides of
the house. Lola was passing from bedroom to living room, hair damp and
left down to dry naturally, dressed in a pair of jeans and heavy socks
and a loose beige sweater with a big black print of an elephant on the
front, the garment stretched and slumping off one shoulder. She'd
showered to bring warmth and feeling back to her fingertips and toes.
Last
night had been daunting, but had ended in victory and a rejoice of
life. Lola didn't mention anything about it, though. As far as she was
concerned, situations like that were a part of the quilt of life--
patches that were frequently repeated, almost the very thread that held
the whole thing together for those born to be Warriors and Leaders of
Battle. That mindset (dangerously) carried with her even though she was well aware that she wasn't actually a Full Moon.
See?
Rather than dwelling on the night before, Lola was going through a
mental inventory of what ingredients were readily available for a late
dinner.
Hector Ghosh
Maria used to call Hector
"California" when he would bitch about the weather out here. Got worse
when Corey came along. The two of them couldn't tolerate anything colder
than about 65 Fahrenheit and to hear Glen and Maria telling the tale of
the first time Corey saw snow one would think he had no prior knowledge
of what the stuff even was.
The sun is later and later in dawning
these days and this morning Hector didn't want to get out of bed. Not
Harano or post-traumatic stress but he'd poked his head out from above
the covers and scowled at the darkness and the damp and then muttered
something about Alaska being warmer.
But he'd gone out into it.
When she saw him earlier Hector had swapped out his t-shirt and flannel
ensemble for a hooded zip-up sweatshirt and a blazer before tromping off
to meet up with Tamsin. When he breaks out the army jacket and the
fingerless gloves and the black ski hat and starts walking around
looking like he's trying to find a car to jack then they can officially
declare winter to be upon them. This is just rainy autumn ugh clothing.
He
didn't make it back before she did but she's out of the shower now and
there's a tall narrow figure lain on the couch in the living room. He
hasn't taken off his blazer and the hood of his sweatshirt is still
shucked up. His arms are crossed over his chest and his feet are on the
floor instead of up on the arm or the cushion because he hasn't
unknotted the laces on his boots yet.
A floorboard creaks and he
peels open an eye to look at her through the half-lit house. At the
sight of the sweater he laughs without opening his throat and closes his
eyes again.
"Sup, Killer?"
Lola Hawkes
"Oh, the same old same old."
If
Lola were a more urban-based Kinfolk, she would've been startled to
enter the shower with the house empty and come out to find a hoodied
figure slumped onto her couch. If she were a more urban-based Kinfolk,
but still herself? She probably would've attacked first and asked
questions later. She might've thrown something, or maybe seized the
poor man by the side of his neck from behind the sofa and made sure she
had hold of him before stopping to try and figure out who he was. She
would've treated him like an intruder and not a guest.
Out here,
though, this close to the Bawn and so far away from anyone or anything,
The Homestead was not a place that suffered invasion. So she
immediately presumed that the figure was Hector come home, and that
presumption was proven correct when he greeted her. She paused to look
at him from where she stood at the mouth of the hallway, with his boots
on and hood up, then chuckled and corrected her course. She was going
to head to the kitchen, but moved to meet him at the couch instead.
"There's
plenty of wood in the shed for the stove. If you go out and grab some
we can get the furnace going-- I think we're going to need to tonight,
anyways."
The question to 'sup' wasn't answered verbally, but
physically instead. There were changes about Lola, presumably with the
coming of the seasons, or from settling into a relationship for the
first time... well, ever, really. She never once seemed unhealthy
before, but now she seemed better off than before-- brighter, if you
will, more comfortable perhaps. Where she was so hard before she was
discovering, slowly and uncertainly, something softer.
For
instance, now: She had abandoned the kitchen when she ordinarily would
have kept on her original course and held conversation while doing what
she'd intended. However, some stirring of happiness, friskiness, and
hormones that neither knew they could blame yet had the Kinswoman
joining him on the couch-- not sitting near his head, oh no, but
settling overtop of him. One knee on either side of his waist, with her
body and weight hovering overtop of him rather than settling upon him,
though the promise was hanging obvious in the air.
"Or," she said with a coy grin, and coffed the hood from his head. "We could worry about that later."
Hector Ghosh
At
the matter of the house needing heat Hector draws a deep breath to
stave off the dusk-wrought somnolence. Every year Celduin would go north
during the summer and then swing south again during the winter. Not
like migratory animals necessarily but they were seasonal animals and
they knew the Fianna would celebrate the autumn harvest and the Glass
Walkers and Bone Gnawers in Houston would at least acknowledge
summertime.
He knows how to chop wood and he knows how to build a
fire but furnaces are another breed of beast. Lola comes across the room
towards him and he didn't take the time to notice out in the woods last
night anything other than the fact that she was fast on her feet. He
was surprised to find his sheath empty and not at all surprised to find
she was the reason his knife was out. Proud of her for pushing him to
shift when alone he would have lain there and let the heat of his Rage
consume him. Choice had nothing to do with it. Their people were not
meant to live alone. To live alone is to die.
So she comes towards
him and though he'd been near to sleep a moment ago Lola can see his
eyes reading the way her jeans sit on her hips and the sway of them and
he doesn't make anything of it. Not like he had when she was tired and
vocal about it. They were both so awkward around each other after he
came back with news of death but no details. The floods changed that.
When
she straddles him Hector doesn't dwell on it. His eyebrows lift and he
pushes himself up on his elbows. Hauls in a deep breath and his hood
falls back. His hands find her hips. She finds them warm. No shock of
frigid human fingers when he kneads her flesh and slips his hands up her
sweater.
"Worry about what?" he asks. He thinks he's so smooth.
Lola Hawkes
Lola's
clothes were well-worn things, for the most part. She didn't go
shopping for herself hardly ever, unless she found herself needing
better socks to keep her toes warm on patrols, or boots since the soles
were tearing off the pair she had been wearing (this happened almost
every year, she walked the Bawn almost every day after all). Clothing
that was less function and more just fun was often brought in as a
contribution from her cousin Anthony, of whom Hector had heard but never
met or seen. Apparently he owned his own business or something and had
money to spare. He was the one who put gas in Lola's truck, groceries
in the fridge, and all other things that were required to keep The
Homestead a functioning place to live.
Her jeans were always
sturdy, though. She usually wore a belt to keep them up about the
waist, but today that seemed unnecessary. He watched her hips from
where he was slumped when she walked over and found her jeans snug up
against them-- not biting in, not too tight, but the need for a belt was
gone.
Hands found those hips, and perhaps pushed away any focus
that may exist of the clothing over top of them save for the fact that
it was still there, god damnit. Fingers that she'd expected to
find cold but was relieved to learn were warm slipped up inside of her
sweater, and she grinned. Her hands rested light on his forearms
without pressuring or guiding him at all.
"I meant starting up the
fire." There's a beat, and then she asks a question that's genuine and
unintentionally departing from the mood she actively by approaching in
this way. "Dinner wouldn't be a bad idea either, you think?"
Hector Ghosh
"What, now?"
Now
suave anymore. Maybe just thinks he's being funny. By now he has to be
conditioned to think that her hands on his forearms are a red light: her
strong fingers come to rest without sliding and Hector breathes in
through his nose and pushes a closed-lipped smile into view.
Okay.
Not up the sweater. He can behave himself. His hands slide around her
backside and latch there. Hold her in place a little tighter than is
conducive for redirecting his brain to think about something other than
the fact that her clothes are in the way but he is an intelligent young
man, damn it. He's the alpha of his pack and a talesinger and will be a
Fostern before too long if he doesn't fuck up too hard again.
"We ate like six hours ago, you can't wait another three minutes?"
Okay
okay. He leans his face against hers for a moment and he's all but
pouring heat off of his lanky frame with that blazer on and his
sweatshirt zipped up and her on top of him but he's not sweating. He's
used to running hot by now. Sets his teeth into the corner of her jaw
without applying pressure and kisses her quick on the corner of her
mouth but doesn't shove her off of him.
Lola Hawkes
Hands
retract from under her sweater and instead find their way around to her
rump instead. He grabs hold but doesn't squeeze or make her
uncomfortable. However, his arms and shoulders were locked and steady
to keep her close for the moment, prevent her from escaping out to go
get firewood after tempting him back to full consciousness, or into the
kitchen to start digging around for ingredients.
He stated when
they ate last, and Lola chuckled but didn't comment. She'd eaten about
three hours ago, actually, munching on some preserved food out of her
backpack in that moment that she decided the wind was kicking up too
strong and it was time to come home. Her appetite shifted, and she
presumed that was because adding a steady regimen of surviving deadly
encounters and sex to her regular routine was making her require more
calories on a day-to-day basis.
One day a thought would occur. Without help, though, it was a long ways out.
He
leaned forward to bring his face near hers, and she leaned down to help
close the distance, not making him sit upright to meet her. This
lowered her to hover a bare inch over the lap she straddled, and the
teeth at her jaw and lips at the corners of hers were answered with a
huff of warm breath across his cheek and her turning her head to kiss
his mouth, full and strong but not prying deep or encouraging too much
momentum.
She'd break from the kiss soon enough, and though her
eyes were bright she'd still pat at his chest with the hand that had
come to touch there a dozen or so seconds earlier.
"C'mon. We
should warm the house before getting carried away. It'll suck bad
getting out from under the covers without-- supposed to snow tonight."
Hector Ghosh
As
fierce as she fights it's easy to forget she has no latent wolf nature.
Now that they know how to handle each other she seeks out kisses where
Hector has found himself at her throat or in her hair more often than at
her mouth. He doesn't forget. When Lola kisses his mouth he breathes in
hard beneath her and grips her higher up on her body, hugging her like
he hugged her last night, close without the desperation and the fear and
the blood and taste of metal in the backs of their throats.
Her wits are still about her. She has foresight he sometimes lacks. Tomorrow will suck if the clouds cover the house in snow.
"Snow?"
There
goes whatever her thighs against his had awakened in him. He puts his
forehead down on her shoulder and groan-growls like that is the worst
news he has ever heard in his entire life. It doesn't come anywhere
close to matching the sounds come out of his throat last night born of
not being able to get up when a tail-wielding technology-jamming
hell-bitch was coming after Lola but Hector is a Galliard. His
vocalizations can carry for miles and strike icewater terror into the
hearts and bowels of his enemies.
"WHYYYYY?" he asks the meat of
her shoulder all muffled on purpose so he does not blow out her eardrum
and then makes a huge show of pulling it together. Big-big inhalation
and brief-widened eyes and then a making-the-best-of-it smile.
No
wisdom for her here. No insight into the changes in her body or the
rationale behind the fluctuations in her energy levels or the appetites
she finds herself developing and then abandoning. Not thoughtless enough
to point out the new fullness at her hips and he doesn't spend much
time with his hands at her bust unless they're already relieved of their
clothes. Easy enough to blame the wildness of last night's coupling on a
shared post-victory high rather than his response to the softness
overtop the warrior woman's physique.
"Alright. Fantastic. I'll wake up the furnace."
Lola Hawkes
He
was going to move from her mouth to her hair, as was more his custom.
Hector may have started out as a Lost Cub, but he found his Wolf
quickly, especially in the hard months that have passed since his pack
all but deteriorated and he was left taking the lead. Now he carried
more Rage than most Galliards his rank, and the Spirit within him was
strong enough to rival those born in dens out in Gaia's heart. He was
less human than occurred to him, sometimes, but Lola was well aware of
this.
He would catch himself, though, and remember the human
affections too. He'd kiss her back, then his arms wrapped about her and
pulled her in close. She was happy to settle the weight of her chest
and torso onto his, but the warm mood full of close proximity and
leading touches fizzled out when she warned him that it could snow. He
groaned into her shoulder, moaned and lamented loudly, but at least
muffled his mouth into the front of her shoulder.
Then, with a
deep breath, he seemed over it. Lola smirked, the expression a
closed-lipped twist of her mouth, and sat up straight, pushing back
against his arms so he would either have to unlace them or drop them to
her waist. Her eyes moved quickly over his face, chest, torso, taking
an inventory of what she could with the bulky clothes of a cool fall day
still covering him. Content with what she found the Kinswoman moved a
section of hair that was threatening to tangle with his eyelashes back
to sit with the rest, then shifted off the couch. The leg not wedged
against the back of the couch straightened first, foot finding floor,
then the second joined with the leg swinging up and over his body.
Standing straight, she'd hold out a hand to offer to pull him up onto his feet as well.
"Good," at last, to his saying that he'd wake up the furnace. "I'll do the same for the oven."
And
so they would. Hector would take on the work more traditionally suited
to the 'man of the house', gathering the pre-chopped and sectioned wood
from the shed out to the back of the house, stacked up between a
workbench that kept tools more frequently used for dismemberment than
actual projects and a tarp-covered four-wheeler. Lola would be in the
kitchen, making some simple but tasty enough dish of meat and salad and
potatoes.
There would be a point where, again, Lola would come to
Hector and guide him back to the bedroom. At least here instead of the
couch, when all was said and done and the bedframe had stopped creaking
and they had stopped panting and grasping, they could pull covers up
over themselves and be perfectly prepared to drift off to sleep.
No comments:
Post a Comment