More so than yesterday, there’s surely a definite

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The nights had blended into days, and he had spent them occupying himself with whatever would get his mind off the girl in the glade.

He had never promised he'd distract himself with healthy endeavors. And speaking of: his right cheek still stung with the reminder of his tousle over missed dinner, a likely scar that would plague him until the end of his days. The wound hadn't fully healed, but he was satisfied if it was no longer openly bleeding. The small adventures he had taken with the girl he had donned as "sunshine" had been a comfortable respite, although the large, fish-like corpse still clung to his memory with no shortage of disgust. He wasn't sure why he had been feeling so nostalgic lately, or why he was recalling each and every moment since he had last visited this place. Perhaps it was a subconscious means to playing off his dedication to return - the intent behind him retracing his original path, and finding her once more, still waiting for him to defend against the fog.

He supposed it was time to return. As he charted his route back to the glade, Klaus would take the time in-between steps to contemplate his plan of action. With each crunch of soft grass beneath a darkened paw, his mind would drift to their shared moments before, and how most of it had been guided under intensity. He wondered now if their interactions would sour without the thrill of a first meeting, and how she would look at him with this new, garish mark scraped across the side of his face. Would he finally resemble the monsters she had alluded to before?

Such thoughts served him no good now. He was already turning the corner, that familiar slope of golden light beckoning from the distance. The gilded rays were just beginning to crest the terrain as the morning began anew, and their promises to each other were hopefully kept. It would have been easy to miss each other or to come too early - and with this small realization, he wondered how long he might wait in the meadow until she appeared. If it would be foolish of him to do so, knowing he knew almost nothing about her otherwise. He was acting a fool - naïve, and unlike the rogue he was accustomed to. Chasing girls through sunlit memories? He had softened, and he wasn't sure if he approved of this new look just yet.

But it was too late to rethink the choices that led up to this moment. Before he could allow doubt to creep into his mind, the sing-song chirp of his own name danced over the near horizon. The sound of familiarity - of relief. Despite working against every urge in his body to slip into a run, he would suck in a breath and walk, his eyes focused on only the path before him.

This was stupid. He - he was stupid. What was his goal, here? Always meeting this girl in random sequences, dancing in some sort of game that only they seemed to know how to play? His jaw clenched, fearing he was walking into something much more than he had prepared for. He hadn't rehearsed what to say, or how to act. He was going to have to let his instincts take the lead, for his mind was too soiled with eroticism and loneliness to trust.

At last, he was there. And at the first sight of her, he stiffened.

And he breathed. Slowly, but deliberately. This would not be his undoing.

She was beautiful. He thought he had remembered her features well enough, but memory served no justice. It was enough effort to control his expression now - but his eyes never could lie. They reeked of reverence, heat. Reflecting his own manifestation of perfection back at him within two wide, crimson gems. His movements stilled, just a quick pace away from where she stood now, his jaw clenched just slightly to focus his emotions towards something less suggestive.

"Missed me?" He couldn't hide the glimmer of delight at the prospect.

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Memories were hard to come by as of late. Each time he thought he had reached a new, recovered chapter, or stumbled across a trigger that would illuminate the rest of his past, Klaus fell short. At the moment, he could only remember the faint figure of a woman - pale white, evergreen eyes - and some vague sense of pain, as though he had been struck to the back of his neck before waking in that forest. It was too little to make much sense of, so it was only natural for him to follow whatever passing clues came his way in order to seek the truth of his arrival here. So when this girl - this stranger, who he only now knew belonged to a pack towards west of the glade - reminded him of a ghost from his forgotten past, he couldn't help but be drawn in like a moth to the light.

All thoughts of history since lost were cast aside as she looked upon him, her face relieved in spite of their incessant taunts and teases the last time they had met. Was it then, that she thought of him as something more than just a boy to play with? The idea was intriguing and terrifying all the same. To admit to something deeper than casual desire would be troubling for many reasons, one of which being he wasn't sure how long she or he would be around to entertain it. Sucking in a slow gulp of air, he watches her quietly until her attention diverts to the new scar across his cheek.

Shaking his head, Klaus chuckles, looking away briefly to the woods surrounding them at a distance. "No. Seems I have a penchant for fighting over my dinner," he admits lightheartedly, shaking his head as he turns back to her now. In truth, he had been looking for a reason to dirty his coat since the day he had woken up. If it hadn't been a squabble over a rabbit, it would have been something else with relatively no value. "Just a scratch. Unless you have some medic experience? Far be it from me to not play the helpless victim and let the pretty girl nurse my wounds," he'd jest softly, raising a paw as if to feign some sort of fainting spell oncoming, both eyes closing with a dizzying smirk.

Until he peeked at her from behind the guise, somewhat more serious. "Shiroshika does have medics, don't they?"

A small nugget of information he had recently uncovered, and one he was pleased to surprise her with. He didn't yet know her name - but it didn't leave him completely clueless. She had smelled of others the last time he had met her, and now that he had stumbled upon her home, she could only hide her identity for so much longer.

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It was lighthearted banter that he was adept at. For whatever reason, it was easier to tease this girl than it was to hold any sort of austerity. Klaus's eyes rolled lazily over her, drinking in each curve and tuft of ivory fur that twisted around her feminine form. There was something about this pack wolf that convinced him he could bear to entertain a mundane life - a stationary life - should she return his affliction.

He called it so because that is what it felt like: a disease of the mind, a virus nibbling on his atoms. For what else could he compare these feverish feelings to?

His grin was indefinite, even persisting when she called him a stalker of all things. Angular shoulders bounced in a light shrug, curling his mocha-colored tail around his hip in a flick of activity. "There are a lot of things you don't know about me," he would chase after the accusation. "But you don't like the attention?"

The question was so pointed, he hadn't dared look away from her ruby-red gaze as he asked it.

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She was probably wondering what he knew. He could see it in her eyes - the reflection of his own cheshire-cat smile, her longing, threaded between notes of mystique and wondering. However much she may question his intentions now, he found that he didn't quite care enough to concern himself with how she saw him. Stalker, ghost, just someone to drag down into a bed of fur and teeth. Klaus didn't care. He only saw her, delicate and poised, like a paintbrush over canvas. What picture they'd author together was yet to be seen.

Her giggle was no small gift, and it lightened his mood substantially. “But that still begs to question, what kind of attention am I getting?” Came a girlish poke, paired effortlessly with that teasing glance of hers. It would have been easy to answer with one of his many characteristically-charismatic retorts, but he was already inching closer, closer to where she stood now. With each step, his expression would drop, softening. When at last he was within a breath's reach of her face, he'd tilt his head, staring down at her from a behemoth's point of view.

"Whatever kind you'd like," he would finally murmur, leaving the interpretation up to her alone. If she asked it, he'd get on his proverbial knees. If she wanted it, he'd hunt those that should threaten her for sport. It was the kind of obedience he nurtured for her that was so oddly over-encompassing - swift, and not easily satiated by parting looks and brief touches. He wasn't sure what kind of curse she had managed to place on him, but he was fine if it haunted him forever.

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His forehead was still flush against the thick of her collarbone when she replied, prompting a slight grunt of dismissal from him in reaction. He wanted to dig his nose deeper, burrow into her, never leave this momentary comfort. Instead - "I wanted the satisfaction of getting it from you," he retorts, just as quickly as he returns to patiently rearranging each singular strand of fur along her nape. He could have pressed the girl at the border for more information - but it would have seem too odd, he would think, for a strange man to appear asking pointed questions about a packmate. If he knew her enough to be searching for her, why wouldn't he already know her name?

At least, that's how he had reasoned with himself before the conversation had begun.

Chuckling at her inquiry, the taller man takes a break from his incessant grooming to nip at her ear instead. Transitioning from one form of touch to another, it seemed, would be how he spent the latter end of their evening. "Maybe. Although you'd get me back very cold, and very tired." He remembers the trek he had dragged himself through prior, and how the only motivation had been the brief trickle of her scent mingling among the mountain's crest. Worth it, though, so that he could surprise her anew.

"Sachiko."

He couldn't mask the surprise that leapt onto his lupine features, or the fierceness of which his chin had jerked away from her shoulder. Her tail still threatened to drag his face back to her side, and it tickled his nose as it crinkled in shock. She had actually admitted it - this elusive moniker that cloaked her so - and it sent such a surge of disbelief and pleasure intertwined through his veins that he choked up a bit, unable to speak outside of a few sudden, short coughs. "That," he would pause, steadying himself, "Was highly unexpected."

He didn't yet peel away from her, though. Klaus remembered his request, and what he owed in return. "Sach-i-ko," he'd repeat, softly, as though to himself. Testing out the syllables, watching her, wondering if she'd fade away into the mist at the first mention. "You know, in some old tales, names were told to give power to those who knew them." He finally managed to spit out his first completely coherent string of words, catching her gaze from behind an unreadable mask.

His chest pushed against her side, gently at first, then with more pressure, encircling her with his hip grazing her own and his tail flicking across the slope of her rump. "I suppose that means I own a tiny bit of you, now, huh?" He curls his tongue as he slips the remark against the small space between them, his breath heated. "My Sachiko," he'd follow, boasting a smirk as wide as he was arrogant with his claims.

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Her willingness to return his affections was more than enough to draw him in, insinuate that she, too, felt this wildly addictive surge of belonging. He didn't have the heart to assume she might be only mimicking his endearment - or crossing her fingers behind her back as she spoke the words. My Klaus. The sentiment was all it took to secure his place at her rear, his smile widening, brightening the pale ivory that adorned his mouth. The light of it almost reached his eyes - almost.

"I think I owe you," he begins slowly, nestling his chin atop her lower back as he inhaled her. "If you still want me, that is." The last remark was slightly quieter, on a more serious note. As much as he desired this, had waited for it, there was still a voice in the back of his mind that pulled and tugged at his reigns. Perhaps he was giving in too quick to their game. Maybe there was something noble in leaving her like this, never touched in the ways he couldn't take back, safe from any tarnishing his rugged heart could bestow.

And then again, he thought, this could be what seals her attention to him and him alone. It was a childish, boyish thought, naive even, but a hopeful one nonetheless. As his eyes swiveled to bore holes in the back of her neck, a softer, deeper sigh vibrated from his chest.

He might be in over his head.

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AFTER THE FADE.

theme: s.o.s. - thunder jackson

The proverbial rope left tattered, broken, ripped to shreds beneath the weight of his heavy paws. Klaus managed to slide off of her in a fashion deemed neither graceful or quick - his chin bumped her hip as he knelt down, relieving her of the burden of holding them both up for the activity. Where he had tugged and scraped with lustful nips, he now pressed delicate kisses, not ready to leave the paler nymph of a girl without something sweet to remember him by.

His muscles did ache, seeking some respite from the surge of energy that had propelled them not only moments ago. He had wanted to take his time, enjoy her, enjoy this, and with a soft sigh of satiation - he felt he had. At least, he couldn't see himself launching back into the game without taking a period to reflect on their dance.

"Beautiful," he'd murmur, not entirely loud enough for her to catch unless she heard it over their shared echo of warmed breath. The first thing he managed to blurt after such an eventful evening - and he couldn't begin to hide the glimmer of heat that simmered across his gaze when he looked to her now. There was nothing that alluded to this being more than a quick desire, but he was struggling to remove himself from her touch already.

Damn it all, he'd think, shifting so that he allowed room for her own form to fall next to his. He didn't want to go.

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His pulse began to settle into a steadier melody as their bodies fell against one another, a calmer waft of emotion cloaking them in intimate shadow. Klaus opened his chest to her, his head opting to fall on her shoulder in a tucked, comfortable manner once she had adjusted herself to her liking. At least, this way, they could relax and he could shade her form from anything that dare interrupt this time.

She said something about it being worth it, he realized. His awareness was already dipping, falling into a dizzying hole of sleep. He didn't usually spend this much time resting with the women he's been with - but something about her smell drew him into a peaceful stasis. He was content to fade away at her side, if only for a moment.

Knowing that he may rise to find her gone once more - he left her a space to wiggle free, should she want to. He expected it, her departure. It swelled something sour in his throat, but he wouldn't shrug off his mask of satisfaction just yet. He'd find her again. Right?

"Sachiko," he'd murmur, before his eyes rushed to fall shut.
And his sentence ended before it began.

 

EXIT.

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