Chapter 8 – Quiet Night

  “The goal of the program is to take known high-performance assets and put them in situations that they can win. This program is a net loss on the bance sheet but is providing a critical amount of stability to the worlds affected by the cults.” – Agent Jay, responding to questions about the field offices and their agents.

  “So, what is it you’re making?” Val asked. She was standing there in yoga pants and a sports bra while Kurt was in shorts wearing an old t shirt that had some company logo on it that was fading to obscurity. She was still an embarrassed after Kurt ughed at her offer to help ‘wash his back’ in the shower.

  They had talked for a bit after the trooper squad had left. Mostly it was Kurt asking questions and Val trying to answer them. She wasn’t omitting anything but sometimes didn’t know the answer. Penny had then called and informed them that she would send them an official report with the findings when the interrogations were completed. After a while, they agreed to get cleaned up before dinner.

  “It’s a pasta dish with sausage, spinach, tomato sauce, onion, olives and garlic.” Kurt said as he cooked the sausage slices in the pan with the onion and garlic. “It’s cheap, tastes good and makes a lot.”

  “If you say so.” Val was eyeing the ingredients with some hesitation. She didn’t care for olives and spinach wasn’t exactly a favorite. She also hadn’t ever had feta cheese but hoped it tasted better than it smelled.

  “The cheese is a topping so if you don’t like it then you don’t have to have it.” Kurt could understand not having the pate for foods. One of his friends was Korean and had continuously tried to get him to like kimchi. After a couple years, he finally gave up.

  Val was enjoying watching him cook. Mostly because it seemed that Kurt enjoyed cooking and she found that she liked watching as he expined things. Kurt found that he rather liked having a captive audience and, not having anyone else to talk to, tried to keep her entertained.

  “Then in goes the pasta.” Kurt said, pouring in the pasta followed by the spinach, tomato sauce and olives. “I add a dash of water since it tends to stick if I don’t, and I want the spinach to bnch.” He poured a little water over it, stirred and put the lid on.

  Raising an eyebrow Val asked more questions. “When did you learn to cook?” She was practically ying across the counter as she watched, her tail waving excitedly behind her. Kurt found it funny and a pretty reliable giveaway for her emotions.

  He had also found it curious how all her pants were altered to allow the tail to stick out. The method had varied from what he had seen but that might have been because different pants had different things to work with. What it definitely meant was that Kurt had spent a significant amount of time staring at her butt.

  “I didn’t. I just learned some recipes. After that I put a few things together from the patterns.” He said after giving the pasta another stir.

  “What patterns?”

  Kurt smiled and went to get a bottle of wine from the pantry. “Like how certain fvors go together or how some vegetables cook in liquid versus just steamed.” He found the wine but wasn’t sure if Val actually wanted any. “Hey, do you want wine with dinner?”

  “Sure! What do you have?”

  “Uh, we have red or… white.” Kurt suppressed a snicker at using a line from one of his favorite movies. “I have dry or sweet red and for white it’s pretty much only sweet.”

  Val did her little head tilt at his joke. “You pick. I don’t really know much about wine.”

  Kurt went with a Cabernet. It was a pretty safe choice for a dinner wine. Or at least he thought so. He returned to the kitchen and turned took the food off the heat. He set it aside to cool for a while and rummaged around for a bottle opener.

  “So is this the part where you wine and dine me into your embrace this evening.” Val asked. She was naturally trying to tease him and had heard that line before. Now she actually got to use it.

  “I am more a dinner and a show kind of guy for first dates but…” He gestured to the talisman glowing on the porch. “We kind of need to stay here.”

  Smiling at his use of an idiom, Val let it slide, the night was still early after all. “Are we eating in front of the television?” She asked. “I don’t mind but I have heard its bad manners.”

  Shaking his head, Kurt now went hunting for wine gsses. “Nope, I figured we could eat at the table and see how it goes from there. I want to give you the full experience and let you bail after dinner if you don’t like me.”

  Val ughed in her own lovely way. “That sounds great, but I think I’m pretty committed.”

  Raising his eyebrows Kurt pushed back a little. “Really? We only just met, and you are throwing out the committed card?” he shook his head as he walked around the isnd near her. “I can’t believe it.”

  Her tail freezing in pce, Val suddenly looked worried. “I, ah, we can go on a … that is I think this is…” She trailed off as Kurt walked over with a couple ptes and silverware.

  He handed them to her and when she stood up straight, he leaned in and gave her a little kiss on the cheek. “Can you set the table for me?” Then he turned away, leaving Val standing at the isnd with her hands full.

  Val and her kitsune side were stunned. While being a fox demon pushed her to tease and py, her dark elf side was much more reserved. She was not expecting Kurt to be so precise with his teases and the way he pushed back. If it wasn’t for the tactic really doing it for her, she would almost be upset. Instead, she smiled softly to herself and wandered over to set the table.

  Kurt came over shortly after with the wine and gsses of water. Then made a return trip with the pasta and some bread. Being a werewolf meant that carbs really didn’t bother him. He was also checking on Val’s tail to make sure it was wagging happily and that he hadn’t overstepped with the kiss.

  “I am rather impressed with your performance.” Val said after she took a bite and her eyes lit up slightly. “Mmm. Did you bake the bread too?” She said after a bite.

  “I can’t bake to save my life. That was a loaf I bought and just warmed up.” Kurt said with a smile after taking a couple bites. “And I am gd you are happy with my cooking performance.”

  “Oh, so far, I have been impressed with ‘all’ your performances.” She said with a wink. “I don’t think you could fail on anything based on what I have seen.”

  Kurt just smiled back at her and raised his gss. “To big performances then.” They ughed a little at the inuendo and continued on with dinner.

  They talked about a lot of things, mostly keeping it light and friendly. Neither really wanted to dwell on the day’s events that had been spoiled by their uninvited guests. Kurt managed to get Val to try the feta and she liked it in small amounts. He also had to admit it was an acquired taste.

  After dinner, Kurt scraped the leftovers into a container and put it in the fridge. “So, what movie do you want to watch? I don’t have many super new ones, but I have a decent collection.”

  Val was now sitting on the counter while watching him clean up and occasionally sipping on her wine. “I don’t know. Like I said I haven’t really seen any before.”

  Kurt then had a little consultative conversation with her to decide what kind of movie to watch. After a while they settled on a comedy, and they went downstairs after topping off their wine. Kurt had put the TV on a board across some boxes he had. He would try to mount it the next day, having run out of time after getting home.

  Fishing the cable around, he plugged it into his computer along with an external hard drive. A couple seconds ter and they were staring at a bunch of folders broken up by genre. He navigated to his comedy stash and opened it.

  Val watched as the little file folder turned into dozens if not hundreds of movie covers. She saw a lot of dated movies in there, many from before Kurt was even born. “Why do you have so many old ones?” She said after noticing a pattern.

  Not sure how to answer, Kurt scrolled for a moment. “Um, I think it’s because my mom liked a lot of these. Also, people knew how to take a joke back then so there was a lot less censorship. Then there are the ones that started or inspired others. So, it’s a lot of film history.”

  “Well, which one do you like?” Val asked.

  “The Mel Brooks ones are good. Lots of parody so I’m not sure you will get the jokes.” Kurt hovered over the ‘Men in tights’ version of Robin Hood. “Do you know the Robin Hood story?”

  “The outw that fought over taxation?” Val answered. She had heard it and even read one of the books but hadn’t seen a movie about it.

  “Yeah, there is a spoof version. It’s pretty funny or…” He trailed off as he felt a hand on his shoulder. He looked back to see Val very much inside his personal space.

  “If you like it, I am sure its fine. Let’s just sit back and enjoy the evening.” She whispered.

  Kurt suppressed a shiver at her tone. He quickly agreed and clicked py. The movie started and he turned off the overhead light. When he got back to the couch, he found Val firmly seated in the middle, leaving him with an end spot. He briefly considered the loveseat but then thought better of it.

  He sat down near the end table with his wine. A moment ter and he felt a weight lean up against him. He looked over to see the top of her head as she stared directly at the screen acting completely normal. Kurt decided to just go along with it and settled in.

  As the movie pyed, Val got more and more snuggly, he was surprised when she pulled his arm off the back of the couch to wrap over her shoulder. She was still watching the movie, ughing at the right parts, and generally seemed to like it. He also caught her occasionally turning her face into him at the embarrassing parts but noticed she seemed to linger before turning back to the screen.

  At the end of the movie, she was nearly hysterical as they began shouting for the locksmith. As they walked upstairs, she tried to expin while chuckling between sentences. “Haaa, so these two troopers liked to py games. Heehe, those kinds of games. Hmm. Well one day he decided to surprise her and handcuffed himself to the bed.”

  Kurt could almost feel in his bones how the story would end and listened as she continued. “But she had lost her key out in the training field and when she got back, couldn’t open the door, he panicked. Hahaha. They had to call a lock smith since the building manager who kept the keys was out for the day. So, this lock smith pops the door open to a nearly frantic naked man chained to a bed while half her ptoon is standing there watching.”

  “Oh, that’s embarrassing.” Kurt was feeling some secondhand embarrassment from that story. He never really liked being around those sorts of situations and it actually extended to him disliking a lot of comedy shows and movies because of it.

  “Oh yeah, they are still together though. Or at least they were st I saw them a week ago.” Val sighed. “Honestly its weird not being at the order anymore. Kind of a good weird since seeing the actual sky is nice.” They stopped in the kitchen, not quite wanting to call it a night but also wanting to get up and move.

  “What’s it like in the order?” Kurt asked. She had talked about it enough that he was curious about it. “For that matter, what actually is it or where?”

  Val set her empty gss in the sink and fished a bottle of water out of the fridge for each of them. “It’s not actually a location on any one world. Apparently, it was made as a sort of dimensional pocket, and it connects to all the other worlds.”

  “How big is it?”

  She had to think for a moment, never having specuted at its size. “If you were to walk from one side to the other it would probably take an hour or two. But it also extends vertically. Or what passes for vertical in non-dimensional space. Rather than thinking of it like a town you should think of it like a bunch of interconnected rooms.”

  Pantomiming with her hands, Val continued. “So, if I was in my barracks room, and I cut a hole in the wall, it would open to nothing. Just an empty void unless it was the wall of the neighboring room.”

  Kurt was envisioning how the international space station was built with a bunch of separate modules that ended up all getting connected via corridors and such. “So, people go to the other worlds a lot?” He couldn’t imagine being cooped up all the time.

  “Some do.” Val confirmed. “A lot, like the squad we met earlier, have official duty rotations. They can stay at the order or go off world on their days off. They issue a sort of passport that lets you go to certain worlds. Some, like Earth used to be, don’t know about the other races yet and we work hard to keep it that way.”

  “There are 3 fully integrated worlds at the moment. I would say Earth is halfway. The dominate race is aware but there is still some turmoil.” Val continued expining before pausing. “And apparently some sort of cult.”

  Kurt looked at his watch, it was getting te, and they still had plenty to do tomorrow. He wanted to get groceries and then they had the people coming by to set up the hub. He also suspected that they would hear from Penny at some point.

  Val noticed him check the time and smirked. “Want to walk me home?” She said with the pyful tone she was so fond of.

  Kurt ughed and extended his arm which she took. They slowly walked down the hall and stopped at the end. “Well, this is me.” Val said. “Thank you for the lovely evening.” She was still holding his hand, not quite ready to let go.

  “It was fun.” Kurt admitted. “I hope we can do it again.” He actually found he had missed having people around. He never thought he would be romantically involved so soon after the veil broke but then again, he didn’t expect to be head hunted by the order either.

  Val leaned in, standing on her toes, and kissed him, shocking him out of his little reverie. He held her close and returned the kiss. Neither one deepened it, just letting it be a soft, romantic kiss. After a couple moments, Val pulled away and Kurt let her go, despite his wolf not wanting to.

  Her face was flushed, and she was staring intently into his eyes. “I think that, um. I think we need to take a night to consider what we want.” She said between heavy breaths.

  Despite the sudden shift in the evening, Kurt had to agree. He had only met this girl yesterday and was already getting romantically involved. “Yeah.” He managed to swallow past the lump in his throat. “That would be good.”

  Val smiled and ran her hand up his arm. “Let’s talk about it tomorrow. I know I need to take a minute to figure things out and I know it’s been sudden for you too.” She tiptoed up and gave him another kiss on the cheek. “Good night, Kurt.”

  “Good night, Val.” He whispered as she broke away and went into her room. She looked back at him as she closed the door with a different sort of smile on her face. After the door closed, Kurt used the bathroom before going to his own room for the night.

  Stripping down to his shorts, Kurt crawled into bed. He didn’t want to sleep just yet and spent a few moments staring at his phone, checked his messages and eventually put it on the bedside table. He needed those extra couple minutes to calm down, in more ways than one.

  Now that he wasn’t in a haze of passion, he could think somewhat more clearly. He had a few things to consider when taking account of his feelings. His human side was the least of the problems. His elf libido was screaming at him to seal the deal with the literal fox that had wandered into his life. Elves, for all their virtues, would sleep with pretty much everyone, regardless of race.

  The bigger issue with Kurt’s mentality was the wolf. The monster that had been his companion since before he graduated high school. The impressions it gave him were always ones of instinct, when to fight, when to run and what the prey was. Right now, it was being surprisingly accepting of the kitsune. Perhaps that was because it didn’t want to spook her or maybe there was something more.

  After a mental game of ‘Pro’s and Con’s’, Kurt had made up his mind. He liked Val. He wanted Val. Provided they could make it work with their roles as agents, he would pursue her. He didn’t know to what extent that would be, but after a day and a half, he had a good feeling and trusted the wolf’s instincts.

  While Kurt was finishing his evening routine, Val was standing a few feet from the door. She had managed to slowly back away from both it and Kurt, fighting herself the entire way. After hearing Kurt go into his room, she went and completed her nightly ablutions. She briefly pondered about the slightly awkward situation but quickly moved on.

  She considered a cold shower but decided to just skip it, figuring she could take a cold shower in the morning if she needed it still. Her fox demon half was urging her to just go for it, to crawl into Kurt’s bed and see where the fates took them. Her father’s lineage was much more reserved and is where most of her self-control came from according to her mother.

  Spending the evening in such close proximity to Kurt hadn’t helped her. Especially with the few times her restraint slipped, and she had sniffed at him like a vixen in heat. She paused then, pulling up her phone calendar and doing some mental math. She would be safe for a few months even without the orders medication.

  After a rather scatterbrained few minutes rolling around on the bed, Val finally got on task and thought about what she really wanted. It was hard for her to do that. She had always wanted to belong, to find someone that wasn’t so stuck up in their traditions. She wanted someone that didn’t mind her being ‘aberrant’ or even shared her condition.

  Until she had met Kurt, she hadn’t even considered she wanted an apex predator. She didn’t mean just that he was a werewolf, or even what she thought he was. She was almost ashamed of how she felt after their altercation with those 3 men. Watching Kurt work, his ck of hesitation, the cold calcution and his complete dominance in the fight. It made her heart race just thinking about it.

  Why? She stopped. That was a good question. Why was she suddenly so infatuated and set on her course? She had seen other wolves, even other races that could put a whooping on Kurt, wolf or not. She sat up and stared at the wall, as if she could see through it.

  She thought very hard about what made him different, about why she was so attracted. Everything she had seen him do, the way he acted around her, how they talked. He had taken her around that morning and didn’t distance himself. He included her in everything, introducing her to his network of friends. She felt included and more.

  Pack. That’s the word. She had learned about the old packs that werewolves had formed. It had gone out of style long ago, in favor of smaller family groups. It was safer that way. But she had also learned that there was magic there, a sort of imprinting. The books had said that they were stronger as packs even when measured as individuals. But most of all, it was a community and a sense of belonging.

  Val nearly cried, her eyes welling with tears. She belonged now. She had found someone that not only accepted her but also included her as an extension of himself. It was what she had wanted when she moved out of her parents’ house. She wanted to go off on her own, but she didn’t want to be alone. She almost thought she made a mistake in volunteering for Jay’s program, but it was paying off.

  After a few minutes, Val calmed down enough to wrap herself in the bnkets and drift off to sleep. She just hoped that Kurt felt the same when she talked to him at breakfast.