Drawing closer to the gathering, it’d be easier to make out the hoots and hollers usually reserved for cock fights, dog fights or boxing matches. Small dollar amounts (a nickel [$5], a dime [$10]…) are changing hands and still, there’s more.
Crack. POP. Thump. Bump.
The sounds are horrific, like something quite solid and hard is meeting flesh, then bone – both of which were not meant to withstand such abuse.
[Henry Allard] This is not a safe walk, not even during the day, especially not during the day. The fall of darkness brings with it the escape into domiciles at least, reduces the number of bodies and the malicious intents presence. Daylight, full or waning, brings with it a magnificent attention to presence and movement. Those who are not used to the approach of dark-eyed souls or the lazy eye-fucking of seated men or the full force assault of throbbing bass or hollering hooligans… they slink along, they draw attention to themselves by virtue of the fact that they flat out do not belong on the sidewalks.
This one walks unafraid, makes eye contact, does not flinch away from cat calls or idle threats. This one is dressed for the weather, jeans and sneakers and a jacket, nothing amazing, nothing terribly exciting. This one has a small orange jump bag tossed over one shoulder, a white and blue EMS patch stitched onto the flap. This one is on his way home.
This one also cannot ignore sounds of violence, and when he finds himself drawing closer to the bashing of flesh and the battering of bone, he slows.
Only in Cabrini would money flash itself so blatantly.
“What’s going on?” he asks the person nearest to the sidewalk.
[Leo Eornost] Henry is lucky this day. Today, they leave him alone. Today, these hoodlums and slugs are fare more interested in the greenbacks changing hands than they are the white kid with the EMS patch. He is told, in the most atrocious butchering of the American language, that there’s a fight taking place inside the alley. Some cracker [white boy] picked a fight with J-Dogg, even went so far as to bet [hence the cash] that he could kick his ‘hoss’ [the fuck does HOSS mean?] in ten minutes.
Fair enough.
The irony in the situation is that, when Henry wiggles in to get a better view, Hoss is has about 100 pounds on the cracker, and at least 2 inches in height and reach. Hoss, being a young buck, is dancing and bouncing around [float like a butterfly…] sneaking in uppercuts and jabs when he catches the cracker slacking [stink like a bee]. The opponent is not fairing so well. His lip is bleeding, and his dirty [oily] blonde hair is matted to his head. He, too, Is tattooed and his pants [old, 70s dress slacks] hang low on the slim line of muscled hips. Shirtless, he too is built fairly well ..though he’s far from being in the same class as Hoss.
When Henry takes that first pick, he’d see the cracker catch a right to the jaw. Blood trickles from his lip and he licks it off right quick, casting a one eyed squinty glance at the other man. “…last warnin’ Hoss…last warnin’ for ya get took to the wood shed…”
CRACK.
The white man (because he’s far from a boy at near 25) is knocked (hard) back into a over flowing dumpster. Immediatley the soft bit of flesh beneath his eye begins to swell. “…that was two…tell ya what Hoss….how ‘bout best 3 outta 4?”
3 minutes and counting.
[Leo Eornost] (*curses his typos* sorry!)
[Leo Eornost] Henry is lucky this day. Today, they leave him alone. Today, these hoodlums and thugs are far more interested in the greenbacks changing hands than they are in the white kid with the EMS patch. He is told, in the most atrocious butchering of the American language, that there’s a fight taking place inside the alley. Some cracker [white boy] picked a fight with J-Dogg, even went so far as to bet [hence the cash] that he could kick his ‘hoss’ [the fuck does HOSS mean?] ass in ten minutes.
Fair enough.
The irony in the situation is that, when Henry wiggles in to get a better view, Hoss is has about 100 pounds on the cracker, and at least 2 inches in height and reach. Hoss, being a young buck, is dancing and bouncing around [float like a butterfly…] sneaking in uppercuts and jabs when he catches the cracker slacking [sting like a bee]. The opponent is not fairing so well. His lip is bleeding, and his dirty [oily] blonde hair is matted to his head. He, too, is tattooed and his pants [old, 70s dress slacks] hang low on the slim line of muscled hips. Shirtless, he too is built fairly well ..though he’s far from being in the same class as Hoss.
When Henry takes that first peek, he’d see the cracker catch a right to the jaw. Blood trickles [more] from his lip and he licks it off right quick, casting a one eyed squinty glance at the other man. “…last warnin’ Hoss…last warnin’ for ya get took to the wood shed…”
CRACK.
The white man (because he’s far from a boy at near 25) is knocked (hard) back into a over flowing dumpster. Immediately the soft bit of flesh beneath his eye begins to swell. “…that was two…tell ya what Hoss….how ‘bout best 3 outta 4?”
3 minutes and counting.
(I had to repost that….it made no sense it was butchered so bad! LOL)
[Henry Allard] By all accounts, Henry ought to just pretend he has absolutely no idea what on earth is going on. Anyone else would just shrug their shoulders and keep on walking, not even get involved in the alleyway boxing that is going on. With no police officers around to break up the fight, no concerned neighbors to call said police officers, this may as well be an invisible occurrence, here. He is under no liability to stay around and ensure the safety of those having the everloving crap kicked out of them–read: cracker boy, there–and yet, there is a sense of duty.
That is what gets many of his lot in trouble, particularly when they are off duty. They have this indelible inability to mind their own fucking business, they are completely incapable of turning a blind eye and executing the “If you don’t see it, it isn’t happening” maneuver.
This particular white boy is 6’3″, rangy. He stands heads, at the least, above most of those gathered around the “ring”. It is no effort for him to view what is going on, and rather than going against his training and his inherent nature… rather than walking away… he waits.
[Leo Eornost] He takes one more rap [hard] to the side of his head, this dirty looking brawler, and then with a startling quickness and grace, returns the favor. This bare fisted volley, however, catches the other man under his chin. It vibrates through his jaw bones and throughout his skull, stunning him, and it’s because of that that he’s allowed to catch him in the nose. One quick jab catches Hoss in the side of his nose and he drops to one knee, cursing angrily. “..told ya….ain’t no gittin t’ three….” CRACK. Leo catches the large black man alongside his temple, which drops him to one knee and a hand.
The jovial crowd isn’t quite as jovial. In fact, they’re in shock. Glances are exchanged between all gathered and the big man remains crouched, blood dripping from a cut at his brow. He’d of gotten back up if he could see, but his vision was blurred and his equilibrium was off. With a bloody hand he waves off the crowd, a clear indication : I give.
The laughter and nudging fades into cursing and pushing as people refuse to pay or others demand their money. Leo? He grabs his woman beater [which is as dirty as his hair] and the old fedora [worn and faded] before he takes the $50 bucks from under the rock on the dirty alley floor and starts to push through the crowd.
His own eye is bleeding and dangerously swollen. His lip is the same. His chin is bruised. For a moment the crowd doesn’t part, they aren’t sure about the white man…but eventually he’s allowed to pass, their insults saved for the loser of the fight.
[Henry Allard] Eyes drop first to the shoulders of the man standing in front of him, and then the filthy concrete beneath their feet, watching a beer can tab rather than the violence wheeling about in front of him. Every sound makes him wince, and that final blow, that resounding smash of fists against skull… he brings a hand up to worry his lower jaw before finally looking back up.
Great.
Green eyes follow the smaller man, the victor, the one with badges of honor painted about his face, blood of various colors and split tissue and sweat. They follow him out of the alleyway and through the parting sea of onlookers, and then brain reminds chest to pull in air and he stuffs both hands into his pockets while silently willing the fallen mountain of a man to get up, get up.
[Henry Allard] ((I gotta go eat… I’ll be back in ~15 minutes.))
[Kemp Oates] It wasn’t hard to pick up on sounds in the city. Then again, the place was full of sounds and scents, all mingling together. There was the possibility of rain in the air, that slightly leaden feeling at the back of the mind. For a moment his head cocked as if listening just before his face lifted towards the sky with a deep inhale that brought a frown to his young face. In his later teens, he was a good 6’4″ or more, tall and lanky in build.
[Leo Eornost] There’s no arrogance in his gait. No pride in the swell of his chin. A man had to eat and if, by God, he had to kick the shit out of some fuck to do it, well …the way he looked at it the man probably deserved it. Probably sold crack to kids or something. Something. Outside the mouth of the alley a finger covers one nostril and he blows, then the other. Red snot is blown on the already stained and dirty concrete and he starts to tug on his shirt, growling in response to the concert of pain resounding through every muscle and joint in his body.
He casts a wayward glance towards the only other white person in the group [currently] and shakes his head, the EMS patch should of just read Bleeding Heart to Leo. “Don’t worry yerself none, he’ll run off like a scalded dog…but he ain’t hurt that bad. I ain’t kilt him…” His accent is deeply southern and he hacks up a bit of phlegm and blood and spits it into the gutter.
[Skadi] (y’all get a couple more posts in, don’t wait for me! exhausted and reading through the backposts to get a feel for where everyone is and where to insert self. (grins) )
[Henry Allard] ((Back!))
[Henry Allard] Words come then, pull his gaze and attention away from the end of the alleyway and out onto the sidewalk, to the battered yet still standing Southerner. For a moment he can’t for the life of him figure out how the other man would think to single him out as one to be spoken to, roughly reassured, and then he hikes his bag higher up on the cuff of his shoulder and laughs, uncomfortably, once.
One last glance is given the improbably beaten loser, and then Henry turns towards the boxer.
“I thought he was going to kill you for a minute, there.”
[Kemp Oates] He paused, head cocking, dark hair falling across his eyes as Leo appeared and the faint coppery-metallic smell of blood drifted towards his sensitive senses. One dark brow arched behind that hair covering his green eyes. Already he was past dusky skin tones to well tanned from working outdoors. His coloring was sliding towards his normal summer bronze. Tee shirt fluttering, plastering back against his body as the wind whipped down the valleys of the streets for a moment between lulls.
[Sandra Davenport] This isn’t the best of areas to get lost in. In fact, it’s one of the worst, and too far from her school, her apartment, for her to feel anything other then terror when the car she rides in starts to lurch. Again. It’s not hard to see why she may be having problems, as the car she’s driving is an acient relic, and not a good one. A 1978 Honda Civic, held together by ducttape and bubblegum, with a healthy dose of rust on the side. It used to be blue, but one door has been replaced (and fitted improperly) with a babypoop green one and the paint job never redone. After all, why bother? The car is so old that you almost expect it to fall apart like the cars in the cartoons when she pulls it over to the curb, while smoke BILLOWS from under the hood.
“No,no,no,no NO… dammit.” She slaps her palm against the steering wheel, then rests her forhead on it with a groan.
[Skadi] “Tha fuck happened’a him?” Skadi asks rhetorically; at Kemp’s shoulder, at the lanky young man’s side. Half the folks on the street have jackets or long sleeves – it’s warm in the sun today, where the sun gets through – but the city throws itself into wide bands of shadow, all the shambling ruins of homes and businesses here; the highrises tinctured with the peculiar pathos of both poverty and institutionalized hopelessness.
A hip bump for the lean kid’s thigh, familiar, and the hook of a vague passing grin up at the Rotagar as she falls into step beside him. He has a head on her in height, the plain, lanky young man. She has something exponential on him in terms of sheer physical presence – long blonde hair, intense blue eyes, the picture of something essential and viscerally American, mom and apple pie and baseball and cheerleading Friday nights, except for the inherent promise of violence in her lean stance, except for the feral intimacy of her posture next to the Rotagar, all in that singular familiar glance up. “Met one’a yer girlfriends, last night.” – an elbow to the ribs. “Went out ta’a pub with Barrister an’ seen Thaney, there. Doc Slaughter, too.”
[Kemp Oates] He grunted, looking down at Skadi with half a crooked grin until she mentioned one of his girlfriends. His face sobbered, green eyes crinkling at the corners as his brows furrowed.
“One of my girlfriends? Heh, I ain’t got none.”
A heartbeat then.
“Who was it?”
Lifting his chin towards the pair that spilled from the alley.
“Looks like a lover’s spat maybe? And that car there?”
Another point of his chin towards the Honda.
“Seen it before, broke down then too. Ya’d think she’d learn.”
[Leo Eornost] “Yep.” He says, digging deep down into the pockets of his extremely retro, stained, slacks for cigarettes and a lighter. “Big ol’ somabitch wadn’t he?” That’s followed by a chuckle, deep throated and whiskey rattled. “Now that there, that was a slobber knocker my friend…ain’t gone see that in no boxin’ ring” Cigarettes found he draws one between his bruised lips and lights it. His face is swelling at a slow but steady pace, though it’s uneven with his eye far out in front of his only slightly swollen lip. His language isn’t any better than the hoodlums still arguing over their five or ten dollar bets, the consonants and vowels all run together and the grammar is atrocious. Terrible. Enough to give an English major a very, very bad headache.
“He might dun did me in too, big ol’ bastard…” Again he shakes his head, drawing in a toxic inhale of tobacco fumes while casting another studious, squinty-eyed glance Henry’s way. “Ain’tcha a doctor or sumthin? I wouldn’t worry none ‘bout it, big ol’ boy like ‘ats tougher ’n a two dollar steak..” Green eyes peer at the smoke, which comes from the car, which has seemed to die a billowing awful death. Even with one eye not completely at one hundred percent, Leo makes a good show of scanning his environment in one panoramic sweep.
[Sandra Davenport] She lifts her head, and pushes up her glasses with a sigh. With her luck, the damn car is on fire, and for an instant she considers just sitting here and letting it consume her. But it’s only an instant, before she’s reaching into the passenger seat to gather her things – a jacket, and a laptop bag with her prize posession inside. The door creaks open, falling heavily on crooked hinges, and the girl climbs out.
Sandra is not a pretty girl. In a world of pretty people, of people who get noticed for whatever reason, it’s easy to overlook Sandra. She doesn’t mind – in fact, encourages it by her very presence. It’s not that she is ugly, she is simply… plain. Unremarkable. Forgettable. Boring.
She pulls on a light windbreaker type jacket over a sweater and jeans that do nothing for whatever figure she might have – not thin, but not fat, just somewhere in between. and then grabs her laptop bag to sling it over her shoulder, the strap disecting her torso diagonally so the bag hangs against opposite hip. She pushes the door closed while it complains the rough treatment, then kicks the front fender for emphasis. “Piece of shit.”
She wraps a hand around the strap of her bag, holding the laptop in front of her as if protecting it – or hiding behind it, as she starts to walk toward the nearest bus bench. Public transportation, here she comes.
[Skadi] “Shit.” Lover’s spat Kemp had said; and so, now Skadi is narrowing her intense gaze as the pair of them, Henry and Leo, a frown sketched across the generous width of her mouth. It’s late afternoon; she’s only just awake, and sleep still pulls and pills a the corners of her awareness. Something in the quality of her attention changes. It was passing, now it’s something else – the stark, furrowed interest of a twelve-year-old boy who has discovered a new and particularly – well, weird-ass breed of bug, one whose characteristics she is still trying to read. “Huh.”
Nothing in Leo makes her think he’s one of them – one of them – but maybe they don’t always have no visible signs. Maybe they have a secret word or something. The frown deepens as she flashes a look back up at the Rotagar. ” – ya thank?” Still on the lover’s quarrel quip, one she has taken in earnest. “I mean, fuck. I ain’t never figured on ’em bein’ everwhere, but it seems like they is everytime I turn around an’ look.
“N that’s yer girlfriend – ” following the Rotagar’s glance toward the piece of shit car. “Seen ‘er last night at the pub. Smelled her blood, yannow? She done said she knew ya.”
[Henry Allard] The tall “doctor or sumthin” nods along as the other man inserts snippets of speak between the motions necessary to smoke, the acquiring and the lighting. While he listens, appearing attentive, he becomes aware of several things… the girl climbing out of the surrendering car, this nagging sense of someone being down the street from him. With his back turned, with his eyes facing forward, he does not become aware of who, exactly, it is. This is probably for the better.
“All right,” he concedes, reaching into his own pocket for his own cigarettes, producing them without much show. There’s a sense of restraint about this one, in motion and in speech, in the way he stands. Attempting to keep attention off of himself.
How he thought he was going to pull that off with a neon orange bag slung over his shoulder is anyone’s guess.
Parliament Light is popped between his lips, and the next sentence is mumbled while he digs out his Zippo, flicks it open.
“I won’t worry about him.”
[Kemp Oates] ((heh, sorry, was having a tick war! LOL!))
to Henry Allard, Leo Eornost, Sandra Davenport, Skadi
[Henry Allard] ((*L* Ick!))
to Kemp Oates, Leo Eornost, Sandra Davenport, Skadi
[Leo Eornost] Leo nods in agreement to that. Henry ain’t gonna worry about the poor bastard just now crawling to his knees. Truth be told, in this neck of the woods, Leon was very lucky he didn’t get shot. Most were more apt to retrieve their glock or berretta from the waist of their pants rather than throw knuckles, after all. But, he was alive and so was the big buck in the alley. And, Leo now had fifty bucks warm in the pockets of his dirty, stained pants. Life was, apparently, good.
These two men are two very different beings. Henry is clean and bears all the signs of actually working for a living. The bag, the EMS patch – all signs that this man had a career. Leo, on the other hand, wore a dirty wife beater, ripped at the hem, and slacks that should have been thrown out with the trash in the early 80s. He’s scruffy with a patch beard and dirty, oily hair that might be a light shade of blonde but is now a dirty dishwater color. Tattoos crawl up his arms and neck and he wears a hat on his head – a fedora – that should have been discarded with the trousers. But his shoes, well those shoes are good running shoes. Nike. Blue with a white check : ‘dopeman’ Nikes.
And Leo has no purity in his blood. He could be a bum, a drunk …any numerous of similar adjectives. These two, were very different. And Skadi is looking. Kemp is looking. Henry is looking at the car and the smoke and Leo is eyeing Skadi and Kemp while he smokes.
“Yep, ain’t nuttin there t’ fret over .”
[Kemp Oates] ‘Heh, that one there is the one that was with Tristan.”
He nodded towards Henry, or the pair in general, hard to say.
“And ya know, it’s like them ya know, like parent offspring.”
Reluctant to say Metis on the street.
“Everyfuckinwhere. I tell ya. They are EVERYwhere.”
Glancing towards Sandra as she got out of her car.
“She ain’t my girlfriend. Just cause she saw me before. Met her and the piece of shit she drives. Moira was a bitch to her. One of those drama moments that come every few minutes with the girl. Ya’d think that girl, Sandra, would spend money on the car instead of a pub.”
[Sandra Davenport] She doesn’t seem to notice the conglomeration of folks down the way, she just finds a place on the bus bench to sit, her laptop cradled carefully and protectively against her chest. She didn’t even think to check a shedule to see if a bus would actually come through here, but she has a lack of options at the moment.
You’d think she’d get a cell phone too. Or a decent car. Course, people’d think a lot of things.
[Henry Allard] If Henry thinks anything of what the other man does for a living, the violence of it, the blood, it doesn’t show on his face. The two do not look they have anything in common, like they would even naturally have stopped to talk to each other on the street. Further examination might show that they do not just look as if they share no common interests or attributes, but that they really, truly, don’t.
There’s no question what Leo is doing here. Leo is doing what he does to survive. He’s put himself into a situation where injury is not simply witnessed but expected, bet on, and from the looks of him, from old bruises and the way he talks, the ease of his departing walk, this is his primary means of padding his wallet–if he even has one. Henry can tell a great deal from spying the tattoos and the filth as easily as Leo can tell from looking at the bag and the concern.
Were it not for that bag one might not have a clue what brings Henry into this neck of the woods, either. It still doesn’t help shed much light.
Henry takes a long drag off of his cigarette, holding it between the pads of his thumb and forefinger, and his brow quirks into an expression of assessment. The breath is held briefly, and blown out his nostrils in two sharp gray lines.
“You want an ice pack or something?” he asks as he pushes his pack of cigarettes into his battered jacket’s pocket.
[Henry Allard] ((BRB, the nicotine calls.))
to Kemp Oates, Leo Eornost, Sandra Davenport, Skadi
[Leo Eornost] (me too, brb)
to Henry Allard, Kemp Oates, Sandra Davenport, Skadi
[Skadi] (Sorry everyone! Neighbor wanted to talk about gardening. Heh.)
[Leo Eornost] (back!)
to Henry Allard, Kemp Oates, Sandra Davenport, Skadi
[Skadi] “Huh – ” and then, “yeah, I remember.” About Henry, she means. Maybe Kemp can follow the trajectory of her line of thought. Maybe long familiarity makes it easy to guess what weird-ass leap she’s going to make next. “Was with Thaney an’ that – other chick in tha Hounds, too.” Her eyes remain brief, passing, narrowed on Leo and Henry; then she offers a shrug, a dismissive one – the edge of a faint grin at the corner of her mouth. “Long as they don’t start makin’ out, I don’t fuckin’ care what them faggots do.” – an elbow for Kemp, in the flank, in the ribs, as she changes focus from Henry and Leo – a flash of warning for Leo, but only when she catches the swollen-face bum looking at her, white teeth, pink lips. Humans call it a smile. – back down the line toward Sandra, now sitting arms wrapped around her laptop, at the bus stop.
“Well, she fuckin’ remembered you, so maybe she wants ta be yer girlfriend. Good blood. Ain’t too purty, but maybe that means she wouldn’t be as mouthy an’ shit as some’a ’em kin git.” Skadi does not add: and she ain’t a crazy commie Shadow Lord – but maybe Kemp can read that in the faint, knowing arch of her blonde brows above the sapphire chips of her eyes.
“Hey,” arresting, then – dropping her gaze back to Sandra, not watching her anymore, so much as watching over her. “I been thankin’ on somethan. Ever since a’while, but yannow last week really brought it fuckin’ home. Need ta get a group tagether. Find’a patron. Yannow – best ta be connected. Took me fuckin’ fer fuckin’ ever ta find ya – didn’t know if ya was livin’ ‘r dead, neither.”
[Kemp Oates] “Heh.”
Grunting with the elbow to his ribs. Figuring he knew why Skadi didn’t have a boyfriend, she was too hard on the body. One hand going to his ribs to absently rub them as he followed Skadi’s gaze towards Sandra.
“Why ya always trying to push me towards some girl? And what other hound chick are ya talking about? Ya went on a date with Johnboy to a pub? And ya took Thaney and some hound chick and Imogen? Damn Skadi, ain’t gonna get nowhere if ya got an army with ya.”
With that he stiffened his muscles, figuring she would hit him again, as usual.
“As for me being dead? I promise, when I die? The world will know and mourn. A pall will fall over the world, over the universe because a wee bit of the sun done got killed.”
[Leo Eornost] He shakes his head at Henry’s offer and then considers the fluorescent orange bag once again. “Naw, butcha got some aspirins in there maybe?” Still, one is squinted shut the other narrowed on the more well kempt man at his side. “Fuckin’ heads splittin’ feels like…” The hat is pushed off his head with one hand while the other scratches at his head. His green eyed gaze had been fixed on Skadi more so than Kemp, but the reasons should be obvious – she was a lot prettier than Kemp was.
He hacks again, spits more blood in the gutter. “I’d sure ‘preciate it if ya did…” One last drag is pulled from his cigarette before it is left to sail off into the gutter with his spit. Sandra’s features are a blur, but Leo can make out her outline, and he’s pretty sure it’s the figure of a young woman who doesn’t have any business in this neighborhood. He snorts, but doesn’t say anything about her or make a move to go her way.
[Sandra Davenport] She lifts her hand, middle finger used to push up her glasses first, and her hand finishing the motion to brush her hair back out of her way. She then twists her wrist to check the time on her watch with a sigh, before finally, truly, searching the area around her. Not exactly a queen of paying attention, Sandra. In fact, she’s often downright distracted. She’s much more at home behind her laptop screen then out in the open, obviously.
She sees Kemp and Skadi first, and blinks, before ducking her head and looking down again as if by doing so she could disappear. A wallflower, plain and easily forgotten. That’s Sandra.
And the car, just down there – at least it’s not billowing smoke anymore. More like coughin it up, reluctantly. It’s likely the poor Civic’s last hurrah.
[Skadi] “It wasn’t no fuckin’ date,” Skadi counters, a stormcloud warning centered into the fabric of the words. Her whole aspect darkens; her shoulders square and firm beneath her worn-out t-shirt – there was writing across the chest, once upon a time. It’s gone now. – and her eyes snap back up to the Rotagar, mouth drawn tight across her teeth. “One, he’s too fuckin’ old. Two, I ain’t lookin’. I already got a kid. Three, I’m’a set him tha fuck up with Moira, since you won’t touch ‘er ass, afore she atrophies ‘r somethan’. An’ four – I ain’t got no four, but if ya keep it up, I’m’a kick yer ass.”
“‘N five, I ain’t got no five, neither. ‘Cept fer six, I’m fuckin’ serious. Time ta stop running around like we ain’t what we is. Time ta make it official’n real’n shit. I like that Thaney. An’ she told me that they was gon’ say goodbye ta that patron’a theirs, since they ain’t but two’a them no more.”
[Henry Allard] “Doesn’t look much better.”
That cigarette is set between front teeth, smoke tears streaming from the cherry just barely kept out of his eyes by the light breeze coursing down the street. Henry’s head turns slightly to reach around and grab a hold of the sides of the tightly packed bag, and as he does so something commands him to turn around and investigate whoever it is that the battered man has been regarding over his shoulder.
So he turns.
Oh.
Henry very quickly turns back around, as if a spring had been released, and pops the tabs on the mouth of the bag. When he speaks it is with his teeth bared, his words obliterated by stiff-set jaws.
“Don’ have any wa’er, bu’…”
A blister pack is eventually loosened from the neatly organized yet absolutely congested, and Henry wrests loose a small square containing two white pills. They are handed over at once, and he just as quickly restores order to the tiny medical world of plastic and medication before pushing black teeth into snaps and maneuvering the bag so it falls at his flank again.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, radiator. Either hose or thermometer went bad. Could be a hole in the radiator itself, but not with the sudden blow.”
Obviously he was still on the death throes of the Honda. He paused with her ranting, taking it all in.
“One, if John is too fucking old for you, then he could be Moira’s grandad. Two, I’d touch her and never, ever, ever take a free fuckin breath in my life. Three, who the fuck is WE? Thaney and WHO?”
His own eyes narrowing as his jaw tightened.
[Sandra Davenport] Radiator. Hose or Termometer. Kemp diagnosis from afar is likely correct, but Sandra wouldn’t know anything about it. In fact, she knows where to put the gas, and the oil. That’s it. It’s lucky the beast has lasted this long.
She looks around again – mainly to see where Skadi and Kemp are. Seeing they’re still down the way, shoulders slowly relax, muscles loosening. She pulls up her legs to sit Indian Style, and fingers the latching on her laptop bag. She’d open it and search for some network connection, but well, chances are few and far between and that’s begging for someone to steal her baby. And so, she simply waits for the bus.
[Leo Eornost] With a shake of his head the two white pills are taken, popped into his mouth and swallowed with no water. “Ain’t need no water, jus’ some aspirin…” A pause, quite and purposefully. His arms cross over his chest, the movement and pose seems one he does often, out of habit, the way most might play with their fingers or hair when nervous. “Look ‘ere. You take care now, I got some money, gonna go try ‘n find some food.”
Slowly his arms fall back to his sides and he offers Henry a lopsided smile that shows he hasn’t lost any of his teeth in his line of work – yet. “Thanks fer the aspirin too…”
[Skadi] Henry turns so briefly around; and then back. Quick enough that it could’ve been missed – but Skadi doesn’t miss it. Not from this distance, not from this angle, not even with the weight of her attention resting on Sandra the wallflower, and all the shadows of the dilapidated neighborhood closing in around her, sitting in the bus stop so vandalized it looks like a bombshelter in the “after” scenes of a movie about global nuclear war.
“Huh, see that – ?” Between Kemp’s comments about Sandra’s car, another elbow to the ribs, the dip of her blonde head in Henry’s direction. “Yer mouthy mom’s fuckin’ boyfriend is scared’a me.” – smirk. A slow crawling one, ill-conceived and poorly finished, ash in the mouth, all of that, caught between – well, it isn’t pride, but a strange sort of self-satisfaction that reads equally as well as contempt, and something else altogether. Her voice drops. “Ain’t never – ”
But no. Naw. Kemp rants about John and Moira and Thaney and – WE and WHO – Skadi whips around, squares her lean body against his – core strength, they call it, and it’s all visible in the motion, in the skeleton wrapped around her spine, the long, lean slabs of muscle beneath it. Functional, all’a them; nothing left for chance or show.
“Me, Kemp. An’ you.” A frisson of irritation sizzles across her brow, but it folds back into itself, disappearing into the familiar mask of her compelling features, the blue eyes and the arrogant nose, the hard, distinct line of her nordic jaw, the high brow, the generous mouth. “Who tha fuck d’ya think? Ain’t I made it clear? Everwhat I’m thankin’ on, now, it starts with me’an you, an’ it goes out from there. Two fuckin’ hours I looked fer ya, ‘r three, ‘r four, an’ you was right under my fuckin’ nose. We’d been pack – ” here her voice drops distinctly. She’s careful with words like that, Skadi. Maybe too careful. Maybe too allusive – but here and now, she lays it all out, directly. ” – would’ve been near about two or three minutes ta follow tha pull.”
[Henry Allard] There is no point returning the ‘take care,’ no point offering up a ‘stay out of trouble,’ no point advising as to how to take care of the busted lip, the puffed out eye. These men take their beatings and they survive them, and that is all there is to it. Medical attention is not something to be sought, is only to be forced upon when a person does not stand up, when a person does not breathe on his own, and there are occasions when even that is not enough to spur a person into a show of compassion or concern. This is not an area of town known for either. There are rules Henry, in all his time working the area, has not come anywhere near to deciphering, and he gave up a very, very long time ago.
Now all he does is show up.
“Any time, man,” he says, and that is all.
Henry has to turn around to carry on the way he needs to go. He has to walk past Skadi and Kemp.
He draws a smokeless breath, then drags off the cigarette, then flicks it away. His rules of cigarette disposal have no place here. There is no point. His is one of many that fall away to the gutter to be drowned in spit and piss and blood, and withholding one will not in any way benefit the environment or the aesthetics.
Smoke is blown out on exhalation, and then he turns and starts to walk down the sidewalk.
[Kemp Oates] “Ain’t what I mean, Skadi.”
His voice just as low as he stood ribs to her chest. Any other time he would be thrilled to death to have tits pushed up against him like that. Right now he was too intent on what was being said.
“I want to know who the we is in the Thaney part. Thaney and who?”
Green eyes narrowing to a squint.
“Cause I just left a pack where I done put up with some shit ass worthless folks that I didn’t choose in the first place. But as since I weren’t asked and weren’t Alpha, I dealt with them. I ain’t looking to take up with another Kathrin sort. Ain’t gonna do it.”
[Leo Eornost] (thanks for the scene guys, appreciate it *G*)
to Henry Allard, Kemp Oates, Sandra Davenport, Skadi, snail,
[Leo Eornost] (thanks for the scene guys, appreciate it *G*)
to Henry Allard, Kemp Oates, Sandra Davenport, Skadi, snail, snailette
[Henry Allard] ((No no no, thank you!))
to Kemp Oates, Leo Eornost, Sandra Davenport, Skadi, snail,
[Henry Allard] ((No no no, thank you!))
to Kemp Oates, Leo Eornost, Sandra Davenport, Skadi, snail, snailette
[Kemp Oates] ((Heh, you too. ))
to Henry Allard, Leo Eornost, Sandra Davenport, Skadi, snail,
[Kemp Oates] ((Heh, you too. ))
to Henry Allard, Leo Eornost, Sandra Davenport, Skadi, snail, snailette
[Skadi] “Huh.” Nonplussed. Her mouth rises at the right corner, the irritation dissipating, but not entirely, a drop of ink dissolving into clear water. It still stains her eyes, hot blue, it still shapes her body, framed against his, the tension in her spine, the ambivalence in her mouth. “Ain’t though beyond her, yet. Ain’t talked ta her, yet – til I fuckin’ talked ta you. Wanted ta see if you was aight with her, first. Figgered on that Lloyd, maybe, if he comes back. Sometimes they don’t, them wanderers. Thaney’s got some packmate, left. Name’s like fuck-me, ‘r I’ve Fallen an’ I Can’t Git Up – ” ha. – there’s a joke buried in there, someplace, the shape of her mouth, the crawl of her grin. ” – but I dunno ‘er. Ain’t talked ta her. Ain’t figgered on nothin’ yet. Ain’t makin’ no fuckin’ assumptions, ya kin?”
[Sandra Davenport] Wallflower or not, she can’t just sit here and wait. Another look at her watch, legs unfold and she stands, wrapping her arms around her belly, over her laptop. There’s a minute when she considers taking the long way around? But it passes. She’ll walk by Skadi and Kemp. Not like she hasn’t met them, right? Right. Just because they could break her with their pinky’s if they were of a mind too, well that’s just no excuse. Especially with the blood that flows in her own veins.
And so, she starts to walk down the sidewalk, hovering on the side nearest the buildings she passes.
[Henry Allard] As the paramedic walks along he keeps his head in line with his spine, eyes decidedly fixed on the pair’s boots, what with him lacking the audacity to leap for eye contact with these two. He readjusts the fall of the bag’s strap across his shoulder and back, wrestling it completely behind him and cramming oddly stable hands into his pockets. The close confinement last week and the assurance that he would not be exterminated should he not do anything stupid–never mind that ‘anything stupid’ had gone unclarified, was left wholly undefined and left open for interpretation only to the one who had made the statement–seems to have extinguished his body’s tremor reflex.
Or perhaps he isn’t afraid of her anymore.
Who the hell knows.
[Kemp Oates] “I’m gonna be up front with ya here Skadi.”
It wasn’t entirely comfortable to stand pressed up like this in what could very well be considered a challenging stance. Not so comfortable when the other was Modi and had more rage than you did. Still, he was a crazy ass fucker and dead serious right now. The world washed around them as he spoke clearly.
“I done been offered a place in a few packs. And I done thanked them and turned them down. Why? Cause as I told the last one. I ain’t gonna bow my fuckin head and follow someone ain’t stronger than I am. Ain’t more alpha than I am. I ain’t gonna do it. I spent four fuckin years with the best. I ain’t gonna follow them others. It’s like steak and dog food, man. Steak and dog food. And I ain’t ready to take in someone I gotta babysit while they run away from a fight or start to crying over it or break a nail and have to go to the fuckin beauty shop to get it fixed. I ain’t gonna pack with no one I can’t fucking find something of value in or some respect for. No lame ass pussies. Ok?”
[Skadi] “Lean’n mean,” Skadi says, the fractional edge of a smile twisting at the corners of her mouth. There’s still cigarette smoke wreathed into her hair, alcohol and the shifting press of bodies from last night’s pub. She’s not had a shower in a day or two, and the tattoo of her last twenty-four hours is there in and on her skin, in her hair, in her clothes. Blood beneath it, beer and onions. Home fries, somewhere – one’a them diners tucked into the rundown rattletrap commercial strips in the ruin of a neighborhood. “Soul food,” they advertise – collard greens and barbeque, beans and cornbread and fried chicken, cold or hot, just hot you like it – closest thing to her momma’s cookin’ in three states, that shit.
“Ya in?” – the question seems like a formality, from the width of her grin, or the spark of her eyes on his own. Her chin rises – that’s a challenge – but she steps back far enough to allow daylight to pass between their bodies again. “Gonna challenge me fer Alpha?”
The pair of them fill the sidewalk. Physically maybe – spiritually, assuredly, in the late afternoon light, falling toward dusk, resonant, the rage between them, sparked and churned and stoked by their discussion. Henry and Sandra draw closer, walking in tandem but not together. There’s space between the two kinfolk; stranger-space; we-don’t-know-each-other space, but Skadi takes them both in at a glance, with a flash of her near-feral smile, the one that doesn’t ever seem to read as human, the one that is anything but.
She’s silent, though, by the time they are close enough to distinguish anything more than the urgency – the intensity – of the conversation between the two Garou, dropping the conversation with Kemp altogether in favor of a generic – “Ain’tcha gon’ say hi?” – to all and sundry.
[Sandra Davenport] Ain’tcha gon’ say hi? – Skadi askes, and Sandra has the grace to blush a bit at the suggestion she was ignoring them. She clears her throat slightly, her voice quiet and smooth, and still of the ‘strain to hear her’ variety. She’s no pushy loudmouth kin, as many of her family tend to be. She’s the wallflower, the forgotten one. And she likes it that way.
“Just wasn’t going to shout it across the way. Hello Skadi, Kemp.”
[Kemp Oates] For a moment his green eyes narrowed and his body tensed. It was there, on the edge and rising, the challenge to start an all out fight for who was stronger of the two of them.
“We ain’t nothing yet, are we?”
And he too let it drop for now as Skadi spoke and the two Kin drew closer.
“Sandra. Should get that hunk of junk fixed.”
Lifting his chin in greeting to her as his gaze slid down over the girl.
[Henry Allard] “Aint’cha gon’ say hi?”
“Just wasn’t going to shout it across the way. Hello Skadi, Kemp.”
“Sandra. Should get that hunk of junk fixed.”
Henry’s forward motion stops instantly, and for once he doesn’t look as if he’s completely floored, as if he’s too scared to move let alone talk. Uneasy, sure… he’ll settle for uneasy. The space around them is crowded, with run down buildings to one side, car-lined sidewalk on the other, thumping music from an apartment above them. It’s crowded, and feels so much so with the pure volume of presence of the two Garou.
Since the last time Skadi saw him, Henry’s lopped off that head of hair he’d let turn into an untended shrub, has it cut close now, looks as if he ought to be wearing a business suit rather than beat up Reeboks, beat up jeans, a beat up leather jacket. Certainly doesn’t look as if he has any business in this neighorhood, any business on the sidewalk.
His green eyes are clear. Wary, but clear.
“Hi, Skadi.” A pause as he glances to his equal in height. “Kemp, right?”
[Kemp Oates] “Right.”
Giving another one of those lifts of chin to Henry.
“And you are Henry, the one Tris hangs with and…er…shit.”
Don’t go there. Don’t go there. Awfuckme, don’t picture that shit!
The mental war started as things he didn’t want to see flashed in his head making him grimace.
[Sandra Davenport] Her smile is sheepish as she looks back to her car, the hunk of junk. “Cost more to fix it then to get a new one at this point, and I can’t afford either. Considering just leaving it there and let someone else take her on.”
She falls quiet as Henry speaks, glancing at him, then down again while teeth worry over her lower lip.
[Skadi] “Kemp was speculatin’ on what was wrong with it.” The blonde announces to Sandra, with a speculative glance toward the broke-down old Civic. “Maybe he kin fix it fer free. ‘r fer tryin’ it. Betcha Barrister has some tools ya kin use – ” a sweep of her hot blue gaze toward Kemp. ” – if ya ask ‘im real nice afore ya borroy them. I figger that’s whatcha git fer buyin’ them forn’ ” all one word ” – fuckin’ cars from China ‘r everwhere they come from. Cain’t trust ’em ta ever work. Betsy’s all-American.”
Everwho Betsy is.
There’s a moon somewhere. It’s not in the sky yet; it’s yet to rise, not even the pale suggestion of it trailing the failing sun through the sky. On the other side of the world, maybe, under their feet – but Skadi can feel it there, too – easing its way down from full; and that brings a certain – not ease, but a lessening of the narrow, feral tension that runs riot through her blood and bones beneath the influence of the full moon moving around the earth and sky.
She grins at Henry; there’s something hard in it – teeth still showing – dominate, maybe, but it’s a grin, nevertheless. “This here – ” she says to Henry, in lieu of a hello, ” – is Sandra. One’a ours.” In the club, as such things go. A member, by virtue of the blood she bears, if not her retiring manner, if not her forgettable looks. “Y’alright? – ” and that’s speculative, passing, perhaps allusive. “Git through all that shit aight?”
[Henry Allard] “And you are Henry, the one Tris hangs with and…er…shit.”
“Um….?”
The expression on his face changes subtly, rapidly. It’s open at first, and then Kemp starts to talk, keeps talking, blurts out an obscenity for no apparent reason. Winces a wince that nearly proclaims what it is that he’s thinking. Attentiveness bleeds into suspicion bleeds into embarrassment bleeds into neutrality, all within the tiny expanse of four seconds, and then the kinsman clears his throat, reaches a hand up to worry the line of his jaw, scarred fingers scritching against persistent stubble while a response breeds itself. He has it by the time his hand drops.
“Yeah. That’d be me. Nice to meet you.”
Easy distraction comes in the form of an introduction, and that forced blankness gives way to a friendly enough smile, one that doesn’t quite touch his eyes but certainly tries hard enough.
“Hey, Sandra, nice to meet you too.”
[Sandra Davenport] “When you only have $300 at the time, you take whatever will drive out of the junkyard.” It’s her only explanation of how she came to be in possession of the worlds worse car, and not a Betsy All-American variety ride.
A slight side glance toward Henry, not quite meeting his gaze, only through lashes that fall again. “Hi.” This close, there’s a smattering of freckles visible across her cheeks, her nose. She’s not fresh from the ugly tree, but far from the cision that Skadi is, or any number of girls around Chicago. Jane, plain and tall some would call her – if not for the fact that she’s short, too. Of course, they have to notice in order to call her anything.
[Kemp Oates] “I can look at the car. And ya know? The make Honda’s in America now. By American workers. Even if half the shit or more, comes from across the sea. And well, that one there weren’t made here. Course, them folks over there work for a fuckin hell of a lot less than most American’s spend on soft drinks. So it goes, so it goes. Round and round and meantime the planet is fuckin going to shit in a handbasket.”
He broke off his rant with an indrawn breath and slow exhale.
“Yeah, I can take a look at it.”
[Sandra Davenport] She manages a little smile for Kemp as he rambles, fingers lifting to her mouth as if to hide the fact it’s there. “Thanks, Kemp. I appreciate it.
[Skadi] “Ain’t tha same thang. Still’s a Chinese fuckin’ car. What I ain’t figgered, yet, though, is whether them Chinamen are communists ‘r if that’s jes’ tha Russians. I mean, I know they was Red China an’ all’a that, but I was watchin’ tha Kentucky fuckin’ Derby yesterday – ya see it? – ” to Kemp, or Henry, or Sandra, maybe. Mostly to Kemp, though. ” – an they kept talkin’ in tha commercials ’bout how Kentucky Fried Chicken was tha favorite chicken in China, an’ shit. An’ I figger if ya like fried chicken, ya cain’t really be no commie, ‘cuz that’s pretty fuckin’ American.”
Ruminative.
“Fried chicken.”
[Kemp Oates] Chuckling with a shake of his head.
“Russians ain’t communist anymore either Skadi. Unless ya consider, most of them communist were probably fuckin Lords. Now ain’t that a scary thought? I don’t care what they got that is finger licking whatever. Don’t change people just cause they like fried chicken.”
Attention shifting back towards Henry and Sandra again.
“Last time I done saw you Henry, was the night things didn’t go so good. How is he?”
[Skadi] Fried chicken – the thought draws the creature’s hot blue eyes to Sandra’s face. “Kin ya cook?” – the question comes without preamble, rather like a job interview. Some small suggestion of dis-ease enters the modi’s frame, the – crawls through her shoulders, widens her stance. The passing rant – “Them Russians is still commies. Jes’ fuckin’ pertendin’ S’all a fuckin’ game to ’em.”
[Henry Allard] Blink. Blink.
One bony thumb comes up to scratch the bumped bridge of his nose, up down up down up down, while the discussion meanders from cars to fried chicken to communism, some of the comments making him exhale a laugh through his sinus cavities, voiceless, meant to be as quiet as possible. Then Kemp is posing a question, and Henry’s eyebrows raise as he listens, braces himself almost.
“Stern?” As if they could be talking about anyone else. “He’s all right, he’s good.”
There’s no mention of how he was, though, no descriptions or stories or anything other than the five words he offers up for consumption. This one isn’t exactly lauded for his speaking, public or otherwise.
[Sandra Davenport] Blink. Then with a little shrug and grin. “I do alright. I’m no gormet, but I can make some pretty decent Fried Chicken.” since that seems to be the topic foodwise, and everything.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, good.”
Attention shifting to Henry again with that, Good. Then he was looking at Sandra again.
“How come you are so meek like and um, quiet? Ain’t gonna bite ya. Unless ya want me too.”
Wiggling his brows with the offer to bite Sandra.
[Sandra Davenport] And now she’s blushing. She ducks her head to let her hair slide over her shoulder, trying to hide the fact that her face is now burning red. It’s not like she thinks he’d really make a pass at her, wiggling brows or no, promise of teeth or no (and uh, ow?).
“I…” Well, how do you really answer something like that? She nervously pushes her glasses up, then tucks her hair behind her ear which promptly negats the hiding curtain. And she still doesn’t have any reply to that, exactly, but tries, if only because the question was asked, and one asked deserves an answer. “… I’ve always been quiet. I don’t know. I’m not so good with people and…”
Ah, yeah. Brilliant reply, Sandra.
[Kemp Oates] “That mean ya want me to bite ya or not?”
Single brow lifting again as he leaned a little closer to Sandra.
[Sandra Davenport] Oh god! She’s blushing brighter still and shoots a helpless glance in mute plea toward Skadi and Henry both, before looking at Kemp who’s leaning closer and swallowing hard… “…I… don’t know?”
[Skadi] “Oughtta make Kemp some home cooked fried chicken, he fixes yer car for ya. Don’t no one never cook fer tha poor fucker. ‘Cept my mamma, an’ she don’t send nuthin’ but cookies an’ shit ta fatten ’em up. Cain’t send fried chicken through tha fuckin’ mail, neither. S’against tha fuckin’ law. Plus it wouldn’t be no good, tha time it gits up here. Be a while, with tha mail. Plus, we ain’t got no fuckin’ address, so they ain’t no place ta deliver it, ‘r nothin’.”
– then, then, Kemp offers to bite Sandra. “Huh.” Skadi stops rambling, flashes a look – direct, lancing, lasered – at Henry, just because he is standing there, and they are standing there – and, “Huh.” – there’s that thing, all that other stuff there as well. Sandra finds no reprieve. Not from Skadi, who simply turns around, and starts ambling the other direction.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, you are turning redder than red.”
Snickering. He always found it hard not to tease someone who was so obviously nervous.
“Hey, catch ya later, Skadi.”
Turning his attention back to Sandra as he wrung his hands together with a…
“Mawhahahahaha.”
And wiggle of his brows.
“Mine, all mine. Where ya want the first bite? Unless you’re gonna cook. I might take food in exchange for…..”
Leering with a slow look over Sandra’s body.
“…a bite of something sweet.”
[Skadi] (…and, exeunt! for me, methinks. For the moment.)
to Henry Allard, Kemp Oates, Sandra Davenport, snailette
[Henry Allard] Henry knows all too well that pleading look in the young girl’s eyes, has himself sent out that signal on more occasions than he can count. For the briefest of moments he looks as if he is going to rescue the girl, save his fellow shy individual, when…
… he’s hit with that look.
That it comes to him, first, out of nowhere, causes his heart to start racing, his pulse to start slamming into his skin, and then she blessedly, thankfully, looks away, leaving the three–or, rather, the two and Henry–to their innuendo-drenched conversation.
“Should… I… leave you two alone?” he asks, slowly, adding a measure of teasing that is very easily confused with discomfort.
[Sandra Davenport] Her eyes widen as Skadi just leaves her there with Kemp and his leering ways, and Henry offers to leave them alone and she can feel the heat of her face, her cheeks burning with the idea of his suggestions and his comments… she swallows hard, again, and catches her lower lip between her teeth. She scrambles for something, anything to say…
“…I… I’d cook for you anyway, if you wanted…” sure, just THROW yourself at the guy, Sandra!
[Kemp Oates] He broke the look from Sandra long enough to speak to Henry.
“Heh, I don’t mind if ya watch.”
Turning his full attention to Sandra again as he shifted position to drape one arm around her shoulders.
“So, you’re gonna feed me too? Ya know, feed me and you’ll never get rid of me. You’re for dessert, right?”
[Sandra Davenport] He drapes his arm over her shoulders and her eyes widen again. Another gulp (You’d think she’d never had a guys arm around her shoulder before. You’d be right.) as she hugs her laptop closer to her belly, and peeks up at Kemp – who’s clearly teasing her, because he wouldn’t be serious, no one ever is – through dusky lashes.
“I…uh.. I mean..” Swallow. Hard. “I…maybe?”
[Henry Allard] Okay.
“It was very nice meeting both of you,” he says, quickly, shooting Sandra a look that isn’t readily translated, some combination of apology and commisseration. Green eyes flick from her to Kemp and back again, and then he’s reshouldering his back and stepping around the two to continue on down the sidewalk. The strap of his bag, though tempered by the leather of his jacket, has been getting heavier and heavier the longer he stands.
“Good luck.”
This time he doesn’t look back over his shoulder.
[Kemp Oates] Oh he was loving this. Sliding his hand down from Sandra’s shoulder to her waist as he pulled her in closer against his side.
“Thanks man.”
Sure the good luck wasn’t to him, but that didn’t stop him from taking it that way.
“Say hey to Tris for me.”
Resting his chin on Sandra’s head a moment with a low murmured.
“So, ya wanna take me home to feed me, right? Let’s do it.”
And with those words his hand slid down to her rump.
[Henry Allard] ((Thanks for the scene, y’all!))
[Sandra Davenport] Good luck, he says, and she stifles a groan in reply because Kemp’s hand is sliding and it causes a little shiver to race along her spine, under her skin. He pulls her closer, and she doesn’t pull away, but bites down on her lip and closes her eyes.
“….I… um… ok…” Her minds racing too hard to form a coherent reply.. because he couldn’t be serious, right? No one ever is… he’s just teasing.
[Kemp Oates] His smile widened in a white flash of teeth as he urged her along with a hand on her rump.
“Got my bike down the way here. Extra helmet. Can get ya home in no time.”
Giving a little squeeze of the cheek he had his big hand on.
“Course, ya’ll have to hold on real tight.”
[Sandra Davenport] Oh man. She stumbles as he urges her along and squeezes with his hand and she’s practically crimson at this point. She pushes her glasses up, regains her footing, and moves alongside him. “I… I don’t know if I have chicken… but we can stop at the store, or something…?”
Brilliant. Add that with… “I’ve.. never ridden a motorcycle before… so I guess so..” and she may as well be disrobing on the street, for as embarrassed as she is…
[Kemp Oates] “He paused in midstride to lean his mouth down near her ear. Warm breath against her ear with his low rumbling purr.
“Ya know, they say it all tastes like chicken.”
Wiggling his brows as he lifted his head again and gave another squeeze to her rump.
“So, ya got a boyfriend or someone you’re sleeping with?”
[Sandra Davenport] Oh dear sweet gaia… Her eyes close again and she bites back a little sound lower in her throat. She has no comment for that, not that it could possibly be surprising. But then there’s a question, and questions deserve answers, and she flounders and blushes and shakes her head. “No… n.neither…”
She doesn’t say that people never notice her, that she’s a wallflower and far too plain for it to be a common occurance to have a partner at all… She just leaves it at that.
[Kemp Oates] He paused one more time, lowering his head to meet her eyes.
“Ya ain’t never? Ya know?”
And with that, he demonstrated with a few nimble thrusts of his hips against her as he held her by her hips.
[Sandra Davenport] She swallows hard, and meets his gaze only briefly, before they slide away again, even as he chases, and… thrusts.. and she’s blushing more then ever, the color spreading down along her neck, dipping under her clothing…
“I… um…” Stutter when she’s nervous. Which is always. Yes. But Truborn question= kinfolk answer, and… “…no.” the word barely whispered, softer then her normal voice which is pretty darn quiet as it is.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, really?”
He went still as he watched her face in the faint light from the street lamp. Easing his hold on her a wee bit.
“How come? Ya been around for months and no one has even once taken your interest enough to want to try the waters?”
[Sandra Davenport] She chews her lip again, and tries to think coherently, to find an answer. Finally, she does what she always does when directly questioned – answers honestly, and oh so softly. “N..ot exactly. More so no one’s ever noticed me, or had any interest. No one ever does…”
[Kemp Oates] “Tell me about your family.”
He started urging her towards the alley and his bike again. His hand sliding to her rump once more. Skadi said go make lots of babies, didn’t she?
[Sandra Davenport] She closes her eyes, briefly, a little relieved… for about half a second before that hand is on her behind again. But better that and easier questions, hm? She clears her throat, holding her bag tight against her belly.
“They are.. were” a pause. “In Wisconsin. A small place like here..” Meaning the Sept. At least she’s heard it’s small. “My father was a Modi, great grandmother a Godi. I’m an only child, and my father was a firm believer in kinfolk, especially his wife and daughter, should be rarely seen and never heard. Supportive, but unobtrusive. I spent a lot of time alone, with my computer. Still do. Two weeks after I arrived here for school, the sept fell. No survivors.”
It’s probably more then she’s said to anyone in one go since she’s been in Chicago, baring her instructors when necessary. And the last is barely whispered, hard to hear.
[Kemp Oates] “Well ya got family here, so to speak, relatives. Even if ya got no immediate family.”
He let go of her rump to take her hand, leading her down the alley towards a bike where chrome gleamed in the dark. Turning to pull her closer, hands on her hips again, then sliding around to her rump in the dark as he pulled her against him.
“Ready for that ride?”
[Sandra Davenport] He takes her hand, and by virtue of that unwraps the arm from the protective hold around her belly. She lets him, and ducks her head, that blush reappaearing agian as she slides the strap of her laptop bag so that it hangs against her hip. She looks at the bike, and then he’s pulling her close again and her hands.. she’s suddenly trying to figure out where to put her hands, finally letting them rest against his chest as she swallows. hard.
She peeks up at him, through her lashes – but just briefly before her eyes drop again, and she’s certain he can feel the way her heart pounds, the way she’s all but actually trembling against him. “I…” agian with the stuttering… “..don’t know… you mean on the bike… right?” because why would he mean anything else? She’s the wallflower, plain, unremarkable. Forgetable.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, that’s a good start.”
Wiggling his brows as he released her to turn to the bike and dig a helmet out which he placed on her head. Fastening it beneath her chin before taking her laptop bag from her.
“Ok, gonna need ya to hold on tightly and tell me where ya live.”
Once more he had turned to put the bag inside his saddle bags. His helmet lifted next. The helmet he stuck on her was painted with blue flames. His bore a wolf howling before the full moon. His bike matched the helmet, gleaming with wax and care. He took hold of the grips, swinging one long leg over the bike to settle in the seat with a look back at her.
“Climb on and grab what ya want to hold on to.”
[Sandra Davenport] She flushes again and closes her eyes as he lets her go. He reaches for the laptop bag, and automatically she grabs for it back, before letting him take it with a sheepish dip of her head. It’s her baby, that computer, and it’s hard to let him put it in the saddlebag, even though it’d be safer there then if she held it.
She pushes her glasses up, seating them more comfortably on her ears under the press of the helmet. She hesitates a minute or two – but now there’s no turning back because he has her computer! – and she slips onto the passanger seat. Her voice soft, she gives quick directions to a small apartment building near the Art Institute Campus, and then without any other handles to hold on too, she rests her hands at his waist lightly.
[Kemp Oates] He chuckled, the rumble moving through him almost as well felt as the sudden rumble of the bike as he rose and fell in starting it. Reaching for her hands again to pull them more fully around him.
“Here we go, no turning back now.”
Still giving her a hard time as he eased the bike out to the street with a quick look before gunning it. He’d get her home, take her to her door, see her in and maybe surprise her with a kiss before leaving her with a promise of looking at her car for her.
[Sandra Davenport] The bike starts, and she makes a noise, and doesn’t resist at all when he pulls her arms tighter around his waist. And then he guns the engine as he takes off, and her arms tighten around him, as she presses agianst his back in thrilled terror.
He will get her home, take her to the door, see her in – and find a clean small place, as understated as she is. And if he leaves her with a kiss, his last look at her will find her with her fingers pressed where his lips had been, with a shocked, and shy little smile. And when he goes to leave – she’ll protest…
she hasn’t cooked dinner for him yet…
[Sandra Davenport] (OOC: I assumed that the end of your post means you need to go? ))
to Kemp Oates
[Sandra Davenport] (OOC: If not, never mind anything after the “understated as she is” *L*)
to Kemp Oates
[Kemp Oates] ((Yes sorry, I was brushing teeth LOL! Thank you for the play!))
to Sandra Davenport
[Sandra Davenport] (Anytime. She owes him dinner. though, maybe the constant mortification and blush is payment enough. Ha! email me if you want to play again!)
to Kemp Oates
[Kemp Oates] Heh, show up and I’ll play LOL! And thanks!
to Sandra Davenport
[Sandra Davenport] (Deal. Thanks!)
to Kemp Oates