After a day of early classes, a quick bite to eat, she made her way home to the small apartment in a building just past campus, near the park.
She’s settled in a lawn chair on the fire escape outside her window where she has a view of the street. By the warm light of the room inside that spills to surround her with amber glow, she’s got her hands in the dirt of the round planter resting on the landing between her knees. On the little rickety table beside her is a varity of potted plants that she’s working on transferinng one by one to the planter in order to bring a little spring to her apartment building.
[Kemp Oates] Sun was starting to set, turning the sky varied shades of yellow, orange and red. It was much cooler than the previous day. His leather jacket was, well full of bullet holes, besides he didn’t get as cold as some. Metabolism was so fast, he could eat nonstop and not gain weight as his body burned it at a frightening pace. His usual bike was beyond use until repairs were completed, which would take time. Yet here he was, pulling up across the street from Sandra’s building in a familiar looking Honda. No blue smoke spewed from the rear. No smoke nor steam from the hood. It ran with a quiet purr until turned off. He’d greased the door hinges, so when the driver’s door swung open, it was nice and quiet. He climbed out of the Honda with a half turn to close the door, locking it. Shaggy hair in it’s usual disarray. Jeans hanging low and baggy off lean hips. Silver pendants spun, catching the fading light as he turned to look up at the building.
[Sandra Davenport] Cars go by all the time, of course, and so she doesn’t look up right away, intent on pushing the dirt around the roots of a pretty cluster of purple violets. As she reaches over to grab the next pot, she looks up and sees her car pulling up. Or, what looks to be her car, because there’s no smoke, or steam, and is quiet. She sets the pot back down, and leans over for a better look, and watches Kemp as he gets out.
Huh. Must be her car… she tips her head, then clears her throat, and lifts a dirt covered hand to wave and get his attention. She doesn’t call out – she rarely raises her voice at all.
[Kemp Oates] Unlike Sandra, he does call out. Infact, he yells.
“YO, SANDRA! YO! COME CHECK OUT YOUR CAR!”
His hands cupped around his mouth as he bellowed up at her.
[Sandra Davenport] She blushes and ducks her head, shaking it a little, before she stands, wiping her dirty hands on her jeans, and tugging at her t-shirt a little to adjust it as she moves. She holds up a finger to let him know she’ll be right down, and then climbs in her window, to her apartment, to do just that.
A minute or two later, she’s crossing the street to join him, her hands still dirty, a little smudge of soil across her temple where she’d pushed her hair behind her ear. When she’s close enough she looks from him, to the car, and back again. “There were no backfires or smoke – that can’t be my car…”
She smells of her day, but mostly of plants and soil and earth from the planting she’d been doing.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, thought for a moment ya were flipping me off.”
Chuckling as he held the keys out to her, dangling them from one finger through the ring.
“If it ain’t your car, don’t know who’s it is. Anyway, it runs now. Now ya can stop hoofing it.”
[Sandra Davenport] She blushes and shakes her head. “No, was a wait a minute gesture!” she defends herself, and pushes her glasses up with a fingertip before looking up at him. “I can’t believe you got it running! Was it horrible difficult?”
She reaches for her keys, grubby fingers sliding around the keyfob to tug it from his finger. “Thank you. Guess I owe you several dinners, now…” She’s doing her best to look him in the eye as she speaks to him, to do as he asked. But he can’t stop the soft spill of color over her cheeks, any more then she can.
[Kemp Oates] “Naw, it weren’t nothing. Hope ya like it.”
He’d never tell her how much work it had been, even if he’d broken fingers doing it. Instead he started rubbing his brow as he looked at her.
“I’ll take those dinners, heh. I ain’t one for turning down food, ya know? So, watched doing up there anyway?”
Lifting his chin in a jerk towards the balcony she had been on before looking back down to her face. Once more rubbing his brow.
[Sandra Davenport] She smiles, and ducks her head a little. “Well, then, it’s good for you that I’m a pretty good cook.”
A little grin, before looking up to her balcony. “Come on up and see if you like. I was just planting some flowers.” She looks back at him as he rubs his brow and then, after a minute in a flash of concern. “Are you all right?”
[Kemp Oates] “I’m fine.”
Ok, so he could only hint so much before his natural tendancies came to the forefront.
“But man is your face dirty.”
His chuckle came out as a low rumble of mirth.
“Ya look like a little kid that’s been playing in the dirt. Heh.”
Glancing up towards her balcony again.
“Guess I can come up. Do much planting?”
[Sandra Davenport] Cue that splash of red, the bright blush that slides over her cheeks as her hand lifts to brush against her brow as he had his, and succeeds only in making it worse. She wrinkles her nose and shakes her head. “Well, it’s not far from the truth, I suppose.” A little kid playing in dirt. She shakes her head, and turns toward her building again.
“Well come on, then. There’s leftovers in the fridge, and some fresh lemonade too.” She pushes her glasses up, and tucks her hair behind her ears. With a shrug. “I don’t have much room for it anymore. Back home I did. Now it’s just the planters on the balcony.”
[Kemp Oates] “Where is back home.”
He was trying really hard not to laugh at her smearing more dirt on her face. Striding ahead to reach around her and pull the door open.
“After you.”
[Sandra Davenport] She glances up at him and as she goes by into the building, she nudges him with her elbow. “You’re laughing at me. And Wisconsin.”
She’d told him before, but she is not surprised if he forgets. She’s the wallflower, and is well used to fading away. “Born and raised. Came here to go to school.”
[Steven] (Aw, going inside. Ah well – next time!)
to Kemp Oates, Sandra Davenport
[Kemp Oates] (No man, come on in. Hell we’ll stay outside. ))
to Sandra Davenport, Steven
[Sandra Davenport] (ooc: oh! sorry! I think they were actually headed to the fire escape, which puts them in view – or yes, we can stay outside!)
to Kemp Oates, Steven
[Kemp Oates] “Wisconsin? With cheese and shit?”
He paused, frowning.
“Oh hey, I forgot my drink in your car and ya know how those cups start to sweat and leak through after a bit. How about unlocking it for me so I can get it?”
[Sandra Davenport] She nods, with a little laugh. “Yes, with cheese and shit. In that order.” Another glance up at him, and she digs her keys from her pocket again, and turns back the way they just came.
“Sure. I really do appreciate all you did, I know it couldn’t have been easy.”
[Kemp Oates] “You find cooking easy enough. Consider this my form of cooking.”
Glancing both ways as he stepped out into the street to cross it with her towards the old Honda.
“I can make a few things? But ya need a strong stomach to live through my cooking attempts.”
[Steven] Random evening. Sun going down, going going gone. Street lamps hum into life like turgid fireflies, flickering their noxious orange irredesence over the street. Cars edge by, slowly creeping, crawling, pausing at traffic likes but taking the reds more like suggestions than imperatives. Distant music, the sound of salsa, perhaps, spilling out of an open window.
Steven walks, hands in pockets, kicking out against the occasional stray can or empty pack of cigarettes. The moon is but a sliver in the sky, barely visible, and his rage is at an all time ebb, almost gone, barely felt within the dying embers of his chest.
Even so. He walks, an old, overly large green sweater draped over his frame, worn jeans faded to stone gray terminating over the tops of his hiking boots. Pausing occasionally to get look into store fronts, through the metal grills, at the dim interiors beyond.
[Tuesday Lane] On the stoop of one apartment complex in disrepair or another, Tuesday sits with her elbows propped on her knees. A cigarette dangling between her index and middle finger, setting a tiny spiral of blue grey smoke into the night air. Watching traffic slip by on the street beyond, one finger on her spare hand twisting a lock of dark brown hair around the tip of her finger.
Bored. I-pod buds blasting music into her ears as she takes a drag of her cigarette and blows smoke rings with the flexing of her jaw.
[Sandra Davenport] “I’ll keep that in mind.” She watches where she’s going – it’s easier then looking up at him when she speaks. It’s not that she thinks he will strike her, or anything bad. Its simply years of training by a father far to strickt on his family.
When they reach the car, she unlocks it, then leans down to look at the mess she’d made of her face in the window reflection. “I do look a mess, don’t I?” She grabs the edge of her oversized t-shirt, and attempts to minimize the damage.
[Nessa Malikoff] Nessa is out again, uncaged, still as free as any Shadowlord kin can be. More than most, at least. She is very, very distracted, wanders through the night towards her usual destination with an absentminded frown on her pale, nearly plain face. The mystic-scent of her breeding preceeds her, but otherwise the woman is as subtle as any care which is given to this neighborhood by those who supposedly mean to cure its ills.
A nice, subtle negligence. Yes.
[Kemp Oates] “Heh, it’s only a little dirt. Can’t go around worried about whatcha look like all the time. Besides, it’s honest dirt.”
He leaned into the car, one hand on the edge of the roof as he reached in for the forgotten drink. Looking around as he straightened, shoving the hair back from his eyes about the sametime his gaze first flickered over Steven.
[Sandra Davenport] She actually laughs a little. It’s a short sound, like it escaped before she could contain it. “I strike you as the type who worries about appearance?” at least she knows that she is plain, that she fades from view, that she is easily forgotten. It doesn’t seem to bother her, either.
[Steven] Steven, in turn, is gazing across the street towards where a striking young woman is seated on a stoop, musing over impossible conversations in his head, imagining different approaches, all deliciously improbable and unlikely to be acted on, until he turns his head and spots a familiar face.
He slowls, stops. His brow furrows, and frowns, trying to place Kemp. And then it clicks. The dude on the motorbike. A quick glance establishes distances between him and the man, the nearest alley, and then he looks wide, checks traffic, the number of people in the vicinity.
The moon is but a sliver, and his curiousity wins out. New city, new grounds, and so he begins to approach, knowing he’s been spotted, making no attempt to hide. His stride is long, and while his frown nearly subsides completely, hints of it remain between his eyes, a tightness of the jaw.
[Tuesday Lane] One foot taps on the cracked cement stairs as her head bobs faintly to the music only she can hear. The nano clipped to a button hole of her worn denim jacket, she flicks it and the speed and beat of the tapping foot and bobbing head change. Another drag is taken from her cigarette, and the embers at it’s tip glow with the force of her inhalation. Another set of smoke rings is born, and then dies on the night air, and still she watches traffic trickle by. Dark eyes lined in dark liner, flitting from one passing car to the next.
Kemp reaches into his car (or someones car) across the street, and she glances toward him, the light catching the slender gold hoop in her nose as she blows what is left of the smoke in her lungs out in a straight and steady stream.
[Nessa Malikoff] Down the street are some of the few late night stores for several blocks, all of them catering to a customer base far more need than cash. Liquor stores, just closed now. A ratty bar. Corner quickie mart, which Nessa often visits. A pharmacy, 24 hrs, mostly for medicaid and medicare users, who can’t afford to go someplace with cleaner windows and nicer employess. A fast food joint guaranteed to do their damnedest to stop the heart of customers 24/7.
From the expression on the pale woman’s face, she might be trying to solve the problems of teh world. Work through how she will word her next prizewinning novel. Do mathematical computations which will lead to a greater understanding of the universe, all inside her immigrant head.
Or.. just.. do simple math. Again.
Something isn’t adding up. Nessa starts over, just as futilely as last time. Even the scent of smoke drifting downwind towards her does not seem to move her.
[Kemp Oates] His gaze slid from Steven to where he was looking for a second, turning his head towards Tuesday then back towards Steven as he started to approach them. He recalled the quiet kid, if he could call someone else a kid, from the other night. Though they had not spoken and all hell had broken loose, he recalled the guy. Which reminded him, he wasn’t getting any younger. And for a moment, he spotted Nessa and all the questions Skadi had asked, hit home again.
[Sandra Davenport] She manages to get most of the dirt off her face, and turns around again, in time to see Steven making his way toward them. She looks up at Kemp, and seeing he is unworried, she tucks the keys to her car into her pocket again, hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jeans.
And there’s that other woman again, too. She watches Nessa, then over to where the smoke and music comes from, and back again. Shoulders hunch a little, as she waits, and watches.
[Tuesday Lane] Unlike most of the people on the street… Tuesday isn’t worrying about anything. She isn’t contemplating the meaning of life. She isn’t struck with recognition, or recollection, or an epiphany of any kind. She’s just smoking a cigarette. Sipping whatever the contents of the bottle inside the paper bag by her left hip is… and watching.
Hair is twisted, and then let loose with a bounce of curl, and the process is repeated again.
[Nessa Malikoff] More steps, one after another, her feet stable enough even over the shattered pavement, the jagged uplifts of sidewalk paths more suited to rock formations on the sides of mountains than casual pedestrian traffic. Her feet will get there. Mind– that’s completely on vacation.
Her dark jeans fit her athletic body well, a crimson hoodie paling her skin even more. Striking, with the long fall of black waves down her front. Something of more interest than her very, very very subtle beauty. Nearly too subtle to be noticed, unless one were garou.
She is still heading towards the collection of shops, in her own little world, a troublesome place today.
[Sandra Davenport] (OOC: Oh dear. We lost Kemp and Steven.)
[Tuesday Lane] (guess we bored them)
[Sandra Davenport] By some unspoken word, Kemp and Steven step away to speak, and leave Sandra by the car. She flips the lock, and nudges the door closed, before she starts to cross the street once more to her building.
[Leon Eornost] Leo stumbled out of the Black Swan tavern with one hand situating his ball cap on his head. The cap was advertised Jack Daniels and his t-shirt had seen better days : it was a white wife beater (once) but now it was ripped at the hem and stained (blood) in some places. His slate gray slacks are (probably) 100% polyester and ride low over the top of his blue and white Nikes.
He burped (loudly) and the more he walked the more he seemed to regain his bearings. His jacket in his hands (battered, calloused hands) and in the other is a freshly lit cigarette. Leo isn’t far from Tuesday, and it doesn’t seem as if he plans on changing his direction.
[Nessa Malikoff] A man– she swerves automatically to avoid him, towards the street to give the stranger space. One does, here.
In moments, she is past unless stopped, and heads at the end of her journey into the all night pharmacy.
[Nessa Malikoff] (brb)
[Tuesday Lane] She hears him before she sees him. His belch sounding between songs, and she glances in Leo’s direction with an easy slow forming smile. Recognition dawning in her dark eyes as she flicks her nano and stops the music that flows through the earbuds. Plucking one from an ear, and letting it dangle, she lifts her paper bagged beverage and takes a quick sip before flicking to fingers at Leo in a mock salute.
Long legs that go on forever, stretch out in front of her, a pair of her own Nike’s (old, and blue) scraping over the cracked stairs as she shifts her weight and braces a hand on the cold cement to hoist herself up.
[Leon Eornost] He can see the outline of Tuesday, the hair the endless set of legs. It isn’t until he draws closer that a dawning of recognition awakens his expression. A lopsided smile is draped over his lips and Leo turns his head, burps again, and starts a slow jog towards the pretty kid. That’s when he passes Nessa, she dodges him and he eases to the side to be sure their paths do not collide.
“Hey, hey mama…” His deep rooted Southern accent is painfully noticeable even those three words. He slows with a slap on the wall near Tuesday, one eye squinted shut the other barely open to peer at the bag. ” ‘s that?”
[Sandra Davenport] She glances toward Tuesday and Leon, as she crosses the street. She opens the door to her apartment building, and it closes behind her. Not long after, she reappears on the fire escape landing that serves as her balcony. She sits in the lawn chair, and pulls the planter toward her again and turns her attention toward her plants once more.
[Tuesday Lane] A dark brow arches as Leo asks whats in the bag, and she takes a long swallow, a slick dribble of amber liquid flowing over her lower lip, and tracing the dip of her chin. She pulls the bottle away from her lips with an audible smack of suction and an emphasized aaaaah of refreshment. “Nothin now love.”
The slender gold hoop in her nose glitters as a cars headlights flicker on across the street, and she winks down at Leo. “How ya been Lucky? Ya look… well, ya look like shit, but y’know.”
Her voice is a husky flow of sound that comes with an easy and endearing confidence. Each word is spoken as though it were meant. Nothing contrived. Nothing forced. Her smile is soft and sultry without needing to put any effort into it, and as she licks the Jack Daniels off her lower lip and wipes her chin with the back of a hand, she steps down off the stoop to join Leo on the sidewalk. “Jesus, Leo. Don’t you ever shower?”