[Henry Allard]
The further the season stretches, the longer the nights remain in the high 40s, the sharper the winds and the cloudier the skies, the less people are inclined to remain outdoors. It grows darker earlier, it grows colder faster, and winter is approaching with a speed that allows it to startle those who stop to think about it. People are driven off the sidewalks, are driven indoors, and this will not change until the cold snap has become tolerable and the human skin has acclimated to the sudden drop.
It has been a long time since he has been seen running in the park. There was a time when he was here on a moderately regular basis, his scrawny legs carrying him miles deep into the park before dragging him back again, his path veering around tourists and strollers and the slower moving. That time had ended with the move, with Tristan’s injury, with Mama Grace’s illness. It has been weeks since he has worn his sneakers to do anything other than go to the corner store; with the exception of 48 hours shorn to come back to Chicago for a meeting, a meeting that ended in an ultimatum, it has been weeks since he has left Tristan’s side.
The man is at home catching up on Survivor, a task that had Henry fidgeting in the quiet white of a head unfettered by pain. Words back and forth, a change of clothes, and he had left the apartment with keys in hand, driver’s license stuffed into the pocket of his gym shorts, and set off towards Grant Park.
He has been running for the better part of an hour, now, has been running the perimeter of the park with his keys tied to his shoelaces and his breath panting in and out of his chest in a rhythm that is meant to maintain sufficient oxygen supply for his tiring muscles, for his rapidly beating heart. It gives him something to focus on besides the cramping in his calves, besides the nicotine craving in the very pit of him, besides the nagging throb of irritating at the base of his skull. Besides worry.
[Danny Jones]
Worry. Seems her worries have disappeared lately, though what it’s been replaced with is never good for a Garou. They watch each other closely for this type of thing. It is this kind of loss that spirals the warrior into Harano. IT is this kind of loss and depression that has the Warrior forgetting to eat, forgetting to drink, doing at most what is necessary to keep them moving. It is this kind of depression that sends the Garou into suicide mission after suicide mission, begging for that final blow.
It is this kind of depression that she is suffering that she hasn’t even managed to name yet.
It is also this lethargy that has her watching Henry round the corner toward her again, from where she lays stretched out on a merrygoround, spinning lazily, mindlessly, with the half hearted push of her unlaced boot against the ground. Her head rests on her pack, keeping her upright enough to watch his progress.
ANother week she might have said hello. Tonight, it’s only the squeak of the old rusted merrygoround that gives away her presence.
[Henry Allard]
That squeak has him looking over, but it is the body that is sprawled upon the great metal disc that slows his steps, quells the slapping of his shoe rubber against the asphalt and the jangling of his keys as they bang into each other. Steam puffs out of his lungs as his gasps tear through parted lips, and he plants his wind-reddened hands on his hips as he peers through the darkness to confirm his suspicions.
It’s Danny.
They have not seen each other since before he broke his arm. When last they spoke, it had been about Kemp, it had been about whether sex was a big deal, it had been about what her plan of action regarding her boyfriend ought to be. Once, she had asked how it was Henry was always jogging and always looked like shit for it. He doesn’t look much better now than he ever has. Looks worse, actually, looks skinny and haggard, skin sapped of vigor and flushed with his blood pressure’s protestation, eyes dark and bruised… but the likelihood of her noticing this when all the color has bled out of her world is marginal at best.
Footsteps rustle through the grass as he draws near, and a wet, crumpling cough sounds out of his throat, left hand barely managing to ball itself into a fist to muffle the explosion. They carry him closer, and when she spins around again, she finds the tall kinsman looking down at her through an upside-down world.
For her, he smiles. To allow himself not to would be confirming that something is wrong.
“Danny,” he pants, reaching up to wipe sweat from his brow with the long sleeve of his t-shirt. “Hey… hold that thing still, I’m about to fall over.”
[Danny Jones]
She watches him as she comes around, goes around, and comes around again. When he asks her to stop, she does so with ease, simply not kicking the thing into motion again, letting it squeak to a stop. She probably would have a quip on the tip of her tongue, if this were a few weeks ago. She might ask him how he still looks like shit, why he jogs, and hey – let’s talk about sex, baby…
but she doesn’t. She just stops, and watches him with dark (painfilled, yet somehow empty) eyes. “Sorry.” Is what she eventually comes up with.
[Henry Allard]
Those eyes bore into him with the force of a lance, hitting him in the center of his chest and halting his heaving breaths for several seconds. Danny doesn’t make a comment about his appearance, about him jogging, doesn’t make a play on what he’s said. She apologizes, and for a moment Henry looks completely stumped.
“Hey…”
A hand comes out to steady the merry-go-round, and he sits rather ungracefully several feet from Danny. It is not sitting so much as it is his legs, barely more than bone with thin strips of meat laid overtop, wrapped with skin, completely giving out on him. His bony backside connects with the metal, and he winces before pulling his legs up to sit cross-legged next to her. All the while his chest desperately pulls for air; all the while, there is a visible fight to keep his face from mirroring the pain coursing through her body.
“What happened?”
[Danny Jones]
He collapses- because we’ll call it what it is – to sit on the merrygoround with her, and when he pulls his legs up, her foot resumes it’s slow steady push, sending them in slow lazy circles. Shoulders curl lightly, slightly, into what might be a shrug, any other day. She doesn’t know, or isn’t going to say, or maybe just needs a moment to connect the dots into a coherent though.
She, of so many words, has surprisingly few, now.
“You run too much.” is what comes out first, as he tries desperately to pull oxygen into his lungs, to further fuel his muscles so that he can remember how to walk. Or something. There’s a long moment after that, where it might seem like she’s forgotten the question, or chosen not to answer. Then.
“Rafi’s dead. Brodie too.”
[Henry Allard]
He doesn’t need to ask who Rafi and Brodie are, doesn’t need to further tax her mental reserves by asking her to explain to an ignorant man the identities of two whose deaths have served to send her into a descent so sharp that it has drained her of her mirth, her life. He doesn’t need to ask, and so he doesn’t. She’d once told him that Rafi was a fellow Gnawer, that his mother and daughter were in the city, that she was going to join his pack. That his brother was her boyfriend. So she thought. She wasn’t sure, at the time, she didn’t want to assume.
In a time when he would so like to be silent, to allow the girl space to hear herself think, his lungs continue to pull for oxygen in great starved swallows, his respirations one of many sounds around them. The squeaking of the merry-go-round, the rustling of wind in the trees, the far off whispering of traffic all blanket them in urban music.
“Jesus, Danny, I’m so sorry…”
[Danny Jones]
She lifts her hand to slide through her two-toned hair. So cheerful, that hair, though even it manages to look dejected without being carefully spiked into fabulousness. She nods, once, accepting his condolences, and then, just as softly. “I couldn’t hear em- wasn’t full bond yet. They got stupid. They got dead. And not Santi’s gone too.”
Every name he’d heard her mention in happiness so recently, is now the source of her depression, her agony. She’s lost, if she were to be honest, and not sure what to do. One minute she wants to follow Santiago and Mama Isobel as fast as she possibly can, the next she wants to throw herself into Maelstrom and sacrifice everything. What she does, instead, for now, though, is spin lazily on a rusted merrygoround.
[Henry Allard]
A cross-section of Henry’s social circle would provide a possible explanation for the situation he has recently found himself in as of late, hemorrhaging concern with no outlet while worrying for those he cannot possibly help, running himself ragged for the one he would die for, the one he lives for. Everywhere he looks there is misery: there are Dancer kidnappings, there are lost packmates, there are dead mothers, and in the face of it all there is the stark realization that he can do absolutely nothing.
This girl does not need anything done. Not from him. There is nothing he can do, nothing more active than to simply sit still and listen to her. Once he had heard her tell of these people in her life with a brightness in her eyes, a smile on her lips. There had been hope and happiness in her tone, and Danny had been secured as one of the young Garou of Chicago who Henry did not have to worry about.
They twirl, slowly, aimlessly, and Henry’s breathing slowly calms.
“Is he…?”
[Danny Jones]
Theres a brief moment, a small sad smile, as the sun in her sky returns briefly. “Not dead. just gone.”
Not that it matters when it comes down to it. Not that the pain is any less, as Santiago couldn’t even look at her, couldn’t touch her, didn’t even kiss her goodbye. Sometimes, at night, like this, that hurts worse then knowing she couldn’t safe Rafi and Brodie. That hurts the most – her glimpse of happiness, stolen with the ceasation of his brother’s breath.
“Mama Isobel and Carolina went back to Tuscan. Santi followed a couple days ago.”
[Henry Allard]
Shaking hands are pulled into the sleeves of his t-shirt. He struggles not to shiver in the late evening air, his sweat beginning to evaporate, the chill setting into the damp patches of his clothing, causing him to shiver as his back and chest become inexplicably cool.
“Have they done the… um…”
There is a name for a ritual he has never been able to witness, an Umbral farewell to fallen warriors that family, the Kinfolk, cannot see. It eludes him just as surely as do the specifics of the ritual.
“… the rite?”
[Danny Jones]
“Gathering of the departed.” she supplies, for future reference. It is something she’s partaken in so many times, yet never as closely felt as these two. Had they called, had she been able to hear, had she been WITH THEM… none of this would have happened.
She draws her fingers under her eyes, and sniffs once, but there are no real tears or sobs left to be had. She’s run out, other then the occasional sniff, the wayward tear. It disappears, and her breath is calm again. “Kemp helped me get the bodies back. The rite’s been done, the family gone.”
A pause and it’s again like she is finished talking, before… “dunno what to do now.”
[Henry Allard]
She doesn’t know what to do now, and Henry doesn’t speak. In her there is a well of agony, the pain of loss that so few can readily comprehend. It is something even Henry, who has lost true family, cannot claim to understand. The two sitting beside each other on the merry-go-round are not of the same species, are not of the same mentality. There are few fates worse than running lone without a pack to call one’s own. To lose those that she had felt were the ones she was destined to run with… it’s a pain that has no mapping to Henry’s own experience. He can imagine, he can empathize… but he cannot understand.
“Are you going to stay in Chicago?”
[Danny Jones]
That’s the question of the hour, isn’t it? The same question she’s asked herself a thousand times. The same question she asked herself the night Santiago walked away – what would she have done if he had touched her, had kissed her, had asked her that way to go with him? And worse – what is left for her here in Chicago?
He said she had a life here.
She has known mostly pain. Mostly death.
Shoulder lift into a slight shrug again as she looks over at Henry. “I don’t know.” It’s as close to the truth as she can come too.
[Henry Allard]
At last she looks over at him. In the darkness Henry can see the glint of aborted tears in her eyes, he can see the way sorrow has aged her. In the darkness Danny can see nothing more than naked concern on the older man’s face.
He sits, he breathes, he balls his hands into fists and crosses his arms over his chest not to wall himself away from conversation, not to transmit defensive anger, but to warm himself. His brow quirks, his eyes soften, and he gives her a tight yet wholly true smile.
“Want a hug?”
[Danny Jones]
That brings a quick, soft huff of laughter. Short lived, and probably recognizable to Henry, as it sounds very much like one of his own, where it never fully comes to life, before it does again. It’s not true amusement, just a mirror of it, though the fact that it exists might give the Coggie Kin hope for the little Gnawer.
Or not.
Either way, she shakes her head. “I would say yes.. but I’m not entirely sure I could handle that right now. The offer is appreciated, though.”
[Henry Allard]
When that laugh he passes off as his own comes out of the girl’s throat, his brow tightens, his lips flatten themselves out. It is not the laughter he has heard from her in days past, coming from not the girl he has talked to in days past. She’s still there, somewhere, underneath the cement blanket of misery. She has to be. The alternative to her surviving this loss intact is too grim to bear contemplating. It would mean another soul lost to the grip of Harano, another young girl who could no longer stand up under the strain of the cost of this war they fight because they have to and not because they have any say in the matter.
She would say yes, but she isn’t sure she can handle it.
“You wouldn’t be the first person to cry on me this week.”
[Danny Jones]
She takes that as an easy out, this girl who once laughed with ease. “Do tell..” she says when he mentions being cried on already this week. There is a part of her, buried somewhere deep inside, that is curious, and perhaps worried. It is buried deep inside, though, and she’s not even sure she’ll find that part of her anytime soon – if at all.
She watches him, though, with those sad eyes, so filled yet blanketed and empty all at once, and tips her head to the side, slightly. “…everything ok with you?”
[Henry Allard]
She prompts him to explain himself, and Henry pokes his ringless left hand through the end of his sleeve to rub at the side of his face. It’s as if he needs to prime himself up for sharing someone else’s story. At this point, it is both their story, it is something they are facing together, but the fact remains that it is not his pain that had led to the tears being shed, but the pain of his lover. He weathers it all the same, weathers it without complaint. It’s all he can do, is hold the other man above water.
There is nothing he can do for this girl.
She goes on to ask if everything is okay with him, and a hoarse, unamused laugh sneaks out of his throat. Left hand is held over his face for a moment, causing him to peer back at her with one eye, and when he drops it onto his crossed shins, his muscles begin to quake.
“Tristan’s mother died last week.”
[Danny Jones]
She watches him prepare to share the story of another, patiently. Then, when it comes, in yet another pronouncement of death, she sighs softly, deeply. “…oh.”
She doesn’t ask about the rite, knowing Tristan’s Mama was a kinfolk. The loss of a Mama though… that is something all Gnawers feel, right up there with lose of pack, loss of loved ones. Mama’s are so important to the life of a Gnawer, there is none that holds more respect, be they born true or kin. Mama’s are the reason that Gnawers survive.
“Oh.” she says again, then after a moment, adds. “…tell him I’m sorry… if there’s anything I can do…” that she can bring herself to offer, with her own loss, is testament to how important all Mama’s are.
[Henry Allard]
She brings herself to offer, and Henry brings himself to smile. With the heaviness in his eyes, about his brow, it cannot truly be called a smile–his lips curve out and up, but what it is attempting to transmit, Danny does not know him well enough to deduce. All she can tell is that the man looks sad, and that may very well be all she needs to know.
“I’ll tell him,” he says, unfolding his legs so that he sits with them bent off the side of the merry-go-round, great sneakers connecting with the dirt and halting the spinning motion of the contraption.
There is no explanation for the shift in position, nothing save for the physiological responses in his body, the sudden paleness of his skin and the slow heaviness with which he breathes. It passes, as all things do, and his thin arms come back to plant hands on the cool surface of the merry-go-round, to allow him to turn his head and look down at the girl.
“Same goes for you.”
[Danny Jones]
She nods, again – just that slight movement of her head, a dip of her chin. In most days it can’t be considered a nod, but he knows her well enough to see it for what it is. He passes the same offer back to her, and she sighs softly.
“Yeah.” She knows.
She pushes to sit up, then, now that he’s stopped the twirling motion, and hangs both legs over the side. “Life sucks.” She decrees.
[Henry Allard]
Three notes of a strain of laughter irk out of his throat before he kills the sound. It is not a genuinely amused laugh, is more of a means of communication than an expression of glee, and it is tossed away by the next strong breeze. His sweat dried, his clothing thoroughly chilled, Henry shivers if only because what fat he has is being devoured by his body in a bid to survive, if only because he is wearing shorts.
“It doesn’t always,” he supposes, crossing one ankle over the other and systemically popping each knuckle in his left hand one by one. “Not most of the time.”
[Danny Jones]
“Coulda fooled me.” She shoots back, but it’s without malice. She finally looks at him, though, and sees him shiver. “You ain’t eat enough. Gonna fuckin freeze…”
Like she could talk- – but she’s not the one shivering, either.
[Henry Allard]
Henry looks at her with pained amusement on his face, as if he cannot figure out where she is finding the energy to focus outward. It stays there for several seconds, the rest of him silent and still but for the quaking in his arms.
“I eat plenty,” he says with the conviction of an actor reciting a difficult line for the thirtieth time, attempting a different emotive state and cadence to try to make it work.
[Danny Jones]
Snorts. “Liar. I’d offer you something, but…” she glances at her pack, and smirks. “Ain’t got the energy to eat either.”
If that isn’t a sign of something being wrong, nothing is. “How’s the arm?” He wonders how she can focus outward, and if she thought about it, she’d be able to say that it’s the only reason she can function at all, these occasional moments of looking after someone else. It’s the only time she can breathe without pain, the only time she can move without wanting to give up. Unfortunately, it will pass all to soon.
[Danny Jones]
Snorts. “Liar. I’d offer you something, but…” she glances at her pack, and smirks. “Ain’t got the energy to eat either.”
If that isn’t a sign of something being wrong, nothing is. He wonders how she can focus outward, and if she thought about it, she’d be able to say that it’s the only reason she can function at all, these occasional moments of looking after someone else. It’s the only time she can breathe without pain, the only time she can move without wanting to give up. Unfortunately, it will pass all to soon.
[Henry Allard]
“Neither does Tristan.”
He turns his head to stare down at his knees, every bone articulation visible through the skin even in the dim light of a sky revealing the thin slice of a crescent moon. Something makes him shake his head.
“We’ve been living off of beer and eggs lately. He’s losing weight too. There’s something unnatural about a Gnawer who can’t eat.”
[Jerry Steffani]
(Mind if I join you, or is this a closed scene?)
[Henry Allard]
(Get yer ass in here.)
[Danny Jones]
That gets a brief lift of the corner of her lips, the very thought of it being that unnatural. She is able to add, even. “Yeah, when food tastes bad to a Gnawer…”
Considering the things she usually can be found eating.. it’s a wonder that she has any tastebuds at all, or the ability to discern good from bad. “ain’t known a gnawer to last long without digging into somethin, though. just keep tryin, find the right somethin and he’ll eat.”
She makes no such promises for herself.
[Henry Allard]
His mouth opens as if he is going to speak, but a look of fleeting panic comes across his features and he catches himself, snaps his jaws closed to staunch whatever it was that was about to leak out. The rules of sharing for this man are fairly cut and dried: there’s really only one. Don’t Do It. There is a corollary, Unless You’re Drunk or Directly Questioned, but for the most part he, when sober, will adhere to the rule with minimal room for wiggling or arguing.
Thin fingers rise from the chilled metal to run through his trimmed hair, a move that shows how used to having an unruly mop he had grown. This is the first time Danny has seen him where his hair is not overgrown and screaming Cut Me. It will likely be another five months before he breaks down and goes in to have a trim, let alone a cut. He’s enjoying the lack of length while he still can.
“I will,” he says, finally. At that, he looks back over to her, his light eyes flicking up and down her form not out of a remotely sexual motivation but simply for appraisal’s sake. She is thinner, too. It seems everyone is. “Don’t give up, Danny, alright?”
[Danny Jones]
He starts to speak, to share, but catches himself before he steps across the line. Any other time, she’d probably poke and prod a little to see what he was about to say. THis isn’t any other time, though – this is now, and now she’s not exactly too inquisitive, not like normal.
She nods, slightly, as he tells her not to give up. Her voice is soft, her sigh slight. “I’m tryin.”
[Jerry Steffani]
Why couldn’t he meet him somewhere else? Somewhere that more closed in? Somewhere that he didn’t have to freeze his ass off? But then again johnny was a strange one and he made the rules half the time, so it was either venture through the nearly freezing weather and wind, or not get the fix. And to hell if he didn’t get it tonight.
And after completing the transaction he just pulled that black trenchcoat around his freezing form, his eyes just picking out the park through the small spots of light that the lamps, the ones that were working at least, give off. And that was when he turned a corner of his pathway, turned and face the pair that were still in the park.
He thiught about turning around, going around them from a different pathway because whoever was in the park at this time of night was either dealing, being dealt to or looking to mug the former pair. And hell if he wanted to be mugged. Then he thought twice of it, these two didn’t seem the type and it was the quickest way to his car.
[Henry Allard]
These two don’t seem the type, or these two don’t seem as though they have the energy to even hold themselves upright, let alone go through the dangerous and heady motions of holding a grown man up for the contents of his wallet and whatever illegal substance he had traded in his warm Saturday night in order to obtain. The one on the right is a young girl, doesn’t look any older than seventeen, has short hair and ratty clothing and has the sort of build that leads other females to speculate as to whether she has an eating disorder or not; the one on the left is a man in his late 20s or early 30s, has a body that is analogous to a beanpole and looks as if he was out jogging tonight–he wears knee-length gym shorts, running shoes that have gone gray with age, and a long-sleeved white t-shirt advertising a 5k race from 2001.
What the two of them are doing hanging out together is anyone’s guess, but given the grim expressions on their faces they are not discussing anything terribly uplifting.
She’s trying.
“I know,” Henry says, aware of the approaching black trench coat without having to look away from his charge. “I know it’s hard. I, um… I lost my mother. Too. When I was about your age. Two of my sisters, too. There was a lot of death where I come from. It’s not the same as what you’re going through, but… I know what it’s like to lose. And you just… you gotta keep going. You’re a strong girl, Danny. I…”
He shakes his head, looses another quiet, self-depreciating laugh as he reaches up to rub the side of his face.
“… have no fucking clue what I’m trying to say.”
[Danny Jones]
He has no clue what he’s trying to say, and she understands completely, just the same. She couldn’t handle a hug, not right now. Instead, however, she reaches out a slender hand, and rests it on his shivering arm.
“I do. Thanks.”
And she means it. She is as unsure as ever what she’s going to do, but regardless, it’s nice to know that someone left in chicago gives a fuck, either way.
[Jerry Steffani]
He had kept his eyes open as he walked along the pathway, the collar of the trenchcoat up and held tight at the neck to fight off the chill, leather gloved hands protecting the skin from the elements. And he didn’t seem that old himself, maybe in his mid to late 20’s, at least that what he seemed from the small glance one would get at his face when he looked over.
And as he passed, he got that feeling, that strange gut sensation that tells you to run. as if a beast is standing right there waiting to just pounce. He couldn’t help it, maybe it was morbid fascination, maybe it was just recognition, but he did look over, more than just a glance. His brow furrowed as he watches the pair of them interact.
Then nothing, continuing to passby. But something in his movement was different, something that told him to keep moving and not stop even if called. He knew better now.
[Henry Allard]
She knows what he’s trying to say.
Her tiny hand, warm from the force of the Rage burning within her body, lays itself upon the trembling surface of his arm, and as she thanks him Henry gives her the first free smile she has seen tonight. It does not go so far as to bare teeth, does not trespass into grinning territory, but it surpasses attempting and arrives of its own free will. She could not bring herself to hug him, worried what would happen if she did, but she is able to thank him for his stammering pep talk, for his hesitant explanation of circumstance as it exists in his own framework.
“I’d better get heading back,” he says, slowly. “You gonna be alright tonight? You still have my number?”
That passerby looks their way, practically stares, and Henry looks back. His green eyes make swift work of the darkness and take in what can be gleaned by a cursory inspection of the man’s body, his height and the details of his face and where his hands were, before he looks back to Danny.
[Danny Jones]
She nods, at the question, though her eyes are on the man walking by, who stared and continues to watch them. “Yeah. You want I should walk you to your truck?”
It’s amusing, really, the tiny girl offering to be body guard to the lanky paramedic. The slight snort of almost amusement suggests she knows it too. Of course, looks, especially in this case, are deceiving.
[Jerry Steffani]
He couldn’t help that he stared for that moment he passed by them. He didn’t know what to think about that sudden feeling coming over him. He knew that feeling once before, he lived through it, but he thought it was over.
Maybe it was just a spot of paranoia, fear of them doing something that he actually brought that feeling up on him. But as he passed the feeling faded, the chill of the air bringing him back to reality. Yes it was nothing he kept telling himself. And he moved through the park back to the streets, towards his mercades on the street ahead.
[Henry Allard]
Once the man looks away, Henry appears to lose interest, pulling his gaze away from the younger man and turning back in time to catch Danny’s question. It brings another quiet laugh out of his chest, and he pushes himself to his feet, wrapping his right arm around his torso before reaching out to take her hand, to help her to her feet.
“That’d be great.”
[Danny Jones]
She submits her hand to his, her smaller digits swallowed by his large calloused hand, as she grabs her pack with her other hand and stands. She shoulders the pack, and then gestures for him to take the lead. Part of her hopes the guy turns around and makes a comment, gives her some reason to strike out at something, at anything. Most of her – for Henry’s sake – hopes it doesn’t happen.
She falls into step with Henry, and starts the uneventful trip to his truck, where goodbyes will be said and they will go their separate ways. Don’t give up, he’ll remind her. Keep trying, she’ll remind him.
And then they will turn and go – one in an ancient nissan, headed home to a lover in pain in the warmth of an apartment, the other to her box, the latest in what will become a long line of boxes, where she’ll rediscover what it’s like to sleep on the cement. Being with Santi had spoiled her. She misses that more then she’ll ever admit.