[Danny Jones]
She was hungry, but finds it impossible to eat. Earlier, she had promised Santiago that she’s get some Chinese food, and at least eat SOMETHING so that he wouldn’t have to worry about her. Thus, the skinny little Gnawer girl is wandering down the street, her hands shoved deep into the pockets of her jacket, which is held close around her frame. Her boots slide against the cement of the sidewalk with a slumping sound, and her gaze is on the ground itself rather then really watching where she’s going.
It doesn’t matter where she’s going, really. She’s simply walking, a shell of the girl she was, while here – away from Santiago’s worried and grieving eyes. The Little Gnawer that Could, can’t, and she feels more then ever the failure for it.
And so she walks.
[Santiago Durante]
A place like this is an appeal to the senses, a bombardment of smells and sights and language that is at once tantalizing and vaguely overwhelming to the uninitiated. There are no places like this in Oklahoma, with its small contingency of ethnic minorities–or, to stay ahead of the sociological herd, non-White cultures–and the youngest Durante brother is standing in the midst of a crowd of Asian-Americans, towering over many of them as he stands regarding the front window of a butcher.
Danny had said she was going for Chinese. Given the large density of such restaurants in this place, given the fact that he has taken her to quite a few of them over the last couple of months, it would seem the odds of them running into each other are fairly high.
Even so, he is starting to contemplate ringing her up, seeing where she is, exactly.
[Danny Jones]
The odds are pretty low that they’d actually randomly bump into each other, if not for the fact that there’s only one Chinese place she goes too – she has a deal with the dishwasher, see. He gets her left overs, and she makes sure that his Mama gets her share of day old donuts from the bakery she likes. It’s all part of the network she’s been building around town since she arrived. Everyone is happy….
…sorta. It’s very clear that Danny is far from happy, as she settles to sit on the bench outside Chan’s Noodle Bowls, her butt on the back, her feet on the seat. She sets the bag of food, untouched, between her boots, and just folds in half, elbows resting on knees, chin on hands, and watches the bustle of Chinatown – without seeming to be touched by it at all. It’s like those movie shots, where everything is a swirl of action around the star that doesn’t move. It’s totally like that, minus the cameras, and the good looking stars.
[Santiago Durante]
As he stands reading the show of meat in the window, he becomes aware of a slight disturbance in the crowd, of bodies moving away from an epicenter as if pushed. Santiago looks up, looks away, and finds the Gnawer girl with the multi-colored hair striding out of Chan’s Noodle Bowls, a bag in her hand and her destination being of short distance: she sets herself down on the bench without looking his way, without looking the twenty yards or so that separate the two of them.
Cellphone is pushed back into his pocket, and he turns, sneakers carrying him down the crowded sidewalk. It is frigid tonight, with plumes of smoke marking the pedestrians’ exhalations, and he is wearing a bomber jacket over a sweatshirt, a double layer of protection against the high 40s that marks this evening’s temperature.
He doesn’t say anything as he slides onto the bench beside her, the thing squeaking beneath his weight as he settles in.
[Danny Jones]
He doesn’t say anything, but she certainly is aware that he comes near, closer still, and then settles to sit next to her. She adjusts her position slightly, so that her thigh comes to rest against his shoulder, a gentle pressure that shows him she knows he’s there. As if he’d have any doubt…
For a moment or three, it looks like she won’t say anything at all, but then – just as suddenly – she does. “Hey.”
So it’s not shakespeare… but it’s something. It’s as if she knows, she can feel, that there is something coming… it’s in the air, maybe. They’ve had their time together to grieve, and though there is still so much more of that to come, there are decisions that had to be made. It’s no mistake that she was still here, that she thought of avoiding the whole thing, just in case. But she also knew she’d find him soon enough, and face whatever is coming as she has everything else. Head on.
[Santiago Durante]
As her thigh comes against his shoulder, so does he reach out one meaty hand to rest it against her knee, his arm crossing over his chest and his palm patting against the joint one two three times before its fingers traipse down her shin, before it returns to its own side of the bench. Bodies flow around them, some of them taking great care to avoid drawing too close to where the scrawny teenager and the muscular young man sit.
Hey, she says, and Santiago looks up at her, giving her a smile that is wan even after two weeks of time to digest his brother’s passing. It hasn’t gotten any easier as the days have gone by, and yet he looks fine. He looks as if he is taking care of himself, as if he is remembering to eat and making time to sleep, to shower, to change his clothes. That is more than he can say for some members of his family, whose anguish he is not around to witness.
Yet.
“Hey,” he parrots. Draws a breath, and looks back out over the sidewalk, over the moving people unaware of their inner pain. “We need to talk.”
[Danny Jones]
His hand slides over her leg and her eyes fall closed, partially, to more fully enjoy the simple touch. They are in mourning, yet they are still connected by the little things. He remembers to take care of himself, to sleep, to shower, to change his clothes. He nags her to do the same, and she does without argument, and maybe would without the nagging, though she is not positive of that. Yet.
We need to talk… he says, and her eyes close completely for a long moment, an expression crossing over her face that she is glad she doesn’t have to explain. Instead, she just nods. “Ok.”
She pauses, and maybe thinks about not adding anything else, until she inexplicably does. “You know, those words are never followed by anything good…”
[Santiago Durante]
He watches the expression on her face change from one to mild, contextual contentment to one that is harder to categorize, harder to pin down, and is missed by the young man who is looking out and away rather than at.
Her proclamation has him reeling in his gaze and casting it towards Danny, and he offers an apologetic smile, one that is completely without mirth.
“Not always, no.”
He pauses, leaning forward until his arms are crossed over top his knees.
“I talked to Mama today.”
[Danny Jones]
Not always? Not ever, in her experience. He leans forward, she slides the bag of food to the side, slides down to sit on the seat proper, and after a moment’s hesitation, slides her hand along his spine in a gentle caress. They could be any couple, anywhere, learning to live with each other, exploring feelings neither were quite compared too. But they’re not any couple, they’re a couple immersed in the workings of the Nation, which adds a thousand complications to every one other couples have.
She sighs, softly, and watches her hand as it slides along Santiago’s spine slowly. “How is she… and Carolina?”
[Santiago Durante]
He barely seems to register the fact that her hand moves down his back, that she is making an effort to maintain a physical connection now that he has leaned forward and removed his shoulder from her leg. His eyes are far off, cast down to his feet, and he chews on his lower lip as he waits for her to speak.
A question, then, one that begs an honest answer, and he sighs, turning to look at her.
“Mama’s holding up. They’ve moved in with Julieta, they’re staying there until they can find a place to live on their own. It’s hard, ’cause Mama just left her job to move up here and doesn’t think she can get it back. Carolina hasn’t started school yet, isn’t going back until after Christmas break. She’s miserable, Mama says. It’s a fight to get her out of bed and she isn’t eating like she’s supposed to be. Keeps asking for Rafi.”
He scratches the side of his nose with his thumb and sniffs, spits.
“I’ve decided to move back home. It doesn’t feel right, me being up here when they’re all in Tulsa, you know?”
[Danny Jones]
I’ve decided to move back home he says, and her eyes close, and her head bows, as if they weight of such a statement makes it impossible to hold her head upright any longer. Her hand stops moving too, though he likely doesn’t notice, just as he hadn’t noticed the attempt to maintain the connection when digits found his back in the first place. She remains still, for a long moment, and then simply nods. “Oh,” is the only thing she says as her hand pulls from his back, to fold against it’s mate in her lap.
She takes a breath, and then another, and then finally opens her eyes, watching her fingers worry over the others until she makes her hands fall still. She doesn’t figit as much as she used too, lately, either. She has no energy to spare.
She summons another nod, but doesn’t meet his gaze as he looks at her, because to do that will just make it real. “Yeah, I know. When ya goin?”
She won’t ask him to stay. She has no rights to do that, and as much as she wants him, wants more, wants…. it doesn’t matter. Family always comes first to a street rat, to a Gnawer. She wouldn’t expect anything different from a man as good as Santiago Durante.
[Santiago Durante]
She isn’t going to ask him to stay. She feels she hasn’t got the right; it is entirely within her right to claim him as hers, to tie him to Chicago to fulfill a duty to the Sept there, yet she does not look at it that way. They belong to a tribe that values its supposed lessers, gives equal rights to the mules and gives its Kinfolk a voice, yet to a Gnawer, there is nothing that comes before family. Not one’s desires or preferences, not one’s duties to a Sept or the Nation. Family is at the heart of all Gnawers’ functioning, and the fact is, Santiago’s, fractured though it is, has moved back home and has left it up to him whether he wants to stay behind or not.
He cannot justify staying behind, even if it would mean he would get to be with the girl for whom he has confusing feelings. This isn’t anything he’s felt before. He wouldn’t go so far to call it love, not when he is 19 years old and has no basis for such a claim, but it is something, and the thought of having to choose between her and his family is clearly causing him some difficulty.
In the end, it isn’t really a choice.
“I’ll be leaving Wednesday. That’s when the rest of the stuff has to be out of the house.”
[Danny Jones]
Wednesday. It strikes a fear in her that almost has her begging him not to go, not to do this, but to stay and be hers and find a family here and… and.. and… but she locks it up behind a swallow against the lump that rises in her throat, against the pain fluttering behind her eyes. Instead, she nods again, as if this is the very thing she would have suggested, as if this is the only prudent choice and way to be, wait to survive.
He has family.
They are no longer here.
(…i could be…)
She takes a breath, and it escapes in the softest of sighs. She’ll do anything she can to make it easier for him… including not fighting for what could be hers. “Ok.”
Maybe it’s out of loyalty to Rafi, to Brodie, who died because she could not hear the call for help, because they didn’t get her bound when they should have, because she simply enjoyed being with them all too much to insist. She feels responsible for their death, as she is for the dissolving of so many packs before. She feels like in the end it is all her fault. That she should lose Santiago because of this too only seems a fitting continued punishment.
“Need help packing the rest of the stuff?”
[Santiago Durante]
Santiago is only vaguely aware of the trend of her packs to dissolve–she had told him about her previous pack a long time ago, when they first went out for milkshakes and concocted a plan to get his brother, to test out her new No-Moon powers and find some company on Rafael’s behest. He cannot read her mind, cannot possibly map out where her brain is taking her thoughts, yet he can imagine.
He can imagine, and he doesn’t like what he’s coming up with.
“Nah,” he says, sounding surprised that that is all she has to say about the matter. “I just have to throw my clothes in a suitcase. I can pack pretty fast.”
He pauses, seems to think for a long while. It is a long while, one that he spends watching her out of the corner of his eye, his gaze trained on her feet, his thoughts pointed inward where she cannot be privy to them. Dozens of bodies walk past them, dozens of lives continuing on despite their current struggle, and when he finally reaches a conclusion, Santiago looks up at her.
“You could come with me. If you wanted to.”
[Danny Jones]
She closes her eyes, again, at this… and she can’t stop the escape of tears either. Just a couple, that is all that escape, and slide down her face, even though she knows he watches her, and how she wishes that she could have stopped them, not let him see how very weak she is at the thought of losing him too. She doesn’t want to make it hard for him… she doesn’t want…
She wants him in ways she never wanted anyone else – and the terrible thing about it is that she’ll put his happiness first as a result of it. She could go with him… if she wanted.
“I want to…” …but.
She lifts a hand to brush away that stupid tear that escaped without her giving it permission to – and she’s surprised to see that her hands are shaking when she does, and she can’t hide it, even though she tries. “…shit.”
Well thats better then ‘ok’ huh?
[Santiago Durante]
Salt water leaks out of her eyes, courses down her cheeks, and Santiago watches their tracks, not moving to halt their escape or wipe them away. That would be an attempt to make them stop, to pretend everything is fine. Everything isn’t fine. Everything is upended and made into a husk of what it used to be. Rafael and Brodie are dead, have gone out the way most of the shifters hope to go–in battle, attempting to vanquish agents of the Wyrm.
That Rafael had a family and Brodie had a date the next day were irrelevant to the Banes they fought. They were Garou, and that meant they had to die.
She wants to. But.
Danny brushes away the tears herself, her hands trembling with cold and emotion, two things that Santiago is not feeling at this moment. A curse leaves her lips, and though it is vaguely better than ‘Ok’, it doesn’t do much to satisfy the situation.
“But you’re not going to,” he intones.
[Danny Jones]
To hear it out loud, intoned, like that, hits her like a slap. She recoils from it, a flinched jerk that ends with her eyes closed, her head bowed, her body aching in a way that only intensifies the agony of her heart. She couldn’t stop the tears now if she wanted too (..she wants too..) but she does not sob. They’re a steady flow, testament to just how much this hurts her, them, how very little she has left.
“I…” Words don’t come. She doesn’t know what she means, so how could she possible explain it to him? But because he cannot read her mind, she tries again. “I don’t think… that I could look at Mama… and know I let her boys die… to watch Carolina, knowing that if I’d have heard.. if I had just heard…” She pauses, and shakes her head, unable to put it into words, this responsibility she feels. “I w…want… to be with you more then anything… but they are your family. M..maybe.. i could follow later… if you still wanted me…”
The last is barely heard, as they are surrounded by those passing by, oblivious to the feelings of the girl in tears, the boy so stoic, even with the ache an almost palpable force surrounding them.
[Santiago Durante]
“There was nothing you could have done.”
He says it without accusation, without judgment. It is with a calm that betrays his having spent a great deal of time debating this with himself, a calm that speaks of acceptance of what happened even if he is still angry, even if he still finds himself denying the loss of another member of his family, thinking maybe there was a mistake, maybe they found the wrong bodies, maybe the two just went off to join Jon on one of his numerous quests west.
Another sniff, and he wipes at the end of his nose with the back of his hand.
“Would be like me blaming myself for not telling Rafi to suck it up and go buy a fan belt from the auto parts store like a normal person. It’s his own damn fault he got himself and Brodie killed, not anyone else’s.”
He pauses, wipes his hands on his thighs, and stands up, turns to face her.
“You’ve got a life here, cariña, and I’m not going to beg you to come with me. I’d like it if you did, if we could see where this could end up, but…”
But the amount of need exuded by his family far exceeds that which Danny feels. But he can’t justify staying for one person when half a dozen are floundering. But he just can’t.
[Danny Jones]
He stands, and turns to face her, and still. doesn’t. touch. her. He hasn’t since she came home, covered in blood – a good portion of it her own, most of it his brother’s who she carried with tears streaming down her face. He hasn’t since they took the boys to the Sept, to be buried with the other heroes there, other than a quick slide of his hand on a knee, or a brush of his fingers against her arm. He pulls into himself, and she is left open and aching and bleeding, and purely unable to help him.
She fell for him, hard and fast. His touch, his laugh, his quiet strength as he raised his family the best way he knew how. He took his time – and still does. She falls fast, asks questions, and gets shorter answers, and it is like the Capt’n but with more sex, and more confusion. He would like to see where it could end up, but won’t ask her to follow him.
She nods, finally, without looking up. She can’t look at him. She can’t watch him walk away. “C..call. When you get settled. I..if you still want me to come then…” she trails off, into a shrug. “..then call.”
She won’t expect it, though. That way, she won’t be hurt when it doesn’t come.
[Santiago Durante]
Santiago stands looking at her for a long time, looking at this girl who has fallen head over heels for him, whose affection he has not sought since his brother’s death, who has been in desperate need of reassurance and caring he has not provided, has not been able to conjure up in the midst of his own pain and anger. Were he thinking at all, he would have liked to think that she has Garou strength left to carry on, that she will heal and be okay, and he hates to think of what will happen to her regardless. He had seen what happened to Rafael and Brodie’s previous pack, is still reeling from what happened to the two of them. Garou die. They were born to fight, born to protect the earth from those that would seek to exploit and drain it, and thus, they were born to die.
He is not thinking. Period.
She does not look up at him, and this makes him sigh, makes him look down at her with a blank slate of a face, with conflict and confusion in his eyes. She asks him to call when he gets settled, if he still wants her to come then. It is a valid, easily fulfilled request. Time will tell if he acts on it.
“Alright,” he says. Hands push into the pockets of his bomber jacket, and he swallows, thickly, the lump that has welled up in his throat. “I’ll call you.”
That is all he says before he turns, and walks away from her.
[Danny Jones]
It would be easier, some rational part of her has decided, to let him go like this. To free him from any responsibility that he (probably doesn’t) might feel toward her. What he doesn’t see is her nails driving into her palms, to keep from reaching for him, begging him to stay, begging him to cart her off and not. leave. her. To tell her he cares about her, to say ANYTHING to make it ok…
…but nothing is ok, and to her – the scent of her blood as nails break through the surface of her skin is a sharp reality of her heart breaking, of her inability to keep anything of value close to her. Alright, he says, and he turns and walks away, and she bites back a desperate sound, a wounded cry. She is garou. She is supposed to be the strong one.
She isn’t.
She pulls her knees up, bracing her feet on the edge of the seat, and wrapping her arms tightly around them as she buries her face against her knees. Her shoulders shake, her bodies quake and if he looked back, he’d see everything she can’t say in the simple act of her tears.
But he won’t look back.
The world moves on around her, a stationary body quaking in pain, alone on a bench. It’s been seen in thousand of movies before, will be seen again, and never has been so real as it is right now, where sights and sounds and people move around her as if nothing is wrong, as if everything is just the same as it was yesterday, last week, last month, last year. Only she knows the truth, only he can sense it.
Nothing is the same.
Nothing is ok.
Everything is wrong.
And she is left to face it – alone.