[Danny Jones] [Santiago Durante]
With her admission of unknowing, Santiago pulls in a big, audible breath and hauls himself up, first to rest on his elbows and then to sit completely, reaching out to rest a hand on her back.
“On my end, there isn’t anything complicated. I like you, I like having you around, and I have fun with you. I don’t want you going nowhere, and I don’t think we’re fucking around anymore. I mean, I don’t wanna get married or nothing, but that doesn’t mean I think we’re still just fucking around, neither.”
[Danny Jones]
His hand finds her back, and he can feel the tension that rests there as she waits for his answer. And he can feel it start to drain again as it comes. And the shake that follows with her soft laughter as she plucks the piece of leather around her neck, and shows the toy ring she still wears every day. “we done already got hitched, or have ya forgot already?”
She takes a breath, an’ nods, and scrubs her hands through her hair again. “I jus… I like you too, an love it here with you an’ ya family, an bein part of a pack an’ family again, an having you look at me like ya do. I jus’ ain’t wanna get played again, I ain’t wanna get all stupid an’ then get so hurt like I did before. An’ we always have better things to do an’ talk bout then the nitty gritty of us, ya dig? I jus… I dunno. Henry said somethin about my boyfriend an I suddenly got all nervous that it weren’t somethin ya wanted to be called, that we wasnt there, or might not get there, or were there an’ I didn’t really notice jus’ let it sneak up on me an’ I wanna make sure we’s ok, an that… I dunno. UGH.”
She tosses up her hands, laughingly frustrated. “I ain’t never think bout the capt’n like I used ta. Never. I always think bout you – an’ how long till I get to see you again, an’ how cute ya look drivin along in ya cab… an maybe, I jus.. was hoping that ya thought that way too. that we’s a we… not just a he an’ me fuckin. Ya know? Though they CERTAINLY ain’t no reason at ALL to stop the that…. just in case ya was wondering an’shit…”
[Santiago Durante] Words come in an almost endless stream, it seems, coursing from deep within a girl with a troubled past and a heart still bruised. They come, and Santiago simply listens. Never thinks to interrupt, not the way he interrupts his brother when he gets going; though she may be saying too much, explaining with far too many words the way she feels about the way things are, terminology and labels and roadmaps of a relationship that has been left alone for this long without trouble… he doesn’t interrupt.
At the end, though, he laughs. Just as she is a teenage girl who worries too easily and needs to have some solid foundation from which to judge where things are going… he is a teenage boy who hasn’t given it a single thought. Though they are not too far apart in age, there is a chasm between their mentalities that will not be bridged until Danny grows older, until Santiago settles down.
“Why you gotta worry about all that? Can’t you just enjoy what’s going on and not think about what it all means? Doesn’t need to be that complicated. Least, I don’t think it does.”
[Danny Jones] The answer comes, soft and full of emotion – it’s not only age that separates them…
“Cuz I ain’t know how many tomorrows I’m gonna get, Santiago. An I jus’ want.. somethin… solid to come home too. An’ to have somethin other then ‘that boy i’m fuckin’ to call you without worryin that I gonna fuck it up by worryin i’m gonna fuck it up…”
She can’t look at him. She just watches her hands – she knows it’s the moon that dictates her sensitivities to these issues, but still… she just wants… “I jus’ wanna be sure we’re ok. That’s all.”
[winken] Mind if I lurk?
to Danny Jones, Santiago Durante
[Santiago Durante] ((V!!! Course you can lurk, I don’t mind.))
to Danny Jones, winken
[Danny Jones] (Lurk away – there’s Teenage Girl Angst enough for all!)
to winken
[winken] ((Yes! It is my V-ness. And thanks.))
to Danny Jones, Santiago Durante
[Santiago Durante] What Santiago isn’t going to admit is that he has seen where something solid lands people. He watched his oldest brother fall in absolute love with a girl, have a child and marry, and he watched the man completely unravel when his wife and the mother of his child was taken from him. It is not simply the Garou who have to worry about dying in battle; the kin can go at any moment, also. None of them know when their time will come, how long they have to enjoy the days laid out before them. Santiago watched his older brother suffer at the hands of attachment. He never wants to experience that. He is too young to realize that the time spent together beforehand still mattered even after loss. All he saw was pain, and he never wants to experience that.
He isn’t going to admit this to a girl who’s pouring her heart out in search of some semblance of absolution, who is trying to make sense of a coming together that had been rather sudden, that had been dictated by her friend, his brother.
He isn’t going to admit that part, either.
“We’re okay.” His fingers trail soft tracks up and down her spine. “If it makes you feel any better, I call you my girlfriend.”
What else is he going to call her? ‘That girl I’m fucking’? That’s classless, even for a Gnawer.
[Danny Jones] She’s seen pain, and loss, and knows the importance of having something close to fight for, to come home too. Sometimes, it’s the single thing that gives a Garou that extra breath, that last strike, that final kill to ensure they can go home, that last breath of strength that allows them to crawl to a healer, to home, to reconnect. She needs that. She needs to know they’re ok.
His words come, and her eyes close, and her back curls into the slow trail of his fingers along her spine. It leads to a slow relaxation, as she leans toward him, and curls close, her head resting on his thigh. “You do?”
There’s a little smile, and she lets her arm creep up to hook around his belly, fingers sliding along his side. “Ok.”
[Santiago Durante] “We good now?”
Fingers crawl into her hair to massage the scalp beneath, strength pouring out from the bone. From across the hall they can hear Carolina sighing in her sleep, turning to get comfortable, and that seems to be a cue that it is time for Santiago, too, to crawl into bed. A great yawn sounds from his chest, and he makes absolutely no move to stifle it, does not bring forth a fist to cover his mouth or anything, simply lets the sound fill the small, crowded space of the room.
“I’m zonked.”
[Danny Jones] She nods, against his thigh, and then crawls into the bed next to him, letting him have the majority of the space, pressing close into the strength he always offers without question. Her arm curls against his chest, her fingers drawing little patterns against his skin as she listens to his heart beat steady rhythm.
“We bueno.” There’s a pause, and then a soft. “Go to sleep.”
She stays until he does, until she’s certain that he won’t wake if she slips from the bed – and thens he does. Downstairs, she takes out the remaining energy on the small house, so that Mama Isobel doesn’t have too when she comes home. The movie’s are stacked, the tv turned off, the vcr as well. She makes sure her other movie is there for Carolina, before heading to clean the kitchen.
When Mama comes home, everything is spic and span, in pristine order, so that she too can go to bed and rest up. And sometime later, Danny makes it back to her small space in the small bed, next to Santiago. They’re good, he said, and for now that has to be enough.