[Henry Allard] ((NOT IT))
to Danny Jones
[Danny Jones] (*glare*)
to Henry Allard
[Henry Allard] ((Give me 5-10 minutes to shower and I’ll be right in.))
to Danny Jones, Kemp
[Danny Jones] It’s 8pm – and still hot out. Granted, it’s cooling down, but still warm enough that she’s wandering about in shorts, tank top, sans her backpack – and on the prowl for ice cream. The more things change, and all. She’s still wearing her boots, however, as that’s just smart. They’re unlaced though, and making slopslopslop sounds across the cement as she walks.
There’s a pause as she slips around the side of a little diner that has ice cream – and a dishwasher who’s a friend of hers. Moment’s later, she reappears with a big takeout bowl of the delicious treat, spooning it between her lips as she continues to walk, licking the chocolate syrup and whip topping off the side of the container as she wanders in that there direction.
[Kemp] It was still hot as the sun went down and what few streetlights remained along the run down street, started to come on. It was one of those nights. That special time of the month so to speak. The moon was dark as it called to his soul. And there he sat, on top of the remains of the rusting swing set in a park few visited during the day, let alone during the night. The slap, slap sound caught his attention first, drawing his gaze one way then the other with the turning of his head as he cocked it, listening. Finally catching sight of Danny across the cracked and broken, pot hole filled street. Grunting to himself as he curled his tongue and let go an ear piercing wolf whistle.
[Danny Jones] Kemp isn’t the only one the dark moon calls too. For her, it is an adopted moon, her real moon, the moon she’s always answered too even though her birth was forced under another. She feels comfortable now, in her own skin, in her own darkened moon, her very soul finally at rest.
The wolf whistle catches her attention – how could it not? and she searches until she finds the source. A wide grin dances across her face as she adjusts her trajectory and heads through the park to the old swingset and the monkey atop. “Hey, hotstuff! How’s it hanging?”
[Kemp] “Little to the left. Wanna see?”
One dark brow quirked as he started reaching for the fastening to his jeans. The very motion of reaching for the button was enough to send him wobbling on the top bar.
[Danny Jones] “Tease. You wouldn’t really show me anyway. Too afraid I’d show ya my tits to retaliate.” She grins up at him and takes another bite of her ice cream. She offers the bowl up in his direction. “Wan’some?” The offer is spoken around the spoon in her mouth even as she studies the cracked swing that remains attached to the poor rusted set, judging if it’d hold her weight, before deciding to risk it and straddling it. She sits and shrugs until the chain is in the center of her back.
She takes another bite, and looks up at Kemp. “Whatcha been upto? Ain’t seen ya nigh on forever…”
[Kemp] He glanced down at the offered bowl with a shake of his head and wiggle of his brows.
“Ya know I’d look at your tits, just won’t touch ’em. Off limits and all that. Don’t want no two headed kids or nothing. That’s why they got that rule, just like not doing it with your sister or close relative.”
Long legs dangled down from his perch above as he sat with his back slightly hunched for balance, a hand on each side of the bar now.
“As for what I been up to. Well ya see, first this was this rumor about this haunted building. And then there was the ghost that threw my ass through a wall and then through the second story floor. Then there was this tainted Kin that is by the way, hunted too. And a cleansing and now, well I’m getting ready to head to Minnesota to pay back the fuckers that done this shit, for fucking with a Fenrir Kin.”
[Danny Jones] “ohho! Really? Ya always run away before. Maybe I’ll take ya up on that, sometime. An’ I know the rules better’n’most, boyo, an’ don’t ya forget it.” She sticks her tongue out at him, then takes another bite of her frozen treat.
And listens. And blinks. “….damn. Man, you get to have ALL the fun!!”
[Henry Allard] Days like today bring out the worst in the city, the side the newspapers are only too happy to splash across their front pages, the newscasters only too happy to deliver. There were fatal attempted carjackings and shootings and drownings, robberies, there were fires on every side of the city. For those on the city’s payroll, those who wear uniforms, today was an absolute nightmare, and it isn’t anywhere near over yet.
That Henry is let loose at 8 o’clock when he is supposed to be is nothing short of miraculous. He very well could be still riding shotgun in an ambulance rig, could very well still be hunkered over a gunshot wound or a charbroiled body, could very well still be standing inside a rowhouse waiting for the medical examiner to arrive… but he isn’t. As we join him, he is walking out the bay doors of a firehouse, too tired to get in the shower, too tired to change out of the uniform he has been wearing since midnight. Over his shoulder is slung a red backpack that contains clothes he very well could have changed into, had he had the desire, the drive. He has neither. His desire is to get home, his drive is pointing him towards the metro line past the park, and his feet are carrying him in that direction.
This time of night, the poorer sections of the city are still alive. There are still noises in all directions, tires squealing and music blasting and children hollering, bass thumping, doors slamming. There is anticipation of violence, an electricity in the air that threatens to burst at any moment, and those who walk the street are wary of this. They make eye contact to show their fearlessness, because it shows alertness, it shows that one is not to be messed with.
Somewhere in the distance a police siren sounds, loud and piercing. This, too, is something everyone expects. It comes on without warning, comes on in intervals, and doesn’t ever seem to stop, no matter what season happens to be pouring down. There is no moon in the sky, just the ghost of one that has recently passed on, and it very nearly escapes Henry’s notice as his long legs take him over a broken fence and into the park, onto a shortcut. A hand pushes into a pocket, and he extracts a pack of Parliament Lights without pause.
Two figures on a swing. Their identities… that escapes his notice.
[Kemp] “Heh, like I said, looking ain’t touching. And I ain’t so sure I want to touch ever again. Each time I have, mind ya, it’s been twice, it turned to nothing but hurt and the most fucked up nightmare around. Just ain’t worth it.”
He shrugged as his legs swung slowly back and forth from his perch. For a moment his head lifted, face turning towards the figure of Henry coming through the park. Watchfullness in every line of his body in that moment of stillness before he looked back down at Danny.
“As for fun, if ya want to come along then, you’re welcome. Going to clean out an old nuthouse full of Dancers.”
[Danny Jones] “Says you.” She grins up at him and damn if she ain’t look like the cat that caught the canary there for a few moments. It’s a look definitely of the ‘i been gettin some on a regular fabulous basis thank ya very much’ variety for sure. “Ya jus keep pickin the wrong chicks. S’all.” Simplicity at it’s best.
He’s animalistic as he goes watchful, and Danny turns her head to follow his line of sight, watching the tired Paramedic as he pulls out his cigarettes. She ain’t shy. “HI, HENRY!”
After calling out the greeting, she looks back up at Kemp. “If ya need backup, sure. Me an’ my new boys are due for a scuffle.”
[Kemp] Once again he went still, only this time his full attention was on Danny as his green eyes narrowed to slits behind the shaggy curtain of hair nearly obscuring them.
“New boys?”
[Danny Jones] “Ya ain’t think I run lone forever, did ya? Only till I found the right crew. Hangin with Rafi an’ Brodie now, an’ they’s man John when he ain’t off doin whatever. Still gots my box, but now it hangs out in the ally next to Mama Isobel’s – an’ I stay with them most nights, unless I jus’ need to get out alone for a bit. We prowl out Bronzeville way.”
SHe pauses, and looks up at him. “Felt right. Feels like comin home, not like scratchin an’ backbitin an’ forcin square pegs inta round holes, ya dig? First time since comin to Chicago I done felt that way.”
[Henry Allard] A healthy holler grabs his attention, pulling it away from the end of his cigarette to the swing set several yards off; it isn’t until he’s pushed his Zippo back into his pocket and blown the preliminary pull of smoke back out into the atmosphere that he realizes who the two bodies belong to. Something akin to a smile pulls at his lips, the action potential in his muscles just barely reached, and he raises the hand holding onto the cigarette in still acknowledgment.
The uniform he wears only serves to accentuate how long his day has been, how busy his weekend. To say that it is rumpled is an understatement. To the average person, there is nothing but the vague smell of smoke. What the average person doesn’t realize is that it is not cigarette smoke but the smoke of great burning, of buildings going down, of destruction. What the average person doesn’t realize is that he has been up to his elbows in blood all day, that the smell still lingers on him, the smell of blood and rubber and disinfectant. To those with more acute senses, the smell on him is jarring.
He moves purposefully, at a moderate pace, perhaps taking his time. When he gets within ten feet of the two he stops, making sure the wind is blowing the secondhand off and away from Kemp’s nose. It is never far enough away.
“Hey,” he says, the greeting meant to be shared.
[Kemp] “Who the fuck is Rafi and John? Brodie I met, them others don’t sound familiar. And this thing I’m talking about is in Minnesota. Means getting there. Means others turning up when they should to go. Means, I ain’t gonna hold hands and wait forever. I done dealt with shit on this. I’m in, I’ll be there, blah, blah.”
Breaking off with Henry’s approach and even from where he sat on the top bar of the old swing set, he could smell Henry. The coppery metallic smell of blood laced with the disgusting smell of disinfectant. Snorting to clear his nose for that brief moment as he gave a lift of his chin to Henry.
“Hey yourself.”
[Danny Jones] “Rafi Durante. Lil guy, like me. Only met John once, he’s they’s alpha, an’ he ok’d me an we’s a go now. They good boys.” pause. “An’ I ain’t stupid, Kemp.” It’s said softly enough, that last, but there’s a tinge of hurt behind it too. Of everyone in this fuckin city, she’s the one what always showed up for him when he needed it, when she said she would. “but whatever, s’all good. Hey Henry, wan’ some?”
She switches tracks again, and offers Henry her bowl of ice cream with a lopsided grin. Better then the last thing she offered him a bite of, for sure. She sniffs once, twice. “Hard day at the office?”
[Kemp] He was perfectly still once more as his full attention lowered to Danny again and he spoke softly in a low rumble.
“You ain’t the Alpha?”
Four words, a small pause and he was speaking just as softly again.
“Danny, I don’t know who this John is, and if ya only met him once….”
He let that hang there a moment before adding.
“Ya can’t be offering your pack if ya ain’t the Alpha. I welcome you along, but ya can’t haul a pack that ya ain’t in charge of along. Especially when ya only met their Alpha once.”
[Henry Allard] A mock suspicious expression comes over the Coggie kinsman’s face as he surveys what, exactly, it is that Danny is pushing his way, flicks his eyes back up at her as she offers him a bite of her ice cream. For a moment it looks as if he is going to do as he has done the last two times she’s offered him anything to eat–although, given the fact that the last time she offered him anything it had come out of a Dumpster after two days of fermenting in a stew of garbage, one could hardly blame him for being slightly rude. He’s about to, but then his stomach grumbles, not with any great volume but loud enough to be heard, and he laughs, self-conscious, before stepping forward, reaching out with his free hand and taking a spoonful of ice cream.
“Thanks, kiddo.” He works the ice cream off with his teeth rather than pushing it into his mouth, then sticks it back into the sundae and swallows. “Yeah, just a bit. Think I might need to fire the secretary.”
Then Kemp starts in in a low voice, a voice not meant to be heard, and Henry furrows his brow, sets his mouth in a line, and drops his gaze away from the two. It’s a small show of respect, perhaps, perhaps a desire to not overtly overhear their discussion despite the fact that he’s standing not ten feet away. At any rate he takes another step back and pulls on his cigarette.
[Danny Jones] She shakes her head and runs fingers through her hair. She stands and hands off the bowl to Henry. “Ya need it more’n me, s’clear.”
She shakes her head, and then starts to say something to Kemp, then just decides not too. Instead, she moves over to the monkey bars, and works her way across them, putting distance tween herself an’ what she wants to say, an’ Kemp. At least with the distance, an’ movement, he can’t see she’s quite literally biting her tongue.
[Kemp] For a moment more he was still before he leaned back, legs going over his head as he held to the bar, depending for a brief moment in time in a backwards hold before dropping to the ground in a impact absorbing crouch. Dusting his hands off as he straightened with a lift of his chin to the pair.
“Take care.”
And with that, he started off in a lazy, ground eating prowl.
[Henry Allard] Henry doesn’t touch the ice cream that Danny has passed off to him. It becomes another article on his person, another item to be held responsible for, much like the cigarette in his hand, the myriad electronic devices tethering him to his job, the pagers and the cell phone and the silenced scanner. Danny scoots off across the monkey bars, Kemp jumps down, and Henry opens his mouth to speak once before catching himself. Whatever he was about to say dies a noiseless death, is breathed in with clear night air.
The Fenrir is given a tight-lipped smile, and on the second attempt he manages a, “Night, Kemp.”
[Danny Jones] She hops down, then up again to thread her legs through the bars, and shimmy up top to sit. She looks for a minute like she won’t say anything, then.. “Later Kemp.”
She don’t call him back, don’t explain. She ain’t like words put in her mouth, or being treated like she’s still a child – from someone barely older then her. She was a fostern once too. Until she made a choice that ain’t please them. But she just lets it go. Sometimes, the fight to be right ain’t worth it.
[Kemp] His voice came back, lacing with the noises of the city, fading with distance.
“Sure thing. Just remember. I can’t fuckin read minds.”
His shadow blending with the night as he ambled off.
[Kemp] ((Thanks for the play! ))
[Danny Jones] “join the fuckin club.” Muttered under her breath.
[Henry Allard] Were it not for the city continuing on around them, there might have encroached upon them the sound of silence. This is not to be. A car races by in the distance, its tires squealing as it takes a corner far too fast; an ambulance siren calls out not half a mile away; a small group of city youths take up a position by the basketball courts on the other end of the park, their boom box playing modern hip hop and their voices ringing out. Henry stands watching Kemp’s escape–not that Henry would call it that aloud, to the man’s face, nor would he give Danny the idea that that is what he is thinking, but for all intents and purposes, the man is escaping–for a time, the only motion being the breeze in hair that has not been cut for four months, the up and down of a hand bringing a cigarette to his lips. He holds the gray cloud in his lungs, then coughs and quickly expels it back from whence it came.
After a time he turns to watch Danny, the way she sits, any expression that might have fallen across her face. It is not outright staring, but it is pretty damn close, a scalpel-sharp examination as if he is going to find more answers by reading her body language than by coming out and asking the girl any questions. It lasts but a few moments, and then he is moving towards her, holding the ice cream up for her to take.
“Not that Tristan wouldn’t be delighted to hear that I’d spoiled my dinner,” he says, stepping back towards the swings once she’s removed it from his hands, “but I don’t think I can eat all this.”
[Danny Jones] He looks, and he finds her face a myriad of expressions. Things that Kemp – had he taken two seconds to think – would have seen. Would have heard, before she even mutters. “Well. How ya like that. Guess they all DO still hate me, hm?” The smirk twists her lips, before she shrugs and brings a grin to the fore to show Henry.
“No worries, I’ll share. I thought I might be losing my appetite there for a few.” She takes the offered ice cream, and another bite, as she leans over and watches Henry. “So. How’s things?”
It’s an invitation to converse, a welcome to any questions, for all that the moon may make her moody too and have her stomp off like her… well, who’s to say if they’re friends anymore, hm?
[Henry Allard] Slow steps made heavy with the drag of steel-toed boots take Henry to the swing set not far away from the monkey bars; he sets himself down with some difficulty, his brow knitting together as his back protests. Once he is settled on the rubber seat of the swing, once he’s dropped his backpack on the ground, the discomfort removes itself from his face and he’s able to attend to what Danny is doing. One leg stretches out to push the heel of a boot into the sand while the other bends to fold the foot under the swing.
“Things are good. Work’s been…”
There comes a dry, monosyllabic laugh, one that is devoid of anything other than the most acerbic of humors, and he takes a drag off of his cigarette.
“What just happened? It’s none of my business, but…”
But. He blows the lungful of smoke he had been holding in out the side of his mouth and stammers his way through the rest of his sentence.
“… you know… you look upset.”
[Danny Jones] “Heh. I kin imagine – with ya line of work an’ all. Could smell ya comin, even if I ain’t seen ya.” She doesn’t seem repulsed by that, though. It is what it is, an’ she’s gotten herself covered in worse, as hard as that might be to imagine.
She shrugs her shoulders slightly. “He was bein a condescendin jerk. I offered myself, an to check with my boys to help him out. He acted like I ain’t never been there to watch his back, like I was always shovin him off out on his own even if I told him I’d be somewhere. Which is a buncha bullshit. Whatever.” She shrugs.
(PAWS! BB8 Bitches!*)
[Henry Allard] “Mm.”
It’s taken in without judgment written anywhere on his face, not towards Kemp, not towards Danny, not towards the situation that had landed the two where they had been. This had all taken place before he’d wandered over, is not something to which he had been privy. He has no clear understanding of either of the two’s thought processes.
It is difficult, sometimes, for him to put himself in the shoes of those so young. He is surrounded by them, these days: what’s left of the Hounds and the girls he is helping through their collective pregnancies, four of them, are all under the age of 21. Of their subsection of society, the only one who seems to be anywhere near his age is Tristan. With his birthday rapidly approaching, this is doing little to make him stop checking the mirror for gray hairs.
Something in what she’s said makes him frown.
“He said that?”
[Danny Jones] “He reminded me that I ain’t no longer an alpha, he made the comment about not handholdin anymore when I offered to go help him all the way in fuckin Minnesota. Tole’ me I couldn’t offer no ones help cuz I ain’t alpha and I should trust ’em since I aint met Jon but the once… It’s all delivered in the i’m older and wiser then you tone, when I hit fostern just as fuckin young as he did – AND only lost it cuz I stood my ground when I backed him an’ the Eagles up. I lost a fuckin rank – he didn’t. I got fucked, but he’s the high an’ mighty better ‘n me? He left his whole damn pack and went saunterin back and still walks lone, when I done been forced into several packs before finally tellin em I was gonna choose my own. But I’m th’one who’s the child, neglectin my duty. Fuck him. Yeah, that’s right..” and she lifts her head and her voice and screams out. “FUCK YOU KEMP OATES! YA AIN”T NO BETTER THEN ME!”
She snorts then, and takes another bite of ice cream, and shakes her head.
[Henry Allard] Her voice carries far and wide, spread on the wind, reaching the ears of pedestrians, of bystanders, of the group of teenagers shooting hoops in the distance. One of them, standing on the sidelines and bouncing a spare basketball, turns and whoops back “YOU TELL ‘EM, GIRRRL!” The outburst brings a collective burst of laughter from his friends, who start bantering back and forth without the sound reaching the paramedic and the Gnawer. Henry turns his head to regard the players, cigarette stuck between his lips, and shakes his head in softened bemusement. Smoke puffs out the sides of his mouth and he brings the cancer stick down and away. When his green gaze turns back to Danny, there is a degree of difficulty to be found in reading what lies there.
As he had earlier, Henry starts to say something before thinking better of it. Whatever it is is caught before it can even be born, is cast away like a spent cigarette butt. He takes another drag and tries again.
“Don’t let it bother you. He’s got a lot on his plate right now and boys that age are unintentionally thick-skulled.”
A slow smile spreads across his chapped lips, and he snorts out a half-laugh that does not travel far.
“Hell, some of us never grow out of it.”
[Danny Jones] She snorts. “An’ I don’t? Fuck. We all got shit on our plate. Livin our life ain’t no bed of fuckin roses. Just some of us ain’t turn into ragin assholes because of it. We do what we gots to do an’ take our happiness where we can. Like in ice cream” She pauses to scoop up another bite and grins. “Or sex. That there’s his problem – he ain’t never got no good sex.”
She nods, and then with a wink. “So how IS Tristan….”
[Henry Allard] The question should not catch him off guard. Not having known her for as long as he has, not when she asks him nearly every time they see each other, as erratic and spontaneous as their meetings are. Not when Tristan himself has no qualms with bringing the topic up or entertaining the subject on the street or, worse, in front of his housemates.
It should not, yet it does. She asks him as he is taking a drag and it takes a sheer force of will for him to complete the exhalation without it shooting down his esophagus, without it choking him. That he is able to do so might not be fully appreciated by the Gnawer girl. He finishes his inhalation, then stutters out a laugh as color, faint in the wane light, in the darkness untouched by street lights or the absent moon, pushes its way into his cheeks.
“Um… uh… he’s… good.”
That that proclamation seems to be playing right into the discussion on good sex is not lost on him, and he laughs once before dropping his gaze down to the scuffed toes of his outreached leg, as he absentmindedly ashes into the sand. It stays there for a handful of seconds, would have stayed there longer had he not forced himself to look back up at the girl and give her an assured, tight-lipped smile.
“He’s good.”
[Danny Jones] She grins, knowing full well that every time she asks him that question it sends him off kilter. That’s exactly why she asks it, of course. She watches the color raise in his cheeks, and the way he reacts, before nodding. “Good. You blush pretty colors everytime I ask that, ya know that?”
Nothing like making it worse, on purpose!
She takes another bite of ice cream, then another, before she grins again. “Course, i ain’t blame ya none. Rafi makes me blush bout Santiago all the time. Ain’t no big thing. Just love’n’fuckin!”
[Henry Allard] Nothing like making it worse, indeed.
As she draws attention to the fact that he’s blushing, Henry uncurls his right hand from one of the pair of chains holding his bulk off the ground and slowly brings it over his jaws, attempting to draw attention from if not completely conceal his cheeks. There comes a low sound of his muttering to himself “Oh, God,” but the words don’t make it far enough for Danny to discern what he’s saying.
She seems quite pleased with herself, and as she tosses out her own anecdotal evidence to support her claim, Henry pulls his hand from his face and wraps it around the chain again.
“It’s not a big thing, huh? I’d beg to differ.”
[Danny Jones] “You do, do ya? An’ why’s that?” She tips her head, curious, because she really does want to know. Then grins and pulls out her Raggie Membership Card to flash it within her words.
Although, technically – as Mama would tell me – I said it ain’t no big thing, which is a double negative, that naturally translates to a positive, meaning that it IS a BIG thing INDEED, and thus you are no claiming that it’s not, just to be contrary. Or confusing. Or something. So which is it….”
Pause, and wicked grin. “Just how big is it?” She’s incorrigible, she is.
[Danny Jones] (ahem. “although…” )
[Henry Allard] She wants to know, but she carries on ahead with her line of reasoning, undoubtedly spurred on by her moon shining dark overhead. Henry takes one last drag off of his cigarette before decapitating the cherry on the side of the swing. There are no trash bins nearby, and given the fact that the children’s play area is already littered with butts and plastic wrappers and bottle caps, he is not going to be one of the many to sully the area with his refuse. Gross though it may be, he pushes the butt into a pocket on the thigh of his work pants and opts to toss it when he gets back to the house.
Through some stroke of luck, he manages to not take her question to be anything other than a continuation of her earlier inquiry. Never mind the fact that it could just as readily be turned into innuendo, or put images in his head that probably oughtn’t be put there to begin with. It makes him laugh, a soft sound that doesn’t carry far, that is buried under a kid announcing “I’MMA FUCKIN’ KILL YOU, TYRONE” to the amusement of his buddies.
“Well. Um… no one’s ever asked me this or I’d have an answer ready for you.”
He pauses, uses his thumb to scratch an itch on the bump of the bridge of his nose, a place that has been broken so many times in the last three years it’s been said he’s set a new Engine 44 record.
“If I were about ten years younger I’d be wholeheartedly agreeing with you. Who gives a shit, it’s not sex, right, that’s what you’re saying? I don’t know if I’ve turned into a sentimental old fart or what, but the older I’ve gotten the more… Even if it’s just a one-time deal it’s a significant connection with another person. That’s… I don’t know.”
Expressing himself is not this man’s forte, it would seem.
[Danny Jones] It makes her laugh, honestly, and she finishes up her ice cream and drops the cup on the ground with a “I’ll get that later, promise” before she listens to him finish his explanation.
She then tucks her tank top into the waist of her jeans, shimmies through the bars, leaving her knees crooked around the bar, dropping her torso to hang upside down, her hands reaching for the ground while she stretches and looks at him from her new vantage point.
“Well then, you’ll have an answer for the next one.” She nods, and grins upside down at him. “I get that. Me, I was all hung up on the Capt’n, an now I gots Santi. We ain’t talked bout what it is or what it ain’t, but I know that it’s more then jus’ fuckin, even at my tender age.” She’s teasing him again, that much is clear. “I ain’t never been one to hook up jus’ to hook up. I like the connection. I gots to trust that person more too, so’s I ain’t go all pissy on em, ya dig? So I always been careful, and count it as a important. So guess we kinda agree, even if I was twistin my words all Raggie on ya on purpose.”
Shameless. She doesn’t even fix her shirt when it starts creeping up – er down – her torso either.
[Henry Allard] “Oh, that’s right, you’re Ragabash.”
If he had known to begin with, he’d forgotten. If he hadn’t known to begin with, there certainly have been signs. Although Henry isn’t going to admit this, not to her anyway, she reminds him of his sister. It hits him now, watching her hand upside down, fingers stretched towards the ground, hair flopped on end. Henry starts to swing back and forth, difficult though it is, what with his rangy legs too tall to be tucked out of the way. It’s more of pushing himself with his outstretched leg, pulling himself towards his foot and then releasing himself away again. This swing was not built with a 6’3″ man in mind.
“Even hooking up just to hook up is making a connection with another person. I can still remember every…”
He nearly comes out and assigns a gender to the people he’s describing. In the end, he doesn’t.
“… person I’ve ever slept with, even if I didn’t know their name. Difference is whether you feel anything for the person afterwards. It’s entirely possible to just fuck and have that be the end of it. I’ve done it God knows how many times. That isn’t what embarrasses me, I can talk about that all day long. It’s that damn fuzzy feeling that comes up when you ask me about Tristan that does it, I think. That’s a big thing.”
[Danny Jones] Every… he says, and pauses, and she fills in “Guy.” and he fills in person. She grins at him, shameless, and listens. Her hair is getting longer – it’s time to cut it again. But that dye job, has totally stayed the same, which is ever awesome in it’s two-toned brilliance. And that color changing bit was awesome too. Too bad she has to go all wyld and it goes back to normal so easy. But none the less – totally cool.
She grins and tries to reach the ground without losing her grip, and fails because she’s short. She ain’t got no lanky 6’3″ to work with, not even close.
She peers over at him, and grins. “So it’s a really big thing with you an’ Tristan. Ya’ll talkin trips to Vermont yet, or even mentioned the big L-word? Kids, home in the country, white picket fence?”
[Henry Allard] For the record, this is the fourth time in the last five months that a female has brought up the possibility of civil union to this man. Incredulousness flushes over his face, and he manages not to roll his eyes as he looks back at the stretching girl in the darkness.
“Jesus, what do I look like, a straight girl?”
The mockery is off-set with restrained laughter, tethered to keep it from lasting for too long or getting too loud.
“We, um… yeah, the L-word’s come up, but… that’s not something I’ve ever seen myself doing. Marriage. That’s a straight thing. Only thing I’m concerned with is making sure he’ll be taken care of if something ever happens to me.”
[Danny Jones] She laughs at that. “Hey! I ain’t at all lookin to get hitched neither. I dunno, was just a question an’ shit.” She grins and shrugs, which causes her shirt to tumble downwards and give Henry a lovely flash of her small but FABULOUS rack, before she lifts her arms and tucks the tank top back into place once more with a grin. “Whoops.”
Shameless. Belly crunches and she reaches up in a smooth arc to grab hold of the bars and free her legs once more, hopping down to the ground with a fluid movement. She grabs her litter and moves to join Henry on the swingset.
“So, “Lusty Loud an’ Loyal Lasciviousness has come up. Good.” Hrm. Interesting L-words there. “I ain’t think its so much a straight thing, though I can see how one would figure it. But as a way to make sure things’re taken care of – even if ya’ll still fighting for that. Imagine my side of the coin. I’m straight, but I’m also 17. I ain’t even supposed to be on my own yet, an’ have been since I was 14. Well, even before that, since Mama raised me up n shit after Ma died. Add a kid to that, an I ain’t sure what I’d supposed to do. First I’d be out of the fight for a long ass time, an we just can’t afford that right now. I know its my duty n’ shit, but seriously, folks what get stupid an’ don’t even use a condom is selfish. Is too much shit out there what wanna kill us for me to risk that shit yet. Side’s – me an’ Santi might jus’ be fuckin round. I dunno.”
[Henry Allard] There comes no exclamation at the unveiling of those unimpressive breasts, yet Henry does slap a hand over his eyes until she gives some sort of indication that her shirt has been returned to its previous state of tucked in. Why it is that this warrants some inclusion of modesty into the effect is difficult to say: the man sees breasts every single day, try though he may not to, as he attaches EKG leads to heart attack sufferers or inserts chest tubes into car crash survivors or removes clothing from burn victims. This is not the first time he has seen an underage girl’s breasts and will not be the last time. But this is not a medical setting. This is a park in the middle of Cabrini-Green. He covers his eyes.
When she tells him it’s okay or her feet hit the ground, whichever happens first, he removes his hand from his brow and returns it to the chain. Eyes follow the girl as she plunks herself down next to him, and Henry clears his throat and smiles at her list of L-words. Then she is off and running, and Henry simply continues to push himself back and forth and listen.
She’s too young to have a kid. Those who do have children are selfish. Besides, her and her boyfriend might just be fucking around. She doesn’t know.
He nods.
“It’s good that you’re protecting yourself, but if you’re concerned the two of you aren’t on the same page it might not be a bad idea to bring it up with him.”
[Danny Jones] She laughs at his show of modesty – as shameless as she is, it’s clear he’s the more moral of the two of them. She’s routinely having her clothing ripped off by claws and fur and fang and whatever other nasties, and got over any embarrassment about exposure early.
She nods and shrugs. “Ain’t been that long, ya know? I know he likes it when I’m there when he comes home, or if he comes an’ picks me up – he drives a cab. I know it freaks him out when I get all tore up, like the last time, an’ he worries when I’m out an’ about an having to go all rar on shit. I know he worries bout me, an’ his family, an works really hard, but well. They’s a whole family he’s got there with Rafi an’ Mama an’ Carolina. I ain’t too sure where I fit in there.”
A pause. Maybe she should bring it up. Then, an admission. “Kinda scared to hear an answer that’d make me have to leave th’closest thing I got like family since I been in Chicago…”
[Henry Allard] Henry reaches up to scratch the side of his head, fingers tousling hair that has grown far too quickly in far too short a time. He ceases his back and forth rocking, opting to return to his previous state of stabilization rather than continuing to move. The basketball game is still going strong behind them, teenagers whooping and hollering at each other, their outbursts laden with obscenities.
“What’s the worst he could say?”
[Danny Jones] She laughs and looks at him “I hate you, yer just a piece of ass, get out.”
Simple, huh?
[Henry Allard] “Okay… what are the odds of him actually saying that?”
[Danny Jones] She wrinkles her nose. And then shrugs. “uuuuuuuuuuh. probably not very good, all told. I’m jus’… well, shit ain’t been so good all the time here in Chicago ya know? An’ being with Rafi and the gang, felt like comin home, an’ when he introduced me to his brother… it was so natural, but… I dunno. I’m probably paranoid.”
[Henry Allard] “I can’t say as I blame you.”
Can’t blame her because he understands that what can be attained can just as quickly be lost, that what can be good can just as quickly go sour. Because what one thinks isn’t always how things are in reality. Because he remembers what it is like to be 17.
“But still, I think you ought to talk to him instead of jumping to conclusions. He might be worrying about the same thing you are.”
[Danny Jones] She laughs and shrugs a bit. “Maybe. Though we do tend to get distracted. You saw – I may be small, but baby I’m FABULOUS.” She strikes a pose, and then starts to swing back and forth.
“Maybe. Maybe I talk to Mama too. Did ya know Rafi has a daughter? That’s another reason for me not to have no babies anytime soon. Cuz I like playin barbies and my lil pony with Carolina too much. I’m too selfish probably. I dunno.”
She’s been saying that a lot. She dunno. It always pops up when she’s worried a bit about something, even something that might be silly and trivial. They just ain’t talked about it – and she ain’t sure if she should bring it up and risk more rejection. The thing with the Capt’n made her feel stupid, an’ she don’t wanna go out like that again…
[Henry Allard] “Nah, I’d say you’re being realistic. There’s no reason a girl your age ought to be thinking about having a child. I think you’re making the right decision. That’s not selfish at all.”
Another siren sounds out, this one a fire engine, and Henry unintentionally jumps, visibly startled. The other sirens, the police and the ambulance noises, don’t produce this effect in him. Most people cannot tell the difference between the three.
Henry glances down at the black waterproof watch strapped to his wrist, and he clears his throat again before hauling himself standing.
“I told Tristan I’d be home in half an hour half an hour ago. It was good talking to you, Danny. Keep your fabulous little breasts in your shirt, would you?”
[Danny Jones] She laughs and grins up at him. “At least you admit they ARE fabulous. Wait till I tell Santi!”
She winks and nods, gathering up her stuff. “Time for me to get home to Mama’s an put somethin together for Santi to eat too. He’ll be home soon. Take care – an’ you know if you or Tris ever need anything, ya call, ok?”
She winks, and with a brush of her hand down his arm from shoulder to elbow. “An’ Thanks.” she says, as she moves past him and resumes her trek home.