[Santiago Durante] ((123 NOT ME))
[Danny Jones] (CHEATER!!)
[Santiago Durante] ((Haha… EAT IT!))
[Danny Jones] (HARUMPH! Tempted to start with “Santiago’s phone rings.” *LMAO*)
[Santiago Durante] ((I will keel you.))
[Danny Jones] It’s hot, and she’s bored. She could go find Rafi and get into a fight somewhere, she could go visiting half a dozen people, she could even go scrounging for food. But it’s hot, and has been all day, and she’s already gotten into a fight AND she saw Rafael last night, and…
..so there you go.
Thus, one sticky sweaty Gnawer girl is holding onto a cup filled to the brim with Slushy Power of various flavors (Suicide, baby!) in one hand, and dialing her Hello Kitty with her other hand. It’s been hours since she saw him, after all, and she has another slushy cup sitting between her thighs. (meeeeelting…)
And somewhere, Santiago’s phone rings…
[Santiago Durante] Several miles away, Santiago Durante is sitting cross-legged on a carpet worn flat by foot traffic, particular streets tracked through areas of lush growth. Across that flat plain kneels a little girl, curly hair escaping from its tight plait to stick out at perpendicular angles from her scalp. There course across the carpet dump trucks, police cars, Barbie dolls. What in the hell is going on is anyone’s guess; at the moment, however, Skipper is trotting away from the dump truck with a pink high heel stuck on her left hand. She is wearing Ken’s clothes.
Rafael, toothbrush plunged into his mouth, strolls out of the kitchen while pumping away at his molars. On an end table pushed beside the couch, several feet away from the pow wow, a Tracfone begins to vibrate.
“Tu teléfono,” Rafi mumbles.
“I hear it, Rafi, thank you.”
“Chingáte.”
It is not until Rafael has darted up the stairs two at a time, three rings by Danny’s count, that the connection clicks to life and Santiago’s voice shines through.
“Hey, beautiful.”
“Is that your giiiiirlfriend?” Carolina chimes in, her high voice barely reaching. Her giggles are far more powerful than her speaking voice. “I wanna say hi!”
“So say hi.”
Rustling. The girl’s uncontrolled decibel level bursts through next: “Hi Danny!”
[Danny Jones] One. Two. Three. Hey beautiful – and Danny blushes. “Heya hotstuff…”
Only to hear in the background Carolina, and then her hello. The grin widens as she effortlessly switches gears from talking to her man to talking to the little girl. She takes a slurp of her frozen delight. “Hi Carolina! You keepin the Durante boys outa trouble for me?”
She shifts the cup between her thighs to a spot less frozen, before resting her own atop a knee and listening to the sounds of family life come over the line.
[Santiago Durante] “Yeeaahh…”
That single syllable drawn out by part embarrassment, part happiness, Carolina looks at her uncle for a moment before clearing her tiny throat and laying down on the floor.
“Are you coming over tonight? Gramma’s still at work, Daddy said I could stay up until 10:30 but then I have to go to bed because it’s a school night. Gramma never lets me stay up this late.”
It’s not hard to imagine where the girl inherited her loquaciousness.
[Danny Jones] She laughs and takes another drink as she listens to the little girl. “10:30? Well, what time is it now? Tell you what – if I don’t get to tuck you in tonight since it’s almost bedtime, I promise to sneak in and kiss you goodnight, AND to be there for breakfast in the morning before school, ok?”
She pauses, watching something across the street, before with a smile that can be felt over the phone. “Assuming you go to bed like a good girl on time, and all…”
[Santiago Durante] “Okay!”
That settled, Carolina thrusts the phone back at her uncle, who reaches out to tug at her braid before accepting the small piece of metal and plastic. His low chuckle can be heard before anything else.
“So what’re you–“
“¡Carolina! ¡Venga acá!”
It sounds as if Rafael were shouting from directly in the background. Danny ought to know better. When Santiago is able to speak again there is a mixture of amusement and annoyance in his tone.
“–doing tonight?”
[Danny Jones] She’s still grinning, even as she hears Rafi yell at the little girl and she just lets the soft tones of Santiago’s voice sooth over her… “What he say?” Standard question, and then with that same grin that can be felt and heard even over the wireless lines…
“Currently letting your slushy melt between my thighs…”
Incorrigible, always.
“Wanna come rescue it – and me?” sluuuuuurrrrrrrrrp.
[Santiago Durante] “What he say?”
“‘Come here.'”
“Night, uncle Santi!” Louder: “Night, Danny!”
Her footsteps thump, but do not carry far. Her giggles, likewise, die in her wake.
“Wanna come rescue it – and me?”
“Sure, I’ll do that if you tell me where you’re at.”
[Danny Jones] Come here. That’s filed away for future reference, and then she chuckles softly. “Well – I’m in the green, outside that 7-11 where Abigale the Happy Tranny sings on the corner? Sitting on the bench by the bus stop just a slurping away…”
She chuckles, softly, and filters through what he’d heard, and then with a grin. “Venga ac…“
She probably slaughters it, but well, she tried, right?
[Santiago Durante] “Vein-gah ah-KAH.”
She can hear him smile in the aftermath, pleased by her pronunciation of what she had managed.
“And I reply, ‘un momentito.’ That means ‘a small moment.’ Don’t let anything happen to my slurpee.”
Indeed, it is but a few moments before a battered Ford Escort pulls up to the curb where Danny is currently keeping herself amused, and Santiago leans over the passenger seat to crank down the window.
“You need a ride, bonita?”
[Danny Jones] She grins, pleased with herself. And then she’s laughing “I promise. I’ll guard it well. It IS between my thighs, after all…”
By the time he arrives, she’s tucked her phone away, and re-situated the slurpy again, before she gets frostbite. Her lips are painted blue when he arrives, though it’s not for the coldness of her treat – but the majority of the flavor. Blueberry, of course. He pulls up and opens the window and she grins at him. “Si, Papi.”
She grabs her two cups, and stands – dressed as usual, though the jeans have been replaced with cargo shorts, and the t-shirt tonight is a black tank top with the word ‘princess’ in gold glitter across her bust. Her pack is slung over her shoulders, and boots on her feet, and her hair is fabulously two-toned as usual. Naturally now. Or well, Wyldly, as the case may be.
At the car she leans over and hands him his slurpee through the window with a grin. “Only little tiny, itty bit melted around the edges…” It’s not her fault she’s hot, right?
When he takes his, she unslings her pack, opens the door, and gets into the aging Escort with her escort.
[Santiago Durante] A hearty slurp is pulled through the straw, the liquified contents of the once-frozen cup rushing through easily, killing time until his young charge hoists herself into the shotgun position. As she folds herself into the car’s cramped interior, Santiago carefully wrestles the large cup into the rickety holder lodged between the two seats, places a condensation-dampened hand on her shoulder, and leans in for a quick meeting of lips.
“Still good,” he smiles, pulling away to get a good look at her. Rafi’s right: the hair hasn’t changed. “How’re ya doing?”
Once the door is clapped shut and her belt buckled, Santiago turns back to the console and pushes the car into drive.
“I’m really hoping Rafi goes to sleep tonight. He was up all last night with Carolina and didn’t take a nap today because she was home. Otherwise he’ll be up our asses all night.”
[Danny Jones] She slides a treat-chilled hand around the back of Santiago’s neck as he leans in, that kiss lingering and soft and lasting forever for all of its brevity. “Mmmm much better now.” Simple truth, that, as she relaxes almost completely the instant she’s with him. The stress eases from her shoulders, and she feels like she can just… be.
“Hope so too. Though trust me – he ain’t that much bigger then me. Bet I could take him down!” She flexes and wiggles her brows. Half the battle is having the confidence to try, right?
“Oh, and I promised to sneak in and kiss her goodnight at some point tonight, did she tell ya?” She grins and chuckles. “And invited myself to breakfast… hope you don’t mind…”
[Santiago Durante] A soft hiccup of a laugh, dropped into the atmosphere between them as his left hand palms the steering wheel through a left-hand turn. There is a clattering noise beneath the engine. The brakes squeak. The odometer never rises above 20, no matter what the racing engine says.
Every time Rafael gets in he starts singing “Ode To My Car,” thinking it never gets old. Thankfully, Rafael rarely rides in the vehicle.
“I think she’d like that,” Santiago smiles. He reaches over to take another sip of the warmed-up slushee, and rather than returning it to the cup holder he rests his elbow on Danny’s thigh. “And no, I don’t mind. Goofball. Mi casa es tu casa.”
[Danny Jones] “I know that one!” She grins over at him, her fingers sliding around his elbow, to smooth along his forearm. Simple touches mean the world – she’s been without a long time, her hopes and dreams pinned on something that would never happen. Her dreams have changed now, broadened, expanded to include others in a family she didn’t expect to find here, not after having looked for two years to come up with nothing.
Things are different now.
She watches him drive, watches the way he handles the aging car, and then with a grin. “Rafi tell ya I met Jon last night? I think it went ok…” Brodie already likes her – the Durante’s like her though granted some more then others (and who is she to complain?). All thats left is to impress the head man…
“Oh!” Scatterbrain much? “Rafi wouldn’t tell me what Novia means…. but keeps calling me yours…”
[Santiago Durante] With that rapid change of subject, the young man is nearly floored. Not because he hadn’t expected to hear the word, but because there is a considerable distance between I met Jon to Rafi keeps calling me yours. He eases on the brakes to avoid nailing a Buick that rapidly backs out of a parking lot into his path, a foul squeal sounding out, the muffler banging into the ground with the decrease in speed. That accomplished, he looses another modest laugh.
“Novia means ‘girlfriend’. And he probably wouldn’t tell you because he’s an asshole.” A beat, and the car resumes its previous velocity. “You want to call someone an asshole in Spanish, you say pendejo.” Pen-DEY-ho. Such a soft sound for such a harsh word.
[Danny Jones] “Oh…” And she blushes. And looks out the window with that silly little grin. It’s funny, of course, that they’ve never spoken about it. Never asked, never really broached the subject of just what they are. It doesn’t seem to matter. She’s happy when she’s with him, and she thinks he is happy with her. In her line of work, she is lucky to have that.
Novia means girlfriend, and pendejo means asshole. Perfect. She laughs and nods. “Gotcha. It’s most important to learn the cusswords first, right?” Impish, that smile.
She hadn’t even flexed or braced when he broke to miss that buick. Such is her trust in him, and her belief she could withstand anything. Almost anything. Then… “Course, if Rafi keeps being an ass, I’ll help Carolina dye her hair like mine… temporarily, of course, but wouldn’t he have a cow…”
[Santiago Durante] There’s a burst of laughter at that, appreciative, warm, and Santiago steals a moment away from the road to take in her face out of the corner of his eye. Seeing the light on her face, the cheerfulness she has in spades, helps to keep the fuel of his own smile in stock.
“You thought he flipped out when he saw the rings… I don’t even want to think about what he’d do if you dyed Carolina’s hair. I’ve seen him kick people’s asses for just looking at her wrong.”
There’s a pause, and then he executes another one-handed right-hand turn to bring them onto the residential street where the Durante’s half of the duplex sits. Across the street the lights are all on at one house, bodies milling about on the porch, smoke and laughter spilling forth, music. This street does not turn in early. Such is the mark of their poverty, that they could not even afford to live on a street that respected other people’s right to live in an environment free of noise pollution. At least these people exist to have a good time and not to chase violence, is Mama Isabel’s philosophy, such as it is.
“So what’d you think of Jon?” he asks. It is only now that he puts the slushee back, so that he can execute a two-handed U-turn to bring the wheezing vehicle to rest on the curb before the house.
[Danny Jones] He pulls his hand back to replace the slushy in the holder, and her hand follows, falling to rest against his thigh, fingers caressing lightly across denim as he makes the turn. She still wears her ring around her neck – for the fact that it drives Rafi nuts, though mostly because of the night it represents. “It’d be worth it…” pause. “maybe.” Though her grin doesn’t falter at all. Just the thought of pushing at Rafi that much amuses her greatly.
The neighborhood never bothered her. That she consents to sleep inside while she’s here says a lot about how natural it feels. In Miami, the poor streets never close, never quiet. She is well able to fall asleep curled up in the back of an alley with the pounding noise washing over her – more so then in the silence of the woods. She is a true child of Concrete, Gaia’s little rat.
“He’s quiet.” Back to Jon. “Really quiet. He seems cool enough though. A bit of yin to ya’lls vivacious yang… It’s clear Rafi respects him, which goes far in my opinion cuz I know he don’t take shit from no one.”
[Santiago Durante] “No,” Santiago laughs, cranking the car into park and cutting the power. “He doesn’t.”
Arching his back to push the car keys into his hip pocket, the Gnawer kinsman reaches out to take hold of the two slushes and eases himself out of the driver’s seat, unfurling his body in the night air. A thigh knocks the door shut behind him, and he strolls around the front of the vehicle to await Danny’s emergence from the other side. The Durantes’ side of the house is vaguely illuminated: a dim light in the front windows, a light in the upstairs hallway’s window, the quiet hum of a Glow Worm night light in Carolina’s room. Up the walk he leads her, ring and pinky fingers opening the screen door, the front left open with the presence of Rafi alone enough of a deterrant to keep out intruders.
Rafi’s voice is floating down the stairwell when they enter, not pounding the way it normally does but coming down incidentally, his words in that tongue Danny is so rapidly picking up, a lullaby and not a reaming. Santiago hands her back her slushee, and takes another solid sip from his before walking through the living room and towards the kitchen.
“You hungry?” he asks, flicking on another light.
[Danny Jones] She grins, and gives up her slushee so that she can climb from the car and grab her pack again. Following him up the walk and through the door, she pulls the screen closed behind her softly and pauses long enough to listen to the lullabye from above. There’s a little smile, warm, as she listens, before the promise of food breaks her from her study. She snorts, because she’s totally lady like, yo! “That, darlin, is the silliest thing ya ever done asked me…”
She unslings her pack, and sets it down out of the way, before following Santiago to the kitchen, her frozen treat in hand. She sets the cup down on the counter in the kitchen, and then takes a moment to reach for him, and slide her arms around him and curl close. She’s not been here for at LEAST a few hours, and heaven forbid she should wait any longer to breath deeply of his scent, to rest her head against his shoulder, to press close to his strength. “Mmmmmmm. Much better. Now I’m hungry for food.” If he returns the embrace, when he does, he might notice the way she tenses slightly as his arm passes over her left side, the ribs there very, very tender, though she does her best to hide the reaction as she grins and presses her cool bluestained lips to his neck. “Whats for dinner?”
[Santiago Durante] His own cup is set down beside the sink once he reaches his intended destination, and when her body comes against his in the silence thereafter he smiles again, quietly. Words spur him to turn around in her arms and take her into his, strong limbs wrapping about her bony shoulders as he hugs her to him. On the downbeat, as they part, his hands slide down her shoulders, down her sides, and the twinge in her brow does not go unnoticed. His own furrows, an incisor clamps down on a lip, and his fingertips brush along the spot that had provoked the reaction.
“Gazpacho and lamb chops,” he says, vacantly. Body returns to his voice as he catches her eyes with his and asks, “What happened?”
[Danny Jones] She wrinkles her nose as she looks up at him, that little grin playing around her lips. “I forgot to dodge?” The short and simple of it. She reaches up to brush her thumb across his lip, freeing it from tooths grip. “It ain’t so bad. Just bruised up a bit. Be right as rain tomorrow. But I finally get to show you the awesome colors I turn.. cuz dude, I turn the prettiest colors!”
She untucks her tank top, and pulls it up to bare the skin along her left side. And she ain’t kidding – from deep purples to ultra sensitive blues, to fading yellow and green… it’s a glorious rainbow of pain that would have normal folks wimpering and unable to move. She, on the other hand, is proud of them. “Got into a little tussle with a pimp daddy who thought tossing around his girls in front of me would scare me away. She’s at the Hill House now, recovering. He’s in the hospital, doing the same, though it’ll take him a spot longer then her, I’m sure. Physically at least. He got me with a tire iron. I then used it to break his leg. Repeatedly.”
She doesn’t try to make light of it – it simply is what it is, another day in the life of a Garou Girl with a soft spot for girls in trouble.
[Santiago Durante] This is the part where a normal guy would be cringing, would be “Oh, my God”ing, would be attempting to comprehend why in the hell his girlfriend was able to withstand a blow to the ribs with a tire iron and joke about it, and would be coming up short. This is the part where a normal guy would throw up his hands and proclaim to be lost, ignorant.
Look at who Santiago’s brother is. He’s seen a lot worse for stupider reasons.
Santiago simply sighs, then puts his hands on his hips and leans down, far down, to press a soft kiss to the skin and muscles living peacefully overtop her bones.
“Be more careful next time,” he says, a lopsided smile twisting at his lips, then hauls open the refrigerator and produces a large Tupperware bowl, a Saran Wrapped serving platter.
[Danny Jones] Her breath catches as lips find bruised skin, and she slides her fingers into his hair, as she catches a moan behind her lips. Her eyes are lidded, almost closed as she lets that smile linger over her lips as he pulls away. “I dunno – if ya keep kissin it better, I might beat up a pendejo every day…”
He’s no normal boy, and she no normal girl – but for moments at a time, they can be normal together. Like when he turns to find the food, and she hops up to sit on Mama’s counter and watch him. “Lamb an’ what ya said? Ain’t had lamb in… well. I dunno when..” She claps her hands together and rubs them gleefully as she peeks into the bowl and eyes that platter.
[Santiago Durante] “Yeah, she buys it pretty cheap from the meat market.”
The top is taken off of the soup, and a drawer is yanked open to produce a soup spoon, which he plunks into the light red concoction and hands to her.
“This is gazpacho. Mama’s getting in touch with her Spanish side, I guess. It’s a bread soup make with tomatoes. S’good.”
No point telling her it’s good… to a Gnawer, everything is good.
“You fuckin’ feeding her again?”
It was only a matter of time before Rafael showed up–how he managed to get downstairs without making any noise is anyone’s guess, but his voice sounds out in the living room before either of them manage to see him.
“Rafi, callate la boca.“
“English, Santi!” Rafi simpers.
[Danny Jones] She takes the bowl and peers into it and then digs in. She’s Gnawer, everything is good, but by the way her eyes roll back in her head and she moans – there is good, then there is GOOD. And this is most certainly the latter.
She does pause between bites to stick her tongue out at Rafi as he comes into the kitchen, and with a wide grin shows off her new word. “Hola, pendejo.” Well, he said she couldn’t call him papi, right? Right.
Back to the soup. “This is really good.. remind me to hook Mama up with my boy at the Saturday fresh food market… he’ll hook her up with the best veges n fruit for bottom prices. I saved his ass from the cops once or twice.”
A lopsided grin. no details, none needed. She simply does what she does and has two years of working the streets round Chicago.
[Santiago Durante] “Hola, pendejo.”
Rafael stares at her for a moment. Not because he is offended. (Well, okay, he is offended, but that’s not the point.) He stares at her, then he stares at Santiago, who has transferred a pair of lamb chops onto a smaller plate while Danny had been talking and has since moved on to microwaving them. Then he stares back at Danny.
“The fuck kind of Spanish you teaching her?”
“Did she stutter?”
“No, but for fuck’s sake, you can’t start off with no grammar or something, you gotta bust out the pendejo?”
“We didn’t learn Spanish that way.”
“I learned Spanish by fuckin’ talking it. You learned Spanish in fuckin’ escuela.“
Santiago just laughs.
“Do we have to reinstate the swear jar?”
“Waz ‘reinstate’?”
[Danny Jones] She blinks, and then stretches out a foot to nudge Rafi. “Aw, common – I was just razzin ya. You know I adore you… not in a sick an’ dirty way neither…” She sticks her tongue out at him again, and then continues to eat her soup and watch the brothers snipe at each other.
She then deflects it all.. “Hey – hows Carolina feelin? I promised i’d peek in and kiss her goodnight, but don’t wanna until she’s asleep and won’t wake up and keep ya up all night again.”
“And!” back to the Spanish. “I ain’t got no good grammar in English, what the hell makes ya think I learn it in Spanish?”
[Santiago Durante] “She’s like a fuckin’ ping pong ball,” Rafael says, hiking a thumb in her direction. Again, Santiago just laughs, as his brother sets about answering the two questions that have absolutely nothing to do with each other.
“Fuckin’ fever came out of nowhere, she feeling better now.” A beat. “She oughta be, she fuckin’ laughed her ass off when I about broke my maldito cuello tripping over her Barbies this morning. Who leaves Barbies laying on the stairs, man?”
“Seven-year-olds,” Santiago replies. The microwave sings, and the plate is summarily pulled out and handed over, a fork and knife following not long after.
“She never gonna leave if you keep that up.”
It’s said in jest, a teasing grin plastered on his face, and a yawn follows not long after.
“Go to bed, Rafi.”
“Go to bed, Rafi. I’m going to bed. Don’t wake my daughter up or I’ll fuckin’ kill both of you.”
With that, he turns around and heads back upstairs. Santiago shakes his head, then goes about wrapping up the pork chops and sticking them back in the refrigerator.
[Danny Jones] She just grins, and shrugs. It’s true, she knows it, and revels in it a bit too. She takes the plate with a softer edge to her smile. “Thanks, baby.”
Then she looks at Rafael again. “Least it wasn’t legos. My boys back home? Legos all over the fuckin place – get one of them in the instep in the middle of the night an’ ya limpin for a fuckin week. An’ don’t even get me started on fuckin power rangers an’ all theys parts…”
“Ain’t never leavin.” she agrees, as she bites into the lamb with a soft moan of appreciation. “Never..” the last said with her mouth full, of course.
[Santiago Durante] ((PAWS!))
[Danny Jones] ((Pouts!))