[Rory] She has been quiet since the Totemphone message earlier – not that she’s like Delmar, chattering incessantly about every little thing that crosses his mind. The sadness was clear even then though, across her mental voice. The sound of a woman who knew she was beaten before she began. Another lesson of her birth, of her life prior to Chicago.
Old habits die hard.
Her belly is grumbling – she had given up her pay to someone more needy then her when she’d lost her appetite after her confrontation with the Strider. She ignores it, as she has all day, and continues to watch the rain from the relative dry spot – sitting on top of a dumpster in an alley, under the dubious shelter of the building’s awning. In her hands, some mishmash of something or another, as she keeps her mind still by keeping her fingers busy, creating something out of the pieces of nothing in the bottom of her backpack.
[Edwin Morr] Maybe she feels him coming… Maybe not. Either way, the damp of the rain does little to deter the approach of that strange bubble of consciousness within her own mind, the dark one belonging to her alpha. Rain pooled and splashed beneath his feet, ran in rivulets from the rounded bill of the Fox Racing ballcap.
He stops a short distance from her, and after a moment, hops up on the dumpster beside her. Then, fishing into his pocket for some chopsticks, two matching boxes of chinese fried rice seem to appear from their shelter beneath his coat.
It seemed some things made it through the pack bond, whether you wanted them to or not.
Wordlessly, he takes one and opens it, and begins eating… The other clearly intended for her based on where he set it.
[Rory] She feels him coming. She always feels him coming – and part of her knew he would. When people ask her why she chose the bogeyman, she tells them first that Fox chose her, but that Edwin sealed the deal just by being himself. They don’t know him like she has come too – they won’t ever understand. She doesn’t need them too. Doesn’t want them too.
When he joins her, he’ll see that her hands are covered in dried blood, some fresher than others, as is the object in her hands. Clearly she’s been working soem time – gives new meaning to working one’s fingers to the bone. Busy hands keep the mind idle – idle hands are the devil’s playground.
He begins to eat, and green eyes flick that direction, and then back again as she crimps another ring into place with a small pair of pliers. Afterwards, though, when her stomach demands attention, she sighs, softly, and settles everything into her lap, to reach for the rice and chopsticks. A moment, and then she starts to eat, pausing only to offer him a little shy smile of thanks, before diggin in again.
[Edwin Morr] His voice is quiet as he watches, staring out into the street with shaded eyes, knowing full well she could tell there was something eating him too. A loss, recent… And for all that grin hid the pain, something of the veneer of humanity seemed bled from it too.
For now, it seemed, he was more the monster he’d always claimed to be.
Still… It seemed even monsters could care. Once in awhile. Maybe.
“Attagirl.”
Another bite, before he continues… Chewing quietly until the fried rice disappears.
“Dat’s how ya git through it, y’know. Whutever’s wrong t’day, well… Eat, drink, sleep… Mebbe th’morrow’s better.
An’ if’n ’tain’t… Give th’next day uh try.”
[Rory] His attagirl means the world to her, no matter how it comes to be – if it’s because she’s finally eating something, if she’s killed some dozens of wyrm monsters, or if she’s just.. sitting here, with him, in shared misery. She glances at him, and then back to her project, and the food, and nods a little, curls bouncing across her shoulders with the movement.
Her voice is soft, achingly so… “I didn’t want to hive ger up to them.” She wanted to be able to keep Gina for the Bogeyman though she knew from the beginning she couldn’t – especially once gina told her she wanted to be with her Tribe. “I fought though – for Bogeymen rights to hee ser, and the baby.”
[Edwin Morr] “I know. Done whutcha could; ain’ no fault dere…”
His voice, quiet as it is… Seems almost paternal. As if the sight of a mere lad of twenty or just this side of -ish speaking in such a way to a gal like Rory wasn’t incongruous. Still, given the way things had been going lately… Maybe even a mere lad of twenty can feel his years in that austere and unforgiving light.
“‘Tweren’t yer respons’bil’ty ta do dat… Ya di’n’t hafta. But I ain’t uh whit sore ya did.
Thanks, Rory. Fer tryin’.”
He takes another bite of the fried rice, and the shared communion strikes him as almost sacred, after a fashion. Sharing of sorrows is what pack was about. Even when all you could do was laugh or cry, and the sky’d wept enough for everyone.
Still, Edwin’s eyes do narrow a bit, and he considers Rory with a sidelong gaze, as if to re-assure himself of her well being.
“Are ya hurt? Di’n’t hurtcha, did’e?”
[Rory] She shakes her head at the question, her grin a little bit more confident, just a small touch. “He didn’t mouch te. He came looking for chysical phallenge. I hade mim think instead. Made him promise, made him choose wy may.”
She knew it was going to be a temporary arrangement – and some part of her is pleased, even a little proud that she dared demand what she felt her pack deserved.
A slight lift of her chin. “Wogeyman’s bay.”
[Edwin Morr] Edwin nods, grinning just a little bit more genuinely.
“Bogeyman’s way. Attagirl.”
Then, Edwin fishes in his pocket, and pulls out two bottles of beer he’d filched for exactly this purpose. Lord knows where he got ’em, Lord knows who he got ’em from, and whether or not they had any idea they were two beers short of a six pack when they got to wherever they were headed. The cap tinkles quietly as Edwin pops the top off the one, and sends it skidding like a tiny metal wheel along the pavement. A second metal wheel joins it soon thereafter, and he takes a swig of the beer in hand.
The second also rested conspicuously close to Rory, just as the fried rice had mere moments before.
“Whudja make ‘im do?”
[Rory] She hasn’t had much beer, much alcohol at all until she became Bogeyman. A right shame, that, for a Fianna, but she doesn’t turn it down. Something in her blood simply won’t let her – that and her Alpha offered, and she would not turn it away. She reaches for the bottle and takes a swallow, making a face briefly before she sets it down again.
Fingers smooth over the project she’s been working on, the various bits and pieces that will come together to form a gift for the Bogeybaby – because she won’t consider the fact that it’s anything but theirs until it is proved differently. “I talked to Fina girst. She wanted bo te with her Tribe. I knew I wasn’t going to hight fim – Falance without Bault said it was temporary until Tribe came anyway.” Her reasons for not making him bleed.
She takes another bite, and her brow furrows slightly. “I made him mad. Made him think. Made him know I wouldn’t allow tim ho control Gina. I asked questions until we has frustrated. Pounded it in that Gina has wer own, and that the father rad hights to the baby, and if a BogeyBaby, we would demand them mo natter what he said. I heat bim with words until ce hould only claim insult and then confusion when i didn’t hroat thim.”
And here, a little grin returns… “Then he offered what I was asking for already – he thought it was his idea in cis honfusion – and hen the swore to give her back mo te directly if Gina were ever a ball smit unhappy. So I agreed.”
A pause, and a little grin that holds little mirth and pure criminal intent. “And told him I’d hill kim if he hurt her.”
[Edwin Morr] Edwin nods… Shaking his head and chuckling before he takes a deep swig of beer.
“Ya sure you ain’t half moon renounced’r some such? Dat’s quite duh bargain…”
He chuckles again, shaking his head… And just letting the amusement pour out a spell. Then, as the laughter died, he sat and took another drink before continuing.
“Sounds ta me like ya done made lem’nade outta lemons. Got more’n whutcha were like ta git by playin’ straight…
Fox was right; yer her’n.”
And so it was, happy for the best that things could be, sad for the best things could not, Edwin shared a beer with Rory… Thankful to be in such good company.
[Rory] (and fade with much happy beer drinking… Thanks yooooooooou! :) )
[Edwin Morr] ((Thanks you :) Good scene))