[Bob] It’s the middle of the week, the middle of the moon, and the streets are bustling tonight.
Neon lights stain the sidewalks, casting shadows onto the faces of the thousands of pedestrians making their way from parking lots to restaurants and bakeries, to ATMs and food stands, out of clothing stores and herbalists’ shops. The concrete is damp from an earlier rain, drops of water staining storefront windows and dripping out of gutters, but there are no umbrellas anymore, no raincoats. It’s just warm enough that the braver of the city’s citizens are out in short sleeves and light jackets; you can tell the tourists by their visors and their shorts and their cameras. It’s late enough that there are no children. There are teenagers, gaggles of them, giggling and gossiping and goading each other, and there are monsters here.
One of those monsters is coming out of a liquor store on West Cermak, wild-haired and dressed all in black, carrying a paper bag concealing his purchase. He stands out here, tall and white and with a disastrously high level of Rage that the humans around him aren’t quite sure what to do with. He’s just ugly enough that that alone is almost enough to keep people from paying too much attention to him, but he’s got the aura of someone who’s looking to put his fist through someone’s face, or someone’s face through a plate glass window.
No one in their right mind would approach a guy like him tonight.
[Drew Roscoe] Liquor stores, neon lights, bars and lounges, many of which were only cover-ups for what was really going on in the basements. This wasn’t anything that Drew was unfamiliar with, having actually worked in one of the aforementioned bars for a couple of months when Abe’s death had caused a sudden stressful drop in income and she found herself needing a second job. However, these weren’t things that Drew was in the area for tonight.
Bob strolled out of a liquor shop, and just up the sidewalk by a curious placement of rented spaces Drew was walking out of a floral and gardening shop with a small plastic bag full of seed packets looped about her wrist and a particularly heavy bag of planting soil held up over one shoulder, comically large when being seen carried on such a slim set of shoulders.
She appeared to struggle, but only by degrees, and it didn’t show on her face, only in how her legs threatened to buckle when she walked toward a truck parked against a curb (it was a miracle she’d found the spot to claim it, and a wonder that she’d managed to parallel park a Dodge Ram in such a tight space).
[Moira Murray] No one in there right mind would dare to approach the tall, scarred and tattooed man with his wild hair. He stands on the sidewalk amidst the throng of tourists and locals. All of them wide-eyed and wary as they skirt around the Godi in as large a circle as possible. The animal ferocity drumming under his skin like a tattoo, broiled in heat, seems to have an odd pull towards those that can feel it for what it is.
The tall dark-haired Fenrir kinswoman exits the herbalist’s shop, folding up and tucking the flat brown paper bag away into the green canvas messenger bag that bounces against her left hip. Fingers holding the flap up with her head cast down as Moira wasn’t watching where she was going. The lack of a crowd on the sidewalk before her does not draw her awareness just yet, heading straight into the path of the tall Godi, who stood a few inches above her in height. She as five feet and eight inches in flat shoes, he at six feet.
A black braid lays across one shoulder, a green cardigan sweater layer over a black camisole and black cotton slacks. Flat ballet shoes slapping quietly on the pavement. She crinkles up her nose, slowing down as she starts to get closer to Bob, the press of Rage igniting in her senses and unconsciously pull her head up to stare at him, but Drew’s little form has Moira’s attentions.
The tiny Get kin sliding into the taller one’s peripheral.
[Bob] The last time he saw Moira, actually saw Moira, she was sitting at a table with an Oxycontin-drugged Fianna kinswoman, drinking coffee and talking the other woman into sneaking out the kitchen door of the restaurant so they wouldn’t have to deal with the Godi when they got back outside. Or perhaps they had just thought it would be funny. He hasn’t seen either of them since then, since the occupied table became an empty source of agitation for him, hasn’t had a chance to ask them what the fuck they were thinking.
The waitress had had no idea what the fuck they were thinking. All she had been thinking was that if she died today there was too much she had not accomplished with her young life, that she was going to quit that shitty job just as soon as the scary guy got out of her face and walked out the door.
That was several days ago. Moira spots Bob before Bob spots her; it’s her breeding that he senses first, and to someone who is incapable of reproducing, who does not have the drive to mate and fuck and become a parent that his human-born counterparts do, the purity of a Kinfolk’s blood is not much of a draw for him. It rarely does anything other than alert him to a potentially lost Kinfolk, someone who needs shepherding and introducing, someone who’s going to become a problem. To those Kinfolk who know what they are to the Nation, what the Nation expects of them, it’s little more than a red flag telling him to keep the fuck away.
When he does notice Moira, his footfalls slow. His eyes narrow. His nostrils flare. The Godi watches her with a razor intensity that can’t do anything other than make her life flash before her eyes, and he blows out a breath and continues walking toward them, bottle hanging from his hand at his side and his other hand pushing itself into the pocket of his slacks as though to hide itself.
[Drew Roscoe] Moira knows Bob, Bob knows Moira, Drew knows Moira, Drew’s glimpsed Bob, Bob’s seen the back of Drew’s head, and Moira knows Drew.
Moira and Bob spot one another, present one another’s fronts to the other, and prepare for an awkward explanation/conversation. Drew, however, hasn’t noticed either in the crowd of people swirling their way around the monster with his predator’s vibes, compensating by getting a little too close to Drew, jostling her just a little as she tried to walk.
“Hey,” she grumbled, frowning when she had to fumble to keep from dropping the bag entirely. It would no doubt burst on the sidewalk if she’d let it fall, and that would not just be embarrassing to have to worry about cleaning, but a complete waste of time and money. So she adjusted her grip and, with a bit more almost comical strained-legged walking, made it up to the back of a truck painted in a pretty dark-almost-black cherry coloring. She leaned against it for a second, then with a grunt of effort shoved the soil up over the edge of the pick-up’s back.
“Fuck,” came the groan when she’d accomplished the task, and she turned to lean back against the vehicle, letting her head rest against it for a second as she dragged her cellphone out of her pocket and glanced at its face.
[Moira Murray] The last time she had seen Bob, she had helped formulate the wild, hair-brained idea to abandon the Metis outside of a diner several days ago. She had been the redhead’s partner in crime, forsaking that trust the Godi had instilled in her to keep an eye on Lee. Well, she had kept most of her word, just didn’t bother to keep Bob abreast of the situation that she’d also help Lee escape his rage.
Her head draws back suddenly, nostrils flaring out as her breath caught in the back of her throat. She doesn’t have to look up far, so used to being around tall Fenrir that it came as a habit. Her eyes, however, do not stray any higher that the Metis’ chin. Even she affords him that much respect to not dare to meet his eyes. A shiver runs down her spine, a pain in her gut as instincts tell her to run away. But she stops on the pavement, hands clinging to the straps of her bag.
Drew’s voice pulls Moira’s eyes to her. She takes a step forward, thinking to offer aid with the heavy bag of soil, but she has it in the back of the truck just as Moira reaches her. “Hey, yourself. Working out I see…”
[Bob] It’s a hard thing to inspire a Garou’s trust and confidence, and an entirely easier matter to destroy it. He hadn’t told her why he was asking for her help in getting the Fianna kinswoman home, but she could very well have guessed why; she’d heard him shouting, had seen him on the brink of losing his temper. The sight, the sound of it, had terrified all of the humans within hearing range. People had started considering then whether they ought to call the police and report a public nuisance.
Not until he actually started threatening violence in the burger joint did someone the cops.
He walks with the lean, powerful motions of a predator, loose-limbed and yet coiled all the same, prowling rather than strolling. There’s something about him that draws the attention. Having him sit still and talk, engaging in conversation with him, it’s easy to see that there’s something charismatic about him; when he’s moving, though, when he’s around people who can’t quite stomach or handle his Rage, it’s more fear or wariness than anything else that has eyes on him.
Drew hefts a bag of soil into the back of her truck, the vehicle rocking on its chassis and nearly taking her with it, and as she gets herself situated, as she recovers from the strain of toting something that weighs about half as much as she does, Bob walks up to them. His eyes flick to Drew, and he greets her with a nod of his chin before Moira is at the center of his focus.
It’s not a comfortable place to be, right now.
“Did she make it home?” he asks, without context or proper names to alert the kinswoman as to what it is he’s talking about.
[Drew Roscoe] Moira strolled on over, picked up conversation while Drew pressed one small hand into the small of her back and stretched her body into an arch, as though she needed to pop her back into place, like the strain from carrying a forty pound bag had threatened to cause a disk to slip as though she were an old woman.
Plain, but clear brown eyes turned to Moira when she spoke, then her expression softened into a familiar grin when she recognized who the voice belonged to. Her head rolled on her shoulders so her neck would pop, and she relaxed more comfortably back against the truck, just above the passenger’s hind wheel.
“Not intentionally, heh, just kinda turned out that way.” A thumb hitched over her shoulder toward the truck bed, indicating what she’d just thrown back there, neverminding the plastic bag about her wrist. “Working on a garden, need some proper dirt to plant in.”
Then, all at once it seemed, there was Bob. The tall homely man with the curling hair and way about him that made him hard to ignore and hard to want to acknowledge for fear that he would acknowledge you back all at once. He nodded his head to her, she watched him cautiously and returned the gesture, then shifted her gaze over to Moira when he addressed her.
He looked irritated, and Moira looked just a shade guilty, or uncomfortable, or something like that. She didn’t seem to particularly want to talk to this guy.
Drew didn’t comment or intervene (yet), but she did watch and listen carefully.
[Moira Murray] “Yes.” The word is brisk and spoken quickly, shuffled to the forefront of her thoughts as Moira collects them carefully, “I saw to Lee getting home safely. We shared a cab together when we left the diner.”
Moira doesn’t know what happened inside that diner, how someone had called the cops on Bob, how a waitress decided she couldn’t take this shit anymore and decided to quit that day and move off to change her career path to something less exciting. She runs her tongue along the inside of her cheek, causing it to bubble out slowly. She keeps Bob as the main focus of her eyes, body growing rigid with wariness.
“Spring is a good time for planting. I vaguely remember the layout of your yard, but I imagine you could do some really nice landscaping with it.” It was a casual response, the conversation picked back up as Moira was developing a knack for splitting her attention between more than one person. She shifts a little, leaning on her left hip as her hands continue to rest on her messenger bag.
[Bob] Moira doesn’t know what happened, and Bob doesn’t see fit to tell her. There would be little point in mentioning that he had panicked thinking that some agent of the Corrupter had snagged the two Kinfolk while he was shortsighted enough to have his back turn, that he had nearly frenzied trying to get answers out of a young woman who was absolutely terrified of him, that it had only been the threat of getting into a fight with human lawgivers that had had him walking out the front door rather than barreling out the kitchen door after them.
She answers him, quickly, and the expression on his face cools into something almost mask-like. Something about what she’s said has forced him to shelve whatever she might have seen otherwise, but he doesn’t have to visibly fight to keep himself calm or keep himself from shouting at her. He’s about to respond to her when she addresses the smaller kinswoman. Unlike Moira, he is not gifted at the art of multiple human conversations.
[Rory] The thing about the Bogeymen is that no one can be sure when and where one will show up. They tend to hover unseen in shadows, slinking about areas that are their territory or those surrounding them, and appearing out of nowhere… it’s a good way to get themselves stabbed…
Unless that Bogeyman is Rory.
Rory sucks as a sneak, to be honest, and quite often is used in the “distraction” method of pack tactics, to allow the others to slink about gleefully. Because Rory? Stands out.
Rory is Redheaded.
Rory is Redheaded Rage.
Rory is… stumbling over her own two feet as she forgets to watch where she’s walking, bumps into someone and as a result turns a corner she hadn’t planned on and thus – enter one more Mule to the scene – jeans, t-shirt, backpack, and something… metal and mechanical looking in her hands that holds all her attention.
[Drew Roscoe] “Hm. Sure is.”
Drew watched the expressions on Bob’s face shift, pulled one corner of her mouth back in a contemplative manner, then sucked at her teeth, curling her tongue over her front top teeth from behind closed lips. She straightened then, clapped a hand lightly on Moira’s shoulder, lighter than she would were the gesture aimed toward Booker or Joe or another sturdier man. “Looks like you two got stories to tell and creases to iron. And I’ve gotta go let Basil out before he pees on the carpet and shakes all night because of it.”
Her smile is bright, congenial and charming as she steps away from the curb, moves around the back of the truck and finds her way toward the driver’s door. “See you later!” It could be directed just to Moira or to Bob as well, it was hard to tell. All that they knew for sure was that the petite kinswoman was in her truck, the engine started up with a growl that faded to an obedient purr, and she was taking off toward home.
[Moira Murray] “Thanks, Drew.” She calls after the smaller kin as the hand clasps onto her shoulder. She turns to eye Drew as she flees into her truck, no longer able to use Drew’s presence as a plausible distraction from Bob’s gaze. She pulls a hand up to wave at her, the truck rumbling to life and pulls off into the street.
Which now leaves her standing in Bob’s presence. She looks back at him, an uncomfortable silence starting to tread between them. She doesn’t move to be closer to the Godi like Moira does with some Garou. She is sure he wouldn’t care for her presence.
“You are the only high rank of your moon in the tribe currently, yes?”
[Bob] There are worse places to be than stuck in Bob’s presence, although at the moment Moira is probably having a great deal of difficulty conjuring up any of those places. It’s hard to tell whether he’s mad at her, or whether he’s pissed at her, or whether he’s simply tolerating her presence until he can drum up the will necessary to leave her here on the sidewalk and continue on about his evening.
Plenty of other men in this city would give up their right arm to spend time with a woman who looks like Moira. Plenty of other men have already gotten themselves entangled in her. Lord knows what those other men would do to Bob if they found out that he was for all intents and purposes alone with her right now. Some Septs, some places in this country and its neighbors, would punish him on principle.
She asks him a question, and he rests his weight on one hip as though he’s planning on staying here for a while.
“Yeah,” he answers. A beat, and then: “Why?”
[Rory] Voices ahead causes her to tear her eyes from the gadget in her hand, her eyes – a crystal green and almost shockingly innocent when one has the stones to meet her gaze – lift and she does something that few full moons ever do…
…she hesitates. Not wanting to intrude.
She lowers her gaze again, and does her best to pass quietly.
[Moira Murray] [empathy + perception! Are we an angry Godi, Mr. Bob!?]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) [WP]
[Moira Murray] Rory was a familiar presence to Moira. She remembers the pretty redheaded metis from a chance meeting in Chinatown, in which, she and John had dinner with her in one of the many restaurants back in December. It was amazing how much has happened in the months that followed since she last set eyes on the Fianna.
There is no detection of anger in the tall Godi. Moira remembers to breath, nodding her head slowly. She smirks at the wariness that she can read in him, the corners of her mouth tilting up ever-so-slightly. “I was curious to know as I haven’t seen many Godi in the past months, not since the death of the last one who held rank. It would be nice to know who I could go to, if I run into a situation that might require me to seek out one of my tribe, instead of going to one outside of it.”
[Bob] The last time Blood Summons saw Tongue Twister outside of the Moot, it was one of his first nights in the city. He was wild-eyed and manic, had been summoned to the scene of a slaughter to help the Cliaths and Fostern Child of Gaia figure out what to do with the undergrowth that had sprouted up in a community garden. She had seemed timid then, and she seems timid now. His blue eyes lift from Moira to acknowledge the other metis now, and he gives her a nod of his chin in greeting but doesn’t beckon her over. Moira has his attention now, speaking of wanting to know who she can go within their tribe for assistance rather than outside of it.
“If you need to find me,” he says, “I’m usually at the sacred place. There’s another Godi in the city… name’s Colton, runs with Aesir’s Call.” He pauses a moment, then asks, “How often have you had to go outside of the tribe to get help?”
[Rory] She was timid then. She is timid now. The shyness, along with the tendency to blush at the slightest provocation is the default mechanism for the redheaded rage machine. She meets bob’s gaze but very, very briefly, her eyes slamming down instantly in submission, and that serves as her greeting. Moira gets a longer look, but barely, and a shy little grin, before her gaze returns to the thing in her hands.
Machinery is safety.
[Moira Murray] “More often that I am willing to admit, but it is mostly for situations that would require healing as I am incapable of performing such tasks. I had to recently seek out aid from Theron Locke after becoming injured from a spiral. I didn’t know who to go to and I remembered he was capable of healing.”
She lowers her voice a bit, caution filling her senses as the kin finally moves, shoving aside the tension that has worked into her back and shoulder muscles. She paces slowly to the left, coming up near the Godi’s side, but keeps a safe distance from him. He seemed wild and unpredictable.
“I have met Colton only once, but didn’t get a chance to make contact with him.” She turns as the presence of Rory draws closer. The Fianna receiving a small smile from Moira in greeting, but nothing more.
[Bob] That wildness of his has, surprisingly, diminished since he first came into the city. When he first came into the city he had visions of atrocities staining his brain, driving him to work harder and harder to stay awake, getting himself involved in projects of increasing magnitude and growing irritated when he was interrupted. He’s mellowed somewhat since then, doesn’t have a perpetual look of exhaustion and mania in his eyes, but still: his Rage is powerfully high for one of his moon, and there are days when he just barely seems to have it under control.
Tonight is one of those nights. He seems tightly wound, like he’s just waiting for an excuse to get into a fight, like he has too much energy for his thin frame. That may explain the presence of the alcohol in his hand.
She explains that she’s had to seek out the assistance of Theron Locke, then comes to stand at Bob’s side rather than remaining in front of him. Maybe it seems safer that way, being in his blind spot, out of his direct line of sight. He turns his head to look over and down at her, eyes on her face.
“I don’t know what Colton’s capable of. If you need healing, try to find me first.”
It’s a strange request, seeing as how she had to be thinking that he was angry with her after the stunt she pulled Sunday. Bob has been referred to as forgiving, as infinitely patient. Infinitely is something of an exaggeration, but he’s metis; his capacity for forgiving wrongdoing is something shy of legendary.
[Rory] They are involved in conversation, and neither waves her over to join them. Thus, as is her way, Rory continues past, quietly, attention once more engaged in the examination of the object in her hands. She is never one to intrude.
[Moira Murray] Moira inclines her head to Bob in agreement before answering. “I will do that.”
She isn’t sure if he is still angry with her for the stunt she pulled, Moira decides against bringing it up, that mentioning it would likely set him off. She is not familiar with the Godi’s buttons and well easily or hard they could be set off. She has been too busy setting off the rage buttons of other Garou to bother with Bob’s.
Whatever business Moira had with Bob seems to have ended, there was nothing else she could think to ask of the Godi, so instead shifts her gaze to watch Rory as she starts to pass by.
[Bob] Moira decides against bringing it up, but the Godi doesn’t seem to have boarded the same train of thought that she has. He lets silence fall between them for a moment, long enough for Rory to scoot past on the sidewalk, and then says, “Lemme ask you something.”
It’s not a request. He gives her a moment to mentally prepare herself for whatever it is that he’s going to ask. She can probably guess.
“What made you think sneaking out the back was a good idea?”