| [Marcus Schwarzkopf] |
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| *Marcus was dressed in an olive drab t-shirt, faded blue jeans, a olive drab bandanna on his head that was once a t-shirt in a former life and tan work boots. He leaned up against a light post watching the building he’d seen Maija go into the night he made sure she’d gotten back safely.
He looked up at the moon which was obscured by cloud cover. He was hungry, and his stomach growled a bit. He’d not been back to the Brotherhood yet to grab something to eat. He looked at his watch and said in a low voice to himself.* “Another 15 minutes… Then he try again tomorrow.” |
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| [Maija] |
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| It’s three am on a Thursday morning, and all good girls and boys are in bed. As she’s neither, she is not, and once again she can’t sleep. William works late, comes home, they eat, they fuck, he sleeps. And she stays awake, sometimes right up until time to make breakfast the next morning, right up until she sends him to work with lunch and a promise that she’ll stick close to home, or in well lighted areas. Then she sleeps, then she wakes too early, and the cycle repeats itself. Its been this way since the attack. She can’t shake it. Not yet.
So as he sleeps, she slips out from under his arm, into a pair of his sweatpants, and that hoodie. She deftly rolls a joint, then grabs her blade and shoves it into the ‘roo pocket, before grabbing Will’s keys and letting herself out.
Soon enough, she slips out the front door, and takes a seat on the top step of the stoop, glances around, then simply digs out her lighter and sets flame to the end of her J and takes a long hit.
and holds… |
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| [Marcus Schwarzkopf] |
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| *Marcus sees her and steps out from under the street light. He wasn’t trying to hide, in fact he was deliberately showing himself in cause she was around. He could have knocked, but this wasn’t his house, or his area. No better to wait.
He walks across the street casually making a beeline for Maija, making sure she knows he’s coming so as to not startle her.* |
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| [Maija] |
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| She sees him, and freezes, still holding the smoke deep in her lungs, until she can’t hold it anymore and she exhales long and slow. The smoke circles her head like a wreath before dissipating and drifting away on the ever present Chicago breeze. She reaches up and tugs that hoodie down lower over her face – hiding even now, refusing to give him a clear look at herself. If she changed clothes, if she was quiet, he’d have to rely on scent alone to recognize the waif-ish streetrat.
She tenses as he comes near, that tension wrapping up her spine, settling in her shoulders, as she pulls her feet up close, leaning forward over her knees. Making herself a small target, maybe. Protecting her soft belly and still somewhat bruised ribs, perhaps. Whatever it is, she doesn’t bolt inside.
She just waits – letting the Marijuana take the edge off, slow but sure. |
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| [Marcus Schwarzkopf] |
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| *Marcus slows down his approach to her, and carefully pulls out a small envelope from his Alice pack. He sets it down near her feet.* “I’m sorry.” *He says politely and in a low voice.*
Inside the envelope are two different pieces of paper, one that reads:
“A kinfolk girl of the Bone Gnawer Tribe named Maija was looking for her friend, a man named Ryan. The last information she had was he was living here. If anyone has any information on this man please contact me, or Maija. Thank you. – Marcus Schwarzkopf, Two Ravens.”
The other reads:
“Ryan was ambushed by fomori and died in honorable battle alongside my packmate, Mrena White-Eyes. Their bodies have been retrieved and given proper burials, and their deaths have been avenged.”
Lukáš Wyrmbreaker
*Marcus doesn’t wait for her to open it. He turns to head on, his promised fulfilled he doesn’t wish to trouble the poor kinfolk girl anymore.* |
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| [Maija] |
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| He sets down the envelope, and for a long moment she just looks at it. She just stares, scared to pick it up, knowing by his apology just what is inside. She closes her eyes, and there’s a soft sound in the back of her throat, and that sound finally breaks her paralysis and lets her pick up the envelope.
She glances up at him, and then back to the envelope, then takes a long ass fucking drag off that Joint and holds it deep in her lungs. On exhale, she sets the joint aside to sit on the edge of the stoop next to her, and pulls the notes from the envelope. She reads it twice. It’s a double whammy for her – as her source of income is dead too, but that’s not the one that affects her the most.
He’s gone.
They never got to have that talk.
And he’s gone.
There’s a wounded cry, that’s swallowed back, as she crumples the notes in a sudden tight grip of her fist, and just stares at the ground in front of her. She’d followed him here – the one fucking Garou who’d ever been nice to her, and now he’s dead.
She’s still. So fucking still. She can’t move, she can’t blink, she can’t speak, she….
…she just can’t. |
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| [Marcus Schwarzkopf] |
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| *It’s the wounded cry that gets him to stop. He exhales softly, and his stomach growls. He’s exhausted from a long day of working and waiting out here. He should have already been asleep as he’s got to get up in… an hour and do it all over again.
He turns around and makes his way back to her. He stops near her. He reaches down to rub her back, but pulls away his hand not sure what she’d do if he touched her.* “Listen… It probably doesn’t mean anything but… If you ever need anything. I’m at the Brotherhood during the night most of the time. Just get in touch with me… And I’ll help you if I can. Again I very sorry for your loss.”
*He doesn’t give her any heroic Garou speech, or that he died for the cause. She’s in pain, he probably can’t do anything about, but he understands what it means to feel that way. He turns again to walk away.* |
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| [Maija] |
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| He reaches to touch her, and that is what breaks the paralysis – she sees the movement out of the corner of her eye and flinches, expecting to be hit, expecting the pain and almost welcoming the thought in some part of her mind. That same part is confused when the pain doesn’t come, while the rest is consumed with the news he’d brought her.
She wants more, she wants to know when, she wants to know how, she wants to know why no one told her, she wants…
She wants nothing at all.
She…
She doesn’t know.
She doesn’t fucking know.
Finally, voice strangled, thick with an emotion she won’t let come completely through, she manages… “…thanks for tellin’ me…” |
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| [Marcus Schwarzkopf] |
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| *He turns to her and says.* “It’s not a problem. Again let me know if you need anything.” *He with that he turns around again and continues walking down the street.* |
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| [Maija] |
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| She doesn’t answer, she just sits there until he is at the corner, she just sits there unable to move for the longest time, until she finally grabs the joint, shoves the letter into the front pocket of her hoodie, and stands. Bare feet make barely a sound as she slips inside, and up to the apartment. Even there she doesn’t break down. Even there she reigns it in.
No where is safe. Not anymore – if it ever even was.
She’s never felt more alone. |
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| [Marcus Schwarzkopf] |
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| ((Thanks for the scene.)) |
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Forum Post:
For the second time since Maija moved in, breakfast is not ready when he gets to the kitchen. There is no scent of frying bacon, or sausage, or biscuits hot from the oven. There’s nothing, nothing at all, and no sound from the kitchen as he’s come to expect. The last time this happened, she was a bloody beaten pulp outside his window. Even though she’s mostly recovered now, and they’ve worked to get back into the same comfortable routine, it’s enough to set off the spidey something is wrong sense.
Something is definitely wrong.
She had left the bed sometime around 3am, and gone outside for a smoke. She’s had problems sleeping since the attack, so this is nothing new, though she is usually back to bed sometime before he gets up for his shower, and by the time he’s out, she has breakfast on the table. Not this time. This time, she’d finally gotten the news – someone finally thought to fucking tell her, someone realized that she gave a shit and took the time to get her the answer she needed.
Not the answer she wanted.
Anything would have been better than this…
When he gets to the living room, she’s there, and she’s drunk. And high. There is an almost empty bottle of tequila on the coffee table in front of where she sits on the floor, her back pressed against the couch. The room smells like pot – and alcohol, and she’s all but passed out. Almost there, almost close enough to forget, almost fucking there.
On the table is a crumpled envelope, and two notes, one requesting information, and one with the information requested, but unwanted. It would have been easier to believe he left without saying goodbye. It might have been kinder to leave her that one. little. bit. of. hope. instead of taking it away. It would have been kinder – but the world is far from that. She long ago was taught to expect nothing, to accept the pain, to take it as handed to her.
He comes out, and she watches him, watches the way he moves when he’s only half awake, watches the way he scratches his belly, and shuffles through in bare feet and pajama bottoms. She watches, until her head falls back against the seat of the couch, because she’s too drunk to hold it upright anymore. She lost that ability an hour ago.
“He’s dead, Jim.” is what she says, and it’s followed by a snort of laughter at the mimic’d Star Trek at a time like this, only it isn’t really laughter at all, but rather a cry that isn’t fully realized. “I fuckin’ followed him here an’ now he’s fuckin dead. OH an’ the woman who’s been payin’ me? She’s fuckin’ dead TOO. Friendless an’ jobless in one fell swoop. Ain’t that th’fuckin shit.”
Was it really just a month and a half ago that she’d come home so happy, that she’d found him, and they’d reconnected, and everything was awesome? And now… now.
Now she lifts her head and drinks the last swallow of the tequila with a grimace. She doesn’t remember how much was in there when she started, just remembered grabbing it and thinking it was enough to do the job – but she’s still awake-she’s drunk as shit, but she’s still awake. She sets/drops/slams the bottle to the coffee table, a little (lot) harder than necessary, so that she can reach for her joint again – muttering when she can’t find it, forgetting she’d already finished it an hour ago. Her palm hits the table, and she jumps, then looks over at William again. She lets her head fall back to the couch, and sighs as her eyes focus on the ceiling, and something not really there at all. “Yer next, ya know. All I fuckin touch an’ care about fuckin’ falls to shit. Should jus’ go, jus’ go back home, let’im kill me an’ get it over with. Let ya be happy.”
A pause, as she lifts her hand and wipes her eyes, pulling the tears away with an unforgiving hand, and ignores the fact that they existed at all.
“Should… jus….” but she never finishes the sentence. She’s finally managed to pass out, finally managed to get to the point where she will only remember the important bits when she wakes up.
Ryan’s dead.
And she’s alone.
