[Alexa Thanos] While they’re inside and he’s fetching table cloths for the Silent Strider to take out, she follows quietly for the most part, her canvas shoes soft on the floor and her Rage so well under control that it barely registers on the senses. Alexa is someone that could pass as mostly human in a crowd, that Rage of hers often twisted to the strangeness of being a wandering back packer more then anything else. There are times in Luna’s phase that this changes, or her mood can shift, but for the most part she’s a quiet, unassuming Garou.
“The woman outside,” she speaks softly, “if she makes you uncomfortable you can tell her to leave.” This is the advice she gives him, casting a glance of deep blue eyes in his direction as she watches him get out the left overs from the large fridge.
Alexa is aware of Lucy. While Kinfolk children are raised around Garou, she is a firm believer that there are some Garou that children should not be subjected to. Bold as the child had come across that time in the park, she does not want to see such a light cast by shadows of Rage. “Or I can,” offering her aid as a Garou.
[Rory] .
to Rory
[John Brendan Cavanagh] “If you’re hungry,” JB tells Rory, perfectly direct in this. “I’ll feed you. You don’t have to work for it.” His voice is quiet; he’s aware of the prickle of her embarrassment, but it reads in this split way. There’s something – incredulous, though, underneath the quiet. She’s blushing and shy, and the her rage beats against his skin the way the ocean eats against the shore. Now that he is aware of it, he can almost feel it pulse, like a heartbeat.
And he cannot quiet believe that a Garou just told him, will work for food.
The thread of compassion underneath isn’t – necessarily flattering for a Garou, who are usually fierce and independent. – and JB tries to swallow it before it shapes his voice. He’s lousy at dissembling, though and that thread of pity is there remains, underneath.
Alexa offers to help, and JB nods. “Sure. I’ve got some tableclothes for these if you don’t mind playing bus boy and setting the table. C’mon.”
With a jerk of is head toward the kitchen, he starts off.
—
The kitchen doors are open. There’s music echoing out the doors, the clatter of pots and pans, a cloud of steam as the bus boy lifts up the hood from the industrial dish washer, pulling out a rack of steaming hot glasses an mugs. He’s not been at this long, the kid, and so he wears silicon gloves to protect his hands from the heat. There are a pair of line cooks cleaning up their stations, storing the mise en place, all the little, late night, last minute things necessary to the functioning of even the smallest of restaurants. Some of the things are put away; others are discarded into compost bins under the stations. Cindy, the hostess waitress with the full cap of candy-apple red hair, pokes her head back in time to tell JB that the last of the customers have gone.
She calls him chef, but there’s a certain – note to the way she says it that suggests she figures she’s just indulging him. She inquires where the slops are he tells her the specific warming draws, the right front of the walk-in. Tells her not to take everything, because he has guests.
Cindy glances at Alexa, her brown eyes narrowing shrewding, and manages to avoid asking John which strays he’s feeding this time. He asks her where the tablecloths are. So it goes.
They find them in a storage pantry that doubles as John’s office downstairs. There’s a metal desk and a clipboard amidst the stored dried goods, the Mason jars of pickles and canned tomatoes, salsa and pickled garlic, rice and bulger and a half-dozen kinds of flour in big 50 lb bags. Then its back to the prep kitchen for leftovers, which he pulls out one by one, setting them on the wide, stainless counters, scrubbed until they gleam. It’s quieter in here, now. The music of the line cooks cleaning up their stations in the background, the lights bright, the prep kitchen nearly surgical in its stainless precision.
“You said she’s my blood?” – he pauses, straightening and pushing the doors closed. His brown eyes are on her face, as he searches her features for confirmation. When he reads it there, he breathes out briefly, nostrils flaring, his open features edged with the suggestion of a smile, hints of stress around the edges. “Then I don’t think it’s that simple.” Busying himself combining the remaining prepped vegetables into a giant bowl of mixed salad, he glances back, reading her profile against the bright lights of the prep kitchen. “You her – ” a moment where he flails for the wording. For human words. ” – boss or something?” He asks, meaning – Alpha.
[Rory] Rory remains outside, taking a seat at a table and out of the way. She will insist on paying, somehow, and knows that there’s compassion and pity in the way he spoke to her. It’s nothing she hasn’t heard before – and is quite likely on the nicer end of the spectrum of what she has endured.
She doesn’t watch them go, but instead busies herself with the contents of her pack, the things inside clanking and clattering until she decides what she wants. Something easy [for her] to fix, yet something that’s impressive [to others] when fixed. She has a fondness for replenishing and fixing music boxes that are considered brokn beyond repair, and that’s what she goes too now. Soon her pack is on the ground at her feet, her small toolset put to use as she tears the box apart, and works on putting it all back together. Piece by little piece, screw by tiny screw, fashioning new pieces of other old boxes until she has what she wants to work with…
She is unaware that she is the topic of conversation, though she would not be surprised to know it. In the meantime, the whole of her focus on the trinket before her.
[Rory] [dex+crafts diff 5 (mech aptitude)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 5 at target 5)
to Rory
[Alexa Thanos] “No,” she muses, almost sighing under her breath as she glances away and around his kitchen, “I suppose it’s not.” that easy. There’s more to it, but she doesn’t voice that yet. She’s not one to hurry her words along, rolling them over in the back of her mind as she considers whether or not its any of her business to say them aloud. In that time he’s already asked her if she’s Rory’s Alpha.
It makes her smile faintly. Shaking her head has her hair whispering across the yellow cotton covering her back. “No, I’m not.” Sobering. “I don’t know her. I just know the breeding that she has in droves.”
“Still, John, this is your place with your family. You shouldn’t have to have–” a quick glance around for people has her eyes dart around then slide back to him, “– you should be able to have that to yourself. I just meant that if you needed it, sometimes our words carry a little more weight.”
The cloths are folded over her arm, tucked to her stomach. “That’s all.”
[Rory] .
to Rory
[John Brendan Cavanagh] One of the two line cooks is Hispanic. The other had those sort of white-boy dreadlocks that seems to mark him as part of Alexa’s human tribe: wanderers, backpackers, rootless and drifting and wordly. Right now, they’re both out on the line, checking the oil in the deepfryer, scrubbing the griddles and the grills, arguing back and forth in Spanish. If Alexa speaks it, they’re arguing about the varietals of marijuana the way wine connoisseurs argue about grape vintages. The best soave. The best Bordeaux. The best champagnes.
JB works quickly, throwing together the salad and a quick vinaigrette on something like autopilot, breaking out the knifes to chop a fresh close or two for garlic with a certain speed and precision – fast enough to cut off a fingertip cleanly before it could even start to bleed, precise enough to miss, every time.
What she says has his attention on her again, turning his head. He’s a big guy, tall and broadshouldered, and that’s even more evident here under the bright lights. She tells him he shouldn’t have to and the corners of his eyes crinkle as if he were smiling, except that he’s not. He flicks her a look, head to toe, and interrupts with a gentleness that belies his size and his affect – the tattoos and the Ramones t-shirts, the shorn hair and the two-days growth of beard darkening his cheeks – his voice a quiet rumble.
“A lot of things in this world we shouldn’t have to do,” he tells her, in that voice, quiet and deep, he must use on Lucy when they discuss What is Wrong With the World, except Alexa is not a child, and there’s an awareness underneath, a tension of awareness that Lucy never hears.
“We do them.” It’s not just that, though. There’s a moment when he’s still, mouth drawn still over his white teeth., his lips pressed together. Then, he lifts his chin, flicking his eyes briefly at the ceiling. This is even more quiet. “She’s like you.” He’s stoic with it now, as much as he can be, but he would rip out the roots of the world tree if he thought that might help him give his daughter a normal life. A life where she might live past seventeen.
“My sister is. My brother was.” Like a mantra, like a litany. These are the family secrets, son. This is who we are.
“And I hope that wherever they were. Whereever they are, someone’ll feed them when they’re hungry.” Then, a sudden grin, “ – shit.” He says, with some feeling, laughing suddenly, easily, as his own damn self. “I sound like a movie of the week. I appreciate the offer. I can handle it for now, though.”
[Alexa Thanos] If there’s one thing that Striders are good at is listening, and its beyond words or tone, and even body language. This is also about reading between the lines and what is found in another eyes. They have wisdom that is afforded to them by their constantly moving feet, which also steals much from their otherwise rich lives. It also makes them live by a different code of etiquette.
She listens.
Smiles when he laughs and grins at her, eyes crinkling faintly at the corners as she nods her head in that subtle sort of way that tells him she understands without saying anything at all. After, she breathes in again, glances over towards those speaking in Spanish, and it’s not clear if she understands them or not, before she’s pushing movement back into her muscles and spine ready to begin movement again.
“She’s a beautiful girl.”
Reaching for some of the left overs then, to take out in her free hand, she looks up to him. “Sorry about the samosas.” There’s a flash of teeth in a quick grin as she’s walking off, heading outside.
[Rory] Her fingers are thin, fragile looking, yet dexterous and quick. She is confident in this. This she understands completely, easily, with an innate knowledge of how it should go together, why it doesn’t work, and what will make it whole again. They say the good Doctors, Lawyers, Artists – they are the same. Somethings they just know.
There is a reason for her comfort with tools. Reasons that aren’t normal, that aren’t explainable to the masses. Reasons she’d explain if asked, stumbling and tripping over her words, likely confusing others more than explaining anything at all. Such is her life.
As is this – they continue talking, she continues tinkering.
[and for the record since I accidentally sent it to myself.. *L* the music box will be near perfect when she’s done – just needing paint:
Rory
Tue 9:26 pm
Roll valid
to Rory
[dex+crafts diff 5 (mech aptitude)]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 4, 4, 5, 5, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 5 at target 5)]
[Alexa Thanos] [be a few, cooking.]
[John Brendan Cavanagh] “You don’t look sorry!” He calls after her, loud enough that the cook with the blonde dreadlocks turns to watch her walk through the kitchen, balancing tablecloth and leftovers in her arms, until she disappears out into the cooling evening, through the open double doors. If she looks directly at him, he winks at her, this gimlet eyed look that suggests he’s got game. He’ll save the ribbing for later, though – swallowing it back with the look John gives him, miming zipped lips before returning to finish cleaning his sauté station.
Soon enough, they are back. Alexa has the promised tablecloths – vinyl backed by felt, the sort that you can clean with a sponge and soapy water, rather than some fancy woven linen that might catch and pull on the splintered tabletops.
JB follows a few minutes later, ferrying the rest of the “slops” – leftovers that cannot be recycled, or that are put aside for staff meals – eat in or “take-out.” Baked mac’n’cheese with brie and parmesan and mozzarella. Spaghetti with a lamb Bolognese sauce. Odds and ends of bread, that big bowl of salad, bright greens and fresh veggies, tossed together at the last minute. The finishing touch, the remains of a six pack to share about, is held underneath the rest, his index finger wormed through the handle.
– enough to stuff them twice over, and leftovers to take home, after.
“Here we go,” he tells Rory and Kyle, who will soon enough melt away into the night, after the cloth is spread, as the meal is set out. “ – enough for everyone.”
[Rory] They return, and Rory looks up, only to drop her gaze once again, in obvious submission to those who know the signs. Her kind is lower than even the kin, despite the breeding in her blood, and she knows it. She believes it. She lives it. So instead of meeting his gaze, she puts the last screw into the little music box, tips her head slightly as she rolls it about in her hands, and then with a little smile of triumph, of near pride, she turns the key.
She looks up at John, and then sets the box closer to him, and opens the lid. A tinny version of twinkle twinkle little star begins, and she allows herself a small glimmer of pride to seep into her gaze. Not that he could see it, as she hides it behind her curls.
“I thix fings.” Satisfaction is woven under the words, before she dares a look up at John again. “For food.” She will pay, one way or the other.
And only then, only after Kyle has taken his, does she scoot closer to make herself a plate.
[Alexa Thanos] [post around me. alexa sets the table and eats quietly for the moment. still cooking and then eating!]
[John Brendan Cavanagh] Animal submission isn’t something he understands and the signs of her submission – even to him – strike him differently. There’s something about the dichotomy – the way her rage ratchets up the tension in his spine and the way she drops her gaze, looks away, reverses her consonants, that simple gleam of pride in her gaze, that both breaks his heart, and has him wondering if Garou have their versions of Rain Man.
Somehow, her simplicity makes it worse. Her conviction that there’s some sort barter system at work. That there should be a transaction instead of a simple act of hospitality.
JB glances once at Alexa, reading her expression as if searching for clues as to how to react to Rory. Although he grabs a slice of bread and a spoonful of his signature macaroni and cheese to be sociable, he doesn’t tuck in, voracious. He’s already eaten dinner. He eats with Lucy every night, no matter how busy the restaurant. Instead, mostly, he drinks his beer, straight from the bottle, holding it between his fore and middle fingers when he’s not lifting it casually to his mouth.
When Rory pushes the music box close to him, he watches it open his mouth tense, expecting it not to work, half-hoping it won’t. Then: twinky twinky little star. “It’s lovely,” he tells the – the Garou. He cannot forget that she is Garou when her rage curls around the base of his spine. There’s genuine admiration there, and this sort of resurgance of pity, underneath. The sort of wave that washes away the foundations of things.
Then, he translates thix fings – and gods, it takes him a few. for food. JB, sitting now on the edge of the picnic table, half standing really, one foot on the far seat, his beer bottle on the table, reaches up and pinches the bridge of his nose. “No -” he says, shaking his head, his voice a rumble, not shying from gainsaying a Garou. “No, listen. That’s not how it works, okay? You understand? You don’t owe me anything, for this. You get that, right?”
[Rory] .
to Rory
[Rory] It’s lovely, he says, and she supplies her name at last. “Rory.”
He says no, and she blinks in a way that’s almost a flinch, her spine stiffening, her muscles tensing as if she expects him to hit her. Backwards, that – she expects him to hurt her. She waits a breath, two, her fork halfway to her lips, ready for it all to be taken again, even as he continues…
Then she dares peek up at him again, her lower lip pulled between her teeth, her brow furrowing slightly as she listens. Then she nods slightly. Not that she understands, exactly, but that it’s what he expects. She offers a compromise, instead. “Not tave ho. want to.”
Only then does the fork complete it’s journey, and she savors the bite of his mac and cheese with a soft little moan of delight, before digging in as if she hasn’t eaten all day.
[Alexa Thanos] “What he is saying,” Alexa interrupts, “is that he doesn’t want help.” Her voice isn’t harsh but that doesn’t mean that it won’t be taken that way. Dark blue eyes drift up from where she had been putting some food on her own plate, glancing over to where Rory is eating, starved.
Her gaze slips to John then, offering a small nod which leaves a lot to be interpreted, before she eats some of the spaghetti on her plate, twisting it in the fork against the spoon and eating from it in small mouthfuls. She had settled on the opposite side of the picnic bench, across from where Kyle is, and she gives him a small glance as they’re all chewing down their food.
“The river cleanup went well.” Changing conversation.
[Rory] .
to Rory
[Kyle] Kyle had wandered off but soon came back. Without saying anything he simply grabbed a plate of food and sat down. A smile to Alexa as he ate and listened to everyone.
[Rory] .
to Rory
[John Brendan Cavanagh] John glances at Alexa as she interrupts, a hint of irritation in the way his brows draw together, that smooths abruptly as he glances between the Garou. He’s willing it to smooth away, he’s belaying judgment because he doesn’t entirely understand their animal dynamics. He doesn’t want either of them to spark with anger while his staff are an open door away scrubbing the kitchen clean, listening to one of K’Naan’s mixed tapes.
“Listen,” John says, with as much directness and compassion as he can muster. He meets Rory’s retiring gaze as if he didn’t feel her rage. “Rory, you’ve got a job to do. With your – ” a glance at Alexa, careful with words lest they drift back to his staff. The tribal tattoo on his right forearm seems to undulate as he flexes his fist, working it out, working to be clear with her, not reasonless. ” – with the other ones like you. That job doesn’t include fixing my walk-in. This is my place, and it’s – look, I know what I’m doing. There’s not much I can’t take care of myself. And if I can’t fix it, then I need a specialist not a – ”
JB grimaces, briefly, swallowing back the word Garou. His volume rose the more he went own, and he pulls that back now, with a glance back toward the open kitchen door.
“There’s this, too. When you – ” he pauses, frowns, ” – insist on making a transaction like this, you insult my blood. My hospitality. And I know you don’t want to do that.” He speaks to her clearly, carefully, as he would to a child, really, looking her right in the eye as he does so. There’s no dissembling. He means every last word.
Then, audibly exhaling, he takes another draught from his bottle before glancing back over at Alexa. “It wasn’t bad for business, either – ” he agrees, to her comment about the work day. The sort of folk who volunteer for such things, who enjoyed his food and drink provided gratis, are exactly the sort of customer who will come back to his place again and again and again. Organic food, locally grown, seasonal, afforable.
“Though I think Lucy might’ve dropped more trash than she picked up.” Mostly, she spent the day playing under someone’s watchful eye, bossing the other kids, organizing them into teams, into packs.
[Rory] Alexa interrupts and not harshly, but Rory reacts to it anyway, her shoulders hunching, flinching, preparing herself for a blow that doesn’t come. Yet. There’s a tremble that works through her as she swallows the bite in her mouth carefully.
And then John claims insult, and her eyes widen and she looks up in shock to meet his and shakes her head, curls bouncing across her shoulders as she tries to stammer that its not.. it’s…
It’s expected of her. always has been… but the words won’t come.
She drops her gaze to her plate, to the food that’s by far the best she’s had in days, which he won’t allow her to pay for in the only way she can, the way she should.
A moment. Two. And then a careful breath, as she keeps her head down, and reaches for the music box, and tugs it to her, folding it in shaking hands against her belly. She’s torn now, and another aching tremble weaves visibly under her skin as they speak of other things.
It’s a long, quiet moment before she reaches for the fork again, expecting it to be taken from her at any moment as she finally dares to timidly take another bite.
[Alexa Thanos] John explains himself, his reasoning’s, throwing her a glance beforehand. She gives him a small side glance, says nothing, and continues to eat quietly. Watching between the three of them she’s content to sit, eat, listen, and leave the Kinfolk to fighting his own little dilemma’s. Put it as he might it comes down the the crux of what she said, much simpler: he doesn’t want their help.
She understood it before he even had to say it, all these little things, but apparently there’s social ways to go about it. Sometimes she forgets these things or overlooks them. Her compassion isn’t the same. She is, after all a Garou, like Rory.
Who reacts to them like a whipped dog. Alexa doesn’t know she is a Metis, she knows only of that Rage and Breeding. She could guess. After glancing over towards the Fianna Garou, Alexa drops her gaze back to her plate and continues to eat.
“Do you get much business? This food is wonderful.” If she tasted better she’d never say so anyway. “I’m told cooking is an art, what inspired you?”
[Rory] .
to Rory
[John Brendan Cavanagh] Rory’s trembling spikes a new wave of pity in him JB glances at her, as she sits there, her head down, hiding behind her hair, quivering as if he were about to hit her. No: Garou don’t mind hitting. God knows the scraps his brother used to get into. The day he beat another kid senseless underneath the tetherball pole over some insult he forgot by the time they got home. The last day his brother went to school, twelve years old. Violence is in their blood. Quivering as if he were about to beat her senseless and murder her dog and replace her meal with rusted nuts and bolts, a sprinkling of rat poison for good measure. There’s a wave of pity that goes through him, and something else rather less – empathic, after. The thing that pity turns into. “I’m not taking away the food.” He tells her, reading that much into her reaction. He speaks a bit more loudly to her now, as if that might – make the words make sense to her. “You’re welcome anytime.”
A glance back at Alexa, then, that drifts toward the restaurant. “Just opened. We’re – building a clientele.” He can float the business for six months before it has to turn a profit. After that, though. It has to turn a damn profit, and the tension of that is a different sort of tension, more remote. He gives her a grimace-smile, made taut by the – way Rory cringes and hides, shying away, by the way her rage makes him away of her, always. The heat against his skin.
Then she asks what inspired him, and JB laughs. It’ a genuine laugh, not quite as deep as it normally might be. “The real world inspired me. Strangely enough, no one’s clamoring to hire someone with an undergraduate degree in philosophy and a 2.38 GPA to be a high-powered anything.”
[Rory] He’s not going to take it away, and she nods slightly. Despite what she’s lived, what she’s survived, how odd she is – she isn’t stupid, she’s just… inexperienced in anything other than what she’s had to learn here – and she’s still learning. Every day. Even though some reactions simply can’t be hidden… only endured.
She’s a champion at enduring.
They speak business, clientele, inspiration, and she simply eats. Slow at first, then hunger takes charge once again.
[Alexa Thanos] “The exposure that day was smart strategy,” she offers him a half smile when she throws him a side look. he already knows this, she’s just complimenting him, “so while they may not be clamoring, I’m sure you’re going to stick it to them with this place.”
Setting down her fork and spoon, she reaches for the beer. The label is turned for her to read what she’s about to drink, and with a quiet pleasure she lifts it to her mouth to take the first sip. It goes down well with the lamb meat and the sauce of the pasta. “Hmmm.” Nodding her approval, she sets it back down on the table again.
“In this country, organic is stylish for those with money.” Long fingers pluck up her cutlery again, ready to finish off the rest of what’s on her plate. “You’ve picked a good location, and I like the… different staff you have. It’s good to see the mold broken.” She noticed all the sorts of staff he had and finds it a pleasant change. Exposure to differences, breaking cultural boundaries. Of course she likes that, even if she doesn’t say it in such words.
“How is your busking going, Kyle?”
[Rory] .
to Rory
[John Brendan Cavanagh] “Hell,” he says, “them? Par for the course in any restaurant kitchen, really. S’only the front of the house where you find the perfectly coiffed, white-bred part-time actors future weather girls. We – ” and that is an expansive term, as he uses it. Meaning not – dudes who own their own restaurants – but (mostly) men who work the line. ” – are a fucked up tribe of misfits, pirates, and would-be brigands. Just that we can filet a trout. And some of us can do it blindfolded.” – a bit of cockiness, a hint of male bluster, there.
A glance at Rory, who is enduring, silent, eating slowly, then with gathering speed. When there’s room on her plate, he serves her more, silently.
“I’m less concerned with organics. Mostly we do that because our customers expect it – it’s more about food that’s fresh and seasonal, using ingredients that are local, when they’re fresh and abundant.” Now, though, that male bluster shifts, into something rather more impassioned. ” – so we work to get at least 75% of what’s on our plates from within 150 miles during the harvest. If we make it a year, I aim to have that up to 90%. So, you support local farmers, drastically reduce your energy footprint, get the food when it tastes the best it possibly can, from local farmers whose fields you can see and whose livestock you can touch.”
[John Brendan Cavanagh] (……..and, once more liz – pumpkin! so it is written!)
[Alexa Thanos] [well then, I think this time a wrap. Alexa can wander off after helping put things away.]
[John Brendan Cavanagh] ( – (what! no more lectures about the moral imperatives of making your own pickles! I HAVE ONE PLANNED :( ahem. That works for me. next time, y’all!) )
[Rory] He serves her more when there is space, and she opens her mouth to say something – snaps it closed, then just softly murmurs “Thank you.” She digs in then, and finishes all that is on the plate, all but licking it clean when she’s done. She listens as they speak, but has nothing to add, as it is far out of her realm of understanding, really. She shakes her head though if he offers her more, offering a shy little smile that is hidden away again.
Once finished, she reaches for her bag, and hefts it, the music box still held against her belly as she stands. She hesitates, and then, with color staining her cheeks, murmurs a thanks again, before turning and making her escape.
He may think it is the last he’ll see of her… and that may be somewhat true. That’s not to say she isn’t around though, as the next morning, on the counter in the kitchen sits the music box – now more than working. It’s cleaned and painted and practically perfect. There’s a note, though it is not in her handwriting, not that he’d know the difference. The message is simple, and clear.
Not barter. Gift. Not payment. Just thanks. Is ok? Need anything from us, Bogeymen will come. -R
She’s around. He’s family, and shockingly enough – she’s the default leader of the Tribe until another comes to lay claim from her.