[Patrick Llewelyn] [Fancy some company, little lady? :) ]
[Izzy Montoya] [YAY!!! Always :)]
[Patrick Llewelyn] [on a scale of 1 to ye gods, how scruffy does Patrick look right now?]
Dice Rolled:[ 1 d10 ] 6
[Izzy Montoya] [nothing to see here!]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 6, 9, 9, 9 (Success x 2 at target 7)
[Izzy Montoya] She is on the job, today, which means – well, nothing different in the realm of who she is. She is always on the job, whether she is currently being paid for it or not. Today, however, she is. Today, she had watching as the last vestiges of a scene was worked, as they bagged and tagged the last bit of evidence, as they wheeled the body up into the meat wagon and head to the morgue with it.
Now she is alone. Alone with the ghosts of a crime, and what it can tell her. Alone with the echoes of what had happened in this room. Echoes only she can hear, only she discovers.
This one… this one was bad. Real bad. So bad that now, as she steps out of the building, and ducks under the tape, her jaw is set, teeth ground shut to keep back the bile. Her spine when she straightens shows tension wound through her shoulders, and her gait is unsteady for a step, than two, before she forces herself to her car. She leans on the front fender, and digs into her pockets for her smokes, her lighter. She lights up with hands that tremble visibly.
She takes that first drag, and just lets her head hang, her free hand rubbing at the back of her neck as she steadies herself again… or attempts too. Some days it simply isn’t that easy.
[Patrick Llewelyn] They say that in the wake of death, you feel more alive than ever.
The sound of your heart, beating in your chest. The feel of clothing rubbing against your skin, the inflation of your lungs as you breathe deep. The way the sunlight makes your eyes sting and you must blink to clear the haze. A myriad of tiny details that add up to one whole — you were still alive, and someone else was not.
There was a gap torn, somewhere, for someone’s father; mother; sister — someone’s brother — in the fabric of their personal universe.
Sometimes death is polite. It’s natural, it’s peaceful. Farewells can be said and understandings reached. But often, death is brutal. Like what Izzy Montoya walks out of; so bad that the very walls seem to still be screaming in reaction to what has taken place within them. So vivid still that the air seems just an extension of the fear and agony. Perhaps these very things are what draws the attention of the Galliard.
Formally of Caldera.
Formally a son of Volcano.
Now just a lone wolf.
Now just a single man, looking quite the wolf even in his human skin at present. He shuffles from the shadowy nook of an alleyway, Prayers to Broken Stone and a glimpse of the moon above tells why that burning presence seems more intense yet. He’s dressed in the same clothing Izzy remembers him in from their last encounter — minus the coat. Tonight it’s that worn out leather jacket of his and it hangs open.
His shirt beneath is creased to abandonment, and his jaw turning into a wilderness that needed taming. It’s the eyes, though, that hold the center-point. They’ve always been a very impractical blue; too bright, too vibrant — tonight they are burning.
“Bum one of those?” It might be startling, the way he just moves out of the darkness, like some unwashed vagrant. The Fianna reeks of alcohol and smoke; of something else, too. Blood, perhaps. The essence of a brawl some time earlier. Some might go so far as to label it what grief smells like.
If you were Fianna.
[Izzy Montoya] For her, the walls do scream. They tell stories, they paint pictures, and the voices are near impossible to silence once she coaxes them to life. No one knows how she does it, how she can find a key piece of evidence everyone missed, how she can decipher who the real culprit is when there are dozens it could be, how she seems to just know what happened and how it went down, then simply finds the right pieces to prove it to everyone else.
No one knows.
(Well, save one or two that hold such privileged information. No one at -work- knows.)
She is unsettled enough that when he appears, her hand goes for her gun, first. recognition comes a split second later, and she amends that reach to slide into her pockets again, and retrieve her pack and lighter. She holds it out to him, as she turns her face to the side slightly to exhale.
Then, “You look like shit.”
[Bridget] There are no words, there is no poetry. The bitter cold air stinging the skin is a reminder of the fragility of life. Kinfolk, not being overly important to the Nation, are easily overlooked for weeks on end, especially if they decide to get lost for weeks on end and there is no one left to look.
The sharp sound of metal rattles down the street. A beer can goes flying along the gutter, preceeding the teetering drunken steps of a young woman. It’s difficult to peg her at first, but the lithe-limbed, half-feral chit is, indeed, the Canadian neither have seen since the gig at Legends. If the eyes were prone to seeing the truth, it may in fact be another girl entirely.
An untame mane of hair falls around her, around a jacket that looks way too thin to be of much use. Stovepipe jeans tucked into unlaced combat boots. The swagger is distinct, undeniable of someone who has had too much. She doesn’t notice the two at first, the only thing capturing her gaze is the yellow caution tape.
There is a cigarette in her hand already, slowly accumulating ashes from neglect. A flick clears them away before the Canadian takes a drag from the ember-lit roll of tobacco. The soft glow casts long shadows over her deadpan expression. For a second, her eyes widen with the intensity of the glow.
A slow turn of her head towards Detective Montoya and the Galliard of her tribe makes her aware of their presence. She doesn’t really seem surprised, in fact her expression doesn’t change in the slightest.
” ‘Ullo.” A greeting is attempted.
[Patrick Llewelyn] The hands that take up the lighter and smokes don’t shake, but the way he looks it seems like they should.
The knuckles are bruised, though. Tinged here and there with the garish blue-purple that suggests enough, in the cold they look substantially worse though the Fianna doesn’t seem to notice them, or apparently, at present, feel much in regards to the temperature. He just lights the cigarette and offers Izzy back her belongings with a bare “thanks”, it is at once a response to her sentiments about his appearance, and giving him a cigarette.
He leans against her car, drops his head forward and smiles through a cloud of smoke.
“I feel fucking fantastic.” It’s sardonic, but then maybe that’s all he can muster. Bridget comes tottering along, then. Kicking beer cans and bringing with her a wave of breeding, and familiarity that has the Galliard’s jaw tightening, briefly. Has those eyes shuttering against the invasion of the moment.
He can’t hide.
What would be the use.
Days of drinking himself blind hadn’t done it, and he very much doubts simple avoidance will make it all better. He’s at least done this once already; so the pain is a familiar, if unwanted presence. He has no idea what it feels like to Bridget — if she already knows. Were Howard present, the news would be dropped now like a pile of dishes; breaking against the floor in an explosion of words.
So guess who kicked it finally? Wait, don’t guess, it’ll ruin your faces.
“Hey, Bridget.” An exhale; he ticks his eyes between the two Kin. “You look like shit. Is it the tribe theme tonight?”
[Izzy Montoya] “Hm.” Is all the answer he gets, as they both know better. Her eyes are dark, and in the limited light seem colorless. She’s well used to hiding what she thinks, what she feels. She didn’t used too. She used to tell them all how much she hated them, how much she hated this, how they’ve ruined her for any of their plans simply by existing in the past, living the future, and forgetting the now.
Forgetting that Kinfolk are different. That Kinfolk are their own persons, with rights and responsibilities and feelings and emotions, and wants and needs. They FORGET until they deem Kinfolk necessary. For a fuck. For a kid. For an alibi. It is, always, all about them.
Izzy is very much all about herself. Fuck them. (sometimes literally, but mostly not.)
She watches Bridget, watches Patrick’s reaction to her as she comes near. Then snorts softly at his less than half hearted quip. “Glad I’m not one of you, then.”
[Bridget] They may have had days to deal with the news. Patrick has had a moment to deal with the heartache, the rage, the pain. To Bridget, the news is fresh, the wound given merely hours ago. The haze of alcohol is thick on her brain. Patrick tells her she looks like shit. He looks like shit himself. Normally, she’d pretend to be offended or raise an objection. Her expression is entirely deadpan. It’s almost like staring back at Howard’s sunglasses, only Bridget has nothing smartass to say, no stupid grin to contribute to the crowd’s irritation.
The slow, heavy blink replies to the Detective’s quip. That’s as close as it comes to a reaction. The young woman sways a bit on her feet.
“Tribe,” she scoffs bitterly, at last.
[Patrick Llewelyn] Were he to know more intimately Izzy’s feelings about his kind, he’d probably say fucking amen and toast her with a pint of beer. But, he doesn’t know much more about the Detective than this: she has good choice in cigarettes, can stomach some of the grossest shit mankind can offer in the way of death and seems, on the whole, the type of woman who would shoot him just for pissing her off.
He’s met only one another redhead that he thinks would join her in doing so, if push came to shove.
But that is neither here nor there; right now, Patrick fumbles inside his jacket for a moment and withdraws a flask; twisting off the cap and taking a swig from it. The aroma of whiskey is strong and he offers it out to Izzy with raised eyebrows. “Put some hairs on your chest.”
Bridget is weaving; she’s a hurricane of anguish and anger — she’s Patrick, a day ago. She’s Patrick feeling his totemic bond to his brother snap, and losing complete control. For a moment — he’s remembering an alleyway; blood; screaming; incoherent noises of rage and painting bricks red — but its gone in a blink. He isn’t angry any more.
At least, not the same way.
Tribe, she scoffs and he holds the flask out to her, in turn.
“What’s your problem?” He invests little manner in the question; it’s callous. Perhaps Patrick isn’t given to mind, tonight.
[Izzy Montoya] She would definitely shoot him just for pissing her off.
She drops her eyes to the flask than back up again, before she reaches for it with a snort. “I don’t need hair on my chest. My tits are fuckin’ awesome just as they are.” But that doesn’t stop her from drinking, does it? Oh no. She takes a healthy swig and offers it back, as he watches Bridget.
She scoffs, and Izzy hides a smirk behind another drag off her cigarette.
[Bridget] Soon enough, Bridget may be among those like Izzy and Imogen. Izzy replies in kind to Patrick’s quip. Once the flask is offered to her, she grabs it up and takes another swig before pushing it to Patrick.
” ‘s wrong is he fucgin,” Bridget sways a little, revealing the extent of her stupor. “I dun’ understand wha-”
She stops, clearly flustered and unable to articulate what it is she’s trying to express.
[Patrick Llewelyn] The Galliard’s blue eyes flick to Izzy’s chest; then crawl to her face. There’s a beat, and he lifts the cigarette to his mouth. “I can’t fault you there,” he says.
What is wrong with him.
The thing about Patrick was — even at his worst, there is restraint to him, to the way he speaks, to the fact that despite his remark to Izzy, he isn’t outwardly leering at her. She says her tits are awesome and he clearly agrees with the sentiment. There’s no polite ignorance of the remark, but he doesn’t make a big deal of it.
That was perhaps the difference between the living member of Caldera — and the dead.
Bridget garbles out something about a he and pushes his flask back at him. There’s a spark, then. A flicker of reaction from the Galliard. It’s contained in his voice, it’s fed by the light of the orb hanging in the sky above them, dusted with cloud cover. “You heard, then.”
He runs his eyes over her form, his mouth thinning; brows contracting.
“That what this is. You getting wasted because my pack-mate is dead?” His voice is as flat as its ever seemed.
[Izzy Montoya] When his eyes find hers again, she’s got a brow cocked, and a little knowing smirk sliding across her lips. “Course ya can’t.”
Then something clicks, and Patrick realizes what’s gotten Bridget into her drunk, which is the same that’s gotten him into his funk, though not at all the same really, is it? She has nothing to add, as she had barely met the man, and he had a deathwish even then.
So she does something few believe her capable of: she keeps her damn mouth shut.
[Bridget] Bridget’s glazed, brown eyes raise to meet those of burning blue without a trace of fear. It’s not really that the Rage doesn’t affect her, she’s just too far down, too far gone. The words that come out of her mouth.
“Ydych chi’n gofalu.” If he can make sense of what she says at all, Patrick can probably assume she means to ask if why he should care if she’s a drunken mess.
“I jus–” she takes a deep breath and shakes her head. “Fuck.”
[Bridget] [-if]
[Patrick Llewelyn] She answers him in Welsh, meets his gaze with the courage of the drunk and there’s a snort from Patrick. Smoke trails from his lips that suited so much, a former son of Volcano. “Do I care?” He echoes her in English, his voice tempered despite the sparks thrown by his Rage.
“No, honestly, I don’t care that much, Bridget. You and Howard, you had your thing,” he gestures at her, up and down with the flask. “You want to mourn him, you feel free. Just don’t make him someone else in your head now he’s gone. He wouldn’t have given two fucks if you were sad he was gone.
Why?
Because that was Howard. That was my –,” there’s a shake in his throat, he breaks off, grimacing, casting off the thought with his hand and draws deep another inhale of smoke. Hooks a glance at the Fenrir, oddly silent beside him. “You got long to go here? Wanna go somewhere?”
[Izzy Montoya] She doesn’t hide the fact that she watches, that she listens. She’s a Detective – and she’s paid to be aware, to notice the little details, to see what others don’t, can’t or won’t. She doesn’t interrupt, not even when he tells the girl he doesn’t care.
When he turns to her though, and asks the question, that brow arches just slightly, again. Then she nods. “I’m done here.” All that’s left is the reams of paperwork, the investigation that will tell her things she already knows, and to catch the asshole that did it.
A beat, and then a slight lift at the corner of her lips. “Yeah, sure” She finishes the last of her cigarette, and flicks the butt into the gutter to die a sputtering death. “Get in.”
[Bridget] Already, she’s being abandoned to her drunkenness. And honestly, she’s fine with that. But she does have one thing to say before she wanders off in a huff.
“Not yer fuckin… toys. Ta fuck and toy with an’ makeuss care then leave. Fuckin’ sick of this bullshet.”
She doesn’t say it to his face, but the mumbling is clear. She offers a wave to them before she starts teetering off into the grimy street to her own sorrows.
[Patrick Llewelyn] The problem, of course, when you say things and assume that someone won’t react to them is that every now and then — be it because of the moon phase, or the time of the month or simply a bad mood — someone will call you to account for it. Like presently.
Izzy flicks away her cigarette, and tells him to get in and he takes a final drag from his own, as Bridget mutters about being used as a toy and starts to toddle off. Sometimes about it gets beneath the Galliard’s skin like sand into a fresh cut. It irritates and he says, not altogether kindly: “Stop letting yourself be a toy then, Bridget. It’s a god damn two way street.”
A beat, his eyes burn on her departing back for a moment before he casts away his butt and opens the passenger side door to slide into the Fenrir’s car. He slams it, and scruffs a hand over his head. “Can we just go … anywhere, that isn’t here.”
[Bridget] The return gesture is a bitter laugh from the drunk, who follows it by spitting onto the pavement. She shouts back something in French, just two words that aren’t exactly kind. Patrick made something perfectly clear to the girl. She isn’t welcome. So they head off while Bridget teeters down the street to whatever Fate has in store for her.
[Izzy Montoya] She flicks a glance toward Bridget as she spouts off, and mumbles about being a toy, and how sick she is of it. The muscle at her jaw tenses, tightens, and then releases as she pushes up from the fender of the car, and moves around the drivers side and gets in. She starts the engine, and the roar suggests it’s not exactly stock, despite being police issue – unmarked, of course – and then she reaches for the radio. A few moments and she’s checked in, and checked out for the evening. She’s on call, as always, but for the most part, she’s done for the night.
Anywhere that isn’t here. She nods. “Got a full stocked bar at my place, with take out. Complete with xbox, and as little conversation as you are comfortable with.” A beat. “Suits?”
She’s already pulling into traffic, and proving that she holds a casual disregard for traffic rules as she does so.
[Patrick Llewelyn] At a later point in time, when he is not half drunk and not mourning the death of his best friend — he may feel regret for what he just said to the Kinswoman. He, who held himself to be so fair to them; who demanded that they be treated with the same damn respect as his own sort, just because they didn’t erupt into hairy beasts, he’d argued once to his brother, doesn’t mean they aren’t as capable.
Izzy would know just how much, given her line of work.
His eyes are closed as the Detective pulls away from the crime scene, as she checks in with the station and clocks out for the night. She suggests her own place and he says, without opening them — “Sounds good.” He retreats then, Prayers to Broken Stone as he so often does, behind a wall of silence. It is not entirely brutish, he does not force his presence on the world with it, but merely rests from it a moment, lifting one hand after a beat and rubbing at his brow with bruised knuckles.
So close, confined to a vehicle he smells, frankly, quite ripe.
Too much time around drunks at a bar, too many cigarettes; fighting; killing.
“How long you been doing what you do?” He says abruptly, from nowhere. His eyes have opened, and he’s no longer slouching over, but staring out the window, an arm resting on the sill.
[Izzy Montoya] He agrees her place is a viable option, and she nods, and heads in that direction. She drives negligently, or so it seems. She didn’t bother with her seatbelt, she didn’t bother with the radio, or checking the mirrors, or doing anything one would assume a responsible adult – and cop – would do. No, she drives too fast, she barely stops at the stop signs, speeds up on yellow… in fact, she seems to barely be paying attention at all.
She is, of course. Appearances can be deceiving. So can invitations – a year ago, when she’d first arrived back in Chicago, there would be no doubt that he’d end up showered, shaved an in her bed by the morning. Somewhere, some Fenrir takes credit for the fact that she hasn’t done that in some time, that she’s ‘respectable’ in the eyes of Fenris. Somewhere, that same Fenrir could be roasting in hell for all she cares – her actions have never had anything to do with him, even when he had her chained down. There’s no telling what will happen tonight – if anything at all, other than playing Halo, and getting drunk.
Patrick is quiet and then suddenly asks a question, and she flicks a glance over his direction, then back to the road. “Over a decade. Started at CPD, got Detective, got demoted and went to Florida, got promoted and came home.” There are, of course, a whole bunch of steps in between, too. But she doesn’t go into them. There’s a sense she’ll answer questions when asked, but not before.
[Patrick Llewelyn] He isn’t asking to make smalltalk, or maybe he is, who knew but at least he focuses on her face as she answers — she can feel when he is purely by lieu of how potent his presence is tonight. Any other and he’d deliberately keep himself focused on looking at anything but her. People have questioned him before on why he’s so cowardly as to avoid meeting their gaze.
They are usually Garou, doing so.
They seem to forgo noting he only does it with Kinfolk.
He’s running his palm over the lining on her door while she drives, and there’s a space of silence between her answer and any more conversation from Patrick. He opens her glove compartment, closes it. Tests out her window, rolling it down and then winding it back up. It’s distracting, but it’s also the tell of his own profession — outside of full time Garou. He knows cars, at least enough that he’s absorbing Izzy’s running his eyes over the interior with the most interest outside of her chest he’s shown so far tonight.
“These standard on the force? It’s not in bad condition.” She speeds through an orange light, and the Fianna’s lip curls. “Though you keep taking corners like that, your suspension will be shot.”
He fits his arm up, fingers against the top most point of the window pane. “You must dig it, then. Most people run the other way from death.” He glances out the window, adding in: “Or else they pretend they don’t even see it.”
[Izzy Montoya] She can feel he watches her as she answers. She flicks a glance his way once, maybe twice, but it is not with fear, or uneasiness on her part. She looks everyone in the eye. Especially Garou. It often gets their dander up – she doesn’t care. It’s a sign of respect that she demands – she be able to look the child in the eye that is trying to tell her how she will live her life.
[bitter, party of one]
He’s checking out her car, and she chuckles as he asks if it’s standard. “It started out standard. Then I pulled in a few favors.” He curls his lip, and she does the unthinkable – she lets loose a huff of amusement. It’s not exactly a laugh, but it might grow up to be one someday. “Then I’ll call in another favor.”
She must dig her job, he says, others run from death. She doesn’t answer right away, as it’s not exactly something she thinks about – the whys, the hows, anything other than doing her job, day in and day out, pulling extra hours when needed, living breathing being part of the force.
“I’m good at it.” is what she says, in the end. “Really fuckin’ good. And it puts me in a position where I’ve a bit of leverage with the Nation. I’m valuable where I am – which means, for the most part, they leave me the fuck alone about the rest of their expectations.” Honesty, in that. She has no intention of playing pretty little purebred wife and babymaker to anyone.
[Patrick Llewelyn] “I love cars.”
He’s laying his head back against the rest, and stretches out his legs a little, as far as the space beneath the chair allows. Patrick was not the tallest Garou ever created, his brother had had at least a few inches on him but there is enough of him to find that his legs cramp in cars if he cannot stretch them occasionally. He was built like a quarterback, Patrick; all lean lines and broad shoulders.
His strength was in his size, however, he was not the most graceful of creatures at the best of times. Which was amusing to some, including himself, when you thought about his auspice and what it was supposed to mean about him. “I mean – ” His face is criss-crossed with shadow and light as they pass storefronts and lights, other cars and late night pedestrians. There is an ease, here. He does not feel pressure from the Fenrir to be any one version of himself.
Stripped bare, he is simply Patrick; he is simply Prayers to Broken Stone.
Who has lost his brother, and wants to forget about it for a time.
She can get that, there is little doubt about why he asked her to take him anywhere.
“I’m good at them, like you’re good at being a Detective. I understand how they work. I can take one apart and I can find where its broken.” A beat. “I can fix them, make them run better. Make them better in general.” There’s a sense, somewhere in here, that he means more than he says. That he wishes he could fix other aspects of the world, too and not just motors.
“The Nation, I can’t fucking fix. I don’t get it. I take it apart in my head and it’s all backwards, y’know,” he glances at Izzy to see if she’s even listening. He assumes she is, for he carries on. “Howard and me, we didn’t fix into their version. We were incompatible pieces. What they expect of us, all of us,” he apparently includes Izzy in this.
“It’s fucked up. But somehow, when it was Howard and me it was as if we could exist outside of that. We could still … be. Now it’s just me and I’m not even a part anymore. I’m just some tiny screw come loose. And even if I can make myself fit somewhere.”
He frowns. “I don’t know if it’s worth it.”
[Izzy Montoya] She is listening. For those that know her only by her mouth – foul and disrespectful and loud – think she doesn’t know how to listen. They’d be wrong. She does know how, and does it well. There are few detectives that can get confessions faster than she can, few that can really listen and get the smallest details that are offered, and get them right. She listens, and she listens well.
He likes cars, and h wants to fix more than the car – fix the Nation.
THis is something she gets, something she understands, as well. “I get that.” She does. “I had that with J..” She stops, and she clears her throat. She has had so much happen, so much loss and pain. And this one isn’t even the fault of the nation.
“John. With John.” There. She doesn’t say anything else, for a moment. She concentrates instead on pulling into the lot by her building, and parking into her spot. She leans forward and turns off the car, then settles back in her seat.
“I work in a field that has a high suicide rate, because no matter what we do, there’s always another psycho waiting in the wings. No matter how hard we work, there’s always more to do. It mirrors the Nation in a way that’s unsettling if I think about it. And I can’t tell you it’s worth it, because I don’t know that it is. I just know that it’s what we do, and we do what we can.”
She drags her fingers through her hair, and then looks over at him, fully. She meets his gaze without flinching, without lowering her gaze. “I can’t tell you it’s worth it, because I don’t know. I can’t even help you fit – because I’m as much an outcast as anyone. But I can do this…”
She pauses, and then the corner of her lips curves into the slightest of grins. “Get you inside, into the shower. Fill your belly, and kick your fuckin’ ass at Halo. Because time with me? Is always fuckin’ worth it.”
Confident bitch, isn’t she?
[Patrick Llewelyn] [And stop! It’s pause time. *MCHammer beat*]
[Patrick Llewelyn] She is listening.
Patrick does not tend to assume that because a person acts a certain way in the public eye that they are incapable of doing so. Really, given that his Alpha had been a loudmouthed lout almost 99% of the time he was around others, how could he ever think so. He would not have gotten in Izzy’s car, and let her drive him to her apartment, if he did not believe, somewhere within himself, that she understood.
That she would listen.
A schism of pain flickers into the Fenrir’s voice; skitters over her features when she speaks of someone called John. The Galliard is watching her, looking up at the building whose shadow they’ve pulled up to and then returning to her as she tells him of her field’s high suicide rate — there’s a thinning of his lips at that word and some part of Patrick shies from it; knows it too well — and that she can’t tell him how he feels is wrong.
She can’t fix his problems.
She can get him into the shower.
There’s a glance across at her face in the soft light of the car that suggests he finds the possibilities there entertaining — it’s on the tip of his tongue to say something leering and crass, something that he has very little doubt Howard would have done already by this point and been unceremoniously dumped on the pavement outside — probably while the car was still in motion. Instead, he curls his lip, and jerks his head toward her apartment, wherever it lay within.
“Yeah? Let’s do it.”
He uncurls himself from the seat; and as he peels away out of the car; fresh air rushes in to replace the space obliterated by the Cliath’s Rage. The reprieve will not last, however, as Patrick at her back as they walk is a force of nature; unnatural nature but a force to be felt none the less.
“You got any beer?”
Fianna.
[Izzy Montoya] She can see the possibility of something leering and crass as it dances briefly across his features, and she arches a brow, slightly. Daring. That he chooses to not say it brings her smirk back to life, slipping across her lips, the expression comfortable, natural. He gets out of the car, and she takes a breath of the sudden lack of rage, only to step right into it again. Having her at her back does perhaps a bit – that she allows it shows him some measure of trust for all they hardly know each other. She can feel the heat of him crawl along her spine, settling in a knot at her lower back, the pressure there the same that triggers the flight response in one less controlled.
She is always controlled.
[…almost…]
Does she have any beer? “A full fuckin’ bar. And good beer.” She leads the way to the lobby, and then does something she doesn’t explain – she bypasses the elevator and heads straight for the stairs. Someone steps from the elevator, so it obviously works, but it doesn’t stop her. She pushes open the door to the stairs, and heads up. and up. and up. Three stories up.
Finally, she opens the door to the 3rd floor hallway, and makes her way to 3C. She pulls her keys from her pocket, unlocks the door, and pushes it open. “Make yourself at home.” She leads the way in, leaving the door to him to close. She makes her way to the small room she uses as a coat closet, and hangs up her coat – and disarms. Her keys and badge go into a dish on the top of the dresser, the gun from the holster at the small of her back into the top drawer, joined soon enough by the second weapon from around her ankle. She kicks off her shoes and sets them to the side, before turning back to face him.
“Beer or shower first? Or both…” Said with a smirk that’s dangerously close to an actual smile.
[Patrick Llewelyn] The woman emerging from the elevator startles at the sight of the Fianna. It’s nothing she can control, she just stops a little suddenly and stares at Patrick Llewelyn as he crosses the lobby floor, his hands dug into worn leather pockets. An attractive guy [even if he did currently look like the worst sort of unshaven hipster] tonight he simply feels too much like danger and run away from.
The instinct to avoid him is powerful, and he flits his eyes toward the female with a clenched jaw; ducks his head and moves faster in Izzy’s wake. Up the stairs to the third floor and there are thankfully few of her neighbors around to witness her inviting that kid with the serial killer eyes into her apartment or one of them might have considered calling the po– oh right. Perhaps they’d just have made sure to slide the chain across, in the end.
Make yourself at home.
The Detective makes a beeline for her coat closet and the Garou lingers for a moment, taking in the space before he trails in her wake and takes to leaning with crossed arms against the door-frame as she disarms. His eyes follow each piece as it appears from its position of concealment with raised eyebrows. Patrick is biting, idly, at the edge of his nail as she turns with a suggestion of amusement in his voice.
“I’ve never seen a girl with that many guns.” He straightens, fingers dropping away. “Impressive.”
Then it’s the decision between beer or shower or did he plan to try and juggle both and he backs away from the coat-room, shrugging off his jacket. The navy shirt beneath is a creased humiliation of what was once a nicely tailored dress shirt. “You’ll never invite me around again if I rub my stench into your furniture.”
He’s unbuttoning the shirt as he speaks, dragging the ends out and revealing the slightly cleaner wife-beater beneath. “Point me at the shower, Detective.”
[Izzy Montoya] She snorts. “You should see my closet then.” As these are just what she carries at work. And at all other times. Even dates – assuming she ever had time or inclination to go on them anymore. “If you’re lucky I’ll show you my diamond studded thigh holster.” She might be kidding. Probably not.
She turns, and watches him as he shrugs from his jacket, and unbuttons his shirt. She doesn’t try to hide that she watches, or be coy about it at all. She simply… does. It’s been a while since she’s brought a Garou home. It’s been a while since she brought anyone home.
“Already angling for a second visit. Confident, aren’t you?” Said the pot to the kettle… she moves past him to cross to the short hallway, and the bathroom. She steps into it and pulls out some fresh towels from the cupboard, and sets them on the edge of the sink. “I’ll find you something to wear while we burn…er, wash those.”
[Patrick Llewelyn] She doesn’t hide that she watches as he drags off layers of clothing with bruised hands and the Galliard doesn’t seem in the slightest abashed as he pulls his wife-beater over his head and turns to set a pile of less than hygienically sound clothing on the floor. Much as she’d expect from a Garou his age, Patrick was not without scarring. His chest was blessedly free but as he twisted and gave her the sight of his broad shoulders and lower back she can see the traces of fights drawn there.
The skin was paler, wounds that no stitching could mend dealt that had, in fact, killed him. Judging from his back alone, he’d been dead at least twice already and he wasn’t even into his twenty-forth year of life — perhaps it went a little toward explaining his expression at the mention of the word suicide, toward defining why he seemed to hate the Nation he’d evidently already given his life for.
His right shoulder bore a black dragon; it reared back on its hind legs and a line of fire emitted from its jaws. Closer inspection would reveal words beneath it, some foreign dialect. Given his tribe, it was easy enough to assume Gaelic, perhaps.
He chuckled; a huff of amusement when she informs him he’s confident, and rubs a palm through his hair when she sets towels on the sink and informs him they’ll burn — no wait, wash — his clothes. “Better not,” he says with open honesty, standing in front of a near stranger shirtless and now sans his shoes. “I only own two pairs of jeans and one of are dedicated.
Sure the Sept would love me even more if I showed up naked after a fight.”
[Izzy Montoya] Her jaw tightens when she sees the scars. She is not without her own, though she hasn’t the luxury of dying to get them, of reviving back to life. She traces the lines of them with her eyes, dark gaze sliding over his skin with unabashed ease. She is not without her own scars, of course, physical and otherwise – though her’s remain covered, hidden away both under clothing and years of practice. It takes more than a shirtless beast to get her to divulge the secrets etched into her skin.
Her gaze lingers on the tattoo a moment, and arches a brow, curiosity leading her to ask, “What’s it say?” before she even realizes she intended to do so.
He gives her a reason to wash instead of destroy, and she indulges in a huff of amusement, wry. “Only because the Sept has a habit of desiring that which they can’t have.”
There’s something there, some trial, something that she’s endured for far longer than his 24 years. She doesn’t clarify, she doesn’t explain. If he wants to know, he’ll ask. She offers nothing, and tells even less. Though she does tell him this, as she grabs the clothing he’s already dropped, then gestures toward the jeans in question. “Off with’em.”
[Patrick Llewelyn] It’s funny how often in the last few days he’s felt the urge to speak on Howard’s behalf, for the thoughts and opinions he will never again voice. Patrick knows, can almost see his Alpha in the corner of his eye, rocking back on skinny heels in some mismatching outfit; sunglasses obscuring all but the crawl of bushy eyebrows upward into the tangle of curls that doubled as Howard’s head of hair.
All some elaborate ruse to get your pants off, Trick. Shoulda know, it’s always the gun-wielding females.
He does lift an eyebrow when she says the Sept has a habit of desiring what it can’t have, but there’s no comment forthcoming about it. He unzips the scuffed and torn denim and stamps them down his legs, answering her query about his tattoo as he does; something quieter about the words, as he says them aloud in Welsh. “Til ‘r Darfod translates to ’til the end’, or ‘until the end’,” he straightens, bearing down on her with his jeans.
He stares at her with an intent blue gaze.
“My family all have it, it’s tradition when you turn.” Patrick looks, for a moment as if he wants to say something else, but the moment passes and he instead pulls away, standing in Izzy Montoya’s bathroom in a pair of black boxers. Some women would be blushing — some Garou would be humiliated.
Patrick merely raises an arm, and scratches at his bicep.
“Crack open the beer, I’ll just wash the last three days off my skin.” He sounds like he wishes he could do more than that.
[Izzy Montoya] Some women would be blushing. She does not.
In fact, she meets his gaze evenly, without flinching, withstanding the intensity and holding onto it with her own. His eyes are blue, vibrant, brilliant, burning blue, while her’s are brown. Her’s too, however, burn with something, some fire that is stoked within, that keeps her moving, keeps her trying, keeps her going. She has no rage, but the way she accepts his, withstands it, burns with it is a power in itself.
Some women would be terrified. She is not.
He looks like he wants to say something else, and she gives him that moment. It passes, and she lets it. She does not push, she does not expect anything other than what he wants to offer. He tells her to crack open the beer, and she nods, finally breaking that gaze, and turns away. “Take your time.”
Unless he says something else, she steps from the bathroom, and goes to the kitchen, where the washer and dryer are hidden away in a closet. She takes a breath, and then starts his laundry, part of her irritated that she’s doing what she always hated – taking care of one of them, even if it IS only laundry and it IS to protect her furnishings, and it IS… aw hell. Who cares what it is. She starts his laundry, and then makes her way back down the hall to her room.
From a drawer there, she pulls out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. She holds them a minute, running her fingers over the material in a lone moment of indulgence. It doesn’t last long, and slams the door shut and moves back down the hall, stepping into the bathroom to set the clothing by the towels.
She doesn’t even peek.
She does, however, head to crack open those beers.
[Patrick Llewelyn] She could have peeked, but really, what would she see that she hasn’t before? Fit guy, if he were human he’d be about perfect one supposed; if broad-shouldered Welshman were your thing. Patrick was built like a footballer, his strength in his quads and his arms; his back frequently used as a sort of battering ram in combat.
It made sense, then, that it was where most of his scars lay.
True to his word he does not take long in the shower and when he emerges from it; he seems somewhat more humanized with his blond hair spiked into wet peaks and his person no longer bearing with it the rather uncomfortable aroma of beer and cigarettes. Now he smells like Izzy’s brand of shampoo; her soap. He has neglected to shave — maybe he thinks shaving over her sink is a little too invasive.
It would definitely be presumptuous.
Because he did not come to her place on the basis of her taking care of his needs; he is looking for solace. Dressed in the donated sweats and shirt, the Galliard tugs absently at the side of the material. “Thanks, for the loaners.” That they clearly belonged to this John, he doesn’t doubt. Though he doesn’t question it, either.
Not a man of many questions — another oddity of his compared to most of his ilk — he sinks down gratefully onto the nearest sofa and tilts back his head. “I like your place,” he notes when he finally opens his eyes again, and rubs water out of his ear. For all his smothering Rage, when he wasn’t trying to be the Cliath could be decent enough company.
He didn’t push.
It didn’t look to be his style, unlike what many remembered of his pack-mate. Patrick had been the quieter, more thoughtful half of Caldera, often swallowed by the sheer magnitude of his Theurge friend. But that had always been the way, and now alone, the Fiann was trying to recall that he did not have his brother to let lead conversation now.
He had to make his own way.
[Izzy Montoya] When he exits the shower, she’s dressed down a bit more herself. Her slacks have been exchanged for a pair of shorts, her blouse for a tank top. It’s warm in her apartment, warmer still with him here. This is the Izzy few see: Comfortable in her own skin, her own place. Relaxed – to a certain extent, as she never will be completely so with someone else here – at ease. There’s a pack of cigarettes and lighter on the coffee table, along with his beer. Her own is cradled against her belly as she flips channels on the television, bare feet propped up on the coffee table.
She looks up as he joins her, and gives him a slow once over. There’s a sound at the back of her throat, approval maybe. “Better.” Definitely. He thanks her, and she lifts her beer toward him slightly in acceptance. He knows they must be Johns, though he doesn’t know anything about the man, where he is, who he is to her. He doesn’t ask. She doesn’t tell.
“Thanks. Don’t spend much time here, but well, it’s home.” She nods toward the tv, which comes fully equipped with several games [first person shooters for the most part, of course] for the xbox underneath it, as well as DVDs stacked on the player. She’s got an eclectic collection of those that would make any man proud – not a chick flick to be seen.
“Pick your poison.”
[Patrick Llewelyn] Pick your poison.
“I gotta pick just one?” He queries, as he leans forward to partake of the beer, and slide a cigarette out of the packet laying there. He lights it, cupping a hand over the flame and then sits back again; his eyebrows rising at the sight of her sweet little set-up. For a moment, all the options baffle him and then the Fianna gestures at the xbox with a burning cigarette smoldering between his fingertips.
“The last time we played one of those, Howard kicked my ass at some Mortal Kombat style game.” There’s a twinge of sadness he tries to deflect with humor; with a swallow of beer. “Turned out he was only good at combat in game form, the idiot.” There’s a feeling of danger, here. Patrick is casting aspersions on the newly dead — but they had been pack. Wolves. It was not uncommon for the Galliard and Theurge to call one another names.
God knew they’d done so in public numerous times.
But there was a difference, there was, between it coming from a grieving partner, and from anyone else’s lips. Maybe that explained his behavior earlier toward Bridget. She was reeling Howard’s death, too, in her own way. Patrick’s reaction to her was a tell of jealous self protection.
He was not ready for her to be missing Howard.
[Izzy Montoya] Does he have to pick just one… She smirks, and lets loose a sound that’s suspiciously like laughter – brief and unformed, but existing. “Not necessarily.”
He gestures to the xbox, and she nods, bare feet hitting the floor, the beer set lightly on the coffee table as she moves across the living room to shuffle through her games. He keeps talking, he tells her about Howard and how he got his ass kicked, and he was only good at the games. He talks, and she listens. This is his grief, this is his raw agony, his pain. Pack is closer than anything she’s ever experienced, its a spiritual and constant connection that kinfolk simply cannot understand. One man has seen the very core of her – and even then, it’s not the same. Its not what they have.
Her loss almost pales in comparison. Fortunately, it is not a competition.
So she does what she promised. Listens, and gets ready to kick his ass in a game. She puts it in without telling him what it is, retakes her seat, and hands him a controller. Howard kicked his ass at Mortal Kombat. She’s about to take him on with…
Lego Indiana Jones.
Really.
Her lips curl into something more of a grin than a smirk as she tips back her beer for a healthy swig. “Maybe this is more your style then.”
[Patrick Llewelyn] She puts the game in without telling Patrick what it is and hands him a controller, sitting back down. The young songwriter takes it up in both hands; freeing one by sticking the cigarette between his lips. The screen lights up, and the words Lego Indiana Jones flash across it.
Izzy can feel the vibration as the Rage-heavy Garou beside her flicks her a side-long glance.
“It’s like you know me already,” he quips and exhales a trail of smoke from his lips. He leans over, tapping ash into the tray as the game starts. “Now what does — oh shit.” Prayers to Broken Stone fumbles with the remote, and starts wildly tapping the buttons; no doubt sending his character into some ridiculous sort of dance.
“That’s playing dirty.” He comments at one point, and bends his body over the control, hunkering down and peering at the TV set as if to somehow better his ability.
Good luck, Llewelyn.
[Izzy Montoya] She has the same kind of lazy attention to the game as she does to her driving – it’s automatic, it’s clearly something she’s played before, though not as often as she does the shooters. At least in this he has something of a chance. Not a BIG one, but at least one that exists. He crunches over, and at one point she plays with one hand and takes a drink of her beer. He concentrates, and she remains relaxed and easy, though her fingers work the buttons with dexterous ease.
Xbox is clearly her favorite relaxation activity.
…well. Second favorite. This is just the one she’s had most practice at lately.
Then, he comments that she’s playing dirty at one point, and she does the unthinkable in front of someone she hardly knows…. she laughs. “It’s like you know me already.” she returns his quip, and even nudges his fleece clad knee with her bare one.
[Patrick Llewelyn] She does the unthinkable, and laughs.
The Fianna beside her is glowering at the TV screen, his Rage at so far losing should be enough to frighten Izzy right out of her own living room; but it’s the fact that his lip is threatening a smile at the same time; despite his agitation that stops it being an out-right threat. “It’s not funny,” he protests, and jerks a hand toward the screen.
“He’s not acting right, I think we should re-start.”
Then, he does what you’d expect from any just-out-of-his-teens male playing a video game against a girl; he distracts her in the midst of the game by leaning into her personal space and nudging her with his shoulder. It’s as much of a tease as it is a competitive spark; igniting in the man. He hasn’t felt this light hearted in days — for right now, a video game and companionship that asks little of him in return is keeping his ghosts at bay.
[Izzy Montoya] He nudges her with his shoulder, and she stutters a protest as he almost spills her beer – “Party Foul!” but she’s laughing again, as she leans forward to put the bottle on the table, and when she leans back, she’s distractingly close to him, closer than before.
“Of course he’s not acting right – you gotta hit A B Up Up Down Down Right Left Up B!” She’s speaking jibberish on purpose, distracting him with nonsense as she thoroughly kicks his ass. His rage is sparked in the competition, but it’s with a threatened smile. He is alive, and he is enjoying himself, and in turn – though she’d likely never admit it if pressed – so is she.
She settles next to him again, warm thigh against his, her shoulder against his arm, her grip on the controller still light and easy while he near pummels his to death in attempt to get his little man to do what he wants it too…
[…heh.]
“I could go rent Teletubbies if this is too difficult for you…”
[Patrick Llewelyn] Izzy gets to about I could go rent Teletubbies — before Patrick; forgoing his battle to work out the right sequence in which to smack the buttons to make them work says right! and ceremoniously sets both controller and beer down in favor of turning and snatching at the Kinwoman’s own controller.
“Give me that, there’s clearly some kind of rigged attachment to it, let me take it apart and see — ”
She’s settled next to him, so there’s really little distance to close before they’re tangled up on the sofa; one Garou and a Kinfolk, wrestling for control of the remote while the ridiculously bright and cheery game music plays on behind them. Patrick was a big guy, but for all that he could be surprisingly gentle when the occasion called for it.
His palm locks around a wrist firmly; his skin cracked and rough from days spent doing what he does and he bears over the Detective; a wild combination of Rage, smoke and beer — pretty well what he’s been smelling like for days.
At least he’s cleaner now.
[Izzy Montoya] To her credit, she doesn’t yelp when he grabs for her controller, merely holds it out of reach, while still pushing buttons that keep her Indy in motion, even as he goes about tangling her up on the sofa. Her moment of laughter before, turns into more of the same as he wrestles for control of the remote. He’s a big guy, but gentle. She’s not big at all, and can fight like a hellcat when the situation calls for it.
This is just play.
He wraps her wrist up in his palm, and she pulls against it, which somehow in their tangle only manages to push her closer to him. He’s cleaner now, and close. Much closer than she’s been to than anyone in months. He smells like smoke and beer […all that’s missing is gun oil and…] and her shampoo and soap. She smells like history and heroes, Viking purity wrestling with some lotion that smells vaguely like coconut, and warmth and heat and most decidedly not fear.
She doesn’t push. She hasn’t all this time. In fact he could sit back and clear his throat and decide that he needs another beer, another smoke, or the goddamn teletubbies at any moment. But she lets him know that she won’t push him away with a subtle nudge: the leg that was pushing him away in play, shifts focus to pull him just a hitch closer instead as he bears over her.
Even though she’s still trying to keep that controller out of his reach.
[Patrick Llewelyn] Neither of the two souls in this apartment expect anything from the other.
Izzy is aware, perhaps, of the attraction that exists between them. That Patrick desires her on a very base, human level is clear. He has never sought to all this time disguise that he would willingly have sex with her; he has simply not acted upon that want until now. As a matter of fact, there are several Kinfolk he has met, even Garou, that peaked his interest.
But either because he was still grieving the loss of his first Alpha, or was simply preoccupied with a new city, a new job and ensuring Howard stayed out of mischief — this is the first occasion where his needs and his wants can be, and will be put first. She reciprocates, the Fenrir, her body shifting enough to fit his larger bulk above it; perhaps a thigh curling up; a knee accepting of his weight against it. He is bearing her down into the soft cushions; one hand wrapped around a deceivingly small wrist and the other at the side of the sofa.
He stills; as she laughs and fights him; he stills and inhales her perfume; her breeding. His eyes are suddenly brighter; his Rage not the only thing to be hotter. The hand on the edge of the sofa moves first and slides over her cheek; brushes hair from her neck. Tactile sensation, and Patrick leans closer, closing his as a breath rattles through him.
His entire body acutely aware of this moment.
He mouth brushes her chin, the corner of her jaw, before it finds her mouth.
The quest for the controller, apparently forgotten in the distraction of another want; another need.
[Izzy Montoya] He stills, for a moment, and she notes the change. His eyes are brighter, his Rage burning across her senses, other more basic temperatures rising… he moves his hand and she falls very, very still and waits. His touch slides over her cheek, he pushes the hair from her neck, and her breath catches in reaction. She has hidden nothing from him tonight, and she doesn’t start now. Her eyes are open, watching him, naked and easily read. He leans closer and the corner of her lips curve into the slightest of smiles. His mouth brushes her chin, her jaw, and she tilts her head closer.
He finds her mouth, and he finds her lips waiting, willing.
The thigh that teased against him before, does so will full intentions now, sliding along his leg until her own can wrap around and tangle herself closer. The controller is forgotten, and after a moment slides unheeded to the floor as she tugs her hand down to press her palm against his, fingers spreading, then lacing together as she holds on…
His rage, this close, is a tangible thing – she can feel it, smell it, taste it across his tongue, and rather than frighten her, or cause her to pull away, it brings her closer instead, curling into the warmth, the heat, the solidness that is the man [beast] that pins her to the couch. It has been a long time – and longer still since she’s been with one born true. Her breath catches again, and falls free in a soft, eager sound that she couldn’t hold back if she tried.
She’s been holding back for months. Tonight? She intends to let go…
[Patrick Llewelyn] The last person Patrick had been this close to had been his Alpha.
Broken and bitter in an alleyway behind some Blues Club. Inviting everyone to become Death and finish him off; end his suffering once and for all because he did not want to be a part of their god damn fight any longer; yet he could not crawl away fast enough to escape it; one way or another. Now, he has given his own blood to protect this god damn city and its inhabitants — the woman beneath him included — and he cannot, for the life of him bear to think about it.
To stand among those others of Gaia who did give a damn, when all the damn he had given had been swallowed by the earth when he put Howard down into it.
But being with Howard was different to being with Izzy. To being held against the fast-beating heart of a woman he could so easily break, were he not careful tonight. His Rage is potent, and the moon is high in the sky outside; drizzled as it was with clouds. His hand slides down from her face; and he half drags her up to meet him; his arm banding around the swell of her back; fingers cradling her neck.
He pulls her upright; Patrick, and breaks his mouth from hers only long enough to wordlessly suggest her thighs bind tighter around his waist; and he supports her, like a front carried monkey, rising fully to his feet and murmuring only — “Bedroom?” — with a half-pant against her skin. This will be where the true comfort exists, then. Not beneath clothes, as they are shed; layer after layer until skin is bared against skin and mouths and hands and limbs can twine together —
but in the solace of two lonely people finding passion in the other’s flesh. Finding what, perhaps, the world and the Nation within it have torn away from them.
The Galliard is a surprisingly tender lover, but his enthusiasm is bruising. He does not pretend to try not to crush her mouth, or knot his fist in her long hair. He will bruise her lips, Patrick, and he will leave faint imprints on her hips where he holds them to taste her, on her wrists as he slides them above her head at one point.
He will devour her; like a poet. Like the Warrior he was intended to be; writing to his body’s memory how she feels. How her breath may catch in her throat; what her cries sound like, or perhaps he’ll retain the silent strength implied in her form as she moves with him. Together.
Equal.
One thing is certain and that is that when she rises the following morning for her shift; the Fianna will be gone. A note will be left in the wake of his body beside her; Patrick’s untidy scrawl. Re-match? it asks, and lists the number where he can be reached; her loaned clothing folded and placed somewhere on the floor.