[Joey] The weather in Chicago has warmed up again, bringing with it a false sense of the season. Tomorrow rain will come again, and the temperature will drop, reminding the city that summer has ended, that it’s time to start thinking about the holidays, and travel plans. The leaves on the trees have begun to change, from bright, vibrant green to yellows and oranges and in some cases reds. Soon, every wooded area in the city will look like it’s on fire. Suburban residents have already started breaking out their rakes, housewives have begun to turn down their gardens for the impending cold weather. Nature is getting ready to hibernate.
Fall is a season of change, of transitions, at least in parts of the nation that have more than one or two seasons. To Joey, it’s all amazing. In Nevada, everything outside of Vegas is brown sandy desert. Everything within the city is unnaturally green where water is plentiful enough. Lawns gradually turn brown; small, stunted decorative trees drop their leaves without much fanfare. But here in Chicago, in the Midwest, summer turns to fall with a celebration of color. Joey watches the change with a sense of awe, when she’s able to pay attention.
She’s out today in a black sleeveless cotton shirt and a pair of denim cut-offs. There are black work boots on her feet and a black collar around her neck. Though her attire is not terribly feminine, serves mainly to show off the musculature of her arms and legs, somehow she manages to look less like a tomboy than usual. Perhaps it’s the way her hair has been twisted into a pair of messy buns at the base of her skull, behind her ears. The Rotagar is sitting on one of the swings in Seward Park, her bat bag on the ground near one of the support structures as she swings idly. It’s Sunday, and the weather is warm and pleasant, but she has the park almost entirely to herself.
[Charlie] She almost has the park entirely to herself.
Wherever he had gone today, he’d felt the need to put on clothing that was not faded from bleach or repeated morphing to accommodate his body’s explosions into heavier, larger forms. Charlie is walking from the bus stop on the corner of West Division and North Cleveland, having fallen asleep near the back of the vehicle and jolted awake when he realized they had blasted past where he was supposed to get off to go back to The Brotherhood.
The Theurge has to follow a rather regimented sleep schedule in order to properly function. His nights are made impossibly long by the fact that he cannot just pull the covers over his head and ignore the energy humming through his body, the synapses firing in his brain; he has never been able to sleep at night, even when he is completely exhausted, and so he has to cut out swatches of time during the day when he can take naps to try and work around his brain’s seeming aversion to rest.
It’s tiring, trying to keep himself properly rested so that he can function, and on days like today when he finds himself attempting to operate on the same time table as the rest of the planet, moving about during the daylight hours, he has to give up his rest so that he can accomplish this. Charlie is operating on six fractured hours of sleep, and the nap he had taken during the hour-long bus ride had done little to refresh him.
He’s yawning as he cuts through Seward Park, raising a hand to cover his mouth as though there is anyone around to be offended by his lack of manners. He carries nothing with him, but he’s wearing his relatively unscathed gym shoes, a pair of jeans that hasn’t been completely demolished, and a pink t-shirt that lacks stains or tears or stitches.
When the yawn ends, he looks around, and notices a familiar blond figure sitting on the swing set without anyone around to bother her. Charlie diverts his course, cutting across the grass to join her in the sand.
[Joey] On a normal day, they rarely get a chance to see each other. Charlie sleeps in shifts during the day, Joey generally sleeps at night. Usually when their paths cross, it’s during the few hours of overlap between him waking and her sleeping. These are the times of their erratic and impromptu desensitization sessions, when they lock themselves away in a room together, alone, and do nothing anywhere near what their neighbors may think they do.
It’s odd, really, that they’ve become friends. They’re not the same tribe, nor the same pack, same gender, same anything. They met because they happen to sleep in the same building and have the same habit of climbing up to high places to get away from things. And yet they found common ground quickly, became attached to each other just as fast. They’re drawn to each other. There’s something else there, as well, humming just beneath the surface. Though the Fenrir has pushed it away, tries not to think about it, it colors every part of her interactions with the dopey looking Theurge from room 3.
Even now, when she glances up from where her boots are making lazy trails in the sand, her usually vibrant smile is a touch brighter when she sees who it is coming to join her. Brown eyes sparkle just a little more.
“Heya, Charlie boy. What’re you up so early for?”
[Charlie] Joey smiles, and a light seems to come up in Charlie’s eyes as he gets closer, a light that hadn’t been there as he was simply walking through the park on his way back to his bed.
Neither of them has words for what is happening between them. So far as either of them can tell, or so far as either of them is willing to admit, they are just friends. They are just friends who happen to become completely enraged when something bad happens to the other one. This seems to be the case more often with Charlie, who has been witnessed growing almost possessed after Joey’s disappearance, or exploding into his birth form when he was given the indication that they were encountering someone who had possibly had a hand in hurting Joey while she was caught in the Weaver realm; in about a week he will watch her be beaten within an inch of her life in front of the entire Sept at the Moot, and he will struggle to keep himself from getting to his feet and attacking one of the city’s Adren Modi.
There are whispers, certainly, that something is going on between the two of them, but for right now, it’s a secret even to them. All Charlie would be able to say is that he likes spending time with Joey, that he wants to destroy anything that harms her, and that would raise eyebrows if only because it is not normal, it is not natural, for someone like Joey and someone like Charlie to become friends in the first place.
Her tribe isn’t exactly renowned for its just treatment of mules. Then again, neither is the tribe of his two packmates. It’s disarming, knowing that people who should be trying to beat him up and put him back in his place on a regular basis actually have an ounce of respect for him.
Charlie drops himself onto the swing beside Joey, reaching up to wrap his fingers around the chains securing the rubber seat to the metal bar, and raises his eyebrows as if to help the rest of him absorb the question. An unspoken Oh comes across his face, and he sits up straighter to say, “I had to go talk to Mia today. She lives super far north, like, outside the city, and the bus doesn’t run back very late, so I have to get up during the day if I want to go see her.”
There are smudges beneath his eyes, bruises that speak of how little sleep he’s been getting lately.
[Joey] She shouldn’t feel the way she feels about him. She shouldn’t feel the world brighten when she sees that gaunt face, shouldn’t feel her heart race when he asks her for aid, shouldn’t feel distressed when he’s hurt. For someone who abhors weakness, she should be keeping her distance from Charlie, the product of the weakness of his parents. She should think less of him for the times he drops off asleep or loses control of his muscles and drops. She should be disgusted by his fear of enclosed spaces.
But Joey is young, naïve, sheltered. In a week this will be brought into sharp focus before the entire sept, not simply when Silence crushes her face, sullying the sacred bone, but when she outright tells Buried Hatchet why she shouldn’t be chosen as the Elder of her auspice. And despite of all of the shortcomings she should hate about him, Charlie is Garou. She’s watched him fight down his fears in order to fight. He’s an incredibly powerful Theurge. He has never done anything that might make her lose respect for him, or stop wanting to be his friend.
Of the two of them, he is the one who is tested most often because of their bond. He is the one whose rage increased because she disappeared. When Charlie was knocked unconscious during the football match at the bonfire, Joey kept playing. She’s insulted him because of her thoughtlessness.
That doesn’t mean she doesn’t care about him. When he wouldn’t wake up on the roof the other night, Joey carried him as carefully as she could to his bed. When he woke, his weed and his bowl and other paraphernalia were on the table beside his bed. When a beast ripped into him in the sewers, Joey tore it apart. He’s the one she wanted with her when she found the closest thing to the desert within one hundred miles.
“Hm.” Joey digs her boots into the sand and kicks back, letting inertia swing her forward and back as she keeps her legs out straight in front of her. “Well, if you ever need a ride or somethin’, you can call me. Like, if you get stuck out there or something and can’t get back or whatever.” Her eyes are on her knees as she offers her services as chauffeur so he can get to Mia. It’s a girl’s name. Something in Joey’s chest gives a twist at the thought of Charlie spending time with other females. Joey shoves the feeling back, away, refuses to think about it.
For someone who is terrible at lying to others, the Rotagar is remarkably adept at lying to herself.
[Charlie] With the greater concentration of Rage comes the greater possibility for Charlie to be the one flying off the handle or losing control of himself when something happens to test his patience and his self-control. It has taken him several weeks to be able to walk under the new weight of his Rage, and not once during the month that has passed since Joey’s disappearance and subsequent return has he thought that there was anything more to the growing of his anger than the fact that he had been subjected to visions of Malfeas for months.
Never mind that his anger surged so greatly that it nearly knocked him off-balance when Kemp’s idiocy and poor foresight had led to his friend disappearing. He had thought, briefly and painfully, that she had been killed, that she wasn’t going to come back, and the loss had been more acute and more painful than the loss he had felt when five of his seven packmates were plucked off by hunters.
He had not been close with any of the older women. He had fought alongside them, healed them, called spirits for them, but he had also weathered beatings, throttlings, and throatings at their hands and teeth. There was never the sense that they thought of him as anything other than an obligation, something that they had to tolerate because his mother had been one of theirs once.
Joey offers to give him a ride if he ever gets stuck outside the city, and a brief smile twitches across Charlie’s lips.
“Thanks,” he says. His eyes drop for a moment, falling somewhere around her knees, before he looks back up. “Did you decide what you’re gonna do about the kinsman you wanna claim?”
She’d asked for his opinion, and he’d passed out before he could give her any sort of advice. He says nothing about that.
[Joey] They have never spoken of what Charlie went through during the two days Joey lost to the Weaver. Joey hadn’t given much thought to Charlie’s reaction when he saw her for the first time, after he thought she’d been lost for four days rather than two. She doesn’t know what he thinks of Kemp, and the failed mission into the Lake View condominium. She doesn’t know what it is that’s caused his rage to beat against her senses more fiercely than before.
She had asked his opinion about her potential ability to care for kinfolk, specifically the drunken detective who sometimes comes to The Brotherhood to feed his sickness. Why he comes to the place where Joey lives to do this, when twice now she has taken away his bottle and disposed of it, when she’s yelled and shouted at him and called him names, the teen cannot begin to fathom.
“I don’t know. It’s a big responsibility, y’know? Takin’ care of people, being responsible for ’em.” She gives a sharp jerk of her head, shaking her bangs so that they angle across her forehead rather than drop into her eyes. “Only kinfolk I got are my family back home, and that’s different. I mean, John’s family, but he’s not, like, blood related. It’ll be totally different.”
[Charlie] They may very well never talk about those two days that Joey was missing, or the four total that had him coming to the conclusion that she was lost forever. There is a lot that they don’t talk about, that only really comes up when the conversation has taken a turn towards self-disclosure. They don’t talk about his upbringing, or his former pack, or why it is that he has just difficulty with small spaces.
Maybe it’s because Charlie would much rather be the one being spoken to than be the one doing the speaking, or because he does not believe his experiences to be worth sharing. Whenever he does share something, it’s something greater than himself: it’s the city that he vacated, or the spirit world, or it’s something that he hasn’t done yet. He rarely brings up the past.
They aren’t talking about the past now. They’re talking about something very near and present, and it’s easier than talking about why it is that Joey looks briefly uncomfortable hearing him talk about his kinswoman.
“Yeah,” he agrees, furrowing his brow in thought. “He doesn’t seem like he’s got much family outside of the Nation, though. Or if he does they’re not like, doing anything to help him. I think he needs someone to do that.”
[Joey] Joey nods thoughtfully. Between the two of them, she’s always been the one who spoke the most. About her past. About her present. Her family, school, sports. If she thought about it, she’d probably think she was being selfish, or silly, disgorging information about herself as if she actually had anything interesting to say.
When they’re closed away in a room together, either room 3 or now more recently room 7, Joey is the one who does most of the talking. It’s a distraction for Charlie, her voice. She doesn’t know if he actually listens to what she’s saying, or if the tide of conversation simply beats against and washes over him.
Lately, since her recent experiences, she falls silent more often. The near constant smile fades more quickly. It’s likely it’ll only get worse after the moot, when Silence turns her face into a bloody mash of blood and bone and cartilage.
So Joey doesn’t know much about her friend, except that he’s nice, and he listens to her as if what she says is important. And that means the world to her.
“Doesn’t really seem like anyone in the Nation’s helping him much, either.” Joey wraps her hands around the chains of the swing and leans back until her back is parallel to the ground, legs straight once more to balance herself. “I told him I’d look out for him even if someone else got the claim, but, like, I don’t think anyone else thinks like that.”
[Charlie] When Joey leans back so that her body is a straight line hovering over the earth, Charlie plants his feet and spins his swing around so that he can face her, the chains twisting themselves together over his head. His sneakers sink into the soft sand, most of his weight on his toes, and his grip tightens on the chains as if he’s afraid of the tension suddenly turning on him.
This kid spends a lot of time in the Umbra, spends a lot of time in an environment that doesn’t function the way the realm does. It is a place of wonder, certainly, it is vibrant and brighter than anything on this side, but it is also dangerous. Many of the denizens of the Umbra are unpredictable, and the landscape itself is not much better. A misstep on the other side can spell disaster or even death, and Charlie spends a considerable amount of time on the other side.
Sometimes he spends so much time over there that it’s difficult to readjust when he crosses the Gauntlet again.
Despite his tendency to space out, despite the fact that he looks distracted a good deal of the time, Charlie appears to be intently listening to the Rotagar now. He sits up straight rather than leaning against the chain so that he will not be tempted to fall asleep like he did the last time they spent any time together.
“Even if someone else has a claim on him, it might be good to have more than one person looking out for him. Maybe you could have Gossamer Wing talk to him. She’s really wise. She might be able to help him.”
[Joey] Charlie is a Theurge, a spirit talker. Maybe his skill is increased by the way he’s treated because he’s metis. He doesn’t open himself up to or invite physical contact with other people, at least not that Joey’s scene. Occasionally, when they’re together and they’re simply goofing around, they’ll punch each other in the shoulder. The contact is not hard enough to bruise and is not meant to inflict pain, but simply remind the other that they’re there. They’re not alone in that moment, come what may.
Or at least, that’s the way things used to be, back before Joey vanished and Charlie’s rage made a permanent spike. There hasn’t been much physical contact between the Fenrir and the Fury lately. It’s as if on some subconscious level they know that getting too close, that touching each other now is dangerous. Or in any event, that it’s a Bad Idea that could lead to disaster.
Tilting her head, she can see him shift so that he faces her on the swings. Joey pulls herself upright in one sudden, swift motion. She doesn’t twist the swing to face him, but instead digs her toes into the sand and leans in Charlie’s direction, letting the chain of her swing press against the side of her throat. To anyone who may happen to pass through the park, they look like any ordinary couple of young people talking about whatever ordinary young people talk about when they sit on swings and hold a conversation.
But Charlie and Joey are not talking about school, or television, or whatever the youth of American finds important these days. They’re talking about the lives of the people who are in their care, the kinfolk they, despite their relatively young ages, feel an almost parental need to protect.
The blond girl looks down at the sand between them. “I dunno. I don’t think he’ll take any help. I’m just…I’m worried one of the other’s is gonna get him killed. Which is funny,” she says with a mirthless smile, and she looks up at her friend then, dark eyes fixing on dark, “’cause I offered to take him on a hunt.”
[Charlie] Those brief moments of physical contact are the only times that Charlie initiates such a thing with another person. There is never a time when he approaches another person with the intent to hug, or caress, or seek out a hug or a caress. When he touches other people, it is usually to bump shoulders in a show of camaraderie, or to jostle the other person as a reminder that she isn’t alone, that he just did something worthwhile. It wasn’t until recently that his play has been taken as anything more serious.
That’s another thing they haven’t talked about. They haven’t talked about why it was that Liam teasing him about his physical appearance had caused him to dart out of the room just as quickly as he could. Aside from another tribe’s kinswoman, he has not breathed a word of the incident in the woods several weeks ago to anyone who would be in a position to offer him sound guidance or words of advice.
So far as he knows, his Alpha is still waiting for him to tell him when they’re going hunting again next. If the way the conversation went last week is any indication, he’s going to be waiting for a long time.
Joey sits up again, leans in towards Charlie, and he stays in his acquired position, facing the Fenrir rather than twirling around to look in the same direction.
“I think he’s more of a threat to himself than anyone else is,” he says. A beat, and then: “Why’d you offer to take him hunting?”
[Imogen] Joey and Charlie are not the only ones who have chosen a tattered city park to enjoy a warm, if overcast afternoon. Though, Imogen’s choice to cut through Seward Park is likely a choice of practicality rather than pleasure. It is likely the fastest way for her to get – wherever. Her parked car. A contact. The Eagle’s land.
She carries a to-go cup of coffee, which had started out scalding, and is now a little more manageable. A cautious sip confirms its quality, or more specifically its lack thereof, and her mouth twists in a grimace of distaste. There is no garbage receptacle on the pathway, but she sees one at the playground, her course deviating to head toward the swings, her awareness of the two adults upon them only peripheral until she is close enough to recognize them.
She drops her maligned coffee into the can with an audible clang and rustle of an empty plastic bag. A pause, as she studies the two Garou, before she crosses the sand box toward them.
Casual attire for this end of the city: jeans, flat soled, nondescript black shoes, which do nothing for her slight height. A t-shirt beneath her corduroy coat. A gun at her back, where it can’t be seen.
[Joey] Joey tilts her head and her eyes slide down to the side as she considers the best way to answer Charlie’s question. He’s her best friend, the one she would probably tell anything to if he asked, or if it occurred to her to tell anyone at all. But there is a lot of space between them, ground uncovered, topics undiscussed. Joey doesn’t know what happened between Charlie and Liam, or why Charlie practically bolted from the common room in order to put on some clothes. She can hazard a guess, but she doesn’t know for certain, and she doesn’t ask.
Charlie is her best friend, in Chicago, in the Nation, anywhere. And yet she’s not so sure she should divulge what she’s discovered about her drunkard of a kinsman.
Joey is saved from having to explain just why she’d take a man who is a greater danger to himself than to others out on a hunt. Imogen, the woman who saved the young Rotagar from wandering the streets naked, cuts across the park. The sound of her discarded coffee clanging into a trash bin catches her attention. When the shorter woman is close enough, Joey offers her a smile.
“Hey.” Then, her brows rising, she remembers. “Shit, I still have your coat.”
[Charlie] He isn’t stoned today.
Imogen can’t smell it in his hair or on his clothes, can’t read a spaced-out expression in his dark eyes, can’t see him slouching as if he could not possibly be any more relaxed. He’s sitting up straight, his back to the pathway, his fingers wrapped around the swing’s chains, and his voice is neither particularly loud nor held particularly close. It isn’t the sound of the dropped coffee that alerts the Theurge to the kinswoman’s presence first but her scent on the breeze, and it makes him pick his gym shoes off the ground so that he can spin around 180 degrees to face their visitor.
Rather than looking stoned, the narcoleptic simply looks tired, as if he hasn’t had enough sleep lately. Imogen doesn’t know his sleep schedule, doesn’t know that he’s normally passed out and twisted up in a down comforter by now, dead to the world though he leaves the door to his room open.
Joey greets the kinswoman first, and Charlie falls silent, his question unanswered.
[Imogen] Imogen looks to Joey first at the greeting. “‘Lo,” she says, easily. There’s no real smile, but she is polite enough.
She does smirk slightly, however at the expletive, the sudden memory. “You do.” A faintly dismissive tip of her head as she flicks the lapel of her brown corduroy, “I ha’ others.
“Pick it up sometime this week, shall I?”
A glance toward the silent Metis – or more accurately, the silent Garou. Imogen does not receive formal introductions, more often than not. She rarely knows a Garou’s breed unless they act deeply feral. “Charlie.” A greeting, as well, of sorts.
[Joey] Joey remembers, now, that someone had gone to The Brotherhood looking for her. That had been while she was still tainted, when she was trying to keep away from The Brotherhood so she wouldn’t feel the urge to help out in the kitchen, her small amount of rage unnerving the staff as she helped with dishes, or cleaned up work stations while people were still preparing food. It was right before she and Charlie went out into the woods, and the Theurge summoned a water spirit to cleanse the Fenrir.
In shot, Joey has been busy, and so she forgot the borrowed coat she spent an inordinate amount of time cleaning when she first returned to The Brotherhood when she first returned from the umbra. It’s on a thick plastic hanger in Joey’s closet, clean and pressed and immaculate, and no longer forgotten.
“Mm.” Joey bobs her head once in the affirmative. “I’ll leave it with Jenny case I’m not around.”
Imogen greets Charlie next, and Joey falls silent.
[Charlie] The Theurge looks almost surprised when he’s addressed, as if he had been expecting to just be talked around and ignored. Though there is not the aroma of marijuana smoke around him, when the two women began conversing about the matter of the borrowed jacket he had seemed to zone out, as if another conversation had arisen that required his concentration.
There’s no one else around, nothing else in the background that could possibly be so interesting that he has to give it his attention, but when he hears his name he snaps his gaze back to Imogen as if a gunshot has gone off.
“Hmm?” he intones, sounding distracted for a moment, before it dawns on him why she had said his name. “Oh! Hi.”
[Imogen] The conversation between Joey and Imogen could be a conversation between the closest of friends. A jacket borrowed, forgotten, forgiven.
However: Imogen barely knows Joey.
The kinwoman inclines her head slightly to the Fenrir woman. “Ta,” she says, already starting to step back, brief pleasantries, and perhaps her purpose for walking over, complete. A wry glance Charlie’s way for his confusion, “Welcome back.”
[Joey] Something in the way that Joey looks at Imogen suggests that they are not close female friends with a habit of trading clothes. The only reason the Fenrir knows the Eagle kin’s name is because it was on the business cards the doctor gave to her. Business cards Joey now remembers are pinned to the cork board over her desk, amongst the other notes and the pictures of her family and friends in Vegas. She pinned them there so she would not forget to get into contact with the kinswoman.
Obviously, Joey needs to rethink her memory strategy.
The blond girl sits up straight again, wrapping her hands around the chains of her swing, and idly pushes herself to and fro, not hard enough that her feet need leave the ground. Charlie had spaced out for a moment, as she’s seen him do on occasion when he’s not involved in the conversation happening around him. Imogen brought him back into the hear and now, and welcomes him back. Joey turns her attention to her bare knees.
[Charlie] Welcome back.
The metis cants his head to the side, brow stitched down the middle, but he doesn’t ask her where she thinks he went or why it is she’s welcoming him back. One has to reason that he’s heard that before, that this isn’t the first time he’s being teased for zoning out in the middle of a conversation that didn’t require his attention or energy.
If anything, his face displays a lack of amusement rather than a lack of understanding.
“I didn’t go anywhere,” he says, in a tone that isn’t entirely unrelated to the tone he had used when he had told Joey he wasn’t a dumbass. It’s a tone that speaks of hesitant assertiveness, as though he is new at sticking up for himself. There isn’t any hurt in it this time, though.
[Imogen] “Hm.”
A quiet sound of acknowledgement of Charlie’s protestation.
“I’ll let yeh get back to it, then.” Both Garou are referred to, this time. “I’ll see Jenny ’bout my coat,” this specifically to Joey.
She completes her step back and turns away, heading back to the pathway, the exit to the park, and whatever her original goal had been.
[Joey] Joey makes a mental note to leave the coat with Jenny, just in case she herself isn’t around the next time the kinswoman comes to call. Hopefully this time she’ll remember. She’s still swaying in her swing as she watches the kinswoman go.
Then she turns her attention turns back to her friend. But not back to the conversation they’d been having, about John Thornton and his need for a watchful eye, or the fact that Joey had offered to take him on a hunt.
Instead she changes the subject. “That was crazy at the bonfire. I can’t believe you knocked out Decker.”
[Joss Lehrer] She runs like she’s being chased – the only difference is that there is laughter instead of fear in her expression, along with a freedom in the way she moves, the way she abandons herself into her escape that makes people think two things:
1. She’s happy. (she is!)
2. She’s insane. (depends on who you ask!)
She is dressed much as she always is, her skirts fluttering with movement and the breeze, her dreads fluttering out behind her, beads clacking, ribbons – is that a feather? Yes, it is – fluttering behind her. She’s wearing a tank top, and her dark sweater is tied around her waist. On her feet are canvas flats, nothing important, nothing expensive. She is what she is, as well as breathless with laughter.
Imogen is hard to miss – and she doesn’t miss her at all. In fact, she skids to a stop before imogen has made it a step or two, halting her escape as she puts her hands on her hips and gasps for breath.
She suddenly jumps to the side with a squeel, than settles to her feet again, without explanation, though she’s still chuckling. “Hi Imogen.” And she lifts her hand to wave to the other two as well.
[Charlie] Imogen doesn’t offer up a formal farewell to either of the Garou on the swings, but Charlie releases his grip on the swing’s chain to wave to her all the same, keeping silent as she turns and heads back down the path she had cut through the grass. Out of the distance, the dreadlocked Theurge Elder comes tearing ass. She stops before colliding with Imogen, and when she waves, Charlie waves back to the younger Theurge.
That was crazy at the bonfire. Charlie looks over sharply, as if uncertain what it is she’s referring to, and then a huff of laughter leaves his throat when she expresses disbelief.
“I thought he was gonna kill me,” Charlie says, quickly rubbing the end of his nose with the second knuckle of his index finger before gripping the swing again. “He broke the crap out of my nose.”
[Imogen] Imogen is brought up short by Joss’s appearance, coming to an abrupt stop to stare at the Godi with an expression akin to wondering why the girl has grown a belly button on her forehead.
Her eyebrow arches as Joss leaps sideways inexplicably, glancing down at the pavement at their feet, then back up again.
A brief glance over her shoulder at the two Garou behind her, then back again to the Eagle Garou.
“Having fun, I presume?”
[Joss Lehrer] Laughter, of course as she nods, her eyes sparkling brightly. “Don’t I always? Wait, don’t answer that.” She glances around, as if looking for something, but there’s only the slide of a sudden breeze around her calves, her skirts fluttering in the wake, and then settling.
“Playing snap tag. We’re done now. How’re you?”
…we? Sometimes, it’s best not to ask. Instead she digs in her bag, finds a waterbottle somewhere in the depths, and opens it to take a long sip.
[Imogen] A flick of her gaze around the seemingly empty ground at Joss’s feet, then the empty area behind her.
Her eyebrow arches slightly, “Dare I ask?”
[Joey] Dark blond brows rise, and Joey grins in spite of herself. It doesn’t bring her any joy to think of her friend getting the crap broken out of his nose. It doesn’t even really surprise her that the Adren would so physically express his displeasure and finding himself rendered unconscious by the metis Theurge.
“Did he? Oh, man, that explains the blood on your face after, right?” She shakes her head, then gives it a sharp jerk, righting her bangs across her forehead once more.
[Joss Lehrer] “Oh, they’re gone now. It started on the flip side, but apparently they weren’t quite done yet and wanted one more chase.” she rubs her right buttcheek and makes a face.
“Not fast enough. They won. Did you know that a snap of air is ALMOST just like a snap of a towel? Stings!”
She twists the cap back on her water – belatedly offers it to Imogen if she wants some. If not, she tucks it back into her bag. As if running from the wind was a perfectly everyday natural and sane experience.
[Charlie] “Well, like, my nose got all bloody when he tackled me, so I had blood on me already. And then he headbutted me after I healed him.”
Were Charlie human, it would have taken hours for his nose to stop throbbing, would have required medical attention to keep him from hemorrhaging from a broken nose. Charlie is not human. He was not born human, did not acquire the ability to masquerade as one until he was eight years old, and is going to die before he learns how to act like one. He is a monster, a monster born of two Garou, and his body does things that the homids’ can’t do in their birth forms.
“In hindsight it was kinda funny.”
[Imogen] The eyebrow remains lifted in commentary. “Is that so,” she says, and one imagines that she simply finds this entire conversation more awkward than enlightening. Joss does not fill in the blanks, and Imogen, honestly, does not want them to be.
There is faint awareness of the conversation behind her. She hears the words, but does not seem inclined to participate.
A tilt of her head over her shoulder. “Met them both, have you?”
[Joss Lehrer] She doesn’t fill in the blanks, because she’s pretty sure that Imogen doesn’t want them to be. It’s hard to speak of things that one can’t see, with any certainty, despite someone standing before you swearing it exists. A Garou can be seen, touched, if not always understood in all forms. The Umbra, to a kin, is as difficult to imagine as Heaven is to the general populous that has never been, yet still, somehow, believes.
Or something. Anyway, moving on to those on the swings.
“Not both, no. Charlie, yes.”
[Joey] Joey’s attention is focused almost exclusively on the kid in the swing next to her. She’s aware that Imogen hadn’t made it far before a girl with dreadlocks and a beaming smile ran up to her, waylaying the kinswoman, but she doesn’t give either of the other woman much thought once Imogen is past the sand of the swings.
Charlie says in hindsight, getting headbutted by an Adren Modi was kinda funny. Joey has to admit, she kind of agrees.
“Yeah. We should play again sometime. Oh, but we keep playing my sports. Didn’t you say you played basketball? We should totally play basketball sometime.”
[Charlie] Although he’s sitting on the swing, Charlie isn’t doing much to make it move. His legs are stretched out, his ankles crossed one over the other and one heel planted in the sand, and he’s largely immobile. His thumbs occasionally drum against their chains, but he remains sitting up straight with his head turned toward the Rotagar.
He hears his name, but it’s in the periphery of his awareness, something that fails to draw his attention. He’s not being addressed by the Godi, and so he deals with the matter of which sport they’re going to play next.
“I’ve only played it one time since I got to Chicago,” he says. A beat, and then he frowns, looking briefly concerned. “Hey, you didn’t answer my question.”
[Imogen] “The other’s Joey. I don’t know her tribe,” a glance over her shoulder at her, then back again.
A brief glance at her watch. “Leave you t’them, shall I? I’m goin’ t’head off.”
[Joss Lehrer] She smiles and nods. “Sure. Have a… oh! You should come see my new van! Randi’s helping me fix it up. It’s AWESOME. And when it’s all fixed up an’ I figure out how to drive it right – do you think Decker would teach me? – if ya need cleanup help, just yell. I’ll have room.”
And then back from the brief diversion, she grins again. “Have a nice evening, Imogen.”
[Imogen] A pause, before she lifts her shoulder slightly, “Yeh’ll ha’ t’ask him. If not, let me know. We’ll work somethin’ up.”
Her mouth twists faintly, a little wry, a little resigned. “I imagine I’ll be callin’ fer it soon.”
A tilt of her head by way of farewell, “Ha’ a good night.” She turns and heads out of the park.
[Joey] She didn’t answer his question. In fact, she had completely avoided the question, had taken advantage of Imogen’s interruption and changed the subject as soon as the kinswoman was away.
If she were a better Rotagar, had spent any time acting on her natural inclinations toward trickery or misdirection, she might find a better way to throw Charlie off the scent. Because she still doesn’t know if she should tell him about John Thornton.
But it’s Charlie.
Joey lets out a sigh that seems to deflate the smallish Fenrir. “I offered to take ‘im on a hunt ’cause he’s tryin’ to kill himself with alcohol. Thought maybe if he was so intent on dyin’ I could at least help him go out with a bit of glory. And honor. Or something like that. But it’s like he hasn’t made up his mind. That’s why I’m worried someone else’ll get him killed.”
[Joss Lehrer] “Thanks!” She lights up, happily, at the thought of lessons and learning to drive her new, beloved, baby. She watches Imogen as she walks away, and then turns to move toward the swingset and the talking Garou there.
Once the smallish distance has closed, she waves her hand again and waves. “Hi Charlie.” And somehow, the greeting encompasses Joey too, though they haven’t yet met.
[Imogen] (thanks for the scene, guys!)
[Decker Rohl] “Teach ya what?”
Decker joins the gathering with little preamble, intercepting Joss before she quite makes it to Charlie and Joey. The moon is waxing toward full. His rage is like a torch in the night, blazing, burning.
He nods to Imogen as she leaves, a lazy jerk of his head up. They’re mates. They’ve been mates for years and years and years. They don’t speak to one another, but he does catch her eye as she goes.
Then it’s back to Joss. “Talk ta Andrew yet?”
[Charlie] There is no judgment on Charlie’s face as he listens to Joey’s explanation for why it is she would even consider taking a kinsman on any sort of a hunt. He can’t say as he knows a great deal about the Get of Fenris, any more than the average Fenrir can claim to know a great deal about the Black Furies. They are both tribes of warriors, yet there are some fundamental differences between the two of them that makes reaching any sort of common ground difficult.
He knows that they detest weakness of any sort, that they don’t have much patience for those who suffer from any sort of illness. John Thornton, mental health experts would argue, has an illness. Addiction is a disease rather than an indication of constitutional weakness, but the fact is that his turning to the bottle is spurred on by his grieving.
Two Ravens has already asked him for his advice on this matter, and Lights Out had given it to him. It doesn’t seem, however, as if there is any forward momentum or progress being gained. Thornton had been drunk the last time he came to The Brotherhood.
Of course, Charlie had been high the last time they saw each other, so he doesn’t have much room to talk.
“Well–“
Decker swoops in to halt Joss’s approach, and Charlie briefly glances away from Joey to ensure that he isn’t going to march right over and push him off the swing before he looks back and speaks again.
“If he hasn’t made up his mind, then it doesn’t have to be like that, you know? Humans lose things, or people die, or whatever, and they act like it’s never gonna get any better and they just give up. But life doesn’t just stay hard, and he’s not gonna feel bad about Meena–” He means Mrena. “–being dead forever. So I think if he talks to someone who can help him stop feeling bad about Meena, and he accepts that just because she’s dead that doesn’t mean his life is over, then he’ll stop, you know, killing himself.”
[Joss Lehrer] She blinks and looks up at Decker – one of the few Garou who have too. Physically, anyway. – and then grins. “How to drive a stick shift! Ya seen my new ride yet? Randi’s helping me fix it up! It’s AWESOME. Not as awesome as the ‘Cuda, of course…”
He nods to Imogen, and it’s lazy and comfortable, and Joss – well, just watches. A little jealous, maybe. After all, she ain’t got a mate, herself. No prospects either. NOT that she’s looking. Exactly. Anyway – he’s talking again.
“Yeah. Went over there the day after the bonfire, actually.” Her brow furrows slightly. “He’s never been in a pack the whole time since he was a cub. Part of me wonders if he understands what it really means and if he’s ready for the challenge of learning to work as a pack instead of on his own – though he argues the point well enough. He’s strong, and resourceful, and thinks things through when you speak to him. He’s also stubborn and set in his ways.” she chuckles slightly. “Which of course means he might fit right in. As a Theurge he’s competent – if unorthodox, but well, I’m the last Godi that would ever complain of that. Having seen the other packs around, I think his best chance at a fit just might be with us. Other’s aren’t so.. individual… in their outlook.”
Eagles fly alone – but for when they flock together as needed.
[Joey] Joey glances up at the other Fenrir girl who waves and greets Charlie. Joey offers her a distracted smile in return.
“I know that.” Joey’s pack totem is Twister, element of the Wyld. As a Storm Chaser, she is an agent of change, and works to remind others of the unpredictability of life, and that nothing stays the same. It is what made things difficult for her while she was under the influence of the Weaver, and why she knew that something was wrong with her. Already a tidy individual, she actively sought to clean, to find order, or arrange things. And yet somewhere inside she knew she wanted to destroy.
Decker shows up then, cutting off Joss’ approach. Joey greets her elder, should he happen to look in her direction, with a small nod of her head.
Turning her attention back to Charlie, Joey says, “And I told him that, I think. Nothing stays the same. I want to talk to him some more. Not to, like, force an opinion down his throat or anything, but just to, like, give him more information. And remind him that someone cares about him. A little.”
[Charlie] This is the second time that he has repeated the same bit of advice to someone belonging to the wayward kinsman’s tribe, but to Joey, this is not novel. This is nothing she has not thought of herself; she has already told Thornton something similar, she thinks.
Charlie nods, chewing on the inside of his lower lip, and uncrosses his ankles to plant both of his feet in the sand. His stomach issues a low rumble of protest, but he doesn’t acknowledge it. He has been putting on weight the last month or so, his bones disappearing behind a thin layer of meat, though his face is still painfully gaunt. The olive tone of his skin is the only thing keeping him from looking ghoulish.
“Okay,” he says.
[Decker Rohl] New ride.
“That what that heap’a eyesore ‘n scrap metal in tha kinhouse yard is?” It’s an offhand insult, uninvested. “‘ll teach ya if ya move it ’round back so it don’t look like we’s a bunch’a faggot hippies.
“Heh,” he grunts then, something like a laugh, at the mention of Andrew’s unorthodoxy as a theurge. “He ain’t much like ya. Acts more like a fuckin’ full moon sometimes, but when ya make ‘im handle tha spirits he ain’t half bad.
“‘ll tell ‘im ta move in, run with us fer a month ‘r two. Then we’ll talk ‘gain.”
[Joey] Joey had asked for advice before, and Charlie gives it now, telling her things she’s thought of or worked out for herself. It still doesn’t help her to decide whether she’s going to try and speak up for the man before her tribe.
No, unfortunately she won’t make that decision for about another week, and she will speak up at the wrong time, and in the wrong way, and when she goes to receive her punishment, she will make it a hundred times worse for herself.
Charlie’s stomach growls. Joey glances over at him, head tilting a little to the side.
“You want a ride home?”
[Joss Lehrer] She nods. “Deal! I shall do my utmost best not to make you look like a faggot hippy.” She even says it with a straight face, though there’s a twinkle of good humor and mirth dancing through blue eyes that she can’t suppress. Like anyone could possibly think Decker fuckin Rohl is anything less than testosterone fueled aggression = 100% hetero male.
“Well, to his defense, ain’t many like me.” To the rest, she nods her agreement and takes another swig off her water bottle, offering it to Decker before recapping it once more and tucking it back into her bag.
[Decker Rohl] Decker makes a low noise, a snort that serves as a laugh. Then he nods Joss toward Joey and Charlie.
“G’on, play wit’cher friends.” The corner of his mouth quirks up at the very last. He thumps Joss on the shoulder as she passes.
[Charlie] It has been months since Charlie has had a place that he has been able to refer to, in his head or out loud, as ‘home.’ The home he’d left behind hadn’t been much of one. It was a house, and it had a bed and a place for him to put what little possessions he owned, and his packmates were there, but there was never a sense that he was anything other than something to be tolerated.
The inclusion he feels staying at The Brotherhood goes beyond anything he is able to wrap his head around, but when Joey calls it ‘home,’ he doesn’t correct her.
He nods his head, and gets to his feet.
[Joss Lehrer] She laughs “I’ve only met Charlie – dunno the other one…” She BARELY refrains from tossing a ‘thanks pa!’ at him, the thump on the shoulder returned with an lightly tossed elbow to his side, and then she steps all the way past and heads to the swings.
Where, to her disappointment, they’re getting up to go. Plus side – swings are free! “Sorry -I kept getting intercepted before I could say hi, proper like. How’s it going Charlie? And…” Her smile includes both,even as she’s stealing the swing Charlie’s vacated, just moments after he steps aside.
[Joey] Joss and Decker are finishing up their conversation around the same time Charlie and Joey are concluding theirs. Joey rises from her swing, then bends to collect her bat bag. It doesn’t get strapped across her torso; Cassius is parked not so very far away, after all.
The Godi gets a small grin in greeting and a wave. “Hey. Joey Oliver. Laughs in the Face of Death, Cliath Rotagar of the Storm Chasers.” She doesn’t have the ability to scent whether Joss is a shifter like Joey and Charlie, but she can guess from the way she spoke to Decker that she is in some way connected with the Nation.
[Charlie] Joss slips in and claims the swing that hasn’t been occupied long enough to retain any of the warmth from the Fury’s thin body, and Charlie is drawing a breath to answer the question as to how it’s going when she and Joey start to acquaint themselves.
Either he’s forgotten his manners, or he’s more tired than he looks, because he doesn’t swoop in to help introduce the two of them. They’re doing well enough without any interference from the metis.
[Joss Lehrer] She never stays still long. It’s just one of those constants. Thus she kicks the swing into motion, though not so much to be distracting. Her smile is one that is hard not to answer – hell, even Decker almost manages a lip curl in her direction – and she simply gives out that vibe of one who’s… content. Happy with her life and where it’s lead her.
And now that warmth is on Joey. “Nice to meet you, Joey. I’m Joss Lehrer. Fostern Godi. Eagle.” A pause, tip of her head. “Storm chasers – who alls in that one? You formed recently, right?”
[Joss Lehrer] (toss in “Gossimer Wing” after her name there. sheesh.)
[Joss Lehrer] (…also. GossAmer. cuz I kin tipe n spel.)
[Joey] So this is Gossamer Wing. Joey remembers her now. Joss won the title of Theurge Elder at the last moot. She’s the one Joey suggested Charlie go to when he woke from a nightmare. She’s the one Charlie suggested Joey go to about talking to John Thornton.
“It’s just me an’ Warcry right now.” Joey hooks the thumb of her free hand into the pocket of her cut-offs. “We’ve only been Storm Chasers since, like, a couple months ago. Eagles are Silence’s pack, right?” She nods her head in the direction of the retreating Modi.
[Decker Rohl] After sending Joss off to ‘play’, Decker turned and continued on his way. The concrete in Cabrini Green is tattered and cracked, uneven, dirty. The modi treads over it thoughtlessly, easily, his stride eating the distance, devouring the yards and the leagues and the miles.
He passes tenements, alleys, barred storefronts, gaping empty windows in condemned buildings. He’s been here a longass time. He knows these streets, knows his territory, knows every turn in the alleys and every stretch of the pavement.
He knows, too, when a strange wolf’s presence is near. And when he turns into the alley between Jefferson and Ober, Decker all but expects to see the feral-born there.
[Joss Lehrer] Warcry… warcry.. oh! She nods with a smile. “Ah, gotcha. Lots of new packs, it’s hard to keep them all straight.”
This is Gossamer Wing. The one who’s spent her day playing ‘snap tag’ with elementals, tinkered with her soon to be purring VW van, that Decker’s going to teach her to drive, Smiled at Imogen, gotten Decker to almost smile at her, and is as weird as the day is long. It’s shocking to think she’s Fenrir. It’s like seeing the sky suddenly turned orange. You know it’s still the sky – but is it really?
“Yeah, that’s us. There’s four of us at the moment, with a perspective soon to be running with us for a bit.”
[Andrew] He was there. There was a hissing and a spitting and some thrashing just before he entered. Now it was quiet again. Aside from the snicker snapping wet squelching noises coming from there. His long lupus form, disguised neatly as a simple stray dog, was set over his prey in an alert pose. His forepaws bent up to pin the body of the large orange and white tabby to the ground while he tore at it’s underbelly. His nose coated in blood. Hunks of flesh hanging from his teeth. The thing had a collar on it. A little heart shaped flattened piece of metal with someone’s name and number on it. Well, Puddykins wasn’t coming home tonight. He was fucking hungry.
And on high alert as Rage washed over his alley and he knew someone else was here. It wasn’t his alley anymore.
[Decker Rohl] Decker’s wearing working boots. They stomp through puddles, squelch over rags, soggy cardboard, refuse. He kicks aside a last, half-tattered box and there he is, in the flesh. Andrew Dances-on-Fire himself.
The modi looks at the cat for a moment. Then he crouches down, picks the collar out of the mess, and reads the tag.
“Puddykins.” He snorts, flicks it aside. “Stand up ‘n face me, Dances on Fire. I got an offer fer ya.”
[Joey] Joey watches Joss as she expends extra energy by swinging, and there’s a glimmer of recognition in her dark eyes. Not so long ago, the Rotagar was the same way. Beaming smile, brimming with energy. They both come from happy, normal, healthy homes. There is no seed of discontent festering somewhere in their histories.
But then, quite suddenly, things began to weigh the Rotagar down. They just kept coming. One. After. The other. Until now, the smile is a little dimmer, her laughter fades faster, her eyes have lost some of their twinkle.
The Eagles are four, perhaps soon to be five. The Storm Chasers are two, soon to be…still two. They have no prospects, have come across no one who has struck either Chaser as having the potential to follow Twister.
“Sweet. Wish we could find some prospects, but,” she trails off, shrugging her shoulders, brows rising to say What can ya do? “People don’t seem to stick around this place very long, huh?”
[Andrew] The wolf gives him a glare. More irritated than challenging. He was enjoying his meal. What right did some big bad have coming in here and disturbing him while he was eating? This shit was fresh? Couldn’t he smell the blood? Taste it? The hot flesh? The offal stink? Why didn’t Decker join in? Too human. Lost his instinct. Or too werewolf, but more were than wolf. No instinct for the simple things like eating fresh kills.
He lets out a snort. Digs his nose in and snatches up a few more remnants of the tabby’s liver. Chomp, chomp, head-toss, gulp. The cat’s furr felt soft on his muzzle. It invited his nose deeper into it’s guts. The warmth and wash of blood whenever he poked around in it’s abdominal cavity made him only hungrier.
It takes an effort of will to pull away and melt, shifting crackling popping bone and fur, back up to his homid form in cargo pants, sneakers, and a t-shirt. Eyeing Decker. Blood all over his face. Bits of gristle in his teeth, which he picks at with his tonge and eventually a fingernail. “Yeah?”
[Joss Lehrer] She laughs softly, and nods. “There does seem to be a constant flow. Chicago is a hard place to thrive. It’s horrors and trials can begin to weigh on you.” Here, she looks up, as if she can read the slow loss of twinkle in Joey, even though she can’t. The past months have been an ever shifting demographic, and they’ve lost several good and decent garou in the struggle. It’s not easy to maintain a happy deposition. Perhaps Joss really IS insane.
“Trick is to find something that keeps making it worth the trials. Like the fountains in the park. Those are pretty damn awesome. And my new van. It’s REALLY damn awesome. And, you know..” she gestures and rolls her eyes” higher purpose, whatever yaddayadda.”
[Joey] All this time, as the Fenrir girls have been conversing, Charlie has been silent. He has not been forgotten. Joey glances at her friend once or twice, but if he prefers to keep his silence, she’s not the one to force him into speaking.
Joss lists off the reasons people should find to make the trials worth it. Joey nods absently, at least until the Godi gets to the part about a really damn awesome new van. This sparks the interest of the Rotagar. Brows raise, and the corners of her mouth twitch..
“Oh? What kinda van?”
[Decker Rohl] Decker watches the lupus-born shift into his man-shape, awkward and brutish. The modi has far more ease in this shape: a sort of lazy, thoughtless power in every motion.
His grey eyes burn with rage. They glitter faintly in the dark.
“Yer a loner,” he says, “but there ain’t no such thing as a lone wolf. Yer a good Theurge, but most times you seem ta perfer bein’ a goddamn wannabe Full-Moon. Yer an asshole, a fuckhead, ‘n a rude motherfucker. But yer honest you don’t play no games.
“I kin respect all that.
“I ain’t sure yer right fer Eagle. But I wantcha ta run with us fer a month. ‘n then we’ll know.” A pause. “You in’narested?”
[Joss Lehrer] Her eyes brighten (like that was possible) as she looks between Charlie and Joey, before she leans back, her fingers holding the chains easily, and she looks briefly at the sky, then the area behind them, before pulling herself upright once more.
“It is an entirely AWESOME 65 or so VW Van! We got a kin that does mechanic work, she’s gonna fix it for me. And Decker’s gonna teach me to drive a stick shift, and I’m gonna modify the back of it for like, a bed and shelves and carting bodies and cleanup and stuff, and the paint job is TOTALLY one of a kind. I got it from this old grandpa and his grandkids painted it, and it’s the coolest thing you ever seen… even though Decker don’t wanna have folks think he’s a hippy or nuthin, but that’s ok, cuz his ‘Cuda ain’t no hippy car. Hey! You know anyone who does that gnawer rite – shopping cart I think it is? Cuz that’d make the whole body hiding thing even easier if I had that….”
[Joey] Joey laughs. “That’s older’n my Cassius.” She points to the parking lot immediately to the north, specifically to the citrus green muscle car with the black racing stripes. The paint is newer than the frame, and the engine is newer than the paint. “I had t’rebuild the engine,” she says rather proudly. It’s not an offer of services, or to help out in any way. Joss is already covered as far as fixing up the van and learning how to drive it.
Then she shakes her head. “I don’t know any Gnawers. Or anyone who knows their rites. D’you, Charlie?”
[Andrew] His head tilts. Asshole. Fuckhead. Rude Motherfucker? Hardly. He was a sweet, kind, caring wolf. He was nice and gave people daisies. And shit. He’d argue. But here’s Decker saying he respects it and asking if he wants to run with them. What’s he supposed to say? No? Get in a pack. A good one. And see how it fits. And maybe you won’t be a lone wolf caring only about yourself anymore, wolf. Maybe you’ll be a real wolf. Because a real wolf needs a pack. He’s lost without it.
So he nods. Grunts. “Yes.” And looks down at the prey between his feet, and the puddle of blood around it. It’d stopped spurting blood at least. Heart must have finally stopped.
[Gina McClaren] *She’s coming, from all things, home from work. A client had gotten a little handsy, and so she’d excused herself first politely. Then NOT so politely. Finally giving up on changing or being professional and instead just barging out of the man’s home in a cloud of half english expletives. She’s talking down the street in dangerous heels, a dufflebag at her side, long white trench style coat belted over her work uniform. She’s muttering to herself about “tit grabbin wankers” when the curvy kin steps off the curb with a SNAP, falling neatly on her ass.*
AUGH!.. Mother o’ FOOK!
*And there’s a clatter, as she takes off a stiletto and HURLS it into the street with a snarl that would do an angry ahroun justice.*
[Charlie] The Fury is doing it again. Though they had been preparing to take their leave of Seward Park and head back to The Brotherhood, they’d been intercepted, and a conversation between the two Fenrir girls had started. It is not boredom that has him seeming to drift off into space, but his consciousness being somewhat divided.
Joey has to be getting used to him doing this by now, and it can’t be remotely strange to the Godi to see his vision detach itself from what’s in front of him and his ears seeming to tune into something that Joey can’t hear. It isn’t hallucinating so much as it is having that sixth sense afforded to those born underneath a crescent moon.
He flinches when Joey says his name, and looks at the Rotagar for several seconds as he tries to recall what she had been saying before he had returned to the conversation. Several seconds pass, and he blinks for what seems like the first time in over a minute before sniffing and saying, “I haven’t met any Gnawers since I’ve been here.”
[Decker Rohl] They’re not very verbose. They sure as hell ain’t too polite. What Decker just laid down was a fucking oration, by his standards.
Andrew’s reply is simpler. Yes. And it’s sufficient.
Decker nods, a jerk of his chin up. “You know where tha kinhouse is. Spare rooms upstairs. Move yer shit in there ‘n try not ta make too big a fuckin’ mess. Ev’s mate does all tha cleanin’ ‘n Ev ain’t so nice as he looks.”
[Andrew] Move in his shit. Sure. What shit was that, he wonders. A backpack. All his belongings. All he needed. Bits of earth wrapped in leather, twigs, leaves, herbs, random bits of thrown out garbage. He’d become a Gnawer while no one was looking. Fucking dirty dog. No wonder Red Talons, if there were such things (and he thought he’d met one briefly), shunned him. He reeked of the city. Even his style stank of it.
He meets Decker’s eyes a moment and nods again. The other Gaia Child. Didn’t meet him. He was the new Gaia Child elder. Probably for the best.
[Joss Lehrer] She is certainly not offended by his division of attention, having understood it instinctively the first time they met. He’s Theurge. It comes with the territory. He hasn’t met any Gnawers, and neither has she. She huffs a sigh, disappointed.
“Maybe it’s one the Rites Mistress has in her arsenal. Because that would be AWESOME.” Which is also, apparently, her key word for today.
Then – Totem phone to her alpha, quickly as something occurs to her. Oh – when you see him, tell Andrew to move in? Tell’em to steer clear of the attic – somethings up there wouldn’t take to lightly of his bargin in without me.
She doesn’t clarify. It’s likely better that she doesn’t. In the meantime, she looks over at Joey’s car, and gives an appreciative whistle. “I got the van for $250! IT was a total steal, and I only had to promise to keep the paint job.”
[Decker Rohl] Decker’s eyes go distant for a second. He seems to listen. Then he adds, “‘n stay outta tha attic, ‘less you want Joss ta go apeshit on yer ass.
“She’s down that way.” Jerk of his head in Joss’s direction. “Ya want details, talk ta her. I’m’on git some food.”
Maybe that cat made him hungry after all.
[Joey] Charlie hasn’t met any Bone Gnawers, either. Joey grins and turns back to Joss, letting Charlie drift into the conversation or out if it as he pleases. She’s seen his attention drift before, and like the narcolepsy, the nightmares, the cataplexy, and the myriad other ‘issues’ Charlie has that affects his physical state of being, Joey has adjusted for it. She doesn’t rush to his side in a panic when his muscles suddenly give out, simply moves him to his bed when he suddenly falls asleep mid-conversation, and takes no offense when his attention leaves a conversation.
They’re talking about cars, after all, something Joey has been teaching Charlie about occasionally as he helps her keep Cassius tuned up and in peak performance.
“Nice!” This is back to Joss. “That’s a fuckin’ steal. I bought Cassius with the insurance I got when someone wrecked my Ducati. That was a sweet bike.” Joey sighs wistfully, remembering.
[Gina McClaren] *She sits on the curb, digging around in her duffel bag until she comes up with her usual sandals. Strapping them on with a huff of disgust. Once done, she sighs, head hung low. This job… was unpleasant. She needed to invest in a very sexy looking taser.*
Christ.
*A slight jingle of charms as Gina gets to her feet and looks around.*
[Andrew] He nods a bit. Looks down at his treat, rapidly cooling off. It’s always better when it’s warm. Best to eat it when it’s warm. Decker says he’s heading off and Andrew goes back to what he was planning on doing. Finishing off the inside of that cat. Nothing like having your dinner interrupted. He flicks a look up and down the street again. No one’s around. Decker probably makes sure of that, to a large degree. Walking ball of Angry that he is.
There’s a flicker and he’s back in his lupine form. His ears twitch and he flicks a look up and down the alley again. Then he buries his nose two inches into the guts of the thing again.
[Decker Rohl] (thanks for the play folks! too many other things going on — dropping outta here!)
[Joss Lehrer] “Never tried a bike myself. Think it’d probably be a good idea to learn stick shift before I try two wheels, huh? When I get my van fixed up though, I’m totally gonna find you so you can see it. Randi said it’ll only take about three week to get the engine all rebuilt.”
A pause, like she’s gonna say something to draw Charlie into the conversation once again, but instead she just smiles at him, and turns back to Joey.
[Gina McClaren] *A sigh, as she reluctantly gathers her curse broken heels from the road, and flags down a cab. Next stop, Bronzeville, and a warm bath.*
[Joey] Joey blinks at that. “What’s wrong with the engine that’s gonna make it take so long?”
[Joss Lehrer] She laughs. “Well, it’s not her number one job, ya know. School and work and takin care of the packhouse is all first. Sides, it’s gonna take me a bit to learn to drive it too – so it’ll work out well. She’s also teachin me while we’re doin it, and when it comes to mechanics? I’d rather awaken em and let’em run themselves, cuz it’s confusing! So that adds to the time too.”
[Joey] The Rotagar nods, shifting her grip on the strap of her bag. “I get that.” And she does. She understands how teaching while working can take up her time. When she and Charlie rebuilt Curata’s truck, it had been a matter of getting it done before the Ahroun found out about it. They were too late, of course, and Joey very nearly got her friend into serious trouble over the whole ordeal.
But this Randi has other obligations to her pack, and Joss is in no hurry to have her van up and running.
“Well, we should get going. It’s, like, dinner time and I’m fuckin’ starving. Nice t’meet you, Joss. Good luck with your van and stuff.”
[Joss Lehrer] She smiles and kicks her swing into high gear then as they start to head off. “Have a good night, Joey. You too Charlie!”
And then it’s all about kicking the sky – you’d be amazed what can be solved by 30 minutes on a swing, swinging as high as you possibly can….Jos