Buy ya a beer? [Decker, Brotherhood]

Sol took her damn sweet time leaving Hatchet a two-word note concerning the Bone Gnawer’s presence in the city again. She didn’t say where he was, but Hatchet guessed: he guessed that Ryan would be out in the woods again, or in a parking lot somewhere. As soon as he got the note he all but ran from the Brotherhood out into the city, checking the lots, running through Tekakwitha.

He took his wolf form and howled and howled again, achingly, plaintively. There was never any answer, because as he’d run out of the Brotherhood to find his man, he had run right past the door to the room where Ryan is now staying.

O. Henry could have done wonders with the two of them.

Now he’s coming back, not giving up after two nights but determined to track down his Beta and smash her face into a table. The moon is waxing now, but has almost no light to give off. He is tromping up the stairs in dirty, muddy boots, muddy clothes, with a scowl on his face. The Kin in the kitchen let him be. He looks pissed of. He feels miserable. There’s a differe–

He turns the corner from common room, where Sam’s blood has been scrubbed off the floors yet again, and sees Ryan standing barely four feet away. In a towel. Hatchet stops breathing for a second, the Rage melting out of his eyes and the frustration out of his form, but he doesn’t move. If he moves, he’s going to throw Ryan on the floor, against the wall, any available flat surface, and take him. He takes a deep breath when he can again, and when he is sure he has control of himself, he looks over his shoulder, looks down the hall, and then steps across.

“Inside,” he all but gasps, a dirty hand on Ryan’s belly pushing him towards the entryway to the private room Ryan’s standing in front of.

No matter how much sleep he lost, Hatchet never opened his door in the middle of the night and climbed onto that useless twin bed to join him.

So right now he isn’t wearing that towel with the hopes of seducing Hatchet when he finally joined him because he doesn’t think he is going to join him. There’s a lazy sort of listlessness in the way he’s watching his laundry, as though he doesn’t have the mental energy to hold himself up straight and tall like the warrior that he is, but that isn’t it at all. Ryan’s still a goddamn kid. It wasn’t so many years ago that he was a teenager, and it’s highly likely that he won’t even live long enough to be a full-grown adult. When you’ve got four kids by the time you’re twenty-one it doesn’t really matter: your genes are going somewhere after you die.

When the figure comes around the side of the internal wall Ryan stands up straight so as to prepare himself for an encounter with someone who wants to start trouble, perhaps, or who wants to mock him for standing there in a towel, but it isn’t trouble.

It’s…

“Oscar!” he exclaims, much like he did the last time their paths crossed, and when that command, that hand, drive him back toward the open door of his single-occupant bedroom Ryan backs right on up and into the middle of the room that somehow manages to smell of the outdoors from the amount of use that his clothes had seen.

His chest is visibly fighting for air, but he doesn’t make a move until Hatchet does. It’s obvious from the worry on his face and the tension in his body that he’s waiting for a shoe to drop: he has been looking for Hatchet far longer than Hatchet was looking for him.

Headed to the Brotherhood. Buy you a beer?

Shocking that the whole pack didn’t unanimously sound off in her head with affirmatives, but perhaps more shocking was that it was Decker who agreed to join her. She is still somewhat unsure, but not near as much as before their little talk that was far less intimidating than she expected it to be.

Thus, the door opens, and the start of a very bad joke begins… Two Modi walk into a bar…

Well, Sol does, sometimes. When she’s sad. When she’s frustrated with him. When they’re alone. And Ryan only calls him that when they’re alone, too. Here, though? They can’t be feasibly considered ‘alone’. For all Hatchet knows, Lukas is right next door. Mrena is next to that. Even Gabriella is staying here now, he’s smelled her around the place.

And he doesn’t care how many people could walk up the stairs or out of a bedroom and see him right now. He’s just barely stopping himself from yanking that towel away and taking Ryan against the wall, so…really. He’s doing rather well, all things considered.

They managed to get into the bedroom, and he manages to shut it behind him but locking it requires him to take his hands off of the Gnawer, and he’s not willing to do that just now. “Sol left me a note yesterday, she didn’t say where you were, I went to the woods, I didn’t think you’d come here,” he’s saying, statement after statement tumbling out of his lips as he runs his hands around Ryan’s waist, touches his torso like he’s smoothing out invisible wrinkles. His voice is hushed but fervent. He smells like he belongs in this room, after running around Tekakwitha.

His boots left mud on the floors outside. He’s not thinking about it.

Not that he’s gonna wash ’em.

Yeah alright. Plates and bowls and silverware clatter into the big sink. ‘ll meetcha there in thirty.

Then he’s out the back sliding door. No word of goodbye. They didn’t need one: they’re packmates, constantly bonded. No word of explanation for the delay either, though perhaps she can guess.

—

Eighteen minutes later the Barracuda pulls up a block or so down the street from … wherever it is Imogen works at nearly 8pm on a Sunday night. Decker calls her cell. When she picks up he tells her where he is, and when she walks out he can see her coming a mile away. Her hair catches the streetlights, and the last of the daylight.

He leans across the passenger’s seat to open the door. They don’t kiss upon seeing one another like other couples. He looks her over, and then holds his hand out for her briefcase, which he transfers into the back.

“‘m meetin’ A.M. at tha Brotherhood. Says she’s buyin’. Why don’tcha come ‘long.”

—

And fourteen minutes after that, the Barracuda rolls up in the lot of the Brotherhood. The lights flash across the cars of whatever other residents and patrons might be there, and then dim when the engine dies, and then shut off entirely. Decker gets out. The door bangs with a steel-on-steel clatter, and he reminds himself he should really look into replacing at least some of the rubber seals he tore out when he was rebuilding the car.

She doesn’t order yet – she’d not presume to do so for the others. It’s not her way.

Kemp enters, and when he looks her way, gets a nod up in way of hello.

In any event: this year, this mood, she hands the brief case over, her hair catching in the light of the overhead, her eyebrow arches as he invites her to the Brotherhood. She gets into the car, pulling the door firmly shut behind her, the sound of metal meeting metal solid and sharp. The car’s engine roars through the framework; the Barracuda is not a quiet car, nor is it sound proof. When she speaks, she pitches her voice loud enough to be heard over the noise.

“Sounds like fun,” she says with a quiet sense of irony.

—

They don’t talk much on the way over. Don’t ask about the other’s day, don’t talk about their dinner plans, or their week plans. Once, she mentions there is construction on North Houston. He either deviates his course, or not.

She exits the car after he’s parked, shutting the door with the same firmness she’d previously used. Her gaze flicks over the building, unassuming as it is, her hands sliding into her jacket pockets as they approach.

He’d picked her up from her office, the one she is soon vacating, with yet another ‘for lease’ sign out front. As such, she is dressed for business, sleek charcoal slacks, pinstriped with white, a matching jacket, her blouse a black silk, sharp against her pale skin. She opens the door when she reaches it, letting it go as Decker takes it and stepping inside. The slight woman is offset by the taller, brutish Fenrir, her elegance heightened by his comparison.

Kemp is there too – AnneMarie. It was a regular Fenrir gathering + 1 fugitive Fianna.

It’s suddenly become warm in Chicago. Eighties in the daytime; seventy-seven even now. In his thick jeans, climbing out of a car that’s been sitting in the sun most the day, Decker’s a little overheated. He’s flapping his wifebeater against his stomach as he walks in — catches the greeter staring at him, and stares right back while he finishes self-ventilating. Then his eyes move past the greeter — he’s caught sight of AM, who he gives a short jerk of his chin up to.

“C’mon,” this, to Imogen, and low. His hand touches the small of her back briefly, then falls away before they’re quite out of the entryway to the Brotherhood. When they walk across the dining room, a stranger would be hard pressed to assign any real connection between the so obviously mismatched pair. A wave of awkward, threatened silence follows him — like birdsong stopping in the wake of a hawk.

At the bar, Decker doesn’t bother to take a seat. He frowns around the room, and then at AM. Low, “Ain’t there a second floor ta this place ‘r somethin’? Away from tha fuckin’ sheep?”

He doesn’t take a seat and AM waves over the bartender so that they can order. For herself, the writing on the board asks for Corona and for them to start a tab with the following orders, the rest can add their own to the tab that she requests started.

At the question, she nods, slightly. Through the kitchen.

Unspoken that she’d lead the way once they’ve received their drinks.

She does not hear AnneMarie’s answer – and after a moment’s silence, she adds her answer, lifting her chin to gesture the way, “Through the kitchen,” she says, repeating the female Modi.

a thousand feet overhead.

Sam’s flying, reaching out with his senses the way the totem does, feeling as a brood where best to be hunting and flying down like a sky itself gone black when they find prey. He’s been out three of the four hours he’d allotted for this when suddenly he isn’t alone. He’s surrounded in fact by their patron. Ravens, hawks, osprey, merlin, falcons and eagles. These birds are not indigenous, these are spirit brids and just as quickly as he’s surrounded by their flight they scatter to the four winds at the approach of one not their own.

This bird too is an eagle, but massive rippling with avian muscle and it’s beak wet with the blood of it’s prey. It cries out a name in it’s own language that strikes the Modi as familiar even if he doesn’t know it and begins to dive. The spirit herald drops as would a stone toward the city with the Modi in tow directly behind. Both reach something close to terminal velocity, unafraid as concrete flies toward them impossibly fast. They pull up though, the two of them synchronized in the chase and suddenly the shadows reflected on this side of the world are more familiar, close to home, they’re flying above traffic that here doesn’t exist save for the occasional scurrying pattern spider; right up lake shore drive.

By the time the thing stops it’s no surprise then that it does so on the roof of the bortherhood, perching itself on the inner access dorr like a giant winged sentry from a prehistoric age.

The Cliath seems to understand and focusing he pushes through with some effort to the other side, birthing himself into the physical world through the membrane of stasis that threatens to choke the whole city. There’s no eagle here, only a pigeon that flutters clumsily away at the predator’s sudden appearance. With that he’s making his way down to the second floor. An hour early to boot.

Being used to the muggy heat as he was, it was no surprise to find the theurge seated on the second floor away from the sheep, as one referred to them, dressed in a longsleeve snowy white shirt with a crisply starched collar. The shirt was tucked into a pair of dark grey, almost black slacks. Today he opted for a pair of comfortable dress shoes, the type worn in a corporate office, instead of his customary knee-high boots. An oval steel belt buckle was centered on his waist, the leather of the belt black as night.

Beside him on a stand was a bucket full of ice, with wine in it to chill. A half-empty glass set beside that. The Silver Fang appeared to be reading.

Imogen glances toward the waiter. “Whatever yeh’ve got on draught,” she says, her tone remote, careless.

And when she says the name, he repeats it. And, “‘ll have that.”

Then he’s heading into the back too. The kitchen staff, being kinfolk, react better than the patrons did — though not by a lot. Decker’s footsteps on the stairs are distinctive and firm, which basically means: he more or less stomps his way up, two steps at a time.

She waits for the order to be delivered, and with a nod of thanks to the waitress, she gathers whatever orders that weren’t waited for, as well as her own beer, and follows the path of the Eagle Alpha upstairs.

Imogen glances over as Kemp makes his departure. watching the door swing shut before she follows AnneMarie and Decker up to the second floor.

She’s never been here, but she’s heard of it. Her interest is distracted as she takes in the layout, tables, closed or open bedroom doors. Caleb with a book in his hands.

There was a bit of surprise on his face to see the Eagles within the Brotherhood, they having abdicated from the sept a long time ago. He’d thought they didn’t venture out of their pack boundaries these days.

“Oh my fucking god!”

But that’s what he twists open as he drops down on the couch. And puts his feet up — not on the coffee table but lengthwise, taking up a good stretch of the couch.

“‘sup,” he replies to Caleb, and, on that note, starts patting down his pockets looking for a joint. Or paper and weed. Someone’s having noisy sex down the hall, making the Modi grimace in distaste. “How many Garou live in this shithole?”

— shithole, he terms it, as though he bunks at the Drake Hotel.

He heads out to greet Decker and company.

And that’s when the second voice rings across the place. His eyes are magnets, trapped into looking at the closed door. His brow furrows but this mystery will go unsolved for today. Around the corner and through the archway he steps smoothly as though floating just above the floor rather than walking atop it. So precise, almost avian if not for the way he keeps his teeth from at all showing in waving to the assembled Fenrir. “Two packs, plus a few more, sir.” He blushes in catching himself misaddressing the other man [Beast.] again.

WIth that he turns and greets his future packmate. “Caleb.” he gives a nod and litle else Save a polite affability he gives the whole room.

She is not quite so obvious as to grimace, but there is a flicker of well-bred distaste, a pinching of the nostrils barely obvious even to those who know her well.

A flick of her gaze marks Decker on the couch, “Comfortable, are you?” enquires the kinwoman as she takes residence in one of the nearby chairs, not bothering to dislodge the Fenrir’s sprawl.

Her eyes move to Caleb as the question is posed, then to Sam as he answers it.

“That’s – what,” she asks mildly her gaze moving toward the hallway then back again, “ten ‘r so?”

“Five, if you count myself even though I live in the woods. Four without myself, for the Unbroken Circle. Two, I believe, in the other pack. Unless Buried-Hatchet-rhya has managed to swell his ranks without my knowledge.”

A glance is spared in the direction of bedroom across the way, then move back to those in the Common room with them. She – unsurprisingly – remains silent.

This isn’t, though. Even though he’s claimed a good portion of the couch. Even though he’s sprawled like he owns the goddamn place. And he refrains.

Sam answers. The corner of Decker’s mouth lifts — the smirk has a glimmer of teeth. Imogen wants to know if that makes ten Garou under one roof. Decker just wants to know: “‘n nobody killed no one yet?”

He can’t find a prerolled joint. He starts rolling one instead, using the plane of his abdomen as a surface. He does this with such practiced ease that he hardly needs to glance down, his big blunt fingers surprisingly deft with the thin cigarette paper, the dried and crumbled weed.

The flicker in her expression was something close to exasperation – perhaps disgust. For a whiny ass Modi.

That one Sam, she means is the one disemboweled. crying and bleeding the last I was here. Put down by his packmate.

The flicker in her expression was something close to exasperation – perhaps disgust. For a whiny ass Modi.

Caleb’s answer causes Imogen’s gaze to rest there briefly, then move to Sam for the answer of the question – have they tried to kill anyone yet?

She lifts her drink for a swallow and waits for the reply.

The loud moan eminating from the bedroom gave the Silver Fang a bit of pause. He recognized the voice, but he would be damned if he went to investigate. More to the point, he truly did not want to know. Either way he had a disturbed look on his face before turning his attention back to Decker and the Eagles. Being that loud during sex, no matter who you were, just was colored bad to him in a dormatory setting.

Because truly they’re as disparate and different as any individuals one could meet. It’s in the way they fight, the ways they speak the human languages …or don’t. The deferring and dominating, all of it. Everyone’s got their ways. Everybody’s the same and different all at once.

Decker speaks up again and the junior member of the tribe in the room replies jokingly. “Not for lack of trying.” His eyes catch what Decker’s doing with his hands and intones almost too innocently not to be kidding,

“what’s that?”

He gives Sam a look. It’s hard to read. Then it gets easier to read: it’s disbelief and a form of low-grade aghastness.

“A joint,” he says, the way people say Duh. And then he finishes rolling, licks it shut, sticks it between his teeth and puts his baggie and papers away. Gets a box of old-fashioned strike-anywheres out. Finds it empty. Crumples it in his hand and tosses it on the table.

To Imogen, low, the tip of the joint bobbing with his words, “Got a light?”

The noises from the other room are forgotten, though like as not she would not care even if she knew who was inside – some might suggest she would, instead, be jealous, but that is not entirely true, either. At least not in obvious ways. It simply is a non-issue, as Decker finishes his joint and Sam…

…doesn’t recognize it for what it is. There’s that amusement again, a brief expression completely different than the one before. She has no light so she does not offer, and she simply settles her beer on her knee after taking another swallow.

The zipper hisses as it opens and she reaches inside, retrieving a bronze, battered zippo. Decker is too far away for her to simply hand it over. She leans forward, setting it on the coffee table and slides it toward him, letting it spin out for him to catch.

Thump.

Imogen glances up.

“Perhaps they should invest in some soundproofing,” she observes mildly, picking up her draught again.

He stares at the little white stick though. There’s a look of novelty there, of the unknown passing in front of the face of a being who is the unknown.

When his lungs are filled to his bursting, his chest expanded to its fullest, he glances at Sam again. Then, by way of answer — and because he was holding the hit — he sits up and passes the joint to the younger Modi.

Another thump, but this one with the same tone of an angry father pounding the door of a child’s room– keep it down in there!– resonated up the hallway and out into the room. Soledad had slammed the side of her fist into the door once, and that was all she figured was necessary, especially considering that strike made the door shutter and want to splinter. Luckily, these doors were installed with Garou in mind. It held fast.

With the side of her fist reddened from abuse, the Uktena stalked out into the common room, dressed in capris, powder blue flip-flops, and a bright yellow spaghetti strap that did absolutely nothing to flatter her boyishly small chest. That was the last place people should be concerned about when facing the girl down, though, so she could give a damn less. Looking particularly moody, she ghosted her way around the back of the sectional and toward the pool table, eyeballing all of the familiar faces and the new ones as well without so much as a word.

Imogen sits back and waits to see if the Cliath partakes.

The newcomer draws a glance, a flick of her gaze, a pause of her attention. The edge of her mouth tugs taut, then settles again.

Acquiescence.
Peace.

Instead of raising an objection one long finger makes a circle with his thumb and twists the paper away from the Alpha of the pack who has taken to the neutral territory as if it were there own. He raises it to his lips, pauses in a thousand thoughts and then heaves his chest outward sucking down the smoke that tears dryly at the back of his mouth. Equal parts potpourri and cat piss strike him in the nostrils like a garbage fire in the next room and he chokes-

coughs

sputters.

The blonde Fenrir is nearly doubling over with his tongue lolling out of his mouth and one hand over his abdomen as the other shields his gaping convulsing maw with it’s back to protect the handrolled cigarette that isn’t his own from collateral damage. “Heeere….” smokily he hands it out to whomever in the room would take it, the only half inhaled smoke forming around him like a dark grey cloud as it pours away from his body and up toward the ceiling.

He exhales, slowly and silently, releasing a slow-dissipating cloud of bluegrey smoke. The unmistakable smell of pot is starting to fill the room.

Decker’s head comes up off the arm of the couch and snaps around at the THUMP! from the hall. The second, angry one, not the first. Stretched along the long section of the couch, Decker’s head is toward the door. He cranes around to watch Soledad walk in, and the first look the Uktena has of the Modi is sharply foreshortened, over the arm of the couch: the top of his head, mostly, and one hurricane of an eye under the cut of his brow; the slash of his nose.

He turns away after a moment, carelessly, and looks to see where his goddamn joint has gone. “Git too loud fer ya ‘r somethin’?”

The slight kinwoman plucks the joint from his hand without touching him, lifting it to her mouth as she keeps one eye upon the doubled up youth taking an easier hit of her own. From there, she passes it to AnneMarie – or Decker, if the mute does not want it.

“Next time,” she suggests to Sam, “hold th’smoke in yer mouth a bit before lettin’ it into yer lungs.” A sliver of a smirk, there then gone, “helps yeh acclimate.”

Then Sam takes the joint, coughs, sputters, and completely fails at taking a hit when all is considered. This draws a very rare smirk across her broad-featured face. “Not your thing, Gringo Sam?” Her eyes flash with seldom-seen humor, and she takes a few steps forward to wherever she needs to be so she can lean her long body down, take the joint between her fingers, and glance toward Decker with a ‘May I?’ expression on her face, followed by something that slips without her truely intending it to: ‘I really need it right now.’

Decker’s smirk is really a sort of crooked, rather meanspirited grin at this point, three or four teeth showing under the quirk of his lip. His eyes follow Imogen as she goes to save his tribesmate.

The joint passes to AM, possibly. If not, Decker eyes the newcomer for a second, and then nods. Upward.

“Yeah, whatever.” No, he doesn’t care if the chicana girl with the hint of native central-america in her face wanted to take a hit off the peace pipe.

Then, a slow exhale as she settles back to the couch once more.

After a few moments of silent observation just beyond the portal, moments spent as an absent hand pulls the door closed behind him, the man makes his way through the restaurant toward the kitchen. He passes the doors that separate the dining area from the kitchen without stopping, his gait belying both his certainty of belonging in areas restricted to many patrons of the restaurant and a calm confidence to deal with any difficulties that might occur in reaching his destination.

Still, even as he moves through the restaurant, his step is unhurried, relaxed… As though he had all the time in the world.

Soon, he reaches a set of stairs in the kitchen, the set that only those of the proper pedigree could ascend. So it was, his steps tapping lightly upon each step in the stairwell, that the kin named John makes his way to the common room above the restaurant.

It’s on the fast side, now.

The thud of Sol’s fist on the door seems to have been ignored. There’s no more outright moaning, at least not yet, no cries to a god none of them really buy into. There are…noises. Gasps. Muffled words from that same male throat. A grunt or two.

“Not really,” He eventually mutters through a close lipped smile he does offer her. “Should’ve been out the other night Sol, we killed a bug man. Miss Slaughter even set one on fire.” That’s when the first of the giggles start, small but they’re there and don’t stop long enough to let him get another hit immediately the next time he’s handed the dope. Perhaps it’s the too-serious expression his friend’s face, maybe the alleviation under the newly winking moon of a week’s tensions, or perhaps it’s the complicated and outright hilarious notion of someone named Slaughter of all things setting fire to an anthropomorphic swarm of beetles like a one woman army.

it’s probably that one.

Regardless he does take another long toke, this time taking the advice of the good doctor. He sputters twice once he swallows the smoke down, uneven little dragon’s tails puffing fire from his nostrils and out the corners of lips that blow like a trumpeteer trying to hold in the smoke. But he’s more successful this time and manages to keep everything together a good forty seconds before finally blowing out a much clearer grey tinged blast than previous attempts.

Thornton makes an appearance at the top of the stairs and Sam’s smile goes over-wide, he cannot it seems control the pie-eyed look that comes over his face as he turns to Decker, then to the Kin.

And bursts out laughing.

“It’s the cops.”

And passes it on, right back to Sam.

Lightweight, she thinks, and Decker says it outloud. Finally, after what must have been forever, she exhaled, and shifted her eyes to Thornton when Sam said it was ‘the cops’. She eyeballed him for a second, then grunted. “He won’t do anything,” she said. He was smarter than that.

Then the groans, the muffled voices, and the thwacking of bedsprings becoming more obvious when they lose pace from the dryer. Her eyes drifted toward the door again and narrowed harshly. Oh, believe you me, there would be words tonight.

He was in the house while I was out-o’-doors. Fought some … thing while the bugs came out. Ask Evan, he’ll know better. He was in there with him.

Decker passes the joint back.

“The second hit is easier,” she advises.

Then, schooling his expression back to neutrality, he continues his ascent of the stairs, coming into view of those in the common room to the amused cry of It’s the cops.

A cheshire smile plays about the edges of his lips, as hazel eyes take each of them in turn.

“Be glad I’m off duty…”

A joke? No… from him? It seemed little possible, yet it was true all the same. The detective had told a joke.

John makes his way into the room with that same relaxed demeanor as before, and upon finding some convenient real estate, leans against the wall calmly. A curious brow raises, hazel eyes focusing on Sam for a time.

“Where did that come from?”

She glances toward John as he enters, as he makes a bit of a joke, and asking where it came from. She – characteristically – says nothing.

If the second one was easier, the third one is again by a full measure.

His mouth is suddenly very dry he finds but he’s able to hold onto all of the smoke this time. A feat of stamina more than anything. “I can’t say sir.” He replies blowing the smoke up and to the opposite direction of the detective before passing it on to the doctor. “That’s you know…privileged.” He grins, seemingly realizing fully that the kinfolk means them no ill at the moment.

“How’s life, detective? C’mon, you ought to meet some people.” The last is delivered as a friendly suggestion but the look he gives John as he nods back toward the circular assembly of kin and Garou in the room says it’s a little more than that.

Also, someone’s having noisy, noisy sex down the hall, though the only one this seems to truly bother is Soledad.

Then again, the rest of ’em didn’t know wtf was going on in there.

Decker’s stretched out — more or less full length by now — on the sectional couch, but when ‘the cops’ want to know where the pot came from he sits up slowly: rising out of his repose like some sort of monster surfacing from the deep. He twists around to put his feet on the coffee table instead; sprawls against the back of the couch.

“I gave’it ta ‘im,” Decker gives Thornton a straighter answer. “Why?” A short sniff, thuggish; and a faint smirk. “You tryin’a bust my source?”

However, she said nothing, seemed to block out the rest of the room. A tremble of fury and disgust threatened to climb its way up her spine, but she stopped it before it got very far.

Suddenly deciding that she needed hard, hard, very hard liquor, she twisted and briskly made way out of the common room and downstairs, flip-flops slapping at the bottoms of her feet as she went.

A flick of her wrist shows her watch from beneath the cuff of her suit jacket. A pause, then she straightens from her chair, lifting her beer to drain it to half way before setting it down. “I need t’head off,” she says, getting to her feet.

“Enjoy yerselves,” there is something of a dryness to her tone – perhaps because telling a bunch of Garou smoking pot and drinking beer to enjoy themselves is simply a foregone conclusion.

With that, she leaves.

“I told you before, cops tend to be nosey. We just can’t seem to help ourselves.”

Then, as Sam’s question is considered, the dark ringed gaze grows distant for a short time, the dark expression of the pyromaniac Native American and the leer of the fomor clerk floating in his vision briefly. The moment passes… His gaze returns to Sam as he shrugs.

“Life is… complicated. But today wasn’t so bad.

How are you?”

He returns Imogen’s greeting politely in kind.

“Goodnight, Dr. Slaughter.”

Would that she be given the same freedom…

However, that is neither here nor there, and she gives her full attention to those that remain in the room.

Soledad’s sudden exit makes Decker look after her, mildly baffled. It lasts only a moment. Then he writes it off. Whatever; maybe it was her ex-boyfriend in there. Imogen’s standing up, though, gets a more pronounced reaction. Decker doesn’t merely sit up now; he sits forward, picking his beer up.

“‘Gen, wait.” He gulps down the rest of the bottle all at once, which must surely make Imogen feel so much safer when he adds, “‘ll drive ya.”

Whoever held his joint currently, he reaches out to snap it out of their fingers, replacing it between his teeth as he catches up to the redhead.

“That,” Sam continues on with the Fenrir kin now, one hand idly gesturing to the man not much older than he the way a man at the front might for a major or a colonel. “Is Decker Rohl, eldest of Fenris’ Get you’ll find for a ways. “Decker-rhya,” the old form word isn’t one he was brought up saying and it still sounds wolfen on his tongue, a lupine borrow word. This is John Thornton, he’s a dectective, one of our kin.” He looks to each of the other assembled.

“You I haven’t met yet.” Anne Marie gets a studied eye, “I don’t think.” Then Decker’s off after his woman and Soledad is already halfway don the stairs and the room seems to thin remarkably. Funny how quickly that happens.

“Bye.” He call weakly behind them as they all decide to leave at once.

(Mei. bed. now. Night! Thanks for the RP!)

He takes a last hit as he hits the first floor, passes the joint over to Imogen to finish and, lacking any sort of coat or outerwear, simply takes the back door out to the alley. It slams behind the two of them, noisily enough to make the kitchen staff jump.

-[AnneMarie Hoch. Modi. Eagle.]-

She does not add that the last she saw him he was too busy watching his blood soak into the floorboards for a proper introduction, and she gives no indication that there is anything else to be said, anything else that matters.

“Like I said, I’m off duty. Your dealer is safe unless he gets too big to ignore.”

That said, John’s cheshire smile grows slightly as Sam introduces him to Decker. Then, as he mentions the woman in the room he has yet to be introduced to, John shakes his head.

“No, we’ve yet to be properly introduced.”

That said, a curious brow raises as she begins writing on a whiteboard, his hazel eyed gaze floating between her and Sam.

“Is anyone else like…hungr-”

Before he can finish the sentence though there’s a jingling coming from his open door, it’s faint enough that it’s hard to hear, the drums and lyrics bleeding into the guitars in a the tiny speakers but he recognizes his own ringtone when he hears it. “Excuse me for just a minute, that’s me.” He unsteadily turns, giglling once at the way his large feet betray his normally graceful posture. A glance down at the display of the phone when he closes the door behind him turns his face paler than facing down an army of nexus crawlers without a soul in backup.

Incoming
Mom.
Talk ! Voicemail

The Fenrir groans and picks up.

Pop.

Some came and went with a gentle wash, masters and diplomats of the Weaver’s curtain, while others removed themselves or made an entrance with a gut-wrenching tear that brought spiders from half a block away to repair the damage. Others yet simply appeared in the space between blinks. Then there are those who come like a burst bubble, timorous and shaky and uncertainly fresh.

Zeke is one of the last.

He thumps into view beside the far window beyond the couches and seats of the Common space, backlit by the exterior illumination. His attire is professional best; a blue suit, with no tie, a pair of driving gloves and the comforts of a well made pair of shoes and socks. Hands in his pockets, head newly shaved, he is slightly bent as if having dropped from a small height.

“Gotta love that drop…” He brings a waft of caustic smoke, as if plastics had been burning where he’d last been.

Giggling, still. Like as not, AnneMarie has never giggled. People would be hard pressed to think of a time that she actually smiled. It is what it is.

Her gaze snaps toward Zeke as he enters, studies him for a long moment, before looking back to John.

It almost felt homey now.

It was later in the evening, and Gabbie had been in her bedroom for the better part of the past three hours doing goodness knows what, reading or painting or something similar that people imagined Gabriella would do when alone. However, now she was leaving her room with the vague notion of getting food or a drink in mind, wearing a sleeping outfit that consisted of a silky plum camisole and matching sleepshorts, both items hemmed in a lighter lavender color. A pair of slippers, white and ridiculously plush, kept her feet warm, and her hair was left down to fall close to the middle of her back.

Shuffling her feet just slightly, because it was easier to not leave a slipper behind when she walked like that, Gabbie made the transition from hallway to common room.

For the detective to roll his weight forward on his toes… His right hand sliding up to the grip of the Glock at the small of his back, its dull matte finish standing out starkly against the untanned flesh beneath. His eyes are narrowed, sharp… piercing…

As though he were the merest instant from opening fire.

After a moment, a moment in which AnneMarie had dismissed the newcomer as an immediate threat and returned her gaze to John, the hand releases the pistol grip and pulls the white fabric of the dress shirt back over the Glock.

A deep sigh escapes him, before the hazel gaze is pulled by sheer force of will from the as yet unnamed garou in the room. Returning to the spot where he’d mere moments before been leaning against the wall, the detective takes the time to read AnneMarie’s whiteboard. Then, with a nod, he answers with his own introduction.

“Nice to meet you, AnneMarie. I’m John Thornton, Detective C.P.D… Though I would surmise you already know that.”

The cheshire smile returns as the detective finishes his statement, the whole of him seeming once again carefully composed and relaxed.

The hazel eyes flit to the newcomer (Gabriella) for a brief moment as she enters, before they begin roving between AnneMarie, the man with smoke still whisping from his form, and the lady in the white slippers.

“Easy there, chief.” He watches John re-sheath the weapon, hands sliding away as smoothly as the glock is holstered. “Just here to see if someone’s in…” Zeke dusts himself down, eyes holding John’s presence for a moment longer before he dashes them toward the far hallway and the room’s that line it.

When he climbs the stairs up into the second story, he has a second joint between his teeth, lit and spilling smoke. He’d only gotten two and a half hits off the first before it was all consumed — dangers of passing a joint around a room full of pothead Garou and kin, apparently. There are two more faces he doesn’t recognize. One’s Garou; the other might not even be human. Might be some sort of … princess doll come to life. Decker shoots Gabbie an incredulous glance, and then takes up his seat again on the long arm of the L-shaped sectional sofa.

“Who’s tha Pajama Barbie?” he wants to know, taking the joint out of his mouth to point Gabriella out with it.

Decker returns, and retakes “his” spot on the couch. In answer to his question, her shoulder lifts in a slight shrug, though it is likely that more information is passed between Packmates.

Whatever, this was a place full of Garou. Strange smells were to be expected.

She slipper-shuffled closer to the stairwell, then paused when a force similar to but much more powerful than anything she’s ever felt before started ascending, with the source of the smell hanging from his mouth. She wasn’t so sheltered that she didn’t know a joint when she saw one. Her eyes went a little wide, and she stopped walking, then shuffled backward a few steps to let Decker pass over to the sofa.

He asked who she was, pointed the joint at her, but didn’t ask her directly, so truth be told she wasn’t sure if she was supposed to answer or not. She just blinked and glanced around to the other faces in the room, as though trying to figure out who he was talking to.

He breathes deeper then necessary, seemingly struggling for some semblance of oxygen. Then exhales slower still, pushing forward a step or more with his eyes still closed. It wasn’t a ‘wide’ berth he gives the sofas, nothing conscious…but show him a Metis used to garou life, that could unconscious wade through the room as it is, without taking a several foot curve.

Both eyes peel open, a little wider then before, gaze lifting toward Sam.

“Hey Sam. Mrena in…?” Choked at first, he waves at the smoke. Like that were the reasoning…

The gaze instead turns toward Gabriella, eyes narrowing slightly.

“How ’bout you, Kiddo? White~eyes in?”

Then, John remains silent, watching, seemingly always watching.

The detective’s steadily moving gaze knew no respite.

She glances at her Alpha once more, and once more a touch of information is passed – unheard, unseen, unknown by the others.

There is no smirk actually there – but it’s certainly implied in the tone. Fenrir are not carried. Not unless they are unconscious or dead.

“I’m sorry, I thought you were asking someone else… I’m Gabriella Bellamonte.”

And she lifted her hand in a small, quick, meek wave. Terrifying as this monster-in-man’s-skin was, she was surprised that she hadn’t bolted from the room yet. Another glance was cut to Zeke, and she rolled her bare and slightly freckled shoulders in a shrug. “If she is, she hasn’t come out of her room for a while and may be asleep.”

The ass.

And, by way of returned greeting, “Decker.”

She’d dried off by now, and run a brush through the long, straight tresses of her brunette hair. One had to be at least somewhat presentable, after all (not that she ever had to try too hard to accomplish this.) Her outfit for the day was simple – a pair of dark blue jeans that hugged her hips and legs, and a plain black tank. On the back, the edges of her tattoo poked out: tips of black feathered wings.

Eventually she arrived at her destination, and slipped unobtrusively through the door before making her way to the bar.

“Sleeping yea’…” He’s murmuring, waving almost continuously at his face, words a confirmation of something he probably already knew but didn’t clue into until Gabriella had spoken. The pen continues to elude him for a few minutes, Zeke little more then a shadow on the wall on the boundaries of the collective.

Decker said something that could be offensive, but she wasn’t sure. And she sure as shit wasn’t going to challenge him on it. So she glanced to him, to Zeke again, then to the two other faces she’d never seen before that were remaining absolutely silent.

So, a moment passed and she tugged self-consciously on the hem of her camisole, making sure her stomach was completely covered, and rocked on her feet a few times before murmering something that sounded like a muffled “Getting a drink,” then turned and bustled her way down the stairwell and into the kitchen.

This was one of the downsides of living at The Brotherhood that she didn’t take into account. She’d somehow managed to forget that people she didn’t know or like would float through.

“I don’t believe we’ve been introduced… John Thornton. C.P.D.”

His expression is untelling, as it has been since his arrival at the Brotherhood earlier in the night.

Zeke’s expression is somewhat, mixed as he approaches the Coaches. Anne Marie’s pen is given a brief glance, though the woman garners little of his attention. The pen is plucked without nod or ceremony (she isn’t looking at him when she offers) and he begins to scribble while glancing up momentarily at John.

“Don’t suppose you know any good Jokes, do you Mr. Thornton?” It seems like a serious expression, one brow perked in that brief glance, before Zeke’s gaze falls back to the scribbling, nostrils flaring and a snort to expel the lingering traces of smoke is offered.

(post around me, guys!)

“Silver Patron with lime.”

Within a few moments, a shot glass and a little plate with a lime wedge were set before her. Then, she set about going through the ritual. Salt. Tequila. Lime. And she downed the shot in one gulp, like she’d watched other people do in the past. It burned going down, and made her eyes water, but she grinned in satisfaction. Somehow this whole thing seemed so uniquely American, to her. In hindsight, she decided that next time, she’d take a bit more time with it… but all in all… not an unpleasant drink.

After the temporary swimming sensation trickles out of her head (at least, mostly), she spins around in her seat and looks around, weighing her options for self-entertainment.

“Sorry… Left my comedian bit in the car. Why do you ask, Mr…?”

A curious brow raises over one eye.

Instead, she simply rests her hands in her lap, folded over her white board, as her watches. And listens.

“-figure I can try and make this thing laugh, next time. Might get a better response…” He finishes up the note, lifting it up for inspection, eyes narrowed and jaw slightly askew and off to the left.

“…That is almost completely illegible.”

Blink.
Blink twice.
Rub your face.

Simon says you’re stoned.

Sam reappears into the hallway with discomfortable smirk across his face and surveys each of the assembled Garou and the kinfolk joining them upstairs. “Hey.” His lanky form leans in the doorway like a feather leans at the base of a tree. The way much of his pack always seems to. As if they’re about to take flight, to leave the earth in two seps and disaapear off into the horizons.

Lifted.

The level stare remains on Zeke…

As though waiting for something.

She had been out observing people that night. She had chosen to go somewhere nice, for once, with the expressed intention of watching people. Of practicing some sort of normal day-to-day interaction. How to gracefully accept and decline. She was learning and observing the every day social ritual that people went through. She was listening to pickup lines, she was picking things apart and trying to determine what was effective communication and what was not.

Eventually, she got tired of it. So, she came home.

Up the stairs, holding her heels in one hand and her purse in the other. Once she came upstairs, the theurge looked around the common room. Attire was…

Uncomfortable. Black dress. Red heels. Red necklace. She even curled her hair- how cute.

“The black looks good, Fate-child but the red makes you look cheap and tawdry.” He purses his lips, a hand lifting with the note clutched within, partially crumpled and a scribbled mess. “Was about to leave you a note…”

The smells are profound tonight. Heady dips of marijuana, pungent enough in their aroma to stone-out a Modi and the vague acrid stench of burning plastics, underlying it.

So instead, she paid for the one she’d already had and hopped down from her stool, winding around tables and chairs until she reached the stairs that led up to the next floor, where she could hear movement and voices. As usual…the wolves were in their den.

May as well go say hello. Up she went, making barely a sound as she took each step. At the top, she poked her head into the common room and surveyed the faces there. Some familiar from her last two visits. Some new. None had been properly introduced however. She stepped inside slowly, gave a small flicker of a polite smile and bowed her head briefly in greeting to those present.

The room smelled like pot. Her nostrils flared delicately for a moment, but she otherwise ignored it.

She emerged at the top of the stairs several seconds after Mrena and glanced about the room. A part of her was let down, she’d somehow thought that the strangers would all vanish and things would be great.

Fat chance, Gabriella.

But at least some of the pack was there now. She spotted Mrena first, of course, because she was right in front of her. This brought a broad smile to the pajama-clad young woman’s face, and she slid up to stand directly beside Mrena. “Nevermind him,” she said, disregarding whatever had just come out of Zeke’s mouth, “I think that red has always been a good color for you.” She remembered the scarf, and how fond of it Mrena was. She just couldn’t remember whatever happened to it.

Then she peered across the room to Sam, who recieved a very similar smile, even if something was off and different about him.

…Then a thin young woman who bristled Rage like so many around here did slid up the stairs behind her. Now, Gabriella faired well around people with high Rage, mind you. She could sit in a car sandwiched between Lukas and Sam (and she had before) for hour long car rides and be perfectly fine, but this was different. First of all, Decker was there. Then there was the eerie silent woman, Zeke who, while not too Ragey, was eerie in and of himself, and a man she didn’t know, now with this other girl as well. She gritted her teeth a bit, grinding her molars once, and fidgeted and shuffled her slipper-adorned feet across the floor to get her away from the doorway.

It was getting entirely too crowded in here.

The Modi is almost playful, like a pup when he speaks.

“Hey,” As Gabbie comes up the stairs, the shaven length of the Modi’s jawline hangs down for a moment as though he may speak but he doesn’t and istead closes his mouth and just continues to stand where he’s at and smile about nothing in particular.

“Date?”

For the merest moment, he seems on the verge of saying more, though it passes quickly. So quickly in fact, one might wonder if it had indeed happened at all.

In the intervening time when the Eagles, and the rest had appeared, Caleb had made his excuses and departed to attend to an errand or two waiting for him at the caern. It was not long, however, that the Silver Fang had returned to the Brotherhood to join his fellow Garou once more.

Still, due to the warm weather, he wore merely a snowy white longsleeve button-down shirt with a crisply starched collar. It was tucked into loose fitting cargo khakis that were a deep, dark grey. Somewhere the theurge had managed to change his clothes in the intervening space. Up the stairs and to the common-room with the others.

“Suggestions for a better accent color?” she asked. Her attention was everywhere, but her attention was to be pulled in various directions. All of it was covered over by the haze of marijuana on her senses. Something that kept the air distinctly less tense than it should be.

Gabbie said that she looked good in red, and not to listen to Zeke. She shot the Fang a slight smile, a bit of a grin and an acknowledgment of the compliment. The theurge seemed pleased by this thought, then it was back to Zeke.

“What’ve you got for me?” she asked. Note in hand, it seemed.

Then, there was other questions, most of which pertaining to her social life. “Just out tonight, people, clubs, loud music. If I’d had a date, I somehow have the feeling that I would be stomping up the stairs looking distinctly displeased… and I wouldn’t have done my hair.”

AnneMarie got a nod, a half wave. They didn’t know each other’s names, though they have been in each other’s company some time before. They were on a face-to-face basis, nothing more it seemed.

Trying at least a little bit not to look like a gerbil in a cramped cage full of feral cats, she put the glass of orange juice to her lips and nursed the beverage while she shuffled.

“Purple. Darker shade of it might be suitable…”

He’s stepping carefully, one would guess, across the floorboards of the Common room, the note crumpled up in one hand and pocketed without a thought.

“Wanted to see if you’ve made any progress on our giant rampaging friend…”

Though, for the most part, she still does as she has all evening. Watches, and learns. It’s amazing what one can learn from simple, astute observation – and it is the reason she has been sent here. Even with her Alpha present – or perhaps especially – she is vigilant and watchful.

She was about to move in and take a seat… when something interrupted her. A faint buzzing in the pocket of her jeans. Wonderful timing. Slipping around the corner, she snatched the cell phone out of her pocket and sighed, answering it reluctantly. She was already on her way back down the stairs, and her voice, a soft murmuring of French, became steadily quieter.

John smiles that cheshire smile, returning Zeke’s less than innocent curiosity with a clinical stare, such as that of a scientist closely watching some chemical reaction, some play of light to indicate the passage of celestial bodies.

Then, his phone begins to shake, giving its silent signal of an incoming call. Removing it from his shirt pocket, John starts toward the stairwell once again, making the briefest of statements as he departs…

“Wednesday.”

His phone is opened with no explanation or apparent recipient for the odd statement, and as he starts down the stairs, his voice can be heard clearly as he answers the call.

“Go ahead…”

“Talk to you?” His brows lift and the top of his head sways in a small circle in the direction of his room. “Real quick, I promise.” There’s a look given down to Gabbie who’s basically reached his side and a lightening of his face.

He turns and heads back out toward his room letting his hand fall on Gabbies shoulder for just a second before the touch fails to linger too long and he’s already out of reach and going toward the room he and Sampson bunk in.

And there she was, thinking through options. The theurge nodded gently. Sam said that he needed to talk to her, and her gaze flitted off to his direction. There was a slight nod, What’s up? I need to talk to you, too, grab me when you’ve got a free moment.

Wednesday, John said.
“Wednesday,” she replied.

“I think we’re going to have to do a unified effort. Get some of your people together and we can do a recon. at some point later this week.” He snorts. “Not like the thing is going anywhere…”

Hence, Gabriella’s apprehension of being around so many people she barely knew, most if not all packed with Rage. The way she pointedly didn’t look at any, and sidled a little closer to the Modi of the Circle. A half-amused arch of his eyebrow ensued, a king watching his royal blood associate with the common rabble. Except, many of these were no mere common rabble.

Decker Rohl, Adren Get of Fenris. Alpha of a prominant, founding pack of Chicago. Caleb owed the man a bit more than respect. AnneMarie Hoch, the ever-silent beta and shadow of the aforementioned battle-leader. Mrena Armstrong, his counter-part and antithesis. Dark where he was light and vice versa. Strong-willed, determined, and driven. Many thought him to act as though he were better than the Shadow Lord theurge, but in fact he revered her with almost as much respect as was due Decker Rohl.

Sam Modine, Cliath Get of Fenris Modi. Quick-tempered, full of passion to a fault (as Caleb has seen). He did not know the young Fenrir over-well; what little he has seen of the man had resorted in some form of violence a time or two. That, and grief. Grief over the welfare of one Gabriella Bellamonte. A wry smile curved his features at the reverie.

Buried-Hatchet, the Fianna Philodox that acted very much like a mixture of both the half-moon and the no-moon. Such, Caleb deemed, was the way of the passionate celtic tribes of the British Islands. Strong, fierce, and worthy people.

Every one in this room he would trust to fight for what they believed in, right or wrong, but nor did he trust many of them with his life.

Caleb, talk to you?

Snapped out of his silent musings, his pale green eyes flicked to the man seated beside Gabbie. Following Sam’s gaze first to the Modi’s room, then to the Kinfolk. It was almost as if he knew what was coming. “Of course,” and the Silver Fang followed the Full-Moon.

She gave a solid nod at that. They were to do recon, and they knew exactly where their target was going to be. She shifted her weight to the side. “Anything else?”

“I was told to come to you. You’re the closest relative Gabbie out there has at hand.” His lips press together and snap apart, clicking at how dry they feel which then in turn brings a strange look to the modi’s face as he pops his lips two more times in quick succession and promptly shakes it off. “There have been a few…” his head nods one way and another and he chuckles uncomfortably, looking up at Caleb the whole times. He won’t look to the floor but instead int othe face of the possible addition to their pack. “indiscretions I guess you’d call them.”

There’s a deep swallow to his throat. “The first thing I have to do is make right having this happen without seeking any permission or at the very least going and telling someone what happened.” This part is all breathed out at once, it’s arduous to speak overlong it seems as he’s so inexplicably timid at times. “I don’t know what it entails exactly but i’d like to make that right.” His eyes lock here and he pauses but not long enough to let the Silver fang reply just yet. “And second, i’d like to make a formal request to keep her under my protection, at least for the time being, or until we can get word from her immediate family.”

With that he’s through and he politely smiles to the Theurge and goes invitingly quiet so he might speak.

She looked at Decker.

“You wanna sandwich?”

When Mrena addresses him — rather suddenly — the Modi’s grey eyes flicker open and fix on the Theurge. Nearly an entire fucking joint smoked down, plus the three hits he had earlier, and those eyes are as savage as they ever are. He considers her for a second.

“Yeah. They got roast beef here?”

The entire time the larger male was speaking, Caleb had this look that he knew exactly what had gone on between the two and the circumstances there-in. Whether he did or didn’t was truly up to debate, but theurges truly did seem to know more than they let on. In women, and some men, Caleb’s enchanting gaze inspired… many emotions. In those not preferring a man such as him, it was left to the intensity of his green eyes. An intensity that few witnessed, those eyes of the falcon of his. Indeed, it might seem that the theurge was looking directly through Sam Modine’s eyes and into his soul.

“I know of your indescretions,” he said somewhat slowly, without heat. “Before I answer to whether or not I will allow you to take Miss Bellamonte under your protection, I have some questions for you.”

Caleb fell quiet, letting his words sink in, until speaking again. “The first, I would like to know why you did not seek out her elder siblings first instead of dragging your feet on the matter. This is not something we Silver Fangs take lightly, those outside of our tribe fornicating with our Kinfolk. If you had a sister, a cousin – whatever the case may be, and was akin to what your tribe consider nobility — I admit I do not know your tribe’s hierarchy very well — engage in these… indescretions, as you call them, with a member of another tribe whom did not seek to tell you of such, or that Kinfolk’s family or guardians, escape lightly? I know your blood for a fierce nature, Mjollnir’s Heart.”

His arms remained folded, and there was still no heat in his eyes or voice. Merely the intense stare of a bird of prey that the theurge could do nothing about given his gift of far-sight. “The second, I would know of your feelings toward Miss Bellamonte. Would you only seek to take her under your protection, or would you mate her as well? Does she, do you believe, share in these feelings?”

One can restfully be assured that he would privately speak to Gabriella about these circumstances as well, because he would not discuss her with Sam and leave her out of it. She may be his blood, but she was not a possession or a person. Many thought that Kinfolk were merely breeding stock, especially among his own, but those Kinfolk usually did rebel eventually. Those Kinfolk were punished accordingly, and usually the Garou they “rebelled” with.

“The third,” he said carefully. “What, if any action, would you take if I refused you?”

Standard sandwich questions. He looked at her and was just as intense as ever, despite the lack of moon hanging in the sky. Despite the joint-and-three-hits he’d had earlier. Rage was as much a part of the Modi as his hand or his connection to Gaia. Savage as ever.

Mrena put her shoes down, and waited. She looked at AnneMarie, brows raised, question asked but unvoiced. May as well, since she was going downstairs anyway…

As she’s heading downstairs, belatedly: “Thanks.”

If anyone’s ever learned even a speck of sign language, they would recognize ‘Thank You’, as it’s one of the first ones learned. After all, it is one of the magic words. If they haven’t, it simply looks like she had an itch and was slightly more briefly flamboyant in scratching it. Either way.

“That’s not happening again.” He shrugs, it’s to be believed or not. As for the rest, given a moment he will elaborate. “I guess I don’t know. I am what my tribe considers it’s nobility and I’ve no blood siblings of my own. “But I also have a high enough estimation of myself that I don’t believe I could answer to the rest fairly.

It seems he’s going to go through the points one at a time because here he gives the theurge another chance to speak.

“Cowardice.” He answers the first of the queires in a single word, letting it fall from his lips like a curse. “Cowardice and indecision.” The addendum is made as an afterthought but it stands in the silence between them for a moment.

“That’s not happening again.” He shrugs, it’s to be believed or not. As for the rest, given a moment he will elaborate. “I guess I don’t know. I am what my tribe considers it’s nobility and I’ve no blood siblings of my own. But I also have a high enough estimation of myself that I don’t believe I could answer to the rest fairly.”

It seems he’s going to go through the points one at a time because here he gives the theurge another chance to speak.

Caleb made a soft mmm sound in his throat as he considered Sam’s next words. “What will not happen again? Your cowardice, or your bedding Gabriella? And what do you not know? Your feelings to her, or what action you would take were you in my position?”

“I’m sorry for snapping at you.” After a moment. “And I meant I don’t know what I’d do in you position, i’m in place to judges and have no common ground to start from so I’m telling you that I can’t make an accurate assessment.” And then he’s right back under the tent with the two Skalds being quizzed on tactical strategy. A boy of fifteen, face marked with twin bruises for a wrong movement in the miniatures game being played on false terrain between himself and the Ragabash cub on the other side of the large surface. He’s being cheered on to victory by one of the Athros and the young woman with the permanent sneer and the mean judo skills freezes him in place with a stare.

Don’t make the wrong move.

“That brings me,” he’s looking up at Caleb now, “to the answer to your next question.” He licks his lips and focuses on the Fang with each word that finds it’s way from his mouth. “My feelings are complicated. I’d take her as my mate, I think, if she’d have me but her family is precious to her, important.” The last word is dropped like the final boot in a marching step, solid, affirmed. “I’d never steal that from her. I’m not so selfish.”

He’s still not answered the final question but again this seems as good as any a place for the Fenrir to stop, allow the other man his piece and listen for awhile rather than continuing with his voice.

It was a thought to go through her head at that moment. She had never really paid attention to what kind of bread they had here. Normally, if she was ordering something to eat, or getting somethign to eat, she grabbed whatever was convient. Apples. Oranges. Stew. Or, in rare occasions, whatever her packmates’ were eating.

That, however, was neither here nor there.

Because, eventually, all questions were answered. Yes, they had rye bread. No, he didn’t want onions. Yes, they had roast beef. And, yes, for all the things that this particular theurge could do, she could make sandwiches.

Eventually, she came back with sandwiches. Five, on a plate. Four rye, one on something that looked like sourdough.

And a perfectly round apple.

Don’t ask.

Caleb was silent for long moments as he chewed on Sam’s words of his feelings toward Gabriella. “I am afraid is it more than that,” he said with a soft sigh. “No matter what decision I make, I want you to fully understand that I am truly not her immediate family. We share a House bloodline, and very little more. If any thing I am a distant cousin.” Caleb shrugged, a slight roll of shoulders that were somewhat heavy with the practice of a blade.

“But I digress,” he said. “Any decision I make can easily be countermanded by her siblings, their father or mother. I hold the blood of kings, as you do warrior chieftains, but I am no king myself.” A slight shake of his head and another sigh. He hoped Sam truly grasped the weight of this, that it was no mere thing for Caleb to simply hand over one of his people’s princesses to another.

“Steal it from her? Certainly not. Our tribe would be looking over your shoulder every second of your life here on out if you mated her, to see that she is treated properly and cared for the way she should be. I mean no insult, -yuf, but to stress that my elders would be omnipresent.

“If your feelings are complicated, then you may not yet know your own heart in this matter. It would be my advice to learn your heart better, to know exactly what it is you feel for Miss Bellamonte. If you suddenly find that you no longer feel for her as think you do now, it would be a dishonor to yourself and to her to continue the facade.

“If you wish to take her under your protection and mate her, you will need to deeper understand your emotions towards her. ‘I know’ is much better than ‘I think.’ “

There are five roast-beef-on-rye sandwiches, which makes Decker smirk faintly. He picks one up — just one — and bites into it.

Chewing, mouth full, “Ya made this yerself?”

She sets aside her white board and while Decker talks with his mouth full, she has no such problem, and wouldn’t so if she did. All things considered [beast.machine.animal.murderer] she has impeccable manners. A dip of her head is given in way of thanks, before she takes the first bite.

“As for what I might do?” He grins, half a chucklefit starting mostly from the influence of the earlier sidebar with the Eagles. “Lukas seems pretty adamant about bringing you on board. I doubt he’d find it too good a first impression if I threw myself at you claws first like an animal.” He grins broadly. “I don’t know you, is what I mean. I’ve no quarrel with you in particular and so you’ve got nothing to worry about from me.”

The slanted wide spread of lips that show no teeth continues upward. “Safe as houses.”

People were taking food, so she claimed hers. Sandwich. Reality-defying apple.

He looks around — the common room is much emptier than it had been before he decided to close his eyes to it. “Where’d yer packmates go?”

Mrena took a bite of sandwich. Bite, chew, and swallow. You know, the roast beef wasn’t half bad. Then again, the question of where her packmates went was a slightly more complicated than she had originally thought.

“I have no doubts that you could tear me into pieces, Sam Modine. I may not be sure of many things, but that I am sure of. I have seen you fight, briefly, and I would not last very long.” Another soft chuckle. It should be noted that he was not laughing at Sam, but merely finding amusement in the event should it ever happen.

Darkensky was silent for long moments that seemed to stretch on agonizingly, as Caleb scrutinized the man before him. Five minutes, ten, fifteen. Finally:

“I will allow you to ward her for the duration of two lunar cycles, in which time you will have to learn and find your own heart about Gabriella. It is nearly the New Moon, so your warding of her will take place upon that date. When the two lunar cycles have ended, come to me again and speak to me of your heart towards her. At that time we will speak of the possibility of you mating her, of what you have learned about yourself and about her.

“Your aforementioned ‘cowardice’ is noteworthy, but since it happened before I came to know either of you, I will state now that you are acting as though this happened between the two of you fairly recently. That you may reclaim your dignity without fear of disloyalty or dishonor henceforth. For the duration of time that I have set, will I also stipulate that there will be no sexual contact between the two of you. You will have to learn whether or not your love, if that it may be, you feel for her will endure without such.

“What I want to see is how well you can protect her, to keep her from harm. Take no rash action, Fenrir, in the protection of her. There is a time for rashness and a time not – the night that I was present for when she came wounded to this very establishment, you were all but mad with grief and outrage at what happened to her; and yet she refused healing, sank into herself. We Silver Fangs are a proud and strong people despite her immediate terror. Ask Mrena or Lukas what happened when I was first attacked. Yes, the difference is that I am Garou and she not, but she is not an 11 year old boy faced with a prehistoric myth.

“Passion rules us all, but to the degree in which we act on it is what makes us Garou, not mindless beasts.”

Caleb’s words were solemn, as this was a matter of grave importance to him and to the future of the young woman as well as to Sam Modine himself. If the Modi ran off to confront some enemy that might be a possible threat to the Kinfolk with no proof and left her open to attack or worse, Sam would have to summon every scrap of skill and savagery he possessed to fend off the cajun’s attempt at removing his head.

Still, his words bore no heat, but it did convey a great sense of weight to what he was saying.

“Kin see why y’all live here,” he adds — half the sandwich is gone already, and he’s starting in on the other half. “I’m’on come fer tha sandwiches more often.”

On that note, he starts gathering up the remaining sandwiches — apparently intending to take them with him.

Ya need a ride, A.M.?

She walked here, but will accept a ride back, without hesitation. Yes, thank you.

She doesn’t ask him to thank Mrena for her, for the late night snack – it’s not his way, nor is it hers. Instead she simply offers the other woman a lift of her chin – Eagle nod up, as the case may be. It’ll have to suffice, for now.

It’s time to contemplate quiety, to look idly up at the ceiling and to the walls before turning back toward the crescent moon Garou. “Alright, deal.” He’s still chewing a thought though, one that turns his head on it’s side so that it can fully process the idea. “You’re kind of pompus.” Pause. He turns to the Fang impassive, a mask of neutrality.

Which crumbles under the weight of the guise. “So was Katherine,” he grins. “Good to have to with us,”

They’re a pack of respect and they trade in it like currency. Sam Modine offering it for free is more than a big deal, it’s an achievement. He’s standing now his hand shoved between them in offer to the other man’s his forearm tilts slighty so his palm is partially facing skyward and splayed at the fingers to grasp the arm rather than the hand of the other individual. “Before you’re in, one more thing.” he adds after the Fang following his taking or refusal of the shake.

“I have to hunt with you,” Locking eyes in somethign that’s not quite an assertion of dominance or a challenge but a show of seriousness. “I can’t truly know a man until I’ve seen him on the field. I don’t think you’re going to disappoint.”

She headed back to her room. She had work to do.

When the Modi extended his hand, Caleb grasped the other’s forearm. Heavily calloused palms and fingers brushed against skin. “Hm?” he queried. “Of course… Sam.” The familiar way as Caleb said his name, instead of “Monsieur Modine,” or “Mjolnir’s Heart,” or even “Fenrir” conveyed a sense of.. comradery, of more than loose acquaintence.

“I am no warrior and never claimed to be,” he said with a shrug, “but in my experience if you cannot fight, you will die quickly. Come, my new-found friend. Let us share a drink together.”