[Ethan Yates] It’s too cold for anything other than indoors and sweaters, hot chocolate and curling up underneath a blanket, but that isn’t keeping the holiday shoppers and the tourists at bay. People from all over the city are swarming the area around Grant Park, filtering in and out of the Art Institute and Shedd Aquarium, heading to the various coffee shops and bookstores that line Randolph Street. Buses are running behind schedule, occasionally a train can be heard thundering past, and the entire city seems to hum with several thousand people going about their Sunday.
There is still some snow clinging in patches on the grass, clumped in the gutters and present as a ghostly salt skin on the outsides of cars. Parking is scarce, even scarcer than on a weekday, and children have to hold their parents’ hands if they think they’re going to get very far.
One of the children out with his father is not holding onto a hand. They’re standing in line at a coffeehouse on the main drag, coats unzipped and unbuttoned and patience enabling them to survive a line that is several bodies deep. The baristas are scrambling to keep up, the air is humming with conversation, and the child, maybe six or seven years old, is surprisingly still compared to some of his contemporaries.
His father is tall, over six feet so, without a wedding band on his hand. They look nothing alike. He could be the manny or an uncle for all anyone can tell: the man has short brown hair and tanned skin while the boy, two feet shorter, has blinding blond hair and wide green eyes.
They’re making idle conversation, passing sentences back and forth like cards in a game of rummy, and the man occasionally glances around at their surroundings.
[Liadan Whelan] To some, the weather is not that cold. To some, the day is just cool enough to warrant a heavy coat, maybe a hat and gloves or a scarf. Behind the tall man and the child stands a tall woman. At just a few inches shy of six feet, she’s taller than most of the women that pass by, and a number of the men as well. And while she may not be the prettiest girl at the ball, she’s not all together unattractive as far as the fairer sex goes. Her red hair is vibrant, striking against the subdued colors of the season which are reflected in her own attire. She’s wearing a single-breasted grey wool coat, the high collar taking the place of a scarf or other neck protection. Her jeans are light washed and boot-cut, her shoes an ordinary pair of Chuck Taylor low tops. There’s a simple but sizeable black camera bag slung across her torso.
She’s not listening to the idle conversation in front of her. Her dark eyes are fixed on her blackberry. Her thumbs fly over the touchpad as she texts or emails or simply surfs the web. She sways from side to side slightly, to a rhythm playing in her head.
The man in front of her shifts his weight. The woman, watching the line from her peripheral, moves a step forward and plows into his back.
“Oh! Sorry,” she says politely, glancing up before looking back to her phone.
[Ethan Yates] The redhead isn’t paying attention to her surroundings, or is paying too much attention, or else simply mistakes minute movement for a more gross shift forward, and the peacoat-wearing man standing ahead of her is the recipient of a backside check.
He does not exclaim or grunt, does not even let his breath out in a sharp puff. He regains his footing, glances over his shoulder, then turns more fully so that he can face the woman who nearly knocked him forward. The ethereal child at his side looks up and over, large eyes peering curiously up at the woman with her thumbs attached to a phone that looks way cooler than the one dad has. There’s something off about this child, as though he’s listening to something that no one else can hear while he’s attempting to focus on what’s right in front of him.
It ought to be familiar to her. She knows a guy like that. Knew, rather.
“That’s alright,” the man says, light laughter staining his words. There’s a hint of accentuation on his vowels, the sounds clipped, as though wherever home is was left behind long ago yet vestiges of it still remain.
He’s prepared to turn back around and keep an eye on the line, but the child at his side doesn’t follow his lead.
“You playing a game?” he asks. Unlike his guardian, the boy does not have an accent. He’s decidedly American.
[Liadan Whelan] She doesn’t quite notice the light laughter in the man’s voice, doesn’t quite hear the child’s question at first. It’s possible she’s too intent on whatever it is that she’s doing on her phone. The words wash over her, taken in and absorbed without her consciously thinking about it.
The color of her hair does not quite match the color of her eyebrows, but there’s no denying this woman is a natural redhead. Her ancestors must come from some Celtic isle in the Atlantic. Her skin is pale, but with an odd lack of visible freckling.
Something, maybe the movement, maybe the pitch of the child’s voice, catches her attention. The woman glances first up, then around, and finally down to the towheaded boy watching her curiously. And while trying to keep his focus off of something else. It makes her do a double take. Reaching up with her left hand, she tucks her hair behind her ear, revealing a wireless ear bud that she takes out. The one in her other ear is removed, as well, and both are deposited into a pocket of her coat.
Her head tips slightly to the side, as if trying to hear what might be trying to grab this child’s attention. Admittedly, she doesn’t try very hard.
“What’s that?” she asks, then glances at her phone. Her smile is small, polite, borderline shy. “Oh, email.” It takes all of two seconds for her to finish the email and hit send before dropping the device into the pocket opposite the one containing her ear buds. She leaves her hands in her pockets, and she doesn’t put her headphones back in, but there is an unmistakable air of one who is Not Good With Children about the tall red-haired woman. Maybe she thinks the child’s attention will be caught by something else. Her gaze goes out over the street.
[Ethan Yates] This child doesn’t have the appearance of one easily distracted. Maybe it’s the way he’s looking solely at Lee and not allowing his gaze to be tugged about by the movement of bodies and beings in the room around them. It has to be somewhat unsettling, the way he’s looking at her. It isn’t quite that look of aware appraisal that full-grown, Changed Garou fix her with on a regular basis, just as soon as they can sense the purity of her blood it seems; this child is looking at her without truly knowing why he’s looking at her, and it takes his guardian a moment to realize that he’s lost his charge’s attention.
“You can email on your phone?” the blond boy asks.
“Micah,” the man says, reaching out to rest a large hand on the boy’s head. He glances over his shoulder at the woman who had plowed into him, offering an apologetic, closed-lipped smile before offering up an attempt at an explanation.
It’s worth mentioning that this man, in his late 20s at least, is rather easy on the eyes. While his build is largely obscured by the weight of his peacoat, his hands are lean and strong, and his face is thin without being gaunt. There is health and intelligence in his eyes, which are an oceanic blue, and he seems like the sort of man who either isn’t aware of his own attractiveness or hasn’t let it go to his head yet. He looks Lee in the face rather than at her ample chest, yet does not bore into her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” he adds, “seven years old and we’re still working on not pestering strangers.”
[Liadan Whelan] She can feel the boy’s eyes on her, and she keeps her head resolutely away for as long as she can. Reaching up with both hands, she tucks her hair behind her ears more securely. Her left ear, the one presented to the man and the child and the front of the line, is pierced. Two small but ornate silvery hoops adorn the lop, a thin silvery hoop through her tragus. She looks young, like she could be nearing the man’s age, or she could be a year or two out of high school. Her coat is buttoned and thus hides whatever geek-centric shirt she has on today, but there’s still something about her that says GEEK. Maybe it’s the dark-rimmed catseye glasses.
Just before the child is identified as Micah, he asks if she can email on her phone. A reddish brow quirks, and she turns her head to look down the distance between them. There is no slouching, no bending at the knees to bring her down to his eye level. “Yeah,” she answers, like the question was ‘Are we in Chicago?’
The man finally notices that Micah is accosting a stranger, turns to apologize. He’s a handsome fellow, with a gaze that more than likely makes people of both genders weak in the knees. The woman smiles politely and shakes her head, her knees supporting her just fine, her face without even the artificial blush of make-up.
“No, that’s…okay,” she says courteously, almost but not quite convincing.
[Ethan Yates] Guys who look like the man ahead of Lee aren’t typically in possession of the ability to put themselves in other people’s shoes or imagine the emotions that those around them must be feeling. It’s difficult for them to empathize with others because they have had very few people make the attempt to get to know them as anything other than pieces of meat, or at least that’s the predominant view of guys who look like Ethan. Granted, according to the stereotype surrounding guys like the man ahead of Lee he ought to be leering at her, ought to be attempting to size her up in terms of her eligibility as a potential conquest.
He’s not doing this. He’s just trying to corral the eerie child at his side.
Whether or not he’s actually aware of the fact that the young woman behind him is uncomfortable and forcing herself to seem courteous, the result is the same. He plants a hand on his child’s shoulder, eases him a hundred and eighty degrees so that he is facing the head of the line, and says, friendly without seeming forcedly cheerful, “Alright.”
The line moves forward, and the boy turns to look at Lee over his shoulder when they come to a halt again.
[Liadan Whelan] If the man in front of her tried to leer at her, the whole of their interactions might be different. But he doesn’t try to size her up, doesn’t eye her breasts through her coat or try to lean in too close to her. He keeps his distance, and he focuses on the child.
Lee is freed from that otherworldly stare for as long as it takes her to occupy the space the boy and his father just vacated. They halt again, and boy twists to look back at her. The redhead assumes this is a common occurrance, given that the man hasn’t noticed or commented on how fixated the boy is on her. No doubt he can sense that there is something special about her, though he doesn’t understand why he can sense that or even what exactly he’s sensing.
She tilts her head, meets that green-eyed stare, and she holds it. Her brows twitch into a slight frown, curious and thoughtful all at once. Her mouth quirks to the side. Eventually her eyes slide away.
She’s good with small talk, when it comes to adults. When it comes to children, Lee is completely at a loss. And it’s Micah’s attention, not Ethan’s, that she keeps getting. It reminds her of something, but she can’t quite put her finger on what it is.
[Ben] It was far, far too icy out for riding around town in motorcycles. And he didn’t want his precious baby getting banged up. The snow was everywhere, but he was quite used to it. His heavy leather workman’s boots tromped through the stuff like it was nothing. The ipod had its familiar buds stuck in his ears and he was out walking around town and perusing his chosen neighborhood. No territory yet, no pack yet, but he’d have one at some point and it was a good idea to get to know the city.
He walked past the coffee shop with is shoulder bag hanging off one bony protrusion. His head flicked into the coffee place, flicked over the customers a moment. Coffee was strange for him. It was one of those things that always smelled so damned tasty and always tasted so damned rotten. He constantly wondered why coffee couldn’t just taste the way it smelled. Everything else worked that way, more or less.
But his feet, and cold hands, and the thing digging into his shoulder, demanded a rest and if nothing else he could buy some of that funny stale bread ends dipped in chocolate and perhaps pour enough flavored crap and cream into a coffee to make it taste somewhat-not-annoying.
The door chimed, or jingled, or whatever the fuck kind of christmas decorations were up that year deemed appropriate.
[Ethan Yates] In a staring contest between a grown-woman and a second grader, the obvious victor emerges after a matter of seconds. Lee meets the child’s quiet peering, and he keeps looking back until the line starts to move forward. It’s incidental, the line moving; he would have looked away anyway. He’s probably not used to getting a dose of his own medicine.
The door jingles, the noise nearly muffled under the din of a dozen conversations all occurring at competing decibel levels on incongruous topics, and there is an uneven split between the number of people who look over to see why it is the hairs on the backs of their necks have suddenly stood on end and the number of people who don’t pay the sudden rise in the room’s danger level any mind. The college kids behind the line are too busy to notice anything other than what is right in front of them, but there is a noticeable drop in conversational volume from the tables near the door. Several people in line decide that they’d rather go down the street to Border’s; several people seated in the vicinity decide that their coffee is getting cold and they have shopping to finish up, the dog needs let out, maybe the stove was left on this morning.
It isn’t until the mass exodus begins that the man corralling the child looks over. When he looks over, he does not shy away or shepherd Micah towards the door. His eyes flick up and down the Child of Gaia’s form, once, briefly, and then he looks away as the line moves forward again.
The child is staring at Ben, now, wary where before he had been interested.
[Liadan Whelan] People begin to all but flee the coffee shop as soon as the Ahroun steps inside. The tall redhead notices that before she notices the young man himself. Her dark eyes rove over the young man without a spark of recognition. She’s done things since she met Ben in the park with Lonna and Drew. Work, mostly, but there was a move and some travel and hours exploring the latest content patch in an online MMO. She doesn’t recognize the unassuming young man dripping with rage, not at first. Names and faces have a tendancy to slip out of her mind when she’s not exposed to them for extended periods of time.
The line shuffles forward a step or two. Lee keeps her eyes ahead of her this time, making sure she doesn’t collide with a tall handsome stranger’s backside again. That’s when she sees the child has finally found something else to look at. He’s watching Ben warily, and Lee glances over her shoulder. Most of the line behind her left when the bundle of rage stepped inside, leaving Ben with a clear path to stand behind the Fianna kinswoman.
She’s not good with children, is always at a loss when she finds she’s caught and held the interest of someone under the age of consent. Her upbringing didn’t instill her with a strong set of motherly instincts. However, on the pretense of shifting her weight from one foot to the other, Lee discretely places herself between the child and the Garou.
Angling herself to keep both the child and Ben at least in her peripheral, she smiles politely at the Child of Gaia.
[Ben] He’s a thing, some would say scrawny, young man. Probably only just barely legal, if that. The day’s growth of stubble on his chin makes him look like he’s at least at the age where he could consent to something naughty. If it weren’t for his boyscout attitude that might get him into far more beds. His warm brown eyes flick around the place. He smiles faintly at the people amidst their exodus. It’s hard to go around not scaring the bejesus out of people and he’s gotten used to that mostly. It’s a curse, but it’s only a side effect of just how awesome he is. Not many people are comfortable around men of Faith and he is certainly that. He’s a shining example of the wise advisers that stand by kings and lead to world spanning treaties. Sure, sometimes they lead to wars that engulf the world, but that happens.
In his own mind, he’s a knight in shining armor replaced with a coat of fur. A holy sword in his scabbard symbolized by claws and teeth. And he holds himself up as though he knows all this, accepts it, is happy about it, proud of it even.
His soft brown leather jacket hangs neatly around his body. Slender and cut close to the body. Dark blue stone washed jeans faded at the knees and cuffs. They show signs of horrific things that once tore them apart. Gashes along the legs, calves, and hips, that have been stitched back together expertly. But the poor pant’s battle scars still show.
He smiles at Lee. Meeting her eyes. Fixing her in a strange gaze that’s happy, warm, friendly, and somehow so alluring. It feels like in that moment she’s suddenly got his full attention. Like she’s the only thing in the world at that moment, to him. And then he smiles.
“Hey….. I think I uh… know you.” Grinning somewhat awkwardly.
[Liadan Whelan] [perception + empathy: are you interested?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 4, 7, 8, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)
[Rory O’Bryne] She’s not bred for life on the street – but she adapts. They have a house now, and it’s a little warmer, but she is from a place where the sun burns every time it shows it’s face – here… it’s cold. The snow makes her smile a bit, but it’s still cold.
She finally has scrounged enough to a coffee, and maybe a muffin too, and the warmth of a coffee shop sounds divine – especially one already partially emptied by the Ahroun that went in before her.
Her rage precedes her, and her wasted purity marks her as she enters the shop, though at first glance she seems more Gnawer than Fianna, as she wears just about everything she owns. Her pack is slung over a shoulder, and she slips up to the counter, and spills a handful of change there, where she stammers a question softly.
The barista smirks, and Rory ducks her head, shy, even as she starts to count exactly how much she has… slowly. painfully slow.
[Ethan Yates] Despite her inherent lack of a maternal instinct, despite her awkwardness around the child and her absorption in her Blackberry, it doesn’t go unnoticed that the woman who had run into his backside inserts herself in the space between his child and the scrawny kid who just strolled in off the sidewalk. He has the appearance of one who lives a hard life, who has to make do with what he has–which isn’t all that much at all–but there are other tells, other signs, that give him away to one who knows what to look for.
The tall man in the peacoat appears to know what to look for. As the stranger slides between them, he slides an arm around the child’s shoulders and eases him up to the counter. To his credit, the child does not cling to his father’s leg. He does, however, shrink closer, refusing to take his eyes off of the skinny brown-eyed beast that just entered the coffeehouse.
An order for a kid’s hot chocolate–to go, please–is placed, the drink paid for, as the Garou and the redhead talk. The man carries on with the use of his ringless left hand, his right dominated by the task of keeping the child close to his side, and though he intermittently glances over his shoulder at the Garou there is no nervousness or anxiety in his eyes. Eventually they slide off to the side to make room for the next customer, the child having to be practically dragged along.
There is also no breeding to be scented or sensed on his person, nor in the blood of the child hiding at his side. He ought to be attempting to get the hell out of there, but by god, he’s getting his kid a hot chocolate before they go back outside.
Even when another particularly Rage-filled young person enters the coffee shop. That’s when the blond boy ducks his face into the hem of his father’s coat.
[Liadan Whelan] Ben meets her eyes. It’s an innocent look, one without a leer, one that doesn’t pretend to check her out while in reality fixing on her breasts. But he still manages to look at her like for a second, she’s the only thing that exists. That look throws her off her mental balance. She doesn’t notice that they’re almost to the counter, the tall stranger ordering up a hot chocolate for his child. She doesn’t notice the girl with the curly red-hair and the aura of rage move past her in the line to sidle up to the counter.
Not at first, anyway.
Ben thinks he knows her. The corners of Lee’s mouth twitch up while her brows come together, her expression hovering between a smile and a frown. For a second, that one second that he looks at her, she stands a touch straighter, looks at him with a little more interest than she might have otherwise.
“Oh? Oh, right, I think I saw you in the park the other day?” she questions. She doesn’t remember when it was exactly that they would have met, but she remembers the park. And she remembers Drew calling her rude, and trying to escape only to be halted by an arm thrown around her shoulders.
She turns her head slightly, notices that Ethan has stepped aside, moves to take up his place at the counter to place her order. The barista smirks at the girl with the collection of change as she slowly counts out what she needs to pay for her order. Lee frowns.
“Hey. I don’t know if you noticed? But there’s a line.”
Someone is getting twitchy for their caffeine fix.
[Ben] He laughs, soft and friendly, smiling. “Yeah, yeah.” Confirming her question. His cheeks pinken a bit. He’d been drunk that night after all. He’d ended up with Lee’s picture on his camera somehow. He’d been snapping pictures randomly from where the camera hung at his chest. He did that a lot. It was amazing what he got, considering the state he’d been in.
He’s not quite so touchy feely at the moment, but then he wasn’t drunk. Yet. Maybe later. The sun was still up and he had a rule about drinking and the sun being up. But Lee makes the potential mistake of stepping up and barging in on Rory and Ben’s hand comes out and touches Lee’s shoulder. There’s a firm weight to it, not unpleasant. She gets a whiff of whatever cologne he wore, mixed with wood shavings and a tang of metal.
He steps up next to Lee and whispers something to her. “She’s like me. Be nice.” Grinning sideways at her.
[Rory O’Bryne] She flinches, when someone talks to her, and turns to look at Lee. There’s recognition there, instant, of what she is – but perhaps unlike any other with as much rage as Rory carrys under her skin, burning even now under the darkened moon, Rory does not snarl, does not growl, makes no sign of aggression at all.
In fact, her eyes – a pale green, under the curls barely contained by a 3rd hand knit cap – sweep the line quickly, and color splashes over pale cheeks as she flushes with embarrassment – even as her belly grumbles it’s protest.
She sweeps the change into her hand again, her head ducking as if she expects Liadan to strike her as she bites her lower lip, and steps to the side, shame evident in her voice as she stammers “Sorry.”
A quarter falls from between her fingers, rolling to land at Ethan’s boy’s feet, and she takes a step closer, as if to get it, but stops again with a look at Laidan, and steps back instead, until there’s a wall at her back, her hands clutching her change to her chest.
[Ethan Yates] “I’ve got it.”
This, from the man whose child is currently hiding his face in his thigh. There’s an edge to his tone that suggests she would be better off staying where she is, or further, but it’s hard to tell whether his words or her skittishness is what has her retreating until she’s pressed against the wall.
He does, in fact, have it. He manages to duck down despite the boy’s clutching, fumbling the quarter off of the floor without the assistance of substantial fingernails to provide him any sort of leverage.
“It’s alright,” he tells the boy, who doesn’t loosen his grip or look up as he’s lead the few feet away from the counter to hand the quarter back to the trodden female. Or maybe he’s speaking to the female herself. It’s hard to tell. He can’t make eye contact with the boy, and he’s not banking on the female meeting his gaze. That he, too, is not cowering and trying to get away from her is as much of a tell as any of them are going to get given the plainness of his breeding.
A moment later, the soprano-voiced barista is hollering out the drink they’re waiting for: kid’s hot chocolate. If and when Rory takes the quarter back from the man, he steers the boy back towards the counter, where he picks up the tiny paper cup.
“Can you hold this?” he asks.
His response is a wordless, timid nod. Small, shaking hands come up to grasp the cup, and the nameless man walks through the dramatically-emptied coffeehouse towards the door. The male Garou is given one last glance, and then he pushes out onto the sidewalk with a jangling of sleigh bells.
The boy removes his face from his father’s coat long enough to look back at the scary young people, and darts outside.
[Thanks for the play, y’all! I gotta crash.]
[Liadan Whelan] Lee doesn’t have the nerve of some kinfolk. Nor has she lived among them long enough to be used to their ways, their rage and their tempers. But Líadan Whelan works with uppity models, designers, and other fashion types. She knows how to laugh when she might have kept a straight face. She knows how to placate and she knows how to cajole. And she knows how to keep herself rooted in place when in fact she’d like nothing more than to side step and escape.
As Rory gathers up her change and moves back to the line or out of the way against a wall, Ben rests a hand on Lee’s shoulder, leans in to whisper in her ear intimately, as if they were closer than casual acquaintances. He’s not trying to tell her something flattering, or trying to say something he thinks might impress her. He’s telling her that the other redhead is like him, and that she should be nice. Lee stands still, not tensed and poised for flight, just still. And she waits for Ben to remove his hand and step back out of her personal space. Because as alluring as he might seem, as pleasant and mild mannered as he might appear, there’s no denying the sense that he could kill her with startling ease.
“That doesn’t change the fact that there’s a line, and some of us have been waiting for a while.” She turns away from him then so she can lean against the counter. It means his rage is at her back, but it can’t be helped. She doesn’t place an order for something hot, but picks up a bottle of whatever is by the register without looking at it. It doesn’t matter what it is at this point, so long as it has caffeine. The tall woman pays for her drink and steps away from the counter. Her dark eyes fall on Rory, pressed out of the way, offers the woman a small polite smile as she gestures for her to take a place at the counter.
Whether Rory moves or not, Lee turns to Ben, small pleasant smile still in place. “It was nice seeing you.”
She doesn’t wait for his reply, but steps around him and strides for the door. A bell jingles above her head, and a moment later she’s pushing herself out into the blustery winter afternoon.
[thanks, guys! I’m about to faceplant into my keyboard.]
[Ben] He watches Rory gather up her change and get back out of the way. Watches her be embarrassed by her lack of social graces. And on some level, he can understand. Sometimes the human world was tough for other Garou. He’d met a few who had trouble with it in his time. He grew up with humans, so he knew them pretty well. He steps forward to the counter. Smiles at the barista who despite her nervousness, seems interested in him somehow. Overly attentive.
His hand lifts and waves Rory over. He smiles at the redhead. “Whatcha getting?”
[Rory O’Bryne] She glances up at the young man who has the boy attached to his thigh, who’s offering her money back. She looks down to the coin, and back up again, before she reaches out to take it, shyly. There’s a little smile, genuine and true, before she ducks her head again, adding the quarter to the stash in her dirty palm, clutching it tightly. “…thanks.”
And then the woman snaps again, and she ducks her head, her coloring flushing her cheeks again. She doesn’t see the gesture, or the smile – even if it’s barely polite – she sees only some spot on the floor before the toes of her boots.
Ben remains, and waves her over, though she only meets his gaze briefly, before dropping them again. She is hesitant as she steps toward him, and she doesn’t lift her eyes to meet his as she chews on her lower lip. She spills her change on the counter again, catching everything that might skitter away, and piles it. He asked her a question, and she must answer. Her voice is soft, barely heard. “Chot hocolate, and a muffin… if I have enough…”
She doesn’t seem to notice her words are mixed up, twisted – as if she hears only what she means to say, not what she does.
[Ben] He nods. Turns towards the lady at the counter. “Hot Chocolate, a muffin, and…” He leans back and takes a moment to peruse the menu. Irritating the customers behind him, if there were any, who could call up the gall to be irritated with him. “One of these.” Grabbing the funny stale bread things dipped in chocolate. And then ordering some drink with a lot of milk and a little flavoring. He doesn’t really care what.
Glancing over at Rory, he smiles briefly. “Don’t worry, I got it.” He pulls some bills out of his pocket. Pays for the items.
[Rory O’Bryne] He offers to pay, and she looks up at him briefly, before her money is quickly swept back into her hand to disappear into the pocket of her coat, a coat that’s really not near warm enough for the weather outside.
“..thanks…”
She’ll be able to have Chloe help her count it later, and not have to ask someone else.
[Ben] He grins. “No problem. Least I can do.” Giving her a brief, warm, friendly smile. Moving off to the side to let others order. With the cloud of Rage around Rory and Ben, no one wants to come up to the counter anyway though.
He waits quietly for the drinks to be served up. When they get their things, he holds his and looks over at her. “What’s your name?”
[Rory O’Bryne] She snatches the muffin and takes a bite, as if frightened that he’ll change his mind, and take it away from him again. She catches some crumbs from under her bottom lip and sucks them into her mouth quickly, before accepting her cup.
She swallows the bite of Muffin with a quick sip of the hot chocolate, and only then murmurs. “Rory.”
[Ben] Nodding. “I’m Ben.” Offering his hand. It’s slender, work calloussed, and strong. “I’ve gotta keep going, but it was nice meeting you.” Smiling briefly.
[Rory O’Bryne] She glances down at his hand, briefly, then slips hers into it to shake, reclaiming it quickly. He says he has to go, and she nods. Everyone but for Chloe and Elliot always seems to have to go. She’s well used to it. She cradles the hot chocolate close to her chest, and then turns to slip back outside, and turn toward home.
[Ben] He watches her turn and leave. Eyes following her for a few moments. It disheartens him to see one of their own like that. He lets out a sigh and follows her out. Glancing after her, then turning up the street and heading off. He’s got more streets to learn.
[Ben] [Thanks for the RP!]
[Rory O’Bryne] (thanks!)