[Gwen Sullivan] Not too many bars or clubs were willing to let Gwen stroll through the doors, and this was for a number of reasons. Her Rage would be one, resolute and up front. Her youthful face came as a close second. Her less-than-jolly disposition brought up the back of the excuses train, but was none the less recognized by door men and bartenders alike. She didn't even have a fake I.D. to try and use as leverage, let alone a convincing one or a push-up bra to sweeten the deal to get inside.
Frankly, she wasn't too bothered by this anyways. These sorts of places were overrated in her opinion. She didn't want strangers to harsh on her buzz, so she didn't like to drink with them. Clubs were crowded and full of bad music, and people presumed that personal boundaries were checked at the door complimentary along with your winter jackets. She didn't want to be touched by people she didn't know, or hit on by skeezeballs. Hell, she didn't even really like to dance that much. There was no motivation for her to go there either.
Yet, despite all of that dislike for these particular scenes, that's precisely where she could be found. Twenty or so feet from the front door of a building whose bricks were painted black, whose second-story windows glowed neon and flashed mutli-colored and front door was propped open to invite people in, Gwen Sullivan stood leaned back against the end of that black brick. She had on a heavy black canvas jacket that was a little too large for her, red gloves and a red hat, a pair of heavy black winter boots, and a pair of unnecessarily tight black stretch pants to boot. A red scarf to match hat and gloves was knotted at her throat, and she was chewing on a piece of gum.
She had her eyes up the street, toward the club, like she was waiting for someone to leave.
[Howard Ivers] Good things come to those who wait doesn't exactly apply here.
Although the night is cold, it hasn't yet breached Hostile To Human Life territory, and many of the braver Monday night club goers have eschewed good sense and heavy jackets to totter out into the streets in exposed legs and short leather jackets. The streets have turned to slush, and while it's late, and those lucky humans who found themselves with the day off with the intent to commemorate one of the world's greatest civil rights activists who have no sense of responsibility or consequence are out in force tonight. Not far from the street where Caldera has chosen to live, now, there is a stretch of civilization filled with bars and pubs and night clubs.
Howard Ivers seems to have made it his goal to be kicked or thrown out of every single one before the month is out.
When he steps out onto the sidewalk moments after Gwen has taken up her temporary perch against the black brick of the near-pulsating building, Howard is laughing. Never mind that right before he regains his ability to perambulate independently he was being bodily hauled to the door by two men who are both, on their own, considerably heavier and stronger, his feet barely touching the ground despite the fact he tends to be one of the tallest creatures in the room.
"Lighten up!" he hollers, after his escorts have released him back into the wild. "It's fuckin' Martin Luther King's birthday! Where's your spirit of acceptance and compassion!"
They aren't granting him an audience, and he isn't stupid enough to try and follow them back inside to extract some semblance of an answer. The Theurge, wearing all black save for a pink polo shirt beneath his leopard-print-trimmed blazer, yanks off his sunglasses and pins them to his neckline. A few steps, and he realizes the zipper and fly of his pants are undone. He pauses to return himself to rights, then looks up and sees a familiar form.
A devious grin sneaks across his face, and the yelp of a zipper precedes his ambling beeline towards her.
"Ahoy!" he calls.
[Gwen Sullivan] There's a commotion at the door front, and Gwen's already looking in the right direction to see a familiar lanky man with a mass of dark curly hair get dragged out of the front door of the establishment and left behind, even as he hollered his excuses at their backs. One eyebrow quirked a bit higher than the other, and Gwen's arms folded comfortably over a chest that was modest enough in size that her heavy jacket masked most all of its shape under its bulk. It added youth to her appearance. She wasn't short, in fact she was a touch tall for her age group (but average overall). It's just the way her face is built, how curves haven't fully formed into her frame yet. The lack of make-up didn't help any.
That didn't change the mature could-be sultry rasp of her voice though, nor did it take the dry tone out of it when she addressed Howard as he ambled her way.
"You look like an 80's music video just threw you out, and not a pair of bodyguards." That's how she greets him, though he outranks her. He doesn't seem the type to cuff her in the head for addressing him in such a way. Besides, he seems far too drunk to be able to line up a good punch even if he had it in his mind to do so in the first place.
There's a pause following this, and though she doesn't move from where she stands she rolls her weight onto her left shoulder and hip a little more, turning her body to open up to him rather than greeting him with a shoulder and side profile alone. "...How are you?"
[Bridget] For some reason, Bridget found herself attracted to trouble. Hanging out with an Ahroun of another tribe on the night of his moon might not be the best thing for any kinfolk. Yet, there they are. Trotting around the corner like she's coming to the end of a footrace, the sound of her combat boots echo against the concrete.
Hair flying, there's laughter from the kin as she tries to catch her breath. She looks behind her while stuffing her hands into the pockets of her studded leather jacket. Black stovepipe jeans, a long green scarf and a blue-black flannel shirt complete the effect. The only thing left is the heavy canvas bag at her side, looking slightly less full than usual.
"You're not even trying to pretend," she says with a grin. "Where's the fun in that?"
[Howard Ivers] Mention of what it is his outfit, his hair, or just he looks like, and Howard's grin doesn't fade away. If anything it simply grows in the moment before he closes his mouth for the purposes of affecting what he would imagine to be a big-haired rock singer's pout and shakes his hair in slow motion. Given that he's never seen an 80's music video or experienced the joy and awe of a hair band performance, one has to wonder where the hell he learned that move.
"Darlin'," he says, "the eighties couldn't handle me."
It is infrequent that anyone sees the Fiann without his sunglasses clapped onto his face. He keeps out of the flood of neon lights on the sidewalk as though he's avoiding acid spills or quicksand, and when Gwen turns toward him there are no new bruises or cuts on his face. He doesn't look tired or high or angry. The moon is hot overhead, beating at the inside of their heads, behind their breastbones, and while Howard seems edgier than usual, he isn't exactly slavering with Rage.
How is he.
Howard sniffs, plants his hands on his hips, and looks around at the cityspace surrounding them. About that time, footfalls pound on the sidewalk behind him, and he twists at the waist to look at who it is that's tearing ass towards them.
"Oh, fuck me," he says, the emphatic keel of his voice not matching his relaxed stance. Turning and reaching out to tap Gwen's elbow, he says, "C'mon, whatever you're doin' isn't important, let's get outta here."
[Simon Zahradnik] Simon laughed a little as he caught up to her. He wasn't showing the slightest hint that he was winded. She beat him and yet he wore a proud little smile."Please that was all you. I bet you could kick my ass too if you really tried. I might look tough but truth is I'm a total pussy."He adds with a playful little laugh as his eyes meet hers. His tongue tapping against one of his canines in thought.
"It's all in how you carry yourself. I mean if you think you're a tough then you're tough right?"He asks her with a grin."It's all about aggression right?"He asks her as he leads her down the street. Surprisingly cheerful considering the moon. But then he hasn't really had anything to set his ass off tonight.
[Gwen Sullivan] "Mmm."
That's the same noteless hum that she answered so many things with. It would become her identifier one day. People would do impressions of her by flattening out their expressions, humming that single noise, and looking elsewhere like they're forgetting or ignoring what they just heard. Gwen does just that, glances away from the pouting mouth and bouncing dark curls of hair to glance across the street, skim it and the alley instead.
There's the thumping of boots and Howard is immediately cursing quietly and tapping at her elbow, telling her that whatever she was doing wasn't nearly as important as hauling ass. Gwen looked at him skeptically, past his skinny shoulders toward Simon (she sees him first because she knows him) and Bridget (she notices her second because the face was somewhere in her mind, she knew it, but she never got much of a personality to go behind it... truth be told she knew her smell better than her face because she'd tracked it before with her mentor).
She recognized the pair as Nation, but she didn't argue with Howard and try to stay. She's turning away from the wall and walking long-legged steps up the sidewalk, brisk without appearing to be rushed or harried, even as she answers the Fianna quietly (but no quieter than was usual for her, she spoke low in volume and tone). "Does the Kin owe you a bullet or something? Why are we running?"
[Bridget] A familiar voice perks the Fianna kin's ears as she turns her head towards the Theurge. What she hears pulls her out of the daze for a couple seconds before she turns and bumps into the Ahroun lightly.
"Shit, I'm sorry," she laughs with a slight edge of unease. It is his moon, afterall.
"Hey, Howard," she says cheerfully. She looks somewhat surprised to see him, but not terribly shocked. In any case, he seems to be fleeing the scene with a young girl in tow, so she probably assumes he's trying not to cause a scene with the poor girl.
Which, after taking a second to evaluate herself, Bridget realizes this doesn't bother her at all. A couple weeks ago, maybe. Now? Not so much. She looks back to Simon with a small smile, "Maybe. But I don't ever get out of my skin, now do I?"
[Howard Ivers] "We're not runn--"
Hey, Howard!
He turns, again, only seconds after beginning to mosey his ass down the sidewalk with Gwen. Perhaps he thought he'd be able to sneak off despite the fact that his rail-thin build, insane fashion choices and magnificent head of hair makes him extremely difficult to miss even when he isn't ranting at a volume typically preceding his being informed of his companion's not being deaf.
"Ahoy!" he calls, lifting a hand to wave, before glancing back at Gwen. He widens his eyes, the expression out of range for the kinswoman and the Ahroun yet saying Dear Jesus to Gwen. Another glance reveals that Simon has appeared, chasing seconds after Bridget, and he considers his options:
keep moving, or go kick a hornet's nest a few times.
He points to Simon, and asks, "You know that prick?" A beat. "The big dumb handsome fucker, not the bird."
[Simon Zahradnik] He keeps his attention on her enough that he doesn't note Howard or Gwen until Bridget draws attention to them. He takes the time to look in their direction but he was quick enough to look back to her."Skin is over rated... I mean... It grows back right?"He asks with an almost teasing little laugh before shrugging his shoulders."Sometimes we all need to step outside that box we've trapped ourselves in. Grow and expand... That or you become a lifeless husk of flesh giving out no more than it takes. Which is pretty much the same as being dead."He nods a little.
"Aggression is some good shit. And I'm not sayin' punchin' people and being a general all around asshole. I am talking about pursuing, moving, following whatever it is that guides you. Don't back down, people will always try to beat you don't let them beat you. Life is a competition even among your friends there is competition. I'm a different kind of creature but I can see it in humans... Success is aggression. Following your dreams or just being a greedy prick. If you want things in life you gotta take them in one way or another."He lets Bridget decide if they were going over. For the most part he was just making conversation since they were hanging out and all.
[Gwen Sullivan] Howard stops walking, turns around to look at the two walking in their direction, and waves while calling out another 'Ahoy!'. Goodness knows how many of those he's thrown drunkenly into the air tonight. Gwen turns about as well, her gloved hands in her coat pockets, expression relatively blank. He's waving, then pointing to the Shadow Lord and asking if she knows him.
He refers to him as a prick, Gwen doesn't speak out to disagree.
"Yeah. That's Simon. Given the day he's alright." She glanced up toward the sky and her nostrils flared some when she spied the moon through a considerable gap in the clouds above. "Given tonight, though, he's gonna make someone want to punch him." It was easier to be patient when there was a task at hand or the moon was more slender. Gwen was getting a better hold of how to conduct herself with her Rage, but the Full Moon was still difficult, and she figured it always would be.
She sniffed a little, both at the cold and at something not so much a scent as a sensation that Gwen's mind registered as being close to one anyways, because it didn't know of any other way to explain it. Brass and spirits and strong, earthy spiced things. She knew that more than she knew the face. She expressed this under her breath. "I know her smell, though." Not a smell, but something like it. She didn't say this too loud or too often, she got odd questions for it when she did.
Howard was easy to be honest with, though, so why not?
[Howard Ivers] The grin that sneaks across Howard's lips in response to Gwen's remark about Bridget's breeding is a cross between a knowing smirk and the congratulatory sort that precedes high-fiving someone's fraternity brother or sports teammate. While he says nothing that would lend the honest confession sexual overtones, he doesn't really have to: he has a fucking filthy mind, and for whatever reason he doesn't make the attempt to conceal his perverse warping of what the Cub just said.
"Yeah..."
Ahem.
"Well, we can either go say 'Hi,' I can make a proper cunt out of myself and maybe get some part of my body horribly broken, or we can fuck off and go break into a buildin' we're not supposed to be in or throw shit off an overpass or somethin'." He turns away from Gwen, flicking his eyebrows as he regards the pair down the block. "Admittedly, that'll be more fun if I've taken the piss out of old Simon first, but... eh... I'm not really choosy, yeah? I'll take what I can get."
[Hunter] Hunter had a successful hunt tonight.
The Naugh that he told Cordelia about is dead, slain by his own hands and helped greatly by those who fought beside him. Asha the fang who brought the Naugh to its knees for Hunter to finish, Adam changed the odds and kept the fight in their balance, and Joey who provided the info necessary to defeat it.
And so, after celebrations with Joey, Hunter ventures out to find other friends. Cordie, maybe Howard later, after all he does live just around the corner. But right now, it's just him and the silver fang walking down the street. He wears a scarf, having emptied half his Rage in the fight, and it's tucked into the front of a brown zip-up leather jacket.
People converge, it is the way of things. Garou and Kinfolk come swarming in out of the hillsides to gather around like moths to a flame.
Hunter kicks a can and it bounces off a dumpster as they cross the mouth of an alley way.
"Whatchu do tonight?" He asks her, casual as you like.
[Bridget] Bridget listens to Simon, like she usually does. She watches him talk without having anything crass to say or a joke to make. She makes a smile and nods slightly. There is a certain noticeable ease between them, even if Bridget cant stand still in his presence on a night like this. Running didn't do much to satiate that urge to flee the Killer she had just the slightest glimpse of a few nights ago.
He tore a man to pieces with housetools. It's difficult to unhear something like that, especially when one believes it. The haze of alcohol and other substances did nothing to discourage her imagination or her faith that Simon would do whatever the fuck it was he had it in him to do. And still, the person or creature who entangled himself into her being hadn't really changed.
Really, the only explanation for Teflon Bridget is that she is intricately attracted to trouble and has a knack for getting what she wants some of the time. It would be a wonder if she didn't turn up dead in some ill-begotten ghetto or backwater bog.
Somewhere, the sound of a can bouncing down an alley catches her ears, but Bridget simply watches the Shadowlord, very nearly forgetting everything he said. "I guess."
[Cordelia] What did she do tonight?
Sure, she's heard about the night Hunter had. She's bundled up and ready to deal with the fact that it's cold. She's got boots on. Not pretty boots, but rubber boots. Shiny black ones, that are only tarnished around the ankle from water and snow and whatever other precipitate there was splashing on him. She's got jeans on, and as for the rest of it- gloves, a scarf- most of that is hard to see. People are converging, and she is walking.
But what did she do tonight? Cordelia looks up and to the side, tries to think of something.
"I finished the Zombie Survival Guide," she remarks, "and I sold my stock in Disney."
Like these are normal things. Selling your stock and reading books.
"You should read it, it's useful knowledge in the inevitable event of the zombie apocalypse."
[Gwen Sullivan] Gwen's expression (if possible) falls flatter when she catches the intonation behind the grin Howard flashes down at her, and the corners of her mouth tighten into something irritable and only the faintest flush shows at her cheeks (though that could be dismissed on the cold weather quite easily). She jabs an elbow into his side, somewhere around where his appendix and kidneys and other such touchy organs exist, and listens to his list of options.
...They were easy ones to choose from, really. Gwen lifts a hand to salute to Simon, a small flick of two fingers toward her forehead and back away from it once more. It's a greeting as well as a farewell, acknowledgment of all sorts wrapped up into that single gesture. It's a 'catch you later', it's a 'nice to see you', it's all of the above. She then nudges Howard again, this time in a more gentle, ushering manner, pressing to get him to turn about and start walking again.
One of the responsibilities of a Philodox was to mediate, to watch their brothers and sisters to make sure they didn't tear one another apart in meaningless battles without guidelines or gain. The way Gwen saw it, a small part of this was prevention as well. So rather than let him go annoy Simon (or run the risk of someone annoying the hell out of her as well), she started up the sidewalk away from the black-brick club and the people that stopped to talk in front of it.
"Let's break in somewhere and see what we can find."
Human Law and the Litany were not one in the same, after all. Breaking and entering would be a good night's entertainment instead.
[Hunter] "Zombies? Shit Dee, I don't need no guide to learn that shit."
He laughs, steps away from her and turns around, walking backwards in front of her.
"Seriously, who you think I am?"
A grin, cocky, playful, joking, and he turns around just in time to see a familiar mess of curled hair sprouting up out of a horrible outfit down the street. Hunter can't actually see the outfit, he just knows whose hair that is and makes an assumption. It's Howard. Hunter once told him he dresses like a homeless tranny.
He wasn't joking.
"Yo! HOWIE!" He calls out, starts running down the street with his arms spread. "HOWIE!! HOWWWWIEEEE!!"
[Simon Zahradnik] Simon was like that, though, he could talk openly and bluntly about something horrible as if it was little more than a thing he did. Honestly that was a story he was quite proud of... The man in question was recruiting troubled teens, drawing them in and aiding in their fall. He wasn't really even a man any longer he was a hideously malformed monster lacking anything resembling a human soul. His screams and pain were the closest thing to justice his victims would ever know. Yet details weren't as important as the story, or the point. Simon was not the knight in shining armor... He was the monster who made monsters afraid to come out at night. He was the horror that taught the horrors who stalked the night the meaning of fear. He was the punishment of Gaia sent to deliver her divine wrath without the tiniest hint of remorse. Yet when he wasn't wearing the face of death he could be okay company.
"Guess nothing... You try it sometime. Next time you find yourself in an uncomfortable position. Get up in someone's face, look them dead in the eye and tell them to back the fuck down. Man or monster... Everyone understands confidence and certainty. When you get in someone's face you are telling them that you don't fear them."He says with a smile and a little laugh."Hell, show the Garou you're not afraid and most of them will run away with their tails tucked between their legs. Stronger or not, we're all ruled by instinct in the end. Fight or flight."He smiles a little and looks up ahead at Gwen and Howard.
"So how you been the past few days? You feelin' better lately?"He asks her softly. He was headed towards the other Garou. Angry at them or not Garou were Social creatures and even if they weren't in the same packs they tended to gravitate towards one another.
The sound of a bouncing can hitting his ear and drawing his attention away only for a second or two before returning it to Bridget."If we're gonna catch those two we should hurry."
[Howard Ivers] More than once, Gwen elbows him in the side in an attempt to either correct his behavior or steer him in the right direction. The first time, Howard yells "OW!!" and clutches his side but is amused all the time; the second time he executes an about-face and starts off down the sidewalk without further consultation or consideration for whether they're going to go towards Simon and Bridget.
Although one would have to be blind not to be able to sort out that the Shadow Lord is interested in the kinswoman, others are fond of introducing Howard with the disclaimer that he is not, in fact, actually blind.
Hunter comes tearing ass out of nowhere, screaming Howard's name as though he's executing an impression of one of the 20th century's greatest stage actors before he consummated a decades-long love affair with Dairy Queen, and Howard pauses long enough to turn, broadly beckon Hunter onward with a sweep of his arm, and yell back, "Come on, wanker, we're going shopping!"
And off they go.
Linus have mercy.
[Cordelia] "You say that now," she warns him, "but just wait. I don't think you can eat zombies."
Not true. Hunter Matthews could probably eat zombies in a styrofoam holandaise sauce if he wanted. Gnawers can eat anything... everything... and probably do. The next thing she knows, he's calling out to... Howie? Her eyebrow raises, and the other is soon to follow once the next phrase is heard.
Come on, wanker, we're going shopping!
Oh, yes, she must follow now. So, she does. She trots forward, and the giraffe heads over to bridge the gap to investigate this Howie Person who, as it turns out, is not Howie Mandell. He looks vaguely familiar, though. Cordelia grasps at straws, but comes up with nothing.
No comments:
Post a Comment