fucked-up friend.

[Sinclair] It's perhaps five minutes or less after he's gone upstairs that Sinclair gets to the common room, still working on her Pete's Wicked. She doesn't have a second one in her hand; when Alex said it was past his bedtime, she believed it. Her assumption is that he's getting washed up or already is. Her assumption is that he won't want a beer. It's also possible she wouldn't have thought to bring him one anyway. She's not known for her manners.

She glances behind her, down the stairs. She glances around the common room after she steps in and sees him. "Sorry about that," she says, and leaves it there.

He has no way of knowing she hasn't even said that to Joey and Charlie. And she killed them. Sort of.

[Alexander] Alex is standing in front of the TV, watching ESPN2 or ESPNU or whatever the hell they were up to now. His plate of food is held a few inches below his mouth, and he's shoveling food in about as fast as he can wield a fork.

When Sinclair comes up the steps, he glances at her briefly, lowers his plate a little, and finishes chewing the mouthful he's working on before putting together the next.

"What for?" It seems a genuine question.

[Sinclair] Despite the heaviness of the moon outside, or perhaps because of it, Sinclair doesn't bristle. And it's her: she might bristle at anything. At the fact that he's sitting there eating. At the fact that he is asking her to explain the apology. She just exhales, and lifts her bottle. Before she puts it to her lips, however, she says: "The jab about Echo claiming you."

[Alexander] "Oh." He thinks for a minute. "Whatever, no big deal."

[Sinclair] She quirks a brow at that, lowering the bottle, but doesn't argue. The neck of the beer hangs from between her fingers, the glass warming in response to her body temperature. "I have two questions. I can tell you're dying to know what they are, so I won't leave you in suspense. The first is what you though of Echo. The second is what made you Es Te Ef Yu down there."

[Alexander] "I don't think anything of Echo," he responds. "I barely met her; I don't really give a fuck. And I STFUed because even I get sick of snapping witty retorts once in a while." He shovels another forkful of food into his mouth, then decides he's had enough and tosses his fork down with a clatter. Turning, he puts the plate on the coffee table. "Why'd you chase me up here to ask?"

[Sinclair] There's a pause there as Sinclair thinks before she speaks, which is and of itself something new. She's even quiet long enough to take a drink of her beer, leaning against the wall beside the stairwell, several paces away from where he sits.

"She asked me if there was something going on with you and I," Sinclair says, which is not an answer. It isn't even rightly an explanation. "I came up here because I was done eating, and because I didn't want to sit at 'her table' anymore." A beat. "And because most of the people downstairs were either people I don't know, don't care if I know, or people I've nearly killed."

Another pause. She cocks her head to the side. "And because I should call my folks. And because I wanted to apologize."

[Alexander] "Yeah?" He sits on the coffee table beside his plate, feet apart. "What'd you say?"

She mentions her folks -- Alexander blinks, then scoffs. "No way. You have parents? Where?"

[Sinclair] "That you're my friend," she answers simply, and perhaps a bit quieter than the rest... though that may be because Joey comes upstairs and passes by on her way to Room 7, because a few people head up to the roof and can be heard in the stairwell during their ascent. Nobody pays them or their conversation any mind, but Sinclair watches Joey disappear through the archway to the hall before she looks back at Alex.

Her lips, colored a pearlescent pink rather than a blood red or edgy bronze or emocore black, twist into a faint smirk. "Yeah, I have parents. In Kansas."

She finally leaves the wall, walking towards the couch and then taking up the seat at one end. Her Vans are nudged off her feet -- her ankle socks are yellow, and there are daisies on them -- before she folds her legs up onto the cushion with her, one knee aimed at the ceiling, the other leg resting on its side on the upholstery.

[Alexander] That word, friend, makes Alexander blink. Not because he's never had a friend before!, and would now blossom into a complete human being and learn to love and all that shit -- but simply because it's unexpected. It's not a word he would've thought to apply to Sinclair.

Though it does fit.

"Huh," he says, and that's all he says for a while. "Okay." He leans his elbows on his knees for a while, scrubs his face. Then she mentions Kansas and he barks a laugh, the heels of his hands still pressed to his cheekbones.

"Kansas," he says. His hands slap down. "You've gotta be kidding me. I gotta call you Dorothy now. Where's Toto? And who'm I, the Scarecrow or the Tin Man?"

Because he couldn't possibly be cowardly.

[Sinclair] The smirk remains, and her eyebrow lifts. She isn't done with her beer yet, even now -- she's nursing that think like it's the last beer left in the whole wide world -- but she doesn't do more than take a small sip of it. He moves around, always moving around, scrubbing his face and laughing loudly, but Sinclair is oddly still. She breathes out a huff of laughter, quieter than that harsh sound he lets out.

"Yeah, Kansas," she confirms. "And I would've pegged you for the Wizard, actually. I don't think you're brainless." A beat. "And the Tin Man wanted a heart."

She tips the bottle but not her head back, draining it except for a few dregs and bit of foam at the bottom. Leaning forward, she sets it down on the coffee table and then re-settles against the couch. "You keep seeming so damn surprised. I was a cheerleader. I have parents. I'm from Kansas." She laughs, but there's a flatness to it. "It's not like I was born with fangs, Alex."

[Alexander] Alexander sobers; for a moment, incredibly, he looks faintly abashed.

"Yeah well." He scratches the side of his chest. It's very nearly winter now, and temperatures are dropping near freezing. It's warm in the Brotherhood, though, and Alex is still in cargo shorts and sleeveless tees, most of them, apparently, in some shade of red. Tonight it's a deep, rich, bloody hue, and the logo stamped on it --

well, it's actually a big, collegiate-font H.

"I think it's not too hard to understand why," he finishes. "I mean. Sometimes the stuff you say? Like that crack about claim downstairs. Or the way you look at people. I know you don't really think... or you don't think you think we're sacks of meat, but christ, sometimes the look in your eyes makes me feel safer in a cage with a tiger.

"People don't see your past and who you were or how you really think. Y'know? They see how you act, here and now. And you're an American fucking werewolf in Chicago."

[Sinclair] He should be; abashed, that is. It's not a far cry from the last conversation they had, before she all but passed out in his bed and slept for a full day there. She's more than just a primal, violent monster, but that no more means that she's a gentle soul than occasional moments of understanding make Alex a doormat. She's not a cartoon. She's not a caricature.

And once upon a time, she lived in a ranch house in Wichita with her mother and her father. She played sports. She went to class. She had friends that did not have as many or more tattoos than she does. She did not have any tattoos at all, no elaborate scarification put on her body for reasons unbeknownst to anyone. Once upon a time, she was a real live girl

and people were not afraid to touch her.

She listens, for what that's worth. Her arms are tucked in close but not folded over her chest. Her jaw tightens at the you don't think you think bit, eyes flashing once. But her eyes the drop, and she breathes soundlessly. The only evidence of its depth is the expansion of her chest and shoulders, their deflation and sinking as she exhales silently through her nose. She drops her eyes to the edge of the table for a moment.

Two heartbeats later, Sinclair unfolds her legs and bends over at the waist, picking up her shoes. "Yeah." She stands slowly, though there's still that sense of effortless control to her movements that suggests she could be across the room and holding him against the wall in an eyeblink if she wanted.

She leaves the beer bottle, and her shoes dangle from the hooked fingers of her left hand as she steps past him, in front of him. Her right hand is held out, ostensibly for a lazy, sliding five. "Later, Alex."

[Alexander] He doesn't highfive her. He has no idea that's what's expected; who the hell holds their hand out for a lazy-five on the way past, anyway?

What Alexander does do is take her hand briefly. Her hand doesn't feel like the hand of an american werewolf in Chicago. It doesn't really feel like the hand of a pampered cheerleader princess either. Though then again, that probably wasn't what Sinclair was.

She played sports. She probably beat the boys at their own games.

But Alexander squeezes her hand, anyway. The kinsman's hand is a solid chunk of muscle and bone, very little give. The knuckles are dense, incredibly strong from years of systematic abuse disguised as martial arts training: microfractured over and over and healed over and over until the osseus framework is reinforced by innumerable tiny scars, formed into a structure literally stronger than concrete, as dangerous as a weapon.

"Later, Sinclair," he says.

And when she gets to the door: "Hey Sinclair? I know you're not just a monster." He shrugs. "For whatever that's worth."

[Sinclair] The truth is, Alex would be safer in a cage with a tiger. Any tiger caged would be one born behind bars, or one captured because it was not strong enough, fast enough, cunning enough to escape. It is hard to imagine Sinclair captive somehow, held back in some way. It is hard to see her as anything but wild.

Because that is what she is. She is strong. She is fast. And she's cunning. She knows all too well now how unsafe even her allies are when caged in a room with her, hedged into an alleyway with her. As she told Joey, she couldn't blame her if she wanted to move out, if she wanted to hate her forever. Both the Rotagar and Charlie bear scars they'll have til they die because of a momentary loss of control on her part, control too late regained. She does not really expect forgiveness.

Just as she doesn't expect Alex, or any of the kin she's met thus far, to stop being afraid of her.

Just as she doesn't expect him to take her hand and hold onto it, even briefly.

Sinclair's step hitches, and she pauses to look down at him rather than simply returning the squeeze and continuing on her way. She tips her head to the side, staring at him with a distant curiosity. It isn't her fault, but it's comparable to the look of an animal considering whether to pounce on something or let it go. To human eyes it looks detached, univested, uncaring. Alex isn't quite human. Sinclair is only related to humanity; she seems to have very little on her own.

Her hands are perfect. It isn't vanity that keeps them so. It's that no matter what she does to her body, her regenerative powers outclass it almost instantly. So: her skin is, especially tonight, more like silk than flesh. Her fingernails are hard and filed to bluntness, painted the color of wine. Feverish, melting warmth floods his hand where hers touches it. Sinclair doesn't let go for a moment, and then her head straightens and she blinks and the look in her eyes changes. She lets go.

She doesn't walk to the door.

"...You mind if I crawl in bed with you later?"

[Alexander] Alex, beginning to turn away, hesitates. He turns back, and he's frowning. For a while he seems to be debating whether or not to open his mouth. The rarity of that need not be commented on.

Then, "I don't want us to fuck." It's out; it could be viewed as arrogance, or worse, rejection; it's possible he's prepared for violent retaliation, and to be certain, he's almost quivering with sudden tension. A few seconds unspool. He goes on.

"I just... like it like this. How it is between us. And whether or not you had anything in mind other than a one night stand, I think it'd change." And, a literature major after all: "Irrevocably, I think."

[Sinclair] Her eyebrows tugs together after those first six words, sudden and tight and simple. But it's not immediately after he speaks. It's a second later, as she reads the tension that if she were in a hunting, fighting form she would see as the mark of prey. Fear. That is not how she sees it right now. Her expression pulls so quickly and so briefly it's hard to understand if it's anger or surprise or any number of things.

Sinclair doesn't say anything, and those seconds unspool, unravel, stretch out between them like taffy. Her hands are at her sides, fingers limp but sort of loosely, lazily curled. Her relaxation does not make anyone think of sleep; it makes most people who see her think of the lazy confidence of a beast who can go from lounging to attacking in a split second.

There's a lot she could say to that: all of it, everything he says. Instead of any of it, she says this, and rather softly: "Why?"

[Alexander] "Why what?" He's briefly off-balance. "Why do I think it'll change things?"

[Sinclair] She nods, simply, standing and looking down at him as a result. "Yeah," adds Sinclair, as though her nod isn't quite clear enough.

[Alexander] "Because," he's at a loss here; gropes for words for a moment. Then he finds them. "Because it always changes shit, Sinclair. For me. I can't think of a single chick I've banged that I got up still respecting."

[Sinclair] That makes the Galliard's eyebrow cock upward. Her expression is blatantly ...something, but that doesn't mean it's easy to name. It could be called disgusted, but it isn't quite. It could be called bewildered, but it isn't entirely that, either. She seems a bit taken aback. Not disappointed.

"That's really fucked up, Vaughn." Then there's a beat of a pause, and this time she doesn't lose her frown quite so quickly. It pulls across her features, and stays. She shakes her head. "I'm not going to force you into anything, Alex. But..."

Any number of things. But.

"...I was just talking about being in bed with you," she finishes, her expression changing from frown to near-wince. It makes her look young. She looks like she wants to fidget, twist, but she doesn't. She's still. "I liked that."

[Alexander] She calls it fucked up. There's a note of defensiveness when he says, "Yeah well," and leaves it there unanswered; unanswered for.

Then Alex sighs -- not out of boredom or exasperation or, god forbid, emo-ness -- but simply because the subject discomfits him. He rolls his head on his neck, reaches around to knead the back of it with his hand.

"I know what you meant. I just figured I should lay that out on the table. If you're cool with that, then yeah, come crash. My alarm goes off at six, though," there's a sort of deliberate flippancy to all this, as though to offset the previous topic, "and you oughta bring another blanket so I don't have to fight you for the one all night."

[Sinclair] [This should be good]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 2, 2 (Failure at target 6)

[Sinclair] [...GLASS WALKERS DON'T FAIL.]
Dice Rolled:[ 2 d10 ] 7, 8 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Sinclair] Yeah, well seems to be enough for Sinclair, as far as that's concerned. It's twisted. It's evident by the fact that he said it that he has some modicum of respect for her, even if it begins in fear for his basic health and safety. It's evident that for whatever reason, he doesn't want to lose that -- or risk losing that -- by fucking her.

Alex moves the conversation back towards lightness, flippancy, that edged banter they usually trade. And Sinclair just stares at him for a moment, then exhales audibly, quickly. "Yeah," she says quietly, as level and aspirated as a gust of wind.

She rubs at her face with the heels of her hands, massages her brow. Her long arms, not so much slender as almost elegantly toned, drop back down to either side of her frame. She looks at him.

"It won't wake me up," is all she says in the end, which is paltry compared to all she could say.

All she wants to say.

[Alexander]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 1, 5, 6, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Alexander] The thing about Alexander is, he's not the knucklehead he sometimes pretends to be, and that it's so easy to write him off as. There's real intelligence in that hard head of his, and occasionally, true astuteness and perception.

He uses those to foul ends, for the most part. He uses his ability to read another person to seek weakness, to plan attacks. Once in a while, though, he simply --

-- looks at someone to see them.

There's a moment, now, when Alexander's dark eyes fix on Sinclair. Whatever he sees makes him frown faintly. A pause; then he decides to say nothing of it. The kinsman nods at the Garou that, by and large, the city would consider as having the unenviable job of warding him.

"See ya later, Sinclair," he says. And he picks a last shred of meat off his plate, leaving it there for the staff when he gets up to go.

[Sinclair] They are, neither of them, as simply categorized or pigeonholed as so many would have them be. She can do more than destroy. He has an education under his belt that outstrips that of just about any Garou he might come across. Including the one in front of him. As though it matters. As though that makes a difference to any of them, they who care about nothing but the war. Nothing at all but how it feels to change shape, tear the life right from some twisted thing's heart. As though any of them would be impressed, or jealous, or wish --

Sinclair looks right back at him as he sets his gaze on her. She doesn't flinch away. It's possible she knows he's seeing her, possible she can tell that he's looking under the surface. It's also possible that she's oblivious, lost in her own thoughts on the matter.

The fact that Sinclair has been the only Glass Walker at the Brotherhood, and then the elder of the tribe, and therefore his warder in this city, has mostly gone unspoken between them. She doesn't step up and claim him by name at moots. She doesn't talk about him to her packmates. She doesn't talk about him to other Garou much at all, keeping her words sparse even when they ask.

The fact that there is now a Fostern of the tribe in the city and that Sinclair will not long be their elder has gone completely unmentioned. The fact that Echo will, as soon as that happens, then be his guardian unless Sinclair challenges her for it...

...she sure as hell isn't going to talk to him about that. Not right now. Perhaps not at all.

"Later, Alex," she says as she pads in socked feet out of the common room, repeating herself to no real benefit, because it isn't as though either of them care about politeness.

'Later' could mean about an hour. That's the time it takes for her to talk to her mother and father on the phone late on Thanksgiving evening. That's the time it takes for her to get up and shower, washing makeup off her face and sweat off her skin. That's the time it takes for Sinclair to dry her hair again, to sit on her bed with her thick red comforter and think about wrapping it around herself and taking it to a different bed, just as narrow, to share space but little else with Alexander Vaughn.

Her friend.

She doesn't expect him to be waiting up for her after he's gone to bed. Which is for the best, because after about an hour, with her hair dried and her face cleaned, Sinclair just tucks her legs under the bedcovers, turns to face the wall, and closes her eyes to sleep.

thanksgiving day.

[Kemp Oates] "Had to come just to freak them out. If ya avoid a place long enough, it becomes expected that ya won't come."

He was doing his damned best to put on a cheerful face as they climbed the stairs.

"Besides, I got the best looking lady with me and there's free food."

At least he mentioned free food second and hopefully she wouldn't mention she was the only extra female here at the moment.

[Imogen Slaughter] The best looking lady with me -

"Of course I am," what he hoped she wouldn't mention is precisely what she says, "as there is no one here, not only am I the best looking female in the place, I am the only female."

She steps into the empty common room, her heels clicking quietly on the hardwood, her hands slid into her jacket pockets.

"D'yeh think perhaps it's downstairs instead?"

[Kemp Oates] She asked if maybe they were in the wrong section and all he can say is the truth.

"Fuck, for all I know it's in someone's room and they are doing jello shots off someone's naked belly."

He lifted his face and sniffed. Place always smelled like too many, old food, dirty towels, old sex and ass to him.

"Got to be someone cooking."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's eyebrow lifts upward in mild commentary.

"Let's not go knockin' on doors, shall we? I'd rather not to see that."

She draws a breath. "Maybe yeh got the time wrong," It was a pity there was no smoking here - she has a sudden urge.

"I imagine if they're cooking, it would be downstairs." And there is the smell of turkey in the air, heavy and familiar.

[Wendy Berber] *As if on cue, a beanpole of a girl appears behind them, along with the smell of food. She's struggling with a platter of yams as big as she is, all the while assuring someone in the kitchen.*

N-no. No, Its ok. I have it. Really. No I r-really do.

*The grotesquely skinny kinfolk weebles and wobbles, but she doesn't fall down, brushing past Imogen and Kemp with a shy murmer.*

Um, s'cuse me. Sorry.

*The platter rattles as its set down on one of the tables in the commons.*

[Kemp Oates] "Maybe we are just early....."

And there came food and a slightly familiar looking Kinfolk. He inhaled as he stepped aside to let Wendy through with the Yams. Unfortunately he wasn't very gentlemanly. Never offering to help and only leaning in to sniff as the platter passed, commenting.

"Ugh, veggies."

[Imogen Slaughter] "Yams are a root. Hardly the same thing as lima beans or brussel sprouts," Imogen observes as she takes a perch on the couch, watching Wendy as she sets down the plate.

"Wendy," she greets the shy bookish kinfolk with her name.

"Work here, do you?"

[Kemp Oates] "It's a veggie and makes ya fart even if it's not a bean."

He stood next to the couch Imogen settled on. Not in a hurry to get close to something that wasn't meat and wasn't deep fried.

"Oh yeah...."

Only just reminded of some manners when Imogen spoke to Wendy.

"...er....Wendy."

Grand greeting and all.

[Imogen Slaughter] "Charming." A common remark made Kemp's way, who is not generally charming at all. At least, when she says it, she doesn't mean it.

[Wendy Berber] T-tubers. *Wendy nods as Imogen says what she was only thinking, tucking shaggy black hair behind her ears. She attempts and fails to straighten her glasses, smoothing spindly hands over hand-me-down clothes in an effort to be more presentable. She offers them both a quick nervous grimace. A smile.*

Um. H-hello Dr. Slaughter. No, I'm just h-helping out.

*A wary look around, kin on edge. Her attention goes back to Kemp as he addresses her.*

Hm. Um, I'm sorry.. I don't think I know your name s-sir.

[Kemp Oates] "Tumors?! I ain't eating no tumors. That's just twice the reason not to eat them."

He was still making a gagging motion, one finger in his mouth, tongue out when Wendy asked his name.

"I'm Not a Tooma."

Bad Arnold accent and all.

[Imogen Slaughter] "Tubers," Imogen corrects Kemp mildly. "Tubers. Not tumours."

Her gaze touches back on Wendy, adding for her benefit, "He's called Kemp," as the Rotagar does not seem interested in introducing himself.

[Kemp Oates] "Uber tumors, whatever. I ain't eatin 'em. Might grow in my belly and next thing ya know, I need surgery to remove them."

He waved it off.

[Wendy Berber] Heh.. Nice to m-meet you Kemp. I'm Wendy B-Berber. Um, I'm Boy's m-mate.

*A shy smile, before she edges towards the stairs.* There um, there are some sausages coming up. I'll go g-get them.

*She chuckles nervously, rubbing the back of her neck. For once she's not looming over the male in the room. Kemp outrageously tall enough that Wendy actually has to look up to address him. Shock registering on her face as she blurts gracelessly.*

You're really r-really tall.

[Kemp Oates] "And hungry."

He commented, hoping it would move the food along. Last time he recalled seeing this female, she had her nose in a book or computer or something. Damn things happened fast in this city. Must be all the wind.

"I ain't so tall. Though it does give me a good view of dandruff and bald spots."

[Imogen Slaughter] Kemp's commentary is waved off with a brief flick of her fingers, and Imogen dismisses his insanity as she leans back in the couch, idly crossing her legs as Wendy marvels at Kemp's height and Kemp retorts with his usual banter.

[Alexander] (*yawns* sorry guys, i just crawled back out of bed.

let's do it like this: the restaurant part of TB is closed to the public today. there's a buffet table set up in the main dining room downstairs with thanksgiving usuals: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy. also, spiral-cut ham, various salads, apple, cherry, pecan and pumpkin pies, and... whatever the hell else your char might want to eat.

i'm not drawing a map!)

[Joey] [there's a map in Meesh's gallery!]

[Echo Quinn] (what if I can't cope without a map, damon? WHAT THEN? *goes type*)

[Kemp Oates] And begins all over again, assuming Wendy is coming out of the kitchen, putting things on a table and he and Imogen are holding up the wall or something while Kemp scratches something inappropriate.

[Alexander] (huh, that's true.

http://www.chicagodusk.com/index.php?jove=gallery&picture=2634

let's say there's a buffet table in front of the booths. oh and there's booze.)

[Joey] [duh of COURSE there's booze!]

[Wendy Berber] Yeah. Heh.. Gross.

*She blinks, far more sociable a creature than she was five months ago, but she's still pretty receptive to subtle, and not so subtle suggestions from trueborn. Clearing her throat she ducks her head and makes for the kitchen.*

I um, I'll get those s-sausages for you.

[Alexander] (sorry punkin, didn't realize wendy was bringing food up. that still works though -- she could be bringing food from downstairs up to people who are hanging out upstairs!)

[Wendy Berber] ((S'alright. Kemp magic-morphed us downstairs. We's good. *waves magic hand*))

[Imogen Slaughter] (razzle-dazzle!)

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen shifts slightly in the convenient chair she's seated in, absently removing her jacket in the isolation of the shut-down Brotherhood, glancing up at Kemp as Wendy hurries off to get the aforementioned sausages.

"Subtle," she observes.

[Joey] Joey and Echo are late for supper. Joey snagged the elder Rotagar for evening patrols of the area around The Brotherhood. Now that The Sentinels are familiar with more unpacked Garou, more potential packmates, they no longer patrol alone. And Joey likes spending time with the elder Ragabash. They share some common interests, mainly both are capable of carrying on exhuberant one-sided conversations about music, pop culture, almost anything. Except technology. Joey can find her way around a computer. She can use most of the applications of her cell phone. She knows how to use email and look things up on youtube. The Glass Walker loses the Fenrir whenever the topic strays too long on the history of computers or the latest developments in microchips.

When they come in from patrols, Joey darts up the stairs first. She strips down in room 7, grabs up her shower gear, and dashes across the hall to the showers. Less than fifteen minutes later, she exits with a towel wrapped haphazardly around her body, and disappears into room 7 once more.

When she eventually pops out of the kitchen and into the dining room, her wet hair is twisted up into a pair of buns just behind her ears. She's wearing an old faded baseball jersey t-shirt, white bodied with red-sleeves, and a pair of battered jeans. Her feet are bare, perhaps to the horror of the staff.

She loads up a plate with the usuals, turkey, stuffing, gravy, potatoes, grean beans. Imogen and Kemp are given a cheerful upward lift of the chin, and Joey slides into one of the booths.

[Alexander] "...HEY, PEACH."

If Wendy thinks Alexander might've snuck up behind her to yell that in her ear as loudly as possible, she's right. By the time she whips around -- or recovers from a heart attack -- he's back to a reasonable social distance of an arm's reach or so, gnawing on a turkey drumstick. He grins at her, greasy-mouthed.

Normal volume: "Long time no see, kiddo."

[Wendy Berber] *Sausages. Wendy was on a mission in the Kitchen. They were here somewhere, amidst the desserts and high demand dishes that the kinfolk chefs had made more than one platter of. The bookworm rummages around, looking for where they'd been set. She's stripped down more than usual, heat of the kitchen seeing her in a loose tanktop and ugly olive skirt. Scar on her neck and shoulder visible, boney arms on full display. Were those ribs through the shirt? Ugh. Wendy Berber a sight better tailored to halloween. She comes out with a platter held aloft, victorious!*

I f-found the S-GAH!

*Aaaaaaaaaaand there they go. Sausages everywhere, sailing through the air with the greatest of eases as Boy's mate jumps about a foot sideways, platter clanging at her feet and rolling under a table.*

[Kemp Oates] He returned Joey's lift of chin as he leaned down to stage whisper to Imogen.

"I ain't too partial to sausages if ya know what I mean."

Snickering till someone he didn't know went up and gave Wendy (who he barely recalled) a heart attack and it rained sausages.

"Though that was interesting."

[Echo Quinn] Echo liked Joey.

The girl was chill, and she dealt out some killer blows with those teeth of hers in battle. End Transmission could respect a No Moon who was more than just a mouth at Moot times to tell everyone where they could back up and get off their high horses, and when they needed to find a mount and giddy up a little to start with. So, as she'd been doing for the past few nights when she wasn't at the boxing ring or training in Room 3, or flying helicopters for extra dough on the side, she was actively patrolling with The Sentinels.

If she knew she was being courted by them, she played her cards close to her chest.

When the pair return, Echo is still full of the sort of boundless energy given her moon, she pads into the showers, singing some irritating Ricky Martin song stuck in her head, dries herself off (while smoothing her dark hair up into a wet Mohawk for absolutely no reason one could fathom) and pulls on sweats, a sports-bra and a baggy off-the-shoulder shirt in blazing red that declared her to be born this hot. Bare-footed, the rings on her toes and fingers visible, the tattoo on her right shoulder blade on display -- the fostern takes herself downstairs still humming and proceeds to pile her plate high with food.

[Alexander] Alexander throws his head back and laughs -- a good hard belly laugh. "Five second rule, Peach. Go go go! Pick 'em up, don't waste food!"

[Jeff Pyeon] "Dude, I know. I was there, remember? Same box. Yeah, I saw the fuckin' play. Yeah, I know. And if you tell me one more time about fuckin' Ang, I'm gonna punch you next time I see you. You're so fuckin' interested, you bang her." He's quiet, then there's laugher. "Fuck off, dude. See you tomorrow - Hockeytown, or Sloe's? Yeah, got it. Latah."

Phone clicks shut and the guy who is no doubt a douche (and that very few people here know) slips inside, looking around. He's wearing a button down shirt and slacks (this season, fine fabrics, no doubt designer and expensive as hell, no tie, and still manages to look comfortable and at home). He takes stock, and hangs back - not cool or distant, not uncertain (exactly), but definitely unknown.

[Marrick] There was no such luck getting ahold of the biological family this Thanksgiving, so instead she latched on to the one that mattered and went through the same processes.

Which, alas, included figuring out what Wendy was doing and following her around. Which, well, was hard to do, as that she was a blonde graced with a relatively short attention span. So, eventually, she did end up at the brotherhood.

"Weeendyyyyy," she called out and tromped off to go find her. Times were good. Mostly.

[Wendy Berber] AUGH! I'm here. *Calls back the kin, spitting Alex with an angry glare as she begins looking for where the platter rolled off to, an apologetic glance to everyone else. She ducks to start gathering the meat back up, muttering.*

Why can't you save being a jerk for every other day, and leave the holidays for c-civil people?

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen arches an eyebrow in Kemp's direction, "I'm shocked," she deadpans as the Rotagar says he is not a sausage man. "Truly."

Alexander shouts in Wendy's ear - Wendy shrieks and Imogen glances down as a sausage rolls beneath her chair.

And with that, those of the blood begin to pour in from all avenues. Imogen's mouth draws a little tauter - and she leans down ward to pluck a sausage from the ground between her two fingers, a brief expression of distaste over the touch of the meat between her fingers.

"Last chance," she offers Kemp before getting to her feet to dispose of it.

[Kemp Oates] He snagged the sausage from Imogen, pointed across the room with a....."Holy shit, look at that! " And threw the sausage over his shoulder while still pointing the other way. Even managed a belch with a satisfied smacking of lips.

[Alexander] "I thought that's what holidays were for." Alexander toes a sausage. "Better hurry up or you'll have to switch to the 10-second rule."

Then Marrick's barreling in like a freight train. Her rage, anyway. Alex looks up, good humor fading a little.

"Uh oh. Hell hath you not, Marrick." Oh, pun.

[Alexander] (repeat for newcomers:

let's do it like this: the restaurant part of TB is closed to the public today. there's a buffet table set up in the main dining room downstairs with thanksgiving usuals: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy. also, spiral-cut ham, various salads, apple, cherry, pecan and pumpkin pies, and... whatever the hell else your char might want to eat.

i'm not drawing a map!)

[Joey] [map is here: http://www.chicagodusk.com/index.php?jove=gallery&picture=2634]

[Marrick] This is what Marrick Fisher walks into: kin squeeling, Alex being Alex, Imogen looking bemused, and flying sausage. She blinks once. Twice for good measure. And decides to go help Wendy with whatever it was she was doing.

She goes straight for the pie, like a good pecan connoisseur should, and takes a piece the size of Texas.

"What?" she just looked confused.

It took a second before she got the pun and headed over to go help Wendy with the sausages. Pie balanced precariously.

"Alex, there's a circle of Hell reserved fer people who talk during movies an' make bad puns and kick puppies. Please tell me you only meet one of those three criterion."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen does not - shockingly - fall for it.

She watches him, dead-pan while Kemp throws the sausage over his shoulder. While he smacks his lips, she lifts an eyebrow.

"So glad you enjoyed."

Marrick yelling at the top of her lungs, Wendy calling back draws the slender redhead's attention. Her eyes lift to touch on Marrick when she enters, nodding slightly in something that resembles greeting.

Back to Kemp - "There is a sausage, just behind you there," she says, all politeness, referring to the sausage he'd thrown over his shoulder, "Would you mind terribly picking it up and throwing it out?"

[Wendy Berber] *Wendy scowls, picking up sausages.*

[Kemp Oates] He looked over his shoulder and down at the sausage there before turning back to Imogen with a shake of his head.

"There are somethings ya just don't do in life. One is never pick up the soap if dropped in a shower with more than yourself present. The other is, never bend over and pick up the sausage in a room full of Garou."

With that he kicked backwards, sending the sausage rolling towards Marrick's feet while the Garou walked towards Wendy.

[Alexander] "I only talk during bad movies," Alex says, and then points at the sausage rolling to a stop in front of Marrick. "Missed one, Peach!" he calls, and then kicks it over to Joey.

[Joey] Joey goes to town on her plate of food. Her rage may not be a blast furnace, but she's still young, still very active. Her shirt hugs her athletic upper body, what she has of feminine curves, the girlish qualities of her face all that keeps her from looking like a boy.

She spots Echo, and her freckled face splits in a wide grin. Raising up in her seat a little, as if the other No Moon won't see her otherwise, she waves frantically.

"Echo! Over here! And bring that guy!"

'That guy' being the Asian trying to be unobtrusive toward the back.

[Charlie] A sonorous belch fills the restaurant of the establishment, and it, along with the other various noises emanating from the open room, draws the attention of someone who was on his way out of the building for reasons having absolutely nothing to do with Thanksgiving.

The swinging door between the kitchen and the restaurant slowly cracks its jaws to reveal the dark-eyed face of the other resident of Room 3, fingers curled around the edge of the door as though it's going to get away from him if he isn't careful. He's wearing the same perpetually-stained jeans and hiking boots that he always has on, his navy blue sweatshirt zipped up to mid-sternum and the hood down for now, a lavender Jansport book bag slung over one shoulder. He hovers there for several seconds, squinting in thought, and then slowly creeps over the threshold, glancing over his shoulder to make sure someone isn't behind him and about to catch a face full of oak.

[Alexander] (...and then. AND THEN. and then! *deletes one of em*)

[Charlie] [*steals one*]

[Marrick] She stops, then looked at Wendy for a second.

"Hey, wendy? Did you hear something?" she raises a brow and seems genuinely confused as to what Alex might be saying. she takes the sausage that Kemp kicked her and gave a half hearted salute with it.

"Hey stranger, como estas?"

Imogen gets a more full-bodied wave. A genuine pleasure in seeing her.

[Joey] A sausage rolls across the floor to stop near Joey's foot. She blinks down at it, then bends over to pick it up. Dark eyes survey the room, looking for where it belongs.

Grinning, she twists around, cocks back her arm, and launches it back across the room at Alex. She has no idea why Wendy is crawling on the floor.

[Sinclair] Sinclair's footsteps pound down the stairway in the kitchen. She does not have to make that much noise, but she barrels into the kitchen and then the dining room as though she's a ten year old coming down to the living room for Christmas morning. There are white Vans on her feet, skinny jeans on her legs with brass zippers a few inches up the sides. She's wearing a sherbet-orange tee with the Tide emblem on the chest. The sleeves, when she moves her arms just so, tug up enough to hint at the ink on each bicep. Her hair is up in a ponytail.

There are sausages here and there. She smells them first, sees them later, as she comes through the kitchen door a moment after the belching Theurge. She catches the swinging door and does not get a faceful of oak, well done for her.

"Who eats sausages on Thanksgiving?" she says, bewildered-sounding.

[Sinclair] [Excuse me. Charlie doesn't belch. Metis don't get gas. Just Fenrir.]

[Charlie] [I think you need to take in something other than pot smoke to belch.]

[Wendy Berber] *Wendy rises to her feet, platter full of sausages to be taken back to the kitchen, now linty. Marrick ignores Alex and so the pencil kin doe sthe same, slipping past Sinclair with a murmered.*

U-ukrainians, germans, russians.. the p-polish, the d-dutch..

*Disappearing into the kitchen.*

[Sinclair] Her brows pull together in even greater confusion as she follows the scrawny kinswoman with her eyes. "The Ukrainians, Germans, Russians, Polish and Dutch celebrate America's Thanksgiving?"

She shakes her head, letting Wendy go, and makes her way into the dining room, stepping over a wayward sausage as another one flies through the air. "You people are disgusting."

[Echo Quinn] Echo's plate is a thing of gargantuan proportions. For such a lean, verging on boyish looking girl, she can put away an impressive amount of food. The furnace engine that was her body burning away the energy it gave her too fast for it to offer her any excess weight.

Joey waves to her, and the Brooklyn-native offers her a salute of fingers to forward, a stand out among the collected with her drying mohawked hair. "Hey, Sinclair." She calls to the other Glass Walker, and then levels her dark eyes on Jeff. "Hey, it's Designer boy come to play. Walk this way, no wallflowers permitted."

With this, Echo sashays toward the booth Joey sits at.

[Echo Quinn] [erm, to forehead, not forward.]

[Alexander] "The ignoring game?" Alexander scoffs. There's a vicious note in his tone that wasn't there before. "Christ, you really are eighteen, aren't you, Marrick? Glad I dumped you."

[Wendy Berber] *Wendy busies herself with helping in the kitchen, leaving Marrick to deal with Alex and the onslaught of garou.*

[Jeff Pyeon] "Yes ma'am," he says with a smirk, and follows, snitching a roll on his way past. "You missed a hell of a game yesterday." The hockey game, of course - he'd asked her if she wanted to go, and they hadn't been in touch since. It had been a random, casual query, and who knows? The invitation for tomorrow's game may still stand.

"What is this place? I mean, I caught an email that said about this." It's with a shrug, but as he's following Echo, she likely only catches it out of the corner of her eye.

[Kemp Oates] "You people are disgusting."

He turned his head when the comment came and looked for the source.

"Every party has a mother hen."

He was keenly aware of the growing pressure on Imogen and remained near her. After all, they had goaded each other into coming. Leaning down so she would hear his next comment.

"Ya hungry? Ya want something? I think there's a sausage rolling around here somewhere."

[Charlie] Bless his cursed little heart, Charlie does not go wide-eyed or panicked-stiff when he sees the Galliard right behind him coming out of the kitchen. He gets out of her way, sure, but he doesn't stand there hoping she either won't beat the shit out of him or just plain won't notice him. He steps over a forgotten sausage, briefly watching Wendy as she scurries out of the dining room and through the swinging door, and looks around at the congregation.

For a moment it seems as though he's debating whether he wants to investigate more closely what's going on, or whether he wants to continue on with whatever it was he had had planned for tonight. He waves to Joey and Echo, one hand wrapping itself around the strap of his book bag, and gets out of the way of the door.

[Danicka Musil] The front door, not the kitchen door, opens next. Danicka comes in wearing khakis and a cable-knit, chocolate-colored sweater with a v neck. There's an oval-shaped gold locket around her throat, hanging over her sternum, and a trench coat sliding off her arms as she enters, purse going from one hand to the other as she slips out of it. The coat gets folded over one arm, and her bootheels tap quietly on the floorboards as she heads directly to the bar. Do not pass Go, do not collect your designated driver.

[Echo Quinn] Echo looks Alex up and down as she passes by with Jeff trailing behind. Her expression could be qualified as distantly curious as he lays into someone called Marrick with aplomb. "Somebody needs his boxers untangled," she notes and then to Jeff: "This place is the local come-to for True Bloods and Kin alike, sort of a safe house only it's not safe." She smirks, knitting high a dark eyebrow as she settles at the booth.

[Marrick] She looks at Alex for a second, up, down, then her pipe. She takes a bite of pie, then looks rather blankly back at Alex.

She looks at the pie.

She looks at him.

Then? She looks at the pie again. She idly picks the pecans off and ends up eating them.

"Y'know..." she said, "I would say somethin' petty, but instead?"

She looks and spaces her fingers about an inch and a half apart, looking at them quizzically.

"I think this covers it," she smiles contently, "Happy Thanksgiving Alex, now go eat yer sausage before it gets cold."

Chipper smile and another bite of pie.

[Echo Quinn] Spotting Charlie, Echo waves with a turkey leg.

"Hey, Charlie boy!"

[Marrick] (*pie, not pipe)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (Okay, let's color code.

Red for bar/high pub tables.
Blue for booths/food.
Magenta for tables/fireplace.
Green for kitchen.)

[Lee] Lee pushes into the dining room from the kitchen. Dressed in a grey wool coat, jeans, and a pair of pale blue Chuck Taylor low-tops. Her long red hair is pulled up into a ponytail, despite the chill. Her pale face is red and chapped from wind and cold. She doesn't undo her coat or look like she's about to settle in. She peeks into the room and looks around, obviously looking for someone.

Someone who obviously isn't there. It's in the way she sighs. Well, since she's here anyway, and she doesn't drive, she heads for the bar for a beer. And laughs as she passes by Marrick and Alex.

"Yeah, that's about right."

[Sinclair] She gives a nod to Echo, noting that the Walker looks to be buddying up to Joey. She's only met Echo once, and briefly. She's already made at least one decision concerning her tribemate, and it doesn't need to be brought up now. Her nod is respectful, and it's brief. She doesn't hear Kemp, or doesn't assume his comment is directed at her -- hell, Wendy's the one heading into the kitchen after cleaning up after them -- and then is distracted by Marrick and Lee agreeing so far as Alex is concerned.

She blinks. Looks at the kinsman. Looks at Marrick. "Whatever, I'm getting turkey," she says finally, shaking her head and going back into the kitchen to make herself a plate.

[Danicka Musil] She orders a double shot of Ketel One, lifts it to Danny with a "Na zdravi!" and downs it. She winces, looking like she's gagging on the stuff, but sets her glass down and gestures for another.

[Imogen Slaughter] The slight kinwoman is dressed in jeans, a blouse and a gun at the small of her back - it is visible now that she's standing, having abandoned her chair somewhere around the time a sausage rolled beneath it.

She hooks her thumbs into her belt loops and turns her head slightly toward Kemp as he whispers to her. Truly, beyond that small measure of tension as the Garou had descended suddenly, there is no sign of growing strain. Imogen is always reserved. She is not likely to allow weakness to show.

Imogen's mouth twists slightly. "I believe I can do without a rolling sausage."

[Joey] Echo settles in, trailed by the kinfolk. Joey grins and pushes herself against the wall, to allow him or someone else space at their booth.

Maybe that someone will be her packbrother. She spots Charlie chilling over by the kitchen door, and waves at him to come over.

Echo calls him Charlie boy. Joey gives her an odd look, dark blonde brows raised, head tilted to the side. Shaking her head, a smile splits her face.

"The Ataris are playin' at this place called Beat Kitchen tomorrow night. Wanna go?"

[Marrick] She grinned at Lee and raised her hand up for a high five. She looked at Sinclair, and she shrugged. Unphased, disinterested, and she heads off to go talk to see

"Hey Lee, what's up?"

She glanced back at Imogen.

"Hey, you want anything while I'm up?"

[Imogen Slaughter] A glance toward Marrick, a pause.

"Come with you, shall I?"

A glance at Kemp, an arch of an eyebrow, "Coming?"

[Kemp Oates] "Heh, let's get some turkey and pie."

He lead the way to the buffet, nodding to those he was most familiar with and giving a lift of his chin to those he mostly didn't know. He was dressed. Nothing had a brand. Nothing stood out. About the only thing new was, he had actually brushed his shaggy brown hair. Tall enough that at his six foot five height let him stand out over most other heads.

"Coming dear."

Muttered to Imogen as he came out of a mild stupor.

[Jeff Pyeon] Jeff slides into the booth next to Echo (and yes, he is impeccably styled, well coiffed, and has truly great shoes), and smirk-smiles (he only has a true smile when he laughs) at the girl across from him.

"Hi," he says, all rust belt simplicity (lack) of accent. "I'm Jeff Pyeon. Nice to meet you." His hand is offered for a shake.

[Kemp Oates] And since he missed what Marrick said, he slung an arm over her shoulders, patting her back.

"Good to see ya. Nothing like a dead bird to bring everyone together."

[Alexander] (sorry guys, got caught up on some admin stuff!)

[Soledad Gutierrez] Soledad and her Kinfolk both are now homeless. This was fine with Soledad, it was a condition she was accustomed to. Perhaps it was okay for Gina too, but not in these circumstances. She was frail, needed a place to recover, to regain her strength in all manners before taking on the world. Her supplies had been lost, funding and material alike. Soledad had put her up with what one could call a 'friend' in Chinatown, but the arrangement was only temporary. This had been understood from the start. With no money, only one option remained:

The Brotherhood of Thieves.

Soledad and Gina arrive through the back door, with Soledad yanking it open and holding it to allow the Kinfolk through. She had a large black garbage bag stuffed full with God-Knows-What balanced on her left shoulder, cradled there by her left arm wrapping around it. She wore no coat, despite the nigh-freezing temperatures. Only a threadbare gray sweater and a pair of jeans and boots, with her hair left down to keep her ears and neck sheltered from the chill.

"Go along," she said quietly to the Kinfolk.

[Marrick] She bumped Kemp with one of her hips, though he's about a foot taller than she is, so it doesn't quite hit true.

"What can I say? Garou love dead things."

[Alexander] Marrick fails to rise to the bait, which visibly disappoints Alex. No matter; Lee strolls up to input her own two cents, causing him to wheel instantly on her while the Fury wanders off to her friends. "Oh, shut your face for once, Lee. Does it look like I was talking to you?"

Let's hear it for holiday cheer.

[Kemp Oates] "So who's Prince Charming?"

He was never very quiet and wasn't now as he asked Marrick about Alexander with a jerk of his thumb back over his shoulder. Looking to Imogen if she knew. Then he was back on Marrick.

"Don't tell me ya did it with him, cause I might harf."

[Lee] Reddish brows rise, and Lee smiles at the Ahroun. Before she can even think of raising her hand to the high five, Alex is snarling at her.

Her dark eyes narrow through her dark-rimmed glasses. "Did it look like I was talking to you?" She continues to the bar, leans against it and orders a bottle of Reuben's beer.

[Echo Quinn] Echo, biting off a chunk of turkey catches that look from Joey, and says in a voice muffled with food, a hand hovering to cover her mouth. "What?" Then, to the offer of going to see Ataros at Beat Kitchen, she widens her eyes and nods emphatically: "Oh my God, a hundred times yes."

Back to Jeff, Echo turns and gives him a gentle nudge with her shoulder. "Jeff is one of my crew, also he's good with houses, designing, furniture." Echo's wrists jangle with metallic bracelets as she gestures.

[Gina McClaren] *Gina is herded into the Broho by the Uktena, her head hung low. Hair brushing around her waist as she enters with a faint jingle of charms. She's swallowed up by the worn leather of Soledad's coat, curvy form indistinct as she pushes through the kitchen towards the diningroom. Who knew who was in what room now? Things changed so quickly in just a few months. The small kin nods to Sole and shoulders open the swinging doors. Stopping with a dim expression of surprise as she walks in on Thanksgiving.*

... fook.

[Charlie] A turkey leg is used as a greeting tool, the Fostern calls out to him, and his sister beckons him over with a wave of his hand. Charlie looks sleepy, as if he's just crawled out of bed, yet oddly at peace with the world; the thing is, though, he hasn't been in his bed since about five o'clock this afternoon. Where he's been and what he's been doing doesn't really deviate much from day to day, and as he moseys past the booths, those with keen senses of smell can detect a fragrant bouquet of marijuana on the metis's form.

He sniffs as he comes upon the booth housing the two Garou and the kinsman, shifting the weight of his bag on his shoulder, and reaches up to scratch at his right side.

"I think I finally made up for the last time I tried to bind Oak," he tells Joey, as though she's going to have the slightest clue what he's talking about.

[Imogen Slaughter] "I always imagined it was more tha' yeh preferred t'kill things," Imogen observes, somewhat separate from their companionship.

Kemp asks his question, and Imogen merely shakes her head slightly, stepping a way to the table to pick up a plate. She leaves the Garou to get their own.

[Sinclair] She returns with a plate full of turkey, mashed potatoes, gravy, stuffing, rolls, and what-have-you, one of the rolls sticking out of her mouth as she balances it with a fistfull of silverware and the neck of a bottle of beer. The Galliard is humming from behind the roll, heading towards a table. None of her packmates are currently present, so she heads for the next best thing: Echo.

Who is sitting with a couple of people who have battle scars because of her. Sinclair just sets her plate down at an empty seat, takes the roll out of her mouth after biting through it, and chews up the bread while she sits down.

[Danicka Musil] When she sees Lee down the bar, Danicka lifts her second double shot and says again: "Na zdravi, Líadan!"

[Kemp Oates] Imogen mentions killing things and Kemp admitted with a shrug.

"Yeah, well I do prefer rare steak over bird."

Gina wandered in with a look of surprise on her face and he bellowed across the crowded room.

"Yo! Gina! Heads up!"

In a quick twist he snagged a roll and threw it across the room at the Pikey.

[Marrick] "Prepare for emininent harfing, Kemp," she tells him with a sigh. It sounds somewhere between pained and a little disgusted with herself, "boys are not worth the effort. They're trouble. And not the fun kind."

She groans a little.

"And yes? But, it's..."

Someone calls out Lee's name and she stops, and Marrick finds herself looking at Danicka. Whatever train of thought she had was gone, and the Fury was trying to place something.

"I know her from somewhere..."

[Imogen Slaughter] A lift of her head, a glance Danicka's way, a pause as she's in time to see the toast and the shot the blonde makes.

"She's kinfolk," Imogen offers, absent as she picks up a roll. "Though I've not seen her in a while."

[Soledad Gutierrez] The kitchen was an organized mess-- dirty dishes piled in the deep industrial sinks and along the counters surrounding them. It smelled of bountiful food, and Soledad's stomach-- on it's 38th hour empty, made a sound of outrage at the smell of meats and vegetables and delectables that bombarded her. She inhaled sharply, furrowed her brow, and closed the door behind her when Gina slipped in past, bringing the smell of travel and worn leather with her. She cut off the cold, rolled her shoulders, and followed after the much-smaller Kinfolk toward the dining area, where much boisterous noise was being made.

The swinging door was pushed open, Gina groaned a curse word, and Soledad paused to stand directly behind her, peering about the room with her brow furrowed, just a touch. A familiar face here and there, none that she really had ever interacted with on a level beyond having them snarl and scratch at her Stone or bite and claw things while she bit and claw other things nearby.

Gina, heads up!

Sol's eyes jumped to the Rotagar, a face that everyone ought to recognize, if they paid any attention whatsoever anyways, and the roll tumbling through the air toward Gina. Soledad huffed and watched, but made no move to block or catch the dinner roll. If Gina couldn't catch, then it would thump harmlessly off her arm. It was only bread, a brick would be another story entirely.

For now, stoicism was maintained.

[Lee] Lee hears her name called. When a bottle of amber liquid is placed in front of her, she lifts it to her former roommate, an almost shy smile on her lips.

"Sláinte, V!" And takes a swig.

[Kemp Oates] He looked towards Danicka with both Marrick and Imogen's comments. Pausing as he snagged another roll and buttered this one.

"Don't know her. Doesn't look familiar. Why, she do that guy too?"

Obviously meaning the one Marrick did.

"Three words for next time Marrick. Vi Brate Er."

[Gina McClaren] *Gina's slow on the uptake today. Someone calls her name and she flinches, drawing a little further into herself as she casts her eyes to Kemp, Fenrir standing a head above most of the crowd. A dinner roll bounces off her shoulder and she jerks like she's been electocuted. Oh. A roll. Her lips draw into a thin line as she picks it up, glancing over her shoulder to Soledad.*

Ye wan thes?

*She lullabies flatly, raising her hand in greeting to Kemp with little more than a nod.*

[Marrick] She looked at Kemp, and she couldn't keep a straight face for too horribly long. She laughed, and instead silenced said laugh with a bite of pie. She glances at Imogen, "me either... I saw her once at a Barnes and Noble and that's about it."

[Joey] "Nothing," Joey says to Echo, her attention on Charlie.

Charlie brings with him the scent of marijuana, more pungant than usual, but Joey doesn't wrinkle her nose or give him a chastising look. Instead she looks him over, inspecting him for telltale signs of injury, bandages or the smell of blood or a limp or something. When she sees nothing of the sort, she grins at her packbrother.

"I have no clue what you're talkin' about, bro. Go grab some food. If your plate's not piled as high as your face I'm gonna kick your fuckin' ass."

Smiling at the kin, Joey says, "HIYA, Jeff! I'm Joey. Why don't you have food? It's Thanksgiving, everyone should be fucking making themselves sick with turkey."

[Kemp Oates] He saluted Gina and quirked a brow at Soledad as he held up the buttered roll with a obvious question on his face. Whatever Soledad's punishments had been and for whatever reason, no sign of remembering it was on his face. No he was busy creating his own little sphere of discord.

He grinned with Marrick's stifled laughter.

"Get one that plugs into two twenty. Woo hoo baby. Never leave ya wanting and won't make ya sleep on the wet spot."

[Danicka Musil] "I drink to your health when I'm with you," Danicka says to Lee, waving Danny over, "and I drink to your health when alone. I drink to your health so often," she adds, eyebrows raising, "I'm beginning to worry about my own!"

Danny rolls his eyes and pours.

[Jeff Pyeon] Jeff? Really has no idea what Charlie's talking about. His experience with True is minimal at best; most of it's been in the form of direct deposit to a 'sept' account, and another to a tribal one. In fact, because of the sheer oddity of this whole thing, it's unlikely he'll be able to deal for long - longer than the average joe, yeah, but not as long as he ought. It's one thing, talking with a couple people, and another entirely to be surrounded by Rage. Regardless, shaken or not, his hand returns to his own immediate circle of influence and he tears at his roll.

Joey's questioning amuses him; she reminds him of one of his friend's kid sisters. "I ate back in Detroit. More food than anyone'd know what to do with. I'm still stuffed."

[Marrick] "You speaking from experience there, Kemp?"

[Kemp Oates] "You bet. I watch porn every chance I get. Listen, come over sometime. I got a collection ya won't believe. Might get some pointers, ya know?"

[Soledad Gutierrez] Soledad glanced down to Gina when she leaned down to pluck up the roll, not to observe curves or the behind that jutted out toward her legs. There was no such interest there. Simply to watch. The roll was offered, but Kemp was offering one that hadn't hit the floor. The Uktena jerked her chin up in something of a nod and held her right hand, the one not assigned to holding an overstuffed garbage back against a shoulder, in the air, palm facing him, fingers arced just a little to show she was going to catch.

When the dinner roll was no doubt tossed, she ate half of it in a few quick, ravenous bites, then nudged Gina a step forward so that she could move out of the doorway, shift around to stand beside her rather than behind her. The entire roll was gone by this point, she ate like a malnourished dog just pulled out from a basement they'd been locked in for over a week. Licking the crumbs from the corner of her mouth, she gestured toward the bar. Toward Danny.

"Staff," she said simply.

[Marrick] "Where you staying? If you have Debbie Does Dallas I am there."

She either upped the ante or she was seeing how far he would take this. Either wa, she was grinning ear to ear at this.

[Kemp Oates] "Man, that movie is sooo old. It was pretty bad too."

Then he mimicked in a high pitched voice, pursing his lips and running his hand down his body.

"Ooooh daddy."

Sucking in a loud breath between his teeth. In the next moment he snagged Marrick's pie and was throwing it towards Gina and Soledad.

"HEADS UP!"

[Charlie] If his plate's not piled as high as his face she's gonna kick his fuckin' ass.

He could make a joke about what happened the last time she kicked his ass. The thing about that is, it's really not that funny, and it's not exactly something that he wants the entire establishment hearing about. So he doesn't make a joke. He just gives a closed-lipped smile that looks more like a wince, as though he's taking her threat seriously, and then he steps back from the table, eyes briefly flicking to the seated Galliard before he turns and heads back toward the kitchen.

Where Muerte Fría and Gina are standing. The Theurge looks at the Uktena, not out of wariness or suspicion but out of something like stoned acknowledgment. She's there, he vaguely remembers sitting through her punishment rite, and they have not been in the same room together since the last Moot. He has nothing to say to her, and that's probably for the best.

What he has to say, he says to Gina.

"Hey." He sniffs again, pushing a hand into the pocket of his sweatshirt, and blearily frowns. "You okay?"

[Lee] Lee smiles with her mouth while frowning with her eyes. And then her grin lifts a little higher on the side. "May the winds of fortune sail you, may you sail a gentle sea. May it always be the other guy who says, 'this drink's on me.'"

She throws back more of her beer, drinking it quickly in the way some might rip off a bandaid. The tall redhead finishes the drink quickly, and moves to take up the bar stool beside Danicka. "What are you drinking?"

[Echo Quinn] Sinclair comes and sits with them at the booth, and Echo has a smile for her tribesmate and a slight jerk of her chin in wordless greeting. Of those she has met of her own kind in the city thus far, End Transmission had yet to encounter another Glass Walker she did not, at least on the surface, find acceptable.

She finishes her turkey leg, covers her mouth when a burp threatens, and stretches herself back in the booth, twining her long legs together beneath the table so she doesn't kick someone by accident. Unlike Charlie, whose scent was one of marijuana, Echo smelled faintly of soap and cigarettes. Her skin was naturally tan, and her features, while not breathtaking were, none the less, quite striking. Perhaps it was a combination of upbringing and ranking, but young as she looked (no more than twenty-three if that) there was a keen awareness about the way she watched the room as she ate, about the avid looks she cast at those gathered.

"Whatcha drinkin'?" She reaches over and snags Sinclair's bottle, turning it to read the label.

[Danicka Musil] The green-eyed blonde in the earth-toned clothes grins at Liadan as the redhead comes to sit beside her. She taps her now-refilled glass against the side of the Fianna woman's beer bottle and adds: "May your casket be made of a hundred year-old oak." She takes one drink, taps the glass to bottle again. "May we plant the acorn together tomorrow."

Which for some reason makes her smile again, but softer than a grin. She drains her glass and sets it down, but doesn't call for Danny to fill it up again. "Ketel."

[Gina McClaren] Aye.

*Gina's nudged, and she jingles forward, hand with roll in tow falling listlessly at her side. Her eyes dart this way and that as she tries to keep an eye on everyone in the room, to no avail. Dizzy with the effort, she's moving towards Danny at the bar, when Charlie approaches. The diminutive strider nods, before singsonging blandly.*

Ah'm aulrecht. Yerself Charlie Doves?

[Soledad Gutierrez] Charlie showed up, frowning softly and asking Gina how she is. Soledad regarded him for a moment-- the Metis Fury, the one that runs with Hatchet now. Her brows furrowed just for a moment, but she did not tense, did not grow defensive or maneuver to block him from the Silent Strider. Rather, she looked toward Kemp when he yelled out a warning, another 'head's up!'.

...A pie. Seriously? Slop and contents spilling from it as it spun through the air, gravity splatting it onto the floor rather than keeping it intact, for it did not spin fast enough. Soledad tossed a long arm out and caught the platter almost as though it were a frisbee. Not difficult, after all Garou were warriors, supernaturally fast and alert, used to catching things like spears and tusks and jaws as they drove toward them at faster speeds than that.

Pecan filling splatted up her arm and across the front of her sweater, a little got in Gina's hair and perhaps on Charlie as well for being so near. There were no roars of rage, though, no yells, no marching over to start conflict. Soledad had to be Good, after all, if she wanted to keep her rank, keep her Honor. She just scowled at the Adren, then moved after Gina. The tin pie pan was set on the first tabletop she moved past, and she occupied herself with swiping pie filling off her sweater best she could, licking it clean from her fingers unabashedly.

[Sinclair] The fact that Echo is a Fostern does not stop the Galliard from lashing out, quite suddenly, and slapping her hand before she touches the bottle of beer. Sinclair is quick enough to dodge raindrops, or so someone once said, and she raps the Ragabash sharply. "Mine," she levels, and grabs the neck of it, taking a drink. "Pete's Wicked."

[Marrick] "Hey!" she exclaimed. The Fury blinked, and looked genuinely amazed for a second. She was not a ragabash, however?

Pecan pie was sacred. She looked down and moved to pick up one of the errant sausages on the ground, which she inevitably threw at Kemp.

"Get yer own ammunition!"

[Charlie] He doesn't seem convinced. No one is going to accuse Charlie of being the best reader of people in the room, but his worth as a shaman has as much to do with his perceptiveness and his instinct as it has to do with his skill in healing and cleansing. For someone who was quite literally raised outside of human society for the first ten years of his life, he picks up on things that might evade someone whose attention and focus was solely internal.

That said, when he hears a Head's up! from across the room, he doesn't duck and hope he isn't hit. He remains standing in front of Gina so that whatever might come flying doesn't hit her. The THC in his system keeps him from flinching when he's flecked with pie particles. He eyes the tossed tin for a moment, as though he can't figure out where it came from, then gives a sharp, feral shake of his head and looks over his shoulder at the Adren.

His attention doesn't stay there for long. After a moment of staring at the Fenrir, he looks back to Gina.

"Are you really alright, or are you just saying you're alright?"

[Kemp Oates] He got thumped in the chest with the sausage, hopefully the last time sausage would touch him in his life because as stated before, he didn't care for the sausage no matter it's size. Smacked with it because he was busy watching pie flying through the air. In the next moment he gave Marrick his biggest smile and launched the sausage after the pie.

"Thanks, don't mind if I do!"

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen turns abruptly from where she'd been helping herself to a serving of salad to narrow her eyes at the pie piece which the Rotagar has lobbed through the air.

Her gaze turns back to Kemp, her gaze narrowing.

"Are you quite finished?"

A glance toward Soledad, catching her scowl and then her subsequent dismissal of the Adren's antics.

[Marrick] "Imogen, protect your greens, the man's on a rampage."

[Kemp Oates] There was nothing more in this world that he loved than when someone stared at him. It always made him smile if he didn't try the innocent blink first. He was in the process of pointing at Imogen's back while mouthing.

She did it

When Imogen turned around and asked if he were finished.

"A sausage touched me."

Yes, that was his comeback.

[Joey] Sinclair sits down at their table. Joey doesn't tense up or give the Glass Walker a look that shoots daggers. There's no inherent animosity in the Rotagar. She watches Sinclair thoughtfully, then turns to Jeff.

"So, you're a designer? Of like, houses? What's that like?"

She picks up her fork and dives into her green beans and stuffing.

[Echo Quinn] Echo's eyebrows lift and her lips quirk. "Touché," she taunts, getting to her feet and wiggling her way free of the booth somehow, possibly climbing over Jeff's lap in the process -- hey, she had no issues giving him a free lap dance if she got a beer out of the equation. "I wasn't gonna hurt it! Just sample."

Pies and sausage are flying over here, and Echo ducks and weaves her way through the storm toward the kitchen. "I'm on a beer hunt, who wants?" And then a pause at the kitchen door to smirk at Kemp. "Maybe it was lonely, rhya. Even meats need love on occasion."

[Gina McClaren] *Another flinch, "Heads Up" barely registered before Pecan Pie is splattering in her hair, caught nimbly by Gina's warder, blocked by Charlie. The theurge speaks, and the strider kin presses her lips together. It was a sad day when a pikey didn't have the energy to lie convincingly. Instead she raises on her tiptoes and puts her hands to Charlie's cheeks. A shake of her head.*

Ah'm livin here again. Effen there are rooms. Are there Rooms Charlie?

[Lee] "Ah."

It's all she says for a moment. She looks at Danny, who slides another beer her way with a roll of his eyes that no doubt means Fianna. It's only her second beer.

She unbuttons her coat, revealing a blue ringer t-shirt that declares the reader's skill in reading has just increased by one point. She studies her beer bottle, then looks at the beautiful blonde sitting beside her.

"So, um. How have you been? Since that thing in at the train station."

[Kemp Oates] He called back across the room to Echo.

"Remember those words for the future! Three beers when ya come back. Shake her's."

He pointed at Marrick.

[Sinclair] "Get your own, -rhya," is all Sinclair says to Echo's assurance that she was just going to sample, half-smirking at the woman who is her immediate elder. She leans back in her chair as the Ragabash crawls out and goes to do exactly that, but she doesn't strike up a conversation with Jeff, Joey, or Charlie. She tucks into her Thanksgiving meal, stuffing a bite of turkey covered in gravy in her mouth.

[Jeff Pyeon] "Just the interiors. Did take some architecture classes, though," he says with a shrug. "And I like it. There's something about getting a look just right, you know? A lot can be done with the right colors and fabrics and furniture arrangements and builds."

Water features and goodness knows what else; he sounds gay and knows it, doesn't care.

"Chocolate stout if you're asking me," he says for Echo. "You need an extra set of hands?" And that? Can be taken as anyone cares to take it.

[Genevre de Provence] Though Genevre did not feel entirely comfortable about being here, there seemed a feeling she should be here. She wore her best and perfect red dress, heels and wrap. Every hair on her head was perfectly placed as well. She arrived and looked around, holding a wrapped gift box in one arm, and a cheap box of wine for garou and kin in the other hand.

Feeling a touch awkward mentally, she didn't look it, as she scanned the room for any she might know.

[Marrick] "What of mine are we shaking?" she sounded confused for a minute.

She turned and nodded something pleased to Echo. An upward nod, obviously pleased.

[Kemp Oates] "Whoa now, I ain't touched nothing on ya. Don't ask me to shake your things on a first date."

He responded to Marrick, hands in the air in a warding gesture. Then in the door came a new target. Genevre in a red dress.

"Hey, who's the chick with the present, bringing her own booze?"

[Marrick] "I don't want you touchin' my things, I dunno where yer hands've been an' I don't think I wanna know..."

She stops and regards Genevre for a second. She's lovely, yes, and she brought her own booze. She seemed to be a good person to have about.

"I'm gonna go see if Wendy needs some help."

[Imogen Slaughter] "I can't even begin to decipher what that might mean." Imogen replies blandly, reaching down to her plate and picking up a wedge of tomato, popping it into her mouth, chewing completely and swallowing. Echo passes by and Kemp orders for her - "I don't need anything," she says to the unfamiliar Garou. "Better make it only two."

A flick of her gaze toward Genevre. "I've not met her before."



[Charlie] "I..."

Until he came to Chicago, the number of times people touched Charlie out of kindness, affection, or camaraderie were devastatingly outnumbered by the times that he was touched out anger or discipline. Four months ago he might have tensed under her hands, or pulled away as they came toward his face. Gina has touched him before, numerous times, and no ill has come from it. It might not be trust that has him standing still, and it certainly isn't the fact that he's almost a full foot taller than her, but for whatever reason, he does not stiffen or jerk away when she rises up on her toes and claps his gaunt face between her hands.

He has to pause to clear his throat.

"I think so. A bunch'a rooms down the end of the hall are open."

[Danicka Musil] That question makes Danicka look at the ceiling in consideration, her lips slightly pursed. She recalls the 'thing' at the train station, sitting straight-backed on her barstool despite the volume of alcohol she's just put away and despite the latent desire to slouch. "Fine," she says slowly, thoughtfully. "I've been busy with school. What about you?"

[Joey] Something about the way Jeff describes his work, about colors and fabrics and furniture arrangements makes Joey snort.

"A pint'a whatever's on tap, pleeeeze!" she calls after Echo.

She looks at Sinclair eating her food quietly. With her fork, Joey stirs around her gravy and mashed potatoes until they become a brownish swirl on her plate before she finally starts to eat them.

[Genevre de Provence] She stood tall and walked over to the table and set the case of wine down. Her voice was a confident muse of french accenting. "Bonsoir, I brought this wine for everyone for your célébration."

[Kemp Oates] Marrick made her escape and that left him with tormenting Imogen again.

"I think she went to see about more sausage."

Snickering with a suggestive nod. Then Genevere made her announcement and he tormented Imogen further.

"She must be with some guy named Bone Snore. I wonder who got stuck with that deed name?"

[Lee] Lee's eyes stay on the fresh bottle of beer. Her head tilts up, her face screwing up in thought.

"Just traveling. And working," she says. "And moving again," she says weakly, pinching the bridge of her nose.

[Soledad Gutierrez] Charlie pressed Gina for a response on whether she was okay or not. Her lie was easy enough to see through, and they'd stopped walking to Soledad stopped as well. She leaned down to plop the garbage bag on the floor against her shins and swiped the rest of the pecan pie from her sweater sleeve. A glance was cast down, her jaw set firm, and she swiped at a pie glob on the stomach of her sweater, scooping it away and, in doing so, pushing her sweater so that the firm swell of her belly was brought to visibility under the baggy sweater. Only for a moment, though, because soon enough she was flicking the dessert off her hand and onto the floor.

Gina and Charlie interacted, and this included Gina reaching up to touch at Charlie's face affectionately. If this bothered Soledad at all, she didn't let it on one bit. She was quiet and still until Charlie mentioned that there were rooms available. Soledad pulled the garbage bag back up onto her shoulder and nodded toward the kitchen.

"Want me to put this upstairs, then?"

[Echo Quinn] Echo calls over her shoulder to Jeff: "Baby, I always appreciate a good set of hands but I've got this." The brunette used the endearment casually, loosely. Somehow, coming from her lips it is both implication of something and nothing. Into the kitchen she goes, only to emerge several moments later laden with beer bottles.

She passes Alex on the way, jibes him: "What, run outta snappy comebacks?"

Hands Kemp his beer and clinks hers against his, and carries on distributing drinks until she's back at her booth, setting down all the orders with a small fanfare. "I swear, in another life, I was an awesome waitress, not a pilot."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen regards Kemp for several seconds. "I have absolutely no idea what you just said to me."

Bland, mild. She says this, in varying forms, to Kemp rather frequently.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The front door opens a few moments after Genevre enters. Another late arrival: Lukas, unbuttoning his coat as he passes the inner set of doors, shedding it as he stands in the entryway, looking over the crowd.

Another man would hurry; might feel the imaginary eyes of the room upon him; would scuttle to the first set of known faces he sees. Lukas, alone, takes his time. He folds his coat over his arm and, catching sight of Danicka and her once-roommate, looks at her a moment before going instead toward Kemp.

"Rhya," he says, within earshot, and nods to the Adren. That's it; a greeting to the highest of station, and no further interruption unless Kemp stays him.

Otherwise, the Shadow Lord heads for the buffet table, skipping the food for the moment to pour himself a glass of wine. He looks at Genevre's offering -- cheap boxed wine -- and his mouth quirks in a faint smile.

"Now," low, so as not to announce it to the world, "I know you have better than that stashed at home."

[Danicka Musil] "What was wrong with your studio place?" Danicka asks, furrowing her brow.

[Gina McClaren] *She liked Charlie. Charlie was half the reason for the fight that had decided her on moving out of the brotherhood. Not liking the pranks being pulled on him, even if they were in good nature. She'd usually greet him with a raucous crowing of his name and a warm hug. Not today however. Gina sinks back onto her heels, hands withdrawn to dangle at her sides. She nods listlessly and makes to turn back to Soledad, singing quietly over her shoulder.*

Thank ye.

*Moving with Sole back towards the kitchen, and the stairs to the flophouse proper.*

Aye. Lets settle.

[Genevre de Provence] She turned when she heard the familiar voice, and offered a nice smile to Lukas. "Oui, much better selection." She handed the box gift to Lukas. "For you, monsior." Inside was a bottle of Stolichnaya Vodka already chilled.

[Lee] "Apparently the home owners' association frowns on people running businesses out of their homes in that particular building."

She takes a drink of her beer.

"I think it has more to do with said business involving model-types coming and going at all hours of the day and night. I have no idea what they thought I was running there, but if I can't use my home as my studio I don't need all that space." Lee sighs and says, "So. I'm getting an apartment a few blocks from here, and if I need to use a studio I'll rent a space somewhere for shoots. Or something."

She tips her head to look at Danicka, sitting up straight despite the amount of liquor she threw back. "How's school? Have you picked a major yet?"

[Kemp Oates] He accepted the beer from Echo with a nod of thanks, clinking bottles with her. Then he was just about to explain things to Imogen by drawing her a picture in mashed potatoes when Lukas approached and greeted him. That alone just about made him fall on the floor. No one else had greeted him by rank. No one else had acknowledged him in this way. Most had ignored him completely like part of the furniture.

In returned he canted his head to Lukas, taking on a completely different air, almost regal.

"Wrymbreaker."

That was it, he let him move on. Quiet after that.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] He doesn't tear the bottle open immediately; that would be rude. The Shadow Lord takes it instead with a short huff of laughter, tipping it back and forth in his hand to ascertain that it was liquor. "What are you going to do when Kate shows up? Don't tell me you have another gift box hidden away somewhere."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's eyes flick toward the Shadow Lord, known but not even so much as an acquaintence of the redhead.

Her eyes return to Kemp.

"I'm goin' t'go." Thanksgiving wasn't particularly her holiday. Even after all her years in America.

A tilt of her head toward the door. "Yeh want t'gorge yerself on tryptophan or yeh want a drive?"

[Charlie] A rustle of plastic, and Charlie's brow furrows again when he realizes that all of Gina's possessions currently fit into a trash bag. It isn't all that rare, but the last he'd heard, the young kinswoman had herself a house in the south side. He'd helped mer move a couch once. She had more stuff than could fit into a trash bag, and yet here she is now with that and no more in tow.

The women start toward the kitchen, and for whatever reason, Charlie's a few steps behind them.

[Jeff Pyeon] "Thanks, sweetheart," he says when he finds a beer in front of him, and clinks his bottle against hers as he scoots over to let her in (unless she wants to climb over his lap again; that'd be cool too). And then, with a raised eyebrow, "You fly?" It's not disbelieving or anything; it's just that if he'd heard, he doesn't remember. "I was thinking about learning."

[Alexander] "Nope," Alexander responds as Echo passes. "Cooking up the next batch right now."

He goes to the buffet tables and helps himself. Turkey, potatoes, stuffing, gravy, cranberries, and a huge honking slice of apple pie. Plus a beer. Then he follows Echo over to Joey, Jeff and Sinclair. She brought it on herself.

"Move over," he says to Jeff, none too politely.

[Genevre de Provence] She laughed only a touch, in an amused way. "In this dress, monsior?" She glanced around, her smile faded quickly. "I feel..very out of place here."

[Kemp Oates] "I'm with you. Came together, leaving together."

Old fashioned as it was, he wasn't letting someone he came with leave alone. He would let her see him home. Maybe this time she would slow down before pushing him out the door?

[Soledad Gutierrez] Soledad took the lead, moving back toward the kitchen, and pushed the swinging door open with her hip and held it there. For Gina, at least. Charlie was bringing up the rear, so Soledad moved behind Gina once she passed through, letting the door swing back toward Charlie. Either it'd slap him in the face or he'd catch it. Hopefully he'd just catch it, after all he fought monsters, doors shouldn't defeat him.

A half a glance was cast back over her shoulder, and once Charlie passed from dining room to kitchen she would stop and turn to face him.

She would say nothing, but she would stare at him, expression blank, eyes bland, everything waiting. For what? Hard to say. But she held herself like she was dominant. He should be used to this.

[Joey] Joey accepts her glass, offers it up to be clinked against Echo's or Sinclair's or anyone's, before she takes a sip.

"Oh man, flying must be so fucking cool. Next time you go up, can I go with? I've never flown before. Which reminds me."

Although how is anyone's guess.

"Sin -- Hey, Egon," she says to Alex,"-- the Ataris are playing tomorrow night. Echo said she's in. D'you wanna go with us?"

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen scoffs gently, but says nothing else, merely tilting her head again toward the door. They were talking to no one else - they say their goodbyes to no one.

(thanks for the scene, guys!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (night mei!)

[Joey] [Night Mei!]

[Kemp Oates] ((Thank you!))

Out the door he went. They'd been the first arrive and the first to leave through the front doors.

[Danicka Musil] "Huh," Danicka says mildly, as far as the homeowners' association is concerned. She lays one forearm on the bar and leans, but only slightly. Her eyes are shining, but still relatively clear despite all that vodka. All the same, she is looking rather intently at her former roommate as she speaks.

And blinks brightly when Lee asks her about school. "Oh. Hmm. No. I... was thinking about a few different programs, though." A few, in this case, meaning roughly a dozen.

She glances over her shoulder, hearing a familiar voice. Her eyes settle on Lukas, talking to a bombshell of a brunette. Her eyes flick over the woman's red dress, linger slightly, then drift away again, back to Liadan. "I was always meaning to ask you this," she says, "but why did you move out so abruptly? That was... " a beat, a breath. "That was kind of ridiculous."

[Gina McClaren] *Gina veers to speak with Jenny, collecting a key and jingling up the stairs ahead of Soledad, so as to open doors if need be. She's at Room 9 by the time the shell-shocked kin realizes she'd somehow lost an Uktena. A hand drug through her hair as she backtracks to the staircase, pecan pie gumming up the mix.*

[Echo Quinn] The lean Glass Walker lifts her beer bottle to her lips, taking a sip as Jeff asks if she really flies. The Fostern grins around the mouth of the bottle as she scoots her body back into the booth, followed in another instant by Alexander. "You're looking at the newest flight instructor for Sun Aero Helicopters, right here. I used to do charter flights in New York, fly schmucks around the city to their meetings and all."

Echo sips from her beer again as Alex gains a name.

"It's hard to understand why Head Honcho A needs a helicopter to take him to Head Honcho B across the city, but," she shrugs, scratching the back of her neck. "They pay well, so. Whatever floats their boat. You get to see a lot of the city flying over it, gives me a real buzz."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Why?" Easy for Lukas to say; he lives here. And he regularly slums around in pajama bottoms and plain undershirts.

Though, just as regularly, he looks the way he does now: sharp. The Ahroun's shirt is a black buttondown chased in thin, crisscrossing silver, barely visible except when the light catches right. His trousers are dark grey. Both are so well fitted that they may as well have been tailored. May well have been tailored. He shifts the gift box to his coat arm, picking his glass of wine up again.

"Come on." He tips his head over to the bar. "Have you met Dani&+269;ka and Liadan?"

He doesn't say Dani&+269;ka the way others do. There's an aspirated ch in there; soft, familiar. Like a nickname, which it is.

[Lee] "I," Lee starts, and stops, uncomfortable. She starts picking at the label of her bottle of beer. "I thought you were pissed at me for needing to move out in the first place. After I signed the lease and agreed to stay and everything, it was a dick move. I didn't want to be in your way or anything.

"Which all sounds really stupid now that I'm saying it out loud," she says, frowning as she peels back the label on her bottle.

[Genevre de Provence] She gave Lukas a casual shake of the head. "Non, I have not." She pulled her wap off, to reveal more of her red dress with the V cut in front a much deeper cut than most, and literally no back to the dress, having it drape to her lower back. She carried her wrap over her arm, and followed Lukas.

[Charlie] The door is just barely caught by the somewhat altered Theurge, a hand coming up to prevent the great wooden block from smacking him in the face. He hauls it open rather than pushing it into the calves of the woman in front of him, and while Gina continues up the stairs, her warder stops and turns to face him.

In his defense, his sense of perception is somewhat dulled. The edges of his awareness are somewhat fuzzy, the world gone soft and harmless. There have been times that he has been set upon by the Wyrm while in a state such as this. It's hard to tell whether being under the influence of Ganja has a detrimental effect on his ability to fight. It helps him concentrate, helps him to shut out extraneous activity going on around him while he is meditating or negotiating with spirits, but it also makes him do incredibly stupid things during times when his mind needs to be sharp rather than focused.

Times like this, for example.

Muerte Fría is staring at him. Despite the measure of his deeds, despite the fact that he is as close to earning the right to challenge for the second rank as he has ever been in his life, the fact remains that right now, in this moment, the two of them are Cliaths. In the grand scheme of things, a Cliath metis is not on the same rung as a Cliath homid or a Cliath lupus. In some tribes, he might as well never have had a Rite of Passage. In his own tribe, deference to females was above all else the key to surviving into double digits. He ought to keep his head ducked and his gaze averted right now.

He doesn't do that, though. He looks back at her with inquiry written onto his features, waiting for a demand or a question or an insult that may or may not come. He isn't outright staring, isn't purposefully meeting Muerte Fría's gaze, but damned if he doesn't look like he is.

[Sinclair] She looks up as Alexander decides to come over and sit with them, but has actually kept rather busy gorging herself on her plateful of food. She eyes the pie that the kinsman has on his plate with pale eyes that glitter like gemstones. Her makeup is subdued tonight, her eyes not quite so smokey or heavily lined. She's relatively quiet, compared to her usual demeanor, but her mouth is usually full of food.

Something about Sinclair tonight, despite her obsessed chewing of her feast, almost seems to shine. The moonlight doesn't hit her this far in the building, but she's carrying herself with a certain inherent grace that is often overshadowed by her sheer brutality, by the violence of her presence. Her lips seem fuller, her skin looks like it would be impossibly soft to the touch, and her lightcolored eyes have an intelligence and thoughtfulness not often recognized.

She's beautiful. That's not out of the ordinary: Sinclair is attractive by many standards, appealing to many types. Her look is harsh, streetwise, broken-down and torn-up, but taking away the clothes and the way she's marked her body to change it, take away everything else, and she's simply a lovely young woman. She was to begin with. She draws attention away from it, but on nights like tonight, nothing seems able to distract from it.

She's also strong. She's got a mental list of Ahrouns she has beaten in fair combat. She has killed one. Three Garou trying to attack her at once could not take her down. She's fast enough to slap a Fostern sitting beside her before that Fostern can touch her beer. Sinclair seems luminous tonight, but even that cannot hide what is always there: Sinclair is a predator, and a rather vicious one, and an obvious one.

She shakes her head at Joey. "Not really into the Ataris," is all she says, and takes a drink of her beer.

[Alexander] "Hey," Alexander snaps at Jeff, "I said move it."

And whether Jeff does or not, the kinsman invites himself to sit. He doesn't have the benefit of great height or any remarkable length of leg; he makes up for it by planting his feet as wide as possible, taking up undertable real estate.

His plate is heaped. He picks up a knife and rapidly saws the turkey into bite-sized chunks. Large bites. One of those and he'd be talking with his mouth full.

With that done, he sets knife aside, puts the fork in his right hand. "Hey, Joey. Twister Sisters back together again, huh?" To Sinclair, then, jerking a thumb at Jeff, "Who's this? And that." A jab of his fork in Echo's direction.

[Soledad Gutierrez] Soledad and Charlie stare at each other for a handful of seconds. That's all that it takes for wolves. Charlie doesn't really challenge. He doesn't say anything or try and move back, but then he doesn't drop his head and eyes like he ought to either. Soledad's nostrils flared, the bridge of her nose wrinkled, and she rubbed her molars together, back-forth-back, before making her move.

She stepped two steps closer, though this didn't really close the distance between them. Neither could quite reach the other just yet, she would have to surge forward even closer if she wished to strike. She settled with about six feet between them, and her dark amber gaze hardened. Her lips hardly moved when she spoke, and her voice was soft enough that one would almost have to strain to hear her over the tumult in the background, behind that heavy wooden door.

"Do not press her. Come only if she invites. Do you understand?"

[Joey] "Dude, I can imagine. How do they stay in a helicopter with you and not totally lose their shit?"

There's jealousy there. Joey's rage is weak, but she still can't find a job at an auto shop to save her life. Even with her lower rage, she still freaks people out.

Sinclair shakes her head, and Joey's face falls. She doesn't pout or frown or stick out her lower lip. Her mouth simply straightens out from its smile. "Oh. Okay." She looks down at her plate, which is empty.

"Shit, I need a refill." She makes her way out of the booth and heads for the buffet line, taking her plate with her. Health codes be damned.

[Danicka Musil] Danicka is sitting to Lee's right, an empty tumbler in front of her and her purse resting against the legs of her barstool. Her heels are stacked, three inches high, and hooked onto a rung of said barstool. She's wearing khakis, pressed and just as tailored as Lukas's gray slacks. Her sweater is more casual, a cable knit in dark chocolate. The gold oval locked around her neck rests above the V neckline, and the sleeves are pushed up her forearms. There's the scent of rose and sandalwood about her, very faint, when the Lord brings the Fang kinswoman over.

She is also gesturing for Danny, who lifts his eyebrows but pours another shot into her glass.

That and vodka. And Lee's beer. And a dozen other things. Danicka is staring at Lee, her own thick blonde hair resting heavy and wavy on her shoulders, her green eyes flecked with amber and blue. "I was pissed," she's saying to the redhead. "Well," she corrects, "I was annoyed."

She glances up at Lukas and the unknown Genevre as they approach, turning back to Lee to say: "And like most people, I'm capable of getting over it. You didn't have to run away."

That said, she glances at Soledad breathing down Charlie's neck, takes a breath of her own, and finally fixes her gaze on the Fostern Ahroun. Something happens to her, a subtle change in her eyes and bearing, when Lukas gets within five feet of her. She lifts her glass to the both of them. "May those that love us, love us. As for those that don't love us, may God turn their hearts. And should he not turn their hearts," she says, slowing a bit, "may he turn their ankles, so we'll know them by their limping. Cheers."

And down it goes. She winces, grimaces, shakes her head and takes a breath.

[Jeff Pyeon] "I'll have to look you up," he says, and now a vibrating cell phone is coming out of his pocket. "Fuck, I gotta go. You wanna lap full of me this time?" He's asking Echo with a smirk, though given Alexander's placement, that means he'd get a lap full of Jeff too.

And he had, in fact, moved over; douchebag with a GED (snap judgments are what they are) gets raised eyebrows, but little acknowledgement other than that. And, somewhere in the process of manouevering out of the booth, Echo finds herself in possession of a rather fine business card with Jeff's professional information on it.

[Echo Quinn] "That," shoots back Echo without hesitation. "Is called Echo, and likes it a lot so use it, Peaches." She throws back, using his nickname for Wendy as her own form of torment, her lips twisted in clear amusement, her eyes however, far sharper and, dare we say it: aggressive.

Her attention darts to Joey, she's unabashedly amused now: "They don't, always. Half the fun, really. But they figure it's vertigo or some shit most of the time." Jeff has to go, and gives her a card, Echo snags it between two fingers and reads it with a sip of beer. "Thanks, and yeah, do it. I'll give you a discount on your first lesson for being a Walker."

Though, honestly, she probably won't.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] EMPATHEE.
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 2, 3, 4, 8 (Success x 1 at target 6)
to Danicka Musil

[Danicka Musil] I HAPPEE YOU HEER. I LIKE J00. AND I ALSO KINDA DRUNK.
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Gina McClaren] *Gina lingers n the stairs, all the presence of a shadow. The two Garou conversing in the kitchen would know she's there by the faint jingling. By the scent of road grit and faint spices. The underpinnings of Owl. Her hand rubs at the banister as she watches, waiting for them to sort things.*

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Genevre's response to the 'why' is to take her wrap off, and admittedly, it's a valid answer. Lukas glances at the dress and laughs quietly.

"Your first Thanksgiving, is it? I assume no one's told you the tradition is to wear loose-fitting clothing with adjustable buckles, which are progressively loosened as you gorge yourself on turkey and mashed potatoes."

Nodding toward the pair of women they approach, Lukas adds, "The redhead is Liadan Whelan, kin to the Fianna. The other is Dani&+269;ka Musil, my mate."

Then they're within earshot, in time to catch the tail end of Danicka's toast. Which is not a Czech toast, but a rather famous Irish one. Lukas laughs again, quiet as the last -- but warm, somehow -- and shakes his head at the blonde.

"Traitor." He taps his wineglass against her ... vodka shotglass, anyway. Then he nods to Genevre. "This is Genevre de Provence, kin to the Fangs. Genevre, Liadan and Dani&+269;ka."

[Sinclair] "Joey and I are in different packs now, Alex," Sinclair says levelly to the kinsman wedging his way into the booth and into the conversation. She sticks her fork into a chunk of turkey. White meat. "I can't remember his name," she says, as Jeff is leaving, "but this is Echo Quinn, Fostern Ragabash of our tribe. Rhya, this is Alexander Vaughn, brother of Nightfall's Edge."

She takes a bite, says around the food in her mouth: "Of Miami."

[Charlie] The Uktena female is the smaller of the two of them, yet this means little. The metis used to routinely have his ass handed to him by a 4'11", 115-pound teenager of Soledad's moon. A silent, decidedly one-sided fight for dominance takes place, Soledad asserting herself with a heaviness to her gaze and a tension in her face and jaws, and when she steps forward, when she gets close enough that the situation could turn deadly in a matter of heartbeats, the Black Fury male takes a slow, fuzzy breath inward.

Dawning realization comes across his aged features like the first tired rays of sunlight upon the horizon on a clear morning, and though he does not go taut with anticipation, he does drop his gaze. Dark eyes focus on the knees of her jeans rather than on her face, and it isn't until her voice bubbles up from beneath the clattering of utensils and the humming of conversation on the other side of the heavy door that he looks back up again.

He doesn't have far to look. No more than two inches separate their heights.

An edict comes, a command from a warder to an outsider. His brow knits as he concentrates on her words. Do not press her. Come only if she invites. She may as well have asked him to explain the Buckingham pi theorem. That might have made more sense to him. Math always made more sense than people did.

"Not really," he admits. A beat, and then, "You want me to stop talking to her?"

[Danicka Musil] "Fabulous," Danicka says simply in response to the introduction. Her glass is not quite empty, but has a little less than a mouthful left in it, as she apparently wasn't able to even take the entire shot she last had poured. "And I," she adds, "am no traitor. The Fianna have always been friends to me. You, sir, are just jealous. Na zdravi, then!"

And now her glass is empty.

[Genevre de Provence] Mate, mentally noted and stowed away, and also she hid her disappointment behind a very good poker face. "Oui, this is my first Thanksgiving in your country. As for clothing, I..am very selective."

She turned her attention to the women introduced to her. "Enchanté." Given to them both with a slightly pleasant smile. Yes, she was out of place here, and it was obvious large gatherings such as these were not in her norm. She was brought up a debutante, and a Fang.

[Danicka Musil] [Perception + Empathy on Genevre's poker face]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 2, 4, 5, 5, 7, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Gina McClaren] Peaches.. *Comes Gina's voice flatly from the stairs, her hair fallen over her shoulders and left there to dangle limply. She looks positively tiny in Sole's oversized coat, overwhelmed in the same way Sole's ragey presence blots her out in person.*

Mayhaps.. lets see wha's en tha bag, aye?

[Lee] [perception + empathy on Danicka's facechange]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 2, 6, 6, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (I WANT TO ROLL DICE TOO)
Dice Rolled:[ 10 d10 ] 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Charlie] [I DON'T KNOW WHAT WE'RE YELLING ABOUT]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 6, 9 (Success x 2 at target 6)

[Soledad Gutierrez] Gina was there. Soledad knew this by a smell in the air that cut through the turkey and potatoes and other such goods that tormented her, by the faint jingle and the sensation of being watched, almost how she imagined a parent would feel if they were in a tense situation and their child just peeked around the corner. Sadly for Gina, Soledad was not the type to tone anything down for any sensitive eyes. In this case there was no Veil to be broken, so restraint was something she dictated for her own reasons, not for the benefit of anyone else.

Charlie said he didn't understand, spoke questions, and the Uktena shook her head, shaking out a mane of greasy hair in doing so, and huffed impatiently. At least her Rage did not spike. Yet, at least.

"No," she clarified. "You ask her if she is well, she tells you yes, you leave it there. You do not press for more. She comes to you, you do not go to her. Speak to her when she is open to it, truly. Leave her alone when she is closed."

Gina spoke up, called quietly to her with a pet name she used frequently, with many, and Soledad turned her head to look back at her. There's a pause, a nod, and she turned to walk toward the steps, as though to dismiss Charlie with that last statement.

[Keron Bradley] He's beyond late - he can only hope, really, that there's still stuff going on.

It doesn't take much to figure out that there is when he pulls up in his truck and sees all the lights on; he parks, idles the engine for a couple minutes to gather himself to face what he knows is inside (he is willful, he is strong, but Rage is Rage and he has none). Keys turn, chiming together, and he gets out to hurry inside.

He's bundled up like a southern boy moved to a northern clime, which is exactly what he is; this freezing shit, he thinks, needs to go the fuck away. Eyes scan the room and he sees . . . well, one person he knows, and as soon as he's stopped shivering, he takes off his hat and unzips his coat, and that room-warming smile shines through. Anyone who happens to look his way gets a friendly nod and a, "Hi, I'm Keron," in a rolling, Alabama (and Louisiana, and Georia, and . . .) accented bass.

[Alexander] "Okay seriously," Alex says -- mouth indeed full now, "what's my brother got to do with anything? What sort of name is Echo? Did your parents seriously name you that? Jeez. Hope you gave 'em hell."

[Sinclair] "Well, Al, if she decides she wants to claim you forevers and forevers, she has to know who to talk to, doesn't she?" Sinclair counters, a bit too much emphasis on the word 'claim'. She stabs her stuffing with her fork. It falls apart. So she stabs some turkey instead.

[Alexander] Alex isn't laughing. "Fuck you, Sinclair," he snaps.

[Sinclair] Her only response is a rather pointed lifting of both eyebrows. Whatever that means.

[Lee] Lee flinches, and drinks the rest of her beer. The empty bottle clunks against the bar. Danicka is leaning slightly on her forearm. Lee is slouched forward, shoulders rounded and head down like a kicked dog. For a moment, it's obvious.

She hears a voice behind them, remembers she's in a room filled with people, and she straightens.

"Yeah, maybe."

She turns on her stool to face Lukas and Genevre as she's introduced. And finds out Danicka is mated to Lukas now. Reddish brows rise, but she says nothing. There's nothing to say.

"Bon soir," she says to Genevre, which could mean very little. There are a lot of people who know the simplest of French phrases. She pulls up the sleeve of her coat and looks at her watch.

"I should go," she says, rising from her stool as she begins refastening her coat. "It was a pleasure meeting you, Genevre," she says, pronouncing the woman's name with a flawless French accent. "Lukas. I'll see you around, V."

[Echo Quinn] "No, actually," Echo is leaning back, all ease and friendliness, beer bottle dangling from one arm perched back on the booth and the other idly smoothing through her mohawked hair with Jeff's business card like it were a comb. "they didn't. I was named by my tribe, I don't know who my parents were," no inflection, but a touch of humor surfaces. "Though I have high hopes they were awesome."

Sinclair snarks, Alex snaps. Echo frowns.

"Behave children, or I'm sending you to bed without desert and a fucking blood nose."

[Echo Quinn] [Fuckit. Dessert! Not a sandy desert.]

[Charlie] He can sense Gina standing in the stairwell, the jingling of her tiny bells like some sort of exotic call coming through the haze of his inebriation, but he does not turn away from the warrior or even give any indication that he's aware of her presence for the duration of her explanation.

The clarification she provides seems to do precisely what it set out to do, with the added benefit of bringing to his attention the behavior that he had engaged in this evening. It was not Gina who approached Charlie, but the other way around; when Gina said that she was alright and asked how he was, the Theurge had not left it there and answered the question, but had asked her whether she was telling him the truth; when she went into the kitchen with her warder to find a room, he did not let the two women go off on their own but had followed after them to help Gina find a room. Maybe he doesn't know that Muerte Fría is the daughter of Owl's warder now. It's almost assuredly true that he has no idea what happened to the girl's friend, what the Uktena themselves are currently going through.

But he listens, and he does not grow defensive or snappish or angry. He swallows a hardness out of his throat, and he hears that name that Gina uses with just about everyone, and he looks toward the kinswoman as Soledad turns her back on him and starts toward the stairs. Reading his expression would be difficult for a less intuitive creature, but Gina has little problem: there's apology in his gaze, and it transpires without a sound.

He, too, turns, but it's to do as Joey all but ordered him to do rather than to escape out the back door.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Yeah, that's exactly right," Lukas replies dryly, hooking out a barstool with his toes. "I'm dying of jealousy for the Fianna." He casts Liadan a wry grin, then seats himself.

Now Lee and Danicka are beside one another at the bar; Lukas to Danicka's other side and a little ways away from the bar to bring him closer in proximity to the conversation. Even sitting, the Ahroun is noticeably taller than the blonde, and a good deal wider. His coat he tosses folded atop an empty barstool. By the time he turns back Liadan is standing to go, making Lukas look her way curiously.

Nevertheless, he says nothing beyond, "Goodnight then, Liadan."

[Sinclair] After that Look -- and it was a Look, nothing short of capitalization and wordless intent -- to Alex, Sinclair turns and frowns right back at Echo. "With respect, -rhya... we don't need your help, here."

[Echo Quinn] "Yeah, but you're sitting at my table, and I like my tables snark-free, Warcry."

[Alexander] Sinclair's look makes Alex shut up, though it's debatable why, because it's likely not reformation of the soul and a sudden respect for his betters. A minute later he's back in form, picking up his plate.

"There's no 'we' involved. And it's past my fucking bedtime anyway. Have fun pulling hair, ladies." He gets to his feet.

[Joey] Joey runs into Charlie at the buffet line. Or rather, it's Charlie who runs into her. By the time he finally goes to do what she all but ordered him to, Joey's second plate is heaped high with mashed potatoes and gravy, stuffing, and ham this time around. Wherever Charlie goes at the buffet, Joey greets him with a smile.

"Jesus, Charlie, how long's it take to get one plate'a food?"

[Gina McClaren] G'necht Charlie loves. Thank ye. *There should be a liscence required for a voice like Gina's. Full and resonant with bawdy laughter it enchanted, smokey and thick with mischief it beguiled, and snapping with ecclectic curses it all but scorched the air. Tonight it echoed with a dismal flatness that hollowed a person from the inside out, bells tinkling a cheery counterpoint as the pikey offers a wave to the Black Furys back, and drifts back up the stairs to take up residence in room 9 once more.*

[Danicka Musil] Her eyes linger again on Genevre, though whether it's because of the low cut and nonexistent back of her red dress or something else is hard to tell. It may be something else: she is, by Lukas's word, mated. To a male. To a Full Moon. To a Fostern. So perhaps whatever it is, Danicka will never say. Perhaps it simply isn't worth the risk of upsetting him.

Danicka straightens, taking her arm off the bar, watching Lee get up and walk away. "Later, Dai," she says quietly, and turns back to the bar fully so that it's not a twist and a crane of her neck to look at Lukas beside her.

"Kde bydlíte dnes ve&+269;er?"

[Lee] Finishing with the buttons of her coat, Lee tips her head to look past Danicka at Lukas. She doesn't have to tip her head far, nor does she need to lean out overmuch to see past her former roommate. Her hair, trapped in a ponytail, swings against her back, and she offers a small smile.

"Good night."

She glances at Danicka. "Congratulations." Though for what she doesn't say. Presumably, she could simply mean Danicka being mated to Lukas.

And with that she exits through the front of the restaurant.

[Echo Quinn] "Goodnight, beautiful." Echo farewells him with, and makes a mental note to run his brother's name through her database later on. She watches him leave, her gaze thoughtful, if nothing else before her eyes swing back to the Cliath sharing the table with her. There's very little rage hovering around Echo at present, or there wasn't until a few seconds ago.

It's there now, subtly flavoring the air around her -- she remains quiet though, leaning back against the soft lining and watching her tribes-mate. "Something goin' on with you and him?" She's asking, but it's also a quiet request for confirmation or denial.

[Keron Bradley] It takes a bit to navigate, but like any teenager, Keron's internal compass' magnetic north is really food. A beer (MGD) is snagged from somewhere, and Keron starts filling a plate just about the time he hears a certain blonde's voice. It brings a quirk of lips, and though he's not so familiar as to bump her hip with his or anything, he does tap her right shoulder lightly, while being closer to her left.

He wears baggy jeans and under his coat, now open, there's a plain sweatshirt. He's good looking, sure, but no Adonis. It's something else, his draw, something that calls to baser instincts even as that voice and smile win him friends (not instantly or any such thing, but often).

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (if it's okay with you, i'ma tie the forums post you started for me in here!)
to Genevre de Provence

[Charlie] When he realizes that he isn't alone in the kitchen, Charlie halts. It is not one of the higher-ranked Garou currently milling around the dining room, nor any of the number of Kinfolk who have come to make an appearance but his sister, in search of her second plate of food. A huffing touch of laughter leaves his throat when she asks him how long it takes to get one plate of food, and the Theurge squints, the answer to the question eluding him.

He picks up a plate, and attacks the buffet line like a man who has not eaten all day. Cooked animal remains, mostly, is what goes onto his plate, turkey and ham, but he opts to pile potatoes on top of the meat and smother it in gravy. Joey knows that he doesn't eat like this all the time, that he is oftentimes abstaining from food to aid in his meditations or gain a greater spiritual insight than he can get when his belly is full and his physical needs sated.

Granted, she also knows that he has a fist-sized puncture wound on his upper left quadrant, where his stomach and spleen are. Joey has scars that have altered the functionality of her body. She might have figured out that his supposed lack of appetite has something to do with scar tissue, and she might not have. He is the one who has a prodigy's understanding of medicine with Bear's help, who was well-versed in management of illness and injury prior to his binding, whereas his brother and sister know about as much as human physicians are able to acquire after eight solid years of studying.

"Muerte Fría was talking to me," he says as he loads up his plate, and that's all he volunteers on the topic.

[Genevre de Provence] A nod given to Lee as the woman leaves. Then her eyes go to Danika, then Lukas. As Danika begins speaking in Russian to Lukas, Genevre turns away, muttering 'how rude' under her breathe.

She left them be, moving a few seats down at the bar, wiping the seat off with a napkin before slipping in to it.

[Genevre de Provence] ((Gimme a few, gotta make a beer run))
to Danicka Musil, Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Sinclair] Echo's statement that the table is hers and she prefers it snark-free does not get a response from the Galliard at first. By the time she looks like she has something to say, or might just be opening her mouth to take a deeper breath, Alex has blessed their hair-pulling and left, and Echo has bidden him farewell, turning to her.

Sinclair meets her eyes, ethereally pale to endlessly dark. She blinks once, slowly, then shrugs, giving a slight shake of her head. "He's just my friend," she says simply, "and a dick." She pushes her plate away. "Sorry if I disturbed your dinner, rhya. I think I should call my parents."

And with that, she rises to her feet.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Kde chceš z&+367;stat?" Lukas replies to Danicka. Of the two of them here, Lukas is the more obviously Shadow Lord: dark of hair, pale of eye, with wide, high cheekbones and strong facial bones. Yet they evidently shared some common root -- a language, if nothing else, a foreign tongue that contains far too many consonants and fricatives to be French or any other Romance language.

Apart from this brief exchange in Czech, he keeps his attention on Genevre, who is a guest -- of sorts. She starts to turn away, muttering something under her breath that, if Lukas caught, he reacts to expressionlessly.

"Genevre," her name is a single firm word; it could be anything, the beginning of a reprimand, worse. But when the Fang kin turns back, he simply says, "Jenny told me you came looking for me the other day. What was it you needed?"

[Alexander] (logging this guy out! thanks!)

[Edwin Morr] ((Blur of the Milky Eye))
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 4, 4, 4, 6, 7, 7 (Failure at target 8)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (i laugh at you, sir.)

[Edwin Morr] ((Dex + Stealth, diff = 6

Hail Kahseeno))
Dice Rolled:[ 8 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 4, 6, 6, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 5 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Joey] [I see you, right? RIGHT?!]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 6, 7, 7, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Danicka Musil] Her eyes flick to Genevre when the woman mutters under her breath. Danicka tips her head to the side as the other kinswoman excuses herself to go sit a few seats down. "Excuse me?" she says, more surprised than offended. "This from the špindíra flashing as much skin as she can at my mate?"

Whatever Lukas just asked her, she doesn't answer. She is noticably and suddenly distracted by the dark-haired woman in the red dress. Lukas does not reprimand her. Danicka flat-out insults her, eyes more green than they were before, less murky.

"You're a Fang," she says sharply, venomously, as though this itself encapsulates every scolding, every reprimand, that applies to Genevre at the moment. In Danicka's mind.

[Charlie] [I WANNA ROLL DICE]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 3, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10 (Success x 2 at target 6) Re-rolls: 1

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (repost for newcomers:

let's do it like this: the restaurant part of TB is closed to the public today. there's a buffet table set up in the main dining room downstairs with thanksgiving usuals: turkey, stuffing, potatoes, cranberry sauce, gravy. also, spiral-cut ham, various salads, apple, cherry, pecan and pumpkin pies, and... whatever the hell else your char might want to eat.

map is here: http://www.chicagodusk.com/index.php?jove=gallery&picture=2634

buffet tables are kinda up in front of the booths.)

[Danicka Musil] [perception + alertness, reflexive]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 9, 10, 10, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) Re-rolls: 3

[Keron Bradley] (I wanna roll too!)
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 6, 8, 8, 8 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Gina McClaren] *Soledad opts to slip into the Umbra rather than pass through the throng gathered downstairs, and Gina sets to unpacking the bag of hand-me-downs she's been supplied with, setting aside anything that wouldn't fit. She settles whatever will into the dresser that she shared with Marcus, and later, with Liam. A purse of lips as she pushes that from her mind and makes for downstairs. She'd seen booze down there. And god damned if she couldn't use some.*

[Alexander] (*dragged back again!*)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (i'ma hold on til DI's back!)
to Danicka Musil, Genevre de Provence

[Joey] The blonde Rotagar has her hair pulled back in a pair of buns just behind her ears. Her bangs fall across her forehead at an angle, longer wisps framing her face. She's wearing a red and white baseball jersey t-shirt that fits snugly to her athletic upper body. Her jeans are battered and her feet are bare but for green polish applied to her toenails. The color on her toes is chipping far less than the orange currently decorating her fingernails.

Charlie volunteers that he was talking to Muerte Fria. Joey doesn't think to inquire further. "I think -- oh hey, Keron -- I think our table turned into some kinda Glass Walker hang out. I like Echo, but I don't really wanna put up with Sinclair and Alex. You wanna sit somewhere else?" This, more to Charlie than Keron, who gets a quick greeting when Joey identifies the source of the tap on her shoulder.

"This is Keron, by the way. You wanna sit with us when we get out there?" she asks pleasantly enough.

[Danicka Musil] [WERD.]
to Genevre de Provence, Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lee] [percept + alert on Edwin]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 3, 6, 8, 8, 9 (Success x 4 at target 6)

[Charlie] [You know what? I want a goddamn reroll.]
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 3, 3, 3, 3, 5, 8, 8 (Success x 2 at target 7)

[Lee] [damn sneaky ragabash!]

[Alexander] (STOP!!!! *LOL*)

[Charlie] [SAYS THE GUY WHO LOGGED OUT AND CAME BACK IN]

[Keron Bradley] (I just wanna know what I'm noticing about the damn sneaky Ragabash. =D )

[Edwin Morr] Unnoticed, unseen by most, a plate of food magically seems to disappear from the buffet line, as a sly grinning man ghosts through the room. He takes his time, selecting a little something from each hot plate, turkey with all the fixings and what not.

Then, as he considers everyone in the room, the No Moon named Edwin can't help but grin a little wider as he selects his target. Who could use a little rise in blood pressure?

His eyes settle on two possible targets. One, the blond with the scar on her neck, garou... Or the other, a caramel skinned woman sauntering down the stairs.

Decisions, decisions...

Eventually, he settles upon Gina... Because...

The No Moon slinks to the stairs with that hard to follow gait of his, before leaning against it and eating a piece of turkey while he waits.

Then... Just as she passes him on the stairwell.

"Hey doll... How's doin'?"

[Gina McClaren] [don't flip your shit]
Dice Rolled:[ 6 d10 ] 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 8 (Failure at target 7)

[Keron Bradley] "Hey," he says, friendly smile first for Joey, then Charlie. "We've met. Sort of." One hand holds a plate already piled with food, balanced precariously as beer is clutched between fingers. His free hand is offered for a shake. "Sure, if no one minds."

He's new, after all - doesn't want to intrude. But far be it from him to turn down an invitation from a pretty girl.

[Gina McClaren] *There's a high scream on the stairs that's nothing short of pure unadulterated terror. Gina whirling around with a dischordant jangle of jewelry, metal flashing from a pocket as she reacts. No one was going to devour or rape her tonight. Not without a goddamn fight. A thin fillet blade much like the one Edwin has been training her with seeks a home in the Ragabash's gut, Gina's eyes black with fear and murderous intent.*

[dex/melee]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 2, 2, 4, 5, 10 (Success x 1 at target 6)

[Edwin Morr] Gina whirls and Edwin moves, his grin widening as he sees how the training has progressed. Truth be told, it wasn't entirely unexpected. At some point, he'd planned to scare her bad enough to knife him sooner or later anyway.

Just to make sure she could.

Still... There was a plate full of food to consider. Turkey and all the fixin's, no less. That said, Edwin steps swiftly to her outside shoulder, a hand resting atop the roll on his plate lest it roll off onto the floor.

((I'm'a dodge dat.

Dex + Dodge, diff = 6))
Dice Rolled:[ 7 d10 ] 2, 5, 5, 5, 6, 8, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)

[Joey] Joey's plate clatters onto the table, and the Rotagar is headed for the stairs with all the speed of someone headed for home base. She's halfway up the stairs when Edwin dodges aside Gina's attempt at gutting him, and she stops.

Dark eyes flick from Garou to kinfolk and back again.

"The fuck is goin' on?" she generally sunny Fenrir snarls angrily. "Gina, you okay?"

[Charlie] Keron arrives, there's a question of whether or not Charlie wants to sit at the Glass Walker table, and then there's a piercing, accented shriek coming from the room that Charlie just vacated.

"Shit," Charlie says, setting down his plate and hurrying away from the buffet table. He had just had a conversation with Muerte Fría about not going to Gina unless she approached him first, about not pressing her for information when she clearly did not want to talk, but she didn't say anything about not reacting when the young woman was in the kitchen supposedly by herself screaming, and so Charlie quickly walks--he does not run--through the dining room and pushes back through the swinging door.

[Genevre de Provence] ((SOrry, store wouldn't take my card))

Genevre looked up and over at Lukas, her face expressionless, much like it is in her negotiations. "Oui, monsior?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (btw, danicka posted atcha too)
to Danicka Musil, Genevre de Provence

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (i'ma find the c&p for ya, hold tight.)
to Danicka Musil, Genevre de Provence

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (Read top down!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
"Kde chceš zustat?" Lukas replies to Danicka. Of the two of them here, Lukas is the more obviously Shadow Lord: dark of hair, pale of eye, with wide, high cheekbones and strong facial bones. Yet they evidently shared some common root -- a language, if nothing else, a foreign tongue that contains far too many consonants and fricatives to be French or any other Romance language.

Apart from this brief exchange in Czech, he keeps his attention on Genevre, who is a guest -- of sorts. She starts to turn away, muttering something under her breath that, if Lukas caught, he reacts to expressionlessly.

"Genevre," her name is a single firm word; it could be anything, the beginning of a reprimand, worse. But when the Fang kin turns back, he simply says, "Jenny told me you came looking for me the other day. What was it you needed?"


[Danicka Musil]
Her eyes flick to Genevre when the woman mutters under her breath. Danicka tips her head to the side as the other kinswoman excuses herself to go sit a few seats down. "Excuse me?" she says, more surprised than offended. "This from the špindíra flashing as much skin as she can at my mate?"

Whatever Lukas just asked her, she doesn't answer. She is noticably and suddenly distracted by the dark-haired woman in the red dress. Lukas does not reprimand her. Danicka flat-out insults her, eyes more green than they were before, less murky.

"You're a Fang," she says sharply, venomously, as though this itself encapsulates every scolding, every reprimand, that applies to Genevre at the moment. In Danicka's mind.
to Danicka Musil, Genevre de Provence

[Genevre de Provence] She looked to Danika as well. Her insults fall flat in front of Genevre, like they hit some invisible wall. There was, for a bare second, an amused smirk. She could say something to Danni, but she decides not to. As if Danni was nothing but air.

Yes, she was definitely a Fang.

[Gina McClaren] *Another screech, but this one's less fear and more murder, Gina ashen under caramel skin. Trembling, though whether from fear or anger its unclear, the pikey looking for a moment like she's even more intent on stabbing Edwin now that she sees it was just a little joke. The blade is thrown at him angrily, clattering flatly off the Shadowlord's chest. Prett Exotic features crumpling painfully as she sobs, pushing past Joey and Charlie towards the back door.*

Fook ye Edwin.

[Echo Quinn] Sinclair rises to leave, after confirming Alex is just a dick, and her friend and she's sorry she disturbed her dinner. For just an instant, Echo wonders if the remark about calling her parents is some kind of smart alec throwback to her remark about sending them to bed without dessert -- but she quickly decides, whether true or not -- that it's not. She does sigh, though.

Sharply, as if torn between agitation and amusement.

"Warcry." Echo calls after her, then adds quieter. "Sinclair. Hang loose a sec, I gotta say something. Or rather, wanna say something." The Ragabash is in one of her rare serious moods now, apparently. Her eyes are dark, but she is not making her gaze difficult to meet. She doesn't want to. "I'm your elder in rank, and sometimes I'm gonna have to use the Fostern card on you. I hate doing that shit, it makes me feel like an asshole if I'm honest, which, when you get to know me a bit better, you'll see that I am." She grimaces a little. "Flawlessly so. So when you say shit that I don't like, I'm gonna say I don't dig it to your face. It doesn't mean I don't think you're cool, it's just ... " Echo pauses.

"The way it goes." A sip of beer. "Anyway," she smiles. "Go, do whatever."

[Edwin Morr] "Why, small world ain't it, doll?"

Edwin's lopsided grin and shaded eyes turn to Joey, as he takes a bite of turkey. Chewing, he nods to Gina, before continuing.

"I's jes' sayin' hello ta Gina, in m'own special way. An' she's polite 'nough ta oblige me by showin' me whut she's larned 'bout knives...

Dat's uh good stab, Gina. Ya'd have had me if'n I ain't moved on ya.

As fer yer offer... Not right now. I'm eatin'."

[Danicka Musil] Unfortunately for, perhaps, everyone, the conversation at the bar gets derailed by -- not an insult, not a smirk -- but a woman screaming and lashing out with a knife. Danicka's head comes up like a deer hearing a twig snapping, looking towards the kitchen and the source of the sound. She doesn't recognize Gina's voice, but she does recognize that after that scream there is not silence, but voices.

For some reason, that makes her tense shoulders round down slightly. She breathes. "Dom&+367;," she answers Lukas belatedly. "Paul je ve Vermontu."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] For his part, Lukas doesn't insult Danicka by holding her back, or worse, taking her part. The Shadow Lord simply lowers his eyes for a moment while his mate speaks, hiding whatever response there may have been. When they rise again, they're little changed: crystalline blue, clear as ice.

Awareness of the shriek in the stairwell lances across his eyes. He glances once in the direction it came from and his back straightens a notch, but he doesn't move.

"Okay," he says to Danicka first, quietly. Then, a gentle prompt to Genevre, "Jenny. She mentioned you came to see me?"

[Joey] Joey presses against the stairwell wall when Gina rushes past. She doesn't try to stop the small kinswoman from leaving. Her attention is fully on the Shadow Lord Ragabash.

Continuing to lean into the wall, arms crossed over her chest, she eyes Edwin suspiciously.

"If you're just here for food, you better get your ass back downstairs."

[Keron Bradley] There's a scream, and Keron freezes - it's not a fear reaction, exactly, and worry does cross his face (that voice isn't one to be forgotten, and Keron'd spent an afternoon listening to it). There are two Garou (the only faces he recognizes) moving around him to the source of the scream, and he decides it's best to just stay out of the way. He's thoughtful for a second and then, gentlemanly-like, he salvages Joey's plate as well as he can and brings it to an empty table. Then, goes back for Charlie's, and a beer of the sort Joey'd been drinking the first time they met. He'd get a drink for Charlie too, but . . . well. He doesn't know the Theurge well enough.

He sits, but is a bit tense - even a constantly-starving teenager finds it difficult to eat when there are screams and goodness knows what going on (or at least he does).

[Genevre de Provence] Every so often, her eyes lit to Danika, but then to Lukas. The scream? It didn't even make her flinch. She heard worse when her father came to visit. The insults from moments earlier? forgotten.

"Ah, oui, you asked for some investments. I called in some favours. I have a list for you, including best buying and selling times."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Really." Lukas is clearly pleased. "Excellent. Is this legally obtainable information?"

[Genevre de Provence] She looked over her nails a moments. "As I stated, I called in some favours."

[Sinclair] There's no need for Echo to call after Warcry. She's gathering up her half-empty bottle of beer and her nearly-cleaned plate of food after she informs the Fostern that she's going to call her parents. When her deedname then her mortal name are spoken, she flicks her eyes at Echo and lifts an eyebrow in question. The eyebrow stays up through most of what the Ragabash has to say.

She looks away only once, when she hears a scream, but seeing at least Charlie going that direction a moment later, she turns her attention back to Echo.

"Rhya," she says eventually, having called Echo this almost exclusively all evening, and it seems like she's going to say more. In the end, however, she doesn't say anything else at all. She takes her beer, and her plate, and leaves the honorific as her goodnight.

[Izzy Montoya] Someone said free food, and it would be stupid to turn that down. So she doesn't, because Izzy is many things, but stupid is not one of them. Thus, enter one Fenrir kin through the back door, who's breeding declares she belongs there, and who's attitude dares anyone to suggest otherwise.

Lukas said, once, that her look screamed Cop - and it does. Slacks, a cream colored tailored blouse tucked into them, with a leather suit-styled jacket over it all. She pulls her gloves off her fingers and tucks them into her back pocket, before heading directly toward that buffet table.

Food first. Alcohol momentarily.

[Edwin Morr] "Shore thang doll... Oh, an' how's dat thang ya been workin' on comin' 'long, if'n I may?"

Edwin grins that lopsided grin, the expression on his utterly forgettable features seeming almost as though he were thoroughly pleased with himself. He takes another bite of turkey and nods, while heading on into the room.

He was just a man, of just over average height and marginally slim build clad in clothes easily found at any nearby chain store. His shirt was flannel, the plaid in shades of gray and black squares. His blue jeans were of a darker shade, and his hiking boots were well worn with use. A navy baseball cap was worn low over his brow, casting his eyes perpetually in shadow. Just as that sly grin seemed never to leave his lips.

A full plate of food was carried in one hand, as the other picked up bites of turkey one after the next, the No Moon eating as he walked.

[Gina McClaren] *Gina bursts out the back door and into the alley, jewelry clinking and chiming in sharp contrast to the gasping sobs echoing from a pikey. She leans against the wall, trying to stop the all over shaking that seems to have comandeered all five foot of her body. Fucking Edwin. Fucking Garou. Hell... what if that had been Jenny, or Danny or some other kin?! A hard shake of her head, hands coming to wipe at her face. To hell with all of this. The strider kin slips from the alley and out into the chill of the city.*

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The Shadow Lord's eyes lower again for a moment. He thinks, fingers tapping his thigh. Then he looks at the Fang kin again.

"I appreciate it," he says gently, "but I don't want you to break any insider-trading laws and regulations, nor to jeopardize yourself or your contacts. Not for this. It's not important enough. I'll be grateful for what legal information you can provide me -- tips in the right places to look, even -- but anything more than that, I can't accept."

[Genevre de Provence] She gave a simple shrug. "As you wish. It is......'ow you say, no skin off my teeth. I will send a courier Monday with more legal informed options for you." She frowned a a smudge in her nail polish.

[Danicka Musil] The tables laden with food have not yet gotten Danicka's attention, or so it seems. She hasn't visited them. Danny is, at the moment, standing with her over by the cash register trying to remember if he counted how much she had correctly. She is standing straight and didn't forget her purse at the barstool when she stood up. Her coat is folded over her arm as she waits for the Child of Gaia to figure out her tab. Occasionally she glances over at Lukas and Genevre talking, until Danny comes up with the final tally.

"Excellent!" she says brightly, and hands him her card. He stares at her a moment. She just smiles. Danny exhales, shakes his head, and gets her a receipt to sign, which she does without flourish. Tucking the second slip away, she walks over to Genevre's seat, leans over, and gives a quick, breezing kiss to each of the Silver Fang's cheeks. Straightening again, she still holds that cheery smile as she looks at Ms. Provence.

"I apologize for my earlier rudeness," she says, the edges of her voice fuzzy with warmth. "I am quite drunk, for the sake of tradition, but even so: I should have shown greater patience with you. "Požehnání se na vás, a váš d&+367;m," she goes on, with the same air as she used when offering a toast earlier, "P&+345;eji Vám mnoho tuku a ošklivé d&+283;ti."

[Joey] "I'm workin' on it," is all she offers. She lets him pass her, then follows him into the room, like a guard dog making sure the intruder goes where he's supposed to. Her arms are still crossed over her chest, her head tipped down as she watches Edwin. She glances at Charlie, shrugs her shoulders at him, and follows the others back out into the dining room.

First she looks over to the buffet where her plate had been left behind. When she sees it's not there, she looks around the room. She spots Keron sitting alone at a table with two extra plates by him. She narrows her eyes at the teen, and heads over to the table where the Glass Walkers were sitting to collect her forgotten pint.

She gets to the table at about the time Sinclair is rising to leave. Joey pulls her glass toward her, preparing it lift it from the table. "Later, Sin."

[Izzy Montoya] Soon she has a plate loaded sufficiently enough that she won't have to return for at least a LITTLE while and she makes her way toward the Dining room - and the bar, where she takes the first empty stool she comes too.

She pulls those gloves from her back pocket, and slaps them on the bar, sets her plate down and then looks around to see who's sitting where and how many of them she knows - only turning back when Danny's done with Danicka's tab, to start her own.

[Echo Quinn] Echo has said what she wanted to say, and just watches as Sinclair takes her leave. The Glass Walker doesn't seem terribly bothered by the screaming occurring from the staircase, she digs back into her now mostly cold dinner plate and as Joey wanders back over to collect her beer, offers the girl a quick grin that is rapidly becoming her trademark expression.

"What's happening on the stairs?"

[Genevre de Provence] Her brow rose quickly when Danicka came over and kissed her cheeks. "Non, you 'ad every right. You believed I was after your mate. I would probably be the same way. Luckily, I 'ave 'eard worse when I work. As for my dress? If you knew me better, you would know I dress for different occassions."

She gave Danicka a nod. "Be well, Mlle."

[Joey] "Nothin' anymore," Joey answers with a shrug of her shoulder. "Kinfolk got jumped on the stairs. Hang on, I'll be right back."

Her beer is left on the table, and she crosses the room to where Keron sits alone. "Hey. Walker meeting broke up, we're over there now." She jerks her head in Echo's direction, and collects Charlie's and her plates before heading back.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Thank you," Lukas replies. "That'll be very much appreciated. Anything I could do for you in return?"

Danicka has risen, meanwhile, and gone to settle her tab. While she's away, Lukas looks at the cluster of empty shotglasses near her; the lack of a plate. When she returns, he waits for the women to mend their fences, or at least put on the polite show of doing so.

Hard to say which it is. One's a Fang. The other's a Lord. Hard to say which tribe, in the end, is more practiced at maintaining masks of civility.

When Danicka parts from Genevre, though, Lukas holds his hand out to her, taking her fingers briefly if she'll give them.

"Leaving so soon? You haven't even eaten."

[Keron Bradley] "Alright," he says, agreeable enough, once he's swallowed the bite of mashed potatoes that was the only thing he'd eaten; screams don't lead to a good appetite. At the table, Echo gets a smile and a wave of the fingers not strictly necessary to keep his beer from falling to the floor. "Hi. I'm Keron," he says simply.

[Genevre de Provence] A light shake of her head. "Non, monsior, not right now." She turned from Lukas and ordered herself a martini, using only the best stock in the house.

[Danicka Musil] "You are exactly right," Danicka says, and taps the tip of Genevre's nose gently with her finger. "And lovely, by the way," but this is an aside. "I was consumed by jealous rage."

She steps away and gives a deep nod. "Být dob&+345;e..." she returns, her intonation matching Genevre's wish for her to be well, "...vy sýr-vonící Fang d&+283;vka."

Turning, Danicka gives a similar -- but much deeper -- nod to Lukas, meeting his eyes for a moment. There was only the one glass, refilled repeatedly from the bottle, but he could tell easily enough when he walked over that she was at least a little buzzed. As she lifts her head and her eyes fall on his, she allows her fingers to all but float into his grasp. She's unresistant. She usually is.

"I'm going upstairs to lie down for a little while," she says, and she sounds apologetic. Or near enough. "And I ate. Just not here."

[Echo Quinn] "Yeah," the Glass Walker says with a vaguely furrowed brow. "I think we've met before, your face is real familiar to me." She gestures that the Kinfolk should pull up a seat, or portion of the booth.

"I'm Echo, by the way." A hand is offered, and if accepted, a firm shake ensues before the Glass Walker leans back, adjusting her weight against the back of the booth and drawing a knee up, resting her mostly-empty beer bottle on top of it.

[Alexander] "Dani&+269;ka, dost," Lukas murmurs. Then, he shifts, reaching over to the empty stool to pick up his coat where he left it. "My keys are in the pocket," he tells her.

Guests come and go. Danicka disappears into the kitchen, one expects; another recent arrival is a rather nondescript man; nothing about him screams Shadow Lord, or indeed, any other tribe. Lukas notices him, though, and picking up his wineglass, stands.

"She wished blessings on you house, by the way," he says to Genevre with a faint, wry smile, "along with many children. Have a good evening, Genevre. I'm need to talk to my tribesman."

[Alexander] (ARGH!)

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Dani&+269;ka, dost," Lukas murmurs. Then, he shifts, reaching over to the empty stool to pick up his coat where he left it. "My keys are in the pocket," he tells her.

Guests come and go. Danicka disappears into the kitchen, one expects; another recent arrival is a rather nondescript man; nothing about him screams Shadow Lord, or indeed, any other tribe. Lukas notices him, though, and picking up his wineglass, stands.

"She wished blessings on you house, by the way," he says to Genevre with a faint, wry smile, "along with many children. Have a good evening, Genevre. I'm need to talk to my tribesman."

[Sinclair] (RARRR)

[Charlie] [GE OU]

[Echo Quinn] [oooOOOOooooo... they're totally boning.]

[Keron Bradley] (I'm tellin'!)

[Charlie] Gina leaves the stairwell, moving through the kitchen just as fast as is humanly possible, and before too long the rest of the room's contingency has cleared out as well, leaving Charlie standing in the middle of the room with a frown on his face and not a word even considering leaving his throat. He huffs out a breath, and rather than going after the departed kinswoman, he unzips his sweatshirt and pushes back through the swinging saloon door for the second time tonight.

Someone has secured his plate, but it isn't his plate that Charlie is concerned with anymore. He walks over to the booth where Echo is sitting with a small group of bodies around her and reaches for his plate.

"There you are," he says.

[Genevre de Provence] She nodded lightly. "Merci, Lukas. Bon nuit." He must have read her mind, but then, it would only be gracious to interpret.

She turned in the stool, sipping her martini, and looked over the room.

[Edwin Morr] Edwin makes his way past the booths and toward the bar area, picking an unoccupied seat near the end. With a grin, he motions to Danny, and orders Jack Daniels' magic brew... The highest proof on hand.

Danny obliges with a shot glass and the bottle, though his expression becomes surprised when Edwin suggests he leave the bottle.

Wordlessly then, Edwin begins digging into the plate of food. Turkey with dressing, mashed potatoes, stuffing, rolls... All of it washed down with whiskey.

At least he took the time to set his baseball cap on the back of his chair; it seemed he knew at least that much of common manners.

Still, the forgettable figure does seem to hold over his plate a little too much, and his elbows rest upon the table unabashedly. The whole of the effect leaving the impression of nothing so much as an animal trying to eat and protect the carcass at the same time.

Meanwhile, blue eyes roved the room curiously, looking up every so often to avoid being taken unawares.

[Danicka Musil] Danicka does indeed take her leave within moments after Lukas's murmur of her name and a verb that no one else in the room can interpret. Her eyes glint briefly, her hand still in his, but she slips away as he tells her where his keys are. For some reason she hesitates before she actually gets the keys from his coat pocket. She smiles once more, nods once more, to Genevre, and then heads into the kitchen, and up the stairs, and into the Sobering Hour.

[Danicka Musil] [Thank you all for the RP! That was fun! :-D]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (EMPATHEE)
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 6, 6, 6, 7 (Success x 4 at target 6)
to Danicka Musil

[Keron Bradley] "I ain't been here long," he says with a smile, and he's scooted in so there's plenty of room for anyone else who wants to share the bench, "but I met a lot of people. Nice t' . . . re-meet ya," he says. Her hand was accepted, of course, and his hand - though free of scars - is rough and strong; it's a worker's hand.

[Keron Bradley] ((Night!))

[Joey] Joey has taken the seat across from Echo, her arm pressed against the wall. Charlie's plate is beside hers when he picks it up, the bottle Keron got for her set beside it. She looks up at her friend and brother while Echo and Keron acquaint themselves, her mouth quirked in a grin.

"Yup. Here I be."

[Danicka Musil] The glint in her eyes was something like rebellion. It's a brief 'fight' reaction. As for her hesitation before taking his keys, she seems to feel kind of bad about taking them and going to his room. It's pretty clear at that point she wasn't intending to use his bed to lie down in, for some reason.
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] On one of Edwin's glances up, the field of view in front of him is no longer empty. Lukas Wyrmbreaker stands there, sharply dressed, a dark shirt and charcoal grey slacks. He puts his hand on the back of the chair opposite the Ragabash, eyebrows raised in silent questioning -- which turns out to be only a formality, because in the next moment he seats himself across from Edwin.

"I have some questions for you," he says, "and maybe a proposal at all. Will you hear me out?"

[Izzy Montoya] The mirror behind the bar proves pretty good at letting her know where most folks are, as they move around and change seats and tables and mingle. She glances toward Edwin when he sits, then again when Lukas joins, while she continues to work her way through her plate of food, washing it down with whiskey.

[Edwin Morr] Edwin stops his steady devastation of the food upon the plate, and after wiping his face on his napkin, grins that lopsided grin at Lukas. A beat passes, perhaps two, before Edwin nods.

"Reckon so... Whutcha wanna talk 'bout?"

As the woman across the bar stars at him, Edwin's eyes meet hers for a moment. He nods slightly, still grinning that lopsided grin, while waiting for Lukas to continue.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's little love lost between these Garou. A few months ago, as some sort of object lesson, Lukas had made a punching bag out of Edwin. Whatever that was intended to teach Edwin about auspice roles and the strengths and weaknesses of each ... apparently failed. Edwin continues to sneak. Lukas continues to frown upon it.

Still, what's in Lukas's eyes as he sits across from Edwin tonight is not animosity, but something closer to consideration. A critical one, perhaps, but consideration all the same.

"What's your role in the war, Edwin?" He gets right into it. "What are you and your pack striving for? Terrorizing and tormenting your brethren can't possibly be the goal of your life."

[Genevre de Provence] Something akin to intrigue crosses her face as she looks to watch Lukas and Edwin not too far from her. Shadow Lord antics seems in the works.

[Echo Quinn] The Glass Walker drains her beer-glass and then scoops up her plate, she stretches and hoists it up high. "I need a smoke, I'll be back a bit later, headed up to the roof." With a nod toward Joey, she glances at the Metis questionably, knowing him for a regular partaker of weed.

"Wanna come?"

[Charlie] "Shyeah," he says, curling his plate up into the crook of his arm and stepping back to let the Fostern stand up from her seat.

[Edwin Morr] Edwin chuckles, shrugging slightly.

"No, but I reckon's uh start..."

He takes a shot of whiskey, placing the empty shot glass on the bar beside the bottle before continuing.

"Well, me'n mine fancy ourselves uh recon pack. Go on, git uh look'r two, den scat back out easy's ya please. From time ta time, we might also mosey on over ta pay somebody import'nt uh visit, see dey learns th'error of their ways...

An' see dat th'bodies dis'pear after."

A bite of what little turkey remained on the plate is chewed and swallowed thoughtfully, before Edwin speaks again, his eyes resting calmly on the other Lord, his mouth turned up in that ever present lopsided grin.

"Whydya ask?"

[Genevre de Provence] Genevre finished her martini and set the glass on the bar. She slipped off the stool and took up her wrap, putting it on. Her drink paid for including a very nice tip, she headed for the door to go home.

[Keron Bradley] "Night, then," he says, saluting with his beer (and risking a cheeky wing at Joey before she slips away). From there, his food and beer are finished, and Keron's out, back in his truck and on his way back to Cabrini.

[Joey] Joey watches Charlie and Echo as they gather up their things and head up to the roof for a smoke. Keron takes off soon after, his wink receiving a surprised double-take. But soon enough Joey is left alone at her table.

She sighs, and works on her plate, finishing her food and her drink in silence. It's an odd end to Thanksgiving, but when she's finished with her plate and her glass is empty, she gathers them up and takes them to the kitchen.

And she heads upstairs, passing by Alex and Sinclair without paying any attention to their conversation. The young blonde disappears into room 7 for the night.

[Joey] [and Joey's out. Thanks for the play!]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Because my pack needs a good scout," Lukas replies, blunt as that, "and an eye that can look at a situation through the proverbial mirror darkly. You're one of the best sneaks in this Sept, and certainly unorthodox in your approach. I want to recruit you for the Unbroken.

"But I need to know that you're not utterly devoid of honor. That you understand cunning is not a replacement for wisdom. That you know which lines cannot be crossed, and which paths lead to utter corruption. I need to know that while you won't pull punches with your opinion, you won't disobey and sabotage me at every turn. I've had my experience with insubordinate packmates already, and I will not repeat it."

[Edwin Morr] It is at this that Edwin begins chuckling... As though he found it a grand joke.

"An' dey say ya ain't got no sense uh humor..."

Edwin leans over conspiratorially, and with his voice low, begins speaking.

"Y'know, it's uh funny thang 'bout honor... Durn near ever' hon'rable feller ya ever hear tell uh in hist'ry class got ahead by fergittin' ta be hon'rable fer uh spell. Hell... Take one look't th' way dem sam'rai fellers in Japan carried on..."

Now, Edwin leans over closer, his voice a mere whisper.

Once he finishes whatever it was he had to say on the subject, he continues.

"Now, assumin' I'm int'rested, an' assumin' I go so far's ta take ya up on th'offer... I'm fine wit' doin' whut th'feller in charge says. Jes' don' e'spect me ta like't if'n I git ta disagreein' wit' ya."

Edwin seems to consider for awhile, scratching his head a time or two.

"So... Seein's how dis ain't uh one way street... Who's th'Unbroken foller, spirit wise? Tell me 'bout 'em."

((Pm coming for what Edwin whispered))

[Edwin Morr] "Now, ya gits ta thinkin' back real hard, jes' whut e'sactly is it I've done whut's so terr'ble dishon'rable? Jes what all've I done whut ain't been topped by others who's seen as right virtuous garou?

Once ya answer dat'ne... Den ya can start workin' on why I ain't all worked up 'bout m'reputation bein' whut 'tis an' why I'm happy's uh lark ta leave it dat way."
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker]
Dice Rolled:[ 4 d10 ] 3, 7, 10, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6)
to Edwin Morr

[Edwin Morr] As Lukas considers Edwin's words, one thing he would realize is this: Being dishonorable was not so important as the perception of being dishonorable for Edwin. As though he'd rather be seen as dishonest and conniving, as one whom couldn't be trusted...

Though in truth, the only real dishonor that could be set at Edwin's feet (aside from playing fast and loose with the rules periodically) was the death of Stormhelm...

And on that score, it seemed, Edwin and the Sept would have to agree to disagree.
to Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There are some who would never let a wolf like Edwin that close to them, much less with his teeth inches from their face, their throat, all the major points of their body.

Lukas stays where he is, though, his eyes level and unflinching on the Ragabash's as he leans in to whisper. He even leans forward himself, cocking his head slightly to hear better.

When he's done, the Ahroun leans back. He considers Edwin. There's a heap of food on the buffet tables -- though steadily diminishing -- and all Lukas has in front of him is a glass of red wine. For moments on end Lukas is simply silent, watchful, considering, thoughtful.

"It's not what you've done," he replies eventually, "but how you're perceived. It's how you seem to want to be perceived.

"I'll give you this much. Your pack, as it stands now, fills a very specialized role. You're scouts and sometimes vigilantes; occasionally assassins. In these roles, your infamy doesn't hinder you. If anything, it helps. And in that sense, you've been quite successful.

"But you asked about the Unbroken, and I can tell you this much: we're much broader in scope. We fight the war. That's our only focus in the end, but it extends to all levels. We'll lead if we have to. We'll follow if we should. We'll counsel if we can and dissent if we must. But in the end it's not about how much power we gain in the Sept, or how many tricks we pull over the heads of our brethren, or how many skulls we hang up on the Wyrmpole.

"It's about war. It's about uniting the strong and the worthy -- within this pack and without -- in the name of war.

"So I think you can see how a pack like that would appreciate your skill, and, for that matter, your priorities. But at the same time, I think you can see why deliberately cultivating a reputation for bad behavior would work counter to our purposes. That would divide the Sept against us. And unlike your shadow war, that would handicap us at least on some fronts."

[Edwin Morr] Edwin nods...

"No faultin' yer logic dere... Dere'd be folk who'd suspect anythin' I ever said, even in uh pack like your'n. Uh course... mebbe dat ain't all bad. Sometimes ya can go far in gittin' folk ta see yer point by havin' someone dey don't trust take th'opposin' position.

Reckon it'd all boil down ta how I's used within th'pack. Assumin' you an' I reckon dat's th'best route. In any case... I'm uh might set in m'ways... I ain't never gonna be no paragon of virtue.

So, if'n we go dat route, ya gotta realize whutcher gittin' inta.

'Sides... I hear tell white anythin', knight's armor included, ain't th'most slimmin' shade."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas laughs, a short huff, rather humorless. "We're no white knights," he says. "We're pragmatists. And I am a Shadow Lord.

"Nor do I expect you to change. If I needed you to change who you were, I wouldn't approach you at all. It's your mindset as much as your skills that make you valuable. I just expect you to have the backs of your brothers when push comes to shove, and to remember who the Alpha is."

Pause.

"So long as I'm worthy."

Lukas sits back, then. "If that works for you, then think it over. Discuss it with your packmate[s?]. If you choose to join us, you know where I live. If any of your packmates want to follow, we'll consider them individually."

[Edwin Morr] "Fair 'nough... I'll think 't over an letcha know either way."

With that, Edwin nods, standing and putting his baseball cap back on. He pulls it low over his brow, such that his eyes are shaded... Making the color just a bit closer to gray.

"Other'n dat... I reckon I oughta drop in on some folk 'fore raisin' some cain on th'town.

Unless'n ya got sum'in' else... I'm'uh scoot."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas shakes his head simply. "Goodnight, Leaves No Trace."