hyperion.

[Sinclair] The truth is, the fact that Aaron contacted her -- and texted her instead of calling -- before he made any kind of overture to his own brother is the one thing that Sinclair can't Benefit of Doubt away from her aggravation. She tries to say maybe Aaron just can't wait, but he didn't call his twin. He texted his twin's Garou girlfriend. And that sticks with her again and again, and makes her frown as Alex says it aloud.

So she does what she can only do with Alex, and sometimes with her pack: she holds him, and her arm slides upward, still wrapped around him, her hand coming to rest on his cheek. It's a silent, human gesture that means a world of things, not all of which are human. But they move on, because, well, now they've got to move again.

Considering Sinclair comes from a landlocked state originally -- or perhaps because she comes from a landlocked state originally -- she looks appalled that Aaron doesn't know how to surf. Or do anything physical. It's one thing to grow up and be the studious kid while your twin is the one seeing if he can break a rock with this other rock and whether or not this thing he found works well as a piece of sports equipment. She lifts her head and shakes it, like she'd think of tsking but chooses not to.

Of course she doesn't quite grasp that -- she was an only child. There was no well my sibling is the [blank] one of the family for her. She was athlete and princess and scholar all at once, she was geek and artist and mechanic as well, and any time she wanted to learn or be something new, her parents were all for it. They couldn't give her an odd look because they had no one to compare her to, and she couldn't be discouraged by someone else's excellence or ownership over a given area for the same reason.

They haul themselves up from the bed, because at least in Sinclair's case, the longer she lies there the more she wants to text Aaron to say whoops, sorry, had to snuggle your brother and sleep instead, see you tomorrow. She gives Alex a kiss as she rises, and nuzzles along his jaw, before going to take a quick shower.

She's out when he returns, and hungry. He comes back with a sandwich instead of a hot dog, and she nomfs the banana with some of the peanut butter they've had in their food stash for the trip, chugging down the Red Bull even if she usually doesn't like Red Bull. Even if Alex makes fun of her for usually drinking those RockStars that are in magenta cans -- Sinclair just gulps them down, singsonging they're pink! like me! cuz I'm a girrrl.

Her hair is wet, pulled back into a rather tight bun, but it bares the metal in her ears and the tattoo on the back of her neck. It makes her look more like a Glass Walker, somehow, but the markings and modifications take what would otherwise be so cool and collected and businesslike and give her a severe, ferocious edge. She's already given herself a quick ring of black eyeliner before Alex gets back -- perhaps one of the marks of how much she's matured in the last couple of years is simply how much less eye makeup she uses, but that's a digression. Looking at her, one sees rings and bars in her ears, sees fine white teeth behind pale lips, sees intense blue eyes.

And while she eats, she dresses not in the clothes she wore in the car, rumpled and skimpy for the heat and casual and smelling of sweat. She pulls on a pair of steel-gray, tailored shorts that follow her thighs and end just an inch and a half above her knees. She wears a body-skimming white camisole over that, and then pulls out something he hasn't seen outside of one of the back hangers in their closet -- a sharp, hip length navy blue jacket with sleeves cropped to just below her elbow.

For Sinclair, and for Miami in summertime, this is a bit more formal than usual. Where 'a bit' is actually 'a lot', and yet she wears it with a sort of effortless confidence, like this is incredibly familiar to her. She looks good. She looks fierce, actually, and perhaps most surprising of all -- she looks calculated. Nothing is too formal, nor too casual. She puts on her skinny black flipflops and her toenails are roughly the same color as Tripoli's emo-eyes. She brushes her teeth, and cracks her neck, and they head out to Marina Blue.

When they drive out there, she's glad she didn't put on her cutoffs again, and she's glad she didn't eat anything with onions or beans or whatever. She doesn't fit the city.

But the way she's dressed right now, and the fact that she knows where they're going, and she belongs there -- somehow she fits this building. They park, they walk in, and her arm comes out -- it's the one that says what you can -- and her hand wriggles under one of his biceps to squeeze his fingers. She lets go, and walks straight towards security, her eyes on him. Neither of them speak; he hands her a card. She gives him a nod that is both acknowledgement and thank you, and turns towards Alex to make sure he's with her, that he's close, before going to the elevators.

Soon as they get to the elevator and the card has been scanned and the doors are closed, Sinclair looks at Alex and gives a huge roll of her eyes.

Then: "Shit, I forgot sunscreen."

[Alex] Alex knows sometimes Sinclair gets all dolled up, as he puts it. He saw it for the first time when they met again in San Diego, sat in the sand and talked so seriously about the past, and them, and the future. He sees it again tonight, but truth be told, he doesn't really see it all that much. Not nearly frequently enough for him not to do a double-take when she comes out in tailored gear and fierce, almost severe makeup.

You look ... huh, is his comment. And a moment later: A good huh. Like, wow, huh.

So maybe that's why all the way over he doesn't remember to tell her what he promised he would. Or maybe it's just having to get his ass up and out again; maybe it's just having to circle the block looking for parking again and again and again. Whatever the reason, it's not until they're in the elevator and she's discovered she's forgotten sunscreen that he remembers --

"Shit. I forgot to tell you." She's already scanned the card. There's a brief rush, like a coolness through the marrows of the bone: some minor spirit released, performing the task demanded of it. The ground lifts beneath their feet. The elevator begins to rise, almost alarmingly fast, stopping for no one and nothing. "Look, you asked what happened in Miami. Long story short: I was myself, except about a billion times worse back then. I think what finally broke the camel's back was when I got into Garou bigwig's daughter's laptop and found some, y'know. Special photos. Which I then uploaded to the internet at large.

"Next thing I know I'm getting hauled in and there's like three packs Garou and they're all yelling at me, and my brother's the only one even trying to stick up for me. But as far as I knew all I did was upload some softcore porn, and they were seriously overreacting. So when it's finally my turn to talk I basically say, fuck you all, I'll do what I wanna.

"So of course everyone blows the fuck up. And Aaron manages to talk them down, and he explain what the big fucking deal was. Turns out the Garou bigwig had pissed off some ... wyrm suits or something who were actively looking to fuck with him. And one of the pictures had enough in the background for them to figure out where his daughter lived. So they sent f-- whatever they're called, formeri? And they're storming her highrise, kicking down doors one by one, and she calls her dad and daddy and the cavalry come storming in. No one got hurt, which was blind luck.

"I think I even knew that, back then. I knew I was wrong and I'd fucked up. But I already had my back to the wall, my heels dug in. So I say, no harm no foul.


His arms are folded across his chest again. He's frowning at the door, low down where they join the floor. A few moments - a dozen floors - go by before he adds,

"And my brother got this look on his face. All that time, everyone else was puffing steam out of their ears, but Aaron was cool as a cucumber. All that time. Right up until he explains what I actually did, and I looked him in the eyes, and said what I said. I don't even know what that look was or meant, but it was there for a second and then he just turns and slams out of there. And I'm standing there alone, and the Warder walks over and tells me to hit the road and don't look back."

A few more seconds of silence.

"For what it's worth," he adds, "my brother came to see me off. But I haven't really been back to Miami since, 'cept for a stopover at Thanksgiving now and then."

[Sinclair] There's a reason why Sinclair doesn't dress like this very often, and it probably isn't what he or most people might think. But there's been a definite evolution over the time he's known her, from cutoffs and baggy thrift store tees to things that fit her more, that aren't always ragged. Once upon a time he saw her under the waxing gibbous moon wearing white, and he bloodied her head on the asphalt. Once upon a time she came to get her stuff from his place after Rio and she looked sort of rough and sort of pristine all at once and all he could say was that she looked amazing. The moon was waxing then, too.

But there was always a stiffness to it, a certain discomfort. When she walked through Grant Park wearing some dress she'd borrowed from Kate she didn't feel any more comfortable, though she had captured what some say women's fashion is always trying to achieve: both intensely fuckable and far, far out of Your League. She doesn't seem uncomfortable in her own clothes, though, and she's changing. What makes this look good, with the faint shimmer of pale gloss on her lips and nothing more than a bit of eyeliner, is how Sinclair wears it.

Of course then she falters a bit when he says huh and then bursts into that sort of goofy grin of hers when he follows immediately by what that 'huh' means. There's color under her freckles for a moment, and she kisses him to say hello before she eats her banana-and-peanut-butter-and-red-bull dinner. His hands go under her jacket when she does, holding her there for a moment, and the white shell is soft and he clearly wasn't thinking because he knows how she reacts when his hands are on her waist. The kiss is warmer for a moment, closer, and for a few minutes at least, it relaxes them.

Granted, by the time they hit the elevator that tension is back again. Sinclair tries to defuse it a bit, and remembers she forgot sunscreen, and Alex remembers he forgot to tell her about his run-in with the sept here. She turns to him, listening, knowing they have just a few moments at most in an elevator like this, no matter how high the building is.

myself, except about a billion times worse makes her eyebrow quirk up. Partly because she never thought Alex was horrible. He was just Alex. And Alex was kind of an asshole, but he wasn't really that much of an asshole to her and sometimes when she saw him around other people he wasn't that bad to them, so Sinclair is reasonably biased in his favor.

Mostly, she just listens as he explains what happened. What, in the end, Alex did. Because he was in the wrong. Wrong to fuck around on someone else's laptop, wrong to throw pictures like that of some girl up on the internet, wrong to dig in his heels and tell them all to get fucked. It doesn't mean everyone else was a saint, but... he was wrong.

Alex finishes up, and Sinclair is watching him, and a couple of seconds pass. One, two. She's standing at his side, and then she turns her body and wraps her arms around him, his bicep against her chest, her hands wrapping around all the tattoos on his other bicep, hugging him tightly. For awhile. The elevator gives a soft chime to let them know they're about to reach the penthouse floor, and she gives him one last squeeze, saying quietly: "They're called fomori," because sometimes when push comes to shove Sinclair is a teacher and a history book.

And then there's no time for her to say much else. About that meeting, about what Alex did or how it has or hasn't changed how she sees him, about how it has or hasn't changed how she sees Aaron and this sept. About that look. About how it must have felt to look in your twin brother's eyes and see some kind of Look and for once have no idea, none, what he was thinking. About being told to leave town, and not coming back except to occasionally see his family. She doesn't even know if Thanksgiving included Aaron on those occasions.

There's no time to really answer him, because the elevator is slowing down and giving a faint, barely-felt bump when it stops. Her arms ease away from him, and she straightens her jacket.

"I'd like to hold your hand," she says just before the doors open, eyes on them, and as far as he can tell there's no ulterior motive here except for the fact that this is Sinclair, and she holds his hand when they walk upstairs from doing laundry at the coin-op and she holds his hand when they walk out to get burritos and she holds his hand in the car and she sometimes swings their arms when they're tromping back towards the apartment after a day of surfing, "but it's cool if you don't want to right now, okay?"

[Alex] She gets about as far as hold your hand. Alex unfolds his arms and his hand comes down on hers, firm and warm and unequivocal. Her eyes are on the doors, blue as afterburners, but his flick toward her for a moment. Then the doors open, and

they're very high up. They're much higher up than sixty stories. More like a hundred; maybe higher. Beneath them, Miami, Florida, and what seems like half of the Atlantic and Gulf stretch out in all directions. The room they stand in is vast and circular, the ceiling thirty feet high, the outer walls one vast loop of clear glass. It feels the way Times Square did: like a nucleus, a nexus of this entire city, if not the world -- all but humming with energy and power and sheer activity. Subsections of the ... caern, one supposes, are divided off by panes of glass, some clear, some frosted, some behind blinds. Conference rooms, kitchens, interim living quarters, a security center. To one side, a vast auditorium the size of a large cinema sinks into the floor. To another side sprawls an indoor gym any executive in the city would envy. At the center, three helical staircases entwine with one another and then split apart, eventually joining a balcony running all the way around the upper floor. The center of the upper floor opens to the lower, and suspended high in that alcove is a great brass sphere, perfectly round, in which all the activity and life of the caern is held and reflected.

Beside Sinclair, Alex murmurs, "Huh. Never been here before."

There's no logical explanation for how that so-apparently-normal elevator of theirs managed to convey them up so high. No explanation for how this part of the building is hidden from mortal sight; no explanation for how, even, it's suspended in thin air.

Just: magic.


Directly across from the elevator doors is a reception desk, all sleek glass and wood. A rail-thin receptionist in black-rimmed hipster glasses, so fashionably androgynous that Alex has to glance at the nameplate ("Adam") to be sure of his gender, punches a button on his sleek glass-and-wood phone.

"Mr. Vaughn, your guests have arrived. I'll have Eliana bring them in." A beat. "And you should have told us your brother was coming. You know Mr. Soto doesn't want kin with a history of misbehavior running around the Caern."

Alex bristles: "Hey, tell Soto to kiss my -- "

"And we're going."

This is Eliana: squeezing breezily between them, looping her arms through Sinclair's and Alex's and all but dragging them along. Nevermind that Sinclair's nearly an Adren. Nevermind that she comes up to Sinclair's chin and makes even Alex look tall. She's about sixteen, and she's green as summer grass, which means she's possessed of the sort of audacious arrogance that only teenagers who think they'll live forever -- and cubs too young to know better -- flaunt.

She also sure as hell didn't pass up on the cutoffs. There are swimsuits that cover more than her outfit does. As she walks she pops her gum, and as she pops her gum she chatters.

"So, like, I'm Eliana, and I'm a cub, and I'm a guardian-in-training. Which means I mostly just show visitors in. So as you probably know, we're a Caern of Hyperion, and we're proud to say we are a brand new Caern. Like, less than ten years old. I'm supposed to give you a tour but I think Aa-- I mean, Mr. Vaughn just wants to see you guys. C'mon, let's go through Classroom B, it's a shortcut. Oh, ugh, the new freshman are getting their spiel. Just be quiet."

She pivots, barely dodges a young man carrying a stack of files, leads them through a frosted glass door into the back of a miniature version of the auditorium. Some fifteen or twenty cubs, many of them significantly younger than Eliana herself, are scribbling notes attentively while a lean, hard-faced woman in a pinstripe suit lectures up front.

"...our ranks," she says, not even acknowledging the interlopers in her classroom, "are almost entirely composed of Glass Walkers, though of course we're an equal-opportunity Sept. Our most senior partners originally split from the Caern of the Everglades, which has been around a whole lot longer. Around 1980, as Miami was poised to become a new socioeconomic center on the eastern seaboard, the leadership of the Caern of the Everglades disagreed fundamentally on how to respond. The old guard -- mostly other Tribes, of course -- held that the Garou should guard the Wetlands and act to suppress the humans as much as they could. Our Tribe saw the danger in allowing the humans to grow unchecked, but we also saw opportunity where other tribes could only see fear. We argued in favor of moving closer to the city and making efforts to direct and influence its growth.

"In 1982, the ideological schism in the Caern of the Everglades came to a head. The Sept split into two. Almost all the Glass Walkers came out to the city, joined by a few forward-thinking Garou of other tribes. We followed opportunity. We seized it. For well over twenty years we guarded land without a Caern, infiltrating the human infrastructure of the city, getting our kin and Garou into every level of human power in Miami. Government, finance, science, technology, real estate, media, even the drug cartels -- you name it, we probably have a share of it. But throughout that period of time, we never forgot our number one goal: to establish a new Caern. For twenty years our most promising Garou and kin worked on gaining the favor of Hyperion, whom we hoped would sponsor us one day.

"Finally, in 2004, the pack Ardent Tribunal and its allies succeeded in retrieving the Seed of Fusion from the farthest reaches of the High Umbra. This potent fetish could be used to awaken a new Caern in the image of Hyperion. That same year, the Hyperion Group, a real estate development and investment firm chaired and staffed by some of our most loyal kin, drafted, finalized and broke ground on what would become MarinaBlue: a highrise, high-luxury condominium complex designed, developed, built and staffed by Glass Walker kin, whose upper reaches conceal a gateway to the pocket realm where our Caern is hidden. Invisible to the naked eye. Inaccessible except through the most potent paranormal means. And almost entirely impregnable by the Wyrm.

"Which is, of course, where you stand right now. Everything you're looking at, cubs, is the result of Glass Walker foresight, determination and ingenuity. This is the sort of leadership and initiative that will win the war. And so, these are the standards we expect you to be able to meet by the time you graduate from your cubhood."


Out the side door of the classroom, then, and across the center atrium. "That was Kellen Marchand," Eliana says. "Badass lecturer but she's tough on the grading. I almost failed Art of Persuasion, and it's not even like I don't know how to use Persuasion. I totally do, she just, like, freaked me out and gave me stage fright. She's like, second in command here, and everyone knows if Tosell kicks the bucket Marchand's gonna run an airtight ship.

"So anyway." Back on track, she leads them up one of the slender helices of the staircase, pointing out various parts of the Caern as they rise. "That's the assembly area," the auditorium, "and there's the gym, including pool and sauna and hot tub and boxing ring, which is also our challenge ring. That's the communal housing, though only the freshmen -- like, the new cubs? -- really live there for long. Oh, and the Garou that are busted for whatever reason. Oh, and the Bone Gnawers, they're sooo shameless. And those are meeting rooms, and those are the classrooms where we teach the cubs, you were in B, there's also A C and D, and, oh, upstairs you'll find shrines to our various totems.

"And that," she points at the globe suspended in the atrium, "is the Heart of the Caern, and the seat of Hyperion himself. In the Umbra, of course.

"Okay," at the top of the stairs, Eliana stops, pointing. "Second door on your left is the shrine of Heron, Mr. Vaughn's pack totem. He's chillin' in there waiting for you guys." A flippant wave, and Eliana goes trotting back down the stairs.

The second floor is quieter than the main floor -- fewer people up here, fewer people to dodge and be dodged by. The doors are solid golden oak. Carved onto the second door on the left is a stylized heron in mid-step, bill raised, neck arched.

[Sinclair] When Alex looks at Sinclair in those last few seconds in the elevator, his hand now holding hers, he sees her smile. And her fingers, slender and strong, lace through his as they walk into the Caern.

For what it's worth, Sinclair doesn't look surprised that they are essentially floating god-knows-how-high-up in an invisible 'penthouse'. When she was given the talen, she sort of expected it. She was also sort of surprised that the elevator trip didn't take longer, but it's entirely possible that the spirits activated by the keycard have something to do with that, as well. She doesn't let go of Alex's hand as they walk in, like they're just here on a stroll to sign a new lease agreement or something. Her smile isn't there anymore, but it's not from an effort to walk in at her most Badass.

She does look around. She smiles at the sight of the brass sphere. It feels like it should be daylight, nevermind that it's the middle of the night. He says he's never been here before; she glances at him when she hears his voice but just shrugs as they head towards the receptionist desk.

'Adam' doesn't even need an introduction. But really, who would -- Alex is Mr. Vaughn's identical-fucking-twin and security was alerted they were coming. Sinclair takes it all in stride. When 'Adam' informs Mr. Vaughn that he should have informed them Alex was coming, Sinclair doesn't bristle. Were she a Guardian of a Caern -- or something to that effect -- she'd say the same thing.

Hey, tell Soto to kiss my -- Alex is saying, and at the same moment,

Sinclair is saying: "Mr. Vaughn wasn't informed hi--"

and then Eliana is there, grabbing their arms and popping her gum and swinging them forward. When she first became a Fostern, it's possible that Sinclair would have yanked the cub away, pulled her face-to-face with an incredibly strong Galliard, and snarled at her. When she was a Cliath, it's more than likely that Sinclair would have broken the girl's arm, maybe both of them, and slammed her face to the floor. The capability is still there, and ever stronger with her totem swimming in her aura.

And he does. Perun walks into that Caern with her in a way, a totem of Shadow Lords and ancient storms. Here in a land familiar with hurricanes he rumbles in the back of her soul. In a caern devoted to Hyperion himself, Sinclair comes in and it is literally like there is a dark wall cloud behind her, a harbinger of torrential rain, skies split by lightning, thunder snapping through their eardrums. Given that she looks almost like she descends from Fenrir, more than a few cubs will see her walk by and feel a strange urge to go see Thor again, not knowing why.

Back to the point, however: the capability to snap Eliana in half is still there. But Sinclair is a little older and a great deal wiser, and her self-control more in place. She is strangely calmer, even as her rage remains unchanged, and stops in place, halting their progress a moment. Then she simply -- though very firmly, with a degree of warning in her grip -- removes Eliana's arm from where it's hooked through hers. She keeps her eyes on the cub as she does so, then takes Eliana's arm out from Alex's as well, if Alex or Eliana haven't done it already. She puts her hand back in Alex's, offers her crooked arm to Eliana, and gives a nod that looks like permission with a small smile that looks friendly, given that something about her was distinctly dangerous for a second there.

"After you," she says, and

then they're going.

And Eliana is chattering. Sinclair doesn't interrupt a whit, smiling most of the time in amusement at the cub's prattle. And, frankly, interested in it. She's heard of this Caern, true, but had always assumed Aaron was a part of the sept of the Everglades so she had no real reason to investigate the history of a baby Caern in Florida. Just be quiet, Eliana says of the classroom shortcut, and Alex can see Sinclair pressing her lips together, nostrils flaring a bit with suppressed laughter.

Her eyebrows snap up at the number of cubs in the room. She wonders to herself how many states they came from. She also wonders if the Caern of the Everglades is secretly a sept of fertility and just not telling anybody, because dayum. Sinclair catches the eye of the pinstriped woman up front as they're lurking in the back -- lurking because, though Eliana was zipping them through, Sinclair stopped their progress dead again so she could listen -- and gives a small nod of respect. She has a feeling she can guess the woman's auspice. She also has a feeling as to her rank, and as they stand there listening to the history of this young caern, she also has a thought in the back of her mind. Sinclair files it.

Which is, of course, where you stand right now.. she's saying, and Sinclair looks to Eliana and gives a small nod, sensing the lecture is about to move on to some of those standards the cubs are to aspire to. They continue their trek through Classroom B, and Sinclair gets a name about the lecturer to add to her file. Again she has to suppress a grin at Eliana's rattling, glancing at Alex to share that suppression like a secret as they head up the stairs.

She looks with interest at the gym and challenge 'ring', and she glances up when Eliana mentions the shrines, and she looks at the heart again. Squeezes Alex's hand for some reason as she's looking at the sphere, and then they're up top and Eliana is pointing the way to Heron's shrine and, therefore, Mr. Vaughn, and Eliana is dismissing herself.

"Thank you, Jubilee," Sinclair says, the moniker for the guardian-in-training only half teasing, and looks at Alex again when she's gone. She leans over and, quite brazenly, gives him a small, soft kiss on his cheek. She looks, strangely, more excited than nervous or tense now. More happy than tired. Maybe it's the energy of the place. Maybe it's Eliana making her damn near laugh. Maybe it's just that she's here with Alex and Aaron is in that shrine and she has a sudden brust of confidence that nothing, absolutely nothing, is going to go wrong -- at least, not wrong enough to make a difference.

And unless Alex has something to say just then, Sinclair grips the door handle and pushes it open.

[Alex] That handle turns smoothly under Sinclair's hand. The door opens without any resistance beyond the natural weight of the wood. Where the main floor is wide open, all glass and light and that great, golden sphere of Hyperion, the upper floor is more ensconced. Everything about this place reflects curvature: the staircases, the main floor, the classroom they passed through, the atrium, even this shrine room, which is a semicircle interrupted by the sweep of the outer wall.

And doubtlessly, each shrine room is different. This one reflects Heron's humble, natural origins. The walls are bamboo plank, as are the walkways around the edges, but the center of the room is dominated by a miniature artificial wetland set atop and into a minimalistic stone basin: wildgrass and waterweeds, sandy soil, briny water. There is no representation of Heron to be seen. Rather, the totem is felt in the air itself, a creature of balance and patience and precision.

Which likely says a lot about the man who follows this totem; Alex's twin brother, who stands ankle-deep at the edge of the small pond dedicated to his totem. He turns as the door opens. He's wearing rolled-up jeans and a faded old t-shirt, and he's clean-shaven, thin under those clothes. He looks a couple years younger than his brother. He looks like he might enjoy putting computers together, or speed-solving Rubik's cubes, and he looks like if his Caern totem weren't the goddamn sun, he'd be basement-geek pale. As is, he's nut-brown.

There's a springy athleticism, though, in the way he jumps down from the basin. "Alex! How did you get past Soto?"

"He didn't see me." The brothers clasp hands, hug solidly. Alex pounds Aaron's back a few times, then pushes him to arm's length to take a look at him. "Look at you, you're like a piece of old jerky. Brown, stringy and you smell like shit."

Aaron grabs his shirt and gives it a surreptitious sniff. "No I don't," he says. "It's just brine."

"I'm kidding. Jesus, it's like you've lost all social skills. What the fuck, couldn't you wait til morning? We just got in."

Aaron's eyes flick to Sinclair. "I thought we should get it out of the way." And now he's talking to Sinclair: "It's why you came all this way, isn't it?"

[Sinclair] It's Sinclair who opens the door, and Sinclair who enters first, but it's the brothers who speak, who move. Sinclair steps out of the way for Alex as the door swings closed behind them, and she smiles at the composition of the shrine itself. She watches as Aaron bounds over to Alex, wet-footed, and as they give each other one of the most no-homo-srsly-bro hugs she's ever seen, and she's smiling, slipping her hands into the pockets of her shorts while they greet -- and insult -- each other.

Then Aaron flicks his eyes to her, and Sinclair tips her head to the side, meeting his gaze. "A lot of reasons, but yes. That would be why." Her voice is low, steady, but then she gives a slight shrug, a shake of her head. "But don't blame me, he's the one that keeps trying to propose," she says more lightly, with a jerk of her head towards Alex and a return of that warm, small smile.

She takes her hands out of her pockets and walks over to Aaron, offering him her hand. "It's really good to finally meet you," she says, and for a moment there's no trace of Warcry, Brutal Revelation meeting Nightfall's Edge. Even if that is why they came all this way.

[Alex] There's a sense that no one quite knows how to behave just now. Or at least, Aaron doesn't know quite how to behave, where the lay of the land is, even if he's standing on what more or less amounts to his own land. His pack's, anyway. He takes Sinclair's hand and shakes it, and whether or not Aaron was the one who Changed, it's quite clear who the dominant twin was in this family. There's something almost shy about Aaron's quick grip, though he's otherwise still, self-possessed.

"Same," he says. "But uh... Alex, maybe Sinclair and I should talk alone." Seeing Alex's expression, he adds, "Just for a little bit."

[Sinclair] Maybe it's being packed with a Fang and a Lord for so long now, but Sinclair is getting better and restraint. At holding back not just her temper or her rage or any of that but just... every emotion that used to play out across her face, through her eyes, and straight into her words. She seems calm. Not quite tense or annoyed as she was in the hotel room, not excited or gleeful as she was just outside, but sort of self-possessed and watchful.

She's dressed differently than usual. She's talking to Aaron like a near-equal. She isn't being quite as brusque or glib with him as she might be with her pack, but that's to be expected at this point. But in the end, Alex sees Sinclair around other Garou next to never. He knows her rank because it's on her public profile on the 'net, but he likely has no idea how close she is to Adren -- how, in fact, the spirits speak of her as such, and how her Fosternage is almost a technicality at this point.

In Kansas, Alex's moments alone with Sinclair's parents came about sort of organically. There were four adults, two of them much older, to split things up evenly at times. Sinclair had to pop off into the umbra to chase down her numen once. He knew where he stood with them pretty quickly. They had no power, none, to keep him away from her even if they decided to be dicks about it. And even if Aaron isn't a dick, there's that stickiness to all of this, that knowledge of law and the nation and, as Sinclair readily admitted, pure instinct.

She wonders how close Aaron is to his own. She wonders if he's as conflicted about his instinct versus his conscious love for his brother and understanding of him as she is. Because when they get right down to it, there's an animal in Sinclair that can and will readily, quickly put Aaron on the ground between her jaws til he submits and lets her have her mate. She thinks there might be just as much of a wolf in Aaron that wants her to show her strength, show her worth, do something to prove herself a good mate and guardian.

And yet: there's a reason she didn't just ditch Alex back at the hotel and come here alone. There's a reason why, when Aaron falters and then says maybe they should talk alone, Sinclair is suddenly uncomfortable as well. They both know Alex. They both care about him. And they are both, to almost as much a degree as they are wolves, unwilling to ignore how he feels. Even if it goes against the Way Things Are Done.

Of course there's also this: she walked into this room knowing that she was going to meet a man who looks exactly like Alex, minus tattoos and maybe with different hair but Alex's face and general shape. She wondered, just before she opened the door and stepped inside, how weird that was going to be, but the truth is

he doesn't smell right. He isn't as hard-packed, as firm. His handshake feels to Sinclair -- who is used to the iron fist in a velvet glove of Katherine Bellamonte and the refined, controlled power of Lukas Kvasnicka -- kinda floppy and awkward and her handshake is totally uneven in comparison. His voice keeps making her balk because it sounds so strange coming out of that face. If she were lupusformed her ears would be up and slightly turned back, her eyes narrowed, her tail down and tense with wariness. Then again, if she were lupusformed she would probably be sniffing all over Aaron instead of shaking his hand, but there you are.

Truth be told, from the moment she stepped in, Sinclair has been certain that they could make themselves as physically identical as possible and she'd know. Without needing to scent them, without needing anything but to walk into a room, she'd know. Even if they were both Kin, she'd know. And she'd go to the one that's her mate.

When Eliana tried to separate them -- did, in fact -- Sinclair had a moment where she wanted to dominate the girl until she whined and tucked her tail, wanted to warn her off of ever separating her from her mate again if she wanted to keep her throat,

nevermind that this isn't her sept. That she's a guest. That Alex isn't recognized as her mate yet. It was a conscious decision not to defend what was hers, to stay close to him, wrap herself around him and not let anyone come near him. Sometimes it startles her a little, how conscious that decision has to be. All the time.

Because if she didn't decide not to do that, something between them would be bruised. Maybe even broken. If she defended him the way her instinct tells her to, then he wouldn't be her mate at all. Not in truth.

She wants very much, right now, to ask Aaron if that's really necessary. Or make some remark that makes it seem ludicrous to send Alex out. She wants to snap at him for being such a douchebag and calling them over here in the middle of the fucking night, giving Alex a fucking hug and then kicking him out of the room so the grownups can talk.

Instead she looks at Alex and says: "Hey, you got to have a beer on the porch with my dad, it's only fair," a little too lightly, even if it's true.

Even if it's not, really, the whole truth.

[Alex] Alex is getting put outside to play while the grownups talk. He sure as hell isn't a child, though, and when Sinclair puts it lightly like that -- even though she knows it's not true, even though he knows she knows, and he knows she's doing it because ... well, he doesn't know exactly why, but he can intuit that it has something to do with not caving into her instinct, not being a beast, not being unreasonable -- he bristles.

"It's not the same," he says, "and you know it." And then he wheels on his brother, shoves him in the chest with a sort of thoughtless roughness that's entirely different from the considered, deliberate in-your-face-ness he'd shove anyone else with. "And you're a fucking douchebag."

On that note, he turns and goes out. And Heron's serene little shrine gets treated to a truly thunderous door-slamming on the way out. And Aaron winces a little, but keeps his eyes steady on Sinclair.

He's so much quieter than his brother when he speaks. "Is that what you think too?"

[Sinclair] Sinclair says nothing at Alex's outro. She just watches him, silent, perhaps just accepting -- maybe even agreeing. When he shoves Aaron she bristles as though even if this is his brother, she is ready for the other Garou to lash out, and she is ready to put him down if he does, even if every higher function she has tells her that isn't going to happen and that wouldn't be even remotely okay and she could ruin everything --

The door slams, and the water in the basin ripples slightly, the walls shuddering. Sinclair turns her head again and looks at Aaron, the fucking douchebag. Who is watching her, too.

"I don't know you," she says, matching his tone relatively closely. "I know of your deeds and renown, but that's never the whole story. And I know what Alex has told me, and he's a pretty biased source." There's a slight pause. There's no suggestion, none since she even came into this room, that Aaron is her elder in rank, that she's going to bow and scrape and submit. There's also not a lot of punch-pulling. Her tone is respectful, even sympathetic, but...

well. Aaron knows the name she earned when she won her rank.

"Personally," she goes on, "I think it was a bit dickish to text me the second we got into town, before I'd had a chance to present myself at the caern myself. I think it hurt your brother that you went straight for the Garou and didn't even contact him, and I think you should have known better than that -- known him better than that. I don't think it helped to give him a hug and then kick him out so the grown-ups could talk, either, and since I'm operating under the assumption that you know your twin brother pretty well, I don't understand why you're operating the way you do, and all I have are vague guesses, benefits of the doubt, and a generally strong faith that biased or not, Alex doesn't deal in a lot of bullshit, and you probably don't know how to handle this whole situation any better than he or I do."

Her eyes close and open in a single slow blink. "On the other hand, I think that what he just pulled was a childish overreaction. But we had a really long drive, he's tired, he hasn't dealt with any of these people since the incident with the pictures and the fomori so he's got his hackles up, and there's the aforementioned you-related stuff. For all I know, once he chills out he'll feel like an ass, and I wouldn't be any more surprised by an apology than I would be if he came back in and called you a douchebag again."

Another beat. "So in summary, to answer your question: I think if you're anything like Alex, then yeah, sometimes you're a douchebag. But so is everyone, to varying degrees of intention." She pauses, and takes a short breath. "But I don't believe that's who you are."

[Alex] Sinclair wouldn't need eyes, wouldn't need ears, might not even need a nose to be able to tell Alex from his brother. They're different in just about every way, even if they more or less wear the same face. The man that just stomped out is loud, cocky, foolhardy, arrogant. The man that stays behind is quiet, considered, introverted and -- this much must be admittedly -- will never be a leader. A mediator, certainly; a counselor, perhaps even a judge. But not a leader. And he's surely not the alpha of his tribe, or even his pack; might not even be the beta. This sort of thing -- challenges, decisions, claims, stuff -- is not his purview.

In Chicago, elders are so few and kin-related matters so commonplace that almost every Garou faces such an event sooner or later. Out here, things are different. This might well be the first time Aaron has had to deal with kin business. And not just any kin, but his own brother. He's uncertain of himself. His place. Uncertain of what to do. Uncertain of Sinclair.

Certain of this, though: "I know my brother."

That, too, is quiet. Not a boast, nor a challenge, but a statement. And a lead-in. "I know what he's like. I know it pissed him off when I contacted you first, and when I asked if you wanted to meet, and when I sent him out. It's not even entirely that he feels like a second-class citizen, I don't think. It's that it's another reminder that we're different.

"And no. He doesn't deal in bullshit, but god, he can be stubborn. And short-tempered. Sometimes there's just no filter between his brain and his mouth. And sometimes he deliberately filters out everything he should say and leaves in everything he shouldn't. You know about the 'incident' with the pictures, so you've got to know all this yourself, already. But you have to understand, I'm not dredging it all up to insult him behind his back. I'm saying it because I know him, but I don't know you. I don't know that I can trust you not to overreact.

"And I wanted to talk to you tonight, alone, because I need to know. You guys are talking about proposals and making cross-country trips. And I need to know my brother is safe with you."

[Sinclair] At first, nothing Aaron says gets much of a reaction from Sinclair. She figured. And in a way, Aaron is explaining to her what she said she didn't understand: why, if he understands his own brother, would he do things the way he has? But when he acknowledges that deep, painful scar it was difficult for Alex to admit even when they were talking about such deep, painful things, a faint wince flickers through her expression. No, not a wince; something else, a pang through her viscera. An ache.

another reminder that we're different.

It's hard, all the same, not to smile at the description of Alex. Stubborn, short-tempered, no filter, the deliberate decision to leave out all the good and throw in all the bad. She actually blinks, a little taken aback, when Aaron tells her not to think he's dredging it up to insult Alex behind his back -- she wants to tell him she didn't think that, but he's still talking, and she doesn't interrupt.

And he gets to his point. Sinclair is silent for a few moments. Because there it is. Aaron did contact her some time ago, or she got in touch with him -- it was because she and Alex were dating, and Aaron looked her up, and here was a Fostern who had been twice Wyrm-ridden, who had snapped a pack in half just before engaging an enemy, who had carried the Stone of Scorn, who held no particular office in her sept or her pack other than showing up steadfastly and killing damn near everything in her path. A Garou who has left a long string of people in her wake who would gladly testify that she is batshit psycho-killer crazy, man, I'm not even kidding.

Sinclair watches him for that moment. Then, without wavering, just says, with a tone of acceptance, and -- in a way -- submission: "What do you want me to do?"

[Alex] Aaron's laugh is quick, reflexive, and not really a laugh at all. "I don't know," he says. "I wish I had a cut and dry test for you. Do this and I'll trust you. Do this and I'll respect you. Do this and I'll be satisfied. I wish, but I don't."

Here's a point of similarity. Just a flicker between the two men that ties them together as brothers, sons of the same blood. It's something in the way Aaron folds his arms across his chest, tucking his hands under his biceps -- a small, self-protective stance, not at all the squared-off, grumpy stance Alex took in the elevator. But still. Similar. Rooted in the same sense of turmoil and insecurity. And in a way, more honest than Alex's blustering was, because the vulnerability is so much clearer in Aaron.

"If I ask you to never hurt my brother," he says, "it'll take your entire life to prove to me that you won't. The best you can do right now is tell me you haven't yet. But I can say that too, and I can say it's a long, long way from haven't yet to never will. So how do I test something like that? How do I get an answer in the next ten, twenty minutes that I can live with for the rest of my life?

"I'm honestly asking you, because I don't know. How would you do it?"

[Sinclair] She doesn't laugh with him, even as a kneejerk reaction, even as a stress reliever. She recognizes the self-protection in the stance Aaron takes because she recognizes it as self-protection every time Alex does it, even if that's not what he means it to look like. Sinclair is the last person who is going to really lay much fault on someone for concealing their vulnerability, their softness, with aggression. It's a large part of why she and Alex work. Why they understand each other. How they know when and when not to push.

When Aaron is done talking, Sinclair gives another one of those slow blinks that marks her as a predator. Maybe a latent, sleepy one, maybe a patient one, but she's something of a vicious animal.

And a very wise Galliard, in the end.

"That's not how it works," she says quietly, almost gently, but that's only answer to him asking her how she'd do it. "And beyond that, I don't have any brothers or sisters. On the rare occasions that Garou in Chicago decided for some reason that I was the person to ask for permission to take up with a Glass Walker kinfolk, I gave them a flat-out no if they were of another tribe and -- well, this never happened, but if a Glass Walker had come to me to see if they could take up with a Glass Walker kinfolk I would have said what the fuck, man, go ask their closest Garou relative and leave me out of it."

She shakes her head. "But tell you the truth, I think every Garou who cares about their daughter or son or brother or sister or grandchild or whatever wants to know they'll be safe with a raging doommonster who has the capacity to turn into a soulless cannibal as often as not. And since we all know there's no way to make promises against that, we just hope. Same as you'd hope that Alex doesn't get killed because any Garou he encounters doesn't -- or can't -- stop themselves and he's a handy target."

Her brow furrows a little. She's quiet a moment.

"Aaron --" maybe it matters that she calls him by his first name, and not his deedname, not -rhya, "look. There are ways to test a Garou's control and restraint, but it's not a test you want. It's very likely lethal, it's a dishonorable way to test one's honor, and since the only way it ends is either to push until they fail or give up before everyone gets slaughtered, it will never let you rest easy. Neither of us want that sort of thing. So just..."

Sinclair takes a deep breath. "I'm a good mate," she blurts out, sudden and earnest. "Maybe not for anyone else but for Alex? Absolutely. I'm nearly as strong as most Ahrouns of my rank and even stronger than some. I have wisdom enough to give counsel to Philodoxes who are my elders and they heed it. I take punishment when it's deserved and I've taken plenty of shit that wasn't, too. The spirits recognize me as an Adren and one of the only reasons I haven't challenged yet is because then I'd be the same rank as the Grand Elder of the sept my pack is a part of and it's kind of intimidating to think wow, really, I could probably look at him and say 'I respect your argument, but look at all the fucks I give' and challenge him for his post and nobody could really stop me and that's kind of a big deal, y'know? It's heavy and I'm not sure I'm ready to be that yet."

She takes a breath. Needs one, by now. And gets back on track: "But you could know all that by looking at the net or talking to a spirit. What you need to understand is that Alex picked me. And he didn't want anyone. But he wants me. He trusts me enough to argue with me without being afraid of me and believe me, some days we work our asses off to make sure we don't hurt each other somehow." A beat. Something comical in this: "We take a lot of walks." Something not at all comical in this: "We make each other laugh a lot. We make each other happy. We make each other... better."

Sinclair reaches up and rubs her brow with the heels of her hand for a second, then drops her arms. "I just... want to be with him. And Alex hates it, but aside from him, I need you to say it's okay. I need you to say he's mine, and so I always have the right to defend him and stay with him and tear to shreds anything that tries to take him away or hurt him,"

a viciousness in those words, a gnashing and roaring reality, a brutal truth,

"because that's what I'd do anyway."

Her shoulders round down slightly. "I'll meet any fair challenge I'm set. I'll appeal to your Master of Challenges if I think your challenge is unfair. And if it started to seem like I was too dangerous for him to be near me all the time I'd live away from him most of the time to make sure he was safe but I wouldn't give him up. Not if he's mine. And I want him to be mine."

Quietly, at the end: "Cuz even if he's not, I'm his."

[Alex] Sinclair tells Aaron a lot. In a way, she probably tells him more than she'd tell any other Garou she met ten minutes ago. More than he'd asked for. More than he'd known he needed to hear.

And he does listen. Through all of it, the quiet Philodox listens, arms folded protectively over his thin chest, keen eyes -- so like his brother's -- fixed on her face. His brow furrows a little when she blurts out that she's a good mate like she can't hold it back anymore. He doesn't seem too interested when she speaks of her strength and wisdom and rank, but he's keenly, achingly interesting when she says

Alex picked me. He wants me. He trusts me. We work our asses off.

Aaron doesn't have a mate yet. He might never have a mate. He could die tomorrow; he could die fifty years from now. That has almost no bearing on it, but his personality, his intrinsic stillness and introversion -- that matters. Perhaps he doesn't even quite understand the sort of emotion, attraction, that beats in the hot-blooded hearts of his brother and his brother's girlfriend. He does, however, understand love.

And -- as little as his demeanor may show it -- he understands that sort of vicious, snarling protectiveness. He is, after all, a wolf.


When she's finished, Aaron turns away. He tucks his hands into his pockets instead, his back a little bent, shoulders a little stooped. He walks a few steps around that wide stone basin that contains Heron's wetland shrine. He puts his hand on the edge, where the stone lip meets the sandy soil. He looks toward the empty center of the shrine for a moment, and then back to Sinclair.

"You know," he says quietly, "I think maybe I'm not even really looking for you to assure me that if you could, you'd die protecting my brother from anything. Even yourself. I already know that. You're here. He's here. That means something.

"And you don't have to justify who or what you are to me. I read up on you a long time ago, and I've kept an eye out. I know about all the shit people say about you, and I know about all the good stuff too. I've put it all on a scale and weighed it, and I know which way it tips. For me, anyway. So ... at the end of the day, I don't think I'm really here to satisfy some need to know that you're a good Garou, a good woman, and good for my brother. I already know that, too.

"I think maybe what I'm looking for -- what I'm really looking for -- is some acknowledgment that ... "

Aaron trails off for a moment. He frowns at the tiny brine-pond, the ground, Sinclair. When he speaks again, it's almost abrupt.

"Do you believe I love my brother? And that just like you, I'd do whatever it takes to keep him safe from anyone, even myself?"

[Sinclair] As Aaron muses close to his totem's shrine, Sinclair feels two things keenly: impatience -- though he waited for her to think during her speech, and though she came all this way -- because she wants Alex to come back, they have to settle that even after they settle this and she's not foolish enough to think they can just throw open the door and tell Alex everything is fine because he is going to have Shit To Say.

The other thing she feels is a pang of homesickness, though she so recently visited Chicago. Because as crazy as she is about San Diego and as glad as she would be to stay there, she'd only stay there if her whole pack transplanted, too. And they wouldn't belong there. Seeing Aaron with his totem's place of worship makes her miss sitting atop Perun's stone with the others, clumped together in homid or lupus, keeping each other warm, talking about the storms, the sky, and each other.

God, she misses her pack.

Aaron is asking her for something. And she perks inside, ears up, tail up, eyes wide. Challenge. Something she can do. She meets his eyes. She frowns, slightly. "I don't know how you couldn't love your brother."

[Alex] "I can't," Aaron replies simply. "He's my brother. We've been together since before we were born. He's protected me since we were kids. I'll protect him til the day I die. And I can stand here and tell you all that and not a Philodox in the Sept will call me a liar. But this is also the truth: that that one time. That incident with the pictures, and the fomori, and the inquisition that followed it? When I looked in his eyes and saw that it wasn't that he didn't get it. Or even that he genuinely wasn't sorry. It was just his goddamn pride, it was just that he wouldn't give up even when he was wrong --

"I had to get out of the room, Sinclair. I had to go before I tore him in half myself."

There's a stillness after that. Aaron can't bear to look at Sinclair right now. He looks away, his face tight, brow furrowed. "Me," he says eventually. "With my low rage and my still heart and all the training I've ever had to be fair, to be just, to be calm, to be evenhanded. Me, with every fiber of my body split from my brother's."

A pause. Then he looks at Sinclair again, and now calm. And level. And even.

"So this is what I want from you, Brutal Revelation. I'm not going to make threats. I'm not going to make promises of retribution. I just want you to look at me and tell me that you understand. That you know whatever our better intentions, whatever we promise, whatever we hope, whatever we want, that sometimes it's just not possible for us to be what we want to be. Sometimes we have a bad day. Sometimes it's not even that big a deal, but we just can't control ourselves. Sometimes we can't hold back. Sometimes we screw up, and our loved ones pay the price. And if that happens to you, it'll break you in half. You'll never, ever be the same again.

"Can you understand that risk? Can you accept that responsibility?"

[Sinclair] Aaron's retelling of the story Alex gave her on the elevator ride up is like looking through a window and, when a breeze lifts branches out of the way, finally seeing the view. Look, there's the thin blue line of the sea on the horizon, where before you saw only endless sky.

He wanted to tear his twin brother in half. And Sinclair can see how that weighs on him. She keeps her eyes on him, and when Aaron is able to look at her again, she's right there.

Nightfall's Edge gives her his challenge, such as it is. And Sinclair is quiet a moment. She looks over her shoulder at the door, then at the Philodox. "You know what there is to know about me that's public record," she says. "That I wasn't fast-tracked after the first forty-eight because I was too volatile. That the Walkers in San Diego kept me on the sort of surveillance and schedule they use in prisons." A beat. "What isn't in the reports is that even after I earned my name, I didn't go anywhere near my parents for something like three years. After what happened with the Wyrm's Valet I pretty much avoided any Kinfolk, and kept doing so until Alex and I got back together. Because I've known since even before I Changed that I was dangerous.

"And I've grown up and I've learned more control and I've let myself have my family again, but what I'm trying to tell you is that I've understood that risk since I was a cub -- better, I think, than any cub you have in this building right now, in fact. I literally write and carve reminders of those risks into my body. But I always hid from it, which isn't the same as accepting it.

"Until I was with Alex. Your brother is the sole reason I found the courage to go back to my family. And I don't know if you can even understand this, but... when he and I split up, I started hiding from all of that again. Then we got back together and I wasn't afraid of it anymore. Aaron... Alex is what makes me able to shoulder that responsibility."

She's quiet, for a moment. Then she nods. "So yes. I can."

[Alex] What Aaron said last sounded like the pinnacle, the crux, the Final Question (tm). As it turns out, it isn't. Sinclair speaks, and he listens, and when she's finished he has another question --

"If Alex makes you capable of shouldering that responsibility," and for what it's worth, his tone is quiet; he's well aware of how painful this question is, "then what happens if he's not there anymore?"

[Sinclair] "Then I fall apart inside," Sinclair answers, without pausing to think, because she doesn't need to stop to think. She's been there. Her eyes don't waver. Perhaps more importantly, neither does her voice. She won't undergo a challenge just to win it -- and this is a challenge, though easier in some ways than the one for her rank and harder to consider failing -- and she won't lie in order to do so. She's not telling Aaron what he wants to hear. She's telling him the truth, and hoping the truth is what makes her worthy.

"And keep fighting. And doing my duty. Just like before, when we broke up and he left the state," because this is also true, and this is also what she did. "Aaron..." this time she hesitates, and her tone softens a bit. "If Alex wanted to leave, I wouldn't stop him. If he died, I'd... never take another mate. I wouldn't be able to. But I'd be able to care for my Kinfolk. I kept my distance from those who weren't my own when we were separated, but I still protected them when they were in danger. I still went home to my family and brought my cousins into the Nation. I... admit, I was distant. I didn't even talk to Kin in general if I could avoid it. But if something happened to him?"

She takes a breath. "I wouldn't be as good. But I'd keep going."

[Alex] Aaron's smile is slight and sad. Young as he looks, there's a maturity in it that his brother still doesn't have. Is learning now, though, slowly but surely.

"That's the best anyone can do," he says gently. "And it's good enough for me. Let's go call Alex back in before he detonates out there. Or throws a shoe at Soto or something." Walking toward the door, "That's the Warder, by the way. Amado de Soto, Shakes the Sky. You know how on GWChat we can stick little status messages on?" The corners of Aaron's mouth turn up irrepressibly. "One time Alex got ahold of Soto's login info and changed the password on him. Then he kept hanging around GWChat with bogus statuses. So we kept seeing 'ShakesTheSky ... with farts.' Or, 'ShakesTheSky ... snoring'. Soto was livid."

Aaron pulls the door open. Lets Sinclair go to Alex first.

[Sinclair] Sinclair is younger than Alex by several years. And there are times even now when her maturity -- if not necessarily her experience in 'normal' life -- eclipses his. It's the way of the Nation. It's why it matters less and less as time goes by that she's so much younger, why it's not so noticable. She's not just his twenty-odd year-old girlfriend, she's a near-Adren of their tribe and especially in the sept of Maelstrom, that holds a certain weight.

Aaron gives a slight smile. Sinclair returns it; there's an ache in both those expressions. If nothing else, if they only met ten minutes ago, there is this: neither of them want to talk, ever again, about what happens if Something Happens to Alex.

They move on, and Aaron tells her about this Soto guy. Sinclair huffs a laugh and moves with him towards the door, a quirk at the corner of her mouth. They open the door, and she peers outside, looking for Alex. If he's within reach, she grabs the shoulder of his shirt to drag him back inside.

[Alex] Alex isn't quite within arm's reach, but he's pacing the hall outside -- making laps around that broad open-centered balcony, orbiting Hyperion's sphere like a planetoid. When he hears Heron's door open, he's about a third of the way around the edge. Turns sharply, comes back. Gives his brother a sour look.

"You guys done? My future all good and decided?" If Sinclair reaches for the shoulder of his shirt, he lets her drag him in, but this might well count as one of those times where Sinclair is acting a hell lot more mature than he is. "I just love driving across the country to get put outside while the grownups talk."

[Sinclair] With Alex not in reach, Sinclair pokes her head out and shouts: "Alex! Hey!" and he stomps back, storm-faced and ...well. Not happy. But she didn't think he would be. She also doesn't laugh at him when he comes back and she grabs hold of him, tugging him inside because even if he's angry and she doesn't blame him, she's happy. She's excited.

Alex snaps about them deciding his future and driving across the country to get put outside. Sinclair, who when they first met would have been furious, who even around the time they broke up would have been terribly wounded, wraps her arms around his shoulders and neck and buries her face against him.

[Alex] That doesn't dissuade him from grumbling -- not at first, anyway. Sinclair more or less glomps him. Alex's arms go around her automatically, but he keeps grumping at Aaron over her shoulder, asking him how he'd like it if tables were turned, demanding to know what the fuck, really, could be so ubersecret and important that they had to talk alone, wanting to know why the hell a conversation about him couldn't involve him.

Aaron's patient and quiet through all of it. Sinclair gets the feeling that's how he deals with many a pissed-off individual: keep his mouth shut, keep his head level, and wait for them to exhaust themselves beating against his imperturbable facade. And eventually, Alex does run out of steam. He calls Aaron a douchebag again. He grumbles a little more. And then he kisses Sinclair on the temple, gives her a squeeze, and takes a deep breath in the circle of her arms.

"So we're cool now? Or what?"

[Sinclair] Actually, there isn't a whole lot of grumbling. Sinclair does glomp Alex, and he's glaring at his brother over her shoulder, but after he gets past the tables-turned comment and starts to move into the next one, she interjects with a sudden: "God. Alex, just shut the fuck up for a second you'rebeingadouchebag," all in one breath. Her arms tighten around him.

Her face is mostly hidden, so neither of them see it, but she gives an audible sniff.

[Alex] "I mean seriously," Alex is saying, fiery, "what the fuck, really, could be so ubersecret and important -- wait. Are you crying? Is she crying? Did you make my girlfriend cry? You dickhead, what the fuck did you say?"

Aaron holds his hands up. "I have nothing to do with that."

[Sinclair] "Yes I'm crying, you asshat," Sinclair says adamantly, "Jesus Christ." She pulls back, and she's not all tear-streaked and messy but she's sniffled, and her eyes are damp. "And you're stomping in here all REHREHREHREHREH instead of HEY I GET TO MARRY YOU, REALLY, THAT'S SO AWESOME."

She smacks his chest, forcing the tears back, sniffing hard one last time and blinking several times. "Stop yelling at your brother and just... fucking group hug or something, Jesus."

Oh, it's all light. There's a lightness to all of this, and on some level it's a pretense. Beneath that is the hard reality that she's not entirely sure Aaron and she were right to try and protect Alex from during that conversation. There's the truth of the matter, which is that it was actually quite a bit like Alex talking to her father. And there's the other truth: it wasn't the same. Not at its core.

Aaron gave up something, something real, moments ago. And Sinclair gained something. Even if that 'something' wasn't Alex himself.

She comes close again, wrapping her arms around his waist this time, closing her eyes and holding him. It doesn't matter that Aaron is standing right there. Sure, it matters that Alex's anger has a kernel of truth to it. But right now, it isn't what matters most. Not to her.

[Alex] Sinclair's hand lands with the sort of meaty smack that brings to mind sides of beef. Alex desn't even grunt. He glares at Aaron a little longer, and then puts his hand out.

"All right, get over here so we can group hug." Aaron comes rather willingly; the hug he gives is genuine, heartfelt. The one Alex gives is begrudging, but when they come apart his hand stays on his brother's neck, holding him eye to eye for a moment.

His other hand is on Sinclair's back. He's holding her against his body like she's the vulnerable one.

"Listen," he says to Aaron, "I get that some shit needs to be said between you guys because you're not human and never will be. I don't really understand it, but I get it. But you coulda said it in front of me. I'm a big boy. I can handle hearing whatever terms you guys had to discuss, or whatever."

"I know you can handle it," Aaron says. His hand comes up. He grips his brother's wrist for a moment. "It's just that I can't handle you hearing some of what I had to say."

"What the hell does -- "

"Look, we'll talk about it again tomorrow, okay? And I'll see you at mom and dad's too. I'll tell you, I promise. But I gotta ... get back to work and stuff. We'll talk again tomorrow." Aaron's backing away already; there's something wistful about his smile. "You guys should talk. And celebrate."

And then he's gone, turning and walking out the door, shutting it quietly behind him. Alex puts both arms around Sinclair; lowers his nose to her hair a moment, a little puzzled, quiet himself now. Then, "So ... he's cool with it? We're really good to go?"

[Sinclair] Right now, most of what Sinclair wants to do is just hold onto Alex. So that is what she does. She isn't crying, not really, and she isn't angry, not really. She half-expected Aaron to get hugged, and so when his body -- which does not feel or smell like Alex's body at all -- comes over, she doesn't try to envelope him as well. But she stays close to Alex, and Alex pulls Aaron close, and for a few seconds they all just stand like there, a clump of Glass Walkers. She turns her head as Aaron draws back, and her cheek is against Alex's heartbeat, and she watches them in profile, two near-identical faces just a couple of inches apart.

What he has to say, he says to Aaron -- who made the suggestion that Alex leave. Sinclair doesn't take it personally because she agreed to what Aaron asked for. The truth is, she wouldn't have asked Alex to step outside, but a part of her was glad that Aaron did. She also might have tried to find time, later on with his parents around, to talk to Aaron privately. Alex says he gets it, he doesn't understand it, but he gets it, and her arms hold him tightly, a brief and subtle squeeze. Something like appreciation, maybe.

I can handle hearing it, he says, and Sinclair opens her mouth, pulling her head back, but the words she has to say

come out of Aaron's mouth.

Alex has to notice it. The way that she looks at him to speak, then Aaron says it and she looks quickly over at the Philodox, her eyes in a long sidelong glance for a moment. She draws away from Alex, and her hand goes into his, never once entirely losing contact with him. Not right now. She watches as Aaron says no, they'll talk later. This is his pack's shrine, this is his territory and she watches the way he pulls back, he has to get back to work, tells them to talk and celebrate and --

"No, we should head out. We still need to eat some real food and get back to the hotel," she says. "Stay. We'll see you tomorrow at your parents' place."

She's already moving, her hand holding Alex's. They give a brief farewell before they leave the shrine, closing the door behind them, but outside Alex stops her as she's walking, drawing her back to him. It's quieter up on this level, not as busy, but the caern still buzzes around them with brightness and energy, a sept that never sleeps because in a way, it's always daylight. She goes easily into his arms, her eyes closing briefly at the way he embraces her, breathes her in, and she can sense the ache in him just as she sensed it in Aaron, wonders if the brothers themselves even grasp their own pain entirely and choose to repress it, or if they aren't quite sure why that old bruise, that old break in the bone, is suddenly throbbing.

Her arms go around him, softer than before, nodding as she stands on her toes to rest her chin on his shoulder. "Yeah," she says softly. "Let's go grab something quick to go on the way back to the hotel. I'll tell you about it there, okay?"

[Alex] Aaron doesn't protest when Sinclair decides that, no, they should be the ones leaving. She understands: it's not really about giving them privacy to talk and celebrate, really. It's about Aaron's own privacy; Aaron's need to be alone right now because he has, in fact, lost something.

So Alex and Sinclair walk out, and the door closes behind them, and Aaron stays with his totem. The heron in the door is still frozen in midstep, elegant and neat. They hug each other outside like they've survived something, or gained something. Each other, perhaps. Or maybe it's not nearly so formed, so discrete, in Alex's mind. Maybe he's just hugging her because -- concrete, in-the-moment creature that he is -- he feels like he needs to comfort his crying girlfriend.

She's not crying anymore when they draw apart. He nods to her request -- food, shelter -- and he glances back just once before they head downstairs. They descend by one of those three staircases, so far-flung around this second-floor balcony; twining together at their base. It turns out Sinclair doesn't need sunscreen after all. She stays with Alex, and she doesn't cross over.

On their way out, they glimpse Eliana standing with a group of new cubs, arms folded authoritatively over her chest, animatedly laying down the law, occasionally unfolding her arms to tick off main points on her fingers. And they see a man that can only be Amado de Soto: standing in the now-open door of the security center, medium height, broad through the chest, with a sunbaked face that's all bone and gristle and burning black eyes. He glares at them as they leave.

They don't meet Marchand again. She's apparently too important to loiter about.


Halfway back to the hotel, they stop at a Cuban joint for beef and beans and rice. Alex says he misses Surf Taco, which might simply be code for:

I miss home.


And back in the hotel, they're suddenly tired. They peel off their shoes and clothes and socks, drop their cell phones and keys and paraphernalia on the nightstands. Alex adjusts the thermostat, and Sinclair closes the drapes, and they flop into bed and tangle up in each other and lie facing each other, a few inches apart, heads on the same pillow.

This is how they talk. Almost as close as can be. In contact. Eyes on each other, voices soft.

[Sinclair] To be perfectly fair, Sinclair hasn't been crying for at least a few minutes when Alex stands outside and holds her. The tears were hot and fast and aching and, most of all, happy. Because she has, in fact, gained something. So she holds him tightly for a little while, as though to remind herself, as though to cement herself in this moment, and then they walk out.

They go down the spiraling staircases. They pass the brass sphere to represents a shrine to their totem, the heart of their caern. They are watched by Soto; Sinclair looks over and meets the Warder's glaring eyes and simply gives a single nod of respect even when there's a definite part of her that wants to snarl at him, glare right back, warn him off. She's wiser than that, though.

Seeing Eliana, her mouth quirks to the side, and she grins as they head to the elevator

and go down.


The Cuban joint is not quite as empty as one would expect around 1 am. There are plenty of people shuffling around for late-night food, and when Alex says he misses Surf Taco, which may or may not be code, Sinclair says: Me too, which is the truth either way.


All the weariness of the drive comes rushing back like the waves that Florida never gets when they return to the hotel, and Sinclair is yawning as she slips out of her cropped blazer, peels out of her camisole and bra, drops her shorts, and wiggles out of her panties. She wipes the eyeliner off her face and crawls under the covers with Alex as the air conditioner comes whooshing on. He joins her, and finds her deceptively slender and soft arms sliding around him. Their legs intertwine. Sinclair rests her head on the pillow.

This is how they sleep at home, and on the road, and in sleeping bags. This is the way they have ever since the first time they fucked, and this is why they could get away with sharing a twin bed at her parents' house without any special discomfort. They stay close, and she tells him what happened after he left Heron's shrine.

That after Alex called Aaron a douchebag, Aaron asked her if she thought that, too. That she told him she didn't know him, but that she thought the way he contacted her first was dickish, and it probably didn't help that he kicked him out right after saying hello. She tells him almost everything she said to Aaron after that first question, which didn't even seem challenging, because there was nothing formal about it -- she mentions that, too. That there was no formality, no circle in the installed wetland drawn, no trial or flaming hoops she had to jump through.

Unflinchingly, she tells Alex what she told Aaron: that she thinks Alex storming out was kind of childish and overreactive, but that she got it. Because they were tired, because of what all this was, because of the sept, because his hackles were up. She couldn't really blame him any more than she could blame Aaron for a few dick moves.

Sinclair says Aaron brought up the incident with the pictures, because he wanted to know that Alex would be safe with her. And here some of that ache comes out, and her hand is on his on the mattress between them, just because of the topic. But she keeps talking.

She asked Aaron what he wanted her to do, that Aaron didn't know how he could test something like that, magically trust her after a challenge, that they can't make promises it will take forever to keep. That being able to say I haven't hurt him... yet only goes so far. Sinclair pauses there, watching Alex, then goes on ahead:

"He said he could say that of himself, too," and maybe there's a whole world of information she isn't giving behind that, but it doesn't matter, because she keeps telling him the story. Her answer mentioning one way she knows of pushing a Garou and pushing them to test their restraint, but it's lethal and dishonorable.

Softly, the Galliard tells him that she told Aaron that she was a good mate. Strong and wise and humble and renowned and in the end, simply, good for Alex. Maybe not for anyone else, not like this, but for Alex, a good mate. That, unthinkably, Alex picked her when he didn't even want something like this, bucked it and resisted it every step of the way, but now he wants her. Trusts her, argues with her.

"I told him how we've been dealing with it whenever we get into a fight or I start to lose it or you know that you're going to start running your mouth off at me. And I don't think he cared much about what a good Garou I am, but I think that made a little bit of a difference -- that we aren't over here pretending that instead of slamming a door when we get into it and you say a certain word in some tone or whatever that sets me off, I might turn into a monster. I told him basically that we face that reality, and treat it with respect, but don't let it control everything between us."

Sinclair isn't flippant, saying that. She takes a breath. "I also told him I'd protect you from anything --" a nice way of rephrasing that she mentioned tearing things to shreds, "-- and that if some day in the future it became too dangerous for me to be near you all the time, I wouldn't give you up but I'd live away from you if I had to." There's a long pause. "I told him later on while we talked that I wouldn't stop you if you ever wanted to leave."

Coming closer -- which is still possible, if only by a few inches -- she rests her head close to his. "Some of what Aaron said in there I think you should hear from him if you hear it at all. So you can talk to him about that if you want, because it isn't my place to. But he wanted me to tell him that I understood what I was doing. What it would do to me if all my good intentions and promises and hopes fell away because one day it just wasn't possible for me to hold back." Her eyes are on his shoulder, blue and fair and like the sky they won't see til well past dawn. "He just wanted to know if I could accept that responsibility.

"And I told him I've been living with that since before my Change. That for years I hid from it and stayed away from Kinfolk because I couldn't take on that responsibility. And that changed when I was with you."

Alex knows she didn't see her family for years before that visit the summer they broke up, because she told him before she left. He knows that she was nervewracked over it, not sure if she could handle it, and he said the things he said to her then and she came back to him and told him they wanted to meet him and then a few weeks later all hell broke lose, and they broke up.

Sinclair sniffs. Yawns. Meets his eyes again. "I told your brother that being with you is what makes me able to handle it. Like... every day I'm with you I believe more that I don't need to keep myself away from Kin or my family because I can handle this day-in, day-out thing where I'm sharing my territory and getting riled up every so often and if I can live with the fact that that's dangerous but I do it anyway and I make myself learn when I have to just go so I don't hurt you -- then I know I can live with that responsibility to the rest of my family. And Kin.

"So he asked me what happened if you weren't there anymore." Sinclair is quiet then for a few seconds, watching Alex, staring into his hazel eyes and thinking they're like new, like she's never seen them before, but that's silly.

"I told him I'd keep going. Just like before. Do my duty and protect my Kin and fight with my pack." Sinclair doesn't say a few other things. That she'd fall apart inside. That she'd never take another mate if Alex died -- perhaps, probably not even if he chose to leave her. The truth is, she doesn't know if he'd understand. She knows it might hurt him to hear that, to think of her like that, and she doesn't tell him what is, in essence: something in me would break forever if I lost you. "I told him I wouldn't be as good as when I'm with you. But I'd keep going."

A long, silent pause. "And he said that was the best anyone could do, and it was good enough for him, and then he told me what you did to Soto and we pulled you back inside."

[Alex] In bed, entwined, Alex listens as Sinclair speaks. Sinclair's hardly your average Galliard -- she doesn't sing all her tales, she doesn't do interpretive dance at moots, she doesn't stand up every single moot and tell some sort of Meaningful Story. For the most part, she thinks of herself more as a historian and recordkeeper than as an entertainer. The acuity and accuracy of her memory, though, is no small matter. When she says she'll tell Alex everything when she gets back to the motel -- well. She meant it.

And so she tells him. And so he listens, his brow furrowing now and then; his eyes reflecting ache now and then. Often, actually. When she talks about facing reality. Treating it with respect. When she talks about living away from him if she had to. Not stopping him if he wanted to leave. Things that seem an impossibility right now when they're both young and happy and relatively free of responsibility -- but they've both seen older Garou, stronger Garou, Garou turned rageful and cold by their duty and their burdens.

It's hard to imagine someone like Kellen Marchand going home to cuddle with her mate like this. It's hard to imagine someone like Amado de Soto having a mate at all. And they don't even need to look so far as that. Within the circle of Sinclair's own pack, three have never been mated. One let her mate and child die because the war was more important.


And -- when Sinclair tells Alex that Aaron asked what would happen if he wasn't there anymore, a frown flicks hard across his face like a spasm. He takes a breath, perhaps to say I can't believe..., but she goes on. He listens, and as he listens that flare of temper subsides into a sort of dull, twisting pain. He puts his hand on Sinclair's face. She doesn't say it, that heartbreaking truth, but he touches her face anyway, touches her and keeps her near.

"I know," he says quietly when she's finished -- in the space of that long silence, that pause. And they shift a little closer still, until their faces are all but touching, their breath shared. At the end there's a bit of levity. He laughs quietly, says something about Soto deserving it, and then --

closes his eyes and puts his forehead against hers for a while.

[Sinclair] It's so hard to imagine Sinclair as one of those cold, hard, brutal Garou. As strong as she is, as much as brutality is a part of her being and her name and her honesty, she's... not cold. Especially with Alex, she's so goddamn warm. She's cuddly. She sleeps like a stone and makes little noises while she's unconscious when he gets up to move away and go for a run, though he's long since learned those noises have absolutely nothing to do with a rousing to wakefulness and simply a protest that her cozy-thing is getting up and walking away.

Alex being the cozy-thing, of course.

It's nearly impossible to imagine her being someone like Marchand. Or Soto. Even if she gets older. Because as she gets older, even with her rage, it's easier to imagine Sinclair getting more like her mother and father, staying friendly and warm even if there's a firmity and guardedness underneath it all, a strength that takes no bullshit. Still: one has to wonder if in two years, in five, if Sinclair will wriggle close to Alex and nomf his bicep and inform him, when he quirks a brow and grins at her, that he should make pancakes.

If Sinclair will even be alive then.


Alex's hand comes to her cheek, and she's glad of it, because she was thinking of doing the same to him a minute ago. Her eyes soften; strangely, some of the ache leaves them, rather than getting more acute.

Sinclair leans forward, when he laughs softly, and she kisses him. It's very gentle, and followed by a nuzzle across his cheek. She lays back down and lays brow-to-brow with him for awhile, but

after awhile, she whispers:

"If you want to talk, I'm here. But right now, maybe we should go to sleep."

[Alex] "I don't need to talk," he replies, whispering also. Sometimes they do this, even though there's no one around to hear them. Sometimes they whisper just because it's one more way for them to be close.

And private. And safe. And warm. Because they are so very warm with each other. It's not something anyone who knows either of them in what might be termed their 'professional' lives would think of them. It's not a face they show to others. It's something that's just theirs, and special, and worth protecting.

"I'm not angry anymore," he says. "I wasn't really that angry, anyway. I just ... didn't like being left out. Or cut off from you guys. Or something. I'm glad you told me what happened.

"I'm just happy now," he adds. "I'm happy."

[Sinclair] Sinclair wraps him closer. She slips downward and moves to him until her head can turn and rest on his chest, listening to that heartbeat that reassures her every night of his continued existence, his health, his strength, everything. She breathes deeply of that scent of him, freshly showered before they went off to the caern and to Cuban food.

And there's really nothing to say to that first part. She knows he wasn't that angry or she would have taken his anger more seriously. He wasn't really left out -- and to the extent that he was, she doesn't blame him for not liking it. What sticks is the feeling of being cut off. Of being 'other'. Of remembering again and again that he was born Kin, and his twin was born something else, and the girl he loves (and keeps proposing to while he's still inside of her) is something else, too, and that difference will never go away, that rift will never close, that wound will never entirely heal.

She can't soothe that away. What she can do is hold him, and tell him in the aftermath what was said -- as much of it as she can without breaching some bond of trust between her and Aaron now, too. Sinclair breathes deep, and Alex says he's happy.

Her arms fold around his back, her chest moving against his abdomen as she breathes.

"My mate," Sinclair whispers after awhile. Then softer still: "Mine."