John Barrister

[John Barrister] In the Woods, there are numerous small ponds and lakes. At the edge of one of the largest is an old boathouse and a pier. There are no boats on the pier, but there is one John Barrister, a tacklebox at his side, a pole out over the water, a beer on his other side. It's edging into spring in the Great Lakes area at last. His shirt sleeves are rolled up, the buttons undone; the sun beats warm on his broad back. Near the tacklebox are his shoes and socks, and his pants legs are similarly pulled up to the knee, his bare feet dangling over the water. Crescents of light ripple off the water and back onto the bottom of the pier, the soles of his feet, his suntanned face.

Somewhere in the distance, a dog barks.

[princessa] In the Woods, there are numerous pools of shadow, numerous shady dales and sun-dappled glens. At the edge of the smallest is a log, rotten and attended by mosquitoes at night and gnats during the day. The log arches out of the shady dale, the sun-dappled glen, and arches out onto marshy ground, where it disappears into the shallows of the lake. There are no animals on the log, but there is one Princess Wolf. Shut up about the name. You never heard it mentioned. Didn't. Ever.

Wasn't there a second ago. Emerges, blinking in the sunlight like a mole, and squinting in the direction of the old boathouse. The pier.

[John Barrister] There's a calm in fishing. Only a patient man could beat back the boredom and find it. It's there in the lazy humming of summer insects (which, admittedly, have not yet fully awoken from the frost). It's there in the whizzz of your line casting out, and the soft slap of water against the shore, bearing the floater inexorably back. It's there in the white clouds coasting overhead and across the surface of the water. It's there in the lightheadedness you develop after having two beers in the warm afternoon sun.

He isn't aware of Princess until the floater comes all the way back in and it's time to recast his line. He reels 'er in, straightening his back to whip the line out again -- when he sees the girl. A strange sight indeed, out here in the middle of nowhere. Princess can tell the exact second she's spotted, but the fisherman's motion continues unabated right through it. Whizzz.... plop. The line is cast again, and he calls out to her, friendly strangers on a warm spring day, "Hey there."

[princessa] Her sudden emergence into direct sunlight gives her pause. Her eyes squinch together: take the shape of half-moons, waning. Or the shape of the eyeholes in a Japanese mask. But she has already plucked the fisherman's shape, distinct from the lake and the wood, and honed in on the beer at his side, and the sunlight glints on the fishing line for an instant. Her left eye squinches further shut, before her expression clears.

She'd slipped into a crouch on the rotted wood, careful to distribute her weight more or less evenly, but now she - cautious - stands, shielding her eyes and lifting one hand in greeting. "Hey there," she says. "You want some company?"

[John Barrister] Barrister is brown, from head to foot. As much of him that Princess can see, anyway. It's not the sort of tan one gets from a tanning studio. It's lighter on the undersides of his arms, his chin; his forearms are several shades darker than his calves. Still -- it's not the sort of tan one gets from sitting around Chicago in the wintertime, either.

The girl nears. He squints up through the sun at her. Barrister is a big man; thick through the shoulders and the chest, with big paws and big bony feet. There's an ample crop of dark hair on what exposed skin she can see. His forearms are furry; his chest, his calves. His jaw is shaven, but halfway through the day and the bristles are pushing their way out. Sitting there hunkered, he resembles an evolved bear, fishing for salmon rather than gaping his jaws for 'em. Still, there's good blood in him. Good breeding, as the Garou say -- as if he were a prize bull, or sheep. It's evident in the length of bone, the solidity of jaw and knuckle.

"Sure." He clears the tacklebox to the other side, making room at the end of the pier. "Watch the edge. Splinters." He eyes the girl for a moment; young enough to be his daughter, if he'd been a very young father. His brow is lined, crowsfeet appearing at the corners of his eyes when he squints like that. A weatherworn mid-30s, thereabouts. "You're not old enough to drink, are you?"

[princessa] Princess splashes through the marshy shore, through the still shallows, and then she's walking on up behind John Barrister, taking his measure, reading the hints of lineage in the line of his shoulders, the shape of his jaw. "Don't worry. My feet are as tough as a drumskin." Then she crouches down next to John, and offers him a brief smile. "Sure I am."

[John Barrister] "Really." Barrister is unconvinced, but goodhumored about it. "Let's see some I.D.," but he's passing over a beer out of his tacklebox, nonetheless.

The bobber has floated its way back to shore. "Careful," he admonishes, reeling it back in. His arm makes a surprisingly graceful arc in the air, the momentum channeling through the wrist to send the hook and sinker plopping back into the middle of the small lake. He reels in the slack and wedges the line between two slats, offering his right hand to Princess. There's a gold ring on the fourth finger. "I'm John."

[princessa] Princess looks young today. Fifteen, maybe. But she could also go the other way. If she wanted to. The fianna's riding-hood-red hair is lazily twisted up into a bun with loosened tendrils stuck back behind her ears, and she's in a pair of just too large cargos, which she clipped up to her knees at some point, just beneath the lowest pockets.

Those pockets are full, too, bulging with something: rocks, maybe. John's got that something that says: get of Fenris. Princess's got that something, too, but it says stag, and passion, and cool distant isles, and proud, distant nation, raided by Rome, raided by the fuckin' Vikings, touched by them both but ultimately resistant. What's that they say? Blood will tell?

"You want it, I'll provide it," she says, opening the beer can with a kssht. Then, she reaches over to take his hand, give it a grip and a shake. "I'm Pr--eh. Most call me Thaney, like the song."

[John Barrister] "Preh?" John Barrister gives her a quirky half-smile, a little sly. "Like Priscilla? Precious?" He lets her hand go. "Nice to meet you, Thaney."

The fishing pole is plucked up again. He lifts his beer to his mouth. The shading of beard-bristle goes all the way down his neck, past the adam's apple. In the olden days he would've had a wild beard and wild hair, and wild eyes to go with it while he leapt down from a longship and raided, say, the shores of Stag's isles. In modern days, he's reasonably groomed, with short hair showing only slight signs of want for a cut, and evenly cut nails. Thirty-odd years leaves a mark on a man, though, and he's not without his scars. There's a thin pale one across his shin; a crinkled one on the slice of stomach his unbuttoned shirt reveals.

[princessa] She laughs, low and easy; fire, banking low. "You'll never guess, man. Although - Precious. Hunh." Her daddy could have done worse; go figure. Precious Wolf would have sucked in ways Princess Wolf - well. They both suck, really. "Been here long?"

[John Barrister] "Couple hours." Barrister has a slow, easy way of talking. No rage to speak of there, despite the look of a man that fought with his fists and worked with his hands. Long silences elapse comfortably between sentences. "There's a fish in the icebox back there, so it hasn't all been for nought." He thumbs toward the other end of the pier. "It's why the beer's out here," he adds by way of explanation. "Didn't want to get a stink on them."

[princessa] "Meant the greater area of Chicago, actually. But good to know." Now she takes a sip of the beer. Not a gulp. Not a swig. Just a sip, giving her tongue a taste, before she swallows. "Just one, eh? Hope you've got your fishing license on you." Sober. So sober, indeed, that one might expect there was an ulterior motive behind the remark.

[John Barrister] Barrister shoots her what would be shit-eating grin if he weren't shutting one eye against the glare of the sun and digging his wallet out of his back pocket with the opposite hand. He tosses it down on the pier with a weighty thump. It's battered brown leather, stuffed to the gills with insurance cards, credit cards, bank cards, loose change, cash, notes, receipts, a picture or two of some smiling blonde woman, his driver's license, and, yes, a fish&game permit. The picture on the driver's license looks at least ten years old. A younger version of John Barrister stares solemnly at the camera. There's a steely intensity to young J.B.'s eyes that seems lacking in the current model.

John Thomas Barrister, his various pieces of identifying documentation read. If she's the nosy type, she can infer his age (36), birthday (july 16th), height (6'4"), weight (220), hair color (brown), eye color (blue, it reads, but if it's blue it's a shade of blue dark as the open ocean), that he wears contacts, and that he's male. The driver's license is out of Arizona. It puts his home address in Phoenix.

"About a week," he replies while she sifts through his wallet, or doesn't. "But I used to live here. So I guess I'm coming back more than I'm moving in."

[princessa] She is the nosy type. But she's the nosy type in a quiet, matter-of-fact way; it usually flies below the radar. She doesn't make a big deal out of anything. Where's the fire? Where's the sense of drama? Many have asked; few have been answered. She cocks her head, then slides the wallet back. "Do you know where your kin are at?" He'll either take it the way she means for him to take it or assume she's assuming he's a backwater hick. Either way.

[John Barrister] The word makes him blink once, slowly, owlishly. Then he turns to look at her. There's a tension in him that wasn't there before; a sense of a wall having silently risen. "My kin?" he repeats, chewing on the words, then swilling it down with a mouthful of beer. And carefully, "My tribe?"

[princessa] "Yeah. That's what I mean," she says, in confirmation; there's now a faint frown, which she conceals behind the beer can; mulling it over, breathing it in.

[John Barrister] He regrets this development; she might read that on his face. It had been easier before he knew. He frowns across the rippling water and reels his hook in. Casts it out.

"No, I don't. But they'll find me if they need me." He gives her a wry sort of smile. "Coincidences seem to happen a lot around you people."

[princessa] "You've no idea," she says, wry and rue, re-settling her weight when a cramp starts in her calves. He regrets the development, and Princess is perceptive when it comes to people, and their moods; well, she regrets his regret. But just like her nosiness, it isn't an obvious thing, by any means of the word.

[John Barrister] The silence ripples on for a while. He drains his beer down to the dregs and sets the emptied bottle back in the tacklebox. A little longer the quiet. Then, "Do you know where to find the Get?"

[princessa] Princess doesn't try to break the silence. The man was fishing, anyway. Maybe he'd give her his second fish, if she asked nice enough, and offered to cook him his first. When he breaks it, she responds simply enough: "Yeah."

[John Barrister] "Hn." It's a sound low in his chest, a basso rumble that doesn't quite make it past his voicebox. He ruminates on this for a moment. In the end nothing comes of it, except a rather tangential question. "So, what are you?"

[princessa] "Hm. Pretty?" Yep; she said it, just as if she didn't know what he was really asking, for a moment. Let him chew on that: think it's her real answer. Then: "Fianna."

[John Barrister] This earns her a dirty-ish look. "Too young," he replies. And, with her real answer: "Well, I might've guessed from the hair."

[princessa] "To be pretty? That's cold." Then she chuckles, still low; still a banked flame. "Yeah. We're big copycats. Isn't my original color."

[John Barrister] "Yeah. You can only qualify for 'cute' until you're eighteen." He shrugs apologetically, grinning a little. "What are you, then -- a blonde?"

[princessa] She huffs and (puffs and) gives a small shake of her head. "Let it remain a mystery." Then: "You wanna know?" Clear, from her tone, she's not talking about her natural hair color.

[John Barrister] "About what -- " and then he figures it out, or thinks he has. "My tribe?" He thinks about it some. "Nah. They'll find me. Unless you're on your honor to tell me."

[princessa] She thinks about that. "No. But should I be letting them know there's somebody to find?"

[John Barrister] "If you want." There's a pause; then he adds by way of explanation, "I'm not hiding from them. I'm not looking for them, either. Nothing much to offer them at the moment, is all."

[princessa] "You've got fish," she points out. "Unless that fish gets eaten up. Maybe with somebody else. Who can cook fish pretty well over an open fire."

[John Barrister] He laughs at that; can't help it. Barrister has an easy laugh to go along with his easy silences. "I was going to pan-sear it at home with some cajun spices. Toss a salad to go with it. If you want a share of it, you're welcome to it. I wouldn't have offered if you weren't Garou," his smile lessens a little, "but you are."

[princessa] In response to that, the fianna girl maintains a silence; she takes another sip of beer. Her gaze turns upward, even though it's daylight, and there's not a chance of glimpsing her moon hanging there, fading into gibbous: the madman's moon. Bringing with it more rage. Then, "Okay. But I wasn't angling for the invite because you're kin. Doesn't really matter to me. You get that?"

[John Barrister] "Oh," Barrister is a little embarrassed, "I didn't mean it that way. I just meant," he reels it in, casts it out; fluidly, instinctively, "well. I didn't want you to think I was some sort of pedophilic serial killer. I wouldn't invite random adolescent girls home for fish. But if you're Garou, you're safe enough from me. So," he wedges the pole between the planks again, "the invitation is open."

[princessa] "I'm not twelve," she says, placid. "And you don't look that old. What are you, thirty two?" Princess sets the beer down, careful not to overturn it; then she hooks her arms around her knees, and says, "Well, anyway, I'll take you up on that invitation. I never turn down food."

[John Barrister] "Thirty-six," he replies, blandly. He gathers up his overstuffed wallet, folds it with some difficulty, and shoves it into his pants. With remarkable agility for his advanced age, John vaults to his feet with a solid thump that makes the pier creak worryingly. Plucking the pole up, he starts reeling the line in. "And I'm giving up for the day. Do you live out here, or in the city?"

[princessa] She laughs at him, suddenly; wind, combing through that banking fire, raking up sparks. It's still a quiet laugh, controlled: but infectious. Then, tilts her head at him; picks the beer up and straighten with much less aplomb. "Depends, really. There's a site I camp at. And a place in the city I stay the rest. You?"

[princessa] (( Hmm. Should have read: "There's a site I camp at sometimes." ))

[John Barrister] "The city, of course." The hook and sinker lift out of the water, the bobber a festive red and white globe above it. He wheels it almost all the way in, reaching out to snag the line carefully between his fingers. Barrister leans the pole against his solid shoulder while he carefully unknots the string and slips loose the hook, sinker and bobber. For all that his fingers are square-tipped, his palm nearly as big and wide as a ping pong paddle, he has a surprisingly deft touch. "I just come out here to fish."

He breaks the fishing pole down summarily after that, empties the remaining two beers out of the tackle box, and replaces them with fishing paraphenalia. "Okay," he says, when that's accomplished and the box is closed and latched. "I'm ready. Let's go. Hold this for me?" -- and he passes her the pole in three pieces.

[princessa] "Hmf," she says, although over what particular remark: a mystery, like her true hair-color. She hastily downs the last of the beer and tosses the can into the tackle box before it's been all shut. Then she takes the pieces of fishing pole. "After you, John."

[Henry Allard] Henry's eyes go from Kendra to Marissa to Joe and back to Marissa. Why this occurs can only be read from the faces of the two girls, from the way Marissa responded to Joseph's gelato comment and the way Kendra nearly unnoticeably reacted to said response. Quiet though he is, he is also highly observant. He has to be, has to be able to read situations sometimes defined by the smallest of changes. It's gotten him this far. Although he certainly isn't going to say anything, for now it is simply noted and stored away somewhere. Probably separate from his Names and Faces file.

That he finds something odd is not quite so invisible--no one's eyes would bounce about like that for no good reason, and as nearly all of them have found out recently, this guy's expressions blow in his thoughts nearly every time.

A hand comes up to scratch a phantom itch behind the back of his right ear, and then Henry is clearing his throat again. Cursory glances are spread between the couple before an All right, then writes itself onto his face.

[Kendra Peterman] "Mega-plex?"

Obviously Kendra had never learned what a movie theatre was. The girl really was backwater! Oh well, she would have to learn about the silver screen another day. She caught Henry's eye, how it bounced from face to face, trailing spoken comments and reactions with his eyes, making it look as though he were watching a tennis match. An eyebrow lifted, but she just grinned at him and nodded, then switched her attention and smile to the whole of the group-- Henry, Marissa, and Princess all together.

"Thanks again fer th'invitation. Yeh have fun. See ya 'round."

With that said, she wiggled her fingers for her goodbyes, gave hugs to Thaney and Marissa (and a slurp on Marissa's cheek for get-back), and stepped aside to allow them sidewalk space to continue on their way.

[Darla Wilcox] The kid, her legs jut out, but do not quite wrap around the flat band of her mother's chest: the wide part, the where the ribcage expands beneath her breasts at the attachment of the sternum. She is still young and small enough that her mother can carry her thus, without using the child's legs like the waiststrap of a backpacker's pack. And her mouth is dreaming slack, open, her eyes closed. Forget the streets and the traffic, the incessant jostling from her mother's swift pace, all of it: none of it matters. The child is sleeping a child's sleep, so deep and absolute at the moment that neither a foghorn nor the promise of the Wiggles right here in person could wake her from it.

And the mother is happy with that turn of events: imagine running to catch your practically midnight bus on a practically deserted street with a couple of squawling, writhing bowling balls' worth of toddler demanding the Wiggles.

She jogs across the street, Darla, the stranger who doesn't live here, but is - like as not - one of those people who makes the place work, cleaning up stranger's shit from the toilets, scrubbing the crystal no one ever uses clean, dusting the baseboards in anticipation of the of the dinner party you're hosting on Saturday, or - perhaps - fucking the man who pays for it all, or watching the kids, or both. Something: whatever. Even if she doesn't live here, she might well belong here just as much as anyone who does.

Her jog is forward-movement, a bit of polite hustle, well-balanced in spite of the off-balancing combo of kid and dull, worn backpack-in-lieu-of-diaper-and-duffle bag sagging like a deflated and embittered black kidney against her right shoulder: polite hustle, because the WALK sign wasn't made with dawdlers in mind, and because movement is the only way she stays awake, at this hour, after the day she's had, the day you don't know about.

It's only when she hits the other side, gains the curb, and sees the bus, a phantom crown of lights beneath a glowing, graygreen sign announcing the route, it's only then that she breaks into a full out, concrete pounding run. The driver won't stop if you aren't at the "designated stop." That what he said to her, one of them, impossible to tell which, the last time she complained: in a bored voice, all casual indifference as he stared at her chest. "Were you at a designated stop?"

And no: no. She was not. The stop was not designated, then. So now, tonight, running - and god she can run. In another fucking lifetime - tonight, running, she knows that. And by god, she's going to beat the bus there, just to spite that bastard.

(And also: because she promised Mrs. Childers that she would pick up the other kids before midnight. She swore up and down on the sleek head of her daughter, the nappy head of her son. Midnight, I promise. Means the world to me. and meant it, means it still, if only to ensure that next time she asks, says please and thank you, Mrs. Childers will hem and haw and eventually give way, and take them in for a night, and maybe a hour more.)

[Princess Wolf] The girl's shoulders stiffen, at first, but she relaxed enough to return the hug, one-armed, before Kendra bounces off; then she places two hands smack on Marissa's shoulders and gives her a push. "Let's go," she says, "Let's go, let's go. If we're going to sneak in around back, my friend or a friend of my friend's gotta be working for us to sneak in."

[Darla Wilcox] And: whaddya know, cue the chariots of fire music: she makes it to the designated stop, does Darla. She makes it, and the doors whisk open and she climbs inside, and this driver is a new one, and doesn't even stare at her boobs, because this time she has a kid draped over them, that and she gives him a look, hard and direct. Those things weren't free. Neither is staring: that sort of look, over the silky head of the sleeping child, all that with a long, hard stare as she feeds her monthly pass through the read and waits for it to pop up again, like toast out of a toaster, before turning away from the man as the bus starts forward again, feet braced against the motion as she walks and balances, balances and walks her way through down the aisle, to the last of the last rows where the pair of them can sprawl, exhausted, where she can rest her feet and listen to the engine and stare out the window at the reflection of her eyes, shunted quietly back to her by the tinted glass.

[Darla Wilcox] OOC: night! thanks for letting me crash the scene. *G*

[Joseph Morgan] The day had grown colder as it crept towards evening. Joseph slipped his hands out of his pockets and shrugged into the jacket he'd carried out. He hadn't said much since running into them - hadn't had much to say. He gave a nod to Henry, poor guy, as Kendra made her slurpy and affectionate goodbyes, then returned his hands to the pockets of his trousers, and sidestepped out of the group's way as well.

To many a Garou - and many Kin, too - it would seem as though Joseph was playing the role of the quiet, damn near subservient male Kinfolk to the female Garou he was on a 'stroll' with. It was an image that would disgust many, amuse some, and thoroughly please a few. The fact that Joseph didn't go out of his way to discredit the image he must know was being projected said something about him...just wasn't clear what it said about him.

His demeanor hadn't changed. There'd been no point when the small, almost-not-there smile had left his face, no moment when his shoulders had stiffened or his eyebrows lifted in silent remark. He still, with the relaxation in his shoulders and the ease of his step down the sidewalk, appeared comfortable and content in lazy silence.

[Marissa Taylor] Again, Kendra's hug is returned and the slurp induces an overly-dramatic, clearly playful, "Ewwwww!" - and then she's being pushed off towards Henry's, which is fine by her, really. As much as she loves Kendra, she wasn't particularly ready for that bit of awkward, and she has a feeling it was wholly one sided, what with the way she'd gone unnoticed. Again, this time in her head, there's a shrug and a general 'whatever' - it's not worth thinking about, not this time. And once she's decided that, Marissa's almost instantly more at ease, relaxing with her packmate and her friend.

"Next time, Kendra, or you'll be in big trouble!"

And the trio are, again, on their way, off to Henry's for beer and deciding on a movie.

[Kendra Peterman] The group parted, and Kendra was left with Joseph, walking up the sidewalk with him, along the same path that they had been going before they were stopped for the chat with the trio they'd come across. The night got a little chillier, but Kendra withstood it with nothing more than a single shiver that crawled slowly up her spine. She'd been colder before, lots colder.

It wasn't until they were roughly half a block away that Kendra lifted an arm and nudged her elbow gently into Joe's ribcage. "What now?" ....Waitaminute, wasn't she the one that dragged him out of the house? Now she was asking him what was next on the agenda? ...Sigh. Like a damn kid.

[Joseph Morgan] Joseph lived in a nice area of Lake View...not the nicest, not a high-rise, but a quiet sort of neighborhood with older buildings and even the occasional tree along the sidewalk. They weren't budding yet, no new sprouts, but it was coming. He'd felt it comin in his bones, though he wouldn't admit that to anyone out loud. There were some people he didn't have to admit it out loud to for them to know, and they were the only ones who might need to.

The jacket he'd brought with him was thin, but so was the sweater Kendra was wearing. When she nudged him, his lips twisted wryly, as though he'd been counting in his head the minutes til she did exactly what she was doing now. "I am going home, to have something to eat and finish that page I was so abruptly pulled away from." He paused, lifting his eyebrows up on his forehead in idle thought. "I may make an omelette." Because he could do that. Tiramisu, lasagna, and omelettes. Cooking beyond that was more than he was interested in, really.

[Kendra Peterman] She stretched her upper body, arching her back and pushing her chest and perfectly fit flat belly forward, then reached down with one hand to lift the hem of her shirt just a bit so that she could scratch at the small white scar an inch left of her belly button. The scratching fingernails moved briefly up to her bottom rib, pulling the shirt with them, then down, just under the waistband of her pants. With her very public scratching accomplished, she shrugged and pocketed her hands.

"Fine, home it is. 'Least y'got some fresh air. I swear t'yeh, fella, yer gonna get some sorta sickness 'r another fr'm sittin 'in there 'n breathin' nothin' but dust all day." She took a moment for thought, glanced to the sky, then huffed and smirked. "An' fuck th'omlette. It's sooo way too late fer an omlette. I'll make us somethin' more dinner-like instead."

[John Barrister] (so: locations, those of you who aren't going to bed? *eyes CC*)
to Henry Allard, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman, Marissa Taylor, Princess Wolf

[Joseph Morgan] Looking askance at Kendra's scratching, Joseph quirked a brow and then shook his head, rolling his eyes a little. It struck him as ironic that the injury she'd suffered to leave that scar was so much more vicious than the wound to his own torso, but she was significantly less marked by it in the end. Maybe not irony. That was the nature of things. She dropped her shirt, and he looked back ahead of them in the direction of his building.

"Dust and wood pulp," he agreed mildly to her warning that he'd get a disease someday, referring to the acres of books and stacks of pages he dealt with all day. "And is this going to be the pattern? Do I only get three days in between bouts of fresh air?" The question was rhetorical and facetiously resentful. It was also dropped right there, as it brought up thoughts he wasn't entirely sure about entertaining while still on the 'walk'.

Joseph lifted an eyebrow at her. "You can have breakfast any time of - " he paused, narrowing his eyes. "You can cook?"

[Kendra Peterman] (( 'Eh. I ain't bed-bound for a while. Kendra's just wandering up the sidewalk with Joe at her side. ))
to Henry Allard, John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Marissa Taylor, Princess Wolf

[Joseph Morgan] (Walking with Kendra down the sidewalk in the direction of his building.)
to Henry Allard, John Barrister, Kendra Peterman, Marissa Taylor, Princess Wolf

[Marissa Taylor] ((Aww, man, and in comes Damon! Fuck! If only I didn't need sleep! *sighs, all girlie crush like*))
to Henry Allard, John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman, Princess Wolf

[Kendra Peterman] (( Now that's just adorable, See-See. *Hug, squish* ))
to Henry Allard, John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Marissa Taylor, Princess Wolf

[Marissa Taylor] ((And, for the record, Princess, Henry and Marissa are wandering off in the opposite direction from where Joe and Kendra are headed.))
to Henry Allard, John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman, Princess Wolf

[Kendra Peterman] Arms lifted above her head, and she went about a silly habit of brushing her hair away from her eyes, tucking it behind her ears, holding it in both hands as though she were about to wrap it in an elastic and put it in a rubber band, then simply letting it go and dragging her fingers through it a little more. Usually she left her hair alone, but tonight, thanks to a shift in the humidity, her hair was more unruly than usual, bangs frizzing up a bit and floating over her eyes. So she messed around with her hair more, combing it through with her fingers to try and tame it down. Her efforts were futile, though, for it always fell back where it wanted to, just as stubborn as the head it sat on.

He stopped halfway through a sentence, gave her one of 'those looks', and queried about her culinary skills. She just laughed at him and nodded her head. "Lemme tell ya this... I was raised by a Christian housewife, who believed tha' it was every good girl's duty t'get married, cook, 'n clean for her husband. I was in th'kitchen with her durin' dinner helpin' out a lot, whether I liked it 'r not. I learned a trick 'r two."

[Marissa Taylor] ((When Jamie posts. *eyes her!* And, again, because I'm going for the recored on OOC PMed addendums: Yay! You like me, you really like me! =D ))
to Henry Allard, John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman, Princess Wolf

[Henry Allard] ((Go to bed you blasted woman! I said I was good fading out there! *L*))
to John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman, Marissa Taylor, Princess Wolf

[Marissa Taylor] ((Well, there we go then. G'night and thanks for the scene, everyone!))
to Henry Allard, John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman, Princess Wolf

[John Barrister] BOW-WOW! BOW-WOW-WOW-WOW! From afar, the baying of some deepchested coon hound. And then from not-so-afar, the crash of an overturned dumpster. And then, from quite-close-really, the tictactictac of running claws on the concrete. And then, from right in front of Kendra, an enormous crash as a big, floppy-eared, droopy-jowled hound slams into Joseph's legs.

"Shit!" There's a man at the end of the block, jogging after the dog. Seeing the collision, he picks up his pace to a flatout run. A six-foot lead swings from one hand, an empty collar at the end of it. "Sorry!" he calls, holding one hand palm-out as if to fend off blame. "I'm sorry! He slipped his collar and went after a cat!"

[John Barrister] (night, wimps!)
to Henry Allard, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman, Marissa Taylor, Princess Wolf

[Henry Allard] ((Guess I'm next! Thanks for the scene, y'all!))
to John Barrister, Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman

[Joseph Morgan] There is an undeniable part of Joseph that feels an urge to pull a Classic Movie Kiss right there on the sidewalk, dip and all. There is also a part of him that tells him no no no, he should scoff and roll his eyes at such backwater, oppressive training. And then there's just the part that has to know: "Can you tell me the difference between chopping and slicing, because honestly, I've never been able to figure that out and my editor tried explaining it but it was on the phone, so it didn't do much good." He seems almost boyish in his curiosity, infatuated with this mystery known as 'cooking'.

But he barely gets the question over before a dog starts baying, and his head is only just barely turning in time to see the big...floppy-eared...droopy-jawled hound barreling towards him. Kendra's the only one who might hear it over the dog's noise, but Joseph does say, "Aah, shit" about a half-second before the beast knocks into him. Joseph stumbles back, nearly falls, but keeps his feet by yanking hands out of his pockets and grabbing onto the dog to keep it - somewhat - at bay. It's far from graceful and it's obviously been years since he's handled an animal this large that wasn't also...well...a relative...but he does manage to keep from falling completely on his ass.

Half-wrestling and half just trying to stay standing, Joseph looks past the hound towards the running owner, drool on his hands, slacks, and t-shirt. He shakes his head. "It's fine...it happens."

[Joseph Morgan] ((I have to know: is John a lawyer?))
to John Barrister, Kendra Peterman

[Kendra Peterman] Kendra heard the dog coming before she saw it. The bark was obvious, but she also heard the clicking of claws on pavement, the flapping of open jowls and long loose ears in the wind, the simple whumping of a heavy weight as it traveled up the sidewalk. Dark green eyes turned from Joe to the dog, and she blinked, then just watched as the dog slammed into Joe's legs, sending him stumbling back, grabbing onto the hound's loose scruff of the neck to try and regain balance... or to try and hold the dog away from him, she couldn't decide which.

On a fast thought, she put into effect a trick taught to her by a spirit a long time ago-- Smell of Man, a trick that would make domesticated critters much more compliant about her, enough to even forgive her Rage, to listen to her were she to state a command. A handy-dandy trick if there ever was one. People scoffed when she said she learned it, said it was useless, but right now she was thankful for it.

Eyes like chips of jade flickered back toward the man running toward them, leash in hand, no doubt the owner of the dog, and a grin split her face. She chuckled, the entire situation was funny, mainly because Joe was ungracefully bowled over by a big sloppy drooly dog. She could just watch the dog push and tromple all over the man, but she opted not to. Instead, calm as could be, she pressed her front teeth to her lower lip and pushed out a sharp whistle, leaning down a little and patting her thigh. "C'mere boy. Leave 'im alone."

[John Barrister] "Shit. Bruin! Sit, boy. SIT. SIT!" John comes to a skidding stop, grabbing the floppy-faced hound by the scruff and hauling him back from... well, from his suddenly shameless adoration of the young girl walking with the drooled-upon man. Clamping the dog between his knees, John stuffs his head into the collar. There's enough loose skin at the throat to see how the dog might've easily slipped the collar. Blowing out a breath, he reaffirms his hold on the leash and pulls the dog back from the -- couple? Pair? Friends?

"Sorry about that." It's too dark outside to see details. In the light scattered from a nearby streetlamp, they have an impression of height and breadth as Barrister straightens. Big hands. Deep chest. Gruff voice. He's in sweats, or something like it, a V of sweat dampening the chest and the back. Quite frankly, when he stands upwind, he stinks. "He's a rascal. He certainly seems to like you, though." The dog, pulled into check, is gazing in open rapture at Kendra, tail thumping.

[John Barrister] (thankfully, no *LOL* he was wise enough to avoid that naming disaster. and sorry about the slowness, was elsewhere for a mo)
to Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman

[Joseph Morgan] Joseph is at least in his late twenties and perhaps older, judging from the patch of hair over his forehead that has started to silver. His face doesn't look old enough to warrant gray hair, but he's not even really in the same generation as the young woman walking with him. A decade, or more, separates the two of them. He's just barely over six feet, but is - for the moment - examining the nice big wet spot on the right thigh of his pant leg where 'Bruin' drooled happily while pouncing. He's regained his footing, and though his mouth is twisted a bit with displeasure at being drooled upon, he doesn't seem too put out.

He's had worse.

At John's words, Joseph smirks over at Kendra, straightening. "My hero," he mutters with oddly affectionate sarcasm. Brushing his hands off on his jacket, he tilts his head at John with a slight furrow to his brow. "Are you new around here?" he asked, which seems like an odd question until: "I live in the area, and I don't think I've heard that particular dog bark since I moved in."

[Kendra Peterman] Kendra flashed a smirk to Joseph when he quipped about her being a hero, then just shook her head and looked to John. "S'no worry there, fella. Shit happens, donnit?" Her accent was far off from the man that she walked with's. He spoke.. well, like a normal human being. She spoke like she was just grabbed by the pigtails and yanked out of her overalls and off the pig farm. Her relation to the man she was with was difficult to place. He looked like he was in his late twenties, she looked in her late teens, maybe her early twenties. He couldn't be old enough to be her father. Perhaps an older brother, perhaps a boyfriend. Who knew?

The dog, with its tail thumping and big dopey eyes set on Kendra, gained her attention again, and she leaned down to place a hand on top of its head, rubbing a thumb between its eyes before moving her hand back to scratch and rub at its floppy ear. "Well there ain' no reason fer him not t'like me. He's a righ' sweetheart, this one."

[John Barrister] John Barrister compresses his lips and ponders how best to answer Joseph's question. While he's pondering, Kendra stretches out a delicious, crunchable, yummy little hand, and Barrister barks out of the sheer panicked instinct all mean-dog owners have: "Watch out, he bites--"

-- but of course, Bruin simply sits quietly panting, stamping his forepaws out of sheer pleasure. Barrister grunts, bemused. "Well, he usually bites. And yeah. I guess you could say I'm new around here. New 'again', really. I lived here for a few years. Moved out. Came back. Didn't sell the old place so I moved back in." He shrugs his big shoulders. It's hard enough to be certain in the dark, but stance, voice, cadence and gait might put him in his mid-30s. "It's a nice city," he concludes. "You, ah, you two live around here?"

[Joseph Morgan] Another small, fleeting smirk flickers across Joseph's face. Bruin won't bite. He's not sure why the dog isn't pissing itself and whimpering a path away from Kendra at the moment, but he can't imagine it trying to take a chunk out of Kendra's fingers. True enough, the dog just gleefully regards it's New Bestest Friend Ever, drooling in gooey, fat drops on the sidewalk whenever its jowls wiggle too much, and Joseph returns his eyes to what he can see of the dog's owner in the dark.

He nods to the question. It's what he'd said a moment ago, and his nod just doubly confirms it, but it also answers the other part: yes, she lives around here, too. Joseph, since they're no longer walking and it's more comfortable while just standing there, puts his hands in his pockets and glances over at this she-should-be-in-pigtails companion of his cooing at the dog. He shakes his head with a quiet, amused sigh.

[Kendra Peterman] Kendra glanced up at John, her green eyes briefly showing a flash of old spirit. A bland sort of 'what, are you kidding me?' expression laying in them, over the thin, low-lying flame of Rage that simply came with the Gibbous moon that was hanging, slim but outwardly curved, shrouded by thick gray clouds that flooded the sky. She wasn't upset, though, so the Rage wasn't flexed or flaring, not strong enough to willfully drive a person away. Her eyes returned to the dog, and she shook her head, making a clucking noise with her tongue against the roof of her mouth.

"Biter, 'eh? Y'a vicious attack dog there, Bruin?" She grinned at the dog and moved her hand from its ear to cup over the top of its muzzle, then slid her hand under the dog's drooling chops, unconcerned with getting her wrist slobbered on, and scratched at its chin and underside of its jaw. As she did this, she spoke to John. "If he's a bitin' dog, it'd pr'y be good t'get him trained not ta. If yeh can't do tha', at least get 'im a harness instead'a a collar. That way he can't slip out 'n go chasin' an' bitin' people. It'd be sad t'see a sweetheard like him put down 'cause he bit some tight-ass who can't handle a little teeth."

[John Barrister] Barrister does not seem the type of man who is easily rattled. He has a certain quiet self-confidence that shows in the set of his shoulders. Even so, there's an inherent uneasiness to the way he keeps tugging at the leash, holding Bruin in check. Maybe it was Kendra's rage, swelling with her moon. Maybe it was just the fact that a seventeen year old girl had her face within an inch of a full set of biting teeth.

"A harness -- that's a good idea," he says. It's a courtesy, no more; the sort of politeness one gives a neighbor's similarly courteous advice. "Come on, Bruin, that's enough. Heel." He backs off a yard or two, finally bringing the hound to heel successfully. "Well," he adds, "I'm just down the street, around the corner. Kelliston Avenue. Brick house with the blue planter." The words encompass Joseph as well. "You should come down for a visit sometime. I've barely met any of my neighbors yet."

He steps out from under the shade of an oak tree. The streetlight catches across his face. Solid jaw, dark hair, deep-set eyes, a prominent nose just a shade too big. And an undeniable hint of that je-ne-sais-quoi Garou called breeding.

[Joseph Morgan] Oh, if this strange big man with the big floppy dog had just said that to Joseph alone, that would be it. A politeness, nothing else, with a half-smile and a nod in return. Joseph was quite content to spend hours on end alone in his apartment, typing away and only interacting the world when he honestly did feel like having some company. And then she moved in. He'd continue to blame her for anything he damn well pleased til doomsday, disregarding the fact that he'd invited her to move in. If (he could tell himself it wasn't 'when') they planned a stroll down to the brick house on Kelliston with the blue planter, he'd have Kendra to thank for it.

Joseph smiles politely as the man backs up, heeling his pet, giving a noncommital nod. What there was to see if Barrister's heritage was lost on the other man, and vice versa. He slid his hands into his pockets, glancing at Kendra as though wondering if they were done here. It was clear who the friendly, gregarious, outgoing one was.

[Kendra Peterman] The dog was pulled away from her, leaving her hand drool-covered and without a dog to pet. The man worried for her safety, it seemed, that she was too close to a set of biting teeth. If only he knew, he'd be more worried for his dog's safety instead. She was a set of biting teeth with more force and precision than the poor hound could ever dream of mustering. On top of that, she was a set of wicked sharp claws, of brute strength and ferocity that could tear apart walls, buildings, cars, monsters... almost anything that would get in a person's way.

But right now all one could see on the surface was a young girl, sweet, but odd with that rumble of a beast lying under her skin. She straightened up, back to her full height, which was nothing compared to the men that she stood with. Her hand wiped on her pants, and she moved to slide it into her back pocket when the man in sweats stepped out of the shadows, showing his face finally...

...And the back of her mind tickled at the sight. She couldn't place precisely what that itch was, but there was something familiar about the construct of his features. Not as though she'd seen him personally before, but as though she'd seen his lineage, his features in people she knew. She lifted an eyebrow, and fell quiet, studying his face hard and not hiding it one bit.

And with a lack of concentration on the dog anymore, the gift she had used to quell the hound, to hide her inner beast from him, slipped, faded, then fell away completely.

[John Barrister] And just like that Bruin goes berserk.

The hound barks at Kendra. Which really doesn't say it at all. This is not the excited baying of a hound in chase, nor the monotonous awooo-woof-woof-woof-woof he gave off when someone knocked on the door unexpectedly. This is something completely different: a vicious, hysterical, snarling bark that calls to mind a more primitive dog, not puppy-wuppy but Canis lupus familiaris, descended from wild things and bred to hunt with early man. The hound shows teeth with every gape of the jaws even as he backs up into Barrister's legs, tail clamped between his own hindlegs. There's a sense that if Kendra took one step closer, the dog would snap and run, or, failing that, fight for his life and go for the throat.

"What the -- " Barrister is astonished, astounded. He grabs the leash in his left hand, pulling the right up short. It's a precise, crisp gesture. He might've been a dog trainer. The left hand clamps firmly across the clip where leash met collar, two fingers slipping under the collar itself to hold firm. He backs up another two, three steps, Bruin squirming under his grasp, barking as he retreats.

Given what they've seen so far, they might expect Barrister to offer up more apologies, the way anyone might when their dog abruptly decided to turn into a homicidal canine. But the man doesn't. He simply backs the hound up, step by step, until a good ten feet stood between man and dog, and man and... what?

"I don't see Bruin act like this very often," Barrister says, carefully neutral.

[Joseph Morgan] Hands in his pockets, vaguely bored - Joseph wasn't much of a pet person (or a person person), so he was standing there simply waiting to move on from another random encounter on the sidewalk when Bruin lost it. He didn't miss Kendra eyeing the owner carefully, but that only made him glance at John briefly before the dog started snarling and barking. To his credit, Joseph didn't take a wary step backwards, but it wouldn't have been necessary even if he was worried about getting leapt on or bitten into - Barrister was handling his dog carefully, backing up even further than he had already.

Joseph's eyes narrow slightly as he turns his head to look at Kendra. He returns his gaze to Barrister and half-smiles. There's nothing he had to say. He had no advice, was no dog trainer or even dog owner, himself. He had an inkling what was bothering Bruin now, but that wasn't exactly polite conversation with a complete stranger. So he said, offhanded and sounding bored, "Maybe it's the moon. Not far from full."

[Kendra Peterman] Bruin went berserk, and Kendra responded quickly.

The dog snarled, barked, screamed and writhed, trying to move, to run, to attack, to do whatever was necessary to get rid of this sudden looming threat, impossibly large and frightening in front of him. Unnatural, not right, shouldn't be. Kendra, in the meantime, saw this huge dog as a threat. While the dog showed its teeth, she did the same. Her lips curled, displaying pearly white teeth, flat and human, but they seemed like they ought to be more judging by the girl they belonged to. Her muscles went tense, and she took three complete steps, two back, and one to the side. This motion brought her to a point where she was half-hidden behind Joe.

Dark green eyes, now dancing with Rage that had flared up as the surprise of the vicious dog, at the face of a threat, turned to John's face when he spoke. The Rage stayed there, tended by the calm, cautious, and slightly questioning tone to the Barrister man's voice.

As suddenly as the dog had snapped, Kendra seemed to have done the same. She went immediately from friendly country girl, all smiles and I-Love-Dogs to almost feral, a set face with beastly eyes and bared teeth.

[John Barrister] Barrister draws a long, deep breath through his nose. If he was steadying his nerves, it's hard to tell -- his knuckles are already white from holding the dog back.

"I see," he murmurs. Goddammit, his tone says. He glances at Joseph -- "You, too?"

[Joseph Morgan] What he said to Kendra as she stepped behind him as a whisper, almost hissed between his teeth at the tiny growling girl. "Oh, fuck you very much," he muttered at her, followed by a nigh-imperceptible sigh. Turning his head back to Barrister with a deep, aggravated furrow in his brow, he says flatly: "Me, too, what? Currently dealing with a snapping animal? Yes, I guess 'me too'."

[Kendra Peterman] Her eyes narrowed a bit, and she cast a glance about the streets. Currently, no one else was about, but she'd be damned if they wouldn't be filled with curious residents soon if the dog didn't quiet down. So, still behind Joseph, ignoring his quip about snapping animals, she ran her tongue over her teeth and pushed her lips down overtop of them as well, hiding them, and willed the gift of her ancestors back into effect, to quiet the hound if for no other reason at all.

Yet even with the percievable threat taken from the dog's nostrils and eyes, she remained half-hidden behind Joseph, and murmered up to him. "He looks Family." Three simple words, vague to most people, but enough for any good Garou or Kin to understand.

[John Barrister] Something sets in Barrister's jaw. "Are you like her too," he replies, just as flat. So much for the drop-by-sometime invitation. And, sharply, "Shut up, Bruin."

[Joseph Morgan] Three simple words. It was remarkable the weight of the things that could be communicated in their entirety with just three words. And Joseph, prickly as he may be, was indeed a good Kin. He didn't try to reach back and calm the Rage he could feel lifting the hairs on the back of his neck, washing over him from behind. From his expression - mildly annoyed, little more - it was impossible to see just how he was reacting to Kendra, under the swelling of her birth moon, standing behind him with her teeth bared. Her attention was elsewhere, not - for the moment - attuned to any clues his scent might give her.

He sighed again, less quietly than before, and looked away from John, Bruin, and the street to the sky overhead through the bare branches of trees planted here and there to make the area look more like an old-fashioned-esque neighborhood. "In that we both like coffee, yes. In the way you mean...no." He lowered his eyes again, his jaw set.

[Kendra Peterman] Kendra kept true to her new attitude, and remained quiet when John spoke. She simply listened to his words, gauging his tone and the new attitude that he too adopted. He tickled the back of her mind in the sense that he reminded her of family, and the fact that he seemed to recognize the signs of what she was just confirmed that. However, the tone of exhaspiration, the 'goddammit' underlying his words, so flat and demanding now rather than polite and apologetic.... It just set her hairs on end, made her suspicious, brought her onto her toes and prompted a hand to take hold of the hem at the back of Joseph's shirt, perhaps to steady herself, perhaps to make sure he didn't stray too far from her and into the striking range of this potentially dangerous man and his dog.

But for now, aside from that gentle grasp of a shirt, she remained still and quiet.

[John Barrister] "Jesus Christ," he shakes his head at Joseph, incredulous, "you really can't open your mouth without a smart-ass comment, can you?"

Kendra's rage was setting everyone's teeth on edge. Like sunlight lighting up the moon, it kindles Barrister's slow temper. In the streetlight it's possible to see him a little better; the heavy shoulders, thick forearms. The look of a man who fought with his fists and worked with his hands, which he was; though at what, these days, might surprise some people. John backs the hysterical dog up another step or two.

"I'm taking Bruin home before he kills himself. If you want to talk more," a flicker of his eyes includes the little girl who wasn't really a little girl, "you're welcome to follow."

[Joseph Morgan] Something eased slightly in Joseph's spine and shoulderblades when Kendra curled and tightened her fingers in his shirt. Cool air from the night around them brushed against the sliver of his lower back where it was exposed. It was an odd reaction - he might have jumped, startled. The relaxation could have seemed like a silent sigh of relief that she was protecting him from a freaked-out dog, but that didn't fit, either. It was almost as though he forced himself to let some of that tension go.

His smirk in response to Barrister was taut, though. "We all have our coping mechanisms," he said, true to form as the man had seen it so far.

[Kendra Peterman] The large man with the thick chest, shoulders and arms backed his dog up a few more steps, into the shadows once more, and she watched him with eyes of narrowed suspicion, still not much caring for the vibes that he gave off, how tense he was about meeting a Garou, though he was quite obviously Kinfolk-- or at least that's what all of the signs pointed toward. She was quiet for another minute, listening to Joe's soft remark about coping, then she just nodded gruffly to the man before looking up to Joe.

"We oughta--... No, I oughta talk t'him more. Duty t'learn 'n know." Her eyes finished speaking what her mouth didn't. You don't have to come if you don't want to. She would let him decide, wait for him to let her know what he chose before she'd move another step in any direction.

[John Barrister] Welcome, he'd said, but it seemed like yet another of those thoughtless little courtesies a man inserted into his daily life after thirty-some-odd years on the planet. These things are foreign to the Garou, who never needed to deal with large amounts of strangers who didn't cower out of instinct; they might seem like lies, and maybe they were. Barrister doesn't really give a damn. It was part of human ... what was it Joseph said? Coping mechanism.

He'd given them an invite of sorts, and he wasn't sticking around to see what they decided. Barrister turns the dog largely out of brute force and starts down the street at a grim, soldierly trot. The personal strength it takes to turn his back on a Garou that's looking at him suspiciously -- just great, just the way a Tuesday night should turn out -- is not insignificant. The sweat he'd worked up running his dog has turned cold and clammy, but Barrister was a man that, for better or worse, knew how to handle pressure. He turns the corner and the barking fades off a bit.

[Joseph Morgan] When Barrister backed off some more, and Kendra spoke, Joseph twisted his head around and looked at her over his shoulder. Her hand was still curled up tight in his shirt. She said something about duty, and he half-smiled. It looked a lot like a smirk if you couldn't see his eyes. "I know," he said, to both what had been out loud and what she'd left unspoken.

He glanced downwards, as best he could. "Could you maybe release the strangehold on my shirt so we can start walkin', Sunshine?" he asked, lifting an eyebrow. He hadn't called her Kendra, which she may or may not take notice of, especially at the moment.

[Kendra Peterman] The substitution for her name was noticed, but not actually appreciated in the tense moment, in how fast her thoughts were moving at the moment. However, it would be remembered, lodged away to be pondered several hours from now, or perhaps the next day, then brought up in conversation later. For now, however, she just answered his half-smile half-smirk with a tight, tense smile of her own, forced for courtesy more than anything else, and then let go of the back of his shirt.

Her hands dropped into her pants pockets, jamming down and wiggling deep, and she started to walk up the sidewalk, taking big steps to cover distance faster, but she would make sure that Joe was walking with her before she set the pace in autopilot.

[John Barrister] For his part, John Barrister takes his dog home. Once out of sight of Kendra, the poor hound seems to turn into another animal completely: shaking from nose to tail, head hanging low, plodding along at an exhausted pace. A heavy musk rose off him -- the scent of a canine that's dumped all his adrenaline at once. Barrister recognizes the smell from a time he'd driven over a bump and Bruin had fallen out of the truck bed and nearly broken a forelimb. He also recognizes the smell from more surreal memories: it was not very different from the scent of Rage when his Garou cousins burned it to make themselves faster, tougher, deadlier.

"Come on, boy. Up we go."

Barrister's street is a slight incline. Around here, the buildings dropped off to houses, some conjoined, some freestanding. Barrister's is one of the latter, and tiny. There's a small wrought-iron gate behind which hides an equally small garden. It may have been pleasant once, but it's grown wild. The birdbath is nearly buried in a rosebush gone homicidal; the grass is a patch of prairie come to reclaim the plains.

He leads Bruin around the side, releasing him into the (yes, small) backyard. Then he lets himself in the front door and leaves it open for Kendra and/or Joseph to meander through.

When they do enter, they'll find that Barrister had, at the least, told the truth about just moving in. From what they can see and surmise, the entirety of the house consists of one foyer, one living room, one kitchen, and one hall down to a bedroom and a bathroom. There are boxes everywhere. The bedroom door is open, and they can see he at least has a bare mattress out, as well as what looks to be the world's oldest blanket to cover himself with. In the kitchen, there is precisely one pot, one pan, one bowl, and one set of silverware unpacked.

In the living room, which Barrister presently occupies, there is a comfortable-looking old leather couch, a clock, a floor lamp and a decanter of some amber-toned liquor or other. He has poured out a tumbler and, hearing their entry, sets out two more.

"Shut the door." In an enclosed space, the bass in his voice is more apparent, as is his size. He's well over six feet, broad through shoulder and chest. His hair is dark; the stubble shading his jaw much the same. There's a generous dusting of hair on the backs of his hands and the first phalanges of his fingers. He draws the curtains on the windowed nook that overlooks the front yard. "I don't have anything to drink but brandy and water. You can have your pick."

[Kendra Peterman] (( *Nose-scritch* V disappeared. Give 'im a few minutes to turn back up before continuing? ))
to John Barrister

[Kendra Peterman] Up the street, Kendra made sure to keep an acceptable distance between her and the man with his skiddish dog. Poor thing, only skiddish because of her. And it seemed like such a friendly, dopey critter while she was petting it. This, the mortally terrified attitude that animals such as dogs and cats took around her was one of the downsides of Rage that bothered her the most. Humans... pah, most of them were mean anyways. She liked dogs.

So on up the sidewalk, into the front yard, through the garden, and through the front door came Kendra and Joe. In the time it took to walk, Kendra had loosened up a little, that Rage-filled tension fading a bit as her concious, logical mind took hold and told her to settle down and get a grip. The rumble of a bass voice from the living room requested that the door be shut, and Kendra complied easily, casting a glance up to the lengthy-haired man she walked with before putting her hands back in her pants pockets and making her way into the living room.

She did not sit on the single piece of furniture available, she did not sit on the floor, and she did not find a wall to lean on. Nothing about the girl appeared comfortable at the moment. She felt as though she'd walked into the den of an enemy, and she just couldn't shake that feeling, no matter how ridiculous it probably was. This was a Kin man, for crying out loud. He couldn't be an enemy. She shook her head, clearing it of thoughts of danger best she could while simultaneously declining his offer for booze or water.

"....Yeh seem t'got a problem wi'h my type, fella."

Straight-forward, to the point, she spoke what was on her mind. A question formed as a comment, an observation. You couldn't hear the lift at the end of the sentence that would signify a question mark on paper, but you could feel the question hidden in the words, and see it in her Rage-burnt eyes.

[John Barrister] She declines; she was probably too young to drink anyway. Too young to drink, but not too young to tear someone's head off. Welcome to the Garou Nation. Barrister slops another healthy shot of brandy into his tumbler before capping the decanter and replacing it on the hearth. When he moves aside, Kendra can see there's one more item up there: a small picture-frame, the photograph within indistinct with distance.

Barrister seats himself on the couch with a grunt, waving Kendra at the windowseat if she felt like it. And her idea of an icebreaker elicits another grunt from him, this one significantly more disbelieving.

" 'Problem with your type?' What are you trying to get at -- if I'm a second Samuel Haight?" A short, unamused laugh. "I'm the farthest thing. But if you mean that I've seen enough of the Garou to know you're more trouble than a blessing, well." He cradles the tumbler in his big hands, sitting back in his creaky old couch. "I have."

[Kendra Peterman]
Well, that was one suspicion thrown out the window. He didn't seem a bad guy, she asked him straight. Wasn't spiteful toward True-Born, according to his words. That and she was invited into his home, which plausably could have been a trap of some sort, but only a truely paranoid soul would believe that whole 'lured into his home and it was a trap' delusion. Yet, stale as the suspicion was becoming, she was having troubles shaking it completely. Perhaps this was due to the signal dog, the Garou-Sniffer, as she would call it, perhaps it was due to her moon hanging ripe in the sky, or perhaps it was just a close call too many in her past.

Who knew.

She huffed softly, answering with a small "Hmm," to start, then glanced toward the window seat offered to her. She shook her head, pulled her hands out of her pant pockets, and folded her arms securely under the swell of her chest beneath the soft fuzzy yellow sweater she wore. "Well, shit, y'flip-flopped moods so damn fast I thought'cha had.... I'unno, spite or motivations 'gainst we True Born. Can't blame a gal fer a sense'a self-preservation." Her shoulders rolled up and back down in a defensive shrug, and she turned her head to look away from the large man in his sweats, focusing her gaze up the hall to the matress in his bedroom instead. Simply to have something else to look at, so she could disconnect herself from the responsibility of awkward conversation and confessions of paranoia.

[Joseph Morgan]
Joseph had an easier time pretending that this wasn't awkward and uncomfortable. He kept to Kendra's shoulder as they walked to the house, and stepped aside to let her go first (turnabout is fair play) when they got to the door. The door was closed behind them, drinks were offered, and - like Kendra - Joseph did not find a place to sit down and make himself at home. He did, however, lean against the wall by the front door, loosely crossing his arms over his abdomen.

His eyes went from Kendra, when she spoke, to their burly host. The mention of Haight doesn't get a reaction - not a visible one - but one of Joseph's eyebrows does lift involuntarily when he says that Garou are more trouble than they're worth. After Kendra shrugged with her small note of...acknowledgement that Barrister had spoken, perhaps...Joseph looked at him and lifted his chin in a small nod. "What's your name?"

[John Barrister]
Barrister's mouth tilts. It's a smile, but without much humor. "For Christ's sake," he sips at his brandy this time, savoring the slow burn down his throat, "one minute you had your face within an inch of a dog I've seen crunch up possums like kibble. The next you were baring your teeth at him and snarling in the middle of the street. I'd worry if I was still jumping for joy."

He leans forward to set the tumbler down somewhere -- only, of course, there's nothing to set it on. Except boxes. So he sets it on a box. His back is to the hall that Kendra is peering up. What she can see of the bedroom is unremarkable except in its sparsity. Not even sheets on the mattress yet, much less a bedframe, headboard, endboard, skirts, whatever and however a woman might decorate such things.

"John," he replies. "Barrister. Of the New England Barristers, if you want to do a background check." A hint of aspersion there. Barrister's usually a nice guy. Gruff, but nice. His proverbial hackles have yet to settle entirely, though. "We're a pretty vanilla clan. Couple of good Get of Fenris in our history. Only kinfolk recently. What about you two?"

And a wave at the windowseat. "Go on, sit down."

[Kendra Peterman]
Kendra huffed and shifted her gaze from the bedroom to the direction of the backyard, and a slight grin made its way onto her stubborn face, leaking through the cracks of her 'I'm stern' front. "Ah hell, I ain' no 'possum. ...Anyway, th'mongrel started it." The term mongrel was used with a touch of affection to the term, the way an older sibling would call their little brother an idiot while smacking him in the shoulder and laughing.

The second offer/command was issued to sit down, and Kendra glanced to John, then to the windowseat once more before she shrugged her shoulders, loosely, and made her way across the living room to plunk her butt down. She turned sideways in the windowseat, back pressed to its frame, and she pulled her legs up with her and rested her arms on her knees. She offered no answer to his query about herself and Joseph. Honestly, she would be quite happy to just slip into silence and let Joe play ambassador in this meeting. She may be a Galliard, but there were situations where she was sure other people would be better suited to talk.

This was one of them. Why on earth would a gruff thirty-some year old man want to talk to a little girl like her? It was better for him to talk to the other gruff thirty year old.

[Joseph Morgan]
The tall - but not as tall - man by the front door had an intensity to his features that simply didn't make its way to the tone of his voice or the vague glaze of boredom in his eyes. Not tonight, at least. Coping mechanisms, he'd said, and maybe even been half serious. He smirked, albeit amusedly, when Barrister mentioned doing a background check. What were they, Walkers?

No. At least one of them was Fenrir, apparently.

His eyes, dark enough brown that they seemed to have no pupil at all unless you got up close, followed Kendra over to the windowseat, but he stayed standing. Someone had to prop that wall up, after all. He shook his head a little at her silence and looked back at Barrister. He didn't sound gruff, though his voice came out in a bass rumble only slightly lightened by the (nigh unto constant) sardonic edge to it. "Joseph Morgan," he said, as far as his name. "My grandmother was a Fury Theurge. My daughter is a Galliard." That last bit was said only after a pause to consider whether or not to share it.

And since the 'little girl' over by the window was keeping her peace, he added drolly, "And Kendra is, obviously, a gregarious and chatty Fianna Galliard."

[John Barrister]
John gets up in the brief silence. The living room is small. The whole house is small, and old; built back in the sixties when seven-foot pebbled ceilings were the norm. When he stands, it seems like he might hit his head. When he picks his way through the boxes, one imagines one can feel currents shifting in the air, like subsurface ocean currents rippling in the wake of an orca.

While Joseph answers, Barrister makes some assurance that he was listening/could hear from the other room/will be right back and disappears down the short hallway. The bedroom light clicks on. He steps just out of their sight; his soaked sweatshirt and undershirt land on the bed together, one fine rumpled stenchy mess. The bedroom light clicks off again. He comes out pulling a shirt on over a furry, scarred torso, the dark head bowed as his big squared-off fingers close up the buttons in the front.

He raises his head briefly at the mention of Joseph's daughter. "Huh," he says, as if the man had shown him a picture. "Cute." He's on to his cuffs now, rolling them up to the elbow rather than buttoning them. Resuming his seat, "Good meeting you, Kendra. Joseph."

[Kendra Peterman]
Kendra quirked an eyebrow at John when he disappeared into his bedroom, then comes back, shirtless and about as furry as she was in her War-Form, buttoning up his shirt. A part of her, juvenille and silenced in the company of new and respectable(?) people, wanted her to make a joke. Urged her to say something about him definately being related to wolves, told her to wait until he was asleep and shave a glyph in his back fur. She resisted them, and kept her mouth closed and that grin off her face.

A hand lifted from where it rested on her knee and settled into a smooth and repetitive motion by finding a lengthier strand of her uneven, choppy, roughly shoulder-length hair and twisting it about in her fingers. Her tongue peeked out, pink and bright, and swept across lips that were a similar, yet darker pink, moistening them out of habit.

"Yeah. Good meetin' yeh too. ...Y'got family 'ere? I mean, Fenrir yeh know 'r somethin'?" Her tone was gruff, a subconcious attempt to compensate for her size by sounding meaner and tougher than she usually acted. ...Not that there were no valid doubts in any one of her friends' minds that she really was meaner and tougher than she acted.

[Joseph Morgan]
Cute. Joseph just quirks an eyebrow at the odd - to him - response. The room, the house, and the roof feel claustrophobic to him, but it hasn't started to set him on edge quite yet. He gave the man a small nod, as much of a return to the 'good meeting you' as he was prepared to give right now. The wariness from the sidewalk was fading, but not yet gone, and what they had to do here was more for Kendra to do. Joseph could count the number of Garou he knew in town on one hand, and he wasn't even interested in associating with most of those.

Clearly that didn't apply the Mean, Scary Wee Thing playing with her hair over there.

[John Barrister]
"Nh-uh." A sound for the negative. As his nerves settle, Barrister sinks into a sort of rough eloquence that required fewer and fewer noises for communication. He picks up his tumbler again. If they won't drink, then he'll bloody drink alone. Curiously certain, even confident: "They'll find me if they need me." The couch creaks as he settles back into it.

A silence drifts; Barrister doesn't seem discomfited by it. Small as the house is, there's a real fireplace under the hearth. No fire crackles there, but it's a place to rest the eyes nonetheless as the strong spirits diffused into his limbs. After a moment he rouses back to them, lifting the tumbler in vague offering. "Sure I can't get you guys something to drink? Might have an apple or two in the kitchen, too."

[Kendra Peterman]
For a minute, Kendra was quiet, and in that minute she continued to twirl her hair, looking out the window with her brows knotted down into a frown that didn't completely touch her lips, lips that only seemed capable of smiling or curling back to show teeth. John might have been comfortable in the silence, but Kendra wasn't. Hours of silence could pass between herself and Joseph in the apartment, and that was fine. They knew each other, were comfortable with each other. John was still a stranger, and gaps in conversations with strangers, conversations that were beginning to feel forced, simply weren't comfortable.

Drinks and apples were offered, and Kendra looked back into the house, returning her attention to Joe and John rather than the world outside. She blinked once, took a second to comprehend the words that were spoken, then simply shook her head. "Nah. Alcohol in th'presence of a perfect stranger's a bad idea. Acceptin' alcohol from a perfect stranger's a worse one. Believe me, I would know."

A Galliard trick peeked through there. In those last five words, believe me I would know, she had switched her tone, subtley. Those last five words carried a story with them, perhaps humorous, perhaps traumatic. Such was difficult to tell, but it was certain that there was a tale there.

[Joseph Morgan]
"Thank you, I'm fine," Joseph says, declining more directly this time. He's polite about it, proving that he can open his mouth without being a smartass. He just doesn't do so often. Could be those last traces of unease still riding his vertebrae that keep him from accepting further hospitality; could be a dozen other things. Like the reasons Kendra gives.

Her answer pulls Joseph's eyes away from Barrister to look askance at the compact (yet appealingly well-muscled!) Fianna. They narrow faintly, a flicker of change in his expression that quickly smooths back to 'normal'. It almost looked like curiosity, but it could just as easily have been concern. He looked slowly back to the fellow on the couch. "They might, just. Certain Garou here seem to have a delightful habit of claiming Kin as their...what was it, Kendra?" He quirked his eyebrows at her. "I'm your 'ward', right?" Irony. Sarcasm. Semi-affectionate tolerance.

[John Barrister]
Thank you, Joseph says, I'm fine. Barrister's mouth curls into a one-sided grin, somewhere in a forest of 24-hour beard bristle. "A straight answer. I'm shocked and elated."

The conversation, such as it were, moves on. Barrister watches the interplay between them, the subtleties of the glances they share. Familiar, these two. He would've placed their relationship somewhere in the vicinity of good friends judging on age and appearances alone; knowing what he knows and hearing the ward comment veers it into more intimate territory. The big man laughs a little, wry, a little rueful. There's a gold ring glimmering on his fourth finger, left hand. "Been there," he says, with a mild gesture of that hand, "done that." He finishes his brandy and carefully sets the emptied glass aside.

[John Barrister]
(comma malfunction. "The big man laughs, a little wry, a little rueful.")

[John Barrister]
to Joseph Morgan, Kendra Peterman
(i should've made this disclaimer earlier, but i'm still feeling this char out. he might change a bit before i settle into a final version *LOL*)

[Kendra Peterman]
Kendra set a long hard stare upon Joe, and it looked for a second as though she were staring him down. Like, seriously, the way two Garou stare at each other, muscles trembling for action, before they explode into their fighting bodies and lunge at one another, teeth flashing and claws ripping. Then her eyelids fell, covering the stare, and she turned her head and rose to her feet with a gruff 'Harumph'.

The Fianna crossed the living room, snatched an empty glass from the table it was set on, and made her way into the kitchen to fetch herself some water. As she did all of this, she spoke, her voice consistant on the same volume because the house was small enough for her to be heard easily. "Call yerself whatcha will t'me. Ward, friend, pain in the neck... All mean th'same thing. I keep an eye on ya." She came back into the living room, glass filled with water, and paused in her speaking to take a sip, swish it in her mouth, and swallow.

"When I say I keep an eye on ya, I don' mean I butt my nose inta yer personal affairs. Was I t'say you was my ward, it wouldn' mean tha' I have any say in whatcha do 'r where ya go, wouldn' mean tha' I gotta follow ya nose-up-ass wherever y'go. It simply means this-- I make sure you don' get killed, caught up in this war." Small feet and slim, fit, jean-sheathed legs carried her back across the living room and back to the windowseat, where she flumped into a sit, but left her feet on the floor this time.

[John Barrister]
John Barrister drops his eyes from the two as they launch into what might be termed a private discussion. Or a private lecture, courtesy of Kendra. Either way, he murmurs an excuse and gets up, standing aside to let Kendra back into the living room before he disappears into the kitchen. The sink tap runs again. He washes out his glass, shakes water off, and sets it out to dry beside the sink. He takes his time and gives them their privacy. The fridge door opens and closes. There's a distinct crunch: teeth into apple.

[Joseph Morgan]
"That was the idea," is the immediate rejoinder to John, met with a similar smirk. "I was saving it, just to give you a little thrill." His voice is droll, sarcastic, as it has been since they met on the street. About the only time it had altered was when he muttered fuck you very much to Kendra over his shoulder. He knew he was a meat shield, and given the interaction between Kendra and himself, it was possible he even knew that he'd been a meat shield for the dog. Kendra liked dogs. And Joseph had submitted to playing some small, silly part in putting distance and obstacles between her Rage and its panic.

Joseph has never in his life worn a ring like the one on John's finger. His eyes flicked over it with passing interest, but that's all. The irony in his tone had been due to the wide age gap between himself and the Fianna. In other (mortal) lives, he might have been some kind of sketchy patron to a young student, and though the word 'ward' might still fit, its application would be reversed.

He met Kendra's stare levelly, but there was a distinct difference in it. Joseph didn't look away, but his eyes held no challenge for her. He had nothing to prove to Kendra, and as far as he was concerned, nor did she. He didn't verbally answer the lecture, but after she was done - and while Barrister was getting himself some fruit - Joseph stepped away from the wall he was leaning against. He walked a few paces over to where she had flounced onto the windowseat again and just sat down next to her.

While in a stranger's house, even if that stranger was in the other room, Joseph had nothing to say to that.

[Kendra Peterman]
Joe's presence on the windowseat behind her prompted little action. There was no hug, no leaning into, no bump. Nothing necessary. She just sipped the water from the thick, stout booze glass and hunched her body down into a posture that was both relaxed and very typically badass teenage boy at the same time. Her knees parted and her body leaned forward, torso almost between her thighs, elbows on her knees, fingers barely holding the rim of the glass, allowing it to dangle loosely between her knees.

She said nothing for a while, but watched the light in the kitchen and the shadow of the big Fenrir Kinfolk as he busied himself in there. Then, she spoke once more. "So what broughtcha back here? Anythin' pertainin' ta Family, or just out of a... want?" A human want, she thought.

[John Barrister]
There's some more vague sounds of puttering in the kitchen. Even that of a box opened, a few more pots and pans unpacked and shoved under the sink. Then Kendra's talking again, apparently addressing him. The clanking silences. Barrister returns to darken the open doorway to the kitchen, putting one shoulder against it as he surveys the scene. Joseph's moved to the windowseat. Kendra's where she was.

"I don't know," the shrug is surprisingly fluid, all things considered. He takes another bite out of his apple, crunching the piece way back in his molars. Straight-faced, "I missed the weather."

[Joseph Morgan]
So that was it. Nothing necessary.

Kendra leaned forward, Joseph twisted and leaned against the bit of space where the window met the wall. He didn't cross his arms again, but rested lazily linked hands on his midsection. Barrister's answer gets another raised eyebrow. The weather here? He did know where he was, right? Chicago weather? Like the fog and currently near-constant raining?

[Kendra Peterman]
"Nice poker face."

Kendra shook her head, took another drink of her water, and then, after a bit of antsy fidgiting-- swaying of her knees, tapping of her fingertips on the glass--, she rose. The rest of the water was downed quickly, chugged ineloquently, and she walked to set the glass back on the table where she had gotten it from in the first place.

"If there ain' nothin' more to be discussin', then I ain' seein' much of a reason to linger." Her words were blunt and honest. Injustly, she was still suspicious of the man. Without reason, without evidence for even herself, she sensed something that she was unable to place her finger on that just gave her an unsettled feeling at the back of her neck. She didn't feel completely safe in the presence of the bear man. She was certain she was just imagining things, but she was never one to ignore a gut feeling.

[John Barrister]
She compliments his poker face. Her friend/ward/whatever sits in lazy silence. And the pause, this time, is getting a little uncomfortable.

"Listen," Barrister breaks in suddenly, gruff and a little hamfisted about it all, "it's getting late, and -- "

-- and right about then, Kendra starts in with If there ain't nothing more... and Barrister leaves off with a laugh. It might be the first good laugh they heard out of him all night: deep, slow, easy. A rough hand goes behind his neck. He rubs the knob of his spine, briefly self-conscious. His mother taught him manners growing up, and kicking your guests out is never quite acceptable.

"Yeah," he says, holding his hand out for the glass automatically, "thanks for stopping by."

[Joseph Morgan]
He rose to his feet more deliberately, taking his time. Joseph wasn't much one for fidgeting. It was easy to get the impression that he was just too lazy, and it fed nicely into his insistence that he was a tired, crotchety old man. Kendra was the one with the spastic energy, the one to do all the foot-wiggling, finger-tapping, and hair-twirling. Joseph mostly just hung around, looked pretty, and made himself useless. That's what he'd tell anyone who asked, at least.

Sliding his hands into his pockets, Joseph smirked at the two of them saying (basically) the same thing at (almost) the same time and the nervous laughter the man followed it up with. He was amused, less at their expense than at the sheer farcicality of it. "Thanks for the invite," he returned calmly, just barely on the edge of being a smartass again. It was like lobbing back a tennis ball. Thanks for stopping by...Thanks for the invite...

[Kendra Peterman]
A curt nod was given at the thanks for stopping by. It was a polite, human gesture, and tonight she was feeling slightly disconnected from human society, primarily because, for an instant, she had allowed Luna to pull the wolf to the forefront of her mind, to raise her hackles and bare her teeth, to let her jump behind a barrier and growl. John wasn't thankful that they dropped by. He probably wasn't hindered terribly by their presence or upset by it, but he wasn't grateful for it. He was just being polite with empty words of civil manners.

Kendra was in no mood for them, so she gave the nod and stepped into the kitchen to head for the door. Her hand was on the knob, turned, and the door was pulled open, wide enough for Joe to pass by first if he so wished, before she paused and looked back to John. "Y'wan' me t'tell yer Kin tha' yer in town?" His kin being the Fenrir.

[John Barrister]
Well. Nervous laugh wasn't quite the word for it. Self-consciousness and nervousness were close, but not quite the same. And there's very little nervous about Barrister. He had a sort of quiet confidence about him that size or age or profession bestows a man. It's only that there's no polish to his confidence; no real ability to smooth over all the bumps and crags.

Truth be told, there were very few similarities between any of the three souls that occupied Barrister's living room.

Truth be told again, there had been tensions underlying the entirety of the conversation. Barrister is a coarse-cut man, but he's no fool, no brick. Kendra's suspicion is there, has been there since the first moment. Nothing he can do about it, and frankly, Barrister may not be the type to care much. He flicks the path light on so they didn't fall in the dark as Kendra opens the door. A moment's consideration is given her question. "If you want," he says then, knowing full well this might only feed her suspicions. "But they'll find me if they need me, regardless."

[Joseph Morgan]
With a nod of goodbye to Barrister, Joseph steps out the door when Kendra holds it. He has no grand mannerisms, to insist on holding a door for a lady. Besides, Kendra's not really a lady, anyway. He walks out to the newly lit path and pauses to wait for her to step out.

[Kendra Peterman]
Her eyebrows lifted, showing the suspicion that was knowingly granted to her by the man's slightly omnious words, then she simply nodded and spoke in the most polite tone that she'd used all night. "Good night, Mr. Barrister." She stepped outside, onto the front path, and closed the door behind her. She walked up the path alongside Joe, eyeballing the unruly garden that made up the front yard, and feeling a strange girly urge to make sure someday that it was trimmed and tended.

Once they were out of the frontyard and on the sidewalk again, headed back to the apartment they both called home, she jammed her hands roughly into her pants pockets for the um-teenth time that night and spoke, her voice still defensively gruff. "I'm th'on'y one that got th'heebie-jeebies fr'm that guy, huh?"

[Joseph Morgan]
He cleared his throat slightly and fell into step alongside Kendra when they started walking away from the little house, shaking his head. "No, you're not." He didn't elaborate, not without being questioned first, and kept his eyes ahead to regain his bearings in the neighborhood.