John Barrister

[Skadi] Late afternoon: god knows what spring is like, thunder in the morning, enough rain to wash the streets clean, then sunshine and pollen coating the cars all afternoon. The weatherman says it'll drop below freezing tonight, and snow by morning, but for now - for now, well, it's golden. It's a gorgeous afternoon - all sunbright and longshadowed - with a heartbreakingly blue sky in the patches visible between the buildings, the homes and high rises, the condominiums and artsy office space, the faux-quaint business districts. There are neighborhoods in the city teeming with streetlife, now, on a day like this. The residents don't have regular jobs; they live on welfare, or disability pay, or work the odd jobs that keep the city running night and day, at the hours normal middle class folk sleep. Not here.



As lovely as the afternoon is, most of John Barrister's neighbors won't be home until dinner time, or later, when the city's shadows have grown long and the pleasure of the day is passing. There's no one sitting on the stoops today, as he rounds the corner that was and is becoming again familiar, heading home, Bruin to hand. No one: except on his own porch, his own stoop, in his own overgrown yard. The girl isn't looking up; she's seated on his top step, leaning down over her legs, examining her feet, maybe, or a trail of ants marching across the sidewalk below, concentrating on a strange something, her golden hair coiled into a single thick braid. The boy - the tall, lean, shaggyheaded boy - is not in evidence, not at the moment, not yet, not precisely from this angle. If John Barrister knows anything about Garou, however, he knows that that means little. The things that they are. The places they go. The way they slip their skins, over and over again.



[John Barrister] It's Bruin that notices the stranger first. A sudden reluctance felt through the leash; a sudden tautness of the hound's lean flank. Barrister, for his part, is thumbing through a book -- at least eighty years old, possibly more -- that ended up, along with a crate of its brethren, at his pawn shop today. He knows he shouldn't buy that junk. Chances are no one was going to buy them, especially not in a place like Bronzeville. Still, he couldn't help himself. Books, knickknacks, antique telephones: they were stockpiling in the shop.



The little gate creaks as it opens. Suddenly Barrister raises his head: the low growl of Barrister, or the rage in the air. His eyes are a dark ocean-blue by day, and they fix on Skadi for a penetrating moment before he glances around his messy overgrown frontyard. The solemnity of his face slips into a wryly apologetic grin.



"Needs a mow," he means the lawn, which is mostly wildgrass by now. He nods at the mailbox by the door. "Anything in there? I'm going to put Bruin in the back."



[Skadi] "Leave it grow," she replies with a shrug, looking up as the gate opens, still leaning over her knees, her legs - not watching the ants march by, no, but painting her toenails a pale shell pink. He walks in, dog at his side, and she caps the bottle of nail polish, twisting the screwtop until it is secure and then scooping the whole thing into the palm of her right hand, straightening, sliding her toes through the V of a pair of flower-themed fliptops whose plastic petals could use some fluffing. Something else from the endless bounty of crap in the back of her truck, a paean to summer, that. "Looks better'n tha rest'a them." A chin at his neighbors yards, marching, pristine. "'R different, at least."



She stands, jogging up the couple of steps to the door, pausing at the mailbox long enough to open it and pull out two or three pieces of junk mail. "Sale at the Piggly-Wiggly," which there isn't, not a sale, not at the Piggly Wiggly, in Chicago, but she's holding a CosCo ad, and maybe she likes the downhome name better. "Ain't nothin' but junk, though."



[Kemp] shit, day night, fuckme confusing

to†John Barrister, Skadi



[John Barrister] The side gate opens with a thump. Rain and the warmth of the day have expanded the wood, wedging door tightly against post. Claws tick their way into the backyard, and Barrister clatters the gate closed again to wade around front.



"Here," holding his hand out for the mail, and, "thanks." He tucks it under his arm and fishes his keychain out of his pocket, unlocks the door. A gust of slightly musty air escapes the inside of the small house -- the sort of smell all houses eventually develop after a few decades. This one's maybe forty years old, one of the small, one-story, vaguely L-shaped houses so popular in the 60s. The ceiling is only 7 feet high and pebbled. John's size is more apparent inside the tiny foyer where he maneuvers his shoes off.



The foyer opens into a living room; there's a wall to the left, with an entrance to the kitchen/dining/family area. Straight ahead, across the living room is a hall. At the end of it is a bathroom, a bedroom, and a door that may or may not lead to a basement. The entirety of the house is miniature, and stuffed to the gills with half-unpacked boxes. The living room is swimming in the byproducts of moving-in.



"Let's talk in the kitchen," he suggests. There's a small round folding table there, two chairs around it. She can see more boxes in the family room, no furniture. In fact, the only other furniture in the whole house appears to be a large, old leather couch and a mattress in the bedroom.



[Kemp] It was from the bathroom the noise came. From behind the closed door came the sound of flushing. A few seconds later, water ran. A few seconds after that, the door opened and there was that tall kid from the other night. Busily wiping his hands back and forth on the thighs of his jeans.



"Oh heh, sorry. Had to er....go...really bad. Meant to be out before ya turned up."



Sheepishly smiling like a kid that got caught with his hand in the cookie jar.



[Skadi] "S'your house," she shadow him inside, in his wake, pausing just inside the door where his toes off his shoes; after a moment's consideration, she steps out of her flower-covered flipflops, too, and ambles barefoot from the foyer through the living room, into the kitchen, stopping once to frown up at the low, popcorn covered ceilings. Her gait is hipcentered, somehow - rolling. He must be used to that, too, the beastshadow clear even when it is not extended, the animal efficiency of her walk.



Her mouth curls at the outtermost corner when Kemp comes wandering out of the bathroom; a snort, faint, perhaps affectionate, at the least familiar greets him. "Told 'im he could hold it, but he was crossin' his legs like a girl'n everthang. Ya just moved ta town, huh?"



[John Barrister] The toilet flushes. Barrister immediately tenses, frowning in the direction of the bathroom -- because, frankly, having your toilet flush itself without warning was cause for any homeowner to tense. When Kemp appears, he doesn't exactly relax. It's your house, Skadi said, but they all knew this was something of a courtesy when it came to kin and Garou.



"I'd prefer if you weren't in before I turned up, to be honest." It's blunt, but carefully said -- as neutral as possible as he pulls the fridge open to retrieve a gallon jug of milk. A glance over his solid shoulder at Skadi. "Yep. Just moved back, actually. I lived here a few years back." He sets out three glasses. "Not for long though. You guys want anything? I have some apple juice, and milk. A little brandy if that's your thing."



[Kemp] "I had to take a dump. It's not the same as pissing, ya know that."



Nodding up towards the celing.



"Ya know, that shit if it was put up before the late 80's? Has asbestos in it. Juice is cool and sorry, really didn't want to leave a log in your yard, ya know? Besides, pisses off dogs when ya shit in their yard. And sorry man. Oh and er, your locks really suck."



Shrugging sheepishly.



[Skadi] "Y'ain't got no beer, have ya?" Her instinct is to find a counter and lever herself up, lean back, braced on her elbows maybe, long legs dangling; instead, she just leans against the cabinets opposite the fridge, forearms braced against the edge of the old laminate counter, her long legs defining an angle, maybe 60 degrees, with the kitchen floor. A glance at Kemp follows; there's something neutral there, passing-tight, but controlled. It's afternoon, and the moon has yet to make an appearance, but wherever it is, it's huge, already failing, full of reflected light. "Don't drink brandy. Milk'd be alright, 'r water, if y'aint got no beer."



"Kemp's a Rotagar," by way of explanation, as her gaze returns to the kinsman.



[John Barrister] "Yeah? I'll get them changed." He won't -- but it was one of the countless little white lies humans told in daily life for the sake of politeness. He pours Skadi and himself a glass of milk each, Kemp a glass of juice. Then he hands one to Skadi, one to Kemp, and leans back against the wall in a place that roughly triangulates him to them.



No one sits.



"Sorry," he drinks his milk, "no beer. Yet." A glance at Kemp, a nod: he was a Rotagar. "No-moon, right?" And Skadi, "What are you? Gibbous? Full?" No one ever mistakes her for a Godi -- funny, that.



[Kemp] "Thanks."



Sniffing the juice before he tilted it back to chug it down in one long, long session.



"Good. No moon, new moon. Depends on how ya say it. Damn, brain freeze."



Pressing his palm to his forehead with his eyes closed.



[Skadi] "Full," the golden-headed girl confirms, the right corner of her mouth twisting into the promise of a smile that is not otherwise fully expressed. It's not hot in here, but her presence in the small room makes it seem closer than it already does, with the claustrophobically low ceilings closing in on both men. She takes the glass of milk, takes a sip, and gathers the beginnings of a milk mustache she doesn't seem to notice, and doesn't bother to wipe off.



"What about you? Ya got a name other than John?"



[John Barrister] A tiny smile hooks his mouth and crinkles his eyes. "What do you mean, like 'Walks-the-Hound'? No. Just John Barrister."



[Kemp] "Heh, I like that. Walks the Hound. Heh."



Looking around in a circle before holding the glass out to John.



"Thanks. How many times ya hit your head on the ceiling jumping out of bed?"



[Skadi] "I meant Barrister, Mister." A flickering glance at Kemp, her minute smirk briefly widens, then drops away as her attention swings back to the kinsman. "Walks tha fuckin' Hound'll do, though. Less poor Bruin's neutered, an' then it won't. Then it starts gettin' complicated."



[John Barrister] "Want more?" -- Kemp's glass. And a laugh. "I don't jump. I get up pretty carefully."



[Kemp] He glanced towards the fridge. Normally he'd have checked it out before the bathroom run, but he'd been in a hurry.



"Sure, what else ya got in there?"



Grimacing with a look towards Skadi.



"Don't talk about neutering in mixed company, that's just painful to consider."



[John Barrister] John nods Kemp toward the fridge. "Help yourself."



There's not much to help himself to. The icebox is stocked with a bottle of dark rum, some ice cubes, a few frozen chicken breasts. Ice cream. The fridge proper contains a carton of eggs, milk, juice, some apples, some sausages, sandwich meat, lettuce, mustard, ketchup, and a slab of rich red t-bone steak. Just one. It's very obviously a bachelor's fridge, though glinting on Barrister's left hand is a gold wedding band.



[Skadi] Skadi takes another long drink from the glass of milk; this time she has the presence of mind to wipe away the milk mustache, against her right sleeve before she sets the glass back, carefully on the counter. While the pair talk - Kemp and his juice, the low-fuckin' ceilings, popcorn, asbestos, whatever the hell that is or means - her attention wanders over the closeness of the small kitchen, the boxes, half-opened, half-unpacked, the signs of disuse and reuse; it's easy to fall away from the rhythm of the conversation, into the rhythms of her own body, easy to find space in which to listen to herself breathe, if only because that is how she begins to stand it, on the long nights that open up beneath the full moon, a slow uncoiling not of tension, but of self, back into the core of that tension.



The girl looks sharply up as Kemp addresses her and her mouth snaps into a quick, unconscious grin that gains all the trappings of a smirk, dressed up as it is in her rage. She looks away again, over the kinsman's shoulder, out through the window set above the sink, out into the yard; she is looking when the ring snags her attention; her gaze drops to his hand. "How long 'til yer wife'n kids join ya, Mr. Barrister?" - what is that, southern hospitality? southern training, some latent formality Kemp hasn't heard, given Chicago's teeming population of hot teenage kin, whose age has apparently not yet earned them the rather human honorific.



[John Barrister] There had been some easiness in Barrister's broad frame. His arms loosely folded across his deep chest, his shoulder to the wall, he'd been a man in his own home, accustomed to the rage of Garou, if not quite inured to it. Skadi's question brings a shadow to his brow, though. His left hand moves in the shadow of his right elbow. He rubs his thumb absently along the wedding ring, following her glance out the window.



"John's all right," he addresses the Mister first. Then he steadies on her, the frown still hovering over his brow. "I don't have any kids and my wife's passed. It's just me."



[Kemp] He presented his backside to them as he stuck his head in the fridge. Not too shy when it came to food and being nosey. Starting to root around in the fridge, opening the lunchmeat to sniff at it before he turned back with a slice stuffed in his mouth, another one he was rolling up into a tube.



"Mmpporry...."



Chewing and swallowing before trying again.



"Sorry to hear that."



He was never sure what to say about death. And there sure as fuck was a lot of kin left behind recently.



"But now ya got us. How lucky could one guy get?"



[Skadi] "John." The girl acknowledges, with a twist of her mouth that darkens and falls away a moment later, like ashes shifting to the earth. When he steadies his gaze on her, she returns the look frankly and directly, sobered. Kemp offers his apologies, uncomfortable in the face of death. Skadi has platitudes buried inside her, a half-hundred, and she believes them all, if not whole-heartedly, then on some visceral level. Her platitudes are Garou platitudes, Fenrir dogma, familiar still. A good death, yeah, or dying well. She doesn't give them voice, though; she flicks a glance at the Rotagar, then looks back to John, features tightening through the jaw as a band of muscle tightens across her left cheek.



"What was her name?"



[John Barrister] John makes some sort of vague grunt. How lucky, indeed. Leaving the teenager to the fridge-raiding, he turns his attention back to the just-past-teenager parked against the counter.



"Emily-Anne," he replies evenly. "Emily-Anne Thompson." A ghost of a smile. " 'EAT'. They really let her have it in grade school, she said." The smile goes away and he shrugs a little. "I'm not sure what her other name was. Something about fire and spears, I think. She was a Skald."



[John Barrister] (bed in 30!)



[Kemp] "Heh, that would suck. Course, school sucked and so did a lot of other shit."



Head was back in the fridge as he continued the raid. Mumbling something else with his mouth full before he turned back with another slice of lunchmeat he was rolling to stuff in his mouth.



"Should of never fed me man."



Shaking his head with a wiggle of his brows.



"Done gotta keep me now. Besides, I sat on your pot. How intimate is that?"



[Skadi] "Bet she let 'em have it back, too." It's not communion or commiseration, but Skadi matches John Barrister's ghost-smile with a ghost-smirk of her own. "Ain't had a Skald around in a long time, an' I miss tha stories. Y'ever remember any'a hers, well, hell - I could pass an' hour like that."



She flashes a look at Kemp, "We're all fuckin' stuck with ya, man," another one, as he mumbles through his food; her eyes flash narrowly back to the older man. "Ya plannin' on stayin' in Chicago long? Or ya passin' through?"



[Kemp] 'He's staying."



Glancing around until he found his glass again to refill it.



"Remind me to get ya some juice and meat."



[John Barrister] It's on his tongue to say he didn't know any of her stories, because he didn't see much of her at all. Because even if he had, they wouldn't have shared Garou stories. It's on his tongue to say she had a voice like you couldn't believe, but he'd only heard her sing twice in eight years. It's on his tongue to say he barely really knew her at all, wish he'd known her better; and that the inevitable looks of pity and discomfort and commiseration only made him uncomfortable.



In the end John just smiles and shrugs his shoulders. "If I remember any, I'll let you know." Another politeness. Back to business, "I think I'm here for a while." He cuts a glance to Kemp as the kid answers for him, eyebrows going up. "That obvious, is it? What was it -- the boxes?" He waves off the offer. "Don't worry about it. I've got an income."



And to Skadi, "I haven't met a whole lot of Garou here. Just two others before you and Kemp here. No other Get. I don't mind it. But if the tribe needs a hand, I could help out where I can."



[Kemp] "Yep, boxes. Dog. Yard. Food. Toilet paper supply. I mean man has that much tissue under the sink, he means to sit awhile."



Turning with the glass of juice, this time drinking it a tiny bit slower.



"Watcha do for this income anyway? You a shrink? Cause damned if I don't know a whole bunch of women that need one."



[John Barrister] That surprises a laugh out of Barrister, the first true one so far. Like the man, it's easy, deep-rolling, slow. "No, sorry," he shakes his head, smiling. "I dabble here and there. I've got a pawn shop over in Bronzeville. Co-own a moving and storage company. Do some carpentry and woodworking on the weekends." He says this last bit to Skadi, who he perceives as the alpha of this pair, "I could spot some money if the tribe needs it. Hang onto stuff you don't want laying around in the open. Make a cabinet or a coffin," wry. "I can shoot and throw a punch too, but I don't think you guys need any help in that department."



[Kemp] He cut a glance towards Skadi before looking back to John.



"Storage as in, renting out them little storage buildings?"



[Skadi] She glances from Barrister to Kemp, and back again. Toilet paper supply. That earns the both of them a smirk; like every expression, it is tempered by the weight of the moon, the snapping tension that is a natural result. She opens her mouth to answer him, but then pauses, silenced for the moment by Kemp's question, long enough, anyway, for Barrister to reply. As they talk, she twists, shoving a hand into her right front pocket, and pulls out a pink, rhinestone covered cell.



Then: "There's a Caern in tha city, here. Some kin scattered around, but it ain't like - " she pauses home she was going to say, and does, with the next breath, " - ain't like home. Ain't like families an' shit. Tha Caern's real new. There's a pack'a Get in Cabrini, though they ain't with tha Sept no more. Territory's closed ta outsiders on pain'a death, but since yer kin, an' Get kin, ya shouldn't have no troubles, ya wanna find 'em."



She turns Kemp's look, then drops her eyes to the display as she thumbs open the cell. "Give ya my number if ya want. I'd 'preciate it fer tha moment if ya could keep an eye on tha news." A pause, passing - not wry, no, that's too gentle to describe it. "Tryin' ta figger out if we're wanted 'r not. I ain't got tha patience ta read tha whole paper lookin' fer it. Ain't got no teevee, neither."



[Kemp] Skadi mentioned the Eagles without saying the name and still it caused a shadow to pass over his features as animation left him. After a moment of silence he nodded to John as he headed for the door. Bumping against Skadi's shoulder in a light brush on the way.



"Thanks for the eats, I'll repay ya."



[John Barrister] "Close enough. I have an office and warehouse out on northside. Just me, two movers and a part-time secretary. Mostly we help people move their things, but we rent out storage space by the month too. It's available in two sizes, twenty square feet for the little ones. Forty for the big--" He realizes he sounds like a commercial and stops with a rueful smile. "Well. If you have something to lock away, I could try to pack it away somewhere."



Skadi mentions the Caern, the Cabrini pack, and John listens and nods, sipping his milk now and then. His jaw is heavily shadowed with a burgeoning five-o-clock shadow; the backs of his hands and his forearms dusted in dark hair. Still, he has a certain neatness about him -- a cleanness to his lines. Neatness might be pushing it. Let's put it this way then: a lack of sloppiness, a lack of letting-himself-go.



Then Skadi gets to the news and the wanted or not, and John bows his head to laugh into his barrel chest. "Christ," and he's smiling at the Modi, which must be a rare thing for her, with her rage and all. "I'll keep an eye out. Appreciate your number. Let me find a pen," he pushes off the wall and goes to rumble through boxes in the next room.



Kemp offers to pay again, and on some level John perceives it was less about charity and more about debt. John calls after him on his way out, "Don't worry about it. Bring a beer to share the next time you come around and we'll call it square."



He comes back with a pen and a sheet of paper for Skadi. The flipside is a Google map for some art museum or other.



[Skadi] "He don't drink," Skadi clarifies, standing straight to return the subtle physical contact as Kemp brushes past her, unconsciously and naturally. " - thanks it's gon' give 'em cancer. Maybe some co-cola. 'r a six pack'a milk. They outta make it like that, too. Six bottles'a milk. Two regular, two strawberry, an' two chocolate. Dunno why no one never thought'a that afore." - just, babbling.



Kemp strides past her; her body turns with his, familiarly, then opens back as Barrister re-enters the room, pen and paper in hand. The phone - two or three years old - chirrups as she pokes at it with her thumb, until it spits her number up at her on the screen; that's how she gives it to Barrister, reading out the numbers on the display, her forehead furrowed between her brows. "'preciate it. An' if you need anythin', 'r see anythin' we oughtta know about. Gimme a call, willya? We'll try not ta impose on yer hospitality more'n we kin help. Letcha git back ta unpackin', now, too."



[Kemp] "I can come back and do some of your unpacking when ya ain't home, if ya want."



Called over his shoulder as he stepped out the door to wait for Skadi.



[Kemp] ((player is passing out, brain farting. Need sleep. Thanks for play! ))

to†banksy was here, John Barrister, Skadi



[John Barrister] "Right," he'll call if he sees something they need to know about. If there's a certain weariness in that -- every city, just about every garou he meets, tells him to do the exact same thing as if he hadn't already figured it all out -- he hides it well. She only means well, after all. Trying to be a good Garou, making sure her kin knew what was what. Something like that, he imagines.



"No thanks," he declines Kemp's offer rather firmly. "Have a good one, you two."



[John Barrister] (i really need to crash too. i need to be asleep in the next 3 minutes *LOL*)

to†banksy was here, Kemp, Skadi



[Kemp] (( night!))



[Skadi] "Night Mr. Barrister." He doesn't know the girl from Adam: just their kind, kids, soldiers, just the way they fill a room, brighter than anything in human skin has the right too be, even when their shells are ordinary. And her shell isn't ordinary, is anything but ordinary. He has her number, she thumbs off her phone and pushes the battered pink thing back into her frong pocket; her grin is passing and weightless, twisting easily across her mouth as she turns and saunters, barefoot, back through his small home, stopping at the front door just long enough to slide her feet back into her flipflops, before disappearing out into the stark brilliance of the later afternoon.