John Barrister

[Skadi] Bruin always knows, before anyone else. Somewhere in the small, neatly appointed home, the sleeping hound jerks from his sleep and shakes himself awake. Then, a knock on the door.

It's late; nighttime, but it feels like evening. It's always like this as summer swings around, as the world's axis changes again, the last dregs of the sun fading from the horizon, the sky saturated in the intense, deep blue of dreams and visions of the Virgin Mother's eyes.

[J. Barrister] Barrister's finally gotten around to yardwork. The lawn is mowed, the hedges trimmed -- not quite into the flawless squares of rich people's mansions, but at least into vaguely spheroid shapes. The rosebushes and the gardenias have been culled and pruned, and the first roses of May are drooping on their stems. The night is fragrant with their heavy scent.

The windows are open on the living room. A sheer inner-drape is drawn across the nook. It's a woman's touch -- something a man living alone wouldn't think to put on his windows, or wouldn't bother with, even if he were kin. Something that a woman might consider, and remember, even if she were Garou.

Behind the shade, the blurred shape of John Barrister sits up from his big recliner couch. His footsteps thump across the floor. Deeper inside, the hound -- some ignominous mix of primarily bloodhound and redbone, and perhaps a distant smattering of various pointers or retrievers -- throws back his head on a long low bay. "That's alright, Bruin," Barrister says, automatically, without vehemence, with deepseated and thoughtless affection. The door comes open. "Hey, Skadi." He stands aside, one hand on the door, the broad index finger of the other sandwiched in his book, marking his page. The cover reads LAND OF THE BLIND.

[Skadi] "Hey John Barrister," - Skadi says, when the door swings open, by way of response. She glances at his face, then her eyes drop away, over his shoulders, down the darkened hall that bisects the small home. Following, maybe, the sound of Bruin's call; or just looking, for no reason at all. The sidewalk retains the heat of the day, but the perfumed air that drifts around her is cool. The lake, and the promise of rain - the failure of the day's heat. It's still spring, no matter what the sun says, and the city is still waking up to the coming months. The beaches are open, but no one dips more than a toe into Lake Michigan. The schools are open; and although the kids stare out the windows, dreaming of release, their teachers have not yet succumbed to the inevitable and given them free reign.

Everything is in transition.

- her too. "I ain't meanin' ta intrude - " she says, she will always say, because it is the only real expression of the politeness her momma one tried to tattoo into her consciousness. Please and thank you and be a little lady in your pretty ruffled dress. It's not timid, though; the grin she offers him - by way of apology, already - is fucking savage. A six-pack of something - likely liberal, perhaps Bostonian - dangles from two fingers of her right hand. Shadowed over her shoulder, the bulky shape of an old gym bag. Her clothes aren't clean: a wide smear of dirt across the wifebeater, a crust of something around left ankle of her jeans are the most visible stains. Her hair isn't clean, either - pulled back from her face into a loose ponytail, dark with oil from several days without a wash.

The grin doesn't last more than a split second; before she finishes the sentence, she has the grace to look abashed. " - wonderin' if I could use yer shower."

[J. Barrister] She's been in and out a good dozen times or more already to use his shower, and perhaps a handful of times to use his washer and dryer. He's never turned her down. Really, it would be easier for all of them if he just gave her a key. Or if she just came in through the Umbra. Yet he hasn't given her a key, and she hasn't -- to his knowledge anyway -- come in through the other way. And so she keeps asking, and he keeps agreeing.

"Sure," and that makes a dozen-and-one. He eyes her gym bag, "I've got a load collecting in the washer. You want me to add that on?"

[Skadi] "Naw - " she says, walking in and around him, stopping just long enough to deposit the six pack - call it chiminage to the spirits of cleanliness - in his right hand. "This stuff's clean. I got bored watchin' some fucker last night, so I went and done laundry while I was waitin'. Turned out it warn't nothin' I could see, but I got most'a it done. Thank laundromats is in tha service a tha wyrm, though. Middle'a tha night, all them dryers look like fuckin' deranged cyclopses, an' then what they charge fer them mini-Tide detargents, s'fuckin' robbery. Gi'ya what I'm wearin', though, ya wait a minute."

- the dedicated stuff, the outfit he sees her wearing at least every other time she appears, worn-out old jeans, a sleeveless, ribbed t-shirt, a bikini, pink, tied off behind her neck. Skadi knows the way to the bathroom, shuts the door behind her, and disappears. Before the familiar rush of water through the pipes in the walls, though - "HEY!" ad she asks this sometimes; for reasons he might not wish to know. "WHAT FUCKIN' DAY IS IT?"

[J. Barrister] "You could get an economy bottle and leave it here, you know." He raises the sixpack up and looks at it with some amusement. "Have you gone blue state on me, Skadi? -- I could store it in the closet with the rest of my laundry supplies. You can swing by before a load and bring a little sippy-cup or something. Get what you need and not pay through the nose."

He puts the beers in the freezer to rapid-chill. The last part of his suggestion was spoken to a closed bathroom door as he backtracks to the front door and shuts it, bolts it. Bruin has made himself scarce somewhere. John resettles himself in his couch, waiting for her dirty laundry to come flying out of the bathroom, possibly under its own locomotion. God knows how long since the last wash.

"It's Wednesday," he calls through the door. There's no TV in his living room (though there is a small one in the bedroom, not that she'd know that); he probably doesn't watch hit shows. Still, he had an orderly sort of existence with deadlines and schedules that necessitated a basic understanding of time. Something abruptly occurs to him, "There's a clean robe in the bottom left-hand drawer under the sink."

[Skadi] "Could leave - " no, the door is closed; he can hear her just find, but something about talking through walls means she is going to yell. "COULD LEAVE IT IN BETSY, TOO. I JES DON'T NEVER THANK ON IT 'TIL I FUCKIN' NEED IT AN' THEN IT'S TOO FUCKIN' LATE." And then the clothes come flying; and then the water is cranked on, and the pipes roar with it. Anything else is muted by the natural soundbarrier of the bathroom - the tiles, the tub and shower enclosure, the water pounding against the porcelain bathtub. Maybe there's a radio in there, set into the window, so Barrister can catch the weather or traffic report in the mornings, as he lathers and shaves, as he brushes his teeth, as he renders himself presentable for polite society. If so, he has had to turn it back to his favorite station one dozen (and now one) times from something low on the dial, full of woolly old country songs the likes of which are not often heard on the radio anymore. Patsy Cline and both the Hank Williams, all the cliches of motherhood, and trucks, and the romance of the open road, all the unthinking patriotism, all the pathos, all the fuckin' glory.

Skadi empties the hot water tank, every time. Sometimes it seems like she empties it twice over, in quick succession. Maybe she just stands in the frigid waters when the hot gives out, letting it pound her skin white. Maybe she doesn't feel the cold.

At least fortyfive minutes after her wretched clothing hit the wall in the hall, the door to the bathroom opens again, banked with a billowing cloud of strawberry-scented steam. Dressed in his clean robe, the creature makes a barefooted circuit of the house, passing through the kitchen long enough to grab a beer and stare, ruminatively, at the contents of his fridge for several minutes before rejecting all of them, before reappearing at last in the living room: beer in one hand, nailpolish and comb in the other, wrapped in his robe tied neatly at the waist, her hair darkened by the water, a tangled mass pulled over her right should.

"'Preciate it." She announces as she sinks onto - not the leather couch, but the floor in front of it, crossing her legs Injun style beneath her. "Yannow. I really fuckin' do. Oh - and hey. I talked ta Moira, finally."

[J. Barrister] The robe isn't his, precisely; it's a rather feminine shade of lilac, for one. It has the clean, yet slightly woodsy scent of a washed and put-away article of clothing that doesn't see much airing out. The little loops on the terrycloth are worn, but intact.

When she emerges, having fished a beer from the freezer -- which reminds him and sends him catapulting out of his couch to rescue the other bottles before they exploded -- Bruin is in the living room, on the rug in front of the fireplace. He slinks off into the bedroom at her approach. Barrister returns from the kitchen, picking his book up off the couch as he settles his not-inconsiderable bulk into it.

"Oh yeah?" He frowns a little, twisting the cap off his beer. The washer is churning dutifully away in its small alcove off the kitchen. "How'd that go?"

[Skadi] "Hmph - " she offers a faint, dismissive chuff. He returns; she's already deep into the difficult work of combing out the mass of her hair. Detanglers only go so far; there's good physical work to be done, and she is an incongruous sight, sitting on the floor in a lavender robe, her head canted at a forty-five degree angle, holding the mass of her hair in one hand, and an old, well-worn blue come with fat plastic teeth in the other. Skadi stops long enough to look up at him, directly, as he settles back onto the couch, book in hand. " - told 'er she oughtta cook ya lunch, show ya what she kin do. Give her yer number. She done said she'd give ya a call."

[J. Barrister] His smile looks a little like a wince. "Skadi--" he begins, and stops, and tries again, "Skadi, I heard the girl -- I hear Moira's about nineteen."

[Skadi] She looks up when he says her name; she's looking at him - blue eyes stark, skin still just pink from the heat of the shower, buffed with the glow, maybe, of one of those nameless potions women of every age, economic status, and/or cultural attachment seem inclined to put on their skin, her hair dark with damp. The comb is poised over another hank of tangles; she has hold of both, pulling it through.

"Yeah? -" to her name; then her brow draws close, a furrow appears just between them. "I ain't got no clue how old she is. She's a good girl, though. Real pretty. Has a fuckin' lot'a books. Might be nineteen. Might be twenty. Hell's it fuckin' matter?"

[J. Barrister] "It matters -- " and he flounders for a moment; how does one explain this to someone who does not expect to live to see her thirtieth birthday? Or her twenty-fifth, or even her twenty-first, her eighteenth -- someone for whom the clock ran out the day she changed? "It matters because that's very young, Skadi. I'm almost twice her age. I was learning to drive when she was getting born. I was graduating high school when she was getting potty-trained. The year I turned 30, she was 11 years old and still playing with, with, my little ponies or whatever it is they play with nowadays. You see?" He laughs at himself, a helpless little sound, "I don't even know what her generation's pop culture is."

[Skadi] "Huh." Skadi makes a sound, in the back of her throat; "I had some'a them. My little ponies. Pink with glittery named. Name was Miss Skippity Doo. I love 'er 'til my brother's Cobra Commander beat her tha fuck up. Fuckin' ponies - " she continues, patient, explaining, " - ain't got no magic powers. But Cobra Commander had a destructo-ray, s'what Earl said." She combs her hair steadily, grimacing as she works her way through the tangles. The come through the wet locks has a calming, susserant sound, just above the ambient noise of the city, as it filters into the living room, just above the ambient noise of a living house. He trains off; she gives the last of the tangles one last, furious yankthrough and drops her comb into her lap, frowing down at the worn old terrycloth.

"Moira's a good girl; an' - she - " no, stop. Restart. She looks back over her shoulder, frowning at him, her face otherwise set. "Y'ain't people. Yer Fenrir, ain'tcha? Moira's real pretty. It ain't like ya gotta do nothin' fer goin' ta lunch at her place; seein' how good'a cook she is. Gittin' a real meal an'all - it ain't like - it - I mean, I betcha that ya'd like her. She's got real good blood."

[J. Barrister] "We're Fenrir," he affirms, "and we're people. We're both. And some things... well, some nineteen-year-olds are a lot older than others, Skadi. Most Garou are. But then there are some who aren't. And Moira, well, she just doesn't seem the former sort.

"I'll give lunch a try. I've promised. But don't be disappointed if," he makes a shruggish gesture with his hands, the book flapping in his big hand, "if it's a minor disaster."

[Skadi] "People been talkin' 'bout her?" Something low enters Skadi's voice; low and alert. She has not moved, but is seems as if she has. The comb is forgotten; so too is the bottle of nail polish, which sits like a gleaming pink jewel on his hardwood floor, still capped. The question changes; transmutes, "hell've you heard about her?"

[J. Barrister] John stares at her a moment. There's an electric awareness in the room suddenly. Then he brushes it off, "I'm not going to go about repeating gossip, Skadi. It's nothing. And I don't care what other people say. I'll find out for myself, most times. It's just that she's a kid."

[Skadi] "If someone's talkin' on 'er - " Skadi begins; hand around the comb, one planted on the floor. Then her feet and beneath her and she's rising. "listen, I ain't tellin' ya ta repeat no gossip, but if folks is gossip on 'er, 'r insulting her fuckin' honor, I need ta know. Ain't fair fer tha shit ta go down; an' don't nobody know half'a what Moira done. Ya hear? - " She grabs the bottle of nail polishes and slides it into the right pocket of the robe before she's made it to her feet, twists around to sit perched, on the edge of the second couch, looking at him.

The light falls, slanting forward from his reading lamp, illuminating the back of his head, casting the rest of him in shadow. "Yannow she's been touched? She kin fuckin' heal; ain't like a doctor, snipping around. S'like a theurge; knits ya back inna piece. Healed me enough times, even when I ain't had no sense'a what was happenin'. I ain't - I ain't sayin' ya gotta do nothin'. Hell, ya don't wanna go, I ain't gon' make ya. I jes - I mean - "

The creature's face is tense; her mouth is drawn and still, her shoulders are held tight and narrow against her body; even hidden beneath the fluffy old lavender robe, he can see the subtle, physical tells, the way her irritation, unbidden, unherald, unannounced, pools and pills beneath her skin.

[J. Barrister] As she goes off, Barrister looks away uncomfortably -- at the unlit fireplace, the fur-strewn rug where Bruin liked to lie. When she finishes, incomplete, broken-edged, he glances at her, then at his hands. He still had the book in them. He closes it and sets it carefully aside.

"Look. If she calls me, I'm not going to be mean to her. Or throw accusations, or whatever. I'll take her out to lunch. I'll do it. I want to do it. Most likely we'll be civil, friendly, maybe even friends. You can never have too many friends, right? It's just that this might not be what's right for her -- or me. Just so long as you know that."

[Skadi] "I know it," she responds at last, her voice sullen above all else. The good humor has cracked and drained from it, gone hard, like a seized, scrambled egg. Her hands are in the pocket of the old robe; somewhere in the utility area, the washing machine - or maybe the dryer, now, after so long hums and tumbles, tumbles and hums. There's a siren in the distance; somewhere, someone's dying. Somewhere, maybe, someone's being killed.

The room feels small and far too bright; embarrassment constricts her temper, holds it hard against the base of her spine, is telegraphed through her stiff, straight posture, the way she fills the room, no matter how absurd she might seem in worn out lavender terrycloth, wet hair, bare feet. There's nothing domestic about her; the walls and roof can't hold her in. "Give a yell when my shit's dry, willya?" - she says, still tight, stopping just long enough to sweep up her beer. The bottle against her thigh, she frowns - "I'm onna set out on tha porch." There's still space to fill. "Promised my momma I'd give her a fuckin' call."

[J. Barrister] "Skadi," this, when she's past him already, heading for the cool porch, the heavy scent of gardenia and rose. "It was Kendra."

Barrister gets up out of his chair, leaning over to put his beer down and pick his book up, filling up the tiny living room, filling it with his breadth and height and depth the way she had filled it with her rage.

"But I think maybe you ought to let Moira handle it herself. She might not be Garou, but she -- well, I'd rather handle it myself." A pause. "And I'll tell her about it, if you think it's right."

[Skadi] She's turned around, Skadi, in the shadowy foyer. Her gym bag, having vomited forth the innumerable mysteries of her toiletries into his bathroom, is a dark and empty kidney of nylon, or so it seems, deflated on the floor. Recognition with the name; the narrowing both of her mouth and her eyes. Her posture changes, so subtly, from closed to expansive - a decompression of her spine, maybe, a twist of her wrists, and she is thinking - trying to push words back through the first responsive kick of fury.

"Moira ain't you - " Skadi replies, at last; ruminative through the haze of her fury - thinking, still, clearly - brow furrowed, corners of her mouth turned down - and hard. " - she's jes' a fuckin' kid." The irony is clear; whether it is conscious or not is entirely unclear. "'N fuckin' Kendra's fuckin' Moira's ex-fuckin' boyfriend." - the latter is spat out, all at a go, disgust curdling the words - at the fucking, maybe, or the games of it, at the game made of it, then, perhaps at the expense of her kinfolk. She's gaining mometum; the words come at a fast clip, forward running. "Told Moira I'd stand fer her honor, 'n I aim ta do it. No reason ta tell her; no reason ta git her all upset. Kendra ain't gon' be doin' that no more, 'time I git through with 'er."

[J. Barrister] Barrister makes a slight gesture with his hand, the book: it's her decision.

"I'll let you know when the laundry's done," he says, and turns back to his chair.

[Skadi] Abruptly, she jerks open the front door; the cool night air. The gardenia, the roses, the perfumed air.

Skadi lifts her beer in an odd little toast at the end of it; awkward in the aftermath, the possibility of violence coalescing beneath her skin, knotting through her joints. She closes her eyes against it, feels the night air, and it does not cool, but it does divert her, somehow.

"Ya oughtta! - " she'll call out five minutes later, over the murmured strands of a passing conversation onto which is he not likely to eavesdrop. " - make yerself a fuckin' porch swang John Barrister."

She'll be gone in an hour, hair still wet, toes unpainted as-yet, filthy clothes clean, her ten million dollar-store unguents packed back into the nylon back, someone to see, out there. Debts of honor, or something equally inane, as all that. Debts of fuckin' honor.