New Kin/Older Kin [Booker, Nash]

[Nash] As much as the thought of leaving a vehicle he'd paid maybe five grand for back in 2002 out on a sidewalk in a rundown part of Chicago caused him mild degrees of heartburn, he had done what any reasonable, polite individual would do and waited until business hours to initiate contact with the kinsman whose number was provided by the denizens at the church.

So, he'd rang, bright and goddamn early.

The voice on the other end of the line was deep, wizened, twanging slightly with a Southern accentuation but not brassy and obnoxious. He'd asked if he was speaking to Booker, if he was the fella ran the wrecking company, if he could help him out with a little tow job he had a busted front axle and brake system on a '91 Ford Ranger and couldn't do a damn thing about it.

Which is fairly standard, even among men who do know how to repair their own vehicles. There is a sorry difference between changing a tire or replacing an oil filter or switching a headlight and repairing a shorn-off brake pad, or whatever the fuck happened to this thing.

It's morning. It's done raining, but the sky is rusted over and heavy with the threat of another round of the stuff, and he's standing on a mixed residential-commercial street, leaning against a lamp post not far from the Fenrir church. Mistaking him for anything other than what he'd said he was--that is, Family--is difficult; he is not Trueborn, but he has a lean, pugilistic appearance that isn't marred by scars or tattoos.

Everything about him is long, from his height to his features to his hair, even. He smokes Marlboro 100s and looks out at the world with a weary expression on his face, as though he has seen no end to the bullshit but isn't prepared to toss his towel away yet.

The truck, it's worth mentioning, is green and beat half to hell and back. It wears Alabama plates.

[Eli Booker] It's early. The phone on Eli's night stand rings and he reaches for it with blind hands, knocking cigarettes and half empty bottles of Budweiser off and onto the floor in the process. So Nash, when Eli answers, would hear the faint swearing from a man stirred from sleep unexpectedly.

The guy needs a tow. He's wrecked his truck. Eli clears his throat, his voice gravel and smoke. While Nash is giving the other kin the address or directions or something, he would hear the sound of Booker lighting a cigarette. It's a sound recognized by smokers the world over - the click of the flint striking, the hissing of released butane and the deep inhale of the cancerous fumes followed by a long, relaxed exhale.

Their conversation was kept short. Eli assured Nash he'd be there in ten minutes and, true to his word, he was. The truck that comes to rescue the mans Ford is an older model axle cradling wrecker. The truck is maneuvered in reverse to get as close to the truck as he can.

When he's out of the wrecker's cab, Eli and Nash are startling opposites. Nash is long and tall with hair that touches his shoulders. Eli is only 5'10 in the steel toed work boots he's wearing. His hair is kept trimmed in a shot mohawk and he is covered in tattoos - although how much of him is covered is left to the imagination. Eli's flesh is hidden beneath a dark green hooded sweatshirt and dark Dickie's that hang suggestively on slim hips.

"...fuck happened to it?" He asks, making casual conversation. There's a cigarette in his mouth as he's pulling on mechanics gloves and walking toward the Ranger.

[Nash] Now, to listen to the sorts of women who spend any amount of time ogling the male form, both men have a certain je ne sais quoi that makes them nigh unto irresistible. There is a confidence in the way the wrecker swings himself out of the cab of the truck, an utter lack of give-a-damn for what the rest of the world must think to lay eyes upon him with his hair and his visible tattoos and shit-kicker attire, but the taller man doesn't exactly look as though he spends the entirety of his day standing around getting paid to look pretty, either.

He hasn't shaved in several days, and though he looks worn, he does not look completely exhausted. He wears boots that are designed more for piloting a motorcycle than tromping around a cityscape, jeans that are a few washes away from completely falling apart, and a long-sleeved t-shirt underneath a nondescript barn coat.

It conceals a holster, amongst Gaia knows what else.

He pulls himself off of the lamp post when the other man draws near, straightening to his full height and scraping mud off of the heel of his boot as he steps down off of the curb to walk around the back of the Ranger to meet him. That he thought to call for assistance in the first place was likely the work of someone with a pair of X chromosomes: he doesn't look particularly pleased to be in this situation, yet there's some semblance of gratitude when he sees Booker.

... fuck happened to it?

"Well," he says, that drawl more pronounced in person than on the phone; it matches up with the plates on his vehicle, "looks like she didn't like me ignoring that high-pitched squealin' noise she'd been makin' the last five hundred miles or so. Pulled down the damn street and she locked up on me."

With the hand holding the cigarette, Nash indicates the bizarre angle the Ranger ended up in: the front right tire has barreled up onto the sidewalk, tearing into a dwindling bank of filthy snow.

"Couldn't brake worth a damn, ended up on the damn sidewalk."

Now he indicates a bench across the street, within peanut-gallery distance from the place where the truck came to rest.

"Gwen, you know her? Little shit was sittin' right there watching the whole thing, asks me if I've got fuckin' Triple A."

A perfunctory drag. For his ride having shit the bed on him he doesn't seem too put out.

[Eli Booker] The sky is a dingy gray and looks to either be threatening Chicago with more precipitation at some point. Eli seems to wear his individuality on his skin - literally. From the lightning bolts tattooed on either side of his head to the bar code at the back of his neck. One look says there's more ink, how much more could be anyone's guess. Nash is prettier than Eli, who's appearance is enough to put most sensible women off. He does have charisma, though. Enough so that he gets by ...easily most days.

He's wearing a shit eating grin as he listens to Nash explain what happened. When he points out the bench where Gwen was sitting, dark eyes swing over and take note of it before returning his attention to Nash. Eli's head is tipped to the side, the grin never quite making it far from his lips.

"Yeah well..." Dropping down to a knee and peeking under the truck's front end, Elijah shifts his wait so that he's on his back on the pavement and a pen light in his hand. "...your shit is pretty fucked. I can fix it though - you want to get it fixed right?" Sliding back out and regaining his footing Eli moves back toward the wrecker and reaches for the remote control to the hydraulic drop on the tow truck.

The mechanism hums and churns, dropping the cradle of the tuck slowly.

[Nash] Nash, for what it's worth, had done as much poking and prodding at the vehicle as he could both in the anemic light of a post-dusk street lamp and in the wan light pushing against the blanket of clouds hanging over their heads. It didn't amount to much, but it gave Booker more to go on than 'It made a really loud noise and then I hit the curb.'

There isn't an exaggerated degree of discipline in the taller man's stance or posture, but ex-military personnel have a way of standing, of carrying themselves, that is a byproduct of having regimented lifestyles and hive mentality drilled into them from the moment they sign away their lives to the United States military. His spine is straight, his shoulders back, the arm not in charge of guiding the cigarette from open air to chapped lips hanging at his side without the hand seeking purchase.

The encroaching facial hair, though, the chin-length blond, is as far into a state of rebellion as he seems to be willing to go. His clothing is worn and antiquated, clearly chosen for the sake of surviving a fourteen-hour drive without incident or too much discomfort.

And he might have made it, too, if it weren't for the fact that he knows enough about cars to speak a language the wrecker can understand but not enough to find a place to stop; it's entirely possible he was in a mighty huge rush.

He ain't saying, though. That's not the question Eli's asking.

"Look at her," he says, as though they're referring to a wife who was once an utter knockout and has since allowed herself to pack on two hundred pounds and cease bathing. "She wasn't shit when I picked her up. Couldn't even make it around the goddamn block without something lockin' up or overheating. Could put a kid through college, the amount of money I've dumped into this goddamn thing, and the second we hit some nasty weather, bam! She quits on me."

He turns his head to spit, ashes his cigarette while he's at it.

"Not Ivy League or nothin', I ain't put that much into her."

A beat. He's thinking.

"Yeah, alright, let's fix her." A killing drag on his cigarette; he seems to be addressing the Ranger rather than the wrecker. "But this is the last goddamn time."

[Eli Booker] Eli has been studying Nash. Not in a way that would leave the other man wondering what the fuck the tattooed kinsman was looking at it, but he's observing Nash all the same. His cigarette is almost gone and before he can smoke it completely to the butt, it's flicked away toward the peanut gallery bench.

"Cars ain't no better than fuckin' women." He mumbles, moving to rear bumper of the truck to kick the lift bar of the wrecker under the rear end. The end without the broken axle or tie rod or whatever. "...it's why I ride a fuckin' bike. Anyway...I'll do it for parts. You're family." And with that, he drops down again to lie on his side, wiggling his body so that he can reach the lift and spread out the wheel cradles carefully.

He has done this, hook cars, for a living since he's owned a drivers license. He's worked on them for just as long too. It doesn't take Eli but a handful of moments and a few non-ceremonial grunts to get the truck's ass end secure between the two wheel cradles.

"Sounds like you were in a hurry to get to Chicago." Lifting himself up off the pavement, his gloved hands start to dust dirt and debris off his body. "Any reason?" He asks these things - things he has no right asking, really - without looking at Nash. The truck is slipped into neutral and once he presses the green button on the control panel on the back of the wrecker the rear of the Ranger starts to rise.

[Nash] Family or not, Nash doesn't seem like he's in any hurry to rush to try and salvage what's left of his manhood by assisting the younger man with getting his truck onto the back of the wrecker. He seems to know enough to know that all he is is a liability, a lawsuit waiting to happen, so he stays the fuck back and out of the way.

The mohawk-sporting young man has been studying him, maybe trying to figure him out. There are no raised hackles or challenge read in the way he's watching him. Nash seems as though he's been around the block enough times to be capable of drawing a map with his eyes closed: some external, some never-before-seen showing up the complete blue fuck out of nowhere knowing phone numbers and claiming to be Family without volunteering too much information about himself, raises suspicions.

Granted, Nash seems just about as open as you damn well please, talking more than the average person would even been inclined to sit there and listen to, but he seems completely harmless. Despite his height, he looks his age: he's getting up there in age, probably isn't as strong or hardy as he used to be, and when he deigns to crack a smile, even one that's lopsided or restrained, it gives off the impression that he's known, that there isn't a thing in the world he's hiding or would think to hide.

For his part, he doesn't have his hawk eyes zeroed in on Booker. He's got an eye on him, as though there's some instinct driving him to make sure the younger man isn't going to be smashed underneath the lift or lose a digit or five in the winch, but he is hardly tutting or worrying. That truck seems to have the majority of his attention; his cigarette, whatever's left over.

Booker speaks up, mentions that he seemed like he was in a hurry, asks a closed-ended question.

"Yyyep," Nash says, and in another man, that could very well be the end of it. He keeps talking, though. He won't get anywhere if he tries to remain a damn mystery. "Found out not too long ago I got me a kid runnin' around out here somewhere." The cigarette finally outlives its usefulness; Nash draws a final drag and tosses it away. "Not really nothin' to write home about--" He pauses to exhale. "--but turns out he-she-it's a damn full-blood, and that lit something of a fire under my ass, if you get my drift."

[Eli Booker] Their conversation is casual - though not as casual as it might of been if Nash had been some schmuck who drove up into a dirty snow bank due to his Ford finally giving way to broken pieces and mechanisms. No, Eli isn't that personable. Nash is, however, family - albeit from a strange and different place like the South.

"No fuckin' shit?" He says, one brow cocked high above a dark eye. The Ranger is elevated enough that it won't drag the ground when he tows it. "Yeah I can see how that'd be a real good motivator." Eli is reaching into the cab of the wrecker to grab his cigarettes and shake loose another one. Nash smokes 100s, Eli smokes shorts. Go figure.

The shorter kinsman stands like a man who half expects a fight. His feet are unconsciously set shoulder width apart and his arms swing loose at his sides. He's a scrapper, this kid, who's at least 10 plus years Nash's junior. Casually, he smokes the cigarette and rocks his weight back and forth - heel to toe - as if he just cannot be still.

"You got some place to stay?" The question is asked offhandedly while his eyes shift to watch a car cruise past on the opposite street.

[Drew Roscoe] The closest thing to a babysitter that Drew had anymore was an overworked Godi that spent more time nosing after spirits than he did much else-- anything to avoid dealing with Kin after all. This meant there was nobody to ask her in the morning when she called in sick to work what her excuse was-- she has no sniffles, no barking cough, no nights hugging the toilet. Skin tone was proper, not pale, and her energy level was just fine. Drew Roscoe was playing hooky and she didn't have to answer to anyone about it.

Truth be told, though, she did have a fairly legitimate reason. Avoiding Questions, she would call it. The weather was cool enough to warrant a scarf, so Drew took full advantage of that while she was out this morning. Her hair was bound in a loose braid that tossed over one shoulder, and she wore jeans tucked into a pair of black winter boots. Her blue coat was buttoned up to the top of her chest, and a soft white scarf was wrapped securely about her neck.

Even still, though, that scarf didn't hide the aggressively purple shadow that sneaked up to the left side of her jaw. See, that right there, that's why she didn't go in today, or yesterday. It was easier to pretend she'd caught an awful strain of flu than it was to explain that no, her current boyfriend wasn't choking her out at night and she didn't need a DV advocate to work her case. She doesn't keep a purse with her, those were too easy to yank off her arm and run away with, so the cash she was going to buy groceries with was folded over and tucked in her hip pocket (not her back, that was easy to steal from too).

Round a corner, and there's a truck being hooked up to a wrecker-- a tall guy with carelessly long sunbleached blond hair and a somewhat stockier guy with dusky skin and a mohawk. The first she had no idea about, the second was intimately familiar. She blinked once, looking surprised, but approached anyways without a change of pace to indicate that she was going at all out of her way. Her hand lifts from her pocket to wave her greeting, and while her mouth wasn't spread wide in a true smile the warmth of one set on her features anyways.

[Nash] No fuckin' shit?

"No fuckin' shit," he confirms, his cadence slower, the three words separated by nearly imperceptible pauses.

It could be mocking, or sarcastic, but this guy doesn't seem intelligent enough to possess a particularly sharp tongue. His vocabulary isn't broad enough, nor his education refined enough. All he's got on Eli is experience, is a life span that has held on for longer. What he doesn't have in visible tattoos, he wears in the visible ravages of time upon his face and hands.

He's getting too goddamn old to be shooting across the country chasing after figments of his former life's imagination, yet he's still doing it. The Garou have brutal ends in battle to look forward too. Kinswomen at least have their brood, adopted and biological, to gather to their skirts.

What the fuck do guys like Booker and Nash have, once their bodies start to break down? What's Booker going to do when his back blows out and he can't do the manual labor he relies upon anymore? What's Nash going to do when he has a stroke or a heart attack or an aneurysm because he smokes too much, drinks too much, works too much?

Their progeny, that's what.

At the question, it seems to dawn on him that he's going to have to get his ass in gear, here, soon. A nondescript black duffel bag sits on the curb where he'd been standing before Booker came along. Nash meanders on over to it now, his intent appearing to be to pick it up and get his ass back on the road without his ride. As he moves, with an easy swagger that seems a mutant offshoot of his militaristic posture, he speaks.

"It's a city, ain't it?" he asks. "Can't be too hard to find something."

He pauses to sling the strap over his shoulder. With the movement, he ends up glancing down the sidewalk. Approaching is a woman, one of many, it seems, who is young enough to be his daughter. He watches her a bit longer than one might consider polite or absolutely necessary, but given that he just confessed he's trying to find his damn kid, he could just be studying her for telltale signs of being Garou.

He doesn't find it, it seems. He looks back to Booker, and pulls out his billfold.

"Here, lemme give you my card."

[Eli Booker] The differences between the two men were striking - their similarities were startling. Nash was old enough to consider what might be when age and poor health come to claim him. Eli believes that today will be his last. His behavior is careless - fucking hazardous to his health - and there'd be a few people who might even say that he's looking for release. For an end to whatever fight it is that he's fighting. In his mid-twenties, Eli has seen the inside of a jail cell more than he ever has the inside of a school or a library or a book. He isn't educated but his tongue can be sharp and piercing when he wants it to be.

Dark eyes watch Nash move to collect his duffel bag. They both posses a swagger, though Eli's is all reckless youth and confidence and Nash's is habit. Experience. Training softened with time perhaps.

When the other man turns his eyes toward the street ahead of them, Eli's gaze follows suit. Dark eyes fall on Drew and the edge of his mouth twitches before slowly easing into a smile.

Nash is reaching for something. He's handing Eli a card. It's taken and the younger kin nods. "You know...ya might wanna make a pit stop over where I'm staying. If you're lookin' for a wolf, chances are the other wolves know where to find her."

Eli's cigarette is mostly smoked. It's habit, the way he brings it to his lips and inhales, then exhales. He doesn't even think about it anymore.

Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

[Drew Roscoe] "Lookin' for a wolf, huh?"

Drew introduces herself to the conversation easily enough. If she were born to money she would have been a natural socialite, able to play friendly with near anyone she walked up to, and more than just that she was able to do it convincingly too. Convincing enough that it may well just be genuine, a rare shining example of what it was to be so that remained in this day and age.

Booker had smiled to see her, and she'd smiled back. Nash had studied her, perhaps for traces of himself in her face, and any that he might find he would only be imagining, similarities shared by Heritage, but not by paternal genetics. He's met with a lift of eyebrows and a smile as well, though this one was toned back. People received her one of two ways most frequently-- as openly as she hoped they would, or merely annoyed by how sunshiney she could be. She was learning to pull it back a bit, not everyone was a morning person, and to some ten-thirty was more like five-thirty a.m..

"Lift a rock. They're everywhere."

[Nash] "Is that so?"

This, to Drew, as easily as if she had been part of the conversation this entire time and not simply ambled up as though rejoining a sewing circle. One brow of his lifts in suppressed amusement, and despite the vaguely primal cut of his features there is no animal hidden beneath his flesh. She can tell just by looking at him, by standing next to him for a few seconds, that the tall blond is Kinfolk, at the very least.

If they're going to stand here for too long he'd might as well have another cigarette. Nash sniffs, harshly, the cold weather assaulting his delicate Southern fortitude, and hauls out the Marlboros he's steadily working his way through. Drew, at least, looks old enough to buy her own damn cigarettes. Once the pack is thumbed open, he offers the row of filters to her should she decide she wants one. Whether or not she takes one, he continues speaking, lighting cancer sticks as he does so.

"Rocks are a bit low to the ground for someone my size, don't you think, Dollface? I'm gettin' a bit old to be bendin' over too far."

He'll segue back to the matter of swinging by Booker's place in a moment; apparently he has a hint of manners left in him.

[Eli Booker] Drew interposes herself into the conversation and Elijah falls quiet, watching her move with an intensity that would make most women uncomfortable. Eventually, though, his eyes swing back to Nash and he's listening to the Southern kin speak about rocks and what he's too old to do. Booker's gaze jerks back toward Drew, but he says nothing.

He'd been rocking in place, heel to toe, but now he's still. There's a sweep of anticipation across his features but it fades quickly should either of them lay eyes on his face. Drew wears a bruise from their previous outing. She masks it with a scarf. His would are deeper and thankfully, he's just about over them with Roman's healing touch. So, there's no hitch in his step or limp in his gait. The slowness he'd moved with just a day ago is almost all gone.

Whether or not Nash decides to inquire about the offer Booker just made, Eli doesn't seem overly concerned. He turns easily and moves to the cab of the wrecker and places the card he'd just been given over the visor.

[Drew Roscoe] The last time Eli and Drew had come together, it had been to save a bushel of children from a trio of fomori-- at least, Drew was fairly sure that's what those monsters were. It didn't matter so much now, though, they were dead and that's what mattered. It wasn't the fact that the children had been in danger that made that fight burn so brightly in her skull, or even that it was only a handful of days ago. It wasn't the vivid bruising on her throat from being choked aggressively by a creature three times as strong as she was, or the splash of blood on her face.

It was Elijah getting poisoned. If he'd had his arm torn nearly off, or his belly sliced open she could have handled that better. Paralysis and respiratory arrest were things she couldn't do much about. CPR could only do so much, she was lucky Roman was as near as he was to come save the day yet again.

He was better now, though, by far. He didn't walk like an old man, his breathing wasn't bad enough to dissuade him from smoking a cigarette. Drew could breathe easy.

Nash tipped his carton of cigarettes toward her in offer, and she shook her head once, politely turning the bad habit down. There's rhetorical banter to be had, speaking of rocks and how he was apparently just too old to bend his back and turn a few over himself. She chuckles and grins warmly at the new guy and moves a bare hand from her pocket to hold it out to him. "You wouldn't have to worry about bending, wolves need big rocks to hide under. I'm Drew, nice to meet you, stranger."

[Nash] It's a safe bet that they're all cut from the same stoic, unyielding cloth, given that their locus appears to be this rough-hewn young man with the checkered past and the difficulty recent history, yet the newcomer does not appear as though he has anything to gain from remaining detached and aloof. Drew doesn't have that smoker's appearance, the same grizzled or grimy appearance that the two men have.

Granted, there are polished, poised professionals who suck down cigarettes as though it's their lifeblood, but that's an entirely different matter. Only one of them here, for taxation purposes, is considered a professional, and we've already established that he looks like a goddamn good old boy instead of any sort of legal worker.

Nash doesn't look like someone with an education, Drew doesn't look like a smoker, and yet here they are, the significantly taller of them offering the significantly more adorable a smoke. She declines, but offers her hand.

He takes it with a tight-looking smile. It's genuine, but he looks uncomfortable, as though it isn't every day he's shaking hands with pretty young things nearly half his age. Normally they're crying or distraught; the last goddamn thing they want to do is shake his hand.

"Drew, I'm Nash," he says, his grip firm but not overpowering; his palm is calloused where it has come into repeated contact with the stock and trigger of a handgun, and it retreats after the customary three pumps. "A pleasure. Elijah here was just helping me with my truck, the bitch--pardon my French--quit on me again."

Ashing his cigarette, Nash meanders a bit closer to the wrecker so he doesn't have to raise his voice, so the entire neighborhood isn't privy to their activity.

"Now," he continues, addressing Booker but not turning his back to Drew, "about that pitstop... where're you at?"

[Eli Booker] Drew and Nash go back and forth and while Eli is listening, he isn't exactly in the ring of conversation. He was half in and half out of his truck, tucking Nash's card above his visor and responding to one call or another over the wrecker's radio. The conversation is filled with a great deal of static, which leaves Booker's end the one that's more decipherable. He's working. He has a tow, he says. He'll get back in touch later in the day. How this tow company stays in business could be anyone's guess.

By the time Eli's turned back round, Nash has drawn in closer so that the conversation stays private between the trio. About this place ... he begins, and Eli grins.

"Yeah. I can take you there...it ain't far from here." He assures the kinsman, his body turning so that he's leaning back against the truck itself now. "You got a name for your offspring?" Eli asks with a brow lifted above one eye. "Nash is looking for his kid." He points out to Drew before looking back to the older Kin. "Maybe we already know 'em."

[Drew Roscoe] The handshake is met, as firm from Drew as it is from Nash. Size apart, their hands are pretty similar-- callouses from too much familiarity with a gun in the same places on their palms, grips firm without trying to overcompensate or crush. He takes his hand back after the polite number of three, and she does the same, lifting her chin and taking her other hand from her pocket (ringless, one might note) so she can adjust the scarf she was wearing. She wasn't too fond of scarves, truth be told, but she'd manage. It was better around her neck than over her mouth and nose, she felt like she was suffocating when she had to take that route to trudge through the wilds of an Alaskan tundra.

Eli's glanced toward when he mentions that Nash is looking for his kid, and Drew looked slightly surprised, then returned her attention to the man that introduced himself as Nash.

"Oh, so that's why you're looking for wolves. I don't think I know any young enough to be yours, though... Don't think they'd be old enough to have changed either, unless it was a Lupus what got her claws into you."

Because in Drew's mind, you reproduce closer to the age of thirty than you do twenty.

[Nash] "A she-wolf," he clarifies, that dry amusement staining his face as he takes in what she's insinuating.

If he hadn't begun having wild unprotected sex until later in life he wouldn't be in this predicament, now, would he? That isn't exactly the most polite sentiment to pass along in mixed company, so he keeps it to himself.

"No, miss, wasn't no she-wolf. The way the spirits are tellin' it, she wasn't even a half-blood."

And the less said about what widening the sample population to that degree does to the clarity and focus of what it is he's trying to accomplish here in Chicago, the better, it seems. He has no idea where to begin looking, no potential name or address for her, so rather than starting from the top down like a normal person, he has to do as Drew suggested.

He has to start lifting up rocks.

"And the kid, so far's I know, ain't got a deed name yet. Just a regular old human name the spirits didn't see fit to pass along to whoever saw fit to pass it along to me. Hell, I don't even know as she's Changed, yet. You know how it is talking to one of them Crescent Moons."

[Eli Booker] Nash explains that he doesn't know her name. That he isn't sure if she's been given a name from the Nation. In reality, he knew nothing about this kid yet here he was hundreds of miles from home hunting her down. Eli often wondered about the dedication of parents. More often than that, he wondered how much of that he'd have when it came to his own offspring. If he (lord help the world) ever had any children.

Drew has taken his place in the conversation and he seems just fine with that. He interjects when he has something to say and when he doesn't he says nothing, choosing to lean against the beat up wrecker and observe ...listen. Learn.

"Well I can get your truck going...shouldn't be longer than a coupla days if the parts are around here."

[Drew Roscoe] "And all you've got to go off of is that they're in Chicago..."

The Kin nipped at the inside of her cheek thoughtfully, then shook her head some and smiled apologetically. "You should find a Skald. They're all about lineage, I'm sure they'll have ways to help you find 'em. That's where I'd go instead of a Godi, they're a bit more grounded, and the only pair of Godi I know in town probably wouldn't be much help to you anyways." She chuckled a bit, the sound only a little bit fond. Linus was intolerable and Remy trended toward cluenessness. He really should talk to Kora. If Thomas were around, she'd send Nash to him in the bat of an eyelash. That kid knew everyone's heritages, all the way back to the days before Europe knew that North America existed at all.

She glanced from Nash to the truck that was hooked up to the back of Eli's wrecker, then looked to the tow-driver himself. Her eyes stayed there for a minute, and she nudged at the ankle of his boot with the toe of her own, lifting her eyebrows at him in a silent question of: you okay? Questioning his health, how he's recovering from his brush with death. Roman'd said he couldn't fix him completely, and Drew didn't have the luxury of hanging around to find out how sure of a job the Ragabash had done.

[Nash] Given the lack of desperation or daunted fear on the man's face, the fact that all he has written down on his legal pad is the word 'CHICAGO' doesn't seem to be too grim or impossible an obstacle to overcome. Never mind that Chicago is the third-largest city in the United States, that it is congested with all manner of ethnicities and religions, that even when one considers that worldwide the Garou Nation only comprises ten percent of the population, if that, if we're being optimistic... never mind all of that. He doesn't even remember who the mother could be.

That isn't charming, or funny. That is the legacy of a man who has lived long enough to be able to look back at a mistake and realize that it wasn't just a mistake, but something that had a permanent and irreversible effect on another human being's life. At this juncture he doesn't know if he's going to find the kid in foster care, living on the streets, already picked up by the Nation and under the tutelage and fostering of an experienced warrior.

"Can't be too hard to rustle up a Skald," he says.

Not one that's in her second trimester of pregnancy, anyway.

Some errant thought passes through his mind. Green eyes narrow with it, as though thoughts in general are unwelcome and this particular one is no exception, and he takes a longer, harder drag off of his cigarette. Booker is reminding him that he can get his truck going, that it shouldn't take a hideously long time, and as a glance passes from Drew to the younger kinsman, Nash nods his acquiescence.

"Yeah, that'll be--"

That's when he catches the look, the question, the uncertainty, in that order. His head tips almost imperceptibly, the nod starting but not completing, and he takes a noisy step backward.

"You got my card. Awful good of you to come out here this early." The nod reverses itself in a bowing motion, as though he'd tip a cap if he had one, and he says, "Miss. You folks take care, I'm gonna go see a Skald about a lineage."

He turns, lingering not even a blip on his radar; the card stashed on Eli's dashboard says more about the man than he himself had. The business card is unremarkable, yet beyond his last name and phone number, it gives this:

C.J. Nash
Certified Legal Investigator
8035 Tanner Williams Road
Mobile, AL 36608

[Nash] [Thanks for the scene, guys! Shann, when I emerge from my nap, YOUR ASS IS MINE.]

[Eli Booker] Nash is leaving. Eli had considered offering him a ride back, maybe some guidance on what to go or who to see. In the end, though that considerations fails to make it past his lips and when the older kin turns to go, Eli just whistles and shakes his head. Walking past Drew, he heads to the driver side of the green Ford Ranger and takes the keys out of the seat. They find a warm home in his front pant pocket.

He hadn't totally missed that look from Drew. That touch of toe to ankle and the question behind her eyes that asked if he was okay. When he comes back he nods, a glove covered finger lifting to peek beneath her scarf. Eli scowls. Deeply and shakes his head.

"I'm ok...Roman took care of it." Pausing, he turns to regard her with that sarcastic grin lighting on his mouth. "...you saved my life. You're my heeeero." He says, exaggerating the vowel in the word.

[Drew Roscoe] The thirty-something Kinfolk was off to go find a Skald, declaring that it couldn't be too hard, and Drew lifts her hand and waves her fingers after him as he goes, grinning a one-sided smile that was half sardonic and half humor, all wrapped up to summarize her thinking that this poor guy had no idea what he was getting into.

Eli's still doing his job, grabbing the keys out of the wrecked blue ford truck and slipping them into his pocket. Making friends already, holding true and useful to his tribe, this guy seems to have only just blown in and already Elijah was doing him a solid favor. He walks back to join her at the sidewalk after closing the door of Nash's truck and dips a finger between her throat and her scarf, tugging it back enough for him to get a look at her neck.

It was awful to look at, bold black-purple bruises that crossed her throat and the sides of her neck, with that one errant fingermark that went up the left side of her jaw close to her ear. They were already fading yellow-brown on the edges, though. It was purely superficial, tender to touch but beyond that healing already. Her voice wasn't damaged, her breathing wasn't hindered. She was tenacious, she'd be just fine. His scowl is met with a sheepish grin and a shrug of her shoulders.

I'm okay, he says, then wipes the frown away to replace it with a toothy grin and croons that she's his hero. She just laughs and shakes her head, tapping the back of her hand on his chest. "Saved your life nothing-- that was all Roman. Without him I would've just sat there and panicked while you stopped breathing."

[Eli Booker] Drew's bruise reminds him of a lot of things he'd sooner forget. It shows in his eyes, the way they leave her face. The way that his body shifts and angles his shoulders away from her. The grin loses some of it's sarcastic luster and he nods - to what it isn't clear.

"I'm...real glad you're ok." His words are spoken from a heavy heart. The emotion behind them is clear. "And yeah ...I owe Roman big. But you....were pretty amazin' yourself."

[Drew Roscoe] The shift of his shoulders, how his weight leans away from her again, it has her setting her jaw some and taking a hold of the stomach of whatever he's wearing-- shirt or hoodie or jacket-- and keeping him from going farther. Her face is soft as it usually is, rounded at the cheekbones instead of sharp and full of angles, chin and mouth and nose all the same way. Her eyes aren't hard to contrast, but they certainly are stern when she stares up at him.

"I've survived a lot worse because I've learned that I have to. I'm not done here and neither were you. But don't mistake that for me being 'amazing', because really if I hadn't made sure my gun was completely loaded with one in the chamber before I left that morning we'd both probably be dead or worse." That's the gravity, how heavy the situation was. Most of it was preparedness, the rest of it luck mingled with skill.

With the weight dropped heavy, the air forced still by the brevity of reality, there's room for her to pick it back up now, and her expression softens some when she does. "This--" and she gestures to her neck-- "is nothing. Doesn't hurt as much as look really ugly. The dope that was on me didn't have half a clue what he was doing, his skull was more bone than it was brains. What you dealt with was fast and deadly and you'd already pretty much killed it by the time I finished the job. Don't downtalk yourself none, alright?"

[Eli Booker] Her fingers curl into his sweatshirt and pull him to her. It takes him by surprise and he has to regain his footing to turn and face her fully. The sternness behind her eyes leaves him speechless for just a moment. She was right, he knew she was, but there was more to whatever had left him despondent at the moment.

Eli's glove covered hands lift and hold Drew's face. They are not as warm as the flesh of his palm's would be, but they're not as rough either. It's not the real thing - skin on skin - but it'd do.

"I don't know Drew. I can't protect you. Don't you get it? I don't regenerate fuckin' limbs. I smoke two packs of cigarettes a day and if I walk more than three city blocks I wheeze. My aim isn't that great these days and I'm just ...I'm fucked up." He's smiling, but it's a bittersweet grin he's wearing on his face.

"I can't protect you." He says again, his touch firm on her cheeks, not releasing her unless she forcefully pushes him back. "I saw that...I realized that shit....when we tried to save those people."

[Drew Roscoe] She should have known that this was what was on his mind. The way he'd frowned so hard at the bruising wrapped around her throat, how he was praising her saving him, and how that had bothered him so deeply. It wasn't a matter of masculine pride, of being shown up by a girl. He was bothered that he couldn't smash the skull of the thing stubbornly refusing to be bothered by her bullets, that he couldn't shake off poisonous stings and help her finish the job.

He wasn't a Garou, and it was sinking in what that meant when you had someone you wanted to protect but your body wasn't built to do so.

Her mouth presses into a sad and disapproving line, and she shakes her head as he brings his hands up to cup her face through work gloves. They smelled like motor oil and dust, and she didn't mind in the least. He doesn't make any signs of letting go either, and she doesn't push him away to force him to do so. Rather, she lifts her hands to hold his forearms, firmly holding his gaze.

"You can't protect me and I can't save you. I couldn't heal you, I needed someone else to do that. Most I could do was squeeze your hand and yell at you to keep breathing. We're not our Cousins, Elijah, we've already come to terms with that I thought?" She sighs a bit and leans her head to one side, letting the weight of it be cradled in one palm over the other.

"I can't protect you and you can't heal me. It goes both ways, but that's not the point. Doesn't matter who we're with, there's always going to be danger for us, always going to be a very real chance of us getting hurt. Point isn't what can happen to us, point isn't our limitations either. Point is that we survived, that we're not missing limbs or sanity after pulling through.

"So don't get hung up on that. I swear to god if you're breaking it off with me because you think you're not good enough I'll sock you in the diaphragm, we'll see how your smoker's lung does then."

[Eli Booker] Eli had little concern for himself. Drew knows this. She's seen his lack of giving a shit first hand. But he does care about Drew. To the point that she can see there's very real fear and anger behind the darkness of his eyes. She listens to him, understands her words. She's right. He knows this. And he had come to terms with the fact that he wasn't Garou. But motherfuck if it didn't stick in his craw. It ate him up inside and every time he swallowed it back down - that anger and jealousy. Now, with Drew, he just nods.

"Yeah..." His tongue smooths over his lips. "I need to talk to you..." Again, he looks entirely too serious for Eli. "I'm not a liar, Drew. You know that. So ...I slept with Janis." He lays it out smooth, his face still and his eyes on hers. "A few times." He adds, tipping his head to one side.

"I didn't know...what we were. I don't know what we are. Are we...an item? Do you want that? I don't want to be the guy that pressures you after you losing Joe." Eli lets go of her face. His arms drop and fall by his side. "I mean...it happened and..." His shoulders lift and fall in a shrug, his hands up and open as if he really had no clue. "I don't know..." He says again as if that were an answer.

[Drew Roscoe] I need to talk to you. It follows him swallowing back the anger that comes from helplessness, and he drops his hands away from her face when he says this. She releases his forearms in turn and loosens the scarf at her neck so she feels less like she's being strangled.

He lays his cards on the table, and her expression doesn't change a whole lot when he tells her that he's slept with Janis. The fact that she's not surprised should be a warning bell to him.

"Yeah, I know. She was kind enough to tell me after we dropped those kids off with Mary Alice." She sniffs a bit, then pushes the hem of her coat up enough that she can jam her hands into the pockets of her jeans rather than the ones in her coat. It was a tighter hold in there, kept them still, from fidgeting, made it more of an effort to pull them loose if they get the spastic urge to do something stupid, like hit or gesticulate wildly.

"I... guess I can't really be mad at you since we've never labeled ourselves. And I even said out loud before that you didn't seem like a one horse guy." Her shrug is feeble, eyes pulled away from his like gravity suddenly affected them as much as it did everything else. "I won't lie and say that doesn't hurt, but it's my own fault."

'I don't know' is what lifts her eyes back to his, and she's got a bit of a frown written into the bridge of her nose and how she holds her upper lip. "Whatever you don't know you need to figure out, because I ain't gonna be the clingy bitch that can't take a hint."

[Eli Booker] Eli had expected as much. He half expected her to hit him just because. When she shoves her hands in the tight pockets of her jeans, Eli just stares. She knew. He's slack jawed, the expression is priceless. That Janis told her hardens his jaw. He's mad. She can sense it and see it.

"We never did...say what we were. I really don't know what you want from me Drew." Both brows arch above his eyes and he looks at her face fully. "I mean....did you need me then to just...feel okay? Were you lonely? Was it more than that?" He asks, quietly considering her last comment.

"Drew..." And he sighs, shoulders sagging. "You ain't that. You'll never be some ....clingy bitch..."

[Drew Roscoe] "Eli, I ain't that kinda girl." She explains this in a way that sounds more patient than it does offended. She looks tired all of a sudden, like she'd just pulled on a fifty pound pack and the extra weight was already pulling her down and wearing her out. She catches her lower lip between her canine teeth and nips at it, holds it for a moment to stem the flow of words before she gets carried away and starts spewing things she in an unorganized, upset way.

Once organized, though, she goes on.

"More than that. I'd have a lot more notches in my belt if I went to bed with someone 'cause I was lonesome. I'd liked you before, and it just felt right. Felt more wrong to ignore and deny and pretend that I didn't feel right at home when we let ourselves be close like that. It... isn't fair or right, though, to keep you anywhere because of what I want."

That said, though... "What I want is a relationship. I want to get to be with you because with you we can go at our own pace, there isn't pressure to make things immediate and permanent like what there is with Them. That level of commitment still makes me sick, and I'm sorry to say so if it bothers you... But still, I don't really wanna lose you."

That said... "But for fuck's sake, if you want to be somewhere else just say so. Don't string me along, okay?"

[Eli Booker] She says she's not that kind of girl - he knows this already. Eli nods, dark eyes roaming over her face before finding her eyes and holding her gaze. He watches the way that she grabs her lip with her teeth and considers her words before speaking.

And when she does speak Eli is listening. His face is wrought with attention to everything she's explaining and stating. In the end, he heaves a heavy sigh and lifts gloved fingers to scratch at one bald side of his head.

She doesn't want to lose him and to that he nods. He didn't want that either. If he wasn't sure about anything - it wasn't that. Whatever Eli felt for Drew, it was real and he apparently wasn't ready to let it go.

"It isn't that I want to be anywhere else ...Drew. I don't want that."

[Drew Roscoe] Weariness didn't age Drew in a way that one would expect. It didn't put lines on her face or fade the health from her skin, didn't make her hunch to dwarf her already petite figure to something smaller. If anything it made her look steeled, experienced. Older but not weaker for it. Instead of twenty two she seemed nearer to thirty, capable. But, most importantly, patient.

If he expected anger from the spitfire Kin, that's not what he got. Instead she was looking at him evenly, sadness coloring the corners of her eyes but not dominating her demeanor.

"Do you need time to know what you want?"

She wasn't demanding to know on the spot, asking him what it was he did want. Rather, she was offering him time to figure it out with no spite in her voice or sourness in her intentions. He'd said that she was his hero, she was the one that put down the monsters, and in a shining moment of true heroism she'd splashed the brains of the Gray Drainer before it even had a chance to lay fingers on the children, with a single bullet in a snap-decision of a crack shot. This, perhaps, is what made Joe choose her. But more likely it was what was showing right now. The patience, the strength and tolerance to wade through the troubles and see beyond them. Perhaps that was more important than any number of mentions on a Wyrmpole would be.

[Eli Booker] "Not time to know what I want." He replies, both of his hands rising to hook behind his head. "...time to figure out how to fix shit." He's talking more to himself that Drew, his statement rhetorical and cryptic. When his hands drop, Eli sighs. He offers her a smile - wide and bright, like she's used to when it comes to Elijah.

"Don't worry none chicken wing. I got this." He says, making light of a situation that was anything but. "I'm gonna be honest Drew....what worries me about all this is what we talked about before. I worry that I'll lose you to someone else - to some Garou who decides that he's not willing to let go."

"I mean ...it could happen. And what am I going to do? I can't ...fight for you. Not one of them...." He shakes his head and looks down at their feet. "I need to chit chat with Kora."

[Drew Roscoe] "They couldn't challenge you anyways, I don't think. They'd have to challenge Kora. A Kin can't Ward over a Kin, y'know? There's always gotta be some Garou in the picture, because we can't do the things they can."

She's pointing this out because she's thought about it, since their conversation on a couch late one night when they were expressing to one another how concerned they were that a Garou would put their claws in, rip them apart and refuse to let go, and they'd just get away with it because that was the law of the land. It seemed Eli was in more danger of this happening than she was, though. The closest thing to a suitor Drew had respected her space and let her be (which in and of itself might be a worrisome thing, too, she might like that). She'd thought it through, though, seriously, and after a brief bouncing of questions off Linus come to her conclusion.

"Anyway, Joe told me once upon a time ago that Kinfolk aren't appliances. We aren't Fangs, we don't get bartered off like those poor bastards do. Us saying no, that has weight."

He says he needs to talk to Kora, and she shakes her head and wets her lips with a quick sweep of her tongue across them. "I kinda wonder if we both shouldn't." Talk to the Jarl, that is.

[Eli Booker] Eli is watching Drew for a long time and then, he abruptly stops. His eyes cut away and he turns at the waist to reach inside the wrecker's cab and grab his cigarettes and lighter. He lights it, takes a deep inhale and then exhales.

"Janis isn't all too blame." He says, shouldering half the weight of what has happened between them. "I didn't turn her away." Another drag is taken and he exhales. "I can't explain it and I don't want too." Because if she tried to explain to him how she slept with another man and what her feelings were (or weren't) Eli would snap. He would react poorly and things would get ugly quickly.

"I don't want you blaming her.I"m a grown man." The particulars of what happened, of what he told Janis about Drew ...of the affection he said he felt for the other kinfolk. He keeps those to himself. Eli wasn't one to let anyone take the whole weight of blame and responsibility on their backs.

[Drew Roscoe] Elijah cuts his eyes away from hers suddenly, focuses on fishing out a new cigarette and lighting it up while he talks about Janis, how she wasn't all to blame, how he didn't want Drew to do that thing that jealous girlfriends do where their boyfriend stares at some girl's ass and they get up, chase down the girl and start a fight with her. She shakes her head and nips at her lower lip again, realizes this is the third time she's resorted to that in the past half hour, and clamps her jaws together instead.

"Oh I know how many it takes to tango, don't get me wrong. The only thing I hold against her is the way she approached the topic. I didn't much appreciate it, and I frankly would've rather heard it from you first than her, especially seeing as how I'd never seen her before, as how I'd just watched you stop breathing like three times only to kick it up again. Her timing was awful and her lack of empathy was worse.

"But that aside? Naw, I don't blame her."

There's a pause, a quiet, and Drew fills it with another heavy sigh before shaking her head and reaching out to touch her fingertips to Booker's stomach. To feel it move, in and out, with the cadence of his breathing. Also to assure that she wasn't going to leave him mad. "You tell me what you wanna do and we'll do it, alright? You wanna talk to Kora alone, great. You want me to come with? Good also. Just don't try and make decisions about Us alone, okay? Talk to me instead."

[Eli Booker] She ticks off the things she didn't appreciate about Janis and they're all things that have him displeased with the Rotagar as well. Her fingers find purchase at his stomach and Eli drapes his arms around her shoulders drawing her into him. He's warm despite the weather and his breath is slow and easy - normal.

Drew doesn't blame Janis and Eli rests his chin on the top of her head then, considering. "Ok..." She leaves the ball in his court - to do with whatever he sees fit. His lips find the top of her head then, followed by his cheek.

"You got a deal." He won't make decisions about Them without Her. "Promise."

Trouble and Gray Hair [Janis]

[Drew Roscoe] The pair of Fenrir women are tasked with herding a trio of children, traumatized and distraught from what they'd seen happen to their nice, upright middle class parents this evening. Hill House, as it turns out, is only a handful of blocks away from where they were now. It wasn't worth the walk in the opposite direction back to Drew's house to retrieve the truck, so Drew instead pulled open the door of the vehicle that had crashed, discovered blankets to go along with the winter coats that the kids were wearing, and made sure they were all bundled and wrapped before they started the journey.

Janis got to hold the hands of the nine year old girl and the six year old boy. Drew was carrying the four-year-old boy, whose legs were about her waist and arms about her shoulders, head rested on her shoulder and face buried in her hair. He'd fallen asleep by the time they'd gotten to the shelter, he'd also gotten very heavy, but Drew kept her hands linked together under his ass and let him snooze, not willing to let him wake for the world to end.

Up the steps to the Hill House, and the situation is explained to Mary Alice once she's hunted down. They've seen too much, they've got to be Kinfolk now. Keep them sheltered, teach them the Truth, tell them the ways, Kora the Jarl of Chicago asks this much of you. And, of course, Mary Alice accepts them just as she does anyone else that come across her threshold. Drew passes off the little boy that weighed thirty-some pounds but felt like so much more after walking that great a distance with him, the other children go from Janis to The Nicest Lady In The World, and the pair of Fenrir women are left taskless.

Silence is stretched only so far before Drew jerks her head toward the door and starts walking, muttering something about whiskey and black tea on her way out the door.

[Janis Ian] Call it wolf instincts or a maternal disposition that seems utterly out of place with the redheaded Rotagar, Janis handles the older children easier than she'd thought possible. She is talkative to the six-year-old that continues to play with the brass coin on a string that she gave him, telling him some wild far-fetch story to occupy the time as they walk the several blocks to Hill House, cutting through the Cabrini.

Her eyes and ears were alert for the sirens from cop cars or the faint shadows that past by them. She has roaming these streets, hunting them, mapping them, knowing them like she would in any other city. More Urrah than traditional for a Fenrir. She lets Drew handle the affairs at Hill House, detaching herself form the older children, telling the young boy to keep the coin in hopes that it will bring him luck.

She steps away, cheeks billowing out with a quick exhale of air, her head tilts in the direction of Drew to cast a long, searching look to the smaller woman. It's with the head jerk that she follows along side Drew, starts the walk back out the door as she's muttering about whiskey and black tea.

When they finally reach the outdoors, she breathes a little easier, but it doesn't dull the hidden tension winding in her shoulders under her coat. "Ye must be Drew..." she says, as if the kin were some legendary figure that the Garou has heard about.

[Drew Roscoe] Outside the air is cold, but not crisp. It feels heavy, thick and sticky, like how it would when it was so humid in the summertime, except that the temperature didn't match the sensation. Drew didn't think much of it, didn't complain, she's grown up in such humidity her whole life, days like this were every day in the summer, occasional in the winter. She just buttoned her coat back up, tugged the collar so that it hid the sore red bruises in the shape of a gigantic pair of hands across her throat, fingers reaching behind her ears, one up along the side of either jaw. They were red today, they'd be horrible and black and purple tomorrow.

Janis Drew had never seen before in her life-- could only be led to assume that she was Garou because of the situation she'd just met her in, because of how Kora spoke to her and trusted her, because of the fact that she knew Eli. None of this promised a tribe or much else to her, but she could find any of that out in conversation. It wasn't important right now anyways.

Janis stating who she must be is met by a lift of eyebrows, and a vague grin as the Kinfolk marches the beat along the sidewalk back in the direction of the dumpy little neighborhood she called home. "Ah, my reputation precedes me, then?" A dismissive chuckle, she didn't have enough of an ego to believe in her own reputation (though it existed, spirits whispered of her and her Mate both even still). "And I caught your name, Janis, but I don't actually know who you are. New packmate of Kora's?"

[Janis Ian] Her arms lay against her sides, hands find warmth in the pockets of the dark Dickies pants tailored to fit a woman's frame. The air is cold as they walk, but she doesn't feel the effects of it. Her skin was hot underneath her clothes - her rage tempered by a resolve born on wolf instincts and common sense. She can't help the way her eyes pull across Drew's features, watching the play of shadows as they pass through the street lights.

She notes the grin, the lift of eyebrows, the friendly disposition that Drew carries that makes it easy to like her - almost too easy. Janis clears her throat, red brows drawn up to meet Drew's expression when she asks about her.

"Aye, something like that. I 'ave heard a bit about ye," she smirks at the irony of it all, "Janis Ian, I'm the new Rotagar to join Kora's pack..." a beat, "And the stray that Eli saved from dying."

[Drew Roscoe] "Oh!"

Recognition flashes across the adorable young Kinswoman's face when Janis mentions that she's the 'stray' that Eli saved. She remembered that story, Eli had swung by and told it over a beer on her couch. Now she had a face and a name to match the story. Drew's hands dipped into her pockets as Janis's did, though Drew's were in those of her coat rather than her pants. By some grace of good luck her coat didn't get too blood-sodden, most of the gore she got on her was from the pink thing whose brains painted the ceiling, and most of that was just on her face and a bit on the chest of her black shirt. She wouldn't have to throw anything out because of tonight's adventure.

"Yeah, yeah, I heard that story. Good to meet you, glad that he found you before it was too late." There's a pause, nothing significant, and she adds as an afterthought to the statement: "Glad to see you intact, too. That shit can easily tear someone up."

She stops only to wait at an intersection, nudging the crosswalk button with her elbow and waiting for the little green figure on the light across from them to replace the solid red hand.

Drew didn't bother asking what Janis had heard, she could guess already. It would be a mingle of rumors from different eras- the spirits would speak of Glory, of a Kin who fought beside Garou, who was mated to one of the strongest Jarls the city has seen, whose bullets rarely left a job unfinished, who had cleaved the head from a Spiral's shoulders with one shot. She may also have heard that Drew was, recently, since her mate had died, a slut. Someone who let any Garou who asked in through the front door of her house. Supposedly she'd already been with two named Erek and Remy, supposedly she'd picked fights with pregnant Kinfolk, supposedly she was lippy and nothing but trouble and gray hair.

If any of that at all held true? It didn't show on her round face or reflect in her shining brown eyes. Even after carnage, she seemed to carry an overall air of happiness. No one she knew and loved had died, Eli was going to be okay, and the children had been saved from the same fate as what their parents had suffered. All and all, a good night.

[Janis Ian] It is difficult for Janis to judge on words that could have been spoken in hearsay. The blood of the kin tells one story, it reflects in those shining brown eyes and the round contours of her face, the way Drew carries herself with that air of happiness that things were well in the end - no one had died, the children were going to be safe.

Each step of her boots is matched and equaled to Drew's gait, Janis pauses at the corner, standing precariously on the cement edge like a child ready to dart out into traffic. There's a feral grace to her movements, in the subtle gestures of how she watched her surroundings, drag everything in through smell and sound with small cants of her head.

The conversation doesn't go into full details, Drew knows of Janis, doesn't question what all the Rotagar has been told, "'Tis good to be in tact," she says with a half-smirk, rolling her shoulders under her jacket. "I 'ave things to keep in Chicago now, some family and Kora's pack - " a male kin they are familiar with.

"Ye quite familiar with everyone in this town, eh?" she says, picking her topics carefully, searching for details.

[Drew Roscoe] "Unfortunately no, not anymore." Drew shook her head in answer to Janis's question, and when the light switched from red hand to green light, she started across the crosswalk, her pace something that she didn't put any thought into, so no one else would notice it as outstanding or beyond the ordinary. Janis walked with the sort of grace that came from being a predator, Drew simply walked. She was tired, but not enough to slouch and slag.

"I used to be... But everyone leaves or dies, only a few faces stick around. Those faces I know. I'm getting to know the newer ones. Mostly within the tribe, though." Her hand pops out of her pocket to scrub at the underside of her nose briefly before returning back into place. Her eyes hop up to Janis, continuing conversation while she guides them up streets and cracked sidewalks, foreclosed homes and sketchy gas stations.

"Who's family? You're... Fenrir, aren't you? That Family?"

[Janis Ian] Her voice rolls out in a throaty laugh, tipping her head in a slight nod. "I am." though, the brogue accentuating her words wouldn't pin her as one. "I 'ave an older brother and 'is wife, 'e works for the fire department in the northern part of the city."

Drew was tired, Janis can see it in her, but also takes in the way the kin doesn't slouch and slag with weariness. She pulls her hand out of her pocket, raises it to capture a lock of red hair that tries to curl along her jaw and tucks it behind one ear. She breathes out in a small sigh, furrowing her eyebrows as she stares ahead of them.

"I can understand what that's like. 'Tis not easy losing the ones ye try to 'old close and there not exactly within reach," her tone grows somber, the curve of her mouth flattening into a line. "Ye close to anyone 'ere? A mate..." it's innocent curiosity in the way she asks.

[Drew Roscoe] A nod acknowledges what Janis shares about her brother and his wife. A second, matched with a somewhat grim thinning of lips as they press together, is agreement and confirmation of how it's hard to lose people you're close to. The question about if she's got a mate, though, is answered with a bit of a chuckle and a shake of her head.

"No Mate, not just yet. I'd had one. War-Handed. Joe Holst. He was Jarl before Kora, strong Modi. Loved him more than I knew how." All of the past tense, it suggested that he went the way all good Modis do. Perhaps it was too soon for Drew (of course it was, look how young she is, with no signs to show she'd even gotten children to carry his memory with her), but who was to say what the right time was for a Warrior? It was always Whenever It Came.

Her shoulder rolls some, and she keeps her eyes forward as she continues. "Eli and I, we're close. But it's not the same thing as being Mated. No kids to come, no title to staple to it, and god knows how long it'll survive. But it is what it is, and I can appreciate that much."

[Janis Ian] Janis is taken by surprise the more she listens to the kin, her eyebrows shooting upright. Her eyes widening just a scant at how open Drew was with everything she says. It's the same openness she had experienced before and it weighs heavily on the thoughts tumbling over in her mind. She had said once she would keep secrets, dance under moonlight and shadows for what she wanted... but now, the Rotagar was swallowing some overwhelming sense of emotion that stirred with Drew's honesty.

She steps up next to the shorter kin, brushes her arm against Drew's shoulder. Janis knew about Drew - Eli had been straightforward when it came to what the kin meant to him, what he'd do for her. Her nostrils flare out as there's mention of the dead mate, the Jarl before Kora.

"Eli 'as a way of getting around," this spoken with a wry chuckle, shaking her head, "I know ye and Eli are close... and I'm not sure what 'e's mentioned of me to ye, as we seem to both share the same man and can appreciate what we can get from 'im."

[Drew Roscoe] Janis's proximity is accepted without fuss, one might even go so far as to say that it's welcomed when the taller Rotagar brushes against Drew, her arm to the Kin's shoulder. She's smiling up to hear what Janis has to say, but what comes next kills the smile as sure as her bullets killed the monsters in that apartment building.

Drew slowed some, then stopped walking completely. Humor, good nature, all of it had slipped away. Instead she's frowning, faintly, with a bit of a furrow to her brow. There's no shock on her face, no stab of pain or betrayal, or even anger-- be it at Janis or Elijah himself. Instead just that quiet little scowl, like she's thinking more than she is upset.

"...Hasn't mentioned that, that's for certain," is what she murmurs after a second. She's quiet for a second more, then shakes her head and waves her hand dismissively, gesturing forward. "You should go finish cleaning up, it's gonna take more than just waiting for Linus to mop up the spirit stains, you'll need triple-ply garbage bags and some bleach too. I expect you could get any of that at the gas station.

"I'm gonna go home. Ice my throat and have a drink. You enjoy the rest of your day, Janis."

The friendliness shut like a door, and while Drew didn't turn to walk away, didn't find a different side street and instead started walking forward again, all things about her posture and behavior suggested she was now walking separately from the Rotagar instead of with her anymore.

[Janis Ian] Janis slows her steps as Drew presses forward, her eyes reading the sudden change in posture and demeanor. How they no longer walked beside each other. The kin does not steer away, just keeps walking that same direct path. The Rotagar does not wear a gloating expression, hers is a mask of perplexed contemplation, gauging Drew's reactions.

She picks up the pace, keeps the distance that is now born between them as she listens to Drew make her comments on how Janis should go help. She release a weary sigh, there was no jealousy for the kin beside her, Janis had none to give.

"I'm not warning ye off, Drew," she finally says to her, "And we both don't know 'ow it'll end." She falls quiet then, the friendliness shut off like a door, the Rotagar can see nothing else in her speech to sooth that bitter pill.

They'll Live [Booker, Roman, Janis, Kora]

[Drew Roscoe] Drew's got her cellphone pinned against her ear with her right shoulder, held tipped down to help meet partway. Top floor of a busted up apartment building, surrounded by half-demolished boxes of similar shape and design-- this was going to be a revitalization project one day, when the city found spare funds to finish its work. For now, though, it was a ghost of a street. Out front there was a vehicle blocking one side of the street, having collided with a parked, old, rusted abandoned looking thing. The trail of blood that went from the vehicle to the front door of the building is pretty much dry by now, the overcast skies never delivered the rain that it promised would wash the stain away.

Drew gives shaky directions to Roman into her cellphone, gathers children to her best she can, and moves them over to Eli's side with her.

Get them out, he'd struggled to tell her. That could wait, she couldn't leave her Kin like this, absolutely couldn't. What if her bullets weren't as sure as she thought? What if one of the monsters came to and decided to finish their work with Booker while he was paralyzed and unable to defend himself? What if he stopped breathing? She'd be gone, unable to defend him, to perform CPR, to do anything. So she'd stayed, and after hanging up with Roman she'd shushed quiet comfort noises to the children while keeping one hand at Eli's chest, having to feel it move up and down when he breathed to be sure.

The side door is where she'd told Roman to go, the one with the boards torn off. Upstairs, they were impossible to miss.

Please hurry.

[Eli Booker] They are not hard to miss. The muffled cries of terrified children, the scent of blood and gun powder that lingered in the air and the trail of blood outside that led upstairs...they were all like a trail of bread crumbs leading Roman to where they were.

Eli breathed like a man deep in the throes of nasty asthma attack. His chest struggled to lift as his lungs strained to take in and hold a breath. When he exhaled, it always seemed like it'd be for the last time. He's shaking - muscles twitching and trembling in response to the poisonous toxins released into his system by the Fomori they fought only a handful of minutes ago.

They are in a dark room - what would be this apartments living room - and behind them is a bedroom. One glance would tell Roman bad things happened her. Unless he physically looks, he'd see a foot laid out and still peeking from behind the corner of one wall.

[Janis Ian] Janis is still a prospective member. She isn't bound to the totem as of yet, though, she's around the church as often as she can be, picking up the patrols through the pack's turf. It isn't the bat signal that snares her attention to something going on.

It's Roman himself - the reactions of his body when he skids to a halt at the doors of the front stoop of the Church and starts to run down them, a phone in hand. The Rotagar side-steps out of his way as she was walking up the steps to the church, watching him run like a wild bull. Red brows furrow together, the one sided conversation plucked out words that she recognizes as 'wounds' and 'Drew'. Her nostrils flare as she looks up at the Church and then to the fading form of the CoG running down the street.

It doesn't take much for her to spin on the ball of her foot to turn, it takes even less effort for her to break into an urgent run to follow after the other no moon.

[Roman Turner] It was a dead run that passed in a blur for him. Once he'd knocked a man clean off his feet, making it so Kora had to leap over the man. His Alpha had responded right away, so as they ran Roman acted as blocker, knocking anyone out of the way that didn't move fast enough. His coat tails flew out behind him, hat long forgotten.

It wasn't too hard to find them, he found the car, found the trail of blood and what might seem like life time for those waiting passed in minutes for him. Soon enough the sound of boots came as he ran up the stairs two at a time to burst in on the scene, panting like a dog.

[Drew Roscoe] What they find is a mess, the kind that suggested there really ought to be casualties on both sides. There's blood all about the place, the smell of gunpowder as thick in the air as the blood is. There's a body whose foot is poking out of a back room, still as the grave. There's another figure face down at the back of the room, near a corner filled with shadows and the scent of despair and children, blood pooling from its head. A lump of deformed lopsided muscle and pink flesh is on the floor with its brains painting a picture on the ceiling above and along the back of his shoulders. The last body visible is that of what appears to be a vastly oversized, mutated scorpion, exoskeleton cracked with multiple gunshot wounds and vibrant yellow-green pus leaking from these wounds, while blue venom only recently stopped leaking sticky goo from the tail.

Near the door that Roman burst through first, followed close behind by Kora and Janis (who the fuck's that? whatever, if she's with Last Watch she's fine), some odd number of feet to the right, are five still-warm, still-breathing bodies.

Eli's on his back with his head near the wall, Drew had moved him so he wasn't slumped back but laying flat instead, aware that this would make it easiest for him to breathe. She's on the ground, beside him, with a four year old in her lap and a six and nine year old at her sides. They're all crying, quiet hoarse sounds now, unable to process what they'd seen, what had happened to Mommy and Daddy, clinging to the pretty woman with the blood-speckled face, the warm coat and the long hair that smelled of floral shampoo and gunsmoke alike.

Her eyes fly up to the cavalry, wide and bright with fear but without tears (just yet, she'd have time for that later).

"He's worse," she informed Roman.

[Roman Turner] "Holy cow. We got youngins in here. Lord have mercy."

He thought quickly, pulling his cell phone back out and with one thumb had a game up and going in a flash.

"Here,come over hear and play. See? Angry birds. Ya just have at it and Uncle Roman will buy ya some icecream and suckers when it's all better."

He was hearding the kids out of the way so he could get a good look at Eli. Kneeling next to the Kin to examine his wounds.

"Oh man, tell me ain't no stings below the belt, cause if poison's gotta be sucked out, I'm afraid ya might not make it unless one of the girls is feeling adventuresome."

[Janis Ian] Roman wasn't alone. The redhead was on his heels, following behind him as her breath remained steady, unlabored - as it rolls out in a stream of mist, her heartbeat thundered in her ears. Her eyes narrow as they pass the car, the scent of blood pulls a growling rumble from the pit of her stomach.

She looks to Kora and then to Roman as the CoG is the first to burst through the door, she skids in behind him. Brown eyes scanning still-warm bodies that were laying close by, until her head turns and the Rotagar stops - dead in her track. "ELI!" It's the first panic-stricken thing she utters as her eyes move to the fallen kin, and then to Drew and back again.

There were kids crying, huddled together as they were being herding out of the way. She blinks once, "Roman, can ye heal 'im?"

[Drew Roscoe] The six year old is bold enough out of the three to accept Roman's invitation, they allow themselves to be ushered because they're shellshocked, they're too young to know to retaliate, to run, to do much of anything really. Authority's what they seek, promises of ice cream and suckers are lost upon them for the most part, the game is barely paid attention to, but the kids will leave Drew and Eli when she lets them go and huddle together elsewhere so the Ragabash Medic can do his thing.

Janis yelps Eli's name, this earns her a snap of a glance from Drew, a startled blink, and a moment's worth of a stare. Then she's shaking her head and moving one hand to Eli's shoulder, the other to tug down his shirt, down to the point that a kevlar vest is able to peek out at his collarbone.

There are two sting marks at his neck, one at the side the other more centralized on his throat. They look as awful as they should to do this much damage. "There. His armor, it did it's job, but it only covers so much..."

[Roman Turner] "I surely hope so."

He heaved the biggest sigh of relief when the wounds weren't belong the belt in the "No man goes there on another bro, zone." Calmly he reached for his belt, flicking open a small Gerber pocket knife which he moved to the wounds with.

"Ya with me Mr Eli? I'm gonna try and suck some of this poison out, so don't start to thinking I'm just trying to give ya a hicky. Hold still if ya can."

[Eli Booker] He wheezes. His breath whistles through his lungs in a sound that could very nearly pass for the infamous death rattle old people are said to posses before they pass away. Whatever toxins were introduced to his system are effecting his muscles, because they twitch and his respiratory system, because he cannot breath easily and Eli was no asthmatic.

Janis yells his name, Roman asks if he's with him and Eli can only make his head move slightly - enough that Roman can just barely see the motion.

He was talking before, albeit with great effort. Now, he says nothing.

[Roman Turner] It was just the pointed tip of the knife and he worked quickly to score across the stings. In a moment he was bending over Eli, sealing his mouth the wounds to suck. And no, he didn't suck and swallow, he was more the suck and spit sort. Inwardly he gathered himself. One hand was splayed flatly on Eli's chest, the other across the wounds he worked on.

"This might hurt some. Gaia please bless me, be with me on this."

[Janis Ian] There is a moment's stare that is shared between Janis and Drew - the kin gives a startled blink, Janis' mouth flattens into a thin line. She's moving quickly to the other side, sliding into a crouch at Eli's legs on the same side as Drew. She watches with a soft furrow of her brow, her nostrils flaring.

Eli's head moves slightly - Roman has the assurance that he's still there. Janis skirts her eyes away to try and assess what happened, the children taking into regard, but her attention keeps returning to what Roman's doing - arching an eyebrow at the other no moon.

[Roman Turner] His breath deepened with his eyes closed as he drew on his own spirit and the Gift of Mother's touch. He leaned down close to Eli's neck, just where he had been sucking poisoning out and pressed his lips against the wound with a faint whispered breath of sound. Giving it his best go at using Mother's Touch on the Kin.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 2, 4, 5 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]

[Kora] The truth is: Kora doesn't run as fast as Roman. Not on two legs. Not any longer. And so she sends the young Ragabash running ahead of her, Rotagar in tow. Roman bursts into the door a solid minute or three ahead of the pregnant Skald, but arrive she does. She's developed the beginnings of a waddle, all things considered. All her weight forward, now, heavy on her tall, narrow frame. The reflexive twist of rage in her blood is good for neither her nor the child she carries now - but there is nothing to be done for it.

When she sees the children, her mouth tightens. She breathes out, once, sharply. "They cannot see any more." Kora says, sharply. A lifting glance toward Janice, then, a movement of her chin toward the children. "Move them. One of the other apartments. No names, no words in their presence, understand? Nothing more."

The healing work she leaves to Roman, but while he works - after a shooting glance toward Drew. Pulling her aside with a brief, moving glance toward Eli, her generous mouth a thinned line across her sharply defined features. Low, the question. She asks it only when the children are out of the room. "I want to know what they saw."

[Roman Turner] What passed from Roman in to Eli might not be much, it might feel like a tickled that started out soft and warm, but them it might burn as it reached the poison to do battle with it. And Roman knew it wouldn't be enough. He whispered near Eli's neck. I'm gonna have to try again. Stay with me partner."

[Janis Ian] Her hand drops to Eli's calf, squeezing it as Kora's breath draws out once, sharply, gaining the redhead's attention. She wears a similar tight mouthed expression, her head turning over her shoulder to regard the children.

Auburn hair falls across her shoulder as she slid back up to her feet, withdrawing her hand, and moves away. It distracts her - the task. She swallows the lump forming in the throat, offers the children a rueful smile as her voice drops into a crooning sing-song voice, the brogue accentuating her words sweetly, gently.

"C'mon, my darlings..." she says to the children, trying to herd them away so they won't continue to watch, like a mother goose herding her ducklings into a pond. "C'mon o'er 'ere."

[Roman Turner] He didn't much like how quiet Eli was, nor how labored his breathing was. It was one of those times you wished you had one of those adrenaline shots. All he had was a minor gift that took every bit of his spirit to work. He spoke softly to Eli, just as he had to Drew the time he held her and sent healing through her body.

"Ya ain't getting out of working on the Kin house this easily. Just remember that."

Once more he bent to the wounds to breath out against them so close his lips touched open flesh.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 8, 9, 10 (Success x 4 at target 6) [WP]

[Drew Roscoe] Drew slides away, to give Roman space, and after a moment of hesitation she pushes herself up onto her feet and watches what Roman does. He flicks the knife out and works to suck the venom from Booker's wounds, and Drew furrows her brow some, thinking that perhaps she should have done that herself. But then, if she had maybe she'd have wound up on the floor twitching and struggling for air too? No, no, she did right.

Janis kneels down by Booker's legs, Drew's eyes bounce off the female Ragabash again for a second, then she's leaning down to pick up a couple of guns off the floor-- hers first, the big heavy Dirty Harry revolver, which goes right into the holster at her back, under her coat, and Eli's smaller handgun second. This she checks for a second, the flicks the safety on and sticks in the deep pocket of her winter coat.

Kora arrives and takes charge. Roman is left to do what he's doing, Janis is told to move the children, and Drew is pulled aside to explain what the witnesses saw. Her answer takes a moment to surmise, but it given after she licks dry lips that taste like splashed blood and brain matter.

"I don't know... not all of what they saw, not for sure. Their screaming and crying is what made me and Eli take notice and come looking in the first place. Heard a man pleading and a woman crying-- I haven't gotten to check for them yet. Safe to guess that they're dead, 'cause they sure didn't leave." She shivers a bit and presses on, gesturing to each dead body in turn.

"Saw this one take several shots to the head before it died trying to choke me out. Saw this one stab and lash at Eli and try to come after me before I put it down. This one--" to the gray thing sprawled out face down in a corner, "Came out of the back room, I expect it took the parents. Tried to grab up one of the kids and make a break for it, but I put it down before it could touch them again.

"They saw me and Eli bust in with guns, saw us kill some monsters, and saw Roman suck some poison out of Eli's stings...."

Another moment of quiet, and Drew's eyes drift after the kids. Her arms wrap tightly around her chest, clenching back the crushing sensation within it that tended to follow evenings such as this where loss came so close to home. "You guys... you have a way to fix their memories, yeah?"

[Roman Turner] He was checking Eli's breathing, coloring and responses with each warm thrust of his Gift in to the Kin. "Ya with me still? I can't work on another hicky, ya can tell all the fellas some kinky story on how ya got them."

[Eli Booker] Kora's face is as grave as the situation had been.She ushers Drew to the side and instructs Janis to move the children away. They had seen their mother and father drained dry. Should Kora look in the room just behind them, she'd see the mother splayed on the floor next to her long dead husband. There blood is drained, though the floor isn't coated in it.

While Roman works, Eli's breathing becomes less haggard - less forced. His heart races in his chest with the force of both adrenaline and fear. A finger twitches, then a foot. Eventually, Eli is able to move his extremities, and lifts his eyes toward Roman.

"I...usually only go to first base...on a first date..." He says quietly with a voice full of gravel.

[Janis Ian] [persuasion gift?]
Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 1, 2, 7, 9 (Success x 1 at target 6) [WP]

[Roman Turner] "Son, for another nuzzle against your neck, I'd bring flowers and the ring."

His chestnut head lowered again and this time as he breathed across the wounds, he poured the last of what he had in to healing.
Dice Rolled:[ 3 d10 ] 1, 2, 2 (Failure at target 6) [WP]

[Roman Turner] "I'm afraid I'm drained. I owe ya a better date than this one."

[Janis Ian] The three children have seen horrors that they shouldn't ever be exposed to. Janis does what she can to keep their attentions, divert their focus to something else. She keeps talking, asking simple questions to the youngest, or watching the six-year-old with Roman's phone.

Her voice is as soft and pleasant as she can keep it, drawing on more persuasive gifts to aid. She takes them away into one of the apartments, out of sight and out of mind, not once breathing a word about what just happened.

[Eli Booker] Roman's remark earns him a smile that doesn't quite work itself into a full fledged smart ass grin. Eli can move, his body aches in places still though. Dragging himself up, he leans against the wall and flexes his fingers, hands, into fists and then relaxes them.

"I owe you kid." He says to the Child of Gaia.

[Kora] There's a dark moment in the nascent seconds when Drew has finished her story where Kora is closed off from the pack. She cuts a glance back over her shoulder, out into the hallway in the Janis' wake, considering the whole of the story Drew has just offered. Something hard about her face in that moment, something steely in the depths of her dark eyes. Her left hand clenches into a fist, and her nostrils jaw sets firmly, grinding, as she considers What Is to Be Done.

Her first thought is death.

She is still with it, stark with it. Holds it inside her like she could swallow it herself, make it whole if she were to consume it somehow. Then, the moment passes, she breathes out all at once. It's not relief, but something else. Some easing that comes with decision.

"We'll look for them," says Kora, of the parents. Lifting her chin toward the place Drew indicated. "I need you to take the children out of here before there are cops anywhere close. I want you to take them to Hill House. Have Janis help you keep them in line of out of sight. Don't get pulled over, don't be seen, and don't get caught. Give them to Mary Alice and make sure she knows they are going to be cared for by kin and only kin; kept out of the public eye until whatever search the police make for them is over. And then sent away, someplace quiet and rural, adopted into the family.

"The only way to keep them from being a veil breach is to raise them as kin."

[Drew Roscoe] Drew doesn't question Kora's choice, doesn't protest the fact that her truck isn't outside-- it's only a short two blocks away, she was sure that she and Janis (a name to go with the face, there we are) could manage walking the three back to her house, find a way to pile them into the truck and get them to the Hill House like it was ordered. Sure, her truck only had the bench, but she was sure she could squeeze her own petite self and three smaller children in without any trouble. Two would just have to share a seatbelt, and Janis would either hang behind for clean-up or ride in the back of the truck, whichever.

Drew's attention is split, though, when Roman leans back and Eli's voice grinds to join the teen's in the air. Her posture straightens, back stiffens, and weight shifts forward some, indicating that she was about to move but stopped herself.

Instead, quickly, she glanced up to Kora and flicked her eyebrows up, like asking permission to deviate from the task set before her for a moment to see the Gaia-given recovery herself.

[Roman Turner] "You're not kidding ya owe me."

He helped Eli prop himself up against the edge of the sofa.

"I need ya for your painting skills. Besides, after sucking poison out of ya, I think we're engaged. So ya sit here and I'l find ya some juice, then we'll see if we can get ya out of here."

[Kora] Drew's raised eyebrows are met by another lift of the pregnant Garou's chin. It's like permission. Go on.

[Janis Ian] Roman's phone was retrieved from the six-year-old as Janis finds a trinket from her pocket to distract the child with. A brightly polished piece of brass shaped like a coin. The print minted on it long faded. She tells the child it's a good luck piece, lets him hold on to it and motions for them to stay there.

She reappears in the hallway, making her way towards the others as she caught a portion of what Kora says. Brown eyes quickly fall to Drew, her tongue slid inside her left cheek. "Roman, I 'ave yer phone." She says, offering it up to the Child of Gaia as she casts Eli a look.

[Roman Turner] "Thank ya kindly."

He held up his hand from where he had retaken his seat next to Eli on the floor. At that moment he'd been trying to encourage Eli to drink orange juice.

[Eli Booker] Eli doesn't quite laugh. Rather, he huffs out a breath of air that would of been a laugh if only he had more energy to behind it. Roman helps him and he is accepting of it.

"Those kids ok?" He asks, dark eyes shifting around the room. That's when his eyes light on Kora's face for a beat. Just a beat, because he can't make himself catch her eyes and hold them.

"You're alright in my book Roman...I'll paint the fuckin' city for you if you need it..." He groans and shifts, plants the sole of one heavy boot on the ground for leverage as if he's testing his legs to see if he can stand. Instead he just sips the orange juice and tries not to throw it up as his stomach churns.

[Drew Roscoe] The Kin doesn't rush over or fall so her knees crack the floor so she can drop down beside Booker once he's sitting up and talking, she isn't one for those kinds of dramatics. Instead she walks over, sneakers quiet save for the occawsional squelching noise when she steps in a bit of carnage, and remains standing while Roman helps Eli sit up and get propped so he can lean back against something sturdy. First the Kin's fingers push through Roman's hair, a quick and thoughtless gesture.

"Thanks, Roman. Two of our lives you've saved now. Can't thank you enough."

For Eli, she fishes his gun out of her pocket and leans down, tucking it into the vest pocket she knows he tends to keep it in. "Janis and I, we're gonna see those kids into the right hands. I guess you, Kora and Roman have clean-up duty." A bruise is already blossoming about her neck and throat, up close to her jaw as well. That she'd withstood the beast of a misshapen man trying to squeeze the life out of her so well was a testament to her ancestry, really, or just her stubborn determination to live. That didn't mean she'd escape without any marks, though. Frankly, she considered herself lucky that she could speak and it only hurt a little to breathe.

[Roman Turner] "We'll get ya home. Maybe I will call a cab this time. And get ya some rest, you'll do ok. But them youngins are gonna have a hard time and will have to be kept sheltered while working through this stuff.

[Roman Turner] 'Just doing what I was born to do Miss Drew. I had a little more in me I could tend to ya too, but gonna take a bit to recover."

[Eli Booker] "You ok?" It's spoken to Drew, quietly, as a heavy hand reaches out and touches her calf. She was bruised, she'd be sore, but she saved his life and Eli is more than aware of this. There's a familiarity to his touch with Drew, it lingers for longer than it should

Eli's face falls when Roman speaks. There are lines at his mouth, creasing his brow. It ages him considerably. He is worried after the trio of youngsters and it couldn't be more obvious on his expression.

"Thanks Roman..." He says again and uses his back against whatever he's against to try and leverage himself to standing.

[Janis Ian] Janis tilts her head in a nod to Roman, her hand falls back to her side, nearly disappearing under the cuff of the sleeve to her leather blazer. Her shoulders roll back once, straightening her frame as the Rotagar turns her head at the sound of her name coming from Drew. Her throat ripples, swallowing quietly - "Aye," is all she can say about the task to handle the children.

She shakes her head, casting her head down as a fall of red bangs shadows the expression of her eyes. She steps away to move back towards the apartment where the children were waiting - "Best get them out of 'ere while we can, Drew."

[Drew Roscoe] "Goddamn peachy," is her answer to Booker, accompanied by a grin that was as warm as ever, accented with a bit of wild that makes teeth look sharp and lips stretched a bit too far-- adrenaline was kicking in, and she was smothering the sort of hysteria that followed nearly dying, others nearly dying, and the rush of victory to boot. Booker puts his hand on her calf, she lays her hand on top of his, then moves it and tucks her other hand under his armpit to help him regain balance while he tries to stand. She can't lift him, no, she's not nearly so strong, but she can at least help with balance until he finds it on his own.

Once he does, she nods and lets him go with a squeeze of his hand, and flashes that grin to Roman in turn. "Nah, this is nothing, just a mugging story for work and extra foundation is all." She sounds like a battered wife-- Kin usually do when trying to explain battle wounds no matter where they came from.

From there, her attention is on Janis, and there's a solemn kind of nod before she moves to join the No Moon, to go with her wherever she'd taken the children.

"C'mon kiddo's, we're gonna get some hot chocolate and meet one of the nicest ladies on earth."

[Kora] Kora cuts a glance back over her shoulder as Janis comes back into the apartment. Steps back, turning to following the curl of gunsmoke through the half-finished rooms, considering the next room. Corpses - human or otherwise - laid out on the floor. She holds herself just apart here; that sense of inhumanity sharper in this moment than it ever is on an ordinary day. There's nothing close to a smile on her generous mouth, the sense of the animal is clear, alive underneath her skin, the monster in her - now - not just the wolf.

"She'll recover," Kora corrects Roman with a quiet sort of stillness, after a narrow, critical sweep of Drew's bruises; the way she moves. There's a question subsumed in the statement, which Drew is left to answer or not as she pleases.

"They'll live." The Skald tells Eli, taking a step back into the hall, watching the next room over as Janis returns. Her arms are crossed, beneath her breasts, over the swell of her stomach, underneath that is a feral tension imprinted on every muscles of her body.

"We're not calling a cab here, Roman." She contradicts her packmate, brief, quiet. "Don't want someone investigating this scene finding about a cab run. Call the Doc and Izzy. See if the Detective can run interference with whatever investigation comes next." She's still talking as Drew and Janis leave to round up the children, but she steps them both for a brief, quiet look. And a serious, direct, "Thank you." - before she lets them go.

[Roman Turner] He nodded, listening to his Alpha and makes the calls. First to Imogen, then to Izzy.

"This is Roman, we could use a ride and some help on clean up if ya could come."

[Eli Booker] The apartment is a 'shotgun' style unit. When you enter the door you're in the living room. Were you to turn to your left, you'd be faced with the dead and crumpled bodies of two middle age, middle class parents. They're dressed nicely - a wrong turn, bad directions on the GPS, probably brought them to this place. Most might say fate. Eli would just say their luck was just fucked today.

Turning to the left is a hallway. A bathroom is on the right. The kitchen is straight ahead. Kora and Roman and Janis can smell death. This place stunk of it. Nothing here, in this space, has died naturally. Not even the rats.

The strongest stench seems to roll from the bathroom...though neither Drew nor Eli had managed to venture that far into the unit.

Janis and Drew are taking the children to the nicest woman on earth. He watches the two Fenrir, then looks at the children before nodding to what Kora has said.

"I'll be fine." He says. And he would, because he had too.

[Roman Turner] If Eli wanted a ride with him, he'd beg it off Izzy or Imogen to get them back to the church. Either way, he would come back to help clean up. And they'd have to get hold of Linus for a cleansing.

[Janis Ian] The Rotagar can hear the rumble of noise in the back of her mind, the questions that want to know answers to what just happened, how Kora was going to handle the mess, the clean up, and then there are others when she peers back at the faces of the three children Drew and Janis must sneak three blocks to the kin's house to take them to Hill House.

A part of her is relieved that death does not have to come to such young faces - that she doesn't have to kill them.

She stops when Kora stops them with a brief quiet look. "Any time, rhya." She replies and leaves with Drew.