Fresh Air [Booker]

[Drew Roscoe] The package at her doorstep had been an unexpected surprise. The way the past two weeks have been treating her, she almost expected there to be a bomb or a severed finger or some incredibly grotesque, ironic warning to keep her house clean and beds made from her newly appointed Warden (yeah, he's a Warden, not a Warder). To open it up and instead find a bottle of Pacifica along with a chicken-scratch note from a name she'd pondered from time to time but hardly expected to get to see again... that came both as a sudden surprise and a source of excitement. Bottle in one hand, cellphone in the other, she dialed the number on the piece of paper.

A few minutes of 'How the hell are ya?'s and a time and place to meet is arranged. Booker got himself a place down in Bronzeville, and this had Drew smiling ironically. She hadn't been down that way in quite a while, not since she got back. Without family holding down the fort in that neighborhood, it was stupid to roam those streets. Asking for trouble that she didn't need. But now, with an address a friend and a promise of all good that has to come with being reassured that someone you know is still alive, she would return.

Around noon on a cold, blustery, but otherwise nondescript day, Drew's truck rolled up to the curb in front of the given address. She still drove the same Dodge Ram that she did when he was in Chicago before, with the dark cherry paint that shined nicely in the sun and the moderate lift, comical not only because it was hugely unnecessary in the city but also because of the very petite girl behind the steering wheel. The engine was cut from a diesel-fueled rumble to silence, and Drew stepped down out of the cab, locked the doors, and pocketed the keys.

She was dressed as simply as she tended to-- a pair of jeans tucked into a pair of brown winter boots, a heavy navy blue winter jacket that was buttoned up to her collar bone, along with a gray hat, scarf, and gloves. Her hair was longer than before, like she hadn't found time or couldn't be bothered to get it cut since then, left down to reach a good six or seven inches past her shoulders toward her back. Despite being bundled against the cold, when temperatures were in the single digits nothing you could do would stop your cheeks and nose from flushing red when you stepped out into that air.

The hard, low heels of her boots thumped quietly on the pavement when she approached the house. She was grinning prematurely. That chickenscratch note, the voice on the other end of the line, they were the first real light of genuinely good news that she'd had since she'd come back home.

[Booker] The address Drew had been given was smack dab in the heart of bleakness inside Bronzeville. It's a small frame house with pieces of siding threatening to fall to the ground at any moment. His Harley is parked in the front yard - and while this is most probably illegal, in this part of Chicago no one seems to care. The police don't patrol here, they aren't the law .

But that was neither here nor there, because Booker wasn't much for the law and he certainly wasn't the type to scare easily. There's half of a waist high chain link fence guarding one side of the house, the other half of the barrier has long since disappeared. The creaking of the steps is enough to let him know that someone is there - it's the lightness of weight behind the footfalls that bring him to the door wearing that typical crooked Booker smile.

"Hey kiddo." He says grinning, taking a few steps back so she can walk in.

Drew and Eli were cut from the same cloth in some respects; he dressed as casual (if not more so) than she did and more often than not he didn't give two shits about half of the people around him. He looks the same, though maybe a little leaner. His hair is still in the same mohawk style, the tattoos are the same. Wearing a woman beater and low slung Dickies, the biker doesn't look very different.

Dark eyes roam across her face and down, before darting back to her eyes and smiling wider. "Beer?" And it's just now noon.

[Drew Roscoe] "It is cold as shit out here," she informs him when he answers the door in a wifebeater. Her posture says it all, how her shoulders are shrugged up to push the scarf up over her chin and close to her mouth, how her hands are resolutely stuck in her pockets. But she's smiling. They have the same smiles to one another's memories-- Booker with his crooked grin that seemed shit-eating even if it wasn't supposed to be, Drew with the kind of smile that spread over her whole face like honey on a cracker, warm and welcoming and legitimately so.

He moves out of the doorway to invite her in, and she steps across the threshold and closes the door quickly behind her, not letting any of the warm air in his little easily overlooked house escape. In front of the doorway, before she enters the home further, she pulls off her gloves hat and scarf and tuck them into pockets of the coat before the coat itself is removed as well. It's hung either on a hook or over the back of a chair, depending on what's available. Underneath she's dressed in a thick, warm gray thermal, intended for torsos longer than hers so the hem was an extra inch or two past the waistband of her pants. Fingers drag through her hair, pushing it back from her brow and undoing whatever static frizz that the hat would've caused, and her hands then fall to her hips.

The smile doesn't fade even for a second. "Hell yes." His eyes go from hers down and then back up, a preliminary check to no doubt make sure that she wasn't sporting any new scars, missing any fingers or limbs, because these are all legitimate concerns for their people. She does the same of him, and makes a noise that could either be conclusion or approval or both with her tongue against her teeth. "Looking good, Eli, if not a little gant. How's it been?"

She'll let him lead her wherever they're going to be-- living room, kitchen, or otherwise.

[Booker] Drew is greeted by the sleeveless tattooed biker. She quips about the unfuckingbelievably cold weather and the fact that he's wearing very little on his torso and nothing on his arms. To that he replies, simply "Whiner." It's said in jest while sparing a quick glance and wink over one broad shoulder.

The living room is small, just large enough to fit the couch, chair and television (console style, circa 1980) within it. There are a few boxes here and there, but Eli travels light and there's very little of 'himself' accumulated in boxes or hung on walls. Laid across the back of the living room chair is a flannel shirt and hanging on the door of a closet in the living room is his leather vest which sports his motorcycle clubs insignia on the back.

She follows and he leads her through a small hallway. To the left is his bedroom and to the right is the small bathroom. They continue straight forward and they're in the kitchen. His fingers (decorated with various rings) sparkle beneath the dim light in the room.

"So what's been kickin' chicken?" He asks, bending down to pull out two bottles of Budweiser for them. Twisting off both bottlecaps, he hands Drew one and keeps the other.

"And hey ...what? You don't like the slimmer me?" The bottle is tipped up at his lips.

[Drew Roscoe] Her eyes travel over furniture and walls as he leads her through the house, cutting through a small living room at the front of the house and into a hallway. She's tugging at the hem of her shirt, making sure it was set comfortably where it was supposed to be rather than riding up at the back or hips. She glanced at the sparse bedroom as she passed it, surveyed the bathroom too, and then let her attention fall to the other Kin and the kitchen he was standing in.

She rolled her sleeves up twice at the cuff then pushed them past her elbows so they would stay. She had no scars on her forearms, nothing beyond the occasional small nick here or there that would've come from a childhood of burning the skin off her arms and legs on gym mats and learning how to use a hammer and powerdrill with her dad. He twists the top off of a beer and hands it to her, and she just grins when he asks about the slimmer him. The bottles hit lips almost in sync, and after a cursory two deep drinks from her bottle she's leaning against some space of countertop available and shrugging her shoulders.

"I don't know, I always kinda liked the belly. Found it refreshing to see somebody real after looking at the cut-from-death people we call our Family day in and day out." A pause, and the grin softens into something more relaxed and natural, visible more at her cheeks and eyes as opposed to flashing teeth. "But ya look good anyway. As good as you can at least."

As for what's been kicking? "Things have switched around so much since summertime... All new faces, attitudes. The air feels different here, and I don't thin it's just the cold. Feels tense and still. I think something's brewing and the Garou have been pretty tight-lipped about exactly what's up."

[Booker] The rooms that they pass are minimalist decorating at it's best: The bedroom sports a full size bed, nightstand with a lamp and a dresser with a mirror. The bathroom is so small that there's little knee room between the toilet and shower. The kitchen is just a little more spacious and boasts an older (though heavy, durable) kitchen table and 4 chairs. There's a microwave and fridge / freezer alongside a gas stove / oven. The backdoor is heavily bolted.

He'd been in California on club business, his food consumption had been very little and only when necessary. Because of this he's lost a good fifteen or so pounds and it's left his stomach a little flatter, his cheeks just a pinch more hollow instead of full, round. She preferred the belly - the love handles - and he grins, a hand drifting to pat his stomach.

"Don't worry, I'm sure I'll plump back up." Another drink from the bottle is gulped down. He nods to a chair as he's sitting. Booker listens to Drew talk about the state of the Nation in Chicago and he nods with a furrowed brow.

"Wow." He says, then takes another drink. "Everyone we know safe and alive?" He doesn't actually ask about a Fenrir he shared blows and kisses with. Instead, he throws the question out there, leaving it general and non-specific.

[Drew Roscoe] He assured her that he'd plump back up, and she chuckled and pushed away from the counter she'd only just started to lean against. He was heading for the table, indicating that she should sit as well. "Well I'm getting too accustomed to cooking for one. I'd be happy to contribute to the twenty-pounds-heavier road."

Of course, though, he has to ask if everyone's alive and safe. The question causes only the slightest pause, a moment of still as she's sitting down in the chair across from him. This could be passed off as her deciding how she would like to sit, though, and deciding to put a leg on top of the chair before sitting down, effectively seated now so her right leg was tucked under her rear, providing enough of a boost that she appeared normal height, that the table hit her at the stomach instead of the chest. The left leg was left to swing, boot bottom about two inches shy of touching the floor.

"Can't say I know for sure," she admits after a dreadful ten seconds of quiet, of chewing on the question and deciding the best way to answer. Her lips are pressed thinner, mouth in a shape that was regretful and uncomfortable both. "There's a lot of faces missing... And we can't go into the burial grounds to check headstones. I don't want to ask because of the laundry list of names I know I'll get. I doubt I'd know most of them, but just knowing how high the casualty rate is anyways..." She shakes her head and takes another drink from her bottle.

Rather that list the faces that were gone, she went with the ones that were here. "Gina's still around. Lukas too. Don't know if you ever met the pair of them, but they're both pretty sturdy, alright people. I saw Joey briefly the other day, almost didn't recognize her it's been so damn long. Kora's around too. She's got a kid on the way."

And that was it. She's watching the label of her bottle more than Booker now, thumb rubbing away the glue that held it in place, gradually working to peel it away. "...You got your kitchen stocked? I could make us some lunch or something."

[Booker] She's getting too accustomed to cooking for one. His face is, typically, unreadable when it comes to emotion. He is guarded with himself, as so many of their sort are wont to be. Booker lounges in the chair he sits in - owning it with the whole of his body. One arm is thrown casually over the back of it, one leg is stretched out within inches of her chair. He's wearing an old pair of Iron Age black steel toe boots. The toe of one leans over and nudges her chair just a little and his whole posture starts to shift. Muscles twitch then smoothly begin to move, leaning him forward with elbows and forearms on his knees. The beer is held between his legs loosely.

" 'sup with Joe?" He asked quietly, dark eyes wandering the expanse of her pretty face.

He leans back then, allowing her her own space again. "Uh ...yeah. Got all kinds of shit in there, some broad shopped for me the other day."

[Drew Roscoe] 'Sup with Joe?

Drew's big doe-brown eyes lift from the beer bottle when he nudges her chair and leans forward, find his face in turn. The smile, save for ironically sad remnants that still held out at the corners of her eyes, had slipped from her entirely. She just looks at him, brown eyes on brown eyes, and one corner of her mouth quirks up in a flat attempt at a smile.

She didn't need to say, her face and posture and the sadness in all of it said enough.
She said it anyway, though.
"Gone."

Her chest and shoulders lift with a big deep breath and she straightens her posture, no longer curved forward over the table but instead sitting straight. She stops peeling at the label, snatches the bottle up by its neck with a loose and lazy swing of her arm, and rolls up out of the chair and onto her feet. The house is small, non-descript, and perfect for Kinfolk trying to fit in and keep an eye out in a rough neighborhood. It was a decent reflection of her own home in Bronzeville's northern twin in crime-- the Cabrini. There wasn't a lot of distance for her to walk to go from the table toward the fridge.

"Some broad, 'eh? Seems not everyone disagrees with the new slim you, Booker."

[Booker] Gone. That one word brings with it a great weight that sits solid on Eli's shoulders and causes him to bow his head slightly. If Eli had been born True, he might of been a lot like Joe. Sitting up straight again as Drew does a finger decorated with a skull ring rubs at his chin.

"I'm sorry, kid." He says quietly, one hand swooping low to pat Drew's knee before she moves out of the chair and toward the fridge. When he says some 'broad' went shopping for him, he really didn't lie. The fridge is stocked with deli meat and bacon and fruit and eggs, milk, cheese. The freezer is the same. Bread and cereal line the top of the fridge.

"Nah...I think she was some fucking witch tryin' ta fatten me up so she could eat me." He pauses, takes a swig from his beer and then, "....and not in the good kinda eatin' way."

In the bottom of the fridge is a thirty pack of Budweiser bottles. Their two are the only ones missing. "Pass me another beer. So..." The word hangs out there between them for a few long seconds. "You okay?"

[Drew Roscoe] Her chuckle is a little bit rougher, not quite as bright as it had been when she'd first walked into the home. She's surveying the options in the fridge, thinking it over, standing with one arm at the top of the fridge door and her left hip cocked to one side. She was built like the gymnast she was, though she didn't do college competitions anymore, no floor routines or uneven bars, the physique still stayed. Muscled and strong in the legs and rump, slim and tight everywhere else. She's tapping her fingers to the top of her forehead, then snag out another beer on request and bumps the door closed, then passes over to Booker once more, hovering to stand in front of him and finishing off her own beer while handing him the new one, cap snapped off.

"As okay as can be expected. Reasonably at least. Two sides of that particular coin-- I'm supposed to be honoring him, but it's weak to grieve for too long. Been gone since November."

There's a pause, like she's trying to decide where to take the conversation. She was overjoyed to have Booker back, someone to crack a beer open and have a talk with, a guy without the concerns and flighty thought patterns of a female Kinfolk, but without all the Rage and Law and Assumptions that come with a male Garou. She didn't want to unload on him right off the back, that was totally unfair. But months of biting tongue and holding up the strong front can wear you down, make you wonder if it's not healthier to rip off the bandage off and let the air into the wound.

She sighs heavily and takes his empty bottle and goes hunting for the garbage can. "Got assigned a new Warden, apparently. He and Kora are both pretty pissed off that I didn't bring home kids. Acting like I denied Joe something great and besmirched his honor for it." Because she should've anticipated that he would die before his eighteenth birthday.

"I see sandwiches or breakfast food as an option here, man. What's your poison?"

[Booker] "Surprise me." He says with a grin, an attempt to lighten the somber air just a little. "You can't plan for that shit...you ain't a Seer or psychic or some such shit." His body turns as she's finding the trashcan tucked neatly into one corner of the kitchen near the backdoor. Eli stands and at 5'11 is able to reach over the top of Drew's head, his chest (stomach) against her back, into the freezer and pull out a cartoon of Marlboro reds.

"Fuck it." He says with a shrug. A pack is shook free of the cartoon and it's returned to the freezer. Eli disappears into his bedroom to hunt down his lighter.

"You're strong Drew. Stronger 'n most kin I seen..." He pauses, she can hear him rummaging through a drawer. "So what's up with this Warden guy? They best not put none of that shit on me." It's said halfheartedly from the other room.

[Drew Roscoe] "Yeah, that's what I say, but apparently we were supposed to get down to the brass tacks the second it became legit." She shrugged her shoulders and leaned forward some to offer Booker a bit of room, leeway to lean over her to reach the cigarettes in the freezer. She doesn't protest close quarters, squeezing in kitchens and passbars in the restaurant industry had flattened whatever need for personal space she'd had. If anything, warm human contact without violence or lustful intent was welcome.

He's headed back into the bedroom to retrieve a lighter, calling to her through the short hallway between bed and kitchen. Drew's scratching at her eyebrow, then tugging a hair elastic off her wrist and knotting her hair into a sloppy something at the back of her head, so all that dark brown hair was out of the way for cooking, gave her hands a quick scrub in the sink (old habit after the food industry, wash your hands after touching your hair or face) before taking some bacon, lettuce, and a solitary tomato out of the fridge and making herself a workspace on the counter.

While lining the bacon in a pan she discovered after opening and closing a few cupboards, she called back. "I appreciate that, Eli." Hands are given a cursory rinse in the sink before she's slicing up the tomato on a plate. "Oh I sassed the Jarl. Told her 'no'. So I think he's taking over to save her the stress of dealing with me. I am, apparently, a dutiless harlot whose only intent here is to open my door to any man that comes a'knocking and offering him my bed for the night.

"Or some shit. I've given up on keeping track of their delusions."

[Booker] Standing in the doorway, cigarette loose between two lips and his beer in one hand, Eli watches Drew with eyes narrowed at the cigarette smoke. "Who you been openin' up your doors too?" He asks, a bare shoulder pressed against the door frame.

Eli alternates between his cigarette and his beer as he watches Drew collect what she needs to cook.

"Fuuuuuuck." He says with a drawn out sigh. Dark eyes lift to stare out the diamond shaped window in his back door. He sees nothing but Ghetto beyond it.

"They crackin' down on kin or what now?"

[Drew Roscoe] "I open my door to any family that needs it opened to 'em. They need shelter from the cold and the snow, I'm not gonna turn them out. Empty stomach? I'll get them something to eat. Place to crash? Shower? Any of that, it's mine to give to them. I'm not gonna leave my own people out just because it looks sketchy and has people raising eyebrows."

She finishes slicing up half the tomato, and finds something-- a sandwich bag or plastic wrap, something, to wrap the rest of the tomato up in before returning it to the fridge. She bustles thoughtlessly through the kitchen, flips the bacon around as it starts to hiss and sizzle in the pan, puts what's left of the bacon back in the fridge after wrapping that as well. She settles to peeling the head of lettuce down a layer or two before this, too, is returned to the fridge.

"I don't really know. It's petty, but I feel like they're cracking down on me ten times harder than anyone else." The tomato juice is wiped off the kitchen knife she'd been using, thoughtlessly, on the leg of her pants before she sets it in the sink. "The Jarl and her pack are taking pity on other Kin-- offering shelter and companionship to what I'm pretty sure is every Child of Gaia Kin in the city. Offering respect to Montoya, reverence to the Doc, and then giving me ultimatums and lock-downs if I don't meet 'em."

She's frowning now, frustrated with the situation at hand. "I got cracked down on because I refused to take one of the Children of Gaia Kin into my house and take care of her and her kids. She's got her own goddamn tribe, am I right? Where are they? I've got my own family to take care of. She wanted me to turn a Fenrir out on the streets to be a crutch for some woman I've never even met before."

She bites at her lip, frowning, and is still in front of the plate of lettuce and tomato, then shakes her head and turns to flip the bacon around once more. "You, though? You'll probably be alright."

[Booker] "That's...fucked up." He says with a sigh and a glance toward Drew. Eli sits his beer on the kitchen counter and leans a hip against the same. He's facing the female kin now, head tipped to one side.

"Ain't they none of her family in the city? Or her kids from one of our kind? Don't make no sense otherwise." A small red ashtray was left on the side of the sink and he takes it now, sliding it toward him so he can flick ashes from the end of his cigarette into it.

"What kinda curfews or whatever they layin' on ya?" He asks curiously, watching her cook now intently.

[Drew Roscoe] Some people complain about cigarette smoke, insist that people take it outside, scowl and wave a hand through the trail of smoke that stems from the little stick of paper and tobacco, cough pointedly when the exhaled cloud drifts in their direction. Drew, however, didn't seem to notice, let alone be bothered. This was his home, for one, she wouldn't tell him what he could or couldn't, should or shouldn't do in it. She didn't believe half of the medical studies that made news either, so she didn't pitch a fuss about breathing his second-hand smoke. Way she saw it, they had some of the resiliency of their cousins, so cancer was an unlikely thing for them. Even if that weren't the case, they'd probably die as violently as a Garou would anyways, only slightly more victimized. That was the way in Chicago.

"I don't know about how many of her Tribe are around here. Apparently there was some drama with her mate and they're not together but he's still around? She's pregnant, has a baby by another person.. I don't know, it's some big mess and none of it ought to be mine." A loaf of bread is found, and two at a time four slices are toasted in the toaster oven. "And yet, despite that, I still waste time, energy, and migraine medicine to hunt her down an affordable apartment in a decent part of town and offer up five-hundred bucks for her deposit. I've yet to decide if it's because I'm a good person or because I want Kora and Linus off my back."

Mayonnaise is the next thing pulled from the fridge, or Miracle Whip if that was the preference. Toast popped up, bacon finished, and she sopped the grease up from it in the paper towels she fished it out of the pan into. Gradually, a pair of BLT sandwiches came into existence, and one of them was cut in half and slid on a plate toward Booker.

"They don't want me giving anyone any reason to think that I could be screwin' around. I'm gonna be getting monthly house-checks I guess. I'm sure he'll pop by unannounced more than just that, though, tryin' to catch me red-handed at something I'm not doing." She helped herself not to a second beer, but a glass of water to go with her sandwich, and went about cleaning up dishes and crumbs before she even cast her own sandwich a second glance.

[Booker] Booker is shaking his head as she speaks. He remains quiet though, nursing his beer and cigarette. "Well. I could be in for a lot of trouble. You know, I'm a fuckin' ladies man...they all want a piece of good ol' Eli..." His hand - free of the cigarette now - rubs over his chest as if he were touching prime rib.

He's wearing that shit eating grin which very obviously states he's kidding. Drew opts for water, he continues with beer.

"Smells good." And then he's biting into the sandwich - hot or not - and licking a bit of Mayo from the corner of his mouth. "I ain't gonna throw a buncha names atcha, askin' who's livin' and who's gone." He takes another bite, chews it and swallows.

"Bet none of 'em is still around. Joey though...." He clicks his tongue and takes another bite. "Least she ain't 6 feet down yet."

[Drew Roscoe] It was depressing to think of who all had died, to recall every face she'd spoken to that she could never do again. Every hand she'd held, torso she'd hugged, smile she'd seen... She'd considered briefly just before Joe had died adding names of the departed to her tattoo, assigning a branch off that tree to each person she'd cared for to pass away. Then she got stuck on figuring out whether to add Thomas or not-- he was gone but she didn't know whether he was dead. She decided it was too damn depressing to have that kind of reminder in the mirror every morning and left the ink off her skin for the time being.

Pan and utensils were washed, dried, put back where they belong. "It's a terrific double-standard. I'm sure they won't mind with you so long as you keep it in the Tribe." Drew huffed, shaking her head and tightening the knot her hair was in, tucking stray pieces behind her twice-pierced ears before biting into her sandwich. She leaned over the plate so crumbs wouldn't fall down her shirt and onto the floor.

"Yeah, she looked healthy and fine. We didn't really get to talk, there of course had to be some kind of a ruckus kicked up before we got a chance. Her packmate and one of Ours got into a fight. She kept her packmate in one place, I took the new Modi out of the equation. But she looked alright, smilin' and everything."

There. Cling to that. One face, one person that she'd known before the upheaval, was still around and doing just fine. Joey hadn't fallen in battle, or murder, or crossfire or accident or any which way. Gina was scarred, different, but alive and otherwise healthy. And here now was Booker, exactly the way she recalled. Things would pull through and be alright, they had to now.

[Booker] Seconds pass, then minutes, and before long his sandwich is devoured as if it were the first meal he'd had in days. Maybe it had been. "That's good." Nodding, the hardened biker takes a moment to wash off his plate and sit it in the cheap plastic drainer.

"Well, you got me kiddo." He says, burping and grabbing his beer before heading back to his seat at the table. "That was real good Drew, thanks. And ...I ain't goin' nowhere for awhile." He pauses, tips his beer back for a big drink. "Guess I oughta get a message to Kora that I'm here."

[Drew Roscoe] She finished her sandwich in about the same time that Booker did, the pair seeming content to eat in silence rather than try and talk around mouthfulls of food. He finishes first, though, but by the time he's setting his plate in the little plastic drainer she's right behind, brushing by him in the small kitchen while he moves to the table and she takes her place at the sink.

The glass of water comes with her as she joins him at the table once more. She leans down to pull off her boots and stash them under the chair she had been sitting in, scrubbed at her toes to get some feeling and warmth back into them through the simple black socks she was wearing.

"I'd offer to let her know for ya, but she and I aren't on the friendliest speaking terms right now, so that's all you." Her chuckle was a little ironic, and she leans back in her chair with her legs folded indian-style, feet on top of opposing thighs so she could rub them without having to lean down toward the floor. "But they're at that church still. The one up in the Cabrini. I'll leave the address with ya before I go, so you can drop in and make a visit if you want.

"Be aware, though, it's always a madhouse every time I'm there. All kinds'a Garou and Kin, half of them way too loud and the other half brooding and watching every step that you take like they're thinking about tripping you. I'd make it a quick in-and-out personally. Or even leave a sticky-note."

[Booker] He shakes his head, swirling the beer around in the bottle. "Maybe I'll drop her a letter." He grins, bringing the beer to his lips for another swig.He stretches out - lounges like he so often does - and levels a dark gaze on Drew's face. It was easy with her. Not like with Joey ...though with Joey things were different. Complicated. Drew carried the same blood in her veins as Eli did, she shouldered the weight of their responsibilities as kin and he didn't have to worry about her ripping his appendages off and beating him with them.

Hopefully.

"I know you won't, probably, but if you ever need anything...I'm just a phone call and a Harley ride away..."

[Drew Roscoe] Their postures were polar opposites, but both relaxed in their own ways. Eli stretched out like men typically did, letting his legs take up the space under the table that Drew's would have if she didn't have them pulled up. He's got an arm hooked over the back of the chair, the other arm would probably be thrown out someplace else, maybe the chair beside him, were that hand not preoccupied with the beer bottle. Drew, on the other hand, was curled entirely into the seat of her chair, legs folded and back and shoulders both allowed to slouch forward some.

Done rubbing at her feet, she picked up her glass of water and had a drink, then set the glass down after grinning at him. It was a toothy grin, but nothing like one delivered by a Garou like, say Joey, would be. There's no threat behind it, no danger or strength or primal fire of aggression and supernatural bloodlust. With Drew, the gap that lack of Rage left in her smile was always filled with warmth and good nature. The kind of stuff that made her so easy to like, to befriend.

"Tch. Do I need a reason to ask for a ride?" A chuckle, a shake of her head, and she's rebuttaling the offer onto him. "Naw, it's just amazing beyond words to see you again. Alive, in one piece, smiling... All that. Good to know that some people are able to make it. I'm sure you're doing alright yourself, but that offer goes back to you. Whatever you need, really, please call. I go stir crazy home alone."

[Booker] With her feet now warm -or warm enough at least- Drew curls up into herself on the chair. Eli, either due to his height or structure, just wasn't meant to sit that way. He couldn't if he tried. No, he's fine sprawling, spinning his beer bottle in it's own sweat on the table with one hand.

"I'm gonna remedy that craziness." He announces, "From now on." The bottle of beer is lifted in a weird sort of 'cheer' and he tips it back finishing it off.

"It's good to be back....see you." He nods toward her, his hands clasping lightly over his now flat stomach. "I got so much shit on me...I couldn't stay with the club out in California. I'd of ended up doing 10-20 with the DOC."

[Drew Roscoe] "See? Here's a story I'd like to hear."

He clasps his hands over a stomach that's gone lean with both a change of diet and a life that had run him almost ragged. If it had been only the stomach to change, Drew probably wouldn't have called him 'gant' or said much at all, but the fact that his cheeks had sunken in some, that the round life in his face had slipped away to leave something a bit harder behind had caused a touch of concern.

One day, when she was forty-some years old, Drew would be a plump little woman who cooked meals for fifteen people and switched between patching up Garou, comforting children at her skirts, and chasing the older ones out into the backyard when they were cluttering up the house. She'd still be tough as nails, because she was Fenrir and it was necessary. She'd keep a shotgun on the wall and it would always be loaded. She would be taking care of everyone she could get her hands on.

Today, though, barely past twenty years old, she just worried quietly that people weren't eating enough. She had yet to blossom into a fully fledged mother hen. That would come with actually being a mother first. She leaned forward, bending almost impossibly (attesting to her gymnastic conditioning) so she could keep her legs folded as they were and still prop her elbows on the table and let her chin rest in the heels of her hands, fingers curling at her temples.

"What you were doing out there-- was it for Kin? Garou? Or just regular people? How's California, is it as jacked up as Chicago?"

[Booker] It's a story she'd like to hear. It isn't one he often tells - in fact he hasn't told it at all. Not to Joey or anyone else he met that wasn't a part of the story. It was an awful story, not one many would care to hear. Drew knows nothing of the man-kin across from her. She doesn't know that he's a racist prick or that he's got enemies in powerful places. He's just Booker to her. That guy Eli, the biker. So, he spares her the gory details and gives her the Cliff Notes version.

"Weeeelll..." He says, dragging his chair across the linoleum floor to grab another beer from the fridge.

"My club...my chapter anyway...we broke up before I came to Chicago. But I call from an old friend in California - San Francisco - he's kin to us. Anyway, he had a bunch of shit pop off down there and needed help." He pauses, flicks the bottle cap into the trash and takes a drink. "It's like my family you know? I wanted to stay but my life - for now - isn't good for the club. And if I were there? I'd be bringing unneccessary heat down on their heads."

He takes another drink.

"My chapter was mostly Kin and we got into deep shit less than two years ago. There's a prick Fed that has a big fucking hard on for little o' Elijah Booker."

"And California is beautiful. Sandy beaches...warm weather...pretty girls. I think it's a lot worse down there Drew. The battle is so fucking crazy. Everyone is expected to do their part - kin, Garou...it don't matter. It's rough."

[Drew Roscoe] She didn't know a thing about his life besides what very slender part she's seen of it-- which would be perhaps five pages out of a book, maximum. So she listens, interested without being intent, comfortable and relaxed at this big old kitchen table with the sunlight cutting through the back door's window in a bright, dusty looking diamond against the wall behind.

Family out in California needed help, she could understand why he left at the drop of a hat, she probably would have too. But he couldn't stay, because some Fed had it out for him. It had her wondering how long he'd be able to stay here before this 'Fed' tracked him out here, before it came to a head. Because that's exactly what it would do-- either he (or he and some help from the Family) would have to kill this person and make it look like an accident, because Eli, as a Kin, as Family and a Friend, was far more important than any serviceman of human law would ever be. It was that or Booker would pick up and move again, keep a step ahead of this guy so he wouldn't get caught and put in prison.

There were many ways around this, of course, but almost all of them involved going underground. That made providing for your people, as a Kin, next to impossible.

But the War in California was crazy, everyone was doing their part, possibly even on the front lines. Her mouth presses into that thoughtful, slightly displeased shape again as she thinks about it. How many places could be so bad, if California made Chicago look light in comparison? What was New York like? Houston? Miami? Every big city was probably a hellhole, and with so few Garou left standing, with the pressure on the heads of people like Booker and Drew to try to do too little too late when it comes to replenishing the numbers... Shit looked pretty bleak.

"Well," she says finally, with a note of decision on her tongue and a firm set to her face and shoulders. "If it comes down to it and this hard-on Fed of yours comes hunting you down? You know we're all at your back. Stuff like that, involving the law, involving enemies, rivals, who the fuck ever? Doesn't need to be shouldered alone. Might seem like strength, but really it's just wasteful not to let Family in to help ya out. Can't tell you what is or isn't weak, 'cause I know your intent never would be. I can't think of anything about you being weak, it's not written into you. But if this guy comes knocking? You come knockin' too. I'm not afraid of a little more blood on my hands, Booker, especially not for men like you."

[Booker] For a flicker of a second - so brief that it might be missed - that Booker looks at Drew like a woman, not kin.His own dark eyes scan hers, take in the small nuances of her features. Then it's gone and he's nodding, tipping the beer up to her once more.

"Nah...this guys just a pain in my ass. He pops in every so often just so as I don't forget he's out there breathing somewhere." Eli grins, and just that grin says there's more to it than that. He doesn't expand on it though, he'd spare Drew the worry.

"So yeah...it's fuckin' bleak all over. I think LA and New York are in it pretty deep. Doesn't surprise me that Chicago's under assault."

He pauses.

"You got a gun?"

[Drew Roscoe] Being looked at like a woman rather than just a girl, Kin, someone you know doesn't change the perspective a whole lot. Her hair is long and voluminous, her face is soft, rounded, skin clear and lit up with good health. Cute mouth, decent figure. Healthy, strong, full of life. Overall, though, when that was rounded together with her size, the light in her eyes and the air of friendly charisma (as opposed to the strong leading kind) about her, it almost always boiled down to a word: adorable.

The moment passes by, Drew doesn't seem to notice it. Booker's drinking his beer, she's drinking her water. "Well alright then," she relents when he assures her this guy's nothing more than an occasional nuisance at best. Her legs unfold from the seat and stretch out to the side of the table rather than under it, so she wasn't competing with his for space. This sets her lower in her seat, lets her lean into the back some, and one arm rests over her stomach while the other hand stays at her glass, a short trimmed and unpolished nail tapping at its side on occasion.

"Got a gun? After what this city's shown me? Always. Shotgun's in the truck now, just in case. You never know when some wrecking ball of a monster's gonna break down your wall like he's the goddamn Kool-Aid man and try and gobble you up."

[Booker] She doesn't notice and he has shrugged the thought of Drew being anything other than something close to a little sister away. When she likens the monsters their ilk faces to the Kool-Aid man he laughs. Almost spews beer all over the table. All over her. Thankfully he doesn't and only just a little trickles down his bottom lip. He wipes it away with the back of his hand and shakes his head.

"You're fucked up." It's said over a chuckle.

"I was just checking, gotta make sure you're safe...especially if you're by yourself now..."

[Drew Roscoe] She gets a laugh out of him, the kind that makes you dribble beer down your lip and onto your chin. He's just lucky it didn't go into his sinuses. She's lucky he didn't spray it all over her thermal shirt and sturdy jeans. That would've been unfortunate, it was far too cold to go outside wearing clothes that were wet. She'd have to hang out until they dried (which she could handle) or borrow a pair of his pants, which would be far too big, and if letting a Garou spend the night in her spare bedroom spurred rumors, she could only imagine what coming out of a fresh-to-town Kinman's home wearing his clothes would do.

Linus would come down on her head like a plague of locusts, precisely as unrelenting.

She grins, the kind of smile that is a sunbeam through clouds, and nods her head in agreement to her being fucked up. "You gotta be, doll, to do what we do." If she was any part sane or reasonable, she wouldn't have shot a rat-monster in the face, its kin in the back of the head, then parked a bus and hidden underneath it while her lover ate the hearts of every poor fool trapped on the bus with him while he worked his way out of a frenzy. She wouldn't have so casually showered the innocent and guilty blood off in the shower like they were both the same thing.

"From the enemy? As safe as I can be. I still go to the shooting range all the time, keep myself sharp, because those between-the-eyes shots have saved my life more than anything else ever has.

"From our Family, though?" She frowns a little. Like this is a common problem that she's only now acknowledging. "I can tell them 'no' and 'get the fuck out' all I want, but in the end all that I have to rely on is their respect for me. If that flounders, there's not a damn thing I can do against them. I won't shoot 'em to kill."

[Booker] Drew requiring a change of clothing and being stuck in his abode for any length of time might not of been so bad. At least not where Booker was concerned. The kinswoman has switched to water and it's duly noted. "You gonna nurse water or drink some beer kid?" He asks, jokingly, nudging her chair with the steel toe of his boot.

The moment passes and she goes on, explaining that she's safe (as their kind can be) from the monsters that they both know go bump in the night. But from the monsters that populate their own family, she isn't so sure. It gives him pause, and he sits there quietly listening to the quiet that's ate up her voice. The sounds from outside are busy - car doors slam, voices rise then fall - but inside it's still. Quiet.

Booker raises a hand, leans forward, and presses the warmth of one rough palm to the side of Drew's face.

"It'll all work itself out kid. Gotta figure they lost someone too when Joe died. Hell, the nation lost something good when he passed. Maybe they're blaming themselves. And maybe they're afraid you will too. Who knows? You'll be good though...just...stay straight for now." His hand falls away and moves to reclaim his beer.

[Drew Roscoe] He pokes fun at her switching to water rather than going for another beer, nudging at her chair with the hard steel toe of his boot. Her answer is nothing more than a grin over the rim of her glass. Nothing verbal required, really, the curl of lips and the fact that she didn’t get up to retrieve a second beer said enough. She wasn’t typically the sort to be concerned about drinking at any time in the day, it was always five o’ clock somewhere after all. Perhaps she just knew she’d need to drive home sometime. Maybe she didn’t want to lose herself to alcohol again—it was becoming a bit of a habit with her and Gina, and she worried sometimes that she’d become one of those widows, the kind that turned to alcohol then goodness knows what else to lose herself.

If she wanted to keep strong, she couldn’t do it drunk and hungover all the time.

The sincerity in her words, the honest concern of keeping the Garou in check and in control of her own life, her own home, quiets the room. Hell, it silences the entire house. The sound of the water boiler humming to keep the pipes warm, a car door slamming and the whoop of a siren are muted through the walls and that’s all.

Then Booker sits, leans forward to cup a hand to her face, and holds her eyes as he talks. Without hesitation, even by half, her head turns to rest completely in his hand, cheek and jaw nuzzling into his warm, rough palm. She closes her eyes for a moment, puffs a sigh against his wrist, then nods when his hand draws away and returns to the cool, sweating side of his beer bottle.

“Here, yeah, they miss him. He was something great. Hell, our Tribe was better with him leading it. Now they seem lost, misdirected… I don’t hear the stories anymore, the battles fought and won, the progress in the war effort. They need direction and I don’t think they’re getting it… “ She finishes off her glass of water and leaves the cup alone in favor of holding her hands together on top of the table and keeping her brown eyes on Eli’s similarly colored ones.

“I’m keepin’ straight, I’m pretty sure. No other direction to go, you know?”

[Booker] Her face against his palm felt nice. It wasn't rough or sharp edged. It wasn't dangerous or threatening. Her breath lays against his tattooed wrist and then he moves it, disengaging from the moment all together. Eli was pretty good at that.

"Plenty of ways." He says, finishing off his third beer. It clings against its brethren in the trash can. "Twisted ...sideways..." He rattles off a few and grins, finger tapping lightly on the wooden table top. "I figure I'll go see this Kora tomorrow. See what's what and let them know I'm here. It's pretty fuckin' rare to find a good leader - human or otherwise. There's a lotta shit out there passed off as 'heads of state' if you know what I mean."

[Drew Roscoe] Moment disengaged, perhaps forgotten altogether, Drew’s rolling her shoulders back, pushing her chest forward some until her spine popped between her shoulder blades and some of the tension was released. Hands move from the table, go behind her head to undo the elastic holding her heavy mass of hair in place, working fingers through it before twisting it up, working it into a knot that was more secure, less sloppy so it wouldn’t fall out so easily, behind her left ear and securing it. It wasn’t that her hair was in her way or bothering her, but messing around with it gave her hands something to do. She felt awkward if they were still and jobless for too long.

“Heh,” she breathes when he advises her of all the paths available to her. “Well, alright, they’re possibilities for people, but for me? Naw. I got the ‘proper way of things’ pounded into me by the Boys when they were still about, still together.”

She looks at her empty glass, then leans back and crosses her legs so that her right ankle is propped up on her left knee.

“Don’t quote me on this, because I’m no expert at politics here, but it seems to me that Kora’s just filling the spot. Seems she’s best as a mouthpiece. She’s got the voice and the brass behind it to bark commands and make you listen, to inspire to motion and all of that… But I don’t think she’s got the agenda straight. I don’t think she knows where to take everyone around her. Seems to me they’re all going a bit stale in that church of theirs… stir-crazy.”

Her hands clench and unclench, she’s now busying them with pushing at the sleeves of her thermal shirt, making sure they’re going to stay put at her elbows even though she already knows they will. “I just wish that I could help them more with that. That I could… I don’t know, find something for them to do. Find a lead with this Moraine Hills business I hear about, get them some information, or something to go after… Something to help, you know?”

[Booker] She lets her hair down only to situate it back in a proper like knot. Her back pops and Elijah's eyes flutter up to the noise and then return back to the table. There's water dripping somewhere, the dripping sound echoes softly and fills up the air around them. They are quiet for a moment. She wants to help, he would just like to have a little blood on his hands. His own or someone else - it didn't matter. Eli was a bundle of tension and anxious energy, calm only with the help of booze or weed.

"Yeah well ...we'll see. I'm gonna head over there tomorrow, see how they react. And what's Morraine Hills?" He asks, a hand dragging over the stripe of dark hair on his head.

[Drew Roscoe] “I don’t know exactly what Morraine Hills is to our people.”

The tone of voice she starts this statement with is different by degrees from how she’s been speaking so far today. It’s down-to-business, matter of fact. You’d expect her to be leaning over a stack of papers and pointing out highlighted paragraphs as though they were going to help her to make a point, or moving pieces across a large map to explain her thoughts on a battle plan while she spoke.

She had none of these things, though, so she just cleaned underneath her unpolished, unpainted nails with their counterparts. “I looked it up on the internet—it’s a smaller sub-division just outside the city itself. There’s been some history of corporate scandals, an explosion of a school, if memory serves me right from what I saw… I imagine that explosion was the work of Family, but that was back in… ’09? ’08? This place has been a problem for some time, I’m guessing. Or it’s a repeating one.

“I don’t know what’s there. I don’t know if it’s like the mouth of hell or something? But no one needs to tell me to drive around that place instead of driving through. I’m not making any pit stops for gas there.”

[Booker] Eli's reaching for another cigarette, lighting it just as she's telling him that Morraine Hills isn't a nice place to visit. Taking a puff he exhales the smoke out an away from Drew. "Hmm." He says, and it isn't a good hmmm. It's the sorta low guttural sound that signals trouble.

"Is that what they been fighting? This reoccurring problem in Morraine Hills? Or has it bled over into Chicago city?" Another drag and the ashes on the end are tapped off into the ash tray he reaches over and collects from the sink.

"I mean, I can ask around. I got a couple of contacts still in the city..." He shrugs, laying his eyes on Drew more fully now.

[Drew Roscoe] The Kin shakes her head, apologetic and tapped for information. The tension at the corners of her mouth indicates frustration with that fact. It’s a common problem for Kinfolk, no matter how sharp they shoot: nobody tells them nuthin’. Her hands turn so that her palms are facing up, spaced apart from one another, fingers splayed. It’s a lazy man’s on-the-table version of a shrug, and at the same time a gesture that would typically follow laying down all the cards one has in their hand.

This was all she knew.

“My best guess would be that whatever coordinated shit that might go on here would be coming from there? I mean.. I believe there’s random Evil, random attacks, unorchestrated things that happen. But I’m also pretty sure that there’s gotta be brains behind it somewhere, otherwise we wouldn’t still be fighting this War. Wouldn’t even be calling it a War. I think that it’s half and half. I think a city’s always going to have something wrong with it because it’s a metropolis.”

She makes a sucking noise of her tongue against an incisor, then shakes her head. “I wanna look into it deeper, but I don’t want to get my head knocked into a banister for being stupid enough to wander into uncharted enemy ground on my own.” Her eyes hop up to him, and there’s a fire alight in them. The kind of fire that shows in the eyes of their Cousins when they stand at the front lines and wait for the chance to bloody their maws. It was the light of duty, of anticipation.

“Who’re your contacts? What can we do?”

[Booker] "I always figured ...we got our kin right? The twisted fuckers ...they gotta have kin too, right? There's some twisted fucks out there Drew. Maybe even...some people who don't even know who they're serving. The almighty dollar can work wonders on a person's morals."

The cigarette is between his lips as she wraps up, half smoked to the butt. He's considering her question, weighing her thoughts and statements. Smoke is exhaled through his nostrils leaving him looking like a bull through the haze of carcinogenic gray.

"A cop. Chicago vice. Got him in my pocket mostly ...he might know a thing or three. And a few local slangers. You'd be fuckin' amazed at how much a dumb little drug slingin' spade knows." His cigarette is gone, smashed in the ashtray and forgotten.

[Drew Roscoe] “Mmm…” The sound is thoughtful and affirming both. She nodded her head after one of the first things he said, followed up with something that she did know for sure. Something she’d been told after the bodies had been checked, information whispered to her by a spirit, planted in her ear though she didn’t completely understand where it came from or why she was suddenly certain of something she hadn’t even been contemplating in that moment. “They do have Kin. A pair of them attacked me and another girl a while back.” There’s an ironic chuckle, what came next was something only a Fenrir Kin could laugh at. “Ran out of bullets after killing the first guy, he kept knocking my arm outta the way when I went to shoot him. So I wound up beating his face in with the butt of my gun instead.

“Once he got outta the hospital? He came by my goddamn apartment. Tracked me down, climbed the wall. He was on my balcony. I had the luck of having one of our people coming to track me down. She took him out before he had a chance to scratch his nails on my window.”

Moral of the story? Kin exist, and they’re precisely as deadly and determined to their cause as Eli and Drew both were.

He had a member of Chicago vice in his pocket, a couple of drug-slingers. Drew nodded her head slowly, rubbed the pad of her thumb over the nail of its counterpart. “I’m in good with one of the fire captains… He might be able to tell me more about that explosion, if things were found… I might be able to talk him into closing down places they’re operating out of, stuff like that? But I can’t do any of that without information, without a direction to go in first.”

She wrinkled up the bridge of her nose, the expression absolutely adorable, distractingly so on her face, despite the weight of the topic they discussed. “I think we should talk… Maybe to Kora, maybe to… Lukas? I think he’s actually the general at arms or something. Directing the war effort, I hear his name, I hear people defer to him. He was happy to give me work before, willing to give me a task. I bet he’d help us in this.”

[Booker] He nods to that, Drew knew more than he did. Everyone he knew was either dead or gone - and the one that he knew was alive and (probably) well might not want to tell him much of anything. "I'll talk to the cop, just ask general shit. You set something up with this Lukas guy and we can go from there." He smiles, stretches long tattooed arms over his head ...satisfied with a purpose.

"Where you livin' now, by the way?" He asks, a slow to form grin working its way across his wide mouth.

[Drew Roscoe] He says he’ll talk to his cop, see what he can know. She’s assigned to finding Lukas and setting up a meeting with him. She knew he kept a room at The Brotherhood, but she also knew that he had a mate, that he could be over wherever she lived. She had a feeling that he didn’t stay in one place for long, that the Brotherhood room was more of an office, a home base more than anything else. That would be where she’d start in tracking him down. She’d risk walking into that genocide-trap of an establishment and knock on his door. If he wasn’t there she’d leave her number, request a call.

“Would ya come with me to talk to him?” She’s inquiring for knowledge’s sake, not so much pleading with him to join her to face the Big Bad Wolf. “Or should I just do all the sweet talking since I’ve been around him before?” Her grin quirks one side of her mouth more dominantly than the other. She relaxes now. There’s plans, they’re going to be doing something. She has an agenda, a path, something to focus her energy on besides keeping her Warden off her back and being careful of who she lets in her door just in case the rumormill gets running once more.

Where you livin’ now? he asks. She answers with a nonchalant shrug. “Little place in the middle of the Cabrini. Modest, easy to overlook. Precisely what I need.” His grin widens on his face, and she answers it with an upward tilt of one eyebrow and a half-contained smile that was flavored with notes of playful suspicion. “Why? You thinking of egging it? Revving your Harley in my yard when I gotta get up for work in the morning? Ya delinquent?”

[Booker] "I can go. Be good to get my beautiful face known among the people." Eli winks and shifts his weight in the chair he's sitting in. This place was different from where he used to live in Chicago. It was a house, not an apartment. It felt secure. The solitude, at times, was amazing. The quiet could drive a man mad, but there were moments when Booker welcomed it with open arms. His eyes roamed the walls, the lack of anything (save for smell) that said this is where Elijah Booker lived.

"I'll go with you." It's said again, this time with a nod.

"Hell yeah." He said with a laugh and stands to stretch. He walks toward the back door and peers out the diamond shaped window through which the suns rays are bleeding through. The warmth, even distant, feels good.

"I'm gonna do donuts in your front yard and throw rocks at your window. You'll never get any sleep." It's said with his back to her, his eyes staring at nothing in particular out the window.

[Drew Roscoe] She laughed, and it was light and easy as opposed to nervously raucous, forced or sad. It felt nice to relax, to have something she could laugh at. She loved Gina, but with her it was a lot of sad memories, a lot of bitterness or aggression in the jests they made. They would talk of who was gone, of recent dramas and traumas, of who they were looking out for and, occasionally, the souls that had warmed their own. But it didn’t feel so light anymore, Drew couldn’t help but feel sad for the Strider, and sometimes she felt this sadness reflected back onto her.

So with Booker, laughing and promising his pretty face would help things, saying he’d go with her to meet Lukas and following up with an assurance of her never getting any sleep because he’d tear up her tiny yard with donuts… It felt organic, comfortable. Relaxed and lazy and airy. A moment of refuge, her at the kitchen table, leaned back and cozy, him at the back door with the sun warming his face.

It was one of those moments you just wanted to pause and keep for a while. Like the sand in that bottle, that piece of Pacifica Paradise.

“Well you’ll have to at least wait for all that snow to melt. Got the walk shoveled but my yard’s a veritable tundra. If I had kids there’d be tunnels and snow forts like you wouldn’t believe.” Quiet is allowed to settle, to wrap them up and comfort them. Drew invites herself to a second beer, stacks the plates and dishes back in the cupboards where they belong now that they’ve had time to dry. He lingers by the door, she’s not sure what he’s watching, but with the dishes back in place she crosses the kitchen to join him.

With a gesture that speaks mountains of comfort and confidence and trust alike, she leans against his back and wraps her arms about his middle, lays her head between his shoulders and is still. She’s quiet for a handful of seconds, maybe waiting for a reaction, to be brushed away or tensed up with discomfort—were that the case she’d pull back and apologize. If not, she just says: “It’s good to have you back.”

[Booker] This was easy and comfortable and nice. It was safe and quiet and gave Eli a slice of what life must be like for the average everyday Joe Schmoo. You work, you hang out with friends, drink a few beers - rinse and repeat. His eyes are focused on the barren limbs of the trees in the backyard. The sprawling urban jungle and the ghetto it contained. The place where he's chosen to live.

He can hear her moving in the kitchen - the fridge door opens, the dishes are moving and clinking against one another lightly. He doesn't bother to turn around, he trusts his back to Drew.

"We should do that." He says, eyes closing to let the sun rays smack him full in the face. "Build forts and throw snowballs." Her arms wrap around his middle and Eli doesn't flinch. Both hands, worn from working on cars and shaping metal, lay on hers to hold her there. The warmth of her body against his back is nice. There's a difference between the warmth and heat of a stranger and that of a friend.

"We'll see if you say that in a month...." He says jokingly, turning just his head slightly to the side so she can hear his low pitched voice.

[Drew Roscoe] Forget kids, they could go ahead and dig tunnels and the like themselves. Who said you needed to be eight years old to have that kind of fun? Her neighborhood was a bleak gray canvas of desolation, there were no children to run and play. Half of the houses were foreclosed upon, some for more years than Drew’s been living in Chicago altogether. Others stayed in their homes, fearing the low-riding cars that drifted up the streets slowly, passengers and drivers alike watching the streets carefully, willing to send to the hospital anyone who looks like there was even a chance of them imposing themselves upon turf already claimed.

To see two grown people playing in the snow, flinging snowballs and making igloos, it would be surreal enough to make people double check what all they’d put in their coffee.

His hands find hers over the new flat terrain of his stomach, hold her there, secure her to him. She was warm and soft to his back, he warm and sturdy to her front. He turned his head back, joked in a low voice that her tone might change in a month, and she just smiled lazily and hummed tunelessly, the sound only barely able to be discerned as disagreement. Fingers curled loose against his shirt without bothering to grasp it, she didn’t need to hold on, he wasn’t leaving—at least not for a month, he said she could see how they stood then.

“I’m sure the song’ll be the same. Between tooth-grinding Upper Management, if you will, and all the cattiness and melodrama that comes with damn near every other Kin we’ve got? Booker, you’re a breath of fresh air and a cold one in August.”

[Booker] That's Eli. He is not as hard and firm as his outer appearances says that he should be. He is silly and goofy with a slick (warped) sense of humor. He would throw snowballs and build a fort. He'd probably even hurl a few at the low riders as they passed by. For now, he offers the comfort of nothing more than commonality and manliness. He is not Garou, he is not invincible. Elijah is breakable, but filled with enough guts and determination to protect Drew against most things - though he doubted she'd ever need it.

So they stand there, comfortable in each others space. Her fingers curling just so into his shirt, his hands resting easily (not holding, because she wasn't going anywhere yet) on top of hers as they move. She hums into his back and he grins, head turning back to the window.

"Aww, schucks." He says, and she can feel the vibration of his voice through his body. The echo of it touches her ear.

One hand moves, slowly, away from hers. He's tugging open the back door - she can hear the locks releasing. With the door open the sun is warm and bright, the rays breaking through a space in the two trees in his yard. With one hand Eli moves Drew, guiding her from rear to front so that her small frame rests against his. His arms wrap around her, encase her lightly, so that she can bathe her face in the brightness of the sun. It's healthy, they say, to get a little sun.

Their positioning has changed - her back is to his front and he is holding her against him, arms wrapped around her protectively. He smells good - like Irish Spring soap and some cologne or body spray that he likely picked up in a drug store on the road. There's the faintest hint of Budweiser, but that's to be expected.

"I'm already over winter." He says simply.

[Drew Roscoe] This is the rare kind of luxury that you couldn’t find often in their world. A moment of peace, a sense of accomplishment that didn’t come with gunpowder, blood and broken bones. There was purpose, an agenda on the horizon. They were determined to be of help, refused to sit by idly and wait for menial tasks (like taking care of a Kin who couldn’t manage her own affairs) to be handed to them. They were Fenrir Kin, they’d take life by the reigns, and if there weren’t reigns available then by god they’d jam their fingers up life’s nostrils and lead it around that way.

His voice reverberated into the side of her face, against her jaw and her ear. Then one hand leaves hers to unlock the door and push it open, letting cool air flood in. He steps outside, she steps along with him. He pulls her arm, not to tug but to guide, moves her so that she’s resting in front of him instead of behind him, so she’s getting sunshine on her face, her chest, her bare forearms. He wraps his arms loose about her, stands with his back to the door. She doesn’t tense, behave like there’s some kind of line being toed across. This wasn’t a moment to worry about what might be thought, about where she might go. This wasn’t Linus’s or Kora’s or anyone else’s. This was her’s and Elijah’s.

She rests against him, her back to his stomach and chest, holding her head up on her own rather than letting it lay against his shoulder. Her rear to his lap, unconcerned with how close they were. With the sun higher in the sky, stronger, breaking apart the clouds, the air had warmed considerably since she’d arrived. For the moment, they were okay out there in the cold, in the sun.

He was over winter. She chuckled her agreement.
“No lie. I’d be overjoyed for May.”

[Booker] It's cold, but warmer considering the single temperatures Chicago has been experiencing lately. Chicagoan's have been fighting over parking spaces and stolen shovels, it's been a fucking mad house because of a blizzard that just had to pass over this part of Illinois. Thankfully, Eli wasn't here for that. He's here for the iced over snow and the melting - which is bad enough.

He's tall enough that his chin can rest on the top of her head. She can feel each breath he takes, each swallow he instinctively makes.

"I'm from fucking Green Bay. I grew up in this shit." He says, spreading his legs to give him comfortable leverage to stand the way he is with her against him. "I'm ready for blue skies and green trees." His nose brushes her hair, over the knot of thick brown locks she secured just minutes ago. "You need some snow shoveled or some shit?" He asks, his nose drifting across her head to take in the scent of her shampoo.

[Drew Roscoe] That blizzard had been like two and a half days of post apocalyptic settings, but with enough banal, stubborn determination of the average businessman to get to his job, the average retail worker having to dredge their way to theirs else they be fired and lose their apartments, that the city still trudged on. It was slower, though, and the first night that the storm hit power had been knocked out in areas, including Drew’s house. Cars were abandoned where they were in the streets, people ran for cover in public libraries and grocery stores. Drew had been stupid, or ballsy enough to go out in the storm hunting for a lost Rotagar, and found nothing but mayhem and flinting temperaments when she did find him at the church Last Watch resided within.

It was over, though, clean-up was by and large finished, and it was back to the typical routine of working through winter until spring can arrive. Drew’s electricity wasn’t even out for a full day, she’d kept warm thanks to a fireplace and some ‘borrowed’ firewood, and all returned to normalcy—normalcy plus one Warden anyway.

Eli rested his chin on the top of her head, spoke and breathed into her hair. She could feel his throat move when he swallowed at the back of her head. The sunshine was warm, his arms were also. She thought of his bare arms exposed to the air but figured he’d decide to go back inside when the sun was no longer warmth enough, when her smaller body to his couldn’t do the job alone any longer.

Her hair smelled vaguely floral and sweet, some mix of citrus and light blossoms. The smell wasn’t overpowering but faded, she’d been out from the shower for a good seven hours now. Her grin is small but of good humor when she answers him, eyes busy with taking in the neighborhood from his backyard, the skeletal trees and how they were weighed down with snow that melted under the sun’s direct rays. “Green Bay? Wow, that’s hardcore.” Her head shook lightly under his chin. “No, I keep up on that well enough. Had help with the heavier stuff from the blizzard too.” Pause. “Why, you trying to trade services here? I’ll help ya unpack anyway.”

[Booker] "Nah..." He says in a sigh of air. His cheek rests against her head, his face to the sun. "But you can help if you want." He adds, drawing in a deep breath. His back porch faces a small yard. It has a shed and a rickety fence that surrounds his small space. Beyond that is an alleyway and across from that more apartments and squat houses like the one he's currently renting.

"C'mon." He says, head dipped down and mouth dipping near her ear. His cheek is still against her head, his breath is warm. "I wanna give you something." Warm hands fall away from her body, drift to her hips and then are gone completely - as is the warmth of his chest against her back. The back door opens and he leaves it to her to close and lock it.

He's disappeared in the bedroom. She can hear him him sit on the bed and open a drawer which most likely is attached to his night stand.

"Just in case." He's saying, softly, sure that she's finding her way into where he's gone.

[Drew Roscoe] His mouth nears her ear when he’s about to pull away, hands move from hers, brush briefly past hips when he says he had something he wanted to give to her, then her back is chilled and he’s going back inside, trusting her to make sure the door’s locked behind her. She pauses, not for hesitation to follow so much as to get that last bit of sunlight and fresh air (as fresh as it can be in the city at least). Then she’s walking in after him, closing the door behind her and putting the deadbolt in place. They both knew that locks could only deter so much—the things that they could fend off themselves were kept at bay. The things that were a real danger didn’t need doors or windows to get inside.

He’s back down that short hallway, in his bedroom. She can hear his voice, easy and low rather than brash and energetic. He says ‘just in case’, and she lifts an eyebrow up and snatches her beer from where she’d left it on the kitchen counter, taking a drink as she heads into the hall and turns into the doorway of the bedroom.

For a moment she’s got her hip and shoulder to the doorframe, watching him, peering to see what she could see. Then she’s stepping past that threshold, hovering a few feet from his side and peering past his shoulder to see what he was after.

“If you’re about to hand over a semi-automatic…,” she joked, but let the sentence hang, more interested in what this item really was than what it probably wasn’t.

[Booker] The nightstand drawer is home to a Beretta, a few Trojans and other miscellaneous bullshit. He digs through it to the bottom and comes up with a key. It's on a Harley key chain. Closing the drawer with one knee he holds it up to the other kin, peering at her with one eye squinted.

"Just in case." He pauses long enough to drag himself up off the bed to stand next to her. "It's a key to the house, the front door. If you don't hear from me after a couple of days...you know." Grinning (though he shouldn't be) Eli pokes Drew in her stomach and grins.

"C'mon, let's drink some beers and talk about forts and snowballs." And with that he starts out of his bedroom and back through the kitchen, leaving her to follow.