Heavy [Erich]

Drew Roscoe
Drinks were on Drew tonight.  No very good reason was given for the occasion, Drew had just gone out to the shed where Erich was working, tossed him a sham rag, and advised that he wrap up whatever he was doing and get cleaned up because they were going to go find someplace to have drinks and unwind for an evening.  She didn't rush him, and whenever Erich was ready they'd climb into the truck and take off into the city.

The drive was long, as always, and it was certain that they'd flash between conversation and music along the way.  Upon getting into the city Drew took them into the more cultured of Washington D.C.'s districts-- Du Pont.  Here the buildings were older, the shops and restaurants all flavorful and unique and crammed close side-by-side.  They'd pass by a large museum and not far from Drew pulled her big Dodge Ram truck into a public parking lot, killed the engine, and climbed on out.

She'd lead him up the sidewalk for a few blocks, headed toward a bar she told him:  "Don't worry about it, it's not a dance club or anything.  I know you guys don't do well in places like that."  The Kinfolk had dressed for the settling cold of mid-November (encroaching winter) in a red winter coat whose hem was cut at the hips, with the hood up to keep her ears warm and brown leather driving gloves on her hands.
They'd come to a bar that was set into a three-story brownstone of a building.  It occupied the main floor, the two on top were likely apartments or office spaces.  There was a large window beside the door, and a red awning overtop of both.  White text in the window declared the name of the bar to be Jefferson's.
"See?  Quiet enough," Drew'd offer with a grin before pulling the door open to head inside.

Erich ReinhardtWhen Drew came into the shed, Erich was busy painting the quarterpanel.  The shed windows were open.  The air inside still smelled downright toxic, so thick with paint fumes that the space heater he's set up behind him has got to be some sort of fire hazard.  Not that fire would kill him.  Paint fumes either, one supposes.
He doesn't hear her at first.  The windows are rolled down on his Mustang, too, music blaring out of the speakers.  His head is down, just the top of it visible behind the coupe.  She has to call twice, three times, possibly enough reach in and kill the music before his head snaps up.

"Huh?" he said.  And then: "Oh.  What?  Okay."

They go into the city.  It's the first time he's taken a ride in her truck, and the first time she's driven, period.  He doesn't change; he did get cleaned up, though, washing errant flecks of paint off.  Tossed his hoodie on, too.  Half an hour or an hour later they're pulling up to the hipper parts of town, the sort of place where restaurants boast cuisines from all over the world; where record stores have taglines like FIERCELY INDEPENDENT SINCE 1983.  Erich looks out the window, interested.  He doesn't come around here often.

When they get out, Drew buttons up that pretty red coat of hers.  Erich is privately amused: he wonders if it makes him the Big Bad Wolf.  She reassures him, and he glances sidelong at her.

"You don't know that about me," he counters.  "For all you know I'm a regular at," he glances across the street, "the Manhandler Saloon."

He takes the door from her.  Nods her in.  Follows.

Drew RoscoeFun Fact:  One Halloween a few years ago Drew had gone in costume to a party along with her Kinfolk friend, Lonna.  Lonna had been Little Red Riding Hood, and Drew had been the Big Bad Wolf.  It was fun irony, and a fun night.  Well, the first half.  The night had been fun up until a couple of Fomori decided to spring forward after Kinfolk in a night club.  Drew had put them down with a gun out of a woman's handbag.  Somewhere in Chicago, spirits held and whispered stories quietly about the Kinswoman who dug her knee into a monster's chest, risked her fingers by prying his jaws open, and jammed the barrel of the handgun into his mouth before pulling the trigger.

Most nights Drew liked to consider herself the Big Bad Wolf, but when Wolves were actually around that title was relinquished and the red hood would go up.

Like tonight.

The quip Erich had about the Manhandler Saloon across the street was met with quiet laughter from the Kinfolk, and she went on to explain herself while Erich took the door and held it so they could walk inside-- her first, him bringing up the rear.  "I meant in general.  It's usually crowded, loud, hot, smells like a bunch of bodies, and dark.  All of that put together tends to either put you all--" and of course he knows she means Garou when she makes the generalization-- "on edge.  Or, once or twice from what I've seen, just brings the predator too far out to play.  It's kinda never been a good choice in my experience."

Inside the lighting is dim, as lighting in bars always is.  It's built narrow, deeper than it is wide.  The bar's up against the left side of the wall, there's a television showing sports news on mute with the captions on, and a couple of people lining the bar with one or two of the booths lining the other side of the wall occupied.  Largely, though, as is expected on a Tuesday night, the place was pretty much vacant.  At the far back are a couple of tables, more booths, two pool tables, a dart board, a jukebox, and the bathrooms.  Drew nodded politely to the bartender and led them toward the back-- it was always the best place for Garou and/or Kinfolk to be, as the conversations they tended to have simply weren't suited for eavesdropping ears.

Drew chose a booth for them and removed her gloves and coat, folding them over and tossing them into the corner of the booth bench.  Without the coat, she was dressed in a pair of dark-wash jeans that fit comfortably, but attractively enough.  The cuffs of these jeans were tucked into mid-calf height brown boots with low heels (he's seen her wear these before-- Drew was not a girl with an endless supply of shoes in her closet).  Her top was a clingy long-sleeved navy blue number with thin white horizontal stripes slashing through it.  Her hair was left down, brushed out and relatively straight save for errant waves and kinks here and there.  She tucked her hair back behind her ears when the hood was down to get it out of her face, and settled into the booth.

"Car looks like it's coming along pretty nicely.  Gotta say, I didn't really comprehend how much work goes into repainting a car when ya started."  The tone was offhand, the sort that came with making conversation rather than making a point.  She took a drink menu from where it sat propped up on a tripod against the wall's edge of the tabletop and flipped it open to view the selection.

Erich ReinhardtErich doesn't know Drew's history.  He's no Galliard.  He's not even a Fenrir.  If he had been either, he might've heard.  There are stories out there about her.  The shit she's done.  The shit she's killed.  The wolves she's loved, and the one that was her mate.  All that.

He's not privy to those secrets.  He knows a little about her past, but only because she's told him.  He knows she's a widow at the ripe old age of twenty...what?  Two?  Three?  He knows she has no kids, has no family.  And he knows -- not because she told him, but because he realized it in a raw and aching moment -- that she misses the family she had.  And the one she could have had.

Still.  Bottom line is: he doesn't know her very well.  And vice versa.  Maybe that's why she invited him out tonight.  They're friends, aren't they?  Friends should know each other.

She finds a booth.  He wonders if she's been here before.  He takes his hoodie off.  It's thin compared to her clothing, but then Garou burned so much hotter.  He wads it up and tosses it into the corner the way he did at that Mexican diner; then he slides into the booth, plucks the menu out of the tripod while Drew peruses the drinks list, and looks over the edibles.

"Well, I'm sure dumping a bucket of paint over it wouldn't have taken any time at all," Erich says.  "But that car's the nicest thing in the world that I can call mine.  So I'd rather it not look like shit."

Chicken tenders, he decides.  And closes the menu, sliding it over to her, taking the drinks list from her when she's done with it.

"Almost done though," he adds, and tilts her a crooked smile.  "You'll get your shed back soon.  Not to worry."

Drew Roscoe"Eh, I wasn't using it.  The truck doesn't even fit in the damn thing, it's too tall."  She grinned across the table to Erich, and traded menus with him when he'd finished picking his food.  Drew flipped through the pages of the eats menu herself and decided that nachos would be best.  She'd eaten an early dinner and wasn't particularly hungry, but how could you sit at a booth in a bar without some sort of bar food to go along with your drink?

They were given another minute or two before a woman somewhere in her mid-twenties with curly black hair twisted back into a bun, a full sleeve of colorful tattoos on one arm and a septum piercing came over to take their order.  Her face was dull and bored, but her eyes were bright and very alert of Erich in particular.  Natural caution made it impossible not to be.  Drew politely requested the plate of nachos she'd decided on along with a pint of some dark ale or another that they had on tap.  The instant Erich was done ordering the waitress whisked away to another table, happy to get away from the table in the back with the dark current of violence swirling about it.

"So," Drew started onto the conversation again, apparently damn determined to find a topic that they could talk on for more than two or three sentences.  "Did you ever find your tribemates?  I think you're the only one of your group that I've met out here."  To be fair, she didn't get out too much, but that didn't make her statement inaccurate.

Erich ReinhardtIt's natural to want to find a reasonable conversation topic.  No one wants to sit in an awkward silence -- and the truth is, since the last conversation they had on that street halfway between Browntown and Drew's place, every silence between them has the potential to be awkward now.  The topic Drew picks, though, seems to put Erich in a dark mood.  Immediately his smile folds up; his brow furrows.  Across the booth from her, the young Ahroun shifts in his seat, suddenly disgruntled.

"Yeah," he says shortly.

That's all for a while.  Chatter goes on around them.  A bunch of dudebros one table over, roaringly obnoxious, drawing an irritated over-the-shoulder glance from Erich.  A couple a few tables down, dancing the age-old tango of romance.  Meanwhile Erich plays with a coaster, sliding it back and forth between his big hands.

Stops it, eventually.  Catches it under his fingertips, his nostrils flaring as he inhales.

"There was a Shadow Moot.  Basically a tribal moot, 'cept we have a rite involved that makes it all official and secretive and crap.  It's bullshit.  The rite, and the moot itself.  Whole thing was bullshit.  Met a bunch of others, but everyone seemed mostly concerned about looking like a badass.  Don't think anything got accomplished at all."

A beat of pause.  "Met a Ragabash too.  Not just at the moot.  Ran into her a few times now."  A wry flick of his eyebrow.  "Think she wants to be friends."

Drew RoscoeThe mood darkened around the stormy (by stereotype more than anything else Drew has seen so far) Ahroun when the topic of his tribemates came up, and he answered with a short 'Yeah' and let the conversation die for a second.  Drew's eyebrows flicked upward in curiosity, but she didn't press the topic.  She was pretty good at reading social cues like this, after all.

So, for a minute, they listen to the chatter of the bar.  Erich glanced at a group of loud young men in irritation, past them for a moment to a couple reaching for hands across the table.  Drew seemed content to look at the TV for that time and frown ever-so-slightly at the conversation happening on the sports news channel about how her home team, the Chicago Bears, had performed so poorly over the weekend in their game against the Houston Texans.

Before too long, though, Drew's attention is drawn back to the Shadow Lord with the face of a Fenrir as he goes on to explain what had happened at the moot, and how he met a Ragabash who wants to be friends.
"So be friends?  It's good to have connections within your tribe.  What are we without our Kinsmen, after all?"  She shrugged one shoulder, the gesture rolling, and swept her fingers through her hair, securing it behind her ears again with a motion that was more habit than practical thought anymore.  From there she tugged at the shoulders of her shirt, tugged up the white undershirt that peeked out through the low v-cut of the shirt she was wearing, then tucked her hands into her lap so they wouldn't fidget.

"Sucks that the meeting didn't really... assure you of the way things are going with your people out here.  I've experienced that, it's pretty damn disheartening to find that you don't even like the folks you're supposed to call your own."  There's a pause, a beat, a thump of blood in veins, and Drew met Erich's eye and raised an eyebrow.  "Do you think the New Moon wants you to make a pack with her?"

Erich Reinhardt"Who knows what the fuck she wants.  She's a slippery one and I don't trust her."

Well.  So much for that.  Erich sits back in his side of the booth.  The seat next to Drew indents: he's put his foot up there, stretching his leg out under the table.

"Anyway," he adds, "I'm not really the social type.  I know that shocks the fuck out of you, being quite the family girl yourself."

Drew Roscoe"That's fair," was Drew's quiet answer when Erich stated quite firmly and frankly that he didn't care what this Ragabash wanted because he didn't trust her.  Brown eyes hopped away from blue ones to instead investigate the shoe on the bench beside her.  They then hopped to the other side, as though she was pretty sure a shoe would show up there as well.  When it didn't, she grinned a little (mostly to herself) and looked back up to the Shadow Lord's face.

"Well yeah, I know you're not.  You don't want a pack or anything like that... but you still should be able to go to your own tribe and tribal leaders for... I don't know... guidance?  I guess?  Structure at the very goddamn least.  I would hope to be able to find that even if I weren't worried about making friends and housemates.  A tribe's only as strong as its members, yes, but without shared direction there's no point to all that strength.  There's supposed to be a leader there that you all can turn to-- or a panel of them, or something.  Sounds like whatever you found left much to be desired there."

Eyes dropped down to his shoe again, and this time hands followed.  She explained her actions briefly, off-handedly, by stating: "Rocks," and held the top of his shoe with one hand while the other dislodged pebbles and rocks from the driveway he'd been marching about on from the cracks of his shoe soles.

Erich Reinhardt"There's supposed to be," Erich replies, "but we're also supposed to be winning this war.  Truth is, I haven't found too many admirable authority figures in my life."

They're interrupted.  The waitress shows up.  Their orders get plunked down: a dark ale and nachos for Drew.  A hefeweizen and chicken tenders for Erich.  The Shadow Lord glances up at the waitress, nods a thank-you, then picks his brew up for a swallow.  Chases that with a big mouthful of chicken tenders, nudging the plate over toward Drew to share.  Generous guy, and all.

Meanwhile she's picking at his shoes.  And he's smiling across the table at her, a touch lazily, leaning back in his side of the booth.  "Drew Roscoe," he says; there's a fond note there.  "She who can't bear not doing something for someone else.  Stop that," he adds, "you gotta eat with those hands.  And you don't know where these boots have been."

Drew RoscoeFood and drinks arrive.  Both had ordered beer and plates of pretty standard bar-food, chicken tenders and nachos.  The waitress was prompt, the food was presentable, and the beer glasses were full.  She did her job well and got the hell out of there to let the beast and his petite lady-friend be alone to their booth in the back of the bar, because as long as she didn't see anything suspicious she wouldn't be responsible for anything suspicious-- like this viscerally violent feeling (because he wasn't doing or saying anything, and he didn't really look like much of a thug) man probably murdering the girl later that evening and hiding her where no one would find after snapping over a disagreement on what dressing is best on a salad.

"I think I've got an idea.  Gravel, shed, road, and jammed up the asses of enemies, then squashed down on their heads to make sure they don't get back up.  Anyway, I'm done."  This is announced as one last pebble is flicked out of the shoe and tumbles somewhere under the booth.  Drew scrubbed her hands and fingertips thoroughly enough (for her liking anyways) on the thighs of her jeans before snagging an offered chicken tender and, in turn, sliding her plate to the center of the table as well to share.

"You don't suppose the 'supposed to bes' are connected here, do you?  Maybe we ain't winning because we can't establish the right kind of leadership?"  She dunked the chicken strip in whatever sauce was provided (ranch, honey mustard, barbeque, she wasn't picky) and munched on it while waiting for his answer.

Erich Reinhardt"It's related and you know it is," Erich retorts.  "But even the humans have only had a handful of truly great leaders in all their history.  And there's about seven billion more of them than us."

A last pebble goes pinging off under the table.  He leaves his foot where it is, though: as though his half of the booth just wasn't big enough to contain him.  Him and all his rage.  Him and all his strength.  The waitress is far, far away now.  She can't stand to be in Erich's vicinity.  Some kinfolk can't even quite stand it.  Drew Roscoe, though, has iron under that diminutive exterior of hers.

"Anyway.  Didn't mean to start bitching and moaning.  Doesn't even really affect me.  I do my thing, the same I always have.  And I do my part where I can.  I'll say this for that Ragabash.  She knows where to turn up shit to kill."

Drew Roscoe"Yeah, but you guys are made of such greater stuff than regular humans are.  I remember you all better.  Your faces stand out more, your presence is stronger and... more correct, I guess.  Somewhere in this city, dwindling though our numbers are, there's gotta be at least a fistful of good leaders out there that we should be able to turn to."

With the chicken tender down, Drew chose to crunch on a nacho chip before picking up her glass of dark ale and taking a deep drink.  Drew not only was able to withstand Rage, but she seemed to have a good understanding of it.  It was no coincidence that Erich was invited out when the moon was absent from the sky.  She knew him for what he was when they met because she knew how Rage affected a body, a face, and the air around that person as a whole.  She took that understanding and rather than using it to avoid the dangers of Rage and protect herself, she instead used it to better tolerate and withstand such a force.
If you asked her why, she'd say because good Kinfolk don't flinch away from the people they were designed to be there for.  That was weak, and it was just plain rude on top of that.

"I asked, anyway.  You're allowed your frustrations, and who better to vent them to than someone who has no investment in your tribe meetings anyways?"

Erich Reinhardt"Not to mention," Erich puts in, sardonic, "the one who almost had me convinced that family ties were a good and necessary thing."

He picks up his hefeweizen.  He takes another slug of it, and then grabs a chicken tender himself.  Turns out Erich's a honey mustard sort of guy.  He breaks the deep-fried bit of poultry in half between his hands, dips one half at a time.  Drew's never seen him eat anything but meat, but he certainly is a voracious carnivore: the tenders go down his throat quick as a blink, and then he leans sideways to snag a napkin from the holder.

"You're always so forgiving of others' faults," he says, sinking back into his place.  "Do you ever get angry, Miz Roscoe?"

Drew Roscoe
Drew's nibbling at nachos again when Erich asks if she ever gets angry.  This intices a smirk to curl on naturally pink lips, and eyes flipped up from the nacho plate, where she was making sure there were black olives on the chip she was bringing to her mouth, to Erich's face.

"You have to ask?  Remember what family I'm from."  Drew grinned, popped the cheese-and-black-olive loaded chip into her mouth, and washed it down with a drink of her beer.  She wagged her finger some at the Shadow Lord, indicating that she had more to say when she was done chewing.  Once the nacho had been properly chewed and swallowed, she launched into story.

"Back in Chicago there was this Child'a'Gaia Kinfolk that couldn't take care of herself to save her ass, and my Jarl had asked me to take this gal into my home and take care of her and her babies.  Now this lady had a baby already, like not even six months old, and was pregnant again.  Couldn't find work, didn't want to in the first place, and wasn't even seeking help from her own Tribe.  Instead, when I went to find this gal, I found her being a fuckin' housekeeper for a Shadow Lord, right?

"Well, I didn't want her in my house for any number of reasons, but I was willing to throw some funds her way to get her into an apartment or something, and give that place to her to live until she could find a job.  But she shot me down, and then took offense to my even offering.  So, I run into her in some cafe a few days later and she's giving me the evil eye the whole time we're there with some mutual friends.  So I ask her outside, and ask her what the hell her problem is.

"She goes on to tell me that I don't know how to be a proper Kin, that I don't understand the value of having and raising children.  She gets hurt and pissy and starts bleating about how hard her past was and how I don't know what it's like to be in her shoes when I tell her flat-out that if she can't afford to take care of her own kids then she shouldn't be having them rapid-fire like that."  Drew took another drink from her beer glass, finishing it with this last swig, and set it on the edge of the booth table.  "It ended in fists.  She tried to hit me, I swung at her and clipped her cheek, and then someone got in-between us.  So, yeah, I get angry, and I fight about it.  Just in odd situations-- like when faced with dumb bimbos who can't maintain their baby-pumpin' lifestyles."

Erich Reinhardt"I do remember," Erich retorts while Drew is doing her best to Not Talk With Her Mouth Full.  "That's why I'm surprised in the first place.  Fenrir girl like you, I'm surprised every time I don't wake up in your guest room with a gun in my face."  He pops a chicken tender in; he doesn't bother to Not Talk With His Mouth Full.  "For snoring too loud, or something."

By then she's able to talk again.  He's washing down his chicken'n'dip with a mouthful of beer.  She gets around to fuckin' housekeeper for a Shadow Lord and he gives her a look for mock warning.  She gets to the end and he laughs aloud, and loudly at that.

"You got in a fistfight with a pregnant chick?  Didja win?  I bet the Children of Gaia were all up your ass about that.  Y'know, in their passive-aggressive let's-all-be-friends way."

Drew Roscoe"Surprisingly, no."

Drew was grinning, clearly pleased with her story and the fact that Erich laughed (and not just a little, quiet chuckle of courtesy either, but a full laugh that came from the belly) from her telling it.  Another nacho was munched on before she leaned back, away from the plate, and took a napkin up in her hands to crease and rub the edges.  Drew had busy fingers, you see, she was used to working and doing things with her hands so keeping them still was awkward and uncomfortable for her.

"I had a talk with my Jarl that night, and I suppose I was honest enough about the fact that I fucked up -- and I totally know I did, but didn't feel bad about it -- that she pretty much just told me to keep away from that Gaian Kin and mind my own."  One shoulder lifted and dropped in a shrug and she left the story there.  Another recollection of anger came forward after a couple of seconds slipped away to thought.

"Oh.  And when I found out about Joe, the guy that told me was just... really dick-ish about it.  Shrugged his death off and asked me why I was mated to him in the first place.  This was in a bar where I had to track him down to ask him where my mate had gone that he told me.  So I broke a beer bottle and got in at least one gash before I got knocked out."  This story is told simply, without sadness seeping into her eyes and voice, or a solemn air flooding the booth they shared.  More than anything she was expressing how the Wolves in the West are assholes.

Erich ReinhardtThat changes the mood.  Erich's humor fades; his eyes go to his food, his drink.  Silence unfurls for a while, enough for him to grow aware of conversational chatter around them, music in the background that no one's paying attention to.  He nurses a long sip of his beer, and then looks at Drew again.

"What happened with your man, anyway?"  He's quieter now.  "Don't think I ever asked.  Just assumed he died in battle like every other Son of Fenris out there."

Drew RoscoeDrew was trying not to let the mood change, tried to put a casual spin on mentioning her deceased mate in the telling of a story, but Erich (child of Storm and Thunder) went solemn and dropped his eyes from Drew's, sureveying the good laid out on the table before him instead.  After a minute of shared quiet he took a drink of his beer and, looking back up to the Kinfolk across the way from him, asked how Joe had died.

"He was murdered," she told him without hesitation.  The resolve in her voice made it difficult to disbelieve her.  And why would he, anyways?  Her brown eyes held Erich's for a second, like she could convince him of the truth in that statement with her gaze as much as her words.  When she started talking again, her eyes dropped to the napkin that she was creasing and smoothing repetitively.

"Joe was a member of the Swords of Heimdall camp.  From what I understand, that's a pretty bad thing to be.  He was ostracised for it.  And, yeah, he was racist and a bit of a purist, but that didn't make him a bad Fenrir.  If someone was Strong, it didn't matter to him in the end of it.  He was a damn fine Jarl to Chicago, a good Alpha to his pack, and a good Mate.

"The folks in Seattle didn't agree.  From what I understand they put him on trial for his Camp, told him that he had to renounce all of his rank and glory and start from scratch, otherwise they'd kill him.  Joe was proud.  He spat on their feet, sneered and laughed and I hope to hell killed two or three on his way down into the earth."

There's fire in Drew's eyes and voice as she tells Joe's tale.  This isn't the kind of thing that's forgiven, ever.  She's also not going to be told that those who put Joe on trial were right to do so.  That's plain as day to see.
Story told, Drew looked away, found the waitress, and reached over to lift her empty glass to indicate she'd like a refill.

Erich ReinhardtSword of Heimdall, she says.  Racist, purist, a bad thing to be.  Strong, too, she says.  A good Jarl, a good Alpha, a good mate to her.

There are people who would look at Drew with pity now.  Men and women who would look at her with sad eyes and say things like oh, honey, can't you see him for the monster he was?  can't you see you're lucky to be rid of him?  And there are people who -- perhaps more disturbingly -- would look at Drew with a new sort of recognition, as though her mate's associations tainted her as well.  Who might start muttering things about the master race and needing to get on top again, needing to get this country under control, can you believe there's a monkey in the white house.

To be sure, Erich's looks would put him more easily in the latter category.  Just look at him.  The Swords would have been glad to have him.  Would have made him their posterboy, put a goddamn banner in one of his big hands, a hammer in the other.  So fucking Aryan: the pale skin, pale eyes, pale hair.  He's not a Sword, though.  He's not a Fenrir, even, and if nothing else -- he understands that things are never black and white.

It's a while before he answers.  And when he does, it's quiet; slow.  "The Swords," he says, "were still out in force when I was a kid.  I saw some of the shit they did once.  Heard about lots more.  They weren't good people, Drew.  They were a growing Wyrm-cancer in your tribe, and the Fenrir were right to stamp 'em out before they turned into another Silver Spiral deal.

"I don't know the story with your man.  Could be he was a good Garou, and we're weaker for his loss.  Could be they just got to him early and he never stopped to think about it.  Could be he didn't even really believe by the end, and he was just defending his pride.  But the Fenrir don't see shades of grey and they don't take well to being told no.  He and his tribesmen made a call that day.  He decided not to renounce.  They decided to kill him."

A pause.

"The good and the bad," he adds then, "aren't always mutually exclusive.  Whatever your man's strengths and glories, he was part of a camp that was headed straight for Malfeas.  And whatever his alliances, he was still, as you say, a good son of Fenris.  And your mate.  It is what it is.  You can't sugarcoat either side.  If there's some cosmic balance that decides whether a man's good in nature or bad, it's not for us to tip."

Drew RoscoeErich explained to Drew why the Swords of Heimdall were such a bad thing, and told her that they were going to the Wyrm and it's a good thing that the camp has largely been stamped out.  He went on to express that this didn't necessarily mean that Joe was bad because he didn't know him, but the camp certainly was.  Drew nodded thankfully to the waitress when she quickly dropped a refill of Drew's dark ale off at the table, then took the beer in her hand and had another deep drink from the fresh pint.

Drew was good at listening, she let Erich finish.  But it seems she'd already made up her mind before he was even done talking, because when he finished she was shaking her head to help him close up his last sentence.
"Doesn't matter who raised him up.  I thought it was terrible, all the hate and the marks on him.  I got to know him better.  I'm not defending his camp, and I won't ever.  But Joe was so much more than any title given to him, or that he gave himself.  Doesn't matter who's good or bad, what matters is that he's gone, that he was gone too early, and that he didn't go right.

"Thomas is puttin' his soul to rest right now.  I'm hoping that at least sets it as right as it can be."
Drew's defense petered out there.  She abandoned her napkin, folded and smoothed and fraying at its paper edges now, and instead wrapped both hands about her pint glass and held it near her face like she could mask her mouth behind it.  Eyes drifted about Erich's face as she spoke to him, and when she finished they relaxed down to look someplace more level to her height, and settled on his collarbone as a result.
"....Don't suppose we can talk about something else and keep the night cheery, huh?"

Erich ReinhardtThere's this at least: he doesn't argue with her.  She doesn't argue with him, either.  Could be there's nothing to argue about, really; they're more or less on the same page.  There's good; there's bad.  And for Drew, no matter the bad, the good was there, and worth it, and worth holding on to longer than she had it.  Had him.
And she's his mate, after all.  His widow.  Erich supposes if anyone had the right to make that call, it'd be her.  And maybe this mysterious Thomas who came around speaking of carrying grief and burying memories.

The conversation dies with Drew's defense.  Erich looks down to find most of his chicken gone, which is no surprise; he's a ridiculous carnivore, capable of putting away nearly obscene amounts of meat.  Drew's only seen him in wolf-form the once, but that looked like a flesheating beast too, shaggy of fur and sharp of tooth.  As the silence unspools, Erich picks up another piece of chicken, breaks it in half, and offers Drew half.  It's an unconsciously animal gesture of reconciliation.

The smile he offers is wry.  "We seem to kinda bounce between the two, don't we?" he remarks.  "One minute we're laughing about something, and the next we're mourning something.  Guess we both carry a lot of memories around."

Drew RoscoeQuiet settles between them once more after Drew asks if they could find another subject.  That didn't quite happen, not immediately, but at least he didn't press the matter of her dead mate's camp-alliances and character any further.  Instead they sit in silence that existed only within their booth, the sounds of the bar (filling up a little more since they entered, but still not necessarily crowded) only muffled background noise that wasn't worth making sense of.

Drew's eyes hopped up when a hand reached to the center of the table to offer her half of the last chicken tender, and her lips quirked into a small, soft smile at the gesture.  They continued upward from his hand to his face, and she reached out to accept the offering.  Her answer to his comment is a quiet half-humored huff of air and to dunk the piece of chicken she was given in the honey mustard sauce.

"Well, we only ever seem to talk about mine.  You haven't let go of too much about your own history."  A bite of chicken was taken, and after chewing and swallowing she continued.  "We do bounce back and forth.  I'm okay with that.  We don't talk about your history so much as where you're going.  I'm okay with that too, if you're not comfortable disclosing, or if you think your history's too boring for sharing.  I'm pretty sure it isn't, though."

With that said, she worried more about eating the rest of the chicken he'd handed over to her and let him decide how he wanted to proceed from there.

Erich Reinhardt"Well, there's not too much to tell on my end," Erich says.  "Think you already know the highlights.  I come from Nebraska.  I grew up on a farm.  Everyone in my whole family's Fenrir, 'cept me.  I'm like the gay nephew, 'cept I actually have a gay cousin and he still gets invited home for Thanksgiving."

Humor blunts that edge, but it still digs into him.  Seems Erich Reinhardt knows a thing or two about being ostracized.

"I have a sister," he adds.  "Guess you don't know that yet."  He thinks another moment.  "I got named a few months after my Rite of Passage, by some Shadow Lord who ran on a few hunts with me.  Another lone wolf.  Think he was a Judge, or maybe a Lightbringer.  One of those flying-solo types.  That was years ago.  I've been Cliath a long time.  Guess when you drift around and don't really put roots down, word of your deeds doesn't really get around.

"That's about it, really.  You want to know anything else, you can ask anytime.  I'll probably answer."

Drew RoscoeWhile Erich told his abbreviated story, Drew settled more forward than backward, leaning in toward the blond-haired Shadow Lord, toward the tabletop.  One elbow found the table's edge and her chin settled into her palm, fingers curling about her jawline as she heard his bulletpointed story.

He concluded by inviting her to ask any questions she could think of at any time.  Said he would probably answer.  The Kinfolk smiled loosely, the expression perhaps the tiniest influenced by the pint and a quarter that the petite woman had consumed.

She was quiet for beat when he'd stopped talking, and when she spoke up it was with a brief glance past Erich's ear, to the bar that was filling slowly but steadily behind him.  "Think we could pay and go?  I'm ready for air again, I think."

Erich ReinhardtErich smiles, a touch lazy, more than a touch fond.  "Drink going to your head, Miss Roscoe?"

The unfortunate waitress is flagged down again, but this time they have good news for her: they want their check.  Erich finishes his drink as it's getting delivered.  She'd said something about drinks being on her tonight, but when the tab comes he won't hear of it; he puts down money for his share all the same.  He's already occupying her shed and sometimes her guestroom, he says.

Then they're wandering out on the street, leaving the heat and the noise of the bar behind.  It's getting late enough that the nightlife crowd is out: twenty-somethings, thirty-somethings, yuppies, college kids, ex-frat-brothers stuck in the mentality.  Out on the street Erich shrugs into his hoodie, then glances at Drew.

"So.  Are we heading back to the sticks again?"  Scurrying, he wanted to say; doesn't, though.  Might sound like peer pressure or something.

Drew RoscoeThe jest about drink going to her head was shaken off with a small grin and by straightening up, removing her chin from the palm it rested in.  "In a warm way, not a dizzy way.  More fingertips and toes, which is probably a good thing for going outside."

The check came, and there was a moment of polite (enough) bickering about who would pay for what.  It ended with Erich paying for his share, because he wouldn't hear anything of it and Drew didn't believe in fighting over money.  So the check was closed, tip was left (Drew left more than the average person might, because she always believed that any server who could handle Garou at their table deserved a big tip), and the two headed out into the cold.

Drew was finishing snapping the buttons over the zipper of her coat as they stepped out, and glanced left then right before deciding that they could meander toward the truck.  She didn't pull up her hood or put on her gloves just yet, she was still warm enough from the bar that she didn't feel a need for such cold-weather accessories just yet.

"We can.  I was content to walk and talk.  The neighborhood's pretty, I like stretching my legs, and the company is nice to boot."

Erich Reinhardt"Really now."  Erich's eyebrows are raised so high his surprise has to be feigned.  "No longer worried about this straying into feels-like-a-real-date territory, I see."

He doesn't complain, though.  He looks up the street, then down.  Then he picks a direction -- heads down a sidestreet, glancing curiously into the windowfronts as they passed.

"Don't hear that often," he adds.  " 'Company is nice'.  The other day one of my tribesmen tried to recruit me for a pack by saying I can help them look scary by standing in their midst and foaming at the mouth.  I think he meant it as a good thing."

Drew Roscoe"I wasn't worried in the first place," Drew stated simply, and fell into step beside Erich to walk up the sidewalk with him.  There's a pause, a glance in both directions, then the Garou selected a side street to lead them along.  Drew was more than content to go along with him, to let him figure out what direction they would go in and maybe even how long they would wander (up to a point).

The comment about how someone approached him about joining a pack was answered with a small shrug from the Kinfolk.  "It's probably because you're a Full Moon, and that's all that they're seeing of you."

Again, as was becoming Drew's habit with Erich, she went quiet in a way that suggested she was chewing on her words and deciding whether they should be said or not.  As was also usual, she decided it was better to speak her mind than hold back.  By this point she figured Erich'd just call her out for having something to say and not saying it anyways.  "Is it bad?  I mean, that I'd be happy to call this a date?"

One eyebrow was lifted a touch higher than the other when she glanced up at him, the look sidelong instead of fully forward-facing.  She wasn't smiling when she asked that, probably because the question is so serious.  It could very well be a bad thing, after all.

Erich ReinhardtShe's not smiling.  Neither is he.  There's an immediate, irrepressible response - a quick glance her way.  It's not quite surprise.  They're not kids; neither of them is blind or stupid.  They wouldn't be alone together nearly so much if they didn't at least enjoy one another's company.

But her question's an honest one.  And it's a valid one.  It makes his brow knit; it makes his steps slow.  He stops, less than half a block down that quieter side-street he's led her down.  There's this to be said about hanging out with someone who can turn into nine feet of terror and death: one worries less about wandering down dark streets at night.  One worries less about stopping there on the street to talk; muggers become a non-issue.

"I don't know," he says.  "Depends how far ahead you're looking."

Drew RoscoeDrew didn't worry too much about dark streets at night.  She didn't go out without a gun in the back-holster she kept under her shirt in the first place.  She was very assured of her ability to draw and shoot her gun in a moment's noticed.  The typical things that people worried about in dark places-- muggers, rapists, people insane from a cocktail of drugs and chemicals-- the Kinfolk was hardly afraid of.  She's survived much worse, and she knew that the Much Worse could be found anywhere, so there was no point of being afraid of dark streets specifically.

It didn't hurt that she was there with a Garou either.  She had faith in the Ahroun, she had faith in herself to guard his back if he needed it.  They were as safe here as they would be anyplace else.

"Not terribly far.  The world changes in a month anymore.  Looking too far forward just gets...."  She struggled for the words for a second.  When he'd stopped walking, Drew traveled for another step or two, passing his side before stopping.  When she came to a stand still herself, she turned about to face the Ahroun, hands dipping into her coat pockets.  Her expression was uncertain, a touch worried, with a glimmer of some kind of hope.  Hoping she wouldn't have to tiptoe around rejection, gentle though it may be.  Hoping for affirmation, perhaps.  It was rough to pin that one down very precisely.

"It gets scary.  I'm taking it day-by-day anymore, just because I have no goddamn idea what's far ahead."

Erich ReinhardtA long time ago --

well; a long time by their standards, anyway.  She's right.  The world changes day to day.  A month is an eternity.  So; an eternity or more ago, he said something.  Something about how under the good-little-kin and the tough-little-Fenrir veneer lay something a little more profound.  The courage to admit vulnerability.  A disarming honesty, even when the truth was painful.

And there it is again.  No bluster, no fronting.  Just truth: in her words, in her voice, in her face.  The hope there kills him; slices right through him.  He smiles, but it's lopsided and a little pained, and then he reaches out and wraps one of those big farmboy's hands behind her head.  Brings her forward until the space between them turns into a memory.

He's almost absurdly taller.  He bends to her; inches away, and then less.  A fool could see where this is headed.  They're not fools.  He smells like paint, to be frank: paint and machine grease, beer, the bar.  Sweat.  Maleness.  And beneath it all, a subtle, feral scent: wildgrass, treebark, earth, hot flesh, hot blood.
"You gotta stop doing that," he says, the slightest rough edge of laughter in his tone.  "You gotta stop taking your truth cannon to all my defenses."

Drew RoscoeA while ago, with a conversation over Mexican food in some joint that Erich had discovered, the Kinfolk's words found a way to strike within the Ahroun.  She displayed a kind of honesty that was strange to behold-- it wasn't something you came across anymore.  People were guarded and distrusting, they didn't talk like her.  That kind of honesty was somehow simultaneously revealing and frail, but tall and courageous both.

So when she does it again, admits so openly that she's afraid of the future because she can't begin to guess what it could hold, and that she does so facing him directly and not shying away from her own statement, it provokes response.  Erich reached across the two-step space between them and held the back of her head and neck, pulled forward and stooped down at the same time to bring her face nearer to his.

He smelled masculine, like a workshop and beer and some natural must lying underneath.  The air was warmer there, that near to him.  Her hands had moved from her pockets immediately when he drew her in, but now they hovered uncertainly between them.

You gotta stop doing that, he said with a touch of a chuckle to his voice.  He advised she needed to stop pulling his defenses away like that.  She breathed deep, nose near to his, and one hand touched fingertips-only to his stomach.  The touch wasn't certain whether it wanted to encourage him closer or keep him at bay.  Whatever doubt that may lay in fingertips was cast aside by leaning forward past the tiny space he'd left for her to close and pressing her mouth to his.

There was no sense in not knowing now.

Erich ReinhardtSo Drew surprises him after all.

Not with the touch.  That just makes him look down.  He can count the number of times she's touched him on one hand.  He doesn't think they even shook hands when they met.  This is no handshake; this is at once chaste and searingly intimate.  He can barely feel the contact.  Her fingers are so light.  He, on the other hand, is as unrelentingly hard of body and solid of bone as anyone might expect.  The flesh beneath his hoodie and his t-shirt has almost no give at all,

and he's looking down to see her hand on him, he's raising his chin again, and the truth is he was going to kiss her anyway, but he would have prefaced it.  A joke, a quip, something to blunt the edge and soothe the rawness of the moment.  Make it something that, if they decided they'd made a mistake ten minutes later or twelve hours later, they could simply laugh off.

She cuts him off at the pass, though.  The kiss is the same as the touch. Chaste; searingly intimate.  And that's when she surprises him -- can feel it, a tiny but unmistakable jolt all through his body like electricity passing.  It's instantaneous and then passing; his eyes close.  That contact solidifies.  He kisses her back, there on that street.  It's firm but undemanding; unafraid.

Drew RoscoeIt might have been safer to preface a test-kiss with some jibe of humor.  If nothing felt right about it, if the drive back to Browntown was terribly awkward it would be that much easier to write the whole thing off as an awkward mistake and go back to whatever was there previously-- the odd friendship and bouts of very honest sharing, a platonic companionship that just seemed to work in a way that couldn't be explained in any cementing, successful way.

Not that going back was impossible without the quip.  It just might have made the moment less heavy.
Perhaps she didn't want that levity, though.

So Erich, after half a second, leaned into her to return the kiss.  She inhaled the scent of him-- this near it wasn't the paint fumes in his clothes and hair or the beer on both their breaths that she was worried about so much as a smell that was very individual and natural and impossible for someone with a human nose to break down and define past a person's name.  She didn't press deeper or further, tongue didn't sneak into the picture.

But she did linger, several seconds or so, before tipping her head so her forehead touched his and their lips parted.  The hand not at his stomach came up to hold the side of his neck, and she kept her eyes closed as she asked quietly, and a touch breathily:  "We don't have to have a heavy conversation about this right this second, do we?"

Erich ReinhardtErich doesn't press.  He doesn't try to kiss her mouth open; he doesn't throw her against the nearest wall and maul her.  It's not that he's incapable of such things, or that he's just so much a gentleman that he wouldn't.  He's not a gentleman.  Not always, anyway.  Drew's seen him with some random blonde in the Browntown bar.  She's seen, even, the thoughtless swagger in his brief interaction with Anneliese.

He's all but accused Drew of putting on a front -- the good little kinswoman and all that -- but the truth is she's not the only one that wears a couple masks.  There's a reason his potential-maybe-possibly packmates think he's the frothing berserker, the muscle in their midst.  There's a reason sometimes, even with Drew, he's cocky and quicktongued, always fending off every sign of vulnerability with a smart remark.

That's the persona he wears very easily.  It's a defense and an offense both; an impenetrable armor of confidence and cool.  What's a little harder to understand is why, and how, she's slipped under it.  It's hard to imagine Erich stepping out of some bar with some blonde and kissing her so gently in a backstreet.  It's hard to imagine him stopping the way he does:

leaning into her just a second after she's drawn back, reluctant to part, and then letting her go after all.  Her brow still touches his.  He licks his lips, an unconscious reflex.

What she says makes his mouth move, a quiet huff of a laugh.  "Let's not," he whispers.  His free hand comes to her waist; he moves a half-step closer, nearly flush against her now; kisses her again.  It's a little deeper this time; his hand is a solid pressure at her side, the warmth of his palm lost to the layers of her clothing.

Drew Roscoe
Drew didn't really know what to expect from Erich in an intimate situation such as this.  She knew that people, Wolves especially, were different than what their exterior appearance and demeanor would suggest.  The Ahroun Shadow Lord, all muscled shoulders and Lone Wolf arrogance, would typically be rough and demanding according to stereotype.  Drew knew better, though, than to think she could anticipate his reactions.  He swaggered in some instances, was stoney in others.  This didn't mean a gentle hand was impossible, though.

She wasn't surprised when he let her pull away.  She would be lying if she wasn't a little surprised when he pulled her nearer still for a second kiss, though.

His hand grasped at her waist, finding the curve between waist and hip through the padded material of her winter coat.  His hands were big and her frame small enough that his fingertips would come to find the edge of something hard strapped to the small of her back.  He should know that it's a handgun, kept under her coat and shirt.  A Kinfolk with her Tribe and her history probably didn't go anywhere without one, and it was easy to understand why.

His kiss delved deeper, lips firmer to hers this time.  Drew had just enough time to smile, the expression wispy, before mouths met again and she was pulled so her hand was caught between his stomach and hers.  She pulled it free, letting their stomachs and chest touch, and instead moved her arms about him, hands both laying across his back now instead.  Her mouth relaxed to his, lips parted enough for tongue to touch lip questioningly (seeking permission, or perhaps granting it?), and she huffed a quiet little sigh that would mingle immediately with his breath.

Romance wasn't really the impression given to anyone that might pass by the side street.  It would look much more like a man mauling some poor stupid girl there in the shadows barely touched by dim lights from windows above.  The Rage that swept and curled in the air like puffs of breath from mouths would drive away anyone who felt it might be their responsibility to intervene, though.  While the setting wasn't storybook, it was secluded enough to serve for this.

Erich ReinhardtThat smile of hers is more felt than seen.  The same with his -- the corners of his mouth abruptly quirking as his fingertips bump the unmistakable weapon at her back.  Fenrir girls, he thinks to himself, fond, a little nostalgic.  Then her mouth opens, and his thoughts dissipate.

That first kiss might have passed as tentative.  This is different.  A relentless gravity seizes him, pulls him down.  His hand shifts as she does; they move closer still.  She wraps her arms around him, his upper back so broad against her reach; his hand seems to span her back in contrast.  Tongues touch, jolting a panted breath out of him, a harsher counterpoint to her sigh.  There's a beat of pause - a searing moment in the shadows between them, his eyes flickering open, pale blue even in this light.

Then they close again.  He goes back for more.  His hands are both at her back; he presses her closer.  The way he kisses her tells her this can't possibly be the first time he's thought about it.  There's hunger in the way he bends to her, something feral and focused about the curve of head and neck and back.  He catches himself, manages to catch himself, before he reaches down and simply lifts her off the sidewalk.

Turns his head to the side, a little.  Like coming up for air.  His temple touches her forehead still, a steady and heavy contact.  He doesn't open his eyes as he turns back, kisses the corner of her mouth.
"We need to stop," he whispers, "before I drag you into an alley."

Drew RoscoeHis arms tighten, but he doesn't squeeze her too tightly.  She can feel the tension rolling for release in his back and shoulders.  The way he kissed her deep, touched his tongue to hers and panted once roughly, suggested a hunger stirred and awoken within him.  Sure, there'd been a growing closeness, but Drew didn't quite think that he'd been thinking this moment over at all, or anticipating it in any real way.  Perhaps this was the ignorance of femininity that has her a little surprised by his intensity.

This isn't to say that she doesn't meet his passion in return, though.  He leaned into her, curled himself around her smaller shape, hands seizing her back without being worried by the gun strapped above her waistband, fingers gripping and holding her near.  When she exhaled (she had been holding her breath without realizing it), her breath shuddered some as it made its way from her lungs and she tipped her hips to his, letting her stomach press flush to his through their outerwear.  Reluctance be damned, she figured, and if no one was around to scold them then why should they be ashamed?

A dozen long moments of this pass before Erich turns his head to the side, breaking the kiss and pressing the crown of his head to hers.  She breathed deep, lips still parted, cheeks flushed from him moreso than the cold at this point.  He whispered that they needed to stop or he'd have to find them a dark place to be alone, and this elicited a breathy chuckle from the Kinfolk.  One hand dropped to his waist, holding just above his hip, and the other touched the side of his face, fingers stroking from his cheekbone to jawline before she dropped them to hold onto his hoodie sleeve instead.

"Then we oughta stop," she confirmed, but did not disengage entirely from him, not just yet at least.  It was nice to have him near, to feel his warmth, to feel the lick of Rage lick past and around her-- encompassing rather than buffering within this proximity, it seemed.

"....Maybe we should get to walking again?"

Erich ReinhardtNo complaints from Erich when Drew doesn't draw back immediately.  They stay as they are for a moment.  Then his hold on her shifts.  He straightens, pulls her against his chest, holds her like that for a while.  His heartbeat is a deep, thunderous thing.

And his rage is potent.  Far more than the typical human can stand.  It burns under his skin.  It roars out from him like solar wind.  As close as she is, it surrounds and infuses her.  Calls, perhaps, to some bone-deep genetic memory in her that remembers all her past lives, all those lifetimes spent as a mate, a kin -- as a Garou, herself, with rage like his living in her own heart.

"Yeah."  It's almost more felt than heard, that word: the bass in his voice vibrating in his chest.  "Just gimme another minute."

Time goes by.  Then, reluctantly, he lets her go.  They draw apart.  His hand finds hers this time: his fingers thread through hers.  He looks at her a moment.  Doesn't quite know what to do with her, or himself.  He starts walking again.  No big drawn-out discussions right now, they'd agreed, but as his blood cools inevitable thoughts gather: her tribe, his.  All those who would, in fact, scold their faces off if they found out.

Drew RoscoeDrew had suggested that they go back to walking.  She figured it would be good to have their feet moving again.  Walking would make it easier to peel apart, would give their feet something to do.  Erich requested another minute, and the way her cheek moved against his when the muscles in her face formed a smile said that she would be just fine with that.

So he had straightened up some, moved his face away from hers, and instead wrapped one hand to the back of her head to tuck it against her chest.  She complied happily with this guidance and snuggled her head to his collarbone, arms wrapping about his waist with a small squeeze at first, then loose and comfortable.

They'd stand like that for a minute before his hand found hers and they turned to start walking again.  His fingers laced through hers, and she wriggled her hand free from his, but only so that her arm was behind his rather than in front of it.  With that detail corrected she intertwined her fingers to his once more, thumb settling on top of his own, and fell into pace beside him.

Quiet had gathered between the two again.  The only sound they made was that of the heavy soles of his boots and the low heels on hers thumping and clicking faintly on the pavement.  This gave them time to gather thoughts and wonder about consequences, directions, and distances.  They'd think like that long enough to reach the next intersection before Drew gave Erich's hand a small squeeze, gentling him out of his own thoughts so she could have his attention to speak to him.

"I love my Tribe.  I love our ways and traditions, and I've aspired for a while to be everything that they expect from a Kinfolk and more.  But I'd be lying if I said that I was worried enough about what they thought to shoo you away."

Erich ReinhardtIt makes Erich look down, quizzical, as Drew rearranges the clasp of their hands.  When he figures it out, he laughs.  "Perfectionist," he teases.

Then a quiet; each in their own thoughts.  The squeeze on his hand brings his eyes to her again, his eyebrows up in question.  They lower as she speaks; furrow a little, aching.  His mouth moves a little.  It's not quite a smile.

"Didn't think for a minute you would," he says.  "That's way too cowardly for your style.  If you shooed me off, it'd be your own damn choice."

A car swishes by at the intersection.  The light turns.  He steps off the curb with her, his hand firming a little on hers.  It's an odd little gesture, a touch of protectiveness as he leads her across the street.  On the other side he continues, "Doesn't mean the rest of your tribe will see it the same way, though.  They don't much like me as it is.  Doubt I'll earn any points dating one of their purebred kin."

Drew RoscoeThey'd wait for the light to change and give them permission to make safe way across the street.  When they stepped off the curb, Erich's large hand wrapped more securely about her own, grasp firming protectively.  She wondered for a moment how it would play out if that protectiveness against traffic needed to come into play, then decided, practically, they'd both scoot out of the way of whatever asshole nearly ran them over, and then she'd need to wait patiently while Erich dribbled the driver's head against their steering column for a minute or two before they could move on.

To what Drew had to say, Erich answered to let her know he wasn't worried about her shooing him off for her Tribe so much as what her Tribe would say and/or do when (not if, because Drew had long since grown used to the idea of spirits watching her for her Kinsmen when they couldn't be there to do so themselves) they figured out that a Shadow Lord had taken interest in her-- and a traitor no less.

To that, Drew shrugged her shoulders.  She didn't seem very worried.  "The only one that's had interest in me enough to come knocking has been Oma.  And I'm pretty sure that was just when she thought she could convince one of her boys to court me instead of his Black Fury woman.  Haven't really heard anything from any of them since."

She didn't pay mind to where they were walking, only kept note of the street signs so that she wouldn't be disoriented when they needed to find their way back to her truck.  For now, though, she was content to wander and talk.

"It would be nothing but hypocritical if they decided to take interest only when someone else does."

Erich ReinhardtErich laughs - one of his quick, unrestrained laughs.  "There are a hell lotta hypocrites in the world, then.  Damned if I haven't gotten interested in something just 'cause someone else wanted it too.

"Though," he adds a moment later, "I guess if one of theirs is chasing some Black Fury, they can't bitch too much if a Shadow Lord wants to chase one of theirs.  Whatever," there's a sort of decisiveness to that, "we can cross that bridge if we get to it.  We've been dating for about five minutes.  For all I know you'll be tired of me before the week's out."

The neighborhood's getting quieter as they go, commerce transitioning to residential.  Erich takes a right at the next block.  They pass a Trader Joe's, closed at this hour.  Next door's some little indie record shop, where Erich glances in through the windows.  A pair of hipsters are in there, listening to the Beatles.  Ironically.  Or something.

"Hear you talking like you're not worth much to the tribe a lot, though," he says.  "You shouldn't think that."

Drew Roscoe"Dating."  Drew repeated the word, and chuckled a little.  "Thomas and Joe used to tell me that our people don't date.  And I couldn't ever, ever wrap my head around how anyone's expected to go from zero to mated without any sort of middle ground to figure things out on."

They pass by a few shops, most closed, a few still open.  They pause at a record shop whose lights are still on to peer through the front window.  There's a small cluster of young adults there, passing a set of headphones around and nodding and talking about whatever it was they saw.  They dressed like a bunch of hipsters, in checkered shirts, scarves, and hats that wanted so very much to fall off the backs of their heads.  Drew watched them like someone at a zoo looking in the gorilla pen-- those kids seemed more like distant evolutionary relatives than anything else.  Their worlds were vastly different, after all.

Erich brings up what he perceives about Drew's sense of self-worth within her tribe, and Drew answered by offering a lopsided smile and nudged her arm against his to move them onward, away from the record store and along the sidewalk.

"Oh, I'm pretty sure of my own value, and not to toot my own horn or anything, but I'm pretty awesome."  The smile turned to a crooked grin.  She was joking, but only to a point.  Drew was a Kinfolk well aware of her own worth, and she had been assured frequently enough to believe it fully that she was valuable.  "I just think that they're too busy to really be worried about the self-sufficient Kinfolk that doesn't cause trouble.  There's already some Kinfolk Matriarchs established here, I'm too new to challenge that in a community like this in anyone's minds.  So I'm just kinda.... shelved, I think.  Not given away, not looked at as less either.  Just not needed right now."

Erich Reinhardt"Dating," he repeats back at her, smirking now.  "You used the word first.  I'll call it 'sniffing around your skirts' if you prefer."

Nudged, he starts walking again.  There's a comfortable silence between them for a bit as he digests what she's said.  Then he crooks a grin at her.  "You are pretty awesome," he agrees.  "You cook, you shoot.  Though, you do get spooked by stray cats that go bump in the night."

He nods up at a ice cream shop up ahead.  No Baskins Robbins in this neighborhood; this is something independent and gourmet.  "Let's get some ice cream," he says.  "Make this feel like a proper skirtsniffing."

Drew Roscoe"Call it what you will.  It's just words."

Boot heels clunked quietly on the sidewalk, the sound too low and deep to qualify as a 'click', like a high-heeled shoe would.  Another bout of quiet had settled between them, and Drew was considering whether they should head back toward the truck or not and start driving back out into the country.  After all, it was getting a little late.  Not that Drew had to be up particularly early, but she was kind of an old maid in her sleeping habits these days.

Erich had slowed, though, right as Drew was thinking about putting her gloves on because the hand not wrapped up in his was getting chilled, and brought them to a shop in front of a small ice cream shop.  It was independently owned as most things in this neighborhood were, and probably churned on location too, given the nature of the Du Pont Circle culture.

"It wasn't a cat," she stated firmly enough.  "I heard metal scrape the gravel then.  You must've scared off whoever was skulking, but it sure wasn't a cat.  ...But yeah, ice cream sounds good."  Sure, it was around thirty-some degrees outside, but who could say no to ice cream?  She eased her fingers loose from his and brought her hands up to her face, cupping them over her mouth and nose.  She huffed a few breaths against her palms and rubbed them to the tip of her nose, which had gone pink and chilly from exposure, then reached to the door to pull it open for him to catch, as seemed to be their rhythm whenever entering an establishment.

Erich ReinhardtDrew sticks to her guns.  That's something he's learned pretty early on.  She insists that it wasn't a cat; she gets a curious glance, and a shrug.  "Well," he catches the door, "if it comes back we'll fuck it up."

That's the comment they enter on.  That's the comment he enters on: we'll fuck it up -- six-feet-something of rage and muscle looming through the door.  Small wonder the girl behind the register eyes them askance.  Farther in, the boy scooping the ice cream calls a faltering hello.

They're the only customers here at this hour.  Too damn cold, and they're far enough off the main streets that the buzzed crowds don't wander this far.  Erich stands in front of the freezer case, debating mint chip and butter pecan.  He ends up getting both: a double scoop on a waffle cone.

"I'm getting this," he says to Drew as she steps up to order.

Drew RoscoeThe pair enter the ice cream shop in the middle of a conversation, so the poor young people working the counter are given more reason to falter, because that conversation is the note of the pair of them fucking something up.  Coming from Drew, the cute little brunette with the contagious smile, it would be funny to imagine and easy to dismiss.  Coming from Erich, though, there was little doubt in anyone's mind that he damn well meant it.

Drew laughed in response and lifted her chin to unzip her coat, letting it hang open rather than shrugging the whole thing off and having to carry it through the shop with her.  Erich decided a double-scoop and mixing flavors would be best.  Drew was happy with a single-scoop in a cup of strawberry.  She'd stepped up to the counter, reaching for the debit card she'd tucked into the back pocket of her jeans, but Erich announced both to her and the girl working the register that he would be paying.  Again, Drew didn't pick fights over money, so she just smiled politely to the girl at the counter and made up for the cloud of Rage that enveloped her companion by being borderline saccharine with how sweet she was to the girl.

So Erich would pay, they'd get their ice cream, and Drew'd nod for them to pick a corner away from the counter to sit in.

"Ice cream seems downright 1950's as far as a date night concept goes.  Most kids our age go for coffee and talk about obscure bullshit.  You and me?  Ice cream and some weird amalgamation of battle stories and supernatural politics as of tonight."

Erich Reinhardt"Most kids our age slap a condom on and get busy," Erich retorts, "but you, Miss Roscoe, sleep at 9:30pm on weeknights.  I bet you have bunny slippers somewhere too.  So I figure ice cream's the way to go with you.  Now watch out, or I'll find us a hoedown or square dance or something next week."

He grins, biting in to his ice cream.  "Besides," he adds, "this is literally the only non-meat thing I'll eat.  And now you know my deep dark secret."

Drew RoscoeThe very blunt, and rather crude mention of what kids their age would normally do is met with a huff, and Drew set her ice cream cup on the table, then draped her coat on the back of her chair before settling down into her seat.  Without thought, she folded her right leg underneath of her when she sat, giving herself an extra inch and a half boost to sit more comfortably at a table that would otherwise be a smidge too high for her forearms to rest easily upon.

"First of all, don't knock a hoedown.  They're always loud, busy, warm, and smell like straw and good beer.  If you don't know how to enjoy a good hoedown, then you're missing out on a special part of life.  Second of all, I don't like the idea of belittling our first-founded frienship on gut-wrenches and whims and wants."
She paused to take a small bite of her strawberry ice cream, then continued on:  "I'm not saying I know about a long run.  I'm saying if there is one, I don't wanna fuck it up."

As for his (almost) strictly meat diet:  "You can't be serious that you won't eat cookies."
Because, as far as Drew was concerned, everyone loved cookies.

Erich ReinhardtThere's a serious conversation there between the quips and parries that are second nature to him; growingly familiar for her, too.  It's that conversation that he pays mind to first, his cone half-forgotten in his hand.

"I get that," he says.  He's relaxed in his seat, the same way she's seen him at dinner, at the bar, at her kitchen table.  Leaning back, slouching a bit; stretched out, lazing.  An animal in the prime of his life, with nothing to fear.  "I do.  I'm not subtly trying to hint anything here.  Tell you the truth, some part of me's almost ... wary of taking this beyond friendship.  I don't have a lot of friends.  I don't wanna lose a friend if there's nothing but stupid, momentary lust.

"I think there might be something more though.  So."  He's been around a wide circle; he gets back to the point.  "Yeah.  I don't wanna fuck it up either.  And I'm willing to take it a step at a time so we don't skid into fuckups."

Drew RoscoeDrew's eyes hop up from her cup with a single scoop in it and find Erich's while he takes the wide path around making his point.  As he spoke of uncertainties when it came to progressing friendship into anything else, mentioned that he didn't have many friends, and stated finally that he figured there was something there beyond friendship in the first place, Drew watched his face.  She'd glance to his mouth, jaw, and hair, but land back on his eyes in the end.

He really did look exactly like the poster boy of her Tribe.  She figured that had to have something to do with her pull toward him.

When he concluded that he was willing to go one step at a time down this brand new path, Drew smiled and spooned up another bite of ice cream before sticking the spoon back in the cup and sliding it to the middle of the table to offer a bite to him.  "I'm glad we're on the same page there.  'Cause I'm pretty sure that going to bed on the first night is some kind of death kiss to potential.  Happened before just to prove my point."

Erich ReinhardtHell knows what his pull to her is.  She's certainly not a posterboy of her own tribe, or of his.  Hair too dark for one.  Complexion not pale enough, nor olive enough, for the other.  Could attribute it to some ancestral pull: his blood and bones remembering her breeding, her scent.  Could just be what it is, though -- an attraction developing out of an unlikely friendship.

Erich looks at her cup with a touch of suspicion as it's offered: strawberry?  what is this devilry?  Then he takes a tiny spoonful, swallowing it like medicine.  "Mint and butter pecan," he says.  "That's where it's at.  This strawberry shit is awful."

Then his eyebrows go flying up.  "Wait," he's genuinely shocked, "did you just tell me you've had a one night stand?  You?"

Drew RoscoeShe chuckled at his reaction to tasting strawberry ice cream and dragged her cup back in front of her.  "Pecan and mint sounds weird enough to work, I will give you that.  But there's nothing awful about strawberry anything.  Especially preserves."  She took another bite of her ice cream, then grinned a little and shook her head when he inquired about her implied one-night-stand.

"No, no, it wasn't a one-night-stand.  It was myself and a Kin, and we were friends.  Got close, and the first night we owned up to any sort of attraction we went to bed."  She sniffed a little and pushed the sleeves of her long-sleeved shirt up to her elbows.  It was warm in the ice cream shop, an effort to welcome customers in and drive away the cold of the encroaching winter nights.

"It's just superstition, our going to bed didn't really ruin anything.  We kinda grew apart, and then I moved for work.  I realized that Kin aren't made for one another.  We're made for you all."

Erich ReinhardtThe chair creaks as Erich shifts in his seat.  "Gotta admit," he says, "I know I'm the one that asked, and I'm glad you can be honest with me and all, but -- it's fuckin' weird hearing you talk about your sorta-ex that you slept with."

She goes on -- explains that it didn't go anywhere because they grew apart.  Because something wasn't there; some supernatural draw, some gaia-mandated attraction.  Erich's eyes flick up when she says: we're made for you all.  Unbidden, the memory comes back to him -- that kiss on the dark street, tender, then heated.  He can remember how she felt against him, small, almost dainty.  A gun at her back.

His lips quirk.  He looks down at his cone and finds it melting.  Lifts it, sucks a dollop of ice cream off the side of his thumb, resumes eating it.  He's crunching into the cone now.

"I've never really been with a kin long enough to ... feel that sort of connection.  Y'know.  Dated or mated or been the significant-other of."  His shoulders lift and fall under his hoodie, which he unzips a bit in deference to the warmth in here.  "Anyway.  'Nough about old flings.

"I don't eat chocolate chip cookies."  The change in subject is about as smooth as sandpaper.  He knows it; his grin says he knows it.  "Think I liked 'em as a kid.  But ever since I changed, anything other than meat doesn't really agree with me anymore.  For ice cream, though, I'll take the risk."

Drew RoscoeErich shifted about, a little uncomfortable, and admitted it was weird for him to hear her talk about people she's slept with before.  That was met with a small grin and acknowledging lift of eyebrows, but she had continued to explain the situation further than that.  To express that she discovered Kinfolk to be incompatible on a basic, instinctual level.  She believed quite certainly that Kinfolk were there not because they were the babies that should have been Garou but didn't have the spiritual link with the Other World and the Moon to finish the job.  Rather, she believed they were born to be the counterparts of the Wolves-- lovers and partners and support all at once.  They did what Garou couldn't, while Garou worried about saving the world.

They were built for this.  It's why she found that no chemistry existed anywhere else.  It was biological and spiritual both.

A confession of having not had a significant relationship with a Kinfolk before had Drew looking curious and plainly surprised.  She clearly was interested in that revelation, but he didn't want to stay on the subject.  Respecting his wish, she finished her ice cream while he crunched on his cone, and licked her spoon before letting it rest in the empty paper bowl.  "Sincerely?  You get, like, digestive distress if you eat anything not meat?  Must have found your way closer to wolf than man somewhere down the line."

Her eyes hop to the kids behind the counter.  They look anxious, they're chattering at one another, trying to convince each other who should do something that neither of them want to do.  They're watching Drew and Erich, but mostly Erich, nervously.  Drew glanced to the window, squinted at backwards letters depicting hours of operation to potential customers on the sidewalk, then stood up and grabbed her coat.  "We should let these guys close their store.  We oughta get back out home too, anyway.  I was planning to be up by eight o' clock tomorrow morning anyways-- got a project that I should get finished for work."

Erich Reinhardt"Or maybe," Erich says, mock slyness, "I just figured out exactly how to get away with eating nothing but rare steak all the time."

The angle of his gaze shifts as she stands.  He stays where he is a moment longer, sprawled large and warm in his chair.  A glance at the two behind the counter, the boy high-school-aged, the girl half a decade or so older.  "All right," he says, and stands himself.  The zipper that had come down goes back up.  He raises a hand at the storekeeps: "Thanks."

They mutter something about having a good night.  At the door, Erich's hand is briefly at Drew's back, escorting her out.  His foot catches the door from her this time, jamming against the bottom to keep it open until he can bump it with his shoulder.  His hands, between her and his ice cream cone, are filled.
Out on the street, he takes her hand again.  His palm is warm, on the verge of hot.  Garou burn hotter than humans; they burn brighter, live shorter lives.  Gaia's shooting stars.

"I'll walk you to your bedroom door like a gentleman," he bargains as they start heading back, "if you kiss me goodnight and let me crash in your guestroom again."

Drew RoscoeThey bid their goodbyes and thanks to the kids that were there to work the closing shift at the ice cream shop, Erich with a one-handed salute and single word, Drew with that bright smile of hers and and apologetic mention of keeping them open too long.  With that said they were out the door, Erich bumping it open and keeping it that way with his shoulder so Drew could pass through after him.

Out on the sidewalk Drew took a second to gauge which direction she had to go in to get back to her truck.  She was figuring out to just cut around the block to return to the parking lot when the warmth of his hand closed around hers.  She responded by looking up at him, smiling, and lacing her fingers back through his.  The gesture of holding hands was small, simple, but comforting none the less.  When he touched fingers to hers, she was more than happy to comply and mate her palm to his.

"That sounds like a plan."  She took a moment to rest her head against his arm, just below the shoulder, then straightened up and started walking.

--------------

The truck drive was warm and comfortable.  The vehicle was new enough still that the heater kicked on without fuss or delay.  Back at the house, Drew'd pause only to drop a few flakes of food in the fish bowl, would putter around for conversation's sake in the front room, and be guided to her bedroom door not long after that.

The goodbye kiss that ended the evening was sweet and warm and lingering, and when her bedroom door closed between them the evening left would be filled with buzzing thoughts and warm chests and 'Oh jesus, what've we started?'

That could be left to be figured out in the next coming days.