hatchet and gabriella. (i)

[Ryan Shepherd] The cold air filtering in through the cracked window would have been enough to strike a could chill down the neck of any other warm-blooded bipedal being, would have been enough to make the follicles retreat and the skin pucker and the hair stand up at attention like a group of soldiers preparing for a battle they cannot imagine but have not been trained to question. Yet this is not any other warm-blooded bipedal being we are speaking of, and he is blaringly aware of only a few things at this moment.

He is aware of the fact that his right hand is bereft of that which is allowing him to endure this social situation with what little modicum of self-respect and composure he can muster up. It is helping him to keep his mouth shut, something poor old Delia couldn't manage in the entire time she has known him, and it is giving him something to focus on, the burn in his belly and the warmth through his veins, and the fact that it is not overpowering him like the Fianna moonshine he has known is helping him to sit and listen to Hatchet as he tells his tales, but he isn't telling tales right now.

He's asking questions, and after Ryan deposits his highball glass on the coffee table, he is aware of the older man getting to his knees and wrapping his arms around his shoulders, pulling him into an embrace that had been egged on by Ryan's own reaction to the question: was he okay. Was he okay, given what Andrea had asked and what was going through that head of his, and whatever he had indicated through a motion of his head that wasn't even noticed let alone interpreted by the women one moving and one stationary behind them, and Ryan's shoulders could remain slumped or they could remained squared but only one of them would know and then he's pulling back to speak.

It's Gabriella's turn.

This room is not so full of Rage as others he has been in, is not so full of bodies period that the door has become his focal point, and it is not the air from the window that sends a chill through him as Hatchet lets goes of him. A breath flares in through his nostrils and his body moves with the force of it, and then Ryan is spitting out the hour-old plug of tobacco and the spit that came with it.

Yet he doesn't ask if he can refill his glass, or if Andrea will do it for him. He sits, and he watches the purebred girl interact with the maniac.

[Andrea Locke] Softly, in the background lull, Nina Simone has serenaded the quartet since they settled down to their drinking and chit chat [and generally managing to aggravate the fuck out of one another -- well, some of them]. As Andrea stands at the open window, a goodly distance away from the seating arrangements [the open lay out of the front room is longer than it is wide, though not so drastically as to make it a narrow confine] Simone's husky voice tremolo's slightly on the last sweet note of My Funny Valentine. With the release of the singers breath, Andrea also exhales, expelling smoke into the night air that reaches out it's greedy, gluttonous tendrils over her exposed flesh, rising the fine hairs along her bare arms and over the slope of her belly where her camosile billows slightly. She shivers faintly and the next song comes out over the surround speakers [installed, wired and hidden with technological sophistication] a recording of Ne Me Quitte Pas, limb-mellowing jazz, sultry French style.

Hatchet informs Gabbie that it's her turn. Gabbie responds with wonderfully easy-going refusal. Andrea's lips curve slightly at that, her wine sipped, the half-smoked cigarette tossed out the window [tsk, tsk] and the window [mercifully] closed. Making her way back to those gathered, bare feet silent on the floor, she stops at a turn-of-the-century provincial writing desk set against one wall, rummaging in the contents of a drawer briefly before extracting a velvet draw-strong bag of some sort.

"Gabriella, bella... " No, the way she pronounces 'bella' does not make it rhyme with the girl's name. "Have you ever had your fortune told?"

[Hatchet] On the end table there is an empty highball glass, and another empty highball glass on the coffee table. Hatchet began pounding Jameson's as soon as they entered the apartment, whereas Andrea and Gabbie have been sipping and savoring their wine. That's not to say that Hatchet does not know how to enjoy a good glass of whiskey, or that he has never savored a mouthful of bourbon instead of swallowing as much as he could as fast as he could. The tension in the park had not abated, so maybe that was it. Or maybe he's just a drunk.

He is a Fianna, after all.

And Ryan is a Bone Gnawer, which must be why he drinks Wild Turkey and lives in his truck. Gabriella is a Silver Fang Kinswoman, which must be why she looks so pretty and smells so sweet. Andrea is a Shadow Lord, they're all prickly. None of them need any other reasons or excuses to be as they are, to do as they do. They can fall back on their upbringing, and the women, at least, can fall back on their blood. That is, as far as Hatchet is concerned, as intense an unseen presence in the room as his Rage and Ryan's: the breeding of these two is affecting their every movement in front of his piercing eyes.

He's been watching the flick of wrists, the flash of pale throats as they breathe, and while he has been managing not to stare, he has not been managing not to notice. In the open floorplan their scents are not as concentrated, but they're certainly stronger than they were outside in the wind. He can inhale and tell the faint difference between Andrea and Gabriella, he can catch traces of the other male. To say that the combination of alcohol and proximity and breeding and Rage is mellowing him out would be laughable.

His hug was ridiculous, his knees akimbo on the cushions and his arms briefly hanging all over Ryan's shoulders, before he got distracted by something else: breasts under satin, a less aggravating woman --hardly more than a girl, though, just barely within a remotely socially acceptable range in regards to Hatchet-- much closer. Gabbie sips her wine and then laughs at Hatchet, not 'snorting' but 'scoffing', and he grins broadly but lazily, his eyes keen.

As Andrea calls for the girl's attention, Hatchet lifts his left hand and he is just inhuman enough to make someone or the other tense, his Rage riding the surface of his skin. He does not grab her bicep or wrist, however, or lunge for her throat. Only a third or so of her is even visible from where she stands, the back of the couch between them, and so he doesn't wrap a hard arm around her waist and laugh as she tries to get away. He wouldn't...but none of them know that, and his behavior in the park doesn't exactly lend one to trust.

The pads of his fingers touch the back of her right wrist, stroking softly up her hand towards her knuckles. Just once, before he drops his hand again. "Fine," he scoffs back, and lowers his arms. "I'll go," he says, and starts to reach for the hem of his shirt before a thought strikes him. He swivels his gaze to Ryan. "Wait, you're the next oldest. You do it."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella, if ever presented with the topic of her heritage and breeding, reacted in a way less honorable than what her family would prefer of her. She would admit to it, murmer the two strong surnames that she carried, names of houses and traditions, of warriors and mystics and kings and knights, and attempt to slide the subject in a different direction without being too obvious. When she was a young girl, she would smile brightly and say her name loudly and proudly, as though it were a lymrick she'd learned in school the day earlier. Because it made her parents smile. But these days very few things made her mother smile, and she no longer had a father to make proud. She had overbearing siblings (who she loved, but felt restricted by regardless) and an uncle she would love to see drowning in a puddle of his own vomit.

But, despite her response to her blood, it did indeed sing. It influenced everything about her: the way she carried herself, the structure of her face, the clarity in the coloring of her eyes... Everything down to the way she smelled was reminiscent of the luxuries of a royal court and the promise of a strong future.

She turned down Hatchet's request/command that she disrobe with a laugh and a casual air, and shifted her weight so that she was more comfortably leaned against the back of the sofa, one arm folded across the sofa back so she could rest her weight into it, leaning forward so her chest was tucked behind it and her hair, still in that sloppy side ponytail over her left shoulder, would tumble down over her arm and the sofa back as well. Andrea spoke her name, garnering her attention, and her eyes lifted to watch the dignified woman in the camisole as she pulled a small bag from a writing desk that looked to be an impressive antique.

Have you ever had your fortune told?

She blinked her big blue eyes once, then smiled faintly, almost sadly, and shook her head. "No. I worry I'll be told of my marriage to some big hairy Ahroun with lineage that dates back to the fourteenth century, and nothing more will be able to be seen." Then the touch to her wrist and the back of her hand. Her eyebrows flicked upward just a little, and she looked down at the fur-jawed Fianna to watch him pause with his fingers on the back of her hand before dropping his hand away to reach for the hem of his own shirt... only to pause and demand that Ryan take his shirt off instead.

This caused her to smile, the expression broader and not so sad as what she'd given to Andrea. She liked this atmosphere, even if she was hovering behind enough Rage to power all of Bronzeville for a week, she felt surprisingly comfortable.

[Ryan Shepherd] Ryan's eyes can't decide where they want to go or what they want to focus on. They are not twitchy, exactly, are not the eyes of the Corax that any of them might have seen in the past, are not the eyes of a predator who cannot feel safe in the midst of his prey but rather a young man who has far too much to attend to: what flesh might be visible on the frame of the poised, self-assured lady by the window, the strong fingertips whispering up and down the photographer's hands, bones barely visible in this light and through fine freckled flesh.

And then a voice, deeper than all the others, far more playful and dangerous, inspiring him not to get up off of the couch and go fetch them the whiskey that will enable them to continue to plummet down the rabbit hole, but to do as Gabriella had so tastefully refused.

Were not but for he is the next oldest above her, Ryan would not have been entreated to do so. He sits as quietly as one whose torso never rests, whose breaths are always tearing air from the atmosphere and whose muscle fibers seem to fire perpetually, and then he is told that is his turn to remove his clothing.

He could have fired back, could have resisted, could have given some sort of indication that he was above all of this and that he was a gentleman and there was no way in Hell he was going to engage in such juvenile frivolities when he had a woman back home. That is, if he has a woman back home, they can all assume based on the pictures in the cab of his truck or the way he carries himself or the way he keeps his mouth shut but there really isn't any way of knowing what he is or isn't going to do until one reminds oneself that he has been devoted to the cause ever since he realized that there was a cause, that there was something to his mood swings and his furious anger other than bigger men than he holding him down on gurneys and pumping him full of stuff that's more potent than the stuff he chooses to absorb in his intestines versus his veins, and as his sky-blue eyes gaze across the scant distance to what would be in the human military his superior officer, Ryan gives a tight nod of his head and his fingers move to the buttons of his flannel shirt.

Fingers do not move quickly, or with any indication that he is uncomfortable. He is not a natural performer, but the eyes of the women on him is tempered by the hand of Jameson over his own. He pops them one by one, hardened thumbs easing the plastic through the flannel eyes, until it reveals a white A-shirt kept clean by bleach underneath. He deftly shucks the blue-and-white flannel off of his upper body to reveal arms as cut and battle-ready as any of them might have been expecting to see on one who looks so scrappy, so scrawny in his full dress.

They can see the beginning of his scars on his arms, bites and claws and burns that would turn off the average human if the Rage didn't scare her off first. He looks straight ahead at the one who bid him clothes, then drops his gaze and peels his A-shirt from his frame.

A human male, with the injuries left behind on his body, would have been dead a dozen times over.

[Andrea Locke] A double shot of the Reserva when they first entered the apartment. One rather [very] large glass of red wine from the Rioja valley of northern Spain. Another double shot [the better not to attempt stabbing a certain Fianna] and now her second glass of wine is dwindling down to the dredges. There is no list or shamble to her walk as she moves back amongst the two men and the younger woman, and certainly no slurring of speech, though the faintly lisping sibilance is perhaps a touch more obvious and the firelit-whiskey of her brown eyes is deepening. Almost... almost she is reaching that point where it will no longer matter whatever else anyone else is throwing off emotionally or hormonally or Ragefully around her. At least until tomorrow with the hangover and the sensitivity and the madre de dios, ya estoy muy adelante en años parra estas trartajadas.

Truth be told she is paying little attention to the men on the sofa. While it is impossible for her not be aware of them, she is still buying some time to regain some equilibrium of sanity and hormones least she manage to - in a night - undo much of what she's spent the grand majority of her life quietly [painfully. flamboyantly. decadently. conservatively. recklessly. patiently.] fighting for. Her ears do pick up Hatchet's continued pushing on the matter of evening out the balance of attire - or lack there of - and it would be difficult indeed not to notice the Young-Bucks steel-eyed, blunt fingered unbuttoning and shucking, revealing scars upon scars that should mark any human being dead and in their grave many times over.

She turns her face away.
No, she is no innocent, blushing virgin. Oh, those days are so far gone she isn't really sure she even remembers them. Come to think of it, they may never have existed. And she certainly isn't trying to pretend to be something she isn't -- well, not in this respect at least. While her breeding is fractionally less than Gabbie's, it is still there, pulsing in her veins, stirring in her breath -- but Gabbie's speaks of the Silver Shining, the Fair Haired Favoured. Andrea's is darker - a quagmire of the cutthroat, cold-blooded battle tactics and willingness of dirty-hands that so long marked the true nature of her Tribe. She's seen more than her share of blood and injuries and death -- but perhaps it is the booze or the late hour or the fact that she's expended some of her very will this evening just to continue to play her assigned role... whatever the reason she looks away because what surges in her gaze will be, she knows, too naked to show off for all the world to see.

A pause.
Nothing more.

Then she is taking up Ryan and Hatchet's glasses and moving to the wet bar -- though she detours to stop briefly by Gabbie's side, one slender, fine-boned hand moving to rest lightly, gently on the girls freckled cheek, her lips curving in a sedate smile that is all understanding and first hand experience. I know that fear. A moment that might be a true connection, like reversed mirror images: What Andrea might once have been. What Gabbie may one day be. Or nothing of the sort.
Then a low vibrating hum of humour slips its way up her throat and between her lips as she lets her hand slip from the girl's face and shakes her head. "There are always choices, bella. Not always easy of course -- but always choices."

Off to the bar, there to refill drinks and bring them back to their prior spots -- one on the side table nearest Hatchet, one on the coffee table before Ryan. She moves not to her chaise lounge, then, but directly before the fire, there on the thick throw-carpet laid out before the mantel where she settles down tailor-fashion, her feet tucked up under her bottom, her fair skin kissed by yellow and amber and gold from the firelight behind her as she opens the velvet bag and withdraws the stack of old, rough-edged cards within.

[Hatchet] There is no sudden sympathetic twinge across Hatchet's face when Gabriella mentions a fortuneteller foreseeing her being mated off to some 'hairy' Ahroun, no look that could be confused with understanding of her plight. He is so far from her world, her upbringing, and what the future holds for her that his very existence rankles at her sister Katherine. Katherine, notably, despised Hatchet on principle even when they first met. No lineage, no pack to speak of except for a scrawny girl barely older than Gabriella. Even his human last name comes from lines of bastards, and he has never called any sept 'home'.

Hatchet could not truly empathize with who she has been and who she is and who she may become, not even if he tried for ten years to put himself in her shoes. That does not mean that he is terribly cold or has no feelings, but whatever his thoughts on the long and ardurous road of a Kinfolk --especially a purely bred Kinswoman, especially one related to Edward and Katherine-- they do not make it into his expression. He just touches her hand, and if the look in his eyes were not so hungry the gentle contact could be considered comforting, but that is not who he is.

Out of the corner of his eye he can see Gabbie smile when he demands that Ryan take off his shirt. He is sliding back into the position he held originally, sitting with his lower back against the arm of the couch, only this time his left leg is bent, left arm resting on his knee. His right leg falls to drape off the front of the cushions, socked foot touching the floor. Hatchet is tall, and his body proportionate. His arms and legs and torso are all long, which somehow makes him even more gigantic when he shifts into glabro or war form. He cocks his right arm and plants his elbow on the arm of the couch behind him, so slouched he is not far from lying down.

One of the things that is difficult for Kinfolk --or anyone-- to stand when they are in the presence of two Garou, regardless of Rage or rank or gender, is that there is a neverending tug-of-war. Dominance and submission of a sort that has nothing to do with leather masks or velvet paddles shifts according to subtle cues that are sometimes as faint as pheremones, but the responses werewolves give are incredibly strong. Andrea and Gabbie may have no idea that though Ryan and Hatchet are of comparable ages, one of them has been acknowledged as Older and Wiser and Ryan has to respect that. So they might not have that explanation to fall back on if they decide to wonder why, when Hatchet says Strip, Ryan asks How fast?

Or something.

Hatchet-called-Taggart leans back, reclines, lounges, and Ryan unbuttons his shirt after the briefest moment of eye contact and a tight, single nod. Hatchet watches calmly, at least at first, his expression thoughtful more than anything else, like he's analyzing his technique or something. Then his eyes drift, roving towards a point of movement, towards Andrea, who inadvertently but most certainly started Hatchet on this path of getting anyone he could to take off at least some of their clothes. He follows her towards Gabbie, eyes flicking over Ryan as the A-shirt comes off, and watches those white fingers touch that freckled cheek. Seconds later his glass is taken, being refilled, and returning, though she is otherwise ignoring the men.

"Thank you, Andrea," he says when the glass comes back to him. He has thanked her every time she's poured. Sometimes in Spanish, sometimes in English, but always: Thank you, Andrea. Which is nice, even if it is the only thing he's said to her all night that has sounded one-hundred-percent sincere. Their hostess takes her cards to the hearth, and he moves from her to Gabbie, lifting his left eyebrow. The smallest scar on his body is right there, nearly bisecting the short, pale hairs. It's very old, and barely a half-inch long. It seems as though, with that quirk, he just wants to know if she's going to go Get Her Fortune Told.

He has no interest in the cards, himself. He twists around to pick up his glass, takes a long drink, and looks over at Ryan with the same semi-thoughtful gaze, looking over the plethora of scars that have, many times over, likely come close to checking the Ahroun out of this life early. "When did you Change?" he asks lowly, after a moment.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Andrea passed by, set drinks down on two seperate tables for two seperate men (monsters/lovers/brothers) and on her way back around the back of the couch, paused to set a cool, pale hand to Gabbie's smooth and freckled face. This caused the girl to startle, just a little. While she wasn't necessarily opposed to close contact, didn't have a 'personal bubble' enforced with steel and barbed wire, like some did, she wasn't particularly accustomed to it either. So the smile fell from her face for a moment, replaced by an expression of surprise. Then the older woman smiled faintly and spoke of choices, and Gabriella relaxed considerably. She smiled back and nodded, and her eyes followed the woman as she made her way to settle in front of the fire.

From there her gaze skimmed down to Ryan, observing the flesh left bare after his shirts had been peeled away and discarded. Scars upon scars, she had no doubt now as to what moon this taciturn man was born under. A curious temptation to reach out and touch one of the more devestating looking marks tickled her mind and fingertips alike, but she resisted and instead lifted her glass to her mouth, hid her expression behind the broad rim, and took a sip. Her eyes then slipped over to Hatchet, met with his, and answered the silent question of 'Are you going to get your fortune read?' with a brief closing of her eyes and tip sideways of her head-- something that read 'Why not?'

So she moved away from the back of the couch, holding her tongue on questions of how certain scars on Ryan's torso were achieved because Taggart had beaten her to the punch and asked him about his Change instead. She kept her ears trained on the conversation on the couch even as she crossed her ankles and lowered herself into a sit in front of Andrea, legs crossed Indian-style, holding her glass in her lap with both hands, elbows rested on her knees, leaned forward just slightly to peer at the cards being pulled from the bag.

[Ryan Shepherd] He can't forget the first time Rosalee reacted when she saw him with his shirt off.

It wasn't like Delia. It wasn't like the lover who was just about twice his age, who could have very well done without him and whose reasons for bringing him back to her side of the beach, into her home and into her bedroom despite the fact that her boys were sleeping down the hall were just that: hers... it wasn't like Delia, who took off his shirts with the lights all on refusing to hide her stretch marks and the way the fat was starting to store itself in her hips and upper arms, the way she refused to hide behind dark hair curling around her shoulders as she took him.

It wasn't like Anewasa. She didn't give a shit. She was a healer in her tribe, she was one of those Kinswomen who could just barely bleed herself and yet could take from warriors the pain that had been inflicted upon them, and at the age of seventeen she looked at his flesh without blinking and simply shoved him down on the bed in the room she used to share with her sister.

Rosalee, though. Rosalee thrust the hem of his A-shirt back down over his torso, couldn't look at him with the moonlight coursing in through the window and the coyotes yipping in the distance and she asked him if any of those were recent.

Andrea looks away from him, as though it is either something abhorrent to which she has not yet been exposed or as though the sight of so many scars is something she cannot tolerate any more than Ryan could tolerate being reminded that there are Kinfolk among them who know not a damned thing about their heritage.

Without goose pimples to indicate his chill, without having been told to put his damn shirt back on he's scaring the wimmenfolk, he has a glass of whiskey planted before him--"Thank ya, ma'am," he barely seems to breathe--and a question at hand.

When did he Change.

"Well," Ryan sighs, thinking it would seem as he reaches out to pluck the highball glass from where Andrea deposited it on the coffee table, "I were about... fourteen, I reckon."

[Andrea Locke] Hatchet utters the only sincerity he tends to ever really toss Andrea's way -- but politeness can be a virtue, whenever it may come, and she accepts it without rancor. Hell, he even gets a smile, that while somewhat distracted doesn't bleed over either as a mask of hospitality or hold any last traces of whatever [blood curdling] annoyance she'd felt in his regard a while ago. Sincere as his thank you, either because she's once again settled him comfortably in the various catalog of her mind or because there is enough alcohol in her blood stream to make everything else unimportant for the time being. Maybe it's because his hungry eyes are usually feasting on the youthful splendor of the Silver Fang kinswoman, liberating Andrea from any sense of being thus a target.

Ryan, also, gives his thanks, barely seeming to breathe, and her eyes slip to his - this boy-faced monster, her own gaze unreadable not because it is blank because there is simply too much there for any one bit to be withdrawn and analyzed, even if the young-buck were the sort to spend him time so perceptively. "Por supuesto..." A good enough 'you're welcome' for both of them who each understand her native tongue. Lifting her glass slightly in a toast, "Salud."
To your health, indeed.

....but now she's on the floor, by the fire, and Gabbie is settling down in front of her, indian-style to Andrea's tailor-fashion. The older woman quirks an eyebrow as if somewhat surprised that Gabbie actually followed her over for a reading, but the surprise is mild and her pleasure is of ease. The Garou are speaking and Andrea can tell that the younger woman wants to continue hearing their conversation, so she doesn't speak much [wonders of wonders] and, instead, hands the deck over the freckled beauty, murmuring. "Slide through the deck about and breath over the cards..."

I were about.. fourteen, I reckon.

She shivers, despite the heat starting to scorch her bare shoulders and small of back.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Small: that's the word Lukas likes to use for Katherine, and he does not use it flatteringly. Small is what he calls the breadth of her mind; small, the scope of her thoughts and plans and ideas and ideals.

Here's a perfect example. It's the middle of the night. 2, 3am. He gets a phone call from Katherine: because she doesn't know where Gabriella is, and because -- and let's be honest -- whatever her personal feelings toward him, Katherine knows Lukas is the most likely packmate to successfully and expediently resolve any emergency that might come their way.

Not that he'd consider this an emergency.

Still. His hours run late. His night is relatively open. He'll aid in the search -- acquires a Questing Stone from one theurge or the other; scours the city. Imagine his surprise when he finds the Stone pulling inexorably toward the Brotherhood. Imagine his bafflement when a thorough search of the first two floors turns up nothing but one or two sleepy inhabitants, one or two sleepy staff.

Third story, then. A long shot, but it's the only possibility at this point. He mounts the stairs, which he has never mounted before, because it led to the private chambers of the mistress of the establishment. As he takes the turn at the first landing, he thinks he can detect the first subtle undercurrent of a jazzy bassline.

There may be more than one door up there, but it's easy enough to determine which is the most likely to hold one errant kin. There's light coming from under the door; music inside. If Lukas cared more about the whereabouts and wellbeing of his Alpha's kin -- if he cared as much and as fervently as Katherine did -- he would probably wonder what the hell the girl was doing up at this hour, and out, and here. As it is, he's only mildly curious.

The Ahroun raps on the door with his knuckles -- fingers loose, the back of the hand facing the door. Before Andrea can ask who it is, he announces himself: "It's Lukas." He pronounces his name as he always does: accurately, precisely, with an aspirated sibilant. "May I enter?" His hand has already fallen to the doorhandle; her acquiescence, being kin to his tribe, is assumed.

[Hatchet] The women now are over safely by the fire, their attention on Andrea's cards and off of the shirtless Ahroun and the steadily drinking Philodox. Hatchet seems content with this, for someone who just moments ago was trying to get everyone in the room to start getting naked. He hasn't gone after Gabbie again, or suggested that Andrea take something else off, and he certainly hasn't grabbed his own shirt to toss it across the room. No one has indicated that they think this would be a good idea on his part.

He is content with the fire and the soft slide of cards and low feminine voices. He is content with a glass of whiskey at hand and not being the only wolf in the room, even if Ryan isn't a packmate and is little better than a complete stranger to him. Hatchet relaxes and nods thoughtfully. Fourteen, he reckons. And he already knows that the man is a lone wolf, even if he doesn't know if he always has been. He wants to doubt it, even if he doesn't know why.

Maybe the thought is painful.

Someone knocks, before Hatchet opens his mouth to ask whatever question was going to follow his first one, and his eyes go immediately towards the direction of the door to Andrea's apartment. It's Lukas. Something flashes in Hatchet's eyes, and he mutters: "Oh, fuck me in the ass," under his breath before slamming the rest of the contents of his glass down his throat.

[Ryan Shepherd] He doesn't know any of these women, doesn't know the affiliation of the young, lovely student on the floor with the older, equally-lovely propriestress by the fire, each sitting as though they are attempting to channel the power of the cards with a posture and a poise not at all native to the civilized Westerners who took over this land centuries ago, the land that the lot of them now fight for as if it is their own.

In a way it is, but that isn't the point.

Ryan keeps his eyes pointed on the division between their two cushions, his and Hatchet's, as the two of them drink their whiskey and let the confession settle between them. There isn't a reciprocal wondering of when it is that Hatchet, with that near-decapitation souvenir on his neck and that devil-may-care attitude about him, and so he sits quietly while the fire flickers off of his glass and everyone reacts to the tapping, tapping at Andrea's chamber door.

"Not it," Ryan counter-volunteers, and takes a likewise long pull of his whiskey before he sets his glass down and begins to climb back into his shirt.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella was quite intrigued by the cards, something about it felt taboo and thrilling. It reminded her of the scene in The Crucible where the girls were all busted dancing naked in the woods-- because it was heathenistic, not good in the eyes of God, because it was wild and pagan. Now it made no sense that something pagan would be taboo to anyone aware of the Garou-- after all, their diety was Mother Earth herself. If that wasn't pagan, then what the hell was? Andrea murmered something in that low voice, elegant and soft as black velvet, about sliding the deck around and breathing on the cards, and Gabbie's intrigue spiked a little higher.

Then came the knocking on the door.
And the announcement: It's Lukas.

An expression of blantant 'oh shit' crossed her face, immediately replacing the intense interest that was there less than a second before, and her head whipped around to look first to the door, then to Hatchet. Now, technically she'd never been directly forbidden from seeing him, but that didn't mean that their contact being prohibited wasn't implied. And Lukas wasn't the gentlest of souls to discover his Alpha's little sister was drinking with two male Garou of no breeding whatsoever and the dark-voiced landlady at least a decade her senior.

A strong urge to go hide herself in the bathroom bubbled in her chest, but pride and rationality kept her planted on the floor, told her to pretend that there was absolutely nothing wrong by her or anyone else in the situation at hand.

[Katherine Bellamonte] It's Lukas.

And only steps behind him -- it's Katherine Bellamonte. Her presence has not been announced by Lukas for specific reason. The specific reason being that young lady who had taken it upon herself to socialize without her elder sister's given permission with the last creature on earth beside the wyrm itself that she would encourage it with.

It was one thing to be found in the company of strange Garou.
It was quite another to be found in this Garou's company.

And there shall come the woman herself trailing on the heels of her pack-mate's permitted entry into the kinswoman's room -- filling the doorframe with her waves of blond hair and her expression -- nothing shy of furious. "Oh so." She says calmly, her eyes sweeping and judging all in one glance, her voice a touch shy of a whisper.

"Oui, I should have known."

[Andrea Locke] It's Lukas... May I enter?

Her head lifts, eyes narrowing slightly as she focuses on the door, as though - briefly - she might will what they all heard to have been a communal hallucination. It could happen.
Alas, given Hatchet's heartfelt, if low-voiced reaction, Ryan's genial counter and re-dressing, and then Gabbie's lovely 'oh shit' deer-trapped-in-headlights moment of mild [and completely controlled/stifled] panic it would seem that, indeed, Lukas is at the door. The wolf is at the door.

She smirks, wryly, at her own thought, then follows suit with the two Garou on the couch, downing a good swig of her wine before rising fluidly to her bare feet.
"It's locked, Lukas. One moment."

She passes by the two on the couch, circumnavigating having to pick her way over their feet or navigate around the entire coffee table by simple stepping up on the table itself, traveling it's length and then stepping back down. Not at a rush at all - she moves rather mellow-boned at this point, not drunken but certainly relaxed. A good thing, too.

"I think all hopes of a night ending in fucking are sadly gone... but, yeah, so not it either." Is her careless response as she thus traverses the floor plan and the furniture and goes to unlock the door and let the Fun Police in.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas is, for all his carefully cultivated levelness, an Ahroun. He has an Ahroun's frame, and an Ahroun's presence. When Andrea sweeps the door open, he fills the doorframe -- still dressed for outdoors, black overcoat dusted with melting snow.

He has a polite smile for Andrea. "Hi. Is Gabriella..."

... and the smile fades with the sentence. His regard flickers to the girl, the stranger, the Fianna. Whatever he might've said, whether he would've berated one or all or warned them, is all moot now. He stands aside. Behind him, pale fury herself, is Katherine Bellamonte.

She should have known, she says, calm and judgmental. They are a strange match, like chesspieces: the silver fang all pale and blonde; the shadow lord all olive and dark. But their eyes are similar, if not the same, blue as the sky; blue as ice.

He holds his hand out to Gabriella. There's a strange kindness in the gesture. "It's getting pretty late, Gab," he says, a touch wry.

[Hatchet] Hatchet, when Gabbie whips around to look at him, is still physically quite relaxed. He is chilling out on the couch, but he just took roughly two fingers of whiskey down the gullet in one go and is letting his head loll back. Gabbie was not told to stay away from Hatchet. Hatchet was told --by a Garou he outranks, funnily enough-- to stay away from her. Clearly, he is ignoring Sam Modine's 'order' about as effectively as he ignored the fact that the Fenrir dislocated his jaw, and with the same method: humor.

That does not mean he is terribly keen on having his evening interrupted, when he was getting rather comfortable on the couch, with the whiskey and the company and the warmth. If so much as a single member of the Unbroken Circle comes in, he cannot be as he was when it was just the four of them. A mask starts to settle over his eyes, over his mouth, and he sets his again-empty glass down with a vocal: "Aaah!"

He doesn't see Gabbie look at him. He looks mildly annoyed, and more than mildly inebriated, as he blinks slowly over at Ryan. His eyes stay there for two, then three beats. He's about to open his mouth, and then Andrea says that the night won't end in fucking. "Maybe I can get Lukas to do it," he says wryly, swiveling his head around to look at her as she goes to the door to let in Lukas and...

Oooh shit.

Now Hatchet looks more than annoyed, he looks downright pissed. He glares past Andrea at Katherine, and when she says she should have known, he shakes his head slightly, rolls his eyes, and picks up his glass. It is empty. He remembers this when he tips it back, nothing more than a drop comes out, and he peers into it with a serious frown. In his head, he is giving that glass a hell of a lecture.

[Ryan Shepherd] (2F Phobia: This Flaw Looked Good On Paper.)

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabbie was situated indian-style with a half-full glass of clear white wine in her hands, facing the fire so her back was, for the most part, turned to the door. She had to look over her shoulder to see Lukas and--- ...Aw fuck, Katherine. Gabbie's shoulders dropped as the air seemed to deflate out of her. It was like she was set up for some sort of fight, or act of defiance, but knew already that it would end the same-- with the evening ruined and Gabriella shoved in the back seat of an expensive car, driven to the loft she was filling space in, and having some manner of guard or surveilance assigned to her. She could huff and puff all she wanted, but something in her gut told her that her evening was set, even though her mind told her she had a choice, she always had a choice...

Aside from the wine and the presence of the two (bad-blood) male Garou, Gabriella appeared quite... well, she didn't seem to be in any compromising situations. She was still fully clothed, in her ankle socks, her fashionably faded jeans, her snug gray T-shirt, and the thick black-and-white plaid scarf knotted around her neck for the sake of fashion rather than warmth. Her cheeks were mildly flushed, but her eyes weren't glassy, she wasn't slurring or smiling like an idiot. Tipsy? Perhaps, but hardly beyond comprehension.

Katherine appeared in the doorway, all icey cold fury, and Gabriella shook her head faintly. Lukas extended a hand toward her, gesturing that she come join them, and in a curiously kindly tone told her that it was getting late. ...Which was the truth. She hadn't looked at a clock in some time, but she knew it had to be past one in the morning. She sighed and shrugged her shoulders, switched the glass of wine into her left hand and set the right hand on the floor behind her, leaning her weight back into it and rolling her head on her shoulders so she could stretch and pop her neck.

For now she said nothing, didn't refuse to leave but didn't leap to her feet to do so either.

[Ryan Shepherd] At this moment, he had plenty of reasons to hurry himself into his clothings and get his big, seemingly dumb behind not only out of that comfortable overstuffed chair by the fire and the window with the elements colliding and competing for his attention, but he is neither under any obligation to get himself out of here before either the identified Lukas, who he had briefly shared broad space with the other day, or the French-speaking blonde whose name he does not know and is not at all obliged or compelled to ask.

It isn't because she isn't lovely, you see, it isn't because there isn't some latent curiosity hiding behind the sky-blue eyes of this kid who has to fucking think about when he first turned into the form that he would learn to be more comfortable in that the skin in which he was born not because he was particularly good at learning the way the apes wanted him to learn but because muscle memory and operant conditioning can be particularly effective in creatures... it's because he doesn't have the history with the two halves of Unbroken Circle and Weasel's Gang, doesn't knwo the first thing about either, to have a sense of rivalry or loyalty, to give two shits that a girl who is likely being expected to mate with some hairy Ahroun and give up whatever dreams that she has or hoped to have in favor of bearing another line of warriors for the End Times is related to either of those two, by blood or mere affiliation...

That any of these thoughts are swirling through his drunken little mind is not evident as Ryan returns himself to his A-shirt, to his flannel cowboy's shirt, as he keeps his mouth free from tobacco and does not pick up his Jameson's until he has the flannel at least pulled over his wiry arms.

He keeps his mouth shut to do all but drink more. Hatchet is lapping him.

[Andrea Locke] "Lukas. Ms. Bellamont... "
Lukas is spoken politely and simply, neither full of warmth or chill. 'Ms. Bellamont' is, of course, handled a touch more wryly -- after all, the bit of Silver Fang pup [oh, sorry, cliath] just looked over the large, open front room of Andrea's apartment sweeping all the people and contents therein with one passing, grandiose judgment. It leaves Andrea with one eyebrow arched, her head canted slightly to the side as she appraises this largely-unknown Garou with all the air of one appraising something alien and not entirely pleasant.

Once the door is open, she moves back, heading towards the fire place and Gabbie -- the eyebrow swept up once more, though this time her expression is far kinder, far more supportive, meant for the young woman only if she even looks in Andrea's direction: I'm sure as hell no bastion of protection and back up, but if you need help... The rest is, of course, entirely Gabbie's prerogative.

Taking up her glass of wine from the rug before the fireplace, she looks back at scene unfolding, muttering in a sighing voice as she takes another drink. "Y maravillan estos noble idiotas porque perdieron la mayoría de cualquier parte de respecto o poder que tenian en Europa…"

[Katherine Bellamonte] Once the door is opened, Katherine does not move any further into the room, rather she remains in the doorway like some hovering unholy specter of forthcoming doom. Her features are set into an expression of anger but telltale beneath it is the sense of relief perhaps at finding her sister -- if not in circumstances approvable by Katherine's impeccable standards -- at least in one wholly unharmed piece.

She is not bleeding, as Edward so frequently was.
She was not in jail, drunken and shame-faced.

"I apologize, Madam Locke for our intrusion," she speaks, gathering her fur-trimmed coat around her body, her hands masked in black leather gloves as if even within the brotherhood itself she was reluctant to bare her hands to the world. "But you understand how I must be concerned when my sister does not return when she was asked to, nor inform me of," here she deviates her attention -- Ryan, Hatchet, Andrea, the wine and the scents mingling the air --

"Her activities."

Lukas is offering Gabriella his hand, her sister simply commands it: "Come, Gabriella."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Two things to note here.

The first: when Gabriella fails to leap to do his bidding, Lukas does not seem particularly offended, nor perturbed. The gesture is offered and, as far as he's concerned, accepted. She's getting ready to leave. And he helps her -- stepping into the room to find her coat, pick it up, shake it out.

The second: in theory, Lukas outranks Katherine in the Circle. He is Beta; she is merely the sister of the alpha. Yet in this particular exercise, there's the distinct impression that he defers to her. He moves to the sidelines, physically as well as figuratively. He gathers up Gabriella's coat, and he gathers Gabriella up as well, if and when the girl finally stood up. When it comes to edicts and decrees and royal outrage, he leaves it to the elder Bellamonte sister.

[Hatchet] There are a few things competing for Hatchet's attention at the moment, a focus that he did not have when he Changed and has had to work rather hard to develop. He is drunk enough that his thoughts are slowed and he is noticing that certain parts of his body feel warmer than others. This is a rather pleasant sensation, and one of the reasons he indulges in firewater as often as he does.

There's Gabbie, someone he genuinely likes if not deeply cares about yet. He heard her comment earlier and understood it, and he thinks to himself, Lukas isn't particularly hairy. But then, he isn't a Fang either. No chance. Now she's having hands held out and she's being whistled at, finger-snapped at like a trained dog being called to heel. Never much of a champion for Kinfolk Rights, Hatchet still finds that this gets under his skin something fierce.

Under his skin, there's a lot going on. His heart's beating faster, for several reasons, and behind his eyes he's thinking that he heard something a moment ago that didn't mean what he thought it meant, what it could have meant, what everyone in the room thought it meant. It's troubling him as he puts his glass back down, as his brows draw together and Andrea rattles off something in Spanish that makes him...

Hatchet snickers. Briefly, and he controls himself a moment later, but he does laugh.

The last time he saw Katherine they were both bleeding. There is no visible trace of that battle on him anymore. The last time he saw Lukas, he was walking out of the common room downstairs with the stranger on the couch. He twists around on the couch and looks at Lukas and Katherine, thinks for a moment, and then addresses Gabriella.

"Hey, Gabbie?" he says. "Did you know...that you're old enough to buy cigarettes? And, well, you can't rent a car yet, but you can vote in this country. If you have consensual sex," he laughs for some reason, "it's totally fine. And you're in the presence of a woman who...I mean...she has a liquor license and, y'know, to me, she seems to kind of know her shit."

He stops there, then makes a severe pointing gesture. "I don't have a phone. Or I'd give you my number. But we should totally hang out. Again. I'll like...come to your recitals or something. Scare the fuck outta everybody," he leaves off, making a waving gesture to indicate 'everybody'.

[Hatchet] ["Leaves off"...as in...speech. He's not leaving. That could be hard to interpret. Sorry. *L*]

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas had originally brought on her panic. Why? Because he would, inevidably, have to report to Katherine where and what condition he had discovered Gabriella in. But now, with Katherine there in the doorway, filling it up herself, like a blizzard contained in this somewhat studio-style apartment, Lukas seemed downright huggable. His patience, oddly enough, felt like it stretched farther than her sister's, though this was likely because he didn't care so much what Gabriella did with herself, that she preserve the family line and all that crap.

He would find Gabriella's soft and expensive light brown coat amongst a gathering of other jackets, with her gloves and hat stuffed into the pockets, and her sneakers near the door or on some designated mat, though it was doubtful that he'd bring her sneakers to her. When he reached her, to help her up (gather her up), Hatchet had begun speaking, and she turned her crystal blue eyes from the Shadow Lord whose eyes matched over to the Fianna. He spoke of her legal American rights, said that if he had a phone he'd give her the number, and suggested they continue hanging out, offered to come to her recitals (though she called them 'performances' now, since she wasn't in middle school anymore).

This caused a broad smile to cross her face that hardly had anything to do with the alcohol in her system, genuine cheer that, if anything, was only allowed to shine more blantantly due to certain reservations slipping away. The wine in the glass in her left hand was swirled a little, idly, and she nodded to him. "I'm pretty sure I'd be flattered, even if you did chase away the crowd."

Katherine's command to heel was pretty much ignored. As much wrath as her sister may hole up in her being, she wouldn't kill Gabriella. At most she'd be physically forced to leave. Boo-hoo. So she let her eyes slip over to Lukas's kneecaps, then slide up the rest of him until her chin was tipped back, pale throat exposed without truely grasping the meaning of such a gesture in her state of mild inebriation, and her eyes were on his face once again. She smiled once more, though this time the expression was milder than what it had been for Hatchet. "Oh Lukas, why do you spoil my fun?"

[Ryan Shepherd] Ryan dresses as though he is the one who is potentially in trouble, as though he is going to be flayed for doing something so egregious as offering little Gabrielle Bellamonte anything as strong as a wine cooler when he could not recall her last name, did not know her bloodline and certainly didn't know how old she was or what she was doing. Granted, in most jurisdictions not knowing the age of the victim is not an automatic pardon for activities repulsive to the rest of society, but in this case he has nothing at stake.

Nothing from the rest of the people in this room, anyway, not from the two women, one of whom speaks in a language not understood by any but the two men on the couch, nor from the two men, one of whom's fingers are flying up his buttons and pushing the hem of his flannel shirt into the still-belted waistband of his Levi's so that he might continue the process of Getting The Fuck Out.

With a pause to pick up the glass containing the last two fingers of his Jameson's, Ryan watches those who are gathering, those who are going, and those who are gaining nothing by being involved in this through mere association and happenstance. Ryan sips the rest of his whiskey, but says nothing, stirs not at all.

[Andrea Locke] Katherine addresses her and she sets her wine up on the fireplace mantel, nodding easily as she does so. "Of course. I regret that you were concerned -- though I assure you that Gabriella has been as lovely a guest as one could ask." She smiles towards the girl - the kinfolk, that is - quite comfortably and with a clear amount of well regard. Apparently she honestly has enjoyed Gabbie's company. One might even say it was refreshing.

Hatchet speaks up as Lukas finds jackets conveniently hung on a wrought-iron vine-styled holder near the door. The flat seems large, the decor simple but fine, very much dwelling in the realm of wine country rustic-chic, with furnishings and colour bespeaking a love of the South of France and the North of Spain. Andrea moves along to a writing desk off to one wall that certainly looks like a Provincial antique, opening one of its many small, dainty drawers and removing a business card which she holds out to Gabbie as she moves back towards the girl.

"If ever you would like to meet up again, it would be a delight. You can reach me through any of those methods and, of course, I can often be found here. Don't be a stranger, hmm?"

[Katherine Bellamonte] Hatchet speaks up, and it would not take her sensitive nose or clear vision to decipher that the Fiann had imbibed more than a little alcohol during the course of this little gathering in the Shadow Lord Kinwoman's residence. For all that his pointed words are meant to wound her and clearly knock several rungs from beneath her standing they seem only to draw her eyes and, unfortunately, her simmering wrath.

Katherine's laughter was as wind-chimes; delicate and breezy.
But in these circumstances, it did not reach her eyes to warm them the way her younger sister's seemed far more naturally accustomed to appearing.

"Hatchet-rhya," She cocks her head, bird-like. "I am not unaware of the circumstances under which you last encountered my pack-mate, nor of his, how shall I put this kindly," Meridian's Truth rolls her wrist delicately, seeking articulation with the words she chooses. "request that you refrain from contact with my sister."

The Philodox's eyes shift to her younger sibling briefly, take in the smile on her lips.

"I hope I don't have to remind you of it again. I understand such things can be ... painful."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas smiles; it's faint and crooked. He holds his hand out again, this time close enough for Gabriella to reach up. "Because it's apparently my job tonight," he says, wry, as his hand closes on her.

It's not her hand he takes but her forearm, hauling her to her feet. Her not entirely steady feet. Don't think he's missed that.

Then he's passing her her coat, holding it out like a gentleman so she can slip into it. They are none of them old, these Garou. Even Hatchet is surely on this side of thirty, and Lukas is only a few years past twenty. Still, in comparison -- by age alone, and by being kin -- Gabriella is unquestionably the pack's ward, the little sister, the princess in the tower. When the coat is settled, Lukas' hand remains on the girl's shoulder, familiar as a brother's. He steers her gently but firmly toward the door.

Hatchet's musings on legal american rights draws a glance; there's a flicker of strain in the young Ahroun's face. Katherine speaks, all bladed charm, and Lukas twists his head on his shoulders as though to alleviate some tension.

"Don't make this more difficult, Hatchet-rhya," he adds, quietly. "The Silver Fangs don't play by those rules. You might think you're encouraging her to find her own way, or maybe you're just thumbing your nose at her sister, but all you'll end up doing is reminding her of what her tribe would never allow. Her tribe," there is a solid emphasis on those words, "and not merely her family."

[Hatchet] His reminder to Gabbie that she is not ten but eighteen either goes over the girl's head or simply doesn't change her decision to get up and go obediently with Lukas and Katherine. She'd be flattered, she says. He just grins rakishly, as though chasing away the entire crowd of people coming to see one of her recitals or performances or whatever would positively make his day.

This doesn't take away the edge that rose and sharpened when what he felt coming off of Gabbie was not the behavior of an errant teen but someone scared, someone who genuinely started when she heard Lukas's voice at the door, who is doing her dead-level best to not even acknowledge Katherine. He doesn't like smelling that, or sensing it, even if it's his imagination.

Andrea is handling this the most gracefully of all, better than Hatchet's rambling or Gabbie's hop-to-it-iveness or Ryan's silence as he prepares himself to get the hell out of here. Hatchet is mostly bored at this point, waiting for Lukas and Katherine to stop ruining his fun, too, and then...as is her habit...Katherine. Fucks. It. Up. Thinking he was addressing Gabbie as a way through her to her sister, thinking...whatever it is that goes through Katherine's brain on a given day, she reminds him of Sam and his little slap-fest with the Fenrir shortly before the New Year.

"Katie-baby," he says, leaving off the honorific due a superior or even an equal, because she is neither, "you're a Half-Moon. Do the class a favor and tell me under what circumstances a Cliath of any tribe or pack has authority over a Fostern who has not given him that authority. I'm not going to allow any harm to come to your sister --shut up, Lukas-- that I can reasonably prevent, sooo...okay, maybe I'm just crazy, but no one's given me a single valid reason why I should not establish a friendship with a young woman with whom I share a a love of music. Unless, of course, the only reason you have is a burning, overwhelming desire to subjugate the shit out of Gabriella so she doesn't think it odd when some asshole backhands her on her wedding night."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella didn't exactly 'hop to it', nor was she making any effort to be particularly obedient. She was still sitting on the floor, and seemed quite content to stay there and get her fortune read by the lovely older Kinswoman, even if she was a Shadow Lord. But her family seemed to have an odd tendancy of befrieinding the Lords, didn't they? However, Lukas's hand closed around her forearm and hauled her up to her feet, stayed there for a moment until she, almost reluctantly, took over balancing herself and stood on her own. Her feet were only slightly wider apart than normal to accomodate for the mild tipsiness, but it wasn't too terrible. Her coat was held out, so all she'd have to do is put her arms through it. She eyeballed Lukas for a second, and her coat as well, then simply sighed, shook her head, and slipped her arms through the jacket holes, switching the wine glass from one hand to the next as she did this.

"Apparently. And sadly." A hand was set on her shoulder, and she was steered toward the door. She passed something of a sad and reluctant look to Ryan and Hatchet both, a lingering of eyes meant for each man individually, and she set the still half-full wine glass on the coffee table as she passed it. She passed Andrea, had a card held out to her, and an invitation to keep in touch. The card was accepted with a brief lifting of eyebrows, and another genuinely happy smile. "I couldn't be, Miss Andrea." The 'miss' would be a hard habit to break. It was hard not to have some sort of title attatched to a woman of such dignified stature.

...Then Lukas opened his mouth, and a heat that had nothing to do with the alcohol in her system burned her chest and spread around into her back. Her tribe wouldn't allow it.... Allow what? The statement was left open, open to everything that her tribe wouldn't allow her to do.

To make things better (worse, much worse), Hatchet opened his mouth next. Spoke of something that she didn't really know (Taggart's a Fostern?), of politics and rank, then of how her family was sheltering her so she wouldn't question being beaten by a husband somewhere eeriely close in her future. Her jaw went mildly slack as she listened to this, and her feet stopped moving, no matter how steely the urgings of Lukas's hand on her shoulder to get her to move were. Her eyebrows went up, every bit of cheer or joy or happiness that had been on her face slid off and slapped to the floor. She just looked at Hatchet, and didn't completely understand the reason for the heat that started in her chest and back moving throughout the rest of her body as a result of his speech.

[Andrea Locke] For a moment it looks rather as though everything is going to go rather well -- or as well as can be expected given the situation. While Andrea clearly doesn't like the way Gabbie is being treated any more than most present seem to care for it, she sees no reason to fling a Kin-fit that will get neither of them - especially Gabbie - anywhere. So Andrea gives Gabbie her card, gives Gabbie someone outside of her Tribe and lacking in Rage to talk to, meet with, if ever she should like.

And then, of course, Taggart speaks up. And while she would normally be the first to haul off and call the Fianna an incorrigible bastard, she actually nods faintly at one point within his words, until her eyes take in Gabbie's reaction to them -- which she winces slightly at, a hand rising to rub over her face, scrubbing there like she might somehow scrub away this open demonstration of "well-meaning" Garou belittling the hell out of a kinswoman. There are plenty of things she could say - from a strikingly knowledgeable grasp of the litany and Garou politics for a Kinfolk right down to berating them for affecting Gabbie so - and god knows Andrea hasn't exactly been dubbed meek and quiet by those who know her....

...in the end, however, she merely moves closer to Gabby and her bare hand seeks out the younger woman's be it bare or already gloved, murmuring something low pitched and exclusively for the girls ears only.

[Katherine Bellamonte] Katherine -- child of kings and Lady of Courts -- does not waver in her resolve, or allow the faint traces of some mysterious smile to fade from the corners of her mouth. She is calm, her hands clasped together as if she were contemplating not argument but prayer for their very souls.

"Yes, but does not a Fostern who begins and does not win a fight against those of lower station give over his authority by default?"

She pauses, listens with no real attempt to disguise her quiet dismissal of his opinion (a fiann has no true opinion on what we do, Katherine, for we are their masters and their rulers above them, never forget you were born for this.. what inherent rights have they? Has he over you but what he deigns to fight for? This is your time, child, this is your time) and now makes motions enough into the room to place her hand on her sisters arm; neither a touch speaking of restraint or forgiveness but merely possession.

She is mine [ours and you cannot have her.

"You are not one of us, therefore you could not begin to understand. I protect my sister because it was decreed to me to do so. I owe you no more words than that. " Toward her sibling, a hand is raised and cups the girl's cheek fleetingly; the Philodox's gloved palm warm and smooth through the soft leather hide. "Gabriella, I will wait for you downstairs if you wish to say your goodnights. But no longer than a few moments. Oui?"

The tenderness is private; and the devotion set only on the girl's face as long as it remains locked to the Silver Fang kin.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas grimaces as Hatchet and Katherine trade words. Unkind words. He turns his face briefly aside as though to swallow a curse. Then he releases Gabriella, in case the girl wanted to -- as suggested -- say her goodnights.

"I'll be down in a moment," he says to Katherine, quietly.

The Fang Philodox -- and Katherine is, let's admit, every inch the Fang Philodox -- descends the stairs. Lukas waits, head lowered as though in thought, until she's well out of earshot before he levels his eyes on Hatchet again. Another moment of consideration. Then he speaks.

"Hatchet-rhya, if you want valid reasons why you shouldn't establish a friendship with this particular young woman, I'll be glad to offer you a number of them. None of them have anything to do with tribal claims, traditions, subjugation, or any of these things you seem to hate so much. But let's move it out of Andrea's home."

[Hatchet] Hatchet laughs at Katherine. Not a grin, not a small smile, but an outright chortle. He shakes his head, beaming and talking to anyone who is still even remotely listening at this point. "No. Absolutely not. Cubs tussle. Cliaths and Fosterns tussle. I saw an Athro Theurge --who was in lupus at the time-- engage in a rather violent and bloody physical fight with his step-brother because said step-brother --who was a Cliath at the time-- said something about their cousin --who was pregnant at the time-- and it was no more a challenge than shoving the schoolyard bully against the wall.

"So: your Fenrir has no more authority to order me about as he does any more than you do based on the fact that --oh, shocker!-- he's an Ahroun who can dislocate a Philodox's jaw. He's still. A fucking. Cliath and you will get him in line."

Raising his hands in the air, he waves them in mock terror, adopting a wide-eyed, open-mouthed expression. Dropping them again, he shrugs. "But --Lukas, I already said shut up-- I've already forgotten what the fuck we were talking about. If Gabbie's not going to decide to tell you both to fuck off and have a night outside the birdcage in a place where she is ridiculously safe, then I would seriously, deeply, almost painfully appreciate it if you would both take your barely-ranked uptight asses and get the fuck out of --"

He pauses and looks at Andrea. "Unless you want to invite them in, in which case, my bad, I'll just take Ryan here and we'll go finish getting drunk somewhere else."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabbie almost felt numb, the gears in her mind were working double-time to throw out images of her potential future, what was expected of her, her past, everything it was set up to accomplish. She almost didn't feel it when Andrea's hand slipped into her own, which was still bare as she had yet to even button up her jacket, let alone put on her gloves and hat yet. For the first time in about twenty seconds she blinked, and her head turned to the side, turning her ear a little more directly toward Andrea's mouth so she could hear what she had to say. The words were taken in, Gabbie's face softened with something that was almost pained sadness, which was curiously mingled with appreciation, and her fingers squeezed the hand that had slipped into hers before she let go.

Lukas's hand slipped from her shoulder, only for Katherine's hand to touch her arm next. It wasn't an affectionate touch, nor was it a controlling or dominating one. It was a gesture that showed claim. Mine. Her brow furrowed a little, and then Katherine's hand moved to touch her face, softly pressing her cheek to direct her gaze to meet the eyes that were identical to her own. Gabriella's head jerked to the side, as though her initial impulse was to pull away, to deny the touch, but she found herself glaring into the face that, despite the cool and controlling words and gestures that had come out of it, was still, someway, private and caring.

Such inner turmoil this very situation, and many others modelled around it, caused the young Kinfolk.

Katherine removed her hand and walked down the stairs, and with something between a sigh and a groan, Gabriella reached into her coat pocket, found her hat, and pulled it on her head and adjusted it over her ears. As she did this, her eyes flickered to Lukas, lay on him as he spoke, then eventually (inevidably) returned to Hatchet.

[Andrea Locke] A lot going on indeed -- much harder for Gabbie of course, who has far more of a vested interest in all of this. It's her life being bandied about like so much minced meat and, of that, Andrea certainly doesn't look pleased. All the same there is only so much she knows she can do right here and right now. She remains close to Gabbie throughout it, as the girl further dresses for the cold. Lukas and Hatchet speak, though apparently the Fostern in the room has no inclination to go about discussing the matter with the Cliath ahroun -- which speaks volumes so far as Andrea's understanding of such protocol goes. At this point things can come down to physical action or a formally issued challenge to be accepted or denied and played out as such things do...

...or, of course, just a lot more words.

With a smooth roll of her shoulders she regards Hatchet with a half-smile as he addresses her.
"You, Gabbie and Ryan were my invited guests first and foremost. This interruption notwithstanding you are of course welcome to stay."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] And he gets told to shut up again.

A muscle tenses in the corner of Lukas' jaw as the Ahroun's teeth come involuntarily together. There's a big moon in the sky. It's not full, but it's close; it's getting there. And even his control isn't perfect.

He waits until the Fostern is done, though by that time Katherine is quite completely out of the room, out of earshot. Then, still quietly, though now there's a hint of strain in his tone -- "Rhya, you've shed blood with me, and with my packsister. You've called me brother. You asked for reasons you shouldn't fraternize with Gabriella Bellamonte. I'm asking you to listen."

A pause. The Ahroun is still in his overcoat, but the snow has melted to water, beadlets of it glistening undispersed in the thickspun wool, patches of it darkening the coat to a deeper shade of black.

"Or, don't. That's your prerogative too. Either way, I'll understand where we stand."

[Hatchet] For someone who met her once when she was fifteen and has only gone on a couple of short walks with her since then, and for someone who is currently three sheets to the wind (and running off at the mouth in the way that illustrates rather neatly one of many reasons it took him seven years to achieve this rank), Hatchet has a rather surprising level of insight into Gabriella Lillian d'Albret Bellamonte. He sees her, and he sees what the stricken look in her crystalline eyes means, and his heart pounds.

That also has a bit to do with the moon, and with anger, and with Not it and black satin.

He doesn't know what Andrea says to Gabbie and is in fact giving the majority of his shitfaced attention to the Garou who somehow remain his rivals even when they have fought alongside one another. He sees the way Gabbie barely controls herself when Katherine touches her arm, and it sets his teeth on edge in a way that comes as naturally as the Change did.

Or does. The first time...the first time was different.

His eyes meet hers only briefly though, while Andrea is speaking. He breathes out, and when Katherine exits rather than replying and when Lukas speaks instead, Hatchet inhales. He blinks once, and turns his gaze to the Kinfolk, rather --gallingly-- than look at Lukas right now. And that is notable. Every time the two of them are in the same room he notes the Ahroun's position, he faces him, he sits within reach and he acts like the brother he once claimed to be willing to be. The brother he, on at least one night, said he was.

To the Kinswoman, the host, and exhales slowly. "I apologize if I've disrupted your home," he says levelly, though that fine control is only because he must have it right now, not because he doesn't mean the words. His sincerity is evident unless she does not want to see it, and then it wouldn't matter anyway. He moves his feet off the couch and rises, glancing at the blue-eyed Gnawer who has kept silent all this time.

They share a look, and Hatchet's head barely tips towards the door, and Ryan stands as well with a nod. Body language. Some understanding forged outside the purview of those present. They're leaving. Hatchet turns finally, then, to Lukas and meets his piercing stare. "Not tonight," he says, not like a brother but like a lieutenant to a sergeant, and his voice is incredibly quiet, almost a whisper. Hatchet takes a breath, and speaks a bit louder, while Ryan gets ready to follow him out: "But find me before the moot." These words are tighter, are harder, and goddess be damned and ignored by the Garou as well as the humans if there is not the faintest trace of warning in that, as though Lukas doing exactly this will keep something bad from happening, something Hatchet doesn't want to do. Or deal with.

He goes to get his boots, and his coat, and then gives one last look to Gabbie. "You were playing Debussy," he says, one corner of his mouth smiling though it doesn't reach his eyes. He taps his temple with a finger. "I remember."

The only two people in the room who are not purely bred exit it. And then they leave the building, and the area, and all the Lords and Fangs behind. At least for tonight.

[Hatchet] [SHIT. Addition:

The last thing he does, before he leaves, is give Andrea a nod. It could be an extension of his earlier apology. Or it could be the first silent thanks he's given her. But he does it, before ducking out.]

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (TWO WHOLE DICE.)
to Hatchet

[Andrea Locke] ooc: Alright, Andrea would duly note Taggart's apology - and say he hasn't so not to worry - (and, yes, mean it) and his silent nod and return it. She'll see Gabbie and Lukas out with a reassuring smile for Gabbie and reminder for her to not be a stranger... aaaaand... I'm off to bed. Night all!

[Hatchet] [I can has interview tomorrow? W00t.]

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas, again, offered to tell Hatchet exactly why pursuing any sort of relations, platonic or otherwise, with her would be a bad idea. His eyes tighten, his teeth set together, and Gabbie glances back up her shoulder to the Shadow Lord that was, haha, shadowing her. She thought about touching his arm, in that way that Kinfolk all seemed to know how to, to calm him, remind him that this wasn't the place for tempers to be lost, especially not considering the collateral damage and considerable fatality rate that came when Garou lost their tempers. But the words that came out of his mouth tightened her jaw as well, and she opted not to touch him if she could help it.

Hatchet rose, and a glance to Ryan ad him on his feet as well. Cordially, tightly, he apologized to Andrea, told Lukas that they would discuss this another time, before the moot, and paused to settle his gaze upon Gabbie. He remembered whose music she was playing three years ago when they'd run into each other by chance-- or more, by trespass, depending on how you looked at it. He half smiled, then stepped out the door, and her eyes followed him out. Once he was down the steps, she looked up at Lukas, met his eyes for a second, then dropped hers so she could pull on her gloves, button her coat, and properly wrap the scarf around her neck.

"I know you don't much care, Lukas, but I don't appreciate you talking about me as though I'm not standing beside you." Muttering this in a low voice, she then nodded to Andrea, exchanged kindly fairwells with the woman, and started down the stairs.