not worth it.

[Lukas] At some point, given that Hatchet is still rooming at the Brotherhood, there's a knock on his door. When he opens it, Lukas is standing outside. He holds up a pair of beer bottles, raises his eyebrows.

"Have time to talk?"

[Hatchet] There are only a handful of days between the wee hours of Wednesday morning when Hatchet told Lukas to come find him and the moon being full enough for the Call of the Wyld to go out. Hatchet had not come back to the Brotherhood until several, several hours after leaving with the blond Texan.

He answers the door to his and Sol's room and is, at least for now, alone in there. The room is not so bare as Lukas's is. There's miscellaneous stuff --like a paper bag full of clothes-- on the top bunk, which has no mattress. The bottom bunk is made...messily. The single bed against the other wall is made with hospital neatness, and there's a backpack and a pair of familiar boots shoved under it. The dorm-style desk and chair are over by the window.

Hatchet himself is wearing exactly what he was last night, the newish jeans and the dark green thermal, holding a book in his right hand with a finger between the pages. The cover has blue and white swaths across it and a sepia-toned picture of a man with short hair resting his forehead on his forearms. But who cares about the book? Lukas has beer.

One corner of his mouth quirks in a small smile that doesn't quite reach his eyes, and he nods the Shadow Lord in. "I have time to listen," he says.

[Lukas] A nod in response, "Thanks for having me, Rhya."

There is, perhaps, a certain chill between the two Garou now that had not been there before. Hatchet's smile does not reach his eyes. Lukas stands conscientiously outside until nodded in. Then again, they were hardly ever bosom buddies before. The difference is not night and day.

Inside, the Shadow Lord's eyes sweep the room briefly -- appraising without judging -- and then he pulls out the desk chair, raising his eyebrows in mute question before taking a seat.

Feet apart. A little slouched. Relaxed. Whatever his attention to detail and decorum, he's not the type to sit ramrod straight. He leaves that to Katherine.

"Reasons why you shouldn't befriend Gabriella, right?" It's not really a question; it's a re-establishing of the arena. There's a faint awkwardness to this. The heat of the moment has passed, and to raise the same issues again now, in the cold light of day, without preamble, seems stilted. He compresses his lips for a moment; then he makes some small aimless gesture of his hand. "Look. I'm just going to say it. Because it's not worth it."

Another Garou, and Lukas might've held his hand up now to stave off the inevitable, outraged protest. There's this much still, though -- Lukas doesn't think Hatchet is the type to speak without thinking. He goes on at his own pace:

"What I mean is: whatever your best intentions now, Gabriella's eighteen years old. She's never had a boyfriend, to my best knowledge. She's innocent, she's cloistered, she's attractive, and she's got pure breeding up to her ears. There's always the off chance you'll be attracted to her. Or worse, she'll think she's in love with you.

"But there is no way, none, that Katherine and Edward would stand for that. Edward hates you, and Katherine won't abide a Fianna touching her precious sister. To prevent even the possibility of it, they'll bring up claim, and tradition, and tribe; they'll throw everything plus the kitchen sink at you to keep you away from her.

"You know that. You might think it's ridiculous. Because Gabriella should have the right to do what she wants, and you should have the right to be friends with her. And you might be right. But it still doesn't change the fact that the Bellamontes would raise hell.

"Sure, in the end you might win. But no matter what happens, our packs would be at each other's throats. We'll spends weeks, if not months, bickering over whether or not you get to be friends with Gabriella. She'll be hurt. A rift will open between her and her siblings, her blood family. And we'll all spend a hell lot of time and energy quarreling -- time and energy we could've spent on the Caern and the Wyrm.

"And that's the crux of it, Hatchet-rhya. Nothing -- no girl, no friendship, no kin, no Garou, no feud -- is more important than the War. It's just. not. worth it."

[Hatchet] The look in Hatchet's eyes when he answers the door is trepidatious at first, but that fades immediately upon seeing Lukas...and the beers. He looks a bit tired around the edges, which may be the reason his smile seems so small, even if not forced. There could be a chill. It's hard to tell, and Lukas neither knows him well enough nor has a particular talent for reading people. But that's not why he's here, so he settles in. Lukas takes the chair, and Hatchet walks to the single bed, sitting down and leaning his shoulders against the wall. It means he's looking slightly into the light coming through the window behind the Shadow Lord.

Hatchet, for his part, almost always slouches. Lukas has seen him standing straight, broad shoulders squared and at his full height, but that is not who he is all of the time. Or else it is, just as he is always a wolf, but he doesn't always let everyone see it: what he is, that is.

Reasons why. A flick of one eyebrow upward, and then a single slow nod. Right. He's not hungover, but the longer Lukas is in the room, the more he realizes something about Hatchet is missing. He's not barely-leashed, neither well in control of himself, he's burnt out. Somewhere between Then and Now, he tore through his Rage leaving almost nothing behind. There's not a mark on him, though. That's something.

With him, especially as still and new-moon-placid as his Rage is right now, there is no reason to stave off words from the Philodox. Excepting last night, when he repeatedly told Lukas to shut up (Daddy's talking), he always has time to sit, and to listen, and to do so until the person speaking --Lord or Gnawer, Ahroun or Theurge-- is finished with that they have to say. He doesn't look relaxed right now so much as patient, calm so much as...if it weren't for the eye contact he's giving Lukas, the attentiveness, one might even say indifferent. His fingers are laced together, but the skin of them is tight with tension, as though he is purposefully pressing his knuckles together in a way that is enough to cause pain to the sensitive joints.

Innocent, cloistered, etcetera. She'll think she's in love with you.

He presses his lips together to keep from smiling. Not in delight, not in enjoyment over this possibility, but in outright --if currently muted, compared to his usual colorful expressions-- amusement. Laughing his head off at that, and what Lukas says about Edward and Katherine just after it, isn't going to help things. He gets himself under control, and relaxes his mouth again, but his eyes are glinting eversoslightly with humor. Yes, he thinks it's ridiculous, but he doesn't tell Lukas that his guesses as to his motivations and reasoning are off the mark. He just listens, and forces himself to stay quiet -- which is surprisingly not all that difficult, and other than the way he holds his hands so tightly, there's little tension in him.

Lukas goes over his prediction for what all this could bring. Weeks and months of bickering, which in their world never lasts long before it devolves into throat-tearing and challenges for Honor and so on and so forth. Hatchet is still, neither nodding nor shaking his head nor rolling his eyes, whatever his opinion of it all. It's not worth it, the Shadow Lord repeats, firmly, and after a few seconds of silence, the Philodox slowly lets his head tip to the right as he regards him.

They haven't touched the beers, but the book is lying on the pillow beside Hatchet's left thigh. call me by your name, are the white words of the title across the top. He isn't looking at it anymore. He's looking at the man who is not his bosom friend but who was --on at least one night-- his brother in a way that Katherine is not and never could be his sister. And he doesn't tell him that he's wrong, or scoff at him, or pick apart his speech, or argue his own points -- if he really has any that aren't fueled by Jameson's. He frowns, just a little, as though something is occurring to him that leaves him somewhat sad.

"Do you realize," he says quietly, the soft furrow of his brows and the tone of his voice deeply sympathetic, rather than aghast or droll, "what all of that says about Edward and Katherine Bellamonte?" He says it like a secret, like something he would not say if it were not just the two of them alone in this room right now. And he doesn't know the answer. Not really.

But if Lukas is paying attention, he can puzzle out what is underneath the question: Please say you don't.

[Lukas] There's a certain calm confidence in Lukas: a methodical steadiness. There are Ahrouns that are always on the verge of flying into madness, the slavering beasts and the glowering brutes. Then there are Ahrouns like this one, whose strength lay in forethought, who planned his every move, his every word, like a general plans a war.

There was no sense that the speech was recited, but every sense that it was thought out, that he had thought of it all long before he came here today, and perhaps even before he had found Hatchet with Gabriella in Andrea's apartments. And throughout the course of it, moving in lockstep with what he had planned for himself, there was no hurry in him, no uncertainty, no waver.

Then Hatchet asks him a question in return, and Lukas shifts in his seat. It is too slight to be a fidget. It's barely more than a rebalancing; a redistribution of weight. His right leg flexes; his torso crunches slightly to the left. He exhales shortly, not quite humor.

"I thought you'd say something like that. Or ask me why I wasn't saying something like this to the Bellamontes, or -- well." His eyes skate the room, briefly restless; then then lock onto Hatchet again, level. "We all have our flaws. Things we can't change about ourselves. If I did not honestly think that Edward Bellamonte has within him -- alongside all his flaws and failures -- the potential to one day do something that matters, that would make a difference in this war, I wouldn't follow him.

"But I do think that. So. While I think the Bellamontes would be a lot better off if they could ease up a little on their sister, I can't change them, and it's unimportant in the end. This is ... " a moment; he searches for the words, " ... insignificant, compared to everything else."

[Hatchet] Hatchet's eyes could be mistaken for serene if it were not for the fact that they are one of the most inhuman-looking things about his homid form. One could say that Lukas could be used to it, as one of his own packmates has eyes pale enough to be almost white. Hatchet's are not that light. They are more like funereal shrouds hung over mirrors, or thick veils hanging in front of your face, blurring the candlelight in front of you. There's fire behind them, fire Lukas has seen when Hatchet starts to leave this body behind in favor of one more suited to tearing things apart.

Those eyes, the ones that can be as twinkling and mirthful as they can be steeling and uncompromising, are never completely unguarded. Nearly dead on the common room floor, he would have gone to whatever ancestral home is waiting for him without dropping that guard entirely. His gaze, held fast and today held rather calm, travels down from Lukas's eyes as he shifts in the chair, watching the tension when his leg flexes and the twist of his midsection. Then he looks back up, giving one slow blink.

"So," he says, less sympathetically, his voice tightening though not with anger, "the world must adjust to them, because he might --one day, in that nebulous and imaginary thing we call our 'future'-- do 'something' with his power and his talents." There is no way to keep at least an underpinning of faint mockery out of his voice, but that mockery is not directed strictly at Lukas. "They don't have to adjust to the world. They don't even have to adjust to their own flesh and blood."

Hatchet nods, like he's thinking this over. "Cute. Kinda like a two year old throwing a tantrum so it gets a cookie is cute, but..." he trails off, shrugging, as though he agrees with Lukas. This is insignificant. So much so, in fact, that he goes on to ask: "Can I ask you something?"

[Lukas] Lukas' expression might be a low grade version of a wince, but it passes. He'd drawn a half-sip of air to reply to that -- probably say something about adjustments and Edward and -- but that too passes.

"Yeah," he says instead, simply enough.

[Hatchet] Hatchet's questions is incredibly simple, and he straightens his neck to return his head to the anatomical position as he regards Lukas. "How do Half-Moons advance in rank?"

[Lukas] Lukas' eyebrows go up a notch. There's a pause -- then a brief, wry exhale.

"Are you trying to make a point, Hatchet-rhya, or do you genuinely want my Ahroun's perspective on that?"

[Hatchet] Hatchet isn't amused this time. He watches Lukas evenly, patiently, and nods a little. "I want to know if at least one of you actually knows."

[Lukas] "All right," the Ahroun sits forward a little, "then I'll tell you what I think. I think a Half-Moon's worth is in his honor. His role is that of judge and mediator, but more importantly than that, the Half-Moons of the Garou Nation should stand as paragons of honor, duty and dedication to Gaia's cause. I think, should I ever lose my way in this war, I should be able to look to an Elder Philodox and see the tenets of Garou honor echoed in his every action."

[Hatchet] There's no casual nodding of agreement or Yes, yes, you have it right, good, good on Hatchet's part. He sits and he slouches and he stares, though when Lukas leans forward there's a brief moment when Hatchet's hands tighten so much where they are linked that his forearms almost vibrate. He takes a deep breath around the words his honor, but not because he has anything to say. He just needs the air, and needs to exhale it slowly, which he does. When Lukas finishes, he takes a moment to think, before he speaks.

He does do that occasionally. Or else sometimes he plays it up. Even when he is rambling 'drunkenly', there is the sense that this motherfucker knows exactly what the hell he is saying with his loose, seemingly glib tongue.

"Could you --and I am talking to you now as the Beta of your pack, Lukas-- then explain to me," he says evenly, "where any of you, Fostern or Fenrir or otherwise, get off casting so much as a hint of suspicion onto my honor, or disrespecting me by refusing to acknowledge my rank?" His eyes are razors, and what little Rage is contained in him seems greater with the edge in his voice. He is not 'annoyed' anymore by this, and he is sure as hell not 'amused'. "If I have done something to give any of your packmates legitimate cause to doubt my honor, let's hear it."

There's more, though he pauses and takes another breath, calming enough to relax his shoulders. "I do not hold you responsible for every little thing your packmates do. But I know I'm often in a minority with that perspective, and I like you. I want you to take the chance you have to do what you can to correct this shit because I would not see the blameless dragged into the mud with the deserving."

[Lukas] Ah. The penny drops: Lukas sees what Hatchet's been driving at.

And it's not a pretty place. Nor an easy topic. The Ahroun sits back, his hands atop his thighs -- the picture of ease, except that his fingers are curled into his palm, his hands unconsciously echoing his tension.

There's a long pause. Thoughts run behind his eyes, undecipherable.

Then: "You want the truth?" He waits only a beat for the nod. "The Bellamontes doubt your honor based on the incident four years ago. Bygones may have been bygones to you, but not to them; not when family is involved." There's a shred, just a shred, of bitterness in that. "When Katherine found you with her sister last night, her suspicions were only confirmed. Whatever your intentions -- and at this point, I'd believe you if you said you had none -- the Bellamontes think the worst of you and your honor, and frankly, Rhya, you're not doing anything to convince them otherwise.

"As for Sam, he's as loyal as any captain is to his king. If they don't trust your honor, he doesn't trust your honor."

Another pause, slighter than the first.

"As for me," quieter now, "I know you have a deep core of honor. But I am always -- " a grimace for the word, "disappointed when you swerve from it. You may say what you like of the Bellamontes and their opinions, their ways and their grudges, but Edward is a Ragabash, and Katherine is a Cliath. You are the elder of one, and the Half Moon to the No-Moon of the other. Your honor should be greater than theirs.

"You don't have to always needle them when you meet, just like you don't have to befriend this particular kinfolk. These are things you choose to do, Rhya, perhaps because you think they're in the wrong -- but it's the Ragabash who teaches through nettles and barbs, not the Philodox."

[Hatchet] Hatchet only interrupts Lukas once, and then it is nonverbally. When he says that the Bellamontes base their distrust on something that happened four years ago, he holds up three fingers. Three years ago. Not that it matters, in the long run. Four years might even be better for Hatchet to make his case, but he makes this silent correction and then drops his hand again, crossing his arms over his chest.

Does he pick up on the bitterness, the shred of it in Lukas's tone of voice when he says the word family? He does, and he doesn't respond to it. No wince of sympathy, no grimace of distaste, no furrowed brow of question. Hatchet has his own stake in the word, though his 'sisters' are not blood ties. Lukas would believe him, if he said he has no intentions. But the Bellamontes think this, so.

So.

Hatchet is watching the blue eyes, the ones that match those of the Bellamonte siblings even if nothing else about Lukas seems to line up with their heritage, and keeping a lock on the gaze if he can, when the Ahroun's voice gets quieter. Disappointed, he says, and should be, and the slow exhale of air that Hatchet gives this time only throws into sharp contrast the one from before. This time he is controlling himself so he does not snap --though it is notable that is not trying to hide that fact from Lukas-- and the other time, he was controlling himself from some other impulse.

"First," he whispers, beginning at the end, "you are mistaken in thinking I am trying to teach anything to the Bellamontes by taking the piss out of them, and bordering too close on disrespect by trying to remind me of the duties of a Philodox as if I need the lesson. Second, I know I don't have to, and if you can get her to admit it, Katherine knows I don't always. Like when we were ripping throats out together. Third, I will take it as a personal insult to my honor if I hear so much as a hint from any of you that my motives in wanting to befriend Gabbie have a shit to do with poking at her brother and sister."

He closes his eyes and lifts his hands, covering his face for a moment. He rubs at his cheeks and forehead, and then drops his hands again, sighing as he turns his stare back on the other. "I am not going to fucking argue with you anymore about the Bellamontes. I'm tired of it, and when it comes to you they're nothing but...a wall," he finishes, finding the word he wants and loathing it all the same.

"As for Sam..." the same words, though less generous, "he outright refused to address me according to my rank when I flat-out told him to. He has attempted to give me orders on two occasions now, and I will not wait for a third before I ask our elders to deal with it formally. I never fight a Fenrir Ahroun expecting to win, Lukas, but this is running headlong into our very Law, and...frankly, I would rather his pack leaders just smack him upside the head. It's not public, it's not embarrassing anyone, and if it comes out at the moot then it's the same bullshit you were talking about earlier."

He puts his hands down on the mattress on either side of him and gets up to his feet, going over to the desk and picking up a beer. Hatchet uses the edge of the desk and his fist to get the cap off, and takes a long drink before he finishes his earlier thoughts: "Now what I want to know is what the hell I've done that makes you think I've swerved from this deep core of honor you think I have."

[Lukas] Hatchet bristles; in truth, Lukas had expected worse. The Ahroun lowers his eyes as the Fostern ticks off his points; raises them again at the end.

"I'm not reminding you of the duties of a Philodox, Rhya. That's not my place. But I'm telling you what I would consider honorable behavior from a Fostern Philodox. Right or wrong, it's only my opinion, and I gave it to you straight because you asked for the truth.

"As for what you've done -- it's all the things I've touched on already, rolled together. In short: it's that you stoop to squabbling with Cliaths and Ragabashes. You go out of your way to irritate the Bellamontes. In your place, I would go out of my way to try and smooth things over. Not because I am wrong and they are right, but because it is the honorable thing to do. Because a three-year-old feud is not important."

[Hatchet] "Yeah," Hatchet says slowly, but tightly, and takes another swig from the bottle, "we need to stop this line of conversation."

The thing is, if he had not burnt himself out, it would have been worse. It would have been much worse. But he's tired from something, this Garou who has tapped into almost boundless reserves of energy in his treks across the continent, but he's been troubled since Lukas got here. Sadly, the simplest and safest assumption is that he was troubled about what he knew they were going to speak of.

He looks down at Lukas from where he's standing, and for a moment doesn't move or speak or...seem to breathe, and then he shakes his head and goes back to flop onto the bed. Underneath it is a small stain, where the blood dripped down as it soaked through the mattress that was thrown out almost a week ago. It's unseen. They couldn't clean it completely off the floor.

"Talk to me about Sam. Are you going to deal with him, or do I have to?"

[Lukas] Lukas grimaces; there's no better word for it. His arms fold across his chest. In the course of this conversation he's slouched a bit lower. He can almost tuck his chin against his chest now -- lowers his head, at least, frowns at the floor for a moment.

Then: "I wasn't there. If I had been, or if you had come to me and told me of it, I would have dealt with it. But by all accounts you struck the first blow, Rhya. In my book, you chose the arena, and it was combat, not words.

"It's no longer my place to make the call on this. I'm no Philodox. Take it before the Sept. But Rhya, I'm here as your friend, if you consider me such. At the moot, I am the Beta of the Circle, and I will defend my packmate as I must."

[Hatchet] Hatchet's face screws up in exaggerated confusion. He looks at the upper bunk across the room as though it just told him that it's Abraham Lincoln reincarnated and wants a cheeseburger, and then he swivels his head around to look at Lukas again. His head is cocked, his eyes filled with an unpleasant --unhappy-- sparkle, and he affects a thoroughly confused tone of voice.

"Now, I know I was drunk, but did the Litany get changed while I was thigh-deep in Guinness? 'Respect those of higher station...but only if your Alpha likes them'? Or is it now...'but only if they can beat you up'? Oh, wait," Hatchet says, nodding, "I got it. Next time I'll make sure I formally challenge someone when I want them to follow the goddamn Law!" he roars, and his arm snaps as he throws the bottle of beer across the room.

And it does shatter on the wall behind Lukas, dripping foaming liquid down the paint job and leaving broken amber glass on the thin carpet. He looks at Lukas with far less fury than he would be capable of were he not burned down to embers, and his nostrils flare as he breathes out. "You have the good sense to see the idiocy in all this. You know as well as I do it's a ridiculous thing to even complain about. You believe that the doubts and the suspicions are bullshit. And you trade all your loyalty, all your strength, on an idea of what could be, playing along with this fantasy of a king with men-at-arms and a princess locked in a fucking tower when you know it's nothing!"

The walls are thin hear, and except for his roar about the Law earlier, Hatchet has kept his voice to a moderate volume. As he rants now about what Lukas knows, what he assumes Lukas is already aware of, he sounds stunned and he sounds --that word again-- disappointed and he sounds near the end not like he is angry but that he is at a complete loss. He is not shouting, but his words still seethe with anger as they leave his tongue.

"You ask me to smooth things over and try to make peace and bend my neck to them as much as you do, and you make --I mean this-- decent arguments for the childishness of it all when I know you must see that it exists on both sides. There is no right or wrong here, Lukas, only useless and more useless. And you...you want to talk about potential? You want to talk about doing something that matters?"

He gets to his feet, too frustrated to be still now. "You...you piss me off, Wyrmbreaker!"

[Lukas] At one point -- one crucial point in that rant -- Lukas' temper flares.

It's not when Hatchet ridicules the situation. It's not when he smashes the bottle of beer against the wall. It's not when he rants about fantasies of kings and princesses in towers; it's not even when he dismisses it all as nothing.

No; it happens quite sharply, quite completely, between the words You ask me to smooth things over and it exists on both sides. For a second, the Ahroun's eyes flash; his face tightens.

By the end of it, he's controlled himself again. Superficially, anyway. His rage lingers in the air like a low-frequency hum -- more intuited than perceived.

"I think I should go," he says; stands.

[Hatchet] Some who know Hatchet well or have known him for some time --the Theurge who only stayed at the Brotherhood for af ew days, for instance-- know from experience that glib as he may be, thoughtless as his words often seem, ridiculous as his behavior is, the man can listen. He can listen at length and even when the words being spat in his face make him angry. There are a few, rarer, who meet him and learn it quickly, whether because the trait is so strong, their insight is particularly keen, or they just have some sort of intuitive understanding of a Garou who is guarded even with his closest, dearest packmate.

Whatever got that information into his skull, Lukas knows that Hatchet can listen when spoken to, and that most of the time he chooses to employ that skill rather than pretend he does not pay any attention to others to augment his rather caddish persona. What Lukas might not know, what Lukas might not yet have seen, is that Hatchet watches people, too. He responds better to hints of body language than to words, and this is a man who dances with words, who plays with them like string and tosses them around like candy. The shift of an eyebrow, the tensing of a thigh, the dip of Lukas's chin or the starburst of Rage in his eyes: Hatchet does not even have to think about these things to pick up on them.

He keeps talking. He finishes his thoughts, furious and frustrated, and when they are both 'settled', or as settled as they can be all things considered, he not only knows what he said that slapped Lukas across the face, he knows why that slap felt like a backhand. Hatchet doesn't lie and say he didn't mean it. He does note that Lukas is still seated when he speaks, does not get up until the words are almost finished leaving him. They're almost the same height. Hatchet is between Lukas and the door, but not so directly that his mere presence dictates one skirt around the other. The darker wolf isn't trapped.

Though...nor is Hatchet stepping out of his way and giving him an untouched path to the exit. He stays where it is, in the narrow aisle between two narrow beds, and the sun coming in from the window behind Lukas does indeed bring out hints of brass and red in his hair and beard. It also illuminates something one doesn't often see on a Garou: on the left side of his throat, between Adam's Apple and collarbone, there is a pale discoloration on the incredibly thin skin there. A bruise, or the faint yellowish remnant of one that will be healed completely before sunset. On a human it would be a purplish-red badge, a middle-school signal.

At the moment, it's something Lukas barely notices and likely does not care at all about.

"I don't want this," he says carefully, without the same edge in his voice though it still remains his gaze. "Not with you." A beat, and a breath: "I try very hard to understand why any of you follow him, and the only reason I do is because of your behavior. Your loyalty. Your honor." Hatchet exhales, and steps back slightly so that when Lukas walks out, he will not have to bump into Hatchet to do so, and he looks at the corner of Soledad's bunk as his brow furrows, but on the last word he looks at the Shadow Lord, crossing his arms over his chest.

[Lukas] His reply: silence, and a long stare that breaks away at the very end. Lukas looks at Soledad's bunk as well, blindly, a muscle working at the corner of his jaw, a frown beginning to pull his brow into furrows again.

Then he inhales, draws himself upright. There is no arrogance in Lukas; but pride is not the same thing, and pride is something Lukas does have, and does guard -- fiercely.

"See you later, Hatchet-rhya." He looks the other in the eye to say his goodbyes, at least. After, he heads for the door, opening it and shutting it behind himself quietly.