toilet.

[Ilari Martin] One would think that he would start learning that the worst places in this city to hang out are the ones where he is likely to run into one of his shifting brethren, but that would be to ignore what the landscape of the majority of Ilari Martin's life has looked like, what it is that he knows and what the entirety of his identity is rested upon.

Barring that, one would think that if he were going to get completely obliterated that he would have the wherewithal to do it at home where the chances of his being found were considerably lower, where he could safely and all but invisibly vanquish whatever demons feed off of lowered inhibitions and the tendency to ruminate.

One might be better served by ceasing attempts to make sense of Ilari Martin's behavior.

Tonight, his behavior has been observable from a distance, and it has made sense: he had come in through the front door and asked for a bottle of beer and a shot of Jameson from Danny the redhead, who is beginning to recognize him as a Fang kinsman. Alright, fine, he's here for a drink, he'll be on his way when he's had a few and he tips back the whiskey and takes swallows of beer while looking around casually.

But when he finishes his beer inside of fifteen minutes he orders a 7 & 7. And he drinks it. And within fifteen minutes of that he is ordering another one. And Danny is getting nervous when Martin gets up to go to the bathroom but Martin says he'll be right back and he wasn't lying, he isn't even gone five minutes before he's parked back in his stool, slurping down the rest of his drink and ordering another one.

He doesn't look drunk. So Danny makes him another one.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella was never exactly sure what brought her to The Brotherhood.

Andrea wasn't there anymore, so whatever visits she had been having with the woman before she departed from Chicago, whatever their connection had been, was irrelevant anymore. She didn't come seeking any specific individuals-- wasn't hunting for Lukas or Sam or Mrena to have a word with them, wasn't even seeking to find Hatchet and pull him aside so they could talk, which they seemed to tend to do despite all the threats either one of them recieved from her siblings and their pack.

Perhaps what caused her to gravitate to this establishment was simply the presence of other Kinfolk and Garou alike. She was steadily losing interest and faith in the average human being-- especially after the other night when she was left alone to seek her own means of returning home by a small herd of them that were supposed to be her friends. Not best friends or even close friends, sure, but come on, even aquaintences didn't do that to one another. Not in her world anyways. She was just, ironically enough, more comfortable in an environment that hummed with the Rage of primal beasts of legend.

So her car pulled into the parking lot, parked, and locked, and Gabbie came in through the front door of The Brotherhood. Her jacket was shrugged off as soon as she made it through the door, the fireplace combined with the heating system made the place quite cozy no matter how ferociously Winter beat at the walls, and then it was folded to rest held aginst her stomach. Eyes skimmed the room, which was pretty empty tonight-- a few groups of people here or there but not many, and the only familiar face that jumped out from her (aside from the staff) was that of one older, somewhat wasted (in more ways than one) Silver Fang Kinfolk.

Danny was fixing and sliding him a drink, which was expected. With a faint smile that seemed ever-present and so suited to her face, she made way to the bar and draped her coat over the stool beside Martin before climbing up to sit on it. She didn't ask if the seat was taken, didn't ask if it was okay to sit. She'd get some smartassed remark that would eat away three minutes of her night if she did, so she just assumed. She didn't see anyone else's things nearby and doubted he'd have a problem with her company anyways. Tonight the typical 'hello, how are you?' was replaced with something else, something so straight-to-the-point that she may as well have been a cop sent in to a room with one table, two chairs, and a two-way mirror.

"So, what's going on with you and my sister, Martin?"

[Ilari Martin] Martin's reaction is almost cartoonish: the man's empty hands remain folded across the bar, he slowly turns his head toward the young girl who has interrupted whatever internal, solo musing has been going on at the relatively empty bar, and he sniffs noisily as if to announce his malcontent at having been interrupted.

Before he can answer, Danny arrives with the second mixed beverage of the evening, the fourth unit of alcohol in total, and paper is exchanged for the fluid-filled glass. Returning the billfold to the posterior pocket of his jeans, Martin, who is not wearing his glasses tonight, turns back to pick up his drink and sighs.

"Have the rest of you been reading her LiveJournal or something?" he asks, and the only thing that might suggest that he has been very heavily into the sauce tonight is the fact that his speech is not as rapid fire as it may have otherwise been.

Or perhaps he's just thrown by Gabriella's approach to the conversation. Perhaps he had not expected this young girl who had asked if it was alright if she walked with him at an art exhibit to come charging into the Brotherhood and begin questioning him about her older sister, a role reversal so amusing that he forgot to laugh.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (i r crashing!)
to Gabriella Bellamonte, Ilari Martin

[Ilari Martin] (Score!)
to Gabriella Bellamonte, Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Gabriella didn't necessarily charge the bar with intent to interrogate Martin about his status with Katherine. She didn't even intend to truely interrogate him, when all things came down to it. She asked the question with something of a sly grin on her face, no grim set of seriousness to her jaw, no furrowed eyebrows or steel flint in those blue eyes that were so identical to Katherine's in appearance, yet so different in feeling at the same time.

"Oh no. I just know my sister, and know what I saw the other night in regard to how she was acting toward you-- up until she thought people were watching, anyways."

She turned her attention briefly to Danny and, when he had a moment, she smiled brightly at him and requested kindly a Sprite-- which seemed to be her favorite soda from the bar. Crisp and refreshing, thirst-quenching and it tasted so darn good. She could write a commercial for the stuff and sell it, and probably make quite a bit of money in doing so. Instead she'd rather live off her inheritance, play her violin and paint pretty pictures, and buy soda rather than sell it.

And she did look all the chic art student tonight, too. She dressed in a white cord-knit sweater dress that reached mid-thigh with black leggings underneath that were cut just below her knees, with brown winter boots that were mid-calf height to carry her across slush-riddled pavement from building to car, car to building. A loose chunky-knit cap colored in a bold shade of orange set atop her head, with loose waves of her light auburn hair left to spill down her back and over her shoulders, framing her freckled face nicely. She'd even accessorized to the point of having a necklace of thick orange beads to match the hat resting on her chest, which was flattered by the scooping neck of her sweater.

With her drink served and a bill passed to Danny-- she always refused change, left it to him as a tip, she took a sip and glanced over to Martin, eyebrows riding fairly high on her fair complected and fairly freckled face to show earnest interest. "So? Is it a fling, or is it serious?" Nosey, Gabbie? Oh yes. But come ON, it was her job as a younger sister to pry into her siblings' love lives!

[Gabriella Bellamonte] (( *Belated cheer for scene crashing* ))
to Ilari Martin, Lukas Wyrmbreaker

[Ilari Martin] Gabriella is far better at reading the minute details in the facial expressions of others than is the man sitting in front of her, of making sense of the underlying emotion carried in a canted head or a lifted brow. That said, it does not take a great deal of perceptive skill or grace with the finer points of human maxillofacial anatomy to realize that Martin is rather... entertained... by her. At the moment, anyway.

Who knows what it is, whether it's just that he was expecting some janissary of the Unbroken Circle, a member of which had just told him she would protect him from there on out, to sit down beside him and inform him that the likes of him were not to go anywhere near Katherine Bellamonte, that he was not to speak to her or touch her or even do so much as look at her, and as Gabriella goes on with her questions--questions, they are, for the sake of curiosity and not extinguishment of doubt or the illumination of evidence!--Martin continues to look upon her with amusement, although he adds a curious sort of levity to the situation by putting that tiny straw in his mouth and sucking on it rather than drinking as he normally does, as though it were a glass of water.

"We haven't discussed it," he says, and sniffs again.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas has been scarce around these parts since the night of the moot. Nonetheless, he's in tonight, coming down the stairs in drawstring cotton pants and bare feet, glancing through the kitchen door's porthole while he straightens his shirt in his hands, pulls it on over his head.

The Brotherhood is a casual joint, but perhaps not to the point of bare feet and what is very nearly sleepwear. Loungewear. Whatever you want to call it. Lukas probably gets a few strange glances as he crosses the dining room, grabs a stool next to Gabbie, climbs up on it.

The Ahroun smells of shampoo and soap and shaving cream: clean, his hair wet, his jaw quite smooth-shaven. On the way over he'd heard a few snippets of conversation, mainly: fling, or serious?

There's irony in this. Maybe that's what puts the crook into his polite smile as he leans his elbows on the bar.

"Mind me butting in while I wait for my breakfast?"

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Martin moved the straw of his drink to his mouth to take a drink, and Gabriella mimicked him, taking her own straw of her drink-- soda as opposed to his mixed alcoholic beverage-- between her lips and sucking away at it in time with his pulls through his straw for a drink. He stopped, though, to answer her with a vague but probably honest response, and she kept drinking. She was a little parched, she'd left her typical bottle of water in a classroom on accident rather than bringing it out to her car with her.

She didn't have much to say to his admitting they hadn't discussed it. She just dropped one eyebrow while the other stayed lifted, an expression of mild puzzlement, curiosity, and perhaps a touch of distrust in the situation, but not disapproval. That was nowhere on her face, that much he could be certain of even in his state of increasing intoxication. Perhaps she didn't know how to put into words what she thought about that, what she wondered, perhaps she was trying to think of the best way to do so.

However, Lukas came to sit beside her before she could come up with words to address Martin's response to her. She turned her head, straw still in mouth, to look at him, and that eyebrow remained lifted. He looked damp, as though he'd just come out of the shower, and smelled mighty clean-- the strong scent of shaving cream and soap rolled off him just as his Rage did. He leaned forward, elbow on the bar, and asked if he could interrupt. It was at this point that she released the straw and spoke.

"It depends on what you have to contribute to the conversation, Lukas."

There was a faint tone of jest there, mingled with something best described as 'being snooty', but this was the tone that she almost always addressed Lukas with. It was just the way they behaved with one another.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Absolutely nothing." And Lukas has his own tone for Gabriella -- when he wasn't dictating her life to her, anyway -- and it's rather cavalier, a little careless, with a distant sort of fondness as a man might have for a young and distant cousin. "I just came to eavesdrop. Hi, Martin."

He flags Danny down with a finger, orders a glass of ice cold milk. Then he continues: "So who's the other party in your equation, Martin?"

[Ilari Martin] He did not give Gabriella whatever answer she was looking for because, as she soon found out, there really was no answer to be given. Although she had seen as much as everyone else last night where Katherine and Martin were headed based on their body language alone, both of them open and intimate with each other without overtly and perhaps vulgarly touching in public, he does not brag of any ground they might have covered, does not attempt to slap a label onto what is "going on with" them.

What is he to say? That Katherine is ice, and he's a goddamn inferno? That she's the beauty of carefully chosen words and he's a hundred drums that won't stop pounding because they enjoy the sound of their own vibrations? That she's a sunset at the end of a day of deliberation and he is sunrise after a night of alcohol and cocaine and Gaia knows what else? That he's old enough to be her father and she shares a name with his daughter and when he looks at her she reminds him of one mate he's lost already?

So he does not say any of that. He looks up and over as the heavy Rage of Lukas leaves the kitchen and crosses the expanse of the dining room to join the two of them at the bar, and the conversation dwindles to a pause, starts up again; he says Hi, Martin raises his free hand to wave, the mottled fingers visibly trembling to those who happen to be looking at the appendage as it elevates itself for four seconds before dropping, and then he takes a slug out of his glass.

The straw is ignored this time.

Who's the other party in this equation, Lukas wants to know, and Martin sniffs, setting down his drink and leaning on his right arm. The man has some signs of life to him tonight, like his pupils being dilated and his cheeks being rosy. Then again, embalmed bodies look marginally alive thanks to dyed fluid; it isn't a natural infusion of health that has his winter pallor pushed aside.

"What equation might that be, Mister Kvasnicka?" Martin asks, the accentuation on Lukas' surname Russian rather than Czech.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas, as was customary, spoke briefly to Gabbie before turning his attention to who she was sitting with. This happened a lot, she noticed. He'd come over, sit by her, say something to her first, then turn his attention from her to someone else-- the person she was with, usually the person he was more interested in in the first place. She was a bridge to speak to them, a gateway, all but forgotten and ignored once the transition was made through.

Whatever, she was fine with this.

Lukas had his question, and Martin played coy about it.

And Gabbie sipped at her Sprite and went quiet.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Fling. Serious." His milk arrives and he sits up to chug it down the way a frat boy chugs beer, his throat working down gulp after gulp after gulp until the glass is empty. He waves for a refill and, while he waits for that, wipes his mouth with the edge of his thumb and smiles at Ilari, though now his eyes do not smile. Perhaps they never did.

"You know exactly what I'm talking about."

[Ilari Martin] As soon as Lukas utters the word 'serious' he's more or less abandoned whatever right to such a response he had might have had if he had kept it to 'fling.' Martin waits for Lukas to pound his milk as though there is a throng of strapped young men singing Down in one at him, knowing full well that to explain while the Garou's attention is on his sustenance is pointless, and he himself continues to work on his drink.

And then: a smile that doesn't go to his eyes, a clarification. Martin knows exactly what he's talking about.

"We've been trying to keep it a secret," Martin says, his tone becoming light and lecherous, "but young master Sam and I have become quite... close."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Lukas exhales shortly. "You know, if you would just answer my question, I'd likely file it away and never think of it again. It was merely a conversational question. But the longer you dance around it, the more concerned I'll get."

[Ilari Martin] He keeps hearing this. He keeps hearing that if he would just stop dancing around the subject that it would not cause quite so much distress for the person who is asking him the questions, but no one has stopped to ask him why he won't just answer the damned question in the first place. So Martin doesn't volunteer.

He chuffs out a touch of laughter and digs, "Concerned?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Well. No one until now.

"Why don't you just answer the question, Martin? Hm?" Lukas turns on his barstool to face the kin across Gabriella who, for the second or third time now, finds Lukas swiping her conversation. He was really making a bad habit of that. "Or if you won't answer, why don't you just tell me it's none of business, unless, of course, it is?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (fucking hell. none of MY business.)

[Ilari Martin] This guy is old enough to either know not to poke at werewolves who are in otherwise good moods, or to not care about the consequences of poking at werewolves who are in otherwise good moods. Martin sits on his stool facing Lukas as though he is well aware of the precariousness of his situation but without the verbal caution of a man who cares overmuch of the outcome.

"Well, it concerns one of your associates," Martin says, "so it very well could be your business. However, being as how the associate in question has not discussed it with you, I have to believe that there is a reason for it, and loose though my lips may be, a sunken ship with my name on it you shall not see. If it's your business you'll hear about it from this third party. Not from me."

[Gabriella Bellamonte] The interrogation was taken over by Lukas, who was more more direct and demanding than Gabriella was. She was curious, but she didn't need answers as Lukas apparently did. She asked two questions, and the second vague answer had her accepting that he wasn't at liberty to discuss, or he wasn't comfortable with doing so. Which was fine, she didn't push people's comfort zones when they obviously didn't want her to.

Lukas comendeered the conversation, and there wasn't much she could do about it. She could complain, even go so far as hit Lukas in the leg or something, but it would accomplish nothing. He would scowl at her, smack her hand away maybe, and go on with the conversation after telling her to go play with Lincoln Logs or Legos or whatever it was that kids did when the grown ups were talking.

So she sat still, sat quiet, sipped her Sprite, and listened.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There, Martin might have misread Lukas.

Because is not, exactly, in a good mood. He's not in a bad mood either -- this is not the tempestuous mood that followed his altercation(s) with Sam; this is certainly not the pitch-black mood that immediately followed the moot. This is ... well, perhaps it's best called a strange mood, a little off-balance, where the upper layers of his consciousness are in perfect working order, are clicking along, are focused as lasers. They're making plans and strategems, are trying to figure out how to put the pack back in order after the shakeup up top, and how to salvage the pack's reputation after that ghastly moot.

But down below, in the murkier, lightless regions that he doesn't bother with, something's off, something's a little different, he doesn't quite know how to put a half-dozen pieces or so back into the puzzle. One piece is shaped like Edward; one like Sam; one like Katherine; one like Danicka; and the last, like himself. He hasn't figured out where they go yet, or how they fit together anymore.

We digress.

There are few outwardly signs of any of this; Lukas' eyes are steady and focused. He studies Ilari for some time, and then -- and perhaps this surprises -- he inclines his head in a nod.

"All right. Fair enough."

His milk is refilled -- and look, his breakfast was coming out the kitchen door.

[Ilari Martin] It is not completely beyond the realm of possibility for Martin to have misread the Garou sitting two seats down from him. For Christ's sake, he's got enough problem trying to make sense of human beings, of the much more manipulative and deceptive Kinfolk who he has had a bittersweet respite from for half a decade now.

Christ, he cannot even read the deeper nuances of his own daughter's voice over a telephone line when he's sober. Sober, much of his life doesn't make any sense. He cannot figure out what the hell he's doing in the Brotherhood of Thieves when he gets there but half an hour later and half a dozen units of alcohol later he can look up and fully appreciate what it was that he was thinking.

But we're not going to get into that any more than we're going to get into the reasons why Gabriella will never fit into normal society, or why Lukas's mood is so mercurial. The three of them just sit there, quietly, two of them nourishing or replenishing themselves while the other one slowly commits suicide.

Fair enough, Lukas says, and Martin swirls the ice around his glass as Danny, poor Danny, dubiously regards that empty highball. Martin is not wavering, is not ranting, is not yelling. He is not falling forward like an old pine tree that cannot hold up any longer. The kid regards the Fang kinsman, and the Fang kinsman tilts the glass as if to appraise the situation before sighing and saying, "Yeah, one more."

Neither the teenager nor the Ahroun were there to see the previous soldiers go over the top and be mowed down. Martin sniffs, sighs, reaches up to rub at his eyebrow before turning back to Gabriella.

"So as I was saying," he continues, as though Lukas's interruption was a passing affair that occurred in a universe alternate to their own, "we haven't discussed it. I have reason to suspect that this person enjoys my company, a fact on its own I believe makes this person a candidate for involuntary psychiatric hold, but... well..."

Another barter, another trade of paper for booze, and Martin holds up the visibly strong drink as illustration of his point.

"There are those that would try and keep us apart."

[Sam] None of it makes any sense.

A collection blank spots in the circular puzzle meander through the back door, the sound of gusting wind sudenly flung throught the kitchen is cut off by the door sealing behind him. The Modi taps his shoes strongly on the mat, nodding here and there to the hurried but efficient staff as they mill around him during the rush that gives at least the strongest among the reason to shuffle about the Garou now in the entryway to their space. Sam moves through them, pulling steadily at the zipper to his thick blue hooded sweatshirt so that it fall partway open down the chest in the warmth relative to the chilly evening. His footfalls are almost rythmic, falling steadily regular until he reaches the restaurant proper.

There are familiar faces at the bar, each bringing to mid a completely different set of problems.

Because that's what Chicago is. Has been. Problems. Cascading and interconnected problems. That however is beside the point, a digression from the mission. The mission it seems is to have something to warm the stomach and Sam intends on completing it. On his way over he intercepts Jennifer, leaning close to speak quickly into her ear and nod toward the bar. The way the kinfolk pulls back is unnatural, a gut rection in getting space between oneself and danger. Though she composes herself well, puts on a smile and continues on the path toward the kitchen she was already taking.

For his part the Fenrir takes little time at himself crossing toward the rest. "Hey."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] "Hey, Sam." Lukas had been turned toward Gabbie and Martin, but as Sam sits on his other side he rearranges to make room for the other. Whatever else, this is as natural and thoughtless as breathing.

One of the staff slips in beside Lukas and Gabriella -- sets down Lukas' plate. Three eggs easy-over, a thin t-bone steak. Also, a glass of OJ, and hash browns. Hard to say if it's meant to be breakfast or dinner, or simply a fast ticket to a heart attack.

The Ahroun thanks the server, courteously, and then picks up his fork.

"Any word about Kate and Ed yet?" He means one thing in particular, of course.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Lukas subsided, let rest the conversation as he had promised. Once he got an answer that was something more than coy beating around the bush, he let it rest and dug into his breakfast as it arrived in front of him. Nine o' clock at night seemed a funny time for breakfast foods, for Lukas to be rising, showering, and eating hearty high-carb meals, but she supposed that things really did go bump in the night, and to prevent them from doing so, protectors of the world from such meanaces needed to wrap their sleeping schedule around these activities and rise at night as well.

Martin turned to speak to Gabbie. She had used Katherine's name, but Martin had expressed a strong want not to that she picked up on, so she would say it no more. She simply nodded to what the man had to say, glanced to the bare ice that clinked about in his glass, then spoke her response in a somewhat quieter tone of voice than what she'd been using earlier. She sounded thoughtful now rather than prying and curious. "So long as both parties are happy and healthy, I'm not troubled by it."

There are those that would try and keep us apart.

The smile she had here was small and distant, a ghost of what it could be, should be. It looked sad on a face that was normally so bright and cheery. "I can certainly empathize...."

Then Sam approached, and Gabriella's spine stiffened just so-- not only from having his pressing presence of Rage now officially sandwiching her in combination with Lukas's also considerable, also somewhat suffocating primal presence, but also from what she had learned a few nights ago. She was braced for tension, braced for bickering, and even braced for a physical fight. He greeted them all, then moved to sit beside Lukas, so now instead of being sandwiched she had a heavy tsunami-sized wave of Rage looming over her head. She dealt with it like a trooper, though, and sipped at her soda while nodding and lifting a hand to return Sam's greeting.

[Sam] "Jury's out." Flatly, staring back to the bottles arranged on shelves behind the bar. He might even be addressing them.

"but we'll push through," hushed. He turns to face his packmate, the midranges of his voice propagated through the whole sound. "Always do." His face is tight, showing only a purpose in it's not flinching. It's as though he's trying to give nothing away. To remain distant. Going out of his way not to show even a hint at what may or may not be right below. It's only a second though and he's turning slow back behind the bar, sidling up into the seat and waving someone over to bring him a drink. Between then and when the glass of room temperature sour mash arrives in front of him he does lean forward once to acknowledge the presence of the other two in their company.

[Ilari Martin] Another Garou comes out of the wings to take his place at the bar, sitting down next to Lukas rather than the kinsman who is already at a very similar place to where he was last night before he disappeared, leaving his jacket on the back of a chair entirely by accident. When he arrived home Martin hadn't a damned clue where his pea coat was, but there was nothing in it that he was terribly concerned about losing and so he assumed that if it was meant to be, if that coat loved him as much as he used it, that they would be reunited somehow.

Or he'll just go out and buy another one. It's winter, and right now he's wandering around in a suit jacket overtop another suit jacket because that ski jacket is far too bulky for situations like this.

Anyway.

Sam sits himself down on the other side of Lukas, and because he is not addressed by name Martin is perfectly content to have at his third 7 & 7 of the hour. He sniffs again, and he sits quietly and in an increasing fog. Attempting to make his way through the fog is causing him to look over-intently at the girl who is talking to him, as though what she has to say is interesting to the expense of everything going on around him and he nods as he digests this.

"That's an interesting choice of words for someone your age," is what he has to say about that, and he sets his drink down as he slides off of his stool. "Make sure those two apes don't slip rophynol or something in to my drink, I'll be right back."

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] We'll push through, Sam says, as though trying to convince himself.

Things have not been easy between Sam and Lukas lately. It could be any number of things. Dominance. Ed's absence. External pressures and rivalries. Girls. Septs. Wars. Not too long ago, they had fought, viciously, soaked the common room in blood. Not too long ago, Lukas had berated the whole pack for their supposed failures, going so far as to accuse Sam of challenging for Truthcatcher for the sole purpose of bandaging a broken heart; going so far as to bar Sam from not merely one, but all kin of the Shadow Lords. Not too long ago at all, Sam had openly declared a one-man mutiny, and Lukas had threatened dire retaliation.

In the end, though, Gabriella hit the nail on the head last night: they were packmates. And that's a bond that's hard to dissolve.

Lukas turns to Sam, looks at the towheaded modi for a while. Then he reaches out and claps his hand on the other's shoulder; the back of his neck: a roughedged gesture of camaraderie and commiseration.

No words need be spoken.

When the Ahroun's hand leaves the Modi, he tucks it under the edge of the bar, elbow up along the edge. Bad table manners, maybe, but this isn't a goddamn table; it's a bar. He picks up his fork and starts in on his eggs.

Ilari gets up, then. Goes to the bathroom. Lukas' eyes follow him, thoughtful. After about thirty seconds, the Ahroun gets up and follows.

[Gabriella Bellamonte] Martin gave Gabriella quiet the intent look while she spoke to him, and continued to do so until several long seconds later he spoke, said that her words were interesting for a girl her age. Then he rather boldly called Lukas and Sam both apes, requested sarcastically that she keep them from doping his drink, and stood to excuse himself to the bathroom, which seemed to be a place that he went quite often. Her guess was prostate infection, but she wasn't going to pull that into any sort of discussion.

So Gabbie fell back into silence, watched Martin's back as it disappeared through the bathroom door. Then Lukas stood beside her, drawing her attention to him. Her brow knited together a little in concern and suspicion as he followed the Kinfolk to the bathroom. She highly doubted that he just conveniently needed to take a piss.

Right as the door opened to allow Lukas in as well, she spoke to Sam, though her eyes stayed on the bathroom door, as though she could see through it into the forbidden realm beyond. "...Sam...? Please tell me Lukas doesn't intend to put Martin's skull through the tile on the walls?"

[Sam] A hand claps down on Sam's shoulder, he's similarly propped over the bar, staring back behind it and sipping a glass of whiskey. The instant before it touches him he seems to brace for it, not a reaction however of fear. His jaw sets, remains forward until the other's hands slides away from him. When it's gone he takes another long drink, rolling his necks around and circling his shoulders while he holds the burning liquid in his mouth. He swallows slowly, body language clear.

Because I am here does not mean I want you touching me.

A few silent moments tick by as Martin buzzes about at the perhiphery and seems to leave toward what one would assume is the restroom. The other figure, a closer shape rises and promptly follows. That exit though is, felt, rather than seen first. He sips, and he sips, almost finished already with his first. His blue eyes cast down into the glass before he sets it down and slides it forward away from himself for now.

Gabriella might not even think he'd been aware she spoke, but his lips draw inward to dry themselves and he speaks clearly enough, reaching up to scratch just under the hood of his outer shirt. "I couldn't say. Why, do you think so?" Eyes flick toward the bathroom, conveying a most unpleasant something hiding right beneath what's been placid thusfar.

[Ilari Martin] He's got to have some idea that he's being followed into the goddamn men's room when he gets down from his stool and pushes through the swinging door, a thousand dirty hands having touched the metal plate and surrounding wood already. There has already been a joke about drink spiking, a topic that has the very potential to piss off, enrage, even infuriate a duo who are driven by their need to defeat the Wyrm and all who seek to further decay the earth.

And now god knows what is going through the elder Ahroun's brain as he goes after one of the oldest members the Nation currently has in the city. Martin pushes into the bathroom first, rubs at a sore spot on the juncture of his lips before turning away from the door to take up a station at the urinals.

When Lukas comes in he's standing with his forehead resting against the tiled wall, whistling a song that would only be familiar to someone who was particularly enamored with classical music.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (fatal flaw!)
to Ilari Martin

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] (sorry, had a massive brainfart. with two dice this time *LOL*)
to Ilari Martin

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Sam's bristling is noted, though it doesn't change Lukas' behavior, nor the Shadow Lord's companionable silence. It doesn't last long, anyway -- Lukas leaves about 30 seconds after Martin clears the room. It's as much as a minute later when he pushes into the bathroom himself. The space isn't large, and it feels smaller still with the presence of the Garou.

He obeys the unspoken law of men's rooms: takes his place almost at the far side of the row.

By the time he finishes taking his piss, Martin's washing his hands. This time, Lukas takes the slot next to the kinsman, pumping soap into his palm, scrubbing. Guys don't look into the mirrors at bathrooms the way girls do, but even they have to look up now and then.

When Martin does, Lukas is staring right at him, his eyes preternaturally focused. The whole of his will bears down behind his gaze. There's an instant in which Martin can swear, he can swear the Shadow Lord's eyes aren't merely clear blue, ice-blue: they phosphoresce with their own light.

Then the Ahroun shuts off the tap, turns from the mirror, faces Martin directly.

"What is it?" he asks, softly, but without any room for denial. "Meth? Crack? Prescription uppers?"

[Sam] His question goes unanswered as Bellamonte the youngest gets what appears to be an urgent message and leaves Sam at the bar. Evidently not quite so concerned with her kinsman's safety as with whoever had decided to call. He calls over another drink, pursing him lips while he waits for it's preparation.

These few seconds are an eternity, eyes glance twice toward the bathroom door before he finally calls out over the totem link. Nodding to the ever-affable Mr. Coltrane in thanks for the drink while he makes the psychic inquisition of his packmate. Funny timing you two going in together like that." Impassive still even like this. Crackling with ozone and potential electricity the rolling storm that accompanies their flock rumbles over the mind link.

Just to make sure.

[Ilari Martin] It's sort of like a horror movie, the way Martin doesn't truly acknowledge Lukas the entire time he's behind him, as though the two of them are existing on opposing planes of existence and the only reason Martin knows that he is not alone in the bathroom at all is that the hairs on his arms and the back of his neck are standing up straight, that his hands are shaking more than usual--

(And they shake a lot. They shake as though he is a lithium patient, as though he has been diagnosed with Parkinson's disease, as though there is something wracking his body that he cannot help and at this point, after this long, he actually can't, not unless he admits there's a problem, and what grown man ever admits he has a problem in this country?)

--even as he stands at the sink and pumps that sickly sweet pink soap into his palms, lathering quickly, getting it between his fingers and when he looks up BAM there he is.

Martin inhales sharply, caught off guard but not completely startled: he does not flinch. In the mirror his own eyes are like black voids, that abyss Nietzche spoke of. There is no warmth in them.

What is it, Lukas wants to know as the kinsman turns around, and Martin's hands goes into the pockets of his jeans, a final act of self-preservation that only serves to draw attention to the fact that his skin is mottled.

All of Lukas's guesses only serve to deepen the scowl on Martin's face, and he finally scoffs at the last guess.

"What do you think I'm doing, snorting Adderall? Christ." A pause, his eyes darting away to gauge where Lukas is in relation to the door, and then he meets his gaze to line up another nail for his own stupid coffin, his tone sardonic. "Why, you trying to buy something?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] Just having a chat with Martin about his habits. The tone is distracted -- his attention elsewhere -- but there's a peculiar emphasis on that last word.

In the bathroom, Lukas' attention is steady on Martin; his eyes track the other's every step though he doesn't move toward or away. He doesn't need to. He knows, Martin knows, he knows Martin knows, that he could cross the entire length and breadth of the bathroom on the drop of a dime if he had to.

If he had to block the door. If he had to tear some poor fucker's face off.

"You uptown types go for that sort of thing, don't you? Pill-popping parties." Martin wants to know if he wants to buy and Lukas, this young man who is almost young enough to be Martin's son, this young Ahroun who is old enough to die for the Great Cause, laughs quietly, shortly, humorlessly.

"No." He does not want to buy. "But I've changed my mind. I want to know which of my packmates you've involved yourself with."

[Sam] "Mm." Over the edge of a glass set down onto the bartop. As though responding to an individual right next to him.

"Is it going to get physical?" [Do I need to get involved?] The cries of eagles might ring out between them, all of them. The Modi's face turns to the bathroom door fully in these seconds. Staring at it, through it, into it. Eyes narrowing at multiple possibilities. He straightens in his chair and traces the fingernails of his index and middle finger up and down the side of the glass.

[Ilari Martin] The expression on Martin's face is one of baffled bewilderment, as if he can't figure out what the fuck Lukas is talking about when he refers to Martin as 'you uptown types' and suggests that he goes to 'pill-popping parties,' but he shakes it away in a manner similar to the one children use to clear Etch-A-Sketches that have ceased to amuse and sniffs, waiting until Lukas continues on with whatever Lukas is going to continue on with.

He'll bide his time, you see, because Lukas is bigger than him, and stronger than him, and more likely to regenerate an eye being assassinated by a thumb than Martin is to heal from losing an appendage.

Lukas does not want to buy, does not want to deal with Martin's sarcasm, and now he's changed his mind. He wants to know which of his packmates Martin has involved himself with.

"Well, you're a smart kid," Martin retorts. "Figure it out: what sort of fucked up blood do I boast, and which gender do you think is least likely to beat the shit out of me for approaching its members?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] There's a silence on the totem --

Lukas lowers his head with a little smile, as if trying to hide amusement. Only perhaps that's not it; the gesture is affected, as though he were merely putting on the show of amusement, and not even trying very hard to put it on at that.

When he looks at Martin again, his eyes are not the least bit amused. He looks the other right in the eye -- if Martin can hold his gaze.

"If you were my kin," Lukas' tone is as level as the horizon, "I would beat you within one inch of your life now. And I would kill you before I let you defile yourself with another ounce of that shit."

A beat. The words hang in the air like a guillotine blade.

"Fortunately for you, you're Katherine's kin. Unfortunately for her, you are also therefore her responsibility. Doubly so if the two of you get involved. You might think your little habit doesn't affect her, but it does, and it will. If she cannot control her kin, she will be dishonored in the eyes of her peers. Think of that the next time you crawl into the shitter to snort yourself full of wyrm-toxin. Think of who else can see right through you, if I can.

"One more thing, Ilari." Lukas is cold as a glacier. "You will tell Katherine of your addiction, and you'll do it by the end of the weekend. Or I'll tell her for you. And believe me, you do not want her to hear it from me.

"Have I made myself clear, kinsman?"

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] -- and then, totemic: He should be out shortly.

[Sam] "He's Katherine's problem, so be sure he isn't bleeding when he does."

Again. Problems. The stout glass is raised up in front of his face upon propped elbow as if he's examining the transparent surface at a level microscopic. In a silent toast.

To the Fenrir.
To the Circle.
To Chicago-

and all of it's fucking problems.

[Ilari Martin] (WP: Keep Yer Trap Shut.)

[Ilari Martin] The entire time that the two of them are standing like this, Martin dressed like a man who's going to a viewing for a downed comrade and Lukas dressed like a man who is coming downstairs for breakfast after a restful night's sleep, it is very obvious that if Martin does not mind his manners, his tongue, and his role that this is not going to end well.

Lukas's request makes sense. And Martin can admit that. It will make the most sense for him to approach Katherine with his addiction--some camps would have it called an 'illness' but he hasn't been turned yet--but Lukas doesn't get him any further than that.

And that is when Martin stops listening. He is breathing visibly but not audibly, and he does, he does keep his eyes on Lukas as Lukas's gaze bears down on him, and when he asks if he has made himself clear, Martin barely stops to take a breath before he's off and running.

"I'm not sure if your exposure to the wide world of literature has done much more than stuck its toe past the editorial section of Maxim when you've been camped out on the 'shitter,' but the idea that I'm just going to be able to magically cure myself of this wyrm-toxin by... by what, going to a Trueborn who's still wet behind the ears because her Beta told me to? It hasn't come up yet. It's not affecting her..."

God looks out for children and drunks. Right?

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] When Martin goes off, Lukas does not look angry. He doesn't even look very surprised. He looks calm as a puddle, and patient, and he even listens. He listens, not because he's trying to remember this, or make sense of this, but because he's waiting for Martin to make a mistake.

And when Martin gets to, It's not affecting her--
When Martin gets there, he's made a mistake.

Lukas crosses the distance to him in three big steps. Lukas is several inches over six feet; his frame is nothing short of intimidating. When his hand clamps down on the scruff of Martin's neck, there is absolutely no twisting out of it. He turns Martin around on the end of his arm and, without letting go for even a second, drags him to the nearest stall, opens the door -- doesn't slam it open, just opens it -- forces the kinsman down on his knees and shoves his face into the toilet bowl.

And holds him there for a good twenty seconds.

Then he flushes. As the water level drops well below Martin's ears -- so he can hear clearly, and all -- Lukas says to him, dead calm:

"You'll tell her. Or I will."

He lets go. Sam can take this much as a consolation: Martin isn't bleeding.

[Sam] This is all too far away to reach the ears of the Modi.

He simply hums quietly to himself at the bar, still examining the door to the men's bathroom, head scanning every few second to watch for someone else approaching.

Nor do the wind sun and the rain...

[Ilari Martin] Martin likely will have trouble remembering this in the morning. Martin has trouble remembering a lot of things, like how it is he managed to park the damned car in someone else's spot the night before or why he woke up in Danicka's bed several weeks ago with his clothes on the floor and his heart pounding behind his eyes. And even if he does remember it, it will have been recorded through the haze of a drunken eye.

That doesn't mean that being grabbed by the back of the neck and shuttled across the bathroom doesn't ratchet home the fact that he's small, that he's not very strong, that he's as human as he's going to get and that Lukas is a monster. That he's been beyond this for so long that it makes it all that much more clear why he needs to watch his mouth.

Lukas forces Martin down onto his knees, and the drunken Fang fights, of course, he doesn't want to drown in a fucking toilet, but it's a very weak fight. It's the fight of a man who has to figure on some subconscious level that want to or not, drowning wouldn't be the worst thing that could happen to him.

For twenty seconds there is thrashing as an already oxygen-starved body begins to feel that it is not getting what it needs, that its cells are not transporting what the brain needs to survive, and bubbles begin to rush to the surface as the Fang tries to make room for an inhalation that won't accomplish anything.

When the water rushes free Martin gasps in a great whooping breath, his forehead thunking against the porcelain as he breathes, and Lukas voice comes to him as wind moaning through to a canyon bottom:

You tell her. Or I will.

"You gonna tell her when I get a staph infection?" Martin responds, sniffing and then immediately regretting it.

[Lukas Wyrmbreaker] The sound Lukas makes -- because all Martin has to go by is a sound; he can't see Lukas from this angle -- is either a scoff of a very quiet laugh. There's no reply. The Ahroun steps back from him, pausing to rinse his hands and his forearms, and then dry them off, before leaving the bathroom.

When he gets to the bar he gulps down the last of his milk, picks up his plate and his OJ.

"If you ask me, Katherine can do a lot better than him," he comments. "But far be it from me to dictate who gains entrance to the royal bedchamber. I'm going back upstairs." A wry smile; a joke Sam probably doesn't quite get. "I need to catch up on the editorials in Maxim."

[Sam] The Modi turns his gaze back away as the first of the men re-enters from the restaurant facilities. With the two of them again separated any curiosity at what the other full moon might be doing is given abatement at his return. He finishes the last of his own drink just as Lukas arrives at the bar. "Mm." Is the only reply The Shadow Lord is offered.

A tone not menacing but not light. Not flippant but far from concerned. Middle grounds and grey areas aren't things the Fenrir works well in and this calls for the order of a third and final drink to sleep on.

One for the road.