dinner invite.

[Lukas] Rack of lamb. Red wine. A good book. He used to do this all the time when they first got here, a pack of eight. They're a smaller pack now; but more savage, more uncompromising, older. Wiser. Or at least, more experienced. More jaded, maybe.

Still. Lukas can be found stretched out on the common room couch tonight, his long frame laid out on the long arm of the sectional. His head is pillowed on the armrest. His feet are crossed at the ankle all the way at the bend.

The book tonight is Many Waters, which is a children's book, or at least a young adult's. This copy is old and oft-read, a little tattered. The wine tonight is a good bordeaux. The lamb tonight comes from a steakhouse downtown, seeing as how the Brotherhood staff have taken a leave of absence. It's quiet without them. The kitchen is silent, the linen and storage closets no longer banging open and shut 'round the clock, the washer and dryer no longer rumbling all hours of the night.

Lukas leafs a page over. The sound is audible in the silence. He's reading onehanded; the other holds a single lamb rib, which he strips clean patiently, methodically, thoughtlessly. There's something visceral about his enjoyment of his food - a glimpse of the animal he is.

[Maija] This is a bad idea.
A really bad idea.

But she's run out of options, and she's had a shitty week, and well, of all the people she knows that will have weed - Charlie's one of them. Even so - this is probably the worst idea she's had in a long time. Yet her feet find their way up the stairs to the second floor of the curiously silent Brotherhood. She's confused by the stillness, and fingers tighten around the straps of her backpack, and she forces herself to take those last few steps until she's in the common room.

With the Shadowlord.
Fuck.
(thisissuchabadidea)

[Lou Cracka'Jack Perkins] Sheeeyit girl.. up the damn steps baby.

*She's anything but silent, gum chewed obnoxiously as she grins, directly behind Maija on the stairs. Teased hair and the smell of hairspray as she leans against the railing of the staircase and looks around. At 5'9 and 140lbs, Lou's not a bad looking black girl, though more than a little ghetto. Huge hoop earrings, bright make-up, teased curly hair and an overlarge sunglasses take away from what might be a pretty face. She's long limbed and lanky, hips rolling with languid lazy grace as she brushes past Maija makes to prowl the room, a jerk of her chin in Lukas' direction, and a snap of hubba bubba. She looks back to Maija. Noting the discomfort. Tilting her shades down and crowing.*

Baby girl? You got this?

*She shoves her hands in the pockets of torn washed out jeans. Too tight. Too torn. High leather boots and clingy black tubetop. Long nimble fingers complete with dragon lady nails. Animated, abrasive, and ghetto-fabulous.*

[Lukas] Right. So much for silence. Lukas strips the last of the meat from the bone. Thin, fragile, the lambsrib clacks back to the plate where he tosses it. His eyes never leave his book, but he wipes his fingers clean before turning another page. It's the last one in the chapter, see.

It takes Lukas only another few seconds to finish reading. Then he closes the book, remembering the page rather than bookmarking it. His forehead furrows as he looks up, reaching over his head to put the volume down. One and then the other, his feet touch down with light thumps. He sits up.

"Hey, Maija." At least he remembers her name. Then Lukas looks at the newcomer, openly curious. "I don't think we've met before."

[Maija] Baby girl? You got this? Maija flinches, visibly, and steps back out of Lou's way. She finds a spot out of the way, and keeps her gaze down, her fingers tight enough with the presence of Lukas, they now are knuckle white in the grip on her pack's straps.

"yeah, alright." She's got this.

Lukas says hello, and she nods, slightly. "Charlie." That's why she's there - and hey, room number three... that's over this way, away from the ShadowLord. She knocks lightly on the door - caught between hoping he's there, and hoping he aint.

[Kate] The soft aroma of Chanel follows in the subtle entry of the Silver Fang, her fair hair housed beneath a white knitted cap, falling in gentle waves as she steps up the final step into the common room, her gaze sweeping the assembled from beneath dark eyes, pale eyes resting for a moment upon the Bone Gnawer creature.

Katherine Bellamonte's lips twist a fraction, her amusement discreet before she walks toward her Alpha, a bottle of wine tucked beneath one arm, a red curl of ribbon tied about the neck. She holds it out toward Lukas as she nears him, and takes priority of a seat beside him, unfastening the ties of her coat.

"Bergerac, from the Sud-Ouest region." She offers by way of greeting, and then adds with a tiny gleam. "Maman is generous as always."

[Kate] (dark lashes, not eyes. Ugh. ahem. carry on!)

[Charlie] Maija doesn't come here often enough to have the schedule of the building's lone Theurge memorized, doesn't know that if the door to Room 3 is closed that the scrawny Black Fury probably isn't in there, yet she moves through the common room and down the hall anyway, only to find that the door is closed, just like the rest of the doors on this section of the hallway. The door is closed, the light is off, and one half of the room's occupants is not there.

He's coming down from the roof.

Having decided that it was too wet to do too much work down at the docks tonight, or else taking the night off, Charlie has apparently made the corollary decision to just stay high all fucking night. While the smell of secondhand smoke is not quite so noxious that it leads him down the stairs, the occupants of the common room can hear crackling coughing after the rooftop access door squeaks open, and the tramping descent of boots a moment later.

No one answers the door to Room 3.

[Lou Cracka'Jack Perkins] Naw, I 'un think so.

*Lou raises an eyebrow and looks Lukas over. His breeding like a storm front kicking her in the teeth. Shadowlord. She pauses in her prowling.*

Lou. Sept'a'the'Green they Call my fine ass Cracka'jack. Full moon cliath Gnawer baby.

*She jerks her chin to Lukas once more and then glances Kates way. Ugh. She goes back to looking at the book selection on the book case.*

[Maija] She no longer knows the schedule, and that's really ok by her, truth be told. She's here on a whim, a possibility, a hope that just maybe- maybe - he'll at least give her a contact number so she doesn't have to keep chasing down the jingling kinfolk that keeps trying to fatten her up.

No one answers - but there's a cough at the top of the stairs, and she whips her head around to see if that's the man (monster) of the hour.

[Lukas] "I think -- " Lukas begins, but Maija's already gone. Kate's sashaying into the picture, though, and with Lukas sitting up now, there's room beside him to sit. She drops down. Flounces down. Something. He takes the bottle from her as she offers it, holding it between his knees, turning it over between his hands.

"Very nice. Thank your mother for me. She's visiting?"

-- and right on cue, here comes the Fury theurge. When Lukas thinks Furies, he thinks the likes of Marrick and Syndel: tough women, often with a chip on the shoulder, independent, vicious in a fight, proud. He does not think skinny males with a slight slouch, followers, clever but rather unassuming. More than once he's caught himself thinking of Charlie as a Child of Gaia; maybe a Bone Gnawer.

"Hey," he calls. "Lights Out. Someone's looking for you. Maija."

[Lukas] "Sept of the Green. Know a fellow named Heals-by-Pain?"

She would, most likely. A Shadow Lord of a rank above Lukas's, the son of a mighty Ahroun Elder, a Theurge himself and, unusual amongst Shadow Lords, almost universally liked. Admired. Respected. Lukas's tone is neutral, though, an offhand comment. He doesn't seem to be looking to gush about a shared friend.

"I'm Lukas, called Wyrmbreaker. Same moon, and I bet you can guess my tribe. This is my packmate, Katherine Truth's Meridian. We're out of New York ourselves, but I was fostered upstate at the Sept of the Stark Falls," he quirks into a lopsided grin, "and Kate went to some Bostonian Sept where they brainwashed her into rooting for the Sox."

[Lou Cracka'Jack Perkins] Yeah, I hearda him.

* Lou straightens and looks at overlong dragonlady fingernails. They have sunsets on them. Classy. She pops her gum and looks at them both, dark eyes discerning. Hip shod, jaw working at a wad of gum noisily.*

So you motharfuckas live up ins or what?

[Charlie] Charlie has to be thinking that when Lukas says 'Maija,' he means Mia. Jeremiah. The kinswoman who was the focus of so much debate and attention at the last Moot, who the metis had stood up and attempted to claim after the matter of Black Fury elder had been settled.

He's been mistaken for just about every other tribe in the Nation but the one that actually claims him. Given the boniness of his build, the stains on his clothing, his tendency to keep getting back up when other people would have shown their throats, could very easily be a Gnawer; his wanderlust has him pegged as a Strider, his tendency to keep to himself has him confused for a Lord, his narcolepsy has had him mistakenly aligned with the Fangs.

Those rumors floating around about his sexual orientation can't help those who think that the quiet, intelligent young wretch is a Child of Gaia. But those who know of his deeds, who know of his reputation, knows that he is as much a defender of women and a servant of the Wyld as he is of Gaia. Before he came to Chicago, though, few people were speaking of his deeds. His quiet nature and his beaten posture, though... those don't match up with most people's approximations of what a Black Fury is. There is not much pride in his body, in his actions. He doesn't act as though he has something to prove. He's not a champion for the cause. If he's a leader, he's doing a damned good job of keeping it to himself.

That's neither here nor there. Maija's here for him, and Charlie sniffs, nods, and says, "Thanks, -rhya," before striding through the common room and into the hallway. That's where he sees it's Maija, not Mia, though he doesn't appear surprised.

He appears stoned.

"Hey," he says, scrubbing his face with his left hand, quickly, as though to help sober himself up. "Everything alright?"

[Kate] The woman at his side fits her body to the contours of the sofa, one hand idly pressed to her cheek, watching him turn the bottle over in his hands. Rosalie Bellamonte was many things; mother, kinfolk, widow, sister-in-law and, it could be justly said, frequently a generous benefactress to the pack over the years they had been bonded together. A genteel woman of a great dynasty, she had passed on to her children the gift of royal blood, if not to her elder child a similarly modest demeanor.

"Oui, she has come to catch a glimpse of her daughters, so rare are our appearances, apparently. She wishes you to come to dinner." A pale eyebrow rises. "She also has pleasure in including Danicka in that invitation, she remembers her far more than I from when we were younger."

Lukas introduces them then, formally, and Katherine's eyes turn to regard Lou coolly, her fingers absently trailing through strands of hair. She nods, barely, when her name is mentioned and a smirk draws at her lip at her Alpha's words, though she answers the Full Moon's rather crude query. "Lukas abides here, but I have my own home downtown. My younger sister is also boarding here, you might glimpse her. Gabriella is her name."

[Lukas] "I do. Room 2. Kate's -- "

answer for herself, is what Kate's doing. Lukas waits until she's finished, and then he adds, finishing her thought with the ease of long acquaintance, "In room 4. Gabriella.

"What about you? Looking to move in?"

And, aside to Kate, "Sure, I'll make time for your mom to pinch my cheeks." That's said rather wryly. Benefactress or not, Lukas can't imagine Rosalie Bellamonte pinching anyone's cheeks. "When and where?"

[Maija] It is Charlie.

She manages a breath, then, especially when the scent hits her. He looks stoned, and she looks like she could use nothing more in this moment then a toke or ten. She leans back against the wall, and tries to relax. It's Charlie, after all, and he was once nice to her. She remembers those moments - fleetingly. It's a rarity, though it happens more here than anywhere else she's been.

And then they die. Or disappear. Or do something much worse.
She's beginning to take it personally.

She nods, slightly, though. "S'fine." Her brow furrows, and she watches her feet, the carpet between them, anything other than actually meeting his eyes. "Was jus' wonderin.. I mean." Spit it out, Maija. "Mycontactgotbusted I'moutaweed yagotaguy?"

breath.
(thisissuchabadidea)

[Charlie] "Here."

[Lukas] (Best. Post. EVER.)

[Maija] (dorn I love you.)

[Charlie] [THANKS FOR THE PLAY NIGHT]

[Maija] Here, he says, and hands her a baggie. She catches it, barely, and he's slumping and heads into his room to pass out. She's left standing there - well. A little stunned to be honest, but hey, got the rest of his bag, and on her own, it'll last a damn week.

Score. Maybe it wasn't such a bad idea after all, though there's still a common room full of garou. She takes a breath, and pushes from the wall, pulling her backpack around so that she can get at a hidden bottom pocket. She's Gnawer - are you surprised? Of course not. She pulls her pipe free, and concentrates on packing a bowl as she moves to enter the common room again.

A bunch of murdering monsters can't hardly turn her in for weed, right? Right.

[Kate] "She will be pleased to hear it, I shall pass the message on. I dare say it will be held at some point this weekend at the Loft." The blonde's amusement is contained, a slightly wry note to match his own at the comment of her mother pinching his cheeks. Questioning him on his motives toward the young woman who had at one point been nanny to Gabriella was another, however and the Philodox found herself rather entertained at the prospect of such a dining endeavor.

The Bone Gnawer known as Lou departs, and Katherine voices her opinion of the other woman with a quiet sniff, fussing with the string of pearls around her neck, idly stringing them around her fingertips.

"Singular." She drawls dispassionately.

[Lukas] They're briefly alone and Lukas, who's known the Bellamontes since they were all late-teenagers, thumps his head back against the sofa with a quiet groan.

"The Loft? Come on, Kate, you know if we let your mother do dinner at home she'll drag us to Bellamonte Manor and lay out the whole dining hall, white tablecloth, fifty-foot table with seventeen forks affair. Let's take your mom out. There's a great little burger joint just down the street-- no, I know." He sits up; there's an unholy gleam in his eyes. "Let's take your mother to Hooters."

Then Maija's shuffling back into the room, packing a pipe as she comes. Some of Lukas's casual ease with his packmate is subsumed, transformed into the rather more courteous, respectable self he usually is. Some, but not all. "Did you find who you were looking for?" he calls to the Gnawer kin.

[Maija] She flinches. Its a reaction she can't control. It's a male voice - it's ShadowLord breeding, it's the fact that she knows all to well who he could be, and cannot yet reconcile it with who he is.. if he is, indeed, different. Her shoulder's tense, her spine straightens, and she looks up to the pair on the couch.

(...breathe, Maija...)

"Yeah."

She lifts the pipe a little, before she reaches around to stash the baggie with more green goodness into the hideyhole in her pack, and start searching her pockets for a lighter. What the hell.

"Gotta light?"

[Kate] Lukas sits up, and with an unholy gleam in his eye suggests --

"Dégoûter." Disgusting, she mutters beneath her breath at him, and delivers a smack to the back of the Shadow Lord's skull with her palm, her eyes glittering with the amusement she reserves for these more private occasions with her oldest surviving pack-mate, second only to her absent elder brother, Edward.

"I can just envision maman tucking a crisp dollar bill into the cleavage of some backwater bred waitress." The Silver Fang's mood alters as the the Kinfolk woman returns, drugs in tow and request a light. "I'm afraid I do not smoke," she replies with, archly.

[Lukas] With the instincts of the Ahroun he is, Lukas shifts forward just enough to make what would've been a smack a rather glancing blow that ruffles the hair at the back of his head. He smirks faintly.

"Seriously though. We should take her out to dinner. Though, if she insists on doing the formal dinner at home affair, let me know when, where, and if I should dress for black or white tie."

To Maija, then, "I actually don't carry a light either. But," and he gets to his feet, imposing with his height and the width of his shoulders, "we can probably get you sparked up off the kitchen stove downstairs. Come on."

Even at this hour, Lukas is light on his feet, rather nimble as he trots down the stairs. There's a spring in his step as he hits the stone floor of the large, cold kitchen. No one's been cooking here for at least a day or two, from the looks of things: all the pots of stock off the stoves, all the spoilables refrigerated or tossed out.

The Shadow Lord goes unhesitatingly to the stove, which lights after a few dry clicks. As blue gas flame spreads in a ringer around the burner, he rummages around the drawers and shelves for something - a skewer, a chopstick, something like that - to use as a makeshift match.

[Maija] Kate doesn't smoke. quell surprise. Maija just smirks, slightly, though it's hidden by her hand as she lifts it to tuck her hair behind her ears. Lukas, however, is shockingly more... accommodating. It should help her relax. It doesn't.

The idea though, is a good one - and while he is light on his feet and graceful as he trots down the stairs, she is silent, stealthy in an entirely different way. She is used to escaping notice, to hiding in shadows, lingering against walls, making sure not to draw any attention to herself. It's habit, it's one she likely will never break.

Downstairs in the kitchen, she watches him start the stove, and looks around in the odd silence. She slides up to sit on a counter nxt to the stove, out of his way as he searches for something to light.

The quiet is disconcerting. Enough to make her ask... "T'fuck is everyone?"

[Kate] Katherine trots down the staircase behind the pair, her bare feet nimbly taking the steps with ease, her shoes held in one hand, the edges of her coat undone so that light falls upon the white blouse she wears beneath, its lacy collars decorated with flowers, and beneath the transparent material, a simple matching camisole could be glimpsed. Modesty had always been something of a running joke surrounding Katherine.

The Virgin Queen, Lukas had once dubbed her, and the name had always somehow fit the haughty creature that wanders the length of the kitchen without laying a lily white fingertip to a single artifact within it.

"Was there not some incident here that closed business down? I recall Gabriella telling me of some such occurrence."

[Lukas] This puts a dent into Lukas's otherwise amiable mood; makes his rage shiver to life despite the black moon, the late hour.

"Kemp, the Fenrir, decided to prank this place with itching powder. We're not sure what set him off. It's presumably because he's developed an unreasoning hatred of the Brotherhood. The staff threw up their hands and left on a 'vacation'." Lukas comes up with a kebab skewer. One end held between thumb and two fingers, he dips the other into the flame, waiting until the blue ring shows a streak of orange. Then he passes Maija the makeshift match.

The gas flame has a reflection in Lukas's eyes. His irises are much the same color: a pale, vivid, incandescent blue.

"They'll be back by the end of the week," he finishes, and clicks the stove fire off.

[Maija] She glances at Kate as she follows them, and seems even more out of place in a kitchen. Sh strikes Maija as having never lifted a finger to do a lick of work her whole life - where Maija's known little else.

Lukas' rage shivers to life, and she's suddenly wishing she hadn't asked. She doesn't have anything to say about it, either. She has met Kemp, and it doesn't surprise her that he's involved, though she doesn't know him well enough to figure why. So she doesn't say anything.

Instead, she reaches for the makeshift match, her fingers brushing Lukas' as she does so - they're cold, ice cold - and then she lifts the pipe to her mouth sets flame to sticky green, and inhales deeply. Her eyes close as she does so, her fingers automatically sliding over the bowl to dampen the flame as she holds the smoke deep in her lungs. And holds. And glances at Lukas, and offers the pipe to him and match to him, before she turns her head to the side and exhales slowly.

Muuuuuuuuuuuuch better.

[Kate] Katherine's eyes were something of a match for her Alpha's, though they tended to reflect far more of a capricious nature; her quick wit was often matched by her instability of mood. There were times, however, such as now, when her tongue was as rapier sharp as her mind -- honed for deadly accuracy.

"What brilliance." She laughs, a silvery chime of mockery. "This from one placed above us all in rank. What a standard he sets to those beneath him." The Silver Fang scoffs, a clear sound of contempt for the no moon's trickery. "Respect the territory of another indeed."

[Lukas] Lukas takes the 'match' back, shaking it out with a few swings of the wrist before pivoting on his heel to drop the scorched skewer in a wastebin. For all that he doesn't smoke cigarettes, the Shadow Lord pulls back on the weedpipe like he has some experience at this. And he does. Kate's wastrel brother, while not the glorious and visionary Alpha Lukas had thought him, was a first-rate libertine and hedonist. Lukas had kept pace with Edward shot for shot, hit for hit, through many a long night.

It was when Edward started peeling bills off the roll at the gambling tables that he far outstripped his then-Beta.

Lukas hands the pipe back to Maija, letting out a slow, smoky exhale. "Curata and I, and whatever residents are willing to go along, are going to seek Truth-rhya out about this." A shrug of his shoulders, somewhat unconvinced, "Maybe he'll enlighten us as to what his reasons were." He heads back toward the stairs, taking them two at a time back toward the common room and his cooling, and very late, dinner.

[Maija] She takes the pipe back, and nods slightly, before she hops down from the counter. He heads upstairs, and she hitches her pack back into place on her shoulders. She glances at Kate, then to Lukas.

"Thanks." She says - likely for the help with the match - before she turns to the door to let herself outside to begin the long walk home.