Just off Dupont Circle there's a little independent gas station by the name of Charley Joe's. The logo is a cartoon gasman with a manic grin, very 1940s. The slogan is Service with a Smile, and while the smile part isn't always true, the service part still is. Rare to find a full-serve gas station these days, but CJ's has kept to the old ways. The quaintness brings in customers. So do the low prices.
Not much business tonight, though. The Shell across the street, 10 cents pricier on every grade of gas, is mysteriously attracting twice the customers. Maybe it's the car wash. Or maybe it's the fellow CJ's has working the pumps tonight: a veritable and literal beast of a man hunkered at the curb of the pump island. His torso is triangular in the one-piece station uniform. His hands are brute-knuckled weapons of mass destruction. He looks like he might be able to twist one of those pump nozzles into a pretzel with a little effort; he also, for some undefinable reason, makes people suspect he might want to attempt the same with their femurs.
Well; there's this at least. He's smiling. He's a cheerful serial killer, apparently. He's even waving at passing cars in an effort to flag down business. It just makes them drive away faster.
Celia de LucaSome of the cars that come by CJ's are the finer sort. People with tinted windows and American flags, people who can't get off their phones long enough to get a decent meal, much less pump their own gas. People with drivers who do that sort of thing anyway. One of those cars -- long and black, the windows pitch dark -- is the next one flagged down by Erich, not turned away by the man for some reason. It slides toward him, rolling to a silent, smooth stop. The chaffeur up front takes a pause and rubs his face, pinches the bridge of his nose between tired eyes. He has been driving for what feels like forever.
At first, as Erich sets to work, there is nothing unusual about the car or its occupants. Nothing even visible. But something niggles at his senses from inside. Something to set his teeth on edge or his hairs on end. Something that's hard to place, whether it's an invitation or a warning, whether it's addressed to his rage or his spirit or his body or his mind. The bottom line is that it's distracting. It's annoying. And there are Garou who would instantly name it the Wyrm and prepare for battle. Maybe Erich does.
The pump shuts off, the cap gets screwed back on, and the front window rolls down so the chaffeur can pass along payment to Erich. That strange sensation grows an iota stronger, becomes more of a scent that hangs at the very edges of the Lord's ability to perceive it and name it. If he were in another form he might be able to. Not like this. Not when he's trapped in the guise of a human.
Payment changes hands and the window starts to roll upward again. The car prepares to leave, never hinting at who warrants the driver, the car, the government plates -- unless Erich were to try and hunt down the name assigned those plates. And then the back driver's side door opens, even as the chaffeur's window is rolling up.
A girl gets out. She's a girl because she's young, and because something in her bearing slaps anyone who views her in the face with a sense of maidenhood on the breathless, anticpatory edge of corruption. First the scent, when the door opens, finally overwhelming his nostrils and the part of him that met Thunder instead of Fenrir. Pomegranates. Rich, black, wet dirt like you find beneath vineyards or in graves. Spring raining and twisting and heating itself into the arch of full summer, not so much fresh and bright as humid and blood-stirring.
Scent first. Then wrist and hand reaching out, setting a pair of high white heels on the ground. Then slender feet encased in sheer black silk hose, slipping into those heels one at a time. The girl, the maiden, rises out of the car slowly, wearing a cream-colored wool coat with gleaming black buttons, though it hangs open around the shimmering blue wiggle dress that wraps around her hips, tightens around her waist, lifts her breasts. She has a clutch, glittery and black. Looks down over her shoulder at whatever statesman is in the car and smiles at him. There's a pinkness in her cheeks, not merely a blush but the color of arousal, and it complements her shy smile well. Her fingers wiggle-wave a goodbye.
A thick hand, male, wearing a gold ring on his third finger, wraps around the handle from the darkness inside and pulls the door closed when she's out of range of its swing. The chaffeur takes off a moment later, the same slow roll they entered the station with. Erich is treated as a non-entity the way scary men often are by lone women who only barely feel sane or safe in their presence, and the girl starts to open her bag to dig around for her phone.
He'd know her anywhere, of course. Not from memory, unless an ancestral one. It's not hard to believe that the god of death himself would leave hell, erupt the earth, and drag her down with him from want turned to madness. It's harder to see a girl like that as the queen of hell or the queen of the Amazons, but it's a bit titillating to imagine her as a bacchante. To any mortal man she would look a bit empty-headed, flighty, unable to find her phone even in such a small purse, but Erich knows she belongs to the Furies. And unless she's a very, very late-blooming Ragabash, she certainly isn't Garou.
Her brow wrinkles, and her lips pout when she finally finds her phone. "Oh, no," she says, to no one. "It died." And acknowledges Erich for the first time, swinging her head to look at him, thick hair brushing over her coat in loose curls. "Do you have a charger?"
Alexei Ojala
(May I join?)
[i'm down with it. they're at a gas station just off Dupont Circle.]
Alexei Ojala(Ah he has a resturant there)
Celia de Luca[good with whatever]
Alexei Ojala*Lex pulls up at the petrol place to fill up his bike. He gets into the queue to wait his turn. Is wearing leather trousers and a jacket and has a nice helmet as well. His senses though are alert and he glances around a moment.
Moves closer to getting his petrol as some people ahead of him finish up*
Alexei Ojala(If you are both wolves, what is your rage? I can roll to recognise garou)
Erich ReinhardtBusiness! He has a customer. Erich is up on his feet in a single motion; he looks delighted. Of course he does. Probably the first customer of the hour, if not the night, and a car like this, a car that would turn heads where he came from, that would raise eyebrows back in that podunk little town he was born in, that would stir up gossip for days and days and days on the streets of his little midwestern hometown -- well; a car like this tends to have a big ass fuel tank. Which means a good tip.
So. He puts on his best smile. He has the pump in hand by the time the limo pulls up, but then
the wheels roll to a stop and the smile on his face stiffens, falters, falls off. He looks quizzically at the driver. He frowns into the limo, but he can't see anything, of course. That's what the windowtint is for. That's what the privacy screen is for. That's what the limo is for. Erich stares anyway, stares until the driver hands him a hundred-dollar bill to get the pump going. Then he inhales sharply -- not quite a sniff -- and straightens up.
"Get to you in a sec," he calls to Alexei, offhand, habitual. Not his first time working a pump. Inside the limo, the passengers hear the distant clank as the gas cap comes off, as the pump goes in.
Minutes go by. And Erich stands at the flank of the limo, frowning at the pump. His fingers tap restlessly. He thinks about bashing in a window with the pump handle. He thinks about ripping the top off the car. He thinks about these things, and then the pump clicks off, and he looks up. He puts the nozzle back on the pump; he goes back with change and is given a generous portion back as tip.
"Have a nice night," he says, and the chauffeur rolls his window up, and the back door opens.
See the way he pivots; smooth, balance on the balls of his feet. See the readiness in his stance, the quick feral tilt of his head. Tentacles don't come rupturing out of the back door, though. White heels come out. Erich's head tilts a little further, and -- let's just admit it -- he enjoys the view. He enjoys the view all the way up the ankles, the legs, the hips, the breasts -- he quirks an eyebrow at the face.
The limo pulls away. The girl is left there. At a gas station. At this time of night. Wearing heels, looking too young. Erich makes assumptions.
"Roxanne," he deadpans, "you don't have to put on the red light." Then he smirks. "No. But you can borrow my cell if you really need to make a call."
And he waves Alexei forward. "Unleaded, Plus or Premium?"
Erich Reinhardt[erich is a werewolf. rage 8.]
Alexei Ojala(per)
Dice: 2 d10 TN2 (9, 9) ( success x 2 )
Alexei Ojala*Ok he knows Erich is a wolf but doesn't make any nod or anything to him as he has never seen him before in his life. As he is kin he shouldn't be so bothered but the mega rage has him on edge. It trumps his willpower anyhow*
Celia de LucaShe asks him for a charger. He calls her Roxanne, then smirks, and she looks confused. Her hand waves the little phone at him, the red light on it blinking anxiously. "No, I... my name isn't Roxanne. I didn't turn it on, it just does that when the battery is low."
In heels -- in those heels -- she's model height, only average otherwise. She turns on them toward the man on the bike, glancing at him, then her feet bounce a little in tiny steps after Erich again. "I could call a cab," she says, like he cares. She says it like it's a suggestion, proving that she's a big girl and she knows things about cities and calling cabs and so on. "I just don't know where I am. I might be able to walk. So I need the map on my phone. Does your phone have maps on it?"
He works at a gas station. Looks like he may break noses for fun. Looks like he might only be able to afford some shitty prepaid flip-phone with no 3G, much less 4G. She makes assumptions, too.
Alexei Ojala*Stays to his own queue a bit nervous. His tuurn arrives to pump and he does, paying by bank card at the pump and doing so hastily to just make space and get out of there. Its such high rage he's surprised anyone even comes here or the man gets a job*
Erich ReinhardtErich almost facepalms. He might have, but he's wearing big work gloves that stink of gasoline. Anyway, a too-young virgin-offering of a kinfolk hooker climbing out of the back of some Washington scumbag's limo is too depressing to inspire facepalming.
"You've gotta be kidding me. Sting might be a little too culturally significant for you, but Moulin Rouge wasn't even that long ago." She's lost, she doesn't know where she is, she hopes his phone has a map. He stares. He doesn't hand his phone over after all. He points at the pump island curb. "Sit. Just sit tight. I'll get to you after this guy. How old are you? How did you end up a working girl? How are you still alive?"
He doesn't wait for an answer. He waves Alexei up again, but then the guy wheels himself to his own pump and starts trying to pay.
"Hey. No. HEY." Erich's fist THUDs into the nearest pump; if that doesn't get Alexei's attention, nothing will. "This is a full-serve station, buddy. You wanna skimp on tip and pump your own gas, there's a Shell across the street." He points helpfully.
Alexei Ojala*Like hell anyone would come here and get full serve* No you are just so damn scary! I tought I could
Alexei Ojala(I didnt know what it was ooc either)
Alexei OjalaIts not that, I'm just scared ok I will give you tip, yes. *His english degrades a bit as he starts to forget it and he is shaking a little*
(You have rage 8 its a big deal)
Celia de LucaVirgin offering. Yes. That's what she smells like, at least to him. Something else, to those of her own tribe. Other memories. Other meanings of what a virgin is, what an offering can be. But it's an appropriate, even accurate way to describe the scent of her. Something to be stolen. Something to be given away.
Or bought.
"I wasn't allowed to watch that," she says primly, and a bit sadly. He wheels on her though, and points at the curb. Tells her to sit. She looks at the grimy, gritty, grease-stained cement and then back at Erich, her gaze somewhere between reproachful and doubtful. Then the questions, three in a row, and she opens her mouth to answer and instead
lets out a sharp yelp as he starts barking at Alexei. She nearly drops her phone, clutching at it with both hands and dropping her purse instead. It flaps to the ground but it's a flat thing, holding little, and nothing falls out. The top flap, held in place with a magnet, doesn't even open up. The color, initially so high in her cheeks, has faded.
Erich Reinhardt"No, you don't have to give me a tip unless I pump your gas," Erich explains to Alexei testily. Metal clanks off metal. The sound ricochets like a bullet. Erich has the gas nozzle back in hand, brandishing it. "And you can't get gas here unless I pump it. So do you want gas or not? Hurry up and make up your mind. I've got an ivory-tower princess who wasn't allowed to watch Moulin Rouge to deal with here."
Unsurprisingly, there are no cars waiting behind Alexei. He's the only customer here. Again.
Alexei OjalaIs ok you pump gas *Then tries to make himself look smaller, less edible, hehe* I am sorry I didnt know. Yes I want gas.. spaseeba oh it means thank you.
Erich ReinhardtOh and: Celia drops her purse. Erich just watches it go, splatting on the ground like the world's least aerodynamic dove. Then he smirks.
"Hey, there you go. You can sit on that if you mind the concrete so much."
Celia de Luca"You are being mean," says the aforementioned princess, the little furrow in her brow of confusion turning into a little furrow of annoyance. She bends to pick up her purse, but not in the most ladylike way possible.
See, a lady would bend her knees and lower her rump, and those knees would stay together and turn to the side. It would be elegant, dropping smoothly like that to gather her purse and rise up again. Maybe Erich is right and she is a hooker, because her knees only bend a little as she leans over, folding at the hips instead, plucking her clutch from the asphalt. She's glaring at Erich when she stands up, though there's a shadow of wariness in the corners of her eyes, in the solidity behind the veil. Her hand comes down, tugs the hem of her minidress back down the inch or two it rode up her thighs.
She tosses her hair off her shoulder. "All I asked was if you had a map on your phone," she says. "You are a jerk," she adds, scathingly, and starts walking away. Clearly she knows not where, since she doesn't know where she is, but all the same: off she goes.
Erich Reinhardt"I know what spasibo means," Erich replies, waving Alexei forward a likely reluctant few feet. Then he unscrews the cap on the motorcycle's gas tank and jams the nozzle in. "Figured it out the last time Putin's delegation was in town." He jerks a thumb at the pump, "Unleaded, Plus or Premium?"
He hits a button when Alexei makes up his mind. Or if Alexei isn't quick about it, Erich just hits Premium. Bigger tip, after all.
So far, he's called Celia a Roxanne and an ivory-tower princess. He's thought of her as a hooker, a virgin sacrifice, a hopeless little ditz, and -- more than once -- Little Red Riding Hood. He has not thought of her as a lady, no matter the designer on her purse or her dress, no matter the height of her heels. He's not surprised when she doesn't crouch like a lady. He's not above dropping his eyes to the rising hem of her dress, either, but god help Alexei if the man took advantage of his position behind her to get an eyeful.
The glare goes unnoticed, seeing as how he's still watching her hand tug her dress back down. But the click of her heels does not. His hand shoots out; the other is still on the pump, which is steadily feeding gas into Alexei's bike. Erich grabs Celia by the crook of the elbow as she starts off. He hauls her back, whirls her around, puts her spine to the gas pump. He's not particularly gentle about it all, though at least he isn't actively trying to give her a concussion.
"Okay. Maybe I'm a jerk. But you're still sitting tight."
Alexei OjalaWhat ever is good for my bike *He nods quickly not minding which one as long as its good. His heart is racing but he just sits there partially frozen. He is a kin but has no breeding, however he does have a feral look to him*
Celia de LucaAnother yelp. This one, though, has an edge. So do her eyes, when she whips her head around to look at him. They're not dark almonds in her face, surprisingly light, but the way she looks at him is... animal. It has teeth, it has a regal wrath better suited to a priestess than whore. She still looks afraid, and it hurts when her back hits the pump. Now he might know how she's stayed alive. She doesn't crumple, doesn't go limp, but she goes quiet. She swallows, hard, and her chin is lifted a bit. The girl is watchful, and truth be told her heart is pounding, but some instinct tells her that Alexei isn't going to be any help here. No one is.
"I don't want to," she says, her voice level but quiet. She meets his eyes, which is... weird. Weird feeling, like being looked at like a ghost. Like being implored by some storybook-style angel. She doesn't say please. She doesn't need to. "You're scaring me."
Alexei Ojala(Lag test)
Erich ReinhardtSo Erich punches the Premium button. And Alexei's tank starts filling, and meanwhile Alexei seems to be doing his best to pretend Celia, and whatever drama was playing out between Celia and the Big Guy In the Gas Station Coveralls, doesn't exist.
That drama takes a fresh little turn just now. She's yelped, she's pitterpattered around on four-inch heels, she's dropped her purse out of apparent fright. And then she goes and looks Erich, whose rage is like the heart of a hurricane, the center of the sun, right in the eye.
Tells him no. Most girls, most men, most people in this entire metropolitan area, would have slid down on their asses and waited.
"I'm sorry," he says, and it doesn't sound like an apology; it sounds more like a too bad, "but it scares me when girls with your -- " he's quite aware of Alexei's presence, and Celia can practically hear the air quotes around the words, " -- 'family ties' climb out of the back of some Capitol Hill slimeball's limo and start tottering off into the night on heels you couldn't even run in if your life depended on it.
"So sit tight, and I'll get you where you need to go after I finish pumping Boris here's gas."
And right on cue, the gas pump ticks to a stop. Erich lets Celia go and glances at the meter.
"$18.66 for a four-gallon fill-up," he tells Alexei helpfully. "Tip is usually fifteen percent or more."
Alexei Ojala*Shaking he hands him his bank card to use for the thing* Yes take 20 percent.... *Trying to be more amicable about it*
Celia de LucaShe might tell him, insistent, he's not a slimeball, but for the words 'family ties'. Knows that look then, and that sensation. Erich still has his hand clenched around her elbow, which is slender but not frail, and Celia doesn't argue, though she looks at him with something close to hatred hiding behind that veil in her eyes. Hard to say if the hatred is really for him, or if it's hatred at all. There is that veil, after all. That strangeness, because there is no breeding like the breeding of Fury kin. Somehow it always seems untouchable, unassailable,
and incomprehensible.
She presses the tip of her tongue to a tooth and the pump clicks to a stop and he lets her go. Glances at Alexei from behind Erich, then exhales. Looks away from them both, up at the crescent moon, and Erich isn't looking at Alexei isn't looking but there's something very intimate about her eyes on the moon then, as though she and it are having some kind of secret conversation.
Still clutched in her hand, the red blinking light on the edge of her phone dims and dies to nothingness.
Erich ReinhardtWHAT IS THAT I SEE IN YOUR EYES?
I have THIS many dice.
Dice: 2 d10 TN6 (6, 10) ( success x 2 )
Celia de Luca[She's powerless right now, she knows it, and she hates it. May even hate him for it. Also: scared. Cuz of reasons.]
Erich Reinhardt"How about I just put an even twenty-three bucks on your card?" Erich says, which doesn't seem much like a question at all. And there's a moment,
just a second or two while Celia is looking at the moon and Erich is looking at her,
and then he takes Alexei's card and heads into the station's little attendant booth. Even in those shapeless coveralls, a big CHARLEY JOE'S stamped across the back, Erich's body is visibly the outcome of brutal, uncompromising war. He's art the way Sun Tzu interpreted the word. The booth's door opens, slams shoddily shut. No minimart here; no dirty bathrooms, not even a rack of porn mags. Just a tiny booth the size of an outhouse, which houses an old cashier's register and an almost-as-old credit card reader, which still has an audible modem attached. It dials, it wheezes and beeps, and a little later it spits the receipt out, which Erich carries back to Alexei.
"Sign," he says, handing the man a slip of paper and a pen. And when the authorization is signed, he passes the receipt over. "Have a nice night. Come again. Now get lost; we're closed."
Alexei Ojala*He writes his name as Alexei Ojala then hands it back to him. Now he knows his name, hehe. Nods and obediently gets lost. Faint look to the lady as in, sorry hope he doesn't eat you.*
Alexei Ojala*Also gets his card back too, hopefully, and zooms along down the street*
(Bye bye, thanks for scene)
Celia de Luca[Thanks for joining!]
Celia de LucaOnly two customers tonight. A limousine and a motorcycle. Both of the vehicles held kin, but even if Alexei were not bereft of breeding, this girl's would have drowned the scent of him in her own. It's hard to sense anything else. It dims even the gasoline. Somehow it makes winter seem more bitter, like the mother's cold revenge upon the earth it was in mythology.
Celia hasn't moved. The bike roars off and she flinches slightly, turning to look at Erich again. He called her ivory a moment ago; she seems more like marble.
"What do you want?"
Erich ReinhardtSomehow the question irks Erich; gets under his skin in some way. As Alexei zooms the fuck out of sight -- wisely, one might say -- Erich flicks Celia a glance and then unzips out of his CJ coveralls. They're not his; the name sewn into the breast pocket is Kevin. Celia doesn't know his name isn't Kevin, but Celia has eyes, and Celia can see Kevin's a lot bigger around the middle. His uniform is baggy and misfitted on Erich, and then it rumples to the floor and Erich steps out of it.
"Terrorize, rape and kill you. Is that what you're expecting to hear?"
He grabs the uniform off the ground and bundles it up, crosses the short distance to the attendant booth again and stuffs the uniform inside. Leans in. Grabs some master switch and pulls it. Lights go off. Valves clank. That faint, insidious hum of underground pumps dies down. Erich shuts the door and locks it with a key, and then tosses the key back under the door.
He comes back, in street clothes now: blue jeans and work boots, a pullover sweatshirt with a quarter-zip collar. Car keys in his hand. He nods Celia toward the street; there's a white Mustang parked there, a late-90s/early-2000s model, white, black racing stripes. Sorta weird color scheme, but no one in their sane mind is going to tell Erich that.
"Because I want you not to get terrorized, raped or killed. Get in the car. I'll drive you where you need to go, unless you're going back to your pimp. If you're going back to your pimp, I'll pull his guts out through his eyesocket and drive you to a women's shelter."
Celia de LucaShe tenses as soon as his hand goes to the zipper of the coveralls. Viciously, almost, her body coiling as though she's going to attack or show him that yes, she can fucking run if she needs to, those heels don't have an ankle clasp. Either way, she's preparing for something, and she doesn't care two bits about the name on his coveralls or what size it is.
His words pull a sound out of her. Disgust. Disgust, disdain, fear, and that hatred spiking even harder around her. Loathing now, a seething thing that is only growing the more he talks. Cocky, smirking, throwing at her what he thinks she expects just so he can turn around and -- ooh, surprise! -- tell her that's not what he's about. Good for him, she thinks.
"Good for you," she says flatly, to his pronouncement of what he actually wants. "Though you've already terrorized me, so perhaps refrain from patting yourself on the back prematurely. You could have as easily given me your phone to check a map as grab me and throw me against a pump."
Erich Reinhardt"You call that terrorized?" Erich laughs; it's harsh. "Man, you're just the definition of sheltered, aren't you? You -- "
he breaks off there. It's not entirely clear why. But he does, and then there's a silence, and he's looking off toward where his car sits in the darkness. The muscles of his jaw flex for a moment. He turns back.
"I'm sorry I dragged you back," he says. This time he sounds like he means it. "Seemed easier than trying to convince you to stay in front of some human on a bike whose gas I was trying to pump." Then a hardening in his tone: "But don't act like you actually think I threw you against anything. You know damned well you wouldn't be walking if I was trying to hurt you. I know what I did wrong, and I know what I didn't do."
Celia de Luca"Vaffanculo," she all but spits back -- to his truncated mockery, his apology, the hair-splitting over whether he threw her or meant to hurt her or not, or all of the above. Anyone who has seen The Godfather, and a great many who haven't, know what that means. She doesn't say it like she thinks he's ignorant of her meaning.
Celia de Luca[addendum!]
"You aren't sorry," she levels at him. "Whether you 'threw' me or 'meant to hurt me' or whether I'm 'sheltered' -- none of that even enters into it. You were wrong. Full stop. You don't disclaim an apology and I'm not about to help you cover your ass by pretending it's legitimate."
Erich Reinhardt"Actually, I'm really sorry I dragged you back now," Erich snaps back, "because you are a royal, self-righteous pain in the ass.
"We're at P and 22nd just off the Dupont Circle. If you walk two blocks that way," he stabs a finger, "take a left, and walk another block, you'll be at the subway. Or," he pulls his phone out and thrusts it at her, "you can call yourself a goddamn cab. Either way, your own tribe can worry about why the hell you're climbing out of limos with Wyrmy senators. Not my fucking business."
Celia de Luca"Sounds like you've learned a valuable lesson," she retorts, taking the phone he stiffarms toward her. Hers is dead, after all. She isn't even looking at him at the end, turning on the phone's screen and looking at it instead of him. "And my tribe knows perfectly well why I was in that limo," she mutters, if only to give her breath something to do other than shudder in and out of her lungs. Fear and loathing are common bedfellows, and she knows the product of their mingling all too well by now. The girl, whose name is not Roxanne any more than his is Kevin, exhales and shoves the phone back at him.
"Unlock the screen, please," she says, her voice tight with the energy it takes to stay level.
Erich Reinhardt"Why were you in the limo?" - that gets snapped back as soon as she's done talking, thoughtless, reflexive, fighting for the sake of fighting. It's not until a silence settles, and his phone gets passed back, and he gets asked,
please,
to unlock the screen, that some gear in his head clicks. He unlocks the phone by rote, pushes it back. "They deliberately put you there?"
Celia de LucaShe takes it back. She's not looking into his eyes now, like she was when he grabbed her. Like she was when she asked him to let her go, he was scaring her. Not once has she really... lied. There's that veil, but it's no greater a barrier than anyone's guards. Hers may be higher than some, but that's not unusual for kin -- maybe not unusual for Fury kin towards any man, though whether he thinks that's usual or not depends on his experience with her tribe. For one reason or another, though, she's not meeting his gaze much now.
The phone is unlocked, handed back. Thrust the first time, snatched. Pushed this time, and taken. Still tense, these exchanges -- yes, fighting for the sake of fighting even as the energy leaves the motive for it -- but losing their edge.
She dials a cab company by memory, or just guesses: the right area code followed by the same digit seven times in a row. "Yes," is all she says, rather than answering the 'why'. Not his fucking business, he said. She puts the phone to her ear and looks at him again.
It isn't loathing so much now, that howling hatred he'll never know because he will never be powerless. The look in her eyes is still brimming with dislike, though. "I need a taxi, please," she says, her voice lighter than the look in her eyes, talking to someone other than the one she looks at. "P and 22nd, a gas station called Charley Joe's." There's a pause. Her turn again: "The Hay-Adams." Another pause. "My phone is dead; this one is borrowed. You'll see me when you get here, though. Thank you."
She shakes her hair off her shoulder again when she draws the phone down, thumbing the screen off before she hands it back over. "Thank you," she says again, but the tone is entirely different. It's polite, it's required, but it's also genuine. It just isn't nice.
Erich ReinhardtSomething changes in Erich's eyes at the confirmation. Goes from tension and irritation and dislike to something closer to -- well. Pity. So maybe that's why Celia doesn't look at him. He looks at her and he feels pity for her, dressed up like a high-class hooker, climbing into limos with tainted men, climbing out of limos at gas stations without knowing where she was; all of it not quite willingly, perhaps. It's that last part that makes him feel bad for her. The rest of it; well, that's not so very different from what a Bringer of Light does, and a Bringer of Light does good work, noble work, brave work, respectable work. Erich can respect that, the willingness to lay down everything -- even one's self-respect -- for the sake of the war. But there's still a line there in the heart of every Lightbringer, a core that is incorruptible, a self that is willing. Less so, here.
But then. Like he said: not his business.
So he takes his phone back. He rubs the screen against the front of his shirt to clean it, and this is as rote as anything else. It goes into his back pocket. She's apparently going to wait here for the cab. If he were a gentleman he'd wait with her. Then again, he tried being a gentleman and offering her a ride -- sort of -- or maybe he was just being a neanderthal. Kind of hard to tell sometimes; chivalry's so close to misogyny. He thinks a moment.
"I'm gonna leave you my number," he says. "And I don't expect you to ever call me. But if you need to, you'll have it. Okay?"
Celia de Luca"I've never needed such a thing before," she says stiffly, staring at him as though she can prove something this way, as though she can do something this way. Maybe it does something, though not for him or to him. It changes her, though, being able to make herself look in the eyes of something that frightens her and refuse to be cowed by it. She is young. Most rebellious, headstrong kinfolk are. Look at how strong I am, they say.
Only she looks him in the eye, her back straight and her shoulders squared, and she's not saying anything to him at all with any of it. She's talking to someone else, but the message is the same.
Granted, at the moment she's also thinking she should have told the cab to pick her up at the Shell, which has a candy selection and soda and indoor bathrooms and is across the street from chivalry, misogyny, rage, whatever it is about him that makes her look at him with such potent dislike. Maybe it's just because she's a goddamn Black Fury. They teach their kin the same thing they teach their maiden cubs, after all. The ones who are good enough, by virtue of genitalia, to be called Black Furies. It's a warped system, but no more or less warped than any other in the Garou Nation.
She tells him she's never needed the number of this Garou or that Garou In Case Of Emergency before. She says it like a dare. Or something.
Erich ReinhardtAnd it sets his teeth on edge.
"I know that," he grinds out, and he's patronizing her of course, doing so without trying to, because -- well; he has his own set of indoctrinations, his own institutions of rage and chauvinism, doesn't he? The Fenrir are notorious for their fighting kin, their spearwomen and their axemen, all of whom are so very good at fighting ... for kin. And the Shadow Lords barely even think of kin as individuals, humans, anything other than property.
So; he knows that. He knows she would never need the number of a Garou In Case Of Emergency, until of course she did. So he leaves it with her anyway, his head down while she's staring at him defiantly; he scribbles it with a ballpoint pen onto the back of the receipt that Russian on his motorcycle forgot to take. Or just didn't want to, because taking it might mean touching Erich's hand. Anyway:
Celia gets a phone number, and the area code isn't from around here. (308) somethingsomething. He holds it out to her.
"I don't expect you ever to have to call me," he repeats. "But just in case."
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