You do not see someone like Celia out on the streetcorner, not any corner in any city, hiking up her skirt and asking passerby if they want a date. She has a roof over her head, a warm and expansive bed to go back to, room service at any hour, day or night. She is driven around in limousines and doors are opened for her and she looks like breathless innocence and yet,
she is a whore.
They don't date in the city much. No fancy dinners right in D.C., no trips to the theater. They have to go a long way to do anything like that. Even meeting at a hotel has to be done carefully. The price of a well-known face. Sometimes, though, he picks her up. He knows the driver would talk, his own driver, so he hires them in one-offs from multiple companies. He isn't so enamored that he'll get too sloppy, though, so even that is a rarity.
He isn't with her now, standing on the sidewalk, looking into the window of a charming little pet shop. There is a tiny beagle puppy nosing the window where she bends over to peer in the glass, tail wagging with interest. The sun glints off her hair, and off the metal links of her purse strap, and the little rhinestones at the temples of her sunglasses. She wiggles her nose at the puppy from the opposite side of the glass, making faces at him. Her hands are in fur-cuffed gloves, pressed to the tops of her thighs. Her coat is puffy and white and the hood down her back is also ringed in fur. Her pants are tight and black and her ass is tight and pert. Her boots go to the knee, her lip gloss smells like peaches.
Erich ReinhardtAnd all of a sudden that puppy, that poor little thing from some puppy mill somewhere who was taken from its mother and stuffed in a storefront window until someone buys it or until it's too old to be cute and is summarily sent off to a shelter --
all of a sudden that puppy isn't wagging its tail anymore. It's not bounding up and putting its tiny paws on the window. It's not trying to make friends. It's dashing into the corner, it's hiding behind a stuffed dogtoy, it's tucking its tail and whining and digging at the edges of its enclosure because it senses a monster and it wants to get away.
Celia probably senses the monster too. She might want to get away. But she's the sort of girl who wears fur-cuffed gloves and white puffer coats, she's the kind of girl who lives in a hotel and "dates" someone who probably works in one of those formidable bastions of power that pepper this city. She does not, one hopes, scrabble into a corner and whine for help.
Werewolves have reflections. Erich is reflected in the pet store's window; he looks much the same as he had the last time she saw him. A day ago. Less. It might be a different pair of jeans. It's definitely a different shirt, and this time it's a zip-up hoodie instead of a pullover sweatshirt. Same pale-on-pale coloration, though. Same disjunction between who he looks like, and who he is.
Same might be said for her. But he doesn't know that for sure.
And he's looking at her with this face, like he's smelled something unpleasant and acrid and completely out of place. Like... rotten eggs in a nice hotel lobby. Raw sewage in a restaurant. His eyes, which are a blue so pale and so hot it's a wonder he can't cut diamonds with his stare, flick between her and the puppies.
"Seriously? It's like you think you live in Pretty Woman. Or wait, have you not seen that one either?"
Celia de LucaIt was, a moment ago, putting its miniscule paws on the window and sniffing even more eagerly at Celia. It was doing what came naturally, which is so charming and endearing to humans as to seem like it has to be a calculated move, and then Erich ruined everything. The window that lets it see everything and where people come to visit becomes nothing more than exposure. There's no den to retreat to. The puppy begins to piss itself in terror, and Celia looks distressed to the point of heartbreak.
She straightens up, turning toward the source of the uneasy feeling she has, and upon seeing Erich, that hatred comes right back to the fore of her mind. Her memory of him has not softened in intervening hours, and he just made a puppy run and hide and pee from fear. Logically she knows he can't help it -- the puppy or the wolf. They are what they are. But still: dislike lines her brow above her sunglasses.
He knows her tribe. She apparently could not care less about his, apparent or otherwise.
His face isn't any more pleasant right now than hers is. His words aren't, either. And Celia just exhales, heavy and sudden, at a loss. "Why are you such an asshole?"
Erich ReinhardtImprobably, Erich is taken aback at that. He blinks; he glances away and back, something almost surreptitious about the flick of his eyes. A hand rises reflexively to rub at the back of his neck, and he frowns.
"I'm not." Was he an asshole? He doesn't think so. He has friends. Drew liked him. Jake likes him. Even Ingrid likes him, he's pretty sure, and Ingrid doesn't like anything or anyone at all. "You just piss me off. Hey," restless, put on the spot, he turns on the puppy, "shut up."
And, unbelievably, it shuts up. Its tucked tail untucks. It inches forward cautiously. It starts to wag again. Erich presses the backs of his fingers against the glass; it's not like the little beagle can sniff him through the window, but it seems like the thing to do.
"I was trying to help you. So maybe I was rude about it. I thought you were stupid," he says this like being faced with stupidity is a valid reason to turn rude. "You sure played stupid well enough, right up until you dropped the act and turned into a self-righteous harpy."
[Smell of Man! and stuff.]
Celia de LucaThe 'hey', the 'shut up', the decisive switch -- it comes a bit belatedly, and for a moment, Celia thinks it's aimed at her. She thinks he's just some meathead who takes a sentence or two to remember he was just insulted to his face. But he's looking at the puppy, and the puppy listens. It doesn't quite love him, but it no longer wants to crawl in a hole and die. Through the glass, at the seam, it tries desperately to sniff at Erich to see if he's really the Scary Thing or if the Scary Thing is actually gone and wasn't him at all to begin with.
Celia watches him touch the glass, and she's still frowning, but she's thinking. She looks at him again. He thought she was stupid, so he was a dick about trying to help her.
"Still being an asshole," she tells him, giving a shake of her head. "And still excusing yourself for it."
Erich Reinhardt"Still being a self-righteous harpy," he shoots back, "and still refusing to move on from the one point five things I did wrong. Man, I could probably lie down and die for you and you wouldn't even remember it. You'd just stand up at my funeral and say 'he was mean to me, he threw me against a gas pump, and also he scared a puppy. He's an asshole. Rot in pieces'."
Alexei Ojala(can I join in?)
Erich Reinhardt[unfortunately, i gotta sleep, so we're pausing on celia's next post. sorry man!]
Alexei Ojala(Oh ok another time, bye bye)
Celia de LucaThe sunglasses come off. Now, that's not quite as frightening as if she were reaching up, removing her earrings, and stabbing him with a stiletto, but there's something combative about the gesture all the same. Her eyes are a vivid green in this light, overwhelming the blue in them. In sunshine she's warmer, her skin golden and her hair shot through with color and finery of its own.
She does that when he calls her a harpy again, when he's saying one-point-five, raving about how she'd react to his death. But then he says 'rot in pieces' and the corner of her mouth twitches. Tightens. It nearly turns into a grimace. Hard to hide the spark of amusement in that, but she tries. And after a momentary battle, the anger overtakes it anyway.
"I don't see how I owe it to you to 'move on' when every apology you make is peppered with how it really wasn't your fault, how I was worse, how it wasn't that bad anyway... you sound like a sulking thirteen year old, and every other thing you say to me is an insult. You. Don't. Know me," she lays out, furious, "and it isn't self-righteousness to refuse to make you feel better about yourself. I don't owe you that, either.
"And," she snaps, closing: "yes. I am a harpy."
Erich ReinhardtShe doesn't quite get to her closing, because as she's taking a breath for that zinger he sucks in a much bigger one and bellows:
"GOD DAMN IT YOU PISS ME OFF.
Annnnd the puppy is tuck-tailed and cowering again, because really: even if Erich feels like a Friend now, Erich is so very large and the puppy is so very small and even angry Friends are scary. Erich notices; he makes a disgusted sound, he takes a few steps away from the storefront -- stomps, actually -- and just when Celia thinks maybe he's just storming off like the great big meatheaded lug he is, he turns around.
"If you're not going to move the fuck on, then I'm not going to apologize nicely. I don't see why I should! You're the one that slid out of a limo stinking of corruption. You're the one that dropped your rich-girl purse and pranced around on your can't-run-to-save-your-life heels and waved your dead expensive phone around and generally acted like Paris Fucking Hilton. At a gas station. At twelve-fucking-thirty am. Alone with someone that looked like me, and some guy on a bike.
"I thought you were an idiot. I'm still not sure that you're not. I thought you were lucky you weren't dead, you were lucky you walked into my gas station, you were stupid and lucky and I wasn't going to waste time being nice to you. And I sure as hell wasn't going to let you totter off to the next station to repeat the bimbo act.
"You know what?" Erich's really on a roll, revving up to his own closing statement. "I take my apologies back, conditions and all. I'm not sorry. Not the slightest bit. I'm an asshole. You're an idiot!"
Celia de LucaShe drops her sunglasses. Like she dropped her purse last night when he yelled, thumping the pump because he was irritated at the guy on the bike. They clatter out of her gloved hands and she is looking at him like she wouldn't mind curling into a corner with that puppy cradled in her arms, hiding her face behind its small silken ears, shaking right along with it. She doesn't pick them up, though, because it might mean taking her eyes off of him.
All she does is stand there, sunglasses on the sidewalk and though she holds her ground she has her shoulders drawn in tight, her body made more compact, tenser. The look in her eyes is fearful as much as it is despising, and full of wonder, too, as though she cannot believe her own reaction -- or his, maybe.
"It just sounds like you were pissed off because you thought I was vulnerable." Her voice is quiet now, but still as level as she can make it. "Or just pissed off because you fell for it."
Erich ReinhardtThere go the sunglasses. This time Celia doesn't pick them up, and Erich doesn't watch them go. She's holding her ground against all odds. He's the one walking away, if only to get a little distance between him and the poor puppy.
Then there's some ranting. Then there's a silence. Then she says something so quiet it takes a bit of straining to hear across the ten or so feet between them. Erich's anger has mostly run its course by now. His annoyance hasn't, quite.
"I'm angry," he corrects, "because you might be stupid and stubborn, and that's the worst combination there is."
He comes back toward her; some part of him wants to come at her, come barreling down at her without stopping, see how close he can get before her nerve breaks and she backs down. Prove a point.
He doesn't. He stops a yard away and picks her sunglasses up. Hands them to her.
"You are vulnerable."
Celia de LucaWhen he roared the way he did, the puppy shrank from him and Celia dropped her sunglasses because of the sudden shaking of her hands. She keeps on speaking up, keeps refusing to be completely cowed or silenced, and it isn't cockiness but it certainly is bravery because she certainly is afraid.
Inexplicably, when he says he thinks she might be stupid and stubborn, Celia smiles. No: she smirks, a faint expression that is no less shaky than her hands. It's there, though. It dies when he takes steps toward her, and she takes steps back. Not as long as his strides, and backwards, and in heels, but she inches away from him all the same. Maybe he pats himself on the back for not coming at her the way he sort of wants to. What a decent fellow he is, how honorable, isn't he better than Most Garou. It doesn't really matter to her: he doesn't need to come barreling at her, snarling, for her to back away from him. Nothing changes about how she feels about him. Nothing changes the effect he has on her.
He picks up her sunglasses, though, and holds them out to her. Celia looks at them, then at him. This is the third item he's handed to her -- phone, receipt, sunglasses. She never comes closer than the distance of both their arms outstretched. Not willingly, at least. There was the time they were closer, but his hand was gripping her elbow and then her back was hitting a gas pump. Hardly willing.
Three words, then, and that rage comes back up in her, flashing in her eyes. It's colored with disgust, sours the air again with hatred.
Celia pulls the sunglasses out of his hand. "And a hell of a lot smarter than you," she says, her teeth so on edge she can barely get the words out. "But I suppose I'd have to wear flats and run from shadows for you to think so."
She looks down, inspecting the sunglasses, her lips firm together and her face a mask but for the tug of her eyebrows toward each other. They're scratched, but only on the frame and not cracked. She slips them on again.
Erich Reinhardt"No," Erich just sounds exasperated at this point, "you'd just have to stop getting your back up every time someone suggests you're not a cast-iron superman. I called you vulnerable, not weak. There's a difference."
Celia de LucaHer face has gotten paler. From the moment he walked up and scoffed at her with that Pretty Woman crack to now, she's just gotten progressively more wan beneath the flesh that calls back to ancestors who were islanders and shepherds. Her eye contact, so defiant, has dwindled. And frankly, her anger keeps bursting like fireworks behind her eyes, only making her dizzy.
He's exasperated. She's exasperated. "I'm angry because you keep talking to me like you know all about me and what's best for me and what bothers me!" She's also yelling, even though she's shaking from the emotion behind it. "Stop assuming you know anything about me!"
Erich Reinhardt"Fine," Erich is irritated again, "tell me something about you. Why don't we start from why you were in a limo with the honorable Senator Wyrmbreath?"
Celia de LucaIrritated again, irritated still, more irritated -- it's all a blur now. Truthfully, neither of them is thinking clearly or seeing clearly. She can't -- and doesn't -- excuse her own anger because of his rage, which she feels like a furnace against her face every time he's within three feet of her. Fear may have more than a little to do with her dislike, but all that means is that her judgement is just as clouded as his right now. If they were different people, or had a reason to, they might sit down and go over every single step, every word, trying to figure out how they got here. They don't have any reason to do that, though. Any more than they have reason to go on talking, if one thinks about it logically.
Except people aren't logical. Even people who aren't strictly human. Who sear the air from a room the way he does. Who smell like she does, carrying the weight of generations.
She exhales heavily, annoyed, as though this is a stupid question on his part. "What do you think?"
Erich ReinhardtErich's jaw twitches. "You just told me," he says, exaggeratedly slow, "not to make assumptions."
Celia de LucaHer eyes narrow at him. "Either way, it's none of your business."
Erich Reinhardt"What the hell is your problem?" Erich demands. "You get on my case for not knowing anything about you and making assumptions. I try to find something out. You tell me to make an assumption, and then you tell me it's none of my business anyway and refuse to answer. How does any of this even make sense to you?"
Celia de Luca"You're a moron," she spits back. "The problem with your assumptions is the arrogance behind them. You don't know what you think you know and you aren't entitled to know. I'm certainly not obligated to tell you. You wouldn't even give me the address of where I was standing without insulting me."
Erich Reinhardt"Get. Over that!"
There's a certain cyclical nature to their interactions. Their anger feeds off of one another. Every word is more kindling for the fire, and then at some point Erich loses his temper and shouts; Celia flinches; Celia hates him all the more for it. Around and around it goes, until --
"I have no idea why we're still talking. You get mad at me for not knowing you. You don't want me to know you. As far as I can tell, you're just looking for more ammo to stock your personal armory against me. So fuck that; this conversation is pointless. Enjoy your puppy-gazing."
-- Erich, fed up, turns and walks around.
Erich Reinhardt[walks AWAY, fml.]
Celia de LucaThe way two people can meet and instantly dislike each other based on the flimsiest of reasons is not unlike the way two people can meet and feel intensely, deeply, and forever connected within a moment, a glance. Neither is rational. Neither is necessarily trustworthy. Both are described as sparks.
He yells at her again, and she flinches again, and yes: she hates him for it. Or hates something. This time there are tears in her eyes, though her shades are back on and they are momentarily hidden. There's color in her cheeks, high and pink and angry. And then they are well and truly just in a shouting match, or at least a snapping match, talking over each other like siblings or high schoolers or something equally disdained:
I have no idea why we're still talking --
"Neither do I," she snaps back.
You get mad at me for not knowing you. You don't want me to know you.
"You're the one who keeps --"
As far as I can tell, you're just looking for more ammo
"-- walking up to me and being a jerk for no reason."
to stock your personal armory against me. So
"I didn't do anything to you --"
fuck that; this conversation is
"Over," she says, in time with his 'pointless', her teeth gritted so she won't just up and cry at him. He tells her to enjoy her puppy gazing. And for some reason, that tears it. She bursts into tears, angry and overwhelmed, because her will to argue has quite simply up and left her. Of course, he's fed up, he's walking away, and that as much as anything seems to give her some kind of physiological relief even as it steals her self-control, but it does keep him from seeing her start to cry. Hearing, perhaps, the first little gasp of a sob, then the sniffling and so forth as she tries to stop. Anyone else seeing her, including the clerk inside the pet store, just sees her reaching up under her shades, wiping under her eyes as she sniffs moisture out of her sinus cavities and tries to force herself to get it together and stop the tears from ruining her mascara.
Shakes her hands out like there's water on them. Swallows, takes a breath, exhaling slowly. Done. Done with that, now.
The bell over the door jangles, old-fashioned and unnecessary, as she goes inside.
Erich ReinhardtNow that's inglorious. Not only does the shop clerk see, the puppy sees. The little old cat lady in the back sees. Erich doesn't see, but he hears it, and when you grow up with a younger sister and several female cousins, you learn very quickly and very well what it sounds like when a girl starts crying. There's a low, mean moment when he's viciously pleased: good, he thinks, glad that he's not the only one stung by the whole encounter.
It doesn't last very long, and it comes with a severe afterwash of self-disgust. He doesn't turn around, but his steps hesitate ever so slightly. He hears her getting herself under control; then he hears the bell jangling. She's inside then, so he's safe to stop, and stopping, feels self-disgust ripen into something like --
guilt, maybe. Or at least: feeling quite badly about it all. Just great, he thinks. Speaking of ammo, there's another .50-caliber round for her rifles. Stupid, mean, arrogant, self-entitled, made a puppy piss itself, made the most sheltered (maybe) prostitute (possibly) in the entire District of Columbia cry.
Nice job, asshole. Rot in pieces.
Whenever Celia reemerges from the pet store, with or without a new furry friend in tow, she finds Erich still waiting outside. Probably isn't pleased about it, truth be told, but it doesn't change his presence. There he is: leaning against his Mustang, hands in his pockets, looking bored until he sees it's her, after which he looks ... a bit tense. A little apprehensive.
"I'm sorry I made you cry," he says. "I'm sorry I manhandled you. I'm sorry I kept picking on you." He thinks a moment. "I'm sorry I keep acting like you owe me something. Explanations or courtesy or ... whatever."
His shoulders roll under his hoodie. He straightens up, reaching behind him to pull the door of his Mustang open. "That's all I wanted to say."
Celia de LucaGood thing she isn't looking at him when his steps slow a bit. Good thing she doesn't see him hesitate. All she wants to see, right then, is his back retreating down the sidewalk. All she wants to see are the heels of his shoes.
She goes inside and a few moments later the shopclerk slides open the gate to the window display and scoops up the puppy, who is wagging furiously and bounding around in excitement. Very rarely does anything bad ever happen when that little gate opens, so he goes happily, sniffing and licking and giving out the puppy version of the baying his breed is known for. The clerk notices that he peed, warns the high-class-looking girl who wants to hold him, but she says she doesn't care. She wraps her arms, puffy in her coat, around the animal and draws him close to her chest. He licks her under the chin, licks her jaw, and keeps on doing it. His tail thumps rapidly against her arm, and the warmth of him meets her own despite the layers of fabric separating them.
Celia sniffs again, and blinks away a few more tears, and cuddles the puppy. She feels better. Stupid to cry just because she's angry and frustrated and fed up. Her sunglasses perched atop her head, she closes her eyes and nuzzles the dog, kissing his brow. The clerk is pretty sure that this dog just got adopted, the way these two are together. He asks if she wants him to get some paperwork ready and she swallows, shaking her head. No. I'm not allowed, she tells him, and he understands then -- at least he thinks he does. Pretty sad, though. He leaves her alone to hold the dog for a while, taking some space.
When Celia emerges from the pet store again, she doesn't have a new furry friend, or a pink leash, or a rhinestone-studded collar, or a bag of food, or anything like that. She just has herself, just like before, just like always. Sees the Mustang and the man through the glass door and hesitates, thinking to wait til he gets bored and leaves, but she doubts that's going to happen. Takes a breath and pushes the jangling door opening, walking out to the middle of the sidewalk. Stands in front of him like that, and to be fair right now she's not dressed at all like a hooker -- though last night she wasn't really, either. She looks like someone's daughter. Hasn't worked a day in her life. Probably won't. Not likely to be any politician's first wife, is obviously at least one politician's mistress. Too young to be either.
His first apology makes her brows start toward each other for a whole new scowl, but she doesn't have the energy. His second and his third ease her brows apart, and by the fourth, she's simply listening to him. Her expression is open, and he's never seen it like that before -- ditzy or angry have been pretty much the only things he's seen on her face. Thoughtful consideration of what he has to say is a new one.
"Thank you for saying that," she says quietly, as he's pulling the door open. "I'm sorry I called you names." It's only the one apology from her. Not fair, and less than he might like to hear, but he didn't exactly apologize for everything she disliked about him, either. It's more than either of them were prepared to do ten minutes ago. Her hands are bare now. She's holding her gloves in her hand, tightly.
There's a small pause there, awkward as it gets.
"I'm not apologizing just because you did," she tells him. "I hope you didn't apologize just because I cried."
Erich Reinhardt"I know," he says, which surprises him a little, because he does know. She's not the type to apologize just because someone else did it first. She's the type to thank a stranger for the use of his cellphone, even if he wasn't exactly forthcoming about letting her use it in the first place.
"I apologized because I felt bad," he adds. "And I felt bad because I made you cry. And also because I pushed you around, and picked on you for looking at puppies, and all that."
He has a hand on the open door of his car. Doesn't linger; gets in. Doesn't close the door yet either, though -- one foot still outside, looking at her.
"I really thought you'd get the dog," he says. "Why didn't you?"
Celia de LucaSo at least one thing Erich has guessed about her, or observed correctly, is the sincerity of her politeness. I'm sorry I was rude. Thank you. Please. About fifteen minutes ago she would have scowled at him and fought him on that 'I know', and him admitting that he felt bad because she cried would bother her, too, but again: she just doesn't have the energy to be angry, or even annoyed. It all seems -- like he said -- pointless. Instead of getting angry, she sighs.
Shrugs. Shakes her head.
"I can't have one. Not yet, anyway." There's a numbness to that, a blank admission that is born out of plain and simple resignation. It doesn't break her heart. It is what it is. Doesn't make it less pitiful, somehow: she looks exhausted, the corners of her eyes strained and an uncomfortable colorlessness in her cheeks. Fighting with him wore her out. Drained her. Put bluntly, her give-a-fuck meter hit red and flattened out.
"I just like animals."
Erich ReinhardtHe's not really worn out. Not the way she is, anyway, mentally and emotionally drained dry from the effort of being angry at something so scary. He's just -- worn. Tired from fighting, tired from feeling like a heel.
He attempts a smile. It looks tired too. It's kind of lopsided, and it's very small. "Liar," he says, and it's entirely possible she'll take this the wrong way altogether, but it's too late to call it back now. "You don't like me at all."
The smile fades. Not much of a joke anyway. He glances at the puppy. For a mad moment he thinks of buying it for her. Maybe he could keep it in his car. And just keep using his Gift. Yeah, that'll work. Yeah, that's not bizarre and creepy behavior at all. He decides against it; gives her a meaningless shrug.
"Guess I'll see you around, maybe," he says, and pulls his foot into the car.
Celia de LucaAs tired as she is, Celia's sense of herself doesn't seem to have been bruised. She can acknowledge she was rude, she called him moron and asshole and jerk repeatedly, and that apology she gave him for it seems as much for her sake as his. She doesn't feel like a heel. She just feels exhausted, and she knows she feels better the farther away he gets from her. Right now that three-foot rule has grown warped. He's more like eight feet away, maybe more, and she still feels that heat licking at her face. The puppy was cold by comparison.
Her brows draw together, perhaps expectedly, when he calls her a liar, says she doesn't like him at all. Celia doesn't contradict him, doesn't rush to assure him that she just doesn't know him and they got off on the wrong foot -- though both those things are true. She just shakes her head. "None of you are animals," is all she says.
There's a difference. And no: not much of a joke, really. Neither of them laugh.
She can't read his thoughts in that moment. He glances to the window as the gate is opened and the puppy is put squirming back in the display. It tries to turn around and go back out, but the gate is shut. It noses at it, gives one of its weak bays that is hard to hear at this distance and through the glass, then begins sniffing around its semi-familiar area. Its own scent comforts it, rubbing away the memory of another human. They do come and go.
The truth is, she would cry again if he bought the puppy for her. Harder than before. Heavy, wracking sobs. It wouldn't make much sense to him, but it wouldn't make any sense at all to her if he wanted to buy her a damn dog in the first place.
"Maybe," she says, like she doesn't think that's going to be the case. He swings himself down into the car. She stands there, and is standing there when he drives away.
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