just my idiot stepbrother.

Erich

Celia has one job, and it's one that has no set hours. Some days she gets a call, or a text, and she needs to be somewhere with an hour's notice. Some days she doesn't get back to her hotel until very, very late. Some days -- rarely -- she might not get back until morning. And then some days she is bored, she is alone and more or less friendless, she apparently spends her time camping, or going to museums, or looking wistfully at puppies in a pet store.

Today, she is At Work. And her mark has a well-known face, a public name, both of which preclude him from ever really taking her on dates in D.C. They don't really date much at all. But today he's made an exception. He's done this because Valentine's wasn't so very long ago, but he couldn't spend it with her. Of course not. That would be too incriminating, and even if everyone suspects, even if everyone knows men like him keep lovely bits of fluff on the side, there's a thick dark line between suspicion and knowledge and cold, hard proof.

He wants to make it up to her, though. That's what he wrote in the text she got. An address, a time, and: Let me make it up to you. So she took a cab, or maybe he risked sending a car; she went south and east to a quaint little vacation town called Chesapeake Bay, where the air smells like salt, where oyster shacks and seafood restaurants line the bay.

The restaurant he takes her to is three stories of glass. It has vast windows overlooking the beach, the Atlantic. At low tide the shimmering strand lies below where they sit and eat. At high tide, they stand on stilts over the water. The food is so fine and so expensive that the prices don't appear on the menus. They are starting on the appetizers, and this is when

a frisbee thud!s loudly against the window. The glass is far too thick and insulating and wellmade to shatter, but the sound is loud, and it startles several diners. Perhaps it makes her date jerk, his head flattening between his shoulders with that innate avoidance instinct of a man who might just be concerned about assassination attempts. But no: it's not a gun, not a bullet; just some guys on the beach throwing a frisbee around, one of them trotting over now to pick the errant toy up. He waves it at the diners up on the second floor, and that's when they recognize each other, Celia and frisbee-boy below, who is in fact Erich-wolf. He's wearing blue-and-green-and-yellow board shorts, and flip-flops on his feet. His frisbee is red. He stares at her a moment, head cocked.

Then he turns and jogs back to whoever it is he's throwing a frisbee with. He shouts, dimly audible through the glass, and then he sends the frisbee whipping out on a high, flat arc.

Celia and her date are on the main course when there's a stir in the restaurant. A murmuring, and some staring, and then a sudden oppressive silence. Looking entirely out of place in that sherpa-lined hoodie over his, which is zipped over no shirt and board shorts, Erich follows a reluctant greeter up the stairs to the second floor. She wants to put him in the back corner, away from the view. He breaks away from her, heading over to the big windows. His flipflops slap against the floor. He points at a small table for two a stone's throw from the one Celia shares with her date. He doesn't look at her, thankfully, or give any indication he knows her. But she can hear him quite clearly:

"Is it all right if I sit here instead?"

Amazingly, the greeter says yes. And so he sits. Celia's date has his back to Celia's sort-of-friend. Celia's sort-of-friend is keeping an eye on Celia's date. He's not as subtle as he thinks he is.

Celia de Luca

He expects her to be passive-aggressive. He expects her to give him forlorn looks and sighs when he doesn't spend the holidays with her. He expects her to make him work for it after Valentine's Day, make him coo at her and give her presents and stroke her ego until she lets him fuck her again. He doesn't realize he expects this, and would never admit that he wants it, but it's as much a part of the deal as her discretion. She has a part to play.

It's a careful line to walk between making him feel like he has to work for it and making him actually feel bad, though. It's not her job to make him feel bad. It's her job to make him feel good. Make him feel like his wife never does any more. Make him feel like a man.

That's how he feels when he has her picked up by one of his drivers, one of those quiet gentlemen who knows that his livelihood in this city for the rest of his life depends on pretending to believe that this is his boss's friend's daughter from out of town, even when she's giggling in the back seat as that boss's hands paw all over her. And he feels like a man when she gets out of the car at that restaurant in Chesapeake, because the sunlight is dancing off her cleavage in that v-necked pink cashmere she's wearing. He feels like a man when he walks her inside, sits down across from her, and teases her with the little box with its red ribbon, saying she can have it if she behaves. It makes her pout.

He feels a little like a wolf doing that. He likes that, too.

The frisbee hitting the window makes Celia yelp, then cover her mouth with her hand. That's how Erich sees her, manicured fingertips against glossed lips, her short-sleeved sweater dress low-necked but demurely hemmed, except the way she's sitting he can just make out where the skirt has rucked up a bit on her thigh. He can just make out the half-inch of skin visible above where her white stockings end, a line of sultry gold between two pastels. The startled look on her face changes slightly when she sees him. Her wide, round eyes have a trace of what the hell in them.

He runs off. Celia exhales, and lets her date hold her hand, and she manages a little giggle. They go on with their appetizers, her salad. That date is feeding her a little cube of minted watermelon when Erich comes in the restaurant, and she is chewing it when she looks over. Erich pretends not to see her or know her. Celia follows him with her eyes, a little frown between her brows, a little tightness at the corners of her mouth.

Though they're a table away, Erich can hear Celia's date ask her what's wrong quite clearly.

And he can hear her answer just as easily, a muttered: "Just my idiot stepbrother."

Which, understandably, makes Senator Wyrmpants twist around in his chair, looking at Erich.

Erich

What Celia does --

-- is quite brilliant, actually. She sees in an instant that there's no way Erich can ever be subtle about this: not his surveillance, not his protectiveness. There's no way her date won't, sooner or later, notice there's a completely underdressed guy behind him that feels like six rabid dogs in a rusted cage, and that guy is staring at him like he's just waiting for him to make his day. So: she preempts the inevitable noticing and the questions that might follow: who is that? why's he staring like that? And what she says then --

-- is the last thing Erich expects her to say. He is, in fact, staring at the back of Senator Wyrmingsworth's head when the man turns. His eyes widen, his hands clutch at his menu, for an infuriating second Celia might actually expect him to duck behind the menu like a dog too stupid to realize just because he can't see you doesn't mean you can't see him.

Then he drops the menu on the table. He gets up, and across the room some blue-haired old biddy sniffs disapprovingly at his attire, his bare, hairy calves and his almost-bare, bony feet. He ambles over to Celia and her date's table, pulling on a smile. "Hey there," he says, and then he kinda leaves that hanging because he realizes he has no idea what Celia's date thinks or is supposed to think: what her name is with this guy, what she supposedly does in DC that led to him meeting her, whether she's supposed to have a job or school or is 24/7 his mistress, where her separated parents live, which parent it is that's supposedly re-married to Erich's parent. He just sticks his hand out at Senator Wyrmingsworth. "Erich. I'm the stepbrother."

There's no way for Erich to mask the violence in his nature. So he takes a cue from Celia: he doesn't even try. If his hand is taken, he squeezes very hard. It's a boy's posturing, a boy's ploys at intimidation, a boy who has no idea what sort of man Celia's date is, and the sort of quiet, devastating power he wields.

"You be nice to my sister now, you hear?"

Celia de Luca

"Oh my god," Celia says in annoyance, as rich upper-class brat as you can get, "we're like the same age, Derek. Don't act all big brother when you've known me like, a year."

The name she calls him sounds enough like his own name that he might swing his head around upon hearing it shouted across the room. The name she calls him is in keeping with his appearance, so vastly different from her own that no one would ever suspect they're related by blood, which itself is in keeping with her story. He's known her for about a year, which means their parents got married sometime within that year. They're the same age, though he has no idea how old she's pretending to be. Young, the way she acts. The way she dresses.

His Honor Mr. Wyrmington watches Erich's approach with steely eyes, from the moment he freezes up to the moment he extends his hand. He has closely-trimmed salt and pepper hair. His eyes are blue. His suit -- for he almost always wears a suit -- is the color of charcoal, with a pale blue shirt and a tie with a gleaming geometric pattern of silvers and grays. He has more than a few extra pounds on his frame and on his face, but he is broad-shouldered and at one point in his life might have been quite physically imposing. Since he looks closer to 50 than 40, that might have been quite some time ago indeed.

There's violence in his eyes, too. Wariness. He doesn't take his eyes off of Erich to look questioningly or warningly at Celia, but takes the hand. Squeezes back just as hard; he has his own bruising strength, or at least a certain degree of viciousness and a taste for retribution. Or pissing contests.

Celia is glaring at him -- at Erich -- as she grips the sides of her chair, looking precisely like a spoiled brat. Her arms are tight, though, subtly but distinctly accentuating what's already accentuated by her dress. She scowls at him like she would very much like him to fall into an active volcano.

Her 'date' leans back when their handshake ends. "You didn't mention you had a stepbrother," he says, offhand-but-not, to Celia.

She huffs. "He's supposed to be at Harvard. Daddy got him in after the wedding."

Erich

It's a little ridiculous, really, the two men doing their level best to crush each other's hands. At least Celia's date is wearing a suit, the sleeves of which hide his arm. Not so for Erich: the sleeves of his hoodie are rolled up, and the cords in his forearm are standing out.

When they let go of each other, Erich's hand falls to the back of the empty, purely ornamental chair at their table. There really isn't enough room here to fit three sets of dinnerware; the table is clearly for a romantic couple. Erich drags the chair out anyway and -- unless dissuaded -- begins to sit.

"Call it an early spring break," he says. "I mean, have you seen the news? Boston is pretty much buried in snow right now." He holds his hands up in a weighing motion. "Snow, beach. Snow, beach. Beach. Am I right?" He's not even asking Celia; he's asking her date, eyebrows up, man-to-man. "So what's your name, man?"

Celia de Luca

Celia's date lifts an eyebrow as Erich swings a chair over from a neighboring table and plops down. Celia is staring at him, open-mouthed and horrified -- and furious -- while her date merely looks casually annoyed.

"Jack," says her date, which isn't much to go on and may not even be true. He sits up a bit straighter and takes control of the situation: "Derek, it's a pleasure to meet you, but I think your sister here is about to blow a gasket. Why don't you go get your friend and have lunch downstairs? On me."

Erich

"Really." Erich seems to only be half-listening. He grabs a shrimp out of the cocktail glass they've been served in. His teeth cut through the tender sweet flesh; he flicks the tail onto the pristine tablecloth and his eyes pin 'Jack'. "Wow, damn. No wonder she likes you. Buying me dinner just to get me out of your hair. What do you buy her to get her to do what you want?"

He grins suddenly, reaches over, smacks Celia's date on the shoulder. Hard.

"I'm just fucking with you, man. I appreciate it. I'll just have 'em add it to your tab, yeah? What should I tell them -- Jack what?"

Celia de Luca

Jack is not amused. Celia all but squeaks with rage.

What he says implies that Celia is a whore. A slut. That Jack buys what he wants from her with gifts, dinners, god knows what else. He doesn't talk about her like she's his precious baby sister. And Erich may not get to slapping Jack's back or asking his last name, because Celia's chair scrapes back suddenly and she bursts up, speed-walking away from the table with her hand over her mouth, with a sound that makes the image of bright tears in her eyes spring to mind. She's rushing toward the bathroom, head down so that her hair covers her cheeks.

Erich

Erich twists around to watch Celia go -- whips back to all but shout at Jack even as he's bursting up out of his chair, "Now look what you did!"

He goes after Celia. She's rushing; he's running, skittering out of the way of a waiter balancing a tray of surf-and-turf, putting his hands on the back of another diner's chair to push them as he squeezes past. Across the room Celia's date can see Erich taking her by the elbow, can see her very likely throw him off, can hear him saying sorry and didn't know and

what he's actually saying, trying to keep his voice down, is:

"Shit. I'm sorry. I'm sorry I'm sorry I'm sorry. Did I blow it? I didn't know what the hell to do when you called me your stepbrother, shit."

Celia de Luca

At that point, Jack is at a loss. He can't exactly be seen chasing some young girl across a restaurant when she's gone to the ladies room to cry. Nor can he be seen, even as far as Chesapeake, throwing that same girl's stepbrother on a table and punching him in the face or just throttling him. He looks discomfited, but that is a thin veneer atop his anger. He always feels angry these days. Greedy, really. And angry when he's denied.

Celia does shake Erich off, pouting, and stomps around a corner toward the more subtly-lit hallway where the bathrooms are. There, hidden out of view finally, she has her hand over her mouth and looks at Erich, stifling laughter. Those eyes of hers truly are bright, but not with tears. With amusement.

She grabs his arms and shakes him, trying desperately not to laugh out loud. Whispering: "Oh my god, did you see his face? This is so perfect. I am fucking brilliant."

A waitress passes by behind Erich and, right on cue, Celia plants her hands on his chest and shoves him away, her face instantly a mask of loathing and petty retribution. The waitress scurries off. Celia bounces on the balls of her feet, clad as they are in a pair of high-heeled Mary Janes with lovely tooling in the patent leather along the uppers and adorned with tiny silver buttons on the straps. She looks positively gleeful, clasping her hands in front of her chest and beaming. "This is so perfect."

Erich

It doesn't surprise Erich when she throws him off. It does surprise him when he follows her around the corner to that tastefully-lit hallway with its tasteful sconces and tasteful seating and tasteful doors to the tasteful bathrooms that

and she turns around and she's not furious, she's not punching him in the nose but grabbing him and shaking him and laughing. "Wait," he saying, "you're not -- "

-- and she shoves him, a waitress looks in on them wide-eyed, thought about asking if everything was all right but decides it's above her pay-grade. Erich's back thumps against the wall. The waitress gets lost. Celia is beaming.

"Wait, what? How is this perfect?"

Celia de Luca

"Look," she says, hushed, "it'll take a little while to explain, okay? Just... I'm going to go mess with my makeup a bit. I'll text you when I go back to my hotel and we can talk. But for now you should go, and like..." She thinks rapidly, comes up with an idea she seems to think is also perfect and brilliant: "Glower at him like you'd like to tear his head off, then glance back down this hallway before you storm out. The more melodramatic the better, okay?"

Celia almost squees. She shoves Erich again, this time happily, clapping her hands on his chest in delight. In whispers: "Okay! Go! You're the best!"

And dashes into the bathroom.

Erich

"Wait, but -- "
(it'll take too long to explain)
" -- wait, which -- "
(glower at him!)
" -- should I threaten him, or --?"
(glance back!)
" -- like, angrily or worriedly or -- "
(you're the best!)
" -- I am?"

He has this confused lopsided sort of smile on his face when she dashes into the restroom. That's the last she sees of him. So she misses him straightening his hoodie, stamping his feet in place and rolling his head on his shoulders like a boxer getting ready for the ring. She misses the stomping, shoulder-swaying way he barges back out of the hallway, and the patented Get Of Thunder Lord glare he nails 'Jack' with, and the turn of his head back toward the restrooms before he just bulldozes his way out of the restaurant.

Does a pretty good job with the whole performance, actually. But then, he doesn't really have to pretend to loathe Senator Wyrmscliffe.

float around like a free radical.

Erich @ 7:57PM

There's a class letting out.  It's some Classics survey of Greco-Roman mythology, and exploring freshmen and cruising seniors alike are drifting out of the lecture hall as the professor dismisses the audience.  Amongst their number, looking rather like a fifth-year senior himself -- perhaps one of the jocks on the lacrosse team, or crew -- is Erich.  He carries no backpack.  He has a book in hand, checked out from the local library, the plasticized dust jacket crinkling in his grip.

He doesn't feel like a fifth-year senior, though.  He feels like nothing human.  Terrifying, imposing: clearing a path through sheer inexplicable force of personality.  No one talks to him.  No one asks to borrow his notes, or if he wants to study together sometime, or if he wants her number to study together sometime.

A couple students wonder if he even goes here.  If he isn't some sort of serial killer, or maybe one of those crazy grad students who might snap and pull out a gun any moment.

He doesn't pull out a gun, though.  He crosses a small stretch of lawn, and then he gets in line at a gyro stand, waiting rather patiently for his turn.

Alexei Ojala @ 8:06PM

*Alexei happens to be also waiting at the gyro stand, wanting something fast and quick for dinner and in fact wanting someone else to cook for a change. This stand came recommended.

Today he is wearing a warm jacket and a pair of slender jeans. He plays with his smartphone that has all the text on the screen in Russian

He tenses a moment and his heart begins to race, what the hell is nearby?

(per)

*
Roll: 3 d10 TN2 (4, 5, 10) ( success x 3 ) VALID

Charlotte @ 8:16PM

Erich waits rather patiently, but the line begins to thin out in spite of his patience.  The girl the pink Delta Phi Kappa sweats (the letters embossed in sparkling silver on her ass) has suddenly remembered a call she had to make; the lanky walk-on benchwarmer for the Georgetown basketball team - debating gyros versus felafel versus a soft pretzel and shot of wheatgrass - decides on none of the above.  Maybe a protein shake and some chicken breast in the cafeteria.

And so on.

The line snakes forward and breaks down and soon enough Erich's front and center, ordering his meal.  When a voice comes from behind (and to be fair, somewhere below) his right shoulder, asking the question that no one in his class has ever dared asked him.

"Do you go here?"  The faintest thread of incredulity woven into the weft of the words.

Then, edging into his peripheral vision - a crown of platinum-and-pink hair ruffling messily in the wind.  The suggestion of a raptor-like profile.  Pale eyes fixed on the Khazak gyro vendor as he wraps Erich's sandwich in a twist of warm foil.  Asks him in a thick accent studded by a nervous stutter that is usually only inspired by the old man's memories of the KGB whether Erich wants tzatziki sauce with that.

"And," tipping her head forward, edging a bit onto her tiptoes to see over the insulated structures of the car, "what is that?"



Erich

Poor gyro vendor.  Can't run.  Can't hide.  He feels quite exposed suddenly, the crumple-able aluminum and glass of his cart a sorry buffer indeed against the ... the ... the strangely creepy maybe-college-kid standing across from him, asking for a gyro.  Extra meat.  Hold the cucumbers, the onions, easy on the sauce.  Actually keep the gyro bread too.  Just give him the meat.
Turning away from the cart with a foil wrapper full of gyro meat, Erich quirks an eyebrow at his platinum-pink questioner.  "No," he says.  He fishes a long strand of gyro meat out of the wrapper, snaps it up like a dog snapping up a bacon strip.  "Do you?"
And: he holds the foil out at her.  "I have no idea what it is, to be honest.  Gyrosbeast.  Heavily spiced mystery meat.  But it tastes good."

Charlotte
"Pfft," Charlotte all but scoffs in response to his question, her glance at the Ahroun's profile a flicker-flash thing, but there is a sly edge to her mouth.  "no.  'Course not." 

Most of her attention remains on the poor gyro vendor, caught between bowing his thanks and scooping up enough meat and hitting his head on the edge of his umbrella as it bends in a sudden gust of winter wind channeled by the charming walks, swirling across the quad. 

She finds him interesting, the complex shifting of emotions across his dark and weathered face.  The prayer that comes to his mouth but finds no voice.  Interesting, for the next five-four-three-two-one seconds, until Erich receives his gyro and turns away and she does as well, mirroring the motion and leaving the stand behind. 

"Chas does, though."  An absentminded afterthought as Erich holds the foil out to her.  She tips forward, rocking heel to toe for the extra half-inch the arc of movement will give her, and pulls her right hand out of the front pocket of her puffy silver coat. 

A flicker of a look from the foil towards his eyes, to gauge whether he really means to offer her a slice.  That look is wary and natural and animal. 

If the signs are right, she reaches out, rather delicately, and snakes out the smallest piece visible from the mass.  Studying it before popping it into her mouth, whole.  There's dirt under her nails.  Or blood, and ragged remnants of fluorescent yellow enamel chipped to pieces. 

"Not bad." she allows, through a mouthful half-chewed meat she only half-conceals with the palm of her hand.  "Better than hotdogs, not as good as felafel."

Erich
"Falafel isn't even <i>meat</i>," Erich disagrees, as though whether something is meat or not is the sole decider of whether or not such a thing is good.  Or even edible.
They amble away from the gyro stand.  Or at least Erich ambles.  He has an easy, athletic way of moving: the certainty of strength.  As he goes he eats his gyro meat slice by slice, still hot from the roller.
"So who is this Chas?  That's the second time you've mentioned him.  Bail-outter, Georgetown-goer."

Charlotte
"Neither," she agrees, in a very agreeable, if rather sing-song tone that builds as she creates her litany, "are red velvet cake or that tea with tapioca or lime leaves or - " of things-which-are-not-meat. 

A certain pleasure in the list creation that seems like it could go on and on and on (and on) until she arrests herself, looks back at him, her sharp little chin rising in an arc to following his snap of the still-steaming meat in the cold winter air, the foil without bread, or sauce, or anything else snakes of sliced, pressed meat-stuff. 

There's a moment where her eyes flick up to his profile, Getting It all at once, before she concedes.  "Well, maybe Gyrosbeast is better than falafel."

Erich ambles.  There's a moment where the girl lingers back, watching the shadows at the edge of the quad - near the elegant portico of an old instructional building, now nothing but administrative offices - before the girl scrambles a bit to catch, and then keep, up, taking at least a step and a half of her own for every stride he takes.

Charlotte takes a ladylike moment to wipe her greasy fingers on the folds of her puffy jacket, then tucks her hands back into the pockets, head ever-so-slightly down against the cold rush of the wind. 

"Oh, he's my brother."  Another glance aslant, not precisely furtive so much as gauging. His easy strength, or perhaps his credulity, because this is where she begins her favorite lie. "My twinbrother."  And continues with her Most Favorite lie.  

"Actually," head down, here, voice lowered, edging closer to him as if this were all in confidence,  looking forward rather than straight at him, but otherwise matter-of-fact as you please.   "we were Siamese twins, really.  Joined at the tail?  They had to cut them off closer to him, so I got all the wolf and he got what was left."  

Erich
"Really?"  He affects a look of amazement so well that she might, just for a moment, be convinced that he's convinced.  "So now you have two tails?  Just think, if you collect seven more you can be a Japanese god!"
He lets her have another couple slices of gyrosbeast, if she wants.  He said nothing to her litany of things-which-are-not-meat, but he kind of made a series of <i>ew</i> faces.  And then she Gets It, so he doesn't Explain It, and neither of them really comment on the fact that he's eating a very large handful of protein-of-dubious-origin.
"Does that bug him?" he asks, serious now, and curious.  "Not getting the wolf when you did?"

Charlotte
Really?  He asks, and "YES - " she all but squeals, biting back on the girlish noise of delight she makes toward the end of her confirmation, giving a short hop of pleasure - quite literal hop, popping up from two flat feet like a jackrabbit or a cheerleader with enough of a vertical leap to make them briefly of a height. 

He's moving on already and Charlotte gives him a cross-eyed look rather as if her eyes had literally turned into cartoon Xes, wrinkling her nose and muttering, gross, under her breath when ruins the illusion of credulity, teasing her about Japanese gods. 

"Mmmph," extracting her right hand from the forward pocket of the jacket, reaching for another slice when he offers and then speaking around it in contravention of every rule of etiquette.  "He's not even really my twin brother?  Just my big brother."

That bit of self-correction was thoughtless, but there's a pause, not-quite full-stop, where she inhales a cloud of her own steaming breath, looking forward now, brows drawn and serious too, still with it, that infectious sense of seriousness, except for the sweep of her gait. 

"But yeah," the girl allows at last, breathing out a withheld breath.  "It was fucked up.  I mean, I think it fucked him up."  Reflective and withheld, as if she could be a thousand creatures in the space of a handful of breaths.  "A little.  I guess we're all used to it now." 

Then, shifting gears with a lashed glance back at Erich. 

"What about you?  Do you have any?  Siblings or whatever?"

Erich
"Mm-hm.  I got a sister."  There seems to be more there.  There must be more there: who just says he has a sister and leaves it at that?  Erich, apparently.  Moving on: "Not a twin.  Also kin.  Always wondered if she resented it."
Never asked, apparently.
"So why are you here?"  He's thirsty now.  He breaks off to go to a nearby water fountain, cinching up his foil-wrapper full of food briefly so nothing falls out.  He's not the tallest fellow in sight -- he wasn't even as tall as that second-string basketball player back in line -- but there's still quite a distance to bend to get his mouth in range of the water.  Rising, he wipes his chin on his wrist, then goes on: "You and Chas.  Is it just the two of you?  Climbing fountains, bailing each other out of jail, going to school?"

Charlotte
There's more there of course.  Even if Charlotte cannot (refuses to) learn to interpret human behavior and human emotions, she can sense the lacuna between acknowledgment and moving on. 

But she says nothing, Charlotte. 

Just watches Erich's back as he bends over the water fountain, then pivots on her heel to literally watch his back, scanning the quad in a slow circuit, the students streaming around the food trucks, pausing and shifting and curling into each other like swift water through a rocky canyon. 

When he straightens, she turns back to him, briefly face on.  Her nose, prominent in her profile, angular really, recedes into the sweep of her features from this angle.  She looks so young - wideset eyes, pale and reflective and ever-so-slightly mismatched in just this moment - set in a heart-shaped face, curving cheeks tapering to a neat little chin.  One of those creatures who will look fourteen until she turns twenty-nine when she does not define her features with make-up. 

Why are you here?  he asked, and when he turns back to her she hooks a little shrug by way of answer, the down jacket whispering against itself as she lilts that gesture in his direction. 

"Yeah - " she agrees, just the two of them.  Then clarifies, "I mean, our family tree looks like a banyan, not an oak you know?  So we've got half-brothers and sisters and like, steps and half-cousins or people I'm related to that I don't actually know how?  Or, uh, why?  But yeah, it's mostly us.

"I mean, he came here for school.  Like, a Master's degree in public policy or something?  And I guess he's supposed to intern for some congresswoman? 

"And me - " a deep intact of breath, followed by a sharp exhale.  Before, her eyes tracked to his profile every few beats in the conversation.  Now they cut decidedly away, toward the horizon, glimpsed through the charming, colonial style buildings surrounding the quad, through and above them, backgrounded by a gray winter's sky. 

"I guess needed to be someplace other than where I was."  Another shrug, this one mostly lost in the depths of the tight little puffed jacket,  It feels desultory, half-finished.  "So I kinda tagged along." 


--

"I bet she didn't resent you."  This, without looking back, though the toe of her sneaker makes contact with the edge of his.  Perhaps even his ankle.  Her Converse all-stars are rainbow stripped, and the rubbery edge that joins canvas upper to sole is covered in ball-pen scribbles and doodles, a complex array of interconnected doodles that bear a strange, if changed, resemblance to Garou glyphs.  "I mean, probably - " lifting her chin, here, her eyes looking steadily forward.  " - probably she was sad that she couldn't share it.  Or that there were things she couldn't protect you from.  You know?"

Erich
"Your brother should meet this friend of mine," Erich says.  "She's -- " there's a hesitation there; how exactly do you broach the topic?  "She's working undercover for Us.  I think she's trying to take down some politician or something that's one of Them."
Her sneakers bump his.  He's wearing scuffed skate shoes -- suede uppers, flat, relatively soft soles that conform just as well to the pavement or the deck of a skateboard.  Erich laughs aloud: "She's my kid sister.  If anyone's protecting anyone, it's the other way around."
Which isn't entirely true.  But it's mostly true.
"You waiting for your brother or something?"

Charlotte
"Heh." she returns, mouth edging upward around the narrow noise of the interjection.  "He talks about that sometimes?  Like whether it is more valuable to be on the inside of the other side, or to be pushing from your own side.  I guess still figuring out which way he wants to go?  So I think he'd like that, you know?  Talking to someone else about it.  Who, uh, knows what the hell she's talking about.

"But," a definitive sort of but, this, spoken with precision.  " - van der Meer, that's uh, our step-father?"  The eleventy-seventh one, to be precise, though this thought, flippant as it is, is kept inside her head.  Merely implied by the deep skepticism of her tone, that any sort of familial relationship could be sketched between her brother and the latest man to share their mother's bed.  "HE says that Finance is King - " a deeper voice here, mocking dislike behind it, " - and no one needs Washington anymore and all you is New York and London." 

The edge of her smile curves wider as Erich laughs aloud, but there's a little roll of her eyes at the end.  Which says, wordlessly and rather eloquently, that kid sisters protect big brothers from things, too. 

--

"Pfft, no.  I don't think he wants me following him around from class to class.  I was just, you know." Another little shrug, down whispering with the gesture.  "Exploring.  Our house is pretty close by.  If you don't have another class - " is there a sly pull to her little mouth?  " - I could show you where we live?  Then you could come by, you know, if you wanted some steak.

"Or uh, bacon."

Erich
There's a certain slyness to Erich's answering smirk.  "Yeah, sure," he says.  "We can take my house to your house.  And then maybe someday I'll come by with steak.
"C'mon."  He starts to walk again.  Long easy strides, hands in his pockets.  That hoodie of his looks thick and comfortable, sherpa-lined, warm enough to resist these mid-Atlantic winters with ease.  They pass college kids and grad students, the occasional professor or lecturer.  Visitors.  Tourists.  Everyone gets out of the way.
Eventually they leave the campus proper.  There, parked on the side of the road, is the reason for Erich's smirk and his curious little comment.  His car is a white Mustang, late 90s or early 2000s model.  It has thick black racing stripes down the hood, over the roof, off the decklid.  The horn toots as he unlocks it, and as Charlotte gets in,
she sees that he wasn't kidding.  This is his 'house'.  At least his home.  The backseat is folded down; the enlarged trunkspace has been converted into a bed of sorts on one side by the presence of a narrow foam pad and an unrolled sleeping bag.  The other side is stuffed with, well... <i>stuff</i>.  The accouterments of his wandering life: boxes, duffles, bags.  Clothes and toiletries.  A couple pots and bowls and utensils.  A very old laptop.  All of it as tightly packed as a gypsy's caravan, though without much apparent order or organization.  While she looks around, he starts the engine.
"I actually sort of planned to get my own place when I got here," he says as they pull away from the curb.  "But it just seemed easier to keep crashing in the car."

Charlotte
Charlotte sweeps along beside him, taking a distinct and certain satisfaction as people give way in the wake of his rage.  Walking beside an Ahroun, she thinks, is like standing at the prow of a ship as it slices through the ocean.  All the waves part.  That brisk pleasure is still gleaming in her pale eyes as they come to the car. "Oh, cool!" she exclaims somewhere in the give and take as they reach the car and he unlocks it remotely. 

Then she's sliding into the passenger seat, on her knees, looking back over the headrest and taking in the detritus of daily life, the stripped down domesticity in the back of his Mustang.

Her arms are wrapped around the back of the bucket seat, her chin on the headrest, as he ducks into the driver's seat.  "It really <i>is</i> your house."  There is not a whit of pity in her voice.  Instead, a thread of envy, and a sort of quiet admiration at his ability to fold himself into this space. Both rooted to some degree in the naivetee of the deeply privileged; and perhaps the pleasure a child takes in small spaces, camping underneath a tent make of bedsheets and rope, the corona of a flashlight glowing against the surface from within.  "That's so cool."

But then she sort of gets it, twisting back around at he turns over the engine, sliding down into the bucket seat and pulling the seatbelt to across her body as the car slips away from the curb.  "I mean, you know.  Like camping all the time."

Her directions take them past the historic row homes of the neighborhood, curve past the C&O Canal, through the business district, then ever-so-slightly uphill through the narrow streets, toward the heights.  A quiet, stately street, mature trees spreading bare leaves against the gray sky.

One side of the street is full of Georgetown's familiar (multi-million dollar) rowhomes.  The opposite side has freestanding homes, their tidy little front yards outlined in privet hedges and wrought iron fences. 

"Here," she tells him, tapping the cool window with her index finger.  The house on the corner.  The big one with a Victorian facade and older Federal details, all fieldstone and deep red brick and carved wood and worked iron.

Charlotte slips out of the car and waits on the sidewalk for Erich to join her, then leads him up the flagstone steps, opening the latch in the little wrought-iron gate that leads through the small but formal front gardens.  The boxwood is still green and a few bulbs in the square center have already started pushing up through the cold soil.  There's a skim of ice on the water in the bird bath/fountain. 

"Uhm, you know, if you ever wanted to like.  Take a shower," a faint shrug, awkward, suddenly conscious of the sheer contrast between their abodes. "or use the stove or, uh.  Sleep in a bed?  You could come by." 

She jogs up the three brick steps from garden to porch.  Or perhaps to <i>portico</i>.  Glance back of her right shoulder, pale face framed by a nimbus of pink-and-blonde hair, pale eyes gray now, rather than blue, a limpid reflection of the watery light of the winter's afternoon.  "Now that you know where it is, I mean."     

Erich
The Mustang pulls to the curb where she indicates.  He's a little slower getting out, needing to set the parking brake and kill the engine and all.  She waits.  He follows, passing the neat little gardens, taking the stairs.  He cracks the ice on the birdbath as he goes by, his fingertips getting wet.
And he smirks at her as she offers her home in case he wants to sleep in a real bed.  Or cook something.  Or shower.  "I usually sidestep into a high school locker room in the middle of the night when I need a shower," he says.  "And I've got a propane camping stove.  But maybe I'll take you up on the bed offer occasionally.
"Appreciate the generosity though.  Thought you Silver Fangs were more the type to feed beggars off the back porch."

Charlotte
Charlotte has already shaken her keys out of her front pocket by the time Erich joins her on the porch.  There are two of them, rather than a heavy half-dozen, on a keyring with a leather-stitched L as a fob.  The edge of her thumb runs over the worn leather in a meditative, half-conscious motion.

"Oh," she says, as he explains how he makes his life work, living out of a Mustang, showering in shuttered high school locker rooms.  "Okay."

Then a flash of <i>some</i>thing, back over her right shoulder as she inserts the key into the lock.  Turns it until it clicks home.  This hot prickle of that same <i>some</i>thing as it crawls little fingers up her spine.  "It's a back patio, not a back porch," Charlotte corrects him as the door swings open inward.  "And - "

A squaring of her narrow shoulders, bake into the yoke of the down jacket.  "And maybe we are," the dull ruddy flush of temper, or something like it, blotchy beneath her fine pale skin.  A moment's hesitation on the threshold, " - but that doesn't mean <i>I</i> am." before she steps across, holding the door open for him behind her.

Erich
Erich's eyebrows hop up his forehead at the flash, that squaring, the flush to her skin.  She still holds the door for him though.  He still takes it.
Inside, they busy themselves with the rituals of entering a home.  Outerwear is removed or at least loosened.  Shoes are removed, if it seems to be that sort of household, or otherwise left on.  Erich lets the silence unspool for a while before he broaches it.
"So," he says, drawing out the vowel, "the beggars-feeding comment was pretty much a joke.  I'm a Shadow Lord," the first time he's mentioned <i>that</i> little fact, which she likely would have never guessed on her own, "and god knows we come with our own warning labels.  Sorry if it ticked you off."

Charlotte
Inside, the foyer opens onto a grand staircase and a high ceiling-ed, wood-paneled hallway.  The air smells of linseed oil and crisp lavender.  Doors open to the right and left - to the right, a small music room tucked into the distinctive curve of the corner tower, narrow windows rising tall around the room, the curtains pulled back to let in the late afternoon light.  The room is dominated by the bulk of a baby grand piano, shrouded beneath a dust cloth.

To the left, the warm glow of incandescent light banishes the gloom from the parlor, its reflection spiking across the polished wood floors of the front foyer. 

There is a capacious wooden wardrobe just inside the front door.  Charlotte strips off her jacket and stuffs it inside without much care, letting it fall to the floor of the wardrobe amidst the detritus of past lives.  Umbrellas left behind, lost mittens, the sort of things that accumulate in such spaces, in empty houses. 

If Erich seems inclined to remove his sherpa-lined hoodie, she turns to him, heavy wooden hanger in hand, to accept and hang it with a care she does not seem inclined to show her own possessions. 

The prickling flush is gradually fading from beneath her pale skin, but there's a sense of <i>stillness</i> to her in the awkward moments as the silence unspools.

<i>That was pretty much a joke</i> he assures her, and "I know," she interposes, over/under the beginning of his next sentence, shutting the wardrobe firmly and turning back to him. 

Startlement chases across her features, widening her eyes, lifting her pale brows into an elegant, arching lilt as he reveals himself to be a Shadow Lord.  A little frown as she looks him up and down, quick enough that the glance looks stolen, furtive. 

"You don't - " <i>look like one</i>.  But no, the girl doesn't finish that thought.  Instead, and quiet this, "I've never met a Shadow Lord before."

--

The house is not empty.

In the front parlor, a man in a dark, well-tailored suit sits forward on a tufted Victorian settee, the evening edition of the Wall Street Journal in hand.  Except for the torch-like flare of the lamp he turned on against the late afternoon gloom reflecting in the dark polish of the hardwoods in the foyer, he is not visible their vantage point. 

The rustle of the paper, the crisp retort of his footsteps, herald his arrival a half-second before he appears at the threshold leading to the front parlor, the light at his back, the evening paper tucked neatly beneath his left arm. 

"Making friends already, I see," this to Charlotte, quite directly, before his gaze cuts upward to Erich. 

He is forty-something, fifty-something, dark hair grayed at the temples.  Every inch the Silver Fang, though perhaps not so powerfully well-bred as Charlotte herself.

"Miss Charlotte -," an estoppel, the faintest little bow toward the girl.  "Excuse me, Miss <i>Gray</i>."  the correction lightly spoken enough, though with a dark and rather patronizing undertow.  "I <i>am</i> pleased to see it.

"Are you from the local Sept?"  This directly to Erich, the stranger's right hand extended toward the Ahroun, his own body language the perfect balance of strength without challenge, reliability without expectation.  This is a man you can trust, with every single one of your darkest secrets.  He will never breathe a word, until it suits him.  "Richard Elliott Wickham, I'm - "

" - <i>leaving</i>," inserts Charlotte, and sharply, the dull flush returning to her cheeks. 

" - of course, my dear."  Wickham gives her the sort of indulgent look one gives a particularly trying puppy. "As soon as I have you and your brother settled in."  Then turns his attention decisively back to Erich.

"I am the Grays' business manager." Now fishing out a business card from his right front pocket, Wickham continues,  " - though I do freelance, when the occasion merits.  A pleasure to make your acquaintance."

Erich
"That's because up until now we've been skulking in the shadows," Erich replies without missing a beat, "engineering your downfall.  Now the trap is set to spring, and it's time for us to creep out from behind the curtain to monologue all about our plan to drop you into a tank of sharks at the moment the clock strikes twelve."
He does, in fact, hand his sherpa hoodie over.  It's thick and durable to the touch, but certainly nothing that deserves the sort of care Charlotte pays to it.  And, since the house generally looks well cared-for and professionally maintained, he steps out of those rather groddy DCs, leaving them on the entry doormat.
"That was a joke too," he explains, just in case she didn't figure it out.  "Though to be honest, I think I must be the black sheep of the tribe.  Or the white wolf.  Heh.  My family's all Fenrir, generations and generations.  Come to think of it, they're not too happy with where I ended up either -- "
He stops as he notices, suddenly and finally, that they aren't alone in the house.  There's a man there, and for a moment Erich's eyes steal bewildered to Charlotte, trying to determine if <i>this</i> was the brother she spoke of.  Couldn't be.  He's far too old.  Unless Charlotte was older than she looked.  Was that possible?  Maybe she's a Theurge -- no; wait, he called her Miss.  No one calls their siblings Miss.  <i>Now he's talking to Erich!</i>
"Uh."  His eyes flick down to the hand extended his way.  A second of pause, and then he grips it, giving it a nice solid pump.  "Erich, called Storm's Teeth."  Stupid that he's introducing himself like this to the kin, he thinks, when he didn't give Charlotte-the-Garou half so much.  "I'm not from the local Sept.  Either of them.  But I do live in the area."
A business card is handed over.  Erich looks at it, bemused, and then quirks a half-smile at the departing business manager.  "I seriously doubt I have enough business for you to manage," he says, "but nice meeting you, too."
And after the Very Trustworthy Gentleman departs:
"So is it ... normal for a Silver Fang household to just have lawyers and business managers and the like chilling in their parlors?"

Charlotte
"Oh," Charlotte is beginning to return, "is <i>that</i> why - " when Wickham's footsteps interrupt the back and forth, and that conversation recedes in favor of another one, entirely. 

For his part, the business manager seems inclined to stay.  To inquire, or perhaps even Inquire of Erich.  A flicker of dark blue eyes as Erich offers his deedname; the faintest thread of disappointment piquing his brow as the Shadow Lord disavows membership in, or at the least representation of, the local Sept.

<i>Septs</i>, in the plural.  "Indeed," the man returns, taking in a deep breath that suggests he intends to continue the conversation for some time, at least until Charlotte interrupts,

"Get-out, get-out, get-out!"

with instructions too direct for even him to ignore.  There is a brief further back-and-forth, though Erich is thankfully left out of it.  (The gist: Wickham is required in London, and wishes to meet with Charles before he goes.  Positions have been advertised, and someone or something named Hanrihan [the name earns an irritated eyeroll from Our Charlotte] will be here before the weekend to something something handwave something.  Take charge, Erich might gather, of something important enough to be called Domestic Affairs.)

--

Then Wickham departs, and Erich asks if it is normal, and Charlotte shakes her pink-and-pale side-to-side, pushing the heavy front door closed behind him.  "Ugh.  I <i>hate</i> him."

Then shrugs, "I dunno.  He's always been at Clingstone?  Like, since I was a kid, but he's just here to Keep an Eye on Me."  She expels a sharp breath through her nostrils, rather like a little bull, not quite looking at Erich at just this moment.  "Or hire people who will.

"You know how you said you were the black sheep of your tribe?" now a lilting glance back up to him, one that chases across his features, starting with the carved edge of his jawline.  Ending somewhere in the vicinity of his eyes.  Mulish reluctance and a bracing sort of expectation twinned in the squaring of her shoulders. 

Charlotte swallows, and there's a queer sort of shine to her eyes.  "Well, that's my deed name.  <i>Black Sheep.</i>  So, uh.  Good to meet you, I guess.  Storm's Teeth."

Erich
Terrible of him: Erich can't help the surprised blurt of laughter that escapes him.  "Shit," he says immediately afterwards, because he's not completely insensate; he didn't miss that her eyes look suspiciously bright suddenly.  "Sorry.  I just didn't think Fangs named their kids anything less than five words, thirteen syllables, and forty letters long.
"If it makes you feel any better," he adds, "I didn't even get a name at my Rite of Passage.  As soon as I turned out to be a Shadow Lord and not the Modi they were all expecting, my cousins and uncles and aunts were all too busy grabbing their pitchforks and running me out of town to think of that little detail."
There's no mistiness in his eyes.  Not at any of that.  He's almost breezy about it; tells the story like it's an amusing little anecdote.  Ha-ha, those Fenrir, what characters.
"Anyway," he wraps it up, "a couple months later I met another Shadow Lord on the road, a Philodox experienced enough to have sired and fostered cubs of his own.  Guess he felt sorry for me, so he tacked a name on me that sounded properly Ahroun-of-Thunder and sent me on my way.
"So," he shrugs, "why don't you offer me afternoon tea and biscuits, or something, and tell me how you got saddled with your name."

Charlotte

Erich's shout of laughter is probably the second-least offensive reaction Charlotte has ever heard to her deed-name.  The girl offers him both a(n only faintly suspicious) sniff and the edge of rueful little smirk that fades into something a bit more still as he breezes through the sketch of his own story.



"Shit," she returns, aping his language, perhaps unconsciously.  Maybe she's just trying the exclamation on for size.  "That sucks.  I <i>hate</i> people."



He asks for afternoon tea and biscuits.



"How about beer and bratwurst?" she returns, pale brows rising in a facsimile of perfectly polite inquiry at odds with the sudden flash an engaging grin, curling across her little mouth.  A wrinkle of her nose, " I mean, - <i>can</i> you drink beer or whatever?  Or do you need hamburger smoothies?"  Just the thought grosses her out.



"C'mon."



Jerking her head toward the hallway that flanks the grand stair, Charlotte takes the lead, navigating through the long hallway to the kitchen at the back of the house.  The floors are dark polished wood, warmed up here and there with Persian rugs, or occasional tables.  The walls are lined with original art: portraits here, primarily.  A long gallery march beneath the sightless eyes of mostly forgotten long-dead men, women, and beasts.



Erich will get brief glimpses of the truly capacious grand dining room; the library, all leather and wood; the morning room, none of which feels truly inhabited.  Dust cloths still cover many of the largest pieces, though here and there they have been pulled off this wingback chair, or that fainting couch, the one beneath the bay window with the charming garden view.



"I <i>thought</i> you looked like a Get-of-Fenris," she chatters as they walk down the hall, saying the three words as if they were one formal one.  A glance over her shoulder at Erich, up to his eyes and then back again.



"Maybe a bit less snarly, though?"



So they reach the kitchen.  Which is enormous and elegant and clarified, though hardly modern.  The room was last remodeled in the 1980s, perhaps, and tastefully so - in classic white.  White cabinets with pale granite countertops, a massive island in the center, covered by an enormous slab of creamy Carrara marble and gleaming white marble floors.  Hanging over the island, in the center of the room, a Murano glass chandelier in deep, rich scarlet.  A few barstools tucked beneath the island provide seating, and a breakfast nook / sunroom opens off to the left, tucked organically into the garden.



The room is dominated by huge ceilings, and high, clear casement windows that intermix with the cabinetry to provide a nearly 270 degree view of the winter garden, all grays and dull winter browns against the red brick, ivy covered garden walls.  The wavy 19th century glass and limpid late afternoon light give the room the watery transparency of a lake house at dusk or maybe dawn.

Charlotte points out the fridge, which is built-in and indistinguishable from all the other cabinets, until one knows where to look.  Rummages a bit herself and pulls out a gallon of whole milk, then invites Erich to rummage too.  And take whatever he wants.



"I <i>do</i> have one of those Fang names," she informs him, as he investigates the freshly stocked bounty of the fridge.  A sly look on her face if he glances back to catch it at just the right moment.  "You know, eleventy-seven syllables and whatnot.



"D'ya wanna hear it?"



Very nearly a challenge, that.

Erich

'Shit' gets a quick smirk out of Erich; the look in his eyes says he suspects she might be expletive-izing for the first time ever.
"You have bratwurst?"  He doesn't sound like he believes her.  She leads him through the halls.  "I can drink beer," he adds.  "Mostly it's just ... I don't know, plant fiber that disagrees with me.  I don't do veggies.  Or like, bread and grains.  I'm not too lactose-tolerant either.  I like ice cream though, I don't care if it makes my stomach gurgle."
Thankfully he doesn't get any further into his gastrointestinal distress symptoms.  They're in the kitchen now, which is huge and spacious and impressive.  Erich goes to the window and looks out, running his fingertips thoughtlessly over the striations in the glass.  "You have a nice house," he says, which is surely something she's heard before at this house or some other, and in varying tones from approval to envy to shock to: well, his tone.  Which is factual, pleased, and rather simply stated.  He's invited to peruse the fridge, and so he does.
He comes back to the kitchen island with a beer and a plate of assorted sausages, cold cuts, confits.  There's even some foie gras on it.  If she looks askance at his choice, perhaps wondering if he even knows what he's getting into, he defends himself: <i>what?  I like liver.</i>  Setting his bounty down, he pulls out a barstool, settling that long athletic frame easily onto it and twisting the cap off his brew.
"Yeah," he fires back.  "Lemme settle in for the spiel."

Charlotte
"Thanks - " a vague shrug, one-shouldered as he compliments the house.  Her voice is quiet, "I like the garden best."  She glances and out the windows, past  his smeary reflection in the old windows.  "That oak tree," a tip of her head toward the trunk visible in the center of the well cared for garden.  " - is older than the house.  By like, a lot.  He remembers everyone who was ever here, but you know. Like a tree would?  As if they all just left. 

"He's grumpy about the sparrows right now," and if Erich were to look up at just the right angle, he might see the suet cages and feeders of blackoil sunflower seeds tucked into the higher branches.  "But Falcon's gotta eat.  And Sparrow's useful.  They can go anywhere, and they're so little and plain that pretty much everyone ignores them.  Even the spiders - "

While Erich assembles a healthy plateful of charcuteries and cold cuts and foie gras, Charlotte is banging through the cabinets hunting her own meal.  Finally, she susses out the cereal boxes and pulls out three unopened boxes of cereal: Froot Loops, Reese's Peanut Butter Puffs, and Kix (which is apparently still <i>Kid Tested - Mother Approved!</i>).  She opens them and pours a generous serving of each into a big cereal bowl (and if Erich had an eye for such things, even the everyday China is Limoges), which she then tops with a fistful of Peanut M&Ms and mini-chocolate marshmallows and a huge glug of milk.

And yes, she looks askance at the foie gras.  And grins a little, at his defense as climbs onto the island proper and sits with her legs swinging as she digs into her own, ah, concoction.

Then sets it aside when he's settled in for the spiel.

"So, uh, I'm Eulalia Ampersand Charlotte Horatia Etheldreda Apostrophe Evadne, <i>If-Jesus-Christ-Had-Not-Died-For-Thee-Thou-Hadst-Been-Damned</i>, Jefferson-Gray.

"Silver Fang.  House Wyrmfoe I guess since they can't really kick me out and Moon Lodge.  Daughter of Charles Girard Fortinroi, Silvertongue, Spine of the Moon, the Undying, which is a stupid name since he, uh, died.  Adren Galliard. And a bunch of others.

"Called, <i>Black Sheep</i>.  Cliath and theurge."

Erich
"You're bullshitting," Erich says immediately, through his equally-immediately full mouth.  "There is no way your name includes Ampersand and Apostrophe.  Those aren't even names, they're punctuation."

Charlotte
"I'm not bullshitting!" Charlotte returns, right back making her pale eyes saucer-huge and as sincere as can be.  Holding the look for three-two-one seconds as the slight but ever-widening curve of her mouth betrays the faux sincerity given some edge of weight not by any particular skill at lying, but by the wealth of breeding in her bones. 

She cracks, though, when he notes that those names aren't even names, but punctuation.  "Okay well, not about <i>all</i> of them, anyway.  They really did name me Eulalia Charlotte Horatia Evadne and there are a few more for good measure.  And I really do have two last names, or three when I go to Heart's Rock since there they use my dad's too.  So Eulalia Charlotte Horatia Evadne Jefferson-Gray Fortinroi really <i>is</i> my name."

Erich
"Eulalia," Erich opines, "is a really horrible name.  It sounds like... coprolalia or something.  No wonder you go by Charlotte.  Evadne's all right though.

"Sooo... why Black Sheep?  I mean, beside the obvious reason.  I guess what I mean is: who'd you piss off bad enough, and how, that they named you that?"

Charlotte
The girl makes a face at the word <i>coprolalia</i> - nostrils flare, fine little mouth curling upward.  A flash of her pink tongue between her teeth as she makes a gagging motion.  The word sounds grotesque, and after the gagging-face she shoots Erich a narrow little look, picking through his expression for some clue about the underlying meaning.  Whether it might be as bad as it sounds.

Too bad she never paid attention to the tutors employed to teach her the Classic languages, Latin and Greek.  Then she could haughtily point out the shared root word. 

When Erich asks her about her name, though, the mirth shuts down.  She is not shining-eyed, not now, but there's something suddenly guarded, and starkly so, about her posture.  Beneath the down jacket shucked off in the front hall, she's dressed in tight teal-blue corduroys and a raglan, long-sleeved cotton tee, in lighter but tonal blues.  V-neck open to show a tank beneath, all well-made and well-fitted enough to show off the bones of her still-adolescent frame. 
The sharp cut of her shoulders, the flat plane of her scapulae, the curving ridge of her spine. 

"I just fucked up from the beginning," Charlotte says at last, glancing up at him, breathing out a steadying stream of air.  Still that posture, entirely animal, wholly protective, which feels both present and distant, as if she were protecting herself as much from the past as from the question now. 

She continues, with a grim little grimace that does not belong on her face, but nevertheless feels <i>earned.</i> "When you do that, you can't really come back from it.

"Mostly I don't like to talk about it."  Here she suppresses a faint shiver.  As if she had walked through a spider's web and could still feel its silk clinging to her face and hair.

"Lauren - they called her Bright Star, you know.  Like the Keats poem?" the memory is warm enough to dispel some of the wariness from her body language, enough to warm her features with the suggestion of a smile that nearly reaches her eyes.  Fond, but distant.  " -  She used to say that I could earn a different name when I made Fostern."

Another little shrug, as she picks up her cereal bowl again.  Though this time, she does not take a bite, but just begins pushing the cereal around the bowl. 

"But that wasn't gonna happen there."

--

"So."  Jump shift, a flicker of her gaze.  She just wants the attention away from herself.  "Why'd you become a Shadow Lord?"

Erich
<i>That wasn't gonna happen there.</i>

That's the truth of it, Erich thinks.  Not whatever she said before about coming to DC.  <i>That.</i>  Staying home meant being saddled with that name.  Meant being saddled with that reputation.  Meant people looking at her askance, thinking <i>well there goes Charlotte, who botched it right up from the get-go.</i>  In a curious way, Erich thinks her history mirrors his.  No one ever told her they'd kill her if she came back, but she couldn't stay, and maybe she can't go home.

His eyes flick down to his plate as she turns the focus back on him.  He sifts through the meat, picking out one he hasn't tried yet.

"I didn't 'become' a Shadow Lord," he says.  "At least I don't think I did.  Maybe it's a conscious decision for some people, what tribe they join.  But not for me.  I just <i>am</i> a Shadow Lord.  Even when I was a kid, as far back as I can remember, I wasn't like the other kids.  The Fenrir kids back home, I mean.  I was just different from them.  I didn't believe the same things, I didn't think the same way.

"It was almost a relief when I finished my Rite of Passage, and Fenris didn't come for me."  He shrugs, those thick shoulders rolling, that fair hair glinting in the light.  The very picture of his blood, Erich is.  "Everyone else freaked right out, but it made perfect sense to me when Thunder came for me instead."

Charlotte
"I was gonna say, I didn't know you could become something you weren't born to be."  Her posture eases as he accepts the deflection from her past to his.  And her legs stop swinging as he answers her question.  She is leaning back a bit now, one hand braced on the island beside her gross cereal concoction, which she still stirs meditatively, now, as if she expected to be able to foretell the future in the peculiar arrangement of commercial cereals and candy-coated chocolates.  The chocolate marshmallows and beginning to leach cocoa into the milk, turning it darker with every swirl of the spoon.

Her gaze flickers back to him, then.  All the physical echoes of his tribe, which she and her memories and her half-memories and her stolen memories know well, without any of the spiritual resonance that would chime with those tonal memories, the ones sunk in the marrow.  "But I guess you didn't." 

The girl straightens, then.  Leaves the spoon in the bowl with a quiet little metallic clatter.  Her dark shadow a traveling cloud over the gleaming marble.  "Does she know where you are?  Your sister?"

Erich
"Yep."  The answer is quick, but something about Erich is closing up too.  He doesn't seem to want to talk about his inglorious exeunt from his hometown any more than she wants to talk about her name.  "She's the only one who still talks to me.  My uncle -- he's the Next-Of-Garou," har, he's so clever, " -- doesn't know about it.  My parents either don't know or pretend they don't know.  Anyway."

He lifts his beer, taking a swig that gives him an excuse to stop talking about it.  When he lowers it, he's shifting the spotlight again.

"Guess you're sticking around for a while, huh?  If you're looking for a Sept, there's two of 'em.  One in the city and one in the country.  I think the country one traditionally belonged to your tribe, but these days it's mostly Fenrir.  Maybe some Lords too?  I have no idea what's going on with the city one.  I don't really talk to either, to be honest."

Charlotte
"You just float around like a free radical?"  Charlotte does not push.  Not here, and there's something about that quick response, that closing down that sends her attention slicing away from him.  To give him some degree of lingering privacy for whatever else he has to say. 

Instead, she's quietly slipping down from the island, hitting the marble floor with a soft slap of her Converse shoes. Carrying the sludgy mess of cereal and candy to the sink to wash it away, though she pauses to take a goodly sized SLURRP of the now chocolatey milk before dumping the rest down the drain.

God knows where she heard about free radicals.  Or if she even knows that they might be, but she imagines them as wandering electrons sparking brilliant little points of caustic light in people's bodies.  Maybe, though she probably does not know what electrons are, either, except that they must sizzle like lightning when sparked. 

"Everyone's telling me to go join one.  I don't know.  I haven't yet.  I guess I need one - I think - it's hard to stay - charged? balanced? - outside of one.  I like the way it feels when you slip the boundaries into one, and you're almost nearly whole, you know? 

"But then sometimes I think - look at everything else out here.  Right?  And how they make the world close in around you, like just that one place is really real, and everything else is splintered.   I kinda like feeling - 

- untethered for a few more days."

Then, "Do you wanna see the ballroom?  It's upstairs and it's <i>awesome</i>."

Erich
"That was the weirdest analogy ever," Erich replies.  There's a level of social mimicry here.  She gets off the stool.  So does he.  "Pretty good one though.  But I like to think I don't, y'know.  Cause aging, sunburns and cancer."

Then --

then, he's briefly serious.  "Don't listen to 'everyone'," he says.  "It's hard to stay charged and balanced without a pack, but it's not impossible.  We're not <i>wolves</i>, no more than we're people.  Don't leap into a pack unless it really fits, you know?  Same deal with Septs.  I haven't had a pack in ages, or a Sept.  I've been packless and Septless way more than I've been packed and Septed.  I'm still okay.  Unless I've lost my mind and you're a figment of my imagination and I'm actually talking to a lightbulb in an asylum right now."

He quirks a smile at her.  It's a little wry.

"And yeah," he adds, snagging his beer off the counter.  "Show me the ballroom.  And the library, 'cause I know you've got one."

don't you ever want to?

Charlotte

It is cold and rainy in DC tonight. Damp enough to seep into one's bones. Cold enough to keep most residents of the city inside. The homeless have sought shelter in the leesides of buildings, beneath bus shelters, and at this hour, in this weather, no one is playing chess on the concrete gameboards in the park at the radial center of DuPont Circle.

There is still foot traffic, of course. The bars and restaurants are all open, though the dinner crowds are drifting away, and the politicos are still recovering from the festivities following the state of the union (or the morning's bloviating on talk shows and blogs the city over) so that only the hard core drinkers linger, and a few of the restaurants are beginning to well and truly empty out. Live music spills out of the open door of an Ethiopian restaurant at the corner of Q Street and New Hampshire Avenue. The strange physics of sound - some dampening of the rain, an odd echo through the wide street, something - carries threads of the lively music all the way down the block to the park and the fountain at the center of the circle.

The fountain has been turned off for the winter, though rain plashes into the water left in the basin surrounding the fountain proper in a quiet, arhythmic counterpoint to the beat of the African drums and drone of the Masenqo a block away.

There's a figure in the center of the park. Rather slight from a distance, and likely a girl. Entirely unremarkable to human eyes, from any distance. Though Garou who catch a glimpse of her profile cannot help but read the pure breed singing in her blood-and-bones.

Falcon's wayward daughter, that, and no mistake.

There she is - wearing a dark hoodie, the hood pulled up as protection against the rain, and jeans. The shadows are deep enough that she is cast all in grays except for the pale shock of platinum hair, which catches the orange light and gleams when she lifts up her chin, tilts her head so that she is looking straight up at the orange clouds and falling rain.

Her attention falls from the sky to the bowl of the fountain on its elevated plinth, which is supported - as all such things must be - by naked women carved into the marble. With a rather nimble little hop - kangaroo like, her hands remain in the pouch of her hoodie - she jumps from the sidewalk to the low wall framing in the basin and begins to circle the fountain. One foot carefully in front of the other.

Considering, you see, whether she might be able to scramble up the central pillar. And what the view might be from the top.

Charlotte

(brb!)

Erich Reinhardt

"I wouldn't."

Hoodies appear to be standard-issue for their kind, their breed, their age bracket. The fellow who speaks to her is wearing on too. His is quite thick, lined with faux shearling, and zipped about halfway up his chest. Other than that -- well, that and the paleness of their skin and hair -- they have rather little in common. There is nothing nimble or lithe about the fellow who speaks to her. He's big across the shoulders, relaxed, eyeing the distance to the top of the fountain.

"We're like five minutes from the White House. If you got up there they'd probably send the FBI to tackle you down in case you were going to try to snipe Obama or something."

His eyes follow her. Whether she goes up or down or simply lingers where she is, he just watches her. Dire warning or not, there's no attempt to stop her.

"I haven't seen your sort around these parts," he remarks. Oh, sarcasm: "I was starting to think Falcon's kids were too good to dirty their feathers in politics."

Charlotte

The stranger's voice arrests the girl. Stops her in her tracks - [i]just so[/i], one foot poised in front of her, the other carefully center in the middle of the low wall. Which is thick enough to work as a perfectly adequate bench for the spreading asses of local officer workers on fine spring days, and certainly does not require the sort of careful sweep-stepping that defined her movement until his voice sliced in with a sardonic warning.

There's a chasing startlement in her sideglance. The pull of the damp hood against the pale hair plastered to the line of her cheek and jaw by the drizzling rain. An impression of startlingly pale eyes, gleaming with reflections of the streetlights whose sweep incises through the falling rain.

The startlement narrows into something else: animal wariness that crawls across the line of her shoulders and stiffens her spine as her pale eyes drop from his face to his body. Taking in both the bulk of it, shadowed dark within the gleaming frame of Massachusetts Avenue, and the relaxed posture in which he harnesses it.

Then and only then does the girl lower the her leading foot to the fountain's edge. Her own balance is easy, hands still slung low - actually, lower now, flat palms become narrow fists with an edgy tension that is easy to read in the frame of her body though less so in the pale cut of her profile as she turns her head away and looks off in the vague direction of the White House. Or what she imagines is the vague direction of the White House, mouth slipping into a doubtful little frown as she tries to tease out whether his warning is anything close to genuine, or - more likely to her, than anything - fun to be had at her expense.

"I haven't seen [i]your[/i] sort around these parts either." The girl returns at last, cutting a pale stare back towards him. The idiom ([i]around these parts[/i]) feels foreign on her tongue. As if she were trying his language on for size. Wriggling her way into it.
"'Course I don't know what sort that [i]is[/i]."

Then, frowning faintly - doubt and wistfulness all wrapped together in the brief glance she sneaks back toward the top of the fountain - reluctance seeped into her tone. " - do you [i]really[/i] think the FBI would come?"

Charlotte

The stranger's voice arrests the girl. Stops her in her tracks - just so, one foot poised in front of her, the other carefully center in the middle of the low wall. Which is thick enough to work as a perfectly adequate bench for the spreading asses of local officer workers on fine spring days, and certainly does not require the sort of careful sweep-stepping that defined her movement until his voice sliced in with a sardonic warning.

There's a chasing startlement in her sideglance. The pull of the damp hood against the pale hair plastered to the line of her cheek and jaw by the drizzling rain. An impression of startlingly pale eyes, gleaming with reflections of the streetlights whose sweep incises through the falling rain.

The startlement narrows into something else: animal wariness that crawls across the line of her shoulders and stiffens her spine as her pale eyes drop from his face to his body. Taking in both the bulk of it, shadowed dark within the gleaming frame of Massachusetts Avenue, and the relaxed posture in which he harnesses it.

Then and only then does the girl lower the her leading foot to the fountain's edge. Her own balance is easy, hands still slung low - actually, lower now, flat palms become narrow fists with an edgy tension that is easy to read in the frame of her body though less so in the pale cut of her profile as she turns her head away and looks off in the vague direction of the White House. Or what she imagines is the vague direction of the White House, mouth slipping into a doubtful little frown as she tries to tease out whether his warning is anything close to genuine, or - more likely to her, than anything - fun to be had at her expense.

"I haven't seen your sort around these parts either." The girl returns at last, cutting a pale stare back towards him. The idiom (around these parts) feels foreign on her tongue. As if she were trying his language on for size. Wriggling her way into it.
"'Course I don't know what sort that is."

Charlotte

Then, frowning faintly - doubt and wistfulness all wrapped together in the brief glance she sneaks back toward the top of the fountain - reluctance seeped into her tone. " - do you really think the FBI would come?"

Erich Reinhardt

"Yeah, I bet you don't." There's sort of a muttered laugh under that, which likely strengthens Charlotte's suspicion that there's fun to be had here, but not for her. The fellow tips his chin up, though, and shrugs his shoulders. Or maybe squares them. "I'm the sort that your sort usually checks behind curtains and under beds and in closets for. Though I left my cloak and dagger and prerequisite evil goatee at home today. Sorry."

It would have been a lot easier, Erich reflects, if he'd just been a Child of Gaia soul born into a Fenrir body. Not that that would have made his family any happier, or made his exile any less permanent, but at least the rest of the world wouldn't look at him askance and try to sidle away from him when they thought he wasn't looking. He too takes a glance in the direction of the White House -- quite in another direction from where Charlotte was looking -- and then shrugs. This time it's a shrug.

"Probably not. But the cops do drive by like every three minutes, and they'll definitely order you down. It's very bad for national publicity if a civilian cracks her head open falling off a fountain, five minutes from Obama's house."

Charlotte

That response - the mention of cloaks and daggers and evil goatees - has the girl turning back to him, rising tautly to the balls of her feet and pivoting back toward him like some first grade ballerina practicing a pirouette until she can watch him full on. Though on her the gesture is more graceful and natural than any first grader, a supple coil of movement threading through her frame.

The girl seems long-limbed, but is all of 5'5", maybe 5'6" and would not be able to stare down your average corporate secretary or insurance salesman. Or so it seems. The wariness has returned, liminal about her narrow figure. Has redoubled, as a slash of unbidden suspicion darkens her brown and she inhales. Shoulders and thighs tauts, hands still tucked in the front pockets of the hoodie. The edge of the hood caught on the crown of her skull, fine hair plastered to her forehead, cold rain dripping down her face.

When he looks away (toward the White House proper) she does not follow the glance, but watches the edge of his profile with a hard, reflective stare.

The cops will order you down, he tells her then. With a shrug.

"I'd like to see them try," she returns, with a edge of haughtiness to the words, a certain smug pleasure at the mere thought of coloring the tone.

Charlotte

Sense Wyrm (Who would I look for to wear evil goatees? BLACK SPIRALS.)

Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 4, 4, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 2 )

Erich Reinhardt

"Oh there's a good attitude for you," Erich deadpans. " 'I like to see them try.' Meaning, what, you'd tear their heads off if they did? That'll go over well." He takes his hands out of his pockets and frames an imaginary headline in the air. "Rabid Zoo Animal Slaughters Pedestrians And Policemen, Gunned Down By SWAT Team After Three-Hour Chase.

"Or at minimum," he amends, "you'd end up getting taken into jail. And I'm not bailing you out. So then I guess you'd sidestep, and then -- Police Begin Five-State Manhunt For Fugitive."

Charlotte

"That's [i]not[/i] what I [b]meant[/b]." The girl returns - and hotly at that. Jumping down from the fountain's edge with a slap of her rubbersoled tennis shoes against the pavement and as such apparently definitively foregoing the pleasures of forbidden fountain climbing for in the middle of a constant drizzle on a frigid night. At least for the nonce.

The snap of her eyes up to his features glitters with a banked stubbornness and all that wary tension dovetails in one casual slouch of her spine into an adolescent irritation at all the ways in which the world (and all its many strangers) consider to deny her the transgressive pleasure of - what?

"I just meant - don't you ever want to - " and here, she swallows the rest of the thought. Hardly something one says to a strange Ahroun on a dark night in unfamiliar territory, hitches her shoulders forward in the damp jacket, curling her shoulder to catch a raindrop falling from the edge of her cheek and just - breathes out as the prospects of just such headlines slip across the surface of her mind.

" - anyway, you wouldn't have to worry about it. Chas would bail me out."

Charlotte

"That's not what I meant." The girl returns - and hotly at that. Jumping down from the fountain's edge with a slap of her rubbersoled tennis shoes against the pavement and as such apparently definitively foregoing the pleasures of forbidden fountain climbing for in the middle of a constant drizzle on a frigid night. At least for the nonce.

The snap of her eyes up to his features glitters with a banked stubbornness and all that wary tension dovetails in one casual slouch of her spine into an adolescent irritation at all the ways in which the world (and all its many strangers) consider to deny her the transgressive pleasure of - what?

"I just meant - don't you ever want to - " and here, she swallows the rest of the thought. Hardly something one says to a strange Ahroun on a dark night in unfamiliar territory, hitches her shoulders forward in the damp jacket, curling her shoulder to catch a raindrop falling from the edge of her cheek and just - breathes out as the prospects of just such headlines slip across the surface of her mind.

" - anyway, you wouldn't have to worry about it. Chas would bail me out."

Erich Reinhardt

Erich watches the girl -- who is not just a girl but Falcon's girl, to be precise -- with mingled amusement and curiosity, both. He tilts his head: don't you ever want to -- ? He's quite feral in that moment. Something about the angle of his neck, the glint of animal intelligence in his eyes.

Chas would bail me out, she says, but while she's saying that he's walking, no running, and they have a certain nimbleness in common after all. He's quicker and lighter on his feet than you would dare imagine. One step, two -- the third beside Charlotte, bypassing her in a rush of movement. The fourth: the ball of his foot only, an upward surge, a silent detonation of coiled strength that launches him an astonishing vertical distance.

He grabs the topmost edge of the fountain. His grip is solid, palms smacking onto stone. His feet dangle, and then his knees bend to reduce the lever arm of his body as his arms flex, and his back. Instinctual physics: there's a class you'll never find on Georgetown's catalog. He hauls himself up with little difficulty and rises to his feet, his eye-level now some twenty or so feet aboveground.

"Of course I want to," he says. "But do as I say, not as I do. Hey, you can see the White House from here."

Charlotte

Charlotte has a story she tells about Chas. It's always on the tip of her tongue, and she likes to bring it and needle strangers with it. Especially when those strangers are kin-girls of the gossiping sort. And it she is turning it over in her mind anticipating the pleasure of bringing it out again, even if she doubts that this stranger will be scandalized or grossed out by the mere though of -

So there's that preoccupation veiled around the girl, Falcon's girl, enough of it that she does not quite catch way Erich watches her. Does not register the animal cant of his head, the sweeping gleam of her eyes. Does not even register the bunching of muscle and sinews in his thoughts, in his big, solid body as she's talking and he's walking, then running - then leaping.

Her shout of laughter is sudden, and bright, and clear. Brighter than one would ever expect from a daughter of Falcon born under a waning moon. Just one exclamation of it, breathless, caught up in the sweeping drama of, the elegant effortless physicality as he throws himself outward and hauls himself upward with such perfect animal ease that it defies the definitions of the city.

--

She has neither the strength nor the height nor the power to mirror his motion. Just the enthusiasm. Instead of leaping up to catch the lip of the fountain, she jumps... onto the retaining wall framing the basin, then, halfway across the water, landing in the frigid little pool (with a noise in the back of her throat that is half-a-shriek of protest at the damned cold, half-something-else entirely) and scrambling out of the water onto the plinth. Climbing what he managed with a single massive leap, finding foot-and-hand holds on the carved marble figures, the bare breasts and flowing robes.

Maybe he gives her a hand over the last few feet. If not, her scramble over the difficult overhang of the basin over the central pillar will be far from elegant. Either way, Charlotte will get there. And when she does -

"That was awesome," she enthuses, jeans soaked to the knees, Converses sodden, jaw set firmly to keep her teeth from chattering. Marveling at Erich ever-so-slightly. Climbing up to her feet to - well - see what she can see.

"I'm Charlotte."