Troubled. [Carmen-Jackson-Ben]

[Linnea Bartlett] Linnea returns to the Brotherhood some hours after she left – the precise number of hours to which one is assigned to guard duty in the labyrinthine catacombs of the underbawn. The night’s chilly, but the cold isn’t as bitter as it has been. Instead of her heavy winter’s coat, she’s wearing a fitted pea coat, in baby blue boiled wool, unbuttoned and open. The sleeves are too short for her arms, but otherwise the jacket fits her perfectly, as if it was made for her. Her scarf is wrapped around her neck one, the longest end trails to the ground. The fringe is dark and wet from trailing through the ugly brown melt water still seeping from diminishing mounds of soiled, compacted snow left over from the last winter storm.

She pushes open the door and stands just inside, wrinkling her nose, squinting as her eyes adjust to the changed quality of light – still dim, but soft and deliberate, rounded after the stark pools of amber streetlights and the screaming white of the headlights of passing cars.

The young Silver Fang stops at the bar long enough to get a soda, turns around and studies the dark shadows of the bar proper. Someone at the shift change said they thought they’d seen Carmen Losada at the Brotherhood – if the Uktena isn’t to be found in the main bar, Linnea ducks back into the back room, still searching.

[Carmen Losada] Clever Silver Fang.
Within the pub itself there is no sign of the Galliard. However, as the young Wyrmfoe makes her way into the kitchens [shockingly bright, compared to the candle and fire lighting of the ordinary; causing the pupils to contract sharply] there is perhaps a hint that something out of the ordinary is going on. The workers are a bit tense, a low undercurrent of wariness. One young hispanic man even steps forward as Linnea heads towards the door of the backroom, as though about to suggest she not go in, when an older man calls his name briskyly [Rafael!] and shakes his head in a quick, sharp motion.
Don't interfere.

The door to the back room is locked.

[Jackson Ball] Twice in one day, the Modi finds his way back to this ill-fitting area of town. Earlier for business. Must make this a pleasure-trip. Not that you'd know it by looking at him. Still with that sullen expression on a face too young to bear it. Furrowed brows cast shadows over his wide-set nose, and the hard line of his full lips. Head was worn unadorned in the unseasonable warmth of January on the Eastern seaboard. Near 50 degrees. Wore nothing but baggy denim pants, and a long-sleeved shirt that stretched taut across his well-muscled frame. As an ahroun, he already carried a near-everpresent vibrant warmth. Blood pumped faster, hotter, adrenaline always ready to surge within those characteristic bulges of sinew, and whipcord strength. And even deeper, a darker heat burned, radiating palpable - Gaia's indignation, her teeth-clenching Rage.

But tonight? Far above this cloud-covered canopy of smog, haze and mist, a bare sliver of a moon dwindled lazily, like the scant gleam on his bare scalp of polished mahogany. Tonight, that inner fire was a dull ember instead of an uncontrollable blaze. So, tonight, he and his packmate didn't feel shy rubbing shoulders with Kin and whoever else at the Brotherhood. Wasn't their neighborhood, or even their part of town. Was far from the ghetto and their street culture roots. But it was near the caern, and that made it more theirs than the white, working class denizens that parted for their passing like the prow of an oceanliner, leaving ripples in their wake.

The doors of the Brotherhood open wide to allow the pair to pass. Different here. They belong, and the Kin know it. Don't matter their color, or their upbringing. Here all monsters are welcome. Their hatred for one another, the world itself, and just about everything leaves tangible stains of menace on these walls. But it's a shared hatred, one they band together under, and that leaves solidarity over that undercurrent.

Jackson stops at the bar, eyes slitted, glaring at the menu. Wad of grimey bills hits the counter, and he's grimacing while separating bills, paying for a beer too expensive. Called 'paying for atmosphere' by some. Called 'bullshit' by he.

[Nicodemus Harris] "Shoulda gone to Desire man." Nico's complaint is muttered as they step into the Brotherhood, and he notes that there is not a nude body to be seen anywhere in the vicinity. Dark eyes slide over the kin owned pub from beneath heavy lids as nostrils skewered with surgical steel flare brieftly.

Tonight the Gnawers flamingly pink hair is burried beneath a blue bandana, which is tied snuggly over his brown. Over ripe lips, framed in a trimmed goatee, purse faintly, sending a glitter of reflected light off the thick hoop that pierces is lower lip. Tall, broad shouldered, he moves with a lazy sense of ease. It is not grace. It is soul.

Baggy black cargo pants hang low on his muscled hips, and a glimpse of smooth chocolate flesh peeks from beneath the too short t-shirt that he wears under threadbare denim jacket. At the bar, he digs into a pocket of his pants, and pulls out a fist full of change. Quarters, dimes, nickles. This is lets rain down onto the bar without a pause, as he orders a beer with a face so straight it dares the tender to mock his payment.

[Linnea Bartlett] Linnea strips off her coat and scarf, bundles them over one arm and stands there, staring at the staff, the bright spike of pleasant energy that hums through her body after her brisk walk levels and dissolves into something else. Fat drips off a steak one of the line cooks is turning, sizzles on the grill – but it turns her stomach a little bit, as her concern rises.

She tries the door, rattles the doorknob – pushes forward, pulls it back – frowns at carved wood surface, the mellow stain glossy enough that the suggestion of her profile swims illuminated in the polished wood. “You don’t have a key - ” she turns, tosses a look over her shoulder at the kitchen, pale brows drawing narrow and close. Shifting her coat from arm to arm, hand flat, high up on the door, she presses her ear against the surface, listening, then raps three times with her left hand, again turning the knob. “Hey – I don’t know what’s going on, but you’ve got the kin all flustered. Lemme in. It’s – it’s Linnea.”

Under most circumstances, the young Wyrmfoe is intimidated by Carmen Losada – her intensity, the sheer physical beauty she wears so naturally, as if everything in the world should look just like that. Tonight she draws in a sharp breath, pushes away a pair thoughts, shaped by the substance of memory, and feels the cool finish of the door against her ear. Her voice gains a touch of authority. “So – let me in, okay.”

[Jackson Ball] "Notha night," he responded to Nico's complaint. Young, virile, and always in the mood for titties on stage, he actually wanted to see what might be up in the monster culture this night.

By now, a beer's in hand. Cheapest in the house, and still better than the corner-store swill they sell in his neighborhood. There's no head on it. Despite that the bartenders in europe claim that you should pour straight in the middle, and go ahead and release the carbonation, that hasn't caught on in the states. They like their carbonation right in the liquid, here, thank you very much.

Cold, frosted mug lifts to his lips, while he leans his tightly-compacted bulk against the bar. His gaze slides languid, half-lidded, to the far corner and the excitement that just now starts to move in on his peripheral awareness.

Spots Linnea, and Nico gets a nudge with an elbow, "Lil Bartlett ova there," he rumbled low beneath the background noise of the weekend crowd of the pub. Dark eyes watch her unable to get in the backroom. The backroom that's always available to their kind, "Less go see," and with that, he shoved away from the bar. Really, it was a simple shift, a coiling of himself to a straightened posture, before turning to lope casually across.

"Sup," that bass intoned low from behind the Wyrmfoe, eyes glancing at the door curiously.

[Linnea Bartlett] "Looking for Carmen - " the girl shoots a glance over her shoulder and up at Jackson as he appears behind her, a grimace of greeting on her mouth, instead of her usual friendly grin. Her pale eyes catch the light. " - back at St. Michael's, some of 'em coming back on shift thought she was here. Didn't tell me about this." Her shoulders straighten, the wings of her scapulae straining against the thin cotton of her t-shirt, as she leans into the door again, rattles the knob.

[Carmen Losada] Over the din within the kitchen, it would normally be impossable to hear what was going on inside that room short of things getting volitile.
Given who it is that uses the room, 'things getting volitile' isn't exactly as uncommon as one might think.
Some of the kin working seem inclind to see what happens; but between glares from the manager and a basic sense of self preservation, they keep their nose to the grind stone, so to speak, and keep along their business of grease, soap, meat, herbs, flame and the like.

From behind the door there comes no response for a long moment. And just when the young , lanky, colt of a woman full of energy, rage, and impeccable Breeding might start to think of another option --
--the door opens with a sudden jolt, enough perhaps to shake the Ahroun's balance if she isn't quick. One presumes she is, indeed, rather quick however.

The Uktena that stands at the shot-open door is in some ways entirely different from the Uktena seen earlier that day. A woman who stands at only five feet and two inches of hight shouldn't be able to seem so damned.... captivating. But she does. It isn't the warm, singular beauty she can sometimes radiate when in the right mood. No, the beast is alive and stalking in the woman tonight. The fire within fed to a hungry, consuming conflgration and the woman standing in the doorway is made a firebrand; burning bright and hot. Succulent; provocatively sensual she drapes herself at the side of the door, one hand slipping the door almost shut behind her as she goes. Amber eyes run over the visage of the Fang [with so much pureness that it makes the galliards piercing gaze shift with the molten energy of instinctive admiration, even while it pulses darkly with some memory of her own ancestors who bore no love for the Fangs, the height of the so-called 'wyrmbringers'] intense and unrelenting. Sharp and clear.

For now.

Nude lips curve, a predatory smile that lacks much by the way of humour. Her mess of forever unrly curls is piled up tonight, held with mahogany hairsticks that allow many a curl to slip loose, cascading over sculted neck. The lambswool sweater of before has been discarded and she wears a white Hanes undershirt of thin cotton. Thin enough that the suggestion of flesh is apparent beneath. Somehow all the more tantilizing for the fact that it covers her modestly enough, but whispers all too brimmingly of carnal, lazy thoughts.

Jackson, for his part recieves much the same look [in the very depths of them theres a wariness; the predator all too aware that what stands before her is not, by definition, prey]... no doubt Nicco follows as she shifts her balance smoothly as she leans, thumbs hooking to the waist of her low slung dickies.

"I am afraid I am making use of the room at the moment. Is there something you needed?" Cutting and sharp as the spur of the moment coiling of a serpent, the amber gaze slices back to Linnea, as she was the one to beckon in the first place.

It should be noted that her stance does not allow easy passage into the room whose dore she has left only a crack open behind her.
Damned Uktena and their secrets.

[Nicodemus Harris] Nico grips his own frosted mug in one long fingered hand. Lazy bloodshot eyes watching at the bartender pours it, and then sets it in front of him. He just his chin out at the man in thanks, and glances at Jackson when the other Ahroun nudges him. Looking over the rim of his mug at the Linnea, he nods and licks beer from his upper lip.

With a bored expression, he ambles in Jackson's wake toward the Silver Fang girl. Almost anywhere else in the city... hell, maybe even the world.... two men like Nico and Jackson approaching a girl like Linnea would get worried glances filled with accusations of brutalities yet to come.

It's a little different. A little.

A dark pierced brow raises in silent question as he looks from the Fang to the door that swings briskly open. "Da hell sistah...." Nostrils flare again... expressive with their glittering hoops of steel, and his full bee stung lips spread into a slow smile.

"Quit wit da fuckery dawtah." Nico wanted to see bouncing nude titties. Carmen in a heated mood almost serves as a suitable substitute. With an arm too muscled to be called lanky, he reaches out and plants a hand on the doors wooden surface. "Ya no wan'compny, den fine somewhere else to party gyirl."

That said, the Bone Gnawer eases his bulk into the doorway with Carmen. Her against the frame, him against the door itself. One calloused palm planted as he looks down (way down) at the sleek Galliard in the opening. His savage bulk, hard beneath his clothing, pressed in a heated (rage) fashion to hers for a fraction of a moment. Staring calmly at her for a moment, before he lifts his beer and takes a sip. Giving the Galliard all the time in the world to feel the sheer strength of him pressed close to her. Then, finally, he slides past and into the room, licking beer from his lips. Lazy half lidded eyes looking for the hidden orgy, or piles of money Carmen must be keeping to herself.

[Carmen Losada] Normally, Carmen would warm right up to the Bone Gnawer antics, tease and tantilize without ever coming close to touching or outright flirtation. That she is desireable is more than a bit hieghtened by the fact that she seems entirely comfortable in her sexuality...
...and entirely disinclined to act on it. Ice queen? Please. Ice would evaporate on the womans flesh right about now.

Her lips curve, molten as the undercurrents of heat within her, primal as the first echoes of the flesh. "Nicodemus..." Soft and supine....
...and as he moves to push into the room, he may well miss the sun-burst flash of sheer Rage in her eyes, fierce and dark [injured. hurting. back the fuck away.] though Jackson and Linnea no doubt pick up on it.

Without another word she's shifted to Glabro and is slamming moving fluidly to slam her fist in a direct, unadorned kidney punch.

[Nicodemus Harris] His smooth brow furrows deeply as the Galliard shifts and takes a shot at him. Her glabro knuckles glancing off back muscles harder than one could even imagine. Lips thick beyond their right to be, purse in a curious expression of disbelief as he moves his palm from the door behind him, and instead plants it (with a distinct slapping sound) on the planes of Carmen's chest that lie just above the valley of cleavage that he had been staring at just a moment before.

"Rasclot!" His arm, solid and firm, presses her backward into the doorframe again. Holding her there firmly as tendons strain beneath the skin.

[Jackson Ball] "Nico-" his deep bass was low-toned as he began to warn off the Ahroun, but was too late. They were pack, but he'd not shared the strange condition of the Galliard in the Records room the other night, and it appeared Johnny had been equally quiet about the encounter. Not hidin' it. Just never got around to mentioning it. And it was a damn shame to sully the name of one who'd had their back so hardcore at the moot.

Leaves it alone. Just shuts his mouth, as his gaze rests on the Uktena in the doorway. Maybe 'rest' wasn't the best term. Weigh upon. Bore into. Slide over. Makes him swallow. Pupils dilate, and his gaze becomes hot; stifled lust.

Then she changes, her body growing in proportion, right there in the doorway, slamming her fist into his packmate, and lust turns to flash-fire alacrity. There's a bending of his knees, and an uncoiling of his ever-tense form, lashing out, sliding his muscled form through the door, shoulder butting the larger near-man out of view of the pub, and behind the door, muttering a terse, "Veil".

Jackson is a Wrecking Ball for a reason. His birthform is as strong as Lasoda's Glabro, and when he hits her? It's impossible. No human could be that strong. Except for one backed by Earthquake, its strength rumbling within and rocking her to the core.

[Linnea Bartlett] Linnea stumbles forward as the door is snatched open, but she keeps her feet well enough – letting go of the brass knob and recovering the step she took into the room as Carmen pushes outward. Jackson and Nico are certainly taller than Linnea, but she, in turn, towers over Carmen. It’s the only time she ever wants to slouch, when she’s in close proximity to the Talesinger. It’s the only time that what it means to be female wraps around and squeezes tight what it means to be Garou. “I want to come in.”

Carmen drapes herself across the door, Linnea shifts her planted hand upward, but doesn’t remove it. Even her fingers are reflected in the finish, pale smears of watery color swimming above the dark wood. Her pale gaze rises, taking in whatever she can see through the crack in the door above Carmen’s head. Her eyes narrow, her jaw juts forward, her mouth flattens, lips thinning with suspicion or displeasure that little suits her.

“I was looking for you - ” then the massive Bone Gnawer pushes into the narrow space and Linnea at last steps back from the door, gives way. She stands there in the hall, her shoulderblades flat against the cool plaster, her cheeks burning with feverish color. There is something – something wrong about that, about what happens between the Bone Gnawer and the Uktena, and the Silver Fang’s hands, swinging loosely at her sides, have balled into fists. She has nothing else to do with them except hit something, so Linnea shoves her fists into the front pockets of her jeans – something she does often enough that her knuckles have worn four white spots into the denim of the pockets.

Then - "Fuck." Linnea curses, shoots a glance over at the kin and kitchen workers, narrowed with command. The door. Then she slides into the back room behind Jackson and slams the door closed and home, locking it for the second time with that evening with a quick twist of her wrist.

[Nicodemus Harris] At least he didn't spill his beer. Inside the room, Nico watches with a slight canting of his head, as Jackson and Carmen struggle on the floor. He doesn't even pull his gaze from them, at the slamming of the door when Linnea steps into the room behind them all. Instead, he continues to look down at Carmen and Jackson, as he sips her beer. Broad shoulders giving a subtle roll beneath the threadbare denim jacket.

Bloodshot eyes evenentually tug themselves away from the entwined bodies on the floor, and he glances sidelong at Linnea. "Crazy shit, she try ta box me, ya no see it?" Incredulous. In his smooth jamaican rythms it sounds almost like a song. His full lips pulled into a half grimace, half smile. Oh yes... he's enjoying himself.

There is a pause, as he glances down at Carmen and Jackson again, then regards Linnea with raised brows. The tip of his doubly pierced tongue easing out to wet his lower lip, and toy with the thick hoop that skewers it. He doesn't have to say anything, for the Fang to know exactly what he's considering.


[Jackson Ball] He keeps his feet, not wanting to turn this into a wrestling match. Having her out of view was fine. Whether or not she kept her own was a matter of that moondancer grace, they'd all seen. Likely she had.

Jackson's beer wasn't so lucky. To his credit, the young full moon still held the frosty mug by the handle, but the amber stuff had sloshed on his shirt-sleeve, leaving the glass half empty (he was a waning moon - half empty, not half full), and filled with white, angry foam.

"Fuck!" he cursed as his glance slipped down to the beer, hands raising at rising anger at the mess, and back to the glabro. Door closes and it gets his attention. If he were a wolf, his ears would flick to the sound. As it was, it was enough to know that the Veil wasn't in danger of being rended.

"Watch out," his warning coming to the others belatedly, "She been unda tha weather'n'shit," his gravel toned slurred out with a headshake, regarding her.

[Carmen Losada] Veil
Some part of the Galliard screams - but it is the clear thinking part, removed from the red-haze that is creeping up to crowd her vision. The red-haze that knows only that her opponent is still standing, that there are two others nearby, one of which is also sure to be an opponent, the other as well, perhaps. The red-haze that threatens to throw away all thought andreason for the sheer passion that is giving up to the primal, beastial, carnal side -- it knows only that it needs to act fast, that it's outnumbered but who gives a fuck if you can go down fighting...

[Stone Rain growls within the pit of her being, snarling at necesity that she see through what she started...]

...SLAM.
Rasclot!
In twine, Jackson slams his shoulder intot he galliard, knockign her off her feet, flying into the backroom, before Nico has a chance to push her up against the doorframe.
Click
Goes the door as Linnea shuts and locks it behind herself.

So they're in the room now
[the galliard rolls belatedly with the hit and rises up in a quick - if a bit shakey -crouch near the table]
...and one might wonder why the Uktena was so intent on their not coming in. Sure.. it's a bit of a mess. Crumbled up balls of yellow, lined paper tossed about everwhere. A bottle of cheap rum, with no thinking of using a glass. Papers strewn about, written on with black and red sharpie pen... words - some english, some spanish some nothing of the sort ... glyphs and drawings... scribbles and arrows. Pieces of scotch tape used to put certain sheets on the walls, the rest strewn out all over the table.
[the Glabro formed Uktena lips curl into a snarl as she crouches, eyeing the three with hunger.wariness.bloodlust.confusion.rage.
frustrationwildenesshurtangerlostbitterness....]
Darts for the dartboard set up at one end of the room are also used to pin up papers or hold them down. It is a scene of disorder - which Jackson has seen the likes of before - a scene that gives a bit of a nod towards the obsessive. But the mad? Maybe...

Breathing heavily, she watches them, for this moment seeing them as nothing more than potential enemies. Nothing more than a primative problem - survival - to be dealt with accordingly...
...that is, until..
She blinks.

As suddenly as she shifted she shifts back down.
As suddenly as she saw them as strangers, she recognizes them once again for who they are.
The thin fabric of the shirt snagged on something during her tumble and it is torn now, a sharp rend at the ribs, tinged with a bit at the edges from a scrapping that is already healed.
[there is splatterings of blood on the lambswool sweater the woman was wearing earlier]
Snarling now, a fully human sound though she manages to give it a heated, feral tinge - she jerks away from them and moves towards the bottle of rum.

"I am not mad, Jackson. Nor deaf." Low spoken, hoarse with the sudden rise of her Rage. Sex and ire. Wounds that don't heal and demons unsuccefully chase away witht he contents of the bottle. She tilts her head back and drinks. Deep. Gasping a bit as she finishes gluging, wincing at the wretched taste, she brushes the wetness from her lips with the back of one hand, keeping half turned away from them. "What did you need, Wyrmfoe?" Sharp. Biting. State your business and get the fuck away.

[Linnea Bartlett] The Silver Fang catches the edge of Nicodemus’ – it can only be called a leer – and stiffens, turning furiously away from the Ahroun. This time, her cheeks do not color – they go stark, stacked white, like her knuckles and the impression of her knuckles worn into her jeans. Her breath comes in rapidfire shots like gunfire, flaring her nostrils. Linnea doesn’t leave the closed and locked door; she stands there, guarding against intrusion, protecting her escape route, watching the whole, wild scene unfold, taking in the scattered and tortured madness of the room.

They might think she’s seen nothing like it – the waxing full moon with the quicksilver grin – and they would, of course, be wrong. “I want to talk to you. About Grecco, what you found. Specifics.” She’s flustered, but her words come out in abrupt, staccato statements rather than the usual wild looping whorls. No – flustered isn’t the word, she’s burning. She shakes her head back and forth, her thick braid swings heavily against her spine. “It’s important - ” the young Wyrmfoe adds, a statement that would be lame without the passion behind it, without the aura of command she radiates, without the pure breed, “ – but it can wait until you compose yourself. You shouldn’t be here if you’re like this. Stay at home. Stay in the Caern. Look at what almost happened.”

Her pale eyes twitch to Jackson, his disaster of a beer filled with foam, but she doesn’t spare a glance for Nicodemus. If he did that again – that thing, that look – she might – she might. “Tell me where you want to go, I’ll take you there. Someplace safer than this.”

[Jackson Ball] I am not mad, Jackson. Nor deaf, she shoots venom toward him like daggers. And the razors fall against granite, a mountain. And he just stands there and takes it. Returning her look from that slitted stare - it smolders, lays dormant, that balefire of fury. His nostrils were flared from the surge of his heart rate. Shot earlier from the spike of adrenaline that blasted through his athlete's form.

Doesn't say nothin'. Just lifts that glass and sips his beer. A grimace. Too much foam. When she goes back to her work, he lets those dark eyes slide over the mess of her work. She says she ain't crazy, and he's still not sure. And he just sips his beer. Pink tongue contrasts with his darkened lips, licking away the foam. His brow's furrowed over that half-lidded glare. Doesn't like her tone, and senses her anger, and frustration. Another Garou might have blurted accusations in response to her behavior, but he just watches.. waits.. trying to figure out what's what.

She addresses the Silver Fang, and he uses that. Lets her respond while he keeps an eye on her, careful that her newly returned homid form doesn't evoke those images that assailed him before. It's easier when you're ready for it. Like a diet of the mind (or libido) that you choose not to indulge. Right. Like the modi's known for his control.

[Carmen Losada] Precisely what Jackson did not do [comment on her actions; call her on her apparent madness] Linnea pushes into. Full of authority. Full of the blood of her ancestors that flows so gloriously in her young viens.
It's enough to make the Galliard want to tremble.
It's enough to make the Uktena want to wretch.
She does neither for the moment [an almost imperceptable shiver does run along the svelte lines of her body], merely keeps her gaze sternly, stubbournly away from the both. Colour rises up her neck, a dusky rose to seep into the latte tones of her skin. Anger. Shame.
A dangerous mix.
There is any number of things she could say in response. [composed? honey, what you are seeing is no where near the lack of composure that could be. shouldn't be here? where the fuck else should I go? The records and risk destroying something? The streets? Home? I don't remember where I live, thanks.] She swallows them back, hard and visable, her shoulders tensing.. shifting.. tensing again.
Grecco.
Her eyes close. She should know the name. She should...
...she doesn't.
[she knows that three hundred years ago Crystal Tounge found the ravaged, gutted form of her mother; felt the dirty, calloused hands of the man-beast witht he pale, pale, sickly skin rub the blood over her....]
Forcingt her eyes opened [for a moment they are an old womans eyes, stark and barren with too many vile, unspekable things seen and known and lived through over and over until the Rage is all you can feel. Until the Rage is the only blessing, the only source of warmth in the cold.] she lifts the bottle once more.. drinks.
And says absolutely nothing, until...
"Tomorrow. Tomorrow all will be well." Certain? No. She sure makes a credible effort of sounding certain, but she isn't. "I will find you then and show you what it is I found." The hoarsness still lines her words, but they have returned to their usual softness...lace with arsenic mixed in honey. Deepened with a sorrow that goes far and beyond the point where tears are of any help.

Setting down the bottle she goes about gathering her things... "I will find my own way home." Proud. Stubbourn. Hoping she isn't lying.. hoping she'll remember.

[Linnea Bartlett] "You have a car, Jackson." The Silver Fang makes the statement a question only by the cutting glance that accompanies it. She waits long enough to receive his affirmation. The van that acted up earlier in the day, the van that vomited him out, torn almost to pieces - it has to be around here someplace, doesn't it? "Bring it around back."

Linnea reaches behind her and clicks the locking mechanism on the doorknob, unlocking the door - and steps forward from her vigil. Stiffly, she removes her fisted hands from her pockets, shakes the fingers loose and begins circling the room, righting things, snatching the most incriminating shreds of paper (the Garou glyphs, the gibberish words) to be tossed in the blazing fire.

Linnea doesn't approach Carmen, she circles the woman, warily - predator around wounded, rabid predator. "You can't stay here, Carmen. And you can't wander around the streets," Linnea wants to make her voice softer, but she cannot - she is too tense with rage. She can only change her words. " - but I'll take you someplace where you'll be safe until - until you shake this. We'll figure something out."

[Jackson Ball] He's still there. Still in the conversation, though he hasn't said a word. Him being there is enough. Like the elephant in the room, he's unignorable, that Rage is a tingle on the other Garou's skins, an everpresent reminder that just because he's quiet, don't make him out of this. Even watching her, he's affecting her. Making that shame all the more palpable as the heat from his dark, smoldering gaze lays on her. Motherfucking Heisenberg Effect - Observer Principle; physics and shit. All right there.

The Curse makes his look more hostile than it is. His grimace of concern comes off as a scowl.

The last time this happened, Carmen had pushed away all observers, and Johnny had been all too eager to give her space. Not the Modi. He'd stood steadfast as a nordic mountain as she fought not to succumb to... whatever demons plagued her. And he'd stood by, through it all. Wouldn't leave her side. Ain't a Garou thing to do. You back your pack, you stand by your septmate. His head's already setting to shake, to deny her assertion that she'd do anything on her 'own way'. To home, or wherever. Nostrils snort, and his words are cut short by Linnea's quicker reply. Glance slides to the Wyrmfoe, and she gets a slow, approving nod.

"Yeah. S'out front," Johnny had fixed it. It had been a simple starter, and easy to replace, though it had set him low on weed-money. Eyes slide to regard Carmen, "You member tha otha night," his words in that deep, liquid rumble aren't a question. A statement, "Ain' gon' leave you, Losada," It's firm. Resolute. Brooking no argument. That hard, flat stare stays on her, breaking down any barriers. Stays long enough to let her know, that the way it is, is the way it is.

And then he slides those eyes, behind their slits, slow as molasses, rolls his shoulders, and goes to get his van. Broad expanse of his back slips from the room, closing the door behind him.

[Carmen Losada] It's all too clear that she has no intention of giving into their [albeit wise] own judgements. Pride can make you stronger, but it can aslo cripple your better senses... but try telling that to a woman [beast] who - at the moment - feels she has little left but Pride. She knows the truth of their words -- not out of some sappy idea of how loyal they are to her in particular, but their joint loyalty to the sept, to the Nation and its rules. [and she'd left.. she'd left the Brotherhood before as soon as she was lucid enough to realize what was happening; had gone to get herself home, to hide away until it passed. and had ended up here again. how?....no tengo idea.] She tells herself she will heed them to the point of getting herself back home [I'll remember... I will.. I always do eventually] but she will do it alone. She will get away from their eyes and their awarness of her weakness. She will get away, recover, and find a way to make them forget they ever saw a glimpse of it. Work hard. Longer. Better.

The slim, sleek lines of her jaw sets in a firm line as she gathers the last of the strewn papers, stuffing them in a messenger style bag of worn, scuffed leather obviously well used. "...No." Soft - dangerously slow. She keeps her gaze away from them - especially the Silver Fang with her damnable aura that so urges aquiecense, that so drives the Uktena mad while even wanting to comply. "I am perfectly capable....of...finding..." The words start to slow.. fade.. halter and stop her grip tightening on the bag, the colour draining from her features...

No...not again...

...she sucks in a sharp breathe and hunches her shoulders, clining harshly to the bag, fingers digging into leather until the bone of her knuckles press up white against her satin flesh. Before.. before Jackson saw this lead into some internal struggle that had left the Galliard rocking, with tears flowing that did nothing to ease whatever unspeakble pain twisted her features. This starts off in similar manner...
....but her lips snag into a sneer and she begins to shake not with anguish but with fury. Her pupils dilate, gaze taking on the eerie look of the Theurges as they focus on things of another world, unintelligable to most of the other auspices. But the Galliard is not seeing spirits, but demons... demons to war with the better angles in her head.
The bag is dropped.
The petite womanrakes the nails of one hand up the opposite arm, hard enough to scrape and cut. She doubles at the middle as though redieving a blow, stggers as though she'll fall...
...growls in feral, twisted manner sweeping aside a chair, sending it tumbling over.
[with horrible split vision she only barely notices her surroundings - the creature devoures the still beating heart of his packmate, ripped from his flesh... he'll die here, he knows it, but so will the creature, so will the abomination - only just enough to keep herself from succombing to the need to shift, the need to kill, the need to rage - a pain like he has never known, but it does no matter, it does not matter for the creature had flayed the flesh from the child, peeled it away and burned its acid into tender flesh just enough to torture, not enough to kill.. not yet.. ]
...away. She moves away from Linnea and Jackon if he is still around. Occasionally lashing out at the air, occasionaly cluthing at some part of her body, occasionally stiffling back and howl or a scream or a sob or a bark... moves away until she is at a wall, pressing her forehead hard against it.. hard.. harder.. harder...rubbing, pressing until it scrapes the fleh and a trickle of blood flows. Too much blood for such a small wound as is the way with most facial wounds, superficial though they might be....
"No puedo.." A hiccuping chuckle, half hysterical before it is viciously choked back..."Fuck.. oh fuck... "


[Linnea Bartlett] Linnea finishes her circuit of the room, essentially ignoring Carmen's protestations about her independence, her lack of needs - she doesn't acknowledge them, she doesn't respond. When the Uktena goes wild, Linnea backs toward the door and clicks the lock closed again; no one's coming in, not when that's happening to a Garou, not when there's nothing Linnea can do about.

The girl sinks to her haunches, her spine firm against the door, her head back, braid catching where the finish is spotty, rubbed away, where the ridges of the old door are splintering from age and calls on something deep within her, the only thing she has to offer unless Carmen begins to do herself serious harm. She finds her focus, siphons off a sliver of her spiritual essence to power her gift, and waits for the worst of the spell to pass.

[Carmen Losada] It does indeed pass. Sudden and furious as it came, it leaves her until she is crouching herself, half leaning against the wall for support. Gasping at first, shuddering with the twin blows of whateverthefuck it is all that was and the effort to keep from giving in to it...
...effort that is slowly but surely unraveling away as she expends the last dredges of her will, her effort, her stubbourn damned pride in trying to keep the monster within its cage.
Truth be told she would have lost the battle...
...had the Fang not enacted the gift. Calling foth the spirits, fillign the very air about her with that otherworldly glory that had so raised the spirits of even the Galliard herself during the Attack.
Those glassy, unfoced, pain-hurt-anger-shame-horror filled eyes seek out the source of that alien, but comforting feeling that pushes over the barbed-wire of the curse. Somewhere in that gaze surges an unspeakable, but nearly tangible relief... she gasps, shuddering with the grateful lightening of such despair, such anguish, such choking ire...

...and finishes her descent, down all the way to floor, still half crumbled/leaning against the wall. Bone weary. Wounded [more in the soul than anything of note in the body]. But the threat...passes.

[Linnea Bartlett] Linnea sits there, her elbows braced on her thighs, her pale head dipping low when Carmen at last collapses, no longer in the grip of whatever it is that plagues her. The girl's shoulders (always straight) sag percepetibly, but there's no one in the room to notice the loss of discipline, the failure of pride.

She doesn't move until she hears the Modi's heavy-handed knock on the door. Then, at last, Linnea stands, curving her spine in a bone popping stretch, and walks across the room to crouch in front of the Galliard, holding out her hand. "C'mon - " pale fingers, cupped and open. "Jackson's here, let's go someplace more comfortable. Someplace safe and private."

[Carmen Losada] "Home." It takes a moment before she responds; before she opens her eyes [but doesn't look towards the Ahroun. ashamed. still in pain.] and speaks in a ragged, near-whisper. Clearing her throat...drawing a deep breath... she steeles herself... and starts to get up. At first it looks like she will refuse the offered hand. Why pile up weakness upon weakness?
...but at the last minute she takes it in as firm a grip she can muster. Turning it not into a plea for assitance or addmitance of pitful weaknesses - but a subtle sign of gratitude. Of respect.
I can mange on my own. Somehow. I always have.
But... you are right. And... thanks.

Up on her feet it is clear that despite bolstered will, she is at the last recesses of her abilities. A paradox of a fragile state.. and the strength it takes to weather this curse whenever it comes and keep on going.
The two ahrouns have seen her at some of her best moments.
And now some of her very worst.
And like anything else a Galliard goes through - it is sure as hell intense.

"Home." She repeats, firmer now though still soft. Moving to take up her bad, straightening slowly and wearily moving to the door.. but moving on her own two feet, of her own volition. Pride. "I remember now." Indeed for all the lingering shadows ofwhatever horrors she just saw and felt in her own minds eye - her gaze is clear and lucid once more. She is herself once more - battered and bruised in body, mind, and soul though it may be.

[Linnea Bartlett] With that, they rise, the Uktena and the young Silver Fang, joined by their clasped hands. Linnea circles the disaster of a room, nudging a few of the chairs back into place with a quick jut of her narrow hips as she passes.

She opens the door, finds the Modi standing here, all glowering energy, stands back to allow Carmen to pass, and follows the pair at last, closing the door behind her with a cool click home. She glances at one of the kinfolk shying away from the trio of Garou as they head for the back door. "Have someone clean up. Let me know the bill for any damages - " offhanded, low enough that Jackson and Carmen might miss her words," then jogs to catch up.

Outside, the temperature has fallen as the night progressed. Linnea - having abandoned her coat in hallway - shivers as the cold, damp air hits her bare arms. She reaches up, chafing her skin with calloused hands, then climbs into the side of the rusting old bag of piecemeal autoparts and jury-rigged solutions to mechanical problems and rust, behind Carmen.

With Carmen's directions, they find their way through the streets to her apartment - but if she thinks that the Ahrouns are simply going to drop her off like a child at the curb, she is wrong. Linnea follows Carmen up the stairs to her apartment, follows her inside or - if refused entrance - (respect the territory of another) - sinks to the dirty floor outside the Talesinger's front door and spends a cold, haggard night, watching and waiting until she is certain that her septmate has returned, wholly, to herself.