Scene: Safe House Kitchen
Present: Trent, Kevin, Tu, and Jeremy
Trent sits on the couch, so deep he might well be anchored to it. His clothes are rumpled. There is a cigarette tucked behind one ear that he never got around to lighting. If one were to catch a glimbse of his eyes behind his sunglasses, they would seem to be lacking energy despite the lively colors of his contacts. He has his iBook open on his lap, and every now and then he taps the touch-pad or keys something in, his eyes scanning back and forth listlessly.
Currently the moon is in the waning Crescent Moon phase (34% full).
The front door opens and closes, and shortly after, the Glass Walkers' door admits Kevin, who doesn't seem to be much more energetic than Trent. He grunts at his tribemate, tramps through to the kitchen to turn the coffee maker on, and returns to the main room to flop down in one of the easy chairs.
A few moments after Kevin enters, so does Tu, carrying some boxes. Evidence around the house suggests he's been doing this since very early this morning. He makes his way to eh kitchen, carrying a box clearly labels 'Kitchen'. He smiles when he spies Kevin. "Hey - if you're grabbing coffe, would you pour me one too?"
Trent glances up to both Kevin and Tu in turn, offerig a vague wave. Stretching his arms back behind him with audible pops, he yawns, and rubs his eyes. "Mrgh," he comments insightfully, and then somehow loses his anchor, rising to his feet with pops echoing from his knees. "I've got some eh... Starbucks... things..." he mumbles, sauntering off into the kitchen and popping open the refrigerator. He roots around and finally pulls out a glass bottle of cold 'frappuccino', Generation X's contribution to the evolution of the morning routine. "Almost two bucks a pop, but damn they're good. These are the mint ones."
"Perversion of good coffee," Kevin mutters with a dark grin. Once the coffee in the pot is brewed he makes himself one and Tu another. "So, I hear you're moving in, boss-man?" he says as he passes Tu his beverage and returns to his chair opposite Trent. "Any further thoughts on what we were talking about the other day, Trent? About Thomas?"
Tu nods in agreement with Kevin. "Do you know how much /fat/ those things have?" he forces a fake shudder, then takes the cup offered. "Thanks." He grabs a seat at the table and sips the coffee, sans milk or sugar. "The mortgage on this place got dropped. I could have handled it and the apartment, AND the office, but I wouldn't have had any coffee money left." It's clear that wasn't an acceptable situation. He looks towards Trent, when Kevin asks about Thomas.
With nobody else taking him up on his offer, Trent shrugs and lets the refrigerator door close as he pops the cap off and chugs the little bottle. "That's as may be, but it gets me going," he shrugs. The galliard nods to Tu and looks to be thinking about a comment, but shifts to Kevin as business takes over. "You tell me, chief," he grins, slowly starting to regain some energy. "Are your energies positively aligned? Cos this rite is about - forgiveness!" Trent's grin broadens as he mimics John Mellencamp, making light of the situation - or trying to. "Forgiveness! Even if - even if - you don't love Grey anymore."
Trent pages to the room: Wait... crap! No, it's...
Trent pages to the room: Don Henley. =P
Trent pages to the room: It should be Don Henley, not John Mellencamp.
Kevin eyes Trent over his coffee. "There's no need to take the piss out of me," he says, having swallowed, in discontent tones. "What you're effectively saying is, before I can even learn this rite and perform it, I need to have a Good Attitude towards Thomas Grey in my head. We're looking at a long wait there."
Tu doesn't bother commenting on the Grey / Kevin thing, and moves on towards other business. "Hey Trent, have you been thinking about who you might like to run with?" He smiles, slightly. A loaded question.
Trent pages to the room: Sorry, got a sermon going on. ;P This's gonna be big.
Jeremy enters the common area through the door connecting to the Safehouse.
Trent chuckles quietly, trying to reign in his laughter so that he doesn't embarass Kevin too much. "Sorry, man. I love that phrase, too... you guys' slang cracks me up sometimes. But yeah, at the heart of the matter, you've basically got to go in calm. I mean I'm not saying be best friends with the guy, but at least for a moment let it go. Swallow your pride, and all that. You are admitting that you have overstepped and wanting to make ammends. If you try to do that while there's rage burning in your heart and mind, you might be able to put on a good show, but it would have a ring of insincerity to it. That might work for some people," he shrugs, "maybe. I don't know, maybe Grey will just accept it to be done with it and go on with his life. I've heard of that happening. But like I said, I was taught strict. And if you ever want to use the rite properly, you have to learn it properly. You want to phone it in when the time comes, that's up to you. I tell ya what though... especially on some of us with higher rage... it's dishonorable to refuse the rite, but it isn't unheard of for the offended to actually tear out the offered throat of the supplicant. It ain't supposed to happen, but it has." He pauses to let that settle in and then shrugs again. "Maybe cos it was performed half-heartedly at the wrong time. Maybe because it wasn't learned right in the first place. You trackin, bro?" Tu's question intrigues him, and he scratches his chin slowly in thought. "Haven't had a whole lot of time to think, but I was hoping to speak with you about family matters. Not to mince words, but with Nat gone, I was wondering who was interested in running the house."
Trent pages to the room: Damn.
Jeremy pages to the room: Wow, haven't seen a pose like that from you since Rebirth.
Trent pages to the room: It happens! You just have to... make me be a galliard. ;) Get me on a soap-box or somethin.
Kevin snorts. "Grey wouldn't go an inch out of his way to do me a favour any more that I would him. You know and I know that I'm only doing this because it's been laid on me by a philodox who happens to be my pack alpha." Eyes roll to heaven briefly. "I can't see Thomas living long if he throated me, Brom would crucify him. But then again I suppose that wouldn't do me much good." He turns to Tu. "Hey. You're a nice, calm, serent type, never seen you raging, never seen you frenzy. How do you get over it, if you're really really mad at someone?"
Kevin pages to the room: "...any more than..."
Kevin pages to the room: And 'serene'. This flu has killed my prufreeding skilz.
The door swings shut as Jeremy makes his way inside, shoulders rocking back a bit as he slips his bag around his neck and arm. Blinking at the current conversation, he lets out a loud -huff-. In fact, he looks down right sour.
"I am", he says in response to Trent. "Grey isn't really an option, though in terms of history and influence, he's clearly the leader. Still, I don't think he wants it, and I don't think he would be the best for the tribe. I'm next in line in terms of seniority, and experience." He takes another sip of his coffee. "That's why I took over payments of the house, and have moved in." He glances at Kevin. "I try and remember my place in the scheme of things. I can get angry, but try to save that for when my throat is on the line."
Long distance to Kevin: Tu would have had a different answer if it were just you and I. Honor and Ragabash are not lovers. :)
"Good morning, sunshine," Trent nods to his cousin, himself looking like something the cat dragged in, but more energetic than he was at least. He steps away from the refrigerator to allow him access and nods to Tu. "Those were my thoughts," he nods, letting out a relieved sigh. "Good. Glad to know someone's in charge. I'm gonna want to compare notes with you later." Back to Kevin he shrugs again. "Hey, it's your life, man. To bastardize Morpheus, where you see a pain in the ass, I see providence. You are a ragabash and you don't know the most important rite you can learn in order to continue your existence. I'm ready to teach it to you so that you can make things right with Grey and Tamara. You have a chance to learn it proper and perform it proper. You want to phone it in, I can make this real simple." Falling to his knees, he stretches his arms to the sides and calls out, "You want my blood? Take my blood!" Just full of the pop-culture references today, it seems. "Then say a prayer to Gaia, cos you're on your way back to the collective," he says as he gets back to his feet. "You wanna do it right... just like everything else, you've got to be in the proper mindset. You learn it properly and perform it properly, and you'll be set. But I tell ya what, I haven't known many ragabash who don't know the rite. Might be cos they're not around for long."
From afar, to the room, Jeremy dies at Trent. "Dude, you play the best GW Galliard."
Trent pages to the room: Wh00t! :D
Jeremy pages to the room: Lalala
You paged the room with 'We're waiting on Kevin, right? :)'.
"I will /not/ follow Thomas Grey," Kevin says flatly. "Contrariwise --" he actually says 'contrariwise' with a straight face -- "I'd be very glad to support you if you plan to claim alphaship, Tu. I respect /you/." The emphasis on 'you' shows that the opposite is true of Thomas. "My place in the scheme of things is stirring things up. I just stirred a little too hard, and now I have this obligation that I just don't see how I can fulfil. Hello, Jeremy," he adds with a wan smile before turning back to Trent. "I didn't mean to sound ungrateful. If nothing else I can make my peace with Tamara, while I figure out how the hell I'm to stop wanting Thomas's head on a plate."
Trent pages to the room: He has a rage of six. You have a rage of ONE. LET IT GO! ;D <j/k>
Letting out a loud huff, Jeremy fires off at Kevin. "Maybe this isn't my place, but out of everyone here with the exception of Rina, I know Thomas better than anyone and I know for a fact that even through all this shit, he'd still go to bat for you, because Thomas puts -family first-, and you'd be good to learn that lesson because you're only family by choice, you weren't born into our blood so maybe that Get of Fenris voice in the back of your head is making you into a total asshole." He clenches his fists up. "Boo fucking hoo, so he smacked you around about some writing on the fucking walls. Ya'know why he's fucked up right now. For the -first- time in his life he did something stupid and selfish for himself by finding true love and he got himself beat over the head with it. Sure it was a dumb decision on his part as a Philodox, but when you give yourself up for twenty plus years to the /cause/, then sometimes, something is going to fucking -snap-. Thomas has went to bat for everyone in his tribe over and over and over and /over/ again. There were times he hated me and yet he still dragged my ass out of a ten foot hole and even beat up my ex girlfriend because she was smacking me around. Rina has been in and out of trouble from the day she set foot here and still he has always bailed her out. Hell, he didn't like Natalie as much as everything thinks he does and he still supported her. I can go on, John, Roger, Leala, whatev. The point is, he stuck around, he supported us and he has every right to snap and lose it and make a bad judgement like the next guy down the road. The thing is, you need to stop being a dickhead, get /over it/, go on with your life, be a fucking Garou and not a third grader and make peace with him. If you two don't sit down and talk your shit out, then all its going to do is cause a rift and ripple in the family and you don't need me to tell you who's side I"ll be on." With that, he starts for the kitchen. "Good morning, towel." He says in reply to Trent. "Congrats Tu."
Jeremy pages to the room: everything=everyone thinks*
"Kevin's not a Get anymore than I am", he says sharply, in reply to Jeremy's comment. "But yes...", he adds more mildly, turning back to Kevin, "...eventually you're going to have to deal with Grey for better or worse. It's better to do it sooner than later." He takes a sip of his coffee. "You stir things up, sure, but you also try not to take things personally. /And/ you realize that everything has consequences, regardless of the motivation. Remember, when you're apologizing, you're not apologizing for how you /feel/, you're apologizing for what you did. There's a big difference between those two things. You don't have to like someone in order to respect them " He glances towards Trent, then back to Kevin. "Of course, the other option is to tell Brom that this is really none of his business, and you'll do as you please."
Jeremy pages to the room: Who was that?
Jeremy pages to the room: N/M :D
Long distance to the room: Tu eeks. Sorry - Me.
"I need a smoke," Trent mutters, reaching into his jacket for the pack despite the forgotten cigarette behind his ear. Shaking one out, he mouths it, though he hesitates to spark it up, remembering the house rule. Meanwhile he reaches back and pulls the band out of his pony tail, shaking his hair out and letting it fall around his face. With a frown, he reaches back for his ear and retrieves the old cigarette - but instead of discarding one or the other he simply parks that one in his mouth too. "What they said," he mutters around the cigarettes, stretching his hair-band over his wrist. Taking the cigarettes in one hand, he continues, "Anyway, ya gotta buy 'em both a present too. Or make somethin. Or somethin. Beyond the actual rite of the performance, you've gotta give 'em a peace-offering. That bit's up to you. Maybe do somethin for 'em."
You paged the room with 'Though, you can tell in that I look at everyone else. :P'.
From afar, to the room, Jeremy grins. :D Yah, I realized that soon as I got to the bottom."
Kevin launches himself out of his chair with such vehemence his coffee falls off the arm and the mug smashes on the floor, unheeded by him as he strides furiously through towards the kitchen in Jeremy's tracks. "Family? Don't you talk to me about fucking family. You're not even a fucking garou. I didn't choose that filthy metis-fucker to be in my family." He pays no heed to Trent or Tu as he confronts Jeremy, fists balled, though evidently since he remains in homid this is mere foul temper and no outright frenzy.
Trent pages to the room: Oh boy. :)
From afar, to the room, Trent has some issues and is protective of his cousin whom he has missed for several years. :)
Click. Click. Whirling around, Jeremy pushes back his jacket and pulls out a heavy glock, safeties off. "First of all, you get out of my face or I'll pump you so full of lead you'll be using your dick as a pencil. I'm not a fucking Garou but I'm more fucking roach than -you- are. You throw a punch at me and I'll make a bad decision."
Trent pages to the room: Do we need someone to GM if I'm gonna try to... restrain... someone? Or myself?
Jeremy pages to the room: Nah, don't need a GM for this. :)
You paged the room with 'Nope - you're call. I roll dice if I'm torn about what to do. :)'.
Trent pages to the room: Rage four. I have the -potential- for frenzy, and the button has been pushed... but I'm also Willpower six... and the smarter thing to do would be to simply try to hold Kevin back... hmmmm....
Jeremy pages to the room: Lets not frenzy. Cuz'.. I don't want to become kinfolk chunky salsa after you tear through Kevin and Tu. :D Mister tank.
Kevin pages to the room: Frenzy? Who said anything about frenzy? I'm not frenzying. Just mad.
Trent pages to the room: He meant me. :)
Kevin pages to the room: I know, just joshing.
Trent tears off right behind Kevin, having expected a reaction from Jeremy's speech. "STOP!" he commands at the top of his lungs, clamping his hand tightly on Kevin's shoulder. "Do NOT threaten my cousin. Or we'll need to summon Alicia to do the GATHERING FOR THE DEPARTED rite. I swear to GAIA if you swing on him, I'll finish the job he starts. BACK DOWN." The rational side of his brain is telling him to go for a choke hold if this escalates, but....
Jeremy pages to the room: Trent and I got about 30 mins before we gotta jet to work :/
Trent pages to the room: Less than that. =P I should pack up now-ish.
Jeremy pages to the room: You should be dressed :P
Trent pages to the room: I'm dressing!
Trent pages to the room: I think we should TBC this. =|
Kevin pages to the room: When?
Trent pages to the room: We'll be off work roughly nine hours from now...?
Jeremy pages to the room: Well, I can just leave on my next pose since I'm assume Tu is going to start yelling. XD And.. yah.
As soon as Kevin pushes back, Tu stands up and puts himself between the other ragabash and the kin, like a referee between two fighters. His attention, though, is firmly on the gun." Are you crazy?", he all but yells at Jeremy. "Put that fucking thing away. " Then to Trent. "Nobody is swinging on anybody. Take Jeremy and leave. And you..." he turns to Kevin. "Cool off, right /now/."
Trent pages to the room: And Tu becomes Solomon. :D Perfect.
Kevin's face curls into an ugly sneer. "You've been playing Doom too fucking much. Drawing guns on your own family. You can't have it both ways, Jer. Either Grey and me are both your family or neither of us is." He spits on the kitchen floor by the kin's foot before looking rather shamefaced at Tu and retreating several steps.
"Needed a smoke anyway," Trent mutters, letting his hand slip from Kevin's shoulder with a subtle pat. "S'go," he nods to Jeremy, and starts towards the door, already reaching for his keys. He spins on his heel rapidly at Kevin's remark and points his finger back at him with a sneer, but manages to bite off his response as his eyes burn. The Galliard turns again, picking up the dropped cigarettes and heading for the door.
Long distance to the room: Tu should have been a philodox. :P
Trent pages to the room: Good scene - even if it pushed back the necessary goal even farther. =P I'll try to be around as much as possible, but I have to work /early/ tomorrow morning. Take care, guys. :)
Kevin pages to the room: Alas, for staying in character at the expense of actual progress. Thanks.
"I'm perfectly sane." Jeremy says simply, though there is a hint of anger rising up into his voice. He pulls the gun back soon as Kevin turns away and secures it into his jacket. "And you aren't in any shape to give /me/ ultimatiums about choosing sides. Idiot. Maybe I play Doom too much, but at least I got a better sense of reality than /you/ do." He says, heading after Trent, putting a good deal of distance between him and the Ragabash. Oh, ho, he isn't giving you just the bird, he's giving you the whole 'turkey'.
Trent has disconnected.
From afar, to the room, Jeremy laughs. http://homepage.mac.com/jasonaisling/turkey.jpg XDD
From afar, to the room, Jeremy snugs you two. "See ya guys! Thanks/sorry for the scene :>
Kevin pages to the room: Ho ho!
From afar, to the room, Jeremy snickers. *HUGS* Call me later if you want Kev. *poofs*
Long distance to Kevin: Tu is game to continue...
Kevin pages to the room: Me too!
Kevin pages to the room: Your pose I think.
You paged the room with 'Why, so it is.'.
Tu watches the two leave, before turning his attention back to Kevin. His stance and tone, however, are much milder. He shakes his head, one hand rising to rub his forehead. "I probable should have let you kill him. Would have saved me future headaches." Joke? Maybe.
"Thinks he can stop a /garou/ with a /gun/ and he says he knows about /reality/," Kevin mutters angrily as the cousins make a hurried departure, leaving him with Tu, to whom he turns. "No... no, I shouldn't have let him get to me," Kevin apologises. "He may be annoying sometimes but he's damn useful too. And if I'd killed him, I don't know what Aimee would have said..."
Tu nods in agreement. "He's jackass, but a useful one. He's also has his hands in more things than he should have ever been allowed to. Which makes him dangerous. And know he has at least two garou who will work with him. So yes, you shouldn't have let him get to you." He heads over to the sink, and grabs a towel to clean up the coffee on the floor. "You want to talk about this thing with you and Grey?"
You paged the room with 'Know =Now.'.
"No... but I should, perhaps you might see a way out of the mess I've made of it which I can't," Kevin muses. "How much do you know, if anything at all?"
Tu wipes up the coffee, and tosses the mug pieces in the trash. "Just a little bit. I tried to stay out of inter-tribe stuff." He chuckles humorlessly. "Guess that's over, now. I know it has to do with a picture you drew, and I'm pretty sure it has to do with why he moved out. And, that Brom took you to task for it, but that's about all the detail."
Kevin nods. "It all began with this Bone Gnawer cub, Basil," he commences, flopping back down in his chair and giving Tu a grateful look as he mops up the debris of his mug. "Some people have a real downer on the guy, because he's full of questions and sarcasm, and pretty much devoid of tact, but then he's an ahroun, so... Anyway, Tamara and Thomas decided they'd had enough of him talking back, so they caught him out in the woods, held him down and... ripped his tongue out. Made him eat it too." Kevin shudders. "Which to my mind goes so far beyond any form of reasonable punishment for a cub who isn't even in their tribe... and besides, he's a good friend of mine. So I got in a mood and without thinking of the consequences I drew that picture on the wall in the barn, of Thomas and Tamara getting jiggy. Wanted to get back at them. Thought I'd covered my tracks but of course Brom had to act the philodox and figured it was me..."
Tu raises an eyebrow at the story "I see. Did you just make up the thing with Grey and Tamara, or was it based on something real?" He doesn't comment on the Basil part, just yet.
Kevin shakes his head, and has the grace to look shamefaced. "It was a total lie. At least, as far as I know. But like most good lies it was plausible and based on a not-far-distant truth. Grey is a charach, we all know that. And the garou he was convicted of screwing around with was a metis." "Well, then you fucked up", Tu says matter of factly. "I don't think ripping out a cub's tongue is reasonable behavior, really, but your response wasn't measured." He pauses, then adds, "Nor well thought out. Being called a Charach is much worse in our society than being called too violent. And Grey has had to come back from that once." Another pause, "And, really, it was too easy a target."
"I know I fucked up." Kevin lifts his shoulders in a shrug and lets them drop. "I fucked up royally, I admit that freely. Two wrongs don't make a right and all that jazz. I don't need a sermon, I need to figure out how I'm going to put right the wrong I did. Which Trent seems to take great pleasure in telling me I have the wrong mindset for."
"I'm not lecturing you, I'm just telling you how I see things." He grabs his coffee and takes a sip, then frowns and brings it to the sink. "If you know you fucked up, why is it hard for you to apologize? At least for what you did, if not for how you did it. As for Trent, well, try and take what he says with a grain of salt. If a requirement of the rite was complete respect for the person, they wouldn't need the rite. You just need to apologize for what you did, you don't need to start the Thomas Grey fan club."
Kevin watches Tu closely. "Don't tell me I can't even make coffee right now," he says glumly. "Yeah. I have to apologise to Grey. But if I try to do it before I know the Rite I know one or other of us will end up going bananas on the other and that means I'd be toast... he's a way more skilled fighter than me, and ragier. And I still hate him for what he did to Basil and... and what he did to me too, for that matter."
Tu nods. "So, do what you need to do to learn the rite. If Trent needs to think that you're ready to idolize Grey, then let him think that. Then, when you perform the rite, well, you'll know what's in your heart. " He sighs. "Grey's a lot of things, but my guess is that he won't make this overly hard on you."
A little gleam comes into Kevin's eyes. "Ah-hah! I see. I go to Trent and tell him I've thought it all over and had a change of heart and I forgive Grey his trespasses for ever and ever amen. Whether or not I actually do. In short, having lied my way into this situation I now lie my way out of it again." He purses his lips. "I don't like it overly, but if it's the only way... What about what Trent said about how if the Rite was done insincerely the target can tell and is within their right to throat you?"
"I never said lie." Which, strangely, seems to be exactly what he said. "But, if you don't be that obvious. Tell him you've been talking to people, and that you realized that what you did was out of bounds, and that you understand than now." Another pause. "I think, the rite is about apologizing for what you did, which you admit was wrong, not why you did it. So, you will be sincere." The coffee, apparently, wasn't bad just cold. As Tu pours another cup. "Trent seems to think you need to submit totally to Grey, but I don't think that's really a requirement. Just /his/ requirement."
You paged the room with 'But if you DO, don't be that obvious...'.
Kevin rubs his chin thoughtfully. "Okay. I'll be subtle, if I can. Though heaven knows that quality is alien to me. I ought to try and figure it out if I'm to be any sort of good new-moon."
Kevin pages to the room: sorry for delay, phone
Tu glances at his watch. "Focus on the what, and not the why, and you'll be fine. And, feel free to ignore this, but it may help to be blunt with Grey before you dot he rite. Tell him what you told me - that you're sorry you went overboard, but why you did it." He empties his cup in three quick gulps. "I need to head into the woods in a few."
You paged the room with 'No worries.'.
Kevin nods. "I ought to face up to it, I s'pose. But I don't think I should do it alone... too much likelihood of one of us ending up dead... meaning me." He smiles with one corner of his mouth. "You doing okay at moving your stuff in here? Need a hand? Even I should be able to help carry things without causing mayhem."
Tu puts his cup in the sink, then heads over to Kevin and clasps his shoulder. "Well, I'm here if you want." He shakes his head at the offer, "I'm in no rush, so am taking things slow. Gives me a chance to organize as I go. I may have a job for you, but I'll no more tomorrow." That said, he starts for the other side of the house.
Kevin looks suitably grateful to the senior ragabash. "Damn it, why can't all our tribe be like you?" he asks rhetorically. "I'll catch you later."