You paged the room with 'Monday, April 7th, early morning. Got it. Rina's in bed, Cat's in lupus on the floor, Salem slept on the couch.'.

In the small hours of the morning, faint sounds come from the bed behind the painting. With the wearing-off of the morphine, Rina's breathing has grown unsteady and shallow; she bears it silently for a time, but by four she is unable to do so any longer, and low involuntary sounds come on the edge of each breath. Quiet, perhaps--but enough to wake at least one of them.

Salem sleeps lightly; though he hasn't gotten more than a few hours of rest, the sounds from behind the screen pull him into full wakefulness. His eyes open, and he rises from the couch in a smooth motion to pad barefoot over toward the bed.

Cat's ears twitch, and he opens his eyes, peering out into the world from under the coffee table. When he identifies that tickling sound of Rina's breathing and Salem's absence, his head snaps right up- banging into the coffee table. He growls in the back of his throat and slinks out from under it, padding a minute after the Philodox and peeking behind the painting curiously.

There are tears at the corners of her eyes, tracing faint lines back into her hair; they are tightly closed, until she hears a footstep close by. Dark eyes slit open, to look up at Salem from that pale face. She gives a tiny shake of her head. "Can't," she says hoarsely. "I can't." A swallow, and she makes a conscious effort to ease that rapid, shallow breathing, without much success. Careful, oh so careful not to breathe too deeply.

Salem studies her with bland, shadowed eyes, and after a moment nods shallowly. "How much do you have left?" His voice is flat.

Cat sits by the edge of the painting, ears flattened back as he watches balefully.

Rina swallows, closing her eyes. "Two and a half, maybe three vials. Whatever's out there. I figure I can try dropping it to maybe five cc's and get by. Be able to maybe even sleep, if I take something on top of it."

"Mm." Salem brushes back a stray lock of hair, then steps away from the bed, heading over toward the coffee table and the 'drug store' Rina left out there. It's untouched from the night before apart from a bit of straightening; the litter has been thrown away, leaving the vials and unwrapped needles.

The wolfcub scrambles out of Salem's way, watching the elder go about the dirty task of needles. Cat pads over to Rina's side, making a mewling sound like a crying puppy and nosing at her shoulder carefully. Don't cry, please? Rhya will take care of you.

"Shh..." Rina's hand comes up to touch the wolf clumsily. "It's all right." There are still those quiet, bhalf-voiced sounds, pain that can't quite be kept down. "I'll be fine. Past the worst of it."

Salem, meanwhile, unwraps one of the needles and loads it, his expression quite blank and stony. Five cc's, no more. He returns shortly -- the procedure's a far less involved one than for certain *other* opiates. "Do you want to do this yourself?" he asks her.

Cat's ears flick about again and he moves away from Rina, giving Salem more room if he needs it. He snaps at the air, just bunched up energy with worry, and shifts to homid, crouched there with his arms curled around his knees.

Rina swallows, looking up at Salem with a flicker of uncomfortable sympathy in her eyes. "I'll get it," she says hoarsely. "Thanks." Her expression is hard and determined, but the hand that takes the needle and syringe from him trembles the slightest bit. Her lips press together, hard, and she barely manages to reach across to the other arm.

Salem's eyes narrow slightly, noting the kinswoman's unsteady hand. "Are you sure?"

The boy watches silently, then just closes his eyes as he changes his mind.

Gritting her teeth, she tightens her fist and delivers the shot without answering--a shade too fast on the plunger, perhaps, to judge by the slight shudder. The hard, tense focus of the action is gone. Her head falls back into the pillows, and her eyes flutter closed, relief coming to her face in a sudden, profound change. The hand with the needle very nearly loses it on drawing it out, but she manages to lay limp fingers over the syringe before it falls. A quiet sound comes from her throat, a whimper of relief as the opiate washes away the pain.

Salem reaches down, taking the used syringe from thin, slack fingers. Wordlessly, he pads away to dispose of it.

Eyes closed, she breathes much slower now; when she manages to speak, her voice is dazed, softer, far less tense. The pain is not entirely gone, not with such a small dose--but it has receded and changed. "I'm sorry, Jack, I'm so sorry..."

Cat opens his eyes and watches again, somewhere in the back of his mind wondering if they remembered he was there. He doesn't do anything to remind them, though.

"Forget it." Salem's voice is hard to read; the halfmoon's withdrawn into himself, and the barriers are up. He returns to check on her, laying a hand briefly on her forehead. "Think you can sleep a bit more?"

There are tears in her eyes, when they flicker open. "Don't know..." She swallows, reaching up to touch his wrist, her hand dropping again weakly. She doesn't quite smile. "Prolly isn't enough there to do anything for ya..." Nothing governs her, now, though she isn't completely flying; there are hints of the pain, in the lines around eyes and mouth. "See, Cat... if I was a user, it'd take a lot more o'this stuff t'make it stop hurting..."

He just blinks quietly, resting his chin on his arms.

Salem's jaw tightens; he shakes his head slightly and turns to the cub. "Go back to sleep. Take the couch."

Cat tilts his head. "That's your bed. I can take the floor, issokay."

"Don't fight, kids," Rina mumbles vaguely. Her hand slides from Salem's, and hangs limp over the side of the bed.

"Take the couch," Salem repeats, firmly. Mismatched eyes meet the boy's pale ones. He bends down to take her hand gently and place it back on the bed.

Cat dips his head and gets to his feet, heading to the couch and curling up on one side of it. Even in homid he doesn't take much room, curled up in a ball like that. He's still quite tired, so it doesn't take long for his wide-open eyes to start fluttering closed.

Rina's eyes flicker open, and she watches Salem from the morphine-induced distance.

"Try to sleep," Salem mutters, looking down at her. "I'll be here in the morning."

Rina swallows. "Stay with me?" she pleads, quietly. "Just--just for a little while..." Her eyes are so dark, dilated by the drug.

Salem's answer is a quiet, "Of course." He shifts down to lupus in a practiced blur of forms and sits down next to the bed, within easy reach of her hand. Lupine eyes watch her, one gold, one milk.

She pets him gently--almost like last night, save that with the barrier of animal shape between them it feels a little safer, a little less perilous. Eventually, though, her hand is still, and she drifts into sleep, the tears drying on her cheeks.

Salem remains awake for the remainder of the night, watching her, his ears cocked forward to catch the subtle rhythm of her breath. One ear twitches sideways whenever the cub on the couch makes a noise in sleep, but barring emergency, the halfmoon doesn't leave the kinswoman's side.

---

She stirs not too long after dawn, her brow furrowing slightly, a restless murmur coming from her throat. Her hand reaches out, finds him; she is still half-asleep. A brief rumpling of his ears, and then her hand strikes the bed. "Up up," she mumbles.

Salem's ears tilt askew. He makes a little 'wrf' noise and then gingerly climbs up onto the bed and lies down again, wary of jostling her too much.

Rina reaches to him with the nearer hand, slowly, and rumples the wolf's fur; her fingers sink into it, and she scratches gently. "You're not Cat," she murmurs hoarsely. "You must be Jack."

It must be -- Cat isn't as big as this, or as dark a shadow. Cat's soft lupine face isn't missing fur on one side from the scars. He lays his head on his paws, watching her with a feline intensity.

Salem

Black fur covers this adult male wolf from muzzle to tail, the dark pelt unbroken but for a vague, irregularly-shaped medium gray patch on his chest. Like all his species, he is long-limbed and athletically built, powerful and relentless in his motions, a true predator. Rarely is the animal truly relaxed, and often a murderous anger seems to rage just under the surface of his ebony pelt, the promise of violence held in check only by a near-iron control. To Garou eyes, he has the look of nobility, and it's clear that Shadow Lord blood runs strongly through his veins.

One feral golden eye glints with a more than animal intelligence, but the other is a blind white that's all but lost within the twisted jungle of scar tissue that covers the left side of his face. There's a secondary scarred area on his right shoulder that looks like it might once have been some kind of glyph, but it's been long since obscured. With claws. A nightingale charm hangs from a cord around his neck, nestled close to the fur.

Rina strokes him carefully, gently. "Thanks," she whispers. "I-- I don't want to be alone." A swallow, and she makes a sickening confession. "When I found him gone, I-- it was bad. It was so awful. I-- I promised, though, din't I? Promised. Tried to remember that when I loaded the needle, every time, when I thought, it'd be so easy..."

Salem lays his ears back. A quiet sound escapes him, not quite a whine but something like that little tired sigh she's heard him make from time to time.

"I'm here," she murmurs. "See, I'm here. I got through it. I thought it was all my fault... he'd go and get himself killed or somethin'..." Her eyes flicker open, and she snuggles one cheek into the pillow to look at him. "I'll be okay.":

Salem lifts his head from his paws to look back at her with animal eyes, his ears cupped forward. The nightingale charm at his throat glints slightly in the dawn light.

She runs a finger down the chain, carefully, to touch it. "Missed you," she murmurs. "Thanks for... for bringing him back."

Salem dips his muzzle, brushing it against her arm. The touch is delicate, almost furtive; stiff canine whiskers prick her skin lightly.

She returns to petting him softly. "Cameron's looking for someone to heal it," she murmurs, eyes lowered. "This is so gonna suck if we can't get anybody."

The dark wolf lowers his head back to his paws. Would anyone else get such liberties? Petting the Demon? Not likely. He whuffs out a quiet breath, probably in agreement.

"I'll be okay," she whispers, managing a slightly pained smile. Her hands are so knowing--she hits the right places to rub behind the ears, around the neck and shoulders.

Despite his intentions and chronic insomnia -- likely helped by the latter, in fact -- Salem's eyelids droop to half-mast. A moment later, he jerks his head up with an abrupt snort. His ears tilt at skewed angles.

"Sleep," she whispers. "If you will, then I will... deal?"

Salem looks over at the clock, then at Rina. He lays his head back down, still looking at her.

She lets her eyes drift closed, but for five or ten minutes she continues to pet him gently, stroking his fur. "Shhh."

Salem allows his own eyes to slip closed once hers are, relaxing under her hand, his breathing growing slow and even. He outlasts her, but only barely.