It is currently 15:34 Pacific Time on Tue May 10 2005. Currently the moon is in the waxing New Moon phase (14% full). Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 57 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the south at 7 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 30.05 and rising, and the relative humidity is 86 percent. The dewpoint is 53 degrees Fahrenheit (11 degrees Celsius.) Safehouse: Grey's Room It's a spacious bedroom, if not as big as the one across from it. The door at the end of the second floor hall opens into a small space about five feet deep which, to the left, opens out into a wider area. Windows along the longest wall and near the top of the other outside wall provide plenty of sunlight, and the room is bright for most of the day. The walls are a dusty pastel teal above a polished maple hardwood floor, and the furniture, though not new by any means, is in good shape. Though the room doesn't lack for tidiness, there's a certain absense of the little touches that would give it personality; either its inhabitant hasn't made it a home yet or simple doesn't care to personalize. A neatly-made double bed is set lengthwise against the longer of the two interior walls, its head near a small nightstand which holds a reading lamp and an alarm clock. The closet door, which is usually closed, is across from the foot of the bed, and a large, solid-looking dresser stands against the middle of the longest wall, on the other side of the bedroom. A small stereo sits on top of it. There's a somewhat venerable armchair in the corner made by the two exterior walls, and a low bookshelf (mostly empty) squats along the shorter of the exterior walls, underneath the windows. There comes a tapping, gently rapping, 'pon the Philodox's chamber door. He's more or less been given his space since the note was slid under the door, but now it would seem Natalie's patience has expired. Grey has done an excellent job of staying out of sight; babysitting Masao and Dominic while Jeren was out briefly last evening has been the extent of his visible presence since turned up looking like a wreck Sunday evening. There's been no lights turned on in his room, and there's been little sound, either. Definitely no music, as is his usual habit when playing hermit. No response to the Elder's knock. Natalie gives it a few seconds, then raps again. "Thomas?" she calls through the thin wooden barrier. "You in there? Because I'll know, in about ten minutes, if you are or not." Still nothing. Out in the hall Nat mutters to herself, left hand digging into the front pocket of her white jeans while the other rests flat against the door. "Dammit, Thomas... Rule number two. All right? You don't want me to come in there and drag you out, do you? So you've got a choice. Either open up the door and we'll... hell, I don't know. We'll go somewhere quiet. Peaceful. Wolf Woods, maybe. And we'll talk. Or else I'm coming in there on my own, and we'll hash out in -there-." In his haven, that is, and a place she's been scrupulous to leave as 'his'. If the Galliard listens closely, she might catch faint sounds from within -- the creak of bedsprings, perhaps, as the mass on them shifts restlessly. Maybe he's getting up? The door remains closed, even if one waits a few minutes after the bed-creaking to allow for travel across the bedroom. Finding nothing in the left pocket of her jeans, she swears and rummages through the right - but there's nothing there either. Her head cocks to one side, perhaps catching an incriminating creak... but when it doesn't repeat she turns her exasperated attention onto the door. "Last chance," she tells it. "And then I'm going to do Questing Stone. And if, by Gaia, I find you're hiding in there..." The bedcreak doesn't repeat itself. Neither does the door open. The threatened ten minutes inch past in silence from both within and without. Then there's a quite audible, quite clearly enunciated, "/Bastard/," from just outside his door. That's all the warning she gives before she barges in, the door rebounding against its stop to shiver half-closed behind her. The Elder is -pissed-, the clomp of her bootheels loud against the wooden floor as she stops in the entry, fumbling for the light switch to banish the curtain-drawn dimness. Light bursts forth, scattering the half-dark, and a disheveled figure in t-shirt and boxer-briefs, partly entagled in comforter and bedsheet, sits up abruptly, wide-eyed and sweaty, chest heaving as he gasps for air. Disoriented, Thomas Grey stares at Natalie without seeming to actually see her. "What the hell are you doing?" Nat barks, planting her elbows on her hips to effectively block the door. If she's taken in his appearance, she doesn't let it show. The room's air has a slightly stale, shut-in quality, and a pair of jeans and a sweatjacket lie discarded, carelessly, on the floor near the bed, along with socks and sneakers. The ruined work clothes he came home in Sunday lie in an equally messy pile on the floor elsewhere. Grey stares at Natalie for a second or two more, then blinks, sags, and slouches back down in the middle of the chaos of bedclothes and pillows, his eyes closed. He continues to breathe hard; hair clings to his forehead in tangled, sweaty locks. Recovering from the abrupt awakening, he looks like a man who's just run a marathon in Hell. Seconds tick past while Nat takes in the mess, the gloom, the general miasma. "--Right," she says, most of the irritation in her voice transformed into steel. She closes the door behind her without another word, then picks her way across the floor to the first of the windows. "I don't know what the hell happened to you this weekend." She shoves the curtains apart, letting spears of mid-afternoon brightness into the dark, and gives the lock on the window a savage twist before pushing the window up. "But rule number two's being enacted -right now-." Grey's breathing slows down gradually, though for the moment he stays down, flat on his back, and keeps his eyes closed. Cool, fresh air breezes into the room from the opened window, though he hardly reacts to it or to the steely-voiced Galliard. Natalie keeps quiet until she's performed the same routine on the other window, curtains wide enough to admit some light and air, but still half-drawn. Then she turns to frown at him and his mess. "Right," she mutters, stalking over to the bed to snatch up discarded jeans, socks, and sweatshirt, kicking the shoes under the frame. Then it's over to the pile of ruined clothes to fetch them, and the whole mess is summarily dumped out into the hall. Grey takes a deep breath, and by the time she's back from dumping his clothes out into the hall like a pissed-off mother, he's sitting up again, hands scrubbing at his face and raking back through his hair, turning it into a right rat's nest. "Rule number two," she says again as she stands just out of arm's reach, feet planted shoulder-width apart and elbows akimbo. "Did you get my note?" Grey lets his hands drop into his lap, his head bowing as though slightly too heavy for his neck. The Philodox looks like a used washrag, limp and wrung-out and damp. "...Note?" He tilts his head slightly to look up at her with one shadowed, reddened eye. Next to the bed, near the nightstand, sits the halfmoon's half-full wastepaper basket, brown wicker lined with a plastic bag. A scattering of CDs, still in their jewel cases, are at the top of its contents. _The Magic Flute_ and a collection of piano concertos are the two covers actually visible, but there are more underneath. The stack of CDs by the stereo now consists of three -- all home-made mixes with their contents written in a hand that isn't Grey's. "Note," Nat repeats impatiently. "I shoved it under your door." She throws a glance sideways - not entirely over her shoulder, but in the door's general direction. "Told you... Asked if you needed anything." She stares down at the man - certainly an unusual situation - concern bubbling up underneath her words. "And you didn't answer, and didn't come out, so... here I am. In person." There it is. The note. Movement from the door and shoes and such has sent it fluttering off to the side, but it's still there on the floor, apparantly untouched. Though Grey looks in the same direction that Nat does, there's no indication whether or not he sees the bit of folded paper. "Ah." He wipes his face with his hand again. "What time's it?" He's still groggy. "About four," she answers, voice nice and crisp. And then, just to turn the screw... "Tuesday afternoon." "--Dammit, Thomas, what the hell /happened/?" Nat can only hold the superior pose for so long before it crumbles under the weight of... motherly concern? Some sort of concern, anyway. "Nothing," he says, still sounding vaguely dazed. He gives his head a sharp shake as though trying to clear it, then swings his legs over the side of the bed, planting bare feet on the floor. He sits there for a moment, gathering his strength. The Galliard repeats derisively, "Nothing. And I'm the Sept Alpha. Are you backing out of our agreement, Thomas?" Grey blinks slowly, then lifts his head to look at her with furrowed brow and vague confusion. "Pardon?" "Our agreement," she repeats crisply. "You chose 'talk to me' over borrowing my fetish. Remember?" Grey blinks again, then grimaces. "Right." He continues not to stand up. "Weekend." His gaze drifts, trailing toward the discarded CDs. "Don't remember. Stopped by a bar after work." He shifts his eyes to the floor just ahead of his feet, shoulders moving in a shrug. All the Galliard says is, "And." There's impatience there, plenty of it. Grey's lips compress, shame mingling with the general weary vagueness on his face. He shrugs, the motion blurring into a tensing of his shoulders as he pushes himself off the bed and onto his feet. There the Philodox sways a little, momentarily dizzy. "...And, nothing. You already know." Natalie reaches out one hand to his center of mass and shoves him back onto the bed, hardly having to use any strength at all. "Liar. Dammit, Thomas..." She scowls at him, then takes a step back, giving him room. "Shift." Who needs the Falling Touch when your target is having trouble standing as is? Grey sits back down with a grunt and a creak of protesting bedsprings. He grimaces, not looking at her. "I'm fine. Just tired. You woke me rather abruptly." "It's -four o'clock- in the god damned afternoon," the Elder retorts, fists planted back on her hips. "And shift. To lupus. Now. Or I'm taking this as a Challenge for Elder." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to guess where this'd go. The look he gives her is incredulous, but it isn't long before Grey drops his eyes, his jaw clenched. With abrupt, angry motions, he strips off t-shirt and underwear and twists into a rumpled, unhappy looking black wolf with flattened ears and tucked tail. Just before fur sprouts too thick to see it, the Elder might spot the odd indentation in the flesh of his chest, right about where the greyish patch is in his pelt. Natalie backs up another step during the shift, then forward to pull up the blankets in a rough bed-making. Only after that's done does she offer a mild, "Thank you." "--Now," she adds, turning to face the wolf, her arms folding over her stomach, "What the hell's going on? Jeren and Cy both said you came in Sunday looking like something the cat brought up. Beat all to hell and covered in blood. On a /new moon/. So I want to know what. The hell." As there's a wolf on the bed, the bed-making is rough indeed. Bedsprings squeak like mice as Grey moves around, avoiding the bits where blankets are being tugged into something resembling straightness. Though the last of the sleeping pills are quickly being burned out of the Garou's system, more than just sedatives are making him clumsy, and a bed's not the best footing. Exhausted, he flops down like a furry puddle and looks woefully at her. I stopped for a drink. I don't remember much else. There was probably a brawl. His head flops down between his forelegs, a moment before he rolls over onto his side and then some, exposing his belly, tail tucked in apology. Natalie flips an irritated hand at the belly. "Don't give me that." She sits down on the bed beside him, another hundred and fifty-odd pounds adding to the spring's stress, and reaches out a hand to rest on his flank. "And that caused a, what. A four day bender? One damn brawl? That's not the Thomas I know." Grey's upside legs flop back down, his whole body limp. His fur feels vaguely greasy, unwashed. Sweaty, too, from his human-form thrashings while in the grip of nightmares. He doesn't want to talk about this, that much is obvious, but a despondentcomment slips out regardless. You don't know me. /I/ don't know me. "I know enough," Nat tosses back, her fingers inching into the grubby mass of fur on his flank until they nearly, almost touch his skin. "I know I want you at my back. I know I trust you with my cubs. My kin. I know you're my family. And," she adds, raising her voice to cut over any protests, "I know that if I'd pulled this shit a year ago, you would have kicked my ass from here to Denver and back, and been right to do it." The Galliard's words wash over the Philodox's limp lupine body. There is, indeed, a protest to cut through, a low whine to go with the lowered ears. And a plea for her to stop talking, that he's sorry, he's very very sorry. Natalie tschs and smooths out his rucked-up fur, her hand a fair approximation of a mother wolf's tongue. "Don't be sorry, you idiot. Be yourself. That's who I need. Who Cy needs." Grey shifts himself onto his belly and lifts his head, acknowledging her words, both weary /and/ guilty. Natalie aims a swat at his ears that would be far more deadly if it came closer than a foot from them. "And don't give me that either. Rule number two. Head out of the ass. Right?" For some reason, this seems to depress the Philodox all the more, but he makes an effort to rally himself, for duty's sake if nothing else. He struggles to his feet, fighting the uneven 'ground' along with his neglected body's own clumsiness. Another tongue-click and she shoves him back with a well-aimed push to his shoulders, her hand coming around then to chuck the underside of his muzzle. "So. Last question, and then I'm done for now. Are you still sticking to our agreement, or have you chosen door number two?" Down he goes again. Flop. All that Pure Breeding, and he's as easily pushed around as a neutered dog. The blood of heroes makes the picture all the more pathetic. He answers only that he doesn't want the fetish, though lupine body language adds an inflection that 'want' rhymes strongly with 'deserve'. Natalie's chin goes up at that - she pushes entirely off the bed to catch his jowls in her hands, forcing him to look at her, even if he doesn't - won't - meet her eyes. "What's that supposed to mean? You don't... dammit. You don't -deserve- it? Who the hell says so? Not me, that's for sure." As expected, Grey looks everywhere /but/ at Natalie, his good eye rolling in its socket. His body tenses at the grip, a stressed whine escaping him, lips peeling back in a lesser-wolf 'grin'. Natalie instantly relaxes her hair-pulling tenseness, though for him to escape her he'll have to yank his head away. "I'm serious! What the hell does that mean, you don't deserve a fetish?" Language -- even the crude, direct language used by Garou in lupus form -- dribbles away as the black wolf scrabbles his paws, wrecking what little Natalie had managed to do to straighten the bedclothes, his movements turning increasingly more panicked. No. No. No. With a badly-phrased Serbian 'swear word' - she needs to spend more time around him while he's doing it - she lets him go, a knee coming up to prevent an ungainly fall onto the bed after him. "Dammit, Thomas..." She doesn't climb after him, but straightens, thwarted, her hands going back to her hips as she scowls at the wolf. Grey scrambles backwards, retreating to the far end of the bed, and crouches against the wall with his tail tucked under him, trembling. Her scowl only makes him sink further, cringing like a whipped dog. "I'm not going to hurt you," she snaps, as frustrated with himself as with her. To prove it - or at least to remove her angry face from his sight - she turns her back on him. After a second she sits again, hands and forearms resting on her thighs. "Take a minute. When you're ready..." Her right hand comes up to rake through her hair, then back onto her lap. "When you're ready, come over here." The wolf approaches only a few moments later, skulking with his belly low and his tail tucked firmly between his legs, an /obedient/ dog that expects a whipping but comes anyway. A wet nose nudges at her arm a second before a wetter tongue swipes out to lick her wrist. Dignity, it seems, has been utterly abandoned. Dignity's for Silver Fangs, anyway. Nat looks down at him, face twisted ruefully, and reaches across her body to scratch his forehead. "Remember what I said that one time, about Rina? How I'm just making all this up? Same goes for you, too. /And/ Cy, and Kevin, and all the rest of them." Conversational, as if she were actually talking to a real live dog, with a real dog's chances of understanding. "I don't know how to help you, Thomas, and it rips me up." A snort. "When I don't want to rip -you- up, of course. Sometimes they take turns." She may as well be talking to a dog, for all the response she's getting from him. His mismatched eyes squint at the fingers scritching near them. He curls up near her, the warm, lean body pressing against her leg and side, and gives her wrist a few more licks before resting his head on her leg. Natalie scootches around to give him better access to her lap, both hands wandering through grungy fur to rub around the base of his ears. "I just wish," she tells the far wall, "You'd... hell. I don't know. Trust me? Only you do. I think. But I wish you'd hunt me out to talk, instead of me always having to come after you, both guns blazing." The wolf huffs out a breath of air and closes his eyes, surrendering to the ear-fondling. Though the panic-attack -- if that's what it was, brief and severe as a summer thunderstorm -- seems to be over, it doesn't seem as though the man that goes with the wolf is ready to come back just yet. Give him a moment, and he'll be asleep again. Natalie continues to chatter - she's a woman, she's a Galliard, for any number of reasons - heedless of his consciousness or not. "And when you hole up in here and play hermit... it was a hell of a weekend. If I'd known you were going to... whatever, I would have stuck around." She aims a wry little smile down at him, then sets to smoothing out the fur on the bridge of his nose with her thumbs. "But I enjoyed my time with Jon. I wish you had someone like him. Someone you could, could relax around. I don't think I've ever seen you happy, except for that one time, last year. Remember? When Jeremy brought the cheap chocolate roses and Valentines?" The wolf interrupts her nose-smoothing with a wet sneeze, then settles down again after giving her hand a sniff as though to reassure himself that it's still her. It is indeed still her. Her hand tilts to allow the familiarity, then returns to smoothing his ears back against his skull once she's done. "I wish your Lara weren't Metis. I wish you could be happy." A wry little snort and she grabs his ear briefly, tugging gently on the sensitive appendage. "As long as I'm at it, I wish the house was paid off and the cubs successfully passed their Rites, too." Her left arm curves over his shoulders, a warm weight that simultaneously comforts and reasserts her dominance, while her right hand returns to lightly scratching the base of his ears. The wolf is, if not happy right now, at least content and relaxed and safe. His breathing evens out as he falls asleep.