! It is currently 15:01 Pacific Time on Thu May 19 2005. Currently in Saint Claire, it is raining lightly. The temperature is 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius). The wind is currently coming in from the southwest at 6 mph. The barometric pressure reading is 29.93 and rising, and the relative humidity is 71 percent. The dewpoint is 46 degrees Fahrenheit (7 degrees Celsius.) Currently the moon is in the waxing Gibbous Moon phase (74% full). Natalie pages: Jeren and Kevin just climbed into her SUV. Jeren's being chatty, so she's not hurrying. And they didn't sneak out or anything, so they could've easily been heard. Ooor, Jeren could have told Natalie prior." -- I figure Nat grabbed Grey and had him come with. Mind if I pose us both? Kevin might notice, in spite of the tacky mint-smelling cardboard christmas tree hanging from the rearview mirror of the SUV, that there's just the very slightest, subtlest smell of something...icky, in the car. Something like a decomposing body. It seems Jeren still hasn't got the smell completely out from her adventure in the Columbia. "--Now? Hell no. Like I said, guns aren't worth the trouble of trying to bring them flip-side." Now, is that a hint? Long distance to Natalie: Grey actually got up at dawn to jog, then shower, then retired to his own room for most of the day. Natalie pages: Gotcha. Still looks a little scruffy/hangdog? You paged Natalie with 'Oh yes.'. A few seconds after the SUV doors close the front door of the house opens, admitting both Natalie and Thomas to the outdoors. Nat's in the lead, obviously, and strides straight for Jeren's little SUV, letting a hangdog Thomas make his way around to the other side of the vehicle. "You tell him?" the Elder asks as she belts in, waiting until the buckle clicks before reaching over to slam her door closed. Grey indeed looks rather hangdog, which has pretty much become his typical mood. He's tired, vaguely rumpled, vaguely apathetic, vaguely distracted, and (with the waxing moon) vaguely surly. In other words, a whole lot of 'vague', and one gets the feeling that he's only coming along because Natalie Said So. Kevin just smiles to the elders sweetly as they join the party. "Everyone's going on this trip then? Cool beans!" He seems to be enjoying getting out of the house, and if he's noticed that nobody's mentioned where they're all going he hasn't remarked on it. Jeren slides her key into the ignition and turns to lift her eyebrows at the elder. That look on her face ought to say all--and let's repeat it together now--damned Ragabash. "Nope. It's a surprise." She sounds so cheerful, even, which might point more than anything else to the suspicion that Something Is Up. "Lay on, MacDuff," the Galliard says, resting her head against the headrest. A second later she pushes the button that brings her window down, thanks. Grey slouches back in his seat, his long legs somewhat cramped behind the seat of the lanky cub. But he makes no complaint. Arms folded across his chest and stares out his window. The engine comes to life without protest, and Jeren backs the SUV down the driveway, and onto the street. Then they're off, so to speak. The Ragabash tends to drive just a little over the speed limit, but she's careful to obey each and every one of the other driving laws. Along the way, Kevin gets a happy pop-quiz over that gun safety manual he's been so diligent in reading. Kevin gives a fairly good account of himself in the safety and usage test. Seems the cub's study of that manual has paid off. When Jeren runs out of questions, he goes on the offensive, so to speak. "We off to that bunker again?" Natalie returns question with question, not answering his and peppering him with a series of her own: when's the best time to use a gun, how can you hide the evidence, what are the three best ways and places to dispose of a body, and so on and so forth. Grey, meanwhile, stays silent unless specifically addressed, and if prompted to speak, keeps his replies short and monotone. His mind's elsewhere. Her impromptu quiz finished, Jeren also lapses into silence, concentrating on the road. No music for the vehicle full of Walkers--and on such a large moon, maybe that's a good thing. Kevin's question is answered soon enough--because it is definitely the old bunker where Jeren pulls to a stop and turns off the engine. Kevin,typically, is less sure of his ground when it comes to thinking for himself rather than regurgitating the contents of a book. (Though his answer to when one should use a gun -- 'As a last resort' -- may or may not raise a smile.) The arrival at the bunker is a definitely welcome development to the cub. Natalie leads the way out of the SUV, does a quick pace around the front of the bunker's entrance before digging a pair of keys out of her pocket and opening the door. The rest of the Walkers are given a brief 'come in' gesture with one hand, but she disappears down into the blackness without waiting to see whether they obey. Grey needs no further encouragement; he tails after Natalie like an obedient dog. His nose wrinkles at the stale, rather sour air within the 'abandoned' fallout shelter and shoves his hands into his jeans pockets. Jeren goes down last, deliberately so, as she stops to lock the doors and then pop open the back. Kevin is shooed towards the stairs before she actually goes to retrieve whatever she's intending to from it, however. Kevin follows along too. The scent of the fallout bunker is no worse, really, that the lingering stench of death in Jeren's car. Oh, for a good valet. The kid's visibly tenser now that they're at journey's end, but he makes no verbal complaint even when Jeren gestures him down the steps. Actually... death lingers in the bunker, too. It was only a month ago that the bodies of two young street people were dissolved in acid baths at the back of the shelter, and the lack of electricity means that the vents and fans having been working to air the place out. At all. The only light in the bunker comes from the open door, and the air is stale and slightly musty. It seems to be a single, large, rectangular room of concrete. Metal shelves line the walls, filled with various crates; in the centre of the room, there's space with scattered cots nearby, and signs of entertainment devices. A mat. A radio. There's a few small rooms - probably amenities - cut into the shape, with doors, and an open kitchen area, near the back. Unshielded light bulbs hang from the ceiling, pale and unresponsive ghosts. Natalie stalks to the far end of the room, pulling a small mag-lite from her pocket and snapping it on. She fusses with its placement for a moment, trying first the shelves where it shines into everyone's eyes before stooping to set it on the floor instead. "Damn, Thomas. I see what you mean. This place needs some TLC. "Mnh," says Grey, agreeing eloquently. Closing the door behind her (yay, darkness), Jeren's footsteps are really the only measure of her presence before she slips into the extremely limited gloom provided by the mag-lite. And oh, look--she's brought a bigger flashlight, which is offered in Natalie's direction. Kevin nosewrinkles; his initial assessment seems to have been wrong, and the bunker does smell a good deal viler than it did on his one previous visit. As the door closes with a resonant boom, and darkness falls on most of the building, the British cub can't resist cupping his hand to his mouth and making a 'Whoo-oo-ooo' sound, imitative of a ghost. Grey utters a low, irritated snarl at Kevin's sound effect. It sounds as though the surly Philodox is well within striking distance of the Ragabash cub. Natalie steps away from her Maglite and toward the others, the edges of her limned in color: red t-shirt, blue jeans, white tennis shoes. "Down, boys," she says firmly, her voice echoing faintly. Jeren flicks the switch on the flashlight she's carrying. It's one of those big, ugly yellow things you might take on a camping trip, and it's pointed wisely at the floor, to avoid flashing anyone's eyes. She sets this next to it's much smaller cousin. Kevin prudently shuts up and waits for further developments. Grey's mouth thins at Natalie's admonishment, but like the cub, he shuts up. The halfmoon shifts his weight restlessly, gaze shifting around the darkened, foetid interior. As the elder Ragabash is rising to her feet, she brings one hand up to brush at the hair falling into her eyes, and the other one falls behind her. In one single swift, absurdly calm gesture, she draws the concealed Glock from beneath her waistband, angles it at the relative level of Kevin's stomach, and pulls the trigger. And oh look--it's loaded. That would explain what she was doing in the back of the SUV. One word comes from Kevin's direction as, to his utter surprise, he find a bullet hit his abdomen, scarcely an inch from the spot where Natalie's bullet landed all those weeks ago. The word is "Christ!" yelled at the top of his voice. He clutches his hands to the wound, in a horrible replay of his previous shooting, blood welling between his fingers as he staggers. Though Grey must have known, roughly, what the plan was, the actual /timing/ of the gunshot catches him by surprise. The Philodox spins around from his distracting staring off into the shadows -- good eye catching the light in a very inhuman way, lips peeling back from teeth. From vaguely surly to ready to beat something to a bloody pulp in nothing flat, quivering with the effort of choking back frenzy. Natalie must have had more foreknowledge of Jeren's plan than did Thomas: though she rises onto her toes, she aborts a spring at the gun-toting Ragabash to shoot a quickl look over at Kevin. "/Deal/ with it," she barks at him, firm but not unkind. "You've got eyes here. Witnesses. -Deal- with it." A step back gives her the room to watch all three of them, but primarily Kevin and Grey. Jeren's attention shifts from Kevin to Thomas in a great big hurry, adding her own tension to the atmosphere. After a moment of hesitation, she slides the gun back out of sight, tucking it into the waistband of her jeans. And then it's back to Kevin, her mouth set in a very thin, narrow line. Blood starts to drip to the floor from Kevin's bullet wound. For a moment longer he stays on his feet, then gives up the struggle and drops heavily to his knees, staring into the darkness. His face is white and his mouth open as he pants for breath. "Can't... shift... people... watching..." he grits out, eyes wildly searching the pitch black that the light doesn't cover in search of these witnesses, or maybe just of his tribemates, who knows? Grey regains some control over himself. His jaw unlocks, and a violent, poisonous stream of Slavic pours down upon Jeren. "You go down," Nat warns the boy, "And it's going to look funny as hell when you get back up. So don't go down." She watches him and Grey both, her attention shifting more onto Kevin when Grey doesn't leap for Jeren. "Get to privacy. Then shift." Grey's outburst would likely make more of an impression if Jeren could actually understand what he was saying--but as it is, the tone is quite enough to wrest her attention back to the Philodox. She flinches, but she remains silent, allowing Natalie to coach Kevin while trying not to do /anything/ to antagonize the older man further. Not under this moon. Even if there are no chairs handy. Kevin hears Natalie's voice, and actually tries to stagger back to his feet, a valiant attempt, but there's no way he's going to make it. Instead, he lurches to his side, first one knee and then the other, for an agonising few seconds until he reaches one of the side doors. His hand clutches at the handle, then slides off leaving a bloody smear. Grey's foreign invective at Jeren winds down as Kevin works to keep his feet and Natalie gives him instructions. He ends with a single spitted word that doesn't sound complimentary at /all/, then turns away from her to glower at Kevin. "Place your left hand over the bullet hole," the Galliard coaxes the cub, not moving from her spot. "Left hand, Kevin. Turn with handle with your right. You can do it. You -have- to do it. Just through that door is darkness. You can shift there." Another quick glance toward the others, and it's back to Kevin. "Get through the door and it'll stop hurting." Jeren gives Grey a belated and prudently swift glare of her own as he turns to look at Kevin. Then she too, turns to watch the cub, sliding her hands into her jeans pockets and wrinkling her brow. It's probably a good thing that Grey doesn't notice Jeren's look. His attention's all on Kevin now. Kevin's hand clasps the blood-slickened handle again, desperately, and manages to grip it hard enough to turn it. However, in his shocked state, he's forgotten that opening a door when leaning against it is an excellent way of removing your own support. The door swings open with a creak, and Kevin loses his grip on the handle once more as it moves away from him, sprawling on the cold, dusty concrete of the floor, his head hitting the deck with a nasty thud. Somehow he retains enough consciousness and will to force himself up to hands and knees, the blood freely running from the wound now his hands are no longer covering it, and he shuffles feebly into the tiny storage space before rolling onto his side and shoving the door closed again, bloodying it as his hand pushes. As the door closes, a scream and a couple of thumps come from beyond. As soon as the door closes, Nat breaks from her spot to stride over to the door. "Get the door open," she snaps at the others, "And somebody grab me one of the flashlights." She doesn't - yet - open the door that Kevin collapsed through, but hovers just outside it instead. Since she's standing right next to it, Jeren snatches up the ugly yellow flashlight that she brought, and fairly sprints toward the elder. The fingers of her right hand twitch rapidly against the carrying handle. "/Damn/," she breathes. "Damn. Well done." Grey crosses the space to the door with long, brisk strides, lunar temper temporarily chasing away fatigue poisons. He shoves the door open and leans against it, holding it wide to let in more light and plenty of fresh air. After the thumps, ominous silence descends on the closet behind the still-closed door through which the wounded Kevin crawled. A minute or two pass tensely until a deeper and gruffer than normal, but still recognisably British-accented, voice is heard from behind the door. "Guys? Can I come out?" Natalie lets out a patently relieved sigh and sags against the wall, raking one hand back through her hair. "Not afraid of the dark, are you?" she tosses back, adding a nod of approval to each of the other Cliath. "--But yeah, we took care of all the witnesses out here. It's clear. Shift back and get out here." After a few more seconds the door opens up and Kevin, pale-faced and bloodied, is revealed beyond. He raises one hand, flapping it weakly and vaguely in a parody of a gesture of greeting. "Hi, guys. Nice night shooting, whoever that was." Grey, still leaning against the door to keep it propped open, shoots a scowling look over at Jeren, lank hair all down over his eyes and stubbled jaw tight. "You didn't lose your head," the Elder tells him approvingly, jerking her head for him to come out of there. "You've got to work on getting past the shock, though. Shock'll kill you. --Go get the flashlights," she adds, "and meet us back in the car." Jeren meets the look with exasperation. "What? Look, I /told/ you I was going to--" She cuts off her protest abruptly with a grumpy sounding 'nnng'. "You didn't say /when/, you stupid fucking cunt," Grey snaps at Jeren, then pushes off and stalks outside, letting the door swing shut behind him as he heads for the SUV. Kevin blinks, a little dazed, as Thomas Grey spits out that insult. But he sets his still-shocked legs in motion and makes his way out to the vehicle too. What a pleasant ride home this promises to be. Jeren bares her teeth at the closed door, eyes narrowing to slits. She takes the steps with deliberate slowness, so that when she pushes the door open again she's managed to grapple with her temper. A little. She can't resist snapping, as she presses the button to unlock the doors on her keychain, "That was the whole fucking point. /Not/ to give him any warning." [Chilly and snippy drive home. Grey goes outside to the back yard to smoke and take a phone call. Later...] Safehouse: Nat's Room Nat's bedroom is the largest in the house, about eleven feet wide and nearly fifteen long. It's decorated all in shades of brown and dusky blue, from the maple hardwood floors to the caramel walls. The two large windows at the back of the room have been covered in 'etched' vinyl, which lets in light but blocks the view from both inside and out. She's set up the front third of the room as a small sitting area: a low bench serves as visual break between the front and back, its top upholstered in regular stripes of tan and soft blue. Two occasional chairs wrapped in soft golden chenille almost face each other, with a pair of nesting tables between. A tall armoire occupies the far corner of the room, usually kept closed. The tall headboard of her queen-sized bed straddles the corner directly opposite the armoire, displaying Gothic arches in stark relief against the plain wall, darker patina against pale. The bed itself is covered in a light blue denim comforter, almost chambray, thick and welcoming. No footboard interrupts its spill. Two pillows in a sky blue cotton jersey lean back against the iron headboard, while another table, triplet to the ones at the front of the room, sits beside the bed covered with the small detritus of a busy day. The floor is partially covered by a thick rug with uneven stripes of tan and gold turned all akimbo to the regular angles of the walls. Several hours after the return from the fallout shelter -- hours that Grey spent in the backyard, smoking like a chimney and talking on his cellphone -- there's a knock on the Elder's bedroom door. "Just a minute," Natalie calls from within; a few seconds later the door opens, revealing the Elder who looks, to say the least, both startled and pleased to find Grey there. "Hey. Did you want something?" Beyond her, on the floor in front of the armchairs, lays a sheet of this morning's newspaper, with a pistol in bits laid out upon it. Grey stands there with his hands clasped behind his back, looking somewhere past the Galliard's left elbow. In addition to looking as worn-down and haggard as he has been lately, he smells strongly of cigarette smoke. His expression is schooled into something resembling impassive dignity, but both the moon-bred temper and no little embarrassment leak out of the cracks of the mask. "The fetish," he says abruptly. "Is your offer still, ah, valid?" Natalie blinks at him for a second. "Well, -hell- yeah." Backing up to allow him entrance, she jerks her head invitingly. "C'mon in. Have a seat, if you want one." Grey unclasps his hands as he enters, his eye travelling restlessly over the decor. He makes his way over to one of the armchairs, and he settles into it rather heavily. Rage can counteract fatigue only so long. "Speaks Through Pager was finally able to arrange a phonecall. Between myself and, ah. Her." He gives the Galliard a wary, yet fairly significant look. Three guesses who 'Her' is and the first two don't count. Natalie closes the door behind him, pivots to watch him until he's sitting. Her, "--Ah?" somehow manages to be both wary and encouraging; her thumbs slip not into her beltloops, but the front pockets of her jeans. Grey leans his head against the back of the armchair, bruised-looking eyes closing. He nods minutely. "She told me," he says slowly, "to stop being a, quote, macho son-of-a-bitch. Endquote." A corner of the Elder's mouth quirks. "I like her already," she offers lightly, then pushes off the door to cross over to the small table beside her bed. "Anything else? You two have a nice... well, not to sound trite, but a nice talk?" Grey's mouth twitches. It's small, exhausted, a thin and ghostly thing, there and gone... but the expression is undoubtably a smile. When he nods again, his face is already settling back into dull weariness. "We did. No specifics... not a secure line and all that. And she's still Jackaled. But. Yes. It was good." Natalie says "/Good./" A glance back at him and she picks up the small pillow he may very well remember - it had been curled around the base of her bedside lamp, as if keeping it warm. There's nothing more as she returns, eeling around the striped bench to hand it over. It still smells faintly of lavender, too. "You remember how it works?" Grey opens his eyes and looks at the cute little pillow for a moment before reaching out to take it. Cute or no, it /is/ a fetish, and he sits up to accept it and handles it with more care than one would give a little scented pillow. "I do, yes." He looks up from it, at her. "This won't be permanent. I just..." He grimaces and looks at the pillow again. "It's either this or something habit-forming." Natalie folds herself down into a tailor's position at the edge of the paper near his feet. "Keep it as long as you need it. But... for now, and because I get the feeling open-ended loans make you nervous..." She picks up one of the gun bits, then leans over to pull the manual out from under the other chair and hand it to him. "Let's look at things in a month, see how it is. And do you mind playing teacher? It's a Glock, um... 9, I think." Grey blinks, then switches the pillow to sit on his leg so he can take the manual. "9mm? ...I have a couple of those. Kaz got them off some dead Dancers." "9mm, yeah." The manual's front provides a bit more information: the gun she's working on is actually a Glock 17, originally used by the Austrian army. "I've decided that today's goal is to get the damn thing together without looking once at the manual. Good goal, right? And if I can memorize pages of riddles, I ought to be able to do this, right?" Grey shifts his weight in the armchair, getting comfortable. "Nnh. Sounds plausible." Natalie grimaces at the small piece in her hand. "And pigs fly." But still, she is woman, hear her roar. Or watch her try to put a gun back together. She's slow - my god is she painfully slow - but for the most part the bits slip together as they're supposed to. "--I swear, the first time Jon sees me take one of these things apart and put it back together in under half an hour he's gonna have an orgasm." Grey grimaces -- either at watching her try to put the handgun back together or her talk of Jon Stark orgasming. "...You need to practice more," is his only -- and obvious -- comment. "Yeah," Nat grumps, attempting to slide Tab A into Slot D, "In my /copious/ spare time." Two more attempts and she carefully, deliberately places the offending bit back onto the paper rather than fling it across the room. "It'd help if I didn't have to work two weeks out of the month. Or if we didn't have cubs. Or if I weren't Elder. Just as soon as I win the lottery I'll hire somebody to be my personal assistant." Grey holds out the manual at the appropriate page. "What we need," he says flatly, "is someone with money who's willing to stick around." Natalie glances at the page, no more than that, and quickly turns away. "A sugar daddy. Yeah. Or even someone willing to, I dunno, donate the moola. We've got a few more bills than people willing to live in caves." A scowl for the gun-bits and she picks up another piece, which -does- slide neatly over Slot D. "Hah. I talked to Marcus about that sometime - if he died, where'd his money go? Turns out it'd go back to his biological family. Too bad." Grey grunts. "That's how it usually goes." He shifts his weight again, slouching a little bit more in the armchair, and rubs his eyes with his free hand. "Yeah, but it wouldn't take much tweaking of the will to set up a... what are they called? Trust fund, right?" The gun in her hands is demonstrably a gun now, instead of scattered pieces; another part slips neatly into place, and there are only two left on the paper. "I think Jon's our only Kin in town with any cash, and most of his money goes toward the mortgage every month. Jeremy works for Jon, Rina's... Rina, and Dominic works temp jobs and plays in clubs." "Rina gets money from her father," says Grey. "Enough to live on." He frowns distractedly. "...Speaking of, have you heard from her lately?" Natalie's first answer is a sigh; her second, another and a shake of her head. "No. Like I told you - Rina doesn't... talk to me." Grey grunts again. "Meant to look her up when the moon got thin. Then..." Yes, then. Then he came home from work an utter wreck and turned into a twitchy, neutered zombie. The Philodox rubs his eyes again. "...Hell." "Give her a call," Nat directs. "And I'll give Dominic a call. --Which reminds me. I also need to figure out what the hell Jeremy was thinking to give us a big-ass television. /Another/ one. Those things cost over two grand. I'd rather the money went to the mortgage, or something. We need another plasma television like we need a hole in our heads." *Snick snickt*, and the last two parts of the gun slide into place. "Who knows what Jeremy thinks," mutters the Philodox. He eyes the product of her diligence. "There you go." Natalie eyes the work of her hands with a peeved sort of triumph. "Go me. I am the winner." "--And," she adds, turning to face him, "I -didn't- look at the manual. So... good for me. I'm sure you're so proud you could spit." The mental image, perhaps, brings half of a smile to her face. "But please don't." Grey blinks slowly at her, owlish and humorless, then flips the manual closed and holds it out to her. "No spitting. Right." Settling the reassembled Glock on her lap, she takes the manual with her left hand, rakes her right through her hair. "Thanks for being moral support, anyway. I'll see you in the morning? I figure a little double teaming the kids won't hurt them." Grey's brow furrows. "Double-teaming?" "Both of us running with them. Like we did with Kevin, that day he invited Olga over. Only..." Nat considers him, her head cocked to the side. "Nah. The four of us running, especially on -this- moon, would clear the streets. Maybe you take Kevin, I take Cy? Or vice versa? --Don't decide now," she adds. "Just think it over. Sleep on it. We'll decide in the morning." Grey heaves himself to his feet, taking the pillow with him. "Cy doesn't have proper running shoes," he points out. "Unless you got Jon to get her some." Natalie continues to watch his face, even as he stands, so that her head is as far back on her shoulders as it'll go. "No, but shin splints is nothing five seconds in Glabro won't fix." She flicks the gun at the door encouragingly. "And it will do her good to get out of the house. Isn't that what you said?" "Nnh," agrees Grey, nodding slightly. "...Right. I'll take Kevin, you Cy." He stalks slouch-shouldered toward the door, roll pillow in hand. At the doorway he stops and glances back, not quite at her, but close. "...Thank you, by the way." As he walks she refolds her knees, drawing them up to her chest and wrapping her arms around them. The pose takes at least five years off her age, if you ignore the pistol dangling cutely from her fingers. "You're welcome, Thomas. We'll talk about it, about how it's working for you, in a month. Sleep well." "Good night," replies the Philodox, and then heads out the door and across the hall to his own room. The door shuts behind him.