5/31/02

Regan Avenue West, Downtown

For two or three blocks, between Thirteenth and Fifteenth Streets, red-brick
apartment buildings alternate with the occasional small, struggling side
garden or a small business. A pizza parlor decorates the corner of one
intersection, and a relatively prosperous deli takes up space at another.
Along one street, a fire station interrupts the other buildings, small but
obviously in good condition from frequent need. Graffiti shows on sidewalks
and on a few of the buildings, but is not prevalent. The road has been paved
sometime within the last few years, to judge by the lack of potholes.

J.C. is outside the McDonald's, a brown and greasy fast-food bag in one
hand; she rummages inside it with the other, munching on a fistful of limp
french fries.

The metis is, for once in her life, in lupus. She's in the shadow of the
alley, nose twitching. The /outline/ of a mangy dog is visible, but the dog
is, evidently, tentative, wild. Wary of people.

J.C. starts moving away from the golden arches, still munching on the bag of
french fries that she rescued from the trash. Passing the alleyway, she
catches a glimpse of the mutt and stops short, squinting into the alleyway.

Ears lays her ears back and sidles backwards into the alley, shying away
from the scrutiny.

This would be a perfectly normal mutt, if a little large, if it weren't for
the ears. The big, batwing-like ears that, to Garou, just scream "Black
Spiral Dancer!" Good thing she smells clean. Then again, some Garou don't
bother to check first.

 Her coat is a mixture of black, white, and grey, and her eyes are an odd
greenishyellowish mixture that don't look normal, somehow. They're faintly
worrysome, really.

J.C. shifts her eyes left, then right, scanning the street, and then steps
into the shadowed alley. She pauses, rubbing at her nose with the side of
one half-gloved hand, sniffing loudly. Her eyes track the mongrel and fix
directly on her, unerringly. Then they widen, and she abruptly goes very,
very still.

Ears starts growling, low in her throat, as JC heads into the alley, and
scrabbles backwards a bit; until, that is, JC goes still, and then she
whines, minutely, a sound that would reek of frustration if JC were inclined
to listen to shades of meaning. Her backward movement has stopped, but she's
poised to run if need be.

J.C. mutters something under her breath, quiet enough that even canine ears
pick up only a few words. "... my ass half-tryin'." She chews at her lower
lip, fingers tight on the brown paper bag and her expression indecisive.

Ears's whine is now, perhaps, interrogative. But she's still poised.

J.C. cocks her head, sniffing back a noseful of snot. She wipes her nose
again with a free hand, considering the freaky-eared dog some more, then --
very very carefully -- skulks another step into the alley, away from the
street. "Don' smell nuthin' but garbage 'n shit... Um. Habla ingles?" Her
accent's terrible enough to suggest that's maybe one of a small handful of
Spanish phrases she's picked up form somewhere.

Ears's posture, were it to speak Spanish, would be saying 'Si!' loudly. She
takes a pace forward, ears lifting unconsciously, and then abruptly stops
again. Apparently, she forces her ears back down to where they were, since
it looks a little artificial. There's a frustrated pause, and then she lifts
a paw. She points, rather deliberately, at where JC is standing, and makes a
downward motion. Perhaps she's intending JC to stay there. Whatever her
intent, she whirls around and hotfoots it behind a dumpster.

J.C. may or may not have understood Kaz's canine sign-language, but she
stays put regardless. Shifting her weight from foot to foot nervously, she
flicks a glance toward the street, then abruptly reaches into her bag,
withdraws some more cold, greasy fries, and eats them.

What eventually emerges from behind the dumpster is not, in fact, a dog, but
the burly and dilapidated homid-form Kaz, in new-to-her clothes. She runs a
hand through her hair and looks apologetic. "Fuckin' ears," she says,
conversationally. "Did you manage t'get Matt not t'beat you up, last night?"

J.C. jumps a little, then gives Kaz a wary, crook-toothed grin. "Oh, yeah.
Once I told 'im Mr. Sniper was up roofside. You 'kay? Tried t'warn ya."

Kaz sounds exceedingly wry. "Teach /me/ to run into shit. I oughta /know/
better, by now." Wryness fading into genuine thankfulness, with a tinge of
wariness, she goes on. "Thanks f'th'heads up, yeah." She leans against the
side of the alley. "So-- why?"

J.C.'s grin fades a bit, and she ducks her head to rummage in the bag some
more; a glimpse at her expression reveals that, perhaps, _she_ isn't sure
why, either. After snagging a handful of fries, she offers the bag to Kaz.
"Um, well. Y'know. Wasn't kosher, y'know, them sneak-'tackin' ya like that."
She sniffs, wipes her nose with a sleeve.

Kaz moves forward enough to take a few, and then goes back to leaning.
"Yeah. Well. It ain't like /we/ won't do it to /them/, when we get a
chance."

J.C. chews and swallows, then wipes her mouth. "Kinda diff'rent, though,
isn't it?" She shifts her weight again, then sighs. "Anyway, this kid I
know, good kid, seen 'er hang out there, and, well." Ending inconclusively
thus, she shrugs.

Kaz munches a fry, chipmunk style. "Well. /I/ like to think so, yeah." Her
attention is quite fully on the younger woman. "...kid." There's the dawning
of a thought in her voice. "You mind my askin' her name?"

J.C. licks salt from her fingertips, eyeballing Kaz with sharp, keen,
bloodshot eyes. "Renee."

The metis' face lights up. If she were in a better mood, she might even be
grinning. Though it might be noted she doesn't move much closer. "Well,
/fuck/, hey! She's tol' me 'bout /you/. Rockin'. She's the fuckin'
/stubbornest/ kid I ever met, I think, an' I wasn't gonna go lookin' for you
'cause she basically wanted to introduce us an' I figured it was nicer t'her
t'let her do it, but, um, there you go."

J.C. doesn't have much in the way of eyebrows, but what little she has
rises. She smiles warily, displaying yellowish front teeth. "Yeah, go
figure. Um." Her gaze gets twitchy. "How much she tell you?"

Kaz pauses to think. "Well," she eventually says, "I mighta jumped to some
conclusions."

J.C. utters a brief, one-syllable chuckle. "Heh. Mebbe. I dunno. I mean,
nothin' I want anyone _else_ t'be jumpin' t' conclusions about, I mean, some
things, people take wrong, ya know? Certain kinda people."

Kaz can't help but let some of that smile out. "Yeah. Certain kinda people
jump to certain kindsa conclusions." There's a pause, and she leans backward
a little. "Can I be blunt?"

J.C. wipes her nose on her sleeve again. "Um. Sure."

Kaz's voice is fairly low. "I'm elder've the buncha Gnawers among alla th'
furry types aroun' here, so I kinda wanna know what's goin' on, though that
don't mean I gotta be tellin' anyone /else/ about it. But y'know, I like
knowin' about the fuzzy rat-types, an' shit, an' apparently we ain't had any
for ages, an' if you're gonna stick around, I'd love to kinna, um, not be a
stranger."

J.C. sucks on her front teeth consideringly. That wariness is still there,
but apparantly she's decided to take a chance. "Yeah," she says, with a nod.
"Ain't not been none'a us out here in f'ever, 'n been some pretty fuckin'
disturbin' reports 'bout times when we _were_ here, too." She gives her
runny nose another sleeve-wipe. "Folks, us folks, like t'know what's up 'n
down 'n all that shit. No big, no takeover, nuthin' like that. Shit, I'm
jus' one, y'know?" She shrugs.

Kaz munches on another fry, watching the woman consideringly. "Yeah? What
kinnda disturbin' reports?"

J.C. sniffs. "Folks summ'nin' up owl spirits t'wipe out Mama's
spirit-babies, stuff like that. Real unfriendliness, y'know? Not that you
folks, present comp'ny 'cepted, of course, ever been too friendly anyway. 'N
'course, first one'a you's I see when I come here is big ol' Cujo snackin'
on long pork. Though Renee says ya took care'a him."

Kaz's eyes widen a little at this. "I hadn't heard /that/ one. Fuck, if I'd
heard that one, /I/ wouldn't've stayed, neither. Fuckin' /shit/. Why, d'you
know?"

J.C. shakes her head. "Rat was here at th' time, he din' say much 'cept
somethin' 'bout piss-contest between you folks out woods and you folks on
th' streets. I din' get the details, was all hush-hush elder shit." She
wipes her nose, flicks a quick glance at the street, just checking, then
turns back to Kaz.

Kaz snorts. "Well, that'd make sense. Fuckin' /rangers/... I'll have t'dig
around, later." She looks a little fierce, until she shakes her head, and
then it fades. Tired, the ghost of sadness in her voice, she says, "As f'th'
long pig dude, yeah. He's gone. If we'd caught him like fuckin' /years/
ago... But we didn't."

"Way it goes, right?" J.C. scratches at the back of her neck. "Anyway. Ya
_current_ problem out, um, _there_, ya know. I mean, ain't much shit I can
do f'r ya, 'n I'd rather keep my head down anyways, if ya get me, but, shit.
_Rotten_ wolves 'r fuckin' bad business, yeah?" Understatement of the year.

The metis blinks. "Well, shit, I wasn't expectin' you t'put your oar in
there anyways. I mean, y'know, it's our business an' all, an' them Dancers
is fuckin' /mental/. More mental than /us/, I mean. So've /course/ you wanna
keep y'head down, specially if it's jus' you, y'know? I was just figurin',
you hear shit you thought might be useful, I'll like, glom onto it. An' all
that kinna shit. An' you ever need help, of the kinda, um, blunt sort we're
good at? Gimme a holler, y'know?"

J.C. grins, and this time it's got a bit less of the whole wariness thing
and more of the crook-toothed J.C. charm. "Yeah." She glances down in the
bag, grabs the last two fries, and offers one to the Bone Gnawer.

Kaz pushes off from the wall. Taking one of the fries, she raises it in a
vague sort of 'cheers!' gesture, and commences the nibbling. Once she's
done, she says, "'m Kaz, by the way. Or Ears."

"Jenny C," says the Rat, gnawing on her own. "J.C. fer short." She gives Kaz
another of those grins.

"Pleased, 'm sure. Or somethin' like that." The metis rummages in her
pocket, and finds some HoHos, which she offers to the other woman.
"S'anyway, you here 'cause you got told t'come, or what?"

J.C. accepts a HoHo and nibbles into it. "Someone hadda. Was kinda gettin'
bored 'round at home, too."

Kaz looks around, reflexively. "Someone hadda? Why?" Perhaps she's being
purposefully naive.

J.C. snorts. "Keep an eye on ya, what else?" She says this with good humor,
half-jokingly.

Kaz sticks the other HoHo back in her pocket. "Well, I figured, but I hadda
ask, din' I? S'where /was/ home?"

J.C. hesitates a little on answering that, using the pause to gnaw on the
snackfood. "Montana."

Kaz thinks. "I was there once. Briefly. I was kinda in a hurry. But I don'
blame you none for wantin' out. I wanted outta West Virginia, too."

"Better'n Alabama, at least," J.C. quips, going all grinny again.

Kaz says, with vague fervency, "Ain't /that/ the truth." She glances
upwards, and sighs. "I should get outta here. Got shit t'do. I'll catch you
around sometime, yeah?"

J.C. finishes off the HoHo and licks her fingers in a way that somehow
suggests tidiness. "Yeah. I'm 'round, 'n keepin' an ear out, 'n all that."

Kaz grins at the young woman, and disappears off down the alleyway.