November 04, 2002
.11.04.02. - drunk as fuck pt 2 [rune]

[north jersey, rune's condo]

(rune)
The Fenrir must get the feeling that the last of his words fall on deaf ears. Rune slips inside, squeezes back against the wall to admit James, and then the much abused (though considerably less abused that the neighbor's) door slams shut. The rolling clatter of metal against metal wrapped with wood is the sound of one lock and two rarely used deadbolts clicking home.

Inside, she slouches against the painted drywall hands pressing flat against the smooth cool surface as if she might leech some of the chill to sooth the rage still churning hot, low in her gut. Her fingers open wide (in surrender?) and the single remaining shoe falls from now-slack fingers to crash noiselessly on the plushly carpeted floor.

She glances to the side - back up the dark rise of the stairs - and breaths in low and slow and deep, then looks back to James, to find her rage mirrored in his eyes. What on earth to say?

Wanna beer? ...is all her clever mind can come up with.
(dire)
*He turns and slinks off into the night. Picking up the shoe on the lawn and taking it with him.*

(james)
the Gnawer just flops onto the expensive couch
his balance may have been askew anyway
but he wanted to throw something
and in here, he supposed it best be his weight, onto couch of padded solid whumping goodness

even though lean form stretches out
sinuous energy still crackles through him
stoked fires still burn and roil

"Are you determined to give me alcohol poisoning tonight, Rune?"

grinned
he hates to admit the clever comment was enough to chase away the angry scowl
but it does

Sure

though the way he still looks at her, he probably needs a cold shower more
nothing like Rage to keep things burning

(rune)
"Absolutely." She has no shoes to kick off as she crosses through the foyer to the living room, through the living room and around the breakfast nook and into the kitchen where the now-filthy soles of her feet slap softly against the cool smooth-tiled floor. The fridge sighs a relieved breath as she opens it, and whispers a faint sealed protest as she slams it shut again. "That's the first suggestion in Chapter One of misleading the youth of America."

She's walking back then, noiseless but for the faint creak of leather hugging smooth skin-wrapped muscle once she hits the deep-piled carpet blanketing the living room and the occasional clink of two bottles grasped in one deft hand. From behind and above, she presses one of the cold amber bottles against his abdomen and into his hand, then circles the couch and slaps the cardboard pizza box onto the lacquered coffee table.

She shed her shoes long ago (back on the street, years ago), and only one remains anyway. In their place, she sheds her leather coat, a maneuver made awkward only when she has to switch her open open beer from one hand to the other. After flinging it across the room (the possibility of violence still seething in the sure whip-crack of the gesture) she sinks to the carpeted floor in front of the couch, resting her spine against yet more leather and flinging a bare arm out to rest beside him.

Dark hair fans as her head leans back, and she lifts her bottle to clink against his, a toast to ...what again? Anyway, a toast. "...or didn't you get that memo?"

(james)
"Youth?"

almost barked laughter

"Just how young do you think I am?"

listening to the fridge bestowing its gifts upon the...
.... what were they anyway?
struggling with the quick-laces on the Cochrans
(they were quick to lace, but those pesky knots)
boots kicked to the floor
the Ahroun's re-stretch out drastically reversed in the contact of chilled bottle to fabric across his belly which acts as more of a conductor than protection
Hey!
a scowl attempts to cross his features but it gets lost somewhere around a half-grin when bottles clink

"I'm sorry, the alley's fax machine must have been broken when they sent it out, I'll have to call my guy and have them check it out so it won't happen again."

still slightly slurred
(say that three times fast)
and yet he's drinking more?

(rune)
"If he needs some help, have your guy call my guy." More laughter, still low, bubbling up through the hot knot of rage that husks her voice and still darkens her eyes (...or is that - still - something else there?) It translates through the leather-wrapped cushions as a low rumble and stirs her outstretched hand. "Our guys can get together. If they can't handle it, no one can."

And also: youth. the familiar voice sinking like a stone in his mind, his question translated to mere bland fact. Seventeen. Eighteen.

Her dark eyes flicker back to him as she tips the bottle to her grinning red mouth; the usual smirk still noticeably absent, casualty of the warmth spreading around the ball of anger in her gut slow and thick molasses.

(james)
maybe it's the reinfusion of alcohol into the Gnawer's system
maybe it's the pleasent company
maybe he learned, long ago, how to just channel that Rage outwards, push it away, forget about it until another day
(rain rain go away....)

a brow lifts above the easy grin
there it is again
mellow on the outside
burning on the inside
the only indication in the way that he isn't shy in how he looks at her
that same dark way in the moment held between them on the porch
his laugh low and thick
from the smoke
from the booze
from.... something else most likely

Try adding three or four years

weight shifts
the amber bottle chilling his hand brought into contact with her bare, outstretched arm
thick lower rim tracing along the curve and cut of lithe muscle
call it revenge
call it play

(rune)
Pale skin-wrapped muscle twitches and contracts beneath the cold press of the bottle, and Rune's eyes fall to half-mast, lashes sweeping down to obscure the dark iris, darker pupil dilated to devour whatever tendrils of dim light spill from the kitchen or through the lowered blinds.

well, then. In his mind once more, though her lips quirk with the twitch of unspoken words as she shifts from her long comfortable slouch and rises half-pivot on one planted knee. Her hands wraps around his wrapped around the bottle, and the contrast is stark: cool soft flesh, cold hard glass. She takes it away as easily as she gave it to him. it looks like I was wrong.

Her fingers interlock with his once they are relieved of the bottle's burden. Her weight depresses the overstuffed cushion already sunken beneath him as she slides the other knee beneath her and turns to face him fully. And her eyes - devouring dark - settle on his mouth before lifting to meet his own.

I'm not often wrong.

(james)
beneath her gaze
beneath her guidance
beneath.... her....
his lips curve into a growing smile

scalding invitation rather than clumsy encounters

soft flesh replacing hard glass
soft breath replacing shocked gasp
muscle through his forarm knots and tightens in slow lace and lock of fingers
skeleton wrapped in bone wrapped in flesh stretches
manipulating her weight closer

how strange they reflect each other
tattered Gnawer and sleek Walker
again, how things have reversed
a constant transversal through the looking glass which leaves question what is real
but not what is right
he has no doubts, he'll have no regrets
the hand left free to roam slides coil around her shoulders
lessening the distance between them

and this time, it is he that lifts and finds her

(rune)
Her shadows - many and faint in the dim ambient light - spill over him, tracing a path soon traversed by her body. It's rarely this silent in the condo; if there were an analog clock, he could hear it tick. As it is, the only rhythms to mark time's slow-syrup passage are the race of her beating heart and the slow tidal pull of her breath lifting her shoulders and his hand against them, the curve of her breasts against the silk of her camisole, lifting her - too - as he rises to meet not-quite-halfway.

Sinking forward, she inhales the kiss, which is more gentle than it should be, and more gentle than it will be in an hour's time.

When it ends, she rises, some long slow unfurling of sleek limbs that pulls him inevitably up, inevitably after.

Upstairs. She does not have to say it. She need not even think it, so obvious is her intent. Then, the afterthought - and no more than that it is - I'm protected.

Doubts and regrets belong to another. She has none.

(james)
he listens not for the ticking clock
instead he listens for the cadence beats of their hearts
the random catching of breaths exchange across deepening kiss
the slide of fabric over skin against skin under silk
and the hard muscle the Garou share beneath
long planes notching to fit against sculpted curves

she inhales
he devours
all that is offered and more
an unspoken challenge to the progression
a sheer consumption that only begs - demands - more

bodies unfold only with intent to retwist

yet another door slams shut behind them
christening the birth of something primal
something that steams in this cavern in the urban jungle
incense, black silk, sweat
two Ahrouns tangled in the most intimate of battles

Posted by james at November 04, 2002 12:00 AM