August 02, 2004
.08.02.04. - first and last is never enough [rune-cots]

[chinatown]

(rune)
Light smears bright and garish from the huge picture window onto the street, catches the flecks of quartz and mica in the cement sidewalk, merges with the street's sea of neon and flourescence, bright against the deeper pockets of shadow summer warmth. The rest of downtown is deserted, but the streets of Chinatown remain lively until midnight or later, much like this one, which is nameless, or which, rather, must certainly have some sort of name, but which needn't advertise it. An oversized hand is painted on the window glass, with an artist's eye for detail and a delicate precision suggesting that at least some of the employees are overtrained for their current line of work. The hand has character: knobbly knuckles gracing otherwise shapely fingers that seem tipped with callouses at the first and second digits, at the least. Thee nails are long, curlingly long, each embellished with the most outlandish sorts of decorations. Even at this hour, the parlor does brisk business, both walk-ins and regulars. The patrons and employees inside seem oblivious to the display they make on the street: the window and lights contrasted so sharply to the darkness without, that they seem like players on a stage.

Two women, hunched over the naildryer marooned in the middle of the storefront, bend to exchange their weekly gossip. Two more are waiting in the cheap folding seats, the metal hissingly cold against their skin, with the air conditioning turned up so high. Two of the stations are full, manicurists leaning closely over the hands in front of them, intent on their tasks, but the party at the third is just breaking up. Rune pauses in the middle of the storefront, hands in front of her, fingers curled, inspecting her manicure closely. Her mouth twists into some sort of smirk - approval, or no, not approval, the smirk is simply her default expression, the natural idle state of her mouth - and - eschewing the naildryer - she retrieves her credit card from the table, the gesture flat-fingered, splayed-handed, to preserve the integrity of her still drying polish. She tips the card to the proprietor without a second glance, bends to dash off a signature that is not her own with uncaring ease, then retrieves the card and slips it into the cellophane sleeve surrounding her cigarettes.

Outside, then, shoulder propped against the brick column facing that bisects the plate glass window, bathed in the street's rampant neon glow, the Glass Walker faces a logistical problem of near-epic proportions. Despite her foresight in taking the cigarettes out of her pocket before the manicure, she still must ease them one out of the pack without marring the liquid crimson surface of her nails. At the moment, she simply lounges there, increasingly frustrated with the predicament.

(james)
"Hmph."

there is, just a little behind her sentry, a scoffing huff that meets the epic-proportions of the GlassWalker's problem
in fact, it seems like that very coughed sound is laced with the musical tones of great amusement
if she were so inclined to turn her head, Rune would easily see the source of this mocking affront
a raggedy looking young man equipped with mop-like headdress of tangled dreads
and one backpack slung over a shoulder that smells suspiciously like Chinese take-out

"Few day'n town....." the back of his shoulder blades pull from wall on the opposite side of the parlor's front, releasing the Fostern from his own choice spot to lounge for even he - Gaia's Mighty Warrior - would not brave the clutches of a salon unless faced with dire circumstances, time occupied with the collection of local eatie treats to haul back to the pack's Riverfront excuse for a domicile while she was otherwise detained ".... 'n y'r already fallin' 'part."

the step is casual, soles of Corcoran II's scuffing on cement walk
taking his damn. sweet. time. crossing the salon's garish front
glinting lights refracting in the deep sockets bearing earthen brown eyes
discoloring summer tanned flesh bared by wifebeater's lack of sleeves
neon tones lost in the shifting camoflage of faded BDUs
daring the show of rich entertainment for this one very fact:

if she won't risk the polish for a cigarette, she's sure as hell not going to chip anything smacking him for being an ass

brazenly the Gnawer snatches pack from her frustrated hands
shaking out an unfiltered turkish delicacy from the package's offending inners
held out so she can caaarefully claim it as her own
Zippo produced and snapFWP!d to dancing flame
held as tiny flickering sheild (jovial peace offering?) between them
y'know... just in case she's resourceful enough to reprimand him without damaging those nails

(CotS)
Each foot is placed almost delicately on the pavement before him, shoes coming down gently on the slick spaces between the discarded detritus of city living. Around crushed non-biodegradable styrofoam containers, soaked newspapers and broken glass shards. It is a treacherous world, and an even more treacherous pavement over which he walks, but he does so with quiet elegance, assurance and finesse. Each crimson snake skin shoe finds a clear spot on which to rest, clicking on the cement before rising once more.

His head sways from side to side, eyes almost closed behind the large rose-tinted State Trooper shades, his mouth pursed with emotion as he listens to Ray Charles croon You Don't Know Me into his ears. Head shaved to a fine fuzz, face handsome, almost gaunt, blissed out and rapturous, a good looking boy gone over the edge, his neck engulfed in a white and red feathered boa that curls sinuously down his front, over the tan leather jacket that is open over the Hawaiian silk shirt, barely buttoned up so that his slim physique is hinted at. Narrow waist blooming up to wide shoulders, hands trilling at the end of long arms, feeling the music that pours into his soul. Such music. Such emotion, such yearning and heart ache.

It kills you. It kills you good and proper, till you want to cry and break things with your fists, to convey the loss to others in ways that they will never, ever forget. Because you don't know me.

(rune)
The jibe earns James an opaque, flat stare; Rune's eyes are hard and still opaque, within the ring of shadow and mascara, eyeliner and highlights. Her pale face is almost immobile, frozen for a half-second before the familiar curl of her expressive smirk twitches across her mouth. "You don't know the half of it -- " she mutters, cigarette already tucked between her lips, breath breaking the flame's shape, making it vagrant, like the wind. She cups her hand above the Bone Gnawer's wrist, behind the flame, to shield it from the Chicago wind, if not from her breath, and bends to kiss the end of her cigarette to the Zippo's flame. The tobacco pops and crackles, glows a deep, rich orange, as she inhales, smoke already flaring from her nostrils, in flagrant curlicues. "Thanks." Another half-flash of her smirk, as her eyes trace up from the flame, to James' eyes, and then over his shoulder at the street beyond. Her brows, waxed to a flattering arch, twitch higher as she takes in the -- boy beyond James.

Rune whistles, then, a low sound that slides beneath another her breath, beneath the cusp of another cloud of cigarette smoke.

(james)
"Yeh?" a brow lifts so matter-of-factly before her opaque stare and flatly smirked statement, damned cockily cavalier, isn't he - probably because he knew that familiar twitch of what could pass as a smile would eventually appear "Maybe you shoul' tell me s'metime."

his grin is crooked, resembling a smirk of his own by default
before the battered brass lighter is pocketed he's digging around for his own cancerous crutch
pack of Camel 99s finally revealed to the night's sulpherous lamplights
plume of smoke coiling into the relentless city winds before all the gear's stowed neatly again
it distracts him long enough so that he looks up after the serpentwolf's whistle
head swiveling around to locate what she focused on the moment following eye's greet
dreadlocks fall fringed curtain over a muscular shoulder towards gravity's merciless call

... and a brow.... lifts
he's known some mighty colorful people in his time and travels
but this brilliantly colored boy pretty much rises head and shoulders (and feathers?) above the rest
James was educated in the mysteries of manners to know better than to stare
glance strafing back towards Rune still carrying that curious expression

(cots)
The music, it sweeps him up, it engulfs him, it destroys his personality, shreds it apart into filagree filaments that are swept away in the smooth decadence of it all. Love it, be it, become the musical flows that surround you, that add that energy, that rhythmic beat to your movements and thoughts. Allow each note to transform itself into a blazon of color in the center of the darkness that is your mind, and love it, leave it, kill it, beat it, make it bleed and cry and squirm.

Head rocking back and forth, shoulders twitching, fingers snapping, he sees the pair, the dynamic duo, outfront the nail place and with a slow sidestep begins to arc out around them, drifting away as if on ice skates, moving to the far edge of the pavement as if they were contagious, as if they were anethma, polar opposites to his groove. Reaching up, he lowers the glasses so that they rest low on the bridge of his aqualine nose, and looking across at Rune as he passes her, his eyes scintillating with an almost manic energy, he blows her a kiss, long and luxurious, and then slips the glasses back up on high.

A look that promised and cajoled, that begged and scorned, that screamed blood lust and envy, that was all jealousy and disdain. Smoldering fires in the depths of velvet villages sending up plumes of sinful smoke that would send all the angels fleeing their heavenly hive forevermore.

Moving on, feeling love, down the streets of China Town.

(rune)
"Yeah," Rune's reply is no more than a chuffed fillup of sound, voiced at the end of a breath, almost nasal in its reverberations. She lets the silence open and expand then, filled only by the night sounds, the echo of traffic, the rattles of chains as the late-night businesses between to close. Dark eyes flicker to James, then back to the man across the street as he blows her a kiss. She offers another smirk, this one deeper and a damn sight more jaded than the one she offered James, but kin to it all the same: a slow crawling cynical expression across her expressive red mouth, a twitch of a kiss in response, a snort of supple almost-laughter to accompany it, although that is audible only to her once and future packmate, standing so close.

The nail salon's patrons exit in a trickle, and like CotS, they avoid the pair of Garou standing in front, giving them a wide and careful arc as they head off toward the El or one of darkened cars parked on the steet. Something's wrong with the woman, and the man's no better, really. It's just an ill-feeling, a pressure at the back of the mind, the nameless urge to movement and away that sends the human women circling warily away. Chains rattle again - the proprietor, pulling out the heavy steel security grid half-way across the window. Rune pushes away from the brick and falls into an easy, sauntering gait away from the storefront. The cigarette, held lightly in her right hand, swings with the arc of motion. She doesn't pause and wait for James to catch up to her; she simply knows that he will, that his long strides are a match for hers. Strange how that knowledge erupts beneath the skin, the long-dormant pack instinct opening again. Her heels make a clipped noise on the sidewalk; they are too high for most women, certainly, and too high for almost any woman to walk in them with such a swinging, confident gait. " - I'm still - " picking her way through the sentence, becoming used to the necessity of expressive speech, " - feeling my way through this." She shoots a glance at James again, sidelong, her eyes sweeping along the familiar and changed planes of his features. "I'd heard about the success y'all had here - " her smirk deepens, a twitch of sound substituting for the word she won't quite say so publicly, " - and I heard a rumor about the two of you, too, both on the student council?"

(james)
angels would surely flee before the smouldering play of the boa wrapped boy
denizens of the mortal coil, too, would probably be overwhelmed by the grooveman's liquid journey
James, however, is an official member of neither specie
instead, the muscular raggedyman is privy to the gravitational pull of what smiles from night's sky above
silver rays raining down on earth and soaking through his flesh without invitation
tugging tidal on the very nerves that hardwire his primal system
instigating deeply rooted processes first discovered by his ancient ancestors

one male feels the snaking love - the other embodies the granite patriot of war
repelling opposites in all but the strategically coincidental occupation of this particular sidewalk
(is it caution that buffers ice-skate path, or the crackling sphere of invisable Rage)
and that their attention falls on the exact same woman

a kiss is blown - long and luxurious
a brow lifts - again - slow and skeptical
(well how 'bout that.)
it's followed with the muted thunder of the Ahroun's growling laugh
it chases the storm of Rune's departure wake

"Think he 'pprove a y'r new col'r."

nod tipping towards Rune's hand that so negligently dismissed the turkish smoke
nails stained dark crimson like some evidential aftermath of it's sizzling death in pothole puddle
his own not yet quite burned to the filter, Chicago's winds keep the toxic coils drifting away
even though their steps seem to fall back into pace as if a day was never missed in some routine
the easy intinct of pack's coordinated movement, the familiar presence of bonds waiting to reform
perhaps a deeper understanding beneath the surface and so covetously sheltered from the world

it allows them to walk in silence for a handful of yards
her confessions and questions tempered on drifting air currents
his answers carefully constructed with the mortar of exhaled smoke

"Dunn 'spect you a rush back in'a things." shoulders roll in fluid shrug, jostling the backpack of food for the rest of the Eagles against his flank... a flexing shift of ballsocket readjusts it back to more comfortable swing, and gives him a reason to allow gaze free range across the street as if chasing the escape route of another low, animalistic chuckle "Yeh. We're makin' 'r own way, so fa'." pause for the length of a sidelong glance touched by the quirk of forever crooked grin "Guessin' we made hon'r roll, got vote' gran' poobah 'v th' local club."

not the position James ever expected to occupy the day he set foot outside of Albany years ago
sometimes it still sets him a step back upon realization - betrayed by the sheepish cast of boyish smile
the others would never be privy to witness this lapse of steadfast confidence
but the once and future packmate walking (stalking) so close to his side....
he couldn't hide it even if he wanted to keep it from her

(rune)
The creature's profile is sharp, her jaw forms a delicate line, etched in shadow. Her pale cheeks are swept in color, the cool glow of neon, reds and greens, from the elaborate sign buzzing above, seething with gas. She pauses in front of an old theater, the storefront riot of plaster sculptures wrapped in peeling golden paint. Half the lights on the marquee are burned out, but those remaining spell out GIRLS G RL GI L ! in dim colors, surrounded by a rainbow of neon chasers. In the shadow of the structure, Rune shoots a glance at the seedy old man handing out flyers for the strip club/massage parlor inside. He retreats, visibly shaken, to the dank shadows behind the metal cage of what once was the box office, which now contains a lifesized plastic reproduction of a woman, her mouth forever open in a perfect, blood red "O".

Rune drags the last bit of good smoke from her filterless cigarette, or the last bit of good smoke she can muster without melting her new acrylics, without setting the still-wet polish on fire, and pitches it end-over-end away from her. Back in the day, she would've sunk to her haunches and crushed the cigarette out on the dirty sidewalk, then tossed the butt into a baggy tucked into her back pocket, or the pocket of her jacket, for just such a purpose. Tonight, she lets it go, watching the ovoid flare of the last bit of paper and tobacco as it sparks through the night, only to die, hissing, in the puddle of condensation dripping from a leaking air conditioner, wheezing hot air into the already hot night.

Her hair swings a silken arc to crash against her profile; she runs the flat of her palm over it, smoothing it back from her eyes as she shoots James another glance, this one brief and searching. She absorbs his news with a twitch of the mouth, dark eyes flickering once more away, over his shoulder, out into the strange night, the unfamiliar streets beyond. After a moment: "Gotcha," muttered with the distance of a strange, half-smile, some sound beneath her breath, some meager contemplative drive usually overridden by the weight of the moon or the influence of drugs in her system. She exhales sharply, now, the last dregs of smoke spilling from her nostrils into the night hair. "We need to talk, I think, but not tonight. Gotta pick up my laptop, make the rounds. I'll see you back at the factory." She steps away then, hesitates, turns back and grabs the collar of his t-shirt, smearing the nail polish she was so careful to keep clean and fresh across the fabric as she drags him closer and kisses him once, dangerously public, like it was the first and last time, all wrapped into one.

And then she simply releases him and - without a word - walks away.

(james)
the theater bathes them in haphazard lights brave enough to survive the years
mangled letters flickering dull highlights on the structures of bone and muscle
chasers sheening faint presence on the curving planes of bared, summer-heated skin
hers so pale to properly distinguish each faded tone's passing grace
his tanned and inked and ashed to absorb each hue to shadowed memories
James notices the caress of color on flesh more than the attendant's greasy retreat
even if the tilt of his head would outwardly indicate otherwise

they've shared many silences throughout their short history
he cannot help the tension that chills his belly from her lack of expressive answer
(what did you really expect, Jamey-boy?)
accepting the singular affirmation with supportive nod and searching eyes
tempted to divulge her contemplative lull beneath the pressure of swollen moon and powerful drugs
somehow knowing that tonight was not the night to tempt such fates

"An'time." offered on a sighed murmur that's still probably more than necessary in the close confines of theater's overcast throw "I'll be wait'n'."

blame it on the subdued tones coloring his voice
hesitation's apprehension probable result of measured almost-silence
(..... it cannot be the mellow Gnawer's concern for what they need to talk of...)
or the lingering regret rising as her shoulder turns away so painfully soon

it's an absent smile that greets her second-thought reverse pivot, hopefully quirked that she'd turned back
it's an unbridled hunger that meets her all-encompassing kiss in blatant truancy of risk's public consequence
she kisses him as if it is the first and last wrapped so vibrantly into one
(.... fear..... beneath the volcanic warmth, fear chill's the Gnawer's core before paranoia's shaken away.....)
he fights back with detonation's aggression that a first and last will never be enough
her polish smears on his collar, her lipstick smears from the pressure of his teeth
if she must leave his side than he will not allow his touch to leave her nerves
even if it is nothing more than the faint bruise of his taste across her lips

and in the aftermath of such potential destruction... there is nothing but silence
no cries of heresy filtering past citystreet noises slowly ebbing in
no words between them to replace the memories created across their tongues
she hasn't taken five steps before the guttermutt's turned to make his way

Posted by james at August 02, 2004 12:00 AM