what i am.

[Helen Moore] What do you do when you come back from vacation? Go on a night with the gals, of course. Friday nights are all about the drinks and the company. Unfortunately the others had plans the next day and had slowly filtered off one by one, leaving Helen to debate whether she was going to follow suit or sit around and drink alone. The music was good enough, the crowd wasn't that bad, and there was a side beer garden that she could escape to.

Which is exactly where she was now, still deciding over another drink, sitting by the small erected rail that separated a paying pub to the side walk. It was easy enough to jump over if one was inclined, and security, which was lingering half in and out of the door, was likely to miss it. From here the music drifted out and onto the street. The air was still warm, no sign of rain, and as far as nights go it was still relatively early since the clock had yet strike twelve.

A dress, worn comfortably over a tall, thin frame, had a small summer waistcoat over top. Some accessories here and there, a pair of sensible flats, all made the outfit. She knew how to wear it, she damn well should, it was her job. But the look on her face was somewhat far away, bored with the people moving around in their own groups, their chatter blending in with the background music.

[Robbie Murdoch] Reputedly, Robbie Murdoch is both a Fianna and a Galliard. He looks the part of the former, at least. His hair is reddish; his eyes are pale green. He has a look that speaks of a heritage somewhere in the british isles, all lanky and pale, color in his cheeks. He's a sorry sight for the latter, though. Can't sing. Can't play any instruments. Can't tell a tale worth shit. Can barely speak clearly if he gets riled up.

Doesn't act much like a Fianna Galliard, either. You'd expect those types to be romancing the girls, always: you'd expect a Fianna Galliard to be at the bar chatting up some pretty young thing, or somewhere in the back with his hands up her skirt already. You'd expect a Fianna Galliard to go home with one or more of them, laughing and happily drunk. You'd expect, at the least, that a Fianna Galliard would be talking to someone.

Not this one. This one came alone, and he's still alone hours into the night when the sun's closer to the eastern horizon than the western. He's alone, and he's dancing, if that feral, savage show of energy can be called dancing: he's keeping the beat with the thump of his head and the tension in his shoulders, the stomp of his feet and the tight, intense spirals he describes around --

well; anyone. He doesn't seem to have a set partner. He moves from one to another, young people high on bass, high on life, strangers circling and sweating and dancing the way they only do at clubs, long after midnight, in a warm summer night.

There, Robbie proves himself a Galliard after all. He can't sing. He can't play instruments. He can't write poetry. He can't tell tales. But he can dance.


The songs don't really end here. They mix, one into the next, and sometime between one and the next Robbie falls away from the intensest eye of the dance floor; moves back from the ones that are moving and twisting, lost in the beat. Back through the strata -- the ones that dance in groups with their friends; the couples that sway together; finally back and out to the still fringes where single men lurk with their eyes on the women, and where clubbers too drunk or too high or too tired to get out on the floor are sprawled on couches and barstools.

He swipes sweat off his brow. He's been dancing a long time. Lost track of how long. He's thirsty, and it's hot and stuffy in here with all the bodies, all the bass. He goes to the bar and buys a bottle of water and they charge him five dollars, which is fucking ridiculous, but he pays it because there's nothing else to do. Then he's breaking through the crowd, the human tide, and coming out onto the open deck -- the beer garden, as they call it -- all but steaming from exertion and motion. He gulps down half the bottle in a single go, then caps it, wiping his mouth on his wrist, dropping down on an open bench.

After a moment, he lays down on his back. The sky overhead is clear, the stars visible even through city lights. A mild breeze threads through the garden. Conversation ebbs and flows. He's glad, in that moment, to be right here.

[Helen Moore] It's not far from her that Robbie finds himself sitting. She had glanced over, just briefly at first, when he first made his way out. Something about him caught her attention and she dismissed it shortly after. Maybe she saw in him something that wasn't there, was thinking on someone or something else, who knows, she's distant and somewhat detached from here tonight. She lifts her drink, some cocktail that smells sweet on her breath and is sickeningly sweet on the tongue, and takes a sip. It's full of alcohol, the sort disguised by sugar and encourages big spending and more drinking, but it's still three quarters full.

By the time she looks over again, he's laying out on his back and enjoying the stars - at least she thinks he is. It makes her smile and she finds herself watching him for awhile, oblivious or stubbornly ignoring any greedy glances from intoxicated, filthy men that ogle from afar. Shortly after, she speaks up, the British clip as clear as the sky. "Having a good night?" she asks of him.

[Robbie Murdoch] The way he's laying out, his head is nearer to her, his body a long sprawl away from her. His feet are very far away indeed -- Robbie is quite tall, though all of him is narrow and lean and lanky, on the verge of thin. One leg is off the bench, foot flat on the floor; the other is hangs off the end of the bench. Compared to most people here tonight, he's simply dressed. His jeans are tough cheap Levi's, the sort that'll handle tumbling down a mountainside without much wear or tear. His shirt is dark brown, some economy brand or other common to Targets and K-marts and Walmarts everywhere, a v-neck the only evidence of styling therewithin. And that's probably just because he didn't notice it when it grabbed it off the shelf.

He starts when she speaks to him, genuinely surprised. Women don't approach him. He's too intense for them, his eyes too direct, his entire manner too everything. He looks up at her first -- up and back, forehead furrowing up with the angle of his glance. Then he sits up, swiping sweat off his brow again with the same thoughtless sweep of his forearm.

There's a smooth grace in that. In everything he does. He moved on the dance floor like he was born to obey the beat. He moves now like his body never once did a thing he didn't intend it to. In contrast to all that, his manner is reticent, even shy. Here's where he should smile slow and lazy and say something like I am now, or Want to make it a better one? or any number of one-liners intended to get in this girl's pants. Instead, he stares at her for a beat, some odd recognition in his eyes.

Then, "Hi." Just that, quietly. "What's your name?"

-- as if this were grade school.

[Helen Moore] She's not at the bench, but sitting on an outside chair at a small table meant for two. The other chair has been stolen, it's elsewhere with a larger group that needed it. Her long legs are crossed, the hem of her dress sits an inch below the knee, a tad higher since she's sitting - it's modest as far as dresses go, pretty coloured in some dusty rose and in flowing, probably expensive layered material.

Her arm is resting in her lap rather then on the table and her waist has twisted just slightly in order to talk to him better, engaged. Attentive. The other holds her glass by the base, long fingers curled comfortably around it.

"I'm Helen," she offered, and her smile came easily - something that shined clearly in her pale coloured eyes. "I'd offer a hand but didn't want to intrude." Her gaze slides past him, nodding towards the bench seat. "You looked comfortable," she says, as if giving an explanation.

The woman is looking at him again, direct but without challenge. She seems comfortable enough in her skin around him. At least for now.

[Robbie Murdoch] "Robbie," he replies, which is perhaps a name Helen heard more often on her side of the pond than his. Out here, most guys named Robert shortened it to Rob. Bob. Maybe Bobby. Or just kept it as it was: Robert, strong and impenetrable.

He's not from her side of the pond, though. His accent -- because he has one, slight as it is -- says he's from an England himself, but not the old one. New England. Boston area maybe. His vowels are a little longer, a little flattened.

He laughs a little when she says he looked comfortable. His reply doesn't come immediately; he gulps some more water first. He doesn't look the slightest bit drunk. Even without his senses, his awareness of purity of blood and that sort of thing, he stands out to her. Stands apart from the backdrop. Unusual. Different. If he had more confidence of personality it might be magnetic; as is, it's simply that: an anomaly.

Recapping his water bottle, he says, "Was just taking a breather. Getting hot inside." His eyes, grey-green, clear, scan around her, come back. Another one of those questions, almost childlike in its simplicity -- "Why are ya here alone?"

[Helen Moore] "It's good to meet you Robbie." Her smile comes again, a little more bemused this time, but harmless. She's not the sort that wears sarcasm on her sleeve, but comes across as something far warmer, friendlier, even if she's having a little chuckle.

Following his gaze she looked around her, then elsewhere - taking in some of the other sights, noticing that a particular man has been watching her is still hanging around in the background, that he's aware of who she's talking to, attentive enough that when she does look his way he meets her gaze briefly, boldly. He's drunk, she hopes, not stupid. But he's still dangerous.

"I'm uh," she falters here, glancing back to him, then her empty table and sitting a little straighter before looking back. Her smile is a smaller version this time, a tad embarrassed. "My girlfriends left earlier. I was debating whether to call it a night myself." That debate was still continuing.

Her gaze was taking in the details of his face, his clothes, and how he holds himself. She can't pinpoint it directly, what it is that stands out about him, or why she's drawn to him more then she is some other creepy guy in the beer garden. He had an intensity to him that none of the others here had, burned brighter then the masses, and it called for her to pay him attention. So, she did.

"And yourself, are you here alone?" The way her brow arches, the way the tone had dropped then lifted again, and her mouth curled, could very well be considered flirtatious - even a little daring.

[Robbie Murdoch] Robbie nods, quick, simple. "Had some extra money," he explains. "Just came to dance."

He leans elbows on knees now. Sitting like that, hunkered over, he's all length of bone -- long forearms, long fingers. There's width to his shoulders, a broad scaffold of skeleton, but all his musculature is slender, close to the bone, elongated. He unscrews his water bottle again, and this time he drains it.

When the bottle is empty, he recaps it and sets it between his feet. No simple arrowhead or glacier water, this: some gourmet brand, and even the bottle is impressive. Thick plastic, crystal-clear. Angular sides. Looks like a damn vodka bottle, and he's curiously reluctant to throw it away.

"Ya wanna?" He looks over at her again. Robbie isn't handsome, but there's strength in his face. Good high cheekbones; long straight nose. A jaw that would square up if he set his teeth. There could be pride there, but there isn't. He clarifies, "Dance."

[Helen Moore] Nodding slightly, she had nothing to say to the first. Money wasn't something that she really worried about, not to the sort of length that has her wondering if she can splurge on a dance. She worked, a lot, too much some would say.

When he drinks she looks politely away, takes a sip of her own through the short straw that sticks out of the colourful liquid. The taste is strong and the glass drains part way before she drops the straw from her mouth with a flick of her tongue, quickly, across her lower lip.

She looks back at him, brows raised at first, before they lower with a smile when he clarifies. "Sure." A small nod of her head accompanies that, and she rises up from where she's sitting, nudging her chair back into place before stepping around the table to meet him. Her glass is held down by her waist as she approaches.

Helen's tall. In flats she's five foot ten. They're similarly structured; hers more feminine, elegant compared to the broadness and potential.

[Helen Moore] [edit: to his broadness and potential. I knew what I meant. Heh.]

[Robbie Murdoch] The Galliard rises as she nears. She's taller than he expected. He's probably taller than she expected. When he stands, he's a good two, three inches over six, all of it long and lean. There's something simple about the way he looks her over, scanning, appraising. Childlike; only it's not that. Animal-like: that's what it is. That's what it always was, the simple questions, the uncomplicated answers. His mind is not wholly human, and never will be.

He picks up the bottle. On their way back in -- the noise and the heat inside reaching out to envelope them -- he tosses the bottle into a waiting, overflowing trash can.

It's darker inside. Heavy beats hammering through the walls, through the bones. The crowd is still thick; it's friday night after all. The dance floor isn't as crowded as it was two, three hours ago, though. The bridge&tunnel crowd has mostly gone home, and those here to dance are taking longer breaks, now, wearing out as the night wears on.

Robbie, though. There's no sign of wearing out there. He's eager to be out on the floor, with the beat pounding through him. She can see that, and sense it. He reaches for her hand as they're winding through the crowd, past sloppy-drunk girls and guys circling ever closing, through the layer of couples, past the friends out to the open areas, the free-association circles at the heart of the dance floor.

There he lets her hand go. The DJ's spinning something with a heavy beat, minimalistic, nothing but a bassline and a woman's voice in alto, speaking. The language is spanish, or portuguese, something Robbie doesn't know. It doesn't matter. He sinks into the rhythm, and for a while it doesn't even seem like he's dancing with Helen. His eyes are downcast. He's moving to his own groove.

Then -- after a while, he starts watching her feet. And naturally, without training or intention, their steps start to complement in some chaotic, primal way.

[Helen Moore] She follows in his wake, a step behind and close to his side, using his taller self as a shield to pass through the crowd. On her way inside she's drinking down the rest of her cocktail, and scans the area for a place to put the empty glass. One of the tall drink tables catches her eye and she diverts just for a split second to lean through some people with a polite: "Excuse me," to set the glass down.

Then her hand is in his, briefly, as he leads her through the thick of people and out onto the thinning crowd on the dance floor. She's had enough drinks not to be too self conscious, but then again, she's here with a man, someone she doesn't know. Determined to not let it get to her, she pushes past it within the first few songs, and finds her own rhythm to the music.

She does not have natural grace, nothing sets her apart from the ordinary masses that surrounds her, but she's spent enough times at clubs and on the dance floor that she seems to know how to catch a beat, how to move to the undercurrents of melody and not just the background thud of bass. She smiles easy too, her laughter can occasionally be heard threading through the song.

Helen enjoys herself, becoming easily carefree. Like many women, a lot of her dance centers in the core of her and hips, and the rest of her follows, the length of long legs or the movement of slender arm. She doesn't take up a lot of space, seeming to prefer a central piece of ground over throwing herself everywhere, aware of others around her. Her attention is, however, more on him then it is on the ground, but she doesn't try and crowd his dance space, while still dancing with him.

[Robbie Murdoch] They're quite different, really. They share a tribe -- though Helen doesn't even know this yet -- and, ultimately, some form of ancestry. Other than that, Helen is warm. She's friendly. She strikes up conversations with strangers. Robbie: well, he's not cold, but he's introverted, perhaps even shy insofar as any Garou could be called shy.

Which is to say, he's not shy. Merely quiet, then. Socially inadept.

And then you put them on the dance floor. There it's almost the other way around. Helen is a polite dancer. She enjoys herself, and she laughs, but ultimately she dances because this is what people do at clubs and bars with loud music. Robbie dances like he needs to, like there's some biological imperative, some bonedeep instinct driving him to. Like everything else, all that quiet in all the rest of his life, all that inability to just express the way he's supposed to, all that rage and passion and hot red blood that he forces to something like stillness in his daily life -- is given an outlet here.

Left to himself, without the anchor of a more reticent partner, he'd be turning and stomping, slamming to the beat alone or in temporary, transient partnerships with others like himself. Slaves to the music.

With her: it's a little different. She doesn't move as much as he does. She's not, plainly put, as utterly plugged in to the beat. So he reins it in too, so as not to leave her behind. He grows more aware of her as they dance, and as one song rolls to the next and sweat breaks out over his body again. He watches her feet first; then he watches her hips, her body, and here's nothing sly or surreptitious about this; nothing leering or lascivious either.

It's simply awareness. Simply: intense.

When his eyes finally come up to her face he's barely moving anymore. Just swaying slightly to the bassline, like breathing. They're close now. His hands aren't on her body, but they're close.

Their eyes meet. And hold. He draws a boldness from the music and the surroundings he would not have elsewhere. In the darkness, the multicolored lights of the club, his eyes are green; are blue and yellow, purple, and green again. With every pulse of light his pupils contract infinitesimally; dilate again.

Softly, he asks, "Do you know what I am?"

[Helen Moore] There's another difference in them - she tires far more easily. It's the beat, the mood that catches her and throws her foward, and the alcohol too. She's not drunk but she is intoxicated enough that she will be catching a cab home - then again, she's a sensible sort of person, most of the times, and at least with the dangers of drink driving. But there's sweat on her brow, sliding down her neck, beading in that sharp dip of her bow mouth. That jacket, though short around the waist and light in material, has to be stifling in the club.

She pushes through it, isn't always dancing facing him, but nearby, sometimes dancing around in a circle, arms slightly up, and head swaying with eyes partially closed. Then, he's nearer her, slowing himself down until he's almost still. She follows him, aware then, that she would look a little more a fool if she's grooving to the faster beat and he's all but swaying and trying to talk to her.

His eyes hold hers. It makes her become more still, more alert in the spine, and aware just how close he suddenly is. Right there, she picks up on it more then she had outside. Its the way he's looking at her now, that boldness more familiar. His earlier shyness, or reserved demeanor, whatever it was, had thrown her a little off course. But she knew, some part of her knew, like it does now. It doesn't leave her with an easy answer though. What if he's not? She wants to make light of it, tell him: a good dancer. with a charming smile and laugh.

But his presence, near her like this, crushes that idea. Instead she's murmuring, "I think so," with an easy honesty that doesn't give anything away she shouldn't be. By now, she's matching his movements. For observers it looks like two people with a sudden moment of chemistry. Something like that leaps from her anyway, with the way her already quickened heart beats that much harder in her throat.

[Robbie Murdoch] Now he's not moving at all. Standing still in the center of the dance floor. A still point in the turning world, and everything around him seems to move that much faster for his presence. For his rage. His breathing is elevated, rising and falling in his lean chest. He's standing close enough that she can smell his sweat, the animal musk of him, health and strength.

Silence for a long time. His brow is faintly furrowed. There's almost a look of consternation on his face. Or concentration. Or simply intensity. A moment passes. Two. His eyes shade briefly. He looks at her mouth, and when he finds her eyes again she knows what he's going to ask before he does.

"Take me home with you."

Just like that; so quietly. The space around them throbs with music, with strobing lights. A moment where there's surprise in his eyes, as though he himself didn't expect that. Then it passes -- surety, now.

[Helen Moore] She's not sure what to think when he stops completely and just looks at her. He really looks at her and she has no idea what he's thinking. His expressions are hard to read. But the lights play off his face, and that fierceness in his eyes that isn't violent or threatening, is staring out at her. The small things, like the concentration and then the surprise that flickers to something more confident, are all details that makes him immediately more personable.

There's plenty of reasons why she shouldn't and a few of them flicker through her mind as she stands there, looking back up at him. Then there's plenty of reasons why she should. Her trip back home reminded her of some of these, and its fresh in her mind. He can see the way her mind ticks over, as she studies him outright, searching his gaze as if she could figure out what his motivations, other then the obvious, are. Such things are impossible.

It's she that moves in. Her hands rise up, all the while keeping his gaze, and slide her fingers along the cheap brown shirt, until they curl over his shoulders with a brush of thumbs across his collarbones. She steps in closer, so that she's just shy of pressing into him. Her elbows fold, resting arms, loosely, around his shoulders. Fingers brush the back of his hair and the heat of his neck. "Now?"

[Robbie Murdoch] If Robbie's hard to read, it's only because he's uncertain of his own motives. They're not moving anymore, but that sensation of speed is still with him. It's like the world is moving past him now, faster and faster. He's not one to act often on impulse -- and yet, here they are.

Here they are:

and it's at once strange and perfectly natural that she's the one to touch him first. They didn't even shake hands. He took her hand briefly to lead her through the crowd, but that was a thing of necessity and convenience both. A lot of people here. Easy to get separate. This is different, and when her hands run up over his shirt he draws a sudden, abortive breath, like it's been so long since he's known a touch like this that he's almost forgotten.

There are plenty of reasons why she shouldn't. Here's one: she doesn't even know his last name. Or his deedname. Or who he is. They haven't talked beyond a few token phrases. There's nothing like love or affection between them; just a sudden, intense, and potentially lopsided attraction. They haven't even kissed. He hasn't even bought her a drink.

But then there's the heat of his skin baking right through his shirt, and the hard thump of his heart right through his chest wall, right through the lean layer of muscle and the hard curving bones. There's his hand coming up to grip briefly, wantingly at her arm as her arms slide over his shoulders. One song shears into the next, and it's a popular one, and a few more dancers crowd the floor. His head bows; for a moment he seems as though he might bury his face in the turn of her neck.

He doesn't. He nods instead.

"Yah." The accent seems more prominent now. Is all the more out of place now. A strange reminder of the near-human life he once led, which is so far from him now as to have been wholly lost. A beat of hesitation; then, "If ya wanna."

[Helen Moore] That's just it. She doesn't know his deedname, his last name, has never seen him before tonight and may not again. There's a thrill, a risk, a moment of impulse on both their parts. There's the way he looks at her, lingers around her without approaching, which is still a sort of dance. The way that she had felt his heart quickened hard under her hand as she had passed it across his chest, and the smell of him, which is all masculine, yet unfamiliar and enticing.

She'd like to stay, just like this for awhile, with the world moving around them. A cab ride will break it up, the walk to wait for one, where the music won't be there as some background distraction. Which isn't all a bad thing, but it's new and exciting, just this part now. More people are filtering onto the dance floor, they crowd in around, and although Helen wasn't paying attention to them, but the way her hand feels running up the back of his hair and down the back of his neck, she's aware that they're not alone and that being alone has better potentials the the base beat of the music.

So she turns her head slightly into him, where her voice is heard clearer and her blond curls brush his jaw. "Let's go then." But she makes him draw away first, to lead the way, at least until the end of a cab ride.

It's doubtful that by the time they've made it into her apartment at Lakeview, that there's much talking.

[Robbie Murdoch] "Yah," he says again, quietly.

He reaches back behind his shoulder and finds her hand. This time it's not merely a thing of convenience and necessity. His fingers fold around hers, his hand a hard blade of bone and sinew.

Out again through the mingling layers of dancers. Out past the wallflowers, which in a club or a pub on a friday night consists of a decidedly carnivorous breed. Men, mostly, with their eyes on the flocks of girls. Out past the crowd around the bar, the ones just getting in at this late hour, tucking their IDs away as their eyes scan the crowd.

Out the front door into the night. It's quiet now. Magnificent Mile is aglow but silent, most the stores shut down, doors locked, security armed, lights still on in echoing minimalist spaces. They're about a block off the Mile proper, and there are no taxicabs along this street. They end up having to walk a block over, and all the way he holds her hand, and they're both longlegged and lean. Their clip is quick, covering ground fast. Robbie holds his hand out but the first cab passes them by, some passenger faceless in the back.

The second one stops for them. The Galliard pulls the back door open and hands Helen in, then folds his lanky frame in after her. With the door shut his rage seems to beat all the stronger. In the rearview mirror, Helen can see the cabbie glancing once or twice at her escort, nervously.

She gives him an address. Another man would be all over her by now, not caring what the cabbie thinks. Another man might've been all over her on the street, pushing her up against a wall and shoving his hands under her dress. Robbie sits quiet, sprawled and yet singing with tension like a high voltage wire. One foot jitters until he notices, and stops. He says nothing all the way to her place, and whatever directions there are are hers to give.

If he's memorizing the way, he doesn't show it.

Then they're there. She'll have to pay the cabbie, too, though he at least has the good grace to look aside, faintly embarrassed. Then the yellow cab is taking off, and the cabbie will call it a night early and go home, unwilling to take another passenger after that tempest in the back seat. They're left to themselves on her street in front of her home, and Robbie looks around like it's all new to him.

And then his eyes come back to her.

[Helen Moore] She reads his mood as best as she's able. Her hand is a warm reminder that she's there all the while, and then, in the cab, she's sitting nearer him then the other side, somewhere in the middle. Her legs are crossed over, hand resting in her lap and the other on the seat between them. She watches the cab driver in the mirror directly, an eyebrow arching the third time he sneaks a glance, and her smile following in an attempt to reassure him.

It doesn't help.

Normally she'd talk, but with the cabbies attention on them she feels as though their privacy is invaded. It keeps her quiet for the long ride over, and if she notices the way Robbie is restless in the seat she doesn't bring attention to it. When the ride is over she's almost grateful for it, pays the cab driver with a good tip and climbs out onto the street.

The apartment complex is one of those tall buildings with multiple floors, complete with a lobby and security desk. She's already found her keys from when she was in the cab, and now, when he looks back to her, she offers him a smile. Her hand seeks out his, curls her fingers around it and leads him to the doors. The small keypad lets her in with a pin number and she pulls open the heavy door to step inside.

A lone figure behind the desk watches them come in and until they disappear into the closing elevator doors. She presses the four button, making it glow a faint pink, before turning to look up at him. "If you're having second thoughts..." In the low but clear light of the elevator her eyes are a pale silvery green with specks of brown by the pupils.

[Robbie Murdoch] [BURN THE WITCH! *chases with flaming torches*]

[Israel Cohen] [[AAAAUUUUUGH! *burned*]]

[Robbie Murdoch] Seeing where she lives confirms what he's suspected: Helen isn't strapped for cash. It doesn't bother him. It doesn't make him feel inferior, or jealous, or envious. It's simply another fact about her -- another piece falling into place.

Just like the way her hand reaches for his. And the smile she gives him, which is almost reassuring, as though she knows this is new for him. Or rare for him. Outside his zone of comfort, which he left farther and farther behind as they left that club, that beat, that music.

He draws a short breath, though. Then he takes her hand; catches the door from her with his other hand and holds it open as the precedes him into the building. As the elevator comes down he watches the numbers, his profile clean and strong, but so remote. He's barely looked at her this whole time, spoken not at all. It's no surprise that she asks him what she does.

That makes his head snap quickly around, though. Hawk-sharp and feral. He looks at her, his eyes more visibly green in this light, and pale, and clear. His pupils are large and black. They make his eyes look like an animal's.

"No," he says quietly. "I'm not."

The elevator arrives. Doors open. They enter. His hand is warm, his palm dry. It's not really nervousness, this silence, this tension. When the door shuts he adds --

"Are you?"

[Helen Moore] The way he moves, she's noted. It's more clear now, in the way he looks at her and the colour and shape of his eyes. She wonders how she missed all those little clues before they got up to dance. Now it's so obvious, when it's just him and her in that little moving metal box, rising up to the floor of her apartment. His answer makes her small, it's quiet like the rest of her demeanor often is, and she nods once in acceptance.

Heading into the hall has carpet under foot, making their footsteps relatively silent. The air here is filtered, air conditioned, kept to a nice comfortable temperature compared to the outside, and soft downlights run down the length of the hall. She's walking down the quietness of it before she answers him over her shoulder, "No," she almost mimics him, except her smile is there and growing, "I'm not." Her eyes shine with it.

At apartment thirty-six she slides the key into the lock and turns it. She lets go of his hand to open the handle, twisting it with a small push to slide it open, which it does so soundlessly. Inside it's dark but she reaches around the doors frame to flick the switch, flooding the opened living space with soft light.

Although her furniture is modern, neutral coloured, there's plenty of bold colour shown through the place in throwrugs, cushions, lamps, in the bordered rug on the floor or some prints in frames of the wall. It's definitely not cluttered, but it's home, and warm and ... quite feminine without the flowers. The lingering scents are perfume that comes from the bathroom and bedroom further down the hall, embedded into the fabric of the apartment from a constant use. He gets the very distinct impression that there is only her here, not some share house. It's all Helen, and it's fitting of her.

Stepping inside has them immediately entering the living area. To the left is the kitchen, separated by a long bench, with all stainless steel and modern amenities. At the far end of the living room, opposite them, curtains have been drawn across. Behind them is glass sliding doors out onto a small balcony, enough room for a lounge chair or two chairs and a small table, as well as some potted plants. Heading to the right would lead them down the short hall to two bedrooms, a bathroom and a large closet door.

[Robbie Murdoch] No. She's not.

That casts a quick, lopsided smile over Robbie's face, briefly altering the hard planes there, the structure that's so often solemn and very nearly stern. She's ahead of him, which makes some dark instinctual part of him feel like a hunter, like she's some sort of sweetblooded prey. His footfalls are quiet behind her. His eyes gleam.

At her door she lets go his hand. He waits for her to open the door, standing close behind her, close enough that there's heat radiating from his body into her back, and that he can smell her hair on every inhale. She's a tall woman, only a couple inches under six, willowy and slender. The top of her head is somewhere between his cheekbone and his mouth. He's a little disarmed by this, too.

Inside, everything smells like her. He stands still and alert in the small square of tile that marks the last vestige of a foyer that a modern home has, his hands at his sides, his eyes everywhere. Nostrils flare as he pulls one, two, three deep breaths out of the air, as though this were as important to his understanding of her home, and of her, as anything else.

Then he looks at her. The lighting here is soft, incandescent, homey. He lifts a hand as though he might pull his shirt off over his head, but thinks better of it; scratches the center of his chest instead and lets it fall. His breathing is a touch faster.

Perhaps it's some strange chivalry -- or simple brute honesty -- that makes him say this: "I can't promise ya nothing. And I got nothing to offer a woman like you."

[Helen Moore] She's walked in like she owns the place - it is her home after all, but even bringing a stranger home doesn't set her too askew from her natural routine when walking in the door. Moving to the coffee table that is central to the L-shaped sofa- one of those sorts that can be rearranged into whatever shape the owner wants-, she had dropped her purse down along with the keys.

When he speaks, she glances back over to him, partially facing him as she reaches up and slides off the waistcoat jacket she's been wearing all night. One arm then the other is bared. Her dress has thin straps, there's ink work on her left upper arm, something floral there; pink, purple,greens. The tattoo is faded from years ago now, still in good shape and rarely sees sunlight so the colour has held fast well enough.

"I'm not asking for your promises," she tells him directly, tossing the jacket onto the corner of the sofa. Her toes are being used against the heel of her flats to slide one off and then the other, a hand brushing the arm of the sofa to keep her balance as she watches him steadily. "Why worry?" A brow arches, as if it helps bring home a point. There's a hint of a smile in her mouth and in the corners of her eyes.

"Do you want a drink?" Without looking away from him she had nodded her head in the vague direction of the kitchen. It's hospitality and an attempt to make him feel more at ease.

[Robbie Murdoch] Stillness marks him now, even as constant, primal motion marked him on the dance floor. She moves. She's at ease in her own home, slipping out of her coat, stepping out of her shoes. He watches her, green eyes alert, carnivorous, flashing down over her body as she takes off the first of her layers.

This is the first good look he's gotten of her. It was dark in the beer garden, darker still in the pub. Thunderous music and the crush of crowds hazed their perception of each other. She wonders now how she could've ever mistaken him for anything but what he is, half-beast. He never made any mistakes about her at all, but even so: this is the first good look, and he takes it, taking his time. A lesser creature would be intimidated. Would run screaming.

And he shakes his head no.

"Thank you," he adds softly. Polite boy. Then: "I want you."

He steps out of his shoes. There's that, too, a sort of thoughtless respect for her home, the hospitality she's offered him. In his socks he's even quieter, silent and prowlingly graceful, such a contrast to his stiffness of manner. He comes across the room to her and he can't look her in the eye again, it seems; looks at her body instead, the level of her navel or her hips. When he stops in front of her he puts his hand on her waist, gently, even carefully. After a moment, the other: her torso held lightly between his long-fingered hands, as though he were measuring her or considering her.

And his eyes find hers again.

"Take me to your bed," he says.

[Helen Moore] She likes this.

The way he's looking at her should make her run screaming, but it doesn't. He hasn't offered anything aggressive towards her. Although it in a Garou's nature to be so, not all, or many, of them offer it towards their Kinfolk. Some are just too intense to be around, far from control, but she hasn't witnessed any of that from the one standing in her apartment, now close to her and placing his hands on her waist, gentle and considerate. Careful.

His demands, quiet and politely spoken, are still demands. They heat her skin and make her heart race. She likes that, too, the way he says these things to her, looks down the long line of her body inches from his, and then meets her gaze with his final voiced desire. Her hands rest low on his forearms and begin to slide up towards his biceps. Fingers slip under the sleeves of his shirt and just before the material prevents them rising more, she slides them back down again.

With his hands on her waist, she steps back, begins to navigate around the low table and lounge arm while looking up at him. The look in his eyes burns into her, her own is milder, curious as they search his stare. Its in the flush of her skin and the increased thudding of her pulse that he can see clearly how he effects her, and that certain shine in her eyes.

She leaves the living room behind, heading towards the darker hall, when she turns in his grip to lead him the rest of the way.

[Robbie Murdoch] Out of the warmly lit living room, then. A strange sort of encounter, this. Intense, but oddly restrained. All the tension in the space that still divides them. All the electricity in the few points where they touch. His hands on her waist. Her hands on his arms. His biceps are elongated and slender, but hard and without give. There's a firm, sinewy strength in him, hewn close, rawboned.

She steps back. He lets her slip out of his grasp, but as her arms slide down his, his hand catches around her forearm. Like that, she leads him down the darker hallway where doors branch off to the bathroom, the closet, the spare bedroom.

And her bedroom. That's the one they go into, the dark cool space where her scent and presence is strongest. If he closed his eyes he could have found this place by intuition alone. When they're past the door he shuts it behind him, and now it's all but black in here, only faint light slipping under the crack of the door. If she reaches for a light switch he stops her. If she starts to draw away,

or even if she doesn't,

he pulls her back, and into him, their bodies colliding for the first time this entire night. A short exhale, almost a pant. His fingers are bone-hard, gripping her forearm. He finds her mouth blindly in the darkness. His arm is just as lean, just as hard as his hand, wrapping around her back and pulling her into him.

[Helen Moore] He can make out the shape of the bed, that there's something large and bulky to one side - a dresser, and probably the classic two bedside tables. The colours are just shades in the mild darkness, which give way to almost completely blackness when he closest the door.

She hadn't much time to react to that, when he pulled her in towards him. His vice grip remains that, strong and tight on her body, unyielding as they come around her back and hold her in. There's spine and slender tone, surprisingly enough. She's not just bones beneath that dress. He can feel the heat of her, not as hot as his blood runs, but warm under the flimsy layers of dress that cover her torso to lower thigh.

His mouth distracts her. He feels her breath, hot, exhaled sharply from her nose. She's surprised by the suddenness and the fierce way he holds her. Her hands reach up, feel their way across the sides of his face, lightly holding as she kisses him in return, letting her body relax in against his. Then, her hands slide into his hair, around to the back, encourages him to kiss her more, leaning up into it.

[Robbie Murdoch] As introverted as Robbie is, as quiet and restrained and uncertain and borderline shy as he is, it's impossible to forget what he really is underneath all that. It's writ into every step he takes, every movement, every feral-quick turn of his head, every glitter of his eyes.

He's an animal. He's hungry, and his blood burns hot as any Fianna's; any Galliard's; any Garou's. Her hands moving into his short hair makes him gasp against her mouth. Then his long lean arms are wrapping around her, lifting her from the floor, his hands grasping at the curve of her ass before he simply hoists her up on his body. His waist is narrow, his hips lean. There's almost no give to his skin, nothing but bone and muscle beneath. He moves through the dark, and while his hands are grasping and hurried, wanting, his steps are sure. There isn't a hint of waver to him, not a shred of evidence that he might lose his balance. He walks forward until his knees bump her bed, and there he tears his mouth from hers, panting, and drops her back on her mattress.

He completes the half-motion that had begun in her doorway, then: pulling his shirt up over his head, clawing it up from the back. His body is that sort of incorrigible pale that will burn long before it tans. He's as thin as he feels -- his ribs a visible shadow beneath his skin when his arms stretch up, the definition of musculature in his chest and abdomen as much the result of a lack of bodyfat as it is the inevitable outcome of years, of a lifetime, of war.

He comes down over her. His long fingers are fumbling with the clasps on his jeans, with her dress; he seems to be trying to undress both of them at once, with little success in either. All the while he's kissing and nipping at her jawline, her neck, and there's something almost overwhelming about his hunger, sudden and stark as it is.

At least he's indoctrinated enough in human society to ask this, though -- "You on the pill? Or should I..."

[Helen Moore] Willowy is right, and she's rather light for it. She's built for fashion, and while she's not on a runway herself, the society that she lives in daily has a certain requirement to it. Her diet is strict and so is her exercise regime. She counts calories without thinking about it, it's always there, and it shows in the way she is too light for her height, carried easily in his hungry hands. Her legs fold around him, thighs grip at hips that dig into the slender muscle there. Arms brace on his shoulders but her hands are still in his hair, fingers sliding across his scalp and down the back of his neck.

Their mouths break, and with a breathless inhale she's on the mattress, in the summer quilt laid neatly over the bed. Her legs are no longer clinging to his waist, the grip having loosed now to have them lay along the sides of his. She doesn't have time to take off anything, and he's over her, feeling across his own clothes, trying to slip the dress up her body and off, which isn't going to work with her trapped between his body and the bed under her. There's a quiet, breathless laugh bubbling up from her at this, more husky with the heat of passion running through her.

It's a bedroom laugh.

"I am, but we should, anyway." Her answer comes at his sobering thought. Hands slide down his back, across his bare shoulders, enjoying the feel of his skin. She's not as rushed as he is, but she's clearly enjoying his attention. Her mouth finds the side of his face, follows the jaw towards the corner of his lips. "If you let me up, I can get them." Condoms, she means. It doesn't register that he's Garou and doesn't carry diseases. Maybe she doesn't know enough about it, whether things can be transferred anyway. It's not a bet she seems willing to take.

[Robbie Murdoch] There are scars on that lean, quick body of his. She can feel them, breaking the otherwise uninterrupted smoothness of his skin. One traces along the right side of his ribs, like christ's last wound on the cross. One slashes down his back, clearly a claw wound that took him by surprise, from behind.

There are muscles, too, shifting and clenching beneath the skin as he moves over her, kisses her, fumbles with her clothes. When her hands pass down his back, the sheet of muscle wrapping around his ribs tenses and quivers like an animal's, reflexive. For a moment it doesn't seem like he'll let her up to get the condoms; doesn't seem like he wants to let her out of his reach for even a second now that she's here.

Then, with a panting exhale, he rolls to the side. "Okay," he says, hushed. "Hurry."

While she's doing that, he sits up at the edge of the bed and works his fly open. And pushes his jeans down, his socks going with it. His underwear turns out to be plain cotton boxers, some cheap by-the-half-dozen brand; fruit of the loom or hanes or something of the sort. There's a moment of hesitation before he takes those off, too, dropping them to the floor.

[Helen Moore] There's another quiet laugh, this one mostly swallowed as he's telling her to hurry. If there was light, her eyes would be bright with humour. When he rolls from her she rolls the other way, towards the bedside tables. Knowing her room well enough, and her eyes having adjusted enough to make out the outline of her furniture, she's opening the draw. Some small fumbling later and she's pulled out a packet, concentrating on pulling off the wrapper. They've never been opened. There's that crisp sound of it tearing off and being shaken off her fingers as the static makes it cling to her heated skin.

Shortly after, there's a package being pressed back towards him before the Kinfolk gets off the bed. It separates them further, but he can see the outline of her as she's sliding the dress up and off her body, curls bouncing back into place as it whispers off her head at last and is tossed to the ground. There isn't much light to make out the colours of her undergarments or whether there's much frill or lace, but they're not plain. They're light coloured, but a darker shade then the milky pale of her skin. She wastes no time either, reaching behind her, arching her back as she undoes the clasp of her bra, quiet in all of this, as she takes it off and drops it to the growing pile of clothes at her feet - both hers and his. Thumbs slide into the low-rise hip panties and peels them down the long length of her legs.

There's no light to catch it, but she has a navel piercing, he'll feel it later, or maybe sense that there's this hard, polished steel against the softer, supple flesh of her body. Her ribs show too, not as much as his, since it has the soft tissue overlay and the pert of breasts riding high above. Hips jut out at the front, clearly visible, and only round towards the back - she's got more angles then curves.

Then she's reaching out for the bed with her hands, approaching it slowly, not quite of his details in the darkness of the room, only the vague, pale outline of his presence on the bed. She moves towards it, willingly, towards the pulse and heat that rises from him. A knee slides onto the bed, a hand bracing herself while the other runs across the heat of his skin. She's blind in the darkness, but hones in on the predator waiting for her, and goes to him willingly.

[Robbie Murdoch] In the darkness, the foil package is more felt than seen, passing from her slender fingers to his lean palm. He takes the prophylactic and rolls it on, and meanwhile she's sliding off the bed, which makes him breathe a low curse that he doesn't bother to explain, but she can probably guess: more distance. Farther away. He knows why, of course; she has to get her damn clothes off. And when she does, the dress sliding up, he mutters another curse, a soft fuck under his breath as he reaches for her.

Her arms are folding back to undo her bra as he's pushing her panties down. She doesn't have to help with that after all. By the time the bra's on the floor, the rest of her lingerie is too, and he's leaning forward to press his mouth eagerly, indiscriminately to her body, her abdomen, her breasts.

Everything about Robbie is lean and hard and wasteless. His strength is wiry rather than robust. He pulls her onto his lap, and that's the way they fuck the first time: sitting on the edge of the bed, her straddling his lap and doing most of the work, most of the moving. He just holds on, his hands pulling at her back, his mouth finding hers again and again between incoherent, breathed curses. In the dimness she can see the way his brow furrows, the way his face pulls with pleasure.


He doesn't last very long, that first time. He finishes in a matter of minutes, as though it had been a very long time for him, which is probably the truth. He falls away from her and lays back across her bed, wiry chest rising and falling in rapid rhythm as he pulls breath after breath from the air. She might be reminded of the way he looked when they met tonight, sprawled across a bench at some pub, someone else's empty bottles lined up a little ways away.

Oh, fuck, he gasps, over and over, oh, fucking god.


A few moments later he wants to go again. He's courteous about this, albeit blunt: he just asks. Do ya want to go again? And if the answer is yes, he moves over her this time, moves her up the bed and covers her, has the presence of mind to be a little more attentive.

It turns out he moves as well in bed as he does anywhere else. He's unpracticed and unfinessed, perhaps even inexperienced, but he's enthusiastic and there's a raw fire to him, this stranger Helen has taken into her bed, this Garou one night stand of hers. His hands are everywhere, stroking and caressing and clasping; his mouth, sucking, biting gently. When he comes the second time, his hands clutch the sheets. He cries out, muffling it in her pillow or her mattress, nowhere near loudly enough to disturb her neighbors.


When he rolls onto his back afterward, his body is sheened in sweat. He's still breathing hard. The second condom goes the way of the first, wrapped in a tissue and cast into some handy trash bin. He's quiet then, laying beside her catching his breath.

[Helen Moore] Each little curse, at first, had her almost laughing. Her stomach trembled with the first fuck, then the second, as his hands reached for her. He helped get clothes off, hurrying, rushing to get her naked and into his lap. Not once did she protest.

But that first time, that had made her draw in sharp breaths at first, sharp through her nose, and later, exhaled through her mouth. It was all over too quick, expected for someone that was so eager, but also disappointing. She's good at not letting this show. She had been enjoying herself, thoroughly, and then he was laying on his back on her bed.

She almost asks if he's alright - the way he gasps. A hint of concern is in her face, but she doesn't ask. Men are just as sensitive as women, sometimes.

Her fingers had trailed along his body then, tracing nonsense patterns as she lay close, partly curled in the legs and propped onto her elbow with her head resting on her hand. Although she can't see well, she makes the most of what she can see, watching him in the darkness of her bedroom. The tip of her index finger and the filed nail there plays along his ribs, the dip where his stomach meets and even lightly around a nipple. She's unashamed by the way she does this, openly, as if she had known him longer then a few hours, when really, she didn't know him at all.

The second time had not left her disappointed. Of course she had said yes, and she had drawn him over her as she lay back in the bed, caring little of the pillows. Helen is a little more vocal, not a screamer, she's on a quieter scale, but not shy from letting those more primal sounds escape her throat. Nor is she she in the way she moves against him, her hands keeping him close, encouraging him all the while. Her mouth does the same, stealing and demanding kisses of him in return, taking them from his mouth or skin; both.

It had been awhile for her too. He brings her not just the once, but several times. Or maybe the once, depending how he likes to hear that hitch of breathing, the way it holds, and how it expel again with a body tightening around him - and knowing, in that very certain way, he was responsible for it. It leaves her boneless, high, lounging on the bed next to him and breathing hard.

The room is warm now, the air conditioning is on, but the door is closed and they have worked up a sweat, twice over. Its just them and their breathing, and Helen turning towards him, laying out on her side, raking her hand through her hair and pushing the curls back from her face. After, that same hand reaches out, trails across his chest lightly. She can hear her heart still pounding in her ears.

"I'll get some water," she tells him, then pushes slowly up to get off the bed.

[Robbie Murdoch] In between, she touches him. She strokes his body and makes his skin tense and quiver, makes him exhale a breathless laugh here and there as she finds sensitive, ticklish spots. She does this as though she knows him, as though they've met before this night.

They didn't, though. They met a few hours ago, if it can even be counted as meeting. They know almost nothing about each other. It was a momentary connection on a dance floor that led to this. It was deeper than that: instinct, the sheer primal draw of a Garou and a kin of the same lineage and tribe.

Now he's as quiet as he was, as in-drawn. She touches him, and he allows it, but his hands are no longer grasping and pulling at her body the way they were while they were having sex. Having each other. He's almost distant, almost cool now -- but when she starts to get up he catches her hand as it draws back from him.

"Wait," he says quietly. His eyes are brilliant in the darkness, pale and clear. He draws her back, closer, settling her against his side as he draws a breath. "Stay a little while longer."

He has nothing to say now, either, but his hand traces aimless patterns on her back. His heartbeat slows, his breathing. Sweat lifts. The air conditioner turns off in the interim, and then back on again. It's dry and cool in here, a stark contrast to the humid, warm lake air outside.

A few minutes later, he nuzzles her gently, kisses her hair. "Okay," he says quietly, and unwinds his arm from around her, letting her go for water if she wants.

[Helen Moore] When he reaches for her, tells her to wait, she instantly stops and turns back towards him, as if on command. She doesn't resent him this, telling her what to do, as if she's submissive without being meek about it. It's natural. Also natural, for those that enjoy sex, to be touched, to curl back into it and steal these fleeting moments in a darker, cruel world.

She does this: twists back towards him and drapes one of her legs across his, the inside of her thigh resting on the top of his, softly possessive. Her hand resumes sliding across his ribs, the flat of it up along his chest, feeling the way his heart beats. She finds a place in the crook of his arm with her head, nestled there with the pillows nearby. Her curls are messy, but she's oblivious to it, and wouldn't care otherwise.

The trail of hand across her back is almost hypnotic, it calms and soothes her in ways that she had not been in quite some time. Its enough to make her eyes flutter closed, not to sleep, but to enjoy it all the more - his presence, here, in her bed. She doesn't know him, but it doesn't matter. She knows the way he's making her feel and sometimes that's all that counts. There's no logic and reason to it.

His kisses come to her hair and he gives permission for her to leave. It makes her smile and she leans up, returns a kiss to the side of his cheek, on the high bone there, and leans over more, pushed up on her arm now, to steal one from his mouth - slower, deliberate and soft.

She moves from the bed then, draws her leg from him and takes the warmth away from his side, leaving it only in the sheets after her. Moving across the floor she is careful not to trip on clothes, both hands running over her hair now, smoothing the mess down before she reaches the door. Opening it reveals details of her, lets in a stream of light in which she slips out, escapes.

He's left alone.

But he can hear her moving around in the apartment, quiet and steadily, opening the fridge, getting out water bottles and closing it again. She doesn't rush, but doesn't hurry back. She's half expecting him to be up and dressed by the time she gets back to the bedroom, steels herself for it, as she comes back towards the bedroom door.

[Robbie Murdoch] He's not gone when she comes back. There's that, at least, because if she knows anything about werewolves at all, she knows they can materialize seemingly at will. Maybe someone, somewhere, taught her about the spirit world. The shaded reflection of this world, and all the worlds beyond that reflection. Maybe someone even taught her that it was as vast as the universe; vaster; that it contains literally anything that could be conceived of, and more.

Maybe all she knows is that they have paths out there. A world behind the mirror. Maybe she doesn't even know that.

He wouldn't know, regardless. He doesn't know her at all. But there's this: he doesn't leave her just like that.

Robbie is, however, dressing as she returns. He has his boxers back on, and his socks. He smells not only of his own sweat but of hers, too, their scents comingled. If they were wolves, this would make them mates. If they were human, they'd probably never see each other again.

They're not either, though. They're something in between.

He has his pants in his lap, but he's waiting for her to come back before putting them on. They stay there as he reaches to accept one of the bottles of water, taking a long drink before screwing the top back on.

"Thank you," he says, muted. And, "I need to get back to the Caern. I'm sorry."

[Helen Moore] It's as she expects and perhaps its better that way. Maybe something awkward would have followed this, it's possible since they're strangers. They know of each other intimately now, he knows about the way she looks naked, that she has piercings here, a tattoo there, the way her voice sounds when it's close to his ear and moaning out no words at all. It's more then others know.

And yet, he doesn't know that she's just came back to Chicago, that she had been miserable before she left, had been talking about the very lack of Fianna in the Sept and just how unlike the Traditional Fianna they really are. He'd proved that one wrong. Quiet as he might be, he still ended up in her bed within a matter of hours of seeing her. The passion he had expressed itself clearly in the way his body moves, in the way he cursed breathlessly or suffocated it in the pillows. Its even in the way he had called her back, made her curl against him.

But they don't talk about any of that. He's telling her that he needs to go and that he's sorry, and for her part she had handed him the bottle and offered him a small smile. There's some light in here, not much, the door is only open enough to allow her slender form to come back in. But it's enough to see him by. She watches him from where she stands, just a foot away, her own bottle held down by her waist, fingers twisting the cap off slowly.

"It's alright, you don't have to explain yourself to me or apologize," she tells him quietly. How she feels about it isn't clear. There is only the offered softness in her tone, perhaps even an understanding that she projects. They don't know each other well enough to know what any of this means, to read below the surface of one another.

Its after she takes a slow sip of her water, wetting her dry throat and mouth, that she tells him: "I'll see you out, just give me a minute." Then she's moving to set her water down, to head across to the closet to find herself some clothes. Its full of them and she hunts through it like she knows what she's looking for and where to find it.

[Robbie Murdoch] That -- when she says he doesn't have to explain or apologize -- makes a faint smile ghost across his mouth. "Okay," he replies. They speak to each other softly, quietly, as though to preserve some sanctity of the night itself.

She goes to search for her clothes. He stands and steps into his pants, and there's no fumbling now. When he bends, the folds in his skin are thin and fatless, as though he carried almost no insulation under his skin at all. When he straightens, the arches of his narrow hips are visible just under the cut of his obliques.

He buttons the button and zips the fly easily, thoughtlessly. Then he pulls his shirt on, and as plain as this outfit is, if and when she sees him again she'll realize it's one of his only ones, and one of his newest ones besides. Like so many other Garou, he doesn't have much to his name. Just himself. The clothes on his back. Some kin to his blood somewhere; some purity in those veins; some ancestry. Some passion held deep within, hidden and protected.

After he rolls the shirt down to his waist, he waits for her quietly. When she's dressed, he holds his hand out to her again. There's something faintly whimsical about this: leaving the way he came.

[Helen Moore] She founds sweat pants, thought it's hard to imagine that she owns them, and pulls them directly on without any care for undergarments. They are without holes or stains and fit low on her hips. A t.shirt is next, tugged over her blond curls and across her waist. It's a closer fit to her then the pants, and if anyone were to look closer it would be clear that she doesn't wear a bra beneath. She finds a hair clip on the bedside table and uses it to to bind the messy curls, which are still messy, but at least they look more deliberate now and not just bed hair, or more accurately - just been fucked, hairstyle.

He takes her by the hand and she walks with him. She slips her feet into her shoes in the living room, grabs up her keys and her purse and when he stops to put on his shoes, she's got her phone out and is calling a cab for him for outside the apartment. She doesn't ask if he wants her to do this, she just does it.

When he's ready, she's leaving her apartment, closing the door and heading into the elevator with him. It's there that she asks him, glancing those few inches up. "Would you like my number?" He knew where she lived, but, that didn't matter. Maybe he'd like to cut ties and this was a good way to test that out. She didn't sound afraid of his answer, it had been a casual question enough.

[Robbie Murdoch] They're riding the elevator down, and it's as quiet a trip as the one up. His hand remains in hers, though. His eyes are a little downcast, but other than that, he seems as alert, as tireless as he was when they came here. When they met at the pub.

He glances at her as she asks if he'd like her number. A rare and genuine amusement flashes across his face -- gentle, not at her expense. "I don't have a phone." His voice is as soft here as it was in her bedroom, in the dark. "I know where to find you, though."

A pause. As the elevator comes to a stop he adds, "If you need to find me, I live at the Brotherhood of Thieves."

[Helen Moore] Her look is thoughtful when he says he doesn't have a phone and she had nodded, slight, and only once, when he said he knew where to find her. It's when he mentions the brotherhood that something else entirely crosses her eyes. They become darker, there's a line between her brows and her mouth purses into a fleeting tight line. In that split second her hand had held tighter, her heart had skipped a beat and her lungs drew in a sharper, larger air.

Spooked. But it passes, quickly. She forces whatever thoughts that made her body react, instantly, strongly, to be gone from her demeanor. It mostly works.

"Okay." Just that, simple, a little more closed off then she was seconds ago, preoccupied. But she follows him out of the elevator and back through the lobby. Another glance from the guard, then a look away - it's obvious, their encounter. He doesn't watch them leave out the door and into the night.

It's outside, into the hot air, cooler then before but not but much, that she glances around, briefly skyward. "Do you mind if I wait with you for the cab?" Not only to spend more time in his company, but so that she could pay for it. She doesn't say it, but she has the purse on her, it's currently sticking out of the hip pocket of her sweatpants.

[Robbie Murdoch] That was an anomaly, that flash of darkness across her face. Robbie notices it -- those clear eyes notice everything -- but he doesn't comment, in the end. If she wanted it to be know, he suspects she would have spoken of her own accord.

They pass through the lobby. The guard glances at them and away. Robbie has not looked at him at all tonight.

Outside, then, in the warmth again, the wet air off the lake raising the hairs on his arms. That gentle humor again, and then a shake of his head. "I'm just going to walk," he says. "It's not very far for someone like me." For a Garou, he means. For someone who can shapeshift. For someone who can slip across barriers between worlds and run tirelessly on all fours, under a huge umbral moon. "I shouldn't be taking cabs to the Caern anyway," he adds. "Or even close to it."

It's an odd, passive sort of independence. He hadn't protested when she called the cab, but it seems he'd never had an intention to get in, either.

Robbie doesn't walk away immediately, though. Out on the sidewalk outside her building, his hand stays in hers a little longer. He looks down the street, and then up the street. Up at the sky. He gains his bearings from his surroundings. It's possible that all the way here, withdrawn and vigilant as he'd seemed, anticipation had rendered him barely conscious of where he was going, what direction he was headed.

He turns back to her, then, facing her again, looking at her for a moment. His free hand comes up, cups her cheek. There were moments tonight when his want was a livid, living thing, ferocious, even savage. He's quiet now, though, and his hands are gentle. His mouth is gentle too when he leans in to her. If she lets him, he kisses her again, softly, his eyes open but downcast, lashes shading the clarity of his irises.

When he draws back he licks his lips as if to taste her again. Then he looks down at their linked hands; brings them up a little, opens his fingers to let her go. There's a moment when he seems unsure of what to say in a situation like this; whether he should thank her, or assure her he had a good time, or --

In the end what he says is simple and quiet. "Goodnight, Helen."

[Helen Moore] "It's no trouble, but if you're sure," and he is, so she doesn't push. It's left at that. The cab will be furious at a missing ride, but that's not Helen's concern, she's not interested in taxi drivers or how they might be offended or loose pay. Its not her problem, ultimately.

She watches him watch the area, her gaze follows around. She's seen this view a thousand times or more, but the man beside her, is new enough to hold her attention more. Once he's got his bearings he's looking down at her. Her skin is still slightly flushed from their bedroom antics, across the cheeks, the rose colour of her mouth and her ears, which peek out from curls of hair. She smiles as he leans down, cupping her face and tilts her chin so that she can kiss him in return.

Her hand releases his, doesn't linger. "Take care, Robbie."

She waits then, for him to begin walking. She doesn't watch him walk into the sunrise, but waits for a few moments more before she's turning to head back inside.