Clean - 7.27.2013 [Hector]

Hector Ghosh

As they broke down the bodies last night Hector did not make jokes about what a great story this would make later on. How they'd tell their grandkids about it one day. Later he'll make that joke but not last night when they were hacking used-to-be humans apart at the joints.

He performed the Rite of Cleansing before they cast the pieces into the oil drums and made pyres of what they had at hand. Drenched in blood and with the yellow light of the barn lamp his only light he bore for the time more than a passing resemblance to a half-mad mystic stood before an offering to a blood-starved god. A stony-serious expression on his face she's never seen before and then he lit the willow reed and paced around the barn speaking in the High Tongue and like the night itself wasn't exhausting and the fight and the consecration of the dead the rite took the last of his energy from him.

Nothing left to do but sleep once the bodies were gone to the earth. Two quilts born out of the back of the truck and Lola may very well have intended for them to sleep on their own huge squares of linen and they may have started out that way but when the sun crept up over the mountains and the trees hours later Hector had rolled over in the night and dragged his quilt with him.

Lola awakens with his head on her shoulder. And she knows him for the sort who is free with his body and its invasion of other people's space. That when he's had enough to drink or enough to smoke or if he's just that comfortable with a person he'll flop down on them or let them flop down on him. Gender doesn't matter. Glen used to sit on his lap all the time. He used to sit on Maria's lap all the time. Tamsin would let him lie with his head on her lap while they were all around a fire, if he hadn't pulled her hair in a while.

His head is on her shoulder and his arm is slung across her lower ribs, bracelets and rings heavy on his hand, and he's breathing the deep slow breaths of someone who would keep right on sleeping for several more hours if you let him.

Lola Hawkes

Originally the quilts had been laid out near one another, but individually none the less.  Lola had laid on hers and pulled one side of it over herself for coverage.  At some point in the middle of the night she'd rolled over onto her back and abandoned the effort to cover herself.  It was around that point that Hector had dragged his quilt over and laid down beside her.  Lola may dismiss the proximity, as physical contact was never something Hector shied away from.  Before Maria had gone, on the nights when the pack would visit, there had been occasions of leaning against one another while sharing a story or gazing into the middle-distance through a haze of casual inebriation.  There was always the chance she would find him to be too close, and anything offending the Kinswoman's sense of personal peace ran the small risk of being met with violence, but in the wake of the evening prior Hector would feel assured that he didn't need to worry about that.

There was always something binding about surviving near death together.
Something moreso about surviving it because of one another.

Lola woke reluctantly at about seven in the morning, not having gotten nearly close to enough sleep, and only because of dawn's light cutting its way through the clear blue sky to wash over the property.  She stirred, tried to lift her hands to her face to scrub her eyes and shield them from the light both, but noticed her right arm wasn't free.  She rolled her head over and squinted down to see Hector asleep along the length of her body.  His head was at her shoulder, tucked so his forehead was nearer to her jaw and his face was aimed at the top of her bust.  He was largely on his stomach, but rolled onto his side enough that a knee was wedged against her leg, like he might have tried slinging his leg over hers in the middle of the night but it fell away when he was more resoundingly asleep, and an arm was draped over her stomach, above the naval and atop the bottom edge of her ribs.

He was still heavily enough asleep, the top half of his face was shadowed by Lola's head with the current angle of the sun.  After a dozen moments of drowsy bleary-eyed contemplation, the Kinswoman breathed from the crown of the Galliard's head, then turned her face to point it straight up to the sky.  Her free hand scrubbed at her face, then lay on her stomach just below his arm.

For now she'd stay still like that, dozing without being able to truly get back to sleep, letting the Galliard continue to sleep if he would.
Impatience for him to wake wouldn't find her just yet, but it would be bound to come before too long.

Hector Ghosh

Either the band he uses to keep his mane constrained fell out during the night or he took it out before he lay down on his own quilt. When he was a kid fresh out of his Rite of Passage it was overgrown, like he didn't know what to do with it so he just ignored it. As time passed it became obvious that Hector intended to just leave it to its destiny. It's to his shoulders now and mingling with hers on the quilt.

Smell of grass and dew around them. If it rained in Littleton last night the storm hasn't reached them yet but the sky overhead is half-choked with clouds and a breeze comes in out of the south and the earth sounds like it's waiting. Held-breath expectation in the hours before a storm.

Beneath him the cadence of Lola's breathing changes and the shifting of her arm and her head must tug at him. He is not a deep sleeper. Not one of those who will leap to his feet at the first sign of activity. Maybe he can tell he hasn't got long before Lola hits him to get him off of her.

A huge inhale, wakefulness come to him sudden and sharp, and he casts his eyes down to where their arms lay side by side and his knee has hooked itself to hers. They smell like other people's blood and each others' blood and dirt and ash. The water from the inside of the gourd, broken to release the spirit that healed her wounds. Sweat. He sighs out that inhale and then winces when he turns his head to look up at her. A small crackling sound as dried blood pulls away from dried blood. Laughs quiet so he doesn't blow morning breath in her face.

"Hey," he says in lieu of Good morning, his voice hoarse from deep sleeping. Takes his arm off her belly to swipe his hair back from his face. "I think my neck is glued to your arm."

Lola Hawkes

Hector stirs.  His arm lifts from her torso so he can push his bedraggled hair out of his face, and he moves his head to look up to her face instead.  When he moves his skin pulls at hers-- they'd wound up gluing together between body heat, pressure, and old blood.  It should be disgusting, any normal people would recoil and apologize and immediately go bathe.  Hector just laughs it off, the expression a light and quiet puff to avoid breathing offensive morning breath into her nose.

Lola turned her head to peer at the Galliard with one eye, and her answer came in a voice that croaked dry from lack of sleep and all the smoke that was inevitably inhaled through all the burning last night.  "Sounds like you'll need to yank it away like a band-aid then."  The jest came with a quick flash of a grin, and she rolled her head away from Hector to look over toward the oil drums left out on the dirt driveway in front of the garage.  They'd need emptied later today, and she would just need to decide where and how to dispose of the ashes left behind.

Her right arm moved under Hector's neck and her fingers curled and flexed a few times to return feeling to them after her arm had been slept on.

"It's not quite hot yet, but I still think we should hose off before taking real showers."

Hector Ghosh

He groans all overwrought and oh-woe at her proposal for dealing with the dried blood situation. Beneath the quilt his knee leaves hers. Space enough between their hips and legs that their only point of connection now is his head and her shoulder.

In the light of morning the business of the land comes back to her and this does not skirt past him, he who can be better attuned to tales told hundreds of years ago by members of a tribe gone extinct and can puzzle out mysteries left behind by roving Black Spiral Dancers but misses subtleties of interaction with his fellow Gaians more often than not. It's hard to misunderstand Lola, frank as she is. They've always gotten along. She got along with all of them, though. Corey, even, and Corey had problems getting along with most people, angry young man that he was. Is.

So her hand revives itself and he takes the hint. Sucks in a breath all deep-deep fast so he can roll off of her and the blood crackles more but his wound is healed and all that's left to show for it is the angry mouth-mark left behind by the man with a shark's maw where his own ought to have been. Looks ugly in the daylight with the old blood flaked away but all sign of it will be gone soon. Garou's bodies are resilient machines.

"I'll go get the hose," he says in a deadpan voice meant to imitate that of a TV soap opera surgeon or something and then clambers to his feet. Leaves his boots and socks discarded by the space where his quilt was last night and trots off around the side of the house all elbows and knees and bare feet and bouncing hair.

---

An hour later, maybe two. Cold water shocked them awake and he called dibs on the shower. No point threatening to wrestle her for the privilege but he knows how to cook. That's his trump card. You let me in first and I'll make pancakes hah door slam.

He'd left his duffel bag here before they went out to the movie so he has clean clothes on when she comes out of the bathroom. He's wearing cargo shorts and a long-sleeved gray shirt beneath a black t-shirt instead of the dedicated outfit he had on last night. All of that has to go through the wash. Blood doesn't come out easy once it's set.

And he could stop himself if he really wanted to but he doesn't. He has some hilarious comment at the back of his throat when he looks up from the stove--huevos rancheros as interpreted by a man of West Bengali extraction--but then he sees her in the light with her hair all wet and her skin clean after having his back last night and whatever he was going to say dies a quick and unheroic death.

Lola Hawkes

A simple (enough) life away from the city and society allowed people to have more basic pleasures.  When you didn't have a lot of people surrounding you, much modern technology, or the luxuries of a wealthy life then you began to take joy in the simple things.  This was expounded upon by the fact that Lola was raised in a family of people related to animals-- literally, related to wolves, Lola had a Lupus uncle who has whelped a couple litters of pups somewhere further north.

So, when Lola tossed the quilts near the deck to be washed and Hector got the hose, Lola faced the cold blast of water like it was a game.  She flexed jokingly, doing an impression of a WWE wrestler and war-facing at the water.  She had him help her rinse the carnage out of her hair, and rinsed her mouth out as well.  When the hose was handed to her she returned the favor of helping Hector rinse his hair and scrubbed the bite marks on his neck clean with firm-but-gentle pressure from her knuckles.

He dibsed first shower, but guaranteed repayment with breakfast.  This seemed fair enough, so Hector got to prance off into the downstairs bathroom and Lola put a pot of coffee on before going back outside to shovel ash from the barrels into empty coffee tins that she refused to throw away for just this purpose.  She'd finished the job just in time to trade places with Hector and have her turn at the shower.

The affair had to be brief, as the hot water heater in this house wasn't the most efficient piece of equipment, but that was just fine.  A cool shower wasn't the end of the world, and Lola was an efficient groomer.

The smell of eggs and meat and pancakes and spices was filling the house when Lola walked out to join Hector in the kitchen.  She was barefooted, dressed in a pair of jean shorts and a loose knitted sweater with some southwestern native looking pattern plastered all over it.  It looked like something she might have been gifted out of irony.  Her upper body was fairly well covered, but her thick black hair was still wet and her bare legs were strong and flattered by the length of the shorts she wore.  Something about that combination plus the healthy flush of freshly-cleaned skin had whatever joke Hector had been waiting to share dying in his throat.

Lola was a bit of a brute, but she wasn't stupid.  She caught what happened and wagged her eyebrows at the Galliard, jibing in good humor, and proceeded into the kitchen to get down a coffee mug -- two if Hector didn't have one out for himself already.  "Flatterer.  What did you have to say?"

Hector Ghosh

If he stands staring at her all morning he's going to burn the life out of the pancakes. He has two separate pans going on the range plus it appears as though he's making some sort of a garnish for the eggs in a bowl that's been set aside and the entire kitchen smells like cooking food and cumin and onion and for a second there it seems like he actually is going to just blurt out what Lola can tell just by looking at him.

This has been the great irony of his life. Ever since Willow and Maria and Glen blew through Window Rock and found him fresh out of the proving grounds and half-scarred from his first alpha's effectively self-immolating in the fires of his own madness they've all boggled over how he can't lie for shit. His history isn't anything he keeps to himself. Everyone knows he was a lost cub and they've gleaned from his ancestors and the stories he's uncovered that someone, somewhere, decided to hide his mother in the Weaver's care. Hasn't sorted out why someone would do that. Sorted out that his mother was a mutt, born to the daughter of Gujarati immigrants who died in childhood, her father half Navajo half who-even-knows. The Uktena was nearly choked out with her hiding but then along came Hector and Hector can't lie for shit.

Maria used to joke with him. Who cares that he should have been a Coggie. He's Uktena where it counts. Got a stronger connection to the spirit world than some Grinning Moons got. Maria kept him from despair and kept that theatric soul of his alive and he told Maria he'd look after her sister but they never talked about her sister other than the occasion teasing born of him staring at her too long across a fire or getting too physical wrestling around drunk because Lola was tough and not only wouldn't back down but could put him on the ground before he could even blink.

And he blinks now. Doesn't say it the way it's in his nature to say things, like he's puking up the truth in a fit of nervousness and not laying it out after some consideration. Then he laughs. Accepts a refill on his coffee. He's ignored the empty mug in favor of cooking and now he's loading pancakes onto a plate and finishing up the eggs.

"Dude, where the hell did you get that sweater?"

Lola Hawkes

The staring went on for what most would deem to be a moment too long.  Lola ignored it, and sure enough it snapped like wire pulled too tight and Hector was blinking his eyes and laughing once again.  She was pouring coffee into his mug when he asked about her sweater, and she smirked up at him and poured her own.  The mug collection in the Hawkes house was an eclectic thing.  The one that Lola was using was a cream colored ceramic thing with pretty black font wisely advising the world:  Never Summon Anything That You Cannot Banish.

The coffee pot was put back on the burner in the modest little machine, and Lola leaned against the counter and crossed her ankles, making herself comfortable near the fridge, largely out of the Galliard's cooking path.

"My cousin brought it to me when he visited with provisions.  He said he found it at some store his girlfriend was shopping in-- he tells me it's coming into fashion.  He thought it was funny as hell."

She took a sip of her coffee-- black, of course she wouldn't put cream or sugar in it.  She probably learned to drink it that way on principal, because sixteen-year-old Lola was the kind of girl that had to do everything the 'tough' and 'manly' way to prove herself.  She hadn't yet quite figured out that she was a Kinfolk, nor had she really grasped what being an Ahroun was all about either.

"I'll need to take the remains up to the Sept sometime today.  Since you're the Gibbous-Moon, I suppose it should be your place to explain what happened."

Hector Ghosh

His path is a constrained thing but she has to know by now that despite the inherent grace in his movements he has a lot of energy and not a lot of clue what to do with it. That he knows how to cook has nothing to do with his inclination towards caring for people. It has to do with his mother or his older sister shoving a bowl or a knife into his hand and insisting he be useful if he was going to be underfoot.

To be a boy in an Indian family was to understand what it is to be Kinfolk in the Garou Nation.

"Your cousin's right: that is funny as hell. That sweater's crossed the ugly event horizon and come out on the other side adorable."

Now he's taller and more eloquent and has a longer reach. When coffee comes back his way Hector hardly looks up from his task of shoveling another circle of pan-seared batter onto a plate and covering it up again with a towel to keep them warm. The pancakes are modest sized and that was the last one. He looks like the sort of guy who would take his coffee sweetened and lightened beyond all recognition but he is also a quiet pragmatist. Takes the coffee the way Lola gives it to him and drinks it like it's nectar.

It would be his place to explain what happened.

"Aw, man, you mean I can't just let you do all that?"

Moves the coffee to the other side of the counter and then performs a small bit of culinary wizardry that involves taking corn tortillas out of the oven, finding space for them on the stove, and assembling the concoction he's come up with on two plates. Tortilla, black bean mixture, salsa, fried egg, shredded cheese. He swoops the first plate onto the island where Lola is expected to sit and says: "BAM."

Anticlimax comes when he moves the pancakes to the island and puts his own plate together with less showmanship. He slings himself into a chair and sits down at the island. The past several minutes he's had the benefit of being able to look at the stove and cast a sidelong glance at Lola if he looked at her at all. Now he's back to looking at her straight-on and he's not all agog like he was when she first walked in.

It's a struggle to maintain an air of goofy platonic companionship after sleeping on her and spraying her down with a hose and fighting over who got to get in the shower first. Salvaging his dignity after being hip-checked into a wall by yelling about pancakes. That's the sort of morning they're having already.

"Do me a favor and try not to be too impressed by how awesome my cooking is, alright?"

Lola Hawkes

"I kind of think so."  That the sweater was adorable, that is.  Lola was practical and blunt and tough, but not being a delicate flower did not, by default, make her a 'tomboy' or a 'butch'.  She didn't huff and act like she didn't care about her appearance at all, and instead accepted the quirky compliment on her shirt and stayed out of the way while Hector made the plates and set them on the kitchen island with an Emeril Lagasse 'BAM' for flair.

Lola and her wise mug came to sit on one of the bar stools hugged up against the island, in front of the plate that Hector had laid out for her.  She was already folding the tortilla and scooting some beans and salsa and egg onto it with her fork when Hector sat down with the pancakes to join her.

His request was answered with a chuckle and a nod.  "I'll do my best.  And thanks for cooking.  I haven't had a reason to have a big breakfast like this in a damn long time."

Her hair, still quite damp, was pushed away from her face and pulled to rest in one solid sheet over one shoulder.  Here it would at least stay in one place so she could avoid getting it in her mouth while she was trying to eat, or her eyes when she turned her head.  She and Maria had similar hair color, but it was different aside from that.  Maria's hair was curly without being a mess, she didn't have a difficult time managing it and it wasn't thick to the point of being a hindrance.  Lola's hair was just a shade darker, barely, but it was quite straight naturally and very dense.  It would be damp for a while because she didn't bother with a blow dryer very often and hair that dense took some time to air dry.

The meal was tucked away without being scarfed.  The Kinswoman ate at exactly medium pace, taking the time to chew but not meandering about the task either.  Somewhere between beans and cheesy egg salsa she sparked conversation up again.

"I haven't seen Tasmin yet, you know.  You should bring her and your new Jack by."

Hector Ghosh

His only response to her thanking him for cooking is a grin that's as close to humble as he ever comes. When he doesn't have a sharpish response ready he grins and ducks his head and he does that now, cutting into his own tortilla concoction so he can start shoveling quickly. The food won't sit in their bellies like concrete even though it is a heavy breakfast. They burned a lot of calories yesterday and their work isn't done yet.

Hector eats quick like he's glad for the distraction and then comes the matter of bringing out Tamsin and Jack. He looks up mid-chew and lifts his eyebrows in amusement at her designation of the lupus lawgiver who she has not yet met and swallows before he laughs.

"Yeah," he says, "I should. I told you Jack's one of Rat's, right? They love meeting people."

And he trails off before he can start rambling on about how he thinks the others would have liked him, that he could have seen Willow and Glen and Maria thinking Jack was just as great as he does, but that isn't entirely true. If Willow hadn't died, if Glen and Maria hadn't died, if Corey hadn't left them, they wouldn't be here right now. Lola would be seeing them as a unit blown through a few times a year after some quest or another instead of seeing Hector all the time now as she does. Instead of hardly seeing Tamsin at all because Tamsin and Hector aren't joined at the hip.

With the meal mostly finished he stands, takes his dishes over to the sink. Stands a moment staring out at the darkening day. They can hear the wind picking up. To look real hard will show the first scant drops of rain. She only has sight of his back for as long as it takes him to sort out what it is he meant to say before they'd eaten. When he turns back around he looks right at her.

"Listen. When I tell people about last night, later: I really would have been in trouble if you weren't there. Aside from the fact that you took that one down with two bullets." Weight, here, with the repetition: "Two shots, man. Just... if you weren't there, I would have just kept waling on the dude until he dropped. He hardly scratched me. And I don't know, the other one would have snuck up on me. I didn't even know she was there until you blew her away. I... You're right. It was fine once I shifted. And I'm trying to find a way to say this that makes it sound like last night was the thing that made me realize this, but it started way before we even got to the park. You know? I didn't ask you to come with me last night just because I didn't want to be not-by-myself."

He stares at the wall behind her for a second. Gathering his thoughts. Possibly berating himself, internally. Pushes his hair back from his face before he looks back at her and goes on.

"I... don't just like you as a friend."

Lola Hawkes

Lola finished eating at about the same time Hector did, and stole one last bite away from her plate before he took it to the sink.  There wasn't a dishwasher in this house, everything had to be washed by hand.  But that was okay, because the television was dusty with disuse (there were no television channels, just a cheap DVD player with a small collection shut away in a cabinet nearby) and you needed to find things to eat up the time in your day.  Doing dishes by hand was a good way to kill ten minutes and let your mind decompress.  Or, at least, that's what Lola told herself to get through the monotony of the task.

She stayed seated while Hector stood, looking out the window and inspecting the weather.  The sun that woke them was gone now, blocked out by the big impressive gray clouds that were pushing up from the southwest.  They were full, heavy and dark.  Thunder rumbled on the horizon.  These clouds would bring a good storm with plenty of rain, and Lola was quite alright with that.  After the state spent the first few weeks of summer on fire, she welcomed all the rain that Gaia was willing to bring.  While the kitchen was quiet the Kinfolk worked on cleaning dried blood and dirt out from under her fingernails more thoroughly and was content.

Then Hector turned about and asked her to listen.  She did, almost always willing to hear whatever a Galliard had to say, but more than that willing to hear what Hector had in store.

He explained that she was important to his survival last night.  That he wouldn't have noticed his foe's female companion in time were it not for Lola to be there to blow her away instead.  He was impressed that it only took two bullets to bring her down, and speculated that he could have been ambushed and blindsided.  He said being in that situation, where adrenaline ran high and danger was at their throats, it would be a good reason to realize something, but he was fairly certain of that something even beforehand.

He hadn't invited her to a movie because he was bored.  He wanted to take her on a date, to court her.

I don't just like you as a friend.

He'd glanced past her head before finding her eyes again to say his final bit.  His gaze was met with raised eyebrows and a difficult to read expression, somewhere between a poker face and skepticism.  Then she leaned forward, elbows on the counter, and set her chin to rest in a cup made by pressing the heels of either palm together before her.  At least he could be reassured, if only a little, by the fact that there was a certain humor to the shape of her mouth when she answered.

"Hector, you're a goddamn Galliard.  Are you kidding me with this 'like you as a friend' stuff?  You can lay it out better than that."

Hector Ghosh

He deserves that. He knows he deserves that. He has stood up in front of two hundred of his fellow monsters and held their attention to tell of the triumphs of Cliaths who none of them had any reason to care about and didn't break a sweat. Every time he's gone to the Sept he's improvised some story or another for the Guardians just to keep himself entertained if he wasn't there for a purpose.

But he's passionate. Not emotional necessarily but he gets overwhelmed sometimes. If it isn't anger it's been guilt. It took him the entire train ride from Minnesota to Colorado to figure out what he was going to tell Lola about his pack's demise. Took him the ride from the train station to the Bawn, and Lola clicking her tongue at him, for him to sort out that he needed to leave his emotions by the roadside before he told anyone what happened to Hornet's Nest.

And she calls him out on it like she called him out on not telling the tale of Celduin's fracturing properly. He doesn't bristle with it. Hector laughs, short and sudden. His eyes tick over her elbows and her wrists and her chin. Her mouth. Come back up to her eyes.

"Show, don't tell, right?"

It sounds rhetorical, like he's repeating something Tamsin's told him before. He doesn't move for a few heartbeats after he says it. Then he peels himself off the counter and closes the previously negligible distance between them. Takes her wrists firm but gentle to pull them away from her jaw. Leans down to kiss her on the mouth.

Lola Hawkes

The Kinfolk's spine tensed just some when Hector spoke of showing instead of telling.

The last time she'd been kissed by a Wolf seeking romantic pursuit it had been by a Silent Strider Ragabash passing through.  It had started with spirits and hospitality on the Sept's Bawn, a gathering of Guardians to share a meal and a drink.  The gesture had been spurred on by a bit too much drink and some urging from one particularly antagonistic Skald.  It had concluded with her punching the man and fracturing his cheekbone because she had been both surprised and felt invaded upon.  That was ten months ago.

This time she didn't hit, though.  She had enough of a preamble to serve as a warning, after all.  Hector was taller, though she forgot that sometimes, so he leaned down and forward some to meet her when he reached the counter.  She remembered his height specifically from when he'd stepped between her and the shambling man last night-- in that moment she had a small flash of surprise to remember that his eyes were above her brow, that her mouth was level with his shoulder instead of his ear when she'd come forward to inform him about the gun and ask if she should make a dash for it.

She could break his grasp easily when his hands close around her wrists, not only because she was strong but because his grip was loose enough purposefully to allow her to bail out if she wanted.

But she didn't, and instead she met his kiss with an air of caution and 'Why the hell not?  What could it hurt?'

Her mouth was firm at first, like she couldn't quite remember what a kiss was supposed to be.  It softened to sensation after a second, though.  Breath was exhaled through her nose and the tension left her along with.  Her shoulders and back relaxed and she opened her eyes to see his face.  Then the moment passed and she leaned back, broke the kiss, and evaluated the sensation of having a songbird flapping manically behind her ribs to judge what it indicated.

"Well?"  She asked in a voice that was quieter, sensitive to the mood in the room and proximity alike.  "Did that feel right?"

Hector Ghosh

The first time they met he was barely 18 years old, young enough to know absolutely nothing and not realize it. Maria saw something in him and through her did she convince Willow that he should run with them. He can remember seeing the Homestead for the first time. Now that he's Changed and learned the Gifts of their people and his moon Hector can remember just about everything the way other people push the play button on their media devices to rewatch films.

He was young and he was cocky but not confident and lots of things scared the shit out of him because he had very little life experience and even less experience at Being Garou. Every time she saw him over the course of the last several years he seemed to grow into himself a bit more. He kisses like a young man now, not a teenager.

So distracted is he by the fact that Lola doesn't wrench her wrists out of his grip to sock him one that Hector forgets to release them. She kisses like someone without recent practice and he waits for her to warm to it. Not until she lets go the breath she was holding does he remember to take in his own. When she relaxes he deepens the kiss. Open eyes find his closed and he can feel her pulse quickening, his fingertips still over the inner flesh of her arm.

Pulling back Hector takes and lets go a breath and opens his eyes to find her.

A smile takes his lips in the wake of her question and his eyes move across her face and he releases her wrists. Doesn't step back. His left hand slides through her still-damp hair to rest ultimately at the nape of her neck, warm and strong despite the Rage burnt out of him last night and the moon gone from them until sundown. His right comes to rest on the counter beside her and his biceps rests against hers as he anchors himself. So close now they can see the flecks of forgotten color in each others' eyes. Like he can see the future in hers.

"Yes," he says, just as quiet, without any of the bullshit that usually accompanies his answers.

When he kisses her this time it is not a test. He kisses her the way he ought to have laid out how he feels when he looks at her. Like the way he fights and the way he tells stories about other people fighting all life-hungry and knowing of the loss that brought them here and the hope of things that haven't happened yet. Without the audience or the possibility of gain or loss of favor.

Outside the sky opens up and rain hurls itself onto the roof of the cabin, onto the thirsty land.

Lola Hawkes

Outside the rain began to fall, first as a few fat drops that landed with surprisingly loud 'smack!' sounds on the windows and the roof, which was open to the entrance and the living room but not the kitchen in which they gathered.  After a few seconds had passed to allow the rain to introduce itself, it began to come down all at once.  The sky rumbled with thunder, the rain pummeled the windows and quenched whatever ghost embers might still be struggling to burn in those oil bins.  The parched earth drank up what the sky had to offer it.

And inside, a Garou ran his fingers through the thick wet hair of a Kinfolk that wasn't quite his, not by any right beyond tribal relations, and kissed her for a second time.

This time around there was some flame to the gesture.  The passion that she saw in his blows and heard in his stories ran through him into her, like a current, and frankly Lola wasn't quite sure what to do with it.

Let's not be mistaken, while Lola Hawkes was unpracticed at romance that did not by any means make her a blushing virgin.  That honor, if you could call it that, had been given to a Theurge that had long since left the Sept when they were both sixteen.  Lola had been angry and full of turmoil over the news that she was a Kinfolk, and Jacobi Richards had come to play devil's advocate with his age mate.  It resulted in rebellious teenage sex that ended with a shared cigarette and grumbled musings about Fate, Gaia, and the World.  Jacobi was a Silent Strider, and he'd left about four months afterwards.  There had only been a handful of encounters after that night, and never had Lola considered any of it romantic.

But it had still been a long time since she'd called anything a relationship, and suddenly she was struck with the potential weight that could follow this moment.  At first she had leaned into Hector, turned her head so her mouth would fit better with his.  She loosely wrapped her arm around the forearm he had extended to her, felt his pulse on the inside of his arm against her thumb and felt his lips and teeth with her tongue.

Quicker than it had started, though, Lola called it to a stop.  Her lips pursed, blocking him out, and she pushed his arm so his hand wasn't in her hair anymore.  Nothing about shaking him off was violent or abrupt, though, but as was the case with most of her actions there was a definite firmness to this.  It demanded compliance, because she only asked once.  Surely, though, Hector would respect her wishes and she would be able to sit up straight and look the Galliard in the face with some almost-precious modicum of concern.

"Wait, wait.  I'm no Half-Moon and I know you aren't either, but...  Well, let's not worry about making an honest woman out of me just anytime soon, okay?"

Don't 'claim' me, she was clearly saying.  I'm not okay with being stamped.

Hector Ghosh

And he does stop. At the closure of the kiss and the pressure on his forearm bringing his hand out of her hair Hector knows she's shutting it down. Nothing to do with the fact that she would break a bone at best if he did not stop. She has something to say or she doesn't dig him that way. Something rears its head and Lola bids him stop and he takes his hand off of her. Rubs his face with it then rakes his hair back off his forehead and holds it there. Rests his hip against the counter where his other hand is planted so she has her space back.

That isn't to say that he's thrilled about stopping. His breath has gotten away from him and Lola can read the quickened pulse she'd felt in his wrist in the way his pupils have gone huge not from want of ambient light but from a fire flared up in the pit of him. No threat of frenzy or even of an outburst of temper.

His own expression is one born of bemusement. His gaze only grows more puzzled when she mentions the Litany. Then he laughs and lets go of his hair.

"You know in The Two Towers, how Éowyn just wanted to put on a helmet and go out killing orcs with everybody else, but Aragorn and Éomer and everybody else wouldn't let her because they were all 'you're a woman when all the fighting's over and we're all dead you're our home's last defense against blah blah blah'? Éowyn was a better swordsman than all the rest of them. Wasn't like she had a choice whether she was a woman or not. The women in the books were stone-cold badasses just in general but Éowyn was the queen of the badasses. She killed the hell out of the Witch King after he rocked up and trounced her uncle while Aragorn was off messing around somewhere else. Aragorn didn't know shit about women." Reel it in, man. "You're a woman, dude, not a piece of furniture."

Translation: I know you're not okay with being stamped and I would never ask you to be.

Lola Hawkes

Hector still had a fire in him.  It smoldered in dilated pupils and warmed the shallow breaths that he took for the next few moments.  She'd felt his heart rate skip and accelerate from her hand at the inside of his arm, and that more than anything had been precisely why she'd pulled back.  She didn't want to encourage him just now.  She didn't want him getting carried away and bringing her along for the ride, because then there could have been a gravity to their relationship.  According to Old Ways, he would have to claim her as his own because that's precisely what he had just done.  According to traditional views of today's day and age, he may be forgiven a day's trespass, but to make sure other suitors didn't come knocking he would have to stake a claim to her as well.

She didn't want that.  The concept made her claustrophobic.

So she'd bade him stop, and without pushing Hector had complied.

He drew an analogy between her and Éowyn, a character that Lola knew not because she'd ever bothered to read The Trilogy, but because she had the story memorized from how often her sister's pack had referenced it.  His conclusion that she wasn't furniture was met with a smirk and a huff-puff of an exhale that indicated she was punctuating the end of being breathy and the start of normal, controlled breathing once more.

The Kinfolk leaned back in the counter chair and tipped her head to the side so that her hair hung in a wet mass toward the floor, beyond the island counter.  Her hands found an excuse to be busy by mussing and shaking her hair in quick, tiny motions.  She didn't have a blow dryer, but this motion would help to quicken the process (but mostly it would help give her something to do to keep from feeling too awkward).

"Oh I know I'm not furniture.  I was more worried about what would follow if this--" and she gestured briefly with index finger and thumb to Hector's torso first, and then back to herself, "--were to have continued down that rabbit hole.  It's not that I'm not flattered."

And titilated, she thought.

"I'm just unprepared to settle down."

Hector Ghosh

He can tell a hundred different stories about a Garou's relationship with a Kinfolk and how it has ended either in immense happiness or dirt-drench bloodshed and yet it doesn't occur to him until after Lola reinserts space between them that those things are actually relevant to their morning. That just because he hadn't thought any further ahead than pressing his lips to hers and maybe to the stirring at the base of his belly when she parted his teeth with her tongue and the fact that the counter behind them was very sturdy didn't mean he had to forget everything he knows he can teach other people.

If he kept kissing her and if she lay with him then they would go from the tribesmen that they are now to--

"Shit," he breathes. Like he'd completely forgotten basic math and the answer to 1 + 1 just hit him right in the face. Which he rubs as he drops himself back onto the seat he'd abandoned to rinse off their dishes earlier. "I didn't even think about that."

One eye stays hidden behind the heel of his hand, that elbow resting on the countertop. The other rests on her face and he sighs out his nose and it's easier to put together his thoughts now that the tension has snapped.

"I'm sorry." Drops his hand from his face and she could have seen his chagrin if she were standing across the room. That joke about a fictional character was the verbal equivalent of a hard restart. "So, uh, laying it out there: I think you're a stone-cold badass and Glen's been accusing me of falling on my ass over you since the time I saw you scare some ranger off the property and I've always been like 'yeah okay whatever' because he was a Ragabash and one of Stag's besides that and all they ever think about is booze and sex--" Breathe, Hector. "But I think he was right. Sort of. I haven't been writing you sonnets or anything. I like being around you and if you don't think I'm a total asshole I'd like to keep, you know."

This is where he ran into the wall before and then executed a fuck it maneuver and went for what his heart told him to do. He doesn't know how she feels or if she even feels anything at all.

"Courting you. Or whatever the word is. Holding hands. Necking. Do people still neck? What about heavy petting?"

Lola Hawkes

While Hector leaned back and murmured 'shit' and thought over what Lola had realized quick and sudden, the Kinswoman herself just continued shaking out her hair and picking apart the tendrils that were trying to form.  This activity ceased around the middle of Hector's story about Glen teasing him, and how he didn't think much of it but was realizing now that the Ragabash had been right.

Lola straightened up again, and this time she took her luke-warm cup of coffee along with her.  She leaned more comfortably against the back of the bar chair and crossed her legs, right over left and at the knee, so both feet were out in the open to the side of the kitchen island rather than tucked against it.  She held the mug with one hand, two fingers looped through the ceramic handle, and took a long sip while he finished up what he had to say.

Where he looked a bit uneasy and maybe a touch embarrassed that this didn't occur to him earlier, she looked calm and relaxed.
Much like a territorial mountain lion sprawled at the mouth of her den.
This was Lola's turf, after all.

But she wasn't threatening or imposing, not now anyways.  She was simply at ease.

"I like your company, I can tell you that much."  She was a little slow to follow that up, although the way she ended the sentence implied that she had more to say than just that.  She just had to think about the order in which she wanted to say things next, and she took another sip from her coffee mug to make herself look well paced and intentional in the gaps in her response while she tried to think.

"I can't say I know one hundred percent if this is 'it', though, you know?  I don't think it works like that anyways, though.  Love at first kiss is a myth.  But."

The 'but' was a bit forceful, but only because she wanted him to understand that the 'but' was important.

"I don't want to chase you off.  It felt... I don't know, lively...  Shit."

It was Lola's turn to cuss in exasperation, although it was mild enough.  Her brows knitted a little and her lips pursed, and all of the scowl in that expression was directed inward-- she was frustrated at her lack of words, but not getting worked up over it.

"I'm sorry, this isn't really my strong suit.  I think we should court, but let's just go with the flow-- whatever pace comes natural, you know?"

Hector Ghosh

It felt... I don't know, lively...

He manages to not laugh for a grand total of half a second and then Lola swears. The storm outside has reached a plateau. Hard rain falling on a house that will withstand it and a ground that needs it. Thunder in the distance intermittent and weak. Light in the kitchen come from the overheads Hector turned on so he could see what he was doing while he cooked. When he laughs the last of his mortification leaves him.

His lineage is not strong and one cannot glimpse the deeds of his forebears from looking at him. If any heroes predated him they died nameless and without renown. His blood does not promise a great chance of a trueborn child. That he came along at all is testament not to his destiny or the destinies of his unborn children but to the fickle nature of fate. Someone had tried very hard to get his mother's future progeny out of the equation.

So the mystics and the matchmakers of their Sept and the Sept to the north do not think of them as an inevitable thing. They share a tribe. They have not shared anything else. Her sister brought them together. Now her sister is dead and he's still here even though the two of them felt the same wanderlust. Maria and Hector would lie in the grass some nights and talk idle about the cardinal direction they would take in the morning. Not even deigning to discuss the world in terms of places or destinations. Just: let's go that way.

If he misses her he keeps that information to himself. Talk of Glen brings with it the risk of tearing off a scab and but for a brief quietude and a hobbling of his sentence length the young man doesn't turn his eyes back towards the shadows behind him.

"Alright." Here he points at her, the admonition delivered with the same faux-authority as the one with which he'd announced he was grabbing the hose. "But next time I kiss you, if you could think of something besides the Litany, that'd be good. You have no idea how scary that was."

Lola Hawkes

He laughed, and Lola may have blushed if she were any less a force of nature.  Instead she laughed along with when he made a request for the 'next time'-- simultaneously announcing that there certainly will be a next time.  The Kinfolk's laugh faded quick into a grin and she took another, deeper drink from her mug before standing up from the chair she'd been sitting in.  Bare legs stretched from the denim shorts they were clad in, then carried her to the kitchen sink.  The final swill of coffee was sent down the drain.

"Scary, 'eh?  How's that?"

She figured it would be because he realized that he was tiptoeing the topic of taking a mate for a second, and that realization occurred almost like a seat belt squeezing your chest when car brakes are slammed.  Either that or she must have had some intense expression on her face that had him worried, if only for a second, that she would try to bounce his teeth off her counter top.

While she waited for his answer she got to work setting the sink area up to prepare to wash dishes.  The sink was two-sided, so one side was plugged and filled up with soapy water while the other was left empty, a space for rinsing dishes.  Dirty dishes were piled to the left of the sink, as the drying rack was to the right.  If they hadn't been moved already, the pans and skillets and whatever else was used were taken from the stove to join the plates and cups.  Sweater sleeves were rolled a few times and pushed up past her elbows, and fingers with short-trimmed nails were dragged through her still-wet hair to slick it out of her eyes while she worked.

A towel was set to hang on the edge of the drying rack.  If Hector wanted to help dry, the hint that he ought to do so was that gesture.

She teased him on just a little before letting him talk, though:
"Were you worried I was gonna try to rebuild the Hawkes family with you?"

Hector Ghosh

The choice between sitting at the island and standing beside Lola isn't much of a choice at all. Once she's plunked the towel down beside the dry rack he maintains his perch for only as long as it takes her to complete half a sentence. The chair's feet squawk against the floor and then he's at the sink.

Teasing is easier than discussing the state of things as if they are negotiating some sort of trade agreement. Never have they settled anything like that. Even within the pack itself the way decisions were made was with the gut. Sometimes after ample consumption of either spirits or grass. Right now they're sober. Sleep deprivation is the only thing threatening to occlude their judgment and the morning is still so young they could lie down until their bodies awakened them in lieu of the sun and they would have the rest of the day ahead of them.

As far ahead as he had thought out the day was breakfast and maybe taking the remains of the Fomori up to the Sept. Now that the spike of desire has crashed off the matter of dishes is enough to keep him from climbing into one of the beds and ignoring the ashes for another few hours.

"Nah, man, I was all sorts of onboard for the baby-making. It was the 'honest woman' part that made me go--" He sucks in a breath like someone sucker-punched him and takes the first clean dish from her.

Lola Hawkes

Two people doing dishes together was an easy, simple, and old-as-time routine to fall into.  One person scrubbed and the other dried.  After the first two or three dishes Lola wasn't even looking aside to make sure that Hector was ready to take the next dish.  Understand, she wouldn't release the dish until she felt the weight of it relieved by Hector's grip, but she knew where to hold it out and about how long he was taking to dry things.

He was all for making babies, but didn't want to make honest women.

This earned a toothy smirk, and Lola wagged her eyebrows at him.

"Not gonna lie," she said while taking the rougher side of the sponge to one of the pans, "I'm right there with you."

Her tone was easier now, more relaxed.  Conversations happened more naturally for Lola like this-- without being on the spot, but more importantly with a task at hand to keep your body busy and moving.  With hands, legs, or what have you in motion she felt at ease.  That she could probably blame on patrolling the Sept's perimeter so habitually for so long-- motion was natural and anything less was simply tolerated.

"I mean, I'll have babies sometime.  That's part of our life; Kinfolk or True Born.  Especially with my family.  I mean, I need someone to take care of The Homestead when I'm gone after all, right?

"But settling down-- shit.  I haven't had enough time to work out my own issues for that just yet.  Plus, if I were to learn four months from now that you love vanishing for months on end or punch in your sleep or some shit, and if that were to be intolerable to me?  Then what?  There's not exactly a 'divorce' option for us, you know?  Garou are in it to win it, so to speak."

Hector Ghosh

"I don't think there's a lawgiver in the land who would believe you aren't the one who punches in her sleep. Lawgiver would look at me and go 'Oh but girl you caught yourself the truest gentlest most honorable Cliath this side of the Rockies why do you want to--'"

Most of the dishes he produced unsupervised were cleaned as he stood waiting for magic to happen at the stovetop. They have the plates they ate off of and a couple of scratch-resistant pans. Silverware. Coffee mugs. The task is shaved in half by their combined efforts and at the end of it they're left with an empty sink and the weight of the rest of the morning ahead of them.

"And I'd be like 'She hits me, man. All the time. In our bed. You don't even know. I'm the one who wants the divorce.' And then I'd have to change my name to Ass Kicked By A Girl and I'd never earn back all the Glory I lost."

Lola Hawkes

Before long the dishes were done and the rain had diminished to nothing more than a lazy dribble.  Given how heavy it had stormed just previously, though, Lola knew full well that to take the four-wheeler or motorcycle out to the Sept now would be an obnoxious trip, thanks to all of the mud.  She knew from past experience that she would get stuck at least once and need to wedge the vehicle loose and walk a collective half of the way anyways.  They could walk, but she was tired and the hike was long and soggy.

So she didn't hurry them to leave and finish their mission.  Instead she chuckled at Hector and shook her head while she unplugged the sink to let it drain.  The suds and tiny scraps of foodstuff remaining were rinsed down the drain, and she borrowed the towel from Hector so she could dry her hands.  The towel was habitually draped over the handle on the oven door.

"You have a point."

There was a beat, during which time Lola was looking out the window, staring in the middle distance.  This passed in a second or two and she blinked hard a few times, then looked back to the Galliard.  She'd just had the coffee, sure, but it was more out of habit than anything else because she'd just woken up and showered.  It didn't actually accomplish much to stave off exhaustion, though.  The night was tough and long and full of excitement, danger, and duty.  It had been followed by only four hours of sleep.

"Alright, here's my vote.  We go lay down and get some sleep, at least another two or three hours.  I know I need it, I'm willing to bet you do too.  Plus, that'll give the ground enough time to dry up in the sun so we can take vehicles out to the Sept instead of needing to hoof it."

Hector Ghosh

He usually manages to rev himself up enough during the course of an exercise in fantastical bullshit to keep it going at least coasting on fumes for several minutes. Now he has to admit that he is tired when Lola can do little more than huff out a show of amusement and then stare out the window.

So he turns to watch the retreating black clouds and the storm they carry drift off into the east. The wind has not stopped and the rain has not stopped. Storms offer up their own brand of hypnotism for folks inclined towards introspection. A chance to hunker down and watch nature prove it needs for nothing and no one. They both need sleep but Hector was not going to be the first to admit it.

When Lola offers her vote he gives the window his back and she his full attention. Leans against the sink to listen to her. He considers their other options and then draws in a breath that leaves his body again in the form of a yawn. He stifles it with his elbow so she isn't treated to the sight of the back of his throat and then puts his hand on Lola's shoulder. Grasps it.

"Here's my vote: yes," he says and uses her shoulder as an anchor for pushing himself off of the counter. "Alright, all the votes are in. It's unanimous! Holy cow. The motion passes. We're going to sleep."

Lola Hawkes

Hector was window-gazing along with her for a moment.  They were both tired and it showed.  Lola's eyes were a little glazed and struggled for focus, and her shoulders were slouched and more rounded.  Were she feeling rested enough her posture would probably be more erect out of habit if nothing more, and she would be brighter eyed to boot.  On any given day energy would hum off the woman like she were a generator.  She was full of life and strength, vibrant and demanding of the world that surrounded her.  She didn't demand goods or special treatment from it, but demanded instead that it keep up with her or get out of its way.

She did sometimes make you stop to wonder-- was she a Garou originally?  Did some spirit that haunted her family from the days of old decide to make a play for revenge by stealing the spiritual essence of the family's last Warrior and rendering her nothing but a Kinfolk?

Probably not, but it was a fun story to tell anyways.

The hand grasping her shoulder wasn't shaken off or removed otherwise, and he was able to use her to straighten up and take his weight away from the counter.  His joke was answered with another grin, which was genuine even if it was a bit tired.  "We just did what Congress hasn't been able to do historically," She commented with a dry brand of humor to play along.  She unrolled her sweater sleeves and walked to the mouth of the downstairs hallway which led to two bedrooms-- the master bedroom that Lola has claimed as her own, and the guest room that Hector had been able to use when he's crashed at The Homestead before.

She paused at the hallway, hesitated for half a second (unfamiliar with romance and therefor unwieldy with it), and looked back to the sleepy-eyed Galliard with some odd mingling of playful and tuckered out in her expression but a drop of 'please don't misjudge' in her tone.  "Will you lay down with me?"  Followed immediately, of course, by backpedaling and disclaimers.  "I get it if you're worried and would rather not.  Just thought it'd be nice."

Hector Ghosh

Every other time they have staggered off to sleep at the end of a hot day with the ghosts of libations coursing through their veins he hasn't hesitated before continuing onto the other bedroom. When Celduin rolled four or five deep he and Corey would go cackling up into the loft, pushing each other and carrying on like the teenagers that they were barely not anymore.

That they both linger here at the juncture between the guest room and her room ought to be enough for both of them. This is where they would have ended up if she had not stopped him earlier. If he had not stopped himself. Nothing in their bodies to suggest Hector wouldn't have yanked himself back from Lola at some point for the fear of what his racing heart and lost breath meant. Meaningless falling together less frightening a prospect now than the reality of the situation. That if they let each other in it's going to be a commitment from which they cannot untangle themselves.

This is Lola's home. This is the work of her entire lineage. And she is the last one on it. Sooner or later she is going to have to bring new life to it or the land will fall to the state and the Weaver if the land is lucky.

When Hector promised Maria he would look after her sister that promise could have meant just about anything. Maria was a Ragabash. For all he knows she was just fucking with him. For all he knows now Lola is just fucking with him. His eyes go briefly wide when she asks if he'll lay down with her and when she backpedals they go even wider like he's about to bid her come back, stop backpedaling, it's okay.

She just thought it'd be nice. He considers her face a moment. This is dangerous. Earlier he had drank in her lips and her eyes and then he had all but fallen on top of her. They're right outside her bedroom now though and all he looks is tired.

"Only if you're the big spoon," he says.

Lola Hawkes

If they'd found themselves at this same location in the house several minutes earlier, it would have been for different reasons.  It would have been because Lola hadn't stopped Hector's momentum and allowed his fire of passion to grow and take her along with it.  Hands would have wandered and grabbed, arms would have seized one another so their bodies were flush.  Hector had contemplated the counter-- he may have set the Kinfolk up on top of it to stand between her thighs and lean deeply into her.  She would have grown impatient with teasing in the kitchen and brought him up the hallway to fall into one of the two beds to let nature run it's obvious and desired course.

But fate was a fickle thing, and sometimes it enjoyed laughing at its pawns.

So, instead of tumbling through a doorway in a fit of passion and askew clothing the two stood between the two doorways too exhausted to consider anything but laying still for a few hours.  Hector's eyes went wide when she invited him in to lay down, and that might have been why she backpedaled in the first place.  She worried that she might cause too much temptation for him-- not that she thought his resolve to respect her wishes would break, but that doing so would be grueling for him.  She worried that he might get the wrong idea, that she was inviting him to lay with her in a more biblical sense, or that he might find himself under the impression that a nap in her bed was the same thing as an open invitation to stay there every night.

But she was reassured when his expression relaxed some and he set his terms.  She laughed a little and nodded before leading the way into the bedroom that she called her own.  "I can work with that."

The bedroom was simple though spacious.  There was a dresser and mirror combination against one wall and her bed was positioned specifically so that it was not directly under the window (she'd imagined one too many times a scenario where something smashed through the window and was able to drag her out before she had a chance to wake up properly).  The bed was a four-poster, the frame itself solid wood that has and would continue to withstand the tests of time, and the color scheme of the comforters was pale blue with little white flowers throughout the fabric -- very rustic, and probably something that was delivered rather than picked out by Lola herself.

Lola lost the scratchy sweater and opted instead for the camisole that she wore underneath it when she climbed into bed.  The shorts stayed even if they were denim.

When both bodies had stilled to rest they were both laying on their left sides and were close.  Lola's front was flush with Hector's back from chest to hip.  One arm was under the pillow her head rested on, with nose tucked near to the nape of his neck without concern for the hair that stood in the way.  The other arm was over Hector's side, wrapped so it ran up the center of his chest and fingers could curl at the top of his shoulder.

They would sleep hard and heavy, because finally they were inside, clean, in a bed, and furthermore simply together.