Lola Hawkes
After a week of settling in, Lola's
explanation that things had slowed and quieted down for the time being
was experienced by Hector first hand. No word from Eddie Luske of the
Forgotten Question Guardians about politics or plans or actions at the
Caern-housed Sept. Lola didn't keep an ear to the pulse of the Spire
Sept quite as effectively on her own, for lack of contacts. She relied
on the news that Hector would bring home for that. The Kinswoman had
continued her standard routine of patroling the land, walking across
snow that tried to melt with the temperature remaining above freezing
for the last several days and dressing in her canvas jacket because the
heavy wool cloak was too hot for this weather.
After bringing his
nose up out of a baby book that he'd been reading chapter-by-chapter
along with the progression of pregnancy, Hector suggested she come out
with him. He was going to try to scratch up some extra money for them,
perhaps with funding a particular purchase in mind. She should come
with him, get out of the house, see the world away from The Homestead
for a night. They were supposed to go out and do something together
this week anyways, according to the book.
Lola had agreed, and
that's how she wound up leaned up against a pillar that supported the
open floor of some bar that Hector had picked out. She looked like she
had no business being there whatsoever, truth be told. She was
pregnant, drinking from a bottle of water, with one arm crossed over the
top of her stomach to hold onto the opposite arm.
Most people
tended to wear casual clothes to a place like this-- it was a bar, not a
club after all. Lola herself wore a dress that rode a little high on
her thighs for the seasons, with stockings that reached almost but not
quite to the dress's hem. Over that, a big heavy red cardigan with
sleeves that she'd pushed up to her elbows. Her dense black hair was
twisted into a loose braid that fell over one shoulder. Black
ankle-high boots seemed clunky in contrast to everything else she wore,
but seemed to make sense given how she seemed to glower when left
standing alone.
She wasn't there to be social with the humans around her. She was there for the Galliard who was scheduled on stage that night.
Hector Ghosh
Though
he and Tamsin play together on the regular he hasn't done much
performing on his own. He hasn't done much of anything on his own since
they came back from Winnipeg. Hector is a social creature in spite of
the ferocity of his Rage and the further he reads in the books Anthony
gave them the more he realizes their lives are going to change once the
baby is born.
They didn't have much of a courtship phase before
finding out they're expecting a baby. Young couples tend to have more
time to do things that don't involve processing unexpected news and
preparing a childless home for the first of what will be many babies if
fate is kind and the father does not get himself killed.
As much
as the book guides him in not knowing what to expect in the coming
months it serves more as reassurance that just because Lola is pregnant
they shouldn't live their lives any differently. They're young, damn it.
Young people do things like go out and party.
Even if one of them
isn't so much a young person as he is a Fostern of the Garou Nation and
ridden with a curse that frightens most people back from him if it
doesn't lure them in. A certain breed of human finds the Rage alluring.
He doesn't understand it. He also doesn't cater to it. He's only had
eyes for Lola since he staked his allegiance with Forgotten Questions
and he sure as shit isn't about to stray now that they're together.
For
the hour or so that they watched the other performers he kept an arm
behind and around her. Though his liver did not appreciate it Hector
still drank a weak domestic lager from a bottle held lazy between his
fingers and when it was time for him to go up he kissed her on the
corner of her jaw and picked up his guitar case and wandered up.
Lola
cuts an alluring figure despite the height of her stockings and the hem
of her cardigan. Hector is dressed just about the same as he always is
in work boots and black jeans. It was warm today. He wears a flannel
shirt unbuttoned over a dark t-shirt and his hair is down. His rings
glint as he adjusts the microphone stand.
"Oh," a young feminine voice says, "my god."
Not
far from the pillar upon which Lola leans sits a table of college-age
women. Six altogether. Four of them with pale northern European skin,
one of Chinese descent, the last of them dark with hair pressed to
chemical straightness. One of the light-skinned girls was the one to
make the exclamation. Their voices are lost beneath the din and Hector
is nervous enough to be up there by himself that he loses their
bantering under his microphone-mumbled introduction.
"What?" asks another voice.
"Babe alert," says the first voice.
Lola Hawkes
While
they waited together watching the other performances, Lola was tense at
first but eased into comfort with Hector at her side and his arm about
her waist. She could learn to ignore those around her with help, and
that Hector would comment on this or tell a small anecdote because the
guy that passed them looked like this Ragabash he knew kept her
distracted long enough for her to relax.
By the time it was his
turn to go up on stage and he'd departed with a kiss to her jaw, Lola
had acclimated to the bar enough that she stood easy even after he was
climbing up onto the stage and adjusting the microphone stand as he
needed. She leaned comfortably against the pillar, chin high and
shoulders strong but easy under the heavy knit cardigan she was
wearing. Confident enough in her place in this world that she could
just watch Hector and plan to call him a ham or show-off when he was
finished.
Then:
Oh, my god. Babe alert.
Lola
blinked at the words that caught her ear and turned her head to look
and see where they'd come from. Her eyes fell across the women at the
table, briefly skimming, before landing on the two that were speaking.
She glanced back to Hector while he was setting up on the stage, and
found herself realizing (as though it were a surprise to her) that he
did suit the part of sexy musician perfectly well. The long hair and
rings sold it.
Instead of being proud of her catch, though, Lola's
brows flicked into a minor frown-- a brief one, really, before it
smoothed out again and she brought her water bottle to her lips to take a
drink. Though she said nothing and didn't change posture, Lola now
found herself paying just a bit more attention to the college girls
(probably came down from Boulder) than she did Hector.
Hector Ghosh
[how are we playing tonight, anyway?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN6 (2, 4, 4, 6, 10) ( success x 3 ) [WP]
Hector Ghosh
After a few seconds of introducing himself - Hi my name's Hector this is my first time up here and, uh, I'm not up here to talk, so...
- he taps his foot on the raised wooden stage a few times to set the
song's tempo and starts to strum the guitar. It's a cover just to warm
up the crowd. Every other band up here tonight has done a mix of covers
and original songs. One woman was up here singing a nine-minute ballad
she had written about an ex-boyfriend who left her for a man and
everyone looks as if they're ready to start rioting if they hear one
more crooning love song tonight.
Hector decided to play a song by a
band whose lead singer blew his own head off before Hector was even two
years old. And though he doesn't play like some otherworldly creature
come here to feed off of their dazzlement for someone who has very
little experience playing solo it's good. The notes are clean and
resonant and by the time he gets around to singing it's clear he knows
how to pick cover songs. His singing voice is raw. The audience can hear
the leashed anger in it and with the distance and his channeling
himself into playing it amplifies his performance.
The girls all
but sigh themselves into puddles beneath their chairs. The littlest of
them flips her thick black hair off her shoulders and leans in to
whisper something to the blond girl who'd declared a babe alert.
"Shh!" says the curly-haired friend on her other side.
"What?" asks the littlest one.
"I think I'm in love," says the blonde.
The two women sat furthest from the epicenter both shake their heads and turn their attention back to their drinks.
"Keep it in your pants, Lacy," says the girl sat beside the littlest one.
Lacy
says nothing. She's sat back in her chair watching Hector sing. Hector,
Lola will notice, alternates between bowing his head and shaking his
hair back from his eyes to find Lola in the crowd. It means he has to
look over the table where the half-dozen young women are sat to find her
behind the pillar. This gives the women a good look at his face every
time he does this.
"Leave her alone," says the curly-haired friend. "She's in her bunk."
Lola Hawkes
Hector's
glance out from under the mane of hair that kept falling into his face
had him finding Lola watching him, at first. The first time he'd found
her eyes from the stage with his fingers strumming notes and his mouth
up close to the microphone, he'd been greeted with a small grin and a
raise of her water bottle to him, as though it were a beer. Cheers,
Hector.
But every so often he'd find her watching the table of
girls attentively. Not staring like she wanted to lunge, oh no.
Violence isn't written into the woman's bones or stance. Instead, it
seems like she's interested in them. Listening to them. Another time
he'd glance up and she was watching him again, that was probably
reassuring. He had to see the way the girls were eyeing him and know a
storm was brewing.
But then, Lola's attention was staying on the
table of college aged women. She was near enough to be able to hear
them clearly over the speakers. Near enough that it would be
acceptable, or understandable, if she were to lean over and throw her
two cents into the conversation. Or, at least, it would be if she was
going to join in with an 'Oh my god, I know, right?'
But
that's not how Lola makes herself known. Instead, she raises her chin a
little and speaks just loud enough to draw their attention, then drops
the level subtly so that she's speaking simply loud enough to be heard
clearly after the first two or three words. She wasn't shouting at
them, after all.
"Should be careful of him. He'll be more trouble than you could handle."
Hector Ghosh
Between
the patrons slamming back beers closer to the bar where they can listen
without paying attention and those gathered closer to the stage bent in
towards each other so they can comment on the performances as they
happen the noise level is enough that Hector is cocooned by the din. All
he can hear are the notes come out of the guitar's strings and his own
voice hurled out into the crowd.
His glances over to Lola are
brief and sightless things. Just enough to assure himself of her being
where he left her without locking in on her gaze. Once he looks over to
see she's not paying attention and after that he starts looking further
out into the tavern. Locking in on the glinting liquor bottles and the
half-attentive bartender bustling around behind them.
So he misses
when Lola addresses the table of young women. No future is riding on
this exactly but songwriters go to open mics to prove they can hold an
audience's attention and gauge if anyone in it would be willing to pay
money to own hard copies of the music. Thus far he has the audience's
attention.
And Lola snags half the women's.
The girl the
others called Lacy looks back over her shoulder. Her glossy hair spills
over her shoulders in a flat-ironed waterfall and though her eye color
is occluded by the light in here Lola can read freckles splashed across
the bridge of her nose. She must have spent part of winter break in a
sunnier clime. Cubic zirconium studs glint in her earlobes and a tinier
one graces her nose. The littlest of them also has to turn to look at
Lola but the curly-haired friend only has to tilt her head to see around
the pillar.
"What was that?" Lacy asks. Like she didn't hear her properly.
Lola Hawkes
"I said, you should be careful."
Though
one girl was leaning to try and see her around the pillar, Lola did
nothing to bring herself into better view for the whole table. She
stayed precisely where she was, boots crossed at the ankle, hips and
back and shoulders against the pillar to help support her weight while
she leaned. One arm crossed over the top of her stomach, throwing the
fact that she was halfway through her pregnancy into relief. She kept
the water bottle with her free hand, dangling between fingers not unlike
how Hector had been holding his beer earlier.
Though her posture
is comfortable and unmoved, there's still a sense of someone always
trying to assert power about her. It was just the way she held herself
and looked hard and direct at people when she addressed them, as she was
doing with the Lacy girl now.
"He--," she rolled her head to nod
up toward the stage but didn't take her eyes off the girl. She's
looking direct and hard, but her expression isn't a scowl or a frown.
Her brow is smooth, her mouth is relaxed. She just seems... Superior.
That's what it is.
"--is more trouble than you can handle."
Hector Ghosh
Though
the girl was previously having a good time with her best friends during
their last week of true freedom before returning to class something
about Lola's effortless dominance has her near as intrigued as she had
been by the young man currently up there singing.
Halfway through
the song comes a guitar solo that serves as a backdrop to the women's
confrontation. The lyrics will become a chorus that will repeat itself
once before ending altogether. He probably won't ever sing this song
again if Lola's in the audience. A chord change and tempo variation will
keep the last minute or so from becoming repetitive.
Nobody else
is bored but the girls are all watching to see what Lacy is going to do
about the dark-haired pregnant girl giving her shit.
At the
assurance that he's more trouble than she can handle a lopsided grin of
accepted challenge cuts across the girl's lips. She's an attractive
woman. Hard to tell what she's studying or what she intends to be when
she grows up but her gaze does not have the vapid doe-eyed quality one
might expect from a skinny rubia with a nose piercing.
"Oh, yeah?" she asks after holding Lola's gaze for a good four seconds. "Good to know."
She turns back around.
Lola Hawkes
There
were only a few number of humans that Lola got along with when directly
interracting. There was a fifty-something year old man that she used
as a mechanic, and given the truck she was driving before the Subaru she
was there frequently enough to address the man by first name.
Anthony's girlfriend got a pass, barely. If that girlfriend turned into
a fiance then all hell would break loose, but they haven't gotten that
far yet.
Fewer humans actually had Lola's respect. The person who topped that short list was Hector's father.
Were
it not for the fact that Lola lived out in the middle of nowhere and
grew up knowing not only what Garou are but believing that she was one,
the situation might not have needed to happen at all. Lola could have
just kept to herself and let Hector shoot down any of the young women on
his own. But that wasn't the case, and due to several circumstances
surrounding her creation and upbringing Lola didn't have much regard for
human kind in general.
It was just a merciful thing that she cut straight to the chase while breaking through social etiquette.
"Hey."
That to catch her attention and make sure she had it, as well as eye
contact, before she continued. Lola wasn't standing up straight yet,
because she wasn't trying to physically intimidate or start a physical
fight. Still against the wall, but staring sternly this time-- no jokes
anymore.
"That wasn't an invitation for you to try. More like a warning for you not to. He's spoken for, understand?"
Hector Ghosh
Hey.
That
single syllable does catch the younger woman's attention and jerk her
head back before she can completely turn around. Cornsilk hair ripples
as she braces her arm on the back of the chair like she's steeling
herself for this conversation to go on longer than she had initially
intended.
Her friends are all holding themselves tense and quiet
like they're just waiting for this to blow over. Guilt by association
and their having egged on their friend within the woman's earshot. It's
obvious they're pregnant and they can all guess whose baby is in her
belly based on the quiet possessiveness keeping her leaned against the
pillar.
Lacy doesn't appear to care even if it is obvious. Even if Lola isn't fucking around.
"If
he's spoken for you I guess you don't have anything to worry about,
then," she says in a saccharine tone before she makes a second attempt
at turning around.
The song ends. Stronger applause than met the
nine-minute ballad and a whoop from someone who looks like they could be
a diehard fan of the original band. Hector laughs at it and mumbles a thank you
into the microphone before he starts to adjust the frets. He's looking
over at Lola again. She can see him squint like to ask her what the fuck
is going on before he looks back down at the guitar's neck.
Lola Hawkes
At
least this could be said about the majority of the women at the table:
they were impacted by Lola's words and presence in precisely the way
she had hoped they would be. They got the picture-- Lola was pregnant,
speaking to them only when it came to the topic of the man that was up
on stage. She was drinking water, not beer, so she was obviously here
supporting someone performing, not because she just felt like ruining
her fetus with alcohol.
This Lacy girl, though, didn't seem to
give a shit. Lola saw intellect in her eyes, she saw that she got the
picture. However, the tone with which she had answered Lola and the
fact that she didn't relent put the Kinswoman's hackles up.
Immediately
following the comment, the song ended and applause filled the room. No
doubt some of the girls chose to start clapping too, even though the
tension between their friend and the Mexican woman in the red cardigan
had strung up even tighter with each passing second. Maybe the applause
would break it, the fact that any words that Lola could shoot back
would be swallowed up by the sound would stop anything from continuing.
Hector
looked out at Lola and squinted at her. The expression could have been
a warning as much as it was an inquiry, but Lola only answered by
rolling her eyes up and closed and tipping the bottle of water into her
mouth.
While Hector was busy tuning up his guitar for the next
song, while the claps started to die down, Lola pushed away from the
pillar. Her movements were slow and calm, didn't draw a whole hell of a
lot of attention as a result of that. She also didn't need to move
much more than two or three steps to reach her destination. That was
all it took for her to be close enough to reach out for the back of this
Lacy woman's chair and pull it back and down-- hard.
Lola Hawkes
[Lola's a Dick: Strength 3 + Athletics 3]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (1, 3, 8, 9, 9, 10) ( success x 4 )
Hector Ghosh
[dex + ath: WHOA]
Dice: 6 d10 TN6 (3, 4, 5, 9, 10, 10) ( success x 3 )
Hector Ghosh
[lol frenzy check gibbous moon diff i don't think he has to take a -1 because he's waxing?]
Dice: 5 d10 TN5 (3, 5, 7, 8, 9) ( success x 4 )
Hector Ghosh
[DOESN'T MATTER]
Hector Ghosh
What
bystanders can claim to have witnessed the incident will likewise claim
the blond girl was just minding her own business when the
Hispanic-looking woman grabbed the back of her chair and pitched her
backwards onto the floor. The bartender doesn't have a hawk's eye on the
place but she can see Lola was stood back from her and the girl was
turned around to talk to her. Doesn't know who started the conversation
or what all the half-dozen college kids were talking about. All of them
were legal drinking age and hadn't been loud or really doing anything
but who knows what brought it on.
Might've had something to do
with the kid who was up onstage performing. Everybody who saw the
pregnant woman whip Lacy and her chair down faster than Lacy could
escape the inevitable could surmise that Hector looked back over there
only when he heard Lacy shriek with surprise and anticipated pain.
The
tumble doesn't hurt her. She'd known it was coming and had tried to
brace herself on the table and get herself to her feet. But the woman is
faster. In a matter of seconds her seat goes from stood on four legs to
cracked onto its back. Lacy does not hit her head on the floor but she
skims her bare knees on the table on the way down. Kicks the underside
of it as she lands and jars the glasses sat upon it.
Hector rears
back from the microphone as if it has just thrown sparks at him. Nobody
is paying attention to what he's doing because all eyes in the place are
on the chair that just touched down on the floor with the girl still
inside it. A rippling of consternation and confusion comes up from the
epicenter of the outburst and only those closest to the stage can feel a
foreboding. Like a lion just walked into the room and drew a breath in
preparation to roar.
He yanks the amplifier cord out of the base
of his guitar as he clamps down onto himself to keep from frenzying here
in a room full of humans. But he comes very close. Blame it on his
nerves or the reaction of the crowd or the presence of so many bodies
when the moon is still so fat.
Lola has only a few seconds before
Lacy gets to her feet and Hector comes down off the stage. Everyone in
the place is looking right at her.
Lola Hawkes
Twenty
weeks worth of pregnancy did nothing to slow Lola down or sap her
strength. This, she would say, was a matter of good breeding plain and
simple paired up with the fact that she was a solid, sturdy, healthy
speciman in general. Lola had always been in good health. She'd always
been strong and athletic and able to take hits better than any other
pup growing up with her. When she got in fights at school she would
take whatever hits rained upon her as though she couldn't feel them.
Needless to say, fights didn't happen much after the first few. The
last one she had was in high school and she'd broken some poor boy's
fist by taking a punch to the top of her skull before she broke his arm
pinning it so savagely behind his back.
So when she decides that
she's had enough of Lacy and that her message needs to come with a bit
of force, Lola pulls hard on the back of the chair and throws it onto
the ground with the woman still in it. Lacy had shrieked and the music
had cut. Eyes were turned upon them, but Lola has never been one to
give much of a shit about who saw when she had altercations with
people. Not even humans.
Lacy was trying to get back up onto her
feet and Lola was standing near to her head, leaned down with her left
hand on the front of one thigh, clamping the hem of her dress down
against her leg. The other hand was pointing at Lacy's face while she
leaned forward to address her.
"I get the feeling you ain't
catching the fucking drift--...," she'd started her threat here, but
stopped when the amplifier made an unpleasant sound when jerked hastily
out of the guitar. Lola's attention went to Hector instead, and a heavy
scowl flooded her face when she saw him coming at her like he was.
Anyone
on the outside, impressed by the storm of Rage that the man kicked up,
would have to think that he might be coming over to beat his woman into
submission for interrupting his performance. But Lola doesn't look at
him with fear, not like many of the humans in the bar do. She looks at
him not like she's afraid or already cringing away from what he might
say or do, but rather like she's upset that her own fight got cut short.
No
more words for Lacy, not yet. Instead Lola straightened up and pulled
on her red cardigan so that it was held closed together in front of her.
Hector Ghosh
He's still learning to be rational in the face of his Rage.
Whatever
the sight of his pregnant mate flipping some helpless human's chair
onto the floor is what sparked his fury. Had nothing to do with her
interrupting him. He'd have probably had the same reaction if he'd been
stood down there next to her. Powerlessness and fear are tangible causes
of a frenzy but they also occur on a subconscious level.
He feels
powerless in a lot of situations. Afraid of a lot of things. Going out
to spend some time with his woman in a setting where she can see what it
is he and Tamsin do when they go out for open mic nights wasn't a
setting where he thought he would have to worry about controlling
himself.
Didn't think he would have to worry about Lola controlling himself either but at this point he can't say it surprises him.
He
oughtn't have let himself feel so crowded in by humans that he let
himself prepare to have to fight all of them. But that's what happened.
Lola flips over a chair and the entire bar turns towards him and they're
a unit. They came here together and he'd kill anyone who tries to hurt
her. So many people start to bristle with the injustice of an outsider
attacking an innocent girl that Hector all but heard the intent in their
voices. What the hell is going on and There's a fight echoing around them.
If
Lola had been here alone this wouldn't have happened but if he doesn't
get down off the stage right the fuck now and do something it would be
as if he isn't here at all. This isn't going to resolve itself. He can
feel violence coming.
So that amplifier screeches and Hector
swallows down hard to keep himself from shifting wild in front of the
crowd and in a matter of seconds he has recovered and swung his guitar
around so it's across his back and not his front. Lacy is on her feet
and red-faced and turning towards Lola like to start that fistfight the
stranger so craves.
It never happens. Hector steps between the two of them and says "Come on!"
in a voice big in spite of its lack of volume. Latches onto her
shoulders with one arm slung across them that if she offers any
resistance he can hook her arms back against his body and pick her up
and physically carry Lola out of here.
Lola Hawkes
For
half of a second, Lola was ready to throw a punch. Lacy had gotten up
to her feet, red in the face with indignance and hurt pride and aching
knees too. This gave the Kinfolk the impression that the woman would
yell back, perhaps take a swing. She would have welcomed it.
But
the bar was staring hard and muttering and Hector was a monster in their
midst. He pushed himself in between the woman with straight cornsilk
hair and the one with the dense braid of black and barked a command for
her to come on. Lola's nostrils flared, eyes locked onto Hector's
instead of the woman's when he blocked her view, but soon the Galliard
had his arm around her and was guiding her toward the door.
If she
fought, Hector would just pin her arms with his body and carry her. It
would be a struggle if she were to fight back against him, but none of
that came to be. She let herself be hauled in to Hector's side and
dragged along toward the door. The same as she had done with her fight
with Erich and his Kinfolk packmate, Lola abandoned this confrontation
for the sake of leaving with her mate.
He Rage scalded her side
and made her chest tight, but she weathered the storm like a champion.
It was only with conscious effort that she prevented herself from
shooting glares of challenge at people who stared at her and Hector.
Instead, she glowered at the door they approached and kept her eyes in
front of her once they were outside.
Hector Ghosh
If
she has ever seen him like this Lola will be slow to call it to mind.
Like he's become Rage. Like if he weren't as strong as he is or as
accomplished as he is or as unwilling to jettison his safety and the
safety of the woman the entire Sept knows to be his mate Hector would
have just given himself over to it. That moon hung above is not strictly
his but he feels the nearness of oblivion in its glow all the same.
He
grabs her shoulders hard enough that he is a few pounds of pressure
away from causing her pain. It isn't anger at her that's causing him to
haul her outside though.
Hector doesn't like to run away from
confrontation but they can't win this one. He's left his guitar case
inside. That's just as well. He can replace the guitar case. He can't
replace Lola.
When they reach the heavy oak door that leads to the
gravel parking lot outside Hector slams it out of the way. Bats it like
it's no more substantial than a beaded curtain and then pushes it again
and harder when it swings back at them. Growls like it did anything to
him other than react to his anger and then the cool free air of the
outside replaces the stale beer and human pheromones of the inside.
"WHY
DID YOU DO THAT?" he asks and she can feel the frayed control in his
voice even as he's steering them nearer the door. "Lola, you can't DO
SHIT LIKE THAT."
Someone's loud voice sounds out in the foyer they
just left. Another right behind it. Hector looks back with wild-wide
eyes and lets go her shoulders to grab her arm. Urge her faster without
urging her to run just yet.
Lola Hawkes
Even if
the hand actually was causing her pain how it grasped her shoulders,
Lola wouldn't have said a word and wouldn't have shrugged him away.
She's never been shy to pain-- even when her leg was bleeding out enough
blood to threaten life she gritted her teeth and performed first aid on
herself and gave directions to a hospital for Milton to follow best she
could. When she gave in and passed out, it wasn't from pain or shock,
but from loss of blood instead.
Once outside, boots crunch cravel
and the heavy wooden door is slapped shut when it tries to swing open
again. Hector hollered at her, and the Kinswoman didn't flinch but a
wolf like him can sense the adrenaline that spikes and how her muscles
jump and go tight.
She wasn't about to answer him, not just yet.
When he shouted that she couldn't do what she just did and demanded an
explanation, all he earned was a sullen, bland look in his direction.
Even if she did have words to say, they would have been interrupted when
both of the Uktena glanced over their shoulder to the loud voices
behind them.
"Jesus fuck," Lola managed to get out before Hector
released her shoulders to seize her by the arm instead. His fingers
gripped uncomfortably just above her elbow and he urged her to walk
faster. Thankfully, Lola had long legs and strength to them at that.
She keeps up so that he doesn't have to drag her. As they went, she
switched the topic to instead ask incredulously:
"What the hell are they gonna do, lynch us?"
Hector Ghosh
"I DON'T KNOW."
They
are both of them lucky he has not completely lost his shit yet. With
his back to the front entrance and the voices threatening to give way to
a kicked-open door and Gaia knows what else. Must be the owners or the
bikers or someone just itching for a fight was following behind to make
sure they left. Maybe get a better look at the two of them for when they
filed a police report.
If they file a police report. Everyone saw
Lola attack that girl but even she can admit that she was provoking
her. She thought the kid who was singing was cute and she said so and
then this woman she'd never seen before starts telling her he's trouble
and he's spoken for. She was just screwing around. She didn't think it
would come to that.
At the Forester Hector escorts her all the way
to the driver's side and then he stands feet planted and body turned
towards the threat. Chest heaving with bloodlust that will not actualize
and the anticipation of it coming towards them from outside their
world.
"Start the car start the car start the car," he says and he
doesn't leave her side until the door is open and she's started to
climb inside. Only then does Hector spring around the front of the car
and haul open the passenger door and sling off his guitar. It goes into
the backseat harder than he means to move it and then he jumps in and
slams the door shut.
He kicks the floorboard beneath the glove
compartment once and hard like it's his fault shit went south like this
and then he sinks low in his seat and snarls as the aftershock of a
tamped-down frenzy hits him.
Lola Hawkes
Patience
has been the lesson Lola's been trying to learn. The theme of her
lessons lately. But it's still a young muscle, sometimes overworked,
and it's stretched and stressed by the situation that she created for
herself and her mate.
When they get to the door Hector virtually
swings Lola toward it by her arm, but doesn't do anything to cause her
injury or harm. She didn't collide with the car or anything like that,
but scowled heavily all the same and fished into the pockets of her
cardigan to pull out the keys.
She was locating the vehicle ring
amongst others and getting it between her fingers while Hector urged her
over and over to start the car. This caused a snap in Lola, and for a
moment she flashed teeth and peeled lips to shout right back at him:
"I'M FUCKING WORKING ON IT HECTOR, OKAY?"
Working on it becomes
accomplishing it, and soon enough Lola's behind the wheel of the car and
Hector has dropped himself into the passenger seat. Tires churn gravel
and Lola peels out of the parking lot, gets them onto the road, and
speeds away hopefully before anyone can nab her license plate. As she
maneuvered this Hector snarled and kicked the floorboard and writhed his
way lower in the seat. Lola cut a glance his direction, but swallowed
the lump in her throat and gripped the steering wheel tight enough that
her knuckles went white.
She looked forward and set her jaw and
simply drove. She knew that she couldn't let Hector sit there and
stew-- that he'd need a release of some kind or another, but she didn't
think bringing him back to words was the best choice just yet. She'd
like to at least get them out of Castle Rock before that happened.
Hector Ghosh
Now
that they're inside the car and away from the others and Lola has put
distance between themselves and the scene of the crime Hector deflates
but she is right to worry that that deflation is not dissipation of
tension but tightening of already strung-tight muscles in preparation to
snap.
That was what he'd told her was his fear on nights like
tonight when his appetite grew insatiable and if he was not out running
the land and tearing his teeth into things he wanted to have her thrown
down on the bed beneath him. Months ago he was fearful of what his
savagery would do to her. Not as if he cannot control himself. He does
control himself. But he told her true: he lives in fear of snapping and
tearing her to ribbons.
Lola goaded him with a hand around her
throat then and he'd pled with his eyes for her to stop. They might have
thought it a baseless fear then. Here they are though. His Rage feels
like a growing and furious entity pressed inside the space with them and
it doesn't help that he's breathing loud and panicked like he can feel
himself about to snap.
He does not snap. That gasping gives way to
panting and he finally makes a low moaning noise like that was an
ordeal for him. Eyes glassy afterwards but not with tears. He stares out
the window like he doesn't realize what just happened. Everything
between the near-frenzy and his return to his senses blurred through
with red.
"Fuck," he says in a huff. His head rocks back against
the seat and he pushes himself to sit up. Runs his hand down his face
now glowing with perspiration. "I'm alright. It's alright."
Lola Hawkes
A
little while ago Hector had confessed fear for losing control of
himself and ending her life. Not only hers now, but their child's as
well. She'd challenged him to test him, to prove to him that she was
right when she told him not to worry because she herself was not. She'd
tried to get a rise out of him at that time, spark flint to the furnace
of his Rage and let him prove her right for himself when he'd snarl and
gnash but still not leave so much as a bruise on her.
She
believes that he has control of himself, that if he didn't he would have
lost his shit while they were still in the bar, still surrounded by
everything that threatened them. But that didn't mean that he couldn't
ratchet himself back up to that level in the same night. Especially
now, with all of that fury unspent in his breast, the wrong word could
provoke a terrible response from him.
Finally, when they're out on
the highway just past city limits, where trees and plains dominate once
more, Hector scrubbed his sweating face and straightened up and
expressed that he was alright. Lola was still tense, though, still
grasping the steering wheel so her hands would ache when she finally
released it. She knew the conversation that would come, and was sure
that it would follow their usual rhythms and get loud and defensive
again.
But, she had to do it sooner than later. So, from where
she sat stiff and pressed back in her seat, Lola said, almost
cautiously: "I didn't mean for it to cause that big of a fuss. I'm
sorry, alright?"
Hector Ghosh
Historically they
have been unable to resolving a disagreement without veering off into
another one soon if not right on the heels of the precipitating problem
and yet Hector has not taken that as a sign that they ought not still
try to discuss whatever it is that has them bristling at each other as
they tend to.
Walking away from each other only tends to make
things worse and it isn't an option right now. On either side of the
vehicle is wilderness hefted back and out of the way by the Weaver.
Unless she pulls over now there is nothing they can do for the
discomfort of arguing in a moving vehicle. Maybe even not then. The last
time they had to pull over to argue Hector barely came back alive.
As
the immediate danger passes Lola realizes that Hector's control over
himself is thinned. He's drained from performing in public and drained
further from staving off a frenzy.
His eyes are closed now.
"It's
alright," he says again. Reaches across the car to find her thigh with
his sunlight-warm hand. He flinches at something he doesn't say and she
can feel it in a brief tensing of his fingers. His voice is taut as
over-wound guitar strings but it does not break. "It's alright, love,
just keep driving."
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