Corey Seger
Saturday morning. They're in the same
time zone again if briefly. Corey doesn't know where she is but that
isn't the point of calling. He's not checking up on her. That's not his
job and it never was.
Friendship isn't about jobs and
responsibilities so much anyway but friendship is a nebulous state for
them right now. He'd tried to cut her out of his life entirely last time
they spoke because he thought it was just going to keep hurting Hector.
She
knows Hector was meant to be at the Sept of the Unending Horizon
yesterday. Should be rolling into Atlanta today. Tomorrow will be North
Carolina.
Her phone buzzes. It's Corey.
Lola Hawkes
It
was approximately a week ago that Lola had come home with a blue Subaru
Forrester, that she'd explained it was what Anthony was calling his
'real housewarming/baby shower gift' and that it used to be his but he'd
since replaced it with something sleeker and more expensive. Yesterday
afternoon Lola left in it instead of the white truck or boarding onto
an airplane again. The vehicle was packed full of supplies. Lola road
tripped like she was expecting to get stranded for two weeks, and it was
as possible to happen as heavy rain was.
Which she had plenty of, by the way. But let's not get into that too much.
Suffice
to say, when Lola answers the phone (third ring), there's a thunderous
sound in the background-- water hammering down onto metal and glass,
muffled by the insulation that the vehicle offered. She sounded a
little stressed, but not worryingly, when she answered.
"Oh, so we're talking again, are we?"
Corey Seger
"Well I mean I haven't posted it on Facebook or anything yet."
He
doesn't ask where she is. He's used to calling her in Colorado and
hearing all sorts of ridiculous weather in the background. Where he is
it's always sunny and muggy and warm. He'd had enough extremes of
temperature in the three years he ran with Celduin. Enough was enough.
"So, you know. Don't get too fuckin' excited."
Lola Hawkes
Lola
made some kind of a scoffing noise into the speaker. The rain-pounding
sounds continued on. He might assume that she's in Colorado, or he
might know that she's already on her way out to the east coast. She
wasn't sure how much conversation may have transpired between Hector and
him.
The fact was that Lola was somewhere in Illinois by this
point, driving through a freakish heavy rain storm. She'd checked the
forecast. She knew there were predicted to be tornados and severe
thunderstorms over the southern east coast, and was none too thrilled
about it. Not genuinley worried-- she and Hector both had survived far
worse than tornados. Just not pleased.
"I'll try and contain
myself," Lola shot back in a dry tone. But, at least she wasn't
churlish or sullen when she followed up with: "What's the occasion?"
Corey Seger
"Your babydaddy decided to grace us with his presence yesterday."
That
isn't the end of the explanation. He doesn't sound as cautious as he
has in the past. Last time it was as if they were up talking after
lights out at summer camp and not arguing over whether she ought to let
him give her a thousand clams to go have an invasive medical test
performed.
"Heard you guys are having a bit of trouble up your
way. He's got half the Galliards in the Sept scrambling off to tell
everybody else."
Lola Hawkes
"Yeah, well...,"
By the tone of her wind-up, he can already tell that she disapproves of a lot and she's about to tell him so.
"There's
a gaping pit into Gaia-Knows-What-Realm, two of them actually. One
under the fucking Spire Sept, and the other under the goddamn airport.
No one's even gone to put their nose close to the airport yet, far as
I've heard, and the goddamn city Sept fucked itself up so badly that
they're talking about having a Fostern as their Great Alpha.
"So he's taking the south, Tamsin's taking the north, and I'm not sure who else has gone."
Beat.
"So, did you two kiss and make up then? Or are you calling to break bad news to me."
Corey Seger
"Wait, back up. A Fostern? Is gonna be Great Alpha. He left that part out."
Because
of course he did. Hector is an Uktena following Fog. He can't just go
running around blurting out secrets if he's trying to ask for help.
Lola Hawkes
Hector may have been more tactful.
Lola,
though, held no love for the city Sept. Even though her mate and his
pack were willing to lend their claws to its defense, she always had,
and as far as she knew always would align herself with Forgotten
Questions first and foremost.
"Yeah, well, it ain't my
Sept." See? She was even willing to say so outloud. "But that pit's
gonna collapse the place or suck it into another realm or be cursed
forever. You don't see Us--" Uktena, of course, "--going and making
cities and homes around the Great Banes that we keep sedate, do you?
It's a bad idea and they'll figure it out eventually.
"But I was askin' after you. And Hector."
Corey Seger
Hector
stood up at the Cracking of the Bone a few nights earlier and silently
volunteered his pack to not only relocate to keep the goddamn Spire Sept
open but to die defending it if he had to. He's been vocal about the
fact that he wants to clear out the Beloved Horror and sort out the pits
before he does anything but. Well. Hector has a bit of a problem with
impulse control.
Silence persists for a few seconds as Corey checks himself.
"We're
alright. He left yesterday afternoon. I just wanted to call and
apologize for how I was acting the last time you and I talked. I was a
pretty big dick."
Lola Hawkes
They're alright, he
says, and Lola relaxed some into the driver's seat of the vehicle. The
roads were wet and slick, and the cold threatened to make it ice up if
it continued on for much longer. But Lola took the time she needed, and
the car she drove was four wheel drive. She was an okay driver, after
all.
"You were," she supported the conclusion he'd come to. She
wasn't sure if she reached it himself or if Hector had somehow brought
him around to it, but she was sure it was right.
"But I can be one
too. And probably was, to an extent." He can't see this either, but
she shrugged a shoulder and adjusted so that the hand holding the phone
and the hand holding the steering wheel switched.
"I'm just trying
to put it out of my mind and not dwell on shit that I can't do anything
about." Because that worked so well for when she found out she was a
Kinfolk.
Corey Seger
"This isn't dwelling.
It's owning up to it and apologizing. You don't have to take the fucking
apology if you don't want to take the fucking apology."
He's
getting wound up about it but he's got to be in a better mental state
than Hector is. The moon is thinning out. His Rage is heavy and hot but
he's always had a decent grasp on it.
"But I am sorry. Alright? That's all I wanted to say."
Lola Hawkes
"Dude,
don't be such a fucking dick. I wasn't accusing you of shit. I was
just trying to reconnect and reach out a little bit. Fuck."
She
couldn't posture physically in a phone conversation, so she defaulted to
using more aggressive, course language instead. It was the best
concept she had for chest-beating when talking on the phone.
"I
appreciate that ya bothered to reach out, though. Frankly, I was pretty
sure you wrote me off to protect Hector and your own ass both."
Corey Seger
"Now who's dwelling on it?"
Good old macho feeling-phobic bullshit. He clears his throat before he gives a proper answer:
"Look,
man, you know how bad what happened in Winnipeg messed him up. He's
been with you the whole time. I saw him yesterday and I hardly fucking
recognized him. He was such a fucking kid, before. You know? All--"
He imitates Hector's way of laughing.
"--about
everything. He never used to take anything seriously, and now... you
know, he's an alpha and he's gonna be a dad and he's talking about
tribal politics and plans of attack and all this stuff I didn't realize
he even had in his vocabulary. If I'd known he'd grown up so much I
wouldn't have been so worried about how he was gonna handle the whole
it-might-not-be-his-baby thing."
Lola Hawkes
"Yeah,"
was all Lola had to say on the matter at first. She was agreeing with
him, simply, and almost blandly for how little could be taken away from
her tone. The pounding of rain had lessened-- most of the noise had.
Lola'd found an underpass to pull off underneath. This was in part so
she could wait out the storm for a minute, and another part so that she
could not try to drive and focus on her conversation at the same time.
With the car in park and the engine go silent, Lola leaned back in her seat and hooked one arm behind her head.
"He's
redeeming his line," she said simply. Now that she knew a little more
about the history of Adam Cree, whose purity of breeding was strong
enough that a Garou was produced after the line had been diluded not
just one, or two, but three times. "He's always had it there. He just
managed to survive enough shit long enough for it to have something to
build on now."
She smirked at the windshield, which quickly
started trying to fog since the defrost had been cut along with the
engine. "I would say I made a man outta him, but that's giving myself
too much credit. He was getting there all along."
Corey Seger
"Yeah,
well, he really fucking loves you, so. I dunno. Maybe you pulling your
head out of your ass did have something to do with it."
Oh he
thinks he's so funny. Like he saw them coming from a mile away and won
some kind of a bet. Maybe he would have. That's the kind of bet he and
Glen would have made back in the day.
"Anyway, I told him if they
need reinforcements or whatever to call us. My alpha's always in the
mood to curb stomp some Black Spiral Dancers. And I'm telling you if you
need anything, you know, since you're both bums and don't have jobs.
Just ask."
Lola Hawkes
Lola knew that Hector
really fucking loved her. He made that abundently clear to her each day
they were around one another. She wouldn't doubt that fact, and if
anyone tried to tell her otherwise she'd probably put them in traction.
All the same, she still felt happy just to hear it pronounced by an outside party. They recognized it too.
"I'd
offer ya up a spot for the night, but there'd be no damn point if you
guys were there for the Spire Sept. It's a pain in the ass for Hector
to get between the two as often as he does." She shook her head and
frowned. Times were changing, focus was swinging toward the Sept of
Cold Crescent, and all of it just rubbed Lola the wrong way. She would
have put her foot down and proclaimed that the residences be vacated and
the place treated like a tool or a weapon, not a home, not a Sept.
"But I appreciate that. I don't, ah, have much. But the same stands for you."
Corey Seger
"No problem. I might have to take you up on that spot."
A
spell of nothing but for the pattering of the rain on the roof and
their own thoughts. Distance was going to stay where it was for now but
it was only physical now. His relationship with Hector would never
repair itself and death would probably come for him and Tamsin before
reconciliation did.
But Corey made his choice same as Tamsin made
hers. They joined the pack in the Midwest at the same time but he went
off on his own and she went with Hector. Some breaks never mend and this
may well be one of them.
"Hey, when's your brat due? June?"
Lola Hawkes
"Oh, thereabouts."
Lola
adjusted the seat so that it was pushed back further on the track, that
way she could stretch her legs out some. She laid the seat back
further backward, so she could stretch her back a little as well. Under
the steering column she crossed her ankles.
Eyes hopped down to
her stomach, its constant growth more visible under the T-shirt she was
wearing under her unzipped hoodie. Her hand settled on top of it. She
couldn't feel movement yet, and that was the landmark that she was
trying to hunt for to get a better gauge on how far along she actually
was.
"Or July, maybe. I'm not sure. It'll come out when it's
good and ready I guess, and that's no time soon." Hector had long since
been identifying the fetus as a female. Lola wasn't willing to set her
mind toward one gender and have to readjust to a new concept if it came
out as a boy instead.
Corey Seger
They've already
had this conversation. She's had one ultrasound and doesn't care to go
through the hassle and financial cost of another one. Corey still
laughs.
"You two are a couple of hicks, you know that?"
Yeah, yeah.
"Alright, well, I'll let you get back to what you were doing."
Lola Hawkes
"Pfff,
hicks." Lola scoffed at the accusation, no matter how true it may be.
"I just have no desire to pay a few hundred bucks for some girl to look
at a screen, tell me a gender, and then tell me what I already know--
that the baby's healthy and coming along just fine."
She didn't
have to get confirmation on that fact, she was just assured in it.
There was no reason that any of Hector's children would be unhealthy,
and she herself was a sturdy, healthy thing.
He said that he'd let
her get back to what she was doing, and Lola nodded reflexively.
"Yeah, you too. It was good hearin' from you, man. Keep in touch."
And
with that abrupt end, Lola bade him another farewell before
disconnecting the call. The rain had abated just a little, so she hit
the road once more. She still had plenty of a ways to go.
No comments:
Post a Comment