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Currently the moon is in the waxing Crescent Moon phase (30% full).

Safehouse: Common Area

Stepping into this ground floor apartment is like stepping into an episode of Hometime. The floor is covered in tarp and plastic, the smell of drywall is strong in the air. The living room immediately off the front foyer is mostly untouched and serves as a staging point for tools, saw-horses, spare lumber, and all the other detritus that goes into home repair. In the back of the house walls have been knocked down between the kitchen and the bedroom off the living room, while the door to the back bedroom has been taken out and framed over.

Up the stairs are a number of empty rooms where anyone affiliated with the Sept can crash if they want, while the Glass Walkers have their own area accessible via a door down a short hallway off to the left of the main doors, near the stairs. The main doors themselves lead back out to the front porch of the house.

Obvious exits:

Guest Room Glass Walker Area Porch

Half past seven in the evening and Scratch's flashy red car comes zooming up the driveway with a snarl of the engine and a screech of tires. After a loud thunk of the car door opening and closing and the irregular limping stomp up to the front door, there comes a thunderous knocking. BAM BAM BAM.

Seven-thirty on a Friday, and what's Natalie doing? Working on the safehouse, of course. A few minutes after the thundering a first-floor light flicks on followed by the porch light; then Nat pulls open the public side door to blink, bemused, at the Ahroun. "Scratch."

Scratch has shaved, looks more or less showered, but his clothes are rumpled and his eyes are bloodshot. Still, he seems less destitute than stormy, and the blue eyes glower down at the younger Walker. "Came for my shit. Also, Jonnie said I ought'a give you a change t'talk t'me."

"You look like crap," Nat offers, backing up to let the man in. "Yeah, I want to talk to you. I don't know how the hell to say what I have to say politely, though, so we're probably gonna end up throwing things and you storming out slamming the door behind you."

Scratch grunts. "I figure the same." He limps in, turning an eye over the progress made in the common room before looking back at Natalie, his expression dour.

Natalie says, "Right. Long as that's clear." She jerks her head toward the stairs and leads the way up into the public area, not the Walker side. "C'mon. Your crap's up here, since our side's a complete mess."

Another grunt from the Ahroun and a mutter about, "Fuckin' stairs." He makes his way laboriously upward.

Natalie stops on the landing to look down at him, her expression set but a hint of compassion there nonetheless. "You want me to bring it down?" she offers with the air of one expecting him to say no.

"Fuck a duck," is Scratch's not-surprising reply.

"I'll leave that for you," Nat retorts, and whirls to take the remaining steps two at a time. Bitch.

Scratch's mouth twists into a snarl. No, clearly, this isn't going to go well. He continues doggedly upward, though despite the effort he's hardly breathing hard when he reaches the proper landing.

Natalie's waiting on the second floor for him, polite in action if not intent. "Jon thought I ought to try and talk to you," she tells him. "Something about how compromise wasn't capitulation. I think Jon's not Garou. But." She goes quiet, staring off toward the tower window. From the other side of the house faint music plays, genre unidentifiable.

Scratch leans on his cane and looks at Natalie with narrowed eyes. "No, he ain't. He's a good man, though." The unspoken sentiment in his voice hints that maybe Jon's too good... for Natalie, at least. Or maybe that'd just be paranoia talking. Anyway, the Ahroun's tone is rife with irritability and disapproval.

The Ahroun's inference goes right over Nat's head. She nods at him, relaxing minutely. "One thing we agree on." Blue eyes flick down to his feet, up again. "I don't get it. You're death on two legs, could take out Mike Tyson in four seconds, and have the chance to do what you love to do every day and twice on Sundays... And you walked away because you don't want to get up in the morning?"

Scratch snorts. "Kid, I'm death on two legs no matter where I fuckin' am, an' it ain't like St. Claire's the only shithole in the country. I could head down to fuckin' Mexico, kick Wyrm ass, and chill out on a fuckin' beach on my off-time." He bares his teeth in an expression that's half-snarl, half-leer. "Way I fuckin' see it, you fucks need me more'n I need you."

Natalie's smile is thin and angry. "It's all off-time with you." A grimace and she turns her back on him, heading down the hallway for one of the rooms. "Come on. I moved your crap because our side's a complete mess."

"Girlie," Scratch calls to Natalie's back, "you woulda been raped durin' that gang-raid if it wasn't for me. Raped an' hung out to dry."

Natalie turns at the doorway to look him up and down again, eyes gone cool and derisive. "You wish. If I hadn't been there you would have ended up like Signe, full of more holes than your underwear." Oh, so she looked at it.

Scratch makes his way toward Natalie. "Shit. I've survived worse than that on my fuckin' Rite of Passage."

"Yeah," Nat snaps out. "On your Rite of Passage you had to face the whole damn Nazi army plus Napoleon and Alexander the Great."

Scratch rolls his eyes. "God damn but you're a whiner. Fuck this. Where's my shit?"

Natalie wordlessly points into the dark room. "If you can't follow orders we don't want you here. Roach watch you, Scratch, and maybe the next place'll have pity on you 'cause you're old."

Scratch bares his teeth in a snarl. Then, quick as a flash, without any further warning, the Ahroun boils upward and falls upon the Galliard with teeth and claws. He moves with the speed of Rage and decades of experience, angry as hell but completely in control of himself.

Perhaps the small moon made her cocky, perhaps it was the successful jabs she'd already gotten in. Whatever the reason Scratch's sudden attack leaves Nat flat-footed, which is decidedly not where you want to be in a fight like this. His first swipe catches her on the side of the head and snaps her head around; she falls into the wall with a hollow *thud* before she screams into Crinos and comes after him.

Scratch lets her come... and then he lets her have it. He deflects her blows, gets past her defenses, and his claws seem to be everywhere. He tears the side of her face to bloody strips, takes a huge chunk out of her shoulder, lands a hard, clawed punch into her gut... and all, it seems, without breaking a sweat.

Holds-the-Line isn't completely ineffective, but the older Ahroun is easily her superior. He twists out of the way of a blow to his injured hip and retaliates by dislocating her shoulder; when she gouges his ribs and causes his first real injury he brings his elbow across her muzzle and snaps her head around again. This last proves to be the final blow of the battle, finished in heartbeats: she crashes into the wall again and slides down it in homid, trailing blood and other, less identifiable fluids, to end up in a crumpled heap on the floor.

Scratch, growling softly, limps four-legged and hulks over the prone Galliard, all fur and blood and heavy, hot breath in her face. He sniffs her carefully, ears cocked forward, and then nods, satisfied that she's not dead. Settling back on his haunches, he taps her face gently. For a Crinos, anyway. ~Wake up, you fucking cocky ugly bitch.~

Natalie rouses quickly under his 'tender' sympathies. Attempting to move causes a wince and an involuntary cry of pain; that brings her back to the present. Slowly and painfully she twists her head around to squint up at him through her less-injured eye. "I," she starts, stops with another wince and a cough that concentrates her attention into a synopsis of all the places she hurts, which is pretty much everywhere. Scratch drops from her world as all her injuries start clamoring for immediate and total consideration.

Scratch growls to remind her why she's injured. He's still awfully close. Close and looming, even squatted down like he is. ~You wanna say somethin' else 'bout people takin' pity on me, you mouthy cunt?~

Natalie's eyes snap open at the growl, meeting his for the barest fraction of a second before sliding off and away. Another second passes and she shakes her head minutely, though it's as far as she can move it when it's crammed up against the wall like that. Her chin-tilt is as small - again, it's as much as she can do with a wall there. Nor does she shift, though her injuries continue to bleed freely, staining the carpet.

Scratch huffs, a cloud of hot breath, smelling both doggy and cigarette-y, hitting her face. Then he moves away, floorboards creaking under his weight until he shifts back to human form, once more an aged rocker with a tight grip on his cane and an evil look in his eyes. Scowling, he limps into the darkened room where his stuff's been stashed, ignoring his own wounds as much as possible while he gathers up the duffle of dirty clothes, the stereo, the case of CDs and tapes.

A little whimper catches his ear over the shuss of fabric sliding on fabric. Should he glance back into the hall he'd see that she's pushed herself onto her back and away from the wall. It takes another bit of concentration before she pushes herself up into Glaro.

Scratch, when he comes back out, is also in Glabro. All the better to tote that bale, ma'am. He pauses in the hallway to cast another eyeball at the downed Galliard.

Now that she's able to move, Nat gives him a proper throat-baring. "Wish you weren't going," she tells the ceiling sincerely.

Scratch frowns, giant hairy papa-caterpiller eyebrows drawing together like rabbits huddling for warmth. "Gimmie one reason I shouldn't," he rumbles.

Ask a hard one, why doesn't he? She rasps immediately, "You can't beat the snot out of me in Mexico."

Scratch snorts. "Gimmie a real reason, girl. I can find plenny'a fucks t'beat the shit out'a."

Natalie, still contemplating the ceiling, lifts one shoulder with another wince and lets it drop. "Maybe, but none of them are me. Who else are you going to find with enough balls to face you down? Sing along with the Doors? Make you eat your Wheaties, and let you run with Wolverine?" In the same tone of voice she adds, "Accept my submission?"

Scratch's eyes remain narrowed for a moment. Then he snorts and unshoulders the duffle bag. "Shit. Yeah, I accept. But I ain't bein' no fuckin' Beta or shit. I also ain't doin' no nine-to-five bullshit. I'll help with the fuckin' work, but on my terms... and my chimmy's over. Completed."

Natalie hesitates a few seconds longer, then lowers her chin enough to try and meet his eyes. "I'm Beta," she tells him firmly, despite the fact that she's flat on her back and looks like she was attacked by a blender. "--Let me think about Chiminage. I'll tell you by Monday. It's on hold until then, minimum. I hurt too much right now to try and think about it."

Scratch grunts. "Fine." A beat. "The water on t'night?"

Natalie says, "Yeah. And heat." A beat and she adds, "I'm staying here. Can't go out there looking like this. I'll call Jon, tell him you're staying, too." A hint of her old smirk's in her voice as she adds sardonically, "Yay for compromise."

Scratch smirks. "We're Garou." Turning his back on her, he lugs his stuff back into the room it was in.

[End of log]