Like the public safehouse, the foyer of the Glass Walker's private area is set off from the living room by a four-foot-high half-wall. The steps to the second floor disappear off to the left, mirroring the other set. There the similarities end - where the public area is painted unoriginal white, the walls of the Walker house are a dusty pastel teal above polished maple hardwood floors. A hallway leads back toward the kitchen, pausing at a computer room on the left outfitted with enough bells and whistles to satisfy a small LAN party. At the back of the house, through an arch, the kitchen is big enough to comfortably allow two active cooks and boasts a half-sized refrigerator and full pantry in addition to the usual stove/fridge/sink combination. A dining room, nearly as large as the kitchen, is set off by another half-wall like the one in the foyer. The furniture throughout the house is in better condition than next door, though only a few pieces are close to new.

Stairs in the foyer lead up to the second floor, while a doorway tucked under the curve of the stairs heads down to the basement. A heavy door in the foyer with a monitor and intercom beside it goes back to the area set up for communal use by the Sept's Garou.

The dirt-brown Torino comes snarling up the driveway and parks. Moments later, a grim-faced and shoulder-tight Thomas Grey comes stalking through the safehouse, letting himself into the Glass Walker area and slamming the door behind him.

Natalie's alone in the living room with the lights out. The muted glow of the LED on the soundsystem is the only brightness to the room save for the light coming from the hallway. She's sitting on the couch, singing along with a pretty-voiced young man. "And how can you mend a broken heart? / How can you stop the rain from falling down? / How can you stop..." which is when the door slams and she surges up and out of the couch to glare at the intruder, leaving the nice young man to finish the verse alone. "What the hell's wrong with you?!"

Grey jerks a sullen eye toward the Elder and then away. There's assorted food-stains clinging to his coat and shirt-front, like somebody had thrown it at him. "Met with Signe," he answers curtly, as he shoves his keys into his pocket.

Natalie looks as though she's torn between offering to make it all better and finishing what Signe started. "--Yeah?" The acoustics in the room are pretty good; the singer has a lovely tenor, but Nat scoops up the remote and punches down the volume, cutting off his plaint of 'mending a broken heart'.

"Yes," the Philodox says, his voice flat. "It didn't go well."

Natalie narrows her eyes at him and slowly sinks down, kneeling on the couch with her arms braced on the back. "--So now what? You going to go hide in your room and sulk?"

Grey seems about to do just that, in fact, or at least he'd been angling his body toward the stairs leading up to the second floor. At her words, though, he keeps still, his face turned away from her, not saying anything. The hand that's not in his pocket with his keys closes into a fist at his side.

"Come and sit," Nat invites, though it's got enough of an edge that he can interpret it as an order. "Dammit, Thomas..." She bites her tongue on that exasperation and turns around properly, poking at the remote until the CD spins itself to silence.

Grey's head lowers slightly. He turns mechanically toward the living room and joins her in there. His body drops heavily into one of the armchairs, coat and food-decorated shirt and all. He doesn't look her way.

"--Who do you talk to?" Nat asks after a second. She finishes fussing with the remote before tossing it onto the couch beside her, only then looking over through the gloom. "I've got Jon. Who do you have?"

Rage is rapidly sinking under the waves of morosity. Grey grunts something both noncommittal and noninformative and shrugs.

Natalie tries speaking a couple of times but closes her mouth before any words escape. Instead she studies the gloomy Philodox. She finally succeeds with a fairly neutral, "You can always talk to me, you know. Not just because I'm a-- galliard."

"I'm fine," is his reply, utterly flat. He glances down and absently picks at a drying stain on his shirt. Barbecue sauce?

Natalie says, "And I'm Gaia incarnate." Just as believable, no? "Who... what do you want, Thomas? I'll get it for you. Jon? He's a damn good listener. That mage? A complete stranger?"

Grey clenches his teeth, his jaw tightening. His hand pulls away from his shirt with a sharp gesture and he grips the arms of his chair. His temper's not entirely gone; it's not even that far beneath the surface. "I'm fine," he rasps, glowering over at her. "I don't need any fucking sympathy."

Natalie makes no claims about being Gaia this time - she doesn't have to for her face is disbelieving enough. "Right. You don't need any sympathy, you don't need anyone to talk to. Hell, you're probably so damn perfect you don't need to eat or breathe, either! What the hell was I thinking, trying to help you? Trying to be a god-damned friend?"

Grey's fingers dig into the arms of the chair and bares his teeth slightly. The rage builds fast. "I don't need any friends," he growls, and in that moment he probably wholly believes it. "I don't need any friends, I don't need any sympathy, and I don't need any fucking charity, either." With this last bilious statement, he shoves to his feet.

"SIT. DOWN," the Galliard hisses poisonously, staring straight at the sulky one. "Dammit, Thomas, you walk away from me now and I'm going straight to Megan and getting her to do Lone Wolf on you. Now. Tonight. You don't need friends? You want to try it without tribe too?" She has no handy chair arms to grind her fingers into, but the palms of her hands make fine receptacles for her fingernails. "You didn't want a friend? Then you shouldn't have dragged your sorry ass back here. Like it or not, you're my tribe. My family. Maybe you don't have any respect for that, for me, but..." Her furious torrent of words dries up like someone turned off the tap, leaving her with naught to do but glare.

Grey quivers, hands clenched into white-knuckled fists, his breathing harsh, his eyes closed. Eventually, he sinks down into the chair again, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees, both hands raking back through thick black hair.

Natalie grabs onto her temper with both hands and yanks, dragging it kicking and screaming back from the edge, sinking her back into the cushions of the couch. Two long breaths - inhale, hold, exhale shakily - and she manages a quiet, "Thank you." Studies the remote, her hands placed carefully over her knees.

Grey remains bowed, fingers laced together at the back of his neck. His eyes are closed. "I'm fine," he says again, steadier now. One more time, and it'll become a mantra. "I'll be all right. I just need... time."

"You need someone to talk to," Nat repeats, her own voice as cautious as his. These emotions under this moon is a Frenzy waiting to happen. "I thought... I thought you knew that... I thought you realized I was a," skip right over that, "when I loaned you my fetish."

Grey straightens up just enough to scrub a hand across his face, rubbing at the thick scars, over the socket of the dead eye. His good eye stares at the carpet. "I appreciated the gesture." His voice is dull, rage sunk back out of view. "I appreciate the way you've... stood by me. Allowed me to stay, to be... useful. You're a good Elder. I'm..." He runs his fingers through his hair again, mussing it up further, and then slouches back into the chair. "...very tired."

Natalie says, "You didn't use it though." It's not a question. Now that the worst of the storm seems to have passed she pulls one leg up underneath her. "Did you."

"I did, actually," he says, gloomily picking at the upholstery. "Then I got a lead and... I wasn't sure if I'd come out of where I had to go. Didn't want it to get lost with me."

He's not looking at her to see the surprise flash across her face. "--And? Did it help?" Curious Galliard.

Grey nods as though it really didn't matter and keeps picking, his gaze unfocused.

Silence. "--You want to... use it again for a bit?"

Grey grimaces, and for a fleeting moment looks ashamed. He shakes his head. "Keep it. I can handle the nightmares. I'm... used to them." He grunts. "By now, I ought to be."

Natalie continues to watch him - well, the untrimmed top of his head. "Being used to them..." She stops, pressing her lips together, and tries another tack. "I'd like it if you took it, Thomas. Just... for a few weeks. You look like several miles of bad road. Used to them or not, you probably sleep better if you don't have them."

But Grey's shaking his head again, even before she finishes. "Keep it," he says again, and then adds, "...Please."

Curiosity wins out, even over sympathy. "Why?"

Grey answers that with a shake of his head. He leaves off picking at the chair's arms and slumps low, arms folded across his chest. "I would simply... rather not."

"Two weeks," Nat says with the air of one offering a compromise. "C'mon, Thomas, you're not planning on running off again in two weeks, are you?" Faint humor, that, but it's there. "Take it - use it - and I'll stop pestering you to talk to me until... until the new moon."

Grey grits his teeth, and that look of shame flashes across his face again. "No," he says, with too much force, and then swallows, inhales, exhales. "Please don't ask again."

Natalie flinches, as though he'd just kicked her in the stomach, then straightens. "Use the pillow or talk to me. And I mean talk to me, not sulk over there and make me drag it out of you." She gives him a second to think it over before standing. "It's late. I'm going to bed. You can tell me tomorrow. Sleep well, Thomas." And yes, she's a Galliard, so she knows just the right amount of irony to add to that well-wishing. With that she moves toward the stairs.

"Good night, Natalie," he replies, voice dulled. He remains seated within the gloom for a long time afterward, long enough for her to retire to bed. Then, reluctantly, he drags himself up to his own room, dumps his clothes on the floor in a gesture of wholly uncharacteristic carelessness, and collapses into his bed for another long, restless night.

[End of log]