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.

All the repressed tension in the Glass Walker Philodox comes out as soon as he gets behind the wheel. The Ford Torino, ugly paint job though it may have, responds beautifully, but Grey drives rather too fast for safety. Somehow, though, the three of them arrive home in one piece.

Kevin looks rather dazed as he staggers out of the car and trudges into the house, but the expression on his face is happier than it was before the moot, for sure.

Natalie's still on edge, but now it's a repressed, hopped-up energy instead of the barely-leashed fury she's been showing the last few days. "Damn. Damn, damn, damn. Oh damn. I think this time I might actually do it."

Grey shoves his keys into his pocket. He shoots Natalie a dark look. "I meant what I said."

Kevin gives his elder a grin. Not one of his usual tight and rather sardonic-looking grins, but a real full-on face-splitter. "Sure you'll do it. Welcome to Fosternville, population, you." He either overlooks or ignores Grey's less mellow mood. "Just make sure you finish before I go off on my test. I'd hate to be away when you get to celebrate."

Natalie smirks at Grey and hammers her fists against the wall in a light, jubilant tattoo. "Promises, promises. I don't think I will. Not from a Fianna judge. Now Owen... I tell you about that one? Damn Get brought more weapons than an armory to the Moot and gave me terms to the death. For Fostern."

Grey grunts. "Owen's a meathead. Like most of the tribe." He scowls faintly at nothing in particular and absent-mindedly rubs at the Dishonor scar on his left arm. "...Better than I expected, though. People were distracted."

Kevin looks from one of his seniors to the other. The words don't make a great deal of sense to him, but he really doesn't seem to care -- he's plainly ecstatic enough to have got through the ordeal of the moot without making a fool of himself or his teachers.

"I told you," Nat all but crows, "They'd be distracted. After Alicia's little story, and then Jamethon's flare up afterwards? Kevin could have done a naked Can-can for his intro and no one would remember it tomorrow."

Grey's eyes narrow on the Galliard, his mouth taking on a dour twist. "That isn't what I meant." He drops his hands, shoving them deep into his pockets.

Kevin remains happily staring into infinity as the other two talk, the blissful grin a fixture on his face.

Natalie calms slightly, turning to face him fully. "What did you mean then?" A quick check on Kevin, perhaps to make sure that he hasn't decided that now is the time to do his naked Can-can, and her eyes flick back to Grey.

Grey's eyebrows, already rather veiled behind shaggy hair, rise. He bends his right arm, Charach glyph outward. "This, perhaps?" Then he drops and repockets his hand, eyes shifting away and toward the stairs. "Never mind. As you said, they were distracted. You still want to share that drink?"

Kevin seems to pull himself out of his happy daydream some. "Do you guys mind if I slink off to the bunkroom for a spell?" he asks. "I wanna practice my naked can-can in Crinos."

"Crinos can-can in the basement," Nat tells Kevin with a quick flash of a grin. "Otherwise you'll bust the floor. But sure, kiddo, head off. You did a great job." She pushes off the wall, her thumbs drifting to her pockets as her attention shifts back to Grey. "Damn straight I do. Want a beer, or something harder?"

Grey seems to have dismissed the cub from his mind. "Picked up something harder last night," he tells Natalie.

Kevin runs off up the stairs with a cheery wave to the other two. The sound of Crinos feet pounding the bunkroom floor rhythmically is, shortly thereafter... conspicuous by its absence.

Natalie gestures toward the man. "Then after you. --And I didn't mean no one noticed Kevin. I meant they didn't notice you. I figure you wouldn't've taken it well if I'd said you did the naked Can-can, though."

Grey snorts. "Some of them did. Why am I complaining?" It's a rhetorical question, apparently, since he answers himself in Serbian and tromps upstairs, all a-glower.

While he's disappeared upstairs she heads back to the kitchen and rummages around in the cupboards, glass clinking. By the time he's returned so has she, with two shot glasses set up on the side table next to the couch. "I wasn't sure if you were coming back down. I was going to come up in a minute."

The Philodox, when he returns, has a bottle of Kalashnikov vodka in one hand. "The more space between cubs and pissed adults, the better," he says blandly. He breaks the seal with practiced ease and works out the stopper. "The only damn thing the Russians ever did well." The label has a stern-looking young man on the front and informs the viewer that the stuff inside's forty-one ABV -- one step above standard vodka. Grey doesn't do things by halves.

Natalie's eye brows go up at the sight of the clear liquid but she sits on the end of the couch without comment. Well, just one comment. "That sure as hell isn't beer."

Grey eyes the shot glasses she's set up. "Those sure as hell aren't beer mugs," he retorts, then pours, first in the shot glass nearer to the Elder. First of the kill and all that. Setting the bottle down, he takes up the other shot and stares at her in a rather defiant sort of way, as if daring her to back down.

"You said it was harder," Nat replies, watching the pouring rather than him. When her glass is filled she picks it up, waits for him to do the same, then says, "To cubs and to successful Challenges."

Grey's lips stretch in something that's almost a smile as he raises his glass. "To surviving to see another birthday." He salutes her, then tosses back the shot in a single swallow.

Natalie's not that brave, stupid, or throat-numb - she only drinks about half of the vodka in one gulp. A quick swallow, her eyeballs bulging, and she lets out an appreciative, "Whoo. That's some... wow."

Grey bares his teeth at her, lips stretched into a kzin-like, savage "grin". Taking a seat -- since one should never drink hard liquor while standing -- he takes up the bottle and refills his glass. "Bit of a kick, yes." He takes hold of the glass, but doesn't drink. Yet.

"Damn," Nat adds, eyeing the vodka warily and appreciatively. She sips at it while he sits. "--I can't tell you how glad I am that's over. I nearly had a heart attack when we got there and I didn't see Layne."

Grey sloshes his drink around lightly, just enough to make it move, careful not to spill a drop. "Know how you feel. Even when they do show, you never know when you might get turned down last minute." His toothy not-grin fades as he takes a healthy swallow, half-draining the glass.

Nat says, "Or run into something like Owen's stupid-ass Challenge." She sighs, sagging back against the couch, legs stretching out in front of her, and addresses the ceiling. "So why this threat to hunt me down and kill me again if I die?"

Grey drains his glass and sees about pouring himself a third serving. "Not kill. Kick your ass. Difficult to kill someone already dead." He gives her a hard look. "Fostern Challenge is a stupid reason to die. Need a refresh?" He holds the bottle out to her.

"Kick my ass, then," she acquiesces, holding out her glass. "Sure, top me off. But then I'm done."

Grey raises eyebrows at her, disappointed perhaps, then pours. "Maybe I'll bring a Theurge to bind you into a Bone Gnawer's used sneaker," he growls. "You're more valuable a live Cliath than a dead Fostern."

Natalie makes a show of shuddering. "Ooh. Vengeful, aren't you?" A glance sidelong at him and then she studies the ceiling again. "You know, over the last year you're the only one who got to be called a bastard. Even after I -- we got screwed seven ways from Sunday, no one quite managed to pull off the level of bastardy that you did." She lifts her glass to her lips, barely wetting them. "--Suppose I'll need to find someone else to wear the label now," and drinks.

Grey swirls his drink, his eyes dropping from her to the Charach scar on his arm. He grimaces, then stares into his glass instead. It takes him a few moments to figure out a response to that, and another swallow of vodka fills out the time. "I'm still a bastard," he says at last. "I've always been a bastard."

"Vengeful and jealous," Nat murmurs. "Oh, all right. I won't call anyone a bastard but you. Happy now?" She's almost good-tempered, her Rage snoozing well below the surface like a cat in the sunshine.

Grey gives her a sharp, narrow-eyed look. For him, the alcohol's just fuel for the fire, though it's a chain as well. Especially when he tosses back the third shotful. "Thrilled," he grumbles.

Natalie takes little swallows of the vodka, but frequently. "--I talked to Signe last night. We worked out - I thought we worked out something for Emma's 'rent'. Have her teach Kevin." She wriggles deeper into the couch's embrace. "I dunno, though. I walked in on them today and she was all full of piss and vinegar. Got in my face about 'respect' when I called her off him."

Grey frowns. "Was he mouthing off to her?" Almost as a matter of habit, he refreshes his drink.

Natalie shakes her head at the ceiling. "I don't know. She's so damn touchy... I was so damn touchy. Gaia only knows what set them off. --Maybe. You know what he can be like."

"If he was mouthing off, it's her right to smack him. Or one of us smacks him and makes sure she knows it." Grey sets it all out like it's the simplest thing in the world. Another swallow of vodka, this a shallow one. Slavic to the core.

Natalie rests the shot glass on her forehead for a moment, so she looks like some sort of bizarre unicorn. "I told her I'd talk to her on Friday. I figured that'd give us both time to cool off. I just... dammit. I see her getting in his face and I get all possessive. Even if she... I don't know if this is going to work. If I can let go enough to let someone else teach him."

Grey grunts. "Make her clean bathrooms, then. Or do some damn yardwork. Or laundry. Or all the fucking above."

Natalie doesn't answer at first; her mouth is full of vodka. "I don't know. I'll think about it. He's got to learn to deal with the other tribes. Especially the Get." Her eyes slide over to him. "I told Signe. She wants to bring Gunnar over to talk to him. I have the feeling this is going to Megan after all."

Grey drinks again. Well into his fourth shot in far less than an hour, he's beginning to feel the effects. His voice, however, remains steady. For the moment. "Don't know what to tell you. Joshua had a fucking kinfetch. Cat was a Lost Cub I ran into -- well, Rhiannon did -- by accident. Literally. Now Joshua's off sniffing Wendigo asses and Cat..." He frowns. "Fuck if I know where Cat is, but I'd bet that damn cockroach spirit is right beside him. So." He raises his glass. "To fucked up cubs. Grey hair for each one." It's dour humor at best.

Natalie's glass goes up right along with his. "And their fucked up teachers." A swallow. "Bet that's part of the, the reason. I don't want to lose him. Dammit." No toast this time, other than that; she tosses back the rest of her glass and pushes herself upright enough to stare at the big front window. "Got to replace that with bulletproof."

Grey drains his glass and exhales sharply. Still seated, he follows her glance to the window and grunts agreement.

"--I'm heading up," Nat says after a few seconds of silence. The glass is traded from hand to hand and then set down on the side table with a clunk; she doesn't stand immediately but stares unseeing at the plate glass. "It's been a hell of a day. Hell of a week. Hell of a year."

"Hell of a year," Grey echoes in agreement. His voice is a rough growl, mellowed by the potent stuff swimming around in his bloodstream. Amazingly, he pours himself a fifth. "Hell of a fucking year."

Nat says, "I'll drink to that," though she doesn't, just pushes herself to her feet. To the attentive eye she's a little less careful about her movements than usual, just a little sloppier. "I'm heading up. I'll pick tomorrow's route. G'night, Thomas."

Grey lifts his glass in a farewell gesture. "Good night. Sleep tight. May the cockroaches... bite. I'll be up... later."

Natalie snerts at him, smirking, then takes her leave. Leaves the washing up for him to do, too. Rank hath its privileges.

[End of log]