Midnight Snack

Jack

Jack's manskin takes up a good amount of room. It probably makes that wide-as-a-refrigerator descriptor often bandied about come to kind when he's standing in front of one, in the kitchen of the Sept of the Cold Crescent's barracks, stooped down with only the light from its inner illuminating the otherwise dark room. It waxes and wanes as he shifts back and forth, stooping lower, and when he finally straightens it's apparent that's because he has been stacking things. Cheese. Leftover pizza. Deli meats. Chocolate-covered things. A soda under each elbow that pins the cans to his chest. He turns around and as the door swings shut he is left in the dark.

There is only the sound of shuffling and crumpling as everything is set (spilled) finally on the table. When it finally falls quiet (except for his grumbling) is when he makes his way toward where he hope he correctly remembers last seeing the light switch, to flick it on.

Unless of course some other night owl were to happen upon the switch first. And then they might be left face to face when the room is finally cast in the light it conjures forth from above.

Tamsin

Here is some other night owl in the shape of Tamsin Hall. Cinder Song. Furious Lament. The moon's changed just finally from gibbous waning to half moon sinking and her bones've stopped itching her so much the tide's not as strong and, ironically, she's having a trickier time with the force thyself to sleep than she'd done the night before. Busy brain. So: Here is another night owl. Jack's new pack-sister (she'd been solemn, when Hector brought Rabid Jack to her: and then she'd beamed, moon-radiant, pleased, though there was a core of anxious solemnity to the spill-over joy, and she'd probably been huggy and well if it isn't the guy who did the rambo head-twist on some wicked evil things hell yes) in an over-sized Labyrinth David Bowie shirt and a pair of boxers scrounged from eh who knows does it matter they're clean that's the thing.

There she is with her hand on the switch; her arching eyebrows lifted. Surprised as heck, and then, "Oh! Hi. Hi, what are you doing still awake? Did you have weird dreams?"

Jack

"Chasin' rabbits in my sleep always works up an appetite," he answers with a toothy and grubby grin, grubby as his hands when he rubs them together, dirt under his finger nails and in its plump sausage creases. He returns to the table with that rub of hands, pulling out a chair and sitting down.

Jack has his manners. At least one or two of them. He looks up at Tamsin, then down at the small feast he has arranged before him, and then back up at her one more time. A forearm slams down a little too loud, cutting the feast in half, and then parts the sodium sea in two.

Half for her. Half for him. As it should be. He could very well be done with his half before she was, and then he could pick at hers and make it apparent just how polite he is by saying 'Thanks' every time he stole a bit or piece.

He grabs a triangle of pizza and folds it in half, taking a bite, chewing as he talks. Yes, he has a few manners, but most are hidden up his sleeve when he's eating.

"Did you have weird dreams?" Oh, he wonders what kinds of dreams a Fianna talesinger has. Jack sounds quite curious.

Tamsin

"You ever dream that the rabbits chase you?"

Tamsin's got a lot of manners. They're not in evidence when she's around Hector, usually. But Jack's too new a brother to have really seen the depths of how sharp, how rude, how generally flippant she can be, and he still gets manners. He's still given some personal space. Some. He cuts the feast in half like a good half-moon and Tamsin grins at him, moon-girl again, scruffing her fingers through her extremely elf-locked hair. "Sec." The soda's not what she had in mind when she came to the kitchen so she travels to the refrigerator and finds something alcoholic to help rock her back to sleep. There're Fianna here so let's say it's something halfway decent. She'll bring enough for Jack. It's one of the things that'd amazed the hell out of her after her Change: how suddenly, because she was Fianna, all these adults were just assuming she'd want to drink! Joking about it! Fuck yeah! Got boring fast, but by then it was too late. Now: Tamsin straddles her chair, going for the deli meats. Mm. Turkey. Or is it ham? Ever notice how at night in a kitchen sometimes the colors of things are off, they're all wan and waxy? She eats daintily enough.

"Yeah. I did. I had a dream about--oh, well, do you um," (she's still a touch shy, see) "want to hear?" A pause. Then: "Hey, actually," and she adjusts her weight forward, stirring in her seat like a magnet just pulled her a little bit closer to Jack, like there's a string and it tightened, because if there's one thing Tamsin is passionate about it's, "what kind of stories do you like to hear?"

Jack

"Not like television. Ma says it rots your brain. Rots more than that. Rots your ass 'cause you're sittin' all day watchin' it. Stories... I like the good ones," but oh, Jack, aren't those the only kind? Maybe it just means he likes whatever someone's telling.

"The ones you remember," he continues, and he's already worked his way down to the crust. Which is when a jar of mustard gets its top spun open, the crunchy bread that's left of the pizza dipped into it and eaten once it's gotten a nice slathering.

Jack cracks the can open and takes a long drink from the soda after that. He forgoes the liquor. More for the Fianna and it really wouldn't do him much good. Not in this form. Not unawakened, and he can guess they wouldn't leave the awakened stuff in the fridge just for some ratling to suck on and get drunk and tear up the place.

No, that might not be the best of ideas.

And the way Jack chugs the soda, maybe to one of his breed the sugar is as much and addiction as to any tipsy feeling alcohol can give. A long pull is what he takes.

Jack's been quiet, eating, and looking up at Tamsin now and then, for a while now. By the time all this has passed she can probably assume whether he likes it or not, like any good Philodox, he's a good listener.

But if it needs to be said, he says it, between bites and chugs. "I want to hear," a sure nod punctuating it.

Tamsin

The ones you remember, he says, and she dips her chin in a grave nod. But her eyes light up, because she could totally make a Tolkien quote out've that, and she just manages to restrain herself because - because she's going to come at Jack sly-like, recruit him to the glory of Middle-Earth slow-ly, or at least leave it until the weekend proper. Not that weekend means all that much.

"Okay. I was dreaming about this forest. Not like I've seen before while awake -- oh no: it was Middle-Earth vast and greener than a river the kind of spring green that you feel in your gut and the back of your teeth and makes you howl. Each tree was so old that they remembered when the mountains were hills. They'd watched the mountains grow taller than then them, and some of their brothers and sisters'd died when the mountains threw out their shadows like a net - " she flicks her eyes up at the light and then wiggles her fingers, impromptu shadow puppetry, casting a shadow net across the feast.

"But that had been a long time ago. They were old. I was in that forest and I was looking for this mountain that'd gotten lost. Like. It'd been swallowed up by the ground and it was pointing down now instead of to the sky and there was this big tear in the night where there were no stars. I think the moon was going to fall in. This hedgehog was telling me about it. It said, Tamsin, you find Eyes in the Dark--" This much is an aside, clearly: "Eyes in the Dark was our alpha before Corey." Back to dream-telling: "It said, Tamsin, you find Eyes in the Dark and you bring your boys to the mountain and you stop the net from being cast again. Right? Just go to the mountain that'd been swallowed and tore up a hole in the sky and make sure it doesn't shadow the whole old forest.

"My boys'd be you and Hector. Though you were part of this rockband and your motorbike had been taken from this awful movie. Hey, when can I have a ride on the bike?

"And Hector was angry, like there was this wasp following him and it kept chewing on his hair and you tried to bite it but I didn't want you to swallow it. I thought it'd turn into a puppet and we had to get to the mountain."

"Then I woke up."

Jack

The tension of the tale builds in each chew, until he's swallowed without realizing it, and kept chewing with nothing in him mouth. Kept chewing until it was dry and spit had built up into little balls of froth at the sides of his mouth. He finally realizes there's a soda in his hand - he'd squeezed it, another victim to his tension, and when he'd done so it had made a sound like giving aluminum is want to do. He takes a drink from it, then, and she's on to the part about Hector being angry. Off from Eyes in the Dark.

He looks like he wants to ask what it means, but he is afraid to, so instead he thinks of a different question, but again doesn't ask it. Instead a statement finally comes. "If you go back to sleep, find me and Hector in your dreams, and let's go save them trees."

And that is his answer to her waking up. Like maybe he's always chasing the same rabbit, or maybe he thinks her dream will continue, because she was born of woman instead of bitch, and the Weaver has more of a hold on their dreams. That she could pick up the story now that it is written down.

He remembers there is food, but the story means it takes long enough his stomach has now realized it is full. He looks down at the food, which he swears to himself he felt like he could have finished, but doesn't touch it again. And then back up at her.

"Was Eyes in the Dark the one fella Hector got into a fight with?"

Tamsin

He's a gratifying audience. Enough so's the Fianna galliard's ears turn pink and she flushes. Tamsin's an easy blusher, or flusher. Sometimes it's with anger, sometimes it's with pleasure, and sometimes she'd swear she doesn't know why she does it. He's looking like he wants to ask her what it means and she's glad he doesn't. She's no theurge. The thought of her dreams meaning things, of actually pulling omens out've them, feels at once very right and very wrong, like she's play-acting and slipping into a more comfortable shadow at once. Find me and Hector in your dreams, and let's go save them trees, he says, and she gives him a quick sizzle-bright grin, "Deal."

The sizzle-bright grin gives way to another sort've sizzle. Tamsin's eyes go opaque, dark-smoulder-quick, and she shakes her head. "No. Eyes in the Dark was before him. That was Corey. Gears of War, Spark Plug, Glasswalker Ahroun, Cliath who became Fostern, Fostern who became Cliath. Gears of War, who says farewell when the road darkens." She chews on the inside of her mouth, the right-hand corner, and then says, "Hector told you about that, huh? What'd he say the fight was about?"

Jack

It might be a bit telling that the alpha that had simply walked away from the pack is the one whose deed name Jack isn't spot on about.

"Frenzy 'n' death," Jack says, like the combination of words stir a memory in him, not too horrible of one, but one that his mind has to pay heed to for just a moment. As if the moment's silence is something he owes it. "'N' loss." Jack looks as if he has been put on the spot for a moment.

"Pride, too." Jack doesn't have much of that, but you can't tell to look at him. He seems to have opinions on it, though. "Can't be too proud of leavin' others walkin' a dark road, though, can you? Gotta have someone's tail light to follow. And bein' at the front can be the scariest thing."

He sums it up, finally, in a single word. Like it has taken him all that to get to it. "It was about blamin', wasn't it? Sometimes it's easier to blame someone."

He shakes his head. "Shouldn't've brung it up," standing up, putting himself to work gathering up what he didn't eat, even leaving the can in the soda to the side for him to finish tomorrow.

Tamsin

The monster inside the girl sinew blood and bone seethes. Not at Jack, per se. But at the memory, angry, angry, and there's something fixed and intent about the galliard's attention for a moment. Then that intensity subsides: she's scruffing her fingers through her hair again, saying: "Yeah." Heavy-stone, that. Plink, plop. "It was about blaming. But how about I tell you about it some other night? And don't be …Weird. You should always bring stuff up that should be remembered, y'know? Even - even - " The thread of whatever she's about to say gets lost, watching Jack pack up the food, there's that evidence-of-manners again. She crams pizza into her mouth, way too full, chipmunk cheeks, and jumps up pixie-quick holy crap that chair just got hot didn't it, to help him put things away. Says: "Mmffhmmf oo hmmf? Inf mfee?" Then choke-gasps, swallowing: "Hey. D'you -- will you come sleep with me or can I share your space?" There's a touch of awkward here, because some part of Tamsin is still very, very human. But it's only part. "Maybe I'll find you and Hector better in my dreams that way and we can kick some ass and save shit while also getting our beauty rest."

Jack

Jack had a look on his face earlier, like he was going to say something, right after saying he shouldn't have brought it up.

Truth be told, he'd been considering offering it. A body to sleep next to. It had been a very real consideration, but maybe it had been overcome. She says it, and this time it is his turn to smooth away the awkward wrinkles of just meeting, just speaking, just getting to know one another.

"I sleep on the floor, and in this place," he looks around, "on the floor, there's always room for two," a nod. "But I don't mind a bed. And I never mind a body to sleep next to," and with that, the cupboards left a little more bare, but not as much as they might've been without a good story to chew on, Jack trails behind the Fianna to her preferred spot to rest her head. And an unfamiliar place becomes a little more familiar for both of them.