Evening

Bacon. Waffles. Water, coffee . . . drunks all over the multiverse knew similar binges after a good bend-and-purge. Hangover fogs get pretty wicked afterward, and hers is nooooo exception. Scrunched up face in a grimace, she looked down at the warm spots. Cat on her feet. Cat on her hip. Cat on her hug-me jacket. Long, poignant stares. "**** me." She croaked that out, letting her head thunk into the pillow. She could feel grass growing ou . . . hug-me jacket? "What the ****?"

From somewhere nearby, a book closed. He'd drawn a chair toward the couch Rick had gestured to when he'd arrived. A book in his hand, something about the era of the '60s to mundanes and how influential it was to them as a whole, he closed it and set it on the table beside an array of Chinese take-out. "You're awake. How do you feel?"

"Oh gods don't yell." Of course he wasn't yelling. She could hear hair moving. Give her a moment to process. "I hafta piss, still feel sick, and I'm in a ****in' strait-jacket howthe****doyouthinkI'mfeeling?" The latter part of that all garbled together in a form of indignant gibberish.

"Uncomfortable," he deduced. He stood, her bathroom needs hadn't exactly crossed his mind. He'd been given specific instructions not to undo her restraints. "Let us remedy at least two of those feelings. Yes? Can you sit up?"

Never having had any experience with this, it'll take a try or two. The constant song of ache from temples to toenails did not, in fact, help motivate her any. But, even if she's got her face on the cushion, she's cat-free with both feet on the floor.

He brushed aside a few take-out containers and perched on the edge of the dark wood coffee table. "Can you open your eyes for me?"

"Ngnnngsf." Couch cushions made great language filters. Nearly skin and bones under the jacket, it took another minute to sit upright. "They're stuck." Gummed up with unshed tears, no doubt.

"Permit me...." She didn't exactly have much room to resist him, but her legs were long and she seemed like the type of women who either knew how to use them or did not know how much strength she had.

He dipped his thumbs into the water glass he'd procured some few hours ago and tried his best to be gentle when he touched wet calluses to her lashes. One quick swipe, then his touch moved to her brows.

Kicking would've hurt twice over, so instead, she grunted. Definitely crusty, and definitely gummy. When her eyelids let go and opened, she immediately wished they hadn't. Bloodshot and puffy, and not at all healthy looking. "**** me with a chainsaw running backwards!" Why did yelling hurt so bad?

"I doubt that would feel anything like you want it to. Follow my finger. Yes?" He held one up, shifting it east to west and back.

Herky-jerky movements. Not quite the tracking eyes are supposed to do. "Gods, my head is killing me . . . " And her foot's bouncing, knees crossing. "Goddess, hurry up, will you? I'm about to piss all over myself." Maybe a minor point of progress that she's willing to admit to that, maybe not. The state of those pants is questionable, at best.

"Please don't. I want to make sure that you're actually able to get there in a relatively straight line." He reached then, for her shoulders, meaning to guide her to her feet when he rose. "Come, the bathroom's not far."

At under a hundred pounds, there's not much to guide when she's helping out. A bit of green tint to the face, might be the hair or might be a sign to clear the road, but she's staggering. Mostly straight line.

"I've been told your name. Mine is Cris. Which is your dominant hand?" Seventeen paces, he nudged his boot at stray cats that tried to meander between them and the bathroom. He reached inside the door to flip on the light.

He'd drunk his fair share of alcohol, threw up his fair share of meals and spent his fair share of time on bathroom floors. He could have been kinder, but time was of the essence.

"Right." Oh goddess, the light. Evil, evil stuff. It stabs us, it burns us precious. Between squinting the light out and the urgent calling that wasn't feeling like leaving a voicemail, she wasn't standing up straight.

He hoped he'd found the right buckle to undo, the right strap to pull. He'd only seen strait jackets in motion pictures. "Go. Do not lock the door." A palm to her back, he sent her forward.

One arm free, she didn't bother arguing. One-track mind. Muttering curses and turning, her pants barely touched ankles before she squatted in a hover, squint-glaring at him. "So you're my jailor then? ****in' wonderful." Hawk, spit in the sink. "Gonna wipe me clean too?" But there's no bite behind it. All facade and bravado.

He said nothing about closing the door. And by the Angel when it didn't look like she was going to, he did. With a hiss through his teeth, nearly pinching a cat in two when he pulled it toward him, leaving only an inch of space through which to speak. "I am not your jailor, nor will I do that. You seem perfectly capable. I will, however, make you something for your head."

The toilet flushed a minute later, and when the door opened, out she waddled. Since one arm's still buckled, and the other's in a closed sleeve, the best she's been able to manage is to tug her pants up in the front. And still, she's mortified for that, by the reaction. "For ****'s sake, are you gonna unbuckle me out of this jacket or what? Stupid piece of ****!" Mortification equals anger.

Blinking, he kept his gaze decidedly higher than her waistline. He had been told that the jacket had been put on for her own safety moreso than that of others, but that couldn't have been that far down the list. "I will. Later. Come. The kitchen this time. Mind the cats."

That . . . was not his best call. Embarrassed and still a bit drunk, and a hint of tremors to go along with it, she snapped. Much like any other drunk would. "Fine!" Oh, yeah. It hurt. In more ways than one. But in her mind, dickish begets dickish. And, in the long run, it might be a better thing anyway that the questionable fabric and her backside parted ways. They could both do with a good washing. Scraping up false dignity, she stepped out of the fallen garments, kicked at a cat, and fell in the general direction of the kitchen.

He might have overestimated her dexterity, underestimated her drunkenness, or both. Anything that he gave her of his own would not fit. Thank the Angel, though, that there was a blanket tossed over the back of the couch, something thin but large, meant for comfort when one decided to settle in with a good book. He grabbed it, shook a plume of multi-colored fur from its surface and draped it around her shoulders like a cape. "Hold this closed, yes?" It was not difficult to precede her to the kitchen.

"I know that you do not know me," he said as he located a kettle, a cup, and a knife. "And I realize that this is terribly awkward, but I am not here to make this worse."

It was the final chink in the armor. Floors weren't meant to be forgiving. Covered up by the blanket from the waist down, face deep in the carpet with her arms pinned underneath her, she broke. Shattered. Utter emotional devastation.

There was a moment where something seemed different, and he thought he imagined it. He thought she was right behind him, for one thing, listless in her sway, but persistent. When he turned in that stretch of silence and found not a tall woman behind him but a lump in a blanket, capped in sapphire hair, he swore under his breath and left the orange and lemon he'd found on the counter beside what was going to be a large cup of tea.

Careful not to step on the blanket, or kneel on it, when he took his place beside her. There was a trio of very curious cats milling about.

Blood mixed with tears from a very distressed nose, body wracked with sobs torn from a throat gone raw with anguish. At first listen it was silence, then she wailed like a village of laryngitis-stricken fishwives mourning a loss of all hands. The box was open, hinges broken, lock mangled.

He hadn't thought about touching her. He'd done that enough so far, and for the time being, it looked like she was content there with her face in the floor. He could wait until she needed to breathe.

But then it started.

The lingering cats lurched and ran, something he understood. A very small part of him wanted nothing more than to walk out, close the door on what he'd said, close his ears to what Rick had told him. But the rest, the dominant part, the one that was in control of his heart, of his body, of all of his movements dictated the stretch of his arms and the murmur she wouldn't hear in between as he attempted to pull her up, at least off of the floor, to rest somewhere in the tentative cage of his arms because proximity might have been what she needed. Sometimes, it was what he'd needed.

Great, heaving sobs. Goddess above, but everything hurt. She couldn't stop bawling, couldn't stem the tide. Crimson trickled from both nostrils as she wailed months of pent-up anguish into his chest, punching at him with the freed arm.

One started a fire, the second fanned the flames, the third crush of her fist was met with one hand on her wrist, holding it where it had handed with a strength his otherwise unassuming posture and attitude didn't boast. His palm was dry, warm and rough against her wrist. Two syllables, repeated, with a detachment he wasn't sure how he was managing. "I know," beneath every sob, every grating inhale.

It was all too much, even with support. Violently, she wrenched her body to turn away from him, gorge rising like a tsunami. All down the hallway, halfway up the walls. The cats were luckier. They knew to dodge.

To his credit, he didn't flinch. He let her go enough to turn and he kept his gaze on the tight curve of her spine through every retch. He'd clean that later. He'd clean his gear later. He wished she'd done this in the bathroom.

He wasn't the only one. Even the cats were looking at them like they were utter trash, but that's what cats do unless there's a can involved somewhere. The blanket tangled somewhere between thighs and knees, but that's not a sexy sight, considering everything else going on. When it all degenerated into dry-heaves, she coughed one last time, and turned back to press her spine to the wall, gasping for air and fighting tears. Pain wasn't her friend. Pain was the very air she sat in. Pain walked over every cell of her body, down to the tips of her split ends. Pain drove out everything else.

He was in no position to tell her how to handle her grief. He hadn't listened well in her position. Granted, no one had every taken themselves away from him before. It was never their choice, always someone else's, and he wasn't sure which of those two extremes was worse.

Deciding against letting her wallow in filth half tied to herself, he found the other buckle, the straps lashing her other arm in and undid them, eased the strait jacket open to hang like any other garment would. "Deep breaths. Yes? Inhale through your nose, exhale through your mouth. As deeply as you can manage."

Her nose still streamed blood, and if it's not broken, it's certainly out of place. Her arms hung flaccidly as she sat there and wept. Was anything getting through to her muddled brain? Hard to tell, at this juncture.

"Tanya---" her hair looked like veins, plastered in sweat and blood and tears against her bone white face. He swept it back, his palm against her damp throat. "Tanya, we must not stay here...." He hoped that the next time he saw this much pain on someone else's face, it would be years from now.

All the venom she'd been spitting, all the hate . . . gone. Numbly, she nodded, shoulders still shaking, long past the point of being able to answer in words. The face of entropy. Nothing left but sorrow.

"Okay. I will help you." He felt the race of her pulse against his fingertips. There was a wrinkle in his brow borne completely of concern, the outline of his mouth paling with all the tension keeping it closed.

He did not remember well enough, but he wondered, idly, if he'd looked like this. Sallow, nearly, lifeless and with no outward reason to draw his next breath. "We will get you back to the couch, yes? You can lay yourself down. I will take care of everything else." Careful to hook the blanket on his fingers when he searched for the crook beneath her arms to begin drawing her up.

Under the skin, the tremors had begun. Muscles twitching as neurons fired of their own accord, giving her a shaky aspect as she blindly followed along. Blanket or not, jacket or not, she'd passed beyond caring. Beyond comprehending, even.

"It's all right. It will be all right, we've not far to go. Out of the way, you damnable creature," the weight of his toe on the cat's tail might have been intentional. It squeaked and tore down the hallway he had yet to clean. "I will get you something for the pain, to help you relax if you've not yet fallen asleep when I return."

He hadn't wanted to carelessly unload her onto the couch. The slow guide of his movements was meant to deposit her carefully on her left side, with her cheek against the couch arm.

She slumped, sobbing with lessening intensity against the couch arm, weakly drawing her legs up under the blanket to curl into the fetal position. Truly, if there was a picture of wrecked despondency, this fit the bill.

They'd said that all she did was sleep. The first few hours of his task had been easy. With the wrinkle threatening to live on his brow, he took hold of the blanket and drew it up toward her jaw, tucked it in around the outline of her feet and behind her back to save her from an errant chill she would surely feel otherwise.

"I'm sorry." She felt fever warm from the aftermath of her upheaval, but he knew that was not the case. He'd wanted to stand, to get started first on the tea, the task of cleaning the hallway, but the twist of her damp, bloodied face anchored him there. Thumb on her shoulder subconsciously rubbed wide ovals against hidden muscle.

Coughing weakly, she went tense at first, but couldn't maintain the tension. The tank was empty. Nothing left to sustain her composure, she lay like a drowned rat, bedraggled and adrift.

There was nothing he could say and he wished he hadn't the desire to say anything at all. The presence of a stranger surely must not have helped much and in reality, he had only accepted the task to sate an inner, selfish shortcoming. He wanted to see how hard it was to try and console the inconsolable. To pour effort by the gallon and watch it all spiral down the drain.

Thinking like that would get him nowhere. Not when there was work to be done. He had paper napkins from Leung's---his first course of action was to clean her face of blood and refreshed tears.

In cases like these, the element of surprise was crucial. He went through every napkin that he had, cleaning blood from her nose, tears mucus and vomit. Somewhere between swipes nine and fifteen, he'd taken a hold of her nose and corrected its line with a cold mix of swiftness and ferocity. His last napkin he drenched from the water glass and left it laying across her brow. Something, at least, to take the edge off the headache until he could return.

Her body jerked, but that was all, as at last the blackness claimed her in exhausted slumber.



(Thank you, Tanya Acheron. And to R Spade and Quinn Heartt for the opportunity!)

They came home while Crispin was still cleaning and Rick, with a soft smile and a fatherly hand on the younger man's shoulder, relieved him from scrubbing duty and saw him out.

"It's nothing. Don't worry about. Carpet's seen worse. I owe you, Crispin. So does she. I mean that."

He ushered Crispin out without another word, soothing the other man's questions and thoughts with a sheer, angelic presence earned only through age and patience. Quinn had the Chinese food packed up and ready for him by the front door, along with a small thank you note written in advance.

As the door closed, Rick looked over at Quinn and saw the answer he needed in her expression, all without asking the question. The girl was not well off. Not for the first time since bringing her home, Rick felt a wave of guilt for bringing her into close proximity to his empathic partner. Quinn didn't need any extraordinary powers to know what the man was going through, and she reached out to take his shoulder and drag him into a hug. It lasted a long while, and Rick sought solace in the shade of her chin. Her fingers worked the muscles of his back and he linked his arms around her hips, fingers locking together, until finally he had to pull away.

"I'm going to check on her," he said, summoning a smile. "I'll be up to bed in a minute. Go on." He used the same grandfatherly confidence, and though it worked less on Quinn than it did on Crispin, she nodded and left him to do stop in with Tanya. Rick watched her leave before the facade fell apart and his face soured in the direction of the room housing Tanya.

Tanya. Lila's half sister, if the stories were true. Another daughter of a future Harris, another woman lost in a city, dying to abuse her body couldn't handle. Lila had slipped way from him, and he still hadn't forgiven himself. Even now, her ashes rested in an urn in the shop beneath their feet, waiting for him to rip up the floor boards next to the empty window and mix her with soil. Even now, her ghost haunted him. A specter, reminding him of his short comings, his failures, his sins. A dead, lost friend. A troubled little girl. A human being.

Rick had lost Lila. He owed her. He would not lose Tanya.

He found her sleeping, or something close to it. Crispin had done what he could in cleaning her up, but she could use a shower, as soon as she would be able to sit on a stool and let someone clean her.

Rick sat down next to her and smoothed her hair from her forehead, reaching out with senses unknown to common man, and opened himself to her thoughts. She was having a nightmare. A terrible, twisted dream. He didn't peek inside, but the rumblings were there, the pain was palpable, violent, violet psychic streaks emanating outward and almost filling the room. No wonder the cats were trying to lay on her. They felt her anguish and wanted to soothe her wounds.

He closed his eyes and concentrated and, with more than a little will power and almost a century of experience, he tried to calm her mind and give her the rest she needed. If only for the night. If only for a few hours. Tomorrow would be worse than tonight, when the shakes came on, and her body started falling apart from the inside. She was going to need all the rest she could get. He only hoped he did something right, for once.

Rick broke the contact when he heard music streaming down the hallway. A live performance of Nancy Sinatra, a rare vinyl, and one of his favorites. Quinn must have put it on for him. Even as he sat next to a woman who reminded him of his dead friend in every way, who might not even make it to see next week much less next year, in a city he still did not remotely understand, and under more than one threat to his life, he had to smile. Quinn. So beautiful, and she didn't even know it.

"All right, kid. Get some sleep. I'll come check on you in a bit. Cats'll come watch you until then. You just try not to roll over on one of em, they get feisty," he murmured, replacing his spot next to her with a particularly fat ball of fur, who wasted no time in climbing on top of her and going straight to sleep.

Sleep. He could use some of that, too, he thought. Rick went to go see Quinn about it.

((Late Tuesday Evening)

The dreams. They never stopped, waking or asleep. Nothing let her rest. The couch was too worn. She itched. Everything was out to get her. Clawing her way up from the depths, Tanya coughed and heaved herself from the couch, landing with a thump and swallowing her gorge. There'd been entirely too much of that, and no matter who made the chicken soup, nothing ever tasted good on the second pass.

Movement and a cough drew Cris out of his reverie of rereading the same passage over and over. He could not even remember what the book was called. 1000 teas across 1000 dimensions, read the gold leaf title read across the spine. He closed the book and looked up, already the focus coming back to his gaze. "Good morning." It wasn't. It was late, almost night, but that didn't matter to the sobering.

Of course, someone was there watching over her. Awkward, but inescapable fact of life when you try digging under rock bottom. "Oh. It's you." Tanya didn't know his name, or if she'd ever been told, it got lost in the haze. But the bark had no bite, her tone held no bitterness. He'd ... cared.

Snorting, Cris set the book aside on the table. This time it was devoid of Chinese in favor of two cups of tea on white saucers; one full and one nearly empty. "Unfortunately. Were you expecting someone else?"

Curling up into a surprisingly small ball of human, knees tucked under her chin, Tanya regarded the floor for a very long time. "Didn't know who'd be here. Or where here is." No lie, the apartment looked different from inside. And she'd only been here the once, after that fight on the bridge, where Lila had ... her shoulders went ultra-tense, and she blinked eyes suddenly blurry with unshed tears.

"This is the apartment above Rick and Quinn's shop. Hence, the cats." On cue, a trilling purr sounded from one orange tabby that had leaped atop the back of the couch, peering down at the lump Tanya made. Cris leaned forward, regarding her thoughtfully. "How do you feel? Physically, I mean, of course. Have you a headache, or any lingering nausea?"

Tanya didn't trust her voice, not yet. But she held up a hand for the 'so-so' motion, totally ruined by the quivering tremors. " ... feel like ****ing palsy patient ... basketcase." Cats upon cats, upon cats. Old sweats barely had a square inch of non-furred space. Same with the couch. But, they lived here. She's the visitor. "Wan' go home."

"It could be worse, then. You could be in the state you were in a few days ago. Do you think you can keep something down?" Cris filed the bit about home away for later. He wanted to take this one step at a time considering that he had no idea what in the Angel's name he was doing in the first place.

"Don't remember." Everything twenty-four hours out started to blur into inscrutability. "Been drinking broth. Water." Tanya?s shoulders shook, once, in what might've been a laugh. "Only threw up half." Where things had gotten clear, she wished they hadn't. The shower indignity. The clothes. They weren't her things. All her things were gone, now. Stolen, pawned, or burned in the case of what she'd been wearing.

"All right." Cris gave the full cup of tea a look. He knew himself when others told him he needed to eat and he had little desire to force her into anything. "Perhaps you can try later. Yes? It's not food, only tea. Meant to calm the stomach."

Tanya looked up, then, not turning away the idea of soothing remedies, but just watching him for a moment. Pay no attention to the cat curling up behind her head. "Okay."

Cris wasn't much to watch, he didn't think. For the most part, he was monochrome. Dark hair, nearly black. A dark brow, pepper scratched stubble two days old across a surprisingly soft jaw for the severity of his frown. The pale green of his gaze burned openly with concern. There were a few barriers he did not bother with when he knew he was truly in private. He met her eyes and held them, unwilling to give in to his urge to look away. "I'm sorry."

That wasn't the foremost thought in Tanya?s mind, swampland that it had become. "Why're you here?" So many questions, hidden between the lines.

Now was when Chris needed to tread carefully. Grief was like a rusty knife continuously scraped over a wound. It worried emotions, made them raw, simmered them just beneath the surface. "I did not know her very well, but what I knew of her, I liked." Cautious, still, not to mention the name. "Rick introduced us and he thought very highly of her. But, that's not why. No one is a stranger to loss. Yes? I've found that when I've been forced to survive it, it makes it---easier, if I know someone is there."

For the span of time it took another cat to hop up on a table, sit, and give itself a bath, Tanya didn't say anything. Barely breathing. "I hardly knew her at all. Not really. But we talked, a bit." In a totally unladylike manner, she dragged a sleeve across her nose and yelped, having forgotten with everything else aching that she looked quite the raccoon. "**** me, that hurts!"

Cris blinked. From the depth of her apparent depression, he'd thought they were closer than that. "They must have been very special conversations." Then, "Oh, by the Angel. Yes. Ice. I'm sorry. Stay here, I will bring you something for that." He rose from the chair like he had not been sitting there for nearly two hours, with a liquid grace and strict control over every inch of him. "You managed to break your nose when I was last here."
Holding up one scarred finger, he nudged a cat out of his way, stepped over another, and headed for the kitchen some distance away.

"On what?" Dabbing at a tear that dared to fall, Tanya cursed under her breath, showing even more of an eclectic collection of swears than when she'd been sober.

"The floor," Cris called over his shoulder. Not a minute later, the crunch of ice and the sound of running water.

"Oh." A calm acceptance. Tanya hadn?t even thought to find a mirror anywhere. But when he returned, she had one hand inside the sweatshirt up near the shoulder, the other settled on her face, near the break, muttering.

Cris returned with a washcloth, beige and wet around a small mound of crushed ice. He'd folded it into a strip, meant to lay across the bridge of her nose and beneath her eyes, still allowing her to speak.

The trembling wasn't making it easy, but Tanya still knew her own skin, and everything on it. It was obvious when she found the spot in question, something flared blue under the fabric, and her fingertips glowed a sullen blue. A measure of the abuse she'd given herself. The swelling on her face faded visibly, while the bandit mask of bruising mottled from purple to yellow-green. Teeth gritted, she growled to herself, though several cats took heed and backed away.

Cris kept watch all through the careful perch once again at the edge of his seat, the rag in his hand dripping water over the scars on his knuckles. He counted each white tooth in her grimace. "Stop. Do not exert yourself with energy you don't have. Here," flicking water from his hands, he reached with the rag, waiting for her go ahead before he'd carefully lay it across the bridge of her nose and her cheekbones.

"All I've been doing is sleeping." But, Tanya didn't make any other argument. The first contact brought a hiss, but it subsided after a moment. More silence, until she had to say something to break the weight of it. "I barely knew her ... but she was all I knew, here."

"Sometimes that's not enough." Fingers dried on the cuffs of fraying grey sleeves, Cris pulled them down to hide his knuckles, elbows supporting his weight against his knees to keep them from bouncing. "Tell me about her. About what you knew."

Cris didn't exactly need any new reasons to dislike the town's duels. His mouth thinned, a thin muscle jumping in his temple. Nodding, he blocked the cold nose of a cat with his other hand, letting it sniff scars instead. A sandpaper tongue scraped them clean. "What did you like about her?"

The question caught Tanya off guard, making for another round of shiny wet eyes. "She was a fighter. Saw what she want, went for it." A wan smile, but a smile nonetheless. "Everything I'm not."

The rough pad of Cris? thumb swept along the back of her hand. "And what have you wanted that you've neglected to chase?"

"A place to be me, I guess. Just can't quit here. Can't shake it, and can't find my way. Half of everyone sees this, " Tanya swatted an errant lock of green hair. "And figure out where it came from, everybody else sees these, " Wiggling her arm, she let him see one of the bits of colorful ink. "And they laugh when they remember where they've seen them. Hell, half of them think I'm already from here anyways. Better than growing up thinking I had to be a hero."

Digesting her answer, Cris split his attention between her hand that he held and the cat trying to eat his other one. Fingertips sunk into long, grey fur. "There are a few strengths in this world and in others that are---all right to neglect. For a time. I think that kind of fighting is very tiresome and I see nothing wrong with trying to exist in another way first."
The tattoos, he recognized, but he wouldn't have pegged the truth until much later, he knew.

"I tried. Won ... maybe two, out of fifteen?" Another self-deprecating laugh, and Tanya shook her head ruefully. "Just couldn't get into it, unless I got royally pissed at His Blueness." And he didn't know half the truth, really. "I didn't bother looking up my mom here, once I saw a poster or two. Not the same."

"There is more to life than staged battle, Tanya." Three final scratches to the cat's chin, Cris nudged its nose away. "What does she do here, your mother? I do not know her very well and tend to ignore a great deal of public advertisement."

"She's a stripper." The rag had gone warm, so Tanya set it aside. "You'd know her if you saw her, trust me. Even back home, she didn't hide her ink much. Probably what he liked about her."

"No. I know her. But a great deal of the populace seems to disagree with clothing as a whole, and for most part, if they're women I don't tend to mind that," Cris gave a half smile. "Somehow, my mind does not leap to stripper, however."

"You know her?" Tanya scoffed, incredulously. That was something new, for her. "Yeah, well, your mind would go a way different direction if you saw her posters down by the docks. Club Babylon or something like that. Just guest spots now, but I think she used to dance pretty regular there."

"Well," Cris squinted, thoughtfully. "I know who she is, rather. We've been introduced. She's becoming rather close to another friend of mine, I think. That's all I know." Tilting his head, he scratched at the silver echo of a rune on his temple.

"Yeah, something else I've heard. She's pretty free with her ... affections. Guess that's what's got His High and Mighty all in a snit about me. That didn't happen here." Gingerly, Tanya touched her nose, and managed not to flinch. That put her in enough of a good mood to scratch a cat, at least.

"It's good for Izumi, at least. There's very little wrong with enjoying oneself if one can." Cris watched the descent of her hand, eased the rest of the grip he had on hers and began to pull from it.

Tanya didn't object. "So lemme ask you something." Screwing up the courage, she looked up at him. "Why'd you come back?"

"For the same reason I came the first time. And---a bit of selfish placation." Cris folded his hands together. "I don't presume you to need my help, and I've very little desire to force anything upon you. If you'd like for me not to come by, I will stop. But---" ducking his head, he watched the hook of a feline tail bob its way around the couch. "I've lost two people in my life and both times, I've nearly died from it. I happened to behave in much the same way. I drank, and from what I was told, I was an horrific force of nature and disgust."It---bothers me. I suppose. To see someone suffer through something I've gone through too. Regardless of the circumstances, and the differences."

"Oh." A mixed drink of two parts sadness, one part disappointment. "Well, you haven't pissed me off or tried to get in my pants, so I guess you can stick around if you want." The armor of bitterness cracked almost as soon as Tanya put it on. "Thanks. And for what it's worth ... I'm sorry about your friends."

Soft snort turned into a chuckle Cris hid with a rub of his fist across his chin. "Yes, well. I do try." Gaze found its way back to her, still crinkled with the smile that his mouth had lost. "It's worth a great deal, Tanya. Thank you."

"You're welcome." Then Tanya looked at him with a puzzled expression, a hint of color coming to her cheekbones.

"My...." then he drew his fingers out from their hiding place. "Oh. Yes. They are."

"I'd say show me yours and I'll show you mine, but you probably already saw most of 'em." She shrugged indifferently.

"Your faith in my gender, while accurate, doesn't exactly apply here. I did not use your situation to my advantage."

"Noticed that, too." Tanya shrugged again, just as indifferently. "Thought you might be into guys, but you already said you don't mind seeing half-naked chicks running around, so ... I guess that makes you a nice guy. Not too many of those near the docks." Another tidbit of information.

"That's a common misconception, yes." Cris shooed a cat away from the arm of the couch so he could lean there instead. "I tend to like it much more when a woman wants me to look at her. That says nothing for my thoughts, however."

"Good to know." One point in her favor, Tanya at least acknowledged her condition to the point of not offering anything further. "I'll keep that in mind, you know, just in case."

Cris smiled but, for the first time this evening, was at a loss as to what to say. And so, he simply shook a cat off of the toe of his boot.

Flirting? Tanya would say no, initially. But keeping the option open, most definitely. It made her feel a smidgen better. "Gotta say one thing, though. I'll be glad when I've got something closer to my size on." Definitely not flirting, since she didn't make a move to show the extreme measures necessary to keep the too-big sweats on.

"One step at a time, yes? In case this food does not agree with you as much as you'd like it to. If not, I don't think you'll feel as badly dirtying it."

Tanya tugged at the cuff of the sweatshirt, and managed a rueful chuckle of sorts. "You have a point." The floor wasn't as comfortable as she played off, so she turned to lever herself back up onto the couch. It's a struggle, one she's not proud of.

Cris tapped his knee to distract a cat. Leung's was a great restaurant. Their food was exceptional, and their staff superb. But nothing could fill the half hour but conversation. And he was, unfortunately, running dry on it. "I've never had any siblings."

Planting her butt on the cushion without showing anything untoward was an accomplishment. Winded her, though. "Neither did I, before coming here."

"Do you wish it had remained that way?" The cat leaped up onto the couch, then put its paws against his leg.

"Dunno." Pulling her legs up with a wince of pain, Tanya rested her chin to her knees again, feeling grateful for the softer seating. "Probably would've ended up like she did, though. No friends, no support. Nothing to start with."

"Would you truly be that lonely?" This cat had claws and Cris was reminded with every swipe it took at his fingers.

"You might've noticed, I'm not the friendliest ***** on the block." Talking about Lila stung, like a knife to the hilt in the back stung. "Caustic, snippy, and I hold a grudge forever. And those are the good points."

"No, but I've met others. Worse, even. What I've learned is that it all comes from somewhere. Yes?" Fingertip to the cat's chin, Cris flicked it away. Bored with the game, the animal shrunk down on the cushion. "I dislike people, a fair amount of the time. I find them unintelligent, tedious and loud. But I've still, somehow, managed to make friends."

Tanya hugged her knees tighter, telling the ache to piss off for a minute. It almost worked. "My fault, then. I didn't try. After dealing with his bullshit, I just didn't give a damn."

"No, I did not say that. I only meant to convey that it's not impossible. Not that you've done anything wrong." Knuckle pinched between his teeth, Cris bit the small welted line the cat's claw had left behind.

Snort. She didn't move her head, but the look Tanya leveled at him said one thing only. Dumb***. "If I'd been doing things right, I probably wouldn't have wound up like this."

"So long as it's understood that I do not think that way about you, that's all I can do," around his knuckle. Tip of his tongue did very little for the itch.

"Don't see how." Now she did turn her head. "Dude, what are you sucking your knuckle so hard for? It's just a cat-scratch. Hell, you've got ink."

"It does not hurt, it itches. There's a difference." Lowering his hand, Cris digressed, instead, to scratching. At least until he heard the faraway chime of a bell. "Wait here." He could count on his hand the times he'd been in the building, but he moved with the confidence of one who had memorized what he'd seen in his short time.

Tanya didn't have much choice. Walking was still a carrot dangling out of reach. But she watched him go. She'd seen so much worse, on the docks.

A set of six knives was more easily visible from the back than his front. They wrapped the back of his thighs in two groups of three, within easy reach of his hand. Small things, honed pieces of silver and iron that he had Marked accordingly. Without hilt and built for flight. Cris was out of sight in less than half a minute. A bit longer, and a door downstairs firmly closed.

"You know that if you lock eyes with them, they deem it a challenge," around a bite of noodles. But Cris was content to watch the battle over chicken, making the mistake of wiping the crease in his lower lip with his scratched knuckle.

"They should know better then. I'm bigger." Not by much, really.

"Size is deceptive." Cris tossed another nest of noodles together, slurping them down.

"You don't think I could take a cat? You're the one over there sucking on a scratch." Half-grin and a wink. "*****." They were surrounded by them, after all.

"I never said that. But if you spill your food, I will laugh." Cris smiled too.

"And I'll pout." Whenever Tanya wasn't eating the food, she kept a hand over it and drank soup. At the halfway point, it ran a much greater chance of getting hair into it than spilling.

"Then I'm glad we're on the same page." Pinching a piece of shrimp from within a pocket of noodles, Cris flicked it onto the floor and watched a pile-up of black, white and orange fur in a battle over it.

"Oh, hey. There's an idea. Distraction." But Tanya frowned at her chicken. Red sauce stained carpet. "Got a napkin or something I can put some of this on?" It wasn't until then that she noticed some oozage out of the bottom corner of the box. A splotch the size of her hand in a folded-over section of the sweatshirt. "Ah, ****."

"Erm...." Frowning, Cris leaned to peer into both bags, coming up with a few thin, brown napkins to pass to her between two fingers. "Angel's mercy, how in the hell did you manage that?"

"It's the box, it's leaking." Bad thing about SnS chicken. It's messy, outside of bowls or plates. "Bad clothes, right?" The expression of dismay from before passed as swiftly as it'd come. She's eaten in far worse condition.

"Bad clothes, yes. I was told to bring spares, and they're ready for you in the bathroom if you feel up to a shower later."

"One where I don't have to sit there like a dog would be nice." Tanya mused out loud, between bites. The previous idea of distraction discarded in favor of cupping the offending corner in napkins.

"No...." Cris wasn't sure what that was supposed to mean. "I'm sure you will fit."

"Dude, I'd wrap a sheet around my *** and walk out proud and bouncy if it meant I could do it on my own." Bite. Chew profusely. Swallow. "If you saw anything, you know I'm not shy. Can't be." Tanya tapped her arm, somewhere around the bicep. "Gotta touch these to make 'em work, right?"

Easing back in the chair until he found comfort in the way it bit into his spine, Cris looked bemused. "Is that a not so subtle way of telling me you'd like me to look at you?"

Mouth full, Tanya barked out a laugh. "It's a not so subtle way of saying look if you want to. Back home, the only reason people put anything on is if it's raining hard. You grow up around a bunch of swinging ****s and bouncing ***s, you learn to ignore it. But hey, you like what you see, I'm not going to sass you over it. I get a kick out of being ogled just as much as anyone else. Get creepy, I'll shove three feet of steel up your ***. Pretty simple." Another mouthful, after she swallowed, some good color coming back to her skin. "Also a not-so-subtle way of saying I might need help standing up in that shower."

Cris had kept count. That was roughly the third time nudity had, rather obtrusively, skewered its way into their discussion. He lifted his hands as much as he could, chopsticks held at an angle. "I will run you a bath, then. And you may lounge to your leisure without the threat of falling down. Yes?"

Shrugging, Tanya still shook her head and barked out a short laugh, staring into the half-empty container. "Still need help in and out, dude. So I guess the point is, either you wet a rag and wait in the kitchen while I wipe off the sticky and change, or you get to carry my naked butt to the bathroom." He's got an out that way. Her approach to nudity is at the same time coarse, nonchalant, and entirely non-sexual, really.

Cris ate two more bites as he thought it over. He was not completely innocent in this situation. There was a time when, by the Angel, he thought his entire body would snap from desire when he was there to witness an Angel struggling through her own grief.
He was a man. Nudity and sexuality were, unfortunately, synonymous. "I will get you rags," he said finally, securing his food from feline attack and setting it aside.

"Your call." He didn't have to worry about her running off to dive out a window. But Tanya closed up that half container and set it on more napkins, holding the soup for now. She didn't feel up to having a rebellious stomach.

It was easier that way, Cris felt. "It may be easier to, simply, head to the bathroom regardless. I can fill the sink with water."

"Good idea. Might need to, you know. Better to be in there than have to make a run of it, right?" Bland acceptance of her condition, growing blander by the moment. A troubling trend.

"Can you stand?" he asked as he did himself, his fingers cleaned against the seams on the outside of either leg.

"Maybe. Haven't tried yet." Nor was she going to, without assistance. Putting the lid back on the soup, Tanya set that next to the chicken, and eased her feet to the floor.

Cris stood before her, waiting until she'd gotten her feet under her before he held out his arms, palms open. He wasn't exactly sure how she would grip, or how tightly, and so he left the choice up to her.

Cris pressed his hand against the door to open it a few inches, but did not step inside. There was something in the tone of her voice that told him maybe it wasn't as safe as she wanted him to think. "I'm here. Take your time."

Tanya was just about to spit something out about him being timid, when something else insistent spoke up. "Wait, sorry. One sec." She hoped he'd get the hint when she leaned over to put the seat down. Nature doesn't leave messages to call back later. Dabbing at her face with the rag, she wiped away tear-tracks under cover of water hitting water, she dumped the offending fabric onto the sweatshirt, and turned the hot water on. "Sorry."

"Don't be. It's all right." Cris put the toe of his boot against a passing cat, nudging its hind quarters off center. He received a squint for it. "Can you think of anything else you'd need?"

Tanya hiccuped another laugh, taking care of the rest of the necessities and grunting to stand, pulling up the sweatpants and tying them as tight as they'd go. Still a dangerous hang on hipbones. "You name it, I don't have it. Makes moving easy, I guess." She leaned on the counter again, willing the food to stay put. "Think I should lay down now, though."

"I mean immediately." Arms folded tight over his chest, Cris considered the floor carefully. "Would you like me to stay until you fall asleep?" He wasn't sure how long that would take, but he had nowhere else to be.

"Underwear, socks, shoes . . . toothbrush . . . twenty-pound bag of silver . . . and about thirty pounds of muscle." This time, Tanya was the one who opened the door, and much less angry than before. "No, you don't have to. You've probably got better things to do."

"Toothbrush, I can do. I'll save the rest of those affects for when you've regained some strength." Cris looked up when she reemerged. "That's not what I asked."

"You want to know what I want?" Now anger did rise up, but without anchor and without purpose, Tanya was lashing out just for the sake of lashing. "I want to stop feeling, to just go numb. I want to punch the smug right off his face, to take him to that marker and beat his *** until he finally gives a ****." Then all the fight left her. "But I'm not gonna get it. Any of it." Small and frail, she hugged her chest and did her own comprehensive floor study. "Yeah, I'd like it if you stayed, but there's no room on the couch for two. So just pile some cats on me."

A noise low in his throat, halfway between a grunt and an exhale, Cris reached for the center of her back to begin guiding her back to the couch. "I will stay until you sleep. And I'll visit tomorrow."

Resigned, Tanya nodded, allowing herself to be led. "Yeah, sure. Tomorrow." Hopefully he didn't forget the food. There's already a passel of cats around each box.

One could not forget Chinese. "It will come faster if you sleep. Rick and Quinn have my number. I---doubt you've a phone. But if you'd like, you can tell them to call me. I will be here." To do what, Cris didn't know. But he was glad enough that his presence didn't seem offensive so far.

"Think she's still pissed at me for the other morning." It hadn't been a pretty sight. But once back on the couch, Tanya lay down just as quick as she could manage, pulling the blanket up to her shoulder and curling into a ball.

"What happened?" Cris shook the end of the blanket, tucking it in behind her legs, under her ankles.

"They found me on the toilet." 'Nuff said, hopefully. He should remember how she'd fallen asleep. Tanya murmured another thanks as he tucked her in.

"Ah...." What in the Angel's name could he say about that? Cris checked the cap on her soup and set it beside what was left of her tea. Each container he'd pulled free went back into its bag.

"Yeah. That led to the shower." Tanya suffered another unpleasant memory, sitting there under the tepid spray, watching the refuse of much too long swirl down the drain. "Quinn might've been thinking about shaving me bald."

Bags rolled down, with nothing else to do, Cris settled into the seat he'd been avoiding. Left ankle propped on right knee, he eased back until shoulder blades met the slats of the chair's rest behind him. "It could have been worse."

"Yeah." Glumly, Tanya settled her head on the pillow and nodded. "I could've still been in the hall."

Snorting, "Yes, that's true." The last thing Cris did was reach for the book. "But that was then. Not now."

"Right. Not now." Now she'd seen what a wreck she'd become. Sleep, real sleep, would be a long time coming. But Tanya could fake it long enough to let the real thing swallow her up. " . . . thanks again, Cris. For being here, I mean."

The curve of Cris? smile was like that of an Angel's feather, and just as soft. "You're welcome. The cats will keep you warm in a few minutes."

Since the little supposed rat-catchers were already finding places to curl up, Tanya had to agree. Quietly, though. She looked at him with a ghost of a smile, then let her eyes shut. One hand up as a shield, so hopefully he wouldn't see the tears that threatened to spill. They'd fall, or not, depending on whether the fakery turned out to be the real deal or a sham.

((Based on Live RP. Colossal kudos to Crispin's player for the fantastic collab!))

In twice as many days, Cris coasted to a halt on a bike that he had recently cleaned of waterspots. The rumble of its engine cut off mid chug and he left the helmet there on the seat. He hadn't planned for it to be a lengthy visit. Long enough, true, but he hadn't even brought any food. Knocking, he let himself first in through the lower level, and then continued to the one above. The mewling of cats was a sound that he had pleasantly forgotten came with this location and these people.

He was dressed for the ride, and the pits later; a black leather coat atop a coal grey shirt and gear with all of his knives intact. Bootheels made no sound. He cast his gaze around for a wink of turquoise or a trail of clothing or garbage leading to wherever she would be.

The sound of the dryer hum-clanking in the background played counterpoint to the soft murmuring of sleep-talk, as Tanya lay enveloped by the light blanket, hair spilled out over the arm of the couch. Quite a few cats had tucked themselves in, behind her knees, at the hips, on her ribs and behind her neck. Silly things, but they kept her warm.

Cats, cat everywhere. Even including the one that sat beneath the arm of the couch and batted at her limp hair. Cris nudged the animal aside with his foot and stooped to collect the detritus of the days that had passed. Wadded napkins and tissues, an upturned cup and one of the pillows from the couch that had somehow made it to the floor. He was quiet about it, the only noise he made the shifting of buckles on his gear.

One doesn't spend time sleeping in alleys without getting a knack for keeping an ear open. The muttering stopped as Tanya stilled, gathering her bearings as much as possible, before groaning at the intrusion of sound and light to her less-than-peaceful state.

Cats moved while she shifted, some making their displeasure quite loudly known, and Tanya groused a bit, blanket still tucked up under her chin.

Cris took the groan for what it was, disturbed sleep, and half of his mouth turned up as he eased into a perch on the nearby table. "You know, you could make a blanket of these things and you'd never be cold again."

Working an arm out from under the blanket, Tanya grumbled and shifted up to a sitting position, scratching at her unkempt hair. "The cats? Nah. Never got a taste for outdoorsy stuff. That's mom." Squinting at the fading light, she frowned. "Time is it?"

"Somewhere within the five o'clock hour, last I checked." Hands folded, pressed together between his knees, Cris considered the tsunami of her hair and how very little comfort she must be finding on this couch. "How do you feel?"

Knuckling sleep-gunk out of her eye, Tanya glanced around balefully. "Kinda hungry. Probably should shower and junk, I dunno." Another measure of rising consciousness. The language seemed to be improving. "Your turn to keep overwatch again?"

"I'd thought about bringing at least some take-out to tide you over, but I wasn't sure. If you'd like me to bring you something before I go, I can." Half smile. "I'm only visiting."

Half-jokingly, half-bitterly, Tanya laughed, working her other arm out from the blankets. She'd made something of a cocoon out of them, which she worked on tucking into place. "You keep buying me dinner, people are going to think you're sweet on me, Cris." The dryer tumbled to a stop and let fly with a sharp buzzing noise.

Cris' gaze skidded off to the side at the sound, then returned. "I've heard myriad more irritating misconceptions, I assure you."

Tanya finished tucking the sheet around her torso to something close to satisfaction, but stopped midway to levering herself upright, giving him a look. "Dude, that was totally a joke." Moving with quite a lot of residual stiffness, she nonetheless managed to pull herself standing, the blanket draping from her chest to the floor. "Should probably get that, and get into something. Though if you're thinking Chinese again, I'd say plates or towels." She remembered the last visit, all too clearly.

"I know it was, but I was serious." Cris was rarely anything but. He stood when she did, pulled back a step to allow her room. "The same order as last time?"

Apparently, Tanya wasn't above learning a few things in the space of days spent in primarily feline company. First, she reached down to pull the blanket clear of her feet, and carefully shuffle-stepped toward the laundry closet. "Yeah, but . . . be a good idea for sauce on the side." When she got to the dryer, it didn't take long to pull out the contents. Someone had at least gotten her another shirt and a pair of baggy shorts with only a few holes near the pockets.

On her way to the bathroom, Tanya paused. "Oh, and . . . rangoons, if it's not too much trouble." Someone's been getting some appetite back.

"No. No, it's no trouble. I was going to stop by there at some point this evening anyway. They're used to seeing me often." Cris scratched at one Mark on his throat. "I'm not sure if I've asked you this, but have you a phone?"

The bathroom door was open, water already running, and Tanya leaned back cautiously while keeping the blanket up with one hand. "Yeah, we talked about that." Stepping back, she shook the small bundle of fabric. "No phone, no house, no nothing. Just this stuff you and Quinn gave me. Thanks again for that, if I forgot to say so."

They'd spoken a lot, and there were quite a few layers of recollection atop that simple fact. "Right. You're welcome. I will be back shortly." Before he left completely, Cris took a small card from the inside of his coat and left it on the table. Crispin Ashwood was printed in black, slanting script over a series of ten numbers.

He headed out, and down, the way he'd come.

That, at least, gave Tanya time to do something besides model the aesthetics of blanket-as-dress, so that when he returned, she'd had time to shower and change. The outfit he'd brought, as a matter of fact. Damp hair looked a great deal less untamed as she moved, picking up odds and ends that she knew were trash, by merits of her being the one to put them there. Anything else remained as-is, a simple fact of transient life. Unless you were willing to make it yours, don't go touching on other people's stuff.

Twenty minutes, nearly. Leung's was close, fast and he was a frequent enough customer to know when to time his call and pick-up so as to create a seemless experience. Once more the chug of a bike's engine rumbled outside, down a floor, and cut off abruptly. When Cris reappeared in the upstairs apartment, it was mid-swap of food from one bag to the other.

Obviously, Tanya still wasn't moving as fast (or as well-coordinated) as she'd like, since she was just then folding up the blanket and laying it on the couch. The black hakimas hung like drapes from her hips, but left her ankles and feet bare, the t-shirt a marginal fraction tighter around her torso, already showing much improvement in the fading bruising between ribs and hips. "That was fast. They psychic over there or something?"

"Not entirely. I happen to be an addict." One more swap, and Cris rolled one of the bags closed, leaving it on the table beside his card. "They've come to understand this."

"There's worse things." Glumly spoken, then Tanya pushed that aside, determined to be at least better, if not happy. "Smells good, though. I'm f . . . starving." A conscious correction?

Cris chuckled. "There's no need to censor yourself around me. Curse if you like. I do." Motioning toward the bag. "Sweet and sour chicken, sampler size of their bourbon dish as well. It's rather delicious. Fried rice, rangoons. Extra sauce. I believe I left you one egg roll."

"Yeah, well. All your **** has angels in it." Then he mentioned food, and one thing caught her ear and held it longer than the rest. Tanya she knew oriental cuisine, at least well enough to make another crack at being funny. "Bad call, dude. Bourbon's a bit stuffy for my taste. But the rest sounds like heaven." Leaning just a fraction on the couch for support, she took the bag and gave it an appreciative sniff. Half-smile.

Cris presumed her to mean the number of times he mentioned them. "Yes, well. I am only part, and I haven't a clean enough slate to judge." Chuckling, "If you don't want it, I'll take it back. It was originally for me."

Tanya stepped backward from the table, startling a cat, and held the bag away. "Mine now." Then the rest of what he said filtered in, sort of. "Part what?"

"Angel." Drawing back a single step. "Take it slow still, yes?"

Still feeling boisterous, Tanya kept her eye on him and dropped back onto the couch. "You're ****ing kidding me. Part angel?" She started opening the bag, breathing in the aroma. "And yeah, I know, careful. Half of this is probably going to wind up in the fridge. But, I'll have you know, mister Cris, that I haven't tossed my cookies in . . . two and a half days." Her math might've been off, but it's a forgivable error.

"No, I am not ****ing kidding you." Part of Cris' mouth curled. "That's a great accomplishment. I don't know exactly how kind this food is to your system, but it's at least something solid. And it's delicious," He shrugged.

Tanya moaned, crunching into the center part of a rangoon, where all the good stuff was. "I know. Broth this, broth that. At least I get something meaty around dinnertime. As prisons go, this isn't bad." Soon, the corners were gone too. "Metaphorically speaking, I mean. And hey, I'm half Atlantean and half ***hole, so what do I know?"

A line appeared between Cris' brows. "Unfortunately, I've not a pair of wings to whip out and show you. You will simply have to believe me. Have you given any thought on where you'd like to go afterward?"

"I'm not saying I don't, jeez. I mean, I'm not going to start mouthing off on the radio or knocking up sleazebag bimbo chicks to prove where part of me's from, and as for the rest, well." Tanya looked at the tattoos visible on her arms. "Pretty obvious." She went for some soup next, giving that question some thought. "No idea. Can't go to the docks, same with the posh parts of town. Guess I'd better start thinking of a way to make some scratch here soon."

Glancing down between his own legs, Cris laughed. An abrupt thing, it wasn't used to getting out much. "I'll take that as a compliment, thank you. Sunny Side Bed and Breakfast is still there. I can take you there one day. Otherwise, you may simply have to remain on this couch. It took me a great deal of time to find an apartment suitable enough."

Looking around the apartment while she chewed on egg roll, Tanya frowned. "Better be soon, then. No offense to the fuzzballs here, but I'm seriously gonna lose my **** if I stick around much longer."

"We wouldn't want that to happen." Cris nodded to the table. "If you can find a phone, you may call me. For any reason, yes? Not simply just for a trip. I listen well."

That made Tanya swallow hard, dropping the hand with the egg roll into her lap. Ducking her face behind still-damp hair a moment, Tanya nodded, speaking quietly. "Thanks. I will . . . and I'm probably going to need to. Soon. Call, I mean."

Tension in his jaw. Cris wasn't sure when he was supposed to head to Alex's fighting pits, he hadn't given a specific time for a reason. His unbroken study of her crown was meant to convey comfort in the hand he did not put on her shoulder. Instead, he stepped back. "I'll answer you."

So much went unsaid for a long moment, long enough for one of the cats to sneak a nibble of her egg roll. Coming back to herself, Tanya snatched the food up and away, glaring at the offending feline. "Hey, back off! Mine, you little ****er." Vehemence and bite, but nothing near a truly angry snap. When she looked up, she noted the distance. "So, yeah. You probably have places to be and stuff, right?"

Hell, Cris thought, he should have snapped the visit short five minutes ago. Rue tightened the wrinkle in his brow and the set of his mouth looked more like pain than severity. "I'm to meet a friend of mine this evening. She fights in one of the several venues along the Docks." Shifting, he set the bag of food down on the corner of a table and took up another one in the same seated position he'd sunk into earlier. "I join her, sometimes. But given the way her week has been going, I don't think she'd blame me if I let her have free reign for a little while on her own. I've not been by here in a few days. I should not just leave after only five minutes."

Flip-flops didn't do squat for stealth, and the rest of the outfit looked as ill-fitting as it did haphazard. Beggars can't be choosers, and resigning herself to a night of holding up pants where the drawstring didn't tie tight enough, Tanya mustered up enough courage to climb the front steps. That, however, is where it all drained away, with a shaky hand resting on the door for a moment. The logo on the sweatshirt had long faded into someone's memory, and hung loosely on a too-thin frame, dipping down nearly to her left bicep. Ink showed clearly in spots, as she fought with the urge to wander in and find something toxic to drink. Three weeks. Short to some, but an eternity to her, and that's all that had her turning to the swing instead.

The fact that water had been falling from the sky wasn't too much of an issue. She'd been rained on before, or worse. It just felt good, really, to get the **** out from that well-intentioned prison, and breathe relatively fresh, non-cat-hair-laden air.

"Oh my..." Luna had been so fixed on Leda, she hadn't noticed anyone else on the porch. A nod to the other, as she made way to the doors. She pulled the handle and held the door open for the woman, incase she was on her way in. "Evening miss."

Being slightly damp from the rain wasn't all that bad, depending on one's definition of slightly. Damp enough to wring water out of her hair, and damp enough that wiping her hands on the pants didn't do much to dry them. The night air wasn't cold, but even for the street-wise and wandering, wet clothes weren't a thing to take pleasure in. "Huh? Oh. Hey." A casual wave, but she didn't stare longingly into the warm light or anything. Liar.

"Coming inside, or pondering another dance with the rain?" Luna smiled, she hadn't even noticed there was any rain. The things women did to her. She was still holding the door open.

Panic flitted across Tanya's cheeks, not enough to bring the tremors back, but enough to prove worrisome. "I'd . . . probably better not. There's things in there that are . . . " She left the statement open-ended, not knowing this woman enough to shake out all the dirty laundry.

"Vampires, angels, wolves, monsters..." There was just about everything here, non of which bothered her. Luna looked at the woman, she wasn't in a hurry.

"What? Oh, no, not that ****. The stuff on the wall." So much for being mysterious and secretive. Looking like a hobo probably didn't help the issue.

Luna shrugged, "Suit yourself doll, if you change your mind, I'll be inside." A wink to the gal, then she slipped in through the door letting it close on its own as she made her way back to Zen. That smile growing ever wider.

Doll? That was something of a first. Most people usually started with "b" and ended with something that rhymed with twitch. "Yeah, sure." As the door shut, Tanya tossed out a gutteral sigh of epic proportions, slicking back wet hair as she made a point of staring at the door.

The flash of light and rolling boom tore Tanya's attention from the door a moment, reminding her of all the storms she enjoyed watching as a child. No few of those had involved a good soaking, but not a one had involved being alone. Goddess above, what was wrong with her? Did she really have to have a drink in her hand to have a good time? Did she even remember what a good time happened to be?

They had other stuff, din't they? Stuff besides memory-erasers and cough syrup, besides the sweet, sweet bliss of oblivion? They had a fire, that much Tanya remembered fairly clearly enough. The last made up her mind. If she could just manage slipping past the bar, the fire is a blessing.

Izumi's car could perhaps scarcely be heard, or a splash of headlights across windows to signal her arrival. In any case a few moments passed and the delinquent stepped through the door, clad in her genuine seifuku and club jacket - black jump boots clattering to measure her progress through the front doors and toward the bar. Once arrived she dropped her backpack and stretched arms and lower back with a yawn.

Just the opening Tanya needed, as the sandals slap-slapped on the soles of her feet, a mad dash to make the door before it closed again. It hurt, but such was life when someone spent three weeks lying on a couch.

Tobacco and alcohol stained the air, and Tanya sucked in a breath like a starving man inhaling the window of a buffet. With just as much success of satisfying the cravings. Goddess, she'd kill for a smoke right now. Or worse.

With all the yawning and stretching done, a yanki had little left to do but prowl through the bar and see about getting coffee. For a time she was watching Dark up there in the rafters, having been alerted to his presence by the bits of wood showering a table.

Tanya almost waved. Almost. But the wall. The bottles. "****." Pale as Death's correction fluid, she staggered a jerky sort of walk toward the hearth, the fire, and hopefully some peace.

Cris wasn't sure if he'd missed anything, but there was a stain of soggy turquoise that shattered his pathetic concentration on the two girls before him and forced him to turn. "Excuse me---" for the girls. He left his shotglass behind, did not pause on his way across the room to even greet Izumi. "Tanya." Little fanfare, no request for permission, he simply put one hand around her elbow and wrapped his other arm behind her back. "By the Angel, you're drenched."

The delinquent gave the v for victory sign in return to the wave. Then her attention turned to Tanya, whom she approached at the hearth with her mug in hand. "Are you okay there? You look a little peaked." But then.. Cris was there, so she nodded to the pair and moved to get herself a seat.

Tanya jerked, half-jumping away and the other half-crashing into a chair that nearly sent her a-tumble, it took her most of a moment to realize who this actually was in this lighting. "Cris." The word was a benediction. A life-preserver on a sea of desperate hope. And then it wasn't. "Uh, yeah. I . . . took a walk."

Skin gone clammy to the touch, with a heartbeat like a coop of fluttering doves, she looked around. Anywhere. Everywhere but the bar, and what it meant.

Settled down in her seat at the bar, Izumi was soon looking quite comfy and sipping the hot coffee. It seemed to bring her around quite nicely from the sleepy state she'd come in.

"Good evening, Izumi," Thankfully Cris had his chance. He kept his grip, features turning to stone. "Have they not given you access to a phone? That was not a simple walk."

The closest seat was an overstuffed chair, one that he usually saw another redhead lounging in. He did his best to lead her there, measuring his desire to get her there quickly with caution.

"Good evening to you Cris" the asian called over, setting the cup down for now and pressing her knuckles under her chin to support her weary head.

"Uh, what? Phone? Oh, no man. ****, Rick don't even have a TV." As far as Tanya knew, that was true. And it was the furthest thing from her mind, after confronting the dreaded juggernaut of opposition that had been a single flight of stairs, leading down to street level. Guided, the twin abuses of chill and wet started intruding on her subconscious, where the shaking lurked, bringing a tremble to her fingers and jaw. "I used to walk all the time, **** it. Couple miles or so won't kill me."

"It's the magic that surrounds their location. Technology fails, but antique telephones should work just fine given they're connected to something." Near enough to the chair, Cris took his place before Tanya, one hand for each of her elbows. "Sit. Would you like me to bring you something hot to drink?"

Sit? More like fall back with less grace than a stoned swan. Yes, yes Tanya wanted a drink. Whiskey. Gin. Vodka. "Um . . . coffee?"

"Any additions." Frowning, Cris tried to at least make sure she'd fall back straight. "Cream, sugar," clarifying.

The hopeful look dissolved into Izumi's usual easy going smile, with chin reclined a bit in a nod. "Glad to hearing that. I been real good"

"I dunno, just seemed like the thing to say. Haven't had much of it." So many people looking for cigarettes. Tanya would've licked the floor for one, no lie. "Whatever sounds good."

Izumi noticed the wild hunt for cigarettes too, and she happened to have hers handy. She withdrew the pack of Seven Stars from the outer pocket of her satin jacket and offered them around the whole bar to share out. Along with her old scratched chrome lighter.

Tanya wasn't looking at the bar, nope. But she stared at the pack, reaching. So far away . . .

"Coffee sounds abominable. But that's my own personal preference." Cris stepped back. "Stay here. I will be right back." His hands were wet where he'd touched her, forearm damp. He dried his palms in his hair and exhaled on his way back to the bar. Through the break. With a look of distaste sent to the coffee machines like they were an ancient enemy.

The delinquent jumped as well, a little high strung even when she was in her mellow mood and slightly sleepy. Nearly fumbling, but she recovered and made a tossing offering gesture over to Tanya at the hearth when she saw the staring eyes at the package in her hand.

The coffee smelled like tar, like always, but not old tar, the kind that would rot his gut were Cris to drink it himself. He filled a mug with it, paled it with cream, and sweetened it with sugar.

If Tanya hadn't been chattering her teeth and listening to Cris, she might have gone over to kiss delinquent feet for that. The toss had her fumbling a catch, but there's a lap, so safe landing. Shaky hands pulled out one tobacco-filled tube, and clicked the lighter a few times without success. Until suddenly, fire. She could've cried on that first drag, sucked in slow and deep, the burn to the lungs like an old lover's embrace. Not that she had any of those, but still. The sentiment.

Returning to the hearth, Cris put the mug on the nearest table, retreating to lean against the arm of one of the couches. Not quite a seat.

Izumi grinned at the successful delivery, showing the expanse of broad even teeth, the hand that had made the throw giving the v for victory signal.

Slow, slow curl of smoke from her nostrils, as Tanya curled her toes in the ambient firelight. The damp soaking into the chair wasn't going to win her any points, but at this juncture, there's not much in the way of choices. And now, coffee. Willing her hands to stop all the shaking, she managed about a 60% success ratio, enough to not send hot liquid spilling over the sides before she got a sip down. Heat blossomed in her throat, trickling down to her stomach, and was nearly enough to hide the grimace. "**** me, that's some nasty ****." So she drank again.

Not trusting herself enough to chance a return throw, Tanya looked up to Cris with more than her share of guilty twinge. "Could you . . . please?" Holding out the pack and not-so-surreptitiously glancing at the asian girl at the bar.

Izumi sampled her cup of coffee again, looking contemplatively up at the rafters for a moment as she considered the taste. She hadn't thought what had come out of the urn was too bad, but then she also liked horumonyaki so her taste was in question anyway.

Cris snorted. "It was your request, yes?" Holding out an open hand, he accepted the pack onto the silver scar decorating his palm. "Certainly." A half turn, he tossed the pack across the way with a seemingly careless gesture, but it flew straight and true toward its target.

Izumi raised her small hand to snag the flying pack of cigarettes, having no trouble with Cris's admirably accurate throw.

"Yeah, chalk up another on the long list of bad choices in life." Tanya drank again. "At least it's warm." Trading an inhale of coffee for an inhale of carcinogens, she settled back in the chair and let the smoke trickle rafter-ward. "Thanks for the smoke . . . lady." Lame finish.

"Izumi" the yanki called over cheerfully and helpfully.

Cris mock-chided. "I would have brought you cider instead. It tastes and smells infinitely better and I've noticed they keep a near constant supply on hand. Tea would have taken too long. Yes?"

"Tanya. And yeah, cider sounds good. Remind me of that next time, will you?" Determined not to let warmth go to waste, she drank again. Memories were funny things, intruding at the least opportune moments for congenial discussion. For example, the name. She'd heard it before. From Cris, as a matter of fact. Concerning . . .

((cont.))

He regretted the way the chug of his motorcycle cut through the serenity of the wood. Birds scattered, leaves long dead from the choking heat flew up in his wake. He pulled in at the corner of Sunny Side's main building and silenced the engine, giving his senses a chance to become reaccustomed to silence.

The small establishment had not changed since he'd moved out. Every part of the lawn was familiar to him. The path that led to the guest house he'd used, and even further still, the lake behind everything. He headed up the two stepped porch and went inside.

The room she'd been given wasn't large, nor did it need to be. One fairly small occupant with dreadfully little baggage to carry took almost no space at all. The first night or two hadn't been easy . . . Tanya would never admit it, but she'd grown used to the little walking mousetraps.

The weeks of being an invalid under the care of others, coupled with a regular infusion of proper food and abstinence of liquid poisons, had filled out her too-slender frame with new substance, shallowing the hollows of her cheeks, shading the pallor of her skin . . . and yet her mind still held the image of the mirror.

Still no television and very little of reading material had a secondary complication. Hang it all, she was bored.

When dealing with an old woman, one must prepare for twice the amount of time wasted than usual. He muscled through the obligatory, apple pie scented bear hug, quips about his frown and how little he'd eaten, and queries about his life now for the opportunity to let Bessy know that he was here to visit his friend. She gossiped in the way he expected she would and when he was finally set free, armed with information on Tanya's progress, he headed up the stairwell leading to the quaint rooms above and knocked upon one door in specific.

For once, she wasn't sacked out asleep when someone came to visit. Another side effect of living without cats, no doubt. But, it did take her a moment or two to answer. "Yeah, it's open. C'mon in."

Likewise, it took him a moment to actually enter. He did so quietly, mindful of the way he moved in someone else's space. The door eased shut at his back, he lifted his other hand. "How are you?"

She was seated on the bed, just tugging the biggest of her oversized second-hand sweatshirts into place, facing away from the door. "Good. I've been . . . catching things up in my head." No plates evident in the room. In fact, aside from the small pile of folded clothes on the dresser and the rumpled state of the coverlet, it was almost as if the room had no occupant. "How've you been?"

He'd noticed. Often, caught in his own grief, he'd woken stuck to the floor in a room that he did not remember wrecking. The neatness of the room surprised him. "Well, thank you. Perhaps a bit tired, but that's nothing entirely new. Bessy was kind enough to let me know that you've been eating."

"Yeah. We're good that way. She cooks, I eat." She's keeping herself just as clean, by the looks of things. Regular showers had done wonders for the hair and skin, what little of the latter showed. Hands, feet, neck and above. Everything else concealed beneath baggy fabric. "Got something keeping you awake?"

"The entire reason why I neglected to bring Chinese. She will have an entire meal for the both of us ready in fifteen minutes." Lingering near the door, he crossed his arms. Marks bled together on lean muscle. "I've a bit of trouble relaxing."

"Seems to be a lot of that these days." Scratching behind her ear, she looked over at him through wavy bangs of teal. "She's got a full spread going?" The look wasn't one of greedy anticipation. Dammitall, she liked Chinese.

Movement of his lips suggested the beginning of a smile. "I don't know. It's after dinner, so I'm assuming that she'll unpack leftovers and reheat them."

Looking down at the sweatshirt, she tugged the hem out to give it a critical look-over. It was quite clean, if a bit threadbare on the elbows and sleeves. "Well, I suppose as long as I don't have to change for it." Shoulders sagging with a sigh, she kept close watch on an imaginary spot on the floor. "I . . . " A bit of hesitation.

"You don't. When I lived here with Josiah, there were times he ate half clothed." Her beginning caught his gaze from the window and brought it back to her. Silence was his favorite prompt.

That got her to laugh, a short, sharp sound. "I don't think I'll be getting away with that anytime soon." The thought had Tanya shaking her head ruefully. But she did remember that much from their conversations. So, she began again. "I hate asking you for more help, Cris. I . . . need something to do. A job." Letting go of the shirt, she let it fall back into place, still eyeing the floor. "And I doubt I'll get one, looking like this."

More surprise, but Tanya had always brought that out. He blinked at her even though she didn't see it and before she mistook his continued silence for something it was not, he replied. "I thought you might. For that---I suggest that you speak to Rick. I can assure you the thought is already in his mind."

That got her to look up from the floor, at any rate. "Rick's got a job for me? Seriously? As what, watcher of cats?" Obviously, she'd never been downstairs during her stay.

"When last we spoke, he asked for my opinion on whether or not you'd be ready for a job if he had one for you. You'd be assisting them around the shop they own. Any other detail, you'll have to take up with him. He expressed the desire to speak with you about it himself."

For a long moment, she sat there gaping at him, dumbfounded.

Blinking, dark brows slowly rose. "What?"

The facade couldn't hold. It didn't have much of a foundation to start with, to tell the truth about it. While her fingers gripped the coverlet, a single tear slipped free before she could stop it, turning away quickly.

Arms fell from their cross. He had half a mind to take a step closer, but he didn't. Instead, he watched with rapt attention, the line of her shoulders and the ocean colored waves of her hair.

Still facing away from him, Tanya wiped tears off of her cheeks as fast as they fell, fighting down the urge. With a sniffle, she took in a deep breath, shook her head, and stood to go to the basin. " . . . thank you . . . " The sound might've come from a little girl, for all the noise it made.

"It was not my idea, Tanya...." he wanted that to be clear at least. The list of things she'd thanked him for was already uncomfortably long as it was. "But I am glad to hear you'd like to try."

Wetting a cloth, she dabbed at her eyes, pointedly not looking in the small mirror on the wall there. "Don't know how good I'll be at it, or whatever, but yeah. I'll try. Mighty big debt to pay off. Gotta start somewhere." The scent of food wafted up from below, reminding her of how long it'd been since lunch.

Her skill level was the furthest thing from either Rick or Quinn's minds. He knew that already, but for some reason, expressing it didn't seem right. "It's something to do. A distraction. Yes?"

Wringing out the cloth, she judged herself as ready as she was going to be, and nodded. "Yeah. That. I guess I'll have to get back into town at some point to talk to him, then. Figure out what's what." Oddly enough, she wasn't swearing as usual. Might be the surroundings.

"I guess," agreeing. "I'm certain he'll be able to answer all of your questions and calm your concerns."

Leaning heavily on the dresser, she shook her head, letting out a mirthless chuckle. "I don't even know if I should ask for a paycheck."

"Then don't. Use it for the opportunity that it is, yes? In the meantime...." he trailed off, lifted one shoulder. The mantra of I'll help you. was starting to become difficult to say, if only because he'd already done it enough that he thought it to be obvious now.

"G- . . . " She bit down on that. "Damn it, Cris . . . I hate owing people." When she turned to look at him, her eyes were still damp, but more with frustration than anything.

Mouth pressed to a line, he finally took those steps forward. Away from the door, but not entirely close to her either. "Unfortunately, I can't fathom turning my back now, unless you'd rather me do so. If you do---tell me. I'll respect that. I doubt that Rick or Quinn want anything from you beyond seeing you live well."

Another shake of the head, and she just stood there, eyes burning a figurative hole in the floor. " . . . I just don't know what I've done to deserve this. Any of this."

Angel's mercy but maintaining that distance was somehow incredibly difficult. Silence and a gesture spoke volumes. He trusted his actions more than his words. "You'd a sister who had very good friends."

That, actually, had been one of the things she'd cogitated on during her time here. "More like a 'that would be me, with the right genetics' example. But, just because she made them, it doesn't mean that I . . . " Nope. She couldn't finish that thought. He'd called her deprecating before. This was . . . something else entirely.

"Your ability to recognize this says more about who you truly are than about how you see yourself. It's very courageous to want to silently undertake your own troubles, to shy away from burdening others with what you think are nothing but weaknesses." There were only four steps between them and he took them all, reaching for her shoulders like he'd seen her begin to sway on her feet. "But you can't exactly control how others see you. Sometimes, it's better not to question it or attempt to rationalize why someone wants to help you. In the end, it's simply important that they did."

Swimming in the oversized getup, she looked at him. They were nearly of a height, but the illusion of small and frail hung over her like a miasma. She looked . . . lost. In nearly every sense of the word.

He'd never bothered to look at himself for long eight years ago. He'd seen photographs of when he was seventeen and the hollow ditches that passed for his eyes coupled with the dead line of his mouth. His had been the face of one trapped in a world without an exit and to this day, he had yet to discover what two Warlocks had seen inside of him to want him around.

The second time, his own reflection terrified him and he drowned that in whatever he could.

He wondered, idly, if he ever looked like this. Like the glue he'd used to hold the pieces of himself together were melting and he could feel the seperation. It would hurt him far worse to retreat. So instead, he murmured a quiet Come here. and stepped forward, looping one Marked arm around her shoulders, meaning to draw her into as warm an embrace as he could muster.

Like one tiny step over a yawning chasm, she fell into that embrace, face crumpling like the wad of tissue she'd be needing in a moment. It wasn't the raw flood of anguish she'd unleashed on him in a drunken stupor. Quiet, shaking sobs wracked her as she curled up her arms and let him hold on.

Action. In her place, anything anyone told him would surface like a sea creature in the ocean of his anguish and sink again, too quickly to hold onto. He rested his chin in the dip of her shoulder, his palm curved to the shape of her head. She smelled like soap and laundry detergent. Clean. Without the stain of alcohol or bile or cats.

He had muscle somewhere on his lean frame and he was a warm, firm pillar for her to fall against, solid with his own conviction. He preferred anger to emotion in nearly everyone he saw. Watching others break had never been a pasttime of his and once he saw it, it was difficult to forget. Her muted shudders were worse than her screams.

At the very least, she'd had the chance to soften the sharp planes of bone beneath the skin during the sobering process. Taking solace in the balm of his solidity, it wasn't too long before the sobbing calmed. Worlds better than turning to retch up her toenails, a memory that still burned and tinged her cheeks red. The embrace had gone on maybe a single moment too long, with the slight movement of her face toward his, when she gently pushed at his chest, tucking the untidy heap of emotions back into the box. " . . . sorry. I'm . . . I'm okay. For now."

He felt it but thought nothing of it. Crying changed people. It forced movement when there should be none. As tight as he'd held her, the embrace was surpringly easy to break. His arms uncoiled from her body, palms to her shoulders to set her back like she'd attempted with her push. In another time, place, he would not have stopped.

Tone fit the moment. Hushed and gentle, "If nothing I say will deter you from the thought that you owe me something---consider your attempts, your successes, even your failures should you have them, your payment to me. Yes? I could happily take nothing else from you."

Something pained crossed her face for a moment, but she let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, and nodded. "Okay. I can deal with that. I think."

He was nothing if not a realist. Neglecting to mention the possibility of failure was like making a promise he could not keep. "Keep it in the back of your mind. You needn't worry about anything now beyond the fact that Bessy will barge in here soon should we not head downstairs and lavish her with praise on her cooking skills."

"Right, right. I hope it's the chicken and dumplings. Those were pretty good the other night." Silently, she thanked the goddess he hadn't caught that look. It'd be iffy to explain before they had company. "Okay. So, let me clean up my face again, and we'll head on down, alright?"

"Take your time." Finally, his hands slid away from her shoulders. He took one step back, then turned for the door. "I will be there when you're ready."

Dabbing with the still damp cloth, she looked at the mirror then, but focused on his image instead. "Are you sure you aren't into dudes?" A bit of levity, and probably ill-timed.

"Tell me honestly that, should something happen, you'd not look back on it one day and think I took advantage of you," over his shoulder.

She gave the notion a good, lengthy thought while she finished up the cleaning. "No. I wouldn't. I mean, it's not like I'm thinking rings and white picket fences, barbeques and two-point-five kids . . . " She shrugged. "Still say you're too Galahad." Wringing out the cloth as much as she was able, she took it to the tiny hamper, which was all she needed, considering. "Let's go eat."

"Then I'll tell you this. Were I single and looking to get laid, I'd not hesitate." He pulled the door open, eased it a little wider for her to catch.

She actually stumbled at that. "Oh, **** Cris . . . I'm sorry. I didn't mean . . . " Shoe-leather appetizer, and she's still barefoot. That takes talent. Flustered into silence, she meekly made her way to follow him.

There, he smiled. "I know." He didn't know what else to say. And so he led the way down. Melted cheese, cooked chicken, and celery pervaded the air with their promises.

It should be noted that all through dinner, she remained uncharacteristically silent.



(Thank you, Tanya Acheron!)

"Nice to meet you too, Fin." Waving tiredly, Tanya glanced at her water glass.

Helena's eyes bulged and her lips all but vanished. Oh, he would be getting an earful.

They moved on out the door, the lass behind the counter hiding a smile behind her hand.

Claire waved after the departing pair, relaxing slightly now that they had the shop to themselves mostly. "We all do that, it happens." She shrugged and tugged at a piece of the cinnamon roll, not nearly as hungry as she had been when she came in. "Not as well as I would have liked...she um, was actually closer with my uh, now husband, Noct. He's got a soft spot for insufferable bitches." She meant that in the most loving way possible of course as evidenced by the hint of a smile.

"Don't tell me that, he'd probably fall all over me. Wait, that didn't come out right." Sitting back in the chair, Tanya lifted her hands like Claire might really come after her for saying that. Time for a subject change. "So . . . you did the memorial thing?" Hazy memories of that, but at least there's some sober recollection.

Claire Farron actually laughed, clapping her hand over her mouth with a soft giggle. "I'd so kick his ***. Probably." She lifted a hand in a dismissive gesture. No harm, no foul. Her expression went solemn and she nodded. "Yeah. It just...felt like the right thing to do. We've actually started a program in the Dockside district...outreach, you know? Hope that no one has to...go through that..." Deflated, definitely.

"Something else I wish I'd known about." Tanya trailed off, musing down dark thoughts.

Claire rubbed a hand over her mouth to wipe away the frown. Breath in and held, aquas on Tanya. "You can't blame yourself for something like that." Gods knew she had done plenty of that in the past four months. "I've sat and driven myself insane wondering what I could have done differently to...change things, I guess. Gotta just...make the best of it...you know?"

Resting her elbows on her knees, Tanya slumped forward, letting her head hang. "You did better than I did, then. I used to wonder what things would be like if I could just find a way back home, y'know? After that . . . it just felt like it wouldn't matter."

Claire tried to restrain the hint of a wince that touched her expression. "I can understand that I suppose. I'm not...from here either, I guess you could say." Another rub of her hand across her face. Words were hard and trying to keep this on the up and up just wasn't working. "Running away doesn't do **** . The problems just hang out in the back of your mind until they can catch you alone and that's when it all goes to hell. Need another drink?" Of water.

"Yeah, sure. I mean, please. Sorry . . . nerves are still a bit shot, I guess." Something else made a noise, and that Tanya wasn't proud of, happy about, or any other combination of good-times words. "Sorry. **** ****, I keep saying that, don't I?"

"No problem, don't worry about it." Unconcerned with manners or what have you, Claire tilted her head en route to the counter. Water and a few treats were exchanged for a handful of silver and she trailed back to the table to unload her haul. Saran wrapped baked goods dotted the table, ripe for the taking. "You do but it's okay. **** happens. So look, I know you don't know me from...I dunno, whatever. But what do you feel like you need to be...I dunno, better?" She left it open in hopes of keeping from narrowing down any offers.

There was about thirty seconds more hesitation than could politely be considered comfortable, before she grabbed up a pastry and started peeling away plastic. "That all depends on your definition of 'better'." Tanya bit in, and only just managed to keep herself from moaning. Oh, that was good stuff. "If you mean spiritually, I need something to do with my time, and that's what Cris said to talk to Rick for. Physically, I'm okay, a few sore spots or whatever, but those will pass. Socially? That's where I'm boned. And not in the good way."

One corner of her mouth quirked upwards briefly as Claire watched Tanya before reminding herself it's awkward as hell to watch someone eat and instead she picked at the cinnamon on her plate, finger poking at a gooey glob of icing. "Mmk. Time. Rick, got it. Physically, if all else fails, I've got a training place out by my place...they've got a doc on hand if you need anything worked out." A pause to sip at her tea, brow arching. "What do you mean? Rough and tumble is all the rage in Rhy'din."

Tanya shot Claire that look, the one that says are you sure you want me to answer that succinctly?

Claire's brows rose in an almost innocent and expective wellllll?

Oh well. She asked for it. "Everything I had before either got stolen or burned, deservedly, so I'm up to about six days worth of second-hand clothes out of lost and found bins. I brush my teeth with my finger, or did up until Bessy caught me. I'm hoping I don't have to jog into town every day to get to whatever Rick's wanting me to do, but I will if I have to, and I'd just about kill or **** for cigarettes and a razor." Tanya had been down at the docks alright. Mentioning all of that didn't stop her from taking another bite.

"Well..." Claire paused thoughtfully to consider that. "If whatever this is with Rick pans out, perhaps some of that will be helped. Otherwise, what do you do well? And how can you use that to better all that crap?" She fluttered her fingers vaguely before setting an elbow to the bar and cupping her chin in her palm.

Tanya shook her head. "Not gonna ask him for a paycheck. Even if I didn't owe him, Quinn, and Cris . . . well, everything, the temptation's just too much. Obviously, my kung-fu is weak as ****, so no dice there. I've done odd jobs, a little maintenance, data entry. I cook, when I have the means."

"So you're just gonna like...indenture yourself to him?" Claire said skeptically before snorting and shaking her head. "I don't see Rick going for that, but alright." Her fingers drummed against her cheek as she listened, thinking face put on. "Cooking huh? Like...well?"

"I repainted his hallway in one of the worst ways possible. I'm not talking slavery or **** like that, but maybe payment in goods instead of something that might tempt me to slip back into bad habits. And I do alright. It's not gourmet, but I can cook most things." Tanya blushed a touch. "I used to do some singing and dancing, back home. But I don't think that'd be good here."

Contemplation evident in her expression, Claire bounced back and forth between a few thoughts with a slow nod. "I understand not wanting to slide backwards...good on you there. I'd say we're looking for help at the Sassy Owl down the way but yeah, bar...bad idea, I'd bet. Hmm." Brows rose further. "Like performing stuff? My sister does **** like that, some club place with singers and dancers. You'd be surprised, you might find something that'd suit your skills...here you had me thinking you couldn't read or something like that."

"In three languages, but that's nothing special." The pastry almost gone, she took a drink of water, then studied what's left. "You know my m . . . her, right?"

"Three's more than some. Hell, some can't even handle Common around here." Claire shifted in her lean, her free hand tracing circles around the teacup's rim. "I...don't know her personally, really. Met in passing here and there. You don't mean like that kind of dancing do you?"

"Oh hell no. I'm not bulletproof like she is, for one thing. But, how long before someone who's seen her sees me and makes that very assumption?"

"So you're going to limit yourself out of fear of living in someone's shadow?" Claire canted her head and levelled a somber look upon Tanya. The themes sounded a bit too familiar for her liking and the concern was evident in the knit of her brows. "I've found around here that...people are less apt to judge you by your blood than by your actions. Blood only goes so far."

"Yeah, but I'd rather not get put into the position of running a knife through the first jackass' hand who tried something. Bad all around." Tanya set the last bite down and sighed. "Don't think I could pull off an audition right now if I tried. Haven't practiced in months, and I really meant that about a razor." She made a show of vapidly fluffing her hair. "Who's gonna hire a singer with green hairy legs?"

"Someone who's into that sort of thing?" Claire couldn't help the touch of a wry smile that wobbled at the edges of her mouth. "I think you oughta think about it at least. See if it's worth persuing. I mean, like you said, you don't think you could do it right now but maybe it's something to work toward?" Something to look forward to rather than backward at. That much remained unspoken.

"I don't want to meet that person. Or people. Or whatevs. Besides, just how much of a music industry does this town even have? If I'm going to be selling books or bussing tables anyway, I might as well keep the music stuff close to the vest. Share it with friends and not get trouble, y'know? When I get friends, that is." Pushing the plate away, Tanya mused aloud for a brief moment. "Wish he'd told me sooner . . . "

"I mean if you want. Just worth having something to work for, long term goals that go beyond the here and now, you know?" One of Claire's shoulders pinched in a brief shrug. "Rick's your friend, at least it sounds that way with the way he talks about you. Told you what?"

"Huh? Oh, ****, nothin', just thinking out loud. You mind if I . . . ?" Tanya made a motion to one of the other still-wrapped pastries. "Something for the wa- wait. Rick talks about me?" That came as something of a surprise.

"Go right ahead." Murmured words accompanied a brush of fingers in the direction of the food. Leaning back in her seat with a scratch of nails against her cheek, Claire shrugged nonchalantly. "He and I don't seem to really...have a lot in common. I think he only agreed to training with me to finish whatever he and...Lila," the name still caused a dull ache in her chest each time it was said, "had started. But when he does talk, yeah, it's Quinn or Bob or sometimes the small handful of people he actually does seem to like. You're on that list somewhere in there."

And it hurt Tanya too, by the sudden glisten in her eyes that had her turning away. "Who's . . . who's Bob?"

"...you haven't met Bob?" Cue the incredulous brow arch. Claire didn't know whether to laugh or warn Tanya to run for the hills.

"Can't say if I have or not. Pretty common name, and chances are, I was probably drunk off my *** if I did." Tanya mused. No sense in hiding from it. The past is the past, so long as it doesn't color the present.

Claire blew out a low whistle. "Bob's a uh...friend-ish sort of person-thing of Rick's. Lives in their basement. Has a blog and writes fanfics...likes possessing small animals and dueling..." That about summed him up. "Uh, tentacles."

" . . . " For a long moment, Tanya just stared. "No. No, I think I'd remember that. He never . . . goes upstairs, does he?" Possesses small animals? The apartment's FULL of small animals. No few of whom had slept on her butt.

"He gets out to the duels so...I dunno. I guess he might be able to..." That would certainly be a pleasant thought for poor Tanya. Tentacle Bob all up on that booty. Sleep well. "He's um, good though." Sometimes. Maybe.

There will be nightmares. "Greeeeeaat." And just like that, Tanya thought, it's time for a subject change. "So . . . when's the big day?"

Some faintly pained expression ghosted across Claire's pale features, gone as quickly as it had arrived. A tight smile would have to do instead. "January twenty fourth supposedly." Her tea had gone cold but that didn't stop her from sipping at it anyways.

"You sound utterly thrilled at the idea. In fact, you sound like me last week." Picking out a still-wrapped sweet, Tanya set it on the small folded towel.

Claire grimaced. "Well, I managed to **** one of my offspring up in a completely different timeline and failed to repair any of that damage when given the chance. Being responsible for raising another human being is terrifying, not gonna lie." Another drink to try and wet her Sahara-like mouth. "I found out I was pregnant just a few weeks after Lila..." she trailed off with a vague roll of her wrist. "It's sorta bittersweet."

Tanya nodded then, something of a softening to her eyes as she let go of more bitter. "Sorry. I really shouldn't be prying like that."

"No, no, it's fine." A shake of her head and a straightening of her posture preceded a gentle replacement of the teacup to saucer. "Just...gotta keep moving forward right?" Putting on her best attempt at a smile, all things considered, Claire scooted the chair away from the table and rose with an apologetic nod. "I oughta head out though, need to make a quick round by a few things on the way home. But," she paused to shuffle out the little business card she had taken out at the start of all of this offering it out after a moment, "if you need anything, holler. I'm in a town a lot...feel free to swing by the Sassy Owl and ask for me, if I'm not around at least grab a meal."

"Yeah, me too. Think I'll take the trip back at a jog, then hope Bessy doesn't get too mad at me for a late night swim." Tanya took the card, and let out a short laugh. "You and Cris. Sassy Owl have a non-bar section?"

Claire had come to favor cards over messily scribbled digits on napkins. "Yeah, dining area is good to go. Good pizza if you're into that sort of thing." She made a mental note to drop word with the staff that they weren't to serve the green haired one anything with alcohol. "Take care of yourself. You've got people pulling for ya, in your corner, all that jazz."

"Thank you." Still looking at the card, Tanya almost didn't notice the tear drop, before she hurriedly wiped at her face with her sleeve. "Something else I keep saying all the time."

Claire had sense enough to not 'notice' the tear as it tried to spill down the woman's cheek, gaze flickering over toward the counter then toward the door. "Ya wanna take the rest of that?" A nod toward whatever was left unclaimed on the table. "I'll set it down somewhere and forget about it and it's already paid for and such. Hate to see it go to waste." A backwards shuffle of feet was slowly taking her toward the door as she worked on her farewells. "It'll be alright in time, I promise."

"Yeah. Thanks." Awkward farewells went both ways, so Tanya opted to smile and wave, before seeing if the girl behind the counter had a baggie to spare.

"It's no problem." Smile and wave returned in kind, Claire turned a one-eighty on her heel and nudged the door of the shop open to let the ringing of bells herald her exit into the muggy night.

((Adapted from live play. Big shoutout to Claire, FinMack, and Ciemny Panna! Thank you so much!))

Jaycy snorted, a maliciously amused light sparking the gold flecks her in eyes as she imagined Dawn as a mastiff. "I walked into a wall." A dip of her head indicated her appreciation of the favor but she left the bottle on the table for the time. Instead she unwrapped the croissant and picked it up in her left, lightly holding it. "I walked into a wall." For all that she wanted to make Tanya relax around her, it wouldn't have been fair to tell her more than she'd told close friends. Besides, Tanya was still a stranger.

"Riiiight." Taking the smallest drink of milk she could manage, she also unwrapped her croissant, her train of thought nearly derailed by the sweet scent of chocolate. "And I had a shot one night." Her joke-timing can still use a bit of work. "No, it's cool. I understand. Haven't been that free and open around most either." Picking off a corner of the pastry, she popped that into her mouth and chewed. Mmmm. Buttery goodness.

"There's nothing wrong with that - not being open around most - as long as you have one or two people you can be open with." She shrugged lightly, lifting the left shoulder while the right arm remained stationary and loose at her side. "It's generally safer, here." Gaze flicked again - for perhaps the fifth or sixth time - toward the visible tattoos. She didn't comment on them, however. "I'm guessing you don't remember the last time I saw you?" Assumption made after Tanya asked if she'd 'puked on her.'

"I've got one or two . . . oh, man, did I puke on you? The past few months were . . . " She trailed off there, because there were no words, really. BAD didn't quite do it justice.

"No, you didn't," she answered firmly, intending to put Tanya's mind to rest at least on that score. "I promise, you didn't." She finally took a bite of the croissant, taking a moment to show her appreciation with a little flutter of her eyelids as eyes themselves rolled back and a rumbly little mmm. Chew, swallow, sigh of pleasure. "Mmm." She smiled again, focusing once more on the woman. "I can imagine. You were not well, the last night I saw you in the Arena. Your friend took you, and I had wondered at how you were. You seem ..." she trailed off, brows knitting. She didn't want to say 'better' or any of its ilk. "You seem like he has taken good care of you." Hopefully that wouldn't be too insulting.

" . . . " She'd blushed before. Now, her cheeks looked positively wind-chapped. "Yeah. He did. So did Cris. I'm out at this little retreat thing now, though. Rick's got too many cats."

A soft chuckle as she finally set down the croissant to take up the bottle and have a sip. "As good as I claimed?" Jaycy indicated Tanya's pastry with an upnod, chuckling, before taking another drink. Best to steer in and out of the tough subjects, to keep from overwhelming Tanya with embarassment.

Nodding, not trusting her words at the moment, she pinched off another bite, eating to both savor the sweetness and make it last. But after a moment, the silence grew too oppressive. "Did . . . did I yell at you or something?" The Jaycy of her timeline was a mystery at best, a shadowy figure of some renown that most people spoke in hushed whispers about. This version seemed . . . much more approachable.

"I don't think so." That was very likely a lie, but truth be told, Jaycy couldn't remember if she did. "Even if you did, I'd forgotten it. I get yelled at a lot. Usually by Psly when I'm poking at him while he's trying to sleep." A brief grin, meant to bring an answering smile on Tanya's face. "No, nothing like that. I'm not upset at you in any way," she added, smile fading as she sought to reassure her. "I just want to get to know you."

That brought a whole new level of mixed emotions to play across her features. "I'm sorry . . . I just-" She trailed off, swallowing hard. "I just don't know why, is all. I don't mean to be rude, but this is all straight out of left field. Why me?"

She allowed the question to hang between them for several moments - not because she wanted to raise tension but because she genuinely thought of the answer. Her head tilted left and green-gold eyes took on the glazed shift of the pondering person. Finally, she refocused on Tanya. "Because you seem connected to two people I know and have at one point or another considered friends." The answer was nothing more or nothing less than the truth; Tanya deserved that even if it was a truth she wouldn't be happy with. "Two people I have never slept with," she quickly clarified, though, remembering Tanya's previous outburst at the thought of Jaycy being intimate with Harris.

The abrupt influx of information stymied Tanya for a moment, causing her to blink, and cover one of her tattoos with her other hand out of reflex. "Oh. So . . . you know them." The declaration had no bite to it, merely a statement of fact. "For a while now, I'd guess."

"Aye," she agreed, nodding slightly before taking another bite of her croissant. "Harris," she continued after swallowing, "? for most of my 17 years here in Rhydin. Kali?" She paused again, once more canting her head. "Ummm. Significantly less, but at least 5?" A shrug of the left arm and she took a sip from her milk. She didn't yet ask how Tanya was actually connected to the pair; it was Tanya's choice to reveal such information or no.

"And they've never . . . ?" Half of the question slipped out before she bit down on it, inwardly cursing the weakness of her brain-to-mouth filter. A touch of color pinked her cheeks, and she went for another bite to keep her mouth from spitting out more stupid inquiries.

"Never what?" Brows knit at the question but she didn't seem to be troubled by the possible answer. Her expression remained (hopefully) open and friendly, offering no judgment on Tanya's behavior - past or present. As part of that, she didn't want to assume the conclusion of the question.

Open honesty deserved the same. When she finally came to that conclusion, Tanya's shoulders sagged a trifle, and she dew in a deep breath, keeping her voice low. "In another time and reality . . . they're my parents." After that, the drain couldn't be plugged. Her father's death. The Egyptian. The statue. Her mother's retirement from dueling to pursue other hobbies. Being a latchkey child. It all came tumbling out, punctuated by a quiet tear or two that she wiped away swiftly.

"Oh, hon," she whispered, full of sympathy at the tale. Left hand free, she extended it across the table. She wouldn't force contact but offered a lifeline for the pain. "I'm very sorry," came a moment later, ringing of sincere shared pain.

"I never knew him. I wasn't born for another six months afterward. But people kept telling me." It wasn't much, but she put her hand out too, staring at the floor. "I had big shoes to fill, they said. I brought him . . . the one here, I mean . . . the sword. He didn't want it."

Gently she brushed fingers over Tanya's returned hand before she took it in her own. There was no sensuality in the touch but an offered warmth, inviting. "They - Harris in your past and the Harris here?" Never 'in your reality'. "? are different people. And the Harris here, I feel, believes in each standing on his or her own, making life his or her own. The sword was not his to take; it was yours to live as you will." She paused. "Are you going to go back to this other ? place?"

"I gave it to him anyway." More like left it with him. "And I don't know. I didn't try very hard to get back, and Mom . . . she's always busy. I always thought there wasn't anything else for me there, until I figured out how much I've lost. Now, I guess it really doesn't matter. Here, there . . . it's all the same. Starting from the bottom."

"Starting, aye," she concurred, beginning to withdraw the contact but moving slowly enough to allow Tanya to retain it if she wished. "But not remaining, if you don't want to." Offering a slight smile, she flicked a glance toward the girl's croissant and back up again. "Not remaining alone, if you don't want to." Another pause; how much should she offer in words? "You've friends here, who want to help you. I want to help you. And not because of who you're connected to, but because after talking to you, I tentatively like you." Her words weren't too effusively praising of the girl's virtues; the assessment of her feelings toward Tanya - the tentative - was baldly honest.

There was a subtle squeeze, but she let go all the same. "I don't know how I got them, though. From what I can remember, I've been pretty much nothing but a bitch. Some of them were Lila's . . . but Cris I think has some issues of his own." She managed a sort-of smile, and glanced up from the floor. "Thanks."

The B&B's afternoon serenity was somewhat disturbed with a series of rather firm knocks on a specific door on the second level and a shout that the guest inside had a telephone call, and would they please take it downstairs.

Tanya had been sitting at the window, looking out into the peaceful countryside when the call came. She felt worlds better, almost human. And the sentiment passed through her voice, as she only knew of a couple people
who knew where she was. Picking the phone up, she smiled. "This is Tanya ... "

Cris' voice answered. "Tanya," it came through on a smile however brief. "I apologize for this, I feel it a bit rude considering how many times I've visited you in the past. But I'm on my way home, at the moment. How are you?"

Even though he couldn't see, she could barely constrain the good news bubbling up inside. "Igotajob!" It all came out quick, much higher-pitched and louder than her normal voice. "Okay, so two, if you count Rick's, but I did it!"

"Two? Angel's mercy, what is the other one?"

"Morning manager at a stationary shop. It's down in Dockside, but I know my way around there enough to keep out of trouble. Ever hear of Midnight Oils?" Her mind recalled the image of all the recent purchases that still remained upstairs, but Tanya exalted in the fact that she could finally wear shorts without feeling horribly self-conscious about the sad state of green hair below the hips. The joy showed in both stance and voice.

Cris chuckled, "Had I not known it to be a stationary shop, I would've definitely formulated my own conclusion." There was a privacy afforded to phone calls that let barriers drop and grins live. "Where exactly is it? I do, at times, have need of writing utensils that actually work."

"I know, right? I said the same thing! 'Derp, is there a happy ending package?' I felt like such a 'tard!" She laughed. "I'll have to show you, but it's like, literally right off the docks. You'd totally dig it. All old school. Jaycy doesn't even have a register!"

"I suppose that sort of false advertising would lose them business." The phone clicked, then made shuffling sounds, as Cris switched his phone from one ear to the other. "Do I seem the type to enjoy "old school" things?"

"Dude, you carry like thirty knives, and I've ridden on that bike. Oh! I almost forgot! She scored me a bike to ride back and forth to work!" An electric model, without much in the way of frills, but it beat walking hands-down.

"Only ten, but I'd like more, yes." Half smiles did not translate as well, but Cris made one on his end anyway. "When do you start?"

"Monday. Dude, she took me shopping, can you believe it?" Half-smiles might not, but Tanya's smile came through loud and clear. There wasn't the underlying sense of soul-eating guilt, for one thing.

Unfortunately, the "male" part of his genetics kept him from sharing her enthusiasm for shopping. "I---can't, and can. At the same time, as odd as that sounds."

"I might actually look decent enough to walk around in public, now." She giggled. She hadn't done that before.

"You were clothed all the other times you ventured out of doors, yes?" Cris teased.

"Shut up, you know what I mean!" Now she laughed. "So when are you going to take me to this Chinese place you've got me hooked on? I'm, like, dying out here."
Tanya paused, but continued in a lower voice. "Soon, seriously. Bessy's good, but there are times when I wish she'd let me have a go at the kitchen. And she never makes Chinese, like ever."

"Of course she doesn't, she is not Chinese. As skilled a cook as she is, I wouldn't trust any Chinese dish she made."

"Really? I learned how to do fried rice when I was like, eight or something. You gonna let me make something for you sometime?"

"Considering what I just said, how much would you actually like to try?" The soft chuckle meant that Cris was kidding. Hopefully. "Is that something you'd like to do ?"

"It depends on if you trust me with food I've known how to make for twenty years." If she could've stuck her tongue out at him, she would've. "Besides, you've never asked me anything about what I used to do before I bellyflopped off the wagon."

"It didn't seem relevant at the time." Further shuffling, and a soft murmur. "You've still the card I left, yes? ....I---hope I left one, at least. I give them out a bit at random."

"Yup, and tomorrow, I'm getting one of those pay as you go phones, so if you get a strange number calling, at least let it hit the voicemail, okay?"

"I will. At present, I can do nothing this evening, but---perhaps in a couple days. Yes?"

"Sure! I need to do some figuring out things anyways, see how long it takes me to get from here to there on this bike, and how much I can put on it. Lunch, or dinner?"

"Dinner will give you more time. I'll warn you, the Leungs have a cat."

"That's okay. I'll wear something I don't mind getting cat hair on." Yeah, Tanya missed the fuzzballs, but it'd be like pulling teeth to get her to admit to it.

"Something that's not black. The cat is white and rather affectionate," says the man who seem to own no other color. "I'm glad to hear you're doing well, Tanya."

"Yeah . . . and again, it's thanks to you guys. I really do owe you, y'know. And I'll remember that, not black." She cupped her hand over the phone for a moment, then her smiling voice returned. "Hey, I gotta scoot. I've got just enough time for a little lakeside yoga and swimming before lights out. You get home safe, okay? I wanna be sure you're there when I get my first look at this famous menu!"

He waited, listening, even as he too set out on his own journey home. "I wouldn't miss it. I promise. Have a good evening, Tanya."

"You too, bucko!" Another giggle, and she gently hung up the phone, before dashing off to nab a towel and race for the lake.

((Again, with much thanks to Cris!))