[Izzy Montoya] "Jesus Christ, O'Leary, it's not... Yes. I know, just... I know it's not protocol! I don't care, just find out, alright? I can't..." She pauses, and pinches the bridge of her nose between her finger and thumb, and purposely takes a long breath. She holds it, then lets it go again. Softer now, with feeling. "I just can't. Ok? If you hear anything..." a beat. "Thanks. I owe you."
She hangs up, and slides her phone into the pocket of her jacket, only to begin to search her other pockets in the most ritual of searches - until she comes up with her pack and lighter. She lights a cigarette, takes the first drag, and exhales as she leans back against the hood of her car.
Just another day in the 'Green, right?
[Winston Barks Secrets] Another day in the 'Green. That consisted of violence, gangs and drugs, poverty and depression. There were the occasional pockets of honest hard workers, but really all that this part of town saw them as was victims, fodder for the fires if you will. You'd feel out of place if you didn't find errant needles or bullet shells somewhere within a block's radius. It would sound eerie and too quiet if you couldn't hear sirens at any given time, or someone shouting at another someone in their apartment above your head, or in an alley that you walked past and tried to ignore so you wouldn't get dragged into the mix as well.
In the 'Green, you should expect anything and everything unpleasant. For Izzy Montoya, that included work-related stress, probably Nation-related stress, and the plight of Winston.
She's leaned back against the hood of her car, smoking a cigarette. The unfortunate (occasionally fortunate) thing about that habit was that it dulled your sense of smell. When you had cigarette smoke in your mouth, throat, and sinuses, it killed your ability to smell things around you. This took away the only warning that the detective had to the Bone Gnawer slinking about, spotting and smelling her Breeding from a mile away, and sauntering on over. Motives were questionable, he could be planning to rob her blind, commit suicide by way of officer, or he could just be bored and looking for someone to antagonize.
No matter the reason, he made himself known to Izzy by speaking up, having somehow found his way to leaning against the side of her car, right in her blind spot, and picking dirt from under his ugly fingernails. "I heard that after the first couple months wearing those belts the average officer starts to get rid of some of the weaponry that he's been given. Does that mean they become cockier, better at their jobs, or just so damn jaded that the only things they'd want to do is kill with a bullet or beat with their fists?"
[Gina] *Chicago in winter. A far cry from the sunny stretches of Italy this time of year. Biting wind sweeps across the great lake to scour at tawny cheeks, Strider kin's bright red scarf crumpled under her nose against the chill. Cabrini held memories on every corner. There was where she'd first met Kemp. A half hours walk away sat the pack house where the kin had found refuge with the mad Godi and lusty Ahroun. She'd spent many a night laughing with Drew and Lonna in their ramshackle apartment building south of where she stood. The three of them carefree, or at least playing at it for awhile. The thought teases a hard smirk under her scarf, and hand drags through long dark hair, heavy with resignation. No bangles clink, no music to the action. Only the gusting wind and the silent whisper of ghosts. Hello Again Chicago.
Of course, the first thing she should see would be a cop, and a vagrant. Ah, Windy City. You never fail to - Dark eyes narrow to disbelieving slits as something about greasy brown hair and casual animal menace strikes a familiar chord. Ghosts not so intangible tonight as they should be, a pikey finds herself striding with purpose towards the pair, boots crunching loudly on icy cement.*
Hooligan, who ye botherin the now?
[Izzy Montoya] The smoke can be said to dull one's senses, but that doesn't take into effect that Izzy is damn good at what she does, who she is. Tonight, however, she simply doesn't care. More accurately - she is too tired to care, as our Good Detective has not been sleeping well, at all. It shows in the way she leans, despite the fact that his appearance causes a twist of tension to wind up her spine, through her shoulders. She is alert, she is focused now, again, and she...
doesn't care.
"Two things," she says, as she takes another drag. He may expect her to ask who he is, why he's leaning on her car, or - given her reputation - to simply pull her gun and shoot him. Instead, she exhales and comments dryly. "First - I'm not wearing a belt. Second," she turns her head to study him a moment, before she smirks. "I'm far from average."
Neither of which answer his question at all.
She looks up as someone asks who the hooligan is bothering - the voice familiar, the stance and the way she walks the same. Izzy just arches a brow, slightly, but doesn't call out. She'll be close soon enough.
[Winston Barks Secrets] "Awww, now, look at Miss Adonis here." Winston's smile was more like a sneer, an uncomfortable thing to behold. His teeth didn't set comfortably, he had them spaced a little when he 'smiled' like that, like he was more used to having a mouth full of fangs rather than the blunt bits of bone that humans chew with. He was dirty, dressed in many layers of clothes because the only way to keep warm out here was to insulate-- the topmost layers being a gray sweater with a green flannel shirt left unbuttoned overtop, a pair of jeans that were bulky to suggest he had something on under them, and shoes that were more duct tape than anything else. His hair was an unruly mop of greasy brown curls, his face unshaven and thereby dominated by a poor excuse for a mustache and goatee with patchy scruff along his throat and cheeks.
"Whoever said I was askin' about you specifically?" Eyes gleam nothing but menace. It's nothing new to Izzy, she was sure of herself, and this guy had a whistle to his breath that suggested illness, which meant he would probably go down easy-- she might not even have to use her gun. The manic animal lines to him suggested desperation and carelessness, though, which could count up to danger. Maybe she should use the gun just in case.
Hooligan--
Attention from the dirty man immediately ratcheted toward the voice that sounded like it was sang through a golden flute, and that sunken, dirty, scruff-dusted face lit up like a thousand-watt light bulb. He wiped whatever it was he had collected from under his fingernails (congealed blood and mucus, largely) onto the driver's side window of the car Izzy leaned against, then pushed away from it to stand up straight and wait for Gina to reach them. His chest was puffed out with pleasure, and his hands wiped on the belly of his shirt while he spoke.
"Well I'll be straight fucked-- sugartits, I knew you couldn't keep away."
[Gina] *Short steps bring the pikey to within civil speaking distance. Or what would be civil speaking distance if any of the three of them played at being at all civilized. *
Ah couldnae darlin. Ah followed yer smell.
*A generous jerk of her chin to Izzy in recognition.*
Thes town sure daes like tae toss we folks taegether. Bloodshed fer certain. Hope yer armed Iz, on account o' Winston here es nae dynamo fer fighten'...
*Winston's dressed like he got his clothes from a hobo second hand, his leering features given a quick look over to ensure he was still intact. A few months away have been kind to the strider kin. Hollowed cheeks have filled out, time in the sun has added a luster to dark skin. Hell, were it not for the bitter grin on her face, Gina'd look good as new. Her scarf jerked to hang loosely across a second hand peacoat as she comes to a stop at Winston's hip to inspect him more closely.*
[Izzy Montoya] "Haven't you heard?" She doesn't seem put off by his look, by the menace. She's simply too tired to really care. "It's always about me."
Being civilized is something Izzy has to play at far too often, so she doesn't with friends. Or enemies. Or people in between. Come to think about it - it's rare she plays nice at all, let alone civilized. Izzy lifts a chin in return for Gina, and then even manages a chuckle for Gina's hope she has her gun. "Always."
At least one.
[Winston Barks Secrets] Winston looks over to Izzy and chuffs at her answer, continuing to wipe the palms of his hands along his shirt and the thighs of his ragged old jeans like he was doing his best to scrub tree sap or something similarly stubborn off of them. "I swear to god I read that on a bumper sticker once."
Gina came close enough to inspect him, and she did a thorough job of it while talking to Izzy about how there was bound to be a fight of some sort. Winston looked like he lived on the streets, like he was an Omega and sickly on top of that. His figure only appeared to be acceptable because of all the layers of clothing he was wearing, his cheeks were slim, his eyes a bit sunken. Were it not for regenerative abilities he'd probably have lost his toes and fingers to frostbite by now. He needed grooming badly, but what Bone Gnawer didn't? The more notable thing would likely be how his breath whistled in and wheezed out. Cold aggravated the condition of his lungs. Sometimes he really missed Mexico because of it.
Izzy confirmed that she had a gun, and Gina stated matter-of-factly that Winston was more or less useless in battle. He didn't act offended by this as many a male Garou would, didn't puff up, snarl, or defend his pride. Instead he put an arm out in askance for a hug. Asking first, rather than just seizing as he might have roughly nine or twelve months ago. Things had gone down since then, the Rat Fink was good at hearing and knowing all things on this level. So he asked with the arm and wagged his heavy eyebrows at her with a sharp-toothed grin.
"C'mere and let me smell the spice, huh? Chicago settled Winter because you left, without your face it's been snow and ice."
[Gina] Wha's the word Officer? Jes on Rounds?
*Winston's arm finds an easy perch around narrow shoulders, his words garnering a bump of a him and a smile. Gina settling against his scrawny frame with all the quiet comfort of a favorite blanket. Small woman's head tucking under the gnawer's chin as she closes her eyes and sighs deeply.
Only to grimace upon the inhale, leaning back and eyeing Winston's cruddy fingernails with something akin to alarm. Dear christ the creature needed bathed, and soon.*
Jaysus Winston.
[Izzy Montoya] "Detective," she corrects, absently, as she watches the reunion without any emotional attachment to it at all. On another night the look might be calculating, studying. Tonight it's more of the 'too tired to bother looking elsewhere' type.
She does, however, answer the question, as she flicks the ashes off the end of her cigarette, only to lift it to her lips to create more on inhale. She exhales away from them - though lord knows it couldn't make him smell any worse.
"Just off shift."
[Winston Barks Secrets] "Hmmmhmhmhm," it's a mix between a hum of happy approval and a chuckle when Gina accepts his arm and leans against him, tucking her head under his scruffy chin and shutting her eyes and sighing happily. His hands, awkwardly large compared to how scrawny and hunched his frame was, perched on her shoulders like large animals of their own accord and his arms wrapped her in for a good, solid hug. His nose ducked down, buried into the top of her head, and he breathed in.
Spice and road dust, it was good to have her back.
She took in a breath way too close to the collar of his shirt, though, and drew back to eye him and his disgusting fingernails with mingled alarm, disgust, and scolding. He grinned and held his hands up, palms out, in surrender and apology both. "Hey, they don't let me into the shelters anymore." Stories behind why were unnecessary, it was easy enough to figure out reasons why no normal people, even those used to dealing with the homeless, would want him around.
He looked over to Izzy, eyed her cigarette and the ashes that fell from it, and sucked in a breath like he was going to go on some kind of long-winded tirade that would make a certain ass out of himself, but it caught funny in his lungs and instead of speaking he quickly hiked an arm up to cover his mouth and nose with the crook of his elbow and turned away from the ladies, leaning against the car and coughing with loud, harsh, barking sounds that came from the gut, wracked the body and scraped raw the throat.
Metis were such disgusting, sickly creatures.
[Gina] Bollox tha. We'll swing round. Gi'em a talkin tae. Unlessin ye pecked a fight ye selly foo-
*Winston's hands slip away from her, Metis horking and hacking into his own shoulder, buckled in on himself like a cheap knife, causing Gina to take a large step back. Alarmed, but grateful that he didn't simply begin coughing globs of phlegm into her hair.*
Sae..
*Gina begins, fishing for some common ground to start from, the pickpocket settles into rubbing the Metis back as she considers Izzy.*
Detective... How's the Kin coalition theng-ma-whatsit comin along? Monty stell en charge?
[Izzy Montoya] He starts coughing, and leaning against her car, and Izzy confines her reaction into a single expression of disgust, which is soon wiped away into something far more mild. The consummate professional, Izzy.
Gina pats his back and finally broaches a new subject, something where they might have common ground. Unfortunately, the answer is "I haven't a clue. I believe it fell to the wayside and broke apart. They quit calling, anyway." Which could, in truth, mean anything at all. Izzy on the best of days has been described as a 'handful'...
[Hunter] Two familiar faces come waltzing into Izzy's view. One, a mop haired cunt by the name of Howard Ivers, the other is a stocky strange idiot gnawer who flintstones'd his bike into her car a week ago. Hunter wears a brown leather jacket, hands stuffed into the pockets and a cigarette hangs out of the corner of his mouth. Their green eyes glint in the dark.
"Shit, it's that fuckin' cop." Hunter starts trying to walk behind Howard, who is half his width, it doesn't work out very well. "Fuckkkkkk."
[Howard] The last time Howard saw Izzy Montoya, he didn't really see her: he was blazed, and inebriated, and had just jumped off a fifth-story fire escape and splattered his insides over an otherwise perfectly nice sidewalk before he'd had the chance to pick himself up and properly introduce himself. Whatever he and Hunter are up to, it's almost decided that it is going to be absolutely no good: Howard's mid-sentence rambling on about something in that exotic yet muted accent of his when Hunter curses and ducks behind him.
Hunter is three inches shorter than the curly-haired hipster, but he's built like a fucking linebacker. The Theurge slowly turns his head to look back at his compatriot, then plucks the cigarette out of his mouth and takes a drag.
"Haven't been threatened by a Viking since last night," he says, blowing out a cloud of smoke. "Let us play with her..."
[Winston Barks Secrets] Gina's rubbing his back, doing a fine job of being comforting while it doesn't do much to actually help the coughing fit stop. It ceases on its own, runs out of steam after a few dozen seconds or so, and Winston's leaning sideways against the car trying to catch his breath, wheezing and whining like a pitiful old car engine that's in its last two minutes of life before it breaks down on the side of some long stretch of desolate desert highway.
He snorts something back, clears his throat, haulks what was dredged up on the street away from his and Gina's and Izzy's feet, then straightens back up and winces, rubbing his shallow chest tenderly and looking toward the voices that piped up on the sidewalk. One eye is squinted up against the lingering, echoing pain in his chest, against the burning that came with each breath, fresh from the coughing fit though it would fade back to a dull, persistent ache in a minute.
"That's 'That fuckin'---", pause, wheeze, cough once into his shoulder, "--detective' to you, pal." Winston clarifies this to Hunter, then scrubs his hands together in an effort to bring feeling back into the stiff, red-cold digits.
[Gina] *Once upon a time Gina was a cheery social little creature. Hopping from bed to bed with a cheeky grin and a whimsical outlook to carry her forward. Strangers were friends in the making, and trouble was just fun with an edge.
Not so now. A few years in chicago enough to wear her down, temper her into something harder and colder. Kohl rimmed eyes narrow on the newcomers, pikey suddenly as comfortable as a cat in a Chinese restaurant. That lovely voice of hers stopped up silent as she touches Winston's wrist for reassurance she hadn't needed a year ago, attention riveted to the boys approaching.*
[Izzy Montoya] They're antics aren't unnoticed. Izzy pauses with her cigarette halfway to her lips, and narrows her gaze at the troubled twosome sauntering into view. And headed their way. The big one decides to try and hide behind the other, and she snorts, before she lets her cigarette finish it's journey and takes a final drag. She flicks it to the side to sputter to death in the gutter.
When Winston corrects them, though - that? That actually gets a chuckle from the normally stone-faced, perpetually pissed off Detective.
"What he said." She tucks her hands into the pockets of her coat, and crosses her legs at the ankle, comfortable in the assumption the duo won't be running anything into her car. This time.
[Hunter] Hunter lifts his eyes and steps out from behind Howard, gives Winston a look like he's lost his god damn mind.
"You snivlin' little fuckin' rat cretin' shit out of a sewer snakes asshole." He grins, this is how Gnawers say hello. His arm drapes around Howard and he pushes him forward.
"Have you met this cunt? Names Howard."
And his eyes flick to Gina.
"N'I'm Hunter. Yo Detective Montoy." He adds rather sheepishly and waves a hand whilst peering at his shoes. For all that intense rage and physical presence he looks rather like a puppy sometimes.
[Howard] This is the first time Gina has encountered Howard; Gina, who used to know everyone in the city, it seemed, who used to be the first friendly face a lot of wayward travelers encountered their first time in Bronzeville, or the Brotherhood, is not the one who initiates conversation when the two strange young men amble up. There isn't anything particularly special about Howard, nothing that could possibly explain the dichotomous amounts of both amorous and assaultive attention he receives on a regular basis. With black aviator shades on even at night his eyes are obscured. It is the first air of mystery afforded the young man, and looking at the rest of his ensemble only ends in heartache: he wears combat boots, seafoam green twill pants, a vibrant blue-and-purple scarf, and a black leather jacket whose zipper is missing. His hair is a brown, curly mop, and even though he's just bogarted Hunter's cigarette he's gnawing on a piece of gum.
"Whoa," he intones when he's knocked forward, stumbling slightly but not wiping out. He shoots a shit-eating grin Winston's way, flicking his eyebrows without saying anything, as if he can somehow sense a fellow pain-in-the-ass.
A beat, and then he thrusts the cigarette at Hunter.
"This the poor copper you ran into with your fuckin' crotch rocket?"
[Winston Barks Secrets] Gina's fingers find Winston's bare wrist, marked haplessly with some scrawl of numbers in black ink, and Winston answers the touch by wrapping his large, grimy hand around hers and closing about it securely. He didn't squeeze, didn't crush, didn't trap, but there was attentiveness to it. He was paying mind rather than taking her hand and forgetting about it a second later.
Izzy chuckles-- that earns a gleaning and sharp-edged grin shot in her direction from the Ragabash-- and Hunter spews out some disgusting vitriol of curse words when greeting Winston, and shoves his curly-haired counterpart (curly hair, thin build, awkward and gawky-- he was like a darker toned, cleaner, slightly taller reflection of Barks Secrets). He spins a grin in his direction, and Winston meets it with a wag of his eyebrows and the kind of answering grin that was too hungry and on edge. It gave way that while Winston could wear the face and clothes of a man just fine he'd only being doing it for a few years. He could fake it rather well, but things like smiles, eyes, and reactions were all hardwired to be more beast than animal, more animal than human.
"Gentlemen," Winston greets them and leans more comfortably back against the car, claiming it as his turf for the night without even half a consultation with the Detective. She'd yet to boot him out so he'd yet to relinquish. "How's the night treating ya? No hellish beasties nipping at your heels and begging to be killed? No strapping young ladies to whisk away?"
All done, all inquired, with Gina's hand in his. Curious, you'd think a Kin with that body, that face, that breeding would find a sturdier wall to brace herself with.
[Gina] *Hunter looses forth a torrent of expletives that don't seem to relate to one another in any discernible fashion, and the toffee skinned strider kin is suddenly eyeing him sideways. Peering at him with all the trust one might invest in a rabid dog. Curious, and yet wholly prepared for him to go batshit at any moment, his rage fraying at ragged nerves. Short, slim fingers curl a little more tightly in Winston's cartoonish mitt, whatever was under his fingernails suddenly less of a pressing concern.
A tilt of her head to Howard and Hunter in turn, pikey murmering to Winston, accent restrained best she can, her voice none the less a lullaby for everyone's nerves but her own. Certain things she couldn't control.*
You know these folks Darlin?
[Izzy Montoya] She eyes Hunter for a moment, and then lifts a chin in hello, before looking over Howard, idly. In answer to his question "Yes. And you're the fuckin' idiot who jumped off a balcony so that drunken twat could almost piss on your head."
The boys aren't the only ones who can cuss, it seems....
"And it's Detective Montoya. Not copper."
[Howard] His attention is drawn away from the much shorter, much grimier Bone Gnawer and placed on the kinswoman. It's subtle, indicated only by the movement of his head, and when he speaks his tone is cheery to the point where an accusation of some sort of chemical influence wouldn't be too off the wall.
"Yeah, but 'This the copper you ran into dot dot dot' rolls off the tongue better than 'This the Detective Montoya you ran into dot dot dot,' doesn't it?"
[Hunter] Hunter is stocky, muscular, but without the height that most Chicago males find themselves with. He has a jawline like a pitbull albeit a pretty one and green eyes that carry something of the beast in them at all times. He wears jeans, covered in blood and oil stains that just refuse to wash out. They were once blue, those jeans, now they are some sort of sick grey almost yellow colour in parts. Above it they can see a white t-shirt that is absolutely covered in blood around the collar, drenched completely red. The brown leather jacket doesn't hide much of it.
"Ye, that's her, probs --." He pauses, double takes at Izzy and Howard, then cracks up laughing. "She ain't no street cop man, she's fuckin' homicide. S'all she's tryna' say. Just like you sayin' you ain't not fuckin' cub. Though you fight like one."
And his flick back to Winston.
"Heeyyo Winston, who's lookin' after the tribe these days? Still Mama?"
[Izzy Montoya] HOward receives a long look, and Gina might suddenly tense, perhaps remember the stories heard, and the state of one Detective the last time she stood up to a True Born over something seemingly so simple.
Things could go very badly right about now.
Izzy simply flicks a look toward Hunter, then back again. "Perhaps. But you will soon find - or hear - that I don't give a flying fuck what flows easy for anyone. I am particular about some things - one of which is being called by my name. I have one. Use it."
Her gaze turns toward Hunter for another long, considering look. "I said exactly what I intended to say."
[Hunter] He seems amused, wildly amused. He holds both his palms out to her.
"Okay, okay, don't fuckin' blow a gasket."
Meanwhile he's waiting for Howard to say something utterly stupid and get them shot at.
[Howard] Back to Hunter, Howard keeps chewing his gum, his much less impressive jaws noisily working at the small piece of flavored rubber as he explains what Izzy was trying to say. A moment later, the detective clarifies what he might or might not have heard about her, that she doesn't give a flying fuck, that she's particular, and Howard claps his hand over his mouth to stifle a yawn so he doesn't rudely interrupt her as she's getting to her point.
She has a name, and he's to use it.
"Oh, alright," he says, on the tail-end of his yawn. A sharp shake of his head, and he continues on, aimlessly gesticulating upon reaching the proper nouns in the sentence, as though they're separate entities, "So you'll be callin' me 'Mister Ivers' instead of 'that drunken idiot who jumped off a balcony,' yeah?"
[Winston Barks Secrets] Gina leaned in and whispered a question as to whether he knew who these two men were near Winston's ear, and the Gnawer glanced down to her and rolled one shoulder in a shrug, tapping the pad of his thumb against the top of her hand a couple of times while he nodded his head toward Hunter. "That one, yeah. The other? I guess he's Howard." He lifted his free hand to scratch at the scruffy growth along his neck and jaw, and looked back over to Hunter when the question of who was in charge came up.
The Ragabash's answer was a simple shake of his head.
"I haven't seen her in... shit, I don't know, some long time or another. I don't pay much mind to politics anyways. All I know is it sure as shit isn't me. I can't even look after myself." Winston says this with that same sharp, animal sneer on his face as he one-handedly digs a crooked and bent up (but miraculously intact) cigarette from the pocket of his flannel overshirt and sticks it between his teeth, then hunts around for a lighter to light it with.
One of these days those cigarettes really would kill him. Maybe he was banking on it.
[Izzy Montoya] She nods, slightly. "Of course, Mr. Ivers."
Simple enough, yeah?
[Hunter] "Well shit, I don't fuckin' want it either." He says to Winston, then eyes Howard and Gina briefly. "Maybe we can fuckin' hire someone else ta' do it, like a lord or somethin' they love that sorta' shit."
His hand reaches out with his own lighter and sparks up Winston's cigarette before lighting his own that emerges from the inside pocket of his jacket.
"Or Howard, Howard here would do it."
He nods his head, Howard would definitely do it. He would be great.
[Howard] "The fuck he would."
This said, without even looking over or asking what it is that's being discussed.
[Gina] *Izzy's reputation was such that it had exotic features pinching into an expectant cringe. This situation was ripe for violence, and the pikey had hoped her first day back would be markedly less exciting than all that. Gina's hand pulses against calloused fingers, Winston getting a familiar squeeze before the diminutive kinswoman is wrapping her scarf back round her mouth and chirping in a muffled singsong.*
Nice to meet ye boys. G'night. Later.
*Accent wrestled with to mixed results, a halfhearted two finger salute to Izzy, and Gina's making her hasty exit, feeling crowded and ill at ease.*
[Hunter] "Howard would totally not do it." He says, testing.
[Howard] Now he looks over.
"Do what?"
[Hunter] "Night ..." He pauses, he can't remember her name if it was given. He blinks. "Night girl, take care'n'all." A friend of a Gnawer is a friend of Hunter Matthews.
After that he looks at Howard, takes a puff on his smoke before handing it over.
"Be the fuckin' Gnawer Elder."
[Winston Barks Secrets] Gina's sweating it out, cringing at the expected violence when there's a moment of still after Izzy confronts Hunter, the Gnawer Ahroun. Her reputation preceded her, but Hunter was not Daniel, he was much more easy going, and he wasn't a Fenrir so Izzy wasn't his to discipline in the first place. Still, Gina saw a slight chance of violence and opted to opt out. She slipped her fingers from Winston's with a bit of a squeeze, fixed her scarf, and excused herself with a 'nice to meet ya' before hustling off up the sidewalk.
Winston watched her go with an obvious Hate To See You Go Love To Watch You Leave cant to his head, and called out after her with a face-crawling grin. "Later's right, sugartits, find me again!"
She's gone after that, and Winston's smiling fondly and smelling the palm of his hand where it'd been pressed to hers, muttering into it. "Damn I missed her." Like it was surprising that he would miss anyone at all and he was slightly mystified by the fact.
Hunter's trying to get Howard to be the Bone Gnawer elder they're jostling back and forth on the topic, and Winston shakes his head and talks, still from behind the palm that smelled like roads and incense and spice and must. "Nah nah nah. Can't have that, it's gotta be someone who knows how to be a Gnawer in the first place." There's a sigh interjected here, labored (it whistles a little on the way back out) and inconvenienced. "Unfortunately, the only options are you, myself, a very pregnant woman, and some elusive Metis I've heard about but never had the absolute pleasure of meeting."
[Izzy Montoya] Izzy doesn't seem to be too worried about being disciplined by anyone. After all, she has already been through far worse than most of her kind can imagine, by those on both sides of the war, and those who are simply fucked up humans, too. And now, with the way exhaustion crawls about under her skin, she simply doesn't give a fuck.
They banter about who might be elder, and that doesn't have much to do with her at all. "If you'll excuse me, gentlemen."
...which is code for stop leaning against my fuckin car, winston...
[Howard] The cigarette returns his way, and Howard takes a long drag as the sickly young man speaks. He had been far too interested in verbally sparring with Detective Montoya to pay too much attention to Gina, even with her ravishing good looks and her ample body and her exotic appearance. It might have been her accent; for anyone who has spent a good deal of time in the UK it is immediately recognizable as belonging to the roving Irish criminals who are hatefully referred to as 'pikeys,' but Howard has never identified himself as ever having been to the UK despite the fact that his accent is seemingly derived from UK English.
Then again, Howard doesn't seem to discriminate based on much of anything. He is an equal opportunity offender, will pick on anyone for any reason that presents itself to him.
A number of reasons exist why an outsider leading the Bone Gnawers isn't the best idea Hunter has ever come up with. It's a joke, and if it isn't, the Ahroun has taken a few too many blows to the head or tokes off of whatever it is Howard has been providing him with to smoke.
"You're just sayin' that because I'm black," Howard says, deadpan, and steps away from the car even though he was nowhere near it to begin with.
[Hunter] "Ye, no probs detective." And he sits down next to Winston and bites on his own thumbnail. "Hmm, so you me some pregnant girl or some metis girl..." He frowns. "Aight well, who these two girls, I ain't ever even seen em before. You'd think for a city like Chicago there'd be more of us right?"
He laughs.
"Stead we got fuckin' vikings and russians crawlin' up our asses."
[Winston Barks Secrets] Izzy asks if they'll excuse her, and Winston shoots her a grin, then flicks two fingers to his forehead and away from in an imitation of a salute before straightening up, hunching his shoulders forward and curving his spine so as to look more like the Omega that he has always been, and stepping away from the car and up onto the curb.
He tugs the collar of his overshirt up against his neck, scratches at his scalp with both hands in a way that made those disgusting, greasy curls bounce limply (this was no shampoo commercial), then jams his hands resolutely into his armpit in an effort to keep them warm.
The Detective is excusing herself, his farewell was mingled in with the salute, and he's looking to Howard and snorting-- then finishing the snort by spitting the result into the gutter, respectful enough not to let it splat onto Izzy's car tires. "Shit, you nailed it, kid." Even though the 'kid' was probably at least seven years older than him.
For Hunter: "I haven't met them much either. No one swings by to say hello and in my poor, fragile condition I just can't make it too far from home." Said as though he had a home, as though his fragile condition was anything new, and as though any of that mattered whatsoever.
[Izzy Montoya] She watches as they step away from her car, and then she lets herself into the drivers seat. A moment later the car roars to life - the engine in that thing is surely not what it originally came with - and she pulls into traffic, and away.
[Hunter] "Aight well, it's been real winston." And he holds his hand, claps it with the Gnawer if he can and grips his wrist. "Don't be a stranger ye? We should have'a meetin' with the others, if ya' see'em tell em' I was askin'."
A pause and he takes in a deep breath, looks around.
"Come stop by the warehouse sometime in bronze, have dinner with me'n Joey."
[Winston Barks Secrets] Winston slaps his hand into Hunter's when it's extended in offering. The Ahroun'll wrap his fingers about a knobby wrist, and Winston will do the same, though it doesn't have the same kind of heart and vigor that Hunter's grip will. That was more of an enthused warrior thing to do, and Winston was reluctant to do his job at the best of times.
"Yeah sure," is the Ragabash's way of assuring him that he'd spread the word, and that he wouldn't be a stranger. An invitation to come by for dinner out in Bronzeville is extended, and Winston meets it with a lift of eyebrows Groucho Marx would be proud of and by grinning. "Now what kind of guy would I be to turn down an offer like that?" He takes his hand from Hunter's, jams it back into his armpit, and looks to Howard. "Good meetin' you, curly." Said the kettle to the pot.
"Stay chilly." And Winston turned and walked his hunchbacked way up the sidewalk, sniffing against the cold and coughing occasionally like the unhealthy example of life on the streets that he was.
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