"You don't like mansions?"

[hazlogs]

It is currently Mon Sep 8 2003.

Currently in Saint Claire, it is a cloudy day. The temperature is 56 degrees Fahrenheit (13 degrees Celsius). The wind is calm today. The barometric pressure reading is 29.87 and steady, and the relative humidity is 97 percent. The dewpoint is 55 degrees Fahrenheit (12 degrees Celsius.)

Currently the moon is in the waxing Full Moon phase (84% full).

Studio

The studio is airy, elegantly modern and full of light: a large, high-ceilinged square room with almost an entire wall of windows. It still smells of paint, though there is no evidence of current painting. Rolled canvases lean in one of the corners, and a few finished pieces adorn the walls. A six-foot length of pipe hangs a painting behind the couch, creating a slightly more personal space that evidently serves as a bedroom; the piece is a dark, strange cityscape, an oddly skewed view of the world beyond the glass seen through otherworldly eyes. The edge of a futon can be seen beyond it; the walls around the bed bear swirling patterns of colors, calming shades of undersea blue and green. These patterns gradually soften as they grow out into the rest of the room, where walls are visible; angles replace curves, until the mural becomes a mix of ocean and circuitry. The sofa is quirky and curving, a work of modern art upholstered in green velvet. A Turkish rug in vibrant tribal colors occupies much of the hardwood floor; the coffee table, a sculpture of recycled blue and green circuit-board and shiny aluminum, rests on it in front of the couch.

Opposite the windows, a compact kitchen is marked off by a crisp stainless steel counter. The west wall nearby has doors to a closet and to a small, sparsely-appointed bathroom. The east wall holds bookshelves of pale wood, supporting a small stereo, collections of pictures and found objects, and a good number of books; the corner between shelving and the wall of windows holds a plain wooden desk with a slim notebook computer and phone atop it, and an elegant mesh rolling chair.

Salem's knock comes sometime after dinner but before the night has established a firm grip on the city.

Rina answers the door after a few seconds' time, pale and wan in her black fatigues. Seeing him startles a smile onto her face; the expression looks uncomfortable there, fleeting and strange.

Salem's return smile is a bit tight, full of fat-moon tension, but no less sincere for all that, and his voice is warm as he greets her. "Hello. I was, ah, in the neighborhood and suchlike. May I come in?"

Rina raises an eyebrow slightly. "What, am I gonna say no?" she murmurs, lowering her eyes. A faint half-smile lingers at the corner of her mouth, as she pulls the door open the rest of the way and waves him inside.

"It could happen," Salem says dryly, as he enters. "Cat off at the library?"

Rina shakes her head, flicking on a lamp as she passes it. "Choir practice." She heads for the kitchen. "What's your poison?"

Salem shrugs. "I'm easy. Anything without caffiene." He takes a seat on the couch and stretches his legs out in front of him, feet under the coffee table. He cocks an eye toward the kitchen. "How have you been?"

The place is clean, at least; a lot cleaner than it was. "Coffee or tea?" she asks.

"Tea," he says, after a moment, still looking in her direction. One eyebrow Spocks upward.

She doesn't look back toward him. Some of the natural grace has returned--traces of the old self, surfacing in moments as she reaches for something in a cabinet, as she sets the kettle on the stove to boil.

Salem shifts his weight a bit on the couch, but remains seated. "You should come by the Dominion sometime," he says after a moment, conversationally. "The grounds aren't as well-maintained as they used to be, I'm guessing, but there's the remnants of a fishpond near the back."

Rina swallows, and bows her head over the counter. "I, ah. I don't know. About that." She wets her lips, and flips a dark shock of hair out of her eyes.

Salem's brows furrow. "Why not?"

Rina lifts a shoulder and lets it fall. She steps out of sight, to get the milk and sugar. "I just... don't like places like that."

"You don't like mansions?" The halfmoon's brow remains furrowed, his expression bemused... with a touch of disappointment.

"F'get it," Rina says quietly. "'S'nothin. D'you like chamomile?"

Salem frowns a bit, and then shrugs, forcing a lighter note into his voice as he replies. "I never turned it down before."

"I always forget," she murmurs. "What people like, and everything... I always forget things about you, about Cat." There's a frown in her voice. "I don't know why."

Salem rubs his beard. "Mmn," he says, eloquently. He's not arguing; maybe he's noticed her occasional lapses in memory. He shrugs. "The mind's a sensitive thing, and yours was, in past... ah, tampered with." Delicate, the latter part of that reply.

Rina's silent for a time. "Yeah," she finally says dryly. "Too many drugs in the sixties, I guess."

Salem utters a snort that, for the full moon, is as good as a laugh. "You as a flower child. That's an... interesting image."

"I usedta drive a bug, yanno," she says idly. "When I first came here. I was kind of a flower child... just, a flower child who believed in the efficacy of violence."

"Peace, love, and rock and roll? Tune in, tune on, drop out? You?" He pushes to his feet and wanders prowlingly over toward the kitchen, six-foot-plus of cat-graceful menace with an amused and amiable facade.

Rina ducks her head. Her back is turned to him, her hands spread on the edge of the countertop. "Well," she says, with a slightly bitter edge, "the free love thing never worked out so much. But I did turn on, and I did drop out, so."

Salem takes a lean against the counter nearby, somewhere within arm's reach but not touching. He folds his arms across his chest and smiles thinly. "You've been in town since, what? Early nineties?"

"I started school in the fall of '94," she says quietly.

Her face is difficult to read, a sere and emotionless profile; she watches the glow of the burner, but does not focus on it.

Salem's smile fades; he watches her face closely. "Ah. Bit over a year before I wandered into town."

One corner of her mouth twists faintly, and she looks away. "Yeah, I remember when you showed up. Not one of my better days."

Salem scratches his chin. "Nor mine." He shrugs. "Few were, back then."

"Yeah, well," she mutters, her expression twisting. "Didn't think it would be downhill from there. Life's fulla surprises, huh." The darkness in the words is almost painful to hear--the momentary lashing-out of a caged beast, a soul black beyond saving. The kettle starts to bubble and hiss, and she snags it from the stove to pour the steaming water into the teapot; pale flowers and brownish leaves float to the top, crowding the surface before she sets the kettle aside and pops on the lid and a brightly-colored tea cozy. A steam-burned knuckle is brought almost absently to her mouth. Her gaze is unfocused, resting on the brewing tea but not seeing it.

Salem's jaw tightens and, abruptly, the shutter slams down over his face. Expression bland, he straightens up from his lean, a gesture that moves him, subtly, away from her. Not much, though. "I'm sorry I brought it up," he says flatly; not that it matters whether he did or not.

She lowers her hand, setting it against the edge of the counter to keep it from shaking. Her voice, rough-edged, holds the tremor anyway. "Doesn't matter," she says quietly. "Nothing matters. Not really. Unless I can help him. Do whatever he--" A swallow tightens her throat, and something passes through the dark eyes. She takes a careful breath, almost willing herself out of that place, forcing her eyes to lift and focus. With the utmost attention to her task, she opens a cabinet and takes out a small tea strainer, balancing it over one of the cups. "Why don't we just not," she says. "Talk about you. Or that big house... or something. Chamomile gets bitter if it brews too long. Do you want sugar?"

Salem shakes his head. "I'll have it straight." He inserts a note of somewhat-forced humor into his voice. "Somewhere between ten and twelve years old, I lost my sweet tooth."

She pours for him, without answering; the scents of chamomile and mint waft up. "I can't stand tea without sugar," she murmurs, pushing the cup toward him and taking out the strainer, giving it a few taps before transferring it to her own porcelain mug. The pottery looks handmade, or maybe just hand-painted and glazed, swirls of bright color circling it and dipping into it--as if the object was made to cheer up the dark-souled owner. After filling hers, she drops the tea-strainer into the sink; then she dumps half a spoonful of sugar into her cup and stirs it about with nervous efficiency. She never lifts her gaze, as she works. "How's your, um. Girlfriend, I guess?"

Salem makes a little throat-clearing noise. "She's, ah. She's doing well. She's currently away on a business trip." He takes a sip of tea.

Rina nods quickly. A faint, fragile smile touches her face, though she still doesn't look toward him; softness comes to her voice, like an unspoken apology, a moment's genuine feeling laid out in the open. "I'm glad. That you have that... to make you strong."

"Yes, well..." Salem sips his tea again, covering a vaguely embarrassed awkwardness. "It isn't entirely... easy, things being what they are." He looks rueful for a moment.

She looks at him, with a sudden hawklike directness, the dark eyes like raw wounds. "It's never easy," she says hoarsely. "But it's-- usually worth it. At least I thought so, when-- when I was with them."

Salem tilts his head slightly, eyeballing her, and then nods. "It _is_ worth it. I don't deny that. And it's good when we're, ah, together." He toys with his cup, looking down at it.

She takes up her mug and looks away again. "If there's ever anything I could do," she says softly, "I mean, if I need to take up less of your time, if I need to back off... you just ask, and it's done."

Salem snorts. "Are you joking with me? Even if I _would_--" He cuts himself off and clears his throat again. "If anything, I feel I've been neglecting you."

Rina shakes her head minutely, and takes a careful sip from the still-steaming cup. After swallowing, she speaks, her voice hoarse. "I'm fine."

"Like hell you are," the halfmoon says dryly.

"I'm alive," she answers, quick and harsh. "And that's more than I or anyone else has a right to expect after this long."

Salem cocks his head, looking at her for a moment with that stare that always seems too intent, too critical. "Yes..." There's a wry note at the edge of his voice. "Of course, I'm Garou. We're good at lost causes." He lifts his cup to her slightly. "You and Gaia. You two are quite the pair."

The dark eyes look to him again, with a bitter, black not-smile behind them. "I don't think that's really fair to Her," Rina says softly. "Gaia might've been raped, but she was never a whore." The slightest emphasis on that last word, and a twist of her mouth--it is true, at least in her eyes, the self-judgment falling as mercilessly as an Ahroun's claws.

Salem grimaces -- scowls, really. "You're not a whore, Rina. I've _known_ whores. I've even hired a few in my time."

"Maybe you don't know me, then," she says hoarsely, still watching him with that strange numbed look. "/He/ knew. Even if he only said it a few times, he always knew." Averting her gaze, she looks into an unseen distance--with that strange, twisted expression that isn't quite a smile. "Maybe that's why he's doing this to me," she whispers.

Salem's voice lashes out like a whip, though its sting isn't meant for her. "Yes, and we know that _he_ was a complete paragon of virtue and _fidelity_." He inhales sharply, nostrils flaring, and then -- very deliberately -- sets his cup, fragile thing that it is, down on the counter and folds his arms across his chest.

Rina's jaw tightens; she flinches almost visibly from the words, and tea sloshes over the edge of the cup onto her hands. "It was never his idea. Never his fault." She swallows, her lips tight again. "I pushed him. Revenge, and--" The dark eyes look to him again, filmed slightly with tears.

Salem glowers down at her. "Do I have to say it again? John was a grown-fucking-man. He was able to make his own damned choices, and he _did_. You didn't _force_ him to go behind your back. Whatever you might have done... it doesn't fucking well matter. _Nothing_ excuses what he did." He shakes his head, still scowling and tense. Too tense. He paces a few steps away, toward the living room. "But you'd rather whip yourself bloody and wear thorns."

Rina laughs a little, bitterly. "What do you think it is, every time I see her? Every time I visit my Angela, who's all I have left of /her/ father?" She watches him, her expression taut with pain and a strange, strained irony. "I was in /love/ with her, f'Chrissake!"

Salem turns back, mouth twisted, and just _looks_ at her for a moment. Then he exhales a sharp breath and pushes his hands into his pockets. "Whores don't do things for love," he says flatly. "They do them for money."

Salem adds, just as flatly, "You're not a whore."

She looks away. "Doesn't matter now, anyway," she says unsteadily. "I still love her. I look at her and I want to die, and I'm still in love with her."

Salem inhales, exhales, forcing some semblence of calm. "Love is a strange thing sometimes," he says, a bit gruffly.

Rina drinks down a few sips of her tea--then drains the cup, swallow after swallow. A shaking hand sets it down, empty, on the counter. She does not look at him.

Salem passes a hand across his scarred face and looks at her, rueful despite the grumbling temper that refuses to go away entirely. "You know I hate to see you... hurt yourself, like this."

"I'm sorry," she says quietly, looking away. A swallow tightens her throat, and she blinks several times; then she picks up her cup and walks blindly into the kitchen, to pour herself another cup.

Salem shakes his head. "Forget it." His gaze tracks her movement, and after a moment he says quietly, "I ought to go."

"I'm sorry," she murmurs, her back turned to him. "I ruined it, huh." Her hand tightens, but with an effort she sets the mug down on the counter and leans against the laminate's edge.

Salem shakes his head. "No. I just need to... be somewhere else for a bit. It would be safer." A note of dry humor. "For your earthenware, at least. I'd really rather not break anything."

"Go ahead," she murmurs. "I'm barely holding back, myself."

Salem shakes his head. "You don't need to see that. Really."

Rina ducks her head, leaning on the counter with both arms. "Sorry. yeah. I--I'll see you, when the moon's better."

"Maybe sooner, even." He looks at her for a moment, then combs his fingers back through his hair. "...Right. Take care of yourself and... tell Cat I said hello."

Rina straightens deliberately to pace to the door--contrition in her eyes, as she takes the cup from his hands. Gently. "I will," she says quietly. "He'll be sorry he missed you." She shows him to the door, covering that painful moment with etiquette.

"Another reason for me to keep stopping by," Salem says, keeping his voice light despite the tension in his back and shoulders. Before he leaves he turns back to look at her, glowering eyes and a wry, cynical sort of smile, then inclines his head slightly. "Call me if you need anything," he says in parting, and adds, as he goes out the door, "Call me if you don't."