Flint Madden (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
flint_garou) wrote2013-01-03 08:30 pm
flint_garou) wrote2013-01-03 08:30 pm
Entry tags:
Family.
It doesn't make it okay.
3 January, 2013
The moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (55% full).
Kavi is on duty, the monitors set up where he can easily see and still work on his map project, laid out across the table. Kavi stands over the maps, one finger touching the red star next to The Temple, his expression contemplative.
It's evening, and the monitors show Nieve and Flint approaching the tenement, pausing a ways from the door to talk, and then the theurge watches Flint move over and safely enter the building before walking off in another direction, likely to come in later. Flint shoves his keys in the pocket of his jeans and unzips his sweatshirt, waving briefly at the elder galliard.
Kavi keeps the finger on the star, but looks up to greet Flint as he enters. "Hey," he calls, and his brow furrows briefly, thoughtful. Instead of speaking whatever question comes to mind, however, he returns his attention to the map of the city spread across the table.
"Hey, Kavi-rhya," Flint responds. The first minute or so inside is spent fidgeting with his sweatshirt, until eventually it ends up tied around his waist. Under it, the cliath's wearing short sleeves, and so fidgets with bare wrists as he comes over to look at what Kavi's doing, pausing a slight distance from the table.
The map is of the city, with stickers of various shapes and colors located across it. Clusters show near the Temple and the Slaughterhouse, with others scattered throughout the more dangerous neighborhoods. In the hand not touching the map, he seems to have a roll of other stickers, not simple shapes, like what are already on the map, but small images of fruit.
The older galliard glances up at Flint again, gaze resting on the boy's wrists just briefly before he returns his focus to his work. "How's Ky?"
Flint chews on his lower lip a moment. "Good. Ky's good, better. Back to normal for the. Most part, as much as—" Flint cuts off, swallows. "As we'll ever be," the younger galliard finishes, having started off talking about his packmate and ended up talking much more generally.
Kavi nods and puts a small banana sticker on the sidewalk by the tenement. Then another in the alley near the red star that marks the Temple. "It… It won't ever be over? But. But this part will. We're closer."
Flint looks at the map for a moment and then eventually looks away from it, steps back slightly. "Okay," the cliath agrees. "Those are… places, where?" Like despite that Flint doesn't want to know, and that there's a glance towards the door even as he sees some of the locations on the map, he's asking.
"Where we've seen her," Kavi answers, without regard to the boy's discomfort. "Either on camera or in person. Or. If we got close, with gifts. These," he says, and holds up the roll of fruit stickers. "These are for… for her people. Ghouls or. Or vampires she made."
Flint nods, and he stares at the door for a long time, silently.
Setting the roll of stickers on the table, Kavi straightens, and turns to watch Flint. "She's making more. Ghouls. And she has… She has people inside."
Flint remains pretty rooted in place, but he's staring in the direction, if one had a good sense of direction, of the neighbourhood that he encountered the vampire in twice before. "But, who," Flint mutters, then brings a hand to his forehead. "I. There was a… Shadow Lord kin. Hunting vampires. Lex still hasn't, checked up. On. On her. We. Will, soon."
Kavi is suddenly alert, suddenly intense, and he moves swiftly to place himself directly before Flint, bending just enough to put himself at eye level with the cliath. "No," he says with a sharp shake of his head as he moves. "Not soon. Now. Who is it? If— If there's any chance to save her? You can't let it go."
"Alice," Flint says, struggling for the name, and looks up at Kavi. "But I don't know where she lives. Neither does. Does Lex. Lex is working on it, though."
Kavi shakes his head again. "Working on it isn't enough. Do you… Do you have a last name? A picture? Something of hers?"
Flint shakes his head to all three, biting his lower lip. "If we did, we'd have. Already. Nik-rhya probably knows, where. But. He's been… who knows where." The mention of the largely absent Shadow Lord elder brings a faint growl to Flint's throat. "I've only seen, Alice… twice? Once at Edgewood, once at the Vault. Barely five minutes either time. I could pick her out of a crowd… but not draw her."
Kavi grows more agitated, and his lips press tight across his teeth as Flint speaks. "Who does know her? Besides Nik? If she's been to Edgewood, or the Vault, someone knows her."
If Kavi wasn't between Flint and the door, Flint might be agitated enough to just go for it, regardless of anything, and Flint shakes his head. "I don't know," he responds, clearly apologising for the fact. "Nik. Don't know, no one else was, at Edgewood that day except Mitzi. She. I'll ask, more. Someone has to, but. Ky and Lex and Nik, and there's… Draco but he only… came to town, when Lex was a cub. Ky and Lex don't know, aside from the Vault."
Kavi begins to pace, anger obvious in his posture, in his breathing. "You knew? She knew? And all this time? All this time, she's been free! Free to tell what she knows. Free to tell anything. To be inside our Safehouses? And you knew?"
Flint shakes his head at Kavi, grimacing at the elder Galliard. "No. I found out not long ago at. At all. I. Didn't— put it together. Until I saw the map." Flint shakes his head. "We'll find her." Which no longer seems to refer to Alice, and the cliath starts for the door to the outside.
"Stop!" Kavi shouts after Flint, rage entering the sound of his voice, gravel entering the tone as it drops in register. "Stop, now!"
Flint gets halfway to the door and the second time, listens, though he doesn't turn around, yet. Instead, the cliath just drops to sitting where he is, leans forward, and mutters to himself. "Fuck." It sounds grim. "I can find her though!" Hapless, irritated, tense protest.
Kavi is within inches of the cliath before he has a chance to finish that thought. "How?" he growls. "How can you find her?"
Flint flinches, a little, and shrugs his shoulders. It seems to be a half-remembered, mostly pushed out of the way thought to start with. "Don't know. But I… found her. Before. When… before you'd found me, before I'd. I could find her."
Kavi backs off with a snarl of frustration. His pacing resumes and he seems to be working to collect himself, with limited success. "Your packmates? They both know about her? About Alice?"
Flint shakes his head. "They just thought she was— she's done crazy things before, or something?" Flint is, however, already digging out his phone, and sending a text message. "I didn't put, why together. Until now, until I saw the map, and. Until you said, that. People!" Which sounds mostly like Flint's berating himself for not putting it together, and he starts to get up. Flint manages a faint check, probably for weapons he's carrying, then starts to shrug his sweatshirt on. "No one TOLD ME she has. People. Inside." The cliath's voice raises, though not by much.
Kavi whirls around on Flint, fists clenched at his sides. His breath hisses from between his teeth and he pulls in another forcing it to slow before he speaks. "We did," he says, his voice quiet and cold. "We did. When we put the picture you drew at Edgewood. And here. And she got rid of her phone and stopped being Rose. That's when we knew someone told her. We knew then."
Flint looks at Kavi and shakes his head, wracking his memory for a moment, then nods. "I was. I… was, too much, with. Mouse-rhya'd had to, with… I was confined to the basement. I. It. Didn't register because nothing registered!" Flint's clearly not managing to get less-upset, himself, and he looks up at Kavi, then down at the ground and starts to walk. Not for the door, this time, but towards the couch, moving to go sit down.
Kavi shakes his head. His gaze follows Flint to the couch, and then he resumes his pacing, raking fingers back through his hair. For a long while, he's silent, forcing his breathing to resemble calm, the rest of his body slowly following. "You need to get your pack to come here," he says, his voice calm, now, but still with an undercurrent of rage. "Not knowing? Not… Not thinking? It doesn't make it okay. The Shadow Lords. They— They think they can keep it all to themselves. But it hurts us. And they don't care. They need to understand what it means. They need to include the rest of us."
Flint twines his fingers around his wrists, white-knuckled grip and fingernails digging more than he should, and nods. That's the only acknowledgement for a moment, and Flint looks at Kavi. "Yes," he agrees. "I. I'm sorry. I. I should have. Put it together, known sooner. But no one told me after, when." The hurt and guilt is evidence in Flint's voice enough and he gets up, towards the stairs this time. "All, my fault anyway."
Kavi rakes his fingers through his hair again. "It's not all your fault," he says, though his tone is a little too harsh to be considered soothing. "But you had information. They had information. That was about this. And you didn't tell. They didn't tell. Your packmate was bound to a vampire. His kin was hunting vampires. You don't think we should know this?"
The cliath digs his nails into his wrist a little more, takes a few deep breaths, seems to calm. "They. I. Didn't, share with me either—" This comes as a realisation and Flint gets up, starts towards the door again in what's more anger than hurt, the words coming a little too fast and not calm now. "It is. Mouse-rhya. Because I, when I. Frenzied. That's my fault. That I. In the first place, that's. My fault."
Kavi shakes his head, and moves to intercept the younger galliard as he moves. "No," he says and points toward the couches, or possibly the stairs beyond. "They come here. You can call them. But you stay here. They come here."
Flint tries, slightly, to get around Kavi, towards the doors, looking up at the older Galliard and unable to make eye contact. But the guilt and blame the cliath is still placing on himself is there in the look, too. "Go find her and get it over with," he says, barely audible.
Kavi's fist lashes out with a strength and speed not often seen; it isn't the boy that receives the blow, but the wall beside them. "That's ALL I've been doing! Everything I've done! Ever since you— Ever since she came! That's all that I've been doing! I didn't go with Mouse. I didn't go talk to Stag. I didn't do anything else. Only this. Only her!"
Flint looks up at Kavi, startled, and still hurt, and shakes his head. "I. See. All my fault. I'll." The cliath's usually disjointed speech is moreso, very quiet. "I'm sorry," he adds, resuming course towards the door.
Kavi's hand is already beginning to swell, bones visibly broken within. Still, he reaches out with that same hand to grab for the boy. "No!" he shouts. "You don't go out alone! This is all for you! You don't get to make it be for nothing!"
Flint looks up at the elder Galliard, pauses, and stops, though it takes visible effort to not just jerk away and keep going, and he looks up at Kavi for a long moment, eye contact and everything, then slumps against the wall for a moment. "I. I'm sorry," he repeats. "I didn't. I. I know. I don't deserve— this. You, and mom. And, everything. But I feel so useless here, Kavi-rhya. It. I can't, just. It, eats at me."
Kavi lets go, gaze falling to his battered hand for a moment, and he flexes the fingers as well as he's able, even as his eyes return to Flint. "You're not alone," Kavi says to him, tension still in his voice though the volume has decreased. "Not here. Not in what you feel. You're not alone. We're your family. We do this because we care about you. And you. You have to do this. You have to let us help you. And that means telling us things. And it means following orders. You have to accept that you're not alone."
Flint has steadied his breathing, in, out, a steady count for each, though it still catches. "Yes, Kavi-rhya," he says, quiet again, and he glances at the adren's hand, brows furrowing in worry. There's a pause, and Flint adds, "Thanks. For… not letting me, go. It. I… once I thought about it, it was, really there. For a moment, and I… forgot, about, everything else." He swallows, looks down at the nail-marks on his own wrists.
Kavi nods, his breathing starting to ease. "You're family," he says, and nods toward the stairwell door.
The cliath nods, gathering himself for a moment before pulling his sweatshirt on a bit tighter. Flint doesn't even glance at the door, this time, but does look up at Kavi. "If there's something. If I can do something, that. To help, so that I. Help," he says, swallowing and moving for the stairs a bit. "I want to. I don't want to, to be useless. I'll. I. I texted Lex. She… they. They don't understand what it means, you're. Right. They… but. I'll… deal with that, as it. As it comes." There's a grimace, and Flint leans his forehead against the stairwell door, then adds, "Please don't… tell me I told you so. If it, comes to. That." The cliath opens the stairwell door, then.
Kavi's eyes narrow at that last, but he doesn't speak to it. "Stay safe," he says, instead, and looks down at his hand again, prodding the bulge of swelling with his opposite thumb.
Flint watches Kavi for a moment longer, and nods. "You too. Please." Then Flint moves to actually head upstairs, the door shutting quietly behind him.
3 January, 2013
The moon is in the waning Half (Philodox) Moon phase (55% full).
Kavi is on duty, the monitors set up where he can easily see and still work on his map project, laid out across the table. Kavi stands over the maps, one finger touching the red star next to The Temple, his expression contemplative.
It's evening, and the monitors show Nieve and Flint approaching the tenement, pausing a ways from the door to talk, and then the theurge watches Flint move over and safely enter the building before walking off in another direction, likely to come in later. Flint shoves his keys in the pocket of his jeans and unzips his sweatshirt, waving briefly at the elder galliard.
Kavi keeps the finger on the star, but looks up to greet Flint as he enters. "Hey," he calls, and his brow furrows briefly, thoughtful. Instead of speaking whatever question comes to mind, however, he returns his attention to the map of the city spread across the table.
"Hey, Kavi-rhya," Flint responds. The first minute or so inside is spent fidgeting with his sweatshirt, until eventually it ends up tied around his waist. Under it, the cliath's wearing short sleeves, and so fidgets with bare wrists as he comes over to look at what Kavi's doing, pausing a slight distance from the table.
The map is of the city, with stickers of various shapes and colors located across it. Clusters show near the Temple and the Slaughterhouse, with others scattered throughout the more dangerous neighborhoods. In the hand not touching the map, he seems to have a roll of other stickers, not simple shapes, like what are already on the map, but small images of fruit.
The older galliard glances up at Flint again, gaze resting on the boy's wrists just briefly before he returns his focus to his work. "How's Ky?"
Flint chews on his lower lip a moment. "Good. Ky's good, better. Back to normal for the. Most part, as much as—" Flint cuts off, swallows. "As we'll ever be," the younger galliard finishes, having started off talking about his packmate and ended up talking much more generally.
Kavi nods and puts a small banana sticker on the sidewalk by the tenement. Then another in the alley near the red star that marks the Temple. "It… It won't ever be over? But. But this part will. We're closer."
Flint looks at the map for a moment and then eventually looks away from it, steps back slightly. "Okay," the cliath agrees. "Those are… places, where?" Like despite that Flint doesn't want to know, and that there's a glance towards the door even as he sees some of the locations on the map, he's asking.
"Where we've seen her," Kavi answers, without regard to the boy's discomfort. "Either on camera or in person. Or. If we got close, with gifts. These," he says, and holds up the roll of fruit stickers. "These are for… for her people. Ghouls or. Or vampires she made."
Flint nods, and he stares at the door for a long time, silently.
Setting the roll of stickers on the table, Kavi straightens, and turns to watch Flint. "She's making more. Ghouls. And she has… She has people inside."
Flint remains pretty rooted in place, but he's staring in the direction, if one had a good sense of direction, of the neighbourhood that he encountered the vampire in twice before. "But, who," Flint mutters, then brings a hand to his forehead. "I. There was a… Shadow Lord kin. Hunting vampires. Lex still hasn't, checked up. On. On her. We. Will, soon."
Kavi is suddenly alert, suddenly intense, and he moves swiftly to place himself directly before Flint, bending just enough to put himself at eye level with the cliath. "No," he says with a sharp shake of his head as he moves. "Not soon. Now. Who is it? If— If there's any chance to save her? You can't let it go."
"Alice," Flint says, struggling for the name, and looks up at Kavi. "But I don't know where she lives. Neither does. Does Lex. Lex is working on it, though."
Kavi shakes his head again. "Working on it isn't enough. Do you… Do you have a last name? A picture? Something of hers?"
Flint shakes his head to all three, biting his lower lip. "If we did, we'd have. Already. Nik-rhya probably knows, where. But. He's been… who knows where." The mention of the largely absent Shadow Lord elder brings a faint growl to Flint's throat. "I've only seen, Alice… twice? Once at Edgewood, once at the Vault. Barely five minutes either time. I could pick her out of a crowd… but not draw her."
Kavi grows more agitated, and his lips press tight across his teeth as Flint speaks. "Who does know her? Besides Nik? If she's been to Edgewood, or the Vault, someone knows her."
If Kavi wasn't between Flint and the door, Flint might be agitated enough to just go for it, regardless of anything, and Flint shakes his head. "I don't know," he responds, clearly apologising for the fact. "Nik. Don't know, no one else was, at Edgewood that day except Mitzi. She. I'll ask, more. Someone has to, but. Ky and Lex and Nik, and there's… Draco but he only… came to town, when Lex was a cub. Ky and Lex don't know, aside from the Vault."
Kavi begins to pace, anger obvious in his posture, in his breathing. "You knew? She knew? And all this time? All this time, she's been free! Free to tell what she knows. Free to tell anything. To be inside our Safehouses? And you knew?"
Flint shakes his head at Kavi, grimacing at the elder Galliard. "No. I found out not long ago at. At all. I. Didn't— put it together. Until I saw the map." Flint shakes his head. "We'll find her." Which no longer seems to refer to Alice, and the cliath starts for the door to the outside.
"Stop!" Kavi shouts after Flint, rage entering the sound of his voice, gravel entering the tone as it drops in register. "Stop, now!"
Flint gets halfway to the door and the second time, listens, though he doesn't turn around, yet. Instead, the cliath just drops to sitting where he is, leans forward, and mutters to himself. "Fuck." It sounds grim. "I can find her though!" Hapless, irritated, tense protest.
Kavi is within inches of the cliath before he has a chance to finish that thought. "How?" he growls. "How can you find her?"
Flint flinches, a little, and shrugs his shoulders. It seems to be a half-remembered, mostly pushed out of the way thought to start with. "Don't know. But I… found her. Before. When… before you'd found me, before I'd. I could find her."
Kavi backs off with a snarl of frustration. His pacing resumes and he seems to be working to collect himself, with limited success. "Your packmates? They both know about her? About Alice?"
Flint shakes his head. "They just thought she was— she's done crazy things before, or something?" Flint is, however, already digging out his phone, and sending a text message. "I didn't put, why together. Until now, until I saw the map, and. Until you said, that. People!" Which sounds mostly like Flint's berating himself for not putting it together, and he starts to get up. Flint manages a faint check, probably for weapons he's carrying, then starts to shrug his sweatshirt on. "No one TOLD ME she has. People. Inside." The cliath's voice raises, though not by much.
Kavi whirls around on Flint, fists clenched at his sides. His breath hisses from between his teeth and he pulls in another forcing it to slow before he speaks. "We did," he says, his voice quiet and cold. "We did. When we put the picture you drew at Edgewood. And here. And she got rid of her phone and stopped being Rose. That's when we knew someone told her. We knew then."
Flint looks at Kavi and shakes his head, wracking his memory for a moment, then nods. "I was. I… was, too much, with. Mouse-rhya'd had to, with… I was confined to the basement. I. It. Didn't register because nothing registered!" Flint's clearly not managing to get less-upset, himself, and he looks up at Kavi, then down at the ground and starts to walk. Not for the door, this time, but towards the couch, moving to go sit down.
Kavi shakes his head. His gaze follows Flint to the couch, and then he resumes his pacing, raking fingers back through his hair. For a long while, he's silent, forcing his breathing to resemble calm, the rest of his body slowly following. "You need to get your pack to come here," he says, his voice calm, now, but still with an undercurrent of rage. "Not knowing? Not… Not thinking? It doesn't make it okay. The Shadow Lords. They— They think they can keep it all to themselves. But it hurts us. And they don't care. They need to understand what it means. They need to include the rest of us."
Flint twines his fingers around his wrists, white-knuckled grip and fingernails digging more than he should, and nods. That's the only acknowledgement for a moment, and Flint looks at Kavi. "Yes," he agrees. "I. I'm sorry. I. I should have. Put it together, known sooner. But no one told me after, when." The hurt and guilt is evidence in Flint's voice enough and he gets up, towards the stairs this time. "All, my fault anyway."
Kavi rakes his fingers through his hair again. "It's not all your fault," he says, though his tone is a little too harsh to be considered soothing. "But you had information. They had information. That was about this. And you didn't tell. They didn't tell. Your packmate was bound to a vampire. His kin was hunting vampires. You don't think we should know this?"
The cliath digs his nails into his wrist a little more, takes a few deep breaths, seems to calm. "They. I. Didn't, share with me either—" This comes as a realisation and Flint gets up, starts towards the door again in what's more anger than hurt, the words coming a little too fast and not calm now. "It is. Mouse-rhya. Because I, when I. Frenzied. That's my fault. That I. In the first place, that's. My fault."
Kavi shakes his head, and moves to intercept the younger galliard as he moves. "No," he says and points toward the couches, or possibly the stairs beyond. "They come here. You can call them. But you stay here. They come here."
Flint tries, slightly, to get around Kavi, towards the doors, looking up at the older Galliard and unable to make eye contact. But the guilt and blame the cliath is still placing on himself is there in the look, too. "Go find her and get it over with," he says, barely audible.
Kavi's fist lashes out with a strength and speed not often seen; it isn't the boy that receives the blow, but the wall beside them. "That's ALL I've been doing! Everything I've done! Ever since you— Ever since she came! That's all that I've been doing! I didn't go with Mouse. I didn't go talk to Stag. I didn't do anything else. Only this. Only her!"
Flint looks up at Kavi, startled, and still hurt, and shakes his head. "I. See. All my fault. I'll." The cliath's usually disjointed speech is moreso, very quiet. "I'm sorry," he adds, resuming course towards the door.
Kavi's hand is already beginning to swell, bones visibly broken within. Still, he reaches out with that same hand to grab for the boy. "No!" he shouts. "You don't go out alone! This is all for you! You don't get to make it be for nothing!"
Flint looks up at the elder Galliard, pauses, and stops, though it takes visible effort to not just jerk away and keep going, and he looks up at Kavi for a long moment, eye contact and everything, then slumps against the wall for a moment. "I. I'm sorry," he repeats. "I didn't. I. I know. I don't deserve— this. You, and mom. And, everything. But I feel so useless here, Kavi-rhya. It. I can't, just. It, eats at me."
Kavi lets go, gaze falling to his battered hand for a moment, and he flexes the fingers as well as he's able, even as his eyes return to Flint. "You're not alone," Kavi says to him, tension still in his voice though the volume has decreased. "Not here. Not in what you feel. You're not alone. We're your family. We do this because we care about you. And you. You have to do this. You have to let us help you. And that means telling us things. And it means following orders. You have to accept that you're not alone."
Flint has steadied his breathing, in, out, a steady count for each, though it still catches. "Yes, Kavi-rhya," he says, quiet again, and he glances at the adren's hand, brows furrowing in worry. There's a pause, and Flint adds, "Thanks. For… not letting me, go. It. I… once I thought about it, it was, really there. For a moment, and I… forgot, about, everything else." He swallows, looks down at the nail-marks on his own wrists.
Kavi nods, his breathing starting to ease. "You're family," he says, and nods toward the stairwell door.
The cliath nods, gathering himself for a moment before pulling his sweatshirt on a bit tighter. Flint doesn't even glance at the door, this time, but does look up at Kavi. "If there's something. If I can do something, that. To help, so that I. Help," he says, swallowing and moving for the stairs a bit. "I want to. I don't want to, to be useless. I'll. I. I texted Lex. She… they. They don't understand what it means, you're. Right. They… but. I'll… deal with that, as it. As it comes." There's a grimace, and Flint leans his forehead against the stairwell door, then adds, "Please don't… tell me I told you so. If it, comes to. That." The cliath opens the stairwell door, then.
Kavi's eyes narrow at that last, but he doesn't speak to it. "Stay safe," he says, instead, and looks down at his hand again, prodding the bulge of swelling with his opposite thumb.
Flint watches Kavi for a moment longer, and nods. "You too. Please." Then Flint moves to actually head upstairs, the door shutting quietly behind him.