just stop crying

Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
The bookstore is not small, but the height of the rows and rows of shelves make it seem closer than it is. On the outside the storefront doesn't stand out much from the shops on either side of its door. There are books on display in the window, a poster advertising a signing, and the name of the bookstore painting directly on the glass. Handpainted, even. Inside, the smell of old paper and bindings and a mixed bouquet of coffee and tea smells permeate the air. There's a table to the side with Styrofoam cups, napkins, sugar, and powdered creamer arranged around a Keurig machine and its coffee options. On the table is a handwritten sign advising patrons to throw out their cups rather than leave them on a shelf. Be kind to your neighbors, and to the people who operate the establishment. The place feels nice and cozy like a favorte, well worn pair of shoes.

It does not seem the sort of place for Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood to be found, and yet soon as the door opens those with a sense for it can tell one of Falcon's children is here, somewhere, lost in the stacks maybe, or perhaps in the back office.

It is the back office, actually, where one might find the girl behind a closed door. Having an interview. She had been upset the day before, having just been fired from a grocery store where she had tried to be a cashier. It had not gone well, obviously, but the girl is learning to be resilient. Sure it's by necessity, she is running low on money and has a threat of homelessness hanging over her head driving her out into the world drumming up work. The bookstore isn't her kind of place, but she's desperate. That's why she'd practically begged the manager to give her an interview this morning. A charmer when she chooses to be, she knew if she could just get her foot in the door she might have a chance...

Which is what she's trying to do back there in the office with the door closed to the public. She's trying to get herself a chance.


cameron hart
There have been perhaps stranger things to happen than an ahroun in a bookstore on a full moon in the children's section. But, to up the ante further, he's holding a copy of George and Martha....the intriguing story of two best friend hippopotamuses. A look of consternation has worked itself fully across his face as he thumbs the pages his hands cradling the spine carefully like a man that appreciates the written word. His eyes hang at half mast and his posture is relaxed, spine curved and lazy. The moon may not be visible but Cameron can feel it as sure as he can feel the weight of the book in his two hands.

Rage vibrates on a low frequency from his person, not as strong or suffocating as it has been but it's there and noticeable and enough to keep others in the shop at a distance. Does he know Georgie's here? Who knows. He isn't sniffing the air or hunting her down and at the moment he seems completely captivated by the large print and colourful pictures of hippopotamuses on the pages of the book he's currently perusing.


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
Georgie doesn't know anything about hippopotamuses, or children's books in general. She's not much of a reader, you see, at least not for fun. There have always been so many other things to take up her free time. But she is well enough read. She went to school, she read the classics, she (mostly) wrote her own reports on them. And when she turns on her charm (desperate, desperate[please please please I need this stupid job so bad!] charm), she can sway a person's mind to her way of thinking.
And her way of thinking at the moment is that she should totally work at this smelly old bookstore that reminds her a little of home for some reason.

The door to the office opens and out comes Georgie, a couple of steps ahead of a surprisngly young-looking woman with a head of long white hair. There are tattoos on her forearms and ink crawling up the woman's neck, hinting at more beneath her clothing. "I'll see you on Monday, Georgie, and we'll see how this goes."

Georgie's voice, not terribly loud really, sometimes quite pleasant (when she's not screaming or crying or throwing a fit) carries into the nearby children's section. "Thank you. I'll see you then."
The young woman comes around the corner, around a shorter collection of shelves - the better for lower eyes to see the brightly colored book covers - smiling with relief. The smile starts to fade when she realizes she is starting to feel a creeping sort of dread. Eventually, she'll start to recognize Rage as a force of nature and a part of Garou. For now it just makes her queasy and uncomfortable. She turns her head as she starts to pass the section, glancing in, and does a doubletake. Now there is something she never expected to see. A big werewolf curled over a book about, are those hippos? Elephants? She can't tell from a distance. Never the less, her walk slows uncertainly and she glances up ahead. Back here, it's hard to imagine there's a world beyond the walls of books, but she knows there must be an exit in that direction somewhere. The question is, should she make a run for it?


cameron hart
A crooked, haphazard smile drags itself reluctantly across his wide mouth as a thumb drags down the face of Martha the hippo to page number 10. These are simple things that call to the parts of him that he doesn't know. Once he craved these things, maybe not books about hippo friends, but any shade of book and knowledge in general. He knows this as sure as he knows that he's being watched by a pair of eyes he's only passingly familiar with.

"I think I'll buy this." He says with a nod, the smile that has found a place on his lips seems settled there, almost comfortable and terribly out of place. His Rage is tempered and rather than dragging all the air from her lungs and threatening her very existence ... it's like an old heavy blanket: warm.
The hand that had been cradling the book (his left) snaps it shut while the opposite (his right) reached across to tend to an itch along the scar etched into his jaw. A glance is thrown sidelong at Georgie, lasting only a beat or two, before he looks back to the book.

"I'll send it home."

Not that he'll go home. Nor will he take it home. He won't hold the child it's meant for and read it to them. But he'll send it home to their mother and that will have to do.


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
She watches him, fascinated for a second. Then the book closes with a snap! and she jumps, one foot shooting forward. She hadn't had long to develop her flight reflexes but now that she has them they are very easy to fall back on.

"Are you talking to me?" she asks, not even looking around to see if there are others he might be speaking to. There is no one else willing to brave even his tempered Rage on a day like today, no one courageous enough to go in and look for All My Friends are Dead or Elephant and Piggie books. Either he's talking to her or he's talking to himself.

"Because I don't work here yet and I don't think they ship, like away."


cameron hart
The book hangs from one big paw at his side, his body shifting to angle so that he's facing her. He forgets that even in the moments when he is tempered, when his Rage has been spent to the point of exhaustion, he is too much for most to handle. The store is filled with the sounds of footsteps and books sliding onto and off of shelves. Of coffee or tea brewing and the faintest conversations off in a corner somewhere so as not to disturb the whole of the shop. He can hear them all, every human in the shop and every sound that they make. Were he to close his eyes and focus, he could hear the sound of Georgie's heart thumping along in her chest.

He doesn't do that though. He leans faintly on the heavy wood book shelf, a shoulder seemingly propping up the weighty furniture. His lips part to say something, something probably simple because cameron never really says anything that's too deep in meaning, but instead his lips close tight.
Somewhere, up near the front of the shop, someone is expertly strumming an acoustic guitar.  He doesn't even know the tune or the person plucking the strings but it settles him further, makes the wolf that paces the shadows behind his dark eyes curl up, nose tucked into tail, and sleep.

It's as if every ounce of whatever fight might have been left in him has left him... which is both terrifying and comforting at once. Georgie is free to say or do whatever she likes even if she doesn't know it.  They're also both more vulnerable than cameron ever cares to be.

"Away?" Confusion is met with a tentative smile. "I'll ship it to..." A pause, brow furrowed. "New York...myself."

"Who else would I be talking to?" Is asked with a cock of his head at the kin.


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
He's clever, even if it's accidental. The mention of New York, of home, of comforts and her own awesome soft bed and not having to work (or be nice to strangers) keeps her rooted on the spot.
Who else would he be talking to? Her brow lifts almost of its own accord. She looks at him no higher than about his neck. "Yours-eh," catching herself a little too late. Best not be familiar with any of them, Georgie. They're all sneaks and you're just property. Not even property, someone else's toy that's somehow found itself in the unwanted possession of others.

It's weird, though. There is still something about him that would set her hackles up if she had any, but he seems even more chill than he had in his hotel room.

"To your child, huh?" she asks, hopes maybe. Why else would a grown man, a werewolf besides, be reading a children's book? Not for himself, right? She's wearing her grey coat as usual. Actually, she's wearing the exact same thing she wore to his room that time. The same white buton-down with the circular, polka dot cut outs over a plain white camisole and jeans, hair even plaited into a thick, messy braid.


cameron hart
He nods to her, likely alleviating any fear she might have had that he'd be sniffing at the hem of her coat or worse. Leaning there like a man holding up the world with just the proper placement of his shoulder, cameron drags in a deep breath and then sighs it out slow and easy like. "It's not for me..." Said as if she should have known that, what good would a book on hippo friends do a big bad wolf like him?

"I did enjoy books...once." But the way he says it makes it seem as if he isn't so sure about the validity of his own statement. Did he? He's sure he did, once. And then, her words come back around (I don't work here yet) and poke him in the ribs, twisting his mouth out of the smile it held and into a more studious thin line.

"You're employed here?"  Curious, that.

"Your mother knows? Or ...have you decided to...fly the coop....as it were?"


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
It hadn't occurred to her that he might sniff her like a dog. Not here, anyway, not now. If that was going to happen anywhere it probably would've happened when she was alone in his hotel room, in supposed privacy from prying eyes. It's either a sign of her youth and naivete, or some innate sense of trust that she agreed to go there at all.

Her worry is more a faceless thing, a cloud that's been hanging over her since she left home months ago. She's afraid he'll force her home. She's afraid that he won't. She's afraid he'll pick her up and put her in his pocket for safekeeping. She's afraid he's going to abandon her in this awful, awful city. But, no, she can't put a name to that confused swirl of fear.

She breathes out a laugh, then quickly sucks in her lips, expecting the outburst to earn her a new chiding. The uncertainty of his confession doesn't make any sense to her. "You say that like you can't anymore." She waves her hand behind her, indicating the rest of the store. "They're just books."

He asks after her employment and she looks at his eyes and then quickly away, swallowing hard. Whatever surprised and probably misplaced mirth she'd been trying to reign in, it dies completely at mention of her mother. Georgie's fair complexion goes even more pale.

"I don't know," she says, words short and clipped, eyes on the floor now. "Someone- I was told she already knows where I am. She's always known." Despair in that knowledge, she had tried so hard to put distance between herself and New York and it hadn't mattered even remotely. "I was only hired like now, though, so I don't think she knows I'm here here."


cameron hart
Another nod accompanies a deeper furrowing of his dark brow. He could never enjoy the books the way that he might have once loved them. He'll never take pleasure in the feel of pages bound between leather, the smell of ink on old paper. It's a shake of his head that she gets this time, not in any answer to any thing she's said of course...but more to empty his head of those thoughts, it's not like he can remember anyway.

Long arms cross, the book ending up held loose against one pectoral muscle. "She did." Confirmation is given and all he can comfort her with afterwards is the faintest of shrugs at his shoulders. "Sending me here....it wasn't because she didn't know. She always knew. I think she wanted eyes on you for whatever reason." He pauses for a moment while his thumb sweeps back and forth over the back of the book. "...maybe she just wanted to give an old man something to do."

"The thing is, Georgie, it's about knowing your enemies as well as you do your friends. I don't believe your family is the enemy...but it's not about what I think...is it?"


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
She doesn't understand. This thing, though, his aversion to books, the melancholy that comes with it, it's not something that she ever could understand. Georgie's body will never change the way that his changes, of that everyone is certain. She will not be Garou, she will not find her senses heightened, she will not shoulder a Rage that makes a comfortable place like this too tight and close. She doesn't know where he's come from, either before or after his Change. She doesn't know his life.
Just as he doesn't know hers.

His arms cross in that way adults do when they're getting ready to talk down to a child. And Georgie, grown woman that she may be, responds to it the same as any child would. She closes up. She frowns. Unconsciously, her body arcs away from him. Whatever approximation of a civilized conversation they were on the cusp of having begins to crumble into ash.

A thought occurs to her. It comes when he says her mother wanted eyes on her, that she wanted to give an old man something to do. Her mother probably wants to ensure her daughter's honor and purity remains intact. Whatever arrangement she's made probably depends on it. She does not mention this, but her face darkens.

"I never said my family was my enemy," she says sharply, straightening, lifting her chin defiantly though her eyes still refuse to lift to his. She needs to retain her dignity. She's supposed to workhere, starting Monday. "It was nice to see you again, sir." Pivoting cleanly, she starts quickly looking for the exit.


cameron hart
Cameron has been agreeable, however begrudgingly, to giving Georgie her space when needed. He has walked away and left her to find peace or solace or something between the two on her own. But the way that she snaps back, arcs her body - the way that she seems so sure of her answer when he isn't sure at all of anything, makes him move after her. And, despite the age he carries, he is quick and his body moves smoothly with just the flicker of thought to do so. He doesn't touch her, just follows in her wake with the book still gripped in his hand, arms at his sides.

"No? You didn't? Who is then Georgie? Are you really just the petulant child you claim not to be, rebelling against your Mother and hoping that your fits and tantrums will get you your way? You told me it was so bad for you, that I didn't know. Do you remember that? I didn't know...what the fuck are you running from your family for - and your obligations to them - if they're not your enemy? If they're not an adversary? You obviously don't believe they have your best interests at heart do you Georgina?"  

His voice is a rumble of a whisper at her back and though his Rage is strangely absent, it won't be once their feet hit the pavement outside of the bookstore.


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
He doesn't touch her but he doesn't have to. Just the presence, the knowledge that he's right there, hunting her down like a wolf hunts a rabbit, fills her with a prickle of fear, spurring her forward, making her want to run but she can't, can she? He'd said it himself when he first found her. Pieters had said it himself in his apartment office or whatever the hell it had been.

There is no running. They will always find her, no matter where she goes. And they will take up like a doll and make her do what they want her to do, make her answer to their whims and plots and desires, without a care that she's a person. She's a girl who okay maybe she didn't have any concrete plans for the future, but nobody asked her, did they?

And as he chases her through the bookstore she realizes that nobody ever will.

Just before she reaches the door she spins around, light and quick and too fast. He'll have to react quickly or he'll plow into her, knocking her to the ground. Her face is red again, an ugly mess as fat, angry tears follow a fresh trail down her cheeks.

"Who's my enemy?" she asks him, voice raised and hoarse. "YOU ARE!" She points at him, that hand moving quickly into a sweeping motion away from her. "YOU. ALL. ARE. You don't care about me, me," her palm slams into her sternum, "Georgie. I'm just Georgina the toy you're making sure doesn't get broken before my mom can give me to someone else. You're all only happy if you can just...pull my string so I say yes when you want me to say yes or nothing if you think I'll say anything else! None of you has my best interest at heart you know how I know?" She doesn't wait for an answer but charges forward if he doesn't cut her off. "Because nobody asked."


cameron hart
There is a scene being caused and, of course, cameron and georgie are the two primary actors in it. He's moving after her with a deftness that speaks of a skill at stalking things. The guitarast plays her song, people move on about their day until the kin wheels around on the werewolf and barks at him with a voice that is both hoarse and frustrated and maybe even slightly anguished. He knows all three of those emotions rather well.

But let's back up.

She spins around so quick that she doesn't realize (or ...maybe she does?) how close and quick cameron is moving behind her. Their bodies collide but he is graceful enough not to cause her any damage. George and Martha crash to the ground, tumbling end over end only to come to rest between them.

There's something symbolic in that.

She points at him, roars against the injustice that is her life but he just holds her waist with one long arm, one strong hand. Her face has taken on a red shade and rivulets run down her cheeks. Her palm slamming into her sternum leaves her skin red there. It leaves his brow furrowed and dark and he looks both confused and horrified at her reaction.

Or maybe just at her words.

The hand that isn't holding her waist brushes back her hair, tucks the blonde streaks back behind an ear so they don't get stuck to her cheek in the wetness of her own sadness. "I asked." Didn't he? Maybe not the way she would have liked, but he he told her that he would do what he could. He would make sure she wasn't being married off to a monster who would treat her badly. "I tried to ask..." Comes then because replaying their conversation now he isn't so sure.

But she's crying. Jesus fucking Christ. She's crying again. 

"Don't cry Georgina." He says the same thing he always says but this time it seems more of a plea and less of a demand while all around them things move on and people wrongly assume this is some sort of lovers spat...a romantic entanglement they should just try to avoid completely.


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
He grabs hold of her, keeps her upright, keeps her from falling to the ground. Keeps her closer than she'd probably like if she weren't a slave to the tirade. Every horrible thing she's thought or she's learned about her place in this world of theirs is vomited out of her even though she knows, some part of her knows anyway. He was nicer to her than most have been. He tried to understand.

And then she'd met the Elder of their tribe, who was kind to her, too. Who was friendly and gentle in his tone even though she was fucking terrified in his presence, she was traumatized by the way she'd been brought before him. He'd seemed understanding, too, until she didn't do what he wanted her to do.

They're all the same. She's crying because she's scared, of Cameron only a little, of her future a whole lot more. He'd said himself he wasn't sure he even liked his mate, and they had a child, maybe children together. She's almost never seen her parents in the same room together since she was a child. Her mother never asked her what she wanted, never gave her a choice. None of them do, none of them care.

He moves to tuck her hair behind her ear and thoughtlessly her hand comes up in a futile attempt to swat his hand away. She doesn't try again if he's insistent. By the end of her tirade she is well and truly crying, her slender body shaking with every shuddering sob. She covers her face with her hands, like those small, delicate things can possibly shield her from the horror and embarrassment of the scene she's caused in the place she'd just been hired to on a trial basis. And she's crying. Again. She hates to cry, but she has just as much control over it as Cameron has over his Rage. Except in her case, music doesn't soothe her as it does him.

Speaking of music, the musician stopped playing shortly after the blonde young woman and the tall man with the silver-tipped dark hair burst into the entry of the store. The whole store seems unearthly quiet in the way of her shouts which still ring in her own ears. She doesn't think of what people must be thinking about her, about this scene which is straight out of some kind of romance movie. She's thinking that she's probably lost this job already and she didn't even get to start it yet. Why couldn't she have just made it out the door before turning around?

Don't cry, he says. She sobs in reply. From behind her hands he hears her weak and miserable voice hiccup, "I can't- I can't help it."


cameron hart
She tries to flail at his hand in an attempt to make him stop but he doesn't. Warm fingers push back through her hair and the look of concern continues to grow on his features, amplified when she doesn't stop, or rather the crying seems to intensify. With the music stopped that low thrum of Rage returns. He has wasted a wealth of it on nothing important in an attempt to not cause panic among the flock, but it's still there ... lying just beneath the surface of his warm skin.

"Come on." He rumbles at her, his arm around her waist and his body angling her own toward the door. If she was to be employed here they had no business seeing her this upset and because it is his fault, cameron tries to fix it.

He's always trying to...fix things.

Martha and George lay on the bookstore floor, a present never bought for a child not yet born. The door is thrust open with his free hand and Georgie is manoeuvred outside where he turns to face her, both hands cradling her warm and wet cheeks. "I know. I know." He says, head nodding at her. "And that's ok. I'm nobody...Georgina. I...don't know anything about myself before I became what I am...I have no rank to speak of, no ... authority within the nation or the House of both of our families. I'm...without a pack...I'm...a killer for hire. Or a child-fetcher depending on who's requesting my time..." A corner of his mouth quirks upward in an attempt at smiling.

"I'm as useless in all of this as you feel...they point at  things and I kill them, and maybe I get killed but if I don't that's great because I can go and kill more things and maybe not get killed then too."
"Point is...I'm not the bad guy...at least, I don't mean to be."  His thumbs rest just a small space away from the corners of her mouth but he's holding her lightly - delicately - as if he were afraid she might break if he applied any pressure whatsoever. "I don't want to be the enemy."

And that's the crux of it.  He doesn't want to be the enemy of kinfolk like Georgie.


Georgie Kingsley-Lockwood
She lets herself be moved. Not that she has much choice, or rather the choices she has are not terribly agreeable. She could remove her hands from her face, show it to her potential coworkers, let them see how upset she is, an upset that's compounded exponentially but the mere fact that she's upset. Or she could let the Ahroun guide her out the door. It's no Sophie's choice, that. It isn't the choice between the unknown prospect of a mate she's neer met and a fate worse than death alone. This choice is an easy one.

Outside, the cooler, wetter air helps. It's not quite a splash of water to the face, but perhaps it will do. Then he cups her face in his too-warm hands. She is so small, this girl, compared to him and to almost anyone. Her height is not the issue, though she is a great deal shorter than Cameron. But her figure is so small, so thin. The cheeks he cradles should be fuller as she leaves the chubbiness of childhood behind and enters womanhood, but her face is all angles. He holds her delicately and he would not be the first, likely won't be the last to treat her like he'd crush her with a breath. She's so skinny, the end result of a Garou mother trying to care for her infant herself. Georgie will always be a little slip of a thing.

He holds her face in his hands and there's nowhere for her to look except directly at him, which she does with wide, uncertain, watery eyes. Her nose is red and her cheeks, the skin around her eyes. She would be so pretty if she would just stop crying. Maybe if she'd adjust that attitude, too.
He tells her that he's nobody, tells her about himself, tells her of the jobs he's sent on because of this, and she frowns, eyes pulling away from him. Child-fetcher. She really is just a child. Running away from home because she wasn't given the right attention at the right time on a matter that should be important. Thinking she could borrow some time away to figure things out for herself and finding...just more of the same, really. More people reminding her of her obligations and the fact she has no choice in any of this.

Her eyes squeeze shut, trying to shut out that bleak train of thought. When she meets Cameron's eyes again she's almost not crying anymore. Her arms hang uselessly at her sides. Finally, eyes closing, she takes a deep breath, taking in the smell of his skin and his closeness and the scent of the wet city around them, and she nods.

"Okay," she says, and again, looking up at him, "Okay."


cameron hart
He smells like cologne, some fragrance that costs too much and smells earthy. Musky. But there's him beneath him, the smell of what a man - not a boy her age - smells like. There's a difference, she'll learn this as the years go on and experience becomes her own.  The pads of his thumbs swipe gently up her cheeks, wiping  away streaks of moisture as if they had never been, before releasing her and taking a step back. His Rage buffets her but it's a weak thing at that moment held in place by the full moon over their heads. Tonight, he won't be bearable.

Georgie had looked the same today and so too did cameron. Dark pressed slacks, clean and crisp long sleeved shirt button neatly up the front. No suit jacket to speak of, no tie. With his hands free now he shoves them into the pockets of his slacks and looks around them. "I'll hail you a cab."

Which he does, stepping to the curb and looking in earnest for a yellow taxi either way on the semi-busy street.