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Davy's noise preceeds him, as usual, but this time he's telling a story aloud with animated gestures. "...but she knew it, you see. Man, did she give him a what-for." Pushing the door to the heart of the pack's territory open, he's unzipping his jacket with one smooth motion when he suddenly freezes on the stairs. His bulk, of course, totally blocks Jose. "You smell whiskey, man?"
Jose very nearly slams in to the Fianna's rear flank. "Shit, dude, don' stop so fast." He takes a couple of sniffs at the air. "Yeah. Pete an' Arlen must be back an' drownin' their pain. Hit the light."
Davy punches the switch, then frowns as he flips it again, as if he simply didn't make a good enough connection the first time. "Shit. Must be burnt out." He leans forward to call down into the dark depths of the basement. "Pete? Arlen? It's not my birthday, so you don't have to surprise me."
Jose tries to look over the burly alpha's shoulder. "I don' hear nothing." The Mexican gives Davy a slight, impatient shove. "Go fix the bulb."
Save for the muffled scuttle of what must be a rat in some black corner, the darkened room is silent and unresponsive. The rustle of cloth against tinkling broken glass is unexpected, and barely audible. Silence.
Davy misses it entirely, as he begins walking down the stairs. The heavy sounds of his own footfalls drown it out. "I just hope the flashlight's where I left it," he grumbles aloud, some of his good humor bled off by bad luck.
Jose waits a second or two, trying in vain to distinguish sounds over Davy's clodhopper steps down the staircase, before following. "So how did she find out about it?"
Davy picks up the story again, a few steps from the bottom. "Oh, one of the guys that wanted her told him. Not the..." He steps on the floor, and doesn't go two paces before his boots crunch glass. His second explosion of explictives holds more anger than the first. "What the fuck?" He doesn't pause to have Jose answer, but shifts up into glabro immediately.
Jose stops dead on the third to last stair. He doesn't shift yet, nor does he move after Davy starts swearing.
Davy reaches up to the top of the refrigerator for the industrial flashlight up there. His questing paw knocks several other boxes down in the searching for it, one of which probably holds the needed lightbulbs. He ignores the scuffing falling noises to switch on the flashlight. A spear of light stabs the darkness, and he begins to swing it along the floor. Broken glass glitters like morning frost.
Jose watches the ray of light play on the sparkling glass litter, the couches and chairs. As it plays across the floor between the seats and the refrigerator, Jose catches a high-heeled shoe. "Davy. In front of you. 'Bout three feet."
Davy raises his beam of light and sucks in his breath as he sees who it is. Jose swears in Spanish, then says, "I'm gonna get Signe." The ahroun leaves the ragabash to step forward and see if the kinfolk is still alive.
As the flashlight's eye tracks over the shattered glass near an overturned prop table, a clothed shape becomes discernible in the darkness, just at the edge of the light. The body comes into focus -- a limp hand riddled with cuts from the razor-sharp fragments, slumped shoulders, back turned to the probing light. Matted curls hide the face, and the prone figure's neck is twisted an an awkward angle. The torn coat wrapping the body rises and falls with shallow breathing.
Davy doesn't bother to brush the glass aside before kneeling beside the kinfolk. "Where the fuck's Arlen when I need her?" he mutters in his thick, accented voice from this form. He reaches out a hand to touch Drew's shoulder, then hesitates and pulls back. Finally, he just reaches for her throat and seeks her pulse with his thick fingers.
The kinswoman's pulse thrums beneath his fingers, slow and soft. She stirs at the touch, hand dragging through the littered glass in half-concious movement. Throat twisting at an attempt to swallow, she erupts into a fit of coughing, practically choking on her own raw windpipe.
Davy lets his hand fall to her shoulder, expression flooded with relief. "Easy," he grates in his deep voice. "Easy."
Drew curls convulsively at the wracking coughs, her entire crumpled body shaking violently. Dragging air into her lungs, she slits her eyes open as a myriad of cuts and bruises make themselves known through the haze of unconciousness. ( Big. Man. ) Glass crunches in protest as she scrambles away from the Garou in the darkness, half-crawling, half-dragging herself until she comes up against a couch. The ragged breathing quickens in the dark as her eyes search the shadows.
Davy dwindles in size until he's the form that Drew knows better, though he is still neither small nor well-lit in the reflection of the flashlight's single beam. "Drew. It's me."
A moment of frightened silence."Davy," the kinswoman croaks hoarsely, painfully, not sounding very comforted. A disoriented hand lifts to the gash that veils her right eye with blood, touching gingerly. Her fingers wince away at the flare of pain. "Fuck," is all she can manage.
Davy gets up without a word and crunches across glass to the fridge. The light inside had long burnt-out, so only the flashlight plays crazily inside the white walls before the ragabash shuts the door again. There's the hissing pop of a can top, then Davy thrusts a Sprite on the kinfolk. "It's going to sting those cuts, but wet that throat of yours. What happened? Who broke in?" Even on the low-rage ragabash, a threat of violence hangs over his every move as he crouches next to the kinfolk and thrusts the can at her.
Drew takes the can with a quaking hand, gripping the cool aluminum like an anchor that keeps her bound to conciousness. Dizzy, she takes a swig and immediately regrets it as the carbonated liquid sears its way down her battered throat. She shoves the can back at him, nearly dropping it as she reaches to her mouth, trying to stifle the ensuing coughs. "Nobody," she finally croaks, head falling back against the coach. At this angle, the bruises circling her neck are all to clear, even in the dim light. "Nobody broke in."
Davy sets down the can without even looking at it. "Then what the hell happened?" Tension radiates off him. "What left this place looking like a hell-hole with no lights, and who choked you?"
Drew stares at the blood-riddled palm of one hand, a frown deepening beneath the bruises as she slowly recalls the night's events. Knotted curls straggle over her brow, reddening as they brush over the open wound there. "N'body," she mutters half-heartedly, shoulders hunching.
Davy bares his teeth in a grimace. "Don't fucking lie to me." His normally chivalrous manner has been cut to tatters by his findngs. "You didn't do this to yourself, and this is /my/ turf."
"Yeah," the kinswoman rasps, half-whispering. Her head lifts from its recline against the couch cushion, green eyes murky in the dimness. "What'f one of /your/ packmates did this?" She musters up as much vinegar as she can for those words. It isn't much.
Davy presses his lips into a thin line. Not hard to do the mental math with two packmates out of town. "Then I'd ask what you did that was stupid enough to piss on Signe's wheaties when the moon's any bigger than a thumbnail."
Drew seems to shrink into herself, eyes closing at the memory of an Ahroun's fingers tightening around her throat. "Maybe you should ask her," the kinswoman says quietly, crossing arms around bruised ribs. She bows her head, ignoring the pain that wakes and catpaws down her spine. She won't meet the Fianna's eyes.
Davy's greenish eyes study Drew for almost a full minute, before he answer. "I will, once she has time to gut a pimp or two to get over it." He straightens. "Can you walk, or do I need to carry you?"
"I'm fine here," Drew rasps from her seat amidst the broken glass. Her jaw sets stubbornly, but she sounds like she's trying to convince herself.
Davy's temper rides much more evenly than Signe's, but he's still Garou. "Fine," he states. He pushes up again and turns toward the stairs, stumbling a little in the dark. "I'll be back shortly. Not that you need my help."
Drew lifts her head as if to call him back, but bites back her words. Sad eyes on the back of his neck in the dimness, she watches him go without a word, then turns her pain-hazed thoughts to her injuries.
