CoR The Rusty Nail

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They had opened up roughly two hours ago. Grisham had already perked into the bathroom three times to check it was still decent. He didn't need it to end the day clean. But... Decent, please decent. The cleanliness had attracted people. Well. There just wasn't piss smell to turn them away once they peeked in. So he had served a few drinks, cleaned up tables, sneaked in a sip of whiskey. And he was pretty swell, on his element for now.

"Ah... We have sandwiches. Store bought. The kitchen isn't working right now." He told the lady, who looked like shit. And also smelled off.

"Anything else I can get ya?"
 
The bartender looked younger from the front. His features were a little more rugged than she expected to find from the way he looked from behind, and he was a little more slender than she expected. Still, he looked like he belonged behind a bar.

"I'll take one of those sandwiches, then. And..."

Marie wasn't much of a drinker in her cop days. However, it was a decent way to drown out the guilty visions and disappointment with her current lot in life. So she scanned the bar for anything that looked appealing and, knowing very well that she didn't have a lot of money. Dissatisfied with the apparent options.

"Do you have anything that doesn't taste like piss?"
 
The word piss was going to haunt him until he died, apparently.

"Yeah, plenty! Sweet, salty, sour? Higher grade, affordable? To knock you out? To keep you going?" He asked, since she didn't look like she knew what she wanted. Then he left her a moment to go look at their sandwich optionssss... Most of them were expired. They had one with tuna, tomato and onion. And one with ham and cheese. He brought them back so she could choose or eat them both. Unopened. "This is uh, what you can choose right now." He added buying more food to his mental... Check list of things to do at the bar. It kept growing.
 
She accepted both sandwiches. For some reason, since getting bit she found she needed to eat more and more and still managed not to gain a pound. The secret to weight loss: get bit by a werewolf. She chuckled at the notion, picturing a television advertisement for it.

To the bartender, she smiled politely and replied, "I'll be honest with you. I'm on a budget. After I get a couple in me I don't mind drinking piss-water. But the first couple at least I want to taste... fruity. As for the reason..." Her smile darkened a bit. "...To forget." She absentmindedly rubbed her right elbow as she said that last part. Several shiny scars could be seen there, evidence of her trauma.
 
"Kid, stop saying piss. I slept two hours last night so this place would stop smelling like it." Groaned Grisham when she talked about piss water. His eye twitched a little. Ugh, she had gotten what looked like a nasty beast-bite. Maybe a particularly wild family dog?.

"I'm celebrating my employment here so, you can have a drink on me. Anything you like as long as you don't try to get princess-y with me. And then you can have the cheap stuff." He told her. Not that he invited every single client of course. But the ones already drinking wouldn't notice what he said, and this girl looked like she needed to be cheered up.

"Glass of water first though, to have with the sandwiches." He went to pour it and set it next to her food. A glass of cold water.
 
Kid? This guy doesn't look that much older than me.

Keeping her internal monologue to herself, she just offered that polite smile and a head nod again. "I'm sorry. For what it's worth, it smells pretty decent in here. A bit... chemical, perhaps. Evidence of a job well done, I suppose." She offered a wink. "As for the drink, if you're offering, how about a cosmopolitan?"

She'd never had one, but they always looked good, and as far as she knew they weren't overly pricey. Princessy.

Marie held up a sandwich and the glass of water. "Thank you," she offered, as she unwrapped and demolished the first sandwich in only a few bites, lubricating with water. She began unwrapping the second and savored it a bit more, as she waited on her cosmo.
 
He winked back and grinned, his teeth were sharp and his canines were too long. Between that and his yellow eyes, well, Grisham didn't hide his condition much.

"A cosmopolitan it is! And thanks, I'm glad to hear it doesn't smell like a dirty bathroom." He joked, looking around for the ingredients. He mixed up a decent vodka with lime juice, a citrus-y mixer and cranberry juice. None of it fresh, but it rarely was in a bar. Then he served it with Ice once she had downed at least half of her water.

"Here ya go!"
 
Marie didn't really suspect anything until Grisham's toothy grin. She was taking a drink of water as she pictured Jasper, human form with those great big werewolf teeth and started, spilling her water on the bar. She got to her feet, knocking over her stool as she did. After a moment Jasper faded from her memory, and she snapped out of it.

She was in Vargeras, after all. This is where they lived. Where we live, she reminded herself. He was polite and had not threatened her, and she'd just made an ass of herself.

"Oh, dear! I'm so sorry!" She reached for some nearby napkins and began blocking the water off with them. After a moment of fussing with the water, she picked up the last little bits of her second sandwich, which were sopping, and stuffed them in her mouth, righted her stool, and sat back down again.

"I just... didn't expect your teeth to be so sharp. Are you..." she lowered her voice, "a werewolf?" In her normal tone again, rubbing the scars, she continued. "I... I got bit recently. Well, 5 years ago. Not that recent, I suppose. But it was terrifying and I can't get his face out of my head. Those teeth... It reminded me of him. And all that came after." She hung her head, placing it in her hands, streams of moisture rolling down her cheeks.

She wanted a drink but felt very guilty about her response, so she didn't dare touch it until she knew that he wasn't offended.
 
Ohhh fuck, not a dog then. He hadn't wanted to assume. Christ. Poor girl. Grisham waited until she was done taking care of the water and the stool. He looked back to the rest of the patrons and made an everything alright gesture so they'd stop looking their way. Then just let her cry for a minute before he answered. Because well, he needed to think about what to say.

"I am, bitten, like you. And sorry to hear it's been rough." He said in a softer tone than he had had before. He brought her more napkins.

"Can't do much about my teeth, but if you need to talk about the last five years and make it through the Cosmopolitan in small sips, then I can lend ya an ear?" He said, wiping any remaining water off of the bar and watching her closely. More than before.
 
"It was a raid gone wrong." She pointed to her tee, which bore a small logo of a shield with "LCPD" in silhouette on it. This had been the training shirt they gave out in the academy, and she didn't see any reason to mess up a new shirt on her workouts, which is what she had been doing prior to entering. "Just supposed to intercept a drug shipment. But I got separated from my team, and by the time I found them..." A tremor developed in her voice and she downed half the drink in a gulp to calm it.

"He was standing over them. Jasper Moore, a low-ranking Bloodstones lackey. They were unconscious, thrown around the warehouse like dolls. I tried to distract him and... well, it worked too well. It was just me and him in that smokey room, and nothing I could do would stop him. I tried everything I had. Everything except..." She pulled out a simple necklace from under her shirt, upon which was dangling the pin of the frag grenade, which she'd clutched onto throughout the whole night. "It was all I had left. I just knew I was gonna die that night. So I did what I could to make sure my team survived. I... I forced it down his throat, and I guess I got bit while doing that."

The rest of the drink, gone.

"Since then I lost my job, my family, my friends, my home. No one wants to know a werewolf in... well, the other parts of town. And all the while I can just picture the scene replaying in my head. Picture his human face. Those teeth. The crimson cloud he became after that frag went off."

She looked up, her eyes still moist but no longer letting tears crash down her cheeks and met his eyes. "And the self-loathing. I hate what I am. What I've become."
 
Okay he had not been expecting, or been ready, for the whole story. The story and how fast she told him! Had this woman had nobody to talk to since that happened to her like, at all?. He didn't know what to say back. He was a werewolf, and he didn't hate himself... At all. He didn't have anything against packs or gang-packs either. Not personal anyway. He usually didn't engage? But he had come to Lutetia specifically because he was tired of being alone and wanted to find a pack to join. It had just sort of started with working at a bar.

...Now he wasn't liking what he was hearing. At all. But he took a breath and tried to chew what she had talked about. Ruminate it real good. Find that fucking empathy Grisham.

"If he hadn't bitten you, what would have happened?" If he hadn't bitten her and turned her into a wolf but she had still... Holy fuck. Blown him up. He was fucking glad he had a perfect poker face. Because right now there was a snarl stuck in his throat. Still. The wolf. She would have been taught to see him as a monster. A criminal monster at that. Who was killing her team, in her eyes. Her pack, at the time. Breathe Grisham. Fucking breathe.
 
"Honestly... I don't think much would have changed. I may have kept my job, but I think I'd still have... I guess it's PTSD. That was a man. Sure, a wolf, and we'd been given the 'others' spiel. Us versus them. Good versus evil. In reality everything's just shades of grey, isn't it?"

She was kind of in her own little reverie, not taking stock of Grisham's reactions. She just pushed her fingers through her dark hair and continued to prattle on.

"Sure, I wouldn't be struggling keeping this thing from coming out. But I still don't think I would be able to get that man's face out of my head. I only saw the wolf in the moment. Never saw him unshifted. But later, my boss showed me his file. His human face. I think that's when everything came into focus." She paused for a second, taking stock of the bartender. If she'd benefitted from her wolf's senses while in human form, she may have been able to smell the anger seething beneath his poker face. But she didn't, and she couldn't.

"We were the aggressors. He was protecting his family. His pack. I later found out what those drugs were used for. They're hormonal inhibitors. They keep a wolf from involuntarily shifting, particularly for medical treatments. Nyx, they call it." The tears were starting to flow again. "I killed a man who was just getting medicine that they needed! I think I'd be horrified with myself even if he hadn't bit me, just for that alone. No, I'm quite sure I'd hate myself even if I was still one-hundred-percent human."
 
At least she hadn't gone the war hero outlook. Grisham breathed out and leaned back against a column behind the bar that wasn't openly full of bottles and other shit. Just like before when he was talking to the girl, Aimee, his anger fizzled out pretty fast.

"Hm, sounds like what's done is done... And maybe you got a bit karma-ed by becoming the monster you killed. I don't even remember my bite? I was really drunk at the time. Only that two weeks later I was a werewolf, and I sort of ran away from everyone to live in the forest for a bit." He explained with a sympathetic smile. He took her glass and started cleaning it also.

"I think of myself as a pretty crafty dude that happens to shed a lot of hair." He added. Their situations were so wildly different that it was almost insane to try and find common points. But he was glad he hadn't snapped at her or sent her away. She was troubled and it would have only cemented her opinion that some wolves were shit.
 
The ex-cop leaned back on her stool and breathed a little bit, then took the collar of her tee-shirt, still slightly damp with sweat and spilled water, to wipe her eyes.

"Damn. I'm sorry about that. I unloaded on you." She extended her hand across the bar. "I'm Marie, by the way, and in case it isn't obvious I'm pretty fucked up. But I want to thank you for hearing me out. If it wasn't obvious from that outburst, I don't have many people to talk to. Life has been unkind recently, though I do believe that a fair bit of that was earned." She allowed herself to chuckle softly, though it was probably pretty obvious that she was forcing it.

"Karma, as you put it. The monster I killed. I'll have to give that some thought."
 
He hummed and took her hand. They shook em over the bar.

"I'm Grisham, Grisham Raven." He said, letting go pretty fast. Because he hadn't noticed but his hands were a bit too hairy from all that emotion. If he focused he could smell the wolf on her, though.

"We all need someone to talk, to. I don't mind. I'm new in town anyway, might as well start making some friends. But... Be careful? I mean you've made it this far. But I don't... From what I know The Bloodstones are still around. If any remember you or what you did, you'd be pretty fucked." He was honest about it, mostly out of concern. Especially if she was alone right now with no pack or family to back her up.

"What are you doing for work?"
 
"Nice to meet you, Mr. Raven." The speed with which he retracted his hand seemed a bit odd to Marie, but she decided to let it go. She'd just trauma dumped on this man, and he hadn't batted an eye, so it seemed fair to return in kind.

"As for the Bloodstones..." Ziessel Geiger. That's that the arrest report had stated. Alias Sel, protege to Salem, the primary target. Her horrified expression flashed through Marie's mind. "I do generally try to stay out of their turf. I was in my head on my jog and realized I'd wandered inside. As far as I know, the Jackals are making a bid for this area and the Bloodstones are a bit diminished. I certainly dare not go deeper in. But I may have found a new pub, if that's okay with you. I think running into them is probably inevitable at this point, and I'm not sure I'd fight back if they called for my head at this point."

After an uncomfortable pause, she moved on.

"I'm just doing whatever I can to make ends meet. Mostly under-the-table bodyguard work, stuff like that. I don't exactly put 'shapeshifter' on my CV, if you catch my meaning. As far as anyone knows I'm just an ex-cop, so I mostly try to leverage that."
 
Okay THAT made him guffaw and he immediately covered his mouth with his hand but he was still chuckling under it.

"Oh kid, please. No Mr. Call me Grisham or call me Raven but none of that mister shit." He said in a light hearted tone. It was short lived though. He watched her while she poke, something in her eyes... Hm. She was definitely aware of the danger she was in. Wasn't she?.

"You'll have to fight a little if you run into them though. What's my boss going to think if I can't even get him loyal clients eh? We'd be happy to welcome you here as your regular pub." He said, trying to maybe give her something? Make a compromise she may stick to instead of giving up. You never knew when people were joking and when they weren't. Not with this stuff.

"I've done a lot of odd-jobing through life. So if you ever want help... I could try? I got hired the same day I arrived to the city. So I guess I've got the credentials to give a little bit of advice on how to find jobs!" Such as being ready to deal with the literal shit nobody else wants. But it was what you had to do.
 
Marie giggled, probably the first honest giggle she'd given today, and possibly in the last 5 years. "Grisham, then. Though I do like the sound of 'Raven.'" She flexed her arm, which in her tee-shirt gave a view of a very toned, if not particularly big, muscle. "And don't worry, I'm scrappy in a pinch. It's one thing to talk about it, but when fight-or-flight kicks in..." Her bright tone went somber and her shoulders slumped again as she continued, "...you'll be amazed at what you're capable of."

She shook off the demons of her past and continued.

"As for work, if you hear of anything that I might be able to do, I'd sure appreciate it if you'd hold onto that and let me know." She gave a teasing grin. "In the meantime, can I have whatever your cheapest beer is? Even if it does taste like a bodily fluid I'm forbidden from mentioning."
 
He jokingly squinted his eyes at her with a very serious expression and then grinned again and nodded, taking a few steps back to find her a cheap but decent beer. It was a weird brand, foreign, but it did NOT taste like piss like she so badly wanted to imply.

"Well, besides grunt work, what more CAN you do? What studies do ya have an all that?" He asked, serving her the beer with the pèrfect ratio of liquid to foam.
 
She took a sip and was delighted to find that it actually had a real flavor. "Oh, this is quite good. Are you sure this isn't expensive. I wasn't kidding earlier; I can't afford that much." Regardless, she went back for another draw from her glass.

"I mean, everything I did in my youth was to become a viable cadet for the LCPD Academy. My dad was a cop; my mom's brother was a detective. So yeah I mean I have a criminal justice degree, but what is that good for besides being a cop? Something strictly off-the-table for... well, for you and me, at least in Lutetia City."

She took another sip and let out a sigh.

"If it shoots, I can shoot it. If it stabs, I can stab it. If it fights, I can fight it. Unfortunately there's not much more to ol' Marie."
 
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