"One nil! O-o-o-ne nil! Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land!"

Safehouse: Common Area(#2947RAJ)
The foyer of this house is set off from the living room with its octagonal bump-out by a four foot high halfwall. Stairs lead up from the foyer, turning and disappearing to the right, and a wooden door with a keycard lock claims the wall opposite the living room. The rest of the main floor is taken up by a small bathroom across the hallway from a dining room which is separated from the kitchen at the back of the house by another half-wall. The decor is decidedly sparse - white walls, beige carpeting in the living and dining rooms and down the hall, unremarkable vinyl in the foyer and kitchen.
A used couch and a pair of recliners are grouped around a coffee table in the living room, with a foursome of wooden chairs claiming the bump out for quieter conversation. The dining room boasts a white laminate table with four aluminum and vinyl-upholstered chairs - too new to be 'vintage', too old to be trendy. The appliances and cupboards in the kitchen are new - or at least refurbished to look like it - and a door leads out to the backyard from there.
Up the stairs are a number of empty rooms where anyone affiliated with the Sept can crash and an office for private meetings. The Glass Walkers have their own area accessible via a locked door off the foyer. The main doors themselves lead back out to the front porch of the house.

From the kitchen area comes the metallic squeak of a hinge. There is the faintest shifting of air as a warm current swirls into the cooler air of the room, which brings with it a warm, sweet aroma of chocolate and cookies. "Bother," comes Ruth's voice. "Forget the wire rack."

Basil strolls into the room wearing a pair of army pants with many pockets, a necklace of what one might recognize as prayer beads, and a combat boot on one hand with a polishing rag in the other. He squints at the cub, then shakes his head. "I should have known it was someone else. The Walkers here can't cook for shit."

Ruth turns suddenly at the voice, the tray of cookies almost slipping out of her gloved hands. As it is, one cookie shoots off the tray and goes skidding over the floor. "Oops! Oh. Hi Basil." Sighing at the lost cookie, she glances around for somewhere to set the hot tray down without singing anything.
"Hey. What are you doing here? You come for some city learnin' or something?" Basil asks, his attention divided between the boot he's polishing and the girl. Recognizing her problem, he gestures with the hand holding the dirty rag. "Set them down on the stove. What are they anyways? Chocolate chip?"

Ruth nods, balancing the tray on the indicated hob and then starting to rumage apologetically through the cupboards with the air of a guest trying to be polite about making herself at home. "Mm-hmm. Dark, milk and white," she says, her head half behind a door.

The sound of footsteps from the stairs, and then Kevin comes hurtling into the living room as though he has an excess of energy. He skids past the chairs, turns the corner towards the kitchen at eighty, and bursts into the kitchen like a bomb. "One nil! O-o-o-ne nil!" he chants. "Eng-er-land, Eng-er-land!"

"What'd they want to teach you about the city anyways?" He asks, kneeling down to tentatively gauge the heat of the cookie on the floor with an open palm above it. "Sounds good. Nice to see someone around the house besides me knows how to cook. What are you looking for?" Basil turns to Kevin when he comes in, wincing briefly at first, but smiling slightly after. "If Brom was still here, he'd probably tell you soccer was for faggots. US been eliminated yet?"

Ruth straightens and closes the cupboard door, wire rack in hand. She gives Kevin a very puzzled look as she crosses to set the rack down on a worktop and begins to methodically transfer the freshly-baked cookies. "I don't know why I'm here, really," she tells Basil. "Stacey just said Kristin and I were coming here for a few days. I think there's a big fight or something and she doesn't think it's safe at the farmhouse." She looks back at Kevin. "Football? Oh." She shrugs. "I guess that's most of the country either in front of the telly or in the bar?" It sounds like a guess rather than merely a comment.

"Nah, their first match isn't for a few days," Kevin replies to Basil. Then he sees Ruth and looks surprised. "Hey! Ruth! When'd you get here, girl? Yeah, I wish I was home right now. I could watch the tournament on widescreen, 'stead of having to squint at little flickery pictures online. But we won our first match. Take that, Paraguay!" He punches the air enthusiastically.

"Big fight huh? Ain't the tire fire, because the hanging judges ain't been out here to bitch at me. Must be something else. Wish these guys would learn fightin' on the full moon means a lot more blood." Basil shakes his head, huffing. "It'll either be a European country that wins, Brazil, or some other poor ass country where the people haven't got anything better to do than kick balls."

Ruth slides the now empty tray into the sink. "I can do biscuits with little England flags on if you want," she offers, "if you promise not to make me listen to more than ten sentences about football per day?"

"Sure a European side's gonna win," Kevin crows. "England." He grins at Ruth. "OK, that's a deal. But hell, don't you miss anything about home? If not football, then something else?"

"Women never do like sports. And I'm sure if KL was here, she'd slap me for that. Then go on a dyky women's rights tirade." Basil picks up the cookie from the floor, and breaks it in half, offering the other half to Kevin. "Fresh from the floor."

Ruth swallows hard at Kevin's question, saved from an immediate answer by Basil's remarks. "I'm not thinking about it," she tells Kevin firmly, "but I do wish they had proper teabags. And marmite."

"Yeah, Marmite'd be good," Kevin agrees. "But the coffee's good," he points out to Ruth in would-be heartening tones, "and the weather's fairly like home. Imagine being landed in Death Valley or Texas where it never rains." Basil gets no response but a distasteful stare from Kevin.

"What? You don't like floor cookie? Your floors are clean." Basil waves the cookie at Kevin while munching on his half. "So you're both from England or something? Hey, look at it this way. My home is right out that door and about twenty blocks or something around. Which is worse? Being right next to something you can't half, or so far away you couldn't anyways?"

Ruth gives Basil a look of incomprehension, then shrugs and starts measuring out flour.

Kevin considers that, then his hand reaches out to snatch up the half-cookie. "Yeah," he concedes. "Yeah, that sucks lots. I wonder what they are fighting," he muses. "Nobody asked us to join in. I guess we're being saved for the tire fire. Or they just thought we were too low to fight alongside."

"Fuck'm then. I like some of the Garou out there and all, like, Stacey, and some others... But they're always looking down on us, even before this. We can take care of some things on our own. We're in a pack now, right packie?" Basil ruffles Kevin's hair briefly, then goes to the fridge for something. "If it'll make you feel any better, get some fish, potatoes, and fixings sometime. I'll batter it to death and make you some home made chips."

Ruth follows most of the converstion with a rather blank expression, a flicker of recognition when her Elder's name comes up. She smiles slightly at the last bit. "Thanks, but I don't think I'm allowed to go shopping yet. Um..." She looks between the other two as her voice trails off, clearly wanting to ask something but perhaps not knowing how or whether she should.

"I'll pick some up from the market midtown," Kevin offers. "I didn't know you knew from fish and chips, Basil," he goes on, seemingly unaware of using such an American turn of phrase. "If we ever make it to England I'll take you to a proper chippy and you can see for yourself how good it is. Knocks Macdonalds' cold."

"If we ever find a way to get across the pond, I'll go with you. After the fire anyways. All the more reason not to die." Basil walks over to the table and sits on top of it, shrugging his shoulders. "I've watched enough movies to know some English slang. And... I was learning how to batter and fry fish right for you a while ago. Was going to be a surprise, but I never got around to making it." He smiles thinly again, then shakes his head. "Sorry."

"I can do roast beef, yorkshire pudding and gravy," Ruth offers, cracking eggs into a bowl. "...and it feels very odd talking about food when, well... food just seems so normal. And other stuff... isn't. And what's a packie anyway?" she blurts out at the end.

Kevin looks at Basil with a kind of choked expression. "You... you drive someone crazy, Basil," he says in a thick voice. Turning to Ruth as though glad of the excuse not to address Basil any more, he speaks again. "Basil and I, we pack together. You know garou are like wolves, yes? Well, wolves form packs, so do we."

"Oh!" Ruth sounds relieved. "So you're... like, best friends. Only there's more of you too?"

"I get that a lot." Basil remarks to Kevin in a murmur, then turns his attention back to Ruth. "Sorta. And brothers in arms. Like soldiers in a squad. We pick some territory and goals, and we go with it. We recruit people and follow a Totem. Ours is Patches, a Raccoon spirit. Big guy."

Kevin gives Ruth a very hard stare when she says 'best friends'. Then he relents and nods. "I suck at cooking," he admits, "despite Natalie's best efforts to teach me, so if you want to go mad in the kitchen while you're here, feel free."

Ruth pulls a face. "I don't normally do much cooking. But Mum taught me, and..." she waves a hand vaguely, showering the area in a fine coating of flour. "I thought I'd cook," she concludes, lamely.

"I can show you how to cook a few things. Or at least write everything down before you leave, so you can cook at the farmhouse. I'm sure Stacey would like a good cooked meal." Basil replies, then glances at Kevin again. "I could teach you too. You taught me how to run after all, eh?"

"That'd rock," Kevin says. "But not now. There's another match starting. Sweden I think. I have to watch it so I can cheer for the Get," he adds with a quirky smile, heading for the exit.