"Should have said 'I haven't the balls for it' shouldn't I? That would've worked on so many levels."

Safehouse: GW Main Area(#3997RJM)
Like the public safehouse, the foyer of the Glass Walker's private area is set off from the living room by a four-foot-high half-wall. The steps to the second floor disappear off to the right, mirroring the other set. There the similarities end - where the public area is painted unoriginal white, the walls of the Walker house are a dusty pastel teal above polished maple hardwood floors.The living room holds a comfortable couch and a pair of easy chairs, a maple coffee table matched by side tables beside both of the chair. A large plasma television holds pride of place along the far wall, flanked by maple glass-front cabinets that hold assorted media equipment.
The hallway leads back toward the kitchen, pausing at a computer room on the left outfitted with enough bells and whistles to satisfy a small LAN party. At the back of the house, through an arch, the kitchen is big enough to comfortably allow two active cooks and boasts a half-sized refrigerator and full pantry in addition to the usual stove/fridge/sink combination. A dining room, nearly as large as the kitchen, is set off by another half-wall like the one in the foyer. The table is in the Mission style, all clean straight lines, and currently seats six, though there's evidence of another leaf to make it larger.
Stairs in the foyer lead up to the second floor, while a doorway tucked under the curve of the stairs heads down to the basement. A heavy door in the foyer with a monitor and intercom beside it goes back to the area set up for communal use by the Sept's Garou.

Lunchtime in Glass Walker territory, and from the computer room drifts the faint tippy-tapping of typing as Kevin sits at one of the computers, eyes fixed on the screen.

Derek is, perhaps surprisingly, not all that interested in computers, beyond the most superficial levels. He's avoided them, since he's not even sure he's supposed to use them yet. He happened to be passing through - or starting to anyway. He found an IPod somewhere, and he's got it turned up WAY too loud - the faint echoes of music from the headphones herald his arrival. He spies Kevin and abruptly backs back up to the doorway.

Kevin spins round in his smart black leather chair to face Derek like an interrogator confronting a prisoner. "Well, well," he drawls. "Long time, no see, Mr Crestmere. How's life treating ya?"

Derek watches Kevin for a drawn-out moment, and then reaches up to take his headphones out of his ears. "What?" He asks, brow crinkling.

Kevin rolls his eyes and repeats. "How is life treating you?" he repeats, slowly, with hand gestures, as though speaking to a foreigner he's trying to make understand him.

Derek shrugs. "...Fine." He says, as if this is a chore he's got to endure. "...Just fine." He looks around for a moment and then down at his IPod, before he begins to fiddle with it.

Kevin nods to the iPod. "See you got the badge of the Glass Walkers. What're you listening to?"

Derek looks down at the IPod and then back up at Kevin. "Nunya Bidness." He says, before he goes back to tinkering with the ipod.

Kevin nods, as though he's not particularly interested in the answer. "So what'cha been learning? And who've you been hanging with? Been a while since I was around to take an avuncular interest in your welfare," he says, the long words rolling round his mouth and giving him an air of dry humour.

Derek looks up at Kevin. "What's it to you?" He asks, finally, his expression going somewhat dour. He turns off the Ipod now and lets it dangle from one hand.

"It's significant to me," Kevin replies mildly, "because you are a cub of my tribe and it is in my interest to see you turn from a cub into a cliath. And the interest of the whole garou nation, come to that. "

Derek tilts his head at Kevin. "Like..." He says, "I don't buy it." He turns to walk out of the room. "Not for one itty-bitty-ditty second do I buy that comin' from you, man."

Kevin rises to his feet. "Buy it or not," he says, still in that deceptively mild tone, "it's a fact. Okay, what do you think I'm asking you for?"

Derek looks over his shoulder. "I THINK you're trying to piss me off, because you want an excuse to try and beat the holy fuck out of me." He says, his own voice growing mild. "Or an excuse to finger-wag at me again. Or whatever. I don't know if I care, man."

Kevin lets a small sigh escape. "Listen, Derek," he says. "I dunno if you heard about all the stuff that went down for me lately, or whether you care about it if you heard. I was not in a good place mentally when I first met you. I was, no doubt, kind of an asshole to you."

Derek finds a place to sit down. "Yeah, I heard about it. How could you NOT? I'd have to be in a cave in the middle of the woods with my ears plugged and even then I'd probably get a postcard about it." He says. "For what it's worth, what they did to you wasn't fair."

Kevin makes a waving-away gesture with his hand. "Whether it was or wasn't fair isn't what I wanted to talk about," he says, though the tenseness that comes to his face makes it plain that he has opinions on the matter too. "Listen here, Derek. If you've been learning while I've been away, I should expect you'll be well on the way to your Rite of Passage. Once you're a cliath, you'll hold the same rank as me. You may still live here in this house with me. If we were on some kind of speaking terms... it'd make both our lives a lot less fraught, I reckon." He favours Derek with a wan smile.

Derek thinks about that and then shrugs. "So what do you want, then? I can't read your mind, not even if there's some funky werewolf magic shit for that." He leans against the doorframe.

Kevin raises one eyebrow and his calmness seems to come under further strain. "I just said, man. I want us to respect each other. Be able to talk without yelling. Even if we don't ever like each other."

Derek thinks about that, and thinks about that, his brow furrowing. "Oh, is that all?" He says, before he takes the Ipod off. "...Okay then, fine. I only want one rule - we keep it man-to-man. No dogs allowed." He sets the Ipod down onto the nearest desk. "And we stop when one of us says 'uncle'. That's how this is supposed to work, isn't it?" He rocks backwards on his bare heels.

Kevin shrugs. "I dunno. In England we'd say 'pax'. And as for dogs... it's no fun being a wolf in the city. Can't run properly." He sits back down in the leather chair, and spins round in it idly. "You play any games?" he asks hopefully.

Derek shrugs. "You're not gonna respect me if I beat you in a game of clue, man. Besides, the way the moon is right now, we'd, like, wind up trying to strangle one another over whether Miss Scarlet did it in the Billiard Room with the rope or whether it was Professor Plum."

"To hell with Colonel Mustard and the dagger in the library." Kevin jerks a thumb at the computers. "Proper games. Modern games. The sort where you get to shoot or chop people with your buddy. Or chop your buddy if that's what floats your boat. Since Jeremy blew town and Aimee and I split, I've had nobody local to play with."

Derek rubs his chin and thinks about that for a long time, yet again. "You sure you wanna pass up a chance to try and beat the hell out of me, dude?" He asks. "I... uh. I played Halo with you before, didn't I? I don't actually like video games all that much..." He rolls his eyes upward. "Lemme think."

"Yeah, yeah you did," Kevin recalls. "I forgot, man. Lot's happened since then. If you're not up for it," he says, plainly eager not to pressurize Derek, "it's cool."

Derek lets out a small grunt. "No, no, It's cool. I'm just not very good at them. Listen... why don't we just..." He walks into the room and offers his hand, "Y'know... shake on it. Like men would. I wasn't a happy camper and neither were you. Let's just forget about that. Okay? We can't afford to act like.. like stupid kids, y'know?"

Kevin eyes Derek's outstretched hand for a moment, then speaks, seeming to address the whole room rather than Derek in particular, though the theurge is the only other person in the house. "A few days ago," he says in a studiedly neutral voice, "I turned seventeen. I don't know if I'll make eighteen, but if I do, I'll be legally a man as well as one in the eyes of our people..." And his hand comes up from his side and smacks firmly into Derek's, gripping for a moment. "You're invited to my eighteenth birthday party. Here, next June. Bring booze." The ragabash grins wildly.

Derek gives Kevin a slight smirk. "I'll bring weed, too, but I'll understand if you don't partake. Basil told me about the uh-" He mimes putting a horned helmet onto his head. "That's fucked-up, man. No offense."

"That isn't actually the reason I don't go near cannabis," Kevin clarifies, releasing Derek's hand again. "I'm kind of anal..." He gives Derek a warning glare not to make any smartass remarks at that. "I like to look after my body. Keep it in tip top shape. Getting drunk and stoned isn't good for the human body, or the garou one for that matter. I appreciate," he adds, "that I'm in a minority opinion there."

Derek holds up his hands. "Hey... I can't make any jokes Basil already didn't. Cool guy, but he is crazy. Reminds me of a couple of my friends back home." He wrinkles his nose. "I love the chronic, man. Especially now. It takes the edge off the rage, man. Makes me feel all peaceful. It might actually save my life one of these days."

"Whatever gets you through the night's alright," Kevin quotes. "Me, I hated the feeling of losing control... even before I zonked out and Snowy-Toes took over. I hate to think," he says pensively, "what Hjalmar would think of me after everything that went down. He'd probably throw the body over a cliff or something. Which is another reason for me not to get drunk or wasted on weed."

Derek gives a slight shrug of bony shoulders. "...Well dude, he can judge but I'm not gonna." He gestures to himself with a thumb. "California, born and bred. You could dress up like Carmen Miranda and I wouldn't say a word."

"I haven't the legs for it," Kevin quips, deadpan. Then he chuckles, which spoils the effect. "Should have said 'I haven't the balls for it' shouldn't I? That would've worked on so many levels."

Derek wrinkles his nose again. "I'm not gonna go there, man. If the wrong people heard what I had to say about how they treated you and Basil, they'd probably squash me like the bug they think I am." He gives a disgusted sigh. "Back home we had a word for people like that. We called 'em 'Republicans'."

Kevin makes a little 'ooooo' of dismay, and when he speaks, it's in an assumed (and very bad) redneck accent. "Why, are you a-tellin' me you bein' one of them lib-uh-rals?"

Derek puts a hand over his heart. "Cali-forn-i-a Liberal, man. I smoke weed all the time, and I've got a whole army of drag queen 'Aunts' back home." He coughs. "...Ma hung out with them in college."

Kevin laughs heartily, and somehow the laugh sounds more natural than any display of amusement Derek has probably seen him give so far. "So," he says as he regains speech, "why'd you --" And he cuts himself off short.

Derek shrugs. "Why'd I come up here?" He says. "...That's personal, but Basil knows. I don't wanna talk about it right now, but you can ask him."

Kevin's cheeks flush red. "I... didn't mean to pry," he says, slipping out of his chair and his eyes turning away from Derek in embarrassment. "I, uh. I'll be going now."

Derek shakes his head. "Whatever, dude. I think you've got more issues to settle with him than you ever did with me." He grabs his IPod and puts it back on. "And 'Nunya Bidness' is a rapper from out of L.A."

Kevin gives Derek a look as he slips past him and out of the door, that's pure Anglo-Saxon white-boy terror of the ghetto. He doesn't speak again as he scoots across the living area and up the stairs.