Making Amends

[Marrick]

Dice Rolled:[ 5 d10 ] 1, 7, 8, 9, 10 (Success x 3 at target 6) [how's she doin'?]

[Boy]

Their living room had been trashed. Their living room, the most direct physical metaphor for a house or even a family one was apt to find, was in ruins. The TV was shattered. The walls sported horrible claw marks. The couch had been beaten and abused, and the library of books that Wendy had was more or less destroyed. But that was okay. Because now they had something to fix. Boy had been at it for a while now, even though his Rage bubbled so close to the surface that he had to stop himself for long breaks every so often, willing himself to walk away before he broke a fresh plank of wood over his knee, or perhaps his head. Tap, tap, tap, tap, came the sound of barely gentle hammering from downstairs. Steady and constant. Even and balanced. He would fix what he destroyed.

[Marrick]

She was difficult to tolerate. Marrick was usually difficult to tolerate, but it was worse after battle. It took about a week before people could stand to be around her again. She didn't look at things as though they were targets as often. She came downstairs soon enough, looking at once anemic and triumphant. Boy was working on the downstairs. Marrick was doing who-knows-what. "Y'know, I could see if Derek would come by and help with the dry wall," she tells him.

[Boy]

Tap, tap, tap, ta-- Boy turns quick, hands falling at his side, one hoding a fist full of nails, the other hefting a scarred hammer. Since she'd come back from her battle with Sheridan, since he'd come back from wandering the streets bloodied and frustrated, he hadn't said much. Not to Wendy. Not to Doodle or Callie. And certainly not to Marrick. They would speak and he would just turn to them, staring with a blank look until they went away. Sort of like he was now. "Who's Derek?" Well that had to change sometime, right?

[Marrick]

"My older brother," she tells him. Marrick never referred to him as anything else. Her bio-bro, occasionally. When Marrick talked to him, or talked about him, she usually didn't seem pleased, "you never met him. He used to play football for OU." She told him quietly, "he graduated from OU. He looks like my Dad, we used to run together when he lived at home." She inhales and continues on, "scholarship didn't cover everything, so he hung drywall for people so he could pay for school."

[Boy]

His lips pursed tentatively for a second, and he turned to face her fully now, attention away from drywall and toward Marrick. "You still talk to him then?"

[Marrick]

"I talked to him a few weeks ago," she said, "but that was the first time in awhile." She was quieter then. "I told him he was kin, and... yeah, then, well, I moved... out." Moved out. Read: was told to leave.

[Boy]

"Maybe you should call him. Have him come and...I dunno. Spend a weekend or something." Boy nodded repeatedly, more to himself than to Marrick. It as as if he wasn't sure if it was the best idea, but he was sure they could pull it off. "Listen um...I feel..." And then he stalls, face twisting in discomfort and confusion.

[Marrick]

"Yeah... it'd be nice to see him again," she tells him. She's quiet again. He tells her to listen, and her attention doesn't waver or go anywhere for the time being.

[Boy]

"I feel...ashamed." He starts again. "About the way I treated you. About..." He loks around their once randomly, but warmly furnished livingroom. Once. But not anymore. "About the way I've acted. When you came home the other night...I should have been there for you. I wasn't. You remember...you remember that deal we made? About going back to Oklahoma?"

[Marrick]

"If anything happened back home, that we would go help... or that if one of us..." She remembered. But, she didn't say much more. Her attention does not waver, though. She is a very intense young woman.

[Boy]

... or that if one of us... "Yeah." He latches on to it before she finishes. "That one. Well...If I've got to be the one taking you back home, I'm expecting there's gonna be a story to go with it. I don't wanna feel sad because I don't have you with me. I wanna be proud because I got to have you with me. And so far, I still am. No matter what anyone else thinks. "But even with that said? I expect you to be making that drive. That's the way I see it in my head. You, driving home, telling them stories about me. I guess, what I'm trying to say is: I'm glad you're alive. And I'm sorry I was such a dick to you. "I've...wronged you. I'm sure you fought hard. I'm sure you tried with everything you've got, because that's all I've ever seen from you. Everything. You've never gone halfway, or taken the easy way out. I've insulted your honor in that. And I owe you. The Rite of Contrition."

[Marrick]

"Boy-" she starts. There wasn't much to say there. She loioked at him for a second, then... then she stopped. "You know, it makes sense that you'd want to stay with me... us being alone... I... in a way? If I lost you... an' I didn't know how it happened... then... then I wouldn't be able t'deal with that." She pauses. "An'... and I know you were upset... Yer angry. An'... Y'don't owe me anything," she tells him, "I'm sorry works."

[Boy]

"Then I'm Sorry. Really, truly, sorry." He bows his head to her ever so slightly. But the way he closes his eyes and fixes his jaws together, it seems like some sacred gesture. And then, when his eyes open, there's another sacred gesture: A slight opening of his arms, the insides of his wrists pointing at her. "Hug it out?"

[Marrick]

She looks at him and grins, and the Fury doesn't say a word to him. She just steps in, a tired, anemic mess in a hoodie, and hugs the Uktena. "I think? This is going to be a good thing."

[Boy]

"What is?" He says, rocking into the hug he shares with his packmate. His sister, in his eyes.

[Marrick]

She rocked with him, and she is quiet for a second. Her voice was quiet when she spoke. "I dunno... Us spendin' more time together, it's easy t'get lost in a city," she said, "Soledad said somethin' 'bout it once, that it changes people... an'... and I'm glad we're doin' somethin' t'stay close. I don' wanna be like her an' Hatchet."

[Boy]

"Yeah. Yeah, I see them now and..." Eventually he does release her, stepping back to line up nails on a recently repaired bookshelf. "It scares me, y'know? So what are we doing now? I mean, what do you usually do?"

[Marrick]

"I spend a lotta time at the caern... sometimes I run into Imogen places... window shop," she says. The Fury pauses, "I model on some weekends fer a Fianna kin named Lee. Fight when the moon ain't full. Did some prize fightin', an' I'm not too bad." A pause. "What do you do? I know you work on stuff, or used to with Marcus... don' know anymore now that he ain't around..."

[Boy]

"It's harder with him not being here. He was...better...with people. I've still got a few regulars that I can usually get work at." He sighs, looking at the remainder of the repair supplies they had, some of which he'd secretly taken from other abandoned houses. "We need more cash. But...one thing at a time. Other times, I'm out on patrol. There's...there's these spots that I...well. I really like Lincoln Park, y'know? How 'bout this: Help me put up the last of this drywall and we can get outta here."

[Marrick]

"I'll help ya out however you need, y'need the hand with stuff, jus' ask me and I can help," she said. She paused for a second, then took her time to think of whatever boy say saying. And we can get outta here. "Whadayamean, we can get out of here?"

[Boy]

"Well, we do my thing for a little while..." He said waving the hammer around in a manner that indicated the entire living room in need of repairs, though possibly referring to the entire house as 'his thing'. "...And then we go do your thing. Balance, y'know?"

[Marrick]

There is silence, and she lets a bright smile cross her face. "Imma go finish makin' some talens... that sounds good."

[Boy]

"Well alright then." He said with the softest hint of a smile. "Lets get to work."