Matthew Murphy
The day of the move was like something out of a horror movie. Like if a horror movie had sex with a comedy of errors and the resultant spawn could barely walk on its own because it could barely get through daylight hours without some sort of substance in its system.
The Murphy clan of Plymouth North Carolina is steeped in tradition and the current crop of children have tried through various definitions of the word 'try' to carry on that tradition. The homestead has been in the family ever since the first Fianna came off the boat in the 1800s and set up camp in this town filled with freedmen and sharecroppers. They were a proud people. Ash-Oracle the father had been a proud male and when his third-born and second son was born under his moon well that just made him even prouder.
Hard to tell how proud Ash-Oracle would be of his brood now but they wouldn't have turned out the way they turned out if it hadn't been for the Battle of Nine Bloods or whatever the hell it is the trueborn are calling it now.
Anyway: Rob and Rachel Murphy are the oldest of the Murphy children. They have six children between them. When Áine Murphy becomes too infirm to take care of herself let alone the neighborhood kids and fledgling Cubs who all call her "Ma" then one or both of them will have to move themselves and their brood back into the old house. Rachel lives in Charlotte with her mate and her children but Rob didn't go very far. Just across the bay to Edenton. Both of their mates are Garou. They are used to the bluster and the noise come along with Rage. Hangovers don't worry them.
They played Rock Paper Scissors to decide who would be responsible for making sure Goldie and Matt got their shit loaded up and got on the road in enough time to drive a few hundred miles before sundown. Rob lost.
---
Before Goldie even opened her eyes she could hear the two brothers yelling at each other. Seems as if they are incapable of having a conversation without doing so at a volume sufficient to terrify the neighbors if the neighbors weren't used to it by now. The Murphy kids are loud. So are their friends. They have a lot of friends.
"It smells like a flophouse in here."
"You been to a lot of flophouses lately, Bobby?"
"Get up."
"No."
"Get the fuck up, Matty."
"Jesus Christ, it ain't even eight o'clock yet."
"You ain't even packed yet!"
"What do I gotta pack, huh?"
"You think I got all day to stand here begging you to get your shit together? Huh? How come you can get up at the crack of ass to go run twenty miles no problem but whenever you have something to do that requires actual--"
"All RIIIIGHT, SHUT UUUUP. GOD. I'M UP."
Muffled talk. Something like calm before scuffling and Rob shouting "OW YOU LITTLE PRICK" and more scuffling.
Robert Murphy is six-foot-two and weighs over two hundred pounds. He takes after their father. His brother Matthew is five-foot-eight and barely weighs a buck fifty if he's that. He takes after their mother. All their brawls end quickly. This one ended with the two of them laughing.
The door to Margaret's room opened to reveal Matthew in what passed for a state of dress for someone about to embark on a cross-country trek to a different state. It was Margaret's room only in name. Margaret had completed her final year of undergraduate studies in May and was going to medical school in Chicago. She left last week.
---
Hours later. They are in Matthew's car which was a beater when he bought it back in 2004 when he first went off to college and is now a piece of shit. His buddy who works at the auto body shop in town assured him it would make it from North Carolina to Colorado just fine but he couldn't promise it would be much use after that.
Matthew doesn't own very much. A suitcase full of clothes and a couple boxes of random shit collected out of the kitchen and the bedroom closets. Like as not Goldie doesn't own much more. Everything fits in his hatchback. The two brothers embrace at the end of the driveway and their aging mother Áine embraces him as well before taking hold of Goldie by the shoulders to look her in the eye.
Áine Murphy was a beautiful woman in her youth. Time has not been kind to her. She is tired now and wrung.
"Look after my boy, sweetheart," she said to Goldie before hugging her tighter than she had hugged her son.
Áine would have been happy with all girls. The boys have brought her nothing but trouble.
---
It isn't until they're on the highway headed west that Matthew thinks to say anything. There's eight years between them and she's best friends with his little sister and their conversations have always revolved around him getting her cigarettes or him getting her pot or him getting her alcohol. He's wearing sunglasses and has the windows down because the air conditioning doesn't work.
"Hey, find me my smokes, would you?" is the first thing he's said to her since they got on the road
Goldie Lennox
No more responsible, perhaps, but more prepared at least, Goldie had everything together and ready to go before Rob could bang on Margaret's door to rouse her as well. For the sake of making departure easy, she had collected all of her things the night prior and stashed them against a wall downstairs to be later loaded into the car. Two cardboard boxes of clothes and accessories and what-have-you, another of keepsakes and memories carefully wrapped to survive the trip, and her backpack jammed with what she liked to refer to as her Guerrilla Garou Gear (Questing Stone, simple change of clothes, knife, flashlight, lighter-- you know, basically a bug out bag for Werewolves).
The night before Goldie had been out saying her farewells to her friends and didn't come through the old Murphy house door until the wee hours of the morning. She no doubt had a key by now, though she certainly didn't need it-- Goldie had a reputation of going everywhere that you didn't want her to be, and a lock was nothing but an invitation in her eyes. More than one time she'd come by to find the door locked and simply let herself in. The key was probably the result of that.
So accustomed to the Murphy home was Goldie Lennox that the shouting and general ruckus stirred up by the surviving brothers didn't get her up. A glance at her cell phone to confirm the time was as close to conscious as she got before rolling over and going back to sleep. It would have taken someone's coming to the room to tell her to get her ass up to make it happen.
-----
A cup of coffee from a mismatched mug in the Murphy kitchen got Goldie going. She helped load up the car, and her father Marcus Lennox had come by to help and to see her off.
Marcus was a familiar face with the family-- he had to be, he was a Fianna Kinfolk and his daughter never seemed to go away. He was a man in his mid-forties with brown hair and eyes and a stocky sometimes-soft-sometimes-not (depending on if he was exercising, really) build. He dressed in jeans regardless of the heat and wore a gray T-shirt with his factory job's logo across the chest. He was often overworked, often unsure of how to handle his Trickster daughter, but always loving. He'd squeezed Goldie for a solid ten seconds before she covinced him to let go when saying last goodbyes in the front yard.
Farewells were all smiles and cheers and 'Okay here we go!' from Goldie-- she was excited by the prospect of getting out of the small town and going to the city. It was difficult to misbehave when more or less everyone in town knew who you were. When Ma Murphy grasped her shoulders and asked her to do precisely what the Sept had demanded instead, a somewhat more solemn tone was struck. Goldie knew and loved the woman as a second mother, and knew that even though Matthew was arguably her largest pain in the ass, Áine might not survive if he was taken by Death too soon as well.
"Of course, Ma," Goldie reassured the woman with a beaming smile that put her somewhat bucked front teeth on display, then hugged her and patted her back as she did.
It's only once everyone has said goodbye several times that the Fuck Up and Fuck Off loaded into the dinky (but assuredly reliable) hatchback to venture West.
-----
Due to the air conditioner being broken, the pair of Fianna drove with the windows down. Goldie Lennox was a petite and slender thing, so she was able to comfortably crunch her knees up so she could put her bare feet (flip-flops on the floor) on the edge of the dashboard. She wore her hair back in a topknot, though loose strands still whipped about her face in the wind, along with a pair of basketball shorts and a tank top-- you know, road trip clothes.
She was doing something with her cell phone, content to drain its battery and let silence reign in the car, when Matthew prompted her to hunt down his cigarettes. The fact that she put her feet down and leaned forward to hunt for them was acquiecense enough.
Upon finding the pack floating somewhere in the glove box, Goldie shook the cigarettes up to the top and took one for herself before holding it out for Matthew to do the same for himself. With the cigarette already between her lips she raised eyebrows at him as though to ask <i>This is okay, isn't it?</i> Figuring that the answer would be okay if for no reason more than her having already put her mouth on it so he wouldn't want it back.
With cigarettes distributed, she leaned forward to dig around in her bag for a lighter. While hunting, she shared the thought that had been brought to mind with the Kinsman.
"The first thing I'm gonna do when we get there is see what an honest-to-god dispensery is like. I'm thinking chocolate bars. If they have ones that taste like Heath bars it's all over." Then, while holding the lighter out for Matthew to take first. "That is, if you don't plan on spoiling my fun by deciding to be a Responsible Adult or some shit."
Matthew Murphy
Matthew may or may not have lifted a few hundred dollars' worth of cigarette cartons on his last shift at the Stop N Go or whatever the hell gas station he was working at this month and may or may not have shipped all but one of the cartons ahead to Denver. The travel carton in question is wedged somewhere in the back. The two packs he took out for the first leg of the journey are in fact stuffed inside the glove box but so is the pack he started this morning.
He smokes Camel Blues. Always has unless one chooses to count the period of time when he lived in New York and smoked Marlboro Lights because that's what his girlfriend smoked but he doesn't like to think about New York any more than he likes to talk about it. He doesn't live in New York anymore. He doesn't live in North Carolina anymore either. Maybe when they get out to Denver he'll switch brands. It's a clean goddamn slate they have in front of them.
Plenty of other things in this car don't work but the cigarette lighter does. Once his young charge has set off on her mission to find the cigarettes Matt takes one hand off the steering wheel to push the plastic nub in. It begins to glow with its coils' soaking up energy. He catches her expression in his peripheral vision and looks over to see what the problem is.
<i>This is okay, isn't it?</i>
He gives her a scowl like he can't believe she even has to ask and plucks his own from the case. Tucks it behind his ear to wait for a flame and drapes his arm across the open window's frame. They're hauling ass down I-40 West doing five over the speed limit but they're following the flow of traffic and Matthew for having done little more than sit on his bony ass the last four years is still technically a lawyer. He will never have to pay a speeding ticket if he can't manage to talk his way out of one.
"Do I look like a responsible adult to you?" he asks. It's rhetorical. No shit he doesn't look like a responsible adult. His clothes are at least a size too big for him and he hasn't shaved his face in about four days. "Kid, you wanna eat pot Heath Bars for breakfast, you go right on ahead. First thing I gotta do when we get there is pick up the fuckin' keys from the landlady. Then we can get as stoned as you want."
Oh shit. Parameters. Maybe he is a responsible adult.
Goldie Lennox
"Clearly not. Kind of how we wound up doing this, isn't it?"
Goldie had a certain smirk that Matthew has known since it was young enough to still be a cute brand of mischievous-- a hallmark of the moon she was born under and the kind of thing that people like to comment on to her parents. As she passed through teenager years and her Change, it became less of an adorable omen and more of a warning, not unlike green skies on a humid stormy day. Matthew knew by now that it tended to lead into some kind of stress. Often times it didn't impact him directly so the stress she caused was easy to ignore or dismiss, but now it was exclusively his company until they found jobs and friends and (maybe) a Pack. That stress-promising smirk was aimed across the call at nobody but him.
"Gottay say," and he already knew what she was going to say, because she's said it plenty of times already and always started it the same way. "Someone's mother didn't teach him that two wrongs don't make a right. Two Wrongs--" and she gestured between herself and Matthew, "--definitely aren't going to make a Right. If Wrongs here are actually accused loafers and the Right is a well-trimmed and hedged path to the corner of Tradition and Duty."
Once the car lighter popped to announce it was finished heating, Goldie swooped in for it first. At least she was quick about lighting her cigarette and passing the red-hot device over to him.
"Kid," she added with a scoff. "Come on now, let's drop that one in the gutter, shall we?" Dramatically, she swept an arm out the window to gesture to the ditch and scenery they were driving past, as though to indicate the world beyond. "We're striking out as Grown Ups, you and me. Me and you. You and I. We'll never even get started down the path to Responsible Adultdom with an accusational attitude like that." Smoke typically poured slow out her mouth when she had a cigarette, she preferred the drama of that to just blowing smoke like a chimney. The windows being down sucked the smoke right out of the car, though, so she gave up the slow-roll of smoke and scoffed once more, with humor, for effect. "Kid...." As though she could hardly believe it.
Matthew Murphy
<i>If Wrongs here are actually accused loafers and the Right is a well-trimmed and hedged path to the corner of Tradition and Duty.</i>
Getting lectured by a Cliath. He should have seen this coming. It was easier to ignore her when she and her sister were both sprouts and one couldn't tell Garou from Kinfolk without the expert input of a Theurge. As far as the totem pole goes she's higher up than he is by virtue of the fact that he isn't even on the damned thing. His older brother sired what may very well end up being a Philodox. His older sister gave the Nation twin Ahroun. Neither one of them are on the damned thing either.
"Leave someone's mother out of this," he says as an afterthought. Juggles the wheel between hands again to tuck the cigarette between his lips and take the little lighter and press its coils to the end of his cigarette. Puts the thing back where it belongs and puts his hand back on the wheel so his left can control the cigarette.
<i>Kid.</i>
He lets her go on. Call it a minor attitude adjustment or call it not wanting to her her go on at length the entire way to Kentucky or wherever the hell it is they're going to spend the night. He can handle driving six hours at a stretch twelve if there's a promise of an overnight stay at the end of it but there is no way in Malfeas that she is getting behind the wheel. Piece of shit cars misbehave badly enough with people they trust.
"Sorry," he says and he doesn't sound like he means it but ever since he got back from New York Matthew hasn't sounded as if he means a lot of what he says. Maybe he had just been faking his optimistic idealist attitude because that's what he was supposed to do. He was Ma's goddamn golden boy once upon a time. That was before the nervous breakdown. Before his pregnant sister had to go up to Bellevue to sign his ass out of the psych ward. "Lemme tell you something: I been down that path. It sucks. The hell you wanna be responsible for, anyway?"
Don't argue with a lawyer, Goldie. It's a trap.
Goldie Lennox
For a moment it sounded like Matthew was going to start giving advice, and Goldie's already big eyes widened more. She looked over at him and raised her eyebrows to fix the most incredulous, skeptical expression she could contort her face into upon him. Matthew, with his past years spent working on an impressive reputation as Failed Potential, was going to impart wisdom.
When he concluded that he knew from experience that responsibility suck (hence giving it up), Goldie smiled a big toothy grin at him, chuckled, and scooted back down in the seat so that her bare feet could go to the dash once more.
"Like I actually <i>want</i> to. You heard the Big Bosses." Well, actually, he didn't. The punishment was passed through a small trial of exclusively Garou. Matthew certainly didn't have an invitation to hear the Adren pass judgment himself.
"But you know what?" Goldie took the cigarette into her fingers to analyze it a foot in front of her face, as though a scroll's worth of knowledge was inked in tiny font into the paper. "I'll watch after you anyways, Matty. Even if I don't like following orders." That was accompanied by a candied cherry sweet smile and a rolling tip of her head so that the smile was presented to him so sideways it was almost upside-down.
Matthew Murphy
The day that Matthew Murphy gives anybody advice that doesn't have to do with sneaking into a bar without proper identification or how to keep from incriminating oneself while in police custody is the day that Goldie can claim to have seen everything. The Murphy kids are not so good at giving advice. He is the least good at giving advice. If anything he is an example of What Not To Do if one wants to live a long productive life.
Meghan has spent the better part of her young adulthood angry with him. Afraid that she's going to finish medical school and have a residency at her dream hospital and that won't be enough. That someone will have to come collect her from the psych ward and her life will be over too. If Meghan doesn't end up on anxiety medication before her first clinical rotation it will be a miracle.
<i>You heard the Big Bosses.</i>
Scoff. Psh. "No I didn't."
Inked into the paper near the filter is a small blue camel. Punched into it are small holes meant to reduce the amount of tar going into the smoker's lungs. Nothing to be gleaned from it. The filter is going yellow from the nicotine.
"The Nation salutes you, Lennox," he says and turns on the radio. Loud. There goes the rest of that conversation. The stereo joins the lighter in being one of the only things in this piece of shit that works.
---
They drive for three hours before stopping at a rest station off the highway. They need to put gas in the thing and figure out where they're headed next. He doesn't have GPS in the car but he knows how to read a map. Matthew is smarter than he looks. He's smarter than most people look. Ignore the fact that he looks like a fucking hooligan with his sunglasses still on when he goes inside to pay for the gas and buy a map and shoot the shit with the cashier.
Another six hours after that they've gone over seven hundred miles but the sun is starting to set and he doesn't want to drive through Missouri tonight so they stop at a hotel. A proper hotel with a bar. Some national chain that doesn't charge an exorbitant amount per night unless you break into the mini bar or trash the goddamn room.
They park the car and check in and just as soon as they've dumped off their overnight bags he says, "I'm going downstairs. You coming?"
Goldie Lennox
Meghan had always been a stand-up kind of gal. Goldie wasn't related to her by any blood but Stag's (and even then distantly, for the Lennox lineage did not extend far or impressive, not like the Murphy clan at all), but she beamed proud of the young Kinswoman none the less.
Naturally Meghan, named Margaret, dubbed Maggie-Magpie-JoeDiMaggio, had worried hard and fretted deep when her brother came home broken from his rocket flight into success, propelled by rockets of natural and sometimes unbelievable intellect. Goldie had creased her brow in puzzlement and analyzed the situation, but being blunt and zealous by nature her form of 'analyzing' was actually closer to 'harrying poor Matthew until half the family kicked her out of the house for a few weeks'.
Needless to say, she walked away with the egg that was Matthew's Crisis uncracked. It's remained that way-- being chased off by a clan of Fianna established effective boundaries.
There was an understanding akin to respect of Matthew's space that Goldie (typically) practiced. Maybe this is why he didn't grind his heels in a fit of stubborn that only so pure-blooded a Fianna as him could throw when told he should across the country with her. It was the reason that Goldie didn't ignore the signal that turning on the radio sent. For a while after she fell to contented quiet and watched the East find place in the back window.
-----
In and out of various gas stations, between the pages of two different books. Sometimes Goldie would stretch limbs out the window to cool down, other times she would lay the seat back and sleep under a hoodie.
Eventually, after hours and hundreds of miles, they pulled up to a hotel and Goldie nearly prance-danced her joy in the parking lot.
It's seldom that you meet a Wolf who likes car rides as much as dogs do.
When they reached the room Goldie deposited the duffle bag she was living out of for the trip at the foot of a bed before flinging herself onto it face-first to stretch out the cramps from the long drive. When asked if she would join him downstairs, Goldie tossed over onto her side and looked to where Matthew stood .
"What , right now?" She swept a hand down the length of her to gesture her appearance; she was still dressed in a tank top and athletic shorts. "Give me, like, two minutes to get dressed here."
One thing could be said for the Ragabash, and it was that she was a timely thing. She promised Matty two minutes, and in just that time she stepped out of the bathroom in jeans and an at least more presentable tee-shirt. The topknot she had been wearing was replaced by a ponytail she was snapping the elastic to as she joined him.
"Alright. Let's go get crunk and celebrate freedom.
Matthew Murphy
<i>What, right now?</i>
Matt is still wearing what he had on when he pushed open the door to her room this morning. Trainers and shitty jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt. If he showered it was before he went to bed last night. Rob told him days ago if he was going to go for one of his Fuck You World runs he'd better fucking do it the night before because they didn't have time to run before loading up the car.
First thing Rob did when he got home was open up a beer. He is not the best older brother in the world but Ennis has been dead for twelve years and for twelve years he's been the only older brother Matt has had. Been the closest thing to a father Matt has ever had even though he's only six years older. Been the closest thing to a father a lot of the neighborhood kids had after the Battle of Nine Bloods never minding that he already had one child of his own and another one arrived later that year.
Nobody gives Rob shit for drinking as much as he does. He won't drink any less now that Matt's gone.
Anyway: Matt just widens his eyes and holds his hands out palm-up like to ask what the fuck's wrong with what she's got on now but she asks for two minutes so two minutes she gets. He's worn his hair shorn close to his scalp ever since he got home from the hospital. Just buzzes it once a month when it starts to get long and moves on with his life. He still has a nervous habit of running his hand over his scalp like he's trying to push hair back off his brow. He does it now. He doesn't like standing still. He flops down onto the bed and starts rummaging through the bedside table to keep himself occupied while she changes.
He's on his feet again once she's freshened up.
"'Get crunk'?" he asks. Slips his key card into his wallet and stuffs his wallet back into his ass pocket. The wallet is the only thing giving his jeans weight. His clothes hang off of him. Back home in North Carolina nobody ever cards him but he's in for a shock once they get out west. He holds the door open for her as they leave. "Whataya think this is, college?"
Does he sound fond? He does a little underneath the impending embarrassment.
Goldie Lennox
"Get crunk," Goldie confirmed with a nod and a smug grin.
Of course she really just meant drunk, but wasn't it more fun to say 'crunk' instead? Chances were high that she would drink to compensate her metabolism and sleep far too late into the morning. Authentically, there was a chance that Matthew may do the same. They had projected to make this trip in just a couple days, but there was a tiny pool going on back home for how many days late they would be arriving.
Goldie hadn't insisted on changing to try picking up guys at the bar, certainly. It's not like she had the opportunity to bring them back up to a room that she shared with her Kinsman (though this was a hotel, and those men had rooms too, didn't they?). Rather, Goldie suffered a similar amount of vanity to the average twenty-one year old woman. She might not be actively trolling for dick tonight, but it was still more comfortable to know that you wouldn't scare the potential away with your top-knot and stained basketball shorts with 'PNHS' in faded out white print on them.
As they walked the hall to find stairs (or elevator, whatever) to take them to the bar, she chattered idly.
"I mean, I don't know, is that where you had your 'crunk' days? In college? Have you warned Meg Nog about this? Because I get the feeling that she never received the memo. Hey! You know what I haven't seen yet? Any pictures of where the hell we're gonna be living." Strangely enough, it's true. She's no doubt heard numbers and figures and things like that, but through the fray she hadn't ever been shown a rental listing. Somehow (oh please, we all know how) it had slipped her mind to pursue the subject until a though occurred in that precise moment.
Once downstairs, it was a whiskey sour for Goldie, thank you.
Matthew Murphy
The most Fianna thing about Matt is that no matter how much he drinks the night before he manages to awaken near enough to the sun's rising that he can get up and run as far as he'd care to run and come home and shower and still have several hours left before his shift at the gas station or the dive bar or wherever it is that's paying his bills on any given month.
Everyone in Plymouth knew he was a smart goddamn kid. Graduated valedictorian a year early and then off he went to NC State. Knocked out his Bachelor's degree in two and a half years. Wasn't even old enough to drink when he left to go to law school at Columbia University. Columbia fuckin' University as his older brother calls it. The kind of intellectual currency he was boasting he could have made partner at the law firm before he was 30. Could have gotten himself a high-ranked mate and knocked out a few kids and had enough clout and resources to take on Pentex without having to fire a shot. Not had the surviving half of his family riding his ass for four years wondering when he was going to get his shit together.
All he can boast now is that he may very well stay up until four o'clock in the morning partying but you can be sure he'll be out the door for a run by 9:30.
As they head for the stairs Goldie asks if he had his crunk days in college and Matt snorts. His hands are crammed into the pockets of his loose jeans and he uses his back to push open the stairwell door.
"I'll show you on my phone," he says. "It's in Highland, out by the old streetcar line. Very early-twenties. You'll fit right in."
Once they're inside the bar which is poor-lit and neon where it is and populated by truckers and alcoholic businessmen whose flight to proper cities was delayed and here they are staying overnight in fucking Missouri there was a time when Matt belonged to their echelon of society but he doesn't even look over at them like he misses traveling in suits and bitching about airlines anymore he nabs a spot at the bar and stands and lets Goldie order first. The bartender is a haggard-looking woman who could be in her 30s or her 50s. Hard to tell with haggard-looking women. She could look good for her age.
"'I like whiskey by itself,'" Matt says in a voice slightly higher pitched than his normal speaking voice, "'but I wish the hangover were worse. Put more sugar in it!'" He drops the mockery. "Try a whiskey soda, Lennox. It's got Responsible Adult written all over it."
Goldie Lennox
Matthew Murphy was known as a smart guy throughout the town, human and Garou communities alike were keyed in to it. Society expected to read his names in papers and textbooks one day. The Nation hoped he would be a pivot in relations with human society, a weapon against the Pentex and other such organizations, and father to a plethora of True Born and Well-Bred Kin.
There were no similar expectations or impressions of Goldie Lennox, though. Humans knew her as a party-girl and trouble starter. By the end of her junior high years, many parents had forbidden their children from associating with her. Don't be fooled by her face, they'd warn, because That Lennox Girl is nothing but trouble.
The Nation didn't have much better to say, but they could at least attest to her usefulness. So young and fresh from her Fostering, and Little Uproar had already made her mark as one of the best scouts that the Sept had seen of her age in generations. If they needed information, she could get it. She always knew where to look, what to sniff for, who to follow. More than that, she was a critical tool for quiet strikes. Goldie Lennox might not be the strongest, the tallest, the most stalwart, but if someone needed to die quietly and without commotion, she was good for the job. Her kills we're not loud and bloody and fantastic, but they were Glorious none the less.
At this bar tonight, though, Goldie sought no secrets and had no lives to steal. Instead, she sat with a kinsman that was like a brother but technically not really. Enough a figure in her life that she took his advice and quick-called after the bartender to "pretty-please!" make that a whiskey soda instead.
"But let's make that soda a Mountain Dew instead!"
Matt probably cringed or gagged, but the bartender had it covered. Goldie's Rage was a live wire, but no inferno, and the weathered woman has seen much worse. She raised an eyebrow and told Goldie: "I won't even abuse our swill that way."
"So if not Mountain Dew, then what?" asked Goldie.
"Soda," the bartender replied flatly.
"Define 'soda?'"
"....Soda."
"Well alright, I'll take that, then!" And once the affair with drinks was settled Goldie sipped her drink (the tender did put some maraschino cherries in there, suspecting accurately that the energetic/annoying little lady would actually drink the cocktail with the sweet syrup added).
They no doubt looked at pictures of the little bungalow on Matt's phone as he'd promised they would, and after flipping though a few pictures and crooning over the exposed brick, Goldie sat upright and sipped her drink a bit more.
"You suppose we are gonna fit in?" He said she would, and meant their neighborhood, but it's easy to tell she's talking about the bigger picture.
"I did some looking into the matter. They're pretty stretched thin out there. Really need the help. Just, y'know, you think they'll actually <i>want</i> it? I don't want to settle in just to get sent off. I'm no Strider."
Matthew Murphy
Ma took care of the neighborhood kids best she could after the Battle of Nine Bloods. Her older two kids were mated and out of the house and her youngest son was practically grown by then. She hadn't had to worry about them. She hadn't worried about much of anything after the siege that claimed her mate and her only trueborn boy.
Other Cubs and Kin from Goldie and Meghan's group have kept in touch but none were so prevalent a presence as the young Ragabash. Other kids lost cousins or grandparents but to lose a mother is a powerful and terrible thing. Even if the only presence Ma had been the first six months afterwards was as a pale blond ghost in the corridor she was still there.
Áine and Brigid had been friends. Even Adren Philodices need friends. Kinfolk who can stand to be around them. Older as she was and with five kids to her name Áine was a source of wisdom and strength to plenty of folks back home.
When she came out of her stupor though Áine was more like a mother to a lot of them than their own were. She had as much faith in Goldie's bravery and her persistence as she had in Ennis's wisdom or his strength. More so maybe since she was alive and he was dead.
<i>But let's make that soda a Mountain Dew instead!</i>
He does cringe. He groans. And the bartender holds her ground. He laughs a quiet laugh and meets her gaze like they can both commiserate in this. Shakes his head and tells the poor woman he just wants a shot of whiskey and a draft beer. Holy christ. Kids.
As they wait for their drinks he pulls out his phone and looks up the address of the place they're going to be living. Pays for the drinks in cash and tells the bartender to keep the change. There aren't a lot of pictures on the website. None of the bedrooms though the bungalow does get a lot of light and has a fairly large backyard. They could plant a tree or build a shed back there.
Once she's gotten her fill of pictures he sighs and reads through some text messages he's been ignoring.
"Rob wants to know if we've left North Carolina yet," he says in a dry voice as he fires off a message.
(Guessing you guys made it out of Plymouth since I haven't heard from Deputy McGill yet. Thanks for the update. Nice to know you're doing okay.
Does your service not work outside of North Carolina?
Matty.
Maaaaaaaaaatt
Hey asshole.
Jesus dude we're in Missouri don't you have diapers to change or something)
The phone goes back into his pocket and he sighs at some thought something that has nothing to do with her inquiry. Takes the shot he's been ignoring all this time and puts it upside down so the bartender knows he isn't done yet.
"Where you think they're gonna send you?" he asks. His phone is back in his pocket. If it's buzzing she still has his attention. "What, you think they're gonna go 'Eh, you know, I know we've had bards running all over the goddamn place talking about what's going on here, but the response has been overwhelming, and we really think you oughta just go on back home.'" He rests his chin on the heel of his hand. Leaves his body open and angled towards her. "You're gonna be fine. Relax."
Goldie Lennox
"I dunno," Goldie said with a shrug. Matt sat turned in toward her, and she mirrored the angle back. One elbow propped up on the bar and she cupped her chin in the palm of her hand. For a moment she looked genuinely pensive over the possibility of rejection at this new Sept.
The Ragabash was an almost waifish thing, lean of limb and body, no taller than a scant few inches above the five foot mark. This, and a few facial traits, were passed down from Brigid Pembroke Lennox.
The Philodox had been visible enough in the lives of the Murphy children. The friendship between Maggie and Goldie had often been compared to that between their mothers. Brigid was a respectable Adren, though. While petite, she carried herself with such unshakable calm and authority that she may as well have been ten feet tall.
Her loss left quite a hole in the Lennox household. Goldie was devastated, of course, but she was young still. She would learn to live on, and to have a flock of surrogate siblings to spend time with helped ease the process. Marcus had done his best to stay straight-spined for his young daughter's sake, but it was hard not to get caught weeping over your coffee at 5am when your daughter would one day become the best sneak the Sept would see. He endorsed the time spent with the Murphys.
Built like her mother with the same brown eyes and expressions as her dad, Goldie tapped a finger thoughtfully against her front teeth, then reached for her drink again.
"Figures they may want a spirit-talker or a burly brawler. But if <i>you</i> think they'll like me...?" The pensive act (or was it?) broke to make way for a Cheshire grin. "I couldn't doubt the conclusion of Mindpower Murphy."
It's teasing, see, but based in the fact that she liked reminding him of how smart he was. Like it was his Secret Weapon gathering dust on a shelf and she would forever point at it and egg him on to use it one day.
Matthew Murphy
The way he would react to Meghan saying something similar is not the way he reacts to Goldie saying it but Meghan and Goldie are different people. Meghan is the sort of girl who shows up for class and participates. Who is never late for volleyball or basketball or softball practice. Who volunteers after school and has a page-long list of extracurricular activities and who everyone thinks is a quiet polite young woman who is going places.
So the fact that she smokes pot and gets into fights with boys twice her age and stays out way way way past curfew making sure her drunk-ass friends make it home safe might strike some folks as strange. But Meghan has a dryer sharper sense of humor than does Goldie. When she makes reference to Matt's jettisoned potential she does it knowing full well that he is her older brother and he is supposed to be the one offering her guidance and advice and support and not the other way around.
She does not make reference to to his jettisoned potential. Not to his face anyway. Goldie knows because Goldie is the only one to whom Meghan speaks about this. She doesn't understand. She's angry that he won't even talk to Rob. Whatever happened up there in New York you'd think Rob would understand. Maybe it's genetic.
But Meghan and Matt bust each others' balls as if they're aware of each others' fragility. They don't go after each other the way Rob and Matt go after each other. She doesn't express her disappointment and dismay in him the way Rachel does. So Matt snorts but he does not hold his fire like he would if he were sat here in the bar with Meghan.
"Hey, I didn't say I thought they'd <i>like</i> you," he says. "You're a pain right in the ass. I'm just saying, I think they need you. If they're dealing with Spirals or Abominations or whatever the hell, kicking down the front door probably isn't gonna be all that helpful. You know?"
Goldie Lennox
Meghan wouldn't call Matt out like that. She was a stand-up gal. Goldie would be astounded if the youngest Murphy didn't end up with proper Honor to her name before long.
The night that Goldie screwed up hard enough to get an Adren to come after her Margaret had been the one to explain what happened. The Ragabash had fallen asleep in the hay loft that she's borrowed with that Cub boy that night. When she'd stumbled back home the next morning her father was already at work, but Meghan was in her kitchen already with coffee brewed and Bad News written all over her face.
She was the only reason that Goldie was able to (as it had been rumored later) fling open the door for the Adren freshly showered and beaming and expecting him as though she had invited the surly man over for a dinner party. Sure, she was immediately cuffed back into place, but not everyone told that part of the tale.
Goldie couldn't help it-- she was a Ragabash. As the Theurge were compelled to seek the mystery and power of the spirits, and as any Galliard heart would swell to share their Tale and Song, the young New Moon herself needed to goad and test. You couldn't find the weak spots without that.
Which was perhaps why this Sept of the Cold Crescent needed her, Matt pointed out.
"I heard they tried that once before," Goldie snorted with Can You Believe That? laughter. "A group just waltzed in to that Unknown Frontier to knock and see who's home." She had it twisted up a little, missed a few facts here or there, but neither of these Plymouth kids knew that yet.
"What dopes. I guess you're right; they are going to need a different head on the planning committee, aren't they?" Content and shaking her head some, Goldie finished her drink and pushed the empty glass away.
"Maybe this wasn't the worst idea we've ever had made for us after all."
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