IC post for a nWoD game I'm in
When did this all start? What a question to ask. It started when I was 10, my big brother 12, in the sixth grade. My brother Chaz was a pacifist, but he was big and bulky. Not fat, all muscle, and with his swarthy skin tone people picked on him. He was pretty good at making people think he could hurt them, and he really wasn’t bad at fighting. He did a few martial arts classes but he hated fighting. Every fight he was in, he decimated his opponent. It got to the point that kids stopped challenging him. He was the “big dog” at school and he even had a little following.
Let me get to the point. One day a kid from the high school got wind that my brother beat up his kid brother and came to kick his ass. We were walking home from school; it was his best friend Micah, my best friend Joanie, and me. This big kid came up and pushed him down. Micah and Joanie were grabbed by some other kids, and the big kid knocked me down too. Then he picked me up by my hair and asked Chaz if he should beat me up because Chaz beat his brother up. Micah and Joanie were yelling and Chaz just stood there dumbfounded. The kid kicked me and let me drop to the ground. He broke my leg. The screaming changed from anger and fear to terror but I couldn’t see what was going on. The big kid and I were taken away from the scene in an ambulance. Let’s just say he ate through a straw for a long time to come, and his family moved away shortly after that. Micah and Joanie told me that my brother was a werewolf; I told them that they were nuts and that werewolves weren’t real.
Boy, was I ever wrong? My brother was found by some adults, they came to talk to Mom and Dad. Our parents confessed that there were rumors of werewolves being in the family line. See, all of my Dad’s side are big and bulky, they have the darker olive skin tone and that shiny black hair. They’re Native Americans, and it’s on Mom’s side too. She’s smaller, but still has a rich skin tone and black hair. It was Dad’s side that had the rumor of werewolves, and Dad mentioned that he went through a ritual. The other adults looked at him seriously for a long moment until Dad showed him his scar, a large U shaped impression. The other adults nodded and spoke among themselves for a long moment before telling Dad that Chaz needed to come study with them so he could learn to control himself. So Chaz dropped out of Boy Scouts and quit his martial arts training. He was gone at strange times, sometimes he would come home with strange cuts and bruises that would be gone the next day. Dad had to get out the plaster and fix holes that were the result of the stray temper tantrum before Chaz had himself fully under control.
I got to see his Gauru form. That was one of the coolest things I had ever seen, and quite possibly the scariest as well. He told Mom she didn’t need to get him a costume for Halloween that year, he was gonna go as a werewolf. Mom said “NO!” We were both really disappointed.
The next year or so he spent learning about being a werewolf, and what it was to be one. He shared a good bit of it with me. He told me later that I wasn’t allowed to let people know what I knew because we’d both be in trouble for it. Micah and Joanie were in on some of the secrets, but since they weren’t family, they weren’t in on all of them. Chaz told me that he wanted Joanie, Micah, and me to be werewolves too, but the person who was explaining things said that it was a genetic trait, and it was more than likely that we didn’t have the right genes.
Things were hard, but we became close. The rivalry we had stopped, and Chaz really started watching out for me.
Joanie Ellan, my best friend since third grade, moved here from Milwaukee. Her dad got a job at the museum down here and for a while he commuted, but when he got a raise, he moved the whole family down. Joanie is smart, not just smart, but REALLY SMART. Top of the class and a total know it all. She alienated most of her class her first day there. She was in the fourth grade and after her first week at school she was pretty much kicked away from every clique in the school. Even the nerds didn’t like her. So, I went to talk to her. Turns out, the know it all attitude is a bizarro self defense mechanism. The year after she moved down is when the whole thing went down with Chaz. Later she told me that she felt that there was something in the world she couldn’t see clearly. Like there was some kind of veil between the real world and the world we saw.
She looked and looked and looked but couldn’t find anything. She told me that it took her a few years. She was in the seventh grade, getting ready for a big exam. She spent most of the night up studying and when she fell asleep, she found herself in this strange place. It was like a wild forest of days long gone, or something. In her dream, she traveled for days, and then she found this pillar or tower or book… or something. See, I never understood it, but she found this thing and she wrote her name on it, and then the next day and the veil she was trying to see through was gone.
She aced her test and started hanging out with my brother a whole bunch. They would go running and would wake me up in the middle of the night with singing at times. Joanie’s dad is Pottawatomi and after this veil was lifted she went back to her roots. She and Chaz started going to powwows every weekend there was one and sometimes Micah and I would go too. After a few years Chaz would drive all of us and left our parents out of it. Micah had gotten into modeling in the ninth grade, so he skipped out of some of the powwows, but his parents told him that he needed to get in touch with his heritage as well, so here we were, two dark and swarthy native kids (Chaz and Joanie) and two slight and fair native kids (Micah and I.) We went to powwows together but most of the time we were ditched soon after we hit the parking lot. Micah and I weren’t into it like Joanie and Chaz were. We were outcast at the powwows, Micah missed a lot of them because he was off at a shoot here or there, but I was stuck at all of them. I couldn’t keep up with Joanie and Chaz, and the other kids asked if I was adopted. By the time I was in the ninth grade I stopped going with them.
Joanie was still her brash and know it all self, but she was good at knowing when to be at my house and when to say the right things. Things got tough for me, my parents started favoring Chaz more and more, and he was looking into colleges. Joanie was there with me, but she was with Chaz too, and before the year was out they were dating. I was lonely, and it took her telling Chaz that he forgot about me before things started turning around again. Joanie took to cleansing the house from spirits of sadness and loneliness, and worked even harder to be my friend through everything.
It was hard for her to tell me about what being a Mage was all about. She’d prattle on about this or that, but she could never show me anything. Her temper could rival Chaz’s at the worst of times, so when she’d be talking to me and he’d get in her face there’d be a huge knock down drag out fight. Chaz always let Joanie win, and that pissed her off, but she did ok hiding it from him. She told me about things like spirits, the same spirits that Chaz saw, she could see. She told me that she could ‘feel strings’ and those ‘strings’ were how she always knew what to say. She told me that she did ‘quiet magic’ but there were some out there who could throw fireballs.
One day she introduced me to this guy, he was an ex-priest, who would pull the strangest things from his pockets. He dared me to ask him for any item that would reasonably fit in his pocket. He said that he could produce it. It worked about 95% of the time. I was convinced. She introduced me to someone else who made plants grow. Turns out she had the best organic spices in the city, and a kicking flower shop to boot. She grew almost all of it in a small garden behind her shop, she only had to hit the flower warehouse for the occasional thing if she didn’t feel like taxing herself. Watching that in action was one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen. Joanie shared her secrets with me, and tried walking me through seeing through the veil, but even though I knew that things weren’t what they seemed, I just didn’t care enough to look for them like she did.
Micah went away for a weekend in New York, and then he texted and told me it was a week in London, but then he texted and said it was going to be a few weeks in Paris. When he came home, Chaz chased him off our doorstep, snarling about how could he just drop of the face of earth like that. Chaz fussed a lot that day. Yelled that something was wrong with him, but Micah just blew him off and walked away.
Micah and Chaz were the best of friends, and he consented to us dating, god only knows why. It was a dream come true to me, but since Micah was an up and coming model, it meant that I didn't get to see him much. He did photo shoots half naked with lots of lovely women hanging all over him, but when he came over, we sat in my room and played video games and didn't talk about his other life. He barely got through high school, he was gone too much to get good grades, but he convinced a correspondence school to let him take internet classes so he could get a degree. He didn't have any real plan, but he just wanted to have a degree so that he could be sure to make money when his face wasn't in vogue anymore. Chaz would almost always kick me off the X-Box so they could play something, so I spent my days sitting behind him on the couch with my legs over his shoulders doing my homework while he and Chaz laughed as they fragged their way through this game and that. Occasionally Chaz'd miss punching Micah's shoulder and clock my leg. I think they devised this to give Micah a reason to dote on me because then he'd kiss my leg and threaten to beat up "the Big Bad Wolfie." It was funny to watch, and I loved the attention from both of them so I didn't mind the occasional bruise from an overzealous fist.
This trip I was talking about before? It was the year they graduated High School, that summer. I was 16, just learning to drive under the not so gentle ministrations of my loving and screaming older brother. I got a call on my cell. Micah said he'd have to miss my sweet 16 party on Saturday, but he'd make it up to me when he got home that Monday. Monday came, and I got an e-mail on my cell "Love you, gotta go to London... See you next Tuesday, get me from the airport at 8pm." I cried a little that week, Chaz tried to comfort me but he wasn't so good at it. Joanie came to the rescue and sent Chaz for ice cream and pizza.
At 6pm Tuesday Chaz and I were at the airport and I got another email, "In Paris, see you June 30. Pick me up at 6am." I started crying again, right there in the airport, Chaz read the message over my shoulder, and snatched my phone away. He replied with something nasty, but at least he signed his name to it. I cried a lot for those few weeks. Joanie was with me most of the time, she kept most of the pain and fear away, but it was still really rough.
June 30th came around and there was a knock on the front door. Chaz held me back and went to the door. It was Micah! I went forward to wrap my arms around him, to welcome him in the house, but Chaz held me back. He told Joanie to get me away from the door and he told Micah that something didn't smell right about him. Micah said that he didn't care, and walked away. I think I cried the most that day, and that day, nothing Joanie did made me feel any better. Micah had been gone almost a month and when Chaz said something felt wrong, instead of trying to help him figure it out, he just went on his merry way. Chaz told Mom and Dad to keep me in for the next couple of nights, or to stick with me. Joanie had a big test and was filling out college applications so she’d not be by as often. All of that made me pretty pissed, but Mom and Dad listen to Chaz when he says something isn't right and Joanie needed to get stuff done, she was already wasting enough time with me. Mom suggested we go to Great America or the Dells for a 'Mini-Vaca' and Chaz said it'd be a good idea. He asked Joanie to go, but she said that her parents were taking her to see Duke, Cambridge, and Harvard and she couldn’t come. So Mom and Dad packed my bags and Mom crooned about how nice it would be to find a boy who wasn't a model ‘a nice native boy like your brother.’ It was horrible. We hit 6 Flags for a day; can you imagine being 16 and having your parents follow you EVERYWHERE at 6 flags? It was even worse because some of Chaz's pack was there too. "Hi Mr. and Mrs. Borean, can we take Luna on this ride?" "Hi Mr and Mrs. Borean, can we buy Luna a coke and snack and sit over there with her?" You'd think I'd be used to their over protectiveness by now. One even climbed in the back of the SUV when we left, saying that Chaz gave him some extra cash to go visit the Dells with us. He was some scrawny kid named Manny. Manny was sweet, but he used my cell to text back and forth with Chaz, and deleted every damned message from him before I could read them. He did some kind of hack so I could get free internet on my phone. I guess that makes the secret messages not so bad. The only creepy thing is that he would sit in the back seat with me and lean over and smell my hair occasionally. Not like 'oh, nice shampoo' but like almost bury your nose in it kinda sniff. Mom and Dad thought it was cute, Mom even snapped a picture of it and sent it to Chaz. It stopped after Chaz got the picture, but there was a mad rash of texts and even a whispered phone call that Manny laughed through.
We rolled into the Dells at 2 in the morning, and Manny seemed like he was going to jump out of his skin. He told us to wait in the car and that he'd get the room for us. He went into the hotel and came back with two room keys, but instead of getting into the car he ran to the room and spent a good 10 minutes looking around in them. When he got them he told us that the room would have to stay open so he could get in and out of them as needed and spent most of that evening pacing back and forth in and out of the room.
The next morning, he woke us up with a fruit basket and some bagels. He even made something that almost passed as coffee in the coffee pot. He told me that I couldn't have a shower with the door closed, but I told him that he was bonkers if he thought I was going to shower with him in the room and the door open. Twenty minutes later he pounded on the door telling me we had to go.
That day wasn't so bad, Manny was less a stick in the mud than most of the other pack members. Chaz told me that he 'was still new but capable.' Mind, Chaz wasn't that old or experienced himself. Chaz called Mom and Dad and told us to come home when we felt like it, and that he'd talk to me when we got there. Mom and Dad dragged Manny and I around for a few more days. I think his favorite part was when we went on the Ducks. He told the “back end of a duck” joke for at least two hours after we got off them. When we got back to Chicago, Manny asked to be dropped off near a Bakery and the second the car was almost stopped he was out the door. When we made it to the house Chaz came to the car and took me to my room. Laid out on my bed was this strange pile of sticks and feathers and... stuff.
Apparently he invited Micah over to play games and talk things over. They got into some kinda fight over something. Chaz admitted that he started the fight, but instead of Micah getting hurt, he just turned into a pile of... stuff. Chaz was really shaken up, and he didn't know what to do about it. We wrapped up the sticks and put it in my closet.
I cried a lot. Micah didn't call or text, and no one saw him. The cops came by the house and I explained that we didn't see him since he got home from Paris. They asked Chaz a whole bunch of things and even took him to the station. Mom and Dad were told that they were going to hold him for a little while. His pack suggested a Lawyer and the cops backed off.
It was the worst summer of my life.
I started my Junior year of school and right before Halloween there was a knock at the door. It was déjà vu; Chaz pushed me back and opened it on Micah. The big differences were that I didn't want to run to him this time, and Joanie wasn’t there. Chaz growled at him, but Micah held up his hands. He said that he needed to talk to us, and he suggested we go to my room. Chaz grabbed Micah by the neck and pushed him up the stairs. When we got there, Micah pulled the door closed and the second it closed something strange happened. He's always been drop dead gorgeous. Now there was no word for it. He was inhumanly lovely, just looking at him made me feel like I wasn't worthy of being in the same room with him. Chaz tried to hit him, but he dodged and told is this strange story. Something about fairies. It was... surreal. Yes, after everything before, this was surreal.
He said he needed something so he could look human again, but Chaz said he couldn't do anything. Micah said that I was all he needed. Chaz told him to bugger off. They fought for a while in my room and I just sat in the corner, I didn't know what to do, but then Micah said that he'd tell us more. He touched Chaz's shoulder and he looked human again. They spoke for a long time. I listened, and it was as strange as it was when Chaz explained what he was. Mom called Chaz down from the kitchen, he left the room with a snarl but he went. Micah came to where I was huddled on my bed. He crawled next to me and kissed me. It felt like the room moved, or maybe the room stopped while the planet kept moving. Chaz stormed back up into the room and caught us in the act. He was pissed at first but Micah sat up and walked to him and Chaz seemed to melt. He left the room again and Micah came back to the bed. He said something like 'he'll really be pissed when it wears off,' but he took me back in his arms and I remembered no more.
He spent the next few weeks coming over like he did when they were in High School. It took a while for them to get accustomed to each other again. Chaz lost lots of arguments, Mom and Dad stopped bemoaning my having a model for a boy friend. His agent let him work on his terms and he still got jobs… Things were perfect! No more skeezy, skinny, skanky sluts hanging on my boyfriend without me able to be there to get kisses between sets. Chaz was doing the college football thing and palling around with Micah like before his disappearance. Joanie was sending constant emails about Harvard, and telling us that the education she was getting there was substandard.