He exited Crimen Delectatio.

Crimen Delectatio, or Guilty Pleasures, is a strip joint like no other. It caters to the crowd of less...normality shall we say? The strippers are most often vampires, lycanthropes, and vampire junkies. (humans who get pleasure from giving blood without being turned. It’s like sex or drugs. Addicting.) The club is owned by a Vampire, Nicolas, and Justin’s master.

Justin is only seventeen. And he looks it in the face. He stands half a foot short of six feet, or half a foot more then five feet (whichever you should choose). He’s dressed up for the evening wearing leather pants that look as though they’ve been poured onto him. They’re tight enough to say he’s not wearing underwear. His boots climb his legs to his knees, the pants tucked inside of them. He wears no shirt over his lean, flat chest. His flesh is sun kissed and holds slinking muscles just beneath skin surface. His hands are adorned by gloves, the leather so soft to almost be suede. The gloves cover his arm half way up to his elbow and cover his fingers only half way down to the first joint. His wrists are thin, even under the gloves. There is a collar around his throat, spiked and studded like one you’d expect to see on a bull dog. His hair is short, grabbed back into a holder, the blond-brown ponytail reaching only to the base of his neck. His eyes are brown, and if you know what signs to look for, inhuman.

His brown eyes are heavily lined with brown eye pencil, enhancing the effect of the brown gaze. Just below the eyebrows is a touch of brown shadow.

The strip joint is pumping, the music pounding through the doors as he pushes them opened, stopping abruptly when the doors close, as though the music had been shut off. Outside the club, there is a long line waiting to get in. A bouncer, too muscle bound to cross his arms, stands with his arms in an attempted fold.

“Later, Bruce.” A flick of the wrist to the bouncer.

“Tomorrow, Justice.”

Justice walks down the street. His clothes are old for him, his make up is old for him. But he walks with a slight bounce that only a teenager can muster up. The club is the only one on the street, amongst office buildings. It’s just beginning to earn a lot of publicity in the Initiate world. Somehow, it still remains hidden from the Unnies.

He's only seventeen. What's he doing in a strip joint?

Emrys heared the music. Even with the doors closed and sealed, Emrys can detect the constant thump of the bass. Everything else is just a whirl of soft noise under the thum but he could hear it. Of course, when one sense is cut off for so long, other senses become stronger. Emrys' sight was cut off as a child so he's had plenty of time for his touch, taste, hearing, and smelling to become stronger then the average bears...or maybe just humans.

He can feel the electricity strumming in the air, thick enough to walk across and he can smell the coming rain like a flower, opening up and waiting for it. It may rain tonight. Mayb tomorrow or the next week. But it would rain.

Emrys was elaboratly dressed down compared to Justin. He wore a pair of comfortably loose but fitted black jeans and a short sleeved white shirt under a black shirt with the neck cut short and the sleeves shorter then the white one. His eyes were covered with a silk peice of cloth to cover the scars but his arms were left bare. Normally he might try to hide them but the warmth of spring and summer were coming and it was becoming too hot for long sleeves. His wrists, forarms, and hands are covered in smooth slick scars.

He's healing from his encounter with Logan. There are a few additional scars but no bruises left.

It is by chance that his cane does a sweep past and doesn't hit the young man, to warn Emrys that he's there. It is also by chance that he steps forward and runs into the man. He stumbles backwards, dropping his cane, and it rolls to the gutter.

"I'm so sorry."

He sounds miserable. How could bumping into one man make someone sound so miserable.

Justin didn't stumble. It was almost like hitting a brick wall really. How is it possible for such a small body to be so strong would probably be beyond most himan concept. Really, it was because he was a lycanthrope. It leant him strength, speed, and agility.

Which is possibly why he reacted so quickly when the other stumbled backwards. His hand reached out and gripped in a firm but delicate hold at the man's elbow. His brown eyes moved slowly over the face of the other, down his body. Duely he noticed the scars.

His fingers remained gripping the other's elbow while he bent to retreive the cane from the gutter.

"No harm done."

He frowned.

"Your blind?" Well, he is just a curious puppy after all. Literally.

Startled, Emrys regained his balance and gave a short nod.

"Yes."

He gently pulled his elbow from the man's grip, stepping back several steps from him. Emrys wasn't a man to easily trust, and after his experiance two weeks ago, he doesn't even trust children anymore. It's a shame. He reached out a hand, palm up, for his staff. Yes, he'd felt the man bend to retreive something and only assumed it was his cane.

Justin saw immediatly how rude he must have sounded and gave a slight shake of the head. He then realized that the blind man couldn't see him shake his head and shook his head again. Damn. Habbits die hard.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

Well, what had he meant. He'd meant exactly what he'd said. He'd asked if the man was blind because he wanted his suspicions confirmed. How else to confirm then to ask?

"I mean. I meant to ask but..."

But what? What had he meant by asking? Or by apologizing?

"I didn't mean to offend you." Yes. That was it.

He looked over his shoulder to gaze at Bruce. Thank god the vampire was busy with the crowd. Justin wasn't sure he could handle the embarassment if Bruce told the others and they started hounding him about harassing a blind man on the street.

He lay the middle of the can directly in the man's outstretched hand. Scared hand.

"What happened to your hands?"

Ok, so he's on a roll and can't keep his mouth shut. I beg of you forgive him this one minor sin.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."

"I mean. I meant to ask but..."

"I didn't mean to offend you."

It made Emrys chuckle softly. He really hadn't been ofended by his question. He shook his head.

"It's alright. I wasn't offended. If I got offended every time someone asked, I'd go through life completly pissed off."

His fingers closed around the cane as the kid asked his next question. His fingers brushed the others breifly when they closed and an image flashed through his mind. A face, the kid in front of him looked younger then he sounded, and then a change. A furry face. A dog...no wolf. It doesn't take an idiot to figure out what that meant. Or at least, Emrys is so used to interpeting his own visions that it wasn't hard to realize the kid was a werewolf. It suprised him. He'd never met such a young person that had been turned. He'd always thought it was a general rule that children weren't lycanthropes.

What happened to his hands?

"an accident." He frowned, suddenly defensive. It was one thing to be asked about his handicap, another thing entirly to be asked about how. It was a touchy subject. "What happened to make you a beast once a month."

So it was mean.

Justin gapped at the man. He just couldn't understand how the other would have known that. It was a really goodly kept secret unless Justin told someone, but he never did.

He opened his mouth to say 'how' but changed his mind and closed his mouth to seal his lips togather. He breathed in and frowned, averting his eyes to the ground and rubbing his arm.

"An accident," he repeated. An accident but true.

"I'm sorry."

Emrys suddenly felt bad for what he'd said, for being spitful. He frowned, shifted his cane to his left hand and held out his right hand for a shake.

"I'm Emrys Damian." He turned the offered hand slightly to the side as if he knew exactly where the scars would show best. "I did it in a fire. I just don't like to talk about it. I'm sorry for that. It was rude and abnoxious."

He twisted his hand back to the offered position.

The comfort of night gives way to the harsh light of strengthening dawn, and I peer once again from my protective hole in the earth, my last tenuous thread to down below. Soon I intend to sever even that, and emerge onto this surface world as a fledgling creature. Too many memories to consign to forgetfulness, so much knowledge to willfully dismiss. I remake myself with the painstaking care that the Father of the Earth must have used to create me, but when I am done I will join a different kind, exposed here on the surface world.

Upon first breaching the vastness of open air, after tunneling through softened soil heavy with organic tastes, my imminent wonder had given way to palpable fear, and I had receded once more into the comforting darkness of the earth’s womb. Resolute courage spawned from necessity had compelled me ever closer to the pinprick of cyclic light beckoning at the end of my tunnel, where I had spent long and untold seasons in observations alien to gargoyles.

The openness, the brightness, a host of insults straining my senses to perceive, I had acclimated to the new demands and reconciled myself with foreign sights. The earth was bizarre above the heart of gargoyle civilization, a wild and unkempt landscape assaulted by weather and temperature extremes which initially caused me discomfort, although little affecting the core state of my being. Ultimately, however, the environment proved less intriguing than the ecology.

Organic life flourished in this inhospitable clime, and I had reached a nervous hand from the protection of the soil to touch some scrubby flowering grass, which clung to the loam with the same love that I did. I had found a commonality on the surface. Peculiar creatures lived and grew, reproducing and dying at a remarkably rapid rate, as least compared to what I knew. An odd assortment of living things roamed around, free from the soil and vulnerable in the open, oddly compelling in their mobility. Pre-destiny would determine that I become like them.

At the limits of my broadening vision, I could see a civilization of sorts, nestled in a throng of fabricated structures. Its constructed walls thrust into the open air as if in defiance of the solemn space surrounding it, dazzling and tugging at some remote hostility within me. The beasts moving about this city sometimes happened by my window into this realm, and they commanded my curiosity most of all. These beasts exhibited purposeful thought, planning, building, and shaping the environment to suit their needs. All were not the same, nor molded in the perfect image as the gargoyles are, but nevertheless displaying an appreciable level of cooperation.

I come to accept these beasts as people, identifying their varied traits with the sentient qualities of my own, and I speculated about their motivations. With vehicles of all sorts they ferried sundries into and out of the city, and communicated along their paths with oddly spoken languages. Their purposes and thoughts remained an intriguing mystery to me.

My observations presented a startling reality, forcing me to redefine my concepts regarding gender. My feminine acceptance of myself did not correspond in similar interests to the sexual constructs of the surface creatures. A greater degree of separation existed on these surface races, shaping and limiting the development of male and female in unbalanced fashions, unlike the gargoyle. An intriguing and unnecessary adaptation, fueling my obsession further. So much remained unknown and strange, beyond the obvious differences, between these people and me.

I pondered a future dwelling amidst these people, and passively wondered how much of the arcane they embraced. So much of their activity seemed in conflict with the enigmatic, where I most comfortably and willingly resided. Relying on sight, sensation and concrete ideas that they can firmly grasp, I wondered if these people would accept me should I rise up to walk among them. Might I represent an object of distrust, spurring a growing unease that creeps in the shadowed recesses of their minds? Possibly I could quietly live among them, concealed only by my differences from their accepted natures. I resolved to find out.

With a painful groan I pull myself at last from the earth, who births me with protest and mutual agony. I set a leisurely course towards that city which has engaged my interest, and finish the re-sculpting of myself along the way. I force memories to the forefront of my mind, poignantly painful and no longer relevant to the creature I am becoming, and momentarily cherish the images of the gargoyle civilization I’d left behind. With meticulous care I excise past knowledge from my memories, consigning the knowledge that did not belong on the surface world to the rocks. I approach a large building as a new creation, a veiled shadow slipping into a landscape of light.

Two creatures (I remonstrate myself, and amend the notion to people) are interacting outside the structure, while the loud rumbling thump of music vibrates the surroundings. A palpable tension lingers in the air, slowly dissipating as one of the men outstretched his hand to the other, and spoke soft words. Oblivious to my own nakedness, I linger just outside my imagined circle of their personal space, and wait for one to notice my presence.

Justin frowns at the hand, watching the scars that this man obtained from a fire. It’s almost frightening how he got those scars. Justin would have rather heard he’d gotten the scars as a birth defect or a bad surgery. But a fire? He almost didn’t want to touch the hand. He wiped his palms, though they were inside the fingerless gloves, on his pants legs. He pulled off the right glove by one of the half fingers and reached out to shake the man’s hand.

“I’m Justin.”

His hands, like his five foot six inch body, is small and the texture rough and warm. Despite his size, his hand shake is quick and firm. His sense of smell picks her out from the rest of the air as a new scent and peripheral vision caught a figure standing not far off from them. His head turns, no more like twitches to the side until the naked form is in his direct line of vision. He frowns.

“I’ve heard prostitutes wear little clothes but I have a feeling you aren’t a prostitute.” What gave it away? The fact that she’s entirely naked and that prostitutes approach you directly, not stand off from you. He let go of Emrys’ hand to turn towards her.


(If Emrys doesn't say yes, I'll edit this post. Now it's Em's turn.))

Emrys left his hand out and began to wonder if the other was going to take it or not, but then he did. The scars on Emrys’ hand was smooth, like touching silk. The only sign that they were scars was that they were raised mounds over the rest of the skin and two shades paler. All the muscles in his hands still worked, and he grasped Justin’s hand in an equally firm grip.

He’d listened to the footsteps approaching but with the thudding of bass from within the doors he could not disiphere from which direction they came. But when Justin turned his head, Emrys felt the pull of his hand and knew where the third person stood. He turned in the general direction that Justin had, looking two feet to the left and past the woman.

I’ve heard prostitutes wear little clothes but I have a feeling you aren’t a prostitute.

Emrys frowned. The tone in Justin’s voice was joking, but not tight so they weren’t in any danger that Justin could see. Isn’t that dandy. The first two humans she approaches aren’t normal humans and one can smell her coming while the other can hear her.

Her heart fluttered in her chest. The two were facing her now, somehow aware of her approach.

“How exciting,” she thought. “My first contact. I must make a good impression.”

One spoke to her, a fascinating action that pushed his warm breath across his vocal chords. Her mind searched desperately for the meaning of the words, grasping at the vestiges of speech that she’d learned from her long and silent observations. How to respond? Breathless, having no need for respiration, and indeed no lungs, she modulated a voice from deep within her chest, producing an almost liquid rumbling that erupted from her mouth in a golden stream of words that flowed like honey.

“I am Eroteme,” she began, hoping with an unknown ache that her words were appropriate. “I feel also I am not a prostitute. I wear little clothes, because I have none to wear.”

Thrilled by her own voice, and the proximity of the two men, she stood silently for a few moments. She then imitated the gesture of the men, and offered her hand.

Justin lifted one eyebrow at her words. Indeed, she'd gotten them right but that didn't lessen the suprise on his face. He watched her hold out her hand in greeting but wondered why she felt no embarassment by walking naked in the pressance of two men, blind or otherwise. But he didn't hesitate even a breaths length before he reached out and took her hand in his with the same firm handshake offered to Emrys.

"You have no clothes? What happened to them?"

He forgot to give his name. Curiosity came first. He managed to smile and look mildly embarassed but he wasn't.

"Sorry. My name's Justin."

Had he known Emrys for longer then a few minutes then he would have introduced him too. But he hadn't so he didn't.

Emrys listens to Justin’s footsteps when he moves forward to meet the other. He followed suit, holding his hand up and out as he moved, trusting Justin’s senses. It’s stupid to trust people, especially when your blind, but for some reason, he just trusted the werewolf.

“I don’t live far. I can go get you clothing. What happened to your clothes?”

Obviously, they’re more curious then they are worried about introductions. He realized this a moment too late.

“I’m Emrys.”

The sensation of Justin’s strong handshake enthralled her as no other sensation had, his flesh warm and exciting. His question regarding her lack of clothing momentarily neglected as she absorbed the feel of his hand firmly in hers, she reluctantly relinquished the proffered hand as the handshake broke off, experiencing a distinct sense of loss.

The other identified himself as Emrys, approaching hesitantly as if unsure of her exact location, and extending his own hand. She studied the swatch of cloth covering the man’s eyes as she took his hand, experiencing that same warm thrill as when she had accepted Justin’s hand. This one had scarring on the flesh, and she traced the smooth, puckered lines with fascination. Her fingers trailed along the scarred hand, as her eyes absorbed the network of marred flesh decorating the bare arms, and she allowed her fingers to wander up the arm unmindful of any reaction the man might have to being touched.

Emrys too had mentioned her lack of clothing, and she belatedly acknowledged her nakedness.

“I was born without clothes,” she simply whispered, unwilling to allow either man to leave, and desperately grasping for ideas to keep Emrys from going to get any clothes.

Failing any foolproof inspiration to influence Emrys to stay, she dropped his hand and turned once again to Justin. He had not spoke of leaving, so she drew closer to him and touched his chest. Her hands looked pale and childlike against Justin’s bare skin, and she peered upward into his feral brown eyes.

“Please, I no longer wish to be alone here. The surface world is frightening.”

It never occurred to her that these men might not realize where she had come from. Just as she failed to grasp that her own lack of clothing was unacceptable.

Justin felt the sensations up his arm as well. He shows less restraint as she and actually leans towards her as if the feeling would spread over his body if he gets closer. She lets his hand go and he reluctantly steps back to a respectful distance. His own power from his beast strums against his skin like it's trying to push to get out. Whatever magic there was, it had attracted his beast.

I was born without clothes.

"Yeah so was I, but you don't see me strutting around naked."

Though, by looking at his bare chest and skin tight pants he's pretty close to that option. He starts to wiggle his fingers, putting his fingerless glove back on after shaking both hands. His eyes watch fingers begin to trace Emrys' scars when their hands meet. He knew little about the man he'd just met but he'd been shown he was touchy about his scars. Justin was willing to bet Emrys wouldn't like that. He also wondered if Emrys could feel what he'd just felt. He watched Emrys' face.

The hand on his chest brought his and his wolfs attintion back to her. He raised his eyebrow at her coment.

"What do you mean surface world?"

Upon contact with her hand, visions flashed as if in front of his eyes. They were like a snap shot fil before his eyes and then they were gone leaving just one image wavering in front of his face. He would have been shocked, scared even to be staring at a gargoyle were it not for the demon who so avidly claims to own him. After the first shock of Verkur, not much suprises him.

Her fingers left his hand and trailed up his arm and he let the image go, as if dropping it, and he was blind again. What was she...? No. She was tracing his scars. Indeed, Justin had guessed right. No, he could not feel the power that the two of them felt but he did jerk his had back planting his other scared hand over the one she'd touched, as if to hide the scars, only revealing that the other hand was the same.

He heared her move and stepped back in fear that she was stepping forward to touch his scars again. She wasn't. He heard the brush of cloth. She'd gone to Justin.

"I think...I think I should get you clothes to wear. You could get raped running around up here like that."

Any excuse to get away and collect his thoughts again. Unlike Justin, he understood what she meant by her statment. He understood that she came from somewhere else. Where he didn't know, his guess would be somewhere inside earth.

She kept her hands pressed against his chest, her solemn grey eyes gazing deeply into his, and puzzled over his last question.

What do you mean surface world?

“Here above the soil, away from the heart of civilization, where there are no others such as me,” she answered him.

She felt herself being drawn towards him, closer and deeper into his psyche, an almost mystical connection with some inner beast that lie hidden inside the man. Whereas Emrys had recoiled from her touch, a subtlety lost upon her as she had traced the outlines of his scars, Justin responded warmly to the contact much as she did. She molded her body against his, her smooth legs pressed against the texture of his tight pants, her small, bare feet resting against the toes of his boots.

I think...I think I should get you clothes to wear.

She turned her face towards the blind man, her cheek resting against Justin’s chest, listening to his heartbeats. Emrys words troubled her. His voice was tight with discomfort and his intent expressed a variety of concerns, both personal and for her. She wanted him to stay. Confusion and a sense of helplessness washed over her, clouding her mind. Her old fears came back to haunt her, and if not for the euphoric sensations imparted by her contact with Justin’s skin, she would have tunneled back into the earth and hidden herself.

“Will you return then Emrys?” she finally found courage to ask, seeking further reassurance despite the implied intent to return with garments for her to wear.

Others on the street were now attracted to the scene, staring rudely although not approaching the trio. She remained oblivious to the stares, and thankfully few were passing by them, as most remained in front of the establishment waiting to get inside. She continued to look at Emrys, and waited for the unexpected. She realized how very little control she had within this moment, and warred with her unease at being subject to the actions of others.

She began to plaster herself to the werewolfs body. What was expected out of decancy was that he step back. What was expected from our Justin, he slid his arms around her waist, planting his hands at the small of her back and holding her to him. He was short, and it always seemed to apparent when he held a woman, or even a man. But he's been short all his life. He's had his lifetime to get used to it.

She put her head on his chest and his heart beat was stronger then an average persons. It was strong and loud, pounding in calm, steady intrivals. His pulse on his neck danced with his heart. His eyes fell on Emrys and he was wearing a sly smile. Sly because he's got a naked woman under his arms, regaurdless of the reasons or that fact that he didn't have to swoon her to get her there. He's such a slut.

"Emrys has to come back. He's getting you clothes to wear. How can you wear them if he doesn't bring them back?"

The eyes he noticed, first by feeling their gaze, then by meeting them. Something slid around behind his eyes, most would have said emoitions, jelousy as the woman he's holding being stared at by others. Most Lycanthrope would say his beast coming out to see what was going on. He drew back his lips and snarled at the in a very inhuman fashion.

"What! Go on! Be on your way!" It wasn't a very human sound.

Emrys nodded. It was a sharp guesture that amounted to merely two twitches of his head. He hesitated and reached out towards her and Justin, laying his finger on her arms and moveing dow to her waist. There he wrapped both hands, meassuring her waist. She would fit his clothing. Should. If not, she could wear the pants unbuttoned. It was better then what she was in now.

Emrys turned his stocky, but bone thin form around away from the and began to use his cane as guide. His broad shoulders were tight with tension.

"Don't go anywhere or I will not be able to find you." He didn't mean jus not knowing where they'd go. He wouldn't be able to see them, pick them out of a crowd. And he left, walking down the walls of the shops and bars towards the college district.

The feeling of Justin’s hands on the small of her back escalated her sensations to another level. Deep and primitive reactions pulsed within her at his touch, reminiscent of the earth-shaking couplings that occurred every few decades in the darkened caverns below the surface where the gargoyles dwelled. Her thoughts caught reflexively in her mind, and had she any breath she would have held it in response to the onslaught of emotions.

His touch reassured her as his words also soothed. Emrys has to come back. He's getting you clothes to wear. How can you wear them if he doesn't bring them back?

She followed the logic easily, and allowed herself the consolation. Her body still molded against his, his arms around her, his hands brushing the small of her back as his wrists rested on her hips, she savored the whole of her sensory input. His smooth-fitting garments allowed his anatomy to easily press against her bare skin, and the thrill she felt at this both frightened and excited her. She perceived his scent as a taste, a heady flavor bathing her sense with an erotic and organic spice.

She felt Emrys’ hesitant hands touch her arm, feeling their way to measure her waist. A minute sound escaped her as she absorbed the combination of their touches, and she remained unable to release her hold on Justin. Overwhelmed by this initial encounter with the surface people, she questioned the rationale of abandoning her past, but at this point she was no longer able to recall with clarity just exactly what she had left behind. She clung to the new reality of this moment.

Don't go anywhere or I will not be able to find you.

She was unable to remove herself from this moment, and listened in longing as his footsteps faded.

The atmosphere grew tense as the demeanor of Justin changed, a nearly imperceptible shift to something sinister he held inside. The prickling reaction to another stimulus introduced a separate, darker invocation, as Justin snarled at something she had failed to notice. What! Go on! Be on your way!

With his reaction she received a greater glimpse of the beast within him, and fear rang like a clarion in her being, fear intermingled with some new heathen desire.

Justin watched the crowd but he listened to the sound of the cane tapping over solid objets at Emrys' retreat. With Emrys gone and the crowd faintly startled and still moving alone, Justin let his hands slide up the bare of her back, his fingers dancing over her spine.

Almost abruptly, Justin turned, pulling one arm away from her and effectivly pinning her to one side of him, he crossed the street and ended up back in front of the Crimen Delectatio. The bouncer called Bruce turned his eyes to them and raised an eyebrow. Big he-man he was, he tried to cross his arms over his chest but the muscles bunched and he gave up.

"Gee Justice, aren't you suposed to wait until you've got her in your room to strip her?" The vampire leered at her.

"Can it, Bruce. Gimme your jacket, just until this guy gets back with some clothes for the lady." Bruce didn't bother questioning. He slid the jean jacket off his shoulders and tossed it at Justin who effectivly caught it and held it up and open for her to slide her arms through. He'd let go of her and was now standing behind her. The Jacket would cover her to half way down her bare butt. Better then nothing.

"Get anything on it and I'll make you buy me a new one."

Justin waved a gloved hand at him. "Yeah, yeah." He turned his attintion back to helping Eroteme into the jacket.

In his dorm room, Emrys sat down on the edge of his bed and was tracing the scars on his arm with a scared finger, feeling the lingering sensation, and the lingering sadness. Some wounds heal and get better, like his scars. SOme never go away, like how he got those scars. At a screech from the hawk in the corner, perched on the back of a chair, Emrys stood and picked up several articles of clothing from a pile on his bed and left the doorm, locking the door behind him with the set of keys around his neck.

How did he know they matched? Easy. Because he's blind, and because he lives alone, Emrys has the sales clerks help him find clothing that are only white, black, gray, or blue, this way, he always matched.

He walked towards the district, backtracking in his mind, counting his steps and turning at the appropritate step like a map in his head, the blue jeans, white shirt, and boxers tucked safely under one arm.

She slipped her arms into the jacket, marveling at the feel of the warm, rough denim, so very different than the moist caress of the soil. Edging closer to Justin again, she peered at the eyes around her, some staring in shock or amusement, others leering at her exposed legs and the soft round swell of her bottom peeking coyly from beneath the hem. She wanted Justin to take her in his arms again, press her body to his, and assuage all her doubts as she lost herself to the sensation of his touch.

A greater curiosity nudged at her as the door to the establishment briefly opened, and a barrage of sounds and tastes assaulted her senses. Such an odd new environment, the surface world, and at that point she made a conscious determination: should Emrys return as promised, as they both had assured her he would, then she would bestow her trust on these two people, and experience this city as they bid her. She realized that the three were just recently acquainted, but thought they could all find ties that bind.

Justin turned her around by the shoulders and buttoned the jacket over her chest under his co-worker's scrutinizing gaze, among the gaze of others. Justin turned her around again and pressed the length of his flat body against her back and walked her to stand just inside the ally opening to where they were under lesser peoples gaze and he could easily watch for Emrys of the many scars.

"Now," He was basically breathing in her ear from his short height. "Tell me again where you came from? I didn't understand that."

Emrys returned walking in the exact same path which he left, exact step-for-step. Under his breath he was mumbling something, his lips moving, his cane tappings and his fingers out on the wall of the building. As he drew nearer you might hear him.

"fifty-three....fifty-four...fifty-five." Then he stopped and turned to cross the road where he left them, though they were now on his side of the street. "One...two...three..."

He took a step with each number. He carried a bundle of clothing under his arm, tucked away carefully folded.

OOC: sorry it took so long

Tell me again where you came from? I didn't understand that.

She leaned back against him as they stopped to await Emry’s return, and enjoyed the brief thrill of his warm breath caressing her ear. Turning her head to the side towards Justin, she felt the brush of his hair on her face momentarily.

“I came from the heart of civilization, where the people dwell within the earth. I came to observe the soft-fleshed creatures living on the surface world,” she whispered softly into his neck, pressing her lips against the warm skin below his ear. “I am surprised to find you so subtle and cunning. You aren’t so very different than I...”

Her voice trailed off as she discerned Emry’s approach, hearing the light rapping of his cane and his as yet unintelligible murmuring.

"From the what? Soft-skinned?" He sounded rather confused by her explination. He shook his head once roughly, as though to be rid of a pesky bothersome fly. "What are you?"

Not human. That was certian. He kept his eyes trained on the street, watching for the blind man. After only a very few minutes of watching his eyes found the man they waited for.

Emanuel....Em....em....Emrys. That was it. Such a difficult name to recollect.

"Emrys."

He let go of her shoulders, and crossed the street, saying his name again as he approached and touched the man's shoulder.

"We've moved across the street."

The touch to his shoulder, even though he knew who it was by sound of his voice and that he knew his name, made him jump. He let the other guide him towards where they'd stood inside the allyways and sniffed. He knew they were in the ally, couldn't see it but knew that where they were.

He turned with his cane low and out until it hit gently against her leg. He untucked the clothing, hodling the pants and giving the rest of the pile to Lustin to hold. He unfolded the pants and held them up.

"They may be just a little big, or maybe too small but they should fit, you arn't much taller then I."

Justin asked her another question: "What are you?"

She was uncertain how to answer. She simply was; she was Eroteme, that much she knew, but the vague recollections of past only shaped her present, the rest willfully forgotten as she left behind what she once had been. What had she become? What was she now? She was a creature undefined, still a gargoyle, yet so very different from the gargoyles below the surface.

A tearing scream ripped through her head as he released her shoulders to cross the street and greet Emrys. The severed contact left her feeling lost, and she resisted the urge to run after him by wrapping her arms around herself. The warmth of his hands was addicting even when felt through the fabric of the jacket, and she pained for him to continue touching her. She followed his path with her eyes, and reached out to him with her thoughts, hoping to experience some connection in the absense of his physical contact.

Her mind was distracted as the two men crossed the street, and the smooth surface of Emrys' cane brushed against the side of her leg. She slipped into the garment he had held up, the straight-cut waistline of the pants loose and falling to rest low on the swelled curve of her hips. She accepted another garment from the folded clothes that Emrys had thrust into Justin's hands, and these also appeared to go over the legs. She pulled the boxers on over the pants, but thought the attire looked unnatural on her...

The werewolf felt nothing of what she'd felt. He'd felt the connection that had leapt between them, and this was how he'd known that she was not human, and he'd felt the connection breaking as he severed contact, but he felt nothing else. Not the longing to be touched again, not the need.

Justin's laughter rang out through the ally way. He couldn't help it as he watched her pull the boxers on over the pants. He shook his head and when he'd gotten his laughter under firm control once more, he shook his head.

"You wear those under the pants, Eroteme."