CoR Regarding Little Loose Threads (Ragenard and Xandre)

[Dashmiel]

Location

Bloodstone Railyard

It was almost always just on the cusp of twilight when Ragenard's headaches presented themselves. He grimaced away the literal pain and had a rueful mental laugh at the crossover of the temporal quirk with his figurative headaches as he tracked Xandre's return to the rail-yard compound on the camera screen. He reached for one of a dozen shiny new smartphones sitting on the dingy desk in his office on the upper back half of the largest warehouse in the rail-yard turned forward operating base.

The converted enclosed space was one of the only two working air conditioned spaces in the place and the other was the former rail employee cafeteria which meant sharing. He decided he'd be the kind to try to enjoy the little perks of being First while in-between dealing with shit shows. Try a new paradigm on for size. For some odd reason, Ragenard didn't feel like he needed to be as angry anymore.

A sensation of cold shuddered up and down his spine as he heard the phantom memory of a decrepit laughter bounced around his skull. He couldn't deny it anymore; the shift at the challenge was different. What he'd become during that private conclusion of the Rowan Conundrum was different.

Thud Thud Thud, each one wetter than the last as Ragenard's monstrous arm protruded awkwardly out of his human form torso, powering his explosive blind rage.

Thud.

Ragenard snapped out of his reverie, his nostrils suddenly taking in Xandre's scent as his form was partially visible through the frosted glass on the aluminum door at the top of the industrial set of metal warehouse stairs leading up to the catwalk level where the office was located. His stature made his diffuse image comical, but Ragenard didn't find it so out of spite. Indeed, few pack members would he consider hardy enough to do the sort of solo work he'd put Xandre to that night. And the sort he would yet still. That the man was still after all these years carrying a chip on his shoulders bigger than he was...well, Ragenard still had uses for that too.

"Come in," he roared out gruffly over the drone of the air conditioning. The evening wasn't particularly hot. It was, in fact, a perfectly pleasant cool Lutetia early evening, but the office of the First was air conditioned. The statement was more important than his preference for an open window. Ragenard kept that in mind as he waited for Xandre to cross the threshold and let him know if Aimee was going to be an open window or not.

 

[Jas]

Xandre reached up a meaty paw to his stubbly chin and turned his head sharply one way, then the other, each releasing a satisfying cracking sound and relieving some tension. After a relieved sigh, he shook his shoulders to settle, then pushed through the door and stepped into the office. It wasn't that warm outside, though the unconditioned warehouse always seemed a few degrees warmer than the outside area. In here, though, it was a little cooler than Xandre would prefer. Not cold. Just cool.

"'Enjoying the AC 'ey, First?" A brief pause, but it was a rhetorical question, so moving on. Xandre wasn't one to waste time.

"So I jus' got back from the pup's place. She's a lil' firebrand, there. Pretty sure I almost got m'self shot." The dwarf laughed, a hearty guffaw. "Not gonna lie: I don't know what I expected from 'er, since she was lit'rally jus' a pup last I seen 'er. But she's grown into an interestin' gal. Shame about Jacques; I kinda like 'er overall." He reached up and scratched at his mutton chops idly. "Unfort'nately I got some good news, and I got some bad news. Whatcha want first? Pick yer poison."

 

[Dashmiel]

Ragenard had to crane his neck down even from a sitting position in order to keep Xandre in view. So he didn't as poke back to the enjoying the air conditioning comment. "Yeah there's more than meets the eye with her," Ragenard agreed with a nod. He turned the smartphone in his hands on and fiddled with it whilst he spoke. "I hope she hated every second she had to endure your ugly mug. That's why I sent ya. Now give me the bad news, you know I'm a bitching sort of bastard and kicking Desmond's ass didn't change that."

 

[Jas]

The shortstack guffawed again and then agreed, "Oh yeah, I left quite the impression, I think." He pulled out his own phone for a moment, then after a moment, a notification popped up on Rage's. "That there's prob'ly the biggest thing I found. Yessee, I planned to follow 'er when she left, but she managed to shake me. But yeh know me, glass half full kinda fella. I took the opportunity to break in and search the place.

"What I just sent yeh is something I found squirreled away in a little hidey-hole in 'er room. Looks like travel plans. To be fair, I dunno how long she's been sittin' on that. Mebbe she was plannin' on ditching her pops a year ago fer all I know. But definitely looks like she had plans to not be here."

Buzz. Rage's phone buzzed again, and the box of singles and the pile of bottles she was stockpiling near the couch joined the other two pictures. "Or mebbe she's just runnin' low on scratch an' havin' trouble prioritizing savings over her habit."

 

[Dashmiel]

"That's what I like about you the most Xandre, you're too stubborn to let the world giving a fuck about you bother you. Of course you broke in," Ragenard muttered as his phone buzzed the first notification. Ragenard placed the phone he had been tinkering with on his desk, and grabbed is own, unlocking it with his fingerprint.

Ragenard looked at the images as he absorbed Xandre's words. He highly doubted the hiding spot was a year old—the edges of the hole weren't faded. Whatever covering was removed to expose the void either hadn't been handled often for a long time, or it was fresh. Aimée hadn't been there long enough and she'd been too glad for the liberty once she'd moved out from Jacques' for Ragenard to think this was from when she first moved in. No, these were recent covert inquiries into how to get out of dodge.

The second picture buzzed and Ragenard glanced at the pile of bottles and dismissed it out of hand. He doubted Aimée even was the saving type. "My job is to worry about your miserable lives," Ragenard waved the notion of worrying about another wolf's vices away. "Not to be a financial planner. So the girl is clearly scared, knows she's being watched now, and is thinking at worst to get out of dodge..." Ragenard let the sentence trail as he tossed Xandre the cellphone he had been fiddling with.

"My contact is the one labeled Boss. Keep it charged, keep it on you. I don't care if you're sleeping, getting your dick wet, or in custody. Stuff it up your ass in-between calls if you have to, and course I can track it. Brave new world, it's martial law. Anything else?" he asked brusquely.

Ragenard had to play a bit of a part despite it all, he suddenly found—with a strange sort of alienating melancholy—but if anyone was used to and made long peace with being watched "for the good of the pack", it was Xandre.

 

[Jas]

Xandre caught the phone, looking at the lock screen as it glowed to life as he touched the lock button when he caught it. "Jus' the good news: I don' think she's in bed with the Scions. And then there's the Ugly: the roommates may be."

Xandre held up the phone tossed to him and placed it in the inside pocket of his jacket. At the same time, he pulled a packet of pills and the notebook he found in the roommates' rooms out and tossed them on the table beside Ragenard.

The First glanced at the pills and then stared at the dwarf with a piercing stare, and the dwarf continued.

"Iunno if anyone looked into the roomies before but they look like dealers. Humes, by the smell, though I don't think they've been there in a bit. Found the pills in one room, with a couple dozen more like it."

The stare persisted. Deepened, even. "Fuck's sake, fine!" He took the second bag out and tossed it next to the first. "Just wanted to see what those fancy humes are on."

Changing the subject, "That notebook looks like whoever this is was planning to get in bed with the scions. Iunno if they'd even approached them though. Looks like how pups write 'Jack + Jill' in their schoolbooks to me."

 

[Dashmiel]

Ragenard held his hard gaze over Xandre for a good ten seconds longer, just in case there were any stray pills to shame out of him. Once he was satisfied that the impish bastard wasn't going to pull a toddler stunt on him, he turned his gaze to the bags of pills. Each one contained color groupings amongst the multitudes, different flavors. Ragenard grabbed one of the bags and pulled it closer to his face before sniffing. The usual blend of party scene enhancers—MDMA, Ketamine, Cocaine and the entourage that tried to remix them—plus the darker cousins that ensured their own secondary market; GHB and Flunitrazepam. Date rape drugs.

"Nice, a real dipshit package," snorted Ragenard, relieved he didn't smell carbolized wolfsbane. He still had some uncomfortable phone calls to make, but at least he didn't have to include the possibility of war being declared with intentionally tainted drugs in their turf. Ragenard's brow furrowed as he considered Xandre. He'd been in the pack for a while now, but he wasn't long term pack. He likely had no idea what he'd uncovered.

Cathal had commanded that the Bloodstones keep the circle of those in the know about the previous incursion and assassination attempts small, and Mathis had been sure to do so. Of course, he'd picked Jacques as one of the ones in that 'know', so shows how much Dad knew.

"Xandre, you're about to get what we're gonna call a 'special battlefield promotion'," Ragenard said suddenly, tossing the bag of drugs back on the desk. "What's special about it is that no one's gonna know about it, and they're gonna hate you more anyways. In return, you get to learn things that make it so that you can't ever leave the pack alive. No retiring off, even after things die down enough that I even allow that crazy notion again. How's that sound?"

 

[Jas]

Xandre considered the First's words for a moment. Well, a for a long moment. Okay, it was probably too long.

When finally he spoke, his voice had a bit more of a rasp than normal. Someone perhaps a bit more in-tune with their emotions may have been crying, but Xandre just got surlier. Surely after the decades of working together, Ragenard would see this for what it was. But regardless, he'd kept the First waiting too long already.

"When I fucked up with the Scions and had no where to turn, yeh took a chance on a proven dipshit. All the pack, sure, but especially yeh. Yeh could said no, and I'd jus' be another poor fuck dead in a prison fight. Sure, I've always been th' hardy sort, but given enough time it was inev- inevit-... It was gonna happen." He cleared his throat and continued, a little more clearly.

"But yeh know me well enough now. I'd take a bullet fer yeh. Even one of them silvers what took down Baron. Hell, I'd take one for the pup," he added, gesturing to the pile of stuff on the desk. "Bloodstone are a pack. A fam'ly. N' the first place I felt like I belonged in my wretched life. Yeh don't leave fam'ly. So the only way I was leavin' priorly was in a body bag anyway. I'd be dead if not for the pack, n' I'd return the favor."

He fidgeted, realizing he'd shown his hand more than he felt comfortable. Another raucous neck crack and another clearing of the throat, and his demeanor reverted to his norm.

"So yeah, boss. I 'ccept. I'm not 'xactly th' most beloved fuck round these parts anyhow. What's the job?"

 

[Dashmiel]

Ragenard awkwardly shifted his weight from one leg to another as he beheld Xandre's emotional display at the recognition he'd earned. Good thing the little man seemed so sincerely into it because it gave Ragenard the space he needed to make sure he didn't crack so much as a smirk. It wasn't that he was against small emotional displays for himself as a rule—indeed, it was not uncommon to catch the taciturn werewolf with the ghost of tears in his eyes following his displays of violence—but he wasn't about to try to find out how the fuck to hug a babbling man whose head barely made it past his belly button.

"Ah, no," Ragenard croaked with a clearly faux mocking tone. "The carpet is shitty but new. Keep it in, you sap," the Bloodstone First moved to stand against his desk. A perennial pacer while he talked, it would be clear by long familiarity to Xandre that the First was about to get into story mode.

"You've proven yourself enough times over. Anyone who says Alexandre Colombe isn't Bloodstone from now on answers directly to me. Now..."

Ragenard paused for effect, crossing his arms to further cement an image of seriousness. The bulging of his muscles stood as the ever-implicit threat. "You're entering what we informally call The Circle. It's not as cool as it sounds; it just means you're about to learn a few things and how they relate to those pills you brought me."

The large man got up, his right arm casually and automatically pulling the soft pack still containing the last of Rowan's cigarettes from the pockets of his cargo pants. Wordlessly, he tossed one to Xandre while he got his lit with the lighter he kept wrapped in the pack's cellophane.

"It's time for you to learn who we used to work in partnership with and how the presence of those little pills is a default on our part. It all starts with some crazy ecologists who love big trees and bigger guns..."