What's For Dinner?

Who: Sammy and Sasha
Where: 6 PM
When: Local fast food joint

The main question of the day - other than 'Should I do homework' - was the question of what to have for dinner in the Williams-Kasun household. Rather than leave the decision making up to Marek, since his choices were sometimes bordering on terrifying, Sammy had volunteered instead to go and find something. He hadn't known what to expect, but when Marek had given him money and the go-ahead, Sammy had fled the house before Marek could change his mind, or before Helen told him - again - not to wander off. Which was why now he was safely in a local fast food restaurant waiting for it to clear up a little before he would even try and get his order in, notebook pulled close to his body.

Just as he'd decided when talking to Jules, Sasha was headed for fast food himself. He decided to steer clear of Mya's, as he didn't want to cause Domino or Brian any trouble. He was still irritated at the way that had gone down, but life was tough all over. Thus he found himself in the very same establishment as Sammy, a flash of irritation on his features as he saw the line. He rubbed at the gradually-fading scars he'd picked up from the Shadow's claw across his face irritably, and resigned himself to wait amid the crowd.

The feeling that Sammy knew Sasha when he walked in wasn’t to strong at first, but after he sniffed – and got the scent of wet…dog, or wolf, probably – he was much more certain. It was like his certainty had been upped from 49% to about 91%, which was a much better percentage and meant he was much less likely to be embarrassed by it turning out he didn’t know Sasha. Sammy turned his head, eyeing the line again, then nudged the other chair from the table he was sitting at out at the Sasha, invitation clear – he could sit down if he wanted.

Sasha felt the chair thump against his leg and looked down, blinking...then his eyes lit up in recognition. "Sammy, hey!" He smiled and dropped into the seat, his hunger forgotten in the happiness of connecting with his new, raven-scented friend that he'd lost contact with. "Jesus Christ, it's good to see you, how you been kid?"

This had been so much easier at the first meeting, when they’d both had access to computers and could IM each other. But writing was still better than trying to communicate through motions or the like. “I’ve been…better.” Sammy’s lips turned upwards slightly as he smiled. “But, so has everyone else here, right?”

"You know, I think you're right." Sasha nodded, then a look of concentration crossed his face, and he awkwardly made some sign language gestures that approximated the message; "I've been learning sign language...is this how you say hello?" He hoped he had it right, but learning from the internet was never as good as learning from someone face to face.

The two thumbs up Sammy aimed Sasha’s way was definitely an affirmation, but then he signed ‘yes’ as well, and wrote it down, too. It was best to have all bases covered. Then he went on to write down ‘Sasha, right?’ before signing it at him, head tipped to the side. He was definitely sure he recognized him – the percentage upped to 100% – but as for his name…that he wasn’t all too sure on. He hoped it was right, but if it wasn’t, it definitely wasn’t, like, the end of the world or anything like that.

Sasha nodded, and signed 'yes' tentatively, then reverted to spoken English. "Still learning, but uh, I guess it's not that important. You can write if you want to, but if you prefer signing you can help me learn that too, I guess." He looked around, stomach growling at him. "God, what a line, eh?"

“I actually like the line,” It was taking longer to write then also sign what he’d written, but it was the easiest way he could figure out to help Sasha with learning sign right now, if he honestly wanted to. “The longer it takes, the longer I’m here, the longer I stay out of the house.” There was a nice rhythm as he signed those words, thanks to the repeated ‘the longer’ each time. Sammy watched as another customer was handed a number. “Though, you might want to get one of the numbers or it will be longer for you, and you sound hungry.”

Sasha read the notebook and frowned, sliding it back to Sammy as he stood. "Yeah, I'll do that. Why do you want to stay out of the house?" He headed up and got his number while he waited, figuring the extra time would let Sammy compose his answer. He grunted at the disparity between his ticket and the numbers currently being called, and went to slump down in his chair again.

“Staying with my sister. We don’t get along.” Understatement of the year; it was like saying that sun was hot, or that whales were heavy, or something equally as ridiculous. He leaned forward to look at the number on Sasha’s ticket as he nudged the notebook between them. “So I like being out of the house, though she thinks I shouldn’t be out because I can’t talk. Yell. Whatever. It’s like sticking two cats together – someone’s going to wind up scratched.” And...that was a funny analogy for a wereraven.

"That sucks, Sammy." Sasha winced at the thought of being on bad terms with family. He didn't have any family anymore to be on bad terms with, but he remembered the few arguments he'd had with his mother with a profound sense of displeasure. It felt bad, like acid in the throat, or a greasy smell. Just...wrong. "How much longer you have to put up with that, then?"

Sammy stopped curling the paper up, smoothing it back down with his thumb and forefinger as he shrugged. “Until my brother figures out if he can get me, or until I’m eighteen.” Maybe he should get a ticket number, too, though really he just felt like waiting until there was no need for the numbers and then just going up and ordering. Much easier. “She’s got custody, so. Kinda have to stay.” Maybe he could change the subject. Ask what had happened to Sasha’s face. He bet that the shadow creatures had gotten to him like they’d pretty much gotten to everyone else he knew.

The werewolf winced at that, nodding sympathetically. "Ah, crap. Sorry man. Oh yeah." He slid a ticket Sammy's way, as he'd grabbed two while he was up there. "Just in case you were hungry too, yanno." His hands were scarred too, though those were far more faded, almost gone entirely in fact...he was definitely living up to his peoples' tendency to recover quickly from a fight, whatever he'd tangled with.

“Thanks.” After he’d checked the number, Sammy slid the slip of paper into his pocket, hooking his feet behind the legs of his chair. “And it’s…whatever. I’ll deal. Um, what…” He stopped writing, inky trailing off as he waved to indicate Sasha’s face, his question obvious. What had happened to it, if he was allowed to know?

"Oh, uh. You heard about those spooky crazy 'incidents' recently? More of that. One of 'em decided she didn't like how I looked. We disagreed." He grinned a bit, shrugging. "I didn't get too bad an end of the deal, it's healing and all. Hurt like a bitch though, especially getting slammed facefirst into a sink. Jesus H Christ." He liked Sammy, and the kid seemed pretty discreet. He wanted someone to chat with, and here was the opportunity, after all.

Sammy laughed slightly at the implication that the things had genders, making a note mentally to ask Geo if they did later. He hadn’t been nearly close enough ever to see if that was the case, and it was really fine by him. But when Sasha mentioned getting his face slammed into a sink, the laugh faded as he winced. That definitely had to hurt the man. “That had to hurt, but yeah, doesn’t look like you’re a crazy murderer right now, so it’s definitely healing. My sister’s boyfriend looks bad still, don’t think his cuts are healing well.”

Sasha laughed at that, nodding. "Yeah, I looked like some kinda anime villain for a while. Something out of Dragonball or something." He rubbed absently at the scars running down his cheek, perhaps even a touch self-consciously. "But a friend helped bandage 'em up the first day. I was all set to wrap my whole head up like the invisible man or something, but she found the butterfly bandaids."

“Draw much less attention this way,” Sammy mused, picturing that in his head with an amused snicker. “Everyone would be staring at you if you walked in looking like a q-tip. Or something related to a q-tip.” Sasha was turning out to be just as easy to talk to this time as he had been last time, it was nice. There wasn’t really any awkward silences, though there couldn’t be, anyhow, considering his mute state always had it silent.

"True, some fat guy might try to use me to clean out his ears, and that just wouldn't do." He shook his head emphatically, no sir it would not. "Neither does this wait though, god I'm hungry. I didn't eat anything since last night. Spilled the sugar all over the place when I got up, so I skipped the cereal and came here. Yay me, right?"

The numbers were still being called – Sammy checked to see what Sasha’s was again, huffing out when he noted it would still be who knew how long. “Seriously. Probably picked the worst place in town. Maybe nobody wants to cook today?” Except for in his case, when cooking would be fine but the meat in the fridge back at the house? Scared him. He was never sure where it came from. “It’s definitely better than cereal, if you ever get served.”

"Almost want to say fuck it, go to Mya's. We'll wait just as long between the walk and getting served, but the food'll be good." ;;; Sasha didn't make any moves to get up, however, his laziness at the moment making him stay seated. "Wish I could eat out more often, I like a lot of the places here."

“I’ve been to Mya’s, and…now here.” And a couple of places out of town, when his parents had been living still. Sammy made no move to stand up, either, fine with waiting since it was moving no matter how slowly the line was inching forward. “Mya’s is better, but I’m not moving now.”

"Alright, we'll wait." Sasha nodded, he'd really only brought it up just to have something to keep his mind off the line, honestly. Knowing he could leave if he wanted was better than being stuck like this. "So what've you been up to besides uh, yanno. Any of those things get hold of you?" His voice evinced some of his concern, he took his friendships pretty seriously, even the casual ones, it seemed.

This time the grin was a full one as Sammy shook his head, signing an enthusiastic 'no' to his friend. “No. They went for the sister’s boyfriend, and for the brother a few days later, but I managed to stay out of their way when they started attacking everyone else.” Being in wereraven form had helped with that, not to mention being around Geo and Herbert who definitely weren’t going to let anything happen to him. “Other than that, just…” Narrow shoulders rose in a miniscule shrug. “Keeping out of trouble.”

"Got any, uh 'friends'?" Sasha asked it carefully. He could tell Sammy was probably a changer, he could smell it all over the boy. He reached for the notebook and with surprising ease sketched a little human, drew an arrow, and then sketched a little bird to go with the human. They were just scribbles really, but they flowed rather quickly from his fingers. Oddly, he used his left hand to do it, when he'd almost always used his right when just writing or doing jobs.

Sammy glanced at the sketch, then back up at Sasha, tipping his head to the side in a raven-esque motion. That was one way of finding out if someone was something, and it definitely worked. If they weren’t, you could just pass off the doodles as, well, doodles, and no one would really be any wiser. He retrieved his pen carefully, then drew a wolfs-head turned up toward the moon, then glanced questioningly at Sasha.

The werewolf's eyes lit up, and he laughed, nodding enthusedly. Here was a fun way of creating some attention about things...he picked up the pen again, and drew a little pooh-bear lookalike with a honey pot, and then an arrow from the little raven toward the bear. Beside the arrow he drew a tiny cell phone, feeling a touch creative...why not make it a game, after all?

Herbert? Was that for Herbert? If so – and it would make sense – Sammy was quite amused by him being likened to Winnie the Pooh, complete with ever-present pot of honey. He took the pen again, drawing a less-cute-and-cuddly bear beside the pooh-bear, this one with no honey-pot and standing on its hind legs, though he put the cell phone symbol above it. Then, beside the bear, he drew another, bigger raven.

Excellent, so they did know eachother. Sasha felt stupid for getting out of touch with Herbert. This might be a chance to actually fix that. He drew a wolf beside the other two, looking inquisitive, with an arrow between the three of them, and a little question mark over it, before sliding the book back to Sammy. It was fun, communicating without words, very much like he'd done with his pack during long moonlit strolls around Chicago.

It also took a bit of translating. Sammy considered the page for a minute before drawing the cell phone again, twice, and then directing arrows from those phones to the wolf. Did Sasha want his and Herbert’s cell phone numbers? They could start building up a were-network alongside the school-network that they had, and then, maybe, they could hook together. A million different head were definitely different than one, and then Sasha wouldn’t be out in the dark about certain things if something happened again.

Sasha smiled and nodded, scrawling his phone number in the margins of the notebook for Sammy, then set the pen down again as he leaned back. The kid was smart, very smart. It was good to have a friend who was quick on the uptake, he hated having to go over stuff again and again, it just wasn't in his nature to be patient with obvious ideas...didn't look like he'd have that trouble with Sammy.

Sammy made sure to turn the corner down on that page so he could find it again if – or when – he needed it then flipped the page over to the next clean one, pulling it free of the spiral-binding before writing his number down. There was a moment when his mind blanked as he tried to remember Herbert’s then he settled for finding it in his phonebook and writing it down as well. When both were labeled with the appropriate names he handed it over to Sasha, grinning. “Herbert’s still getting used to texts, but he’s pretty good with them.”

Sasha nodded and pocketed the numbers, intending to put them in his phone when he got back home. After all, he didn't carry the cell -everywhere- he went, that would just be retarded. He liked to be free from attention every now and then. "Thanks, Sammy. Been a little slow picking up friends here, be nice to have someone to talk with. Er...to. At? I dunno, shut up." He grumped as he tripped over his tongue, the words spilling out before he could arrest them completely.

“Nice. Tell the mute boy to shut up, Sasha.” Sammy teased, though he honestly did not mind. At least Sasha wasn’t acting like Helen did around him, and he was trying to learn sign, which was cool. Online wasn’t the best place to learn sign, but it was a start. “Maybe ‘stop writing’ would work better?” He chuckled lightly as a number only ten or so before Sasha’s was called. “It’s still talking with, in a way.” It was kind of a way of soothing over the tongue-tripping, a way of saying it was alright.

"Yeah, that was a tongue-stumble, wasn't it?" He grunted and pushed his hair absently back from where it insisted on falling into his eyes. It didn't stay back for long, of course. "So I figure if I learn sign, you can at least talk to me without having to write all the time. We could teach Herbert too, or you could teach us both, that kinda thing. Texts are good too, I guess." He was rambling, like he always did when he was embarrassed. He wished he knew when to shut up, sometimes.

Sammy nodded, working to fold the other corner of the page with Sasha’s cell number on it down with his free hand. “Teaching Herbert. Can teach you, too,” He agreed easily, grinning. “Then you can learn things the polite teachers won’t help you with. My brother says that’s what I’m best at. Figure after six or so years I’d be good at it.” Sasha was practically oozing embarrassment and it was all Sammy could do to keep his amusement from showing and just let the man get control of it without making him even more embarrassed.

"Yeah, the first Russian word I ever learned was Suka." Sasha grinned at the memory, his embarrassment passing as he recalled that family get-together. "Good times, profanity. We can sit around swearing at each other, and people will think we're being deep and unique and interesting and all those other fancy tv-words." -tag

“And they’ll be quite wrong.” He’d done that so many times before, but it was still always so much fun when no one had a single clue what was being said. “It saves you getting beat up on sometimes, too, but other times people just take offense because you’re signing, and they don’t know sign, and they think that you’re saying something about them even if you might not be.”

"Yeah, but if people get bitchy, I can always give them the universal sign to go away." Instead of flipping the bird, though, he mimed a series of punches in the air in front of him, slow and exaggerated, a smirk on his face as he made the gestures. "Lot of people get right polite when you explain things to 'em proper." His Chicago accent made proper sound like praw-puh. "Whatcha think, yes, no?"

Sammy shifted to sit sideways in his seat, kicking at the table legs lightly, not enough to shake the table. “Well, you can do that, sure, but me?” He waved at himself, then. “I don’t scare anyone, I just unnerve them by staring. Don’t think it would work for me so good.”

"Nah, you don't look to unnervin'. Kinda adorable, really." Sasha smirked and reached out to pat Sammy's cheek, an almost unconscious gesture for the werewolf. Physical touches reinforced verbal communication for him, it was just how he did things.

“Sure, sure, take away my one possibly threatening attribute. Thanks.” Thanks to Herbert and his almost constant patting and sniffing and one armed hugs, Sammy didn’t pull back away from the touch. Instead he just pretended to pout. “Now I have to figure out if I ever look threatening.”

"The pout is threatening to make me go 'aw, how cute', does that count?" Sasha grinned, not letting up on his teasing. It was the competitive side of a werewolf that did it, he'd been embarrassed earlier, it restored his sense of self to tease Sammy back. His expression wasn't vindictive, but he wasn't going to give Sammy a pass either.

There was a few seconds when Sammy didn’t answer, lost in ‘contemplation’ of Sasha’s question, but then he shook his head, curls brushing against his neck before he pushed them out of his way. “No.” He finally said, rolling his eyes though not really annoyed. “That’s not the same at all.”

"Well, that's our number." Sasha laughed and stood up, gesturing for Sammy to come along. "Let's finally eat somethin, eh?" His stomach growled, rather conveniently counterpointing his comment. "How do you sign, 'I'm fuckin' starvin here'?"

Sammy’s hands moved in practically a blur as he signed the requested words, and then he slowed them down, making it easier to see the motions as he followed after Sasha. “But, uh, don’t actually do that. The cashier in the middle knows sign.” And she was a nice old lady, too, so it wouldn’t do to shock her because then they’d both be feeling bad. “Geo and I found that out last time we were here.”

Sasha laughed at that, nodding and patting Sammy on the shoulder, another affectionate gesture. "Thanks for the warning, I'd hate to get kicked out of another good place. Remind me to tell you about the time I ticked off a whole place called Clarke's, back on Belmont street." He walked up to the register with Sammy in tow, dropping the two stubs down on the counter.

“Will next time, when I don’t have to get back to the house,” Sammy agreed, “But if I take much longer, Marek’s gonna come searching for me, and…” He aimed a smile at the woman behind the counter, signing a quick hello. “I don’t want that. Ever.”

"I understand. But if you ever need a place to crash that he prolly can't track you down at, even just for a night...I got a comfy couch." Sasha shrugged, and looked up at the menu, squinting at the prices and trying to figure out what he wanted. "Okay, let's start with three chili dogs and the largest soda you can legally serve me."

Sammy stared at Sasha, shaking his head and trying his best not to laugh. “Heartburn, here he comes.”