Thinner Than Water.

[Helen Moore] Saturday nights are the best to be out and about, hitting the night life. She had found herself sitting at one of the pub lounges, the sort that offers food up to a certain hour, with good cocktails, and has a band on later in the evening. Band was such a strong idea though, it was more along the lines of softer things, acoustics, maybe a little blues, but no thrashing drums and whining guitars here.

She sat alone at a table for four, rather than two - can't have it look like her date didn't show up - , with a glass of red sitting before her. Long fingers played with the stem, occasionally turning the bowl of it around or tipping to watch the liquid catch the dimmer lights. For now there was the background music coming through speakers, a cd played over the system. It's another hour until the live entertainment begins.

[Imogen Slaughter] Though it is an hour before the live entertainment begins, that does not mean the musicians are not here. They have been carrying in their equipment - amplifiers, instruments, the assorted necessary chords.

A sound-guy sits at the soundboard and there is a microphone already set up. Every once and a while someone exits from backstage, perhaps band, perhaps pub employee, on some mission mysterious to most unfamiliar with the rhythms of set-up.

Imogen lingers near the stairs to the backstage, her coat over her arm. She is dressed in jeans, a camisole beneath a thin spring sweater. Her hair puts her apart from the sparse crowd, her height, her presence.

A tall, lanky man exits the backstage at a half run, his hair stylishly askew. He skids to a stop as he passes Imogen, half turning to face her. Their conversation is far away, impossible to hear, but body language, the way he briefly touches her elbow, the way they speak, suggests familiarity.

The conversation is brief. The reed thin bloke is in a hurry to get back to whatever it was he was doing. Eventually, Imogen gestures toward the rest of the room, and starts to step away. The other hurries off on his intended duty.

She stops at the bar, and when she turns back, catches sight of a familiar blonde figure seated at a table for four. When her beer is served, Imogen crosses the room, around various occupied and unoccupied tables to come alongside Helen's.

"May I join you?"

A few days earlier, Helen had approached and Imogen had promptly left. It would have been easy to assume it had been a deliberate slight. These moments seem to counteract that.

[Helen Moore] Imogen's approach had been somewhat of a surprise, she hadn't been paying enough attention to have spotted her earlier by the backstage exit and stairs. But the figure moving towards her had made her sit back in her chair and set her glass on the table, fingers stilling.

"Yes, of course. Please." She had nodded to one of three chairs, of which Imogen could take her pick.

Since her wander at the park earlier, she had changed from a dress into jeans also, and had on a light coloured sweater with a large enough neck that some shoulders were bare, enough to know Helen had to be wearing a strapless bra in that.

[Imogen Slaughter] There is no other immediate answer: Imogen nods slightly, setting her pint glass down on the table, taking a chair by the back and pulling it back for her to sit on.

She does not sit across from Helen, as might be expected, but beside, allowing her a view of the stage. A tall man lopes from the front door of the pub back toward the backstage, carrying a patch cable with him as he takes the stairs, two at a time.

Imogen watches his path absently before turning her attention back.

"Settling in alright?"

[Helen Moore] "I suppose," she considers how Chicago has treated her so far. Mostly it had been work and more work. There had been the occasional run-in with someone from the Nation, but not all that much. Which reminds her.

She looks to Imogen with her brows raised and a hint of mirth in the corner of her mouth. "I met Taggart," she tells the woman, and the tone really says it all. She's somewhere bordering on being so unimpressed that its amusing. "Not the friendliest one, is he?"

He had been downright rude, as far as she was concerned. But by indication of the moon he could be a lot worse, apparently.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's eyebrow arches upward sharply.

"What did he do?" she asks, rather than answering Helen's apparently half rhetorical question.

[Helen Moore] "It's not really about what he did, just the way he acts. The tones, the way he looks at you." Glancing away from Imogen's raised brow, she lifted her glass from the table and took a slow, small sip before placing the glass down again.

Her gaze returns. "Handsome though, it's almost a pity."

[Imogen Slaughter] "Handsome," the once-Fianna replies dryly, as she picks up her beer for her first sip, "Always seems to make it worse. Airs, you know."

She takes a swallow of the beer, a dark brew which almost works as a meal, "I don't know him well," she says, circling the conversation back. "Taggart, I mean. I met him a handful of times about a year ago and that's it."

[Imogen Slaughter] (whoops. "And that's all." not that's it!)

[Helen Moore] "Isn't that the truth," she says with a quiet chuckle.

She feels better, more relaxed with Imogen there. Company had a way of dragging her out of her thoughts, which is always a good thing. It returned her to here and now, making her present.

Watching Imogen's face, taking in her expression and looking for some family resemblance, she listened to her talk about Buried Hatchet. "You're really not missing out on anything. And, well -" she shrugs a little here, "- I may be being a little harsh, I have met him only the once. But once was enough to know I'm not in a hurry to share a beer." Which was saying something about a Fianna.

[Imogen Slaughter] There is not much revealed from Imogen's expression. The doctor's default appears to be reservation, her nature reticence. She does not allow much of her core to be seen.

If there is familial resemblance, it is not in their hair or their eyes. Though they both possess blue eyes, Helen's gaze is pale, Imogen's dark. Still, there may be some echo in the bones, the line at the temple, the shape of the eye.

"Unfortunately," she says, "I don't know o' other Fianna in town for you to meet," she did once - and she manages to keep most of the darkness of that thought from her expression, betrayed only by a passing frown. "I've not paid particular attention to tha' tribe."

As though it were not once hers.

[Helen Moore] "It doesn't matter all too much," and really, it doesn't. She hadn't come here to become of the Tribe or the Nation. It's sort of a byproduct of her genes more than any sense of anything else. She does have a sense of duty, but only when it comes calling, other then her earth-friendly conscious. "I work plenty."

Sitting back from the table, she lets her back rest into the chair and lifts her glass for another sip, looking more casual and comfortable now. Her shoulders relaxed.

"How are you?" Although they don't know each other, not even enough to ask the familiar question, Helen is aware that they are blood related. It's not just that, though, that gives her that genuine concern behind the question, but because she's simply that sort of person.

[Imogen Slaughter] It is yet another difference between them. Imogen cannot seem to untangle herself from the Nation, even when she tries. Even when she was as far as she could get; she never could quite escape.

"Alright then," she says, dismissing the thought of Helen's disconnection from her mind.

She lifts her beer for another swallow, setting the glass down with a dull click. "I'm well," she says, a reply which offers little more than a placeholder answer. An answer designed to give little away.

"And you?"

[Helen Moore] "Much the same." She's watching the stage now, where they're getting things ready. It's a nice noise here, not too loud and not that many people yet. Maybe later there would be more than drifters. It's that nice lull between the dinner crowd and the drinking crowd. Places like this remind her of London, though it had its own style, much like LA had.

[Imogen Slaughter] Like that, the conversation fades away. Imogen, like Helen, turns her attention to the stage. She watches as people arrange cords and wires and set up amplifiers and guitar stands.

"Have you ever heard them play before?" she asks.

[Helen Moore] Shaking her head slightly, she raised her brows, giving a quick glance from the stage to Imogen and back again. "No, I haven't. This is my first time here."

She assumes, then, that Imogen might have. "Are they any good?"

[Imogen Slaughter] She makes a faint sound of ascension. "S'the band o' a friend of mine," she says. "I play wi' them sometimes."

Her attention turns from the stage, her mouth twisting slightly, "I suppose tha' makes me a bit biased."

[Helen Moore] "Oh, really? I didn't know that you played." Plenty of Fianna born did. Helen didn't though. Her craft had leaned towards visuals instead. Though she could probably hold a tune against a band of Get of Fenris, who didn't really sing anyway but shouted and carried on.

While she hadn't continued on with the questions, it was clear that it was meant to be an opening to follow with conversation.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen takes another drink. There is a moment here where she may choose not to answer the opening Helen leaves. It is a possibility, made less likely by a familial relationship

- after all, Helen already knew minor details, and Imogen could find out the same, if she bothered to contact anyone from back home -

but is a possibility nonetheless. She sets down her glass. "I do," she says, her attention turned back from the stage to their table. "The guitar and violin, since I was younger."

[Helen Moore] Still sitting back in her chair, the glass held down towards her lap, in that opened space between table and her trim waist. She looked back to Imogen when her attention returned to the table. "I've never had the patience for it," she admits, easily. "I tried piano once, and my sister can play it well, but my mind always drifted too much."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen's mouth twists slightly. "It does take a certain amount o' focus," she says.

"A mind fer math doesn't hurt either."

[Helen Moore] "Mind for math," she groans at that and raised a hand to brush curls across to one side of her brows, "that I don't have. Though it's quick and calculating, I don't have that analytical aspect." Which is another difference between them. "I'm a visual person, I suppose."

Her wine is finished, but she keeps hold of the glass for now, swallowing down the last mouthful.

[Imogen Slaughter] A brief pause. "I don't believe i asked you exactly what it is you do."

[Helen Moore] "I dress people." She finds herself laughing softly at the absurdity of it. While she obviously worked hard, and it's really not as simple as that, it boils down to it. "I take in their appearance and make something of it, fit enough for a photo shoot or the television screen."

"I work behind the scenes." Keep up with the fashions, know what was best to work with what, and how to be around those in the media. It was a thankless job and it wasn't a very important one. But she liked it.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen smirks a little, picking up her pint glass and taking a deep swallow of beer.

"I must say," she says, "blood or not we are not much alike."

There is no insult, no condescension from the doctor. It is an observation, and nothing more.

[Helen Moore] Helen doesn't take it as an insult, but her eyes smiled instead, matching the way her mouth curved. "No, we're not," she agreed. The wine glass was set on the edge of the table, pushed further onto it. "Diversity at its best," she had added as an after thought.

"You know," the topic shifts, "I've recently discovered the charm of American cowboys. I didn't think there would be so many out here in Chicago." Like a typical foreigner she expected them to stay in the country.

[Imogen Slaughter] Her eyebrow flicks upward. "American cowboys," Imogen echoes. "I'm not entirely sure I understand."

[Helen Moore] "Cowboys, honest to Gods, cowboys." It's not like they had them wandering around London. It was an entirely American thing. "The sort that walk around with those hats on their head," she had made a gesture to Imogen's red hair with a small wave of her hand, "and the buttoned down shirts with big buckled belts." Helen's smiling as she says this, amused.

[Imogen Slaughter] She smirks slightly, "Find them charming, do you? You're fortunate that Chicago is surrounded by so much farmland, then, I suppose."

[Helen Moore] "Not their clothing, to be sure," she says laughing easily, eyes shining.

"But really, they do have their own charm. And I certainly don't mean it the way it's coming across. But if you compare those I've met to typical, brash Americans, they're almost gentlemen." Of course she's only really met two of them so far, but those two left an impression. They weren't swearing, cussing men, opened doors and called her ma'am. It's not the usual found in LA.

[Imogen Slaughter] She shakes her head slightly. "I've not noticed, really. Though," a pause as she takes a drink, "t'be honest, what bothers me most about Americans is not their brashness, but their accents."

She sets down her glass, arching her eyebrow, "It's all tha' flat nasal sound whether yeh wear a cowboy hat or not."

[Helen Moore] "Their accents?" Her brows shot up. "That's their complaint about us." Well, British she means.

"I like their accents, even if I don't understand half of them." Gaze drifting, she looks back over to the band setting up again, after a quick consideration of the bar and another wine. "There's certainly a large selection of them. You can definitely tell that they're from different states. Not that I'd know which is what, mind you."

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen smirks, glancing toward the stage where the tall lanky man she'd been speaking with before was currently performing a sound check.

("Check, check-check. One, two, three, check.")

"No, neither can I. I can recognize those from th'deep South, and Massachusetts, but otherwise." A slight shrug. "It's all American."

[Helen Moore] Smiling and nodding, she agreed. All American was a good way to put it. It was a different lifestyle here, but she's had a little while in LA to get accustomed to most of it. She fell into the groove, so to speak, even if she wasn't quite as comfortable as she was back home. New sights are refreshing, anyhow.

Leaning forward, she rested her forearm gently on the table and took to watching the lanky man begin to sound check. "Are there any others that I should make myself known to?" Or better then that, "Any that are good to know?" She had almost said worthwhile, but that could have been taken really wrong.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen shakes her head slightly, "I suppose tha' depends on what yeh mean by 'good to know'. Once yer tribe knows that yeh're here, you're more or less set, yeh ha' no more obligations.

"If you'd like to make friends, yeh can try the Brotherhood. I understand that quite a few o' the Blood hang out there."

[Helen Moore] "I've been there a few times," she admits, "and have met a few. But I really don't see myself being there much." Caleb, Roman, Sparrow and Taggart had been those she had met there. Only one out of the bunch she'd seek out to actually speak with. The rest she hadn't cared much for. "Thanks though."

[Imogen Slaughter] Her breath exhales as if with amusement, "No, I don't go there much either."

She takes another swallow of her beer, setting the empty glass down. "What did yeh mean then," she asks, before clarifying "by 'good to know'?"

[Helen Moore] "Oh, you know, not... those like Taggart," she clarified easily, casting a glance back to Imogen and focusing on her. "Those you might actually share a beer with, have a laugh or cry." Helen is Fianna, she hadn't gone to join another Tribe. Though if all American Fianna are like the one here, she very well may be. "Those that give you a bit of sense of home." Which may not be what Imogen would even consider, given her detachment to the blood in her veins.

[Imogen Slaughter] What Helen says causes the other kinwoman to frown, a sudden contraction of the brow. "No," she says, flatly. "No one like that."

She turns away briefly, gesturing to a passing waitress for another drink, indicating her brand in an undertone. When she turns back, the frown is gone.

"Besides," she says, "I imagine our standards would be different."

[Helen Moore] To say she wasn't disappointed, when it's there in the down-turn of her mouth, would be a lie. She only nods to that, leaving the topic to crash an burn under the table. When it's offered that their standards are different, Helen finds herself making a small sound of agreement, adding, after a few heartbeats: "You're probably right."

[Imogen Slaughter] Several beats of silence follow, before Imogen says. "Yeh should know a Kinfolk was kidnapped last week. Another died the week before that."

Her eyebrow arches up. "So watch yourself, alright?"

[Helen Moore] It shocked her out of her thoughts and she looked to Imogen sharply. "How?" She didn't want to know the grizzly details, but she wasn't sure if it was some sort of enemy thing, or some temperamental Garou or what would have been the cause. It certainly got her attention though and made her instantly aware of her lack of family here. Lack of protection. She really didn't want to take Caleb up on the whole knight in shining armor thing he had going. She'd rather make no strings or attachments there, no matter how charming or good looking he had been.

[Imogen Slaughter] "Wyrm." Helen had not been looking for grisly details, and Imogen gives her the most pertinent information in the shortest way possible.

[Helen Moore] "Geez."

There's nothing else to say on it. The atmosphere at the table had shifted. She suddenly wanted another wine or two, despite the fact she was driving.

"That's awful." Understatement. Her words didn't do it justice.

[Imogen Slaughter] "Worse month fer the Garou," Imogen says, deliberately cold. "They lost two in one night."

Her drink is set down, and Imogen does not even look, waiting for the waitress to walk away before she continues.

"Do you know how to use a gun?"

[Helen Moore] She feels that coldness like it was something physical, it chills her more than the words do, and they had a serious effect already. Shaking her head, she looked at the new beer on the table, not bothering to call the waitress for one herself - suddenly having no appetite for it.

"No, I don't."

[Imogen Slaughter] "Good," simple.

"If you're ever in danger, run."

[Helen Moore] "If I ever am, don't worry, I will." Just like the two Garou at the Park that had given her the creeps. She hadn't know them for what they were, but the way they looked at her, talked about her, had her leaving that park within moments - even if it was the middle of the day. She trusted her instincts.

[Imogen Slaughter] Imogen nods, simply saying again: "Good."

The stage is empty again, and they are back to piped in music, the standard pop-rock that all pubs seem to play, if they aren't the type to play Celtic tunes.

The tendon in her jaw moves as she tenses her jaw, looking away and back toward the empty stage.

"Shouldn't be long now."

[Helen Moore] Trying to shake off that awful feel in the pit of her stomach, she sits a little straighter and brushes both hands over her hair, shifting it, fluffing the back and fixing the front before she settled again. Its these things that she can control, the way she looked, the space around her.

"What sort of music do they play?" Since Imogen had knowledge of the band. It was better to switch subjects anyway.

[Imogen Slaughter] "Blues. Some classic rock." She answers, her attention remaining on the stage. Most of the tables in the pub are occupied now. There is a constant, low murmur of conversation. When the musicians step out to finish setting up, there is scattered applause. Imogen does not join in.

"S'not really my style," Imogen says, turning back, "but it's not half-bad."

[Helen Moore] "I might stay for awhile, then." It may not be Imogen's but Helen doesn't seem to mind it. She had no other plans yet. The possibility of heading out with work colleagues later had been on the agenda, but she's in no mood for it now, driven into a sense of caution. Its moments like these when human life clashes with her bloodlines and the reality of it.

[Imogen Slaughter] It had been quite a bit to dump on the young woman, to be honest. The death of three of the blood in the last few weeks, the blunt warning which Imogen had levied, all without prequel.

And now, just as bluntly, the conversation is dropped, leaving a gaping hole in its wake, at first broken by half hearted conversation about the music they expect to hear, and then, filled with nothing at all.

As the music starts, Imogen stops speaking and turns away to watch the band. She is intent in her attention, focused. She applauds at the end of the songs for a few beats and then lowers her hand. She nurses her drink, and orders another when the second one is empty.

She stays to the end of the set and then leaves. If Helen is still there, she receives the most perfunctory of farewells.