Out In The Forest
Sep. 16th, 2009 05:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
anita_blake[OOC: This was written in Google Docs with Micah-mun! Woot!]
Anita checks the various rooms, but there's no Micah in the bar itself, so she heads outside. She heads into the forest, uncaring of the night or what else might be in the forest or who she might run across. She clings to her rage, because if she's raging, she's not thinking about how right Jean-Claude and Richard are or how hurt Nathaniel and Asher probably are. If she holds tight to the fury, she can keep thinking she's right.
"Micah?" she calls, voice tight. "Micah, if you're out here, we need to have a fucking talk!"
"Do we?" he answers, dropping down to stand behind her. "About what?" He can almost smell the rage coming off her, and it takes him back a moment, studying her closely. She isn't usually this angry, and...it's disconcerting when he has no idea why.
"You lied to me," Anita hisses. "You hid Nathaniel's relationship with Asher from me."
And there is where the fuel for her rage comes from.
Micah takes a step back at the hiss, like he's expecting her to lash out physically as well; it's not entirely unprecedented, though not at him when she's anything other than playful. But the realization she knows about Nat and Asher is a hurdle he hadn't really expected having to deal with yet. "Yes, I did. Because all of us knew you'd be angry, and we wanted to delay that as long as we could," he says mildly, trying to figure out if she's more angry that he hid it, or that Nat and Asher were together at all.
"Asher told me today," Anita says. "When I went to see him about something else, he confessed it to me. He confessed that you all hid it from me, lied to me. The people I trusted most, loved, kept a secret this big, and that really pisses me off! And then, when I told Nathaniel that we were leaving Milliways and you, me, and him were going to have a long talk, he chose to stay with Asher!" Anita throws her hands up, turning her face to the sky in frustration. "So I told him if he did that, there was no place for him in my home, in the pard."
Micah raises an eyebrow at that, blinking confusedly for lack of a better reaction. "You did...what?" She kicked Nat out of the pard...he can't really accept that just yet. It could take a few minutes. "Why did you do that, and what made you think you could kick Nathaniel out of our pard without talking to me first?"
"It's my pard," Anita says, righting her head. "He lied! He lied and lied, Micah. That shouldn't just be ignored. If Asher hadn't screwed Nathaniel's head up so much, I don't think Nathaniel would have ever even thought to lie to me."
"No... No, it isn't. It's ours, Anita, I work with you to take care of our leopards," he says slowly. "Asher didn't screw Nat's head up, Anita. He loves him. I've watched them talk, there's no subversion there," he murmurs. "Where's Nathaniel?"
Anita glares out into the treeline. "I left him in his room with Asher. They're probably fucking as we speak," she grinds out.
"I doubt it. Yelling at people tends to be a little of a mood-killer," he says, leaning back, face settling into a distinctly less-than-amused expression. It's close to pissed. Very. "So you told him he wasn't part of our pard anymore?"
"I told him if he stayed with Asher, he had no place in the house," Anita says. "And he doesn't."
"I differ." There is no beg, because he certainly isn't. "Nathaniel is my leopard as well and I am not letting you kick him out," he says simply, firmly. "Not like this, and not if I can help it ever. Am I making myself understandable?"
Anita stares at him, taken aback. "What?"
"I am not," he repeats, "letting you kick Nathaniel out of our pard." Micah isn't that much taller than Anita, only an inch and barely that, if he stands to his fullest height.
"He can come back to the pard when he stops seeing Asher," she says, her voice soft.
"You can't make him choose between his family and his lover," he argues, voice hardening for every pitch hers is softening. "None of us can or will. I'm Nimir-Raj to your Nimir-Ra, Anita, I have the same authority as you do. And I'm not lying down for you to tear us apart because you have a hard-on for not liking Nathaniel sleeping with someone else."
Anita shakes her head. "It's not that he's sleeping with someone else," she insists. "It's more than that. It's the fact Asher has taken advantage of Nathaniel, who is vulnerable and impressionable, and convinced him that this is a good idea!"
"And it hasn't entered your mind that Nathaniel really does love him, has it?" He wonders how she's missed it, really. "Has it just never occurred to you that this is why we all lied to you? To keep you from doing something quite this rash."
"I think they think they love one another," Anita says, lifting her chin defiantly. "I don't know how much of that is truth, though."
"Do you think I'd be telling you if it wasn't?" He'd never spelled out that Asher and Nathaniel weren't together; he'd only said nothing was going to harm him. "Ask Liz, or Jason. Or Jean-Claude for that matter."
Anita begins to pace. "I did talk to Jean-Claude. Richard too. They were of the opinion I was being highly unfair and ridiculously blind... among other things."
"I can understand them thinking that, and being in a position of slightly more authority to deal with this, I agree. It is. Nat's not getting kicked out of the pard."
"He can't be a part of us if he's fucking a guy, Micah."
"Anita, let me be honest in saying I don't care who he's fucking. He's still a part of the pard. He might not be in your bed, but last I checked that wasn't a prerequisite." He looks her over coolly. "You're going to have to accept that Nat will sleep with who he wants. Didn't you want him to be more independent?"
"Not like this!"
"So how?" Micah crosses his arms over his chest, lips thinning a little. "Why don't you want him with Asher?"
Anita shakes her head, words passing her lips without much thought. "Because he encouraged a lie. Asher isn't supposed to be with Nathaniel, Micah. He's supposed to be with Jean-Claude and me, not Nathaniel."
"Oh, so it's that you're jealous, not that you're concerned," he says dryly. "Not nearly a good enough reason to kick one of our leopards out. I'm tempted, very, to go get Nathaniel right now and countermand whatever it is you told him, Anita."
"I am not jealous," she says, flushing.
"I've just heard it out of your own mouth that Asher should be with you and Jean-Claude, not Nathaniel, and you're telling me you're not jealous?" He just levels a look at her that's half-expectant and half still angry. "I'm not an idiot, Anita."
Anita crosses to Micah. It bothers her to be so angry with him. It seems wholly unnatural to her. "I didn't say you were. I'm just saying that it's not jealousy. Nathaniel needs to be protected, and Asher's..." She swallows, because she can't make her say that he's dangerous. She knows he is, but not to her, not to Nathaniel. "You shouldn't have lied to me."
"Protecting him," he finishes. "I told you why we did. Because we knew you'd react like this."
"Like this? Like what?" Anita shakes her head, sighing. "I feel betrayed, Micah. Don't you understand that? Encouraging secrets isn't what we should be about. Lying should be discouraged. Out of all our leopards, I never thought Nathaniel would do this."
"Like kicking him out of the Pard and the house because he didn't see fit to inform you that he's seeing someone else?"
Anita scoffs. "It was an important piece of information."
"Yes, of course," he says sarcastically. "Because clearly you need to be apprised of every single thing all of us do. You have to accept that there will be times when we don't tell you everything," Micah explains, as if to a misunderstanding child. Because right now it does feel like it. "So what about Nathaniel being with Asher makes you think you have reason to cut him off?"
"They kept it a secret," Anita insists. "And when it comes to Nathaniel, yes, I need to be apprised of every single damn thing he does! We both agreed he needed to be protected, that after the shit that happened at Narcissus In Chains that he couldn't be trusted to tell people no. If he can't say no, then we should have been approached by Asher about the possibility of a relationship."
Not that Anita would have given her permission, but she feels that's besides the point.
"Protected, yes. But he's not a child, Anita, he's a grown man fully capable of making decisions on his own! If Asher was hurting him don't you think one of us that knew would have confronted him about it? Or do you not trust any of us to take care of our people? You're not the only one capable in the city, Anita, you need to realize that."
"I thought I could trust you, but you lied to me!" Anita cries out. "You, Micah, you. I trusted you, loved you, and you hid something important from me. And the fact you don't see it, acknowledge it, just makes me question who the hell I fell in love with."
Micah stops entirely and blinks, like the breath has been knocked out of him because it has. "Anita... I told you why I didn't tell you earlier. If you don't...if you think this isn't me, isn't who you fell in love with then we... we have a problem."
"If you could make such a unilateral decision to exclude this information from me, then I have the same right to make one regarding Nathaniel's status in our home and pard," Anita says, crossing her arms and looking away from Micah. She chooses not to address the problem of their relationship and what this all means to her. Her heart hurts, thinking all the people she called friends and lovers had lied to her all this time, kept something as important as a relationship from her.
"No, you don't. Keep our relationship out of Pard business," he snarls, neatly sidestepping her and turning to say one last thing before he fully intends to turn and go find Nat. "You're not kicking Nathaniel out of our Pard or our home because I'm not letting you, Anita, and I'm not arguing that anymore. I'm sorry we lied to you, and it hurt me to have to do it, but it's done now."
Anita turns around, staring after Micah. "Micah..." she begins, but she doesn't know what more to say.
"What?" He stops, but doesn't turn around. "What else do you want to say, Anita? Do you want to accuse me of not loving you, because I tried to keep two people I care about safe and relatively happy?"
Though he can't see it, Anita shakes her head. "No. I know you love me."
"Then what?" He's not in the mood to argue anymore, or to turn around and see her. Because he knows if he does he'll lose it, and he can't afford that right now, with her. Not while he's trying to argue for Nat.
Anita looks down at the ground and sighs. "Nothing. Nothing, Micah. Just... go."
He sighs, a shaky exhaled breath that tells anyone who can hear it just how close he is to stopping, turning around and pulling her into his arms. It hurts, almost physically hurts, to have this between him and his Mate. "He stays. And doesn't have to choose between us and Asher. I'm going to go tell them." He says it because he almost desperately wants her to follow so that when they leave he can make it up to her. As it is he can just hope she knows his meaning and will understand.
"Don't do this, Micah," Anita murmurs.
"I can't. I can't let you break his heart like that, Anita." Micah sighs, shoulders falling. "I love you, you know that. More than anyone. But I can't let you tear the pard in two."
Anita doesn't like his slumped shoulders and, before she can stop herself, she crosses the space between them. She wraps her arms around Micah's waist, pressing her lips to his shoulder. "We have to stand together. We can't be at odds over a decision, or the pard can fall apart. You won't stand behind me?"
"I won't let you kick him out," he repeats, feeling tired as he clasps his hands over hers, around his waist.
"Will you accept a compromise, then?" she asks, trying very hard to retain her calm, trying to meet her mate halfway.
"What's the compromise?" Micah asks, turning in Anita's arms to wrap his own around her.
Anita looks up into his bright eyes. "He can remain in the pard, but he needs to not live at the house for a little while. I need... I need to come to terms with this, what it means. I'm not comfortable sharing living space with him just yet." It's the best she can do, but it's something. "I... promise. It won't be forever, but I'm angry and hurt right now, and it would be best if I figure this out without him under foot."
He doesn't like that arrangement, but Anita has a point. Micah sighs softly, hurt and discontent written plainly on his face. "Alright. He can live at the Circus, with Asher, for a while. No more than a month," he says. "Just until we figure this out."
A month is reasonable. "All right. One month. I just need some time." There is a lot she needs to digest, understand, and she needs the rage to fully bleed out of her before she has any further conversations with Asher or Nathaniel. "I love you, Micah, and..." She sighs. "I don't want to hurt you. No more than I already have."
"I don't want to hurt you either," he murmurs into the crown of her hair. "I love you too. They have to be told."
Anita hugs him, kissing his throat. "You can tell them." He'd been their advocate, she'd rather he tell them the news.
"Alright." He squeezes her tight, lifting her feet off the ground for a moment as he holds her to his chest. "I will. I love you, sweetheart."
She takes the opportunity to kiss his lips. "Find out if we need to get a new room or if Nathaniel will be... sharing Asher's here from now on."
"I will."
"Meet me in the bar around dawn?"
He chuckles. "If not earlier. If you want to, get a new room, I'll come find you. You should sleep, baby."
"I'll sleep when you come back to me and I know where things stand," Anita murmurs.
Micah leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her lips, brushing his cheek against hers in a cat-like move with a barely audible purr. "I'll always come back to you."
There's a visible release of tension in her body now that they weren't arguing with each other. "Go and come back. I'll have some dinner while I wait."
"Do. You don't eat enough." Micah doesn't feel quite so tired, or so ill, now that they're on the same side. Or at least the same side of the middle.
Anita steps back, smoothing down her shirt. "Go on. Go. I'll meet you inside when you're done."
He doesn't like letting her go, and likes it even less when she's the one to step back, but he lets his arms fall from around her waist, pushing one over his hair, which he still hasn't cut, and is still tied into a curly ponytail. "I'll look for you in the bar," he murmurs, turning to go inside, and to tell Nat that while he's still in the pard, and isn't being cut off from anything, he can't stay at the house for a while. This...this probably won't go well.
Anita checks the various rooms, but there's no Micah in the bar itself, so she heads outside. She heads into the forest, uncaring of the night or what else might be in the forest or who she might run across. She clings to her rage, because if she's raging, she's not thinking about how right Jean-Claude and Richard are or how hurt Nathaniel and Asher probably are. If she holds tight to the fury, she can keep thinking she's right.
"Micah?" she calls, voice tight. "Micah, if you're out here, we need to have a fucking talk!"
"Do we?" he answers, dropping down to stand behind her. "About what?" He can almost smell the rage coming off her, and it takes him back a moment, studying her closely. She isn't usually this angry, and...it's disconcerting when he has no idea why.
"You lied to me," Anita hisses. "You hid Nathaniel's relationship with Asher from me."
And there is where the fuel for her rage comes from.
Micah takes a step back at the hiss, like he's expecting her to lash out physically as well; it's not entirely unprecedented, though not at him when she's anything other than playful. But the realization she knows about Nat and Asher is a hurdle he hadn't really expected having to deal with yet. "Yes, I did. Because all of us knew you'd be angry, and we wanted to delay that as long as we could," he says mildly, trying to figure out if she's more angry that he hid it, or that Nat and Asher were together at all.
"Asher told me today," Anita says. "When I went to see him about something else, he confessed it to me. He confessed that you all hid it from me, lied to me. The people I trusted most, loved, kept a secret this big, and that really pisses me off! And then, when I told Nathaniel that we were leaving Milliways and you, me, and him were going to have a long talk, he chose to stay with Asher!" Anita throws her hands up, turning her face to the sky in frustration. "So I told him if he did that, there was no place for him in my home, in the pard."
Micah raises an eyebrow at that, blinking confusedly for lack of a better reaction. "You did...what?" She kicked Nat out of the pard...he can't really accept that just yet. It could take a few minutes. "Why did you do that, and what made you think you could kick Nathaniel out of our pard without talking to me first?"
"It's my pard," Anita says, righting her head. "He lied! He lied and lied, Micah. That shouldn't just be ignored. If Asher hadn't screwed Nathaniel's head up so much, I don't think Nathaniel would have ever even thought to lie to me."
"No... No, it isn't. It's ours, Anita, I work with you to take care of our leopards," he says slowly. "Asher didn't screw Nat's head up, Anita. He loves him. I've watched them talk, there's no subversion there," he murmurs. "Where's Nathaniel?"
Anita glares out into the treeline. "I left him in his room with Asher. They're probably fucking as we speak," she grinds out.
"I doubt it. Yelling at people tends to be a little of a mood-killer," he says, leaning back, face settling into a distinctly less-than-amused expression. It's close to pissed. Very. "So you told him he wasn't part of our pard anymore?"
"I told him if he stayed with Asher, he had no place in the house," Anita says. "And he doesn't."
"I differ." There is no beg, because he certainly isn't. "Nathaniel is my leopard as well and I am not letting you kick him out," he says simply, firmly. "Not like this, and not if I can help it ever. Am I making myself understandable?"
Anita stares at him, taken aback. "What?"
"I am not," he repeats, "letting you kick Nathaniel out of our pard." Micah isn't that much taller than Anita, only an inch and barely that, if he stands to his fullest height.
"He can come back to the pard when he stops seeing Asher," she says, her voice soft.
"You can't make him choose between his family and his lover," he argues, voice hardening for every pitch hers is softening. "None of us can or will. I'm Nimir-Raj to your Nimir-Ra, Anita, I have the same authority as you do. And I'm not lying down for you to tear us apart because you have a hard-on for not liking Nathaniel sleeping with someone else."
Anita shakes her head. "It's not that he's sleeping with someone else," she insists. "It's more than that. It's the fact Asher has taken advantage of Nathaniel, who is vulnerable and impressionable, and convinced him that this is a good idea!"
"And it hasn't entered your mind that Nathaniel really does love him, has it?" He wonders how she's missed it, really. "Has it just never occurred to you that this is why we all lied to you? To keep you from doing something quite this rash."
"I think they think they love one another," Anita says, lifting her chin defiantly. "I don't know how much of that is truth, though."
"Do you think I'd be telling you if it wasn't?" He'd never spelled out that Asher and Nathaniel weren't together; he'd only said nothing was going to harm him. "Ask Liz, or Jason. Or Jean-Claude for that matter."
Anita begins to pace. "I did talk to Jean-Claude. Richard too. They were of the opinion I was being highly unfair and ridiculously blind... among other things."
"I can understand them thinking that, and being in a position of slightly more authority to deal with this, I agree. It is. Nat's not getting kicked out of the pard."
"He can't be a part of us if he's fucking a guy, Micah."
"Anita, let me be honest in saying I don't care who he's fucking. He's still a part of the pard. He might not be in your bed, but last I checked that wasn't a prerequisite." He looks her over coolly. "You're going to have to accept that Nat will sleep with who he wants. Didn't you want him to be more independent?"
"Not like this!"
"So how?" Micah crosses his arms over his chest, lips thinning a little. "Why don't you want him with Asher?"
Anita shakes her head, words passing her lips without much thought. "Because he encouraged a lie. Asher isn't supposed to be with Nathaniel, Micah. He's supposed to be with Jean-Claude and me, not Nathaniel."
"Oh, so it's that you're jealous, not that you're concerned," he says dryly. "Not nearly a good enough reason to kick one of our leopards out. I'm tempted, very, to go get Nathaniel right now and countermand whatever it is you told him, Anita."
"I am not jealous," she says, flushing.
"I've just heard it out of your own mouth that Asher should be with you and Jean-Claude, not Nathaniel, and you're telling me you're not jealous?" He just levels a look at her that's half-expectant and half still angry. "I'm not an idiot, Anita."
Anita crosses to Micah. It bothers her to be so angry with him. It seems wholly unnatural to her. "I didn't say you were. I'm just saying that it's not jealousy. Nathaniel needs to be protected, and Asher's..." She swallows, because she can't make her say that he's dangerous. She knows he is, but not to her, not to Nathaniel. "You shouldn't have lied to me."
"Protecting him," he finishes. "I told you why we did. Because we knew you'd react like this."
"Like this? Like what?" Anita shakes her head, sighing. "I feel betrayed, Micah. Don't you understand that? Encouraging secrets isn't what we should be about. Lying should be discouraged. Out of all our leopards, I never thought Nathaniel would do this."
"Like kicking him out of the Pard and the house because he didn't see fit to inform you that he's seeing someone else?"
Anita scoffs. "It was an important piece of information."
"Yes, of course," he says sarcastically. "Because clearly you need to be apprised of every single thing all of us do. You have to accept that there will be times when we don't tell you everything," Micah explains, as if to a misunderstanding child. Because right now it does feel like it. "So what about Nathaniel being with Asher makes you think you have reason to cut him off?"
"They kept it a secret," Anita insists. "And when it comes to Nathaniel, yes, I need to be apprised of every single damn thing he does! We both agreed he needed to be protected, that after the shit that happened at Narcissus In Chains that he couldn't be trusted to tell people no. If he can't say no, then we should have been approached by Asher about the possibility of a relationship."
Not that Anita would have given her permission, but she feels that's besides the point.
"Protected, yes. But he's not a child, Anita, he's a grown man fully capable of making decisions on his own! If Asher was hurting him don't you think one of us that knew would have confronted him about it? Or do you not trust any of us to take care of our people? You're not the only one capable in the city, Anita, you need to realize that."
"I thought I could trust you, but you lied to me!" Anita cries out. "You, Micah, you. I trusted you, loved you, and you hid something important from me. And the fact you don't see it, acknowledge it, just makes me question who the hell I fell in love with."
Micah stops entirely and blinks, like the breath has been knocked out of him because it has. "Anita... I told you why I didn't tell you earlier. If you don't...if you think this isn't me, isn't who you fell in love with then we... we have a problem."
"If you could make such a unilateral decision to exclude this information from me, then I have the same right to make one regarding Nathaniel's status in our home and pard," Anita says, crossing her arms and looking away from Micah. She chooses not to address the problem of their relationship and what this all means to her. Her heart hurts, thinking all the people she called friends and lovers had lied to her all this time, kept something as important as a relationship from her.
"No, you don't. Keep our relationship out of Pard business," he snarls, neatly sidestepping her and turning to say one last thing before he fully intends to turn and go find Nat. "You're not kicking Nathaniel out of our Pard or our home because I'm not letting you, Anita, and I'm not arguing that anymore. I'm sorry we lied to you, and it hurt me to have to do it, but it's done now."
Anita turns around, staring after Micah. "Micah..." she begins, but she doesn't know what more to say.
"What?" He stops, but doesn't turn around. "What else do you want to say, Anita? Do you want to accuse me of not loving you, because I tried to keep two people I care about safe and relatively happy?"
Though he can't see it, Anita shakes her head. "No. I know you love me."
"Then what?" He's not in the mood to argue anymore, or to turn around and see her. Because he knows if he does he'll lose it, and he can't afford that right now, with her. Not while he's trying to argue for Nat.
Anita looks down at the ground and sighs. "Nothing. Nothing, Micah. Just... go."
He sighs, a shaky exhaled breath that tells anyone who can hear it just how close he is to stopping, turning around and pulling her into his arms. It hurts, almost physically hurts, to have this between him and his Mate. "He stays. And doesn't have to choose between us and Asher. I'm going to go tell them." He says it because he almost desperately wants her to follow so that when they leave he can make it up to her. As it is he can just hope she knows his meaning and will understand.
"Don't do this, Micah," Anita murmurs.
"I can't. I can't let you break his heart like that, Anita." Micah sighs, shoulders falling. "I love you, you know that. More than anyone. But I can't let you tear the pard in two."
Anita doesn't like his slumped shoulders and, before she can stop herself, she crosses the space between them. She wraps her arms around Micah's waist, pressing her lips to his shoulder. "We have to stand together. We can't be at odds over a decision, or the pard can fall apart. You won't stand behind me?"
"I won't let you kick him out," he repeats, feeling tired as he clasps his hands over hers, around his waist.
"Will you accept a compromise, then?" she asks, trying very hard to retain her calm, trying to meet her mate halfway.
"What's the compromise?" Micah asks, turning in Anita's arms to wrap his own around her.
Anita looks up into his bright eyes. "He can remain in the pard, but he needs to not live at the house for a little while. I need... I need to come to terms with this, what it means. I'm not comfortable sharing living space with him just yet." It's the best she can do, but it's something. "I... promise. It won't be forever, but I'm angry and hurt right now, and it would be best if I figure this out without him under foot."
He doesn't like that arrangement, but Anita has a point. Micah sighs softly, hurt and discontent written plainly on his face. "Alright. He can live at the Circus, with Asher, for a while. No more than a month," he says. "Just until we figure this out."
A month is reasonable. "All right. One month. I just need some time." There is a lot she needs to digest, understand, and she needs the rage to fully bleed out of her before she has any further conversations with Asher or Nathaniel. "I love you, Micah, and..." She sighs. "I don't want to hurt you. No more than I already have."
"I don't want to hurt you either," he murmurs into the crown of her hair. "I love you too. They have to be told."
Anita hugs him, kissing his throat. "You can tell them." He'd been their advocate, she'd rather he tell them the news.
"Alright." He squeezes her tight, lifting her feet off the ground for a moment as he holds her to his chest. "I will. I love you, sweetheart."
She takes the opportunity to kiss his lips. "Find out if we need to get a new room or if Nathaniel will be... sharing Asher's here from now on."
"I will."
"Meet me in the bar around dawn?"
He chuckles. "If not earlier. If you want to, get a new room, I'll come find you. You should sleep, baby."
"I'll sleep when you come back to me and I know where things stand," Anita murmurs.
Micah leans in and presses a gentle kiss to her lips, brushing his cheek against hers in a cat-like move with a barely audible purr. "I'll always come back to you."
There's a visible release of tension in her body now that they weren't arguing with each other. "Go and come back. I'll have some dinner while I wait."
"Do. You don't eat enough." Micah doesn't feel quite so tired, or so ill, now that they're on the same side. Or at least the same side of the middle.
Anita steps back, smoothing down her shirt. "Go on. Go. I'll meet you inside when you're done."
He doesn't like letting her go, and likes it even less when she's the one to step back, but he lets his arms fall from around her waist, pushing one over his hair, which he still hasn't cut, and is still tied into a curly ponytail. "I'll look for you in the bar," he murmurs, turning to go inside, and to tell Nat that while he's still in the pard, and isn't being cut off from anything, he can't stay at the house for a while. This...this probably won't go well.
