The unluckiest number.

[Manslaughter]

[Friday the 13th. I know it's late. Hursh. xD]

Scattered across the threshold, sodden spirals of salt--diluted by the oncoming of rain--paint a intricate picture of black cats and broken mirrors and untold years of misfortune now prevented. In the pile is drawn a jagged one, jerky at best and partnered with a curlique three to honor the unluckiest day of the year. A trail of salt proceeds this decoration on the front doorstep of the Brotherhood, naming its creator in a tell-tale, curving, clouded line. It leads down the front lawn, doubling back towards the front walk, suddenly scattering in all different directions just before the concrete.

Roger is sprawled in the middle of it, his back to the ground and eyes wide open, watching the rain beginning to fall, gaze unfaltering as he studies the raindrops, turning a split acorn in between his fingers. The grass is parted around him, downturned where he squirmed across it, twisting his body to get a better look at the rain and making a drunken lawn angel with lopsided wings. His red hair makes a blazen glimmer against his salty bed, and he blinks gently, licking his lips in anticipation and tasting salt, then upturning an empty palm to catch a raindrop--just one.

Undoutebly, he was the culprit for making a spice his plaything, but in making a valiant attempt to bless the house in which he lived and all its occupants--his family--was more than child's play. He hardly believed in the old wive's tales of four leaf clovers being lucky, and that dropping an umbrella on the floor foretold a murder, but then again it didn't hurt to spring for a chance for luck, something to change the turn of events that was balancing unevenly on their part. Salt across the front doorway was supposed to ward away evil, but in that case Roger was doing more harm than good.

Cupping a captured raindrop, Roger shields his find from the rest of the rain, peeking into the creases of his palms and sizing up the droplet. He shakes it off, deeming it in some way or another useless. So he tries again, kicking his feet, and starting to sing in a soft chirrup. "Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. rain on the green grass, rain on the hillside, but not on me."

[Rahne Sinclair]

> “ Rain, rain, go away, come again another day. Rain on the green grass, rain on the hillside, but not on me.”

At first, Rahne’s attention is caught by Roger’s voice calling her name, but it doesn’t take long for her to recognize the sing-song chanting of a child’s game. Not that she recognizes this particular chant, but her own childhood was full of such things.

Of course, Reverend Craig would never have countenanced this particular game, resounding as it does of pagan rites and magics, but then again Reverend Craig would have denounced this entire household as Agents of Satan, just as he denounced Rahne herself. And yet she can see no particular harm in the boy’s chanting… though she’s more than a little disturbed to realize that, for all she knows, he really can influence the weather.

It was much simpler when she was a child, and she is suddenly overcome with nostalgia for the years before her Change. Before my mutation surfaced, she corrects herself. She’s still not entirely clear what a ‘mutation’ is, other than the American word for Satan’s Mark, but she’s very aware of the condescending looks she gets from the others when she doesn’t use their words for it, so she tries to remember to do so.

The boy has gone silent now, though she can still hear his breathing, and strange squirming sounds. Curious, she climbs to the building’s roof and looks down onto the doorstep. Roger is there, engaged in some incomprehensible activity of his own, and the porch is covered in patterns of – she sniffs – salt. She laboriously makes out the letters of the boy’s name, and what vaguely resembles a capital letter “B,” and other patterns she can’t recognize, and for a moment she wonders if the boy really is some kind of sorcerer.

They’ve lived under the same roof for months now, but Rahne still knows almost nothing about Roger, beyond his obvious daftness and his ability to hurt people with his thoughts. Where he comes from, how he came to join this Brotherhood, all of that is a mystery… of course, it’s not as if Rahne has been all that forthcoming with her own history, either. Not to mention that she’s never actually asked.

Well, soonest started, soonest done, eh? With that resolution she shifts into hybrid form and drops lightly from the building’s roof onto the moist ground a few meters away from the boy.

"So ye meant to drive away the rain, and instead ye called me here, aye?" she calls out cheerfully, and waves to the salt on the porch curiously. "What ye be doing? Can I join ye?"

[Manslaughter]

Roger turns up his head, listening to the soft hush of the rain and watching as Rahne's shadow momentarily blocks the last glare of the sunlight seeping between bruised, overcast clouds. He turns the acorn in his fingers and waits, the whumpf of weight on grass announcing her landing some distance beside him. So ye meant to drive away the rain, and instead ye called me here, aye? The redheaded boy blinks slowly, his mouth tightened to a resolute line as he ponders the imaginary line between the rain and the Scottish woman. No answer comes from him, but he tilts his head back far enough to get a fleeting look at Rahne's forehead, the best he can manage at eye contact when looking upside-down. What ye be doing? Can I join ye?

Lazily, he rolls over on to his front, for a moment almost a picture of a puppy realizing that the sun is no longer out. He further distorts his grass angel, and it shows instead some semblance to an angel with one wing and a siamese twin attached at the hip. Oblivious to the destruction of this masterpiece, he peers curiously up at Rahne, elevating his eyebrows in a fashion that suggests he is in disbelief. "Doomsday," he replies in a knowing tone, kicking his feet in a hushed excitement. Several moments pass before he relinquishes his answer to Rahne's request, as though this activity requires only the highest regard. "You can come play if you want..," Roger finishes slowly, becoming distracted as he watches the rain again.

He blinks and turns back over, forming to his one half of a normal angel and holding both palms empty up to the air. The acorn rolls down the heel of his hand and catches somewhere in the folds of his sweatshirt, and Roger tries again to catch a raindrop.

[Rahne Sinclair]

> "Doomsday"

Rahne shivers at the word, and the strangely adult tone of voice coming from this child’s mouth. It doesn’t exactly surprise her – the boy is one of Satan’s Hunters, after all – but it chills her just the same, suggesting Armageddon not as an inevitable-but-remote event but as a project to undertake as soon as possible. "I was in the Spirit on the Lord’s Day, and heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet…" she mutters under her breath, remembering her lessons.

> " You can come play if you want.."

She startles at that, unsure how to take it… is it a child’s playfulness, or a darker Power’s prophecy? With this boy, she’s never entirely sure. Indeed, she’s not even sure if the comment is even directed at her… there are days when Roger just seems to be speaking to spirits only he can see; days when he plays his private games in his private world and hardly responds to those around him at all. It makes interacting with him difficult, at times. On the other hand, there aren’t very many people staying in the Brotherhood’s dwelling, and Rahne is frequently starved for companionship.

Fortunately, the Beast within her is closer to Roger’s spirit than her own mortal mind is, and companionship can take many forms. So she allows the form of Man – or, in her case, Woman – to fade, dropping to all fours and padding quietly over to the boy as he plays in the grass, pushing her snout into his sweatshirt to find the hidden acorn and tossing it high in the air.

[Manslaughter]

Roger's focus shifts from the sky to Rahne at his side, who is eagerly shoving her nose into his sweatshirt in an air of curious good humor and with suprising vigor as she searches for the long-lost acorn. Her whiskers tickle the curve of the boy's neck, and he blinks slowly, watching as her cold nose skims across his ribs through the thin fabric of his clothes. For a moment he wants to snatch the acorn and claim it as his own lucky charm before she can retrieve it, silently selfish in his rare find. He refrains instead, the prospect of romping with something furry turning the cogs in his head with a stop-and-go pace. It takes him a moment to notice that Rahne has found what she has sought and tosses the acorn high into the open air. Expectant to catch it before it bounces away, Roger rolls upright, grasping and flexing his fingers.

Can't catch me! She giggles and runs circles around him, prompting her brother to play with a taunting invitation of tag and the expectations that she will win. Instead of joining her, he merely gazes after her, having no heart to join in the game--not with her. Even his mother smiles, but as he takes a step, she has already gone away.

Both hands come up empty, and Roger swings his head to one side, a fine line creasing his brow as he feigns concern for the lost little seed within the womb of the fruit. This false display continues for only a moment, and as his turn of mind completes, he lurches forward, taking a wild bat at Rahne's ears before he goes sprawling back into the grass. A shudder of his chest harbors a rusty squeak in the surprising delight of play, for now comfortable with this change of company.

[Rahne Sinclair]

Creepy as he is most of the time, Roger is still a child, and sometimes he even acts like one. This is one such time, and Rahne feels positively doggish at the sudden onset of play-time. She dodges back as Roger bats at her ears, laughing with wide-opened jaws and squinted eyes before darting in to catch his arm in her teeth, just enough pressure to score the point without causing any pain.

He sprawls on the grass again, then, and she is preparing to pounce on him playfully when she hears strange voices coming from the far end of the woods. “We shouldn’t be here, you know. It’s private property.” “Oh, come on… it’s huge! Who’s even gonna notice us? Besides, my dad says the guy who lives here is really cool.” “Yeah, I dunno... my dad says the same thing, but Mom always acts weird when anyone mentions him.” “Your mom always acts weird, Cath – ow!” The sound of a light slap drifts through the branches along with voices and clumsy footsteps clearly unaccustomed to woods travel, and the resulting cry of mock-pain is annoyingly loud.“Quiet, they’ll hear us! Mom and Dad would kill me if they knew I was here with you… or, you know, anywhere with you.” “Yeah, but here you are anyway, huh?”

The conversation ends with the rustle of dried grass and fabric – a blanket being spread out, Rahne supposes, for a picnic or perhaps some other less innocent pastime. She shifts into hybrid form for just a moment to talk to Roger. "We hae intruders," she whispers to him, pointing in the direction of the voices. "A much better game, aye? Ye wait here, I’ll bring ‘em around."

She takes off then, shifting back to wolf-form to circle around the voices, not bothering with stealth for such oblivious prey. There’s a moment of hesitation, as she remembers Primer’s orders not to hunt in neighboring houses, but she shrugs it off… her human mind rationalizes that these two are on her property, not the neighbor’s, and her wolf-mind simply doesn’t care. In just a few moments she has the intruders positioned between her and Roger, and she steps boldly out into the clearing, snarling with bared teeth.

“Oh God, Charlie, it’s a guard dog! Run!” The subdued shadow of Rahne’s human mind clucks its metaphorical tongue at their foolishness as the two teenagers flee from her in panic – if she had been a mere dog, their frantic escape would have been more than enough to entice her to attack. As it is, she holds back, wanting to share the game with Roger. She lets them run, flanking them and growling whenever they deviate from the path she has in mind for them.

It seems to take forever, but finally they come barreling into the clearing by the front porch, where Roger is waiting. “Oh, thank God!” the girl gasps, exhausted, at the sight of another human. “Kid, please, you have to call off your dogs!”

[Manslaughter]

Roger wiggles his arm, the same suddenly caught in Rahne's grip. She is gripping it gently, exerting only the amount of pressure it takes to still him, and even he between giggles feels the strength--the power--in her jaws; she could crush his bones if she wanted. Crunch. Crunch. he muses to himself, like Rahne would be eating cereal if she wanted to eat his arm. Then she lets go, and he flops over in the grass, posing as a would-be playmate as he growls and bats at Rahne's paws with his fingers.

He cocks his head as Rahne suddenly stills, her ears attentive to listen. Not to dismiss this as pretense, he rolls over, eyeing the patch of woods that she is watching. "...what do we hear?" Roger murmurs into the grass, opening his mind to 'listen' too. Something is there. He remains absolutely still while he counts heartbeats. 1, 2.. buckle a shoe.. 7, 8.. Whatever they are, Roger deems them people, but whether they're the good kind of people or the bad kind of people, he does not know. We hae intruders.

Suddenly Rahne is human again, or closer than she was, and she points a finger in the direction of supposedly what she had been hearing. A much better game, aye? Ye wait here, I’ll bring ‘em around. Roger bobs his head, pushing himself to his knees and watching as she bounds away into the woods. He scoots backwards and sits, legs splayed in front of him to wait.

Roger doesn't have to wait long, hearing shouts and cries of terror as Rahne surprises them. Confident that she will do as she says, he plucks a yellow buttercup that had been slightly trampled in their momentary tussle. Humming, Roger pulls out petals. "Dead.. not dead.. dead.. not dead.." At last their prey bursts from the foliage and the girl of the two pants in relief at the mere sight of him. Oh, thank God! Roger continues, as though he hasn't heard, plucking out another petal. "..dead.." She pleads with him. Kid, please, you have to call off your dogs! Silently he pulls out the last petal of the mutilated buttercup, his brow furrowing at the results. Well, that isn't fun at all.. but flowers never lie.

The boy glances up, regarding the two with secret contempt and an air of curiosity. For the most part he does nothing but stare until the male of the two becomes flustered. "Are you deaf or something?! She said to call them off!" Unhappy with being yelled at, Roger pinpoints a sharp stab to his trachea, the same he'd done to Creed at the riot some time ago, but much more direct, not quite equivalent to a brick but probably the feeling of being stabbed in the throat with a stiletto heel. All the same, Roger gets what he wants, silence from the teenager as he gags and chokes. "Charlie!"[/u] the girl cries, reaching for him. "What are you doing to him?! Stop it! Stop! You're hurting him!"[/u] Then she too is silenced as Roger out of frustration widens the sphere of his influence to her as well, although now the stiletto heel would feel to her like the long end of a stick. He lets them suffer for a few as long as a minute or two and then withdraws back into his own mind.

A slant of a smile starts at the corner of Roger's mouth. "Tag. ..you're it."

[Rahne Sinclair]

Rahne trots complacently out of the woods behind the intruders as they drop to the ground, clutching at their throats and gagging in pain as Roger glares at them.

> "Tag. ..you're it."

Rahne smiles back at Roger, pleased that he’s enjoying the game. She shifts into a barely hybrid form, just enough to regain the power of speech, and nods pleasantly in his direction. "Oh, aye? My turn, is it? Proper gentleman, you are."

The intruders are stumbling to their feet as she does so, now that Roger has released them from whatever he had them held in, and stare at her in new horror. The boy, Charlie, points and stammers “W-w-w-were –[/i]” before Rahne interrupts him with a leap and a roar, landing right in front of him, pausing long enough for him to regain what few wits he had to start with and turn to flee.

She’s losing interest in this game now, the intruders unable to mount even a convincing retreat, let alone any sort of defense; her instinct is to take his throat now. But Roger’s demonstration a moment earlier intrigues her.

She doesn’t understand what he did to them, exactly, but that doesn’t bother her… she understands very little of what goes on in this place, and she’s become accustomed to that. However, she does understand stealth, and not calling the attention of scavengers and other predators to one’s own lair. Roger’s “mutation” is apparently capable of damaging prey without leaving blood-spoor, and Rahne admires the beauty of that, and wonders if he can kill the same way.

So she foregoes the hot spurt of blood, at least for now, and lets “Charlie” gain some distance as she gently wraps two claws around “Cath”’s throat. "Let’s hae a wee scream out of ye, eh? D’ye think yer friend’ll turn back? Or just abandon ye t’the monsters?" Her scream is quieter than it could be, between the gagging and her claws on her throat, but loud enough for her fleeing friend to hear. . "Ah, pity that… he jus’ runs away faster at the sound. Y’need better friends, girl… ye oughtto’ve listened to yer mother. Ye’ll remember that in Hell, eh? "

The girl seems paralyzed with fear, and Rahne tosses her to Roger’s feet before taking off after her equally cowardly friend. “She’s yours, Roger m’lad… enjoy!"

[Manslaughter]

Silently, Roger rises from the ground, the tattered remains of the buttercup still clutched in his fist, just in time to watch Charlie turn tail and flee. Their twin heartbeats race independently, thrumming through his head like separate tempos of a percussion section. Then the girl begins to scream. Ah, pity that… he jus’ runs away faster at the sound. Y’need better friends, girl… ye oughtto’ve listened to yer mother. Ye’ll remember that in Hell, eh? Tilting his head, Roger rocks on his heels and watches the girl go stiff in fear. Rahne tosses the girl to the ground, and in response she only cries out, almost pathetically starting to sob. She’s yours, Roger m’lad… enjoy!

Now they are alone.

He circles the girl, who shudders in fear--sobbing still, as though she might sway him with this momentary outburst of womanly behavior to make him sympathize with her condition. "Oh.. God.. don't.. don't kill me--please!" she squeaks in terror, her eyes darting from place to place, anywhere but his eyes.

Curiously, he watches her, giving the impression that he is contemplating on what to do with her, despite the fact that he physically does not appear to be strong enough to take advantage of even her. Instead of doing much of anything right away, he becomes distracted with Cath's hair, seemingly admiring the color. He takes a tentative approaching step--taunting her, and she scrambles to her feet, only to have pain surge from her toes up through her hips, and then she falls, her limbs going numb suddenly so that she cannot run away.

"No, no, no..," the boy chides, shaking his head from side to side as he crouches next to her. A glimmer of recognition strikes his expression, and he quiets suddenly. Cath. "Catherine," he corrects aloud, and the girl swallows and whimpers, afraid her identity is known.

Can you spell mommy's name, sweetheart? He doesn't look up from his paper filled with doodles of letters, his name spelled out shakily at the top. K-A-T-H-E-R-I--

Reflexively, Roger blinks, stretching his fingers towards Catherine's hair without even realizing it. He touches it, the bare tips of his fingers brushing over the pin-straight strands. He hears nothing but her name in his mind, unable to recognize her pleas in whispers of don't, don't.. please.. stop! Her hair is pretty. Ruddy red-brown like a rust stain. The psychic hold upon her mind weakens as he continues to touch her hair, fascinated by it.

Catherine clenches her fingers and curls her toes, trying to pull her head away, her space continually violated as Roger touches her in a way that is meant for fathers and lovers.. not strangers, not him. Discomfort painfully churns across her face as she fights her instinct to lie still and to take it. "Stop!" she cries out, defensively jerking away as he leans closer and suddenly slapping Roger across the cheek.

He gives no cry of surprise, only a sharp gasp as the heat and flush of pain rises in his face. His eyes water suddenly, the whites of them becoming red in a strain to hold back tears.

Roger! Roger! Stop! STOP! You're hurting her! She screams and cries on the floor as mother cries out too as her child is hurt, standing white-faced and clutching her son and shaking him. He doesn't hear mother only her and then out of frustration she sobs and strikes him.

He stops.

Touching his face and breathing fast, Roger narrows his eyes, glaring between spasms of tears and watching as Catherine tries to run again, horrified with both him and herself.

Mommy will come visit you all the time, okay? Be a good boy. Each time she came the visits became shorter. We have to go, sweetie, we'll be back at Christmastime--you like Christmas don't you, honey? She never came back.

Catherine crumbles to the ground as Roger begins to attack her mind brutally, stabbing sensations reverberating through her mind as though he really is taking a knife to her brain. She can't breathe--can't scream, but it hurts, the pain is excruciating but all she can do is writhe as Roger walks towards her, increasing the agony with each step as she tries as a last resort to crawl away.

"You like her more!" Roger accuses in a hysterical voice, the only other sound besides him being Catherine's choked screams.

[Rahne Sinclair]

Chasing “Charlie” has become frankly dull. The boy had a reasonable amount of endurance at first, but no strategy… he just runs, and runs, and runs, tripping on the undergrowth and pulling himself up again, a little slower each time. They’re well away from the Brotherhood’s land now, and she’s led the boy in enough circles that no tracker will be sure what direction he came from… but he is traveling shorter and shorter distances each time she shows herself.

Finally the chase ends altogether: this time, when she drops down from a tree-branch to frighten him into flight, he can’t even get to his feet. He crawls a few feet, backing himself up against a tree-trunk; the stench of him soiling himself in terror is distasteful. There’s no sport to hunting these humans, Rahne realizes, not for the first time; not even as much sport as there was in her native woods. They’re soft and slow and easily panicked.

Of course, she hasn’t been sent here to enjoy herself… she has a mission. But this boy and his mate, she was hunting them just for the pleasure of it; there’s no reason for Rahne to take their lives. Of course, they did invade Brotherhood land, which made them fair game… and she can’t let him live now, not after what he’s seen. He dies, of course, but there’s no satisfaction in it.

He doesn’t even scream as she reaches for his throat, just looks at her with wide, frightened eyes. She watches back as he bleeds out over his shirt, until his heart stops beating and the stink of death is prominent, before she returns to Roger, obfuscating the trail on her way.

The woman is still alive, she’s surprised to realize, and writhing on the ground at Roger’s feet. "This one lasted longer, aye?"

[Manslaughter]

Vice-like pressure on Catherine's brain increases steadily as Roger nears her, his hands clenched until his fingernails dig into his palms. Her screaming ceases as she is abruptly rendered unconscious in her body's own attempt to save her, but parts of her still twitch in response as her mind is still brutally attacked. She is an innocent victim, but still a guilty trespasser all the same, and her parents wouldn't want a bad, bad trespassing child. Parents didn't like bad children, and he must have been one because his own had abandoned him, and undoubtedly they would abandon her too. It was better to put her out of her misery in a generously-dealt homocide.

This one lasted longer, aye?

"Too long.. too long alive..," Roger echoes to himself distantly, rocking back on his heels when he comes to a stop beside Catherine. His focus suddenly changes to the wound nerves of her lungs--still breathing, still breathing. Without releasing the hold on her mind and broken spirit, he contstricts the nerves of her diaphragm, rendering it void of neural activity. Catherine's chest halts mid-breathe and doesn't move again, straining, tensing without air.

One minute ticks by, then two.. then three, and Roger lets go. It's done.

Shoulders twitching in a shudder, he nudges her body with the toe of his shoe, making sure she doesn't return from the realm of the dead he's sentenced her to. Silently, he turns around and makes a zig-zag line back to Rahne.

"Time to go home now..?" he murmurs, looking past her and through her.

[Rahne Sinclair]

Rahne watches in fascination as the girl chokes quietly under Roger’s intense regard. One moment she’s unconscious but uninjured, the next she’s simply stopped breathing, minutes later she’s dead, all without a single sign of injury. Amazing.

> "Time to go home now..? "

It’s an odd question. As far as she knows, Roger lives here now… though presumably he has a family somewhere, or did once, even as she did once. Perhaps he even remembers his, as she doesn’t.

On the other hand, perhaps he’s not even talking to her in the first place… with Roger it’s impossible to be sure. The boy has his own ghosts, perhaps literally for all Rahne knows, and some days they seem to crowd out all awareness of his actual environment.

She pads over to the body, sniffs it curiously, then resumes her hybrid form and sits near Roger.

"And where is home, my little lost lamb?"

[Manslaughter]

And where is home, my lost little lamb?

He hears and not hears, cocking his head most curiously, still staring in the distance. This inquiry turns once, twice, and then three times, the questionable origin of home weighing heavily in the back of his mind. It is one of the few questions he can't answer, but it is one that matters most.

We need to pack up sweetheart. She holds a pair of socks in her hands, tucking them together to make a pair and putting them away in his suitcase. We're going to take a car ride. Isn't that fun, dear? We'll have lunch on the way there. Again she picks up two more socks from the drawer, uncaring as she rolls them up together when they don't match, methodically turning them in her hands. Here, sweetheart, help me fold these. We don't want you to leave anything behind.

He picks up his hands and stares down at them, wondering from whence they came. Did they have a home too?

Now, Roger, you can't draw on the walls. He stares reproachfully as she pulls the crayon from his hand and leads him away by the wrist. You don't draw on the walls at home do you? Here now.. come draw on the paper so you can draw a nice picture for your mommy to put on the refridgerator..

Roger tightens his mouth and inspects his fingers that touched Catherine's hair, the hair that looked like mother's.

The attic is very dusty, and he says so. Yes, well...I'm afraid your the only person that's been up here since we all moved in. And then he was gone away.

Clenching his hands, Roger blinks slowly, looking left and then right. Where is home? He asks himself, only now finding an answer. He sits on the ground next to Rahne, squinting into the returning sun as the clouds part.

"Gone."

[Rahne Sinclair]

> "Gone."

Talking to Roger, Rahne decides, is oddly like hunting squirrels in the winter. It’s not that they’re difficult to catch, rather that they provide very little meat once caught. On the other hand, they’re the only game available. There’s clearly something going on behind those eyes, something complex and difficult, but she has no insight into it.

Well, and no reason I should. He’s entitled to his own secrets.

"Aye. Mine, too." She tilts her head towards the building behind her. "Is nae yer new home, then? The others, they seem t’treat ye like family… especially Sherridan, aye?"

[Manslaughter]

Roger draws his legs to his chest, wrapping his arms around his shins until his chin rests firmly upon his knees. He feels safer when smaller and secure, and the mock feeling of safety is enough for him, even without the safety of a home long gone. Aye. Mine, too. He blinks slowly, letting this new information sink in. Despite the fact that he had never heard her say so, deep-down Roger had figured that there was no other home for her to stay in if she would choose the Brotherhood. But then again, he had no home either.

Is nae yer new home, then? He lifts his head from his knees and nods, as if this knowledge is not known already. The Brotherhood had become his home the moment Magneto invited him in, and for certain it would be where he would stay for some time. To his knowledge, it had been the only home he had been accepted in, and any home that welcomed him was home enough. The others, they seem t’treat ye like family... He blinks, and then nods again.

… especially Sherridan, aye? Every muscle in his back stills, and Roger's face goes blank. Spot. The sensation of fur on his skin is nothing he can create himself, and it seems so simple with Sherridan. He mulls over this thought, turning his head a little to hide his face from her eyes while he thinks. Spot had always been nice to him.. nicer than anyone he'd ever known. He even took him out for his birthday.. it made him feel special--wanted.

The cake had been chocolate... very chocolate, and he had hugged Sherridan..

"Yes..," Roger replies at last, upturning his head to gaze across the open front lawn. Upon further thought, he turns his head yet again, looking intently at Rahne, for once not through her or into her.

"You are family, too," he says without hesitation, certain that she too is part of whatever family or clan or group the Brotherhood happens to be. "Our brothers and sisters ... they are our family."