[1/19/98]
Currently on this gusty and cold winter afternoon in the general St. Claire
area, it is 30 degrees Fahrenheit (-1.1 degrees Celsius). The wind is coming
from the south-southwest at 17.9 mph. The ground is normal. Skies are hazy
with a possible chance of precipitation.
Currently the moon is in the waning Half Moon phase (56% full).
Andy's Old Fashioned Donuts
A small quaint donut shop, tastefully done in blue and white. A glass case,
showing a variety of fresh donuts stands at the back of the store. Standing
behind the glass case, a small old woman, looking to be in her sixties, is
busy with customers. A young girl, slightly taller than the old woman and
looking to be around sixteen rushes back and forth through a swinging door,
bringing out trays of donuts or coffee or other delicious smelling items.
A sturdy door to the south opens out onto the street. Small round metal tables
have been set out near the window, '+help places' will assist you in seating.
Sitting at one of the tables near the windows is Sally, an untouched donut on
a small paper plate before her and an extra-large cup of something steaming
beside it. She's looking out the plate-glass window, just sorta daydreaming.
A vintage, gold Plymouth Satellite grumbles into a slot out front. Nicodemus
clambers out, slams the heavy car door, and moves quickly to get inside the
shop and hurry over to the counter to place his order. He pays, collects a
medium cup of something hot along with a chocolate-coated donut, and turns
to find a place to sit.
Sally MacKay's eyes move over the car as it pulls up, then turn to watch for
the driver. As she recognizes him she smiles some and sits up, continuing to
follow him as he enters and orders, not calling attention to herself yet.
Only once he has his snack and drink in hand and is looking for a place does
she push the metal chair opposite hers away from the table, producing a
noticable scraping sound. She watches Nick to see if he'll look her way.
Nicodemus does indeed look Sally's way and, in fact, moves over to join her
without any further 'invitation'. He places objects on the table. "Too damn
early for sane people to be up." The goth slides into the seat, apparently
not having been up for more than an hour or two and still in a bit of a haze.
Sally makes a small sound of amusement, but for the most part doesn't look
much like she's pulled out of last night's funk. "It's," she pushes back her
sleeve to check the time, then lets it drop as she finds her wrist watchless
still. She continues with a small, wry smile, "It's not /that/ early."
"Three-ten is pretty early in my book," Nicodemus comments without consulting
a watch. An arm moves to slide his hot drink closer and pull the lid off. He
blows over the surface of the liquid to cool it off. "Have a wild night,
too?"
"Nah," Sally shakes her head and settles back into her chair. "Walked around,
hung out a bit, then went home and moved some boxes." She reaches out and
moves the little red stirrer through her drink as her eyes wander back to
the window. "You must have had a good night?" she asks idly.
The door opens again, emitting a blash of cold winter air and Salem.
Stomping his feet a bit, the dark man blows into ungloved hands.
"One of those nights that takes the rest of the day to recover from,"
Nicodemus claims as he hazards the perils of taking a sip of scalding
coffee. "You know how those are."
Sally MacKay's attention suddenly focuses on something outside, on the street
behind Nick. "Yeah, I do," she answers him, but it's clear her mind is no
longer on their conversation... until the door opens, that is. As if
prompted by the sudden burst of cold air, Sally picks up her cup and sips,
her eyes returning to the goth.
Salem rubs his hands together, grimacing, and then makes his way toward the
counter. He scans the interior of the shop, his eye passing over Sally and
her friend, lingering on the blonde perhaps. Perhaps not. He leans against
the counter and gazes at the poor woman behind it until she comes over to
take his order, wiping her hands nervously on her apron.
Nicodemus glances over his shoulder at Salem to see what Sally was watching,
then turns back to her. "Yeah, it was a pretty wild night, but I'm not one
to brag of exploits or bore with details." In fact, he drops the topic at
that and changes to another. "You ready for classes tomorrow? All the
pencils sharpened and fresh erasers and names written in textbooks?"
Once the dark Garou is past them and occupied with ordering, Sally's focus
becomes split again, more skewed towards Salem than Nick. "Yeah, but
tomorrow's not bad, I only have two. An afternoon one and then my night
class. You?"
"Coffee. Black." Salem busies himself with fishing cash from the inside of his
coat. Even spared the intense stare, the woman behind the counter is clearly
spooked, filling the man's order so quickly that she almost spills the
entire cup on the floor. Salem gives her a sour look, drops his money on the
counter, and takes his coffee to an empty table.
"Three of them." Nick blows across the liquid in the cup again, trying to cool
the liquid further. "Won't be too bad. I took professors that don't take off
points if you don't show for class. Attendance policies bite."
"They sure as hell do," Sally answers Nick quietly, then pauses to take a
breath before turning her head just enough to see Salem. Kicking out one of
the two remaining empty chairs in much the same way as she did for Nick,
Sally raises her voice enough for it to carry to his table. "You don't have
to sit alone, you know." Perhaps her voice isn't bubbling over with
invitation, but the offer is there.
Salem pauses, about to sit down, and turns toward Sally. Unobtrusively, a
couple of senior citizens get up and leave, murmuring to each other and
giving the Garou wary glances. "I don't want sympathy, Mustang Sally," he
says, coldly.
Nicodemus looks from Salem back to Mustang. Rather than interrupting, he
simply lets Sally deal with her other moody friend.
She gives the chair another kick, the sound of its metal legs scraping against
the ceramic tile surprisingly sharp in the suddenly quiet shop. Sally turns
her face back to her own table, saying simply as she lifts her mug to her
lips, "It's not sympathy."
Salem's lips tighten a bit, and then he moves to join Sally and her gothling
friend, taking the offered seat. "So you say." His eyes shift toward Nick,
looking him over.
Nicodemus purses his lips in a tight, forced, muted, gothicly-appropriate
smile at Salem. He lifts his cup of coffee and takes a small sip, though his
silence says volumes which the Garou probably easily comprehends.
[Nick's desc]
This under-twenty teen possesses a gaunt build and anemic-white flesh. A war
between light and dark takes place about him--and the darkness is winning.
Black dyed hair hangs to shoulder length in a stylishly unkempt manner. His
eyes resemble cat pupils.
The Darkling's nails are tipped with black polish. Around his neck hangs a
silver skull necklace with a red crystal inside. A second necklace bears a
simple silver crucifix. His ears are infested with assorted bits of metal.
Today's fashion theme is 'traditional gothic'. A black leather jacket covers
his torso. On its back, there's a skull mosaic composed from hundreds of
mirror shards. Beneath the jacket is a black mesh shirt worn over a white
T-shirt. The pants are an elaborate patchwork of form-fitting black PVC
combined with black pothole fishnet. A length of chromed chain about his
waist serves as a completely unneeded belt. Finishing the outfit is a black
pair of 18-hole boots.
With a casual wave of her finger, Sally indicates each in turn, "Nick, Salem.
Salem, Nick." Her hand remains on her cup, fingers loosly wrapped around it
for warmth.
Salem lifts his coffee cup a bit to the gothling and offers a small, tight
little smile. "A pleasure."
Nicodemus breaks his silence, and some of the prior tension about him gives
way--a little. "Cool name," he comments honestly. A customer steps into the
shop, blowing on his hands as he looks around, then departs back out the
door after a brief moment.
Facing the door as she is, Sally does not miss the customer's quick turn
around. In fact, the kinswoman seems to make sharp note of it. She lifts her
cup, not drinking from it just yet. She pointedly does not look at Salem.
"Thanks," says Salem, in clipped tones. He blows on the hot black liquid and
sips it, delicately.
Nicodemus shifts nervously in his chair, glances around the shop as if trying
to not look at or near the man sitting at the same table, and then reaches
into the depths of his jacket to retrieve a metal flask with a skull cap on
top. "Anyone else care for a hit?" Keeping the flask close to him so it
isn't blatantly obvious, he unscrews the container and adds a healthy shot
to his coffee.
Salem lifts an eyebrow, and then shrugs and pushes his cup slightly toward
Nick. "As long as you're offering..." He lets his voice trail off. Apart
from the aura of anger and feral promise of violence that lurks under his
flesh, he seems rather calm. At least, his voice remains even, and he
doesn't look like he's going to kill anyone in the next two minutes. Maybe
in a half hour, sure, but not the next two minutes.
Sally MacKay's answer is a smile and a, "Please." With the angle of the cop's
table from theirs, the chances are that she hasn't noticed they're bring
watched. She reaches to push her cup across the table to him, stretching
past Salem.
Nicodemus pours a measure for Salem first, then Sally, emptying the flask
entirely in the process. Upended over Sally's cup, he taps out the last
milliliter. "Now it really is good to the last drop." The comment might be
amusing if it didn't seem like the effort at humor was forced. The flask
disappears within his jacket.
Salem regards Nick for a moment, and then turns to Sally. "See?" His voice is
flat as he indicates Nick with a tilt of his head. "I told you. A curse."
Sally MacKay reaches back across for her cup, her lips flicking downwards at
his comment. Once she has it and she sits back up, she says in a tone that's
probably angrier than she intended it to be, "Well if you didn't fuckin'
tell people they were going to be running away from you, maybe they
wouldn't." She shoots Nick a look, "You going somewhere? Feel like running
out with your hands waving over your head?"
"Bullshit." Salem's voice rises sharply, anger sparking. "I don't have to
fucking _tell_ them. I mean, look!" He waves an arm, indicating the rest of
the donut shop, which by now has mysteriously emptied itself of almost all
of its customers.
Nicodemus, previously focused on his coffee cup, looks up at Salem's
mentioning of 'curse'. His gaze then moves away and towards Sally. He's
about to say something but keeps his mouth shut as the excitable Salem has
an outburst. He looks back at his coffee.
Sally MacKay doesn't look at the /whole/ rest of the donut shop, just the half
that enables her not to have to look at the angry Ahroun. Actually it's more
like she glares at it, then stares down angerly at the cup in her hand.
"And?" She throws the question at him without looking.
Salem tosses back a swallow of his alcohol-flavored coffee and swallows,
forcing the rage back, taking a few breaths to calm himself. "And nothing.
Forget it."
Nicodemus nervously pretends like nothing is happening, much like the way a
guest at another family's dinner table would ignore an unpleasant spat
between the hosts.
Sally MacKay's eyes lift towards his, anger almost covering the confusion,
distrust, and yeah, a touch of fear contained within them. " 'And nothing?
Forget it?'," she repeats back at him.
Salem swallows another mouthful of his special coffee. "Forget I mentioned
it." He changes subjects. "You're both students at the college?"
Sally does -not- look like she's about to go along with the quick subject
change. As his anger recedes, hers grows. With the exception of her tight
grip on the cup itself, her coffee goes ignored. She stares at Salem,
forehead furrowed and brows lowered, her mouth frowning.
Salem hisses air out through his teeth and turns on Sally, leaning forward
toward her. the anger's back, snapping forward with a cobra's speed. "What
the hell do you want me so say, Sally? 'Oh, sorry, I was just kidding, ha
ha, big joke'?"
Nicodemus waits for Sally to pick up the conversation with her friend. When
she fails to do so, he opens his mouth to speak and promptly closes it as
Salem and Sally continue their argument. Nick's gaze goes back to his coffee
and pretending like the pair isn't across the table from him.
The young blonde leans back at least as much as he leans forward, and almost
as quickly. She rips her eyes away from his, sending her angry look
elsewhere. "I want you to- I want-" She bats her hand at her coffee, almost
upending it instead of just causing some of it to slosh over the lip. "Oh
fuck you."
Salem tosses back a mouthful of his hot drink and sits back in his chair
again, staring at Sally with that same look of bitter desolation that Sally
saw on his face earlier today. "Oh, you don't mean that," he rasps,
bitingly. "Don't tease."
"I should probably give you two some privacy," Nicodemus says as he moves to
stand, leaving most of his coffee still in the cup and the chocolate covered
donut completely untouched. He looks like he wouldn't mind leaving the
store, but certainly doesn't look ready to throw his arms over his head and
run screaming.
Holding her anger around her like a shield, Sally's eyes go back to the Garou,
attempting to see if he purposefully misunderstood her words or not. Nick
gets a glare only a degree less than the ones she's been gracing Salem with,
and she nods before she goes back to pinpointing Salem with it. She looks
like she's daring him to say something about Nick leaving.
Salem's words were clearly a deliberate barb, born of anger and betrayed
pride. He watches Nick leave with a little grimace. "Tell me what the hell
you want from me, Sally, or tell me to get the hell out. But whichever you
pick, you better damned well mean it, because I'm getting royally sick of
this dancing back and forth."
Nicodemus parts without further fanfare, opening the shop's door and circling
around towards his car out front.
Sally MacKay's chin lifts, a tiny show of defiance in the face of his verbal
jab. "I want you to fuckin' tell me," emotions have lowered her voice, not
their setting. "I want to know what the hell you are and why you make people
run. I want to know," her tone adds what she does not give words to: she
needs to know.
Salem glances around the donut shop; except for the nervous lady behind the
counter, it's pretty much gone completely empty. Then he leans over,
lowering his voice, eyes burningly intent. "Fine. I'll tell you. But I
swear, Sally, that if you tell a single other living soul what I've told you
- if you tell _anyone_ that I told you, anyone at all - I swear that I will
hunt you down and kill you myself. Do you understand?"
Sally doesn't lean away as he draws closer to speak, though she doesn't move
nearer to catch his quiet words, either. Not until his threat does she
actually sit back in her seat, such a play of emotions across her expression
that the dash of added fear might almost be missed. Almost. She nods, a
single up and down movement of her head. "Tell me."
Salem takes another swallow of coffee, his hand shaking a bit with repressed
rage and a reluctance born of a lifetime. "I'm... a werewolf." There. He
said it. It's out. What's one more Litany law, more or less, right?
After he speaks Sally just sits there a moment, waiting for him to go on. The
corner of her mouth twitches upwards, and she raises her cup to sip at it as
if they were in the middle of a conversation about the weather. "A
werewolf?" she asks, and not surprisingly it doesn't sound like she totally
believes him.
Salem narrows his eyes slightly, gauging her reactiong and not entirely
pleased with it. "Yes," he says, shortly. "And I've probably just put by
neck into the hangman's noose just for telling you. And I didn't _have_ to
tell you. Clear?"
Sally MacKay's lips twitch again, and this time she loses the fight to keep
from smiling. After another drink, she rises and takes a long, slow
stretches, her arms straight out from her. Grabbing her coat from the back
of her chair, she puts it on as she steps around him. "Come on."
Salem pushes his chair out with a harsh scraping sound and rises, his motions
tight, nerves coiled, every muscle on edge as he moves to follow the blonde.
[Scene shift to an alley near the donut shop...]
Sally MacKay leads him out amd makes a left, then turns into the first alley
they come to. She steps carefully over bits of trash and around puddles of
... liquids, then stops once they reach the back of it. It's dim in the
deepening shadows of the evening, but there's still enough light for them to
see each other. "Show me," she says simply, her hands at her side and a
strangly amused look on her face.
Salem's eyes search her face, mouth set into a frown as he studies her. "What
makes you think I can change forms at will, hm?" He takes a step closer,
with the smooth motions of a wary, dangerous animal.
Sally MacKay's expression slips, then she catches it and forces it back into
place. The heel of one foot raises, though she doesn't actually start her
step back yet. "Lucky guess," she says, not even trying to make it sound
like that's true.
Salem snarls. "Bullshit." Faster than the eye can follow, almost, the tall
Garou has grabbed the human woman by the shoulder, shoving her up roughly
against the wall and pinning her there, his anger-distorted face thrust
right up to hers. "How much do you know?"
Sally MacKay's lips draw back as she's grabbed, but unlike his snarl, hers is
a clear expression of fear. Either that emotion or just the suddeness of his
actions keeps her from struggling at first. She turns her face away from
his, totally unaware that the action flashes throat in a display not
dissimilar to the one her shifting cousins use. "I know," the words are
forced out in a fear-tight voice.
Salem's breath is hot against her skin, panting with the struggle to keep the
beast within at bay. His grip tightens, holding the young woman against the
filthy alley wall. "Have you been playing me for a fool all this time?" Rage
whirls behind his dark eyes, which seem to flash yellow in the
semi-darkness, catching and reflecting the light of nearby neon. "What are
you? _Who_ are you? Who told you about us?" The questions snap out at her,
one after another like snarling dogs.
She flinches away from each little movement of his: his sharp breath, the
tightening of his hands, then each question in turn, but the wall behind her
is unforgiving and there's nowhere for Sally to go. Her eyes close tightly
as she exclaims, "I didn't know what you were!" She jerks, trying to free
herself of his hands' grips. "And I saw, so they told me." She stops
speaking as if finished, then she quickly adds, "I'm Kin!"
Salem abruptly lets Sally go, almost violently; he'd shove her away if not for
the wall. Swearing in virilent Serbian, the Garou turns, taking a half-step
away from the kinswoman and slamming his fist into the side of a dumpster -
once, twice, three times, his face twisted with unthinking, unreasoning
rage, just steps away from frenzy. At the third strike, there's a sickening
*crunch*, and the rusted metal dents. But afterwords, Salem is still,
leaning against the dumpster and breathing raggedly, his knuckles covered
with blood, probably broken.
Without a single thought of saving the poor, innocent dumpster, Sally stumbles
back, away from the seething Garou. And she doesn't stop with just a foot or
two. Backing, her widened eyes never leaving him, she half-walks,
half-stumbles towards the street. She's almost back within its light when he
stops. So does she. Her own breath coming fast now she's tensed, ready to
run. She watches him.
"I told you it was a curse." Salem's voice is hoarse and ragged, his back to
the kinswoman. She could run easily, escape and vanish into the street
before he can turn around and reach the end of the alley. "And I told you
that I didn't ask for it. I didn't want it."
"I didn't know," Sally's words don't exactly sound like an apology, more like
an explanation. She lets the quiet draw out, perhaps long enough to make him
think that she left. Then: "You okay?"
Salem turns around slightly, enough so that Sally can see his broken,
blood-covered hand. His face is tight with pain. "In a moment." He lowers
his head, concentrating, and slowly the hand transforms - just the hand. It
grows larger, the forearm with it, and somehow, the sleeve of the duster
still fits. The nails thicken, almost like claws, and coarse black hair
appears on the knuckles and the back of the hand. Salem's breathing evens, a
steady in and out as the transformed hand heals itself, the bones
re-knitting and the breaks in the skin closing up.
It's not the broken and bloody hand that turns Sally's face away, it's the
shifting of it. At first she tries just watching his face, but that's not
enough and she looks off to the side, tension running high again as she
waits for some signal that he's done.
Salem releases his concentration, and the hand reverts back to normal, the
skin bloodied but whole. He flexes his fingers, opening and closing them,
and then looks over at Salem, his dark features obscured by shadow.
"Obviously," he says quietly, "they didn't tell you everything."
Sally shrugs a little, more of just a tightening and releasing of her
shoulders than anything else. She doesn't disagree. Eying the hand which,
barring the blood, now looks normal again, she watches it warily as if it
were now somehow more dangerous than the rest of him. Then she drags her
eyes back up to his face, doing nothing to decrease the physical distance
between them.
Salem, for his part, doesn't do anything to decrease that distance either,
though he does pull a rumpled handkerchief from his coat pocket and use it
to wipe the blood from the back of his hand. "You'll find that they _won't_
tell you everything," he says in an even tone. "They'll tell you the good
things, the nice things, the noble things. They won't tell you about the
dishonor, the mistakes, the dirty laundry." He tilts his head slightly. "I
can tell you those things, if you want. If you can promise never to let on
where your information came from."
Even with the distance and the poor lighting, the spark of interest in Sally's
eyes could be seen. She nods, "Everything sounded too good: 'Save the
world', 'Stop pollution', 'Keep the streets safe', they never said anything
/else/." Though the wariness, the tension, the distrust does not leave her
expression, Sally takes a single step towards him.
Salem continues to lean against the dumpster, letting the kinswoman approach
on her own terms. He nods once. "Nothing's ever that perfect, no." He lifts
his head a bit, looks consideringly at her. "Do you swear, then, to keep
everything I tell you a secret? Even from the others... like me? My might
kill me, if they knew." A cynical smirk curves one side of his mouth
upwards. "My life's shit, but I don't want to die just yet."
His words draw Sally back towards him, slowly, oh yes, and still with that
same lack of trust, but she keeps moving. "I won't say anything," she agrees
as she nears the half-way point between them, stopping just before reaching
it. Her blonde eyebrows raise as a question occurs to her, "Why?" She
gestures at him with her chin, "Why tell me if they'd kill you for it?"
Salem tilts his head, as if considering the question within himself. Finally,
he shrugs. "Because I promised I would, and because..." He pauses, scowling
a bit. "Maybe honor still means something." Judging by the sardonic acidity
of his tone in those last few words, he doesn't quite believe that of
himself. "Maybe it's because I'm an outsider, and I can see things more...
clearly... than they can. Maybe I just like breaking rules."
It's probably that last point that wins Sally over, or at least it draws an
amused sound from her. "Yeah, okay, cool. I won't tell anyone." She tosses
her hair back, and with that simple gesture, the tension seems gone from her
stance and expression. She doesn't put voice to her question, but she does
take a glance at the newly-healed hand before she asks, "Wanna go get a
drink or something?"
Salem straightens slowly, running fingers through his hair to push it away
from his face. The rage has subsided now, at least taking a background role,
visible but not as prominant. "Sounds like a plan."
"Cool," the kinswoman repeats, waiting for him to join her before heading out
of the alley.