Getting Clean

[hazlogs]

DATE:  Monday, April 13, 1998
Place:  Holland Place: Salem's Apartment

JJ Malone comes down the hallway of the rundown apartments, stopping at 
   Salem's door. Forgoing the doorbell, even if there is one, he knocks/pounds 
   on the door authoritatively, first.
No answer.
JJ Malone knocks again, equally loudly.
It takes several such poundings before the sound of movement can be faintly 
   heard beyond the door. A few clicks herald the opening of bolts and locks, 
   and then the door jerks open, restrained by the chain. Backgrounded by 
   darkness and lit only by the bulb from the hallway, Salem's face looks 
   hollow and stark, his eyes shadowed. "What."
JJ Malone's mouth compresses into a thin line. "I've been standing out here in 
   the hall for *10* minutes."
"Sorry," Salem rasps. He sounds like hell. He looks even worse. "This isn't a 
   good time."
JJ Malone puts hands on his hips; he must be glaring at the Ronin from behind 
   his sunglasses. "You haven't been answering your phone, either. When *is* a 
   good time."
Salem shifts his weight slightly; he seems to be leaning most of his weight 
   against the doorjamb. "Few days," he says hoarsely.
JJ Malone's eyebrows go up, beginning to scowl as the little things in Salem's 
   appearance begin to add up. "Why?" he asks sharply.
Salem avoids the Walker's eyes, or where one would assume his eyes to be 
   anyway, though he does it in a sullen, angry sort of way. The rage is 
   there, but staggering like a crippled bear. He doesn't answer.
JJ Malone draws himself up to his full height, drawing on the veneer of 
   civilization like a visible mantle. "Mr. Salem," he says politely but 
   low-pitched. "I think, given the circumstances, I'm entitled to know why I 
   must wait a few days. This isn't a few minutes, or a few hours."
Salem grimaces, then mutters a thick word in Serbian. The door closes slightly 
   as he reaches up to undo the chain, and then lurches open. He makes a 'come 
   in' gesture, lips compressed into a thin line.
JJ Malone comes in, waits for the door to close, then drops the veneer much 
   like a cloak onto a puddle under his feet. He scowls once more, letting 
   anger show now that it isn't in a public hallway. "Why?" he repeats. "What 
   the hell have you been doing the last week?"
The door closes with a *slam*. Salem's back turns halfway toward the Walker as 
   he fumbles at the locks, one after the other. "It's nothing," he rasps.
"You look worse than I did on Wednesday morning," JJ says flatly, utter 
   refusal to believe his words in it.
"It'll pass." Still avoiding the Walker's gaze, Salem moves toward the kitchen 
   and drops into a chair. A small light burns from the bedroom, but the 
   windowshades are drawn and closed against the afternoon light.
JJ Malone half-walks, half-stalks across the apartment, following him. "Did 
   you run into something? Or is it some effect of what happened last week?" 
   he demands tenaciously.
Salem grabs at a crumpled pack of cigarettes on the kitchen table and lights 
   up with shaking hands. Unwashed hair hangs over his forehead and in front 
   of one eye. "Neither," he says, clearly unwilling to elaborate.
"Jesus H," JJ snaps out as he rakes his gaze over the Ronin. "Look at 
   yourself. Look at this *place*--" he cuts off as he looks around the place 
   and looks towards the open bedroom door. He swallows convulsively once, 
   looking stricken, a look quickly supplanted by ice-white rage. Even faster 
   than Salem's vaunted speed, the Glass Walker shifts up to glabro, grabs 
   Salem by the shirt front in one hand and throat in the other, and drags him 
   the short distance to a wall to slam him up against it. "What're you on you 
   fucking son of a bitch!" he hisses in a tone all the more intense because 
   of its volume. It's definitely the most angry Salem's ever seen him.
The cigarette drops from Salem's fingers and hits the floor in a spray of gray 
   and orange ash. His throat convulses in the huge grip, lips peeling back 
   from his teeth in a skull-like grimace. His fingers close over the meaty 
   fist encircling his throat, pulling at them. "Do you want the street name," 
   he spits, voice half-choked, "or the fucking chemical formula?"
Shades slams Salem's head against the wall with a reverberating thump of 
   anger, squeeze tightening. "Don't *fuck* with me, Ronin! Were you high last 
   Tuesday? Is that why you acted like a fucking *cub*?"
Salem snarls as pain explodes somewhere behind his eyes, his nails thickening. 
   The shift doesn't quite bear fruit, though; it's still struggling under the 
   chemical chain -- a chain that is, however, starting to erode. "I wasn't," 
   he rasps, finally. "I only take the shit when the moon's full."
Shades's temper is visibly fraying, bouncing his head again against the wall. 
   "No good!" His hand tightens reflexively, probably threatening to crush 
   delicate tissues and bones, before he suddenly recoils sharply, releasing 
   Salem's throat and moving several feet back. The fraying has stayed, rage 
   being held in by a thread; he scowls at him with black anger and contempt 
   co-mingled, pulling out his gun and cocking it. Then waits to see how Salem 
   reacts.
Salem slides down along the wall, coughing, and sits on the floor with a 
   thump. His skin's gone pale, a cold sweat beading up on his forehead. He 
   glances up and stares darkly down the muzzle of the gun. "The hell you 
   will," he rasps, struggling to his feet. His crippled rage lurches forward, 
   snapping its chains link by link, and with a snarl, the junk-sick Ronin 
   lunges for the gun, his form contorting upward -- into Glabro, then into 
   Crinos.
Shades snarls in return, barely managing *not* to shift, before he squeezes a 
   shot off at the charging crinos, at this close a range, aiming around the 
   area where femur meets pelvis.
Dark One collapses in a spray of shattered bone and blood, and a choked, 
   snarling bark of pain. Curved black talons rake furrows in the floor as he 
   struggles to rise again, golden eyes rolling within the sockets, muzzle 
   slathered with white foam.
Shades walks within mere feet of him, cocks the trigger back once more and 
   points it directly at his head. Breathing heavily and muscles cording with 
   the effort to keep his own temper in check, he says lowly, hoarsely, and 
   with deadly earnestness, "If you don't settle down right now, I'm going to 
   shoot you like I would a rabid dog."
Another thick snarl bubbles out of the black-furred beast, and then he drops 
   struggling and rolls over onto his back. The golden eyes, only half-aware, 
   gaze upwards at the Walker with the gun, and the broad chest heaves as he 
   sucks in breath after panting breath.
Shades sidles over a side-step to keep his aim as straight at Dark One's 
   forehead as possible, but otherwise doesn't change: not his posture, not 
   his expression, not his mood. He waits, surrounded by a black, intangible 
   miasma of potential violence.
Dark One squeezes his eyes shut and then, with a grunt, reverts back to human 
   form, face contorted into a grimace of pain. Almost immediately, blood 
   begins to soak through the fabric covering the shattered hip.
Dark One shifts into Homid form.
Shades watches the shift impassively, then asks, "Submit?" It's probably one 
   of the most formal phrases Salem's heard JJ use.
Salem tips his head back slightly, baring his throat. "Yes," he rasps.
Shades uncocks the gun and slides it back into the holster under his jacket 
   before shifting down to homid. He peels off his jacket and drops it over 
   the back of the nearest chair, then moves around to the side with the 
   wound, and pauses. "This might be easier if you were out," he says with no 
   explanation.
Salem spits out something really foul-sounding in Serbian and lies still, his 
   throat still bared.
JJ Malone snarls in return. "Either that or I can leave here to bleed to 
   death, you stupid mother-fucker."
"Do what you want," Salem rasps, with equal parts venom an resignation. "Do... 
   whatever... the hell... you want."
JJ Malone hauls back and clocks him on the chin, then.
Salem's eyes roll back, and he's out.
JJ Malone tries to keep the flowing blood off his clothes as he uses fingers 
   to gently dig into the wound to extract the bullet, tossing it into the 
   sink with a metallic clatter. Using the already bloody coat as a bandage, 
   he uses the belt to tie a wad of the fabric over the wound tightly to 
   create pressure. He drags the bleeding ronin into the bathroom and 
   manhandles him into the tub, applying pressure with a hand until the 
   bleeding has at least eased. While Salem's still out, he goes back into the 
   bedroom and gathers up as much of the drug paraphanelia as possible, 
   dumping the powder down the toilet, destroying the rest as totally as 
   possible. Once done, he goes back into the kitchen to get a glass of water 
   and returns to the bathroom, sitting on the toilet stool, and slapping 
   Salem's face lightly. "Wake up, Tinkerbell. You need to shift."
Salem mutters another curse as he comes to. He fixes the Glass Walker with a 
   baleful brown eye and then shifts upwards, transforming slowly.
Salem shifts into Glabro form.
JJ Malone offers the glass out. "Here. Drink this." Despite the now-casual 
   tone, it's unmistakably an order.
Salem seems, for the moment, docile -- even if it's a sullen, sour, angry sort 
   of docile. He takes the glass and drinks, slowly.
"If I'd known you were doing drugs," JJ goes on in a similar tone, casual only 
   thinly masking the deadly intent underlying it, "I wouldn't have heard you 
   past 'I want to join'. Now, though, even though you're not a Glass Walker 
   yet, I feel a certain amount of responsibility for you. And that's why I'm 
   about to tell you what I am."
Salem takes another swallow of water, watching Malone from the corner of his 
   eye. Silent.
JJ Malone's tone still doesn't alter, as he says, "You're going to kick this 
   habit if you're going to stay in St. Claire. Regardless of whether or not 
   you join the Family. You'll be clean from this day out every moment you're 
   in the city, or, by Gaia," and there is the reverent solemnity of a holy 
   oath in his tone at this part, "I'll kill you. I and every Glass Walker 
   here will hunt you down like the rabid *dog*," contempt, "you'd be and cull 
   you. You may think drugs help you with the anger, but it doesn't. All it is 
   is an open invitation for the Wyrm to set up house. You're a threat not 
   only to yourself but to what you *supposedly* stand for. And to us. One 
   day, you'll do something you can never undo, and we'd have to kill you 
   anyway." His voice by this point is shaking with anger, raw with the 
   emotion, utter conviction in the lines of his face.
Salem studies the water in his half-empty glass. He moves it toward his lips, 
   and then, abruptly, sets the glass aside. "I see." His voice is tight and 
   hollow.
The casualness is burned away by intensity. "*Do* you?"
Salem grits his teeth. "Yes."
JJ Malone presses on unmercifully. "Then you're going to quit?"
Salem's right hand opens and closes slowly, his face tight with anger and 
   humiliation. "Yes."
"Your word of honor, ahroun?" JJ asks, tone suddenly soft, too soft for the 
   burning intensity in his expression. Salt in the wound.
Salem flashes a hateful glance up at the Walker and then looks away. "My word 
   of honor."
JJ Malone continues to look back at the Ronin levelly for several heavy 
   seconds, then says more relaxed, "Drink your water. You lost a lot of 
   blood." He pushes to his feet and heads out of the bathroom to the main 
   part of the apartment, scrounging around for cleaning supplies.
Salem grunts acknowledgement and takes up the glass again, sipping slowly, his 
   eyes fixed broodingly on the mildewed tile.
JJ Malone, after finding nothing of the sort, checks his boots and clothes for 
   any traces of Salem's blood, wiping some off his boots. Satisfied, he calls 
   out, "I'll be back," then heads out the front door, making sure it's 
   unlocked.
Salem offers up no word of farewell. He's probably sulking.
JJ Malone returns after about 20 minutes to a half an hour, by the sound of 
   things, lugging something unwieldly in. "Just me," is the only thing he 
   says, then goes into the kitchen, where the sounds of someone preparing to 
   then beginning to scrub the floor begin to issue.
"Fine." Salem is, by sound, still in the bathroom, and probably still sulking.
JJ Malone is out there again, for a while, without checking on him, probably 
   another half hour to 45 minutes. The bucket is emptied and refilled at 
   least three times during that. He finally materializes as he follows the 
   trail of blood to the bathroom, getting up to where the linoleum begins, 
   before leaving off.
Salem watches JJ in dour silence, the empty glass held trapped within curled 
   fingers. He doesn't seem to have moved an inch from the bathtub.
JJ Malone plucks the glass from his fingers, refills it, and hands it back 
   full. "Your apartment's clean. I refuse to stay in a sty."
Salem takes the glass without protest and brings it halfway to his lips before 
   pausing to study the Walker with a frown. "You're staying? Here?"
"How long you ever been off the shit?" the Glass Walker asks, meeting question 
   with question.
Salem grimaces. "Two months. I missed the moon on Febuary." He gulps back the 
   water, throat convulsing as he swallows.
JJ Malone looks highly dubious, but says, "Then you know what withdrawl's 
   like." It seems enough explanation for his reasons, to him.
Salem looks up, smiling humorlessly, and with a hint of that insufferable 
   arrogance. "Every. Fucking. Month."
JJ Malone smiles mirthlessly. "Masochistic bastard," he says pleasently, with 
   his own measure of cocksureness, turning and leaving on nothing more. There 
   is the sound of him going into the kitchen and doing something, then the 
   smell of food cooking coming out of the ancient oven.