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Log Title: First Fix
Setting: Playground
A smallish playground, almost entirely dominated by things made of
wood. A wooden castle is here, a wooden pirate ship. All large, with
swings and ladders and secret places to hide in. A swingset, and a
jungle gym is on the other side, near the large pit of sand with
discarded trucks and buckets.
The place is ringed with huge trees, almost the width of redwoods, which have cracked the concrete in places, as if they grew up overnight. In a circle grows a small patch of pumpkins, and the grass is almost knee high. In an arc, like a rainbow, is a patch of beautiful flowers of all kinds. Roses and vines twine up the swingset. Apples litter the ground, having dropped from above.. and when you look above, you see all kinds of fruit growing up there. Peaches, apples, lemons... strange.
Log Cast:
Jean-Batiste
Trace
Rosie
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Rosie squirms out of some bushes.
Rosie tumbles out of one of the bushes with a soft eep, scrambling up to
her feet and quickly brushing off her jacket.
Trace groans a little as he starts to stir towards something closer to awake. Wooden boards do not make a kind mattress, he is realizing, though it didn't bother him in the slightest last night... His eyes crack open just slightly, and he mumbles incoherantly as he turns a little and winces at his sore muscles from sleeping in such a position on the hard surface of the castle's platform.
Jean-Batiste and Trace are up on the wooden castle, upon one of the platforms. Batiste is sitting up, leaned back against a couple planks, reading from a black-covered sketchbook and looking somewhere between dazed and thoughtful. Now and again he looks to Trace, who is covered with one of his flannels. Seeing the blue-haired boy trying to wake up, he murmurs, "Rise and shine..."
Rosie digs into one pocket of her jacket, and pulls out.. nothing. A vaguely round-shaped nothing, which she holds, and starts to pantomime eating as she gazes off into the trees absently. Probably she just doesn't realise that she isn't the only one on the playground yet.
Trace cranes his head around to peer up at Jean-Batiste with half-asleep, slitted eyes. "Mmm.... 'lo Batiste..." He mumbles, and pushes against the wood with his hands, reaching an almost sorta half upright position. "What time'zit?" He shifts his weight to one hand, rubbing at his eyes with the other.
Jean-Batiste makes a big deal out of looking up at the sky and pretending to test the direction of the shadow an outstretched arm makes. "I think it's..." He trails off, looking back to Trace with a grin. "Daytime." He grins a little, and digs in his backpack, producing a bottle of water. Not actual, like, bottled water, but a bottle refilled from a fountain somewhere. "You thirsty?"
Words direct Rosie's attention to the wooden castle, wandering her gaze over to it and peering, discerning the occupants there. Whups... playground occupied! But she lingers for a moment, chewing on her invisible whatever, head tipped, watching. A sad, wistful expression settles over her face, eyes turning down at the corners, mouth smiling sadly.
Trace bobs his head a bit, now getting himself in a fully upright sitting position, legs tucked to one side, partly beneath him. "Yeah, thanks," he mumbles, reaching for the bottle and drudging up something close to a smile. Close as he can get to one immediately after waking and pre-fix, anyway.
The bottle is full of New Orleans '01 - a fine year for water, truly. Batiste glances around restlessly, then smiles wearily at Trace, watching him drink and dredge up a return smile. "How are you feeling?" he asks, rubbing his own bony shoulders in remembered aches. "Next time, we do this somewhere better to crash, deal?" He chuckles weakly.
Rosie's attention lingers on the scene of the two young men for a moment, silently from afar. So much affected, for some reason, that she even forgets her invisible snack. Then suddenly, without prompting, she turns on her heel and hurries away from the playground, leather coat flaring out behind her.
Trace rolls his shoulders, part shrug, but also an attempt to work out the tense muscles there. "M'okay. But my back and stuff hurts some, and I gotta go home just for a second, but I'll be back out again..." He rubs away the rest of the sleep from his eyes, then looks around, realizing, "Where's Jason?"
Jean-Batiste jostles his shoulders in a shrug, and reaches for his flannel off the plank floor. "He had to go, he said. Something he had to do, or meet some people, or something. He left a couple hours ago." Rubbing his hair, he starts to shrug on his flannel, then asks Trace, "You cold?" He offers the dirty piece of clothing out.
Rosie heads back to Lelong Avenue.
Trace shakes his head a little, "Nah, s'cool... Thanks though. And also for, uh, lettin me use it as a blanket I guess..." This second smile is shyer, and doesn't take much effort to drudge up. He glances down towards the bushes. "What you wanna do today? I wanna hold off on the mural thing til' Jason's around to play like he said he would. That'd be cool.." He starts to push up, raising from his sitting position into sort of a crouch, before a thought occurs to him. "You, uh, wanna come with me? Gotta huge stash after that dancing thing, then the mural... Sharin's no problem."
Jean-Batiste shakes his head a little as he starts to pull it on. "The sun was out for a while, and I was awake already, and you were shivering...no problem. Just let's do this on the ground, next time, that's all. Grass is way softer." He chuckles, and starts gathering up his things, getting ready to follow after you. He looks back at you as he straightens, uncertain. "Well...uh, if...you don't mind? I...haven't fixed in a long time." He rubs his upper arms, looking away. "Don't have my own needle anymore or anything..."
Trace grins a little, before moving over to the ladder and starting down. "I second that. Or even better, a real mattress.. I hope we get to do that motel thing. And, uh, about the needle, s'not a problem. You can use mine. I got bleach 'n stuff in there, and I know how to sterilize it... Friend taught me. It's fine..." He hops down to the ground, and dusts at his hands and rubs them a bit, a brisk, somewhat nervous gesture.
"Sure, we'll do that before Mardi Gras's over," Batiste promises you as he watches you climb down, then starts down the ladder after you. "I still got most of my money left, and with the money we'll get the next time we do that, we'll have plenty to spare. Maybe end up crashing out for two nights at a motel, depending how good we do." He hops off the second to last rung, and dusts himself off, then moves to follow you towards the bushes, seeming a bit nervous as well.
Trace starts the crawl in, moving away branches without much problem. He seems to have figured out by this point which ones pull away the easiest. Trace gets down on hands and knees, crawling into a clutch of thick bushes. Trace has left.
Getting down on hands and knees, you crawl into a clutch of thick bushes.
Fort
This small area has been created using pieces of wood and plastic
garbage bags, even a few large boxes. All and all it's a nice little
secluded spot where it seems someone is staying on a regular basis.
There's a single mattress set against the far 'wall', that looks to have
seen better days. It's stained and has a few ratty old blankets thrown
atop it, as well as an old pillow.
Artwork is strewn EVERYWHERE: on the back of old flyers, scribbled on napkins, and even the occasional sketch done on actual drawing paper. Tacked to the wood, littering the floor, it's hard to avoid. There's a sketch of an elderly woman, huddled on a bench, with sad, sad eyes... There's one of a local street boy wearing a ballcap, his bony shoulders hunched against the cold (easily recognized as Jean-Batiste, if you know the boy). Other strange objects are scattered about the dirt floor here; a pair of bent, blackened spoons, a small bottle of bleach, and some pieces of dirty, brown-crusted tin foil.
This little hidey-hole isn't a place where grown-ups can fit very well. Looks like it was made for shorter people. Unless you value art or need to bleach some socks, there's really nothing out in the open that anyone would miss should someone wish to take it.
Jean-Batiste crawls in, bringing along a couple blades of grass - the dead, boring kind - and some equally dead, equally boring leaves. He carefully clears a path through the artwork, stacking some of it in a neat pile, then tries to decide where to sit. He finally gestures awkwardly towards the edge of the mattress and asks, "Is it okay..?"
"Yeah, sure." Trace sits down at the very foot of the old mattress, leaving you plenty of room to pick any edge you like. He reaches down and picks up a somewhat thick, red candle that's about half-way burned down. "You got a lighter... light that for me, will ya?" He tosses it onto the bed behind him and tugs up the denim on his left leg to the knee. He works off the tourniquet and frees the small needle, setting them on the bed as well. He scans the floor again.
Jean-Batiste nods to you, and locates his little plastic lighter, crouching down in front of the candle to light it up and draw it back a ways towards you. "You..." He pauses, coughing a couple of times, then clears his throat. "You gonna cook it up all at once?" he asks. His fingers knit together in his lap, untangling and retangling several times as he watches you, and one foot taptaptaps quietly upon the floor.
Trace takes just a few more moments to gather together the rest of his kit, answering casually as he starts this, "Nah. Do yours, then mine. Don't know how much you take a hit, but if we share one spoon, that's not gonna keep me straight long at all.." He takes the cleanest of the two spoons on the floor, as well as the bleach and a water bottle. The last item is a cotton ball from a small bag that was tucked away behind one of the many flaps of cardboard. Lastly, the stash itself, hidden in a can tucked behind another board. He seats himself on the ground now, tossing a few pictures out of his way carelessly and goes about sterilizing the first. The plunger goes out, and he carefully pours in the bleach, not spilling a drop, because this stuff isn't all that cheap! Then he puts the plunger back in place, though not compressed, and hands it to you. "You're goin' first. So shake that and count to ninety. I'll cook for ya." He reaches for the candle.
Jean-Batiste picks up the needle very cautiously, as if it was a soap bubble that was about to burst, and just stares at it for a second. Then another. About five or six seconds later, he starts slightly and says, "Oh, uh. Yeah, okay." He starts shaking up the needle, head bowed a little as he counts in his head, toes fidgeting for his occupied hands. He doesn't watch you at first, then gives in to his curiousity and turns his face towards you, teeth plucking strips of skin off his bottom lip. "How long have you been fixing?" he asks softly.
"'Bout a year," Trace admits, as he sets the candle in front of him, then uses the spoon to scoop out an unselfish amount. Not a cheap tar, but not pure white either... "brown sugar". "How long since your last?" he asks casually, placing it over the flame. His hand trembles just a little, but for the most part, he's pretty calm about it, considering. The boy takes the water bottle at this point and lets some water dribble into the spoon. he sets the bottle down and glances up to check your progress with the bleach-filled needle. "You can dump that out now. Fill it with this and shake it some more." He tosses the bottle up to you.
Jean-Batiste's eyes widen a little, and he stops shaking the syringe up for a moment. "A year?" He realizes he's staring, and looks away, shaking the syringe a few more times for good meaasure before following your directions and emptying, refilling, and reshaking the needle. He seems quite torn for what to say, then finally murmurs, "You're doing really good, if you've been on it a year already. Lot of people don't take to it well." He shrugs a bit, chewing on his lip more. "Been about...three months, I guess? No, two months. I cleaned up for a while, around my birthday, while I was out on the coast."
"Holy shit," Trace blinks, looking up at you with a grin. "Two months? Damn, boy, I wish I was you right now... After two months clean, this is gonna feel soooo good. Oh my GOD..." He just smiles and shakes his head with envy. Once the granules melt into a liquid, and then start to bubble a bit, he takes the needle back from you and uses the point to stir it up a bit. He pulls it away from the flame and sets it down VERY carefully. The spoon is bent so that it can lay flat and spill nothing, of course. He wipes the needle's tip off on his jeans then, and sticks it out to squirt the water out near the edge of a "wall", away from any artwork. He takes the cotten ball and tears off a small piece, rolling it into a shape about the size of a tic-tac. He drops it into the mix on the spoon, and watches it swell up with the liquid. Then the needle is stuck right into the center of the cotton ball, and he sucks the drug up through that. "Filters it," he explains quietly. "Cleans it up some. Never know what shit they're gonna put in street junk."
Nervousness practically thrums through Batiste's frame - he grins at you crookedly, and forces out a sigh, then looks down and rubs at the back of his neck. "Yeah, I know it is. I...it's been..." He struggles with the words. "It's been a long time." He swallows, and looks up at you again. His fingers tangle up together, and he laughs softly at himself. "I'm nervous," he murmurs, as if it'll help himself calm down. Think of something else, he tells himself. "I used to use cheesecloth," he comments.
Trace stands up and moves to sit beside you on the bed. "Where you want it? Right arm..? Or wanna do it yourself?" He wouldn't offer to mainline the left, since that's the easiest place to reach when you're fixing yourself. Therefore, veins in the left arm are the quickest to get blown out.
Jean-Batiste swallows again, Adam's apple bobbing. He looks down at his
knotted up fingers, then up at you, and starts to roll up the sleeve on
his right arm. He fumbles it a couple of times. Nervous, nervous. "No,
you do it..." he murmurs very softly. "It's been too long, I'd miss
it..." As he finishes rolling his sleeve up, he looks like he's about to
get up and bolt for a second - just as quickly as the urge seemed to
strike him, it vanishes again, attention fixated on the needle.
Jean-Batiste's right arm has only a modest collection of track scars,
but no scabs. Maybe he really -has- been off the junk for a couple
months. He holds his arm awkwardly, trying to hide the scar angled
across his wrist. He gives up when he realizes how stupid it must look,
and just holds still.
Trace tries an encouraging smile, though his own impatient need is bright in his hazel eyes. "Don't be so jumpy... You'll be feelin' real good in just a second. Better'n me. Two months! Geezus... You're SO lucky..." Putting the plastic barrel part of the syringe in his mouth for a moment as he snatches up the tourniquet and fastens it tight around your upper arm. Then he presses at the veins a bit, judging where would be best. Whatever he sees in the crook of your arm, something satisfies him, and he doesn't delay much longer, setting the needle down against your skin, not piercing yet... "Tell me if you can't feel the burn right... But this should get it." He pushes it in gently, holds a moment, then draws the plunger back to check for that dark red blossom of blood. "Looks good..." he mumbles, brow creased tensely. He glances up for an expression of confirmation that he's got a vein before giving you the fix.
Jean-Batiste draws in the tiniest little gulp of breath when blood ribbons into the needle, his heart doing a flipflop inside of his ribcage. "Uhhh..." he murmurs, swallowing down another gulp of breath. Finally, he breathes out like a prayer, "Yeah. S'good." Lips parted, he stares down at the needle, forgetting to breathe.
"Shhh..." Trace grins at you, and pushes down the plunger. "Don't be scared, in it goes... No problem, see?" He watches your expression hungrily.
About five seconds, five forevers, too late, Batiste murmurs, "I shouldn't..." Shouldn't what, Batiste? Shouldn't feel this good? His face starts to go slack, tensions and remembered nightmares draining out of him like rain washing ink off a page. He swallows again, then looks up into your face with a lost, transfixed expression. "Oh, god," he breathes.
Trace just nods, still grinning. "Good, yeah? Yeah..." He gently eases the needle from your arm and then gives your cheek a gentle pat. "Yeah... My turn." He sits down and starts the sterilizing process over again, but keeps his eyes on you whenever he can. His hands are hasty. He does spill the bleach this time, just a few drops, but the ritual isn't nearly so smooth this time. He cheats a bit, just shaking sixty seconds for both bleach and water, trying to make up for it by just shaking extra hard.
Jean-Batiste bows his head just a little when you pat his cheek, bumping his cheek back against your fingers. "Oh, god..." he repeats, sounding like he's about to laugh and cry at once. He stares back down at his arm, then wipes the bead of blood away and sucks it slowly off his thumb. He looks...lost, and getting lost-er by the second. Enraptured. It wouldn't be hard to imagine him seeing God right now. He wipes at his arm again, slower, fixating on the smear of pink he leaves against his pale skin. Looking up at you with pinpricked eyes, he says in barely a whisper, "Go on..."
After what seems like an eternity for Trace, he gets his own share
cooked and loaded. He moves to sit on the bed again, watching you for a
few heartbeats. Two whole months! Lucky bastard... He grins and tsks,
holding the needle in his mouth for a moment to get himself tied off.
Left arm. His hands are all trembly right now, and though it'll probably
be hard to find a good vein, better to stab at himself a bit then try to
do this with his left hand... He just doesn't have the concentration for
it right now. He slaps at his ditch sharply and prods at a vein that
looks somewhat promising with both expertise and impatience. Pushes in,
pulls back... And hisses at the 'wrong' feeling, confirming it when the
yellow-brown liquid shows no change in color. "Dammit!" He pulls out and
tries again, a bead of sweat trickling down from his hairline. Pushes
in, pulls the stopper back... That caught. He knew it even before
pulling blood. He gasps with relief and pushes down the stopper, eyes
locked on the mix as it shinks, twisting down into his bloodstream...
After a moment, he mumurs, "Ummmmnnnnhh..." And lets his head fall back,
working the needle out gently. A smile creeps out, pulls his lips back,
and he lowers his head again and crawls toward the bed.
Trace claws his way up onto the mattress and flops down beside you, and
tugs at the tourniquet. It takes him a minute or so to work it free of his arm.
Jean-Batiste stares at you, just as eager for your expression as you seemed for his a minute before, as you shoot up. He smiles at you, all lazy and contorted, and laughs way at the back of his throat, where it doesn't take a lot of energy to do it. He turns around, watching as you climb onto the mattress, then melts down towards the mattress himself, reaching over boneless fingers to help you pluck at the tourniquet, murmuring dreamily, "Here, I'll help..." His 'help' is probably the reason it takes you a minute to get the thing off. He stays there, balanced precariously on his side, propped on his shoulder, grinning foolishly at you.
Trace returns your grin with bright, dazed eyes locked on yours... You've seen him on it before of course -- hell, the only time the boy's head is clean is when he's flat broke -- but right after the fix, it's the only time you'd ever see such rapture on his face. Every crease in his brow, every line of worry is smoothed away, and he just seems so peaceful. "Mmm..," he smiles. "Let's stay here awhile. Don't... wanna walk yet."
Jean-Batiste stares down at you, still grinning foolishly, then starts to leeean towards you. He giggles breathily, then rolls over the other way, the back of his head bouncing gently against the mattress once, then laying still. Watching the plastic and wood ceiling with lazy eyes drooped to half-mast, he murmurs, "Couldn't." So eloquent, Batiste. He leaves his right arm dangling out, flopping his left hand against his stomach. Absently, he rubs his belly, then giggles breathily again. M'm, m'm, good, as Campbell's Soup would say.
"How... How'd you stay off two months anyway?" By Trace's tone, it comes out more like he's asking 'why', and he asks it with a sound of mirth that's too slow for his usual giggle. Guess that'd make it a chuckle. But needless to say, the very idea is impossible for him to conceive, especially in his current beautiful state. "God..."
Jean-Batiste rubs his belly some more, because, by God, something magic has happened to his skin. He counts ridges on his fingertips as he rubs them over the dirty cotton, gets to about seventy-three and decides it's a funny number, and stops to laugh gently again. "This is so -good-," he breathes, as if he needed to remind you. "Ohmygod..." He decides to untuck his shirt, and rest his hand against his bare stomach, and has to just lay there a while, soaking in the feel of that. "I don't know how I did, I shouldn't have..." he rambles dreamily, "but I had to, I promised Martin I'd ...be clean for my birthday..." He rubs his stomach again, slower. "He was really... good to me. He's who... gave me the money... for the pastels."
Trace doesn't seem to recognize any sort of tragedy in this relapse at all, responding only with, "Oh yeah... Our mural tomorrow, we'll use 'em... it'll kick ass. I like your pastels..." More used to these sensations than you, at least since recently, since he's about up to two fixes a day, the young artist pretty much just lies there and floats. Oooohhh.... See, he told you he could do it.
Jean-Batiste smiles drowsily, scratching a mild itch on his ribs then laying still again. Seconds pass, sweet and gooey and slow-moving as syrup. He forgets to answer you for a long time, pondering over who knows what, then murmurs, "Mmm? Oh, yeah. Yeah, it'l be great. 'Specially with Jason playing...it'll be so good...mmm, yeah." He smiles at the ceiling, then lets his head loll to the side, so he's smiling at you instead.
Trace grins, and lets his eyes fall closed. He mumbles softly, with little fluctuation to his voice. "Yeah..... yeah. Jason playing. And I think I'll draw a griffin. I donno, just got this picture, something bright and... feathery and flying... Griffins... onna' sidewalk..." His speech gets slower and slower, less and less comprehendable. He seems to be nodding out on you. "Mmmm..... nn'y kin help..."
Snowflakes. Oh, no, wait - those are his eyelashes. Batiste smiles dreamily to himself, and itches his ribs again. So good, he decides. This is -so good-. "Yeah..." he agrees, his voice soft and slow - and slowing - as well. "An'a dragon...n'a castle..." He murmurs to you about the mural, not remembering when he loses coherence. The last thing he remembers before nodding out is that it feels like the junk is melting his bones, and he's soaking right down into the mattress to sleep.