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 Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 3:29 pm
Between St. Mags and being at home with the conservative Reverend Caffrey, Dana had been itching to get out. Where she didn't have to leverage her experimental outfits with summer heat and dress codes and where no one was breathing down her neck about right and wrong and smoking and boys and most importantly, art.
Or as daddy put it, vandalism.
Armed with her camera and a ratty backpack full of various cans of spray paint, Dana had dressed in her favorite 'so not dress code allowed' short shorts and studded belts and tacky accessories and set out on a mission.
She scoped out a spot, and started making her way down to the vacant underpass. She was still walking even as she reached behind her and grabbed a paint can out of her bag and started shaking it until she saw movement. She was startled and jumped with a yelp, dropping her spray paint and spazzing backwards a few steps before she realized it was a boy around her age and not anything too dangerous or creepy. Or more importantly, youma-y.
"Holy balls, man, you scared the s**t out of me," She exclaimed as she huffed and looked around for her paint can that rolled away.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 4:33 pm
Things had been more or less peaceful here under the street until the rattle of a spray can had called Matthew's attention to the sloping concrete that led down to the lower road. It had been his motion to sit up from where he'd been laying on a concrete ledge that had startled the invader and he pulled the half ashed cigarette from his lips as he swung his legs over the edge and squinted down at what appeared to be a girl. A cute girl, even, with a spray can.
Matthew grinned as he stuck the cig between his lips and leaned forward, lean brown hands gripping the edge as he swing his black skater shoes back and forth, knocking the heels against the big, red NO TRESSPASSING sign.
"Pretty jumpy aren't you? Freaked out by a guy just ******** laying there, enjoying some peace and quiet... Or quiet until you showed up." He said as he pulled one foot up to rest it on the other knee, bare elbows on his green plaid shorts and chin in his hand. "As if the reason isn't obvious, what brings you to my little hidey hole? Do I need to keep an eye out for cops?" The plethora of other tags down the wall told of how convenient this place was for 'artists' to gather. Matthew himself had not had the chance to try it yet, but it looked like fun... not that he was much good at drawing or art, but hey. Maybe he had a hidden talent for it and didn't know it.
She looked about his age... he'd wonder if maybe he'd seen her around school, except he was pretty sure he would have remembered her. She was distinctive, if anything, with her blonde streak. He could appreciate hair style... he enjoyed the s**t out of his own purple tips.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 4:57 pm
"Yeah well people don't usually just ********' lay there in the creepy corners of the city unless they're creepy too, yah?" Dana said casually as she recovered her paint can. She was chipper, though, with no offense in her voice. She was too busy being pleased he wasn't a starseed ripping Negaverser or a feral youma.
"If you wanna cop watch. I'm not too worried," She said, doing her best to be as cool as possible because this dude was right in her range of 'people young enough to matter' and he looked very cool. He was even smoking. Oh snap.
But also Dana legitimately didn't worry about cops. She didn't remember Kate Caffrey very well but she had still been a respected member of Destiny City Vice and she had grown up well acquainted with police officers. In the end, her fear of being busted was on the level of a stern family member, not actually being in trouble with the law.
She looked around and shook her paint can again, but this time she was looking for a good spot. "Weird ********' place to nap, brah."
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 6:00 pm
Being 'cool' was not an effect Matthew ever strove for, but a happy by-product of his '******** all of you' attitude. He wouldn't say he didn't enjoy it, just that it sort of came naturally. Girls that liked to spray paint where cool though...
"I didn't say I wanted to." He said as he watched her selecting a prime spot, picking at the safety pins in his shorts as he did so. Matthew did not have as good of a report with the cops as she did... if anything, they seemed to pick him out as a prime target, assuming because he dyed his hair and sported skulls on his tshirts that he must Be Up To No Good. "And I'm laying here because normally people don't come here and its cooler than being outside under the sun." Not that he looked like it was that much of an issue in his shorts and ribcage-printed tank top.
"I can smoke and no one starts whining about me being too young for it." He took a long drag on his cigarette, finish it off and flicking it into the rubbish down by the road. He leaned back on his arms as he blew out a long stream of smoke, lightly tossing his head to clear the bangs from his eyes. "And signs like this make me want to see what the ******** they don't want people seeing."
That was the point, right? That's why they put up signs like this. If there was nothing there, there would be no need. He could say it was curiosity, but in the end, it was really just a desire to flaunt authority like he was some kind of hard a**... rather than a broody teen.
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Posted: Sun Jun 01, 2014 7:46 pm
"Nah, man," Dana laughed, finding a spot and starting to make broad, bright blue streaks over old tags. "No trespassing and abandoned building and old industrial s**t are usually just boring, moldy old buildings, there's not a lot of secrets."
Exploring these things were the circumstances that led to her finding her henshin pen in the first place.
"What school you go to? I'd say I haven't seen you around but I go to an all girls school," She said with a not-so-happy laugh. Ha ******** ha, Saint Mags. "And you think it's hard to get a drag in under normal circumstances try it with a buncha friggin' nuns everywhere."
She leaned back. Aaaall the way back until the stall, gangly girl could half see him where he was sitting without turning around. "I'm Dana, by the way. Because it is polite to introduce yourself," She said with a crooked grin and a wink before she went back to work on her design.
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 11:24 am
"I like moldy old buildings." Matthew mused as he rested his elbows on his knees and let his hands hang between them. His foot never stopped swinging back and forth, as though he could never really sit still. He had been laying around here for a while now, it made it feel like maybe it was time to go running and climb something to wear himself back out.
He tilted his head as he watched her begin to paint, eying what she was doing with a sort of half interest. Was she covering up the old stuff in preparation, or was that going to be the whole of it, slapped on top of all the other stuff?
"I go to Meadowview, though they've threatened to throw me into Hillsworth if I keep skipping. My sister just about had a ******** conniption when they called the house about it. I figured spending a little more time at school was worth not getting fussed at in the end." He blinked as she bent backwards to give him a look, a crooked smile pulling at his mouth at her antics. She was kinda cute, and way better than some of the prissy chicks he went to school with.
"What gave you the idea that I give a ******** about being polite?" He shot back with a laugh. "If you'd asked, I would have told you my name is Matthew. My friends call me Ace, though, when its not 'a*****e', or 'dickwad'."
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 2:26 pm
"Hillworth is full of hotties, though," Dana laughed, working on a border for her project to make it stand out over the layers and layers of old tags. "Ugh, that sucks, though, man. My sister's like that too; She's nosy an' prissy an' thinks she's my mom. But it's still better than boarding at Saint Mags."
Of course Evie was overbearing and paranoid for a reason. The Caffrey family had suffered its fair share of deaths and disappearances and Evelyn had reacted to Dana's chibi senshi status the only way she knew how. With Tara's 'organ smuggling ring victim' status and their mom's death-- something which preceded Dana's memory but was still vivid in Evie's mind-- it wasn't shocking Reverend Caffrey and big sister Evie were overbearing as possible. But Dana found it inconvenient even if expected, and had no interest in being mothered.
She took a break and ran her fingers through her shaggy, short hair as she leaned against the wall near her wet paint, and put her hands in the pockets of the unzipped, sleeveless hoodie to stare at him. He was observing her, it was only fair.
"But family drama is afoot so I been officially busted out of prison early for my summer furlough. You do your hair yourself, Dickwad?" She grinned, meaning the insult to be a direct joke about what his friends call him, but the following compliment was genuine. "It's pretty bitchin'."
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 3:47 pm
He couldn't help it. The name made him grin widely as he put his hands to the concrete and pushed off, landing heavily with his knees bent. Straightening up to his full 5'7" with a rattle of wallet chain, the teen brushed the back of his shorts off and tossed his bangs out of his face again.
"Hell yeah, it is! I do it myself most of the time, mostly because I get tired of hunting my sister down every time I want a new color. Its not like it has to be done perfectly anyway, so you just gotta be careful with it." He swung his tan arms with their cuff bracelets and shifted from foot to foot for a moment. Feeling the sudden need to DO something, he ran at her wall and then up it, avoiding the fresh paint with the sound of scraping shoes until gravity demanded him back. Pushing off, he back flipped with more enthusiasm than skill and stumbled as he landed, laughing at his own energy.
"You take art classes, or did you just learn to tag by smearing paint on all the walls you could find?" He teased her back. "I haven't tried it yet, but I can't draw for s**t, so."
Okay, maybe not that badly... but the stuff he tried looked like crap to him, whatever anyone said.
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 4:44 pm
"Holy ********, your sister used to help? I think there'd be pigs piledriving skyscrapers before Evie helped me with anything," Dana exclaimed in open jealousy. Her memory was short, considering the scar on her leg below the knee from when she was twelve was fully visible. That was her first encounter with a youma as a civilian, and the night she found out her sister was a senshi. They'd dusted it together and Evie stayed up late, crammed in their tiny bathroom with her, patching up the teeth marks.
Moments like that seemed to have been erased from Dana's immediate memory thanks to her devastation at having her henshin pen taken away and being shipped off to boarding school. She saw that as a total betrayal, and she was still pissed at her whole family for it.
"I did mine myself but it's just bleach." She used temporary dye to match and color coordinate with her outfits and sue had impulsively cut it to a fauxhawk last year but there were no bonus colors today, and the only trace if her old hair cut was the fact her hair was a little longer on top and in front of her face.
When he ran and did his flip she practically squawked in surprise and excitement, covering her mouth until he landed and then raising her hands to cheer and bounce on her feet. "Holy s**t! That was so cool! Holy s**t s**t s**t how'd you do that?!" She didn't even hide the enthusiasm as she squealed out compliments and bounced in place. But at his mention of her 'art' she turned and looked at the wall and back to him.
"Nah, I just like it. Bragging rights," She explained. "Well, plus I like colors and changing boring s**t up. See?" She shifted her balance to one foot to hold out the other, turning it to show off the neon pink sneakers that had been assaulted with sharpie and puff paint until it was coated in busy designs. There were hints of the behavior all over, from the ink drawings on her wrists to her chewed nails painting in a variety if glitter polish or more sharpie, to her shaggy hair that stuck out at all ends from various adventures in cutting and dying and processing. Dana got bored.
But to further elaborate, she pulled out the camera from her bag and selected her still pictures from the menu. "Usually the harder it is to get up somewhere the bigger accomplishment. I like exploring too, but not for the moldy old buildings. But this?" She jerked a thumb to the wall behind her, "Just practice. Like I said, I been locked up! I just wanted to get out and do something. Wanna try?" She reached for another can and offered it to him. "I bet you're better than you think!"
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 6:28 pm
Matthew shrugged as he made a face, thinking about the times he'd sat around like a dork letting his sister play with his hair and color product.
"I feel like she'd dress me if I gave her half the chance... she's acted like my mom for, like, all of my life. But at least her and Da let me do what I want to myself, mostly. Da wouldn't let me pierce my ears until I did it myself and got this wicked infection... thing swelled up like hella big." He said as he demonstrated, holding his hand up by his pierced ear to show how big it had gotten. An over exaggeration, of course, but it sounded impressive. "Now he takes me to a professional and signs the paper when I want it. I'm thinking about getting my lip and eyebrow done, maybe the bridge of my nose and the nape of my neck. That would be ******** cool..."
Matthew grinned at her appreciation of his antics, stretching his arms up over his head and arching his back. Little bit of a show off, he was, but that's what being young was for. "You just throw yourself at stuff, I dunno." He said with a shrug. "You fall down a lot and sometimes you do something cool. The only rule is, you have to keep moving forwards, you can't go backwards." It was a parkour philosophy, something he had heard about in his research on the internet. It felt like a good philosophy for just about everything, as far as he was concerned.
He eyed the can she offered, tilting his head before he took it from her and gave it a good shake.
"I do stuff like that, climb s**t and get into places... I never tagged while I was there though, but maybe I'll start. Could be fun." He said as he grinned, moving to the side and holding the can at the reading. Depressing the button, he directed the stream at the wall and swung his arm around to draw an anarchy symbol almost as tall as he was, running right over the other tags there. Not enough speed meant the paint dripped, but considering, he really didn't mind all that much. Made it look cool.
"Have to figure out what to paint though. That's the problem."
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Posted: Mon Jun 02, 2014 8:23 pm
"Eugh, dude, that's grody," Dana cringed and recoiled into her shoulders at the ear story, but she was laughing too. He went on and she crinkled her nose and shook her head, grinning ear to ear. "I thiiiiiink... two. On the lip," She said like she was musing and put fingers on her own lips to indicate where she meant for snakebites. "Your girlfriend would probably enjoy it."
And then there was childish eyebrow waggling because Dana was in high school and appropriately immature about these things.
"Ah man, that's cool," She looked at the wall, and then down to his shoes as if she was thinking about trying something, but she shook her head and chickened out. She hadn't really been as brave as she was since the Carnival of doom. She didn't want to admit it had rattled her to her core, so she mostly just hid and ignored things.
And chickened out.
"Tagging proves ya did though!" She announced proudly. "I got tons of pics on my blog, but ya gotta be careful because all it takes is one a*****e with a stick up their butt to remind ya it's illegal and suddenly they're calling your dad whose all embarrassed and it justa big mess."
She picked up her own can and started making the space around his anarchy symbol, making a border and airbrushing a 3d effect around it. "It doesn't matter what it is as long as it looks cool!"
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Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 5:04 pm
Matthew couldn't help grinning, rather happy he'd managed to gross her out with a tale of his piercing infection. Mission accomplished. When she mentioned snakebites, he worried his lower lip with his teeth in thought.
"My girlfriend might, if I had one. I'll have to take your word for it in the mean time, since I don't know what the hell chicks like." Sometimes he did, most of the time he didn't... girls were strange, sometimes, and hard to wrap his head around. Not that he didn't want or try to. He just... didn't always manage too well. It didn't help that the sole female presence in his life was his older sister and she was an entirely different creature than this girl.
The teen watched as she fancied up his tag, his head tilted a little bit.
"I don't really care if people know I made it to the top of this or that, or not most of the time, anyway. Most of the time the only people I care about knowing are right there with me, so the proof is in the pudding, you know? They're usually on the ground heckling me about falling... but ******** that s**t. Its fun to show them I can do it, because then I get to watch them try and make assholes of themselves."
This tagging thing could be cool, though... he'd have to figure out something he could use as his own sort of signature.
"I don't have a blog, but I'd probably put videos up about our free running sometime on youtube, if I had a camera. s**t is expensive, though... I'd have to save up for it and half the time there's a new video game or movie I want to get and there goes the savings."
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Posted: Sat Jun 07, 2014 7:29 pm
"Chicks like the same stuff everyone else likes," Dana said with a 'duh' tone to her voice and a flippant shrug of her shoulders. She watched as he worried at his lip though, and then grinned with a childish 'hee'. "I like you, though; You're cute"
She put her hands on her hips with an accomplished nod at the finished tag and turned again, fiddling with the paint can. "I care, it's what makes it fun! But..." She also didn't have a group who shared her hobbies or any real, consistent social system.
"S'cool your buddies do s**t with you, though. I'm not..." She started to pick at the nozzle on the can, "I'm not real good at keepin' friends, I don't got nobody to do that s**t with. I ******** around on the internet a lot but I'm home for the summer so dad's prolly going to put the internet on lockdown again."
When he mentioned a camera, she proudly held up the handheld camera she had been showing him still pictures on. "My aunty got it for me a few years ago, it's the most expensive thing I own!" She announced. It was a little scratched and there was tape over where she had cracked the casing getting past loctite screws, but it was still hers. She nearly fought a corrupted senshi as a civilian for it, damn it.
"Sometimes I like to goof with makin' movies and s**t, but I haven't been able to since I got sent away."
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Posted: Tue Jun 10, 2014 6:08 pm
Her comment raised Matthew's eyebrows and he sauntered closer with a bit of a swagger, bracing a hand on his hip as he leaned with the other against the wall.
"Cute, huh?" He said as he leaned towards her, deliberately invading her space just a little. "Cute like a puppy, or cute like a werewolf in a sparkly vampire movie?" The crooked curve of his lips gave away the tease, though he did sort of care what the answer was... Normally he didn't, but in this instance? More than he liked to admit.
"Your dad locks down the internet, huh? What is he, like a prison warden or something?" He quipped as he leaned back, his weight still on the arm against the wall. His eyes fell to the fingers picking at the can, finding himself wondering. The no friends thing wasn't cool... he relied far too much on his own. And, it obviously bothered her.
"My Da doesn't bother trying to restrict me any more, as long as I don't push it too far. Orah is the one that bugs me about s**t. I don't think she's ever thought of blocking my internet access." He said as he ran his hand through his hair, ruffling the jagged ends.
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Posted: Sun Jul 06, 2014 2:11 pm
“Iunno, take your shirt off and we’ll compare,” Dana laughed, but ended up stiffening her back as her hands knitted behind her, and she broke eye contact with a noticeable flush to her face. She’d said similar stuff to guys before, but it never really got a reaction outside of eye rolling or feigned ignorance, probably because she was flirting with older senshi taking her out on patrol and trying to show her how to not die and they were unamused with her antics.
Matthew reacted in a way that made it serious business and she was unexpectedly assaulted by butterflies in her stomach.
“Oh, yeah, my dad doesn’t really get the internet age. Don’t tell people your real name, everyone’s a serial killer and slash or a *****, etcetera,” She said with a shrug. “So he thinks blocking the wi-fi is pretty much on the level of taking the gameboy away and not,” She inhaled deeply for the dramatic and animated gestures that went with the next phrase, “Severing my connection to the outside world!”
She punctuated her sentence with a dramatic huff. “Ugh, that sucks. My dad can be pretty laid back but he goes up and down with the gossip trends at church. Who’s Orah?”
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