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 Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 6:08 am
Falco Marks was parked on a bench with a bag from the art store beside him. So he didn't... normally... do the artsy thing. He kind of blamed a combination of boredom and trying to find something 'cool' to do, in a city that didn't seem to come with a lot of things that immediately jumped out as 'cool'. (Except the tattoo parlor... but even if he could afford one right now he was pretty sure that was something he didn't want to have a fight with his Uncle about. ...Which didn't stop him from pulling out the new, clunky spiral bound sketchbook and a mechanical pencil from his backpack and crudely attempting to draw ideas for 'the tattoo's he would absolutely get if he didn't think his Uncle would go up in an mushroom cloud'. To be honest he wasn't entirely sure what he actually wanted. He drew and then scribbled out a rather horrible, anatomically broken Eagle that might have been supposed to be in the 'American Classic' style. Drew and then wrote 'no' across a dragon, 'ew' on something that might have been intended to be a Koi (it looked something more like a fish stick with fins and some kind of scabrous problem.) And started working on something that might have been snakes.... or... possibly a pile of Spaghetti with squished ends. ..."Don't sell the bike shop, Orville." He muttered at the page, apparently unimpressed with his own efforts, and glanced up and down the sidewalk from the bench he had decided to lay temporary claim to. Oh well... ok he sucked at drawing. It was probably a waste of money to have bought anything fancier than an spiral bound notebook, let alone an spiral bound art book, but he liked the weight of the paper... and he'd gotten some cool old timey pens with cool ink. Maybe he could make... he wasn't sure... some kind of diary of the rumors and stuff. Who knew, maybe he was the next Stephen King or something. Or he could do a podcast. ...He probably needed more stuff to think about doing a podcast. What the hell would he call it anyway? 'That time this place turned into a Fog Bank?' "How the hell do people actually do this art crap anyway...." He muttered, grumpily, staring at the messy doodles that covered the page and adding a cynical note about the rumors about walking in the fog in sharp, aggressive letters. Go to another world if you walk on a foggy night: Yeah sure. Probably if you step out in that 'fog' you instantly get munchies or something. Sure the place was weird with the posters on telephone poles and the disappearing kids, but it had been foggy as hell and people got lost in parks or... ran away... and ... well... stuff. So far, as far as he was concerned, the only real mystery's around here were probably caused by some kind of subconscious collective boredom and the desire to build a nice urban legend to jazz things up a bit. elkbones Is this ok? Otherwise I can change things up
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:10 pm
It wasn't that it was a bad day - it was just a <******** day. Thorne hadn't been in town long enough to know the layout. He still got lost from point A to point B and had to run data on his beaten down phone just to figure out where he was. And if a shadow felt like it was following him or he thought he saw a hundred eyes blinking at him at once from the side-alleys down the dodgier part of Ashdown (weren't all parts of the town dodgy in some respect though?), who was he to know better? So every day was an adventure. And to Thorne, adventures were dangerous things. His half-hearted attempt at a walk to clear his head, clear the air, clear the ache in the back of his neck from staring too hard at his monitor for hours on end had turned into a trek into the unknown. A cursory glance fifty minutes into being lost and three hours into being out of his apartment told him one thing: his saving grace, his beacon of hope in the dark, his cellphone was still in the apartment sitting next to an unfinished commission and box of half-eaten double stuffed oreos. Which meant that this day was going to be day. An <********," Thorne breathed, his voice snapping on the swear. It rattled in his throat, ugly and rough. He was covered in paint from an earlier venture in experimenting on a sweet old ladies wall down the street with pastel mint and looked the very epitome of a mess. Not a hot mess. Just a ******** mess. And of course, he was too stubborn, too affronted by human contact, too adverse to making friends of any sort just yet, that asking for directions seemed impossible. More than that, it seemed - terrible.Still, Thorne took a cursory glance around. Just in case. The only other person in his immediate vicinity was drawing. Or thinking about it. Thorne recognized the art book and the pens. Before he could think, he was standing in front of the other, leaning over him and opening his mouth. And in a paint stained wife beater a size too small that showed off the length of his tattoo sleeves, he manifested the concept of someone that didn't exist to be ******** with. "Find anything interesting to draw?" Lock me up, Thorne thought immediately as he heard his own voice out loud, realizing his mistake a second too late and stepping back in a hasty and clumsy retreat, the registration of self-appointed shock tearing across his expression, s**t, put me out. Put me out. "I mean - s**t - sorry - " Ryuthulhu s**t put this child out of his misery he's so stupid and you're fine this is awesome!!! i'm just hella rusty so im sorry for how choppy it is
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 1:42 pm
"Nah I'm just kinda..." Falco shrugged, looking up and trying to cover the fact he'd jumped a little at the voice. He tilted the notebook so the other man could see it better, blinking as he tried to sort out if he should be defensively stubborn, or just outright embarrassed by his lack of skills. The tattoos on the mans arms were something else and they definitely put his awful doodling to shame. They looked like someone had stirred up the contents of some really amazing book and poured them on the guys arms. And there was paint everywhere, lots of paint... which meant he might be an actual artist, not whatever he, personally counted as. "I don't really... have any plans for it I just kinda... wanted it." He admitted, in the kind of way you only admitted things to adults that looked like they hovered somewhere around that nebulous benchmark for being 'cool', brushing his bangs back as he offered it out vaguely for Thorne to take or not take as he wanted. "Those are -epic-." He added, nodding to the mans bare arms. Man that would be cool... but dammit he didn't even like flu shots. Who the hell was he kidding.
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:00 pm
Wired and anxious, Thorne listened. He wasn't sure he wanted any sort of - human contact. This wasn't what he'd gone outside to do in the first place. But this one seemed harmless. Enough. Harmless enough. For now."Wanted it." Thorne tasted the words, rolling them over his tongue and taking his time. He glanced down, pausing his jittery motion backwards long enough to drink in the sight presented. "Where?" He fumbled the next words over his tongue, realizing the mistake. "If it's alright to ask." As though he hadn't barged into this persons life recklessly in the first place. Thorne pressed the tip of his tongue to the roof of his mouth and breathed out, slowly. When the boy mentioned his own tattoos, he blinked, a slow and calculating expression. If there was one thing easy to talk about, it was the surface value of tattoos. If this guy scratched at why though - well, Thorne was good at running away by now. "Thanks. They're - unfinished." His fingers ran his right thigh, remembering the third unfinished sleeve. Shifting, he dropped his backpack on the ground at Falco's feet and dug for a second before pulling a ratty old art book out and clipping it open to a page that spiraled, chaotic, with lines and intricate designs of flowers, sparrows trapped in thorns, mandalas decaying. Dangerous move. "These are the rest," he said. And then - "Why do you want yours?"
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Posted: Mon Apr 25, 2016 2:25 pm
And that was the big question wasn't it. 'why do you want one', and Falco flushed in embarrassment, finding ways to fidget. "I dunno... I see people with them and they look really cool." And usually people had some story to go with them, even if it was just 'spring break' or all the way to 'I got this in the memory of...' or 'This represents...' People who had more things figured out than he did, instead of drawing bad pictures on expensive paper, like he was going to figure out his purpose in life if he could just figure out the right doodle. "Man you can really draw" he added, with awe, before he got around to the question. "Wait the notebook or the -waste of graphite- on my page? I mean... the notebook is from the art store, and the pens. The rest... I dunno. I'm just sorta figuring things out. It might not even happen. God knows I probably can't afford it."
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 2:10 pm
Thorne's expression wrinkled at the response, more out of disbelief that anyone could look at him and think any number of things along the lines of "cool." His mouth quirked and he shuffled to the side before sitting down next to Falco, bending his body forward so they were roughly eye level with one another. "That's one word I don't hear much around me," he said, his voice razed and gravelly with amusement he hadn't felt in awhile. He laughed at the next set of words, expression twisting. "Only because I can't do much else." His broad shoulders rose and fell in a quick, self-deprecating shrug. "Do you want it to happen?" He asked. Keeping the conversation away from him. Always away from him.
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Posted: Tue Apr 26, 2016 2:54 pm
"Apparently you can get tattoos without anyone going thermonuclear... and... actually sit through them." Falco squirmed. Suddenly presented with the idea up front and in front of his nose, it felt like some part of his thought process had turned to become sort of a confused static somewhere between -that would be awesome- and -I do not actually have the slightest idea what I would actually get-. "...I dunno. I mean it would be cool but I know that my Uncle, if he didn't start yelling, would be to 'think about it' because I'd be stuck with it and he's right, but then I'm at 'ok how much deep thought is involved with anyone sitting still and letting someone poke ink into them with needles, that seems like it requires as much 'not thinking about it' as 'thinking about it." And that was as close as he wanted to come to admitting he might be uncomfortable with the idea of needles. "...Um. No offense...." He glanced at the mans tattoos again, trying to picture the stones it took to -sit through something like that-. "I mean I don't even know what I'd get. All my sketches are -really awful-, and I mean the other choice is like... get something out of a book, like that wouldn't be obvious. Especially around here." There was -one- tattoo shop, anyone who went in there would have seen that stuff, and while he could appreciate a string of barbed wire as much as anyone... He supposed if he was going to admit it, his uncle might be right, he needed to think about it. Not just point to a picture in a book and say 'I want that'. "Seriously though how much did that -hurt-?" He asked, eyes wide with morbid fascination.
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Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 9:47 am
Thorne laughed. "It's not as terrible as they all say." He gestured and tilted his head slightly so that Falco could see the wicked curve of thorns disappearing against his shirt line and to his back. "After the first few rounds, you get used to the pain. And it's only temporary. This - it lasts." The mention of parents drew Thorne's attention. He had never bothered to consult his father or mother before the first round of tattoos, but then, it had never been their choice to make. The response had been underwhelming - his mother had cried and his father had touched the scripture on Thorne's spine. It was in his own handwriting. It had been a memento that Thorne had turned into art. "It depends. Mostly on how drunk they are." Thorne grinned at Falco. Talking about tattoos was easy, and he was always ready to help someone decide whether or not they were willing to take the leap from the cliff edge into the deep. "I imagine the deep thinking comes before. At least - for some." For him, it had been an obsession, a craving, and it still was. "None taken. Tattoos are - they mean different things to different people." He leaned back on the bench and stretched his arms above his head, flexing his fingers to the sunlight above. "Do you want help designing something?" Thorne asked him. "And don't run yourself down so fast. Drawing isn't a talent. You work for it." The question made Thorne laugh. It was a wild sound, raw and gravelly. "Do you want me to be honest?" he asked, his voice low with tease. "These - " he gestured to his arms and his thigh, where the third, unfinished sleeve was hidden, "didn't hurt that much apart from the elbow and a few other spots. But pain and I - get along, I guess. Here - " He reached back and touched the curve of his spine. "Here hurt the most. It touches on nerves and your entire body shakes."
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Posted: Thu Apr 28, 2016 10:43 am
"It's work and I don't have the training manual..." Falco laughed, in self depreciation. "I just feel like a waste of fancy art stuff at the moment, but thanks. I mean... I'll keep trying..." Maybe he'd never design tattoos but maybe he could get better. "...That would be... -really- cool but I'm..." He waved an embarrassed hand. "I'm not exactly flush with cash, and you're -really good-." He rubbed vaguely at his arm, considering the suggested levels of pain. "Don't think I could sit through the back." He admitted. "That sounds like something out of a nightmare, you've gotta be crazy tough." It certainly gave him a new respect for anyone who had one of those infamously labeled 'tramp stamps'. What did -that- feel like? And then having people snigger up their sleeves at you every time your shirt rode up... "Can you do it if you, you know... hate getting your yearly flu shot and stuff?" Made sense to at least know if this was something worth trying to save for, or if he'd just be wasting everyone's time.
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