dramaprincess (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} dramaprincess) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} madisonvalley,@ 2024-10-09 07:31:00 |
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What: Painting a Mural
When: After School 10/9
Where: The Indiana Gun
Rating: Medium (potential language)
OOC: The art linked in this post are inspirations.
Justin was surveying the bare yellow wall inside the front door of the tattoo parlor and contemplating placement of the art that Mickey had approved. The other walls had been painted black and grey by someone Mickey had hired, all traces of the home spun midwestern dad vibe gone, leaving the accent wall front and center.
The new sign was up and the place already looked more like somewhere his roommate would be at ease than it had before.
Now he just had to finish the accent wall, he rubbed his hand as he considered where to start.
School, even senior year, meant that Dustin’s forced cardio training was back in full bloom. It wasn’t as bad as home, sure, but it still meant the Dustin ducking into the tattoo parlour was a calculated escape from people pursuing him. Apparently they did not like his authentic 80s Weird Al t-shirt for some reason.
He’d never been into a tattoo parlour, but he’d hadn’t been expecting someone to just be standing there so he tried to look nonchalant as he nodded and moved out of view from any window and door.
“You good?” Justin barely blinked at his attire, he was friends with Emmett Honeycutt - nothing Dustin could wear would give him pause. His own baggy cargo pants and slightly too tight t-shirt that said: ‘cute as fcuk’ were paint spattered but also not exactly the height of fashion.
He didn’t think the other guy was old enough to get a tattoo even if the place was technically open for walk ins, but he’d gotten pierced at 17 so who was he to judge.
“Uh…” He glanced at the door,then back at the guy. “Probably. As long as you don’t force me outside for at least five to ten minutes.” Dustin had been avoiding bullies long enough that he knew the approximate time it usually took bullies to get bored and put their attention elsewhere.
He offered the guy a grin, sort of like proving he was cute and adorable and not worth being thrown out onto the street to be pummeled.
“You can stay as long as you want, but I might put you to work.” He glanced out the door and arched a brow making the connection, he’d been bullied too. “Or I can go in the back and grab Mick, sic him on whoever’s waiting out there for you.”
Justin could sort of hold his own, but Mickey was more than capable (and willing ) to put the beat down of someone.
He looked a little surprised. “Uh. Well, unless this Mick guy wants to shadow me around school when they heal and retaliate, I think avoidance at the moment is the best option. Plus one of my friends is on the lacrosse team so I just need the season to start and then usually her teammates encourage others to leave me alone.” Dustin was not a lacrosse person or a sports person at all.
“What do you need help with?”
“Sucks when assholes decide to focus their tiny dick energy on you.” He hadn’t seen the beat down Mickey could give, or the way the guy could put the fear of God into the biggest bully, but he shrugged and let it go.
“Was gonna start with the outline,” he can’t paint free hand as much as he used to, the damn gimp hand, but he’d come up with ways to mitigate that. Using computer sketches projected on the wall and stencils that made the physical hand drawn work go faster. “Help me set up the projector?”
He’s not saying the kid looks like an AV geek but, the kid looks like an AV geek.
He did, in fact, know AV. The question actually made him relax a little before he knew how to deal with projectors. Had he asked about something to do with tattoo stuff, he would not understand most of it.
He walked over to where the machine was and moved it into place and started to hook up wires. “So you do Murals then?” Dustin liked a good mural. “Are you one of the tattoo people here?” He assumed since tattoo artists had to be good at drawing, among other things.
“I’m an artist, I do… all sorts of things.” Murals lately, but he was taking a couple classes at Hanover and exploring different styles. “At home I drew a comic book, and when I was in high school I thought about being an animator. Like Yellow Submarine?”
It was one of his favorite films, between the music and the animation.
“I don’t work here, just helping the guy who runs the place with some redecorating. He’s my roommate. Pretty sure I couldn’t use the gun if I tried.” He held up his hand, it looked normal but it was more symbolic than anything else. “Brain damage, gets tired, and I have tremors if I over use it. Not good with a tattoo.”
“Animation is cool. So are comic books.” Dustins and his friends dabbled in comic books, but nothing serious. They were much more D&D players. It made him think of Will, though. Will was a drawer.
He looked at the guy’s hand. “That’s rough man, sorry.” Dustin wasn’t sure how he’d deal with something like that, but he hoped he never had to figure out. “But yeah, I guess tattooing would be a stylistic choice at that point.”
He flicked on the power and the projector hummed to life. “Wait - are you the one doing some of those wall murals? Like the cool one outside The Loft?”
He shrugged about his hand, it was what it was, he was mostly not even angry about it anymore but it was sort of proof that he got bullying, even if the why of it was different for the kid.
“Depends,” he joined him at the projector with his tablet to plug it in. “You gonna rat on me if I am?”
Dustin looked at the guy. “You saved me from literally getting my ass beaten. I think it’d be a pretty dick move of me if I ratted you out to someone. Besides, would the cops in this place really care? I mean, we have deadly animatronics and other deadly stuff to deal with. I feel like cool art might be low priority.” He paused, then decided to amend. “Unless you get some jerk who doesn’t have a sense of personality.” He couldn’t see how people would hate the stuff on the buildings. It wasn’t like they were naked drawings or the middle finger or anything remotely offensive.
Don’t know naked drawings, or middle fingers. He might do that at some point. Actually Mickey would probably like a middle finger of some sort, he’d think about that.
“Well I didn’t save you so much as let you stay for helping me,” he grinned, his smile lighting up his face before he scrunched it up in a grimace. “Bullies fucking suck. I know it's hard but, be careful.”
Sometimes they escalated.
Dustin thought not throwing him out on the street while he was hiding was still helping. “Yeah… I mean, I know I could probably fight back, but it’s different fighting a literal monster versus some guy who has a low IQ and low self-esteem, you know?” At least it was for Dustin. He didn’t know why he had more confidence in facing down a demogorgon. Maybe it had something to do with the ‘greater good’ versus just his safety.
“Plus I can look at it like I’m keeping the younger generation safe, you know?” He grinned, making a joke at his expense. But it was true - if they stopped seeing him as a target, they’d just find someone else. Dustin could handle it for one more year.
“Some times guys with low IQs and low self esteem can be the worst kind of monsters,” Justin said seriously, but he had mostly not encountered a literal monster until he’d come to Madison where weird shit happened.
“I get that,” sometimes he’d made himself a target by being unapologetically out to sort of protect the kids who weren’t or who were just assumed to be gay because they weren’t jocks. “Well if you ever need a place to hide out, I’m sure Mickey won’t care if you duck in here. And I work at the art store and Hinkles and they’re both safe spaces.”
Maybe it was why it was harder. Monsters were sort of binary in the fact they were clearly ‘bad’, but humans were hard to pinpoint until they punched you in the face. Even then, some were actually redeemable.
“Thanks. I appreciate it.” He would make a mental note of it. There were a few others too, thankfully. Most people in Madison didn’t suck.
“Okay, what else do you need help with?”
Dustin was more charitable than Justin, but they’d also had very different life experiences - obviously. Still he liked the kid, he reminded Justin a little of himself when he was dealing with bullies.
“I’m taping up the outline. Don’t do straight lines all that well with my hand so this takes the guess work out of it. Once that’s up I can do the rest freehand.” He picked up a roll of painters tape and held it out to Dustin with a grin.