Jake is (![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} derelict) wrote in ![[info]](https://www.insanejournal.com/img/community.gif){kind=small} rooms, |
Jake looked up. Wasn't a thing in it, other than noise this time of night brought with it trouble. The arc of paint hissed to nothing, the metal of the can clacking to silence and he dropped it the minute he saw the big black whatever-it-was straight out of the pulpit's lectures on Sundays, of hellfire and places you all went if you dreamed of something that wasn't apple-pie wholesome.
His throat closed up like sand and his tongue got still and all the words that got themselves cracked and broken like glass, he couldn't even find the fragments. He backed up, the can rolling off the sidewalk and clanking heavily into the gutter, and Jake's face was sharp white relief, and eyes wide and panicked beneath the thick thatch of black hair.
Didn't hear a word or nothing about tagging, but he hadn't figured superheroes or hell demons were waiting around in this town to leap on you some if you were painting anyplace. His blood was rushing in his ears, and his lips were too stiff to remember the prayers some, but his heartbeat was stuttering up against his rib-cage.
But the paint, that wasn't going to get replaced easy, not with groceries and the power bill due any day. He bent, creaky-kneed, and nudged his fingers up against the can's edge, not taking his eyes off the hell-beast perched on the lamp.