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[handleyourshit]

  


This is Rosita.  I'll hit you back when I can.

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[hippie_ninja]

"Then teach me," he says eagerly. Yeah he'll call that bluff.

"I have some supplies already. I've never even opened them."

[handleyourshit]

"I used to watch that guy with the afro. Billy? Brad?"

She waves a hand.

"You should practice off your balcony. The sun sets that side. Hits the water pretty nice this time of year."

[hippie_ninja]

"It does. Show me how, I never watched him." He smiles at her. "Please?"

[handleyourshit]

She huffs at him but fondly, and reaches across as if to cover his eyes with her hand.

"Stop it already. You know what my answer was when Carver and I talked about things we never did?" She grins. "Graffiti."

[hippie_ninja]

His soft blue puppy eyes change to an expression of pure mischief.

"You've never tagged anything? Really?"

[handleyourshit]

"Only road signs and buildings back home," she answers, and looks around until she finds one of the pencils she's been using to measure and mark plywood.

"Here - this was what our group used before we joined Rick's, so our own people could find us if we got separated."

A circle with three short lines through one side of it. "We'd put the lines the direction we went."

[hippie_ninja]

"I like it." It's simple, efficient.

He draws an arrow with two lines through the center.

"When I was homeless we'd mark restaurants and buildings with this. It means they'd let you use their restrooms."

A circle with double lines through it. "This meant they were quick to call the cops. Anyway, this isn't painting landscapes, so when are you going to teach me that?"

[handleyourshit]

"What, like, right now?" she asks, looking up at him from the drawings.

"We don't have any supplies over here." Unless - she raises an eyebrow, makes it into a question instead.

[hippie_ninja]

He lifts one right back and moves away, back upstairs to his room. There are pictures on the walls in this room, the strips of photos taken at his party. There's a sketchbook here (he has one at Broken Hollow too, but this one is more full). There's a nest of blankets.

He comes downstairs with paper and a packet of brushes and paints.

"I like it here. I wanted to capture how the place looks right now."

[handleyourshit]

She waits him out, cleaning up their mess a bit, making room for whatever the hell he's about to show up with next.

She laughs when she sees the brushes and paints. Of course he wasn't bluffing. Of course.

"I never actually painted," she tells him. "I just remember people making jokes about it. I have no idea what I'm doing."

[hippie_ninja]

"Oh, you liar!" He teases, pointing at her with a brush. "I should've known!"

He suspected. There are little tells he's learning to see in her, just like he's sure she's learning to see them in him. This used to scare him; it doesn't with her.

"I guess we'll just have to learn together."

[handleyourshit]

"I didn't lie!" she laughs.

"I asked you a question and I insinuated." She snatches the brush, craning her neck to look over the paints.

"And I could probably manage a happy little tree. Or at least a tree. I don't know what makes them happy."

[hippie_ninja]

"Why wouldn't a tree be happy?" He reasons. He sets out the papers on the counter and lays out the paints.

"Imagine all the things they see that they don't have to worry about. Until we get vegetarian walkers, they're safe."

[handleyourshit]

"Until someone comes along to chop them down for a house," she points out, smirking.

She also dips a finger into one of the pots of paint - yellow - and then boops him on the nose with it.

"You've been hanging out with K and Vrenille too much. Trees don't see anything."

[hippie_ninja]

"They might like music," he says. "There were studies done in the old world. And I made the mistake of telling K that, so if he ever accepts having his own apartment again I'm sure it'll be full of music and plants again."

[handleyourshit]

She wipes her finger off on a rag, and smirks.

"Is that why he asked me what the big oak tree's name is?"

[hippie_ninja]

He laughs but it's that soft, hopelessly charmed laugh he has about K specifically. He grabs a rag and wipes his nose off. "He did not."

[handleyourshit]

"He did," she assures him, smirking.

"I told him I hadn't named it, and he asked if I minded if he did. So. I guess you should ask him what its name is."

[hippie_ninja]

"I will." How can he not? He loves the way K sees the world.

He peers out the window, looking for the big old oak tree in question.

"You know you can't cut it down now."

[handleyourshit]

"I wasn't going to. It's my favorite fishing spot."

Which is true, although they both know that if there comes a point in the future that it needs to go, well.

"He's nice. Weird, but nice."

[hippie_ninja]

"You like most of the guys I'm seeing. That's actually a relief. I'm afraid of what'll happen when I bring one home you hate." Which could happen. Jesus trusts so much more readily than she does.

[handleyourshit]

"From your track record so far, I'm going to assume that you won't let me," she huffs at him. She didn't like any of them at first. She doesn't like anyone at first.

"But probably stab him."

[hippie_ninja]

"Try not to," he says, dry, with a little twist of a smile.

And, more carefully, "What do you think of Midnighter?"

[handleyourshit]

"Hey, I can't help it. Instincts are instincts."

She has not stabbed anyone she hasn't meant to, as far as anyone here knows.

"Haven't talked to him."

[hippie_ninja]

That's a neutral assessment. That's good.

"You should. I'm going to be helping him run the Submissives resource center. And he lost Scott so...I think he's going to be at Broken Hollow more often."