The Pleasure's All Mine

((I blanked on a title forgive meeeeeee))

Barred from replenishing himself by his own half-learned morals, Taniel did the second-to-next best thing.  The first next best was to loose himself in a crowd, literally and figuratively.  That recourse, however, required someone to spot him.  Ishtar was on a date with a pretty Gorgon accountant, and Cavan wasn’t answering his mobile phone.  (All of Cavan’s electronics eventually drowned when he forgot about them and jumped into bodies of water.)

Thus, Taniel walked aimlessly through the mountainous de-facto capitol city of the Isle.  The main streets provided too much temptation, so he blew in and out of alleyways like an errant breeze, drawing the low-level, ambient energy of the city to himself.  The back and side streets were mostly grey and brown with occasional service doors.  All of them were empty except for occasional drug dealers, trysts, and beleaguered maintenance workers schlepping anonymous goods.

Only half tuned into the world as he was, Taniel didn’t realize he was homing in on the only color for blocks until he was in the mouth of the alley staring at fresh paint and the back of an unruly head of black hair.  Taniel blinked himself out of his meditative daze and glanced up to get his bearings.  Near a hospital.  The windows of the third floor probably looked out on this grungy alley during the day.

It stemmed a little from stagnation, true, but also the dull realization that nobody was looking for him. That they’d wanted him gone; out of Santa Barbara, that his family was finally free of the scourge, the stain, that was Claudio Metzo. Bastard son and unwanted mutant; a mutt. Just a mutt. And that his duty as Grim Jr. [or Grim the III, as he so often dryly put it to Gunther–who didn’t listen–and not at all to Liam, with whom he didn’t get on.

So he painted. He sketched. He drew. He spray-painted. He rallied. He railed. He wailed. He screamed in every brushstroke, he spat fire into every spray of acrid cans, and he furiously beat into submission the hellhounds that were his doubts and his longings, until he came home carrying something other than his hatred and his fear. 

He’d bring stories back to Xander, things like what the pixies were doing in the beauty parlor [”that beehive ‘do tho”], or how the Morlocks [”yeah, I said it, I saw one”] lived in the sewers that had been fashioned to dump out into the sea–redirecting waste and hoarding forgotten treasures. He’d collect new foods for Jude to try. He’d pick up a comic or three to squirrel away for a rainy day and inspiration.

And his work had begun to change.

What started as pranks or jokes became statements, ventilation [albeit Officer Julio didn’t seem to see it that way]. Owls and cats battled over tattered poetry on the side of Paperfields, a gilded cage framed the window of Sorcha’s shoppe. He’d stopped short of putting anything on the old church he’d stumbled across, if only because the church-grim there had come whizzing out of the darkened parish hall, all but blue in the face with wrathful shrieking. 

Everyone was a critic.

Except, apparently, this man.

Claudio, who had just reached for the metallics again, paused mid-motion before his in-progress mural, to look his pseudo-trespasser in the eye, the bandanna of a skeletal underbite covering his mouth and nose to protect himself from the fumes masking most of his dubious expression.

Then, just as easily, he’d pulled down the face mask enough to flash Taniel a breezy smile, all olive skin and beauty marks.

He handed the paint can over carefully without touching Claudio’s hand.  “Of course. I-” Taniel gestured with the palms of his hands forward, still drawn to the swirling colors on the wall but aware of how awkward he’d made the situation.  “I’m sorry.  I was… daydreaming and - when the orange trees are blooming, you follow their scent to the blossom,” he said, utterly unaware he’d gleaned a metaphor Claudio’s California heart suggested.  “Color draws me if I’m not paying attention to where I’m going.”

Shaking up the paint can Taniel handed him, Claudio flashed him another easygoing smile and scrunched up his nose. “Sounds familiar. You a West Coaster, brah?” His smile was crooked and mischievous--with a splash of eager at either dimpled corner. “I’m totally the same way. Paint it like the sunset and I’m--” he motioned with an arm, which he knew was a very Italian thing to do, but darn it if he couldn’t help himself sometimes, straight ahead. “Boom. I’m there.” 

Dropping his arm, Claudio shook his head slightly, pulling a “who cares” face. “You’re not the police,” he commented lightly, “you’re not the president.” Well now it was just lyrical. He chuckled to himself and drew a haphazard line of violet into the woman’s hair, underlining its cooler tones. “I don’t mind if y’stay or go, dude, it’s completely up to you. I know it’s hard to believe, but I totes don’t own this here alleyway” He glanced back at Taniel thoughtfully. 

((I blanked on a title forgive meeeeeee))

Barred from replenishing himself by his own half-learned morals, Taniel did the second-to-next best thing.  The first next best was to loose himself in a crowd, literally and figuratively.  That recourse, however, required someone to spot him.  Ishtar was on a date with a pretty Gorgon accountant, and Cavan wasn’t answering his mobile phone.  (All of Cavan’s electronics eventually drowned when he forgot about them and jumped into bodies of water.)

Thus, Taniel walked aimlessly through the mountainous de-facto capitol city of the Isle.  The main streets provided too much temptation, so he blew in and out of alleyways like an errant breeze, drawing the low-level, ambient energy of the city to himself.  The back and side streets were mostly grey and brown with occasional service doors.  All of them were empty except for occasional drug dealers, trysts, and beleaguered maintenance workers schlepping anonymous goods.

Only half tuned into the world as he was, Taniel didn’t realize he was homing in on the only color for blocks until he was in the mouth of the alley staring at fresh paint and the back of an unruly head of black hair.  Taniel blinked himself out of his meditative daze and glanced up to get his bearings.  Near a hospital.  The windows of the third floor probably looked out on this grungy alley during the day.

It stemmed a little from stagnation, true, but also the dull realization that nobody was looking for him. That they’d wanted him gone; out of Santa Barbara, that his family was finally free of the scourge, the stain, that was Claudio Metzo. Bastard son and unwanted mutant; a mutt. Just a mutt. And that his duty as Grim Jr. [or Grim the III, as he so often dryly put it to Gunther--who didn’t listen--and not at all to Liam, with whom he didn’t get on.

So he painted. He sketched. He drew. He spray-painted. He rallied. He railed. He wailed. He screamed in every brushstroke, he spat fire into every spray of acrid cans, and he furiously beat into submission the hellhounds that were his doubts and his longings, until he came home carrying something other than his hatred and his fear. 

He’d bring stories back to Xander, things like what the pixies were doing in the beauty parlor [”that beehive ‘do tho”], or how the Morlocks [”yeah, I said it, I saw one”] lived in the sewers that had been fashioned to dump out into the sea--redirecting waste and hoarding forgotten treasures. He’d collect new foods for Jude to try. He’d pick up a comic or three to squirrel away for a rainy day and inspiration.

And his work had begun to change.

What started as pranks or jokes became statements, ventilation [albeit Officer Julio didn’t seem to see it that way]. Owls and cats battled over tattered poetry on the side of Paperfields, a gilded cage framed the window of Sorcha’s shoppe. He’d stopped short of putting anything on the old church he’d stumbled across, if only because the church-grim there had come whizzing out of the darkened parish hall, all but blue in the face with wrathful shrieking. 

Everyone was a critic.

Except, apparently, this man.

Claudio, who had just reached for the metallics again, paused mid-motion before his in-progress mural, to look his pseudo-trespasser in the eye, the bandanna of a skeletal underbite covering his mouth and nose to protect himself from the fumes masking most of his dubious expression.

Then, just as easily, he’d pulled down the face mask enough to flash Taniel a breezy smile, all olive skin and beauty marks.

i fucked up