xp_logs | Fred, Amanda, and Kyle, and sometimes the graffiti isn't what it seems.

x-wildchild.livejournal.com posting in

Backdated to Oct 30th.

Fred comes across Amanda renewing the wards and before she can explain, he carts her off to Kyle. Who plays along just enough to really confuse poor Fred. It's okay though, he gets free dinner out of it.

Amanda shook the aresol can vigorously before spraying an arc of fresh paint across the slightly-faded lines of the design painted on the wall. Between the wet weather and Little Miss Staff of One's abrupt appearance, the wards were suffering a bit of wear and tear, so the witch had decided to freshen them up before dropping by to see how the kid was settling in and perhaps try to establish some common ground. She'd freaked the kid out with her appearance, and Amanda knew from personal experience she'd do better with keeping an eye on her by getting on her good side. She murmured the ward spell under her breath, the cadence not unlike the tune of the Sex Pistols' "God Save The Queen" - apparently punk suited spell casting almost as well as rap.

Fred had stopped by the comic shop and, in a search for a quiet place to read his newly acquired giant stack of 'Sandman Mystery Theatre', had been wandering about the outside of the school when he spotted a young woman...doing what? As he moved closer, surprisingly quiet for a guy his size, he finally noticed that she was spray painting...something across the wall of the school. Was it some kind of tag? None he'd ever seen...and why would someone go through the trouble of breaking the law to tag a wall with something indecipherable?

None of these questions were as important as the facts: some jerk had decided to use her time to deface the place Fred had come to call home.

A few feet behind the woman, Fred crossed his arm and gave his voice his best 'bouncer' inflection, "Seriously, lady? You seriously just...vandalizing a buncha good folk?" If it wasn't for how pissed he was, Fred almost sounded hurt.

Amanda jumped, dropping the can - she tended to get into the spell casting a bit much sometimes and hadn't heard the young man's approach. She turned, almost expecting to see Cain there, but instead there was one of the students, glowering at her. "Now, wait a minute..." she began.

Fred held up his hand, "Heard it before, lady. I don't wanna line about how daddy didn't love you or somesuch or it ain't what it looks like, though I don't really know what the hell you're tryin' tah draw in the first place...look, point is, you're red handed, and no matter what crap you went through, ain't no reason to go graffiti'n other people's property. Now..." Fred jerked a thumb up towards the Mansion proper, "You gonna clean it up or do you wanna be difficult?"

The corners of Amanda's mouth twitched. He was busting her? Oh, this was just too much fun. "Sorry, I can't do that," she stated, crossing her arms over her chest and drawling out her accent as much as possible. "Guess you'll have to run me in."

Fred sighed, and rubbed the back of his head, "Okay, lady. Fine. But I gotta tell ya, I know the guy who has to clean that stuff up, and he ain't gonna be too happy..." Fred looked about and, after setting down his messenger bag, effortlessly lifted the offender and placed her over his shoulder, "In fact, let's go have a convo with him right now. See what he thinks..."

"Hey!" Amanda hadn't quite expected the manhandling, and for a moment she considered wrestling herself free. Then again, she had no idea which one this kid was and while he was certainly super-strong to be hauling her around like a bag of spuds, she didn't want to hurt him by accident. "Oi, watch the paws, mate!" she protested instead, playing up her role.

"Don't flatter yourself, lady," Fred said gruffly as he trudged up towards the garage, where he saw Kyle working earlier in the day...

By the time Kyle had realized Fred was hauling ass, literally and figuratively, towards him, the large young man and his 'cargo' were well in view. He couldn't -hear- anything, having popped in a mix CD and turned the volume up to ten in order to try to distract himself from the never-good-smelling task of changing all the fluids in his motorcycle, but he could see that Fred looked, in a word, disgruntled, and that his cargo was, if the ass filling out the pair of jeans was any clue, female and small.

That still left a ton of options.

Grumbling and dour-looking, Fred tromped up to Kyle, "Hey Gibney," he said, shaking his 'cargo' slightly, "Found this, uh, 'lady', tagging the outside wall. Can you believe that?" He turned a bit so Kyle could see the person he was carrying, "Uh, I'm not really sure what the protocol is, so, uh, I figured you could tell me..."

Kyle grinned widely. Right up until Fred had gotten close, he hadn't seen the pair of Doc Martens. And the woman in question smelled like curry, sage and that weird mix of smog and hot dogs and coffee that was the city. Obviously, someone was confused here. "Man, I love catching vandals. You know that New York has a law that says you can pretty much do whatever you want to 'em, as long as you don't hurt them any? Okay, so first, I'm thinking straight into the lake, right?" He casually walked over to the CD player and tapped it off. "So, what we gotta do is see if she floats, right? And if she does, she's a witch!"

Amanda raised her head at that, propping herself up with her elbow and peering over Fred's head. "In this weather? Not bloody likely, mate."

Fred's brow furrowed as he looked from the rear of his captive to Kyle's face, obviously perplexed, "I, uh...she was drawin' some weird stuff on the walls, but I think it's a bullfrog jump from that to, uh, you know..." Fred tried to find a better term for it, but could not, "uh, witchcraft."

Kyle scratched his head, obviously trying to think. "Well, we could lock her up in the dungeon. I mean, I'd hafta dig one first but that can't take that long, right? Hang on, I got the keys to the backhoe around here somewhere.." He started emptying his pockets, pulling out his keys, phone, several wadded-up bills, a wallet made of duct-tape, a metal nail file and finally a couple of coupons from a local Indian place. "Maybe not. How about instead we just buy her dinner?"

...
...
...

"Wha-hwuh-wait, uh, no, man! I said she was spraypainting the walls, man!"

Fred pointed a finger angrily at the offender, though, from this angle, it just looked like he was trying to get Kyle's opinion of the girls' backside. His expression was somewhere between agitated and completely bewildered.

From up on his shoulder came a merry laugh from Amanda. "Okay, Kyle, let's put the poor bastard out of his misery," she said. "Yo, kid, you want to let me down? I promise I won't scarper."

Kyle broke out into a grin. "Sorry, dude, the look on your face. Fred, Amanda. Amanda, Fred. Amanda's one of those Snow Valley whatever people, she's kinda, uh, like a city witch, I guess. I don't quite get it, but the spraypaint helps keep us from getting blown up by, uh, evil... wizards, okay, you know, yeah, it does sound totally freakin' nuts." Even with the incredulous look and the fact that the explanation sounded insane, Kyle couldn't stop from laughing.

Fred looked again from Kyle to Amanda and back again, and finally excentuated his confusion with an upturned eyebrow and a "Uh....uh, do what now?"

Apparently she wasn't going anywhere any time soon, so Amanda made herself comfortable on Fred's shoulder. "Amanda Sefton," she explained. "I'm sort of the mystic security around here. What I was painting... it's a protection ward. I come by every few weeks to make sure it's holding up."

Fred blinked, then blinked again...then once more. He looked back towards Kyle, "Wait...she's , uh, she's supposed to be scribbling on the walls?"

Kyle nodded. "Yep. All cleared with the Professor and everything. Usually I spring for dinner after, on account of I figure magic's gotta be pretty hungry making and also Amanda thinks it's farking hilarious that I can't eat death curry." And lucky him, he had coupons. "I know, it looks pretty bogus but dude, we get all kindsa weird stuff here, so it's better weird than regretting it later."

"That new girl, Nico? The one who dropped through the rec room ceiling? She busted up my security, so I needed to come back and redo it," Amanda explained further. "Um, are you going to let me down at any stage? 'Cause as fantastic as my arse is, I'm pretty sure it's not exactly easy to have a conversation with it."

Fred had been far too busy being confused up until now to be embarrassed, but after the arse comment, he went pale as a sheet, and tried to cover his reddened cheeks with his hand as he feigned a coughing fit, placing Amanda on the ground with an unceremonious "Uhmmm, uh, scuse me..."

He looked to Kyle, and tried (in vain, more than likely) to change the subject, "So, uh....uhm...Indian food, huh? Didn't figure you for a spicy guy..."

"Oh, totally not, dude. I can't eat anything with like any kinda spicy. I can like, maybe eat stuff with black pepper, sometimes. I have like sixty bajillion taste buds and all of them are wussy." Kyle explained, trying not to laugh any more at poor Fred. And yet, he'd started here and there trying to build up a tolerance because without the spices, the food tasted good. But it was so hard to get it non-spicy. "But Amanda loves the stuff, and you know, if she's gonna go to all that hard work of doing whatever it is magic stuff, then she gets to pick."

"Besides, it's fun to watch Kyle try to drown himself in the water jug." Amanda straightened her clothes and stuck her hand out to Fred. "You want to come along? My treat, to make up for stringing you along like that." She gave him her best winning smile.

Fred smiled and jerked a thumb towards the exit, "I think I, uh, have a pressing engagement to die of embarrassment first, ma'am."

"Dude, worse stuff has happened. Angel sent my pants up the flagpole once." Kyle teased. "Sides, free food. You're not allowed to turn that down. And the Indian place is pretty damn good." He waved the coupons at Fred. "Freeee foood. Also watching me make an ass out of myself with spicy. Also, dude, if you die, I'm making you come back to dig your own grave."

Fred sighed and held up his hands in defeat, "I'll come, but only if I can bring some Tabasco, and you guys both promise to never speak of this to Jules. I wouldn't hear the end of it." He looked over to the blonde 'vandal' Amanda, and offered a sheepish grin, an embarrassed look, and a hand, "I'm, uh, I'm Fred by the by..."

Amanda shook the offered hand heartily. "It's very good to 'meet' you, Fred. Now, let's go eat. I'm bloody starving!"