Drumsticks and Sketchbooks @demogorgongotme

[gareththegreat]

Everything had finally started to calm down, ever since the earthquakes had caused so much damage and deaths things were quiet. Town was quiet. Hell most of the town had hightailed it out as soon as they could. Not Gareth's family though, not with how stubborn his mom could be. Between everything that was being said about Hellfire and Eddie specifically she seemed to dig her heels in. She wasn't' budging just because a ton of people where giving into hysterics. She had grown up in a big city and moved out to Hawkins with her first husband, Gareth's dad, she wasn't going to let some earthquakes and 'religious hacks' scare her.

She was also one of the few people who refused to believe that Eddie Munson or Hellfire had anything to do with the deaths that had happened. She had known the guys since he was a kid, of course she didn't think he was capable of murder.

So that was why Gareth ended up returning the next year to what was left of Hawkin's High. Sure it wasn't much but his mom had insisted. It was quiet and for the most part people just tried to get back to some sort of normal, though mostly they avoided anyone who wore a Hellfire shirt. It might have been in bad taste but Gareth wasn't about to stop. It was his friends and his club, of course he was going to still fly his colors.

It's after school that Gareth makes his way to one of the art rooms, determined to actually get some peace and quiet to sketch or ink something without people staring at him all the time.

That is until he hears music coming from his usual little hiding spot. Raising an eyebrow he pushes the door open, ready to tell whoever it is off...only he doesn't get the chance to because what he's met with is some kid he doesn't recognize at first sitting and painting while blasting....is that The Clash?

Really?

"Your taste in music sucks." He manages to time it perfectly in the lull between two songs, standing with his arms crossed and arching an eyebrow at the boy.

Comments

[gareththegreat]

"Human wizard huh? I mean, solid start. What sort of spells do you usually aim for?" He stops, putting the stick down to instead turn his attention to Will, definitely seeming more relaxed and like he's actually enjoying the conversation.

"Yikes, your campaign end or? We might have a slot open if you need a table to sit at. My best friend DMs and he is insane. Pretty sure he wouldn't mind a new victim." Glancing over at the painting he smirks. "And if you game half as good as you paint...you might help knock him down a notch or two."

[demogorgongotme]

"Abjuration and enchantment usually, with some evocation if I'm in a corner," he replies immediately, happy to have something that he can readily talk about. He offers another shrug, though. "Moved house before the end of the campaign. I don't know about joining another campaign, though. It's been long enough that it'd feel kind of weird just putting him in an ongoing game that wasn't his to begin with."

[gareththegreat]

"I mean, you could always make a new one? We wrapped up one not that long ago and I think he's wanting to start up a new one now that things have calmed down."

Plucking up the stick again he dipped it into the ink before moving to make a couple more lines, defining the ears and some bits of armor and muscles. He didn't even have this guys name but he was already pretty happy to have met someone with like interests. Someone who he hadn't met before...which was weird because it was Hawkins.

"So what made your family move to Hawkins? Not exactly the greatest town ever...especially not lately."

[demogorgongotme]

There's a little bit of hesitation before he murmurs an "I don't know..." about building himself a new character. It's less about the character building process, and more the anxiety when it comes to joining a game, which is probably readily apparent when he adds, "We came back because we had to. That was before I ever started high school though and the guys I used to play with, they all basically moved on and I ended up giving my handbooks and stuff to someone else."

Will rubs his hand around the back of his neck, leaning against an adjacent table with his arms crossing and hands tucked under them. "Not that I don't miss it, I'm just...not really into the idea of trying to get in with a new group."

[gareththegreat]

"Ah, okay yeah I totally get that." Honestly he had just gotten a little ahead of himself anyways. "Sucks that your buddies moved on, do you at least get to hang out with them? Also I can't imagine giving up my books, doesn't way too much on them. Maybe if I get a new set but....yeah no."

Shaking his head he smiles as he adds in some fairly bold shadows with thick lines of ink. Chiseling out the highlights by providing the contacting shadows. Some of the lines don't seem to connect but they do still imply a line that continues and connects somewhere else.

"So...favorite artist, go."

[demogorgongotme]

Watching Gareth work provides a good distraction from his own melancholic line of thought, and he's happy to talk about other things as his brain fills out the image even with just the limited shapes that the other works with. It's fascinating, and he feels a little bit outclassed. But he doesn't work in ink, so that's not really fair to either of them.

The corner of his mouth quirks up, and he glances back toward his work-in-progress.

"Depends on the subject matter. Vallejo's great for creatures, Burroughs for dynamic work, Frazetta for full scenes." And the influence on his own work is extremely obvious, with that out there.

[gareththegreat]

Gareth nodded as he finished up a line.

"Yeah the influence definitely shows, it's good." He smirked a bit. "Haven't dabbled much in painting other than a little watercolor here or there, most of my work is either pencil, pen, or ink like this." He motions at the picture that is probably about half finished. He lets it dry a bit before grabbing a colored ink that is fairly translucent to color things with.

The first thing he uses is a green, filling in the skin as he does so and letting some of the black mix in in places.

[demogorgongotme]

"All of my pencil stuff is small-scale. Watercolor's a little beyond me, personally. The lack of control's hard to wrap my head around." He bends forward to get a better look at Gareth's paper, then pushes off from the table to return to his own piece before it could dry too much. He opts to keep his music down now, only just loud enough to fill the silence and hopefully not be obnoxious about it, considering that now he knows the other is a metalhead and he just doesn't have anything that sounds quite like what he'd suggested. He doesn't have a lot of time left to be here before his brother comes by to see if he needs a ride home, and he wants to finish as much as he can before that happens.

[gareththegreat]

"That's fair, it can be a bit more unpredictable especially when you first start out." Gareth nods. "It takes a lot of practice and getting used to the idea that you don't have the same sort of control. Lots of embracing whatever it decides to do, y'know?"

Setting aside his own work to let some of the stuff dry more, Gareth turned and watched Will, quietly taking in the others techniques and watching the painting come to life.

"So, are you and your family staying in town with all the crazy shit happening? I was thinking about trying to be here more often to work on stuff...when I'm not at game or practice. Hope you don't mind the company."

[demogorgongotme]

"Seems like it would work best either really small so you can get good vague gestural blots like the kind of shading you do or really big so you have fine control," Will muses as he works, blending the colors together in feathering motions of his brush, then running his little finger wrapped in a scrap of paper down an edge to make it cleaner. He looks up from the careful edging around where he'd be putting darker lines, lip pulling in between his teeth as he considers just how much to actually say.

"Yeah, we're gonna be here for the foreseeable future, I think. I'm starting work soon so we can keep up on bills and stuff while my mom takes care of stuff around the house and my brother looks at college options. He was gonna go to a local community college where we were but we had to come back so that's what he's looking into now."

[gareththegreat]

"Yeah, but sometimes not having the control is good too, like...it can be freeing. Sometimes. If you're into that I mean." He shrugs and picks up a couple of his brushes, cleaned of inks, and starts drumming on the edge of the table. It's not too loud and it seems to be for the most part in line with whatever the beat of the song that's playing is.

"Well, your mom must be as stubborn as mine. She refuses to leave just because some 'religious kooks'. Or at least that's what she says." He shrugs, watching but mostly staying out of the way and even starts to quiet down a bit more so Will can focus on his work since he seemed so dialed in.

"What sort of work are you looking at? Not much around these days I guess."

[demogorgongotme]

He can't really explain how terrifying loss of control is for him personally, be it in the mundane sense like his art, or the much more explicit, invasive ways he'd experienced. He just nods without argument and continues to work and hopes that that hadn't seemed as weird as it was.

"Yeah, mom's the type that refuses to run no matter what. She doesn't believe in the whole Satan-worshipping thing. Like...she only believes in what she's seen."

His hand falls away from the piece and he sits back to observe it, teeth worrying at the corner of his lip until Gareth speaks up again. There's a distinct hesitation before he answers.

"You know Palmer's funeral and crematory? I'm gonna be apprenticing there started next week." He's just bracing for the inevitable assessment that it's grim and weird and morbid and every other thing he's heard.

[gareththegreat]

"Sounds like our moms would get along." Gareth looks from the painting to the teen at the eisle and nods.

"Oh yeah, I've heard of that place. They got a new guy there didn't they? That sounds like a pretty cool place to work. Surrounded by the dead, sounds pretty creepy~" He grins, teasing tone slipping out on reflex as if he had been teasing Mike or Dustin. "Sorry...used to teasing my friends that are about your age."

[demogorgongotme]

"Yeah, a lot of weird stuff happened and the first guy got replaced and then the next guy got fired I guess? So the new guy took over and he's pretty cool. He's making sure I have a suit and everything. Which is weird but I also haven't had anything fancy to wear since the Snow Ball like...two years ago? I think it was two years anyway."

He briefly looks disturbed. So goddamn much has happened in the last four years it's unreal. Having a growth spurt in the middle of all of it seemed like the absolute least of his worries.

He pulls a face at the tease, but he at least parses that it's not malicious. This guy doesn't seem like the type.

"You're a senior, right?" Only the seniors could look at him and say something like that.

[gareththegreat]

"Junior, gonna be a senior next year...if there is a next year." He rolls his eyes. "With how this town is I wouldn't be surprised if something else happened and it finally just fell into the abyss or something."

He has no idea how close he is to the truth while knowing nothing about what has really been going on.

"Sounds like a cool job though, metal as hell."

[demogorgongotme]

The corner of his mouth curls up in a slightly unsure smile. "I don't know about metal, but there's something about it that feels important and kinda...grandiose? Mr Blackwood would probably roll his eyes about that kind of thinking but he's been doing it for years."

Will sits back from the easel and surveys the work he's done, figuring he should probably slow down on it before he starts overworking it. He bends to wash out his paintbrush and start tidying up the immediate area so that he'd still be able to use the room again later.

"Hey, maybe I'll see you around. I'm usually here for when the physical therapy people get out to help a friend get home so I'll be here again."

me sitting here realizing they haven't given their names

[gareththegreat]

"Yeah I can see that." Gareth nods, watching as Will cleaned up the area. It was interesting to know that he might actually have someone similar enough to him, or at least with similar hobbies, to share the space with now. It was actually something he was already looking forward to. Hellfire was all well and good and they were his best friends but...it wasn't often he found someone he could talk about art with.

"Maybe, I try to be here most days other than when we have our d&d games or band practice." He didn't seem to be cleaning anything up, like he was going to be there a while longer yet. He's sitting there a while longer before seeming to realize something.

"Oh! Uh...I'm Gareth by the way."