The Vandal

A dingy station and a small, yellow, plastic seat.

Carson's Pov:

Carson liked to paint. The way his hands could create a whole new universe, made with blues and purples and silvers. Colors couldn't hurt anyone, didn't kill, shoot, or maim anything.

Carson's universes had no hatred, anger or fear. Just cool, calm tones.

Other people liked his paintings too, he would see little kids drag their parents to see the huge designs.

The only problem was, it was illegal.

He was an artist, but one that the British police didn't totally appreciate. You see, Carson preferred a larger than life canvas, and if that meant climbing over barbed wire fences to find a big brick wall, he was all in.

He would pull out his cans, and spray out a quick sketch, then call over his friends to help fill in the vast amounts of open space into rolling fields of color.

It was fun, and felt rebellious and cool, like a covert mission.

Usually, the cops let them alone because they were doing art, but you couldn't spray the nicer parts of town, where people expect things to be clean, and as long as they kept it reasonably PG rated nobody usually went after them.

This time, Skye fucked up.

Skye, they were in a bit of a rocky place to begin with, but when they found out that their boyfriend was cheating on him in a very complex relationship, they lost it. They yelled and yelled at their boyfriend Bailey, and Bailey snapped and smacked them across the face. Skye cried for days, the dark bruise circling their eye.

Bailey called to apologize around a billion times, but the damage was done.

Skye was fragile and unstable. He had gone out and started marking buildings and offices that were connected to Bailey Argon. The art objectively was beautiful, but Carson figured that nobody really wanted the likes of them spray painted on a brothel door, covered in dicks, and, got caught. Bailey was involved in the brothel business and had deep ties with the local police.

So, Carson was there to bail Skye out. It was a long wait, so Carson sat in one of the uncomfortable yellow plastic chairs they had at the station and picked the paint out from beneath his fingernails to pass the time.

Carson knew he looked kinda shady, with the purple bruises under his eyes, and the black tattoos lining his hands. His backpack rattled with spray cans.

Even the rips in his black jeans showed the dark ink etched into his skin. He just wanted to get out of the cramped, badly lighted room.

He looked up as he heard laughing, and say a young man with brown, slightly curly fringe walking from behind the desk, escorted by two cops.

He was wearing a baggy blue top, and a pair of skinny jeans that showed how incredibly thin he was. With his slumped in shoulders and the small tattoos on his wrists and back, Carson figured it was just another delinquent teen, getting out of their twelve hours in the slammer.

He saw one cop slap the man on the back and say "see you later Cunningham. Stay out of trouble." the slap on the back was almost enough to send him flying, and he stumbled a bit, catching himself on a desk in front of where Carson was sitting. His knobby knuckles turned almost completely white at the effort of pushing himself upright again.

As he did, his chocolate brown eyes met Carson's dark ones, and he cast a small, haphazard smile, and gently stood, and slid out the sliding glass doors, visibly lighting a cigarette on his way out.