We’re here to elevate

[mal_contented]

[Feed on Mal, between missions and freshly washed, hair still damp, clothes clean and in place. The bruise over one eye is about the only evidence that she'd been out in the muck until a few hours ago.]

"Alright kids, time to see how many we can kill with one stone. You need your rooms painted, I need money and to blow off some stress. So. First come first serve so long as the pay is worth my time. You provide materials, money, and the wall, I provide the art. I figure I can do one or two when I get back from each mission. So, you got my contact info here. Zap me up."

[She was also considering painting on canvases for sale, but she needed to earn more than she was making doing hair first.... And you know, have more than one client at the salon... but that was a whole other issue....]

Comments

[takeitsleazy]

Excellent! How 'bout tomorrow? I'll even pick up the tab for the paint.

[mal_contented]

"Yes you will. I should be back by then. So tomorrow it is."

Fine with handwaving the rest if you want to get to new stuff!

[takeitsleazy]

Okay, great! I'll see you then.

Seperate thread for the painting, or handwaving that too?

[mal_contented]

"Yep."

Nah that should be quick enough.

[takeitsleazy]

[when she shows up, he has all he needed from the Emporium: a book of London postcards and a tiny paperweight shaped like a phone box. he's Wished it blue, the color that Rose and the Doctor have always described in such exquisite detail, and sat it on top of the postcard he liked best, next to a collection of paints, brushes, and spray cans in all the necessary colors. Perched on the varicolored caps of the cans is a familiar bag, filled with peanut butter cups, peanut butter pillows, two different kinds of fudge (pumpkin cheesecake and strawberry-chocolate), and a bag of gumballs.

he's also pulled all the furniture away from the wall in question so she'll have room to work]

Hey, Mal! Thanks so much for doing this. I can't wait to see their faces...

Awesome. And OMG at what she'll be painting.

[mal_contented]

She grinned as she helped herself to some fudge. "No problem. Looks like you bought out the art section. Do I get to keep the leftovers?"

Thought all involved would approve. :D

[takeitsleazy]

"'Course you do." He'd bought himself a packet of peppermint pillows, and popped one in his mouth, speaking around it with a grin. "Wouldn't be able to do nearly as much with it myself. Think of it as an investment since I'm not quite due for another haircut, yet."

He leaned in to point at a spot in the sky on the postcard.

"What I was hoping for was that you could paint this -" A quick, light, double tap on the paperweight - "flying over the city right about here. Almost in the middle but not quite. Maybe just a little crooked to make it look more like it's moving?"

You thought right, I think.

[mal_contented]

"Torn bit of cloud trailing along one edge to subtly sell it?" she asked. This was going to be a fun and interesting project. Not sure why he wanted that thing flying, but she could do that. "Coming towards the observer, or flying away?"

[takeitsleazy]

"See!" He pointed at her with a grin and a snap of his fingers. "This is why I know you'll get a lot of clients, Mal, I never would have thought of something like that! How about ... toward the window, like anyone who wanted to try and get away could hop aboard?"

From what he'd heard from both his roommates, the TARDIS was all about escape and adventure, and having it fly away might be a little too sad.

[mal_contented]

She considered and looked at the paperweight again. "What if I shifted the scale and made the window part of it?"

[takeitsleazy]

Michael gasped, thoroughly beside himself with excitement. "Yes." He nodded far more times than was necessary. "Yes, you're a genius! I love it!"

[mal_contented]

Evie is a genius. Carlton is a genius. The only time Mal ever received praise before coming here was in Auradon, where she was always lumped in with her other friends. So it wasn't exactly common for someone to call her so much as smart genuinely. Being called a genius was on a whole other level entirely. But his enthusiasm was catching, so she put how she felt about that aside for now, to figure out later.

She went back to the reference for what the box should be flying over. "Anything here I specifically should be careful not to lose in scaling?"

[takeitsleazy]

"The wheel, and the clock," he said, drumming his fingers against his chin. "The clock seems like it's kind of a big landmark, and the wheel is important because of a memory, I guess? She told me a story about something that happened underneath it once. But I think you could probably play around with it. That's kind of the point of art, right? To make things the way you see them, not necessarily the way they are? I ... wouldn't know, I don't do it much. Aside from that time in the tent."

[mal_contented]

She grinned. "Yeah, I can make it work. I can use a forced perspective to make it look like this thing is between the two. Should be doable." Would be easier if she had some reference images from other angles, but she'd work with what she had.

[takeitsleazy]

There were plenty of other postcards, and pictures in the book. Michael flipped through it, looking for other images, until he found a few and turned it around to show her. "Would this help?"

[mal_contented]

"Yes, thank you. How long have I got before they come in?"

[takeitsleazy]

He glanced up at the clock on the wall. "Still getting used to linear time in actual human increments," he confessed. "When the big hand is on the twelve and the little one is on the nine is usually when the Doctor gets back. And then Rose gets back maybe half an hour after that?"

[mal_contented]

"Not much time to work with here," she said, completely unaware of why that was funny. "Alright. Going to need some music, loud, some strong black coffee, and then going to need you to get out of my way. take them out to dinner or something to buy me a few more hours."

[takeitsleazy]

"Loud music, I can do, the Doctor's got a stereo around here somewhere." He immediately started to bustle around the apartment, and soon collected the radio, setting it up on a nearby table, and pulled out a bag of the coffee the Doctor favored, too.

"Here you go. I ... can't quite get it right when I make it yet, do you know how?"

[mal_contented]

She shook her head. "I always buy my coffee. Never had to make it for myself." She fished in her pocket and pulled out a little munny. "Tell the person making the coffee to make it black as a villain's soul." She considered then also pulled out her keys and dangled them. "There is a CD on the table next to my bed, you can grab that. Leave my roommate's stuff alone. My bed should be the easy one to find, I use more purple, she uses more red with our black."

[takeitsleazy]

"She's the one with the thing for cameras, right? Yeah, I can handle that... Keep your munny, I've got the coffee." He gave her his customary pat on the shoulder and grin before heading for the door with a thumbs-up. "Back in a flash."

[mal_contented]

She nodded, put on whatever CD was in the player and got to work while she waited. She really didn't have much time, for the scale of the project. But she needed the release of art. And knowing caffeine was coming helped.

[takeitsleazy]

Not much later, he returned with her coffee and the CDs from her room, slipping in quietly so as not to disturb her and setting the coffee down near the spray paint cans. With a cup of his own in hand, he settled down to watch her work, absolutely enthralled - even more so than he had been as she worked in her tent. He'd known she was good, but seeing what she could do with more than just a few colors was jaw-dropping.

[mal_contented]

She grabbed the coffee between colors and drained half of it in a sip before swapping CDs. she flipped on the random and gott back to work as asong played. She started moving to the music, singing along as she worked. As the caffeine worked through her. Paint, good music, and black coffee. If not for the danger all around them this could almost be happiness.

[takeitsleazy]

He left her to her work after a while, puttering around in his corner of the apartment and tending to his own things. Once it got close to the time when the Doctor and Rose were due to come home, he popped back into the living room to check her progress.

"Okay, I'm going to take them out to the Red Wagon for a nice long, fancy dinner," he grinned. "You want me to bring you back anything? There are sandwiches and something called a Shepherd's Pie in the fridge in case you get hungry for something more than candy. Help yourself to anything."