Work Text:
In the starry silence of an L.A. night, Rose shakes their can of spray paint with practiced ease.
“All clear,” Ray murmurs in her ear, standing back to back with her as he stands guard, camera in hand. “For now.”
Rose knows he has faith in her, because he always has and always will, but faith doesn’t make him any less apprehensive about her latest venture: graffiti-ing an anti-capitalist manifesto onto Trevor Wilson’s garage door.
“He’s a musician,” they remind Ray, as if they didn’t give him her whole rant on the subject three times already. “He should be using his money and influence for good, not to fund right-wing homophobic pigs. Especially—”
“Especially when his son is so visibly closeted it hurts,” Ray finishes for her. “I know, tesoro. Just finish up, please?”
She hmmphs, mock-annoyed, but obediently starts her work. She used to need stencils for a project of this size—even just a handful of words needed to be centered and spaced correctly or it drove them up the walls, but they quickly learned that putting up the stencils and taking them down again wasted precious not getting caught time, so she trained herself to sufficiently eyeball it.
Now, a swirly rainbow Capitalism is Cruel and Unusual Punishment only takes her five minutes and a steady hand.
Their hand is plenty steady, but apparently five minutes on Trevor Wilson’s property is too many.
She doesn’t hear the window open. Ray must not either, focus on the front door, the end of the driveway, and capturing Rose’s latest masterpiece at just the right angle.
“There,” she says, satisfied, as she steps back to admire her handiwork. “Perfect.”
“You won’t make it on the news,” a voice says from above them.
Rose jumps, an involuntary squeak escaping the back of her throat. Ray almost drops his camera in his haste to draw his dad’s gun from his waistband, but even once he’s got the weapon in his hands, they tremble.
It’s not loaded, anyway, and even if it were, Ray wouldn’t know how to shoot it. The boy leaning out the open window above the garage does not look intimidated.
“If that’s what you’re going for,” he continues flatly. “Trevor’s groundskeeper gets here at 4am, he’ll wash that off before anyone ever sees it.”
“Rose,” Ray whispers urgently. “Come on, let’s get out of here.”
But Rose is nothing if not impulsive. Worse than that, they’re intrigued. This boy doesn’t sound scared of them, or even angry. If anything, he sounds bored.
Plus, Rose recognizes him, even in the dark. She knows his voice from MTV.
“Aleja esa cosa,” she hisses, gesturing at Ray’s useless pistol. Then she calls softly up to the window, “Why aren’t you calling the police? Or waking up your father?”
His shadowed form tenses. Ray’s breath catches audibly.
Rose grins, a certainty flowing though her that things are about to get interesting. “Well, Bobby Wilson?” they call up to the rich boy in the window. “Aren’t you going to invite us in?”