Dancing With Jackrabbits

Summary: Roderich Edelstein lives a bland, monotonous life at his little music shop on the edge of the city. When a persistent and self-proclaimed "street artist" starts creating his so-called "masterpieces" on the side of Roderich's shop, Roderich's life suddenly gets a lot more interesting.

Pairings: PruAus, TurkHun (sidepairing)

Warnings: M rated content later on. :)

Comments and critiques welcomed! Enjoy!

His music shop stood on the corner of 16th and Addison sandwiched between one of the saddest secondhand bookstores Roderich had ever seen and the kind of dark, narrow alleyway thieves and beggars crawled around; which meant that his dingy and decrepit store fit in just fine.

It wasn't that Roderich particularly enjoyed the rundown excuse of a shop—or the more-than-shady foot traffic that passed by each day—but rent was cheap and the building was close to his equally depressing apartment, so it really hadn't been as much of a question as one would have thought and Roderich left it that way. He really was too miserly for his own good.

Business was as predictable as it came, though Roderich had managed to catch the attention of a few music-aficionados who browsed his collections for rare recordings and sheet music so old it had turned yellow. It kept him in business and was steady enough to pay the bills, and so Roderich remained in the crumbling building on the crumbling street, arriving at ten each morning and leaving at six, each evening his ring of keys jangling in flat sounds as he locked the door and pulled the metal cover down. There was not much to interest petty burglars, but crime wasn't uncommon in the more unwelcoming part of the city and so Roderich always took the extra precaution.

Music was his life, after all; his lifeblood, even if his dreams in music had died out years ago. But while he could still recall that day with the same bitterness that soured in his stomach, he could not quite bring himself to stoop so low as to let common criminals mar his music with their grimy, streetwise hands.

And, there was still the tired and worn piano that sat near the front of the store as if it were still something proud enough to be displayed. That piano, that last thread to foolish aspirations, Roderich refused to see touched in any way that was unkind. It would be stolen over his dead body.

As it turned out, however, Roderich's run-in with crime would not be over his piano, but over the brick wall that lined the side of the shop, its masonry caked with mud and grime and piss. That wall—that filth—was where he first met Gilbert, and where his life, a top spinning endlessly in the same the same, first stuttered.

It had been near the end of autumn, during the purgatory between leaves and snow, that Roderich had seen the garish bright yellow paint for the very first time.

He had been walking to work—a bit late, but he doubted that anyone cared—and dripping yellow birds had caught his eye.

First of all, birds weren't yellow. Or at least, certainly not that shade of yellow, which was something between neon and an ugly shade of chartreuse;

Secondly, birds didn't drip and ooze down the wall like the yellow paint had, the nozzle too close in application and the brick, oversaturated, had cried the rest out;

And third, someone had tagged his wall.

His wall—with his shop right on the other side. Roderich felt his nostrils flare and he stomped over to the alley, keyring jingling, like a sour-minded art teacher honing in on an unfortunate student's work. He had his hands on his hips, glaring from behind his glasses as if that would make the hideous yellow birds fly away.

To his disappointment, Roderich found that up close, the birds actually weren't half bad. Each one was different as they lifted painted wings toward the sky, permanently grounded to the brick they'd been sprayed on like some kind of story with a moral. The dripping paint almost added to it, and looked less amateur than Roderich had initially thought from far away.

It almost reminded him of that British "street artist"—Banker or Bongo or something like that. Not that Roderich paid attention to such drivel, of course, but he remembered Eli talking about him once, face and hands and arms dashed with paint like always and a note of adoration in her voice.

Roderich didn't know much about this so-called "street art", but he did know that it was illegal, and that it sure as hell didn't belong on the side of his store.

"On my store!" he muttered heatedly to himself, his shoulders practically bristling as he scrutinized the graffiti. The nerve of some people.

He dug out his phone angrily and dialed for the city police, looking impatient as he waited for the operator to pick up.

"9-1-1, what's your emergency?"

Roderich glanced at the spray painted birds. "Yes, hello, I would like to report that my property was vandalized overnight," he said.

"Did you see the culprit, sir?"

"Er, no," he hesitated. "But when I arrived at work this morning there was-"

"I see, sir," the operator sounded bored on the other end. "Can you please describe the vandalism?"

Roderich nodded, turning his eyes back to glare at the wall. "Yes, they spray painted the side of my store with, um, yellow birds."

There was a pause on the other end before the woman repeated skeptically, "Yellow birds?"

Roderich winced. It did sound a bit better in his head. "…Yes," he said, and he thought that he sounded awfully foolish.

"Sir, I have no records of gangs in the area that use 'yellow birds' as their gang sign. It was most likely some teenagers messing around."

"Yes, but—" he tried feebly.

The operator continued as if he hadn't spoken, sounding just as bored as she had at the beginning. "If you will give me the address of your location we will get in contact with someone who will clean it off. That address, sir?"

Roderich fumbled with his keys, adjusting his hold on the phone. "Oh, um, I am on the corner of 16th and Addison."

"Thank you for reporting the incident but we ask that next time you file the appropriate paperwork at the office instead of using this line with is for emergencies only. Good day, sir."

He'd hardly gotten the address out before she cut in again, and Roderich could imagine one of those old ladies depicted in the movies, sitting hunchbacked at the desk and twirling the phone cord around a long-nailed finger with blatant disinterest. Sighing, he ended the call and lowered the phone from his ear, training his best glare at the too-bright birds that hurt his eyes in the sunlight.

An eyesore, that's what they were, and that's what they would be until Roderich stood and watched them powerscrubbed away himself. It was almost a satisfying thought.

Roderich is referring to the street artist Banksy, of course. ;)