Die Hard | Tawny

[Archer Davidson]

Old habits died hard they always said and that was especially true for Archer. The boy stole for a living for many years and it wasn't something that he couldn't just easily give up. Besides, now that he knew that was from his father, Mercury, there wasn't really a reason to try to squash his powers, but he didn't do it on a regular basis. He heard what punishments the Praetors dished out for stealing and Archer didn't really want to take any part in that. So it was maybe once a month or so when he got the itch in his fingers to reach out and take something that wasn't his.

And he got that itch today and he couldn't deny it. He was in the Third Cohort along, or so he thought. Most of his cohort mates had gone off to do whatever while Archer stayed behind. He couldn't have any witnesses to his activities, especially ones that would rat on him. So he waited until the coast was clear as he walked over to a trunk. He wouldn't steal the expensive things. Nah, those would be missed too soon. Instead, he stole the little things. When he opened up this trunk, there was a couple of bags of candy in it. He smirked to himself as he grabbed a few pieces and stuck it in his coat pocket. Nobody would ever miss it.

(tag: Tawny Mitchell )

[Tawny Mitchell]

There was nothing like a little road rash to wake you up. Everything had been going well today. Tawny had been practicing a new trick she had made up herself. It was a really sick kick flip off of one of the columns in town where she would reverse her stance on the board so that she could switch up her skating style. It was pretty awesome to behold but the only problem was she hadn’t gotten the timing down perfectly just yet. Instead when she flipped her board and was supposed to come down in the opposite direction she flipped too high and came down on her knee instead.

Her jeans got tore up real good and her right knee was scraped pretty bad and bleeding but Tawny was convinced that it was not as bad as it looked. She had been through a million of these falls and scraps and she had never met one she couldn’t treat. This one was no different so as she hobbled back to the barracks looking sheepish as she passed the infirmary and went straight for her dorm. As she entered the dorm however it was there that she noticed something she wasn’t used to seeing.

As she walked in she spotted a boy over by her stuff. That wasn’t strange in itself but then the guy opened her trunk and proceeded to grab a few pieces of candy before shutting it again. Tawny smirked as she entered the room. “You know, I’ve heard they taste better if you ask first.” She said with a smirk as she made her way over to her bed. She didn’t really mind the guy taking a few candies but it would be interesting to see how he reacted.

[Archer Davidson]

Just as Archer deposited the candy into his pocket and was pulling his hand out, he heard a voice. Busted. He froze for a second as he glanced out of the corner of his eye. It was a girl and if his memory served him right, he was going through her stuff. Double busted. But she didn't look mad and he hoped not to make her mad. Instead, she looked slightly amused? Was she going to rat on him? He kept a careful eye on her as she walked over to her bed. A quick plan formulated in his head and he decided to act on it while he still could.

He straightened up as he took his hand out of his pocket and carefully closed the lid of her trunk. "May I please borrow your candy?" he asked with a grin one could describe as charming. "I can't promise that I can give it back, though."

[Tawny Mitchell]

So the guy had a sense of humor even if he was stealing her stuff. That charming grin was fake as shit though. Still, she supposed she could let it slide. It was hard to be real when you got caught with your hands in the cookie jar after all. "The stuff on the bottom is better." She said as she tossed her board on the bed and sat down on her bunk with a hiss of pain. The bottom was where she kept the rich dark chocolate but he wouldn't have known that since it didn't look like he was digging.

Tawn's leg stung something fierce. It still wasn't anything major but the bits of gravel and dirt that stood out plainly in the cut probably needed to be cleaned out before she did anything else. "While you're digging around in there could you hand me the bottle of peroxide and a bandage? It'd save me the trouble." She smiled up at him through clenched teeth. "Not to mention you're getting to see the beginnings of some pretty wicked scars." Tawny played a good game but she would be lying if she said it didn't hurt and that she was looking forward to digging through her stuff on her own. Besides, the least he could do was help a girl out after taking her candy.

[Archer Davidson]

At least he'd managed to humor her, which was a good start. As long as he stayed on her good side, the less likely he'd be turned over to the Centurions or worse, the Praetors. So he figured he might as well play along with it and it didn't hurt that the girl in question was kind of cute. "I'll keep that in mind," he said with a smirk as he watched her sit down on her bed. The hiss didn't go by unnoticed and Archer narrowed his eyebrows a bit as he noticed the injury on her knee and grimaced a bit.

He was a bit caught off-guard when she asked him to dig around in her trunk some more. Peroxide and a bandage? He smirked to himself as he opened her trunk once more and started digging around for the requested items. "You'd probably need some tweezers too along with some cotton swabs," he said before he found the part of the trunk that seemed to house her medical stuff and pulled out the requested items along with a few more other things. He piled them up into his arms before he carried them over to her and rested them on the bed beside her. "I'm not a doctor, but I've taken care of some injuries that might've lead to some wicked scars."

[Tawny Mitchell]

“Huh. Guess I should try and do it right if I’m going to do it at all.” Tawny said with a chuckle as the guy reached back in her chest and brought out a few things to help her out. To his credit she noticed he didn’t take any of her chocolate so maybe he was an alright guy when it came down to it. She didn’t really know enough to say at this point and she wasn’t really one to make hasty judgments. Still, the guy was sticking around to help her so that was something.

“Seem to know a thing or two about first aid though especially if you’ve spent some time patching people up.” Tawny continued talking as she took the tweezers and began trying to clean the wound herself wincing every once in a while as she did. “Definitely aren’t wimpy around blood either. Are you doing the medic thing or something?” He didn’t really seem like the medic type, at least not like one of those Vejovis kids. Still, she supposed she could be surprised. Whatever the case it might be good to have another pair of hands for this. “You're...Archer right?” she said pulling the name out of her memory. "I've seen you around still practice and stuff. I'm Tawny."

[Archer Davidson]

"Nah," Archer chuckled as he shook his head when she asked if he was some sort of a medic. He moved to sit down beside her as he readied the medical supplies for her as she picked out the little bits of gravel in her knee. "Nothing really that noble. Let's just say... Let's just say that I had a rough and colorful childhood when I was growing up... Enough that most injuries don't phase me and I don't have a weak stomach when it comes to blood." He grimaced a bit when he remembered how much blood he lost when he was stabbed in the chest his last and final gang encounter. At least here, things seemed to be calmer than the streets of LA.

"Yeah, Archer," he said as he nodded his head before he said. "And I can take care of that if you want me to, Tawny." He nodded his head towards her knee. "I pulled out gloves and I would probably have a better angle than you would."

[Tawny Mitchell]

"A colorful childhood huh?" She said with a smirk. Guess that explained the petty thievery. Still, she wondered just how colorful his past really was. She had known some guys that grew up on the street and you never knew what kind of people you would run into when you hung around the extreme sports crowd but what was this guy's story? "Very mysterious. You're not one of those bad boy types who is all super tough are you?" She smiled showing that she was only teasing. So far he had been pretty cool and she didn't want to scare him off yet. Though from the sound of things she was starting to think he wasn't the type to scare easily.

She considered his offer to clean out her wound. Typically this was something she did herself. Not only was it kinda gross to ask a complete stranger but Tawny liked to do things for herself. Still, he did have a point and she really could use the extra hands. She supposed as long as he was willing to help it would be kind of silly not to let him. "Alright dude see what you can do with it. Mess up though and I might have to send you some pretty wicked nightmares tonight." She gave him another smile and leaned back to watch him work.

[Archer Davidson]

Archer had to chuckle to himself. Was he really the bad boy type? He didn't really view himself as the type, but he could play into the persona if he wanted to, despite the fact she was clearly teasing him. "Nah," he said with another chuckle. "I like to think of myself as one of those tall, dark, and handsome type of guys."

He wondered if she would let him look at her knee. He had patched up a variety of injuries in the past and a skinned knee was the least complicated one. But finally she agreed. "I don't think I can mess it up further than you have already," Archer said with a smirk. But that was something he would keep in mind. He didn't want to get any so-called wicked nightmares from her tonight. He already had quite a few of his own after being on the streets of LA. But with that in mind, he put on gloves before he pulled her injured knee onto his lap. He inspected it for a few moments before he grabbed the tweezers and started plucking out bits of gravel that she missed earlier. "You really messed yourself up good," he said as he plucked away the gravel. "What did you do?"

[Tawny Mitchell]

"Is that what it is?" She asked with a chuckle. "I'll have to keep that in mind." She wasn't sure if that was a joke or a casual flirt but either way Tawny supposed she would let it fly. She was getting a pretty good vibe from this guy despite his sticky fingers. He was the type of person she usually got along with and she didn't really mind a little harmless stealing. She was a little rough around the edges herself. The bloody knee was kind of the prime example of that.

"Ha, ha. Now less talking and more...tweezing." She shook her head at him and prepared herself for what was coming. It wasn't a bad injury but she especially didn't want to jump or squirm like a big baby when he was around. That was not the way she had been taught to act. You threw some dirt on it, got back on your board and went again until you got it right and that's exactly what she planned to do as soon as this was over. "I just wanted to leave a little skin on the pavement." She said as she held on to that confident smile. She decided it would be a little safer if she didn't focus on what he was doing and instead watched his face as he worked. "Would have been worth it if I would have landed my trick but I'll get it eventually. In the meantime I guess I've got a new pair of ripped jeans. Kind of edgy don’t you think?”

[Archer Davidson]

"Yes ma'am," Archer muttered underneath his breath as Tawny told him to talk less and focus more on the tweezing. There wasn't that much gravel in her knee to begin with, but she missed a few spots in her haste to get them done. "I don't think that's the smartest move," he said with a bit of a chuckle before he put down the tweezers. "Don't call me an expert, but I'm pretty sure that skin is supposed to stay on your body and not on the pavement."

He grabbed a couple of cotton swabs before he got the bottle of peroxide. "I guess ripped jeans are cool if you like the edgy look." He shrugged a bit. "Fashion's really not my thing though, if you haven't noticed." Archer was pretty comfortable in his non-ripped jeans and flannel shirts. He dosed the cotton swabs in the peroxide before he hovered them above her knee. "You ready?" he asked before he went to clean up her knee some more.

[Tawny Mitchell]

Archer took care of the wound and did so with surprising care. Tawny hardly felt a thing as he was pulling all the junk out of her leg. All in all it wasn't a bad experience. Still, she had to respond to his sarcastic comments. "Tell it that. Maybe next time it won't be in such a rush to make a mess of things. It would certainly make taking care of injuries a lot easier but no pain no gain as they say." By the looks of things there was about to be a little more pain though. As he hovered over her with the peroxide and cotton balls she prepared for the burning sting that accompanied the cleaning.

"I'm ready." She said with a nod. Hopefully the whole cotton swab thing would work a little better than her idea to just douse the wound and deal with the pain for a few minutes while it bubbled and fizzed. Then again she doubted it could be much worse. To distract herself she decided to keep the conversation going. "Don't worry I'm not much of a fashion nut myself either." She smirked at him despite the impending pain. "If you haven't noticed." T-shirts, jeans, hoodies, ball caps, anything comfortable really, those were more her style and she had never been good at all that dressing up stuff. "Then again I never claimed to be a daughter of Venus. Spend too much time in front of a mirror and that’s not for me. Let me guess, you’re a Mercury guy?”

[Archer Davidson]

“What were you trying to do anyway?” he asked as he looked up at her and cocked an eyebrow at her. Then he looked at the skateboard she threw to the side as tilted his head towards it. “Or should I say, what were you trying to do on that?” He had seen Tawny zipping around New Rome on that board, so it was only natural for him to assume that it had something to do with it.

But once he was given the go ahead, he started cleaning the area with the swab with peroxide. He saw the peroxide bubble away on her skin as he momentarily winced. He knew this wasn't fun and he focused on keeping her knee still just in case she squirmed on him. “I kind of guessed you weren't a daughter of Venus. More like the daughter of a daredevil,” Archer said with a smirk before he looked up at Tawny. “And how did you guess? What gave it away?” he said a bit teasingly.

[Tawny Mitchell]

“Oh it was going to be pretty sweet. I started off with your basic Ollie, kicked off of one of the columns to get some more speed and was going to spin and come down riding backwards.” She chuckled as she realized he probably didn’t have the foggiest what she was even talking about and added. “It’s a lot easier to understand when you see it and I almost had it this last time. Guess I still need a little more practice before I start showing it off though.”

As he dab on the peroxide Tawny sucked in a sharp breath. It burned and that shocked her more than anything else but overall it wasn’t too much to handle. Still, she preferred to not watch the stuff bubble up like a carbonated soda so she kept her eyes glued on Archer. “I don’t know about the daredevil stuff. Somnia is usually pretty serious but who knows? Guess he has to have a bit of thrill seeker side if he found my mom.” Granted she hadn’t gotten to know her father that well or anything but she had met him a few times in her dreams and that had to count for something. “As for how I guessed let’s just say I grew up around a lot of Mercury siblings so I can usually pick them out.”

[Archer Davidson]

Archer didn't have the faintest clue what the girl was talking about, but he decided that it was probably a good way to distract herself as he was cleaning off the blood on her knee. Archer really didn't do the skateboarding thing at all, but some of the members of his gang did it a little bit. He recognized the word Ollie, but couldn't remember what it meant. But she seemed pretty enthused by it, so he chuckled a bit. "I guess you'll have to show me once this knee of yours heals up," he said as he decided that the peroxide did enough work.

He picked up another swab as he got rid of the excess peroxide and cleaned up what was left of dried blood as he went to grab the bandage. "Somnia?" he asked as he started applying the bandage to her knee. "That would explain the wicked nightmares. I guess there has to be some thrill to it when you're messing around with somebody's dreams or nightmares." But once the bandage was applied, he tapped her knee gently before he went to remove his gloves. "There. Almost as good as new."