You hear a knock on the door. (from Moss Street -- Bayou St. John)

Trace shouts "Enter at ya own risk!"

Catherine grins as she pushes open the door, saying back to Caddy, "Well, at least someone is in. Let's just hope it's him..", before she crosses over the doorstep, entering the room, while carrying one end of some sort of board, covered with a smudged sheet.

Trace is being thoroughly lazy this afternoon. Usually he'd jump up to get the door, but figuring it's just Glass or Ryan, he's practicing his very best slouch on the couch. A bowl of sticky sweet marshmallow creme with Froot Loops stirred into it and a spoon sticking out rests in his lap, while he reads a book. The cover's visable, propped up on the arm rest: _The Jungle Book_ by Rudyard Kipling. He looks up as the two of you enter, partially closing the book, but keeping his place with his thumb. "Uh, hey," he greets with a lopsided grin, sitting up a little.

A journey of epic proportions has just been completed. Caddy litterally staggers behind Catherine, carrying her end of the sheeted board in skinny arms. "It better fuckin' be him..." the redhead mutters to herself, probably too loudly because everyone could hear. Finally, finally..the threshold is crossed. The end is in sight! "Ahh...hey Trace..." she mutters appreciatively, immediately dropping her end on the floor with a THUD. "Brought ya somethin'." Hope it isn't damaged.

Catherine smiles brightly as she sees who it is that is sitting upright on the couch, and she waves to Trace, but then quickly lowers her hand to catch the board when it threatens to slip, with Caddy dropping her end. She mutters, "Careful..", but then has her end lowered as well, and she places it so that it can rest slightly back against the wall. Still the sheet is covering the large, and aparently heavy plate. She giggles softly, "I guess next time we'll stick with canvas, right?"

The bluecap blinks more as the big, heavy ghost-disguised board-shaped whatzit is loudly dropped, peering at it curiously. His book is forgotten, and he tosses it onto the cushion next to him carelessly, picking himself up off the couch. His gaze flickers between the both of you. "What's goin' on..?" he wonders. Hazel centers on Cathy. "Canvas..?"

Apparently too tired to stand anymore, Caddy takes a seat on the floor, crossing her legs. Looks like she was dragged out of bed a little too soon. Boots untied, hair unbrushed and clothes rumpled...undoubtedly what she wore yesterday and slept in. "As opposed to wood." Obviously Trace! "'Cause it's heavier....ya know, harder to carry and what not...."

Catherine giggles as she says, "Hi Trace.. Uhmm.. well, that's for you to find out..", but then she stands up straight and tilts her head slightly, curiously looking Trace over. She hesitates a moment, then asks, rather softly, "How did it go? I heard why you locked yourself up... and..." She looks very expectantly, but doesn't really ask the question. For the moment, the wooden board is forgotten.

"Uh-huh," Trace nods, looking to Cathy with a slightly embarrassed flush, though he does smile. "Had to. I jest, I had to be sick awhile. But I mean, I'm doin' okay now. Still squeaky clean. Goin' on... God, what's it been?" He pauses a moment, lips stirring as he calculates in his head. Uhh... hmm. "Thirty-two days," he finally says, with a hint of awe in his voice as he says it. "Like basically a month. Wow." He swallows. How weird. A whole month! "All I basically do these days is smoke weed." He bites his lip, recalling Cathy's complaints for Ryan blazing up, and adds quickly, "Which I mean, it don't hurt nothin'. But I couldn't get by without *something* to take the edge off, at least f'now." He looks to the younger girl. You understand, right? "I mean. Better that than.. worse stuff." He shakes his head as if to clear it. "Anyway. About this board! What's this about? Did you guys draw somethin'?"

Caddy grins wryly at Trace, opting to remain silent at the mention of drugs. Just better keep her mouth shut about that. "Uhh...yeah. We did, just rip the sheet off and look." She's not going to -tell-! That ruins the whole surprise, the whole process of unwrapping. "It's cool, yer gonna like it, Trace..." the redhead mutters, crawling over couchwards to perch on the arm precariously.

Trace blinks in surprise at the hug, and moves arms around her with all the awkwardness typical of sixteen-year-old boys when pretty girls hug them. "Thanks.." he mumbles. He smiles foolishly once she's released him, and looks over to the board. "My gift...? S'fer me?" So he's slow on the uptake. He moves over to it slowly and eyes the board before taking hold of the sheet and tugging it off eagerly.

When the sheet is lifted, a painting with acrylics is revealed. On a large wooden panel, a magical scene has been painted with great care for detail. Drifting in a pond is a large lily, on top of which is standing a blue fairy, his wings spread slightly, watching with a regal look in his eyes over the rest of the pond, in which many female fairies are bathing. There is one swimming, another is washing her hair, and although nothing is to be seen, by strategically placed overhanging leaves and ripples of water, it is clear they are all naked. Their shoes are collected on a rock to the side, where one fairy is putting on her shoes, this girl's face sharing a remarkable likeness to Caddy, while another fairy is whispering into her ear, a mischievous look on her face that is the spitting image of Cathy.

Caddy just watches as hugs and congratulations are exchanged, picking at some type of lint that has found it's way onto her tank top. "I'm kind of thirsty..." she inflects to herself quietly, before looking up to see the unveiling. Finally! "They're naaaaaaaaaked!" the redhead sings to Trace, a huge grin blossoming over her face. She leans forward eagerly, examining the fairies in all their nude glory. "And Trace is naked, too!!"

Catherine looks a bit nervously at Trace as he reveals his gift, but then giggles at Caddy's words, and she adds in quickly, "But we decided to have you keep your dignity.. That's why that branch is hanging over the pond.. But you were the one saying that all fairies wear are shoes.." She looks back at Caddy with a big grin, now pretty pleased with the painting they made.

Trace blinks as the painting is revealed to him, wide-eyed wonder giving way to a bright smile as he crouches down to get an up-close look at his mural gift. "S'beautiful..." he murmurs, lips still parted slightly with appreciation. He reaches out to touch one of the depicted fairies, but his hand falls short as Caddy's comment pulls a laugh from him. He turns back to look at her, nose wrinkled. Not blushing, though. Coz he blushes like a giiiirl, so he's not gonna blush, not even a little. Okay, just some, but he made an effort not to anyway. "But the Trace-fairy's magic wand ain't showin', so it's okay." He looks to Cathy and grins, nodding a little. "It's true, though. Fairies is horribly indecent 'bout bein' naked, but it's okay because barely anyone sees them anyway. Just the people who get fairy dust on 'em, or a few rare ones who believe in magic." He nods at his explanation sagely, and then grins, turning back to the work of art. "Thanks, guys. Really. This is the bestest present, seriously. I'm gonna keep it f'rever. I'll make Walker hang it up, an' when we move to the other apartment, I'm hangin' it up there too."

"Actually, the shoes were -my- idea..." Caddy interjects. Let's give credit where credit is due. The redhead sticks her tongue out at Cathy, wrinkling her nose which gives her the comical appearance of a bedraggled child. Take that. "But I mean...yeah...I'm glad you like it, Trace. We figured you would, ya have all the girly fairies to yourself..." she mutters, dropping the face and turning back to Trace with just a small grin. "I don't think they could stand the sight of your wand...they'd go into fits."

Catherine giggles softly as she says, "Well, we wanted to make sure the Trace fairy looked just like you, and we don't know what the magic wand looks like.." Did she just say that? A blush is rapidly covering Cathy's cheeks now, and she hurries to skip over to another topic of conversation. "Ohh, yeah, it's for your apartment, thought it would be nice to cheer up the place, to have something on the wall to make it look nice.." It's not working too well, her face stays fairly flushed, especially when Caddy brings up the topic again.

The blue-haired boy gives an impish laugh at the girls' words, brows lifting especially at Cathy's comment. "Well! If I'd know'd ya was wantin' to see it..." he starts with ultra-nonchalance, but it falls short when he actually gives it thought. Wait, show his wand? Now Trace has the blush, and not just a little one, but pink bloomed all over his cheeks, right to the ears. He still grins though, and says, "Anyway, I really do love it though. Y'both'r too awesome."

Caddy grins languidly as you two turn crimson, leaning back against the wall and kicking her booted feet idly. "Yeah, Trace. Merry Christmas...." Even though it's now January. Better late than never. "Uhh...listen...I'm reall thirsty. I'm gonna get a drink, kay?" Without waiting for much of a reply, the redhead scoots off the arm of the couch and starts to plod toward the kitchen. She almost takes a spill over her untied laces again, but comically keeps going. Kind of trying to play it off or something. Trip? What trip?

Well, luckely for Trace, Cathy isn't watching him at the moment as she feels her own cheeks still burning away, and she remains staring at the floor until she feels a little more at ease. When she looks up, Caddy has already left for the kitchen, which leaves her to repeat, "Yeah, merry Christmas.."

"Thanks, guys." Trace just can't stop expressing his appreciation for this picture. He regards it fondly for a few more moments, still sporting a lingering blush. When he finally snaps out of it, he looks up towards the kitchen and calls, "Oh! We got, um. Fruitopia... Grape Beyond and that peachy stuff." By the way he twists his lips in a little punk sneer, 'that peachy stuff' is far insuperior. "An' there's coffee in the pot too, an' um. An iced tea? Maybe iced tea. You want anythin', Cathy?"

Grape Beyond is just what the doctor ordered. Caddy, tripping over herself a few more times, finally reaches her destination : the fridge. "Yeah, that purple junk is pretty good..." she mumbles, reaching a skinny hand out to open the icebox. "Maybe the little man in there drank it all, though..." Oookay. Too many drugs, apparently. Or just an overactive imagination. At any rate, the redhead pulls the bottle out of the fridge and unscrews the top, greedily sucking at the violet liquid. The bottle even does that annoying concave thing because she's sucking so hard, the plastic doming out with a loud pop when the death suck is finally released. "Ahh, thas good..." she mutters, slovenly leaning against the kitchen counter, nursing the bottle every now and then.

Catherine looks back at Trace now, and she smiles, as she says with a quick nod towards him, "Uhmm.. yeah, an iced tea sounds pretty good.." Then repeating it a little louder so Caddy can hear it in the kitchen, "Could you get me an iced tea please?" She slowly turns away from looking towards the kitchen, eyes resting on Trace again, and a quick smile plays along her lips, when she says in a soft voice, "It's great to see you out again.. Ohh.. I guess I should say happy new year as well.."

"Yeah, Grape Beyond's the bomb," Trace agrees whole-heartedly. "Ain't nothin' better." Upon looking in the fridge, there's quite a stock of alcoholic drinks in there too, plenty of wine coolers and bottles of hard cider. But of course the booze-phobic kid isn't going to point those out. He looks to Cathy when she speaks, and grins a little. "Yeah. Merry Christmas an' Happy New Year 'n all that t'you too, Cathy." He takes a seat on the floor with his back to the couch, pulling his legs cross-legged. Apparantly he's the only one not thirsty, but then again, he also didn't just lug a bigass board halfway across town.

"What the hell do I look like? Swiss Miss?" Caddy really isn't the cheerful giver of refreshments. However, she does start to fill the order, after taking one last long pull off her Fruitopia bottle and tossing it on the counter. Maybe she doesn't believe in garbage cans. "One iced tea comin' right up!" she says in a fake southern accent, plastic cheer in every word. But, this isn't her house, of course. Incidentally, she's never been here...so it takes the redhead awhile to locate something to drink out of. "Ya want ice in it or what?" she calls, poking her head back into the fridge to look for the tea.

Catherine giggles softly and calls out, "Swiss Miss? Why, you want to start walking around in lederhosen?" She looks down to see Trace settle down before the couch, and she slips down as well, dropping her backpack on the couch before she sits down next to the boy. Leaning slightly backwards, she turns her head to keep looking at Trace, and says, "Thank you.." She is a moment lost for something to say, and ends up speaking up towards the kitchen, "Well, if you can find ice, sure.."

Gee. Caddy busts her ass getting drinks and Trace gets thanked. He grins lopsidedly and then looks to the kitchen, calling, "Ice is in the freezer. In that white bin thing that says 'ice'." He's so helpful. Lazy bastard, not getting up to help her. "So when'd you guys do this thing anyway..? I mean, you really had this since Christmas?" He scritches at the back of his braided head bashfully and says, "I wish I'd got you guys somethin'... I feel bad. I'll have t'make it up t'ya fer Easter 'r somethin. Bring you a zillion jelly beans."

Caddy in lederhosen. Wouldn't that be a kick in the head? "Nah...there isn't any ice..the bin is empty..." she lies. Didn't even bother to look. Hey, you want quality service? Go elsewhere. She just grabs the jug of tea and pours a big heapin' helpin' of the stuff into the glass, some of the brownish liquid sloshing over the sides of the glass. "Fuck..." Now she has to clean this up. Life is so hard. The redhead sets the glass down on the floor, grabbing the nearest paper towel and sopping up as much of the watery mess as she can. "I'm coming..." she grumbles, tossing the squishy paper towel away and trudging back into the other room. The drink almost fully spills to the floor when she falters on her laces once more, but thankfully she's able to save herself and the beverage. "Yeah...we had it fer awhile...but I knew ya wouldn't have nothin' for us..." The drink gets extended for Cathy's consumption. And..is that...a few red hairs in it? Yes, apparently. "It's cool....but I -do- like jelly beans...."

Catherine looks up and smiles brightly at Caddy when she comes back and hands her the glass, saying, "Thanks.." She waits to see if Caddy will sit down next to them as well, as she says, "Well, we did make it a little after Christmas I think.. You had already locked yourself up by then, though it was Caddy that told me then.." She dunks a finger into her glass, stirrs it around, and fishes out the red hair floating in it, then grins, and lifts the glass to take a small sip. "Ohh, I'm not going to stop you from bringing jelly beans.. Hmm, or you could dress up as the easter bunny and hand out chocolate eggs? I still wonder who it was that decided that rabbits lay chocolate eggs though."

"*Magic* bunnies kin' lay eggs," Trace explains sagely, then his 'wise' look is disrupted by his more typical grin. "S'why Easter's special. Bunnies lay eggs an' jelly beans an' chocolates grow up outta the cellophane grass." He tugs at one of his silvery shoe-laces, somewhat muddy in spots from walking on them while undone, but they're still sparkly and gaudy enough for his liking. He leans over and mumbles out of the corner of his mouth playfully, addressing Cathy confidentially but still purposefully loud enough for Caddy to hear, "We gotta chip in an' get her some lederhosen f'Easter too, kay?"

Catherine laughs at Trace's whisper, and says with an evil grin, "Ohh, I wouldn't mind helping you out with that.. Sides, I got a new parttime job anyway.." She looks curiously at Caddy to see her reaction, while trying to inconspicuously wipe the hairs that are sticking with the iced tea on her fingers off on the floor. She takes another sip from her drink, then looks back to Trace and asks, "You aren't looking for something to do? I mean, on a rainy day?"

Trace grins a little. "Lately seems m'always lookin f'somethin' t'do that don't involve gettin' high. I mean, boredom's the absolute thing, y'know? That's when ya think bout it the most. I dunno, I been readin' more..." He nods to the book on the couch beside him. "I tried t'watch some TV, but I dunno, it really bores me lately. Dig though Walker's CDs sometimes. He's got some crazy stuff in there, y'know! I try'n draw sometimes too." He quirks a grin and admits shyly, "Drew ya a week or so ago. I mean, it weren't nothin' fancy 'r whatever. Jest done in pencil 'n markers."

"Yeah," Trace nods shyly. "Yeah, you kin' see." He lights up a little. "But you gotta show me one too! Fair's fair." How could the boy NOT jump at the chance of seeing another's work? "Anyway, um, my sketchbook is in my satchel, which is in the kitchen, so." He shrugs bashfully and gets off the couch, padding on into the kitchen. He's in there a moment, rifling through his bag to tug the thing free and then soon he's seated beside you again. The boy leafs through his book, flipping pages casually as he searches for it. Bright glimpses of color and sharp black and white contrasts jump out from between the turning sheafs of sketchbook paper, and sometimes the occasional loose piece of artwork done on a napkin or the back of a paper restaurant placemat.

Catherine smiles as Trace gets up, and she shifts up to hands and knees to reach over to her own backpack while the boy goes to the kitchen. Reaching out, she can barely grab a strap from where she is, and pulls it in, then flips it over, so she can open up the bag. She looks over to the kitchen, but Trace has disappeared inside it, so she just pulls out her own sketchbook, the one Caddy gave her for Christmas, and she flips through the first few pages, then carefully places the open sketchbook on the couch behind her, as if it was a table. Towards the kitchen she says, "Okay, I guess fair is fair.. and this should be a fair trade.."

Trace finally finds the page, a bright work of marker, just as he said. Perhaps there was once pencil underneath, but it's all been erased and only the vibrant lines remain. He hands it over to you, and watches your expression with a slight blush.

He's drawn Catherine in her witch costume she wore for Halloween. Her long pretty hair stands in stark contrast to the black clothing. Standing at profile, she's peering down into a cauldron before her, with an expression of blended confusion and amusement. A broom held forgotten in one hand is dripping a mysterious light green ooze, apparantly from stirring the steamy contents of the witch's brew. Peering up from within the black, four-legged pot is a little green monster with big surprised yellow eyes, moonlike orbs aimed up at Cathy. He's crouched down shyly, only visable from the warty nose and up. The witch Catherine doesn't seem flustered or frightened at all, just bemused at this creature she's accidentally summonned into her cauldron.

Catherine holds up her hands and very carefully accepts the book Trace hands her, knowing it is invaluable with all the drawings that are inside. She lowers it to her lap, then looks down and smiles, then giggles as she looks at the page, and exclaims, "Wow, this is so great!" She doesn't look up, remains studying the image, watching all the little details, and the way the entire drawing tells it's story, making her laugh softly a few times, until she finally nods, and looks up again at Trace, saying, "Wow, it is awesome.." She smiles, then says softly, "Well, fair is fair, though I'm not nearly as good at drawing.." Letting the book rest in her lap, she reaches to take her own sketchbook from the couch, then hands it up to Trace. Showing on the page it is opened upon is a portrait of Trace, done in pencil, very gently shaded and worked out pretty sharply. It's an almost frontal portrait, his head turned just slightly, with a somewhat dreamy expression on his face, and although she lacks some in the artists skills that Trace has, she tried to make up with efford. It looks like many a sketch pretrailed this drawing, and it's done with very great care and attention to details, making it look very lifelike.

"Ohh.." Trace's lips part as he looks down at the mirror-sketch of himself, wholly flattered and taken aback. "Cathy, that's.." He shakes his head, left speechless, looking up at you. "I jest... wow. Thank you. I didn't spect you'd gone and drawn *me*." He looks back down at it, one hand reaching out to touch fingertips gently along the line of pencil-Trace's gaunt cheekbone, and then blushes gently. Without looking up, he says shyly, "Part'a me wants to ask you if we could trade, coz yer picture makes me feel real nice. But then again, each picture in my sketchbook's a memory, and maybe yers is the same, so... the other parta me wants us each to keep the pictures we drew, so I'll always 'member how cute ya was in yer witchy hat, an you kin always 'member me."

Catherine looks a little anxious up at Trace as he regards her picture, a slight blush colouring her cheeks as she shows a drawing she hasn't been showing anyone else, but also smiling from the way Trace reacts to it. She looks back down at the book in her lap, watching her own self as a with, then back up to Trace holding the book, and after a moments hesitation, she says softly, "Perhaps I could make another one for you.. I mean.. it won't be exactly the same.. And I'd need some time for it.. But if you'd like to have it..."

"Alright," Trace agrees, smiling at the solution. "I don't mind if it takes long. I'll be around. An' I'll draw you one too, if you like. Or you could keep this one, and then come model for me sometime an' I'll make another fer myself." He tips his head to one side, regarding you, and decides, "Outdoors, I think. Wanna draw you outdoors. I'll find someplace green, like Ireland."