ArchivedLogs:Swapping Spit

Swapping Spit
Dramatis Personae Alejandro, Anole, Rasa
In Absentia	2014-06-24 '
Location <NYC> Central Park South
Central Park South is home not just to the park itself, but also to the Belvedere Castle, the Alice in Wonderland statues, and the Central Park Zoo. These areas tend to draw tourists like a magnet - it is, perhaps, for that very reason that places like Bethesda Terrace tend to attract more New Yorkers than not, if just to escape the press of tourism that infiltrates the whole city. The park is bustling, today, warm and not hot, sunny and bright; packed full of tourists and New Yorkers alike. Some just out enjoying the weather, some lounging. Walking dogs, tossing Frisbees, eating greasy street food, enjoying the display set up here by the natural history museum to try and entice people over through its doors (some of its attendants are rather strenuously attempting, at the moment, to keep a horde of small children from /scaling/ a dinosaur model.) One New York teenager is, at the moment, mostly skulking. With his spiked-armoured head, his mismatched arms (one /enormous/ and clawed and spiked-armoured as well in contrast to the other leaner and more normally human-looking, save for its sprinkling of reptilian scales) he wouldn't really be built for skulking -- he kind of stands /out/ in a crowd. But at the moment, Anole is skulking like a pro, slithered up among the trees and blended in with the mottled browns and greens in a camoflauge-shade that makes him rather hard to make out. It makes the crowd of tourists that much easier pickings. An open purse, a wallet tantalizingly visible through it, and THWIP. Something loooooong and pink shoots out, yanks, and that wallet is /gone/ before the owner even notices anything, distracted as she is with queuing up to buy a hot dog. Or, well, trying -- once she gets to the front and reaches for her wallet she might not be so successful. As well, amidst it all, is one Alejandro who, other than having that name, doesn't really stick out and wouldn't really be known, at all, ever. Yet his confident smile and stride is, hopefully, indication enough he seems to be enjoying the park. There is a manicured look to his hair, all in place with hair product, a few strands dangling down but more like on purpose, almost. The sort to wear pants even on warm days, his shirt is unbottoned making him seem like the Spanish man that he is. Then again, plenty of New Yorkers do the same, perhaps it is that there is a presentation to his style that isn't quite as lazy as it might appear on others. Pausing at a disturbance near a hot dog stand, it appears someone is saying they forgot their wallet, the vendor isn't buying it. Step in one Alejandro, who pays for the hot dog, grinning to the woman warmly and then pointing out a nearby officer (or rather, distant, near the street itself on a bike not so much in the mix of the park festivities this day) so that she can report her loss. He refuses any thanks and instead returns to festivities, his eyes looking around more though, as if curious if other wallets are going missing. Not taking it overly serious though, its a large crowd, its NYC, these things happen. A completely separate New York Teenager is making hir way down the path, though it is difficult to make out much about hir, given that hir body is wrapped in voluminous robes, a burqa of blue and green. The material is light weight and airy, but the small section of skin around hir eyes that can be see is a little bit pink with the warmth of the day. Ze is carrying a large bag which ze is sifting through as ze walks underneath Anole's tree, hir attention focused on it. Inside are coils of rope, a harness, but no climbing shoes. Ze has a helmet inside as well, which keeps the bag a little more open than the teen might like. There is also a wallet and a cell phone resting on top of the mess - easy pickings. SNAPthwip. It's kind of hard to make /out/ exactly what happens; chameleon tongues move very quickly. Just a snap, a brief flick of pink, and where there /was/ a wallet and cellphone next to Rasa's climbing gear, now there is not. YOINK. Gone. There might be a little bit of spit on the edges of hir bag. Whoops. As much as Alejandro wouldn't be one to spto chameleons or chameleon like tongues he might be more inclined to take notice of burqa wearing ladies. Which he does, momentarily, as that is the direction he is heading in. Yet he get's another distraction as a man nearby turns to his wife, "Did I leave my wallet in the car?" She shrugs, "Don't know, you should go check?" Him, "We parked a dozen blocks away, I'll check when I get back ..." A curiousity in that and his attention is taken off the woman in the blue burqa a moment such that when he looks where he is going again, there she is head down at her bag. As if not to complicate the dire circumstance of yoinking and open bags, he further distracts by saying, "Pardon me," before he does bump her and moves to get out of her way, curiously gazing at her eyes, as its the bit of her that is showing. Rasa treats Alejandro to a more teenage reaction before he manages to get hir attention. "Oh.. Uuugh. Bleh." Ze looks directly up to see if ze can spot anything that might lead to the source of the goo that is now resting on the gloved fingertips ze uses to examine the substance. Hir search is short lived, as Alejandro runs into hir next. "Pardon me," The tone is more mature, hir eyes narrowing in the small window, looking him over. Ze takes a step back, clutching hir bag to hir side, but not taking hir attention off of him. "Can I help you?" Hir irises are dark, nearly black, but there seems to bright filaments of amber inside them that flash in the sunlight. "Oh -- /crap/." This voice comes from the tree overhead, soft but sharp and dismayed, presumably as Anole checks the contents of his wallets. There's a pause, a rustle of leaves. A slooow slinking shape moving against the treetrunk, brown-on-brown though once he's been spotted it's easier to track the motion -- spiky-poky lizardboy, clinging with fingers and claws, barefoot, his jean shorts and sleeveless shirt and backpack currently also adopting the brown of the tree as he climbs headfirst against the trunk down out of the branches. Huge brown eyes peek down at Rasa. "... Rasa? Um." He sounds /extremely/ sheepish. Apologetic. "/Um/. Ummmmmmmmm. I may. Have. Uh. Wait. You have a friend." He glances to Alejandro, now just sounding guilty. "No" responds Alejandro to Rasa, his accent more noticeable and if one were familiar with Spanish accents, they might place it as Andalusian, if that mattered. "I was but distracted, I only offer my apologies, you could help ..." His tongue just seems to go on, until someone is calling for Rasa and approaching, his eyes turn to the brown on brown, making more out simply because it is speaking. "Ah, friend, no, mi amigo, an awkward run-in perhaps," he grins, though he looks back at those eyes as if having caught the amber filaments and a curiousoty arising in him just the same, more so since the lizardboy seems to know here. "I am intruding, no, you wish to catch up with your friend?" More to the boy, but between the two of them, he doesn't quite step away and move about his business. Rasa's shoulders drop a little at the sound of Anole's voice, hir head turning to glance at hir classmate. "S'alright, Anole. I think he's just lost. Maybe we can help him figure out what he needs." Hir tones are schooled, overly polite, hir accent a little thicker for it, definitely more so that Anole is likely used to hearing from hir. Ze is still distinguishable as a second generation American, of Persian roots. "You said I could help? How could I help?" Ze turns hir attention back toward Alejandro, hir head tilting a little as ze looks him over from head to toe. "Are you lost?" "Help with what?" Anole is scooting just an inch further back up the tree trunk, half of him disappearing further between a few branches. "No, I wasn't -- catching up I just. I just." His guilty fidgeting is only growing. "Are you lost you don't sound like from around here?" Anole might be from around here. He might not. His own accent is just blandly stereotypical Hollywood America. He could be New Yorker. He could be not. He's definitely American through and through. A little uncomfortably he ventures down further, finding a branch to perch on so that he can open a pocket of his backpack and dig out Rasa's cellphone -- still kind of slobbery-wet -- and wallet. He wipes both off against his shirt, though they're still a /little/ slimy when he hands them back. "Um. I um. I think you. Lost. These." Shaking his head, Alejandro grins, "No, I am not lost. And no I am not from around here, I was noticing ..." He says ponderously but giving pause as the lizardboy is sort of suggesting his friend had lost something. "Si, amigo, that seems to be a trend, lost things, funny that, no?" He quirks a little look towards the lizardboy again, but he doesn't press the curiousity. "Rather, it was a passing intrigue and then I came upon your friend here, and I felt a kindred spirit." Because she's wearing the full burqa and all, "But alas, perhaps I am the only visitor to this country. Though, perhaps you could point me to this museum, I see they have a display here and I am curious now?" "Lost?" Rasa turns back to Anole, head tilting the other way as ze examines what Anole pulls out of his bag. "Oh. Hey. Look at that." Those blue gloved hands reach out and take the wallet and cellphone back, giving them another rub on hir burqa when ze gets them back. "Ah, I regret that I have gotten your hopes up. I was born here and my parents as well." Ze pauses and starts looking around, attempting to get hir bearing in the park so ze can point him in the right direction. "I believe... that it's up that way? I mean, that's where the dinosaur is. Someone should be able to point you in the right direction when you reach that." "A -- a trend." Anole is slowly fading back into his natural colours. Blue jeans, his sleeveless top a drab grey, his skin and eyes /very/ green -- his cheeks are flushing a /darker/ green with this, his eyes darting to his backpack (old and battered, once-black but fading out to a greyer colour, and smelling, as he does, kiiind of like the sewers.) "Oh. Oh, um. I -- have other people, um. Sometimes when it's crowded things get -- jostled around." His feet kick a little self-consciously. "I might've found a -- if you know people who lost their --" His head ducks uncomfortable-guiltily and he tugs another pair of wallets out of the bag to turn them, not making eye contact, over to Alejandro. "Maybe you could give them back?" His forehead crinkles up, lifting where there would be eyebrows if he /had/ any hair. "Oh! Oh right um." Here he brightens, a lot more comfortable with /this/ subject. "Okay well we're down south but you have to go way up more north past the lake before you get to the museum?" He points, almost the direction Rasa did though he waves to indicate -- faaaarther. "If you want to stay /in/ the park you can stay on that path --" he points, "till it hits the seventy-ninth street transverse then turn left or if you go out of the park its up on, um, Columbus and. Uh. Anywhere between seventy-seventh and eighty-first, it's a big museum you can't really miss it and it's exciting and it's fun but a lot of times people try to poke at me because they think I'm an exhibit." Turning to look where he might get information from, Alejandro is perhaps ready to agree until Anole self admits, in a round about way. He brings his eyes back a moment to the young lad. "I could, si, amigo," he says, sort of reaching of it. Not familiar with the other, he ponders a moment, "There is nothing you, eh, need is there?" Maybe considering the kid lives on the streets and that money is actually important for things like eating. As if, not a fan of picking pockets, my might have more concern if the boy really needs some food or something. "I shall check out the musuem, you are good here?" A pause and smile to the young lady, "My hopes are not dashed, consider them colored intrigued good senorita, it is like a mystery, you wear it well." Hand out, he hasn't taken the stuff back just yet, unless Anole drops them into his palmls. Rasa shakes hir head slowly when Anole exposes what he has 'found' in the park today. The skin around hir eyes starts to darken, little squiggles appearing around the fringes, almost like small bits of letters tattooed on hir face. Ze inhales deeply, hir brows rising when the other teen rattles off directions like a pro. "You should just hang intercom boxes with coin slots around the park," ze offers quietly, and set them up to a walkie-talkie. Then if people need information around the park, they can just call in to you." Ze turns back to Alejandro as he starts to make his departure. Ze bows. "Ah... Thank you. I wish you luck in your travels." "Oh, wow. That'd be pretty great, I mean, I know the, um. I know New York really well and people get lost a lot? But most people aren't really comfortable asking /me/ for directions so --" Anole glances down to the lopsidedly oversized arm on one side of his body, frowning. "Especially not now. Um." His cheeks darken further as he drops the wallets (... they're also a little wet with spit) into Alejandro's hand. "Need? Um. I was just. I don't know. I have a --" He hesitates a little uncertainly. "Big -- family. I was just on my way to. Do. Get. Lunch. Shopping. I guess." Shaking his head, Alejandro smiles more to the boy, "Amigo, should I happen upon you again, I will be glad to ask you for directions." Then he turns to Rasa and does a bow of his own, it seems he probably fences alot, that is what the bow might remind them of. "No, I thank you, for keeping a man like me on his toes." As he comes up, that look goes to Anole just the same. "Sorry for interrupting you two, as you seem to know each other, but I thank you both the same. Perhaps we shall see each other again?" "People are dumb," Rasa concludes as Anole finishes describing the lack of appreciation for his expertise. Hir attention is drawn back to Alejandro a moment later, hir eyes widening and hir skin turning a lemon cream color, the lettering appearing pink now. Ze stares for a moment or so after he finishes his bow and leaves before uttering one word. "Fancy." Ze blinks again and turns back to Anole. "Did you want grab lunch? I can help with grocery shopping if you want." "Well. I /am/ kind of scary? I guess? Like a, um. Like a monster maybe." Anole's eyes blink at Alejandro's bow, his lips curling into a tentative smile. "Maybe." He blushes again at the question of lunch, zipping his backpack back up and looking briefly at the wallets he put in Alejandro's hand. He ducks his head, shouldering his backpack. "Oh, I um. Well. I maybe -- I don't really have --" He hesitates awkwardly, cheeks darkening before he settles, embarrassed, on, "-- /time/, I might have misjudged. How much time I actually. I'll have to do it later probably." "So, we go blow my birthday money on groceries for you family." Rasa shrugs, sliding hir wallet and phone into hir bag. "It's my penalty for not being fast enough to protect my shit." The polite, 'lady-like' quality that ze espoused to Alejandro is gone, hir temperament settling more into something that slithered out of the boys locker room. "Of course, you could take it as payment for teaching me how you do that. Are you taking any classes this summer?" Ze hefts hir bag onto hir shoulder and looks back to Anole, waiting on his response. Anole's legs swing where he sits on the tree branch, expression contemplative. After a delay his teeth flash in a quick smile. He slides down off the tree branch, landing with a soft whump on the ground. "No classes. Kinda just working on helping my folks restock. Things get thin back home." He holds out a hand slowly -- the more human-proportioned one of the two, palm-up towards Rasa. "I mean. /Using/ it might take -- kind of more work. But." The sticky tip of his tongue pokes out between his green lips. It only takes Rasa a moment of looking at Anole's wiggling fingers and the tip of his tongue oeeking out to put it together. Hir lips part, initially to allow the 'oooooh' to escape, then to grin. Ze sets down hir bag with a thump and looks Anole over for a moment, judging his size. Gloves are slipped off next, and the arm ze expects to grow is hidden away inside hir burqa, to save the sleeve. Ze then reaches out and takes his hand, lightly at first, gentle amd receptive. Anole's thoughts are a scattered place, skittish and darting. They track in ceaseless alert assessment of the park, its people, a watchful-wary tracking of who is giving them Looks and who is an easy mark, where there are food sources and where there are escapes back home, where there are cops and who is armed. In the rest of him there is much to be found, in the ripple of tough scales that spread over his skin to the shell of /armour/, spiked and /hard/, that protects his skull and the thicker solid-muscled clawed arm bulging massive at one side. In the gecko-toes and fingers built for clinging and climbing and in the odd structure of his mouth and throat where his sticky-tipped tongue coils away long and muscular as well. "I was born with it so I don't know if it'll be hard to use at first? It's not very much like a regular tongue I mean it's like twelve feet long and -- fast. When I want. It might take some, um. Target -- practice." Rasa's form begins to shift, subtly at first, then with more drastic changes. Hir shoulders slump, one side more than the other, the weight of the heavier arm dragging it down. Ze kicks off hir shoes a moment later, getting a feel for the ground after the change. Ze is still after that, for just a little bit, before ze reaches up and starts pulling away the hood on hir hijab. Underneath, ze is wearing Anole's face, hir mouth working over the new taste in hir mouth, or at least the new texture. Ze tilts hir head to one side. "So, what? Is it like sticking your tongue out, or is it more like spitting?" Anole's eyes widen slightly with this change, expecting it but impressed nevertheless. One eye squints up afterwards, a faint ripple of shiver running through him. "Woah." Impressed and maaaybe slightly disconcerted. His tongue wiggles in and out of his mouth a few times. "No, s'just like sticking out your tongue. You just --" He tips his head back, tongue shooting out sticky and long to latch onto a branch overhead and yank up; in a second he's perching back on the low branch he had been on before, spitting slightly to clear bark from his mouth. "Peh. Just flick. Tongue-flick. Can, uh, break stuff though, it's strong. And fast." Rasa looks a little concerned at his disconcerted expression, but keeps his form for the time being. "Ah, apologies. It just... works better this way, first." Ze inhales and rubs hir hands against hir thighs, one on the outside and the other on the inside, then tries the flicking motion quickly. Ze jerks and chokes a little, hir tongue not making contact with anything but a couple leaves the first time, hir head shaking as ze tries to push the leaves forward first. Then ze reaches up with the smaller hand and fishes them out. "Ahh. That's so weird." More blinking follows, then ze opens hir mouth as ze scrubs the roof of hir mouth with the new tongue. "How far off was I? I was aiming for ... that one." Ze points. "Yeah -- yeah I mean everything still tastes like, um." Anole grins. "Well leaves. And dirt. And whatever. I live in the sewers I think I'm kind of inured?" He shrugs a shoulder. "Oh yeah and it's a little hard to get /off/ I forgot about that part." He squints over when Rasa points, stifling a laugh. "Um you overshot by like two feet I think you gotta get used to how long this is -- oh wow. Lots of people staring uh." He taps Rasa on the shoulder, still grinning as he tips his head down the path. "Come on you can buy us a bunch of donut holes and we can go practice with stuff that /doesn't/ taste like dirt." Rasa is still staring meaningfully at the tree branches while Anole describes the tastes of things. However, when he laughs, ze shakes hir head and rolls hir eyes. "Yeah, yeah, sticky situation and all that." Hir hands reach back to grab the headdress when he notes people staring and ze nods, hir form shifting a little - still mostly Anole, but looking a bit more like hirself instead. Ze snags the bag ze dropped and trots after him, pulling it on to hir shoulder as ze slips hir arm back into hir sleeve, the spikes gone for the time being. "Oooh, donut holes sound good. Though, if I'm missing by two feet, I'm going to need a lot of donut holes to cover the target area." "I," Anole assures Rasa, as they head off, "am never gonna complain about more donut holes."