ArchivedLogs:Fought the Law

Fought the Law
Dramatis Personae Ion, Tian-shin
In Absentia	2014-01-04 Date night.
Location <NYC> Upper East Side
One of the most affluent neighborhoods in Manhattan, the Upper East Side is home to the rich and... rich. Swanky apartments, upscale shopping, posh restaurants, this is the place to go if you have money and need somewhere to spend it. Well, one of the places to go. New York does not really have a shortage of them. The new year has shown a tendency for temperature whiplash, and it feels like a balmy spring evening in Manhattan. The price of this unseasonably mild January day comes in the form of a sudden downpour the thins out the foot traffic considerably. Storming out of Russian Tea Time and heedless of the rain, Tian-shin seems to have a dark cloud all her own. She wears a black mandarin jacket with stylized red bat designs and scarlet piping, black jeans, and knee-high black boots. She stops beneath an overhang to fish a hair-tie from her purse and gather her long glossy black hair into a ponytail, mumbling under her breath all the while. Ion doesn't /quite/ exactly count as foot traffic. Though at the moment he doesn't quite exactly count as traffic, either, pulling up his black-and-chrome chopper to park it by the curb, kill its throaty-purring engine, hop down and practically /tumble/ off and over to take shelter under Tian-shin's overhang. He's in tall knee-high stompy boots, a leather jacket with its twisted-skull and crossed-lightning-bolts MMMC insignia in /small/ patch on the sleeve, heavy dark jeans. A noticeable shiver to him despite the jacket and lack of real cold; his hand is a little shaky as he runs it through drippy-wet hair. "That's what /I'm/ sayin'," he says to Tian-shin's... mumbling. "This rain, huh, did not order this? Oh /shit/ yo that jacket it's /bangin'/." Tian-shin seems initially uncertain that Ion had spoken to her at all. Her dark brown eyes flick to his ear as if checking for a Bluetooth headset. "Well. /Could/ be snow." Her intonation does not suggest whether she would prefer that or not. "Ah, thank you." Hair successfully removed from face, she scans /his/ jacket...then the motorcycle. "Yours, too. Nice bike." The blush somehow waits until the very last comment. "Snow, pff, someone might get the impression we having winter or some shit." Ion shakes his head, arms curling around his chest. He is bouncing, restless-quick on his toes. "Yeah? You like? You ride?" His fingers clench and unclench against the crooks of his arms, eyes scanning the sky a little nervously. "Winter will be back soon enough." Tian-shin shrugs. "Sometimes I ride--the foot-powered variety of bike. I fantasize about taking off across the country on a motorcycle sometimes. Like right now." A demure smile, faintly embarrassed. "Yours looks like you put a lot of work into it." She looks him over again, a bit more closely. "Not a fan of the cold?" "Cold I don't mind, nah, I got plenty-ways to keep things hot, huh? It's the wet that get to me, yeah. Staying dry I -- not so good at." Ion's head shakes, fingers running again through his hair. "Right now, huh? You want to do? You like to ride or you just like to get away?" A wry grin curls one corner of Tian-shin's mouth. "I don't mind cold either, as long as I can stay dry, but I'd rather be cold /and/ wet than back in there with my date." She jerks her head in the direction of the restaurant next door. "Or back home with my mother, who will assuredly give me the third degree about said date. I guess it's really just about getting away." "Eh-heh-heh." Ion's teeth flash in a bright grin that -- for a moment, just a moment, maybe a trick of the wet-damp water-splatters glistening all over him, seems to flash cartoon-brighter. "That's why the gloom, huh? Not the rain, jus' the -- /wet/. You could make up some way-better story, yeah? Tell your mom. How your date he turned out to be just using this for cover, right, really he secretly police staking out the restaurant to bust-up a foods smuggling ring. Bust go down right in the middle the date, huge shoot-out, you save every-damn-body, yeah." He uncrosses his arms, reaching into his jacket pocket to pull out a pack of cigarettes. "Where you'd go? If you took-offed?" "Hah!" Tian-shin laughs, rocking forward onto the balls of her feet. "If he were only /half/ that interesting. But no, he just droned on about his father's business and implied more and more heavily that I should be /very grateful/ for his attention. I don't know. Is 'anywhere but here' /too/ much of a stereotype?" She smiles and shakes her head. "I'd miss New York before I could unpack. You travel much?" "Ayyyyyy... then maybe best to end the story not with saving everyone, huh? Maybe he die in the shootout. Explain why no second date." Ion taps a cigarette out of the pack, slipping it between his lips and offering the pack out towards Tian-shin. "Me, huh, yeah, I. I don't know I end up, other places, a lot? End up back here a lot too though. Crazy-ass fucking town maybe it like a magnet for crazy-ass fucking people." "Or maybe he got /injured/ and I must loyally await his recovery, forestalling any further matchmaking attempts in the meanwhile." Tian-shin licks her cinnabar-red lips. "I quit smoking during the outbreak, you know." She accepts a cigarette all the same. "Thank you. It's a crazy town, sure enough; easy to love, easy to hate. I haven't really gone anywhere except study abroad." Digging around in her purse, she produces a lighter emblazoned with a Chinese phoenix. "Need a light?" Ion's fingers snap together -- it comes with a small bright glint similar to when he smiled -- and his forefinger points at Tian-shin. "/Hah/ yeah-yeah-yeah that, yeah, that's the ticket. Like a get-out-jail free card." He nods at the offer of light, leaning forward to light his cigarette off the lighter. "Funny that I did /so/ goddamn much of smoking when the dead was running around. Smoke some biters, kick back relax a bit with a --" He waves the cigarette in indication. "Where you study?" Tian-shin blinks at the glint this time, hesitates a moment. Then she smiles again, leaning in and cupping a hand around the lighter. The flame blazes bright on Ion's cigarette, throwing yellow light against her palm and their faces. "I figured I had better keep my lungs in top form, with all that running, biking, and...so on." She lights her own cigarette, too. "One summer in Mexico--Oaxaca--and one in Ecuador." "{/Hey/ for real yeah? You speak Spanish then?}" Ion's accent in Spanish is, admittedly, just about as ghetto as his accent in English but his words come quicker, more glib, less choppy. "{I've found just about as much needs running from since the plague wound down. S'no end of fighting in this city, huh? Part of the fucking /crazy/ I think. Place just attracts it.}" Though here his teeth flash bright-bright-bright. "{Maybe what I like about it here. Never /boring/. Cities should be like dates, right? Keep you on your toes.}" Tian-shin bows her head slightly and blushes. "{Not very good. I haven't got much practice lately.}" /Her/ accent is all over the place, high school Castilian touched with various corners of the new world. "{Running and fighting, you like it?}" She draws the cigarette in deep and holds it for a moment before expelling the smoke in a long stream upward. "{I like a little excitement. Like a little fighting, too.}" "{I like staying busy. I like staying fucking /alive/. Besides, there's /hell/ of shit worth fighting.}" Ion takes a long drag from the cigarette, blowing smoke outwards towards the falling rain. "{Practice or no practice you sound fine. Like riding a bicycle, right?}" He leans back against the side of the building, teeth gritting for a moment and then relaxing again. "{Maybe next time you try that. Date's droning the fuck on, you just challenge him to throw /down/. Way better than talking about his daddy's ledgers, yeah? Roll up his sleeves, make the night worth your time.}" "{Staying busy--I'd drink to that.}" Tian-shin smokes to it instead. "{Staying alive, too. Finding fights worth fighting, I'm still working on that.}" She watches him tense up. "{You alright?}" Her eyes flick aside, a surreptitious glance over the rainy street. "{I might do that even if my date /isn't/ boring. Probably can't make my reputation any /worse./}" "{Come on, have you taken a look /around/ the world lately? There's a /million/ and one things worth fighting for.}" Ion's grin spreads bright again around his cigarette. "{And if you can't find something maybe you just find some/one/. Fight for the fucking /fun/ of it, huh? Keep the blood up --}" He turns towards Tian-shin, brows raising. "{Come on. How you feeling? Maybe we ruin your reputation right now. End your evening with a bang.}" "{Maybe I've been looking for fights in the wrong places, eh? The judicial system is kind of a farce these days.}" Tian-shin nurses on the cigarette and taps the side of her chin with her free hand. "{Literal fights, those are easier.}" She tilts her head far to one side and studies Ion, something like intrigue in her eyes. "{I'm feeling good. You want to fight me. Right here, right now?}" Her stance shifts, feet sliding apart as if she expects him to come at her at once. "{Haven't you heard, when you fight the law the law wins.}" Ion takes another long drag of his cigarette, then carefully tamps it out against the side of the building, tucking the unspent half into his jacket pocket. "{Sure why not? Haven't you heard, the fucking pigs are on vacation. Who's gonna care? Be fun. Make up for the /boring/ maybe.}" He's bouncing again, restless and /excited/ on his toes. Tian-shin nods slowly, pulling a small metal tin from her purse and putting her cigarette out in it. "{Wish it didn't take going through law school to teach me that.}" She drops the bag and slaps palm over fist, bowing. "{I hit hard.}" It does not sound so much like a warning as a promise. She shifts one foot back and settles her weight lower, one hand forward, guarding. The other hand shoots forward, open palm driving up toward his left side. "{Oh shit I'm gonna throw down with a fucking /lawyer/ while the NYPD's on holiday?}" There is pure delight in Ion's tone at this. "{This is like the best fucking New Year /ever/. I'm already liking 2015 way better than the last one.}" His eyes are bright with the promise Tian-shin makes, fists raising into a guarded position. Though he doesn't actually try to /block/ the first blow, stepping back to kind of roll /with/ it -- when Tian-shin's hand connects with his side it comes, not just with the wet smack of skin on leather, but with a small jolt-zap of electric shock that briefly twitches at muscles. Ion lets out an oddly /pleased/ yip at this blow, weight shifting forward again to throw a punch low towards the ribs beneath the arm Tian-shin just hit with. Though by no means dangerous, the electrical discharge jolts Tian-shin's eyes wide open and she /almost/ draws back. "{Does that always happen when you get hit?}" The split-second start costs her. The guarding left hand drops just a little too late to block Ion's punch. Her forearm glances against his as she twists her stance to absorb the impact of his knuckles. The blows they trade land on mirrored locations. She brings her trailing foot forward and aims a sharp kick at the side of his knee. "{Happens a whole hell of a lot I tend to run wired.}" Ion dances backwards, here, just barely stepping out of the way of the kick -- back into the rain out from the protection of the overhang with a small /flinch/ as the water falls back on him. He is quick to lunge forward again, more a /tackle/ than a blow, shoulder tucked and barreling for Tian-shin's midsection. The altercation is beginning to attract a couple onlookers -- a rather /alarmed/ looking woman, a wary man steeling himself to venture: "Hey. Hey leave her alone," to Ion. "{Not what most people mean when they say wired.}" Tian-shin looks more impressed than anything else. "It's okay, we're just--" This cut short when Ion lunges--she cannot quite avoid it at suck close quarters, but she turns when he connects, looking to redirect his momentum. This sends both of them spinning toward the wall of the building and she pushes off of him to avoid the crash. "Ay-ay-/ay/." Ion is laughing as he stumble-steps back towards the wall, curling an arm around Tian-shin (with another small jolt-twitch) but thudding back hard against the bricks. "Naw s'cool she my -- fff." The small skitter of sparks that dance up his arms make his eyes open wide, his teeth clench up hard with a sucking intake of breath. "/Hey/," the man outside is shouting louder -- though he's backing up a step, too, a smaller crowd beginning to stop. "Hey you leave her /alone/." "Nah s'/cool/." This time Ion insists it with a /laugh/. Teeth still clenched as he pushes off the wall to throw an elbow towards Tian-shin's chest. "I'm fine, thank you!" Tian-shin doesn't /look/ fine as the shock runs through her body. "{I should have thought of this sooner, but someone might try to intervene. Maybe we should take this--}" Perhaps distracted by the onlookers and her would-be white knight, she doesn't /quite/ get her guard up in time to avoid Ion's flying elbow. She does begin to redirect it, but that makes matters worse rather than better and it lands just shy of her solar plexus. "{--elsewhere?}" This last with a gasped breath as she shifts tactics and, grabbing for the arm that just struck her, tries to throw him with his own momentum. "{Oh shit yo. I take anyone who come at me -- maybe less fun,}" Ion acknowledges around a pant of breath, though here his words cut off as he is grabbed, thrown. In lieu of finishing the sentence there is just a /whump/ of breath, kind of coughed out as he hits the wet concrete and rolls back up to his knees. Sweeps a leg out towards Tian-shin's ankles. "-- if these motherfuckers ain't having fun too. Elsewhere. We go, huh. I got. A bike." Choppy words. Panted through bared (grinning) teeth and heaving chest, one hand braced against the ground and the other fisted up. "I don't think they'd enjoy it. Just trying to protect delicate little me." Pressed, Tian-shin drops back into English. She was already moving forward again when he kicks, and only gets one foot out of the way. It is a /controlled/ fall, at least, and not /into/ Ion's fist. She does hit the grown in a diagonal role that collides with Ion and bears him over onto his back. "{Yeah, let's.}" Her hand clasps his, and she rocks back into one heel, ready to pull him to his feet. "{/Delicate/, crazy-ass motherfuckers, you hit like a goddamn boxer.}" Ion's grip has a stronger jolt this time, a za that twitches /him/ briefly in place before he can manage to get to his feet. "See, see," he assures the (confused) gawkers, "is all. Good, we --" He gestures towards his bike, looking briefly, uncertainly up at the sky. But then grinning at Tian-shin, slinging an arm around her shoulders as they head back out into the rain towards the shiny Harley. "We roll."