ArchivedLogs:Be Aggressive

Be Aggressive
Dramatis Personae Doug, Shane
In Absentia	2013-09-25 warning, some kissing happens. smallbit.
Location <NYC> Village Lofts - Lobby - East Village
Bright and sunny, the lobby of this apartment building is clean and unassuming. Requiring an electronic keycard for entry, the pair of elevators dings cheerfully when one arrives. A small sitting area has bright yellow couches and small coffee tables, though the nearby vending machine is perpetually running out of /something/. Tall windows let in plenty of light during the daytime, and the building maintenance keeps the common areas spotlessly clean. A bank of mailboxes near the sitting area collects mail for the building, a recycling bin right at hand for the unwanted spam. Beside the mailboxes, a large corkboard serves as informal meeting space for the announcements, perpetually flyered with notes and notices from the various apartment residents. It's early in the evening, the sun starting to sink outside and sending fading orangey light through the lobby windows. The door to the stairwell opens with a soft creak, disgorging one tiny blue shark into the previously deserted lobby. Shane is dressed sharply, pinstriped slacks and vest and dress shirt, his wide red fabric collar circling his neck beneath the collar of his dress shirt. He has his phone in one hand and his violin case in the other, and he's softly humming a Chopin piece as he crosses over to the bank of mailboxes. Early in the evening is about the time some residents are just returning to the Lofts, and tonight, Doug is one of them. He is not so smartly dressed as Shane when he pushes through the lobby door, weighted down with his backpack and laptop bag. Dressed in jeans and a Columbia sweatshirt, he seems a bit weary as he pulls the door shut behind him. He hangs from the handle for a moment, staring at the lobby as if he's uncertain whether he's entered the right building or not. Then he straightens, rolling his neck before he, too, heads towards the mailboxes. "Hey," is his gruff greeting for the other person there, although he doesn't look immediately to see who it might be. Keys=Neighbor, after all. Shane is slipping his phone back into his pocket, exchanging it for a set of keys so that he can unlock the mailbox. He flicks a glance up at Doug as he opens it, eyes drifting over the older teenager a moment. "Yo." He pulls the mailbox open, digging out the pile of mail inside, a few days' accumulation, with the apartment's occupants largely back at school during the week. "Sup, man." Doug's mailbox is admittedly less full, although there are a couple of thick-looking tech magazines that accompany the rest that make withdrawal a challenge. When Shane responds, Doug looks over with a slow blink. "Oh, hey Shane," he says, his lips pursing briefly before he pulls his mail free. "Wasn't paying attention to who was here." The corner of his mouth lifts in a half-smile, along with a similar motion of his shoulder. "This semester is already kicking my ass," he admits. "I think I overdid it on my class load." The half smile tightens, and he offers another shrug. "What's new with you?" Shane shrugs a shoulder, leaning sideways against the bank of mailboxes as he leafs through his pile, slowly picking out which to toss straight into the recycling bin and which to keep. "Eh," he gives in noncommittal answer. "I dunno. Nothing. School? Family... shit. Supposed to be having -- dinner on the roof tonight. What're you taking?" "Be a good night for it," Doug says of dinner on the roof as he sorts his own mail, tossing a couple of envelopes into the recycling bin. "Supposed to be clear and cool." There's a moment of silence, then, as he fishes a couple of flyers out of his pile and disposes of them. He snorts a bit at the question, although it comes without heat. "Too much. A couple of advanced programming and comp sci courses, a course in robotics, physics, what's left of my English requirements, Theoretic Algebra, and a lecture course on the socio-political ramifications of media-incited panic." He inhales deeply, exhaling his breath slowly. "Plus the labs for...well, most of those." "Spence's been eating up there every night all week there's a --" Shane shrugs his shoulder again. "Holiday. Well, he didn't the day it rained." His brows tick up at Doug's class list, lips twitching slightly. "Your courseload sounds like Bastian's usually do. Though not so much this term. Well, except that last bullshit, uh, isn't that a really /pretentious/ way to say how the press fucks with everyone?" "A holiday?" Doug seems confused by this revelation, and his brow furrows as he tries to determine which one he's missed. But, it eludes him. "Bastian's smarter than I am," he agrees. "I use my ability most of the time to learn my stuff -- he's doing it bareback. That's way impressive, for someone in high school." He grins a bit, rolling his shoulders before Shane's abbreviation of the lecture course gets a chuff of laughter from him. "Welcome to college," he says. "Especially one like Columbia. The more pretentious the course sounds, the better it has to be, right?" His nose wrinkles, and he shakes his head. "Here's a tip...pretentious-sounding classes are the most boring. The professor sounds like an adult from a Charlie Brown special. Wah, wah, wah." He cups his hand around his mouth, accentuating the trombone noise. "If it didn't satisfy one of my history credits, I'd drop it." "Yeah -- you been up there at all? To the roof, I mean. He and Micah and Pa built the -- wooden hut in the garden? The one that's really ridiculously painted now. It's a Jewish thing. Harvest festival. But you eat all your meals in one of those until it's done -- which is after tonight." Shane wrinkles his nose at the explanation of the classes, chuffing out an amused breath. "That sounds obnoxious. I've heard Columbia's core requirements are pretty intense. Daiki says he wants to go to Brown because they /have/ no core outside your major." Though his smile fades a little at this thought, it returns with his following: "Nah, don't worry, Pa's taught us all about being safe. Sebastian would never do anyone bareback -- though I /guess/ there's not much he could get from his robots." "I haven't been up there this week," Doug says. "I need to get up there and check the cameras, but it can wait until after your thing." He smiles, and nods. "Columbia is pretty obnoxious, at times," he agrees. "But I like it. The core requirements are kind of a bitch, but at least I CLEPped out of the most banal parts." He wrinkles his nose at the information on Daiki, and purses his lips. "Brown's a nice school. Even if I didn't get in." He grins, and pops his eyebrows. "Maybe my family wasn't granola enough for them or something." The comments about Sebastian get a deep blush from the blonde, and he ducks his head. "Well...that's good," he offers slowly. "Safety first." Then his eyes twinkle. "And rubber /does/ reduce the risk of electrocution." "The Ivy League schools all got in trouble a couple years back for sharing their admission information with each other. They have really high rates of -- people who got accepted deciding to go there? So they'd trade information to make sure that people only got accepted to one or two Ivy League schools so the rest of them would have less people turning /them/ down. We had a couple friends get into Brown and rejected from Columbia," Shane admits cheerfully. "So it might just have been a calculation on their part about which /you/ wanted more." He crouches, opening his violin case and tucking all the mail into a pocket in its lid that is already bearing a small stack of sheet music. "Electrocution can be fun. With the right guy holding the wand." "That's actually kind of comforting," Doug says, frowning in mild surprise to discover this. "And Columbia /did/ give me a full ride, so I can't complain too loudly." He bobs his head, his blush deepening at the final thought from the teenager. "Um. Sure," he says, rubbing the back of his neck and grimacing. "I mean, it's not my scene, but if someone gets off on it, more power to them." Another grimace. "So to speak." Shane laughs at this, softly. "People get off on all kinds of things, you should see the bruises that Pa has after --" He shrugs a shoulder. "Eric doesn't bruise at least. What /is/ your scene?" Doug coughs at this new idea, and shifts his weight uncomfortably. "I don't really need to know..." he offers softly, and then Eric is being mentioned, and there's /more/ blushing -- this time with a hint of purple in it. So pretty. "I don't really know," he answers the questions. "I mean, my experience is limited to exactly /two/ people. Granted, one of those people was Eric, but still." He shrugs. "I guess I just like stuff to be sexy and fun?" "Neither do I, really, but you share a small apartment and you have super-hearing, you, uh. Know things." Shane's teeth flash bright as he closes the lid of his violin case again. "I think Eric /is/ pretty much a scene all by himself. Hopefully the second person is less --" His tone is amused, though it's fond as well. "-- well, less /Eric/?" "Oh, he was," Doug says, choosing to forgo the topic of tiny apartments and Jax-bruises. "It's over now, but it was kind of fun at the time. But he was definitely not Eric." There's a small, fond smile at the memory that disintegrates into a small disgruntled expression. "And yeah. Eric's his own kind of thing, I guess. I haven't met anyone like him." He pauses, and gives Shane a quick look. "Well, not /exactly/ like him, anyway." "Most people aren't quite Eric." Shane's smile at this is soft, a tinge of something wistful in his voice. He slings the strap of the violin case over his shoulder. Straightening, he closes the mailbox, leaning against it once more. "Thankfully, though, there's plenty other ways to find sexy and fun. Lot of people in this city." Doug hmmms as he puts his mail in the outer pocket of his laptop bag. "I guess that's kind of a good thing," he says. "It makes him unique, at least." He lifts his chin, then, and shrugs. "I suppose," he says. "I'm shit at finding them, though. I think I lack the appropriate..." he pauses, seeking the word somewhere on the bulletin board. "...chutzpah?" Which doesn't seem /exactly/ right, and earns another, weaker and uncertain shrug. "To meet them. I'm not aggressive enough, or something." It's a wistful sort of statement, and is awkward enough to make his feet shift a bit. He shrugs again, and hooks his thumb in the strap of his bag, hefting it. "Not that I have a lot of time for fun and sexy. Just studying and occasionally sleeping." "C'mon, there's always time for fun. You just sort of have to /grab/ it where you find it. You work /all/ the time and what's the point of life?" Shane pulls away from the bank of mailboxes with a smile, locking his mailbox and slipping his keys back into his pocket. He reaches up to squeeze at Doug's shoulder briefly. "/Be/ aggressive sometimes. Maybe it means a few less minutes of sleep here and there. But you'll enjoy the time more." "Yeah, but finding it's the trick," Doug says with a laugh. "I mean, I guess I could blow up Grindr every evening, but those guys...." he wrinkles his nose, and shakes his head. Shane's squeeze of his shoulder gets a small smile, and a tip of his head. "I wish I was as confident as you are," he says sincerely. "I mean, you don't have /any/ trouble with this shit. Or at least, you seem to have it more together than I do." He furrows his brow, considering. "I'm sorry if I've been a jerk to you about shit." "Everyone's a jerk to me about shit," Shane replies with a shrug. His fingers trail down against Doug's sleeve as he drops his hand. "But I'm a jerk to everyone most of the time, so it evens out. The fuck is grinder?" He tips his head back, looking up at Doug. "Finding it's easy. It's taking it that sometimes needs a little --" He stretches up onto his toes, pressing a very light kiss to the corner of Doug's mouth. "Push." Doug chuckles at Shane's assessment, and bobs his head in amused agreement. "I guess balance is essential," he offers, watching the trail of blue fingers down his sleeve. "Oh. Grindr. It's this phone app for hooking up," he explains in a murmur. "The guys on it are kind of creepy, though. At least their pics are." There's the smallest hitch of his eyebrows at the smaller teen, and he pokes his tongue into the corner of his mouth, pushing lightly from the inside. Which totally makes it seem like he's teeing up that kiss. He turns towards the contact, his intent probably being to /look/ at Shane. Instead, it only assists a second, clumsy sort of kiss that's followed by a slow blush and a soft "Sorry." "Hey, what happened to being confident. I kissed /you/, Doug." Shane's smile is wider. He reaches up to brush his fingers lightly against Doug's blushing cheek. He follows up the tiny kiss with another, softer and longer. "-- I think that's usually a pretty good indicator that you don't really have to apologize for kissing me /back/." Doug smiles as he leans into Shane's palm, and wrinkles his nose. "Well, that second one wasn't my best work," he admits sheepishly. He's less clumsy on the third kiss, curling an arm around the younger teenager's waist to hold him in place until it ends. His smile after is shaky, tilted to one side. "When's your music lesson?" "S'alright, I'm not grading you. -- Don't meet with Ryan till after dinner. Dinner's not till sunset." Shane leans into the hold, briefly nuzzling up against Doug's neck. "But, I mean. I don't want to think," his tone is light and teasing, "that I'm getting in the way of your busy homework schedule." "Fuck homework," Doug says, tightening his hold to LIFT Shane from the floor. Then he's moving towards the elevator, shifting Shane's weight lightly against him as he fishes out his keycard. "It's not /that/ much, and a guy can't work all the time, right?" He punches the button for the elevator, and leans down to press another kiss along Shane's jaw. "Otherwise, what's the point of life?" Shane just grins. For a moment. And then his mouth is entirely too occupied for words.