ArchivedLogs:Pissing Contest

Pissing Contest
Wuv. Twue wuv.
Dramatis Personae Dan, Shane
In Absentia	2013-02-05 Dan meets Shane. Love happens.
Location <NYC> Central Park North
It is cold as /balls/. The thermometer may read a balmy 31 degrees, but the clouds that blot out the stars and the wind that whips through the park make it seem much colder. Branches rattle in the arctic breeze, creating an eerie soundtrack for those few hardy souls making their way through or taking advantage of the track around the resevoir. On a night like tonight, that's few indeed. So it is that Dan finds himself jogging briskly from one pool of lamplight to the next, his face twisted in concentration as he focuses on his breathing. On the track, his sneakered feet make a rhythmic slap-slap noise as he pumps lean legs in a final sprint towards a bag tucked under a bush, and possibly the end of his evening run. The bag tucked under a bush is not the only one. There's a backpack under a neighboring bush, by the reservoir, though there's a dark shape pulling itself out of the water to poke at Dan's bag. And then, "Woaaah jeez --" Shane frowns at the bag, moving to a neighboring bush to grab his things. "These are usually /my/ bushes I didn't expect /more/ bags." Cuz he's totally claimed these bushes as his, yo. There is a small dark shape disappearing from one bush to the next. The bush rustles. Rustlerustlerustle. Dan slows when he sees the form pulls itself out of the water, his mouth pulling into a frown as he watches. When it nears his bag, though, he picks up the pace, racing the last few yards in the direction of the rustling bushes. "Hey, you!" he calls, in true New Yorker fashion. "Get the fuck away from my shit!" He skids to a stop near /his/ bush, apparently ready to defend his usurped territory. He glares at the bushes, leaning down to snag his bag and tuck it possessively under his arm. "Hey, dude, you put /your/ shit next to /mine/. Maybe you should be getting away from /my/ shit." This comes from a very small and very blue teenager, who is in the process of wriggling back into clothes. Presumably, he was wearing none before. Shane frowns at Dan, dragging his own backpack out of the bushes. "Anyway, you don't want people touching your shit, the fuck are you doing leaving it out in the park. /Anyone/ can just walk by here, you know." He's buttoning up his pants, though, still shirtless it's easy to see the gills rippling down his sides. Webbed fingers. Skin so dark blue it's nearing black, currently. Dan's eyes narrow as he pinpoints the would-be thief, and his upper lip curls slightly before he exhales sharply. "Yeah, they'll let anyone into the park, unfortunately," he growls, his body shifting. His arm tightens around his bag, and he narrows his eyes at the teenager. The tensing of the muscles in his shoulders is a small ripple of skin, and he inhales through his nose. "But, from what I'm lookin' at, it don't seem like /people/ was poking around my shit, Just /you/." "Yeah, no fucking standards," Shane says with a snort, looking Dan over with a slight chuff of breath. "My bag was here first, dude." He shrugs, tugging a shirt on over his head. Then another. Then another. "'sides, who knows who's been poking at it /before/ me you weren't exactly keeping an eye on it. I'm pretty sure some dog peed here. Some homeless dude, too." "Better that than whatever mutant slime you got all over it," Dan says, jerking the bag from under his arm and glaring at the boy before he lifts it just enough to give it a cursory sniff. Luckily, there's no immediate aroma of said fluids. Then he's pulling roughly at the zipper, and checking the contents, reaching in to feel around before he exhales in relief. Zipping the bag back up, he shoves it under his arm again, and rubs a thumb along the scar under his left eye. He glares at Shane a bit more, his jaw setting as he stands and...waits? Watches? He's not moving. "Slime? Dude, are you for fucking real? Sharks don't /slime/ I think you're mistaking us for dumbass /bigots/." Shane finishes dressing, hitching his much lighter, now, backpack up onto a shoulder. He doesn't glare at Dan. He barely even looks at him, though when the other man doesn't move he strides forward to stand /right/ in front of him, unconcerned with the very large size difference. Or the fact there's plenty of room to move aruond. "Move it, dumbass. The fuck you staring at?" Dan's mouth quirks into a hard-edged smile when the kid responds, but he doesn't speak. Not until the boy is standing in front of him. Then he's lowering his gaze to take in the teenager before flicking back up to meet that inky stare. "Step away, freak," he growls in what might could be called an amiable tone, if it weren't for the tightness in his jaw. "You don't want any of this." Shane's head tips back. Way back, given the height difference. And then he smiles. It might also be called amiable, except it comes with a very large helping of very sharp teeth. "Try me," he says, "or step off." "It's a wide path, kid. Step away." Dan's almost-amiable tone doesn't shift. He takes in the row of teeth, and his mouth presses into a line before he jerks his head to the side pointedly. "Now." "It's a wide path, asshole." Shane's webbed hands turn upwards, spreading in front of him. "You gonna try and make me?" "Nope." Dan looks down his chest, clearly unimpressed with webbed hands or their claws. "You're just going to." It is, admittedly, not very /much/ claw at the moment, tiny black tips at the ends of his fingers. Shane /snorts/ at this answer, shaking his head. "Riiiight." And steps forward, heedless of height differents as he /shoulders/ into the bigger man. Despite his fragile appearance, there's nothing fragile about the shoulder-checking, a good deal more solid than should be possible at his diminutive size. Dan is also solid, and meets a shoulder with a puff of an exhale. "Kid," he says, grinding the words out between his teeth. "Do /not/ fucking push me." He places a hand in the center of Shane's chest, then, and /shoves/ with not a small amount of force. "Step the fuck /away/." Dan might be also solid, but Shane has a good deal of mutation-inspired strength lending him -- more solid than any human should manage, small size or large. He meets the shove without giving an inch, just letting his toothy smile spread wider. And lifts a hand to grab the one Dan shoves him with with a good deal more strength than should be possible, /twisting/ it up and away. "I told you, dude," he says through that sharptoothed smile, "Step. Off." Dan actually grunts when the kid gets hold of his arm and twists it away, and he narrows his eyes. "And I told you, kid. Don't push me." Then he's lunging forward, bringing his knee up into (hopefully) the soft tissue of the kid's groin as he attempts to wrest his arm free. Shane actually laughs, at this. His fingers curl down tighter reflexively at the kneeing, digging claws into Dan's wrist in knife-sharp needling and hold it /tight/ through the wresting attempt. And then he's twisting around, with not-human-speed to match his not-human-strength, bringing that arm with him to jerk it up. The claws in Dan's wrist are growing longer, sliding out just enough to make that needling more of a /cutting/. "C'mon, dude, you can try harder than that. Big man like you picking on some skinny teenager half your size, I know you can do better." Dan grunts again when claws pierce his skin, but his jaw remains firmly clenched. "Kid, you stepped to /me/. You body-checked /me/." He grunts again, and relaxes, going with the movement to minimize damage to his trapped wrist. "All I was doing was standing here." He grits a hard-edged smile at that sharky grin, and lifts his trapped wrist so the rivulets of blood forming there are illuminated. "If that makes me a big man who's /picking/ on you, what's that make /you/, with your claws cutting into my skin?" "Yeah, cuz you weren't asking for trouble or anything, calling me a freak and getting in my face." Shane /spits/, right /at/ Dan's smile, and drops the other man's hand. "You shouldn't start shit you can't finish, asshole. And next time --" He's shaking his hand in a jerky motion, flicking blood off his nails like a cat flicking water off its paws, "Pick on someone your own size." He steps back towards the path, keeping his black eyes on Dan until he turns to head off. "Kid, you don't /want/ me to finish it," Dan says with another tight smile, and he shakes his wrist, flinging blood onto the path. He stands there, bag under his arm and blood running down his wrist to drip from his fingers in small drops. He stands in that position, sentry-like, until the kid tuns to head off. Then he's dropping the bag and squatting to unzip it and extract a towel that he wraps clumsily around his wrist. Then he's standing, and tucking something into the waistband of his pants before moving off in the opposite direction, muttering to himself. Fucking mutants. "Yeah, /that's/ a real concern of mine," Shane tosses back over his shoulder with a derisive snort. He's muttering to himself as he heads away, too. Fucking bigots.