ArchivedLogs:Shivering

Shivering
Dramatis Personae Eric, Shane
In Absentia	2013-02-23 Shane is mistaken for a crocodile. (WARNING: Hard R: Some Sexual Situations)
Location <NYC> Central Park North
Central Park North is slightly quieter than its southern counterpart, being further uptown and slightly out of the bustle of the City - insofar as one can escape the bustle of the City even here, in the acres of green and blue that make up Central Park. The reservoir is in the northern half, providing miles of jogging and biking trails along the clear water, as well as benches for people to sit and rest. Late in the afternoon, Eric puts his blue police bike against a bench near the reservoir. The path that he is on is very quiet, not running along one of the major throughfares, and he has chosen it for that very reason. A brown paper bag is in his hands, and even as he sits down, his hand goes to the radio on his chest. "Central bike 5 to dispatch. I'm 10-63." The dispatcher acknowledges it, and then Eric turns his radio down to nothing, though he does not turn it off entirely. He looks out over the water, then closes his eyes and lets his head fall backwards. "What a fucking day." The water ripples, shortly after Eric goes to sit by it. Barely noticeable at first, but then definitely moreso; something is surfacing near Eric. Something largeish. The surface of the water is breached by a mess of spiky black hair, soon followed by a blue face with a plethora of sharp teeth, a slim blue body, gills still rippling as Shane moves into the shallows and out of the water. And then stops, eyes widening and nostrils flaring. He sniffs the air, turns his head to zero in on Eric. Quickly, he is backtracking, deep enough into the water to be relatively modest once more. "Shitfuck," he says, in greeting. When something emerges from the water, Eric's first impulse is to reach for his gun. "Jesus, fuck, Shane." he swears, relaxing suddenly and putting his hand back to more important things - retrieving his food from the brown bag. "I thought you were a fucking croc." He pauses, frowning for a moment as his eyes flick over the part of Shane that's visible after his retreat. "Aren't you cold as hell?" he asks, surprised. "Cold as fuck," Shane agrees, teeth clenched down hard, "Which is why I was getting /out/ to get my clothes what the fuck, there's no crocs in the reservoir. You're not in the /south/ anymore, dude." "Yeah, well, habits die hard." Eric drawls, dryly. "So get out," Eric says, gesturing to the other man. "Ain't nothin' I haven't seen before." he comments, dryly, lips curling into a small smile. "I'll turn away if you are feelin' bashful." he says, teasingly. "Bashful, what the fuck you can suck my dick. I'm /feeling/," Shane answers a little irritably, "like being /naked/ in /Central Park/ isn't legal," nor, really, being in the reservoir but who's counting? "and I'm not really up for getting arrested tonight." Eric gives Shane a disbelieving look. "So get out of the water and get dressed. I'm not about to arrest you for it as long as you don't go parading in front of anyone else." He smirks, settling back and winking. "'Sides. I'm on break." He adds, in the sultry tones of a union member. Shane gives Eric a disbelieving look /right back/. "Yeah, right, man, fine. You won't arrest me for being naked, how do I know you're not just going to /ticket me/ for /breathing water/ in public? Fuck that shit." His arms cross around his thin chest. Kind of shivering. Really kind of shivering. Eric gives the other man a /look/. "Get the fuck out of the water, Shane. What has your panties in a twist? Is this about that ticket I gave your Pa? I /told/ him I didn't have a choice. My sergeant was standing not five feet away, and he had /ordered/ me to give him the ticket. If I hadn't, he would have, and I would have been written up." His voice is verging quickly towards annoyed. "And my sergeant wouldn't have mailed the summons after your Pa tore it up. Refusing to sign a citation is a /crime/." "I don't have panties," Shane grumbles, looking towards a bush nearby where Eric sits. "So am I suppose to /thank/ you for not arresting him after he saved your sorry ass? Everyone has a /choice/, Eric. He used his to /help/ people and you assholes -- do you have any idea what he --" As Eric's voice veers towards annoyed, Shane's is veering away from it; it /cracks/, for a moment, which makes him break off abruptly, looking away down towards the water with a sudden hard swallow and a quick fluttering of his gills. "This is bullshit," he says, through his teeth. "I used /my/ choice to take a confused, scared man to a /hospital/ instead of putting him in jail where he would have attacked more people, been jailed for longer, and probably get the crap kicked out of him while the guards looked on and laughed." Eric unwraps the foil on his burger and gives Shane a dark look. "Yes, I'm /aware/." he growls. "You think I liked it? You think I /enjoyed/ it?" He spits on the ground. Shane's sharp teeth chatter together for a moment, and his gaze is still fixed down at the water. His arms tighten against his chest. "I don't /know/," he answers, sharp and unhappy, "I think you're /part/ of it. I think --" This cuts off in another brief round of chattering. Another rapid flutter of gills. "I think this sucks." "Get out of the water, Shane," Eric says, voice suddenly tired. "Come on. Let's sit and talk." He pauses, glancing down into the brown paper bag. "And you can have the second burger, if you want. Probably better for me not to have it anyway." He says, patting the bench beside him as he slides over to make room. "Yes, it sucks. The world sucks, sometimes, and sometimes we have to do things we don't want to." For a moment Shane doesn't seem like he's going to, teeth chattering harder but his weight shifting back deeper into the water. His shoulders slump, then, and he wades out into the shallows and then out of the water, dropping to a crouch beside Eric to drag a duffel bag out of a nearby bush. He yanks a towel out of it, first, draping it around himself and quickly patting -- well, not dry. But drier. He dresses hastily, dropping over to the bench to sit down as he tugs on socks and shoes. He pulls his coat on, still shivering. "I don't know what he's going to do," he says, glumly. Eric checks Shane out with a brief smile on his lips, before that dies. When the other man sits down, still shivering, he extends the paper bag to the other man. His eyes flick up and down Shane and he frowns. He looks up at the sky for a moment and then unclips his radio from his jacket, moving the coiled cord down to clip to the antenna of his radio. He unzips his jacket and pulls it off, revealing another NYPD long-sleeve shirt underneath. He wraps it loosely around Shane's shoulders. "I will make sure to be out of the state when the trial date is. They should just throw it out." "Yeah," Shane says, wryly, stiffening at first at the offered jacket but then relaxing. He leans to the side, tucking his legs up towards his chest and nestling up against Eric's side. "But it's my pa, and he's a fucking moron." He says this with a grudging respect. "He's not going to --" His eyes close, shoulders still trembling beneath Eric's jacket. "How many have you given out?" Eric holds one arm around the teenager's shoulder, gently. "Too many. Five? Ten? Something like that. I can't always avoid it. Less, now, that I'm on bike patrol more than half the time. Less supervision out here, on the bike. But still, sometimes. Even us bike cops get lonely for a partner." he says, with a weak smile. "My neighbor got one. He teleported away from getting hit by a car. And my other neighbor is -- he's basically a giant bird." Shane leans up into the touch, his words a little stuttered through chattery teeth. "They ticketed him cuz he was flying but it's hard for him to walk for long. His legs are --" His fingers open, close, open again to curl into something -- clawlike? Talony? "Have any of them fought it?" "Appeals don't start for a few weeks, usually, and I may not find out about it unless they call me for testimony. And since I only give them when too many people are around, I might not get called." Eric explains, softly. "All I can tell you is that I haven't been scheduled to testify. That may mean that no one has, or it may not. The court records are public, though. Should be easy enough t look it up." "Yeah. OK. Yeah." Shane's shivering is slowly subsiding. Slowly. He doesn't move from Eric's side, though, letting his eyes close as his head drops heavily against the man's shoulder. "This is just such a giant crock of bullshit, you know? It can't last, right?" He closes his eyes, his gills fluttering again. "I mean. They'll just think of something worse after." "Probably." Eric says, softly. "I don't know. I'm sure the courts will toss it out eventually, if just for the free speech problems. But... something will replace it, no doubt. I think things will get worse before they get better." He squeezes Shane against his side, once. "Unless something really dramatic changes in the mean time." "You know, my brother --" Shane starts, and then trails off into nothing, pressing in closer against Eric's side. He is quiet a long while, gills flicking open and closed rapidly until finally he draws in a quick ragged breath. "What makes you think they'll get better?" "I don't know they will. I hope they will." Eric replies, turning to look at the teenager. "But until then, we have to be ready. And we have to make sure we don't give them any excuses that they can use to hang us." He sighs, leaning his forehead forward against the other man's. "And we have to hide, sometimes." This draws a sharp /snort/ from Shane, a ragged breath that sounds almost like a laugh. Allllmost. "/Hide/," he says, shoulders stiffening beneath Eric's jacket, "Yeah. Sure. That works real good for some of us." "Sometimes." Eric says, pulling back and looking the other man's face over carefully. "And other times, we don't." His hand runs up and down his jacket over the other man's back. His radio beeps several times, and he turns the volume up briefly to listen to the dispatcher, before he turns it back down. "I dunno. We will see." Shane's face is Not Very Happy, jaw tight and his black eyes narrowed. They close a moment later. For a time. And then he looks back out towards the water, hand absently moving to rest over Eric's. "-- That healing thing of yours," he says, thoughtfully, "it protect you against cold?" "Sort of. I will still get frostbite, but it will heal very quickly, once I am out of the water. Or, I suppose, while I'm still in." Eric says, giving the water a concerned look. "But... it will still be very cold." he says, wincing. "Mngh," is Shane's disappointed reaction to this. His hand is cold as it wraps around Eric's. "Wimp," he grouses. "If I could live through anything I'd get into so much shit." "Ask me when I'm not on duty." Eric says, smiling as the other man's hand wraps around his. "You get into plenty shit already, Shane. Do much more of it, and you're liable to make your Pa go grey before his time." he says, bemusedly. "Like bringing me home. Not, I think, a wise idea in the future." "But --" Shane frowns, downwards, his legs curling up tighter against his chest. "You could bring me home instead." Eric laughs, brightly, shaking his head bemusedly as his eyes twinkle. "That's true. I suppose I could do that," he muses. "Sometime. I've got almost my entire shift ahead of me. I don't get off until the wee hours of the morning." he says, glancing down at his watch. He yawns and grimaces. "Fuck. I did not get enough sleep last night." "S'pose I shouldn't offer to keep you up later after your shift, then." Shane says this with a quick lopsided smile that fades away soon after. He wriggles up straighter, shrugging off Eric's jacket with another shiver, to hand it back. "You know, I don't even have your number or anything." Eric pulls his jacket back on and zips it up. He reaches into one of the pockets and pulls out a card, and retrieves a pen from a different pocket. Turning the card over, he scribbles on the back of it. "I gave your Pa my shield number and my desk number, but you, I'll give my cell number to." he says, flashing a grin at Shane as he extends the card towards him. "How's'at sound?" "Sounds like I might need to use it." Shane plucks the card from Eric's hand, shoving it into his pocket. "Some time when you don't have a whole shift ahead of you. Some time when you've gotten enough sleep." He leans forward, pressing a light kiss to Eric's lips. "The getting off in the wee hours thing we could still arrange though." Eric smirks, and his hand runs down Shane's back, settling - briefly - at the small of his spine. "I look forward to it," he purrs, voice fading into a husky noise. He winks, playfully, at Shane, before he lets his hand slide around Shane's side and, briefly, between his legs. "Give me a call when you want. Tomorrow, tonight, next week, never. If I don't answer, I'm either on duty, or I'm otherwise occupied. Leave a message and I'll return it as soon as I can, yeah?" he squeezes once, teasingly, before taking his hand back to unwrap the foil on his burger. Shane shivers again, now perhaps not because of the cold. "Or on duty otherwise occupied," he says with a quick flash of teeth. "I bet there's plenty of people who love that badge." He leans in again -- though this time his mouth only closes on Eric's burger. He CHOMPS a very large bite. And then scoops up his bag, slinging it over a shoulder to hurry off into the dark. "You know it!" Eric calls out after Shane, laughing. He bites his burger, settling down to look across the reservoir and get as much rest as he can before duty, once more, calls.