ArchivedLogs:War Zone

War Zone
Dramatis Personae B, Doug, Shane
In Absentia	2015-02-17 "I'll show you goddamn /war/."
Location <NYC> Tompkins Square Park - East Village
Small but popular, this tree-lined park is a perfect centerpiece to the eclectic neighborhood it resides in. Home to a number of playgrounds and courts from handball to basketball, it also houses a dog park and chess tables, providing excellent space for people watching -- especially during its frequent and often eccentric festivals, from Wigstock to its yearly Allen Ginsberg tribute Howl festival. It hasn't quite slipped into dark yet but it's definitely edging that way. Not that that matters much in the center of the park, lightposts switching on already with the gathering dusk. In the city snowfall is not quite the clean picturesque thing of postcards, slushy, gritty, dirty, trampled -- but that doesn't stop people from enjoying it all the same. In one segment of the park there are walls being built up, packed in dense, fortified. It's not so much a snow /fort/ as it is a snow /barricade/, behind which B is stockpiling an arsenal of neatly-piled snowballs. It's -- maybe cheating that there are a few dragonflies hovering around hir raised walls, keeping a lookout for hir. Maybe cheating, MAYBE, but Shane isn't exactly going for STEALTH anyway. In fact the first thing he's doing as he charges up is /flying tackle/ one of the dragonflies out of the air. Wait is this supposed to be a snowball fight? He certainly /had/ a snowball in hand. But he's looking to just mash it straight into B's /face/. No throwing required. "{Ohfuck,}" comes in breathless (giddy) Vietnamese. So much for forewarning. A snarl, a growl, and soon a pair of sharktwins is coming crashing straight /through/ the wall-o-snow B spent so much care building up. Tangled together, growling, /biting/. Layers and layers of cold-protection also serve pretty well against claws, at least. That's the trouble with war -- even snow battles -- there's always innocents to get in the way. Such, alas, is Doug, a hapless wanderer in the park. Dressed in boots and thick jeans, with a navy peacoat buttoned tightly against the cold, the blonde is remarkably unladen as he crosses through the park. No laptop bag hangs from his shoulder, and he is notably /not/ looking at his phone. Nevertheless, his mind is elsewhere, clearly, as he wanders into the vicinity of the sharkbattle without any clear awareness of them until the snow fort collapses. Then he's springing back with a startled noise, his boots slipping in the slushy snow. " -- Jesus." Grr-snap-rrrrr, the growling noises continue with sharp clicks of teeth, /pafs/ of snow being churned up by the rolling bodies. So easily distinguished, here, Shane all in dark, only small accents of silver and blue in his scarf and coat, B a bright whirl of colour in the skirt-and-leggings-and-legwarmers-and-gaiters paired with /hir/ boots and puffy purple-and-blue jacket. It's with a sharp baring of teeth that Shane looks up (grins up? grimaces up?) at Doug. The hapless dragonfly he had pounced is nearby, half-buried in snow that is starting to melt around its wings with a crankily small hum. "Collateral damage," Shane deems Doug. "S'what happens when you step --" his words are interrupted as he pauses to lower his head and /nip/ at B's /face/, "-- into a fucking /war zone/." "{I'll show you goddamn /war/.}" A sharp upward blow to Shane's chin, a boot thudding against the inside of a leg, and B is wresting top position, now pinning hir twin down into the snow instead. To Doug ze's more apologetic, flushed and a bit breathless. "Oh gosh! I didn't mean to -- we didn't -- /oops/." "Collateral damage?" Doug sounds almost offended at this designation -- or would, if his voice wasn't breathy from the flush of being startled. He reaches up to scratch gloved fingers along the month-old pale beard on his face. "Well, it's not the worst thing I've been ca -- " he breaks off at the sudden violence from B, and blinks a bit widely, shaking his head. "I was just startled," he assures hir, holding out his hand palm-forward. "I should have been paying attention and not woolgathering." His brows knit, briefly, and he offers a lop-sided grin. "Looks like an effective way to fight off the cold," hs notes wryly, bending down to scoop up a handful of snow and begin packing it. So innocently. See how innocent he looks? "Short-term, anyway." "Definitely one way," Shane agrees. More sharp-yelped than this might have been if B's knuckles weren't connecting with his chin. "But what's --" "-- even better," B takes over, "is afterwards. Once you've gotten /thoroughly/ soaked through and cold and then --" "-- you go home and /cocoa/." With a grunt, Shane brings his forehead up against B's nose, works an arm free (his mitten is tugged off with it, alas) to grab at B's coat and haul hir off to one side so that he can kind-of-half wriggle back up into a crouch. "You should've been paying attention," he adds with a small sliver of smile. "Snow /always/ means war." "Cocoa is always good," Doug agrees, smoothing his handful of snow into a near-perfect orb. "It's one of my favorite ways to warm my appendages." Shane's caution gets a snort, and Doug squints into the fading light. "I grew up for eight years across from your fancy school," he notes. "I know the rules about snow." That being said, the snowball is launched at the twins, and Doug runs for cover, ducking to scoop another handful of snow as he goes. "En garde, suckers!" "/Fff/." B just dives out of the way, tucking and rolling across the snow. "Definitely on my list of fav--ahhh." Shane /squawks/, turning to one side as the snowball hits him square in the ribs. "Fah. Should've seen /that/ -- hrgh." He stoops to grab his own handful of snow, packing it in tightly. B is darting back towards hir crumbled ruin of a fort to scoop up a pair of the snowballs ze'd already rolled there, double-fisting them as ze sprints after Doug. "There /are/ no rules about snow." Shane's grin is bright; he's dropped to all fours. Or three, relaly, one hand on the ground and the other holding snowball as he lopes across the snow towards Doug, pincering in from the opposite side than B so that he can hurl a snowball at the older man's retreating back. Doug cuts around as he runs, twisting to launch a snowball at B as he runs /towards/ the snow fort. "There are rules," he pants, scooping another handful of snow on the fly and packing it as he runs, shifting away from the fort at the last minute to run for an open area. "Don't eat the yellow sno -- agh." The snowball in his back throws him off his stride, and he drops the snowball he was making. "Dirty bastard," he says, huffing a laugh and scooping up another handful to pack hastily. "You're gonna get it for that." And he turns to throw his snowball with little real aim behind it. "Eventually, I mean." B turns mid-stride to lob one of /her/ snowballs towards Shane, with considerably more aim. "Ohmyfucking god dirty /cheater/." Maybe Doug wasn't really trying but Shane is so /startled/ by B's strike he stops in place, stumbling back at the twin strikes that baf against his chest. "No rules," B reminds with a giggle. "{I should've fucking eaten you in the womb, you're like the /rotten/ half of our --}" Shane doesn't really make a snowball, just charge over to headbutt B backwards /into/ her stockpile. Snag some of the messily crushed snow for himself to pack it back into a ball as he rolls back off to -- maybe he was intending to charge after Doug with it but instead he ends up kind of trip-falling, tumbling down what used to be a snowfort and now is kind of a snow /hill/. "I heard up further north there's no more America. Just a giant wasteland of snow. They built an entire snow-mountain-range at MIT." B's face peeks over the top of hir own tinysnowhill to deliver this information. "They're abdicating to form their own ice kingdom," Shane agrees. Lying flopped where he's rolled to the bottom of the hill and lazily sweeping out an arm and a leg like a lopsided snow-angel. "I don't know if we count as being in the border but we can petition." When the pursuit falls off, Doug loops back around, coming near the fort/hills with a bit of caution. "Boston's getting the worst of it, looks like," he says, edging closer and dropping into a squat to gather snow lazily. "Maybe there'll be enough to build The Wall," he says with a bit of a grin. "Everyone up north can just start over as wildlings." The small pile of snow is scooped up, and flung out at the twins with no real intent. What hits them, hits them. "It'd be cool to see that mountain range, though. Up close, I mean." "Shane's already /dressed/ for guarding the wall." B's tone totally is implying: BORING. Shane /kicks/ a lazy sprinkling of snow over in... B's general direction. Packs an also-lazy wad to lob in slow-arc back towards Doug, turning his face UP towards the snowshower that's coming back in from Doug's direction. "What I hear. Boston's pretty much /already/ inhabited by wildlings." "I did see like. Rioting? After the football happened?" B's nose crinkles. "People are kinda odd. I watched some of it but I kept getting distracted with Smallworld instead." "I mean I'll get excited as fuck over /basically anything/," Shane admits, "whether I understand the rules or not. But fucking Christ if it was a bunch of /us/ burning a city nobody would be all, 'haha sports!' they'd be like 'kill all the freaks immediately they are murderous and out of hand'." His grin is suddenly wicked sharp. "Actually they tend to do that just when we have snowball fights -- uh. Should've warned you," he adds to Doug. "Playing in the snow with us is like seven hundred percent higher risk of arrest." "Attempted arrest," B corrects. "Cops are so easy to smell and we run fast." "I've never understood celebratory rioting," Doug says, letting the lazy snow-wad smack him in the chest. "I mean, what's the point of wrecking your city to prove your pride in it? Seems counter-intuitive." He shrugs, and wrinkles his nose. "But I'm a soccer player," he amends, grinning lightly. "Maybe I'm more wired for soccer riots, in stadiums." Shane's warning gets a small snort, and the blonde rolls his shoulders. "I'm not worried," he says, leaning back until he plops his butt in the snow. "If I get arrested, it'll get me more street cred with my crew at work. I think most of them have a couple of overnights under their belts." He scratches at his beard again, leaving a clump of snow behind. "What do cops smell like?" he wonders. "I'm guessing arrogance and Old Spice. Maybe kielbasa." "Shit, yo, if you /want/ to get arrested we can arrange that no problem." Not that Shane seems in a hurry for it. Still lazily fanning-out his half-snow-angel. "What /are/ you doing for work now?" B is stepping over the crumbled remains of snow-wall to pluck the half-buried dragonfly out of the snow. "Cops smell like..." "Donuts and sweating on their asses in a car for hours. Which is /totally/ the gross goddamn kind of sweating. The stale sit-there kind. Good clean /exercise/ sweat, that I can get behind." Shane shakes his head, pushing himself back up. "And definitely a side of arrogance." B's head tips slightly to one side, like listening for something in the distance. Or smelling for it. "... maybe we should be getting," she hedges, abruptly somewhat tenser. Shane only grins bigger. "Catch a whiff of douchebag in the /air/?" His chin lifts to Doug as he hops to his feet. "There'll be hella games and cocoa where we're heading. If you're not busy." "I'll pass," Doug says to Shane's offer, quirking a grin at the younger man. "I'd prefer to let nature run its course, in that regard." B's question gets a straightening of his spine, and he nods in a generally eastward direction. "I work on the docks," he says. "Loading and unloading cargo crates. It's good work. I like it a lot." "Gross," is all he manages for the descriptor of cop odors, and he wrinkles his nose. "Although, Eric never smells like that, so maybe it's just asshole cops who smell so rank." He doesn't hesitate when B chimes in, pushing to his feet and dusting snow from his seat. "Oh, yeah. It's Tuesday, isn't it?" he says when Shane offers the invitation. "That sounds like fun, actually. I can't stay late, but I'll definitely come. I'll even contribute food." "Everything about cops is gross. /Everything/." B says this very earnestly. Shane -- lapses into a brief quiet, actually, gills fluttering momentarily at the mention of Eric. He meanders closer to his twin, slinging an arm around B's shoulders. "Tuesday, yep. /And/ it's fucking Mardi Gras, so I'm sure my pa's made like /hella/ goddamn sweets. It's gonna be a blast." Dusting snow off B's jacket and then his own (it's a futile gesture, really, they're pretty much crusted) he keeps his arm slung around his twin as he starts out of the park. "As a general rule, they're not my /favorite/ people," Doug says, pulling in alongside the pair. His eyebrows hike at the reminder of the holiday, and he chuffs an amused noise. "Man. I've missed those," he says, and looks around. "Well, I don't want to ruin /that/ feast. Maybe we can stop in and get some awesome cocoa or something on the way." His tone is chipper as they exit the park, his conversation lively on the trip to the Commons later. Detente achieved.