Yiska was standing on the back dock, enjoying the fresh air, or at least as fresh as the air got in Angelus, as well as enjoying a cigarette. For the moment, he had been left to his thoughts and ponderings. This changed however, when the door opened and released Tyger from the same confines of the precinct house that he had just vacated. Tyger offered a barely perceptible nod to the other officer as he lit up his own cigarette, which Yiska returned. Then there was that almost too quiet uneasy silence...
So, ah, does all that hair itch?" Yiska spoke up suddenly, shattering the silence.
Tyger blinked, almost choking on his cigarette. "What?!?"
The hair." Yiska continued, gesturing slightly as he spoke. "You're covered in it. Doesn't it itch under the clothing? How do you stand it?"
Tyger gave a wry smirk and then broke out into a grin. "The exact same way you can stand being naked. I would think that having all that clothing against your bare skin would itch more than fur"
Only when you don't bathe for a week." Yiska replied, taking a drag from his cigarette as he winces at that particular memory. "So, you were a pirate?"
Tyger nodded, taking a drag from his own cigarette. "Yeah, up until about two years ago or so... give or take a month or three."
Yarr, ho! A bottle of rum and all that matey, eh?" Yiska returned, grinning.
Tyger rolled his eyes as he shook his head. "Not exactly. You can't fly mecha if you're drunk."
"Hahahah, that'd be funny." Yiska tottered to the side in a mockery of a drunk. "Crash! Oops, sorry 'bout the house ma'am."
Tyger raised a brow and shook his head. "Something like that. We rarely hit land targets anyway." He took a drag from his cigarette. "I'd much rather wipe out in someone's house than on the open sea any day. At least runnin' into someone's house, you can get up and get going again."
"Only a mecha pilot," Yiska shakes his head. "So Marcy's into shag then?"
"Don't knock it kid. As far as I can tell, that's what they made me for. Shit... it's the only thing I'm good at," Tyger replied, enjoying another drag from his cigarette. He about choked on it when he realized his squad mate again changed the subject. A brow lifted itself and he looked at Yiska from the corner of his eye. "That's none of your business."
"Kid? I'm at least three times your age, grandpa! And don't go bringin' who or what made you for what nothin'. You're you—a unique creation of mother earth gifted a soul, albeit a fuzzy one, capable of living your own life. Damn, I've seen too many Clades roll over and accept what they were made to be. I mean, c'mon, humans were made to breed, eat, and poop. I honestly don't see what the difference is... argh, I sound like Carpenter now."
Tyger had to grin at that "First off... you don't even know how old I am." He took a drag from his cigarette and exhaled it slowly, still grinning. "I know that I'm me, and all that heaping pile of bullshit you're trying to feed me. I know for dammed sure I wasn't decanted in some laboratory to be a pirate. That was somethin' I chose to do. And I sure as hell wasn't made to be an XSWAT officer either... if I was; I'd be a lot better at it, that's for dammed sure." He gave a bit of a laugh at Yiska's general description of the purposes of humans. "The fact that you were born and I was grown in a vat. You are random, while every bit of me was planned from the get-go to do everything that humans can do... I think... only some of those things I can do a bit better." He takes another drag from his cigarette and exhales slowly. "That wasn't meant as an insult, just the fact that it takes bionics and enhancements for a human to be as fast and hard as I am naturally"
"Usually they prefer it to be slow and hard, but no one's perfect," Yiska grinned at Tyger.
Tyger gave a wry smirk in reply. "I have no idea why. If you're slow, that means it's easier to get shot up...."
"Yeah, but rushing in normally gets your head blown off."
"That's if you rush in. whether you're slow or fast won't change the fact that you're stupid for it. But once you're in, it's easier to avoid getting your head blown off if you're fast.
"If you say so. So rumor has it you used to be in charge of 9th Squad." Yiska coughs. "What was that like?"
Tyger shrugged slightly. He had to wonder of Yiska was on drugs or just had that short of an attention span. "Yeah, for about a day and a half at best. Didn't like it too much, don't want it. I can't run the Squad like I ran my ship... so there's no point in tryin'. Since Dick wanted it, he can have it. And more power to him"
"They do seem to throw their weight around, him and Carpenter. That gets my fur riled up sometimes, and I don't even have any!" Yiska grumbled.
Tyger had to chuckle in amusement at Yiska's words. "I can handle Dick easily enough. I just let what he says go in one ear and out the other. Nate on the other hand...." Tyger just shook his head. "He just doesn't know what its like on the other side of the fence. He's never been there. He's too dammed narrow"
"Not if he keeps eating like he has been. Speaking of which, how long are you in this XSWAT thing for? Did they figure it would be an effective life sentence for you while they got something useful in return?"
"What do you mean by 'eating'? You lost me kid." Tyger replied canting his head slightly. "As far as I can tell, I have no fucking clue. I guess I could walk out any time that I wanted. Only problem with that, is that I have nowhere else to go... and Cadbury knows it"
"Well, don't be too quick to judge her on that account. She's probably keeping you here till you do have somewhere else to go." Yiska got a rather confused look on his face right then. "Would you and Marcy have kittens or children?"
"Who knows what that woman is planning? She knows a hell of a lot more about me than she lets on... too much if you ask me." He finishes his cigarette and exhales slowly, crushing the butt beneath the heel of his boot. Great, back to him and Marcy. "And what is your deal with me and Marcy? Do you have a problem with us bein' together?"
"What? No. You're just funny together. And happy." Yiska looked off down the street.
"Yeah... funny about that...."
Yiska deposited his butt into the smoker's friend. "Hey Tyger! Did you forget that we're XSWAT? Cops? What's your big idea of littering! Some young kid could walk by, pick up that cigarette, and get hooked! Or worse, that's polluting the city! You should be down right ashamed of yourself!" Yiska ducked back into the building laughing. "Catch me if you can, carpet boy!"
For a brief second, Tyger really did think about giving chase. In fact, something in him really wanted to. Instead, he just grinned and casually followed after the other officer, his hands shoved within his pockets. "You gotta sleep sometime kid...." Tyger grinned as he followed his squad mate back inside.