thearena | On the tough guy style I'm not too keen. [OPEN]

Who| Dave Strider and OPEN (plus a mingle prompt)
What| Various escapades of a Texan ass deep in the cold powder of anti-Satan.
Where| Through the forests, around the caves
When| Week 3
Warnings/Notes| Naughty words

A. Valentines Rewards:
Of all the commercialized affection days Dave has lived through, he's never gotten gifts quite like this. Or any gifts, really, but that's all in the past. His requests hadn't precisely been sincere, so he isn't disappointed when two parachutes drop down in front of him. One contains a themed scarf that he doesn't remember asking for, but he enthusiastically clucks to himself as he winds it around his neck. If Caesar Flickerman is watching, he doesn't want him to think he doesn't want his face wrapped snug around his body. The day only increases in hella-ness when Dave is also presented with what can only be described as a gargantuan bag of doritos.

For a while, he walks around under his five layers of jackets, blankets and scarfs with the bag tucked under his coats, open and kept in place against his chest with sheer force of will. Every so often he'll reach into his shirt, pull out an orange chip and eat it in a way he imagines to be inconspicuous.

Eventually, his travels take him upward and he uses a knife and sheer force of will to haul himself up onto one of the higher branches so he can pull the bag out and eat from it as much as he likes. He could say he's surveying the surroundings while he does this, but he'd be lying.

B. Snow Trekking Acrosstheuniverse:
Generally, Dave hates snow. Snow is overrated, Winter Wonderland is a barren wasteland of death and misery. Currently, Dave loathes snow. It's precisely crotch height and he is literally balls deep in shaved and flaked misery. It's a bad day to be 5'9, but he's thankful not to be any shorter than that right now. Maybe it would be easier to walk if he weren't wearing everything wearable, but then he would be cold.

The snow is making it damn near impossible to see anyone and he deeply regrets stepping off for some personal time. The isolation had been good. Briefly. Now he's surrounded by nothing but white as far as the eye can see, like he's in the middle of a suspiciously crowded Nickelback concert. One would imagine that the fact that he's entirely alone would be a relief, but he can't help thinking someone might spring out at him at any minute.

After a few minutes of aimless trudging, he gives in to temptation and starts to haphazardly sculpt what may be the world's ugliest snowman. Ugly stick arms, ugly rock nose and yet, he seems so empty. Dave stares into the white abyss of his snow friend's eyes before he very carefully pulls his own shades off his face and places them onto the snowman. He puts his hands on his hips, stroking his chin as he ponders.

"It's like looking in a mirror." He murmurs, then he takes a long step back before springing himself forward to violently and inelegantly pummel the snowman like a dog with a balloon. He stands up slowly and plucks his shades out of the snow, dusting them off before sliding them back on like nothing happened.

Snowball Fight: (feel free to do open prompts with this one)
It's a long walk back, but Dave finally feels like his numb legs have begun to lead him to a slightly more populated area. It's not necessarily a good thing, but it's leading him back to the meeting place he and Karkat had agreed upon. In retrospect, there wasn't much about that particular tree that differentiated it from the rest of them. Dave is in a constant state of sniffling, his nose is pink and his legs are damp and cold from trudging through snow all day.

There is no sense of Christmas cheer in him, but when he sees someone ahead of him struggling through the snow, he feels an overwhelming urge to pelt them with some snow. This is partly because he thinks it's someone he knows and entirely because he is near delirious from being cold and exhausted.

He scoops himself a sizable handful and with an exclamation of hup that is louder than he intended it to be, Dave starts a snowball fight mid-Arena.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Gary takes the flurry of snow like a splash of water to the face, guarding with his arms but ultimately blocking nothing. It doesn't help that the dive has left him mostly submerged. Recovery is slow and awkward.

"Never," he cries in defiance. To buy more time, Gary mirrors Dave's tactics and sweeps his arm, throwing a haphazard shower of snow in his general direction. "You've sullied my honor! We fight to the death."

Dave hunches and shields his face as best as he can when Gary does his most awkward and ineffective impression of an aggressive fish flopping around in the snow. He pulls his hands away to give the other boy a Look just so he knows how Done he is already.

"What are you, five? Act your age, not your score." He grumbles, patting snow off himself fruitlessly because it's getting everywhere anyway. "Sullied your honor? Really? I think this is a you broke it you bought it sitch, bro. You want your honor back, take it up with yourself." Dave is a ray of sunshine right now, idly kicking snow at Gary despite all attempts to remain uninvolved in frostual combat.

Gary is totally not buying that Dave isn't enjoying every second of this. Why wouldn't he be? It's snow! Everyone likes snow. Maybe he's just being a sore loser over getting his hair messed up or something.

"Oh come on, man," he half-laughs half-whines, forced to stop in making his next snowball so he can block his face from the shower from Dave's kick. "Play along a little bit, would ya? Besides, you started it."

"I'll finish it." Dave grumbles, but he's noting the fact that Gary is starting to make his own snowball. That shit don't fly, no sir. He needs to pull back and just grab handfuls of snow so he can throw them with reckless abandon at Gary.

"To hell with your icy cocaine fetish, Gary. Just surrender so we can stop looking like a bunch of sorry losers, would you?"

"Not a loser if you don't lose!" Gary turns his back, a slightly better defense against Dave's onslaught while he fixes another couple of snowballs. He whips around and throws one of them while he has a window to do so. "And I don't plan on losing!"

Not that Gary has any sort of win condition in mind--he just wants to fuck around in the snow for a while. Is that so much to ask?

"You're a loser if you act like a frigging loser. Losing at life, at all that is good and holy and sacred and not an after school special." Dave is prepared this time for the snowball. He's also a bit of a show-off when he wants to be. His reflexes are on point, so it's not difficult to smack the ball out of the air before it hits him.

"God damn it, Gary Layne Bryant Lattisaw Matthews. You put that snow down right now and think about what you've done or I will turn this Arena around."

"Put it down?" Gary has an idea and it's not a good one, judging from that smirk on his face as he scoops up a large, packed arm-full of snow. "Yeah, sure! I'll totally put the snow down."

He starts walking over. Gary has a couple inches on Dave, enough to easily reach the back of his jacket if he just stands still for a little bit. Then it's just a matter of grabbing some loose part of Dave's windbreaker and dropping the snow in whatever gap he can find. This is definitely a fun and friendly thing to do to someone in an Arena where death by exposure is a serious problem.

Dave can practically smell the idea before it comes to fruition. The smirk on Gary's face is telling, like he just let a nasty one rip and he knows it. For all Dave seems aware of what he intends to do, he isn't really moving. Why? Because there isn't really a gap to drop it into with all of these layers. Pulling enough space to get it down Dave's actual back seems a difficult feat at this point.

In retaliation, it looks like Dave intends to.. stand there. And do nothing. For the most part this is true, until he snaps suddenly and lurches around, throwing himself at Gary in an attempt to tackle him down into the snow with nothing more than a grunt.

This...yes, this is a lot harder than Gary imagined it would be. He ends up dropping a lot of the snow in favor of shoving handfuls of it wherever he can manage, but even that isn't too successful, especially once Dave turns on him. Gary shouts in surprise, falls backwards, lands with a fumph in the snow and is, by that point, laughing his ass off. This is still a game, right? Gary doesn't see any reason why it wouldn't be.

"Hey, no fair!" He presses one hand against Dave's chest to give him some room, and the other reaches around to grab the hood of his windbreaker and pull it over Dave's head.

It's still a game, in a vague sense of the word. Dave hasn't lost his cool entirely- well. He has, but he hasn't lost his temper. He's annoyed that he's wantonly playing into the snow fun, but he won't lose this battle.

He grunts and swears near incoherently when Gary pulls at his hood, scooping snow and dumping it on the other boy in some sort of attempt to bury him before he decides that's fucking stupid. He moves to swat at Gary, precise and speedy jabs aimed at his arms.

"Your moms not fair." He says, delivering a verbal blow that will surely quake Gary to his core.

While burying him in snow would have indeed been very ineffective, Dave still manages to fling enough in Gary's face to make him sputter and be decently disoriented. On instinct he lets go of Dave's hood so he can guard his face.

"You take that back!" he cries, as the verbal blow indeed strikes true. "My mother was a saint!"

On the tough guy style I'm not too keen. [OPEN]

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