It's a gloomy kind of twilight. The majority of the colors present are of the hyphenated variety; blue-grey, green-grey, steel-grey, slate-grey... you get the idea. Snow is falling from an iron-colored sky, just a few flakes here and there. The snowflakes land on leafless trees, dry grass, parkgoers' heads, and also the gloved hands of a skinny kid in a too-big coat, his tousled gingery hair tied back at the base of his skull into a short and haphazard ponytail.
He's catching the snowflakes and bringing them up to his face (a babyish, delicate-looking face, for a teenager) to examine them. He's finding that they don't look nearly as pretty when they're this small. And they disappear if he breathes on them. Tiring of having to hold his breath, he lets out a small huff that instantly reduces the hapless snowflakes to tiny water droplets.

He holds his hands out to catch some more.

Gabriel likes red hair, and copper counts.

It's pretty.

This is why he comes up behind the ginger young man and bats at his ponytail.

(He didn't learn his lesson the first time he did this. The lady in question was decidedly unamused at first, but she decided he was retarded after the first few minutes and then decided she liked him and all in all he thought it went well.)

It's pretty!

Arty is prepared to completely ignore Gabriel, as he's been ignoring everyone else who's passed by.
That is, until this - this - whoever this guy is dares to touch him. Arty forgets all about snowflake-catching and somehow suddenly manages to be facing Gabriel and standing several feet away, his hands curled into claws at his sides - all by themselves.

Then he relaxes a little.
Gabriel looks a little odd, maybe... but not threatening. He doesn't look like someone that Arty ought to be afraid of.

"Oh."

He startled Gabriel, quite a bit. That isn't a reaction he's gotten from people before.

"I'm sorry. Hello."

He offers the boy a smile.

Next time, he'll remember to say hello before touching people's hair. (That is, after all, the only concievable reason someone might have to find his actions startling.)

"...Hi," Arty says warily, and tucks his still-slightly-clawlike hands into his pockets.

"How come you did that?"
Sneaking up on random people is (was?) his job.

Gabriel frowns.

Questions are hard.

"Well. I."

Frown!

"I liked your hair," he declares.

And if that's the wrong answer, then hmph. He doesn't care.

...so there?

"Uh-huh..."

Arty would give Gabriel a skeptical look, except the guy seems so completely sincere.
(Rather, Arty can't detect any traces of a fib. There's a difference.)

"...Thanks, I guess."
Compliments are good.
Especially when he's getting really sick of some of the kids at school calling him a pansy because of his hair. He hit one of them today (repeatedly). That would be why he's wandering around in the park when it's nearly night - he doesn't want to go home and find out that the school has called.
"You shoulda asked first 'fore touching it, though."

"Sorry," he repeats, trying for contrition. "Can I touch it?"

What? Arty told him to.

It makes perfect sense to Gabriel.

Arty frowns at him, puzzled. What a weirdo.

...Still, it seems an innocent enough request.

"I guess," he shrugs. "If you want. Don't pull or tangle it up, though."
Hair-tangling is also his job.

Gabriel reaches out tugs a strand free and twirls it around a finger.

His smile is pure delight.

He's very young.

The boy's eyes are almost crossed as he looks up to watch what Gabriel is doing. There are no sudden pulls to startle him, and in spite of himself, he's finding this to be kind of soothing. He likes playing with and braiding other people's hair, himself; it's fun.
In a way, he can see where Gabriel is coming from with this.

"You're really strange, you know that?" he says amiably.

"I'm trying to figure out normal," he replies amiably.

Arty is letting him play with his hair. Arty is cool.

He takes this bit of information with a grain of salt.
"Well, here's a tip, then - most normal people don't mess with strangers' hair. They think it's weird."
Arty, however, doesn't count himself among the normal people, nor does he mind having his hair played with.

Gabriel gives this all the consideration it is due.

This is about, oh, two seconds.

"So maybe I won't be completely normal."

Grin.

"Heh. Suit yourself. Don't be surprised if you get slapped."

...I'm sorry, Arty giving advice on how to be normal? This is amusing.

"What's your name?"
Let's get to know each other.

"I'm Gabriel. Gabriel Lichtenberg."

He loves his last name very very much. It's lovely.

Arty repeats the name to himself.
Well, he tries to, anyway.

"...I'm just gonna call you Gabe," he concludes.

Pause.

"...does that I have a nickname now?"

Yay!

He's Gabe now.

Gabriel has this thing for names and people naming him.

"Uh...yeah. I guess."

He shrugs a shoulder. Names aren't such a big deal for humans.
...Gabe is human, right?

"Why?" Pause. "I can call you Gabriel if you don't like Gabe. It's just Gabe is easier to say."

Gabe is... sortof human?

Ish?

"No! I like Gabe. Gabe is... nice."

Very descriptive, Gabriel. Kudos.

"Okay. Gabe, then."
He shrugs and then, awkwardly, sticks out a hand to shake.
"I'm Arthur."
Everyone calls him Arty, but it's really just Arthur.
It used to be something else, once, but he doesn't remember it.

Gabriel has to stop playing with his hair, which is vaguely saddening.

But he shakes hands, something that he's very good at, and grins.

"Nicetameetcha, Arthur."

"Same to you."
He lets his hand drop.
And now, more questions.
"D'you live around here?"

"Uh-huh. Well, kinda."

He explains his neighborhood, which is a bit outside town, an upscale sort of street.

He doesn't explain why. It's far too complicated.

Arty listens, head tilted to one side. When Gabriel is done speaking, he gives a slow nod.

"Oh. Okay." Blink. "Aren't you kind of far from home, then?"

"Yeah, well, there's no park closer."

So there.

See? It makes perfect sense. He wanted to see the park.

"...Okay."

Pause.

"It's a good park," he says lamely.
Not like those plastic play-parks on the schoolyard. Those aren't as much fun as they look.

"Yeah, it is," Gabriels says enthusiastically.

"So, what're you doing here?"

Gabriel is a curious kitten. There aren't that many people out here besides them, what with the chill in the air.

"Walking."
Arty shrugs.
"Looking at stuff. Catching snowflakes. Trying not to go home." Another, more uncomfortable shrug. "Take your pick."

"I like walking. Why don't you want to go home?"

Home is a comfortable, happy place.

That's the point.

"Because. Someone at school kept calling me names, so I punched 'im. So I'm probably in trouble," the boy says matter-of-factly.

He doesn't see any reason to lie.
Gabriel really doesn't seem to be the sort of adult to scold him and try to drag him home by an ear.

Gabriel really isn't the sort of adult to do that sort of thing. He isn't even an adult.

"Why did you punch him?"

That's the part in all of it that he doesn't get. You should keep your temper if someone provokes you. This is a fact of life that's built into his bones.

"I just told you." Arty looks surprised. "Because he kept calling me names. He wouldn't quit it, and it was driving me crazy."

He takes offence to being called a pansy. Stupid, he might grudgingly accept. But nothing else.

"Couldn't you have walked away?"

It seemed to him that walking away would have been more sensible.

Really, he's just confused by the whole recounting of events.

"Of course not."
Arty scowls at him.

Walking away is, to him, synonymous with giving in. Arty is not the type to give in easily.

"Then he'd just keep doing it."

"But if you walked away it wouldn't bother you because you wouldn't hear it."

Gabriel believes firmly in the addage 'sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me'. (Despite being of a mindset that would run away and cry if someone said something particularly cruel.)

He also thinks his logic is sound, and thus Arthur is confusing him, the poor dear.

"Uh, no."

He rolls his eyes.
Should have expected something like this.

"I see him like, every day. I couldn't walk away. He'd just do it more."

"So... the end justifies the means?"

He disapproves of this attitude. He disapproves of this attitude to a very great extent.

He ponders for a moment.

"...Yeah. Pretty much."

"Even with the other bad consequences like people yelling at you and such?"

Gabriel is unfamiliar with discipline that doesn't include yelling. His master yelled a lot when Gabriel made mistakes.