InsaneJournal

Tweak says, "mmmmmmm tweak"

Riley Harlow (punchout) wrote in paxletalelogs,
@ 2010-08-03 16:18:00

Entry tags:

ares, morrigan

Who: Samuel and Riley
What: A good old-fashioned spar
Where: A local gym
When: Early afternoon
Warnings: Snark, egos clashing, and discussion of fighting techniques.

To Riley, laziness was a strange thing. When she was being lazy, she would skip out on one workout with another. So instead of performing a bench press, she would curl. Or instead of push-ups, she would do sit-ups. And today, she decided that she was far too exhausted to walk all the way to her preferred gym; so instead, she walked to another gym that was just two blocks closer. It didn't occur to her that this was a ridiculous compromise until she entered the unfamiliar territory, realizing that all gyms were not created equal.

The manager of the gym recognized her, allowing her passage inside. But that didn't change the fact that everything was different. The weights were somewhere else, the punching bags were hard to find, and all the machines were wrong. She could have just left and sucked up the extra two blocks to her home base, but that would mean admitting defeat. And Riley did not admit defeat.

If she were thinking about this clearly, she might have found an amusing "we're not in Kansas anymore" message in all of this given that her fire engine red hair was arranged in two French-braided pigtails. And really, she did feel a bit like Dorothy in Oz. The other patrons looked at her with a mixture of annoyance and amusement as she stumbled around, awkwardly craning her neck to try and read labels and find things. Finally, she had found the wall of dumbbells and was looking at them, squinting to try and read the numbers. They were faded, which automatically made them annoying. Resting her hands on her hips, she leaned forward to squint at them. This was going to be a long work-out.

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miaiphonos
2010-08-04 07:56 pm UTC (link)

"I meant me," he said, shaking his head. He laughed at the brazen display of ego, an easy match for his own, and perhaps better founded. He took her betting advice in stride, in his head already counting up his winnings, determining how best they would be spent. He hoped she might be the underdog in her next fight, perhaps even significantly so; Samuel enjoyed counting his chickens before they'd hatched, and this situation was no different. His imaginary haul thus already won and run through, he put his mind to the task of what a class with this particular spitfire would be like.

"Not a girl." Samuel wrinkled his nose, boyishly offended. How much of that was put on and how much was sincere he left to her interpretation. "That girl." To further specify, he pointed directly, irrefutably at her. "Cut me some slack. I'm a weapons man, not a bare-handed one. I've never had to raid a site unarmed and go up against Jet Li, so up to now I've done okay. You're just a different kind of challenge altogether." He shrugged, cutting her a sidelong, narrowed glance. "Not saying I think I need that much improvement. But you know. A little practice never hurt anybody, right?"

(LOLOL movies via multi-monitor? NICE. Samuel says no arm wrestling though >.> That would just be embarrassing.)

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punchout
2010-08-04 08:20 pm UTC (link)

The idea of Samuel as charming made her laugh, though the sound wasn't cruel. It was a laugh of surprise and bewilderment, as if she were observing a very wacky scene in a movie. "Yeah, okay," was all she said. She was good, though - didn't roll her eyes or anything.

As he pointed at her, specifying the sort of girl he wanted to punch like, she snorted. "Well I punch like any girl," she said, straightening up slightly. "A girl that was trained well by another girl." Her tone was both teasing and serious, equal parts of each. After all, he clearly understood that she wasn't a lost Pippi Longstocking in the big, scary gym.

In a rare moment of kindness, she decided not to further attack his pride. Instead, she nodded. "Well it's always good to practice," she said, slurping up more of her smoothie. "And since you are less familiar with bare hand-to-hand, it'd be my pleasure to help a member of the armed forces."

(OH MAN YES. Ahahahahaa Riley says "why you no want to arm wrestle?" With a big puppy frown.)

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miaiphonos
2010-08-04 08:55 pm UTC (link)

Samuel had never been one to conceal his initial impressions. It was clear from his wrinkled brow and off-kilter smile that he found this new bit of trivia to be quite difficult to believe. This incorrect assumption was largely rooted in the fact that in the whole of his life, he had watched and read less than a few hours' worth of coverage devoted to women in sports, making him substantially less than an expert on the subject. Had he realized she was delicately avoiding the already cracked eggshells of his pride, he might have held his tongue - though like as not, the knowledge would have changed nothing. "Learn something every day, I guess," he said, disbelief carelessly threaded through his tone. "No offense. I'm sure your teacher is as dangerous as you."

He gave a puffed-up little grin of his own when she correctly guessed his primary and favored career. "Well, former, anyway. SWAT now." He grinned, pausing for a noisy sip of his smoothie. "You'd kind of being doing a public service, then, right? Really selfless of you. So sure, I'll be your punching bag whenever you've got some off time. I might pick up a few things in between hacking up a lung."

(so sad, the frown! LOLOL Get him drunk and he'll probably acquiesce. I suspect this will go badly for him.)

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punchout
2010-08-04 10:01 pm UTC (link)

Just thinking about Melinda made Riley shudder, and she rarely had anything to fear. Though the common phrase was "those that can't do, teach," Melinda was a teacher that could perform just as well. Riley had fought a number of male boxers with outstanding records, as well as excellent female boxers. But Melinda was somebody she never wanted to actually go toe-to-toe with. "She's more dangerous," she said with a knowing nod. "Back in her prime, she was the best." No questions asked.

As he spun the situation just a bit, she laughed. "Well, SWAT is still something," she said. And it was. Riley had always admired the people that went through that kind of hell. It was beyond what most people could handle, and even she had her doubts about her own ability to get through basic training. "And I love to give back." Slurping her smoothie, she gave a definitive nod. "Well, all joking aside, I'd love to teach you a thing or two. Basic blocks and good jabs are really helpful to know, especially in your line of work."

(LOL OMG DRUNK ARM WRESTLING! I approve of this 100%. And yes, Riley gives a great puppy eyed frown.)

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