Meeting The Squad
As noted by lycaenion, LJ is a bugger, hence the two-parter post.
Disclaimer: As ever, the PPC and all its concepts belong to Jay and Acacia. Agent Teek belongs to Lycaenion; all of the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Monty Python, and other popular culture references, however, do not. Agent Kayla and the rest of her squad are the creations of Cassie Cameron-Young (who doesn't, it should probably be noted, own any pop culture references either), although Alyssa's home universe is the work of Philip Pullman. Osbert, who is mentioned several times, and the Raiders are the creations of KGarrett. Agents Rilwen Shadowflame and Cavan Shenn, both of whom are mentioned, belong to to lady_rilwen herself, our technical consultant and Finder of Discontinuities.
Warnings: Occasional mild language.
"Aye, maybe." Faith grinned back, hands in her pockets as she went through the door, which Kayla had gone ahead and opened for them. "Just smack 'im if he gets tae be too much for ye, though."
"Aw, nobody'd hit me, I'm far too lovable." The tall young man pulled a puppy-face, and then calmly stepped out of range of the retaliatory thwap. "Nobody except you," he amended, grinning.
As the group headed down the corridor, Dayn affectionately teasing Faith while the others watched in amusement, Kayla dropped back to walk beside her partner. "So, you having fun then?"
"I am having seriously mind-bending amounts of fun," Teek assured her. "I had no idea these guys would be so awesome. And it feels good somehow that I found someone Crebaina can talk to..." The teenager shrugged. "I dunno, maybe she doesn't miss having people to hang out with as much as I did. But I remember when she met April, and you wouldn't have been able to tell she'd been rabid with panic a minute earlier, she was so happy now she'd met someone else from her 'verse -" She broke off there, mumbling, "Sheesh, look at me, I've been going off on all kinds of crazy tangents..."
"Tangents?" Kayla raised an inquisitive eyebrow, not certain what Teek was referring to.
"Well, I started going on about school, and my cousins, and I'd probably have started reciting the Dead Parrot Sketch or something if we hadn't left." Teek's shoulders hunched, very slightly. "I'm not really used to talking about anything that happened before I joined. Not very much, anyway. I didn't get on well enough with Crebaina to give her my life story, and as for lizard-boy, forget it. 'Sides, half the time my life didn't exactly seem exciting."
"Yeah, we World One lot get that. But it doesn't have to be exciting, or full of danger, for other people to find it interesting." Kayla looked pensive for a moment. "Some people've had lives that messed up that just hearing stories of a quiet life is fascinatin' to them. Then again, my life wasn't all that thrillin' before I got here, and I still like hearin' about yours."
"Then in your words, I kept meeting 'some people,'" Teek replied, not looking overly cheered up. "And it was never really at a good time." She shrugged again, in a way universally recognised to mean that adolescent shoulders cannot cope with their burdens, and their owners would like to be left alone to blast deafening and sufficiently rebellious music in peace.
This was met with an amused little laugh and a pat on the shoulder. "I get you. Still, things'll get better now. We'll look after you, and the others seem to have taken a real shine to ya."
The younger Agent ceased staring at her boots, and smiled faintly. "Thanks," she murmured after a moment, and, in a bid to quash the rest of her thoughts, became intensely preoccupied with making sure her hair hadn't escaped its ponytail.
"Come on, you two," Russell called back, now standing by an open door a little further down the passage. "The others are already getting warmed up."
"You told him I'm usually a total klutz, right?" Teek asked her partner, feeling the very faintest twinge of self-consciousness.
"Hm? Oh. Don't think so, but I doubt it'll matter." Kayla gestured for Teek to follow Russell into the training room. "He ain't gonna let you get away with callin' klutz as an excuse."
"If I was gonna make excuses, I would've run for it before we got here," Teek protested good-naturedly as she went in, briefly toying with, but discarding, the idea of trying to adopt the casual savoir faire of someone who spent all their free time in training rooms, rather than reading or watching Star Trek DVDs.
Russell gave her a quick smile. "Come and join in, then." He gestured to the others, who were stretching carefully in preparation for their practice. Kayla gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder, then moved to join in herself.
Teek followed, and watched the rest of the squad for a moment before adopting one of the stretches she used on the occasions she remembered to practise with her mek'leth (and wasn't doing so simply to release excess rage). The stretch itself was a relic from her fencing days, a sort of prolonged lunge, and it had taken her a while to acquire the balance needed to keep from falling sideways. She had to suppress another grin at that; another girl in her class had taken joy in poking her at opportune moments to accomplish exactly that, and any attempt at revenge had been foiled by the fact that her opponent was also a rather good fencer, quick and agile, whereas Teek had relied more on sudden force.
Come to that, she had never quite been able to see herself as adept at martial arts, but maybe that could change... Distracted, she almost did overbalance, and quickly shifted to another stretch before anyone noticed.
"Ye want tae bend your arm a bit more in that," came a very distinctive voice from her right. Faith flashed her a smile and demonstrated - possibly showing off a little with the ease she carried out the manoeuvre, but definitely trying to be helpful.
"Oh. Er. Yeah." Teek hastened to adopt Faith's example, albeit with noticeably less skill, and ended up having to readjust her entire posture. Warm-ups, to all her prior instructors' dismay, had merely made her impatient, but several consecutive pulled muscles had eventually taught her the problems with jumping right into the weapons practise.
After perhaps fifteen minutes of thorough warming-up, the squad split up into pairs. Alyssa was sitting to one side, having declined to join in, but she watched the others quite calmly. Faith squared off with Andrew, Kayla with Dayn, leaving Russell to lead Teek away from them a little. "So you've not done anything like hand-to-hand before, have you?"
"Er... no, I've done a little. Except it was during my lightsaber training, so it wasn't really the point, I think. Other than that, yeah, it's just foil or mek'leth."
"Well, that's something, at any rate. I'm not even going to ask about the lightsaber." He half-smiled and looked her over a little more carefully. "You'll be more used to using your arms, then. Fair enough, we can start with some basic punches and blocks."
"The lightsaber was a gift," Teek told him mock-defensively, "but I had it for a while before anyone actually taught me how to use it. But go on, I guess I could do with learning how to punch people in an organised fashion."
"All right. Bear in mind this is self-defence, not a more advanced way to beat people up for laughs." He began taking her through some simple blocks and punches, gently but firmly correcting her technique where it went shaky.
"I didn't beat people up for laughs," Teek said indignantly, in between moves. "I beat 'em up when they laughed at me."
The dark-haired soldier raised an eyebrow, pausing for a moment. "Oh, joy. Scout said you had a temper, but I didn't seriously think we had another Pixie on our hands."
This threw Teek for a few seconds. "Oh, Faith. Sorry, that nickname really doesn't associate too well for me..." She didn't comment on the first thing he'd said; everyone found out she had a temper sooner or later, and she didn't particularly want to go on about it now.
"It gets easier once you notice that compared to the rest of us, she is." He nodded at the small, waifish-looking blonde girl, who was currently trading punches and kicks with the significantly taller Andrew.
"I guess..." Watching the ease with which Faith dodged and countered, Teek was none too slightly jealous for a moment, until she remembered that already having years of first-hand experience was not necessarily a great thing. Of course, it certainly helped in the PPC, but... She shook her head firmly, muttering a vague apology for having zoned out, and looked back at Russell.
"It's all right. You do need to learn to focus when there are distractions around, but that'll come with time. Now try those moves again." He stepped back, watching her. Realising that said distractions had, unsurprisingly, interfered with her memory somewhat, Teek suppressed the urge to swear and did the best she could.
"Okay. Not bad, you've got a good grasp of the basic idea..." He moved in and corrected her stance and aim several times as she went. "You're getting it."
"Pull the other one, it's got bells on. I've only been doing this for what, five minutes? Besides, I learned a little bit of this before, although usually it was to help with the lightsaber..." Nevertheless, Teek did feel slightly proud of herself.
"Well, this is just basic stuff. It's not that hard to pick up in any case, and if you've done some of it before, it'll be easier to do again now. Muscle memory. Though doing it against thin air's not quite the same... here." He waited for her to throw another punch, then stepped up closer. "Try against me."
"If you're sure. Although I might have to pretend you're someone else if I really want to try and do this properly." She grinned, a little sheepishly this time.
He gave her a stern look, losing the joking attitude. "If you're in a fight, it doesn't matter who you're fighting, you need to be able to protect yourself. Now hit me, and we'll see if you're any good against a real person."
I was thinking of real people, Teek grumbled to herself, but didn't argue the point, particularly as something Rilwen had once said came to mind. Fights are serious business, Teek, the Sith had told her, when she'd got a little too gleeful over her success. You don't start one just for the hell of it. Ask yourself, each time, 'Is it worth getting hurt? Is it worth my opponent getting hurt?' If it isn't... then back down. Now, Teek realised, she had to act as though she'd made the choice to fight for better reasons than her own grudges. Self-defense had to be something more than an excuse.
The next revelation, quickly following that one, was that Russell probably thought she was hoping to catch him off-guard, as she hadn't yet moved; considering the entire lesson hinged on waiting for her to try and hit him, however, she could only imagine what conclusions he was drawing from that. Embarrassed and still slightly distracted, she tensed and lashed out as best she could.
Russell blocked the blow calmly, deflecting it, and fired off a punch, though he controlled it enough to ensure it'd barely make contact if she failed to block it. To her own lasting surprise, Teek did block it, and, almost without thinking about it, punched back.
"Nice!" Russell carried on blocking and punching, hoping to push her into doing likewise with more fervour. "Keep going, that's it, you're doing well." Enthused by the praise, she carried on, and even tried to shake things up a little by throwing in some of what Rilwen had taught her; however, trying to remember that and keep paying attention to Russell, especially when his style differed from her prior lessons, resulted in some unfortunate muscular confusion. Attempting something that was not quite a punch nor a block, and in no way relevant to what Russell had just done, Teek soon found herself holding her arm with her other hand and wincing.
"...Okay, that wasn't the greatest move, but never mind." Russell rubbed his arms a little and gave her an encouraging smile. "Let's try again."
"If I don't knock myself out first," Teek muttered, only half joking; she had just narrowly missed her own head. This time, though, she kept to the moves that worked, and quickly found that there was almost a rhythm to the sequence; punch-block-block-punch-block... it wasn't too different from parry-riposte, in her opinion.
After a while, when everyone else seemed to be winding down, Russell stepped back and lowered his arms. "Okay, I think that's enough for today."
Panting, Teek moved away as well, letting her hands fall loose at her sides; brushing an escaped lock of hair out of her face, she found that she was sweating. "Is there any water around? I could really use a drink."
Andrew went over to the bench where Alyssa was sitting, and brought back a bottle of water. "Here. Remember to bring your own next time."
She gave him a needlessly long-suffering look. "Okay, okay... thanks, though."
"You're welcome." He turned away without waiting for a reply and began warming down with the others.
"Maybe Faith'll kick him hard enough to dislodge that stick," Teek said under her breath, and leaned back against the wall as she took a long drink from the bottle. She knew she ought to be following everyone else's lead, as attempts to refuse warming down during lightsaber training had never exactly been received well, but further movement was not appealing at the moment.
Russell laughed quietly, having overheard her. "You'll get used to it. Now come on, warm down or you're going to be in no fit state for anything this time tomorrow."
"You and your hu'tegh schedules..." After a bit more complaining, Teek heaved herself up and started one of the exercises Rilwen had taught her; her conscience, having been berating her the entire time she'd been still, quietly celebrated its victory.
"I'll take that as a compliment," he replied mildly, carrying on without even bothering to query what "hu'tegh" actually meant.
"Not to keep whining, but can we stop now?" she asked eventually, straightening up. "I'm dead tired."
"All right, all right." Kayla laughed as she straightened up. "You'll get used to it, if you come along more often."
"Damn straight I will, this is fun. I just need to collapse and do nothing for a couple years first."
"Nice warm shower when you get back to the RC," Dayn recommended, still stretching contemplatively. "Massage your arms a bit, keep moving. If you let things stiffen up they'll really play silly buggers."
Teek sighed, and obediently stretched as well, though not without wincing. "So how often do you guys do this? Every day, or what?"
"Not every day, but most. Generally depends on everyone's mood. If we want to take off and do our own thing, we do."
"Yeah, I can't see this turning out too well if everyone's in a snit," Teek commented. "You all just seem to get along so well, though, I can't even see a snit..."
"We've learned to get along." Dayn shrugged and settled his cap more comfortably on his head. "We've been working together for two years now, every day. In that sort of time, and given the stuff we have to do, everyone learns to tolerate each other's quirks."
At that, Teek frowned slightly, but didn't reply beyond what she hoped was an understanding nod. "Are we going anywhere else after this?" she asked instead.
"Just back to our RCs, I think. We've not got long before the missions arrive, anyway."
"Oh. Joy." Putting all her effort into making an exaggerated face, Teek found, was sufficient distraction from the thoughts that had been troubling her; namely, what it was like to live with someone for almost two years and never manage acceptance of even the slightest quirk, if the clashing personality aspects in question could even have been given the name.
"Hey, grumpyface, cheer up or you'll be stuck looking like that." Dayn looped his arm around her shoulders briefly, grinning, before pulling away and looking her over as the group headed out of the door. "Come on, big smiles!"
To her slight bemusement, Teek found she was smiling again as she followed Dayn. It didn't matter, anyway, she decided. Besides, this time she wouldn't make the same mistakes, and being able to think for five minutes without wanting to resort to violence definitely helped her think more clearly.
They split off eventually as they walked, each going their own ways with cheery goodbyes and often teasing, until finally only Kayla and Teek were left. Dayn had been the last to leave, throwing a cheeky line about avoiding plug sockets over his shoulder as he sauntered away.
Kayla glanced at her partner as they approached their RC. "Penny for your thoughts."
Teek was tempted to tell her to keep the penny, but after a moment's thought she couldn't see the point. "'s just..." she more or less mumbled, then cleared her throat and spoke properly. "I dunno. Part of me just thought maybe I should have given the stupid bastard a chance, although since he hated my guts too I don't see how we ever would have got beyond agreeing not to try and murder each other in our sleep... and no, we didn't ever actually agree on that."
Kayla shook her head slightly. "You're still hung up on that guy, huh? Well, I've gotta be honest, he didn't seem the type to be all for makin' friends, but I told ya right back at the beginning... it's over with." She slipped her arm around Teek's shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. "These things happen, y'know. Important thing is to keep on top of 'em and not let them get you down."
"That's the problem," Teek told her dully. "They did. Or he did. It's like... every part of me that was mean, or vicious, or hated being talked down to, or, hell, just hated Cardassians, he pulled it all out and it made us want to kill each other even more. I never wanted to be friends with him. But... if he was everything I hated about his species, I'm beginning to think I was everything he hated about mine."
The Raider gave Teek a long, mildly concerned look. "Don't you go thinkin' that about yourself." Keeping her arm around the teenager's shoulders, she guided them both into the RC and sat them down on the nearest bed, thinking over what to say. It wasn't the first time she'd dealt with this type of problem, and knew it was usually just a matter of encouragement towards positive thinking.
"Look, if it was just you, it doesn't really make much sense, the way he behaved towards me, does it? I've got to admit he didn't make me feel like tryin' to get on with him. Okay, maybe your thing about Cardassians didn't help, but still. Don't go blamin' yourself for being you."
Teek only shrugged. "Well, yeah, he thinks most humans should never have been able to get past discovering fire, but maybe there was some way I could've, you know, proved I wasn't the dog he treated me like, instead of just snarling at him all the damn time. And even if that was me, it wasn't a me I liked being."
"Some people just bring out the not-so-nice sides of us," Kayla responded gently. "No rhyme or reason to it, we just get pissed off whenever they're around. Like, there was a guy back home, where I worked. Colleague of mine. Most people got on okay with him, but for some reason I just couldn't stand the guy. I was always fightin' with him. It really surprised people how we just couldn't be in the same room together without somethin' kicking off."
"Change the names around and that's it. Word-sodding-perfect."
"Well, there ya go. It's not somethin' to be proud of, no, but don't go feelin' like you're all bad because of it." She gave Teek another quick hug. "You're just human."
"That was the basic problem," the other Agent muttered, but not with much rancour. She leaned against Kayla a little, already beginning to feel better. She'd never been able to just sit here like this, as friends, with any of her partners...
A recently uncovered but powerful instinct made itself known then, and, abruptly, Teek had shaken free and sat bolt upright, staring at the console as though it was timed to detonate.
Nothing happened for several seconds, though, and gradually she relaxed. "Oh, for zark's sake, why do I keep forgetting about the schedules?"
Kayla couldn't help laughing. "Because you've spent too long without 'em."
"That said, when's the actual mission? I need to know exactly when to freak out."
"Remind me to get you a watch next time I'm in Leto's," the older woman muttered wryly, glancing at her own. "Hm... ten, fifteen minutes or so."
"I had a watch," Teek protested. "Digital and everything. The strap broke when I was on a mission and the Sue's Cute Animal Friend got bored when it wasn't being mentioned and grabbed it. That was a nightmare."
"A CAF managed to break your watch strap by grabbin' it?" Kayla raised a sceptical eyebrow.
"No, the watch fell off when the strap broke, and the CAF got the watch," Teek clarified. "So of course I tried to grab the thieving little sod, but it put up such a racket that my partner had to grab me, so what with all the noise that made the Sue finally noticed..."
"Ah, right." Kayla winced slightly. "How'd you get out of that?"
"Lizard-boy had the reflexes to drop me and knock the little tramp out before she could do anything. It would've almost been cool if I hadn't landed on gravel."
"Still, that was a lucky escape, and I'm glad you made it out all right." She patted Teek's knee and gave her a smile. "Like I said, I'll get you a new watch, soon's I can. For now, though, you wanna go get that shower Mirror suggested?"
"Ngh. Yeah, probably should." The younger Assassin heaved herself up off the bed, with a few more noises of discomfort as she tried to stretch. "Did my joints just creak? I can't be that old yet..."
"Not enough exercise, that’s all it is." Kayla settled back comfortably. "You'll get used to it. Now go and get a good warm shower and soak for a bit. Take your time an' the mission'll most likely arrive soon as you get out."
"Aye, aye," Teek said over her shoulder; she was busy searching her bag, on the principle that if she had to go Sue-hunting immediately after her shower, she was damn well doing to do it in a Queen shirt.
Kayla picked up a well-read book from her bedside cabinet and settled down to it, absently reaching out to pet Temujin a bit as he wandered across. "See you in a bit, then," she murmured to Teek, already half-immersed in one of the tales of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.
Knowing that it was practically criminal to try and separate someone from their Discworld, Teek nodded stiffly (which was not surprising as all movements were currently turning out that way) and headed off.
She was exhausted, to be sure, but that didn't stop her from feeling much better than she had in weeks. Whatever her body currently thought, she knew she was, at least emotionally, moving on.
Disclaimer: As ever, the PPC and all its concepts belong to Jay and Acacia. Agent Teek belongs to Lycaenion; all of the HitchHiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Monty Python, and other popular culture references, however, do not. Agent Kayla and the rest of her squad are the creations of Cassie Cameron-Young (who doesn't, it should probably be noted, own any pop culture references either), although Alyssa's home universe is the work of Philip Pullman. Osbert, who is mentioned several times, and the Raiders are the creations of KGarrett. Agents Rilwen Shadowflame and Cavan Shenn, both of whom are mentioned, belong to to lady_rilwen herself, our technical consultant and Finder of Discontinuities.
Warnings: Occasional mild language.
"Aye, maybe." Faith grinned back, hands in her pockets as she went through the door, which Kayla had gone ahead and opened for them. "Just smack 'im if he gets tae be too much for ye, though."
"Aw, nobody'd hit me, I'm far too lovable." The tall young man pulled a puppy-face, and then calmly stepped out of range of the retaliatory thwap. "Nobody except you," he amended, grinning.
As the group headed down the corridor, Dayn affectionately teasing Faith while the others watched in amusement, Kayla dropped back to walk beside her partner. "So, you having fun then?"
"I am having seriously mind-bending amounts of fun," Teek assured her. "I had no idea these guys would be so awesome. And it feels good somehow that I found someone Crebaina can talk to..." The teenager shrugged. "I dunno, maybe she doesn't miss having people to hang out with as much as I did. But I remember when she met April, and you wouldn't have been able to tell she'd been rabid with panic a minute earlier, she was so happy now she'd met someone else from her 'verse -" She broke off there, mumbling, "Sheesh, look at me, I've been going off on all kinds of crazy tangents..."
"Tangents?" Kayla raised an inquisitive eyebrow, not certain what Teek was referring to.
"Well, I started going on about school, and my cousins, and I'd probably have started reciting the Dead Parrot Sketch or something if we hadn't left." Teek's shoulders hunched, very slightly. "I'm not really used to talking about anything that happened before I joined. Not very much, anyway. I didn't get on well enough with Crebaina to give her my life story, and as for lizard-boy, forget it. 'Sides, half the time my life didn't exactly seem exciting."
"Yeah, we World One lot get that. But it doesn't have to be exciting, or full of danger, for other people to find it interesting." Kayla looked pensive for a moment. "Some people've had lives that messed up that just hearing stories of a quiet life is fascinatin' to them. Then again, my life wasn't all that thrillin' before I got here, and I still like hearin' about yours."
"Then in your words, I kept meeting 'some people,'" Teek replied, not looking overly cheered up. "And it was never really at a good time." She shrugged again, in a way universally recognised to mean that adolescent shoulders cannot cope with their burdens, and their owners would like to be left alone to blast deafening and sufficiently rebellious music in peace.
This was met with an amused little laugh and a pat on the shoulder. "I get you. Still, things'll get better now. We'll look after you, and the others seem to have taken a real shine to ya."
The younger Agent ceased staring at her boots, and smiled faintly. "Thanks," she murmured after a moment, and, in a bid to quash the rest of her thoughts, became intensely preoccupied with making sure her hair hadn't escaped its ponytail.
"Come on, you two," Russell called back, now standing by an open door a little further down the passage. "The others are already getting warmed up."
"You told him I'm usually a total klutz, right?" Teek asked her partner, feeling the very faintest twinge of self-consciousness.
"Hm? Oh. Don't think so, but I doubt it'll matter." Kayla gestured for Teek to follow Russell into the training room. "He ain't gonna let you get away with callin' klutz as an excuse."
"If I was gonna make excuses, I would've run for it before we got here," Teek protested good-naturedly as she went in, briefly toying with, but discarding, the idea of trying to adopt the casual savoir faire of someone who spent all their free time in training rooms, rather than reading or watching Star Trek DVDs.
Russell gave her a quick smile. "Come and join in, then." He gestured to the others, who were stretching carefully in preparation for their practice. Kayla gave her a quick squeeze on the shoulder, then moved to join in herself.
Teek followed, and watched the rest of the squad for a moment before adopting one of the stretches she used on the occasions she remembered to practise with her mek'leth (and wasn't doing so simply to release excess rage). The stretch itself was a relic from her fencing days, a sort of prolonged lunge, and it had taken her a while to acquire the balance needed to keep from falling sideways. She had to suppress another grin at that; another girl in her class had taken joy in poking her at opportune moments to accomplish exactly that, and any attempt at revenge had been foiled by the fact that her opponent was also a rather good fencer, quick and agile, whereas Teek had relied more on sudden force.
Come to that, she had never quite been able to see herself as adept at martial arts, but maybe that could change... Distracted, she almost did overbalance, and quickly shifted to another stretch before anyone noticed.
"Ye want tae bend your arm a bit more in that," came a very distinctive voice from her right. Faith flashed her a smile and demonstrated - possibly showing off a little with the ease she carried out the manoeuvre, but definitely trying to be helpful.
"Oh. Er. Yeah." Teek hastened to adopt Faith's example, albeit with noticeably less skill, and ended up having to readjust her entire posture. Warm-ups, to all her prior instructors' dismay, had merely made her impatient, but several consecutive pulled muscles had eventually taught her the problems with jumping right into the weapons practise.
After perhaps fifteen minutes of thorough warming-up, the squad split up into pairs. Alyssa was sitting to one side, having declined to join in, but she watched the others quite calmly. Faith squared off with Andrew, Kayla with Dayn, leaving Russell to lead Teek away from them a little. "So you've not done anything like hand-to-hand before, have you?"
"Er... no, I've done a little. Except it was during my lightsaber training, so it wasn't really the point, I think. Other than that, yeah, it's just foil or mek'leth."
"Well, that's something, at any rate. I'm not even going to ask about the lightsaber." He half-smiled and looked her over a little more carefully. "You'll be more used to using your arms, then. Fair enough, we can start with some basic punches and blocks."
"The lightsaber was a gift," Teek told him mock-defensively, "but I had it for a while before anyone actually taught me how to use it. But go on, I guess I could do with learning how to punch people in an organised fashion."
"All right. Bear in mind this is self-defence, not a more advanced way to beat people up for laughs." He began taking her through some simple blocks and punches, gently but firmly correcting her technique where it went shaky.
"I didn't beat people up for laughs," Teek said indignantly, in between moves. "I beat 'em up when they laughed at me."
The dark-haired soldier raised an eyebrow, pausing for a moment. "Oh, joy. Scout said you had a temper, but I didn't seriously think we had another Pixie on our hands."
This threw Teek for a few seconds. "Oh, Faith. Sorry, that nickname really doesn't associate too well for me..." She didn't comment on the first thing he'd said; everyone found out she had a temper sooner or later, and she didn't particularly want to go on about it now.
"It gets easier once you notice that compared to the rest of us, she is." He nodded at the small, waifish-looking blonde girl, who was currently trading punches and kicks with the significantly taller Andrew.
"I guess..." Watching the ease with which Faith dodged and countered, Teek was none too slightly jealous for a moment, until she remembered that already having years of first-hand experience was not necessarily a great thing. Of course, it certainly helped in the PPC, but... She shook her head firmly, muttering a vague apology for having zoned out, and looked back at Russell.
"It's all right. You do need to learn to focus when there are distractions around, but that'll come with time. Now try those moves again." He stepped back, watching her. Realising that said distractions had, unsurprisingly, interfered with her memory somewhat, Teek suppressed the urge to swear and did the best she could.
"Okay. Not bad, you've got a good grasp of the basic idea..." He moved in and corrected her stance and aim several times as she went. "You're getting it."
"Pull the other one, it's got bells on. I've only been doing this for what, five minutes? Besides, I learned a little bit of this before, although usually it was to help with the lightsaber..." Nevertheless, Teek did feel slightly proud of herself.
"Well, this is just basic stuff. It's not that hard to pick up in any case, and if you've done some of it before, it'll be easier to do again now. Muscle memory. Though doing it against thin air's not quite the same... here." He waited for her to throw another punch, then stepped up closer. "Try against me."
"If you're sure. Although I might have to pretend you're someone else if I really want to try and do this properly." She grinned, a little sheepishly this time.
He gave her a stern look, losing the joking attitude. "If you're in a fight, it doesn't matter who you're fighting, you need to be able to protect yourself. Now hit me, and we'll see if you're any good against a real person."
I was thinking of real people, Teek grumbled to herself, but didn't argue the point, particularly as something Rilwen had once said came to mind. Fights are serious business, Teek, the Sith had told her, when she'd got a little too gleeful over her success. You don't start one just for the hell of it. Ask yourself, each time, 'Is it worth getting hurt? Is it worth my opponent getting hurt?' If it isn't... then back down. Now, Teek realised, she had to act as though she'd made the choice to fight for better reasons than her own grudges. Self-defense had to be something more than an excuse.
The next revelation, quickly following that one, was that Russell probably thought she was hoping to catch him off-guard, as she hadn't yet moved; considering the entire lesson hinged on waiting for her to try and hit him, however, she could only imagine what conclusions he was drawing from that. Embarrassed and still slightly distracted, she tensed and lashed out as best she could.
Russell blocked the blow calmly, deflecting it, and fired off a punch, though he controlled it enough to ensure it'd barely make contact if she failed to block it. To her own lasting surprise, Teek did block it, and, almost without thinking about it, punched back.
"Nice!" Russell carried on blocking and punching, hoping to push her into doing likewise with more fervour. "Keep going, that's it, you're doing well." Enthused by the praise, she carried on, and even tried to shake things up a little by throwing in some of what Rilwen had taught her; however, trying to remember that and keep paying attention to Russell, especially when his style differed from her prior lessons, resulted in some unfortunate muscular confusion. Attempting something that was not quite a punch nor a block, and in no way relevant to what Russell had just done, Teek soon found herself holding her arm with her other hand and wincing.
"...Okay, that wasn't the greatest move, but never mind." Russell rubbed his arms a little and gave her an encouraging smile. "Let's try again."
"If I don't knock myself out first," Teek muttered, only half joking; she had just narrowly missed her own head. This time, though, she kept to the moves that worked, and quickly found that there was almost a rhythm to the sequence; punch-block-block-punch-block... it wasn't too different from parry-riposte, in her opinion.
After a while, when everyone else seemed to be winding down, Russell stepped back and lowered his arms. "Okay, I think that's enough for today."
Panting, Teek moved away as well, letting her hands fall loose at her sides; brushing an escaped lock of hair out of her face, she found that she was sweating. "Is there any water around? I could really use a drink."
Andrew went over to the bench where Alyssa was sitting, and brought back a bottle of water. "Here. Remember to bring your own next time."
She gave him a needlessly long-suffering look. "Okay, okay... thanks, though."
"You're welcome." He turned away without waiting for a reply and began warming down with the others.
"Maybe Faith'll kick him hard enough to dislodge that stick," Teek said under her breath, and leaned back against the wall as she took a long drink from the bottle. She knew she ought to be following everyone else's lead, as attempts to refuse warming down during lightsaber training had never exactly been received well, but further movement was not appealing at the moment.
Russell laughed quietly, having overheard her. "You'll get used to it. Now come on, warm down or you're going to be in no fit state for anything this time tomorrow."
"You and your hu'tegh schedules..." After a bit more complaining, Teek heaved herself up and started one of the exercises Rilwen had taught her; her conscience, having been berating her the entire time she'd been still, quietly celebrated its victory.
"I'll take that as a compliment," he replied mildly, carrying on without even bothering to query what "hu'tegh" actually meant.
"Not to keep whining, but can we stop now?" she asked eventually, straightening up. "I'm dead tired."
"All right, all right." Kayla laughed as she straightened up. "You'll get used to it, if you come along more often."
"Damn straight I will, this is fun. I just need to collapse and do nothing for a couple years first."
"Nice warm shower when you get back to the RC," Dayn recommended, still stretching contemplatively. "Massage your arms a bit, keep moving. If you let things stiffen up they'll really play silly buggers."
Teek sighed, and obediently stretched as well, though not without wincing. "So how often do you guys do this? Every day, or what?"
"Not every day, but most. Generally depends on everyone's mood. If we want to take off and do our own thing, we do."
"Yeah, I can't see this turning out too well if everyone's in a snit," Teek commented. "You all just seem to get along so well, though, I can't even see a snit..."
"We've learned to get along." Dayn shrugged and settled his cap more comfortably on his head. "We've been working together for two years now, every day. In that sort of time, and given the stuff we have to do, everyone learns to tolerate each other's quirks."
At that, Teek frowned slightly, but didn't reply beyond what she hoped was an understanding nod. "Are we going anywhere else after this?" she asked instead.
"Just back to our RCs, I think. We've not got long before the missions arrive, anyway."
"Oh. Joy." Putting all her effort into making an exaggerated face, Teek found, was sufficient distraction from the thoughts that had been troubling her; namely, what it was like to live with someone for almost two years and never manage acceptance of even the slightest quirk, if the clashing personality aspects in question could even have been given the name.
"Hey, grumpyface, cheer up or you'll be stuck looking like that." Dayn looped his arm around her shoulders briefly, grinning, before pulling away and looking her over as the group headed out of the door. "Come on, big smiles!"
To her slight bemusement, Teek found she was smiling again as she followed Dayn. It didn't matter, anyway, she decided. Besides, this time she wouldn't make the same mistakes, and being able to think for five minutes without wanting to resort to violence definitely helped her think more clearly.
They split off eventually as they walked, each going their own ways with cheery goodbyes and often teasing, until finally only Kayla and Teek were left. Dayn had been the last to leave, throwing a cheeky line about avoiding plug sockets over his shoulder as he sauntered away.
Kayla glanced at her partner as they approached their RC. "Penny for your thoughts."
Teek was tempted to tell her to keep the penny, but after a moment's thought she couldn't see the point. "'s just..." she more or less mumbled, then cleared her throat and spoke properly. "I dunno. Part of me just thought maybe I should have given the stupid bastard a chance, although since he hated my guts too I don't see how we ever would have got beyond agreeing not to try and murder each other in our sleep... and no, we didn't ever actually agree on that."
Kayla shook her head slightly. "You're still hung up on that guy, huh? Well, I've gotta be honest, he didn't seem the type to be all for makin' friends, but I told ya right back at the beginning... it's over with." She slipped her arm around Teek's shoulders and gave her a quick squeeze. "These things happen, y'know. Important thing is to keep on top of 'em and not let them get you down."
"That's the problem," Teek told her dully. "They did. Or he did. It's like... every part of me that was mean, or vicious, or hated being talked down to, or, hell, just hated Cardassians, he pulled it all out and it made us want to kill each other even more. I never wanted to be friends with him. But... if he was everything I hated about his species, I'm beginning to think I was everything he hated about mine."
The Raider gave Teek a long, mildly concerned look. "Don't you go thinkin' that about yourself." Keeping her arm around the teenager's shoulders, she guided them both into the RC and sat them down on the nearest bed, thinking over what to say. It wasn't the first time she'd dealt with this type of problem, and knew it was usually just a matter of encouragement towards positive thinking.
"Look, if it was just you, it doesn't really make much sense, the way he behaved towards me, does it? I've got to admit he didn't make me feel like tryin' to get on with him. Okay, maybe your thing about Cardassians didn't help, but still. Don't go blamin' yourself for being you."
Teek only shrugged. "Well, yeah, he thinks most humans should never have been able to get past discovering fire, but maybe there was some way I could've, you know, proved I wasn't the dog he treated me like, instead of just snarling at him all the damn time. And even if that was me, it wasn't a me I liked being."
"Some people just bring out the not-so-nice sides of us," Kayla responded gently. "No rhyme or reason to it, we just get pissed off whenever they're around. Like, there was a guy back home, where I worked. Colleague of mine. Most people got on okay with him, but for some reason I just couldn't stand the guy. I was always fightin' with him. It really surprised people how we just couldn't be in the same room together without somethin' kicking off."
"Change the names around and that's it. Word-sodding-perfect."
"Well, there ya go. It's not somethin' to be proud of, no, but don't go feelin' like you're all bad because of it." She gave Teek another quick hug. "You're just human."
"That was the basic problem," the other Agent muttered, but not with much rancour. She leaned against Kayla a little, already beginning to feel better. She'd never been able to just sit here like this, as friends, with any of her partners...
A recently uncovered but powerful instinct made itself known then, and, abruptly, Teek had shaken free and sat bolt upright, staring at the console as though it was timed to detonate.
Nothing happened for several seconds, though, and gradually she relaxed. "Oh, for zark's sake, why do I keep forgetting about the schedules?"
Kayla couldn't help laughing. "Because you've spent too long without 'em."
"That said, when's the actual mission? I need to know exactly when to freak out."
"Remind me to get you a watch next time I'm in Leto's," the older woman muttered wryly, glancing at her own. "Hm... ten, fifteen minutes or so."
"I had a watch," Teek protested. "Digital and everything. The strap broke when I was on a mission and the Sue's Cute Animal Friend got bored when it wasn't being mentioned and grabbed it. That was a nightmare."
"A CAF managed to break your watch strap by grabbin' it?" Kayla raised a sceptical eyebrow.
"No, the watch fell off when the strap broke, and the CAF got the watch," Teek clarified. "So of course I tried to grab the thieving little sod, but it put up such a racket that my partner had to grab me, so what with all the noise that made the Sue finally noticed..."
"Ah, right." Kayla winced slightly. "How'd you get out of that?"
"Lizard-boy had the reflexes to drop me and knock the little tramp out before she could do anything. It would've almost been cool if I hadn't landed on gravel."
"Still, that was a lucky escape, and I'm glad you made it out all right." She patted Teek's knee and gave her a smile. "Like I said, I'll get you a new watch, soon's I can. For now, though, you wanna go get that shower Mirror suggested?"
"Ngh. Yeah, probably should." The younger Assassin heaved herself up off the bed, with a few more noises of discomfort as she tried to stretch. "Did my joints just creak? I can't be that old yet..."
"Not enough exercise, that’s all it is." Kayla settled back comfortably. "You'll get used to it. Now go and get a good warm shower and soak for a bit. Take your time an' the mission'll most likely arrive soon as you get out."
"Aye, aye," Teek said over her shoulder; she was busy searching her bag, on the principle that if she had to go Sue-hunting immediately after her shower, she was damn well doing to do it in a Queen shirt.
Kayla picked up a well-read book from her bedside cabinet and settled down to it, absently reaching out to pet Temujin a bit as he wandered across. "See you in a bit, then," she murmured to Teek, already half-immersed in one of the tales of the Ankh-Morpork City Watch.
Knowing that it was practically criminal to try and separate someone from their Discworld, Teek nodded stiffly (which was not surprising as all movements were currently turning out that way) and headed off.
She was exhausted, to be sure, but that didn't stop her from feeling much better than she had in weeks. Whatever her body currently thought, she knew she was, at least emotionally, moving on.