goddamngrenades | RP Open Post

"what is what?" He's not even thinking about it- this is what feels right. The balance, the weight- none of it is how he'd normally hold himself but it-s

It just fits.

"...Hm." Well, if it fits, he can't knock it. Malcolm would rather York gain a posture and style of his own, but he'll work with what he's got. "Very well. Hit me with your best shot."

He didn't need to be told twice, darting in and swinging the stick high and hard. Carolina never held back with him and neither, honestly, had Malcolm. It's something he's always appreciated in the man.

No matter whose pose that is or who it is attacking, Malcolm goes for the block with a hard slap of wood on wood. "Not your best shot," he breathes, part tease, part chastisement. The wood slides away, and he makes a turn, graceful, to put distance between them before lashing out at York's legs with the entire length of his rod, hands on one end for the sake of reach.

"How do you know?" But Mal was right. It'd felt like the best way to start but he could've gone low and hard for the sternum, hit Mal at his core. Now he's sliding back for half a second to get his bearings, shift his feet and snap his rod down to block the sharp crack of Malcolm's swing- shoving forward.

Now that is a good shot. He spins the opposite way he had before, faster and tighter, to come up to his feet and pull his stick up horizontal to try another block, but it comes angled just wrong, a little too high.

Right for the sternum, jaw tight and darting in as much as Mal moves away, the give and take and synching of his heartbeat comfortable in it's familiarity. Just like the night before in the club and he sees the block as it comes, slides the tip of his staff just under and stops shy of Malcolm's skin.

"One zero." There's an odd cadence to his speech, softer, more clipped. Shades of Carolina everywhere like this but the smirk is all him. "Get your head in the game, Mal."

It must be the shades of his partner showing. Echoes and ghosts. He's almost (almost) envious, but Malcolm huffs out something of a laugh and acquiesces, returning to a starting point.

He'll start this time. Slow to start, balancing equations, figures in his head, before he moves in, aiming for a series of quick strikes midsection, trying to push York back and wear him down. It's almost like he can see what's coming to block before it happens, but that's just what he'd do in his head if their positions were reversed, obviously. York's learned well.

Slow till Mal ramps it up and he knows the pattern before he starts swinging. Something they covered before but- they haven't done staff work before. he hasn't watched Mal at it. Not that he's got time to think about how he knows what he knows he just brings his own staff up to bear, blocking and skittering backward step by step till his angle's just off, his weight not centered and he's left open.

Of course he weakens, right where he thought he knew he thought York would, and takes the shot they both know is coming. It doesn't feel like much of a victory, weirdly enough, but he shakes it off, pulling his staff from York's neck. "One-one. Don't worry about my head."

"Even if it's pretty?" The smack talk is as comforting as the rest of it- and this time when he slides back, hands on the end of the staff like a sword, held up close to his chest, weight on the balls of his feet. Not a Carolina stance. Something lighter, more playful. All him.

"Mm, but then all you're doing is paying attention, not worrying about it." That seems more like York. That's York. Malcolm rolls his shoulders, relaxing. "Maybe worry more about your own pretty head."

"Oh, so you think I'm pretty?" All lifted brows and easy smiles as he darts in hard and fast, bringing the staff down sharply.

He has a reply ready, but he isn't able to. The effort goes to following York's lead. He thinks of it more as a lead, like a dance, like the dancing they were doing before during the night to thrumming beats, rather than a fight. It feels like a dance, blocking, then counter attacking, around the mat.

It's a challenge. It's a give and take, lead and follow, call and response and it's not just that he's getting good. It's not just that Mal's his teacher. Slowly he stops second guessing himself, stops THINKING and just lets himself move how he knows he needs to. Sees the hits coming and sees the blocks before they happen and goes for them anyway. Two one, two two, and he's rushing, ducking, swinging down low and hard, a sharp sweep with the staff he knows Mal can and will jump over followed by a shoulder charge- a graceless attempt to pin him to the mat.

It's not something he's used to, to feel it and just stop thinking about it, overthinking it. They barely pause when there's a hit, keeping track in their heads, knowing what's going to happen and doing it anyway. It's thrilling rather than boring. Feels good. It's fun, and time feels like it falls away.

Then York charges him, and that feels...out of the pace of things. Like a misstep. Malcolm's bowled over, but he positions his staff so that even as he lands, the wood is poised at York's neck.

And it doesn't matter. Doesn't matter that the third goes to Mal because this? The sharp sting of adrenaline rolling through his veins, the fact that he just pinned him down at all on their first go at this- the fact he can feel Malcolm's pulse synced right up along with his?

York knows what this means. Knows it and embraces it with a wild crackle of laughter as he lets go of his staff and leans down enough to press his lips to Malcolm's.

It's a tie, a pin counts in his head, but that's not really the point. It's not the point, because they're here and they're together and they are in synch in a way that he's never been before with anyone. Part of him sees this as strange and different and like an alert, but that's far away. He's so inside of this moment that when York kisses him, it just feels like a natural thing, a natural extension of what they are. He lets it fill him, kisses back, presses back, pulls him in.

It's pretty chaste, all told. Just a steady dry press, a connection, a way to close the circuit and actually FEEL Malcolm against his skin the way he is in his chest. It's a stupid, giddy feeling. All bright joy and god he's got another partner. He's not broken. He's not alone anymore and that shouldn't be such a relief.

York pulls away enough to rest his forehead against Malcolms and murmurs, soft and awed. "Got you."

This is...

This is...

He's not sure what this is, and it's startling. He breathes. He breathes, and it feels like York breathing, and he holds his breath just to stagger it away. Takes a few breaths specifically to differentiate himself.

"We're done for today. Lesson over."

"We're-" Mal's out of sync and it shouldn't be so jarring but it is. That warm comfortable glow, that sense of completion that isn't sexual at all fades and flickers and sputters out. "Mal we need to tell the Marshall that we're-"

"That we're done for today? No need." He shifts, starting to pull himself out from under York. Taylor.

"Compatible." He rolls back on his heels, frowning down at Malcolm. "You feel it, right? It's not just me. I know it's not just me."

"I don't know what you're talking about." He's trying not to have the same reaction from the night, that night, where he panicked. But there's still panic. Just trying to hide it. He takes the sticks and puts them away, regulating his breathing.

"...That's what this is, Mal. We're in sync. We fit. We WORK. We're-." Compatible. it's a good thing, isn't it? To find that other half? He'd been ecstatic when he'd found out he and Carolina had been, why is Mal trying to ignore it?

Then it clicks. Of course it clicks. Mal wants to be a pilot- how can he not want that- but a perfectionist probably wants a perfect fucking partner and York's- well.

He ain't that.

Alone on the mat he just- stares after Malcolm and he can't stop the black, bitter thoughts from tumbling right out. "...'course you don't know what I'm talking about. You don't wanna get stuck with a gimp and a fuckup, is that it?"

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