A different take on 'practice'

Posted on 18 Jul 2015 @ 10:18pm by Petty Officer 1st Class Taliesin Cynwrig
Edited on on 27 Jul 2015 @ 6:01pm

3,638 words; about a 18 minute read

Mission: Episode 09 - Empires
Location: USS Galileo - Deck 7, Workout Room
Timeline: MD02, 1255 Hours

[ON]

After the crazy events of the last twenty-four hours, Taliesin was looking forward to the workout he had planned. It wasn't so much an exercise for him, as it was a training session he'd agreed to for another, but it did give him an opportunity to hit something. Taliesin appreciated that. It was frustrating to know that he was at the mercy of powerful forces in this universe that he couldn't fight against, so to focus on something he could do was a relief.

He'd changed into a standard gi before leaving his quarters, the white baggy pants and belted shirt loose and comfortable but cool in the ship's air. After arriving a little early to the workout room, Taliesin had pushed at the sparring mat with his bare feet to make sure it was secure, moved aside some weights that were too close in case they did any throws, then began to stretch. The former cop had felt tense since they'd survived the passage through that vortex or whatever it was, his instincts insisting that they were in trouble even after things had settled down and repairs were underway.

Dressed in Starfleet's work-out greys, Tyrion sauntered into the workout room. His mind wasn't really into it right now, and he'd rather be in sickbay to sit with Grayson, than be here. But, he had set this appointment several days ago already, and he wasn't going to cancel a practice session just because he wanted to be with his beloved. He reeled back as he sensed something in the room, but he couldn't quite pin down what exactly he sensed. Pent up emotions that were in a muddle of a sort, that's all he could make out. "Hello?" he called out, stepping back into the room, feeling very uncomfortable all of a sudden.

"Hmm, at least you weren't late," came a thoroughly unimpressed voice from over on the mat. Taliesin was just finishing up stretching out his back, and climbed to his feet. He gave the Betazoid a frank look from head to toe and shook his head slightly. "You're a skinny one, aren't ya? Well, I guess we'll find out just what we can do with you." With the tone he used, Taliesin didn't sound all that friendly. In fact, he sounded downright insulting. Concern about their situation was gone now, replaced with a focus that was all on Tyrion. "Tyrion Faye, I assume?" He intentionally didn't bring up the man's rank, and asked the name like a challenge.

The Betazoid frowned but nodded. "I am he," he confirmed flatly, not quite sure what this was all about. "And don't let your eyes deceive you...physical form isn't everything you know."

Taliesin grunted, and gestured for the other to join him out on the mat, "Getting existential on me already? That'll work so skreedaken well if you find yourself in a fight. Maybe you can bore an opponent to death. You certainly won't be scaring anyone away looking like that."

Black eyes fixed on the Human enlisted man, and they filled with fury. "No?" he queried through gritted teeth. His expression changed, hardening as he stepped forward onto the mat, his hands balling into tight fitsts. "How judgemental of you. You don't even know me."

"Thank goodness for that," he said to the last comment. Taliesin stood there, not taking any sort of stance, looking loose and relaxed, looking arrogant. He continued to poke and prod the Betazoid's ego. The sparring session had already begun, even if the other hadn't realised it yet. "So, are you going to stand there all afternoon, analysing me like some soft ship's counselor? 'Cause I could be doing more interesting things, like scrubbing congealed gel packs off a floor with a toothbrush."

"Analysis is part of an intelligence officer's job," Tyrion countered, eyes narrowing. He couldn't get a fix on the man in front of him, something just wasn't right! "Nothing is keeping you from doing that, there's somewhere I'd rather be too," he snapped, taking a step forward, aiming to get up in his opponent's face, then take him down.

In a sudden flash of movement, as soon as Tyrion had gotten close, Taliesin lashed out. It would seem that the human knew exactly where Tyrion would be as the Betazoid advanced on him. His left leg hooked around the other's right ankle to pull his foot out from beneath him, while his hands grabbed a handful of the other's shirt and continued the moment of Tyrion's movement towards him. The result was quick and relatively painless, but the man would find himself face-first on the mat next to Taliesin's feet.

"Find anything interesting down there?" Taliesin asked mockingly, leaning down to peer at him.

"Just a mat," Tyrion replied flatly, refusing to show his surprise as he got up. Before he had fully straightened, he made a grab for Taliesin's wrist, twisting to throw him over his shoulder.

Taliesin was grabbed and pulled, went with the movement. As he twisted over Tyrion's shoulder and started to come back down on the other side, his own fingers gripped the man's wrist tightly as well. Taliesin landed on his back, rolled, wrapped his legs around Tyrion's waist, and pulled with the force of both his own momentum and strength.

The result would be much the same, with Tyrion on the mat, though this time Taliesin was there next to him and chuckling. "There we go, finally. I was afraid you were going to not get serious at all today." Taliesin got to his feet, offered a hand to the other man to help him up.

Grimacing as his injured wrist was twisted yet again when he fell and caught Taliesin's weight on top of them then heaved in a breath when the weight rolled off. Automatically he reached out, but did not show his opponent that he had a weak link in his defenses. Instead of taking the offer up however, he gave the arm a firm yank, while swiping his legs to mow his legs from under him.

The human took the attack once more, rolled with it as he came down. He somersaulted away from Tyrion and came up to his feet out of range. "Much better," Taliesin said, turning to face the other and nodding, looking none the worse for wear. He held up a hand to stop them for a moment. "You see the difference between what happened at the start, and what you did just now?" The challenging, insulting tone was gone from his voice now, and instead the Welshman sounded encouraging.

"Not really," Tyrion scowled, crawling back to his feet and panting for breath. "All I did was take advantage of your offer to help me up."

"That's because you were thinking about the sparring, and not whatever you were when you walked in here," Taliesin said. "Don't look surprised or nothing, I'm not reading your thoughts. You let me provoke you to anger which made it even harder for you to think." He walked over towards the other man then, "Lets work on some more tosses and taking falls. And if you got something on your mind, might as well get it out."

"I don't want to talk about it," Tyrion snapped, though he did show his left arm. "Broke it during this transit to wherever we are, tried to catch my fall. It's healing but still very sore." Then he sighed. "My boyfriend is in sickbay, he was badly hurt. Doctor put him in a coma for the time being and I'm really worried." All things considering, Tyrion thought learning to fall might be a good idea. "And what do you mean read my thoughts, you're Human...Humans can't read thoughts."

"Hmph," Taliesin made a noise at the way Tyrion seemed to bounce around. He didn't want to talk about things, but then he went and did so anyways. Taliesin imagined having a loved one in such a state would be hard to deal with, though he'd had no experience in the matter. He did take careful note of the injury so he wouldn't put too much strain on Tyrion's healing bones.

"Anyone could have seen you were distracted coming in here," Taliesin replied. "I'm saying I don't have to be telepathic to have known that." There was a glint in his eye as he said it though, and he was certainly hiding something. "Well, if you can get your boyfriend out of your head for the next half hour and focus, I'd appreciate it. Tell yourself that he'll be fine and you're here for a reason, whatever that is. Now, go ahead and throw me again over your shoulder. This time, when you grab me, fall to your back, pull with your arm on mine, and use a foot for some leverage in my stomach to send me up and over. Then pay attention to how I roll as well. We'll do a few different throws, so you can learn how to fall without hurting yourself."

"The reason I'm here is because I want to be able to protect him," the Betazoid answered grimly as he reached out again, still grabbing him with his dominant left hand, shoving his left hip into his side to throw him over his left shoulder, a little different than what he'd been instructed to do. Instead he went with how he had learned to do this in the academy.

Taliesin hit the mat, hard, and grunted. "That...wasn't what I said," he grumbled as he got back to his feet. "You need to listen." He glared at the other man, and resisted the urge to rub his arm where he had landed on it. "I'm trying to show you how to roll with a fall, not get slammed down into the deck. You already know how to do that." Taliesin pointed at the man's injured arm. "I'm going to come at you," he explained again. "You're going to grab me, put a foot up into my gut while you fall back yourself. Use my momentum coming towards you, and your momentum falling back. Use that to throw me over you." He advanced again this time, hoping that Tyrion would follow the instruction.

Understanding the instruction this time, Tyrion did as he was told and allowed himself to fall back. Though he did follow through with the move, he fell down hard and grunted as wind was knocked from his lungs. "That...wasn't quite what was intended," he wheezed.

Taliesin sailed over top of Tyrion, but instead of hitting hard himself, he had begun to tuck in on himself. As he landed from the strong throw, he rolled with it, spread the shock of impact out instead of taking it all in one place. It didn't mean that it didn't hurt, but it certainly hurt a lot less than landing hard on his back.

The pair went back and forth a few times, throwing each other this way, and gradually Tyrion began to get it down. Then Taliesin demonstrated another throw and another roll, and another. The pair had worked up a sweat quickly, and plenty of bruises. But just like in a fight, when in an emergency on the ship, knowing how to fall could prevent worse injury. By the time Taliesin called another hold to the practise, Tyrion had gotten good with all three throws and falls.

"I wish Gray had known this," Tyrion panted as he shrugged out of his shirt. it was uncomfortably sticking against his skin and he was feeling hot anyways. "Or maybe he did and forgot..." He stood, breathing heavily, flexing the fingers of his injured hand. He was sporting a few bruises across his torso but nothing he couldn't handle. "What about catching?" he suddenly asks. "What if I'm in a tube and above me someone falls. How do I catch without that person tearing my arm off?"

"Swing 'em against the bulkhead instead of letting them jerk you straight down," Taliesin sounded serious. He grabbed a pair of towels from a bench along the wall, tossed one Tyrion's way, and used his own to mop at the back of his neck. "So, this Gray fellow, he's your boyfriend that got ortivgepe up, huh? I take it was during the ride through that...whatever it was?"

"Yea. Something happened in engineering. I...felt it when he got hurt, but I don't know what exactly happened. It's a recent development though, we've not been together very long. It got serious during the Klingon banquet." He smiled curiously at the memory, while wiping down his damp torso. "I still don't quite understand what I've done to deserve someone as kind-hearted as him."

Taliesin hid his rolling eyes as he wiped the sweat from his face, but didn't say anything disparaging. He didn't judge too harshly. Though his own relationships in the past had been intense affairs, they'd been brief as well, not with this supposed connection the Betazoid was talking about. He'd seen it make people do some strange things though, and give them even stranger motivations. "And you think that by learning how to fight better, you're going to be able to protect him. Do you think you should fight his battles for him?"

"Fight his battles no, not at all. But I feel I should be able to protect him if for some reason he's unable to. He'd do the same for me." Tyrion smiled as he returned to the mat. "Try again?" he asked even though he was certain he'd be very sore, very soon. Especially his midriff area was smarting already.

"I think you've had enough bruises for one day," Taliesin said, lowering the towel. There was a glint in his eyes though, something just a little bit eager. Surely he hadn't liked causing the pain, right? "But if you like, we can meet again."

Tyrion nodded. "If anything this is a good workout," he suggested, "what was this called anyway, what we did just now? It's not like anything I've ever experienced."

"Breakfall techniques," Taliesin replied. "If you like, I'll let you know the drill schedule I set up for Security, so you can join in on that. Or if you prefer, we can meet solo. You're a quick study, but it is going to take a while to teach you more than what you picked up in boot camp. It's good exercise, sure, but you probably don't want to push it. Maybe once a week."

"I'd prefer solo...if you don't mind? And with grayson in sickbay, I don't really have much else going on. I don't want to push my luck by being in sickbay all the time...and I doubt my roommate'd like to see me pining. Better to keep busy, with something. Anything."

Not for the first time in his life, Taliesin was glad he didn't have the weaknesses that certain relationships brought with them. Sure, that made things pretty lonely at times, but he figured better that than being so overwhelmed with concern for someone one couldn't help, like Tyrion was right now. "I don't mind," he said. "Easier to teach one person at a time anyways. Next time, we're going to work more on your temper too. You seem to snap as easily as a Klingon in heat. I thought all you Betazoids were supposed to be soft and pacifists."

"I'm not like other Betazoids," Tyrion replied sharply. He held out his bandaged hand, showing the bandage had shifted and loosened. "Can you help me with this? It needs to be rebandaged...."

The human shook his head at the tone Tyrion used. It was all too easy. He walked over and unwound the bandage some before tightening and securing it once more. "Maybe next time we'll see if you can learn something else," Taliesin said as he made sure the loose ends of the bandage were tucked in so they would not snag. "You might be able to do it, given your race, but not if you keep letting me get your back up with just a couple of words. I would have figured working in Intelligence, you'd be cold and calculating."

"I'm a computer systems specialist," Tyrion replied, pulling his hand back again, "I'm not a field agent. I have experience, but I prefer using computers to get the information I'm required to find." He smirked. "Technically, I'm a hacker...and I'm good at it too. What is it you think I may or may not be able to pull off?"

"How about you just focus on keeping your br'u'ka'u'rat temper under control, and then we'll talk about it? Its a trick, but it comes in handy sometimes," Taliesin said. The human was certainly practised at not giving away more information than he wanted to, a skill picked up from long years on the station beat that had been his life before Starfleet. He'd mentioned just enough to create a hint of mystery for the other man to likely be intrigued. Maybe that would be motivation enough for Tyrion to focus.

Black eyes settled on the Human master-at-arms, smouldering black eyes. "I could just draw the information from you, if I wanted to," he whispered menacingly. Though really, he couldn't because he never learned how. Read minds yes, look for specific information, no. But he figured, Taliesin didn't know that.

"You could, maybe," Taliesin sounded unconcerned. He looked into the other's angry gaze and shook his head. "Then I would press charges against you for violating my rights. You would face a courts martial, wind up in rehabilitation, banned from Starfleet service. From what I know about your own people, they would shun you."

Taliesin turned his back on the man, walked over to deposit his towel in the disposal, still speaking, "And what would your boyfriend think of you then, forcing your mind on someone without their permission? What would he think of you just hearing you suggest it right now? You want to keep posturing, keep acting like an over-loading phaser, that's fine. Just know its going to hold you back. And I am not impressed."

Tyrion froze, literally. Another court martial? He shook his head, sinking down onto the mat, looking down at the floor. "I couldn't do it anyway," he confessed, "I don't know how. And I can't go through another court martial, I already have a stain on my record I'm working really hard to get removed. I can't lose what I have...it's all I have."

Seeing the man on the ground, Taliesin frowned. But instead of offering some kindness, perhaps some cooshy words to make Tyrion feel better, he used it to make the point he'd been trying since the Betazoid had walked in here looking for something to snap at. "Look at you, there on the ground, letting your feelings overwhelm you," Taliesin's voice was harsh. "If your life, your career, your lover, all of that really means so much to you, then face things on your feet. Stop reacting to things I say or other people do. Take control of yourself, otherwise you're letting the rest of us control you instead."

Taliesin began to walk towards the doors, a look of disappointment on his face, maybe even a little bit of disgust, "And don't threaten me again unless you mean it. I'll see you next week."

Tyrion didn't look up as he let the words sink in. The man had a point, but Tyrion had no idea how to do that. He might be a Betazoid by way of his genetics, but by way of training, he felt Human. He could read minds, easy as that but he had no control over how he felt, or how he responded to people. "Wait!" he cried out, climbing to his feet. "How. How do I do that?"

The human paused as the doors slid open, turned to look back over his shoulder. His expression was no less harsh, but his words were a bit softer, "By realizing that everything you feel, everything you think, is your own fault. You can't blame anyone but yourself for those things, not even if you're telepathic."

"I don't understand...who am I blaming?" Confusion spread across the Betazoid's face. "Blame who for what?"

Taliesin sighed, really missing his days as a policeman right at that moment. He was the furthest thing from a therapist. "Look, this is pretty deep stuff for the early afternoon, and I've not even been drinking. I can't think of any simpler way to put it either. You are responsible for your own thoughts and feelings. Period. Don't over analyze it, just take control of yourself."

"I don't know how," Tyrion said, sensing what he felt was annoyance. "I should go back to sickbay...thank you for this session."

"Yeah," Taliesin said, though what he was agreeing to wasn't defined. Did he agree that Tyrion obviously didn't have control? That he should go back to Sickbay? Acknowledging the other's thanks? Or maybe it was a combination of all three. Whatever his thoughts, and there was certainly disappointment and annoyance both in the human's feelings. He shook his head again and left Tyrion alone in the workout room. Next week was going to hurt, both Tyrion's body and Taliesin's head.

Watching him leave, Tyrion picked himself up and headed back to his quarters to get himself cleaned up. He felt sore, and worse than when he had started this session, and he couldn't really pinpoint why.

OFF:

CPO Tyrion Faye
Intelligence Officer
USS Galileo
[pnpc T'Vanna]

PO1 Taliesin Cynwrig
Master-at-Arms
USS Galileo
[PNPC Xanth]

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