I'd Fight For You

Posted on 29 Apr 2018 @ 7:05pm by Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant & Crewman Valentina Gagarina
Edited on on 21 Aug 2023 @ 1:31pm

1,186 words; about a 6 minute read

Mission: Episode 16 - A Far Sun
Location: USS Schofield - Secondary Conference Room
Timeline: MD -10, 0500 hours

[ON]

Lake didn’t know why it was there, nor where it came from, but that didn’t stop him. Five low kicks with the left leg and five low kicks with the right. It didn’t belong in the secondary conference room. It wasn’t supposed to be there, but that didn’t stop him. Five high kicks with the left leg and five high kicks with the right. He didn’t want to draw attention to himself when he snuck into the compartment, so he left the workout clothes in his quarters. Modern Starfleet uniforms were surprisingly versatile in that way. With the jacket and the tunic off, Lake felt unrestricted in landing the first of five left hooks on the punching bag hanging from the overhead.

Valentina heard the sound. She didn’t know why she was hearing it, especially here in the halls of a multi-trillion Darsek peace-trading space-faring vessel, but that didn’t stop her from hearing it nonetheless. It was like music to her ears, quintuple meter. Lento for Sandbag in Drop D if she had to give it a name (she was awful with music). Needless to say she was drawn to it, making a bee line right for the sound. She leaned in through the open door from whence the sound seemed to come. And there it was.

The soloist, mid-performance. She would have erupted in applause from the excitement were it not for the fact that his performance was, in a word, ‘shite.’ Too much structure, not enough umph. She liked Punk (were fighting music). This was perhaps the slow start of some baya-heavy Hindustani classical piece (were fighting music). The concert wasn’t going well. Time for a request.

“Hey!”

So focused on his warm up, was Lake, that he gasped a startled intake of breath and instinctively recoiled away from Valentina. In that moment, his hands raised into a defensive posture, but that moment only lasted a heartbeat. It didn't take long for Lake to remember where he was and he lowered his hands to his sides. Sheepishly, he asked, "...Do you have a ...meeting?"

“I do now,” Valentina teased. She stepped through the door and suddenly it was as though she were one, a stocky object blocking the sole point of egress. It could have easily been implied through posture alone that Lake’s hands were better off up where they were. “You know how to fight, or is that all for show,” she questioned, arms crossed and nodding at the stacked form before her.

Lake tilted his head to the left, his eyes staying on Valentina. "I... like to fight," Lake said. His answers was tentative, even if only to acknowledge that that wasn't exactly what Valentina had asked of him. Shaking his head briefly, Lake admitted, "I wouldn't say I really know how to fight unless I was tested, unless my life depended on it, and I haven't had that pleasure."

"I can be pretty convincing," Valentina grinned from ear to ear. "That is if you're up for that test right now."

"Now that depends," Lake said with faux-import. He crossed his arms over his chest, taking a moment to pause long enough to reflect on the matter. "Are you some masked killer in the night," Lake asked, "or may I know who has challenged me with a duel to the death?"

"Crewman Valentina Gagarina. And you?"

"I'm called Lake," he replied. Lake dropped his hands to his side and offered her the kind of awkward-half bow he'd learned from his father. Consciously, he didn't even know why he did it, but it came as second nature to him. "I serve as Ship's Counselor," he said. Waving a hand at the punching bag, Lake told Valentina, "I offer my counsel through a variety of modalities..."

QI'yaH.

Valentina couldn’t back down now. Only cowards backed down from fights, especially ones that they initiated, but the ship’s counselor? No way. He’d be trying to dissect her brain within a nanosecond. That is unless he was too busy being pummeled. She tried to reassure herself. This revelation could be a good thing.

“That’s cool. So are we going to throw down or are you just going to keep beating the bag?”

Lake stared at Valentina, allowing her question to hang in the air between them. Lake stared right at her, saying nothing. He broke the silence by swatting at the punching bag. It was a pitiful punch. It was petulant, perhaps, nakedly intended to get a reaction out of her. He kept his eyes on Valentina all the while. "You make it sound like beating the bag is a bad thing?" he said.

"It is. Because it's much more challenging beating something into unconsciousness than it is beating something that is not conscious at all." Valentina was sounding more forceful now. It was more like she was trying to pick a fight now than simply ask for one.

It happened slowly, but it happened then. It happened right then. Lake shifted his weight on his feet and his hands moved from his hips into something approximating a defensive posture. "Beating something into unconsciousness," he said, repeating her words in a monotone. The only intonation that slipped into his next words was something akin to condescension. Lake asked, "Is that your plan for me?"

A smug grin crossed Valentina's lips. Time to play. She stepped through the doorway and took a similar posture to Lake's, though it did not betray any particular style beyond a ready-and-willing attitude. "It is now."

"Is it, now?" asked Lake, as she approached. He kept his eyes pointing in her direction and he kept his arms up between Valentina and his own body. He side-stepped, as if to circle her position. "Is that an urge that overwhelms you frequently?" he asked.

Valentina’s eyes stayed locked on Lake’s as they moved. They were dancing now, like some sort of perverted Tango where the whole point was to step on your partner’s foot. “Why do you think I work security,” she quipped back. “Any other way and they’d lock me up. Again.” She was playing the part well for her fellow fighter. Or was she even playing a part? That line was very blurry sometimes. “So whadaya say, boy-o,” she questioned as she raised her fists, sick of the mincing of words. “Any rules you want to lay out before I lay you out?”

"I don't know you," said Lake, shaking his head. There was something flippant about what he said, but there was something condescending too. "I don't trust you." He continued to circle Valentina and he was gradually circling closer to her. "Let's hold to Starfleet Academy boxing," Lake said, and he tilted his head as he rushed towards her.

Throwing his first punch in her direction, Lake affirmed, "For now."

[OFF]

--

Crewman Valentina Gagarina
Security Crewman
USS Schofield

Lieutenant Lake ir-Llantrisant
Chief Counselor
USS Schofield

RSS Feed