Post by Kit on Apr 17, 2013 0:20:10 GMT 10
Title: Should, and should, and should.
Rating: PG-13
Word Count: 671
Pairing: Kel/Lalasa
Round/Fight: 1/B
Summary: The best thing about Kel hitting the floor—smack, a gasp, hazel eyes narrowing in laughter—is the easy way she gets up again.
Warnings: Trigger warning for assault, PTSD references.
She is heat and strength and rage, all of it dispersed through her blood as it beats fast and hard under her skin and hope is a fist in her chest. This step. This one. And again. All of them are right. Her body cannot match her teacher’s, the younger and taller woman too fluid with years of bloody training, but her breath does. She revels in that brief sameness, in knowing her own weight. She had been frightened, then elated, the first time she sent Kel flying. Now, her enjoyment is almost ferocious.
(—This…you’re so much now. Lalasa. I don’t want to deal—)
The best thing about Kel hitting the floor—smack, a gasp, hazel eyes narrowing in laughter—is the easy way she gets up again. Lalasa watches, trying to sketch each movement in her mind to pass on to her students later. She has more students than she knows what to do with. More than Tianne could stand and more than her younger, silent self could ever imagine.
(—You’re a seamstress, not a soldier.
—They’re not soldiers, either, Tianine. And they still get hurt.
—It always comes back to that.)
It should. Lalasa feels those words now. The words she had been too shocked and sad to say. It should, it should.
The Lady Knight watches her, eyes intent, chin set. Lalasa does not see the motion that has her flying through the air. Just lets her muscle memory tuck her into a ball, so she can fall with more noise than pain.
(Hands cupping her face. Too close. Not close enough. Needles under her skin instead of blood, and her heart beating fast—so fast, and faster—that all her claw-and-prayer-brought ease drains away, and her lover’s eyes are a stranger’s. Tianine watches the change, and flinches. The withdrawral hurts as much as the touch. —It was years ago, she says. —And you’re still like this. When does it stop? A whispered shout, and Lalasa still standing like the stone they’d named her lady. --I don’t understand, Lalasa. )
Warm, calloused hands draw Lalasa to her feet, and Lalasa lets her fingers rest against the inside of Kel’s arm, feeling the pulse their and measuring it against her own,slowing one. Her eyes close. Pulsing lights arc red behind her eyelids. Another match. She laughs softly, feeling tears in it.
Kel pulls away, and Lalasa hears joints popping as she stretches. “You shouldn’t spar when you’re that angry,” she says, both light and grave.
“You could tell, my lady?”
“Don’t be daft. Of course I could.” Lalasa opens her eyes to see Kel gazing at her. “Thank you for letting me teach your students the other day,” she said, jarring Lalasa slightly as the subject comes seemingly from nowhere. “But I think they prefer you.”
“Oh…that’s flattery. If you’re trying to make make feel better…”
“It’s not, and you know it.” Kel rolled her eyes. “And so you should.”
Lalasa shakes damp hair off her face, feeling the tie snap and catching glimpses of mad spiral curls about her own edges. Kel smiles.
“I’ve never understood you,” she says, and Lalasa has to bite her own lip hard to stop a whimper escaping at the vile, unintended echo. Her ears are ringing before she realises that the Lady Knight is yet to finish.
“I don’t understand you, but I don’t need to. I…I care.” Warm hands close around hers again, gentle enough for her to pull away if she chose. “You know that.”
A tremulous, sunsweet smile tugs at Lalasa, and she gives into it. Her voice is hoarse, and soft, but she tries to let it carry true. “And so you should,” she says.
Maybe once we'd have seen it during Smackdown!