Sparring session for Nick

[1stmacleod]

For some reason, Connor never expected the holidays to be this hard. Thanksgiving passed by without much notice, he's never really celebrated that, but Christmas has had him on a private roller coaster. One minute he's blissfully happy to have a home and a woman he's in love with who loves him back, even knowing the truth of what he is, the next minute he's remembering holidays with John and Rachel and even Brenda and he just wants to go bury himself in a dark corner with a bottle of whiskey. All the scotch he's been given as gifts is going at a distressing rate. It's not even New Year's yet, and then it'll be his birthday soon after that, which he just hopes nobody will notice at all...

Just a few days after, and he's pacing, resisting the urge to crack open the next bottle. He needs a distraction. He needs to get out. He needs something to do.

The message that comes on Nick's pinpoint is typical Connor, brief and brusque and to the point.
Want to spar?
There's coordinates attached, and he's got the sense to have picked somewhere it's night. Connor's waiting in a grassy field on a quiet world he ran across in a Nexus guidebook. There's an almost full moon that gives him enough light to see by, and it's not the dead of winter, here, so he can stand around in t-shirt and jeans and sneakers without freezing his ass off. He swings the katana slowly, working his way through kata. There's a couple of rapiers and a western broadsword on the ground nearby... and a bottle of scotch, because his willpower gave out already.

Comments

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

Connor takes a few healthy gulps of scotch, rocks on his heels, and stretches slowly. First one arm, then the other, shoulders popping and rolling. He always carries tension in his neck and shoulders, and he's tensed up there now, and wants to work that out before the next round. He looks a little tired, though. "I trained... under an immortal in Japan, older than me, older than you I'll bet, maybe older than both of us put together. He must've taught me every trick there is for focus, control, letting go of your anger and staying calm..." Obviously it didn't stick, is what he's getting at.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

"It's a fine art." Certainly a skill he's been taught in the opposite. He's tried learning what he can to undo that, but he knows what Connor means when some lessons just don't seem to work.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"...And I was just a dumb barbarian..." Connor adds quietly, expression nostalgic. "A brute from the highlands..." He smirks at Nick. "Guess I still am."

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

"I guess that still leaves me a monster." The way he says it is light-hearted, at least. He smiles at Connor and stands slowly with a lazy stretch.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"Well, plenty of us old monsters around. You're in good company." He says quietly, still a little thoughtful and distant. Connor stands and stretches, studying the night sky.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

"Good to know." He casually walks over toward the swords and looks at Connor's selection, but doesn't pick any of them up. He moves back over to his own swords and picks up the older blade, looking it over. "When these went out of style, I never thought I'd pick it up again, even for something like this." He checks a few small marks in it from the night's exertions with a smile.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"When they went out of style, things got harder for my kind. You can't take off a head with a gun, and a knife takes too damn long." He picks up his own sword again, but just makes a few slow practice moves.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

"I can only imagine." Nick took a step to the side to watch Connor. "My kind are a bit more...barbaric in our dealings with each other. Fights are uncommon, but when they do, they're hardly anything as civilized as a crossing of swords."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"Heheheh! You think men hacking at each other in empty warehouses and wherever else we can find quiet at odd hours of the morning is civilized?" Sword-fighting isn't what it used to be.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

Nick snorts. Okay, so gone are the days of men squaring off in woods and gardens to duel.

"Well, perhaps not, but it's a step up from sheer brute force."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"...Once in a while. More often it's an abandoned garage or something." He stops swinging to look over his blade. "My cousin does it with style, I guess, but I never could pull that off." Connor wasn't always this shabby and disheveled, but he's never been good at playing a gentleman.

He stops and takes another swig of scotch, and that does seem to be relaxing him just a little. It's making him more talkative, anyway. "I guess vampires do fight dirty... anything that'll go through the chest..." It's a reflective tone, because he went vampire hunting recently. With another vampire. That makes it okay, right?

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

Nick visibly winces at that, but still finds himself nodding.

"Even using our own weaknesses against each other." He's certainly used such methods against Lacroix, and had them used on him in return. It's probably best not to mention hunting vampires around Nick, though.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"...Doesn't everybody?" He responds quietly, and turns to watch Nick.

"... You don't know a vampire named April, do you?"

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

Nick blinks, his usual instinct is to outright deny any connection to vampires other than his master, but he never has asked April while in the Nexus. That Connor knows her though, makes the decision easier. He nods, but it's his turn to get a little cagey.

"I do."

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

It's usually him that's wary to give out information, but he's starting to feel a pleasant buzz from the scotch. Connor just laughs. "Small world."

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

"Yeah." Nick watches Connor a moment. "What about her?"

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"She's... a friend, that's all." He says it slowly, like he's trying out that word for the first time.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

His wariness seems to lift at that, Connor seems to be uncertain with the word, but that he's trying it out certainly means something.

"She's very interesting." He smiles and backs up a few steps toward the ground that's now slightly trampled from their earlier efforts.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"Sweet kid." Things like friends and trust are hard for Connor, but he is trying. He's just climbed out of a pit, but he still needs people to hold him from falling back in.

Connor sees him moving back towards what's become their arena, and he paces after him, keeping out of sword reach until they're both ready to actually face each other again. "Everybody I meet in the Nexus seems to know everybody else I've met, though. It's getting obnoxious." This is another one of those growls Nick can just ignore as Connor being grumpy.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

"Yeah, well, right now, there are the only a few people I know in the Nexus, so, chances were good I didn't know her." He shrugs with a smile, keeping out of reach but stopping in their little zone. He raises his sword in salute again but keeps it pointed away, waiting for Connor to show he's ready.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

"But you do. I'd call that one hell of a coincidence." Connor rolls his shoulders a little, one more time, and then slides into a defensive stance and gives a casual salute.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

"Call it...a vampire's instinct. We can usually pick each other out of a crowd." Nick raises his sword, tip pointed at Connor.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

He raises an eyebrow, but nods slowly. "Immortals... sense each other, too." He starts moving, one defensive pose straight into another, ready to block if that pointing turns into a lunge.

[det-debrabant.livejournal.com]

Slowly, Nick starts to move, side stepping in a lazy circle. Then he lunges in, sword moving into a block for another forced close engagement.

[1stmacleod.livejournal.com]

That can't end well. If he keeps forcing Connor to close quarters, he'll be forced to fight dirty, because he knows he'll lose otherwise. Connor figures he's given fair warning, though, so all bets are off. He's ready for it this time, and circles Nick's blade away from himself, making a couple of frustrated attempts to put space between them, then he whirls suddenly, lightning-fast, aiming to kick Nick in the gut.