gooseberryhigh | (no subject)

Who: Rupert Wick & Antigone Brown
When: April 17th, before dinner
Where: By the gardens
What: In which punching lessons are very effective.
Warnings: At least one person was harmed in the making of this log.

Rupert takes a slow, deep breath, obviously stalling a bit on the current punching lesson he’s undergoing with Iggy. He’s a little tired from the earlier dodging practice, and no matter how many times he and Iggy have gone over this he still isn’t completely sold on learning how to defend himself. It seems barbaric and not in any way in line with how he wants to behave. He flexes his fingers, not quite ready to take his first swing of the lesson.

“...can’t we just do the dodging work a bit more? I don’t really need to punch my assailant. Right? This is just extra.” He’s complained like this every time, but has never resisted actually following through once pressed.

Here he tugs at the collar of his shirt, trying to waste time to get up the nerve to swing. It’s hard to try to punch Iggy, for a lot of different reasons. “Plus I don’t want to punch a freshman if this happens again.”

Antigone, on the other hand, quite visibly lives for this: her cheeks are flushed and her smile is a wider, more carefree thing that it tends to be. There's no hint of teasing at the edges of it - just the same anticipatory joy that keeps her on her toes and moving, ponytail swinging behind her as she waits.

"This isn't for freshmen," she replies, eyes rolling mildly as she gamely plays her part in the argument. "This is for actual danger. Where someone doesn't much care if you'd like to keep dodgin' for a while and would much rather sock you in the jaw."

Her head tips, "Though I guess a freshman could want to sock you in the jaw."

Nose wrinkling slightly, Rupert flexes his fingers again. Why would someone want to ‘sock him in the jaw’? Why wouldn’t he have his wand? Why would he have to legitimately fight back? He doesn’t voice these questions - he’s already done it a few times at past lessons. Iggy always has an answer.

“If a freshman punches me again, I’m going to…” He scowls, searching for something appropriately outraged to say but coming up short. “Be very angry. Just. Livid.” After a moment he puts his fists up, hoping the girl won’t call him out on that weak threat.

“Like this, right?”

Of course there's an answer. There's always an answer. There's always been an answer. A firm-voiced and steel-spined answer that probably doesn't come across half as convincing in her slow drawl, but an answer all the same. Don't trust what just anyone says that they want from you. Magic is not an excuse for helplessness. Would you rather lie down and take it? And she's probably said them all at least once by now.

"Livid," Antigone echoes. (And there's the teasing, just at the edge of the word and only for a second.) But she lets it lie, takes a step closer to examine his hands, bending close and nodding her head - once, sharply - before dancing backward again, her own hands up in anticipation.

"Yeah, you got it," she confirms. "Like that. Now, c’mon. Hit me."

Antigone teasing him isalmost relaxing, mostly because it’s familiar and it’s something else to focus his mind besides attempting to hit her. But whatever mild shift that causes in Rupert is very temporary, and within moments his heart is pounding. He’s rarely this nervous, even before a show, but… here he is. He doesn’t think his punch will connect. But even the act of swinging feels wrong.

He pulls in a breath and focuses on how he’s meant to extend his arm, how he needs to hold his fingers to not break his thumb, how he’s supposed to follow through. It’s a lot of thinking for something so barbaric. Still, he’s doing this. As ready as he will be, the young man is about to swing, and almost goes through the motion before he overthinks it and stops the move. But he recovers almost instantly and goes for it again. The effect is essentially a feint, unintentional as it may be, before he’s actually swinging with as much force as he can.

It’s that little skipping motion that gets her, she’ll admit it. Antigone’s well primed to prod, to nudge and correct, and she drops her hands just a fraction. For just a second. (Rookie mistake, Tigger. That's what gets a girl dead.) Her own fingers uncurling in anticipation of recurling his into the right shapes and her mouth halfway open to prompt - to tell him to stop hesitating - when it hits her. When he hits her.

When he actually hits her.

It’s not a bad one either. (Could be better. It can always be better.) Enough that it snaps her head slightly to the side, even as she moves with it automatically, and rings like a flash between her ears. A quick and stinging sort of thing. With follow-through.

"Oh," she says - a startled little sound - head raised to blink at him and fingertips rising to hover lightly over the still-tingling place high on her cheek. “You hit me.”

Rupert actually manages a somewhat acceptable follow-through on the punch, mostly because the impact is so surprising that he doesn’t even really process it. But then he does. And he feels very, very dizzy. He retracts his hand. He stares in mute horror at his fellow Ribbonfin. He had, absolutely, just punched Antigone in the face.

Her words snap him out of his dumbfounded state, at least partially.

“Oh. I. Antigone.” Nearly reaching out to touch her cheek, he stops midway, hand only hovering for a moment before he pulls it back. God. What is he supposed to do? Why did he agree to this? How did he even manage to do that? This is terrible.

“Are you…? I didn’t mean… I mean, I meant... but…” He’s pretty sure he’s going to pass out. His ears are getting so hot. This is actually the most terrible thing in the world.

Some people tend to resort to laughter at inappropriate times - such as when they're nervous or upset or overwhelmed. They disguise discomfort with giggles and they use it to cover confusion or mask hurt. Antigone Brown is not one of those people. But she laughs all the same. A bright, loud burst of it, her smile stretching into the sort of wide that pulls on her cheeks - prompting a short hiss that makes her laugh again, press her fingers to the place his knuckles had been just a bit harder.

"You hit me," she repeats, and the startled wispiness of it has solidified into something delighted. "And it was - It was really good, yeah?"

There’s a moment where Rupert goes back to just staring at Iggy, because she’s laughing, and he’s not sure what that means, especially since he still thinks he might pass out. He remains that way for a while, as he’s still slow to process things, but he does finally get to a point of understanding. His expression shifts from one of horror to one of confusion, and then to, of all things, an indignant scowl.

“Are you- why are you laughing?” he demands, ears still feeling uncomfortably hot. “This is not something to laugh about, Antigone. And it was good but now I hurt you and I don’t understand why you’re laughing.”

For her part, Antigone waits with a tremulous patience. She's wound tight like a spring, but it's a giddy and anticipatory sort of thing and, aside from the short seconds of shock, she's still on her toes - still thrumming and ready. But then he's frowning at her and, ai yah, she doesn't understand why he's so upset. She's fine. She's happy.

"You didn't hurt me," she interjects, not quite able to tug her smile back into whatever expression it is that he'd prefer. "I'm hardly all bussed up. It's - That was a love-tap, Ku`u Lei. It's fine. It's good! I'm -" She pauses, trips herself up on the strange pride she isn't entirely certain how to express without sounding foolish. When she'd finally done it - finally got a hit in - Pops had grinned, told her to try again, taken her for ice cream. It's a good thing. She doesn’t know what other words to use for it. "You hit me."

“I know I hit you!” Rupert is becoming more agitated by the minute, and the panic he’d felt is subsumed into this feeling of flustered frustration. He doesn’t understand why she’s reacting like this - is this another way to mock him? Or is she just this ridiculous? Though he’s fairly certain it’s the latter, that doesn’t really help how he’s feeling.

Rubbing the knuckles of the hand he’d used to do the deed, the Ribbonfin boy shakes his head a little sharply. “Take this more seriously. What is wrong with you?”

It isn't that she's trying to make him upset - it's just that he's always upset with her about something - so it's genuine confusion that stills her. "Isn't that what we're doing?"

But the accusation is a jolt that pulls her shoulders straight.

"Of course I'm taking this seriously. Your -" she sucks in a breath, her own lips twitching downward into a frown and jaw tilting upward in a direct counterpoint, slowly-forming bruises and all. Just because - Being excited isn't the same thing as being unprofessional. She can be professional. "Your thumb was slightly off and if you genuinely want to be effective with one shot, you go for the nose or the throat. Even the jaw, honestly, if you get a good enough shot in. And you want to keep your wrist straight."

Rupert is thrown off guard by this response, and once again he’s just sort of staring at Iggy. What is even going on anymore? He feels completely lost.

“Well. You know, I think I did a pretty good job,” he abruptly retorts, sounding offended even though the tone is mostly reflex at this point. “And you laughing is not you taking this seriously. So. You should… do that. You should take this seriously. And also acknowledge that it was a pretty good punch. My wrist was straight enough.” There’s no reason for him to be arguing this, and yet.

This entire conversation went off of the rails somewhere and she isn't entirely certain when. That isn't entirely true. She knows when. It's the why that she's stuck on. It isn't precisely as uncommon of an occurrence as she'd prefer. And it's nowhere near as enjoyable when she isn't doing it on purpose.

"I said it was a good hit," Antigone says, arms crossing over her chest defensively. "Then you said I wasn't being professional and I -" She sucks in a breath through her nose, lets it out on a huff. "What do you want me to be saying?"

Honestly, Rupert isn’t sure what he wants Iggy to be saying. He’s not really sure what he wants to be saying, even - everything is just sort of spilling out of him because he’s embarrassed and a little worried that punching the girl he likes in the face is not the best thing he could have done. Even if she told him to. And even if her initial reaction was something close to gleeful.

“I… don’t know!” he actually admits, somehow. “I just… I… are you glad that I punched you? Because you shouldn’t be.”

"Of course I am."

It's obvious. But it apparently requires reiterating. So she'll reiterate.

Antigone tips her head to the side (the bit of rushing disorientation behind it almost twitching her lips back up before she sets her teeth into the lower one) and her hand slices the air in front of her, in something between vehemence and a shrug. "You're supposed to hit me. That's the point."

It’s hard to argue with that assessment - that is why they’re there, but somehow Rupert was expecting something else. He’s not sure what, but all he knows is that, even if he’d asked to be punched in the face, he certainly wouldn’t be glad about it if it happened. He crosses his arms tightly, eyes trained on the spot where his fist had connected.

“....well. Fine.” He can’t think of anything else to say, and he fidgets a little because of it. “...you’re welcome.” Probably not right, but like so many other things, it just sort of comes out.

It isn't terrible by any means - not the worst she's had by any stretch of the imagination - but there's some purpling high on her cheek and swelling that will, more likely than not, look a whole lot messier later. But her chin's still tilted up, strangely prim and unsurprisingly defiant.

"Congratulations," she replies, purposefully stretching her smile so wide that her face twinges. "Because that’s last one you're going to get in for a long time."

Rupert’s brow creases as he stares at Antigone’s face longer and longer. Even though he’s trying to act like he’s proud of the punch, like it was good… it certainly doesn’t feel like it when he looks at the damage he’s done.

“So you’ll finally let me stop doing this?” As though he hadn’t agreed to it.

"You want to stop now?" Antigone asks, bright and a bit incredulous, hands dropping to her sides, fingers fanned. "It just started to get good!"

Then she stops and blinks at him, letting her thumbs hook into the waistband of her sweatpants as she leans back a bit and actually takes a moment to assess the situation. To think about how this might look to someone who isn't her. At least just a little.

"Unless we're talking about today," she allows. "We can be done for today."

“Good is not-” Rupert cuts himself off, for once not wanting to continue the back and forth. He’s starting to feel bad again about hitting Iggy. Even if she doesn’t seem to mind.

“We’re definitely done today.” Though he tries to make his words sound sharp, they don’t particularly. “Now go put ice on that or something.”

Antigone has every intention of wearing what is, no doubt, bound to become at least a semi-decent shiner with no small amount of pride - but she supposes that she's willing to negotiate the terms.

"Aurite." It's a concession. A small one, sure. But it's done with a decent amount of good will, smile evening out into something small and pleased once more. "You let me get you ice cream and I'll get myself ice." A beat, for a bigger concession. "I'll even put it on my face for a bit, yeah?

Rupert glances off finally, not wanting to look at the girl’s face for the moment. He wonders what Balthazar will think of this.

“...fine, I’ll take ice cream. Though I don’t see why. But only if you put ice on your face for a bit.”

With one final nod Antigone leans herself forward, fingers closing around his wrist and tugging, firmly intent on dragging him along behind her.

“C’mon then, haymaker.” She grins, teasing again, but the words are warm. “Let’s get going.”