fandomhighdorms | The Gym, Sunday Afternoon

So. Kennedy had heard the radio last night. Part of her was bummed about not getting to go along, but another part of her-- adjacent to if not necessarily the same part that was pummeling the crap out of the heavy bag right now (or trying to; she still wasn't hitting that thing nearly as solidly as she wished she could)-- had a feeling it was a good thing she hadn't.

She'd spent a good chunk of the morning on the phone with Constance, who'd been way more than a little alarmed when Kennedy'd barely waited until hellos were exchanged to start in on a barrage of questions about people coming back from the dead, but had, to her credit, explained fairly patiently what a very bad idea that typically was. (In their world's terms, anyway, which of course were terms toward which Constance was pretty strongly biased, and Kennedy had been too agitated to pay much thought to subtleties like other worlds maybe not following those rules.)

She knew she should be glad, and maybe she was. Just... it'd brought everything back: the frustration, the trauma, the anger at being used the way they had. All of that drowned out the relief, and if it was petty of her she didn't care. She should be happier about this, but mostly, right now what she wanted was to go off on Raven for letting all of this happen-- not just to her, to all of them, but she was still selfish enough that she was furious about the part she'd had to play.

Here was where the wacky came in: she was actually aware of the fact that it'd be a bad idea to do that.

Thus the gym, and the heavy bag, and the trying to wear herself into exhaustion or just burn all the anger off. Probably not the most constructive use of her time, but she cared less about constructive and more about venting.

[[cranky potential is cranky, but open gym post is open! i'm still doing the con thing today so I may be slow, but free con wifi is happy. ironically i may be around more than i usually am on weekends.]]

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Scully didn't dance out of the way fast enough-- Kennedy was very good, and they were relatively the same size and height. That was going to bruise. "Ow! Right." She kicked back fast, aiming for Kennedy's ankle, and tried to follow up with a blow toward her ribs.

Kennedy eluded the ankle kick, but stepping forward to do so proved not to be her best idea ever about a half second later when she ended up flinching hard in pain from the hit to her ribs.

"Gotten better than I remember," she gritted out through her teeth, grimacing.

But now she was in close enough to come up with an elbow strike to the chin.

"Nngh." Ow, damnit, that made her bite her tongue. Scully blinked hard and backed away, circling again, panting a little. "I've been practicing. I'd like to be at least--" Back up to... "Competent." She grimaced. "Especially on this island."

She closed again, with a one-two combination, watching Kennedy's eyes and shoulders to see where she'd move next.

"You are that." It wasn't even a grudging admission. The head-feint to the left wasn't grudging, either. "'course, the bar's set pretty high here."

"Thanks. And, yes. It's... intimidating." Scully didn't fall for that, but did move in too close, realizing her mistake a second later.

Kennedy lost a little of the advantage she'd gained in mentally congratulating herself on her success, unfortunately; she telegraphed her right cross rather badly.

"It can be. If you let it," she answered; tough words, because it did intimidate her now, more than she ever thought she would.

"I suppose... that's true." Scully blocked the right cross and pulled on Kennedy's arm, trying to yank her into her upraised knee. "But. Experience. And super powers. For some of them."

Kennedy would've glared about the powers, except her forehead had just met Scully's knee with a solid crack and she sprawled onto her ass on the mats.

Totally not impressive.

But she was kicking out at Scully's ankles, half-blind, anyway.

Scully had been having a short (very short) happy moment of That worked! because yes, it was still another high-schooler who she'd laid out, not a criminal, and thus, completely stumbled and fell to her knees next to Kennedy when that kick connected. "..ow."

Kennedy blinked hard a couple of times until she (mostly) stopped seeing stars, and exhaled slowly, then smirked over at Scully.

"Tag. You're it."

Stiiiiiiiiill not getting up, though. Ow.

That was her knee, thanks. The same one. Owwww. Scully was holding it to her chest, and saying, "Yeah, yeah." After a minute she got herself vertical, and grimaced. "If I'm it, do I get to hide?"

"Hide, or call for a breather; I'm not feeling too picky," Kennedy answered; it was pretty generous of her at the moment, really. "Sorry about the knee? You got me pretty good too, though."

"Breather," Scully said, massaging her kneecap, then making a dismissive gesture. "Ice will help later. Are you okay?"

"My imminent bruise says yes," Kennedy assured her. "You've totally been wanting to throw down with me again for a while, huh?"

Not that she blamed Scully, if she did. Wouldn't be the first time someone wanted to punch her in the face.

"Nooooo," Scully said. Then paused. "Maaaybe." Fine, if she couldn't be mature, she could at least be honest. "Sometimes I get frustrated too." She tilted her head. "At least you're tough enough to take it."

"And thank God for that," Kennedy intoned dryly. "Kinda surprised you hadn't just popped me one before now, actually."

"What, and ruin my cool and calm image?" Scully quipped. Then snorted. "You're not the worst person I've dealt with. Just the most... present, lately."

"...see, I have no idea if I should decide to take that as a compliment or not," Kennedy remarked. "I mean, hey, not the worst person, points for me. The present thing, on the other hand..."

Scully started laughing, a little raggedly, because she'd been thinking of various people who she'd arrested when they'd annoyed her this much. And then Mulder, who she missed a lot.

"It's both. It's neither." She sat down and shrugged a little, gaze abstracted. "Some of it is just me, and not you. If it helps with the compliment or insult part, I'm sure you could take most of them."

Constance was probably facepalming hard right about now.

Kennedy, for her part, was pushing herself back up to a seated position and rubbing absently at her sore ribs. (And would have had something obnoxious and inappropriate to say about handcuffs, had she known about the arresting bit.) "In what, being a pain in the ass?"

Scully grinned a little wider, then sighed. "Some of them? Although you couldn't take my best friend in that. He wins the prize." She stretched out her leg, and concluded that ice and ibuprofen would be enough. "Did the sparring help with whatever?"

"A little," Kennedy replied, with an appreciative if very brief smile. Sure as hell had her feeling less like she was going to snap and verbally take the head off the next person who talked to her, anyway. (One Katina Choovanski would argue that in that arena, Kennedy was a rank amateur compared to her. Luckily that argument was entirely hypothetical.)

"So thanks for that. I owe you, like, a basket of chocolates or something."

"Sure. Re-match sometime?" Scully checked. It had helped her own simmering sense of helplessness, after all.

"You are so on," Kennedy promised. "Next time I won't wear myself out beforehand."

The Gym, Sunday Afternoon

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