hollowchild | IC Inbox

[He dodges the kick to his knee, barely dodging the one to his ribs as her toes brush across his ribcage. Someone's been practicing a lot, but he's still not the best. He's aware he still has a lot to learn but right now he's fairly proud of the fact he's dodged.]

...that's the best you've got? [Draco. Stop. Don't try to antagonize anyone.]

[sophie's actually proud he dodged too, but that doesn't mean she doesn't follow it up with a spinning kick aimed at his head, followed by an attempt to sweep his foot once she puts her kicking leg down. the spinning kick is slow, the sweep is not]

No, but this is a warmup.

[He manages to tilt his head back to miss the spinning kick, but he's not fast enough to avoid the sweeping foot and he's knocked flat on his back, hitting the floor with a loud thump. Unlike the first time they ever sparred though he's not wasting much time between hitting the ground and sitting up.

He actually looks sort of pleased she made contact.]

Let's skip the warmup then.

[oh, draco, she knows, she really does. too well]

All right.

[next on the table is a flurry of strikes with her hands, both punches and open hands. she's aiming more or less everywhere from his waist to his ears, starting slowish and getting faster and faster. the strikes at his head and neck are never very forceful, the ones at his torso are moreso, but she's pulling her punches]

[He's blocking about seventy percent of those hits, always blocking his head and his neck but she's getting in a good couple of punches to his torso and chest, along with one or two 'round the ears. He's bending, bobbing, weaving to get around her hands, not bothering to strike back but simply defending himself and more or less letting himself be beat up.

It's almost a muted sort of fight. He's not saying anything any of the times her fists make contact, and it's silent save for the sound of Sophie's fists flying and Draco breathing through his nose.

Eventually though she gets too fast and nails him in the torso, causing him to buckle to his knees and sit on the ground to catch his breath for a few moments. Only a few moments though before he's pushing himself back up, wincing slightly.]

Come on. Again.

[she tightens her mouth for a moment, lets out a long breath through her nose]

I know what you're doing, I want to be clear on that. Don't even think of just letting me hit you.

[and then her hands are flying at him again, but this time she's bodily moving forward, forcing him to either back up or move to the side]

What makes you so sure this is all on purpose? [Despite the fact it is, despite the fact he's bouncing backwards out of her reach but still only making minimal effort to dodge.]

Because I do it too.

[she's not letting up, still pressing forward and striking at him at the very edge of what he can handle. fight, draco]

[Nope. He's not going to fight until he's told to fight because he's still a little caught up between doing things and not doing things. He doesn't respond, dancing and dodging out of the way, blocking her with his hands and bending his body at almost scary angles to keep out of her reach.]

Do what?

Look for pain when I'm upset.

[as long as he's blocking she keeps pushing. the blows coming at just the edge of his ability to counter. she's backing him gradually into a corner]

Fight back already, Draco.

[Again he doesn't speak, but he's running out of places to go as she corners him, giving him little room to dodge her blows. It's much harder to block all of them and she's getting in some pretty decent hits as he continues trying to dodge.

He has something in mind. It's a lesson he's trying to teach himself. But he's going to hold off fighting as long as he can.

Come on, Sophie. A few more hits to get his point across, he thinks.]

[the faster they go the more she's pulling punches, balancing how much she hits with how hard. she knows what he's doing but really this is the safest way. whether he meant to or not, he's put her in control of this, which is a hundred times better than what she'd done. he's only got one more step back before he hits the wall, though.]

[It's when he feels his back against the wall that he realizes he has absolutely no other place to go. He can't dodge anymore, he can't run away from her anymore.

Hitting a girl isn't exactly his ideal situation, but if it had to be anyone may as well be Sophie.

He ducks under her hand, immediately pulling his own punches to come out swinging to get her to back off. She's put up with him dancing around the subject. This was step one. Step two, now, was to release the pent up rage.]

[it's sophie, he should be used to hitting her by now. and since it's sophie, she merely looks satisfied when he finally fights back. she had been wondering whether he meant to make her pin him to the wall. this is better. she does back off, but he didn't come out hard enough to put her on the defensive. she stays in close, trading punches and blocks, batting punches away with her forearms]

[Not in the way that he'd hit someone like Potter or the Weasley, really. He's progressively growing faster and stronger, fists more or less flying and leg sweeping in to try and get her to buckle to her knees. It's not exactly precise and smooth like Sophie's taught him, but it's something to try and tire himself out, something to get her to rise and fight him back now that he's moved on to step two.]

[she's not letting him just have his way by any means. the fact that he's trying to make her surrender means she's resistant to doing so, and when his sweeps make her stagger she grabs his shirt, steadying herself enough to put her heel in the back of his knee, making him stagger in turn. then she does go on the defensive, letting him have control of the fight to see where he takes it.]

[He does stagger forward, nearly toppling them over before he's using a hand to try and bend her arm backwards to release his shirt. It's only when he's freed himself from her that he's back to throwing as many punches as he can, not even really paying attention to where he's aiming while trying to take her down.

Really, he should know it's pretty futile to try and knock out Sophie. But at the same time he's invested in the fight and he's invested and going down swinging. It's probably not going to last much longer though as he suddenly ducks, hoping to more or less headbutt her in the torso and knock her backwards while she was distracted with his hands and his feet.

And this plan will probably backfire in five, four, three...]

[the problem, as draco is about to discover, with trying to headbutt someone considerably shorter than onesself is that they can get lower than you. she lets him come, but she gets under him and suddenly all his momentum is carrying him over her shoulder to meet the mat. she's on him fast, trying to pin him.]

[That is the problem indeed as Draco discovers when he hits the ground hard, yelping suddenly as his face meets the mat and his teeth connect with his lip biting down hard enough to make it bleed, nose suddenly bleeding as well from where his face hit the ground at an odd angle.

This is why you don't try to turn and fall and swing all at once, Draco dear.

As soon as she's on him though, as soon as she's trying to pin him down, his fists continue swinging wildly and his leg moves to try and hook her around the hips to throw her off. Never mind the fact he's actually growling at her as he struggles to gain the upper hand.]

[she's not nearly as alarmed as she possibly should be by all this. when he tries to throw her off she doesn't fight it, concentrating instead on not letting him get anything like a hold on her. she rolls across the mat and into a crouch, waiting for his next move.]

[And he pays no mind either. Once upon a time he would have laid flat out on that mat and whined about how he was dying because of his bloody nice and chewed up lip. As it stands though Sophie should be somewhat proud of herself for what she's created, seeing how he's hauling himself up again and settling in a crouch to stare at her.

Drip. Drip. Drip.

He might be cheating, just a little, as he suddenly zooms across the mat like a rocket thanks to his flight, tackling into her and hoping to knock her out of that crouch again and onto her back to reverse the roles and pin her down instead.]

[if he had just leapt at her, she'd have managed to dodge. but with the flight she can't. her back hits the mat with a sound that should, by all rights, be satisfying.

but then she freezes, long enough for blood from his nose to fall on her face. her eyes go wide and unfocused with panic. she wasn't ready for that, hadn't prepared herself. sophie is the one who growls then, as she throws him off hard enough to make him skid on the mat, then leaps onto him, thighs squeezing his ribs.]

[He's satisfied for all of three seconds as he knocks her down, pinning her effectively for the briefest of moments before he finds his body suddenly flying through the air, skidding across the mat like a stone upon water before he finds himself under the weight of his opponent. He really ought to be a little more conscious of the pressure on his ribs seeing how he doesn't have much padding to protect them, but as it is he's not stopping to think as he hauls back to try and direct a hit to the face, bucking his body up to try and get his feet between them to kick her off. Being on his back really isn't good for his nose, seeing how he keeps swallowing blood and his lip keeps splitting wider as his face contorts with each movement Sophie makes.

The problem, they will both belatedly realize, is that you can't put two easily-panicked people in a room and not expect this to happen eventually. If he can't kick her off, at least he can attempt to jab at her head and her neck and her shoulders, trying to get her to back off and let go.]

[punching her in the face actually brings her back out of her panic. he gets her in the nose and she makes a little noise. it'll start bleeding in a moment. but she stops fighting, grabs draco by the wrists]

Draco. Stop.

[Oops. Sorry Sophie. He'll profusely apologize for that when he comes back to his senses but as it is her hand is just a little too close to his dark mark and he's wriggling under her wildly to try and get out of her grip, feet still kicking to get between them to attempt to push her off.]

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