end up here

"That’s a good start, try moving like this," she moved slowly, carefully breaking down the movements. Her years in ballet had taught her how to slow herself down, how to look at each piece of an attack as a piece of a dance. They were complex, they were careful. Slowly, she moved forward, her weight equally distributed on either foot. One arm went forward as the other moved back slightly, fluidly she allowed the momentum to fuel a second hit from the arm that had fallen back. She landed two slowly, soft grazes to his jaw and stomach respectively. 

"Don’t rush it, try breaking it down until you feel ready to try it for real," she could hear the echo of Seth in her own voice. The way he had instructed them all. It was a nurturing effort, it was team building as much as it was combat training. She remembered once he had twisted an old saying to go along with it. ‘Give a man a gun, and you’ll save him for a clip. Teach a man to fight, and you’ll save him for a hell of a lot fucking longer.’ She didn’t think this was too much different. 

"Just like th-that," he muttered to himself as he began going through the motions anew. Charlie was determined to get it right, but he was also surprisingly calm. Augusta was a nice change of pace - she didn't stress him out like some of the others did. Their training was frenetic and hurried, focused on percents and hits. Augusta didn't seem worried about that, though.

"Y-you, ah, y-you seem...well, um..." He was going to say that this didn't seem like her first time teaching this, but Charlie thought better of that one quickly enough. They had a tentative friendship, or so he thought. He wasn't going to ruin that by asking questions, at least not right now.

"Y-you never, um, I hope y-you never told Pr-providence about the tea thing." He allowed himself a small, distracted smile - Charlie was still going through the movements, a little faster but still mostly focused on getting them right, like she had done. "I'd have t-to, ah, I'd have to p-put you on the ground if you did."

There wasn’t much that Lansing didn’t have a fleeting interest in. She guessed she owed her curiosity and thirst for knowledge to her parents. They had encouraged it at a young age and it had continued well into adulthood. Sometimes being overly inquisitive was frowned upon but Lansing didn’t let that stop her. 

"L-like, ah, um, the hard p-part is figuring out the repeats. Once you, like, h-have that down both c-c-coding and decoding is easy, yeah?" Dark eyebrows furrowed as he watched her and decided to see if her interest in puzzles was genuine or not (because lord forbid he get along with her - Charlie knew there had to be some flaw).

"Ah, I l-l-like all puzzles t-too. Well, um, w-well mostly. M-my favorites t-t-to do are, um, cr-crosswords, though. S-s-sudokus are fun t-too, but they're kind of, um, k-kind of boring now. Only so many w-ways to rearrange numbers."

Honestly, Nashville couldn’t remember the last time he’d come across a man in a relationshipin the active troops. It wasn’t something that happened. Maybe the more death you saw the more you realized how utterly pointless it was, to try and connect. To attempt to make more out of what time they had. 

When the entire world was burning to ash around you, why try to hold on to the dust? Everything would slip through your hands regardless of what you did. The only thing that could last were the good moments you created out of the shitstorm.

"Come on." Nashville took a few steps forward, hand going out to grasp Charleston’s arm. He thought better of the motion, though, before it was completed and he let it fall away. "Look, I don’t know you that well, so maybe I’m way off base. But you kind of look to me like you need…something. To talk to someone, or to punch somebody in the face, I don’t know."

Nashville wasn’t really one for deep and abiding friendships. There wasn’t a point in it. But that didn’t mean he didn’t care. And if one of the guys he’d be flying into a fight, someone he’d trust with watching his back, needed help? Nashville was going to do what he could.

Dover was an asshole. A gorgeous asshole, but still. Not really the type of person Nashville imagined someone like Charleston getting all doe-eyed over.

Also, totally not his business.

Don't apologize for things that aren't your fault.

He couldn't shake the feeling he was still to blame but maybe it wasn't his fault, and allowing himself the benefit of the doubt, Charlie remained silent. Just listened for a moment.

"A-alright. Can we, um, c-can we just forget about it?" As much as the prospect scared him now, Charlie still wanted a friend. And maybe this was what it would have taken to establish that.

"W-well..." He couldn't say that Nashville was wrong. Charlie had been itching for a fight, and truth be told, he still was, although it was clear how much that plan had backfired. "I was, ah, I c-came really close t-to socking you in the f-f-face, yeah." He laughed awkwardly, going for levity. That was the appropriate thing to do, right?

"I mean, uh, y-yeah. I suppose I've b-b-been feeling a bit out of it, uh huh - w-wait, steak?"

Charlie would have been lying if the prospect of steak wasn't appealing. The agents could cook their own food, but they weren't exactly swimming in steak. It sounded good, and even worse, so were Nashville's intentions.

"I, ah...y-you know, I'll l-let you have that last steak f-f-for yourself, but r-raincheck on the dinner?"

He looked like a dying duck. 

As he swung up from the ground, quicker than Olympia had imagined she would. He hit off some blows at her stomach, which again she decided to lean away from, bending backwards to avoid getting hit in the gut. He seemed to be fighting harder than he was before, back when they were warming up he seemed apathetic. That was good, Olympia guessed. Maybe he was finally growing a spine for battle. 

"More interested in this fight now, are we?" Olympia said between parries. She laughed and aimed a punch directly at Charleston’s head. They’d gotten closer together since Charleston had gotten off the floor, so her punch wouldn’t have much to travel. 

Olympia was starting to realize that perhaps she shouldn’t be fighting as if she wanted to win. She was supposed to be helping Charleston train…right? So why did she feel like she wanted to beat him to the ground? 

Maybe it was the normal competitive spirit bursting out of her, or maybe she was just afraid of failing such an easy task as beating Charleston in a spar. If she couldn’t win this one spar, what use was she? 

"I-it's you!" he exclaimed, as if that actually made anything clearer. It did to him, though, and in his adrenaline-fueled state he approached closer and closer, perhaps too close. She kept dodging his punches, though, no matter how quick he was. Charlie had know this wouldn't be fun or easy in any way, shape, or form, but Olympia was seemed to be ahead of him every step of the way. He dodged to the right and came back in, hoping to get a chance at  -

A fist to the face caught him, then. Dammit - he barely had time to think before he reeled backwards, more from the shock of the blow than the impact itself. Charleston-from-months ago might've stood in shock and asked why she had done that, but instead of stopping now, he responded.

He turned around and she smiled wider. The punching bag knocked him off balance as if to retaliate, a hand slid up behind her neck and she covered her mouth with her other hand. To keep a louder laugh from escaping. 

"I was just going to say that you’re gonna blast your elbows wrong if you keep hitting it like that," she moved forward and put a hand on his shoulder to stead him and then walked past him to wrap her hands in tape. To keep them safe from too much damage. 

"Try hitting me instead of the punching bag, I’ll show you what I mean," she pulled her sweatshirt over her head and walked back over to him in a tank top and shorts. It seemed she spent what time she wasn’t trying to calm down pumping her heartbeat up, making it harder for her to relax. The night before she had managed four hours, and she felt more rested than she had in days. That wasn’t saying much. 

But she was desperate for a good sparring partner, to connect with someone even through her fists, and if she could show Charlie a few things that would help him survive in the long run then she’d be more than happy to do it. Augusta carried herself over to the training mat, which hurt less than the cold floor when you were flipped onto it. Certainly less likely to dislocate something when you collided with it than any other place in the room. 

"W-well, they were starting to get a l-little sore," he admitted after a moment, letting her touch graze his shoulder without flinching away. This was training, no time for sissy comfort zone issues.

Well, that, and he did have some sense of innate trustworthiness.

"W-wait, you mean, ah, um, like s-sparring?" He followed her curiously. It was unusual for someone to offer themselves up as a partner, especially when it seemed she had valuable things to tell him.

"I mean, uh, if you're u-u-up to it, yeah!" It was difficult to disguise the enthusiasm in his tone. Training was something of a normality, now, but the prospect of having Augusta help him was exciting somehow.

He just hoped it wouldn't turn out like the sparring match with Olympia. Even Charlie had recognized that he had gotten too into it, so he tried to remind himself that this was more casual, more relaxed. Hopefully. He still expected to get his ass handed to him, of course, but maybe it would be more fun?

"Well, if y-you're positive." Charlie followed her up to the mat, bare feet sinking slightly in the soft surface. A bittersweet comfort for sure, one that you could only appreciate when you'd been knocked down one too many times as Charlie had been.

The first punch was slight, testing. There was no real effort behind it - until he reminded himself that Augusta was indeed a Freelancer, not just his friend (?), and the next swing contained more effort, aimed roughly at her arms.