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“I am telling you, amigo,” Luis pants, bent over with his hands on his knees. “My talents… they are not for this.” He gestures vaguely at the open field. “This sweaty, horrible thing.”

“It’s self-defense, Luis. You need this.”

“I need a massage and a cigarette.”

Leon tosses a jab at him—slow, telegraphed. Luis still flinches like it’s a bullet. “God. Okay, no. Stop. Put your hands up.”

“They are up.”

“That’s your hips.”

“They are connected!”

Leon scrubs a hand down his face, pacing like a man reconsidering every life decision that brought him here. “Okay, try again. Left foot forward. Right hand guarding. Elbow in, not flopping around like a drunken chicken.”

Luis squints. “Drunken pollo?”

“Yes. Fight like you’re not one.”

Luis grumbles in Spanish under his breath—something about American pigs and how this would never happen if he were allowed to bring a gun—and half-heartedly tries to mimic Leon’s stance again.

Leon circles him slowly, correcting his posture with a hand at his back and another at his wrist. “You have to be tighter. Compact.”

“Oh?” Luis smirks sideways. “You like it tight, eh?”

Leon doesn’t blush, but his grip falters just enough for Luis to notice.

“I will take that as a sí,” Luis says, far too pleased.

“You’ll take that as a shut up and focus.”

Leon throws another slow punch. This time Luis tries to block. It sort of works, if you define “works” as “he doesn’t fall immediately.”

He does, however, spin completely around, trips over his own foot, and lands on his ass in a puff of dust.

“…I almost had it,” he mutters.

Leon crosses his arms, looking down at him with the patience of a man forced to babysit a particularly sassy raccoon.

“You are too fast,” Luis complains, flopping backward into the grass. “Your arms, they are like… octopus. No. Octopuses? Octopi.”

“I swear to God—”

“Like this—” Luis flails his arms like a man who’s never seen a fight or an octopus. “Whap whap whap! And then I am dead.”

Leon kneels beside him, grabbing his wrist again. “You’re not dead. You’re lazy. There’s a difference.”

Luis winks. “I am efficient. Why punch when I can talk them down? Or talk them into bed.”

“You can’t flirt your way out of a knife fight, Luis.”

“Ahh,” he grins, tapping Leon’s chest. “But can I flirt during it?”

Leon stares at him. “…Are you hitting on me right now?”

Luis shrugs innocently. “Maybe I like a man who throws me around a little.”

Leon pulls him back to his feet with a single tug. “You’re impossible.”

“But pretty, no?”