{ FISTS CAME FIRST }

Olivia smiled and let go of his hands, turning and messing with the wraps around her fists. “No walls,” she shrugged, smiling to herself. “Plus, I don’t think it would have the same effect on her,” Liv said with a shrug, biting down on her tongue. And then, just like that, something inside of her clicked back into place. Again, she was Olivia King, awkward and tired and a master builder of walls. “Shit,” she said, feeling all of the pain at once, a disorienting ringing filling her head, and slid back down to her original sitting position against the wall. “And so, the student becomes the teacher.”

She held the ice pack against her bruising knuckles, a smile stretched across her face. “So, how’s it feel to be the tutor?” she asked.

Dean squatted, still facing the wall, and let out a low groan, trying to make it sound like he was in more pain than he was. Maybe that would explain why he couldn’t turn away from the wall. “Never know with McKinnon,” he tossed out, grinning despite himself. “Wouldn’t hurt to try.” As she sat down, he chanced a concerned glance in her direction. While it hadn’t been a very long fight, she’d exerted herself a lot. He’d tried not to hit her outright too many times, seeing as she’d just come from a fight, but there wasn’t much he could do to prevent her from hurting herself. 

“The pain goes away quickly,” he told her, running a hand through his hair and wishing that other things did too. Finally, he sighed and decided it wasn’t like she’d be looking anyway. Slowly, for his knee still hurt from where Marlene had swept it out from under him earlier, he sat down next to her. “Feels pretty fucking weird,” he answered honestly, “I think we should stick to you teachin’ me.” He pulled a cigarette out of his pocket, the first thing he’d bought with his winnings. He hadn’t been able to get a new lighter, so he pulled the one she’d given him out of his pocket and lit it. Once he’d inhaled for the first time, he let out a sigh of relief and pressed his head against the wall. It was only then that his thumb found the difference in the face of the lighter and he opened his eyes to peer at it. “You’re welcome?” he read out loud. “What the fuck is that supposed to mean?”

She rolled her eyes, trying to avoid the feeling of his bare chest pressed up against her, his hands gripping onto her wrists again. This time, she didn’t let herself think about how calm she felt in the middle of a fight, just with his breath against her neck and his heartbeat strong against her own. Something she didn’t know she had in her was coating her brain in a thick fog. Something left over from days when survival was all that mattered. Olivia stopped resisting as she turned her face so it grazed his bare chest. She could feel her breath on her own shoulder as it spread to his skin, her eyelashes fluttering slightly. “You’re too humble,” she said quietly, pushing them backwards until his back slammed against the wall. Olivia pressed herself against him, sinking her fingernails deep into the skin of his wrist until he let go.

She twisted out of the position, keeping her hold on him as she spun him around, pushing him against the same wall and pinning his hands behind his back as he’d done to her. “Me too, sweetheart,” she whispered against his shoulder blade, looking up at his face almost diabolically. “Does this count as a win, or do you have to be on the floor for that?”

The dull thud of his head against the wall didn’t even phase him, only the realization that her body was now even closer to his than it had been before. He was grateful for the cold of the concrete against his back, it seemed to offset the heat that was filling his entire body. It wasn’t the sharpness of her nails that caused him to lose his grip, (though he could feel them slice his skin) rather his sudden desire to get her as far from him as possible. But this was to no avail, as he now found himself pressed against the wall in the same position he’d had her, only now it was her breath on his neck, her front pressed against his back. He found this position to be much preferred. At least this way she couldn’t feel how profoundly uncomfortable this whole situation was making him. 

“You know fight club, princess, no rules,” he managed, hoping that she’d be satisfied with this as a win and let him go. “How come you didn’t pull this trick on McKinnon?”

“Learned from the best,” she shrugged, clenching her fist and trying to force herself to feel the pain. Some part of her, ignored almost completely by the primal being that seemed to be taking over, thought about stopping Dean and fixing his wounds. But all she could think about now was the fight, how to beat him, how to survive. This was no longer about training, about Dean teaching her how to throw a punch. It was her trying to defeat someone else, to defeat the boy who was now circling her like an animal of prey.

“Oh, you’re gonna love this,” she said, running her tongue across the inside of her bottom lip. She grunted as she shook out her hand with an Episkey, bones cracking back into place. “First, she called me a mudblood,” Olivia told him with a fake smile, making a move and starting up the fight again. “Then,” she breathed, blocking a hit, “Mummy doesn’t love you? Daddy found a new family? How positively pitiful, a Mudblood whose own parents can’t stand the sight of thefreak they brought into this world.” Olivia was punching harder now, her fists feeling numb as she mocked Narcissa’s high, snooty voice. “Yeah, well, mummy’s dead and daddy might as well be,” she said with a clenched jaw as she landed a hard punch on his ribs. She stepped back, blowing a piece of hair out of her face and resting her hands on her hips. A pause. “And you know what the best part is? She likes that shit. She legitimately enjoys people’s pain like she gets off on putting other people down. How sick is that?” she spat, her eyes darting back to him quickly. “Sorry,” she mumbled.

The best. Well, shit. Dean had never thought of himself as the best at anything-- and really, hadn’t Marlene just proved that he wasn’t? Maybe she was talking about Marlene. “Yeah, like I said, McKinnon’s a beast,” he finally replied, before he had to lift up his arms to block the onslaught of punches and slaps.

As he dodged and blocked, he tried to pay attention to what she was saying, but only caught bits and pieces. When she finally got through and landed a blow on his stomach, he doubled over as if in pain (really, he’d taken harder punches) and took the time while she thought he was down to try and process what she’d said. It was hard to reconcile the two images of Narcissa he had in his mind-- Narcissa Black, drunk and pitiful versus Narcissa Black, cruel and prejudiced. Deciding that deciphering the issue was a lost cause, he launched into an attack of his own, sliding behind her and pinning her arms between his chest and her back. “I’m sorry that happened, princess,” he said, and it was only the puff of his own breath bouncing off her neck that made him realize how close they were together. The fingers on the hand he was using to grip her arms could practically trace the waistband of her pants. Her ponytail fluttered across his chest as she twisted. He could practically feel the echo of his heartbeat as it bounced between his chest and her back. Suddenly, he very much wished this fight was over.

Olivia winced as her body fell against the stone floor. She sucked in a tight breath through her teeth, trying to ignore the pulsing in her shoulder blades as she squeezed her eyes shit. “Shit,” she said quietly, clenching her jaw. She let her hands run through her hair blowing out a low breath before a laugh escaped her lips. “You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet, don’t you, tough guy,” she said breathily, using his outstretched hand to hoist herself back up.

She could hear Narcissa’s voice in the back of her head. Mummy doesn’t love you? Her blood boiled, she let herself get angry, unlike how she’d fallen flat at the hand of Narcissa Black. Olivia ground her teeth and started throwing punches anywhere she thought she could get one in, hitting the palms of his hands and grazing by his ribs. “Said some fucking nasty stuff about my parents,” she said, preoccupied with channeling her aggression into hitting Dean. She kept going, kept hitting and punching and kicking until finally her fist slammed against his face, and she felt the indescribable sensation of knuckles breaking upon impact. She tensed every muscle in her body, stopping for a moment, shaking her hand out, and getting back into a - now bloodier - fighting stance. “Keep going.”

It was only when she spoke-- You really know how to sweep a girl off her feet, don’t you, tough guy?-- that he realized he was still holding her wrists. He couldn’t think of the word to describe how she looked lying there below him, her wrists still encircled by his calloused palms, and he decided to drop them before the word came to mind. He let go of one wrist and adjusted his other hand so that he could pull her up. 

Unfortunately, doing this meant that he’d now opened himself up to her hands flying at his face. He managed to avoid most of them, but one fist cracked into his temple. He shook his head, dizzy. Head wounds were tough. They bled a lot more than expected, which meant if your opponent hit you in the right spot, they could blind you with the blood that dripped down. He lifted his left hand up to wipe it away and squinted as she returned to a fighting stance. “That was a dirty move, King,” he said, impressed. His feet started walking before he even realized he was moving, circling her. 

Her defensive posture reminded him of what she’d said, and as he moved his hand to wipe blood away once more, he tried to think of an appropriate response. “Yeah, er, Narcissa does that. What’d she say?” He didn’t know why he found himself defending her. Maybe because since he’d seen her, drunk and sad in the corridor, he felt pity for her for the first time, and he thought maybe there was a reason behind her behaviour.

Olivia’s world, for just a moment, paused. Her body was overwhelmed with the feeling of his hands wrapped around her wrists, emotions and thoughts flooding through her brain a mile a minute. She could feel his hands against her back and his breath on her ear and his arms wrapped around her like seatbelt. The odd part of her mind imagined a slightly different scenario and let a strangled gasp escape her lips. The world wasn’t processing properly. He was speaking, but the words weren’t coming to her, as if there was a lag between light and sound. She couldn’t tear her eyes away from his, seeing her own reflection in his pupils, the way they dilated so minutely. His questions finally came through.

What hadn’t she done to piss her off? Initially, it had started as catty name calling, but somehow it had escalated. The memory of the conversation fueled her next move. “Slapped her in the face,” she said, strangling the end of her sentence again as she used the leverage of his grip on her wrists to twist her body and try to knee him in the side.

Dean frowned, though whether this reaction was due to his confusion over the turn of events that she’d described (Olivia had slapped Narcissa?) or the exertion of avoiding her kick, he couldn’t be sure. As her leg came off the ground to knee him, he shifted his own weight to be more solidly planted on the ground, then took advantage of her imbalance and pulled her arms so that she was wrenched off of the ground where she’d previously been standing and flipped through the air.

It all happened so quickly that he didn’t even realize what he’d done until her body hit the ground with a soft thud. “Shit-- sorry” he exclaimed. “’The fuck did you slap her for?” he asked, realizing the irony of the question only after he’d spoken. It was a bit rich of him to condemn violence when he’d just flipped her off her feet. 

“Wouldn’t wanna piss any Slytherins off,” she said, titling her head slightly as she examined the competition. His eyes glanced over her, and she expected he was doing just as she was. She winced as his fist grazed her bare stomach, an expertly light touch so as not to hurt her. She looked up at him, dropping her hands by her sides, genuinely curious, and made direct eye contact.“Guess it’s too late for me, though,” Olivia decided, bringing her arms back up into fighting position and bouncing a bit to keep her balance. “I have that effect on people,” she said, a bit strangled at the end as she went for another blow, another left hook, but aimed a little lower this time. She went for the underside of his jaw, intending to knock his face upwards. She felt bad, almost, hitting him when he hadn’t done the same to her, but she supposed it was just because she was an amateur. “How was that?”

“Nah, some are alright,” he said. He raised an eyebrow at that, wondering who she’d managed to piss off, before--right. Narcissa. “What’d you do to piss her off, anyway?” he asked, his curiosity getting the best of him. He couldn’t imagine Olivia within the same world as Narcissa. “Narcissa, I mean.” He added this just as her fist came flying at his face. Talking shifted his focus from the fight, so instinct took over and instead of dodging like he’d intended, his hand flew up to grab her wrist. Aware that this opened up his own torso for a second hit, his other arm snaked out to grab her second wrist to avoid a punch.

The sensation of touching her was odd. It was only once he had both of her small wrists in his hands that he realized he hadn’t done it since the ball, and suddenly the sensation of her back under his fingertips flooded into his memory. Trying to distract himself, he asked her yet another question. “Alright, what would you do now?” 

“Bellatrix?” Olivia asked, scrunching her nose as he moved to stand up. “You’d be insane to even try,” she told him from her spot on the floor. She fiddled with the hand wraps, then moved on to adjust the band of her sports bra. She felt restless, her hands demanding to be moved. What she wouldn’t do for a cigarette. “What if a teacher comes?” she asked warily, though she was standing up anyway. It was quite a process, getting onto her feet, but once there she began to warm up. She shook out her body, bouncing a little to get herself back into the mindset, and stretched her arms before getting into a similar pose.

Olivia bit the inside of her lip, contemplating for a moment. Dean was smart, he knew fighting inside and out. He could probably take her down without breaking a sweat, but she was determined to put up at least one decent fight that night. And so she swung her arm up, trying to land a left hook against his cheek.

“Yeah,” he replied, shrugging. “Plus I reckon she’s one of those purebloods who keep a tight grip on their wands, so I probably couldn’t even land a punch. Wouldn’t wanna piss her off.” As he spoke, he examined her, not with his usual leering gaze, but with a more mature, calculated one. He could probably predict where she’d try and hit, but he figured he’d let her try anyway. “Oh, and the Carrow twins,” he said, keeping his tone light and easy even as his eyes roved over her, “hate to be on their bad side.” 

Her punch came with a speed that impressed him but did not get the best of him. He ducked under it easily and brought his own arm to chop against her side where she’d left it undefended. He slowed his arm as it approached her so that he didn’t actually touch her, only ghosting by. “The higher you punch, the more vulnerable you are,” he told her, stepping back. “Try again.”

“You have a list?” she asked, raising her eyebrows, distracting herself with the cuts and bruises on his face. Her hands brushed just below a scrape on his collarbone, inspecting the wound for any signs of infection. “You should see Rosemary about this. She’s pretty good with healing spells,” Olivia suggested, fingertips gracing the mark she’d left on his jaw. “Sorry about that,” she said sheepishly, lingering for just a moment more than she would have liked to. “Are you kidding? Fighting me was probably like fighting a grape,” she scoffed, deciding that she should just fix his ailments now. Also, she needed something to do with her hands. Olivia repositioned herself so she was facing him diagonally. It occurred to her then that she was still wearing her hand wraps, but she supposed it didn’t matter now. “I wish I knew how to fight, though,” she said, almost wistfully, as she pressed her fingers into the scrape and mumbled a gentle Episkey, pressure intensifying before she removed her hand and carried on to the next one. “I’d like to punch that fucking smirk of Narcissa’s gremlin face.”

“’Course I do,” Dean said with a grin, though he really kept no such list. “It’s got my mum, Sally, McKinnon, Vanity, Black-- the older, crazy one--” he cut himself off, realizing the next person he’d been about to name was her. That was a bit too much, he figured. Besides, he decided. Though she could definitely kick his arse at magic, he had to admit ruefully that he would probably cream her in a physical fight. For some reason, her next words made him want to change that. “Well, I said I’d teach you, didn’t I?” he said, eager to suggest anything that would get her hands off of his face. Even the spell that had once hurt too much now sent tingles down his spine, and he didn’t want to think about what that meant. 

“How about we start now?” he asked, jumping up again (though his knees sort of regretted it). He ignored her comment about Narcissa, figuring that was probably some girl issue that he’d better not give an opinion on, especially since he wasn’t really sure who he’d agree with. “Alright, so I’m standing here,” he said, facing her in a fighting stance and popping his neck. “How would you hit me?”

Dean was probably one of the last people she really needed to see. She was tired and bruised and not in the mood to keep her guard up. Watching him fight had been enough for one night, she couldn’t handle this too. She blinked quickly, trying not to let her eyes flutter down to the bruise blooming across his abdomen, smiling lazily. Had she not just fought a seventh year Gryiffindor with the rage of a T-Rex, she might have offered to fix it, but she was far too tired now. Knowing Olivia, the spell would probably end up hurting more than helping. She scrunched up her face as he sat down, turning to face him, and removed the ice pack from her own face to press it against a bruise on his jaw. “Either you don’t have an ego the size of Russia, or McKinnon is just that good,” she said with a bit of a laugh. “Where’ve you been? It’s like you dropped off the face of the earth.” Not that she would know, per se. She didn’t spend much time out and about.

"McKinnon’s on the list of people I know could kick my arse,” Dean replied cheerfully, “and I’m not ashamed to admit it. I’m impressed I lasted that long, anyway. Guess you tired her out.” He’d watched her fight. He had some pointers, maybe, but Olivia had a lot of raw talent. He’d felt it when she’d punched him two weeks ago, but watching her direct it on someone else had been an experience. He just thought it was a pity that it was Marlene, of all people. Anyone else and she might have had a shot. He’d like to see her up against Fortescue, maybe. That could be fun.