A little ficlet for @fatally-procrastinating, who turns 25 today!! :-) These amazing characters belong to her, I’m just having a little fun with them. ;D
Sonya Fletcher and Michael Harcourt from @sonyafletcherchronicles
One-shot. Not truly canon, but not terribly non-canon either.
SFW
“Please, Miss Fletcher, I must insist.”
“Oh come on, you can’t be serious!” Sonya wanted to throw her sword – no, foil – across the room in frustration.
“I’m sorry, but if you’re going to successfully infiltrate this particular institution, it is imperative that you be skilled enough to blend in. Now, try again.”
Michael handed her a mask and returned to his side of the sparring mat, waiting for her to take her spot across from him once again.
Fencing lessons. Sonya asked herself yet again why on earth she’d agreed to this. Brute strength and sheer force of will were more her style than this ridiculous, rule-ridden sport involving bendy swords and meticulous footwork. She’d probably have better luck head-butting a mavtock than mastering the nuances of fencing. But a particularly fiendish shifter had been preying on women in a classical fencing school in New York, and she really wanted to be the one to take the bastard down, which meant posing as a competitive student.
She glanced at Michael, who stood relaxed yet perfectly poised as he waited. He made it all look so easy. She sighed and put her mask back on as she stepped onto the mat to face him.
Michael replaced his own mask and took an offensive stance as Sonya tried to remember where to put her feet for the appropriate defensive posture. When Michael lunged forward, she just barely managed to deflect the hit from landing on her right shoulder. Then quick as lightning, he twisted and thrust toward the left side of her body, easily touching her sleeve before she could react.
“Good. Again.” Michael said.
Sonya reset her feet as he came at her left hip this time. Once again, she barely deflected the blow and was too slow to block the next hit to her shoulder.
“Enough! I’m done. I’m terrible at this, we’ll just have to get someone else to do it.” Sonya said, exasperated at having failed yet again.
“Nonsense, you’re doing rather well for your first lesson.”
“Your second attack hits me every single time, how is that ‘doing rather well’?” Sonya tore off her mask and scowled at him, dropping her foil to the floor and turning to walk away.
Michael was next to her in an instant, his hand gentle on her shoulder. “Be patient with yourself, you are learning. You parry my initial attacks well; what you lack is the ability to anticipate my next move in time to block it. That will come with time and understanding of how body movement can indicate the direction of the next attack in this sport. Watch.”
Reluctantly, Sonya turned around. Cramming her mask back on her head and crossing her arms over her chest, she glowered at him through the mask. Michael took a few steps back from her before running through a sequence of attacks slowly, explaining the techniques he employed and instructing her to observe his body motion as he transitioned from one attack to the next.
As if she wasn’t already paying enough attention to the way his body moved. He was tall and lean, his movements possessing such easy grace that it was impossible not to watch him. She blushed, grateful she had the mask on to hide her face.
He finished with a final flourish and walked back over to her. Picking up her foil, he placed it in her hand.
“Now, let’s try putting you on offense. Perhaps it would help if I guide you through basic attack techniques. May I show you?”
“Sure.” Sonya replied, taking a deep breath.
He moved to stand behind her, lining his body up against hers as he gently placed his left hand on her hip to direct her movement and his right hand over hers on the foil. Sonya held her breath, not daring to breathe with him so unbelievably close.
“Relax, Miss Fletcher. You’ll never be able to move with the fluidity required in this sport if you’re so tense all the time.”
Sonya snorted, barely disguising it as a cough at the last second. She wanted to shout at him that it was hard to be calm when she could feel his warmth up against her. Instead, she took another deep breath and willed her body to relax despite the butterflies in her stomach. As distracting as it was to have him so close, she was more comfortable around him than she wanted to let herself admit. He was one of the few she trusted completely.
“Much better. Now, turn your wrist like this, with a slight bend at your elbow, then thrust forward, keeping the blade in line with your arm. Footwork is equally important. Step forward with your right foot as you thrust.”
Michael continued to guide her through a few different attacks, showing her how to position her feet and body to put more speed behind the thrust while controlling the angles of her arm and wrist to guide her from one motion into the next. Sonya did her best to focus on the task at hand rather than his warm body pressed up against her back. She wasn’t sure if she was more relieved or disappointed when he finally released her.
Michael walked back across the mat, turning to face her as he took up a defensive stance. “Okay. Now, attack me.”
Sonya readied her feet, then lunged toward his left arm. Michael deflected her attack with ease but not without leaving a small opening in his defense. Sonya changed angles and aimed for the opening, but Michael blocked her at the last second.
“Excellent! You redirected exactly as I showed you. See, you can learn, Miss Fletcher, when you choose to.”
“Yeah well, getting to stab at you is rather motivating.”
Even through the mask, Sonya could sense the exasperated glare on his face.
“Again.” Michael said.
Sonya went on offense again, with Michael deflecting three blows before returning the attack and putting her on defense. They continued several more rounds, and even though she felt like a discombobulated slug next to Michael’s practiced finesse, she had to admit it wasn’t an entirely detestable sport.
Sonya was just starting to feel like she was getting the hang of it when she missed a key block. Just a tad too slow to parry the incoming thrust, Michael’s foil pierced through her glove and stabbed into her hand.
“Shhhhhppfffft.” Sonya winced as she dropped her foil. Blood trickled through the hole in her glove. She removed her mask and glared down at the foil as if it had lied to her. “I thought these things weren’t that sharp!?”
Michael tore his mask off and was there in a second, removing her glove and inspecting the small puncture near her the base of her thumb. “The tips are blunted, but can still cause harm with enough force behind them. I’m sorry, you were catching on so fast I felt comfortable increasing my attack speed. Perhaps a bit too much.” He frowned at the wound, pulling his own glove off with his teeth so he could put pressure on it to slow the bleeding.
Sonya flushed, not expecting or needing him to be so attentive to what was barely even a scratch compared to numerous other wounds she’d suffered. He continued to fuss over her for several minutes, wiping the blood from her hand once the small wound had stopped bleeding. When his hand continued to linger on hers, she cleared her throat.
“Michael, I’m fine. You can let go of my hand now.”
As much as Sonya didn’t want it to end, she’d never admit to him how much she enjoyed his hand on hers.
“How about we try again tomorrow?” She said.
His eyes found hers, and he gave her a knowing half-smile.
So @fatally-procrastinating wrote an adorable drabble for me as part of her Holiday Countdown on Patreon and I need it on my blog. For reasons.
Featuring characters from her amazing @sonyafletcherchronicles
(posted with permission)
It was impossible to sit still. Actually impossible. No seemed or felt about it. Johnny’s body twitched of its own accord with the mounting and uncontrollable excitement welling up inside his chest. His hands jumped and shifted where they lay on his knees and his ears pricked up at Hope’s light step into the living room.
“Keep your eyes closed,” she said.
“I am.” It was more of a whine than he’d intended and he huffed, his body moving with increasing agitation. A guy only turned seventy-five once, after all.
“Then close them more.”
He clamped his eyes tighter until his entire face scrunched. “I can’t close them more than this unless ya want me to overlap my eyelids.”
She chuckled softly. “Maybe later.”
The couch shifted beneath him when she sat down. He leaned towards her, breathing in the heavenly scent of warm popcorn when something light and solid dropped onto his legs.
“You can look now.”
Johnny grinned as he tore into the red wrapping paper. It shredded beneath his fingers, sliding off the DVD cover of A New Hope. His excitement stilled to a stop in his chest. He blinked. Scuffs marked the edges where he’d first opened it only to drop the case in his rush. A crack cut a jagged line across the back from when his apartment had been raided by a Rougarou. Narrowing his eyes at the gift, he opened the case. Two disks inside. No secretly hidden tickets to anything. No gold lining.
“It’s… my own copy.”
“That’s right.”
“Did ya take this out of my room?”
“I did.”
He turned to her. Hope sat cross-legged with a bowl of popcorn in her lap that was almost larger than she was. “I don’t understand. Did you do somethin’ to it?”
“No.” She used her thumb to flick a piece of popcorn into the air before catching it perfectly between her teeth. A tiny smile eased into the corners of her eyes though it didn’t touch her lips. “You should put it in. The others will be here soon.”
“Others?” He popped the disk out of the case and set it into the waiting player.
“Doom and Gloom,” she said.
“Doom and—?” His shoes squeaked when he spun to look at her. “You convinced Michael to watch Star Wars? Really?”
She grinned and crunched down on another kernel.
“How? I’ve been trying to bribe him into it for months.” He plopped down onto the couch beside her, reaching for the popcorn. She held it out of his reach. Even when he pouted with the excuse But it’s my birthday, she only relented to give him a single piece.
“I told him it was one of Sonya’s favorite movies.”
“… That’s it?”
Hope patted his hand, her smile growing. “There may be a bit more behind it. But that’s all you need to know. For now.”
He chuckled under his breath and slung his arm across her shoulders—where he absolutely did not take advantage of their positions to steal a huge handful of popcorn. Kissing her cheek when she nudged him in the side, he whispered, “Te amo.”
She relaxed against him—though her guard over the popcorn only increased when Sonya and Michael trailed into the room—and tucked her head on his shoulder. She waited until they were situated on Johnny’s other side before kissing his cheek with a whispered, “I know.”
Soooo I got a commission from two super nice tumblr user: n7rogue and @gaurdian9sunshine (aaah tumblr why don’t you let me tag her!) who wanted to surprise fatally-procrastinating with fanart of her OC Sonya Fletcher aaand here we are! I kinda popped Sonya’s fanart cherry *coughs* I really hope that you three like the picture ♥
