( FIGHT CLUB | OPEN )

[puppydogeyes]

CHARACTERS: OPEN
LOCATION: FLOOR 003 HOLODECK
WARNINGS: VIOLENCE, LANGUAGE, ETC.
SUMMARY: MINGLING ENSEMBLE LOG FOR FIGHT CLUB
NOTES: NETWORK POST OPEN INVITATION HERE. FREEFORALL, START YOUR OWN THREADS, TAG AROUND, GO NUTS!

Anyone arriving will find the holodeck almost as it comes: a wide open space with very few decorations. In the middle of the room several set of mats have been laid out in individual areas, as one might expect to find in any wrestling or martial arts training room. There are benches, like bleachers, pushed up against the wall for people to take a seat, and towels folded and stacked in piles on the tables next to them. A water cooler has been moved from one of the common rooms into the corner for relief.

Tyke keeps a supervisory eye over comings and goings, repeats the rules to the room at large regularly, but people are mostly left to their own devices: find a fight, or just watch.

Comments

[dogbane]

Oi oi.

[The medic thumps his ass down on the bench beside her, at a distance that's militarily acceptable. A little less so: the slight slouch to his lanky shoulders, elbows on his knees. Nonetheless, he's set down a First Aid kit by his toes. (Also: cigarette over one ear, and joint tucked behind the other, but that, surely, is less relevant to her interests.) There's a telltale flit up, down to his eye-line as he looks at her, a recognition or momentary speculation about her ancestry that is probably familiar to her. Still, it's not the first thing he brings up.

Instead, he turns one bare forearm toward her. Inside his wrist, SCI heads the sequence of his nanite tattoo. Maybe he's even medical. Though an asparagus farmer who's trained in medicine might be as well.] Need a look at the shoulder? [he asks.] I could feel it two rows up when you went into the fucking mats, that last fight. Though that might've been your breakfall. [You'd have to know a little bit about the mechanics and function of a breakfall to recognize that as a compliment. Promisingly, there's a glint of chain around his neck, the vague impression of British military ID discs under the collar of his tank.

It's a different sort of bedside manner than doctors bring to the pediatrics unit or medicating the elderly, for sure.]

[busdriver]

[Her attention's still divided in awareness of the space, but the better part fixes on him when he gives her a reason. Her earliest assessment is cursory, as far as that's possible for someone trained in observation, turning up the obvious. She makes fewer assumptions than she would elsewhere. Ancestry is only relevant if they're from similar worlds. The first significant question May was asked when she arrived was whether she's American. The person asking wasn't sure whether any such place would exist for her, and she realizes that now.

Her expression is a smooth surface. He doesn't say or do anything to disturb that. A quirked brow reacts, acknowledges, without rippling the water. She could be judgmental about the joint behind his ear, under different circumstances, but not these. She's not qualified to question the analgesic properties, for one thing. Her tactics vary on this ship. Taking opportunities as they're given gets her further than observation alone. She isn't going to refuse. She won't thank him for it, and her choice of words doesn't strictly admit that it would be a favor.]

Should be fine, but go ahead.

[Her natural tendency—he might've already assumed, based on his approach—is to be a reluctant patient. She's usually quick to clean up her own wounds and evade sympathy. Conversely, she doesn't need medical personnel to navigate her ego like a minefield. Breakfall should have been with the whole flat of her hand. She knows how to fall, how to land, but what he's referencing was only a limited success. She doesn't want to talk about it.

Her body language looks pliant, in the sense that she'll turn her back or lift her arm if he indicates that she should. That's confidence in herself, not trust in him. He could thoroughly mishandle the bad shoulder and she wouldn't flinch.]

Check.

[dogbane]

[They are in benign agreement. The vagaries of breakfall need not be explored in excruciating detail.] If you'll lift your arm, [he requests, one hand on her shoulder already, lightly, and incidentally not yet smelling like pot smoke. A press of his thumb checks for tangible swelling, even as he continues to instruct,] Straight out in front of you, yeh, like so-- and if you can start to swing it out toward me like you're playing Jesus--

[She isn't going to flinch, that much is clear enough to him. Nonetheless, bodies don't lie about minutiae like an impeded range of movement, and he's got his eye on the telltale signs of a faulty rotator cuff, something stiff about her fingers or a protest in the muscles along the side of her back. Of course, out on the mats, five degrees fewer to the bend of one's waist wouldn't be the difference between victory or loss, but that's not the purview of a medic.]

William Tsang, [he says, after a moment. He sounds distracted, but his eye flits to meet her profile before it drops again to the task at hand. Hello. Such were the formalities of Earth, where he came from.] I work with Dr. Tam.