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Gem has been attending sword fighting classes since she was little. She’s really good—the best in her class! She is a powerhouse with a sword, an orange-and-green ball of parries and slashes and well-timed hits. She is not as physically strong as some of the others in her class, not taller than anyone in particular, not as quick, but she’s incredibly sturdy. Her reaction times are instantaneous, and she can block a swipe quicker than a third party can process it in the first place. Her classmates hate to be paired up with her, and she can guarantee a groan from prospective opponents any time they are sorted into teams.
The only exception, of course, being Grian.
Grian takes her as a challenge. He’s never beaten her in a fight, but he is frustrating to go against. Grian is light on his feet; most attacks miss him completely. To an onlooker, they’d think he’s flying with the way his feet barely hit the floor. It’s artistic, and sort of beautiful, the dance he makes in the empty field the class uses to practice. It pisses Gem off a little, on some deep level, despite the fact that she still wins every time. He’ll get a stupid smile stuck on his face the whole time, like he’s the one winning, and it gives Gem a headache.
Sometimes they—Gem and Grian—do solo sessions, for practice. That started a couple years ago. Grian is nowhere near the skill level of the top students, not even for archery days. Gem is not necessarily the best at archery either, that is entirely Scar’s division, to be fair. The point is: Grian is a middle-tier swordsman on paper. Nonetheless, his determination is unbeatable. He’d asked, one day, if Gem could try to teach him to be better, and despite her annoyance with his dodging skills, she agreed. She told herself it would give her an even bigger advantage to learn from him, too. His dancing and flying and blurred movement. She’s got the brawn down, but she has yet to master the quick, aggressively flurry style Grian seems to have been born with.
They’re solo now, in Gem’s garage. A long time ago she had it finished and done up properly to use as a makeshift gym. The floor has a thick layer of foam padding, and there’s fancy equipment shoved in a corner to be pulled out when needed. While they use wooden swords to practice with, she has real metal swords hanging from hooks on the walls for decoration. Grian sometimes jokes about using them instead of the wooden ones for a real challenge, but Gem doesn’t really use them outside of posting clips on instagram showcasing different moves and stances. She would never want to actually practice with them, she’d probably kill him.
They both have wooden swords, and they’re facing each other, maybe six feet apart. Gem is wearing an outfit practical for the situation, a sport’s bra under a very loose-fitting green tank top, and a pair of linen shorts that elastic in at the waist but billow out until they reach her knees. Breathable, easy to move in. Her hair is up in a braid, headband attempting, and sort of failing, to keep hair out of her face. Grian’s in a pair of joggers and a sleeveless red hoodie. Gem figures it’s probably comfortable, even if it’s not the cutest outfit in the world. It shows off Grian’s biceps, at the very least.
They’re both barefoot; they found out it’s way easier to move on the foam that way pretty early on. Grian swears he fights better that way, too.
The weight of her sword feels comfortable in her hand, and she steels herself when she makes eye contact. She has to look up just the tiniest bit—Grian’s a few inches taller—and she lowers her stance, widens the distance between her feet for more balance.
She waits, because Grian always , without fail, does the exact same thing right before a spar. He shakes himself out like a bird while hopping in place, which probably helps him feel looser in the joints, but it makes him look extremely ridiculous. He shakes his wrists one at a time like they owe him something, then falls into a stance that has his whole torso leaning too far forward. He pounces forward, slashing upwards, but Gem is used to his immediate aggression. She knocks his sword away from her, taking a step back to avoid being crowded.
Grian’s mouth quirks up in a hint of a smile. His eyes narrow, and his attention pinpoints solely on Gem’s subtle movements, like the way her offhand side is completely unguarded at the moment. He swings his sword from the side, and when Gem twists her body and parries, he retreats just as quickly as he came. He goes at her with a slightly different angle, below where her sword is currently at a diagonal. She’s just barely too slow and he makes contact with the side of her stomach, likely hard enough to leave a mark, but she barely even notices.
Her eyes flicker down and then back up to stare at him, but he hasn’t won yet. In actual class, a hit ends the fight, the hitter claiming victory. In Gem’s garage, they have house rules. To win, one needs to disarm the other or get them in a position that would, in a real scenario, mean death. Sword into the chest, or opponent on the ground, would count. They cannot go for the head, however, for pure safety reasons. “ No concussions in my garage!” Gem had shouted, when setting down the rules.
That rule makes things more challenging for both of them. Grian is slippery and can wiggle out of most compromising positions, and Gem is solid, hard to knock down. In Gem’s garage, she can let Grian take pot shots, because they don’t mean anything for him. He never hits that hard, anyways. She knows he could hit harder—they both could hit harder, but it’s never fun to seriously hurt your opponent.
Grian likes taking his pot shots, though, it makes him giddy, and sometimes Gem can catch him off guard right after a hit lands because he gets so distracted by it. She does, actually, care about his progress as a fighter. He’s only recently gotten good enough to find weak spots in her defenses, but she doesn’t hold back too much with him; they both respect each other too much to play nice, let the other win. Grian wouldn’t accept any victory handed to him through pity, and Gem wouldn’t do that to him anyways. She wants to see him get good enough to beat her, one day.
Gem can see Grian really trying when they fight. There have been close calls before, too, where Grian almost won. He’s improved so much since they started sparring together, privately outside of class. They go back and forth like this for a while, Gem blocking and jumping around while Grian zooms in and out of her space, attacking quickly and backing back out just as fast.
She takes a step towards him, and, taking a note from his own maneuvers, side-steps with a lunge into him, feeling her braided hair whip around. She expects him to move, but he falters and stumbles back, which almost makes her stumble in turn. She regains balance though, and when Grian raises his arm to attempt an attack, Gem meets his sword before it can hit her and twists, circles her arm in a way that makes his arm bend awkwardly.
His sword goes flying, lands on the floor with a thump . Grian’s eyes are huge as he glances between the sword on the ground and Gem, standing confidently in front of him.
Gem is not satisfied with just disarming him, though. She wants him on the ground, incapacitated.
She uses her free arm to knock into his chest and push , and he goes down, knees hitting the foam. She puts the edge of her sword, blunt, up against his throat, which makes him thrust his jaw upwards. His hands rest on the top of his thighs, entirely defeated.
“You shouldn’t have let me come at you like that,” Gem says, pointing out his fatal mistake with a gentle poke to the neck with her sword, “You should have taken a step back.”
Grian has an indecipherable look on his face, it makes him look far away. He swallows, then rips his eyes down and away from Gem.
“I knowww.” He whines, shaken out of his trance. He doesn’t move.
“Honestly, that was pretty great, Grian. You have to watch out for me getting in your space.”
Grian pulls a pouty face, and then in a flash of movement, he grabs the sword against his throat while leaning back onto his heels. He shoots up, making Gem crane her neck to keep looking at him. Gem squints in a challenging look, switching her gaze between both of Grian’s dark eyes like she’s looking for something within.
“Go again?” Grian turns abruptly, and retrieves his wooden sword.
Gem sighs. She does admire his willingness to learn.
They do run it again, and this time Grian jumps out of the way of Gem’s attack. He’s tired though, and in his tiredness, he’s clumsier. He doesn’t land the jump, actually falls this time, fully on his back with a wheeze as the air is knocked out of him. He’s sprawled out, and Gem stands above him, sword pointing down at his chest.
“I could really kill you, you know.” Gem says, resting the tip of her sword on his sternum.
“Yeah. Yes. I am incredibly aware.” Grian’s face is red from the whole ordeal, still out of breath and choking on the words. Gem’s got a foot on either side of his hips, and one hand on her own in a cocked stance.
Grian props himself up on his elbows, and the sword on his chest moves with him easily. He’s got a plan formulating in his brain, even though he’s already lost twice , to make up for Gem pushing him down last time. One last trick up his sleeve. He just needs to wait for the right moment. A weakness in Gem’s defenses.
She leans down, braid falling over her shoulder. She’s backlit above him by the light on the ceiling, orange exploding in his eyes like a star.
His knee comes up and hits the back of Gem’s knee, the leg she’s leaning all of her weight onto, making her fold instantly. She yelps and drops her sword, but doesn’t fall all the way down because Grian realizes that if she does, she’s going to land on top of him and it’s going to hurt both of them. He catches her by her forearms, which had gone out in front of her, and grunts with the effort.
It’s awkward, and wildly uncomfortable. He’s not very sorry about it.
Gem rolls off of Grian and lays on her back beside him. He’s staring up at the ceiling, breathing deeply. His hair is sticking up in odd directions, tousled by it all.
“That was good!” Gem says, patting his chest, “That was a really good move!”
Grian scoffs and grumbles, “You still won. I was just getting revenge.” He uses a hand to push his bangs off his forehead.
Gem flips over onto her stomach, propped up on elbows. She looks down at Grian, smiling big. She is really proud of him, for that one.
“You’re getting so good, Grian. So good. Even though I did win, because I’m God’s favourite princess.”
Grian laughs at that, nose scrunched up. “Right, princess. ” He glances back at Gem just in time to see her face stutter, but she fixes it quickly and looks away. Grian feels something in his throat jump.
They lay there, silently, looking at nothing in particular because Gem doesn’t know how to continue their conversation. Gem picks at a hangnail on her thumb, and Grian fiddles with the hem of his hoodie.
Gem shifts to be an inch closer. She doesn’t really know why she does it, she just does. Grian just has some sort of gravity field around him, she guesses. She uses her knuckles to poke Grian repeatedly in the bicep, for no other reason than to bother him. She watches the side of his face. This close, she can see the faint line of a scar above the center of his brow, shaped like a crescent. It’s barely there, and she often wonders what it was from. Probably something stupid. Maybe it was a birthmark, not even from anything cool at all.
Grian’s fists clench down on his hem. He, very painfully, avoids looking at Gem. He’s so tense he feels like he might start shaking. He barely even registers Gem’s poking.
He’s absolutely fucked.
Gem notices his tenseness, though, and drops her head between her shoulders.
“Are you-” She starts, at the same time that he also begins speaking.
“I think-”
Gem snorts and raises her head again, “Sorry. You go first, you go first.” She plays with the end of her braid. It’s coming apart in many different places, she knows she looks a little silly at this point.
Grian shakes his head and blinks his big brown eyes up and to the side at her, “No. You first.”
“Okay. Are you thirsty? I want water.” She springs up onto her feet and hops to a small fridge in the corner of the room that only holds healthy organic sports drinks and water, taking two bottles out and tossing one towards Grian when he makes a noise of confirmation. He catches it and sits up, crossing his legs in front of him. The side Gem was laying next to feels colder, but he ignores this. They both gulp down the water, and when Gem looks up, capping her water bottle, Grian has the bottle tipped all the way upside down. She watches his throat move as he swallows, and her own throat suddenly feels very dry despite the water she just drank.
Grian finishes his water and caps the bottle, then throws it directly at Gem. She’s caught off guard, and it bounces off her abdomen and lands on the floor in front of her. She looks down at it with big doe eyes before slowly looking back up at Grian, blinking. Grian feels a bit proud of himself. She sets her own water on the top of the fridge.
“Oh boy, now you’re going to get it!” She warns with a big smile, and he stands very quickly to brace himself for whatever is coming next.
Gem rushes him, but he’s ready, and isn’t knocked down. They playfully grapple for a minute, hands and legs bouncing off each other. Physically, they’re pretty evenly matched. Grian’s arms are just slightly bigger than hers, but Gem’s legs are stronger than his. Obviously, they do not fight for real. They don’t want to.
Eventually, Gem gets a hold on his wrists and forces them away. She twists him around and puts him into the loosest chokehold she’s ever held someone in, barely putting any pressure at all on his neck. She feels him gulp as he stands there, bent backwards to accommodate himself to her slightly smaller height. Her face is in his hair, and he smells like shampoo and sweaty Grian. They’re both giggling.
“Okay, okay! I get it! Don’t mess with the princess!” Grian chokes out between laughs, hands coming up to grip at the arm around his neck.
“Wonderful! You get it.” She lets him go and spins him back around by the shoulders, and Gem is suddenly very aware of how close they are standing.
Grian’s eyes are flitting around rapidly, trying to memorize the placement of the millions of freckles smattering her skin like a starmap. Her tank top exposes a lot of shoulder and collarbone, and it’s like the sun has made sure to kiss every spot it could reach with her. He wants to reach up and fix a stray ginger curl that has escaped her headband and fallen into her face, but he doesn’t because he isn’t sure if she would be okay with that.
Gem is faring no better in her own staring, and she is particularly fixated on the shape of his mouth. She traces the cupid’s bow with her eyes. She really, really , wants to kiss him right now. This is not a thought she’s had before in regards to Grian, and it surprises her a little bit. She knows, objectively, that he is attractive. He’s got wavy, sandy blond hair, and a nice smile, and his nose scrunches when he laughs. His biceps are nice, he looks like he could pick her up without much struggle at all. She feels like a train has run her over. Grian is pretty. Grian is annoying sometimes, but he’s really sweet. When they’re sparring, he doesn’t hold back, but he’s still careful to not put all his strength into his hits. He’s gentle, and nice. And he’s staring at her like she hung the stars in the sky right now.
Gem surges forward and crashes her lips into his. He makes a very surprised, muffled noise, but when her hands finally let go of his wrists, he places them gently onto her shoulders. He does not push her away, because he would die if she left right now.
She tears herself away and covers her mouth with both hands, eyes wide and staring blankly at his chest, avoiding his impossibly soft gaze.
Before she can speak, Grian’s hands snake up and pull her hands away, then cradle her jaw. She freezes, looking up at him, drowning Grian in green and orange. Gem’s mouth opens and closes repeatedly like a fish as she fights with saying literally anything, but nothing ends up coming out at all. He watches her face carefully, looking for an indication of discomfort, but he finds none.
Grian leans back in and places his lips atop Gem’s, and he feels her shoulders slowly drop. Her hands cling to his forearms, and she hangs off of them like a lifeline. They kiss, whisper soft, lips moving so gently and so slowly in tandem.
When they part for a bit of air, Gem’s brows are scrunched together and she’s breathing hard, not making eye contact. Grian’s face burns, but a sudden wave of concern crashes into his chest.
“Are you okay? Was that…” He says, trailing off as his eyes dart around her.
“I. You-” Gem’s face twists up.
Grian’s heart sinks. He fucked up. He really, really fucked it, he thinks. Gem’s never going to spar with him again. They’re never going to be friends again, because he fucked it. Gem hates him, for sure. He straightens up and tries to remove his hands from her, tries to leave, but she tightens her grip like iron. Grian doesn’t know what to do. He stands there, dumbly, waiting for a cue. Anything. He needs to get out of here, but Gem won’t let him go.
Something shifts in Gem, and she looks up at him again. He looks sad, and it breaks her heart into one million little pieces. She can feel him trying to flee, but she's trying to keep him grounded. His flighty habits cannot happen right now. She needs him here. If she could just make the words come out…
Grian’s mouth opens like he’s about to say something. Gem releases one of his arms to put a hand up and muffle whatever he plans on saying.
“Give me…A second. Wait.” She says, sorting through the thoughts and feelings racing in her own mind. She kissed Grian. Grian kissed her back. Grian likes her. Gem…likes him back. Her heart is rabbit-fast, stumbling over itself. She thinks that she wouldn’t mind it if Grian kissed her again. She zeroes in on Grian, brain in overdrive.
She thinks back on every interaction she’s had with Grian. The day he joined the swordfighting class. He was not very good, back then. She mentally watches each and every spar like a slideshow, every frame a new fight. Grian never lost his stupid dopey smile when near her. She wonders if Grian secretly loved it every single time she beat him. That thought makes her face feel impossibly hotter.
“How long?” She asks, slowly. She absent-mindedly forgets to remove her hand from his mouth, so his reply is muffled.
“Forever.” He breathes, hot on her palm. Her hand retreats almost instantly at the feeling.
That makes her feel brave, though. She fully releases him, confident he won’t try to pull away again. He’s tense, and she imagines him puffed up like a bird.
“Do you want to kiss me again, Grian?”
He nods after the second it takes to process what she says. He doesn’t even trust himself to speak, yet. The mental rollercoaster he just got off of took a toll on his awareness, and he thinks he might say something very stupid if he says anything.
Gem smiles, and Grian feels the weight of a boulder lifted off his shoulders. It lights up the entire room like a shining star.
“Do it.” She says, and Grian does.
It’s hungry, desperate. Like Grian’s a starving man. He’s trying to be polite, but he really can’t keep his hands off her. His fingers trace anything he can, one hand tangled in her braid and the other dancing around her hipbone, above her shirt. He feels light, he may as well have been floating away on a cloud of Gem. He’s obsessed. He’s wanted this for so long.
Gem shivers in his hands, parting once she’s lightheaded. Their breaths mingle between them, barely any space keeping them apart. Gem’s hand searches for the one on her waist and maneuvers it to lace her fingers with his, making Grian’s heart skip. She’s so perfect.
Once Gem regains her ability to breathe properly, she reaches up and squeezes his bicep. He glances at her hand, then back at her with an eyebrow quirked.
“Sorry, that was just for me.” She says, and Grian giggles.
Out of habit, he says, “S oorry, ” elongating the o in a joking mockery of her accent, between his giggles.
She hits him.