Work Text:
Dancing--
It was beautiful, deadly, and a lot like really good sex.
Don leaned against the door of the dojo and stared, open-mouthed, as Will danced with three knife-wielding attackers. The men didn’t take turns, rather attacked Will whenever they saw an opening, which often meant Will was grappling with two or three men at once. Don had known that Will was a fourth-degree black belt in Aikido, but until he saw it in action, the ranking had meant nothing. Don had also mentally lumped Aikido with every other martial art and imagined lots of kicking and yelling. Instead, it was all circles and arcs and twists and rolls.
A man moved in from Will’s left, knife slicing through the air. It wasn’t a wooden practice knife and the man looked like he knew how to use it. Instead of moving away, Will stepped toward the attacker, moving to one side while pivoting. He grabbed the wrist of the knife hand with one hand and below the elbow with the other hand. Will twisted the man’s wrist underneath, fluidly continuing the attacker’s motion, and the man’s body flipped over and landed on the mat. The man rolled and came back up to his feet, but Will was already receiving the attack of a second man.
So it continued, over and over, Will the whirling center of a sharp-edged storm. The only sounds were occasional grunts and thumps as someone hit the mat.
The motions were so smooth, Don almost wondered if it was rehearsed, but that would be like asking if breathing was rehearsed. Even from a distance, Don could sense the energy flow in the slide of a foot, the twist of a hand, the arch of a back.
Irrationally, Don began to feel jealous of the three men working with Will. The only other place he’d seen that kind of flow was in the best sex, when lovers moved together without thought, each action moving naturally into the next.
At last, one man stopped attacking, then the second, and then the third. Will waited for a moment for one more attack, then he met the eyes of each man and bowed.
Walking off the mat, Will saw Don and gave him a surprised smile.
“Hey babe,” Will said, “I thought we were meeting later.”
“Those three men,” Don said. “You seemed to know them awfully well. Awfully well.”
Will blinked then a smile spread across his face. “Don Eppes is jealous.”
“Does he have a reason to be?”
“Oh sure, we have regular orgies after sparring, right here on the mat.”
Don raised his eyebrows and Will laughed. “I’ve known Yan for years, but the other two I just met recently.”
Don shook his head. “What you guys just did? That was amazing.”
Will grinned, pleased. “Been doing it for a long time.”
“When are you going to go up to fifth-degree belt?”
Will shrugged and picked up his towel. “It doesn’t work that way. I’m fourth dan, which is yondan. To go to fifth dan, gondan, I really need to be teaching. In fact, I probably should be teaching at yondan. I’m not interested in teaching, right now.”
“So you’re stuck at fourth?”
“Not stuck,” Will said, wiping his face. “It isn’t some sort of contest.”
“Still,” Don said. “I’d be annoyed if I couldn’t advance any more. Not being able to, you know, go up the ladder.”
“Oh, like Tae Kwon Do,” Will snapped. “With competitions and trophies and ribbons for your wall. A real martial art.”
“That’s not what I meant,” Don protested. “Just—“
“Forget personal growth or the accumulation of knowledge,” Will said bitingly. “It’s all about the number than you can hang on your belt.”
“Fourth dan is cool,” Don said, beating a hasty conversational retreat. “Much better than I’d ever do.” Don was learning to recognize the signs of Will’s temper, and when Will’s anger was knee-jerk, like Don had hit a pain reflex. Will had a lightning fast temper, and Don couldn’t yet predict what would make Will mad. There were things that Don could understand Will getting angry about, like child abuse, global warming, and Don scorching the bottom of his favorite pan, then there were things where Will got angry out of all proportion to the subject. Don would stand his ground on the real issues, but didn’t see much point in a debate where Will seemed to be arguing with someone not in the room. Don remembered belatedly that Will’s mother had ragged on him about Aikido, saying that he should have gone into a ‘respectable’ – and Korean – sport like Tae Kwon Do.
Don quickly moved to change Will’s mood. “So this Yan guy you’ve known for years?” Don said with a wiggle of his eyebrows. “How well do you know him? Should I go beat him up?”
Will barked a laugh and Don knew he’d pulled Will back from the brink. Will shouldered his gym bag.
“Now that,” Will chuckled. “I’d like to see. Yan would smear you across the wall.”
“Okay,” Don said cheerfully. “I’ll just shoot him.”
“We’re trained on taking guns away,” Will warned him with a smile. They began walking towards the locker room. “Yan is a total hetero, though, so you don’t need to try and shoot him anyway.”
“Good looking guy like that? He’s straight?” Don asked then heaved a dramatic sigh. “All the good ones are.”