24- Jacob

Sneaking one more glance into the library to make certain that Fortitude was still sleeping soundly in her favorite chair, Jacob ran a hand through his smooth brown hair and opened the door to the basement staircase. He'd been so busy lately that he hadn’t had a chance to get a decent workout in days, and today his body was begging him to go downstairs and give it a proper beating.

He didn’t have anyone to spar with. Karl was still on doctor’s orders to take it easy, and even if he weren’t, Jacob hadn’t even seen Karl since before his doctor’s visit that morning. And Hespah had been sulking around and avoiding him for the past two weeks. Karl said it was probably just jealousy. Seeing him with Fortitude made her want Shepetheleh even more. Jacob could understand that. 

Especially since Shepetheleh hadn’t even entered a carrier yet. His return was still a long way off.

So Jacob was working out alone today. Perhaps he’d start with a little yoga to stretch out his stiff muscles, then some calisthenics, and maybe an hour or two in the weight room, and then he planned to strap on some gloves and spend a good three or four hours breaking in his new punching bag. He grinned at the prospect– it had been a while since he’d last thrown a punch.

Midway down the stairs he heard the muffled sound of gunshot coming from the general direction of the shooting range. Curious, he ran down the rest of the staircase and trotted toward the far corner where the shooting range had been installed.

He opened the door and was instantly overwhelmed by a blaring cacophony of screaming voices and electric guitars, punctuated by the methodical rhythm of a gun being shot to the beat of the so-called "music". Grinning, Jacob took a pair of ear-plugs from the shelf by the door and shoved them into his ears before heading toward the last stall.

Karl was making a perfect pentagram of evenly-spaced bullet-holes in the center of the man-shaped target in front of him. He was wearing the black fitted Nike t-shirt Jacob had given him, and the gray rip-stop Dakine shorts with the little pockets on the back. Jacob loved those shorts. But alas, he was ruining the effect with a thick pair of brown wool socks. Brown. Jacob rolled his eyes.  That man would never learn.

The pentagram complete, Karl finished the target off with a shot to the center of its head, a shot in the center of each hand, and one in the crotch, before he set his gun down and pressed the button for a new target. Jacob took the opportunity to tap him on the shoulder while he was unarmed.

Karl turned around and flashed a dazzling smile, then fumbled for the little remote in his pocket to stop the music.

"Karl!" Jacob shouted with a grin as he removed the plugs from his throbbing ears, "What the hell are you doing?"

Karl shrugged. "The doctor said I can train again, as long as I don’t push myself too hard."

"And you don’t think firing a gun is going to jar your injuries at all?"

"No, it’s fine. Really." Karl rolled his eyes. "I’ve been trying to tell you for more than a week now, I’m all healed up."

Jacob crossed his arms. "And your doctor agrees with you about that?"

"Absolutely." Karl took a step forward and cocked a mischievous half-smile. "I’m fit to resume all of my normal activities."

Jacob raised an eyebrow at that. "Oh, really?" His eyes wandered over the fitted black shirt, the perfectly-tailored gray shorts . . . and those offensive brown socks poking up from the tops of Karl’s black and white cross-trainers. He sighed. "Okay then. Why don’t you meet me on the mat for a little light sparring?"

Karl grinned.  "You're on.  Just give me a minute to put things away in here."

"Of course. I have to stretch out first anyway."

Less than five minutes later, the two of them were circling each other in the center of a large blue mat.

Jacob began with a standard boxing stance. He kept his head down, his fists up to guard his face. He kept his knees slightly bent for freedom of movement and continuously shifted his weight back and forth from one foot to the other, ready to dodge or strike whenever he had to. "Don’t worry," he said, "I’ll go easy on you."

"Don’t bother." Karl, as he usually did when the two of them had a bare-knuckle sparring match, adopted a basic jiu-jitsu stance– hands out in front of him, pawing lightly at the air like a cat swatting at a toy, feet apart and knees bent low, with most of his weight settled over his front leg, but ready to shift to the other leg at any moment.

Jacob made an opening jab with his left fist, but Karl dodged low and swatted it away with one hand. Jacob pulled back and bounced a little, then came back in with a quick one-two aimed low, which actually landed on Karl’s sides, and ending with a right uppercut aimed at his jaw, which Karl caught in an iron grip with his right hand. Knowing better than to try to pull his arm free, Jacob took advantage of Karl’s one-handed defense– and his lower stance– to send a candy cane punch right at Karl’s ear.

But as his left fist came down, his right arm twisted, and in one fluid motion, Jacob found himself on the floor, his face smashed into the mat, with Karl sitting on his back. Jacob wriggled backward until Karl was positioned over his shoulders, then thrust his body upward so that Karl was knocked head-first into the mat, then he bounced back up onto his feet, trying to regain his boxer’s advantage. But as soon as he was standing again, Karl’s right leg hooked around Jacob’s left knee, and his other leg swept across the fronts of Jacob's ankles so that he collapsed back down onto the floor again.

"Damn you, Karl," Jacob grunted as he tried to fend off the arms and legs that were wrapping themselves around his shoulders and knees. "You have the body of a snake!"

"Yeah, well . . ." Karl gasped as he hooked his elbows around Jacob’s shoulders and clasped his hands behind his head, pushing Jacob’s chin into the mat, "You said you were going to go easy on me . . ."

Jacob wriggled under Karl’s weight but found he couldn’t effectively move anything. "I was going easy on you . . . I thought you were still weak from your injuries . . . my mistake."

Karl climbed up off of him and sat down on the mat, breathing hard. "Well, it sure didn’t feel like you were pulling your punches . . ." he muttered as he pulled off his shirt to inspect his ribs.  In addition to the fresh red scars that still decorated much of his torso, two large, ugly welts had already formed on the sides of his body where Jacob had hit him.

Jacob sat up, rubbing the back of his neck and rolling his right shoulder where it had been twisted. "I always pull my punches when we fight," he muttered. "I don’t actually want to hurt you."

"No shit. Both of you were holding back."

Jacob and Karl both turned to see Hespah’s new face watching them from the foot of the stairs. She was dressed in a pair of gray yoga pants and a red tank top that showed off all of the tight, hard muscles in her arms. "If you two really fought with each other like you do with me, you’d both be completely ass-fucked for a week." She smirked at them, then added, "In a bad way."

Jacob grinned. He supposed that was true. What he and Karl did in here was really just play-fighting, after all.

Hespah kicked off her shoes and stepped onto the mat in her bare feet. "Now who wants to go against me?"

Jacob and Karl exchanged a wary glance.

"Well, Karl’s still supposed to be taking things slow right now . . ." Jacob told her.

She rolled her eyes.  "That's an old lady's excuse," she replied with a dismissive flip of her cherry-red hair.  Then she looked at Jacob.  "So what about you?"

"Well . . ."

Hespah growled, then pulled off her tank top and tossed it aside, revealing a black sports bra and a set of eight impossibly chiseled abs. "Fine then," she said as she crouched down onto her hands and feet like some wild cat coiled for a pounce. "I’ll take both you assholes."

Jacob knew that look in her eyes, even with the new face. Taking a deep breath, he adopted a wide, low stance and raised his fists up to guard his head.

Hespah smirked at Jacob, then turned to Karl. "Come on, blondie," she called, "I promise I’ll be gentle."

Reluctantly, Karl stepped forward, then decided to forego the usual opening stance and dropped right into a strange seated position, his arms and legs out at odd angles, his hands open like he was ready to catch something. It was an odd sight for Jacob, but Hespah apparently recognized this pose, because she smiled, reared back, and launched herself.