He’d managed to knock Tris Mayweather off balance, and he couldn’t believe it.
Before he could indulge in a giddy laugh, Tris was after him, scowling, brows drawn low, jaw set as stone.
Shit.
Francis popped back to his feet and got his arm up just in time to block the hard jab Tris sent toward his neck. Their forearms collided with bone-jarring force, the impact shuddering up through his shoulder, and neck, setting his teeth; he bit the inside of his cheek.
The next blow came at his head, and he barely got his other arm up, wondering with a sick lurch if Tris was actually going to try to hurt him, now. If he was embarrassed that he’d been bested in some small way.
Worried thus, Francis wasn’t ready for the next hit: all three had come in a heated flurry of movement. It caught him in the stomach, just up under his ribs. Not hard enough to rupture anything, but hard enough to knock the breath from him, and leave him bent over, gagging.
Tris gave no quarter. He got Francis’s wrist in an iron grip, twisted his arm until it was a choice of spin, or have his shoulder dislocated. He ended up, like he did most times, down on his knees on the mat, one strong hand on his wrist, the other heavy and hot between his shoulder blades, pressing his face down into the padded rubber.
His breath caught in his throat, as was becoming routine, not from the force of impact, but from the feeling of iron-tight fingers on his skin, and the heat of a wide palm against his vertebrae. He couldn’t breathe because of the strong, heavy body poised just above his, touching in places, heat radiating off of Tris, his breath just audible through his lips; because even if Tris was bigger and stronger, Francis was big and strong enough that pinning him down like this still took effort.
The knowledge sent a shiver through him, like it did every time.
“That was a lucky hit.” Tris didn’t growl the words, but it was a near thing. “And you still can’t get out of a hold.” Accusatory, rather than mocking.
Francis had tried, in their sparring sessions. Had tried twisting, and bucking, and rolling away; had closed his eyes, gritted his teeth, and tried, to no avail, to outmuscle him. Nothing had worked. Tris was as solid and unyielding as the stone he so often resembled.
But Francis had seen that flash of anger today. And he’d seen other flashes, too – not enough to be encouraged, exactly. But he’d seen…little tics. Quick smiles; aborted hand movements like he’d meant to clap Francis on the shoulder after a vigorous match, but then thought better of it. There had been that moment in the locker room, after the last op, the way he’d looked away, the stumbling note in his voice when he’d offered his help in the first place.
Francis didn’t think, when it really came down to it, that Tris was as unflappable as he appeared. But, like with sparring, it would take just the right move to tip him out of his comfortable sternness and into something like true emotion.
Francis took a deep breath, and moved as best he could, given their positions.
He didn’t try to get away, though. No, instead, he pressed back, shifting into Tris, until his ass was flush against the cradle of his hips.
His reward was this: Tris went very still. He sucked in a quick breath that was almost a gasp. And then, suddenly, he was scrambling up and off of Francis.
Oh shit, Francis thought, because Tris didn’tscrambleanywhere. He stalked, and lunged, and stormed – but he didn’t stumble and clamber, undignified and clumsy.
Francis rolled over so he was sitting on the mat, and glanced up at his mentor, unsure what he would find, expecting a thunderous scowl and a reprimand. Maybe even – shit, maybe even a telling-off. Hateful words, assurances that Tris was definitelynot…
He didn’t expect to see Tris staring down at him with a totally blank expression, white as a sheet.
His hands hovered open at his sides, his whole strong body coiled for a retreat, or maybe an attack. His gaze tracked back and forth over Francis’s face, eyes wide, and dark, and full of a hundred doubts. He almost – almost lookedafraid.
“Tris?” Francis asked. “Are you alright?”
Tris’s jaw worked. He opened and closed his mouth a few times. Then he spun away and stalked out of the room without answering.
~*~
“I think I fucked up,” Francis confided to Rose that evening over trays of soy slop that was supposed to be spaghetti and meatballs.
Her look evidenced curiosity, but not surprise as she twirled noodles onto her fork. “What? Did you break his nose? That might actually be an improvement.”
“Hey, there’s nothing wrong with his nose.”
She smirked.
“No, it’s…” He could already feel a blush coming on. “We were sparring, and I got in a good lick, got him off balance.”
“Well done.”
“I thought so, but then he was pissed, and he came at me hard.” He rubbed the sore spot along his stomach where a bruise was starting to form. “He got me pinned.”
