Finding a 'sparring' partner

Posted on Friday 14 January 2022 @ 17:27 by

Mission: First Contact
Location: Gymnasium, Deck 14
Timeline: Mission Day 8 (Before Ramshead JP)
3126 words - 6.3 OF Standard Post Measure

ON:

Walking into the Gymnasium, Jack was about to spend some of his free time to work out a little and clear his head. His retraining for his new position in the Operations Department was a little bit more of a challenge than he had thought it would be. With operations being a little more focused on the science side of engineering, Jack has had to jump into a few crash courses and after a while he just needed a break. Picking an empty treadmill, Jack placed his workout bag next to the machine and started jogging.

Pearl decided to head into another section of the ship she'd not been to before. Most times she'd been staying in the Marine area of the ship, however Pearl decided that she needed to get a better perspective on things here. After all, there seemed to be the talk about both Marines and Ship security working together. Pearl didn't see a huge amount of difference of the gymnasium from the one down on the deck for the marines. She wandered about looking at what there was, noticing a bit of difference. The marine section had more areas for training, the sort of training that they needed to keep in tip top condition and weapon practice areas too. As she walked around, Pearl noticed someone, a blonde male running on the treadmill. He was very handsome, she moved to a better vantage point to watch him run.

She liked how he moved, as he jogged, he had a great looking body. Pearl could feel her cheeks go a bit warm. What was wrong with her? She just couldn't tear her eyes away from watching this man! Pearl decided she'd just sit down and watch for just a small amount of time, and not disturb him.

After about 30 minutes working up a good sweat, Jack slowed to a walking pace for a 5 minute cool down before moving on to his next exercise. While heavy lifting wasn't a really part of his job anymore as they had equipment for the job, he found that just manually lifting a piece of equipment was simply faster and less hassle, so his next spot was the weights bench. While his PB was just over 100kg, he started off at a more normal 50kg for a few sets, with 25kg on either side of the bar.

As Jack set up for his exercise, he couldn't shake the feeling like he was being watched, which on a ship of this size should be a regular occurrence for him but for some reason the feeling was a little more pronounced than normal. Taking a deep breath to try and focus him mind on what he was doing, he turned around to lay down on the bench when his eyes met the eyes of a rather beautiful looking, Mocha skinned, blacked haired woman. Pausing for a moment, he gave her a playful smile before laying down for his workout. Hopefully she would enjoy the show and he wouldn't make a complete arse of himself.

Pearl blinked when he had gotten done with his run, realizing that a bit of time had passed by. Well she wasn't set to go anywhere, it was her personal time as it was. Deciding though that she had stared at him long enough, Pearl moved to leave the area, but couldn't. He noticed that she had been watching and flashed a smile towards her. It stopped Pearl from leaving. That smile of his. She felt her cheeks go warm once more. Then Pearl realized that he was getting ready to do some bench presses. And it didn't look like he had a spotter. Gulping, Pearl decided to walk over to where this man was and offer her help.

"Would you like a spotter while you do your reps?" her voice sort of squeaking on the last part. "My name is Pearl Bijoux. What's your name?" then she looked down at what she was wearing, she was in uniform. "Um maybe I can help spot you after I change into something more appropriate." giving another smile.

Looking up at her, Jack pulled himself up into a seated position before answering, “yea sure, I wouldn’t mind. Having a spotter would let me go for a higher weight” he said as he held out his hand, “Jack MacGyver, operations Specialist” as he reached forward, he noticed the green on her uniform which peaked his interest, “and by the looks of it, you’re from the Corp?”

Pearl took his hand, her handshake a firm one. "Nice to meet you Jack. And yes I am in the Marines." she gulped slightly and then realizing she was still holding onto his hand, Pearl let go. "I'll be right back. I'll just go get changed." she turned around and headed to the locker area almost bumping into a piece of equipment as she had been looking over her shoulder towards Jack. A few minutes later, Pearl came back out wearing a Green Tee Shirt, some sweat pants and some joggers. Her hair was tied back in a loos pony tail.

"Okay now where were we?" Pearl asked Jack.

"Well if you're done kicking everything else in this gym, you were offering to spot me while I did some work on the bench" Jack replied, giving a nod towards the bar, "think you're up for it? I'm sure the CMO wouldn't mind less visits for minor injuries"

Pearl nodded giving a shy smile. "Lets do this." taking her position as a spotter. "And I would rather not face the wrath of the CMO or even my CO if I wasn't working with others on the ship." she took another look at Jack thinking that he was rather good looking, and then to her shock and dismay, her thoughts came out verbally, "You are really good looking." and she clapped her hand over her mouth and stared at him. "Oh crap." her words a little bit muffled from her mouth being covered.

Pausing for a moment as he reached for the bar, Jack slowly tilted his head back to look up at her. His expression slowly changed from surprised, to confused to one of struggling to hold back a laugh. biting his lip and taking a deep to compose himself, "well, I knew us Marines were bold but damn" he said, before shifting himself back into position and grabbing hold of the bar and lifting it off of its hooks. "So how is the corps these days? Still have to source your own specialty gear?"

Pearl had watched the play of Jack's emotions, her cheeks growing darker as she felt them heat up with her blush. "Um, source our specialty gear?" she raised an eyebrow at that, her mind not comprehending at the moment, it being caught up by seeing his biceps taking up the weight of the bar. She moved herself to where she could be there ready to help out.

"Yea you know" Jack said between reps, "gear that isn't standard equipment. Don't tell me it's just the recon units that do it" he said before finishing his rep of 5 and placing the bar on its hooks and looking up at her. It was only then that he noticed how close she was to him and how stunning she was. Swallowing his nerves, Jack did his best to keep his mind on his workout.

"I don't have the special equipment until it is given out. I'm a lance corporal. Maybe someday I'll be at a higher rank if I have earned it." she responded, a contemplative look on Pearl's face. "This is my last chance at making good. I've been a bit of a washout before. Heck I even tried to punch my CO early on. He gave me a chance though, to prove myself. " Pearl said, with a wry smile.

“Sounds like a familiar story, I’ve seen plenty of washouts and burnouts who just weren’t built for it, but at least you gave it a shot” Jack before placing the bar back into its hooks, sitting up and turning to face Pearl, “so where do you think you’re having trouble? Anger issues are par for the course but we just learn to channel that anger into our work right?”

"I normally do channel it into work but, I had some terrible CO's who were just so inept, well what I thought back then. One or two of them didn't rise from the ground up, they were just from taking the officer's exams and schooling and they didn't have the experience that I felt they needed. We had gotten into a bit of a mess and some good people died which I wasn't happy with, so I challenged the CO to a 'friendly' fight and put them to the floor. I got sent to another place and then another. I will admit I had an attitude problem, but I also had bad CO's. They didn't care one whit." Pearl giving a shrug. "And I got to where I didn't care about myself anymore either. I got into a poor me, my family is gone, and no way to find them. I was mad at my dad for sending me away from the trouble that was chasing the family. Some of the people he owes money too, wanted me in as part of his payment. Dad said no, sent me off to an adopted brother of his and well my Uncle who is a marine, got me into the corps, when I was old enough." Pearl shrugged, "So I can't screw this last chance, otherwise he'll just toss me out with the rest of the garbage, so to speak. You know, tough love that sort of thing." Pearl reached out and played with part of the stand for the weights, turning her eyes away from Jack.

Giving a sigh, Jack stood up and placed a hand on her shoulder, "well I was only a Marine for 4 years, but I'm sure I can help if you want. Give you someone you can blow off steam with. I may not look like much but I assure you I can take a beating" he said, flexing his arm a little. Her story hit a little close to home for him but he did his best not to show it.

Both the contact and his mentioning of being a marine got Pearl's attention. Giving Jack a long look at his physique, she smiled slightly. "I am sure you are rather durable, and I've seen your biceps. You're not a weakling that's for certain. Trim and very fit." there was an appreciative expression in her eyes. "I don't go for the beefy muscles that some men like to sport. You-" and Pearl stopped herself before she went on and embarrassed herself once more, then decided to finish her sentence. "You are what I consider the perfect build." feeling her cheeks grow warm at her statement.

“Well I try” Jack said as he gave a shrug and a boyish smile, “you’re not so bad yourself. Though I don’t see you lugging a sniper rifle around with you, so maybe not recon. Tell me, do you think you’d be up for specializing or are you more the basic grunt type?”

"I can do recon. I am in infantry, at the moment I've been more hand to hand. I am thinking that the Major is going to be pushing me to fully come into my own, learning all the aspects of the marines. I may specialize. I've never had this feeling of wanting to stretch my wings and see how high I can fly, until now." Pearl giving a happy smile. "Do you have a recommendation? Or do you want to see what I can do on the mats?" she was feeling a bit giddy at the moment. This sort of interaction was something new to her. Positive interaction.

Jack smiled, "are you challenging me Marine?"

Pearl gave a slight smirk, then she broke out into a grin. "Do you think you can show me a thing or two? I would like to see what you can do. And see who will tap out first." giving a wink as well. She looked around to see if there was anyone else present, and seeing that there was none, she breathed out a sigh of relief. "At least we can do this without an audience. When I sparred with Gunny, the other marines were watching rather closely. They wanted to see what I could do. Talk about having the feeling of being under a microscope."

Jack laughed, "what's wrong? are you afraid to be seen being beaten by a mere engineer?" he said, as he lead her over to an area of padded floor designed for sparing matches. taking off his shirt, Jack started to do a few stretches to warm up the other parts of his body that he hadn't planned on working on today. His usual work out for the day was focused on upper body strength, but a little bit of randomness was always a welcome change. "so, who starts?"

Pearl gave out an exaggerated gasp, " Well now, I'm not thinking I am going to be put to the mat too easily.." her attention was drawn to the fact he took off his shirt. "And who is to say you will be doing such to me." she watched his warm up exercises and decided she had better do some stretching herself. She didn't want to get injured in this next part. "I don't know, gentlemen first?" she quipped, giving a bit of a grin.

"gentlemen?" Jack asked, looking around for someone else, "not sure who you're talking to, but I don't see a gentlemen here" he said with a smile before shifting to a ready stance, "well let's see how rusty I am. I haven't had to use these skills in some time"

Pearl gave a light laugh, as she finished her warm up, and stood at the ready. "Yes a gentleman in my books."

After a moment, Jack rushed forward and launched into an attack with a series of boxing style jabs to test Pearl's defenses. While he wasn't putting his full power behind each strike, they still had a fair amount of force behind them.

Pearl blocked the jabs, and she had a gleeful smile, then it slipped away as a serious gleam in her eye arose. "Very nice." she stated, sending several jabs at him towards his stomach, then stepped back lightly moving upon the balls of her feet.

Letting a few of Pearl’s jabs through, Jack was impressed by the force she was putting behind her strikes. As she danced away from him, Jack decided to step his game up a little. Starting to bounce on his tip-toes, he bounded forward with a burst of speed before throwing a few kicks and jabs at her, this time in the style of kick-boxing.

Pearl managed to block most of the moves except the last one, which sent her flying back, she tucked herself into a ball and rolled with it. Ending up in a semi crouched position. He managed to nail her in the stomach, making her lose her breath. She sucked in some air letting the air refill her lungs. "Woah... what a kick!" she gasped out, a slight smile with a little bit of a grimace. She moved to get up from her semi crouched position and rose to her feet.

Jack gave a cheeky grin, “what can I say? Gotta have strong legs to hold up all of this awesome” he said before flexing every muscle in his torso, “who needs a body like a temple when you can have an armoury”

Pearl smiled, "I can see that." her cheeks going a dark pink. "Well... once I have caught my breath, want to continue?" At the moment she was trying to get her pulse down, the man was was a bit distracting. She had to focus, but dang it. She may need to take a cold shower pretty soon. Very soon indeed.

"I'm all for continuing, but I'd rather not have a division CO beating down my door asking why I've been beating up on one of their marines" Jack replied as he walked over to Pearl and tossed her a towel he's quickly grabbed along the way, "consider this me throwing in the towel."

Pearl caught the towel, and wiped off her face, then slightly chuckled, "Maybe we can do a holo-program and do team work? I would love that." giving a soft smile. "I am sure you can teach me somethings I may not know about."

Offering Pearl a hand up, Jack gave her another boyish smile, “sounds like fun to me. Who wouldn’t want to fight beside a Valkyrie like yourself”

Accepting the hand up Pearl smiled. "Um.. well.. Thanks." she just wasn't used to this sort of treatment let alone a compliment. "Well, am looking forward to us doing that as well." on an impulse she kissed Jack on his cheek. Then her eyes widened, "Oh um.. " realizing what she had just done. "Well yeah I had better be going... um.." she didn't quite know what to do, maybe she should leave for now before she embarrassed herself anymore.

Caught a little off guard, Jack gave Pearl a half smile before grabbing hold of one of her hands, gently brought it up to his lips and gave the back of her hand a kiss. "until we meet again my lady"

Pearl gulped, another thing she hadn't anticipated, the kiss of the hand. "Um... sure I would love that." her cheeks warming once more. "Okay, um see you around." then she abruptly dashed off, she didn't know what else to do. When she was out of his sight, Pearl gave a little squeal and a little bit of a jump. Noticing some interested stares, Pearl headed to her quarters. Jack was so handsome!

Standing where he was for a moment, Jack had to keep himself from bursting out laughing at Pearl's reactions to him. Taking a deep breath, he returned to the bench lift station he'd been at, gave it a wipe down with some sanitation wipes that were at every station, collected his gear and headed off to his quarters for a shower. He would have to decide along the way weather the shower would be a warm or cold one.

OFF:

>>>* Chief Petty Officer Johnathan "Jack" MacGyver
Operations Specialist
USS Merlin

&

Lance Corporal Pearl Bijoux
Marine
USS Merlin