MANY apologies for the incredibly long delay! For some reason, this chapter just wanted to give me a LOT of trouble. It took a while to iron it out, but here it is! Hopefully you enjoy it. Special thanks to all those at the MM LJ Board who helped me get past my writing hurdle with this!
Secondly, some GOOD news and some BAD news. The GOOD news is Mary-muse and Marshall-muse are behaving again! That means not-so-long breaks between chapters.
The BAD news is I will be going on a month-long hiatus beginning November 1st, so as to participate in the 2009 NaNoWriMo. But I will be back on December 1st at latest.
I always am. =)
~SRDempsey
Fury and Flames
Chapter Eight
"Aren't you supposed to be resting?"
"What?" With a solid round-house kick to Marshall's raised arm, she grinned in exultation at his wince. "You moved!"
"Did not," he shot back pointedly, avoiding the kick at his head she sent at him half-heartedly at best. To Bobby D's observation, Marshall told him, "This is her resting."
For the life of him, Bobby didn't understand the two marshals before him. At all. He could follow Marshall's line of reasoning easily enough sometimes, but how the man himself came upon the things in his head were beyond him. Hell, ALL of Stan's people, as far as Bobby was concerned, were mental.
It'd been a month since the shooting. His department had been running every lead available to every fathomable dead end with nothing to show for it…yet. And yet here Shannon was with Mann at Bradley's Gym – the unofficial law enforcement gym in Albuquerque – sparring with him full throttle.
If this was resting, he never wanted to see them really go at it.
"Aw, you worried for me Dershowitz?" she crooned with a saucy grin, taunting him. Bobby took a deep breath and reminded himself that he was not a child. He would not rise to the bait. Would not stick his tongue out at the insufferable marshal like a child.
"Worried you may croak from over exertion and make me have to do paperwork on my day off," he shot back, grinning with Marshall who laughed and dodged a left hook that would've connected with his eye soundly. "Never mind close down the gym and deprive Albuquerque's fine lawmen of their sanctuary for a week. You ever WORK with wound up police before, Shannon?"
"Sure I have," she laughed. "I wind them up myself. I wind them up REAL good." Mary laughed gaily as Marshall shook his head at him.
Well, he did set that one up. Bobby smirked slightly. "Mann, how do you put up with her? Admit it…you tranquilize her on missions, don't you? Slip her sleeping pills?"
"Ply her with chocolate," he snickered.
"And sex," Mary added with a flippant – and mocking – toss of her hair that made Marshall choke on his laughter. "He knows how I like it rough."
Bobby covered his mouth so she could not see his smirk, noting his friend's reddened ears somewhat amusedly even as Mary cackled in renewed mirth.
Can he be much easier to read? Of course, Shannon remained oblivious. Bobby hoped it was feigned on her part, but who knew when it came to these two? He'd learned long ago to not expect anything where they were concerned.
The suddenly vicious gleam of mischief in her eyes was proof of his point. It was kind of look he was sure most men would delight in having shot their way, but Bobby knew better. Hell, it certainly made him smile, but nothing good ever came from Mary Shannon when she had that expression on her face, bullet to the leg or not.
"How about you, Dershowitz?" she smiled, trying for innocence and failing spectacularly. "Think you can give it to me how I like it?" The double entendre was as subtle as a boulder on his head, and he shouldn't have caved, but Bobby had a weakness. Shannon and Mann both knew it, too. He loved challenges of any kind. He could not back down.
And that was as blatant a challenge as any.
He did not pity him, though the thrashing Bobby's ego must've taken certainly warranted it. Marshall had taken such beatings more then once, however, and in his own way his friend was long overdue to 'take some for the team'.
The Mary Shannon Cleanup Crew, that is.
He watched his friend fly, momentum and weight turned against him as Mary flipped him onto his back hard enough to knock the air from his lungs and pin him to the mats. The other APD officers would never let Bobby hear the end of it from their looks, but the local FBI and USMS people hovering around the gym to watch the daily spars knew better.
Mary Shannon was a hell-raising force to be reckoned with.
Which is why Marshall felt like shooting them all – especially paraplegic Simon Bradley, owner of Bradley's Gym and Albuquerque's very own former chief of police.
"Why don't you and your partner go at it on the mats for real?" he jested loudly, hooting at the mental image it no doubt conjured. Marshall scowled at him from his position outside of Mary's visual range, but let it drop as she did that slow head turn towards him, expectant.
Damn them all to the fiery corners of hell.
There were numerous reasons Marshall disliked sparring with Mary…the most prominent being their inability to keep it as just a spar. When they practiced, they went all out, and neither of them was going to be able to move for at least 36 hours after all was said and done. The last time he could recall sparring with her, they'd just gotten paired together as a team, and she wanted to make sure she wouldn't be 'dragging his ass' during their more physically demanding duties.
She'd never complained about it to him again.
But now…now Mary wanted to. Again. Just for the hell of it because they had nothing else to do and she was spoiling for and honest to goodness fight. It was there in her face and fire-filled eyes the fact that, when it came down to it, he was the only one ballsy – suicidal – enough to go full out against her. The only one worth challenging.
Marshall heaved a long, almost tired sigh, but smiled just slightly. A mere quirk of his lips in amusement, because given the chance he'd still tie himself to this particular hell raiser any day even if it really was tiring some days.
And that slight quirk of his lip was all the answer she needed.
Sparring with Marshall was fun.
He did not let loose much, but in a fight her partner went all out. It was wonderful to watch and even better to go up against. He was all long legs and deceptively nimble limbs – a fact that Mary knew only too well. He was as slippery as an eel and fast, but he had weak spots. Plenty of them.
She was no fool – Marshall surpassed her in speed, strength, and flexibility. Mary knew this. As they circled each other like two predators, the cheering of their fellow lawmen drowned out with the rest of the background noise, Mary smiled predatorily and felt more then a little smug when she saw him tense.
Ready or not, doofus, here I come!
Mary aimed a kick at his torso with her right leg, right in that sensitive spot she knew he had, and Marshall laughed as he pulled back and grabbed her leg, attempting to unbalance her. She broke out of it with a twist, hand on the mats and free leg whipping around to knock him in the head faster then the first. Marshall dodged back, freeing her leg, and tsked.
"That was mean," he lamented, smiling as he dodged a punch to his shoulder blade and hopped over her sweeping kick.
"This is a spar," she shot back, annoyed as he dodged and blocked again. "As in fight back!"
"Land a hit on me and I will," he taunted, wagging his eyebrows in that irritating manner that never failed to piss her off, and Mary put all the strength she had into her next kick, irked. He blocked again – predictably – but with considerable more effort.
Good.
Her leg ached a bit where the bullet had hit her a month ago, but Mary ignored it. She'd been good and stayed in bed a full week after being released from the hospital, and forced, damn him, to take it easy for the following two weeks and allow her injury to heal up nicely. She'd even learned a thing or two about the stupid computers from helping their live-in CIA agents track down some cyber-leads when she got too restless. Mary wasn't going to let a little ache ruin her fun the first damn day she had gotten to go to the gym and get back in shape after a month's bed rest.
No way in hell.
"Take her down a peg!" one of the local FBI agents was shouting…and was that money?
Marshall saw it too and groaned. "Don't place bets!"
"You nuts?" Bobby shot back, still glowering over his earlier defeat, "This is just about the match of the year! Fifty on Mann!"
Mary twitched, only partly aware of Marshall's growing sense of doom. This was why their spars weren't spars so much as glorified fights. "I'm kicking all your chauvinist asses after I kick his!" First on the list was going to be the marshal slapping his ass at her tauntingly.
They were all going to pay…
Marshall didn't bother trying to grab her as Mary came at him with renewed vigor. Now she had something to prove to all the chauvinists who he was certain were secretly conspiring to get him killed. He only saw two feasible options now…give her the fight she wanted or get knocked in the nuts. And that wasn't even taking into account the royal lashing she'd give him for holding out on her if he took the 'easy' way out.
If a leg to his most sensitive spot could be called 'easy', anyway.
Mary didn't pull her punches with him. Ever. It went against some internal code of hers. And nothing was sacred when she fought. Biting, scratching, pinching, hair pulling…she wouldn't spare his dignity just because he was her partner. If anything, she'd go all out because whether she realized it or not, she had higher expectations of her partners more then any other. He'd seen it even before Stan had paired them off and her disappointment when they'd failed.
As of yet, Marshall hadn't failed her.
Which is why he grabbed Mary's arm as it passed by his face, narrowly missing its intended target. Her eyes widened as she realized her predicament, and Marshall took that moment of surprise to knock her feet out from under her in a swift move that had her on her back in a second.
Just as fast, her feet tangled with his and Marshall found himself right next to her on his back, rolling to his feet before she could do something mortifying like sit on him.
"You should be proud of that, doofus. No one gets me on my back unless I want to be there," she jested as they circled again.
Innocently, with a smile cultivated just for the sole purpose of getting a rise out of Mary, he shot back over the catcalling of their peers, "Does that mean you want me to get you on your back?"
Haughty laughter, louder whistling, and a look that would scorch a lesser man right down to his toes came his way. "You wouldn't be able to HANDLE it, doofus!" She punctuated it with a swing of her fist that he narrowly avoided, more from distraction then anything.
What could he say? He was a guy. Envisioning such things was just what they did.
He continued to dodge, watching her face that sank deeper into irritation with each second. His time for contemplation was growing rapidly thin before she resorted to kicking him in, say, the nuts. And while Marshall really didn't want to fight her, even in jest, he was not a masochist. He didn't like pain.
And Mary just didn't care how much she dished out when she was annoyed enough.
Like now.
"Come on, doofus! I promise not to break anything," she taunted with a kick that snapped up like a whip and barely missed his chin. "Permanently, anyway. Or maybe I should ask your brother the beefcake for what I want? He certainly seems willing to give me what I ask for."
There was no way, really, for Mary to know how irritating that sentence was to him. Then again, maybe she did. But whether she did or not, the result was the same.
She came at him with a right hook that would make any brawler proud, and Marshall grabbed her outstretched arm deftly, ire making him peevish as he flipped her. Mary grabbed his arm, however, and he stumbled forward, pulled by Mary's momentum as she hit the mats and the foot she planted on his chest. He tumbled half into the surrounding crowd when he let go of her out of sheer shock, landing harshly on his back.
That's going to hurt later.
She pounced on him before Marshall could get back up, vibrating with tension. All her irritation over having to send her family away, dealing with Raph, and otherwise fighting an unjust world was getting unleashed. Mary wasn't seeing him – she was seeing just another practice dummy.
She clawed and scratched and pulled hair as they rolled all over the mats, more like petulant children fighting over the last candy bar then two marshals sparring, but it wasn't about the fight today. It was about letting off steam and Marshall certainly had his fair share to let loose as well.
With a hoist, he got his foot flat against her and pushed hard enough to get her off him, but not enough to hurt. Marshall was ready for her when she rebounded, fangs bared, and actually got knocked in the jaw before he managed to grab her in an arm lock that left her cursing.
"This pressure point will hurt worse if you keep fighting," he whispered in her ear, fingers digging into her arm. "Uncle?"
She admitted defeat in the same breath that she called his parentage into question among other things and Marshall laughed as he caught the towel she threw at him irritably. "If any of that were true, Mar, I'd be physically and mentally ill."
"As opposed to just being mentally fucked up?" She said it with a grin, however, and laughed before slapping him on the back and ducking into the women's locker room to change.
Marshall had just peeled off his sweaty shirt and was about to strip down to his boxers when he heard her curse and was already through the door and near where she'd stored her things when she shouted, "Marshall!"
"What?" He glanced around out of habit, taking in their surroundings. "What happened?"
She pointed and he followed her finger with his gaze, observing the photo taped onto her black sports bag with the USMS insignia in bright gold. It wasn't anything grizzly as one might expect, but the post-it pressed onto the bottom edge of it made him freeze. Below the picture of what was certainly Brandi and Jinx at so random bistro, the post it made clear more then anything else just how bad things were going to get.
"Shall I say hello to your lovely mother and sister, inspector?"
A/N: Dun dun dun. And this is where I leave off for a month. Wish me luck at NaNoWriMo and as always, give me some feedback! I wanted to have them fight but, unfortunately, it didn't work out well. Maybe in another chapter.
So you know what to do…review!