exy-courts:

• Andrew gets Neil to spar with Renee one day. Neil had been tagging along to the gym for months now, and Andrew’s sick of him flinching everytime a knife blade flashes too close to him.
• (It’s also hard at night, when they both have nightmares and Andrew grabs for his knives, and Neil has to go to the bathroom to calm down, because it’s hard sometimes, how knives are a coping method for Andrew but a trigger for Neil)
• They’d talked about it a few times, Andrew asking about Neil brushing up on his knife skills, asking if he’d be comfortable holding them. Neil’d hesitated for a moment, but agreed. It became a habit for him to fall asleep with his hand curled around Andrew’s sheathes or for him to twirl a knife while they watched an Exy match on TV. 
• So the Foxes are using the gym one day, and Renee asks Andrew if he wants to spar, but he declines, so she goes and asks Neil. Andrew pretends not to listen for his answer, but Neil can see that he hadn’t resumed lifting weights even after Renee left. 
• Neil agrees. He doesn’t feel the same amount of fear that he used to around knives, but he still has some measure of apprehension. That’s good though. You should always be a little scared when holding something that could take a life. Nathan and Riko had no fear, and look where it got them. 
• The Foxes try not to make a big deal of it. They pretend to continue working out, but it gets harder as the fight continues. The blades are dulled, but it’s still a dance of death that no one can look away from.
• Neil’s better than Andrew, maybe even better than Renee if he wasn’t so rusty, and it shows. After all, he grew up with blood on his hands and steel in his smile. 
• In Andrew’s matches against Renee, his strength and unwillingness to go down are enough to at least hold his own. He doesn’t win, but he doesn’t outright lose often. 
• It’s about five minutes in, maybe a little longer, when Renee starts getting desperate, and Neil knows he’s won. Both of them have histories with these sort of fights though, and Neil knows that Renee will do whatever she has to in these final minutes to just keep alive, so he goes all out too. Finally, when Renee’ s metaphorically backed in a corner, and Neil only has to figure out what way he wants to pin and disarm her, Renee throws her knife.
• In a fight against Andrew she never would’ve done it. Andrew’d tried it a few times before, but he was always clumsy enough with it that there was no risk of serious injury. Here, though the blades are dulled, there’s enough propulsion and force that it’d at least break the skin, and Neil knows it. 
• She still had enough sense to through it towards something non vital, just his arm, perhaps hoping to disarm him and leave them both weaponless, and it’s spot on. (In her old gang they used to throw knives at the drug runners that would skim some off the top. She’d learned how to aim well.)
• Instead of trying to deflect it, or side step, Neil calculates, and judges, and reaches out his hand lightning fast as the knife is flipping past, and just manages to grab the hilt and part of the blade. He hisses, but holds on. Neil picks up his own knife that he’d dropped to get to Renee’s, but before he can move to her, Renee says she yields, and that’s that. 
• The gym is silent except for their harsh breathing, when someone starts to clap, slow and sarcastically (Neil knows it’s Andrew, everyone else was too busy trying to pick their jaws up off the floor). The rest quickly copy, and Neil turns and nods an acknowledgment while Renee smiles pleasently. 
• They shake hands, and Neil hands the knives back to Renee, and Renee apologizes. Both know that the throw was a little dirty, and shouldn’t have happened in this sort of fight, but Neil understands her, and understands that feeling. He assures her that all’s well, and doesn’t say no to meeting back next week to do it again. 
• He’s just on the edge of panicky, and feel’s a little like he’s going to drown, and his hands are shaking while he reaches for his water, but Andrew reminds him that Renee wasn’t hurt at all, and that she did actually enjoy it, and Neil’s mind is satisfied with the knowledge that for once, his blades didn’t hurt anyone. 
• Later that night when they’re getting ready for bed, Andrew offers him a knife, and Neil considers it, but shakes his head. He still has bad memories associated with knives, but there’re good one’s too – of Renee and Andrew, and protection instead of pain.