FUBAR [Jack]

Ooh, Dunham was angry now; Brody smirked, admittedly a little excited about the prospect of an actual fight. He started again with light, predictable moves, but this time grabbed Brody's left arm to drag him in for a kick to the ribs; while Brody wasn't fast enough to block the move entirely --and the knee to the ribs did hurt--, he did manage to capture Dunham's leg between his own and his free right arm. Then came the elbow to the side of his head, and the unfortunately familiar, sickening noise of his own nose breaking.

That wasn't very nice.

Brody's eyes watered, typical for a broken nose, but he didn't let go of Dunham's leg, grabbing it with the other arm. He was going to pay for that. Using Dunham's joints against him, Brody twisted the leg until Dunham landed face-first on the ground, this time taking the opportunity to put him in a leg lock with one foot on his groin and the other holding his leg in place as Brody strained the ankle, knowing it would also lock up the calf muscle.

"I dunno boot, what about it?" He asked, straining the joint further and knowing it was close to breaking. "You got 10 seconds."

Brody knew that leg move; it was one of the more advanced moves taught to potential tributes towards the end of their training. Knowing he had the option to let go or have his arm broken, Brody swiftly let go and bounded a couple of steps back to get out of range and give him a second to pick his next move. His particular style of grappling relied more on leverage and straining joints than strength; he had always honed his power more towards strikes and speed. He could give credit where credit was due though... Dunham's self defense skills didn't suck.

But, he was still a recruit, and Brody's ego was entirely too large to let him have the win without putting him through the ringer to get it. ('Which, of course, he won't.')

While Dunham was getting back to his feet, Brody took his chance, sweeping his rear foot forward and twisting again to get the momentum he needed to jump up off the ground and aim a kick at Dunham's face.

Rather satisfyingly, Brody's kick caught Dunham squarely in the side of the head, clearly disorienting him for a moment; it's not bleeding, and probably for the better that it missed his jaw. But Dunham doesn't dwell on it too long, because he's back in a moment throwing punches. They seem to be less measured, the kick seemed to have dazed Dunham more than a tiny bit; the only thing that meant to Brody was that this thing was almost over if he could find a good opening.

This time he decided to lean on the metaphorical ropes, blocking Dunham's punches with his forearms and letting the kid punch himself out. And by the sound of it he was getting close, if that breathless question was anything to go by. Brody must have knocked the wind out of him harder than he thought, though apparently not hard enough if Dunham had the breath to make jabs about whether or not Brody was convinced he didn't need any more hand-to-hand training... he could only imagine what rumors the other recruits would circulate seeing the shape they were in, especially after only the first day. Let them talk, god knows he had been starved for entertainment and information during his time in the Academy.

Dunham threw a few more punches, when Brody finally saw his opening; a punch glanced off the side of his forearm, and Brody flung his arm down to pin Dunham's to his body. With the other he --albeit clumsily, with the angle-- deflected another aimed at his less-protected face, and swung hard at Dunham's ribs.

It took a second of cooling off for Brody to pause long enough to realize Dunham was down and was clearly not getting back up; he was still plenty riled up between his broken nose and the rush of adrenaline, and every competitive fiber of his being wanted to finish the fight properly. In any other case, he would have, but Brody made himself remember; it was his job now to give a shit, and it would probably come back to bite him in the ass if Ma'am found out he had KO-ed his charge less than a full day after being assigned this detail. But there was no way Brody had hit Dunham hard enough to even crack his ribs, let alone break them.

"Dunham. Calm down." He said evenly, still a little breathless from the exertion of the fight. "Lesson two; if you're injured on the front line, you need to remain calm. Control your breathing, do not panic."

This seemed pretty dramatic for a punch to the ribs, what with the gasping and what was obviously real, intense pain; even Brody could put his ego aside to go into work mode, remembering his first aid training. He turned Dunham onto his back as carefully as he could, grabbing an armful of self-defense pads to prop his legs up, and folding his still unused towel to put under his head.

Brody couldn't get himself off the train of thought, There is no way I hit him hard enough to break his ribs. Strong as he was, it would take several knees or kicks to do that kind of damage. There were only two possibilities, and either way, someone was going to have Brody's foot broken off in their ass.

When Dunham's rapid breathing seemed to calm some, Brody looked at him sternly.

"Recruit Dunham. Were you injured at some point in Academy, or is there something you withheld from your recruiter."

That would explain a lot. Of course, Brody's first question was why the flying f*ck nobody had bothered to tell him his new charge had been stabbed, of all things.

Which in turn pissed him off even further, though for once not directed at Dunham. Whether the reason he'd not had access to the recruit's file was because he wasn't an official drill instructor or he just hadn't received it yet, he could have easily gone back to his unit before a whole day was over having to explain to the Lieutenant why he'd (re)hospitalized his charge. And the Lt. was not a woman to care much about details, she only wanted results. (And there were few things Brody hated above being made to look bad, especially when he'd worked so hard to get into his superiors' good graces.)

Brody didn't bother trying to dig through Dunham's training bag, instead just taking the whole thing back with him to the mat. It took a minute of waiting around before Dunham managed to calm his breathing enough to find what he could only assume was some kind of inhaler prescribed for just such an occasion; Brody honestly wasn't paying much attention to his recovery, he was more than a little preoccupied thinking about how he was going to phrase this incident in a way that would maximize how hard and how far Ma'am rammed her boot up somebody's ass for neglecting to pass along Dunham's file.

"I see." He said flatly. "I need to have words with Admin, then."

Unfortunately, it appeared they were done for the day; Dunham seemed barely able to sit up, let alone continue with any kind of physical training.

"Hit the showers, go to Medical if necessary; the rest of the day is yours, but don't expect my leniency to continue if I find out you're not using it productively. There will be a uniform inspection tomorrow."

There were days that Brody loved his job. Particularly yesterday.

Not because he got to whale on a recruit without consequence (that was somewhat spoiled by the fact that Admin had neglected to pass his file along to Brody, and had almost resulted in re-hospitalizing Dunham), but for the ass-chewing Dunham's previous drill instructor had received for failing to pass aforementioned information along. Granted, Brody didn't yet have the rank to do it himself, but the looks of pain on the Sergeant's face as his Lieutenant broke her foot off in his ass for an hour was equally satisfying. If looks could kill, Brody might've been dead a hundred times over from the face the Sergeant had made at him, especially after reminding him that he was only following protocol and 'didn't want to see the future of Panem's military suffer'.

He almost started laughing in the hallway thinking about it. That was some high-quality bullshit right there, and the Sergeant knew it. There just wasn't anything he could do about it, and the Lieutenant ate that politically-correct crap right up.

Now that that was all straightened out, Brody was all but marching his way down the corridor to where he knew Dunham racked up; if his uniform was anywhere near as disappointing as it was yesterday, he was going to have a hell of a time cleaning it after Brody dropped him into whatever unfathomable disgusting-ness was on that compartment floor. He knew all too well that cleaning days only happened once a week, and 'divisional intensive training' happened far more often than that. Small wonder the instructors were such germaphobes, recruits did amazing, disgusting things every day.

Brody shuddered to think of some of his old division-mates years back.

The door was open, with only Dunham and the watch remaining in the compartment; Brody knew that the senior divisions in their last few days typically started training extra early. The watch saluted, stammering some crap about "Recruit something-or-other, day watch, blah blah blah".

"I'm here for Dunham, carry on."

Apparently it was well known at this point that Dunham was his 'special project'. Brody stopped, his own white uniform as immaculate as it was yesterday; no spots on his clothes, no scuffs in his boots, no smudges on his helmet and no careless nicks on his face. The last time the Captain had paid a visit to his unit, he'd commented that Brody should have been the face on the recruiting poster.

"Recruit Dunham! Front and center!"

It would seem Dunham had taken his advice and had been very productive having the rest of the day off; Brody didn't honestly give a shit what his rack looked like as long as it wasn't a disaster, but his uniform was much improved. It did of course have some of the hallmarks of a recruit uniform: not yet properly tailored, the creases weren't as sharp from their newness and lack of wear, and his boots hadn't yet gotten that foundation layer of shoe polish that made Brody's shiny enough to see his own reflection in. But even he could admit, with Dunham's time and resources thus far, they were good enough.

And on that note, he had brought some materials with him. Some of it was drill instructor-related, others had more to do with his pride than anything else.

If Dunham was going to be his project, he was going the whole mile.

"Keep your uniform in that condition, you'll be acceptable." He said, pulling a paper bag from its hiding place in his helmet, "But my recruits should be nothing less than excellent."

Brody had brought with him a number of items that, after graduating Academy, he had discovered made maintaining that picture-perfect appearance much easier and much less time consuming. He put Dunham at parade rest and spent a few moments explaining what to do with each item; cotton balls to shine his boots to a high gloss more quickly and with less elbow grease. Plastic fishing line to iron into the creases of his pants to make them permanent. A chit permitting him to revisit uniform issue to have them tailored properly or exchanged for the proper sizes. Oil to soften the leather of the boots to make them more pliable. A tiny bottle of shampoo to keep his helmet visor from fogging or the lining smelling of sweat.

He waited patiently for Dunham to put all of those items away, returning him to parade rest when he'd returned. Brody stood next to him, turning his head only slightly.

"That fight yesterday is off the books. You're off the hook for further hand-to-hand training, but you will have something else to do to fill that time."