tampered | Log: Ongoing

Current Mood: calm

Log: Ongoing

When: September 19, morning
Rating: Everyone
Characters: John Winchester [

scaresthedark] and Niko Leandros [

cal_sitter]
Summary: Niko could use a little help around the dojo. John could use a job. The catch? Nik doesn't hire anyone until he's sure they're mostly not evil and won't get the clientèle killed.
Log:

In telling John Winchester to come by the dojo at seven in the morning, Niko had been making a concession to what most Americans in his world considered to be civilized waking hours. Standard procedure for the eldest Leandros was to be up at dawn or sooner. By seven, he had already breakfasted (whole wheat toast served plain, wheatgrass juice, and a bowl of mixed fruit), gone for a run in Xanadu, showered, fed the cats, cleaned the litterbox, gone over the dojo's budget, and inspected all of the practice weapons. He had also started coffee brewing in the corner that had been set aside for noncombative use in the dojo's front room. When John arrived, he would find Niko seated behind the desk, a cup of green tea steaming in front of him and a hardcover copy of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa's Three Books of Occult Philosophy open in his hand.

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The time wasn't really a problem for John. Hunts occurred at all times of the night, morning, and day so he was used to adjusting his sleep schedule as needed. Being dead also helped a lot. He was bringing his own weapons, or at least some of them, since he didn't know what Niko wanted to see him use. A few guns, a few knives, a few swords, and a few homemade things that killed things in very specific ways.

The dojo was easy to find and the head office even more so. The man behind the counter looked like he was right out of either a martial arts movie or a yoga instruction video.

"That's some pretty heavy reading."

Niko glanced up from the tome, mass-produced and clearly old, but well cared for. "Practical studies," he replied as he set it aside. Steel grey eyes swept over his visitor in calm assessment, cataloguing what weapons he could see and making allowances for any that he couldn't. It was habit by now. Though Niko had no reason to distrust John, he also had no reason not to--at least, not yet. This interview would help sway him in one direction or another.

"Coffee?" he offered, as he stood and stepped out from behind the desk. "There's tea as well."

John mentally filed away what Niko considered "practical studies." Seemed to him they might be in the same line of business. It would be something to ask him about later.

"I'm fine right now," John said, giving a friendly smile. He had brought his sniper rifle with him and while a cup of coffee would have been nice even the slightest tremor of hands from the caffeine could affect things at long distances.

[ooc: Apologies for no changing icons, work doesn't give me access to LJ... but I can reply through email notifications.]

Nodding his approval, Niko bypassed the small table with the coffee machine and gestured to the large, clear space where students could practice with the reassurance of safety mats, supervision, and a view to the street. "Most instruction takes place here. There's another room in back, for weapons storage and advanced training or private sessions." He didn't smile, prefering instead to maintain an expression of polite interest as he regarded John's collection. "Anything that will keep students alive in difficult situations is an approved course of study. I expect you know more than a few methods of accomplishing that."

[OOC: That's cool. I'll probably become scarce for a bit in a little less than an hour.]

"I know quite a few ways," John said with a nod, glancing around the dojo. He liked what he saw. Everything looked clean and well maintained. While some people might see it as anal anyone who ever used a weapon before understood the importance of proper care of things.

"To be honest though, a lot of those ways involve killing the other person first," John confessed. After all, if they were dead it was a lot less likely that they would attack you.

"I don't train my students for tournaments, Mr. Winchester. I train them to recognize threats and determine the appropriate methods to neutralise those threats." The look he gave John spoke of a depth of experience that no twenty-three-year old graduate student from New York should have. "If your methods allow for recognizing when lethal force is an excessive response, I have no quarrel with kill-or-be-killed tactics."

It was perhaps a testament to John's shittiness as a father that he thought that Niko looked appropriately experienced and world weary for a 23 year old. He reminded John a bit of his son Dean, albiet a bit more on the serious side.

"I think you're going to be pleased with my methods and skills then," John said. Not everyone understood the need for that kind of training. "What would you like to see first? Blades, guns, or hand to hand?"

[ooc: Niko is like... willingly the brother that John forced Dean to be. Only with better eating habits.]

For Niko, there was no one in his life to whom he could compare John. He looked at the other man as one fighter to another, recognizing the casual acceptance of violence for what it was.

"Whichever you prefer. Is there anything you need that you weren't able to bring?"

[OOC: I just recently got hooked on Supernatural. I spent the first three or four episodes telling myself, "Sam is not Cal. Dean is not Niko. This is not TCLS."]

"I figured you'd prefer I not demonstrate my prowess with explosives," John said with a wry grin. That was not really the sort of job that you could show your skill in like you could hand to hand combat.

"But if you want to start with hand to hand then move on to blades and then guns that would be fine with me," he suggested.

Niko shook his head in mild amusement. "Thank you for your consideration. I enjoy enough explosive demonstrations at home. Hand to hand will be fine."

He shrugged out of the zippered sweatshirt he'd been wearing over his black tank top, and folded the garment in half with a quick motion before he draped it on a rack of practice swords. There was a scar on his upper arm, the barely healed remnant of a bullet wound, but he moved as though it didn't trouble him.

John took off his jacket and boots, leaving him in jeans and a t-shirt. John wasn't especially muscular or lean, but he was strong and fast when he needed to be. John knew he couldn't match Niko's reflexes but he did have about as many years experience hunting supernatural monsters as this kid had been alive. That and John was tenacious when he had to be. No one could take a beating and keep on coming like John Winchester could.

"Alright then," he said, settling himself into a fighting stance. "Let's go."

[ooc: I don't think John could take Niko in hand to hand, but he wouldn't go down easily and Niko could get a feel for John's style of combat.]

Now Niko smiled. It was a little thing, the barest curve of his lips expressing his anticipation as he stepped onto the mat in bare feet. "Just remember that going hand-to-hand first was your idea," he warned--not cockiness, but amused self-assurance. Niko knew one thing for certain about John Winchester, and that was that the other man was human. There wasn't a human alive (or dead, for that matter) that Niko couldn't hold his own against. "Nothing that will send either of us to the hospital, agreed?" he added, but he didn't give John a chance to answer before he attacked, and Niko was fast. Cal had always said as much, and he should know, having been the target both when Niko was sparring just for fun or was fighting with lethal force. The elder Leandros brother was looking forward to the challenge presented by a new and evidently experienced opponent of the same species.

[OOC: Sounds good. Do you want to kind of gloss over the finer details of their combat rounds in the interest of moving things forward? I should be on AIM most of the day when I'm at home if you want to discuss next steps.]

By the time the spar was over, John was sure he was going to be sporting some pretty serious bruises before the day was over. Not that it wasn't anything he was used to. It almost felt good, reminded him that he was alive. And compared to what he faced in hell, it certainly wasn't all that bad.

And the Niko kid could fight, no question about that. John had conceded defeat, but not after putting up what he hoped was a good show of himself. His opponent used a lot of more traditional forms where John's style was more of the street fighting, military trained nature. And there was something to be said for the type of daily training that Niko obviously did. That was something John hadn't done in a long time, that sort of physical regimen.

"It's because of guys like you that I always carry a knife and a gun," John said, panting a bit as he tried to catch his breath. "I've never seen a human move that fast before."

John had acquitted himself well, and wouldn't be the only one going home with bruises. His ability to counter Niko's speed had been admirable, might even have been enough to bring Niko down on a different day. The younger man retrieved two bottles of water from a small fridge nestled beneath the same table that held the coffee maker. He offered one to John.

"Reading occult texts isn't the only practical study I engage in. What have you seen move that fast?" Niko inquired, tucking a sweat-dampened strand of hair back behind his ear, though his braid was in remarkably good order considering he'd just been wrestling on the floor.

"Lots of things," John said, shrugging a bit as he took the bottle of water and drank some of it down. "Demons, daeva, vampires, elementals, wendigos, ghosts, reapers, shtriga, skinwalkers, vanir, werewolves..."

John probably could have gone on longer, but he was pretty sure that Niko got the idea. John had seen a lot of stuff. And those were just the things that were faster than humans. He might look like just a mechanic or a hick from Kansas but John was as smart as they come when it came to his obsession of the supernatural.

"Standard monster-hunting fare, then." Niko perched on the edge of his desk and began to toy with the letter opener that had been waiting innocently on the corner, flipping the blade to rest along his forearm before flipping it back into his hand, with the same casual repetition that had made more than a few New York City waiters nervous in the past few years. "It's because of species such as those that I always carry a sword and a knife, sometimes a gun for good measure."

That didn't surprise John at all. There was only one type of person that became good at every type of fighting and killing possible. A Hunter. Maybe they had a different name for them in Niko's world, but a Hunter is what Niko was. That earned him some points in John's book.

"No holy water, iron, or salt?" he asked. Those sorts of things were standard fare in his world, but he was already getting used to the idea of things like that not working on everything here.

"Salt is useful if you need to deter vodyanoi. It dissolves their flesh. As for the rest, I've yet to meet anything detered by holy water, and I haven't had the opportunity to determine if all of the species said to be sensitive to iron truly are." Niko regarded John with greater interest, curious about the man's experiences and methods. "I take it the old tales are somewhat more accurate where you're from."

"Demons are the only thing I know of deterred by holy water," John explained. "Or anything directly connected to hell. Salt in my world is good for keeping just about any supernatural creature at bay in my world. "Other than that, iron is good for some things, not for others. There's not a real 'one thing kills them all' type of weapon."

John hesitated for a moment and thought on that. It wasn't entirely true. "Well, there is, but there's only one of them."

That earned a raised eyebrow from Niko. It was the most expressive he'd been all morning. The letter opener was still in his hand, still being toyed with as though it were a deadly weapon, which it probably could be in a pinch. "One what?" There was no general solution in Niko's world either, save the broad category of violent force.

"One weapon that can kill anything," he said, a slightly far away look in his eyes. "A Colt that could kill a ghost, vampire, or demon. If it existed and was even remotely "alive" the Colt could kill it."

"A gun." Disapproval? Perhaps. Niko had always favored older weapons, weapons that wouldn't jam and didn't need to be reloaded. "If there were an equivalent in my world, it would be much sought after, by nonhumans at the least." He didn't like to think of what such a thing would do to Robin or Promise or Ishiah ... even to Delilah or to Flay and Slay.

He finished his water and slid back to his feet, fully rested. "The strength of your hand-to-hand techniques alone is enough to incline me to hire you. If you're any bit as good with firearms and other weapons as you are at street fighting, I'm reasonably confident I won't have to dial the hospital for your students."

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Log: Ongoing

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