Lounge Act

Built up from "Damsel"
Date/Timing: April 2016 (possibly very late March depending on when, exactly, the Lins arrive in Kodiak)
Setting: Student lounge, Jaeger Academy; Kodiak, USA
.
On Day Twenty-one of Life with Novices, Logan's unwinding in the student lounge with the Lins, a handful of Commonwealth kids, and a few obnoxious Americans, and wishing /really hard the bar served something—/anything—alcoholic.
Feng crosses—trips on ... something, his coke goes flying—
Chao catches it without a drop spilling.
—hops up, cheering, "I'm okay!"
Cornflake sneers, "No /way that klutz is a real Shaolin monk."
"What'ye bet I can prove he is?" drawls Logan, leaning his elbows on the bartop.
"Twenty bucks?"
Logan checks his pockets, offers a hand. "Deal."
Cornflake shakes.
"'ey, Curtains! C'mere a moment!"
Feng skids over, towing a sulking Chao—still carrying both their glasses—behind.
"Cadet Cornflake here—" 
"It's 'McCormick', asshat."
"—reckons you didn't actually study at /Shàolín Sì. I /tried to defend your honour—"
"That's not—"
"—but he won't believe me." Grins. "I figure a demonstration of your martial arts prowess is in order."
Feng beams, looks to Chao hopefully.
Chao sighs, hands the cokes to Logan, untangles Feng from his shawl.
"This's gonna be an easy twenty bucks," says Cornflake.
Logan settles the cokes on the bar. "You keep thinking that, sunshine." Accepts the bundle of orange, tucks it away on a stool.
Feng and Chao bow—in perfect sync—to Cornflake, step back, and fly through a showy routine that ends with Feng perched on an empty pint glass sunk half its length into the wall.
"Ho-ly crap," says the Canuck shrimp from somewhere around elbow level, "I have three years of gymnastics and /I can't do that."
"Who're you, again?" Logan asks.
"The name's Ross. Cory Ross."
"Why're you talking like James Bond?"
"'cause he's my dad."
Deadpan: "Your dad's James Bond."
"He's MI6, licensed to kill, so, yea."
"You're serious."
"Why would I lie?"
"Why /wouldn't you?"
Bond Girl glares-ish at him.
"Your twenty," announces Cornflake, brandishing a bill.
"Thank you kindly," grins Logan, plucking it away and tucking it in his boot.
The Lins wander over, reclaim their shawls and drinks.
"Was that satisfactory?" asks Feng.
"Perfectly."
Feng glows like a Christmas tree.
"Wow! Shaolin monks!" murmurs Bond Girl. "That's so /cool."
"They're /novices," corrects Logan.
Cornflake declares, "Same difference."
"No, it's not," says Chao.
Cornflake rolls his eyes. "You lived at the Shaolin Temple, you wear orange, you fly around like you're in a kung fu movie: how're you /not Shaolin monks?"
"Becoming a monk requires years of study, which we have not completed," Chao explains.
"So ... you're proto-monks?"
Chao snaps, "We're not monks, we will never /be monks because we've broken our vows and it's gone from us forever."
Awkward silence.
Logan looks left, then right, then pastes Cornflake in the nose over Bond Girl's head.
"What're you—" squeaks Cory, ducking the return strike.
Lounge erupts.
Logan laughs, swings his way to the center of the melee.
Feng pulls Cory up onto a table with him.
"I can take care of myself," she snaps.
"I know," says Feng. "However, I also know someone your size getting hit—"
They duck a stray haymaker.
"—by someone their size will hurt a lot more than if you were—"
Cory ducks another wild punch—
Feng's sent off the table.
Category:Ficlet
Category:Logan
Category:Logan's POV
Category:Logan (ficlet)
Category:Lin brothers (wardrobe)
Category:Feng
Category:Feng (ficlet)
Category:Chao
Category:Chao (ficlet)
Category:Cory
Category:Cory (ficlet)
Category:Cory's POV
Category:Jaeger Academy (setting)
Category:Ficlets with images
Category:Images in need of Captions