9. yield
They sparred very often - often enough that they found themselves cornering one another occasionally, even though the fight had hardly begun. Sometimes they'd only wanted a short battle, but other times a long spar was preferred, so the phrase 'do you yield?' had come into play - letting the other take the chance of bowing out or finding a witty repartee to continue the fight with.
And, of course, both being rather competitive, prizes had also come into play. Each picked one thing to be their reward for every spar they won. Blake had debated long and hard before deciding that his prize would be choosing the next movie they would watch together. His girlfriend had waited patiently as he'd gone through his choices and simply laughed when he'd told her - they liked the same movies anyway, so it wasn't much of a loss. But she supposed that was partly the point.
It had taken awhile before Tori realized she might have made a mistake in claiming kisses as her prize. Her thought process then had been 'likes kissing Blake' + 'enjoys winning' prize of kissing! It had seemed to be a win-win situation, until the first time she'd held a saber at Blake's throat as he lay flat on his back and called, "Do you yield?" Usually the fight continued after a sarcastic or witty comment, but Blake had simply replied with a low, firm,
"Yes," and hauled her onto the ground beside him to kiss the sense out of her. She had laughed and let the fight end, but it had happened the next time they sparred, and the next time too. Tori was not one to look a gift horse in the mouth, as she was winning, but she wasn't exactly winning fairly, now was she?
"Why do you always yield to me now?" Tori asked, hoping that the whine in her voice had been only in her imagination and not evident in her question to her boyfriend. Blake glanced up from the piece of his bike he was tinkering with. He blinked for a moment, his brain catching up, still light years away from human discussion, still sitting in motocross world. A moment later, he grinned brightly, setting the piece aside and grabbing a clean rag, wiping his hands off on it.
"Because usually by that time in the fight I get a little distracted by the way you look and yielding seems to be striking two birds with one stone - ending the fight so I can kiss you and then, well, getting to kiss you." He said this so matter-a-factly that it took Tori several moments to form a reply.
"B-but don't you want to win?" she asked, with some desperation. Blake shrugged and returned to cleaning up.
"Sometimes, yeah, but it's not really that important in the face of anything else." Well, there wasn't very much Tori could say to that, considering she was the anything else, so she just smiled, resigned to a fate of sparring, winning and kissing - which didn't seem like a bad fate at all, actually.
But the next few fights actually went to Blake, Tori not even getting a chance to pin down her boyfriend, the fight carrying on for a long while before Blake always managed to corner her. She usually yielded, both of them often exhausted. A week later, Tori finally found the perfect opening, Blake finding himself with a knee at his throat and a grinning Tori above him.
"Do you yield?" she asked, her eyes bright and her lips quirked in his favorite smile of hers.
Blake grinned - like there was any doubt at this point. "Always."