The Swing of Things
Posted on Sun Sep 7th, 2025 @ 3:41pm by Lieutenant JG Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
914 words; about a 5 minute read
Mission:
Character Backstories
Location: Cheff's Gym, San Francisco, Earth
Timeline: October 13, 2381
The gym smelled of canvas and sweat, of tape liniment rubbed into rough, old skin. Cheff had run the place for three decades, and it showed--frayed ropes, heavy bags with multiple patches, a central ring held together by stubbornness more than steel or wood. But Jean-Baptiste loved it here. The air was honest and the people real.
Cheff barked in his thick Bolian rumble, "Faster hands, Dorsainvil, or you’ll never keep the other fella off you."
JB worked the bag like it was a clock he might be capable of punching into rhythm--jab, jab, cross, pivot. His breath hissed through his teeth, sweat stinging the corner of his eyes. He had learned to keep his guard high and his feet light, his boxing lessons in Strasbourg had been burned into his muscles, but Cheff always found something to correct. Always an improvement to be made.
"Don’t dance so pretty," Cheff snapped, his arms folded across his large, barrel chest. "Save the waltz for a girl. Cut the ring. Step inside. Make him feel you."
He adjusted a half-step, weight forward, shoulders rolled--then let a short hook thud into leather. The bag swung back as though it were taunting him to continue.
"Better," Cheff grunted, then spat into a nearby pail without looking. "Now do it again. A hundred more. Boxing’s just stubbornness in gloves, son."
The Haitian cadet nodded, his jaw set, and drove himself back into the familiar rhythm. His entire body ached, but the ache was clean-feeling. It pushed-out the memory of Jacqueline’s gentle dodge, the soft turn of her cheek. In the gym, there were no what-ifs, only fists and breath and time. Lots of time.
JB’s shoulders burned, a relentless fire from collarbone to elbow, but he didn’t let it slow him. He drove his fists through the ache, letting the bag respond with its dull, swinging thud. The sound filled that internal space behind his sternum where his feelings were usually housed.
Cheff circled closer, his broad blue face shining with old sweat. "Don’t smile at the bag, Dorsainvil. Bag don’t care. Bag don’t bleed."
"I wasn’t smiling," JB replied through a huff and a puff--ringed in half-truth.
Cheff barked a laugh that rattled the ceiling fan. "Every fighter smiles when he forgets what's happening in the world. That’s why we keep coming back." He slapped the bag with a blue, open palm, making it jump and wiggle. "Now, put your hips in. Don’t throw arms--throw your whole damn soul into it."
He obeyed, sinking his weight, turning through the punch until the crack of knuckles wrapped in tape reverberated sharply through the near-empty gym, enough to draw an appreciative whistle from Cheff.
"That’s it," the Bolian said, nodding once. "That’s a man saying: here I am."
JB let the bag swing back toward him, let it bump his chest before he caught it cleanly in a hug. He stood there a moment, arms weighing a ton, sweat trailing down his temple. He thought of Bainet, of the salt wind and the burning sun, of his father’s voice telling him to carry himself--keep his chin upright at all times--like he was never to be cowed by anyone.
He jabbed again, then again, not for Cheff now, not for any imagined opponent, but to remind himself he was still here.
The bag swayed, thumped back against his gloves, swinging away once again. JB kept the rhythm alive, but somewhere in the sweat and noise his mind continued to wander. Jacqueline’s face sparked out of his memory: bright, uninvited. Her eyes, always a half-step ahead of his, soft and clever. The faint perfume she wore, citrus layered over something floral--maybe wildflower--had clung to his civilian jacket for a full day after.
He threw a right cross, harder than he meant to, and the bag slammed against its chain with a low groan.
She hadn't been cruel, only precise. She could smile at him one moment, and sidestep the next, leaving him flailing. He remembered the way she tucked her hair behind her ear when she felt flattery. He remembered her laugh, short and warm. And infectious.
Jab, jab.
A foolish part of him wondered if she thought of him, wherever she was now. But the sweat stung and the ache in his arms told him to forget about chasing ghosts. He had shared a wonderful day with her, but she had signaled her intentions to him: romance was out of the question. JB shook the bite away and refocused: he was a cadet in a foreign city, gloves on, bag swinging. The rest belonged to yesterday.
Cross, hook.
Still, he couldn’t quite cut her out of the corners of his mind. She drifted there, in her wetsuit. And maybe that was why he kept hitting the bag, why his shoulders begged him to stop but his fists would not. Because as long as he worked, as long as he poured himself into the canvas, he could fade her image, smudge her outline, and soften hurt of her leaving.
"Hands up," Cheff barked again, his voice filling the rafters.
JB snapped his guard back high, biting down, hiding the profile of her face behind reality of leather and sweat.
Cadet 1st Class Jean-Baptiste Dorsainvil
Cadet
Starfleet Academy
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