Fighters

"No," Orin agreed quietly.

"So I got clean. I joined a gym. I met Bren." I shrugged. Three years of my life, summed up in three sentences. "Now that we fight pro, there's no looking back now. We get drug tested constantly and there's no time for going out and binging. Plus the calories, and the water weight?" I managed a small smile, and Orin smiled back. "It's a great system, pressures me to stay away from all the shit."

"And now you bring a goddamn junkie into our home." That was Bren. I didn't want to meet his eyes, but when I did I just saw understanding. I breathed. "And you keep my lover away from my bed."

Orin smiled, a soft and sloppy expression. "Sorry, baby."

Bren disappeared into the bedroom, muttering, "You'd better be," and both Orin and I chuckled.

"He's a good one," I mentioned, just on the right side of affectionate, and Orin turned that sloppy smile to me. "You gonna come to his fight?"

I watched the smile start to fade. "I..." He shifted. "That's what we were fighting about."

I patted his shoulder. "It isn't an easy thing, to see the person you love surrounded by such violence."

The sudden look of panic and joy on his face told me that I had told him that he was in love with Bren before he'd known. Damnit. "I'll be there," I quickly said to distract him from whatever was running through his head. "So. If that helps."

"Yeah," he said distractedly, his hand huge on mine for just a moment. "Excuse me."

I watched, smiling, as he made his way quickly into Bren's bedroom and closed the door firmly. Good for them. Then I made my own way to bed, hoping that things would be better in the morning.

***

CH 7

***

I threw up almost as soon as I woke up. Which, as soon as I realized where I was, made a lot of sense. All I ever did in this fucking place was puke.

I groaned and flipped over, shoving my face into the cushion. How the fuck had I gotten here again?

"You alright?" The sound of his voice made my entire body tense, and I hated that, hated the effect he had on me.

"Fuck off," I mumbled. I heard him coming over to me anyway. I lifted my head and wished I hadn't.

He was wearing nothing but boxers again, nothing but boxers and his fucking righteousness. I felt my eyes drag over him, taking in every inch of his sculpted body. When he crouched before me and brought his face into view, I turned away.

"How the fuck did I get here," I asked, knowing I sounded sullen. Well, I was sullen. I was tired of waking up in my clothes so close to someone I wanted to be naked with.

"You were unconscious in the bathroom." I heard something in his voice, something more, but I wasn't interested. Fuck it. Fuck him. Fuck this fucking place. I felt my stomach churning and got to the bucket just in time.

His hand appeared, holding a glass of water that must have been sitting out all night but whatever, I'd drunk worse shit. I took it without thanking him and rinsed out my mouth. "Fuck," I muttered, feeling the way my body was hating on me, the way all my muscles were bunched into strange positions. I was dangerously close to being empty, to being hollowed out and ready to be filled by all the things I didn't like thinking about. I needed something, anything...

I sat up. "I should go."

He was watching me. "Do you want breakfast?"

"No."

I saw him looking me over. "When's the last time you ate?"

Fuck. I don't know. Who gave a shit? "I need to go."

"Got somewhere to be?"

"No, I just." I glanced toward the bathroom and his eyes noticed, saw it all, and I thought he would sigh, or look disappointed, but he just shrugged.

"Yeah. If you need to take something, you should get out of here."

"I don't need to do anything," I snapped, knowing full well that my body disagreed. I was jonesing bad; whatever mix I'd taken last night hadn't been enough to tide me over to this morning. Fuck, even like a bowl...

"Then stay for breakfast." He said it so simply, like he hadn't just laid a fucking trap for me, like he wasn't trying to get me to not leave. Honestly, he probably wasn't. He didn't want me. Twice in a row, he'd brought me home and not fucked me. I mean, what, was he straight? But he was just looking at me, and fuck, those fucking lips...

"Yeah," I heard myself say. What? That was a terrible fucking plan. But his lips, just looking at them, had seemed to calm down my soul, at least for now, and I could wait for my morning fix. It wasn't like I needed it, anyway.

I pulled myself up to standing and nearly fell, my vision greying and a deep sound filling my ears. When I came back to it I found his hand on my elbow, steadying me, and I pulled away angrily. That wasn't the touch I wanted. "But I'm fucking making pancakes."

He blinked for a moment before shrugging and waving a hand toward the kitchen, and I think he even smiled.

***

Watching him bustle around the kitchen, dropping curses and slamming cabinet doors like they'd said some terrible thing to him, I couldn't keep a smile off my face. I liked watching him like this. I liked watching him. He was fun, in an angry fuck-the-world kind of way.

I honestly was shocked that he'd stayed. He'd looked like he was jonesing bad when he'd first woken up, like he'd really needed something. I remembered those mornings, how you couldn't think straight, couldn't think at all, until you got your first hit into you. You just needed something. Anything.

I got that. I wasn't going to stand between him and the the things he needed to do. But, I gave him an option anyway, because no one had ever given me one, because I wanted him to stay, and fuck me if he hadn't taken it. I watched him now, mixing batter, and was so fucking glad that he had. He cursed as he splashed a bit of batter on the counter and I lifted my hand to try and hide my grin.

He looked up just in time to catch it and scowled. "What?"

"We have mix, you know."

"Fuck your mix." He tasted the batter and I watched his finger disappear into that mouth of his, and tried really hard not to lick my lips.

"There's two more," I told him, trying to distract myself from all the things his lips were making me think. He shrugged and went back to the fridge for some more eggs.

"Got any chocolate chips?" he asked from inside the fridge.

We weren't exactly a sweets household. I shook my head.

"M&M's?" he tried. "Any fucking candy at all?"

Jesus, I was starting to really like this guy. I turned so that he didn't see the expression on my face as I pulled down Bren's secret stash of Hershey's kisses.

When I turned back to him he was giving me a very strange look. Shit, I thought, but there wasn't anything to do about it if my - whatever it was that I was feeling - was showing. I hadn't thought it was, but I never thought what I was thinking showed around him, and he always seemed to pick it up. I was starting to get the very bad feeling that he was just as good at reading people as I was.

But he didn't mention anything. "Peel those," he told me, and I started dumping them out.

"How many?"

He shrugged, pulling a pan out and setting it on the stove. "Enough. I don't know. I'm not your fucking mom."

I know I smiled again as I started in, and I know he saw it because he scowled and turned away.

The noise and the smell soon brought Bren out from his room. He crossed his arms when he saw the empty Hershey Kiss wrappers.

"Those are mine."

"You shouldn't be eating them anyway," I tried. I had my eyes trained on the man cooking up fluffy, amazing pancakes in front of me. His eyes, in turn, kept darting up to the cabinet that I knew held our liquor - he must have found it when he was slamming around earlier. I rested my chin in my hand and watched.

"But it's okay to eat it in a pancake?"

"No," I said, as Orin rumbled out of the room sleepily.

"Did someone say pancakes?" He slipped his arms around the grumpy Bren and smiled at me, then froze when he saw who was cooking.

"Teddy," he said softly by way of greeting. His voice wasn't cold, exactly, but there certainly wasn't any warmth in it.

He didn't even turn from his task. "You," he replied. Then he whirled and faced me. "He fucked me in the bathroom, you know. It was good enough for him. Don't see why it wasn't good enough for you." Then he was back to flipping pancakes as if nothing had happened.

I looked over at Orin, and he met my gaze. We stayed that way for a bit, just staring. Silent. He looked away first.

"There should be enough for all of us." I kept my voice easy, but there was tension in me that hadn't been there before. I heard Orin shift and saw Bren and him having a whole conversation with just their eyes.

Whatever they said, breakfast seemed to be the order of the moment. Bren moved towards the island, dragging Orin along for the ride. "These smell fucking good."

"You have a fight tomorrow," Orin reminded him, resulting in Bren smacking at his hands.

"Fuck you," he said, pointing at Orin, "and fuck you," he pointed at me and I raised my hands, "and." He paused, pointed at the back facing him. I saw it tense slightly. "Thanks for breakfast."

He spun, a stack of pancakes on the plate in his hands. He all but threw the plate on the island between us. "Dig in," he said, trying not to sound happy, but there was pride in his voice.

And he had something to be proud about. Fuck, those pancakes were some of the best I'd ever had. Bren told him that over and over again, until he finally told Bren to "shut the fuck up and just fucking eat," and I laughed which just made him glare at me instead.

Throughout breakfast, his eyes kept tracking up to that cabinet, staying there longer and longer each time. I let my eyes fall to his hands and tried not to wince in understanding.

"You're shaking," I said as we cleaned up the dishes. Orin and Bren had retreated back to Bren's room, leaving us alone. He dunked his hands deep into the suds and turned away from me.

There was something about that motion, something about the way he moved his body towards me even as he turned his head away that had me shifting behind him, my fingers sliding down his arms. He shuddered but didn't try to move away.

"You okay?" I murmured into his the back of his head, knowing full well that he was jonesing, bad, and that his shakes would only get worse until he got whatever it was that he needed. "You coming down off something?"

He froze beneath me and I planted a kiss where my words had fallen, trying to sooth the abrasion they had made. "No," he muttered, lying blatantly after clearly being on X the night before. He grabbed another dish from the suds. "I was just thinking about getting a drink, is all."

I slid the dish from his hand and turned him around to face me. I could feel both of us remembering that I was still in nothing but my boxers, and felt his fingers skim my bare stomach leaving a trail of soap suds. I shivered, pushing my hand into his hair, and met his eyes with mine.

"So go get it," I told him quietly, watching him react to my touch. His eyes fluttered and I wondered if it was at the idea of a drink or the way my skin pressed up against his. I moved my lips down to his, and I swear I felt him whimper. It was so out of character that I paused for a moment, worried that he wasn't alright. But then his fingers tightened on my hips, pushing my breath out of me with a hiss, and I figured that he must be at least okay.

"Unless you don't want to," I whispered against him, and he shifted.

"You don't want me to." I could hear the indecision in his voice. Fuck, he was right there, he was so close.

I lifted away so I could look him in the eyes. "I don't care what you do," I lied, because in the end what I wanted didn't matter and I didn't want it to color his decision, and besides, I didn't think he would want me to care. Options don't care. And I wasn't even an option to him, really. I was nothing but an easy drink, a cliff to run full tilt off of. Cliffs don't have feelings. Cliffs don't try to stop you from jumping.

But the moment I said those words, his face darkened. I felt his hands push off from my chest, trying to get away from me and I let them push me, let him have the space as I watched, confused at the change that was taking place before me.

"Fuck you," he said, "fuck you to fucking hell, you and your moral bullshit. Your fucking games." I watched him climb up on the counter and yank open the cabinet, grabbing the first bottle he saw. "If I wanna drink, I'm gonna fucking drink, or take E, or K, or fucking speed you fucking asshole."

"Hey," I said, starting forward, but he was moving fast and angry.

"Fuck you," he said one more time, and then he was out the door, slamming it behind him.

I stared at the space where he had just been, the air he had just been breathing with me, so close to me, so fucking close. Then I let out a quick, wordless shout of frustration and headed into my room.

"Coop?" I'd startled Bren out of his bedroom, his shirt off and his pants unbuttoned. "everything okay?"

"Fucking fine," I hissed. What the fuck had I missed? Why the fuck did I care?

"Uh." Bren was watching me closely, so I held up the bag in my hand and shook it.

"I'm going to the gym."

He nodded and I slammed open the door, only to stop dead at the sight of dark, curly hair at my doorstep.

"I don't need your fuckin' booze," he told me, shoving the bottle into my chest. Our eyes met for a moment; his, dark and angry and accusing and mine, confused and angry and, if there were accusations there, they were all for me. Then he turned on his heel and stomped down the hall.

***

Fuck. I'd thought for a minute, that maybe, just maybe. I'd seen something on his face, some fucking tenderness, or idiocy, or soft bits where there's usually just hunger and I let myself believe, let myself think.

I stopped and leaned on a wall, pressed my forehead into the brick. Fuck. As if anyone could feel that way about me. He was just trying to get me the way he wanted, just trying to use me like everyone else. Just in a different way, just wanted a different thing, but after he got it what use was I to him anymore? What fucking good was I, when all he wanted was some part of me? Some idea? He was just like everyone else, I knew that, he was no different and why the fuck did that make me feel so fucking sick?

Because he wasn't like everyone else. Because he was different. Because I needed him to be something that he wasn't, and I didn't need his booze but I fucking needed him and he wouldn't, and he didn't.

I shocked myself by starting to cry, right there on the sidewalk.

It was more than this stupid guy and the stupid ways he made my stomach want to eat itself, if I was being honest. Yeah, the guy was amazing, and I wanted him, and I wanted him to want me, but shit was getting worse than that. Shit had become more. Yeah, there was him, and the way he wouldn't fuck me even when he could, the way he told me he wanted me, and there were his eyes, so green and so bright and so cold, and his voice and the way he commanded and then the next instant soothed. His lips, and all the things he'd made me taste. Even if those memories were only half remembered.

Fuck. How strong must those feelings have been, to make it through all the shit I had done, to drag themselves past all the walls I've been so fucking careful to put up. Fuck his lips. Screw his way of making me want him.

But it was more than that. Now, it had become more than all of that. It was the way I had eaten breakfast, for the first time in a long time, the way pancakes had tasted in someone else's home after I hadn't even done anything, hadn't made any lies, any advances. How I had made some other kind of thing, created something with my own hands, and they had liked it. All of them. They had taken the things I had created into their bodies and didn't act like it poisoned them. It was the thanks they let fall from their lips, it was how easy that had seemed to them, how genuine, the way I could exist in that space. It was the sound of happiness and joking and the way that had somehow lifted things inside me that I hadn't even realized were heavy, those things that now threatened to drag me down to the deepest, darkest, fucking-est pits of the places I always was, would always be.

Why couldn't he see that? Why didn't he look at me and understand that I was nothing, that I was anything but someone you ate pancakes with for no reason except to eat pancakes, that the strings that I always attached to actions were the only things holding up my goddamn life?

He kept cutting at those strings. Kept hacking away at the ways I lived, at the things I did to survive. When I fell, when there was nothing left to hold me, what the fuck did he think I was going to do? How the fuck did he think I was going to be able to live? It wasn't like there was going to be someone there to catch me. Fuck, it wasn't like he would be there, his arms open, his eyes green and looking at me, only me, my name on his lips...

Fuck.

It had been really, really fucking stupid to give him back the alcohol. I needed a drink right now, and I didn't have any money, and not a lot of bars served me without an ID. But I had felt so guilty, had felt so fucking shitty with that stupid bottle in my hand. Somehow I knew that I wouldn't be able to drink it anyway. Somehow, I think that bottle might have done for alcohol what he'd done for speed, and I couldn't fucking have that. Not now. Not when I was like this.

Not when I was all the things he had made me.

I remembered, with some embarrassment, that I was still leaned up against the brick wall of the alley I had thrown myself into. I pushed myself off the wall and wiped at my treacherously leaking eyes, and I realized that my hands were shaking. Bad.

Fuck this. Fuck all of it.

I stalked off down the street, jamming my idiot hands between my arms and my body, trying to keep my shakes to myself as I ran through my list of men who would open their doors for me at this early hour and knowing that, like I always seemed to do, I would end up blowing Chad for a free drink in the backroom of that stupid fucking bar.

***

CH 8

***

I tried everything to keep me out of that bar. Excuses, lies, halftruths. Anything to keep me away from that place, to keep me away from him.

He was bad for me. There was nothing I could do.

I dreamed of him, dreamed of him often. Sometimes he would be fighting and he would take a bad hit, and I would watch him fall, unconscious, beneath the feet of men who didn't care. Sometimes he would be beneath me, and I would kiss him and he would smile, and his pupils were the right size and his smile was true and he gave himself to me, for me, and I would wake up with my sheets soaked and my heartrate up. Other times I would see him lying in the parking lot, his breath slowing, his heart slowing, everything slowing but the pulse of the nightclub behind him, alone but for the the bouncers, statues, looming large above his corpse.

Sometimes, in those dreams, I would look away to yell at the bouncers and look back down and his face would be my own. And I would wake, again, my sheets soaked and my heart pounding.

But none of this was fair to him. How could I look at him, how could I act around him, when I couldn't even divest his experiences from my own? He wasn't me; he was his own person, with his own experiences and reasons for doing what he did. Who was I to tell him what he should be doing? Why the fuck did I think I had the right to ask him to stop?

And yet. And yet. I remembered, so well, so clearly, how it felt to be in those bars, how it felt to live only through the quick rush and slow falls. The pain the next morning when the deals you made came collecting. The soreness, inside and out. The anger. The isolation.