Fighters

He wasn't me, as Bren reminded me over and over. I knew that. Of course I knew that. I understood him. I knew him. That was part of what made this so fucking hard. Because he might not be me, but he was running fucking parrellel at faster and faster speeds and I couldn't just stand by and watch him jump the tracks.

I also knew that Bren was right. Being around him was playing with fire. So I tried to avoid the bar, for as long as I could.

We lived our lives, as we did. Bren fought his fight - he won, and won the purse, but nearly lost his boyfriend. Orin was a bear, in all the ways bears are, and I think in some way he'd still held onto this idea that Bren was a delicate thing to be protected. Even after seeing Bren fight in the bar that night. Because there was seeing Bren fight, and then there was seeing Bren fight.

I'm being unkind. Part of it, I'm sure, was watching Bren dominate the other guy. But part of it, and I'm confident in saying it was a large part of it, was watching Bren get fucked up in the ring. You can only watch the person you love get body slammed, get kicked, get punched in the face, the kidneys, kneed in the stomach and so many other attacks a finite amount of times before you just can't take it anymore. It's hard for me, and I live this. I mean, flyweight is fast, and it's brutal. Those guys don't hold back. They hit often, and they hit hard.

Every time Bren took a hit, Orin nearly lost his shit. And Bren took a lot of hits. It was a win by submission, in the end, but it went into the third round.

"How you doing?" I asked him after the bout ended.

"I wanted to crawl into the ring and strangle that other man," Orin said. His voice was tight; his knuckles were white.

I put a light hand on his arm. "Please don't. Travis is a friend of ours."

Orin looked down at me, shocked. "A friend? He did that to a friend?"

I wasn't sure if he was talking about Bren doing what he had done to Travis, or Travis doing what he had done to Bren. All in all, Travis came out worse for the fight. I just patted his arm and led him to where we could wait for Bren.

Orin did seem to like the aftercare portion, where he got to dote on Bren and make sure he was alright. He did not seem to like the part where Bren went out and stood, shirtless, bloody, to meet his adoring fans.

"Its seems gratuitous," he grumbled, and I shrugged. It keeps the industry alive, and the industry keeps us alive, and so we do what we have to do.

Bren and he got into a shouting match that night, and he wasn't over for three days afterwards. But on the fourth day he showed up with flowers, and Bren had rented his favorite movie, and so they didn't even get through the beginning credits before the retreated to the room.

They announced later that night that they'd decided to celebrate making up by going back to that fucking bar. And guess who got to DD.

***

He was back.

I stood back, sipping on the drink my current mark had bought me. I thought, maybe, that talking to him might fuck things up with the guy I was pursuing. He was a jealous one, one of those possessive types that were so easy to rile up. I wasn't really feeling like riling him up tonight, had been planning on giving him everything he wanted and then making him give me what I needed, but.

He was back.

Shit.

I'd spent the last fucking however long thinking of him, dreaming of him. Trying to understand why he got to me the way he did, why my stomach hurt so bad when he got inside of me. To be fair, it probably hurt because he wasn't inside of me. Nothing really seemed to satisfy me anymore, not like I knew he would.

I'd tried other commanding men; I'd tried men that needed commanding. I'd tried people so intense I usually wouldn't go near them, unless I was real fucked up. Well. I was real fucked up. He fucked me up by not fucking me, how funny was that? And there was nothing I could do about it. Yeah, those guys got me off, or at least most of them had, but for some reason that hadn't been enough.

I mean, what the fuck else did I need?

I felt like he'd broken me, somehow. Like he'd put this hole inside of me and there was nothing, nothing that would fill it except for him.

And I'd fucked it all up, fucked it up so bad. Screaming and stealing and running.

I knew that was why he hadn't come back into the bar since that morning. I knew he didn't want to see me, didn't want to deal with my broken ass. And as crazy as not having him made me, I think I prefered him not here. Crazy I could do. Broken I could handle. I wasn't so sure I was ready to deal with whatever I would become when he filled up that hole inside my soul.

If. Not when. I caught myself hung up on that word and felt my lips pulling up into a grimace.

Besides, I reasoned. There was no way he wanted what I wanted.

I caught the irony of the statement. I don't think you want me in the ways that I want you, he'd told me the first time we'd met. And maybe he'd been right.

I didn't know what I wanted, but I was pretty sure that it was more than the quick fuck he would take from me whenever it was that he got me sober. After all, it wasn't like he cared. He'd been very clear about that.

I let more vodka slip over my tongue and thought about that. That was really what had been bothering me the past week. He acted like he cared, more than any do-gooder ever had in my life. He acted like he didn't want anything from me, which I knew was shit. I knew what he wanted from me, and it was the same thing that everyone else did. The only thing anyone else did.

But then what was that shit with the pancakes? Why had he let me stay? And then there had been that kiss.

But then, my brain flipflopped before I could let myself stray down that path too long, why had he said he didn't care? Why did he never stop you from destroying yourself?

Not, a third part of my brain argued, that you wanted him to. Because you're fine. You don't need stopped; you would stop if you wanted to.

I felt a twinge in my gut at that and looked down at the vodka in my hands before I could stop myself.

You know, the original part of my brain said, or maybe some other, different, insidious part. He's right there. You could just ask him.

I let my eyes trace up to him and narrowed my gaze, then shot a look at the guy I was supposed to be coming back to. He looked deep in conversation with Chad, but I saw him scanning the bar. Probably for me.

I bit my cheek and looked back to the man who put a hole in my soul.

Fuck it.

He didn't tense this time when I reached him, which made me feel. I don't know. On one hand, it felt good to see that he didn't hate me for the way I'd acted the last time I'd seen him, and a huge part of me was relieved to see no sign of distress on his perfect fucking muscled shoulders when he caught sight of me there. On the other hand, god, it pissed me the fuck off that he didn't have any reaction to me.

I mean. Me.

"So," I said, carefully not careful. I leaned on the bar and wondered what it would take to get him to notice me; I wondered if I wanted him to.

"So," he responded, and his eyes didn't land on me, and I sighed and crossed my arms against the lack of interest in his voice.

****

"So," I responded, trying really fucking hard not to look at him. He was delicious tonight, like he was every night, and I was kicking myself for showing up at all, for letting myself be drug here, for believing Bren when he said that he probably wouldn't even be here.

I mean, what else could have happened? Of course he would be here. Of course he would be dressed like this, those ever present skin tight black pants, an emerald shirt that made his eyes look bottomless, his hair forever tempting. That braid.

That braid.

"You need a drink?" I heard myself ask, and mentally kicked myself. The last thing I should be doing was offering this guy a drink, especially after our last fight had been about alcohol. I thought. Maybe. I still had no real idea what had set him off.

But he was shaking his head, lifting a nearly full glass into my vision. The ice cubes clinked and I had a moment where my brain went places without me, remembering how he had reacted beneath my fingers and an ice cube, how he had melted, how he had looked at me with those dark eyes of his and the way he had smelled...

He shifted and I tore my gaze away, painfully aware of how long I might have been looking. No, I told myself. He's bad news. You're just as bad for him. You'll fall for him the moment he gives in to you the first night, and you can't afford to fall anymore. Not when he won't stick around to play catch.

"What do you want, then," I asked, a little more sharply than I'd intended. I didn't notice how he reacted, because I wasn't looking at him.

Just kidding. Of course I was looking at him. He turned his head away and took a long look at a guy sitting across the bar, who was looking back at him. Probably the guy who'd bought him the drink. He didn't say anything for a while. The silence stretched out long enough that I started crafting an apology, but he cut me off before I even began.

"I just wanted to get it." His eyes were back on me; I noticed that his pupils weren't blown out like I was used to seeing them. Maybe that's why he felt so much more intense than usual; his chemicals weren't swinging around like I usually found.

"Get what?"

He flipped his hair, giving me a glimpse of that braid that I liked so much. "You."

I could have laughed. Almost did. I liked this version of him, liked his directness and the hardness he pulled from wherever he pulled it from. The fire that I could feel just below the surface of his words. "Yeah," I told him, unsure if he even realized he'd asked a question. I understood. "Go ahead."

I got a quick, peircing look for that. I liked that look, too, wanted to see it in a thousand different contexts. But I didn't have a lot of time to think about that, because he was quick, making words drop from the pulsing air. "Did you mean it?"

"Mean what?"

He gave quick exhale of annoyance, and I raised a brow and leaned on my hand. Behind him, the guy he had made eye contact with was staring at us, eyes angry. He probably didn't love that the man he bought a drink for was spending his time with another man. Well, fuck him. "Cryptic questions make it hard to answer. Can you be more specific?"

He fidgeted before me, and I got lost for a moment in his hands. But his voice pulled me right back. "When you said you didn't care."

Oh. Man, there were a lot of answers to this question. Yes, I meant it, now get out of my life and do what you need to do on your own; no, I didn't mean it, seeing you killing yourself like this is killing me; yes, and no, because I barely know you, and therefore can barely care, and yet I feel like I've known you forever, so seeing you killing yourself like this is killing me, but get out of my life and do what you need to do on your own. I mean, what the fuck was I supposed to say?

So I answered, as truthfully and concisely as I could, "I needed it to be your decision."

He made that same frustrated huff again, but I saw the way his shoulders turned from me. That had been the wrong answer. What would be right? He was seconds away from walking away, I could see it on his body; what could I do to make him stay?

It wasn't right, I knew, to be thinking about getting him to stay. I should be making sure that he was okay. I should be doing what was right by him. But all of that had gone out the fucking window when he'd come up to me so goddamn perfect. And so my next words were not what he needed to hear, they were not what I knew would make him what he needed to be. Instead, they were the fucking truth.

"I care," my voice stated quietly. I watched him freeze and cursed, cursed my fucking brain for making this decision without me. He didn't need to hear this, and I really fucking didn't need him to know. It kills me to see you like this, I wanted to tell him. I know what you're going through, and it haunts me every night, the ghost of your loneliness. The specter of your isolation, even from yourself. The echoes of your pain. But if I told him that, I was in danger of breaking; if I told him that, I would admit how much my soul had attached to this stranger. So I just stared at him, wondering how much of this he already knew.

He wasn't looking at me. "Then why did you say you didn't?"

Again, the truth rose to my tongue. What had happened to saying the right thing, the careful thing? "Because I don't want you to stop because of me."

He stiffened at that. I had known, as I said it, that he wouldn't react well. And yet, and yet. He had asked. And I couldn't deny him, not anymore. Possibly not ever, not since the first time he had told me to buy him a drink.

Shit.

"I don't need to fucking stop. And why the fuck would I stop for you." He pushed himself away from the bar, and he wasn't looking at me. I was silent, letting his words fall. "You're no different than the rest of them, you know."

"I know," I told the pulsing beat.

"Trying to make me something I'm not, take from me whatever you fucking want. You don't even fucking see me."

"I know." I was nothing if not another stranger trying to tell him what to do, how to act, trying to make him into something he didn't want to be. How was I any different than the men who pushed him into bathroom stalls, each using a different name that suited their needs?

"You're a fucking asshole," he continued. I nodded, not caring that he wasn't looking at me, not caring that he was right. It was what it was. I had known that before I had come here.

It still fucking sucked to hear him say it.

The bartender was there as he left, sucked in by the vacuum that incredible man had left behind. "Why do you even try, man," he laughed, and I wanted so badly to punch him in the face.

***

My mark was pissed when I got back to him, but honestly. Fuck him. Fuck all these men, and all the things they wanted from me, and all the ways they tried to make me theirs. I wasn't anybody's; I was my own, and if I wanted to fucking destroy myself, if I wanted to fuck up my body beyond repair, who the fuck could stop me?

Who the fuck was a gorgeous green-eyed hunk to me? Why the fuck did it matter that he cared about what I did, that he hadn't wanted me to take another drink that morning? Of course he hadn't, I thought angrily, he wanted to fuck you, but it was more than that and I fucking knew it, couldn't not know it with the way he had looked at me, with the worry he had pressed onto my skin, the understanding, with the way he had told me he had cared. No, that he did care. Present tense.

"Who was that?" my mark hissed, pulling me in close. I'd probably have a bruise on my arm tomorrow with the way he was holding me, but I wasn't thinking about that. I was thinking about that man, and his eyes, and his lips, and the way he'd looked when I'd walked away.

"Ted." I was being shaken; I wised up and started paying attention to the jealous, angry man before me. "Who the fuck was that?"

I rolled my eyes. "John, please."

His eyes went dark. His fingers tightened on my arm. "My name isn't John."

I'd been making a joke about my nickname in this place, a light comment on my status in this relationship. It wasn't my fault that he hadn't gotten it, and I sure as hell wasn't going to explain it now. I probably should have said something to calm him down, made some simple joke that he would be able to understand, the dolt, but my eyes were caught on the man down the bar, and he was fucking killing me by being so close, because the fingers on my arm weren't light, or gentle, and they would never make me melt, and the words in my ear were thin and boring and would never command, and the face that was twisted up in anger didn't give a real shit about me past the idea I'd created for him and there was someone who did, there was a man who could, and how could I have ever accused him of being the same as the rest of them? How could I have ever believed he was anything like these fucking clowns?

Because he had to be. Because I wouldn't survive him if he wasn't. And as much as I craved danger, as much as I loved the way the floor dropped out from under me, that man scared me more than anything I had ever done.

No. I couldn't do this. I wouldn't do this. He was nothing; he was just another boy, in another way, doing the same damn thing, and I stared him down and lied to myself as best as I fucking could. "You're all the same to me," I muttered, my eyes meeting green, the holes in my stomach dropping, melting, always melting for him, as I carefully rejected the only man who might be different.

"What?" My mark pulled me forcibly toward him, his fingers tight on my chin. "What the fuck did you say?"

I met his eyes. I could have still tried to fix it. A few weeks ago I might have, would have been thinking up ways out of the situation. But that night, as I looked into brown irises and saw anger, and saw a total lack of control, the only thing I was thinking was; Boring.

"I said," I repeated, making each word careful, feeling something building inside of me as I did. "You're all the fucking same to me."

He hauled back and slapped me across the face. Hard.

It didn't feel good, not like a punch in a fight felt. But it didn't feel bad, either.

Honestly? It felt like nothing. An emptiness. The logical next step of a series of events; why feel anything about it at all? I stayed there absolutely still, my hand lightly touching the stinging flesh he had left behind, wondering why the sting was the only thing I had left in my body. Then I readjusted my jaw and brought my gaze back up to his, finding his eyes hard and lacking any sort of remorse.

"Yeah," I said. "Fuck you too."

This time when he hauled back, I used his ridiculous wind-up to bop him a good one on the nose.

I ignored the man gasping beside me, ignored the blood cascading down his face. Fuck him. He deserved worse, or better, maybe, but he wouldn't get either from me. I reached over him casually and downed the rest of his drink, then grabbed the remnants of mine and pushed away from the bar.

In the motion, for some fucking reason, I couldn't keep my eyes from tracking to the man I had left on the other side of the room. He looked like he was seconds away away from launching himself off his barstool, heading across the bar in reckless flight. Heading over to me.

I dared him to, dared him with my eyes. It was a test, I think. I don't know what outcome I wanted; I don't know what I would have done if he had moved.

In the end, it didn't matter. He settled back, his face unreadable, his arms crossed before him.

Fuck him. Fuck everyone.

I popped a handful of pills and made my way out onto the dance floor.

***

CH 9

***

Fuck.

Why the shit had I let him get away from me? Why hadn't I said the right things, the careful things, kept him wound up and hungry next to me until he was begging, again, for me to take him home?

Because he deserves better than that, some stern voice reminded me as I watched his body twist and turn on the dance floor, his hands pushing away partner after partner. Because if you didn't tell him the truth, you and he would both hate you for it. You need more than that from him.

But what does he need from you?

"He looks good tonight." I tried to ignore the bartender, his voice seemingly always at my shoulder tonight. I gritted my teeth and turned away, surprised to find myself turning into a cold glass.

"On the house," the bartender smiled. At my narrowed eyes, he shrugged. "Consider it an apology for previous actions."