Left, dodge, left, left, right.

Repetitive movements that seemed to draw on like clockwork, so repetitive that a child could mimic them. This was Mignon's everyday outside of working on cars. If he wasn't busy under the hood of a truck, he was busy in the ring. The little bit of praise he did earn stretched for miles in his head. Maybe that's why he fought so hard; the rare utterance of "good boy," or "good job, kid" lit his nervous system ablaze in the best way possible.

Maybe what really did him in was the way Coach would hurt him if he wasn't enough, maybe it was the look of disappointment that stretched the old man's face as he told Mignon just how much he hated doing it, that Mignon would never learn without him, that he would die without him.

Maybe, maybe... maybe. Mignon was getting sick of hearing maybe's.

Who was he to deny the people who were excited about him when he was in the ring, though? Seeing cheering faces when he'd get a knock-out (which was becoming a nightly occurrence at this rate), seeing the look of almost... pride on Coach's face as he took money from so many bidders. It was a thrill.

But his head was somewhere else, on the little doctor hiding away in the medical room in the back.

You.

He wasn't a cash cow to you. He just was, and that threw him off balance. How could you look at him and only see him for what he was? A person, someone who had to fight just to love. An orphan who didn't know which way home was, who could barely read or even write, for that matter?

You never asked questions, only answering his with such honesty that the moment he set foot in your clinical room, the cold walls and freezing marble, it felt warm. It felt like home.

He didn't know if that scared him or excited him. But gods, he'd be damned if he didn't run to you after every match just to lean into your hands while you "worked your magic," patching him. As long as he was in your hands, he didn't care.

Because in your hands, Mignon was home. Mignon was safe.