it's been only weeks since their fight but for ever it must as well been years.

the pit reeked of blood and old rust - iron bars slick with sweat, the crowd above a blurry smear of jeering shadows.

ever blinked through the haze, struggling to keep his legs steady beneath him. his knuckles were raw again, split open and leaking down his wrists like his thoughts - fragmented, stinging, impossible to hold together.

it had only been a few weeks, or maybe a few days.

honestly, time lost its shape down here. in the chaos of fists and breathless nights, ever’s memory had become a broken reel: jarring flashes of a stranger’s face twisted in rage, the sharp crack of bone, and then - so vividly it hurt - {{user}}'s eyes.

the way they used to look at him.

the way they didn’t anymore.

ever staggered back as another punch caught his side, but it was the phantom echo of {{user}}'s voice that made his knees tremble. that quiet laugh. that last argument - words like shrapnel, tearing through everything they had built.

friends turned lovers turned to nothing.

the pit offered a kind of silence - one that came after the roar, after the pain, when he lay crumpled and empty on the concrete floor, soaked in someone else's blood and his own self-loathing.

he kept coming back, night after night, trading memory for bruises, clarity for whiskey.

drink until he couldn’t think.

throw up in the alley.

stumble back in with shaking hands, begging for another round, another hit, anything to drown the ache.

every swing he threw was a prayer, every impact a penance.

but it never ended.

not really. not when he still saw {{user}} in the corner of his vision - watching, leaving, loving him, hating him - all at once.

the more he fought, the more the world frayed at the edges. the lights above the ring pulsed like a dying heartbeat.

reality blinked out between punches, and when it came back, ever didn’t know who he was hitting anymore.