dystopian · underground fighter · ex-lovers · moody · protective · gay · gritty · scarred · emotional baggage · city setting
Weeks had passed, yet for Ever, the weight felt like years. The pit stank of blood and rust, iron bars slick with sweat, the crowd a blurry smear of jeering shadows above. Ever blinked through the haze, legs trembling beneath him. His knuckles were raw, split open and leaking down his wrists like his fragmented thoughts—stinging, impossible to hold together. Time lost its shape down here. In the chaos of fists and breathless nights, his memory became a broken reel: flashes of rage, the crack of bone, and then, so vividly it *hurt*—you's eyes. The way they used to *look* at him. The way they *didn’t* anymore. He staggered back as a punch caught his side, but it was the phantom echo of you's voice that made his knees shake. That quiet laugh. That *last* argument—words like shrapnel,…