Andaeros Dawnflare

Andaeros Dawnflare
Andaeros Dawnflare
@andaeros#137
2019-06-26 20:15:00

Fights, pt. II: Fugue

I hadn’t been sober for weeks, and everyone wanted to keep me that way.

Blazzil wanted me in the ring, drunk from punches.

The bruisers and the crowd wanted me at the bar, drunk on whiskey.

Fight-bunnies wanted me in the bedroom, drunk on them.

Some people were easier to say “no” to than others, but with time, something about the river, something about the stone. Erosion and all that.

It’s our fate, as mortals, bound by time and mortality, to wear and to tarnish, isn’t it?

The molten-orange of the sun, the smell of roasting street-meat, and the smoke of Orgrimmar industry woke me in the morning, newly familiar, but not entirely unpleasant. A woman’s hand was on my chest, and her leg was draped over mine, the both of us bare, immodestly covered by thin sheets strewn about from the heat. Her eyes were closed, and her face was satisfied in sleep, blond hair mussed. Another newly familiar, but not entirely unpleasant thing.

I plucked her wrist up and set it aside before slipping a leg out, then another, leaving her humming, but asleep.

I rubbed both my hands against my face, to irritate it into sobriety, scratching through my beard. I breathed deeply, and my eyes adjusted. With a sigh, I took stock of my body before standing up and walking to the basin to splash myself clean (Gods, I missed my shower. Hell, I missed proper soap, I’d have to talk to Raiya), to splash my face and lament the state of me in the smudged mirror.

My body had become a canvas of ugly blotches of purple skin and pretty lines of arcane blue, and I had long given up on looking myself in the mirror, anymore. It was hard enough being perpetually bruised, I didn’t want to look at it.

Doc’s alchemy helped, though, I feared what it was doing to me in the long-term. It was powerful, and it kept me divorced from the pain a little too well.

I’d dived for the mat more than a few times, strategically jobbing to the occasional veteran, even an up-and-comer, one or twice. All to keep me accessible, to keep me from being a sure thing, to make sure I was still worth betting for and betting against. To keep me profitable. No one bets against a sure thing, and less losing bets means less vigs.

My pride hurt more than my body did.

I dressed myself, slowly, careful around the shoulders and the back, and buttoned myself up enough to head out into the heat.

She would wake up and leave, probably without taking anything, though I didn’t have anything to take in my apartment, these days.

Breakfast was meat from Urgrim, in the Drag. He was a fan of the fights, and when I won, I got a free breakfast: eggs and some sort of steak that tasted like beef, so I didn’t ask about it. He respected a good fight well-won, and I gave him a salute in thanks as I ate.

Coffee was trickier in Orgrimmar, and I usually had to find it in the Goblin… slums, is the word I used, for lack of something more enlightened, or maybe more respectful. I usually got it from Razzi, she made coffee and (very) friendly conversation out of a small, outdoor café that was probably only just big enough for the machines that made her pastries.

On the night of a fight, I usually spent my time in or around Blazzil’s place. I could keep an eye on him, and it didn’t hurt to arrange transportation into Durotar to the warehouse. Thankfully, he kept himself in his office, with his lieutenants most of the time.

I’d made the best of a bad situation and got in with some of the bruisers who weren’t so hardened on his payroll, guys who spent most of their time standing outside doors and getting the trike ready for Blazzil, but never had any actual face-time. They played poker, sometimes, but I played hearthstone, or at least, I learned some of the nuances of it.

You can only win so many hands at poker before people don’t want to play with you, anymore. They weren’t the hardest men to read. Fixit’s eye twitched when he was bluffing. Daggit licked his lips when he had a good hand. Axxel’s nostrils flared when he lied. Voz always wore those reflective sunglasses.

But, it was something to pass the time, because at this point, there weren’t any sights left to see in Orgrimmar.

Night came slow, the day blurred, and I was fighting, again.

I didn’t remember who he was, the announcer had introduced him, but I hadn’t paid attention. He was forsaken, I knew that much, and he wasn’t shy about using his claws when the ref wasn’t looking. We clinched and I felt him trying to rake my eyes with them, I felt him trying to dig them into my arms, my back. I felt them, like drops of molten slag that had dripped onto my skin, pinpoints of pain.

I wrestled him off of me and shoved him to the ropes, and he grinned, shaking away my blood from his fingertips like he’d just washed them before bringing them up again with a grin that glistened where his skin had rotted away on his cheek.

I wasn’t particularly fazed, and I wasn’t particularly worried.

It was almost like a fugue, lately, these middle-of-the-road bouts, with middle-of-the-road fighters. Fights I was allowed to win. Out of body experiences, where my body took over and my mind wandered.

I remembered that grin, but I also remembered seeing most of the grin on the mat after the ref pulled me off of him. His jaw was barely attached.

Then I was at the bar, ordering a drink. My hands were throbbing with dull and faded pain that had stung at some point. I had been bandaged with linen doused in experimental alchemy. Doc’s stuff always made my teeth feel like they were vibrating.

The whiskey was bottom-shelf, but the bartender grabbed it from the top.

Voz swung his leg up and hopped onto the stool beside me, slapping me just a little bit too hard for the state of my back, and I winced, grunting at him. I could still taste the blood in my mouth.

“Hey-Hey! Andy, my main man! What a fuckin’ fight, my dude! Lemme buy you a drink, yeah? If ya can keep It in ya wit all those holes, am I right?! Haaaah!”

I turned to him, only to snort and down the rest of my whiskey, lifting a finger for another one, side-nodding to him when the bartender acknowledged me, “He’s buying, and paying for the last one.”

He smirked, drumming the bar-top with his hands, “I s’ppose I do owes ya from last pokah night.”

I nodded, “Good thing I don’t charge interest like Daggit does, eh?”

Voz pushed his sunglasses up the bridge of his nose, “I made the mistake of askin’ him for a gold for lunch a few years back. I woulda been bettah off buyin’ a trike off, shit.” He laughed, and laid a hand on my shoulder, more gently, this time, “So’s, speakin’ of Daggit, him an’ me an’ the boys was gonna throw Fixxit a party fah his birthday in a couple weeks, y’knows, all the good stuff, booze, babes, all that. Paid fah of course, since ya know he ain’t getting’ laid without it, hah! You in, my dude?”

I chuckled, “Su—”

chuckled?

The whiskey in my mouth turned to ash, and I felt myself tense. My skin felt slick, grimy from something other than sweat. I was suddenly more aware of myself than ever. I felt the electricity of dangerous alchemy inside of me, in my blood, in my skin. I felt every bruise on my body, I felt every ache in my bones. I felt the uncomfortable stool beneath me, flimsy and creaking, I felt his hand on my shoulder.

When did I become so comfortable with this? When did I start mistaking the brutality for sport? When did I start thinking this place was my home, that these people were my friends? How did I let it happen? How did I let myself become used to this?

I suddenly found myself standing over Voz, his nose bloody, his sunglasses shattered, eyes dilated with sudden panic and sudden confusion.

I suddenly saw myself, in the shards of reflective glass.

I suddenly rembered why I was here.

I remembered who I was.

And I was furious that I had forgotten.

Comments

Kharris Dawndancer-Blacksong
2019-06-30 02:20:19

I know I gushed about this in your DMs, but I loved this. I don't want you to stop writing this series, I want to see what's happening with Andy. The end was really compelling and got my spirits up for him. More please!

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