Won't Back Down: Won't Back Down

by Unknown

  Due to some odd incidents with stalkers in the past, the show no longer aired any of the fighter's personal lives, and Kell was glad about that because he really didn't want to be on a reality show. He was a fighter because it was what he could do. It wasn't for a dubious sense of "fame" or whatever weird motives some of the newbie fighters had—until they were knocked down on their asses, that was. If fame was all a person wanted, there were easier ways to get it, ways that didn't involve physical damage and potential death.

  They stayed in the Estroya Towers, where most of the fighters had units, although none shared a floor or even knew for sure where the others were. It wasn't due to the potential of fights, but out of a small measure of privacy. They weren't their jobs, even if it did eat up most of their free time. Occasionally they’d run into fellow fighters in the lobby or the lifts, but it was like running into a classmate you were barely aware of. There was awkward small talk and little else.

  The spicer made them both feel like their muscles were rubbery, so they went straight to bed, figuring everything else could wait until morning. It was weird, but most of the time this was his favorite part of the day, just cuddling in bed with Layne and pretending the rest of the galaxy didn't exist. They weren't fighters, they weren't even humans; they were just two men in love.

  *~*~*

  Kell woke up from vivid, psychedelic dreams to sunlight streaming through the opaque window wall overlooking the capital city of Yvara, the crown jewel of the Unified Worlds. He'd never get over the view, which was just breathtaking, especially from this high up. It was a carpet of jeweled buildings in fascinating geometric shapes, from the smooth crystalline ovoid of the arena to the mirrored pyramid shape of the distant spaceport hub, which was currently reflecting the petal-pink dawn sky. It was even weirder to think that, just fifty years ago, humans had yet to set eyes on this world. Now they were one of the fastest-growing minority populations on the planet, much to the chagrin of some alien chauvinists. The human rats were not only here to stay, but they were moving in.

  He snuggled against Layne's sleeping form, and while he didn't want to wake him, the temptation to cuddle him was just too strong. These quiet moments, when they were simply two people in love, were so rare lately. Sometimes Kell allowed himself to daydream about the two of them, retired and doing nothing but growing old together, but how realistic was that? He could count the number of retired, functional fighters on one hand, and still have most of his fingers free for signing autographs. And of course none of them were humans. Still, it was a lovely dream, and something to look forward to. He was a stubborn man. If there was any way to make that dream a reality, he was determined to find it.

  Layne groaned sleepily as Kell nuzzled his neck, wrapping his arms around his waist and breathing in his scent. Layne had an impressive six-pack; he could feel the hardness of it like a cutting board. It was practical, of course, as a stomach like that made punching him there a general waste of energy and saved Layne some pain. "You're nice and warm, but you're not that soft," Layne murmured.

  "You wouldn't like me if I was soft," he replied, kissing him right below the ear. Sometimes the double entendres were just too easy.

  Layne chuckled low in his throat, a very sexy sound. "Very funny."

  Kell pressed up tight against him, enjoying his muscular form and body heat, getting a little aroused. Maybe due to his lower body weight, the spicer always hit Layne harder, and he was barely awake. "I don't suppose you want to fool around, huh?"

  Although Layne reached back and gave him a more than friendly pat on the ass, he muttered sleepily, "You know it's bad luck."

  Layne clung to some weird sports superstitions, some that had apparently existed for centuries—and had never been proven true, but athletes could be a weird species unto themselves. As far as Kell was concerned, not having sex on game day or the day before seemed self-defeating, but Layne believe these things despite the fact that they were kind of silly. Not that Kell would ever disparage his beliefs aloud. He wasn't the smartest guy in the universe, but even he knew that was a stupid thing to do.

  Kell let out a disappointed groan and buried his face in Layne's sweet-smelling hair. "You're lucky you're cute, you know that?"

  Layne chuckled sleepily, and after a couple of minutes, Kell heard his breathing slow and felt his body relax as he fell back to sleep. Sometimes Kell wished the spicer would hit him that hard.

  After a couple of minutes, he carefully slipped out of bed, trying not to wake Layne, although he was fairly certain nothing short of a tactical nuclear strike would get him up. They didn't call it a spicer coma for nothing.

  The computer activated once he was in the bathroom, laying out his scheduled activities for the day. It still kind of amused him that the computer voice sounded so much like his great Aunt Hreval. She was a UFL fighter, and had actually tried to discourage him from joining, afraid he'd get torn to pieces, which was a sentiment echoed by his parents. But once he'd made it clear he was going to do this, she was his very first trainer. Much of the wisdom he'd picked up had come straight from her.

  There wasn't much on his schedule, just an interview and some training, which he moved to later in the day. He had to work in an extra-early training session with Layne.

  Sunlight was starting to infiltrate their apartment completely, lighting up the iridescent walls in the bathroom. When Kell had moved in, he'd left everything as it had been when he was assigned the apartment. Same neutral tones in the walls and flooring, utilitarian furniture, little in the way of personalization. Not that he didn't want to make this place his home—as temporary as it might be—but it wasn't a priority for him. He grew up amongst minimalist Moltrias, and it had rubbed off in ways he hadn't really anticipated. But when Layne had moved in with him, he was somewhat appalled that Kell had changed nothing, that he hadn't made the place his own. So Layne immediately busied himself transforming the place, making it look more lived in and unique to their personalities.

  What that had meant was covering the walls with that smartpaper, the kind that could be programmed to change, and Layne often set it to alter patterns randomly. So today the walls of the bathroom had a rainbow sheen, like the inside of an old Earth abalone shell, but tomorrow it could be a solid green, or maybe an alternating pattern of birds and palm fronds, or stars on a metallic background. Layne livened up plain old colors and standard patterns with weird things, which splashed his imprint all over the place. Kell's personalization, so far, was a holocube of his adoptive parents and his replica championship trophy, which looked quite a bit like a chunk of asteroid covered in a thin, liquid layer of crushed opals. He couldn't decide if it was attractive or hideous; it usually depended on the day. Also, it depended a lot on whether it clashed with the current day's wallpaper.

  Whereas Kell grew up as the adopted member of UFL "royalty," Layne was the son of working class immigrants and had never seen a UFL fight until he came to Yvara at the age of six. He needed a sport for school, and he hated being teased for being a "runt," so he started to learn how to fight by age ten. A growth spurt at seventeen ended the "runt" teasing, but by then he was hooked, even though his family worried he was a little bit crazy for attempting to enter the league. They were nice people, although Kell always got the sense that Layne's parents worried that he was involved with another fighter. Layne thought it was because they were afraid something serious could happen to either of them, and also that they thought any human who wanted to go toe to toe with bigger, stronger aliens needed their head examined. It was a fair point, and not an uncommon sentiment. But people usually gave Kell a bit more leeway considering his family. The fact that Layne's parents didn't accept that as an excuse amused Kell for some reason, although he wasn't sure why. Maybe it was precisely because most people just assumed he was following in his adoptive parents' footsteps, unaware he'd had to push for this and work as hard as hell to get here.

  Breakfast was waiting for him in the kitchen when he was out of the sho
wer, a protein-rich dish of cro'mach and some broiled bread for carbohydrates, along with an assorted bunch of fresh fruits. The problem of a completely automated kitchen unit was he never had to make his own food. If he remembered to plan ahead, it would make his favorite foods on a schedule, and he never had to think about any of it. But the drawback was that it made things uniformly, so everything tasted exactly the same from one time to the next, even if the gap between eating the dish in question was years. That was exactly the kind of problem Kell could never have imagined having—until he'd realized he had a limited number of dishes he liked. Layne had been trying to expand his horizons, exposing him to different foods and trying to teach him how to cook. While Kell appreciated it, he couldn't imagine ever liking cooking. He did like it when Layne cooked for him, though.

  The scent of the freshly broiled bread was enough to rouse Layne, who came stumbling out of the bedroom dry washing his face. "Couldn't convince you to sleep in a bit longer, huh?"

  Kell shook his head, tucking into his hot omelet equivalent. Cro'mach always reminded him of being a kid on the Moltrias' home world, Ltria. It wasn't quite like what his dad used to make, but it was good all the same. "Big day ahead of us. C'mon, sit down and have breakfast before I eat your share."

  "You would, wouldn't you?" Layne came over and had a seat at the table, which was another thing Layne had picked out. The table was a slab of frosty nano-glass on a plastic frame that looked like blue sea coral. Beautiful but unusual, much like Layne himself. And while he grabbed a fork and dug in, Kell felt Layne's ankle brush his under the table. When they were working, they had to steal moments when they could, no matter how fleeting.

  After breakfast, they headed down to the private gym to work out. While state-of-the-art equipment and virtual matches were available, nothing was better than the old analog punching bags and ring for working out fighting strategy. They could never correctly mimic the feel and the weight of an actual hit.

  They stretched and did an easy couple of standard punch combinations on the heavy bag before moving into the ring for a more strenuous sparring session. Although Kell always pulled his punches when sparring with Layne—they were in different weight classes, after all—this time he didn't do it quite so much. Even in the featherweight division, the aliens packed more of a wallop than the humans, so human fighters had to get used to being hit at a stronger level. It was difficult enough at the heavyweight class, where every punch was like a sledgehammer blow. Layne was good, though. He might have been featherweight by weight class, but he was one of the toughest people Kell had ever met. He could take a hit almost as well as Kell could, maybe even better, but Kell really didn't want to test that theory.

  Layne encouraged Kell to be harder on him, throw more brutal punches and kicks, give him tougher combinations, but Kell wasn't going to risk hurting him accidentally. Besides, Layne had a fight tonight, and all he needed was some recently acquired bruises to give him a hidden weakness. Not that Layne would accept that as an excuse, so Kell didn't tell him. He just didn't do it.

  It was almost a dance. They knew each other's style so well they could match punch for punch, block for block, living echoes of each other's movements. They'd try and mix it up, with Kell throwing a scissor kick or Layne trying a roundhouse kick, but they could see it coming or sense the change in posture, the way they shifted their weight from their right foot to their left or vice versa.

  They were almost fighting machines, although there were some actual robot fighters that would object to that description. Still, Kell reiterated that the one advantage they had over their stronger alien opponents was training. They couldn't overpower them, so they had to be smarter and sneakier, and much of their strategy boiled down to reading body language. Since they were all bipedal, one could infer so much by the way a person would shift their weight, or even by the way their posture tightened or loosened. They could fake a punch, but there were limits to how effectively they could feint with their posture alone.

  It was funny, but Kell knew that Layne was trying just as hard as he was not to think about what it could mean if Layne actually won tonight's bout. Two human champions, in the heavyweight and featherweight divisions? Not only was that unprecedented, but certainly the shit they went through would increase tenfold. It would help advance the human rights movements a great deal, but that too would invite trouble. Still, would Kell even try to discourage Layne from following his dreams? He couldn't imagine doing such a thing, or Layne standing for it. They wouldn't be in this league if they weren't willing to risk everything. They would fight until they couldn't anymore. They'd worry about what happened after that when they got there. Or at least that was what Kell told himself. Some times it was more difficult to remember than others.

  Layne was fast, faster than Kell, and it was another advantage over most of his alien opponents. He had perfected the jab and run, making solid body shots and dancing back, too fast to get hit in return. That was a trick that could really only work once or twice, because it would be expected and compensated for, unless he could hit them from behind.

  They worked on potential counters, moves and counter-moves—anything an opponent might use on him. When Kell caught Layne's leg and tossed him down, Layne was able to use his free leg to kick Kell's leg out, so he ended up on his knees on the mat. With a chuckle, he let go of Layne's leg and crawled forward until he was directly over him. "That was good. You're gonna hafta use that in the ring."

  Layne looped his arms around Kell's neck, smiling lazily up at him. Mussed strands of dark hair clung to his forehead, and while he was panting and sweaty from exertion, he was totally hot. Kell was glad none of his opponents looked this good, as he'd feel bad about kicking their asses. "I intend to. Are we done for now? I don't wanna give you a heart attack, old man."

  "Oh ha," he replied with a sour smirk. Because Kell was six years older than he was, this made Kell an "old man" in Layne's estimation. It was a running joke between them. To play along, Kell pretended it bothered him more than it actually did. "I was thinking of hitting the showers. Wanna join me?" Okay, yes, Layne did have his "no sex the day of the fight" superstition, but Kell was hoping that maybe he'd be willing to overlook it. Especially since a good workout could leave them both a little frisky—when it didn't leave them thoroughly exhausted.

  Layne's grin grew wider and mischief sparkled deep within his dark eyes. "I thought you'd never ask." Layne pulled him down into a kiss, wrapping his legs around his body as if to keep him from getting away. Like Kell would want to get away from the best guy that had ever happened to him.

  *~*~*

  Waiting for the night of the fight seemed like the worst torture imaginable. The funny thing was, Kell only felt that way about Layne's fights. His own fights never really bothered him because there was a specific gravity about them that felt inevitable. He would win or he wouldn't, but there was nothing that he could really do about it. He just had to do his best and stay on his game. Layne's matches were different.

  Layne's matches were like hell. The thought of losing him, of watching it happen and being unable to do anything about it, was a waking nightmare. It was why, before Layne came along, he never got involved with other fighters. If he were smart, he'd never have gotten involved with Layne either, but Kell had never claimed to be the sharpest weapon in the cache.

  But the reverse must have also been true. It was why Layne gave him those worried, pained looks before he left the locker room on fight nights. One of these days, one of them wasn't going to come back. It made Kell's stomach twist just to ponder that. Here he was, upset about what he went through, but Layne, always more expressive and in touch with his feelings than Kell, must have had it a thousand times worse, a million. Dating other members of UFL should have probably been against the rules.

  Layne wasn't worried for himself right now, or if he was, he was successfully hiding it. He went through his usual pre-match regimen, and when the cameras circled him, Layne remained as soft-spo
ken and humble as always. One of the producers also complained to Layne that he really needed to work on the trash talking. The producers wouldn't be happy until they cussed out everyone they ever faced in a twenty-minute-long rant, including every known curse word in the galaxy. Come to think of it, that might take more than twenty minutes. It would probably also be really fun, but because he'd alienate everyone if he did it, Kell figured it would be best to save it until his final match.

  Kell didn't have a fight tonight because this was for the featherweight championship. He could have taken a seat in the private booths, cordoned off for select family and friends, but he couldn't bear the thought of that for some reason. If he was going to suffer through Layne's match, he was going to do it in complete privacy, where the cameras couldn't spy on him like unusually subtle vultures.

  He helped Layne tape up, although he didn't use much of the nano-fiber tape, just some to shore up his wrists and knees. He was lean, his body taut with muscle, with a V-shaped torso tapering down to slender but strong legs, and while Kell really had no time to reflect on how beautiful Layne was, there was no doubt about that. In olden times on Old Earth, they used to create sculptures of bodies like his, and it was easy to see why.

  At the one-minute warning, Layne hugged him and gave him a sweet kiss. It was almost enough to banish the nervous butterflies in Kell's stomach. "Go break his leg," Kell told him, giving him one final squeeze. A part of him wanted to keep hugging him and never let him go, not until the producers came and wedged them apart, but he knew that was pointless.

  Layne kissed him on the forehead before pulling away. "I'll break everything if I have to."

  "You do that," Kell told him, letting his hand linger on Layne's back as he turned away, towards the door, which slid open, revealing the circling carrion birds of the cameras. They followed Layne down the hall, like Kell wished he could do. Instead, Kell retreated to a hard bench, glad for the quiet surroundings. Until the virtual screen came to life, showing him the main camera feed on the far wall, he couldn't hear the crowd at all in here. For that moment, it had been as quiet and eerie as a tomb, and that was something Kell really didn't want to think about right now.