.scottytbh:
Watching Audrey as she pummelled he bag before her, landing punch after punch before driving her foot into the leather, was strangely therapeutic for Scotty. With his own mind sounding a harsh cacophony through his skull, intrusive thoughts seeping in every other second, he found himself entirely out of sorts and unable to focus his attention on even the most basic of tasks. Hell, only yesterday he’d thrown a simple, one-minute pot noodle into the microwave, and had accidentally pressed the wrong input on the machine – sufficed to say, he’d forgotten all about it until exactly one hour later when the noodles had exploded all over the place.
As he watched the precision with which Audrey pounded her fists against the bag, never breaking her focus even to subtly greet Scotty, his frown deepened. There had once been a time where he’d had that same drive and passion, a time where even the smell of fresh donuts couldn’t taunt him away from the task at hand. Gone were the days where he could effortlessly swing a right hook and have his opponents at his disposal, replaced with endless thoughts and distractions of Callum’s smile, or Alfie climbing onto his back, or the twang of Louis’ accent as the ever familiar darlin’ echoed in Scotty’s ears. His mind had never felt so busy, and he hated it.
When Audrey landed her final kick, he focused on the rhythmic way with which the bag swung beside them, before drawing his eyes back to her and swiftly nodding in response to her greeting. When he finally found the words to tell her what he wanted, he didn’t miss the arch of her eyebrow, and he wondered if he sounded quite as ridiculous as he felt.
“Oh, uh, naw, definitely boxing,” he smirked, shrugging slightly at her query.
While he had no doubt in Audrey’s skills, and admired her abilities to defend herself, he had been pretty much convinced from the off that the two of them wouldn’t ever agree on their music taste. With Scotty secretly harbouring a passion for global boy bands such as One Direction and The Vamps, he was pretty sure that Audrey favoured more old timey stuff like the Beatles and whoever else existed back when vinyl was all the rage.
In all honesty, it amused him to no end that Audrey had such a vast interest ranging from kickboxing to vinyl to Hepburn and Peck, all of which she somehow managed to exhibit into her every day life despite almost none of the above holding any relevance in this decade. In fact, if anything, it baffled him even more to think that all the books he’d read back to front countless times – including classics like To Kill a Mockingbird and Breakfast at Tiffany’s – were probably right up Audrey’s street, and yet he’d never thought to stop and talk to her about much past their mutual interest in boxing.
“It’s aight, Ne-Yo ain’t all that,” he told her, shrugging off her confession.
Taking a deep breath, he pressed his hand up and let the still-swinging bag fall against his palm. Gently, he rapped his bare knuckles against the leather as he fretted over his choice of words.
“It’s, uh… Aight, I dunna, I jus’… I kinda been strugglin’ lately, y'kna? With my form, ‘n stuff,” he explained, offering Audrey a meek smile. Running his tongue over his lower lip, he bit down and averted his eyes from her. She didn’t need to know why he’d been struggling so bad, right? He just needed to know that she could help. “I jus’ kinda been strugglin’ with, like, focus 'n all that. And y'all crazy driven, y'kna?”
Swallowing back his nerves, he lifted his eyes back to Audrey once more and offered her a stiff smile.
“Y'all think you can help or suttin’?”
“Boxing. I can help with boxing,” Audrey confirmed with a nod of her head. She’d always thought that Scotty was more advanced and driven than she was when it came to the sport, but, nonetheless, if she could help him then she would.
She smiled when Scotty announced that Ne-Yo, whoever that happened to be, wasn’t ‘all that’ as he put it. She knew that a lot of the gym-goers preferred to work out to the pounding bassline of an electronic composition that made Audrey’s ears bleed to hear, but she tried her best not to pass judgment. Everyone had different tastes and when Bea had mentioned some sort of rapping American thing she liked, Audrey had tried her best to look it up on the YouTube. Given that Audrey failed to remember she had a Tumblr account on the best of days, her foray into the YouTube resulted in her getting agitated and whacking the top of the router in order to get a damn video to work. She ended up never listening to the beat-boxing President of whatever it was, and hadn’t returned to the YouTube since.
At least with boxing, she had some sort of clue and could help her friend out.
“Your form?” Audrey echoed, puckering her eyebrows together in a frown. She took in the way he was knocking a little pitifully against the punchbag, and smirked. “Well maybe you should try taping up or wearing gloves first.”
Raising an eyebrow at him as he fumbled over his words, the smile soon faded when she realised that this seemed to be a real problem for Scotty. Hearing that his focus was gone was a surprise, because she had never imagined Scotty to have problems with that given how driven he seemed.
“Okay…” she sounded out slowly. She was beginning to doubt that he had come to the right person, because her own personal distractions usually differed from everyone else’s, especially if this happened to be about relationship drama. Scotty did look uncharacteristically sullen though and while Audrey had been told that she was tough, her heart wasn’t made of stone. Relenting, she bit back a defeated sigh and nodded determinedly instead.
“I can try and help. No promises I’ll be the best though,” she told him. Running her fingers over the tape around her hands, she squinted up at him.
“Maybe we should try and figure out why you’re losing focus first. It is college stuff? Some other sort of… relationship problem?” she asked hesitantly, wondering if she would soon regret asking.
