⁀જ⁀➴ underground boxer bf!choso
╰┈➤ flufffff , mild violence
you've been coming to these fights long enough that the smell doesn't bother you anymore. rust, concrete, sweat and something else underneath it all that you never quite figured out a name for. the kind of smell that lives in walls.
the venue is loud and packed, the lighting is doing its worst and nobody here looks like they're having a particularly good time but nobody here came for a good time exactly. they came for the same reason you came.
well. not exactly the same reason.
you're in your usual spot— front left, close enough to the rope to feel the air shift, with his worn out hoodie that feels like home pulled over your outfit with your tote hung on your shoulder and your hands tucked into the front pocket. the crowd moves around you and you let it. you know where you are. you know what you're waiting for.
the noise drops a register somewhere behind you and you look up and there he is, walking out from the back corridor, you find it funny how he walks in like he owns the place and as if he has all the time in the world, considering being dominant isn't quite a trait he possesses. his dark eyes are already doing that one slow sweep of the room — and then they land on you, and he finds you in the crowd the way he always finds you, something in his face goes soft. you lift your chin at him. he holds your gaze for a while and purses his eyelids shut with a soft smile, and then he steps through the ropes.
you let him go. you'll be here, always.
the guy is decent— quick feet, good hands, the kind of fighter who makes the crowd happy, and you're bouncing slightly on your toes without realizing it, fingers curled in the hoodie pocket. you've gotten better at watching these but the first round always does something to your nerves regardless, some stubborn animal part of you that hasn't learned yet that choso is almost always fine.
but you cheer for him anyway. you cheer loud, actually, louder than you probably look like you would "let's go baby, come on !" a few people glance at you but it isn't something you need to pay attention to.
choso doesn't react to his opponent. he's reading him, studying his movements. his inky eyes completely calm while the guy does his work. he takes one hit to the jaw, deliberate, just to confirm something, and that's all he needs.
the ref raises his arm and you are already clapping, grinning, and choso's stepping out of the ring and strutting toward you through the crowd like he's wanting to do this the moment he stepped into the ring and you have maybe half a second before his hand is on your face and he's kissing you right there in the middle of everything. warm, full of adrenaline and still buzzing.
when he pulls back he looks at you. a certain look of serenity across his face
"hi," you say, still smiling.
something in his face does something soft and incredibly cute. "hi," he says back. low. just for you.
you wipe his face with the cloth from your pocket and he stands perfectly still for it, adoring you intently because to him you were the only thing that mattered whether it was in the ring or not. which with choso is not an exaggeration. it's just the truth.
he goes. looks back once.
he always looks back once.
its harder, and you feel it from the jump.
bigger guy. meaner. the kind who doesn't need to be elegant because his sheer mass does the work just fine and he knows it. you're gripping the hoodie strings without realizing it, twisting them around your fingers, and you're cheering louder this time— "choso come on, that's it, let's go!" voice lifting over the crowd noise, not caring what you sound like.
he hears you. you know he hears you because his eyes find you for just a half second between exchanges, quick but intentional, and something in him steadies.
the body shot in the second round makes you go silent.
you see him take it low on the right side and absorb it and you see the shift, his left foot moving three inches without him knowing, the small compensation that changes everything downstream. your stomach drops and you press your lips together and breathe and breathe and breathe.
he covers it. wall up, face blank. nobody else in this room catches it.
you catch everything about him. you always have and you always will.
he wins and you let out a breath that's been sitting in your chest for two rounds and you clap until your hands sting,
he puts his forehead against yours before you can say anything and you put your hand flat on his chest and just let him breathe.
"that's my boy" you exclaim softly which earns a soft giggle from him
"baby, there's a cut, " you say quietly. above his brow. its not bad but it breaks your heart to see him like this"
"one more," he says, low and even. "then you can do whatever you want."
you press your palm to it and bring his hand up to hold it there. his fingers cover yours for just a second before you pull away.
"stay where I can see you," he says. so quietly you almost miss it.
you feel it before it starts, something tightening in your chest the moment the opponent steps through the ropes. he's enormous. moves too well for his size. and choso's foot has been wrong since that body shot, three inches off, that small, that consequential, and you know it even if he doesn't.
you're not bouncing on your toes this time. you're still.
you cheer anyway. you cheer because he can hear you and you need him to hear you— "come on baby, you've got this, let's go cho!"
your voice comes out steady even though your hands are pressed flat against your thighs to keep them from shaking. the woman beside you is yelling too and the crowd is loud and you are loud with them and underneath all of it your heart is doing something complicated and frightened.
the third round goes wrong fast.
initially choso got hurt more than you'd like to see, although its not as if he didn't do some damage to his opponent. there was an abnormal amount of blood on his hands, some his and some his challenger's.
choso lines up the combination and his footing betrays him, the opening is right there and the guy takes it clean and choso goes down and the ref is counting and you,
your hand finds the rope. your knuckles go white around it. you're watching his face on the mat and thinking come on, come on, please, come on in a voice that never makes it out of your throat, pressing against the back of your teeth.
his palms go flat on the mat. you watch him try. you watch him fist up his hands to try and it still—
the crowd moves on. just like that, the noise shifting elsewhere. you stay exactly where you are for one second, two, breathing through your nose, getting yourself back together.
then you move toward the ropes.
he gets up on his own, you knew he would, you don't try to help him with that. he takes his towel and won't look at you yet. jaw locked. shoulders up. the walls around him going up fast and high and you've seen it before so you know better than to push at it.
you just get close. close enough that he knows you're there.
"hey," you say softly. "let's go, yeah?"
a long beat. something in his shoulders shifts, barely anything.
the parking lot is cold and quiet and you both move through it without talking. you get to the car and you look at him over the roof of it and he looks tired in a way that the fight alone doesn't account for, that specific heaviness that comes with losing, and something in you pulls tight.
you reach into the back for the tote before you've even closed your door all the way.
"choso. give me your hands."
he puts them out without a word, palms down in your lap, and you turn the interior light on and get everything out— antiseptic, cotton pads, butterfly strips, the good tape, gel, the chapstick and you lay it across your knee and get to work.
his knuckles are bad tonight. more than usual, the third fight having taken what it wanted. you clean each one carefully, slow, and he watches out the windshield while the parking lot empties around you.
"this one's split properly," you say, about the middle knuckle on his right hand.
"does it hurt when you flex?"
you appreciate that about him, he doesn't do stoic for the sake of it, not with you, not anymore at least .
you bandage it properly and tape it off and move to his face, tipping his chin with two fingers and he comes easily, tilting toward you, eyes falling shut. you get the butterfly strips on the brow cut and press them flat and then warm the gel between your palms before you touch it to his cheekbone, gentle, and hear him exhale long and slow.
"my pretty boy looks rough today," you say quietly.
"I'm fine," he says. automatic.
"I know you are." you smooth the gel in with careful circles. "you're still pretty though. don't worry."
the corner of his mouth twitches.
you get the chapstick out. and he hears the cap come off.
"no," he says. eyes still closed.
"your lip split again, baby."
"I know you don't need it," you say. "hold still."
silence. then nothing. which is choso for fine.
you do it quick and soft and he sits with his face tipped toward you, completely still, completely trusting, and you think about the guy in that ring— the one who makes an entire room step back without knowing why and how he is also this. also yours. also perfectly willing to sit in a cold parking lot with his face in your hands and let you take care of him.
you put the chapstick down.
he doesn't move right away. just stays there with his eyes closed for a moment, face still tilted up, and the interior light is doing something warm and low and the lot outside is almost empty now and it's just you and him and the quiet.
"yeah," he says. not moving.
"I know," he says. still not moving.
you exhale with a smile, quiet, and he opens his eyes and looks at you he's so close and so tired and so so genuinely, helplessly yours that it does something to you you don't have a clean word for. you reach up and push his hair back from his face, gentle, and he leans into your palm like he can't help it. it's just what he does when you touch him.
he thinks about it, which you love about him, that he actually thinks about it instead of just saying yes.
"yeah," you say. "I know."
you lean across and press a kiss to his forehead, careful and slow, and he goes very still underneath it, the way he goes still when something catches him off guard and moves him more than he was expecting. when you pull back his eyes are soft and dark and fixed on you.
"thank you," he whispers. "for being here. for all of it."
"where else would I be," you say.
"I know it's not easy to see me like this. I know I wouldn't be able to bear to see you get hurt, in any way."
you stare at him for a while before pushing his luscious locks behind and placing a soft peck on his forehead before giving him a warm smile to let him know you be here always.
he faintly smiles at you for what feels like eternity, an eternity you're willing to spend just like this. outside a car pulls out of the lot and the headlights sweep through the windshield and then it's dim again and still.
"let's go home," you say gently.
he nods. reaches over and takes your hand before you've even started the engine. laces his fingers through yours and holds on, not tight, just steady.he just wants the contact. that's enough for him.
his thumb moves slow across the back of your hand the whole drive home and you don't say anything and neither does he and it's the most comfortable silence in the world.
a/n: can u guys tell I just watched bloodhounds lmao , also I needed this fluff really bad:p longest fic I've ever written
