fight club. lh ; mc.

cuatro.

He's had his head in the toilet since he step foot in the club two hours prior.

A toxic combination of cheap drugs and cheap liquor. He's probably got some sort of poisoning, with the amount of fluid he's been chucking up. Everything burns, everything hurts, and he just wants to die.

Luke doesn't know when Ashton gets there, but his curly headed boss is sitting down in the stall next to him, rubbing his back in slow, large circles as Luke gags and barfs out something that looks like it could possibly be the lining of his stomach.

"You're gonna kill yourself, one day," Ashton finally comments once Luke thinks he's done, the blonde leaning against the stall wall so that he's facing Ashton.

Luke shrugs his shoulders, rubbing his pale face with his battered hands, "That was the plan."

They're in a semi comfortable silence for a while, the only sounds being their matching breaths.

"I think you need to go home for a while and see your family." And there it is, the words Luke didn't want Ashton to say, but the ones he knew he was going to hear.

"Liz doesn't want me, Ash. You know that." He laughs humourlessly, but still his throat feels tight and he has to blink back tears, "I'm the black sheep, my mother doesn't love me. If I go back home, the only person who's gonna allow me into their life is Jack. I'm unstable, my parents know my life is a mess. I won't ever go there and prove them right."

Ashton sighs, standing up and dusting off his black skinny jeans, "Your mum loves you, the same as mine loves me. The same as Joy loves Calum, still. Our mothers love us, they just don't love what we've become."

In a split second, Luke is on his own again, and he finally lets the tears fall from his icy blue eyes.

-----

Luke loses his fight that night against Sykes.

His head wasn't in it, his entire body screamed at him in agony for the painful twelve whole minutes it took for Oliver to throw him to the ground and knock him out cold.

Luke doesn't think that there's one inch of his body that isn't bruised, broken or cut.

He shuffles his way into his home, this small, crappy studio apartment that he doesn't have to pay rent in, which is furnished with the bare minimum furniture. He doesn't even have a bed, for christ sake, just this mattress that's thrown in one corner with a blanket over it.

His shitty apartment represents his shitty life.

Throwing his groceries in the refrigerator, all Luke can think about is having a hot shower to sooth the aching he feels in his muscles and his bones. He's stripping off his shirt when there's a knock at the door, which.

Nobody ever visits Luke. Like, ever. People don't want to come to this part of town, it's lower class and dangerous, people aren't safe here. Yet someone's at Luke's door for whatever reason, and Luke's ready to pick up his baseball bat and swing at whoever is there.

His door doesn't have a peephole, so he has to just hope for the best as he unlocks his door and pulls it open.

To reveal Michael Clifford, leaning against his doorframe with a hip cocked out and his gym bag slung over his shoulder.

Luke just blinks at him, unsure of what to say. "Uhm," is all that comes out once he eventually opens his mouth, and it takes him a minute to add on to it, "what the fuck are you doing here?"

"Irwin said you lived here, I thought he was pulling my leg." Michael glances around the area, a look of something that looks an awful lot like disgust on his face, and Luke's probably going to punch him if he doesn't get the fuck away from his flat in the next ten seconds.

"Did you just come here to mentally slag off where I live or are you actually here for a reason?" Luke huffs out like an annoyed child, arms crossing over his bare chest as he looks at Michael expectantly.

And Michael just cocks his head to the side, looking at Luke and drinking him in and suddenly Luke feels really self conscious. His torso is covered in scars of every shape and size, bruises of purple and black cover his sickly pale skin and his body is a strange shape, he's not thin but he isn't built either, his rib cage is crooked and he's got a soft tummy, due to his bad diet and fighting habits.

"I just came to apologise for the fight the other day." The words that come out of Michael's mouth shock Luke, and Michael can tell but continues to press on, "When I fight I'm like a fucking animal, it's like I lose all control of myself and my body and I just go wild. I fucked you up pretty bad and I'm sorry."

Luke scoffs at that, rolling his eyes, "What you did to me was nothing compared to the shit I've gone through at the hands of our other fighters. So take your shitty apology and shove it up your ass, you're not as good a fighter as you like to think you are."

And Luke slams the door on the pretty boys face, running a hand through his hair as he walks away, stalking towards his bathroom to run the shower.

When he jacks off in the shower that night, he has to shove out thoughts of red hair and green eyes, pasty white skin and rough hands.