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Jacob Lash was exactly the kind of man he said he was. Strong, confident, generous. How he has made it through twenty-eight years of life without a single steady relationship is frankly a crime. A crime that made sense when you boil it down.
Forty hours a week at the docs started before even leaving school working overnight at the warehouses to make ends meet. Going straight from school to work to school just to sleep through every class he didn’t like and occasionally a few he did. Then came the second job when adulthood hit. Days with the actual good doc work free from the warehouse out with the freights and evenings cleaning some cushy office building filled with pencil pushers he found it hard to envy. They had “better jobs” sure but every one he knew seemed soulcrushed about it. Then it was the two jobs and the Bear Pit. You do a lot of stupid things to get bail money. And when you’re spinning around the unions making buddies who strike you need a lot of bail money. It also helps when you’ve got the money to bail yourself out when you get arrested. How he ever went from swept up in the crowd to “call Lash when you get yourself in trouble” he has no idea but The Lash does not take such trust lightly. Promising rookie quickly became the rising star and he could drop the janitor job. It wasn’t clean money, Wraith doesn’t have a single penny not tied to something dirty, but it was money he damn well earned. He’d rather be tied up in whatever houses of petty sin she ran than Mendoza’s network of blood.
To say he was too busy was almost true. More accurately he had too much going on. The fights and the local fame got in the way of the most. He won’t date fans. It could work in theory with those who are more casual fans but it breaks his unflinching persona with that group of people. The Lash must remain larger than life. Gambling and hedonism raging throughout the surroundings of that side of his life too attracts a particular crowd. One that’s fun to grab drinks with, shoot the shit with, but that’s the extent. You’d think he’d find someone at work then. Where even the people who have full wind that the reigning champion of the biggest fighting circuit in New York is amongst them, he’s just some guy on their shift. But it’s no dice. Unlucky maybe. Too up his own ass others would accuse but hard to say.
Mainly it was hard to find love with Mendoza breathing down everyone’s necks. He’s beat up enough goons bothering him about not throwing his fights to be well known and well hated. Anyone who couldn’t hold their own might be victim to one petty son of a bitch. Or the union busters. Hell or crazy fans. Particularly snake shaped ones.
However was is the key word there. With that Ivy chick cleaning up Spanish Harlem of the bastard a weight was lifted off his life. Off of everyone's life in these poorer sides of town. With one of the big obstacles gone it lets a man’s mind wander. Lets a man feel lonely even one as self sufficient and complete as The Lash.
It’s a late night out with boys at Jezzabel’s on rare Friday night without a fight. It’s girls night at the Bear Pit and who is he to look a gift horse in the mouth. While it’s tragic to not watch the ladies fight he needs this. He needs to be impeccably drunk and to be hung over with nothing to do tomorrow. Unfortunately being impeccably drunk leads you to say dumb shit.
“You know meeting someone the old fashioned way is lame, unromantic. What’s so special about meeting someone by just bumping into them?” He says to general chagrin of the rest of the people in the booth with him.
”Finding someone just kinda happens, it's romantic looking back on it not while it’s happening it’s not the movies Lash.” One lightly scoffs.
“Please extraordinary people have memorable epic romances with other extraordinary people. I’m not just going to find someone worthy of The Lash randomly on the street.” He throws back the rest of his drink.
His buddy beside him teasingly hits him in the side. “Find someone qualified how everyone else gets a hold of resumès, put an ad in the paper!”
Put an ad in the paper. To a very drunk Lash it sounds like a not half bad idea. He’d have to conceal his identity, as to not attract fans of course. Now that sounds interesting. An anonymous ad for someone brave enough and spontaneous enough to answer such a thing? Surely that would attract someone interesting. Even if they didn’t meet all the criteria he wanted just doing something like that spoke to a sense of adventure.
That night absolutely hammered he wrote up a message to the partner of his dreams and promptly fell asleep.
A hungover Lash looked at the drafted ad the next morning with confusion at first. Less that he did it and more that it’s so coherent considering the state he was in. Ruminating on it all Saturday he brushes it up and takes the leap. Taking out a cheap personal ad. And though he’s nobody’s poet, he thought it wasn’t half bad.
***
Bebop really didn’t think much about maintaining any kind of social bonds other than Ms Shelly. Which frankly she was very upset about. But he just couldn’t sacrifice any time with her. He’d listen to her insisting on him finding friends or worse finding love and feel nothing but nerves about how she was probably only talking like this because her time was short. It did get lonely the long hours she slept anymore. Too much time alone with his thoughts. Thinking about how empty his world will be without her. Even if she can be cured she’s still old, and wouldn’t want to live forever even if there was a way. Maybe she’s right. It isn’t what she wants for him to be alone. Ms Shelly didn’t make him to tend to her, she made him just to create a life. Wouldn’t it make her happy if he had one?
Maybe that’s what keeps him looking at the ad in the back of the paper. It’s not like he’ll ever meet someone in a normal way. Most people aren’t keen to cozy up to a giant metal golem. Not exactly a cozy friendly design to him either, made for scrapping. Literally and figuratively.
Surely the person who put out the ad had an organic in mind but he fit the criteria.
Fighting spirit check, can keep up with someone ambitious check, sense of humor, he’d like to think he’s interesting, and heart of gold is subjective but Ms. Shelly raised him right. There’s nothing to stop him from trying. It gave a PO box address to return a letter to. After his fight tonight he’ll drop a letter into the mail on his way back and let it leave his hands how things go.
Hell he knows otherwise he’ll never take the leap. The anonymity makes it easier.
Letter written, properly posted, and resting in a Bear Pit locker as he has another rematch with Lash. As much as he hates the guy these fights are damn good money on the rare occasion they happen. While he lost the last one every fight is impossibly close and the two are the only people in the whole circuit who can volley the title of champion back and forth.
Despite being much shorter than BeBop Lash leans on bearing down. Slams and low jabs. Both of them rely on boxing over anything else. Though BeBop would love to try and see any organic, even Lash, attempt to wrestle with a golem of his strength and size. It’s a brutal exchange of blows back and forth and the fight is far from over. Wearing them both down with damage.
It’s a lucky angle when Lash hits the join of his shoulder in a way that spins his arm back. From there then war of attrition tumbles off its delicate balance. Goddamnit the pay out for a win here was going to be massive.
After the loss BeBop carefully realigns his arm in the locker room and is thankful he’s now a big enough fighter that pulling a crowd guarantees something. He throws his tools back into his locker and halfway through grabbing his letter and heading out a hand reaches past him from behind and snatches it.
“No way you’re getting fanmail after the way you get thrashed.” Lash begins holding it away before Bebop can even turn like a school bully.
“Fuck off Lash, are you ten?” He grabs for the letter.
If he gets too flustered about it getting stolen he knows the asshole would push harder and likely tear it open. The last thing he wants is him, of all people, reading it.
“I just can’t believe YOU have fans. I mean you have all the charisma of a junked up car.”
Bebop could argue the two of them tiff but honestly they never really get into it out of the ring. Jabs and gloats but he is not in the mood to waste time on him. He takes a wide swing with his wrecking ball arm smacking Lash flat against the lockers. Just hard enough to wind him and snatch the letter back. Really he wants to say something clever but it escapes him looking down at Lash so stunned at having actually been swung at in the locker room. It isn’t the first time by a long shot someone’s threw a punch after a fight but Bebop made a point to be mature about things even when being prodded. Taking his arm away he turns quickly to leave.
“Have a shitty night Lash.” He yells behind him.
Tossing the letter in the mail receptacle on the street he has to live with the fact he’s actually taking a leap like this. It’s not going to work, of course it won’t. Even if it does when they have to meet it will crumble with a quickness. There’s a reason he didn’t describe himself or even give his name, just a return address. Hey if something is put out there anonymously then it can only expect the answers to give just as little information.
A week later a nameless response arrives through the mail flap bright and early before he’s even started Ms Shelly’s breakfast. But she has been sleeping in later and later these days. He swears he used to start at six but it’s a quarter past eight now.
Much to Bebop's surprise the letter starts with a request to further talk to each other. This stranger also doesn’t want to meet in person by the sound of it. Insists if they’re going to commit to a real love story, looks shouldn’t get in the way. Finding a time to meet is also apparently an entirely different hurdle, he mentions hardly ever having the time to actually date in person. A deal breaker for most but a relief for Bebop. It’s a charming letter in all honesty. If not a little more revealing of personality than the first. A little brash, overconfident, clearly someone who wants to view themselves as too good for the normal way of things. However there’s something to admire about the commitment to this idea of a novel like romance. A story of getting together worth telling and retelling. Romantic notions of falling in love with personality without looks playing a factor.
As to not waste his own or the stranger’s time when he writes his response later that day he’s honest about what exactly he is and how it might be difficult for an organic. If they’re going to get to know each other that’s something so big that it would feel like lying to withhold it. He’s got enough lies of omission going on…
The back and forth starts soon after.
He covers up fighting in the pit by talking about it as a fan. Sharing about how caring for his mother has made things like cooking a real hobby even though he can’t eat. About the music he likes, about the sparse preferences he has. After a few weeks it’s easy to open up that while he’s as mature in the head as an adult he’s lived a very insular life and hasn’t formed a lot of interest or many strong opinions.
This stranger is quite the opposite, sure of everything he is. What he shares is about work friends he’s close to, in place of hobby time is time being politically active. Big on all that workers rights stuff Bebop had really only thought about in passing when the paper mentioned it. It had to be some kind of cosmic irony that the stranger is a big Lash fan. But does talk a lot about the newest fighters and which ones are interesting or not. Bebop’s ego can’t help but get a little inflated the day a letter compliments him directly even without knowing.
“As much as I’ll never root for a rival of The Lash, Bebop has got to be one of the most memorable rookies of the past year or two.”
Letters come in a day or two as they both pick up the habit of writing a return as soon as possible. Ms Shelly finds it adorable always talking about how she’s happy her son is out here living the plot of a novel. Teasing him when she catches him writing.
Then the dreaded topic of finally meeting in person comes up. The idea of a restaurant or bar seems a little unfair but Bebop nearly short circuits when it’s suggested they meet at the Bear Pit. After the rematch between him and Lash no less. After all a few months of them not fighting the rematch is a big event. Meeting after the pit winds down after the fight- god won’t he give them a heart attack. Of course his dumb ass agrees, it will certainly be a make or break moment.
***
Lash had to win this fight he had to show off. Leave the ring without a black eye or a bleeding nose which the golem often leaves him with even when he wins. He’s god's gift to combat but he is human fighting metal. The pit isn’t human only, that would frankly be boring. It’s a little rougher to take a hit from a walking steel beam than getting whipped by an ixian tail. Hours from now he’ll be meeting his not quite boyfriend. A romantic penpal. This has to be perfect.
It’s ironic that this penpal is a golem but thankfully he hasn’t talked about being a diehard Bebop fan who would be upset about him getting a beat down. It’s crossed his mind with some details here and there that his penpal sounds a lot like Bebop but surely he could never be someone who sounded so fun and sweet.
He tries not to think about it.
The fight starts and above all else this needs to be a show. He’s giving it his all. But unfortunately for him Bebop has also upped his game. He’s won every time except their first fight, it’s always a good match that takes a lot of effort but this is a whole different ballgame. This would be the worst fight to lose this idiot robot has already taken his flawless record he won’t let him embarrass him in front of a potential partner.
In the final round both of them are worse for wear. It’s close enough they might run down the timer to a tie.
Lash takes a breath and gathers all the energy he still has to focus and hit where it hurts. Right at where the plate of the stomach meets the chests tilting in the stomach plate making a horrible scraping sound and sending him down just long enough for the bell.
They both hobble to the locker room and yet both are in a rush to pretend to get back to normal.
Well at least he doesn’t have a black eye. A massive bruise across his jaw but no black eye. Leaving the locker room in a hurry to slam a single shot of liquid courage and pace around trying to shake out the ache of the hits. Work is going to be hell tomorrow. The crowds thin as different fights take the ring once it gets too late at night to be prime time. Waiting in the spot they agreed to meet unfamiliar nerves creeping up on him. The Lash is not a man who is ever nervous but maybe some butterflies are acceptable.
Bebop comes up near him finding a place to lean against the wall but doesn’t try interacting with him. There’s no way right?
“You typically run home right away. The hell you hanging around for?”
“None of your damn business, mate. Shouldn’t you be gloating until your head explodes with all your little fangirls on your arm?” He snaps back.
“The Lash does not cozy up to fans, it's irresponsible. You lurking here is not normal. You’re not trying to hang around for a pick up fight are you?” Probing question hopefully his penpal is just a little late.
“I’m waiting to meet someone here actually and frankly it’s annoying you’re even here of all spots of the pit.”
“Waiting for someone writing you letters?”
They look at each other in a stretching silence. A decent thirty seconds of just staring. Before Lash burst out laughing. God dammit. Of course this would be how it turned out, maybe him having suspicions makes this a little less of a hit.
Bebop is a little too stunned to find it funny at least when Lash first starts laughing. But it’s infectious and this misfortune ends up making the two seem to on lookers like they just told each other the best joke they’d ever heard.
“Best rookie of the last two years huh?~” Bebop has to bring that up.
“Don’t try your luck. I’m choosing not to be upset.” Lash hits his shoulder.