Cat and Mau5

“That was a very quick round there, G3rard. Was that a deliberate move on your part?”
Gerard shook his head, frowning a little, and tried to address the journaldroid without paying overly much attention to the camera rammed in his face.
“No, not at all. You can’t anticipate stuff like that. You just play the game and see how it comes out, you know?”

The second he finished answering another journalist jumped in with another question.
“Was this just a walk in the park for you, Mr. Way?”

Gerard smirked before he could help himself and felt all the cameras click, capturing the confident smile of the victor to plaster all over the sports mags in the morning. He caught himself and shook his head.

“No, no. I mean, I can’t exactly deny that it was an easy win, but you never go into a fight taking that for granted. There’s a fine line between confidence and arrogance and I’m always very conscious of that limit.” He gave the reporter another smile and waved away all the other questions, demanding their attention as the recorders were thrust further forward. “You can never be too sure with T45h, she’s a little firecracker. I see big things in her future.”

He finished out the remainder of questions succinctly and charmingly until he was ushered away by his manager and left to his own devices. He always had a lot of press to deal with after shows; photo shoots, interviews and press release shots for the venue. It meant he usually had to wait at least 2 hours after a fight until he found himself alone and able to reflect on his performance. Gerard’s manager Blake Perry had congratulated him on a job well done but had made himself scarce relatively quickly. Gerard had never had much of a relationship with him. The extent of Perry’s interest in Gerard was limited to how much money they could mutually make for each other. Gerard tolerated the man for the business side of things, but it had never been about the money for him, and that’s a point they just couldn’t see eye to eye on.

When all of the media crap was over and done with Gerard was happy to find Tash backstage when he went to collect his belongings.

“Hey” he smiled happily, approaching her and placing the kiss upon her cheek that he’d wished to give her earlier. “How have you been? How’s 45?” he grinned cheekily.
She scrunched up her mouth but couldn’t hide her smile, smacking him in the chest.
“She was fine until you knocked her fucking ear off, you jerk.”

He laughed, holding his palms outward.
“That was a total accident, I swear to god.”
“No, I saw that” she chuckled, bending to pick up her bag. “Fair play to you, honey, it was a clean win.”
“Thank you.”
“I’m rooting for you, babe. Get to the World’s; knock him off his pedestal.”

It meant a lot to Gerard that she wouldn’t openly offer her support in such a candid manner. The man who had brought UFC to prominence – Deadmau5 – was the current world champion and anyone who was anyone on the circuit aspired to take the top spot from him.

“Hey, are you free now?” he asked, holding the door open for her. “I have a heat in the morning; gotta stay in the city. Did you wanna hang?”
“I would but I really need to head home, get 45 fixed up.” She gave his hand a squeeze. “Good luck for tomorrow. I’ll see you around, okay?”

They bid each other farewell and Gerard started off down the street without much approximation of where he was going. The problem fighting so late in the evening meant that now he was wired, with any possibility of sleep a long way off. But where did you hang out when you were a universally famous UFC fighter without being bombarded by fans? The seediest little backstreet bars you could find, that’s where; where the only people who would recognise him would be too fucked out of their faces to notice.

He began to walk, away from the city lights and into the urban reaches. His comm buzzed in his pocket and Gerard reached for it, answering with video. As expected, Mikey’s face popped up.

“You alright?” Gerard asked. He shifted his bag on his shoulder, noticing from the background of the screen that Mikey was in the next venue.
“Yep, all’s good over here. Did you have much press?”
“Not as much as I’ll have tomorrow. Hey, is El on?”

Gerard was loath to refer to his mau5bot by his player number outside of matches, a quirk that others found a little strange. Mikey rolled his eyes, turning and angling his comm so that Gerard’s bot slipped into the shot.
“You alright?” Gerard called, unashamed. “Nice job on that ear. I’ll see you in the morning, okay?”

Mikey was still rolling his eyes when he turned the camera back onto himself.
“You do know that she doesn’t understand the majority of what you say to her, don’t you? She doesn’t have enough artificial intelligence for that.”
“She knows” Gerard smiled; keeping to his little rituals no matter how silly his brother and manager thought they were. “Has she been seen yet?”
“Scrutineer came and spot-checked about a half hour ago. She’s clean, obviously.”
“Of course she is. I’ll head along in the morning, check in somewhere tonight.”
“Yep, no problem” Mikey nodded, looking out to his right and back again, brows knit. “Hey, do you know who 413 is?”

Gerard frowned, thinking and trying to put a face to the player number. He came up blank, blowing out a breath.
“Nope, doesn’t ring a bell.”

He was hardly worried. It was customary to have not heard of his opponent in the heats, and hopefully ensured a quick progression into the next round. If he could win this tournament he was almost guaranteed a spot at the World Championships, and he was expecting to fight some big names on his way there. He had to keep pushing forward, striving for better, for bigger.

Looking around, Gerard found himself in the bad part of town and turned down a side street, gravitating toward the dirty pink lights illuminating the dark sky.
“How’s her left arm baring up?”
“Better. We worked on it earlier and it’s looking much better. Shouldn’t cause you any problems.”

“Cool” Gerard said absent-mindedly, pushing on the door of the bar with his shoulder blade. “Hey, I’ve gotta split. I’ll see you in the morning, alright? Say goodnight to El for me, would you?”
Mikey groaned.
“I’m not saying goodnight to your fucking-“
“Night, El!” Gerard laughed out, adding “Love you!” for extra measure.
“Jesus fucking Christ” Mikey sighed, ending the call.

Gerard snorted to himself and tucked it away in his pocket, approaching the bar. Just as he’d hoped, the bartender barely looked up when he barked for Gerard’s order. He was tempted – just for a second – to dip his tongue into some beer, but he was all too conscious of the fact that he had to leave for his next match in precisely 7 and a half hours, so he opted for pepsi. He paid by card, much to the distaste of the barkeep, and keyed in his code as quickly as possible just to get out of the way.

He moved to the other end of the bar to sit, not caring to draw attention to himself by meandering to a table. The covering on the barstool was thin and lumpy and the table top was unwashed and sticky. He placed his cloudy glass down gingerly and reached for his comm. He flicked mindlessly through unread emails and messages. The majority of them were from companies he was affiliated with; requesting interviews, photoshoots, offering paid promotional work and requesting that he advertise their products by being seen to use them in public. There was one promising message from Pump The Blood, a sporting media outlet who were offering sponsorship that Gerard sent along to Blake, but otherwise his inbox was not enough to hold his attention for long.

He sipped on his pepsi – a little flat, naturally – and sighed a little. He couldn’t wait until the next championship was fully underway. At least that way he’d have people to actually hang with in between matches. It was hard trying to strike the balance between being alone and being overwhelmed by company. He flicked his comm onto compute and searched for hotels in the vicinity, resigning himself to curling around uncomfortably starched bed sheets until he could feel sleep lapping at the edge of his brain.

He was unaware of the man’s presence at his side until he spoke.
“Uh, excuse me.”

Sometimes the sound of enquiring fan would make Gerard wince, if the match had been especially hard-going and he just wanted to sleep, but this time he was truthfully a little relieved to have the break from himself.

“I’d ask you if you are who I think you are, but it seems a little redundant, considering I’m 99% sure” the fan grinned a little sheepishly, running a hand through his hair and resting it at the back of his neck.
Gerard’s mouth quirked up at one side in response, and he swivelled on his stool, holding out a hand.
“G3rard. Pleased to meet you.”

The man goggled a little at Gerard’s politeness but tried not to let it show.
“Frank. Jazzed to meet you, too.”
“You wanna sit down, Frank?”
“You’re not busy or anything?”

Gerard raised an eyebrow, flitting his eyes from one wall to the other. Frank laughed to himself and pulled the free barstool out.
“Guess you wouldn’t be here if you were, right? Speaking of which…really? Not the nicest joint in the world.”
“That’s kinda the point” said Gerard, sliding the rest of his drink down his throat.
“You come here to escape the hordes?” Frank smiled, hailing down the bartender. “I get that.”

Gerard accepted Frank’s offer of a second drink and they sat companionably, hands wrapped around their glasses.
“I love meeting the fans; I mean of course I do. But sometimes when there are literally hundreds outside the venue, or hanging around in the bar wanting photos or signatures… I dunno, it starts to feel more like a press appearance rather than actually meeting people, you know?”

Frank nodded, understanding.
“I guess you get a lot of that.” He sat back a little and threw an arm out. “Well, congratulations anyway. I was watching - someplace else, obviously - and the room fucking blew up when you knocked that ear off.”
Gerard grinned down at his glass.
“I didn’t see it coming any more than you did. But thank you. I appreciate the support.”

Their eyes met and they both smiled. This was the kind of fan Gerard preferred meeting. One who actually had things to say, rather than just requesting a signature or photograph as evidence to show their friends that it had actually happened. Frank hadn’t asked for either of these; in fact, he was even understanding as to how those things could be a burden.

The man opposite him was slight and undeniably attractive. He had a head full of short but full hair, bangs pushed back off his face and his eyes were large; soft, focused and the same approximate hue of Gerard’s. The guy was covered in tattoos – permanent ones by the looks of things, as opposed to the semi-permanent lasered variety that were more of the time, favoured by the indecisive and non-committal. Nothing about Frank but for his obvious taste for UFC was particularly of the time, in fact. His clothes were simple, much like Gerard’s. Frank was dressed in well-worn faux-denim jeans and a threadbare t-shirt that looked like it had originated from a different time – perhaps half a century ago.

As Gerard took another sip of his flat beverage Frank hooked his feet around the bar on his stool, lifting up slightly to retrieve a small silver case from his back pocket. He opened it up, sliding a cigarette between his lips and offering the case toward Gerard. Gerard was hesitant. The last thing he needed was to be snapped smoking up. God but he wanted it, though.
“These are…real?” he goggled, lowering his voice.

Frank nodded, confirming to Gerard that they were made from authentic outlawed tobacco, as opposed to the simulations and herbal varieties that were legally consumed in their place.
“Yeah, I don’t like sims much.” He grinned, a little amused by Gerard’s reluctance and darting eyes. “It’s okay, I promise. No one will bat an eyelid in a place like this. Ash on the fucking floor and see if they care.”

Gerard took another cautious look around, but conceded that Frank was right. He took one, holding it in his mouth and moving forward to meet the flame that Frank held in his fist.

The first hit was dizzying. Not only was it the real deal, but it was a fucking decent blend. He hadn’t smoked anything this good since he’d been in college, covertly sharing a stick with his friends on the edge of campus. That was several years ago now, and with his rise to fame within the fighting circuit he hadn’t dared smoke up illegals and had stuck to herbals mostly when he needed a kick.

He shook his head as he exhaled leisurely, making Frank laugh a little.
“It’s good, right?”
“Fuck yes” Gerard sighed. “Thanks. …You won’t, uhh-?”
“I wouldn’t tell. What do you take me for?” Frank teased, taking another drag happily.
Gerard nodded, satisfied somehow that he could take Frank at his word.

They finished out their cigarettes in silence, unwilling to converse in between drags and let the precious tobacco burn out without them. Gerard sighed when it was done, now extremely grateful that he’d made the decision to slink into this grotty dive. Blinking a little he then fumbled for his wallet, mentally trying to remember if he had any cash on him.

“Oh! Did you want anything for it? I mean, it must have set you back. You know I’m good for it.”
Frank waved off the comment, shaking his head sternly.
“No charge. I’m not a fucking dealer or anything, I just wanted to…share…with you.” He coughed a little, awkwardly.

Gerard smiled, halting his actions and curling his hand back around his glass.
“Then thank you.”
Frank smiled back, knocking his own pepsi back with a grimace.
“Another?”

Gerard nodded, gesturing the bartender himself this time, figuring it was his round. If the boy wasn’t going to accept any cash, the least Gerard could do was pay him back in companionship and conversation for a while longer.