Relief

He’s pretty sure nobody he works with would get it; they get beat up on a regular basis as it is, so doing it even more, looking forward to the moments where it’s just him and his opponent in the ring, the smell of sweat and blood, the feel of flesh under his knuckles and the squelching sound of gushing wounds, they wouldn’t understand. This is different, this is exclusively him, and his weaknesses, and his problems, and he can shed his skin and be exactly himself, for the time of a fight, as long as necessary, until there’s too much blood in his eyes or he’s on the ground, coughing out a tooth or two.