The day they'd met was really a blur in Crawford's mind. He vaguely recalled an argument. Insults. Something crass being said. Fists flying. The only thing he really remembered clearly was waking up the next morning in his shoebox apartment with a black eye, swollen knuckles, and a chipped tooth. Time went by. He put the guy out of his mind, just another in a long string of fights. Nothing special. He went to work. He dealt with his friend. He handled his brother. And more fights happened.

Those fights, for Crawford, were always so much more than just beating in someone's face. Everyone had their thing. Some would create, some had anonymous sex, some took up dangerous hobbies. He started fights. But ever since that one, with the guy he could only recall as the vague notion of "not what he expected" nothing seemed quite the same. The thing that had him chasing fights seemed to just be gone. Like he was just going through the motions, but it didn't really do anything anymore.

Weeks later, he finally returned to the bar where it had happened. He felt numb and over sensitive at the same time. It wasn't all that different from how he normal felt, honestly. It was just more. He dropped into a stool at the bar and demanded his usual of a double whiskey. If nothing else, getting black out drunk would solve everything for a few hours.