#fallen london is about making up a weird little freak and putting them in beautiful situations

[thegreatyin]

THAT'S THE SPIRIT!!!!!!!

[suffering-and-happy-about-it]

New Hope (Joseph & Reader)

Description: Once you've decided to visit your auntie and uncle living in Hope County, Montana. And you met an interesting man in there.

A/N: Joseph is in his twenties in this one-shot. So he isn’t a cult leader - but he's a young man who believes that God is speaking to him and also, it's before his homeless era and even before his wife - he's really young (21, more to 22, I think - in FC he's 44). This isn't the real past of the Seeds brothers - I just think that it could be that way.

Warnings: NSFW content and swearing, just by the way. Pretty long, too.

Inspired by Strangers from Sigrid, also by Warm On A Cold Night by Honne.

It was one of your last days in Hope County, you were sitting under huge spruce and your objective was shaking. You were freakin’ freezing. Falling rain was heavy and your “water-proof” jacket was already soggy as hell. You were cursing at everything and kneeling in wet moss. But the photos were really worth it. 

You came to visit your family living on the border of the county located at Montana. You've been in love with this place since the first time you've visited it. You were working as a photographer at the time and this country's wildlife just fascinated you. You haven't seen so many animals in one place before - not even at the zoo. There were bears, mosses and you even captured some salmons jumping out of the water - you and your chief were both contented with the results and your payment was already highest of all you had before. 

Right now, you have a Karibu in your sight - hiding under a huge tree with some baby Karibu. It was so magnificent, that you had to follow them through the forest for many hours - and now was the time to fire your shot. The objective was on them and you didn't move and ich - and all of the sudden... You sneezed. Karibu family have been gone in a second. 

„Well, fuck me right in the ass.“ You mumbled to tissue as you were getting up. It was almost hour to your car - so you got up and went back on the road. There was a town nearby as your map said. More like a few houses together than a town, you thought yourself - but took the chance to have a rest in a local pub. The town was about a half mile away from the place where you were now.

You arrived in the town after less than ten minutes. Your camera was already swimming in the case, you would bet that. You invaded the pub like a big bang - you stumbled over the door’s threshold and you have fallen on the ground. You heard a loud breaking sound. You didn't give a single fuck about the people in the pub an sat on your buttocks, opening the camera case, mumbling just no, no, no, no - over and over again. 

„Pissflaps!“ You shouted all over the place and everyone has gone silent. Of course that you have broken your objective. Your favorite one - the one that your dad gave you a few years ago as your first. The lens has broken right in the center - it was a unique opportunity to take beautiful photos through cracked objective, but still. You wanted to cry but you closed your eyes and got up. 

The others started to talk once again and you've sat in the corner of the pub. You ordered a beer and hot tea, sitting in one of the boxes away from the bar. You took the camera in your palm and started to browse the gallery. You have been pissed off and you were adoring the photos of Hope County at one moment.

There was a whole bunch of your cousin's smiling face. You looked at another one - your uncle was repairing his old pick-up named Tango, his face and clothes all oiled up - he was all messy and he covered you in that mess too. After a few other photos, there was your auntie, baking the traditional family pie with plates of lemon all around. Then there was her in her church clothes. Then there was you in church clothes - a long, wine red skirt long a little bit under your knees and white shirt with a light, pink sweater. 

You are my sweet little girl, your mommy has always told you on Sundays. You never believed in God, you really didn't, but you came to the church when your auntie or mommy wanted you to come. 

„What a nice girl,“ a quiet voice whispered in your ear and scared the hell out of you. He didn't actually whisper - but you freaked out anyway. You put your hand on your chest and breathed deeply. „Oh, that’s you!” He laughed all of the sudden and you were convinced that the man in front you is some sort of psycho. You were looking at him without a single word - the man bent for your camera and he looked at the picture in details. He was smiling. 

„Berk, what the fuck are you doing?! That’s my camera!“ You finally came to oneself and got your camera back. You didn't look at him and sat down. Your clothes were still soaking wet and water was dripping from your bun. Your cheeks were red as the communist manifesto and your body was on fire, it was coming to oneself after three hours spent in the depths of the woods in the heavy rain. You reached for the camera case and started to put it in.

„Pardon me, lady. I just can't control my curiosity sometimes.“ He said and you heard him laughing. Asshat. 

„Well, learn it then. This is just rude.” You mumbled and he chuckled a little. 

„Can I sit down?” He asked calmy - his voice was husky and it was really nice to listen. You finally closed up the case and looked at him. It was a really young man - probably one, two years older than you at maximum. He wore a denim jacket with wool lining, a shirt with blue and black squaring and a black t-shirt under it. His jeans were black and tight - his shoes were brown, typical shoes for a hike in the woods. He had a few rings on his hand and his big, manly palm was holding a beer. Then you have finally looked into his face.

It was a hell of a man. He had a beard and you could say by one look, that he cared about it a lot. His hair was combed into a man bun - it had brown, wild color with glasses with yellow glass and metallic frames. His eyes were like water - lightly blue, almost like drops of the rain outside. He was charming, handsome... And asshat, you remembered to yourself.

„Suit yourself, creep.“ You took a sip of hot tea and then a gulp of beer. 

„You're spirited and fiery - I like that.” He sat and looked directly into your face.

„Well, you're rude and weird, probably a thief... And I don't definitely like that.“ You took another gulp of the beer in front of you. He chuckled once again. His smile was crooked, his lower lip was definitely waving at your lips. 

„I am not a thief, I assure you. I am Joseph, Joseph Seed. And you are..?” He gave you his palm and wait patiently. You hesitated a bit, but then you accepted his hand. You shook it a bit and maybe you smiled a little. 

„Y/N Y/S/N. Not so nice to meet you, but I'll give you the second chance, ok?” You asked and he smiled a bit. His head nodded almost immediately. Both of you put your hands on the bottle of beer. 

„Well, well, well... What a lady like you does here, in Whitetail mountains? This town is a pretty out-of-the-way place.“

„A lady like me? What are you talking about, Joseph?” You said his name and he heeled over to you. 

„I mean - the women out here aren’t like you, look at yourself. It’s God’s land out here - I swear, I didn't hear cursing since I didn't see my older brother. You are... I can feel your energy. The east gals are pretty fierce too - but right now I’m staying on the North. But...”

„But?“

„You aren’t from Hope County.“ He said confidently. You opened your mouth and then smiled a little. He had some skills - and he was good with people. You haven't no idea how much did he actually charm you - until he showed you his full smile. He was an asshat - but a handsome and charming asshat. „Ok, you uncovered me, mister Seed. But how do you know... How can you be so sure?“ 

„Let’s face it - berk is a typical British cursing word. And, you're suntanned. How would you get suntanned in this part of the year in North America... In those woods? But... I can’t figure out where are you from, cause you don't have any British accent - I think that you're from South America - I mean, like Florida or whatever.” He summarized all thing and you raised your eyebrows. 

„Right, those are some skills. You’re right. I am from Miami, but my family lived here in Hope County and a big part of it still lives in Fall’s End or here at Whitetail mountains. Only I and my parents have left the ’rough North’. But my dad has a half-brother Charlie from London... And that man is a swearing machine. But he's really clever.“ You leaned on the seat and smiled at him. He was a likable man - the one who is shrewd and observant to details. There was something about him and you were smiling like an idiot.

„A lot of people is saying that. I am just like that - I do track details on them. That makes me pretty good with them. And I am a pretty nice and charming man, that sets me in a pretty good position. They believe me and... I can’t tell you all of my tactics!“ He laughed all of a sudden and drank once again. Your cheeks were rosy and your eyes were shining like two stars. You were starting to like him, but you were pretty confused about him. Was he joking or was he dropping clues about his personality? Was he manipulative? 

„Now, you were saying something about staying here on the North... You're not from here?“ You asked quick. He looked into your eyes and smiled a bit. 

„You were listening, I see... No, I’m not. My brothers and I... We are from the East. My younger brother in the local children's home.“ He stopped smiling and tears appeared in his eyes. He went from smiling calm person to a broken, angry man whose mouth was shut in line.

„I didn't mean to be rude, excuse me, Joseph.“ His look went into your face and he looked like a psycho. The emotions were running in him - millions of them in one second. He was sad, then angry, then he looked strangely melancholic and at least, he looked into your face like an empty human case. Then he smiled again and you sighed in relief.

„Don't be sorry, I am. It happened a long time ago and I'm still feeling really emotional about it." He stood up and drank the last gulp of his beer. „Well, mine beer is totally empty, but we've just met and the night is too young, don't ya think. Do you want me to take another beer for you?"

„No, not beer, I'll have an apple cider, please. Thank you, gentleman." You smiled at each other, and the rest of your beer disappeared in you. You gave him your empty bottle and when your hand went forward to his, your fingertips touched his palm. He was touching your palm too, and you could feel the little fire which came from that interaction. Then he slowly walked to the bar.

You watched him silently, your palm was stroking your cheek and your eyes were slightly closed. He walked slowly, his butt and hips were moving in little circles. He's walking like a freakin' cowboy... And you found it really attractive - all of the sudden. Well, it was the first cowboy that ever attracted you. Not even your internet date from Texas didn't get you as excited through the whole night as that Joseph boy did under a half of an hour. You sighted for yourself, and when he was away enough, you started to try to look like a human. You set your hair free, let the waterdrops falling on a wet t-shirt. The rest of your clothes was thrown all over nearby heating. 

You knew that your skin looked unhealthy pale, there were some pimples on your forehead and there was no make-up in the vicinity of five miles. You started to panic - all sudden, your confidence was gone and the only thing you wanted was not to like a potato. But although you looked like a total cadaver, it looked that he likes you. You went redder even though you thought that it isn't possible.

He came back after a pretty long time. With a cider for you, a beer for him and two shots of green liquid. You almost calmed down, when showed up.

„Well, how much am I going to pay you?” 

„It's my treat, (Y/N). You will pay me back by an hour, or two of talking and listening. I would like to get you to know something about me. And, in the opposite direction, of course.“ He smiled and gave one of the shots to you. It smelled like your toothpaste. „On meeting new people?“ „On meeting new Josephs.“ You smiled back and let your hair fall on your shoulder.

He was really suave and after some alcohol, he started to become more and more handsome. You were talking almost the whole time - and he was a flawless listener. He laughed where he had to, he comforted you when he had to and his eyes smiled at you the whole time. You just didn't shut up.

„And that's the whole story.“ You finished. You finished the whole story of how your father took you and your siblings fishing. And you got a dog named Cargo in there.

„Yeah... He was.“ Your cider was empty. „Now you. How was your childhood like?“ You looked deeply into his eyes. The happy cowboy was gone in a second - he shut up and thought a few minutes. Then he smiled gloomily, and finally sight.

„But my life isn’t some kind of fairytale. And it is not going to be “happily ever after,” I think, you know? We moved here from a small town in Georgia. I have two brothers - Jacob, who is in war and John, that's the young one. I have talked to Jacob many months ago for the last time. He's gone missing two months ago, and I hope that he's alive somewhere out there. I pray for him every single evening. John is nine years old now. It was that one evening I drove Jacob to an airport in Montana when John stayed at home with parents... And they have beaten him up as a dog. Or that's the story I've heard from him. They've beaten him up just because he refused something, he said no. My parents... They were really strange. They were strongly believing Christians. Their love for Jesus was stronger than their love for anything else - even stronger than love for their own children. I didn't grow up in our so-called home... Let me tell you why. When I was a little boy, I didn't want to go back to our house after school because they were beating me, they forced me to read the Bible over and over again. To keep down and be quiet. I ran away many times - but police caught me and dragged me back to that house. How I said, they have beaten you really hard after you did something against God’s will. I was their main concern before John was born - Jacob knew how to defend himself. But he couldn't defend me. I was afraid to come back from school. I ran away from home when I was eighteen. I ran for days and night, further and further. Only Jacob knew where I was. But he had to go back to Iran, and John stayed alone. A six-year-old boy with those freaks for freakin’ three years... He’s a sensitive child. He is curious, full of love inside - but on the outside? Those freaks made him look like a body without a soul. The nuns told me, that he refused to eat for the first few months. He only ate when he was starving... Now, I’m trying to get him into foster care. I will be a good brother to him - after all those years.“ He said with cracked-up voice. He lowered his head into his lap and it looked like wanted to cry and tried not to really hard. He pushed his jaws against each other and he was breathing loudly.

You get up and sit next to him, your head was leaning back on his shoulder and your palm was stroking his back only in the shirt. He was warm and he smelled nice - you started to warming up next to that cowboy. It was the alcohol you had, in a part. And you liked him too. Maybe he was an asshat - but you changed your opinion and you started to like him about an hour ago.

You decided not to ask more. Not to ask about his brothers or parents. No more questions.   „It’s ok, Joseph. Don't get stuck in your memories. You are persuading me that you aren't a creep and thief, don't you remember?“ You whispered and he laughed lightly. Your heart melted a little and you pushed yourself closer to him. You kissed him into hair and your look entwined. 

„Can I tell you something else?“ He was millimeters away from you and you felt his breath and you even smell it. An oh boy, it was turning you on so bad. But you controlled your temper and smiled innocently. 

„Of course you can. I am here for you.“ 

„Sometimes I can hear sort of a... A voice inside my head. It is talking to me (Y/N). Sometimes it whispers... Sometimes it shouts. I can hear it since I was seven years old - since my father beat me up with a belt for the first time. I don't think that I'm losing my sanity. The voice is helping and it is telling me something about a future plan it has for me - that I will be a savior. But I have to walk my path on this earth to be the savior. You know? Maybe I will make a difference in the future. I think that God’s chosen me as his Prophet.“ He looked on his shoes again and shut up for a moment. „Does it sound as crazy as I think it does?“

You didn’t want to answer him directly, yes or no. He was a broken man inside and you felt it from his words and from the voice timbre he had. Both of you stayed quiet for a while. You held his palm in yours and smiled a bit.

„Is that voice talking to you right now, you creep?“

„You would bet your ass it does.“ You heard the first and the last curse word from his mouth in his husky and calm voice. 

„What does it say?“ You swallowed and your eyes met again.

„That this is a good idea.“

And so, you walked hand in hand out of the pub. The rain was pouring from the sky even more than before, mud and puddles were everywhere. You two ran through the city and both of you were giggling like children. You ran into some tall grass and you were all soaked up again. But you actually didn't give a fuck about that. 

The cowboy was holding your hand as tight as no one before, he was laughing and looking at you as if you were some sort of an angel. He kissed you in the pub passionately - and oh boy, he was a good kisser. Everything was shining and you couldn't get your eyes off him. You were drunk and excited after a really long time and it was beautiful. 

You two ran into a carn. 

„My room is up there. Come on, (Y/N).“ He took your hand and pulled you to the stairs. And he didn't lie - there was a door to the added room for rent. He unlocked it and invited you inside. There were a bed and a mirror, two windows with a view oriented to the wilderness and a small bathroom. That was all. 

You finally looked at yourself - and sweet baby Jesus, you were looking like a total piece of shit. Your tracking trousers weren't lightly blue anymore - the mud was all over them and they were soaking wet. The water was dripping out of your hair and then you've seen your face. You smiled at yourself - you were looking like a seventeen years old girl. Your cheeks were rosy and your eyes were melting with excitement. Your hair was everywhere and still - somehow you were turning that cowboy on.

„Come. Don't be shy and make yourself home.“

„I can’t. I am totally dirty. The mud would be everywhere.“

He smiled and you looked at him. His hair was out of the man bun - and you were lost in that moment so hard. He was slowly walking like a cowboy, smiling a little. He was... He was anything but creepy or looking like an idiot. He so sexy in that moment, that you started to beg God to let him fuck you as hard he could. 

He took you your camera case and carefully lied it on his bedside table. He went back to you, unzipped your jacket. It fell by its own will. He slowly unzipped your hoodie and helped you out of it. You stood there, cold as hell, the rain was pouring outside and the thunderstorm began. And still, you were fascinated by that man. He kissed you one more time meanwhile his palms were playing with the hem of your T-shirt, slowly peeling off the wet material off your body. It was gone in an instant and both you were shirtless. 

You caressed his hair with your fingers, locked them here and you even pulled a little. You felt his fingers on your trousers zip and you were defenseless, without breath. You sighed with lust in your belly when his ice cold fingertips touched your burning skin. Then he lowered himself on his knees, his lips were wandering all over your curves, putting soaked trousers away of your body. Then he took off your shoes and socks. You almost fell down, when he stood up. He did the same thing as he was lowering down - he closed his eyes and wander on your shin and thigh, going up to your belly and your breasts. You stood there only in your underwear, barely breathing.

„As I said before, angel. Make yourself at home.“ He smiled and went off taking his clothes. So you moved towards the bed, feeling insecure clothed only in your underwear. You would never define yourself as "pretty" or "sexy". You were just a normal woman. You had scars on your body and your hair wasn't shaved perfectly and your pimples were lighting as Christmas lights. So you sat on his stone hard bed. And covered yourself with his thick blanket, it was innocently white and it was really soft and cold. You covered yourself all over and watched the cowboy.

His pants were slowly leaning to the ground, the belt was making noises when it touched the ground, and then he took the pants off at the same time with his shoes. His bare feet were sticking to the cold ground, so you heard every step he took. 

A few moments later he was sitting on the bed with you, touching your bare shoulder. He was warm. And looking at you.

„Don't worry and show yourself to me as God made you.“ He winked at you, the alcohol gave him courage. As you understood, he was a religious man who believed that God’s speaking to me - so he was a big part of his life. So he accepted you as a God’s creation no matter how bad you thought you look.

The blanket fell down on you, and you leaned closer. His skin was on at least a boiling point. 

„Come on, my dear. You are as beautiful as you are.“ His hands hugged you hardly and his body tumbled you on the bed. He was heavy - but not as heavy as the lovers you had before. 

It wasn't as tough act as you hoped, but you never knew you could have so much pleasure from an ordinary missionary position - and you finally knew that the mistake wasn't in you as you always thought. It was a slow, pleasing act for both of you - sometimes he came in too fast and you both giggled. You could feel him breathing on your skin, sometimes you heard his sights interrupted by the thunderstorm outside. And the only time you could see him gasp for air was only when the flash hit the ground. 

The acme came from all the sudden, both of you shook in delight, screaming as loud as you could. Your fingers were interlaced in convulsion and you couldn't believe that it was that fast. You lied to him, hugged his waist and closed your eyes. You felt safe when he hugged you back and kissed your forehead. 

„Thank you.“ He whispered and you rested your chin on his thorax, looking into his beautiful eyes. His hair was everywhere around his head - he looked like a Jesus. He was smiling, slowly sketched fingers on your shoulder. The cowboy was looking the most charming and handsome from the whole evening. „For what?“ You asked back. 

He didn't respond but kissed you on the forehead once again. Then you got up and spread every piece of your clothes on the ground to get it dry. Both of you were naked, you chatted as if you were longtime friends - you trusted him after one night in one bed. When it was finished, you came back to bed and leaned under the blankets together. Both of you fell asleep really fast.  

When you woke up, the sun was shining high in the sky and the birds were singing outside. But you woke up all alone. The cowboy was already gone - you couldn't see him. He folded your clothes on one pile and prepared you a breakfast - juice with bread and honey.

After a while you have eaten, you discovered that he took your camera out of the case and lay it on the bedtime table. You took it into your palms and switched it on. There were all the photos you remembered - except the last. It was him, photographed in the mirror next to the door. Shirtless, only in his pants with his man bun and the yellow glasses on. He was smiling - and you were smiling too. he was cute. 

Then you found a note under the camera case. The note he left you.

Dear (Y/N), it said. I had to leave immediately because they called me from John’s children's home. We are finally heading back to the east - after the night I spent with you, I'm looking forward to the future. We will be good. Please, pray for us and pray for Jacob. Think of me, and I'm looking forward to seeing you once again in the future.

That you, thank you for the new hope you gave me by your presence.

Yours truly, Joseph.

[sapphicalexaandra]

Impossibility Is a Kiss Away from Reality (10/?)

Pairing: Jace/Alec

Rating: E

Summary: Alec finally goes to the psychologist, but her advise might not be what he had hoped for...

Notes: Chapter 10 of Sense8 AU. I can’t believe we’re already this far! This is turning out my longest story so far, i hope it’s still intriguing :)

Not a Date

Of course, he had known all along that he was being stupid, foolish, a dumb idiot for avoiding his problems by plunging right into them without a parachute on. And now that he had fallen, the climb back up would be a bitch.

Alec only hoped that his family wouldn’t notice how bad things were. He had done exactly what he had told Izzy he would not do; he had become depressed by being all alone for a few weeks. He had lost touch with reality, lost all wish to be in it, in favor of a rosy and cozy domestic life with a ghost.

He called that psychologist.

“Office of Doctor Tessa Gray, how may I help you?” a male voice answered.

“Uhm, hello,” Alec started awkwardly, “my name is Alec Lightwood, and I...would like to book an appointment with Doctor Gray. This week, preferably.”

“Oh, yes, Mr. Lightwood. Would tomorrow at 3 p.m. work?”

Alec was caught off guard for a moment, before he checked himself. “Yes, yes, of course, tomorrow is fine. Thank you.”

“See you tomorrow, then, Mr. Lightwood.”

The call ended, and Alec was left with a weird feeling. It had all been so quick and almost too easy; it truly seemed like they had been expecting him very eagerly.

Well, his father must’ve told the doctor about him, right? Nothing unusual. He had to remember that the world was still as normal as it came.

The next day, Alec would’ve run to the appointment, if he could have. Instead, he took the subway, arriving there a quarter of an hour early.

He had to thank his nervousness, though, because it took all that time to find the right building. The address written on the business card led to a rather uncharacteristic area for hosting an office, especially if one considered that it was for a doctor as prestigious as a psychologist should be. You would expect a more prominent and clean street, for one. Alec had to wonder where the hell his father had sent him to…but he should just trust him, right? It had clearly done Robert good, after all.

Finally, Alec knocked on what he hoped was the right door.

A slot immediately opened in it, a pair of distinctively blue eyes locking on to him, as a male voice – not the one that had answered the phone yesterday – asked, “Name?”

“Ehm…Lightwood. Alec Lightwood, I have an appointment with Doctor Gray?”

The man surveyed him a moment longer, then he swiftly closed the slot, and Alec heard a few locks being turned before the door was opened. “She’s waiting for you.”

As he walked a dimly lit corridor, Alec suddenly wished that he had his gun with him, because he was sure that the man walking behind him – almost as tall as him, fit, probably around forty, judging by some grey sprinkled in his dark hair – was still staring at him far too fixedly, in a way that made Alec’s hair stand up at the back of his neck. This place also became stranger and stranger the further he got into it. Too dark, too isolated, too...secretive.

And not knowing whether he could trust his instincts – sharply honed through years of service, now possibly clouded by an altered mind? – was the most stressing factor.

Nothing happened, though, and they reached the office in all quiet, the strange man closing the door behind him.

This room was at least much better; clean and nicely furnished with soft-looking couches and rugs almost covering the entire hardwood floor. Doctor Gray was a beautiful woman, most likely in her forties too, and she regarded him from her chair with a sharp, but gentle look.

Alec smiled at her, and, when she mirrored him, he felt a little more at ease.

“Hello, Mr. Lightwood. Pleased to meet you. Please, sit wherever you want,” she told him kindly.

“Hello. The feeling is mutual, Doctor Gray, and you can call me Alec,” he replied, choosing the chair closest to the door.

The doctor was still smiling. “If I can call you Alec, then you can call me Tessa.”

Alec simply nodded.

“I know that your father gave you my number, and he���s told me some things, but I want to hear from you why you are here. Why do you think you’re here?”

Alec pondered the question. “I was involved in the shooting of two weeks ago. It was standard procedure, which has become far too necessary these days and never fails to be horrible, but…I’ve always done my job impeccably. I never let anything distract me from the objective. But, I got distracted. I froze, and I got shot. People are worried that I’m hiding deeper problems, that might’ve caused me to freak out like that.”

The doctor raised an eyebrow. “I didn’t ask why other people think you should be here, I asked why you felt the need to come to me. You must’ve thought hard about it, to take all this time. Do you think you have these ‘deeper problems’?”

Alec swallowed. “I – I do. But it’s not exactly what my family thinks. I…it’s nothing like they would ever imagine, actually.”

Alec paused. Had he thought this through? Could he tell a complete stranger about his hallucinations? What if he was locked up for good? What if he couldn’t do his job anymore?

Tessa must’ve noticed his distress, because her tone of voice turned more soothing, “This is a safe space for you, Alec. Nothing we say here will get out unless you decide it. I know trust needs to be gained, and I’m willing to earn yours. Tell me what happened.”

Alec wringed his hands, as his leg bounced up and down. He had to clear his throat a few times. “I – I saw something. Someone, that others couldn’t see. That’s why I got distracted. And I keep seeing him, all the time, and I don’t – I don’t understand how, or why, or why now. I’ve never had something like this happen to me before, and there’s nothing physically wrong with my brain, I checked. So I know that this sounds crazy, but I don’t know where else to turn to. Am I…going crazy?”

Alec looked up at the doctor, trying to convey with his eyes how much he needed her to make some sense of what was going on with him. To give him some hope.

The doctor crossed her legs. “What did this ‘checking’ that you’ve done entail?”

“A brain scan. It turned out normal,” Alec answered.

“Normal. What doctor treated you?”

“I don’t know if you know him...Doctor Pangborn.”

“Mhm,” Tessa made a sound, as she scribbled in a notebook.

Alec couldn’t help but worry about what she might’ve written in there. Maybe she thought he should’ve done more tests?

“Don’t alarm yourself so much, Alec,” Tessa, however, added, looking back at him more reassuringly. “Sometimes, our brains do provide us images and thoughts in the strangest, most mysterious of ways, especially of things that we’d never want to consciously think about. More often than not, it’s our subconscious trying to tell us something that we don’t know, or try to ignore about ourselves. And all we can do, is trying to interpret it. So you must be willing to tap into that, into yourself, Alec, and not simply ignore it or wish it away. It’s the only way to truly deal with what has been happening to you. I’m not saying it won’t be hard, and you’ll likely feel the need to put up some resistance to this seeming invasion of your mind, and it might be painful...but this is the only assistance I can offer you. Are you up to collaborate with me? Because if you are not, there is not much I can do for you.”

Alec nodded slowly. “Yeah, I – I’ll try to do…my best.”

Tessa’s gaze lingered on him a moment longer, before she seemed satisfied. “Tell me more. What, or who exactly do you see, and how?”

“I…” Alec cleared his throat, as thoughts of Jace started flooding his mind. “There was this guy, this man, just standing in the crowd during the shooting. I tried to help him, but then I saw people walk right through him. And the next thing I knew, I was somewhere completely different, nowhere I’d ever been, and I was just stunned into place…and that’s when I was shot. But that’s not all. I saw him again at the hospital, then in my apartment, and now I see him everywhere. Also in...London, apparently.” Alec’s hands were moving wildly as he tried to explain it all. “It’s just all so elaborate that I still can’t wrap my mind around it! This man, Jace, has a whole life, a story, he’s surrounded by so many other realistic people, and I don’t understand how it can be possible that I’m imagining all these details. It doesn’t feel like normal figments of imagination. I can sense Jace, I can touch him, sometimes I even think that I’m able to feel what he feels...I just, it’s just that, it could be that it’s because I’m feeling…lonely? I’m, you know, gay, and I haven’t been in many relationships, and the last one was…a long time ago, so this guy is just, it makes sense for this to be a fantasy that I’m creating for myself. He’s attractive, and he appears to like me, and we’ve shared all these...moments. It’s been just two weeks, but it feels like he’s been living with me forever, like I’ve been talking to him all my life...just, the perfect relationship one could ever hope for.” He chuckled bitterly. “And I can’t, I can’t keep this up. This fantasy is too real, and I’m afraid it will ruin my life, like it almost did already. I just want it to stop.”

Alec took a deep breath after he was done rambling. His head felt immensely big and hot. He couldn’t believe that all that had really come out of his mouth…but who else could he tell that to, without having them laugh in his face?

“It could be,” Tessa finally said, after pondering his words for a while. “When we’re lonely, and craving something, especially if we never let ourselves deal with how that makes us feel…it is possible.”

“But how do I make it stop?” Alec asked, bordering on desperate.

“You need to be patient, first of all,” Tessa stated. “Second of all, it’s still only a possibility. Don’t draw your own conclusions before actually investigating. Let me ask you a couple more questions. So, you’re completely sure this has never happened to you? Ever?”

Alec nodded. “Yeah. You think I would remember something like that, right?”

Alec chuckled again, but Tessa didn’t join.

“And how has this man been behaving? How does he react to you?” Tessa pressed on.

Alec frowned. “Well, lately he’s been trying to make me believe that he’s real. He’s very...passionate about it.”

“Can you see him now, too?”

Alec looked around, and he refrained from sighing. “No. I haven’t seen him since yesterday. Maybe...maybe he’s already gone for good. We kind of had an argument, and I told him to leave me alone. But I’m not so sure that it’ll stick, you know?”

Tessa nodded. “Why did you argue?”

Alec hoped he wasn’t blushing too obviously. “It was stupid, mostly. These moments that we have sometimes are...intense. A lot. I’m not very, you know, sexually active, usually, but it’s been really charged, with Jace. So we were sparring, and I was feeling things, and then I caught myself and went away, and later I saw Jace...being with someone else, and it upset me even if I know that it’s just a fantasy. Jace was then angry with me, yelling that I should be honest with myself and stuff and admit that I was bothered, and that he’s real.” Alec let out a sound of frustration, rubbing his eyes with thumb and forefinger. “It’s all so confusing.”

“Mhm,” Tessa made another sound, as she scribbled something else in her notebook.

“I’m pathetic, aren’t I?” Alec added deprecatingly.

“No.” Tessa looked back at him. “We don’t use that word here. Our dreams and struggles are not pathetic, so I don’t want you to beat yourself up over this, Alec.”

Alec lowered his eyes, forcing himself to nod.

“Now, I will ask you to do something, and you’ll have to promise me to do it.”

Alec looked back up at her.

“Like I already said, you can’t simply wish this all away or avert your eyes. I’m not asking you to lose yourself in this ‘fantasy’, as you call it. One hour a day, that’s all. In that one hour, let yourself delve into it, focus all your thoughts on it, so that, hopefully, the rest of the time you’ll be freed of it, since you gave it the time it needed. If one hour is not enough, try two, at most. No more. It’s better if you even time yourself, and, if you feel like it, try writing down what you see, what you feel, what you discover during that time. When we see each other in a week, you’ll bring all that to me, and we’ll analyze it together.”

Alec opened his mouth, a protest almost about to escape him...but he nodded again. This was rather the opposite of what he had wanted, or thought would happen, but he was still determined to trust her and her judgment. Plus, it was not as if he knew a better way to deal with it.

Alec sighed. He needed to go back to Jace.

*

“What’s the problem? Why did you call me here?” Jace asked as soon as he entered Clary’s and Simon’s apartment.

The place was a roomy open-space, the walls laden with Clary’s paintings and photographs, while Simon’s instruments rested in a corner. Usually, he liked the sight. Now, he would’ve rather not been there.

The two of them smiled up at him from the couch.

“Hey, do you need a reason to come over, now? I’m offended that we had to call you,” Simon said.

He was only half-serious, so Jace didn’t mask his mood. “Well, I could’ve been doing something important.”

“Were you?” Clary put in, arching an eyebrow at him.

Jace rolled his eyes, before he flopped down at the other end of the couch, crossing his arms. “Now I can’t, can I?”

“Then you can easily watch a trashy movie with us,” Jonathan said cheerfully, coming in from the kitchen with a bowl of popcorn in hand.

Jace huffed. “Seriously? Listen, guys, I don’t have time for this, I have stuff...”

“Hey, it’s okay, we can do something else,” Clary quickly said. She adjusted herself on the couch to better face him. “Actually, we could talk? It feels like we haven’t talked in such a long time.” She smiled.

Jace frowned. “We always talk. What are you talking about?”

Jonathan sat on a puffy chair at the other side of the couch, and now all three of them were staring at Jace.

“Well, mate,” Simon started tentatively, “you have to admit that you’ve been rather...distracted, these past few weeks.”

Jace’s heart started thumping in his chest. “Why – why do you say that?”

“Hey, it’s understandable,” Jonathan said, putting his hands up. “And we’ve given you space...but you know you shouldn’t let things stew for too long. You know you have us you can talk to.”

A light went ding in Jace’s head. “Oh. No, guys, I’m fine.”

“Are you?” Clary looked pointedly at him. “Because Maia told me...”

“Maia? Are you shitting me?” Jace abruptly got up, suddenly wishing to be there even less than before. “She had no right to tell you anything, I can’t believe...!”

“It’s okay, Jace. I don’t know what happened exactly, she just told me you left her that you were quite upset, and she wanted to know if you were okay,” Clary added hastily, getting up as well.

Jace paused. “Still, it’s none of your business.”

“Jace,” Jonathan jumped in, in a serious tone uncharacteristic of him, “we’re your friends, your family. We get what you’re going through, and if you can’t talk to us...”

“Do you?” Jace burst out, unable to stop himself. “Do you really get it? Do we still have to act as if it was the same thing for you two?!”

He looked between Clary and Jonathan, who looked uneasily at each other.

“Jace...” Clary started.

“No, Clary. Valentine might be your father, but you never even met him. You never knew him. It was not you whose life he ruined, nor you who he beat up!”

Jace felt frantic, winded, out of his mind. He knew he shouldn’t have said that, and that they didn’t deserve it, but he couldn’t bring himself to regret his words. Because it was something he had always believed and could never admit to himself, nor them; that nobody would ever get him.

All three of his friends were stunned into silence, and Jace simply left the room.

“Wait, Jace, don’t...!”

He slammed the door on Clary’s voice.

“Who – who beat you up?”

Jace closed his eyes for a moment, but he didn’t stop climbing down the stairs, nor walking at a furious pace on the pavement, his heart beating like crazy.

“Jace?”

You know what? He did stop, rounding in on Alec with all the fury that had been building up in him the past two days.

“Valentine Morgenstern,” he barked. When he noticed people looking at him strangely, he pressed a hand against his ear to mask it as a call. “My parents’ killer. He kidnapped me as a baby and raised me for eight years. He almost killed me, reducing me to a pulp, before he got caught and imprisoned.”

He resumed his steps, not waiting to see Alec’s reaction. He heard Alec follow him.

“Wait, wait, Jace...”

Jace ignored him, looking straight ahead.

“Jace!”

Jace felt a hand grab his arm and spin him around. Meeting those dark and deep eyes again was more painful than he would’ve thought. No, he should’ve known.

Jace didn’t say anything, and he simply stared at Alec’s mouth opening and closing a few times. “Jace, I’m so sorry. I – why didn’t you tell me?”

“Why didn’t I tell you? Are you serious? Why should I tell someone who doesn’t think I’m real...”

Passersby were now giving him dirty looks, so Jace let out a sound of frustration and grabbed Alec by the arm, dragging him to a side alley.

"Why did you come back, huh?" Jace asked Alec, fixing his eyes on him and reveling in watching him squirm. 

"I...” Alec’s Adam apple bobbed up and down as he gulped. “My therapist told me that I can’t ignore this, I need to tap into it if I want to..."

"Get rid of me," Jace concluded for him. 

Alec bit down on his bottom lip. He didn’t need to say anything else. 

"And how does she think this works, if I may know? What does this 'tap into' entail?" 

Alec’s eyes wouldn’t focus on him. "I should listen to what these visions are trying to tell me."

"Ah!" 

"I don’t think she means that I should listen to you...just that I need to understand why I’m having this hallucin-"

"Don’t you dare say that word to my face again, Alec. I don’t care what your therapist says, you will listen to me.” Jace inhaled sharply. “If you really wanted to understand what this is, you would’ve looked me up!"

Alec blinked. "What – what do you mean?" 

"Don’t you want proof of my existence or not? Why haven’t you looked me up? You know what I do, you must realize that my band and I are all over social media, we've released an EP, we have a youtube channel! But you haven’t even tried to look for it, cause you’re too scared to face the possibility that all this is reality. So whatever, Alec, if you’re not really trying to understand, there is no point in me still talking to you." 

He turned on his heels, determined not to look back. 

He was stopped by a hand grabbing his elbow. "Wait, Jace, please, that’s not what I – I just don’t understand how you can accept this so easily!" 

Jace shrugged himself off and turned back around in one furious motion. "You think this is easy for me?!" Jace scoffed loudly. "Do you realize what...?"

He was suddenly unable to look Alec in the eyes. He was biting his lip so hard that he tasted blood. But it was now or never, wasn’t it?

"I haven’t had a rosy life,” he added with a laugh. “Valentine raised me for only eight years, and you would think that’s nothing compared to the twenty years that have passed since then...but it’s not! Do you have any idea how long it took me to be just a functional human being? And even then, I still can’t, I can’t connect with people. Valentine’s shadow is always with me. Two of my best friends – yes, the siblings I both fucked – are Valentine’s biological children! I needed that connection to get close to them, because they already knew him, so I didn’t fear to scare them off or end up hurting them because I’m too fucked up! Actually, scratch that, I totally did hurt them for this. And it’s no better with anybody else, I’m so scared of tarnishing their lives with my problems that of the countless people I know, nobody really knows me. Even my own grandmother...I love her and I’m forever grateful for everything she’s done for me, but even she doesn’t get me." He met Alec’s eyes. "So whenever something good happens to me, I can’t just let it go! It’s too rare!"

Alec visibly gulped again. "You call this good?" he croaked.

"Not this." Jace, impulsively, desperately, took Alec’s hand and pressed it against his own heart. "You."

Alec stopped breathing, looking down at their joined hands.

“You’re different,” Jace said, his voice cracking, “I’m not saying that I understand what is going on any better than you, but I... I’ve connected with you in a way I haven’t with anybody else. I never open up with people so soon or so willingly. Yet...how long has it been? Less than a month, right? I want to do that with you. And I have. I’ve shared things with you, my life, my passions, my struggles, and you’ve done the same, haven’t you? Don’t deny it.” Alec was still looking fixedly at their hands, not meeting Jace’s eyes. “I already feel like I’ve known you...forever. And I know that you’re real, Alec, just like I know that I’m real, so, yes, no matter how crazy it sounds, how crazy all this is, I’m glad it’s brought us together. I do see it as a good thing. Too good, even.”

Jace laughed, almost exhilaratingly, thinking back to the song he had sung to Alec. Their bodies had been just as close back then. Their skins, their entire beings, had vibrated against one another like they did now. Jace couldn’t resist placing his other hand over Alec’s heart, and he tried to look into Alec’s eyes to search for something. But Alec had closed them, and they were both still. Jace could hear how their heartbeats were in synch.

“Alec, please, I know you must feel something, too. I know you can feel how I’m touching you just as I can.”

Alec made a somewhat strangled sound, before he forcefully teared his hand away, retroceding until his back hit a wall. He stayed there, staring at the ground in front of him as his chest rose and fell unevenly. He pressed the palms of his hands against his eyes.

Jace deflated like a balloon. He didn’t want anything more than to just keep being angry at all that stubbornness...but he felt only sad. More than anything, he wanted to wrap his arms around Alec and hug him all day.

He didn’t dare. He didn’t want to distress Alec further.

Jace sighed. He took a few tentative steps forward, then he gingerly wrapped a hand around Alec’s wrist, tugging it.

“Come with me,” he told Alec, more gently than he thought he could manage.

When he didn’t stop pulling him, Alec wordlessly let himself be led away from that alley and into the busy street outside.

“Where – where are we going?” Alec finally asked, rather raucously, when they reached a bus stop.

Jace shrugged. “I just realized I never showed you around.”

Alec opened his mouth, most likely to protest, but the bus arrived in that moment, and Jace quickly got on it. His hand was still holding Alec’s wrist, so Alec couldn’t help but follow right behind him. Jace chose two seats on the second floor, the ones that faced the big front window. Every tourist deserved the best view, after all.

Alec stayed quiet the entire ride, and then the next one. He merely kept staring at everything – even though Jace doubted that he was really paying attention – until they reached their destination.

“Seriously?” was the first Alec said, as soon as he took in where they were.

Jace grinned. “It’s a classic.”

The queue to get on the London Eye was always a pain in the ass. And their still obstinate, prolonged silence only made it worse. So, when they finally stepped inside one of the passenger capsules, it took everything in Jace not to let out a big sigh of relief.

He didn’t know what his plan was, or if he even had one. He just wanted Alec to believe him.

*

Alec felt jittery and vaguely nauseous, and he didn’t know why he was still there, going with Jace on top of the London Eye. Because, while spending an entire hour with Jace was what Tessa had told him to do, he had no idea what the point of it even was. Everything was still the same; him being pulled in by Jace irreversibly, inescapably. And, surely, the last thing the psychologist had meant was for him to start believing that Jace was real.

Something that became harder and harder not to do.  

“It really is a beautiful view,” Alec found himself saying.

The capsule was full of people, yet him and Jace were standing in a corner, looking out side by side, and Alec kept forgetting that they weren’t alone.

Jace suddenly took his phone out, and started typing in his notes.

It sure is, Alec read.

Right, Jace couldn’t very well talk out loud to himself.

When Alec raised his eyes from the phone, however, he immediately met Jace’s colorful ones, so that there was no misinterpreting what Jace had meant. Alec cursedly felt himself blush. Why did Jace have to be like that? And why did he have to have such beautiful eyes? Alec could swear he always got lost in them.

Sighing, Alec forced himself to break eye contact and resume his staring outside. They didn’t say anything else.

Next, Jace brought him to his favorite café in a less touristy part of town. All this travel was using up Alec’s time, so he covertly added one hour to his timer as they walked up to it. They were still not talking, but it had stopped being awkward at some point during the half-hour Ferris wheel ride. It felt more like...companionship, now. Jace bought a few of his favorite desserts to let Alec try them, and Alec found himself smiling more than once at Jace’s joy for it. He was surely a glutton, and Alec couldn’t really blame him once he tasted some of it.

Then they took the subway, and walked quite a while to reach a little park. Rosehill park, Alec read on a board.

Quite a few people were there, too, either laying on the grass or watching their kids playing around.

“Valentine used to bring me here.”

Alec froze, and looked at Jace’s downcast profile.  

“Once a month,” Jace continued, “he let me go here and play with the other kids. It was almost the only time I was out of the house.”

Alec felt his insides almost turn to ice, as he stared at the rising terrain in front of them. A group of kids were running up the hill, laughing and pushing each other.

“Who comes last is a big dummy!”

“Don’t cheat, Jace!”

Alec hissed, bringing a hand up to rub his temple.

“What is it?” Jace asked him worriedly.

“Nothing, just...a headache.”

What had he just heard? It had felt like...a memory? But that couldn’t be right, could it? It was probably just the kids over there. They surely hadn’t said ‘Jace’, maybe...’Chase’?

“You want to go away?” Jace added, more forlornly.

Maybe he should’ve, but Alec was already shaking his head before Jace had even finished the sentence. “No, it’s okay. Just...why do you come here, then?”

Jace’s brow furrowed. “It’s a nice place, I like it. I won’t let Valentine take it away from me.”

Alec nodded wordlessly. He suddenly wished that this Valentine was right there in front of him, so that he could reduce him to a pulp. Alec already knew that the more he’d think about what Jace had revealed to him about his childhood, the more he’d get worked-up. How dare someone do that to...

“Hey, come on,” Jace urged him, taking a step forward.

Alec shrugged himself off. There would be time to elaborate that later.

They quietly walked up the hill. Once they reached the top, they turned around, and that was surely another memorable view, with the sunset tinging the sky and the city in a pastel glow. Again, however, Alec could feel that Jace’s eyes were solely on him.

Alec sighed. They couldn’t keep staying quiet for much longer, he understood that. He also realized that he still had no idea what to do, or to think. Because what Jace hadn’t realized, was that he wanted nothing more than to believe that he was real, and embrace everything that was happening. He wanted it so much that he knew that it just couldn’t be that simple.

It was indeed too good to be true.

“Jace...”

“Alec...”

Their eyes met, and they both chuckled.

Alec sighed again. “Listen, Jace...”

“No, Alec, please. Don’t say it.” Alec felt himself being spun around, a hand wrapped firmly around his elbow, as another went to cup his jaw. He stared helplessly into blue and brown eyes. “You still want to understand what this vision is trying to tell you? Well, this is what I tell you.”

He could’ve walked away and stopped it, it was not as if Jace didn’t give him the time. But Alec wasn’t as delusional as to think that he could ever not want it.

So he stood right where he was as Jace wrapped his arms around his neck, leaned his head upward, and pressed his lips against Alec’s. That was all Alec could do to stay still, before his own arms shot around Jace, and he drew him closer towards himself.

And they were kissing. Finally. Alec had wanted to do it two weeks ago, after all. And a moan felt stuck in his throat as his mouth slid against Jace’s, his tongue slipping out to taste him, to savor him.  

Nothing anyone could ever imagine, that was what that kiss felt like. It didn’t feel like anything, actually, but rather...Jace reverberated on a higher frequency all around Alec, reaching something far deeper than his mere physical body. And Alec could sense everything; how their bodies pressed flush against each other, how Jace kept holding onto him more and more tightly, how Jace’s heels had left the ground to be able to reach Alec’s mouth. Alec thought he could taste and feel himself, not just Jace, in a ripple of multiplied sensations that one after the other caused whole waves of pleasure to propagate from every place of contact. 

Jace’s hands went to cup the back of his head, and Jace seemed to be leaning away, but Alec didn’t let him. He captured Jace’s bottom lip and sucked on it, as Jace’s fingers tangling in his hair made him shiver. Alec’s mouth slid down Jace’s to lay kisses all over his jaw, and the side of his neck, while his hands were spread wide over Jace’s back, caressing it. He felt the vibrations of Jace’s moan under the skin he was tracing, but Jace’s hand soon led him back to his lips. Not before their eyes swiftly met, though, and Alec was lost once more.

He kissed Jace with renewed need. And he realized that his eyes were particularly stingy.

His timer went off, and Alec found himself back in his apartment, sitting on his bed, his arms circling nothing but air. He had never felt colder.

Alec curled in on himself and groaned as loud as he could. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck...

No. No, no, no, no.

NO.

He could not do this. He would not do this!

Alec dived for his phone on the nightstand.

I’m sorry, I can’t come again, he wrote to Tessa, clicking send before he could think about it.

He would not do this.

[writingsubmissions]

UFC 208 Preview

WHAT'S HAPPENING: *The Super Bowl weekend card from Houston wound up being a fun one, and a surprisingly relevant one too, as there were a bunch of upsets and standout performances, led by the return of "The Korean Zombie" Chan Sung Jung, who managed to knock out Dennis Bermudez with a beautiful uppercut in just under three minutes. Zombie pretty much picked up right where he left off, showing his...Zombieness by absorbing a bunch of punches from Bermudez before coming back and landing the finishing blow. Outside of some better-than-expected takedown defense, as he stuffed a few Bermudez shots early, Jung pretty much just looked the same, which is both good and bad - on the downside, those defensive holes mean that Jung's probably not going to be a title contender in a featherweight division that's much stronger than when he left it, but on the upside, he's still an elite action fighter with a ton of fun potential next opponents, with Cub Swanson and Yair Rodriguez seeming to be the most obvious options. Whee. *The other big performance on the night belonged to Jessica Andrade, who pretty much confirmed that she'll be the next challenger for Joanna Jedrzejczyk at strawweight after an awesome brawl with Angela Hill. Andrade basically fulfilled her potential as the female John Lineker here, as she absorbed shot after shot from Hill, and just walked through them to continue beating the piss out of the returning Invicta champ. Some kudos should go to Hill, who proved she's rounded into a top-ten fighter in between UFC stints, but Andrade looks awesome and dangerous, and her fight with Jedrzejczyk might wind up being the champ's biggest challenge yet. *On the other side of things, Alexa Grasso had a decidedly not-great performance, losing a decision to Felice Herrig. This was a weird one, as I don't really feel we learned anything - this wasn't a case where Grasso's game didn't really work, this was a case where Grasso just...didn't really seem like herself, not displaying any of her trademark aggression and just seeming content to lose close round after close round as Herrig just did more stuff. Hopefully this isn't a case where Grasso's mental game has just suddenly fallen apart, but on the plus side, she's still only 23 years old, so the sky's the limit. And while the focus is on how bad Grasso looked, this was also a career-best performance from Herrig, who seems to have put some mental issues behind her and might actually have some potential to move further up the ladder, just when it looked like her career was stagnating. *All three debuting fighters on the card won, to varying degrees of effectiveness, and with varying degrees of surprise. The most shocking of the bunch was Marcel Fortuna knocking out Anthony Hamilton at heavyweight in brutal fashion - for one thing, Fortuna's pretty much entirely a grappler, and for another, he's not even a heavyweight, he's a relatively small light heavyweight who admitted that he lied, saying he was 230 pounds instead of 210, in order to get booked for this fight. But whatever, the lie paid off, and now suddenly Fortuna might be a bit of a thing. In the actual light heavyweight division, Swiss newcomer Volkan Oezdemir got an upset decision over Ovince St. Preux - I wish I could say Oezdemir looked impressive, but this was just sort of a trashy fight and says more about OSP letting this one slip away. St. Preux's game was always a tenuous balance, as his unorthodox grab bag of skills was held together thanks to his top-flight athleticism, but whatever happened, St. Preux just isn't able to win rounds anymore. And blue-chip bantamweight prospect Ricardo Ramos got a win over Michinori Tanaka, although it was an up-and-down performance - Ramos almost finished Tanaka in the first round, then gassed badly and just survived to hang on for the decision win. It wasn't the showcase it could've been, but hey, a win over Tanaka is still a good win, and at 21 years old, the sky's still the limit for Ramos. *And there was other stuff! Two native Texans each looked good, as James Vick and Chas Skelly got rather one-sided wins over Abel Trujillo and Chris Gruetzemacher, respectively. Tecia Torres sort of held serve with a one-sided win over Bec Rawlings - Torres is really good, but not particularly flashy anymore, and UFC doesn't really seem motivated to do a ton with her as a top contender. Curtis Blaydes continues to be a ridiculously scary heavyweight prospect - he threw around Adam Milstead before Milstead tore up his knee in particularly gruesome fashion, which is a really awful break for a solid prospect in his own right. Niko Price knocked out Alex Morono at the second-round horn in a fun brawl, and Khalil Rountree finally got on track with a quick win over Daniel Jolly, taking Jolly apart in 52 seconds after some brutal knees. So that finally showed what Rountree can do in the UFC - now if only he could work on that takedown defense... *Not really much in the way of news this week, outside of Dana White confirming in an interview that they won't match Bellator's offer to Ryan Bader, and that Bader is free to sign with UFC's biggest rival. It was an interesting argument either way - on the one hand, there wasn't a ton left for Bader to do in UFC, as he had pretty solidly lost to every top contender in the division save Daniel Cormier, and it's not like Bader was particularly magnetic in terms of starpower. But on the other hand, well, Bader's really freaking good in a light heavyweight division that lacks pretty much any depth whatsoever - add in the fact that Bader's a guy who can reliably headline a FS1 or Fight Pass card, and just that alone has a decent amount of value. But of course, you could say the same for Phil Davis, and it looks like Bader will be rematching Davis, who's now Bellator light heavyweight champ, soon enough. *One last late-breaking thing - Spike TV will apparently rebrand as The Paramount Network. Interesting, if only because I'm not really sure where Bellator would fit in once the network rebrands. Viacom owns the promotion, so they have options, but it'll be interesting to see what network Bellator ends up on. ------ BOOKINGS: *Not a ton of new fights - the main announcement was the top two fights for UFC 211, which hits Dallas this May. The rumored heavyweight title fight between Stipe Miocic and Junior dos Santos was confirmed, and joining it on the card will be a heavyweight fight initially slated for UFC 203, as Fabricio Werdum will take on Ben Rothwell. And let's just run through the rest of the new fights in quick, chronological order. Halifax got two late changes - in a disappointing bit of news, Liz Carmouche is out of her fight with Sara McMann, and McMann will instead probably run through Alaskan newcomer Gina Mazany. Also, a featherweight fight between Australian prospect Alexander Volkanovski and the debuting Michel Quinones was a late addition to the card, but Quinones got injured pretty much as soon as the fight was announced, so UFC is seeking a replacement as I type. Igor Pokrajac is out of his fight with Ed Herman at UFC 209, so Gadzhimurad Antigulov will step in as a replacement, while the London card in March got an interesting bantamweight fight between top Welsh prospect Brett Johns and British leglock specialist Ian Entwistle. And the cards in April are starting to fill out - UFC 210 in Buffalo added the debut of top flyweight prospect Magomed Bibulatov in what figures to be a showcase fight against Jenel Lausa, and the Kansas City card, which has been confirmed as a Fox card, has two new bouts rumored: Ashlee Evans-Smith taking on Ketlen Vieira at bantamweight, and in what figures to be a main card bout, longtime lightweight contender Gilbert Melendez making his debut at featherweight against Jeremy Stephens. *And some more details about UFC's remaining 2017 schedule have leaked out, though it's more about the amount of shows rather than any specific cards and dates. As far as specific stuff that's leaked out, there are a few highlights: UFC 212 will in fact take place somewhere in Brazil on June 3rd, and UFC is slated to do the same "three cards in three nights" thing in July that they did last year, with a Fight Pass show, a TUF finale, and UFC 213 all taking place from July 6th through 8th. UFC will have a pay-per-view in Canada, as UFC 216 will take place somewhere in the country, with the rumored (or should I say rumoured) location being Edmonton, and for the second straight year, UFC is running Vegas on December 30th, as that'll be UFC 220. Thankfully, the 30th is on a Saturday this year. ----- ROSTER CUTS: 1) Ryan Bader (22-5 overall, 15-5 UFC, last fought 11/19/16, W vs. Antonio Rogerio Nogueira): As mentioned above, Bader is heading to Bellator, ending a long, successful, but still slightly disappointing UFC run. Bader had little trouble running through the field of TUF 8 all the way back in 2008, and Bader looked like a blue-chip prospect, a former standout wrestler at Arizona State who had some natural knockout power. And Bader just worked his way up the card, racking up win after win, until a #1 contender's fight against Jon Jones in early 2011. Bader was a clear underdog going into that fight, but he was still considered in the same sphere of prospect as Jones, who won the fight via submission in a little under two rounds. But while Jones went on to win the light heavyweight title in his next fight, Bader instead managed to get tapped out in just under two minutes by a past-his-prime Tito Ortiz, in one of the most notorious upsets in MMA history. Bader's image never really recovered from that loss, as he got a rep as a guy who would just embarrass himself in the big fight, since, well, he often did - his loss against Glover Teixeira was a fairly normal knockout, but his two others were just cringeworthy. In 2012, Bader could've earned a title shot with a win over Lyoto Machida, but instead he just got pieced apart before running headlong into a Machida knockout blow, complete with Joe Rogan yelling "CLANG!" during the replay as Machida connected. And after rebounding from the Teixeira loss with a five-fight win streak that saw Bader flash the best boxing of his career, he choked in the big one once again against Anthony "Rumble" Johnson, diving for a shitty takedown, holding onto a Kimura for way too long, and eventually ending up with Johnson on top of him, knocking him unconscious, in just eighty-six seconds. Bader rebounded with wins over Ilir Latifi and Antonio Rogerio Nogueira, and despite not really being a contender, could be a reliable name in a thin division, but UFC just decided it wasn't worth whatever Bellator offered to pay him, so they let him go. And, well, good on Bader for getting his money. 2) Ricardo Abreu (5-1 overall, 1-1 UFC, last fought 6/6/15, L vs. Jake Collier): Shortly after it came out that he had failed a second USADA test, Abreu retired from MMA, explaining that the test failures were due to a hormonal replacement therapy he was going on to treat depression, and that his happiness was more important to him than his career. Abreu was an interesting prospect coming off season 3 of TUF: Brazil - a BJJ stud, Abreu instead mostly lived up to his "Demente" nickname, choosing to compete as a pathologically aggressive striker, which got him a one-sided win over Wagner Silva and then led to a split decision loss against Jake Collier in a fun brawl. Abreu was initially a Wanderlei Silva protege - which explains a lot when it comes to his fight style - but decided to move to train in California with the help of his sponsors, but between the Brazilian economic crisis and UFC's Reebok deal, things all sort of fell apart for Abreu, hence the depression. And, as mentioned above, Abreu got popped for one failed drug test, and then another, so facing at least four years without being able to compete in the sport, he saw the lay of the land and just decided to retire. He thankfully seems happy with the decision, and hell, there's always grappling coaching, so good on him. 3) Jerrod Sanders (15-4 overall, 1-2 [1] UFC, last fought 7/7/16, L vs. Felipe Arantes): UFC quietly cut Sanders, appropriately enough for a guy who, frankly, there's not a ton to say about. Sanders was a compatriot of Daniel Cormier during their days on the Oklahoma State wrestling team, and that was pretty much Sanders's bread and butter, as he was a bit of a throwback - just a one-dimensional, lay-and-pray wrestler, and not much else. He oddly made his debut at lightweight, losing due to injury against Yosdenis Cedeno, and then just skipped featherweight and cut down to 135 just three months later against Pedro Munhoz, quickly losing a fight that would be later turned to a no contest. Sanders's wrestling was enough to get an upset win over Russell Doane in 2015, and honestly, that's pretty much the peak of Sanders's UFC career. 4) Cesar Arzamendia (7-3 overall, 0-2 UFC, last fought 7/30/16, L vs. Damien Brown): Cesar "Goku" was UFC's other quiet cut this week, and oh what a disappointing prospect Arzamendia was. Arzamendia looked awesome in his first fight on the second season of TUF: Latin America, but a weird semifinal fight against Enrique Barzola, where Arzamendia was doing well, but then tapped after a punch to the body while he was on the ground, was the beginning of a sad trend for Arzamendia - the dude is just unable to take any damage. That trend continued in his UFC debut, as he was doing well before Polo Reyes put his lights out with one punch, and Arzamendia surprisingly got a second fight against Damien Brown, where, of course, he was doing well before going down as soon as Brown was able to start mounting any sort of offense. Oh well, at least Arzamendia will have the distinction of being UFC's first fighter from Paraguay, so...there's that. ----- UPCOMING UFC SHOWS: 2/19 - UFC Fight Night 105 - Halifax, NS - Travis Browne vs. Derrick Lewis, Johny Hendricks vs. Hector Lombard 3/4 - UFC 209 - Las Vegas, NV - Tyron Woodley ( c ) vs. Stephen Thompson, Tony Ferguson vs. Khabib Nurmagomedov, Mark Hunt vs. Alistair Overeem 3/11 - UFC Fight Night 106 - Fortaleza, Brazil - Vitor Belfort vs. Kelvin Gastelum, Edson Barboza vs. Beneil Dariush, Mauricio Rua vs. Gian Villante 3/18 - UFC Fight Night 107 - London, England - Corey Anderson vs. Jimi Manuwa 4/8 - UFC 210 - Buffalo, NY - Daniel Cormier ( c ) vs. Anthony Johnson, Gegard Mousasi vs. Chris Weidman 4/15 - UFC on Fox 24 - Kansas City, MO - Gilbert Melendez vs. Jeremy Stephens 5/13 - UFC 211 - Dallas, TX - Stipe Miocic ( c ) vs. Junior dos Santos, Ben Rothwell vs. Fabricio Werdum 5/27 - UFC TBA - Copenhagen, Denmark - Christian Colombo vs. Damian Grabowski ----- UFC 208 - February 11, 2017 - Barclays Center - Brooklyn, New York I still have no idea what to make of this one. Apparently, the initial plan here was to do Jose Aldo against Max Holloway to unite the featherweight titles, but that fell apart in pretty short order; Holloway suffered an ankle injury and we're at the point now where fighters don't want to do UFC management any favors. So after hemming and hawing about trying to find a true main event - Joanna Jedrzejczyk against Jessica Andrade was apparently on the table, but Andrade wanted to take another fight at 115 beforehand - UFC did indeed promote the initially announced inaugural featherweight title fight to the top of the card. And, well, it's a whole entire mess about how we got there, but more on that in a bit. But Holm/de Randamie pretty much fits in with the theme of this card, as there's a bunch of fights that don't make any sense, but will probably being pretty fun in practice. I don't think it'll live up to UFC 206 as far as "low star-power, high-action" cards, but this should be a good one, at least for the few that choose to buy it. MAIN CARD (Pay-Per-View - 10:00 PM ET): Women's Featherweight Championship: (#2 Women's Bantamweight) Holly Holm vs. (#10 Women's Bantamweight) Germaine de Randamie Middleweight: (#7) Anderson Silva vs. (#8) Derek Brunson Middleweight: (#3) Jacare Souza vs. (#13) Tim Boetsch Light Heavyweight: (#3) Glover Teixeira vs. Jared Cannonier Lightweight: (#10) Dustin Poirier vs. Jim Miller PRELIMINARY CARD (Fox Sports 1 - 8:00 PM ET): Welterweight: Randy Brown vs. Belal Muhammad Flyweight: (#5) Wilson Reis vs. Ulka Sasaki Lightweight: Nik Lentz vs. Islam Makhachev Flyweight: (#6) Ian McCall vs. Jarred Brooks PRELIMINARY CARD (UFC Fight Pass - 6:30 PM ET): Heavyweight: Marcin Tybura vs. Justin Willis Welterweight: Roan Carneiro vs. Ryan LaFlare Featherweight: Rick Glenn vs. Phillipe Nover THE RUNDOWN: Holly Holm (10-2 overall, 3-2 UFC, 1-0 Bellator) vs. Germaine de Randamie (6-3 overall, 3-1 UFC, 2-1 Strikeforce): I don't even know what we're trying to accomplish here anymore. Really, the more interesting thing than the fight is exactly how we got here, and it all starts with Cris Cyborg. Cyborg against Ronda Rousey was pretty much the white whale of UFC matchmaking ever since the company introduced women's MMA - Cyborg was the consensus most dominant women in the sport for years, destroying all comers at 145, but then Rousey came along, similarly ran through everyone at 135, and suddenly there was an argument to be settled about who, exactly, was the baddest woman alive. But things would always hit an impasse when it came to weight - Rousey, rightfully so, cited Cyborg's previous drug test failure as a reason not to move up in weight, since she was the champ of the prestige division and Cyborg could theoretically lose weight by getting off the gas, while Cyborg was alternately unwilling and unable to cut down to bantamweight. This dance went on for what felt like forever before UFC and Cyborg eventually struck a deal, essentially so UFC could keep Cyborg away from Bellator - UFC would pay her to fight for Invicta, hire a nutritionist, and help her eventually cut down to bantamweight, at which point she would be on the UFC roster. And, well, that never really happened - a fight in Invicta was set for Cyborg to cut down to 140, but she pulled out of that with an ankle injury and returned to featherweight title fights thereafter, actually getting bigger and more muscular, if anything. So, after all that, UFC basically said screw it and just let Cyborg fight for them despite essentially being a one-woman division, and returns were good - her debut win over Leslie Smith in her hometown of Curitiba was a nice moment, and when UFC decided to run a FS1 card pretty much based around her beating an unknown Lina Lansberg, the ratings came in way above average, proving that Cyborg is in fact a marketable star worth the trouble. But, of course, there were still issues - UFC still insisted that those two fights happen at a catchweight of 140 pounds, and Cyborg soon won public favor by releasing videos after the fact of exactly how brutal the weight cuts were, stating that she was basically too big to fight at any weight below 145, and that if UFC wanted her to fight in the promotion again, they'd have to create a featherweight division. And her plan worked, as UFC apparently called her up and offered to do just that sometime around Thanksgiving - in the wake of stacking two cards at the end of 2016, the promotion needed a viable main event for either January in Anaheim or February in Brooklyn, and Cyborg against one of two rumored opponents, Holly Holm or Germaine de Randamie, was what they were targeting. And, of course...Cyborg declined, stating that she would need more than two months to cut down to that weight, which, to be honest, is fairly ridiculous, and probably means she shouldn't even be fighting at 145. So, rather than wait things out since Cyborg was the whole point of the division, UFC just went ahead and put Holm and de Randamie against each other for a viable main event that really isn't all that viable, particularly since the big draw is theoretically the title, and titles have meant less and less lately, particularly since Conor McGregor showed that "moneyweight" seems to be the only weight class that matters, and, well, this title seems pretty much made up in order to have two bantamweights main event a pay-per-view. And you know, maybe the very stupid, stupid way we got here wouldn't be so bad if there was, well, any obvious point to this fight after it happens. The first natural fight, the winner facing Cyborg in a fight better late than never, is out of the picture at the moment, since Cyborg went ahead and got flagged on another drug test, potentially putting her on the shelf for the next two years. And the other obvious direction when the fight was first announced, Holm winning and then taking on Ronda Rousey, is also out of the picture after Rousey's one-sided loss to Amanda Nunes. So, now what? Featherweight is a thin division as is, with only about ten or so solid fighters (if that), and a handful of those are already under contract to Bellator. And it's not like UFC's made any other moves to establish the division - there's some rumors of Invicta champ Megan Anderson fighting on the upcoming Kansas City card (and admittedly, getting Anderson, who has marketable good looks and an exciting knockout-based fighting style, into the fold would at least be one reason for this division to exist), but other than that, UFC hasn't signed anyone at 145, and there's been no hints of any bantamweights moving up in weight, so...are these two just going to rematch each other after this? Just, what are we doing here. So, anyway, the actual fight. Holm's obviously best known for her one-sided upset over Ronda Rousey, where she became the first fighter to hold world titles in both boxing and MMA. And that was Holm at her best, using said boxing skills to great effect as, well, Rousey pretty much kept charging at her, allowing Holm to play matador and nail her over, and over, and over before unsheathing a kick to the jaw that put Rousey down for good. But Holm's never really looked that good, before or since - her first two UFC fights, wins over Raquel Pennington and Marion Reneau, were fairly blah affairs as she just sort of used her skill to cruise to a decision (although the Pennington win was close), and she didn't win a fight in 2016. Her sole title defense against Miesha Tate was going well enough, as Holm survived a rough second round that exposed her complete lack of a ground game and was cruising to a victory, but Tate was able to score another takedown in the closing minutes of the fight and choke Holm unconscious for the victory. And what figured to be a bounce-back win over Valentina Shevchenko was anything but - Shevchenko, a decorated striker in her own right, was able to time Holm's strikes and counter them rather easily, and by the end of the fight, Shevchenko was mixing in wrestling and cruising to a one-sided victory herself. Women's MMA seems to be going through the transition that men's MMA did years back, as more well-rounded athletes are beginning to overtake those highly skilled in one area, and as great of a striker as Holm is, that really does seem to be her only dimension. On the plus side, she probably doesn't have to worry about takedowns or anything against Germaine de Randamie, a one-dimensional kickboxer in her own right. It's hard to get a read on exactly how good de Randamie is at this point - during her days in Strikeforce, she was obviously struggling to transition from a decorated muay thai career into MMA, but her UFC career has just been...weird. Her one UFC loss was Amanda Nunes just taking her down and beating the piss out of her, which there's no shame in, but it's hard to know what to make of her three UFC wins; her first was a close decision win over Julie Kedzie, who had one more fight and then retired, and her other two wins were over Larissa Pacheco and Anna Elmose, raw and overmatched prospects that de Randamie pretty much ran through. So while de Randamie's looked good in those wins, that may just say more about her level of competition - her three wins come over opponents with a combined 0-6 record in the UFC, none of which are still with the company, and hell, Elmose was a natural strawweight. Add in the fact that de Randamie has only fought four times in four-plus years thanks to injuries (and I must admit, I was morbidly curious to see what UFC would do if de Randamie was forced to pull out here), and it's all just a baffling mix of factors. So the one thing I can say about this fight is that I'm fairly confident it'll be on the feet, since neither woman seems to have much skill anywhere else. Past that, I pretty much have to trust Holm more to pull out a decision, though there are some causes for concern - Holm's a natural 135er, while de Randamie has in fact spent most of her pre-UFC career at featherweight, and the Shevchenko fight did show that if Holm's initial plan isn't working, she's not really capable of adjusting and implementing a plan B. Really, this just figured to be a solid, technical fight, and I wouldn't be surprised if it just sort of cruises along, never going above a simmer, en route to a narrow decision that could go either way. So, my pick is Holm by decision, since she's, well, actually beaten decent fighters, but the sad part is...I'm not sure the winner matters? Anderson Silva (33-8 [1] overall, 16-4 [1] UFC, 3-2 PRIDE) vs. Derek Brunson (16-4 overall, 7-2 UFC, 3-1 Strikeforce): The UFC 208 main event is weird, and things don't get any less weirder in the co-main event, as it's the return of all-time great Anderson Silva against Derek Brunson, of all people. Pretty much every superlative I could think of has already been used when it comes to Silva's sixteen-fight winning streak to kick off his UFC career, most of which was spent defending his middleweight championship. Silva would just go out there and make talented fighters look completely overmatched, using slick counter-striking to just showboat and embarrass opponent after opponent, typically delivering a highlight-reel finish when all was said and done. The one guy to really give Silva trouble during that run was Chael Sonnen, who shockingly out-wrestled Silva for the better part of four and a half rounds before getting tapped out and then popping for steroids, so a lot of people thought that Chris Weidman, a top-level wrestler in his own right with some solid boxing, could be the guy to finally unseat Silva when the two matched up in July of 2013. And indeed, that's what happened, though not without controversy - while Weidman won the first round of the fight, the finish came when Silva got too cute for his own good, showboating while dodging punch after punch before Weidman blasted him, prompting a chunk of the fanbase to say that Silva was playing dead, or would've beaten Weidman straight up. Anyway, between the controversial finish and Silva's status as an all-time legend, a rematch was hastily made, and marred by another...let's say unusual finish - Weidman was again winning the fight going into the second round, and almost to the same second as their first fight, Weidman checked a low kick from Silva and absolutely shattered the Brazilian's leg, bending it at a sick angle and causing Silva to go down screaming. And that, for all intents and purposes, was probably the end of Anderson Silva's real MMA career, although the legend still keeps fighting for the occasional big fight. (And Derek Brunson.) Silva returned in early 2015 for a fight with Nick Diaz that saw Silva look diminished, but still have enough to beat Diaz in a weird spectacle of a fight that consisted mostly of macho posturing more than anything else. But then Silva's legend took a hit with a failed drug test, which - and I feel this has gotten forgotten, particularly in the wake of the whole Jon Jones "dick pills" test failure - Silva blamed on a vial of blue "sex juice" that he had gotten from an unnamed friend of a friend. Anyway, that earned Silva a year's suspension, and then things continued to get weird in 2016. Silva's fight with Michael Bisping was the first time we got to see that Silva was in fact truly diminished - there were bursts of the old "Spider," particularly when he blasted Bisping with a knee at the end of the third round for a controversial non-finish, but for the most part Silva just sort of conserved energy and tried to bullshit his way through rounds before dropping a narrow decision. Silva was then set to face Uriah Hall in his hometown of Curitiba this past May, but was taken out of the fight just days before with emergency gallbladder surgery, before weirdly resurfacing to fight Daniel Cormier on just two days notice at UFC 200, after that said Jon Jones "dick pills" incident left Cormier suddenly without an opponent. It's hard to glean much from that fight - Silva had his brief moments standing but Cormier just did the smart thing and took Silva down over and over again to the boos of the crowd. So, yeah, Silva's in a weird place as long as his career goes on - he's still an all-time great, but there's really nothing left for him to do except check off big fights against big names. It was rumored for a while that he was going to take on Georges St. Pierre in Toronto last December before negotiations with GSP fell through, but instead of waiting for another big name, UFC rang up Silva to try and save a UFC 208 event without a real viable main event, and gave him the best opponent available, which is apparently Derek Brunson. That's not to say Brunson is a bad fighter, but it's just a weird fight that really doesn't seem to make a ton of sense from a box office standpoint. But, hell, good on Brunson on working his way up to a position where he can fight someone like Silva, since he wasn't really regarded as a top prospect during his days in Strikeforce. At that point, Brunson was pretty much every negative stereotype of a wrestler, just taking opponents down and laying on them, but sometime around 2015, Brunson suddenly unleashed a beastly striking game. Brunson suddenly went on a streak of four straight first-round knockouts - essentially, Brunson would briefly feel out his opponent, and once he felt he had nothing to fear, he'd just rush at them guns blazing, and this was enough to keep overwhelming the competition. At least, it was to a point, as Brunson took this style to its necessary endpoint against Robert Whittaker this past November - seeking a statement win in his first UFC main event, Brunson just literally decided to charge at Whittaker with his chin in the air and his fists swinging, and after some initial success, Whittaker finally learned how to play matador, nailed a counter-punch to stop Brunson dead in his tracks, and then finished him off for the win. Brunson was the butt of many jokes after the fact for such a crazy gameplan, but hey, we often hate fighters for not taking enough risks, so good on him. So there's really two different ways the fight can go - either Brunson fights smart and just takes Silva down en route to a boring decision, or, hopefully more likely, we get crazy aggressive Brunson trying to charge at Silva, overwhelm him with powerful strikes, and get the win in fairly short order. And if that happens, it pretty much comes down to what Silva has left as he approaches his 42nd birthday - in his last few fights, he's shown brief flashes of the old Silva, and honestly, against someone as wild as Brunson has been, that's all he needs to end this just as quickly as Brunson can. But, sadly, since the world is a cold, harsh place and all of our heroes must die, the likeliest thing is that Brunson just goes out there, bull-rushes Silva, and puts the former champ's lights out before he can really react to what's going on. So my pick is Brunson by first-round knockout, and I'm kind of sad that it's come to this. Jacare Souza (23-4 [1] overall, 6-1 UFC, 7-1 Strikeforce) vs. Tim Boetsch (20-10 overall, 11-9 UFC): UFC still really has no idea what the hell they're doing with Ronaldo "Jacare" Souza, though I suppose this is as good a keep-busy fight as any. Even though Luke Rockhold had beaten Souza for the Strikeforce middleweight title, Souza was still the one most expected to contend for UFC gold once UFC absorbed Strikeforce. And even though it was Rockhold that eventually unseated Chris Weidman as UFC middleweight champ, Jacare really hasn't done much to disprove that he's a champion-level fighter himself. Jacare - Portuguese for "alligator" - got his name thanks to his vicious BJJ game, and he's supplemented that with solid striking and pretty much run through most of his UFC competition, most impressively absolutely wrecking Gegard Mousasi in a September 2014 main event. But there is one loss on Souza's UFC record that threw a wrench into the works, as on the same card where Rockhold defeated Weidman, Yoel Romero won a controversial split decision over Souza to become the assumed number-one contender. But then Romero subsequently had a drug test get flagged, and with both him and Souza essentially out of the title picture at the moment, a chain of events started that somehow wound up with Michael Bisping as middleweight champ. With Bisping deciding to avenge his loss to Dan Henderson rather than fight an actual contender, Souza was matched up with Rockhold before Rockhold went down with a knee injury, and with Romero still ahead of Souza in line for a title shot, there really isn't a ton left for Souza to do. After the Rockhold bout was scrapped, Souza pretty much demanded a fight as soon as possible, so, well, here he is against Tim Boetsch. It's really been about four years since Boetsch was any type of concern at middleweight - after cutting down from 205, Boetsch had a run of success that included a shocking comeback win over Yushin Okami and a split decision win over Hector Lombard in a fight neither guy really deserved to win. And then, well, Boetsch's luck evened out in a pretty bad way, as he proceeded to go 2-6 over the next four years, and even one of those wins was a robbery decision over C.B. Dollaway. But, to his credit, Boetsch has rebounded with two straight wins just when it looked like he was about to be cut - admittedly, one of those was the late Josh Samman deciding to clinch with him for some unknown reason, but Boetsch did look good in knocking out Rafael Natal on the Madison Square Garden card this past November. But yeah, while Boetsch is dangerous, he's pretty much in here to lose and keep Souza busy and paid. There may be some danger on the feet, since Boetsch is a big guy with power, but Souza really should be able to take him down without much problem, and from there, things could get pretty one-sided. I'll give Boetsch some credit and say he lasts a round, but Souza by submission seems like a pretty clear result, and I'll say it happens in the second round. Glover Teixeira (25-5 overall, 8-3 UFC, 3-1 WEC) vs. Jared Cannonier (9-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): Hey, more weird matchmaking. Glover Teixeira's in a weird spot that more and more fighters are finding themselves in, where he's obviously among the top fighters in his weight class, but nowhere near a title shot. After waiting years to be signed thanks to some visa issues, Teixeira finally made his UFC debut in 2012 and immediately shot his way up the ladder towards a title shot, winning his first five fights in one-sided fashion. Teixeira then proceeded to lose a one-sided fight to Jon Jones, though the Brazilian did put up a game effort, and after rushing back from injury and dropping a fight to Phil Davis, Teixeira recovered and soon was on his way back towards earning a title fight. Things were going well enough - Teixeira had little problem with Ovince St. Preux, Patrick Cummins, and Rashad Evans - but when Teixeira got what was ostensibly a #1 contender's fight with Anthony Johnson, things were over pretty much as soon as they began, as "Rumble" slept Teixeira with just one punch in thirteen seconds. So, now what? Teixeira's the third or fourth best fighter in the division at the moment, behind champ Daniel Cormier, Johnson, and maybe Alexander Gustafsson, but there's not really a ton for him to do except pick off other contenders. So, instead, UFC's gone a completely different route, and decided to rush Jared Cannonier into deep waters shortly after an impressive light heavyweight debut. Cannonier, an air traffic controller from Alaska, didn't really make much of an impression in his UFC debut, losing a quick heavyweight fight to Shawn Jordan to kick off 2015, but 2016 went much better for the "Killa Gorilla." First, Cannonier went to Croatia and knocked out Frenchman Cyril Asker in pretty short order, and then came that light heavyweight debut, a fun back and forth brawl that saw Cannonier eventually overwhelm and take a decision win off of Ion Cutelaba. Cannonier showed some toughness and some fast hands, which had people pegging him as a fighter to watch in his new weight class, but, still, people were quite surprised when shortly after that fight, it was announced that he'd be facing a top-five opponent. Cannonier's dangerous - again, he has some quick hands and knockout power, so if Teixeira makes an error, this could be over in a flash - but even Cutelaba was able to take Cannonier down, if not hold him there, which doesn't portend well for the Alaskan in this fight. Teixeira's probably skilled enough to win this on the feet, but he's also smart enough to know that he doesn't need to keep it there, so I expect him to take Cannonier down in rather short order and then finish it however he pleases. A straight-up ground and pound stoppage is possible, but I'll say Teixeira works his submission chops and gets the tap within the first round, and then we all wonder why UFC doesn't really seem to know how to bring along a prospect at times. Dustin Poirier (20-5 overall, 12-4 UFC, 1-1 WEC) vs. Jim Miller (28-8 [1] overall, 17-7 [1] UFC): If you had to pick any fight on this card that is guaranteed to have fireworks, it's probably this one, as Dustin Poirier looks to rebound from his first UFC loss as a lightweight against division stalwart Jim Miller. Louisiana's Poirier was a fringe contender for most of his featherweight run, and one of the division's surest bets for good action every time out - his 2012 fight with Chan Sung Jung is among the best fights in company history. But Poirier's lack of defense would inevitably catch up to him at some point rising up the ladder, and after a loss to Conor McGregor, Poirier decided to ply his trade at lightweight. And the results were outstanding - Poirier suddenly had the energy to be a much better striker, throwing higher volume and improving his head movement on defense from "bad" to "passable," particularly since his power carried up and he was knocking opponents out in rather short order. But in what figured to be a bit of a showcase main event against Michael Johnson, Poirier left himself open and got absolutely starched on the counter by Johnson, getting knocked out in just 95 seconds and having all his momentum halted. Poirier's still dangerous to be a going concern at lightweight, and a win over Miller would be a solid bounce-back, as the Jersey native is a favorite son of the MMA community, particularly in the Northeast. Miller just made his name by taking whatever fight he could, whenever he could, and he won most of them in pretty exciting fashion - by the time all was said and done, Miller temporarily had the record for most UFC wins at lightweight, was a fight away from a title shot a few times, and had basically established himself as someone who, like Poirier, would give you a fun fight every time out. But now solidly in his thirties and having fought all those fights, there's some obvious signs of slowdown from Miller - Donald Cerrone kicking his head off in 2014 was the beginning of things, and Miller looked relatively slow in losses to talented young grapplers like Beneil Dariush and Michael Chiesa. A one-sided decision loss to Diego Sanchez last March suggested the end could be near for Miller, but, of all things to happen, Miller discovered he had been fighting with an undiagnosed case of Lyme disease, and after getting that taken care of, he's looked much better. A split decision win over Joe Lauzon was a bit of a gift, but Miller had little problem handling Thiago Alves at UFC 205 this past November, suggesting that while Miller's best days are still behind him, he's more "tough out" than "completely shot" at this point. Still, while I'm hoping for a fifteen minute brawl, I do think Poirier is probably too athletic and powerful for Miller to handle at this point. If Miller gets it to the ground, it'd be a much closer battle, even though Poirier is no slouch on the mat himself, but I'm not sure he'll able to get it there. While Poirier might be there to be hit, Miller's never been too much of a knockout artist, and, well, Poirier is, and while Miller's tough as nails, Cerrone showed that if you hit him hard enough, Miller can go down. So my pick is Poirier by first-round knockout, but if I'm wrong, I won't complain, since it means we probably got a hell of a fight. Randy Brown (9-1 overall, 3-1 UFC) vs. Belal Muhammad (10-2 overall, 1-2 UFC, 2-0 Bellator): A really interesting fight here, as both Randy Brown and Belal Muhammad are solid prospects who have been pretty inconsistent to date. Queens's Brown was signed off of Dana White's reality show, and he pretty much fits the mold of the guys White has signed - he's a raw, physically gifted athlete high on potential, but still with a lot of kinks to work out. And befitting that, Brown's had a bit of an up and down run - his debut against Matt Dwyer was a fun brawl, but Michael Graves exposed a lack of wrestling defense on Brown's part, and Erick Montano was doing the same before eventually running headlong into a guillotine. Brown was somewhat expected to run through Montano, so that was quite the disappointing performance, even in a win, but Brown rebounded to take of Brian Camozzi rather handily, and it seems like Brown's back on track, although there's still the concern he can be overpowered by strong wrestlers and clinch fighters. Meanwhile, Muhammad had sort of the opposite path to the Octagon as Brown - Muhammad's not a particularly flashy athlete, but a meat-and-potatoes boxer with some solid wrestling. The Palestinian-American came up the ranks as a bit of a decision machine, but as he moved into title fights for smaller organizations, five rounds gave Muhammad the room to work on breaking down his opponent, just wearing them down before getting a finish in the championship rounds. Muhammad's UFC tenure has been a bit of an inconsistent mess, too, though - he lost a fun, close debut to Alan Jouban, then pretty much ran through Augusto Montano, having a much easier time facing a Montano brother in Texas than Brown did. But at UFC 205, Muhammad got knocked out in pretty short order by Vicente Luque, and that seems to have stalled his momentum a bit, as Muhammad figured to be the kind of fully realized prospect that should've moved up the ranks in quick fashion. It'll be interesting to see if Muhammad falls back on his wrestling, which we haven't really seen in his UFC career to date, since that seems to be the easiest path to victory against Brown. But even on the feet, Muhammad shouldn't go quietly, as he's a solidly built guy that probably won't be overpowered by Brown's athleticism, which seems to be when Brown truly shines. I expect Brown to have some trouble, but given his physical tools and how good he looked in the Camozzi fight, I still favor him to win a close decision, though this is some really solid matchmaking, and hopefully Muhammad gets another UFC shot even with a loss. Wilson Reis (21-6 overall, 5-2 UFC, 5-4 Bellator) vs. Ulka Sasaki (19-3-2 overall, 2-2 UFC): Wilson Reis is in a bit of a weird spot, since it's not really clear if he's a title contender or not at the moment. Reis has been a solid veteran, and looked pretty good since cutting down to flyweight, but it was still a shock when it was announced that he would be getting a title shot against Demetrious Johnson this past July. Reis was coming off of only one win, rebounding from a loss to Jussier Formiga by beating Wilson Reis, and it really just seemed like a fight made out of convenience, as Reis was the top-ranked available fighter coming off a win that Johnson hadn't already beaten. But then Johnson got hurt, Reis ran through late replacement Hector Sandoval, and with Johnson going on to fight TUF 24 Tim Elliott and seemingly being set for a trilogy fight with Joseph Benavidez, it's unclear exactly where Reis stands. Like the Teixeira/Cannonier fight above, UFC got a bit weird with the matchmaking here, as Reis is put against Ulka Sasaki, who's an interesting prospect probably being rushed in way over his head. Sasaki came into UFC as one of the more hyped young Japanese imports of recent vintage, and had a great debut with a quick submission win over Roland Delorme, but things went to hell shortly thereafter, as Sasaki was overpowered both grappling and standing against Leandro Issa and Taylor Lapilus. Stunningly, Sasaki then decided to cut down to flyweight - at about 5'10", he was thin and skinny even for bantamweight, so he's even moreso at 125 - but early returns were good, as he tapped out Willie Gates in his divisional debut this past May. I'm really fascinated to see what Sasaki has to offer here, since Reis's bread and butter is his grappling and Sasaki is pretty slick in that area as well, but this really does seem like a case where the story will be how well Sasaki performs rather than if he can actually win. There's a small chance of a Sasaki submission in an exchange, but Reis may be able to overpower him, and hell, there's even the chance that Reis doesn't even need to take this to the ground, and his striking is pretty solid and Sasaki's striking defense seems to be piss-poor. So while there's a chance of a quick finish, I'll still give Sasaki the benefit of the doubt when it comes to surviving, and say Reis wins a competitive, but clear decision. Nik Lentz (27-7-2 [1] overall, 11-4-1 [1] UFC) vs. Islam Makhachev (13-1 overall, 2-1 UFC): It's pretty crazy that Nik Lentz has lasted seven and a half years inside the UFC, particularly since they obviously wanted him out at one point. Lentz's 2010 win over Andre Winner is one of the most legendarily bad fights in UFC history, a grinding decision in a featured prelim that was actually thought to be so bad that it hurt the buyrate of UFC 118 - after that, UFC obviously tried to put Lentz in difficult fights so that he could lose and they could cut him, but Lentz just kept winning them, and eventually earned enough respect that UFC just decided to hang onto him. And Lentz has just sort of chugged along - while his striking is decent, Lentz is still a grinder first and foremost, and typically in the prelims, since frankly, his fights have only really been upgraded from "actively bad" to "fairly unmemorable," with a 2015 barnburner against Charles Oliveira being the only exception. One of the reasons that fight was awesome is that Oliveira's submission ability kept Lentz from just grinding a win out, and hopefully we get some similar magic when Lentz faces Islam Makhachev, part of the crew of Dagestani fighters led by Khabib Nurmagomedov. Makhachev is probably the most submission-based of the bunch - they're all solid wrestlers and grapplers, but unlike some of the others, Makhachev uses his grappling game to basically work for the back and try to get a choke rather than rely on top control and ground-and-pound. His striking still seems to be a work in progress, though, as his lone loss was a pretty quick knockout at the hands of Adriano Martins. It's hard to get excited about a Nik Lentz fight, but this is some solid matchmaking, particularly if Makhachev's submission chops make things an exciting back-and-forth. I do tend to favor Lentz, though - while Makhachev's sambo credentials are no joke, his last win over Chris Wade saw a lot of control exchanged back and forth, and I consider Lentz to be a better wrestler than Wade, so he should be more powerful here. Plus, if this somehow becomes a striking match, Lentz should have the advantage there as well. So my pick is Lentz by decision, but hopefully it's not too one-sided. Ian McCall (13-5-1 overall, 2-3-1 UFC, 1-2 WEC) vs. Jarred Brooks (12-0 overall): So...we're sure this is happening, right? Hopefully the sixth time is the charm for Ian McCall, who's had five fights fall through since taking on John Lineker in January of 2015. That's only the latest bit of bad luck for McCall - he's had a ton of tragedy in his personal life, and there's probably an alternate universe out there where he's had a stint as UFC flyweight champion. McCall was the consensus best flyweight in the world when UFC launched the division back in 2012, and the first round of UFC's four-man tournament saw him take on Demetrious Johnson, who was cutting down from bantamweight. It was a close fight, which saw Johnson win the earlier parts but McCall come through with a one-sided round three, but it was announced in the cage as a Johnson win...only for everyone to realize after the fact that they added the scores wrong, it should've been a draw, and that it should've gone to a fourth round, which McCall probably would've won given the momentum of the fight. So a rematch was put together, Johnson won that in fairly one-sided fashion, and McCall was just left out of luck. Since then, it's been all injuries and inconsistency from McCall - he's been forced to pull out of six UFC fights while only having six UFC fights, and that last bout against Lineker showed how frustrating McCall can be; he was winning the fight pretty handily by mixing his wrestling in with his mobile striking, but he decided to get lured into a brawl during the latter stages of the fight and gave away the decision. Hopefully McCall fights smarter - or hell, given the track record, hopefully McCall just fights - against late replacement Jarred Brooks, who steps in for Neil Seery. Brooks is going to make this an interesting fight - the Michigan native was regarded as one of the best flyweight prospects outside of UFC, and looking at his tape, you can definitely see why, as he's a powerful wrestler, a slick submission artist, and during his odd fights at strawweight, he's also shown some vicious knockout power. So, basically, McCall can't afford to screw around, which means this fight pretty much comes down to if McCall will in fact screw around. I'll pick McCall to win a decision, but not without a ton of trepidation - while McCall's striking and years of experience should be enough to handle Brooks, McCall rarely fights the smartest fight, and I could see him diving straight into a guillotine or something similar. Add in that McCall's lived a hard 32 and a half years, and there is the chance that he's fallen off badly in the two years since we've seen him. But, that all said, I'm still rolling with "Uncle Creepy," even though Brooks is the type of prospect that could make that look really dumb. Marcin Tybura (14-2 overall, 1-1 UFC) vs. Justin Willis (4-1 overall): Lower-level heavyweight fights are always a crapshoot, but this one should be pretty fun. Marcin Tybura's an interesting entrant in the division, since I'm not really sure how well his game is going to work in the UFC going forward - he was one of the best heavyweights in Europe at the time he was signed, so he obviously belongs at this level, but his debut fight against Tim Johnson showed a lot of the problems that Tybura might have. While Tybura is obviously a big dude, he's not a big heavyweight - he's "only" about 240 pounds, and the UFC is filled with huge, athletic guys who have to cut down to make 265. And that's what doomed him in his fight against Johnson - Johnson's a massive guy and was pretty much able to just grind out Tybura with little trouble. Add in the fact that Tybura doesn't seem to be a particularly high-level athlete, and despite his skill, I just wonder if he'll be outgunned physically against most of his opponents. His second UFC fight, against Viktor Pesta, showed a lot of what Tybura can do - Pesta is a similarly sized guy, and Tybura just pieced him up on the feet before putting his lights out with a beautiful head kick - just, hopefully he can actually do it. After Luis Henrique got pulled from this fight with an eye issue, newcomer Justin Willis steps in on short notice, and this makes for an interesting fight, since Willis is exactly the type of massive, athletic human that Tybura might struggle with. Of course, Willis is also ridiculously raw - he's essentially less than three years into his career, and his gameplan doesn't seem to be much outside of "be giant, aggressive human", which has been enough to overwhelm his foes. So it's really just a case of size versus skill at this point - Tybura's the better technical striker, and we may get to see him bust out the submission game we haven't really seen in the UFC yet, but Willis might just be too big and strong to handle. I don't really have a good feel for this one, but I'll actually go with Willis - Tybura may have his moments, but I say Willis is just too physical for Tybura to do much with, and the Californian gets the second-round knockout. Roan Carneiro (21-10 overall, 4-4 UFC) vs. Ryan LaFlare (12-1 overall, 5-1 UFC): This is certainly a fight that's happening - it seems like once every few cards there's a fight between good fighters that UFC just sort of sweeps under the rug and buries on the undercard since it might be boring, and this is definitely one of those. It's very weird that Ryan LaFlare headlined a FS1 show once, due to his lack of, well, flair, but it happened, as he lost a rather one-sided decision to Demian Maia. LaFlare is pretty good - obviously, with that record - but the Long Island native is just ridiculous unmemorable; he's a balding white guy with a shaved head, and his game is basically predicated on wrestling and decent boxing. So, yeah, LaFlare wins rounds in fights you forget about by the next day. He faces longtime vet Roan "Jucao" Carneiro, who's sort of in a similar boat as someone skilled but rather boring. A BJJ expert, Carneiro had a brief and disappointing UFC run roughly a decade ago, and then had a weird career on the regional scene - from 2009 to 2014, Carneiro would only fight one night a year, the last of which was a one-night, eight-man tournament that Carneiro won mostly by out-grappling his opponents. That got him back on UFC's radar and earned him a late replacement spot against Mark Munoz, and Carneiro suddenly became a concern with a quick submission win...before taking another year off. 2016 saw Carneiro get destroyed by Derek Brunson, then cut back down to 170 to get a boring win over Kenny Robertson, and...yeah, Carneiro's pretty much the other king of the uninspiring victory lately. This is solid matchmaking, and hopefully these two somehow neutralize each other in a way that becomes exciting, but I expect a close, lackluster decision. I favor LaFlare, but...yeah, this could go either way. Rick Glenn (18-4-1 overall, 0-1 UFC) vs. Phillipe Nover (10-7-1 overall, 1-5 UFC, 2-1 Bellator): A fun fight to open things up here, and a homecoming for Brooklyn's Phillipe Nover, who's had a long, strange run. It's hard to believe it's been almost a decade since TUF 8, when Phillipe Nover was running through the competition in the house. This infamously led to Dana White calling Nover "the next Anderson Silva" and comparing him to Georges St. Pierre, and, well, those expectations fell apart almost immediately, as Nover lost the season final to Efrain Escudero, suffered two more losses, and then was out of the promotion. Nover popped up in Bellator and in regional fights for the next few years, but UFC somewhat surprisingly re-signed the Filipino-American for a card in Manila back in 2015, and while his win over Yui Chul Nam was a bit of a robbery, it was at least a nice moment for Nover to get his first UFC victory. But now Nover's coming off two straight losses - including an odd co-main event slot against Renan Barao - so he badly needs a win against Rick Glenn. Glenn was a solid late-replacement signing by UFC in September, as he had proven himself as a former WSOF featherweight champ, and he acquitted himself well in his debut, losing a hell of a fight to Evan Dunham that saw Glenn pretty much consistently battle back from adversity. And this should be a similarly fun one, as both guys are fairly aggressive and solidly skilled. I favor Glenn - he's the more physically imposing guy, has more finishing power, and honestly, just seems to be better pretty much everywhere. But that's not a knock on Nover - even though his initial hype has still made him sort of a punchline, he's the sort of jack of all trades, master of none that doesn't really do a ton to win rounds, but can pretty much hang tough with whatever opponent gets thrown his way. I could see Nover stealing a decision, but I'll favor Glenn to take three rounds, and it should be a good one.