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Post by Felix Hartley on Sept 3, 2016 1:44:23 GMT
 N E W B E G I N N I N G S //
♡ August 8th, 2015 – Las Vegas, Nevada | 4:16 AM
Felix jolted awake, sitting upright in a sweat; she hated sweating. Squinting, she looked over at her alarm and waited for her eyes to adjust to the darkness before she wandered out into the hallway, dressed in nothing but Dante's dress shirt she had ripped off from the night before. She was half-awake, but managed a smile in the realization that a few of the buttons were missing on account of their aggression. She sauntered into the kitchen where the Keurig promised coffee in less than a minute, though she was sure the wait felt like hours; she hadn't had nightmares of her rape in months, they had become so scarce that she would wake up and be able to go right back to sleep. Could it have been triggered by Dante's domination over her the night before? She hadn't been with a man that . . . aggressive in years.
She pulled out a bar stool adjacent to the island and sat down alone in the dark, cautiously sipping at her boiling hot Colombian blend. She thought for a minute about adding milk and sugar, but that thought was quickly dismissed by the fact that her body would not metabolize that sugar in time, and did she really feel like doing an extra hour of cardio today?
No.
"Fel?"
She could see the silhouette of Dante Malachi in the doorway that led to the hallway; his sudden appearance made her jump slightly, splashing the hot coffee onto her exposed thigh.
"Yeah, hey," Felix said through gritted teeth, wiping away at the spilled coffee.
"What are you doing up?"
"Uh, I–I couldn't really sleep that well," She yawned, rubbing at her eyes until she remembered that she was probably smudging her eyeliner in the process.
"Should I be offended? Here I thought I tired you out pretty damned good," His voice was sleepy and raspy and he was slow and sluggish in his steps towards the coffee maker.
"Oh, you did." She said reassuringly, lifting the coffee to her lips.
Dante nonchalantly scavenged for her milk and sugar, and with his back turned to her, he says, "So, what is it, then?"
"What makes you think it's anything?" Felix's tone was defensive, which didn't seem to halt Dante's quest for knowledge.
"The two of us are awake at damn near five o'clock in the morning, one of which was here drinking coffee alone before that. You're nowhere near philosophical enough to ponder life at dawn, so . . ."
Felix cocked an eyebrow, a small 'pft' noise escaping her lips, "I can be philosophical if I want to."
"Sure you could, sugar," Dante quips in a way that makes Felix question if he was being motivational and supportive, or sarcastic. "But I'm not stupid, Fel."
She sighed. He wasn't entirely wrong; it's just, how do you tell somebody you have such a dark past? More over, how do you tell somebody they brought those memories back to you?
"I just had a nightmare, okay? That's it," Felix shrugged. It was still dark, but it was probably best that Dante didn't see her right now. Not because she had anything to be ashamed of, but she did smudge her eyeliner.
"Okay," Dante said with his hands up in surrender. He sat down next to her, placing his coffee on the island. "Serial killer trying to get 'ya?"
She half-smiled, shaking her head, "Recurring dream. Happens every couple of months or so."
"Drowning and you can't keep afloat?" He pressed on.
She shakes her head again, keeping quiet this time. She lazily swirled the coffee around in her cup, creating what looked like a little tornado of sweet, caffeinated bliss.
"Look at it this way, nothing could be worse than dreaming about some . . . obese dude tying you up and raping you," Dante shrugged, taking a sip of his coffee and looking over at Felix for reassurance, "Right?"
"Yeah," she swallows hard.
There was a bit of a pause and Dante could tell that he wasn't going to be able to lighten the mood with jokes, this time. It was obviously something that affected her far more than she was willing to admit.
"It was just a dream," He reached over to graze her shoulder but she jumped, "Okay?"
Felix ran her hands through her hair and sighed, supporting her head on her palms, "Except it wasn't."
"What do you mean?" He asked, quizzically.
"It wasn't a dream. I mean, yeah, it was tonight, but . . . It–I–. . . " She tried to talk, but the right words just weren't there. She was constantly caught in this dilemma between having the opportunity to talk about it and not wanting to scare any sort of genuine connection away.
"Fel, it's okay. It's just me," He brushed her hair away from her face and off of her neck, hoping that the air on her skin might be calming.
"I keep having the same dream because it actually happened."
"You almost drowned?"
"No," Felix started to feel slightly frustrated, "I was raped."
He could tell that she was on the verge of breaking down. He took the coffee cup from her hands and placed it gently on the counter in front of her, taking her into his arms and running his fingers lightly up and down her shoulder.
"I was sixteen. I was working at the club across from Bally's, on Christmas Eve . . . I covered for Mina, she got food poisoning, but she had a regular in our full-service room. He tied me up, and wouldn't let me leave. I tried using the safe-word over, and over, and over, and he kept pushing, thrusting . . . I cried, and he asked me to beg. The cops were regulars, nobody did a fucking thing for me. When he found out I was sixteen and not Mina, he shot out of there like a bat out of hell and never came back."
He stayed silent for a moment, consoling her, brushing her hair away and leaving small kisses on the top of her head.
"So you put on the façade of using sex for power."
Finally, somebody understood her.
"Sometimes. It's the only way I know how to protect myself," Felix leaned her head closer into the crook of Dante's neck. "I'm sorry for dumping all of this on you."
He looked down at her, a look of concern on his face that she would even apologize for such a thing. He leans down, kissing her gently on the lips and bringing her in closer to him, holding her until she fell back asleep.
♡September 1, 2016 – Las Vegas, Nevada | 9:57 PM
Felix clung to her iPhone, watching it idle on the top of her black granite countertop of the island in the middle of her kitchen. She slid her finger around the aluminum edges softly, spinning it around and around, mindlessly as she waited for his call. She huffed, exhaling everything from oxygen to stress to a deep, immense sadness that seemed to radiate from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. She hadn't spoken to him in one year, not since . . . Well, not since that night – He had just won the Tag Team titles and she took him on the Strip to celebrate. They were close friends, some might even say best friends considering he was the only friend Felix had at the time. She had just left Global Wrestling Coalition as the last Empress Champion (sharing a reign with Krys Jericho) and was well on her way to a title shot in TXW, but that night changed everything for her.
She finally felt what it was like to be with Dante after what felt like years of trying to cross each other's paths, but for some reason the women in his life (first his tag-team partner, and then his 'BFF') built a barrier around him that was seemingly Felix-proof, and why shouldn't they have? Felix was notorious for taking what she wanted, no matter what – or who – it was. Dante was their key to success and, being no stranger to the womanizer status himself, he didn't seem to mind having the arm candy. But Felix was different for him, as Dante was different for her.
He was the only person who knew her deepest and darkest secret. Dante had demons of his own that Felix had the privilege to discover after the intimate night they had spent together last year. The two of them were fit for each other in the way that they had no idea how to love, but knew that their dark pasts would somehow tie them into some sort of soul-crushing bond that would either make or break the both of them eventually.
She laid with her arm extended out, supporting her head as she watched the blank screen . . . Waiting for the ring, waiting for the flash, anything. Anything. This had become a nightly routine for her by now, though, and she was grasping at straws trying to get ahold of him after he mysteriously disappeared. Dialling his number again, she waited, and waited, and waited, for those torturous rings to turn to his raspy, tired voice. Instead, though, she got his voicemail . . .
"You have reached the voice mail box of . . . Dante Malachi."
At the sound of his voice recording, her eyes welled, her gut wrenched and she clasped a hand over her stomach. She didn't know why she still reacted to it the way she did; she's been doing this every night for months, now. The robotic recording snapped her back to reality.
"Please leave a message."
"H–Hey," She hesitated, inhaling deeply and becoming entirely too self-aware of her shaking voice, "It's Fel. I–I miss you, D. Where are you? It's been a year. I need to know you're safe. I just. Please just reach out to me when you can, okay? I miss you so, so much. I could really use you right now. . . "
She opened her mouth to say something else, but couldn't. Her voice was stuck in her throat, or in her stomach – somewhere in there where she couldn't get to it. In a slight panic, she ended the voicemail and tossed her phone away. She collapsed her head in her hands, wiping away the smudged make-up that had seeped its way into the creases beneath her eyes. She knew what she had to do. She knew that she couldn't stay in the apartment anymore. She needed a break; a change of scenery that would let her collect her thoughts. This wasn't the Felix she normally was – forming this intense bond with Dante and losing it so quickly turned the "Bad Bitch" into a sobbing, inarticulate mess, and Felix was not making that transition as smoothly as they make it seem in the movies. She was going to pack a bag, and she was going to leave. Where was she going to go? She had options – very, very limited options . . .
She could stay with Lexi? She had retained Lexi to train her once Global Wrestling Coalition went under, but the two of them rarely got along if they weren't discussing anything wrestling-related. As a matter of fact, they barely got along then, either. Who else did she have? She cut ties with her "best friend*" (*read: puppet) Brielle after she costed her the Championship in her rematch, and she had basically cut ties with all the guys on her "roster" after dating them for about a week, using them for their credit cards, and kicking them to the curb.
Then it came to her. She knew where she could go . . .
♡ September 2nd, 2016 – Dillon, Colorado | 3:15 PM
"Um, how the hell did I get stuck with this shitty gig?" Aaron Asphyxia quietly whispers into her cell phone, rounding a corner in her Colorado home to avoid any potential eavesdroppers, "You're closer to her than I am!"
"Yeah, but, you're pregnant and less likely to commit a felony. You know for a fact that I can not be in the same room with that gaping fucking twat for more than thirty-two seconds," Lexi Sheckler can be heard on the other line, her voice monotone and unimpressed, "You even timed it once."
"Hey, I'm proud of you but dude, seriously?" Aaron looks cautiously over her shoulder to see if Felix was there, "I'm not sure I can handle it for much longer than that."
"Didn't you train her after I kicked her to the curb?!"
"Finn and I did, yeah."
"Well clearly she had less problems with you than she did with me," Lexi said matter-of-factly.
"You ever think you might be the problem?" Aaron sighs, defeated, knowing that arguing with Lexi inevitably gets you nowhere but Frustrationtown, population: 1.
"Oh, I know I'm the problem, dude," Lexi chuckles into the phone, "99 Problems but having a stupid fucking dumb idiot living under my roof and eating all my food and drinking all my beer ain't one."
"God, I hate you sometimes," Aaron couldn't help but laugh slightly at the odd friendship her and Lexi have built over the ten or so years of being in the business together and hanging around the same crowds. "Okay, she's coming . . . Ugh. Gotta go. I'll text you later."
Aaron hangs up and leans up against the door jamb in her hallway where Felix had been unloading her bags with the help of Victory roster member, Finn Whelan – the two of them had taken Felix under their collective wing once Lexi peacefully* ended their training together (*not peacefully at all).
"Christ almighty," Finn sighs, seemingly exhausted from trucking Felix's belongings from the rental car to the house, "Did you bring your whole apartment, or?. . . Like, why do you have one entire suitcase full of make-up?! There's JUST make-up in here, nothing else!"
"Could you just like, not judge my stuff and just like, put it down and get over it?" Felix adjusts her Versace sunglasses so they sat ontop of her head, careful not to mess up the side-braid she was rocking.
"Get over it? It's practically taking up the entire hallway to my house. There's literally nowhere else to go, but over it – like, physically." Finn motions to the multitude of bags scattered around the foyer.
"Listen, I'm just like, super overwhelmed right now and on a list of top 10 things I don't need, that attitude is pretty damn close to the top." Felix pulls out her cell phone, checking over her social media to make up for the late notifications she missed while her phone was on Airplane mode.
"This is going to go well!" Aaron sarcastically bellows as she turns on her heels and heads upstairs, leaving Finn and Felix to sort out the living arrangements for the foreseeable future . . .
To be continued by Erin <3 |
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Post by Finn Whelan on Sept 3, 2016 4:27:22 GMT
N E W B E G I N N I N G S
chapter i
••
Finn was a man of many words. A few years prior, most of those words would probably be epithets of irritation and loathing, including the most derogatory of language that would be strung together in a quick, unhinged sentences, but there was still many words. It used to fall from his mouth like rain from a thunder cloud, and it couldn't be stopped. More than once, he'd gotten his face bashed in because he'd said the wrong thing at the exact wrong time to the wrong individual. Of course, he would get back up and wail as hard as he could on the motherfucker, but this wasn't years ago, and this wasn't some buffed-up douchebag with an Affliction shirt and tight ass jeans at the bar with ten drinks down his throat and hoping to get the world's sloppiest blow job from the most intoxicated and vapid bar skank of the evening.
He couldn't say for certain that he liked Felix. It was more of a toleration of her very presence for the sake of his seven-week pregnant wife, as well as a built-up immunity to her attitude over the past year or so. Though his own training had been in little bits and pieces with the flaming red-haired she-devil, that little bit of time had allowed her temperament to grow on him. Or rather . . . perhaps it was the inclusion of several other women in the business that seemed to be just like her. She defined the very caliber of everything he despised in women in her demeanor. The brilliantly bronzed complexion, the flawless make-up, perfectly plaited hair defined exactly how shallow she could be with her appearance, and the white crop top and tight compression pants she'd worn on the plane didn't help boost his confidence in her to not be a royal cuntrag while she was here. After all, he'd married the extreme opposite for the most part. There were more times that the only thing Aaron did was paint on her dramatic eyebrows and throw her hair up into a messy bun than dress to the nines for nothing more than going out to dinner.
If it weren't for their training together, both under Aaron's wing for a brief time before he left for Japan, he probably would have been more than willing to now take all of her belongings he'd just brought inside -- while she crossed her arms and led the way into the house -- and chucked them out the door for her to carry in herself. They had, after all, just arrived back into Colorado yesterday and he'd lugged all of Aaron's shit too. Regardless of whatever he wanted to say or do, however, he knew he ultimately wouldn't. Aaron had explained, in one hundred and fifty characters or less, that Felix was having a rough go of it and needed some help. And it was just like his wife to offer another room to yet another one of her many friends in need. Pregnant woman or not, she was the advice giver for any situation.
His nose, however, of it's own accord, twitched at her statement, and he watched as Aaron disappeared from view. A lot of the time, Aaron was always there to help soften the abrasive cunt-worthiness of her friends while he was around. Now, he was left to fend for himself, as he was sure he would find himself in many situations while Felix laid her head in one of their three extra rooms. With an inhale, he shoved down any retort that he wanted to blurt at Felix's snappy response, and reached down to wrap his hand around one of the handles of Felix's numerous bags.
"Finn," she cooed, lifting her eyes from her phone and tilting her hand slightly, "can we hurry this along?"
It took everything he had to not drop the bag he'd just lifted right on the floor. "Gee golly, ma'am," the sarcasm rolled off his tongue in a deep southern drawl, "there's just so darned many bags that it might take me until the cows come home this here evenin'."
Felix wasn't amused. Her eyebrow lifted high and her nose turned up in a small sneer. "Ew, never do that again." She demanded, dropping her hand entirely and looking around the house. Finn fought rolling his eyes like a petulant little girl and grabbed another one of Felix's numerous luggage, passing her in the hallway. Like he predicted, as he heard the click of her heels against the floor, she began to tail him throughout the house.
"So," he started, returning his voice back to normal -- just a little inflection of the Irish brogue still hidden in his dialect -- as he led Felix up the steps, "How is everything in Vegas?"
"Miserable, but like . . . I really don't want to play twenty questions, so shh." The dismissive answers were going to get to him, for sure. He stopped and looked at her, trying to force her to say something else. No go. She just looked irritated with him and he didn't press it. He knew better, considering the fact that with every female he knew, one word answers meant that he might as well fuck off and die. In silence, shaking his head extremely minutely, he pushed open the door to Felix's temporary room and dropped her bags on the floor. She entered it behind him and dropped onto the bed, scrolling through her phone again and typing quickly on the digital keypad.
Taking the steps by twos, he jogged down the staircase and found his colorfully-haired wife sitting at the island counter, thumbing through a cookbook and biting her thumb. Once his boots hit the tile floor, she looked up at him, and an amused smile rose up on her face. "You look stressed." She said, patting the chair next to her. Felix would be annoyed with how long it took Finn to bring the next batch of her things up, but Aaron knew her husband well enough to realize he might literally implode.
He crossed the kitchen, shuffling his feet and dropping into the stool next to her. With a pained look on his face, he set his forehead on the cool granite counter and spread his fingers across it. "Seriously, how many times are you going to open up our house to your friends? It's like we're Dr. Aaron's Relationship Re-Creation Ranch, where you can hide until you get your shit together."
Finnegan's tone was extremely dismissive and irritated. He never did well with hiding any feelings. Aaron placed her chin on the palm of her hand and giggled. "Is it that, or is it you just not liking being outnumbered by estrogen?"
"Fuck. That too." He lifted his head, reaching one of his tattooed arms over then and placing a hand on her belly. "This is a dude. It has to be a dude, or I literally may throw myself off one of the ski slopes." He dodged Aaron's light slap and leaned back onto the rungs of the chair. "It's just really fucking awkward with her being here, I'm not going to lie. It's one thing to train with her, it's another to have her share living quarters with her. I mean, Genevie was here for less than a day, and she inhaled my libation stash. Stop grinning," he added, pointing a finger at her before continuing on, "Felix isn't much better, and you encourage that shit."
"Callien, really." Aaron leaned forward, propping her head up on the counter with her hand and elbow. "Felix hasn't heard from the person she really got attached to for almost a year. Think about it; remember how upset and irritated I was until you came back from Japan? I didn't get to hear your voice, much less see you--"
"That was literally your doing."
"--shhhhh, I'm talking. I'm just saying. Girls get upset when the person they're all up on, regardless of a solid statement of commitment, just suddenly disappear without a trace and stop talking to you entirely. Dante pretty much became Felix's lover, and then bitch, bye." She waved her hand. "I'd be upset too."
"It's been a year. She just signed with a company, the company I'm in." Finn sighed exasperatedly. "How's it gonna be if she goes into a match with this mopey, one-word, lack-of-motivation shit? Valentina isn't going to put her into a match if she isn't going to show any form of excitement for her matches." He threw his hands up into the air. "Ohhhhhh you should pity me because I'm so morose, please lay down and let me pin you."
"Stoooooooop." Aaron snorted and pushed Finn's shoulder. "One, no one says 'morose' in their normal speech. Two, emotions Finn, emotions."
Finn simply stared at his wife, his right eye narrowing as he shook his head. "You guys are fucked. All of you. All women."
Again, she pushed him and he finally slid out of his chair. "Then go tell her that. Make it less awkward for you. Felix doesn't respond to sympathy. Go beat her over the head with that sometimes present man logic. I don't think me being my usual rational self is going to help this time."
Finn sighed, and looked back at the stairs. Talking a female off the ledge would be something he wasn't really qualified, nor wanted, to do. Regardless, he headed for the hallway, grabbed more of her things, and trudged up the steps with them in tow. Finally, he approached the room, dropped her things on the floor, grabbed the desk chair from the corner, rolled it forward and straddled it, staring Felix directly in the face. Directly. There was no chance that she would be able to look at her phone and ignore him.
"Um . . . " that snarky tone already rose up once more, but Finn didn't let her finish even stating anything remotely derogatory to him.
"You need to get over it." He snapped, his voice and words moving quicker than he wanted. He tried fitting most things into one breath, and his rant began. "You've been signed by a start-up company, and they need the bitchy-ass girl that you were a year ago, not this one-word and avoid bullshit crap thing you're doing right now when people talk to you. Sitting here with this mopey attitude is not going to help you, not going to be beneficial in the long run, and honestly, for fuck's sake, forget about it. Honestly, if the douchewad was willing to bounce into oblivion, then he wasn't worth crying over. Take it from a dude; I fucking know my kind. You have a job to do, and you're not going to be able to do it if your mind is focused on . . . uh . . ."
"Dante?" Felix supplied, her eyebrows both raised high at Finn's . . . pep . . . talk.
"Yes! Jesus Christ, what a fucking awful name." He closes his eyes momentarily, shakes his head as if trying to shake the name out of his memory. "Anyway. Dickfuck is not a good reason to be upset. Dickfuck is a good reason to now get pissed, and use that irritation and frustration and rage in the ring to knock some fuckers out. You won that women's championship, and you can win another championship and take another step into solidifying your name into the books if you just forget all the shit that's going on in your personal life and literally leave it at the door, or on the plane, or just leave it lying in the dirt somewhere altogether. You don't need the dude. You need that fame. And for the love of all that his fucking holy, if you argue with this, I will literally drag your shit outside and make you carry it in yourself. You are a wrestler, Felix. Remember that."
He exhaled, finally, letting out a long breath that probably should have fallen about a hundred words prior. It wasn't what a girl would say to another girl. That wouldn't work. Maybe just trying to hit her over the head with a brick would be easier. After all, there was more at stake than a missing dick here.
[tbc: melaniiiiiiie] |
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Post by Felix Hartley on Sept 4, 2016 2:53:50 GMT
N E W B E G I N N I N G S //
What an odd turn of events, Felix thought. Though she may come off as a vapid, shallow and hormonal slap-in-the-face to the natural steps of evolution, she knew what kind of reaction she prompted from those closest to her; she could feel that Aaron and Finn weren't necessarily thrilled that she'd taken refuge in their temple, especially when Finn's wife is at a point in life where it's to be expected that her shifting estrogen levels will create some sort of pregnancy-fuelled natural animosity. Felix isn't exactly trying to be empathetic, although it's not to say that she won't try to appreciate Finn's forced living situation for the next little while. A pregnant wife, and a mere acquaintance, both with their own – at times – unpredictable temperaments . . . It's a recipe for disaster, and he's no Chef Ramsay.
Felix cocked her eyebrow, hesitating for . . . a lot of reasons, actually – Did Finn Whelan of all people really just try to offer her advice? About relationships? And was it really humanly possible to fit all of that into one breath, or does Finn just have the lung capacity of a thousand helium balloons? Was it cardio? Damn it, she needs to do more cardio.
"Hmph."
Was all Felix could muster, consumed by the complete shock that not only was she having this conversation with somebody she had only known in a strictly professional sense, but that most –if not all – of what he was saying completely resonated with her.
"I'm pretty sure I just took a solid year off of my lifespan by forgetting to breathe for that long, and all you've got to say is 'hmph'?" Finn sounded done; with life, with women, with people.
"Okay, relax Meryl Streep," Felix ushered him with an eye roll that was nothing short of dramatic, "I'm just . . . processing what you said."
"Yep," Finn sighs exhaustingly, muttering under his breath more to himself than in response to Felix, "Aaron was right. Should've just beaten you over the head with a brick."
"What? . . ."
"Hm?"
"I feel like I'm going to vomit," Felix whines, rolling over onto her back and placing her palms on her forehead.
"God, please don't tell me you're pregnant, too," Finn buries his head in the sponge-like back rest of the chair he was straddling. "I just can't."
"As fucking if," Felix's voice was saturated with disgust, "Oh my god, the weight gain? Could you imagine? I'd rather be deaf, dumb, and blind than carry baby weight!" She said with an uncontrollable shudder.
Finn tilts his head as if to say, "Really?" upon the realization that it clearly slipped Felix's mind that he did in fact have a pregnant wife downstairs that would willingly whoop her ass to bits and pieces if she overheard what Felix had said. Felix read the expression loud and clear before offering up an apologetic smile.
"Oops . . . "
"I'm afraid there's no hope for you." Finn stood up, nearly tripping over one of Felix's suitcases on his way to the door.
"Ugh, Finn–" Felix rolled up, climbing to the edge of the bed, "Wait."
Finn reluctantly stops, throwing his head back and spinning on his heels to face the hellish redhead. She sighed, sitting back on her shins and looking down at her hands, which were clasped defensively in her lap so as to stop herself from picking mindlessly at her perfect manicure.
"What I meant to say, was that you're right." Felix shrugged, although it caused her serious pain – mentally, and physically – to admit that she actually needed advice from anybody. "Having like, real emotions is fucking god-awful and I'm not sure how you people do this."
"Uh, not to be a dick but, it helps when you have two people? And one of them doesn't magically disappear like a royal piece of shit," Finn sarcastically gives a thumbs up in Felix's direction.
"Yeah, not sure what part of that you weren't a dick for, buuuut," Felix's snotty tone returned, "You're not exactly wrong. It would be pretty childish of me to let somebody else influence what I've already accomplished . . . "
"To be fair, you still are a child. Not exactly the old and wise type just yet."
"Whatever," She dismisses him with a wave of her hand, "In so many words, I'm trying to say thank you for having the balls to sit down and shit-talk me until I got the concept. I'm thoroughly disgusted with myself for letting it get to this point, I guess. I've never struggled with who I was, wasn't afraid to let anybody know what was up. I guess I got too pre-occupied. Maybe when I took time off I genuinely forgot how much I loved being an insatiable cunt over social media . . . "
"Stop making excuses," Finn holds his hand up, cutting her short. "None of that shit matters. You had a big-girl experience with a guy. You're twenty years old, for fuck sakes, this shit happens. Do what you have to do to get over it – if that means Tweeting about it, twat away. If it means showing Valentina the person that I trained with in GWC's final weeks, do that. Actually, JUST do that. That is literally all you have to do."
"Okay, Finn, I get it! Jesus Chri–"
SLAP!
Felix's eyes widened at the slight stinging sensation she felt on her cheek – had Finn really just slapped her? Really? Albeit more of an agitating tap that a real slap, but you could still see Finn's fingerprints on her perfectly bronzed and highlighted cheekbone.
"Find that insatiable cunt and bring her out."
"Are you–Are you fucking kidding me right no–"
SLAP!
"Finn, what the actual fu–"
SLAP!
Felix lunged forward and shoved Finn backwards. He chuckled – she really was like a small, angry kitten that posed no real threat to him at all. He may be an awkward, socially inexperienced guy, but he wasn't afraid to get in Felix's face. She understood what he was trying to do, perhaps she was even more so annoyed that it worked.
". . . Are you fucking done?" Felix snarled as Finn stood in front of her with a satisfied grin on his face.
"There it is. Welcome back. Now that that's finally out of the way," Finn ran a hand through his hair, "Did you see the news? Valentina announced the plans for the first show. Looks like she's on the hunt for a Champion."
"Uh, I am social media, Finn. I know the latest updates, alright?" Felix rolled back over onto her stomach, reminiscent of a teenaged girl texting boys, kicking her feet in the air.
"The roster is growing exponentially. You and I both, we've attracted a lot of attention . . . But there are going to be names – there are already names – that have more experience than both of us put together. Do you have a game plan?"
"You can't be serious . . . " Felix looked at Finn with exasperation, "A game plan? When was the last time I needed a game plan? When you're given the opportunity to take a roster full of losers, soak up all of their passion and devotion, and crush it under your designer heel with the haunting realization that you're naturally talented in the art that they've worked their asses off for years to perfect, that's the game plan. I never wanted to end up in GWC, because who cares about professional wrestling?"
"Um, me? Aaron? All of the people you consider frie–"
"I wasn't done, though," Felix raises her hand to shut Finn down, much in the same way he did earlier. "You take what these people love, get good at it, and you let them know. That's exactly how I single-handedly–"
"–You mean with the help of Aaron and Krys–"
"–SINGLE-HANDEDLY destroyed the Empress division. Use what they love against them. Make them hate you so much for being so good at their life's work in just under two years. Being handed opportunities on a silver platter for drawing ratings in, selling tickets, garnering the attention of almost every executive? That's just what I do. You use your skill and your talent, I use my looks and my general social prowess to work my way into the most important events on the card. That's it."
"Welp," Finn darted for the door, this time he was determined to make an escape; he reached his wit's end with the sassy intruder. "Looks like everything is back to normal here, glad to know you're feeling like yourself again – I'll be downstairs shoving my face into the sharpest kitchen appliance!" Finn quips with a very, very forced enthusiasm.
He froze momentarily between the door jamb; he could hear things being strewn about downstairs, as if Aaron had been throwing things. He could hear the odd mutter, something-something "I'm always the one cleaning up around here," and he knew that if he went downstairs, for some reason, it'd be bad news for everyone involved – including Felix.
"It's almost like I can't catch a fucking break," Finn leans his head up against the door.
"What's her deal?"
"My guess is that her body is changing because she's supporting a human life?" Finn retorts, the condescension apparent in his tone.
"Sucks to be you this week, doesn't it?" There was no sympathy present in her voice.
"Think you could help me deal with that? Women tend to stick together, because you're all fucking sadistic," Finn spoke matter-of-factly, as if being married and a soon-to-be father gave him all the knowledge on the female psyche that he ever cared to have.
"Hmm . . . " Felix pretended to ponder on it, although she knew that she somewhat owed Finn this much – he did help snap her back into the reality that she needed to live in, especially coming up on her first real wrestling gig in over a year. "Yeah. Yeah, I could help you with that."
He had a thankful look on his face as he mentally prepared himself to face an angry Aaron.
"We'll have each other's back? If we ever need it?"
Finn glanced over his shoulder at Felix, a hint of confusion in his voice. "I mean, it's not like she's going to murder me. Or you. Well, maybe you. . . "
"I meant in EOW . . . "
Finn hesitated. They still didn't have much of a common ground despite the fact that his wife was a mutual "friend", and all three of them used that term loosely. But Finn did know what Felix was capable of when she was working, she did, after all, capture Championship gold here and there. It wouldn't necessarily hurt either of their careers, and both of them knew it wouldn't be like using the other for any advantages in the ring. What would be the harm in setting an alliance in stone? After a few moments of silence and thought, Finn extended his hand. Felix rolled her eyes at the formality and reached out to shake hands with Finn.
"Fine." |
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