Chapter Three (Honest) [posted for Warped: In A Flash]

The bottles in the plastic bag dangling from Jackson's fingers clinked together almost musically as he shifted his grip, checking his pockets for the magnetic room key like somebody's awkward grandpa trying to follow along with the Macarena at a wedding. Finally, he gave up, tapping out the old familiar 'Shave And A Haircut' tune while slumping against the doorjamb in defeat.

That carpet's so fucking ugly. This place is such a dive. Should've demanded they comp for a better room and gone for the honeymoon suite or something. One last splurge before you get yourself killed in Wichita, maybe? Have to dust off the old blog for this one. Big deal and all. What's the password for that? Is it still saved in the laptop? Fuck.

The running commentary in his head brought a wry smirk to his lips. If they only knew...

She's gonna want to have you committed at this rate, you suicidal jackass! She's a risk-taker. Save the envelope pushing for something bigger? Can't even win against a failed porn star who hadn't been in the ring for over a year - now we're jumping at a fucking DEATH MATCH less than a week after this 'first blood' shit against CJ Wylde? Fuck the bucket list. Is this gonna impress her? This is so goddamned stupid. It's not too late to back out. Hell, wait 'til Monday, over-sell whatever happens tomorrow. Stitches. The knee. Ronie'll understand. The guy's retired about a hundred times over the last year-

Missy heard his knock and was instantly up out of the chair she'd been lounging in, almost tripping over her discarded shoes on the way to the door. "Bad habit's going to bite me in the ass..." Muttering to herself as she opened the door and saw Jax there with his bag, stepping back and out of the way even as her wry little smile came to her lips that matched his. "So..." leaving that hanging for a moment, she snickered before continuing. "What's our poison for tonight?"

He chuckled, brushing past her and making a beeline for the little table that held the tiniest coffeemaker known to man. "Wasn't sure what you wanted, so..." he shrugged. "Glenlivet for me. Got a bottle of Stoli... another chick I used to uh..." what label should he throw on Jada Kaine? "...hang out with loved it. I dunno. And a mickey of gin, just in case." He started pulling the bottles out of the bag, completely avoiding any sort of eye contact as he started crumpling the plastic in his fist. "Hey... about what I tweeted there... about her? That wasn't a slight on you - I appreciate everything - you know that, right?"

"Course I knew. Besides..." She stepped up and planted a kiss on his cheek. "You defended the honor of my boobs, how'm I going to repay that? Get pissed over nothing? Please. And the Stoli is fine - but if we go out I'd want a dirty vodka martini. Because it's a rude drink and I'm a rude girl." She took her seat again, looking him over. "Your old friend, she's rude too."

He followed her over after kicking off his shoes, not even caring that he was barefoot on that disgusting carpet. Both bottles were in his hands and he handed the vodka over to her. "Dirty... I can do. Don't have any olives... not that I usually made mine with those. I used to use baby dill pickles and brine, muddle it with the vermouth over ice. You'd be surprised how many random drink recipes I know." He plopped down on the couch, picking at the seal on his bottle with his thumbnail. "You mean Georgie, right? She's... I don't get her trip, babe. Honestly. Back in 2008, I was laid up in the hospital, million stitches in my back and neck and shit - Spiral threw me through a glass table twenty minutes before I was supposed to walk down the ramp in HiWF and defend the world championship. Instead I was packed off to the hospital and the belt was vacated. I woke up and she was... she fuckin' faked her death instead of telling me she wanted to call it quits and now she's inviting me over to the steam and fire factory for some dirty training and offering a shoulder to cry on? Salvador Dali bailed 'cause it's too surreal even for him and I can't even....."

Missy blinked, pausing just as she'd gotten the wrap off her own bottle to look over at him. "... the fuck? I... okay I literally can't even. I can't fathom how that even makes sense. If she hated you enough to pretend she was dead, why ever... I mean, okay." A pause and she shook her head. "I get that people want to make up for the fucked up shit they did back in the day or whatever but how the hell do you?" Another pause and he could likely see the gears turning as she thought about it. "So what's her angle then? What does she want that you have? It's gotta be something like that otherwise it makes no sense at all. And that's not me being paranoid, come on." She dropped the plastic on the floor, and unscrewed the cap. "I'm not the most trusting person in the world but goddamn."

He nodded, watching her for a second before looking down at the floor. "See, that's why I went to meet with her yesterday. Not... because of old times or nostalgia or any of that bullshit... or because I'm lonely and I'd like to cross an evil ex off the list. I just... I figured she'd spend a couple hours buttering me up before it came pouring out. Figured maybe shit's not all roses for her and the goddamned asshat she hooked up with this time 'round. Nope. She spent more time trying to stretch me..." he lifted one hand up, rubbing it over his jaw, unintentionally drawing attention to his shredded knuckles. "I dunno, Miss... whatever she's anglin' for, it's lost on me." He lifted the bottle of booze to his lips, taking a long swallow before exhaling slowly. "Aw, Jesus. That's... good."

Missy lifted her bottle toward him before she took a drink, wincing a little at the burn and chuckling under her breath. "Tasty. Not as tasty as other things, but I've gotten spoiled, refined palate and all." She took another drink, and looked down at the bottle. "So, as long as she didn't do anything to fuck with your knee... I guess that's cool. I suppose. Damn trust issues...eh. Fuck it. She wants to train, if you want to do it we could make sure she knows what's off limits?"

"She knows about the knee. It's not like it's a secret. You know what's off limits where she's concerned?" He took another pull of the high-end Scotch, wincing. "I need some ice for this... it's been too fuckin' long."

"There's some in the bucket, I went hunting earlier." Missy took another drink, a little more moderate than the first two and sighed. "So I have a question. You've got another match coming up and I was kinda curious about it. Deathmatch... what is that, like Thunderdome or what?" She had a look of genuine interest on her face, watching him a moment before adding a little more to the question. "Because you know, I get that they hype up things to I guess build interest. But what's the goal of that? The prize I mean?"

"Treats-" he shook his head, "shit, keep forgetting he's going by his name now - Ronie was their last Evolution Champ. There's gold on the line... anything goes... blood and... yeah. I guess it's pretty much Thunderdome. You worried about me?" Jackson narrowed his eyes, studying her for a second before shaking his head again. Pushing up to his feet, he went over and grabbed one of the plastic cups, tossing in a handful of ice before adding a generous splash of liquor from the bottle. Keeping his back to her, he muttered, "you know, I wasn't planning to drink alone tonight... fucking bitch didn't have to call me out like I'm some headfucked kid up on a ledge. Jesus."

Missy watched him before answering, seeing the tension in his back. "I saw that. But hell, I guess I don't exist to these people or whatever. But that was..." There was a hint of venom that she quickly tried to hide with a little saucy humor. "But maybe I'm a little worried? I mean, here I thought all I'd need to worry about is whether or not you'd get whiskey dick." A snicker that turned into a little cough as she took another drink of her vodka. "A girl thinks about these things. But okay, yeah that was kind of a bitch move. I didn't say anything, look at me acting like a grown up. There was a part of me though..." She snorted. "I wanted to remind her that I was capable of cutting a bitch. That's a little childish."

"Here's to being childish then," he turned, tipping his cup towards her before taking a slow sip. "You know the thing that bugs me the most? Not knowing what I did wrong. It's not like blowing a move out there... it's not like popping my knee... it's... I never even saw it coming. That's the part I don't... that's the thing keeping me up at night. I keep running the last six months over in my head, trying to look for my mistake, trying to pinpoint what I said, what I did that made living with me unbearable. At least when I'm with you, there's an off switch, you know? So... cheers to that, I guess."

Missy's attention sharpened when suddenly they weren't talking about Georgie anymore. The wife. She started to say something smart, but then the weight of what he'd actually said hit her and she got the strangest expression on her face. "Jax? The thing is though, it's not. Unbearable. You fill the silence." She took another drink, before she could back away from what she had to say next. "Do you ever wonder why I'm absolutely down to fuck you?" A deeper breath, as she watched his face. "The first time I was with you, it was great. But there was something different. I was focused on you the whole time, and that's not what sex is for me. I was always... Jesus this is nuts. But like before? I'd be mentally counting until it was over, thinking about anything but what was going on. Just... it was just sort of there. So the next time, I figured ... hell it was just the once and... but then it wasn't. It was just you. The whole fucked up world falls away, every time you're in me. Nothing hurts, it's just... it's fucking amazing." She took another fast drink. "And I'm going to shut up now."

Jackson stared at her for a good ten seconds, blinking in stupefaction before tossing back the rest of his drink, ice and all. The cubes he crunched between his teeth, still watching her as though expecting her to disappear or say something to claw back what she'd just said. "Heh." He chuckled bitterly, "say whatever you wanna say. I'm not gonna toss you out on your ass, if that's what you think. I wasn't lying last night when I said I need you. I do."

"It's not that." There was a soft hint of a slur to her words, but she looked at him steadily enough. "It's just admitting that makes it real. But I'm not lying." She lifted the bottle but stopped before she could actually take a drink. "It's a good thing you do, though. Makes it fair, right? Honesty and all, like I promised you. Because it's not lying if I say that, and you're not the only person that feels like that. Wait, that sounds wrong. But you get it. You always get me."

"Getting you's the best part of my day." He let the double entendre hang there for a second before turning to refill his glass with more ice before filling it halfway with Scotch again. This time he set the bottle down and returned to the couch. "Missy, can I level with you? Lemme know where the line is... how far's this gonna go? How deep's the rabbit hole?" He was starting to slur his words just a little, the hint of an almost Southern drawl creeping in around the edges.

"Course you can. I..." She paused, just looking at him for a long moment that ended with her taking another drink. "Can we just find out? I mean, I don't look at you and see a line. Which is stupid, I get what you're saying. I do. But me, I'm ...why would you want. Wait, let me try and make that make sense. This isn't something I've even, because Jesus Christ Jax. I've been my own worst enemy forever and what if I fuck up?"

"I'm the one who breaks shit." He laughed humorlessly, "let it ride... just take it a day at a time, one breath after another until it all stops hurting. Until it all stops feeling like the carnival ride's never gonna stop spinning and the vertigo subsides and then maybe..." It wasn't really even clear if he was talking about himself or her at this point. "I hate myself... hate the sound of my own voice. You know what I see when I look in the mirror? See a fuckin' stranger... this washed up old man. I've been pretending I'm still in my thirties for years, mentally playing out the golden days because they seemed endless for so damn long - I couldn't fail. If you fuck up? If you fuck up? Shit happens for a reason... I... I've been selling that line for so goddamn long that it's meaningless now. Just more Hallmark bullshit - violets are purple, not blue... whatever." He swallowed half the glass, the silence spilling out until he broke it with a sigh that turned into a derisive snort. "I don't wanna be alone. So here we are."

"I can't stand the silence, Jax." She made it sound more like Silence, all encompassing. "Look, don't worry about breaking me, okay? Because babe let me promise you, I broke myself a long time before we ever met. I think I'd feel better if I could blame someone else... that kid that dared me, maybe or my dad, or those fucking pitying looks they gave me. But see, I can't do that. It was all me, being arrogant and a dumbass kid. Don't get me wrong... I'm fucking awesome. But you know what? Even so, I can't even look at someone and think 'hey it might be great to like that guy' because it starts here." She poked herself in the chest with the hand holding the bottle and splashed herself, making her roll her eyes. "See, it's this shit right here. But I keep on, because maybe I'm overdoing the stupid shit that might make me ...not be. It's not always adrenaline that makes people want to do crazy shit. It's that fucking silence. But you fill it, Jax. I can't hear it and ... okay, that's... because silent means silent but you know, it was like a voice telling me nothing was ever getting better. But hey, surprise... it did."

He turned his head, looking off into the room with a goofy smile as though doing some sort of soliloquy for the benefit of an imaginary audience. "And that was when she admitted she liked me without actually saying it. But you know, I'm a hell of a guy, so I let it slide rather than admit that it wasn't just that foul mouth or that rockin' body that drew me in. Like calls to like...." He downed the rest of his drink and then whipped the cup across the room, laughing when the ice cubes rattled against the wall like hailstones. "Between you and me... are they real or fake? Honestly don't care one way or the other... but now it's like that Seinfeld thing. I gotta know."

Missy blinked, and then she laughed, sitting the bottle down so she could deliberately jiggle them before answering him. "Well Mother Nature wasn't as generous as I'd like, so I took care of it. So they're real, I fucking paid for them, I know it." She snickered. "I'll never worry about them not being perky."

"Jax most definitely approves. Honest," he held up his hands in mock surrender. "Quid pro quo... when I was at my biggest, I wasn't just spending a million hours in the gym for gains. I was... well... I'm sure you could tell if you saw the pictures - of course they always added about fifty pounds and two inches to every bio anyhow, so I was this six-six, super-jacked almost three-hundred pound monster. I got off lucky, I guess. Could've really fucked myself up worse," he chuckled softly. "These days, telling the truth's got more appeal. Barely six-four... almost a fuckin' middleweight now... but at least it's accurate. Makes me happy. Hell if I know why. Maybe it's 'cause I just stopped caring about all the... the games and shit." Another double meaning hung there for a second as bait. She took it.

"That's good." Missy stood up out of the chair, swaying a little before cautiously stepping over her shoes. "Really need to stop leaving them just anywhere, they fucking try and trip me on purpose, swear to God." The obstacle gotten past, she moved to join him on the couch. "See, I like this you just fine. A six-six mountain would be a hell of a lot harder to climb. So that's a win for me."

He grinned, more than willing to embrace the distraction her proximity provided. He pulled her into his lap. "Nah," he muttered, hands already sliding up her thighs under that oversized tee, "you're still here. We're both winners tonight."