Death Dance [Trinity 001]

LOCATION: Key West, Florida (OCW Arena)
DATE/TIME: June 25, 2019 || 12:12 AM EST
CAMERA STATUS: ON/OFF

The locker room felt too big, yawning like this vast chasm that was threatening to swallow her whole. Ears ringing, eyes stinging with sweat and tears, she sat in the corner, wedged in the gap between the two banks of lockers. Tonight, she'd emerged victorious. She'd put what was believed to be the final nail in the coffin of the man who called himself Evin Empire. She should have been ecstatic. She should have been satisfied, at least, to be back to the old winning ways.

She wasn't.

She'd heard the whispers. She saw the way people looked at her in passing - this fucked up mix of pity and disgust and she didn't know which was worse. She'd slept with Mike Best. He'd made it quite public and she was happy with the attention it had wrought at the beginning; it had soured quickly. His ego had its own gravitational pull. He was up in the stratosphere now, untouchable. The moment she'd lost her grip on championship gold was the moment Mike Best had found her lacking. Perhaps she'd never been good enough to begin with and the shiny belt had drawn the bastard's eye more than any quality within her. Desperation and rejection made her feel sick. They'd made her do stupid things and now here she was, full of regrets and well on her way to be the laughingstock of the company. She may as well have carved his name into her skin and broadcast it to the world.

She'd thought it was love just because it felt nice to be wanted. It was a conquest, sure. She'd invested too much into it – of course she had. He didn't love her. He wasn't even capable of the emotion – that narcissistic piece of shit. But she kept waving her hands over her head as though it was going to keep her from drowning in the sea of bullshit this company had become. Every week more of HOW's sewers backed up into the locker room and the faces that had drawn her to the company in the first place had vanished. She hadn't seen PerZag in months. Bob Grenier and Chad Vargas had disappeared before Block Party. Melinda Rhodes wasn't speaking to her anymore over her choice to remain in this cesspool. Ariel and Hayley were gone.

"Like toy soldiers," she whispered, blinking away the double vision, "we all fall down. He thinks he's god. He thinks he's goddamned Thanos."

She needed to get the hell out before it got any worse.

She wasn't even aware she was bleeding all over the floor, had no idea that her hand was torn open from the match, let alone the damage she'd done in a blind rage while the rest of the roster and fans were oblivious and enjoying the show. The wrestling "legend" known as Kitty Petrova had become a joke rather than the force to be reckoned with that she had been in the past.

Hunter Donimari's shadow had taken residence on the floor. He was looking into the locker room, a couple of towels in one hand and a first aid kit in the other. Without asking Kitty if she wanted him to get a medic to look at her injuries, he'd taken it upon himself to get the things needed. "Hey," his voice shattered the silence as he stepped into view, "can I look at your hand?" He held up what he had gotten. "Don't want management pitching a fit over bloodstains." It was an attempt at a joke as he approached, watching to see how she reacted.

She dragged in a deep breath, the urge to lash out written all over her face as she tried to pretend like she hadn't been startled by his arrival. After the nonsense tonight, she'd expected him to slip out into the night, follow in the footsteps of Mike Best.

"Hey." Hunter's voice was soft as he sat down in front of her.

She saw the towels now, saw the little red canvas bag with the white cross on it. Her eyes lifted to his and then skittered away. "I..." her voice caught in her throat, sounding more like a stifled sob than any coherent sound. Wordlessly, she held out her hand, looking at it for the first time. She couldn't remember what she'd done to Evin out there. She could only remember the roar of the crowd, their bloodlust like it was Thunderdome. "Oh."

Gently he took her hand and carefully wrapped one of the towels around it, applying pressure. When she winced, he artfully changed the subject. "You hungry? We could stop and get you something." After applying pressure for about a minute, he eased up and checked to see if she was still bleeding. "Or there's room service?" Usually she'd celebrate a win with a few drinks – he knew they'd hit her too hard tonight because she'd been off her medication long enough for the levels to start to change in her system.

He'd found the pills she'd been pretending to take every morning, half-melted and stashed in an old Altoids tin. He knew she needed to get some actual rest, to reset herself and if nothing else, he was determined to make sure she did at least that much.

"I'm not..." she struggled to form words past the exhaustion that was crashing over her in waves. Now that the anxiety and anger was fading, she could feel every ache and pain. Shaking her head, she focused on his hands, watching as he gently wiped away the drying blood. She could feel a lump forming in her throat, her emotions welling up and threatening to choke her. "Why... why are you still here?" The words tumbled out before she could check them.

Silence reigned as he popped open a little canister of saline, letting it dribble over her torn skin.

The coolness of the liquid brought a sigh from between her lips and she closed her eyes. She felt his breath as he leaned in closer to inspect the damage. Just when she thought he'd completely dismissed her question, he spoke, his voice soft.

"Because you are." The answer was a simple one for him. There was no analysis – he'd taken the question at face value rather than dig deeper. They'd been dancing around the subject for ten years now – he could do it in his sleep. "Wasn't going to make you go back to the hotel alone." He began removing things from the kit. "You're never in the right shape to drive after one of these matches."

She sat there in silence, trying to find the meaning in all that had happened lately. She'd gone to Chicago all those months ago looking for a memory and instead she'd found something she didn't quite understand. "No. That's not what I meant." The words came out faint as she kept her eyes on what he was doing with his hands. There was a desperation in her voice that she didn't like, a feeling of unease creeping up her spine. "I... I could have called an Uber," she murmured, trying to get him to explain that sudden tenderness. She'd been pushing for weeks, trying to get the walls back up. He kept coming back, sleeping on the sun-porch at the ranch after she'd kicked him out of the house. She picked fights she didn't want, ones that he refused to finish. He held her until she stopped raging, stopped shaking. She didn't want to let herself feel, to let herself fall.

"Hunter," she made the effort to say his full name. "You don't..." she paused, biting her lip as she trailed off.

He took his eyes off of her hand and met hers. "I don't what?" He was still smoothing the ointment into her skin with his thumb, still cradling it in both of his, not wanting to let go of her hand.

Her gaze slid away from his as a sigh came from her lips. "You don't have to. There's no obligation. You could walk away." She closed her eyes, back pushing harder against the wall as she tried to make herself a smaller target instinctively. "Lord only knows why you haven't yet."

Hunter raised an eyebrow as he studied Kitty. "When have I ever walked away from you?"

Her gaze snapped back to his, denial dying on her lips. He was right. He never had. She'd always disappeared on him. She'd always been the one to break contact – it was too easy to retreat rather than accept the truth that she'd always known. Kitty shook her head and he cut her off before she could say a word.

"If I've never walked away, what makes you think I'd go anywhere now?" It hurt that after all this time, she would expect him to up and leave her. His patience was wearing thin – she could hear the frustration in his voice. "I've been here, always."

Her words were bitter, "I don't deserve it."

"Not your decision to make."

Rather than argue, she sighed, closing her eyes and letting herself relax while he went to work bandaging her wounded hand. She might have complimented his skill but she knew it was borne of a repetition that neither one of them wanted to talk about. "I'm done with this goddamned company," she murmured, needing to break the silence in the worst way. "I'm handing in my notice. I can't do this anymore. I can't live like this – hating myself for what I've become."

"Well only you can make that decision." He glanced up at her to gauge her reaction. "There are plenty of other places that would be lucky to have you." He finished with her hand, giving her wrist a gentle pat to draw her attention there. "All fixed up."

"Plenty other places lucky to have me..." she sounded almost as if she was scoffing at the thought as she repeated it, pulling her hand back from his grasp almost reluctantly. "I don't even know if I want to go somewhere else. I know that's pathetic. It's a copout in the worst way that I've only given it six months but..." she shrugged, looking up at him helplessly. "Maybe it's time to admit my glory days are over and I should have stayed retired."

He didn't say anything right away, just let what she said settle. When it was clear she was waiting for him to weigh in, he broke the silence. "Is that what you really want?"

"I don't know." It helped to admit the truth. There had always been a strange sort of masochism to the sport, to soaking up the punishment and overcoming it but now it just felt like the same old song and dance without any actual engagement. "I hate it..." her voice dropped to a low whisper, "what it's done – what I've done to you because I've let all this shit get to me. You..." her voice quavered, "you're a damned saint for putting up with me when I can barely even stand to be in the same room... to be in this damned head and this stupid body that has half a mind of its own most days and I can't really expect anyone else to want to take a chance on me when I'm so over gambling on myself. Does that make any sense?" She chuckled bitterly, shaking her head, "probably not."

A soft smile crossed his face as he shrugged his shoulders. "I gotchu, whatever you decide. Always."

A smile finally formed on her lips, albeit fleeting. “Gonna hold you to that,” she murmured, reaching out to rest her undamaged hand on his knee, hoping he could read well enough between the lines to pick up what she wasn't capable of saying aloud.

"I wouldn't expect anything less." Leaning in, he placed a gentle kiss on the top of her head, letting his hand rest over hers for a moment. They both pretended not to hear the hitch in her breathing that smoothed out when that gentle press of his lips lasted a bit longer than she'd expected it to. Maybe there was something to be said about that dance of theirs after all.



We really have to stop meeting like this. People are bound to start talking. Yuck.

Wait, you say we've never met before? Maybe you're just so generic, that interchangeable with all those faceless, paste-white Southern dirt farmers and/or Midwestern Hoo-Rah College Patriots that you all just start to blur into this amalgam of white male privilege?

It's not you, sweetie.

It's me.

I've never liked your kind and if you're going to try and point fingers or call me a frigid feminist cunt – just don't, okay? A Texan named William Jackson III told me that women would never wrestle men in the future of this business. He told me to shut my mouth, look pretty and be happy about the scraps I was given, as if being shipped off to Europe for a year's worth of rec center nightmares with a former porn star, a fitness model and a damned kleptomaniac was any sort of gift. He had nothing for us. The entire division consisted of the four of us and the mixed tag matches were terrible – nobody wanted to see them when it was just a retread of the same girl-on-girl action. He traded us for a man named Nathanial Duke and didn't look back. I had the choice to cash in on that 12-month working Visa, or collect government assistance. I convinced myself it would broaden my horizons, it would let me know if I wanted to commit to this business any further, or if I wanted to walk away.

Sometimes the universe makes a choice for you – that's what I'm trying to work my way around to. Patience, grasshopper. You can't just blurt things out. You can't just bash someone over the head and hope the truth sinks in through osmosis. Doesn't work like that. You have to be gentle, with a certain level of finesse – tenderize the meat before you feast. Let it marinate a little while in its own juices. Acceptance with a little hint of fear is just so delicious. Salty and so, so sweet.

Oh, Cody. You poor, unfortunate soul. You know nothing about me, about what you're in for. You know even less about this business, about the craft. I learned the hard way how to make it in this business. It's not by blending with the masses, Cody. It's not by phoning it in and laughing all the way to the bank because you drew a payday you did nothing to earn.

Nope.

That's how you earn the ire of someone like me. That's how you predict the future, set up that pending date for your exit. You'll call yourself the next best thing. You'll crow like Peter Pan about how you're never going to grow up, to get so jaded – you're SPESHUL and UNIQUE and you're always going to march to the beat of your own drum. It's not marching. It's infantile flailing.

If you want to get right down to it? It's a death dance, honey. That's all this is.

That's all any of this is and free will is an illusion because no choice will ever bring us life everlasting, no matter how many fanatics you talk to or how many versions of the same book by unreliable authors have hit the shelves.

Do unto others... blah-blah-blah.

Isn't that what the GOOD BOOK says?

Do. Unto. Others.

Nobody told you that the fame you were signing up for was like that pair of magic shoes from the fairy-tales – they can make you dance, sure. They can get the eyes on you but they don't know when to stop, when you need to rest before the joy shifts into that first little twinge of panic.

Won't stop becomes CAN'T STOP and at first you lie to yourself. You embrace it. You didn't want to rest. "No," you tell yourself, "I wanted that golden ticket right to the top and after I collect all the belts, I'll be the fightingest champion to ever fight!"

Magic requires a price.

So does glory.

Few are willing to pay and the collateral damage happens. The rhythm turns and the happy jig has become a funeral dirge.

Here lies ambition. Here lies integrity. Here lies self-worth.

You call yourself a belt collector. You think it makes you sound ambitious, like you're doing the best sales pitch ever. Believe it, recite with enough conviction and they'll buy anything.

This isn't your lucky day, Cody. You're next in line for a great awakening – I already had mine back in May. I'm happy to pass this KNOWLEDGE on, at a price of course. Life's a dance. I'm sure you've heard that Garth Brooks song in Tennessee, right? You learn as you go. Sometimes you lead. Sometimes you follow. Sometimes you fall. You miss a step – step on toes.

Ouch.

Reciprocity is fun though, isn't it?

Do unto others.

You're the disease, Cody. You're not welcome. By fire be purged – I am the cure.

I AM THE FIRE.

---K