Post by Admin on Aug 14, 2016 21:41:04 GMT -5
..::~♥||-fifteen-||♥~::..
February 5, 2015 (off camera)
The inside of the flower shop was warm, filled with enough floral perfume to make his nose tickle— Hunter Donimari was completely out of his element. All these sorts of cutesy and nauseating romantic overtures were meant for the touchy-feely kinda guys. He'd never really been that sort of guy, that is until he'd met her. And now here he was, about to drop an absurd amount of cash on something that was just going to sit around and die in a week.
"You're fuckin' whipped," he muttered, watching while the florist expertly snipped the greenery with a tiny pair of scissors, turning the beauty into a fine work of art.
"Excuse me?" The diminutive man looked up, his eyes magnified behind his glasses as he peered up at Hunter.
"Nothing… just talking to myself." He chuckled softly, shaking his head. "Just losin' my shit over here a little," he rubbed the back of his neck, looking sheepish as he pulled out his cell phone. When he saw there was a message waiting, he felt a little bit of excitement that quickly faded when he realized it was from Luke, making sure he was fine with booking some local band for the following Saturday. Mashing keys with his thumb, he sent back a quick affirmative. Still nothing from Kasey and it had been hours. He turned, looking back at the front window of the shop as the sun sank towards the horizon— maybe he should forget the stupid flowers and just treat her to dinner.
"I love my job," the florist remarked, inserting more ferns into the arrangement, aligning them precisely to offset the roses and baby's breath.
"Yeah," Hunter said, nodding to himself as he watched the man's efficient movements in the reflection on the sunlight-gilded glass, "kinda shows— my girl's like that too. She puts everything into doing what she does. Guess on some level I kinda envy that. Never really been passionate about stuff that way— don't get me wrong, I love owning a bar, and most of the time it's pretty great but it doesn't—"
"It doesn't make you happy?"
"Yeah, I guess it really doesn't." He kept his back to the guy. "Maybe I just need to invest myself more… like she does. I dunno."
"You don't sound sure," nimble fingers plucked away the painful thorns without damaging the tender stems.
"These days, there's not much I am sure about," he replied, shaking his head. "I think maybe… can you add in a couple of those coppery orange ones? They look more like her hair." He winced at how dorky that sounded and on some level that anxiety kicked up another notch. The more he invested in this, the more he started to worry that it was just going to turn on him like it always did. It all boiled down to the 'what ifs', the lost opportunities and the pain of the past— that was the last thing he wanted.
"Doesn't sound like a good life, friend," the florist said softly, pulling out one of the long-stemmed white roses, discarding it for the slight brown tinge along the edge of one petal. He moved to the glass door behind him, opening it and selecting another with diligent movements before plucking two of the tiger lilies that Hunter had been eying.
Hunter heaved a ragged sigh, rubbing his clammy hands across his face, grimacing as the stubble rubbed against his palms. Fuck. Just fuck. Now was not the time for these sorts of foolish doubts. "Nah, probably not, but it's the only life I know." He shrugged, turning back from the sunset to look at the man as he put the finishing touches on the bouquet.
"I suppose that's the best one can hope for," came the reply, "but then, who's really got the space to judge what's normal, and what's not? Certainly not me. I just love flowers. So, first date, or apology?"
Hunter blinked, taken aback. "What?"
The florist wrapped the perfect bouquet in green cellophane, and per Hunter's request, tied it with a red ribbon. "Flowers like this… gotta be one or the other, right?"
"…neither," he replied with slight hesitation, "I just thought she could use a little brightener before she has to get out there Saturday and do her thing." He pushed away from the counter while the florist finished up his purchase, moving between the plants with easy grace, despite his size, and the thorns that grabbed at his clothing. Reverently, Hunter crouched beside a tub filled with single long-stemmed crimson roses, cradling one of the delicate flowers in his hand. The petals were exquisite, thick and velvety, unbelievably soft. He held the rose up, turning it over, lifting it to his nose and sampling the scent. "How much are these?" He called back, his voice carrying easily over the hush inside the small shop.
"The crimson longs? Six-fifty."
Hunter nodded, reaching down to select a second bloom before moving back to his feet. "Add two to the total." He ambled back up to the counter, setting down the identically exquisite blooms before reaching for his wallet— he'd wait and give her those after her match. They'd probably keep for a couple days. He pulled out a hundred dollar bill, and laid it down, reaching for the meticulously wrapped flowers. "That about cover it?"
"And then some, friend."
Hunter nodded, taking his purchases and moving towards the door without looking back. "Awesome. Keep the change."
He could hear the impact as soon as he opened the door, wishing he'd actually managed to convince her to stay at the hotel like the rest of the FFW talent was. Instead she'd insisted on staying in this ramshackle little farmhouse on the outskirts of town— the barn was full of equipment that had seen better days, but she told him that it was still in working order. Even as he slid the door shut behind him, he could feel that impact in his guts, making them clench— that solid thump-thud. She was obviously working out, beating the hell out of the punching bag. With a smile on his face he crept past the stalls that used to hold horses back before the space was repurposed, holding the bouquet behind his back.
Thorns were cutting through the cellophane, digging into his palms as he shouldered the door at the far end open, stopping dead in his tracks.
She was going like someone possessed, slamming her fists into the bag, over and over again. The wraps were bloody, leaving wet crimson marks on the vinyl. Her lips were skinned back from her teeth, bared in a ferocious smile, one that he found rather unsettling.
"Kasey!" He shouted her name, but she didn't hear him, lost in her frenetic bludgeoning of the heavy bag.
He dropped the flowers, rushing up behind her and restraining her arms, pulling her away from the bag. She struggled, muttering something unintelligible, and then grew still, her arms pinned at her sides by his strong grip as he spoke to her gently. "Holy shit! What the hell do you think you're doing?" He demanded, releasing her only to take her hand.
She immediately tried to jerk it from his grasp, embarrassed. "I was just keeping everything loose like Lex taught me to." She looked at the straw-covered floor instead, her eyes hollow. "Get off me, Hunter! I need to finish."
"You're done," he said firmly, glancing at the blood streaks all over the leather. "You're running yourself ragged and you're gonna collapse from exhaustion." He frowned, shaking his head, "c'mon, Red… I'm worried about you."
"I'm fine, honest." She was trembling in his grasp, clearly exhausted. "You don't understand. I need to win this one more than any other—"
"Yeah, I understand just fine. Some bozo's got it in your head that you're nothing when you're losing so you're acting like a—"
"NO!" She pulled away, "Sophie Richards is a stupid bitchface liar!" She pulled her gaze away from his, and looked back at the bag, and the smears of blood on it. "When I beat her for the TV Title, she told the whole world I cheated— people believed her and it was this whole thing and… I…" she trailed off, realizing how idiotic her motivation sounded out loud.
The wrap was soaked with blood. He pulled apart the Velcro tab and began to unravel the cloth slowly, his expression troubled. The skin was flayed, the knuckles raw, still weeping blood and plasma. "Red… shit. This is really bad. We're gonna need to get these cleaned up."
"This… is kinda important. I made the top twenty and if I keep pushing I can get into the top ten. I can get back into the running. I've gotta do this right— there's no second chance with her."
"I know it's a big deal, but you aren't doing yourself any favors by tearing yourself apart. Cmon, Red. Let's go inside and get you cleaned up."
Gently, she extricated herself from his embrace and took a step back. "That's what she's hoping for, y'know? She thinks I'm still in this slump and beating Kaylee last week time was just some stupid fluke. They all do. If I can stick it to her, I'll have my future mapped out good."
Usually he would have backed off and let her be, but after her near-meltdown over the loss against Aimee, he wasn't about to let it go. "And you're going to stick it to her, but not if you're exhausted." Her arms folded back against her chest as Hunter let out a sigh. "Please, if not for me then do it for yourself?" When he touched her wounded hands she didn't even wince. She didn't fight him as he unwrapped the other hand as well, inspecting the damage with a raised eyebrow. "This wasn't really your brightest move."
"I'm upset, okay? They put me against HER!" Her jaw clenched tightly as she looked at him for a moment, then looked back to the floor. "You don't need to baby me, you know. I'm a big girl and I was totally fine looking after myself before you came along."
He looked down at her hands, then back at her face. He raked a hand through his hair, a gesture of nervous distraction "Judging by the looks of things, maybe I do."
She cast him a look that would curdle milk before trying to brush past him. With the substantial height difference, it wasn't an easy task, but she managed just the same. "Babe..." he began with a sigh, "sorry…"
She didn't say a word, reaching out a hand to touch the wall, clearly unsteady on her feet.
He didn't know what else to say, so he grabbed her arm before she could get away, halting her progress. "Listen, I... uh, I got you flowers."
"You... did?" She whimpered and closed her eyes, flinging herself into his embrace. She touched his face, or rather almost did before she pulled her bloodied hand away, not wanting to stain it. She huffed and as she spoke, her voice shook. "Thank you, Pooh Bear. I'm sorry... I… really… seriously am. I swear to God I'm not usually this batshit insane." One hand suddenly shot to her temple and she wobbled slightly. "S—shit." Her eyes closed tightly as one hand gripped his shoulder and the other held her head staining her face and his shirt with her blood.
"Baby?" His voice was fraught with concern as he reached out, gripping her shoulders to steady her. "What's wrong?"
"I'll... be…f-fine." She took a few deep breaths and looked up into his eyes. Her death grip on his shoulder loosened, nails no longer digging in as her other hand fell to her side. She looked exhausted, shivering slightly like a horse that had been run too hard. She was so tightly coiled and overheated it was hard to imagine her still standing. "Thank you for being here." She wavered slightly; sweat still pouring from her brow, her face paler than usual. In fact she looked as if she would faint.
He wrapped an arm around her waist, letting her lean on him. "Why don't we go sit down? Get you cooled down before you konk out on me. God," he shook his head, "have you been at it since I left?"
"Not the whole time. I read for a little while." Out of the hours he had been gone, he was almost sure it might as well have been the whole time. She was just trying to get out of a reprimand from him. Knowing better, he let the subject drop.
[REC.]
The video, upon clicking, took a while to load. Maybe the site was laggy. Maybe the file was just too damn big. Either way, when it finally loaded, it almost seemed broken.
At first there was nothing but silence. Darkness and silence. The darkness was thick and impenetrable, not smoke, not gas, just a heavy, creeping black. It seemed to shift, pulling in the light, growing heavier as it made the light prisoner. It was as though the entire universe had been robbed of everything pure, as though the very air had been purged of illumination. Abruptly, a single light came on, filtering down from the rafters to paint a square of light that revealed nothing but a plain white tile floor. It could have been an airport or a gymnasium somewhere. But really, were backdrops and giant production budgets important? In a word: no.
There was a shuffling and a muffled, muttered curse before a petite silhouette moved through the shadows, black on black until she stepped into that shaft of soft light. That devil-may-care smile was on her lips, accenting the dimples in her cheeks as she paused there as though for effect. Tossing her red hair over her shoulders, she peered forward at the camera she knew was trained on her movements. Her head was tilted back, her eyes closed. Her features were peaceful, her hands resting palm up on her knees, fingers slack. She was the very picture of peaceful meditation— Zen. The only thing shattering this illusion was the sweat that beaded on Kasey's forehead.
"Once upon a time there was a woman on a mission— it was a pretty simple one, at that. She wanted to keep the Starr— the Summers— legacy alive. She was a brave soul, that gal," the words were hard, uttered in a harsh tone. Her bangs flopped over her forehead as she dipped her head without opening her eyes, obscuring the slight furrow in her brow. The camera dropped lower, picking up the glimmer of something on her lap. There, resting across her knees, almost hidden by her glove-clad hands was a children's replica of the FFW Television Championship. "That girl thought everything was going to always come up roses. She was a fucking idiot, but man, did they ever love her to bits."
The promise ring her boyfriend had given her was on her right hand, making a muted ping as she tapped the belt. She remained immobile; her head slightly bowed as she breathed in and out like clockwork. "Used to be so fuckin' fearless, too," she murmured before falling silent yet again. Time seemed to stretch out into infinity and it was as if she felt it, slowly lifting her head to stare off at nothing. "And now she's shaking in her boots. She's terrified of everything. Failure. Ridicule. Letting down the one person who still believes in her."
She sighed. "Time fuckin' hates me. I want to rush this. I want to speed to that moment and get it over with but I'm stuck here in this dark room, reliving that moment over and over again in my mind. It's all I can do to pass the time before I've got the guts to open my eyes. That sound— the fucking roar of the crowd. I had about ten seconds of reaction time before it was all over. I fucked up and Aimee Easter retained— I know what Sophie Richards felt like now. I know that sick sense of loss pretty damn well and I know that I controlled that outcome. I fucked up and hindsight mocks me every single moment since then. Oh, but I'm moving up the rankings. I'm speeding. I'm surging. I'm doing something right and the saddest part is… the only thing that changed in all this is that I got so pissed off that I couldn't keep it locked behind that stupid smile anymore."
The darkness seemed full, thick and heavy; the quarters close although the cavernous room was nearly empty. "I keep thinking how I'm on a streak now. Three wins in a row. That's big for me… better than before and the new streak feels better than the old one because I want it more. I'm trying so much harder now— maybe it's because I finally grew up."
One hand closed over the edge of the belt as she tilted it slightly. "The last couple months have changed me. I never wanted skin this thick, sure as hell never wanted to go down in flames from such an epic, even evolutionary beginning to the year. Sometimes I surprise myself. I'm so unbelievably good at self-destruction— everyone knows that. Hell, when I won that title, all Sophie had to do was tell Alex Houser that I cheated and I went apeshit. I had to try and prove to everyone that I didn't grab her tights— I rolled back the footage and had Nessa document it for you people. I screamed the truth until I was blue in the face and now nobody even remembers it but me. That bothers me. Am I going to thank the powers that be for putting me into this place as if it's nothing more than a little test of faith? I don't know and that's the part that fucks me up. This is like the worst thing I could ever think of and I'm cursing my own resilience right now. I should be ranting and raving. I should be swearing my revenge. Instead, I'm sitting here in the dark, listening to my boyfriend snoring in the other room. I can't sleep because I am freaking out over this. That's the honest-to-God truth."
Kasey smiled slowly, her head raising slightly, absently brushing her wet, tangled hair from her eyes, leaving a smear of blood along her forehead. "It's real between us, Sophie. I know you, girl. I do. I know you because you're just the echo of the shit I already did ages ago. What have you done lately? Have you faces the likes of Aimee Easter? Have you faced Nessa Wall? No. You lost to Mel Avilo in November. You faced losers like Hope Dawson. This… seriously. This is vaguely insulting when I've already got the tiger by the balls. This little song and dance right here holds no appeal for me now. Maybe for you, this is your dream match because you finally get a chance to punish me for ripping away your spotlight— if you were really that great, Sophie, you could have kept going. If you were truly at the level you claimed to be then, you would be challenging alongside Tara Thunder and Wendy Briese for the top tier prizes. Nope. Instead you're stuck in the middle with me. To me, at least over the last few months, it's been a hell filled with angry mob faces. I've been working my ass off for success and yeah, I realize I fell horribly short in a bunch of high-profile matches so yeah, I get it: the pitchforks are out. Once upon a time, I was bigger and better than Kelly McGuffin. I was the girl they all wanted to fight."
She shrugged, lifting her hand and bringing it towards her face. She blew on the palm of her hand and then let it drop back into her lap. "I saw you tonight. I watched your face on a video screen, with scan lines that aged you severely. I watched you rise to fame. I watched you come from nothing with that phoenix fire that defines girls like you. I watched as you took this place by storm, sticking it to them with ease. I watched it all, and then I smiled when I saw that look of surprise on your face when that house of cards came crashing down. We're back to this, Sophie. That moment of truth. I beat you once and you claimed it was a fluke— you claimed I cheated. I'd be stupid to think this will be any easier or that you'll have magically grown a brain since then. I know this. I know this and I know that you do, too. You don't know shit about the reality of this OR the gravity of the situation."
Her lips curved upwards into a peaceful smile and her eyes snapped open again, fixed on some far off point. They glittered, impossibly blue behind her glasses. She leaned forward again. "You tell yourself that you're willing to do anything for the belt but most of that is empty talk because it's what you're supposed to say when it's hanging from your waist. Nobody's going to admit to being a complacent loser like you were that day— you underestimated me. Whatevs… it happens."
She chuckled softly, shaking her head, "you're feeling this, and walking in with a smile. You know you got this one in the bag. You will be sporting an ego on your sleeve, even if you deny it. There's ego in EVERYTHING we do out there, you dummy," she paused, breathing in deeply before continuing, "respect, ego… what the fuck's the difference? It's all about manipulation and that is, after all, what you do best."
She tapped the belt in her lap for emphasis. "This was my legacy. This was my definition and geez… I can't believe the lows we sink to for the fame. The lives we've ruined over nothing more than our time in the spotlight. Everyone gets fifteen minutes but I've felt like an outsider looking in for the last six or seven months. I've been abused. I've been degraded. I've been hated. My world has been reduced to a series of still shot moments; I'm a sad little sob story cliché, not broken, not depressed, not self-degrading— trying like hell to fight back without an ounce of actual support. You can spin it however you want, but the truth is I haven't been the same since I came back. I know that things have changed. I've changed and it's not important because all the definitions in the universe are nothing more than words hanging in the air that make no sense. All roads led to this moment. That's the truth. The scores will be settled. You know it, Sophie. You can't fight it now. All the hurt, all the lies and the insults eventually lead to a BREAKING POINT and the only damn thing you need to do is remember that nobody will be talking about my new 4-0 streak or how you were a better champion than me when it really boiled down to it. Nobody will care about your bullshit lie or how you couldn't even OWN UP to that one big loss of your career. How freakin' sad is that, really?"
She laughed, shaking her head. "Owned mine. Faced them all and I got over that hump like a professional— shocking, right? Don't worry. After you lose to me you can go another three months on the sidelines and nobody but Pollaski will namedrop you in another blog post to keep you relevant. The only thing they'll be talking about after tomorrow night is me. They'll be marveling at how easily I put you in your place for a second time. BELIEVE THAT!"
And fade back to darkness.
