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Vice's Virtues 28: Disturbance; In which Jared comes home, and Jane is comforted by an old friend
Topic Started: May 31 2016, 02:24 AM (24 Views)
DSI
EWA Tag Team Champion
The moment he walked in, he knew there was a problem. His house had never been this quiet, never this lonely. It even smelled empty.

Jared Walsh looked around the house he shared with his wife Marisol, and daughter Consuela (Connie to most), and in the pit of his heart, he knew what he would find there. Or rather, what he wouldn’t.

“Marisol? ¿Mi corazón? Connie?” He couldn’t accept it. He needed to find them.

His voice increased in volume, wavering in confidence, but becoming more and more frantic.

“Mari! Respóndeme por favor…” The bedroom. Empty. Kitchen. Empty. Connie’s room. Empty.

They were gone. He reached for his phone, and prayed his voice wouldn’t betray him. He dialed his father-in-law.

“Sangria.”

“Hey, pops. Has… has Marisol talked to you recently?”

“No… come to think of it, it’s been a while. Is everything OK? Is she missing?”

“Nah… I’m pretty sure I know where she is. Just checking. Talk to you later.”

He hung up before Roberto could ask any more questions. Truth is, he didn’t know where she was, but he definitely knew who would.

He really hadn’t wanted to go back to the Epicenter so soon.

~~~~~

Quicken Loans Arena

Jane usually spent the night before a show talking to Andrew, keeping herself calm. It focused her, made her night that much easier, let her get some rest.

Today being Memorial Day, she wanted nothing more than to at least get some time to chat with him, maybe a Skype call or something. But he had drawn the short straw, so to speak, and had to stand watch. The best she was going to get was Facebook messenger, since he would be stuck there for the better part of the night.

So she was here, backstage, training, instead. Alone. No barbecues, no parties, just Jane and an empty ring. Even staff had disappeared by this time.

It killed her.

She had started to suspect that Lou did, in fact, spend a lot of time at the gym. She just spent it at 24-hour gyms at odd hours of the morning when Jane wasn’t around. Lou had a schedule. It just didn’t mesh with anyone else’s.

She ran the ropes, back and forth, getting her groove. She ran toward the corner, kicking off the middle turnbuckle, and flipping back, landing on her feet. She did it again. And again. As she hit the canvas, she stopped dead in her tracks, and just sat down.

“This sucks,” she said to nobody in particular.

“Yeah, I can imagine,” came a voice from behind her. It was a familiar voice, but she still jumped a little at the sound.

Ryan Cuddihy, dressed in a black T-shirt and jeans, pulled himself onto the apron, and stepped over the top rope. His long blond hair was pulled back into a ponytail, mirroring the look of his long, smooth beard. “It’s a rough life, sometimes. But the rewards are usually worth it.”

“I hope you’re not talking about the money, Ryan.” She didn’t bother getting up, and the 6’11” Ryan sat on the mat in front of her. Even sitting, he was taller than some people she knew.

“Oh, no, the money’s usually shit for what you have to do to earn it.” He chuckled. “Shit, I wrote your contract, I know it isn’t the money.”

She cracked a half-smile, looking down at the canvas. “I just… I dunno.”

Ryan put a hand to her shoulder; it nearly engulfed the entirety of her upper arm. “Don’t hold back from me now, go ahead.”

She sighed, before looking up at him. “Do you ever feel like you’re alone, even when other people are around?”

He stroked his beard with his other hand, and nodded slightly. “Of course. It’s the curse of us smart people.” He smiled, but it faded when he realized she wasn’t returning it. “You’ve gone through a lot for someone so young. You’ve learned not to let people in. That’s understandable. But when you don’t let anyone in… well, you end up alone.”

She put her head back down. “I did let somebody in, though. Problem is he’s never around.”

“Have you talked to him?”

“I talk to him all the time, Ryan.”

He lifted her head to look at him. “No, I mean about the future. Not just surface conversation, how’s your day been, I miss you kind of stuff.”

“I mean, we’ve talked about getting married and having kids and stuff, but that’s all it feels like. Just talk. Like, we talk about the future, but we don’t really know when the future’s supposed to start.”

“Jane, you’re 19. Nobody expects you to have it all figured out already.”

Jane crossed her arms. “Yeah, 19, and my boyfriend’s in the military. He could deploy in two days and be dead in 3, and I’d never hear a word about it because I’m just the girlfriend back home. I’m literally nothing to them. I wouldn’t even be a 19-year-old widow, because we aren’t married. So maybe nobody expects me to have it figured out, Ryan, but I feel like I better figure it out soon.” She curled into herself a little more, thinking of her mom and Cynthia… the parental figures in her life didn’t have too much time with their other halves. “I don’t want it to happen to me, Ryan. I don’t want to go through that firsthand.”

Ryan sat, looking at her for a second. She suddenly looked so old, so mature… and yet, still so much like the 9-year-old he had first met a decade ago. She wrapped her arms around her knees, burying her face.

“Hey. How much longer does Andrew have on his enlistment?”

“2 years,” she said, without lifting her head, “give or take a couple of months.”

“So here’s what you do. Next time you’ve got a big gap in work time, maybe after Path of the Warrior, you go with him down to a chapel in Vegas and you get married. At least then, you’re his next of kin, and you’ve got that for you. After that, it’s just a short two years, and tell him to get out. We’ll hire him and he can be a road agent. He can travel with you. Or not. I mean, I wrote your contract… you can afford Andrew. Drag him around as a kept man.”

That finally got her to crack a smile. “He can be my ring rat.”

“It’d be a great reversal of the trope. And he’d love it.”

She giggled for a second, and they sat in the ring in silence for what felt like a long time.

“So, you gonna train with me, Ryan?”

“I probably need your help just to stand up, Jane.”

~~~~~

She opened the door to the locker room she shared with Lou, smiling. It had been a good talk, and just as good a workout. Ryan was a good motivator. “Hey, sexy!” she shouted at Lou, who stood near a table, facing away from her.

Lou didn’t respond. On the bench next to her was a small package, wrapped in brown paper. Jane ran to the bench, grabbing it. It was clearly a book, just like the last package.

“Jeez, Ryan, one book was enough, especially when we’re talking the Art of War. I’ll be reading and re-reading it forever anyway.”

Ryan tilted his head to the side. “I only got you the one book. What are you talking about?”

Jane tore the paper off. Inside was a leather-bound, expensive copy of Paradise Lost.

She looked at Lou. Her eyes were wide, her face pale (well, paler than normal). She was holding a similar copy of the same book.

“What is it?” Ryan asked, rushing over as quickly as his old knees would allow.

Jane opened to the first page. On the inside cover, scrawled in black ink, were five words:

ENJOY IT WHILE YOU CAN

She dropped it, the book bouncing off the bench in front of her, landing open on the floor, the pages folded against the concrete.

“What does this mean, Ryan?” She turned to him, frantic.

“Nothing good,” he said, looking over his shoulder.

~~~~~

(Jane and Lou once again appear in front of a black screen. Lou has drawn a goatee on her face, and Jane put on a giant fake handlebar moustache. Other than that, they’re dressed in their ring gear, exactly as one would expect to see them.)

Jane Doe: Did you hear the news, Lou?

Lou: What news would that be, Jane?

Jane: We’re women.

Lou: Poppycock and balderdash, my good man! I very clearly have a goatee.

Jane: Yes, and this luxurious moustache also seems to indicate that I am, as you say, a good man.

Lou: Our opponents must be mistaken. Because really, how could anyone take women seriously in wrestling?

Jane: Why, in the history of the EWA, what have women ever done, anyway?

Lou: Yes, it’s absolutely ludicrous that two of the EWA World Champions since the reopening could possibly have been women. Absolute hogwash.

Jane: And there’s just no way that a pair of women could possibly have broken the EWA Tag Team Championship title reign record set by Public Enemy back in aught-1 or whenever.

Lou: Of course not, because we did that, and we are very clearly men, given our amazing facial hair.

Jane: Of course we are. That’s clearly the only way to be taken seriously in the EWA. Have a penis.

Lou: After all, it’s that penis we both have totally for real that we use most often in the ring to do our fighting.

Jane: Yes, of course, the penis joust is the most important, most deeply respected part of our grand spectacle.

Lou: I hope you have cleaned yours thoroughly, my good man, we want to look our best. Get in all the folds and wrinkles and such.

(Jane is clearly trying her best not to laugh, but somehow, Lou is staying completely straight-faced.)

Lou: Really take care of the scrotal region.

Jane: Now that we’ve discussed our manly man things and our penises--

Lou: Make sure to wash the grundle as well. Close proximity to the scrote, and all.

Jane: --we can finally move on to the important parts of this match. Like, for example, the fact that it’s happening whether either of you likes it or not.

Lou: Now, I know this is probably going to shock the two of you, but we’ve been in the EWA since it restarted. I know! Crazy! Not only that, but we’ve been a tag team for that entire time. And, and this is the really crazy part, we’ve been the same sex for the entirety of our careers, nay, some would say our entire lives!

Jane: How strange it is, then, that you see fit to disrespect us based SOLELY on the clearly completely incorrect assumption that we are weak, pathetic, tiny, unskilled little girls. I mean, it’s just laughable, right? That women could not just wrestle, but be good at it?

Lou: Codswallop!

Jane: Don’t worry, we don’t take offense, after all, as manly men with penises, we understand where you’re coming from. Women! Ha!

Lou: Because it would be absolutely offensive if you were to lose to a woman. That would just be unacceptable.

Jane: Yeah, Lou, about that.

Lou: Hm?

Jane: Diego already lost to a woman.

Lou: By jove, man, are you serious?! How are we even having this conversation?! How can you stand to liiive with the shaaaaaame?!

Jane: If it were me, and I got beat by a girl, or two, I’d probably take 16 Xanax and cry myself to sleep. To sleep, perchance to dream.

Lou: OK, Shakespeare is where I draw the line.

Jane: I’m surprised you knew it was Shakespeare.

Lou: I’m fucking cultured, OK?

Jane: We’re getting off-topic. And losing our pseudo-Victorian mannerisms.

Lou: I knew I should’ve brought the monocle.

Jane: Look, guys, you’re upset you’re facing us because we’re women?

Lou: It’s OK, we’re upset we’re facing YOU because you’re sexist pussies.

Jane: No matter what happens in this match, we’re still getting the title shot at Path of the Warrior. Don’t like that? Go cry in your fucking coffee.

Lou: But I promise, we’ll beat the fuck out of you as if this match mattered. Not that you’ll show the same courtesy.

Jane: No, they’ll pretend they didn’t fight as hard as they could so they can say we “didn’t really beat them,” because god forbid they fight a woman.

Lou: In short, fuck you, and the caballos you rode in on. That’s the word, right?

Jane: I’m so impressed, I could kiss you.

Lou: BUT WE ARE TWO MEN WHO ARE MEN AND STRAIGHT AND HAVE PENISES WE COULD NOT POSSIBLY MAKE OUT RIGHT NOW…

(Lou jumps on Jane, locking lips, but getting a mouthful of fake moustache. She breaks off, spitting, as the moustache falls to the floor, and Jane cracks up laughing. Fade to black.)

~~~~~

Las Vegas, NV

Jared Walsh stood outside the SHOOT Project Epicenter, where two armed guards waited by the doors.

“Sorry, Mr. Walsh. Herald says you’re not allowed in the building unless you’re going to sign a contract.”

Jared dropped the jerry can at his feet. His eyes were cold as ice, his lips tight.

“Listen, Zack Morris, just get a fucking camera crew out here, OK?”
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