[DistortedAngel]

… “You gave me everything you had
Every little thing you had
A pure love unrehearsed
I've seen your best and worst
And at your worst, you're still the best
But at my best, I am the worst
It's a curse.”...

Lydia - Highly Suspect

Amber’s Apartment
Atlantic City, New Jersey
November 17th, 2016

Even doing nothing, Amber Ryan looked like she was someone.

Not just anyone, like the assholes walking down the street in their designer nothings that their credit card companies wept in joy for in a place that bred no-ones as frequently as the Hooters four blocks away got closed down for health code violations. Even the clandestine orange of a shapely ass did little to detract from the cockroach infestation that seemed to just magically evaporate for a couple months for the right number of zeroes.
It was never enough zeroes though, that's why Avalon had only been mildly disappointed by the closed sign on the door- for a low enough wings special even she might have been able to hold her nerve and ignore the skittering of insectoid legs and peek-a-boo of scantily clad cheeks looking for their next tip.

Avalon wasn’t a good tipper. That's why she was there…

No, there were enough anyones and no-ones in Atlantic City. Here they could pretend to be someone, cast off rejects from places far better with a coked up resume and just enough contacts to annoy that they might find a comfortable niche just above the last poor asshole wearing his ambitions on his sleeve and hoping they didn’t rot from exposure.
Someones- now they were a far rarer breed Avalon had come to learn. Anyone could claim to be someone when the neon lights shone on just the right angle and enough intoxicants had been consumed to put down an elephant- or at the very least the plus sized hooker propositioning just outside that no-one would acknowledge they’d slept with the week prior.
Almost all of them had, that's why she kept coming back.

Anyone who became someone quickly came to their senses and left a place like this. In becoming someone they automatically could be anyone elsewhere and that alone seemed like a great enough reward- like a life ring in a quagmire of mediocrity. Graduation night on the Boardwalk was a flyer being handed out saying it was your last night, your name being used to advertise the next no-one trying to be anyone in hopes they might become someone.
It was all quite the headache, Avalon realised as the concept rattled further around in her head.

Amber Ryan was someone. Yet she kept coming back. Maybe because she preferred to be no-one although the idea seemed to rankle Avalon’s sensibilities more than she cared to admit. Not that she’d admit it aloud, such a notion might have seen her take a nose dive off the balcony they both currently inhabited.
Maybe five stories wouldn’t have been so bad… Two seconds, maybe three if she flailed enough…

It was never the fall that really got anyone though…

“Ava, you’re staring...”

“No, I wasn’t.”

Amber hadn’t moved in at least five minutes, Avalon knew cause she was staring. Absent-mindedly of course, trying to make sense of someone who had every right to have half-assed her agreement with Avalon’s parents for a quick payday and instead had arguably done more for the 18 year old than any other school had managed across her entire adolescence.
Mostly for the fact that both of them knew that Amber would have absolutely no issue nor outstanding guilt about putting Avalon on her ass. At first their relationship had been a war of attrition, Avalon determined to get the better of the redhead physically.

It should have been fucking easy. On paper.

At 5’11 and 145lbs, Avalon had a distinct size and strength advantage. Combined with over 10 years of flitting between fight based disciples- while managing to get kicked out or straight up banned from almost all of them- there should have been no way that Amber could have possibly beaten her in a straight up fight… Surely.

Amber had put her on her ass in less than 15 seconds. Threatened to wrench her elbow out of it's socket within the next 60.

That had been a little over a year earlier. Avalon had come close since, but never quite managed to outmanoeuvre… outwit… outlast.

Of course, Avalon already respected the redhead long before that- she’d watched wrestling with her Dad long enough to learn the reputation. Studied enough tapes to the point that she could almost recite the commentary from matches verbatim- much to her families chagrin at Thanksgiving when the mashed potatoes nearly took a dive off the side of the table.
Amber was much smaller in person than she appeared on screen, as though real life had scaled down a force of nature into something akin to… anyone.

“I was looking past you. There was a bird…”

There wasn’t a bird, and both of them knew it. At least Amber had the relative tact not to say anything for the sake of Avalon’s ego as it flopped pathetically to the balcony floor. 

“... it's gone now.”

Avalon murmured as though the self-justification was already on standby before Amber’s silence cleared her of any responsibility. A year had gone by faster than either had anticipated and Amber’s pride had been kept well restrained, but those fleeting moments when she didn’t think Avalon was looking or could see the knowing smile…
She’d told Avalon that she could be someone. Not in those exact words, that would have involved Amber freely admitting that either of them had done a good job and heaven forbid any expression of self-satisfaction. Amber would have much rathered chewing on glass- which Avalon didn’t have the gall to suspect was far from an actual truth.

“Do you ever… you know…”

Unable to withstand the silence, amidst the fluttering breeze rustling between them, Avalon sputtered forth the half-statement as though her better senses seemed to cut in and cut her off halfway through thoroughly embarrassing herself.
They didn’t have ‘real conversations’. Anyone who was someone didn’t have to engage in real conversations, they didn’t have to share their depths or contemplate the greater philosophical mysteries of man and their inner workings. Avalon didn’t have the self-awareness to admit that she actually didn’t know anything about such philosophical workings; however it was worth a pretending on the occasion if only to prove she might be more than just another no-one.

Amber paused thoughtfully, allowing the last syllables to dissipate between them before responding. She didn’t question what the statement entailed- maybe she didn’t need to, or simply didn’t care. Avalon liked to believe that she just knew in the same way she always seemed to just know…
Maybe that's why she was someone, while Avalon was still trying to figure out if she could be anyone.
Even Avalon wasn’t quite sure what she had intended- perhaps it was better that way, made their connection feel more deep-seated than just some professional agreement struck by desperate parents with an unadulterated sociopath in hopes she might be able to rein in their troublesome daughter.

Of course, beneath it all Avalon quietly knew that Amber was a professional first.
A professional always.
A professional only.
As much as she enjoyed the time they spent together, as close as she might have felt to the redhead- there would always be a barrier, a void between them that Amber couldn’t allow to be filled.
Not because she didn’t want to, but because it would become a chink in the armour… A vulnerability in the impassive facade of someone who’d spent their lives cutting ties so that she might not later be strangled by them.

“No… No, Ava. I don’t.”

Settling back with as contented a smile as she might manage, jaw set as though she was further chewing on the syllables of elaboration, Amber turned her head just slightly enough to make a brief eye contact before shifting back almost imperceptibly- as though the movement were a figment of imagination rather than a moment shared between two people, trying their best not to forge a meaningful relationship.
Whether she would ever admit it or not, Amber cared. More than she dared to admit- and those brief moments of humanity chipped away at the barrier between them, the void shrinking further like a black hole with nothing left around it to swallow but itself.

“Ava... You’re still staring.”

Leaning back into the plastic chair with a soft creak, Avalon forced a half-hearted smile. Amber would never say it, but she didn’t need to… No-one who was someone could afford to have regrets about how they felt about anyone.
That at least to Amber Ryan of all fucking people… Avalon Blackthorn might have been someone.

“I told you, there was a bird…”




******


“There’s a common misconception in this industry.

It's one that presumes you have to share some intimate connection with someone, that whoever brings you into this tangled mess of egos and antipathy also clutches a handful of threads laced around your ribs and through the vertebrae of your spine.
You owe them your name, they owe you their legacy. One fails the other and it's the reverse bear trap of careers splattering rookies across canvases they were too green to spread so much red upon.

Mentor. Protege. Protege. Mentor. No one gets anywhere in this industry without someone signposting the way forward- otherwise you end up spinning your wheels trying to convince everyone that you’ll be a big deal soon, right after you do something about the concrete boots you knowingly slipped on cause someone more experienced told you they looked good.
How very 2020 of us all.

Trust me when I say I’m as guilty as every other rookie scrambling to be the one to break through the growing layer of ice that is the blatant gate-keeping done by flailing veterans desperately trying to retain relevancy. Those ones who stand in the doorway and say you can’t enter cause you aren’t wearing the right footwear despite the fact they don’t have a fucking leg left to stand on.
As rookies though we abide by such fallacies, we throw ourselves down at the feet of our mentors in hopes they might brute force a way through for us…

Sometimes they do. Sometimes they hold your hand and they guide you to that fabled promised land, they stand by you and fight your battles when you are too weary to hold your head up and encourage you to be the best secondary version of them that you can be. A perfect facsimile of the version of themselves they can no longer fulfil.
You become the next best thing to what they wanted to be… You become a vessel for their wildest dreams they couldn’t fulfil themselves, a conduit for everything they weren’t capable of. You become better than them, and somehow you find yourself thanking them for achieving the things they never could.
A career built on the foundation of someone else's failures, inexplicably linked and forever tied down to the idea that your success is directly linked to what little they had to offer besides a kind word and a weirdly soft hand…

Other times?
They leave you to rot the moment you make a mistake. The moment you break the illusion that you can be what they expect, what they anticipate and groom you for- they throw you to the side and wait on the shoreline while watching to see if you drown.
Most are lucky that they take that mouthful of water for what it's worth and sink beneath the waves in hopes they don’t have to witness the next poor asshole get sucked down into the same charisma vortex that left you so enamoured with the idea of greatness. Most accept their fates and find a way to move on with whatever they can salvage of the life left after their dreams are handed to someone else willing to change everything about themselves for an image.

Those that don’t… They scratch. They claw and they find a way back to shore and spit on the fucking boots of those who’d have seen them buried for being a little too human, not enough gasoline in their veins to mimic the appropriate sociopathy perhaps.
Those that don’t find a fucking way forward…

See, you two… ‘Go Girls’. Ugggggghhhhhhh. I’m sorry- but are you actually fucking serious…
Is that not embarrassing? That's like the name a shitty promoter gives you when they can’t think of anything less original right before you pass through the curtain in terribly fitting gear with a mispronounced name cause they couldn’t bother getting it right.
Back to my point- you two ‘Go Girls’ are prime examples of column A. Properly ‘trained’ and swaddled in the cosy atmosphere of a caring environment and trained under the guise of those who never quite made it big enough to branch out and do something on their own.
You both just burst onto the scene and immediately sunk into mediocrity like you were always meant to be there, like it was a special spot carved out for you both where you can just get comfortable and know that you’ll never have to do anything more than what brought you to the dance.

Which is… fine.

You’re both Roulette champions in your own right- which is… also fine. You’ve both lost matches to my tag team partner, which is… well that was just expected in all honesty. You’ve both lost matches to Red… which is, also expected but a little more damaging to the reputation given the fact she’s still absolutely a delusional cripple with a death wish and not a single modicum of sense nor guilt about the fact she’s about to go get a bunch of people hurt for no reason other than to satiate her own desperate need to be champion… However, that's beside the point.
What the point is- is that you both managed to go from being the hottest young things on the roster to literally nothing in less time than it takes for Mercedes Vargas to start rattling off her achievements during an unrelated conversation.

Whereas, I came along… and I told the big bad wolf to come and fight me. I didn’t start at the bottom, I shot high… and boy, oh boy, was that a fucking terrible idea.
However… however… however… however- and this is the point I think you’ll fail to acknowledge as easily as breathing or losing matches against anyone with a skill set and a breath in their lungs.
You may not know me, but because I walked in and told the big bad wolf to come blow my proverbial house down- you know who I am. You know who I am cause I came in and did what rookies like you think your pissy little debut into the division did.

You both on the other hand, I knew of you… sure. However that's it, I had to go digging into the annals for sufficient information about whether you were worth showing up to this match for- whether you were worth the time of the real World Bombshells champion twice over.
Whether you were worth the blood, sweat and tears of heartache from your disappointed families cause you fucking lost again and still can’t understand why you’re going nowhere fast.

Keep spinning those wheels, you’ll get there someday.

Just don’t count on that way being forward.

I might be a rookie, I might be greener than either of you combined- but I’ve done more in five matches than either of you have in your combined time in the industry. That's not a brag ladies, that's not boast trying to rustle your jimmies… That's straight up, cold hard fact that you’re going to dismiss cause it doesn’t fit the narrative that your precious mentors have woven around you like precious little snowflakes.
I might be newer at this than you, but I at least can see everything that's happening around here for what it is- not what I want it to be. I’m at least willing to accept that maybe things aren’t as straight forward and black and white as you might like to believe…

Masque… she’s a real piece of shit. Sure. She might even be a monster.

Guess what though, shes the first fucking person in this godforsaken industry who has managed to look me in the eye and not lied straight through their teeth.
I haven’t been made any promises, told I was someone's golden goose or given a chip on my shoulder to carry cause every other little rookie pack mule before me crumpled under someone else's weight. I haven’t been offered the keys to the kingdom, hell I’ve barely even got a foot in the door.

… but she hasn’t lied to me. She hasn’t fucking lied to anyone, and isn’t that worth a seconds thought?

See, you can bring your best or your worst- whichever one stands to entertain before you’re eating your teeth like their frosted flakes in front of saturday morning cartoons. It's honestly not going to make a difference- cause you can fret and flail all you want about having to face Masque again- and for obvious good reason. You might be fucking stupid, but not so much that you don’t comprehend that another go round is akin to diving feet first into a woodchipper.
You’ll gladly discount me though, you’ll pay no attention to the fact I’m a tag team champion within my first 10 matches in another company- that I SURVIVED being trained by another crazy ass bitch who has also handed you both losses while only *technically* being cleared to wrestle after five months on the bench.

Fear Masque all you want, but honestly she’s not even gonna have to lay a painted hand on either of you…

By the time this match is over, you’ll be fucking BEGGING for another round with Amber fucking Ryan as a goddamn reprieve… Maybe if you’re really lucky though, I’ll let you take her place on the sidelines instead.”




******

Avalon and Felicity’s Apartment
Monterey , CA
November 29th, 2022

[/i]


“I still don’t think I quite get it, Ava…”

Cheeks flushed slightly, obscuring the smattering of freckles across her nose, Felicity Morgan readjusted herself on the musty couch- the same one they’d both been complaining about and planning on replacing for more than two years. Between being an emergency room nurse coming home at all ours splattered with the finest wannabe gangstas and drug addled miscreants that the shittier parts of Monterey had to offer and Avalon’s increased sporadic schedule of travel- neither of them had really found the opportunity to do more than simply sprawl across the faded surface and complain.
Perhaps Avalon might have been able to focus more if Felicity had changed out of her scrubs since arriving back and finding her semi-absent roommate digging through fridge leftovers, after not having been home more than six and a half hours at a time in what felt like months. Or simply it was the fact that she’d already tried to explain the same situation four times in the past half hour while negotiating mouthfuls of day-old fried rice past the flood of syllables.

“Well the mask thing is a little more complicated but…”

Felicity waved her off passively, the dark stain down the edge of her sleeve hanging as though an extension of her arm. Avalon mumbled something through a further mouthful, as grains of rice spilled down into her lap and down to the floor. Pulling her knees up, Felicity cocked her head slightly with a curl in her lip that suggested a momentary hesitation- that what she wanted to say wasn’t necessarily about to be what was spoken aloud.

“It's not that- I mean with you and Amber. I get she’s---”

“She’s a fucking sociopathic nightmare with a death wish and determination to take everyone that ever gave a fuck down with her to the furthest corners of hell where even Satan’s like ‘fuck that’. She’s a volcano permanently erupting, expecting that everyone around her brought an umbrella for ‘safety’ and a lying, two faced bitch who deserves all the karma that's eating her alive.”

A tense pause fell between them as more rice sputtered forth between vitriolic derisions and dredged up layers of hurt and betrayal that Avalon otherwise swallowed in every other public and professional setting. Felicity shrunk back slightly amid the outburst, whilst trying to avoid the flickers of rice launched in her general direction as Avalon placed the semi-emptied bowl down with a soft clink on the coffee table between them.

“... I was gonna say, she’s got issues… but yeah. That certainly works too, just maybe don’t forget to tell me how you really feel next time.”

Apologetically, Avalon brushed off some errant food scraps with a loud sigh.

“I’m just… I’m fucking tired of hearing all this sympathy and uprising of support, you know? It's almost like everyone is so willing to forget all the fucking shitty things she’s done to so many other people cause they have a new ‘monster’ to root against.
I just don’t understand Flic, why it's so easy for people to look past all the terrible things from one person, but gleefully and wholeheartedly support the same, if not worse, in someone else.”

Matter of factly, Felicity straightened up as much as the couch would allow.

“Ava, I deal with the worst kind of people all day every day. Thing is though- those assholes, from the ones who cut you off in traffic or cook meth in their backyards and sell it to middle schoolers are all still people. They have friends, families and people that are able to look past their shittiness regardless whether there is actually anything there or not…
Just cause they’re fucking awful and you’d think them better off with an extra breathing hole in their face- doesn’t mean that everyone will agree with you.”

Exasperatedly Avalon pulled a nearby cushion into her grasp as though a shield against the fair and reasonable logic being provided. She was hurt and wanted to continue to feel the hurt, and feel justified for her hurt. Amber had been the first person to look out for her interests beyond how many zeroes were tacked onto a check, Amber had been the one to look past her initial shittiness and offer her a way forward… Sure, Avalon knew she fucked up, that they’d had an ‘agreement’ for Amber to train her in she managed to stay out of trouble…
It wasn’t that easy though- she hadn’t sought out trouble, it had found her and in the end her families ability to lawyer up didn’t match those who’d brought trouble to her doorstep to begin with. It was never her fault, she’d never intended on going to prison- nor had she intended for her sentence to be extended by two further years for the continued determination of others to pick fights in search of dominance.

No, Amber was supposed to have her back. Supposed to be there for her… and instead when Avalon finally got to Atlantic City, using all the money and good will she’d accrued- Amber had told her not so politely where to fucking go.
Of course, it didn’t actually happen like that…Amber’s doorstep had never been the most welcoming place to begin with, but her hopes of resuming their journey together were promptly shattered by the redheads determination to stick to the agreement as though her word meant more than Avalon did.

“I’m not expecting anyone to agree with me. That's not what this is about…”

Digging her fingers into the cushion, the abandonment still rankled even now. Amber had promised to be there for her, and ditched the moment things went sideways- now, she expected that all could be forgiven simply cause she’d nearly got herself fucking killed trying to make up for one of the other fuck-ups littering her lengthy career of continued ethical fuck-ups. Somehow forgiven for almost, but not quite, ‘saving’ Avalon from her own ambitions and youthful vigour.

It was always almost with Amber.

As though the effort being made to begin with somehow made everything okay.

“I just---”

Avalon stumbled over her words clumsily for a moment as though they all tried to spill out at once through a space far too small for them all to fit. Clattering against teeth and tumbling out over lips in a noiseless, frustrated verbal record scratch as the intentions fell lazily to the floor between them.

“Why the fuck is it one rule for one and a different rule for the rest- who the fuck died and made anyone believe they might be God enough that their word means more than someone else’s life. I didn’t want to become a wrestler so I could be someone else’s hand puppet or crutch for their failing legacy Flic, I wanted to become a wrestler cause I thought I could make a difference… I never wanted to be anyones sidekick or protege, I just wanted a chance to be able to stand on my own two feet and succeed or fail of my own accord… How did it become that the only person who seems to really care about what I want for myself is the same person that everyone keeps telling me is wrong?
Does that make their belief in me wrong too?”

Running a hand through the tangled mess of brown and blonde that rustled around her shoulder, Avalon shrugged half-heartedly as though her rhetoric had a meaningful answer attached and no one was willing to acknowledge that it was just sitting there between them.
Maybe a sharp stick might have helped- as though she could have prodded at it till something more than the toxic sense of self-awareness oozed from it. Something more palatable than the overwhelming feeling of dread that seemed to spiral when she thought about these philosophicals for a little too long.

“I mean, surely…”

Thoughtfully Avalon rested the cushion into her lap, trying to calculate the words out before they simply fell in a torrent of notions. Each syllable was calibrated to try and cross the void that seemed to be growing further between what she felt was ‘right’ and what she felt was ‘right for her’. Even as the first word fell, Avalon glanced hopefully towards her roommate in hopes of finding a kindred spirit, a modicum of understanding and agreement towards her plight.

She couldn’t possibly be the only person who felt this way… Right?

“...  just because someone else doesn’t like your truth, doesn’t mean that it's automatically a lie.”