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Roleplay Boards => Climax Control Roleplays => Topic started by: Alexandra Calaway on November 21, 2025, 11:43:04 PM
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Law School and Wrestling
LJS Apartment
Las Vegas, Nevada
3:30 am
Alexandra blinked awake to a quiet apartment, the kind of stillness that felt unusual, almost wrong. LJ usually stirred before she did, always clattering in the kitchen or humming absentmindedly as he made coffee. But this morning, the air felt heavy and unmoving. It felt really off to wake up and him not be there.
She pushed the blanket aside and slid her feet onto the cold floor. “LJ?” Silence answered.
Rubbing the sleep from her eyes, she padded down the hallway. A faint, warm glow seeped from the dining room, the only light in the apartment. As she rounded the corner, the picture snapped into place, LJ, fast asleep at the dining table, his head resting against a tower of open law textbooks. Highlighters, sticky notes, and half-finished case briefs were scattered like fallen leaves around him. His glasses sat crookedly at the end of his nose, threatening to fall off with every slow, exhausted breath. Alexandra’s heart softened. A cold mug of coffee sat beside his elbow, forgotten hours ago. A legal pad had slid partly off the table, covered in LJ’s tight, meticulous handwriting. She stepped closer, lifting the pad carefully so it wouldn’t wake him. Each page was dense with analysis he’d clearly pushed himself through the night.
“You’re going to burn yourself out,” she whispered, knowing he couldn’t hear. She gave a slight shake of her head, eyes fixed on him.
One of his hands still loosely held a pen, as if he’d fallen asleep mid-sentence. His hair was a mess, pushed up on one side where he’d dragged his fingers through it repeatedly while thinking. She could tell from the tiny crease between his eyebrows that even in sleep, he was bracing himself, still wrapped in the pressure he carried when awake.
Alexandra placed her hand gently on his shoulder. He didn’t wake, just breathed a little deeper. She hesitated, torn between letting him sleep and guiding him somewhere more comfortable. Finally, she reached for a blanket draped over the couch and wrapped it around him with careful precision. “You work too hard,” she murmured, touching the edge of his hair. “Far too hard, but I understand why. And I’ll always be here to help you.”
And as she watched him sleep amid the chaos of case law and highlighted statutes, she felt a swell of affection, not just for the man himself, but for his determination, his ambition, and the quiet vulnerability he never let himself show when awake. Alexandra hovered for another moment, watching the slow rise and fall of LJ’s shoulders beneath the blanket she’d just tucked around him. Part of her wanted to leave him there, he needed the sleep. But another part, the one that hated seeing him fold himself in half for everyone except himself, nudged her forward.
She brushed her fingertips lightly over his forearm. “Hey,” she whispered. “LJ, love.” She kissed him softly.
He didn’t move at first. Then his brow twitched, and he let out a soft groan. “Mmh, what time is it Angel?” he mumbled, voice thick with exhaustion.
“Early morning, around three thirty.” she said gently. “You didn’t come to bed. You need real rest, preferably in bed.”
His eyes cracked open, squinting against the warm dining room lamp. For a second he looked disoriented, like he had to remember what planet he was on. Then he blinked at the books spread around him and sighed.
“Damn,” he muttered. “I must’ve passed out.”
Alexandra pulled out the chair beside him and sat, her knee touching his. “You think?”
He huffed a little laugh, tired, crooked, self-aware. “Sorry. I didn’t want to wake you. I just had to finish outlining these cases, so I’m prepared for class.”
She reached out and slid his skewed glasses off his face before they could drop. He rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand, the movement slow and sluggish.
“This isn’t sustainable, LJ,” she said softly. “You can’t keep doing all-nighters like you’re invincible.”
He shrugged, eyes still half-closed. “I’ll be fine. Law school’s, it’s just, it's a grind.”
“And you act like you’re the only one who knows what grinding feels like.” Her tone stayed warm, teasing, but honest.
He looked at her then, really looked. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Alexandra gestured between them. “I mean, you realize our lives revolve around throwing our bodies at the ground for a living, right? We take bumps in a ring, and you take them in textbooks too.” She nudged his elbow. “The difference is, our bruises fade. Yours just turned into midterms and finals too.”
That earned a quiet laugh from him, head dipping. “Okay, that’s fair.”
She leaned back slightly, eyes roaming the mess of highlighters and legal pads. “But at least in wrestling, when you’re pushing yourself too hard, someone tags in. Or the ref forces a break.” Her voice softened. “You don’t give yourself breaks, LJ. And you are in need of one.”
He sighed again, this time heavier, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “I just, I want to do this right. I want to prove I belong there. That I can handle it. All of it. Wrestling, School, a family.”
“You already do.” She slid her hand over his, grounding him. “You show up. You fight for it. You’re persistent to a fault.” She squeezed lightly. “But even wrestlers tap out. It doesn't make us weak.”
His shoulders dropped, tension loosening in small degrees, like someone was slowly unwinding him. “I don’t want to disappoint you,” he said quietly. “I don’t want to disappoint my family.”
Alexandra’s heart flickered painfully at that. “Hey.” She tipped his chin up with her finger. “You could never disappoint me. I just don’t want to lose you to this,” she nodded at the books “before you even get where you’re going.”
He swallowed, and the vulnerability in his eyes made her chest ache.
“Come back to bed,” she said, brushing a strand of hair from his forehead. “Please. Just a real hour of sleep. Then you can fight the battle against your textbooks again.”
A small smile tugged at his lips. “One hour?”
“Maybe two,” she teased. “Maybe more?”
He laced his fingers with hers, letting her help him stand. The blanket slid off his shoulders, landing on the chair behind them. As they walked back toward the bedroom, LJ squeezed her hand. “Thanks for waking me.” He leaned down to kiss her softly.
Alexandra glanced at him with a soft smile. “Someone’s gotta be your tag partner.” The two disappear into bed.
All the Worlds a Stage
Orpheum Theater
Phoenix, Arizona
The Orpheum Theater wasn’t really quiet. It felt more like it was waiting on something, the way a room does right before someone finally says the thing nobody wants to hear. The single work light overhead buzzed faintly, throwing this uneven, almost sickly glow across the stage. It didn’t make her look heroic or dramatic; it was unforgiving. Every little twitch in her expression, the tension in her jaw, that flicker behind her eyes she usually kept buried when people were watching. She didn’t bother hiding any of it tonight. For once, she let it all sit right on the surface.
“Bea.” The name slipped from her lips. “I’ve been thinking about you. Not because you get under my skin the way some do. Not because you run your mouth like you’re auditioning for a trashy reality show.” A tired, disappointed exhale left her, her head tilting slightly. “You’re the kind of unpredictable that makes people sloppy. The kind that mistakes emotional instability for strategy and then gets shocked when everything she touches catches fire. You believe yourself to be untouchable, unpredictable, but in my time here, all I have done when your name is mentioned next to mine, is to say, we already know where this is about to go.”
She walked across the stage, boots over warped hardwood, the sound echoed through the vast empty room like a warning shot. The air had that old-theater smell and for once, she let it pull something honest out of her. “This match? It’s coming at a moment in my life where I actually have a little goddamn peace. No fires to put out. No family crisis waiting to explode. No half-chance that Vincent or anyone else is going to take a shot at me from behind while I’m just trying to get to the damn ring. Do you have any idea how unnatural that feels for me? To breathe without waiting for the barrel to press into the back of your skull? Honestly, do you understand what it feels like?”
Her jaw twitched; pain, anger, relief, all of it living in that one tight line. “That little pocket of quiet; it scares the hell out of me if I’m being honest. It means I can focus. Really focus. You’re the first person standing in my path now that everything else has stopped clawing at me. That’s bad for you. You don’t want this version of me. You don’t want me to be calm. You don’t want me centered. You don’t want me to be well rested.” She looked up into the shadows above the balconies, something cold blooming in her expression. “You want me scattered, distracted, juggling chaos on all sides. You want the version of me that’s stretched thin. But that woman? She’s gone.”
A slow breath dragged out of her, deliberate and steady. “I hear you every damn week. I see how you hold your head high, acting like you’re this walking apocalypse. Then I look at the match history, at the moments that mattered, the nights that shaped this place, and where’s your legacy, Bea? Where’s the moment people replay? Where’s the moment that made the division look different because you walked into it?” She let the silence stretch long enough to sting. “It’s not there.”
Her posture stiffened, not with anger, but truth that hurt even as it landed. “What is there? A trail of almost getting there and being so close. A list of excuses. A pattern.” She shook her head. “You are the queen of empty threats. The master of the unfulfilled prophecy. Every time a champion is crowned, every time an opportunity splits open, it slips right through your fingers. And you stand there, shocked, confused, offended that the spotlight didn’t bow down to you on command.”
She lifted her chin as though looking Bea directly in the eye. “You say you’re dangerous. You say we should fear you. You say you’re ready to take what you’re owed. But if you were half the monster you claim to be, you’d have already carved your name into this place.”
A humorless laugh escaped her, a sound scraped raw from somewhere deep. “Hell, let’s not kid ourselves. If Vincent’s bounty had enough zero's behind it, you’d sprint to the front of the line to take a shot at me. You’d brag about it, too, like it was some master plan you pieced together. Maybe you’re even thinking about it now. Maybe you’re hoping this match is where you get your chance.” Her gaze tightened, sharpened, hardened. “If that’s your plan, if you so much as breathe wrong in my direction for that reason, then you better pray you finish the job. Because I promise you, Bea, I’ll come back for you in ways that will make your ribs ache every time you draw breath.”
The heat in her voice curled into something colder, deeper, conviction forged in pain and perseverance. “I don’t care what this match costs me. I don’t care if I bleed. I don’t care if you drag me through hell. You’re not built to beat me; not now, not when I’m this locked in, not when every instinct in me is screaming that this is the night everything shifts. You’re my obstacle. And I am yours.”
She paused, letting the truth of that settle in the quiet dark. “Victoria Lyons was always my Achilles heel. But you?” Her mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile. “I’m yours.” She knew the words she spoke would cut deep, to the very depth of Bea’s core. Bea could never beat her.
She stepped closer to the camera, closing that physical and emotional distance with a slow, deliberate ease. Shadows stretched behind her like a warning. “So go ahead. Bring every ounce of ego and anger you can dig up. Bring someone to help you if you’re feeling bold. Bring chaos, bring desperation, bring that wild, frenzied energy you mistake for power.” Her eyes narrowed, unblinking. “The result won’t change.”
She leaned in just slightly, voice lowering into something dangerous enough to chill the air. “When it’s over, you’re going to be staring up at the lights, wondering why your body won’t move, listening to the name Alexandra Calaway echo through the arena while you try to remember what it felt like to believe you had a chance.”
Her expression settled into cold finality, the kind that didn’t need volume or theatrics to hit like a blade. “Welcome to the moment that breaks you, Bea. Welcome to Phoenix.” She let the silence sit for a beat, sharp enough to sting. “You walked into this thinking it was just another match. It isn’t. It’s the point where everything you pretend to be comes crashing headfirst into everything I actually am.” Her tone dropped, low and sure. “When the dust clears, you’re going to understand exactly why this city remembers the ones who fall harder than the ones who rise.”
A faint, wicked smile touched the corner of her mouth, blooming slowly like blood spreading through water. “I hope you like how your blood looks under these lights.” She didn’t blink, didn’t soften the threat with theatrics; she simply let it hang there.
The theater’s breathless silence swallowed everything that came after.