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Messages - Amelia Reynolds

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Supercard Roleplays / Re: FRANKIE HOLLIDAY v AMELIA REYNOLDS
« on: January 03, 2026, 03:22:45 AM »
mirrors
04.1 placed





★★★★★★★

december 31, 2025
new york city

Lunch had been an indulgence, primarily in that it was out of laziness more than anything else. The Waldorf Astoria’s Lex Yard didn’t have crisp white tablecloths, but it did have quiet silver and a maitre’d who spoke in a low, practiced cadence that said his tip money was already included in the check.

Amelia sat with her shoulders relaxed, hands wrapped around the warm curve of a teacup that smelled vaguely of citrus. The city beyond the windows looked cold, but everything in here was simply patience. She could have pretended, if she wanted, that she didn’t have work. That this was just a week away from the craziness of her life. Something ordinary, simply a lunch that ended with a stroll and a shared dessert and nothing waiting behind the next door. That the man in front of her wasn’t keeping something from her, no matter how calm and quiet he was.

Yet still.

Dickie wore a particular restlessness he always did on show days, whether it was his own or hers. It wasn’t anxiety so much as energy that refused to sit neatly inside his skin. He was a wrestling gremlin in the most affectionate sense. His eyes were alert, mouth half-curved as if he were on the edge of a joke. His fingers tapped against the table once and then stopped as if he’d caught himself. He’d eaten, but it looked like he’d done it quickly, like it was an obligation that distracted them from the real business of the day.

He leaned back in his chair and rolled his shoulders. “I think I’m gonna go hang with Kallie.” He told her, casually, like he was simply going to the ice machine down the hall from their room. “Cheer from the seventy-five inch with the Dragon and his Princess.

Amelia’s mouth softened into a smile before she could help it. “Dax and Cassandra will love that.

He nodded. “Aiden and you both have matches, and it’s not like Kallie can step away from Cass right now. And besides, Dax is still convinced I am the coolest human alive.

That’s because,” she replied with a smirk growing on her face, “you encourage him to become chaos.

I do not.” He replied with the solemnity of a complete and utter liar. “I simply exist, and he’s just…spiritually aligned with my greatness.

Amelia let out a quiet laugh, one that came from her chest  that loosened something in her ribs. It felt good to laugh like that on a day that so easily could – and would – become all about intensity and pressure. “I think it’s good you go,” she smiled, leaning forward and propping her head up with her hand. “You won’t be buzzing in a parking lot, and you’ll be occupied.

Occupied,” he repeated, amused. He stood, smooth and quick, already turning his body toward the rhythm of leaving. “Like I’m the toddler, okay. I see you. Meanwhile, you’ll be busy being terrifying and problematic.

Amelia rose too, the chair whispering back across the floor. She gathered her composure the way she always did, quietly and efficiently, even if her eyes stayed on him. There were things that she wanted to ask in that moment, softly. She wanted to pull him closer by the wrist and ask, Are you alright? Why have you been so quiet lately? But she’d learned over time that some questions were better saved for later.

They left the restaurant together. The lobby opened up ahead with high ceilings, lavish fountains, muted chatter, Old New York elegance that they didn’t fit in. People moved in and out like currents. A small city within a larger, hulking one.

It was at the fountain that he slowed. Not stopped – he was like a rabbit that way, always moving – but slowing just enough that it mattered. Amelia turned toward him instinctively, her feet stopping softly. She could see the line of his jaw and the way his eyes slid across her face as if committing it to memory. Something in her went still, instinctively, like part of her had recognized the moment as important.

He lifted a hand and brushed his fingers near her temple as if ensuring she was still real. He leaned in, and the kiss that landed on her forehead was so deliberately tender that it felt like a promise without words. Not performative. Not a quick good luck peck. Affection, steady and anchored – a claim of closeness that didn’t need an audience, but happened openly anyway. He didn’t seem to care who saw.

She closed her eyes for half a second and let the contact settle into her bones. It was easy to forget he was hiding things when he was like this. When he pulled back, his expression had shifted back to something lighter, the familiar half-smirk returning like armor. “I’ll see you after,” he said.

She nodded. He gripped her hand tightly once and let go, turning to weave into the lobby’s flow, towards the parking garage, their family, and the portion of the day that would keep him near without hovering. She watched him go for a moment longer than necessary, one hand briefly lifting towards her forehead as if she could hold the imprint there. Then, she exhaled, squared her shoulders, and walked to the elevators towards her own match, her own work, and a day that had already begun to mark itself as something she would remember.



★★★★★★★


It’s always funny to me how everyone comes into these things jawin’ off like the did somethin’ spectacular. Like they’re special for winnin’ something, even if it’s a little bit unfairly. But that’s what we’re supposed to do, isn’t it? Try to like, sound better than we are so the people around us give a little bit of fear or respect. Some people might scream from the rafters “I BEAT THIS PERSON RAAAAAH!!!!!” because they think that gives them a little lick of credibility.

I’m not really convinced on that. I like seein’ it happen, ya know? The evidence blasted across the stage. Goin’ all the way back to Summer XXXTreme, I recall the fact that I like…was almost there. A millisecond more and I would’ve had it. I didn’t. I lost. I stepped away. It really pulled somethin’ out of me for a second, and I’ll always recognize it. And I know people will wanna use it against me because they’re fuckheads like that, but ya know…

Find like…new better lines to dig at me with!

For the whole of twenty-twenty-five, I made a lot of gains in this business whether that is attributed here or not. Here, even if the dirt sheets can’t get my moniker right or they can’t accurately place my win-loss record, but they can deep throat an Argentinian bish that hasn’t been relevant until this year amazingly – suddenly with the generation of content!I’ve been fairly successful. Seven matches here, only two (2) of them a loss for me.

And one of ‘em was to a sneaky roll up because she couldn’t put me down like she said she was gonna.

Results matter, but so do the way things happen, Mercedes! As if you would know.

I don’t like showin’ up to these things feelin’ like the world is my oyster, and it owes me. I’m not the type of woman that believes that my mere presence makes the voices sing my praises. I know that good work, a bit of fight, and a lot of heart placed into all of this gets the ball runnin’ just as much as piss and vinegar. Spite is a well-workin’ companion to anger, but it isn’t what gets you anywhere. And neither is just simple belief.

You work to succeed, and you succeed when you work. I’ve been workin’. I have lofty goals, but they’re not out of line with my ability to move forward. I just have to be more important to this company first. Not a third match on a big card kind of girlie but more like a headliner kinda girlie.

My sixth match ever, I won the top championship of a new company. I worked for it. I fought for it. I breathed for it. And that Gotham Crown sits on my mantle with my Russian-Brit boyfriend’s two top champ champ titles and I realize that even if I haven’t done it at Sin City Wrestling…I can do it.

This is my chance to prove I fit in with our regalia of women here.

I said it at the last show, and I’ll say it again here – the road has been set for a while, and while I’ve been politely ignored week in and week out, I’ve had my eyes on this since I knew about it. I’m competitive. I like to fight. I told you that I was on my way to the biggest stage of the year and I want ya thinkin’ about me. I’m walkin’ in to Inception VIII as someone who’s trying to make life complicated and become a problem.

I was talkin’ to you, Frankie Honey.

I know, so obtuse. How dare you talk about someone when it’s not even their match time or you haven’t faced them! Talk about the past only that you’ve existed because you can make yourself look prettier in it. But what do I get for mentionin’ you?

A big fat load of nothin’, which I think you’re used to taking…if you catch my drift.

I know you think you’re comfortable. You have all of these contacts outside of this company, and these people are patting you on the head, saying good girl, and you lap it up like one of Maslow’s doggos. The desire to be loved is so prevalent within you, I don’t think you even see it.

It’s there when you tell us that you were trying to fix things.

It’s there when you admonish the company for not seeing your vision of greatness.

It’s there when you viciously and verbally maim people because they don’t fit the bill of what you want, desire, need, feel.

I see you for what you are, Frankie, even if you don’t see it in yourself. Lack of love becomes envy and jealousy. Try to argue it, and you’ll dig yourself into a deeper hole.

So tell me, Miss Doe-Eyed, pretty little girl from Wisconsin. What are ya gonna play this time? The rooting cheerleader that wanted the best for me? Manipulate your way through another promotional video to try to make yourself the victim while everyone else sees you for who you are? Did you realize that the rest of us weren’t picking up on the mediocrity pouring out of your lungs?

Because you can talk and talk and talk and talk, Frankie. Franchesca. Frannie. That’s all you do, and for a long while, it fit the bill. It paid for what you needed.

Don’t think that’s gonna work on me.

That’s gonna be a problem for you.



★★★★★★★


She hadn’t won. The loss came with its own kind of private silence.

It wasn’t the dramatic kind – you know, the one that demanded tears and a spiral. Like she had that one time they built her up as the next big thing only to have her broken by a slim millisecond. It was just a moment, really, after the crowd stopped being a wall of sound and really became a memory. She had the championship, still in her grasp. Her first championship. The Gotham Crown with all of its blue and red and gold.

Samantha Hamilton had put in the paces for that win, barely scraping through and winning. Just like with Mercedes – barely scraping through. Both of them knew it. Amelia could live with that, the win having not come clean or effortless, and that’s all that mattered to her, even if the record book only held the result.

Inside the locker room, she dropped onto the bench and let her shoulders fall in one fell swoop. The fluorescents flattened everything, making her look like a girl in a room instead of a performer who just stood under spotlights and white-hot lights. Her fingers went to the pins in her hair first, finding them by feeling. Each one, as they came out, eased the ache at her scalp.

After a second, her platinum hair spilled down past her shoulders and she shook her fingers in her scalp to ease the rest of the pressure. She gathered it without thought and threw it up in a messier bun that wasn’t as taut.

Practical.

Familiar.

Her phone buzzed once. She glanced at it, nothing urgent. A message from Kallie earlier, a photo of Dax with an applesauce packet dangling from his mouth standing on Dickie’s shoulders. Dragon, she thought. He already had balance – if he moved in the same family line, when he was sixteen, he’d be flying from people’s shoulders too.

She cracked her shoulder as she stretched then, reaching for her gear bag a moment later. She unzipped it the way she always did, already thinking about the shower that would come when she got back to the hotel. She’d throw on her sweatshirt (Dickie’s), check on Aiden, make him drive her in the shitty New York streets back to the Waldorf and stand for twenty minutes under blazing hot water. Dickie would argue from the room how she could readjust next time, planning six steps ahead for her, and then let her nuzzle into him while she forced another episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

Her fingers brushed fabric, tape, and the familiar clutter of the night’s work. And then they hit something that didn’t belong.

It wasn’t heavy. It wasn’t large. But, it was absolutely wrong in the way a foreign object is wrong in your own home. She stopped for a second, and then wrapped her fingers around the thin, plastic coating on paper. She drew it out.

A photograph. Printed and glossy, fresh enough that the paper still held a faint chemical smell of ink and heat. Her breath caught slightly. Not sheer panic, but more of a tightening in her throat, body’s response of recognized danger before her mind caught up to what it was.

It was of her, of Dickie kissing her on the forehead in the lobby, not hours ago. Not from a distance, nor was it weirdly grainy like a surveillance photo. It was close enough to see the exact angle of his hand and the intricate linework that decorated it. It was intimate between them, and it was owned. And threaded through the edge of the photo, punched cleanly through the corner as if someone had taken the time to do it properly, was lace.

White handmade lace. Gold-edged.

Her fingers went cold around it. For one suspended second, she was in their little kitchen, back in March, watching Dickie’s face change in an instance at the sight of it the first time, like watching something ancient and violent slide over him like a skin.

Don’t touch it. Don’t look at it. Don’t move.

His voice had been low and fast and dangerous. Not loud, not chaotic. Focused and commanding, a tone she hadn’t heard from him before that made her want to listen. Not necessarily out of fear, but more out of instinct, like the world itself had shifted and he was the only stable point in it.

Her grip tightened around the photo now without meaning to. There was red thread tied around the lace. Deliberately, knotted with care, as if someone had dressed the lace the way you might dress a wound. The red stood out against the white and gold like a signature. Amelia stared at it, her heartbeat loud in her ears.

They had been in her bag.

They had opened it.

They touched her things.

They had placed this inside with the kind of confidence that came from knowing no one would stop them.

The room suddenly felt smaller. Not claustrophobic. More like the air itself had turned attentive. Her first impulse was to look at the door, which was still shut, locked and normal, just as it had been.

No. Normal was a lie.

Her second impulse was to take the photo and rip it in half, but she didn’t. Whoever this was, it would be giving them the satisfaction of reaction. She took one slow breath in through her nose and let it out carefully, not moving the lace, or untying the threat. She didn’t shift the photo. The memory of Dickie’s voice sat in her spine like a hand.

Don’t move.

Her eyes flicked down again, taking in details like she was assessing evidence rather than absorbing violation. The hole punched in the photo was clean and precise. The lace didn’t fray where it fed through, and the knot in the thread was tight, intentional and elegant. Whoever had done it wanted her to see the craftsmanship, wanted her to understand that this wasn’t made by a frantic person – wanted her to understand that this was a message delivered by someone who believed they had the right to deliver it.

Her phone sat still on the bench beside her. For a moment she simply stared at it, as if it might bite. Then, she picked it up, and her fingers moved to Messages, hoving over the emojis she’d jokingly added to Dickie’s name. She pressed it softly, typing out a message with careful speed one-handed.


In my gear bag.
Photo from the lobby.
Lace.
Red thread.
It’s here.
I didn’t move it.


The loss against Samantha sat somewhere completely behind her now, distant, not irrelevant but not critical. It had been a fight, it had been close, it had been a night. A normal night. This…this was something else. This was access, someone proving they could reach into the softest part of her life and touch it with unknown hands.

The door outside her room sounded with footsteps, voices, and the ordinary traffic of the show. Amelia stayed still anyway. Aiden would be there in a second, and she had a sneaking suspicion that Aiden was more aware of things than she was. When her phone finally buzzed with Dickie’s response, her stomach dropped in confirmation.


Звезднысвет, I’m sorry. I should’ve told you.
Don’t touch it anymore. Zip it.
Go with Aiden, he’ll get you straight to me. He’s got you.
I need you safe.
I’ll see you soon.

This wasn’t going away. And Dickie had been carrying it seemingly less alone than she thought.


★★★★★★★


I don’t want to go too far into it, you know. Don’t want to pick you apart just yet. Don’t worry. I’m sure I’ll have a lot to say when we get to week two, and I thank you for the fact that you’re actually going to speak, unlike others.

Where would you like to start?

Let’s start from the beginning, shall we? Your rise to the Bombshells Championship was through the Blast From the Past, and you got there with some challenges that you simply brushed off as simple and unnecessary. Maybe you didn't say those things, but it was there in your tone. Lilith and Melissa, both gone now, were a piece of cake. You had Julianna DiMarria, who is also gone now, and you beat her.

Then came Laura and Mikah, two women who have stayed far longer than they were ever asked to be here. Laura comes from fame outside of here and couldn’t step up. And Mikah made a habit of putting her relationships over her actual success, as she hasn’t been relevant as anything more than a mixed tag team wrestler since 2018.

You called Kayla Richards irrelevant and now here she is…a match ahead of you on a card you went from being on the top of to the very, very bottom. With me! The rookie who lost to Mercedes Vargas and Andrea Hernandez. I deserve to be here.

Where….where do you deserve to be?

I’d like to say you deserve to be up there with the best of them, but you’re nine-five in seven months and most of those losses come from now as opposed to earlier. And Kayla? Kayla carried you in that tag match. She did more, she had more momentum and she controlled that match. You helped. A little. And then you had the audacity to call her irrelevant…which you’ve called everyone, might I add…but how about you look in the mirror and say with the same gusto, yeah?

You lost the championship a month into your reign. You lost it to Crystal Caldwell after calling her washed up and old and…whatever the hell you did, and it wasn’t expected. That was the crux, wasn’t it? It wasn’t expected. You keep tellin’ us that all of these things are going to happen because of what the history books and the dirt sheets say, and you wanted so badly to change the status quo. You had a month long reign and lost it to someone who learned how to work around your bullshit.

Listen with all of your ability. If you even have the ability to do so with all of the diatribe you speak.

You’re not a catalyst.

You’re not a queen in the making.

You’re not even a fixture in this company.

You’re like a run down, semi-shiny newold toy that got fucked. But you like that, don’tcha?

Ope, little Australian got a little too vindictive there, tried to sound like you. Did it work? Did I become edgy? No? Too much?

Do you hear yourself when you talk, Frannie? You like to scream about relevancy, but people have destroyed your mantle lately. This role has to go to someone younger, you said, as if veteran smarts don’t exist. Fuckin’ manifestos about about utopias make you sound like a crazy shooter person, and maybe really the only thing ya actually need is a straightjacket. You have no right to be calling anyone channel changers when ninety-five percent of the time since you lost the championship, no one is interested in what you did.

You’ve got no right to call anyone a nostalgia act when we’re already nostalgic for the days of your success. Bella and Alexandra defeated you because you sat there and thought you knew the system. That you were better because you jabbed a little edginess in there and talked about relevancy and lackluster and blood and sex.

Newsflash, darlin’, we all get laid. It’s not somethin’ new.

And the way you approach things…inspired one week and then the next you’re shittin’ on them for everything they’re worth and a box of rocks.

Maybe you’ve got this weird need to be respected, or loved, or adored, or everything under the sun because no one has ever really done any part of that. And now you’re facin’ a nother rookie who already had her big failure and made somethin’ of herself anyway.

What’s that say about ya, Frannie-dear?

Frank? Franchesca?

I know you want so badly to prove you’re worth somethin’.

But you’re not gonna do it on my time.



★★★★★★★


What felt like a peaceful weekend away earlier had come crashing to a grinding halt. The gold light, the marble floors, the lobby that screamed expensive, flickered past her vision as she walked with Aiden to the elevators. Amelia tried to stay composed, her fingers gripping the bag with a specific kind of relentlessness. It helped her look fine, even if she didn’t feel it.

She was scared. But more than that, she was angry.

Aiden knew. She could tell he’d been texted before he even got to her door at The Monarch. He kept her in public eye until they got to their corridor, until he took her keycard from her pocket of her bag, until he walked her inside the room. A quiet followed that felt louder than any crowd.

Dickie was already on his feet, not sprawled with the restless joking energy he always had. Not half-laughing, not pointing out something stupid on his phone to make her smile. He was standing near – but not close – to the window like he’d been watching for something in the dim light of the New York City bulbs. He turned his head upon the sound of the door opening, and his gaze went straight to the gear bag her hands so dutifully clung to.

She took four steps into the room and dropped the bag on the bed as he approached, keeping the zipper closed exactly the way he’d told her to. She didn’t touch anything else, and when he stopped short of her, she noted his eyes darting across her face, her shoulders, her waist, ensuring that she was safe. She was still in her ring gear and that silly hoodie of his.

I didn’t–” she started, but he cut in, low and fast.

I know.” His voice was focused in a tone she’d only heard when something else snapped him into place. His eyes flickered up to Aiden as he locked the deadbolt without being asked. Amelia watched Dickie’s face shift from worry to stillness, into a control so tight it made the air feel sharper.

It…it’s the same. Like before,” she added, pulling his attention back to her.

His jaw flexed, and for a second, she could have swore guilt flickered behind his eyes, immediately buried by focus. Aiden spoke, calm as if he was reading off a checklist from behind her, “She did exactly what you said. Didn’t touch it. Didn’t move it.

Good,” he nodded, but it wasn’t so much as praise as it sounded like relief. Amelia looked at him, taking a slow breath in, trying to forget that Aiden knew things that she didn’t before she spoke.

Someone was in my bag. In my things.

Dickie’s expression tightened, anger flashing hot and immediate beneath the restraint as his eyes flicked to the bag again. She tilted her head, ensuring that she had his attention as she leaned forward.

This is why you’ve been weird. This is why Yoshiro keeps pulling you away for stupid things. And you keep telling me it’s nothing. But you argue with Finn behind closed doors, you share looks and disappear with Yoshiro and,” she pointed at Aiden, “he knows about all of it before I do.

Звездныйсвет,” he breathed his nickname for her. Starlight, he called her. Like he could press it into the air and make everything easier.

It didn’t work. She didn’t move except to cross her arms, jaw tight. Her nose flared slightly. “Don’t use that like it fixes it.” Her voice ground out, sharper than she’d initially meant to. When his throat bobbed and he didn’t move, she reached down and ripped open the zipper of the bag. The sound was too loud, and split the silence like a blade. She felt Aiden’s posture shift behind her, but he didn’t move otherwise.

And neither did Dickie.

He could have. He could have moved faster than her and snatched her hand away, but that wasn’t how Dickie’s brain functioned when it came to her. It was a line, invisible in his head: she does what she wants and I don’t get a say. He raised an eyebrow though as she pulled the intrusion out of her bag and flung it to the bedspread.

The photo of them, or rather the invasion as she felt, landed face-up, glossy against the bedspread. She watched Dickie’s eyes take it in, floating over the visible affection, the gold-edged white lace, the single red thread. His entire body went rigid in the same way it had back in March, as if his brain had launched into several different scenarios and he was stuck on which one to take.

Amelia,” he said, not a warning but a restrained stop.

That’s from lunch,” she swallowed, keeping her voice level.

Dickie’s jaw clenched once, and she knew his teeth were gnashing hard. “I told you not to touch it,” he started, but she could tell it wasn’t completely aimed at her.

It was in my bag.

His eyes moved to her face, checking her again. Irritated, but safe, she was sure he was cataloguing. “Are you hurt?” He asked.

No, but I’m not fine.” She watched him look back at the lace and the thread and the invasion of their personal space and she saw it again: an internal calculator of wanting to fold her away somewhere safe and quiet and keep whatever this was from touching her at all. Protect, contain, control variables. She snapped her fingers in his face. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to universally decide what I can handle because it makes you feel better.

Something raw, guilt-ridden, frustrated, and tender sat behind his eyes now, unsure where to go when the person that he loved bared teeth. He swallowed again. “I was trying to keep you out of it.” He meant them as truth, but the words still came out like an excuse.

That worked so well. Look at it. I can see the fucking hibiscus clearly on your hand.

His mouth opened like he was going to say something that mattered, the things that he’d been swallowing for weeks and months, but he stopped. His gaze followed her finger as she pointed at the photograph, to his own hand captured there on paper, to the intimacy they’d shared turned into knives in someone else’s hands. Someone she didn’t even know about.

You do not get to love me and keep me ignorant.” She declared, each word steady, placed like a boundary line drawn in the same ink on his skin. “Pick one.

Silence gathered between them.

Dickie didn’t move.

And neither did she.

2
Climax Control Archives / mirrors ★ 03. home
« on: December 19, 2025, 11:52:21 PM »
mirrors
03. home


★★★★★★★

The glow from the laptop washed Amelia’s face soft and warm, the kind of light that made even a Denver winter evening feel gentler than it had any right to. Outside, the highway down the street from the big dual paned windows that held the image of Denver’s city lights in the distance over the foothills of Colorado looked like a small blip where little lights travelled past. 

Inside, the house had declared itself  one of Santa’s Christmas Warzones.

It smelled like pine and cinnamon and whatever candle Amelia had sworn was subtle when she bought it. White lights braided the stair rail with a garland wrapped between every rung. Gone were the coffee cups and magazines and random Monster energy cans that decorated the coffee table. Instead, had been overtaken by a little ceramic village with tiny roofs dusted in fake snow. Within the scene sat a miniature church, a half-dozen little houses, and a few painted people frozen mid-walk as if they had somewhere important to be.

Amelia sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the tree with the laptop balanced on the ottoman. She was grinning so hard her cheeks were starting to hurt, but she didn’t really care – this was Christmas, which was one of her favorite holidays. Her family had always been huge on the day, with a whole smorgasbord of food and people and sounds and loudness. There was never any snow, but this time, it was snowing here too.

On the screen, her mother’s face filled the frame. Sheila Reynolds, backlit by Australian summer brightness, hair pulled back with that practical, no-nonsense efficiency Amelia had inherited and then stubbornly refused to use. Her expression was fond, but the fondness had an edge to it. Not anger. Not guilt. Just that particular motherly ache that said I miss you, and I don’t like that I miss you.

You look…bright.” Sheila said.

Amelia laughed, breath puffing in a little cloud because she’d insisted the room didn’t need to be that warm when there was a fireplace and vibes. “I am bright. I’m home. I’m actually home.

You were in New York two minutes ago.

I got back Tuesday. I slept, I showered, I ate something that wasn’t airport food. We went shopping. And I’m at SCW this weekend, but it’s in Denver, so I don’t have to travel. I can just… drive.

Sheila’s eyes softened and sharpened at the same time. “That’s still work, Mellie Love.

I know.” Amelia said, gentle but firm, like she was laying something down on the table between them. “But it’s different. It’s not…constant airports. It’s not living out of a suitcase. It’s here.

Sheila’s gaze flicked, taking in the background like she couldn’t help herself. The staircase lights, the glow of the tree. The fact that Amelia’s house looked like a department store display or an advertisement that showed a genuinely fake family celebrating the holidays.

Amelia caught it, and her smile went bright again. “Wait. Wait, okay – Mum, I have to show you.

Amelia–

Nope! You have to see it, and then you’ll understand it, okay?

She stood up, nearly tripping over a stray ornament hook because she was still Amelia, and grace wasn’t always her middle name. (It wasn’t, actually, it was Claire). She picked up the laptop with both hands. The camera wobbled as she turned it toward the tree, which was so new it still had that crisp, untouched look. Every branch was full with no sad gaps, no inherited ornaments with questionable history. It was entirely theirs. Like Christmas had completely thrown up on it.

All new!” Amelia announced, reverent and smug at once. “We picked everything. Together.

On-screen, Sheila made a sound that was half amusement and half surrender. “It’s beautiful.

Amelia angled the camera closer to the ornaments, narrating like a tour guide who had waited her whole life for this moment. “Okay, look at this one. This is the little skier one, because he insisted we needed something that looked like Colorado. And this! This is the tiny disco ball because–

Because you’re you.

Because I’m me.” Amelia agreed, unashamed. “And this one is a little kangaroo, because you’re still technically in charge of my soul. And – wait – look, look, look – this is my favorite.

She zoomed in on an ornament that was almost embarrassingly domestic. A small glass house with a lit window, a tiny wreath painted on the door. It wasn’t expensive. It wasn’t elegant. It was simply home, turned into something you could hang.

Sheila’s mouth tightened, just for a second. “You didn’t tell me you’d done all this.

I wanted it to be a surprise,” Amelia said softly. Then, brighter again, because she refused to let the softness turn into sadness. “Okay, okay. Tour. Tour. Come with me.

She walked through the living room, the laptop held out in front of her. The camera caught the couch first, and on it, Dickie. He was slouched in the corner like he’d melted into the fabric. One foot was planted, propping his leg up, and the other stretched out in front of him. A PlayStation controller sat being actively used in his hands.

He looked comfortable in the kind of way that said they were in their home, and there was no reason for him to be alarmed. His hair was a little messy, like he’d been running his hand through it every time the game annoyed him. His shoulders were relaxed, his body resting in a way that suggested the last couple of weeks had taken their due and he was finally listening to someone other than his heart that said he could do all things, once provided with espresso and spite.

He didn’t look up right away. Instead, he just made a small sound that might’ve been irritation at the screen, and then glanced over when he registered the laptop moving.

Amelia turned the camera toward him with a grin so wide it was borderline triumphant. “Mum, look who’s pretending he’s not listening.

Dickie’s eyes flicked to the screen. A smile tugged at his mouth. He lifted his free hand in a lazy wave, the universal language of hello, yes I’m here, no I will not be perceived too intensely.

Hi, Sheila,” he said, voice easy, warm around the edges.

Sheila’s expression shifted, familiarity settling in. She had met him in January, in the way mothers did when they were quietly taking inventory. Manners, tone, posture, the small tells that said whether a person was safe. She still carried that inventory, but now there was something else in her face too.

You look well.” Sheila said to him.

Dickie’s smile sharpened briefly, boyish, lazy. “I’m surviving.

Amelia angled the camera away before either of them could get too earnest. “Don’t listen to him, he’s being a menace. Right. So. This is the living room situation. And…come here…

She guided the laptop toward the coffee table and practically crouched beside the ceramic village like she was introducing it to royalty. “Mum. We got a Christmas village. Like a proper one. Look at the little streetlights – look at the tiny people! Oh my god, and the bakery has a little window display–

Sheila laughed then, the sound bright and surprised. “You’re ridiculous.

I know,” Amelia said happily. “It’s the best.

As she moved through the house, the tour became its own kind of proof. Stockings hung in the hallway – two of them, not matched perfectly because Amelia had picked one and Dickie had picked the other, and neither of them had been willing to compromise. A garland framed the kitchen doorway. The dining table held a runner printed with holly, and a bowl of candy canes that was already half-empty because Dickie kept eating them like the menace she kept calling him.

Amelia narrated every detail as if she was afraid the joy would evaporate if she didn’t keep speaking it into existence.

And it was in the middle of that, somewhere between showing the tiny village again and pointing out the string lights in the hallway, a the memory slipped in.

It wasn’t invited. It never was.

Three years earlier, she’d stood in someone else’s living room under someone else’s carefully curated tree, wearing a dress that didn’t feel like her and a smile that had been practiced in the bathroom mirror. No tattoos then. Bare skin, polished and plain. Quiet hands folded in her lap while Reece’s family, in their posh, Australian, heavy kind of way in which money spoke louder than words, asked her questions like they were weighing her.

She’d tried, back then. Tried to fit into the shape expected of her. Tried to be the girlfriend who didn’t take up too much space. Tried to look like belonging without ever actually feeling it.

And at the time, it had felt affectionate. Reece had leaned in close, touched her back, kissed her cheek in front of them like he was proud.

But the memory now, viewed from the other side of everything, felt like a photo taken under fluorescent lights. The affection had been there, yes, but it had been wrapped in performance. In expectation. In the quiet pressure of be good, be acceptable, be small enough to be approved of.

Amelia blinked, and the present rushed back in. Warm lights, pine scent, laughter caught in her throat. The difference wasn’t that she was loved now. She had been loved then, in his own way. The difference was that she didn’t have to disappear to earn it.

Mum?” Amelia’s voice softened again as she returned to the living room, sinking down onto the rug near the tree. “I know you’re sad I’m not coming home.

Sheila’s eyes held hers through the screen. “I am,” she admitted. “I understand the schedule. I do. I’m not…cross, love. Just…it’s Christmas. Aiden and Kallie came, bringing little Cassandra and Dax with them. Aiden will be back after his own match. I just wish you were coming too.

I know.” Amelia glanced toward the couch. Dickie had paused his game without making a fuss about it, attention subtly turned toward her in that quiet, listening way. “This is just… the first one. The first Christmas that feels like it’s ours. Like I built it. Like I chose it.

Sheila exhaled slowly, the way mothers did when they were letting go of something they couldn’t hold forever anyway. “You look happy.

I am,” Amelia said, and there was no apology in it. Only certainty. “I’m really happy.”

And she was. She was happy with her life as a wrestler, promoting in two companies, one of which she sat at the top unexpectedly, and one where she continued to work her way up. She was happy that she could be around her favorite of her brothers, idolizing Aiden from afar but still becoming herself. She was happy that she could finally be herself, where expectations weren’t held over her soul. And she was happy that she had a gremlin of a man who didn’t have any ability to say no to her or to the multitude of fans who demanded he break himself every week for their entertainment.

A brief silence stretched. Comfortable, aching, honest.

Then Sheila’s mouth curved, resigned but affectionate. “Alright. Show me the tree again. I want to see the kangaroo ornament.

Amelia laughed, relief sparkling through her like tinsel catching light. She angled the laptop back toward the branches, talking again – soft and bright and shamelessly domestic – until Sheila finally yawned and admitted it was late for her.

When they said goodbye, it wasn’t sharp. It wasn’t a fight. It was simply two people loving each other across distance, learning what it meant to let the shape of family change without breaking.

Wait! Before you go, I have to show you the best part.” Amelia grinned.

The best part?” Sheila echoed, skeptical and amused.

Amelia aimed the laptop toward herself and Dickie. His attention was back on the screen, trying to give Amelia privacy with her mother. She pressed a quick kiss to his cheek, beaming at him and then back at her mother. He smiled slightly, glanced at her, glanced at the computer screen, and then back to the game he was playing. She leaned her head on his shoulder and looked at her mum with the smuggest smile she could procure.

Amelia.” Sheila laughed lightly, shaking her head.

What?” Amelia grinned, unrepentant. “That’s the best part. He lives here.

Sheila chuckled, told her daughter she loved her, told Dickie to be more careful please, and said her goodbyes as Amelia heard the front door of her childhood home open with gleeful shouts from her nephew. After, she closed the laptop and set it aside. For a moment, the house hummed with quiet, a kind that felt full instead of empty.

Dickie put the controller down and leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “She’s okay?

She’s Mum.” Amelia said, smiling as she looked at him. “She’s sad. But she gets it.

He nodded, as if that made sense in the way important things did. Then he opened his arms without saying a word. Amelia crossed miniature space between them and climbed into his lap like it was the most natural thing in the world, pressing her back to his chest. His arms wrapped around her, solid and warm. He pressed his face briefly into her hair, breathing her in, and she felt the steady exhale that told her he was truly resting. His hands went back to his controller as he set his chin on her shoulder. He unpaused his game.

What?” she murmured, amused, because his hold had tightened in that stubborn way of his.

Nothing.” he said, voice low. “Just…this is nice.

It was such a simple sentence, but it carried weight because for Dickie, nice was not a default setting. Nice was something earned.

Amelia tucked her face into his neck, eyes drifting to the tree. The new ornaments glinted softly. The village on the table glowed in miniature stubbornness. The lights along the stairs blinked in patient rhythm like they had all the time in the world.

The past tried to whisper again. Quiet party, polite smiles, borrowed shapes. But it couldn’t get traction here.

Here, the warmth was real. Here, she wasn’t posing.

Here, she was home.


★★★★★★★


Okay, hi. Yes. It’s me. And I’m going to say something that is deeply on-brand and absolutely not negotiable.

I love Christmas. Like love it.

I love the season. I love the holiday. I love the way people suddenly pretend they’re not stressed while they’re deffo obvi stressed. I love the lights. I love the music, although I still don’t understand people that turn it on before December first. I love the fact that peppermint becomes a personality trait for thirty-one days. I love how the air feels sharper and the nights feel softer. I love how everyone gets a little more sentimental and a little more dramatic, and somehow we all just agree to go with it.

And if you’re one of those people who doesn’t like Christmas… that’s okay. I forgive you. I’ll pray for you.

Kidding.

Mostly.

What I’m saying is…I’m in a good mood. I’m in that rare, magical window where I’m happy on purpose. I’m letting myself enjoy things. I’m not shrinking it down, not toning it down, not doing that thing where you act like you don’t care because you’re worried someone will roll their eyes.

I care. I’m festive. I’m thriving. And for Sunday, that’s… actually kind of dangerous for everyone involved.

Because I also just came from New York.

I know. People hear “New York” the same way they hear “Las Vegas”. They think glamour and flash and big-city drama, and yes, obviously, there’s some of that. But for me, New York has been about momentum. It’s been about showing up and shining and not apologizing for taking up space. NYWA has been good to me, and I’ve been good right back. I’m their top champ champ right now, and that’s not me trying to sound tough. It’s me being genuinely proud.

Because there’s a version of me from a few months ago who would’ve gotten nervous saying that out loud. Who would’ve softened it. Who would’ve made it smaller so nobody felt threatened. I’m not doing that anymore.

I’m walking into this opening contest with that New York momentum still on me. Still in me. Still buzzing. Not because I think I’m invincible. Nobody smart thinks that in this sport, and I’m talking about my lovely boyfriend in this mess as well.  But I know what it feels like when your timing is right, your confidence is right, and you’re not asking anyone for permission.

Climax Control Four-Fourty-Five takes place at the Denver Coliseum. And that’s close. I always enjoy when we’re in Colorado, because I don’t have to travel that far. Which is also funny, because I know people hear “Denver” and they think, “Oh, home field, easy, roll out of bed and show up.” But nah. The Denver Coliseum is close, yes. It’s familiar, yes. But it’s far enough that I’m still leaving a half-day early because I am not letting traffic, weather, or one weird little universe moment where the roads decide to become a parking lot mess with my timing.

I am many things. Late is not one of them. And when all of the eyes in the world are gonna be on the ring, I know I’ve gotta step up my game regardless.

This isn’t just some cute opener where two women slap hands and politely trade holds and the crowd claps and we all go home. This is a clash that can reshape the road to Inception VIII. I know the match card spelled it out for you…Amelia has momentum, Amelia has a point to prove, Amelia wants to send a personal message to Frankie Holliday

Hi, Frankie. I know you’re listening.

Let me say this in the most holiday-friendly way I can. I hope you’re cozy. I hope you’ve got a little hot drink. I hope you’re warm and comfortable.

Because I am trying to make you uncomfortable.

Not in a cruel way. In a competitive way. In a “we are heading toward the biggest stage of the year and I want you thinking about me when you’re brushing your teeth” way. I want you watching this match and realizing that I’m not walking into Inception VIII as someone who’s just excited to be there. I’m walking in as someone who is going to make your life complicated. And that’s the part that’s personal.

But here’s the other half of the card, the half that matters just as much, and honestly might be the half people underestimate because it’s quieter…

Zenna Zdunich.

Zenna… first of all, your entire presentation is iconic.

You’ve got your opening guitars, and red and purple lights that flash like you’re legit the rockstar of the moment. You soak in the crowd, you climb the top rope and scream like the ring is a stage and we’re all lucky you decided to share the mic. It’s not just an entrance. It’s a whole mood. I love a mood. I also love that you’re a heavy metal rhythm guitarist, because rhythm guitar is the unsung hero. It’s the backbone. It’s the thing that makes the whole song work even when people don’t realize it’s working. It’s steady. It’s controlled. It’s built on repetition and timing and discipline.

And when you translate that to wrestling? That tells me everything I need to know about how you fight.

You’re not just out there to do one big flashy thing and pray. You build. You stack. You keep the tempo until your opponent gets impatient, makes a mistake, and then you cash in. And you have the kind of move set that makes people panic. 450s. Corkscrews. Springboards. Frankensteiner. You’ve got submissions, too…like you want to remind everyone you can fly and you can hurt people in ways that don’t require altitude.

And your finishers? Fatal Kiss. Shot of Z. Even the names sound like they come with eyeliner and a warning label.

So no, Zenna, I’m not walking into this like, “Oh, this will be cute.” Because you’re not just fighting for a win on Sunday. You’re fighting for pride, legacy, closure. You’re preparing to stand beside your sister Seleana in the first-ever tag team match for the World Bombshell Championship at Inception VIII. That’s not just another match on the card. That’s history. That’s pressure. That’s the kind of moment people remember.

And I know what it’s like to carry something heavy into a match. Something you can’t put down, even if you want to. I know what it’s like to be trying to prove something not just to the crowd, not just to the locker room, but to yourself. I’m not going to cheapen what you’re walking toward. If anything, it makes me more excited about this match, because it means you’re going to come in sharp. Focused. Dialed. You’re not going to sleepwalk through this. You’re not going to treat me like background noise.

Good. I don’t want background noise. I want the real thing.

Since we’re being honest tonight, let me be honest about something else. I lost to Mercedes and I’m not going to do that dramatic wrestling thing where I pretend I’m shattered and traumatized and staring out a rainy window for three days.

No. I got mad. Because the reason it happened? Ropes. Leverage. That tiny little detail that changes a match when it shouldn’t. That little extra inch that turns a scramble into a pin. And yes, Mercedes is talented, but I’m not going to sit here and rewrite history like it was some clean, perfect, “she was just better” moment.

It was ropes.

And that kind of loss does something to you, because it doesn’t make you feel defeated. It makes you feel annoyed.

It makes you go, “Oh. So we’re doing that.”

And I would like to publicly announce that I am carrying that annoyance into the holiday season like it’s a stocking stuffer. So, Zenna, when I look at you, I’m looking at someone who is fighting for momentum before Inception VIII, just like me. I’m looking at someone who needs to walk into the biggest stage of the year feeling like everything is clicking. I’m looking at someone who, because of that, is going to come into this match ready to take whatever opening she can get.

And that’s where my Christmas cheer meets my competitive side.

Because I am bubbly. I am joyful. I am absolutely the kind of woman who will squeal over ornaments and insist that the tiny Christmas village needs “one more little house” as if I’m not already out of shelf space.

But I am also observant I am also stubborn. And I am also the kind of person who learns a lesson once and then puts it in her pocket like a weapon.

So this match…this opening contest where “all eyes are on the ring”...this isn’t just about who’s better. This is about who controls the pace when the stakes are this close and the calendar is screaming at you that Inception VIII is coming whether you feel ready or not.

You want to walk into that tag title match with your sister carrying pride and closure and momentum?

I get it. I respect it. But I want to walk into my showdown with Frankie Holliday with her already feeling the pressure. I want her watching me tonight and realizing that my “happy holiday” energy doesn’t mean I’m soft. It means I’m confident. It means I’m loose. It means I’m having fun.

And I fight better when I’m having fun.

So bring your concert entrance, Zenna. Bring the horns, bring the lights, bring the scream, bring the crowd with you. Bring the rhythm. Bring the heart. Bring the resilience.

I will bring the sparkle. I will bring the cheer. I will bring the momentum I carried back from New York. I will bring that very specific kind of petty focus you get when you’ve been robbed by something as small as rope leverage and you decide you’re never letting it happen again.

And Frankie?

Watch. Closely.

Because whatever you think you’re walking into at Inception VIII…I want you to realize tonight that I’m walking into it too. I’m not bringing a silent night.

3
Character Building Roleplays / mirrors ★ the babe
« on: November 26, 2025, 11:22:32 PM »
you are my sunshine
my only sunshine
you make me happy
when skies are grey

the babe


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4
Climax Control Archives / mirrors ★ 02. the hero in the glass
« on: November 18, 2025, 04:17:20 PM »
mirrors
02. the hero in the glass




★★★★★★★


The acrid smell of pyrotechnics wafted into the slowly emptying arena when the corridors began to go quiet. Most of the noise stayed on the other side of the curtains, the final camera sweeps, closing lines from production headsets. The crowd had long since begun their long shuffle to the exits. Back here, it was cables and road cases, fog machines being stored. The monitor had long since been turned off, and the sudden absence of sound made Amelia feel like someone had put a hand over her mouth.

She’d showered, pulled on a hoodie of Dickie’s that enveloped her three sizes too big for her frame, dressed in her skinny jeans and converse and waited. The adrenaline from her fourth match ever had long since settled into a low, tired thrum in her muscles. Her win might as well have been on a different show; the room in her chest where she’d put it was crowded with something much bigger now.

Aiden hadn’t walked past gorilla.

She’d waited, just off to the side of the flow of crew and talent, watching for the angle in his shoulders, the familiar frustrated sweep of his hand through his hair, the tight way he held his jaw when he was pissed off at everything, including himself. The main event had bled into a post-match celebration that she cringed at entirely. She might have been at their wedding, but she didn’t much like the Carter-McKinneys in the latest parts of this year.

Reynolds!” A production assistant called out for her, headset askew as he balanced a coil of cable on one shoulder. “They’re doin’ a final sweep. If you’re not needed, you gotta start thinking about clearing.

Okay,” she nodded, with a clearing of her throat. “Just…I was waiting for my brother.

He gave her an apologetic look. “Pretty sure he went out the other side with Wolfslair. The other one.

It landed like a little stone in her stomach even though she’d been expecting that nonetheless. Wolfslair’s New York branch, one her people had been a part of, moved like a unit when they wanted to. Especially when one of their own came up short and didn’t want witnesses. “Right,” she said, “thanks.

The stagehand nodded and moved on, the hallway swallowing him. For a moment, she just stood there with her fingers hooked in the edge of her hoodie pocket. She sighed, looking down at the ground. Aiden had lost by inches. She could still see it, replayed on the inside of her eyelids, the moment of the crucifix. It wasn’t a mistake so much as two stories trying to finish in the same second and one of them landing a fraction of a second ahead. Clinically, she knew how this could write itself in his mind. Near-miss, confirmation of every old script. If I were better. If I were more. If I were meant for this…

Don’t wait on a door that he’s deadbolted, Millie.

Amelia turned her head to find the colorful mane of her mentor, Aaron Asphyxia, bouncing in the ponytail that she wore.  Her voice was lazy and edged all at once, just like it always was. She had her arms crossed as she looked in the same direction, the black of her eyeliner had survived another main event; the rest of her looked like she’d gone ten rounds herself.

Did you see him?” Amelia asked.

For about five seconds,” Aaron replied. “Alex and Austin got to him first. He’s in their orbit tonight.” She jerked her chin toward the opposite corridor, where Wolfslair: New York’s contingent had their space – separate from the small cluster of people who ended up in the Denver branch. Even back here, the divide was visible: same name, but different banners and glances that used to stick instead of the current state of sliding.

Is he….?” The words began to slip out of Amelia’s lips, but fell short. There were a dozen words she could put there, but none of them seemed to fit.

Angry?” Aaron supplied. “Mostly at himself. Bit at Jasmine. Bit at the air. Normal post-world-title-loss-cocktail.” Her mouth softened a fraction. “He’s not in a place to hear you at all, little sister.

I don’t need to triage him,” her protest came out small. “I just wanted to tell him I’m proud of him.

You can still do that.” Her ponytail bobbed as she tilted her head to the side. “Just not tonight, and not by standing outside a door that isn’t going to open.” It was blunt, but there was no malice in it. If anything, there was a kind of tired mercy.

Amelia looked back at the door once more – there were no footsteps, no voices. Her phone sat heavy in her pocket, half a dozen unsent drafts already living behind her lock screen. She turned her head back to Aaron and frowned slightly, “I don’t like leaving without seeing him.

Like…I know,” Aaron started, rolling her eyes at Amelia’s altruism. “But I also know this is the part where you’re gonna make someone else’s spirals more important than your own nervous system and what you’ve done. You also wrestled tonight, and you won. Your body still thinks it's in a fight. Go back to the hotel, cuddle your golden retriever, and sleep.

A flash of movement down the hall caught Amelia’s eyes as the door was opened – Alex was coming their way, phone in his hand, an efficient stride unbothered by the end of a thirteen-match marathon, of which he won as well. He gave Aaron a look that said time was moving, their own travel clock already ticking. He glanced at Amelia like she was an uninteresting science project as Aaron took a couple steps towards him. Aaron kissed him on the cheek, standing on her toes to do so.

Van is loading for the airport in five.

Mmkay,” she smiled in what she considered was a very sweet smile, but to anyone else, it would have appeared insincere. She turned her head. “You text me when you’re back in your room.” She seemed semi-pleased when Amelia nodded her response.

Alex’s gaze flicked over her again with professional courtesy. “Good work earlier.” He said.

Thanks,” Amelia replied, but the hairs on the back of her neck rose regardless. Loyalty. Aaron watched as he walked away from them, lingering a half a heartbeat longer, fingers brushing Amelia’s shoulder in a fleeting squeeze that was over before it could be misread.

Don’t let his loss eat your win,” she said quietly. “You earned what you did out there. Both things can be true at once.” Then, she turned and followed Alex, swallowed into the New York orbit like it had more gravitation than she originally thought it did.

And suddenly…the space around Amelia felt a little emptier for it.


★★★★★★★


And we’re back. Did you miss me?

I’m not gonna say it was the greatest match on the card. I’m not gonna say it was even the best match on the card, but what it was was an exclamation point on the moment in which I sat there and said I did this and I will do it again. Affirming and powerful for my own moment. That’s what I needed it to be, to remind myself that whatever happened over the summer isn’t what defines me. I could have come in here and argued that I earned the same exact chance that others had because it was literally a second away…but I didn’t.

I’m not a hypocrite. And I’ll earn back the downfall that I had every step of the way, by going through every person I have to.

I wasn’t sure what Candy was going to do – I knew she was a former champion in this company. I knew she was great in her own time. But now? The Candy I faced was not the Candy that existed back then. There wasn’t a lot of umph, not lot of spice, and at the end of the day, it was a definitive win.

Listening to the sounds of the arena for the rest of the show…I think you all need to understand somethin’ about me. I am, yes, a Reynolds – and yes, there is a lot of talent in the family. You all know Aiden, and you know what he can do. He had your World Heavyweight Champion almost dead to rights and if it wasn’t for a cute little trap of a pin, Aiden would have the gold around his waist and a new era would have been ushered into Sin City. My other brother, Adam…he’s kicking up a storm in our home continent, eating at the sharks and takin’ names. He’s not interested in the big leagues, but he’s a damned riot just the same. And me? Little ol’ me, with my fluidity and my gracefulness…

Y’all should know I’m here to right some wrongs and maybe kick a little teeth in.

I’ll be a support for my brother just as he’s always been a support for me, and now that Dickie is here…the game changes too for both of us. He knows his limitations when it comes to my matches, but you best believe that if the slate needs to be changed, he’ll be out there for his best friend the second Aiden needs it.

But that’s what Wolfslair does, isn’t it? They gather around their people and they ensure that everyone in the mix has support. I know we see that from the other facilities in this company – everyone who is a part of Go Gym and Hero Academy and whatever backs them…but you don’t see it as prevalent as you do Wolfslair. Tell me the last time anyone in this company from any of those gyms had as much of if not more of a hold in Sin City…I’ll wait.

For almost two years, Finn Whelan had an iron grip on the Mixed Tag Titles – which went defunct while they were holding it because no one could beat them – and the World Heavyweight Championship. He was beaten by another Wolfslair member, who held onto the World Heavyweight Championship until our current champion got it. That’s like five hundred or something days alone. Tag in Aiden’s Roulette Championship, and Alicia’s current Roulette Championship…and the fact that Wolfslair went four out of five at High Stakes….

Did you forget Bella was part of us too?

We are so prevalent in the company that everyone seems to hate us.

Hate us if you ain’t us, we don’t care.

And I know we’ve got our own internal conflicts…but the one thing that remains is that all of us do the utmost to succeed. We protect our own, and we push the echelon just a little bit higher every time.

What do I have to provide to that? An inescapable sense of putting my best forth every night. A passion to fight for the right things in this business. Duty. Honor. Loyalty. I have a household and a facility where these things are tantamount, and I will fight every day that I’m in this ring to be successful. It doesn’t matter if someone doesn’t show up or show out, because I will. Every time.

Evelyn was clear when I came back that I needed to show proof over whatever words that came out of my mouth in a promise. That I needed to own my successes before I made big statements. And it’s true. Proof is what I need to show that I can be whatever I want to be in this company. In adversity and victory, I will show the ring the regard it has earned from me.

So, Harper…can you promise the same to me? Or are you going to flip flop on facts and futures and somehow make the whole thing about what you can’t survive?

I’m gonna repeat somethin’ that my favorite person in the world holds as a mantra.

I don’t need gold to matter.

And he’s right. Neither of us do.

We’re gonna make the world sick of us by the time we’re through.



★★★★★★★


Amelia turned then and hiked her bag up on her shoulder higher, walking the long walkway towards the back of the arena. She was able to avoid the stragglers, the ones seeking hopeful autographs that she wasn’t quite yet a name they were searching for. It only took a moment for her to note the blink of the headlights from a rental Toyota Land Cruiser. Her rental Toyota. She smiled.

Less than a minute later, she tossed her bag into the back of the vehicle and crawled into the passenger side. She looked up at Dickie, who was leaning on the steering wheel with a smile on his face. He reached out and touched her chin with a tap of his knuckles, and she smiled slightly from the affection. “No luck?

He left already,” she confirmed, a little shrug of her shoulders. “With the others.

Mm.” He didn’t say of course, or that’s what I expected. He tucked a strand of her white-blonde hair behind her ear. “Did you text him?

Workin’ on it, also tryin’ not to make it about me while still saying I’m proud of him.” She huffed a breath that wasn’t quite a laugh. “It’s a fun balance.

He huffed, amused. “You’ll nail it. You usually do. Weaponized empathy and all that.

She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile that flit up to her lips regardless. He turned the ignition on the starter with a press of a button and dropped his hand to the gear shift. The engine rumbled quiet between them. Outside, the last of the crew rolled a road case past. Dickie glanced at the side mirror, then the other, taking in the loading bay, the security truck idling by the gate, the red and blue lights at the exits to the parking lot, and the half-shut roll-up door all in once fluid glance.

Amelia watched his eyes move. Left. Right. Quick check of the rearview. The same pattern she’d seen a dozen times now, a loop that had nothing to do with traffic laws and everything to do with something else entirely.

Everything’s clear, Commander,” she said lightly, leaning back into the seat and tucking her hands back into hoodie pocket. “No bogeymen in the forklift lane.

Don’t sass me in a rental,” he replied, but the corner of his mouth twitched. “I just like to know who else is breathing in my immediate vicinity.

That’s hypervigilance."

Technical terms now, Amelia?” He scoffed, good-naturedly. “You know I hate when you start throwing the textbook at me. Takes all the romance out of my paranoia.

You’re the one doing laps with your eyeballs. I’m just naming it.

That’s the problem,” he muttered, easing the Land Cruiser into reverse. “You name everything. Feelings. Behaviors. My alleged neuroses…

Those aren’t alleged, they’re in the DSM and on your medical paperwork.

He snorted and pulled them out of the space, heading into the desert Tucson air, one hand on the wheel, the other drumming once more on the gear shift before curling around it. The loading bay slid past, followed by the rest of the cars. As they sat in the traffic of the remaining vehicles, he reached over and tapped the mechanism the seatbelt sat in.  “Seatbelt.” He reminded her.

She clicked it into place and slouched down just enough to tuck her knees up, pushing her feet into the cushion while she wrapped her arms around her legs. For a moment, neither of them spoke. The world narrowed to the sway of the car, the hum of the tires over the uneven ground, and the way the night opened up outside the chainlink fences.

Then Dickie broke the silence in the way he always did when he felt the world was becoming small and difficult – by going sideways.  “So,” he started again after a second, eyes on the road, “fourth match ever, first supercard win…clean win, no concussions and no stupid clusterfuck of an ending. That’s not nothin’, Starlight.” He grinned.

No stupid clusterfuck of an ending is a pretty low bar for celebration, babe.” She turned her head in his direction, smiling with a hint of a chuckle.

You’d be amazed how many of us miss that clearness.” He tapped the gearshift again. “You were sharp as fuck. Timing, spacing – she was a champ champ, and you had a pretty decisive end there. That’s not rookie work.

Heat crept up the back of her neck with a soft, embarrassed flush. “Don’t start. Aaron already gave me a debrief.” She reached for her water bottle and took a sip.

Yeah, but she gives it like you made a failure in your life and need to fix it – I’m giving it like I’m incredibly proud and also maybe a little turned on.

She coughed and choked on her water. “Dimitri,” she groaned, swatting at his arm. “Can you not–

I literally can’t.” a grin formed fully on his mouth, breaking through the tension that etched along his jaw. “I’m structurally incapable of not gremlin-ning at you, Amelia. You know this.”  He snickered when she groaned his full name, the sound low in his chest. The joke had opened a pressure valve that had been tightly closed off, and for once, it felt like the air was clean again.

Seriously,” she muttered, still half-laughing, half-exasperated as she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “How are you like this?

Genetic flaw.” He shrugged one shoulder. “Or a gift. Depends on who you ask.

I’m dating it, I suppose. So I should probably call it a gift.

Atta girl.

She shook her head, but the warmth in her chest had settled in a little more solidly, like something she could stand on. But that’s always what he did for her, wasn’t it? Even when she was frustrated with him, even when he kept things from her, he still took the moments she was most conflicted and made her smile anyway. A solid foundation that she’d eventually make a crack in his armor for.

They cleared the lot and rolled out onto the roads, the arena eventually shrinking in the rearview to a hulk of concrete and scaffolding under the Arizona sky. Out here, the air was dry and cool, the sky big in that Southwestern way that always made her feel a little like she’d stepped on the edge of a postcard. Neon from the gas station sign painted the cruiser’s hood in shifting reds and blues as they passed. She looked at the GPS in the center of the console and looked at the blue line that led them to their hotel.

Fifteen minutes?

Twelve.” He always believe the GPS was a liar anyway. “We’re up at stupid o’clock anyway, so it’ll be just a little bit of rest. Six a.m. flight, remember?

She groaned, “Why do you hate us?

Because if we don’t get back to Denver on the first one, Finn’s going to whinge at me about missing training blocks, and I’m not emotionally prepared to argue with him since his shoulder is back in play.

You’re never emotionally prepared for Finn.

Correct. That would require feelings from him too, and we know they don’t exist.” Another smile. “You gonna be able to sleep?

She shrugged, watching a cactus slide by in the dark, outlined by some distant parking lot light. “Eventually. Once my brain stops replaying the crucifix and rewriting his internal monologue.

That’s his job,” he reminded her gently. “You don’t have to do that for him.

I know,” she said. It was true, technically. Knowing and feeling were still sitting in different chairs.

Her phone buzzed once in her hoodie pocket. She dug it out, thumb swiping across the cracked screen protector. No name she wanted to see yet…just a notification from Twitter and some promotional push email she ignored.

She opened Aiden’s thread anyway. The cursor blinked at her from beneath a line of nothing. Proud of you felt too small. Sorry felt wrong, like the loss was something she’d done to him by winning. I love you was true, but naked on its own.

She typed.

You were awesome tonight. I know it hurts. When you’re ready, I’m here.

What’re you writing?” Dickie asked, not prying, just curious. His eyes stayed on the highway; the question came out casual.

Nothing groundbreaking.” She hit send before she could overthink it, watched the message slide up. “Just…trying to leave the door open without trying to drag him through it.

Good,” he said. “That’s a much healthier sentence. I would have said to G-I-T  G-U-D.

So, growth,” she murmured.

Look at us,” he agreed. “Real, functional adults. Terrifying.

She let her head tip sideways against the seat, watching his profile in the wash of passing signs. He still looked wired under the jokes—jaw a little too tight, fingers flexing on the wheel, gaze cutting to the mirrors more than any rental warranted. She could have asked again what was under all that, what “bad habit” he kept brushing off. Instead, she slid her hand over, covering his hand where it rested between shifts. His knuckles went still under her palm.

Hey,” she said quietly. “Thanks.

For what?” He glanced over, genuinely surprised.

For being here,” she said simply. “For tonight. For…letting me have a win that’s just mine, even if everything else feels messy.

His mouth softened. “It was never not yours,” he said. “I’m just lucky I get the front row seat.

Her chest tightened in a way that had nothing to do with nerves this time. “You’re very sappy for someone who pretends to be an emotional disaster.

I am both emotionally profound and a disaster.” He replied. “Don’t stereotype me – fuck the diagnoses on the page.

The hotel came into view ahead, one of those airport-adjacent towers with too-bright signage and a lobby that would smell like coffee and industrial cleaner. Not home. Just waystation. They’d be gone in a handful of hours, Denver skies and Wolfslair mats waiting, Aiden’s silence stretching between cities, whatever shadows were following Dimitri still politely unnamed. But for tonight, there was this: a rental car, a desert road, a win she’d earned, a brother she loved even in absence, a man beside her who was both manager and problem and anchor.

The Land Cruiser turned into the hotel lot, tires crunching over gravel at the edge before finding asphalt again. He parked under a pole light, killed the engine. The sudden quiet wrapped around them. “Last chance for vending machine snacks before I bully you into real food.

She unbuckled, shoulder bumping his as she leaned over to grab her bag from the back. “Doctor’s orders,” she reminded him, mimicking Aaron’s tone. “Protein before bed, not just sugar.

Look at you, weaponizing your own advice,” he said. “I’m so proud.

She rolled her eyes, but the smile that came with it didn’t feel forced anymore. “C’mon, Watson. Tucson’s not going to miss us.

They never do,” he said, but there was no sting in it. Just a tired fondness and the promise of a few hours where the world was shrunk down to four hotel walls, one too-small bed, and the two of them. They climbed out into the desert night, doors thudding shut in near-unison. Behind them, the arena lights dimmed to a distant glow. Ahead, automatic doors sighed open, spilling lobby light onto the pavement. Amelia hitched her bag higher on her shoulder, checked her phone one more time – still no dots on Aiden’s screen – and then followed Dimitri inside, letting the glass close on Tucson and its ghosts until morning.



★★★★★★★


Harper, Harper, Harper…’The Slaytanic Avenger’, a cute play on words while looking like a cookie cutter of every nineteen-year-old without the money or the courage to really sell yourself. The girl who can’t decide whether she’s cursed, chosen, or somehow both.

It’s good to have confidence – every female in this industry should have confidence in themselves. The way you pounded your chest and said you were going to defeat Victoria Lyons and Mercedes Vargas, that you were absolutely certain that you were going to stand over the woman who you said choked…it was exhilarating to see. Why?

Because you truly believe that you’re the good one in every one of these battles.

The hero.

The one that has to bring the rest of us poor, pathetic souls to justice so that you can stand tall at the end of everything as the true savior.

You brand yourself like a comic book hero. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised since you came out of Hero Academy and we all know that Roxi and Kiera Johnson are very prominent in that narrative. It’s really interesting how you say you’re an avenger, a slasher, trying to portray this big bad hero narrative while every promotional video I’ve studied sounds like a court case. Lemme remind you that heroes, when they’re on the precipice of a battle, don’t recount everyone else’s stories and history upon the eve. They live in the moment. They fight in that moment.

But you know what they don’t do? They don’t sit in before every Supercard thinking that every big show owes them a correction.

They don’t sell themselves as the Supergirl of the realm, the one with integrity, the one who ends reigns, the young standard bearer…and then turn around and have excuses for everything you’ve done. You care so much more about how other people get booked, lookin’ at it like a personal slight. There’s a difference, friend-o, between fightin’ hard and actin’ like the moral compass of the division. One is definitely earned while the other is self-appointed and you…you don’t get that ability.

Every major event that you’ve been a part of, in your own words, has had some form of a curse attached to it. High Stakes, every time, you had something that had a built-in excuse for how you performed. Year one, bad breaks; two, humiliating stipulations and booking; three? You had the audacity of people stepping into your business. Surely, if you didn’t have a triple threat for the Internet Championship just now, you would have defeated Mercedes, right?

I’m not fightin’ the ‘Slaytanic Avenger’, I’m fightin’ a very talented young woman who hasn’t learned how to speak without reciting her list of injustices. HarpHarp, how many times can a show go wrong before it stops being bad luck instead of how you handle yourself?

Let’s look at the triple threat itself, shall we? High Stakes didn’t really betray you, which I’m sure you’ll try to paint it as…it showed the gap between impact and composure that you have Harper. I suppose it’ll be because you’re young. But…let’s look at it, shall we? You took out Mercedes and Victoria in a huge aerial spot and neither of them stayed down. You tried to slip in with quick pins off the other things they did in the match – a little schoolgirl pin on the champ champ while someone else did the heavy liftin’. You did some good spots, I’m not denying you that. The finish was almost in your hands…you had the finisher on Mercedes, but you never saw Victoria comin’...and you woke up on the floor watching someone else hold the belt in your setup.

Again. In my opinion, you spent so much time callin’ them choke artists with fumbles and cracks in their armor, but High Stakes showed us your reflection. Don’t tell me this is about honor when everythin’ that lights you up on the page is payback.

Now, me…I was told to put results ahead of my rhetoric. Yeah, I beat Candy and I know you’re gonna tell me that anyone with a taco in the game coulda done that. But I also beat former Bombshells Champions. I could yell about the fuckery that was Summer XXXtreme, but I don’t need to scream about those to make it real. I fucked up, and I’ll own that until I get up to that point again. Because that’s what Wolfslair has taught me.

You rely so much on telling everyone else’s story that’s connected to you that I’m not so sure you’re all about carving your own path so much as hoping you’re in the family scrapbook in the future with an accolade that doesn’t suck. Jessie, how much she was hated. Josh, your manager, how he just got in the Hall of Fame. Cassie, who…ma’am, I defended sure because I was tired of seeing people jump on others when they do the same fuckin’ thing. You’re surrounded by people who can help or hinder…

Me? I’m surrounded by people who don’t need belts to know who they are…and that’s exactly why they keep winnin’ them. Aiden may have lost this one, but that doesn’t mean it ends. Dickie? My manager here, sure – everywhere else, he’s an open threat who has made headlines without a single championship on his placard. He’ll be there, by the way, to make sure Joshie doesn’t help you out to try to make a new story.

So tell me, Harper…if this doesn’t go your way, what’s the story gonna be? Unfair booking? You thought I was lesser than I was? I’m here to test the part of you that doesn’t have a script…there’s no triple threat here, no extra bodies. No title. Pride, trajectory…perception on the line. I’ll bring focus, craft, and the willingness to own every second of whatever happens.

This season of Sin City rests in my hands. And now it’s time for ya to learn it. Good luck.

5
Supercard Archives / Re: CANDY v AMELIA REYNOLDS
« on: November 07, 2025, 09:36:53 PM »
mirrors
01. proof  over promises

★★★★★★★

It was a different kind of feel, being backstage in an environment like this Halloween edition of Climax Control. The crowd flooded the theme park, filling in holes to see the sights and the wrestler in this weird set. Even in all of that, she was able to slip through unseen and unmitigated. Amelia’s eyes washed over the crowds as she tugged her hoodie closer to her body. It wasn’t that California was particularly cold, but it most certainly was that she was anxious.

As she approached the makeshift office in the park for the General Manager, an assistant sat at a table, typing furiously onto a macbook. She glanced up as Amelia’s boots clicked against the pavement inside the little conference room that had been provided to Sin City for internal, out of public operations for the night. Concept posters for High Stakes XV were lined on the table next to her, some matches already completed and created. Others were waiting on the result of tonights’ festivities. Bold typeface announced other people’s destinies while hers waited, quiet, in the marrow of her bones.

In her pocket, a seam of wrist tape slid beneath her fingers, as if it might bite her. She had kept a piece of it, from the last time, like a penance.

Last time.

She let herself slip. It wasn’t melodrama so much as it was the simple arithmetic of it. Add increased preparation, subtract presence, multiply pressure, and divide the heart – all of the math was wrong and she’d ended up watching a woman who didn’t even bother to speak her name – or anyone else’s – somehow win a match that she didn’t even care about. For the first time in years, she hadn’t known how to stand back up. Amelia had vanished then, not because she didn’t love this sport, but because loving it and losing to indifference felt like swallowing little, bitty shards of glass. She couldn’t.

The monitor next to the assistant crackled to life with her brother’s match completely under way with Alexander Raven. She knew the look he was giving, the all he was providing to the match. His shoulders were square, the rhythm of his footwork was something she’d known since childhood. But there was also something in his eyes. A throttle held too tight or a wire pulled one thread too far. She couldn’t name it, and that unsettled her more than she let on. She pinched the bridge of her nose, steadied her breath, and turned her head away from it.

You here to talk to Ms. Hall?” The assistant, Hayley, questioned as she took a sip from her milkshake. Hayley was dressed up for the night in something that was akin to attire a stripper might wear on Halloween, a bad production of a nurse’s costume.

I don’t know if she’s expecting me, but yeah,” Amelia nodded, her Queensland accent a stark contrast to the dumb blonde that fell out of the assistant’s mouth.

Evelyn Hall peered out of her small office through the half-open door, and then took a few poised steps forward. She placed a well manicured hand on the doorframe and leaned forward. “Miss Reynolds,” she addressed her, her tone cool but not unkind. Firm lines, tidy posture, a gaze that measured without lingering. “Come in.

Amelia followed Evelyn into the office and shut the door. Evelyn sat at the desk and folded her hands, gesturing just so in a way that invited Amelia to sit. Amelia stood rather than sink into the chair, as if sitting before she’d earned her place back would be presumptuous. “Thank you for seeing me. I’ll…be direct, so we don’t waste your time.

Evelyn’s brow tipped with an invitation. A small smirk.

I want to be here for the long run,” Amelia began, her voice steadier than she thought it would be. “I don’t want to be a marquee hit for you or Christian, someone you can spot in as a cutesy name to garner interest. I left poorly, and that’s on me. I don’t expect grace just because I say the right words. I expect to do the work, consistently, whether a camera is pointed at me or not. The job hasn’t changed, the desire hasn’t changed. I just want to be respected by the people I work with enough to be addressed.

Unsurprisingly, Evelyn’s eyebrow did not tip any lower. She tilted her head.

If you need it in writing, I’ll sign the contract. Dates. Deliverables. Media. Whatever the standard is, hold me to it. I just don’t want to be treated as if I don’t matter because I do matter. You and I both know it. I had that match won and in less than a millisecond, it was stolen even though I’d done the exact same thing that was expected. I know I can be good. But I want to be valued for that success too.

Evelyn let the silence sit for a moment, orderly and deliberate, to see if Amelia would flinch. Amelia did not. Instead, the Australian folded her hands in front of her and waited for a response. If there was anything that Amelia was not going to do, it was to be taken as a foolish human being with a penchant for making the wrong decision.

The company’s expectations are not a mystery, Miss Reynolds,” Evelyn said at least, her voice more steady than Amelia’s ever could be. “Attendnace, promo compliance. Professional conduct. You meet those, and your work speaks on its own. You miss them, and there are consequences that are not personal, only procedural.” Her gaze trimmed down to a finer edge. “Your last departure created instability. You understand that we will need proof over time, not promises tonight.

I do. Bench me if I wobble, fine me if I miss. Don’t shield me from the mirror.

A small concession curved the corner of Evelyn’s mouth. She slid a folder across the desk. “Appearance schedule. Standard addendum for ringside personnel. A conduct pact…you initial every line you agree to. If a clause gives you pause, raise it now.

Amelia didn’t sit. She balanced the folder against her forearm and read. Every line. Every sub-bullet. Then, she uncapped the pen and began to initial. Her signature didn’t flourish as much as it resolved. When she reached the conduct pact, she slowed on one sentence.

In adversity and victory, I will show the ring the regard it has earned from me.

The words caught in her throat and then went clean through.

She signed.

Evelyn waited until the pen was still and the last page lay flat beneath Amelia’s palm. “I believe there is one more matter, as your email requested? A manager. Although we have several personalities backstage, I would have to find one that would be suitable to complete your return and make it presentable. Perhaps you–

With all due respect, I’d prefer to bring in someone that I know. I’d like permission to credential Dimitri Watson as a contracted manager at High Stakes and beyond. He would, of course, observe every boundary that the company rules are crucial to remember. If he breaches, then eject him. I won’t contest it.

Evelyn’s fingers came up to her lips as she surveyed Amelia. “Dickie Watson?” She obviously knew the name. “Another one of Wolfslair to make themselves comfortable on my show?” Her eyes narrowed slightly. “State your why.

Because I let my compass spin last time,” Amelia admitted clearly. “I don’t need interference, and he wouldn’t do that anyway. I need calibration. He steadies me and keeps me in the match I trained for instead of the one in my head. I’m asking for guidance so I don’t lose my head again.” Amelia reached into her pocket and handed her the paper that she was sure Evelyn didn’t need, but that she looked at anyway.

Dickie’s credentials, training, everything that was remotely important in hiring someone who would be on the payroll, but not necessarily Sin City sound lay on that paper. His current companies, the fact that he was active. Evelyn glanced over them, raising an eyebrow. “He seems…busy.

He is. But he won’t fail in showing. Won’t cause a ruckus. Might help interact with fans, but that’s about it. He’s not interested in being a competitor here, even though the rest of his family basically is here. He’s busy where he’s busy, but he’s here for me.

Evelyn considered, and then nodded. Once. The decision in her expression settled like a stamp, an official seal of okay, I hear you. “Very well, then. Mr. Watson is approved to serve as your manager at High Stakes and on subsequent dates. The rules are simple, of course: he doesn’t get involved in matches. He is not a competitor here, so he will be fined if he involves himself in anything other than the standard managerial fare. He listens to the referee–” Amelia’s brain smirked at that, considering the fact that he didn’t like listening to referees to begin with, “...and defers to them at all times. If there is even a hint of him encroaching on the ring, he will be removed. Understood?

Her brain logged every single time Dickie or Aiden interfered in the other’s match.

That wasn’t going to last very long.

I understand,” she nodded, regardless. “He’ll maintain himself during my matches.

Evelyn caught the loophole in her words, and her eyes narrowed slightly. “And should I expect him at your brother’s side as well?

Amelia’s mouth tipped a small, hesitant smile, and she let one shoulder lift in an honest concession. “It’s not out of the realm of possibility, since they’re best mates. The Commonwealth runs what it runs together and…I mean, if they happen to be sharing a brain cell at one point or another…

I sincerely hope it’s not just one brain cell.

It more than likely is.” She confirmed, gravely.

With a small smile hinging at the edges of her lips, Evelyn tapped her pen on the folder for a couple of seconds before stilling her fingers.

Whatever Mr. Watson and Mr. Reynolds choose to do is between them, and yet still subject to all of the same fines as they would have been before. He’s contracted as your manager, not a competitor. On your dates, he maintains himself. No encroachment,” she repeated, “no physical involvement. Clear?

Crystal.

Good.” Evelyn thumbed through her stacks of papers, finding the paperwork of an unfinished show. In the background, the monitor highlighted the moment in which Aiden Stubby Kick’d Alexander Raven into the remaining thumbtacks. Amelia’s head whipped over, the crowd going absolutely nuts and entirely grossed out at the same time. She didn’t realized she’d stepped closer until her knee touched the edge of the desk. On the screen, Aiden’s shoulders stacked, Raven folded, and the ref’s hand slapping the canvas like a drumbeat she’d grow up marching to.

…one…

…two…

Her heart leaped up into her throat…

…three!

Air rushed out of her before she could catch it, a soundless laugh that trembled at the edges. Pride flared, sharp and clean; beneath it, the unsettled seam still tugged at her brain. Whatever was off in his eyes hadn’t left with the bell. But for this heartbeat, all of the math checked out and made a neat solution. He’d done it.

Congratulations to your family,” Evelyn said, tone level but not unwind as she slid the unfinished show packet into a manila sleeve. She didn’t look at the monitor. Instead, she looked at Amelia, weighing her steadiness and not the spectacle. “Proof over promises, Miss Reynolds.

Proof over promises,” she echoed, softer.

Evelyn capped her pen with a neat click. “I am in the process of finalizing the show, but you’ll face Candy at High Stakes. I think that would be a good place to begin – a beloved icon of our company versus the girl who walked away. Candy. I’m sure you’re familiar with the name. Security will have your laminates in Tucson upon your arrival.

Amelia gathered the folder that Evelyn set upon the desk. The crowd’s roar from the monitor bled through the walls. Post-match aftershock, all brass and thunder. She let herself look once more: Aiden on the ropes, sweat-struck and staring past the hard cam into a private horizon. Pride lifted in her chest, clean as a bell, though the hairline worry still ran beneath it like a fault. She didn’t reach for her phone yet. Boundaries were part of the repair.

Welcome back, Miss Reynolds.” Evelyn’s tone was tidy, final. “Make it durable.

Of course,” Amelia said, meaning it fully. She turned on her heel then, and when she stepped into the hallway again, it tasted like fog fluid and kettle corn. Hayley flicked eyes up from her MacBook, waved, and ushered Amelia on her way. Amelia’s hoodie stayed up as she walked, and she shoved a free hand into a pocket. The wrist tape in her pocket felt less like penance, but more so now a reminder of what it cost to forget herself for a second.

Amelia felt an instinct to sprint towards gorilla, to throw her arms around her brother and stitch herself into his moment, reflexive so that she could burn herself into it. She let it crest and fall, and as if reading the air around her, her phone buzzed in her pocket.

Park entrance. Two minutes?

Four words, accompanied with a picture of a smoothie that was likely that godawful banana flavor he knew she liked. A smile circled her lips – it didn’t matter if he was throwing up walls whenever it came to his business dealings that had nothing to do with wrestling – he still was there, gremlin catch and all. And when she arrived at the park entrance, he was there. Dimitri, or so she called him. The only person who could without him raising the hackles of his lips. Curly hair pulled into a bun at the top of his head, smoothie with the paper still wrapped on the straw, lackadaisical in his lean against the topiary barrier.

His eyes floated over the wayside. “Three?” He inquired, and she knew what he was asking. Did his best friend succeed?

Three,” she confirmed. Pride warmed her voice, but she stuffed it down. She hooked her pinky into his free hand and pulled his arm back and forth a little. “You’re approved, too. Manager lane though, only. When you’re with me…you’re Switzerland.

Neutral with opinions?

Neutral with discipline.” She corrected. They began walking back towards the parking lot, where she knew his rented Toyota Land Cruiser was waiting like a giant blue box. She leaned into him, pressing her cheek to his shoulder and smiling.

He kissed her on the forehead as they walked. “And Aiden?

That’s between you and Evelyn and Aiden…” she looked up at him. “You two share a brain cell…you’ll have to spare it for the paperwork.

Dickie closed one eye and grimaced. “Bold of you to assume we have paperwork.” His response was dry enough to make the corner of her mouth lift anyway.

He tipped the cup toward her hand without looking, the paper-wrapped straw crinkling as she peeled it down. The first pull tasted like childhood and chalk. The banana was too sweet, the protein too present; still, it settled the static in her chest.

Evelyn will like you,” she said after a beat. “You follow rules when they’re written on the floor.

When they’re written in tape,” he corrected, mouth quirking. “Paint is for people who want to argue.

They passed beneath a string of orange bulbs sagging between poles, the theme-park soundtrack thinning into the night hum of generators and distant traffic. The parking lot opened ahead: rows of metal beasts catching the carnival glow, the rented Land Cruiser hulking like a patient ship. She kept his pinky, swung it twice more, then let go.

Call time on the ninth?” he asked.

Early,” she said. “Security wants us at zone brief before doors. I’ll send you the map.

Manager lane. Switzerland. I’ll remember.” He cut her a sidelong glance. “Any other rails?

She considered. “Yeah. Don’t fix my face with your face.

That’s…specific.

It means let me ride the nerves,” she said. “Don’t sand them off. Or try to make me feel better. Just make sure they point forward.

Copy,” he said softly. “Forward, not down.

They reached the car. He opened the passenger door like he always did, lifting a hand in case she needed balance to get in. She slid in, tugging the hoodie free and breathing in the interior’s faint dealership-cleaner scent. He rounded to the driver’s side, the keys chirped, and the dash woke in pale blues.

She didn’t look at him when she asked, “Your week?

A pause, clean as a cut. “Booked.

I figured.” She kept her tone neutral; there wasn’t any point in reminding him about the overextension of himself. “You’ll tell me what I need to know for my dates.”

I will.” The engine settled into a low purr. “And I’ll be there.

She accepted that as the answer it was…the wall where the wall lived, the promise where it belonged. No leverage, no prying tonight. She wasn’t here to pick a lock; she was here to set her feet.

He pulled out, the park shrinking in the rearview. She thumbed open her phone, checked the confirmation from production, the message from security, the calendar block she’d made before she walked into Evelyn’s office. Proof over promises. She typed it in her notes anyway.

Candy’s fun,” he said, as if observing the weather. “Crowd likes their sugar.

They should.” She replied. “I don’t have to hate a person to beat them. I just have to be better at the bell.” A breath. “She’ll get respect. From me and from the room.

And from you when you say her name,” he added.

They hit the main road. Night smoothed out into lanes and speed-limit signs; palm shadows raked the windshield and fell away. She let the smoothie sit in the cup holder, fingers finding the seam of wrist tape in her pocket again. It didn’t bite this time. It just reminded.

You going to check on him?” she asked, eyes still forward.

Aiden?” He rolled his shoulder like a thought. “I’ll find him. Later. Not to crowd the frame.

You don’t need to,” she said, but knew he’d do it anyway. “He did it.

He did. Still. Brain cell courtesy requires a touch base.

She laughed once, quiet. “Fine. Share custody. Alternate weekends.

They pulled into the hotel lot. The engine ticked down, the world exhaled. He didn’t reach for her; he didn’t need to. She felt the compass notch again anyway. She opened the door, the night air threading cool across her collarbones. Before she stepped out, she leaned back in. “One more rail.

He arched a brow.

Don’t sell me to the building,” she said. “Let me sell myself.

He nodded, solemn for once. “Wouldn’t dare.

She closed the door. The click sounded like a period. Upstairs, a window glowed; somewhere a vending machine hummed. She walked toward the stairwell with the folder tucked to her ribs and the banana aftertaste ghosting the back of her tongue, feeling the balance land where she’d aimed it.

Say the names. Respect the bell. Outwrestle the moment.

Proof over promises.

The park’s lights were a distant constellation now. She didn’t need them to find the way.



★★★★★★★


Headlights stitched a pale ribbon down the Ten, the desert night yawning wide and salt-blue around the car. Gas stations blinked like lonely buoys and saguaros stood with their arms up like they were saying hi the entire ride down. The dash cam sat propped against a coffee cup and a packet of sour worms, catching Amelia from the shoulders up, pony swinging, hoodie half-zipped, freckles bright when the white lines flickered through.

She cleared her throat, a little laugh escaping before she could help it. “Right. G’day—well, g’night, I suppose.” Her smile had bounce to it even now. “Summer XXXTreme… that one knocked the wind outta me, hey.

She tapped two fingers against the steering wheel, counting a rhythm only she felt. “Six of us in there, two refs, and I flew like I meant it. I had my three in my head and then–” she snapped once, soft, “--one count beat the other by less than a heartbeat. Not a stitch-up. Just timing.

She went quiet for a breath, eyes on the road, tongue worrying the ring in her lip.

Still gutted me.

Another chew. “Like I swallowed a box of thumbtacks and smiled for the cameras anyway. I got pinned once by her, once by Kate, and I still put people down. So I know I belong. Didn’t feel like it that night, though. Felt… hollow. I went home and let it all fall out, ugly and proper, till my chest stopped aching. Then I shut it down. Trial contract, trial run—trial heart. I figured if I couldn’t show up as me, I wouldn’t show up at all.

The highway hummed under the tyres; a warm wind nosed through the cracked window and lifted a strand of silver hair. Her grin wandered back like a stray cat. “But I’m not built to sulk forever. I’m Australian; we trip over, we say ‘whoops,’ we get back up with a cheeky wave. I looked at the tape, ate my humble pie, and I figured the fix wasn’t bigger moves—it was judgment. No more chasing the first cover ‘cause it feels pretty. No more falling with style. Fly when it’s smart. Land when it counts.

She nudged the camera straighter with one knuckle. “So…re-entry. Tucson lights up ahead, new dates inked, and my feet under me again. I’m still peppy, still a menace to any packet of lollies within reach, still ‘The Skyborn’—just with a better altimeter. July hurt. It also told me exactly what to fix.” She glanced sideways at the lens, a spark in her eyes. “And I fixed it.

The smile didn’t stick the way it used to. It settled deeper, steadier, as if it had learned its own weight. She told the lens that she hadn’t come back with a bigger arsenal so much as a cleaner compass. The flash was still there, sure, but it wasn’t steering anymore.

New changes,” she said, and the words came out like a small shrug and a promise. “I stopped treating the pop from the crowd like a scoreboard. I started treating my breath like a metronome. In… out… choose. If it isn’t on purpose, I don’t do it. If it doesn’t win me inches, it’s pretty for nothing, hey?

She talked about mornings where she didn’t perform for anyone—road runs before sunrise, ring time when the building was still yawning awake, food that wasn’t just coffee and stubbornness. Confidence, she decided, wasn’t swagger or noise. It was doing the same smart thing on a good day and a bad one. It was telling herself she belonged before the bell did.

And I’m not so alone this time,” she added, lighter. No grand reveal, no parade. Just truth. “I’ve got a second pair of eyes that knows when my head wants to race my feet. Someone to point at the mat when I’m already looking at the top rope. Not to play hero. To keep me honest.” She grinned, a quick, cheeky thing. The pep crept back in, threaded with a firmer spine. She wasn’t begging for faith; she carried it herself. She wasn’t auditioning for a spotlight; she was clocking in for work.

So yeah,” she finished, tapping the wheel as if it were a bell. “New attitude. New self-esteem. Same girl. Just a little more grown-up about how she flies. Tucson’s up ahead. High Stakes XV. First on the ledger’s Candy. Bright, fast, loved. I respect that.” A beat; the spark flared. “I’ll meet her in the air if I have to. I’d rather meet her on purpose.

The road unspooled ahead, steady and dark, and she let the camera hold her while she shifted the subject where it needed to go.

Candy,” she said, and her tone warmed as if she were already across the ring. “You just came back not even a dozen shows ago. I watched. You didn’t wander. You landed. People were happy to see you, and I get why. You wrestle like you mean it and you smile like you mean that, too.

She leaned closer, elbows light on the wheel, voice bright but measured. “So I’ll talk to you like ya know ya matter. You’re fast. You’re cheeky. You’ve got that pop that makes the roof feel lighter. When you sting, you stack it. If I blink, I’m eating it. If I give you air, you double it. That’s not fluffy. That’s craft.

Her mouth quirked at one corner. “And I know your tricks because I bothered to learn them. I did the review. I know that you have an arsenal of moves up your sleeve that can cause damage if I’m not careful. It’s all good wrestling, and I respect good wrestling. I know you’re good, Candy. I know you can be, and the fact that you’ve lost your last three shouldn’t mean anythin’. I can’t second guess, because I’ve done that already once. Not to you, but to myself.

She let the respect hang a second, then set her line. Her pep sharpened into purpose. “I’m not here to embarrass you. I’m here to beat you right, and I think you want that, too. Because you don’t need a shortcut to be loved. You’re loved anyway. I don’t need a shortcut to be seen. I’m done shouting for it, I’m done bein’ a woman that gets burned by the bigwigs because they wanted to put a diamond next to a lackluster pearl. I want a challenge, friend. I want this to matter. You bring your bounce. Bring Fluffy if you like; I’ll say hi before the bell. Bring the sparkle and the speed and the best you’ve got.

She sat back, a steady little nod sealing it. “And I’ll bring a cleaner compass. Breath before bounce. Judgment before jumping. If you catch me flush, fair play – make sure you finish it. If I catch you first, I won’t pose or preen. I’ll tuck you down, hold tight, and count the sky to three.

She let the words hang, then breathed out through her nose, shoulders easing. The wheel clicked under her palm; the indicator ticked like a lazy drummer as she slid past a long, empty exit.

Here’s the other bit,” she said, and there was a grin in it you could hear. “I’m not walking in scared of your pop. I’m walking in hungry for the work. I’m not going to point at the sign or do the big, dramatic stare-down with the hard cam. I’m gonna check the posts, touch the ropes, and start on the bell. If you want to sprint, I’ll steer. If you want to fly, I’ll make sure there’s someone under you when you land: me.

She tipped her head, the ponytail swaying, a touch of mischief brightening the words. “And – this is super important – I like ya. The world needs wrestlers who make kids smile and want to bounce around the lounge. But I also need the win. I need it like water after Summer XXXTreme. So I’m not going to get lost in the yay of it. I’m going to be present. Hands up. Eyes on. Feet under. If we make magic, we make it by earning it.

The odometer ticked. Tucson glow began to lift the far horizon, a smudge of city rising out of the dark. She rolled her shoulders as if she were already warming up in the hallway outside gorilla.

You’ll hear me before you see me,” she went on, teasing herself more than the match. “Bit of a chatterbox when I’m settled. ‘Nah, not today.’ ‘Nope, we’re not doing that.’ ‘Oi, back in the ring with me.’ You’ll get the cheek. You’ll get the speed. But you’ll also get the bit that learned how not to chase the pretty cover. It’s three counts or it’s nothing.

She paused, and the pep softened into something careful and sincere. “And I’m not alone. Got someone to keep me honest if my head starts doing laps. He’s not there to swing. He’s there to point at the floor and remind me where my feet are. If the ref so much as looks sideways, he’ll park it. Promise. This one’s between you and me.

For a heartbeat she said nothing, letting the tyres sing and the desert breathe. Then her smile came back, small and bright, exactly hers.

Right then. Candy, I’ll see you at High Stakes XV. Bring the sparkle. I’ll bring the steady. We’ll make ‘em loud and then we’ll make ‘em count.

She reached forward and tapped the screen, the camera stuttering as the focus chased her hand. The freeway widened; signs for Speedway and 22nd flicked by like cue cards. She glanced at the lens one last time, freckles ghosting gold in the spill of a passing semi.

Three seconds,” she said, cheerful as a dare. “And I know exactly how to count ‘em.

The dash cam bobbed as she hit the indicator, and the night folded toward the lights. The feed went black with a little thumbprint smudge and a laugh she didn’t quite swallow.
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6
echo 04 truth

I was always told by everyone else I know that Supercards are kinda that one time in the entirety of Sin City’s existence that I can spend hooking daggers into everyone. I didn’t understand what that meant when I was told it, but after witnessing this cruise…and this Supercard…I get it. I mean, the chance to actually sit down and refute what someone else had to say while still being able to get your points in?

Fuckin’ brilliant, hey.

We’re off to sea, and I think I want to point out that the ocean is quite a bit louder than I thought it’d be. I’m not sure if that’s just because the boat itself sounds like it might need a rudder or two repaired, or if it’s the amount of wrestlers and people on this ship that seem to think that chaos is hilarious, or if I’m hearing Dory out in the ocean screamin’ about whales and P. Sherman Wallaby Way Sydney, but here we are. In my absolutely personal opinion, though, it’s not any louder than some of you tryin’ to scream from the rafters and convince yourselves that you’re already the winner.

And bein’ stuck on a boat with five other women who think they’ve already like…won? It’s a recipe for absolute disaster, but also a good goddamn lesson in humility.

It’s kinda noticeable the level of desire that’s present in this matchup. Three of us made our voices heard, and I would be remiss to say that the other three just couldn’t find the time, desire, or skill to put themselves to the test. I mean, I guess I get it. After all, going into a match with five other women and possibly having the slimmest opportunity to win can be daunting. Two of them, though…I mean, I get it.

Joanne Cannoli – and yes, I know it’s Canelli, but now I’m just calling her a cannoli – couldn’t roll her way out here and say anything the first time, why should I expect redemption being desired? Is it because the competition is steeper now? Is it because everythin’ is different? You can be the first Bombshell Internet Champion, but nothin’ matters if you can’t adjust and get with the times. I was hopeful that I would see something new from her. But obvi-obvi, that isn’t happenin’.

Kate Steele did what I expected, ya know? Ran her mouth one week. When we faced last, I learned that Kate Steele…has this deep, deep insecurity about herself, like a fragile little ego being held that is super dependent on everyone else lookin’ at her and recognizin’ her greatness…but if ya didn’t care about what people said, you wouldn’t have spent fifteen minutes cryin’ about it either.

Sorry, not sorry.

Kate loves to list her trophies like they matter, but then say no one believed in her. Proud of the work done on herself…both figuratively and literally, and I mean…bet.More power to you in the titty committee. But like…maybe you would get better if you’d done as much work on your heart as you did your beauty, because that’s where real champions get built.

That’s where people like me get built.

I know I’m pretty. I have platinum hair and I have blue eyes, and I wear makeup, and I can thot with some of the best of them. My boyfriend tells me I’m beautiful all the time. But that’s secondary to who I am. I wasn’t built in an operating room or a stylist chair. And I sure as shit didn’t get to where I am by yellin’ at anyone that I’m beautiful and they should push me just cause of that.

Sorry, but you can’t buy your way into resilience. Can’t surgery your way into legacy. Can’t paint over your history and cracks with glitz, ego and expect it to hold up under pressure.

And sweetheart, you haven’t. You haven’t held up under pressure, because the woman I saw last time that fought with glitter and grit didn’t act the way she did and not show to prove herself this week. You say that this Kate you are is different, but it just kinda sounds like the last one at this point. And if we’re bein’ honest, Kate, you keep askin’ for more, but then you don’t follow through. You don’t actually want challenges. You want applause, with your stupid pop routine and your thought that if you thot your way up, you’ll be respected.

You told me last time that all I’d done was won once.

But who won my second match? Me. You’re not as evolved as you think. And if the only way you feel strong is by tearin’ down women who’ve already survived worse than you, then maybe you should get surgery on your brain next.

And Diamond Caldwell? Listenin’ to you talkin’ to us like we’re in your secondary school experience kinda made me want to stab myself in the ears and keep that trauma from rising in my brain. It bothers me when people can’t…like…own up to their own stupidity and I kind of wish I hadn’t done any research now. But let me point out a couple of things on ya, sweetie…you fight for Seleana Zdunich like she’s a lifeline…which makes you look like a shadow. What happens if she doesn’t stand behind ya if you’re so co-dependent on her existence to make you look good? And if we’re bein’ honest, you’re sittin’ there in your promotionals sayin’ that you don’t care what people think, but just like Andrea – and we’ll get there – you spent an entire moment to sell yourself and what you’re bringin’ to the table in a whole ass contradiction. I don’t care, but you do. You so do. Oh my god, you so do.

Let’s also just like…totally note that you act like you’re swingin’ on people like they owe you money and you’re Rihanna. Definitely screamin’ Bitch better have my money, but not actually gettin’ the skills up there in order to retrieve the money. This isn’t just some brawl-for-all, we’re not in a fight club, and this isn’t a sanctioned UFC knockdown dragout. This is precision, this is wrestlin’.

And if you think comin’ in here with a pretty face and nails to hell, then you’re wrong. I don’t think you know what wrestlin’ means.

It means you bleed with your whole soul, means ya hurt in silence when no one’s watchin’. You kinda just learn to hold your breath, and then you swing. Ya show up when the crowd’s thin, even when the lights aren’t that bright, and when the match doesn’t mean much to anyone but you.

Aiden taught me that the hardest fights aren’t against opponents, although they’re definitely a huge factor. But it’s mostly about the voices in your head tellin’ ya to stay down. That sometimes you kinda fall flat, and then you laugh through the bruise because if you don’t, you don’t get up again. Taught me humor is a shield, timin’ is everythin’ and loyalty is paramount. You can be underestimated, and still flip the narrative on its head, ya know? Lookit him this week, right? Facin’ off for a chance at the World Heavyweight Championship, when all he wanted was the Roulette Championship shot he deserved.

And Dickie.

You all don’t know Dickie. Or maybe you’ve heard of him, and you’ve been curious. But even though he didn’t train me, he taught me that silence is paramount. He’ll sit there and watch the tape until his eyes burn, won’t quit when his body is screamin’. It’s kinda hard to watch at the same time because I don’t want to see him hurt like that, but he gives a piece of himself to this sport like the canvas is the only thing that’s ever loved him back.

And lemme tell you how hard it is to fight with fabric and wood as the subject of any affection. It sucks. Oh my god, it sucks.

But wrestlin’ ain’t about bein’ loud, or who has the best knife in the ribs. It isn’t about the heaviest hands. Or the biggest boobs, the blondest hair, the shittiest attitude or even the most spooky-seasoned. It has to do with everythin’ about the soul, and standing across from someone and sayin’ to them that you respect them as a competitor, you don’t hate them, and still believin’ that you’re going to give them hell.

And Andrea.

Hi, we’ve met before.

I pinned you last time. Two weeks ago.

I told you what I thought about you and your perceptions. I’m happy to repeat them, and I’m sure you’re gonna sit there and tell me that I’m nothin’ different than anyone else. That I’m repeating the same bullshit that everyone else is doing. And that’s fine. If that’s whatcha want to believe, then you believe that right on through, from here over to Five Burroughs. I noted you still have the same commonality here that you do there – when you don’t do well, you shut your mouth. You internalize.
But this time…this time you decided to spend your entire last promo basically tellin’ us how broken ya are. How angry, how you didn’t want to be there. I heard it. I heard what you said. You said I didn’t even want to be there like it was a fact, like it didn’t matter, like none of us would really recognized the weight of that that meant. Sweetheart, sugarplums, that’s not just a bad day, it’s a tell. That’s the red flag hangin’ from the rafters that turns into a white flag.

Ya gave up.

You gave up. You got pinned and you told the world you didn’t care anymore. And now you’re tryin’ to convince us that you’re back for realisies and that if you just say the words, you’ll hope we all forget the dichotomy of your presentation.

But I don’t forget. None of us forget. To sit there and tell us that you didn’t care about a match is an enormous fuck you to the rest of us that put our all into that thing, and a huge damn insult to the people who want to succeed. This division was built on the bones of wanting the same amount of limelight and you go and pull a bitchass move like that, while still expectin’ the spotlight to fall on you like you matter in the grand scheme of things a couple of weeks later because someone licked your wounds for you?

Ya lost your fire. And now you’re expecting us to help you out by given’ you a torch. And that kind of confession, sayin’ that you’re nervous and can’t succeed…is kinda dangerous. Not for me, not for anyone else. But for you. Because you’re still sittin’ acting like your owed something because of your past, but you haven’t been fightin’ with passion. And if you can’t say it with your chest, then you’re gonna be eatin’ canvas before you remember what you were standin’ for.

And ya know what else stood out to me, Andi? You sounded mad. At the crowd, at the locker room. At the idea that anyone could still see you as anything less than what you think you are…but that’s the thing about the world, isn’t it? People stop listenin’ after they’ve heard the same diatribe over and over again. I’m not here cause I threw a tantrum like you did. I’m not here because I kicked up dust and demanded attention. I’m here because I’ve been studying, sharpening, and climbing…quietly. Dutifully. I did my job.

I don’t need to be angry to grow, and you do. That’s the difference. You’re still fightin’ everyone in the shadows and givin’ breaths to every critic. You’re not focused on us, you’re just too busy provin’ to everyone else what everyone already knows: you’re livin’ in the past and you’ve been left behind. You’re still livin’ in twenty-twenty one with that article that wrote you off and still trying to climb out from that hole. ou keep fightin’ ghosts and callin’ it victory…like you’re never gonna stumble.

But every time you stumble, you promise it’s gonna be different. If it always has to be said, has it truly ever been done? Have you remembered how to not stumble? How to not fall? You’ve comeback how many times and performatively succeeded? Kayla beat you for the championship after you said you were going to hold onto it forever. She came back. And you? You spend so much time the next few matches explainin’ to the rest of us who you’re not that I’m not even sure you know who you are. But you certainly spend all of that time too screamin’ at the heavens that no one is listenin. Like you have to burn out for your fire to rise.

But you’re still climbin’ out of the ash.

Andrea…I don’t really need to spend any time tearin’ you down. You’ve done that well enough yourself. I just need to stand here steady while you keep trying to remember how it feels to have victory that isn’t tainted by your poor soul.

Then…then there’s you, Alexandra.

You didn’t come in this time cryin’ like you were bein’ broken. You walked in like you forged in the fires of Gondor and bathed in the blood of the Naz’ghul.  Showed up with that calm, queenly little statuesque self that reminds me of a robotic gothic misteress, like your words should echo through cathedral halls, all drippin’ from some bloodstained altar while we all stand in reverence of your tragedy.

Girl. My girl. PLEASE.

You’re not a fallen angel and you honestly just kinda sound exhausted. I watched you speak like grief and all your trials and tribs made you a monarch upon us all. Cool, you won Queen for  a Day…but soundin’ like you’re sufferin’ was a birthright and that we should bow our heads for the edgelordy parade of pain that follows you into every ring you grace kinda made me gag.

A lot.

In a trash can.

And I’m not even seasick.

None of us are prayin’. I hope yuou realize that.

You’re draped in metaphor and whiusperin’ threats like their some kinda prophecy. You’ve created this tragic little epic with you in a high-collared coat and a crown of dusk and a graveyard of forgotten women at your feet. You speak slow, deliberate, like every word’s a blade, and we’re all just kinda supposed to sit there and revere ya.

Here’s the thing about illusions though, Alexandra. They only work if the audience forgets to blink.

You’re walkin’ around like you’re the only truth on the ship. Like ten of you haven’t been spit out before, voidwalkin’ and actin’ like you’re the biggest, baddest thing in the world. I HATE overblown shit and that’s what I see in you. Real danger doesn’t rehearse and doesn’t make ya wait for the right lightin’ before it strikes. Kinda like Kate up there, you’ve spent so long stylin’ yourself as a storm that you forgot how to fit like one.

You called me a mystery. Said I was a problem waitin’ to be solved. Like that makes me small, like you’ve done all your goth princess math and you’re just waitin’ to circle an answer. I’m not a problem, I’m not a riddle, and I’m not some code you break with poetic threats and a sharpened jawline. I’m a person. A fighter. And a woman who’s bled more quietly than you’ve ever screamed.

I just don’t talk about it.

That’s where you and I differ. You want the world to flinch when you whisper. You want to stand in front of a storefront and talk like you’re some deathbringer reckoning, like your prophecies and the strip should watch you burn another name down. But…you mistake volume control for depth. You call yourself reality when we all look at you like you’ve kinda gotten stuck in a weird version of VampireFreaks and think you’re still relevant in twenty-twenty five.

Ya told me I haven’t bled for my momentum.

Honey I’m doin’ it now.

You look at me and see the version of yourself that you resented and refuse to let surface: one that doesn’t have to shout to be heard. You’ve said you ended careers. You’re proud of that and that’s your legacy. But I’m not here to end anyone. I’m here to outlast them. I’m here to outlast you. And for all your talk about smoke and mirror, you ever notice how many shadows you wrap yourself in before you step into any kinda light?

You’re not a ceiling. You are not the end all be all. You are just another woman who continues to live in this delusion that you matter. And I’m sorry, but you don’t. There are thousands of jokes I have for you at your expense. I’m here to play the game of outlast the woman who thinks they’re the alpha and omega. You can call me smoke and mirror, but you’re the one with the costume. I walk into the ring with nothin’ but my truth.

It’s almost like you say you’re reality, but you only ever show up dressed up like a nightmare and hoe we’ll confuse the two. I’m not afraid of you. I’ve already survived things you couldn’t name. I don’t need to end you to rise. I just need to pass through.

Hint hint.

I will.

So all of you, keep sitting there and telling me how I’m going to keep failing. How it’s a fluke, how it’s my second match, how I won’t survive.

And let me tell you now – it’ll be my hand raised. And yours?

Not even lifted.
★★★★★★★

Some mellow, steel drum version of a pop song that hadn’t been relevant in at least six years was playing softly over the overhead speakers. The rhythm of it matched the gentle sway of the Princess Cruise liner as it cut through the ocean. There were all kinds of people on the ship, but in reality, no one really paid attention to another person, unless they were trying to seek out and spy like some creepy salesman.

Amelia’s legs were stretched out over a poolside chaise, one flip-flop dangling from her toes as she laid back beneath the shade of a wide striped umbrella. There was absolutely zero chance that she was going to burn on this cruise, because her skin was fair and literally fuck a sunburn and the ring. Her sunglasses were oversized, tinted pink, and her bikini was modest. Black. White edging. She sun into the kind of calm that merely came from sun-warmed skin and salt in the air. Her fingers softly held onto a finished strawberry daiquiri, condensation dripping down the side of it like it was weeping.

She wasn’t alone. Kallie Reznik, her sister in law, was sitting in the water, her legs dangling in the chlorine. Her feet lazily swished beneath the surface, her pink bikini bright under the sun and her blonde hair wrapped up in a pony tail. Her small baby bump was showing now, and she kept a light, loose hand over it.

On the lounge next to her, Kayla laid with her legs crossed at the ankle, sunglasses perched on her nose and seemed to be resting. Calmly. She didn’t seem to care who stared at her, her black bikini showing enough skin that if Finn were standing here, he’d probably be attempting to lay a towel over her at some point.

The conversation between them was soft. Teasing. Friendly. A rare moment in the middle of a chaotic life where none of them had to be on.

And that was important to Amelia, because in the next few days, she was going to be dealing with a huge event that could make or break her so far. Inside, she was nervous. But Kallie had prepped her for this, smiling, kissing her on the cheek and making sure she felt safe in this. That no one would be angry with her if she lost, but she knew herself well enough that she would be disappointed.

Because she wanted to face Kayla.

If Kayla retained, of course.

She looked over at Kayla, who sighed, turning her head and frowning.

“I swear,” Kayla muttered, flipping a page, “if I see one more couple try to slow dance to Ed Sheeran, I might just throw myself overboard.”

“You won’t,” Amelia smirked.

“Dramatic,” Kallie added.

Kayla gave a lazy shrug. “What’s the point of being on a floating palace if not to be dramatic?”

She flickered her fingers a little. The light shone off her diamond. The diamond that they hadn’t noticed. The ring that was attached to her like it was bought purposefully for her. The one sitting on her left hand. Amelia sat up. She lifted her glasses.

“I do declare, Kallisto,” she started, imitating Gone With the Wind. “That is a fuckin’ ring.”

Kallie snapped her head in her direction, and then looked at Kayla’s fingers. “oh…Ohmy…OHMYGOD KAYLA DID FINN ASK THE QUESTION?! DID HE ASK THE QUESTION? DID HE GET ON HIS KNEES AND–”

“Oh. No. Ew.” Kayla waved her off. “I mean, yes. He asked the question. I guess. Took me up to the jewelery store, told me to pick one out.”

Amelia thinks about it, nodding. That sounded like Finn. Actually, that sounded like Finn and Kayla. No outward shows of affection. No big to do. Pick one out. Probably pointed at a set of engagement rings like it was obvious what he was asking and she picked the most ostentatious one available because that fit Kayla’s personality.

“Are you happy?”

Kayla glanced sideways at her, but before she could respond, there was the faintest sound of a clatter from somewhere behind the pool bar.

It wasn’t quite a scream.

It was a whoop.

Then—

“PARKOUR!”

Aiden Reynolds was first on the deck, leaping over a railing like it wasn’t even there. He flipped, sailing through the air like a cannonball. He leaped over a lounge like a track star, rolled forward, sidebounced off of a floaty and launched into the pool from the raisedledge of a top-tier sun deck like he’d been training not for wrestling, but for this. His arms flailed once before hte tucked, spun, and cannonballed into the pool with a splash so aggressive the it hit all of the girls like a fucking baptism in the south.

“AIDEN!” Kallie shrieked, tearing off her sunglasses.

Amelia sputtered. Her strawberry lemonade was now mostly chlorine and regret water. “Oh my God.

But it wasn’t over.

Because a second pair of feet followed, screaming, “PARKOUR!” like it was an episode of the Office and Michael and Dwight were present here and now. Dickie Watson hit the metal railing from above, and with no regard for cruise etiquette, a inked out, shirtless, grinning, and dangerous gremlin of a man flipped over the rail in a reckless front dive, twisting like an Olympic hopeful straight into the chlorinated chaos.

Another wave of water. Another round of soaked towels.

“What in the everlovin’ fuck—” Kayla started, just as a third figure appeared above them—Finn Whelan, deadpan as always, but undeniably chasing after them. He didn’t dive. He had his  brace on his shoulder, and he had much more class than the others. He just stepped off the edge like a martyr, a soldier, or maybe just a man too tired to argue. A clean drop.

SPLASH.

By now, half the deck had turned to look. A small child clapped. Someone tried to get it on video. And Amelia, hair sticking to her cheek and bikini, now drenched, pulled off her sunglasses with two fingers and stared directly into the pool.

Aiden popped up first. “Ten outta fuckin’ ten!” he called to the crowd.

“Bullshit!” Dickie shouted back, his curls plastered to his forehead. “Mine had form.”

“Yours was deranged.”

Finn surfaced last, wiping water from his face with a sigh so heavy it may have created a new ripple. “I hate both of you.”

Amelia leaned over her knees and cupped her hands around her mouth like a proper coach. “You absolute menaces! This is a luxury liner!”

“Exactly!” Aiden shouted back. “What’s more luxurious than a fuckin’ cannonball?!”

“You’re gonna get us kicked off the boat!” Kayla snapped, flicking water off her book.

Dickie turned in the water to face Amelia, all mock-innocence. “You said you wanted me present.”

“Not submerged!”

“I’m still present!” he called back. “Just, you know. Hydrated.”

Amelia groaned, but her mouth twitched at the corners.

Aiden elbowed Dickie in the side, water sloshing around them. “You reckon they’ll kill us?”

“Probably.”

“Worth it?”

He glanced up again at Amelia. Her eyes were narrowed, but her lips were trying not to smile. Not to laugh at him. Not to be annoyed at the same time because she could still see his bruises and cuts. Even if they were yellowing. Even if they were almost gone.

Dickie smirked. “Every damn time.” His head emerged from the water as he pusehd it back. His eyes were brighter than the last time they truly looked at her. At Denver International, bruised and barbed, coiled like a wire about to snap. Now, he looked… lighter. Not healed. Not really. But like the edges weren’t as sharp. Like he’d taken that suitcase of pain he carried and set it somewhere behind him, just long enough to breathe.

“Hiya, Florence,” he smirked, pushing his arms up onto the ledge, water dripping down his forearms. “I lived. Disappointed?”

Kayla raised an eyebrow, and Kallie choked on her drink. She said nothing in response. Just looked up at him, frowning slightly.

“I didn’t tell you not to jump. I told you not to die.”

Dickie’s grin only widened. “I distinctly remember you telling me I could bleed on the boat.” He reached up and touched her ankle. “Not bleeding but you know…parkour.” He waited until Kallie got the hint to move away.

“You mad at me still?”

“I was never mad,” she replies. “I was scared. That’s different.”

Dickie’s eyes softened just a little. Enough that even Kayla notices. He shifts his elbows, leans closer to her. Still soaked. Still a menace.

“I came, didn’t I?”

She turned her head toward him fully. Her voice lowered.

“Are you here, Dimitri?”

That question landed deeper than anything else she’s said today. It wasn’t about the boat. Or the water. Or the laugh lines forming at the edge of her mouth.

It was about Denver. About scars. About a match that should’ve ended in a hospital. About words said in a car where pain sat between them like a third passenger.

Dickie doesn’t grin this time. He just nods.

“For you? Yeah. I’m here.” He smiled. “I’m here to watch you win. Here to watch you succeed, and cheer you on, and do all the things for you like I’m supposed to do. I am, by the by, the best boyfriend ever, because I could literally pay off an entire section of people to cheer for you.”

“Ew. Don’t do that.”

“No?”

“No.” She sighed. And then she knelt down. She ruffled his wet curls. “You look like a sheepdog.”

“Oh…those are fighting words.” He grinned. And before he she could move away, he launched up, grabbed her by the arm and dragged her into the pool.  He pulled her to him, and she smiled. “I’ve always got your back. Win. Or lose.”




ooc: the boards decided to let me sit behind the loading screen for a minute.
also. just changed font

7
Supercard Archives / SECRETS
« on: July 12, 2025, 11:59:29 PM »
echo 03 secrets


Denver International Airport was never really particularly quiet, what with it being the most massive hub within the midwest. Not even at half-past one in the morning on an early Tuesday in the dark. As always, it seemed to buzz with movement and announcements and the distant rumble of suitcase wheels over tile. She hated waiting in the car, and found it more important to meet her family or friends inside after they’d spent time travelling.

Inside, the air was recycled and cool. The white towering tents of the terminal would always mean that the place was too bright, and too sterile. Even with the fluctuation of passengers moving through the area, even with the night sky visible from where she sat within the center of the area. She was leaned back against the back of the strange, ergonomically sound steel benches, watching travellers come in and out.

Amelia’s hair was tied up in a scrunchie, the bun situated on the top of her head, tendrils falling around her face. She wore her sweats, and a long t-shirt – his, judging by the unreadable logo on the front. The weight of the past few days settled on her.

Grand Junction, the crowd. Her announcement – two wins, two matches, and now…now a shot at everything. That wasn’t nothing. But it also wasn’t just about climbing the ladder anymore. A shadow with a name followed her every step now, but she wasn’t sure what that name was. Expectation. Doubt. Pressure.  All the things she’d said that night were true, had told nothing but what she understood in her own perceptions, but the weight of it settled beneath her ribcage like a quiet breath she didn’t know how to release.

Failure to thrive wasn’t an option. Not right now. Not if she was going to make something of herself, make Wolfslair proud, make Aaron proud. She still hadn’t told Dickie. Hadn’t revealed anything more to Finn after he caught it already. Just let it sit, because right now, that wasn’t important.

Her eyes glanced up to the arrivals and departures screens. The flight from Miami had just landed ten minutes ago, which meant that he would be traversing the airport, wandering from the extremely long gates to the train below the concourses. It would take a little bit of time. Which allowed her mind to wander.

She didn’t know what version of Dickie Watson she was about to get.

She’d watched the footage. Maybe not live, because she was at Phoebe’s salon getting her roots retouched into the wee hours of the evening, but she’d watched it. In bits and pieces. Her stomach hadn’t really let her watch it all in one go. Dickie had always been a daredevil. But the damage he’d taken not seven hours before had been critical. A spear that led to a twenty foot drop, his blood on the concrete. Stretchers knocked over. Fists landing where bandages should have been placed. The match should have been called off, in her opinion.

But then he won. Of course he did. Barely. But to her, it wasn’t victory. It was survival, and it was wearing a damn smirk.

Any second now, he should be coming up from trains, riding the escalator with a slouch in his gait. He would be tired. Emotionally compromised. She’d seen it before, knew it was likely. Every time someone appeared from below with a hoodie and combat boots, her breath caught in her chest, resetting only when recognition didn’t come.

When she did see him, she rose to her feet. He was slower than usual, his black hoodie zipped high and his jaw bruised. His shoulders curled inwards, and his movement was stiff – one of his hands was wrapped in gauze and the other was purpling beneath the ink. He might have dozed off on the plane, but he didn’t look rested. His dark eyes caught hers, her steel blue widening in relief. He blinked, and she literally saw the breath flow out of him in his own form of relief.

Amelia walked towards him then, reaching out with a hand to grasp the least injured one. “Hi,” she murmured. He didn’t smile, but his eyes softened. He stepped forward, slowly, until he was right in front of her. He pressed his forehead softly to hers in greeting.

You didn’t have to come in,” he told her. “I could’ve walked to the pick up.

It smells like diesel fuel out there…and maybe stale tacos. Unsure. Besides, I wanted to see your face in more than a car light.” She reached up, pressing her fingers softly to the bruise on his jawline. She’d seen him in dozens of fights. In cages that collapsed on people. In times where he’d barely been standing. This, however, was one of his worst. “Dimitri.

‘M fine.” He muttered, pulling his head out of her grasp.

She didn’t question it.

Minutes later, the door shut heavier than she intended. The 2025 Land Cruiser that she drove was a tall order to get into, but as she adjusted the mirror, he settled into the passenger seat with a low hiss through his teeth. He’d pulled his hood back now, and she could see scrapes on his cheekbone, places that had flowed with blood hours prior. Swelling under his left eye. He buckled in with half a shrug.

She grit her teeth.

The exit from the garage short-term was silent, her hands firm on the wheel. Only the moderate hum of early two-thousands pop echoed. She hadn’t bothered plugging in her phone, hadn’t bothered with trying to find music he liked. She glanced in the mirror at him, watching as he closed his eyes. His lip was split, just to add insult to injury. There would be tender kisses on her forehead before bed, complete with hisses. She looked forward, Denver’s skyline dark in the distance, the mountains hidden by the darkness of the sky and the low moonlight.

You shouldn’t have taken that match.” Her voice cut like a blade, but it was whispered like silk. He didn’t respond to her as he opened the window and pressed his face into the door, his curls whipping in the wind as the cold air plastered him. “I’m serious, Dickie. You shouldn’t have.

Was already booked.

That’s not an answer.

Didn’t realize I had to ask permission.

Her grip on the steering wheel tightened, and she pursed her lips. “That wasn’t what I said.

Mmm.” He replied, low and sharp, noncomittal. “C’mon, Melia. You of all people should get it, right? You willfully stepped into this sport without telling the rest of us. Should make all of the sense now. Can’t play nurse now just because I’m better at breakin’ all of the things.

The wind through the window filled the cab with a soft roar, but it didn’t drown her out. Not when her voice returned, lower, but firmer this time. “There’s dangerous and then there’s whatever the hell that was.

He didn’t open his eyes. Didn’t even flinch. Just let the cold night slap right against the side of his face like it meant nothing. It probably felt like an ice bath. “That was winning.

That was bleeding,” she countered. “That was you gettin’ thrown through glass and off ledges like you were built of steel and not bone, Dimitri.

He snorted low through his nose and pulled his face back inside the car to look at her. The silence settled thicker as he did so, and she only took a small glance at him. The expression he gave her wasn’t the usual look of adoration he held. He was tired, she knew that, and when Dickie was tired, his filters flipped. It wasn’t the first time they argued. Wouldn’t be the last either.

You think I don’t know what I’m made of, what it costs?” His jaw ticked as he rolled a sore wrist.

I think you stop caring when you have a vendetta.

That earned another snort. But it wasn’t anger, and it wasn’t defensiveness. It was humorless, and he stretched out as much as he could in the chair, spike curved like he was trying to disappear into it. He flexed his knee, wincing imperceptibly. “Says the girl who picked the same goddamn sport, who trained in secret, snuck out of our bed at five a.m., lied to my fucking face for a year, and still expects to play Florence Nightingale when it suits her.

Her jaw clenched. That sunk. She didn’t take her eyes off the road. “I didn’t lie, Dimitri.” Amelia spoke slowly. “I just didn’t want you to stop me.

You’re a Reynolds. There is no stopping you, or Aiden, from doing stupid shit that I ultimately have to plan for.” He scoffed. “Just don’t act like it’s a fuckin’ one-way street. We all bleed here.

She frowned. Pursed her lips again. Let her fingers clench into the wheel, her right hand dropping to her thigh. “Fine. You can bleed on the boat.” She glanced at him again, softer. “I just..I need you there, okay? I need you present. Please?

Regardless of the argument, regardless of his words, regardless of the fact that he was liable to break himself again, he slid his battered fingers into hers.

Always.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★

Her bedroom was too quiet. And she hated the quiet. Quiet meant her gremlin of a boyfriend was sulking somewhere downstairs on a video game that she had no clue how to play. Quiet meant she was left to her own devices. Quiet meant that she was going to have to deal with things on her own, whether she liked it or not.

She slammed her suitcase onto the bed, opening it with a frown. The silence made everything louder, so when the zipper rolled, she heard it clearly. When she threw her gear into the bottom of the bag, it thudded like a storm. She was trying to stay productive, so she didn’t have to think. The sun had risen over the Colorado plains like a shadow that bathed her in a light she didn’t want two hours ago. It was morning. Eight hours since he slumped in the passenger seat and poke every nerve beneath her skin in only a way he knew how. Snapping accusations about lying and being a nurse when it suited her.

Amelia supposed he wasn’t wrong. But he wasn’t right either, though he’d wear it like a badge regardless.

A knock sounded at the door a moment later and she looked up. It wasn’t polite. But it was one she knew. One she grew up with. She didn’t bother saying a word, just knew her brother would enter the room in thirty seconds or less. Seventeen, to be exact. Aiden Reynolds didn’t just poke his head into the door, he came in with all of the energy and barely-contained irritation of a hurricane. He obviously had been training, because sweat was on his collarbone, his shorts rode low and he had a ratty black tank top on that Kallie likely attempted to throw out months ago.

He crossed the threshold in three large steps, his six foot frame towering over her short one. He looked at the bag as she haphazardly threw things into it. “I organize better than you right now. What the fuck is this shit, Mels?

Amelia paused and looked at the bag. She did organize better than this. In fact, she really liked organization in most of the things she did. With a pause, she looked down at the bag, and then up at Aiden with a frown. “Dickie yelled at me.

Yelled?

Well. No. More like he turned into a feral goblin king and told me I snuck out of our bed and lied to him for a year. So clearly, that doesn’t mean I get to care if he lobs himself off of stages and drops and into trucks and bleeds.

Aiden blinked at her. He processed. That sounded like Dickie when wounded. “Okay, but what in the everlovin’ fuck?

Amelia threw another garment into the bag with likely more force than necessary. “That’s what I said.

He narrowed his eyes, like he was solving a remotely difficult math equation in his head, or at least trying to figure out which one of them actually was wrong here. He reached over, pulled the shirt back out, and folded with an absurd amount of care and set it back in the suitcase. “So, he’s pissed because you didn’t tell him you were training.

I think…” she frowned deeper, “I think really that he’s mad that I tried to tell him he couldn’t  keep trying to die in matches and he had that missile primed and prepared.

He made a face, somewhere in between something that looked like a grimace and a scoff combined. “Well. I mean, he does love those. Emotional weapons of mass destruction. Likes to sit on ‘em until someone pokes the bear and then boom, whole fuckin’ neighborhood is annihilated.” He looked at her. “Remember when I acted like I didn’t know what blood money was?

When he launched you into the counter at Disney World?

That’s the one.

Amelia sat down on the edge of the bed, elbow on her knee, chin resting lightly on the cradle of her palm. She giggled slightly at her brother, who sat down with her. He didn’t say anything for a second, just stayed with her like a fount of solemnity. Even if he had rage beneath his own hands for how things were going, he still would always give her a look that said he was watchin’ out for her.

I just,” she started, “I don’t want him to be mad at me.” She looked at him, her words softer than usual. “I know I’m not supposed to technically say that, that I should be focused and that I should be all eyes on the prize. But he’s him, Aiden. He’s my person. I want him there, on the boat. Watchin’. Not ‘cause I need all the prep or the cochin’, or plottin’ in the corners. I just want to look out from the ring and see his face, ya know? Like you like to see Kallie’s.

He nodded, understanding. But she didn’t stop.

This match, this…double or nothin’ thing…it’s not just a match. It’s a test, and one I could super fail if I don’t got my head on my shoulders. They wanna see if I can belong, if I can go one, two falls and still stand tall at the end of it, ya know? There’s so much pressure and pace and scrutiny…I can hear everyone in the match tryin’ to tell me I’m fuckin’ useless. I don’t wanna, but I know I can easily spiral when someone I love thinks I’ve failed ‘em. Even if I haven’t.

Ya didn’t fail him, Mels.

I know that. And he said he’d be there, but…

He snorted, and pressed an arm around her shoulders. “You know how he is. He’ll show up with three busted ribs, say he’s fine, sit in the back somewhere where it’s all shadows and silence. Like he’s not allowed to be proud of ya. But…he is. And you know he’s more afraid of lookin’ any form of vulnerable than he is of jumpin’ off a scaffold.

I want him in the front row, Aiden.” She sighed, pressing her head against his shoulder. “I want him to see me win. Not for him, but with him there. And if I don’t win? I still want him to know I gave it everythin’ I had.

He’ll be there. Might limp. Grumble. Probably’ll have an ice pack strapped to his ass. But he’ll be there.

She exhaled, and let her hands fall to her lap. She pursed her lips slightly, and frowned again. “Are you okay?

Nah.” He paused for a minute. “I’m just kinda fuckin’ frustrated about the level of bullshit this company has. Same bullshit, ya know? Logan beat me, fine. But I never got my rematch, and I didn’t want to be anywhere near the World Heavyweight title. But now I’m in this match for a contendership and I’ve gotta fight two guys I actually like in Miles and Eddie…

She waited for him to continue.

And I gotta turn into a fuckin’ villain to remind everyone I’m not a joke.

You’re not a villain, Aiden.

Nah, I’m not. But they won’t take me seriously until I act like one. Until I remind them that this isn’t the way it should be. I loved that belt, Mels. Fought for it. And now  it’s bein’ passed around like some damn prop in a clown routine. Held onto by a clown who sounds like Sylvester the Cat on steroids.

Then…” she tilted her head, “show them that you’re better than that belt. Let ‘em know that you finally are gettin’ your comeuppance. You deserve to be in the lights. You just kick their butts and let ‘em cry like you did when I was five and I scraped my knee trying to follow you and Adam down to Hungry Jacks.

I didn’t let you cry.

You told me I would gain superpowers if I did.

He knocked his head against hers. “It stopped hurting though, didn’t it?

It did.
★☆★☆★☆★☆★


Ya ever look back and realize like…how far you’ve come, but only to realize that no one else noticed? That no one else is sittin’ in the wings, wishin’ to cheer you on or make you alive. It’s kinda all up to you, whether you wanna survive or succeed or simply be present. A lot of the time, it kinda seems like all anyone wants to do is just be present. They’re content to like…live in this bubble of grandiose self-aggrandizement and forget that some part of ‘em is supposed to loathe themselves. Even just a bit.

Ladies like Kayla Richards and Amber Ryan knew how to loathe themselves. Even Frankie Holliday up there kinda loathes herself, but tries to use it as a plus rather than the whole ass minus it is.

When I started this thing, ya know…people barely glanced twice. Just another Reynolds, when Aiden was kinda bein’ the joke. I mean, that’s his thing, and it’s always kinda been his thing. He stood in front of a man who thought he was a demigod from H.P. Lovecraft’s failure of a novel and weird ass writing, and Aiden stood there as The Great Cunthulu and all of the chaos and shenanigans arose. He and Dickie made the man weep and then he disappeared. I mean, okay. Maybe bullying a man out of the business is a poor practice, but ya also gotta have balls.

I know what ya all thought though. She’s gonna have a stupid accent – mine is lovely, just so you know. But just another hopeful low carder over here. She’ll be gone in a month, right? Didn’t make noise, didn’t yell like everyone else does…didn’t come in with fireworks or edges in my voice. I didn’t need to, ya know? I didn’t need to search for approval from a buncha people who don’t really care too much about my efforts.

Match by match and moment by moment, I built myself. I know it’s not a lot. Two matches. Two wins. I don’t really have the veracity to be sittin’ here, tellin’ ya all the what fors and the whodunits. But I get to kinda talk on my experience, and note that out of everyone in this company, I’m the one with two matches in, the rookie in full, and I made it to a match that I probably should be shyin’ away from.

But I’m Amelia Reynolds, and I don’t shy away.

I take what I’ve learned in those dark rooms and quiet hours of the mornin’ when me and my trainer thought to take every hard hit and every fall as a requiem within our heads. I take what I’ve learned and don’t really give a hoot who is in front of me. Rookie. Legend. It’s all the same. I came to work. I didn’t chase the attention and I didn’t sound like a rotten mess. I let the work speak, and I did what no one expected me to do.

I felled some of your best.

It wasn’t clean and it wasn’t perfect, and I’m pretty sure I could have gotten hurt because I didn’t launch myself correctly and I wasn’t always on top of everything. But I did it. Three of the women in this match I’ve already defeated. Don’t mistake that for some kinda complacency, because it’s not. I grew up on a beach, and I learned about low and high tides. Those high tides come up faster than a huntsman on a lizard, and I’m not about to be caught and drug out to sea, unable to find my way back to solid ground. I know the work is there and I gotta put my best foot forward.

But so does everyone else, don’t they?

I know what it’s like. I’ve been told. Multi-person matches can be the bane of existence in this company because you never really know what it’s gonna be like when you get in that ring. There’s so many different styles and wrestling attempts. And I know that I’ve got to have a lot more to say when I get on that boat. I’m new but I’m not stupid. This is my first supercard, but I watched Aiden, and I’ve watched Finn and Kayla and all my friends. I’ve watched Bella and Miles.

I know. Even if I haven’t experienced it.

I guess that’s what all of you have meant when you belittled me for the fact that I knew people. But honeies, if I didn’t know, then maybe I might be you. And that’s not something I can do.

On the thirteenth iteration of Summer XXXTreme, I’m present. Double or Nothin’. Two pinfalls or submissions. A match that kinda has a bunch of names, egos, resumes, and ickle e. The one you’re not sure about. The one you didn’t expect. The one that you couldn’t have thought would be standing across from anyone leading into a match for a contendership for thee championship. Bombshells World. The most poignant in our division.

Shiny. Gold. Beautiful.

But here’s the thing, friends. I know that it’s easy to just think I’m a body in the match, but I’m not here to finally just arrive and make a spectacle. I’ve already done that. The crowds are happy to see me, because I’m always here to prove none of this is luck and you can’t tell me that it is. It’s not some little spark of enlightenment either, ‘cause I haven’t flamed out just yet. Even if you wish I would.

I mean, I get it. Why I’m doubted. Why you keep lookin’ past me to the louder voices, the heavier hands, the longer resumes, the experience in this match. It’s cause I don’t really yell for anyone’s attention, do I? I’m not comin’ in swinging bottles, callin’ out bloodlines. I don’t demand for people to call me a star, and I don’t act like the whole world owes me somethin’ for nothin’. I don’t bite on all the bait.

I just show up.

I study.

I adapt.

I learn.

Every match has a lesson in it, and every time there is a story to tell from what can be gleaned. I’m not here to make enemies, I’m not here to tell people they’re wrong, and I’m not here to capitulate on an entire roster and make threats. But I am here to make sure that you hear me as we get on that boat and we prepare ourselves for the reckonin’ that’s awaitin’ us.

Diamond. Alexandra. Kate. Andrea. Joanne. We were chosen for this match because management saw somethin’ in all of us. I can understand it too. Fighters. We don’t stand down just because someone told us that we didn’t have it in us to succeed. But out of all of you, I’m the weakest link. I know it. You don’t have to tell me, you don’t have to argue it. You don’t even have to say it. I’m the short stick in an era of a lot of trauma and tribulations.

I get it.

Doesn’t mean it’s right.

But I know that’s what you’ll believe. Because that’s what’s easier to believe, that’s what everyone that was placed before me believed. That just because I have a short match listin’, it’ll be easy to take me apart. So maybe…maybe that’s what you’re bankin’ on.

That when I get in that ring, and I finally see what’s in front of me, that I’ll panic. That I’ll be so overwhelmed that I won’t be able to see straight, think straight, look straight. Maybe I’ll worry that one of you can blindside me while the others kinda tear each other apart, or that I won’t be fast enough to react. That I won’t be able to adapt, or not be experienced enough to hold any part of the ground I stand on. Maybe you’ll think that a girl like me, who’s still tryin’ to figure out how to make sure her boots are laced without any kinda doubt, can’t navigate a storm like what’s on the horizon.

Six women. One match. Contendership. And chaos.

But let me ask you all a question then. Or some questions, in succession. What happens when the storm hits someone who doesn’t flinch? Or when the quietest one in the match doesn’t break under the noise? What happens when I’m still standing, despite all of your best efforts to put me in the grave?

I could stand here and be the loudest if I want to. I’m Australian, we’re not exactly the most quiet English speakers in the whole world. But this match isn’t made for the loudest mouth, or even the one with the most accolades. It doesn’t care if you were most recently Internet, Roulette, or Bombshell champ. It’s a test of instinct and endurance and adaptability. It’s not boiled down to one pin. Or a fall. Or a submission. Or a lucky shot in the dark. Two. Two falls.

It takes skill. Somethin’ maybe I don’t have, but that doesn’t kill my grit and desire and my absolute death mantra that I will survive this.

I’m not lookin’ past you. Lord, no. But I am lookin’ ahead too. Because if I win this, I could stand across from Kayla Fuckin’ Richards, or Frankie Holliday, and I know that that match will be something that no one would ever expect.

I hope you also recognize that I’m not just some little rookie. I know you all frame it as a poor thing, but I’ve been around wrestling for the last ten years of my life. My brother. My boyfriend, who just walked through hell and survived against some of your heroes. I know what I’m walkin’ into, and I’m not disenchanted or ignorant. I’ve see the resumes, studied the videos, read the stats, watched the dirt sheets. There’s weight and desire and want in that ring. Decades of experience and hundreds of matches. Women who have burned down all of the buildins’ just to see it dance in front of their eyes. They have somethin’ to prove because they didn’t get to before.

And then you have me.

Not a veteran. Not a generational phenom. Just someone who wants it more than I’m willin’ to tear down people and scream about it like I’ve been stabbed in the heart too many times. I’ve taken some hits. I’ll take more. I’ve heard critiques, and condescenision. It’s easy. Because I’m nice.

Except I’m not. I know how to have teeth too.

I don’t need your approval, and I don’t necessarily need the crowd’s approval either. I don’t need my name lit up in fireworks to prove that I matter. Growth doesn’t stop just ‘cause it’s hard to see, and maybe I’m not there yet, but I can also figure out how to get there because I don’t have issues in front of me filled with grudges and poor judgement. I’m not afraid of bein’ underestimated, because I expect it.

Ladies, this isn’t just about a title shot for me. It’s not just reaching towards gold and greedily searching for it to be under my little, nicely manicured hand.

It’s about standin’ in front of everyone, in the moment, and ownin’ it. Not because I yelled the loudest. Sounded like an edgelord. Fought through the pain. Or cried about it. But because I earned it. Because I stayed. Because I didn’t flinch.
So when that bell rings, and the six of us circle each other…I’ll remember who I am. I’m not the favorite to win. I’m not the monster in the ring. I’m not a legend.

But I am the girl that trained in secret and took every bump and every bruise like they were my prayers. I stood in the shadow of the greats that I know and love and revere, and I didn’t crumble. I learned. I listened. I got up. Every time.

When the smoke clears, maybe I’ll win. Maybe I dont.

But I will be the one you remember.



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8
Climax Control Archives / ECHO 02 ★ ARTIFICIAL
« on: June 26, 2025, 11:12:31 PM »
echo 02 artificial


The very second the curtain swung closed behind her, the roar of the crowd dulled intensely, becoming more of a quiet hum. The second wave of adrenaline hit her as she brushed her hair behind her ear, walking past the producers, a few of which high fived her. It wasn’t the explosive kind that made her fly, but the kind that made her chest tighten. Made her knees suddenly feel weightless, like a delayed crash. She said her thank yous, taking three breathless steps and bouncing up into a slight run. Her boots were off balance, her laces half untied now, chest still heaving from rotation of the corkscrew, flippy-flip splash.

She laughed a little to herself, her breath caught upon the edge of it. Not joy, not disbelief, but a sort of gasping giggle that really meant I did it.

I freakin’ did it!

She was sure there was a bruise forming from where Joanne had her locked in a sharpshooter, and maybe one from being flung into the ring posts. None of it really mattered though. Not when she saw him.

Dickie.

He was leaning against the wall like he didn’t have a care in the world, arms crossed, a half-smile of pride tucked at the corner of his mouth. A backstage visitor pass had been clipped to the strange little pocket of his black skinnies, and his boots clunked against the ground as he pushed himself off the wall. It was like he knew the result regardless of the actuality of it, regardless of the fact that she knew he’d likely been pacing for the last fifteen minutes, from the second the bell rang, and may have likely threatened the camera guy with bodily harm for merely trying to crowd the monitor.

(He did. There was a cease and desist served a few days later).

The second she saw him, her pace faltered for a second. Not from hesitation, but pure gravity. A relief sitting behind her chest, like everything that made her body hurt had lifted. Her feet were moving again before she realized it. Faster. No pretense, no poise. She collided into him with a force that was not at all reflective of her regular grace. Her arms locked around his neck and her legs dangled a couple of inches off the ground as he wrapped an arm about her waist, while the other immediately tangled in the strands at the nape of her neck, threading through her sweat-damp hair.

There was no flinch from Dickie; he caught her like he always did. Didn’t matter if he was out the door the next morning for his own matches. Tonight was about her, and her success. She buried her nose into his neck, her breath still sharp against his skin. Grounding. Calming. Whatever scent of sandalwood and cedar and maybe a hint of her own grapefruit shampoo because he constantly forgot to buy his own.

Hey,” he murmured, voice low. The Magness Arena thrumed with energy, but she didn’t hear or feel any of it.  She didn’t answer right away, just held him tighter, her eyes open and staring at the brick wall behind him. A beat passed, and she murmured into his neck.

I didn’t fall.

His responding chuckle was soft as she felt his mouth press softly to the back of her head.

Nope. Definitely flew.” Dickie’s thumb brushed the curve of her hairline, a comforting gesture to calm her speeding heart. “Effective corkscrew four-fifty splash, like you’ve been doing it for a million years.

I’ve seen it a million times.” Amelia’s voice was shaky with disbelief. She’d jokingly said she was going to add his finisher to her repertoire. Practiced it. Never completely intended it.

That you have.” He laughed again. She pulled away from him for a moment, settling herself back on the floor. She laughed a little – not really the pretty kind, the giggle that gamer girls thought guys wanted to hear, but raw and uneven, like her body hadn’t quite caught up with her heart. He kissed her forehead. She let herself lean there, eyes fluttering closed for a second.

But it didn’t really last. Not when the shift happened. She felt it at first, a flicker of motion in her peripheral, a hush in the hallway. Looks exchanged between crew members who were too often too busy running their mouths about the wrestlers, even though they could never do the same.

...he just went off. Backdate, to Amanda. Like a full on meltdown made of hicksville Australian. What do they call that?

Bogan, I think.

Her breath caught in her throat and she pulled back just enough to look at the passers by and then up to meet Dickie’s hazel-brown eyes. His expression had already shifted. Still steady. Still calm. But a little sharper now. Edges resurfacing the second he heard someone talk shit about his best friend, his brother from another country, his hetero-life-mate.

Aiden?” She whispered the question.

Dickie nodded once, confirmatively. “The interview’s making rounds. He’s pissed. Like– proper, the-women-offa-Snapped pissed. Not performative.

Her stomach twisted. That debut rush, the thrill of the win, the roar of the crowd, the afterglow of success completely and utterly fractured. She blinked once, trying to hold on to the moment, but guilt ended up pulling at her ribs like a thread had been attached and already yanked too tight. “...I remember hearing his voice as I was getting ready, but I wasn’t really paying attention. I was nervous. I...I….he’s not going to hate me, is he?

Melia,” he lowered his voice, trying to assuage her panic. “He stood next to me until the pin. He cheered the whole time, had his hands wrapped around my neck when she had you in that sharpshooter. Whooped when you bashed her in the face with his running knee move. He’s not mad. Not at you.

She chewed on her lower lip, not really completely satisfied with that answer. “We can talk to him later, if you want. But not back here,” he added, “not with backstage cameramen eavesdropping to see if they can get in some exclusive content.

That’s my Mellie!” Aiden’s Australian cadence echoed from down the hall, almost as if on cue to arrive. He was still dressed in the jeans and singlet top from earlier in the production. Not wrestling clothes. Not prepared to wrestle just in case. “Dressed up in all that glitter and rhinestones and still kickin’ ass. Proud of you.

He hugged her. Picked her up off the ground slightly. Set her down. Walked off, finger gunning back at her and continuing to walk. Like he hadn’t exploded. Like he hadn’t blown up. But strained. His usual joy didn’t shine in his eyes and he didn’t smile as wide as possible.

Amelia nodded, watching him walk away. They stood quietly for a second, before she breathed slowly out her nose and looked up at him. “He’s just always the one that’s holdin’ everyone else up. I wanna make sure he knows we support him too.

Like an underwire.” He cracked the joke, in typical Aiden fashion. She cackled, but in her mind, her win faded into the background, and Aiden became the priority. 


★☆★☆★☆★☆★

The planetarium housed in the University of Colorado Boulder Campus was rotating the night sky above, glimmering like a cathedral. It was nestled in the natural sciences complex like a known secret, hidden by an exterior academic structure that matched the rest of the buildings. Modern and beige, brick and glass. Inside, it was far more ethereal, the air always cooler in the dome itself, hushed like a library, and carrying the faint hum of machinery that whirred ever-endlessly. There were rows of sloped seats circling the lecture stage, angled upwards to view the night ceiling above.

With her foot propped on the back of the seat before her, Amelia Reynolds sat with muted defiance. Smiling, but not completely. Her long, silver-blonde hair was pulled up into a high ponytail, little trailing curls around her face. Her lip ring, slight as it was, glimmered in the low light as it flashed past her. This week, she wore a shirt with her brother’s face on it, and a pair of jeans with far too many holes to constitute as pants. Her converse dug into the back of the chair before her easy.

I’m still comin’ down from it. You know, the match itself. Days later, it’s still settlin’ in my stomach like I’ve done this great feat and now I can kinda just go home and leave out my merry days. They say nothin’ compares to your first win. I’m thinkin’ they’re prob right, but…also thinkin’ that even regardless of the limp and the whole absolute bastardly crashin’ into the turnbuckles, I still won. Joanne Canelli wasn’t like…a warm up or some person with some deets on page. She made me earn every inch of the match. She was kinda a bitch, but I respect her for it.

But, like, I also held my ground. Yeah? I flew when it counted, landed when it hurt, and pulled off the first success I’ve ever had. On Sunday, in front of Denver, I hit Echo Drive from the top rope. I didn’t just luck into it, and I didn’t have muscle memory. It was calculation. Skill that I didn’t know I had. Timing and control. That move…it was the last thing I practiced. The last thing I worked on. It’s his move, and I wanted to make sure that I could recognize his pride when I’m in that ring.

I know that you all just would love to pin a win like mine on something like legacy. Like it’s borrowed. I mean, look at the circle that I have. I’m  a member of Wolfslair that has like, what…thirty-three title reigns in this company alone? So it’s easy to sit there and say I pulled someone else’s highlight reel and stitched it over my own match.

But I didn’t win because my last name is Reynolds. In fact, the other Reynolds in this business is getting shafted because some dumbfuck clown with a burial problem wanted to shit on someone and wants to sit in a corner actin’ like he didn’t do anythin’ wrong. Except he did, because he fucked over someone who loves this business probably more than his own kid. I said probs. Aiden got fucked over. Sorry. Not sorry.

She lifted a hand and twirled a strand of her ponytail, looking up at the ceiling.

But ya know, now I’ve gotten the first one out of the way, I’m kinda feelin’ my feet. I don’t think I feel like goin’ home and staying in bed and watchin’ reruns of Grey’s Anatomy with my super-fantastic-multi-time-champion boyfriend either. I mean, I would, but now I’m warmed up to the ring. And before ya tell me that I’m title-droppin’ tonight, let me tell ya why.

Because my opponents? Longevity in whole. Been here forever, it seems like. Kate Steele has been here since at least 2016. A Blast from the Past runner up, two time Bombshell Internet Champion, one time Bombshell Roulette Champion. Andrea has been here for five years at least as well, a two time Bombshell World Champion, one time Bombshell  Internet Champion. Two phoenixes, both dressed in the fire of their damned failures. One tryin’ to prove she’s changed, and the other too busy lookin’ in the mirror to realize that she doesn’t fit.

Me?

I’m just tryna make a name for myself. Be worthy of sittin' in the same room that Whelan, Watson, Reynolds, Kasey, Phoenixes and Richards sit in. Be somethin’ for them, for myself. What are ya gonna say about me, hm? That I’m too stuck my friends? That I’m a little bit egotistical because they did it, so can I? That I won’t be able to face the two of them because they’re far superior than me? I put Joanne Canelli down on Sunday, the original Internet Champion. You would think I’d be scared. That I’m being thrown the freakin’ gauntlet and I have to figure out how to succeed while making sure my footwork is solid and I’m not gettin’ ahead of myself. Gotta calculate. Gotta figure it out.

Kinda funny though, how it falls. We’re all fliers. We all like to be up in the air. But out of all of us, I’m the one that no one knows, that no one has seen before. That’s kinda what sucks about being someone who is a staple in a company, right, Andrea? You have many, many months of promotional videos and feeds to comb though, thinkin’ that people are goin’ to never see what ya really have behind your eyes. Let’s start here…I know there’s always growth, but I think you’re really tryin’ to have camouflage. Or maybe gaslight us all into thinkin’ you’ve changed. You say you’re not angry anymore, Andrea, but you kinda sound like you are. Your delivery of everything you say makes it seem like you’re measured and calculating, but I can just hear the emphasis on words like you’re wanting us to see a point through gritted teeth.

You constantly are screamin’ at the locker room like we don’t know you, don’t see you. But then you spend the rest of your time tellin’ us to see you another. You can’t have it both ways. You can’t reject and rewrite a narrative just because you think that we don’t see your perception. Everythin’ is about perceptions, and perceptions can be powerful. You wanna be seen as evolved, and changed, stronge than you ever were. But the way you’ve kinda gone about it is shit.

You sat there last time and said that you’re tired of heaving to hear vapid, empty people actin’ as if they know you from front to back. But in the same vein, you talked about Necra being an outlet for you to take your anger out on. That everyone has just given ya bullshit. Three weeks prior? Sayin’ you’ve learned how to be resilient and sayin’ that you’re still learnin’ to not care about people and their opinions.

   Honeybun, this whole business is about appearances and how you deal with them. Kayla split you apart at the end of the day because she’s a venomous bish with no heart and you’re still showin’ to everyone that you have a heart.

   That’s a difference between us. I know I’ve got a heart. I wear it…

   She presses a hand over her heart, tapping it softly.

   “...right here. On my sleeve sometimes. Not because I don’t know how to like…protect it, but because I’ve learned that feelin’ things makes you human. Not weak. It makes you honest. You wanna talk about how you want people to look at you, but maybe you should stop pretendin’ that none of it matters. You’re protective of your own ego. You’re not gonna get that from me. I’m gonna show that I care about my brother, my best friend in the whole world, and I don’t need to throw rhinestones or false poetry to disguise my damage, or build a castle out of cynicism just to look like I’ve made it.

Growth isn’t about how hard ya swing, or how much you sit there in a room and say you’ve grown while barin’ your teeth. It’s how steady you stay, how consistent, from day to day. How the times you sit there and don’t bare your teeth when the wolves come bitin’. Cause they’re always gonna come a-bitin’. And that’s when you snap and lose your brain.

Let’s look at ourselves, though. We’re both highflyin’. You’ve got years of skill and precision behind your movesets. There’s not chaos in your movements, just drilled confidence and focus. You’ve fine-tuned yourself, refusin’ to be hidden behind someone else. It’s a weapon.

Growth, if you will.

But Andrea, just because I’m new, it doesn’t make me instantly less than you. I’m unpredictable, alive. I have a drive to continue to light up the crowd and do things that I’ve never done before. Maybe it’s because I’ve learned from one of the best, or maybe it’s because I’ve watched how my brother is stubborn in his grounding, free in his flight. Maybe it’s because I’ve watched Dickie hit unpredicable and impossible angles just for the hell of it. I’m fast-footed because it’s smart, and I’m not rehearsed. You’re gettin’ lackadaisical, I think and that’s gonna cost ya with me. You pull back when you don’t feel like you’ve been heard or seen. I hear ya. I see ya. I’ma fly past ya.

   Amelia stretches her arms out by her sides, leaning further back into the chair.

   “And Kate. I know you’ve been around forever. But let’s be truthful and honest with each other, right? You’re not back because you want to prove anythin’. You’re here because you need the noise and you can’t stand the silence. I listened to you talk about how pretty you are, talkin’ about how tan you are rather than your technique. You remind me of a girl cryin’ for attention on the corner of Colfax and Grant, right outside a 24/7 diner that’s a dive and only open because it’s a drug front. \

   You’ve got a lot of insecurities, Kate. New hair, new hear, same insecurities that ya had a long time ago. Just because you’re dressin’ up for a tantrum doesn’t make it a transformation, doesn’t make ya new. You’re kinda like a walkin’ soundcloud tune that never reaches a streamin’ service because the sound is raw, but it isn’t good. Just bein’ loud isn’t the same thing as bein’ heard, because we can hear you. You’ve been talkin’ like you’re on another comeback like you haven’t already been handed like eighty and keep expectin’ to come back and be…somethin’.

   Your hair is pretty, and your smile is nice, but the rest of you is kinda like ice…unfeelin’. Bland. You’re not complicated, you’re not Avril Lavigne circa the early two thousands. You’re just kinda loud, ya know? You wanna talk about attention like it’s a currency. You think you’ve got an unlimited balance, but in my opinion, you’re kinda overdrawn. You’re like Andrea, talkin’ about how you’ve evolved, how you’re a threat. How you’re finally you, but how many yous are there? Every bit of your words says noise and glitter, but it doesn’t tell me why I gotta worry about you in the ring.”

She raises a hand and fans herself.

“You kinda exhaust me. Always performin’, but underneath, it’s kinda like you don’t exactly believe in anythin’ you said. You said reinvented, but the Kate Steele I was told about had a look about her that screamed more confidence than boob jobs and blonde hair. It’s about growth. You’re dressin’ up like you think that’s gonna change who you are and how you’re perceived, but…at the end, you’re kinda just still…Kate.

Empty lyrics tangled in a nasally voice on a woman who probably should been in a conservatorship instead of Britney Spears with how many times you’ve disappeared.

And you’re good at disappearin’. Fast. I mean, your whole pop-star get up is speed and submission. Kinda slippery when you’ve got your own rhythm, but I mean…when that rhythm cracks, you’re shrieky and awful. I mean, I doi the same thing sometimes, just with less vocal chords. You know your same two holds and you apply them with skill, but really, do you know how easy it is to track that happenin’?

You don’t fight, though, Kate. You perform. Your whole performance clip is ridiculous and I’m kinda lowkey irritated that you came back for the thirtieth time. Nothin’s changed. Nothin’s different. Just the same story in better gear and prettier hair.”
Amelia tilted her head back, gaze fixed on the stars slowly turning overhead. Artificial, sure. But that was the crux, wasn’t it?

That everything was artificial.

“Maybe I don’t have the history yet. Maybe the accolades or the highlight reels aren’t there. I’ve got grit and timin’, and what’s most important: I’m real. I’m authentic. I’m not tryin’ to be anything other than what I am, unlike Andrea. I’m not tryin’ to be a performer, unlike Kate. I’m not tryin’ to put myself on a pedestal and tell everyone that you should look at me because of who my friends are. They don’t expect me to be perfect, but they have my back. I don’t need them by my side like Kate, or the absence of them like Andrea needs to feel powerful.

I don’t drown in the sound of my own echo. I’m not artificial. You guys can try to outshine me. Out-talk me. I don’t needta scream to be seen and I don’t need to be anythin’ other than me – the girl who feels like enough to shake the whole sky.

I just need three seconds.

And I know exactly how to count em.




★☆★☆★☆★☆★


Wolfslair: Denver was very different than the New York Branch. Finn had chosen an industrial, modern gym with black walls, metallic accents and high-tech equipment. Still, it was a gym the same as any other, and it still smelled like disinfectant and rubber mats. A clean kind of newly worn. The afternoon sun filtered in through the windows as the clouds started to dissipate, and the faint echo of speed bag punches was in the background somewhere in the distance. It never really was silent, with metal clicking constantly.

The offices sat above the training floor on a mezzanine, so that the trainees could be observed and modified as often as possible. A constant watchful stance. Finn had his foot up on the glass railing, watching as one of the newbies to the gym took a heavy slam that echoed through the building. He had his bad arm still strapped in a brace across his torso, jet black and matte like the rest of his wardrobe. His expression wasn’t unkind, really. She’d learned that he didn’t really vacillate through emotions like the rest of the people in the world. Muted. Silent. Unless he needed to speak.

She knew he missed wrestling, but was content right now to just look over the gym he’d created. Still under the Wolfslair banner – for now, anyway. After the issues with Alex and Aaron nearly three months ago, she’d expected him to pull the name. But he didn’t. And he didn’t look up when he saw her approaching out of the corner of his eye. “You’re limping.

Flippy-flip splashes’ll do that,” she replied, light on the tone. “Or maybe it was Joanne’s suplex into the turnbuckle…I dunno, jury is still out and my back feels like I’ve aged ten years.

Finn hummed a quiet response as she sat down next to him, lowering herself onto the floor with a wince while stretching her legs out and pressing her palms behind her. He didn’t say I saw your match, because he watched everyone. He’d never say he cared, but if they lived on his property, she learned he did. Greatly. As if they were his family and no one could say anything different. His attentiveness was never for show.

Did you see Aiden’s segment?” She asked him. Dickie had given her some shit about Aiden picking himself up without intervention, but said he’d watch. Finn was always observant. Finn could give her probably a closer examination of the situation than even she could about her brother. She looked up at him as he tilted his head.

Didn’t answer right away.

But eventually…

I did.” He confirmed. Nothing more. Quiet, neutral. But it carried more weight than a paragraph from someone else. She sighed, shifting her legs, restless with the weight of her brother’s woes.

I didn’t hear it live. I was prepping myself for my match, I wasn’t even paying attention…heard his voice, but I wasn’t listenin’.

Finn nodded. She caught the tightness in his jaw as he rolled the brace backwards, still trying movement that had been restricted since the first week of April.

He was angry,” she added. “Wasn’t just pissed off, it was like he just…had it.

Finn turned his head finally, looking directly at her. His expression wasn’t really unreadable, but more careful. Like he was trying to figure out if she wanted honest or she wanted placating. “

He’s been like that for a while, I noticed. Years, really. We joke about him being the comic relief, the tag guy, the dependable one. Were semi-shocked when he had a world championship, but still celebrated him all the same. He’s been eating losses that he hasn’t deserved and biting his tongue longer than most people would’ve.

I think…I think he likes to feel like he’s holdin’ all of us together. Dickie. Me. Kallie and Dax. He can’t feel like he’s failed because he’s got all this good in his life, and it’s like a switch happened. But I win my debut and he’s right there, huggin’ me and sayin’ he’s proud.

Finn leaned forward, resting his good elbow on his knee. His voice, when it came, was low and measured.

When people feel like they’re glue, they’re usually the last to admit when they’re cracking. He’s not going to say anything about it. Not when he’s spent years making movie references and putting paper plates on his face and yelling about the Great Cunthulu of twenty-twenty-two. You can’t always have chaos and grit at the same time.

He didn’t even look mad when he came to see me. Just…like he’d just taken a whole grenade to the chest and then wiped it off for my sake. Said he was proud. Smiled like he hadn’t just lost his mind twenty minutes earlier.

Sounds like Aiden.” Finn nodded again. “Does damage control for everyone else, but doesn’t leave anything for himself.

Amelia pulled her knees up to her chest and rested her chin on them as she wrapped her arms around her shins. “Dickie said not to take it on. He’s not mad at me, just mad. That’s it.

Dickhead’s not wrong…but he’s tired too.

Amelia looked sideways at him, a flicker of understanding crawling into her chest. She’d come here because he was snoring away on the couch, an ice pack on his head from getting drilled in the head with a chair by someone he didn’t quite like the night before.

You think he’s next.” She murmured.

Dickie’s always next,” Finn snorted, crossing his arms, albeit a little awkwardly, as he leaned backwards. “He’s taking on too much, in my opinion.

Amelia narrowed her eyes and looked at him. He knew something. He always knew something. Whatever Dickie was getting himself into, whatever he wasn’t talking to her about, he knew. And she also knew he wasn’t about to break whatever confidence Dickie had in him.

She didn’t press him. Not yet. She wanted to, with every little fiber of her being, she wanted to pry it out of him and demand whatever thread of information he was holding in like it could protect them all if only she knew what it was. But that wasn’t how Finn worked. She was fairly certain even Kayla couldn’t pull anything from him. He’d tell her if it was her business.

She let it die behind her teeth. Instead, she tilted her head against the glass railing, staring up at the mezzanine lights.

I hate feeling useless.

You’re not.” Pratical. Unemotional.

I know. Logically…emotionally? It feels like I just started my own career and like…I joined too late? Aiden’s unravelling, Dickie’s hiding something…and you’re benched with your arm torn half off. Kayla’s still champion and I’m in her division and what if they throw me against her like, ever? I’m still just tryin’ to make sure I don’t trip out to the ring.

You,” Finn started seriously, leaning forward completely and looking at her in the face, “are not their shield, Amelia. You’re not built to catch them when they fall. That’s not your role, and it never should be. You’re built to stand beside them. That’s enough.

It was always Finn that would break things to her, or anyone, without a thought of if they may hurt her. “But if I don’t…

If you don’t, they ungracefully learn how to land and survive it on their own. They need supports, not saviors.” He sat back too. “That’s love, too, you know.

Amelia let the words settle in her soul like weight on her shoulders. Not heavier, but better distributed. Realigned. Her fingers gripped the fabric of her leggings, tips brushing across the microfiber as a grounding texture. In the quiet, she was able to calm herself easier. She chewed on her lip nervously again. Her ice-blue eyes looked up at Finn, who’d readjusted his brace a bit.

I don’t wanna lose ‘em.

Finn raised an eyebrow. “Dickie is hopelessly in love with you and Aiden is your blood. There is no loss that’s possible. Just be their constant. Support your brother. Stand by Dickie when he inevitably implodes.

Amelia exhaled slowly, the kind that carried more than just air. Grief, worry, love, all stitched together in some form of semi-reassured, steadied breath. Finn didn’t often deal in comfort, but she came here to talk to him because he dealt in truth. And for now, that was all she really needed. She rose, joints machine still. She tapped his good shoulder with quiet gratitude.

Thanks.”

He gave a small nod, gaze returning to the ring below. Continuing his watch like he was some stand in on Game of Thrones. She began to head for the stairwell. Finn’s voice echoed behind her, calling her name. She turned.

Good job.” He told her, giving her a nod. He hesitated, before continuing his words, lowly. “Give Aaron my regards on your training.

Amelia stared at him.

Her skin paled.

He knew.

9
Climax Control Archives / ECHO 01 • REFINEMENT
« on: June 18, 2025, 09:03:17 PM »
echo 01 refinement



★☆★☆★☆★☆★


She arrived early.

Not particularly because she was excited, because she wasn’t. But simply because she had nowhere else to be. Sitting at Peaks Lounge was not how she imagined her Friday night, but when Phoebe suggested it, she really had no reason to say anything but yes. And besides, it wasn’t like there was a date night planned on the calendar. There never was any more date night planned on the calendar.

Instead, Amelia Reynolds twisted her white blonde hair into some kind of loose bun. She pulled on a dress that hadn’t seen the light of day for  months and shoved her feet into her black Louboutins. She looked at herself in the mirror hesitantly before leaving, glancing at her frame. The dress’ spaghetti straps wove down her chest in a v-neck that showed just enough of her skin without being ostentatious. It was fitted to her frame, like a glove, and held a pattern of mustard, crimson and blue bohemian flower motifs across it. It was stark white, the little flowers dotting out the flared hem.

She clutched her wristlet to the front of her dress as she approached the hostess, slipping out Phoebe’s name. She was sure if she gave someone like Finn’s name to the waitstaff when she was booking, she would have gotten in easily. But Phoebe Reid had charm, a bit of pull and a strange kind of gravity all her own. Not the sort you earned through money or family name – but the kind that came from being seen.

Often.

Loudly.

Repeatedly.

The hostess’s expression shifted the moment she heard it.

Oh! Ms. Reid has the table by the west windows. Follow me.

The west windows of the Peaks Lounge overlooked the city of Denver and the Front Range behind it. The peaks themselves sat high above Denver’s lights, a dark kind of monolith always had a foreboding presence. Inside, the room was cool-toned like a lot of the venues in Colorado, blues and greys to match the colors of the mountains. This was the kind of place that couples went to in order to mark anniversaries and executives brough clients they needed to impress.

She hadn’t been here since…ugh, no. Not tonight.

Their table was tucked in the corner of the venue against the glass, the city visible beneath them like a sea of fire. Amelia slid into the booth with a practiced grace from her days as a model, setting her wristlet down on the velour and leather seating next to her, closest to the window. A stemmed wine glass sat at her seat already, along with an iced bucket in which laid a bottle of sauvignon.

She didn’t feel much like wine tonight. Maybe something a bit more spicy.

She leaned back, looking out upon the town. Tried to keep her thoughts from her moody, absent and darkened favorite person in the entire world. Tried not to imagine that he wouldn’t have been amused that she ubered here. Not after the lace incident. Tried not to check her phone and the texts that probably were present.

Amelia waved down lounge staff, requesting something fruity but with a definite mix of zing. What came back to her not five minutes later was a watermelon whiskey drink with blue curacao and a lot of regret. It was sweet, but she knew it packed a punch that she probably would end up sleeping off. The elevator continued to chime behind her, a soft sound that cut through the low jazz and murmuring voices.

Shortly after she finished about half of the drink Phoebe arrived. She didn’t blend, nor did she attempt subtlety. Her outfit was too black, too sharp, too short, with a black leather cropped jacket hanging off her index finger over her shoulder. Her heels could have been weapons. Tattoos curled over her collarbones and down her arms, and her raven hair gleamed under the light. She didn’t belong. But she made it look like everyone else didn’t.

She slid into one of the chairs across from her childhood best friend, hanging the jacket on the chair and slinking into it. “Jesus Christ,” she groaned, her clipped Australian accent breaking into the room, “no one told me that a high-concept shoot at Capitol Hill would end up having zero planning, an inept stylist who forgot shoes and a model who cried the entire time. The photography had a full ass meltdown about lighting that wasn’t even his job to adjust.

Did the shoot happen?

By the grace of Vivienne Westwood and Prada.” She reached out, noting that Amelia hadn’t taken a drink of the wine, and took her own sip of it. “I swear to God, Ames, the things I can do with a sheet and a secondary lighting source.

Amelia gave a small smile, swirling her regret-colored cocktail. “Was there a theme?

Phoebe leaned back in her seat and tilted her head toward the ceiling like she needed intensive divine patience. “Guilt and grace. Which apparently means mostly sheer mesh over rosaries and lip gloss. I had to improvise the sheet, and for the love of god, the only color red that the damned makeup artist didn’t have. Trauma, I tell you.

Covering her lips slightly, Amelia laughed, shaking her head.

Phoebe grinned widely. “There she is.” She tilted her chin upwards, looking Amelia up and down. “You look good, by the way. Dangerously good. Did you dress up for little ol’ me?

You booked Peaks, of all places.

True. You’re lucky I didn’t pick a burlesque-themed speakeasy with a password. I’m being classy.” Phoebe’s grin widened slyly. She reached forward, swiping Amelia’s phone away from her. She ignored the gasp, the huff when she opened it with her face ID, and the indignancy when she scrolled to the messages app and opened Dickie’s texts. She scrolled. “I am horrified, Amelia. No nudes. From either of you.

Amelia tried to swipe for it, but Phoebe held it out of her reach. “Come on, Ames,” Phoebe added, with a smile. “At least send him a picture. He’s gonna regret being all broody and out of reach when you’re lookin’ like a Bunnings snack.

A Bunnings snack?!

Those men mask their love of good sausages, don’t even. Lean back,” she ordered, “no, on the arm rest. Light chin rest. There it is. Annnnnd…HAHA, I sent it. That’s what he gets. Bitch.

Amelia groaned, dragging her hand down her face. “You are…literally, the worst.

Phoebe handed the phone back with a satisfied smirk. “Yet, you’re still sitting here. In heels. Drinking neon whiskey juice.

I didn’t know it had blue curacao in it.

You never do. That’s why you have me.” Another white toothed grinned as Phoebe sipped the wine in her glass. Amelia rolled her eyes, but there amusement hidden beneath the action. Her childhood friend leaned forward once more, reaching out and tapping a stiletto nail against Amelia’s glass. “I’m not saying you’re not allowed to be sad. Just don’t let it hurt.

It didn’t take long for the rest of them to arrive. Kallie, her sister-in-law and Kayla Richards piled in next and dropped into seats, Kayla strategically setting herself in between the only two she liked. Kallie wore a sleeved bright pink skater-styled dress that flowed around her thighs and white converse. Kayla, on the other hand, chose the tightest jeggings she owned and a bustier top that pushed “the twins” up towards her chin. She didn’t bother with a jacket like Phoebe, but she did wear heeled boots. Phoebe made a comment about her ass looking fabulous in that, trying to fit in with the Championship Wrestler, but Kayla merely subtly smiled and nodded. Which was essentially a fuck you, but Phoebe didn’t know that.

Barbie came up last, her lavender tube dress riding up as she daintily ran down towards their table, dropping into the final chair with a sigh. “I’m so, so sorry,” she breathed, her accent crushing Phoebe’s just the same. “My first dress ripped as I was getting onto the train and I had to run back.

They stayed long enough for the jazz to stop playing and the low EDM-trance to begin. The bottle of wine turned into two, and then three, and all of them eventually traded polite table posture for lounging. Phoebe had kicked off her stilettos and was holding her glass lackadaisically with one hand, forgetting it and sloshing it slightly as she gestured wildly mid-story. Barbie had moved on to something bright and floral, grinning when one of the fancier older men looked in her direction. Kayla ordered tequila and didn’t bother with salt. Kallie, the only sober one, had a grapefruit kind of mocktail in a glass nearly as tall as her forearm and looked quietly pleased about it.

She looked at Amelia pointedly, narrowing her eyes. She cut Phoebe off midconversation point. “When did you start wrestling?

Amelia looked at her sideways.

Kayla looked at her too, almost as if she hadn’t looked at the card and realized that they were in the same division. “Yeah, I noticed that too.

I’ve been…” Amelia sighed, biting her lip. If she told them who had trained her, Kallie would jump for joy but Kayla would hate her. And Kayla didn’t need another reason to dislike her, not when it’d taken four years for them to get along. “I’ve been training at Wolfslair for a bit. Got good at it. Figured I’d start up and see if I’ve got Aiden’s talent.

Kayla didn’t even look up from her drink, just winced as it burned down her throat. “His brain’s been scrambled since birth, so it shouldn’t be too hard to pass him on any talent.” She didn’t make a noise when Kallie gasped and smacked her lightly on the leg. “Just don’t start talking like him, or I’m out.

I’ll make a note of that, Kayla.” Amelia smiled. That sounded almost like approval. “I’ll do my best not to develop a sudden craving for wallabies and mid-match karaoke.

Honestly, the karaoke might be an upgrade.

They laughed as a whole, though Kayla rolled her eyes. For a little while, this was the easiest it had been in weeks. Laughter came more freely, the tension she always carried in her shoulders had started to melt, just even a little bit. Beneath the soft buzz of alcohol and the heat of being seen without the weight of who she was attached to.

It was easy. She liked easy.


★☆★☆★☆★☆★


Looks like this is gonna be it, hmm?

Seated on the steps of the Greek Ampitheatre in Denver’s Civic Center park is a white-haired blonde that the SCW fanbase has never seen before. Her legs are stretched out in front of her, knee-high combat boots attached with an ease that most people who wear them wouldn’t have. She wears short-shorts and black cropped Dickie Watson t-shirt, a relic from the FIGHT! NYC days. Her tattoos, all black inkwork only, contrast the marble and limestone relic behind her.

The first time I ever take a step into that six-sided ring in Sin City Wrestling. I’m not gonna lie, this is a big moment for me. The first time I’m ever in the ring without a trainer, the first time I’m ever in the ring in front of a major crowd, the first time I’m standing in the ring instead of outside it as a competitor. A star in my own right. Not just on the outside, but also on the inside. This is my moment to capture somethin’.

She holds up a singular finger, with a grin, “Just for the record, let’s get the name thing straight. Amelia Reynolds, that’s me, mate. Yeah, you’ve got another one – and I know what you’re all expecting. I know you all see Aiden and see the silliness and the cockiness and the slight ineptitude and are just a tad bit worried that you’re gonna have to deal with it again, just with a really freakin’ cute female figure and lighter accent. Hate to break it to ya, but all of us Reynolds siblings have different attitudes, different creeds, and a bit different way we handle all the things in our lives. Aiden loves to make you all laugh, loves to bring in those movie references and have his bestie with him–

I’m sitting here with you.” A voice, light and airy,

Shhh, you’re my emotional support sister-in-law. Look, as much as Aiden has done in his life, as much as he’s been a frickin’ gem of a man to work here with all of you, I work in a very different way. See. Aiden would say I’m an observer observin’ the observed. I like to watch and I like to listen, and I like to gain a whole bunch of knowledge. Because that way…I can be more calculating than you’d all expect. I was trained by one of the best ladies to ever walk these ropes, and I’ll tell you now that she told me it’s not all about bluster and showy feetwork. It’s also about knowin’ who you face, knowin’ who you’re against, and clampin’ down when you need to.

Someone might say I’m a bit too nice for this, but I will tell ya…they’re wrong. But that’s fine. It’s all fine, ya know? I’d rather surprise all of you than play by your rules. I’m not gonna get up in your face like that…manager girl. Brooke or somethin’?

Oh yeah, no, that girl that manages the guy who looks super similar to Dickie.

Amelia turns her head and looks at the person off camera with a confused expression.

Who?

Uhmmmmm, the guy who beat Aiden for the Roulette Championship.

....” Amelia looks at the camera out of the corner of her eye. She purses her lips slightly, waiting for confirmation. She narrows her eyes, seemingly looking at something off stage, likely a phone. She juts her head back and shakes her head. “I don’t see it.

They literally have the same haircut.

I don’t see it, Kallie. Doesn’t he rawr, rawr, rawr about the whole frickin’ world?

...yes.

Does Dickie do that?

There is no response. The person off screen, Kallie Reznik, is likely trying to figure out how to word her answer as a yes, but also as a no. Ultimately, this ends as no response, so Amelia ignores it and continues.

A-ny-way, like I was sayin’, I’m not gonna get up in your faces. I don’t shove people around in the hallway to prove a point. I show up, I show out, and I will sit there and methodically take ya apart piece by piece…while smiling. Gotta have these pearly whites shine at some point, right?” She grins widely, pointing at her teeth with a nicely manicured nail. “Look, everyone…you don’t have to cheer for me. Not when I go out into that Denver crowd. Not yet. I get it. I’m new, you don’t know who I am…but by the time I’m done, I’ma betcha that you’re gonna wanna do so anyway.
See, I’m not just that girl who comes in, looks cute, and says they’re gonna do a lot of stuff. I have every intention of getting my agendas laid out and executed. I’m not gonna bait and prowl, but I’m gonna make an impression. I have to. So when I step out in the Magness Arena, it’s not gonna be one of those nights where I get maybe a little pop or anythin’ like that. I expect at the end, for y’all to be shinin’ on me.

She tilts her head a little to the side, her white-blonde hair, like an opal, shimmering in the light. She’s got some good shine spray, that’s for sure. “See, I’m kinda rare. The type of girl that you can take on a date, to your mama, and she’s gonna love me. But I’m also the type of girl that’s gonna turn around and clock you if the opportunity enlists itself.

And my opponent, my first ever opponent, is some chick from Jersey that doesn’t realize Jersey Shore ended almost twenty years ago. Joanne Canelli is a woman with a reputation, and I get it. She surfaced all the way back in 2013 and she was like…the inaugural Bombshell Internet Champion. A big deal. I saw the tapes, ran ‘em back like Finn says you should always do.

Joanne, you’re like a frickin’ legend, right? But like, you’ve got that side business too, and it’s like…a lot of hats that you have on your head. I definitely respect the grind, I do. But to me, it’s kinda like you don’t got a lot of direction. You’ve been out of this business like…since 2015, almost ten years. Girl, I dunno what brought you back to this arena, or if your side hustle isn’t capitalizing. I’d recommend to ya maybe to get hooked up with Feetfinder or OnlyFans, but I mean…I suppose you’d fit a…particular…demographic…that might not be willin’ to pay subscription services. Or they will, on their wifey’s cards.

A choking sound is heard off camera and Amelia grins slowly into the camera.

I mean, I’ve heard the whole I’ve been away, but I’m in the best shape of my life thing before. Look at some of your predecessors, hey? Comin’ back and acting like they’re the best in the world only to crash and burn because they don’t realize the time and effort these youngin’s comin’ in have. Look, I am twenty-six years of age and I don’t even know if I’m in the best shape of my life, but I know what my cans are, and I know what my can’ts are. It’s all well and good when you’re sitting there, sayin’ that you fight like the Jersey Devil.

I wanna hold on that for a moment. A Tasmanian Devil is scarier than this goat-ghost-humpin’ thing, I dunno. I have no idea why you’d ever want to compare yourself to that when you’re like…actually pretty in the face, even with those lip fillers, but ya know. To each their own, I guess?

But even more than that, you say you don't have a soul. I dunno how you get into this business and lose your soul unless you’re like a huge sell out, but that…doesn’t connect with the bodyguards and the guidette mentality goin’ on, so…I mean. Beyond that, buildin’ an empire and survivin’ the streets…basically comin’ back from the dead, and like…maybe that’s all true. Or maybe it’s really just something you feel like you have to say so people don’t know what’s missin’.

You made your big entrance back on the fourth of May, right? You had the mob boys and the power strut and all that footage and malarkey to carry you but like…tell me, Joanne. Tell me if your match met the theatrical moodboard you presented for all of us to see. When that bell rang, after all of the accolades from the time of the dinosaurs roamed the circuit, was anyone really like…impressed? The Copenhagen crowd wasn’t too thrilled, and neither was Calaway.

Is she ever though?

If LJ is involved…teehee.” She clicks her tongue, sarcastically. “But nah, yeah, nah, Joanne, I watched that footage. Saw your shoulder come up at two, saw you yellin’ at the ref like a Karen at a Costco who didn’t get the rebate on the last package of honey buns. I get it, like…frustration’s definitely a real thing, but maybe don’t, like…bank the whole match on weight class and the ~v i b e s~. You can’t really win matches on gougin’ out eyes and clawin’ people. I mean, you do all this stuff that’s prob supposed to rattle a rookie, but it really kinda doesn’t scare me. I’ve studied the old matches and the last one, looked at the footwork, can tell when the hook is comin’. I’ll be honest with you all…I’m not going to be able to out brawl, but I don’t need to. I can out class and out sass this bish.

She uses a hand to flick her hair behind her shoulder. She then shrugs again with a grin. “Whatcha need to know about me, Joni, is that when you enter that ring with me, it’s not gonna be fists and bodyguards and power. It’s gonna be some elegant footie that’s deliberate in most ways. It’s not gonna be you yellin’ at some ref, it’s gonna be me lockin’ in those submissions and not lettin’ go, doin’ them with a bit of a cheeky kind of inclusion with the crowd. And it’s not just gonna be you throwin’ me around – I learned from the best cruiserweight and I’m gonna make sure that pinpoint precision is in.

I’m not here to knock over your empire, girl. But I’m not gonna kneel to them because you’ve got some sort of critical legacy and muscle backing you. I’m building myself up from the ground, and it’s based on precision and patience, and a whole lot of heart.

Denver isn’t gonna see anything like it for a long time, and I don’t care what kinda match ends up at the end of the night. I’m gonna be watchin with my eyes wide open because the sky is wide, friends, and the possibilities are endless.”



★☆★☆★☆★☆★


They were talking all over one another. Something about Kallie’s cravings, Phoebe’s theory that all bartenders secretly hated making mojitos. The noise wasn’t really aloud, but it was constant. Laughter hummed beneath it. Clinks and breathy sighs. Soft digs and warm glances. Amelia, however, wasn’t saying much anymore.

She was watching instead. Not out of any kind of desire for distance or disinterest. But because…well, it felt safe. Her dress still held its shape, her heels crossed at the table politely. Her hair hadn’t even come loose yet. Everything about her still looked together. For the first time in days, though, she didn’t feel as if she was standing on the wrong side of an invisible fence. No one asked if she was okay, they just let her be. She was eternally grateful. There was a pause – an easy, earned one – where the clink of glasses felt more like a breath as opposed to a toast.

Her phone buzzed. Once. She glanced down. It wasn’t him. Another buzz, and still not him. She didn’t open either, just dangled her third drink between her fingers and looked back up with a small smile. However, Phoebe noticed. Like she always did.

He’s an idiot,” she said, offhand, like she was commenting on the weather. “Certified, proper, full stop idiot. Like a diploma held in Dumbfuckery.

Kallie winced into her drink, trying not to laugh. Barbie raised a brow, gently reminding her, “You don’t even know what he said.”

I don’t need to,” Phoebe replied, waving the comment off with a graceful tipsy flourish.  “Look at her. This…” she gestured broadly in Amelia’s direction, “is beautiful, and unattended in a lounge. With heels. With whiskey. That bruh has no sense.

He’s just busy,” Amelia said, trying to weakly defend her boyfriend.

Oh, do not even give me the he’s busy line.” Kayla cut in, deadpanning. “Everyone’s busy. I’m busy. Finn’s busy with his shoulder. Kallie’s over here becoming a fuckin’ hippo and she showed up. If he wanted to be here, he’d be here. Instead he’s probably brooding in a darkened room with his tragic little sad brain cells firing.

Wait,” Phoebe pushed, just slightly, “you’re agreeing with me?

I don’t like him.

You never agree with me.

He’s a twerp.

Amelia didn’t say anything. But she didn’t smile either.

They didn’t linger long after that. Kallie was yawning into the side of her hand and Barbie had moved to sparkling water. Amelia paid the bill. She always did when no one fought her on it.

She rode back with Kallie and Kayla, chewing on her lip and wondering if he was home tonight. It’d been forever, it seemed. Maybe a couple of days. Or more. She couldn’t remember. It was just sleepless nights at home, waiting for a text saying that he was fine. Or something.

She slipped off her heels as she quietly shut the door behind her, letting them clatter softly to the floor. Amelia wanted to make sure she was quiet, because she wasn’t sure if he was home. She didn’t want to be the reason he stayed awake. She moved with tip toeing grace for the staircase that would lead up to their bedroom, but realized that the light from the living room was on.

She found him perched on the sofa, a baggy shirt over joggers, legs stretched out on the ottoman in front of him all lackadaisical, one bent at the knee and propped against the other. He’d pulled his curly hair up into a bun on the top of his head and was scrolling through his phone with heavily tattooed fingers. Dickie Watson was a man that held bold statements through his speech work, appearance and otherwise aggressive style of ring work that places like Sin City hadn’t seen. But at home?

He was quiet. Careful.

He didn’t look up right away, just tapped something out on his phone. A text to Finn or Aiden. She stood in the doorway longer than she meant to, shifting weight from one foot to the other, waiting for him to say something. Reece would have admonished her for being out so long. She expected he would too, after the arrival of the lace. But he didn’t.

He looked up and gave her a tired smile. “Thought you were staying out late.” His voice was low, like he hadn’t spoken in a while. It wasn’t a question.

I did,” she said, taking a couple steps forward toward him, her bare feet padding against the rug. She watched as he set his phone face down on the armrest and reached up for her. She took his hand, and he pulled her down into the couch’s cushions with him unceremoniously, her knee awkwardly bending on the cushion. No matter how far she seemed from him, this place was always the easiest. Easier than sitting with her girlfriends on a rooftop lounge bitching about their chosen partners. He’d missed her. And she knew it.

His arm slid around her shoulders as she leaned into him, settling against him with a sigh as her arm came up to lazily lay across his waist. He kissed the top of her head, slow and deliberate. “I saw the picture,” he murmured into her hair.

Phoebe.” She explained, but her fingers clenched against his shirt lightly.

She always gets good angles,” he said. When she shrugged, almost as if she didn’t want to put mind to her friend’s boundary stepping, she felt his lips curve into a smile. “I like to see them better in person, though.

Amelia’s giggled softly under her breath and turned her nose into his chest, inhaling  the mixture of bergamot and yuzu and watermelon. She closed her eyes. She always stole his hoodie to keep his scent around, but she didn’t need the rescue blanket that it’d become. With the tips of his fingers, he slid a lazy line up and down her arm, absentmindedly, as if he didn’t even think about it but knew it comforted her. Even though it was easy there, at the lounge, with the people, it was just as easy here. With him.

You were quiet this week,” she whispered.

So were you.

I didn’t want to make it worse.

You didn’t.

She didn’t say anything about missing him. He didn’t apologize. They just stayed like that. The quiet enveloped them, saying everything that didn’t need to be spoken into the world. After a while, he extended his arm and pulled the sherpa blanket off the back of the couch, draping it over her legs. She adjusted without thinking, letting her fingers curl into the dark fabric of his Killswitch Engage shirt. She settled deeper into his side, tilting her head slightly. His darkly tattooed hand covered hers, and his mouth found the top of her head again, pressed against the crown of her head.

You can fall asleep here if you want, I’m not gonna move.” He told her.

Five minutes.

Sure thing, Princess.

Five minutes lulled into ten, then fifteen, and an hour. She snored softly against him and her grip eased. He stayed, just like he said he would.

And that was enough.

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