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Lacklan · (07-09-2019)

Sarah Grey-Lacklan looks up from her notebook and squints at the bulb in her booklight. Soft and dull, it was still painful in its sudden burst to her odd red eyes, and she shakes her head to push away the spots suddenly in her vision. Once they clear, she takes stock of her surroundings:

Malibu Lagoon was beautiful at night, the sky clear from the dingy brown Los Angeles often had hanging over it, and the soft slap of the waves on the shore was smoothing. Kenzi laid down next to her on their towel, one of the caramel starlet’s legs wrapped in a hard splint, a light snoring sound coming from her as she snoozed. She had been sleeping a lot the past few days, but that was no wonder; along with Roxy, the two of them had nearly killed themselves during the weekend’s big wrestling festival, with Kenzi herself being a part of two big title matches. Off in the distance, Sarah can see the aforementioned Roxy walking along the beach with her fiance, Vinnie, their two sets of tracks winding at least half a mile from their own towel next to the one belonging to the Grey-Lacklans.

“If you had asked me a year ago,” says Sarah in a soft voice, the high-pitched Londoner accent gentle in the sea air, “I never would have thought that I’d call that idiot ‘bossman.’”

Sarah shakes her head at the duo. Even from this distance, Vinnie’s bright pink bandana was vibrant in the dark night, as if the light from a lighthouse for glam rockers to find succor in their travels.

“Its such a weird dynamic, ya know? Vinnie is scatterbrained, at best, and kinda falls into that ‘evil genuis’ category of promoters. But he hasn’t tried to fuck me over, yet, or else try to get over on my ability to generate heat easier than the sun, so that’s something. And Roxy…”

As small smile comes to her thin lips.

“We both have that Bitch Switch. We can go from hanging out to cutting scathing promos on one another and then right back to giggling over shoes. Of the four #CoolKids, we have that odd bond. Its definately been an adventure.”

She turns her eyes away from the couple and down to the sleeping form next to her.

“I love you, Mackenzie.”

She reaches over and gently places her arm atop Kenzi’s chest. Pale skin shines brightly against her wife’s darker shade, and she runs a soft finger along the swell of breast rising and falling smoothly underneath the flower-pattern shawl wrapped around her body.

“So many people only look at the skin. Look at what they see...see what they WISH to see...and do not bother going deeper. Not you, though. You always saw deeper than what I presented. You loved what I gave to the world...loved the vlogging Blood Princes...but you saw deeper. You saw the sequestered...perhaps even cloistered...young woman looking for a friend. A real friend. And a partner.”

She smiles wider as she feels Kenzi’s body head up at her touch.

“Even when sleeping...horny bitch…”

She giggles in the darkness and takes her hand away from Kenzi’s chest. She reaches into her shawl, a matching flower print to her wife’s, and pulls out a phone from the waistband of her bikini bottom. Wrapped in a pink case with Kenzi’s smiling face printed on the back, Sarah’s large and clunky Windows phone was as outdated and obselete as could be, but her pride was too thick for her to give in and opt for Kenzi’s iPhone. The light shines brightly as she brings it out of its slumber, her eyes automatically squinting behind her thick glasses, before she lowered the brightness setting.

“...something bothers me, though...something you said recently…”

Her finger, capped in a nail lacquered black and featuring a tiny red and orange flame, flips across the phone’s surface, coursing through a series of images. Kenzi and Sarah on their wedding day, with Kenzi in white velvet and Sarah in black lace. With Roxy and Angie, the #CoolKids, celebrating one of the many nights in which they had performed a clean sweep in a fed. Many “selfie” pictures of Sarah with a variety of people, from peers such as her War Games team, to the night she met Lady Gaga, to the time she met President Trump after winning the King of the Ring tournament.

“I’m STILL made you wore you dumb ‘Bernie or Bust’ shirt!”

The smile on Sarah’s face tells the truth of any heat or venom in that statement to the dark beach. But the smile faulters as she gets to the image on her mind, that of a tweet Kenzi recently put up as the two were playing their favorite game together, “Two Hawt Chicks Being Dumb on Twitter.”

You use to set people on fire 😒 https://t.co/YtY9zBJrzA
— Kenzi Grey (@Kenzi_Grey) July 3, 2019

“Yeah...I used to…”

Sarah’s smile falls further into a grimace as she looks at the tweet.

“Do you miss those days? The Blood Princess? Do you wish I was still that way?”

She shakes her head and lets out a long sigh.

“The Blood Princess was still very influenced by her father. By hate. I’ve moved beyond that. You moved me beyond that. But do you still hunger for the danger?”

She looks away from the phone and to Kenzi again.

“FIve bucks says that not anyone in the XWF outside of Roxy even KNOW about that, Beloved. They’re so obsessed with the surface that they haven’t even THOUGHT of looking deeper. In my experience thus far, I have found a sea of mediocrity so thick that it is more sludge than water. Filled with fat and slow prey with little in the way of predators. Main knows what he’s doing. And Bourbon. Corey, too. But that’s pretty much it.”

She turns from Kenzi and looks back down at her notepad and the words written there. She picks her pen back up and underlines the first phrase with several scratches.

“They only scratch the surface here. To be honest, I’m used to more analytical competition, ya know? I’m used to people who look deeper. To people who delve into where you came from. Who look at who you beat, who beat you, and in what context. Used that to prepare. Kinda like how they do handicaps in horse racing, ya know? Sure, you got X title, but you beat the champ on a day he had a 103 degree fever and the sun was in his eyes. Instead, most around here just take a quick glance at a profile, like on twitter or the fed website, or whatever, and then just talk about themselves. Pretty amateur shit, if you ask me.”

Her pen underlines the second phrase.

“Take a look at this Carnes dude I’m fighting on Saturday, ya know? I broke that fucker DOWN. Who he beat and when. Who he lost to. How. What he said going in. What he said in post-fight situations. Who he IS. But all Captain Dipshit can do for ME is see that I’m the Queen of the Ring and not even underSTAND what that MEANS! Fucktard literally fought in the same tournament and somehow thinks its just a little banner or emoji or something for when I’m fucking around online.

“Of course, this IS the guy who goes ‘Oh! Your last pay-per-view match was a tag match! LOSER!’ Sweet Baby Jesus, what a shitty take. ‘A tag match.’ Capitán Dumbshit doesn’t even know the difference between an everyday tag match and an epoynymous elimation match held inside a freakin’ cage. ‘On your own.’ Oh, fuck ME in the goat ass, his analysis is so shallow that he doesn’t realize that I WAS my War Games team, and that I carried at LEAST two jobbers on my back the entire time.”

She shakes her head as the pen circles the final phrase.

“And that WILL be his fate, Beloved. Just like so many others in the XWF, ya know? Everyone gets fooled by the vlogger. By the media star. By the twitface nonsense. All the while, they get caught by a sick right hook and wonder what the fuck happened. I mean, shit, just look at Senorita Carnitas! Dipshit literally fell for the silly comedy routine. Like a fish! Like, I totes attached a big ass worm to a hook, attached that hook to a line, flung the line into the water, and Moron Numero Uno bobbed for it like Roxy at a Captain 80’s convention.”

Sarah’s pen finds itself circling the entire haiku in gentle loops

“Its an odd juxtaposition, Beloved. On the one hand, I appreciate how much everyone around me becomes distracted by the smiles and the glittering dresses. They fall for all of the nonsense I want them to see. But then it bothers me. It BOTHERS me. No one looks deeper. No one peels back the layers. No one cares enough to REALLY see what they’re dealing with, ya know? Hell, I’ve literally had over a hundred matches in the last couple of years...and that’s probs legit 150 or so promotional videos to go along with that...but nimrods like Dominar Del Taco think that they can just glance at some video titles and think they can gleen context through some sort of shitty osmosis. And that’s why they lose. That’s why they FAIL.

“But I’m different. Of course I’m different. I’m me. I’m a LACKLAN. Hell, I’m MORE than that. I’m a GREY-Lacklan. Which means that go DEEP. I go FAR beyond the surface of the normal dipshittery offered up by the rogues and baffoons within the XWF. Going deep, and offereing that wide variety of content and flavor that I do, is a BIG part about how I won the dumb Queen of the Ring trophy in the first place. Hell, just ask Corey-”

Sarah nonchallantely picks up her phone and lets her lithe fingers dance across the surface as she sends Lux a few X-Bux for the obligatory name drop.

“-how deep my analysis goes. I’m even writing ‘Terminatrix’ as a movie script as we speak! Ask Dolly and Game Girl what it was like to have their facades stripped away. Ask Eli how his heart fell into the pit of his stomach when I unearthed his ‘Son of a Bitch’ cover. Ask ANYONE that I have faced. Even Hootie didn’t dare to opose me for a second after I showed the world what she REALLY was...and she LOVES me!”

Sarah rolls her eyes and shakes her head as she sets her notebook down onto their beach towel.

“Good Lord, sweet BABY Jesus, I can see Carnes and his approach now. I mean, he’s already SUPER worried after he saw just how far BEHIND he is going into this match, as he is FAR outstripped in our earliest promotional salvos, and there is no doubt he is sweating so much that even a sumo wrestler working on his cardio would give him bewildered looks. What lame-as-flame trick will he bust out this week? What tired bullshit will he spew as he cuts the exact SAME video he has ALWAYS done in an attempt to make this anything more than a complete ass-kicking. Think about it, Beloved! Thirteen promotional videos from the man and each and every one sounds the same! Its like he went to the Kid Kool Skool of Wrestling!

“What is he going to do this time, Ken? Is he going to pull out that SUPER shitty copy/paste routine of a Game Girl because he doesn’t axly have anything original to say? That’s what he did with the Blackwaters, ya know. Of course, he also said that they weren’t even competition...and then lost clean to Donovan...so I wonder what that makes Carnes himself? Pretty shitty when you lose to someone you call shit. But that’s the price you pay with you shoot that way, ya know?

“Or maybe he’s going to give me a lesson in Spanish, as if I don’t understand Romantic verb congegation? Dipshit probs doesn’t even realize that l’espagnol est l'enfant bâtard du français. Or perhaps he is going to rely on pointing out all of the ‘Hell is Home to Some’ t-shirts in the crowd? Oh, please. Nothing says ‘pathetic blowhard’ like randomly making up shit and hoping no one notices. Or, maybe yet, he’ll literally open up ‘The Book of Someone Else’s Insults’ and bust out another winner like ’Chu es bottom of de barrell.’”

Sarah shakes her head again as she leans back on her elbows, pressing them into the towel and sand.

“Lord, that lazy shit pisses me off. Of course, I guess there is only so much I can expect from someone who considers ‘research’ and ‘homework’ to be copying and pasting Mastermind’s outdated win and loss record and then crying about how the Big MM hasn’t updated his stupid wikipedia page. Talk about a shitty take! I wonder what other shitty takes Carnes has? Does he mock Main for not wrestling often because he doesn’t understand how World Title matches NEED to be kept relatively rare to help elevate their importance? Does he see some ‘legen’ returning and automatically think they deserve respect or a spot in the main event simply because they cut some good promos years ago and doesn’t care to see if anything they have is relevan anymore, too? Of course, he DID call MasterFuck one of the BEST Television champions ever based upon his longevity while completely missing the boat on how TERRIBLE MM is and how his successful defenses were against gutter trash, so I wonder if he even has a SINGLE take that ISN’T shitty!”

Sarah’s face scrunches into a ponderous expression for a moment. She lightly chews her lips and a dimple pops out on her right cheek that would make an anime character swoon with jealousy.

“Carnes probs also doesn’t realize that his OWN reign as Television Champion only boasted a defense against a piece of two-dimensional gutter trash. So I guess I see WHY he thinks MasterLoser is worth a damn, even IF he is completely wrong.”

Sarah’s mouth smooths out. She looks down at Kenzi again and grimaces.

“Ugh. Bored now. I’m ALWAYS bored when you’re not paying attention to me. You’re my light, Beloved. I am nothing without you.”

Her face brightens suddenly with a light which tells of pure mischief. She leans up and gently gets to her feet, careful not to touch or bother her sleeping spouse. She adjust the flower pattern shawl around her torso and slips off into the sand toward the shore. When she returns, she has a small amount of seawater cupped in her hands and gently lowers herself back down into place on the towel. With a barely supressed giggle, she flings the water onto Kenzi’s face. Kenzi snorts and starts awake, her eyes going wide, and she sits up.

“What the-?! Who the-?!”

“Oh! You’re awake?”

Sarah’s voice and face are a master class in innocense as Kenzi turns a suspicious glare towards her. She flings her braids over her shoulder and folds her arms under her breats.

“I am NOW!”

“Oh, good! I had a question I wanted to ask you!”

Kenzi narrows her eyes at Sarah, but the pure innocence on her pale face seems to calm her.

“Fine! What’s up?”

Sarah’s eyes rapidly move back and forth behind her glasses for a moment, a clear sign to Kenzi that she was thinking hard, and then they focus on her.

“FireStarter or Mean Girl Overlord?”

Kenzi blinks.

“wut”

Sarah licks her lips for a second and then looks away.

“If you had to choose one…”

She looks back at Kenzi and licks her lips again. Red eyes meet brown with an intensity which makes Kenzi shiver unconciously.

“FireStarter...or Mean Girl?”

Now awake and with context, Kenzi understands the words coming from Sarah. Much of the Sarah she had met...and later fell in love with...in 2017, had been about wanting to set people on fire, causing carnage for the sake of it, and burning every bridge or interpersonal relationship she had touched. But after meeting Kenzi, and then later the rest of the #CoolKids, THIS Sarah far better understood the importance of friendships and relationships, but had also lost her edge. Kenzi sighs as she looks evenly at her wife, brown eyes flickering in the moonlight.

“Well, if you were to press me…”

She licks her lips for a moment.

“...then I’d say FireStarter, but aren’t they both sides of the same coin?”

She reaches forward and takes Sarah’s hand, squeezing tightly three times in succession, a silent code of support to one another from even the infancy of their coupling, and looks her right in the eye.

“I prefer...you! Always have and always will. Mean Girl/FireStarter...it doesn’t matter to me, so long as it’s you!”

Sarah looks at Kenzi, meeting eye to eye. She gives her a slow nod of understanding, then looks away for a moment, again chewing her lips. But then she looks back at her through the corners of her eyes and smirks.

"Hmmm....”

Kenzi raises an eyebrow and Sarah goes in for the kill as she lowers and raises her eyes in a brazen fashion.

“But which one turns your lower half into a rainforest faster?"

Kenzi cannot help but blush and smile.

“FireStarter, OVBS!”

Sarah giggles...and then growls deep in her throat...as she launches herself off her knees and tackles Kenzi onto the sand.

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