Post by Icon Lady Eva Hikari on Dec 14, 2014 15:09:50 GMT -6
It had taken mere days for her to lose the battle. The ceaseless nagging and kicked puppy eyes had done their damage. A whole afternoon had been wasted, and now sitting among the wreckage of tinsel and synthetic pine. With a tree overly decorated and threatening to tip. Eva Hikari was cross legged, buried in an stolen hoodie a open jar of Nutella by her side, a tea spoon in her mouth and a knife acting as a makeshift screwdriver as she fiddled with the plug of the fair lights. Flicking the fuse out of the plug across the carpet a muffled curse tries its best to escape the spoon. Taking it from her mouth, dropping it in the jar and sitting up with a huff, she turns her attention to looking for the damn thing. Bloody Christmas.
??: Here, let me.
Almost swooping in to save the day...or the longevity of the tree, the 2007 Lord appears, bending over to pick up the rogue fuse and takes a seat beside her.
Shoving the makeshift screwdriver and plug in his direction she settles back with her jar.
Eva: Fix this! It hates me and its crap. There will be no lights next year, none at bloody all.
Icon Corbin: Think of the children!!
His dramatics made it clear he was trying to cheer her up. A needless act with her already spooning Nutella and eating it. Having a look at the puzzle she had created, he reassembles the plug with some ease and tightens it with the butter knife before confidently slipping it into the mains to be greeted with flashing colours. Trying to speak with a mouthful of chocolate was a bad idea. Not that she seemed to have really remembered this fact. Waving her spoon in his general direction she shakes her head.
Eva: Witchcraft!
Icon Corbin: That's so a month and a half ago, lover...
Eva: Then it’s just a fairy light conspiracy designed to drive me sodding nutty. First they knot themselves, then there’s a dead light, then one of them breaks. Then they blow entirely, meanwhile kids are whining about the magic of Christmas. Which apparently is entirely reliant on a plastic bloody tree glowing its tits off as it fights to stand under all the shit piled on it. Bah to it all!
Ending her mini rant abruptly with another spoon of chocolate her attention wanders back to the tree. His eyes follow hers, the both of them staring at the tree that didn't actually look half bad in spite of her outburst. He didn't believe in it but giving the children that little bit of magic to distract them from the cruelty their world brought them made it easier on his conscience.
Icon Corbin: They're going to love it. And totally whinge that you didn't let them help. I had to tell them mum wanted to make it extra special for them. Well...it's easier than telling them to stay out your way because doing this shit turns your mouth into something that would make even my father blush, ha!
Eva: Excuse me, I have been totally polite throughout this whole ordeal.
Icon Corbin: You...didn't notice me standing behind you for the past fifteen minutes?
Eva: Fifteen minutes? Just for that I’m not sharing my chocolate.
Icon Corbin: Well, that all depends on whether I want some or not...
He winks at her.
Icon Corbin: Tree ordeal aside, you seem a bit better today though.
Eva: Yep…..I’ve had a lot of coffee today. Does wonders for my mood.
Icon Corbin: That can't be all, surely.
Eva: I’ve spent all day with the kids. What about you though. How are you feeling?
Shuffling to make herself more comfortable she bats away a stray bauble. He catches it, lifting it by the string and slotting it onto an available branch.
Icon Corbin: I'm alright.
Eyeing him more critically than anyone cast in the glow of multicoloured flashing lights should, she eventually shakes her head.
Eva: If you say so love.
Icon Corbin: What?
Eva: Nothing sweets.
Icon Corbin: No, you can't do that. What is it?
Eva: I don’t know. You just seem a bit….off.
Icon Corbin: Go on...
Eva: You’ve not been yourself recently?
Icon Corbin: I'm fine. But you can't talk. All this beating yourself up lark going on lately. The kids are noticing, y'know.
Eva: How? They’re always asleep when….Well it doesn’t matter. They’ll understand when they get older.
Icon Corbin: Uh huh. So, what's going on? Why haven't you talked to me about whatever it is that's going on in your head right now?
Picking up her cold coffee from under the tree she avoided looking at him. Instead she focused her attention on her drink and picking out the bits of tinsel that had settled on the top.
Eva: Did Will grass me up?
Icon Corbin: That and the people around you are a lot more observant than you give them credit for.
Eva: If you’re so observant you don’t need me to tell you anything.
Icon Corbin: But I do. Knowing something is wrong and knowing what is wrong is not the same thing, Evalyn. It'd just be nice to come inside once in a while, y'know?
Eva: I guess. It’s just….difficult.
Icon Corbin: What is?
Eva: Do you ever wonder why you came back?
Icon Corbin: Sometimes...why?
Eva: Because…..because sometimes sitting in that locker room after a piss poor performance…..title or not. I have to really look deep to find a reason. I have to break myself to justify it.
For now, he just listens to her. Taking a sip of her drink, not even registering the taste she watched the flickering lights of the tree. Her mind clearly somewhere else.
Eva: Its not good enough to just be in attendance. Its not good enough to be the Icon, the former champ. To justify it I need to be better than I was, better than I ever have been.
Icon Corbin: But I've seen how hard you train, what you put yourself through. I've felt every move you have to offer. What's stopping you out there? Why aren't your matches reflecting the efforts you're putting in to get you there?
Shrugging her shoulders she ran a hand through her hair.
Eva: You tell me.
Icon Corbin: It's as if something turns off out there.
Eva: Unfortunately not my head. How do I stop it? How do you stop it?
Icon Corbin: But why now? Why didn't this ever happen before?
Eva: I don’t know. I wish I did.
Icon Corbin: Something must be going through your mind at that point.
Eva: The kids….I feel so guilty for this. For dragging them out on the road…..disrupting their entire way of life and for what? The chance to know what it’s like to miss us and watch us hurt? We’ve already taken away the bigger kids ideals but the twins are still under the impression that mum and dad are immortal.
Glancing at her briefly, he just sighs and stares back at the tree.
Eva: It’s nuts, I know. Plenty of folk make this work for them.
Icon Corbin: Even us...We have before.
Eva: It was easier then. When Zippy and George were smaller…..it was easier to think of them not noticing. Not realising just what was going on around them. Now…..Lucy and Danny look at me as if they’re expecting me to break my neck again….or do something just as bloody reckless. The babies ask questions…..How do I do it Leon? How do I go out there and fuck up night after night? How do I offer that kinda performance and look them in the eye and say this is it. This is why mum and dad took away your stability. This is how I could end up crippling myself and injured enough to scare them again. This is why…….
Sensing she wasn't quite finished, he rests a hand on the top of hers. Seeming to deflate. As if the energy, will and fight had left her she shrugs.
Eva: …..Stupid right?
Icon Corbin: No, it's not. But what do you intend to do about it?
Eva: Ignore it til it goes away? Honestly, right now I don’t know. I’m working my arse off…..not that you can tell. I’d have torn anyone apart for giving the performance I have of late….
Icon Corbin: And what do you need from me? How can I help?
Eva: You can’t. You know you can’t. If I was anyone else you’d have already crucified me by now and you know it.
Icon Corbin: Hmm...
Standing up with her already tangling again lights she deliberately avoided looking at him. He stands, gently taking the lights from her before he was subjected to any obscenities and begins placing them around the tree.
Icon Corbin: Sounds like you have a lot to think about, to consider...
Eva: Hmm……It sucks when there’s no real right answer. I’ll sort it though…..I always do.
Icon Corbin: Do you though?
Eva: That or kill myself trying. There’s no easy fix for this. I never saw myself settled down playing wife and mum. I never saw an alternate ending the shit heap I was queen of. Life moves faster on the road. You live on your own schedule of working out, fighting, promo’s and the never ending stream of press. You don’t track your life by days, it’s by shows and matches. You count the bruises and scars like badges of pride, measuring your self worth on whatever win loss record you have going on and judging your performance based on how bad you made the other guy look.
Pushing a hand through her hair, her gaze wandered to the tree. The tree the kids had been nagging to have up for weeks. The same one she had spent all afternoon swearing at and condemning with the kind of bile reserved for the worst society had to offer.
Eva: Then there’s the other side. You find your knowledge of holds rivalled only by the amount of seemingly pointless trivia you pick up about your tiny folk. Favourite food, colour, cartoon character, subject to talk about….current obsession. All of which change weekly, sometimes daily. Time is something more precious, and the tiny things…….They notice everything. Subtle things no one else would pick up…..You savour every smile, every gesture……Every new discovery that fills them with joy. Joy you somehow became jaded to over time. It’s easy to forget to be happy, how to genuinely laugh and smile…..and its easy to be reminded how when you’re around them….There are two sides to everything. I always prided myself on giving everything to my work. I lived for the adrenaline of doing something reckless. I lived for the rush of learning something new and testing my skills. I pushed and pushed and at times felt I had nothing left…..then pushed some more. Years of hard work and sacrifice, years of constantly trying to be better. I fought you every step of the way when I had to bow out with the twins. Fought management even harder over my return. The business was my life, my everything. The two don’t mix……..I don’t care what anyone on the road wants to tell you….there is no ideal way to give the sport everything it demands then your family everything they need……..I can’t be both people.
Breaking her trance she shakes her head as if attempting to dismiss the thought entirely. It lingered with her, in her glassy stare and the hard set of her jaw. Though her mask was already falling back into place. The carefully neutral, almost expressionless façade she had worked her whole life to perfect barely hid the turmoil within. It wouldn’t hide it at all from him. Backing away from him as if she’d just been burned she leaves him to finish the tree, her muttered apology barely making it past her lips in her haste to leave.
??: Here, let me.
Almost swooping in to save the day...or the longevity of the tree, the 2007 Lord appears, bending over to pick up the rogue fuse and takes a seat beside her.
Shoving the makeshift screwdriver and plug in his direction she settles back with her jar.
Eva: Fix this! It hates me and its crap. There will be no lights next year, none at bloody all.
Icon Corbin: Think of the children!!
His dramatics made it clear he was trying to cheer her up. A needless act with her already spooning Nutella and eating it. Having a look at the puzzle she had created, he reassembles the plug with some ease and tightens it with the butter knife before confidently slipping it into the mains to be greeted with flashing colours. Trying to speak with a mouthful of chocolate was a bad idea. Not that she seemed to have really remembered this fact. Waving her spoon in his general direction she shakes her head.
Eva: Witchcraft!
Icon Corbin: That's so a month and a half ago, lover...
Eva: Then it’s just a fairy light conspiracy designed to drive me sodding nutty. First they knot themselves, then there’s a dead light, then one of them breaks. Then they blow entirely, meanwhile kids are whining about the magic of Christmas. Which apparently is entirely reliant on a plastic bloody tree glowing its tits off as it fights to stand under all the shit piled on it. Bah to it all!
Ending her mini rant abruptly with another spoon of chocolate her attention wanders back to the tree. His eyes follow hers, the both of them staring at the tree that didn't actually look half bad in spite of her outburst. He didn't believe in it but giving the children that little bit of magic to distract them from the cruelty their world brought them made it easier on his conscience.
Icon Corbin: They're going to love it. And totally whinge that you didn't let them help. I had to tell them mum wanted to make it extra special for them. Well...it's easier than telling them to stay out your way because doing this shit turns your mouth into something that would make even my father blush, ha!
Eva: Excuse me, I have been totally polite throughout this whole ordeal.
Icon Corbin: You...didn't notice me standing behind you for the past fifteen minutes?
Eva: Fifteen minutes? Just for that I’m not sharing my chocolate.
Icon Corbin: Well, that all depends on whether I want some or not...
He winks at her.
Icon Corbin: Tree ordeal aside, you seem a bit better today though.
Eva: Yep…..I’ve had a lot of coffee today. Does wonders for my mood.
Icon Corbin: That can't be all, surely.
Eva: I’ve spent all day with the kids. What about you though. How are you feeling?
Shuffling to make herself more comfortable she bats away a stray bauble. He catches it, lifting it by the string and slotting it onto an available branch.
Icon Corbin: I'm alright.
Eyeing him more critically than anyone cast in the glow of multicoloured flashing lights should, she eventually shakes her head.
Eva: If you say so love.
Icon Corbin: What?
Eva: Nothing sweets.
Icon Corbin: No, you can't do that. What is it?
Eva: I don’t know. You just seem a bit….off.
Icon Corbin: Go on...
Eva: You’ve not been yourself recently?
Icon Corbin: I'm fine. But you can't talk. All this beating yourself up lark going on lately. The kids are noticing, y'know.
Eva: How? They’re always asleep when….Well it doesn’t matter. They’ll understand when they get older.
Icon Corbin: Uh huh. So, what's going on? Why haven't you talked to me about whatever it is that's going on in your head right now?
Picking up her cold coffee from under the tree she avoided looking at him. Instead she focused her attention on her drink and picking out the bits of tinsel that had settled on the top.
Eva: Did Will grass me up?
Icon Corbin: That and the people around you are a lot more observant than you give them credit for.
Eva: If you’re so observant you don’t need me to tell you anything.
Icon Corbin: But I do. Knowing something is wrong and knowing what is wrong is not the same thing, Evalyn. It'd just be nice to come inside once in a while, y'know?
Eva: I guess. It’s just….difficult.
Icon Corbin: What is?
Eva: Do you ever wonder why you came back?
Icon Corbin: Sometimes...why?
Eva: Because…..because sometimes sitting in that locker room after a piss poor performance…..title or not. I have to really look deep to find a reason. I have to break myself to justify it.
For now, he just listens to her. Taking a sip of her drink, not even registering the taste she watched the flickering lights of the tree. Her mind clearly somewhere else.
Eva: Its not good enough to just be in attendance. Its not good enough to be the Icon, the former champ. To justify it I need to be better than I was, better than I ever have been.
Icon Corbin: But I've seen how hard you train, what you put yourself through. I've felt every move you have to offer. What's stopping you out there? Why aren't your matches reflecting the efforts you're putting in to get you there?
Shrugging her shoulders she ran a hand through her hair.
Eva: You tell me.
Icon Corbin: It's as if something turns off out there.
Eva: Unfortunately not my head. How do I stop it? How do you stop it?
Icon Corbin: But why now? Why didn't this ever happen before?
Eva: I don’t know. I wish I did.
Icon Corbin: Something must be going through your mind at that point.
Eva: The kids….I feel so guilty for this. For dragging them out on the road…..disrupting their entire way of life and for what? The chance to know what it’s like to miss us and watch us hurt? We’ve already taken away the bigger kids ideals but the twins are still under the impression that mum and dad are immortal.
Glancing at her briefly, he just sighs and stares back at the tree.
Eva: It’s nuts, I know. Plenty of folk make this work for them.
Icon Corbin: Even us...We have before.
Eva: It was easier then. When Zippy and George were smaller…..it was easier to think of them not noticing. Not realising just what was going on around them. Now…..Lucy and Danny look at me as if they’re expecting me to break my neck again….or do something just as bloody reckless. The babies ask questions…..How do I do it Leon? How do I go out there and fuck up night after night? How do I offer that kinda performance and look them in the eye and say this is it. This is why mum and dad took away your stability. This is how I could end up crippling myself and injured enough to scare them again. This is why…….
Sensing she wasn't quite finished, he rests a hand on the top of hers. Seeming to deflate. As if the energy, will and fight had left her she shrugs.
Eva: …..Stupid right?
Icon Corbin: No, it's not. But what do you intend to do about it?
Eva: Ignore it til it goes away? Honestly, right now I don’t know. I’m working my arse off…..not that you can tell. I’d have torn anyone apart for giving the performance I have of late….
Icon Corbin: And what do you need from me? How can I help?
Eva: You can’t. You know you can’t. If I was anyone else you’d have already crucified me by now and you know it.
Icon Corbin: Hmm...
Standing up with her already tangling again lights she deliberately avoided looking at him. He stands, gently taking the lights from her before he was subjected to any obscenities and begins placing them around the tree.
Icon Corbin: Sounds like you have a lot to think about, to consider...
Eva: Hmm……It sucks when there’s no real right answer. I’ll sort it though…..I always do.
Icon Corbin: Do you though?
Eva: That or kill myself trying. There’s no easy fix for this. I never saw myself settled down playing wife and mum. I never saw an alternate ending the shit heap I was queen of. Life moves faster on the road. You live on your own schedule of working out, fighting, promo’s and the never ending stream of press. You don’t track your life by days, it’s by shows and matches. You count the bruises and scars like badges of pride, measuring your self worth on whatever win loss record you have going on and judging your performance based on how bad you made the other guy look.
Pushing a hand through her hair, her gaze wandered to the tree. The tree the kids had been nagging to have up for weeks. The same one she had spent all afternoon swearing at and condemning with the kind of bile reserved for the worst society had to offer.
Eva: Then there’s the other side. You find your knowledge of holds rivalled only by the amount of seemingly pointless trivia you pick up about your tiny folk. Favourite food, colour, cartoon character, subject to talk about….current obsession. All of which change weekly, sometimes daily. Time is something more precious, and the tiny things…….They notice everything. Subtle things no one else would pick up…..You savour every smile, every gesture……Every new discovery that fills them with joy. Joy you somehow became jaded to over time. It’s easy to forget to be happy, how to genuinely laugh and smile…..and its easy to be reminded how when you’re around them….There are two sides to everything. I always prided myself on giving everything to my work. I lived for the adrenaline of doing something reckless. I lived for the rush of learning something new and testing my skills. I pushed and pushed and at times felt I had nothing left…..then pushed some more. Years of hard work and sacrifice, years of constantly trying to be better. I fought you every step of the way when I had to bow out with the twins. Fought management even harder over my return. The business was my life, my everything. The two don’t mix……..I don’t care what anyone on the road wants to tell you….there is no ideal way to give the sport everything it demands then your family everything they need……..I can’t be both people.
Breaking her trance she shakes her head as if attempting to dismiss the thought entirely. It lingered with her, in her glassy stare and the hard set of her jaw. Though her mask was already falling back into place. The carefully neutral, almost expressionless façade she had worked her whole life to perfect barely hid the turmoil within. It wouldn’t hide it at all from him. Backing away from him as if she’d just been burned she leaves him to finish the tree, her muttered apology barely making it past her lips in her haste to leave.
