Author's Note: I originally wrote Chyna's and Trish's stories this past NYE, and decided to write Stacy's and post all three. This isn't exactly a continuation of Devolution, but it's not a full-blown sequel, either. It's more of a follow-up written in one-shot vignettes.
"What are you going to do tonight, since I'm not letting you stay here."
Chyna grunted. The muscles in her folded arms tightened. "As if you're in any shape to stop me from staying here if I choose to stay here." She looked out the window and imagined that the view was out of Dave's mansion, looking out onto the water. From the hospital window, she could only see the building next door. If she looked down, she could see the ambulances bringing in patients. There would be more as day turned into night. New Years Eve was a big day for hospitals.
"What do you plan to do for New Years? Watch me sleep?"
"Maybe." She shrugged. She had spent a lot of the past few months watching him sleep, both in and out of hospitals. How was it that Hunter managed to get everyone in so much trouble, but he came out of it mostly unhurt?
First, there was the wound itself, and the blood loss. The knife that tore through Dave's stomach had done a lot more damage than the one that had ruptured Chyna's implant. A hand went to her chest, cupping the replaced breast slightly at the memory. That had hurt like a bitch, and there was a scar that would never go away, but it had been nothing compared to Dave.
The infection came after the surgery, and then two more infections. It was like his body didn't want to heal. If Chyna believed in such things, she would say it was karma. The drugs that flowed out of Club Evolution had fucked up a lot of people and now, payback was the biggest bitch of them all. Would this last stint in the hospital be the last one? If it was the last, was it so because he'd finally get better or because they drove him out of there in a hearse?
Chyna put her hands to her face. She took in a deep breath. Her hands slid up, then back down, and fell to her sides. She was fucking tired. Chyna had turned herself into Dave's personal bodyguard. There wasn't a place he went that she didn't check out first, and not a day went by when she didn't spend the majority of it at his side. If Hunter hadn't been so preoccupied with Stacy, she probably would have heard shit from him about the club's security going to hell in a hand basket.
Well, fuck him. He came out of it clean, right? All he had to worry about was the princess that couldn't sleep at night. And, okay, that wasn't fair. Stacy had been through her own shit. Hell, the girl had actually seen her father's dead body hanging upside down. She deserved nervous breakdowns and sleepless nights. Chyna just wished that there was someone else that could take over once in a while. She wished there was someone she trusted enough to let them take over for a while.
She turned to Dave and he looked… Well, not as pathetic as he had last week, when she had practically dragged him through the emergency room doors. He looked tired, now, like he hadn't slept in a couple of days. He didn't look like he was on death's door anymore, which was a vast improvement. Chyna couldn't wait until he just looked like himself again.
"I know what you should do tonight."
She cocked an eyebrow. Her arms folded over her stomach. "Oh, really?"
"You should get some fucking sleep. You look like shit, babe."
Chyna laughed and said, "You're one to talk." She leaned back against the window and let the humor of the moment take her over. How did he manage to stay so upbeat about the whole thing? Chyna was the one that was supposed to be telling him that he was going to be fine, but instead, it always came out something along the lines of, This is it, Dave. You're gonna fuckin' die this time. Instead, Dave was the one that told her he was going to be fine, that she needed to go to bed, or go to work, or go to the gym if it meant she wasn't by his bedside every day, all day.
Sentimentality was always right beneath the surface, but she managed to push it back down. If she tried to play the role of supportive girlfriend, Chyna feared that she would lose some of her edge. The entire basis of their relationship was that they enjoyed each other's company, but he didn't need her and she sure as shit didn't need him. If she started playing nice and sweet, she was afraid that she'd realize that she did need him, and that scared the shit out of her.
Chyna was too out of it during his initial surgeries for her to really think about it. She had her own surgeries and repairs that needed to get done, her own hospital room to languish in, so she didn't have the time to think about what would happen if Dave didn't make it. She didn't even have the time to think that he wouldn't make it. She just assumed that, by the time she was up on her feet, he would be on his, and at some point, a joke about a burst implant would cause him to get a slap upside the back of his head.
But, when she was back on her feet, Dave wasn't. He wasn't out for the count, but he wasn't ready to spar. And when that first infection hit-- She had freaked the fuck out, to put it lightly. Thoughts she never considered went through her mind. She considered life without Dave around, and she didn't like it. He understood her. He accepted her and all the flaws that came from too many misguided years of steroid abuse. She was a pumped up freak to a lot of people, but she was just a woman to Dave, she was his woman.
She didn't want to be like Stacy, and that's what she knew she'd become if she let herself get sentimental. She would cry and blubber and shit, and that was not Chyna's way. She was a tough bitch, and she wasn't going to let a knife-wielding maniac change her. Edge was dead. Dave wasn't dead.
"I'm serious, Chy," Dave said with a groan. He started to push himself up in the bed, but a withering glare from the Amazon across the room made him stop and put his hands up. "Fine, I'll stay where I am."
"Damn straight, you'll stay where you are."
"I'm serious, though," he said, settling back into his pillows. "Go home, Chyna. Get some sleep. Or go to the club and work. If nothing else, some idiot is going to show his ass tonight, and you'll get to take your frustrations out on him."
He had a point. All the jerks came out on New Years' Eve, and so far, not a single one had passed where she didn't hand some dipshit his ass. She always felt better after that, especially knowing that the guy wouldn't try to get her arrested for assault. Besides the fact that she always let the asshole throw the first punch and had witnesses to back it up, there was just no guy out there who was willing to tell the cops , a judge and a jury that he let a chick beat his ass. It didn't matter if the chick could bench press the asshole and three of his friends. It just wasn't something that was said.
"And what are you going to do while I'm at the club ringing in the new year, huh? You planning to toast the new year with a pretty nurse?"
"Toast the new year," Dave said with a snort. "I'd kill for a drink."
"And I'd kill you if you had one." Chyna let her arms drop to her sides, but they only stayed there for a second before her hands found her hips. "You really think I'm just going to leave you here."
"I want you to leave me here," he said, "at least for a while. Go hit the gym or something. Do something that's not standing over me and waiting for me to die."
She was not… Okay, so maybe she was, but could he really blame her? He had come pretty damn close to doing just that. And what if she left and he died while she was gone? That was just a shitty way to go, alone in a hospital room, alone because you sent the one person who was guaranteed to be there when you go away to get a nap. No way was she having that on her conscience.
"You don't have to stay the whole night," he said, as though he was reading her mind. He didn't speak her fears out loud, but his words came quick enough that she had an idea Dave knew what she was thinking. "Just go long enough to say you did something. You can come back here and we'll do the new year ourselves."
"Visiting hours will be over by then."
His smirk was healthier than his pallor. "Yeah," he said, "because they've been enforcing those hours with you."
Chyna shrugged. She did want to take a nap in a real bed, not just the lumpy cot that sat against the room's far wall. She could use a shower, too, instead of the quick sponge baths she'd been taking in the bathroom.
Chyna pulled herself up straight and pointed a finger at him. "You fucking swear to me that you won't die while I'm gone."
He put his hand up and said, "If I were a scout with any honor, I'd say scout's honor. As a degenerate criminal and businessman, I promise not to die before you get back."
"I guess that'll have to do." She let her pointing finger drop. "I'll be back before midnight." Dave nodded. "And I'll be here as much as I want to without you giving me shit for it." He nodded again. Chyna sighed. "Alright," she said. "I'll go and do something. But as far as New Years…" She shrugged. "I'm spending it in the hospital with you."