Blaze of Glory
A/N: There are a couple of things I feel like I have to say before you start reading this chapter.
First of all, I don't do a lot of individual shout-outs in my stories, because I don't want anyone to feel like their reviews are less important to me than others. But I wanted to say thanks to heavenleigh88. You are always the first one to turn in a review for the chapters in this story, and I appreciate it like you'll never know.
Also, I wanted everyone who keeps reviewing to know one thing: If you're not careful, I'm gonna start launching into a long-ass, Triple H-style rant about how I'm just That Damn Good. I'm the first to admit I love having my ego stroked, but sometimes I feel completely unworthy of the praise you're heaping on me. It doesn't seem like enough to say "thanks," but it's all I can come up with - even if I am pretty kick ass with words. In all seriousness, it's because of all of you who faithfully review everything I write, that I keep trying to raise the bar and make this chapter better than the last. I can only hope that it's working!
Alright, enough of the sappy bull shit - there's enough of that in this chapter. Oh, and just to remind anyone who was confused, or had forgotten, this story is kind of set in the future a little bit - next year's Wrestlemania. And since we all know that most of the Diva Search finalists will end up with WWE jobs sooner or later, I threw the final four into the mix for this chapter, though I had to look them up on the WWE site because I didn't know who was left. Anyway, that's why they're in there, in case you were wondering. Now, onto the story, full of people I don't own! Enjoy!
Watching the silky fabric of his dress pants pool around his ankles, Trish felt one hundred percent sure that she was doing the right thing. She knew that there was no one else she wanted to share her last match with, and just having him at ringside wasn't going to be enough. She respected what he could do in the ring, and she wanted him with her when that final bell rang.
"Someday," she mused, chewing on a power bar as he searched his gym bag, "I'm gonna love telling our kids how bad I kicked your ass at Wrestlemania 22."
"Yeah?" Randy stepped one foot out of his pants, and used the other leg to fling the discarded clothing at his girlfriend, who was perched on a bench across the room. "Well, you better tell 'em when I'm not around, then."
Trish swallowed the chewy food and rolled her eyes, picking the pants off of her shoulder. "Why's that?"
"Because I'd hate to have to tell our kids what a liar their mother is," he winked, turning toward his locker.
They had arrived at the arena early in the day, jumped through all of the hoops that went along with the biggest event of the year, and had finally returned an hour before show time. Throughout the day, he had talked to reporters, smiled for pictures, and cut what felt like a thousand promos, all while trying to remember every detail of every moment. This night would not be the biggest in his career – but it would be the biggest in hers. And he didn't want to forget any of it.
"Is that so?" Trish asked, popping the final bite of her snack into her mouth and meeting his mischievous eye with the raise of her brow. He was holding his wrestling trunks in one hand, dressed in nothing but the little G-string he wore underneath. And his expression was just daring her not to look down. "You really think you can beat me, Orton?"
He smirked, and she knew she was in trouble. "Come over here and I might let you beat me," he challenged, his words thick with innuendo.
Standing, Trish walked toward him, studying the lustful look in his eye. There was really nothing she wanted more than to shove him down on the floor and ride him hard until time for their match. Instead, she brushed his shoulder with her fingernails as she breezed past him and dropped her empty power bar wrapper in the trash.
"I know what you're trying to do," she pointed a finger and smiled coyly.
Randy huffed and bent over, giving her a full view of his bare ass before pulling his trunks up. "What am I trying to do?" he asked innocently.
Trish moved back to the bench and pulled her Stratusfaction tee shirt over her head, tossing him a smirk of her own as she ran her hand up her side and pulled at the strap of her lacy bra. "You're trying to get me all worn out before I get to the ring," she accused with a pout, snapping her strap back into place as he whimpered and leaned against the locker. "But it's not going to work."
Randy chuckled. If only he were so noble. "Baby, I'm not trying to wear you out," he admitted. "I mean, yeah, that would be a plus, but fuck the match. I'm really just thinking about how good it feels to be inside you." She narrowed her eyes and he shrugged innocently. "What? It's not like it's the first time I've thought about fucking you when I should be focused on something else."
The words were meant as an throw-away flirt, but Trish felt their resonance to her core. She knew Randy, better than she knew anyone else, and better than anyone knew him. She loved that the one thing he seemed to learn from Triple H, during his time in Evolution, was the focus of a champion. When he had a match, especially a PPV match, it was all he thought about. And knowing that she had the power to interrupt that focus made her all tingly inside.
For a moment, she just stared at his back, watching his muscles as he strained to find something at the back of his locker. There was nothing about her Randy that she would change. Most of all, she loved his ability to see through the crazy-ass shit that she pulled, to the deeper meaning underneath. She did things he didn't understand, but he never interfered. He trusted her judgment, even when he couldn't see the logic. For that alone, she could love him forever.
"Randy?" Her voice came out strained, timid, and vulnerable.
Turning, Randy grasped a deodorant can in one hand and scratched his chest with the other. "What, Baby?" he asked, an expression of concerned interest on his Adonis-like features.
"I don't know," she shrugged, completely forgetting what she was going to say when he met her eye. If he kept having this affect on her, she wasn't going to last thirty seconds their match. "I gotta get outta here," she stood and ran her fingers through her hair.
He reached out and grabbed her arm, his brow furrowing as he pulled her close to his chest. "What's wrong, Trisha?"
She smiled and placed a kiss on his chin. "I have to fight you in a few hours, and all I can think about is how much I love you," she laughed to herself and watched the grin break out on his lips. "I gotta get outta here and focus on this thing, or it's gonna turn into a PPV of a different kind." He raised an eyebrow in question. "If you don't stop touching me right now, twenty thousand people are gonna see how I make you scream my name at night."
Licking his lips, Randy nodded his head and moved his hand from her bicep to her cheek. Kissing her forehead, he released her. "Get outta here," he motioned toward the door, and then cleared his throat. "Baby?" Trish turned back. "You wanna put your shirt back on first?"
She looked down and blushed as she realized she was still in her bra. "See what you're doing to me?"
"That wasn't me," he nodded toward her little faux pas, as she pulled her tee shirt back over her head and grabbed her bag. "If I had taken it off, you wouldn't be leaving this room right now," he reminded.
She shook her head and rolled her eyes, stepping close enough to smell the scent of soap on his freshly showered skin. "Yeah?" He nodded and dropped a kiss on her nose. "You go easy on me tonight and I'll let you take more than my shirt off when we get back to the hotel," she winked.
His heartbeat accelerated as he breathed deeply and then held the spray can up between them. With a tiny 'spritz' to her chest, he shook his head. "Nice try, Stratus," he smiled. "But I see through your little mind games, and they're not going to work," he pushed her toward the door.
"I'll just have to try something else then, won't I?" she asked with a triumphant smile, leaving before he could respond.
In the hallway, she sighed. Dammit – what was I thinking? Every time he looks at me, my tummy gets all fluttery. I can't get in that ring with him. All he does is smile at me, and my knees get all weak. I'm gonna collapse for no good reason in front of thousands of people. He's gonna hit a cross-body and I'm just gonna lay there and run my nails down his back. And if he hooks my leg – fuck! Wait, he can't hook my leg – there's no pin falls. Okay, so that's good.
She continued her inner-dialogue as she walked through the hall toward the Diva's locker room. I can do this. I can beat him. I beat Hunter – I can beat Orton. He's not my boyfriend tonight. He's not the guy I love out there. He is not the man that fucks me until I can't move and still makes me want more. He is not the most delicious thing I have ever – shit! Dammit! Why am I so fuckin' horny? Jesus – I should just go back. If I get him out of my system, maybe . . . She faltered in the hallway and started to turn back.
"Hey, Stratus," a voice interrupted her.
Trish turned again, to find Victoria in the doorway of the locker room she had almost entered. "What's up, V?"
With a small shrug, her normally confident best friend seemed almost, well, shy. "Um, the girls are all pretty jittery in here. I was thinking maybe a pep talk from our leader would be a good thing?" She averted her eyes to the floor and then looked back. "I know you've got your big main event," she started.
A pang of guilt shot through Trish. The look on Victoria's face spoke volumes, and Trish forgot everything about Randy, and her own match, in that instant. Following her friend, she entered the locker room to find fifteen anxious woman fluttering around the room in jeans and matching tee shirts. How the hell were they all going to get into that ring and create a match that was anything but a cluster-fuck of confusion?
Anger seared at her from inside, as Trish realized something that she should have seen sooner. Vince wasn't offering them a chance at the big leagues. He was trying to show the world that the women couldn't find their ass in the dark with two flashlights inside that ring. He was trying to humiliate them all.
Standing on a chair, Trish put her fingers in her mouth and blew, the loud whistle quieting the room in an instant. "Hey," she smiled when she had their attention. "I'm not exactly good at the whole "pep talk" thing, alright? But here's the deal – Vince doesn't want this match to get over. He doesn't want you guys to steal the show. In fact, I think he wants you to fail miserably."
She took in the skeptical looks from a lot of the newer girls, and she sighed. "Alright, look," she started, her shoulders falling slightly, "I know that most of you are under the impression that I don't like you very much, and you have every reason to believe that." She sighed and gave Christy Hemme the best smile she could muster. "The truth is, I don't really know most of you. You think I'm hard on you because I'm jealous that you get Playboy offers, or because you tried to get with my boyfriend at some point."
Maria, Stacy, Michelle, and Melina all looked away guiltily at that accusation, but Trish shook her head. "That's not it. Truthfully, I've gotten more offers to pose nude than most of you get phone numbers at bars. And I actually get to wake up next to Randy in the morning, so don't think for a minute that jealousy has anything to do with my attitude. It's just that, when I look at most of you, it reminds me of a time in my career that I'd rather not think about. And I know that there's so much more out there for you, if you stop settling for being the T and A, and really grasp what this business is about.
"The thing is," she looked over at Lita and smiled. "This thing that we are all a part of, is not about best friends. It's not about what I've done to you in the past, or what any of you have done to me, or each other. The truth is, I don't have to like you to trust you in the ring. I don't have to like you to want you all on my side in the most important battle most of us will ever fight."
There were slight murmurings around the room, and Trish took a minute to look them over. The rookie girls – Ashley, Elisabeth, Krystal, and Leyla – looked like they might throw up. Sharmell, Candice, and Maria weren't faring much better, either. Melina, Michelle, and Christy looked to Torrie and Stacy for some kind of sign that Trish wasn't going to attack them when she got off that chair. Lita and Victoria just stood to the side, their arms crossed, worried looks on their faces.
"Look, tonight I'm gonna headline Wrestlemania. I'm gonna be the face of our cause, and they're gonna bill my match as the one that decides the fate of our movement." She shook her head, hoping that the sincerity in her voice mirrored the feeling in her soul at the moment. "But they will be wrong. The most important match tonight is the one that you guys are putting out there. You're the ones that have to carry this thing once I'm gone. Tonight, you get the chance to prove that you are capable of shouldering that burden.
"If I didn't think you could do it, I wouldn't have stepped out of the way. If I didn't think there was a future for the Women's Division of this company right here, just waiting to be cultivated, I wouldn't have missed the chance to kick all of your asses out there." She smiled slightly. "You have two leaders over there," she nodded to the women who had helped her start the fire, "who can teach you so much more than they have already. And when they're gone, Vince is gonna try to bring in more girls with bigger tits and tighter asses. And he's gonna be pissed when you take them under your wing, and you show them what we've shown you."
Clapping her hands, she laughed and rolled her eyes at Victoria and Lita. "Have you ever heard such sentimental bull shit out of my mouth?" Both women smiled and shook their heads. "Here's the deal," she turned back to the attentive group before her. "I appreciate the gesture of the tee shirts," she pointed to them and then shook her head. "But they have got to go. Fifteen of you in the ring, dressed the same, is gonna do nothing but confuse people. You look generic, and it's hard to tell you all apart."
Jumping off the chair, she motioned for her fellow leaders to join her. "These two are the best female wrestlers in the world right now – next to me, and some chicks in Japan that nobody in that arena's probably ever heard of," she conceded. "Most of you won't be able to keep up with them. It's okay," she assured the eager faces, soaking up her advice. "You don't have to – there's gonna be too many people in that ring to begin with. Start a fight on the outside – create your own feuds. Give them a storyline that people want to see after this thing is over.
"If there is one thing I've learned over the past few months, it's that Vince won't get rid of someone the people are willing to pay to see," she shook her head and took another minute to take in the faces around her. "Make yourself worth enough that he can't, no matter how much he wants to, fire you. Show those die-hard wrestling fans that we can hang with the boys, okay?" With a wink, she looked at Torrie and Christy, the Playmates. "And it's okay to be sexy. You can be strong and sexy at the same time, alright? People have proven that they'll pay to see you naked – so if you gotta go out there in your underwear to prove how tough you are – do it.
"Ladies," she decided to wrap it up, for fear she might burst into tears at any moment, "Tonight we pull out all the stops. We show them that WWE stands for Women's Wrestling Entertainment. Wrestlemania 22 will forever be remembered as the night the women took back the ring!"
They all cheered, started shaking hands and hugging each other, as Trish slipped from the locker room. That was it – her last appearance in the diva's locker room. So she had gone out on a cheesy, Braveheart kinda moment. At least she was sure that the divas of the business would never forget her.
Now all she had to do was focus on making sure the fans wouldn't.