Frankie: Hello my darlings! Today I have been given the great honour of opening this chapter of 'Inevitability' by the author. She would do it herself, but she's dealing with those two odd little announcing gents who keep breaking in here.
(he looks off-screen where there's some heated discussion going on)
Frankie: …well, anyway, I have to tell you, sweeties, it is a lovely chapter with lots of darkness and loneliness and light and love and laughter. She put a lot of effort into this, so please sit back, relax and enjoy it
(he waits for the fade to black a moment before he's handed a cue-card)
Frankie: What's this? (reads it) Oh, and please remember to throw a review our way, it encourages quicker writing. Enjoy! (blows a kiss)
It had taken much longer than he'd anticipated it would, but Robin had finally managed to glean a little information about Kevin's apparent significant other. However, the lack of actual detail was both irritating and perplexing.
Said information amounted to that her name was Theresa (the confirmation that 'she' was indeed a she had been a source of great mental relief), she, like himself and Kevin, lived in London. He knew that she wanted to be a teacher for children with learning disabilities and that she liked peppermint tea, preferably with honey.
Surprisingly, the majority of his information had come from Meat, who had apparently spent a good 20 minutes casually chatting with the girl on one of the rare occasions she visited Japan, whilst she'd been waiting to pick up Kevin after a match. Oh, he'd spoken to the members of the new generation, but none of them had been able to add anything new to Meat's information.
And there was the oddity.
Robin had met many, many girlfriends, lovers, partners and wives of his fellow wrestlers over the years, the majority of them revelled in attending the actual matches, as well as in the publicity of being seen with a famous wrestler (not Alice though. Robin has always counted himself blessed to have found someone who simply loved him) But again, according to Meat, Theresa hardly ever attended Kevin's matches and seemed to be pretty successful at avoiding drawing any media attention to herself.
The trainer hadn't been sure of why that should, after all 'shouldn't any girl be proud ta be seen with top-notch wrestler like Kevin?'
Meat had also mentioned very briefly meeting her back last year when the IWF World Tour Wrestling had happened, but not long enough to find out much, although he had noted that Theresa hadn't, at the time, seemed to know either that Kevin was a wrestler or that he was famous for being so. He also remembered that she'd seemed upset at learning both pieces of information, but that was where his knowledge had ended.
Having thought all of this over, Robin finally came to a conclusion about the girl.
It was horrifying (to him, at least)
"Alice," he said to the photo beside his chair, "the boy has taken up with a member of the Plymouth Brethren!"
Well, it was possible that it wasn't that extreme, but that truly was the only way he could fathom anyone not knowing who Kevin was and what he did. It never occurred to him that she held no interest in wrestling.
Robin sighed tiredly to himself, only now realising that it was getting late into the night.
That damned flight had taken longer than usual due to turbulence and then the thrice-damned airport had 'lost' his luggage and thus he had spent more time than he would have liked berating the staff until they located it.
But still, here he was, home again in the Mask Estates
Was it his imagination or did it seem larger and darker than he previously remembered?
Robin found himself gripped by a sudden urge to phone Warsman…anyone just to hear another voice beside his own in this place. But if he remembered correctly, Warsman was busy with, unbelievably, a girlfriend of his own (if one could actually class the odd little droid with wide violet eyes that the Russian currently took everywhere with him as 'female' even if it looked so)
He found himself wondering what his son was up to at this moment
If he knew Kevin at all, Robin supposed he was probably out beating up local ruffians.
Kevin groaned ecstatically and managed a: "Don't stop", though it came out muffled due having his face buried in the pillows on Theresa's bed, his flexed his shoulders slightly
"Hold still!" Theresa tried to snap but it came out as a giggle, and she went back to working out knots in his back muscles, "you've got more knots than a 100 year old tree"
"Iffs p'rt ff muh jb"
Theresa rolled her eyes and continued working on working out the kinks and fused fibres in her boyfriend's back, eliciting another sound of pleasure from him that really was teetering on the edge of 'obscene'…which of course resulted in Theresa laughing so hard that she fell off the bed and hit the floor, still laughing.
"And what, may I ask," Kevin asked with a smug smile, "Is so funny that it involves falling off the bed?" as if he didn't know already
"S-sorry" she giggled, getting to her feet and climbing back to her previous position, "couldn't help it." She resumed what she'd been doing a few moments before, after reloading her hands with the lavender scented body lotion she'd found last week, amongst her mother's things whilst looking for some clothes in the various boxes of stuff she and gramps kept in the attic. The lotion was, obviously, more than a few years out of date, but still smelt OK and hadn't caused a reaction to her skin when she'd tried a little on the back of her hand (other than to make her skin smell like lavender.)
"So," she spoke up, working on his shoulder blades, "spoke to Micky"
"How…how is Micky? And for the love of all that's holy, don't stop," Kevin sighed as he felt the tension he'd been carrying like a lead weight for the last 3 months melt like butter under the touches
"Fine. He's loving his course, his student digs and his new boyfriend"
"When did you speak to him?"
"Yesterday, while you were at the gym. I had my dance class and he's my dance partner, remember?"
His only answer was a 'mmm' – he did remember now. If he hadn't known for a fact that Micky was gay, he might have felt threatened by how much he and Theresa did together. But, like their friendship, their being partners for dancing had been going on since they were small.
"He invited us to the cinema with them next week, if you feel like going?"
If she expected something more intelligent than another half-asleep 'mmm', she was going to be sadly disappointed as a few more of his braincells lay down and went to sleep as his muscles relaxed further.
"…and I'll save that question for when you're mentally capable of telling me what 2+2 is"
He snorted slightly, he knew what 2+2 was…but it required too much brainpower to answer. Better to mull it over for a bit and then he could come up with a witty answer. He felt Theresa climb off his back and just about heard her leave the room.
It was likely he'd dozed off for a few minutes because the next sensation he felt was the mattress moving as Theresa sat down on it before she began shaking his shoulder gently.
"Hey, Gramps and I made veggie stew for dinner, do you want some?"
Kevin thought about it, or tried to think about it, but something else came to mind first.
Without a word, he grabbed her wrist and pulled just hard enough to put her off balance and pull her up against him, where he held loosely whilst gently nuzzling the top of her head and breathing in the rosemary scent of her shampoo (all this before she could even yelp in surprise)
"Turn about is fair play," he murmured, "you can be my teddy bear for awhile, and yes, I would very much like to eat your most excellent stew."
"Oh dear, oh dear" she said dryly, "cuddling with my boyfriend, will the torment never end?"
They both laughed quietly followed by approximately 20 minutes of dozing and cuddling, vaguely listening to what Gramps was singing down in the kitchen as he rattled bowls and cutlery in setting the table.
If paradise is half as nice as heaven that you take me to
Who needs paradise, I'd rather have you
They say paradise is up in the stars
But I needn't sigh because it's so far
Cos' I know it's where a heaven on earth
Will be where you are
If paradise is half as nice as heaven that you take me to
Who needs paradise I'd rather have you
Oh, yes I'd rather have you
This continued until Gramps called up the stairs, wanting to know if they were coming to eat the stew or if he was going to have to eat the whole pan by himself.
So it was only mild reluctance that they got off the bed, Kevin pulled on his worn out grey shirt, Theresa put on a pair of socks and they went downstairs to sit at the kitchen table while the radio played gently in the background.
If paradise is half as nice…
Frankie: There you have it. Did you enjoy it as much as I did, my loves?
Author: Thanks for filling in, Frankie. You did a lovely job
Frankie: Anytime, sweetness, anytime. You got your little problem sorted out, I trust?
Author: Oh yes, I directed them towards another fiction I have cooking. This one is set outside of FtMaD reality. I am actually going to borrow from the wonderful LucretiaDecoy's UM reality, so I told them they could announce over on that one.
Frankie: Marvellous! So…coffee and a doughnut? I'm paying.
Author: Ooh, lead the way!