Disclaimer: Not mine.

A/N: Umm… dark.

The first of her hook ups completely ignored her after they had sex. Payson didn't care; she'd only said yes because he sort of looked like Sasha. The sex was horrible anyway. Still, it sucked that the guy she lost her virginity too was an ass who told all of his friends she was easy. Her first time should have been with Sasha.

The next guy was better, at least as far as the sex went. She actually had an orgasm with him, but then he got all needy. He tried to call her his girlfriend, like screwing against the locker room wall was a good basis for a relationship. They had sex one more time and she dumped him before he even pulled out of her.

It wasn't long before she had a reputation as the gym slut. It was funny, really, considering how many times that she had derided Lauren for being slutty. Lauren had slept with one guy who she really cared about, but now Payson was balling half the gym. At some point somebody figured out that she only said yes to the fair-haired boys, and most of the other guys stopped trying. She made the rounds through everyone who remotely resembled Sasha before eventually settling with two. The sex was good and neither of them minded that she was screwing someone else or cared when she called them Sasha. Payson knew what she was doing was messed up, but she couldn't bring herself to care. It had been so long since she cared about anything.

It was only a matter of time before she got caught. Marty walked in on them while Derek had her shoved up against the wall of the storage closet. Derek was embarrassed as hell, even though he still had on most of his clothes. Payson wasn't wearing anything but her bra (leotards were hard to have sex in) but she wasn't embarrassed at all. She just put her clothes back on and resigned herself to a scolding.

Marty was waiting on the other side of the door while she dressed. As she passed him, Payson said, "You have horrible timing, you know. I was just about to come." He made a strangled noise in the back of his throat.

He yelled at her for over an hour. Payson sat stone-faced in front of him and didn't bother to defend her actions; it wasn't any of his business. She tuned him out and visualized her routines instead. When he finished yelling at her, Marty pulled Derek into his office to yell at him. Payson took advantage of the brief lack of supervision and found James. They left the building and had sex in his car.

Her mom was waiting for her when she got home. Marty had called her, of course. Instead of yelling, Kim tried to get Payson to open up and talk about her feelings. Didn't she realize that Payson didn't have feelings anymore?

"This isn't some desperate cry for help, Mom. I'm not having sex to fill a void in my life or some psychosomatic bullshit like that. I was horny, Derek was there." Payson had been lying to herself for so long that she almost believed it. She ignored the devastated look on her mom's face, brushed past her, and went to bed. She didn't want to deal with this right now.

It was impossible to distract Payson now; she ignored the rest of the world almost completely. So when Marty bellowed her name from across the gym, she never even wavered on the beam. She finished her routine and dismounted before turning to face Marty, who was at her side by that time. She hated her dismount now. It always reminded her of Sasha.

"What do you want, Marty? I'm busy." Several gymnasts close by stopped what they were doing and stared at them. Marty didn't tolerate that kind of disrespect.

"I'm tired of this nonsense. I want you to get your ass back to the Rock and work this out!" he yelled, attracting the attention of the rest of the gym.

"It's none of your damn business, Marty," she said, not bothering to yell. What was the point?

"Like hell it isn't. What you do in my gym is my business." Payson didn't know why he was talking so loudly. It was like he was trying to make a scene. Well, if he wanted a scene she could give him one.

She raised her voice for effect rather than from anger. "So because you caught me having sex in the gym suddenly you have a right to tell me how to live my life? I make my own decisions."

"Do you?" he asked, "Because from where I'm standing it looks like you're letting him make all the decisions."

"He doesn't want me," she screamed, finally losing her temper. "He's made that very clear! Well, fine, if he doesn't want me then there are plenty of men who do."

"To hell with what he wants! To hell with what they want!" he cried, gesturing to the men around the gym. "What do you want?"

"I want someone who is willing to take a risk on me, and he won't!"

Marty stepped closer to her, invading her personal space and lowering his voice to a dangerous growl. "Since when does Payson Keeler let someone else tell her what to do? Since when does Payson Keeler not fight for what she wants? If you want him then fight for him. Go tell him to stop being such a stubborn idiot and be with you."

Payson laughed, the same hysterical laughter from her first day at Denver Elite. "Fine," she said, "I'll go to the Rock. I yell at Sasha. It'll probably end up on YouTube. What do I care, my career's already ruined. Let's tell the whole damn world." She stepped back from Marty and raised her hands in the air, turning a slow circle to encompass the whole gym. "Let's tell them all about how I fell in love with my coach and it drove me mad. Let's tell the whole world that I screwed every guy in here trying to forget him."

"Don't give yourself so much credit, Keeler," someone shouted from the crowd watching them. "You only screwed half of us."

There was a tittering of laughter. Payson knew that Marty would personally find everyone of those that laughed and punish them. The boy who had cracked the joke would probably be thrown out of the gym.

"Fine. I'm done. If you want me to talk to Sasha so bad, I'll talk to him. Let's see if I can ruin a few more lives today." Grabbing her bag from its place on the side mats, Payson stormed out of the gym.