01-15-2019, 05:54 AM (This post was last modified: 01-15-2019, 05:55 AM by thisisemerge.)
DEADLINE 1 - 1X 3,250 word limit RP, in whatever format you choose FRIDAY 1ST FEBRUARY 2019 2359 EST
DEADLINE 2 - 1x 750 word limit SHOOT rp, to be used in the show. This rp must be sent to the EMERGE PM box before the deadline of MONDAY 4TH FEBRUARY 2019 2359 EST
Backstage people gossip. It’s yet another One True Rule of wrestling, and I can already hear the whispering outside of the locker room door. Not that I really needed the gossip to know that my boys would come charging backstage the moment that they could.
Strange how the memory can distort things. I’d forgotten how much it hurts to be thrown into a wall. But most of the pain is drowned out by the warmth of knowing that Mordecai jumped to my defense. He’s standing over by the far wall, staring at his reddening knuckles, looking as inscrutable as ever.
The door is pushed open so hard that it slams back on its hinges, and would rebound straight into the face of my boys, if Chris hadn’t grabbed it to stop it.
To my suprise, Mark is the first one to enter fully, and he bypasses me entirely to stalk right up to Mordecai.
“You get in the ring with that titsucking diseased fuckboy masquering as a man, and you break every fucking bone in his body, you hear me?” Mark demands. “Rip his heart from his chest and shove it up his ass!”
Well, that’s an interesting reaction to the reveal of my re-entering the wrestling world, being ignored.
“Keeping secrets from us, boss?” Chris asks mildly as he sits down beside me, John passing him a first aid kit.
“Not from me,” Gwen says smugly from the doorway before she steps inside, dodging Josh. John gives her a resigned look, mixed with pride. “Though the matchmaking was unexpected.”
“Entirely spur of the moment, dear,” I tell her. “I certainly didn’t expect Dante to go off his rocker without provocation. Regardless, the stipulation makes it easier for Mordecai to do...whatever Mordecai wants to do.”
And, looking up from his hands to stare directly at Mark, my mysterious maimed monster gives a single nod of his head.
“We’ll talk about this later,” John announces, glowering at me. I meet his gaze levelly, and feel my lips quirking into a faint smile. Let him have his rearguard action, make their protests. We are signed. We are here.
And I don’t believe that he’s as annoyed as he’d pretending to be. None quite plays the bad cop quite like John does.
His eyelid flickers, ever so slightly as if to confirm my suspicions.
“We’ll talk about it later,” I agree, and then brighten my tone. “But right now, everything should be about Gwen.”
And indeed it should. She is the one chasing her dream and trying to turn in into a reality.
I’m chasing mysteries.
**The Past - Madison, Connecticut**
It all started at the jail.
You’d think by now that I would be used to bailing my errant boys out of jail. But it always amazes (and amuses) me just how inventive they can be in getting into trouble. Even John, the one who I confess is the most sensible of the bunch, can prove me wrong.
They were out on the town, celebrating the return of Chris and John from somewhere in the world. He’s only been gone a month this time, but the house always seems too quiet without his humor, and propensity to wind everyone up at a moment’s notice.
I got the phone call from the local deputy at eight in the morning, and he already sounded fed up. In the background, I couldn’t hear anything. That was a little concerning.
“Ms Morrison, would you mind coming down here to pick up your friends?”
I sighed. “Drunk again?”
“Very.”
“Any damages to pay for?”
“Not this time, ma’am. But...” and he hesitated.
“What happened?”
“They picked up a new friend. I think you would rather see this,” he added.
Chris makes new friends as easily as other people breathe. John tends to scare them off just as quickly. Certainly it should be no surprise to the deputy that they had company in their drinking. But there was something about the tone of his voice that set me on edge.
I was not going to like this, was I?
****
There was still no singing to be heard as I pulled up at the jail, parking the minivan neatly outside the building. Usually Chris would be annoying someone by now, and the fact that he wasn’t set the hairs on the back of my neck prickling to attention.
Deputy Peterson appeared to have drawn the short straw as he opened the door before I could reach the handle. He was a young man, but already going bald, and his pate was shiny with sweat even this early in the morning.
“Ma’am,” he greeted.
“Good morning, Deputy,” I returned. “What warrants the service today? I know where to find my boys, assuming they’re in the drunk tank, as usual.”
“As usual, ma’am,” he confirmed. “But they have a friend with them.”
“Yes, Deputy Markus said as much on the phone earlier. Why is this friend of such concern?”
Peterson wiped his sleeve across his face. “Just go and look, ma’am. But please, don’t break anything.”
It’s hard to keep things quiet in this small town, so of course everyone knew of my past history as a wrestler, hellraiser and general all round bad person. But I didn’t think that I’d given anyone cause to think badly of me, at least, nothing that could be pinned on me. So I braced myself, and walked down the short hallway to the drunk tank.
Yes, there were my boys. The clack of my heels on the floor had given them warning that I was coming. John was right up against the bars, glowering fiercely, his whole body screaming his irritation. Mark was slumped in the corner, his head bent over his knees. Josh knelt beside him. Chris was just behind John, looking the cheeriest of the four, but he seemed to be anxious about something.
When he moved, I realised why.
They had indeed met a friend that night. Although I would hardly call him a friend. Mortal enemy perhaps. I had never met him up close and personal, but I certainly knew who he was.
The man. The Myth. The Monster. Mordecai.
Back in the IWC, he had been called a monster. He had kidnapped Chris at one point, and beaten up my boys as they formed a rescue party. He was hardly the number one on my Christmas card list, even if I had known where he was after he was buried alive.
So what in the name of hell was he doing here in our sleepy little town?
And looking the worse for wear. His hair was shaggy, cut unevenly, and he had at least a month’s worth of beard. His clothes were ragged and torn, he looked in need of about three baths, and he stank.
Of more than just alcohol.
“Can we keep him?” Chris asked, bouncing up and down on his heels.
My first reaction was denial.
So was my second reaction.
My third was to have Mark sit on Imposter!Chris until we found out who he really was.
Instead, I squashed all these, and really looked at the situation. None of my boys had killed him yet, and I couldn’t see any blood. He hadn’t touched any of them either. A point in his favour.
“He just showed up and started drinking,” Chris added. “Never said a word. Still hasn’t.”
Another point, and one that was turning him into a mystery.
I liked mysteries.
“Come on then, hellions,” I told them, as Deputy Peterson slunk up beside me, keys jangling. “Apologise to the nice sheriff for all the trouble you caused him, and lets go home.” I raised my voice. “That means you at the back as well.”
“Thanks, boss,” Chris muttered to me as he exited the cell, before he wrapped an arm around Petersons shoulder and chivvied him away, Josh and Mark hot on their heels. John halted in the doorway of the cell, and I met his one eyed gaze evenly.
“What’s wrong?” I asked him simply.
“No one should have that look in their eyes,” he said gruffly, before stepping out of the way, bumping his shoulder into mine in silent affection.
Mordecai didn’t move, his head hanging low. I couldn’t see his eyes, couldn’t see what had affected my most stoic of all my boys.
“If the mountain won’t go,” I muttered under my breath, more to give Mordecai warning than to bolster my courage, and then stepped into the cell. Mordecai didn’t move as I walked over to him, didn’t flinch at the staccato sound of my heels on the concrete floor. He didn’t react as I crouched in front of him.
He shied back from my gentle touch, as I tried to push aside the curtain of hair that veiled his face. “Shush now,” I chided him, as I chided my pets, and he subsided, submitting to me. I gripped his chin with my other hand, feeling the coolness of the flesh. His hair was lank and greasy as I pushed it aside to reveal those dark eyes.
John had been right.
This was not the monster that had reigned in terror. This was not the monster who had kidnapped and tortured my dear Chris. This was not the monster who had left bloody footsteps in his wake.
This was a broken man.
He followed me to the car like a well trained pet, keeping two paces behind at all times, no matter how I quickened or slowed my step. His head never raised from its slump. I have seen my share of docile men, but this...this was something else.
John was already wrangling the rest of my boys into the minivan. Mark was sprawled in one seat, with Joshua next to him, still with his brow furrowed in concern. It looked as if Mark was either still drunk, or had a killer hangover. Chris had finished confusing the deputy and was just climbing into the van, taking a spot in the middle.
“Reckon our mystery could park himself beside you in the front,” John said. “Bit more room for him.”
“Okay.” I replied. “Everyone else alright?”
“Mark’s hammered, Josh is fretting, Chris is himself.”
“So the usual, then. And what about you?”
“Passing fair,” he said with a half smile, and sat beside Chris without further ado. I closed the door, then opened the passenger door. “In,” I told Mordecai, sharply. Perhaps too sharply. That got more of a reaction that I had seen in him before, and I caught the glimpse of dark eyes looking at me from under that curtain of hair.
“Unless you plan to follow us on foot, get on in,” I repeated, gentling my tone. “We’re just driving back to the house.”
That seemed to do the trick as Mordecai carefully shuffled his way into the van.
Everyone was too hung-over or too distracted to make trouble on the drive back to the house. I kept a quiet eye on Mordecai. He sat quietly, still with his head down, and showed no signs of interest in where we were going. If it was an act, it was a good one, but I doubted it.
My boys disappeared from the van almost the moment that it stopped. They all had their post-drinking rituals, and I wasn’t going to get in their way, not when I had a mystery to solve. John gave me a curious look, and I shook my head. I didn’t need backup for this. Although...
“Ask Gwen if she can drive into town and pick up some pants for our monster here. I doubt that even Jess’s sewing skills could alter anything we have. And he can’t wander round the house nude.”
“Not in front of Gwen,” he said gruffly, and I grinned quietly to myself as I noticed his accent slipping into something that was more New York Mafia than anything else. He moved away without any other words, and left me with the monster.
“Right,” I told him. “Unless you have anything to add to the conversation, we’re going to go upstairs, you’re going to get a bath, a shave and possibly a haircut. I’m going to burn those rags that you’re wearing, and then we’ll see about feeding you.”
I waited to see if he would actually speak and raise any objections, but he didn’t. To be honest, I might have got more reaction out of talking to the stones on the ground. But at least he followed when I led the way inside.
One of the benefits to being me is the en-suite bathroom. Usually one of the boys would have claimed it but at least they all had the common sense to leave it this time. The other benefit to being me is that I have absolutely no problem with nudity, and I was not having those stinking clothes in my home for not a moment longer than I had to.
I had ripped the monster’s jacket off his shoulders before he even realised it, and tossed the badly fraying denim to the ground. The t-shirt was next, but it took a couple of tugs before it came totally free. Underneath, his skin was nearly as dirty as the clothing, but that was nothing that a good dose of hot water couldn’t fix.
He seemed to be brightening somewhat as I led up him up the stairs. Rather than suffer the indignity of my removing his pants and underwear, he voluntarily shucked them and left them at the top of the stairs. I took a moment to toss them out of the nearest window, before leading him towards the bathroom.
He didn’t need any encouragement whatsoever to step straight into the shower, and the splatter of the water on the tiles nearly drowned out his sigh. I gave him privacy, for now, and went in search of everything that I was looking for.
Chris had a spare straight razor which I promised him faithfully that I would replace. Joshua lost a pair of scissors, and I raided the airing cupboard for a stack of towels. When I returned to my room, I could still hear the shower running.
I neatly stripped out of my clothes, stacked them on the bed, grabbed the scissors, and walked boldly into the bathroom.
For a monster who was nearly in an incestous relationship with his apparent sister, or so Chris told me, Mordecai really wasn’t comfortable with sharing space with a naked woman, and pressed himself tightly against the wall of the shower to avoid touching me. His hair was slicked back from his face now, and his eyes were blank, gliding over me without ever focusing. I raised my hand, and snapped my fingers in front of his eyes.
“I don’t trust you to be able to do something about your hair, or your beard without slitting something vital,” I told him firmly. “You sought out my boys for a reason, so you’re just going to have to put up with my ideas of hospitality.”
He focused on my hand, and then on my eyes, and mutely nodded. He turned his back to me, lifting his head up to the shower, and I set to work.
I swear, the man must have been living in mud for at least the past five weeks, if not longer, and I wanted the name of his past hairdresser, if only to go and maim them for crimes against hair. I was still in the middle of trying to comb out the tangles with my fingers when I heard the bedroom door creaking.
“Anyone dead in here?” Chris carolled cheerfully, before I caught him peeking around the corner of the bathroom door out of the corner of my eye. As I spotted him, so did Mordecai, and the monster flinched.
“Still living. Bring me a comb, please,” I told Chris.
“Your wish is my command,” and he bowed, before vanishing.
“If you haven’t been hurt now by any of them, they’re not going to stab you in the back any time soon,” I told Mordecai, leaning in closer and stretching up on my bare toes to whisper in his ear. “It appears as if you’re forgiven for your transgressions. They’re not forgotten I’m sure, but for now, you’re in safe hands.”
Curious and curiouser.
But what I said wasn't a lie. If none of my four boys had taken him out into the fields and buried him in a shallow grave by now, then it wasn’t going to happen. And since they were the ones greatly wronged by him, it wasn’t up to me to do the burying. At least, not yet.
Mordecai seemed to relax at my words, and I could see the way his shoulders slumped as he let go of some of the tension that he had been holding. To my pleasure, the tension didn’t return when Chris did, and lobbed a comb in my direction. I snapped it out of the air with one hand.
“Anything else?”
“Entertain yourself elsewhere, my trickster,” I told him affectionately. “Our monster doesn’t need more eyes on him.”
Chris looked as if he was about to make a flippant joke, which is his go-to attitude in any situation, but he seemed to think better of it, and simply left without another word. That was another puzzle for me, later, for now, Mordecai was my focus.
I washed and combed, snipped and tidied, until Mordecai’s hair flowed soft and smooth down his back again. The clipped hairs swirled in the eddies around our feet, before vanishing down the drain, along with the mud and the filth. I left the shower to set the scissors and comb down, and returned with the razor.
This time, Mordecai turned to face me without prompting, and knelt at my feet, tilting his head up, his eyes closed and a peaceful expression on his face. I felt my pulse quicken, desire starting to stir my veins with feather light flickers. This was utter submission. I flicked the razor out, and tested the edge gently with my thumb.
I laid the blade against his cheek, knowing that he could feel the coolness even through the hot water. He did not move.
I tilted the blade, and pressed a little harder. He did not move.
Blood welled up from the nick, blossoming out as the water hit it, running down the side of his face in pale pink swirls. He did not move.
I lifted the razor from his face, and leaned in to kiss the blood away. It was copper and salt against my tongue, and I felt him shiver as I licked the wound, before I pulled away from him.
He opened his eyes to watch me, his gaze tracing over my face with a peculiar sort of wonder. I felt my heart catch in my chest in a way that I had only felt a few times before. I loved a mystery, and this monster was nothing if mysterious. And I couldn’t let him go until I unraveled this mystery, piece by piece.
I leaned in again, and this time kissed him on the lips, smiling against them as he shivered once more. “You’re mine now, monster,” I whispered to him, breath to breath.
