Post by Raya Hope on Nov 3, 2024 4:14:34 GMT -6
This was a bad idea.
He knew it the moment Julian asked him to be one of the trainers traveling to the MWE Academy Party, although “asking” didn’t really paint the full picture. It was more of a forced recruitment, he literally signed him up without even asking for his opinion. And while Olly understood why he did it, to keep him busy and out of his own mind, he couldn’t shake off that feeling that there was more than met the eyes to this story. For the past couple of days Julian has been quite secretive. The door of the assembly room where they usually gathered to discuss their moves going forward was often closed, with just Julian and Ozzie locked inside. Nobody else seemed to have noticed it, or gave it too much weight. Too caught up with the Crucible students who, to their credit, had been a breath of fresh air among their ranks. But Olly knew something was up, just like he knew that even though they didn’t want him around now, they would eventually loop him in when the time was right.
Still, that thought had been haunting the whole night.
And then, there she was.
Faith’s ghost was everywhere, he could see her walking those hallways where they first met. She was right in front of him every time he raised his eyes, smiling at him. Forever young, eternally beautiful. Her ethereal figure was standing in the middle of the dance floor, inviting him to join her for a dance. “Come on Olly. Come have some fun. Live a bit.” Her voice, initially suave and musical, began to shift into a different tune. Still mellow and enticing, but no longer her voice. Her image began to morph, taking the form of Valerie LaCroix, one of the Division students he was supposed to be watching on.
“Fuck this” He mumbled to himself, pushing off the wall he’s been pretty much glued on for most of the night and heading out to grab some fresh air..
The bench they spent hours sitting on was where it had always been, right under the oak tree. Beaded in moisture, just like that one time when he offered her his jacket to sit on, so that she wouldn’t ruin her dress.
This was a fucking bad idea.
Those emotions he had managed to bury deep inside that hole she left in his soul started brewing. He could feel them mounting like a wave, ready to break the levee and overwhelm him. “Fuck you, you’re not getting this.” He growled at the camera, taking off in the opposite direction.
There was only one place where he was safe, where he could indulge in one of his rare moments of weakness away from the camera's prying eyes. Their spot, atop the fire escape staircase. The only blind spot in The Academy’s Orwellian CCTV system. He checked the time on his phone, hoping in vain that this night was drawing to a close. The icon of a voicemail message blinked at him, the most painful of the reminders. For five months it had been sitting there, Faith’s final message. And as much as he wanted to hear her voice one last time, what she could be saying scared him.
Fighting back the tears was even harder this time. One, maybe two, managed to make it through, leaking out of his dark eyes, leaving small trails he quickly wiped away from his cheek. Deep in his thoughts, he began fidgeting with his bracelet, the last gift she never managed to give him. The blood-soaked leather strap didn’t really fit with the rather fancy outfit Faith picked for him. A discordant note in his overall look. But it was one he would never give up on, no matter how much an eyesore it was.
She had waited patiently to approach him, so long so, that she was starting to lose her nerve. There had been a lot of commotion at the party, so many things going on around her and she was slightly overstimulated taking in everything. Although truly, a bulk of her night had been spent with Nathan, she had been looking to see when the seasoned former Academy student would step away, when there was a free moment to get to him on her own without anyone else around.
As she studied him she realized that he looked. . . off. Maybe not in the most obvious of ways, as he was dressed nicely, hair was in place, he looked the part of what he was playing, but there behind his face was an emotionless void. One that she assumed had been there for some time though she wouldn’t confess to knowing all that much about him, but the recent passing of his girlfriend told enough of a tale that she didn’t really need to know much more.
He was part of the division, he ran with a bad crew, so instinctively people assumptively assumed he was bad too, but Raya in her almost impossible Naivety felt that if she delivered this news that maybe. . . just maybe it would mean something.
After all she’d traveled all this way and had done all of these crazy things just to get a shot to be close to him. Just for this opportunity.
It was no surprise when she saw him running for the exit that she turned to look back at Nathan and shout to him over the music that she needed to go to the bathroom. A likely excuse considering she were wearing a giant pink wig, and enough face paint and make-up to signal a verse of “Send in the clowns” but she was quite happy with her costume. Sure she wasn’t something scary, but she was definitely on brand, the only downside of wearing a puffer jacket, skirt, and pink leather boots with a giant pink wig was that you sort of stood out. . .
She hadn’t exactly thought that part through, in reality she hadn’t thought any of this through up until this point, but this was her moment. This was her time and she was going to make the most of it.
So she waited until he got a few feet away, she stared off into the direction he’d went in and she saw him take pause at a bench, she didn’t know what all of it meant, but she still followed in her best attempt at being quiet. Right before she watched him climb a fire escape.
“Damn it” she stated before she rolled off her jacket for something that wasn’t quite so loud and she basically danced her way up the escape. It was only a few moments before he came into her vision and she realized that she’d left the all important details to what she was going to show him in her jacket pocket. As she looked down and saw it hanging from the rung of the staircase to the fire escape she almost lost her footing and almost shuffled off the fire escape letting out a scream.
Subtle, Raya.
She regained her footing and now clearly could see his astute awareness of her presence and she let out a laugh.
“Hi. . .” she said bashfully before trying to play it cool.
“I uhh. . . thought I was . . . the only one that liked to come up here.” It wasn’t a complete lie but the way that it came out of her mouth it didn’t seem to reek of authenticity. She could only bite back her nerves.
“So you’re Olly.” Another step in the right direction though she wasn’t sure if he’d recognize her.
“We met. . . actually, at uhh Rise from the Ashes, you wiped some blood on an item I handed you, kind of weird really.” Oh god was she babbling? She was definitely babbling.
Olly looked down at the nervous young girl without saying a word, a cigarette hanging on his lips. He learned to accept people being nervous around him, and quite frankly, he was cool with that. But generally they wouldn’t approach him the way she just did. “I thought you looked familiar.” He said casually, no real emotions transpiring from his voice. “Did you do something to your hair?” There it was, his characteristic shit-eating grin.
She was really surprised. False hope perhaps? She laughed at the irony of anything ‘hope’ related. Ohh how she cursed that name sometimes. She however was quick to respond. “They say its the style in Japan, I wanted to try it.” She shrugged though she was unsure of what to say next really. This wasn’t the kind of thing you just dropped on somebody, and the more she went with casual conversation it would only get more. . . lets say finicky, but at least she was off to a good start.
“Did this used to be your place when you went here?” She questioned innocently. taking a few steps to pretend to look around. The truth was she’d never actually been up here, but she was going to make like she had just to have some sort of reasoning. If she actually mentioned ‘Hey I was looking for the perfect opportunity to follow you’ well. . . that might be a bit weird.
He furrowed his brows, that grin on his face gone in the blink of an eye. Yes, this was his spot, one he found in his first days at The Academy while looking for a quiet place to have a smoke without anyone knowing. But soon it became THEIR place, where he and Faith would come for some privacy and to plot their devious plans. Here she gave him the St. Juda medal as they came back from the Christmas holidays. ”That’s St. Juda, he’s the patron saint of the lost. The day you joined The Academy is when you found your place, so you’re not really lost anymore. But he watches over you all the same. Gold coins with saints are given for luck, to ward off any evil that is coming your way.” Her voice echoed once again in his ears, he even felt her sitting beside him. Instinctively he turned to his right, only to find emptiness, the same emptiness he felt inside him.
Here they planned how to make Tiff’s life hell, here they had their first kiss.
“Why were you following me?” He blurted out, the sudden and unexplainable change of mood taking Raya off guard, even more than the fact that he apparently had realized she was on his tail but just kept going as if nothing was happening.
“Uhh well.” So much for small talk she gestured and felt herself suddenly growing flustered which was so unlike her in most situations, the life she lived had taught her to be poised and prepared in most situations, but those of course were for more spoiled city kids than whatever it was they had in the academy. These people were not necessarily the type she was used to, in the fact that wrestlers in general were not what she was used to dealing with, she felt herself inferior most of the time, needing to make her energy on the inside match what she gave on the outside.
“I had something I wanted to tell you actually, but it seems, now may not be the time.” Why was she suddenly looking at bailing, why had the sudden change of tone made her want to head for the hills when she had been waiting for this moment? No she wasn’t going to back down, not now.
“But when is it ever a good time?” She mustered, and she paused breathing heavily. What in the fuck was she doing?
“Never.” He sounded intentionally rude. Whatever this was, he was having none of it. With a flick of his finger, he threw the cigarette in the garden below, pushing himself up to his feet. He didn’t say another word, a stern look on his face that would make anyone uncomfortable, more so an emotional girl like Raya was in this moment.
And yet, as he walked past her to find another place where hopefully nobody would bother him, she grabbed his hand, stopping him in his tracks. She was holding his hand with both hers, and when he turned around he found her right in his face. Uncomfortably close for his liking.
“Please” She said “It’s important”. The words seemed strange the way she was saying them, but it was the only thing she could think of after seeing how uncomfortable her closeness made him. She wanted to take a step back, to try and recreate enough space, but she wouldn’t have the time.
“What the Fuck?!” Came another familiar voice and the sudden rush of Nathan’s voice caught her off guard. Shit. She was quick to release Olly’s hand and she looked as if she were confused but Nathan’s extreme haste down the fire escape told her she better head off after him, and she did realize exactly how this looked.
“Will you promise to meet me again please?” She asked, but she didn’t give him any time to answer as she now had a bigger problem to solve. Not only was Nathan taller and in hella good shape, but she was in turmoil between wanting to say what she needed to and making sure her relationship didn’t just break.
“I’m sorry.” She said and she wasn’t quite sure why she was apologizing. She was just sorry that she didn’t get the moment to tell him like she wanted to. The Moment where she could reveal the truth and see where he stood with it.
Now free from her grasp, he still didn’t move, not right away. Her words sounded eerily familiar. Faith said the same thing at the end of their first secret meeting, when their friendship was frowned upon by her at-the-time boyfriend JJ. Even her voice sounded different, no longer hers but that of the only woman he ever loved. He shook off those thoughts, cursing his mind and cursing that place.
Turning around, he began to walk away from Raya. Nathan was at the end of the staircase, shouting something he didn’t truly care about at him. Usually, he wouldn’t mind throwing down with him, if anything just to silence him for good. But nothing felt right tonight, he didn’t feel right tonight.
He simply walked past the man they called Bulldozer, the indifference he was hitting him with perhaps even more insulting to the man than everything he could have said. More shouting, more insults his brain didn’t care to process. He could hear him taking a step toward him and that Raya girl stopping him. They were screaming at each other, but he just walked away. It wasn’t his business anymore.
It never was.