💀🦋 VII. No Happy Endings 🦋💀

[Eternity]

A new dawn. A new day. The first meal, the most important of the day.

I sat alone at the breakfast table, playing with my food. Mommy would have told me not to. I miss that about her. I miss everything about her terribly. It never gets any better or any easier, no matter what the doctors always say.

I mindlessly stabbed at some scrambled egg with a fork, twisted like a knife and scooped like a spoon. They smelt buttery like Mommy’s eggs, they looked fluffy like Mommy’s eggs but I hesitated to taste them. I knew they wouldn’t taste like Mommy’s eggs, nothing on this side of the world would ever taste like Mommy’s homemade breakfast ever again.

“Eternity?” A familiar voice enquired softly. “I don’t mean to interrupt.”

His baby blue eyes were even brighter now than I remembered. A lot had changed for us both in the last half dozen years since we had last spoken. I took a moment to savour a forkful of mediocre scrambled eggs, and gestured for him to sit at the empty seat in front of me. He smiled, only too happy to oblige me.

I was right. These eggs tasted nothing like Mommy’s, too creamy, the texture was all wrong. I swallowed down that particular disappointment with some entirely too bitter orange juice.

“Long time no see, Kidd,” I said at last.

“Too long,” Warren agreed. “I’m sorry. Life just went to complete shit for a while and I didn’t know what I was doing or how to cope with everything after the memory loss. I still don’t honestly, but I’m trying my best.”

“That's all we can do,” I said, emphatically.

“Yeah,” Warren sighed, regretfully. He patted the pockets of his mahogany brown leather jacket a moment before reaching into the left one. He fished out a pair of pretty rings, held them in the flat of his palm before me. “I need to put the past behind me once more, I figured you were the best person to help with that.”

“How can I help?”

“Get rid of these for me,” Warren glanced down at the rings briefly before he met my gaze again. “My wedding ring and my commitment ring, from Dean and from Max respectively. They’ve got to be worth a pretty penny right? For the history and association alone, they should fetch a fair amount.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely,” Warren nodded firmly. “I’ve held on to them for too long already. I figured you can get Abby to auction them off for charity or something. Raise money for a good cause and all. We know hardcore wrestling fans eat up stuff like this, rare memorabilia and all, especially if it has a proven connection to a wrestler. The engravings on each prove they are the real deal, after all.”

“I understand how you feel about your wedding ring, but are you sure about the commitment ring? Max’s dead, that makes the ring so much more precious.”

“Maybe to you,” Warren held the engraved silver ring between his thumb and forefinger, “But to me it’s just another reminder of how badly I fucked up my promise to her. I promised her that I would always be there for her, Dean and Damien no matter how bad things got, and I just couldn’t do it. I wasn’t strong enough. I was too much of a coward. The idea of committing to the wrong person, like my Mom did, terrified me. I should have listened to that fear, and just stayed gone. Then I wouldn’t be in any of this shit, right now. My Mom put up with a lot more crap from John than I ever did from both of them and she stayed committed to him right up until the day she died. She was a remarkable woman, flawed, but remarkable in her own way. Kinda like you.” Warren smiled softly.

“‘Until Death’ is not a vow to be taken lightly,” I said. “You have to mean it.”

“I know, and I thought I did once. I thought we’d both be able to heal together, but I’m just too fucked up, or maybe he is and I just lived in denial this whole time, I don’t know.”

“Why don’t you give Max’s ring to Damien. I’m sure he’d appreciate having another piece of his mother to remember her by when he’s older.”

“No,” Warren insisted. “He never knew her, she’s just a pretty stranger in some of the photos Dean keeps in an old shoebox and only digs out occasionally to torture himself about not doing enough to save her. Even if I explained everything this ring once meant to me, it’d mean nothing to him. All it will do is remind him how I let everyone I love down, eventually, and he deserves better memories than that. Hell, even I didn’t remember I still had it or where I kept it until Dean told me about the ring he always wears around his neck being one of three, not two like I thought for a while after you helped me exorcise Aleister.”

“Yeah,” I stabbed more of these stupid eggs viciously, beating them all over again, like they deserved for being so damned wrong. They shouldn’t exist. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have. If you still had all your memories, you’d still be happily married to Dean. It’s all my fault. I take joy and twist it into loss every single time. I find absolute happiness and turn it into inevitable sorrow in the end for everyone and everything. I’m a destroyer, a ruiner. I don’t deserve to live.”

The pale skin on the back of my left hand crawled, overrun with a dozen little spiders. I wasn’t afraid, just sick of the infestation. I didn’t know where they always came from, buried deep in all the cracks I can’t reach or heal probably. I stopped beating the eggs and set the fork upon them - or I would have if Warren hadn’t grabbed my wrist suddenly and stopped the tines of the fork from touching the little pests.

Why? Why would he save them? Nobody loves spiders that much. Those who don’t hate them fear them and want them either dead or gone. I was only trying to help. I’m always trying to help.

“Hey, E,” Warren whispered softly. “Stop, you’ll hurt yourself.”

He pulled the fork from my grip and tucked it beyond my reach. He then did the same with the knife and the spoon. He always looked out for me, I loved him for that, more than he knew, but now my breakfast would go unfinished. Mommy wouldn’t like that.

I’m a growing girl, I should clean my plate, even food I didn’t like. There were starving children in the third world and here I was privileged enough to be in the first - again. Did I know how lucky I was?

I didn’t feel lucky. Not now, not ever.

“Why shouldn’t I?” I blinked three times in confusion at him. “I’m a terrible person. I always deserve to hurt. I deserve to burn for the Hell I’ve wrought upon you.”

Now it was Warren’s turn to blink rapidly, as if he didn’t understand. As if he thought I was crazy. Everybody always thought that about me. They never understood. Nobody ever did.

“You’re not a terrible person. I’ve never blamed you. I came to you for help, you just did what I asked you to. You told me the risks and I still insisted. It was my choice, remember?”

“No,” I said softly. It was all fuzzy. My head was always so fuzzy. “You forgive me?”

“E, there’s nothing to forgive,” Warren said. He took my hand in his and squeezed firmly. “It’s not your fault, it’s never been your fault. I’m sorry I’ve let you believe it that it was all this time. If I had known you still felt so responsible, I’d have set the record straight years ago.”

Anything else I wanted to say was swallowed by Abby’s return from the bathroom. She looked at Warren and then the two engraved rings, one silver and one black, now on the table between us. She seemed both surprised and confused at once.

“Warren? Is everythin’ okay?”

“Everything’s fine, Angel,” I insisted with the brightest smile I could muster. “Everything’s just fine.”

~~~~~~~

“No!” Eternity screamed. Abigail reluctantly let go of her left hand, gave up trying to take both rings Warren had left her with off her ring finger. “You don’t understand. I need them. They’re precious memories. I need to hold onto them.”

“But beloved,” Abby said softly. “They ain’t your memories to keep.”

“Their love is dead,” Eternity insisted. “All dead memories are mine.”

“Okay,” Abby reasoned with saintly patience, as she often did when Eternity got unreasonably obsessive like this. “If you insist.” Abby grabbed some black wrist tape from her gear bag. “But as long as you’re wearing them, they’re gonna be covered up.”

Abby compromised, it was all she could do with some of Eternity’s more stubborn moods. She broke off a short length from the roll with her teeth and then wrapped Eternity’s ring finger completely in tape covering both rings up entirely from anybody else’s view. She wasn’t taking any chances at all. “I’m not giving Dean any reason ta target ya, especially when he’s pissed enough already an’ on a bloody warpath. Take this off an’ we’re all fucked. Understand?”

Eternity shook her head, insistent that she didn’t. Abigail just sighed and kissed her on the forehead gently. “I love you, Sephie an’ the only way he’s gettin’ ta ya is over my dead body. Ya understand that?”

Now Eternity nodded, insistent that she did. Abigail breathed a sigh of relief. It wasn’t much, but it was something. Her girlfriend wasn’t entirely lost after all, just a little confused about some things. Abby silently feared the day Eternity didn’t understand just how much Abby loved her. She hoped it never came.

💀🦋💀🦋

“He that trusteth in his riches shall fall; but the righteous shall flourish as a branch.” - Proverbs XI: 28.

💀🦋💀🦋

Before a larger than life bronze Iron Maiden, Bella Morte laboured together under Heaven’s brilliant white light once more. Various foreign objects, most commonly associated with a typical hardcore wrestling match were scattered all around them, not all were visible however due to how intensely spotlighted Abby and Eternity were.

Abby wore a short white summer dress and black boots. She sat on the ground with her legs only half-crossed. By contrast, Eternity knelt behind her, arms draped around Abby’s neck. Eternity’s attire of choice was particularly striking in that she wore a black ‘Savage Kingdom’ t-shirt and black shorts. On her head was a Goofy face baseball cap she’d once brought from a Disneyland somewhere. She also had a pink heart with a black arrow through it as part of her facepaint, under her right eye. Eternity’s left ring finger was mostly concealed in black tape. Abby had her customary red spider lily nestled in her hair, on the left side.

Whatever else happens this Sunday, this year’s Legacy event already feels so much more historic than any of the others we’ve had in recent memory. I know not all our colleagues feel this way, but one of the reasons IWF has always felt like the only promotion worth working for to me outta the many choices out there is that more often than not, Roberto Verona has made a commitment ta present women’s wrestlin’ on equal footin’ with the men. He’s the rare kinda promoter who listens ta not only the fans but all of us in the locker-room.

When Sanguis Immortalis had such a death grip on the tag titles that they pretty much killed the tag division stone dead and ran off nearly all their male competition entirely, he wasn’t ready to pull the plug and bury the titles again, like he had already tried in the past. No, this time he was determined to keep them on life support. He never gave up hope that he would one day find a cure for what ails his baby. When God failed, as He does more often than most are willing to admit, proud Papa Bertie had no choice but to turn away from His Heavenly Kingdom.

That is when the yellow-eyed Mad Prince saw his opportunity to seize ultimate power, corrupting all the Heavenly Father’s hard work, turning an eternal Sunday in Heaven into his own private little thiefdom, savaged and overrun by his deep-throated harlot and a mighty hairless beast. And so God’s Kingdom fell and from the ashes of a burning Heaven erupted a personal Hell, so alike and yet so different.

Their dominance was, is an’ always will be a house of lies. One we earned the opportunity ta expose last week. We sacrificed family for the greater good. That’s how much we believe in our cause, our sacred mission ta once again radically revolutionise the entire state of women’s pro wrestlin’ in this company. By fortuitous fate we have been called upon, chosen by a Higher Power ta bring peace ta a hellish purgatory, as only we can. We are the heralds of a new age of tag team wrestlin’.

Ya just dont know it yet.

But you will, when we leave you no choice.

As Death always does, whether you like it or not, it doesn’t matter.

It never matters.

This was always going to end, one way or the other.

The precious flower once thought she could lead the crows beyond Death and soar higher than even my Archangel. Now you see how wrong she was to promise that your Savage Kingdom would drown in the blood of a brutal Murder. The Devil’s Acolyte will not strike down God’s son. Nobody will. Not because we don’t all want to but we can’t. Not when the one who so proudly proclaims “YOU CAN’T KILL HIM!” is so eager to roll over and die when he can’t handle his losses.

Aww, poor baby.

Does it hurt?

Gonna cry.

GROW UP, WE ALL LOSE WHAT WE LOVE EVENTUALLY!

I suppose it’s technically true, none of us can kill ya if ya kill yourself first, Madjinn.

Ain’t he supposed ta have no off season, Widow? Ya know him best, don’t ya girl? So what happened? Ya refuse ta lick his wounds an’ suck it ‘till he felt all betta about all his obvious inadequacies this time, huh? Good for ya, if ya did, girl. Let him sulk an’ lick his own wounds. Show up ta Legacy at your very best an’ prove ta the world the one thing I’ve known ever since we stood across the ring for the first time durin’ the Heir Ta The Throne tourney.

Ya bring the bacon home in that relationship, don’t ya?

He’ll never admit it, ‘cause his fragile male ego won’t allow it, but I know ya more than pulled your weight through the tourney. Ya carried him through all those tag rounds where he couldn’t even buy a win ta save his life. If it wasn’t for your remarkable tenacity an’ never say die attitude, no way he’d have made it ta the finals, we both know that don’t we, Brandy?

It’s okay, ya can admit it.

We all know it’s God’s honest truth anyway.

From the light of His Divine Truth to the Universal Truth of Death.

You and The King are lost. Heads and all. The unearned crown is much too heavy for you both to carry into this pivotal battle. Too grand for you to turn your stories into genuine myths and legends. The next chapter is ours to write Stephen, the next page is ours to ink, Brandy. The downfall of your Kingdom will be as magical as The Kingdom you’ve ripped off in all your merchandise. Unsurprising. Just about everything about your whole brand is unoriginal and uninspired.

You are little more than a Sanguis Immortalis tribute act.

The world deserves a new story, and the tag division deserves to be represented by genuinely hard workers and not glorified coat-tail riders, both of whom can only carry gold if it is literally given to them. Abby and I have always had a lot taken from us, a whole hell of a lot actually. More than you will ever know.

But we ain’t never been given a damn thing, not in this business or in this life.

An’ neither would we ever be content with anythin’ we didn’t earn, like y’all are.

And so it will come to pass that the Mad Prince’s co-opted Kingdom will be drowned in the blood of hairless gorillas and abandoned spiders.

Our sincerest condolences for your tragic and untimely loss.

It is only fitting that your beautiful disaster ends in an even more beautiful Death.

And there are none more beautiful or more deserving than my Archangel and I.

Trust us, we’ve looked.

Thanks for bringin’ the tag titles back from the dead, but we’ll take it from here, y’all.

Our division deserves a brand new lease of life.

A brand new afterlife, two might say.

See you both on the other side.

You’ve kept our belts warm for so long and we really do appreciate it.

But now it’s time for you both to rest in peace.

May it find you as swiftly as it found God and His Son.

Well, one of them at least.

Still you can’t have everything, can ya?

No you can’t, that’s quite enough, Brandy.

No you can’t, that’s quite enough Stephen.

You’ve played with other children’s toys long enough.

It’s getting late and it’s almost time for bed.

But first a bath, a bloodbath.

And then if you’re really good, maybe Mommy will tuck you into bed with a story.

No happy endings though.

They’re never guaranteed.

Night, night.

God Bless.