... & The Flames Of Rage (Welcome Back)

[Jon Pryor]

"Nope."

He stopped in front of the suite door, pulling out a door card. "Until you came along, my day was going to be working out after healing up from Absolution."

He twisted the door open, planting his foot to keep it as such while sliding his card back into his wallet.

"You coming in or what?"

He folded his arms. He could remember the scornful look. Not that it would bother him in the slightest... especially with the previous, oh, twenty minutes of history between the two. "It's not like I'm going to kill you or anything. I actually have stuff to lose again."

[Lilith]

She could kill him.

Right now. With the electrical charges in her gloves, she could literally stop Jonathan Maxwell Pryor's heart. The gloves were designed to be the main force of Lilith's fighting, since her level of lethalty had considerably dropped after the Virus had been foricbly removed.

But she could do it.

She could force the charges to exceed the normal limit, she could force her hands against his chest, and in seconds... she could kill him, right here, right now.

"..........."

Lilith grinds her teeth slowly. She quietly, begins pinching at the fingertips of her gloves... edging them off. She pulls the tightly packed leather from her skin before pushing them back into her pocket. A heavy sigh from her body. Despite the general ease of effort it'd take... she couldn't kill Jonny.

......

She might be able to hurt him though... give it some time.

".... Actually have stuff to lose again.... Why, thank you Jonny...

You know how to make a girl feel needed... Why, I think we should reconsider our whole relationship. Maybe get some party streamers and some confetti, even a little pinata so we abuse all the minority stereotypes..."

The sarcasm was nearly choking as she slowly enters his suite. Her mind was so confused she nearly lost it. Like, you know... the amount of it she was in firm control over and stuff. Lilith looks around for a second before turning back to face Jonny at the doorway.

".... Hard to imagine we used to be different."

[Jon Pryor]

"You rubbed off on me."

The door shut behind him. His suite... really wasn't much. Wasn't what it could be. The television was only a small LCD TV, a single couch, and his room had its bed in it. He didn't care for much more, and didn't feel the need to "impress" anybody who walked in there. Walking down the hall toward his room, he took off his shirt, tossing it into the laundry room as he passed it.

"So, what does even bring you back around? Nostalgia?" He can be heard yelling back from his room. He stopped, staring at his championship belt that overly presided over his room, his psyche. Reaching into a closet, he grabbed a new shirt, sliding it on. "Chance at past glories?" He almost wanted to say something about the "latching on to those who had them..." but relegated that for another time. He couldn't take his eyes off of the belt, before finally he broke the slight trance, stepping back into the hallway.

"So, what is it?"

[Lilith]

"No... I can't wrestle anymore, actually......"

*cue peanut gallery cheering*

Lilith sits down softly in the folds of the couch. She looks around and is a bit, confused. She knew that before the relationship between them, Jonny was never much of a... dress to impress kind of man. But...

Dear... God.

It was like an atom bomb of depression just layed waste to his fucking suite. If there was a MCR stand up or CD tray in the corner and some poetry about how he wasn't hugged enough on the walls, he'd be fuckin' emo.

Lilith stares at the vast, emptiness that was Jonny's suite. It was like, he just had the bare, bare... bare items required for living. God... it was so... fucking... wrong.

"... We can call it injuries. My time in a wrestling ring won't be graceful or eventful much... I'm in a... different, kind of work now."

One way of putting it. She leans back a bit, her arms resting up against the backing of the couch. A sigh, a heavy dull sigh. Why did she come back to this town? That's a good question. One with various answers..

One she could tell him...

And one she couldn't.

"... If you want to hear 'My life is empty without you, I've fallen so hard, so far. Save me, pick me up, take me back!!...' You're not ENTIRELY to far off Jonny boy...

My life is.. a far cry different than the kind I had when I was with you, I'm back here for... some normality. Sadly, there's only two avenues of that in this place for me...

And one looks like he'd rather bend his belt over then bend me over."

She smirks a bit before looking his way as he emerges from his bedroom. Oh, she'd done at least some backround checking before she had come back to GCW's Town of Terror. Jonny had done pretty good for himself... she was happy about that..

Happy and, kind of pissed.

"... Congratulations, by the way.."

[Jon Pryor]

"Aaaahuh." His head tilted to the side, eyes closed at the last words. "I guess this is where I say "Thank you."

He stepped across Lilith's sight, opening up the blinds and leaning against the walls, hands in his pockets. He hadn't changed out of the shorts he ran in yet.

The room flooded with the bright lights of the sun reflecting off of Lake Michigan. It was the one thing that actually somewhat kept him balanced these days.

"See... then I guess it all comes down to... is reverse the roles. Can you honestly say that you'd be any different had I come crawling back on my knees, with a hard dick and a heart full of apologies? I'm done playing those games, Lilith...

I'm done with the sacrifice for someone who can't return the favor... I'm done... well, with damn near everything, truthfully."

The days had been dark for him in their time apart.

"You were gone, I was destroyed. I had a broken neck that needed to heal. I had a home that burned down, with only the money off of my final check from that damn pyramid scheme to live off of. As far as anybody knew, I was dead, and I'd burnt down my own house in a surreal depression that amounted from losing you without much of a whisper or blown kiss.

You could even say that I did die that night. Everything that I was, everything that I would be... was gone in an instant. And, it tore into everyone else that I cared for. Corey? I haven't seen him in years, last I heard, I never happened to him. Shame too... he lives in this city.

Or, how about Elizabeth? God, how I loved her... I was actually the first man she loved, you know that? I turned to her for the help that I needed, she loved me.

I destroyed it. I can't tell you how much she means to me... and the fact that I'm the biggest slime on the earth to her now? I can't even describe it.

Lets not even mention my beneficiary for my will. Amanda and I? Just business... I'm sure she'd be far more content if I just never rose from any grave."

He sighed heavily, biting back any emotion. Staring at the finger that once bore his wedding band for not only Lilith, but for Kim Hunter as well.

"That... is all that I have left. That, you know? It's almost pathetic...

but it's also proof to myself. Proof that I can actually care about something again. Proof that I can persevere, that I can hopefully turn back all of this built up shit in my life."

It had become more though. An obsession, his own lifestyle, and even he wasn't blind to it himself.

[Lilith]

"Jonny....

I never said, I expected either one... to have mercy on me."

Lilith slowly pushes herself up from the comfy folds of the couch. She runs her fingers down the edge of her hips before brushing them off of the fabric. She takes in a deep breath, a somewhat smile breaks through as she stares at him.

"... We've both done a lot of stupid things since meeting one another. I can almost still hear Kimmy trying to chastise me for 'stealing you'.... who knows..

Maybe I did.

... But, at least in the end. I can say with honesty, I really did love you... I guess that's enough for me. Knowing things were, good at one point anyway... Besides, if I had set out to atone for every, single thing... I had done wrong to those closest to me..

I'd be dead right now, Jonny."

She pauses, thinking about that carefully. Self realization and growth, never were Lilith's strong suits. Things more like, seduction, power manipulation, and practical mental genocide were more in her color of things. Her smile slowly begins to fade, taking a couple steps to him she softly raises her hands. Almost in a defeated sense.

"... I already knew, before I had decided on coming back.... that you, were not going to be the one..

The history.. the history between us is to thick, and full of... 'what if' and 'should have been' type situations. Maybe, I just had to face that head on... I'm not going to apologize, Jonny. There's no point, it'd be like slamming your car into a child and apologizing to his mother by trying to pay her off.

It's pointless.

Truth be told... by the time I had reached Ohio, I knew you and I were... gone. The choices made or not made, and how emotionally fucked we both were... it's not something we can turn back like the hands of a clock."

She lowers her head softly, taking steps closer and closer to him. Her hands slip into the front pockets of her cut offs, her teeth bare down on her lip. Emotion, sometimes it was really a problem. Controlling it could be a bitch if you didn't know how... or if it was just, to damn much. Lilith stops, mere inches from her... ex, husband.

"... Make sure, you never forget.. that you can care about something, aside from titles and pride...

Believe it or not.. even if being married to me... ended up destroying your life... it was still... the happiest I've been yet..."

Lilith pulls her left hand out of her cut offs, she clasps it around Jonny's... letting the small ring go. The only thing she'd been holding onto for the last amount of time inside of herself. She'd managed to reclaim it after her fit in passing it to Wallace, but...

She knew that it couldn't be used again..

Lilith folds Jonny's fingers over the memento, turning her face and upper body clean away from him as she does. Slowly but surely... she lets go of his hands, and turns around completely. Not another word passes in the short space of time, she walks to his door in silence. Her head hung low, placing her palm against the edge of his doorway, she pauses...

.......

....

.... Goodbye, Jonny..

The silent proclamation, more than enough to shatter the remaining resistance left in her mind, perhaps in her heart aswell.. [if you believed she held one under that breast and ribcage] Lilith opens Jonny's door, pausing again. She doesn't dare turn her face back. It had been a long time, a long... long time... since Jonny had seen her cry. She wanted to keep that record intact. She nods a bit to herself before finally leaving his suite. The door, softly closing behind her.

".... Goodbye.."

[Jon Pryor]

He swallowed hard. The grip in his hand loosened, and the ring fell to the ground in front of him. He dropped to his knees to follow it down, looking at it before picking it back up with numb fingers. He exhaled, head hanging.

A tear to come? No. Any crying that the man had done had finished long ago. This was brutal to his psyche, yet there was so much more that hang a dark cloud over his head.

Perhaps it is the closure.

Perhaps people need to mind their own fucking business.

But this is the last light of day that Jon Pryor would see this day.

[Aphrodite]

Aphrodite made mental note to obtain a meathead to carry her belongings. Carrying the brown paper bag filled with fruits that she herself had to go and buy was far beneath her. She fumbled inside the pocket of her beautiful, white fur coat for the door card as she walked down the hallway of the GCW tower, past the picturesque windows facing the lake. Yes, she had scored with lake-view housing.

Be jealous.

Swiping her keycard, she looked toward the door of the "famous" resident of the floor, the GCW Champion. A strange woman leaving his door.

Her door beeped, and she pushed it open. Her gold eyes remained on his door, before heading into her own.