[Long] The pains

[Old Line Jeff]

"When I asked you to avoid doing anything unnecessary-"

*crack*

"This is what I meant."

Ronnie Long just sighed in relief. A wave of what can only be described as a pleasant pain - the kind one feels after finally being able to stand after squatting, or standing hunched over, for a prolonged period of time feels.  His shoulders both touched the flat padded table surface at the same time.

"How much further are you going to let this go?"

"I said that if I was able to step in front of HNDRXX and Takaru and and take a few additional shots for them, I'd do it gladly."

Deanna didn't answer immediately.  Lying belly down, all Ronnie could see was the black pleather table top, but he could picture the pensive, one eyebrow lowered expression on his wife's face.

"There is a bruise the shape of a footprint directly over your spine."

Ronnie was born in the Colorado badlands.  He was never a 'physique guy', but appropriately for a man of the Rocky Mountains, his muscle fibers had been compared by a previous doctor to petrified timber. Unyielding. He knew what Deanna would say though - sooner or later, they'd break.  Sooner or later, everything breaks.  She'd broken her ankle only 3 matches into her pro wrestling career and decided it wasn't for her.  She worried every time he stepped into the ring that this time it would be his turn - that he'd land just wrong, that his reflexes would fail, and that he'd come home with an injury he'd be bearing for the rest of his life.

Before he was able to think of anything to say to her - trying to get her to stop worrying would have only upset her - his phone rang.  He looked at it.

So did she.

D. Damien

Almost nothing made Deanna angry.

But the name of Ronnie's first tag team partner and rookie mentor did.

"Why haven't you cut that fucking evil bastard out of your life yet?!"

Ronnie swiped down on his phone, cancelling the call.  He rolled to a sit and swung his legs over the edge of the table.  "You know it's not like that.  If I changed phone number he'd still manage to get it somehow, and this way at least I know he's calling before I answer. And don't think I like this. I have one bad night where I can't get out of first gear and the dust hasn't settled before he's calling, probably ready to assure me he's not calling about convincing me to embrace the darkness within me before telling me that embracing the darkness within me would solve all my problems.  I didn't listen to him in OLW, I didn't listen to him in AW, and I'm not going to now."

The phone started ringing.  This time he just hit the mute button on the side of it.

"All things in their own time.  I'll deal with my aches and pains from this match... then I'll deal with my next match... and then I'll deal with Daeriq Damien."