We'll always have Paris...

[Deleted]

Faline sat nervously at a table, nursing the beer she'd already gotten and tryng to keep it to just one beer...for now. Velvet had found this place on one of her vacations to Paris in the past and had recommended it to Faline. It was a good place- a haven away from French cuisine and French.. well, attitude, and right now, the less attitude fucking up what Faline wanted to do the better!

You have nothing to worry about, the calmer side of her psyche kept telling her, she's not Haley, and you're not in the lion's den this time...


Faline took another sip of her beer, hoping to God that the liquid courage would hurry the fuck up and catch up with her. 

She glanced at her watch. What's taking so long? She got my message, didn't she? Just then there was a noise coming from the entrance, and Faline had to fight the urge to say 'fuck it' and run one last time.

TBC: Zoe

[Deleted]

Zoe looked at her phone, then at the building in front of her to make sure she had the correct address and place all lined up.  She didn't want to keep her waiting any longer than she already had.  She felt bad for that, keeping her waiting and she hoped she would forgive for this as she entered and scanned the room until she found the familiar face she was looking for, nursing a beer where she sat.

She walked over quickly and slid into place besides her.

"Sorry I'm late.  Hope you haven't had too much fun without me."

Zoe nodded her head at the beer in her hands.

[Deleted]

Faline looked up and then smiled seeing Zoe. She tipped the half empty beer at her.

"Just started. Been fighting a battle with an old ghost. Last time I tried a meeting like this it turned to shit real quick- and I haven't tried again since."

The smile vanished, replaced by a determined look.

"We need to talk about this coming Mayhem. First off, I want you to know that, until these Bloodline assholes are put down I'm not thinking about coming after your belt. So you won't have to worry about your back in the ring At lease, until we put Ryder into a state where all that's left is to figure out who gets the pin."

The smile returned- perhaps a bit viciously.

[Deleted]

Zoe smiled, tilting her head to the side a little bit as she stared at Faline.

"I'm not one to judge."

She threw a glance around the place as if she expected someone to be watching them before glancing back.

"And I'll hold you to that. But if we're talking about title shots here, you're gonna have to deal with Hannah too. She has an eye on the belt as well. I'm all for welcoming the challenge, but I'd rather take care of business at Mayhem first. It's gonna be a fight for that pinfall eh?" Zoe smirked.

[Deleted]

Faline snorted at the mention of the name.

"Hannah is just in it for the bling. Just see what happened to the title the minute she touched it. But I know that, if she doesn't have help, she can't touch you in a Hardcore fight. That's one of the reasons I started this thing about having your back. I was sick of having Bloodline Pearl Harbor their way to titles."

She took a breath, more a sigh, as she gazed into the suds of her beer like she was trying to gaze into her soul.

"Personally, I'm sick and tired of all this shit."

[Deleted]

Zoe tapped her fingers on the table where she was sitting, shaking her head with a frown.

"Yeah I know she is. She can't stand that she got embarassed the last time, and now she's got it in her head that if she wins, everything will be right in the world and she'll have her precious 'bling' back. Bloodline will fawn over her because she beat me, and all this crap. Give me a break."

Her hand clenched into a fist. eyes narrowing.

"Oh I know that too. She gets help, she has every opportunity to touch me, but left on her own, she can't lay a finger on me. It happened once, but it's not going to happen again, I'll make sure of that." There was a pause. "I appreciate you having my back, I really do. Don't have many out there doing that lately, so it's nice to have one. Bloodline's got all the titles, and they got them by bum rushing to get them. I tried to take the Showtime title from Calvin, but...it wasn't enough. It's never enough."

She slammed her fist onto the table in anger.

"I hear ya. I'm sick of all of this stupid shit. Something's got to give."

[Deleted]

Faline gazed down at her Guinness, rapidly dwindling. She signaled the waitress to bring two more- one for her and, if she'd accept, one for Zoe.

"Soon, I hope. I keep seeing this all endin' up as another Havana." She finished her beer. "Or worse."

[Deleted]

She watched as the waitress brought over the two beers, sliding one in front of her and one in front of her companion for the night. She grabbed onto the bottle, staring at the label for a second before glancing up at Faline.

"Yeah you're right. We don't need that again."

She took a drink, then let out a sigh

[Deleted]

"Would you believe that's the first time I've ever been arrested?"

Faline chuckled as she sat back, relaxing as she took another sip of her beer. The initial tension of meeting with Zoe had passed. She was definitely no Haley, that was for sure. At least in the attitude department.

Hearing Zoe's sigh she perked up and looked over at the Hardcore Champion.

"Something wrong?"

[Deleted]

Zoe laughed, shaking her head, taking another drink. The woman was actually good company for the most part, and the tension that had been there in the beginning was starting to fade, leaving the door open for other things.

"No, no I couldn't believe it. Doesn't seem like you at all."

She laughed, tapping the bottom of her bottle on the countertop then quieted down, pursing her lips.

"Just sick of all the bullshit going on. Hannah, Bloodline, and now the League of Evil after every legend in the company? Someone out there really hates this place right now. I hate bringing this up, but...you know..."

[Deleted]

"Wasn't for lack of trying, at any rate. I was a rebellions bitch as a teen." Faline muttered, mostly to herself but the beer getting to her volume control.

She nodded at Zoe's other statement. "If it weren't for Thor being in a coma, and Aaron and his bitch getting their skulls caved in I'd say this stank of the Empire of Blood..."

Faline found the need to stretch some tension out of her body- a stretch that might turn some heads.

[Deleted]

"At least it wasn't anything worse." Zoe said, taking a drink, kicking her feet against the chair.

She blinked at her next words. "Empire...of Blood? Who are they?"

[Deleted]

Faline laughed. "Were,hon. Strictly were now. It was a stable run by Thor over the years. You remember when Aaron Hudson took him out last year at Aftermath? That was over control of the EoB.

Then Aaron vanished off the face of the earth.

Then they found someone had 'accidentally' dropped a lead pipe on his skull ten or fifteen times. His bitch too. Shame about that."

The look on Faline's face told you it wasn't that much of a shame to her. She shrugged.

"Anyway, thing is that Thor would sometimes form stables under other names that weren't directly tied to him- even have them work against him for a time. But, in the end there was always some plan behind it, and everyone was loyal to him even when they weren't"

Faline took another sip of h er beer, relaxing into the telling of old war stories.

"It's like how I met Velvet, how I became a member of the Sisterhood. It was when I first started wrestling. A little group called Global Extreme Wrestling. She comes in with her 'Sisterhood'. saying she has a grudge against her brother Thor. Went as far as to bust his balls on national TV a few times. It was love at first nutpunch!"

The Wild Cat chuckled at the memory, almost purred at it.

"We became friends, then more. One day she calls me up, offers her help training me for a Hardcore match I had coming out. Wilde, the guy wwho was training me before, he was having a hard time doing it, so I said okay and flew out to Vegas.

I met the Sisterhood, I trained with them. We became a team, a unit.. we bonded on so many levels. Still have the piercings..."

Faline paused, looking at her beer and reviewing what she'd just said. Just how far was she willing to drag Zoe down that particular memory hole? More importantly, how far would Zoe allow herself to be dragged?

"Sorry... rambling. Anyway, later Thor tells me the Sisterhood was his idea, and was part of the EoB That he had set it up because he wanted to recruit me."

[Deleted]

Zoe tilted her head to the side, eyebrows quirking as she listened to the long and strange tale that Faline continued to tell her. She frowned a little when the tale stopped, slightly interested to see where the rest of it was going but that was up to her to decide if she wanted to keep on saying anything and drag her further into the story.

"Thor sounds like he likes to have his hands in a lot of dirty business that either isn't his or is." She snorted, shaking her head. "So what happened after he told you the Sisterhood was his idea.?"

[Deleted]

Faline chuckled. "Not much. Velvet had already told me, you see. A bit of pillow talk in the quiet times. The Sisterhood he had cooked up had become a reality. We all felt that way. It was like having another family."

Another chuckle. "A very, very playful family. Anyway, I made sure to act all surprised at the announcement, Thor got his moment of glory and we girls went back to doing what we do best together." Faline made a mental note to make a trip to Vegas once this World Tour was over.

She then shook her head. "Anyway, what I was trying to say before I got off on a tangent, is that if Thor wasn't in a hospital bed somewhere in a coma I'd think it was him behind the Legion of Doom."