Broken but not Out

Trinity Hospital
London, England


Cold...

So cold...

Waiting areas in hospitals always seemed so cold, devoid of real life, and filled with pain and suffering and a longing for escape.

It was a longing that Violet was feeling at that moment in time as she sighed to herself and ran a hand through her medium length auburn hair, leaning to one side in her seat in an effort to capture that incomparable comfort this chair so alluded.

She had been to too many hospitals.

She had been to too many of these morbid memorials to agony and loss, always so populated by the sick and coughing and nearly dead. She hated these places, and yet she always put herself through this much maligned experience for one common reason...

Him.

Death Angel...

He was always getting himself into scraps.

Already once on this tour Violet had been left sick with worry over his condition after a nasty car crash, and as always she found herself in a waiting room such as this one while she lingered for word on his well being. He could have been badly hurt. He could have died. He always could have died. But, as ever, he seemed to bounce back better than before...

Angel always had a knack for surviving against the odds.

Maybe the jokes and rumours on the internet that he was simply immortal held some truth to them, after all he seemed to survive so much with relatively no real aftermath or long term effect that is easy to question his mortality. It was as if Death Angel was more than just an icon, he was a super hero...

Violet wondered to herself why she even bothered coming; as ever she knew he'd be ok after this.

He always was.

And yet, she couldn't help herself.

Her sense of duty would never let her leave him alone, after all, he'd sacrificed so much for her, and showed her nothing but love eternal. However, it was his love for her that she could never return regardless of everything he was or did, and as a consequence, guilt had constantly riddled Violet's thoughts in relation to him.

She wanted to love Angel.

She needed to love him. And she did, but not the way he wanted or needed, and for that Violet felt an everlasting pain in the back of her heart, as if she'd let him, her family and everyone down by simply being homosexual...

Guilt.

Guilt for what she was.

Guilt for never returning the love she had been so graciously awarded from Death Angel. And because of this guilt she was forever trapped in this cycle of hospital visits, for as long as they maintained this friendship, this relationship, she'd be there for Angel.

Angel...

He was the perfect man.

Strong. Muscular. Caring. Sincere. Dependable. Attractive... kinda. He had a wicked sense of humour... and he loved her so much...

"Why?" Violet thought to herself. "Why am I feeling guilty for being a lesbian?"

A spark of defiance welled up inside.

"How does he do that to me?"

There were no cut and dried answers.

Her whole life had been one long struggle, against her family, against her former friends, against conformity in general, and for her to now feel guilt... for being what she always knew she was...

It was sickening.

In retrospect, maybe being this close to Angel was having an adverse effect on her life, after all it had been quite some time since she'd 'been' with anyone, and she starting to feel lonely because of this. Maybe it was all Angel's fault. Maybe he was the reason for all her problems. After all, before he came on the scene she was quite happy to while away her time in the pursuit of skirt and romance or even just a tickle as she used to refer to it as...

Maybe Angel was to blame... and by constantly being there for him maybe she was fanning the fires within him...

To add to that, Frost was now in the picture.

She was this beautiful, blond young woman who'd only recently joined the OSW roster, and my how Violet had gazed upon her form from afar, regarding her body with lust and a desire to feel her pink soft flesh against her lips...

It was all she dreamed of.

For days she had whiled away her time when she should have been on the phones for Franco with thoughts of being in this woman's panties, enjoying pleasures they contained and kissing those young, voluptuous lips with reckless abandon.

But in her haste to get closer to Frost, Violet had used the wrong tool.

Death Angel.

She didn't want to hurt his feelings but she knew that recruiting her into the Faction would undoubtedly foster for her the required information on what she hoped would be a favourable sexuality.

It backfired.

Greatly, and now it seemed that Frost only had eyes for...

Him...

The realization dawned on her slowly as she stared at the tiles between her feet. She took a slow breath and rubbed the heels of her hands into her closed eyes, idly wondering if she'd taken more breaths than she deserved today.

After all, what else could go wrong?

A soft, rhythmic beeping came from a room down the hall that some doctor had left open, mesmerizing in its repetition, almost hypnotic to her sleep-deprived state. Each descending beat from that machine lulling Violet closer towards sleep...

It was late and sleep was beckoning...

She stood slowly, shaking such thoughts from her mind as she stretched and walked a slow circle around the room, passing softly humming vending machines and small tables stacked with year-old magazines that no one ever read.

There were other people here, sitting on the soft-but-not-quite-comfortable chairs. One middle-aged man was sitting in the corner, hands folded in prayer before him as silent tears ran down his cheeks. As Violet passed by him she heard him whispering to himself...

"Please...please not them too...not after I've lost everyone else...please let me tell my wife and child how beautiful they are, instead of saying goodbye..."

It was easy for the lives of others to so suddenly trivialise her own...

Turning away Violet spied an old couple leaning against one another over the armrests of their chairs, hands clasped and eyes shut as they slept; scattered around the room were other people, silent, shoulders hunched with weary tension and eyes glued to the ground. No one even seemed to register the television that chattered quietly to itself in a high corner of the room.

"There's never any comfort in the waiting room," she thought as she sat once more. "Just nervous faces bracing for bad news."

A nurse walked into the room, her shoes clicking loudly by comparison to the buzz of the TV and vending machines, and the steady beeping in the background. Everyone's head came up, even the man praying in the corner, whipping toward her as if she was his entire world. She stepped in front of Violet and as the secretary brought her eyes up from the floor to her face; tiredness was showing through her layers of makeup. Her curly blond hair was sagging from where it had been artfully pinned behind her head.

"He's stable, Miss..." The nurse paused as she waited for Violet to fill in the blanks.

"Violet..." she tiredly replied.

"And you are...?" Again the nurse questioned, raising an eyebrow to hasten a response.

"Um... his friend... yeah..." was all Violet could wearily utter.

Suddenly there was a loud bang behind them both, causing the women to turn in the direction of the hospital's A&E entrance where the door had been opens too fast for it to stop itself from hitting the side...

Her...

Frost...

Her golden locks flowing in the wind as it seeped in through the open door behind her. A look of worry was on her suddenly weathered face as she glanced around, looking for anyone recognisable, while readjusting her coat collar. Quickly her eyes fell upon Violet, who returned the glance with a look of surprise across her face.

"Oh God..." Violet sighed to herself, the Nurse catching the word and giving her a puzzled expression.

"Not you." Violet quickly added much to the nurse's relief while brushing some of her hair to one side; she needed to ready herself for the approach of the one she was crushing on.

Frost, herself flustered after a long and hectic drive, soon crossed the waiting room, eyes never leaving Violet as she looked out for telltale signs that her own sneaking suspicions, that maybe Violet was after Angel, were right...

How wrong she was...

"Uh, any word?" Frost softly addressed as she closed in, undoing the buttons of her coat.

Violet nodded, finding the closeness almost too hard to bear. "Yeah, the nurse was just saying that he's stable..."

"Thank God..." Frost sighed, removing her coat completely to reveal she was still wearing her wrestling attire.

Quickly the nurse chimed in her two cents, or in this case two pounds, "He is stable, but we'd prefer it if you visited Mr Angel one at a time please, given his condition..."

"Me first!!" Violet hastily spat out, turning to face the nurse.

Quickly, she spun back around to face Frost, catching the look of disappointment in the attractive young wrestler's face, as if eyeing up her apparent competition. As much as she wanted Angel to be happy Violet couldn't allow him to take 'her' away...

Not after everything she'd been through herself for him.

"Oh," Frost uttered weakly as she watched Violet disappear with the nurse...

"Ok, I'll wait here then..."


***************************************************


A gentle tapping sounded on his door.

"You're such a lightweight!"

Violet's voice lit up the private room as she entered, quickly gaining Death Angel's attention; he looked up, eyes half open thanks to the amount of pain relieving drugs in his system, leaving him with a rather vacant look across his face, causing Violet to giggle.

"What?"

Death Angel loved hearing her laugh; the sound was distinct but unobtrusive. Soft but unmistakable, like something anyone could mysteriously hear a mile away. It always brought a smile to his face, despite any situation.

"I'm not..." he insisted, chuckling, allowing the cover to fall away from his shoulders. Now barely feeling the pain of his broken wrist, he sat up in bed, readjusting the sheets to better cover his lower half; he was only wearing boxers underneath.

The ache in his arm hardly even registered now.

He'd had a lot worse in his career, but only hours beforehand it was as if this agonising event had topped them all. Even so, a part of him enjoyed her fussing over him as she always would do, so he'd already decided to pretend it was still pretty bad just to ensure the desired response.

The little games he played...

"How does it feel?" Violet added, nodding down towards what now covered his forearm.

"Ugh!"

Death Angel exclaimed in annoyance as he stifled a yawn, his response only amusing Violet even more as she began to laugh out loud.

Angel's cast was annoying.

It wasn't itchy, like everyone said it would be; it was just so . . . there.

It made a dull clunking noise whenever it came into contact with anything, which served as a constant, unwelcome reminder of his weakness against Jack Money. And it was so conspicuously white, regardless of whatever shirtsleeve he probably would attempt to cover it with. It had only been a few minutes since the cast was finally set, and already Angel was counting the days until it could be removed.

"I wish it came in black..." Angel mused, eyebrows raised solemnly, as if the colour was the most soul destroying problem in the world. However, this time Miss Violet didn't laugh as her usual response would be; instead her eyes remained glued to the cast, the concern obvious in her face.

Well founded concern too.

"Angel," Violet began, face suddenly turning serious, "are you going to be able to compete?"

It was a valid question.

After all, most athletes would balk at the possibility of having to ply their trade with anything over a sprain, let alone a broken bone, or two in this case; the Ulna and Radius in Angel's forearm had been all but destroyed. With such a cataclysmic injury, one would be forgiven for not participating in such a sport...

One would be forgiven for regarding their own well being...

But then again, wrestling was not like any other sport, and besides, Death Angel was too proud and hungry for vengeance to pass over an opportunity to get his good hand on the one who injured him in the first place and throttle him...

Angel's brows furrowed as a look of determination filled his eyes.

"There is no way I will ever miss this match, Vi'... no way...."

He meant it.

Heaven and earth could not stop Death Angel from being a part of this previously scheduled match, and not even Jack Money's attempts to stumble him would succeed.

This was war...

And Violet knew that she could never talk Angel out of doing this, regardless of the cost to his body or to his career. It was already too far gone now...

Angel was ready to hunt...

"Violet," Angel began, "Jack Money came out there and tried to screw me up good and proper; I can never let that lie..."

Leaning forwards in the hospital bed, Death Angel regarded his cast with fury, gritting his teeth at the very sight of this foreign object now attached to his being.

"If it weren't for Frost, he could have done worse..."

Death Angel's voice trailed off as his thoughts turned to Frost. A small slither of a smile crept across Angel's face as he remembered the feeling of her lips making contact with his, experiencing again the sensation and surprise in his mind at this act, and how afterwards he felt invigorated, at least until the adrenalin ran out and the pain of his wrist took over...

"So you like her then?"came the melancholy answer, "she's in the waiting room right now."

Violet's voice was suddenly soft but monotonous as she shifted her weight on the spot, betraying some form of pain harboured within. Angel turned to her, a look of concern across his face as he watched the obvious sadness form upon hers, and for a moment the feeling that maybe his recent thoughts of Frost had been adulterous to his love for Miss Violet came back into his mind.

Her eyes seemed so sad...

But why?

"Was it because she maybe has feelings for me after all?" Death Angel suddenly though to himself. "Was she jealous of Frost?"

How wrong he was...

"Are you alright... with that?" Angel's concern was obvious, as was the probing nature of his comment, alerting Violet to the fact that she'd allowed her jealousy to escape her, registering across her face despite he attempts to conceal it from view.

"Are you ok with me 'seeing' Frost?"

"Oh yes..." Violet quickly blurted out, trying to save face, "I mean yes, I'm fine... with that..."

She wasn't.

Inside Violet was far from fine...

"Good..."

Deep down Angel was disappointed.

Deep down he didn't want her to be fine with anything concerning him and another woman; he was still in love with Violet, and that was something he couldn't see changing for a very long time, after all he knew people just didn't fall out of love overnight...

But...

At the same time he was tired of being a failure. He was tired of being left wanting, and feeling down, especially when there was someone right there and then, seemingly willing to be there for him in a romantic capacity, and fill that void within.

Maybe that kiss meant something...

Maybe Frost would help him move on, and in the darkness make him feel complete again...

"Vi'," Angel continued, his fighting with himself to say what needed to be said, "I don't know what's going on between me and Frost... but I can't do this. I cannot wait for you... I need something real in my life to help me get through the day... This, whatever it is, is nice... she's nice... and that's just what I need right now; Nice... and she seems to like me, so how can I turn that down?"

Fighting the urge to interrupt him, Violet knew these words were close to his heart; Angel was leaving himself wide open, showing his sensitive side, and even if it meant going without for him, she knew he'd done so much for her in the past.

Maybe she owed him that much.

Maybe giving up on the girl of her dreams was what she needed to stop feeling the guilt she had for not feeling love for Death Angel.

"Then I'm happy for you..." again she lied, "I hope you two have fun together..."

"Ok," Death Angel sighed, relieved that he'd got everything off of his chest, "In that case it's time I get out of here!"

Suddenly Angel leant forwards, pulling himself out of bed while Violet, shocked, watched on.

"What the hell are you doing?" she quickly barked, trying to push him back.

It was no use.

Death Angel was already out of bed as he stood and stretched, rolling his shoulders and neck, working muscles that had started to cramp.

Quickly realising he was wearing nothing but his boxers, a moment of vulnerability set in, and Angel hastily turned away, reaching for his shirt which was hanging over the chair by the bed.

"First off, I need to get my clothes on, then I'm gonna pay Blake a visit and see if a theory of mine is right or not..." he began, quickly buttoning his shirt up despite Violet's weak attempts to subdue him.

"And then, for once in my life, I have a date to secure..."

For a moment at least, life had some hope attached to it.

Such a shame...


THE END...