There was something inherently relaxing about being on the road this time of night. There was nothing but the sound of crickets to be heard, and nothing could be seen save for the road, illuminated by the vehicle's pale headlights. The young woman yawned, leaning on her seatbelt as somewhat of a makeshift pillow. Her eyelids were heavy as she stared ahead of her.
In the weeks since the formation of the Street Dogs tag team, Skylar Jones and Cecilia Lombard had been traveling from show to show together, sharing hotel rooms and taking turns driving. Skylar stretched, rubbing her eyes. "We there yet?" She asked her tag partner teasingly, knowing damn well they won't have reached their destination until noon. She was aware that Cecilia wouldn't be amused by such humor, and yet that didn't deter her. Spoiler
Cecilia Lombard was the type of person Sky'd have never expected to get along with. Hell, if they'd met under any circumstances besides their chance meeting in the gym, in which they decided to join forces, she was pretty damn sure they'd have instead lusted over one another's blood.
And yet here they were, driving half way across the nation of Japan together...
Last edited by Deskfan45 on Sat May 07, 2022 3:24 pm, edited 4 times in total.
Sometimes, Cecilia questioned the decisions she'd made in leading up to this point. She had seen the potential in Skylar Jones, and she was sure that the two of them could become a force to be reckoned with in the tag team division if they put their heads together - and, while she wouldn't be the first to admit it, through all their time working together, Cecilia had actually grown to respect the brunette more than she had expected to. Sure, she would tell herself that her alliance was only one of convenience - if she was going to get anywhere, Cecilia wanted to make sure she was the head bitch in charge, and anyone she kept around for too long would just be competition for the glory.
But in all their time training and traveling together, she and Skylar had grown to understand each other. She'd seen sides of Sky that she would never have shown to anyone else, and she felt comfortable opening up to her the way she would never think of doing elsewhere. She'd gotten to know Skylar more closely than a lot of people could, and even her...eccentricities were beginning to make sense to her. Almost enough to make them endearing. Cecilia didn't know if she would call them friends - but if she was ever in the position to betray her, she just might think twice about it.
Most days, anyway. It was long drives like these that made Cecilia ask herself if teaming with Sky had been a wise decision. If she was going to be stranded out in the middle of nowhere at some ungodly hour, hunched over the steering wheel and peering outside at the short stretch of road illuminated by the headlights, with only the sounds of leaves rustling in the breeze to keep her awake, she could at least have the only other sound be...something other than the incessant prattling of Skylar Jones when she was awake, and her snoring when she wasn't.
"No," Cecilia grumbled under her breath, "no, we're not. I don't even know what prefecture we're in right now. Shouldn't you be sleeping, anyway? You know we won't have much time before the show." She sighed to herself. For a moment, Cecilia wondered if this was what parents who took their kids on road trips had to put up with.
Skylar lifted her head off the seatbelt, blinking her eyes at her partner's answer. "What the fuck is a prefecture?" She asked. What, was it some kinda Japanese thing?
She snickered at Cecilia asking if she should be asleep. "Psh, and miss out on this? Come on, it's a beautiful night!" She smiled, cracking her window open to let the crisp night air in. "We should get there around noon anyway, and the show starts at four. So we got like, three hours to sleep. Besides, doesn't sleep deprivation make you more likely to snap and kill someone? I think that gives us an advantage."
The brunette stretched her arms abover healr head, before leaning back in her chair. "So anyway... Would you rather fight fifty midgets, of five people your own size?"
For a moment, Cecilia blinked at the sound of Sky's confusion. This woman had been wrestling in Japan for over a year now, and she didn't even know the country's basic geography? Still, she sighed, rolling her eyes as she looked back at the road with a half-grumbled "...never mind." She had better things to do than to entertain Skylar's antics, and when she was driving this late at night, she needed to keep her attention on the road above all else.
Of course, she could still go without Skylar's comments on how they only had three hours to sleep ahead of them - the reminder didn't make this drive any easier for her. Her knuckles went white as she squeezed the steering wheel tighter, and she hunched further over the wheel, getting to be where she was perched at the very end of the drivers' seat. "You know, we could always take turns with this. Nothing's stopping you from driving us for an hour." Why did she have to be the one who always ended up driving the lunatics? Who decided she was the collective mother of Skylar's circle of friends?
If there was anything that made Cecilia at last direct her response at something that Skylar actually said, though, it was her last quip. But even that was just an incredulous look back at the passenger's seat. "...The hell kind of question is that?"
Skylar leaned her head on the window. The glass was slightly cold to touch, yet made a decent rest for her head. "I'll drive us in an hour, aight?" She promised. Sky was a natural born night owl. She loved to stay up late, and go out at night. She had many pleasent childhood memories of staying up all night on her Wii when her mom couldn't be bothered to put her to bed. She knew she could rely on herself to stay awake through the car ride. Even if she was drowsy when it came time for their match, all she'd need to do was splash some water on her face.
The brunette chuckled at Cecilia's reaction to her question. "Alright fine, here's a better one. You're in a match with yourself. How do you win?"
"Mm...alright, alright," Cecilia muttered to herself, keeping her eyes on the road and fighting back the urge to yawn. "In an hour it is. But I'm gonna hold you to that one, mmkay?" She hoped, at least, that if Skylar's thoughts were occupied with driving the car, she wouldn't be as likely to prattle on about whatever inane topics came to her mind, lest they lead her to drive off the road. Of course, she was well aware that she might've been giving her too much credit with that - and knowing Sky, she might drive off the road either way. Maybe even on purpose.
Regardless, though, when Skylar switched the topic of conversation, it was something that actually gave Cecilia some thought. She raised an eyebrow, drumming her fingers against the wheel. As far as random tangeants, this one was an interesting one. "Hm...against myself, huh? That's a good one. See, I'd be trying to psyche her...or me, I don't know...out, and move in for the kill at a moment of weakness, like I always would. Except if that were the case, she - er, I - would be thinking the same thing, and we wouldn't be able to outwit each other since we'd already be anticipating all our mind games and we'd both be on our guard. So...I'd probably just have to go in with strikes, and then put her - me - in a hold. Except, hrm...she'd also have my flexibility, so that might be a little hard..."
In order to give her some time to think, Cecilia decided to change the subject. "What about you? What would you do in a match with yourself?"
Skylar leaned her head on the seat belt, her ear pressing against the rough material. She let out a yawn, listening to Cecilia's answer. "What'd I do? Well, my bread and butter 'ave always been strikes and power, but she'd be just as good at both. For every punch I land, she'd hit me with one just as hard, and if I tried to get her with a test of strength, we'd both just wear ourselves out." She said, looking at the windshield and admiring the stars. "So really, it'd just come down to who's standing closer to the nearest blunt object."
She yawned again, silence once more filling the car. "I'm hungry. See any fast food places that ain't Burger King?" She asked. "Fuck Burger King. Fucking sloppy ass burgers."
Yep, there it was. As soon as Skylar mentioned blunt objects, Cecilia let out a sigh and rolled her eyes as she settled in over the wheel. She should have known that was going to come up at some point. Sure, Cecilia was no stranger to bending the rules to her favor, and she had used weapons in a few matches of her own, but at least she had the tactical acumen and submission skills to make her a formidable opponent even without them. Skylar, though...Skylar wasn't making any excuses for what she did, and what she was good at. At least she was honest.
Cecilia drummed her fingers against the side of the steering wheel, looking up at the sides of the highway illuminated in the headlights. She grumbled under her breath as Sky went on about being hungry - driving this late at night was a hassle enough already, and she wasn't in the mood to add more stops to her journey. Not to mention, this would probably be a fruitless endeavor anyway. Even as the headlights caught a McDonald's sign sticking up over the horizon, Cecilia looked back at Skylar with a cold glare. "Skylar. It's almost three in the morning. There's no way anything's going to be open."
Skylar tapped her foot, craving a cheese burger. As Cecilia told her off, she rolled her eyes, before pointing to the McDonald'a sigh, under which read '24 Hours'. "Cecilia." She started, mocking her partner's deadpan tone. "Do you see that sign? 24 hours. That means it never closes. I'm the drop out here, man, I shouldn't have to explain this stuff to you." She remarked, looking at Cecilia with a taunting smile.
When Cecilia drove into the drive through, a speaker activated. "Hi! Welcome to McDonalds! Can I take your order?" A lady's voice asked. Hearing this, Sky unclbuckled her seat belt, getting her knees on her seat as she leaned over Cecilia, placing her left arm on hrt left thigh for support, the other on the car door. "Yo, I'd like five McDoubles and a chocolate milk." Sky ordered, before turning to face her partner, their faces mere inches apart. "What do you want?"
Well, so much for that. Cecilia had been hoping she could talk Skylar out of pulling over, but the brunette had spotted the hole in her logic. The moment she began speaking, Cecilia let out an audible sigh, her shoulders slumping and her body bending lower over the wheel. She really didn't want to have to take any more time out of their drive when they already had to make use of whatever precious hours they could to rest before their next match, but she had no defense against this. What really got under her skin, though, was how Skylar was making fun of her - imitating her voice and mannerisms, and making jokes at her expense. She grumbled, keeping her eyes on the road so as not to even honor Skylar's tomfoolery with her eye contact. "...You know, Skylar, you're lucky we're on the same team, because I could bash your head into the dashboard right now..."
Nevertheless, Cecilia realized that when Skylar Jones started on something, it was hard to get her to stop. She had no choice. With a dejected sigh, she pulled off the road, pulling into the McDonald's drive-through a moment later. She winced as Skylar climbed over her, trying to shift her weight back and forth to adjust herself against her body in order to get as comfortable as she could manage. She couldn't believe she was doing this.
Although...thinking about it more, Cecilia could feel her stomach rumbling at the thought of food. When Skylar turned the question to her, she sighed, but shrugged her shoulders nonetheless. "Fine, fine, I guess I'll have-" But then, she realized what her partner had just said - and at once, she sprung back up straight, her eyes going wide as she was grasped by newfound energy. For those few seconds, Cecilia could forget that it was some ungodly hour of the morning.
"Wait, wait, five!? You...you are going to share some of those, aren't you-?!"
Last edited by CaptainL on Tue Oct 18, 2022 1:12 am, edited 1 time in total.
