Blame It On The Rain (For Acuya)

"Well, at the very least, we'd have dry place to wait out the storm." Chris replied, a little defensively.
The building was left unlocked, so it wasn't like they were breaking and entering. Right?

With that reasoning in mind, Chris pulled the door open and walked in, motioning for Valley to wait a moment before following her in.
"Hello?" she called. "Is anyone here?"
Only silence greeted her as she looked around. There were tables and folding chairs, all neatly stacked on one side of the building's large room. A couple of sofas were on the other side of the room. She turned and nodded to Valley, waiting for the smaller woman to join her.

"I think it's one of those buildings you can rent for a day, like if you're throwing a birthday party or something here." she said. "There should be a bathroom, with some paper towels at least if you want to dry off."
She then took a seat on one of the sofa's with a sigh of pleasure. Although she was a little wet, Chris didn't think there was enough water to soak into the cushions.
"Hey, this is pretty comfy..." she said, pleasantly surprised.

The mention of a bathroom reminded Valley just how sweaty and foul she'd gotten after that long run. She was soaking even without a drop of ran touching her, and her body was starting to cool down from the high. Which meant she was going to get the lovely feeling of wearing a soaking wet t-shirt in the middle of a room with a draft running through it. Lovely.

"Bathroom." She spotted it, just to the side of the couch Chris sat on. "Bathroom is good."

Valley slipped in through the door and left it halfway open so she could keep on talking to Chris while she freshened up, hopefully feeling good enough to ignore the fact that they were quite likely trespassing at the moment. A flick of the light switch revealing a spick and span bathroom, shined and ready for use, clearly made to impress. Almost a shame to spoil it. But she would, anyway.

Valley peeled off her top and tried to ring some sweat out of it, staring at the mirror for a little bit. She still looked good, but age was showing if you looked close enough. Signs of wrinkles setting in. Worn eyes. Nothing makeup couldn't fix, but still...

"Hey, Chris." Valley called out, her voice echoing through the empty room. "Do you remember your first match?"

Getting up, Chris walked over to the door that lead outside and shut it, preventing the wind from getting in. However, the building itself was fairly cold, being late autumn and in the night no less. Now that the runner's high and the adrenaline of chasing Valley around had both faded, her body gave a slight shiver, reminding Chris that she was walking around in wet clothing.
A practical person, she busied herself by looking for a thermostat to try and turn on a heater.

She crossed pass the bathroom door in her search. As she did so, Valley called out to her, drawing Chris's gaze instinctively in the direction of the tanned woman's voice. Seeing Val topless, Chris sharply turned away, but not before catching a glimpse of the woman's well formed body. The former Slamazon was a beautiful woman, in Chris's opinion. She had just never truly noticed it until now. Then again having the woman practically naked in the next room sort of drove the point home. Before her thoughts could wander too far, Chris grimly reminded herself that Valley had been in a recently failed relationship with that Ace woman, which she didn't think the Californian was entirely over. What she needed, if anything, was a friend, not another possible romantic entanglement. Besides, she had her business with the former Wrestle Angels, and that took up all of her focus these days.
*Right. Like Short Round said in Temple of Doom, 'No time for love, Dr. Jones!'* she mentally told herself.

Chris managed to hear Valley's question despite her jumbled thoughts.
"My first match? Ever?" she mused. After a moment, she answered thoughtfully. "Yes, I still do. It was just a week after I completed the training program for Wrestle Angels. I was in their development league, wrestling in a high school gym. The girl I was up against was sort of imitating some pop star that was big at the time. She would dodge, but then do this stupid looking dance instead of counter attacking."
The blonde chuckled, shaking her head as she remembered how things turned out.
"Eventually, I caught a hold of her. Put an end to the dancing and the match all at once. How about you?"

Valley reached into a cabinet nearby and took out a washcloth, holding it in her hand for a second, then bouncing it from palm to palm. Still felt warm, like it had only been dried a hour or so ago. Someone had been here relatively recently. Probably would be back soon. Best to keep that in mind.

"I don't." She called back to Chris, elevating her voice to speak over the running water as she started up the sink. It was tempting to try out the shower, too, but she didn't want to get too crazy. If whoever left the door unlocked came back, it would probably be good to be clothed when he did. "Don't remember it, I mean. Not all the way. I remember parts of it, like what I was wearing, some of the moves I used. I think I messed up a dropkick. And I remember thinking my opponent had a silly gimmick, but I thought everyone's gimmick was silly, so that doesn't narrow it down. But other than that? Just flashes. Nothing concrete."

Valley lathered up the clothe with some soap and started to run it up and down her bare chest, wiping off the grime. "Weird. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, like I've gone so far that I can't see the start anymore, or I'm just getting old and my memory's starting to drop."

"I don't know. " Chris replied to Valley after a moment of consideration. "I mean, yeah I remember my first match, at least all the important details. But....there is also a lot of bad memories rattling around in my head. Mistakes made, things that were said and done....all there waiting to be revisited when I stop to take a breath."

She paused by a window, lifting it's blinds enough to watch the downpour going on outside. The sight, as well as her thoughts, distracted her from her search. Her mind, after chewing on the question for awhile, came up with something else.

"Maybe it's something else, Val." she said. "Maybe it's because you're a little confused? Uncertain on how to move forward? Things took a wrong turn, and now you're sort of lost in the woods, and it's a little hard to see forward or backwards cause of all the things happening now?"

She shook her head.
"Sorry, that got away from me a bit. But still, I do know one thing."
Chris gave a grin as she turned her head towards the door and called out.
"I find it highly unlikely you screwed up a dropkick."

Valley had a quick laugh at that one, shaking her head. If Chris only knew. "You'd be surprised. I used to mess up all sorts of moves when I started up, happened all the time. I thought being a cheerleader would make doing the high-flying stuff so easy, but I was so wrong. My first hurricanrana was just..." She shook her head as the memory flooded back. And she'd done such a good job of keeping it suppressed, too. "I swung back and hit my head on the turnbuckle. Knocked myself out and lost the match. Nasty."

She ran the clothe over her face as the laugh died down, fading into a softer smile as she looked in the mirror. "I don't know, though. I really did just want things to be simple when I started this and came to the AFW. It's amazing how things got so complicated, so fast. It seems like every other week I get into it with some new, crazy girl. I need two hands to count all the enemies."

Chris winced as Valley recounted the tale of her first hurricarana.
"And people wonder why I like to fight with both feet firmly planted on the canvas." she replied to that story. "The few times I've been to the top rope were pretty scary, and never by choice. Really, why do people want to try and super-plex someone my size?"
To her, one of the advantages of being a solid power wrestler was the fact that most of the offense was a no frills, pure strength approach that was easy to learn, but hard to master. As such, Chris didn't have to rely on daring feats of acrobatics to get things done. Which was fine by her, she'd probably break her leg trying.

As Valley began speaking again, talking about how she wanted things to be simple and how they turned out anything but, Chris frowned, coming over to the door of the bathroom.
"Not everyone you've met here is an enemy, Val. You're right, there is quite a lot of crazy running around the AFW. But, still, not everyone you've met has become dead set on seeing you suffer." she told her, bracing one arm against it's frame. "I don't even think Ace is, despite how things are between you two. And even if she's not in your corner right now, I am. For whatever it's worth."

Valley had a scoffing laugh. "Well, they don't call it a high-risk style because the name is catchy. When you're feet leave the ground, you're taking a risk. Sometimes you and your skull pay for it Dearly." That brought back a bunch of lovely memories of extended hospital stays. Valley had gone so many times that the staff at the local hospital knew her on a first name basis, and she was willing to bet Chris was about the same way.

She jumped a bit and reflexively covered her chest when she heard Chris' voice so close, not expecting her to be so close. With the rain thumping down so hard, she hadn't heard those heavy footsteps approaching. After a moment, though, she let her arm go back down. She didn't have anything to hide, not from her. After Morrigan's stunt, everyone had seen her naked, anyway. No real point.

"It's worth a lot, Chris. A lot." She let her shoulders sag as she turned back to the mirror. "You've been an amazing friend, right from the beginning, ever since we met. I ask from you and you just keep on giving, even if I can't really give back. It helps. Really."

When Valley gave her instinctive jump and covered her chest, Chris stopped leaning against the door frame, getting ready to step back out of the bathroom. She had meant to reassure the other woman, but it also seemed as if maybe she had gotten too close for comfort for Val's tastes.

She was about to apologize, but before she could open her mouth to do so, Valley spoke. The words, combined with the tanned woman's body language as she turned back to the bathroom mirror, touched Chris. Valley looked so...forlorn in that moment.

"Hey, hey..." she said soothingly.
Reaching out, Chris placed a hand on Val's shoulder and turned her gently around to face her so she could look her fellow Californian in the eyes. Leaving her hand there to be a tactile source of comfort, she went on "Val, you've never asked for anything I regret giving, or doing. And don't speak as if everything between us has been one sided. I never told anyone else about what happened at my old league. Telling someone else, and hearing from her that I'm not total scum, it was something I didn't know I needed until it happened.....and I'm grateful for it."

Valley looked at Chris' comforting hand and smiled. She had a feeling she would say that, but even so, it was nice to hear. "Thanks, Chris. That means a lot."

Any other time, that might have been an empty platitude, but here, with Chris, it meant something real and solid. Valley couldn't have asked for a better friend, for someone more reliable and trustworthy. Chris was just always there. Willing. Honest. Beautiful...

"Hey." She gave Chris a tug on the hand, gently pulling her in. As gently as you could pull someone here size. "Let me clean you up a little, too. We're both sweaty, might as well, right."

She kept an innocent smile on her face, warm and inviting. Maybe there was a way to pay Chris back...[/color]