Check Your Head

Taylor left Johnny on the couch after dinner, where he had a show about lumberjacks to keep him company, and headed into the gym. She pulled up the zipper of her black warm-up jacket, the one with the Kamikaze logo, and pulled it down so that it almost covered her bright blue running shorts. The garage-slash-gym was the size of a miniature warehouse, big enough to comfortably fit a ring, and in the winter months it was much cooler than the house. One big, blocky heater hung down from the bare ceiling beams and whined away to keep the place habitable.

Which was great during workouts. Taylor was prone to overheating, and could only shed so much clothing. Now, though, that the workouts were done for the day, she was cold. Her knees bounced up and down as she sat with her thighs together on the ring apron. She flinged past the different contacts in her phone, until she came to rest on one number.

She sighed. Given their track record, this had the potential to suck. But she felt like she should do it, and she wasn't one to back down just because of a little suckiness. She pressed the button and watched as her phone displayed first "dialing", and then "connected", and the seconds began to tick by while it rang.

Spending time with Bonnie and Duffy wasn't terrible, just brief. It was quiet and little awkward in their home. With Bonnie's loss to Jocelyn, Yi Lan's beating, and the ass kicking she got from Allison, (that Clyde also shared) still fresh in her mind, Bonnie was a lot more tense and stressed out than she usually was. It made her harder to talk to, it seemed to even be affecting her relationship with Duffy and Clyde hated to see that and hated to see the emotional state his sister was in.

Bonnie wasn't too thrilled about Clyde's demeanor either. He was less than stellar these days, getting jumped and screwed at every corner sucked but Emi Keyes took his cowboy hat! The cold winter outside seemed to almost compliment how he felt about everything. Little patches of warmness here and there, but ultimately, he was cold. He spent the past couple of days wandering around Tokyo and Kyoto, not even really keeping track of what day it was. When he wasn't working, all the days seemed to just blur as he contemplated his life and thought of the three women who affected his life the most, Bonnie, Allison and Mercy Wrenn. She was always on his mind, often he wondered what he did wrong or if he even did anything wrong to end their relationship. Hoping there was more to it, though he doubted it.

He found himself back in his apartment soon enough. All that thinking about life made him actually take a good look at the place he had been living in for a couple years and had once belonged to his old ex... Not the new one. The old one. It was at that moment he realized a change in scenery wouldn't be bad. In the process of putting his DVD's, some of which belong to Dixie Clemets, into a cardboard box, Clyde heard his phone go off on the couch behind him. His heard perked up like a deer sensing danger and he practically dove for the couch it like a starving man being shown a thanksgiving dinner.

When he grabbed the phone, his expression of excitement lessened a bit. Though he still was certainty surprised. A little happy even. He took the call and did his best to sound pleasant.

"Hello?"

"Hey, Clyde. It's Taylor."

This was a little awkward.

"Uh... What's up? Got a minute?"

"Hi Taylor!" Clyde beamed, trying his best to sound extra friendly. Though he couldn't help but feel a wave of nervousness. Taylor was Mercy's friend, she could be calling for anything. But weren't he and Taylor friends too? This could go either way.

"Ohh... Nuthin'. Whatcha need? Oh, congratulations on your match against Dixie and Killin' King, heh." Said Clyde, who hated King and was a friend and fan of Dixie.

"Heh, yeah. That was so cool. Dixie's way cooler than I would've thought. And that wasn't a match with King. Just an... execution. Mothafucker had it coming." Taylor laughed. It really wasn't funny at the time, but being able to say that she knocked the shit out of King and broke his face was something she would cherish for a long time.

"Well, look, like, um... So, how are things? How's everything going with you guys?"

"Oh I know it wasn't a match. Well... Not fer you anyway. Still glad ya did it though." He said, gaining a smirk as Taylor laughed.

Her next question though, perplexed him. "Guys? Like... Me and my sister? Or me and Mercy?" He realized he hadn't said her name aloud in a long while. It felt weird to say it again.

"Oh, no," Taylor said, and waved a hand dismissively, though Clyde couldn't see it. "I know about the Mercy thing, and it is what it is. I didn't call to talk about that. I just mean... how are you? Ya know?"

"Oh." He said, both relived and a little dissapointed they weren't going to talk about Mercy and instead his current condition.

"I'm alive. Heh." He muttered with a small chuckle. "Feel worn out more than anythin'."

"Yeah... You've been going through some shit, I guess. Mercy told me about that crazy chick. I don't keep up with every second of Friction like I used to, so I guess I missed that stuff..."

She paused. There was really no good way to bring up the next part.

"I guess I'm calling 'cause you kinda seem like you're losing it. I don't know Bonnie at all or anything, but you seem like you're... I dunno. What's going on with that?"

The crazy chick. Clyde wasn't even sure if that summed her up the ever lovely Allison Watson good enough.

"Am I givin' off the 'Losin' it' vibe, that good?" He asked before sighing very deeply, thinking hard about what to say and the best way to explain himself since he barely understood either.

"Well beyond Tension stressin' me out with all the damn screw jobs, sneak attacks and gang ups that make me feel paranoid every time I go to work... Friction... Goddamn. That bitch Allison fucks with my sister so much! Everytime she or Jocelyn does something to Bonnie, I feel it. And I can barely do anythin' about it! I feel downright helpless about sometimes, just like I do when I'm gettin' jumped and shit" He exlciamed in bitter frustration, sighing into the phone afterwards.

"I feel miserable 'cause someone's out ta' fuck with me at every corner... I get pissed off and get back up to fight again but damn... It's wearin' me down."