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redfiona99Title: Take the treasured dreams, but leave me what I've found
Author: Red Fiona
Fandom: WWE Wrestling
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine; they belong to either themselves or WWE. No money is being made from this. This is a work of fiction, with no resemblance to reality.
Characters: Jamie Noble, Mickie James
Pairings: Past Jamie/Nidia, unrequited Jamie/Layla, background Layla/Regal
Rating: PG-12 gen
Notes: Despite those pairings, I count this as gen fic. Set summer/autumn 2008.
Summary: Jamie's getting to accepting that how Layla treats him is payback for how he treated Nidia. His head's so taken up with all of that, that he’s not thinking about wrestling or anything else. He's lucky Mickie may turn out to be the best road buddy ever.
~~~~
Jamie thought he knew what this was. It was cosmic payback for how he'd treated Nidia. He knows now that it was wrong, and that he should have treated her better. Should have treated anyone better, but especially his Nidia, whose only real fault had been loving him.
He's learnt from his past mistakes, and he's gonna be the best boyfriend Layla could ever want. If only she'd have him.
He understands why Layla might get her head turned by Regal, Jamie ain't going to pretend he's as smooth as Regal, he ain't got his fancy manners or his snooty voice, but he'd love Layla just as good, if not better.
He's just got to find a way to prove it to her.
He's been thinking on that, and very little else, for a week at least. He thinks he's finally got an answer. They're all wrestlers, right, so the way to prove it is in the ring. He's gonna win to show Layla how much he loves her, and how much better a man he is than Regal.
Except it doesn't work. He tries and he tries and he keeps coming up just short, and he can see Layla's feelings turning from interest, to something too close to pity, all the way to contempt, or what looks like it from his point of view.
And it hurt, all of it. The hope, the shame, the frustration, 'cause he could hear Regal congratulating Burchill, two fancy English guys talking in a way Jamie never could. He ain't every gonna be that guy, and he doesn't know how to get Layla without being them.
This latest thing might be the worst. Regal wants a match against him, and that wouldn't be a problem. It might even have been the perfect opportunity to show Layla that he's the better man, but Regal wants it to be a mixed tag match, Regal and Layla vs Jamie and any woman he can convince to join him. He's not even got as far as worrying about who to ask to be his partner in the match, he's still too nervous about the rest of it. 'Cause yeah, he thinks he can beat Regal, even with the way the man cheats, which he does, all the time. But he won't know what to do if Layla interferes, because he'd never want to lay a hand on her, not like that. Because she might interfere with the match, if the roles were reversed and she was tagging with Jamie, he'd hope she'd do that for him.
Jamie's still thinking on that, leaning on one of the mysterious boxes of stuff backstage, when Mickie comes up to him, bright and bubbly as usual. "Hey Jamie."
"Hi Mickie."
"They," she gestured towards the canteen, which meant it could have been any number of people telling her about this, "said you needed a tag partner."
"I do." He hadn't even started to ask any of the girls in the back, he was still busy getting his brain round the idea of wrestling against Layla.
"I'm in, if you still need someone."
"I do. 'You sure though?" 'cause someone like Mickie must have had better things to do than get caught up in all of this.
"Ain't like I got anything better to do." Or maybe not.
And it made it easy-like, 'cause he didn't have to worry about Mickie. She knew what she was doing in the ring so even if Regal made a grab for her in the match, which he might, he was the kind of man who'd hit a woman, she'd be alright.
If you looked at it from a wrestling point of view, the match went well. He didn't win, no, but he didn't lose, either, which matters. The referee caught Regal cheating this time and threw him out of the match, ending it by disqualification.
On a personal level, it was less successful. He hadn't beaten Regal, hadn't shown Layla that he was the better man, and because it had been a good match - thanks to Mickie, 'cause goodness knew Jamie's head wasn't in the game properly - they were doing it all again for every house show next week. The company needed matches like theirs, not barn-burners but the kind of pegs that held the whole thing together.
'Cause Mickie's an absolute sweetheart, she lets him ride with her, because he'd also forgotten to organise anything for the week ahead, with his head being full of Layla, and the mess he'd gotten himself into.
Somehow, on top of being a great wrestler, and an absolute sweetheart, Mickie can sing. Like really sing. So it ain't no hardship to listen to her while they drive from arena to arena, sun shining and top down.
It's a time of happiness amid the dread of matches, because if the two of them weren't fighting Layla and Regal, he was fighting Regal or his nominated friend. And he wasn't winning enough of those matches. He won some, he ain't as bad as all that, but some of the others, he's so close, and then Regal cheats, or Layla interferes and his head goes walkabout, and he loses.
He hates losing, or losing that way at least. Losing to the better man, even losing 'cause the other guy got lucky and you didn't, hell it happens and you get over it, but this is something else, something worse. But Mickie's always there to cheer him up, pick him up, make sure he's ready to face the next day.
He's not sure when his best road buddy ended up being a girl, but there it was. She's who he drives with, she's who he trains with, she's who he practises with. She doesn't mind when he spends half an hour working on leg locks, and then she spends half an hour on hip tosses, or the other way round. They get on well, for all their differences. They're differences he can see, even if someone like Regal couldn't, the way he looked down his nose and called them both "damned ignorant Yanks." Jamie knows what he is, he ain't nothing but trailer trash, not as proud of it as some folks, but he ain't hiding it either. Mickie ain't like him, she's a lady, proper country folk.
Even so, he invites her to the monster truck rally. The tickets were freebies from near where they're wrestling. It happens sometimes, someone wants their event to have the prestige of a WWE Superstar attending, and then the office ask if anyone wants to go, and normally either the event or the money is good enough that someone volunteers. Truth be told, he took two tickets because he wanted to invite Layla along, but ... sometimes things just don't go the way you want them to.
Mickie enjoyed herself at the show, she's whooping and hollering right next to Jamie. It's a relief. Jamie thought he might have to try to explain the rally's charms to her, like he knows he would have had to with Layla, but Mickie seems happy to watch and enjoy, which means Jamie can too. Everything was alright, and everything was gonna keep being alright.
They keep training together, and it goes well. They get a few wins as a team, he gets a few wins individually, Mickie gets lots of wins for herself, 'cause she's awesome, at least as far as Jamie is concerned.
Jamie likes to think of himself as a good friend. He ain't smart, that he'll admit to, and he ain't always the clearest thinker, but he tries to be there for people who are there for him. Seems only fair. So he's shocked when it takes not quite eavesdropping while he's cooling down post-match in the gym backstage to find out that Mickie's got a title shot. Against Beth, who'd taken her title, after cheating, and who'd locked Mickie out of having a rematch through further shenanigans.
He tries not to worry about why Mickie hasn't told him, trusting to her better nature that the reason ain't bad, and instead, Jamie tries to figure out how he can best support her.
So far, they've split the driving pretty evenly, but Jamie takes the longer turns now, makes sure Mickie has chance to stretch and rest. He makes sure there's no distractions when she's training in the gym, that she's plenty hydrated and eating right, and that, when they're working on things in the ring, they focus on what Mickie wants to focus on. Jamie's taken to watching Beth's old matches in between times, seeing if she's got any moves she relies on, beyond the obvious, if there's any tells he can suggest Mickie use against Beth.
Mickie notices, possibly because none of the matches feature Layla and Jamie knows he'd been a little fixated before, and she asks him why.
"Well you've got a title match, ain't you. And I wanna make sure I can help, as much as I can."
"I thought we were solving your problem with Layla." She turns to look at him, serious-like. "What Beth did to win the title, what she did to keep me from getting it back, it made me realise ... I know I should have understood that before, but ... there's got to be something more than chasing after gold."
"Yeah, but there's at least a chance you might win the title." There's a pause, like Mickie's agreeing but doesn't want to say it, because she knows how much Layla means to him. "It's not that I don't still love Layla; if she crooked her finger I'd come running, but I've got to accept that she ain't ever gonna do that. If she was gonna change her mind, she would have done it already. I ought to say thank you for putting up with me while I worked to accepting that." Mickie shrugs, like it wasn't anything, when having a friend in that situation had meant so much to Jamie. That might have been it though, Mickie was a kind enough soul that she would have helped anyone who needed that sort of helping hand. It made Jamie even more determined to help her now she needed it. "I think we've got plenty of evidence that there ain't anything I can do to convince Layla. But what I can do, is I can help you get that belt back, and I'd rather spend my time doing something that might work."
"'You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Mickie looked like she was thinking. "You've watched a lot of her matches. 'You think you can wrestle like her?"
It was an interesting question. He was actually a little taller than Beth, if you ignored the pointy tiara thing she wore on the way to the ring, but he was used to fighting like the smaller man, because against most people he faced in the ring, he was. It's a whole different way of fighting when you walk in knowing you’re the bigger, well not man in this case, bigger wrestler, yeah, that covered the situation - if you knew you were the bigger wrestler and always likely to be, you wrestled in a different way, because you got used to using the thing that brought you to the fight in the first place. Then again, he had watched a lot of tape of Beth, and he always prided himself on being adaptable. "I can try."
Mickie's gonna go get her belt back off of Beth Phoenix. And Jamie's gonna help her.
End notes: I swear a Noble 'n' Mickie vs Regal and Layla match happened during this feud, but the internet insists it didn't so there's every chance my brain is inventing matches again. Some liberties being taken with feuds and when they happened.
Author: Red Fiona
Fandom: WWE Wrestling
Disclaimer: The characters aren't mine; they belong to either themselves or WWE. No money is being made from this. This is a work of fiction, with no resemblance to reality.
Characters: Jamie Noble, Mickie James
Pairings: Past Jamie/Nidia, unrequited Jamie/Layla, background Layla/Regal
Rating: PG-12 gen
Notes: Despite those pairings, I count this as gen fic. Set summer/autumn 2008.
Summary: Jamie's getting to accepting that how Layla treats him is payback for how he treated Nidia. His head's so taken up with all of that, that he’s not thinking about wrestling or anything else. He's lucky Mickie may turn out to be the best road buddy ever.
~~~~
Jamie thought he knew what this was. It was cosmic payback for how he'd treated Nidia. He knows now that it was wrong, and that he should have treated her better. Should have treated anyone better, but especially his Nidia, whose only real fault had been loving him.
He's learnt from his past mistakes, and he's gonna be the best boyfriend Layla could ever want. If only she'd have him.
He understands why Layla might get her head turned by Regal, Jamie ain't going to pretend he's as smooth as Regal, he ain't got his fancy manners or his snooty voice, but he'd love Layla just as good, if not better.
He's just got to find a way to prove it to her.
He's been thinking on that, and very little else, for a week at least. He thinks he's finally got an answer. They're all wrestlers, right, so the way to prove it is in the ring. He's gonna win to show Layla how much he loves her, and how much better a man he is than Regal.
Except it doesn't work. He tries and he tries and he keeps coming up just short, and he can see Layla's feelings turning from interest, to something too close to pity, all the way to contempt, or what looks like it from his point of view.
And it hurt, all of it. The hope, the shame, the frustration, 'cause he could hear Regal congratulating Burchill, two fancy English guys talking in a way Jamie never could. He ain't every gonna be that guy, and he doesn't know how to get Layla without being them.
This latest thing might be the worst. Regal wants a match against him, and that wouldn't be a problem. It might even have been the perfect opportunity to show Layla that he's the better man, but Regal wants it to be a mixed tag match, Regal and Layla vs Jamie and any woman he can convince to join him. He's not even got as far as worrying about who to ask to be his partner in the match, he's still too nervous about the rest of it. 'Cause yeah, he thinks he can beat Regal, even with the way the man cheats, which he does, all the time. But he won't know what to do if Layla interferes, because he'd never want to lay a hand on her, not like that. Because she might interfere with the match, if the roles were reversed and she was tagging with Jamie, he'd hope she'd do that for him.
Jamie's still thinking on that, leaning on one of the mysterious boxes of stuff backstage, when Mickie comes up to him, bright and bubbly as usual. "Hey Jamie."
"Hi Mickie."
"They," she gestured towards the canteen, which meant it could have been any number of people telling her about this, "said you needed a tag partner."
"I do." He hadn't even started to ask any of the girls in the back, he was still busy getting his brain round the idea of wrestling against Layla.
"I'm in, if you still need someone."
"I do. 'You sure though?" 'cause someone like Mickie must have had better things to do than get caught up in all of this.
"Ain't like I got anything better to do." Or maybe not.
And it made it easy-like, 'cause he didn't have to worry about Mickie. She knew what she was doing in the ring so even if Regal made a grab for her in the match, which he might, he was the kind of man who'd hit a woman, she'd be alright.
If you looked at it from a wrestling point of view, the match went well. He didn't win, no, but he didn't lose, either, which matters. The referee caught Regal cheating this time and threw him out of the match, ending it by disqualification.
On a personal level, it was less successful. He hadn't beaten Regal, hadn't shown Layla that he was the better man, and because it had been a good match - thanks to Mickie, 'cause goodness knew Jamie's head wasn't in the game properly - they were doing it all again for every house show next week. The company needed matches like theirs, not barn-burners but the kind of pegs that held the whole thing together.
'Cause Mickie's an absolute sweetheart, she lets him ride with her, because he'd also forgotten to organise anything for the week ahead, with his head being full of Layla, and the mess he'd gotten himself into.
Somehow, on top of being a great wrestler, and an absolute sweetheart, Mickie can sing. Like really sing. So it ain't no hardship to listen to her while they drive from arena to arena, sun shining and top down.
It's a time of happiness amid the dread of matches, because if the two of them weren't fighting Layla and Regal, he was fighting Regal or his nominated friend. And he wasn't winning enough of those matches. He won some, he ain't as bad as all that, but some of the others, he's so close, and then Regal cheats, or Layla interferes and his head goes walkabout, and he loses.
He hates losing, or losing that way at least. Losing to the better man, even losing 'cause the other guy got lucky and you didn't, hell it happens and you get over it, but this is something else, something worse. But Mickie's always there to cheer him up, pick him up, make sure he's ready to face the next day.
He's not sure when his best road buddy ended up being a girl, but there it was. She's who he drives with, she's who he trains with, she's who he practises with. She doesn't mind when he spends half an hour working on leg locks, and then she spends half an hour on hip tosses, or the other way round. They get on well, for all their differences. They're differences he can see, even if someone like Regal couldn't, the way he looked down his nose and called them both "damned ignorant Yanks." Jamie knows what he is, he ain't nothing but trailer trash, not as proud of it as some folks, but he ain't hiding it either. Mickie ain't like him, she's a lady, proper country folk.
Even so, he invites her to the monster truck rally. The tickets were freebies from near where they're wrestling. It happens sometimes, someone wants their event to have the prestige of a WWE Superstar attending, and then the office ask if anyone wants to go, and normally either the event or the money is good enough that someone volunteers. Truth be told, he took two tickets because he wanted to invite Layla along, but ... sometimes things just don't go the way you want them to.
Mickie enjoyed herself at the show, she's whooping and hollering right next to Jamie. It's a relief. Jamie thought he might have to try to explain the rally's charms to her, like he knows he would have had to with Layla, but Mickie seems happy to watch and enjoy, which means Jamie can too. Everything was alright, and everything was gonna keep being alright.
They keep training together, and it goes well. They get a few wins as a team, he gets a few wins individually, Mickie gets lots of wins for herself, 'cause she's awesome, at least as far as Jamie is concerned.
Jamie likes to think of himself as a good friend. He ain't smart, that he'll admit to, and he ain't always the clearest thinker, but he tries to be there for people who are there for him. Seems only fair. So he's shocked when it takes not quite eavesdropping while he's cooling down post-match in the gym backstage to find out that Mickie's got a title shot. Against Beth, who'd taken her title, after cheating, and who'd locked Mickie out of having a rematch through further shenanigans.
He tries not to worry about why Mickie hasn't told him, trusting to her better nature that the reason ain't bad, and instead, Jamie tries to figure out how he can best support her.
So far, they've split the driving pretty evenly, but Jamie takes the longer turns now, makes sure Mickie has chance to stretch and rest. He makes sure there's no distractions when she's training in the gym, that she's plenty hydrated and eating right, and that, when they're working on things in the ring, they focus on what Mickie wants to focus on. Jamie's taken to watching Beth's old matches in between times, seeing if she's got any moves she relies on, beyond the obvious, if there's any tells he can suggest Mickie use against Beth.
Mickie notices, possibly because none of the matches feature Layla and Jamie knows he'd been a little fixated before, and she asks him why.
"Well you've got a title match, ain't you. And I wanna make sure I can help, as much as I can."
"I thought we were solving your problem with Layla." She turns to look at him, serious-like. "What Beth did to win the title, what she did to keep me from getting it back, it made me realise ... I know I should have understood that before, but ... there's got to be something more than chasing after gold."
"Yeah, but there's at least a chance you might win the title." There's a pause, like Mickie's agreeing but doesn't want to say it, because she knows how much Layla means to him. "It's not that I don't still love Layla; if she crooked her finger I'd come running, but I've got to accept that she ain't ever gonna do that. If she was gonna change her mind, she would have done it already. I ought to say thank you for putting up with me while I worked to accepting that." Mickie shrugs, like it wasn't anything, when having a friend in that situation had meant so much to Jamie. That might have been it though, Mickie was a kind enough soul that she would have helped anyone who needed that sort of helping hand. It made Jamie even more determined to help her now she needed it. "I think we've got plenty of evidence that there ain't anything I can do to convince Layla. But what I can do, is I can help you get that belt back, and I'd rather spend my time doing something that might work."
"'You sure?"
"Yeah, I'm sure."
Mickie looked like she was thinking. "You've watched a lot of her matches. 'You think you can wrestle like her?"
It was an interesting question. He was actually a little taller than Beth, if you ignored the pointy tiara thing she wore on the way to the ring, but he was used to fighting like the smaller man, because against most people he faced in the ring, he was. It's a whole different way of fighting when you walk in knowing you’re the bigger, well not man in this case, bigger wrestler, yeah, that covered the situation - if you knew you were the bigger wrestler and always likely to be, you wrestled in a different way, because you got used to using the thing that brought you to the fight in the first place. Then again, he had watched a lot of tape of Beth, and he always prided himself on being adaptable. "I can try."
Mickie's gonna go get her belt back off of Beth Phoenix. And Jamie's gonna help her.
End notes: I swear a Noble 'n' Mickie vs Regal and Layla match happened during this feud, but the internet insists it didn't so there's every chance my brain is inventing matches again. Some liberties being taken with feuds and when they happened.
