redfiona99

Title: Better Things
Disclaimer: The characters are not mine; they belong to TNA Impact Wrestling and themselves. No money is being made from this piece of fiction. It bears no resemblance to real life.
Fandom: TNA wrestling
Characters: James Storm, Bobby Roode, Chris Harris
Rating/Genre/etc: PG-12 gen fic.
Spoilers: For the month after Bound For Glory 2011.
Summary: This is not history repeating.

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The sweat of his fury was drying now, and James was starting to regret the damage he'd done to the lockers. His hand smarted; he'd punched his knuckles bloody. Still, it was nothing a beer wouldn't fix.

The title, hell, everything to do with the title, was going to take more than that. But he'd get it back. He'd beat Bobby black and blue and get the belt back.

James was alone in the back; even Frankie had left him to it a couple of hours ago.

His phone rang in the silence. He didn't need to look to see who it was. It would be the one person who'd been conspicuous by his absence from the round of congratulations after James had won the title. "Yeah."

There was a pause. Of course there was, it was Chris, he'd never do anything in a minute if he could take an hour over it instead. Chris was biding his time to say something.

Then James realised what Chris was going to say. The same thing Bobby was going to say. There were times he wished he had a different catchphrase.

"Sorry about your damn luck, James, I really am." Yeah, that was exactly what he'd expected. He could hear the smugness in Chris's voice.

"'You done, Chris?"

"Are you lying there wondering if you'll ever wrestle again, if you've wasted the last ten years of your life?"

"No."

"Then I'm not done. I'm going to enjoy watching him make you bleed." Chris hung up on him.

So, okay, James knew he didn't have the moral high ground when it came to attacking tag team partners with beer bottles, but morals were for pussies.

He'd done the right thing then, Chris had kept losing them matches, and he was going to do the right thing now, which was beating Bobby to a pulp. He'd like the belt back too, but the violence was the important part.

The worst of it was that he would have given Bobby the belt on Sunday, if Bobby had asked for it. Would have done it without a moment's doubt, with a smile in face and beer in his hand. All Bobby had to do was ask.

Then again, James wouldn't have asked in that situation either. But he probably wouldn't have smashed a bottle into Bobby's face.

He and Bobby always were different people, Bobby was Canada and money while James was Tennessee and beer, so he couldn't expect the same standards from Bobby.

James wasn't going to turn into Chris either though, he refused to, he'd get his revenge and then he'd move on.