Post by Lex Collins on Jul 29, 2019 2:22:08 GMT -5
FLASHBACK — Burlington, Vermont || July 4, 2001 (off camera)
Just breathe. Don't blink. Don't make a fucking sound. He'll hear you. He'll know your weakness and it'll come down harder than before. Suck it up and endure. Just breathe.
The more he rubbed his index finger, the blacker it seemed to get, like the ink was spreading under the skin, the darkness becoming some sort of physical entity and he knew if he was back in the auto shop at his old school, Fast Orange would take this right out but instead he was in Vermont. He wasn't even going to school to finish his senior year. He was doing courses from home and he was working a few hours on the weekends at this nice garage – if he played his cards right, the hours might be able to count towards his apprenticeship and he'd have a career to look forward to once he turned eighteen.
All of that had gone to shit in the blink of an eye.
Seventy-five hours later, and he knew there was no going back to that brief peace he'd managed to find. He hadn't asked for a phone call or for a lawyer or anything else. Deep in the back of his mind, he was convinced that this was all part of Clay's plan, the latest punishment for a crime he didn't understand. He hadn't died. He'd gotten out of New Orleans on a technicality – the state had intervened and spirited him away, across state lines.
Hannah had come all the way to see him. He could still see her standing there on the doorstep, dripping with rainwater and those big doe eyes filled with so much hope and love. He couldn't bring himself to think that shining adoration had been manufactured, had been part of some scheme. Even now, he could only remember bits and pieces of what had gone on - the sound of the rain drumming on the roof of the car, her cold hands pressed to his cheeks as she kissed him like it was everything. He didn't remember the drive, pulling off at this seedy hotel that rented rooms by the hour. She wanted him, she'd come all this way to see him, to prove it and he couldn't bring himself to deny her that one wish. He'd never been able to say no to her.
It had been doomed from the start, that moment of bliss barely over when Vic Donimari had kicked in the door and hauled his teenage daughter away. He felt like a monster. He hadn't planned any of it and Vic had looked at him like he was worse than dog shit on Sunday shoes.
I expected more from you.
The words were still ringing in his ears, that disgust written all over the man's face hurting far more than the sucker punch that had put him on his ass on that dirty carpet.
He hadn't said a word in three days and there was still a crusty film of soap on his skin because the cops had kicked in that already busted door when he'd been in the middle of showering – even without her DNA all over his body or the condom he'd flushed into oblivion, there was that bit of blood on the sheets like a damned scarlet letter. It was enough to nail him to the wall or the cross or whatever was about to happen. Lifting his hand to the back of his head, he scratched that nagging itch, feeling a twinge of pain that was new and his fingers came away with blood under his ragged nails.
Three days ago, they'd read him his rights along with the charges and they might as well have been speaking Russian or Chinese or something because none of it had made any sense. They said statutory rape and he couldn't wrap his head around what that even meant, how they could make a thing like that stick. They said attempted kidnapping and his head was spinning. He hadn't left the state. Hadn't gone anywhere near Louisiana since his broken ass had been hauled off in March.
She'd come to him. She'd started it all and he was supposed to be safe here. This was supposed to be a second chance and now it had all been washed away in an instant. Hannah was only fifteen. There were laws about that. There were laws about everything and this was starting to seem like some conservation of mass, like something from science class – for every one good thing, there was an infinite shit-storm of bad that completely negated it. She came all this way to see him, to tell him that she still loved him. She came all this way to finish what had been started in her bedroom the night Clay had almost killed him but her getting closure on that was important, he supposed. She wanted him and that was important too even if it still felt wrong three days after the fact.
The soft clearing of the throat from across the table barely registered before the man in the suit leaned forward, resting his elbows on the wooden surface. "Alex," the boy flinched as if he'd just been backhanded, slouching down further in the chair, "you need to tell me what happened. In your own words."
Don't call me that. Don't.
"If I'm going to help you, I need – we need to-"
"No." He kept his eyes on his hands in his lap, rubbing at the dark smudges while the silence grew past the point of awkward.
"Maybe it would be easier for you to write it down? I'll bring you some paper and a pen and then we can get this whole mess sorted right out." The social worker's voice was patronizing even though it was pretty clear that his patience was inching towards the breaking point.
The boy shook his head, biting his lip. What was he supposed to write out? Some erotic confession about making out with his childhood girlfriend when he still hadn't even processed what had actually happened? He couldn't, even if he had the full highlight reel on repeat in his head. There was no way he was going to talk about sex with a goddamned stranger, least of all one that was bound and bent on judgement.
"Just lie back and I'll take care of everything," Hannah's gentle voice echoed in his ears, bringing tears to his eyes. He squeezed them shut, taking a deep breath. "I didn't." The denial came out soft, sounding defeated. "Didn't do nothin'." The lapse in grammar was deliberate, a conscious choice to downplay his intelligence.
Technically it was true. Hannah had been in control and he could still remember her soft whispers, her calm insistence that this was how she needed to express her love, that she could make him feel good. But he hadn't and she'd just assumed he'd finished because he'd gone limp. "I didn't." He repeated it again, barely above a hoarse whisper. Something broke inside him, the filter falling away as the words tumbled from his mouth, each one rushing over the next. "I just wanna go home. I know…" he swallowed hard, "it ain't my real home. It ain't never gonna be but they're real nice an' I got my own bed there an' it's not really my bed...." The tears were hot, burning his eyes and then his cheeks as they fell. "The people I stay with – they're fosters – they'll tell you."
"Tell me what?"
"I'm not bad."
———♦———
YouTube posting (audio only, publicly listed)
"In this business, it's all about labels. Definitions an' suppositions, mostly. You dole out these bite-sized interactions, y'know? Tidbits on social media. Flash a smile here. Flip a bird there. The impressions start to form. You don't even have to articulate an' they already figure they got you pegged. I've always been against that kinda nonsense in the most anarchistic way – I discovered punk music at the right time, I guess. Formative years an' all that jazz. It's all about the misdirection, about swimmin' upstream when the rest of the happy little fishes are goin' with the flow. Make a few ripples… turn 'em into waves. People start to notice an' then you got all the power. I usedta call it 'sleight of mind' but it kinda came off a little hokey. Contrived, I guess. Now, I just do it on instinct, without really thinkin' too much on it. I post what I fuckin' feel like on social media. I say what's on my mind. I don't bother with the filters an' self-censorship 'cause what the fuck's the point, really? You formed that opinion 'fore a single syllable ever left my lips. Means whatever I say now, whatever I do in the interim, don't really matter. In the grand scheme, we're all just hollerin' into the void, hoping to be the loudest echo."
There's a soft and rueful chuckle followed by some kind of creak. A chair? Leather? An old floor? Impossible to tell and maybe that's intentional.
"So maybe reputation precedes me. Maybe a few of you bothered to throw my name into the ol' Google machine. Maybe you came up with some shitty footage from places nobody cares about anymore. All these times where the underdog got beat down an' beat in an' beat on 'til he couldn't take it anymore. Maybe you saw the time I fought off a hell of an onslaught in Norfolk. Maybe you saw the cage match, saw me bloodied… saw me fall from an impossible height with that damned championship in my hands only for it to stop matterin' ten seconds later when the place folded. Now you're prob'ly gonna pause this, open another tab an' start lookin' shit up. 'What place does he mean? What gold?' An' that's the rub, ain't it? 'Cause there are several. There's a whole fuckin' alphabet soup of bullshit in my past – none of it matters much these days. I don't care. You don't care. We can just agree that it's best to let accolades rest. I know, I know… seems counter-intuitive, don't it? I should be campaigning, right? Tell you how I'm the right man for the job an' then you can rake me over the coals as a hypocrite. Can't say I don't care, then trot out all the bullet-points, right? Nah. That ain't gonna fly around here."
A derisive snort serves as punctuation.
"I could say this' just another match, y'know? More verses of the same survival song I've been pennin' since I don't know when – I could say that, yeah. I won't. I figure actions speak louder an' we already talked about how the first impression's been forged long before now. I am who I am. It's not on me to show you that, to play simpleton with my cards turned the wrong way out. Nah. It's on you to play the game, see what's real an' what's just a hell of a bluff. We make money on this shit, after all. This is my livelihood I'm waxin' poetical about. Tell me I'm gonna fail, I'm bitin' off more'n I can chew…"
He drags in a deep breath, the words coming out slower now, more crisply pronounced.
"I've heard a million variations on the same theme. I've seen so many of you claim you don't care about your opponents and then ramble on at length about them, each syllable oozing with hypocrisy. The more you talk about it, the more I know you care, the more I know you FEAR. Maybe you're not so clever. Maybe you really are the wash-out loser they think you are. An' hey, if the shoes fit… go for a walk in 'em. Keep going 'til you hit the street, the city limits… the edge of the state. Keep going right out the door 'cause it's easier than me havin' to prove to you're a liar. They like to talk about how Finn Whelan tore me down, stole all my thunder – I knew I was on borrowed time. I always expected the burn out to happen. See, I always saw myself more as Icarus 2.0. The wings're better, new an' improved but eventually under those hot, hot lights… the unforgivin' spotlight of the sun's gonna melt 'em. Nah, see, I've got no delusions of grandeur going into this. For me, it's another day of the life I lived for seventeen years. It's the prospect of violence where my main goal's to stay alive, stay ahead of the game. I'll get back up. I've done it before an' believe me: I know all the steps to this dance. I keep fooling myself, lyin' about how I only do this 'cause it's what I know. It's more'n that. A world where I get hurt, where the punches rain down an' only the strong survive is the ONLY world that ever made sense."
There's a soft clearing of his throat and when he speaks again, he sounds hoarse, as if that soft-spoken voice is straining against a strong emotion.
"The last year, I've been livin' without inspiration. I've been going day to day an' doing the work 'cause it's what I know. I know that if I keep movin', I stand a chance. Can't stop. Won't stop. Always find my way back to this shit. I needed a spark. I needed fire in my belly, passion – that's what was missin' in Riot Star. It got too easy, too much of the same an' maybe the fire never went out. Maybe I just stopped feeling. Don't matter much now. I know why I'm here… why the nomad rode up in this ol' forgotten territory one more time. Nothin' I learned in the past's got any bearing here. It won't help me. Won't help any of you – that's a fuckin' promise. I'm gonna fire it up 'cause there's no yesterday an' no tomorrow. There's just this perfect moment awaitin' us out there in that battle royal. Let's burn hard… set the world on fire."
———♦———
Las Vegas || July 4, 2019 (off camera)
"It's done." The words came out with a small sigh and for a moment he wasn't even sure Hannah had heard him over the water running in the bathroom.
After a moment, she poked her head out, a washcloth in hand, hope on her features. "Did they accept our offer?"
For a second, he had no idea what she was talking about and then it dawned on him. He was supposed to be making an offer on that property in Paris. He'd gotten completely sidetracked, doing something impulsively idiotic instead. "No," he murmured, shaking his head, "I haven't talked to the bank yet. Tomorrow, probably. I left a message." One shoulder twitched towards a dismissive shrug. "If it's meant to be… it'll happen."
She tried to hide the disappointment, leaning against the door as she scrubbed the day's makeup from her face. "So what did you do?"
"Put my name in a thing. This tournament. It's for a couple titles in this new place. Local… think they're fixin' to have shows outta Vegas. Smaller venues an' shit but…" he trailed off, sheepish as stared at the screen, not even registering what he was looking at. "Test the waters. See how it is."
When the silence stretched out, he glanced over. She was back in the bathroom, her back to him and he rushed to fill it. "Paris will still happen. I was thinkin' maybe we take summers off with the girls. Go to Paris, y'know? Soak up culture. I'll do bookings through May. I did the math, Han. It'll work."
"I'm not worried about that." He looked up when he realized she was standing right next to him. She reached over and caressed his cheek with the back of her hand. "I'm worried about you."
"There's a lot of shit in my head right now." He couldn't keep the wry smile off his lips. "But hey, what else is new?"
The reply was crystal clear because it was so jarring, so wrong. "I'm proud of you."
"Proud?" The frown said it all as he looked over at her, clearly puzzled. "Why?"
"Because you're a good man. You're a survivor. You got back up after the shit with Kintaru in RSW and you kept going. You don't let anyone mess with us – with you."
"No." His stomach dropped to his feet, "no. That's not... that's not an accomplishment. That's me bein' stupid." He closed his eyes, taking a deep breath, "but here you go, touchin' me, holdin' me like you always usedta," he sounded sad as he whispered the words, "tellin' me it's gonna be okay."
"It will."
"I don't wanna be an afterthought, some fuckin' throwaway guy."
"You won't be." She pulled him down to the mattress, her arms wrapped tightly around him, "you're too good for that. You can't undo all that you've accomplished, Lex. It doesn't work that way."
"I know that," he cut her off, shaking his head.
"Whether they know it or not, there's something special inside you. A thousand stupid Finn Whelans and Matt Fords can't take that away from you. No matter what, you'll always be our–"
"Han, don't. Don't say it." He knew she would. He knew she was going to and she meant it. He could hear it in her voice, feel it in that loving squeeze she gave him.
He couldn't bring himself to look at her when the words came out, "...hero." Her hands were cool on his burning cheeks as she forced his head up, making him meet her gaze. "You are. You always will be, baby. You're one of the good guys, remember?"