Post by Lex Collins on Aug 26, 2019 12:52:39 GMT -5
FLASHBACK — Anaheim, California || January 27, 2015 (off camera)
For the last twenty-seven days, Lex had been training harder than ever before, trying to prepare himself for the biggest match he'd had since he'd walked out of Full Throttle. Big belt. Legendary opponent. It was the kind of shit that most wrestlers strove for — bucket list stuff.
The moment had come and gone and while he'd fought his hardest out there, he'd come up short against Aurora. Sure, the crowd had been torn, cheering just as much for him as the Phoenix Wrestling champion — he didn't feel like that was a victory. He wasn't in it to rack up followers. He wanted to finally make it to the top of the summit, enjoy the view for a little while. A part of him had actually expected that failure, had almost welcomed the darkness that filled his thoughts – he shuffled along the hallway towards the hotel room like an old man, feeling utterly drained. His hand trailed against the wall, that pitiful tether to reality to keep him from tipping over the edge into the abyss.
Hannah was terrified of saying the wrong thing so she said nothing. She would have offered to let him lean on her, but something had changed in their dynamic over the last few weeks. She could feel him pulling away, could feel his anger and frustration every time she tried to make a connection. When they arrived at the door, she turned and gently touched his shoulder, murmuring in his ear, "just a few more steps and you can rest, okay?"
His reply was a grunt as his eyes closed, his head resting against the wall. The door swung open and Lex dutifully staggered across the threshold, blearily rubbing his eyes and wincing at the pain in his nose. It was probably broken but, like usual, he'd refused to let them look at it. He stopped short so suddenly she almost crashed into him. The living room of the suite had been converted into a spot-on replica of the blanket fort he'd spent three weeks in at their old place after losing to Matt Ford in his last FTW match. Two goddamned years ago and it was still fresh, still raw. "Han?" He turned and looked at her, frowning. "What's... what'd you do this for?"
She swallowed hard, not answering immediately. She'd shut the door behind them and folded her arms across her chest. "I uh..." finally, she looked up at him, eyes wide, "I didn't know if you'd need it or not...." She paused, breaking eye contact as she looked down at the floor, suddenly ashamed, "I know how much you wanted to beat Rori—"
The words died on her lips as his gaze met hers. His eyes were mostly pupil, dead black and she took a step back instinctively. "Why?"
That single word held so much exhaustion, so much pain and confusion that it took her a moment to even try to answer. "You were so crushed after everything went down with Ford. If you lost, I wanted you to have some place you could—"
"No." He shook his head, ripping a flap of loose skin from his lip with his teeth, tasting blood. At least that was familiar. "This' really... Han, c'mon..." he couldn't get the words to come together. "You didn't actually..." He was supposed to be better now, to have evolved beyond this childish escapism. He was supposed to be trying to function in the real world like an adult and the last thing she was supposed to do was ENABLE the backpedaling.
She turned her back on him, feeling like the worst failure on the planet. Even after all these years, she was obviously still struggling to understand his language. "I didn't want you to lose; I was cheering harder than anyone."
"Hey, no. I wasn't thinkin' that—" he caught himself, realizing he had been. She'd known. Goddamnit, she'd known he didn't have it in him to be the top dog, even after all the peps talks she'd given him. "All this time," he muttered, unable to keep the bitterness from his voice, "you still need a fuckin' decoder ring? You still…"
"Lex," she sighed, shaking her head. "It's not like that. I'm here. I'm trying my best and I just wish we could get on the same page. I just wanna..." she trailed off, frustrated with herself. "I sound like a broken record, don't I?"
"S'alright. Least we're talkin'." He held out his hand to her, "I know I ain't the best at communication... don't make it easy on you, do I?"
———♦———
YouTube posting (audio only, publicly listed)
"This business is fucked up. It's weird an' wonderful an' I wouldn't ever deign to change a damn thing about it. We got freaks. We got strippers an' hookers – broadest sense of the term. It's like that damned Toby Keith song – I Love This Bar. We got cowboys. Rednecks. Wannabe porn stars. Egotistical shitbags by the barrelful. Where do I fall on that spectrum, I wonder? I mean, perception is reality these days. I've been sayin' that for a while now. It's proven true an' the more toxic social media becomes, the more I feel the need to go back to my roots, to go back to the days where less is more. Leave a little mystery to be solved, y'know?"
There's a soft sigh in the pause.
"Language is funny. So many words that mean the same thing. So many twists and variations – English is the hardest to pick up as a secondary – did you know that? Double meanings, double standards an' all these goddamned exceptions to every last rule. I hate havin' to open my mouth. I hate all this pomp an' circumstance sales bullshit like we're runnin' for office or something. I don't want your vote. Honest. I just wanna go out there an' do what I do best. I used to call it a survival song. I used to see it as my lot in life – take the blows, get back up. Lather, rinse an' repeat. An' I mean, being the whippin' boy to assholes has kinda been my bread an' butter for the last six or seven years – let's be honest here. I mean, the truth shall set you free, right? That's what they say. Maybe not today. Maybe not tomorrow. Maybe my eyes are too heavy an' I'm past my prime an' I'm boring-as-fuck so I really better just hang it up already – I've heard it all by now. It fills me up an' then I just open my mouth to vomit it all back out – garbage in, garbage out, right? I open a vein an' the blood runs black an' blue if it comes at all. The skin's so tough now that it's so damned hard to even break through. I guess I stopped giving a shit – mean I wanna tear into this guy so bad. I wanna tell him that he's a joke. He's not a competitor, he's never gonna be taken seriously with that Magnum PI mustache an' the Hawaiian print trunks but maybe I'm wrong. Maybe I don't have the clout to pass judgement on a guy like Jock Wilson. Maybe that's the worst part of this language of ours. Words fail."
Something's dripping, rhythmically. It echoes. It sounds far away at first, barely there on the edges of hearing.
"Words fail. Actions aren't strong enough. Motivations are private – you're gonna try to figure out what I was tryna prove last Sin, aren't ya? Was it a strike against my new bestie CruZe? Was it spite? Malice? Hubris? Fuckin' language, man. All these exceptions to every rule. We're limited by these neat little boxes, by the shapes an' sounds we learned when we were young. Is it a lust for life? This need for attention? This desire to be cut down at all costs? What drives a man to do something so stupid, to cross the lines and step outside the orderly little box? It was just another night. It could have gone on without me. Another day in Paradise. Without me. Without Lex Collins stinkin' up the place. Felt so fuckin' empty without me, though, didn't it?"
The sarcasm oozes from every word. Maybe that's what's dripping in the pause. Maybe it's blood from a stone. Maybe it's the last bit of sanity being eroded by a place that never wanted the truth, a place that never wanted an outsider like Lex Collins.
"It's not a lust for life. It's not a need for punishment. It's a fuckin' disease – it's a sickness deep down inside me an' it's fuckin' insidious. It wants me to fail. It needs that so bad an' I am this damned anarchist Don Quixote motherfucker, tiltin' at windmills until the day I die. I can't pass judgement on a guy like Jock Wilson. I can't bring myself to call him a joke, to set myself up on this pedestal as being better – I'm not. I'm just as bad. I was born with broken knuckles. I have to believe there's a reason why I ended up here. The alternative doesn't make sense. It doesn't matter now. What's done is done. The target has been painted – what's bound to happen will and I can't ever prepare myself for how the echo is going to hit my ears. That wall of noise is like putting a seashell to your ear – is it the ocean or is it just the white noise silence of nothing at all? They're both destructive. They both have the power to maim, to take a decade of hard work and wash it all away in an instant. The crowd will go wild either way. They want to see a spectacle even if they don't understand what they're actually witnessing."
There's a derisive chuckle in lieu of punctuation.
"This looks like a job for me – the king of the broken, the beaten an' the fuckin' damned. I got this. Once more, with feelin'. Out with a bang – that bullet wants to do what it was fashioned to do. It has a purpose that isn't divine, that isn't unique at all. It's a tool. It's beyond words, beyond explanations an' motivations. You point. You pull the trigger. The weapon discharges. Things that are destined to end. Careers. Lives. Senseless diatribes – all these clunky words. Fuck 'em. Let's exist in a time an' place beyond their reach. Let's do what we were born to do. No words. No more of this useless supposition. No more headaches an' stuttering. No more anxiety. No more struggle. Let's strip it down to the base layer an' embrace that calling to be something more. I know what I am now. I know what this is all about. It's just beautiful... terminal... action."
———♦———
Las Vegas || August 21, 2019 (off camera)
He sat in the chair on the deck, watching the ripples cross the pool. He should have gone inside hours ago. Every muscle ached, his legs stiff and cold as the sweat turned to ice under the leather. Nights in the desert were starting to get colder. There was a smear of light on the horizon and if he squinted, he could pretend it was just the garish lights of the strip rather than the dawning of a new day. When he heard the soft rasp of the patio door sliding open, he let out a sigh, breaking the silence he'd spent the last twelve hours in.
The drive up to Anaheim had been a spur-of-the-moment thing. A knee-jerk reaction and he'd hopped on the bike without even thinking too hard about it. He'd wanted to be there in case he was needed, in case something happened. By the time he'd arrived, the annoyance at being left off the show had turned into a full-on blaze. He hadn't planned that interference. It had just happened and the moment he'd hit the ring, he'd felt this need to clear house. Now he felt drained, childish and stupid on the heels of a tantrum.
"Hey, you." Hannah's hand was warm where it touched his neck, that gentle press drawing some of the stiffness from the road away. She leaned in from behind, resting her chin on his shoulder as she whispered in his ear, "was worried you wouldn't make it back in time."
He closed his eyes. He'd forgotten, had run off on a stupid whim rather than pay attention to the date. It had been a year since they'd stood in front of witnesses and pledged to be there for each other, through thick and thin.
"I..." the words caught in his throat and Hannah chuckled softly, kissing his cheek.
"Don't," she admonished, teasing rather than disappointment in her tone. It had taken them both far too long to bridge the gap, to communicate past their own damage. She knew the words by heart now, she knew what every little tic and every little silence meant. "It's fine. I know you had to go, had to remind them that you're the last one they should be sleeping on."
"Is that what they're doin' now?" He tilted his head back, looking up at her, a ghost of a smile quirking the corners of his lips.
Her warm hands cupped his cheeks, bringing life to that road-worn skin. "I don't think they'll make that mistake again," she murmured, her lips brushing his. After all the time spent on the bike, eating up the miles and the thankless bullshit in Anaheim, it felt good to be wanted, to be touched as though he was the most important thing in the world.
When she pulled back from the kiss, her eyes were shining. The pride and love he saw reflected there didn't make him feel dirty and ashamed – it made him feel alive. He felt worthy, felt like this was where he belonged. Come hell or high water, he'd finally earned his place. For once, the words came easily, conviction ringing through every last syllable.
"Damn right they won't."