Much Like Suffocating [APW #4]

"Best make your words sweet, lest you gotta choke 'em down later – I admit I might've been a little up in my feels before our last throwdown. Might've been talkin' from a place a little south of professionalism. For that, an' ONLY that, I apologize. Remember what I said on Twitter, Luce? You only get one."

For once, the darkness fades up into a grainy video of Lex Collins. It looks like he's sitting on a couch or a bed, a few pillows propped up behind his back.

"Granted, this little diatribe'd be easier if you hadn't pinned me. I know that. You know that. So, when I threw down that Tombstone gif, I wasn't expecting to be taken seriously. The fact that I was, though? That speaks volumes. That says a whole lot about the state of the North American championship, doesn't it? Says a whole lot about the covetous little girl in possession of it – oh but I know what you're gonna say. Gonna call me out on that hypocrisy 'cause I've been preachin' about never resting on laurels for YEARS. It's all about the climb. Sure, a landing is a nice rest, but you don't get too comfy."

He shakes his head, sucking his teeth as he considers his own point.

"I'd call this a blessing if I didn't feel a bit too much like Scrooge in denial here. The ghosts ready to taunt me are nothing more than a nightmare spawned by a bit of undigested beef."

He lets that hang, the snarky double meaning obvious.

"And I digress. I know what you're expecting from me. Ring a bell and I'll do what I do. Throw a punch. Salivate. Kick an' scream. Y'know, whatever the good Huckleberry's gotta do to earn his supper. I get it. I'm still the underling here, still seen as the lesser even though I've held just as much gold – if not more – than ol' Smitty. But hey, no tea. No shade. Just... I get it, okay. I wasn't all that memorable back in Trinity, despite beating Thomas Snow cleanly in the middle of the ring. They don't remember that – don't choose to, anyhow. That's not the best litmus test for talent, Lucy. You of all people should know that. You're moonlighting in a company that considers Noah Hanson to be a top draw, after all. I'd insist you do your homework, look at the championship history there an' see who held the big gold before Hanson ever laid eyes on it. I know. It's 2020. It's a new decade. Nobody gives a shit anymore."

His shoulders twitch in the barest shrug.

"Keep dipping toes in poisoned waters, Luce. Keep reaching an' calling it something admirable when ambition's just a shinier word for greed. Sure, it's about the climb. It's about the process. It's about proving the haters wrong or fillin' up a hole with white noise – can't hold that close. It's ephemeral. It's a fantasy that some people come at like a zealot goin' on about BLIND FAITH. I don't have that. Never did. I believe in things I can measure. Things I can FEEL. I don't care if you think I'm second string. What I care about is your damned tunnel vision, those cross-hairs you got on Smitty that've turned this belt into a Cracker Jack prize. You say you wanna be the best. Say you're a fighting champion, defending it until it's left your grasp, but you already got one foot out the door an' a wandering eye on someone else. Overlook me. That's on you. That's your malfunction, Luce. Not mine."

One hand lifts and rakes through his hair even though it's been cut and no longer falls over his eyes – some habits are hard to break.

"I know I'm not the best wrestler in this company. I know time an' circumstances're against me – hindsight hurts when it slaps you upside the head. I saw fame as a golden parasite; an albatross latched around the neck that turned everything good an' pure an' noble into a GROSS MOCKERY. I shunned it. I fuckin' RAN from it an' it took me a good ten years to realize it didn't have to be twisted up, didn't have to be perverted an' painful – SHAMEFUL."

There's something dark in his expression for a moment, almost a shadow before he scrubs that same hand across his bearded jaw.

"The things we tell ourselves, right? Sometimes I think all of this is too much. I get so tired, so damned sick of letting vultures pick at my bones. There's no meat left. It's all scar tissue but this corpse gets reanimated every time those asses in the seats cheer. It's a siren song. It's a goddamned addiction… I'm a junkie but I can't get enough. I need to hear it. I need to feel it. I need to feel like that connection's made or I don't feel like I'm alive… like I'm human at all. So what is that? A sickness? A flaw? Manipulation on my part, disguised as a confession nobody asked for? Yeah. That. For sure."

He closes his eyes, pulling in a deep breath through his crooked nose.

"I get it. I know I'm on borrowed time here. I know the whole locker room is castin' lots on when I'm gonna drop off the face of the Earth for good. I know I've alienated too many people over the last couple years. Every day, I expect to wake up dead. Expect to see my own obituary in the headlines rather'n my name on a marquee. That's what it's like to walk in the valley of the shadow of death – I have no fear. I died a long time ago. I'm just an echo now. I'm just a star that's already burned out. You're just too far away to register that in real-time. Joke's on you. Or me. I don't even know anymore.

I don't even care."



Five-year plan.

The words kept circling and he couldn't even focus on what they were saying as Hannah and the doctor spoke over his head. It had all started with a lie, one that she refused to swallow like she had so many times in the past.

I'm alright.

She'd seen it, though. Had been glued to the monitor backstage and when he'd gone down, when Lucy had pinned him and he hadn't moved, hadn't even tried to kick out, she'd known. The pain had been there, more on than off since he'd beaten Thomas Snow in Trinity. Since he'd chosen to tender his resignation from the company before even getting in the ring to defend his championship – he felt like a fraud for that. He'd felt like he was doing a disservice to the fans, to anyone who'd ever supported him over the years. She'd held his hand, told him that he was being smarter than he'd been in years. She'd promised to support him, no matter what else came down the pipe.

She hadn't caught him on this fall. She'd stepped back, letting him hit hard as if she knew he needed a wake-up call in the worst way. He'd seen it as betrayal. He'd felt like she was validating Lucy's words – he was the weaker link. He'd never get back to equal footing with Smith Jones.

This appointment had been scheduled on purpose to prevent him from making an appearance. Vision in his left eye was blurry, peripheral vision all sorts of fucked but he'd been careful not to telegraph that. He'd been doing his best to keep that from her and let her focus on whatever was happening with his back.

His hands wouldn't stop shaking and they were talking about degradation of the nerves and a regime of pain management.

Pain management? The fuck does that even mean?

"I manage it just fine." The words slipped out before he could check them and then he felt like an idiot as both heads swiveled in his direction. His hands were still shaking so he clasped them together, leaning forward.

"Lex," Hannah's voice was soft, "that's not what we're talking about. We-"

"Yeah," he cut her off, thinking of that Suicidal Tendencies song and how they were deciding what his best interests were as if he wasn't even in the room. "All I wanted was a Pepsi."

The doctor looked at him funny. His wife sighed, breaking eye contact because she knew what he meant.

"You said it'll go away, right?"

Slumber will come soon, the words rattled in his head, and you are helping put it to sleep.

Everything was shuffling endlessly towards that early grave and the fear of oblivion that came with it.

"With time. With proper therapy and rest, it could. It's not an absolute, Mr. Collins. There's lingering damage. Keloid tissue in most of those scars. It's not going to magically disappear and the more you exacerbate it, the worse it'll become."

"You just need to take some time off," Hannah's voice was gentle. "That's all. It's not the end of the world."

Isn't it, though?

He slid off the table, almost taking the paper with him because he didn't want them to see him wince, to see him move like an old man. The pain didn't come, respecting his wishes for the first time in months as he moved towards the door, unable to sit here and listen to them write off his future.

Five more years. That was the plan. Build something great. Leave a good legacy behind and get the fuck out in one piece.

"Lex," Hannah caught up with him in the hall and there was something in her voice that made him stop, made him freeze in his tracks. Was that fear? He couldn't bring himself to look, to see the evidence of what his damned need for adoration had done to them both.

"I can't, Han." He sighed. "I need this. Just a while longer, okay? I'll push through. I'll be alright. I'm a survivor, remember?" He tried to force sincerity into those words. Once more with feeling. It fell so flat and he had to close his eyes against the prickle of tears. 

"And what happens when you can't," her voice broke, "when you don't get up again?"

"Failure's not an option. Never was."


"I spent a lot of time thinking about what I was gonna say to you. Made that video an' then the moment it was up, I hated it. I mean, fuckin' HATED it. Wanted to delete. Start over. But, y'know, it's been a shit week. Time's gotten away on me an' now I just gotta let it lie. So, here we are. Postscript... confession time."

He sighs.

"A part of me can't stop dwelling, can't stop obsessing over how it'd be if I'd never lost to you. Wouldn't be sick of the taste of crow, that's for sure. I wonder if I'd still have earned this match if the tables'd be turned? Wonder if I'd be steppin' to the plate against Smitty instead – guy didn't get a challenger until your partner stepped up on the heels of his little Tantrum. Funny how that goes, isn't it? Ripples. Everything has an opposite reaction. You run your mouth an' mine floods with saliva. Maybe it's bloodlust. Maybe I just feel like I'm gonna get sick. Semantics, right? Which urge goes unchecked. Which one do I bring to the plate this time? Which Lex Collins are you gonna meet in Boston?"

The tab pops on some carbonated beverage and the fizzing is caught in the pause before a soft swallow.

"This is what I needed, though. A little wake-up call, otherwise, I'd be so full of myself right now. Barely been in the company long enough to matter an' I got a shot at gold already? I'd be high on my own bullshit, puffed up an' pointing at my chest, yelling 'ME! ME! ME!' every moment of every day if it weren't for you, Lucy. Thankfully, I've lost just enough to keep me humble. So hey, cheers to you. The only fuckin' thing you've done right as champion."

There's a humorless chuckle before he continues.

"Can't even imagine bein' some larger than life asshole that everyone'd see when they look at me. Some folks around this business still deem me unworthy, even after all the gold I've held AND defended. Some asshole said I wasn't ready to hang with the big dogs way back in 2013 an' I've been fighting that accusation ever since. Sometimes I go weeks without hearing it. Sometimes months. There's always some little trigger, though – that's how it works, right? We all got these traumas. These things in our lives that made us who we are. I grew up just tryin' to make it in these tiny little increments of time. An hour. A week. A month. Had to tell myself it'd get easier an' when the pain faded, it felt like that was true. For a while. Until the next set of blows rained down. Wasn't allowed to stand too tall, step too far outta line. Didn't wanna provoke, bring that pain on too soon. It's hard to do without a crutch, on your own. Believe me, I know."

His tone is soft, a hint of steel there in the crisp enunciation, as though he wants to make sure every word comes out right.

"You deal with it – send the pain below. Some days're better than others. Some days it's a chore to even get out of bed. I've had a week of those but haven't had the luxury. I've got back-to-back gigs. I defend a championship on Sunday night. One on the level of the thing you covet most in Alpha Pro. I can't even begin to tell you that's a sure thing. It never is, much as you wanna believe those words when they fall from your lips. It only takes a second, one little lapse… one little BREATH for the house of cards to come tumbling down. I learned from our tag match, Lucy. It took everything you had to put me down and you didn't do it alone. Remember that. On Monday, there's no Spartan in your corner. Nah, sunshine. Your new friend skipped the line. Gets a run at Smitty before you do. Shit, that's really gotta stick in your craw. That's gotta burn just a little. Here you are, stuck back in the kiddie pool with that also-ran trash you just can't seem to escape. Oh, but it was your CHOICE, right? Fighting champ. Respect for the gold? Yeah. Sure."

The scorn is there now, oozing.

"You just wanted more time to define this North American championship, right? Sure. Dirty work rather'n take a run at the dude who's been undefeated since that one little hiccup against Dipshit Wolf? Didn't want to test yourself at your PEAK against the BEST in the company? Fuck off with that bullshit. Smoke and mirrors, Luce. You need to get better at this whole thing. See, it's not about glory. It's not about a flag planted on some cold rock way up in the atmosphere – it's about what you did to get there. It's about HEART. It's about PASSION. It's about the strength and the WHEREWITHAL to make it to the top, hand over hand, when the whole fuckin' world is there trying to pull you back down into the muck. You let them once, forgot how to cope. Swallowed some poison. Remember that? Remember how it felt to be cut off from everything? To have nothing but silence when you used MAINLINE cheers?

I know you. I know weakness. Intimately."

There's that self-deprecating chuckle that Collins is so well-known for.

"I look around the place in my mind and there's barely any room to move past all the mementos. I've done this a thousand times. I'll do it a thousand more before it's all said and done – I carry pieces with me. I can't separate… can't filter it out. You get it all when you face me, undiluted. There're so many things to draw on. So much experience. I've done this same routine so many times before, but it feels different now. It's more real somehow and it's like I'm fully here, locked in this moment. I feel like I'm a target. I feel like I'm the only stationary thing in the middle of a whirling dervish of insanity. I guess I can deal with that just fine. It reminds me of home. Of the place I tried to run from that I've been carrying inside me all this time. When you hit rock bottom though? When you fall and there's nobody there to catch you? It can't get lower. There's nowhere to go but up. Nothing left to lose."

Crackle. Hiss.

There's a moment of silence before Lex's voice is back, vehement.

"The Architects're gonna take away everything, Lucy. Starting with this championship – put it around a waist that knows how to carry it. Knows how to defend it. Knows how to VALUE it. I'm gonna strip you of that. Of your hubris. Of this glory that got tarnished the second you touched it. You'll tell yourself it doesn't matter. You'll still have that shot at the World Championship – at Smitty. Yeah. I want you to focus on that. Think about how I'm gonna start the process an' Smith Jones is gonna finish it. You're living on borrowed time now."

There's a pause before Collins speaks again in a rough whisper.

"Welcome to my world, Lucy. Welcome to HELL."