QUESTIONS & ANSWERS (Chapter 18: Soft-Boiled) [iiw]
May 20, 2023 15:09:16 GMT -5
Post by Admin on May 20, 2023 15:09:16 GMT -5
NYU Clinical Cancer Center, Palliative Care Unit ||| May 14, 2023
(off camera)
(off camera)
The exhaustion he felt as he stepped off the elevator and moved towards the empty nurse’s station felt so damned familiar that his knees almost buckled with déjà vu. If it hadn't been for that sharp disinfectant smell, he could have sworn it was another place, ripped directly from the memories he did his best to repress. Sev blinked, shaking his head, trying to banish that memory from two decades before of another whitewashed hallway and the claustrophobic feeling of a fish out of water. In seven days, he’d be in London. In a weeks’ time, he would be back in front of the IIW faithful, doing his level best to set the tone for a blockbuster show with a lukewarm crowd. He was no stranger to that, after all. Not after working two decades as enhancement talent. The majority of his matches before 2020 were curtain-jerkers, few and far between actually recorded outside of a handful of local indy appearances. There was precious little to his back catalogue, outside of anything found in 5BW or PWE. Perhaps that was the reason why Matt Shepard had mistaken him for someone else.
He knew if Jace or Summer were privy to these intrusive thoughts, they’d have slapped him upside the head. Told him it was the oldest trick in the book – the classic “who are you” no-sell. Any other day, he would have brushed it off. Today though, it was prickling under his skin like a thousand splinters, souring his mood further.
The room was at the end of the hall – he’d known that for days.
Visiting hours had begun two hours ago.
This was the first time he’d made it this far and the sound of the elevator doors sliding shut sealed his fate for the time being. He had a linear choice now: carry on down that blindingly white hallway or turn around and desperately try to summon that little box of salvation to whisk him away, back to the safety of his little cocoon.
One foot in front of the other. You can do this.
The voice in his head was supportive, catching him off-guard. It sounded like his wife’s rather than those belittling tones of the man he’d come to finally pay his last respects to. He didn’t want to think about what that meant, closing his eyes for a moment as he reached out to rest his palm against the wall.
If he'd remembered to eat, he probably would have been running for the nearest bathroom stall. Was this guilt? Fear? Regret? He wasn’t even sure how to quantify it, wasn’t sure if he was supposed to march into the room and demand recompense or if he was supposed to fall to his knees and beg forgiveness for that betrayal. The fans in Reno had believed it was a work, a storyline to bolster the push Jack Moreau had received – he was calling himself LEGION then, had gathered the broken from amidst the roster’s lower rabble to create a following. He called it the Church of the Seventh Circle. There had been no discussion beforehand, no planning. He’d turned on PYRO, joining Siobahn McLeod and Hayden Triggs in the beatdown. The audience had gobbled it up like candy, going insane. The Church was over and for the first time in his career, he was part of something that felt important.
Six months later, they were a footnote. The pivotal moment in his career, in his life, chalked up to nothing more than a failed experiment in the career of a former champion. The other two had hung up their boots shortly thereafter. Moreau had been hit by a bus, stepping off the curb drunk in Vegas – the worst sort of anti-climactic tragedy. He’d probably never walk again and here he was, feeling bitter about not getting more out of the six-month meal ticket he’d had after a lifetime of scraps.
Jack Moreau would never wrestle again.
Neither would the man in the room at the end of that hall.
With his eyes closed, he was back inside that ring in the moments after Mac Bane had nailed that Good Night Princess. He wished his match had been the main event, that he could have kept laying there, flat on his now-spasming back after the cameras went dark. After the last body filed out of the arena and nothing was left but the lingering fart smell of cheap popcorn and watered-down beer. Instead he'd had to haul himself up, make that walk of shame to the back and pretend everything wasn't hurting. It was all a blur – he hadn’t bothered to watch it back. Hadn’t wanted to get lost in that rabbit hole of self-loathing and nitpicking everything he’d done wrong. The fragments were lost in the pounding in his temples that echoed each deliberately level step he took.
Part of him wanted to shuffle his feet, but he knew if he gave into that urge, he'd lose the last scrap of courage he had left. This already felt like a march to the gallows.
The chatter of voices behind him signalled the arrival of two nurses from what was likely their break room, startling him. He straightened up, turned with a brittle smile on his face but they weren’t even looking in his direction. Despite his bulk, he may as well have been invisible at that moment.
“Damn it all to hell.” The words came out under his breath, his lips still moving when the sound dropped out.
The door was right in front of him now. Five or six steps away. No turning back now.
He swallowed hard, squaring his shoulders. Time to face the music.
━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━
It's been awake for more than seventy-two hours. No. Sorry. Freudian slip, perhaps?
I meant to write I'VE been. English is my third language, after Ukrainian and Russian – I don’t tell you this for an excuse or because I want my shoddy grammar to have a pass. I just want you to know where I come from. These past few weeks have been difficult. Again, not making excuses. We are professionals – we are paid to leave our personal baggage behind in that locker room, get down to business the moment our music hits the speakers. And those of us who last a little while, we find a way to compartmentalise. Throw a switch.
Chelomtsev Vladislav Yurievich has never set foot in any arena. Has never rubbed elbows with the greats in that locker room. He does not exist outside of a name on a page in the little blue booklet that allows me – that allows ENIGMA – to travel all over the world.
I should be exhausted but for now, I feel energised. It’s something like the seventeenth wind at this point and I know that I will regret this sooner rather than later. I am not as young as I once was and the more I tax this body in the hours before we go to war between those ropes, the less likely it is that I will win. I know that I have already made mistakes. Kenny Pryce seems to have dropped off the face of the earth. Is this my doing? Did my fixation on that parallel sabotage things?
And then there were three.
I would love to say something clever, but I feel as though the well has run dry. I could take a page from the howler monkeys, sling random shit at the wall to see if it sticks but there’s a sick sort of defeat in that. I owe you better – this is about a new LEGACY, after all. Not another cookie cutter retread with a new coat of paint. I saw a common thread to pull with Pryce, saw a little of that starry-eyed rookie I was once upon a time. Those shoes haven’t fit me in years, haven’t been comfortable in decades. On some level, I am aware that I sold out before I ever made it up on that pedestal. Someone convinced me that it was a smart play, that I could bank on longevity rather than being a quick flash in the pan. What did I know at the time? Nothing. I would sugarcoat the whole sordid tale, but I lack the mental capacity for that today. My head hurts, my mind confined to a space much too small for it – sorry, friends. No metaphors. No walls of words to hide my glaring inadequacies.
If you want something clever, crack my head open once we get in that ring. Scoop it out yourself like the insides of a soft-boiled egg. And here I promised no metaphors yet we are left with the idea of soft-boiled ego with just a dash of salt to season. Add some toast and you have a nice repast.
Sounds delicious. Truly a breakfast of CHAMPIONS.
Matt Shepard. Jayce Carver. Let me ask you something. Do either of you think you are on the level of Mac Bane, the man who will be International Champion in just a few short days? I don’t want you to actually answer that – it was rhetorical. We both know you’re not. The two of you are going to great pains to hide the truth, as though I haven’t been in this business long enough to read tells. Go on, then. Lie about it. Tell me how mighty you are. Have your mouthpiece shout about your upcoming triumph from the rooftops. If you repeat it enough times, you might even begin to believe it could happen. Even a broken clock can be right twice a day, after all. Deny your fear. Sing your own praises. Don’t utter my name.
You think this is a defining moment for either of you? A place to exact revenge? A stepping stone? No. Not for you.
You're nothing more than two wholly interchangeable idiots – paid cannon fodder.
In six months, this too will be a footnote. Kenny Pryce will flake out again. Matt Shepard will take another knock to the head that sidelines him. Jayce Carver’s star will burn out. There will be new idiots through the revolving door that chews us up and spits us out. We are like bubble gum. When the flavour is stale, it's time for something new. Throw it away.
This business will never have to worry about running low. There will always be fresh meat. There will always be grease for the gears.
I will not lie to you and say having this belt will make things better. Coming from experience, it’s unlikely. Still, I cannot deny how much I want it. How a part of me truly believes in that validation because it forces THEM to take notice. Do you see me, Matt? DO. YOU. SEE?
The moment of truth has arrived. I am sick of the shadows. The bruises are fading. My body is ready. I am ready for my closeup, primed for the limelight. This is MY time. NOT YOURS. Never again.
–E
━━━━━━━━┛ ✠ ┗━━━━━━━━
NYU Clinical Cancer Center, Palliative Care Unit ||| May 14, 2023
(off camera)
(off camera)
The curtain was pulled most of the way around the bed but not so much that he couldn’t see a lump under the sheets at the foot of it. The chair was uncomfortable, hard plastic but he still sank into it gratefully, letting his head hang. His shaking hands pressed together, hard enough that his wrists popped. He could hear the hiss of air, could hear a clock ticking somewhere.
“I should have come sooner,” his voice came out low and hoarse, trembling slightly. Was that emotion or fatigue?
The sound of breathing was loud enough to carry to his ears, mechanical and measured. Of course the bastard in the bed said nothing.
Sev nodded, as if that silence confirmed everything. Anger darkened his eyes, turning them dead black before he closed them, dragging in a deep breath in an effort to keep himself calm. “No.” He ground out the word between clenched teeth, “I will not start this conversation with a lie. I should not have come at all – I think that is what you expected, though. Go out as the hero in your own story. The victim, alone and forgotten, wasting away in the shadows of his own design.”
He let his head drop, reaching up to rub absently at the tension in his neck. Another headache loomed, throbbing in his temples in time with his pulse.
“I hate you.” The confession wasn’t really a revelation. Still, it felt good to finally say the words aloud. “Look at this mess. Here we are. You… sitting there in silence like a king on his throne. Wave the hand, issue the summons, snap the fingers…good little puppy will come. He always does. And I hate myself for this. For this weakness where you are concerned.”
Fingers dug into the back of his head, both hands there gripping his neck as he let out a sigh that turned into a growl. “Liar. Phony. All those years, you believed you were so smart. Did you think I would never discover the truth?” Sev’s laughter was bitter and caustic, his lips curled into a snarl as he spat his next words, still keeping his voice low. “I know what you did. That deal you negotiated – the first one. They did not want you. I saw the offer. They wanted…” he couldn’t bring himself to say it, choking on his own rage. “Everything that could have been – you twisted it up. You had to insert yourself into it, to make me complicit in this thing that went over like a lead balloon, your toxic ego at the centre of it all. And for what? So that you could be the King of the curtain-jerkers? So that you could keep me chained at your side until I was no longer useful? What… what was the plan, hmm? Did you even have one beyond filling your pockets with money at my expense?”
Sev fell silent again, laboured breaths rattling as he tried to calm himself. He closed his eyes. Counted to a hundred. The silence was deafening, the roar of his pulse in his ears far less soothing than it usually was. Like waves crashing on an unseen shore, the rhythmic sounds of that breathing machine pulsed and ebbed on the edges of his hearing. Had there been a subtle shift? Had it sped up slightly?
“Of course, you have nothing to say, do you? No explanation. No absolution for you. I do not care why you did. It does not change the truth, the knowledge of all that time wasted. I will never be more than an insignificant speck in this business, no matter how many trinkets I manage to gather before the end. There will always be this against me. Twenty goddamn years of waste. This… this is why I hate you. This is why I wish I had not come here.”
Unshed tears burned in his eyes and he squeezed them shut, taking one deep and shuddering breath after another. When he broke the silence again, his voice was rougher, far more strained.
“The last thing I see before I go to bed is her face. Do you know what I see once I get there? It is not my bright future. It is not her sunshine smile. It is not my beautiful daughter, our perfect family. No. It is your smug face and your greedy hands, snatching it all away. I wish I could hurt you, tear you apart the way I have done so many times in my dreams. You deserve this. You deserve to rot alone, like the trash you are. Let the scavengers pick the meat from your bones – even this is too good for you. You are a stain that lingers. You are the garbage they sweep up after everyone has gone home. Nobody will mourn you.”
Sev shot to his feet, the silence overwhelming now as he reached one trembling hand out to grasp the curtain. “You will rot in hell.” It was a statement, the anger bubbling over as he whisked the curtain aside, refusing to accept silence as an answer any longer... only to find nothing but a dent in the pillow, rumpled blankets and an otherwise empty bed.
“Sir?” A nurse stood in the doorway and Sev turned around, his hand falling guiltily to his side even as the curtain was still shaking. “What are you doing?” “There was…” the words died on the tip of his tongue and he shook his head. What was he doing here? Arguing with ghosts?
“I’m so sorry,” the nurse said and there was something in her voice that made his stomach drop to his feet. “Are you family?”
He nodded woodenly, not wanting to debate semantics now.
“He passed last night. Peacefully.”
He wheeled away from her, stumbled out into the hallway feeling vaguely sick and that was when he realised his phone was vibrating. Fumbling it out, he swiped at the screen without really looking.
“Sev?” The horror in his wife’s voice matched what he was feeling and he wondered how she could have known when she was miles away. “Hello? Are you there? M-my water just broke,” LJ’s voice came from the speaker, sounding a million miles away as the phone fell from his numb fingers, clattering to the floor. He could still hear her talking. She sounded terrified now. “The baby’s coming. Now.”
