Post by Evan De Parker on Oct 27, 2012 20:59:40 GMT -4
Sienna Harrison sits opposite of Evan Envi in the confines of the cool-colored themed luxury king suite-- the biggest, most unnecessarily expensive room that the hotel offers. Westernized in its own right, Sienna sits, cross-legged on the black, leather sofa while Evan reclines in a love-seat, drumming his fingers along the soft, dark leather of the chair and staring intently at Sienna.
We shouldn’t be here. Not with her.
"I wanna know what you talked about."
Sienna rolls her eyes and moves her fingers through her hair, pushing each curled strand behind her ear. Evan sighs and leans forward in his seat.
"I wanna know what you're doing with Watson."
Sienna just smirks and looks up at Evan, casting a thoughtful, but devious gaze.
"What? Jealous?"
Evan blinks. His eyes widen a bit and he sits upright, angling his head at Sienna. He feels the hairs on his neck stand on end. He feels his throat lumping, growing hot from anger. Sienna continues to smirk at him, beginning to whistle innocently.
Abruptly, she stops and folds her hands as she looks at her brother.
"Evan."
"What?"
"Tell me what happened to you."
Silence. For upwards of twenty seconds, there is nothing but tension-filled silence in the room.
"I don't... Really know what you're talking about."
Her smirk never fades.
"Yes you do."
"No. I don't."
"What happened to my little brother? Who are you and what the fuck did you do with Evan Harrison?"
I killed him. I’m Evan Envi and I fucking killed him. You’re next.
Evan narrows his eyes at Sienna and shakes his head.
"You're beyond delusional. Why is it that we can't have a normal conversation? Why can't we be two mature adults?"
"Because you slapped me in the face."
Evan laughs aloud, amused at the audacity.
"Hahaha, oh, wow..."
"That is what happened, is it not?"
Evan looks at Sienna with an umimpressed, half-lidded glare. He doesn't say anything for a few seconds and raises a hand to the back of his head, scratching it nervously.
"Sienna, I don't think you can fully grasp what happened. You put me in a really tough predicament."
Sienna angrily takes a step toward Evan.
"Between slapping your sister and what?"
Evan defensively takes a step back from Sienna.
"Between looking like a bitch, and standing up for myself."
"...Standing up for yourself? Against Big Bad Sister Sienna who just came down to the ring to cheer you on…?"
"Standing up for myself. Standing up against the common thought that I would let anybody interfere in my personal business."
Sienna arches an eyebrow and takes another step toward Evan, but he doesn't retreat this time. He looks away from her and speaks in a low, cold voice.
"Not anyone... Not A.C. Smith, not Nick Watson, not you."
Again the two remain frozen in silence. Sienna continues to give Evan a very confused, yet contemplative look. It's upwards of fifteen seconds before either sibling is able to speak.
"Do you wanna know the difference between you and Nick?"
Evan knows that there's no need to respond.
"He may not win every match, and he may not be the Xtreme Champion, but at least he's not insane. That kid tries his ass off every single week."
”And he’s a failure.”
Sienna shakes her head.
”No. He’s doing something that you’re not doing, and that’s trying to get better. Nick Watson is a damn good wrestler, and you’d be better off taking note of that fact. It takes three seconds to lose the title, Ev.”
Now she’s a mathematician!
”I understand that. I have never said that Nick Watson isn’t a good wrestler. What I’ve said is that he’s not good enough, and as unfortunate as it is to say, he’s not. I’m faster than Nick. I’m smarter than Nick. I’ve already proven that I can outsmart Nick.”
”Yeah, you know what else you’ve proven?”
Fuck her. Fuck what she says. Fuck what she thinks.
”Hm. I’m sure you’ll let me know.”
”You’ve proven that you can definitely outrun Nick Watson, especially when it’s you that has something to lose.”
WHORE. WHORE. FUCK HER.
Evan nods at Sienna, his cold gaze never breaching any other part of the room. They rip into her at this point in an unflinching and unblinking gaze.
She swears she can feel the heat being sucked from the room, but she doesn’t back down. For the first time in weeks, Sienna was alone with her brother. For the first time in weeks she had developed the nerve to be in the same room as him, and she absolutely refused to back down from him again. It wasn’t something she’d done in the twenty-four years she knew Evan Nicholas Harrison.
”Do you want to know why I haven’t given Nick Watson a fair fight?”
”Well, not just me. Everybody wants to know that. I’m pretty sure the fans, and our family, and our friends, and the president of our company would like to know why you’ve run away every time you—“
”Nick Watson hasn’t been given a fair opportunity because he doesn’t deserve it. Signing your name on a contract that the president hands you doesn’t mean that you have the right to list your name next to mine on the card of any wrestling event. I just hope my kids can forgive me in the future when they look back on this night and see that I’ve lowered myself to defend the APW Xtreme Championship against Nick fucking Watson.”
She laughs bitterly.
”Christ. You really just don’t get it, do you?”
”Sienna, the longer we talk, the more I start to get the impression that you’re not an Evan Envi fan… But a Nick Watson fan. You are, aren’t you?”
”I am.”
Evan’s eyes widen for a moment. He’s not surprised at the answer, but surprised that he received the answer so sharply and quickly.
She wants you to lose. She can’t be trusted.
”You want him to beat me on Sunday, don’t you?”
Sienna opens her mouth, finding the words caught somewhere in the line of travel between her mind and her throat. For a few seconds, she just stares at her brother in a frozen silence before she clears her throat to respond.
”Yeah.”
I told you… I told you she was against you.
Evan’s face falls and he looks at his older sister with a look analogous to a man that just watched his dog get run over—slaughtered in the street. The life falls from his eyes and he finds himself, unwittingly, taking another step back from her.
”So you guys are like… Best friends now, huh?”
”Evan—“
”Are you fucking him?”
Sienna lets one loud laugh escape her lips and she puts a hand to her chest, and this time she’s the one to tread rearward.
”Excuse me?”
”You’re fucking him.”
Evan says it so casually, and so nonchalantly that it takes Sienna a few seconds to come to terms with the fact that his words lack humor. Nothing but sincerity there.
”You don’t respect me at all, do you?”
”No, Sienna. I don’t.”
Tell her.
”You’re not my sister. You haven’t been for quite some time. In fact…”
Tell her. Tell her what she really is. Tell her how you really feel.
”In fact, what?”
Evan looks away from Sienna and smiles a bit. His eyes have become unfocused and he falls silent for a few more seconds, pretending to search for the words in his head.
”I hate you, Sienna.”
Sienna narrows her eyes and crosses her arms.
”You hate me.”
”I think you’ve done a fantastic job at… Trying to kill everything that I love. You’ve used my career as a stepping stone to catapult your own. You needed to find a way to get back into the spotlight and congratulations. You did that. It was at the cost of making me look like an ill-tempered woman-beater and costing me the match of a lifetime… Robbing me of a victory that I fucking deserved… But you did what you wanted to do. You made yourself relevant again.
“I always knew you had it in you.”
”You’re not Evan.”
”I am.”
”You don’t talk like him. You don’t act like he does. Dad was right. Smith was right. You need help.”
”I don’t.”
Evan’s eyes haven’t traveled back to Sienna’s yet. She can’t quite tell what it is that he’s gazing toward, but every muscle in her body prevents her from turning away from his eyes even for a fraction of a second.
”I won’t try to convince you.”
”I don’t think I’m the one that needs help. If you wanna help anybody… Help your friend, Nick.
“I’m not the one that chases a liquor bottle, expecting it to magically transform me into a better wrestler, or a hero. I don’t go searching for my answers at the bottom of a bottle, Sienna. That’s Nick Watson. Just like his white trash, incompetent mother did before him, Nick’s been driven to a life of drugs and alcohol. It’s a shame, really. Normally in Hollywood, we’d call something like that a ‘fall from grace.’ Nick’s a little bit different though.
“I mean… You can’t fall from grace if you’ve never been there before. You can’t break from hitting rock bottom when the fall is only three inches. Maybe he needs somebody to remind him of that. The nurturing, older-sister type.”
Evan’s eyes flicker back toward Sienna, finally.
”Maybe you can show him how to touch a woman, too.”
Sienna responds very quietly.
”You’ve lost your mind.”
”That is what you do. That is… All you’re good for. You remember? Surely, you remember. Of course—of course you remember.
“I remember.”
Sienna feels her neck growing hot, as Evan’s did earlier. She raises a hand to the side of her neck and shakes her head, slowly.
”Stop.”
Evan frowns at her.
”You could do wonders for Nick, couldn’t you? I wonder if you’d do it the same way.”
”You need to shut the fuck up.”
Evan takes a step toward his sister, the same hollow expression in tact.
”Let’s take a trip down memory lane.“
SLAP!
It echoes.
Evan Envi looks at Sienna in horror, feeling the blood rush to the surface of his skin from the slap. His bottom lip quivers and he immediately feels his eyes begin to swell with tears. He considers raising a hand to strike back, or do something, but he can’t.
Sienna’s arm is still arched, still bent at the elbow and she can still feel the sting in her palm. She looks at Evan in shock as well, unsure of how she should react because of the uncertainty around his reaction. Finally, after what seems like minutes have dragged past, Sienna lowers her shaky hand and looks away from Evan, blinking back her own forthcoming tears.
”I’m sorry, Evan.”
Sienna pivots and collects her things from the ground. Within seconds, she’s stormed out of the hotel. Evan can hear her footsteps every step of the way, all the way to the titanium double-doors of the hotel elevator.
Seventeen footsteps. Five seconds. As he’d expected.
Evan doesn’t bother creating a game of it in his head this time. He occupies the very edge of the bed, raising his fingers to the area where he’d been struck.
Do you see now?
”Sh… Sh… She…”
She’s nothing. She’s nothing to us.
Evan breathes heavily and as easily as we can see, he can feel the beads of cold sweat protruding through his skin—his deathly pale, near-uncharacteristic skin.
Where’s the picture?
”I… I…”
GIVE ME THE FUCKING PICTURE.
Violently, Evan pushes himself off of the bed. He hurriedly drops to his knees in front of his suitcase and rips it open, removing wrestling trunks, socks, shirts, jackets, a toothbrush, shampoo—nearly all of its contents are ripped away and strewn about the floor in a manner that is accompanied by no rhyme or reason. Finally, Evan sits on his knees, gazing in at one of the few remaining items.
He’s hesitant to touch it, but soon we catch a glimpse of the brass picture frame that Evan had purchased just a few days earlier while in Los Angeles. Evan holds it in both hands, looking at the 8x10 photo he’d placed inside. His panicked expression doesn’t cease.
He hurt you. He made her hurt you. Hurt him.
Hurt him with this. It’s brass. It’s heavy. It’ll hurt him. It won’t break. He’ll break! IT WON’T BREAK! HE’LL BREAK!
Beat him with it. Break his skull. Crack his skull. Shatter him.
Beat him. Break him. Crack him. Shatter him.
Beat Smith. Break Smith. Crack Smith. Shatter Smith.
He did it.
He made her do it.
He hurt you.
Hurt him.
His fault. His fault. His fault. His fault. His fault. His fault. HIS FAULT. HIS FAULT. HIS FAULT.
The final image within the scene is of 8x10 photograph that A.C. Smith presented Evan Envi with, nearly five months ago in Greensboro, North Carolina. Evan can remember clear as day being presented the photo from an eager, condescending A.C. Smith—one operating under the façade that he’d come to Meltdown to see Evan’s progress; that he had shown up for Evan’s best interests as opposed to his own.
Ever since that fateful night on June 6th, Evan had dreamt of smashing the photograph over Smith’s skull and lacerating it. He always imagined throwing the broken pieces of glass, and the tattered pieces of the photo onto his chest—or better yet, shoving it straight into his face. Straight into his mouth.
Never before had the feeling been so tangible.
”It’s his fault.”
We blink into a far shot of the Tokyo Dome’s interior. As far as the eye can see, each and every seat in the arena remains empty. The top of the dome stretches for what seems like miles under the naked lens. The Tokyo sun pounds down from overhead, giving the entire arena an eerie type of natural golden lighting—coupled with the lack of electronics in used, each shadow is intensified. Each and every one seems larger than it would be under typical circumstances.
Finally, we find our target.
Seated several rows back in the arena is the Xtreme Champion, Evan Envi. The championship belt sits idly on his shoulder and he looks ahead with the same grim, cold, and callous expression as he’d been donning before.
We are barely able to get within ten feet of the champion before he angles his head toward us, though never really looking directly into the camera.
”It could happen anywhere.”
Evan laughs to himself. It’s continuous, and for seconds it doesn’t appear that Evan Envi is going to stop, but it ceases after upwards of a minute. Evan buries his face into his hands, rubbing his eyes for a few seconds before he speaks to us again, his gaze focused solely on the ring.
”This fight could spill out of that ring and it could happen anywhere in this arena. It’s almost… Comical, how easy it is for somebody else to stick their nose in my business this Sunday, which is exactly what I’ve been combating since the night I won the Xtreme Championship. Whereas the Elimination Chamber competitors are surrounded by miles upon miles of chain and steel, I’m left completely open to the elements.
“Not only do I have to defend the Xtreme Championship against two men at the same time, but my fate could be left in the fans of the tens of thousands of near-rioting fans that’ll occupy these seats tomorrow. I could be ripped apart within the Tokyo Dome by the most bloodthirsty fans on the face of the planet. It’s…”
Evan scoffs.
”It’s so typical. I wouldn’t expect the APW to have my best interest in mind, so while it doesn’t come as a surprise that I’m competing in such a match, it really opens my eyes. It really, truly makes me realize something for the first time…”
Evan reclines in the chair and glances toward the Xtreme Title belt. He grimaces and rolls his eyes toward the camera.
”After One Night in Hell, nobody will be able to deny my reign as the Xtreme Champion. Nick Watson bitched about me running away—and I have nowhere to run tomorrow. In fact, I wouldn’t be able to. If I don’t get Watson, Smith will and I lose my title anyway. Funny how that works, eh?”
Evan grins into the lens and holds both hands up, as if inviting his opponents on the other side of the lens to come through to the Tokyo Dome a night early—beckoning them for a challenge.
”Yet, it’s become more and more evident to me that the last thing I need to do is run away. I’m already exponentially superior to Nick Watson in every way that I can imagine, and A.C. Smith continues to be the most predictable prick in the history of the sport.
“And for those of you who don’t really catch my drift, allow me to explain A.C. Smith to you in a nutshell.
“Smith is a guy that doesn’t have a damn thing outside of the wrestling business that he can be proud of. A.C. Smith is the proud owner of a failed marriage in which his wife faked her own death to get away from him. For years, she lived in hiding just so she wouldn’t have to spend another second with the guy. One day, she got a bit ballsy and tried to run Smith down with a car. Actually—she succeeded. Now that was a hoot and I’m sorry that it didn’t happen here.
“He’ll tell you how much he hates the bitch, and he’ll even bore you with the details of a war waged with the man she found afterward-- my brother Tyler Harrison over four years ago. You’ll hear Smith take credit for driving Tyler out of a business that he wasn’t even in love with… And he’ll pocket that. He’ll take that small, personal accomplishment and he’ll throw it in your face every single opportunity he gets.
“A.C. Smith wrestled, and lost two matches against Terry Marvin. While there’s no shame in losing to the Undisputed Champion, Smith has convinced himself that he’s been the biggest challenge Terry’s run into thus far. Not Kurt Noble. Not Keaton Saint. A.C. Smith. Because apparently he’s that damn important.
“A.C. Smith knocked Biggs unconscious during a time where Biggs’ professional career was on a downward spiral, and his marriage had taken a turn for the worse. Biggs was nowhere near a condition where he was fit to compete, and he paid for it. Hell, even Slade Craven-- ANOTHER guy Smith brags about beating—managed to one-up Biggs.
“Do you know what happened when Smith faced a Biggs that had his head in the game, though? Do you know what happened when Smith’s opponent took the time to acknowledge him?
“He lost. He failed. When the chips were down, A.C. Smith couldn’t get the job done. And while it may come as a huge shock to A.C. Smith, it’s just a Wednesday for everybody else.
“A.C. Smith has this distorted perception of reality in which he sees himself as a massive, crowd-pleasing hero. The fact is, Smith has never been this person. A.C. Smith has never been the guy to beat. A.C. Smith has NEVER been Mr. Main Event like he's always wanted to be, and unless A.C. Smith has a compelling rival, there's not a compelling thing about him.
"He has to remind you guys of the smallest feats in his career, because they're nearly impossible to remember on your own. How many of you can list a single one of Smith's 'six' World Title reigns? How many of you are going to remember the time Smith beat Biggs or CJ Gates, or almost beat Terry Marvin on Overdrive during that one summer?
"One person will. And that's A.C. Smith.
"I've been worried about Nick Watson for weeks and weeks, and I've vowed to never look over my shoulder again or allow myself to be bullied or intimidated by him, but Watson isn't the guy that I need to worry about taking this on Sunday..."
Evan picks the belt up in his hands, cradling it. A warm smile crosses his features and he gazes up toward the camera once more.
"Watson, you haven't been doing this long enough to start drowning your sorrows in a bottle of Jack because you failed. You were never good enough to reach a point where you could say you let anybody down, or let yourself down. You've already defied everybody's expectations...
"You still have a fucking job. Congratulations. You've already single-handedly turned more heads by still being here than Smith has in the past six months, in spite of his self-promoting hype videos. In spite of his handy-dandy list of accomplishments. In spite of his empty threats."
Evan sighs and gives the camera one final, cold look.
"I was told to look out for you guys. And I am. I have eyes everywhere. Ears... Everywhere."
Abruptly, we blink to darkness.
"But make sure you look out for us too."
