"There," David said, taking a step back and examining his handiwork. "How's that feel?"
Shifting slightly on the motel room bed, taking great care so as to not upset the cold pack that his older brother had precariously placed in the center of his forehead, Steven managed to smile up at the ceiling and flash him a thumbs-up. "Not bad," he replied lightly. "If this whole professional wrestling gig doesn't pan out, you oughta go to nursing school."
David chuckled at his brother's dry humor, resisting the urge to give him a deadarm or something. The guy'd been dropped by a lead pipe to the face, and the last thing David wanted to do right now was to inflict any further harm; if the Locusts decided to try and make another play for them and Steven was little more than a liability, well...
He shook the thought from his head, perfectly content to leave that particular sentence unfinished.
"You go ahead and rest for a few hours," he said, reaching over and switching off the lamp next to Steven's bed, plunging the room into a semi-darkness that was only lit by the soft, bluish-gray light coming in through the room's window. "We'll leave tomorrow morning or somethin'."
"Yeah, okay." Steven sighed deeply, and his eyes fell shut. "What're you gonna do?" he asked, his voice already becoming heavy with drowsiness.
David's shoes were already on. As he pulled his dark-gray peacoat and pulled open the door, Steven's words made him pause. "Huh." He shrugged. "Don't worry about me - I'll find some way to pass the time. You just rest, and don't try to get outta bed or nothin'; we can't risk you getting hurt any worse than you already are."
And God knows I won't get lucky like that again. He knows I'm not a fighter like you.Steven nodded, his eyes still closed, and said nothing more.
Taking care to be quiet, David opened the door to their motel room, stepped out onto the balcony that ran the length of the second floor, and slowly pulled it shut behind him. He sighed deeply and turned to look out from the balcony, across the grassy expanse before him.
As October drew to a close, Jack Frost had begun to make himself comfortable in the American Heartland. The days had grown shorter and colder since David's reunion with his younger brother. Likewise, life in general appeared, at least to David, to be doing the same - he didn't doubt that over the past few months, his life expectancy had taken the sharpest of nosedives. Things had even progressed to the point where David had accepted that he would die by another man's hand as fact, and had given up on living a long, prosperous life altogether.
On more than one occasion he'd caught himself wondering exactly
how the Locusts would get him - bullet in the braincase?
Knife through the adam's apple?
Razorblade run the length of his abdomen?
David didn't rightly know, but he'd come to accept it as an eventuality, an inevitability. He'd seen enough of the mafia-like organization's mindset, seen enough of the lengths to which they were willing to go to, seen enough of their single-minded devotion to bloodshed of the most gruesome kind, to know that they wouldn't stop until he and Steven and everyone connected to either of them were in the dirt or swimming with the fishes or in a multitude of separate trash receptacles.
David leaned forward, resting his forearms on the guardrail that ran the length of the balcony, and chuckled lightly to himself.
C wut I did thar?He tilted his head back, looking up. The sky was a listless shade of grayish-blue, with nary a ray of pure sun able to pierce the thick cloud cover. The wind kicked up and whipped the tails of his peacoat to and fro, and David hunched over a bit further until it died down again.
He enjoyed days like this; the brisk air, the unstable wind, the overcast sky...something about the big picture they all came together to form appealed to him. It always had.
David stood up and walked along the balcony, letting his fingers drag on the cool metal of the guardrail as he went and delighting in the reaming chill that the contact sent up his hand. He couldn't put his finger on why he loved this cool, dreary autumn weather so much, and to be frank, he really didn't want to. There was just something nice about going for a walk through a fall-ridden park at the end of October; Lord knows he and Rachel had done it enough times to--
He stopped walking, his train of thought derailed.
Rachel.
Rachel.Suddenly, inexplicably, David missed his wife. Missed her so bad that it hurt. How many months had it been since they'd seen each other? Two? Three? He wasn't entirely sure, but however many months it had been was much too high a number for him to be okay with.
He reached into his right front pocket and withdrew his phone. He had to call her, had to talk to her. He just had to.
Don't do that.David sighed in annoyance, remembering what Steven had told him after Rachel had boarded her flight to Seattle.
You two shouldn't talk on the phone. Ever.What the--why not?!They'll get her.
Dude, they're not the CIA - they can't trace cell phone calls.
Dave, you don't know how these guys operate. There will be no way - NO WAY - of telling whether or not we're being watched or listened to. Ever. And if they pick up on the fact that your wifey's gone off to see the Space Needle, you can bet that they'll go after her. You...Sorry, man. Them's the breaks. It's just better not to tempt fate, know what I mean?...I guess...Good man. Now, promise me you won't try and call her......Say it.I...I promise.David sighed in what appeared to be consent, and started to put his smartphone back in his jeans pocket. However, just as he was about to slip the device into its fabric sheath, the wind gusted again, ever so slightly. David lifted his head just in time for it to whisper past his face, lightly caressing his cheek like she of whom the autumnal wind reminded him. His facial muscles twitched with the briefest flash of internal confliction, and then steeled themselves into a resolved frown.
He pulled his phone away from his pocket, opened up the touchscreen keypad, and began to dial.
***Full Metal Wrestling presents...APARTStarring...
David Smith
Rachel Smith*** Rachel leaned back against the headboard of her sister's bed, watching Jersey Shore on the TV that was mounted on a desk on the far wall. She hated the show - dumb, muscle-bound airheads and plastic, cock-hungry bimbos was all it was.
But it was Kylene's room, not hers.
"How can you like this shit?" Rachel asked, glancing over at her 18-year-old sister, who was sitting at a desk next to the bed, doing homework. Kylene swiveled her rolling chair around so that she could look at Rachel, and offered her sister an annoyed frown.
"It's good TV," she said flatly. "Like a soap opera, only better."
Rachel's mouth dropped open in shock for a moment, and then she laughed. "Poor girl," she replied, leaning back on Kylene's pillow. "I feel bad for you and the rest of your generation - none of you have any idea what good TV is anymore."
"Oh, yeah, and
you do?" Kylene snorted. "You spend all your time watching men in tights, one of which happens to be your supposedly-straight husband, grope one another! And--" She suddenly stopped short and pressed a hand to her mouth, aware of the line she'd just crossed. Her older sister was staring at her in hard silence, eyes narrow, lips pressed into a thin line.
"Rachel," she stuttered, "I'm sorry, I--"
Rachel held up her hand, stopping Kylene mid-sentence. "It's okay," she said, having to exert a good deal of effort to keep her voice even. "Let's just...let's drop it."
Kylene nodded and quickly turned back to her homework, not wanting to ruin what she believed to be a clean escape from Rachel's wrath. Her brother-in-law, Rachel's husband, was in a bad spot back in Nebraska; she knew that. In hindsight, she also realized how stupid and insensitive it was of her to mock David during this time, especially in Rachel's presence.
'Stupid,' she scolded herself.
'Stupid, stupid, stupid.'Meanwhile, the older Reese sister had gone silent, again watching Jersey Shore but not really seeing it. Her mind's eye was long gone; it had traveled to the American Midwest, searching desperately for the man she'd married. Rachel could almost see him - standing alone, with none but his brother by his side, against an evil organization that numbered in the thousands.
They'd kill him. It was all but impossible to believe otherwise, and it tore Rachel's very being apart.
If she lost David...she'd lose a part of herself, as well. If he died, then she, Rachel Smith, would most certainly die along with him; then only Rachel Reese would be left, with no choice but to resume life as it had gone on before meeting David.
Rachel shuddered. She didn't want her last name to be Reese again. She didn't want to live that life again.
She'd been born Rachel Annabelle Reese.
She was born, raised, and educated in a small, upper-middle class Seattle suburb, where she lived with her mother Lisa, her father Daniel, and her younger sister Kylene. From the very start, she had been a well-to-do young lady, fully accomplished in all aspects of intellect and social grace. As she ran the gauntlet from kindergarten to twelfth grade, her report cards never showed anything other than A's and occasionally - VERY occasionally, if you asked her or her parents - a B.
Even in high school, which is typically the start to many a student's downward spiral, Rachel maintained her status as the 'good girl': she was on her class' student council, she regularly performed community service, and she led her school's girls volleyball team to a state championship her senior year; she never drank, never smoked, and never did drugs of any kind; despite having a steady boyfriend throughout her high school tenure, and despite her highly desirable measurements (36DD-26-36), she remained a steadfast virgin.
Rachel then went up the road to Pullman, Washington to earn a degree in secondary education. She eventually did just that, all while still refraining from drinking, smoking, and drugs, and only having sexual intercourse a grand total of two times, neither of which she was particularly fond of recalling.
That was her life. Prim, proper, and near-perfect, save for one minor detail...
She wasn't happy. Not in the slightest.
Sure, she had her friends and family, all of whom she indeed loved to the fullest. And sure, she had a degree and a resume that most school districts would kill for, which she had worked hard for and wouldn't give away for anything.
Rachel had everything she needed, but not everything she wanted.
She wanted a significant other that was really, truly significant. She wanted companionship that was compatible on the deepest, most intimate levels of the human experience. She wanted someone to confide in and who would confide in her, who shared her values and her goals and was willing to work towards them together with her.
In short, she wanted love.
Of course, when her friends had talked her into joining them for a long New Year's weekend in Las Vegas, she hadn't been expecting to find it. She'd just been hoping to blow off some of the steam that her new job as an assistant teacher had accumulated, spend some quality time with her friends, and maybe (though the goody-goody Rachel would never admit this to anyone), get laid.
Rachel accomplished the first goal. She also accomplished the second.
The third, however, never came to pass. Rachel had been well on her way to making it happen; she'd gotten significantly inebriated for the first time in her life, and gone down to the casino of Caesar's Palace looking for a good time. She found it sitting at a Blackjack table, fairly drunk himself; the two of them had danced for a few minutes and then gone staggering up to his penthouse suite.
The next morning, she had awoken in a suite that wasn't hers, lying next to the sleek, muscular, hungover form of one David Smith.
That had been the start. After that, nothing had been the same.
She'd moved in to his penthouse apartment back in Omaha almost immediately. From there, everything - EVERYTHING - had been different. She'd landed a job at a high school in the Millard school district, the Omaha schooling system's pride and joy. She'd made a whole plethora of new friends almost right off the bat, both through her new job and her new husband. There'd been more drinking, more partying, and more sex.
Looking back, Rachel thought that was one of the biggest changes her marrying David had brought about - compared to her two experiences in college, both of which had been mediocre at best, she and David did it A LOT.
And she liked it - A LOT. In fact, compared to her pre-marriage sexual output, what she was doing now could be considered borderline slutty.
Rachel smiled slightly to herself. She was okay with that - David had helped make her into a new person, someone she herself liked better. And if he were to be killed, then this new person, this new Rachel - the one who wasn't afraid to take chances, who wasn't afraid to release her inhibitions and have a good time every once in a while, and who was more in love with someone than even her wildest dreams had ever predicted, would be killed right alongside him.
Rachel got up from the bed and headed for the bedroom door.
"Hey," Kylene called after her. "Where are you going?"
"Taking a walk," Rachel replied curtly, stepping out into the hall and pulling the door shut behind her. She descended the steps to the house's first level and headed straight for the front door, and was pulling on her white parka when a voice from behind stopped her.
"Going somewhere?"
Rachel turned to see her mother standing in the entrance to the foyer, leaning against one wall and staring at her in concern. "I'm just taking a walk," she attempted to say lightly. "No big deal." She carefully studied her mother's face, looking for some sign that she had bought it and seeing nothing of the sort. "Everything's okay, mom. I promise."
Lisa Reese said nothing and continued to watch her daughter. Rachel quickly grew uncomfortable under her solemn gaze, and began to squirm.
"He'll be okay," she finally said, catching Rachel a tad off-guard. "You know that, right?"
"I..." Rachel stuttered. "I..."
Her mother nodded, as if confirming what she'd just said. "I'd like for you to bring him here to meet us someday," she said. "If what you've told me about him is true, then he seems like a fine young man. I'm sure he'll be fine."
Before Rachel could muster up a response, she turned and left the foyer.
Rachel watched her go. She then turned, opened the door, and stepped out into the frigid October night, pulling the front door shut behind her.
***
It was cold. Really cold.
Rachel didn't mind, though - as a matter of fact, she enjoyed nights like this. The frigid air did something to the senses; made them sharper, clearer. She and David had spent many a winter day and many an autumn night strolling through Memorial Park, which wasn't far from their apartment back in Omaha.
She stopped at the end of her street, and looked up at the full moon that hung overhead. God, how she missed it.
God, how she missed him.
ZZZZZZZZZRachel glanced down at her side, where a small square of light was shining through the front pocket of her jeans. Someone was calling her.
ZZZZZZZZZSlightly irritated, Rachel reached down into the tight, hip-hugging pocket and attempted to wrestle her phone out. Who could be calling? It was probably Kylene or her mother, or even her father, all worried about her. It annoyed her to no end; she was grateful for them taking her in during these pressing times, and she was appreciative of them trying to help, but there was no way they could possibly hope to--
Rachel saw the Caller ID and stopped dead, her blood frozen.
It was him.
It was David.
Oh my God...With hands shaking so badly her thumb almost couldn't find the 'answer' button, Rachel lifted the phone to her ear and hesitantly, as if it were too good to be true, said, ".....hello?"
"Heheheh..." The first thing she heard was laughter - sincere, happy laughter.
"Hey, babe. Guess who?""David," she said. It was one word, simply spoken, and yet it carried with it a greater joy than Rachel had ever felt before. Her mouth formed a broad grin, and her eyes twinkled in the light of the full moon overhead. "Hi..."
Then something strange happened - neither of them knew what to say to one another. Rachel had all these pent-up emotions that she wanted - needed - to express to David, and something told her that he was the same way at the other end of the connection, but something - maybe it was the fact that over-the-phone wasn't the best way to reconnect, or maybe the timing was just off, she didn't rightly know - was holding them both back.
Tell him...tell him now."So..." David started awkwardly,
"how's Seattle?""Oh," Rachel replied with the same awkwardness, "it's great. Kinda cold, though."
Kinda cold?! KINDA COLD?! What the fuck's wrong with you?!"Heheh, yeah," David said.
"Same here."Tell him! NOW! TELL HIM!"How's Steven?" Rachel asked.
THE FUCK?!"He's all right," David said.
"Took a pretty nasty bump on the head the other day - lead pipe to the face.""My God!" Rachel exclaimed. "Will be be okay?"
"Oh yeah, he'll be fine. He's tough - fighting these guys, these Locusts, it takes a lot more than wrestling every few weeks. Steve's tough - a lot tougher than I am."Rachel couldn't help but smile sadly - so quick to belittle himself. David always had been.
"Hey," he continued, seeming to grow a bit more comfortable with the conversation,
"speaking of wrestling, you been watching FMW lately?""Actually, yeah," she said, her smile widening a bit. "Got my whole family into it."
"Haha, really?""Yeah," Rachel confirmed. "My sister still isn't too keen on it, but she'll still watch it every now and again. My dad's really gotten into it - he really likes John Derrick and Alex O'Rion right now, and you, too. He swore like a sailor when you lost at Catalyst," she finished, laughing at the memory.
David laughed as well; Rachel loved the sound.
"That's awesome," he said.
"And you guys know I'm wrestling for the TV Championship at 12.1, right?""Yeah!" Rachel exclaimed. "I'm so excited for you, honey - you'll do great, I know it."
"Well, hey," he said,
"that's great to hear. Listen, I gotta go."Rachel's face fell. "Oh...really?"
"Uh, yeah." Something had changed in his voice. He sounded distracted now.
"But listen, tell your family I said hi, and that everything's going fine back here, okay?"Rachel swallowed hard, suddenly afraid - that last part had sounded like a lie. "O...okay," she said softly. "I will."
"That's my girl. I don't know when I'll be able to call you again, but you won't be there for much longer - I swear.""Okay," she repeated.
"Cool - I gotta go, I'll see you--""David?" Rachel asked, her voice suddenly urgent.
There was a moment of silence, and then,
"Yeah?"Don't fuck this up."I..." she said. "I...I love you."
David was silent again, but when he finally did answer, the conviction with which he spoke was enough to make Rachel feel okay about whatever her husband was getting into.
"I love you too," he said.
"More than anything."Click.Rachel lowered the phone from her ear, and slipped it back into her pocket. She was still standing on the street corner; she had been for several minutes now. After glancing up and down the street a few times, unsure of which way to go, she finally turned and headed back towards her parent's house.
She felt a lot better.
***
David put his phone back in his front pocket. He thought he'd done a pretty good job at keeping his voice level; Rachel hadn't sounded like she'd suspected anything when they hung up.
I must be getting better at this."Nnnng...lemme, lemme go!"
He'd crept up behind David while he was on the phone with Rachel, an average-sized man with shades and a rapidly-receding hairline. He'd been sloppy; David had heard him coming a mile away and spun, knocking him senseless with the back of his fist before pinning his throat to the wall with his forearm. He'd spent the rest of the conversation with Rachel semi-distracted, staring at the green Locust insignia on the man's upper arm.
"Let me go!" the Locust snarled again.
"Why?" David asked calmly. "So you can go and tell your boss where my wife is? So your boys can hunt her down like you've been hunting my brother and I?" He pressed his forearm tighter against the man's adam's apple, cutting off whatever reponse he may have been forming. "It doesn't matter," he continued, "because you won't be doing it. Now come on," he said, dragging the man bodily down the balcony towards his and Steven's room. "We're gonna have some dude-time."
Wonder if Steve's feeling up to torture...The Locust, fully aware of what David and Steven Smith were capable of, began to wimper like a small child. David ignored the pathetic noise; the man had heard too much.
Right now, several hundred miles stood between Rachel and the Locusts' area of operations. And David was gonna make damn sure it stayed that way.
No matter the cost.
Subject: Re: FMW 12.1 VOTING AND PROMO THREAD 
Fri Oct 29, 2010 2:39 pm
Still Omega did enough to win.
