Scene One
Xavier took the lead as they stepped through the door, Melissa following his lead. It had been the first time in months he had been here and it showed as he looked around in wonder at his surroundings, carelessly dropping on the floor the bag with the few belongings he had brought home from the hospital. She made to follow him but he held up a hand and motioned for her to stay put. She obeyed him, looking down, not making eye contact with her brother.
Xavier wandered into the kitchen, eye catching a five-by-three photograph held to the steel door of the refrigerator via a colorful covered magnet. He plucked the photo from its position, ignoring the magnet dropping at his feet and rolled for a moment before finally settling. Riley and him were huddled close together, staring at the camera lens and smiling. He remembered the day clearly, it had been taken right before their wedding, when they were happiest.
He looked at it for a long minute, a sob coming up from his throat choking him. "Xavier?," said Melissa, the sound of worry and concern clear in her voice, "Everything OK?" His throat closed in upon itself, words of his voice coming out with a croak, "I'm fine, Mel. Just stay there alright." His forehead leaning up against the coldness of the steel, hand crumpling the photo into a ball as he made a fist and pounded into the door, hitting inches from his head.
He tossed the picture to the side, discarding it as it were a simple trash item. The feeling in his throat worsened, unable to hide the sound of his sobbing from his sister in the nearby hall. She was concerned but was still listening to what he had told her, allowing him the space and time to cope with how much things have changed. This had to be extremely difficult for him to confront the truth, that the bitch had left him in his sleep but that his life would eventually piece itself back together after time.
Xavier turned and staggered to the sink behind him. The water poured through the faucet with a turn of a handle, dropping into a harmless pool before swirling down the drain. His hands cupped, becoming a vessel for the liquid and splashed it against his face as he was trying to regain some for of composure. It failed, his attention focusing in on his hand. He was twitching, hand balling up into a fist and shaking violently. He slammed it down, yelling the only form of release he had not tried yet, "God damn it! What the fuck is this?!"
The sleeve of his shirt rolled up showing his wrist and forearm, the scope of the damage down to his body finally setting in. His reflection visible in the sheet of glass from the window above the sink. Fingertips reaching his bottom lip unable to control the twitch. Yes, it was true and not some illusion, some trick of the mind but it was his face now. In his eye, his was monster now. What his mind thought mattered little, this is what other people would see of him.
In a blur of motion, his actions effecting the physical world before he realized it, blind to everything other then what his anger had directed. The puppet pulled with strings but his puppeteer of rage. Chairs cast aside by him, cracking under the weight of themselves with the force of the momentum. "What the fuck have they done to me," he yelled, "What the fuck happened to my life? Everything! They fucking took everything from me!" Dining table flipped onto the side, the stress of such a feat in his state casing him to collapse, falling with his back hitting the underside of the now overturned table.
Melissa had expected him to react as much, the situation proving too much to take in at one time, but she was not willing to stand idly by and watch him self-destruct like this. She knelt down at his side, taking him in her arms, tears soaking her jacket as his head lay on her shoulder. He managed to choke out a few coherent sentences but for the most part, everything he was saying made no sense to her whatsoever, "Why couldn't they just have killed me? Incompetent fuckers couldn't do the job right and finish me off." "And I'm glad they didn't," she told him, rubbing his back and trying to sound soothing and calming, "What would I do without you?"
Xavier did not bother responding to the question, but continuing on with his ramblings, "It's all over, Mel. I can't live like this. There's nothing left for me." Her lips pressed to his cheek with a kiss, "You have me and I'm not leaving you. You're my brother and I'm not going to stop loving you because of anything of this." His voice was returning to something of a calm, reducing his hysterical down but clearly still on the edge of the proverbial cliff, "I can't stay here. Too many memories of everything that's gone now. I can't go on thinking about it all."
The thought was probably the most rational thing that he had said since he woke up, wanting to move on with his life and leave the shell of this one behind. "OK, we'll get a hotel or something until we can find a new place for you," she told him, "But are you going to do now?" His words had to be the most chilling she had ever heard from anyone, let alone him, coming out from his throat and mouth what can only be described as a growl, "Make them pay for this... All of them."
Scene Two
Xavier and Melissa lay asleep in their bed together, his arm wrapped around her as she snuggled her head against his chest. Melissa wore a smile across her face, dreaming of something that must have been pleasurable to her, the facet that her face rested on the scarred tissue of his body. Xavier lay slumbering as well, holding her close, his face betraying no sign of emotion or feeling. Light from the large, glass double doors shown through their bedroom, falling short of them, the direct source of the light landing feet from Melissa's side of the bed.
Xavier felt her silken hair slide across his arm, Melissa turning her head to the red digital numbers blinking on the nightstand. "Fucking God damn it," she cursed, the tone and volume of her voice along with the current motion her jumping from the bed had roused Xavier from his rest. "What's wrong? I miss something here?," he asked, rubbing both his eyes with his fingers trying to clear his web and shake out the cobwebs. "I have class, you were supposed to wake me up remember?," said Melissa pulling a white t-shirt over her head and down her chest and stomach. Xavier merely offered an apologetic shrug, not bothering to get up yet himself, "Sorry, Mel. Maybe you shouldn't tire me out all night."
Melissa took a pair of blue jeans with a black leather belt already looped through it, blushed at her brother as she slipped them on over her legs and waist. Yes, she was pissed off at him right now for not waking her up for her class at NYU, but that feeling would vanish the second she walked out the door as it always did at such times. In the end, he would always get away with murder when it came to her and vice versa.
Xavier watched as she sat down on the upholstered chair in the bedroom in the nearby corner, slipping a pair of running sneakers, pulling back a bit of hair from her face to behind her ear. "My cell's on vibrate," she told him, "So you can call me while I'm there." "Vibrate huh?," said Xavier with a laugh, "Bet you would like it if I did call." Melissa stood up blushing at him again, trying to appear angry at him but failing miserably.
She sat down on the bed next to him, hovering her body over his with an arm on each side of his, "Asshole. You'll be there to pick me up right?" "Of course," he said, "Just don't get pissed off at me if I check out some of the other college chicks." "You wouldn't dare. I'd so hurt you if you wouldn't get turned on by it," said Melissa before kissing him, "I have to go, I'm late as it is. Love you."
He watched as she walked from the bed and ran through the bedroom doorway, eyes catching her small ass and thinking he'd make another go at it with her before she left but she was already gone. The door to their midtown apartment slamming shut to signal her departure, leaving him there alone in the isolation of their bedroom.
He really did not want to wake up let alone get out of the bed, but he knew he could not just lay there and waste away the day. Besides, if he was not at her campus waiting for Melissa's class to get out, it would be his ass. She had made it a point to tell him it was important to show how supportive he was in this, as if being a journalism major required anything more then just showing up and looking smart.
Xavier tossed the sheet aside and rolled off from the bed, the soles on his feet pressing down with his weight against the off-white carpeted floor. His right hand rubbed his chest, grimacing as if in pain, wincing at the sight of the scarred flesh on the back of his hand. He was disgusted with himself for the appearance, but right now, there was nothing that could be done about it. He was lucky enough to find someone to work on his face and reverse the damage done.
He grabbed at the cylindrical red bottle sitting idly on the table next to his side of the bed, having a trouble with the damn childproof cap. He was still having trouble dealing with small things like this with his hand, the top finally coming off after much effort. Reading the label to make sure he was not taking the wrong thing by mistake, he saw the name clear as day with the black ink on the clean, white paper, "Prozac." Tapping one capsule out into the palm of his hand, he closed the top and tossed it back over his shoulder on the bed which he was sitting.
He hated this part of the morning, forcing himself to swallow his pride and just take the damned medication already. He despised the fact that Melissa was worried about him, his periods of depression and practically dragged him into the office of some shrink. Now he had to visit this guy every week and spill out his feelings, get some "me" time, know how to use stress management techniques. She had even gone so far as to threaten to end it if he did not seek out help. He did not know whether or not she was serious with the threat, but it was not a risk he was willing to take. He hated her being actually angry with him to begin with, but he leaving him alone would most likely end up killing him. If the stress did not do the job, he own issues and unwillingness to confront them would force him to do it himself.
Besides her, what else did he have left? The aftermath of what Victor and the rest of his cronies had done to him had seen to stripping him of everything he had. His career. His marriage. His faith in humanity. His life. He woke up from the coma with nothing left. He did not give a shit about anything material that Riley had left in the house, but almost everything he had grown used to and love being ripped away from him in the instant he awoke was what really ate at him. The inability to feed himself, go to the bathroom without the aid of a nurse, walking between metal rods to hold himself up with his arms because his legs were to weak to hold him up for weeks on end. The indignities he was forced to endure were unbearable.
Xavier's hand popped the capsule into his mouth, the glass that had been sitting on the table next to the prescription bottle half filled with water in his hand and held to his mouth, the stagnant tap water sliding down his throat with the Prozac caught up in its flow. He shook his head, holding the back of his hand, holding back a sniff and set the glass back down to its former spot back down on the table.
He stood up, walking shakily to the glass doorway to the small balcony outside. He stood leaning his elbow against the molding along the frame, forearm pressed to his forehead as he gazed outside the windowed wall across the street. How had he fallen this far? Reduced to a shriveled mess of self-pity and depression, he was not the Xavier Michaels that had been a world champion. The fire and Victor Von Doom had changed all that, turning him into a desperate individual with nothing to lose. In the end, Xavier thought, Victor had created his own demise. A monster of his own making.
Scene Three
Once in awhile, Xavier let his thoughts wander to what his life would have been like if he had taken a different path. Walking through the NYU campus brought just dreams to the forefront. If he went to college, his life right now would probably be dramatically different and mostly like better, but hindsight is always twenty-twenty and it was no use thinking about turning back time. Still though, such ideas pleased him and it was something Melissa was striving towards, a future other then the one he was forced to live through now.
Every now and then, he felt guilty about their relationship. Morality had dictated that what they were doing was wrong but if there was anything he had learned through his life experiences, life never always followed the accepted path. Some people believe that every person is born with an already predestined soul mate, just because someone screwed up the line and mixed Melissa up and had her end up his sister was no fault of theirs so why should they punish themselves. The main source of guilt he had felt that he was keeping her bound to his own fate when she had so much of a better life ahead of her, but she would not stop loving him no matter how much of the "You can do a lot better then me," talk he used to give her.
He sat down on the wooden bench, close enough to the building she would be coming out of and he was not going to be standing around outside the room like an idiot for who knew how long. On his way down here in the cab, he got the call telling him of the specifics for Sin City Spectacular, which he could hardly care less about. That was until he was told he was booked in a match for the New Breed title? How the fuck had he gone from being an Ultimate Champion to being in a filler match along with the rest of the new guys. It was fucking insulting to even be associated with some low card title like this. He might as well throw the thing in the trash after he wins like him and Emerald had done with the tag belts.
Was this someone's idea of a joke. Shane had told him that he should take out Jackson and reclaim his former title, but this was just ridiculous. Had Jackson stepped down, the title renamed and the prestige of it completely gone to shit? The Freak, Thorn, Ness, Skylar Kelly, Nero Natas, who the fuck were these jokers? The whole thing read like a guest list to a Special Olympics version of The Last Supper. Did he just get piled in with the rest of the people they didn't know what to do with? His career must really have gone to shit if this was what he was reduced to, opening a pay-per-view in a filler battle royal with a bunch of people he had never heard of for a the lowest of the low titles.
No matter, this would serve its own purpose. Time to clean out the gene pool screwing up the ESW roster. When he eventually dethroned Jackson, he intended to be the figurehead of a respectable promotion, not a collection of retards where a staring contest between a pothead like Brody and a stuffed duck gets major time. His vengeance against Victor was the ultimate goal for him, the cleansing of ESW being a secondary one that would become necessary once the first was accomplished.
Melissa exited the building, backpack slung over her right shoulder and spotted him on the bench instantly. She smiled and waved to him, meeting together in the middle of the distance between with a kiss.