Post by Matt Knox on Jan 16, 2022 1:20:37 GMT -5
It was in the air over Baltimore, MD that Matthew Knox had made a quiet vow to himself. He vowed as he descended to the start of the next and greatest leg of his journey that he would not repeat the mistakes of the past. He would not get caught up in the flow of anyone else’s stream. All business. All violence. Friendship, Love, soft dreams of a better life and world? Those were for the rookies.
He was on a mission.
And he had failed.
Failed to the point that he was once again heading to Nevada, which seemed to have become one of a couple ground zeroes for what could only be described as eventual martyrdom. The Impala glided along tarmac only a shade darker black than the car itself. The windows were down, his right hand resting on the steering wheel while the left propped up a tiered, heavy head.
One heavy, even free of a crown.
He shouldn’t be getting involved in this. It wasn’t any of his business, his lot in life.It wasn’t anything to him. Or it shouldn’t be. But it was.
Because she asked him not to let her hurt anyone.
Because when he thought about giving in and calling it a good try, she reached out when she didn’t have to.
Because he knew that if the roles were reversed, she’d be doing the same as him.
He hadn’t gotten far into Nevada, pulling off the highway into the first town to get gas for the anything but economical big block that rumbled beneath the Impala’s hood when he saw it alone in a parking lot. Red, Black shiny but not kept under lock and key shiny. Red, black, custom exhaust. It was a stretch, but he had some luck yet.
And when chasing ghosts, you take what you can.
He moved the Impala to a parking space at the gas station, taking a moment to dig a smoke out of his pocket while he stepped out of the car. The ‘satisfying ‘clunk’ of the heavy old door coincided with the ‘flick’ of his lighter as he sparked up the camel non filter. One puff to soothe the nerves.
Always the nerves around this one.
And his long legs took him across the street. He didn’t have to look too hard. It was the only bike in the lot, so it stood to reason she was the only person at the roadside park. Even if she wasn;t, she was the only one who looked like her hair was on fire.
Another puff, an exhale of the noxious fumes and he turned the rest of the smoke out on the heel of his old, worn Stacey Adams. A resolute nod and he started the slow, careful walk toward her. The fiery glow of a desert sun casting a long shadow before him as his legs carried him toward her.
Amber had never been the type to run from anything, maybe that was a detriment to a happier existence. Discretion and valor never quite seeing eye to eye.
However things were different… even with days in the rear view she still tasted smoke at the back of her throat. Angry blisters and burns on her hands loosened her grip on the chain of the swing as she rocked back and forth, metal groaning in protest at the absolute minimum effort.
A smaller burn along the edge of her jaw that traced down the side of her neck in places twinged as she gritted her teeth at the moving shadow. Nothing more outward than her fingers tightening around the chain managed to pass the glacial armour she'd thrown up.
Anything worth saying had been said, sides had been chosen and somehow Amber found herself scrambling for cover as the bomb shelters slammed closed around her.
This was her nuke though, only seemed fitting she might see it detonate up close and personally.
Jacket squeaking over the hoodie she'd thrown on in a rush, she swallowed hard as the numbness shifted more comfortably under her skin.Worried eyes hone in on the blemishes but he’s silent, save the creak of old chains as his weight comes down in the swing next to hers. Long legs bent almost comically as he began to sway lazily. The faint smell of smoke perverted the usual cinnamon essence that accompanied his friend, and it caused something within to twinge.
The toe of a worn loafer dug at the dirt thoughtfully in the seemingly endless, damning silence of the bubble she had created around herself and this playground.
“I like the new bike.” he finally broke the silence with a sentiment as far away from the obvious trauma she was enduring that he could throw together at the moment. Fingers tightened their grip on the chains they had latched thoughtlessly onto, bracing for whatever direction the sentiment had launched them in.
A twitch under her left eye flickered, the curl of response at the edge of her lip dissipating as quickly as it might have materialised. Normally this would have been the point that she told him all the directions in which he could get fucked and the distances of Fuding it would take to get there.
Now though, words seemed to choke like the acrid smoke that clung on her tongue. Frustration dug further into the sand as her boot scuffed silently on a previously buried rock.
Ignorance could have been bliss, however Matthew Knox could never allow such things to stand. Maybe he'd get bored and move on, find a damsel that needed him instead of the smoldering wreckage of a hurricane's best.
One could only hope, as she gently traced the links of the chain with her faintly soot covered fingertips. His gaze twitched to her once, using every microsecond afforded to commit more blemishes to memory.
Guess Mac wasn't being a blowhard over the suspicious nature of the fire. Just a braying jackass for airing it for the world to see.
The tightening of his grip on the chains, the slight pinch upon his palms acted as a tether before he let the vitriol and the bitterness consume him. Mac didn't matter. The fire hardly did.
"You don't have to talk and I won't after this…" a pause, choosing his next words carefully in case they were his last of the evening.
"I'm...glad you're alive."
A small scoff, the kind that came involuntarily and seemed to shred any good intention that might fall into it's whimsy, emerged briefly. Encouraging if only for the fact it proved she had something in her that could still make noise.
"It's a vast overreaction." Another twitch, this one a little less easy to disguise under the heavy mass of crimson that shielded the worst of prying eyes. "A great exaggeration in a moment of fury."
Matter of factly, she replied as her hands fell in around shoulder height as though uncertain if she wanted to push away or allow them to collapse into her lap.
Eye contact wasn't necessary, the resulting Twitter explosion led to things being said that shouldn't have… accusations made and values questioned in the wake of apathetic tragedy.
Fire didn't give a Fudge what it took, it existed to consume- however in the wake of the flames, it still managed to keep taking...
He resisted the urge to crack wise 'So you CAN still speak!' Died quietly behind his eyes as he nodded silently. He rummaged instead through a barrel of platitude, fighting his own nature and refusing to dive in and drag the truth to the surface.
'Who did this? Where are they? Why? Does this have to do with the weirdo talking about their perfect hurricane?'
"People react differently in the face of stressors. I'm sure Mac is stewing in regret and putting off apologizing for the sake of pride, same as you.." his tone was as close to comforting and reassuring as he could muster.
Crooking an eyebrow, Amber knew as well as anyone the empty nature of that platitude likely held more than just good intentions. As though the state of her relationship had ever been anything but cannon fodder to someone just looking for their next thrill.
"You can stop pretending like you care now. All this attempted niceties, you can't sit there and pretend like you weren't Fuding rubbing your hands together as things were imploding for everyone to see." Monotone did little to disguise the underlying hurt, she'd been called a greater deal of worse things in the nearly fifteen years she'd been doing this 'professionally'.
However the fact that she was somehow in the wrong like defending herself in the face of apathy and scavenging hyenas looking for their next headline.
No one ever said she had to be rational, but it didn't make her pain any less valid either.
"You enjoyed it as much as every other piece of Poop waiting to throw in their two cents. By all means… throw. You won't hear an argument from me."
"That it then? You think I just drove across state lines to seek you out, tell you everything I'm sure you wanna hear and drag you to a seedy motel, bet on your self destruction winning out over good sense?" Biting, and notably wounded. His gaze leveled on her as he spoke, before letting the statement hang in the air.
"Rip and tear into me all you want, but never insult me by implying I think so little of you again."
He kicked ar the mound of dirt his toe had amassed almost petulantly. A shake of his head and a tired sigh roll out simultaneously.
"I know I'm one of the last faces you wanted to see. I know that you don't trust me - or anyone - but...I can't let you twist in the wind. I can play dumb, not prod and ask only the dumbest questions…"
"But I'm not going to be in the stands while you crumble."
Pushing off from the swing, unable or simply unwilling to fall into another argument when the last one still left her tasting gasoline, Amber scowled in annoyance at the continued persistence.
"Maybe I'm not crumbling. Maybe you're projecting the reality that best fits the narrative you wanna tell… everyone else's feeling be damned, cause Matthew Fuding Knox needs to go out and be everyones hero again." Contorted into a hurt fuelled fury, Amber softened her expression into something akin to humane. Defeated and sad at the hair trigger she'd allowed her emotional state to become.
"No one asked you to seek me out. No one asked for you to keep finding your way back onto the grounds… especially not me. You wanted me in this tournament, you got it. Congratulations, but don't think that earns you the right to try and tell me what I am or am not doing… if I wanna burn in the hell of my own making, then I'll Fuding do it and I'll do it with a Fuding smile." It wasn't even the anger talking now, the guilt that she'd dredged up… for every lie she withheld, for every time she was trying to sever and every thread of humanity fraying beneath the pressure… she couldn't even breathe. An exhaustion of everything dragged kicking and screaming from the depths, the tiredness written in a dead language across features still blossoming in a painful rainbow.
"I deserve everything I've got coming Matt, everything I've gotten. No silly little platitudes or 'good intentions' change that…" Flatly and with a shake of the head, she slowly turned to walk away. Boots sunk into sand that eventually became grass that crunched under foot, nowhere in particular was still somehow better than anywhere, but here.
“Okay, then play out your doomsday fantasy. You isolate, you fester instead of heal…” he stood from the swing, turning to face her departing figure. One hand comes up, wrist rotating with each point he makes the other hanging listlessly at his side “So you’re alone, and miserable and….what, you’re clinging to the World Title? And sure, there’s pride in that but what life does it bring?”
“You work hard only to have pissants who couldn’t lace your boots piping off about your legacy according to them. And nothing lasts forever, Amber…eventually one of those pissants is going to get lucky. Or a bigger fish than you finally enters your waters. Then suddenly, the golden validation is gone. Now what? You’re a junkie without a fix, without a dime, and the dealer won't front you..” he trailed off, hand coming to wipe over his mouth and chin.
“You’re so damn dead set on one end, and you’re so damn dead set on believing that you need to be alone when you’ve probably never had more people love you in your entire life than you do now.”a pause “These tag belts? Sure, they’re nice but you know why I dragged you into it? Because God damn it, I need you to Stay. and I know it’s boarish and selfish to talk about what I want to the woman who’s covered in soot and bruises - tell me, how long did you lay in the smoke before deciding to drag yourself out?” a little too edged, but it was out there now.
Amber stopped, the final tiny echo of noise coming from the air between them being sucked into an unseen void. Word hung heavily between them, the silent regrets no doubt trailing however too little was always too late.
Without even turning around, the words fell like stone.
"Obviously not Fuding long enough."
“Jesus, Amber I didn’t mean it like– That was..” he trailed off, feeling foolish for having even begun the apology nearly as much as he regretted the biting question, “But…Jesus, Why? Why even stay a second? I…” he trailed off, at a loss for words. Amber violently rounded on the morbid corvid, all fight and flight with eyes partially welled as though fighting the deluge while the cracks in the dam widened.
"No, really. Tell me more about what you think Matt… by all means, get it all out." Throwing her hands up in the fruitless nature of the discussion, Amber paced trying to find the words that might articulate the pulsing venom intertwined with a crippling numbness.
"Do you think I really wanted this… that I'd have gotten caught up in it if I hadn't brought it down on myself to begin with. I wish I could explain…" A small chuckle, something to just offset the writhing knot in her chest. "I wanted to be scared so badly… I should have been, and I wanted to like I was waiting for a sign from the Fuding universe to tell me that this wasn't meant to be. That karma hadn't signed off on it personally…"
The pacing stopped as the flow of words stemmed, the filter slowly being reapplied before anything of value might escape. Anything that might be clung onto as a real and genuine notion.
"I dunno… maybe I thought that I wasn't getting out. I couldn't see the door, I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. I couldn't hear my own voice over the flames and the cracking of the beams above my head.
Seconds Matt… that's what separated me from a ceiling beam cracking me in the Fuding skull" Drawing a deep breath, like it was the first one she's allowed herself in days, Amber continued as her slightly less singed hand buried itself in her hair, pulling it back from her face. "... And I'm supposed to stand here and be grateful, instead I'm trying to figure out what the universe wants from me. I have to justify my own existence while everyone is too busy trying to make sense of the 'why'..."
A shrug and then silence, even the breath in her lungs felt heavy. A weight on her shoulders driving her back towards the ground like it was where she was supposed to be all along.
Gently, she followed the unseen insistence, allowing her legs to fold awkwardly beneath.
"... When the why is the only thing I know for sure."
He stood still for the barrage. For what very well could have been all the wrath she had left in her. It took a concerted effort to still his facial muscles, or make a face to cover a telling twitch. He wanted to press on how quickly her conversations with fate and karma seemed to be, considering it was ‘only seconds’. However, an overriding thankfulness to see something that didn’t feel…Gift wrapped? From her. Slowly, and with an audible pop he sunk in place to a knee. If only to stay as level with her as their height difference would allow.
“You don’t have to do a damn thing to justify your existence, Amber. I shouldn’t have to tell you how big the boots you leave behind will be professionally. Far as personally? I’d like to point out once more the overwhelming affection and worry for your well being from more than a handful of people. One of whom keeps risking bodily harm to make sure you’re breathing.” a small pause as he figuratively rolled the ball of levity across the playground toward her.
“Whatever it was….We’ll forget it, until you’re ready to spill all the beans. Even if that’s the twelfth of Never…” a small, uncharacteristically awkward smile as he kept the trigger of the fire extinguisher. Amber shook her head resignedly, even just the words on the edge of her tongue seemed to weigh her head down into a slow loll.
"I just…" she started uncertainly, her jaw almost hanging in mid space for a second. "Let me put it this way… if Mac knew, like really knew what happened?"
Another pause, heavier as though she were breathing water instead of air. Maybe it might have brought about a more peaceful end…
"He would leave me. If he knew the extent of how much of this is my fault, then I have no doubt that he'd walk… and for that, for the sake of my marriage? I will lie through my teeth for as long as it takes to get bury all of this." Somber and serious, she couldn't pretend the cracks in her voice weren't obvious, punctuated by a fear that she'd missed in the face of flames.
"... And I wouldn't blame him for a second. I brought all this on us and everything we've built, I could do nothing to save. You wonder why I took longer than I should have… maybe the idea of having to lie constantly for the sake of holding on to what little I've got left, the thought of knowing how much better everyone around me deserves and how much better off they would be if I could just cut those ties for good… Even with my world on fire, it gave me reason to pause and question whether I was really doing the right thing."
A tear rolled slowly, deliberately skirting where her skin had started to blister under the intensity of heat around the edge of her jaw.
"If I tell you… Mac would never forgive me. If I say nothing, he probably won't anyway. If I tell Mac… then I'd be no better off than if I stayed in that fire.
What Fuding choice do I have… for everything I've got… I can't lose anything else."
He shifted his stance, dropping one knee to raise the other. Hands came to rest in the space between, clasped not in prayer, but close. He felt the crash of waves within. Venom and Honesty. An opportunity to define a part of himself that had been rightfully called into question since he had gotten involved in her life in more than a passing manner. His head bowed, his tongue rolled behind his lips.
“I doubt that very much. Doubt a pack of wild horses could drag Mac away from you, Easy as you are to Love.`` Did he pause? “To him. The truth, no matter how ugly it is, only hurts. Lies? Lies destroy, Red. And you’ve come too far to let whatever this is destroy you. You’re Amber Fuding Ryan. Bane-Ryan now…and getting you to agree to saddle a name with yours? It must matter. Matter more than a lot of other Poop, and way more than whatever the truth to the fire is.”
“If not for you, then do it for that.”
His lips curled up in a reassuring smile then, long fingers flicking a rock away from him.
"There's not a damn thing about me that's easy Knox… and if you knew half of--" Amber trailed off knowingly, the sigh stealing the remainder of syllables.
"I can't change what I've done. I can't make things better… but I can hold those little pieces together until they feel like more than guilt and regret."
Softly, she allowed the stifled frustration with secrets and lies to slip from her tongue.
"If I can't forgive myself, I can't expect anyone else to either."
“Have you tried?” he asked gently, gaze lifting from the dirt to find her “Forgiving yourself, I mean?” he tilted his head and shifted to where he was sitting on the ground now, crossing his legs. It felt silly, in a way. Like they were speaking on the phone, much as they were mere feet from one another.
An air of detachment, to insulate those sensitive nerves and emotions from the biting truth they dealt in with one another he supposed.
"Forgive myself, darling, I can't even sit here and look you in the eye… so what the Fudge do you think?
I'm clinging onto the one thing that's going to get me destroyed, like it's not dragging me to hell for my hubris." It was true, she'd managed to look just beyond his outline, any attempt at eye contact deflected into something insignificant in the background.
"I own everything I've brought down on my head. Don't ask me to choke on it as well…"
“Wouldn’t dream of it…” he said softly, eyes drifting back down to the ground. It was hard seeing her like this. Hard being in this position. He let the silence hang for a moment, letting the sting fade from the wounds he opened getting her to open up but remaining keenly aware of how if he waited too long, the lid would be replaced and tightened further than it ever could have been before.
“I know…that I, and my opinion aren’t worth very much to you. But speaking as someone who has done nothing but continuously Fudge up, even when he tries not to…whatever it is? Even though it’s far from my place to? I forgive you.” a pause. It felt too raw. Quickly, he scrambled for levity. Perhaps more for himself than her “Unless it was a Birthday Cake accident, in which case i’ll never forgive the lack of invitation.”
Jesus….that was rough, Knox.
Amber shrugged, even though she didn't mean to. Trying to shift the weight perhaps that wanted to see her buried beneath her mounting conflicts.
"I don't need your forgiveness…" Harsher than intended, her voice cracked slightly at the inflection. "I don't need anything from you Matt… if you think this therapy changes the way I feel…"
Words didn't come out straight. Thoughts perversing contorted from the heat that didn't seem to subside, Amber rubbed her forearm instinctively, around the edges of blistered and raw skin where the freckles seemed to grow angriest.
"There isn't a thing you can say that can convince me right now that I wouldn't have been better off…" A sentence that didn't need finishing. "It didn't though. I didn't. Grateful as few might be for that… I keep surviving in spite of myself. How the Fudge can that be anything except…"
She couldn't even think straight, sleep had been almost non-existent. Constant phonecalls and texts, the social medias blowing up.
All she wanted was to be alone with her misery… why was that so Fuding hard to understand?
He remained silent, contemplative. A new feeling for him, picking and choosing his words. Especially around her.
But, he’d never seen her so close to the edge before. He reached up to scratch the back of his head, looking off toward the road he’d just been on thoughtfully. He nodded, resolute or as much as he could be given the situation. The murky waters he had no business trying to traverse, but for her? Would drown himself in if it meant she didn’t have to.
“You have a room at the Motel 6 up the road?” he asked matter-of-factly, doing nothing to defend against the venomous deflection and joke toward any perceived implication “Would go a long way to making me back off if I could see you enter a room that I know for a fact has something that looks like a bed in it…”
He shifted his gaze back to her, a small knowing smile creeping upon it before he spoke, tone holding an underlying levity and gentleness “Because I’m guessing, as a fellow miserable person with a PHD in kicking his own ass, you haven’t slept a wink or even tried to…guessing you were at that gas station across the street, filling that bike up before you realized you were too dizzy to keep riding…” he trailed off.
“Would you let me make sure you get to bed, get some rest if nothing else? Swear i’ll leave you alone for….you know, i’ll open my offer at six hours.”
Amber chuckled softly. "Wasn't even going to stop except for the fact I needed fuel." Admitting freely, albeit with a guarded undertone. Deflective without necessarily denying anything. "I don't want to sleep. I don't want to stop… just go until I find something to justify the numb, I dunno, like scream into a void."
There was an honesty between them that was unspoken, a frankness that came with having been at each others throats for so long.
"I'll sleep when I can do so without hating myself for waking up." Matter of factly, she slowly shifted her weight so that she might start to find her feet. Standing felt a long way further from the ground than she remembered. Being dragged kicking and screaming from an edge begging to be leapt from likely didn't do much to help either.
“Well, let me incentivize it further.” he stood with her, slowly. In doing so, he took a step toward her but nothing more. His hand began to raise to find her arm, offer a steadying touch but it dropped before making any real progress toward purchase, reminding himself that he hadn’t finished the joke through the fog of seeing her rising fueled by something other than spite.
“Every second from now until your head touches a pillow and you try to see what’s beyond the wall of sleep, you’re going to hear my voice. However, should you make that journey and come out the other side I promise you I will be nowhere in sight and you can brood privately before I showed up unannounced and as unwanted as I was needed.”
A bit of arrogance so it wouldn’t feel too different than their usual interactions. Another step closer, emboldened by the lie of familiarity between them.
"You're a piece of Poop, Matthew Knox." Cooly and with little more emotion than with she regarded the sand that trickled off her pants, Amber gave Knox a sideways glance. "Do try to keep up."
“Yeah, but i’m an endearing piece of Poop.” he fired back and began to match her pace, going as far and bold as to ‘accidentally’ bump into her. If only to show her that foreign physical touch would, indeed, not turn her to an ashen pile of nothingness “I wasn’t bullshitting though, the new bike is pretty nice.”
"You hate it." Flatly, and firmly. "Especially when it's about to leave you in the Fuding dust…"
He was on a mission.
And he had failed.
Failed to the point that he was once again heading to Nevada, which seemed to have become one of a couple ground zeroes for what could only be described as eventual martyrdom. The Impala glided along tarmac only a shade darker black than the car itself. The windows were down, his right hand resting on the steering wheel while the left propped up a tiered, heavy head.
One heavy, even free of a crown.
He shouldn’t be getting involved in this. It wasn’t any of his business, his lot in life.It wasn’t anything to him. Or it shouldn’t be. But it was.
Because she asked him not to let her hurt anyone.
Because when he thought about giving in and calling it a good try, she reached out when she didn’t have to.
Because he knew that if the roles were reversed, she’d be doing the same as him.
He hadn’t gotten far into Nevada, pulling off the highway into the first town to get gas for the anything but economical big block that rumbled beneath the Impala’s hood when he saw it alone in a parking lot. Red, Black shiny but not kept under lock and key shiny. Red, black, custom exhaust. It was a stretch, but he had some luck yet.
And when chasing ghosts, you take what you can.
He moved the Impala to a parking space at the gas station, taking a moment to dig a smoke out of his pocket while he stepped out of the car. The ‘satisfying ‘clunk’ of the heavy old door coincided with the ‘flick’ of his lighter as he sparked up the camel non filter. One puff to soothe the nerves.
Always the nerves around this one.
And his long legs took him across the street. He didn’t have to look too hard. It was the only bike in the lot, so it stood to reason she was the only person at the roadside park. Even if she wasn;t, she was the only one who looked like her hair was on fire.
Another puff, an exhale of the noxious fumes and he turned the rest of the smoke out on the heel of his old, worn Stacey Adams. A resolute nod and he started the slow, careful walk toward her. The fiery glow of a desert sun casting a long shadow before him as his legs carried him toward her.
It didn't matter where. It didn't matter how far- cause anywhere was better than there.
Oh how she'd lingered though, desperate and determined to find reason and justification. Another lie left smouldering in the wreckage that she might cling to like a life raft.
Amber had never been the type to run from anything, maybe that was a detriment to a happier existence. Discretion and valor never quite seeing eye to eye.
However things were different… even with days in the rear view she still tasted smoke at the back of her throat. Angry blisters and burns on her hands loosened her grip on the chain of the swing as she rocked back and forth, metal groaning in protest at the absolute minimum effort.
A smaller burn along the edge of her jaw that traced down the side of her neck in places twinged as she gritted her teeth at the moving shadow. Nothing more outward than her fingers tightening around the chain managed to pass the glacial armour she'd thrown up.
Anything worth saying had been said, sides had been chosen and somehow Amber found herself scrambling for cover as the bomb shelters slammed closed around her.
This was her nuke though, only seemed fitting she might see it detonate up close and personally.
Jacket squeaking over the hoodie she'd thrown on in a rush, she swallowed hard as the numbness shifted more comfortably under her skin.Worried eyes hone in on the blemishes but he’s silent, save the creak of old chains as his weight comes down in the swing next to hers. Long legs bent almost comically as he began to sway lazily. The faint smell of smoke perverted the usual cinnamon essence that accompanied his friend, and it caused something within to twinge.
The toe of a worn loafer dug at the dirt thoughtfully in the seemingly endless, damning silence of the bubble she had created around herself and this playground.
“I like the new bike.” he finally broke the silence with a sentiment as far away from the obvious trauma she was enduring that he could throw together at the moment. Fingers tightened their grip on the chains they had latched thoughtlessly onto, bracing for whatever direction the sentiment had launched them in.
A twitch under her left eye flickered, the curl of response at the edge of her lip dissipating as quickly as it might have materialised. Normally this would have been the point that she told him all the directions in which he could get fucked and the distances of Fuding it would take to get there.
Now though, words seemed to choke like the acrid smoke that clung on her tongue. Frustration dug further into the sand as her boot scuffed silently on a previously buried rock.
Ignorance could have been bliss, however Matthew Knox could never allow such things to stand. Maybe he'd get bored and move on, find a damsel that needed him instead of the smoldering wreckage of a hurricane's best.
One could only hope, as she gently traced the links of the chain with her faintly soot covered fingertips. His gaze twitched to her once, using every microsecond afforded to commit more blemishes to memory.
Guess Mac wasn't being a blowhard over the suspicious nature of the fire. Just a braying jackass for airing it for the world to see.
The tightening of his grip on the chains, the slight pinch upon his palms acted as a tether before he let the vitriol and the bitterness consume him. Mac didn't matter. The fire hardly did.
"You don't have to talk and I won't after this…" a pause, choosing his next words carefully in case they were his last of the evening.
"I'm...glad you're alive."
A small scoff, the kind that came involuntarily and seemed to shred any good intention that might fall into it's whimsy, emerged briefly. Encouraging if only for the fact it proved she had something in her that could still make noise.
"It's a vast overreaction." Another twitch, this one a little less easy to disguise under the heavy mass of crimson that shielded the worst of prying eyes. "A great exaggeration in a moment of fury."
Matter of factly, she replied as her hands fell in around shoulder height as though uncertain if she wanted to push away or allow them to collapse into her lap.
Eye contact wasn't necessary, the resulting Twitter explosion led to things being said that shouldn't have… accusations made and values questioned in the wake of apathetic tragedy.
Fire didn't give a Fudge what it took, it existed to consume- however in the wake of the flames, it still managed to keep taking...
He resisted the urge to crack wise 'So you CAN still speak!' Died quietly behind his eyes as he nodded silently. He rummaged instead through a barrel of platitude, fighting his own nature and refusing to dive in and drag the truth to the surface.
'Who did this? Where are they? Why? Does this have to do with the weirdo talking about their perfect hurricane?'
"People react differently in the face of stressors. I'm sure Mac is stewing in regret and putting off apologizing for the sake of pride, same as you.." his tone was as close to comforting and reassuring as he could muster.
Crooking an eyebrow, Amber knew as well as anyone the empty nature of that platitude likely held more than just good intentions. As though the state of her relationship had ever been anything but cannon fodder to someone just looking for their next thrill.
"You can stop pretending like you care now. All this attempted niceties, you can't sit there and pretend like you weren't Fuding rubbing your hands together as things were imploding for everyone to see." Monotone did little to disguise the underlying hurt, she'd been called a greater deal of worse things in the nearly fifteen years she'd been doing this 'professionally'.
However the fact that she was somehow in the wrong like defending herself in the face of apathy and scavenging hyenas looking for their next headline.
No one ever said she had to be rational, but it didn't make her pain any less valid either.
"You enjoyed it as much as every other piece of Poop waiting to throw in their two cents. By all means… throw. You won't hear an argument from me."
"That it then? You think I just drove across state lines to seek you out, tell you everything I'm sure you wanna hear and drag you to a seedy motel, bet on your self destruction winning out over good sense?" Biting, and notably wounded. His gaze leveled on her as he spoke, before letting the statement hang in the air.
"Rip and tear into me all you want, but never insult me by implying I think so little of you again."
He kicked ar the mound of dirt his toe had amassed almost petulantly. A shake of his head and a tired sigh roll out simultaneously.
"I know I'm one of the last faces you wanted to see. I know that you don't trust me - or anyone - but...I can't let you twist in the wind. I can play dumb, not prod and ask only the dumbest questions…"
"But I'm not going to be in the stands while you crumble."
Pushing off from the swing, unable or simply unwilling to fall into another argument when the last one still left her tasting gasoline, Amber scowled in annoyance at the continued persistence.
"Maybe I'm not crumbling. Maybe you're projecting the reality that best fits the narrative you wanna tell… everyone else's feeling be damned, cause Matthew Fuding Knox needs to go out and be everyones hero again." Contorted into a hurt fuelled fury, Amber softened her expression into something akin to humane. Defeated and sad at the hair trigger she'd allowed her emotional state to become.
"No one asked you to seek me out. No one asked for you to keep finding your way back onto the grounds… especially not me. You wanted me in this tournament, you got it. Congratulations, but don't think that earns you the right to try and tell me what I am or am not doing… if I wanna burn in the hell of my own making, then I'll Fuding do it and I'll do it with a Fuding smile." It wasn't even the anger talking now, the guilt that she'd dredged up… for every lie she withheld, for every time she was trying to sever and every thread of humanity fraying beneath the pressure… she couldn't even breathe. An exhaustion of everything dragged kicking and screaming from the depths, the tiredness written in a dead language across features still blossoming in a painful rainbow.
"I deserve everything I've got coming Matt, everything I've gotten. No silly little platitudes or 'good intentions' change that…" Flatly and with a shake of the head, she slowly turned to walk away. Boots sunk into sand that eventually became grass that crunched under foot, nowhere in particular was still somehow better than anywhere, but here.
“Okay, then play out your doomsday fantasy. You isolate, you fester instead of heal…” he stood from the swing, turning to face her departing figure. One hand comes up, wrist rotating with each point he makes the other hanging listlessly at his side “So you’re alone, and miserable and….what, you’re clinging to the World Title? And sure, there’s pride in that but what life does it bring?”
“You work hard only to have pissants who couldn’t lace your boots piping off about your legacy according to them. And nothing lasts forever, Amber…eventually one of those pissants is going to get lucky. Or a bigger fish than you finally enters your waters. Then suddenly, the golden validation is gone. Now what? You’re a junkie without a fix, without a dime, and the dealer won't front you..” he trailed off, hand coming to wipe over his mouth and chin.
“You’re so damn dead set on one end, and you’re so damn dead set on believing that you need to be alone when you’ve probably never had more people love you in your entire life than you do now.”a pause “These tag belts? Sure, they’re nice but you know why I dragged you into it? Because God damn it, I need you to Stay. and I know it’s boarish and selfish to talk about what I want to the woman who’s covered in soot and bruises - tell me, how long did you lay in the smoke before deciding to drag yourself out?” a little too edged, but it was out there now.
Amber stopped, the final tiny echo of noise coming from the air between them being sucked into an unseen void. Word hung heavily between them, the silent regrets no doubt trailing however too little was always too late.
Without even turning around, the words fell like stone.
"Obviously not Fuding long enough."
“Jesus, Amber I didn’t mean it like– That was..” he trailed off, feeling foolish for having even begun the apology nearly as much as he regretted the biting question, “But…Jesus, Why? Why even stay a second? I…” he trailed off, at a loss for words. Amber violently rounded on the morbid corvid, all fight and flight with eyes partially welled as though fighting the deluge while the cracks in the dam widened.
"No, really. Tell me more about what you think Matt… by all means, get it all out." Throwing her hands up in the fruitless nature of the discussion, Amber paced trying to find the words that might articulate the pulsing venom intertwined with a crippling numbness.
"Do you think I really wanted this… that I'd have gotten caught up in it if I hadn't brought it down on myself to begin with. I wish I could explain…" A small chuckle, something to just offset the writhing knot in her chest. "I wanted to be scared so badly… I should have been, and I wanted to like I was waiting for a sign from the Fuding universe to tell me that this wasn't meant to be. That karma hadn't signed off on it personally…"
The pacing stopped as the flow of words stemmed, the filter slowly being reapplied before anything of value might escape. Anything that might be clung onto as a real and genuine notion.
"I dunno… maybe I thought that I wasn't getting out. I couldn't see the door, I couldn't even see my hand in front of my face. I couldn't hear my own voice over the flames and the cracking of the beams above my head.
Seconds Matt… that's what separated me from a ceiling beam cracking me in the Fuding skull" Drawing a deep breath, like it was the first one she's allowed herself in days, Amber continued as her slightly less singed hand buried itself in her hair, pulling it back from her face. "... And I'm supposed to stand here and be grateful, instead I'm trying to figure out what the universe wants from me. I have to justify my own existence while everyone is too busy trying to make sense of the 'why'..."
A shrug and then silence, even the breath in her lungs felt heavy. A weight on her shoulders driving her back towards the ground like it was where she was supposed to be all along.
Gently, she followed the unseen insistence, allowing her legs to fold awkwardly beneath.
"... When the why is the only thing I know for sure."
He stood still for the barrage. For what very well could have been all the wrath she had left in her. It took a concerted effort to still his facial muscles, or make a face to cover a telling twitch. He wanted to press on how quickly her conversations with fate and karma seemed to be, considering it was ‘only seconds’. However, an overriding thankfulness to see something that didn’t feel…Gift wrapped? From her. Slowly, and with an audible pop he sunk in place to a knee. If only to stay as level with her as their height difference would allow.
“You don’t have to do a damn thing to justify your existence, Amber. I shouldn’t have to tell you how big the boots you leave behind will be professionally. Far as personally? I’d like to point out once more the overwhelming affection and worry for your well being from more than a handful of people. One of whom keeps risking bodily harm to make sure you’re breathing.” a small pause as he figuratively rolled the ball of levity across the playground toward her.
“Whatever it was….We’ll forget it, until you’re ready to spill all the beans. Even if that’s the twelfth of Never…” a small, uncharacteristically awkward smile as he kept the trigger of the fire extinguisher. Amber shook her head resignedly, even just the words on the edge of her tongue seemed to weigh her head down into a slow loll.
"I just…" she started uncertainly, her jaw almost hanging in mid space for a second. "Let me put it this way… if Mac knew, like really knew what happened?"
Another pause, heavier as though she were breathing water instead of air. Maybe it might have brought about a more peaceful end…
"He would leave me. If he knew the extent of how much of this is my fault, then I have no doubt that he'd walk… and for that, for the sake of my marriage? I will lie through my teeth for as long as it takes to get bury all of this." Somber and serious, she couldn't pretend the cracks in her voice weren't obvious, punctuated by a fear that she'd missed in the face of flames.
"... And I wouldn't blame him for a second. I brought all this on us and everything we've built, I could do nothing to save. You wonder why I took longer than I should have… maybe the idea of having to lie constantly for the sake of holding on to what little I've got left, the thought of knowing how much better everyone around me deserves and how much better off they would be if I could just cut those ties for good… Even with my world on fire, it gave me reason to pause and question whether I was really doing the right thing."
A tear rolled slowly, deliberately skirting where her skin had started to blister under the intensity of heat around the edge of her jaw.
"If I tell you… Mac would never forgive me. If I say nothing, he probably won't anyway. If I tell Mac… then I'd be no better off than if I stayed in that fire.
What Fuding choice do I have… for everything I've got… I can't lose anything else."
He shifted his stance, dropping one knee to raise the other. Hands came to rest in the space between, clasped not in prayer, but close. He felt the crash of waves within. Venom and Honesty. An opportunity to define a part of himself that had been rightfully called into question since he had gotten involved in her life in more than a passing manner. His head bowed, his tongue rolled behind his lips.
“I doubt that very much. Doubt a pack of wild horses could drag Mac away from you, Easy as you are to Love.`` Did he pause? “To him. The truth, no matter how ugly it is, only hurts. Lies? Lies destroy, Red. And you’ve come too far to let whatever this is destroy you. You’re Amber Fuding Ryan. Bane-Ryan now…and getting you to agree to saddle a name with yours? It must matter. Matter more than a lot of other Poop, and way more than whatever the truth to the fire is.”
“If not for you, then do it for that.”
His lips curled up in a reassuring smile then, long fingers flicking a rock away from him.
"There's not a damn thing about me that's easy Knox… and if you knew half of--" Amber trailed off knowingly, the sigh stealing the remainder of syllables.
"I can't change what I've done. I can't make things better… but I can hold those little pieces together until they feel like more than guilt and regret."
Softly, she allowed the stifled frustration with secrets and lies to slip from her tongue.
"If I can't forgive myself, I can't expect anyone else to either."
“Have you tried?” he asked gently, gaze lifting from the dirt to find her “Forgiving yourself, I mean?” he tilted his head and shifted to where he was sitting on the ground now, crossing his legs. It felt silly, in a way. Like they were speaking on the phone, much as they were mere feet from one another.
An air of detachment, to insulate those sensitive nerves and emotions from the biting truth they dealt in with one another he supposed.
"Forgive myself, darling, I can't even sit here and look you in the eye… so what the Fudge do you think?
I'm clinging onto the one thing that's going to get me destroyed, like it's not dragging me to hell for my hubris." It was true, she'd managed to look just beyond his outline, any attempt at eye contact deflected into something insignificant in the background.
"I own everything I've brought down on my head. Don't ask me to choke on it as well…"
“Wouldn’t dream of it…” he said softly, eyes drifting back down to the ground. It was hard seeing her like this. Hard being in this position. He let the silence hang for a moment, letting the sting fade from the wounds he opened getting her to open up but remaining keenly aware of how if he waited too long, the lid would be replaced and tightened further than it ever could have been before.
“I know…that I, and my opinion aren’t worth very much to you. But speaking as someone who has done nothing but continuously Fudge up, even when he tries not to…whatever it is? Even though it’s far from my place to? I forgive you.” a pause. It felt too raw. Quickly, he scrambled for levity. Perhaps more for himself than her “Unless it was a Birthday Cake accident, in which case i’ll never forgive the lack of invitation.”
Jesus….that was rough, Knox.
Amber shrugged, even though she didn't mean to. Trying to shift the weight perhaps that wanted to see her buried beneath her mounting conflicts.
"I don't need your forgiveness…" Harsher than intended, her voice cracked slightly at the inflection. "I don't need anything from you Matt… if you think this therapy changes the way I feel…"
Words didn't come out straight. Thoughts perversing contorted from the heat that didn't seem to subside, Amber rubbed her forearm instinctively, around the edges of blistered and raw skin where the freckles seemed to grow angriest.
"There isn't a thing you can say that can convince me right now that I wouldn't have been better off…" A sentence that didn't need finishing. "It didn't though. I didn't. Grateful as few might be for that… I keep surviving in spite of myself. How the Fudge can that be anything except…"
She couldn't even think straight, sleep had been almost non-existent. Constant phonecalls and texts, the social medias blowing up.
All she wanted was to be alone with her misery… why was that so Fuding hard to understand?
He remained silent, contemplative. A new feeling for him, picking and choosing his words. Especially around her.
But, he’d never seen her so close to the edge before. He reached up to scratch the back of his head, looking off toward the road he’d just been on thoughtfully. He nodded, resolute or as much as he could be given the situation. The murky waters he had no business trying to traverse, but for her? Would drown himself in if it meant she didn’t have to.
“You have a room at the Motel 6 up the road?” he asked matter-of-factly, doing nothing to defend against the venomous deflection and joke toward any perceived implication “Would go a long way to making me back off if I could see you enter a room that I know for a fact has something that looks like a bed in it…”
He shifted his gaze back to her, a small knowing smile creeping upon it before he spoke, tone holding an underlying levity and gentleness “Because I’m guessing, as a fellow miserable person with a PHD in kicking his own ass, you haven’t slept a wink or even tried to…guessing you were at that gas station across the street, filling that bike up before you realized you were too dizzy to keep riding…” he trailed off.
“Would you let me make sure you get to bed, get some rest if nothing else? Swear i’ll leave you alone for….you know, i’ll open my offer at six hours.”
Amber chuckled softly. "Wasn't even going to stop except for the fact I needed fuel." Admitting freely, albeit with a guarded undertone. Deflective without necessarily denying anything. "I don't want to sleep. I don't want to stop… just go until I find something to justify the numb, I dunno, like scream into a void."
There was an honesty between them that was unspoken, a frankness that came with having been at each others throats for so long.
"I'll sleep when I can do so without hating myself for waking up." Matter of factly, she slowly shifted her weight so that she might start to find her feet. Standing felt a long way further from the ground than she remembered. Being dragged kicking and screaming from an edge begging to be leapt from likely didn't do much to help either.
“Well, let me incentivize it further.” he stood with her, slowly. In doing so, he took a step toward her but nothing more. His hand began to raise to find her arm, offer a steadying touch but it dropped before making any real progress toward purchase, reminding himself that he hadn’t finished the joke through the fog of seeing her rising fueled by something other than spite.
“Every second from now until your head touches a pillow and you try to see what’s beyond the wall of sleep, you’re going to hear my voice. However, should you make that journey and come out the other side I promise you I will be nowhere in sight and you can brood privately before I showed up unannounced and as unwanted as I was needed.”
A bit of arrogance so it wouldn’t feel too different than their usual interactions. Another step closer, emboldened by the lie of familiarity between them.
"You're a piece of Poop, Matthew Knox." Cooly and with little more emotion than with she regarded the sand that trickled off her pants, Amber gave Knox a sideways glance. "Do try to keep up."
“Yeah, but i’m an endearing piece of Poop.” he fired back and began to match her pace, going as far and bold as to ‘accidentally’ bump into her. If only to show her that foreign physical touch would, indeed, not turn her to an ashen pile of nothingness “I wasn’t bullshitting though, the new bike is pretty nice.”
"You hate it." Flatly, and firmly. "Especially when it's about to leave you in the Fuding dust…"
