Meltdown XLII & Fallout 041 (Jul '24).

It all started - as is the case with most evenings, relationships, and pieces of creative writing - in a bar. Michelle was hidden away in a dimly lit corner of La mer agitée, a wine bar itself hidden away in a dimly lit corner of the city. It wasn’t her sort of establishment, as illustrated by the fact that she didn’t pick it. If you’ve been here before, my dear reader, then you’ll be aware of the usual haunts that our protagonist frequented. Mostly, they didn’t serve wine. She was currently pushing a solitary cube of ice around in a glass of neat whiskey and lamenting the feeling that she’d been summoned here.

In truth, La mer agitée didn’t particularly seem like his sort of establishment, either. The man who had summoned her here with a message left at the reception of her motel. She imagined he’d got those details from Russnow and regretted the arrangement that she inform the office of where she was staying each time the circus set up shop. Her life was a sequence of lamentations, ranging from the dramatic to the mundane. Russnow’s lack of tact with her personal details was typical for a man in his role, but the alternative was dealing with Jean-Luc. She shuddered at the thought.

The receptionist at the motel clearly didn’t enjoy talking to the guests or looking at the guests or generally acknowledging the existence of the guests. She grunted a few unintelligible grunts (what else would a grunt grunt but grunts?) before handing over a note, dictated to her and recorded in a childish, barely legible scrawl.

She wondered if he’d picked a place at random, or if this was the kind of bar that he assumed she would frequent. She couldn’t expect him to know her. They’d wrestled once, long ago, in a forgotten tournament that he and his partner had subsequently disowned. But their interactions had been fleeting and, at least for her, ultimately meaningless. Maybe he thought she was French, like Dan Maskell had always asserted in increasingly bemusing vitriol. Whatever the reason, Michelle found herself hidden away in a dimly lit corner of La mer agitée, awaiting Trevor Ocean’s arrival and regretting the fact that she was thinking about Dan Maskell.

She drank another whiskey and then reasoned that she should try the wine. It was a wine bar, after all, and she didn’t mind the taste even if the culture surrounding it was repugnant. She ordered a bottle of the second cheapest red and poured a glass up to the lip. Red wine was what cigarettes were invented for. If only she actually was in France, sitting on the banks of the Seine with her glass in one hand and a Camel in another. Add the Massachusetts nanny state to the evening’s list of grievances.

He arrived just after she gave in and went outside for a cigarette. He seemed a little agitated, and she was pleased to find that he was as bemused by the place he’d chosen as she was.

“What’s the place like?” he asked, peering through the door at the stale, ‘classy’ interior.

“Terrible,” she deadpanned.

“You want to go somewhere else?”

“Absolutely.”

“Come on,” he said, turning away from the door. “I know a place.”

He wanted to not be there, but more than that he wanted to not be seen with Michelle. He motioned for her to walk with him but didn’t check to see if she followed. The click of her lighter let him know that she was there.

Her footsteps were light. He had expected for her to stamp and walk about in a manner befitting the image he painted of her. She was quiet. Reserved even. He half expected her to try and force conversation, but was delighted when she didn’t. They walked the half mile toward the bar in relative silence, save for a few sighs of frustration or boredom.

An hour and change later, the pair sat in a slightly less dimly lit corner of another bar, a little closer to the heart of the city. The name wasn’t French and was less memorable, its innards reminiscent of a thousand other similarly uninspiring drinking holes across the country. There was a pool table and a jukebox and a veritable host of patrons swarming about the place. It was still a fair distance from Michelle’s sort of place, but it was closer to it than La mer agitée. Trevor danced his fingertips around the rim of his glass before driving them inward, retrieving a piece of ice. The crunch sounded loud in his head but was drowned out by the music and conversations surrounding them. Eating the ice of his drinks was a habit he developed while hanging with Noah and Shawn. They frequently made fun of him for ordering water in-between his drinks to sober up, so he began to use the ice as an alternative.

A buzz had started to set in and he finally stole a peek at Michelle. She looked down into her drink, sombre and solemn, seemingly in battle with her thoughts. He needed to get her attention but it’d been a while since he’d initiated small talk with anyone.

“So,” he said followed by a long pause. “You got a thing for tag-team wrestling, ey?”

She peered up from her glass and smiled. The mention of tag team wrestling, this setting, with a partner for a forthcoming match… the whole scenario brought forth inevitable recollections of (and comparisons to) Gerald. Both were awkward things, but whilst Grayson's anxieties manifested as positivity and enthusiasm, this one's were a blanket of discomfort. He fidgeted restlessly under her gaze, dancing around a point that she silently encouraged him to arrive at.

“I ask, because that has to be the only reason why you would demand that I be your tag-team partner. I don’t think you’re like him, Michelle. You wouldn’t involve me in some petty bullshit just to get a reaction from your latest enemy. Right?”

The question this time wasn’t rhetorical. The shift in tone for him would’ve been of concern for anyone else, but she didn’t seem phased.

“My thinking is anything but petty, partner,” she said, enjoying the pet name. It slithered off her tongue and brought a smile to her lips. All the more when Trevor recoiled from it, almost shuddering. “But I suppose I have involved you in my schemes, for lack of a better word. I owe you at least something of an explanation. I don't suppose you enjoy looking into the mind of Shawn Summers. I'm not aware of your full history with the man, but I know enough. The end game for me in Summers is coming up fast. New York City. And he's hiding.”

Michelle paused. Trevor said nothing in response. She finished her drink and ordered another. All the while, Trevor continued to dance his fingertips around the rim of his glass. She waited until her drink arrived before continuing, careful to broach what could easily be interpreted as an accusation. It was one, after all.

“I don't think any level of involvement with you would provoke a reaction from Summers,” she said. “He's not that sort of Bastard. He's going to do what he's going to do, in the order and at the pace that he intends to. Our tag match will alter none of his plans. But that's not why we're here, ready to do battle against the Undisputed Troglodytes. I guess a part of me doesn't believe that you are through with him. And I don't intend to wait until New York.”

“You’ll wait if he wants you to,” he said with a satisfied smirk. He dared not check for her reaction. ”We all do what he wants in the end. Right? He wanted you to come to his room that night, and you did. Right?”

“Sharp,” she said, her own smile momentarily suppressed. She regarded the man as he avoided her gaze and ordered another drink. “Perhaps you're more alike than you project.”

He shrugged and took a sip.

“His mannerisms tend to rub off on you. You’ll learn that.”

He chomped on the shards of ice that entered his mouth alongside the liquor. He peered over at Michelle and wondered if her last comment was a polite way of telling him that he was being an asshole. She wouldn’t have been wrong. Liquor tended to bring out that side of him.

“Michelle,” he said with a pause, trying to find the right words. “I don’t mean to come off as a dick or anything. I know this isn’t what you expected when you received a message for drinks from your partner. It’s just - well, this isn’t how I saw my road to Back in Business going. I didn’t expect to be entangled in his mess again.”

He again played in his drink, turning the ice back and forth before taking another sip.

“I wanted to carve my own path outside of him and Noah. I wanted this to be a ‘standalone’ chapter in the Trevor Ocean story. The part of the book where I’m through with him and Noah. But how can I write that chapter when you bring me into your little game?”

She took a more conciliatory tone, the hostility of the meeting an unintended consequence of his utter lack of desire to be there. Funny, considering it was he who had called her motel.

“What would you be doing this week if you weren't tagging with me?” she asked. “Another warm-up for the chamber? How many months is that away? You can’t write that chapter when you’re sitting at home. Regardless of your wish to be unentangled, entangled you are, tulip. And with a pair of old friends as opponents.”

“I’m sure Noah had a good laugh when he saw that,” he said with a slight chuckle. “The man who wanted to set himself apart from tag-team wrestling in the FWA gets pulled into a tag-team match against the team he has the most history with. Shakespeare would’ve loved the irony.” He peered into his half-empty glass. “Time is a flat circle, isn’t it? I would’ve thought that after all this time Nate would’ve left Jackson and the business and gone to be with his family. He always enjoyed his wife and kids. I guess he enjoys being a loser more.”

He winced as the words left his mouth. He could feel himself sounding and acting like him as he drank. She chose not to respond directly, instead nodding at the bartender and raising her empty glass in his direction. He busied himself in preparing a replenishment.

“Gerald and I faced them often, too,” she began in response. “Twice two-on-two, and once in Mile High Massacre. They pushed us closer than I'd care to admit. Perhaps we were tired. Complacent. Or maybe they just wanted to beat us more than we wanted to beat them. Me, in particular. I saw some of that same hatred in Nate's eyes two weeks ago in Toronto. Maybe some CWA hang-ups, I don't know. Some people cling onto nostalgia.”

Her drink arrived and she removed her cigarettes from her pocket, tapping them on the table as a signal of her intention to head outside soon.

“But that was different,” she continued. “Gerald and I were a team by then. Not like we were in the early days, during your little tournament. But I'm not surprised at your flippancy. You've been underestimating opponents for years. One of my earliest memories of my second run here is you and Stocke getting pinned by a pair of singles midcarders. It’s probably why we ended up beating you in that tournament.”

“You didn’t beat us in the tournament,” he shot back as he took another sip from his drink. “We never even faced you in the damn thing. Got taken out by Golden Rock. Look what that victory did for their career.”

“You’re right,” she replied, with little intonation in her voice. ”You did get taken out by GoldenRock at Division’s Rules - the event named after your team, no less. Gerald and I finished you off in the redemption bracket.”

Trevor’s face scrunched up, and his eyes narrowed. He sat his drink on the bartop and rested his head in his hand as the memories from that defeat flooded back into his head. Noah stood over him as he sulked against the ring post, attempting to make himself as small as possible so no one could notice his embarrassment. Though his face gave away no indication of his mood or thoughts, Trevor knew Noah was furious with him. The verbal lashing he received afterward was confirmation. Noah had never called Trevor pathetic before that night. The thought of hearing Noah describe Trevor as such still sent a chilling shock up his spine. The sobering remembrance of that night brought him pause. He wondered if the Undisputed Alliance remembered every loss they’d suffered. Was that what drove them to continue to compete together? Did it act as some sort of motivation for them, driving their hunger and hate?

“Is Gerald okay with you choosing me to be your partner,” he asked. She replied with a shrug and he construed that she either hadn’t thought about it or she didn’t care. In truth, Gerald was gone and she didn't know if he would come back. At least not to the squared circle. But Trevor concluded that she simply didn't care. Noah would care. He would’ve acted indifferent, but Trevor would know that he cared. Noah would view it as a respect thing to reach out and let your partner know that you’re planning on teaming with someone else - regardless of the reason. It was an unspoken rule he had. Michelle was different, he surmised. He changed tact, returning to her prior accusations of dismissiveness.

“I’m not necessarily looking past them, but what happens when we beat the Undisputed Alliance? What if he doesn’t give you the reaction that you’re looking for? Then all of this was for nothing, right?”

“We both know that him seeing me team with you will elicit a reaction, even if he doesn’t show it to the world. Everyone is well aware how he gets about you,” she said before slowly transitioning away from the bar and patting the bottom of her pack of cigarettes. Trevor pointed to the door to let the bartender know they were stepping outside before following behind her.

She peered up from her cigarette as she lit it and noticed him staring at her with an eyebrow raised. She rolled her eyes, took a long drag from her smoke and offered him one, which he gladly accepted. He motioned to her for a light and she obliged. He inhaled deeply before exhaling with a small happy dance that brought her a chuckle. There was the Trevor Ocean that she had seen backstage during the Division Classic. The man who seemed less like Shawn and Noah and more like someone you wouldn’t mind being with.

”I envy them, you know,” he said. “Nate and Jackson. I envy them because they are willing to share the spotlight. They’re willing to make each other look good when the time calls for it. I’ve never had that chance, and if I did, I passed on it, thinking it wasn’t my turn.” He took another drag of the cigarette and let the smoke dance in his throat before exhaling it through his nostrils. “I don’t really care about you and Shawn’s beef, but I want this to be the last tag-team match I have for a while. I’ve gotta prove myself, and if that means making an example out of Nate and Jackson, then so be it.”

Michelle smiled at him as she finished her cigarette, tossing it to the ground and stamping it out.

“Come on. Next place.”

“What about our tab?”

“This place is almost as bad as the last one,” she said. “They don't deserve your money.”

It took everything in him not to run in and throw a few dollars more than necessary on the bar, but he knew she would be long gone if he did. Her calmness was inviting and intriguing. He wanted to know more about her. He needed to know why Shawn chose her.

She had been in Boston for two weeks already, having skipped Montreal entirely and returned south of the border with the disappointing feeling that she was running away. From Fallout, from Russnow, and from her Basterd. She had to keep reminding herself that sometimes a little long-term thinking was required, but such a skill had never quite come naturally to her. She mostly spent that two weeks feeling sorry for herself, but also made use of the time to locate a handful of bars that were to her taste. Describing her ‘taste’ was easy. Quiet, cheap, and dirty. When she considered these three adjectives in her internal monologue, she couldn't help but think of Shawn when selecting the last two. Maybe her taste in men and her taste in bars wasn't that dissimilar.

She smoked another cigarette as they left the nucleus of the city, heading towards a bar she'd found on her third night here, nestled away nearly beneath a row of stores near her motel. She didn't know what Trevor would think of the place she was taking him, but felt sure that her Basterd would disapprove. Not because it was outlandish or extravagant or peculiar. Quite the opposite, in fact. He would've disapproved because of its insignificance, residing as it did so squarely within the boundaries of the ordinary. But Trevor, she reasoned, would understand the allure of such a retreat. She surmised this after only a few hours and several drinks, though found that she couldn't be sure of either tally.

They arrived at the underground bar, so discreet that it didn't even have a name (or one that it announced). Trevor didn't flinch, to his credit. He sat on a spare stool at the bar and ordered them both a whiskey. He'd transitioned to the harder stuff from beer a while back. It was becoming increasingly difficult to be accurate with time. The evening had slipped away from her. The night was going the same way. Soon it would be morning: another one as restless and uncomfortable as the first.

“I thought of him on the way here,” she began, quietly and only partly in pursuit of an ultimate higher aim. She was mostly just talking. The night shared brought candour. “What he'd think of a place like this. I prodded you earlier, but… well, what do you think? I don't think he would've teamed with you for as long as he did if he didn't at least see some of himself in you. What do you think he saw?”

Trevor snorted with laughter as he once again danced his finger around the rim of his drink. His eyes, narrowed and low, peered over the glass rim at Michelle. The softness of her face, the dry bits of dandruff in her hair, the dirt beneath her fingernails - he examined all of her as he avoided answering her question. Maybe it was because he didn’t know what Shawn had seen in him. Or maybe because he was curious about something in his own right.

“I didn’t want to talk about him tonight, honestly. I wanted to get to know you a little better. I wanted you to get to know me better and get this whole tag-team thing done with. I really did,” he said, slurring his words a little. His hands were planted firmly on the bartop to keep him somewhat balanced, but he still swayed a bit when he tried to talk. “Everyone wants to know why I’m - er, why I was friends with him, but, Michelle, I want to know what he saw in you…”

A little pause, just to let that settle.

“Not quite,” he began, in correction of himself. “What did you see in him?”

Another pause. Longer and more awkward. Her smile faded as she sipped her drink.

”I…”

Twice more, she tried and failed to begin, her voice trailing off. She became distant, as if she was retreating to another place entirely.

Another time.

Mexico City.

Room Three Two Seven.

Room Three Two Seven.

“I knew you’d come,” he said. The way the words crawled out of his mouth would’ve normally made her skin itch from irritation, but tonight, she was numb to it all. She was here, and in her mind there was no chance of turning back now.

“I did, too.”

She shuffled into the room as he closed the door behind her. Her eyes followed his every movement as he made his way from the doorway to the bar. He had a confidence that suited him even though it was unearned. Ill-earned, she thought. Probably closer to it. There was already a half-finished drink resting on the bartop, but he grabbed another glass and added a few ice cubes to it. He poured a mix of cola and whiskey, placing the drink in her hands. He cupped them together into his and brought her gaze to meet his. His hands were warm against hers, despite the chill from the ice.

“You’re nervous. I can see that. Don’t feel weird about any of this. It’s normal to feel nervous. Just take a couple of drinks and relax,” he said with a wink before taking a seat on the arm of one of the couches.

In truth, she was more nervous of this very image, of him attempting to comfort and relax her inside his gaudy, luxurious suite, escaping into the public eye than she was about what was to come. You could argue that she was resigned to it, but it wasn't all like that. There was a morbid curiosity that brought her here and kept her here. In her heart, she was ashamed and thrilled in equal measures.

“The others were nervous too, you know. I’m sorry to admit to you that this isn’t my first time doing this with someone on the roster. They would never admit it if you asked them, but they know that I would never tell either. I respect their discretion. However, I would be lying if I said it didn’t hurt knowing that they would rather take the secret of their rendezvous with me to the grave before letting anyone know.

“They rebuke my name in public but have no problem screaming it in private. It’s alright, though. We all have our secrets that we’d rather not get out. I get it. I have a few that I’d rather not be made public. This being one of them. Shit, I’m sorry. You probably don’t want to hear any of this, right? It makes things awkward. Sorry.”

She sipped at her drink and lamented the inclusion of cola. She'd mix her own next time.

“Your secret’s safe with me,” she answered, somewhat elusively. If he'd hoped to charm her into an evening of stimulating small talk before they threw themselves in, he'd thus far failed. She felt a slight lowering of the mast, the wind taken out of his sails.

“That’s good to hear, Michelle. That’s really good to hear,” he said with a slight bit of defeat in his voice. As he took another sip from his glass, she could feel his gaze upon her. It felt like a predator watching and analyzing its potential prey. She wasn't in charge. She wasn't even in control of herself. But she was oddly comfortable. There was serenity in helplessness.

“That was quite a beating you took out there tonight against Snowmantashi. You holding up okay? That motherfucker can hit hard, can’t he? My body was one giant bruise the last time we wrestled each other. No, I’m thinking about our first meeting at the CWA event for the title. Either way, I know you’re probably feeling every punch, kick, grapple, and the rest of it each time you move.”

If he was trying to poke the bear he'd succeeded. She shuffled with discomfort. This was not why she was here. In fact, being reminded of the evening's great failure (her lifetime's great failure, really) was the precise opposite to what had brought her to his hotel room. Perhaps he didn't realise how utterly in control of the situation he actually was, and this cruel, blunt reminder of her defeat was a way of reclaiming power.

“I don’t know why it always surprises me how physical they can be in the ring because it should just be expected, you know? Those people can become savages at any point. It’s in their nature so they can’t help it. No amount of good PR put out about the Japanese people will ever cover the fact that they were truly the most heinous war criminals of World War II. They hide that savage nature now but when put in the right situation, the savage returns.”

He paused. Shook his head. Drained his drink. He was pitiful and despicable, but here she was.

“Sorry. I go off on these tangents sometimes and forget that not everyone is… comfortable with these views. Plus, discussions like this are a mood killer, don’t you think?”

She said nothing. She finished her own drink, moved over to his bar, and helped herself to another one. Whiskey, all the way to the top, near. The view from his window was pretty breathtaking, even if the city itself was a shitshow. She pushed it open and lit a cigarette, declining to validate the Basterd's feelings and hate any more than her presence here already did.

“I’d normally chastise you for smoking. It’s a terrible habit, but I’ll allow it given the circumstances. We all need something familiar when we’re in the unknown, right?”

He approached the bar once more, retrieving a clear square bottle of tequila and a shot glass. Drinking must’ve been his rope to familiarity. To look down upon one vice while succumbing to another was on brand for him. He poured the tequila into the glass and pounded back the shot, wincing as the liquid set aflame his throat.

“Why did you come here tonight, Michelle?”

She sucked at her cigarette thoughtfully, the question sticking in her mind and the answer in her throat. The whiskey was good but there was a lot of it. Eyes bigger than her liver, as her father had used to say about her mother.

“You already spoke about it,” she replied. She spoke calmly and in a level tone, even though the anger was rising in her. “Though I wish you hadn't. And I wish you didn't insist on forcing me to speak about it, too. But you saw what happened out there. In the ring. What he said.”

“He didn't say anything,” Shawn interjected. He sipped his own drink, a smirk on his face.

“But I heard him,” she answered. “He told me what I was. What I was worth, and what I deserved. Or what I didn't deserve. He beat me. He defeated me and he declined to take the victory. He denied me a warrior's ending, because he didn't think I was worthy of one. I am nothing. I am worthless. He proved that.”

“And that's why you're here?” he asked. She didn't say anything for what felt like a long time. She flicked her cigarette over the window ledge and watched it fall towards the city below. When it disappeared from sight she instead stared at the moon.

“Is the balcony in the bedroom?” she asked, evasively. “Can I see it?”

He nodded his head and finished what was left in his glass. She shuffled past him only to feel his grip on her waist, pulling her into his embrace. One hand rested on her lower back and while the other caressed her cheek - outlining them in turn until he reached her chin. He was gentle but commanding, forcing her gaze to meet his. His eyes were blue and cold and piercing.

She could smell the mixture of alcohol and spearmint gum on his breath as his face inched closer to hers. Her eyes closed and her body stiffened as she awaited his forthcoming kiss, but was surprised when she realized what he had done.

“Relax,” he whispered into her ear before kissing down the side of her neck. “This is what you wanted, right?”

She didn’t answer and he didn’t care for a response. His hands were soft and surprisingly warm as they explored her. He pressed his body against hers and his heartbeat told her that he was calm. A stark contrast to the chaos that flared up within her.

He slowly pulled back and surveyed her. He was satisfied. He took her hand, leading her into the bedroom. She followed, dutifully and meekly.

A long, sharp pull from her glass was enough to drag her back into the present, the memory still too close and too real for her to see through to its conclusion. There was a lot that she would like to leave behind: on that night and many others, ones just like it and ones worlds apart. But the past was always with her, a shadow haunting her steps, its long, cold fingers around her neck.

“You know what the worst thing about it is?” she asked, quietly and with a level, abstracted tone. Trevor was surprised to find that she had returned to him. She’d been gone for some time, and he’d contented himself in topping up his alcohol levels and drifting on the edge of consciousness. As she continued, he slowly realised that she was finally answering his question. Or some variation of it. He leant in eagerly, attempting a level of focus that the time and his current state wouldn’t allow. She went on, regardless of the lucidity of her audience.

“I… didn't hate it. Sure, I hated myself for doing it, and I hated the memory of what I'd lowered myself to. But… that night? He was perfect. Breathtaking. Perhaps that's why I was so ashamed.”

He didn’t have the words. Not for this, and not right now. Maybe some other time. He leant back and finished his bottle, holding up the empty in her direction.

“One more?” he asked.

“Yes,” she answered, promptly. “But not here. Come on, let’s go. I’ve paid already.”

She led the way southwards when they emerged from the bar, the first suggestions of early morning beginning to show themselves. The sun wasn’t yet visible, but already it cast a band bold of light over the distant horizon.

“The drinks were meant to be on me,” he asserted, following behind her. “I’ll get the next one.”

“No need,” she said. She reached into her rucksack and produced a bottle of Jameson. “Don’t worry, it’s from the second bar. I didn’t pay for it. Keep your money.”

They eventually settled on a bridge, sitting on the ledge and staring out over the river below, snaking its way eastwards towards the harbour. She gave him another cigarette and he gladly accepted again, the two wordlessly smoking and staring over the water as it trickled onwards to the Atlantic.

She couldn’t help but think of Gerald once again. She’d brought him to a similar bridge at the end of their first night together, in Richmond, Virginia. She remembered that city well because of that night she’d shared with the Daredevil. There was an old man there dressed for swimming. It’s later than you think, he warned them, before diving into the river.

Before that, Gerald had asked her if she was afraid of anything. She’d lied, naturally, but her mind had run wild with all of her fears, big and small. Black holes and cancer and oblivion, and everything in between. She couldn’t remember all of it now. None of it really seemed to matter that much. Uncle had settled some of that. Snowmantashi and Summers had done the rest. She wasn’t afraid of anything, anymore. She was nothing, after all.

“You ready to go home?” she said, as she passed him the bottle.

“You don’t want to swim?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the river as he took a pull.

“It’s later than you think.”