“I hear ya, Lord, and I'm in the way o' doin' your will… but I don't much like it!"
- Mother Abigail - The Stand
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Matthew Knox really didn’t hate a lot.
Sure, he got mad a lot. A lot. But Hate? Never truly in his heart.
However, holy fuck did he hate hospitals.
Stepping out of the elevator, clutching a brown paper bag he made his way up the hall, passing numerous rooms and nurses. Most eyes averting to the large man, but quickly dismissing him. Obviously, he wasn’t the first coworker to come and visit their most famous patient.
Arriving at the correct room, Matthew opened the door lightly, knocking.
“JC?”
An attempt at speaking was made, as a dry, hoarse voice whispered into the silence, before a cough followed. The man who spoke was the most tired he’d ever been, and that was without taking the painkillers. He would need a dose of that soon, and he’d return to a mostly dreamless sleep. But for now, he was lucid.
“I can’t exactly turn my head, so you’re going to have to announce yourself.”
Following the voice, Knox would walk into JC’s view, silently taking the view in, before speaking.
“You look like shit.”
“You would know,” JC said, before coughing again. This earns a chuckle from Knox, who strides over and sets the contents of the bag, revealed now to be a candle beside JC’s bed. He Kneels down, pulling out his zippo lighter and lighting the candle. He mumbles something, before crossing himself and returning to the foot of JC’s bed.
“Yeah, I would. And Now, I’m here to make sure you don’t hop outta that bed and jump right back into the meat grinder head long. As a favor to everyone but your future brother in law.”
JC eyed the candle suspiciously.
“Is that what the mumbling was? Did you put some voodoo curse on me, because if so, you’re a little late.”
He gestured at the neck brace he was forced to wear, which itself covered fresh new stitches on his neck. Most wrestlers had scars on their foreheads, he had them on his throat and now would gain fresh ones in the back.
“Prayer, JC. You know those things we all say before the chair connects, or before we dive off something we never should’ve climbed in the first place,” Matthew leans forward, resting his hands on the foot of the bed, and letting out a sigh “Don’t worry. I’m not here to preach. But I am here to point something out.”
“You lack direction.”
JC scoffed.
“Your bedside manner is horrible.” He reached over and grabbed an ice chip, hoping to soothe the pain of having a breathing tube shoved down his throat the day before.
“Besides,” he added, acknowledging his recent failures. “Down is a direction.”
“The only one, if you let this define you, hence the pomp and circumstance.” He pushed up, walking to the window and shaking his head as he looked out to the gray skies. Fitting. “You gotta have a goal and follow it JC. You came back and it’s been...so random with your fights. You had an open challenge that got upended by C$J settin us all up to kick the shit out of each other.”
A scoff, he shakes his head again, “Maybe i’m full of shit, and this doesn’t make sense. But I mean it to.”
“Knox, you’re always full of shit.” He attempted to smile but even his face hurt so it came off as a grimace. “Besides, I think I’ve made my goal rather clear. Get to the world title. Prove I can do it without being what I was a year ago.”
He lifted his arms as best he could, to point out his current situation.
“Clearly, it’s been a rousing success.”
“For us both.” Matthew chimed in, a smile playing on his face, “Miserable bastards, with bodies that don’t work like they’re supposed to anymore. With tempers as broken as their minds. Acting like, deep down, that title isn’t just a substitute for something we lost a long time ago..” he trailed off..
“How’s that for bullshit?”
“What I mean, though JC. Is you never cut a direct path to Ken. You won a match C$J shit out just to get you, me, and Amber hurting one another instead of him. You could have thrown Michaels right back out the door, instead of letting his personal vendetta fuck off our biggest prize being defended at the Centenial Chaos. Hell...guess I could have, too if I think hard enough about it.”
JC pushed himself upright as best he could and seemed more than a little irritated.
“Yeah, I could have taken out Jack. Wouldn’t be the first time. But what would be the point? This wasn’t just about the title, Knox. It was about doing it the right way. You weren’t here so you have no idea about the things I’ve done. I have to live with that every day, and I’m done. I’m done being that person.”
He winced as the pain medication he was dosed with earlier was beginning to wear off, and he could feel the soreness and general aches of surgery begin to start up again. It seemed his nerves were waking up once again, and they weren’t happy.
“I would think,” he continued, “that if anyone could understand wanting to be a better man, it’d be you. I do my business in the ring.”
“Sometimes, you’re only as good as they let you be.” He mused, finally pulling up a chair, and sitting there beside his..co worker? Friend? Rival? He couldn’t put a finger on where they were, really.
“You and me, we’re never going to be off this collision course. Same for Ryan,, Leon, Steel...hell, anyone worth their salt in the back. And outside of that three way, let’s be real. Neither one of us have exactly been stellar lately..” he trailed off, as he was apt to doing.
“The past is what it is. You did shit, I’ve done shit. Neither one of us witnessed it first hand. What matters is what we do now, that is what is going to define who we are as champions when that day comes. Hypocritical as it is, we managed to fall on different sides in some shit. Your old ass on the side of the old guard, and my old ass being the chaperone to Carnage’s unruly youth.”
“I don’t know why I came here today, honestly JC. The candle, the advice as little as it was? Honest, and true. But off the cuff. I guess maybe it just seemed like..habit. You, Zephyr, me all in the hospital since October. Guess it felt wrong, lettin you lay there and be miserable.”
“I appreciate the thought, but I think you assume a lot about me.”
He took out another ice chip and let its coolness soothe his throat again. There was a nurse hovering around the doorway, evidently giving them some privacy before coming in to dope him up again.
“The old guard, for example. If I were on their side...would I have hired the people meant to replace us? But now’s not really the time to debate. I’d just like to focus on healing and get back to doing what I love again.”
Matthew chuckled, nodding to his point. He taps his fingers absently on his knees, then stands, “I’ll leave you to it, JC. Just...I dunno. Unpack the bullshit and find the point if you can. I think I lost it before I started..just” a pause “Don’t lose north, brother. I’ll see you next year.”
And with that, Knox headed for the door.
He had flashbacks to the last time he had surgery done. The fact that this wasn’t the spinal fusion he had then gave him little relief, since he was still confined to a bed and wasn’t allowed to turn his neck. The brace prevented it and if it didn’t, he felt Lucy would.
What light there was illuminated just enough of her for him to realize that she was asleep. She was curled up in a ball, making the best of a bad situation in a chair that was oversized but likely not comfortable. He felt bad that she was still here. It was her decision, yes, but she had been making a lot of decisions lately that only benefited him. Their plan in UGWC being just one of them.
She was better than this and he was dragging her down to his level. A level of someone that talked a big game but when the smoke cleared, sat vulnerable in a hospital bed with no championships and, as far as he was aware, no visitors.
He reached out to the nightstand to grab his phone, maybe troll Twitter in his boredom, but found it wasn’t there. So he turned on the light. It was nowhere to be found.
“The hell…”
Unbeknownst to JC, Lucy wasn't asleep and when she heard his voice she opened her eyes and stared over at him as he searched for his phone.
"It's not there." She replied, sitting up in the chair.
He groaned softly, as just the little he moved reminded him that the pain medication was wearing off, as it seemed to do every time he was actually awake. His choices were to either be awake and hurting or pain-free and asleep.
He rubbed the back of his head gingerly.
“You stole my phone?” he asked, trying to add a smile to show that he wasn’t bothered by that at the very least.
She smirked and pulled his phone out of her pocket, shaking it in his direction. "Damn, you weren't supposed to wake up til after I hocked it."
“Well at least you didn’t find all those incriminating pictures…”
He joked as he leaned over to grab the phone, then immediately winced and sat back. Lucy shook her head and got up, moving towards the bed and handing him his phone.
"You could've gone a little more tasteful with the pictures. Just saying." She replied with a grin.
He nodded and rubbed the back of his head, since he couldn’t actually reach his neck. He set the phone aside as he had no interest in it now that he had someone to talk to.
“Are you getting much sleep?” he asked. He couldn’t imagine she was having fun sitting around while he slept or babbled while high on painkillers. She nodded as she sat back down.
"I'm getting enough."
He frowned. “You know, you could go home if you need to. I’m sure Trent or Eric or somebody will be by at some point.”
"You know I'm not going anywhere." She replied bluntly, turning her gaze down towards her own phone. She typed a few things and glanced back up. "I'm fine."
He held his hands up in response.
“Easy,” he said. “It was just a suggestion.”
Lucy continued to look at her phone, texting whoever, likely Eden. He thought for a moment about what he wanted to say.
“Luce,” he started.
She glanced up again.
“I know...things haven’t been the best. I haven’t been the best. Last year was one thing but I don’t think this year was any better. I’ve been too focused on me and my goals.”
She set the phone down and listened intently.
“And I think...I think I’ve been dragging you down with me. You’ve done nothing but be there for me and neither one of us are where we want to be. The two losses, the injury, they’ve given me perspective. I’ve gone so long thinking it was me against the world.”
He shook his head and felt a stinging in his eyes. It was unusual to be this open with someone, anyone, and yet he found it so easy to be that way with his fiancee.
“But it’s not. It hasn’t been for a long time. It’s us. And I’m so very sorry I’ve forgotten that. Forgotten you. You don’t deserve any of the shit I’ve put you through. And I want you to know that things are going to get better. We’re going to get the ending we deserve, both of us."
