Dyer's Eve
--Friday, January 13th, 2006--
--Two days prior to the Final Resolution pay-per-view--
Chris Sabin felt the little hairs on the back of his neck stand straight out from the skin and his body immediately tensed as he looked cautiously around him. Nothing seemed out-of-the-ordinary, but he could have sworn that he had just felt someone watching him. He took a deep breath and reminded himself to keep his cool or Alex Shelley and his damn, ever-present 'Paparazzi Cam' would no doubt catch the inevitable freak-out on video.
That didn't mean that sneaking into Samoa Joe's apartment was any less of a bad idea. It just meant that he couldn't let on that he thought so.
And then Shelley's pained scream echoed from the next room.
Sabin sprang into action. While he and Shelley weren't exactly what one might call the best of friends, he wasn't about to let him face whatever unspeakable horrors waited in the bowels of Samoa Joe's lair. As he raced toward the doorway, Shelley bolted out and the two X-Division stars collided heavily with each other.
"What happened? Why did you scream?" Sabin demanded, looking past Shelley to see if anything was chasing him.
"Me?" Shelley replied indignantly. "I didn't scream – I thought you did! I had the camera ready and everything, baby!"
Sabin stared at him. "I didn't scream…" he trailed off as he exchanged a look of realization with Alex.
He'd been wrong. This hadn't been a bad idea. This had been a terrible, horrible, no-good-can-possibly-come-of-this idea. And four simple words now repeated in his mind as he felt his skin begin to crawl:
Joe's gonna kill you...
--48 Hours Earlier--
"I knew it. You're scared."
"I'm not scared of anything!"
"Oh yeah?"
"Yeah!"
"Well, I double-dare you."
Sabin scowled at Petey Williams, who stood before him (flanked by his Team Canada teammate Eric Young) with a smug smile on his face. Over the years, Petey had managed to goad Sabin into countless bone-headed situations just by playing on his insatiable need to prove himself the best. Sabin knew that was his intention today, but, predictably, he found that he was unable to walk away. Petey had already gotten under his skin, and that small but easy victory he had conceded made Sabin that much more annoyed.
Word had spread quickly and soon nearly the entire X-Division roster had gathered to watch the confrontation between the two former champions. Petey's arrogant grin widened; no way could Sabin resist a double-dare challenge with so many witnesses.
Sabin's oft-tag partner, Sonjay Dutt, pushed his way next to him. "Listen man, this idea is totally whack – you don't have to do this." Nearby, Jay Lethal, the youngest of their number, nodded in agreement.
"Yes he does," Matt Bentley interjected. Bentley and Sabin were longtime rivals and the two immediately locked glares. "Unless he's too chicken." The raven-haired Traci giggled at his side. Petey laughed aloud at this (but not before stealing a lustful look at Traci).
Sabin's right eye began to tick in annoyance, and when he spoke it was with his teeth clenched so tight that his molars threatened to grind into dust. "I'm not chicken, I know I don't have to do this, but I'm going to anyway," he said as calmly and as evenly as his temper would allow. "Because, as much as I hate to say it: Petey's right."
"It's like AJ Styles said after what Joe did to Daniels at Genesis," Petey explained, spurred ahead by Sabin's admission. His reference to the night Samoa Joe had teamed with the 'Fallen Angel' Christopher Daniels and then turned on him the minute the match was over, busting open his skull with a steel chair and wiping Daniels' blood like a trophy across his chest sent chills up their collective spine. "Joe doesn't respect the code of the X-Division. He took out Daniels for stealing his pin. He took out Styles last month and won the title. And he's setting up to take out Daniels again tonight once and for all.
"And whether we like it or not," Petey continued, all attention on him, "we have to take the X-Division back, or we'll all be next."
"And since nobody else will man up and get the job done," Sabin directed the remark at Petey, "I'll be the one that stops the unstoppable."
"Yeah, but sneaking into his home?" Dutt's eyes bulged. "That's suicide!"
"He's got to have some kind of weakness," Petey shrugged and Young snickered, knowing the opposite was more likely to be true. "That's the best place to start looking for a clue as to what it is."
"Why don't you do it then, genius?" Lethal piped up and the mysterious masked Shark Boy nodded his approval.
"While I am pretty damn good at finding people's weaknesses – I mean, I don't recall a single one of you ever kicking out of my Canadian Destroyer," Petey replied condescendingly, sparking irate muttering from several of those present. "I somehow doubt that even I could do that to Joe. Besides, Coach D'Amore keeps us on a tight training schedule – no way could I fit it in." Young nodded supportively; Lethal scoffed loudly; Dutt coughed something rather rude, implying that Petey was perhaps not telling the truth.
"It doesn't matter," Sabin said firmly. "I'll do it."
"And how do we know that?" Bentley demanded. "We're supposed to just believe you when you come back here and tell us that you got in but conveniently couldn't find anything?"
"As if," Traci spat.
"So, what Matt? You volunteering to come with?" Sabin got right into Bentley's face and then turned the same glare on his former manager. "How 'bout you, Tray?" Both of them clammed up. Sabin looked around, but even Dutt and Lethal averted their eyes. Petey snorted in mockery.
As luck would have it, however, Sabin would eventually get his willing partner. It was in that moment that the misfit X-Division trio Alex Shelley, Austin Aries and Roderick Strong happened by, all three talking and laughing boisterously as they watched the viewscreen of Shelley's camcorder. But the 'star' of the latest 'Paparazzi Productions', as Shelley had dubbed his camerawork, was clearly present in the throng; Shelley quickly snapped the viewscreen shut and Aries and Strong immediately turned their laughter into a mask of fake coughing.
"What are all you crazy cats up to?" Shelley beamed with the most insincere smile any of them had ever seen…
…aside from the one that was now spreading across Petey Williams' face.
"As it happens, Alex, you might be just the guy to solve a little dilemma we're having," he said easily, playing to Shelley's already-prominent ego.
"That so?" Shelley's ears perked up.
Sabin shot a Death Glare at Petey as he picked up on what he was doing; the last thing he wanted on this suicide mission was to get sidled with a twit like Shelley. But Petey shrugged off the warning, delighting in both his role as Puppet Master and being able to land Sabin in increasingly hot water.
"Got a little job for you and your camera skills," he continued, to which Aries nearly exploded with a snort of laughter that he'd tried to contain, which made Strong start to choke. The footage they'd just been watching instantly became all the more suspicious. With tears forming in the corners of his eyes, Shelley frantically waved at them to be quiet, wanting to hear more of Williams' mission.
"Sabin's going undercover to find out Samoa Joe's Achilles Heel," Petey went on after the trio had regained as much of their composure as they likely would, "and he needs somebody to document it. Think about it, Shelley – we're talking high-profile footage here. You'd be in demand from everybody."
A smile had begun to play at the corners of Shelley's mouth as he went starry-eyed at the thought of so much valuable recognition. Then a moment passed in which he suddenly seemed to realize whose Achilles Heel Petey had mentioned and he hastily held up his hand and gathered Aries and Strong in a hushed impromptu team meeting. After several minutes during which there was a good deal of attempted eavesdropping, they turned as one back to the group.
"I get all the credit," Shelley said simply.
"Done," Petey agreed.
"Hey!" Sabin protested.
"And none of the liability," Aries added.
"Obviously," Petey inclined.
"Now just a minute!" Sabin tried to argue.
"And then the three of us get title shots before anyone else," Strong finished.
"Ehh..." Petey hesitated, having been entertaining fantasies of regaining the championship he'd lost almost exactly a year ago.
"Fine," Sabin snapped, exasperated but taking distinct pleasure in being able to undermine Petey that once (no matter the cost). "Will you do it?"
Shelley flashed a devious grin. "You're on."
Sabin crouched behind a shrubbery across the street from Samoa Joe's apartment block the next evening. The previous day had been spent carefully surveying the area and documenting Joe's schedule and now the sun was just beginning to set. According to Sabin's research, dusk signaled Joe's usual (solo) trip to the gym. Shelley had yet to show.
"C'mon, Shelley, you moron, where are you?" Sabin muttered as he watched Joe exit the building. He ducked lower as Joe squinted up and down the street and then stalked off, gym bag slung over one shoulder, X-Division title draped over the other.
"Getting all the footage as promised, baby – and I'll have you know that name-calling is so not appreciated." Shelley's voice coming from behind him very nearly made Sabin shout and subsequently give himself away.
"How long have you been there?" he angrily whispered.
"Long enough," Shelley replied with an enigmatic smirk, keeping his camera trained on Joe until the Samoan had turned the corner. "Let's do this."
What followed was a scene that could have been right out of an old slapstick comedy sketch: Sabin, nervous and sweating, walking as casually as possible toward the building while Shelley darted behind anything and everything he could use for potential cover (including a mailbox, a lamppost and Sabin himself). They couldn't have looked more conspicuous if they had tried.
Sabin, having strategically worn a pair of baggy cargo pants, began pretending to search his multiple pockets in search of a door key until a kindly resident held the door for them as she exited. Sabin feigned gratitude while Shelley shamelessly trained the camera on her rather voluptuous features ("Damn, Joe! That's some Grade A meat you've got here, bro!").
It was surprisingly easy to get into Joe's apartment, and even Shelley couldn't help but be impressed with Sabin's lock-picking skills. Sabin cautiously pushed the door open and was nearly bowled over as Shelley, in his excitement, darted in for a look around before running off to inspect the other rooms.
Sabin scanned the main room. It was eerily quiet (aside from Shelley's distant exclamations as he found random things that captured his interest) but he logically reminded himself that most empty rooms tended to be quiet. Attempting to ease his paranoia, he moved swiftly through the relatively plain living-room (a television, a futon, a glass coffee table and a bookshelf were the only furniture and none of them looked overly sinister) and stepped through the sliding glass door onto the balcony.
He took a deep breath and slowly let it out, willing the knot in his stomach to go with it. The sun had all but disappeared and the sky was streaked with an assortment of pinks, blues and purples. A light breeze savoured the day's warmth and postponed the coming night's chill. Sabin leaned on the railing and closed his eyes, letting the wind ruffle his jaw-length brown hair. Finally relaxed, he stepped back into the apartment, ready to join Shelley in the search.
Something had changed.
It was no longer an eerie, empty quiet that filled the room; the natural silence had been replaced by a feeling that Sabin could only describe as the room trying to be quiet in hopes that he would take no notice. And he had the unmistakable sense that he was being watched.
"Alex?" he called, half just to hear his own voice break the heavy silence and half in genuine concern that something may actually have happened to his bizarre 'partner.' "Alex?" he tried again, tentative now to be any louder in fear that he may have been calling attention to himself. When he still received no answer, Sabin moved further into the room, unaware that he was unconsciously holding his breath.
"HEY!" Shelley bellowed at the top of his lungs and jumped out from behind the curtain, keeping the camera trained on Sabin, who very nearly hit the roof.
"You asshole!" Sabin snarled, his cheeks flushing with embarrassment, and picked up the nearest object – the TV remote control – to whip at Shelley's head.
"Hey, c'mon dude! It was a joke!" Shelley howled in laughter as he ducked the first projectile but took the second – a heavy stone coaster – dead on the bridge of the nose. Sabin grabbed the camera and turned it on Shelley, whose hands were quickly covered in blood as he reached up to ebb the crimson tide now flowing down his face.
"That's far funnier," he drawled, the anger lessened considerably.
"Ha, ha," Shelley rolled his eyes as he tilted his head back. "A little help?"
Sabin escorted him down the hall to the bathroom and handed him a white hand-towel to hold over his nose. With one blood-stained hand now free, Shelley snatched back the camcorder and pointed it at Sabin, interview-style. "Thanks a bunch, buddy. How's it feel to be such a jerk?"
"At this point, pretty damn good," Sabin replied truthfully, causing Shelley to pull a face. "Stay here. I'm gonna go keep looking."
"You mean start looking," Shelley retorted. "I was doing all the work until now."
Sabin ignored the comment but inwardly grinned at the bitter tone in his voice – it was his second minor but rewarding victory…and this one was all on tape. The thought made him chuckle aloud as he poked his head into a room where the door had been left ajar; clearly this was where Shelley had run off in the first place. It was Joe's bedroom. Sabin shoved his hands in his pockets and leaned against the wall, casually looking around him. Part of him felt bad about doing this; as much of a terror as Joe was to the X-Division, this was still the guy's privacy being invaded.
"Stupid Petey," he grumbled, and then added an unspoken, stupid me for always doing whatever Petey suckers me into.
Elsewhere in the apartment a door creaked, but Sabin hardly took notice, figuring it to be Shelley fooling around again. Honestly, the guy had just most likely had his nose broken for a practical joke and he still couldn't help himself. Shaking his head with an incredulous snort, Sabin half-heartedly opened a drawer in the bedside desk. Another set of door hinges squeaked, this time to the room he was in, and he straightened.
"There's nothing really in here, Shelley," he said with a shrug as he turned to acknowledge the other man. "Did you find…"
He stopped mid-sentence. Nobody was there.
The little hairs on the back of his neck stood up and he felt his heart rate increase. Telling himself to relax, he looked at the window, thinking that perhaps a near-undetectable breeze had moved the door…but the window was closed.
His body tense, he looked cautiously around him but saw nothing out of the ordinary. The feeling of being watched had returned, and he was about to shout at Shelley to knock it off when he heard the scream of pain from the next room. And as he raced into the hallway he crashed into Shelley, his nose and cheeks still smeared with blood, on his way from the bathroom.
"What happened? Why did you scream?"
"Me? I didn't scream – I thought you did! I had the camera ready and everything, baby!"
"I didn't scream…"
The two of them exchanged a look of realization that conveyed very different meanings: Sabin seemed to understand the magnitude of what they had gotten themselves into, while Shelley's eyes twinkled with the thought of how close they were to uncovering Joe's secret.
"Come on," he said impatiently, pointing the camera down the hall. "It must have come from down here."
"Wait, Alex!" Sabin hissed in warning.
"Dude, what are you so freakin' jumpy about?" Shelley rounded on him accusingly. "I mean, we saw Joe leave; I have it on tape. Do you actually think there's someone else here? Like, Mr. Antisocial himself would have a roommate?"
Obviously the thought was completely preposterous, but Sabin was in no way reassured by Shelley's reasoning. With nothing left to say, he grudgingly followed the other man into the remaining room that had yet to be explored. It was evidently used mainly for storage and entirely uninteresting – a minor disappointment until Shelley spied something poking out from behind a large painting that was hung askew on the wall. Moving it aside revealed a small door.
"Ah, the old secret-entrance-behind-the-painting gag," Shelley mused. "I bet Joe's a total Harry Potter mark."
The door was open a crack but was far too heavy for Sabin to move on his own, so Shelley (somewhat reluctantly) put down the camcorder and helped. Slowly they heaved it open and Sabin recognized the squeaking hinges as the sound he'd heard earlier. He opted to keep his mouth shut – curiosity getting the better of him – and instead took a deep, calming breath before stepping inside.
"Oh my God."
Both of them stared, gaping at the sight before them. Shelley was first to gather his wits and quickly ran to retrieve the camera; this would be a gold mine in footage.
The dark, unfinished alcove was lit only by a multitude of candles of alternate shapes and sizes, all either pitch black or blood red. Their flickering lights danced across the charred stone walls and threw shadows into the corners. On the floor, a tattered oriental rug lay before an old worn table that clearly served as a makeshift altar. And perfectly spaced along the wall above it were framed portraits of each individual X-Division star. The two in the centre – AJ Styles and Christopher Daniels – both had a bloodstained towel draped across the top and a scarlet streak across the picture itself. The rest were unadorned, awaiting their turn.
"Holy shit, dude!" Alex exclaimed excitedly, meticulously filming every inch of the shrine. "Joe's not just targeting the X-Division – he's hunting it! He's gonna pick us off one-by-one!"
Sabin had been staring at his own picture until Shelley's voice brought him out of the trance. "We should get out of here. This stuff is way more important to report than some mythical weak spot."
"Good call," Shelley agreed and, with one last sweep of the alcove, backed out and helped Sabin close the door and replace the painting. But as they were about to leave the apartment, he suddenly stopped. "Wait – the towel!" he snapped his fingers and sprinted back to the bathroom with Sabin hot on his heels.
A funny look came over his face when he looked inside and then turned to Sabin. "It's not here."
"What?"
"It's not here!"
What do you mean 'it's not here'?"
"I mean it's not here! I left it right here when I heard you or whatever scream, and now it's not here!"
Sabin stared at him for a long moment. "This isn't your idea of a joke, is it?" Shelley made a disgusted noise in response and began to search the bathroom, torn between a retaliatory sarcastic quip and an admission of the gripping panic he'd just felt. "Well, sorry! It's not like you didn't just pull something like this less than half an hour ago or anything."
Shelley ignored the remark and continued to rummage through the various bottles on the shelf above the toilet. A sly look came over Sabin's face and he folded his arms. "Now, I just want to make sure – the camera was rolling for your little breakdown, right?"
"Oh, shut up," Shelley snarled and squeezed one of the bottles in Sabin's direction. He ducked and took the full blast in his hair. Shelley attacked again and again until Sabin held up his hands in submission.
"What is that stuff?" Sabin wrinkled his nose at the acrid scent now lingering in the air. He wiped a gob from his curly brown locks and arched an eyebrow at it.
Shelley examined the bottle and choked back a laugh. "Well, before I tell you…I just want you to know that you'll look great as a blond."
"What?" Sabin's jaw dropped and Shelley held out the bottle for him to read: hair bleach. "You idiot! I mean, you're not even supposed to keep that crap after you use it, and you just soaked me in it!"
"But think about it, bro!" Shelley protested. "Joe showed up at Turning Point with his hair bleached…streaked…spotted – or whatever you call that debacle of a hairdo! The point is: he used the bleach and he won the title. This is his secret!"
Sabin stared at him incredulously. "You have got to be the biggest moron I have ever met."
"Whatever, I'm still taking this," Shelley shrugged and pocketed the bottle. He then turned the camera on himself, grinned and tapped the side of his head. "Pure Shelley. Good thing someone in this operation has brains."
Shaking his head, more than slightly annoyed that time was running too short to wash the bleach from his hair, Sabin followed Shelley out the door.
The missing towel was forgotten.
Sabin showed up at the Final Resolution pay-per-view that Sunday in a very foul mood indeed. The bleach had left horrible, uneven streaky patches and to salvage what was left of his dignity he'd had to cut his hair drastically shorter. Needless to say, when he arrived backstage, he was greeted with relentless mockery.
"Holy crap – it's Terry Taylor Jr.!" Petey Williams howled.
"What did you do, lose another bet?" Matt Bentley slapped a high five with Traci.
"Shut up," Sabin snarled. "It's that idiot Shelley's fault!"
"My ears are burning," Shelley remarked as he, Aries and Strong approached. He had clearly had fun with the bottle of bleach; half of his head was blond with a streak down the back in a sort of bizarre homage to Cruella de Vil. Sabin felt his anger fade a touch at the sight – finally, after nearly a week of mental anguish, some semblance of justice would be served in the inevitable locker-room ridicule of Shelley's new look. He prepared himself to laugh along with them…
"Hey, Alex!" Petey slapped Shelley on the shoulder. "Viewing room's all ready. Nice hair!"
Justice was dead.
"Haven't even watched this puppy myself – this is a raw screening, boys!" Shelley announced cockily as Sabin nearly fell on his face in bewilderment. Everyone followed him into the room and Sabin gathered the pride he'd just felt shatter all over the floor, entered, and closed the door behind him.
The footage was, of course, well-received: a round of boorish cat-calls for the girl who had let them into the building and unanimous raucous laughter at Shelley's curtain-prank on Sabin (even Dutt and Lethal had joined in after an apologetic look to their friend. To their credit, they roared in approval when Sabin subsequently broke Shelley's nose).
Shelley called for silence when the secret chamber was about to be revealed and a hush fell over the room as the audience took in the shrine.
"Nice work, Alex," Petey said, still gaping at the screen (to which Sabin simply rolled his eyes and snorted, by now used to being screwed out of all acknowledgement).
"Yeah, but, well, shouldn't we warn Daniels or something?" Traci struggled with what appeared to be a conscience. "He's facing Joe again tonight!"
"Forget it!" Bentley shook his head. "While Joe's busy with him, the rest of us can figure out a way to stop…"
His sentence trailed off as his gazed fixed to the still-running video. Everyone turned to see what had stopped him: Sabin and Shelley had just left the shrine and Shelley had put the camera down – facing away and still recording – to help close the door. From that vantage point it had captured, standing silently just outside the room and unbeknownst to them at the time, the very recognizable figure of Samoa Joe holding a white towel still glistening with fresh blood.
In that second you could have heard a pin drop.
And the next second was the complete opposite: sheer chaos broke loose. Petey Williams couldn't get to the door fast enough, though he was practically being climbed over by Eric Young, Matt Bentley and Traci. Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt wasted no time in hastily excusing themselves, and you could have sworn that Austin Aries and Roderick Strong didn't know Shelley from any other schmuck on the street the way they up and bailed on their teammate without so much as a whisper of offered backup.
Alex Shelley had gone white as a ghost. His bottom lip quivered as he continued to watch the video, hearing himself on the tape as he picked up the camera and exited the room, walking right past where Joe had been standing moments before. "Oh God, we're dead. We're so dead."
"We?"
Shelley slowly turned to look at Sabin, whose smile was as smug as could be as he leaned back on two chairs with his feet up on the table in front of him. For the first time since this ordeal began he had a reason to smile, and he was going to savour it.
"C'mon, Alex!" he jumped to his feet, making Shelley balk at the sudden movement. "You've been plastering your name all over this thing! Nobody seems to remember that this was originally my mission! And you know what? That suits me fine. I'm not really cut out for that much fame."
"But…but…" Shelley stammered, trying to form some point about them being a team.
"But what? This is your crowning achievement, dog! You've made the big time! You exposed Joe's secret plans! It's all you! That was the deal, right? I believe 'I get all the credit' were your exact words?"
"We…I…" Shelley spluttered in attempt to take back his stipulations.
"Hey, it's all yours, bro," Sabin's eyes had a glimmer of vengeful glee. "And from the look on Joe's face and the way he was holding that towel you were bleeding all over – you can bet he gives you all the credit too."
And with that, Sabin slapped Shelley hard on the back, shoved his hands in his pockets, and strode whistling from the room, feeling the best he had in days.
Shelley's face was frozen in an expression of sheer, unbridled horror. Shakily, he got to his feet and wandered in a daze down the backstage hall until he reached the washroom. With a quick glance over his shoulder he ducked inside and took refuge in front of one of the sinks, proceeding to splash cold water on his face and neck.
"Get a grip, Alex," he said aloud, his voice croaky from the tight lump in his throat. The icy droplets mingled with the nervous sheen of sweat on his skin and ran into his mouth in salty streams. "Just be cool. You can do this."
But as he stood up straight and looked at himself in the mirror, there was somebody standing behind him.
"Towel?" Samoa Joe asked, his deep voice full of cruel delight as he held out a white hand towel gilded in Shelley's dried blood.
Alex screamed.
THE END