Chapter Text
Welp, thinks Alexa to herself as her enemies surround her, here we go again.
The thought doesn't leave her when Rhea and Iyo show up to help. Seeing the beatdown coming doesn't change the facts, doesn't change the numbers: they're three against four, just like before, and Rhiyo will look to one another first. Alexa might as well be standing alone.
By the time Nia gets a good hold of her, she is.
It's a sickening moment of dread, watching Lash roll up her sleeves, knowing no one is coming to save her. Not from the pain - she's not afraid of pain any more, since him - but from the humiliation. Being dragged by her hair, slapped around, tossed in the air to crumple in a heap like a kid who didn't look both ways before crossing. These women are built like semi trucks and they're lording their size over her, like always. She hates it so much she thinks she might throw up. Almost does, when the right hand comes, sets off a fucking bomb in her jaw, POW, a bright flash of agony that drops her like a rock. A pebble, even. Sinking.
Will Charlotte feel the ripple? Will she care?
Heavy hands, cruel grip, and now her world's an earthquake, boom boom boom boom, pulsing light and dark as Nia knocks the breath out of her over and over. She's writhing, kicking, more instinctive than directed and thus utterly futile in the face of Nia's overwhelming power. Her mind pinballs between desperation and despair, between struggling to survive the onslaught and struggling to care if she doesn't. For a moment the flashing lights in her eyes and the pounding in her head shift into a familiar theme - she's hallucinating, she must be close to passing out -
Somebody ragdolls her into the turnbuckle. She slumps there, head spinning, ears ringing -
- and her eyes snap open at the CRACK of a kendo stick. Lash recoils through her field of vision, clutching her hand, screaming. Alexa's first stupid thought is it's Charlotte, she came for me, and she groggily dismisses it in favour of how the hell did Rhea get a hold of that with the Kabukis all over her ass? Is Iyo holding them off by herself? Am I the only one on this team who's losing right now?
But the crowd's howling a jubilant war-cry, wooo! wooo! wooo! on every brutal impact, and the miles-long legs in those ridiculous pants do not belong to Rhea Ripley.
Alexa watches, dazed, as Charlotte drives her attackers out of the ring. Watches her climb the ropes, track their retreat with the point of the kendo stick, a clear threat of more to come should they dare to turn back. There's a cold fire in her eyes, a fury barely leashed and still snarling for blood. Even in that stupid outfit - not quite the stupidest she's ever worn, but it's up there - she's fucking terrifying.
(A little open secret: Alexa is so here for fucking terrifying.)
Charlotte tosses the weapon aside as the Kabukis scurry for the exit. Presumably Rhiyo dealt with them; Alexa still can't see her teammates and frankly, right now, she doesn't care. It's all Charlotte, towering over her, filling up her senses, the worried softness of her ruby mouth drowning out the crowd, and it's sad, it's pathetic, it's sick how grateful she is. It's sick that she's reaching for her. Alexa never asks for touch - never needs to, gets surfeit of it, and isn't it funny how much of a hugger the Queen has turned out to be? - but here she is, stretching out her shaking hands, a little girl in pigtails begging wordlessly for uppies.
God, she hates herself.
Some nights are worse than others. Some nights she rips out the ribbons, screams at a mirror until it cracks. Some nights she cries herself to sleep. Every morning she wakes with bows in her hair and Lilly sitting on her chest. And the fans who want their Goddess back, oh, they're the worst. On bad nights it's all she can do not to mic up and call them on their shit like hey, don't you think I want her back? Do you honestly believe I'd rather be this?
It wouldn't do any good, of course. Yelling at the crowd never does any good, and it certainly won't turn back the clock. This is Alexa Bliss now, somewhere between the Goddess and the Devil Child, shacking up with the deals she's made. The wind changed and she's stuck like this: looking small, and young, and weak.
Yet now, as Charlotte's arms come around her, she can only wish to be smaller still. Let her be as small as a toddler - no, let her be Lilly small, a doll to be picked up and held. It's fucking sick, wanting this much to be held. Wanting Charlotte to hold her.
And now she is, and the world is gone. It's like morphine: the pain still palpable, but irrelevant. She shuts her eyes, buries her face in the crook of her partner's neck, and breathes deep. Drinks in the scent of her like communion wine. No, Charlotte, she wants to tell her, it's not your fucking Chanel. It's you. Your shampoo, your laundry soap, your hair and your sweat and the glow of your skin. That's what smells so good it makes me feel six-beers drunk.
Or maybe that's from getting her shit rocked like thirty seconds ago. Who cares, right? Charlotte's back; all's right with the world.
(If only it worked like that.)
She gets her feet under her and the moment sharpens, loses that soft-focus feeling she hasn't felt in maybe ever and immediately wants back. Charlotte is saying something. The words don't register amidst the white-noise bellowing of the crowd, but the meaning does: she's checking in. On what? Alexa? Their alleged "friendship"? Probably both, Alexa decides, and forces herself to take stock of it all. She's hurt. She's mad. She wants to scream until the ropes catch fire and everyone's ears bleed black. She wants Charlotte to put the other arm back around her, squeeze her tight into the heat and the strength of her body, whisper babygirl into her ear. Wants that last one so bad she could liquefy.
Fuck it. A thing can be both. She can be pissed as hell and still madly in love, and that's why she nods the okay. Things are not good. They're maybe not even okay. But they're fixable, and if anyone is an expert at stitching a masterpiece out of the tatters of the past it's Alexa fucking Bliss, baby. Name one other person who's metabolised that much uncut darkness and come out alive, let alone mostly sane. Go ahead. She'll wait.
And that's how Charlotte looks at her, like she sees a Goddess and a Devil all at once and loves every twisted inch, so maybe Alexa can love it too.
Maybe tonight can be a good night after all.