Work Text:
Alexa is not singing in the shower. It's making Charlotte nervous.
So let's wind this back, because that's what Charlotte is doing, going back over the past half hour or so like she's proofreading a paper she already turned in. Apology: unnecessary. Gifts: accepted (grudgingly). Heart hands: got. Babygirl: protected. Match: won. Post-match cuddles: got, and without so much as a token struggle. Tired babygirl: herded into the locker room, carefully de-geared and sent showerward, currently being awaited. Everything should, by all rights, be fine.
Yet Alexa is not singing in the shower, and Charlotte is fidgeting about it.
Okay. Clearly we need to go back a little further. Let's try this: back about two weeks and a couple continents, Rumble happened. They were entries 1 and 2, and they made history yet again by refusing to fight. They reaffirmed their partnership on live TV despite the whole world expecting them to turn on each other; what's better than doing that and then kicking a lot of a-word together? Nothing, is what, and Charlotte ought to know because she's done everything. The night was going great. Then all of a sudden Alexa was on the concrete, reaching uselessly for Charlotte's hand, a look of heartbreak in those beautiful baby blues, and Charlotte was watching her whole world fall apart. No, she's not being overdramatic; that's exactly what happened, thank you very much. They were supposed to go to Mania together. She watched that dream die in her partner's eyes as the colour commentary called it murder. How do you come back from that?
If she'd been a little more together, she might've started by apologising. Almost an hour of fighting in a bodysuit in ninety-degree heat doesn't lend itself to maximum togetherness, though, so by the time she too had hit the concrete the only thing Charlotte could do was get backstage, get to the nearest shower, strip to the skin and resist the urge to turn the water all the way to arctic. Gradually lowering her body temperature to something more resembling human took so much longer than she wanted it to. No help for it, of course - if she'd done it in one she might've passed out - but she was staring through the glass divider at her phone the entire time, still reaching for her Lexi with everything but the flesh.
When she saw the screen light up she almost squawked. Dived out of the shower, left the water running. Scrambled across the room stark naked, nearly slipped twice. Did fumble the phone twice because wet hands. Swore a lot. Grabbed a towel (for her hands, not the rest). Finally picked up the damn phone on the third try.
Alexa's text was as cold and clipped as ever:
Stars are wrong. Need radio silence. We're fine. Don't call.
Charlotte sank to her knees, squeezed her eyes shut, pressed the phone and her clasped hands to her forehead, and whispered, fuck. She knew what Alexa meant by "stars are wrong": all of that old dark magic inside her was waking up again. She'd warned her it would happen. She'd warned her that when it did, she'd have to disappear. Charlotte hadn't disbelieved her, as such, but something like that is difficult to fit into your mind until you see it, isn't it? She could be forgiven for doubting, couldn't she? But there it was, in black and white: until further notice, her partner was gone.
"Until further notice" took thirteen days.
In that space of time, Charlotte put a lot of thought into what she might say, or do, or offer up in penance, when Alexa came back again. She thought about flowers, and how to present them, and how to present herself while presenting them. She thought about gifts, truly personal gifts that could come from nobody but her, and mean nothing save I love you as big as the sky. She thought a great deal about the words I'm sorry, and how to make sure they sounded absolutely, unquestionably, one hundred percent sincere, and not at all like a prelude to a cutting remark. What she did not think about was how much of it to do. With hindsight, this may have been a mistake: when she got a text from Alexa two hours before the show today, she might have, sort of, just a little bit, panicked, and in her panic decided to do absolutely all of it. The fact that the text in question read:
Made it back from hell. We're fine, I'm not. Don't push me.
...did nothing at all to dissuade her. Now she's wondering if it should've. Wondering, in fact, if she shouldn't've spent the last near-fortnight worrying so damn much. After all, if Alexa had wanted her to worry and fuss and make a big gesture about it all, why would her last text before dropping off the face of the fucking earth - and her first one upon returning thereto - both have said we're fine?
(She can be forgiven for doubting, can't she?)
The water turning off makes her stomach drop. Fuck. She's overthinking this. - Oh, there's a mirror. Damn, she looks fantastic. Dressed to the nines, hair and makeup on point, shoes - oh, still off, she's standing on that bit of the floor Alexa found earlier where the warm pipe runs underneath. Her toes are cosy. Should she put the shoes back on? No, come on, it's fucking February -
Enter stage left the miracle cure for overthinking: Alexa in a towel, hair falling slick-wet over her shoulders and back, looking utterly exhausted. Charlotte's mind focuses to a razor's edge. Nothing else matters but the moment, and the need:
Gotta take care of my girl.
It's easy. All but effortless, even. No talking required, only simple motion. Sit on bench. Put babygirl in lap. Pick up hairdryer (here's one she prepared earlier). Fuss over babygirl until toasty warm and dry. God, but she's missed running her fingers through Alexa's hair. It floods her mind with the softest static, a nothing-state that nonetheless feels full, whole, complete. Alexa leans into her hands, turns with them. Her eyes are softly closed; they squint a little when the airflow gets too close. She's the most beautiful thing Charlotte has ever held, and Charlotte has held every world title the WWE ever let a woman claim. Sometimes she thinks she could hold no title save Lexi's girl for the rest of her career and be perfectly content. After all - she feels Alexa lean closer and murmur in contentment, feels a chuckle rise in her own throat like the bubbling of a wellspring - what gold but this could ever wake so sweetly to her touch?
Dry now, too soon. Take brush, separate white-gold waterfall into neat halves. Retie piggies so Lilly doesn't get snotty about it later. Then, reluctantly, let go.
She breathes out the static. Breathes the world back in. Alexa scoots out of her lap and picks up her clothes (neatly folded, and Charlotte preens internally at having done that, too). She dresses in silence, clumsy and resolute. A sleepwalker.
Nothing for it now but to talk.
"...Did the stars get better?"
Wow. Great. Anyone overhearing that would think she was either crazy or talking to a five-year-old. It seems to be a passable question, though, judging by Alexa's quiet grunt of displeasure. "Mmh. A little. They're not great, but they're workable. I can live with them."
"So, like, day-three-cramps stars," Charlotte hazards, feeling stupid and at sea.
The corner of Alexa's mouth quirks up for a moment. "You say that, but they genuinely do give me cramps."
Oh, god, she's been stuck on day two for almost a fortnight? Ouch. No wonder she's so cranky. If Charlotte had gone through that she'd've been fit to tear somebody in half by now. She makes a sympathetic noise and rubs Alexa's lower back with the heel of her hand.
"Not that kind of cramps," says Alexa, but the mouth corner quirks up a little further.
Charlotte presses her other hand to her partner's smooth white belly and coos, "You know I'll rub you wherever you want, babygirl..."
Aaaand down go the corners. "My god, Charlotte," Alexa groans, "can you just not for two minutes?"
She flaps gently at Charlotte with a t-shirt. Wincing, Charlotte folds her hands delicately in her lap. "Sorry."
Alexa pulls the shirt on and shakes out her pigtails. It's her other WE'RE FRIENDS shirt, the one she hasn't shredded for ring gear purposes. She gives Charlotte a tired look and offers a half-heart. "Told you I'm not okay," she mutters, which is as good as an apology.
"You will be," says Charlotte gently, completing the heart with her own hand.
The mouth corners do not go back up again, but Alexa's expression softens. Charlotte will take it. She does her best to sit patiently as her partner finishes dressing: t-shirt, cargos, striped knee socks, heavily customised Converse. Alexa looks very young, still, though they're a decade away from the crazy kids of NXT who dreamed of taking on the world, little knowing they'd be the ones to change it. Charlotte's thinking about that, and about just how little she knows of what Alexa goes through - how little Alexa has allowed her to know.
"What would've happened," she asks as Alexa laces up her sneakers, "if I'd called?"
Alexa shrugs. "Nothing good. Best case, enough EM interference to leave your ears ringing. Might've been something much worse. Might not've been me who picked up."
"Then who?"
"Not who." Meaningful eye contact as she switches to the other set of laces. "What."
Charlotte shudders involuntarily. "Brrr."
"Exactly," says Alexa, and Charlotte decides she's better off without the details. Not that there's time for them anyway; Alexa is all but ready to leave, and she won't talk spooky in front of anybody else these days (ooh, that's a weird little squirm of pride, okay, odd thing to be glad about) so there the matter ends. Charlotte rises as Alexa does, steps back into her shoes as Alexa throws on her jacket. She looks her partner over at first to try to gauge her mood, but finds herself preoccupied by the vibe: adding the overcustomised leather jacket to the all black tee-and-cargos combo makes Alexa look a certain kind of way, perhaps like the sort of distressingly pretty emo boy who'd never have given Charlotte the time of day in high school, and that causes the second unexpected squiggle of pleasure in as many minutes. She supposes she must've made some kind of a face about it, because Alexa is narrowing her eyes in mistrust. "What."
You look very boyfriend right now and I wasn't ready to be into that, thinks Charlotte silently, having miraculously divined that now is not the time to be horny on main. Unfortunately that leaves her without a damn thing to say...except, of course, to ask the question that's been stuck on her mind all night. A quick glance at that mirror again: how does she suddenly look so skinny, so coltish, so unfit for purpose? When did the dress start wearing her? She catches herself wringing her hands and can't seem to stop. Almost can't meet her partner's eyes, even. Pathetic. "...Was this too much?"
Alexa gives her a flat look. "You know it was."
Of course she knew. That doesn't stop the frustration from boiling over. She winds her hands into her fists, barely keeps herself from stomping a foot. "NNNGH but I couldn't not!"
"You could've effortlessly "not", Charlotte," says Alexa, her mock-patience paper thin. "That's how "not" works."
"But then it would've been like I didn't care!" Charlotte protests. Off the back of her partner's look of disbelief, "It's how I was raised. Do it with Flair, you know? If you don't make the grand gesture, it's like you didn't even show up. - I know, I know, that's not a real thing for anybody else." Because Alexa seemed ready to give her the classism talk again. "I don't expect it from anybody else. But I do expect it from myself."
"Even," Alexa counters, "when I explicitly told you not to push me."
Oh, no, she's folded her arms. That's not good. "I'm not trying to push you, I'm trying to love you," Charlotte tries lamely.
Alexa's mouth twists, unreadable. Covering something. "Is that why you're weaponising your assets at me?"
Charlotte's wearing a hopeful smile before she knows what's happening. "Depends," she says automatically, "is it working?" Wait, no! Fuck! Horny on main! Bad Flair! ...Okay technically good Flair but bad bestie! Oh, god, nobody does a look of aggravated exhaustion like Alexa Bliss and Charlotte has never backpedalled so hard in her life. "Nonono but I didn't mean it like that. - Okay I kinda did. But I mostly didn't." Her partner does not look any less like a rapidly ticking time bomb. Shit. Charlotte scrambles for a reasonable explanation. Finding none, she resorts to the truth - which, unfortunately for her, makes her sound stupid as hell. "It's where you hide. You know, when the world's gotten too noisy, too exhausting, too stupid, too cruel, you just kinda...disappear in there for a minute and...come out calmer. I think. Or in some way better, anyway, or you wouldn't keep doing it every time everything sucks." Is Alexa...softening? A little? Around the eyes? Is this inane overanalysis of her cuddling habits actually working? Charlotte wets her lips. "...I wasn't really trying to be sexy. - Yes, I am objectively sexy in this dress," and she tries so hard to believe herself, "but that wasn't the point. The point was..." She hazards a smile. "...hey, look, Lexi, it's your favourite place to be."
And Alexa's gaze wanders right to that place and sticks there like there's magnets in it, and she sure does look very done with the world right now...and when she looks back up, she's almost smiling. Her eyes are wry, but warm. "It's a close second."
Charlotte gasps theatrically, presses a hand over Alexa's second favourite place to be and exclaims, "Ouch!" ...because she knows that's what Alexa wanted out of that comeback, not because she's really stung. Okay, she's a little stung. But it's Lexi, and she trusts that there's a point to this, so she adds the indignant "Second to what?" that Alexa expects and allows herself to be led.
Sure enough, Alexa twirls her index finger and points. "Turn around. Look up there."
So Charlotte does, ignoring the siren song of the mirror along the way, and...there's a monitor up there, showing the ring. Oh. Of course. The first and greatest love of every woman on the roster. It's a poignant pruning of her ego that she can't really argue with. Of course Alexa's favourite place is the ring, even over her.
...But can she still say the same of herself?
She's thinking deeply about that when she feels a pair of strong little hands on her shoulders and, a moment later, a warm impact against her back. She "oop!"s in surprise, hands already reflexively moving to catch her partner by both thighs, body shifting to accommodate the extra weight.
Alexa's arms come around her. She nuzzles into her neck with the sweetest sigh, and breathes, "This is my favourite place to be."
Charlotte's diamond heart cracks open, right down the middle. Molten light pours out, filling her chest, filling her belly, spreading all the way to the tips of her fingers, the crown of her head, the soles of her feet.
There's her answer right there.
Blinking back tears, she whispers, "Mine too."
"Can I stay for a bit?" Alexa mumbles, like she's already half asleep. (Now that she's in her favourite place, maybe she is.)
Charlotte thinks about how very, very much she wants that for a moment, and then for another moment about how to make it happen. Finally, resolved, she says, "Gimme two minutes, babygirl," and carefully deposits Alexa on the bench. "Maybe three. I have an idea."
Alexa sags. "Oh, god, what now?"
Charlotte's already digging in her gear bag. "No, trust me, this one's much better."
"It better be," says Alexa - and then she sees what Charlotte has in her hands, and blinks in surprise. "Oh. That is a better idea."
"Told you," says Charlotte, a little smug, a little relieved, all delight.
For the first time since Rumble, both of their smiles come easy.
There are no photographs of Charlotte leaving the arena on the night of Galentine's the Thirteenth. If there were, they'd show her in that same dress, heels swapped out for a pair of red ring boots with her monogram on the calves, still carrying Alexa - her gold - with a champion's pride.
(Drew McIntyre, eat your heart out.)