And Then There Were Two

“You think it’s serious, bro?”

Crash leaned over in the chair in the waiting room, sterile and otherwise silent except for his question and the nervous shuffling of one Tom Battaglia in a seat across the floor.

“I’d be shocked if it wasn’t.”

Tom exhaled deeply. One could be forgiven if they thought it a sigh. He arched back as his butt slid across the seat of the chair.

“You don’t ask your friends or family to come with you to the doctor’s if you thought it was just going to be routine. He’s gonna need someone to catch him as he’s falling.”

Crash leaned forward.

“Whoa, deep, bro.”

“Not really,” Tom replied. “You been around this business as long as I have, and things make too much sense. Scant little surprises me anymore.”

“Even our bro gettin’ brainwashed?”

Tom chuckled.

“For the first year of this company’s reboot, you couldn’t turn around without bumping into a cult. I surmise about a quarter of the roster was either brainwashed or had brainwashed someone into their service.”

He winced, remembering his first big feud after he’d come back. Balaam. What a nightmare. For a moment, Crash looked scared, but he just shook his head while squeezing his eyes shut.

“Still sucks, bro. I don’t wanna think about what the Heroes are gonna be like without Bash.”

Tom furrowed his eyebrow.

“I mean, what have we been like lately?”

Crash squinted.

“I don’t follow, bro.”

Tom sighed.

“I really don’t wanna have to run down the reasons why Nobody’s Heroes have felt like a name slapped on the bottom of our chyron on ACE Network and not a real group in a doctor’s waiting room.”

Tension filled the otherwise empty room. Crash and Tom couldn’t really stand to look at each other at that moment as each second loomed like an eternity.

🦸

It was this type of moment that made Crash second guess the ever-present craving that he needed a few dozen hotdogs. He knew it wasn’t because he was hungry. He already polished off a few with his eggs and bacon before he left to meet the Heroes. He came to the conclusion that, right now, he only wanted the lil’ doggies to shove down the growing feeling of fear and hopelessness. 

“So, just makin’ sure I follow what you’re sayin’, T… if Bash can’t smash with Crash and the Mask anymore, then Nobody’s Heroes might as well throw in the towel?”

Tom’s eyes dropped to the floor and exhaled through his nostrils to stall as he searched for the right words to help Jason understand what he meant. That gave Crash the floor, however, and he rolled on like a runaway train.

“If anything., this is the time we need to double down and batten down the hatches, bro.”

His fingers and thumbs shot every which way as his brain tried to lock in on whichever threat was gonna come their way next. Words have yet to match the arm gestures though as Crash started but stopped and pivoted and paused before cutting himself off to find the one precise reason Tom should follow his lead.

The silence that followed caused Tom to lift his eyes. That’s where he found Jason Jackson, not really looking like a Hero in that moment, mouth open and staring off into space. His younger friend’s eyes bounced from point to point. That went on for a few more seconds before they began to well up.

“Jesus dude…”

He finally looked at Tom through the building tears. Crash’s shoulders dropped just as his body did into an empty chair behind him.

“I don’t wanna do this without Bash, bro…”

🦸

One might think that a major catharsis would clear the cobwebs out of a troubled brain. Sure, Tom didn’t bring home the Five Star, but he took that loss in better stride than nearly any other he’d suffered in PRIME to that point. He got his mother back, and a major personal roadblock was left obliterated in the wake of a train that he’d thought at times was losing steam.

But that’s not how neurodivergence works.

One problem to the next.

The Heroes were a mess, and he held the blame for that close to his heart. He was supposed to be the veteran, the stabilizing force. Accidentally thrust into membership? Tom knew that wasn’t a big deal.

“Life is what happens when we’re busy making plans.”

Yeah, John Lennon was a shitbag, but he was right.

And he always felt distant from the group, and look what happened.

Crash, battered into therapy and hot dog-addled shame spirals.

Bash, lured into the Whoresaw Pact and serving as an ersatz eunuch for a REAL one.

And now, with the heart and soul of the group in sequester with a doctor receiving news that both men on the outside would give any part of their body to hear simultaneously, they were in their own come-to-Jesus moment.

But something about the situation struck him as he sat there.

They would both give anything to be there to hear the news with their comrade.

Maybe things weren’t as bad as Tom thought…

🦸

The longer the Heroes had to wait, the more certain Crash became that things couldn’t get much worse.

Things were already pretty much sour grapes for the Northern Light.

Violent Purple was still a wreck. Not as violent as before but still had her flare ups of instilling fear into his soul with her physical aggressions. 

His PRIME career had been stuck in neutral as of late, likely the result of dealing with a loaded gun outside the ring, and not being able to capitalize when his name was pulled out of the proverbial hat.

Sebastian Gold being sidelined for the long term would be the spoiled cherry on top of a real shit float. 

And, goddamnit, he didn’t want to eat it.

Not again.

He felt a tear splash down his cheek and thought about how hard it was gonna be now. Then he thought about doing it all on his own again and the floodgates opened.

“Grief is the price we pay for love.”

Despite the different times and circumstances, Queen Elizabeth II’s words were never more fitting than in this waiting room right now.

🦸

The door from the back creaked open, and the slumped posture and sunken face told Crash and Tom everything they needed to know before Sebastian Gold could say a word.

“Ah fuck,” Tom muttered under his breath.

In that same moment, Crash balled his fist, “No, bro…”

Bash looked up at his partners, weary from the wait and their own psychological tug of war, but he couldn’t muster the words.

“Hey,” said Tom, “It’s alright. We’re here. Now…”

Tom looked over at Jason for a moment and nodded.

“...and always.”

Bash looked up, still groggy from the news he’d been delivered by the doctors.

“Yeah,” Crash joined in. “Always.”

🦸

Bash told the boys everything the doctors told him. Grade 2 concussion was the main event. They also had to run more tests on his neck. The doctor wanted to refer him to a specialist, but spinal stenosis was on the menu, and any wrestler knows that’s a few years on the shelf at least. He also said the docs were concerned about his overall mental state, too much hanging around with Fred Dick made him manifest some nasty symptoms. Bash said the doc didn’t even refer him to a therapist. He went right for a psychiatrist, someone who actually had power to prescribe drugs.

All in all, both physically and mentally, Sebastian Gold probably had to stay away from a wrestling ring for a long time.

Tom expected the news, but he didn’t anticipate the details to be so lurid. Jason was caught more off-guard by everything. He still appeared on ReVival and wrestled between trips to his docs. But the nature of the injury was much different. Still, the conversation rocked the two “healthy” members of the group almost as hard as it did the main patient.

“I still don’t believe any of this shit,” Bash said, his low tone matching slumped posture, as if he was speaking straight from the bags under his eyes.

“You aren’t supposed to,” Tom replied. “I’ve been in your shoes, staring an unwanted vacation from the ring in the face. You’re not supposed to be the one crashing and burning, but sometimes, that’s the hand fate deals you.”

“So what did you do?”

“I walked away. I became a family man, and that served me well for awhile. I healed. But I recognized that it was something that I couldn’t possibly begin to fix myself. That’s where you’re at. You may not like it, but if you follow the right path, you’ll come back better for the journey. You aren’t going to be passive, but sometimes, the best choice to make is just to let your body heal itself. There isn’t anything for you to fix, unlike…”

Tom trailed off, trying to think of the right way to phrase what he wanted to say. He’d laid an entire truckload of doubt on Crash before, but his own head betrayed him. He didn’t know what to say other than he had things to atone for, work to do.

“This isn’t fair bro,” Crash stopped himself much the way Tom had to.

Before he stumbled and tripped over whatever he was about to say, he just gripped Bash by the shoulder and pulled him close. Sebastian embraced him back with force which might have felt better than anything either of them could say to their brother in arms.

Crash pulled back and locked eyes with Bash, “But you’re gonna get through it, dude. Like T said, you gotta take care of yourself first. This shit can wait. We’ll steer the ship and get us to clearer waters. In the meantime, you get yourself right and leave the hardball stuff to us.”

The look on Bash’s face wasn’t satisfied but acknowledged how, someday, those words might help. Right now, they clearly aren’t what he wants to hear from his fellow Heroes. Crash turned to Tom, unsure if his words were just lip service or if these two were prepared to carry on without their fallen friend. They shared a moment of sincere eye contact before Bash gripped them both by the shoulder.

“You have to,” Bash winced, probably because of the fluorescent lighting. “If I could, I’d be there right next to you boys. So, not saying you need or have to do this for me but…”

Crash looked at Tom one more time with a fire in his eye.

“We got you, bro.”

“Yeah. We got you.”

Tom squeezed his eyelids shut and inhaled deep before he spoke up again.

“It’s on me. I’ve been distant lately, and as much as you need to heal, Bash, how much you need to recognize things are out of your control right now, well…”

Tom looked at Jason before returning to his monologue.

“It’s time for me to recognize there’s something here that is going to die if I don’t take action.”

Bash and Crash both looked on intently. Tom continued.

“So even though we’re losing a comrade in the short term, we’re not going anywhere. Well, I’m not going anywhere.”

Tom put out his fist towards Crash.

“You in, bro?” he asked Crash with a smile.

Crash clocked the fist and looked at Tom. Without hesitation, he fired up some knucks that made an audible crack without breaking eye contact. The Northern Light didn’t smile because he wanted blood after all of this bullshit and his nostrils flared

“Locked and loaded, T,” his tone was gritty and ominous.

Crash looked at Bash. They both knew they wanted to say so much but also knew that it wouldn’t ease the pain of not being on the same side of the ring for the foreseeable future. It was the bond they both had been looking for throughout their path to PRIME and, now that they found it, it was put on pause with no power of their own. Both of the expressions on their faces said they both understand that, despite the setback, they would join forces again.

No matter how hard it was gonna be.

🦸🦸