Charlie sat on the edge of his bed, Geppetto’s words echoing through his mind. His hands were shaking as the shadows in the darkness danced around his hotel room, twisting and writhing like restless spirits. The ever present ‘Tik, Tok’ of the clock in Charlie’s mind was driving him wild, refusing to give him even one moment of peaceful contemplation. Instead, the clock grew louder and louder every single time that Charlie stared down at the glass pipe on his table. 

The loaded pipe shined brightly under the dim light, as if the only purpose of the lamplight was to illuminate Charlie’s cure. In this cold and lonely room, the glass pipe was Charlie’s only source of warmth and comfort. Charlie stared at the pipe, his glazed eyes getting lost in the polished glass. He knew the high would be amazing, but he knew it would cost him everything.

But what did he have left to lose, now that she was gone?

Geppetto’s voice crawled back into the room, his tone was soft and welcoming. 

"One hit, Charlie. Just one hit. All the pain goes away."

Charlie’s jaw tightened as he reached for the glass pipe, his callous hands gripping the smooth, polished glass for only a millisecond before he recoils and shakes his head.

"No…not again. I’m not that man anymore…I don’t need it…"

But the ticking of the clock grew ever louder in Charlie’s mind, drowning out his thoughts. His hand moved back to the pipe. Charlie’s lonely room was filled with biting cold, but the pipe was warm to the touch. It was familiar, welcoming. Charlie picked the loaded pipe up and held it close, examining it, desiring it.

“Just take one hit, Charlie…you know you need it.”

Charlie stared at the glass pipe, his fingers twitching, itching to light it, to feel that sweet relief in his lungs. He knew it would numb everything—the guilt, the grief, the endless noise in his skull. He could practically taste it, the sweet burn on his lips.

God, how he craved it!

But beneath the craving was something darker, something heavier. The knowledge of what it cost him. The long nights spent chasing a high that never lasted. The cursed mornings waking up hollow and shaking. He didn’t want to go back to that lifestyle, but the pipe was right there, and it promised oblivion. Just one hit. Just one. It would be so fucking easy!

But then what? He’d wake up tomorrow, and the guilt would still be there. The grief would still be there. He’d be back at square one, or worse. He’d lose everything. Again. He couldn’t. He shouldn’t. But the thought wouldn’t leave him. Maybe he didn’t deserve to be sober. Maybe he didn’t deserve to succeed. Maybe the only peace he’d ever find was in the bowl of the pipe. The ‘Tik, Tok’ of the clock in his head grew louder, drowning out everything else. The pipe was in his hands, and he was so tired of fighting.

But before Charlie can act on his darkest desires, the door to his room bursts open. Jim “The Jim” Jimson rushes into the room, his mouth agape at the sight of Charlie hunched over a crack pipe. Charlie recoils in shock, dropping the pipe against the table.

"What the hell are you doing, Chuck?! Are you out of your mind? Six months clean, and this is how you throw it all away?”

Charlie stood up, raising his hands as if to plead his innocence.

"I didn’t use it, Jim! Geppetto put it in my hands! He’s fucking with me, Jim! He’s trying to put my strings back on!"

Jim’s eyes narrowed. He didn’t believe Charlie’s far-fetched fable. Not even a little bit.

"You’re better than this, Chuck."

Charlie sat back down as Jimson flung the glass pipe into the garbage can, causing it to shatter upon impact. Charlie’s head dropped into his hands as the ‘Tik, Tok’ of the clock finally faded from his mind.

“I knew you were back on this shit! Every time you start ‘seeing shadows’ and ‘fighting ghosts’, it’s because of the god damned crack rock! You’re probably about three hits away from putting on a leather mask and calling yourself Demos again. Jesus, Chuck, I thought you were past this. I really did.”

“I am, Jim! I’m not a dopehead, I’m just…”

Charlie sat slumped over the table. Jim’s words echoed in his head. Sharp. Accusing. Charlie wanted to scream. To explain. But the words wouldn’t come. Jim thought he was weak. Thought he was slipping back into old habits. But it wasn’t the drugs. It was the concussion. The fog in his brain. The shadows that wouldn’t leave him alone. Jim’s disappointment weighed on him like a stone. He was drowning. No one could see it. No one understood.

“I think I’m sick, Jim…I think the doctors might be right.”

Jim sat beside him, a look of grievous concern etched across his typically jovial face. He placed a comforting hand on Charlie’s back, waiting for The Nickleman to look him in the eyes before he broke the silence.

"You need to focus, Chuck. Bacchus is coming for you. He’s not gonna let what you did slide. He’s coming to Detroit to butcher you, and if you’re not in your right mind…"

Charlie’s glazed eyes snapped open as a snarl spread across his lips. 

"Bacchus? That clown couldn’t lead a parade, let alone a fucking revolution. He’s all talk, he’s always been talk. Tear down the system? Yeah right. He’s just another puppet, dancing on Geppetto’s strings like the good little bitch he is."

Jim sighed as he withdrew his hand from Charlie’s back.

"But you need to think big picture, Chuck. This about your kids. About your life. You’re spiraling, Chuck. And I can’t pull you out if you won’t let me."

Charlie didn’t respond. He stared at the wall. The shadows shifted. They seemed to laugh at him, but Jim couldn’t see it. No one else could see his torment. He clenched his fists as a bitter rage filled his soul.

"I’m not spiraling, Jim. I’m fighting! And I’m not losing. Not to Enigma. Not to Bacchus. Not to Geppetto. Not to anyone!"

Jim stood up from the table, looking down at Charlie as if he were some sort of fatherly figure.

"Then fight smarter. Not harder. You’ve got a concussion. You’re seeing things. You’re not in any shape to take on Bacchus. Or Enigma. Or anyone else for that matter."

Charlie didn’t look at Jim, his eyes were fixed on the dancing shadows along the wall. His voice was barely more than a whisper.

"I don’t have a choice, Jim. They’re coming for me. All of them. And I’m not running anymore. I have to do this, you just wouldn’t understand…"

Jim sighed, not in exasperation, but in pain. He hated seeing Charlie like this.

“You’re right, Chuck…I don’t understand. But I can still help you. Come on, let’s blow this popsicle stand. You’re staying at my place tonight.”

Jim gripped Charlie’s arm, guiding him out of the hotel room just like he used to do in their old tag-team days when Charlie’s benders would go too far. Charlie was barely able to walk straight, but Jim kept him steady. They made their way out into the cold night air. It hit Charlie like a crisp slap, but it didn’t do much to wake him up from his living nightmare. Jimson pulled open the passenger door, and Charlie fell into the seat, sinking into it’s plush comforts. The car started, and the pair were quickly on their way, the hotel growing distant in the rearview mirror. Charlie leaned his head against the window, the vibration soothing him into a deep slumber.

I know you’re conspiring with Geppetto.

You think I’m blind to your cheap tricks, to your dirty tactics?

You claim to be this big revolutionary, but at the end of the day, when you want something done in the XWF, all you have to do is call the big man upstairs and beg to get your way.

You’re a whiney little Bacchus, Johnny, and I know you have Geppetto bending over backwards to accommodate your narcistic delusions. They want to keep you around because you bring in the views, you put the asses in seats! You’re not a revolutionary, you’re just another puppet who can’t even feel the strings. You were brought into the XWF as an outsider, yet you have the fucking gall to act like everything we’ve worked so hard to build now suddenly belongs to you and your ‘revolution’.

Why?

Why do you deserve such ‘special boy’ treatment from Thad and his cronies?

Is it because you’re popular on Twitter? Or is it because you’re such a fake bitch, that you actually get along perfectly well with the top brass once those cameras shut off? 

Get the fuck out of my face with that ‘revolutionary’ horseshit.

I know you cried to the management team like a whiney little Bacchus, each and every time you lost a title belt in the XWF. You think you deserve them, but Johnny boy: if you deserved a title in this company you’d have one. The only thing you deserve is a kick to the fucking dick, you pompous prick!

I know for a fact that you were waiting outside of Thad’s office last Warfare, begging him to FUCK ME OVER in the first round of the Ides of March. Why? All because I hurt your little fee-fees when I pinned you backstage?

‘Thaddeus, Daddeus, pleaaase pleaaase fuck over Charlie and make him have two marquee matches in one weekend, right at the start of the most prestigious tournament in all of professional wrestling! I don’t like him, he’s MEAN TO ME! Please Geppetto, please!’

You could’ve grown a fucking spine and walked down to that ring last Warfare. You could’ve picked up a microphone and called me out, then and there, and we could’ve duked it out in the fucking ring that night.

But what does the little Bach boy do instead?

What does our self-proclaimed Revolutionary do?

He just goes and begs the chief executives to add a secret bonus match to the card, days after it was originally announced. I didn’t ask for this match, I didn’t beg Peter Principle to circumvent protocol and add a last-second double-booking. If I wanted to fight you, Bacchus, I’d just come fight
you. Like I’ve done so many times before.

But I guess that’s the difference between you and I, huh, Bach’ boy? 

When I want something done to you, I roll up my sleeves and make it happen. When you want something done to me, you cry like a bitch and beg for a GM’s help.

I call that the ‘Bacchus Principle’!

Charlie only awoke from his sweet dreams once Jim’s car rolled into the driveway. Jim’s house was surprisingly nice: three stories with a big front porch, and a fresh coat of paint along the exterior walls. Charlie stared at the beautiful house, his thoughts still scattered like leaves in the wind.

"Home sweet home!"

Jim said, trying to sound upbeat. As Charlie exited the car his legs felt weaker than ever, as if they were about to buckle. Jim placed a guiding hand on Charlie’s back as the pair entered the home. Jim led Charlie down a narrow hallway, past a bunch of framed photos on the wall. Charlie caught a glimpse of one—him and Jim, a few years younger, standing in a ring with their arms raised in victory. He looked away fast, like the photo burned his soul. Jim opened the door to a small room.

"Figured you’d wanna crash in here. Got some of our old stuff lying around. Might help you remember who you used to be."

The room was filled with relics from the pair’s storied past. Trophies, plaques, and medals were jammed onto a bookshelf in the corner, looking like they were about to topple over. On the other wall hung their old tag-team gear: Jim’s jacket with the ‘Dolphin Destruction Squad’ logo, and Charlie’s leather ‘Demos’ mask. It was dusty, but it was still there. The eye holes stared back at The Nickleman, empty and haunting. Charlie reached out, his fingers brushing the leather. It felt rough, like it hadn’t been touched in years.

Jim leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed as Charlie picked the old mask up.

"Remember that Savage? When you wore that thing out for the first time and the crowd went nuts? It’s like the roof was about to cave in!"

Charlie didn’t answer. He just stared into the empty holes of the mask, almost in a trance-like state as his fingers traced the leather stitching.

"Chuck, I know it’s hard to let things go, to let a career die…but, buddy, look at these walls! You’ve accomplished more in your career than most people can even dream of."

Charlie glanced up and saw a bunch of his old posters plastered to the wall. Each poster a reminder of pay per view main evented, of a TV championship defended. 

"Yeah…sure."

Charlie didn’t sound like he believed it.

“I’m serious, Chuck. You’ve been a tag champion, an X-treme champion, my god man, you even hold all the records for the TV division! You have more wins on XWF Savage than anyone else, ever. Maybe it’s time for you to hang the boots up?”

Charlie held the Demos mask up to his face, staring into the empty holes, almost as if he were speaking to the mask instead of Jimson.

“Maybe, maybe it’s getting close to the end, but…there’s another Savage on the horizon, and the clash of revolutionaries is calling my name…or maybe, maybe it’s calling my -other- name?”

“We already made our revolution, Chuck. Our revolution has been imprinted into the legacy of the XWF, and it won’t ever be forgotten. We put this company on our back, spreading Juche ideology, chasing away corporate sponsors left and right. When we started in this company, we were lifelong jobbers…but by the end of our reign of terror, we were superstars. The legacy of our revolution is already written, I think it’s time we let others write theirs.”

Charlie put the mask down as he looked back to Jimson, a vindictive snarl slowly curling across his lips.

“But these new bloods aren’t making revolutions, Jimmy! It’s like you always used to tell me, revolution isn’t a dinner party, or writing an essay, or winning a wrestling match: it is a violent and bloody war where one class overthrows another. A revolution is a struggle to the death between the future and the past..and Jim, I’m not quite dead yet.”

“Well actually, Mao Zedong said that, not me. And you’re getting closer to death than I’ve ever seen you before, man. Like, I’m actually getting worried.”

Charlie chuckled to himself before looking back to Jim with a grin.

“But it’s like you always said, whoever finishes a revolution only halfway, digs his own grave…and Bacchus’ plot still needs to be filled. His revolution was nothing more than a manifesto with no follow-through. If my career is ending, then his body needs to be buried alongside it.”

“I get it, Bacchus is a pain in your ass. But right now, you’ve got bigger problems. You’ve got a concussion, you’re seeing things, and I’m pretty sure you’ve relapsed. Can we focus on that for five minutes?”

“You don’t understand, Jim. Bacchus is part of it. He’s part of Geppetto’s plot against me!”

“Chuck, listen to yourself. You’re talking about Bacchus like he’s some kind of supervillain. He’s just a guy. A guy who’s not worth throwing away your life over.”

Jim sighed as he leaned against the door, clearly exasperated by Charlie’s desperate attempts to cling to his grudges.

“All I’m saying is…you’ve accomplished a lot in your career, and every time you go back out there, you’re taking huge risks with your life.”

"You don’t understand, Jim…you’re just another string. Geppetto’s string."

Jim’s face twisted in pain, clearly hurt from Charlie’s dissociating words.

"Chuck, I’m not working with Geppetto. I’m trying to help you.”

Charlie’s eyes flickered. For a moment, Jim’s face shifted. It wasn’t Jim anymore. It was Geppetto. His skin was pale. His grin was too wide. Too sharp. The illusion lasted only a second, but it lasted long enough to imprint on Charlie’s shattered mind.

"Get away from me! Just leave me alone!"

Charlie snarled, his voice echoing off all the accomplishments hung around the room.

“Ok, I’ll give you some space. I’m just asking you to sleep on it, please. For me. Just try to get some rest.”

Jim Jimson ducked out of the room, shutting the door behind him. As Jim left, Charlie sat on the edge of the bed, his eyes still on the ‘Demos’ mask. He picked up the mask again, turning it over in his hands. The inside was worn where his face used to fit. For a second, he thought about putting it on, he thought about feeling the familiar fit of the leather.

“Bacchus says he wants to see a revolution, huh? Well, the least I can do is show him what a real revolutionary looks like…the least I can do is cut his strings.”

Instead of sleeping, Charlie sat on his bed, plotting. When the sky grew dark and Jimson retired for the night, Charlie dressed for war. He put on his old ‘Demos’ attire, and it clung to him like it never wanted to leave him again. The TV championship belt hung heavy on his shoulder as he stared into the mirror at the edge of the room.

Charlie stood in front of the mirror, the leather mask snug against his face. As he stared at his reflection, he no longer saw himself: he saw only The Demos. The mask hid everything: the pain, the guilt, the grief. For the first time in months, he felt right. The pain was still there, but it was muffled, like it couldn’t touch him as long as the mask was on. He adjusted the straps, the familiar weight of the outfit settling over him like armor. 

His eyes were hollow behind the mask, as black as Geppetto’s had been. But that didn’t bother Charlie: his gaze had shifted to the room’s window. The night was waiting for him like a hungry beast.

"I can’t just walk away from this business. Geppetto’s out there. He’s not gonna stop until I’m broken. I have to face him and all of his puppets. I have to cut the strings for good!"

The drumbeat in his head had returned, but it felt different now. Like a war drum. He glanced at the window, the night outside calling to him. Bacchus thought he knew what a revolution looked like. Charlie was about to show him the truth. He ducked out the window, the cool air hitting his face, and disappeared into the shadows along the road to Warfare. The mask hid his smile, but it was there. Sharp. Dangerous. Ready for battle.

How do you not see that everything I’m doing -to- you, I’m doing -for- you?

I never had a problem with you, Bacchus. Not until now. You and Charlie may have had issues, but you and me? We had only ever met in the imaginations of the revolutionary youth. 

But now, now we’re really gonna have a problem.

Because before this match, Bacchus?

I was helping you. But you’re so short-sighted, you can’t see anything past your own ego. You weren’t ready to be the Universal champion, Johnny boy: you weren’t ready when I stole your X-treme title, and you weren’t ready when I rocked your world at the Pay Per View.

What kind of Universal champion did you want to be, Bacchus? What was going to happen to your ‘revolution’ when you finally won the big one? Did you ever, in your self-aggrandizing quest for glory, stop to consider that for one moment?

You’ve based your entire run in the XWF on another man. Every word out of your mouth, every step in your path: it was never yours. It was always in service to Sebastian, to his Empire. You were his puppet just as you were Geppetto’s. Without his overbearing empire pressing down upon the federation, you never could've marketed your 'revolution'.

But, when the Emperor falls….what becomes of the revolution?

Did you ever, for a moment, stop to think about that? Or were you solely focused on your quest, on your own accolades and achievements?

You didn’t have a plan for the day after. You’re no Vladimir Lenin: you’re just a gender-swapped Greta Thunberg. You were never building a revolution: you were using Sebastian’s Empire to establish yourself as the ‘counter-brand’.

You’re just the Pepsi to his Cola.

That's why Adeyemi was our only way forward, can't you see? 

You want to run around on your Date Nights pretending to be Luigi Mangione, but Johnny boy, we all know you’re too cowardly to pull a trigger. I could see you pulling a trigger warning, but a trigger? Get out of here with your Chekovian melodramas. If you want to keep cosplaying a revolutionary, maybe you should learn to turn the cameras off when stuff gets ‘real’.

Honestly Bacchus, you should be -thanking- me for stopping your Universal reign before it ever began. Everyone loves to watch their hero while he’s on the chase, and all I’ve done is extend your chase, forever, in perpetuity.

Because the moment you win the big one, Bacchus? It’s all over for you. Your story will collapse under the weight of the achievement. Everyone loves a dead revolutionary, but nobody loves the dictators they must become.

Charlie's been gatekeeping the universal championship for years at this point, Bacchus: it’s pretty much his bread and butter. When he sees someone he don’t like walking around with the prettiest girl at the ball, he always breaks up the dance. Just ask Sarah Lacklan. Just ask Jim Caedus. Just ask Alias. He's been driving universal champions out of the XWF for years- and even if I’ll never win the big one myself, I can promise you this, Johnny boy: he won’t let you win it either.

I’m a cockroach, Bacchus: I’m ugly, I’m disgusting, I’m a vermin roaming these lands, and I’m everywhere. My beady little eyes see everything you do in the dark, you can never hide from me.

But you, Johnny boy?

You’re just a dainty little butterfly. You’re pretty to look at, and you fly through the air with such grace: everyone just loves to watch you run around in circles, repeating the same tired lines over and over again.

They want you to win, I know they do. Geppetto’s putting his thumb on the scales for this match, and frankly, you need all the help you can get against Charlie. You can’t handle The Nickleman 1 on 1, you haven’t been able to handle the Nickleman 1 on 1 for months…so you’re trying to get Enigma on your side….you’re trying to get the GMs on your side….you’re trying to get the entirety of the XWF to bend to your will, just so that you can ‘put Charlie in his place’…

But Bacchus, don’t you understand?

It doesn’t matter what you do to me inside that ring. It doesn’t matter how much you cozy up to Geppetto, or how many more opponents I have coming down the pipes: because at the end of the day, there’s one simple truth that exists between us, and there’s nothing you can do to change it. It’s not a promise, Bacchus, and it’s not a threat: it’s just a historical truth.

As long as I’m in the XWF, you will never be our Universal Champion.