"I'm the nightmare you fell asleep in and woke up still in."

"Who's the fucking now?"

The water was cold as ice, and Luca's face scrunched as he plunged his face into it. He tightened his grip on the sink's bowl as he shoved his head further into the pool of tap water he'd created; his eyes clenched shut, his unsteady hands raw and bleeding. Even submerged, he couldn't escape the sounds of his fists colliding with the jaw, the cheeks, hell, the entire face of some fuccboi who thought running his mouth was a good idea.
Sound familiar?
"I said, who's the now?"

His own rage-fueled taunts echoed all around him. The water ran red. He didn't realize he'd been cut before. Adrenaline, he reasoned. Of course he didn't notice a wound, he had better things to do.

He pulled his head out of the water and took a breath. The mirror revealed a nasty gash on his right brow, which he curiously poked at, grimacing with discomfort each time but not thinking to just stop.

"First time?" asked a feminine voice. Luca was sure he'd heard the voice somewhere, it struck him like a truck and poked at his brain with a scalpel, then nothing.

"Nope."

He didn't turn to look at the woman. No, that'd be admitting defeat, even though she never challenged him to remember her, nor did she even drop a hint that they'd met before in the past. He kept his eyes down, looking at the rim of the sink and the red water that sat, settling, stagnating.
Just like Alexis Riot's career, already.
"Wrong bathroom? I know, the signs are confusing?"

The woman chuckled. "No. I'm, right where I need to be."

The more she talked, the more Luca caught onto an oddness in her voice. A bitter, coldness he'd encountered many times before in his life. This wasn't what she wanted to portray. No, this was a monster trying to be human.

Two could play at that game.

"That so?"

He turned to her and cracked his most charming smile, offset by the bleeding cut on his forehead.

He'd seen her before, he knew he had. Yet, no matter how long he looked, no bells rang. Her name was on the tip of his tongue.

Maybe he hadn't. His nights tended to run together, the lines separating days blurred to the point where the entire month of December felt like one day. He didn't remember when he slept last, so he reasoned that she was only familiar because he'd seen her type so many times before.

Slim, modestly dressed, with dyed-blonde hair and a heart of stone. The type to try to cut a dude's throat when they try and break it off. The reason he avoided committed relationships.

"Sheesh, he got you good."

"You should see him."

"I did," she said with a smile, which faded momentarily as a disgusted expression came over her. "Maybe we should talk somewhere that isn't the men's room of a dive bar?"

Luca said nothing, but nodded.

A couple minutes later, they were seated at the counter. Though he tried to dismiss it, he couldn't stop thinking about the woman next to him. That they'd met before or, at the very least, he'd seen her before. Not just her type. Her. Specifically. Though, it felt like the longer he stared, unblinking, the more the answer slipped from his mind. His vision blurred, eyes stung, but he refused to blink until the answer came to him.

She'd asked him something on the way to the counter. Why he'd be allowed to stay in the building after the fight, to which he mumbled some semi-coherent spiel about the owner owing him a favor or two. Truth was, he didn't quite know himself.

"Take it you like what you see," she said to finally break the silence as Luca's eyes fell shut despite his desires.

"I've seen you somewhere before, haven't I?" he finally admitted.

"Just have one of those faces, I guess. My name's Amy, by the way."

Luca nodded. She rehearsed everything she said before she said it. Like she was reading off a script. Every word, every action, deliberate. Robotic, almost. Whatever this ball of brimming insanity had in mind, he was almost certain it wasn't going to end well, but it engulfed him. He wanted to see where this road would lead him.
Quite the opposite from Alexis Riot and her Rebel Robot shtick.
"I'm--"

"Luca Arzegotti. Big fan."

"That so?"

Luca couldn't help but smile.

"Wish you were around more, really. I hardly even watch XWF anymore."

"Do you, wanna get outta here?"

Amy smiled right back at him. As genuine as everything else.

"Thought you'd never ask."

This isn't real. It isn't. Not happening. It's never this easy, even with my charm and someone as robotic and hollow as her. No, there's something else entirely going on.

It isn't real. But it feels just like the real thing. The stabbing cold of the wind striking my face, the stench of New York City lingering in the air, the aimless conversation we're having on the walk back to my place.

I tell her I'm actually making a comeback, like a real one. Not some one-off guest appearance. I feign modesty, and say how my opponents are definitely a tough match-up on any given night, how they're especially dangerous since I haven't wrestled in seven months and haven't kept up with any real training regiment in two years. She sees right through it. I try to keep up the charade, but she shoots me down and urges me to tell her how I really feel.

So I do. I don't hold back. I let it all out. Repeat what I've said time and time again in my recent promos about how they're idiots. Jokes. How they're half as smart as Gilmour and only a quarter as talented. She laughs, because she thinks I'm exaggerating. Or maybe she doesn't. That's the beauty of her choreographed routine. I can't see through her. I don't even remember the last time I couldn't see someone's ulterior motive; be it some ring rat's desire to get fucked by anyone in the XWF, to Alexis Riot's obvious desperation for fame that she just doesn't have the talent to achieve, to Justice Drake's yearning for acceptance.

I look into her eyes and I see nothing.

I'm kind of afraid and slightly aroused.

She smiles, and for the first time I can discern some kind of emotion behind it. She's veering from her script, perhaps? Smug satisfaction, like she knows she's got me right where she wants me.

As we finally make it to my apartment complex, I start telling her about I've begun to call myself a series of silly nicknames, like Commander Cocaine or Generalissimo Arzegotti or the Fuccboi Fragger, and then finally #MemeQueen.

I don't know why. I'm guessing she asked me something that prompted that response but I've all but tuned her out. If her little script ends the way I think it does, I don't need to listen to her.

She tells me to run with it, as if I wasn't already doing that. Suggests costume changes for each one of the personas, at the very least to give any fuccbois unlucky enough to square off with me something to talk shit about, since the "you suck John Madison's dick" comments are outdated.

I drift in and out of concentration as we approach the door to my apartment. I open the door, we step inside, then...

Sunlight leaked into Luca's apartment through the blinds, stirring Luca awake. He shifted, turning away from the blinding light, half-awake. After a few minutes of hopelessly trying to drift back off to the wonderful world of sleep he'd forgotten all about during one of his regular benders, he groggily pushed himself out of bed. His head throbbed, and as he looked down at the bed, he saw blood on his pillow. Wincing in advance, he tapped his head in the general vicinity of the gash he acquired to establish that yes, that did actually happen.

However, the woman, Amy, was nowhere to be found. Despite that, there sat at the foot of the bed something he didn't recognize. A spandex outfit of sorts, a mask and slip of paper lying atop it. Curious, he grabbed the note and studied it, waiting for his brain to start functioning and allow him to make sense of the damn thing.

I was serious last night. The costume thing would be a great touch. -AmyPS fuck those two idiots you're facing. You got that one in the bag.

He chuckled and eyeballed the get-up.
what the actual fuck?
Yes. That would do nicely.