[Eiley]

OFF CAMERA
Location: Honolulu, Hawaii.
Date:FLASHBACK TO JANUARY OF 2022.
 

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BACK TO THE BEGINNING

There isn't a peep out of the second bedroom for the entirety of what was left of the afternoon. On several occasions she thought he might have been stirring, only for it to have been coming from one of the other suites on the floor. However, she wasn't completely convinced that he had actually crashed as opposed to having snuck out while she was gone. She had long since abandoned the kitchen space in the early evening, sitting out on the terrace as she heard doors opening and closing back in the suite. Had she gotten up to investigate the source, she would have seen the second bedroom door open, with one of the beds inside much more lived in than the other.

The bathroom door at the front of the suite would have now been closed instead, with sounds of the small stall shower inside running, as he had not wanted to invade her space in order to get himself woken up for another night. A half hour or so goes by until she hears the same doors close and open once more, assuming he had gone back to the room. When she comes back into the master bedroom from the terrace she is startled by him emerging through the door in front of her with a towel wrapped around his waist. Alarmed, he looks at her and points to the closet, wanting to make certain she knew this wasn't just some move.

○OZ  "Didn't think the guest room through. I didn't take my clothes with me…"

Granted that whole thing would have seemed like a real hassle by the time they got back from their party. The walk back after all the drinks had been hard enough. Before sleeping it off, he was operating at as low power as possible. He hadn't been thinking of tonight, and he couldn't exactly blame himself.

○OZ  "I'll be out of your way in a second…”

He enters the closet, and moves past the safe to grab his bag and throw it over his shoulder before grabbing two different garment bags with the other hand before folding them over his arm. He carries them out onto the bedroom, and uses his foot to push the door to the closet closed.

○OZ  "Find something that is going to be attention-grabbing tonight?"

The words didn't come with the same disbelieving tone he had taken with her before getting some rest. He almost sounded like he expected the answer to be resoundingly positive.

•EILEY•  “Maybe.”

She just shrugs her shoulders as she adjusts the length of the shorts, pulling them down her upper thighs a little bit even though it was pointless as they were pretty short. She found that living in less clothing was more comfortable in the tropical climate of the island. She was okay with being alone as she had grown accustomed to it and she was not the type to sit around, waiting for him to pay her any attention. She liked it better when nobody’s attention was really focused on her.

•EILEY•  “I guess you’ll have to be surprised.”

It was all she really needed to say to him as she walks over to the closet where she’d stashed her stuff before grabbing most of it and slipping into the bathroom and shutting the door behind her. She sets her bag on the floor before setting the smaller shopping bags on the bathroom’s counter before hanging up the dress on the hook on the bathroom door.

She wasn’t sure what he was expecting or how long he was hoping she didn’t take but after about roughly an hour or so, she emerges out of the bathroom, a completely different person. The dress she’d chosen was a little more out there but it would do. It was a a gold sequined dress that was form fitting and a little shorter than she had expected but it hugged her body in the right places. The top of the dress sort of looked as it draped down a little bit, giving a small glimpse of cleavage but not too much where it seemed trashy. The straps to the dress were skinny and the dress was practically backless.

She had done her hair in some sort of updo with a loose dutch braid on one side that pulled back into a stylish messy bun with a few tendrils of hair out in curls to frame her face. She knew how to do hair as it was something she’d picked up in one of the better foster homes she had stayed in as the mother had run a hair  salon out of her home and hadn’t minded when Eiley watched her do clients’ hair. It was also that foster mother who had taught her the basics of make up and Eiley had just learned the other aspects of a smokey eye, winged eyeliner, false eyelashes, and everything else from youtube or TikTok tutorials. She hadn’t needed a hair stylist or a make up artist to fix her hair or her face. The make up on her face was light enough to where it looked natural but enough where it enhanced her own beauty. She’d used false eyelashes to draw the attention to her brown eyes and had done a black winged eyeliner with a light gold smokey eyeshadow look. She didn’t want to overdo the make up, so she just applied a sheer nude pink glass to her lips.

She wasn’t entirely sure how the night was going to go but she was sure it would work out, it almost always did for Oz so she was sure it would for her. And schemes like she was thinking about had worked for her in California and it was how she ended up in Hawaii in the first place. She sits on the edge of the bed and carefully slips on the five inch stiletto heels that are a simple gold color with a strap just around the toes and one simple one around her ankle.

•EILEY•  “This better be worth this hassle.”

She was talking to herself as she finishes buckling the buckle on one of the shoes before standing up. She wobbles a little bit as it had been a while since she had worn heels and she takes a few steps before practicing a few times to walk up and down the length of the room to try to get it to look more natural. It didn’t take her too long before she felt that she got the hang out of it.

She walks out of the bedroom and into the main area of the hotel suite and she goes to look for Oz but she gets sidetracked by one of the window and the view of the sky through it. She smiles to herself as she watches the sky for a moment before hearing a noise, bringing her attention and focus back to the room and what she was doing. She turns around and subconsciously pulls at the short skirt of the very tight dress.

•EILEY•  “This is all you’re getting for tonight.”

She wasn’t sure if it was too much or not enough, but she was definitely underselling it. He had managed to have his initial reaction to seeing her, and also force said reaction off of his face in the time it took for her to hear him and turn. His appearance couldn't have been what she was expecting either, so he thought he would have a moment where she was too discombobulated by it to judge the look on his face.

Instead of having dressed up as she was, he had a simple white buttoned-down shirt, and cheap looking dress pants. Even the black dress shoes he was wearing looked like they had seen better days, but of course, that was the whole idea. He brings the bowtie up to his next and clips it in place, completing the look.

○OZ  "Good enough. If they're looking at you, they aren't looking at m---"

A knock on the door startles them both and cuts off his thoughts. He looks at the clock on the wall and mutters something under his breath about them being early before crossing over to the door, but waiting a moment before turning the handle.

○OZ  "Pretty sure it says do not disturb, ya know?"

He was loud enough to be heard through the door and forced enough feigned hostility into his voice to scare off any randoms that may have been knocking. Instead, the answer they hear from the other side is exactly like last night.

?: "We know!"

Without looking out, he turns the handle and pulls the door open as he walks back towards her in the room. Five others followed behind him, and four of them were dressed exactly the same as Oz was. With them was a taller fifth man who was dressed much differently. If someone had gone through every possible accessory option and picked the tackiest one every time, they might have a chance to look as cheap as this guy. His suit and pants were white, with a gold shirt underneath. He had rings on most fingers, and gaudy sunglasses on even though the sun was going down and they were indoors. Oz doesn't look back at them before talking seemingly just to Eiley.

○OZ  "These slackers are the rest of the team. Ja---"

The tacky one holds up a hand and shakes his head. Despite the way he looked, his speaking voice was entirely plain and monotonous. The clash was a little disturbing.

: "We don't need to do all that with a random. Let her prove she can hang before the info dump man."

Oz sighs, but doesn't waste time arguing.

○OZ  "You got your loudmouth…"

He motions at the man that cut him off, but still doesn't look back at them. She had called him the mastermind of all of it earlier, but it didn't look like that had been much of a contest.

○OZ  "Two of us are going to be lifting. The other two will run all the cards so we can put them back."

And that was where the risk of the night once. If they made it to the end, there was no need for them to take off. The charges on their statements  would look like a few hundred dollars worth of drinks they didn't remember, but nothing would be physically missing.

○OZ  "Your job is to pretend like we aren't there. Don't interact. Don't make eye contact. Keep moving. Do what you can to put yourself near the ones that will keep an eye on you or make a move. The better you do, the better we do. Everyone gets paid."

Before he can continue, he is cut off once again.

: "Speaking of…"

Oz wastes no time returning the favor for all the interruptions.

○OZ  "In the safe. Same combo. Take it all. We can break it all down and add it to the split. Once we leave, we don't come back to this room."

The loudmouth moved through the suite and into the master bedroom. He is gone for a few moments before reemerging with a sack full of the items from the safe. He passes it off to one of the others.

○OZ  "Don't all show up at once…. There are going to be a lot of servers down there but if we don't space they'll know some things up."

All of the members of the group nod before the five-man tandem heads out the door. Once they are gone, he turns the lock behind them and heads back to where she stands.

○OZ  "Sorry about all that…."

Eiley wasn’t too worried about the others that had barged in the room and she barely paid them any attention. She was used to many different people that would show up in places and talked over or around her like she wasn’t there and often treated her as if she wasn’t anything special.

•EILEY•  “It’s fine.”

She just shrugs it off as if it wasn’t a big deal. She was growing used to the scratchy/itchy feeling of the dress and she was growing used to  the extra height that the stiletto heels gave her as well. She wasn’t necessarily short but she was average height for a woman. She also wasn’t aware of the operations that happened in the background.

•EILEY•  “You don’t have to apologize for your friends or lackeys’ actions.”

She looks at him and pushes one of her loose pieces of hair out of her face. She was still getting used to the added weight the false lashes added to her regular lashes. It had been a long time since she had been dolled up to the nines with all the extra steps she had done in her makeup routine for the night’s events. But she wanted to look the best she could for whatever was going to transpire tonight.

•EILEY•  “The only actions that you’re responsible for being accountable for is your own. And I don’t see you apologizing for those anytime soon.”

She just gives him a look as she turns back to look out the window. She lets her eyes scan the beach and smiles as she sees a few different families still enjoying the beach and the ocean. There was one thing that Eiley had picked up since she had been in Hawaii was surfing. She didn’t own a surfboard but she’d managed to scrape enough money to rent a surfboard from time to time to practice.

•EILEY•  “When does this…thing start? I’m growing bored of watching people on the beach.”

He crosses the room back to her side and extends out his right hand, holding his palm up. Clipped to the inside of his pinky finger is one of the small card readers but instead of being plugged directly into a device, he had a cable taped up the side of his hand and into the arm of his shirt. He looks at it and smiles at her.

○OZ  "So downstairs is one of those lame hospital conventions. Pharmaceutical companies and tech companies are set up to try and bribe them to buy a bunch of shit they don't need. Because of COVID, the bar is cashless."

He was hoping that she was going to be able to follow the logic pretty simply, as there wasn't much to it.

○OZ  "You enter from one side. Loudmouth comes down the other. We work our way through to the middle. You too distract, we grab what we can and pass it off. Swipe any card handed to us to open a tab for a few hundred dollars. We bounce in about an hour before anybody knows what happened."

With that, he lowers his hand, and looks at one of the watches he had acquired in the last day or two.

○OZ  "I'll head down to be in position for your entrance. You come too close to anybody you just saw, go the other direction. You are just eye candy. We'll handle everything else this first time."

He was hoping that even though she was taking more of a back seat this time, it would at least give her a chance to see what a more organized and efficient game looked like.

○OZ  "Like I told them though, I am not coming back up here. I'll ditch the clothes in the alley between this place and the smaller one next door. Then I'll be headed too…."

He rummages in his pocket before finding the stack of keycards that she had seen the night before. He thumbs through them and holds the right one up.

○OZ  "....the Hilton Lagoon Tower…. Wherever the fuck that is…"

He shrugs his shoulders before looking around.

○OZ  "It's not as nice as this one but the penthouse does have an awesome spiral staircase up to the master. No giant terrace like this one, but a private hot tub on a balcony. If you want to keep living the high life there'll be space."

She was listening to him even though she was not looking at him, her brown eyes watching out the window once more. She watches as the people move about the beach and she looks even closer to the hotel to see people walking inside. She was lost in her little world for what seemed like a while but in reality it was only a minute and a half.

•EILEY•  “I’m sure it’s fine.”

Her voice was light and not at all like it had been the night before. She pulls herself away from the window to turn to look at Oz for what seemed like the first real time that day. She hadn’t really been paying much attention earlier but she let herself look him over before she gives him a shrug.

•EILEY•  “I don’t care where we end up.”

She was being honest about the end of the night's whereabouts. She really didn’t care about the location or where they were. She honestly didn’t even care if she had to go back to the house that she shared with her roommates. It wasn’t her favorite place but it was a place where she could sleep and shower and that was all she really needed.

•EILEY•  “And I’m not thinking that you really care, either.”

He wasn’t the type that struck her that he cared where he landed and he’d shown that to her over the past night. She hadn’t known a lot about his living situation in high school or back in California. She had assumed that it had been pretty similar; she’d slept in weird places to avoid the foster homes she was living in. She’d even slept on the floor in a few party houses and that was probably some of the worst places she’d slept.

•EILEY•  “Let’s get this thing over with. I’m already tired of being in these heels.”

She didn’t hate them but she definitely wasn’t used to them. She shifts her weight a little bit as she looks at him. She gives him a timid smile but doesn’t say much else.

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ON CAMERA
Location: San Diego, California.
Date: Friday, September 15, 2023

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The scene opens up to the ring that’s set up in Jet City South and inside of the ring is a large box that is wrapped up in shiny metallic purple wrapping paper with a big silver bow on top. And sitting on top of that box is Eiley dressed in what appears to be wrapping paper with a box on her head.

“Happy Birthday.”

Eiley is careful not to move too much as the wrapping paper she was wearing could rip.

“Or should I say Merry Christmas?”

She raises her eyebrows at the camera before shaking her head.

“Clearly we all know that it’s not Christmas and who the fuck knows when Tempest’s or Austin’s birthday is. But since Austin’s the King for the Day, he got to create matches and whatever. So he basically gift wrapped himself and Tempest this title shot.”

She just smirks at the camera before carefully reaching behind her and pulling out her half of the Mixed Tag Team Championships and sets it beside her..

“All because they think they deserve these championships. But why? Why dod they deserve them? They didn’t earn them and they fucking lost at Summer XXXtreme and haven’t heard much from either of them since. But since Austin won that stupid King for Day match, he got to make any match he wanted for one who show. Or really, he got to make all the matches but this, this is the match that he put himself in. And it’s fucking typical that the King for a Day and the Queen for a Day book themselves in championship matches. At least Zoey booked herself for a Bombshell Championship shot. And I’m not knocking these titles because I love being one half of the champions, but Austin could have booked himself in World Heavyweight Championship match. Which brings to the question, why he didn’t do just that…”

Eiley looks at the camera with a raised eyebrow.

“Maybe it’s because he’s realized that he can’t hack it in the World Heavyweight scene. Maybe he knows that he won’t ever reach that status again, so he has to rely on the help from Tempest to even maybe reach championship gold. But really, how reliable is Tempest?”

She smirks a little bit at the camera.

“And who the fuck let her out of the nuthouse to compete this weekend? Because the last time I checked, SCW isn’t a mental ward, but instead a place where competition happens. And nobody should be subjected to watch a mentally unstable person compete in a championship match.”

Eiley shifts a little but is still careful not to move too much as she didn’t want to tear the wrapping paper she was wearing.

“I am not sure what all Tempest is going to say about me, if anything at all. But she has a plethora of matches to watch and content to absorb, so maybe this time she will focus on me rather than her weird obsession with Mikah and Kris Ryans’ marriage and pending baby. Which, I’m still not sure what her obsession with it is….does she want Kris? Or is she mad that Kris didn’t end up with Fenris? Or am I delusional and there’s no tie between her ire toward Mikah, a woman she’s never faced, and her match up against me. And this is the last thing I’m going to say about Mikah and Kris’ marriage and relationship, if Kris didn’t want to be there with her, he wouldn’t be. He’s very capable of making his own decisions and he chose Mikah, so whatever your obsession with them can stop now and you can shut the fuck up about it.”

Eiley rolls her eyes in sheer irritation.

“Now let’s move on to what really matters…Oz and me. Or Oz and I, whichever way you want to say it. We’re the Champions for a reason and it’s not because we were just gift wrapped the opportunity to fight for them at Summer XXXtreme. No, we had to earn our spot in that match but apparently, that’s not a thing here in SCW. You don’t have to earn jack shit, especially if you win one of those stupid Queen for a Day or King for a day matches. Because then, all the rules fly out the window and the two in charge can book themselves in any match that they want and their co-workers as well. Do you think Zoey Lukas earned her shot at Court? Absolutely fucking not. Do you think Court wanted to face an undeserving opponent after the way Ariana acted? Absolutely not. And do you think that Oz and I want to face the likes of Austin and Tempest in a few days time? No but we’ll do it because that’s what we’re supposed to do and that’s what is expected of us. But doesn’t mean that we’ll be excited about it.”

She holds an annoyed look on her face as she looks at the camera before scooching a little back on the present to get a better seat.

“Nobody can claim that we’re not fighting champions or that we do not deserve these belts because we won that match at Summer XXXtreme and we retained our championships against Ben Jordan and Sam Marlowe which was a match that we were not favored in any way to win. But yet, here we are, still the Mixed Tag Team Champions, which has clearly gotten under Austin’s skin because he chose to book himself and Tempest in this match. A match that they do not deserve but desperately want because they are bitter that they didn’t have what it took at Summer XXXtreme to get the job done. And to be honest? That was probably the only real shot they had at winning these Championships as Oz and I were new and less likely to have succeeded then but now? We’re a solid team and we know how to operate in that wrestling ring together. Our in-ring work together is better than it’s probably ever been and it’s only going to get better as time moves forward.”

A look of confidence passes through her eyes as she stares at the camera.

“And when Oz and I are a solid unit, like we currently are, I doubt the likes of Tempest and Austin Mercer are going to be the ones to beat us to take the championships away from us. Because their make up as a team? It just doesn’t make sense in any fashion. They don’t vibe and they don’t seem like a solid team. Tempest herself lives in some delusional fantasy where I am pretty sure she thinks I am Mikah and not Eiley, so I am never sure what she’s talking about when I listen to what she has to say when she’s up against me. It’s like she’s speaking another language that hasn’t been translated into English.”

Eiley just shrugs her shoulders.

“But her in-ring work is okay, it’s not the worst that I’ve seen and I’ve seen some shitty in-ring work. She’s kind of like a wild card and tries to be what she  believes will work best. But she’s not me and she’s not better than me. Sure, she’s a little insane and lives in a delusional fantasy world, but that doesn’t mean she’s not capable in the ring, because it’s very obvious that she is. But she’s not better than me and she never will be better than I am in that ring. And she can try and try again to get it done, but it’s not going to happen for her.”

She gives a fake empathetic look before she reaches up to fix the box on her head a little bit, having felt it fall a little down her head.

“I really would love to live in a fantasy world, Tempest. It would have been a step up from the shitty deck that I got dealt from life. But I live in the real world where dreams don’t matter and where everything you choose to do has a consequence of sorts. A ripple effect.”

She grabs the bow from the top of her head and tosses it down onto the floor a look of disgust and annoyance written on her face.

“So your partner booked the two of you in this match with the hopes that you will beat Oz and I to become the NEW Mixed Tag Team Champions. That’s the stone being thrown into the lake. But what you’re not going to hear at the end of our match on Sunday is yours and Austin’s names being called out as the winners. And the consequence of Austin’s choice is going to be another loss for the two of you and another world of disappointment to reign down on you and him in the pathetic lives that you live.”

She shakes her blonde hair out a little bit.

“It’s not my fault that Oz and I are a better team in every single way but Oz and I will take the blame when we crush your hopes and dreams to shatter your fake reality. Because that’s the plan that Oz and I are going to complete on Sunday. We’re going to prove to the two of you and to everybody watching that our Mixed Tag Team Championship reign is not one that’s to be laughed at or to be overlooked. We’re here to stay. And on the off chance that we lose on Sunday, we’re not going to just go away because we’ll come back, and we’ll just take them back when that time comes.”

She smirks with a confident look on her face.

“We’re not going to be going anywhere and we’re not going to leave if we somehow happen to lose on Sunday. Because these…”

She grabs her championship and holds it up.

“Are ours. They don’t belong to the two of you but you will just be title holders on a temporary basis. That’s it. You’ll be the transitional champions for a little bit before we take them back.”

She scrunches her nose at the camera, a glint in her eyes.

“But that’s a very unlikely scenario to happen.”

Another shrug of her shoulders.

“Because Oz and I are going to continue our reign and beat every record that has been set in the history books. We’re going to prove just how dominant we’re going to be in this company and shatter that glass ceiling quicker than anybody else ever has.”

She smirks at the camera again and adjusts the wrapping paper, still trying to keep it from ripping.

“Because unlike our opponents on Sunday, we haven’t been gift wrapped anything. We’ve had to work for every single good thing we’ve had in our lives and this isn’t going to be any different.”

She glances down at the championship before looking at the camera one more.

“See you on Sunday.”

She smirks again.

“Ciao.”

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