[Eiley]

OFF CAMERA
Location: Tempe, Arizona
Date: November 27, 2023.
 

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Eiley had thought she had been doing a good job of “hiding” from Oliver as she knew that he was going to be upset about her involvement in his match against HBC and that he would blame her for his loss. She had thought that maybe he would have thought that she left the state and gone to Vegas or Hawaii but in reality, she found it to be silly to have left the state when the next Climax Control was going to be in Phoenix and she didn’t feel like traveling. So instead she had found a hotel that was not extravagant by any means but wasn’t sketchy, either. Just a normal hotel room in a normal hotel that maybe Oliver wouldn’t check where she was. She felt horrible for interrupting his match and ending up costing him the match but now, there was nothing more that she could do. Plus, it wasn’t like they were really speaking with one another.

She wasn’t even sure who’s fault that was, either. First she thought it was his fault but then she thought it was her fault and now, she couldn’t remember who’s fault it was at all. All she knows is that it has been a long time and it doesn’t even seem like they’re much of a team anymore and it only made her feel that much worse. She glances at the clock as she lies in the hotel bed and sighs as she sees the time nearing 3 p.m. and she rolls from her stomach onto her back, feeling as if she’s wasted most of the day just laying in bed but she didn’t feel like going out or doing anything and the TV was keeping her company just fine.

She sighs again as she hears a knock at the door and she tries to ignore it, figuring that it was housekeeping and they’d see the privacy please sign on the door and go away soon. But the knocking continues and doesn’t seem to stop, so she lets out a frustrated noise before rolling off of the bed and onto her feet before walking to the door. She adjusts her grey short pajama shorts and matching long sleeved top before opening the door.

•EILEY• “Can’t you read the fucking sign?! Oh…it’s you.”

She got the question out before she realized that it was Oliver but she doesn’t move from the doorway for a good twenty seconds before she turns and walks away from him, hoping the door would shut on him before  he could catch it. However, she knew that he was quick and that he’d catch it before it would shut and the conversation that both of them were avoiding was going to happen.

○OZ “I thought that you would have jetted out of town as quickly and quietly as you slipped in….”

He steps across the threshold and into the room before letting the door close behind him. Instead of making his way across to her, he simply leans against the wall next to the door frame.

○OZ “Then again, I didn't expect you to be here at all, and I expected to win my match, so it makes sense that you're here considering that I am apparently always wrong.”

She could tell that he was still frustrated about how Climax Control had gone, but he was trying his best to hold back his irritation about their current position in Sin City. She shoots him a look, her eyes slightly narrowed as she moves to the hotel chair and sits down, pulling one leg underneath her body and the other bent in a slightly defensive manner or in a way to make her seem smaller than she already is.

•EILEY• “Honestly? I thought about it. It’s not like you would have cared either way.”

Her answer was in regards to his first statement about her not having jetted out of Arizona. And she couldn’t help but take a small jab at him at the same time. This time, however, she contemplates on how she wanted to respond to his last statement. She avoids his eyes as she thinks about what she wanted to say to him, trying not to just react on pure emotion.

•EILEY• “Trust me, I’d rather be anywhere other than Arizona, but I don’t pick the Climax Control locations. And I never said that you were always wrong, not once, so I am not sure where you’re getting that from.”

It wasn’t a jab but just something she could say in regards to his statement. She was still trying her best to figure out her own emotions and unravel the last month or so but it was still a mess in her head and she couldn’t make heads or tails from it.

○OZ “It's not you, it's everyone. We don't ever fail together, it's always just me. Everyone thinks the world of you, and thinks you're the next big things. I am just out there holding your back…”

He stops himself, albeit temporarily, from saying anything too harsh. He didn't want to make their situation any worse than it already was.

○OZ “I just wanted one night to prove I wasn't absolutely worthless, and that went wrong too…”

She presses her lips together as she can feel the insinuation just lying right there under what he was saying. She thought it was something that he wanted to say but was holding back in regards to not hurting her feelings.

•EILEY• “I never said that, either. I cannot control what the other idiots say about you or what they say about me. And I never once blamed you for any of our losses, you made that up in your head.”

She was quick to defend herself as it was a knee jerk reaction and something that she almost always had to do growing up because if she didn’t defend herself, nobody else would do it for her.

•EILEY• “Do you want me to say it? Because clearly you want to say it but you aren’t saying it. I’m not a little kid, Oliver. I grew up a long time ago and I’m pretty sure you did too. But fine, it’s my fault you lost on Sunday. Does that make you feel better?”

She hadn’t intended for what she was saying to come out as harsh as it might have sounded but regardless, it did seem to come out that way.

○OZ “No. It doesn't, but winning would have gone a long way.”

He couldn't stop the words from coming out of his mouth, but once they were out in the open he just let everything else out with them.

○OZ “I had that. I was literally on the verge of winning and took my eye off the ball. That is my fault, but you didn't need to come out and make that happen. For just one night, it didn't have to be about you,  but it was anyway.”

She raises her eyebrows at him and is quiet for roughly a minute before she looks at him as she processes what he had just said. She remains quiet a moment or so longer before glancing over in his general direction.

•EILEY• “I did not intend to make you lose, Oliver. That was not why I even went out there. And! You shouldn’t worry about me, anyways! I can handle myself!”

Sometimes, she felt like nobody believed that she could handle herself but she had taken care of the Dean problem by herself. And she hadn’t even wanted to involve Oliver in it but he had got it out of her. And then there was the Kaleb situation, which he had helped her with but she believed she could have handled it.

•EILEY• “You and I are both trained to be in that wrestling ring, which means that I can handle myself outside of the ring as well.”

She sighs a bit, it coming out more as a huff of air rather than a sigh.

•EILEY• “I’m sorry I made you lose, I won’t even show up at the next Climax Control where you’re booked by yourself and we’ll save everybody the trouble.”

She pulls her one leg closer to her body, not moving from the chair as she glances at him once more before focusing on nothing in particular.

○OZ “It won't change anything…”

It was obvious that he knew that no matter what he did, people were still going to look down on the two of them due to the comparisons to everyone else in Jet City.

○OZ “Winning that match probably wouldn't have changed anything either, but it was worth a shot. I am just tired of being blamed for every little thing that goes wrong. I wanted to prove myself capable of handling shit alone, even if most people still would have rolled their eyes. I don't have some Future Star award to fall back on.”

She frowns a little bit as she moves just a little in the chair she’s sitting in.

•EILEY• “I didn’t vote myself that and that's not fair of you to throw it in my face.”

And maybe that wasn't what he was doing but it sure felt like it was to her. She couldn't control what other people thought about the two of them any more than he could.

•EILEY• “You shouldn't be worrying about what others think. Maybe you should be worried about what I think. But that would mean That you'd have to stop making shit up in your head and talk to me. But that's probably scarier than believing in what others say.”

She gives him a look but doesn’t take it back.

○OZ “If your opinion was all that mattered, I wouldn't be in this mess to begin with!”

Again, it seems like he wanted to say more but he stops himself and takes a deep breath that he holds for a few moments before attempting to rephrase.

○OZ “It's not your fault that this whole thing about me being the weak link started. It started before we were ever even in the ring together. It started when Austin snapped during our match and beat me down with a chair.”

He shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.

○OZ “It doesn't matter that I saved you for us to win the Mixed Tag Team Championships. It doesn't matter that I made sure we kept them by any means necessary before High Stakes. People see me taking the falls when we lose, and see everyone patting you on the back for your effort all the time.”

He looks up and tries to meet her eye with a second shrug of his shoulders.

○OZ “I had one chance to turn that around before we get a rematch for our titles, and because of what happened, I blew that too. I never said you had anything to do with this losing thing becoming the narrative of my career, but it is your fault that I wasn't able to cut that off at Climax Control. All you had to do was stay away and let me prove I can hang on my own. Instead, I just ended up as the punchline again, and that isn't something that you have to deal with. It's on me. It's always on me.”

She just looks at him and presses her lips together. She was trying her best not to snap at him but it was growing harder and harder to do so.

•EILEY• “Fine. If that's what you want..”

She stands up and fixes her shirt and shorts before walking over to her suitcase. She rummages through her suitcase before grabbing a dress and other things.

•EILEY• “I can easily make that happen for you.”

She moves past him to go into the bathroom. She doesn’t even look at him as she tries to slip into the bathroom without him grabbing her. She slams the door shut behind her, choosing not to add anything else and she presses the lock button to keep him from barging in on her. She takes a deep breath as she tries to control the emotions that she was feeling. She didn’t want to give into the sad feeling that she was feeling and did not want to give him the satisfaction that she was feeling that way. She takes a deep breath and shakes off what she was feeling as she looks in the mirror and starts to get ready to leave and to find something to entertain herself with for the rest of the afternoon and into the evening. She didn’t have to deal with Oliver’s shit if she didn’t want to and she could ice him out even further so the feelings she was feeling didn’t leave a lasting effect on her.

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ON CAMERA
Location:Phoenix, Arizona.
Date: December 1, 2023.
 

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“It’s been very…”

She couldn’t think of the word that she was searching for. The word seemingly was gone from her head. She hesitates, willing the word to come to her as she appears in front of the camera in a simple pair of jeans and a raspberry purple colored crop top. The exact location was not something that could be figured out as she was only standing in front of a brick wall.

“Dismal for Limitless since we lost the championships back at High Stakes. Actually, it has seemingly been that way for most of us who consider ourselves to be Jet City.”

She simply shrugs her shoulders as she looks at the camera. She did not really have much emotion on her face at the moment and she seemed to be just talking.

“Court lost the championship to whatshername and didn’t get it back in her rematch. Oliver and I haven’t been in sync for a long time and if I’m being honest, we’re still probably not there.”

She frowns for a moment.

“No, scratch that. We’re definitely not there and I’m going to be honest, maybe a little too honest, I haven’t spoken a word to him since Monday. And that might not bode well for us come Sunday…well, it wouldn’t if we were facing anybody other than the Barnharts.”

A small smirk crosses her face, the first real glimpse of emotion that has been seen from her since she started talking.

“If we were facing Finn and whatshername in two days time, there’s no chance in hell that we’d win. We’d lose and fail so badly that it would almost be funny. Of course, losing isn’t funny but the fact that he and I have been on a downhill slope since High Stakes, it would be the only way that we would be able to cope with a loss to a team like the Barnharts. Because what else could we do? A loss to them is nearly unimaginable. And then Oliver and I would be the laughing stock of the entire company because the Barnharts are the worst team that the company has employed.”

She just shrugs her shoulders as she felt that it was common knowledge throughout the entire company. She felt that everybody knew that almost anybody could beat the Barnharts.

“The problem is not that we can’t beat the Barnharts, because we can. But after Climax Control, Oliver and I are going into December 2 Dismember on terms that are not ideal. But even if we’re not on the same page, we can still hold it together longer enough to beat the Barnharts on Sunday. We know how to work in the ring well enough to put whatever is bothering us outside of the ring aside to get what’s done in the ring.”

She just simply shrugs her shoulders again. It was hard for her to be serious in front of the camera or to admit that her and Oliver weren’t on the same page. But there wasn’t much else she could say about it.

“And we’ve faced the Barnharts before and we’ve beaten them before; there’s not much left that we can say about them that wouldn’t be redundant. Because everybody’s heard it before because they are the worst team and anybody with any sort of talent could beat them. The one thing that they have going for them is that they are consistent…consistently bad in the ring and bad as a team.”

A smirk once again stretches across her face as the emotion reaches her eyes this time.

“Look, I don’t have much more to say about the Barnharts because it’s not going to be anything that you all haven’t heard before. Even when Oliver and I are at our worst, we’re still better than the Barnharts could ever dream to be.”

She takes a deep breath and slowly lets it out.

“And that’s only me speaking facts. Oliver and I will get back on track, it’s only a matter of time if we’re talking honestly. And the Barnharts will only be a stepping stone to get us back on track and back to the way that things are supposed to be. And I’m not ashamed that we’re going to be using them as a way to get our notoriety back because we are still the best team that this company has signed, no matter who is holding our championships right now. And time is ticking for them.”

She presses her fingers to her wrist to signal a watch ticking.

“And soon enough, the championships will be back where they belong, and we’ll be back on track.”

She smirks a little again.

“See you all on Sunday.”

She pushes herself off of the wall and begins to walk away before stopping to look over her shoulder, a smirk on her face.

“Ciao.”

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