Post by Alistair "Stainless" Steele on Jul 2, 2007 0:34:45 GMT -5
***Late May, 2007***
There was nothing left for him in Newfoundland.
It had been close to a year since the FCW had been abandoned, and it hit him hard. The man known as Alistair “Stainless” Steele wasn’t living up to his name at all when he stumbled through the doors of the Royal Canadian Legion in Lewisporte, NL. Soaked to the bone from the torrential downpour of rain, Steele managed to drag his already drunken, battered body to the nearest empty table and winced as he slumped into a wooden chair that was harder than it appeared. He pushed his shoulder-length, prematurely grey hair out of his eyes and sized himself up. His faded jeans were torn in a dozen places and caked with mud, the steel-nosed boots were starting to come apart at the seams, and his beloved denim jacket had been stolen from him while he was passed out on a street in Gander. Through tired eyes he glanced around at the other bar patrons, none of which seemed to give him a second look.
The night was aging much quicker than Steele would’ve liked. He sat alone at the table, oblivious to all that was going on around him. People came and went, drinks kept flowing, the hours ticked by as if they were mere minutes. Through it all, he repeated one word over and over.
“Reaper...”
Steele clung desperately to that word. He fed on it, the sound of that cursed name fueling his body more than anything he had ever eaten. It was because of that bastard Marcus Ash that he had wound up like this; a broken man, a mere piece of what he thought he once was, wandering across the island aimlessly trying to find a place to fit in.
With all the hustle and bustle going on at the Legion, Alistair somehow ended up with an unfinished glass of rum and Coke, probably left by some other hapless drunk like himself. He grabbed the glass and finished it off in one swallow, slamming it back down on the table, all the while still cursing the man who abandoned Fog City Wrestling.
Steele didn’t notice he was still gripping the empty glass as he became more enraged. He didn’t even notice his hand tighten around it as the moments dragged on, shattering the glass and causing a deep cut across his palm and his fingers. And if it wasn’t for one of the nearby patrons, he never would’ve known he was bleeding all over the table until he felt dizzy from excessive blood loss.
“Jesus Christ b’y! Yer bleedin’ all over the place! Go clean yerself up ‘r somethin’, will ya!”
He looked down at his hand, and at the stream of blood that flowed freely from the nasty cut. As soon as he saw the blood pooling on the table and dripping to the floor, the pain from the cut set in. A sharp sting echoed through his hand and went up his entire arm. Steele winced and let fly a short string of curses as he quickly got up and made his way to the bathroom, knocking over several chairs and a few patrons in the process.
“Hey man, what the fuck!” exclaimed one. Steele barely heard him as he pushed open the gentlemen’s bathroom door with his free hand, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he entered.
###
Two pairs of eyes watched Steele enter the washroom from across the bar. Those eyes belonged to two well-dressed men who sat on the far end of the Legion, sipping martinis. They glanced at each other and back at the bathroom door.
“Say, Johnny,” the man in the black suit commented, “that chap who just went in the loo looks...”
“Awfully familiar, yes,” finished Johnny, the man in the white suit. “Where have we seen him before, Roger?”
Roger took another sip of his martini and screwed up his face due to the excess salt along the rim of the glass. He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped his mouth, his eyes widening as he realized who they had just seen.
“That man is our ticket to finding the Vagabond,” he stated as his mouth curved into a devious smirk.
As if he could read Roger’s mind, Johnny, too had a smile spread across his face. The two men glanced mischievously at each other and clinked their martini glasses together.
“Cheers!” they said in unison as they finished their drinks. They got up from the table and made their way through the crowd, following Steele into the bathroom.
###
The fluorescent lights in the bathroom blinded Steele temporarily. He blinked heavily several times, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. His right hand and most of his forearm were covered in blood, and it was still dripping–albeit not as heavily–onto the floor.
Feeling a little lightheaded, Alistair found his way to the sink and turned on the tap a little too much. He was rewarded with a backlash of water that soaked his shirt which had just begun to dry.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Fuck me,” he muttered.
Steele managed to remove his shirt with his good hand and threw it on the sink counter. After adjusting the water flow and temperature to his liking, he put his hand under the tap and let the lukewarm water wash the blood away. It stung like hell when the water touched his hand, and as the caked blood washed down the drain, Steele got a clearer picture of just how deep the glass had went.
There were three cuts in total, running along the three lines in his palm almost exactly. He spread his hand out as wide as it would go, and the slits in his palm spread open as well, revealing that the glass had cut almost to the bone. Needless to say, they would leave nasty scars.
Steele cleaned up the excess blood on his arm and washed his hand thoroughly. The contact between the gash and the soap unleashed a strong exclamation of profanity he was certain the whole Legion had heard. He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when two men entered the bathroom, both of whom were much too well-dressed to be in this part of town. They stood on either side of the bathroom door with their arms folded. Steele stared at them while he tore his shirt into strips and bandaged his hand. The two men never wavered, instead they pulled aside their coats to reveal pistols tucked away in their holsters.
Alistair wasn’t impressed. He cocked an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes. “What, are you my towel boys? What the hell do you want?”
The man in the white suit stepped forward and cleared his throat, smiling. “You must be Steele, yes?” he inquired in a proper English accent.
“Who wants to know?”
Johnny chuckled and winked at him. “My colleague and I were wondering if you could...”
“Do us a little favor,” chimed Roger, who ran a hand through his thin brown goatee. The two men had a habit of finishing each others’ sentences. Steele found this rather irritating.
There was something about these two. Something unsettling, but Steele couldn’t put his finger on it. The way they carried themselves–so full of confidence, almost blatantly cocky–made him a little uncomfortable. His eyes never moved from the white-suited man as he clenched his good fist.
“Now why would I want to do that?” he asked suspiciously as he leaned against the counter. As long as they didn’t make any sudden movements, Steele wouldn’t have a problem with them.
Roger, the man wearing black, walked over to the mirror and checked his appearance. He reached into his inside breast pocket, and Steele tensed up, ready for an attack. Roger pulled out a thin black rattail comb and fixed his hair, not bothering to look at Steele as he answered, “We have information that would be of much interest to you, my dear friend.”
“Information on the whereabouts of a certain individual,” Johnny added as he flattened the wrinkles out of his white blazer. He and Roger exchanged glances and smirked at one another.
Steele was getting tired of these two clowns wasting his time, but just to keep on their good side, he humored them, at least for the moment.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Johnny smiled again and cracked his fingers, looking Alistair dead in the eye. Time seemed to slow down for Steele as Johnny said the name.
“Reaper.”
Steele’s stomach tightened in a knot. He’d spent close to a year searching for the man who had taken away the only decent life he’d ever known, and it appeared that these two men had the answer he so desperately craved. But how did they know he was looking for Reaper in the first place?
“In a position such as ours,” Roger said, still trying to get his hair perfect, “one has to know the things that happen around him. You would be amazed how much we hear on a day to day basis.” He smiled in the mirror, this time checking his face and teeth for any imperfections. Roger was clearly the more vain of the two.
Steele smiled slightly. “Tell me what you know.”
Johnny laughed, amused by Steele’s audacity. “We know you were a member of Marcus Ash’s project, Fog City Wrestling,” he started. “We also know that another man, known as the “Vagabond”, was also on the roster there.”
Steele nodded. “What about him?” he asked.
Johnny walked toward the bathroom door and leaned against the frame, arms folded. “We have... unfinished business with the Vagabond,” Steele noticed his sky blue eyes flashed with a mixture of fear and rage, “yet we can’t seem to find where he is. The last we heard was that he was traveling toward Fort MacMurray.”
“And you want me to find him for you,” Steele finished.
Roger nodded. “We have a flight booked for Fort MacMurray tomorrow morning, leaving from Gander at 7:30 a.m. sharp. We want you to be on that flight with us.”
Steele thought about it for a moment. He sized up the two men, dressed exactly alike only completely opposite; they were members of the local mafia, no doubt. Yet they had an undeniable logic and charm that they certainly took advantage of, especially Johnny. Steele noticed that he was the main talker of the two, and yet he chose every word he said carefully. He glanced down at his bandaged hand. Blood seeped through the bandages slightly, but the flow had seemed to stop for the moment.
Johnny stepped toward Steele and leaned in close, almost whispering in his ear. “Lead us to the Vagabond, and we’ll lead you to Reaper.”
Maybe it was the enticing offer the two men had placed before him, or maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly due to the lightheadedness, but nevertheless Steele gave a single nod, closing the deal. He had agreed to help them find a man that he barely knew himself, and yet the prize awaiting him was too great to be passed up. Johnny and Roger nodded their gratitude and exited the gentlemen’s bathroom, leaving Steele to mull over the decision he had just made. It couldn’t have been that bad. It was a free trip to Fort MacMurray, the Newfie capital of Alberta. He was certain that as long as he did what the men asked of him, there would be no trouble. He smiled and stretched his tired muscles and decided to call it a night. He had a busy day ahead of him.
Besides, there was nothing left for him in Newfoundland.
There was nothing left for him in Newfoundland.
It had been close to a year since the FCW had been abandoned, and it hit him hard. The man known as Alistair “Stainless” Steele wasn’t living up to his name at all when he stumbled through the doors of the Royal Canadian Legion in Lewisporte, NL. Soaked to the bone from the torrential downpour of rain, Steele managed to drag his already drunken, battered body to the nearest empty table and winced as he slumped into a wooden chair that was harder than it appeared. He pushed his shoulder-length, prematurely grey hair out of his eyes and sized himself up. His faded jeans were torn in a dozen places and caked with mud, the steel-nosed boots were starting to come apart at the seams, and his beloved denim jacket had been stolen from him while he was passed out on a street in Gander. Through tired eyes he glanced around at the other bar patrons, none of which seemed to give him a second look.
The night was aging much quicker than Steele would’ve liked. He sat alone at the table, oblivious to all that was going on around him. People came and went, drinks kept flowing, the hours ticked by as if they were mere minutes. Through it all, he repeated one word over and over.
“Reaper...”
Steele clung desperately to that word. He fed on it, the sound of that cursed name fueling his body more than anything he had ever eaten. It was because of that bastard Marcus Ash that he had wound up like this; a broken man, a mere piece of what he thought he once was, wandering across the island aimlessly trying to find a place to fit in.
With all the hustle and bustle going on at the Legion, Alistair somehow ended up with an unfinished glass of rum and Coke, probably left by some other hapless drunk like himself. He grabbed the glass and finished it off in one swallow, slamming it back down on the table, all the while still cursing the man who abandoned Fog City Wrestling.
Steele didn’t notice he was still gripping the empty glass as he became more enraged. He didn’t even notice his hand tighten around it as the moments dragged on, shattering the glass and causing a deep cut across his palm and his fingers. And if it wasn’t for one of the nearby patrons, he never would’ve known he was bleeding all over the table until he felt dizzy from excessive blood loss.
“Jesus Christ b’y! Yer bleedin’ all over the place! Go clean yerself up ‘r somethin’, will ya!”
He looked down at his hand, and at the stream of blood that flowed freely from the nasty cut. As soon as he saw the blood pooling on the table and dripping to the floor, the pain from the cut set in. A sharp sting echoed through his hand and went up his entire arm. Steele winced and let fly a short string of curses as he quickly got up and made his way to the bathroom, knocking over several chairs and a few patrons in the process.
“Hey man, what the fuck!” exclaimed one. Steele barely heard him as he pushed open the gentlemen’s bathroom door with his free hand, leaving a trail of blood behind him as he entered.
###
Two pairs of eyes watched Steele enter the washroom from across the bar. Those eyes belonged to two well-dressed men who sat on the far end of the Legion, sipping martinis. They glanced at each other and back at the bathroom door.
“Say, Johnny,” the man in the black suit commented, “that chap who just went in the loo looks...”
“Awfully familiar, yes,” finished Johnny, the man in the white suit. “Where have we seen him before, Roger?”
Roger took another sip of his martini and screwed up his face due to the excess salt along the rim of the glass. He took a handkerchief out of his breast pocket and wiped his mouth, his eyes widening as he realized who they had just seen.
“That man is our ticket to finding the Vagabond,” he stated as his mouth curved into a devious smirk.
As if he could read Roger’s mind, Johnny, too had a smile spread across his face. The two men glanced mischievously at each other and clinked their martini glasses together.
“Cheers!” they said in unison as they finished their drinks. They got up from the table and made their way through the crowd, following Steele into the bathroom.
###
The fluorescent lights in the bathroom blinded Steele temporarily. He blinked heavily several times, waiting for his eyes to adjust to the brightness. His right hand and most of his forearm were covered in blood, and it was still dripping–albeit not as heavily–onto the floor.
Feeling a little lightheaded, Alistair found his way to the sink and turned on the tap a little too much. He was rewarded with a backlash of water that soaked his shirt which had just begun to dry.
He closed his eyes and sighed. “Fuck me,” he muttered.
Steele managed to remove his shirt with his good hand and threw it on the sink counter. After adjusting the water flow and temperature to his liking, he put his hand under the tap and let the lukewarm water wash the blood away. It stung like hell when the water touched his hand, and as the caked blood washed down the drain, Steele got a clearer picture of just how deep the glass had went.
There were three cuts in total, running along the three lines in his palm almost exactly. He spread his hand out as wide as it would go, and the slits in his palm spread open as well, revealing that the glass had cut almost to the bone. Needless to say, they would leave nasty scars.
Steele cleaned up the excess blood on his arm and washed his hand thoroughly. The contact between the gash and the soap unleashed a strong exclamation of profanity he was certain the whole Legion had heard. He had barely gotten the words out of his mouth when two men entered the bathroom, both of whom were much too well-dressed to be in this part of town. They stood on either side of the bathroom door with their arms folded. Steele stared at them while he tore his shirt into strips and bandaged his hand. The two men never wavered, instead they pulled aside their coats to reveal pistols tucked away in their holsters.
Alistair wasn’t impressed. He cocked an eyebrow and narrowed his eyes. “What, are you my towel boys? What the hell do you want?”
The man in the white suit stepped forward and cleared his throat, smiling. “You must be Steele, yes?” he inquired in a proper English accent.
“Who wants to know?”
Johnny chuckled and winked at him. “My colleague and I were wondering if you could...”
“Do us a little favor,” chimed Roger, who ran a hand through his thin brown goatee. The two men had a habit of finishing each others’ sentences. Steele found this rather irritating.
There was something about these two. Something unsettling, but Steele couldn’t put his finger on it. The way they carried themselves–so full of confidence, almost blatantly cocky–made him a little uncomfortable. His eyes never moved from the white-suited man as he clenched his good fist.
“Now why would I want to do that?” he asked suspiciously as he leaned against the counter. As long as they didn’t make any sudden movements, Steele wouldn’t have a problem with them.
Roger, the man wearing black, walked over to the mirror and checked his appearance. He reached into his inside breast pocket, and Steele tensed up, ready for an attack. Roger pulled out a thin black rattail comb and fixed his hair, not bothering to look at Steele as he answered, “We have information that would be of much interest to you, my dear friend.”
“Information on the whereabouts of a certain individual,” Johnny added as he flattened the wrinkles out of his white blazer. He and Roger exchanged glances and smirked at one another.
Steele was getting tired of these two clowns wasting his time, but just to keep on their good side, he humored them, at least for the moment.
“I’m listening,” he said.
Johnny smiled again and cracked his fingers, looking Alistair dead in the eye. Time seemed to slow down for Steele as Johnny said the name.
“Reaper.”
Steele’s stomach tightened in a knot. He’d spent close to a year searching for the man who had taken away the only decent life he’d ever known, and it appeared that these two men had the answer he so desperately craved. But how did they know he was looking for Reaper in the first place?
“In a position such as ours,” Roger said, still trying to get his hair perfect, “one has to know the things that happen around him. You would be amazed how much we hear on a day to day basis.” He smiled in the mirror, this time checking his face and teeth for any imperfections. Roger was clearly the more vain of the two.
Steele smiled slightly. “Tell me what you know.”
Johnny laughed, amused by Steele’s audacity. “We know you were a member of Marcus Ash’s project, Fog City Wrestling,” he started. “We also know that another man, known as the “Vagabond”, was also on the roster there.”
Steele nodded. “What about him?” he asked.
Johnny walked toward the bathroom door and leaned against the frame, arms folded. “We have... unfinished business with the Vagabond,” Steele noticed his sky blue eyes flashed with a mixture of fear and rage, “yet we can’t seem to find where he is. The last we heard was that he was traveling toward Fort MacMurray.”
“And you want me to find him for you,” Steele finished.
Roger nodded. “We have a flight booked for Fort MacMurray tomorrow morning, leaving from Gander at 7:30 a.m. sharp. We want you to be on that flight with us.”
Steele thought about it for a moment. He sized up the two men, dressed exactly alike only completely opposite; they were members of the local mafia, no doubt. Yet they had an undeniable logic and charm that they certainly took advantage of, especially Johnny. Steele noticed that he was the main talker of the two, and yet he chose every word he said carefully. He glanced down at his bandaged hand. Blood seeped through the bandages slightly, but the flow had seemed to stop for the moment.
Johnny stepped toward Steele and leaned in close, almost whispering in his ear. “Lead us to the Vagabond, and we’ll lead you to Reaper.”
Maybe it was the enticing offer the two men had placed before him, or maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly due to the lightheadedness, but nevertheless Steele gave a single nod, closing the deal. He had agreed to help them find a man that he barely knew himself, and yet the prize awaiting him was too great to be passed up. Johnny and Roger nodded their gratitude and exited the gentlemen’s bathroom, leaving Steele to mull over the decision he had just made. It couldn’t have been that bad. It was a free trip to Fort MacMurray, the Newfie capital of Alberta. He was certain that as long as he did what the men asked of him, there would be no trouble. He smiled and stretched his tired muscles and decided to call it a night. He had a busy day ahead of him.
Besides, there was nothing left for him in Newfoundland.
