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The noise had been enough to make him jump straight up in the air, and almost enough to make him punch a hole straight
through Ric's head since he was the one who was stupid enough to creep up on him.
"Woah, Batista man, it's just me."
"Ric!
What are you doing?"
"I heard a noise, and came to look. Thought it might be you know, him, Foley."
"Yeah, well it wasn't,
it was me."
"I can see that."
Batista finally let Ric go. He went back to what he had been doing before. Ric went
away, and then came back again.
"What's that?"
"Just a coffee."
"Hmm. So why are you up?"
"'Couldn't sleep."
"The
coffee won't help with that."
"No."
There was more silence. "How come you even heard me? You're normally dead asleep.
At least until he wakes up." In the half light Batista looked worried, if he'd woken Hunter ...
"It's all right; I checked
on him, he's still asleep."
"Good." Hunter's sleeping schedule was non-existent and of course they didn't dare feed him
sleeping pills. The few good nights of sleep he did get needed to be undisturbed. "Still doesn't explain why you're awake."
"I'm
an old man; we don't need a lot of sleep. Plus we tend to be quite light sleepers."
"Oh."
"No worries. Though next door
might want to kill you." A small embarrassed smile flittered across Batista's face. "You're still not asleep despite that."
"I
couldn't drift off so I thought I'd come out here rather than wake Randy up. He needs to be in good condition."
"You did
the right thing; the Intercontinental champion needs his sleep. But then again so do tag team champions. So when I see my
partner sitting up in the middle of the night, looking worried and indulging in panic sex,"
"Panic sex?"
"That's what
I call it because that's what it was. As I was saying, when all that happens, I have to ask myself, why is he worried?"
"Why
do you think?" Batista dropped his voice to a harsh
whisper. "You heard Foley, you heard what he wants to do to Randy,
and you know he'll do it. Randy is going to be, oh God what that madman is going to do to Randy. And there's nothing I can
do to stop him."
"Welcome to my world, Dave, welcome to my world." Batista looked up. "How do you think I feel every
time I send you boys out there without me? Every time Hunter or Randy goes out there and I'm with you, waiting for the opportunity
to run in and help them."
"Useless, weak, stupid. Ashamed."
"Exactly, and now you understand what I go through, I'm
going to tell you the only way you can help Randy, until I find a loophole to the stipulations. You can't let him know how
worried you are."
"But, but, but"
"Who's the sixteen times world champion?"
"You are."
"Then listen. Do you think
Evander Holyfield beat Mike Tyson because the people round him told him how hard the match would be, told him that he was
facing a madman who would stop at nothing to beat him? No, they told him he could win, and that he'd overcome anything that
Tyson threw at him because he was the better man. And that's the way we've got to handle Randy, the only way he can win is
if we tell him he can."
"I don't care about him winning," as if that wasn't shocking enough coming from one of them, "I
just care about him surviving."
"The only way to survive this sort of match is to be the winner." Ric stated it as a fact.
"That's
fine, but how do I convince Randy if I don't believe it myself?"
"If you love him enough, you can make it convincing easily."
Ric's voice, which had almost reached the hysterical pitch that it did during shows, faded away to near nothingness, "Shall
I let you in on my secret?" Batista nodded. "I don't believe most of the things I say." Ric smiled, while Batista's eyes went
wide with
surprise. "For instance, Hunter's going up against two guys, that automatically puts him at a disadvantage. One
of those guys would probably prefer Hunter not having the belt to having it himself. The other is obsessive in a way that
makes Hunter seem normal. Even I have to admit it doesn't look good for our boy. But he believes me, and if I say he can win
it, he'll think he can, and that can make all the difference. Randy will believe you and me."
"I hope you're right,
I don't like the idea of lying to Randy."
"It's for his own good. In this business, we spend a lot of time relying on other
people's lies to make us feel good. And that makes you better in the ring. That's what matters."
"That does leave one
question. If we're all busy believing in you, what's keeping you going? I mean, we might be tag team champions but, not wanting
to be rude, they're all younger and fitter than you are."
"I've got something they don't; they don't have a six foot five,
two hundred and seventy-five pound stud in their corner. That's all the believing I need."
"And if a rookie and an old-timer
can beat all comers, then a man in his prime can beat some old over the hill type." Batista was finally getting it.
"He's
not even full time. And he's a writer."
"And they're all pansy-assed punks."
"While Randy,"
"Randy's in his prime.
He's young, he's fit."
"He's tough."
"He can wrestle; he's not scared of anything."
"Damn right."
"He can win
because he's twice the man Foley could ever be."
"Not that I don't like you two being my own personal cheerleaders,
but why are you up at," Randy looked at the clock on the wall, "quarter to three in the morning, talking about how great I
am?"
"Because you're so great I have to spend my every waking moment talking about it."
"Yes, I know about you, but
I want to know why Ric's doing it."
"Hey, I'm just here for the coffee." Ric took up Batista's half-finised coffee.
Batista
got up before Randy can ask any more questions, pressing Randy into the doorframe with a kiss. "We'll be running along now."
"You
do that." Batista and Randy vanished into their bedroom, Batista pulling Randy in by tugging on his Navy blue dressing-gown.
"But don't wear him out too much."
Not that there was much chance of them listening to Ric. All he could hope for was
that they would keep the noise down while he tried to come up with a way of involving Evolution in a match that Randy wouldn't
survive if he couldn't.
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