Burning (Down The House) [LEVEL UP #2]

The murmur of voices pulled her from an unsettling dream. The world was burning and there were zombie hordes at the doors, trying to break in. She couldn't remember the finer details, the how's and what's of that particular apocalypse but she felt shaken and uneasy even as she pushed aside the twisted-up sheets only to freeze when she heard that low rumble again. Had she left the TV on downstairs? Was that the reason for the disturbing near-nightmare? She heard a creak and held her breath, biting her lip – irrational fear convinced her that someone was in the house, even though Oz and Bizzy would have been losing their minds if that were the case. Grabbing the aluminum bat from behind the bedroom door that had been there since the night one of her husband's foes in another company had paid an unexpected visit, she made her way slowly down the hall. A shadow loomed on the wall of her eldest daughter's bedroom, thrown up larger than life against the wall thanks to the Tinkerbell night light on the wall.

Now that she was closer, she recognized the soft-spoken voice of her husband and she realized he was doing that same thing he'd always done – she'd never been sure if it was to soothe him or the fussy child, but it had become a sort of ritual with them. Allegra was far too big to be nestled against his chest as he rocked in that antique chair. Now her cheek rested on his knee, his fingers gently running through her hair to get all the tangles out while he talked about everything and nothing.

She caught only snippets of it through the partially closed door, and heard some half-assed apology that nearly broke her heart.

"I hate this, Peanut. Know it doesn't seem like it, but I really do. Not looking forward to the day you start to question the deeper stuff. Someday, you're gonna watch some of these fights in a different light; I'll have to explain why I do the things I do – I made a lot of money tonight, beatin' the holy hell of a dude who shouldn't've even been cleared to get in that ring. I don't question that choice. We all have our reasons but it was a good, clean fight. Jack Michaels earned my respect."

He sighed. 

"Then, like fuckin' clockwork, it went to shit the second my hand got raised. Some little guttersnipe bitch named Eli Goode pops up like Punxsutawney Phil... six more weeks of winter, y'know? So here we go. Another verse, same as the last. I wanna promise you now – you'll hold me to it, I know. This won't be like the last time. I'm through with letting it slide. I'm not Jesus – nobody says I gotta turn the other cheek."

He heard a creak in the hall, saw the shadow outside the door and he let out a soft chuckle. "Hey, Han."

She slipped inside the room, leaning the baseball bat up against the doorframe. "You're home early."

"Yeah," he looked down as his daughter, seeing she was out. He didn't raise his voice, didn't change that tone one iota. "Needed to get the hell outta Indiana before I did something I'd end up regretting. Got a cancellation on a flight outta O'Hare – timezones're fun, aren't they?"

She hadn't watched his match. A part of her was almost superstitiously afraid to. When he'd gone back to Alpha Pro after a few months away, she'd been glued to the stream. She watched him dominate that rumble only to end up falling short. Sure, he'd claimed a North American Championship shot in his first match back, had sealed the deal to pick right back up where he left off, but it felt wrong. Hearing that someone had jumped him in a match again made her burn with anger – it had happened in that title match, too. Shane Clemmens had been on commentary and had hopped in the ring, opting to treat her husband like a piñata and cost him gold. He'd walked away from APW a second time and hadn't looked back and she'd been as happy about that decision as she was wary about him opting to return now, even for a brand new company.

"Who's Eli Goode?"

The question came out before she could stop herself and the derisive snort from her husband was answer enough, even before he quietly slipped to his feet, making sure not to disturb Allegra as he tucked the sheets snug around her.

"Some washed-up asshole from Carnage. Knox – that Raven guy from Twitter – took him out and he's been on the shelf ever since. I dunno what his deal is…"

"So he's a stranger and he jumped you for-“

"No. He jumped Jack Michaels. After I'd won the match."

"Oh."

Lex sighed, dragging a hand through his hair. Hannah stepped out into the hall and he followed her, seeing the bat leaning there and he felt like a dick for giving her a scare. "She was up when I came in. Halfway down the stairs, like she knew."

"Probably did," Hannah replied, "I swear the two of you have some kind of telepathy going on – remember how you used to say she was my Mini Me? Oh, how wrong we were."

He picked up the bat, letting it tap against his leg as he reached out to take her hand. "Remember when we didn't have to carry weapons in our own home?" The question was rhetorical, just his way of deferring the truth. He hadn't wanted Allegra to take after him in any way because he'd been terrified, convinced she'd come out broken just like he was, as though the mental illness he struggled with on a daily basis was the kind that was contagious. It wasn't. It was completely a case of nurture rather than nature and he had vowed the day he'd learned Hannah was pregnant never to repeat ANY of those steps. Sometimes he almost succeeded in forgetting about the past, too. Sometimes it crawled back in the dark and breathed down his neck, as if it got off on reminding him where he'd come from. Ego checks that he'd never endorsed. Never wanted.

"I don't even remember his name." Hannah said, looking at the bat in his hand, a shiver crawling up her spine as she thought about it, "I just remember the way he smiled at me. The way he was so sweet to Allegra, right up until he knelt, put those sunglasses on her, and said those awful things about what he was going to do to you."

She was talking about the guy who'd turned up on the doorstep, unannounced. Ken Valentine, he'd called himself. Kintaru was what he went by in the ring. Another asshole tilting at windmills, picking fights with no hope to win them, wholly interchangeable. He'd gone down. And then so had Riot Star, consumed like the dumpster fire it had become.

"This business is full of trash," it was the old party line but it rang with conviction; it was the thing he told himself when he laid awake at night, nursing the bumps and bruises and wishing he didn't have to do it all over again in a couple weeks.

"Doesn't always have to be you on the cleanup crew," she said softly, turning to look up at him. In the glow of that night light at the baseboard a few feet from where they stood, his eyes were black and bottomless. She couldn't tell if he was in pain or if he'd managed to get out of that first match back relatively unscathed.

"If I don't do it, who will?"

She didn't have to ask. She knew he'd be facing that guy next because history loved to repeat itself, especially in the wrestling business.

It wasn't an argument. It wasn't really even a conversation at this point. It was more two players reciting their lines, a sort of affirmation in their roles. For her, it was a litmus test. If his answer wavered, she'd worry. If he said nothing at all, she'd break out the salves and the ice packs. She'd batten the hatches for a long and sleepless night. Sometimes she cursed those nights from his childhood that had him climbing through her bedroom window for sanctuary. Nights like this, she felt they were a blessing because she understood what his silences meant – she could tell the difference, the nuances even in the way he breathed. He wasn't holding himself so still that he was almost vibrating – he wasn't walking wounded tonight.

She was thinking about that night in Athens, going to that restaurant on the insistence of her brother-in-law, only to find a miracle.

He was thinking about Greece too. He was thinking about how wanting to die in the worst possible way had given him back a reason to live – sure, he'd fucked up royally and lost a few years, but they'd found their way back in the end. No matter what, they were always destined to be endgame.

He pulled her in close, wrapping his arm around her waist as his lips pressed against her forehead. "I got this, Han. Promise. This time… I'm golden."

Her hand rested gently against his cheek as she breathed in the scent of him, comforted in that moment. "Stay gold, Pony Boy."

"Always."



"A thousand and one self-destructive impulses later, and we've got ourselves a thriving business. Most of us got into it for that reason. Some want to get hurt. Some want to fight, to flip that middle finger at the universe every time they manage to get back up after someone tries to beat them into submission. I have these moments, as I'm sure everyone does, where I look out at those faces in the crowd screaming my name, those people who used to define my existence in so many fucked up ways, an' I just wanna douse 'em in gasoline – I wanna destroy something beautiful. I wanna blow it all away with this huge purge and start over without all the pressure an' pretensions, y'know? Light a match, an' let them burn. So maybe that's symbolic for me. I don't want to hurt anyone – not really. Maybe that's destruction of that sick need I have to carry the past around with me like a goddamned ball and chain – oh I know it's hobblin' me in the worst way, holding me back as it pours cups of gloom and doom poison in my ear, but I can't let it go."

There's a sniff and quick exhale that sounds almost like a sarcastic chuckle before that mellow voice of Lex Collins continues.

"But then, you know all about the destructive impulses, don'tcha? Running around the yard like a yappy pup, nipping at heels only to flee the moment you catch the attention of grown dogs – I went back and watched a little tape on you, Eli. Saw how you liked to poke and pick at people, run your mouth outta turn yet the moment Matt Knox laid down that challenge, it was time to wash your hair. Excuses, excuses. But our boy Knoxy, he doesn't fuck around. He waffled you over the head with a chair, yeeted your dumb ass off a stage and through tables. I'd question how the fuck you got to be so stupid, but I'm sure that second DOWNFALL had a lot to do with it. You'd think all that time on the shelf would've been time to reflect, time to hang out in that apartment of yours and do some navel gazing with your four-legged friend. Nah. Instead you healed up, came back an' decided you'd play the collateral damage game again, this time ON MY TIME."

His voice grows a little louder on those last few words and he stops, taking a deep breath and holding it for a good fifteen seconds before exhaling slowly.

"Four months on the sidelines… must've felt like forever to a bottom-feeder like you. That's no cheap insult. That's a fact. Nah, see, Eli… I know you. I recognize your type. You're a barnacle. You're a dog turd on the sole of someone's shoe, deeply embedded in the treads so even when you think it's gone, that rotten smell lingers. Track it everywhere – oh look, it's Eli Goode, thinkin' he's over with the masses 'cause someone on social media said 'what the fuck was that,' after he crashed a party he wouldn't have been invited to in a million years. Oh, but that little ego's gotta be puffed right up over this. First match for the guy and he's in the Main Event. Look at what he accomplished in ten seconds! Lemme enlighten you, Eli. Mosquitoes draw blood, too. Doesn't make them top of the food chain."

That derisive chuckle is back for a moment, filling the silence.

"I'm not friends with Jack Michaels. I don't know him from Adam – this isn't about revenge or retribution or whatever other little scenario you wanna ascribe to it. This is about getting fed up with the dog soiling on the rug, over and over. It's not a mistake. It's a willful habit – it's an act of spite an' nothing pisses me off more than someone pulling that cheap-ass bullshit on my watch. You wanna pretend you belong here? You wanna act like coming here was some step up from Carnage rather than you wanting to find a new – and maybe a bit greener – yard to do your dirty business in? Yeah. Matt Knox isn't in Carnage anymore. Your gatekeeper's not there, barring passage. You came here because the guy's protégé works for Level Up. You came here because the shadow you used to hang out in to feel special's here for that last hurrah – you jumped him so you could have that instant clout boost. So your name would have a little bass on it."

He laughs, the familiar pop-hiss sound of a carbonated drink being opened punctuating the silence before there's a noisy slurp.

"I wanna hunt you down before the bell rings – you don't deserve to compete in the Main Event, in a place where legends like Jack Michaels… where multi-time champions like Lex Collins compete. You belong in the gutter, in the sewer with the rest of the rats. I wanna take you out like Knox did, give you another vacation except maybe we'll go for six months this time. Destructive urges, right? Mean I'd like to, but really, what would that make me? A monster? Or just human? Definitions fail when you do this too long. You're nothin' more than a speed bump – nothing more than a body filling a void and if you think I care one iota about you outside of this little throwdown we got looming, you're wrong. Lemme turn the flamethrower on full bore, burn up all this empty bullshit. Keep it simple. Just you an' me. Showdown like we're gunslingers at the OK Corral – you wanted a fight? You wanted someone to take notice?"

There's a pause before he mutters one phrase.

"I'm your huckleberry."

It feels like that may be the end but the silence spins out for a moment, static and breathing the only sounds before Lex's voice comes through again, low and laced with steel.

"I'll watch your legacy burn. I won't laugh. I won't flinch. Won't hold back, either. When it's all over? I'll feel GOOD."