━PESSIMISTIC LINES━ [CWF #2]

Everything smelled metallic thanks to the blood running down his face, hot and salty in the back of his throat. In the back of his mind, he knew he wasn't going to be attending school tomorrow, not like this. Another day lost to the pain and the sick cycle that his life had been for the past seventeen years. Hannah would be disappointed. There was a dance on Saturday night. He'd promised to take her even though he hated being in a room with that many people. His face felt dry, like it was a mask cracking to reveal something awful beneath as the blood began to dry. He tilted his head back and more dripped down the back of his throat, making him gag as his eyes slammed closed against the onslaught of pain. Rough hands seized his shoulders, shaking him violently. With a startled cry, his eyes snapped open. Black specks buzzed through his vision, pure darkness.

For a few seconds he legitimately believed he was blind before the darkness faded, slowly. A smell filled his nostrils, bringing alertness more quickly than smelling salts could have. Sour and medicinal – it was Wild Turkey on his father's breath. The boy crashed against the wall and then a hand flew from the darkness, smashing into his face. He knew he should've stayed away, but he didn't have anywhere to sleep when it was cold and rainy like this. Struggling to breathe past the ache in his ribs – if they hadn't been broken before, they surely were now – he could barely force the word out, "please." His lips barely formed the word before that hand gripped his mouth again, fingers like talons digging into his cheeks as his head was forced back against the wall.

"Please… what?" Clay's voice was harsh and mocking, bordering on sadistic laughter. "What's the matter, boy? You can break the rules, but you can't take your medicine?"

"No," his tongue felt thick against the roof of his mouth like it was three sizes too big. He couldn't see straight. The pain was the only thing that registered, and rebellion was the only thing he still had. Provoking the monster would ensure that it was over quick. It didn't matter.

He never saw the next one coming as those hands fisted in his shirt, tearing the rag from his body. Airborne, he felt the crunch as something drove deep into his ribs and then there was a crash of glass breaking before—

The empty glass slipped from his numb fingers, shattering on impact and snapping him back to the present so hard he almost got whiplash. He hadn’t thought of the first time he’d almost died in years and now it was back like a recurring nightmare. He wanted to blame stress, to roll over and tap out on the choice to continue on as a wrestler in this new company. Every fibre of his being kept telling him that it was a huge mistake. The fact that he was on a losing streak wasn’t too appealing either.


Silence so thick it made his ears ring was his only companion as he crossed the kitchen, feeling the cold tile under his bare feet like a balm. He managed to avoid the broken glass almost on instinct even though it probably wouldn’t have registered if he’d done a soft-shoe shuffle through the middle of it.

He leaned against the wall, making sure the door was latched and locked with automatic motions. Conditioned air blew against his neck, cooling the sweat and making him shiver. It was the middle of the night and he couldn't really account for the last ten hours. His body knew the paces it had been pushed through even without his brain being engaged. It was like the ache of a rotten tooth, diseased but familiar in a way that most wouldn't understand. He welcomed it. Needed it like it was penance in a way a thousand 'Hail Marys' and 'Our Fathers' could never do. The ego, the pride and all the hubris shouldn't be allowed a foothold – that lesson had been drilled in deep. Happiness was fine, contentment a compromise of sorts. Praise was unwelcome. Those words hurt too much.

"Daddy?"

Lost in his head, he didn't hear the whisper from the doorway or the sleepy sniffle that accompanied it.

The cramp wasn't from the water. It was from trying to mix the warring worlds in his head. The past wasn't supposed to creep into the present. Clay was worm food now, nothing more. If there was such a thing as a soul, there was a special place in Hell for that sadistic piece of shit. The more the memories invaded his thoughts, colored his actions, the more it cemented the vow that he'd never do that – consciously or otherwise – to another human being.

He could feel Clay's breath on the back of his neck. His own sweat had started to stink like cheap whiskey halitosis. He hated himself for repeating the cycle and now he felt vaguely sick, like he had a belly full of sweets.

Binge and purge. Let it out. Find an outlet that doesn't live under this roof. You have to before it gets worse.

He hadn't come in for dinner and in the back of his mind he wondered what Hannah had told the girls. A thousand and one excuses over the years – he would never be able to pay that back. Sighing, he tried to shake off the unease, to push aside the voice of the past and its condemnation. His legs ached, barely reliable as he trailed his hand along the counter, making a beeline for the fridge. The water was in his hand, plastic crackling as he guzzled it, half the contents spilling down his bare chest. A few seconds later he was bent over the sink, feeling like it was going to come back up. Years of conditioning had his teeth clenched, breathing shallow as he tried to focus on something else – the silence was so thick he could hear his heart beating in his eardrums. He could hear the clock on the living room wall ticking softly.

"Daddy?" The little voice was so soft and timid, holding a plaintive note, "a-are you okay?"

"Careful," he managed to push out the word, "there’s busted glass by the door."

"I know. I'll get the broom for you."

In a couple months, she’d be ten. Right now, she sounded so much like her mother had when they were young. Gentle tones, careful cadence as though she was afraid of spooking him.

He gripped the edges of the sink, drawing in a deep breath as a shudder crawled down his spine. "Yeah," he finally answered her question; she’d always had the power to pull the truth from him. "Fuck. Don’t…" he straightened up slowly and when the cramp didn't get any worse, he turned around and shuffled towards the breakfast nook by the window. "I’m alright. Mostly." He sat down with a barely stifled groan, leaning forward to rest his elbows on the table. "Kinda late, isn't it?"

Allegra looked down at her bare feet, that awkward hesitation so much like looking in a mirror that it cut right through him. Lex chuckled, scooting over on the bench seat, "c'mere then. I'm not mad... promise."

The little girl ran across the tiles, bare feet barely making a sound. Clambering up on the bench, she fixed those big eyes on him, almost accusing as she sniffled, "I was worried." She bit her lip, "you were someplace else tonight. This was a long one and I thought maybe you were gonna stay lost…"

Her words came out in a breathless rush and he took a few seconds to process before taking a slow, deep breath to steady himself. "I wouldn’t…" he murmured, trying to gather his scattered thoughts into something coherent. It wasn’t as though they hadn’t talked about his issues over the years. He’d always been candid with her about his mental illness. “You and your mom – your sister, too. You’re my anchors. No matter how far I drift, there’s always that link to the shore, y’know? I promise.” He rested his forehead in the palm of his hand, closing his eyes for a second. "Things get too loud. Sometimes I gotta…" he sighed, lifting his head. "I don't like the sound of my own voice. 'Tween us, the less I have to talk, the better. When I was your age, it was easier to deal with, I guess. In school, they wanted you to be quiet. To sit down, focus on a task… learn to talk when you're called on. Learn to do things orderly. I guess I was good enough at that."

Allegra crawled into his lap, warm and solid and impossibly real, hugging him tight the way she had a thousand times before. She knew he needed to be pulled back from the brink of the abyss. She’d always had that uncanny understanding, even when she’d been too young to understand these confessionals coming from his lips. He'd always done this, even when she was a fussy infant. He'd rock her in the chair, tell her whatever was rattling around in his head.

"I was out there tonight, hittin' things – it was training. For that match I have comin' up." He never used to lie to her and this one stuck in his throat, made that sickness start to spread in his guts again. "I know it's my job to set an example an' I'm out there making my knuckles all raw. Throwing myself off things like some lunatic. Your Dad ain't right in the head, Princess Peanut." He sighed on the heels of the name he'd given her before she'd even been born. "Haven't been for a real long time. It ebbs sometimes – the darkness, I mean. I had a good few years. Wasn't a bad run, really."

He looked down, saw her looking up at him, barely able to keep her eyes open.

"There's an itch. That's what I mean. Sometimes it gets inside my head. It frigs me up somethin' fierce… then I itch all over. I wanna run. I wanna switch it all off… there's this song where he says 'I wanna pull my brain stem out an' unplug myself. I want nothin' right now'. It gets too loud so I gotta make sounds I know – wholly aware that don't make much sense. I just… sometimes I get toxic, like I feel too much an' it gets stuck inside me. Things other people say. Things they make me feel – I can't do it 24/7."

The diagnosis came when he was seventeen. After he'd refused to confess to the crimes against Hannah that he'd had no part in committing. They'd put him in a group home for six months. They told him it was for his own good, to learn how to reprogram himself – avoidant personality disorder, they'd called it – he'd never thought there was anything wrong before that. He'd done his best to survive, that's all. Now he knew the truth. Nobody else was wired the way he was, fundamentally broken in the worst kind of ways.

"Daddy?" Allegra sounded so sleepy now, barely hanging on.

"I'm okay," he said, letting his eyes meet hers for a moment. "I need you to understand this, Princess… even if it's hard. Sometimes I gotta do more than dip my toes in that tainted water. Sometimes I gotta dive back in to feel things I understand. The violence… it… it…" he couldn't bring himself to complete that thought. "Even when I have blood on my hands, even then…" his voice shook a little and he closed his eyes. "You don't ever gotta be afraid of me. I won't – I don't wanna – hurt anyone. 'Specially not you or Mama or Queen Freddie. I'd die first. I…" his guts felt sour again. There was so much riding on this now, so many more reasons to go out with a bang and secure as much cash as he could for the future, especially now that they had another child on the way. 

"Hey, so... I'm sorry you had to see it," there was shame in his voice as he averted his eyes and trailed off, falling silent for a few minutes. He kept thinking about how his last opponent had seized the moment. He’d been pessimistic before he’d even gotten in the ring and it had bitten him in the ass. He'd thought he had it, too. Stupid. So fucking stupid.

Beat me and they’ll give you the world.

As if it was all about putting the younger ones over now? Fail spectacularly. Sure. And now, what did the booking sheet say? Where had the dust settled? A match against Kronin's rookie sister as if he needed to settle a score against their family, as if he was bitter and angry and had that punishment to mete out?

It didn't make sense.

Okay, so it kinda did. On paper. Given how the business usually played out. So he'd have to lean into that. Be a shitbird about it even though he didn't want to because appearances were everything, especially since there were rumblings of a reunion show for Mainstream – he’d have to go back to defend that championship, to revisit the rivalry that had defined 2023. So much shit had happened this year and it felt like a thousand lifetimes, all of it blurred up and stirred up into nonsense soup in his head.

Icarus is ALWAYS destined to crash. To burn. And maybe you want to pretend invincible; play phoenix games but when does it stop being about rebirth and slip into redundancy? Lather. Lose. Rinse. Rise. Repeat until the well goes dry. How do you know when it does? When it's more mud than blood? Who decides where the line gets drawn?

None of that shit passed his lips and he was grateful that the words had dried up and his daughter had drifted off to dreamland, lulled by the sound of his voice.

"I gotta make it right. I know I do." He whispered the words, kissing the top of her head as he gathered her in his arms and stood up slowly. "I owe it to you to be better, prove I ain't never gonna end up on that road." The day he saw himself turning into Clay was the day he'd finally put the gun in his own mouth and pull the trigger. "Nature. Not nurture." He muttered it, making his way to the stairs. Clay wasn't his biological father. That poison was in his mind, in his soul – never his veins. It didn't have to be passed on. He could swallow the sickness. He could be better.

He knew he had to make it right, get back to winning ways. He couldn't pull the plug when he was in the gutter like this. It would eat at him forevermore.

He tucked his oldest daughter into bed, plugging in the rainbow nightlight beside the bed, just in case she got a little scared in the dark. He kissed her forehead, making the same promise he had when he'd done this the very first time. "I'll be the best I can. For you... my family."



"Fuck me running. This has been quite the shitshow lately and I've got a lot of angst to purge heading into the close of this year. Social media is dying – nothing brings me more joy than to leave that mess behind. Not that it matters, really. There will still be critics, nitpicking every action. Someone’s gonna be pissy that I’m doing another copout here, refusing to show my face on camera like that’s gonna change anything I say if you can look me in the eyes? I can assure you, staring at my ugly mug ain’t gonna alter the message. But hey, do go on. Make a big thing of it. Call me a coward. Call me lazy. Speculation is fun, isn’t it? That’s what it’s all about these days: some bs competition of sorts to apply pressure to the nuggets we unearth from deep inside us. See if we can transmogrify that dark lump of fuel into something shiny and hard – something that’ll last. And every thought needs to be put out there for consumption. Every tic, every flinch and failure needs to be logged and catalogued ‘cause heaven forbid we keep anything close to the vest. They can't all be gemstones, of course. Some make it past the filter, make it through the initial test but they never really shine enough to pass muster. Not enough pretty facets. They're hard. They'll last, sure – they become tools rather than adornment. I guess I'm alone in that aspiration, though. I don't wanna dazzle with a little rainbow flash. I don't want “oozin' ahhs”. I wanna be part of the long haul. I wanna put that knowledge an' experience – that tempering, I guess – to use. I'm sure I'm not at all special or unique in that regard, huh?"

There's that wry, self-deprecating chuckle right on cue.

"Turned forty last week without much fanfare. I guess that means I now have one foot in the grave and the other halfway out the door. So, this is the last hurrah? Kinda disappointing, really. Kara Reinhardt drew the short straw. And I mean, I should be promising swift retribution and an example to be made. Should be looking to kick off 2024 with a bang rather than a whimper. I need to be better. Own the mistakes. Blah, blah blah. You've heard a thousand variations of that bullshit. I've never been a man of words. Anyone who's followed me for any length of time knows that. My silence speaks volumes. Words should have weight. Gravitas. Whatever. Not just fill text boxes and empty spaces. You can learn a lot by what people don't say, even in this day and age when everything is pushed in your face for public consumption."

There's a heavy pause, as if he wants those thoughts to sink in.

"I could walk out the door, never to be seen again and not a single one of you would mourn that and maybe that’s the part that’s fucking me up. I expected Rob Riot to come up to me backstage, to remember me from that moment in RSW back in the day – meant more to me than it did him, obviously. Story of my life. Just keep doing the same thing for eternity and it’s fine to retrace all those steps because I’m the only one who remembers. I’ve said this before. I’ve bitched and moaned and told the world at large that I’m not here to collect accolades and grab spotlights – nobody ever listened. My career after RSW was a bit like that never-ending nightmare of Sisyphus. Push the rock uphill. Keep at it for eternity an' maybe the next time you're at the summit, it won't try its best to crush you. Maybe it'll roll up there where it's supposed to be – job well done after all this time. The part that fucks me up? I did it. I had that. I was GOLDEN all the way through and every company wanted me to show up, wanted me in contention. And then in an instant... fuckin’ Thanos snapped his fingers somewhere and it all dried up. And here I am, going through those stupid motions, hoping for a different outcome. Maybe this business will recognize an' reward talent rather'n try to eat it alive. A bucket full of maybes don't really amount to much these days, though, does it?"

Another sharp inhale through his nose, another muted chuckle on the exhale.

"We are the merry-makers. We are the dreamers of dreams. We are the ones who form the backbone of this business. We do the work – hard an' unbreakable day after day. We passed the test. We made it through all the stuff meant to cull the weak – we just don't shine. It ain't right to aspire to be something you're not, somethin' you weren't never meant to be. The right stuff can be in the right place at the right time. Circumstances create champions, after all. Gold can end up around a waist so many times that it really does feel more destiny than fluke – when the light hits one of those worker diamonds the right way, at the right moment…"

There's a pause with a soft clearing of his throat. The emotion is there, vibrating behind the words, giving them more power than usual.

"That day's come. Time to prove it was all worth it. I can. I will. For better or worse, this is the last crusade."

The darkness on the screen vanishes, revealing the face of Lex Collins. The ethnic stamp of those dark circles under his eyes seem more pronounced than usual – could be the terrible lighting or fatigue. Could be age and the unkindness of the wrestling business at large. Either way, he looks haggard and resigned. He bites his lip for a moment, gaze shifting to the left as he takes a slow breath, letting it out as his eyes fix back on the viewer.

"Alright, Kara. Take a good hard look. Drink it in like any of this shit's gonna matter in a week's time. YOU SEE ME NOW?"

He stares forward into the camera, those dark eyes unreadable and unflinching.

"I'm not gonna waste any more of your time. You seem like you’ve got a good head on your shoulders and I hate to be the one to hand you that very first loss. I know you want to pick up where your brother left off, prove that you can do it better, despite how green you are. And I mean, if you can finish me off... write me out of the company for good? Shit. That'd go a long way towards cementing that legacy for you both. Granted, I'm still playing catch up with the who's-who in this locker room, but I'm sure someone will take notice and throw a bone your way for a good showing. I'm sure they'll pat you on the head and tell you that you're a good girl. Good job. Good fuckin' grief. I can't remember my first year in the business. It was twenty years ago but I know there wasn't anyone there to catch me when I fell. I had to dust myself off. Had to learn my own lessons the hard way and maybe that's what pisses me off so much about the current generation. About these coddled little shits who get whatever they want just by whining. The generation of influencers and TikTok stars, these fake famous dipshits who walk through the door thinking this is so easy when it took me DECADES to get it right."

The sarcasm is thick in his voice now, those dark eyes narrowed.

"A part of me wants to rage against this bs booking because I know what it represents. The other part of me is willing to let it go because that's an energy sink I can't be bothered with now. I want to be better. To go out on a high note. So, lemme light that fire under your ass, Kara. Let's do what we were born to do. No words. No more of this useless supposition and a thousand excuses. I own my shit. I know I've been a disappointment since the moment I've arrived and I can look that truth square in the face without stuttering. No more anxiety. No more struggle. I'm at peace with the past and embrace the future. Your brother got a win. Good for him. It ain't Halloween anymore and I'm done doling out sweets. You feel me?" 

A grim smile crosses his lips, fleeting. 

"Honesty between peers. Notice I didn't say equals 'cause we ain't there yet. So, hey. Whaddya say? Toss out all the wars, all the sides being taken and let's just focus on you and me. Here and now. You wanna strip it down to the base layer and embrace that calling to be something more? I know EXACTLY what needs to happen here and unlike you or your brother or all these other snot-nosed rookies, I know how this all ends. I know what's waiting for you when the spotlight dims and forgets you exist. You wanna know? Why not? I'll tell you, but I ain't gonna explain it. If you know, you know. If not? You'll see soon enough. It's just beautiful... terminal... action. Fuckin' transcendent."

He chuckles, shaking his head.

"Conquest. Wrestling. Violence. To hell with your debut. I'm not here to hold your hand and put you through your paces. I'm here to CLEAR my name. All eyes on me, on the one shiny fuckin’ moment I finally reach deep down and find the spark to turn it all around. Take the bull by the horns. Cement myself as a predator going forward – leave the failures back in 2023 where they belong. You with me, Kara? You ready for this? The pressure’s on, kiddo. Time to SHINE."