[finnwhelan]

PARADIGM SHIFT XII // TEAR GAS
SURELY THIS AIN’T THE FUCKING PINNACLE? NO. THESE MODERN SAINTS WOULD HAVE US WRITING OUR OWN EPITAPH.  THERE’S NOTHING LEFT OF OURSELVES THAT WE WON’T SELL.
ARCHITECTS


••••••

Helluva Bottom Carter had his foot on the ropes, and yet it was Finn Whelan who had his arm raised in victory. He was moving on, taking the step towards the most coveted of championships in the company. It was a championship he’d held before – and perhaps, had he been the wiser, the hot potato game of 2023 from Harris and J2H wouldn’t have quite been the chaotic hodgepodge that it’d been because it would have never happened. Things may have been different.

But that wasn’t what happened. J2H, in his indignance and power, dropped his rightfully earned championship and created a tournament for it. Eight superstars, selected from the men’s roster, selected as whom he thought could best contend for the championship, all the way from tried and true veterans of Sin City like Goth to newcomers to the entire business in Oliver Zahn. Now, only four remained in the tournament to contest for the World Championship.

It would be these four that would contest again for the championship that was so easily tossed aside. These four that would truly prove to the masses who actually deserved to be the champion that they all wanted to be.

One of them was Finn Whelan.

Call it greed, call it avarice, call it whatever you wanted: the argument could have been made that Finn Whelan was a selfish prick who just wanted everything all to himself. Hell. It had been made. And while his Irish blood imbued him with the love of a fight, his cerebrality caused him to necessitate a reason for the fight. His reason? Gold? Fame? Or was it truly jumping someone and popping them in the face?

Perhaps it would never be known.

••••••

“Mate, I have never seen this much snow!”

The boisterous voice of Aiden Reynolds, one of Sin City’s newest signings, echoed off the high, almost cathedral ceilings of the entryway of a rather large house. Situated in Dillon, Colorado, Finn’s Colorado home that he inherited from his divorce from one Aaron Asphyxia, who was stomping her feet on the marbled tile, was not a place he frequented, but was nevertheless useful for this leg of Sin City’s Colorado tour. He pulled off his hoodie and looked at the grandiose staircase that led to several bedrooms, taking his son, Dax, from Kallie’s arms as she tried to remove her jacket.

“Do they even have snow in Convictalia?” Aaron quipped, raising an eyebrow.

Finn, having had to listen to everyone bickering in the vehicle on the way up Interstate 70 in torrential, blizzard conditions, threw his jacket onto the decorative bench near the hallway and left the scene. His patience could only be tested so far, and all he wanted right now was either multiple glasses of Jameson or a bullet to the brain. He flipped a switch in the culinary-chef equipped kitchen and opened the refrigerator. Despite his lack of staying in the house, he always had this place equipped with food once every two months. Just in case.

“I thought I was a cunt, but I swear to god, she puts me to shame.”

She was silent in the car, but Kayla Richards indeed came with them. Of course, that was because she didn’t want to stay another night in the hellhole hotel she was staying in within the Denver city limits, but that was okay. Finn didn’t mind her there.

Although, it would be their first night staying in the same house since she up and left last year.

Finn grunted his agreement and, despite his vice-filled thoughts, merely reached for a soda and popped the can. Part of him was unsure that he was actually okay with her staying, or if he was happier just burying his head in the sand.

“I’m taking the master!” From somewhere in the house, Aaron yelled, informing them that they were all shit out of luck. Kayla turned her head and looked back at the doorway, leaning against the counter.

“See?”

Finn nodded, leaning lackadaisically against the counter himself and looking out the window in the pure, white blowing snow. He could barely see anything just a few feet from the house. But at least it helped him to look out the window instead of at Kayla.

He could handle work. He could handle the gym and public places, but he found himself struggling with this. Like a twitch that would end, it crept up his neck and buzzed in his ear, putting him on edge.

Kayla pushed off the counter and moved behind him, opening the door and looking into it to grab a soda of her own. She paused for a second, as if she was looking at something, and then pulled her head back, letting the door shut on its own. She chose to stand next to him – close, but not too close. Like they did when they were friends.

“How are you feeling?”

Finn clenched his fingers of his free hand briefly before looking at her. “What do you mean?” Did she have some unknown ability to read his thoughts? See the uneasiness in his stance? The stupidity of his mind? No matter how hard he tried to shove it under the rug, the fact that Kayla was the one person – no only person – he cared about in this house as much as he cared about himself would always haunt him.

“The win against Carter. I mean,” Kayla raised an eyebrow, “I thought you had it from the get, but Carter wanted it so bad I thought he might have it. And the foot on the ropes.”

“Not gonna lie,” Finn replied, pressing his freehand into the counter and looking straight ahead. “I’m kind of tired of the close calls and the possible dramatics involved with any of my wins lately.”

Kayla was quiet, and then she narrowed her eyes. “A win is a win, Finnegan.” She said, not at all quietly. The Dreamkiller crossed her arms and stared him down, turning her whole body toward him. “I don’t know why you care about it at all. Any win at any cost.”

Two parts of Finn waged war for dominance in his head – the side that told him that she was just reacting to what she thought was a snipe at her and the side that screamed epithets of Honor: Above All Things, and if people didn’t get that, then burn them at the stake.

Burning at the stake won.

His eyes narrowed too. “Wins are sacred, Kayla. They prove your mettle as a warrior, as a fighter, and when they’re tainted–”

“They’re still a win.”  She countered. “Your win against Carter was a win. The little bitch would’ve taken another fucking beating from you twenty seconds later and succumbed. Rope breaks during pins are for the weak.”

“Oh yeah?” Finn replied, tilting his head. “You’ve used them.”

“I’m not weak. I’m calculated.” She rolled her eyes. “And you should be too. Lately, it’s just like you can’t even accurately figure out that you’re in the ring or not.” She was referring to his inability lately to capitalize in matches. Especially in tag matches. How many of their last wins were because of Kayla? “What the fuck happened to the Finn Whelan that would have ripped someone’s balls off in the middle of the ring if it would get him an advantage?”

Finn sighed and leaned back, pushing away from the counter and also away from her. “Go on. Push me away. Try to say you’re pushing me towards some vindictiveness that will keep me going out of spite. I’m not doing this.” He replied. It was easy to say things that you didn’t mean, and tonight, he truly felt that he might. He didn’t want that. Not when they’d finally figured out how to at least work with one another smoothly. “You can have the second bedroom on the left when you get upstairs. It stays warm in there, and doesn’t have the sun in the morning.”

“Finn–” Kayla quipped as he walked past her. He threw up an arm, waving her off.

He wouldn’t bury his professional working relationship because she knew how to piss him off just as much as she didn’t know how much she could be the sunshine in his eyes.

Not today.[/font]

••••••

“I guess I need to take a note out of half of the Mixed Tag Team Champions and say it. A win, no matter at what cost, is a win.”

The wintry mix whirls around the black figure standing in the center of an almost pitch white scene. Blizzards in Colorado were no exception, and this time, it seemed to engulf the Seattle Saint as he stood with his hands at his pockets. He was in stark contrast to the setting, just as much as he didn’t seem to fit into his surroundings.

Just like maybe he was the one that didn’t fit into this situation.

“As much as I hate his fucking name, Carter is a phenomenal superstar, and it took trying to complain to a referee for him to feel like he did his best. It’s funny, when you sit there and you think you have it, when you scream from where you stand out into the vast, open world above you that you are the be all, end all…that you’re better than everyone else in this business. And what happens?

You slip.

You make a wrong move, something you do hasn’t been noted. Something you missed and now you have to suffer in the silence of your wrongdoings, your failures, your…what do they call it, your mistakes…”

Finn smiles slightly, and inclines his head forward.

“Live those memories over and over in your head, telling yourself where you’ve been, what you’ve wanted to do, where you’ve wanted to go, and how you’ll never get there. You know, it’s funny…the only time anyone looks to the past is to tell you where you fucked up. Never to tell you where you did a good job, where you succeeded. It’s kind of like Yelp! Reviews, you know? Google, Facebook…all those social media websites only get reviews whether or not something has really gone wrong. The food was cold. The staff was shitty, and heaven forbid, they allowed people who couldn’t be deemed worth a damn thing in the door.

As the owner of the thing being reviewed, you look back at those reviews and you cringe because the thing that you’ve put effort into obtaining, that other reviews and customers have told you that you’ve absolutely won and pushed forward. No, all you can focus on is everything you’ve ever done wrong.

It’s like that in wrestling.

Look at what Carter had to say about me. Good things, right? About how good I am, how even in my slip-ups, and that he knew he had his work cut out for him. But the one thing he said was that I’m in and out of the company.

Sure. I am.

It’s a talking point for everyone. Ms. Irrelevant over in Jet City tried to say it was because I was mad I lost – nah. Inconsistency has been argued. Yeah. But you know what is the most consistent? The most literal consistent thing when I get into the ring here in Sin City?

It is rare that I lose, and when I do lose, it’s because I don’t give a flying fuck about what I’m doing.”

A nonchalant shrug accompanies his words, and he doesn’t at all look remorseful.

“I’ve been around the bend a few times. My record proves it, my reigns prove it, and the fact that I consistently make strides here even when the going hasn’t been going for me. Came in this cycle with a loss, and what did I do? Two tag matches later, I had a championship in my grasp by a team that was trained by,” he holds up his fingers and airquotes, “‘the best mixed tag team in all of SCW’. They failed to recapture the championships when they had a chance, no matter the bullshit they spat in all of their arguments. Miles Kasey spouted a ton of shit and he ended up on the other side of my boot while Kayla got the win.”

He tilts his head. “Or did…did you guys forget that Tag Team wrestling relies on each other to do their part? Kayla and I have had equal wins and losses, as of this year, as singles champions. As tag team champions, it’s been a combined effort that has been planned. But that's, you know, the low part of where everyone goes when it comes to tag team wrestlers.”

He leans in once more.

“You know, that we can’t wrestle on our own.”

Finn leans back then, looking at his surroundings for a moment before chuckling and then tilting his head again.

“Here’s the thing. I’ve been a singles wrestler for nearly ten years. Over that time, I’ve done amazing things. I’ve done things where no one thought I would amount to anything, and then I held a chokehold over their championship until I dropped it because the company was so fucked in the end that I never wanted to represent it again. I was undefeated in WWH. I lost twice in Union Underground, and when it came to other companies that I’ve been a part of from their birth and their death…if I lost, it was a surprise. My record in a deathmatch company was nearly spotless – I think it was sixteen four before I lost, and one of the most prominent companies in all of this side of wrestling, 4CW, I lost four matches.”

He leans forward again.

“Here? Every loss I have ever had was because I didn’t give a shit. The Roulette Championship was something that I abhorred having because there is no honor in holding it. The World Championship? Yeah, I made a mistake and didn’t really focus well on that match and lost it back to the person I was told I would never win it from. Shit happens. Besides, poking at when someone doesn’t do their ultimate best because something came up in their lives? A little bit on the low brau side, but you know, that’s what I expect from people with egos the size of their balls.

They think they’re bigger than they are but, ya know…

It’s never unfixable. It’s never unmanageable. And when I want something, you best believe I’m going to annihilate you to get it.”

He takes a step forward, and then presses his hand over the camera, leaning forward into it.

“So while we’ve taken a trip down memory lane, let me focus in on the person of the eve…the target, so to speak.

Peter Vaughn.

You’re up.

Let’s play.”

••••••

For some people, nighttime was when everything in the brain started to work in overdrive, causing disturbance to sleep schedules and constant annoyances. For Kayla, that night, it seemed to be her malady.

With a creak at her door as she opened it, she stepped into the darkened hallway sometime in the middle of the night with a sigh, her oversized shirt and short shorts not necessarily keeping her completely warm. Though she was loathe to admit it, she didn’t like the thought of her previous interaction with her tag partner. For a moment, she considered that it was too personal. They weren’t like that anymore.

She heard a tapping noise from downstairs, and made her way down the staircase, holding onto the rail for solid standing. She turned and made her way into the open living room, finding a crackling fireplace and, no surprise, a very awake Finn. She approached him, making sure to make noise as she stepped into the room so not as to startle him. He sat on the sectional, legs propped up along the length of the side.

As she sat down, he wordlessly handed her a blanket, keeping his eyes on the fire. Tucking her legs beneath her, she looked at him and started, “I wanted to say I was sorr–”

He waved her off. “It’s fine.”

She knew him well enough to figure that he was actually being truthful. Not a lot got under his skin on a regular basis, but lately, he seemed to be on edge. And she knew why. He’d told her outright about Kei and Dickie, and if he wasn’t at Sin City’s productions, his mind certainly was on his “brother” and how to deal with the situation.

“Have you heard from him?”

Finn inhaled, and then turned his head, pressing his arm on top of the back of the couch and resting his head in his hand. “Yeah. He’s changed, but he’s…” He trailed off, pursing his lips. “He’s still Dimitri. I keep thinking maybe I just need to take a step back, make sure he’s safe, but now that I’m in this…championship tournament, I don’t really have a choice. If I want to reclaim and make certain on my own merits, I have to fight in this, and I have to fight like hell. But half the time, I wonder…is this worth everything?”

Kayla tilted her head and thumbed her fingers into the blanket. “What do you have left if you don’t?” When Finn stayed silent, she exhaled and looked at the flames, watching as they danced back and forth with no care to the world or the whirling air above the flume. “You can’t help him now. The little shit has to see it for himself, and until he does, you’re just going to be fighting a battle that you can’t win.”

“So I should just let him go be a fuckin’ moron?”

She nodded. “For now. Look. There’s…things going on too, in my circle. And I find myself focusing on work more than anything because it’s…well, to be honest, it’s easier to do that than it is to face any of the other shit. At work, I can do my job effectively, I can fight and put all of my effort in and see results. Maybe it’s Eiley three shows in a row for me, but you can’t say that I proved a point. That feeling, it resonates and makes it feel better. And I fight for the Mixed Tag Titles because it’s not just me. I’m motivated to do my best because we rely on each other to push each other. Ultimately, it’s easy enough to do because you’re the only person I can be myself around.”

Finn turned his head more, narrowing his eyes slightly, his eyebrows furrowing. The meaning of her words wasn’t lost on him, but he was also confused. If it was so easy to be around him because she could be herself, she didn’t need to move out. She didn’t need to step away. All of the hardship of the past few months could have been assuaged and fixed with a simpler situation. Maybe they wouldn’t have been at each others’ throats. Maybe they wouldn’t have felt their friendship blew up into smoke.

Or maybe she didn’t mean anything about them at all. He hesitated, and looked at the flames like her. Their warmth was inviting, just like their relationship used to be. How many evenings did they sit together and watch stupid television shows, make  comments, and destroy people? The only thing that put them together now was the championships.

Right?

“Look, Kayla, it’s not that simple. You don’t know what it’s like…” He frowned and leaned back, crossing his arms. “It’s not like you have a choice in the things you do. There’s always something hovering over you, a looming threat that they can ruin everything. Dickie wasn’t Dickie, and you know how unabashedly brash he is about himself. He was a shadow of himself, and being in that environment…it turns you into something you don’t want to be. It turned me into something I didn’t want to be.”

Kayla jutted her head upwards and snorted. “You think you’re the only one with secrets? I have demons too, Finn. You’re not special.”

Both glanced out the window then. Somewhere out in that wilderness, both were certain they were watching. Like they always were, like they always had been. Even when they thought they were both long gone from the chaos of their respective families, they were never quite far enough away from them than they’d ever liked. Certainly, they could have both thought that they were out there, in the blizzard itself, situated in the mountainside above Dillon Lake. Easy enough to be swept up if they made the wrong move.

And Kayla nor Finn had told the other about it.

Finn chuckled, shaking his head. “No. It’s not just demons, Kay. I don’t think there’s an amount I can atone to fix all the wrong I’ve done.”

Kayla looked back at him and furrowed her eyebrow. “I know you worked for him. It’s hard when they have such sway over you, isn’t it? You almost feel powerless.”

“Do you know what I did? What my role was in all of that?” He grinned slightly, almost manically. “I finished things. It wasn’t being powerless, Kayla. I had all the power in my hands. I was the right hand, I was the one that easily made the call to end something, someone.” He looked down at his hands. “It didn’t matter what it was about. If he didn’t care for it, he asked me to end it.”

He ground his teeth together and clenched his fists.

He hated what she might think of him, now that he’d opened his mouth.

Surprisingly, she leaned forward, laying a hand gently – almost awkwardly – on his arm. His fingers unclenched.

“We all do things that we don’t want to. You felt like you had to. You’re still the same person.”

His lips turned up into a slight smile. Slight, only because in the front of his mind, he was assuaged. Kayla accepted his fault. But only because she didn’t know the other part. The back of his mind would never relay it, but even as he sat here, his eyes back on the fire, he knew it was only half-lived. Because he liked it. At one point or another, he liked who he was all those years back. And even though he fought to be out of it, to live on his own again, he knew one thing.

If he got involved again, there would be no stopping him from returning to the monster he used to be.


••••••

“It’s not a secret that I’ve been seeking the Internet Championship since I’ve been back in the company,” Finn begins again, now inside the house. He drops down onto the couch, next to a roaring fireplace. The sounds of people cackling in the kitchen just a few steps away can be heard. “My goal probably for this year contains becoming a Grand Slam Champion, but I also take what falls into my lap and work with it to the best of my ability.

So when I was told that I was going to be vying for the World Championship again, I laughed.

I laughed, Peter, I laughed.

A trip backwards goes to a few weeks before High Stakes in 2022. I came back, already champion of another company, sold a bill of goods for Sin City again that it was the place for me. I believed it. Like it always seems to do whether I want it or not, I do a good job in that first match back against someone of no import, and then I get thrown into the lion’s den. A fatal four way. For a chance to win the contendership in regards to the World Championship.

Austin James Mercer.”

He holds up one finger, and then two fingers.

“Goth.”

A third finger and a snicker.

“Chris Page.

You know Chris Page, right? Pretty sure you fucks with each other. He disappeared shortly after that, but only after pointing out that other people in my life or around me had done better than me, so what the fuck was I going to amount to?

Anyway, I won that one. Went to face Davison. Got told again that I was in the wrong league, wrong place, that I didn’t deserve that championship.

Won that too.

Shit happened. Lost it, lost a lot of things in life…drive, motivation, didn’t really give a shit.

Not like you thought, right Peter?”

He takes his hand and chugs it like a choo choo train.

“You just chug along like Thomas the Tank Engine, raring to go. Like a good little bitch, you’re told where to be and you do the thing. Roulette Champion, and you wear it on your sleeve like it’s something to be proud of. That you’ve brought honor to a championship that means very little in the course of things. Maybe it’s because I consider it the Easy Difficulty Championship. You know, the one you pick when you just want story mode and you just want to know what happens without the difficulties of the battles. I mean, look at your list of challengers.

Miles Kasey. Three times, and we all know Miles hasn’t figured out how to be a wrestler until he was getting proper attention from his boyfriend.

Jack Washington, twice, as a shadow of himself.

Bill Barnhart. Three times. All snorefests.

Malachi. Twice, and I have to give the kid a prop because he tried.

Carter. I already think he could be great once he figures out how to actually compete and succeed.

Mercer and Tempest. Eiley and Zahn. Raven and Vanity.  All in your cutesy attempt to be a mixed tag team with Kimmie, who fucked off again. How’s that going for you?

Mercer by himself. Been there, done that. He’s a little wonked out anyway now, so I’d be watching for him in this tournament.

The Troll. I’m not even going to point out anything here.

Every single one of these human beings except for Tempest and Vanity, I have a win over as well. Every single one of these competitors, I’ve faced and I’ve come out on top. Are you saying that you’re the only person in this company that could do such a feat? I don’t see you facing anyone in the top echelon here. You don’t have any Davisons or Banes or anyone that you seem to bump uglies with because you’ve figured out how to be friends with the top of the company.

You wanted to face Knox, but he fucked off to nowhere.

Looking at a list of your previous accomplishments before here, you’ve been a whatever-time-champion, but I’m not impressed by the places you’ve been. OCW? GCWA? We all know WGWF has no reputation except for the people that circlejerk one another, and Thunder Pro? Yeah, I’m going to reiterate it– I ain’t impressed.

Let’s get this straight, Vaughn. There’s no amount of reading that you can do that will give you a perfect picture of who I am, and I bet one hundred percent you think you’ve got me all summed up into ten minutes of promo time, if that. You think your cute little quips have gotten you by, but I’m not Miles Kasey, and I’m not Jack Washington, or Malachi.

Hell, I’m not even Helluva Bottom Carter, and I was right when he was a tough cookie to crack. My name is Finn Whelan, and I’m nothing like anything you’ve faced here in Sin City. This isn’t going to be a pushover match for you, because you think you have more charisma and prowess than anyone you’ve ever faced. It’s a constant theme in your matches. Little quips about people, thinking you’ve gotten inside their head. Every time you’ve had a match here you’ve gotten a little bit more and more insufferable, to the point where you think because you were part of the Junipers or whatever the fuck they were, you mattered. And you sat there, week in, week out, with your cute little gimmick championship thinking you mattered.

Carter sat there and told me who I was, what I’d done, how he might defeat me, how he’s going to face me using a piece of paper. List out all of my names, what I’ve done, be sure you know who I am.

And watch like everyone else does when they face me as you fall apart. Your eyes are going to be staring up at the lights like you won’t even know where you’ve been. There won’t be any kind of shit delivery of the end…pinfall, submission, whatever the fuck gets the job done at this point, because I’m sick and tired of worthless fucking wrestlers like you getting high and mighty in companies that suck the intelligence out of people and then coming into places where the things you say and do matter.

I don’t like you. I don’t like what you represent. I don’t like what you’ve done. I don’t give a shit what you have done, because at the end of the day, in Sin City? You’re on Easy Difficulty, and you haven’t tried to do much since. Those championships you gunned for?

I have half of them.

You’ll never be anything but gimmick central in SCW. You’ll never be World Champion. Not if I can help it.

Retribution and restoration are key. And when the championship is mine again?

It won’t be like last time.

Maybe you can paint a narrative differently next time.

See if any of us care.”

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