“It is your reaction to adversity, not the adversity itself, that determines how your life story will develop.” ~ Dieter F. Uchtdorf
Quirky.
If Carter had a single word that he could best use to describe his BFF, Ariana Angelos, it would be just that; quirky. Her love of all things chef-related, even some of her more nefarious recipes that were probably behind the true reason for the success rate of Recipe 4 Disaster. Her sense of humor was bubbly with just a hint of mischievousness - which he would partially blame himself for. But above all else, Carter would say that she was absolutely loving and loyal, she would die on that proverbial hill were it in defense of a loved one; be it friend or family. Or a friend who she loved as family.
Like him. Why he didn’t see this coming.
Given ‘his Ari’s’ personality traits, he often thought her choice of house in Las Vegas was oddly fitting. It was a very quaint and humble two-story house, unlike the mega mansions one hears about so many wrestling stars claiming for themselves in this day and age. Many men and women wanted to flaunt their wealth or status in the wrestling industry by purchasing the absolute biggest and grandest estate that money could buy. Not his Ari. When she had moved out of his tiny little apartment, seeking her own space, she wasn’t looking for grand or extravagant. She just wanted a simple home. And in Carter’s opinion, she found just that. It was just on a slight lift of a hill in the neighborhood, just on the outskirts of famed Las Vegas with steps that led from the street to the covered front porch alongside a street-level drive where she and Francisco parked their cars. The exterior of the house itself was a soft shade of a robin’s egg blue; Ari’s favorite color. If you had asked Carter, he would have said that his bestie’s home looked like it had stepped right off the screen of a 1960s TV show - and he sincerely meant that as a compliment.
The yellow 2001 Volkswagen Beetle slowly pulled to the curb right in front of the house itself and came to a stop. The engine turned off, and as the driver’s side door opened, out stepped Carter McKinney himself. This is where Carter shared a few quirky traits with his bestie. Because where many stars, especially the younger generations, would spill their wallets and bank accounts to buy the flashiest car imaginable, Carter went for “style over substance” in his own choice of vehicles. Carter loved the charm and individuality of this make of car, and endured teasing from friends and colleagues but he couldn’t care in the least. It was his baby. He loved it - end of story.
Carter shut the door behind him and stared at the house, slightly apprehensive and small wonder why - the passenger door opened and out stepped his boyfriend, Lazarus. The controversial figure who, for weeks now, has been at the forefront of every one of his close friend’s minds when it came to the accusations of abuse. Carter’s friends and family had done everything in their power to shield Carter and save him from himself and from the violent nature of this seemingly devil in an angel’s guise, but to little avail. Such was the nature when one suffered from the belief that one could do no better, and that deep down you were truly in love with your abuser and would be good for them and that they needed you as much as you did they. No matter what they did, no matter how badly they would beat you down, you kept going back believing that it would be the end.
Stockholm Syndrome.
“I still don’t get why you insisted on coming along.” Carter said as Lazarus closed the door and walked around the vehicle to join his boyfriend as they started up the path to the front porch. He went on to say, “It’s just a special DnD game Krystal invited me to.”
“Oh well maybe because the last time I left you on your own, your friends stole you away from me?” Lazarus said without a hint of remorse or guilt, given he himself was the reason they had done so. They found Carter beaten absolutely bloody in Lazarus’s latest fit of rage and they wasted no time in getting him out of there, whether he wanted it or not.
“I came back, didn’t I?” Carter tried to reason, feeling as if he were walking on eggshells with his man, not knowing what might set him off this next time. And the truly frightening thing was he knew that there would indeed be a next time.
Lazarus paused and stared at Carter, almost making the young grappler feel the need to flinch under the hot gaze. “Yeah.” Lazarus chided. “After how long?”
Carter sighed, “I can’t win.” as they reached the porch and while Lazarus expected Carter to ring the doorbell or knock, Carter simply took a key from his key chain and unlocked the front door. He went to open it when he noticed Lazarus’s curious glare from behind him and he shrugged, “What? Ari gave me a key when she first bought the place. She said to let myself in.”
He opened the door wide and stepped aside to let Lazarus enter first, pausing to look around at the side street of the neighborhood and didn’t spot a few recognizable cars. “And it doesn’t look like everyone is here yet.”
After Lazarus entered, Carter soon followed and shut the door behind them. The inside of Ari’s house could best be described as having a modern Greek flare. The dominant color was Ari’s favorite blue in varied shades, but she played up her Greek ancestry beautifully with touching decor that befit her heritage. Not overdone, just enough to make this home seem elegant in its own way.
Stepping past the foyer and en route to the front room where the DnD game would be set up, Carter cast a sidelong gaze toward his man and said, “Laz, you should know Ari may not be happy about my bringing you along…”
“Actually… we were counting on it.” The voice of Miles Kasey startled them both as they turned the corner to the living room, and they found more - many more - people than they had expected to be there for this “game”. Ariana and Francisco. Krystal and Cassie Wolfe. Miles. Aron Baltsarsson and his older brother, Fenris. Gabriel Stevens. But without the doubt the most conspicuous - Carter’s mom Joanna and grandmother Joan were right there in the midst of this gathering – whatever it was! They were all seated, save for Fenris who stood upright against the near wall, and all eyes were on the two young men who stood like two prisoners facing the gallows.
“Well, well, well…” Krystal shook her head. “Look what the cat dragged in.” Krystal looked at Joan and said in a stage whisper, just loud enough to be heard by all present, “This couldn’t have worked out better had we planned it this way.”
“Planned. What?” Carter felt the color in his cheeks rise, the heat of his flesh growing from the neck up. All eyes were on him and he felt like he was having one of those humiliating dreams where he went to class without any clothes on. Carter’s eyes found Ari who was seated on the sofa beside Francisco. “Ari? What’s going on?”
Ari being Ari, she almost felt the need to hide her gaze as her hand found itself in the warm comfort of Francisco’s own. She took a moment to gather herself before she found it within herself to meet Carter’s eyes and give him her most hopeful and imploring expression, “Carter, we’re here for you. To talk.”
“Talk to me about WHAT?”
But before Ari or anyone else could say anything to answer, it was Carter’s own grandmother who spoke up from the love seat she shared with her daughter, “Maybe about why you snuck out like a thief in the night to go running back to the bastard who beat you bloody.”
“Mother…” Joanna lightly reprimanded her mother at the same time Lazarus glared at Joan, “Excuse me!?”
Carter looked back and forth between those who he was closest to sitting there before him, united as one and for his own well being. He closed his eyes and shook his head before he confirmed, “So… there was never a game tonight? You just said that to get me here for this… what? Intervention?”
His eyes found Ari's, whose own brown eyes were filled with hope for saving her bestie from himself, from becoming more than just another statistic in a domestic abuse case and something far, far worse. Carter sighed and shook his head with sadness before he turned to Lazarus, “Let’s go.”
Lazarus bore a satisfied smile but before they could make their exit, Miles wrapped an arm around Carter’s shoulder and gently - but firmly - steered him in a wide circle away from the head of the living room and more importantly, away from Lazarus, and he set him down gently, but firmly, in the chair that he himself had just vacated. Carter looked up with surprise at Miles who tried to give his best firm but stoic expression, brooking no arguments from his friend.
Gazes that were sympathetic. Disappointment. Worried. Angry.
Then eyes turned toward Lazarus who stood there like a deer in headlights at the open hostility focused now on him, arms held out as he looked toward Carter… “Carter? Are you just going to…” But before he could say anything further or protest further, Fenris grabbed him by the back of his collar and unlike Miles’ gentle handling of Carter, Fenris all but threw him around the surrounding seats to a vacant chair and released him, pointing at the chair.
“Why don’t you play nice and have a seat?” Fenris said but his tone laid it all out that this was not by any means a request. But Lazarus was either blind to the obvious or he was putting on false airs because he looked first to the open chair and then at Fenris and he all but sneered at the volatile “White Wolf” and dared him in asking, “Or what? Huh?”
But that was perhaps the wrong thing to ask because Fenris was not one to have his bluff called, because the man simply didn’t bluff. He simply took one step forward and stared right into Lazarus’s eyes and he answered, “Or else I make what Miles did to you look like a love tap.”
“I’ll call the police…” Lazarus started to say but was quickly interrupted by Fenris simply stating the obvious, “Be too late. Plus… there’s not a person in this room that won’t tell the cops that you swung first. … Sit!”
Their eyes continued to be engaged in a deadlock until Lazarus slowly, and perhaps most wisely, yielded to a seat in the chair. Fenris then resumed his place against the wall but his eyes were solely on this abuser while Ari’s voice broke the discomforted silence that permeated the room.
“Carter?” Ari’s voice wavered, but he looked to her as she shook her head, wanting so hard to understand what was going through her bestie’s mind. “Why did you leave? Why did you sneak away like that?”
Carter took a deep breath but this time it was almost like he was prepared for battle in some strange way, as they had exchanged these barbs for months where his life was concerned and now here he was, having been tricked into being the center of attention - and not in a fun nor pleasant way.
“Look!” He started to say slowly but his words were filled with both desperation and anger. “I told you all before that I was sick and tired of being treated like a damn prisoner! I didn’t ask to be taken away from my home and dropped into the last place I’d ever want to be…!”
“Carter…” Aron did his best to offer his best. “My brother and I did everything we could to make you feel welcome in our home.”
“And we just wanted to keep you safe.” Krystal added, but that was when Lazarus broke his silence with a disbelieving scoff, “Safe from what exactly?”
“Maybe from the man who beat my son’s face in so badly that his own mother could barely recognize him?” Joanna said from where she sat, the mother bear tone of voice rising to confront the man who had been badly abusing her only son, her baby boy.
Lazarus picked up the gauntlet, still fighting to maintain this innocent facade that he had well established through deceit and subterfuge for so long as he rolled his eyes, “And what exactly makes you think I’m the one who did that?”
“Carter.” Miles answered before anyone else could. “He told us you did it.” And this caused Lazarus to very slowly, very deliberately, turn his head and his almost serpent-like gaze became focused on Carter and it was absolutely gut wrenching to everyone in attendance the effect that look had on Carter as if a scolded child in fear of a lashing from a belt - or worse.
“You told them I did that to you?” He said in a tone of voice that could almost rival Fenris’s own in the calm, dangerous stage. Where you could hear the smoothness of the words but it had a threat of danger beneath the surface.
“He did.” Joan aka Grams said from where she sat beside Carter, gripping her grandson’s hand in the comfort only understood between a child and his grandma. Her age notwithstanding, she bore no sense of fear when it came to speaking in defense of her special boy. “And we swore from that moment that we would do everything to protect him from you!”
By now, tears were starting to well up in Carter’s eyes as he was clearly going through an intense, mental struggle. Lazarus stood up suddenly and he snarled, “I am not going to sit here and listen to any more of your lies!”
And Joan stood up just as easily, just as determined, and she said, “The only lies here tonight are the ones that you’ve filled your own head with.” Joan stared him right in the face with a finger upright in his face for emphasis and she said with finality, “I have known men like you my whole, long life. And you are a great many things my boy, I am sure, but a man is not one of them!”
“Look…!” Lazarus suddenly grabbed Joan’s wrist to pull her hand from his face and she winced. “I am not going to let you break Carter and me up with your lies!”
“You’re hurting me!”
And… It happened. It was as if a cloud had been lifted, the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel. It would be hard pressed to explain why so suddenly the veil had been lifted from Carter’s senses. Carter looked every other way when Lazarus laid a hand to him. He made every excuse heard by counselors the world over, but the moment someone, ANYONE, put a hand on his beloved Grams…
Not a single soul present didn’t step forward the moment Lazarus grabbed Joan, but it was one in particular was the fastest, and the last Lazarus would have expected. Carter’s fist shot out at lightning fast speed and met Lazarus in the side of the head with such ferocity that it knocked the man loose from Joan and he was sent tumbling back into the chair he had just vacated and fell backwards and over it, crumbling to the floor!
“Mom…?” Joanna was at her mother’s side, comforting her as the elder rubbed her wrist from where it had been clenched in the vice-like grip. Miles and Ariana checked on her as well but Joan nodded that she was okay. All heads turned from where Lazarus had landed hard on the floor, and they turned to see Carter staring at his handiwork, visibly shaking. As if in disbelief at what he just did.
“Carter…?” Ariana started to ask, causing Carter to turn to his best friend. His eyes had now spilled over with tears streaking down his cheeks. She made a move to offer him a hug when Joanna suddenly cried, “Look out!” And Lazarus suddenly tackled Carter, knocking the both of them into one of Ariana’s end tables and sending them to the floor amidst the shattered remains!
Miles made a move to intervene but Gabriel Stevens held an arm out, shaking his head and saying one simple word, “Wait…”
After having so much free reign of abuse over Carter for so many of these past months, Lazarus was under the woefully mistaken impression that his dominant role over Carter would allow him to maintain dominance as he straddled Carter and grabbed him by the clothes and slammed the back of his head into the floor of the house repeatedly! And that was the moment Carter’s training took over, and his defiance against the adversity he had faced with this man for so long! He kicked his legs up and he scissored Lazarus’s head and literally tore him off! Miles, Gabriel, Fenris, Aron and Francisco moved to get Joan, Joanna, Krystal, Cassie and Ariana out of the way as Carter was back on his feet, grabbing Lazarus’s arm as he swung and Carter counted with a shot that practically caused Lazarus’s nose to EXPLODE!
Carter kept hold of the arm and utilized it as a fulcrum, pivoting around and taking Lazarus with him, slamming the man’s face down onto the coffee table! The table didn’t break but Lazarus did! Keeping hold of his arm at length, Carter KICKED Lazarus in the gut! Then again! And again! The floodgate had been opened and Carter unleashed all of his pent up anger and humiliation over the past several months as he continued to kick Lazarus in the stomach and ribs until the inevitable happened; Lazarus started to wretch and got violently sick!
“Carter-Carter!” Joanna, his mom, quickly tried to end this justified carnage but Carter had been blinded by rage over everything he had suffered through these many months, and what Lazarus had just done to his lovely Grams!
“Enough!” Miles said as he suddenly grabbed Carter by the arm. “Carter, stop!” And he finally pulled Carter off, leaving Lazarus lying on the floor of the living room in his own blood and sick. Carter stepped back and he was shaking so badly, as if he was coming down from the emotional high that had just been turned loose! He turned to Miles, wide-eyed, as if in shock and Miles wrapped his arms around his friend in one of those famous hugs of his as Carter simply broke at that very moment, his friends surrounding him.
“It’s going to be okay.” Ari whispered as she joined in on the hug, rubbing her hand on her bestie’s trembling back. “Everything’s going to be alright.”
“Wow. I can’t even begin to describe where my head has been for the longest of times, because as much as it ashamed me to admit it, it hasn’t been where it should have been. My career. My friends. My family. For months it seems that I’ve managed to cast aside and isolate every pillar that I had built in my life, and for what?”
Carter scoffed as he looked away.
“Apparently for a fantasy life that I was never meant to be a part of. I offended some of the people I care about the most. I insulted men in this business I always looked up to with respect. I fell into a trap of my own making and it almost cost me everything. If it hasn’t already. I guess that was one good thing about being put on the shelf for so long. It gives you time to think. Make you realize where you stand and if I can be so bold, just how badly you’ve fucked up both personally as well as professionally. Then then moment I got cleared, I thought the clouds had parted and the sun was just beginning to shine down on me, even if for just a little bit.”
He said as he pinched a thumb and forefinger closely together. Carter then sighed and shook his head.
“Which makes me then ask myself… is Mac Bane my best Christmas gift possible or the biggest lump of coal Santa could possibly fit in my stocking?”
“I mean, please don’t get me wrong. I have nothing against Mac or being given the opportunity to face one of the best modern veterans that SCW has on its roster. The man even made an effort or two to reach out to me during my…”
He cleared his throat and cast a look heavenward.
“Personal issues… but like everyone else, I played the effort off as just another person trying to interfere where they had no place or right. Ignoring the hand that simply reached out, wanting to help for no other reason than he saw another human being crying out in pain and in need of help. For that, I have to thank you Mac for your effort, and apologize for my own indifference. Folly of youth, as my Grams would say. Kids tend to think they know it all, and are invulnerable. I’ve learned the hard way that I am anything but. But maybe this… our match Mac? This is my chance to turn things around.”
“The only interactions you and I have had with Mac that were even remotely social were, ironically rough, on social media. We’ve never really hung out before, during or after shows. We just have different cliques and there’s no harm in that. The fact you still wanted to help me, it speaks volumes on you as a man. You are a hardcore bad ass through and through. I’m no liar and I’m sure as hell not blind enough to deny the fact. But you also have a heart, even if you do like to keep it buried so no worries.”
Carter playfully ‘tick a locks’ his lips and ‘threw away’ the key.
“That part of yourself can be our secret. But the man you are inside of the ring? That’s no secret. The world knows just what you are capable of inside of the ring. I’ve sat back and watched you absolutely annihilate men who have pissed you off, to facing and besting men you considered a friend or respected peer in friendly competition. And here you are now, one of three number one contenders to the world championship facing… little ol’ me?”
Carter paused as if in thought, trying to contemplate the fact. He nodded once and continued.
“Hunh. My first match back after over a month out is against a two-time former World Heavyweight Champion who may very well be on his way to become a three-time champion. Mac Bane who is a locker room leader, the sort of man who commands respect just by walking into that dressing room. I make no pretense that this match will be easy – for either of us. Mac, I know that you have me beat when it comes to size, strength, experience….”
He raised a hand and then blinked.
“Okay I think I forgot where I was going with this…”
He shook his head to clear his thoughts and continued on.
“Mac, I know this will be one of the most physically demanding matches that I’ve had ever since I was first signed to SCW. But I just ask that you understand despite all your advantages, this won’t go down as easily as some armchair experts might assume. I don’t know if you paid very close attention to what went down in SCU before it closed but…”
He counted off of his fingers.
“Pride Tag Team Champion. TV Champion. Combat Champion. The youngest Underground Champion in SCU history… I’m not trying to brag or throw my success rate in your face Mac. I just want you to not look at me and assume that just because I look soft, that I also compete the same. Nobody thought I could succeed in the Combat division down in SCU and it was my pleasure proving them wrong. You don’t grow up the way I did without knowing how to defend myself. I can only fight because I had to. Being a flamboyantly open gay teenager in a public school wasn’t the easiest life. But I made it then, and I’m going to make it now.”
“All I ask is that you give me that same respect.”