February 6
CrossFit Steed - Brooklyn, New York
He had been here for hours already. Sweat soaked his T-shirt, his muscles were screaming in pain. And yet, Lachlan Kane continued to push himself. There was so much on his mind, so much that he wanted to block out. He needed to, if he was going to be an effective partner for Sierra in their upcoming title defense.
He had ran for an hour on the treadmill, done so many reps with the barbell that he lost count. And now, he was practicing his hits with a punching bag set up in the corner of the gym floor. It was late at night, and he was the only person there at this hour, a fact he was grateful for.
As his hands struck the punching bag, images began playing through his mind. A flashback to the day of his father’s funeral. He could almost feel the warm August breeze blowing through the cemetery…
The crowd gathered around the gravesite.
His mother, silent tears streaming down her face.
His baby sister, openly bawling, her still-round face red and splotchy.
His brother, trying to be strong even as his own tears rolled down his cheeks.
And himself, staring down at the casket as it was lowered into the ground. Wanting so desperately to throw himself down onto the lacquered wooden box and beg his father to come back. Because with him gone, now Lachlan was the man of the family. At the age of thirteen, just on the brink of his teenage years, he now had the weight of his family’s well being on his shoulders.
And it terrified him.
The bag swung back and nearly hit him as he was lost in his thoughts, but he caught it just in time. He also noticed that his hands felt wet, and when he looked down, he saw that his knuckles were split open and bleeding profusely. Swearing under his breath, he headed to the locker rooms to change and head back home.
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He unlocked the door to his apartment and stepped inside, dropping his gym bag to the floor with a thud. Sierra and Lachlan’s pet corgi came dashing into the entryway, hindquarters wiggling in excitement. But Lachlan walked past the dog as if he hadn’t even seen it, heading for the living room and collapsing onto the couch. Sierra walked in from the bedroom when she heard him come in, settling herself beside him on the couch.
“Good workout?” she asked.
Lachlan simply shrugged. “Didn’t really do much to clear my head.” He shifted his hands in his lap, then winced and hissed out a breath between clenched teeth. Before he could hide them, Sierra had grabbed his hands and stared in shock at his knuckles, which had started bleeding again.
“Lachy! What the hell happened?” she said.
“I, uh….must have got a little carried away with the punching bag,” he admitted. Sierra muttered a few Spanish curses as she went to the bathroom to get the first aid kit.
“You didn’t do this because of your brother, did you?” she asked as she gently dabbed at his knuckles with a cloth soaked in peroxide.
He winced at the sting. “He may have been one of the reasons,” he admitted, staring down as the cloth turned red. “I guess...I’ve just had a lot on my mind lately. My brother was just the last straw.”
Sierra finished cleaning his wounds, then started wrapping them in gauze. “Look, you can’t let him get into your head like that. He’s not even in the same country. He’s nothing but talk.”
Lachlan laughed bitterly, shaking his head. “Usually, he is. But this time...it’s different. I can’t explain it, but something feels off with him. I’m afraid he is actually going to do something.”
She finished wrapping his hands, then gently held them in her own. “Then we deal with whatever bullshit he pulls when it happens. For now though, we’ve got a title defense to focus on, not to mention the possibility of you getting a World Title shot next week.”
A cocky smirk overtook Lachlan’s face. “Possibility? Love, it’s a foregone conclusion that I’m getting that spot.”
Sierra rolled her eyes and pushed at him. “God, I think I’m becoming a bad influence on you. You’re getting too cocky for your own good.”
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Seated on the couch in his Brooklyn apartment, Lachlan Kane grinned towards the camera. Dressed casually in a pair of well-fitted jeans and a black T-shirt, his arms sprawled across the back of the couch in comfort with his championship belt laid across his lap, he was a picture of cool and confident as he began speaking.
“I’ll admit, I’ve been off my game for the last few weeks. It cost me in my match against Tony Thorn, and I’m still a little salty about that. But that was then, and this week is a different story. This week, Sierra and I prove - yet again - just why we are the dominant tag team in SCW history. We’ve already become the overall longest-reigning Mixed Tag Team Champions, and we’ll be adding one more week to our reign once we defeat Gamers Inc.”
“I’m pretty sure that Sierra said everything that needs to be said about this team. I mean, when was the last time they actually won a match? Since we walked through the doors of this company, Sierra and I have never been defeated as a team. We are the two hottest commodities in this company right now. We took a division that no one gave a good god damn about and made it the talk of the town. Before us, the mixed tag division was nothing more than a joke. An afterthought. Something to fill the spaces between more high-profile matches. But now? Now, we are the high-profile match. Any time the two of us are advertised to compete, ticket sales go through the roof. We are the ones putting this place back on the map, while the likes of Gamers Inc are just content to ride our god damn coattails.”
A very uncharacteristic sneer painted the normally cheery Irishman’s face as he continued. “Since Sierra and I came to SCW, everyone’s been claiming that they’ll be the ones to knock us off the mountain. But tell me something - where the hell were all of you before we got here? That’s right, none of you cared about the mixed tag division until we made it mean something again. You all talk a big game, but when the time comes, none of you have been able to step up to the task. We’ve put down Kain and Mercedes Vargas, we’ve defeated the Jordans, and this week we add Gamers Inc to our growing list of conquests.”
The smirk returned to Lachlan’s face, though it was coloured with something a little...sinister as he leaned towards the camera. “Just think of it this way, kids - you’ll have even more time to play your video games once we send you packing from our ring. And if I can offer a little piece of advice to you? You’re better off sticking to your games, and letting the grown-ups handle business. Your whole relatable nerd schtick is cute and all, but when Sierra and I are in the ring, we are cutthroat. We hold nothing back. We take no prisoners. Can you two say the same? Do you have the same level of passion for the business? Do you eat, sleep, sweat, and breathe this business like Sierra and I do? Everything we do, we do because this is our life. While you’re all off filming your little Twitch streams, we’re training. We’re studying. Because there’s nothing that we won’t do to prove to everyone that we are the best at what we do.”
He sat back on the couch, kicking his feet up on the coffee table in front of him. “This Sunday, we continue our stranglehold on this division, and continue to prove that no one will knock us off the mountain top.”
With another casual smirk, Lachlan picked up a remote and pointed it towards the camera, sending the screen to black.
