[finnwhelan]

PARADIGM SHIFT III | YOU’VE GOT NO CHANCE[/size]



••••••

VINDICATION.

How many months had it been since he’d started at Sin City Wrestling? How many days, months, years, had it been since he stepped foot upon the landscape and been berated, belittled, treated like trash? How many times had he been made to face Alexander Raven, his own semi-brethren in Miles Kasey, and been on the underside of Goth, fucking Supreme Machine, the chaos of the goddamned undercard? How many times had he been set on the precipice of failure already, forgotten, underutilized, misunderstood? Wasn’t it Ken Davison that sat there and told him that because he hustled behind the scenes, basically persuaded the higher-ups to give him a shot, that was what made him a good champion?

And yet, it was Davison’s championship that was in his hands now.

No, Finn Whelan wasn’t the type to schmooze his bosses. He wasn’t the type to go into their office and hustle them to an opportunity. He wanted to be seen for what he was worth. He wanted to be noted for his prowess and his ability. He wanted to put everyone on fucking notice, and he wanted to be what people feared to face. Hustling and sticking your dick out to be stroked wasn’t Finn’s method of notoriety – it was annihilating the very shred of hope you had and realizing how out of place you were.

Maybe when he was younger, it would have been like the one ring that bound them all. It would have been like he was a (very much more attractive) Gollum with his ring, calling it his precious, carrying it with him everywhere. But in his (young) wizened mind now, it wasn’t so much the championship that he cared about. Certainly, the honor of holding the championship mattered to him profusely. Being the one to represent the company as their champion, having the opportunity to carry their gold everywhere else, and being the man that everyone sought after to face…

It was both an honor and a curse, one that he would have to hold the bargain of. He wanted to bring eyes to the product. He wanted them to come to him, to face him, to walk the walk and bring notoriety to the company again. It wouldn’t be as easy, perhaps, as it was for people like Mac Bane and Ken Davison, who had their friends come around to face them. After all, it was easier to face the friend you know, isn’t it? You know their moves. You know their bullshit. But someone that didn’t know you and you didn’t know them? Difficult. Friends were much easier to face.

But he didn’t have any friends. Friends betrayed you. Friends treated you like shit. And Finn wasn’t interested in building relationships with people who would use him for their own fucking purposes.

Still.

He was counted out.

Vindication.

Fuck you.

And fuck all the false hope you had.

••••••

He didn’t know how many times he’d changed it. Didn’t really know how many times it would take. All he knew was that he stood shirtless in the center of his sanctuary of a room and stared at his surroundings with front of his black hair plastered to his forehead as he exhaled through an open mouth. He’d avoided going into Wolfslair the last week or so, claiming champion’s privilege and rubbing it in just a little more to Alex, who scoffed and shook his head. He’d maintained his regimen throughout the week and didn’t necessarily need to be in the gym, but he was thankful for their presence anyway.

But he hadn’t been in the right headspace whatsoever.

The bed and the black upholstered headboard had been on the opposite side of the room, but he’d pushed the ridiculously heavy metal bedframe and all of its voluptuous comfort towards the (almost) floor length windows of his apartment overlooking Central Park. The dresser and all of its things had been pushed to the bed’s previous location near the bathroom wall, and the closet doors had been all but thrown out to be replaced with better wood – maybe mahogany? Bamboo? Something better.

For whatever reason, remodeling was somehow comforting to the Seattle Saint. Some people preferred to push their worries into the gym and bash them repetitively away. Some people preferred to just lock them in. But Finn? Nah. Sledgehammer the fuck out of the area and make a better living environment than what he’d had previous.

He couldn’t particularly pinpoint the moment that bothered him the most. Maybe it was Aaron. Maybe it was the fact that he’d been so affected by her bullshit that he’d succumbed to a rare moment where he needed someone else to help him. Maybe it was the fact that he’d leaned so hard on Kayla at that time to keep him upright when even she was part of the reason for his anger and frustration. He hated that she calmed him. Hated that he found solace in her when all she did was tear into everyone else with a vindictive spirit and vengeful hand. He never wanted to rely on anyone again.

He avoided her now. Figured out her schedule. She went for a run at seven, disappeared (probably to a local gym) for a few hours afterwards. Usually, she’d come home at two and he’d decide to leave at one-thirty before sneaking back into his own apartment by way of diverting Australian. She seemed to seclude herself to her room too, but every once and a while, he saw her poke her head out to see if someone had destroyed their solitude, but mostly she kept to herself now.

He didn’t know why.

At least not until he’d gotten the text.

Oh honey, she doesn’t just want you. She *needs* you.

No matter how many times she’d blocked her number, Aaron was able to get a hold of him. A friend’s phone – fuck, how’d she have friends? Work? Google Voice. So many ways she could still get into his mind, into his heart, and sour every little bit of growth he’d made.

He realized at some point that he sounded like a bitter teenager, forced to be paraded around people he never wanted to be around and honestly wanted to be reclusive as all living hell that he could be. He could put on the show. He could tear down the world and everyone around him. But at the end of the day, he just wanted to be in his home. Alone. Where he couldn’t be pestered, much less fucked with.

He’d expected Dickie to enter at some point, but he was also not surprised when the younger wrestler didn’t impose upon him. For how much Dickie was ostentatious and diverting, he wasn’t confrontational. Not like Finn. Dickie might have cared, but he was giving him space. He half expected Aiden to poke his head inside and see if he wanted to play a round of Call of Duty, but thankfully, that hadn’t happened either. It was like everyone realized he was happier by himself.

…

He was happier by himself, right?

Right.

Alone, he could focus on his career. Alone, he could make it better. He didn’t need Kayla at ringside, and didn’t expect for her to appear to help him in his matches. It’d been months since they wrestled with one another and appeared together at Pro Wrestling EXCELLENCE. They worked in the same company, but it wasn’t like they were a team. They had their own objectives, their own needs. Certainly, they congratulated one another.

And yet part of his brain wished she’d just…stop tiptoeing. At some point, he’d accepted that he was comfortable around her; yet even so, he’d done such a fabulous job in keeping her at an arm’s length because he didn’t want to be used. Had it only been nine months ago when she’d leaned on him to watch TV while he propped his feet up and handed her a bag of Takis because somehow he inherently knew those were her favorite?

Or had he just been so fucking oblivious that he cared about her?

He couldn’t keep doing this. He couldn’t keep focusing on her, couldn’t keep isolating moments and times where everything was easy and wish for it, because he had a fucking job to do. Everyone knew what it was like to fall in love or whatever the fuck this was. You lost your head. You stopped caring briefly about everything that mattered before. And just now winning this championship? Just now making his mark on a company that left him for shit? He. Could. Not.

Still.

He ran a hand through his hair and decided it would be a better idea to take a break from demolishing his room like he was demolishing his brain. Barefooted, he turned on his heel and opened his door, letting in the heat from the rest of the house flood into his room. There was a lift in his step, even minutely, and as he let his feet cross the wood threshold of the hallway into the kitchen, he noted the silence of the domicile. There were no pitter patters of bullets from the other side of the house. Miles was elsewhere. Dickie, even though he had his own home, wasn’t even present. It was quiet.

Quiet like it’d been when it was just him. And her.

He sighed and crossed the abode. Maybe he could go talk to Kallie – she didn’t leave often, and she always had a good idea for him to do. She was quiet around him, but as she opened up to everyone, she gave soft little suggestions to change things in the house just a little bit to make it nicer. She was bored, he could tell. Being kept from wrestling was driving her nuts, and it was clear she didn’t want to bother her new husband with her boredom. (Jokes on her, he already knew.)

He grabbed a bottle of water and made his way down the opposite hallway. This one, though, forced him past her room. He could hear her shuffling behind the door, doing something in the room. He couldn’t imagine what – not until, at least, he noted that she was talking. Not to herself, but to someone else. On speaker. Because god forbid holding the phone.

“...going to have to talk to him eventually.” It was Tasmin. It was funny how much Kayla began to talk to her sister when he wasn’t an option anymore. Not Amber, he noted, but the younger one. She visited her a lot – he knew this, because Dickie visited Tasmin a lot to see who he called his eventual family member – much to everyone’s chagrin. Little Dawn was a comfort to a lot of people, it seemed. Maybe he should try it.

He paused. His footsteps were as silent as a cat’s, so he doubted she’d heard him anyway.

“No.” Kayla’s response was clear and definitive. Her bed shifted underneath her as she likely rolled onto her back. He could envision her rolling her eyes. “I’m not going to have to do shit.”

“You’re being stubborn, Kayla.”

“You’re being sTuBbORn, Kayla. Actually, I’m not. I’m not thinking about myself–”

“For once.” There was silence, before there was a titter of giggling on the phone. “I can hear you glaring at me. Actually, if you ask my opinion, you’re both pretty stubborn.”

There was a long sigh from Kayla, and he could hear her sit up entirely. “I don’t want to be an imposition on him. He obviously needs space, and I’m trying to give that. I know he’s avoiding being home.”

Busted.

Finn closed his eyes and leaned his head back as he tilted it upwards towards the ceiling. His covert tactics, or at least, what he thought was covert, obviously was not. He stuck his tongue through his teeth as he bit down and shook his head. Part of him said that he needed to pound on the door. Open the door, and give her a what-for and who-what and goddammit-just-fuckin’-talk-to-me, but he didn’t. He got all the way to the point where he was going to bang on it, hand raised, feet spread, tongue in cheek. But he didn’t.

His phone vibrated. Another text.

Barnhart. You’ve got Barnhart again.

He sneered at Dickie’s text and then softly snorted to himself, taking a step back. Champion versus champion, Bill Barnhart being fed to him again. That’s what was entertainment, right? That’s what the Sin City Wrestling crowd wanted, right? They didn’t want to see the culmination of Finn and Kayla. They didn’t want to see where they went with this.

He couldn’t deal with this now.

Not when he had to continue to prove himself as the savior of this company.

Not when he had everything at his fingertips.

••••••

Believe me, Billy, I didn’t see this match as the first thing that would come up after winning the SCW World Championship. Nowhere on the marquee did I envision Bill Barney-hart, Roulette Champion, against Finn Whelan, who’d outgrown fighting Bulldogs and moved up to Pitbulls two, three months ago. But here we are.

Again.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised. After all, it was you that I won myself some notoriety off of. Not a lot, because honestly, who gains a lot of notoriety off Barnhart? But it was the things that we did together, in those matches for the Roulette Championship. I kept it from you. I won it off you. Twelve rounds we fought, and it was me who stood tall. Me who now stands tall over this fucking division of wrestlers. While you’re still floundering around the surface with your gold and feeling like you’re being recognized as better than you are, I took my ball and threw it up higher. I told Christian and Mark that I wanted more from this company. I wanted the opportunity to throw in my shot.

No more Alexander Ravens and Bill Barnharts. No more Miles Kaseys and Lachlan Kanes. As much as I respect the latter, I also know where I belong on the totem pole. And it’s not there.

I faced Jack Washington, and I defeated him. Unthinkable, given the previous.

After all of the mishaps with Goth and the failure to capitalize, I not only made it against him, but the hopeful candidate of Chris Page trying to make a splash who has been far better than anyone gives him credit for, even myself.

I defeated the man who defeated the man of the year, Ken Davison.

And I got recognized for shitall.

But that’s fine. At the end of the day, I’m not here for accolades. I’m not here for my friends to crowd around me, and as I said last time, Barney, I don’t need help to succeed. I may be a dick, but I’m not a cheat, and I don’t need Kayla Fucking Richards to come down and help little ol’ me. Not at all, because we’re friends who don’t need to involve ourselves in each other’s matches to succeed. And not as much as Bea needs to help you look more presentable on the regular.

Looked in the mirror, lately? Only she could love your mug, bruh, and that’s saying something.

But congratulations to you. You beat Miles Kasey to win back the championship you lost to me months ago. The one you prance after like it’s relevant to you. I feel like we should be celebrating you with a participation trophy and a clap on the back, but you already likely have the clap and participating is only one-sixteenth of greatness. You should recognize yourself as something, Bill.

A fluke.

A large.

Grandiose.

Fluke.

You know what that is, right? It means you gained your achievement by luck, by accident. On any given night, Miles Kasey is both better looking and better at wrestling, and you somehow lucked your way into being better than him for one night. Just like you originally lucked into the championship because someone didn’t put even remotely their best foot forward. I know that’s going to be hard for you to understand, much less remember, so I’ll spell it out for you: in the largest scheme of things, when the company looks upon the roster and they see you versus anyone, it’s really just a toss up to see who they want to push to do better. Miles failed the challenge, but let’s be reminded that Miles now has a woman that he didn’t need to pay four installments of sixty-nine ninety-five after picking someone out of a build-a-bitch mail order bride catalogue.

You’re a great wrestler, Bill, right? Such a shame that you had to pay to find someone to marry you instead of doing the same thing the rest of us did by buying affection. Person. Affection. Two wholly different things.

Now, don’t get me wrong, Barney-hart. I’m guilty of many things. Anger. Divorce. Pride may be my downfall and maybe a little bit of sloth when it comes to the fact that I didn’t give a flying fuck about my career for a good damn while. I have all of the talent in the world and until recently, I’ve had no fucking drive to use it. You want to know why?

Because I faced men like you.

Oblivious.

Lying.

There’s something called telling a narrative, but like many of the political figures in this world, it’s only how well you spin it that helps the general public believe it. The gullible rednecks of the United States might listen to whomever speaks about rioting and destroying the world and making it seem like its a good idea because the world’s largest pimple of a man says it’s a good idea, but the rest of the world believes differently. Kind of like us, bruh. You can go about telling people last time how badly I needed help against you when it was you having your mail order bride try to fuck me over so many times for your benefit, but the rest of the world, again, has the fucking tapes.

I’m guilty of many, many things.

But lying is not one of them.

My drive is what carries me to succeed far more than you ever will, Barnhart. I wanted to rise to the top of the echelon, I wanted to push my drive, I wanted to be away from the dredges of this company and away from people like you because I could feel myself floating in existential hell trying to figure out how to do better than I was. I have talent. I have skill. I have power beneath my hands. That’s what separates us. That simple fact, that you lack ambition and talent and drive that separates us. I don’t need people to speak for me, to work for me, to do the things that I can do in my stead. While you stayed content with your pitiful lot in Sin City, I wasn’t happy. While you were happy to try to win your Roulette Championship back, the championship that I tossed aside in the end and stopped giving a shit about….I pushed forward and succeeded in winning the World Championship. The championship that you will never own.

I shot for the stars. I shot up knowing that I had the opportunity to succeed. The ability to push forward. The desire and drive to be better than everyone and stay undefeated. The moment I decided to do better for me is the moment when Bill Barnhart facing Finn Whelan became a match that no one wanted to see.

And yet here we are.

Fighting Champion versus Champion for the glory of the honor.

…

Did you really think I was just going to let you trample over me after I pushed myself above?

Did you really think that you had a shot?

I know you’re going to try your best, Bill. I know you’re going to come at me with a hidden bullet and try to outsmart me, try to use your wifey to your advantage, try to defeat me because you’re a brute of a man and I’m this lanky piece of shit that you all probably think lucked themselves into a win. But trust me when I tell you this…

You have no fucking chance.

No chance in hell.