PARADIGM SHIFT XI // PHOTOFINISH
YOU ALWAYS HEDGING ON A SAFE BET, WALKING A TIGHT ROPE WITH A SAFETY NET. FACE IT, IT DOESN’T MEAN SHIT UNLESS YOU TAKE A RISK. SHUSH, BABY, SHUT YOUR MOUTH, CAUSE YOU’RE NOT PART OF THIS, THIS TIME.
3OH!3
••••••
HYDE PARK, LONDON, ENGLAND
SIXTEEN YEARS AGO
They sat in the center of Hyde Park, under one of the many trees that surrounded the pond that sat in the center of the park. The bench was a popular place, and it was their place. Their’s, as a whole group. But they were missing one of the people that belonged, and as much as either tried to proclaim that it wasn’t a big deal, it was.
He was a long, black-haired kid with a scene cut, skinny jeans and a stupid lip ring in his mouth that his father swore that he’d rip out of his skin if he wore it again. But Callien didn’t care. The man wouldn’t touch him, and besides, it was one more thing that he could use to screw with the man’s sense of leadership of their family. He sat, his boot squelching into the mud beneath his seat from the peltering of rain that thudded over and over again over the spring months. The sun was shining now, but it would only be a couple of days that happened over the next few weeks.
Next to him was a twelve year old kid with a goblin expression and hair that didn’t quite seem kept, no matter what he did. His clothes were a little too baggy and no matter how many times he tried to pull it from his eyes, it just fell in front of his face. He sat there, a bag of chips laying next to him on the bench, a burger in his hand.
“It’s okay, I guess,” the kid said, pushing his chin upwards and taking a rather large bite out of the burger. “They can’t cook worth their salt so we go out and eat all the time…”
“You sound disappointed,” Callien laughed, leaning back against the bench and looking at the kid with a smile on his face.
“I kinda want’d a home wherf like…” he swallowed, “the mom did all of the cookin’ and the dad worked and they’d come home and help me with my homework. But it’s more like…like I dunno, a tornado came through and they somehow make a lot of money and they wanted a trophy to tote around. But I’m not a trophy.” He insisted, pointing a chip at Callien.
“Dimitri Watson, a trophy.”
Dimitri’s face screwed up at his nose and he frowned. “Imagine me being something that anyone would want to call their trophy.”
“Couldn’t be you.”
“Heck no,” his feet dangled off the bench with certainty. “So I decided I’d leave.”
Callien crossed his arms, tilting his head to the side again. “They have no idea that you’re gone?”
“Nope!” Dimitri seemed very pleased with himself. “Snuck out right underneath their noses. They’ll probably have a few hours before they figure out what I’m gone, and by then, I’ll just be a stowaway in your luggage!”
“You can’t come with me, Dimitri.” Callien laughed, shaking his head. “I can’t put you in my luggage back to America, kid. I don’t think the airport people are going to be particularly happy that I have a live human in my baggage. Might get caught for kidnapping.”
“You set fire to that house for Elena, you can kidnap me. I’ll just say I asked for it.”
“No.” He snorted and shook his head. “And I didn’t set fire to the house. Dimitri, you can’t just disappear without a trace like you’re some international super spy.”
Dimitri stuck up his nose. “Yeah I can. I mean. My mom did, didn’t she?”
Dimitri had a sad kind of story. He ended up in an orphanage in London after his mother overdosed on the drug of choice that week. The thought is she’d been trying to run from something in Russia, but that could never particularly be ascertained. Multiple times he’d been adopted, but he just ended up back in the orphanage weeks to months later, unable to be retained by the families that tried to make him part of their home. Maybe it was because Dimitri rejected the thought of having a home like that, or maybe he just thought, inwardly, that he could never actually do well for himself.
Regardless, this would be home seven in the past four years that Dimitri had run away from.
“I’m not kidnapping you to America. You’re gonna have to stay here, kid, and bite the bullet.” Callien replied, shaking his head and leaning forward.
Dimitri was quiet for a minute, mulling over plans. Callien was leaving back for America, obviously, that day. Maybe for good, and what was that going to do for him? Nothing. And after she left? He would be left alone, by himself, and who would help him out of any situation that he was in before?
“You’re a dick!” He suddenly yelled, tossing the rest of his burger at Callien and jumping to his feet.
“You little shit!” Callien roared, staring down at his plaid shirt and noting the amount of mustard that now adorned it. He jumped to his own feet and began to race at the already scampering away Dimitri. The kid had short legs, and Callien had very long legs, so it didn’t take much time for him to catch up to Dimitri at all. He snatched him up, holding onto him as he flailed his legs.
“Leggo!”
“No!”
“Asshole!”
“Dickhead!”
“Lemme go!” Dimitri yelled, trying to squirm his best out of Callien’s grasp. But it was to no avail, because while Dimitri was absolutely slippery, Callien had a harsh lock on him. “Just lemme go!”
“Calm the fuck down and maybe I will!”
Dimitri listened (for once), and went limp in Callien’s arms. He held off for a moment, waiting for the kid to start up again, waiting for the moment in which he might try to cause bodily harm to him. But the kid did not; instead, he began to shake and Callien was very sure a moment later he heard sniffles.
He set him down on the ground and tapped his shoulder, turning the kid towards him as he dropped to a squat in front of him. Dimitri’s eyes were filled with tears and his face was absolutely screwed up in the worst crying face that Callien had ever seen. Callien patted his shoulder, “Dimitri…”
“You can’t leave me too!” Dimitri yelled through his tears, choking slightly on his words. “Everyone leaves me!”
“I’m just a call away, man.” He replied, shaking his head. “I gave you a cell, you’ve got international calling. I’m right here. Always.”
“No!” He snapped back. “Elena left me, and every family I get returns me or I hate them! You can’t leave me too!” He repeated, hitting Callien on the arm and gritting his teeth. “You can’t!”
“Listen,” Callien grabbed hold of Dimitri’s shoulders and shook him slightly. “It’s only a bit. I’ve gotta go back to America, but when I can, I’ll be back here and if I’ve got enough, I’ll try to adopt you too, kid. But I can’t right now, and you and I both know that. That was always the plan, right? You, me, and Elena. We were gonna fight this world and everything in it, and even if she’s not a part of that now, that doesn’t mean you and I have to stop the dream too. I’ll be back, kid. I promise.”
He sniffled in, and looked at Callien with wide eyes. “You promise?”
“I promise.” He swore. “I’ve always got your back, through thick and thin. You keep that phone nearby, okay? We’ll keep in touch, and when it gets close to the time, I’ll make the right steps. It might take a while, but I always have your back, do you hear me?”
Dimitri nodded, sniffling in and swiping at his eyes. Callien sighed, giving the kid a hug and holding him close. It was like they were brothers. Very similar in their circumstances, very similar in their thoughts. But whereas Callien had already been hardened to the world, Dimitri was not. He still hurt at every little thing. He still snapped on every little thing. And maybe that where their differences lay. Callien stopped caring, but Dimitri always would.
All the way until the end.
••••••
“Did we not tell you, or did we tell you?”
Finn Whelan, one half of the Mixed Tag Team Champions going into the 2024 season, sits inside a coffee shop on the main street of Loveland, Colorado. Outside, wind whips the hair and clothing of people trying to just get from place to place, regretting their tourism decisions and absolutely hating their lives in the almost zero below wind chill of the week. The famous ski resort town was absolutely going to be popular this weekend – if not for the slopes that people loved to go down, but also for the fact of the matter that SCW was popping into their barriers to give them a show worth…well, freezing for.
Finn holds a mug in his hands, a smirk on his face as he always carries when it comes to these sorts of things. Overconfident, maybe. A little egotistical, perhaps. But that was the thing about Whelan himself – he knew he was good.
Damn good.
And there was nothing that was going to stop him from being the best that he could be. Not even Colorado, which he hated most of the time. Because it reminded him of a life in which he hated himself so much that he wasn’t sure anyone could hate him more than he did. It took a lot to come out of that stupor. And when he did?
World Champion.
Multiple times over.
“A month ago, I’m pretty sure it was myself and Kayla reminding you all that at the end of December 2 Dismember, there wasn’t going to be a change of hands, that we were locked in and staying Mixed Tag Team Champions. Those of you who knew the writing was on the wall…well, you were ahead of the game. No matter what Limitless threw at us, we were going to be the ones that were on top of the game, on top of everything else, on top of the scene and coming out the leaders of the pack.
And so Eiley and Oz tried to throw everything they had the wall to see if it would stick. Even going so far as to accuse me of having surveillance on them so that I knew their every word or thought. Hint hint, nudge nudge, I don’t give a flying fuck what y’all do in your meantime between the ring or between the sheets. I just predict. I go with what I see, and make assumptions because that’s what it means to be human.
Sorry my predictions are fuckin’ accurate though, I guess. It’s not like it wasn’t Hansel and Gretel leaving breadcrumbs everywhere so they could find their way back home…or whatever the fuck fairytale that came from. Because that’s what some of us live in: fairytales. It’s easier than living in reality, where you get bit on the ass for nothing more than a pack of cards and a blowjob.
I digress.
There’s always a clink in the chain, a gear that stops working, or a new bar being planted in a wheel to derail you from the current dilemma that you find yourself in. When complacency comes to rear its head. Last week, I got to sit and watch as Kayla put Eiley in her place for a third time. And while I watched the show and made sure that I was present for the afterparty of the result, I didn’t skip out on what J2H had to say, and what he wanted to do. A tournament. One of his selected eight names. Ones he thought earned the shot.
Even ones who didn’t even want it at all.
It shouldn’t come as a surprise that I didn’t quite particularly want another shot at the World Championship. I mean, while it’s the most coveted piece for the men’s roster in all of Sin City, it’s also something that I’ve obtained. Something that I had when even the so-called most domineering force ran Sin City. The…what were they called? Honestly, I don’t really care, because they’ve all fucked off to lesser places where they can circlejerk each other and call it a day or retired. I carried that championship on my shoulder and I put so much fear into the eyes of my opponents that they had to come at me when I wasn’t prepared to wrest it out of my hands.
Since?”
He tilts his head.
“Well, I’m kinda like a dog with a bone. Give me something to snack on, and I’m going to push myself to my limits in order to get it. And you can sit there and you can tell me time and time again that multi-tasking isn’t possible for me, but then I’d just tell you that you sound like my ex-wife and that you should probably get a lobotomy. The fact of the matter is that I’ve been doing this for quite some time, and I’ve managed my time appropriately to multiple companies at a time to hold their most coveted championships in my grasp at the same time.
But no, I didn’t want this. I wanted the Internet Championship, and I said it as much as I could in everything that I’ve done. But like I’d like to remind multiple people who seem to make mountains out of molehills, or turn challenges into tired whispers of, ‘Oh, that’s right…I forgot that match was happening’, I don’t make the bookings. I don’t have that power. If I did, we’d have a lot more Troll in the building just because I like to see him take a beating.
Anyway.
I’ve been given a gift, and it wouldn’t be like me to kick a gifthorse in the mouth. At least, not until they’re back in 2025, right? So for now, I’m locked in, loaded, and looking ahead to the future that I could grasp in my hands one more time. I could face Miles, I could face Raven, I could face Austin, and maybe I could face Olly one more time and hand him his ass again. You never know.
But first, I’m going to have to get past Helluva Bottom Carter.”
Finn inhales, and then he slowly exhales as he looks out the window for a moment.
“There are things that I hate, and they’re pretty simply put. I sit on Twitter and I watch it being used like a dimwitted version of Tinder. Like a post, slide into someone’s DMs and maybe, suddenly, they’re dating and it’s the cutest thing on earth. I also hate people who don’t take this career seriously. I’m sure it’s cute and all to have a name such as Helluva Bottom, but it just really makes me want to cringe when I hear it.
That name doesn’t sound World Championship Worthy. It sounds like it’d make Sin City Wrestling into a bigger joke than some of the people in the industry think we are.
But everyone has their needs and their wants, and their names. We all create a persona, a personality in this company. And it’s easy to sit there and it’s easy to look at a sheet of paper that’s been printed out and go off of information that I see…but that’s not how I like to do things.
In fact, if you’ve been paying attention, I don’t think you can say that I’ve ever used a piece of paper to tell me what I think of someone and what they exist as in this company. I didn’t look at one iota of information from a page of statistics to tell me anything about Eiley and Oliver. About Ken Davison. About Bill Barnhart, or Jack Washington, or anyone that I’ve faced. Oh, it’s good to know information so you can watch tapes and learn the way they fight…
But I learn about people from what they have to say.
From what they have to do.
How many times, Carter, have you been up for this piece of gold? In most recent history, I recall when Michael Harris dropped the championship, it was a six person match that you lost and J2H won again. You had other opportunities throughout the year – just because I’m not actively participating in the company doesn’t mean I’m not watching. And every single one of them have been you earning a face splat.
It’s kind of like you’re always the bridesmaid, but never the bride. You were in the GoGym, and you excelled there. You went to SCU first, and you did wonderfully there. Then you hit Sin City and you’ve…tried to make yourself a major star in this company. You’ve fought valiantly, you’ve tried your hardest. You’ve beaten Goth, and multiple faces in order to make yourself seen.
And you want to know what you’re known for?
Bad memes on Twitter and fucking Miles Kasey.
That’s how I know you. And that’s not to say you’re not a great wrestler – I’m sure you are, because you’ve done great things, but the things I, and probably a lot of others know you for, is the relationship you’ve built with Miles rather than anything wonderful that you’ve done.
You falter at every hurdle, and if I’m right in my research, it’s a pattern. You get up there, and you try to make something of yourself, and then it falls into oblivion. You focus more on your love life and your partner and while that’s the greatest thing to do outside the ring, you can’t be doing that in this job. If there’s anything that Kayla and I – who continue to hate one another, by the way – really can prove is that when you focus on your job, and you focus on the things you want to do and succeed at….you can reach whatever fucking Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dream that you want.
The business can’t put any faith in you, Carter, to do what is best for the company. It can’t sit on your laurels and know that the professionalism of being the face of a company is something that you’ll do. There’s zero chance for survival until you can get your head on correctly.
You may think you’re prepared for this because you’ll run down my record, you’ll talk about how I fluctuate in and out of the company – but let me point out something for you and everyone who uses that against me: I make a splash every time I come in, and I barely lose. Because I fight for my success. I block out everything that’s going on in my life – and you wouldn’t believe what that is – when I get in that ring. There is no chance for do overs, no chance to fix things.
I’m a creature of habit, Carter. And winning is a habit. This tournament? Maybe I didn’t want to go for it, but I will be damned if I let it out of my grasp.
There is no safety net.
You walk a tight rope when it comes to this kind of pressure, with the lights on you, the world looking at you like they’re expecting you to make a mistake.
And when it happens?
They come for your throat.
Are you ready for that? Are you ready for the wolves to come in and bite at you until there’s nothing left of you? Because that’s what being the face of a company is all about. It’s waiting in the hallways, waiting for someone to tear you apart, just so you can turn around and do the exact same to them. Can you do that, Carter? Can you be as vicious as the next person? Or are you relegated only to posting happy-go-lucky memes on Twitter? Making people laugh? Can you change?
I don’t think you can. Stubborn is as stubborn does.”
••••••
With his arms crossed and his eyes trained on the center of the ring, Finn stood by the apron, his feet planted into the floor with a certain kind of firmness. As a promotional mentor to the rest of the training facility, it wasn’t necessarily Finn’s job to make sure people were trained to fight competitively, but since he didn’t have much to do anyway, he found himself standing by to impart words of wisdom when he could.
“Keep your eyes on her, Kallie,” he warned, watching as Kallie happily completed a rough Asai DDT to her opponent. Her was his ex-wife, Aaron Asphyxia, and if he knew the multi-time champion wrestler well enough to be married to her at one point, he knew that she was a slippery bitch when she wanted to be.
Aaron kipped up, and in one fluid motion, the front of her foot meet with Kallie’s face. Finn cringed, as did most of the rest of the people surrounding the ring. Kallie hit the mat with a dull thud and a loud “Ow!”.
Aiden, on the other side of the ring, slammed his hands on the mat and yelled, “Ya got this! Kick her in the cu–”
“Finn.”
He didn’t even hear her, used to her wearing heels in the gym as she went about doing the paperwork for all of the circus that was Wolfslair. She was in tennis shoes and she had a worried expression on her face. Sonja Jones pursed her lips, her blonde hair pulled up into a messy bun on her head and a workout jacket over her jeans. She indicated upwards at the conference room that looked over the facility. Finn’s eyes followed, but he didn’t see anything. “You have guests.”
“I’m busy right now.” The last thing he needed to deal with was another person invading his space right now. In fact, it was probably his trips to Colorado already that, while relaxing they had been, forced a sense of introversion in him.
“You’re going to want to go upstairs.” Sonja insisted, before turning on her heel and walking away.
It was that little caveat that intrigued Finn. Sonja never quite particularly was interested in the ongoing dramas of Wolfslair – probably because she knew that she would have to clean it up legally – but the fact that she was definitely interested in making sure that he knew he needed to be somewhere? It wasn’t like her, and it piqued his interest. So he pushed himself backwards, waving off Aaron and Kallie and headed for the stairs.
He didn’t quite have a lot of people in his circle that didn’t exist in the already powerful training facility. There were only the few outliers, like Kayla and Sybil, that he knew well enough…or even cared. He didn’t particularly talk to his family, all except for Addisyn, who preferred to stay out of the limelight. As he jogged up the steps, taking them by twos like he’d done since he was a child, he couldn’t figure out in his head who it was.
Until he saw the Japanese man who certainly looked like a bodyguard standing at the doorway, his eyes trained on the hallway. There wasn’t a gun in his hand, but Finn wasn’t stupid – it was close enough to reach if anyone made the wrong move. He certainly felt the skin at the back of his neck crawl with irritation and anticipation. Since that Thanksgiving Day, Kei Hideshima hadn’t hit physical contact. Only text messages.
He nodded to the man, before pushing open the glass door. He stopped in his tracks.
The man that stood behind the chair Kei sat in was someone he knew extremely well, but didn’t recognize at all.
Dickie Watson stood, his regularly grungy appearance entirely cleaned up. He could see both of his eyes, because his hair was slicked back out of place. He wore a suit jacket, with the usual obscure band shirt beneath it. His arms were behind his back, almost as if he were a military member standing at ease. Their eyes met, but only for a second before Finn looked away.
“Callien,” Kei greeted him with a smile, raising a hand. “How wonderful to see you in person after…oh, a couple of months. Very nice facility…” He gestured to the walls. “I like what they have done.”
Finn dragged his eyes away from Dickie and looked down at Kei. “What are you doing here?”
Kei tutted and chuckled a bit, before tapping his fingers on the chair. “Always quick to point with you. It’s almost as if you do not want to be bothered with my presence.”
Finn snorted as he sat down, leaning back in the chair with only the type of nonchalance that he could carry sitting across from an active member of the Yakuza. His eyes glanced up to Dickie, but fell right back down to Kei. “Well, that would probably be because…well, I don’t.” He leaned his head forward and crossed his arms as he pushed himself back in the chair.
“Unfortunate…” Kei chuckled, used to Finn’s lackidaiscality. “Nevertheless, I come bearing a gift…or perhaps, one that could amount to one. You know what I deal in, and how much can be gained in…becoming part of my family once more.”
A scoff issued out of Finn’s mouth. “No. We’re not playing that game again. I know exactly what I can gain, and exactly what I will lose. There’s too much on the latter end of that deal.”
“I am not offering you a position in which you would merely work for me again, Callien. I am offering you a position to rule as one of my leaders.”
Another scoff, but this time, not so sure. Finn narrowed his eyes and crossed his arms a little tighter against his body. “Hiyazaki would never allow it. He’s got control of every branch of the tree this side of the Japan. I’m not interested in becoming your hitman again, Kei, just to clean up and do your dirty work whenever you didn’t want to do it yourself. Which, if I remind you, was a lot.”
Dickie cleared his throat,, and looked down at Finn. And Finn knew that expression – surprise, even if he tried to wrap it up in a guise of silence and stoicism that didn’t fit Dickie Watson at all.
“Oh, what, you didn’t tell Dickie that?” Finn snapped at Kei, looking up at his younger “brother” with narrowed eyes. “I bet it slipped your mind when you told him what you’d expect from him. Tell me, how many necks have you had him snap in your name? Ten? It’s been a month, so that might be a bit generous. We’ll go with five, maybe six for good measure.”
Kei cleared his throat, and shook his head. “Dimitri is not…that is, I do not need you to be a hitman, Callien, I–”
“Finn.” He snapped.
“What?”
“It’s Finn to you. Callien is a name that only the people closest to me get to call me, and you’re not that. You haven’t been a mentor, or whatever the fuck, to me for a long time, and you’re not about to start again now.” Finn glared daggers into Kei’s eyes. “You’ve crossed lines, and you expect me to just waltz right back into your hands like a fucking ballerina? Nah, mate.” He glanced back up at Dickie again. “And if you’re smart, you’ll slippery the fuck out of his hands too.”
Again, Dickie cleared his throat, but said nothing. Kei rose to his feet then, and pursed his lips together. “This is my last offer, Finn.”
“Stick your offers up your ass, and stop coming around like a suckerfish ex-girlfriend who doesn’t know how to live without the one person in her life that told her no.” Finn rose to his feet as well, standing a nose level with the Japanese man and curling his lip upwards once more. They stared at one another, animosity pouring from one while the other just merely stared on in amusement, nonplussed by the behavior of the other. And neither one was about to stand down.
Until he did. Kei took a step back, and then waved on Dickie as he began to walk out the door. Finn waited a beat, watching him out of the corner of his eyes, before he looked at his slick-back haired mess of a “sibling” and raised a hand slightly. “Dickie.”
He stopped, turning his head ever so slightly.
“You don’t have to do this. You can tell him to fuck off as easily as anyone else. I don’t know what he has over you, but nothing is worth being a part of his fantasy land. We can figure it out, whatever it is. Just take a step back and think about it.”
Dickie said nothing, and honestly, the Seattle Saint didn’t expect him to. He frowned and then took a step forward.
“Even if it’s not now, remember…” Finn paused and then added quietly, “I will always have your back. You know that. In anything.”
The retreating back of his brother made his heart sink just a little bit as Dickie only continued on out of the door. He didn’t stop to talk to Aiden, he didn’t stop to talk to Kallie or anyone else in the vicinity. It was just Finn, and he didn’t stop to say a word. Finn sighed, and he put both hands on the table as he heard them all leave the premises entirely.
You could only reach those who wanted to be reached.
••••••
