PARADIGM SHIFT XIV // THE NOOSE
RECALL THE DEEDS AS IF THEY’RE ALL SOMEONE ELSE’S ATROCIOUS STORIES. NOW YOU STAND REBORN BEFORE US ALL; SO GLAD TO SEE YOU WELL. BUT MORE THAN JUST A LITTLE CURIOUS HOW YOU’RE PLANNING TO GO AROUND MAKING YOUR AMENDS TO THE DEAD.
A PERFECT CIRCLE
••••••
Savior Complex.
It was a syndrome that led to a compulsion to save people while neglecting their own needs. Psychological manuals didn’t often describe it as an actual disorder, but then again, a lot of disorders took their time in appearing. Nevertheless, it was prevalent in someone like Finn.
He couldn’t count how many times he was there for everyone else. Helping Aiden when he needed it, saving Kayla from his own wants and desires because he wanted her to prosper. His own sibling needed saving, and saving Kei’s girlfriend once a long time ago counted in this little complex.
But it hadn’t affected him yet.
See, he was always the one that fixed everything. The one who made things better. He gave his home to people who needed it, he’d help his ex-wife no matter how much he hated her. His little brother? He’d do anything to help him out of the world that he’d gotten himself into. And yet, he was still able to persevere and succeed in his career. Tag Team Championships. Now World Championship were on the horizon, and his eyes were focused.
They had to be.
Otherwise, someone might proclaim that he was only desperate to prove who he was without the ability to back it up.
••••••
The sounds of commercials playing softly nearly drowned out smooth breathing that Finn makes as he laid on the couch, dozing for a moment. He appeared to be peaceful — far more peaceful than anyone would have guessed he could be, and far more peaceful than how he presented himself. His leg was draped across the couch, the long limb almost taking up the entirety of it. One arm was propped up beneath his head and the other almost hanging off the side.
At least until his phone buzzed loudly near his head.
He didn’t bother opening his eyes, crossing his body with his opposite arm and grabbing the mobile device after a few not-well placed grabs. Setting the phone to his ear after pressing to accept the call, he was able to grind out a somewhat audible greeting half-heartedly.
His eyes snapped open as he heard the other person on the phone. He shot up to a sitting position, throwing his feet to the floor. His eyes darted around the apartment frantically, almost as if he were making sure no one was around — even though he knew there was no-one there. Finn ran his hand through his disheveled hair slowly, dropping his head and nodding slightly. “No. No, don't. Just stay there. No. I’m on my way. Send me your location.”
There were only two people in the entirety of the world that he would jump up and drop everything he was doing for. Three, if he wasn’t lying to himself, but it was easier to believe Kayla didn’t need him than to try and tell himself that she did and have it be a lie. The other two? His sister, Addisyn, and his “brother”, Dickie.
Addisyn never really needed him lately, though.
As he threw on his boots, and grabbed for a jacket to brave the cold evenings of New York City, he exhaled and inhaled slowly. With the choices that his little shithead of a brother had been making, he should have known that eventually, it would come to this. He was, after all, taking his place in the hierarchy that was the Hiyazaki Family. The migite, the right hand, of the shateigashira, the one who made things happen for their boss.
This wasn’t what he wanted to do. This wasn’t ever what he wanted to do. He was training to be a wrestler, training to be a phenomenon that would be a household name for years. That was what was promised when he entered this agreement. He could never have understood what he was agreeing to, but he wasn’t a bitch.
Yet it only took a second.
A second that could change him.
A second that did change him.
Kei told him he would be his errand boy, in a sense. But he didn’t know what that entailed. Now, he knew. He knew exactly what that was. As he stood over the limp body at his feet, someone he didn’t know and didn’t care to know, his mind reeled yet his body remained calm.
His breathing continued evenly. He didn’t clench his fingers, his emotions appeared regulated. His own hands had been what had strangled the man, a sleeper hold that hadn’t gone errant, but was precise in application. Asphyxiation. If the body was ever found, that would be the cause of death. But he didn’t intend for it to be found and he wasn’t interested in the repercussions of his own actions.
He turned his head, looking at the man that accompanied him here. “Get rid of him.” He ordered.
The man bowed, and as he approached, smiled slightly. “Kei will be pleased.”
Indeed he would. After this altercation, Kei praised him for a job well done, and continued to praise until there were no other words left to speak. And for some reason, Finn liked to hear that. That he was worth something, that someone else saw he was capable. Maybe that was why he excelled underneath the Yakuza second lieutenant. There was right, and there was wrong, Kei taught. And as he trained him fluidly, creating the monster that Finn became in the ring, he also taught Finn to feel nothing about the people around him.
Maybe that was why he was the way he was. Maybe that was why he could stuff everything down. So much had happened in his life, people failing him, family regretting him. It was easy to turn off his emotions. To be someone he wasn’t. To be the asshole that everyone thought he was.
In his own opinion, Dickie could withstand the world thinking he was nothing, he could withstand every fight and he could bleed with everything in him. He could hurt others when he had to, if it meant success. But he could never hold up to what Kei wanted. He couldn’t kill. He couldn’t hurt. He couldn’t handle this position.
Finn’s steps took him quickly outside of his apartment building out into the whipping cold air. With long strides, he crossed the city streets without the identifiers of a car and a signal. He turned off his phone after receiving the location with an instruction to his “brother”. In less than a half hour’s time, he found himself at the empty warehouses near the pier, unoccupied since the pandemic wiped out the businesses that once prospered here.
The criminal underworld was virtually unknown when it came to the NYCPD. Or maybe they were just paid to give a wide berth — corruption was rampant in even the most honorable of trades. When things like this happened, they often seemed to be far, far away from the scene of the crime. And Finn was okay with that.
He exhaled, and then took a step into a doorway, the panel ajar just enough to be visible in his eyesight. It wasn’t like he didn’t know the location anyway. When he walked in, he could smell the intensely metallic scent of blood, and saw it seconds later.
It wasn’t clean. There would be traces left if they weren’t careful.
Dickie sat atop a pallet of crates, and Finn couldn’t see his face. Nevertheless, he walked forward, looking at him. The younger man was, for a lack of a better word, unstable at even the best of times. Nothing ever really was calm and collected for The Calamity. He fought with his emotions, he made choices based on split decisions.
And he had a knife in his hand.
“Hey kid,” Finn muttered.
Dickie startled, and in a flash of light, the knife he held in his hands was bared forward. There was blood everywhere across his body. His shirt was stained with it, his face had it decorated, and his hands were covered. Finn raised his eyebrow.
“I’d drop the knife if I were you.” He added.
Dickie did. It clattered to the floor as he dropped his hands. “I fucked it up so badly, Finn…” he murmured.
Finn looked back around and then nodded. “Yep, looks like it. Probably will take some work to get that stain off of him.”
A snort issued from Dickie’s lips and and he looked up at his brother finally. The smile that was there faded from his mouth and he shook his head. “I…I didn’t know that…I could do something like this…”
“You can’t. This is completely fucked up. If I know Kei — and I do — he wanted it with significantly less mess. He probably screamed quite a bit and if you’re lucky, there was no one working tonight.” Finn crossed his arms. “He pushed you into an uncomfortable spot and now you’re reaping the negative effects. The fuck did you think you were doing?”
“I…” he muttered, and hung his head again, “I don’t know.”
“I told you that this wasn’t a good idea. That you had a chance to get out.”
“I just…” he looked up again at him, “I wanted to stand on my own two feet. I’ve always had help…and I just wanted to stand alone. Kei said I would be able to, and that he would help me.”
Finn sighed. He couldn’t say that, yes, help was possible. But only if he chose to lose himself completely. And the kid was too far emotional to do that. “Kei can’t help you. That has to be a you choice. Let’s just…get this shit cleaned up and then…you’ll come back with me to the apartment. Kei won’t fuck with you there.”
“Are you sure?” He looked, for a moment, hopeful.
“Yeah. Just…” he glanced around and looked at the men that were there with Dickie. No doubt would they say something to Kei that Finn showed up, but right now, he didn’t give a shit. He’d deal with it later. “Get it cleaned up.”
Dickie paused for a moment, and then raised an eyebrow of his own. “I mean…are you going to tell them?”
Are you going to…? It would be easy, wouldn’t it? To assume the mantle that he’d once had, tell all these peons to do his dirty work? To get them to work for him? For a moment, the urge to do so covered him. It would be easy.
No.
“You do it.” He reiterated. “We’ll head back when you’re done.”
He’d given up this life, and he wasn’t about to take it on again.
••••••
“Is this where you’re going to sit and tell me about how you already know how it’s going to go and you’re going to beat me into oblivion?”
Sitting in his New York City apartment, Finn Whelan hadn’t shown his face since the moment that he sat across from Goth with literally the most uninterested expression and lackadaisical attitude that could be described.
Two weeks prior, they were speaking words and signing contracts. And now? It was dawning. A new era was about to arise on Sin City Wrestling, and it was a moment in which signaled a new champion to reign. But the question arose of who would it be? Goth, who had spent years trying to reclaim his title? Or would it be Finn, who held it in the previous year of 2022, who seemed to easily be able to reach an apex within very little timeframes.
And now? It was no different. He was perched on his couch, leaned back against it with the Mixed Tag Team Championship laying on the mahogany coffee table. He smiled slightly.
“Or are you going to do the tired gothic thing that you get your namesake from? Talk about the Bible like it’s a sacred document that leads you down the path of righteousness? Thus the Lord sayeth, I am the way, the truth and the light, no one shall get to heaven except through me. Yeah, I don’t give a fuck about psalms and proverbs, leading you down a trail of righteousness, thinking that you’re better than everyone because you’re somehow redeemed from the filth of the world.”
He tilts his head, and then pushes himself upwards.
“Or…are you going to create parallels between me and the rest of the industry by finding some nondescript location to preach from? For a Goth, you know, I would have expected you to speak from the Satanic Bible and talk about Killpops and gore, but you know, I guess I pegged you for some really sick looking Slipknot fan and I’ve never really been impressed.
You see, you and I, we fought to get here. You had to go through Raven, and then Mercer. Alexander Raven was who I was honestly hoping to see across from me because, while he had a go at me and my gym for quite some time, he knows how to turn a phrase and at least I’d be interested in what I had facing me. He’s changed, become something completely different in a short time, and that is the one thing that I will always say is an important key in this industry. Change is good. And Mercer? Mercer didn’t have much to deal with in Oliver Zahn after the weeks he had at the end of the season last year, but you know what…it is what it is. You could have had Helluva Bottom Carter, who you have history with…or Peter Vaughn, who after I beat, didn’t show his face for some time. Somethingsomething most dominant champion.
Unfortunately, you got me.
I stand between you and your quest for dominance here at Sin City…
Sucks to be you, right?”
He leaned forward entirely, rubbing his hands together somewhat greedily before moving ahead.
“I always look back at things, Goth. I like to nitpick, and a lot of people don’t necessarily like it. Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes I’m wrong. But in the end, I can twist anything to make it seem in my favor. Back in October, in the same pay-per-view in which Kayla and I won our Mixed Tag Titles, you were in a match for the then vacated World Championship. Who won?
J2H.
It wasn’t you, it wasn’t Mercer, Raven, anyone who has been circling again and again for this championship. It was J2H, who Michael Harris won it off of in the first place. Listening to you talk though, you seem to think that you’ve been lauded some kind of grace from God to be the best in the ring. Fuck, we all think we’re the greatest because we’re ego-driven maniacs, but at the end of the day, who was the best? Because it was kind of like the last time I faced you. When there are multiple men in the match, you fuck off to la-la land and can’t capitalize.
So why in the fuck would you think that you deserved to just be given the championship?”
Finn smirked a bit, giving a semi-confused expression before he raised a finger.
“You don’t. That’s not how this shit works, and if you didn’t get that then I sure as shit hope you get it now. Or are you going to tell me that that wasn’t the point of your fucking tirade at the last Climax Control? You want to talk about history, about how we’re an excuse, about how you should have just been handed the championship. That is the most asinine thing that I’ve ever heard and I’m going to stand on what I said on the same night.
Stop whining.
Stop being a crybaby bitch.
No, you’re not as important as you think you are, and at the end of the day, you sit there and state that you’re not crying about it, and you’re making an example out of everyone that you come across. Raven, a pin. Mercer, a submission. And your little explanation that you’re going to own me?
No one has owned me since I divorced my ex-wife for millions, and it certainly isn’t going to be some nose-pushed-so-far-up-his-own-ass looking fuck like you. I don’t give a fuck if you’re a hall of famer, I don’t care if you think you’re the best thing in this company, I don’t get owned.
The tired quip about me being the Mixed Tag Team Champion is also going to die when I take you the fuck out and take the World Championship. Which, might I say, is something that you’ve been considered for time…and time…and time…and time…and time…and time…and time….and time again.
I distinctly remember you being the qualifying match that brought me to the World Championship in 2022, and I beat you then.
The fuck you think that’s not going to happen now?
Vaughn iterated the same thing about not being on the same level because he’d stuck himself in easy mode for the better part of 2023 and was a champion for however many days. I seemed to have made it past him, as I’m standing right here, waiting for this match. And you? You sitting there saying that I’m not on your level? Motherfucker, we’re not even in the same dimension, because you’re sitting in the past, crying about it every chance you get.
When this tournament started, your focus was on your hatred for J2H. You talked some poetic shit about sun and lights and realities and false idols. You cried about the tournament then, and then proclaimed yourself to be Judas…while also stating that the championship was your thirty pieces of silver. And then you had the audacity to sit there and proclaim yourself to be the notch in everyone’s metaphorical turnbuckle, but let me tell you something right now.
I had no interest.
I have no interest.
If I could keep going along and never face you again, and I wouldn’t know the fucking difference. But here we are, fated to face one another. And woe is you, because guess who is going to be walking out of My Bloody Valentine as the World Heavyweight Champion?
A hint, if you will.
It’s not the man who has been crying for three years about woe is me when he should have been looking at the rest of the playing field as actual competitors instead of lesser than his Messiah ass.
Messiah, my ass.”
••••••
When they returned to the apartment, Finn retrieved clothes for Dickie to change into. Sweatpants, a large shirt – these were the more comfortable items he knew his brother preferred over the garish suits that Kei’s people wore. It was an hour until either was ready to talk about what had happened, and perhaps they didn’t need to talk about it.
Nah. It’s what they did.
Dickie sat on the couch and looked around at the apartment. It hadn’t changed in his absence, or really, in Kayla’s absence either. Finn sat on the other side of the sectional, and he propped his legs up on the table in the center.
He contemplated what to say to Dickie. Did he dare mention what did change? Aiden coming back to wrestling, Kallie entering the fray…and Amelia, talking to him in the elevator, saying that he didn’t give a shit about his little brother. Except he did.
He just knew the kid better than most, and knew that until he could get his head out of his ass, nothing was going to be listened to anyway.
“So you’re still Tag Team Champions?” Dickie asked, trying to clear the air. He didn’t want to talk about Kei, and Finn didn’t blame him.
“Yeah. Barely. But we still have them.”
“Ah…and…how is everything else going?”
“Going into this Pay-Per-View for the World Championship again.” Finn added, looking at Dickie curiously.
The kid was fidgety, looking around the room as if something was going to jump out at him. He knew Dickie regretted losing his championship in the previous year, but had had some steps towards greatness again…a little bit. Maybe he would be ready eventually, but certainly not now.
“You know…your girlfriend asked me where you’ve been.” Finn started.
He probably thought he was trying to be helpful, but this soured Dickie immediately. He snapped his head in his direction. “Amelia isn’t my girlf-”
“Don’t think I’m one of the idiots that you can fool. She’s worried about you. We’re all worried about you. Even Kayla?”
“You finally dating Kayla?” Dickie countered, snidely.
Finn supressed his irritation, and then looked at him. “No. Because it’s not like that. It’s never been like that.” But he saw Dickie open his mouth again, and he lost it. Trust his family to be the only one who could set him off. “I don’t get why everyone is so fucked on whether I’ve put my dick in Kayla or not. Everyone is making my tagging with her the focus of every conversation when we’re literally nothing more than tag team partners. She killed it back when she moved out. It’s dead. Over. Done. There’s literal shit going on with the fucking Yakuza involved, and you want to go over this like it’s the best tea in the world.”
Dickie snorted and looked at him. “You know why everyone talks about it, Finn? Because it is literally happening right beneath both your noses. Don’t think I don’t look at what’s going on. Kei watches everything, including the shows, and it’s obvious that you and Kayla are more than you realize. Just when the fuck are you going to realize it?”
“There.” He snapped. “Is. Nothing. Going. On.” Finn frowned, and then rose to his feet. He was tired of this same argument. And it was going to continue. “Feel free to stay here tonight, dude…or however long…I’m going to bed.”
“Finn.”
“No,” he raised a hand and looked at Dickie, shaking his head. “I’ve got more important things on my mind than dealing with whatever everyone thinks is going on with Kayla. I’ll deal with that later. I have a championship to win. I have you to keep protected. And everyone else? They can go fuck themselves at this point.”
“When are you going to stop slamming your face into a one-way mirror?”
Finn sighed, and then…he simply shook his head and slammed the door behind him.
••••••
“While we’re at it, let’s mention how you seemingly think yourself to be a god. Not a god, the Triune of Wrestling. Listening to you talk, you have a mighty high opinion of yourself. And I suppose you would after twenty one years of wrestling. The amount that you perceive yourself to be important in the eyes of everyone else is astonishingly high, but I suppose that’s what happens when you’re an arrogant dickrag.
You want to talk about the Bible and how righteous you are, let’s go all the way to Revelation. You know, the prophetic part of the big ol’ book that’s going through the ages and been reformed and redesigned by a multitude of church leaders who had their own fuckin’ agendas. Like I said, this ain’t about songs and wise sayings…you know, psalms and proverbs, for those of you who haven’t picked it up.
Revelation, as a whole, is a prophecy written by John, who is the same John that supposedly walked by the side of Christ. He was pretty fuckin’ old when it happened, so I think he was hopped up on some ganja for his pain and probably dreamed this shit up, but you know what…we’re on a tangent, so let’s go. In this book, John talks about all the things he sees about the end of the world. And part of that is Chapter 6, in which he talks about seals being removed from these scrolls and after each scroll is removed, it’s a fuckin’ horse riding out with some symbolism like conquering and judgement.
The second one is crucial in this conversation, Gothy. Revelation…
…six…
…four…
I think you’re not too stupid to realize where I’m going with this.”
On the table next to the championship was a book with gold edges. A Bible, one that looked like it was used fervently, the cover beaten up. Finn reached for it, opening up quickly to a page close to the end of the book itself.
“And out came another horse, bright red. Its rider was permitted to take peace from the earth, so that people should slay one another.”
He raised his eyes after he read, and then tossed the book aside.
“I didn’t choose the name of my finisher because I thought it sounded cool. I wanted people to realize that the place in which I stand across from them is not by chance. It’s not by happenstance or luck, or godgiven rights. It is because I learned a long time ago that when there is only chaos and dissension in the world, then only then is anyone given the right to take peace. I have taken your peace, Goth.”
He smiled a little, maliciously. It wasn’t unlike Finn to do so, but the turnabout of Goth’s tactics onto him made him amused to say the least.
“You can sit there and cry about J2H and how you want to prove he is a fraud, but I’m about to do the exact same thing to you, because I have taken your peace. You’re disgruntled that you even need to do this, and I’m about to kick you in the fucking teeth because your eyes are so fucking focused on the future and the past that you can’t see the present. You live anywhere but the present.
When you spoke to Austin James Mercer and told him that he would be happy to worship you after you defeated little ol’ me, you lived in the future. When you talked to me at Climax Control, you lived simultaneously in the past and the future and didn’t even look at me like I was a threat.
You call yourself the enforcer of Sin City, but what the fuck have you enforced in three years? Putting down Rodrigos and Barnharts and failing miserably when it comes to the one thing that you actually want? I’m not easy mode, as I had a good fucking time telling all of your little Savior friends that I’ve beaten. Except Bane, you know, but I’m not interested in true cockroaches of the wrestling world. Davison, Vaughn, Page…hell, even Kat Jones in another company. Every single one of them put me down and told me that I wouldn’t defeat them. That I was sitting on a throne of lies.
And yet here I am, standing in front of you. I made them eat their words too, and now they’re embarrassed as fuck because they thought they were so much better than me. I’m standing here, Goth.
Taking your heart and soul with every breath in my body, with every beat of my heart.
I’m not an egotistical cunt like you. But I am someone who enjoys making a mockery and a mess of the people that stand across from me. You’re not the messiah, and there are no Judas Betrayers in your circle. No one talks about you because you’re not someone worth talking about, and when I saw this match made? I groaned, because while you are a decorated wrestler, you are not even nearly half of the man I am.
You’re not anything like me. I am a vicious competitor, I fight with every breath I have, and I want to ensure that you will never come for this title until I no longer have it. You’ve been given dozens of chances, more than fucking Raven or Mercer, if not only the same amount…and you have failed every. Fucking. Time.
When I beat you on Sunday, I hope you feel pain. I hope you feel disappointment. I hope you feel regret for ever opening your mouth and spreading your pedantic, pissant bullshit out into the world like some precocious teenager who didn’t get their fucking way. Maybe you should look into the mirror and ask yourself what’s going to happen when you’re not the champion again. How are you going to rise up? How are you going to look yourself in the eye and think you’re remotely decent? How are you going to rise up and make amends to those you metaphorically killed in the ring for being such a fucking bitch?
I don’t like you, Goth. I never have. I think you’re one of the most pedantic people on this roster, and I know it’s easy to take pot shots when you’ve got a whole ass team behind you. But they’re not here, and now you’ve just got me in front of you.
You know.
The new Sin City World Heavyweight Champion. The reigning Mixed Tag Team Champion.
Hate to say I told you so, but you know what? I did.
You’re going to need thoughts and prayers to get past me.
And the god I know?
He isn’t so giving.”
