The Confrontation
Wolfslair was quiet that night.
Most of the students had gone home, the lights dimmed except for the glow of the ring in the center. The ropes cast long shadows against the mats, like scars left behind from a hundred wars fought between friends and enemies alike. Aiden sat on the edge of the apron, hunched forward, elbows on his knees, head low.
The bottle was in his hand.
Not even hidden this time.
He stared at the label like it was mocking him. He’d told himself he wouldn’t drink tonight. Big session tomorrow. Alex wanted him sharp. Austin said he’d run drills with him early. He’d promised Kallie he’d come straight home after training. Promises, promises. Words were easy. It was the silence between them that choked him. The whiskey burned his throat on the way down. It didn’t even hit like it used to. The relief came slower now, duller. His body was building resistance to his sin. The door creaked open behind him.
Heavy footsteps.
Aiden froze. He didn’t turn. Didn’t need to. He knew that walk.
Austin.
“Thought you’d gone home,” Aiden muttered without looking back, voice rough, swallowing down the tremor.
“I did,” Austin replied, tone unreadable. Calm. Too calm. “Got halfway to the house. Realised I left my phone.” Silence. Aiden didn’t believe him. Austin wasn’t the type to forget things. Austin wasn’t the type to lie.
Aiden took another sip. Forced casualness into his movements. Forced a smirk into his voice. “Well, I hope your phone didn’t walk off with some geezer’s gym bag. Those things sprout legs after nine, I swear….”
“You gonna turn around, kid?” The words weren’t harsh. They weren’t sharp. They were worse. Soft. Controlled. Aiden swallowed. Slowly, he turned. Austin stood just inside the doorway, arms folded, towel slung over his shoulder. Not angry. Not frowning. Just… watching. That was somehow more unbearable. Austin’s eyes flicked to the bottle in Aiden’s hand. Then back to Aiden’s face. No accusation. No shock. No lecture. Just a quiet, heavy understanding. Aiden’s throat dried out. He wanted Austin to yell. To shove him. To say something cruel so he could bite back and turn this into a fight instead of what it was, truth.
“You forgot your phone, huh?” Aiden tried again, forcing a laugh that cracked halfway through. “Convenient timing. Or are you an alcoholic bloodhound now?” Austin didn’t smile. Didn’t respond. Just stepped forward. Slow. Measured. He walked until he was standing right in front of Aiden. Close enough to reach out. Close enough to take the bottle. But he didn’t.
He just crouched down, resting his arms on his knees so he was eye-level. “Can I sit?” The question was simple. It shattered Aiden more than a demand ever could. Wordlessly, he nodded. Austin climbed onto the apron beside him. They sat shoulder to shoulder, both staring forward into the darkened gym. Aiden’s hand trembled around the bottle. Austin noticed. But still, he said nothing. Seconds stretched. Long. Suffocating.
Aiden finally exhaled, muttering, “Say it.”
Austin glanced at him. “Say what?”
“Whatever lecture you’ve got loaded up,” Aiden snapped, voice rising now. “Tell me I’m fucking up. Tell me I’m weak. Tell me I’m throwing it all away. Come on. Just say it so I can agree with you and get this over with.”
Austin looked back at the ring.
“I’m not here to lecture you.”
Aiden let out a bitter laugh. “Bullshit.”
“No,” Austin said simply. “If I wanted to yell, I would’ve done it the night I saw you stumble in the ropes.” Aiden stiffened.
“You saw that?”
“Yeah,” Austin said. “And I hoped it was a one-off. But I’m not stupid.” Aiden gripped the bottle tighter. Austin’s voice stayed maddeningly calm. “I figured if it was something you wanted to talk about, you would.”
Aiden barked a humorless laugh. “Yeah, because I’m so good at asking for help.”
“No,” Austin agreed. “You’re not.” Aiden stared down at the whiskey sloshing inside the glass. His throat felt tight. Everything in him wanted to scream. To hurl the bottle. To hit something. Anything.
Instead, he whispered, “It’s the only time I don’t feel like I’m drowning.” Austin didn’t react. He just listened. So Aiden kept going, words spilling like the alcohol he hadn’t finished. “You know what it’s like being here, right? With you. With Alex. With Alicia. With everyone?” His jaw clenched. “I love you all. You’re my family. But every fucking day I wake up and I feel like I’m running behind. Like no matter how fast I sprint, you’re all just… ahead. And I’m never gonna catch up…..even Dickie moved ahead and left me behind”
His voice cracked. Austin stared straight ahead. Quiet. Still. Aiden ran a hand through his hair, voice trembling now. “I lose a match and everyone tells me I’ll bounce back. I smile. I shrug. I make some joke. Then I sit in my car for thirty minutes because I don’t know how to walk into my own house and look my wife in the eye.” He took another drink. A slow one. Austin didn’t try to stop him. “I don’t drink because I like it,” Aiden whispered. “I drink because when I’m sober, I hear everything. Every fucking doubt. Every comparison. Every—”
“....every lie you tell yourself,” Austin finished softly. Aiden went still. Austin finally turned to look at him. “You think you’re behind us, Aiden.” His voice was steady. “But we don’t look at you like that. No one does. Except you.”
Aiden scoffed weakly. “Right.”
“You think I don’t know what it’s like to feel like the shadow?” Austin murmured. “To stand next to someone louder? Bigger? More… whatever?” Aiden stared at him. Austin didn’t blink. “I was you once,” Austin said. “Except I didn’t have someone to sit next to me and tell me the truth.” Silence. Heavy. Thick. Aiden swallowed.
“Say it then,” he whispered. “Say the truth.” Austin reached out. He didn’t take the bottle. He just rested a hand on Aiden’s back.
“You’re not okay.” Aiden’s breath caught. Austin continued. “And I’m not gonna pretend you are.” Aiden stared straight ahead, vision blurring. “But,” Austin said, squeezing his shoulder, not aggressively. Firm. Anchoring. “I’m not gonna walk away, either.” Aiden choked on a breath he didn’t know he’d been holding. His fingers loosened around the bottle, his hand falling into his lap. Austin didn’t speak again. He didn’t need to.
They sat in silence.
Aiden’s shoulders trembled. No sobs. No breakdown. Just quiet shaking. Austin’s hand stayed there. Eventually, Aiden whispered, “I don’t… I don’t know how to stop.”
Austin nodded. “That’s okay.”
Aiden turned to him, eyes raw. “Is it?” Austin finally looked back at him, gaze firm.
“It’s okay not to know how to stop,” he said. “It’s not okay to pretend you don’t need to.” Aiden swallowed. Austin straightened slightly. “I’m not asking you to fix it tonight. I’m not asking you to pour it out. I’m not asking you to promise anything.” He paused. “I’m asking you one thing.” Aiden waited. Austin held his gaze. “Don’t drink alone again.” Aiden blinked then Austin went on. “You wanna drink? Fine. I’ll sit with you. I’ll watch. I won’t judge. But you don’t do it alone anymore.”
Aiden stared at him. Disbelief. Shame. Gratitude. All tangled. “You’ll just… sit here? Watch me poison myself?” he muttered.
Austin’s lips twitched, not quite a smile. “Better than letting you do it in the dark.”
Aiden looked down at the bottle. His hand trembled. Slowly, he lifted it. Austin didn’t stop him. Aiden stared at the amber liquid. His throat tightened. Then, he set it down. Not a dramatic slam. Not thrown away. Just placed. Gently. Beside him. Aiden leaned forward, elbows on his knees again, head in his hands. “I don’t know if I can do this,” he whispered.
Austin stood. He walked to the far wall, grabbed two bottles of water from the mini-fridge, and returned. He placed one beside Aiden. Then he sat. “You don’t have to know.” Aiden didn’t move for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reached for the water. He didn’t open it. But he held it. Like a lifeline. Austin leaned back on his hands, staring at the ring. “You’re not alone, kid,” he said quietly.
Aiden wiped his eyes with the heel of his hand. “I feel alone.”
Austin nodded. “I know.”
Silence settled again. But it wasn’t heavy this time. It wasn’t choking. It was… breathable. They sat there for what felt like hours. No speeches. No promises. Just presence. Eventually, Aiden whispered, “Can we… not tell Alex? Or Kallie?”
Austin considered. “For now,” he agreed. Aiden nodded. Austin added, “But one day, you’re gonna have to.”
Aiden exhaled shakily.“Yeah.”
Austin stood again, stretching out his arms. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll drive you home” Aiden hesitated. He glanced at the whiskey. Austin noticed. “You can bring it,” Austin said simply. “But it stays in the back seat.”
Aiden let out a weak laugh. “You’re such a dad.”
Austin shrugged. color=lightblue]“Somebody’s gotta be.”[/color] Aiden slid off the apron, landing on shaky legs. Austin stayed beside him.
Not guiding.
Not dragging.
Just there. As they walked toward the door, Aiden stopped. He turned back. Looked at the bottle. Looked at the ring. The place where he’d fought so many battles. This one wasn’t over. But maybe, for the first time, he wasn’t fighting it alone. He followed Austin out. And the door clicked shut behind them.
Next round
”Look, I ain’t here to blow my own horn. I’m not going to stand here and go on about my victory like it was some big win. While I respect Liam Davis and I think he could be a big star in this company, I’m not going to celebrate the win because I still don’t believe I should be here.”
Aiden scoffed and shrugged. His voice was low and calm, almost melancholy.
”This whole tournament is a sham. An exercise in futility where we have all these different names fighting for an opportunity that none of us have earned or had earned to begin with. I don’t understand why most of us are here. In my opinion, the person who becomes a contender for a championship should be someone on the rise. Someone coming up who is annihilating everyone else they face. The whole idea of a battle royale or a tournament to crown a number one contender to me is ludicrous. You don’t know what the match is going to be. A battle royale can end in any number of fluke ways where you don’t get a proper winner, and it’s the same with the tournament.”
“You can have someone with incredible talent and drive get eliminated early in a tournament because of a mistake or someone cheating. The cream does rise to the top, but some of us shouldn’t have been in this tournament to begin with. Some might find it self-deprecating as I sit here and tell you all that I don’t deserve it. But then again, neither did Liam. Then again, neither does LJ.”
“Legit, sorry LJ, it’s true.”
“Now, do I want to be a world champion? Of course I do. Do I want to have an opportunity against Carter? Of course I do. I feel like I have unfinished business against him. But the fact is I wanted to earn my way back to the world championship through hard work and through beating every single person on this roster. Instead, I’m doing it in a tournament where half the people don’t belong here either. You look at someone like Alexander Raven — he just came back. Why is he in this tournament? Why was Liam Davis in this tournament? So I’m here because I pushed Carter to his limit, or so many people would have you believe. But to be completely honest with you? I think that’s bullshit.”
Aiden threw his hands in the air, looking annoyed.
”But, when opportunity knocks, you have to open the door, right? So that’s what I’m doing. I’m opening the door. And if I want to be able to face Carter again and get an opportunity at becoming the world champion, then I’m going to need to beat LJ Kasey. And I guess he and I have a little bit in common, don’t we? I mean, I’m not the younger brother in a toxic family where the older brother is nothing but a name on a piece of paper because he isn’t strong enough to break through the glass ceiling above him, and every single time he’s tried, he’s failed miserably.”
“But, like you LJ, I know what it’s like to be in someone’s shadow.”
“You and I both feel the same way, pushed down and away for other people, whether they are members of our family or friends. When you first came to this company, everyone was shocked and thought that maybe you were going to be the bigger name in your family. You were going to break out of the shadow that Miles had cast. But after a hot start, you have just kind of settled.”
“Settled in the middle.”
“Good position for you. In the middle. You could be the Internet champion or the Roulette champion. You could go to a lesser company and become a world champion. But here in SCW, that world title is simply not yours. It is not a height that you can reach. It is not a mountain that you can climb, and it’s not an accomplishment that you can claim. And the thing is, I like you LJ. I don’t think you’re a bad guy. I don’t think you’re a piece of shit. I think you’re a highly talented individual who has just been dealt a bad hand.”
He takes a deep breath, calming himself down before rolling his shoulders and cracking his neck
”You have to face me. And the run that I’ve been on since my slight change in attitude has been pretty impressive. I’ve beaten people that so many said I didn’t stand a chance against. I have done everything I can to try and get my hands on that world championship, and I’ve also done everything I can to try and change the way this company does things. I was sick and tired of being overlooked and underutilised, so I did something about it. Something that you and your brother don’t seem to be able to do. You both have this disease — a disease where you talk a big game, and you seem like you are finally going to break through the glass ceiling above you without being able to do it. And week after week, fans of yours will try and push you forward with their support, but you keep letting them down.”
“You, your brother, and your idiot girlfriend — the three of you are like this vortex of talent that sucks in everyone else and never lets them go. But now, now you are within arm’s reach of getting an opportunity. You can win and go toward the finals of this tournament. Or, and more likely, you’ll lose. But I’m going to play devil’s advocate — what happens if you do win? What happens if you are able to beat me, LJ?”
“Then what?”
“I guess we hand whoever is going to be in the final a free win and a path straight to Carter. I’m not going to let that happen. I’m not going to let you destroy the finals of this tournament just because you think you can win something, whereas I know I can. This is my pathway to becoming a world champion. This is my time. This is my place, and I’m not going to sit back and let someone like you come anywhere close to it. Bring everything you are. Bring everything you can bring, and you try your hardest, because I can guarantee you, LJ, anything less than that is just going to be you wasting your time, and therefore you will be wasting mine. The finals await. And you are my last hurdle to get to that point.”
