Flies in the Honey

[Dean Harper]

The camera comes on to Dean sitting with his legs over the side of his throne with the World Championsip draped over the back of the throne as he took a hit off a vape and exhaled a puff of swirling smoke.

“There was a time. There was a time I would have burned this building down for you. There was a time I would have killed for you. There was a time that not having you near me nearly killed me. There was a time that I would listen to your promos over and over and over again just so I’d hear your voice.” Dean pockets the vape.

“Kissing you, touching you was my anchor. You were the one thing that kept me from being dragged into the storm. Max was the only woman I’ll ever love but you were the love of my life.” Dean sighs, “But god lately the sound of your voice and your constant whining about how mistreated and misunderstood you are makes me want to walk into traffic.”

“You know what I’m gonna get you? I’m gonna get you a big old wooden cross. So anytime you feel the need to publicly play the victim you can save everyone the trouble of having to listen to you drone on and on when we can skip to you just nailing yourself to it.”

“‘I’m the one who has to sacrifice. I’m the one who has to compromise. I’m the one being forced to be submissive’ Does anyone actually believe any of the shit you say? When did you do that? Who did you do it for? It sure as shit wasn’t me. You asked me to stop talking to my friends, I did. You asked me to distance myself from my family, I did. You asked me to stop being so violent, I did. You asked me to stop flirting with other people in my promos, I did. When have you EVER compromised or sacrificed for our relationship? Are those sacrifices with us in the room right now?” Dean looks down at his finger nails.

“Are you going to bring up again how you were ‘forced’ to play step dad. How you were ‘forced’ to be a father and not the center of attention at all times? Or are we going to rewrite more history and try to gaslight me into thinking I forced you into this relationship. This was a tango. You participated the whole goddamn time. I never forced you. I never took away your consent. I never made you do anything you didn’t want.”

Dean took a deep breath, “I really was not going to rise to your bait. I was gonna focus on the match. You want to know why I played dirty to win the extinction event?”

Dean glances to the camera for the first time, “Because I could. Because keeping you away from this belt is fun to me. Because your archaic sense of morality is a weakness and I exploited it. The same way you exploited my love for you. Alls fair in love and war after all, right?”

“I was dying every day. Every day in that house I felt you pulling away I died. I left because it was killing me to be in that house and be pushed away. I lived in a hell without you. I survived for Damien but it barely felt like a life… and then something crazy happened.” Dean laughs a minute.

“It stopped hurting. I went back to therapy and actually tried. I’m doing family dinner again. I’m seeing Devlin for coffee and voice chatting while playing video games I’m terrible at. There’s this Single Dad Group in the area that I moved to? We take the kids to museums and zoos and shit. They invite me over for board games while the kids watch movies or play with the dogs. I took the surprise dog to training school with Damien.”

“I’m trying to open things up for the coparenting conversation but… you want to know the funny thing about it? It felt more like me constantly having to rip myself apart to keep you happy. Why am I still doing this? Why after you asked for us to separate am I still trying to make things easier for you? Why Am I trying to make everyone else but myself happy? Don’t I deserve to be selfish? Don’t I deserve to say what I want and stop trying to hang onto something that was never real in the first place?”

“Fuck it. Consider this my healing era.”

“I’m living again. Really living. And everyday I miss you less and less. And where I am right now? I don’t miss you at all. I miss what we were. But you? I can live without it now. So thank you. Thank you for pushing me away. Thank you for picking up the mic and whining every chance you get. It’s what I needed.”

“Were we perfect? No. We were Bonnie and Clyde. We were fucked up. We were toxic. I loved that about us. I was so used to licking love off a knife the games you played felt just like home. That you were my home. But you’re not. You’re a manipulative narcissist asshole. You like to be worshipped, but you want your space… you want to fuck like your sexual needs are the only things that matter. For all your talk about how unfair I was to you anytime I didn’t feel up to fucking you was a sin. Your trauma and pain always mattered more. Anything not about you is taboo and wrong.”

“So consider this the last time I talk about how shitty and unhappy we were as a couple. I don’t care anymore. You’re free now. Just like you wanted. I just had to see my own value. And I have.”

---

Dean Harper didn’t have vices. Dean Harper didn’t drink to access but he had a few to dull the pain of more unpleasant parts. More frequently when his marriage was falling apart. But now he was clean. He felt alive. Damien was having a sleep over with a new friend. Before Dean might have just sat in the house and wallowed in the empty house. But with the more spring feeling weather in the middle of January walking the dog in the park in running shorts and a tank top felt fitting. Maybe it was finally moving past the self loathing or the things he’d used to dull the pain. Maybe it was finally making progress away from the delusion that the separation was temporary.

Queens and kings we cut the wings
Kaleidoscope in our eyes
Hungry for industry
You lied enough to get high

For the first time since Warren had slipped the ring on his finger he noticed other people. Not just how they looked, but how they looked at him. It had been old hat one upon a time. To know who was checking him out and preen in just the right way or look away to get them to approach him. Dean didn’t have vices, he was the vice.

Poison in the wine
Shame in the money
Diamond's in the sky
Your hands getting bloody

It had been over a year. Maybe longer. Maybe since Maxine died. But he could feel the old senses kick in all over again. A glance at the women doing yoga and seeing the blush and look away, they embraced laughing for being caught looking.

All these different coloured pills
Drop them only for the thrill
Fill us up till we can't feel
There's flies in the honey
Yeah, there's something in my mind
Falling every single time
But we just can't get it right

Looking to the men playing frisbee golf and catch the one who was simply watching him jog past, teeth biting lip.

Flies in the honey
Oh
Flies in the honey

He hadn’t really looked. He hadn’t let himself look. But now… where was the harm? One hundred and forty eight days of a “trial” separation. His therapist said on average a separation that lasted more than a year didn’t recover. It hadn’t been that long yet but…

Vaseline amphetamine
The answers told in my veins
Kerosene all over me
I'm walking close to these flames

It wasn’t like Warren had invited him home. It wasn’t like he and Warren were better. If anything it all cemented that they were better apart now. Half of what Warren said anytime he got a microphone in his hands these days were about how he was building himself anew, better than ever, better with out Dean.

Poison in the wine
Shame in the money
Diamonds in the sky
Your hands getting bloody

Dean glanced at a male jogger going past him, the man turned around and smiled at Dean as he checked him out.

All these different coloured pills
Drop them only for the thrill
Fill us up till we can't feel
There's flies in the honey
Yeah, there's something in my mind
Falling every single time
But we just can't get it right

Maybe Warren wasn’t the catch. Maybe it wasn’t Warren settling for someone like Dean. Maybe Dean had just attached himself to the first person who made him feel less like a free fuck. Hell, hadn’t Doctor Acker suggested Dean deserved to be his authentic self?

Flies in the honey
Oh
Flies in the honey

Dean increased his speed, Bluey barked happily keeping pace on his run. He was in the best shape of his life. He had money. He had a house. He was a goddamn catch.

Poison in the wine
Shame in the money
Diamonds In the sky
Your hands getting bloody, yeah

Warren didn’t appreciate him. Warren didn’t value him. Warren didn’t give a shit about what Dean felt unless he withheld sex. All Warren cared about was getting fucked and told he was the best there ever was.

All these different coloured pills
Drop them only for the thrill
Fill us up till we can't feel
There's flies in the honey
Yeah, there's something in my mind

Dean deserved better. Dean could do better.

Falling every single time
But we just can't get it right

He looked good. He felt good. He was damaged but maybe there was an easier fix. Maybe the answer was to go back to older habits.

Flies in the honey
Oh
Flies in the honey

---

“But this match isn’t about my failed marriage.” Dean waves it off.

“This match is about the World title. My world title. I’m not an insane person whose going to start calling it my baby or that it talks to me. But the only man in this company who has held this belt as often as I have in this company’s history is my father. It took him a decade to reach four times. I’ve done it in half the time.”

“I’ve been kidnapped. I’ve been tortured. I’ve been put in the hospital. I’ve had men say I was unworthy to lick their boots much less hold this title. I’ve had men mock the death of the mother of my child. I’ve had people pretend to be psychologists and diagnose me. I’ve been called the devil. I’ve been called a sociopath. I’ve been a monster and a muzzled dog. I’ve fought against management and stood slightly to the left of it.”

“This belt? It cements every thing. I am better than my childhood. I am better than everything that ever happened to me. I am better than ever asshole in the back who looked down at me. I didn’t have a fancy wrestling school training me. I didn’t have nepotism secretly rooting for me. I didn’t get my shocking family revelation until I was already considered one of the best in this company.”

“You, Warren, have constantly identified yourself as a Kane. As deserving or rejecting everything based on who creampied your mother. You constantly feel the need to remember who you are and who came before you. You think taking this belt will fill the black sucking hole in your chest where your heart should be. Sorry, sugar, but this belt won’t do that. It didn’t make your old man feel whole. Because I am not going to let you take this from me.” Dean swings his legs back so he is sitting facing the camera. “You see yourself as some great and powerful thing. That I should fear you. Because you are some great and terrible thing just like Spike. History lesson for those just joining the program here, but I beat your daddy all but one time. Invoking his name doesn’t put the fear of anything in me. Invoking some deadbeat for sympathy or as some scary foe does jack shit. Spike Kane was not a foe to be feared… but I have news for you, pussycat. I’ve looked into the face of fear. I know fear, I know darkness, and honey? You ain’t got my charm.”

“Warren Harper? Was there ever a time that name made someone scared to put their boots on and walk down to the match? If Warren Harper even proves to be the man I face in the ring. Who knows with him anymore, with everything that’s happened to that boy’s mind over the years. Brainwashed by Judas Alliah and his cult, influenced by his madman of a father, Honeypotted by your truly into a murder cult where he got the comfortable chair as Rowan’s pet who never had to prove himself and got to cost by on his family name alone, tortured to madness and darkness by Eternity twice, taken on a backpacking trip with his half sister to return full of rainbows and sugar only to return later as a bitter and whining manchild… is Warren even in there anymore? Or is there just a shell, filled with warring specters of brainwashing and Stockholm syndrome? I’m surprised that someone so fragmented can even walk in a straight line with all of the conflicting influences on his psyche. I pity you.”

“I may be a piece of shit but at least I constantly know who I am. I never looked to someone else to tell me who I was. I always knew. And that’s exactly why you can’t beat me, pumpkin. In order to be world champion you have to have something to stand for. Something to prove is nice and all, but you have to actually know who you are.”

“So better luck on the Roulette. Maybe if you can manage to last through that we can have this dance again.”

Dean winked and the camera cut off.