Insecurities

[“The Better Man” Warren Kidd]

~“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.”~

The front door bell chimed. Warren Harper was interrupted from dwelling on the words of his husband for the thousandth time over the last few weeks. This single promo had become the soundtrack to his recovery from their brutal Last Man Standing at Metamorphosis.

The fact that this particular monologue wasn’t even one of Dean Harper’s best in his vastly superior career was yet more salt in Warren’s wounds that still hadn’t fully healed. Dean didn’t need to be at his best in that ring to embarrass Warren, all he ever needed were the right words. Needles to poke and prod and pick at him in just the right way.

~“ — in the Roulette. Maybe if you can manage to last through that we can have this dance aga —.”~

Warren jabbed pause as he clenched his jaw. The face that once stopped his heart dead was now itself frozen in an irritable state of absolute smugness. Warren scowled as he got up to answer the door. In his distracted haste, he stubbed his toe on the coffee table in front of him.

“Fuck!” He cursed the stack of unopened morning mail next to his half empty coffee mug.

He hobbled out into his hallway and towards his front door. He opened it quickly, still hopping slightly as a much more well put together Shea O’Hara greeted him. He felt strangely embarrassed, almost childish in his Incredible Hulk t-shirt and grey sweatpants.

“You okay, like? You weren’t that hurt when I visited last,” Shea said.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m fine.” A lie. Miss Queen’s Gambit wouldn’t understand, her career was on an upswing and she’d likely not blow her World Championship opportunity like Warren had more than once in the last couple of months. “Just stubbed my toe on the coffee table. Come in, come in.” Warren smiled.

“Awww shucks, want me to kiss it better, like?” Shea stuck her tongue out at him as she stepped through into his hallway.

“Oh so that’s why you’re single,” Warren teased, grinning. “A rampant foot fetish.”

“Yeah, must be,” Shea smiled.

A more casual observer might mistake their naturally playful repertoire for flirtation, but they were far too familiar to ever risk crossing the line, which was a great shame Warren thought as he closed the door behind her and enjoyed the unique pleasure of fading pain in his foot.

Shea had been here often enough to be familiar. She walked past him into his living room. He allowed himself a quick glance of her rear. If she knew how tingly he felt at the sight of her, she’d likely stop wearing the short skirts she often did and Warren couldn’t deprive himself of such simple pleasures. Of course, this morning the sweet tingle was more a throbbing ache but only because he hadn’t been laid in months.

Dean was wrong. Warren had restraint. His friendship with Shea even at times like this was a spectacular testament to that fact. However, Dean only saw Shea as a threat, one Warren hadn’t been baited with as easily as Dean would have liked a few months ago. Warren was proud of himself for that, even Dr Griffiths had said it demonstrated remarkable emotional growth and maturity.

“Oh god, you’re still watching that promo,” Shea said, “Dean’s a feckin’ arse like, I thought that was well established at this point. He’ll speak without thinkin’, just ta get in your head.”

“Yeah well, can’t say it doesn’t work, he beat me again after all,” Warren shook his head and sighed. Dean was reduced to blackness as a frustrated Shea clicked the television off. Warren leant against the doorframe. “Maybe he’s right. Maybe I lost more than just my memories when I got rid of Aleister, maybe I lost my killer instinct. My fearlessness.”

“Fear is a virtue, keeps us safe and moral,” Shea observed. “Two things Dean Harper will never be.”

“I know, that’s what still makes him so fucking hot.”

“Bad boys are fun for a while like,” Shea agreed, “But I wouldn’t want to spend my life with one. Too much of a crapshoot.”

Shea sat down and started looking through Warren’s unopened mail. She patted the seat next to her on the couch. Warren nodded and flopped down next to her. She wouldn’t object to his manspread, she never had. She was safe like that, one of the few people in his life with whom Warren could completely relax. Not even Dean had ever made him feel that safe. That was the real irreconcilable tragedy of their marriage.

“Finally looking inta that divorce, I take it?” Shea passed him an unopened legal letter.

“Not exactly,” Warren sighed, opening the letter. “This is probably about my inheritance.”

“Wasn’t that sorted years ago, like?”

“Not splitting half of all future payments into two accounts, half to Dawn and half to Dean for Damien,” Warren said. “Might aswell do something good with all the bastard left me, provide for the people I care about.”

“Who are you and what have you done with my bestie?” Shea teased.

Warren retrieved the rest of his coffee as he absorbed the contents of the letter. His request had been received and processed, and starting on the 5th of April, all future payments would be diverted to the accounts he had provided. Warren smiled, at least something in his life was going the way he wanted it to. He had a few weeks to break the news to Dawn and Dean. Hopefully, they wouldn’t object to his uncharacteristic altruism, but if they did, he’d cross that bridge when he came to it.

“Told you something needs to change, Shea,” Warren said, “If it isn’t going to be him, it might as well be me.”

“Think they’ll accept?”

“Why wouldn’t they? I’m securing their futures.”

“And what about yours?”

Warren avoided answering Shea by taking a mouthful of bitter, black and now tragically cold coffee. He deserved no better and could certainly do no worse. His future was as uncertain as it was unimportant, especially now that he had nothing left to lose.

~~~

Lately, Warren Harper was comforted by very little. He sat backwards on a white steel chair, arms folded across the top of its back. Faded bruising and welts were spread liberally across his face and bare torso. He wore simple black shorts, so this time every mark Dean Harper had left on him, from head to toe was on display.

Ordinarily, he would have succumbed to the impulse to cover up the abuse at the hands of those who were supposed to have loved and elevated him to be much better than he was, but now even that was too much effort.

Dean Harper was so damned proud of repeatedly embarrassing Warren and rubbing his face in the smug superiority of the damned Blake bloodline, now the whole world could see the full aftermath of the professional abusers they lauded and celebrated as the absolute pinnacle of false idolatry in this industry.

You can’t kill me, and I can’t quit you.

That is both the beauty and the tragedy of our relationship, Sweetheart.

I’m sorry I’m not good enough.

I’m sorry I’ve never been good enough.

Truly it must be such a fucking bore being married to me. Sure, it was fun in the beginning. I was all in for playing your perfect submissive. It thrilled me when you treated me as an inferior. I enjoyed the inversion of the power dynamics between us.

I was happy to herald Her Most Loyal as My Personal Jesus.

I was elated to worship at your altar. I felt blessed and I felt chosen.

It’s one hell of a fucked up kink, you know?

The need to be seen. The need to be praised.

The addiction to feeling special, and the ecstasy of being validated. It is a high we both chased in the bedroom Dean, and I was happy to indulge every fucked up whim we shared because you promised me that nobody else would ever see the sides of you that I’ve seen. I trusted you and I laid myself bare to you because I believed you were my soulmate and that you were strong enough to help me carry the weight of all my crippling anxiety and severe depression about my lineage.

I thought if there was one person who would be my perfect check and balance through my myriad of identity crises, it would be the fucking cameraman turned son of God.

Boy, I really misjudged you, didn’t I, Sweetie?

We aren’t the same. We’ve never been the same. In fact, after Metamorphosis, it’s pretty fucking clear that we’re entirely different. All the trauma and abuse that I mistook for commonality and understanding has done so much more to divide us than it ever did to unite us. I thought we were the same because we were both shunned by those who raised us. I thought we were destined to be because we were both protected by demons nobody else believed in, demons we both saw as children and that so many doctors dismissed as delusions and priests tried to exorcise.

Demons that our human guardians dismissed as harmless imaginary friends we’d soon grow out of seeing, only we didn’t, did we Dean? We continued to be haunted well into adulthood. Rowan found you, even here and cradled you to her bosom, became the only mother you ever knew, whereas Aleister abused me like the big brother I never had. Both came between us and I thought if we got rid of them, we’d finally be normal and we’d finally be happy.

How fucking naive of me not to understand that the damage was already done.

Rowan nurtured within you the capacity to forsake all others and to prove your superiority at any cost. Everybody else was expendable, including those you claimed to love most. She turned you into a weapon. A perfect gun, one whose shots I never thought I’d have to deflect because it was under my pillow. I slept soundly knowing that, so soundly in fact that I’ve been sleepwalking through most of our relationship and damn near all of our marriage.

Metamorphosis was a rude awakening.

I shot myself in the foot by believing there were lines you’d never cross with me.

I never thought you’d actively mock my broken psyche.

A state of mind I risked for you, for us, for the long term security of our marriage.

I never thought you’d see the World Championship as more valuable than our sacred trust. The kind of trust I still have the decency to honour by not making it public knowledge who violated you and how many times throughout your life.

Even if my secret shame means nothing to me, I will keep yours to myself.

I don’t need to mudsling to get in your head, Dean. I don’t need to pick at the lowest hanging fruit or the deepest of your many, many scars, because even after losing at Metamorphosis, I remain the better man between us, morally. I don’t have much but I still have my fucking integrity.

That is why I will continue to do things the right way, including doing what I’ve done my whole damned life - survive.

Long enough to become your biggest problem all over again, Sweetness.

Nobody can stop me, you can’t kill me and I can’t quit you.

See you at Night of the Immortals for yet another round, lover…

Warren winked at the camera.