Post by “The Better Man” Warren Kidd on Mar 23, 2024 11:32:26 GMT
Upon returning from Scotland, Warren Harper had little desire to be alone. His own place felt far too empty without Damien or Dean, but he was not ready to invite them back just yet. He still felt too raw, too emotional and not at all equipped to deal with the fallout of the single biggest shitshow of his life and all the consequences that had been brought to life about Uriel Black. Warren had always felt Uriel to be a complete scumbag, but to know he was completely morally bankrupt still hit him differently.
Warren approached his half-sister Dawn’s house, never had he been more thankful that she had chosen to live just across the street, it was a Godsend in times like this. Times when he needed a shoulder to lean on, and through everything Dawn had been there for him even more than Dean had been. There was nobody he felt more personally connected to, and he carried some guilt about being far closer to his sister than he had ever been to Dean or Damien.
He rang her doorbell and took a deep breath, she’d likely heard the news already. The article had become viral news, especially in wrestling circles. He didn’t know how she’d react, and so braced himself for the worst. Dawn opened the door and hugged him tight, not even asking questions. Warren just sort of fell into the hug, a brief moment of quiet weakness.
“God, I just saw. How are you holding up?” Dawn asked.
“Not well, may I come in? Don’t think I can handle being alone right now.”
“Absolutely.” Dawn let go of the hug a little sooner than Warren was prepared for, but he didn’t have the strength to admit that right now. He simply followed her into the living room. He was a natural born follower after all. He collapsed onto Dawn’s couch, and was suddenly very aware of how poorly he fit into this room and into his sister’s life overall. He was the least rock and metal thing here, and decidedly more feminine than Dawn. Too weak and emotional, he cursed himself as he became fixed on a Disturbed poster on the wall, one of many bands Dawn was into.
Dawn joined him on the couch. Her voice cracked through Warren’s bubbling self-loathing just in time. A life preserver, saving him from drowning in the moment.“I still have your room setup if you want to stay a little bit again. No shame in it.”
Warren forced himself back into the present moment, made eye contact with Dawn in spite of how drained he felt emotionally. He was not here to fall apart or shed anymore tears, he told himself. He needed to be better, he was better. He was stronger. He was a real man, here on important family business.
If it’s not too much of an imposition, I might take you up on that,” Warren said. He reached into his inner jacket pocket, and presented Dawn with one of the two copies of the legal letter he carried, detailing his plans for all of the rest of his family inheritance, a decision that felt even more justified in hindsight. “The reason I’m here.”
“What’s this?”
Warren watched Dawn unfold and absorb the letter quickly. He wasn’t surprised when her mood changed, only by how suddenly it happened. It took mere moments for Dawn’s confusion to be replaced by more than a mild annoyance at his decision. A sensation he should be more used to now than he was, given how often and how spectacularly he’d always managed to piss off everybody who had ever claimed to love him. If he had any great gift, that was it.
“Warren, what the hell is this? Why are you giving me your money?”
“I know you don’t need it, but still you’ve looked out for me the most, especially out of all the people I consider family, including Dean. I feel like I owe you so much more, but I couldn’t discount Damien. Up to you what you do with it, I just no longer feel right living off the wealth of a father I hardly knew, especially when he didn’t really accept me.”
“What if we started like a charity with the money? Like to support wrestlers and their families. You know, support those who lose someone in the ring, or need some extra finances after being injured in the ring?” Dawn held Warren’s gaze for a moment. The brief silence was poignant and necessary for how close she was about to hit home with her next few words. “Maybe even help people like our moms who had to raise some bastard’s kids without a cent of child support?”
“If that’s what you want to do, I will support you,” Warren said. “Might even be the perfect excuse to get back in touch with Abby, she does a lot of charity work and likely knows how those things work better than you and me. She did just reach out to us publicly. You saw that, right?”
“Yes, I saw. Just because I don’t wrestle anymore doesn’t mean I don’t watch the show.” Dawn shoulder-bumped him playfully “Okay. I’m not gonna argue with you about giving up the money. Just don’t want you to make rash decisions just because Dad was a dick.”
“Oh trust me, not being rash is why I’m coming to you before I go see Dean. If I acted rashly, he and I would either end up coming to blows or just blowing each other, fifty-fifty really,” Warren teased. “Don’t suppose you’d be interested in coming with me to see him? I feel like I’m going to need a neutral party to keep us in line, or a referee, and there’s nobody in this world I trust more than you to keep me on the straight and narrow.”
Dawn hugged him tightly again, “You know I’m here for whatever you need. You’re my brother, I love you. I’m never gonna let you down, okay?”
“Didn’t think Rick Astley was your taste,” Warren joked as he returned the hug tightly, and held on for a while again. He still needed to feel grounded. “Thank you. I love you too.” It was and always had been easier to express himself openly to his sister than his husband. “If it’s not too soon, I’d like to see Dean as soon as we can. Get it out the way, you know?”
Warren approached his half-sister Dawn’s house, never had he been more thankful that she had chosen to live just across the street, it was a Godsend in times like this. Times when he needed a shoulder to lean on, and through everything Dawn had been there for him even more than Dean had been. There was nobody he felt more personally connected to, and he carried some guilt about being far closer to his sister than he had ever been to Dean or Damien.
He rang her doorbell and took a deep breath, she’d likely heard the news already. The article had become viral news, especially in wrestling circles. He didn’t know how she’d react, and so braced himself for the worst. Dawn opened the door and hugged him tight, not even asking questions. Warren just sort of fell into the hug, a brief moment of quiet weakness.
“God, I just saw. How are you holding up?” Dawn asked.
“Not well, may I come in? Don’t think I can handle being alone right now.”
“Absolutely.” Dawn let go of the hug a little sooner than Warren was prepared for, but he didn’t have the strength to admit that right now. He simply followed her into the living room. He was a natural born follower after all. He collapsed onto Dawn’s couch, and was suddenly very aware of how poorly he fit into this room and into his sister’s life overall. He was the least rock and metal thing here, and decidedly more feminine than Dawn. Too weak and emotional, he cursed himself as he became fixed on a Disturbed poster on the wall, one of many bands Dawn was into.
Dawn joined him on the couch. Her voice cracked through Warren’s bubbling self-loathing just in time. A life preserver, saving him from drowning in the moment.“I still have your room setup if you want to stay a little bit again. No shame in it.”
Warren forced himself back into the present moment, made eye contact with Dawn in spite of how drained he felt emotionally. He was not here to fall apart or shed anymore tears, he told himself. He needed to be better, he was better. He was stronger. He was a real man, here on important family business.
If it’s not too much of an imposition, I might take you up on that,” Warren said. He reached into his inner jacket pocket, and presented Dawn with one of the two copies of the legal letter he carried, detailing his plans for all of the rest of his family inheritance, a decision that felt even more justified in hindsight. “The reason I’m here.”
“What’s this?”
Warren watched Dawn unfold and absorb the letter quickly. He wasn’t surprised when her mood changed, only by how suddenly it happened. It took mere moments for Dawn’s confusion to be replaced by more than a mild annoyance at his decision. A sensation he should be more used to now than he was, given how often and how spectacularly he’d always managed to piss off everybody who had ever claimed to love him. If he had any great gift, that was it.
“Warren, what the hell is this? Why are you giving me your money?”
“I know you don’t need it, but still you’ve looked out for me the most, especially out of all the people I consider family, including Dean. I feel like I owe you so much more, but I couldn’t discount Damien. Up to you what you do with it, I just no longer feel right living off the wealth of a father I hardly knew, especially when he didn’t really accept me.”
“What if we started like a charity with the money? Like to support wrestlers and their families. You know, support those who lose someone in the ring, or need some extra finances after being injured in the ring?” Dawn held Warren’s gaze for a moment. The brief silence was poignant and necessary for how close she was about to hit home with her next few words. “Maybe even help people like our moms who had to raise some bastard’s kids without a cent of child support?”
“If that’s what you want to do, I will support you,” Warren said. “Might even be the perfect excuse to get back in touch with Abby, she does a lot of charity work and likely knows how those things work better than you and me. She did just reach out to us publicly. You saw that, right?”
“Yes, I saw. Just because I don’t wrestle anymore doesn’t mean I don’t watch the show.” Dawn shoulder-bumped him playfully “Okay. I’m not gonna argue with you about giving up the money. Just don’t want you to make rash decisions just because Dad was a dick.”
“Oh trust me, not being rash is why I’m coming to you before I go see Dean. If I acted rashly, he and I would either end up coming to blows or just blowing each other, fifty-fifty really,” Warren teased. “Don’t suppose you’d be interested in coming with me to see him? I feel like I’m going to need a neutral party to keep us in line, or a referee, and there’s nobody in this world I trust more than you to keep me on the straight and narrow.”
Dawn hugged him tightly again, “You know I’m here for whatever you need. You’re my brother, I love you. I’m never gonna let you down, okay?”
“Didn’t think Rick Astley was your taste,” Warren joked as he returned the hug tightly, and held on for a while again. He still needed to feel grounded. “Thank you. I love you too.” It was and always had been easier to express himself openly to his sister than his husband. “If it’s not too soon, I’d like to see Dean as soon as we can. Get it out the way, you know?”
~~~
Warren Harper sat on Dawn Halliwell’s couch, his arms spread across the back, and his legs parted and outstretched. He was beautifully framed against a backdrop of assorted rock and metal posters.
Extraordinarily funny thing, belief.
No other facet of the human condition drives us quite like it. Nothing else holds us hostage quite as well, either. If nothing else, most of us are quite content to be guided by a core set of beliefs, principles and moral values. There is little else we ever defend in this life more vehemently than our beliefs. If we know nothing else about ourselves, we at least know exactly what we choose to believe.
If I asked any of the other men in this year’s Roulette match what they believed about their chances at High Stakes, I’d get twenty-nine separate answers, all reaffirming the belief that this year was their year. Some would even go to great lengths to justify that belief, because the most universal truth of all is that we all want to be just that little bit more special than anybody else around us, don’t we?
Of course we fucking do.
Why wouldn’t we?
What’s so wrong with standing out as special every now and then?
Every year, thirty men are thrown into a ring together and told to fight it out until one man emerges solely as the one who is undoubtedly and indisputably more special than the others. The Roulette is designed to reinforce the belief that one of us is markedly superior and quite different. This match encourages and exploits the vices and the virtues of individualism at its most fundamental level.
Last week half a dozen men were encouraged to put their bodies on the line and risk it all for a prize in this match, an assumed advantage, so now a fifth of this year’s competitors believe that they are better placed than the rest of us going in, and more than that, among themselves they each believe that theirs is the best possible briefcase they could have acquired. They believe they hold the advantage of all advantages and the privilege of all privileges.
And why?
Because that’s what management wants them to believe.
They need you all to believe you’re all winners and have some kind of magic bullet going into the Roulette that the rest of us have just missed out on, because fostering that belief, instilling it in each of you maximises company profits for Verona. He knows that if you knew going in that when it comes right down to it, no briefcase is ever going to supersede the combined forces of luck and gravity that will ultimately decide your fate in this match, none of you would have fought quite as hard as you did to acquire it.
I haven’t been in IWF since the beginning, but I’ve been here long enough to know that most of the time a gift from Verona isn’t really a gift at all, and given that he is currently all about infringing on Rowan MacDonnough’s whole shtick of having a mysterious army of faceless thralls to do his bidding and make all who oppose him suffer dire consequences, I wouldn’t be too hopeful that the big boss man has done any of you any real favours to genuinely give you any sort of tangible advantage over the rest of us in this match.
As recently as a few weeks ago, I would have sat here and told you why I was the special snowflake who was destined not only to win this match but also earn another shot at my undeniably better half, Dean Harper. I would have been elated about booking my place in the grandest Night of the Immortals in company history, but after what I’ve been through in recent weeks, I have to be honest, everything about this business seems more than a little inconsequential.
You all know what I’m talking about, don’t you?
You’ve all heard the news by now I’m sure, hell Caleb Cannin is scheduled to open the go home Sacrifice by addressing his thoughts on Dean and Uriel, and I hope for his sake Cannin watches his fucking mouth and chooses his words carefully, because otherwise the self proclaimed Future of this industry is as good as dead and buried. Promote a match against my husband all you want sunshine, just don’t be a fucking idiot about it.
Don’t get cute, don’t go for the cheap pop, the nuclear heat or the lowest hanging fruit. I promise you all that this is not something any of you want to push me on. The mood I’m in going into High Stakes and this year’s Roulette, I promise you you absolutely do not want to fuck around and find out.
Consider this your only warning.
Don’t test me, not on this.
Not now, not ever, or I guarantee that your chance of possibly headlining this year’s Night of the Immortals won’t be the only thing I fuck you all out of. I’m probably the most experienced Roulette entrant in this company, but I’ve yet to win one. I’m not stupid enough to guarantee that changes this year, but it does demonstrate that I’m at peace with losing and taking as many of you as I can down with me, especially this year.
I don’t have to win a fucking thing.
I just want you all to lose.
Dean Harper is mine.
Well howdy there pardner.