Post by CM Poor on Sept 6, 2017 12:37:47 GMT -5
There's No Revolution Anymore
Had they carried any tangible volume, the weight of a dozen silent stares would have threatened his every step as he stormed through the curtain. His knees already felt ready to buckle beneath the weight already bearing down on him - the WFWF International Championship dangling precariously from his right hand, the WFWF World Heavyweight Championship slung triumphantly over his left shoulder. A lifetime's worth of hardships and horrors had brought him here, to this moment, in this place, in this time, and throughout it all, he'd perfected the menacing glare that met any idle gawker who dared meet his gaze as his eyes darted from one side of the narrow passage to the other, seeking out the quickest, most clear path toward isolation. Under normal circumstances, a moment like this might be met with raucous applause, the triumphant victor finding himself showered beneath a heaping onslaught of praise and congratulations for his efforts, but as David Brennan shouldered his way past the gathering of staff and production who'd congregated just beyond the curtain to take in what they all had plainly and evidently assumed to be his final foray in a WFWF ring, the only sound uttered without incident was the deafening, whitened sound of complete and utter shock. As was becoming all but routine for the newly crowned champion, Brennan had once more emerged victorious from beneath a pile of seemingly insurmountable odds - odds that this time would have signaled the end of his WFWF career altogether - and as the crowd slowly began to fall back into the idle mingling and hushed chatter more commonplace within the production area as he passed beyond the crowd, the knowing looks and whispered words of amazement spelled out what David had already come to accept.
The revolution was dead.
The status quo had triumphed.
No sooner had it begun, the heralded championship reign of Joe Bishop was at an end, and the full weight of the WFWF now rested solely upon the broad shoulders of David Brennan.
"Brennan!"
Lila Sleater's voice rang out above the hushed chatter as David put greater and greater lengths between himself and the gathering of onlookers beginning to disperse, but her tone, as familiar to David as it may have been, resonated much gentler than he'd come to expect from the WFWF's primary figure of authority. In no way could she have possibly expected to mend fences between the two of them, not so soon after David had just moments earlier laid complete waste to her latest scheme geared toward ridding herself of the menace only she had seemingly perceived him to pose, but even still, there was a certain degree of hesitance to her voice that seemed to quell, at least to those most familiar with the normal timbre of her voice in such company, the disdain and contempt she often made such little effort to contain in his presence. Nothing deliberately rang apologetic or remorseful. Just hesitant.
She knew.
It was becoming next to impossible to ignore.
There had, admittedly, always been a case against David's claim to the WFWF Tag Team Championships. While he still declined to recognize, at all, Sleater's authority in having stripped him and his departed partner of the titles, by virtue of basic record keeping, he knew that no amount of verbage relating posession to any fragment of the law stood any real chance at defending his rightful claim to the titles.
He just kept them around to bug her.
Harder - rather, impossible - to dispute, however, was the fact that the grand share of the WFWF's singles competition championships were now each tied up, rightfully earned, by a single, lone competitor. Whatever grudge Sleater would like to maintain against David, the things he's said, the things he's done, or the stain she'd perceived him to have left upon the WFWF, there was simply no way around the fact that he was now, and until someone bold enough to step forth and say otherwise could knock him off his pedestal, the irrefutable face of the WFWF.
She knew it.
He knew it.
And they knew it.
He cast a passing glance along either side of the corridor as he ambled along toward his own quarters at the end of the hall, absorbing the full weight of the names plastered upon the doors that provided what little change in the otherwise sterile, unassuming walls beneath the hollows of the arena.
Trace Demon.
Frank Lynn.
Danny Young.
Each was but a segment of the full depth of the WFWF roster, a seemingly living, breathing animal that rose and fell like the tides. Even as he passed the quarters of each competitor, victorious in his own right that evening, he could only assume the silence that followed was something of a red herring in its role in blanketing what any reasonable, sound mind would assume each of them had his sights set on, the dust having all but settled on the WFWF's tour of the north, leaving in its a wake a clear and open path to whatever might lie ahead. The Supreme Gauntlet tournament had been something of a double edged knife, in that it gave anyone able to get out alive the gift of presumption that they, by virtue of simple inclusion, had somehow punched their own ticket into the championship picture, in spite of the fact that the lone soul among them able to fell the new champion has, presumably, made his own, defeated march of shame in the imprints of David's little victory lap here.
He knew what this title really meant.
It seemed like every new coronation in the WFWF brought with it a wave of old faces, all but back from the dead, chomping at the bits for what they all but assume is their rightful claim at the opportunity to go toe to toe with the newly crowned champion. It was that sort of mentality that David still maintained had long delayed his own claim to championship gold. Even now, he'd half expected to pass an off-branched corridor and have Ace Bennett leaping from beyond the grave, just waiting to rekindle their long since decided rivalry.
That would actually come as less of a shock than who'd actually just come out of the woods to try and mark his territory.
David's history with Michael Kyzer was probably lost on no one still around who'd lived to witness The New Epoch's assault on the WFWF first hand. Even David, mere minutes removed from his first WFWF World Championship victory, had already been able to rationalize the otherwise unanticipated emergence of the man many had painted as the figurehead of the New Epoch. There was a time when David - now the sole champion amid the rest of the WFWF roster - was once seen as a hanger-on, desperately clinging to the in tact success of the men who'd recruited him, looking to fast track his standing among the greats within the company.
It wasn't an unfair assessment.
It's the type of thing even David would be suspect of, had it been the latest undertaking of some newcomer looking to stamp his name bright and early within the record books. That's not to say it was exactly foolproof - whether arrogant or just plain stubborn, David had a hard time reconciling the success of his most recent endeavors with any sort of causation brought about by his time riding alongside Drakz and Michael Kyzer, perhaps short of an untended fire lit by two consecutive losses to the former going into their most recent bout over the WFWF Tag Team Championship. With no one around, at least not in the foreground, able to lay any sort of claim to the alterations that ultimately had driven him to this point, David was sound in his belief that he had, once and for all, squelched any doubt that he had just rightfully claimed his place as a self made man here in the WFWF.
Kyzer, it would seem, was looking to cast one last shadow of doubt upon all of that.
Bully for Michael Kyzer.
In all the years that David's name had fallen alongside Kyzer's in the conversation, the two had never met on opposite sides of the bell. David's bouts, internally and beyond the reign of the New Epoch, had always come against the less reclusive Drakz, and it would seem that, shy of some rekindled desire to take away David's thunder on the part of his closest true ally to have come out of the trio, that feud had been soundly put to rest.
So now Kyzer was back to take his.
David's titles landed in a heap upon his bag as he slammed the door behind him, taking extra precaution to flip the lock from within. The time would come when every last soul beyond that door would come barging in, looking to try and unseat a champion that many had predicted would rise to prominence six years prior. Once upon a time, David would have turned up his nose at the notion, but here and now, he understood entirely.
Who could blame them.
It's said that it's a lonely spot, looking down on the world, but it's got to be downright embarassing, looking up at that which one man has collectively amassed, leaving in his wake nothing, not even scraps, for the rest of the world to try and cling to.
Soon, there'd be no locking them out, not a single one of them.
Whitner.
Schneider.
Young.
Lynn.
Kyzer.
They'd all come knocking, and David?
He slumped down in a chair, shutting his eyes as he tilted his head back, breathing for the first time since he went to put the cover on Bishop.
He'd be waiting.
David Brennan:
Rise of the Third King
Don't get ahead of yourself, Danny.
I know how nice it feels to come out on top.
Kinda made a habit of it.
I also know a thing or two about that feelin' like you ain't bein' given your due recognition. I ain't ever held myself a losin' record, and I still sat around close to a year before even comin' close to bein' afforded a shot at a shot for some sorta championship. That's to say nothin' about the five f*ckin' years that'd go by before I actually got myself one, and even less about the fact that the better part of those five years were spent listenin' to pundits and pud-pullers yankin' my knob every which way about how destined I was to rise to the top of this place and how time simply wasn't on my side because opportunities to climb the ladder would simply be wasted on someone of my capabilities.
Not that they were wrong, but ain't that somethin'?
Now, I ain't feedin' you this line to try and play the role of some grizzled old vet lookin' to scare you into your place in line or none of that. You wanna come and take this place by storm by any means necessary? Be my f*ckin' guest. Done a bit of that in my time, myself, and quite frankly, after the f*ckin' year we just spent listenin' to would-bes tellin' us how wrestlin's s'posed to go, I think we're long past due for somebody other than Phil Schneider to try his hand at reinventin' the wheel. Bishop's vision ain't comin' true now, no matter how hard Frankie wants to try and keep that sh*t on life support, so seein' as I'm all but what there is left for this place to hedge its bets on, I'm good to just open up the floodgates to anyone who wants to take carte blanche at tiltin' toward the top of the food chain if they've got what it takes.
I just don't know if you've got what it takes, Dan.
I see you've got yourself this nice little win over the undercard's most recent self-inflated ego - which, by the way, bravo there, kid - but if that's your lone claim to fame?
And it is.
Then sh*t, son - you've got a bit of f*ckin' nerve callin' me out the way you just did.
Now, look - I don't make the calls around here. I may rule the roost around here, but there's bigger folks'n me you're gonna need to convince if you wanna take a stab at takin' any of the gold around here for yourself - and I'm assumin' you do, since I've got 'em all.
That bein' said...
...if you want a fight, Danny - and based on that sh*t you pulled at Pacific Rim, I'm assumin' you do - then I'll give you a f*ckin' fight. See, I ain't gonna run around lettin' my mouth do all the work for me. Joe Bishop? He was good and happy with just walkin' around, tellin' you which was up. Me?
I'll f*ckin' show you.
You wanna come at me with an armbar? Sh*t, give it a try. You're thinkin' a crowbar might be more your speed? Go ahead. Just make sure you get it right the first time. Otherwise, you're gonna be fixin' to find yourself on the business end of two fists full of reasons why some piddly-sh*t little one over two record don't come within the same stratosphere as you bein' in line for a f*ckin' title shot. I give credit where credit is due, and you put the f*ckin' boots that latest Canadian export in good f*ckin' order, but until you put a pair of shoulders worth a damn to the f*ckin' mat, you're gonna need a whole lot more'n a song in your heart and some dated ass dad-joke about my past or my demeanor to stand a whore's chance in church against the likes of David f*ckin' Brennan.
I get that you like to play things loose. Whatever melts your f*ckin' butter, but if you're gonna be puttin' on your big boy pants and throwin' little waves around the waist like you've earned somethin' for puttin' some f*ckin' rookie to bed on the back of two consecutive losses? Well, sh*t, son, you've just walked into the wrong f*ckin' camera frame. This ain't even been your breakout roll yet, and already you're throwin' your weight around like you just won a f*ckin' Oscar for some bit part in a fast food commercial.
There ain't no failin' upward around here, Danny - not when I'm atop the f*ckin' mountain. You wanna make the climb? Be my guest, but ain't gonna be no one but yourself to blame at the bottom of that long, ragged fall back down to the bottom of the f*ckin' ranks. I ain't gonna presume sit atop the throne and dictate who can and can't play. That sorta sh*t is Bishop grade segregation geared at findin' him a stock of opponents he can parse beneath his own paygrade so as to never find himself shoppin' for the ceilings - not that it did him much good. I ain't where I'm at today because of my efforts against Randel f*ckin' Benjamin back in twenty eleven, because there ain't a soul alive who gives a f*ck who did or didn't beat Randel f*ckin' Benjamin.
I'm where I'm at because the number of folks like you who talk a big game but don't stand a f*ckin' chance when push comes to shove between the ropes dwarfs the number of honest to gods bangers who can lay any sorta claim to a win over my ass ten times over. The rest of the world already knows what happens when circumstantially impressive scrubs barely worth their salt find themselves in spots of prosperity on the back of nocuous buzzwords like "promise" or "potential".
You may have all that sh*t in spades, Danny, but it's gonna take a hell of a lot more'n that to topple the likes of me.
In the Eye of a Hurricane
"Busy?"
It was a rhetorical question. Natalie knew David was about as far from busy as any working man had any business being. This much was clear, namely owing to the fact that he'd hardly budged from the back porch of the seaside Victorian mansion in close to a week, straying from his perch overlooking the Atlantic breakers solely for the purposes of eating and, occasionally, sleeping. Even then, she'd caught him a handful of times dozing off in the wooden rocker from which his hulking stature appeared to hold court over all that lay before it, even as his gaze gave the appearance of not so much a man domineering over his kingdom, but rather, lost deep in the throes of thought and contemplation.
At least, to his credit, he hadn't been evasive. Nat was cautious to not try and walk all over whatever space he may or may not have indirectly been implying the need for, but he was never dismissive when she'd simply come out some days to sit by his side, hold his hand, or just be in his presence for a few moments. He'd been distant, yes, but in a way not at all like his routine penchant for distance. It wasn't deliberate or mean spirited. Often times, David could seem like he was a million miles away, having left behind little more than the shell of an angry, embittered man most took him to be twenty four-seven, but these days, for all his quiet distance, there was an eerie calm to him, and as was often the case when he'd begin exhibiting behavior beyond his standard routines, Nat couldn't help but feel as though something was deeply troubling him, so much so that he'd withdraw within himself as he'd done since returning from Vancouver.
He passed her a dismissive glance, shaking his head as she took the invitation to perch down beside him, preferring a casual spot of comfort along the desk beside his chair. She hadn't come here to lecture him - he'd likely had enough of that from all ends to last him a lifetime. Just to talk. Listen, if he'd reciprocate.
Try and figure out what intangible matters could level such a broad set of shoulders that always seemed to bear the weight of the world.
"It's too early to be this cold."
David's gaze didn't break from the vast expanse of ocean that lay out before them, but his voice, perhaps influenced by his surroundings, both natural and personal, was easy, level, and nowhere near the harsh, violent timbre that he often brought to work with him.
"Take forever to get used to that ocean breeze if you ain't used to it. Real thing - not that sh*t off the harbor. Storms ain't helpin' none, either."
"I don't think I'll ever tire of that view, though."
How could she? It was a one in a million vantage point that most people would spend entire segments of their lives unaware of, and here, she had it all for herself, all in the confines of her own backyard. For years, she and David had talked of living in a place like this - talks fueled by his own experiences. She'd never left the city until he finally came to whisk her away from all of that. It had been a long time coming - a promise he'd laid at her feet close to ten years ago that had only now just begun to come true. He'd certainly taken his sweet time, and even once they were here, he'd taken even longer to let her back in. It was almost a burden of guilt that she'd felt, feeling so content for the first time since he'd gone away all those years ago while he sat here, seemingly resigned within himself, like he still hadn't quite found what he'd been looking for all of these years.
"Be a hard nut to crack, that's for damn sure. Still, the cold's gettin' to you, there's places we can go if you need."
And here he was once more, turning the tables on her before she could even plant her feet, laying out the entire world before her. He'd always been like that...well, before, anyway. He'd been slow to allow her beyond the walls he'd put up during his time away, but as the distance between them subsided, he seemed more himself a bit more each and every day.
At least, in that respect.
"No. The warmth is nice, but I think I'd like to see this up close, for once."
"Never look at blizzards the same way again. Just make sure you ain't goin' cold unneeded. Work ain't gonna let up none, so..."
"Is that what's been bothering you?"
It seemed too obvious to be the key to all of this. Even for those fleeting months before he'd fallen completely off the radar, David never spoke about his work all that much - not this new line, anyway. It had, inarguably, been his most fruitful pursuit, to date, but unlike his past endeavors in the shops or down the docks, she had no clue into whether or not his sense of self was taking the sort of blow the minutiae of those earlier grabs at normalcy had dealt to his own self worth. It wouldn't seem the case - as far as she could tell, he'd spent the past year solidifying himself as a peerless beacon among the savages that fought against him. As best as she knew, the year he'd had, in fact, had been all but unprecedented. Still, David had never been one to try and steal the spotlight - he'd never much cared to be the center of attention. Much more content out in the crowd than up on stage.
Was the weight of the crown killing him more quickly than the depths of disparity?
"Botherin' me? Nah. I'm fine."
"He says, unconvincingly. David, if I hadn't roused you the other night, you'd have died of a chill out here in your sleep."
"Sh*t, I ain't lookin' to worry you. I just...well, I just been thinkin' is all. Lot of it."
"Just thinking? For the better part of a week?"
"Lots to think on, I guess. Sorry if I spooked you."
"It just seemed, well....off, that's all."
"Off, how?"
"Well, for starters? We used to talk."
Almost exclusively. Really, there'd been a time when that's all they'd had - the comfort of one another's voice. She'd figured finally crawling out of the pits of the city and all it had wrought would come with some room for adjustment, but she'd always assumed that foundation would always be there. To his credit, he'd been more available than he'd been in years, but recently, especially that week, something had been considerably different upstairs, and it pained her deeply not knowing what was making him tick.
"Guess I've been a little quiet, huh?"
"It's usually a chore just to get you to shut up."
"Ha. S'pose so, huh? Well, look, let's jump on that - what's on your mind."
He was deflecting again.
"I was hoping to ask you the same."
"F*ck. You got me."
She knew it.
"Well?"
David grimaced, making all sorts of strange faces of contorted thought as he wrestled in his head with, what she presumed to be, anyway, where to start.
This might have been about to get a lot heavier than anticipated.
"You remember the cruise port?"
How could she not?
David had spent about six months working the docks at east Boston's cruise port - a sullen, horrid looking place that could only have been so barren by design as to make the destinations to which the daily ships set off each day seem all the more appealing by comparison. It had actually been his last ill fated endeavor before he happened across some suit in a gym looking to recruit a new batch of professional wrestlers to engage in arena fights for the purposes of paid entertainment. In many ways, it was sort of the crown jewel of how hard things had gotten for them - it was demeaning, physical work that paid dreadfully little and kept him away from home for what seemed like days at a time. Many nights, Nat had to take it upon herself to train on over with a pack of sandwiches for a meager thirty minutes, all in the interest of stealing away a bit of face time with him.
She'd hated every minute of it, and even then, her contempt for the very idea of it probably only ran about a fraction as deep as David's had.
"I try not to."
"Place was the worst, huh? Y'know, every time I find myself thinkin' on all this sh*t? Where we started, where we are, all that?That place is like the standard f*ckin' bearer for how much worse it could be."
Natalie was stunned.
That alone was more introspection than she'd heard come out of David's mouth since before he'd gone away.
Her unwillingness to reflect upon the docks aside, if he'd been looking to rope her in, he had her. She couldn't help but find herself dying to hear what it was he actually had to say.
"All of it, really - the docks, the runnin' jobs, the machine shops. Sh*t I was doin' 'cause that's what life'd determined I was meant to do, y'know? I ain't got the heart to what Jack did, and I ain't ever had the...well, whatever to get a normal job, so that was just the breaks, y'know?"
"The jobs were fine, David, they just never were going to pay off in the long run."
"The jobs sucked, Nat. That's all they were, was jobs. Sure, there's dignity enough in goin' in every day and fakin' it 'til you make it, but you and I both know that sh*t was gonna put me in an early grave."
"Going big didn't exactly help, did it?"
"I made some bad calls, yeah."
"The way you told it, you nearly fell dead in a ditch somewhere out in the midwest."
"Like I said - I made some bad calls. Wasn't exactly surrounded by much positive influence either. That sorta sh*t? That's the kinda thing that got my ass booted out the BFD. Ain't ever looked back on it either."
"You could have gone back, David. The union would've made your case. I mean, even McDonough had asked you back at one point."
"Told you then, tell you now - that's a damn sorta shame you ain't ever livin' down. C'mon, Nat - I ain't ever gonna be able to slip on those boots again, be half the man I was. Some sh*t there just ain't no livin' down."
"And this is what you've been sitting out in the cold all night contemplating?"
"I mean, sorta, yeah. Don't you think it's a little f*ckin' weird, me bein' all but invited back into the job I'd wanted since I was too young to figure Jack did much else besides run a couple pool halls for a livin' and givin' 'em the firm and finite no?"
"I've just said as much, yes."
"Alright, yeah. And the docks - imagine O'Brien tellin' me I tag one last piece of luggage wrong, I'm out on my ass? Sh*t, you'd have come by yourself and helped me mistag as many bags as I could muster before boardin' time."
"David, everybody hates their job at some point or another - even the ones they really enjoy."
"I don't."
Natalie was floored.
So that's what this was all about.
She looked up at him, looking for some sort of tell - some sign that he was pulling her chain, that this was just another piece of some big, long, overblown, elaborate point he was trying to make, but there was nothing.
He was relaxed.
Calm.
He was at ease, but through it all, he was deadly serious.
"So...you've been out here all this time because..."
"I wasn't bankin' on any of this, Nat."
"You don't have to apologize, I just...I don't follow."
"Well, look, I mean - you've seen the sh*t I've had to go through, yeah?"
"If you mean Schneider..."
"Schneider, yeah, I mean, all of it. The career matches, the sh*t with Vieira, drug lords comin' back from the dead, field sobriety tests..."
"That....wasn't that bad of an idea."
"Fair shakes. Still - who the f*ck puts up with this sorta sh*t and keeps comin' on back for more, huh? I mean, sh*t, Nat, between you, Vieira, Sleater...while damn world's been offerin' me ways outta this thing, and here I go, just keep on comin' back for whatever's next."
"I mean...the pay is good..."
"Yeah, but c'mon - we ain't hurtin' for money, Nat. Not even a little bit. I could hand my prizes in tomorrow and call it a day and still have enough to see us off 'til we're old and grey, but when that was all but the way the story was about to end? I couldn't f*ckin' sleep, Nat. I couldn't eat. All's I could do was hedge every last bit of my bein' on walkin' outta there with the chance to fight another day."
This was not at all what she'd expected. She'd been banking on just about anything else - the temptation to drink. Familial guilt. Lamenting the win so that he could walk away from it all.
Instead, in an absolute affront to just about everything Natalie thought she'd ever known about David Brennan, somewhere along the way, through all the trials and tribulations it had brought his way, through all the hardships and horrors, he'd found his calling, and it terrified him.
It was a fear she wasn't afraid to admit that she shared.
She'd begged him to hang it all up heading into the match with Phillip Schneider. No man of sound body and mind would have any sort of difficulty making a case against the likelihood of a downside outcome opposite a match against the WFWF's resident barbarian, and even then, he just slid right along, coming out not all that worse for wear on the other side.
Where others had tumbled down the slope of the ravine, David warded off needles of ungodly origin and had landed atop the peak of the mountain.
No wonder he couldn't turn away.
"I don't like it..."
"I know, babe. I just, I dunno, I..."
"Let me finish. I don't like it. I hate seeing you off on these trips, not knowing what shape you'll be coming back to me in. Sure, these little training exercises or whatever against the new guys, that's one thing, but David, I'm not dumb. I know Kyzer's only back because of where you've landed in all of this. I know he's going to try and destroy you."
"He can try..."
"David."
"Sorry, go on."
"I spent five long years, not knowing some days whether you were alive or dead. I've got you here now, and there's nothing I want more than to never have to question that again...but I know where this comes from. I know the road you've traveled to get here, and I know what you've overcome to find it. I'm not going to budge from your side on this one..."
"Sh*t, Nat..."
"...just promise me you're here to stay."
He didn't need to.
Throughout the years - the bad years - David's face wore heavier than any man of his age and size had any right wearing. He was tired. Beaten. Broken. There were days where, had he been flying solo, he'd have likely been just as content to take a nosedive off the side of the Tobin and call it a day, but through it all, there was a spark in his eyes every time he'd come home that told Natalie everything she'd ever needed to know.
As long as they stood side by side, no storm could break their resolve. He'd fight - day in and day out - so that he'd always have the means to come home and continue their story.
The words, at that moment, would have been little more than a formality. David looked up at her, and in that moment, for the first time since before he'd even set off on the road, promising her that he'd call it quits just as soon as he'd made enough money, she trusted him entirely.
She just knew.
"C'mon. "Let's get inside. It's cold as balls out here."
Had they carried any tangible volume, the weight of a dozen silent stares would have threatened his every step as he stormed through the curtain. His knees already felt ready to buckle beneath the weight already bearing down on him - the WFWF International Championship dangling precariously from his right hand, the WFWF World Heavyweight Championship slung triumphantly over his left shoulder. A lifetime's worth of hardships and horrors had brought him here, to this moment, in this place, in this time, and throughout it all, he'd perfected the menacing glare that met any idle gawker who dared meet his gaze as his eyes darted from one side of the narrow passage to the other, seeking out the quickest, most clear path toward isolation. Under normal circumstances, a moment like this might be met with raucous applause, the triumphant victor finding himself showered beneath a heaping onslaught of praise and congratulations for his efforts, but as David Brennan shouldered his way past the gathering of staff and production who'd congregated just beyond the curtain to take in what they all had plainly and evidently assumed to be his final foray in a WFWF ring, the only sound uttered without incident was the deafening, whitened sound of complete and utter shock. As was becoming all but routine for the newly crowned champion, Brennan had once more emerged victorious from beneath a pile of seemingly insurmountable odds - odds that this time would have signaled the end of his WFWF career altogether - and as the crowd slowly began to fall back into the idle mingling and hushed chatter more commonplace within the production area as he passed beyond the crowd, the knowing looks and whispered words of amazement spelled out what David had already come to accept.
The revolution was dead.
The status quo had triumphed.
No sooner had it begun, the heralded championship reign of Joe Bishop was at an end, and the full weight of the WFWF now rested solely upon the broad shoulders of David Brennan.
"Brennan!"
Lila Sleater's voice rang out above the hushed chatter as David put greater and greater lengths between himself and the gathering of onlookers beginning to disperse, but her tone, as familiar to David as it may have been, resonated much gentler than he'd come to expect from the WFWF's primary figure of authority. In no way could she have possibly expected to mend fences between the two of them, not so soon after David had just moments earlier laid complete waste to her latest scheme geared toward ridding herself of the menace only she had seemingly perceived him to pose, but even still, there was a certain degree of hesitance to her voice that seemed to quell, at least to those most familiar with the normal timbre of her voice in such company, the disdain and contempt she often made such little effort to contain in his presence. Nothing deliberately rang apologetic or remorseful. Just hesitant.
She knew.
It was becoming next to impossible to ignore.
There had, admittedly, always been a case against David's claim to the WFWF Tag Team Championships. While he still declined to recognize, at all, Sleater's authority in having stripped him and his departed partner of the titles, by virtue of basic record keeping, he knew that no amount of verbage relating posession to any fragment of the law stood any real chance at defending his rightful claim to the titles.
He just kept them around to bug her.
Harder - rather, impossible - to dispute, however, was the fact that the grand share of the WFWF's singles competition championships were now each tied up, rightfully earned, by a single, lone competitor. Whatever grudge Sleater would like to maintain against David, the things he's said, the things he's done, or the stain she'd perceived him to have left upon the WFWF, there was simply no way around the fact that he was now, and until someone bold enough to step forth and say otherwise could knock him off his pedestal, the irrefutable face of the WFWF.
She knew it.
He knew it.
And they knew it.
He cast a passing glance along either side of the corridor as he ambled along toward his own quarters at the end of the hall, absorbing the full weight of the names plastered upon the doors that provided what little change in the otherwise sterile, unassuming walls beneath the hollows of the arena.
Trace Demon.
Frank Lynn.
Danny Young.
Each was but a segment of the full depth of the WFWF roster, a seemingly living, breathing animal that rose and fell like the tides. Even as he passed the quarters of each competitor, victorious in his own right that evening, he could only assume the silence that followed was something of a red herring in its role in blanketing what any reasonable, sound mind would assume each of them had his sights set on, the dust having all but settled on the WFWF's tour of the north, leaving in its a wake a clear and open path to whatever might lie ahead. The Supreme Gauntlet tournament had been something of a double edged knife, in that it gave anyone able to get out alive the gift of presumption that they, by virtue of simple inclusion, had somehow punched their own ticket into the championship picture, in spite of the fact that the lone soul among them able to fell the new champion has, presumably, made his own, defeated march of shame in the imprints of David's little victory lap here.
He knew what this title really meant.
It seemed like every new coronation in the WFWF brought with it a wave of old faces, all but back from the dead, chomping at the bits for what they all but assume is their rightful claim at the opportunity to go toe to toe with the newly crowned champion. It was that sort of mentality that David still maintained had long delayed his own claim to championship gold. Even now, he'd half expected to pass an off-branched corridor and have Ace Bennett leaping from beyond the grave, just waiting to rekindle their long since decided rivalry.
That would actually come as less of a shock than who'd actually just come out of the woods to try and mark his territory.
David's history with Michael Kyzer was probably lost on no one still around who'd lived to witness The New Epoch's assault on the WFWF first hand. Even David, mere minutes removed from his first WFWF World Championship victory, had already been able to rationalize the otherwise unanticipated emergence of the man many had painted as the figurehead of the New Epoch. There was a time when David - now the sole champion amid the rest of the WFWF roster - was once seen as a hanger-on, desperately clinging to the in tact success of the men who'd recruited him, looking to fast track his standing among the greats within the company.
It wasn't an unfair assessment.
It's the type of thing even David would be suspect of, had it been the latest undertaking of some newcomer looking to stamp his name bright and early within the record books. That's not to say it was exactly foolproof - whether arrogant or just plain stubborn, David had a hard time reconciling the success of his most recent endeavors with any sort of causation brought about by his time riding alongside Drakz and Michael Kyzer, perhaps short of an untended fire lit by two consecutive losses to the former going into their most recent bout over the WFWF Tag Team Championship. With no one around, at least not in the foreground, able to lay any sort of claim to the alterations that ultimately had driven him to this point, David was sound in his belief that he had, once and for all, squelched any doubt that he had just rightfully claimed his place as a self made man here in the WFWF.
Kyzer, it would seem, was looking to cast one last shadow of doubt upon all of that.
Bully for Michael Kyzer.
In all the years that David's name had fallen alongside Kyzer's in the conversation, the two had never met on opposite sides of the bell. David's bouts, internally and beyond the reign of the New Epoch, had always come against the less reclusive Drakz, and it would seem that, shy of some rekindled desire to take away David's thunder on the part of his closest true ally to have come out of the trio, that feud had been soundly put to rest.
So now Kyzer was back to take his.
David's titles landed in a heap upon his bag as he slammed the door behind him, taking extra precaution to flip the lock from within. The time would come when every last soul beyond that door would come barging in, looking to try and unseat a champion that many had predicted would rise to prominence six years prior. Once upon a time, David would have turned up his nose at the notion, but here and now, he understood entirely.
Who could blame them.
It's said that it's a lonely spot, looking down on the world, but it's got to be downright embarassing, looking up at that which one man has collectively amassed, leaving in his wake nothing, not even scraps, for the rest of the world to try and cling to.
Soon, there'd be no locking them out, not a single one of them.
Whitner.
Schneider.
Young.
Lynn.
Kyzer.
They'd all come knocking, and David?
He slumped down in a chair, shutting his eyes as he tilted his head back, breathing for the first time since he went to put the cover on Bishop.
He'd be waiting.
David Brennan:
Rise of the Third King
Don't get ahead of yourself, Danny.
I know how nice it feels to come out on top.
Kinda made a habit of it.
I also know a thing or two about that feelin' like you ain't bein' given your due recognition. I ain't ever held myself a losin' record, and I still sat around close to a year before even comin' close to bein' afforded a shot at a shot for some sorta championship. That's to say nothin' about the five f*ckin' years that'd go by before I actually got myself one, and even less about the fact that the better part of those five years were spent listenin' to pundits and pud-pullers yankin' my knob every which way about how destined I was to rise to the top of this place and how time simply wasn't on my side because opportunities to climb the ladder would simply be wasted on someone of my capabilities.
Not that they were wrong, but ain't that somethin'?
Now, I ain't feedin' you this line to try and play the role of some grizzled old vet lookin' to scare you into your place in line or none of that. You wanna come and take this place by storm by any means necessary? Be my f*ckin' guest. Done a bit of that in my time, myself, and quite frankly, after the f*ckin' year we just spent listenin' to would-bes tellin' us how wrestlin's s'posed to go, I think we're long past due for somebody other than Phil Schneider to try his hand at reinventin' the wheel. Bishop's vision ain't comin' true now, no matter how hard Frankie wants to try and keep that sh*t on life support, so seein' as I'm all but what there is left for this place to hedge its bets on, I'm good to just open up the floodgates to anyone who wants to take carte blanche at tiltin' toward the top of the food chain if they've got what it takes.
I just don't know if you've got what it takes, Dan.
I see you've got yourself this nice little win over the undercard's most recent self-inflated ego - which, by the way, bravo there, kid - but if that's your lone claim to fame?
And it is.
Then sh*t, son - you've got a bit of f*ckin' nerve callin' me out the way you just did.
Now, look - I don't make the calls around here. I may rule the roost around here, but there's bigger folks'n me you're gonna need to convince if you wanna take a stab at takin' any of the gold around here for yourself - and I'm assumin' you do, since I've got 'em all.
That bein' said...
...if you want a fight, Danny - and based on that sh*t you pulled at Pacific Rim, I'm assumin' you do - then I'll give you a f*ckin' fight. See, I ain't gonna run around lettin' my mouth do all the work for me. Joe Bishop? He was good and happy with just walkin' around, tellin' you which was up. Me?
I'll f*ckin' show you.
You wanna come at me with an armbar? Sh*t, give it a try. You're thinkin' a crowbar might be more your speed? Go ahead. Just make sure you get it right the first time. Otherwise, you're gonna be fixin' to find yourself on the business end of two fists full of reasons why some piddly-sh*t little one over two record don't come within the same stratosphere as you bein' in line for a f*ckin' title shot. I give credit where credit is due, and you put the f*ckin' boots that latest Canadian export in good f*ckin' order, but until you put a pair of shoulders worth a damn to the f*ckin' mat, you're gonna need a whole lot more'n a song in your heart and some dated ass dad-joke about my past or my demeanor to stand a whore's chance in church against the likes of David f*ckin' Brennan.
I get that you like to play things loose. Whatever melts your f*ckin' butter, but if you're gonna be puttin' on your big boy pants and throwin' little waves around the waist like you've earned somethin' for puttin' some f*ckin' rookie to bed on the back of two consecutive losses? Well, sh*t, son, you've just walked into the wrong f*ckin' camera frame. This ain't even been your breakout roll yet, and already you're throwin' your weight around like you just won a f*ckin' Oscar for some bit part in a fast food commercial.
There ain't no failin' upward around here, Danny - not when I'm atop the f*ckin' mountain. You wanna make the climb? Be my guest, but ain't gonna be no one but yourself to blame at the bottom of that long, ragged fall back down to the bottom of the f*ckin' ranks. I ain't gonna presume sit atop the throne and dictate who can and can't play. That sorta sh*t is Bishop grade segregation geared at findin' him a stock of opponents he can parse beneath his own paygrade so as to never find himself shoppin' for the ceilings - not that it did him much good. I ain't where I'm at today because of my efforts against Randel f*ckin' Benjamin back in twenty eleven, because there ain't a soul alive who gives a f*ck who did or didn't beat Randel f*ckin' Benjamin.
I'm where I'm at because the number of folks like you who talk a big game but don't stand a f*ckin' chance when push comes to shove between the ropes dwarfs the number of honest to gods bangers who can lay any sorta claim to a win over my ass ten times over. The rest of the world already knows what happens when circumstantially impressive scrubs barely worth their salt find themselves in spots of prosperity on the back of nocuous buzzwords like "promise" or "potential".
You may have all that sh*t in spades, Danny, but it's gonna take a hell of a lot more'n that to topple the likes of me.
In the Eye of a Hurricane
"Busy?"
It was a rhetorical question. Natalie knew David was about as far from busy as any working man had any business being. This much was clear, namely owing to the fact that he'd hardly budged from the back porch of the seaside Victorian mansion in close to a week, straying from his perch overlooking the Atlantic breakers solely for the purposes of eating and, occasionally, sleeping. Even then, she'd caught him a handful of times dozing off in the wooden rocker from which his hulking stature appeared to hold court over all that lay before it, even as his gaze gave the appearance of not so much a man domineering over his kingdom, but rather, lost deep in the throes of thought and contemplation.
At least, to his credit, he hadn't been evasive. Nat was cautious to not try and walk all over whatever space he may or may not have indirectly been implying the need for, but he was never dismissive when she'd simply come out some days to sit by his side, hold his hand, or just be in his presence for a few moments. He'd been distant, yes, but in a way not at all like his routine penchant for distance. It wasn't deliberate or mean spirited. Often times, David could seem like he was a million miles away, having left behind little more than the shell of an angry, embittered man most took him to be twenty four-seven, but these days, for all his quiet distance, there was an eerie calm to him, and as was often the case when he'd begin exhibiting behavior beyond his standard routines, Nat couldn't help but feel as though something was deeply troubling him, so much so that he'd withdraw within himself as he'd done since returning from Vancouver.
He passed her a dismissive glance, shaking his head as she took the invitation to perch down beside him, preferring a casual spot of comfort along the desk beside his chair. She hadn't come here to lecture him - he'd likely had enough of that from all ends to last him a lifetime. Just to talk. Listen, if he'd reciprocate.
Try and figure out what intangible matters could level such a broad set of shoulders that always seemed to bear the weight of the world.
"It's too early to be this cold."
David's gaze didn't break from the vast expanse of ocean that lay out before them, but his voice, perhaps influenced by his surroundings, both natural and personal, was easy, level, and nowhere near the harsh, violent timbre that he often brought to work with him.
"Take forever to get used to that ocean breeze if you ain't used to it. Real thing - not that sh*t off the harbor. Storms ain't helpin' none, either."
"I don't think I'll ever tire of that view, though."
How could she? It was a one in a million vantage point that most people would spend entire segments of their lives unaware of, and here, she had it all for herself, all in the confines of her own backyard. For years, she and David had talked of living in a place like this - talks fueled by his own experiences. She'd never left the city until he finally came to whisk her away from all of that. It had been a long time coming - a promise he'd laid at her feet close to ten years ago that had only now just begun to come true. He'd certainly taken his sweet time, and even once they were here, he'd taken even longer to let her back in. It was almost a burden of guilt that she'd felt, feeling so content for the first time since he'd gone away all those years ago while he sat here, seemingly resigned within himself, like he still hadn't quite found what he'd been looking for all of these years.
"Be a hard nut to crack, that's for damn sure. Still, the cold's gettin' to you, there's places we can go if you need."
And here he was once more, turning the tables on her before she could even plant her feet, laying out the entire world before her. He'd always been like that...well, before, anyway. He'd been slow to allow her beyond the walls he'd put up during his time away, but as the distance between them subsided, he seemed more himself a bit more each and every day.
At least, in that respect.
"No. The warmth is nice, but I think I'd like to see this up close, for once."
"Never look at blizzards the same way again. Just make sure you ain't goin' cold unneeded. Work ain't gonna let up none, so..."
"Is that what's been bothering you?"
It seemed too obvious to be the key to all of this. Even for those fleeting months before he'd fallen completely off the radar, David never spoke about his work all that much - not this new line, anyway. It had, inarguably, been his most fruitful pursuit, to date, but unlike his past endeavors in the shops or down the docks, she had no clue into whether or not his sense of self was taking the sort of blow the minutiae of those earlier grabs at normalcy had dealt to his own self worth. It wouldn't seem the case - as far as she could tell, he'd spent the past year solidifying himself as a peerless beacon among the savages that fought against him. As best as she knew, the year he'd had, in fact, had been all but unprecedented. Still, David had never been one to try and steal the spotlight - he'd never much cared to be the center of attention. Much more content out in the crowd than up on stage.
Was the weight of the crown killing him more quickly than the depths of disparity?
"Botherin' me? Nah. I'm fine."
"He says, unconvincingly. David, if I hadn't roused you the other night, you'd have died of a chill out here in your sleep."
"Sh*t, I ain't lookin' to worry you. I just...well, I just been thinkin' is all. Lot of it."
"Just thinking? For the better part of a week?"
"Lots to think on, I guess. Sorry if I spooked you."
"It just seemed, well....off, that's all."
"Off, how?"
"Well, for starters? We used to talk."
Almost exclusively. Really, there'd been a time when that's all they'd had - the comfort of one another's voice. She'd figured finally crawling out of the pits of the city and all it had wrought would come with some room for adjustment, but she'd always assumed that foundation would always be there. To his credit, he'd been more available than he'd been in years, but recently, especially that week, something had been considerably different upstairs, and it pained her deeply not knowing what was making him tick.
"Guess I've been a little quiet, huh?"
"It's usually a chore just to get you to shut up."
"Ha. S'pose so, huh? Well, look, let's jump on that - what's on your mind."
He was deflecting again.
"I was hoping to ask you the same."
"F*ck. You got me."
She knew it.
"Well?"
David grimaced, making all sorts of strange faces of contorted thought as he wrestled in his head with, what she presumed to be, anyway, where to start.
This might have been about to get a lot heavier than anticipated.
"You remember the cruise port?"
How could she not?
David had spent about six months working the docks at east Boston's cruise port - a sullen, horrid looking place that could only have been so barren by design as to make the destinations to which the daily ships set off each day seem all the more appealing by comparison. It had actually been his last ill fated endeavor before he happened across some suit in a gym looking to recruit a new batch of professional wrestlers to engage in arena fights for the purposes of paid entertainment. In many ways, it was sort of the crown jewel of how hard things had gotten for them - it was demeaning, physical work that paid dreadfully little and kept him away from home for what seemed like days at a time. Many nights, Nat had to take it upon herself to train on over with a pack of sandwiches for a meager thirty minutes, all in the interest of stealing away a bit of face time with him.
She'd hated every minute of it, and even then, her contempt for the very idea of it probably only ran about a fraction as deep as David's had.
"I try not to."
"Place was the worst, huh? Y'know, every time I find myself thinkin' on all this sh*t? Where we started, where we are, all that?That place is like the standard f*ckin' bearer for how much worse it could be."
Natalie was stunned.
That alone was more introspection than she'd heard come out of David's mouth since before he'd gone away.
Her unwillingness to reflect upon the docks aside, if he'd been looking to rope her in, he had her. She couldn't help but find herself dying to hear what it was he actually had to say.
"All of it, really - the docks, the runnin' jobs, the machine shops. Sh*t I was doin' 'cause that's what life'd determined I was meant to do, y'know? I ain't got the heart to what Jack did, and I ain't ever had the...well, whatever to get a normal job, so that was just the breaks, y'know?"
"The jobs were fine, David, they just never were going to pay off in the long run."
"The jobs sucked, Nat. That's all they were, was jobs. Sure, there's dignity enough in goin' in every day and fakin' it 'til you make it, but you and I both know that sh*t was gonna put me in an early grave."
"Going big didn't exactly help, did it?"
"I made some bad calls, yeah."
"The way you told it, you nearly fell dead in a ditch somewhere out in the midwest."
"Like I said - I made some bad calls. Wasn't exactly surrounded by much positive influence either. That sorta sh*t? That's the kinda thing that got my ass booted out the BFD. Ain't ever looked back on it either."
"You could have gone back, David. The union would've made your case. I mean, even McDonough had asked you back at one point."
"Told you then, tell you now - that's a damn sorta shame you ain't ever livin' down. C'mon, Nat - I ain't ever gonna be able to slip on those boots again, be half the man I was. Some sh*t there just ain't no livin' down."
"And this is what you've been sitting out in the cold all night contemplating?"
"I mean, sorta, yeah. Don't you think it's a little f*ckin' weird, me bein' all but invited back into the job I'd wanted since I was too young to figure Jack did much else besides run a couple pool halls for a livin' and givin' 'em the firm and finite no?"
"I've just said as much, yes."
"Alright, yeah. And the docks - imagine O'Brien tellin' me I tag one last piece of luggage wrong, I'm out on my ass? Sh*t, you'd have come by yourself and helped me mistag as many bags as I could muster before boardin' time."
"David, everybody hates their job at some point or another - even the ones they really enjoy."
"I don't."
Natalie was floored.
So that's what this was all about.
She looked up at him, looking for some sort of tell - some sign that he was pulling her chain, that this was just another piece of some big, long, overblown, elaborate point he was trying to make, but there was nothing.
He was relaxed.
Calm.
He was at ease, but through it all, he was deadly serious.
"So...you've been out here all this time because..."
"I wasn't bankin' on any of this, Nat."
"You don't have to apologize, I just...I don't follow."
"Well, look, I mean - you've seen the sh*t I've had to go through, yeah?"
"If you mean Schneider..."
"Schneider, yeah, I mean, all of it. The career matches, the sh*t with Vieira, drug lords comin' back from the dead, field sobriety tests..."
"That....wasn't that bad of an idea."
"Fair shakes. Still - who the f*ck puts up with this sorta sh*t and keeps comin' on back for more, huh? I mean, sh*t, Nat, between you, Vieira, Sleater...while damn world's been offerin' me ways outta this thing, and here I go, just keep on comin' back for whatever's next."
"I mean...the pay is good..."
"Yeah, but c'mon - we ain't hurtin' for money, Nat. Not even a little bit. I could hand my prizes in tomorrow and call it a day and still have enough to see us off 'til we're old and grey, but when that was all but the way the story was about to end? I couldn't f*ckin' sleep, Nat. I couldn't eat. All's I could do was hedge every last bit of my bein' on walkin' outta there with the chance to fight another day."
This was not at all what she'd expected. She'd been banking on just about anything else - the temptation to drink. Familial guilt. Lamenting the win so that he could walk away from it all.
Instead, in an absolute affront to just about everything Natalie thought she'd ever known about David Brennan, somewhere along the way, through all the trials and tribulations it had brought his way, through all the hardships and horrors, he'd found his calling, and it terrified him.
It was a fear she wasn't afraid to admit that she shared.
She'd begged him to hang it all up heading into the match with Phillip Schneider. No man of sound body and mind would have any sort of difficulty making a case against the likelihood of a downside outcome opposite a match against the WFWF's resident barbarian, and even then, he just slid right along, coming out not all that worse for wear on the other side.
Where others had tumbled down the slope of the ravine, David warded off needles of ungodly origin and had landed atop the peak of the mountain.
No wonder he couldn't turn away.
"I don't like it..."
"I know, babe. I just, I dunno, I..."
"Let me finish. I don't like it. I hate seeing you off on these trips, not knowing what shape you'll be coming back to me in. Sure, these little training exercises or whatever against the new guys, that's one thing, but David, I'm not dumb. I know Kyzer's only back because of where you've landed in all of this. I know he's going to try and destroy you."
"He can try..."
"David."
"Sorry, go on."
"I spent five long years, not knowing some days whether you were alive or dead. I've got you here now, and there's nothing I want more than to never have to question that again...but I know where this comes from. I know the road you've traveled to get here, and I know what you've overcome to find it. I'm not going to budge from your side on this one..."
"Sh*t, Nat..."
"...just promise me you're here to stay."
He didn't need to.
Throughout the years - the bad years - David's face wore heavier than any man of his age and size had any right wearing. He was tired. Beaten. Broken. There were days where, had he been flying solo, he'd have likely been just as content to take a nosedive off the side of the Tobin and call it a day, but through it all, there was a spark in his eyes every time he'd come home that told Natalie everything she'd ever needed to know.
As long as they stood side by side, no storm could break their resolve. He'd fight - day in and day out - so that he'd always have the means to come home and continue their story.
The words, at that moment, would have been little more than a formality. David looked up at her, and in that moment, for the first time since before he'd even set off on the road, promising her that he'd call it quits just as soon as he'd made enough money, she trusted him entirely.
She just knew.
"C'mon. "Let's get inside. It's cold as balls out here."
I dont know good luck 
