The Anatomy Lesson. (3,999 words)
Dec 1, 2021 19:12:46 GMT -5
Torture, CJ Phoenix, and 4 more like this
Post by Downfall on Dec 1, 2021 19:12:46 GMT -5
As I still my mind and ready myself for this, preparing to tap into my gunslinger soul, take aim with the truest headshot I can muster... I haveta reflect on the simplest manner of greeting I can to my opposition.
I know Regan wouldn't be here, if she wasn't deserving.
I know damn-well she wouldn't have toppled Lissie Hope, Corey Black, and Teo Blaze if she didn't have skill.
And I've researched her more thoroughly than I did anyone, Bacchus included, to gain insight into who Regan is, and see the lack of care with which she ascribes her sociopathy, the level of disdain for human life she trades under.
From the Hindu faith, which has been co-opted by every Becky white girl (that, ironically, looks just like Regan,) who takes their weekly hot yoga class in a strip mall next to a Hallmark... there's a sentiment, that translates roughly as "My spirit rises up to recognize yours."
So, with that said, namaste, Regan.
The killer in me recognizes the killer in you.
If there's one person who's made it through this tournament that I don't have to instantly question their heart, their will, their hunger for this, it's you. I've seen the level of avarice to which you've taken to this sport.
I've seen the sneering, preening arrogance; the coldness with which you swirl your cocktails in your stemware, as you pick apart your opposition on Cruiserclash.
That aristocratic gluttony that is reserved solely for a spoiled little girl whose daddy afforded her anything she ever asked for, so she wanted more, all the time.
Everything you've ever wanted, you went out and got, by hook or by crook.
Backed by your family name ...red in your ledger little more than an afterthought you've always lived to be comfortable with.
You don't grow up at the age you're supposed to be playing Barbies washing pig's blood off your shoes and get squeamish.
All of this's just part of the DNA of who you are.
But for the first time, you are facing someone who refuses to be herded in the direction of the chute.
Who will not brainlessly allow himself to be meat for your grinder.
Someone who sees the arrogance, the intelligence, and the ruthlessness but also sees through the act to that little girl...
And is more prepared than anyone who's faced you to this point to tear your sheltered, privileged little world to shreds.
To dissect you, and leave you in pieces on the slab, where you're the meat for once.
That ring is not gonna be your abattoir.
It's an operating table.
And I'm the fucking surgeon.
The knife carved through the crispy brown texture, and when it parted by the fork, white breast meat gleamed moistly. "Ahhh, that's a good one," Alec said, satisfied with himself. He began carving off slivers, clumsily, hand shaking. Danny sighed.
Michelle poked him in the ribs, at his side. "Be nice," she murmured, out of the side of her mouth like an inmate in an old-timey prison film, "This's Alec's first time cooking non-vegan for Thanksgiving."
Danny's smile, indicative of when dining over at a friend's house and they don't quite know what they're doing in the kitchen. "Need help carving the bird?"
Alec, trying to cut through a tendon with panicked focus, failing, "Uh, I've got it, do you want Rebecca to pour you some wine?"
The woman across the table with the two-year-old under the crook of her arm was balancing her stemware with practice. She was showing lines and wear of motherhood, and her hair was more salon-styled than Michelle's, but they were contemporaries. Friends, even.
Rebecca Meyers (nee' Owens), the former ace interviewer from lifetimes ago, grinned wolfishly as if the chardonnay she was swishing was a mic, and she was about to grill them on Danny's chances of winning Warrior's Pride.
"So. You two. How are things going with you?" The two-year-old blabbed and smacked her shoulder with a handful of gravy. Rebecca didn't flinch, hardened vet at this point. "Are we going to see a little bun in the oven from you, Michelle?"
Truth was, ever since he had come back from an excursion to Clash, Michelle had been cooler to him, sleeping on the couch. He'd had the training to focus on, so he'd just left it. They furrowed their brows at each other, suddenly stumbling.
"Yea-umm -"
"-Ahh, we - "
Rebecca leaned forward on her elbows, brows arching, teeth baring in that look that said dish. "Oh, really? You two lovebirds... Are you trying to tell me you aren't - " and she glanced down at the kiddo, not wanting to talk out of school, but making a little leer and a tongue-click.
Danny turned to Michelle, partially for assistance. Michelle's smile at Rebecca was positively frostbitten. "We're always a part of each other's lives."
Rebecca's brows judged them harshly as she brought the wine-glass to their lips. Danny huffed and squirmed in agony.
Mercifully, Alec broke the tense moment, had clumsily ripped a whole turkey leg off the bone, holding it aloft. "Who's hungry?"
Danny was quick to spoon stuffing from a casserole dish onto his plate. Alec eyed him nervously as he took it. Rebecca daintily held her fork and knife but smiled at Michelle and Danny again.
"So, Michelle, if you and Daniel aren't collaborating in wrestling anymore, you really must give me insight into your current project. Did you hire on with the designer I told you about?"
Michelle was picking at her potatoes, studiously. Her mouth slightly puckered.
He wondered if there was a resentment in her eye he saw there, for her once again falling into old habits and sticking close to home instead of following through on a job lead.
Interrupting Rebecca, Danny shoveled a spoonful of stuffing through a trench of gravy. "This's good, 'Lecs. This stuffing. What is it?"
Alec sat forward, proudly cheesing, and pushed forward a casserole dish. "Oh, well. There's two types of stuffing on this table, my friend: I've made my famous quinoa-sweet potato recipe for the vegan option, but since we were doing savory faire, that, good sir, is a fascinating exploration in using all available anatomical parts, to reduce waste."
"...I removed the giblets from the turkey, every little innard and diced them."
Danny coughed, covering his mouth.
Michelle smiled over at Rebecca, lifting her glass, "This is good, do I detect some lemon to this? Lemon and pear."
As they all dug into admittedly-juicy morsels of turkey, and the child flung bits of food across the table chaotically, the rest of the dinner conversation was a frustrating jam of stops-and-starts, as Rebecca pried into them with reporter-like hunting.
Michelle drained a glass of chardonnay at a time in response.
Sometime later, as he had rolled the sleeves of his silk dress shirt up to the elbow and was washing the plates in a dingy mixture of gravy and Dawn. Alec sidled up to him, towel in hand; concilatorily took a plate from Danny, drying it.
"Sorry about Rebecca," he said. "Y'know it's just, we've been sorta been quarantined, and haven't had any company over, and she's with the baby all day, and -"
Still unsure how he'd been talked into coming to two Thanksgiving parties, one with Alec and one with Dion, let alone wearing a silk dress-shirt, Danny shook it off. "It's fine, pal. And 'Chelle and I are fine, there's nothing to worry about. Just that we - still haveta abide by certain sets of rules and boundaries sometimes, so things work, and it's frustrating and weird."
"And are you still feeling the... anxiety, we talked about on the phone?" Alec said as Danny handed him a dish. "Because it seems t'me, dealing with Philidor knocked some stuff loose in your head."
"No." He said, flatly, then, amending, "Yes. But it's not dealing with them. It's dealing with Bacchus, it's seeing the kid from Dangerous Gentlemen just starting a road I walked decades ago, it's -"
A beat, then, "Alec, this year's been more successful a season than I've seen since I left the IEW. A more sustained, concentrated effort to get where I want. But it's also made me question everything I've ever been, and what I am."
He hands Alec a soapy dish. Alec nods his head, "Y'know, it's no surprise these feelings are bubbling up around the holidays, buddy. After all, what is Thanksgiving, if not an invitation to reflect on the sorrows of another year?"
Snidely, Danny scrubbed caked-on grime with his nails, instead of the wire-brush, and grimaced, "Well thank you for that."
"I just mean that sometimes I think of you, and well - look at you, man... this life you live, it's not conducive to long-term mental health. Doesn't cater to stable, grounded people... and to be any good at it, you have to be willing to sacrifice... so much, it just..." Alec shakes his head.
He notices Danny is looking at him, unreadably. "I'm not judging you for your choices, I'm just - couldn't be me, partner, I'm happy, where I am. With my little family."
They perform their tasks side-by-side for a moment, quietly passing dishes from one to the other, before Danny quietly says, "I'm happy you have this," with the unspoken understanding that this really isn't for Danny at all.
There's something in what Alec is saying that doesn't quite connect... and yet, there does seem to be an impending, on-rushing sense of closing. Perhaps that's where the disquiet in his bones lay.
Because as they drew closer to the end of the year, it felt like he was getting closer to saying his goodbyes.
After they had made their small-talk, after Michelle and Rebecca had exchanged friendly cheek kisses and gushed about how they had to go to the boutiques in Coconut Grove once Michelle had a slow day... after he had walked Michelle out to her car, Danny took one last look up the driveway to Alec, holding his little baby, bouncing her under his arm.
Some part of him wondered... was he looking at a world he had denied himself willingly, and how many times he would do it again before his number came due. He reminded himself what he had paid, dearly, to have what he did.
And as he got behind the wheel, he didn't envy Alec so much, as they had made their separate states of peace with where they were.
He just didn't know, when he drove away from Alec's, that he would be saying goodbye to it.
I told you I charted your progress through this and I was sincere, Regan. I did see where Corey Black wrote you off out of hand because he didn't think one sadistic little minx from 201 and Funland was anything to worry about.
But I also saw you beginning to take your victory laps a bit too soon. To where you've spent more time gushing every single week about how you were able to bring down X-big name competitor, and how they couldn't pierce the mystery of the Unknowable Regan Voorhees.
To where your entire argument against Teo was musing about how you felt about competing against another Cruiserclash competitor in the semis, ruminating on the finals... you really didn't get into what makes Teo tick at all.
You think that you're some undeniable, rapacious force of nature here to cut through everything in your path. Please.
You've survived this long because you can expound intelligently, and you know how to polish.
Whereas I've only gotten better with each passing week in this. I've pushed myself harder against every opponent, didn't take it lightly, and mused about our places in the brackets... And I've given everything I have every week, unvarnished.
You're a carefully composed shell, everything arranged just so for maximum effect; you always make a point to let us know it.
You've never tried to make a secret about how some of these accouterments are complete and utter theater.
Your manicured nails never look like they'd have blood under them.
Every facet of your "personality" is carefully chosen and crafted specifically... cautiously maintained to exude practiced perfection, so it's always a shock to people that don't pay close enough attention.
Even the clues to your own brutality are left lingering in the air like something you dropped behind you, then looked over your shoulder to "notice" us picking up.
If you didn't have this compulsion to show your hand, you'd be a contemporary of Hannibal Lecter, and I know your society-obsessed mind would thrill to be seen as something higher-brow; instead, you're a fucking Batman villain that can't stop giving clues.
You want us to believe in this image you carefully composite. But it's hollow. You're a cut above an eco-terrorist who'd be reduced to tears if I swatted a fly on the way down the entrance ramp.
Beneath the opulent aplomb, however, lies the petulance with which you demand to get your way... the desperation when you aren't the center of attention. That's why you lapped it up for the brief time that someone you'd normally deride as the scum of the earth began kissing your shoes to be your simp.
Besides the Joey Bunga of it all, there's the fact that when you lost the title fairly, you needed to have him steal the physical belt so you could parade around with it, rather than admit you actually screwed up.
You're so desperate to be seen as the top of the food chain, to present this glamour that it wounds you when you're seen as mortal.
The problem is, Regan... once you strip all of that away, what is there? I can rip on Ash Blake from now until doomsday, but Ash Blake has a fervor underneath her skin, an unshakeable, iron-clad devotion to the cause she gave herself to. You have nothing like that. You're little more than a spoiled little brat whinging "I hate humans, I love all animals".
There's more Karen Voorhees in you than you want us to believe, child.
At the end of the day, you're no more sinister, or "unknowable" than any suburban VSCO girl.
I'd hang a wine aunt sign or a "Live Laugh Love" above your mantle that fits your whole pastel-Target-princess-meets-Talented-Mr.-Ripley vibe, including your bad taste in alcohol and music.
And I promise I'm not gonna disparage the show you've plied trade on this year, but it's been easy for you to maintain your dominance of that brand because, for all the heart, there's a dearth of people with your kind of drive and killer instinct in your way.
However, when you've been given the opportunity to prove yourself against other monsters, that's where you've fallen short.
When you come to compete against people that are equally as sadistic, and who have the same carefully maintained auras to present them favorably, you fail, because in the land of killers, you're still just a girl in the woods.
You did tap Lissie Hope out effectively, Regan. And they thought you were ready to step up to the big leagues and gave you a US Title match against Der Metzger, and you got beaten handily and sent packing.
You claimed the Cruiserweight Title effectively and dominate strongly for a month. Then you were given a spot in Havoc and failed to make even the top twenty.
And despite these crushing defeats, you've still proven a focal point for the division even when you're not in the title picture. You are every bit as good as the facade you present.
But I'm better.
I see how successful you are, but I want you to see the grit it took me to get here. Not just to the finals of this tournament, but in this year, I've overcome adversity that would make you pale.
Because there is no "overcoming" with you, every time you meet the slightest bit of resistance, it piques you, because how dare someone not immediately bow to your capricious whims.
Someone as rotten as you cannot fathom a world where people don't drop to their feet at your command.
Every time I witnessed you bring that fire extinguisher down on Addy's ribs, I didn't see the cold veneer of a monster;
I saw the pouting, huffing sulk of a privileged little girl who was so used to getting her way... that when someone didn't deign to cry out in agony for her, she was flustered.
That desperation is all I can see in you, and when you meet someone against whom you can only break like waves against a stony shore, it's gonna turn into panic.
When I tear strips off of you in that ring, you're gonna feel it.
There's no artifice in me, Voorhees... no panic, either.
I am just one match away from capping off this year with the strongest statement I can make because I'm not walking away from that and not staking my claim to being the Wrestler of the Year.
But to do that means that I need to cut your chest open, remove the beating heart of perhaps, the most dominant wrestler ever to grace Cruiserclash.
Think I haven't been preparing for this all year, Regan?
In many ways, I've been preparing for this all my life.
Alec had been taking out the trash, after. He was concentrating on a million worries, the mortgage coming due, his son teething, but still worried about Danny's coldness and the disconnect from humanity he was feeling from his friend as he prepared to end his year.
He was listening to a fascinating podcast about sustainable quinoa that benefitted the natives of Peru through his headphones.
So he didn't pay attention to the red eyeshine that sprang in the darkness in the bushes, as he opened the compost bin and dropped a bag inside.
But then, it hit him. It felt like something ice-cold passed through, and then, that something shoved him over, hard, and began to bear down.
He clutched his chest, screaming in fear and confusion.
He writhed on his leaf-blown lawn and wondered if Rebecca would come outside to help him, but his vision was fading out and all he could see in the dark was a flash of red eyes now and again.
And then, as he looked up towards the sky, so drowned by the lights of the city that there wasn't a single star visible, a face loomed into his vision, upside down. Alec stuttered, "J-"
"Ohhhh, it's me," Jason grinned, widely. "Stepped between places to daytrip out here. And why not, bubby? Isn't this a holiday? Wasn't I invited to the old potluck?" Jason looked over at someone out of view, tsk'ing.
"He's suffering, Jason," said a cool, detached voice. Alec's eyes were filling with blood. At his feet, miles away, stood a young black girl. Her natural curls were around her shoulders, touching wickedly-scarred, carved-in runes that ran the length of her arms. She frowned.
Jason gesticulates, dramatically. "When they open his chest, they'll just rule it a coronary event brought on by diet and stress." And he kneels down to Alec, stroking his cheek tenderly with his left hand. "But only we know the truth, Serenity."
His thoughts, which he wasn't even able to articulate beyond the howls, were of the turkey. Of cutting it open, and removing the giblets. Setting each piece of organ on the table.
When they cut him open... would they set his parts aside, as he had the bird?
Giblets... gizzards... bits and pieces, all that was left... parts...
"He suffers, dying screaming in agony because he's an outsider. He was never one of us, he was just a beta hanger-on to Danny's world, tempts him with nicey-nice Better Homes and Gardens dreams of ordered sanity."
"It's sad, but, to prove my point to Danny, Alec has to suffer... Because Daniel is not made for this world," he looks, almost apologetically down at Alec, "Daniel isn't made to be palling around with soft boys like you, papa-bear."
"Little brother is a thing of spite and wrath and nastiness, and he has not been given the motivation to be his best self. He's been nudged, too far, in the opposite direction. He needs this push back to the side he's supposed to be on, free of your sage advice and bumbling best-friend shtick."
Just... giblets... Danny...
"Sorry, Alec. I always liked you. But! Small anatomy lesson, Ren... even in shock and pain from rapid internal bleeding, the brain is still firing synapses. He hears this, even if he's too shocked to speak. Isn't that fun?"
Jason turns to the bushes. And if he expends more energy than he's let on, looking decidedly tired, in the instant before he steps In-Between, it goes unnoticed by the dying man, shuddering and bleeding from his eyes.
Serenity, however, stands at Alec's feet for a good, long moment, and a kindled spark of sympathy radiates from her otherwise cold demeanor.
He's radiating the pain of a massive, catastrophic failure, breath failing him.
She bends down to Alec, and takes his hand for just a second, before removing his wedding band.
Then, she follows along behind Jason, stepping In-Between, and is gone, leaving only Alec behind, as his lights begin to turn off.
Let me tell you something about family legacies, Regan.
Tell ya about the gifts my father gave me.
How he passed his genetic predilections for casually stretching tendons to the breaking point and married them to a cold indifference to his own offspring, that translated over to my training from the youngest age possible to fucking hurt someone just to see if he'd look my way.
Let me tell you horror-stories that'd make even you squirm, about how I endured punishments and regimens that should have been outlawed by the Geneva convention.
Strained every muscle in my body to hone myself over decades to be this hardbitten warrior I am.
Because I was chasing something. Because I was chasing what my father never gave me.
My father never gave me anything, Regan.
I don't have an inheritance, a trust fund, a mansion, a farm... my "family business" was sneaking into wrestling schools and shipping off to Japan without his consent when I was a minor.
You've been given everything you've ever had, even paid for the best training possible, and it was only ever to indulge your whims and sate your sociopathic rich-kid megalomania; 'cause it's about the same as indulging a precocious child that pulls wings off butterflies with pincers.
Your guardians clearly indulged you, gave you only the best of anything, and it only made you believe that it was what you deserved.
That's where we differ.
If we're both predators... then your fangs have been carefully sharpened and maintained precisely so to provide you the best advantage.
If we're both killers, then you have carefully crafted your image so that people take you so lightly; this polished, effete little debutante who appreciates shitty cocktails, drops fascinating facts about art history, and has an ax ready to bury in your back.
You're quiet, duplicitous, calculating.
But I'm a roar of stentorian thunder. I'm bold, brash, and I'll tell you right to your face every time that I'm gonna take my taped fists to your face until you stop twitching.
At Turmoil, you're gonna have to face that; the best in the fucking world.
It hits different when your prey refuses to go down easy, doesn't it, Regan? You're not ready for it.
Part of me hopes that it shocks you, shakes you, so badly that you bow out quickly.
That's your best hope in this, Regan. That you get put to sleep quickly and effectively.
You'll want to be anesthetized...
Before I start taking you apart.