Post by Cassidy Adler on Mar 20, 2022 13:30:55 GMT -5
The Past
He watched Olive sitting in the booth they had booked, idly sipping at her drink while her eyes were cast forward, probably observing some people the way she did with everyone. He knew the look well, it was one she had seen her give him on numerous occasions, as though she were trying to pierce through his brain and determine exactly why he had done something.
The night was nothing out of the ordinary, but the two had decided to leave their show early after having made short work of The Cool Kids. The wave of interest they had generated in the recent months had been nothing short of extraordinary, especially for a team who had no prior experience and had made all of their notoriety off of their “exploits” on Twitter. They had invited some of their mutual friends that they knew were in town, who had endlessly peppered them with questions about the show business and what it entailed.
They, or more specifically, Cassidy had always been the center of attention. But this feeling was made even more prevalent now that they had done something. Something that couldn’t be claimed by their parents, or Frankie, or anyone else.
It was them.
And Cassidy found himself liking that.
They found themselves alone at the booth for the first time during the night, and he felt the question burning at the back of his throat, waiting to be asked. One he knew would only ever come when his inhibitions were relaxed from the copious amounts of alcohol they had consumed since arriving here.
So he said it.
‘You know, I was thinkin’...’
Olive’s head did a slow turn toward him, a smirk playing on her lips.
‘You’re awful when you do that.’
He paused, the words awfully familiar to something someone had told him before. He grinned, finding the humor in it.
‘Yeah, yeah. I know. But I was thinkin’... what if we took this shit for real?’
There was that look again.
‘Good one,’ she said, letting a little chuckle escape from her lips. A moment went by until her eyes became wider, ‘That was a legitimate question, wasn’t it?’
Suddenly aware of his posture, leaned forward and invested, elbows over the table, he attempted to give off a relaxed vibe, leaning back into the booth and putting both arms behind his head. His shoulders rolled upward in a shrug, while he kept a smile on his face.
‘I mean, I don’t know. It’s just kinda fun, right? We’ll be in for a title shot soon and then shit could really pick up from there. Might be able to get more out of this than we bargained for, is all I’m tryna say. You feel me?’
‘Cassidy Adler, thinking about upward mobility in a career path. Would bring a tear to Dad’s eye, I imagine. If the bastard could manage to show a hint of emotion,’
‘I’m not kidding. We could really be something here.’
‘Assuming we want to be something in the context of a sport where grown men and women pine for the adoration of drooling hoards of fans who just want to see people butcher each other,’
‘Jesus, Olive. Relax, we’re not fuckin’ going to the Colossuem or something,’
‘Oh, you did pay attention in History? Who’d have thought,”
She grinned, while he laughed in disbelief.
‘Man, even when I try to get real with you, you can’t help but get a shot in. Whatever,’ he said, doing his best impression of an annoyed pout, which caused her to knock him on the shoulder.
‘Don’t give me that,’ she said, her thumb gliding around the edge of her glass, ‘Look, I never really came here looking for a ‘career’ or with any ‘goals’ in mind, and I thought we were on the same page with that.’
She gauged for a reaction, but received little as he took a sip of his own drink.
‘But… you can do what you want. If you think trying a little harder will make this shit more enjoyable, I’m not gonna stop you. But if you ask me?’
There it was, what she was waiting for. The sudden interest in his eyes, the look that told her that whatever she said to him, would stick with him.
‘None of these people care about us. They don’t like us, and the last thing they want us to do is succeed, so you already know what I’m gonna say to that: fuck ‘em. As far as I’m concerned, it’s you and me against the world.’
She smiled, giving him a tap on the shoulder.
‘Like it always has been, right?’
Cassidy’s eyes were stuck looking down at the table, as if they were unable to meet hers. What was it he felt in that moment? Guilt? Embarrassment at the line of conversation he had taken them down? As though he had exposed something he had never intended to?
After some excruciating seconds, he managed to look up and smile.
‘Right.’
‘Up and at ‘em, pretty boy! You gotta be one of the biggest slackers I’ve ever met.’
Cassidy groaned, pushing the locks of hair coated in sweat out of his eyes. He glanced at the boxing coach, Mauro Rizzo, a stocky man with a hardness in frame only matched by the look in his eyes. He slapped Cassidy on the shoulder, before picking him up off the bench he had flopped down onto after the last round of padwork.
Cassidy hated every minute. Not the work itself, although that was enough to leave him not wanting to see a heavy bag or a man holding pads for the next month. No, it was the humiliation.
The looks of the others in the gym. The fact that he knew that some of them knew him, and didn’t even want to acknowledge him because of it. As though he were the coach’s son being given a spot he didn’t deserve.
That thought crossing his mind was what willed him up to his feet again for another round. Mauro was already in the ring, and Cassidy followed, bringing his gloves up with shaky arms.
For the next few minutes, he executed combinations with all the precision of a musket being fired by a child. Several times he lost balance, most of his connections with the pads not bringing any of the satisfaction that a well-timed, accurate punch should have.
Somewhere, he thought he could hear laughter.
A buzzer sounded, and he was given his reprieve. He sat in the corner of the ring, which he gratefully slumped into, unwilling to even open his eyes as he took deep, heaving breaths that for a brief moment he thought were the only thing giving him life.
And that’s when he felt it.
He buckled over and heaved up a stream of vomit, a murky dark green that splattered onto the ring of him. The smell of it almost immediately put him into another bout of letting his insides explode out his mouth, but he managed to hold it down as he glanced up and saw Mauro smiling down at him.
‘Never really had your limits tested, have ya kid?’
Cassidy’s eyes drifted away from Mauro to the people outside the ring who were all looking at him, some with pity, some with amusement. He felt something come over him, causing his knuckles to tighten within his gloves.
‘I fuckin’ hate this.’
Mauro roared with laughter, nodding enthusiastically.
‘That’s good!’ he exclaimed, ‘That’s very good! That’s how you know it’s working.’
‘I hate to say I told ya so and all… but man, did I fuckin’ tell you idiots. It was kinda funny, actually, because I knew you’d come in gun blazing, thinking you’d be making some sort of statement by putting the ‘big, bad, annoying Cassidy Adler’ down for good. Because that’s what you fake good guys love doing, right? Putting the cocky, good-for-nothing loser in his place, like every chump in the crowd wishes they could’ve done to their high school bullies.
‘The issue with that? You guys are fuckin’ delusional and think you’re on some type of quest to reach for that brass ring you’ve been knocked back from time and time again, like a child reaching for the cookie jar and getting a complimentary smack on the wrist. Touch the stove once, and you know not to do it again. The same thing applies here.
‘Get humiliated once by Cassidy Adler, and get the fuckin’ hint: you don’t got a chance in hell at putting me away, whether that be putting my shoulders to the mat or making me shut up about how god-awful you guys are at being anything other than generic voids trying to imitate being human.
‘Because you can’t tell me Tee-Tee (that’s Tatiana, for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the Cassidy Radler lore) is an actual fuckin’ human being with the way her logic jumps from being associated with a fuckin’ nobody like Holden Ross or whatever, to all of a sudden thinking she’s worth of spending time in the ring with a current World Champion?
‘I told you last time, didn’t I, Tee-Tee? Nobody gives a fuck. We don’t care that you’re part of some Canadian Club, or that you have these aspirations for doing important things that important people do, because that ain’t you, boo.
‘Sit there and call me an asshole all you like, but at the end of the day, for all of your goody-two-shoes, loyal Canadian girl act you put on, you’re just a fuckin’ asshole who can’t get enough of yourself. What else explains that you think people are obsessed with you, or that Action Wrestling of all companies gives enough of a damn to axe your segments because they’d cause too much drama?
‘Yeah, because having the World Champion commit crimes against humanity in a match against a bottom-feeder clearly not cut out to be on the main stage is a smart thing to do, right? They already did that shit when they decided to put me against you guys, and we saw how that went, didn’t we?
‘You guys talkin’ your shit and getting smacked, and me doing what I usually do. Subverting the expectations just when you expected the last real Adler to be out of the game for good, and picking up an easy PPV win.
‘Because that’s how things work for naturals like me, babe. The winning, the prestige, the promos, it all comes natural. What you struggle and grind for on the daily is something that is just part of my day-to-day, and that shit hurts like a bitch, don’t it?
‘And I know, I know. Look at Cassidy Adler! Talking so much about Tee-Tee before another one of her big matches… because apparently that’s something you don’t want to be doing in your promos.
‘Ya know, the more I talk about you, the more it becomes clear why you’re on the decline.
‘Oops! Did I do the thing that Tee-Tee doesn’t like, saying that she’s falling off? Oh no, whatever’s gonna happen to me?!
‘...the same shit she does every other time, tell you with a very serious expression why this means everything to her and how she’ll do her very very best to win! Because how embarrassing would it be if she lost, right?
‘And then she does. Rinse and repeat.
‘It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so, so damn sad. Watching you struggle against inevitability so much that you almost believe it’s possible to break your glass ceiling, only to smack your face into it so many times that you’re on the verge of needing plastic surgery.
‘Did I say the verge? That was a lie.
‘But hey, since we’re on the topic of ugly cunts, hey Kids! Man, I’ve seen enough of you in a ring to know that being with you is a true danger, through and through.
‘A danger to my fuckin’ sanity, because jesus fuckin’ christ I can’t lie to you my guy, watching you stumble through promos with your mean guy serious act is actually getting on my nerves. You’re supposed to be an actor, but man do I not believe a single fuckin’ word that comes out of your mouth, especially when you talk big game like you’re actually gonna do something like retire me.
‘You remind me of a friend I used to have, Sammy boy.
‘He was a lovely guy, honest to God. Very kind, had a great family, really tried hard at everything he did, put a lot of work into himself and the things he loved… but he never really got that love back, if you catch my drift.
‘Basically, he got zero bitches.
‘No matter how nice he was, it never worked out. He made jokes, he brought them flowers when he’d go on dates, pay for their whole dinner, the whole nine yards plus a kitchen sink thrown in for good measure, right?
‘And no matter what he did, he got knocked back. Tossed to the side, ignored, made fun of, criticized.
‘This shit starting to a ring a bell yet?
‘Eventually, the dude fuckin’ snapped. Went off the rails. Fell into drinking every weekend and basically trying to force himself onto women. He’d come up with the most crude, nasty jokes and lines that he thought all the “assholes” who actually got laid would use, and for some reason, he thought that this would magically solve all of his problems.
‘And what do you know? The dude went from being a solid 6, to a negative 4 all within the span of a few months.
‘You were my favorite 6, Sammy. So consistent and so painfully, painfully above average, like, above average enough to not be considered a nobody, but never good enough to really break into the upper crust, you feel me?
‘And now you’ve thrown that all away for a facade that won’t last more than a few months at best, because let’s be real for a minute: in what fuckin’ world is Samuel L Kidsgrove going to “rip through the roster” and really put a beating on people?
‘You’re the jaded, bitter veteran who’s upset and feels he ain’t getting the respect he deserves. And you know what? If I was a fuckin’ pussy like you or Tee-Tee, I’d say I feel bad for you, that I respect you, and that I’ll give my all to give you a match that’ll push you to your limits so you can get better and reach those lofty goals.
‘But instead I’m gonna sit here and tell you the truth: this is it for you.
‘No games, no jokes. Just you gettin’ fuckin’ annihiliated verbally and mentally before I put the nail in the coffin on Monday.
‘I’d say it was an honor… but I’m not a fuckin’ liar like you..
‘Catch you at your loss.’
He watched Olive sitting in the booth they had booked, idly sipping at her drink while her eyes were cast forward, probably observing some people the way she did with everyone. He knew the look well, it was one she had seen her give him on numerous occasions, as though she were trying to pierce through his brain and determine exactly why he had done something.
The night was nothing out of the ordinary, but the two had decided to leave their show early after having made short work of The Cool Kids. The wave of interest they had generated in the recent months had been nothing short of extraordinary, especially for a team who had no prior experience and had made all of their notoriety off of their “exploits” on Twitter. They had invited some of their mutual friends that they knew were in town, who had endlessly peppered them with questions about the show business and what it entailed.
They, or more specifically, Cassidy had always been the center of attention. But this feeling was made even more prevalent now that they had done something. Something that couldn’t be claimed by their parents, or Frankie, or anyone else.
It was them.
And Cassidy found himself liking that.
They found themselves alone at the booth for the first time during the night, and he felt the question burning at the back of his throat, waiting to be asked. One he knew would only ever come when his inhibitions were relaxed from the copious amounts of alcohol they had consumed since arriving here.
So he said it.
‘You know, I was thinkin’...’
Olive’s head did a slow turn toward him, a smirk playing on her lips.
‘You’re awful when you do that.’
He paused, the words awfully familiar to something someone had told him before. He grinned, finding the humor in it.
‘Yeah, yeah. I know. But I was thinkin’... what if we took this shit for real?’
There was that look again.
‘Good one,’ she said, letting a little chuckle escape from her lips. A moment went by until her eyes became wider, ‘That was a legitimate question, wasn’t it?’
Suddenly aware of his posture, leaned forward and invested, elbows over the table, he attempted to give off a relaxed vibe, leaning back into the booth and putting both arms behind his head. His shoulders rolled upward in a shrug, while he kept a smile on his face.
‘I mean, I don’t know. It’s just kinda fun, right? We’ll be in for a title shot soon and then shit could really pick up from there. Might be able to get more out of this than we bargained for, is all I’m tryna say. You feel me?’
‘Cassidy Adler, thinking about upward mobility in a career path. Would bring a tear to Dad’s eye, I imagine. If the bastard could manage to show a hint of emotion,’
‘I’m not kidding. We could really be something here.’
‘Assuming we want to be something in the context of a sport where grown men and women pine for the adoration of drooling hoards of fans who just want to see people butcher each other,’
‘Jesus, Olive. Relax, we’re not fuckin’ going to the Colossuem or something,’
‘Oh, you did pay attention in History? Who’d have thought,”
She grinned, while he laughed in disbelief.
‘Man, even when I try to get real with you, you can’t help but get a shot in. Whatever,’ he said, doing his best impression of an annoyed pout, which caused her to knock him on the shoulder.
‘Don’t give me that,’ she said, her thumb gliding around the edge of her glass, ‘Look, I never really came here looking for a ‘career’ or with any ‘goals’ in mind, and I thought we were on the same page with that.’
She gauged for a reaction, but received little as he took a sip of his own drink.
‘But… you can do what you want. If you think trying a little harder will make this shit more enjoyable, I’m not gonna stop you. But if you ask me?’
There it was, what she was waiting for. The sudden interest in his eyes, the look that told her that whatever she said to him, would stick with him.
‘None of these people care about us. They don’t like us, and the last thing they want us to do is succeed, so you already know what I’m gonna say to that: fuck ‘em. As far as I’m concerned, it’s you and me against the world.’
She smiled, giving him a tap on the shoulder.
‘Like it always has been, right?’
Cassidy’s eyes were stuck looking down at the table, as if they were unable to meet hers. What was it he felt in that moment? Guilt? Embarrassment at the line of conversation he had taken them down? As though he had exposed something he had never intended to?
After some excruciating seconds, he managed to look up and smile.
‘Right.’
‘Up and at ‘em, pretty boy! You gotta be one of the biggest slackers I’ve ever met.’
Cassidy groaned, pushing the locks of hair coated in sweat out of his eyes. He glanced at the boxing coach, Mauro Rizzo, a stocky man with a hardness in frame only matched by the look in his eyes. He slapped Cassidy on the shoulder, before picking him up off the bench he had flopped down onto after the last round of padwork.
Cassidy hated every minute. Not the work itself, although that was enough to leave him not wanting to see a heavy bag or a man holding pads for the next month. No, it was the humiliation.
The looks of the others in the gym. The fact that he knew that some of them knew him, and didn’t even want to acknowledge him because of it. As though he were the coach’s son being given a spot he didn’t deserve.
That thought crossing his mind was what willed him up to his feet again for another round. Mauro was already in the ring, and Cassidy followed, bringing his gloves up with shaky arms.
For the next few minutes, he executed combinations with all the precision of a musket being fired by a child. Several times he lost balance, most of his connections with the pads not bringing any of the satisfaction that a well-timed, accurate punch should have.
Somewhere, he thought he could hear laughter.
A buzzer sounded, and he was given his reprieve. He sat in the corner of the ring, which he gratefully slumped into, unwilling to even open his eyes as he took deep, heaving breaths that for a brief moment he thought were the only thing giving him life.
And that’s when he felt it.
He buckled over and heaved up a stream of vomit, a murky dark green that splattered onto the ring of him. The smell of it almost immediately put him into another bout of letting his insides explode out his mouth, but he managed to hold it down as he glanced up and saw Mauro smiling down at him.
‘Never really had your limits tested, have ya kid?’
Cassidy’s eyes drifted away from Mauro to the people outside the ring who were all looking at him, some with pity, some with amusement. He felt something come over him, causing his knuckles to tighten within his gloves.
‘I fuckin’ hate this.’
Mauro roared with laughter, nodding enthusiastically.
‘That’s good!’ he exclaimed, ‘That’s very good! That’s how you know it’s working.’
‘I hate to say I told ya so and all… but man, did I fuckin’ tell you idiots. It was kinda funny, actually, because I knew you’d come in gun blazing, thinking you’d be making some sort of statement by putting the ‘big, bad, annoying Cassidy Adler’ down for good. Because that’s what you fake good guys love doing, right? Putting the cocky, good-for-nothing loser in his place, like every chump in the crowd wishes they could’ve done to their high school bullies.
‘The issue with that? You guys are fuckin’ delusional and think you’re on some type of quest to reach for that brass ring you’ve been knocked back from time and time again, like a child reaching for the cookie jar and getting a complimentary smack on the wrist. Touch the stove once, and you know not to do it again. The same thing applies here.
‘Get humiliated once by Cassidy Adler, and get the fuckin’ hint: you don’t got a chance in hell at putting me away, whether that be putting my shoulders to the mat or making me shut up about how god-awful you guys are at being anything other than generic voids trying to imitate being human.
‘Because you can’t tell me Tee-Tee (that’s Tatiana, for those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the Cassidy Radler lore) is an actual fuckin’ human being with the way her logic jumps from being associated with a fuckin’ nobody like Holden Ross or whatever, to all of a sudden thinking she’s worth of spending time in the ring with a current World Champion?
‘I told you last time, didn’t I, Tee-Tee? Nobody gives a fuck. We don’t care that you’re part of some Canadian Club, or that you have these aspirations for doing important things that important people do, because that ain’t you, boo.
‘Sit there and call me an asshole all you like, but at the end of the day, for all of your goody-two-shoes, loyal Canadian girl act you put on, you’re just a fuckin’ asshole who can’t get enough of yourself. What else explains that you think people are obsessed with you, or that Action Wrestling of all companies gives enough of a damn to axe your segments because they’d cause too much drama?
‘Yeah, because having the World Champion commit crimes against humanity in a match against a bottom-feeder clearly not cut out to be on the main stage is a smart thing to do, right? They already did that shit when they decided to put me against you guys, and we saw how that went, didn’t we?
‘You guys talkin’ your shit and getting smacked, and me doing what I usually do. Subverting the expectations just when you expected the last real Adler to be out of the game for good, and picking up an easy PPV win.
‘Because that’s how things work for naturals like me, babe. The winning, the prestige, the promos, it all comes natural. What you struggle and grind for on the daily is something that is just part of my day-to-day, and that shit hurts like a bitch, don’t it?
‘And I know, I know. Look at Cassidy Adler! Talking so much about Tee-Tee before another one of her big matches… because apparently that’s something you don’t want to be doing in your promos.
‘Ya know, the more I talk about you, the more it becomes clear why you’re on the decline.
‘Oops! Did I do the thing that Tee-Tee doesn’t like, saying that she’s falling off? Oh no, whatever’s gonna happen to me?!
‘...the same shit she does every other time, tell you with a very serious expression why this means everything to her and how she’ll do her very very best to win! Because how embarrassing would it be if she lost, right?
‘And then she does. Rinse and repeat.
‘It’d be hilarious if it wasn’t so, so damn sad. Watching you struggle against inevitability so much that you almost believe it’s possible to break your glass ceiling, only to smack your face into it so many times that you’re on the verge of needing plastic surgery.
‘Did I say the verge? That was a lie.
‘But hey, since we’re on the topic of ugly cunts, hey Kids! Man, I’ve seen enough of you in a ring to know that being with you is a true danger, through and through.
‘A danger to my fuckin’ sanity, because jesus fuckin’ christ I can’t lie to you my guy, watching you stumble through promos with your mean guy serious act is actually getting on my nerves. You’re supposed to be an actor, but man do I not believe a single fuckin’ word that comes out of your mouth, especially when you talk big game like you’re actually gonna do something like retire me.
‘You remind me of a friend I used to have, Sammy boy.
‘He was a lovely guy, honest to God. Very kind, had a great family, really tried hard at everything he did, put a lot of work into himself and the things he loved… but he never really got that love back, if you catch my drift.
‘Basically, he got zero bitches.
‘No matter how nice he was, it never worked out. He made jokes, he brought them flowers when he’d go on dates, pay for their whole dinner, the whole nine yards plus a kitchen sink thrown in for good measure, right?
‘And no matter what he did, he got knocked back. Tossed to the side, ignored, made fun of, criticized.
‘This shit starting to a ring a bell yet?
‘Eventually, the dude fuckin’ snapped. Went off the rails. Fell into drinking every weekend and basically trying to force himself onto women. He’d come up with the most crude, nasty jokes and lines that he thought all the “assholes” who actually got laid would use, and for some reason, he thought that this would magically solve all of his problems.
‘And what do you know? The dude went from being a solid 6, to a negative 4 all within the span of a few months.
‘You were my favorite 6, Sammy. So consistent and so painfully, painfully above average, like, above average enough to not be considered a nobody, but never good enough to really break into the upper crust, you feel me?
‘And now you’ve thrown that all away for a facade that won’t last more than a few months at best, because let’s be real for a minute: in what fuckin’ world is Samuel L Kidsgrove going to “rip through the roster” and really put a beating on people?
‘You’re the jaded, bitter veteran who’s upset and feels he ain’t getting the respect he deserves. And you know what? If I was a fuckin’ pussy like you or Tee-Tee, I’d say I feel bad for you, that I respect you, and that I’ll give my all to give you a match that’ll push you to your limits so you can get better and reach those lofty goals.
‘But instead I’m gonna sit here and tell you the truth: this is it for you.
‘No games, no jokes. Just you gettin’ fuckin’ annihiliated verbally and mentally before I put the nail in the coffin on Monday.
‘I’d say it was an honor… but I’m not a fuckin’ liar like you..
‘Catch you at your loss.’