Post by kincaid on Sept 11, 2021 18:42:26 GMT -5
Her husband was dreaming.
Alyssa Kincaid had woken up with the sun on this unseasonably warm September day in Bearing, Alberta. It was rare for her to be awake before Alex, and even rarer for them to have a day off. She intended to savor every minute of it. So she stayed in bed and watched him, closed eyes darting back and forth under his eyelids with whatever vision the sandman had given him. He grunted, his head lulling sideways at an unpleasant angle and Alyssa frowned. No dream. A nightmare instead.
She curled up against him and tapped her fingers across his chest in staccato rhythm. Tappa-tappa-tap. Tappa-tappa-tap. It was enough. His eyes flashed open, and for a moment she saw the same emerald colored intensity countless opponents had seen. She didn’t move, smiling a little at him, and his expression warmed. He laid back in the bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. It took him nearly a minute to finally speak.
”I’d been...I was having a nightmare.”
”It looked pretty bad, are you going to be okay?” Alyssa studied his expression for a moment before she broached the next subject carefully ”Was it that match in Philly again-”
”No!” The denial was sharper than he’d intended and she laid her head down against his chest, cuddling up against him. He pulled her in and kissed the top of her head ”No. Not that it was...It was complex. I don’t even really know what I saw. I’m all fucked up about that loss. Battle Royales coming. I just...fuck! Why can’t I get this right?”
”’Anger multiplies fear.’” Alyssa reminded him softly. The words were important. Suggested to them as a sort of mantra by a marriage counselor they’d seen during a particularly rocky period two years before ”Tell me what you saw.”
”You’re right, of course you’re right.” He shook his head and squeezed her closer ”I’m sorry for being snappy. I’m just in a mood. Let’s get out of bed, I’ll feed the dogs and then we can-”
”Alex.”
He hesitated, opening his mouth for another argument but he realized she would cut through any attempt to deflect. He sighed and nodded ”I don’t know. It’s like I’m flying, you know? And I can see it. All around me. These sparks. These little bits of light. I look closer, and I can feel them. The little pieces of all the people I’ve known before. Anna Matthews. Owen Gonsalves. These incredible people I’ve met...and then I can feel the people I don’t know yet too. Scratch. Strader. People I’ve been watching. People I know have talent, who are in it for the right reasons...all of that.”
”Okay.”
”There’s something in them that I recognize. Like...like imagine if I was trying to keep a fire lit. And the only way to keep it lit is by being around other sparks. So I’m just flying through the dark, and every time I get a little bit closer I feel stronger. I feel…” He paused to collect himself and looked down at her, his expression darkening ”It happened at the edges first. Sparks going out. Bit by bit. I thought at first, it was just the light dying but then the longer I watched it it was like...it was like I could see the dark. Like this ugly, oily wave just moving out and swallowing them up. I wanted to get away, I wanted to be anywhere else but I’m watching these sparks go out and I’m feeling weaker and weaker...then I couldn’t move. Then it was just me. Just me and the dark, about to swallow me up.”
With her head against his chest and her arms around him, she could feel his muscles tensing during his description ”Your hearts pounding. It must have have really freaked you out.”
”I’ve had them before. Nothing this clear. It was like I was drowning.” He turned sideways, gently moving her off him and sitting on the edge of the bed. His hand rested, unconsciously, on his surgically repaired left knee ”Imagine what it’s like to sit in that locker room. All these people better than me. Stronger. Faster. Younger. There are so many of them who are in it for the wrong reasons, so many of them who would stab their friends in the back for a bigger payday. And that’s just the ones I understand. There are monsters out there, pounding at the gates…”
”So you’ll fight them. It’s not like you haven’t done that before.”
”We didn’t have a kid before.” He looked back over his shoulder at her ”I lost against XYZ last show. And yeah, if the ref had been faster maybe I could have beaten him...we can make all the excuses in the world. The fact is he tapped me out in front of everyone. Getting choked like that, while he was ripping my shoulder apart was more than I could take. There were all these times when I could see openings. Just choke him against the ropes. Just take that low shot. You’re not getting any younger and this guy is WORTH cheating to beat. He’s a bad guy. People will understand.”
Sometimes the best thing they could do to support each other was to just let them get it out. So she nodded and inched closer, letting him know she was all-the-way present as he continued.
”The only thing I know how to do is this. The only way I know how to provide for you, and for her is in that ring. We took that kid in because my father is responsible for what happened to this town. He treated his miners like garbage, then he cut bait and took all his cash and let the town die. Maggie’s dad never starts dealing drugs without being desperate. Never starts taking his own supply and that kid doesn’t find her parents overdosed on a Saturday morning.”
”That isn’t your fault.”
”No, but it’s my responsibility.” He said firmly ”She deserves a chance at a good life. We all do. And I think I can win her over and prove to her we really care about her if we win that title. But that means getting through god knows how many people in that Battle Royal. I couldn’t beat one guy in my first real match there. I need this win. But I’m worried what I would have to do to get it. You know, maybe I’m not one of the sparks. Maybe I’m the first bit of that black swallowing them all up. You get what I’m saying?”
She tried to hold it in. It was an inopportune time. He was upset. His brow was furrowed with intensity, his lip in a thin mouthed frown. But she couldn’t help it. She laughed. He sighed, frustrated she wasn’t taking him seriously, and he went to stand up from the bed. She grabbed his shoulders and playfully shoved him back down to a seated position ”Do you listen to yourself sometimes? You think three years ago we’d be sitting down trying to have this conversation? You’d be planning some stupid, elaborate revenge against XYZ that we’d both feel like crap about even if we pulled it off. We are not those people anymore. You are not that guy anymore.”
He shifted on the bed back toward her and she kissed him. When she broke away, she smiled warmly ”’The King of the North’ is a proud man. A good man. A family man. And when he wins that Battle Royal and secures a title shot, he’s going to be champion. The right way. We don’t need to backpedal. You need to become the guy we’ve always known you could be. Everyone is going to see what I see when I look at you.”
”Which is?”
”Oh you know, a reasonably handsome guy with an absolutely hideous beard.” She yelped as he pinched her and pushed her back onto the bed. He crawled on top of her and she laughed ”You know, there’s actually nothing to do today for once. I say we just stay here and enjoy having a day for ourselves for once.”
He kissed her and she wrapped herself around him, and they did.
*~*~*~*~*~*
”Some things, no matter how long you do this, never get old. Madison Square Garden? Yeah. You better believe I’m excited for that.”
Alex Kincaid stands in his den in front of the Revolution1 cameras. He’s dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt and he’s got his hair tied back behind his head. If you didn’t know him, you might assume he were relaxed. As if the King of the North were capable of such a thing. He’s looking at a case full of title belts, main event contracts and other trophies from a prolific career. The EMW National Title. The WAR World Heavyweight Championship. Most of these companies are long dead, but ‘Infinite’ Alex Kincaid always survives.
”I’m still hurting from my match with XYZ. That Painkiller is no joke. I could make excuses, I could tell you I got screwed because the referee was out, all that jazz. Waste of time. If I’d won the match and he was trying to tell me the win wasn’t legitimate, I think I’d tell him that a win is a win, however it happens. The Vin Diesel speech. Winning is winning. Fact is, I’m coming off a loss. Anybody who knows me knows I don’t take losses well. I am absolutely insufferable for a couple of days after I don’t get the job done. This has been another week like that. Me tearing my hair out, stressing myself out and trying to confront the ghost of that failure hanging over my head. And thankfully, Alyssa was able to put the entire thing in perspective for me. She reminded me I get to define myself. I’m not a product of my circumstances, no, I am a product of the choices that I make.
I’ve managed to get myself into the right headspace for Remembrance and it’s allowed me to really understand what an opportunity the Remembrance Battle Royal is. Standing here, looking at these belts and taking stock of my career you’d think I’d be happy right? I’ve achieved a lot. But I’m always after the next thing. I’m always after that next defining victory. Coming off the last two shows, I don’t know, I’d be miles away from that wouldn’t I? No matter what I think of myself right now no one in that locker room thinks I’m anything special. If any of my coworkers saw my name on the other side of the booking sheet from them I think they’d shrug and walk out to the ring. In Rev1, Alex Kincaids name doesn’t have the cache it used to.”
He thinks about that for a second, folding his arms in front of him and staring at the case of trophies. The camera pans around to get a look at the front of him. The lights of the display dance in his eyes. Slowly, a smirk cracks his expression. It widens to a full on smile.
”How exciting is that?
You poor bastards. You unbelievably unlucky, unfortunate, unprepared, unbelieving silly sons of bitches do you know what I am going to do at Remembrance II? The count out win that wasn’t a win hurt, the loss to XYZ hurt, but what I am starting to realize is this is all setup. See, the universe has a way of lining opportunities up for you. All we are is sparks in the dark, and it’s up to us whether or not we let that fire really go and burn. I’m in a position now, where I sink or swim. I’ve done well enough to get eyes on me, but not well enough to get that huge win that I need. And I could spend the next few months fighting my way up the card bit by bit, sure. That would be the regular thing to do. Or I could walk into New York City, in the most famous arena in the world, in a company where I still haven’t proven myself and I can change the game in one match.
There are incredible, spectacular talents in there. People who can do things between the ropes that I can’t even imagine. There are submission maestros who could rip me apart and make last week seem like a walk in the park. There are people with the kind of strength I can’t imagine. But you know what there isn’t? There isn’t a second Alex Kincaid. There isn’t another guy who lives this thing the way I do. There isn’t a guy who wants it the way I want it. You want title gold for what? Prestige? For money? Success? Because it’s your dream? Fine. All that’s great. I want to be champion because this is what I am.”
After seeming so uncertain in the leadup to his first two contents in Revolution1, it’s a little surprising to hear him speak with such easy confidence. He turns to the camera and nods to himself, as though convincing himself of what he’s about to say, and his words grow firmer.
”I eat, breathe and sleep wrestling in a way I don’t think a lot of you can conceive. My entire life is conceptualized around one thing. This. When I succeed, you see it. When I fail, you get to watch it. There’s no separation between who Kincaid is under the bright lights and who I am when I come home at the end of the day. A lot of the time that’s exhausting in a way I don’t know how to talk about properly. But there are times like this, where I see all the moving parts lined up in front of me and i realize that there is no one in a better condition to shock the world at Remembrance like I am. I’m not going to sit here and lay out the draft sheet, I’m not going to tell all of you why I’d beat every single person. You’ve heard it. That’s as old hat in these situations as it gets. What I am going to tell you is that I keep seeing it in my head. Me standing there, in that ring, with that final opponent and nothing in the world able to stop me from getting that title shot.
Makes a couple of you mad right? I know how it is. Gets the heart pumping, sends a tingle up your spine. ‘Who does this guy think he is?’ Well, the good thing about me is I’m a guy who isn’t afraid to face a challenge when he calls it out. Being in a Battle Royal is like being in a den of wolves, and I’m the first guy to sit here and tell the wolves to come get him. The greater the challenge, the greater the pay off and what I want is to have to fight through hell to prove I am everything I say I am. Like I have countless times before.”
There’s a clattering sound from somewhere off camera and a rough sounding bark from one of his dogs. He seems a bit put off by the interruption, staring off camera as though he could stare down the sound. He shakes his head again, sighing, and turning back to the camera.
”I used to be such a private guy. The idea of inviting people into my home, doing a promo from my house...it would have been insane. It took me a while to understand that we’re in this together. That I can’t do this alone. I’m going to need the support of not just my family, not just whatever friends I can make in my back but the people in the crowd too. If I’m going to commit to this thing, if I’m going to be the kind of champion I want to be it means being an open book. I told you that I was nervous last week and I meant it. This week? You can trust me when I tell you I’m feeling fired up for that Battle Royal.
If you’ve never seen Revolution1, if you’ve never watched a second of professional wrestling before I want you to understand what this opportunity is. This is some of the most talented athletes in the world - with an open invitation for anyone else to prove they belong in that group - going to war for the greatest opportunity of their wrestling lives. This is a game changing match, a life changing match, the sort of thing that turns ordinary men into heroes. I am not a normal man. I am Infinite. I am the fire in the dark. I can’t wait to prove it all to you at Remembrance.”
He nods and takes a deep breath, with the cameras panning back over toward his display case. Then, as ever, they fade...to...black...
Alyssa Kincaid had woken up with the sun on this unseasonably warm September day in Bearing, Alberta. It was rare for her to be awake before Alex, and even rarer for them to have a day off. She intended to savor every minute of it. So she stayed in bed and watched him, closed eyes darting back and forth under his eyelids with whatever vision the sandman had given him. He grunted, his head lulling sideways at an unpleasant angle and Alyssa frowned. No dream. A nightmare instead.
She curled up against him and tapped her fingers across his chest in staccato rhythm. Tappa-tappa-tap. Tappa-tappa-tap. It was enough. His eyes flashed open, and for a moment she saw the same emerald colored intensity countless opponents had seen. She didn’t move, smiling a little at him, and his expression warmed. He laid back in the bed and stared at the ceiling for a moment. It took him nearly a minute to finally speak.
”I’d been...I was having a nightmare.”
”It looked pretty bad, are you going to be okay?” Alyssa studied his expression for a moment before she broached the next subject carefully ”Was it that match in Philly again-”
”No!” The denial was sharper than he’d intended and she laid her head down against his chest, cuddling up against him. He pulled her in and kissed the top of her head ”No. Not that it was...It was complex. I don’t even really know what I saw. I’m all fucked up about that loss. Battle Royales coming. I just...fuck! Why can’t I get this right?”
”’Anger multiplies fear.’” Alyssa reminded him softly. The words were important. Suggested to them as a sort of mantra by a marriage counselor they’d seen during a particularly rocky period two years before ”Tell me what you saw.”
”You’re right, of course you’re right.” He shook his head and squeezed her closer ”I’m sorry for being snappy. I’m just in a mood. Let’s get out of bed, I’ll feed the dogs and then we can-”
”Alex.”
He hesitated, opening his mouth for another argument but he realized she would cut through any attempt to deflect. He sighed and nodded ”I don’t know. It’s like I’m flying, you know? And I can see it. All around me. These sparks. These little bits of light. I look closer, and I can feel them. The little pieces of all the people I’ve known before. Anna Matthews. Owen Gonsalves. These incredible people I’ve met...and then I can feel the people I don’t know yet too. Scratch. Strader. People I’ve been watching. People I know have talent, who are in it for the right reasons...all of that.”
”Okay.”
”There’s something in them that I recognize. Like...like imagine if I was trying to keep a fire lit. And the only way to keep it lit is by being around other sparks. So I’m just flying through the dark, and every time I get a little bit closer I feel stronger. I feel…” He paused to collect himself and looked down at her, his expression darkening ”It happened at the edges first. Sparks going out. Bit by bit. I thought at first, it was just the light dying but then the longer I watched it it was like...it was like I could see the dark. Like this ugly, oily wave just moving out and swallowing them up. I wanted to get away, I wanted to be anywhere else but I’m watching these sparks go out and I’m feeling weaker and weaker...then I couldn’t move. Then it was just me. Just me and the dark, about to swallow me up.”
With her head against his chest and her arms around him, she could feel his muscles tensing during his description ”Your hearts pounding. It must have have really freaked you out.”
”I’ve had them before. Nothing this clear. It was like I was drowning.” He turned sideways, gently moving her off him and sitting on the edge of the bed. His hand rested, unconsciously, on his surgically repaired left knee ”Imagine what it’s like to sit in that locker room. All these people better than me. Stronger. Faster. Younger. There are so many of them who are in it for the wrong reasons, so many of them who would stab their friends in the back for a bigger payday. And that’s just the ones I understand. There are monsters out there, pounding at the gates…”
”So you’ll fight them. It’s not like you haven’t done that before.”
”We didn’t have a kid before.” He looked back over his shoulder at her ”I lost against XYZ last show. And yeah, if the ref had been faster maybe I could have beaten him...we can make all the excuses in the world. The fact is he tapped me out in front of everyone. Getting choked like that, while he was ripping my shoulder apart was more than I could take. There were all these times when I could see openings. Just choke him against the ropes. Just take that low shot. You’re not getting any younger and this guy is WORTH cheating to beat. He’s a bad guy. People will understand.”
Sometimes the best thing they could do to support each other was to just let them get it out. So she nodded and inched closer, letting him know she was all-the-way present as he continued.
”The only thing I know how to do is this. The only way I know how to provide for you, and for her is in that ring. We took that kid in because my father is responsible for what happened to this town. He treated his miners like garbage, then he cut bait and took all his cash and let the town die. Maggie’s dad never starts dealing drugs without being desperate. Never starts taking his own supply and that kid doesn’t find her parents overdosed on a Saturday morning.”
”That isn’t your fault.”
”No, but it’s my responsibility.” He said firmly ”She deserves a chance at a good life. We all do. And I think I can win her over and prove to her we really care about her if we win that title. But that means getting through god knows how many people in that Battle Royal. I couldn’t beat one guy in my first real match there. I need this win. But I’m worried what I would have to do to get it. You know, maybe I’m not one of the sparks. Maybe I’m the first bit of that black swallowing them all up. You get what I’m saying?”
She tried to hold it in. It was an inopportune time. He was upset. His brow was furrowed with intensity, his lip in a thin mouthed frown. But she couldn’t help it. She laughed. He sighed, frustrated she wasn’t taking him seriously, and he went to stand up from the bed. She grabbed his shoulders and playfully shoved him back down to a seated position ”Do you listen to yourself sometimes? You think three years ago we’d be sitting down trying to have this conversation? You’d be planning some stupid, elaborate revenge against XYZ that we’d both feel like crap about even if we pulled it off. We are not those people anymore. You are not that guy anymore.”
He shifted on the bed back toward her and she kissed him. When she broke away, she smiled warmly ”’The King of the North’ is a proud man. A good man. A family man. And when he wins that Battle Royal and secures a title shot, he’s going to be champion. The right way. We don’t need to backpedal. You need to become the guy we’ve always known you could be. Everyone is going to see what I see when I look at you.”
”Which is?”
”Oh you know, a reasonably handsome guy with an absolutely hideous beard.” She yelped as he pinched her and pushed her back onto the bed. He crawled on top of her and she laughed ”You know, there’s actually nothing to do today for once. I say we just stay here and enjoy having a day for ourselves for once.”
He kissed her and she wrapped herself around him, and they did.
*~*~*~*~*~*
”Some things, no matter how long you do this, never get old. Madison Square Garden? Yeah. You better believe I’m excited for that.”
Alex Kincaid stands in his den in front of the Revolution1 cameras. He’s dressed in jeans, a plaid shirt and he’s got his hair tied back behind his head. If you didn’t know him, you might assume he were relaxed. As if the King of the North were capable of such a thing. He’s looking at a case full of title belts, main event contracts and other trophies from a prolific career. The EMW National Title. The WAR World Heavyweight Championship. Most of these companies are long dead, but ‘Infinite’ Alex Kincaid always survives.
”I’m still hurting from my match with XYZ. That Painkiller is no joke. I could make excuses, I could tell you I got screwed because the referee was out, all that jazz. Waste of time. If I’d won the match and he was trying to tell me the win wasn’t legitimate, I think I’d tell him that a win is a win, however it happens. The Vin Diesel speech. Winning is winning. Fact is, I’m coming off a loss. Anybody who knows me knows I don’t take losses well. I am absolutely insufferable for a couple of days after I don’t get the job done. This has been another week like that. Me tearing my hair out, stressing myself out and trying to confront the ghost of that failure hanging over my head. And thankfully, Alyssa was able to put the entire thing in perspective for me. She reminded me I get to define myself. I’m not a product of my circumstances, no, I am a product of the choices that I make.
I’ve managed to get myself into the right headspace for Remembrance and it’s allowed me to really understand what an opportunity the Remembrance Battle Royal is. Standing here, looking at these belts and taking stock of my career you’d think I’d be happy right? I’ve achieved a lot. But I’m always after the next thing. I’m always after that next defining victory. Coming off the last two shows, I don’t know, I’d be miles away from that wouldn’t I? No matter what I think of myself right now no one in that locker room thinks I’m anything special. If any of my coworkers saw my name on the other side of the booking sheet from them I think they’d shrug and walk out to the ring. In Rev1, Alex Kincaids name doesn’t have the cache it used to.”
He thinks about that for a second, folding his arms in front of him and staring at the case of trophies. The camera pans around to get a look at the front of him. The lights of the display dance in his eyes. Slowly, a smirk cracks his expression. It widens to a full on smile.
”How exciting is that?
You poor bastards. You unbelievably unlucky, unfortunate, unprepared, unbelieving silly sons of bitches do you know what I am going to do at Remembrance II? The count out win that wasn’t a win hurt, the loss to XYZ hurt, but what I am starting to realize is this is all setup. See, the universe has a way of lining opportunities up for you. All we are is sparks in the dark, and it’s up to us whether or not we let that fire really go and burn. I’m in a position now, where I sink or swim. I’ve done well enough to get eyes on me, but not well enough to get that huge win that I need. And I could spend the next few months fighting my way up the card bit by bit, sure. That would be the regular thing to do. Or I could walk into New York City, in the most famous arena in the world, in a company where I still haven’t proven myself and I can change the game in one match.
There are incredible, spectacular talents in there. People who can do things between the ropes that I can’t even imagine. There are submission maestros who could rip me apart and make last week seem like a walk in the park. There are people with the kind of strength I can’t imagine. But you know what there isn’t? There isn’t a second Alex Kincaid. There isn’t another guy who lives this thing the way I do. There isn’t a guy who wants it the way I want it. You want title gold for what? Prestige? For money? Success? Because it’s your dream? Fine. All that’s great. I want to be champion because this is what I am.”
After seeming so uncertain in the leadup to his first two contents in Revolution1, it’s a little surprising to hear him speak with such easy confidence. He turns to the camera and nods to himself, as though convincing himself of what he’s about to say, and his words grow firmer.
”I eat, breathe and sleep wrestling in a way I don’t think a lot of you can conceive. My entire life is conceptualized around one thing. This. When I succeed, you see it. When I fail, you get to watch it. There’s no separation between who Kincaid is under the bright lights and who I am when I come home at the end of the day. A lot of the time that’s exhausting in a way I don’t know how to talk about properly. But there are times like this, where I see all the moving parts lined up in front of me and i realize that there is no one in a better condition to shock the world at Remembrance like I am. I’m not going to sit here and lay out the draft sheet, I’m not going to tell all of you why I’d beat every single person. You’ve heard it. That’s as old hat in these situations as it gets. What I am going to tell you is that I keep seeing it in my head. Me standing there, in that ring, with that final opponent and nothing in the world able to stop me from getting that title shot.
Makes a couple of you mad right? I know how it is. Gets the heart pumping, sends a tingle up your spine. ‘Who does this guy think he is?’ Well, the good thing about me is I’m a guy who isn’t afraid to face a challenge when he calls it out. Being in a Battle Royal is like being in a den of wolves, and I’m the first guy to sit here and tell the wolves to come get him. The greater the challenge, the greater the pay off and what I want is to have to fight through hell to prove I am everything I say I am. Like I have countless times before.”
There’s a clattering sound from somewhere off camera and a rough sounding bark from one of his dogs. He seems a bit put off by the interruption, staring off camera as though he could stare down the sound. He shakes his head again, sighing, and turning back to the camera.
”I used to be such a private guy. The idea of inviting people into my home, doing a promo from my house...it would have been insane. It took me a while to understand that we’re in this together. That I can’t do this alone. I’m going to need the support of not just my family, not just whatever friends I can make in my back but the people in the crowd too. If I’m going to commit to this thing, if I’m going to be the kind of champion I want to be it means being an open book. I told you that I was nervous last week and I meant it. This week? You can trust me when I tell you I’m feeling fired up for that Battle Royal.
If you’ve never seen Revolution1, if you’ve never watched a second of professional wrestling before I want you to understand what this opportunity is. This is some of the most talented athletes in the world - with an open invitation for anyone else to prove they belong in that group - going to war for the greatest opportunity of their wrestling lives. This is a game changing match, a life changing match, the sort of thing that turns ordinary men into heroes. I am not a normal man. I am Infinite. I am the fire in the dark. I can’t wait to prove it all to you at Remembrance.”
He nods and takes a deep breath, with the cameras panning back over toward his display case. Then, as ever, they fade...to...black...