30th September, 2019
Helms household
Hollywood Hills, California
Everything ached. That was one thing that David had forgotten about in his romanticised version of the business that lived inside of his mind; he forgot just how much the body went through over the course of a match, how much of a beating it took even in victory. How sore the muscles got, how much the joints ached… at least his did, but with his thirty ninth birthday only weeks away, that shouldn’t really have come as any great surprise.
It did serve as a stark reminder though, that he wasn’t the spring chicken he once was. And you couldn’t ask for a more humbling thought either… just look at what had gone down two days previous in the first night of the tournament: Lucas out, Shaun gone. Two major stars of David’s era in SCW knocked out by younger wrestlers. Maybe it was a sign?
Yes, he’d made it through, so had guys like Shilo and Hudson too, but the fact that legends were being picked off spoke volumes, didn’t it? It served as a stark reminder - along with the aches in what he was sure was practically every park of his body - that he was getting old. No, not old. Aged. Maturing. Like a good scotch. And if that was all it would take to convince himself that he was good to go then he was a lucky guy… but in a way, he’d missed the pain. He’d missed the come down, soothing the aches, the hot showers and deep heat, all of it. After as many years in the business as he had under his belt, it was part of his daily routine and to suddenly lose that had been strange. But this? This was living. He was alive again!
That wasn’t fair though, it suggested that he didn’t feel happy in his family life, his world away from the ‘world’ of wrestling. He was. David was deeply satisfied with his life, enamoured even. But like a junkie that’s been clean for years, that one slip… that one bittersweet kiss… it brings back everything, all at once… and the truth was, he was lusting for more.
“Well look at this morose motherfucker right here,” the voice of Jason Helms said as David reached the edge of the swimming pool in his backyard; he may ache like high hell, but that didn’t mean he could afford to slack on his training, not if he wanted to get beyond match two. “Looks like someone took a shit in his breakfast cereal!”.
“Nice…” David said as he slipped out of the pool and walked over to his towel that was folded across the foot of the sun lounger at poolside. “Quoting Kevin Smith isn’t exactly original though, bro…”
“Yeah well, know your audience,” Jason teased. “Was surprised to even see you home, figured the fam would take some time together before coming back from wherever the fuck saturdays show was.”
“Indianapolis,” the elder brother replied as he towered off, his voice slightly muffled as he ran the towel over his head. “And nah, didn’t want to lose valuable training days, you know how it is. Plus there was Jay to think about and Aaron and Jenni had their reasons to want to get back. Came back yesterday morning…”
“Yeah, I heard you pull in,” Jason explained as he dropped down onto one of the sun loungers and kicked his feet up. “Watched the twitch VOD when I got home Saturday night. Just sorry I couldn’t be there in person, but the function was booked months ago and I didn’t want to leave Nia doing it alone...” he explained; David had offered him and Aniya - and even Amy and Wyatt - tickets, but Jason had explained they had a VIP party booked at the Black Dahlia that had been booked several months earlier that made it virtually impossible for them to get away. It hadn’t been an issue then and was less of one now.
“Nah, I get it Jase, don’t sweat it,” David told his younger brother. Obligations were obligations after all.
“You looked good,” Jason admitted, throwing his arms up behind his head as he relaxed on the sun lounger. “Can hardly tell you’ve slowed down at all, if I’m honest,” he said, completely deadpan and David looked up at him, expecting to see a smirk but finding none there to see. “You seem surprised…”
“I guess I shouldn’t be,” the elder brother countered, chuckling to himself though he wasn’t exactly amused by the situation. “I mean, it’s you we’re talking about, you’ve never been anything but blunt to the point of being rude, why should I expect anything different because I’m your brother?” He went on, finishing with a wink that finally brought the grin back to Jason’s face. “So I’ve actually slowed down then?”
Jason nodded his head, bringing his hand from behind his head to show his finger and thumb an in or so apart from touching. “Little bit,” he told David, and to his credit, he did have the grace to sound sorry to be breaking this to him. “I mean, the fans sure as fuck wouldn’t notice, it wasn’t that obvious, but… well, I know how quick you are bro… or were… and what I saw wasn’t you at one hundred percent. Close, but not quite.”
“Yeah well, I’m forty next year bro, what do you expect?” David asked with a chuckle; the greys in his beard were already showing and he had crows feet that could catch dust in them, so why was it any surprise that he would have slowed down too as age caught up to him? “What matters is that I can still go, right? I mean, I won, so it’s all good…”
“But you made a meal of it,” Jason said, looking at his brother who frowned at him, but Jason simply shrugged his shoulders. “I’m not gonna blow smoke up your ass Dave, you looked good out there sure, but you weren’t at your best. Five years ago, you’d have eaten Victor Mason for breakfast and then tackled Blake for brunch!”
“Five years ago I was still wrestling every week and I’d go on to win Best of the Best in a few months time,” David told his brother matter-of-factly. “Was Victor even wrestling five years ago? I’m not sure it’s a fair comparison…”
“Doesn’t change the fact that you’ve slipped though, Dave…” Jason reasoned, disregarding David’s argument almost nonchalantly. “You know what I meant anyway; you may ‘keep fit’ in retirement bro, but you don’t train.”
The fact that Jason Helms was blunt was in a way, universally understood already, so it wasn’t as if David had any need to believe Jason’s words were malicious… but that fact hadn’t stopped them stinging either, because they played on every insecurity he had developed in the years following his active retirement. Had he really slipped, had his skills diminished to the point that Jason could see from a replay on twitch? That left a knot in his stomach that felt like the weight of the world in his gut; damaged pride was heavy. “Shit bro, tell me what you really think!” David replies, trying to pass it off as a joke, giving a fake little chuckle as he tossed his towel down and went to sit at the table where he’d left his phone and vape.
Jason wasn’t convinced in the slightest by it though. “Would you rather I blow smoke up your ass? I mean, I can do that if you want me to?” He offered and David flipped him off as he took a puff on his vape. “If its a pity party you want then I’ll throw it here and now, streamers and all… but do you think Maddie Chase is gonna take pity on you? Or anyone else you may come up against if you do get by her? Fuck no they ain’t!”
“Alright, I get it,” David fired back, his dented pride resulting in a much shorter fuse on his temper than normal.
“But do you?” Jason asked, sitting up now and taking the conversation far more seriously than he had been. “Look bro, if this thing is just a bit of fun and a way of giving the fans a pop then cool, it worked. Didn’t need to be in the building to know they ate that shit up on Saturday night, you clearly still have plenty of marks that worship the ground you walk on,” he said before standing up and walking towards the patio furniture where David sat at the table. Grabbing a chair, he pulled it closer to the table and took a seat directly across from his brother. “But if it’s more than that, then you have to acknowledge it. Even through seven twenty p thanks to my bullshit WiFi connection, I could see the look in your eyes and if it wasn’t fire then I dunno what the fuck it was, but it didn’t look like just a run out to me… it looked like a dry run!”
David looked at his brother in confusion, his brow furrowed and eyes narrowed. “Dry run? Bro, what the fuck are you talking about?!”
“Did I stutter?” Jason asked in mocking tones. David may be the older brother, but that didn’t mean Jason would allow him to play dumb and treat him as if he was an idiot in the process. “You’re playing on the nostalgia trip right now, and it makes sense given the result of the last G.O.W and tall… but I’m not convinced that’s all this is. I’d say you’re testing the waters on a return, using this thing to dip your toes back in slowly without obligation. Tell me I’m wrong!”
David sat there looking at his younger brother for a moment before finally giving a derisive little scoff. He picked up his vape again, and took a hit, blowing a plume of smoke into the air above their heads. “You can read whatever you want into it bro, but I’m just concentrating on Maddie Chase right now. Nothing more,” he said flatly, dismissing the accusation without giving an answer.
“So this isn’t you searching for answers this?” Jason pushes on relentlessly; more fool David for thinking he could just dismiss the issue like that, it was as if he didn’t know his brother at all! “Look me in the eyes and tell me that I’m wrong and I’ll shut the fuck up about it, you won’t hear another word!”
David turned to look directly into his brothers eyes, ready to answer… but changed his reply at the last minute as he set his face into a horrible smirk. “I would tell you bro, but every time I try to talk seriously with you that fucking perm makes it impossible…”
“And now you’re using your wife’s jokes to deflect too,” Jason commented, sending the shot back rather than biting as David had hoped. “You can swerve all you want bro, but it’s not me you’re lying to Dave, you’re lying to yourself. And if that’s cool with you then it’s cool with me, but—”
“Alright, Jesus fuck,” David snapped, his cool facade slipping finally. “You’re fucking relentless, you know that? Christ, fine… I mean, I wouldn’t call it a ‘dry run’ and I wasn’t even sure I was gonna enter until Jenni talked me into it, but yeah, okay, maybe it did get the old brain firing, being back in that ring. I’m only human Jase, of course it’s gonna have that sort of effect!” he admitted, frustrated that his brother had backed him into a corner. He could have lied, or could have tried to anyway, but that was the problem. Of the two of them, it wasn’t David who inherited the real ability to tell bold faced lies: in comparison, David was just a gifted amateur next to the pro player that was Jason. “But that doesn’t mean I’m going to, bro… there’s a significant difference between musing over an idea, playing scenarios out in your head, and actually following through with them, you know that!”
“I also know a little bit about changing your mind once you start something,” Jason said, not just heavily implying a hidden meaning behind his words but flat out making it obvious. “Have you forgotten how I was when I first appeared? Living under a fake identity, lying to you and all for my own twisted sense of revenge? Look how quickly that went out of the window… it didn’t take me long to realise how wrong I was, to change my mind… what about you, bro? Is four years enough time to realise you want to do the same?”
David sat in silence, contemplating his brothers words as he puffed away on his vape; the air above him was the perfect metaphor for the atmosphere at that table but eventually, as Jason waved away the cloud of water vapour that Dave was emitting at an alarming rate, David looked back up at his younger brother and his face seemed more inquisitive now than anything. “So let’s say I do want to win this tournament,” he started, the conversation taking a different turn to where it had been going. “You say I've deteriorated since retiring… but if it was good old Jason Helms’ job to fix it, what would he suggest huh? Because I’ve bust my ass training to ensure I’m in shape for this thing but you reckon it’s not been enough so what would be?!”
Despite the accusatory tone in his brothers voice, a grin spread across Jason’s face and he sat back, pondering for a second before pushing his chair backwards to stand up. “Go grab a shower to wash the chlorine off,” Jason told his brother. “Then get your training gear together and wait for me to call. I’ve got a few calls to other people to make…”
“Hey, hold up, what the fuck?” David asked as Jason began to make his way to the steps that led down to the garage which provided the nearest boundary between their properties. Jason came to a halt and turned to look back at his brother, a crooked smile on his face. “What do you mean get my training gear together, where the hell are we going?”
The crooked smile remained as Jason tapped the side of his nose with one finger. “All in good time big bro, all in good time…” he said in a sing-song voice before winking and with that he disappeared. David sat there, not knowing what the fuck was going on and yet, strangely, he found himself gathering up his belongings to head inside for the shower he had just been told to take. When the hall had the power between brothers shifted? And why was he taking order from a man with a damn perm?! He had no answer for either…
One Hour Later
West Hollywood, California
Dressed in his sweats and sneakers, David found himself in one of the more run down parts of West Hollywood’s industrial district with his brother, no idea why they were there or where they were going. Evidently Jason had some big idea or point to make, but while David did trust his brothers judgement and appreciated the desire to help, he wished it wasn’t all so cloak and dagger.
Would it really have killed his younger brother to explain the plan while they were in the car? Instead Jason had given, well not quite the silent treatment because they had been chatting as they made the short trip down from the hills where they lived to the other side of Hollywood, but any time Dave made mention of their destination Jason either clammed up under the guise of suddenly singing along with the music on the stereo or swiftly changed the subject at a pace any disgraced politician would be impressed at!
But the car was now parked in some warehouse parking lot, sticking out like a sore thumb in comparison to the semi’s and trailers that made up the rest of the occupants; this was definitely off the beaten track as far as tourists were concerned. “Okay, enough…” David finally said, tired of ignoring the situation and Jason’s ducking of his question. “Whay the hells going on, huh? You gotta fucking communicate bro, you can’t just drag me to the middle of nowhere, surrounded by semi trucks and warehouses and expect me to just get what’s going on!”
“I hoped it’d be a bit more obvious in about ten seconds of you just shut your damn cake hole for once,” Jason told his brother, rolling his eyes as he continued on around the corner of the building they were walking along the wall of, before coming to a stop and only when David followed him around the corner did he realise what Jason was holding his hands out towards. “Voila!” The younger New Jerseyite said, looking pleased with himself but David still wasn’t following.
It was a building just like every other in the vicinity; big, ugly, rundown and tired, only… “O’Brian Boxing Club...” David read from the old weather worn sign above the door, his brow furrowing as he turned to his brother. “The fucks this?!”
“You can read, can’t you?” Jason asked with a smirk. “I know you can because you just did… so I figured it was kind of self-explanatory, really…”
“Alright smartass, lemme rephrase,” David said, rolling his eyes. “Why the fuck have you brought me to a boxing club? I own a gym, Jase; I don’t need to go anywhere else to train, I have everything I could need already!”
“And that is exactly why you’ve fucking slipped!” Jason fired back, his jovial tone gone in favour of an air of seriousness that seemed almost alien on his face. This was, of course, the guy who prided himself on being SCW’s troll king for want of a better explanation of his ‘role’ within the company. “I know you haven’t forgotten where you got your start dude, because you still fucking own the place… but how much do you remember about Training at Trip’s place?” Jason asked, eyebrow raised as if he was expecting an answer but he didn’t give David time to give one. “I remember. I remember the stories anyway, training in a boxing ring instead of a wrestling ring, the run down equipment patched up time and time again crown years of abuse, grooves worn in the floor from the same routines in the same spot every day for as long as anyone can remember… but now what do you have?” he asked, again not giving David chance to legitimately answer the question before answering himself. “Comfort! Privilege! The best gear with the best features, all the mod cons, the whole kit and fucking kaboodle…”
“So what, I should expect the kids to start out using bullshit equipment and charge them several grand for it?!” David asked, his annoyance level rising but Jason shook his head.
“Nah, the kids at AnteUp are paying enough for their education, least they should expect is equipment from this century,” Jason said before lifting a hand up to prod his brother in the chest with his index finger. “But you,” he said, another prod for emphasis. “You didn’t start out the same way your students did, did you? You didn’t have a brand new wrestling ring to take bumps in, you didn’t get to practice diving from the top into a fucking pool of sponge like those kids… so why have you forgotten that?!”
David frowned and looked over at the boxing gym in front of them but Jason lightly pushed his brother in the arm to get his attention again. “Hey,” David reacted, scowling but Jason just quirked an eyebrow.
“I asked you a question Dave,” Jason replied calmly, but his words were laden with accusation that David was ignoring him.
And in truth, that probably was the case, because David Helms - as great as he may be - didn’t actually have an answer. It wasn’t that he forgot how he had gotten his start in the business, because those memories were so ingrained in him that he wouldn’t ever be able to do so… but it was fair to say he had forgotten the effort it took to put the work in during the early days. “Selective memory…” David mumbled, wishing he had a cigarette.
“So you chose to forget,” Jason pressed, looking for a reaction and getting exactly what he wanted; David looked angry, sure, but he also looked ashamed too, which was evidently what Jason was pushing for. “I used this place before the injury. When I was in LA anyway… it’s remarkable how much it reminds me of Trip’s old place in Boston. Last time I saw a ring so rundown, it was disassembled and sat by a dumpster! And make no bones about it bro, it is a proper ring… no springy ropes, no supple boards that cushion every blow. No spring, no bounce… must bring back memories, huh?”
David nodded, though the action was subconscious if truth be told: the first couple years of his career, his training had left him just as bruised and battered as the matches had. Sure, he wrestled in a real wrestling ring at HWF shows, but Trip’s gym? The AnteUp kids had it easy! After your twentieth back body drop onto solid pine board beneath that thin cloth, you were as purple as Barney the dinosaur’s butt and that was no exaggeration. “It wasn’t training, it was punishment… at least that’s how it felt anyway…”
“But if made you who you are,” Jason countered, even if he agreed with what David said. “And it’ll help you re-find that guy too, if that’s what you really want...”
David looked at the faded sign above the door, with its peeling paint and cracks in the wood… and for a minute, it didn’t read O’Brien’s, it read Trippatoni’s, just as it did above the door of the gym in Boston. “How?” Was all he asked, not looking at from the sign, though his eyes were no longer playing tricks on him.
“I know the owner,” Jason said with a shrug that David missed entirely because his eyes were still locked on the sign above the door. “He’s a patron of the Dahlia; gave him VIP membership and get use of this place in return. Fair trade in my book... and now you get to reap the benefits too, because we’re gonna go in there and remind you of who the fuck you actually are… if you really want to remember anyway. Question is; do you?”
The question hung in the air between them; David knew why Jason was poking, he knew Jason could see through the facade that he put up, the retired professional who enjoyed reaping the rewards of his labour. He loved his life, he wasn’t saying he didn’t… but he wouldn’t lie and say he didn’t feel like he’d lost a large party of his identity in retirement too, and Jason knew that. He hadn’t bought the whole ‘nostalgia trip’ explanation because he already knew how badly David needed this tournament… and with the truth so painfully obvious, David realised there was no point denying it any longer. “There anyone in there to spar with?” David asked as he turned back to his brother.
A smile spread across Jason’s face and he pulled the keys for the place out of his pocket. “No need,” he said, pulling out the keys for the gym from his pocket. “Time to dance big bro,” he said, tossing the keys in the air and catching them before winking to his brother and setting off for the door. David fell in step before Jason had moved more than a yard.
“Hey guys,” David starts as the camera begins rolling from the office of his home in the hills. “So here we are again, huh? In several ways, guess it’s lucky that I’m still here to fiim another one of these things, huh? Victor Mason pushed me further than I care to admit, and I had some serious questions to ask myself when I got home after the show, believe me…”
“I never realised just how much pressure I’d put myself under when I entered this tournament... I figured what the hell, it’ll be fun and hey, if I lose then so be it, it wasn’t meant to be. Then I’d slink off back to retirement and carry on living my fantastic life… only I won. It was close, Victor pushed me, but I won and now we’re here for night two and it struck me that I don’t just want to compete for fun… I want to win.”
He sighs, looking glum. “I hate to admit it, but this isn’t just some little trip down memory lane for me anymore, I realised that as soon as the bell rang and the ref grabbed my arm to raise it in victory… because retired or not, that feeling? Better than anything I can say to explain it, it really is!”
“And now we’re on round two, with the semi-finals the same night, and I have to go up against Maddie Chase before I can even think about those triple threats… and that desire isn’t just still there bro, it’s fucking double!” he says intently, looking right down the camera’s lens. “Talk about putting pressure on myself, you know? I mean, Maddie Chase, she had it tough when she decided to become a wrestler because she had the weight of expectation put on her before even lacing up her boots for the first time with her surname, didn’t she?”
“She had the Chase Family legacy to live up to and making an impact in the business wasn’t just suggested but expected simply by the virtue of coming from that family, so I can’t even begin to imagine how tough those early days must have been for her,” he says, genuinely sympathetic rather than sarcastic. It’s David, not Jason. “It’s ironic that I had it fucking easy in comparison, coming into the business as a nobody with no reputation to try and live up to… but things change, don’t they? I wasn’t part of a legacy back then, but over the course of my career, I carved one for myself, and now I guess you could argue that it’s me who has the weight of that legacy truly on his shoulders.”
“Maddie has gone off to do what she wants, she’s had her success and proven herself in the ring and now goes wherever her fancy takes her,” he says, running a hand over his chin thoughtfully before continuing to speak. “But I went to the top of SCW and earned myself a spot in the Hall of Fame. I have a wife who continued that name when I retired, and who’ll definitely be joining me in that hall sooner rather than later. My brother followed me into the business, mine and Regan’s kids are wrestlers now… I built a legacy and now here I am, competing in the God of Wrestling tournament and all of that pressure pales in comparison to what I’m putting on my own shoulders!”
He falls silent and looks down at his hands, continuing to talk as he looks away from the camera. “I know there’s every chance I’m getting my ass kicked on Saturday night,” he says, clenching his fists with an audible crack before he finally looks back up at the camera. “I may walk out there and get my ass whooped, like I maybe should have last week, and that’s that isn’t it, it’s all over… but I had it pointed out to me a few days after the first round by a certain douche bag in my life, that I was lying to myself when I came back for this tournament and you know what? I’m not going to sit here and say that I’ll be happy with my performance if I lose. I won’t be happy if I get knocked out by Maddie,” he says, shaking his head. “I won’t be happy if I make it to the Semi-finals and lose in the triple threat. I won’t be happy making it to the final and not winning, because I’ve made a career out of pushing myself to the very limit and all it took was to go back to my roots to realise that!”
“I came from nothing. I had a rough start and I bust my ass to make a success of myself! I had millions of people around the world looking up to me at one point, and I still have people that feel the same way now… so what kind of fucking example would I be setting if I said it was okay to accept defeat before the opening fucking bell, huh?” he asks, fire lit behind his eyes. “So bring your A-game Maddie. And the same goes for every single person in this tournament, too! This isn’t a nostalgia trip anymore, this isn’t a feel good moment or me looking for a participation ribbon, this is David freaking Helms returning to the ring to show exactly why he became a legend in this business. I built my House. I built my legacy. I made the Helms name a household one even if others continue that work these days… but now it’s time to remind everyone else how I did that, not just reminisce over when it happened! David Helms… Supreme Champion. Best of the Best. Hall of Famer. God of Wrestling? Hell of a fucking ring to it, don’t you think?” He asks, grinning as he ends the video in time-old fashion. “BANG!”