Post by T-Marv on Oct 12, 2013 23:27:35 GMT -4
He watched it over and over again. He watched his head being drilled into that exposed turnbuckle with his flesh and skull being impacted in a way that he hasn’t seen before. His neck should have been broken. His head impacted. Yet he sits there with a bit of a woozy feeling, black eye, and bruised cheekbone, just watching the devastation over and over and over again. Most people would look away. Most people would be physically ill watching themselves being decimated. Not Terry. He is studying, learning, and plotting. But more than that, he doesn’t EVER want to forget the feeling in the pit of his stomach. The feeling of losing the APW Undisputed Championship.
“I can’t believe you’re still watching that thing.”
Maggie had snuck into the home theatre room and nearly scared Terry straight out of the chair as she did. He smiled a bit and pushed pause on the scene just as his head was snapping back from hitting that exposed turnbuckle. Maggie shudders a bit and has to turn away.
“If you celebrate only the successes and deny the failures in life, you are doomed to repeat them. I want this feeling, this image burned into my brain, etched into my soul so that I will never EVER want it repeated. Next time, I’ll step in that ring, and I’ll know exactly what to avoid, what waits for me if I should fail. And it’ll drive me that much harder.”
Maggie catches something in his eyes. Something that he’s only shown glimmers of since they’ve been together. Something that burns so bright that it actually scares her. While trying to figure this out, she realizes something like a light bulb going off inside her head.
”Next Time? I thought you were done with APW… that losing that title was your out, your chance to get away from the hell that they’ve put you through.”
Terry stares at her intensely. The look on her face told of one of worry. APW had been nothing but bad for him lately, what with the concussion and the thousand other attacks that he’d suffered. She was concerned about his body. He, however, was concerned about his legacy.
“That was the plan. But they booked an instant rematch this week on Asylum, a move we all should have expected. I was gonna blow it off, call up Jeff and tell him to take the opportunity and shove it. But, the second I reached for that phone, something clicked….or likely something snapped inside of me.”
He paused for a second and stood up. He strolled over to the window and gazed out of it absent mindedly.
“I realized that I had the chance to be someone that I haven’t been since August 26th 2012… I had a chance to be the chaser, to be the one who’s on the bottom who had to climb that ladder all over again, to feel the glory of capturing the prize all over again. I could feel something dance in the pit of my stomach, Maggie, something that had been lost for FAR too long. I felt that excitement I felt the very first time I stepped into the ring, that I felt the very first time I won a title, that I felt when I put Kurt Noble down and won the Undisputed Championship. It was the same feeling I had when I stood there after the most brutal match of my life, after I claimed the Survive and Conquer Crown. I felt that same spirit, that same enraging flame come rolling through my body and engulfed me.”
Terry pauses for a second before turning around and looking back at Maggie and leaning against the wall.
“Something happened to me in the 408 days that I held this title. I became complacent. I got this thought in my head that I was invincible and couldn’t be beaten. Everything after that just sort of lost meaning for me. Everything after that didn’t really feel like a challenge anymore. I lost my passion. I lost my drive. I lost my desire. I still went out there week in and week out and gave it everything I possibly could, but I didn’t feel like myself. It didn’t feel like I really had anything to fight for. I was going through the motions, mentally exhausted, physically exhausted, and unable to find any kind of real motivation. But now, that’s all changed!”
He passes her a small smile as he shakes his head.
“Aubrey did something that 10 other APW superstars failed miserably at. She managed somehow to humble the Greatest Thing to Ever Happen to wrestling. But at the same time, she did something that I’m sure she never intended. She let a tiger out of his cage. She took one of the most powerful forces in this sport and gave him a reason to get off his lazy ass and WANT to do something again. She motivated me. She made me hungry. And now, all I can think about, all I can dream about is grabbing on to that pretty little face of hers and drive it into the canvas so hard that her children will have inverted cheekbones. All I can fantasize about is making her feel exactly the way I did less than one week ago and make her feel the AGONY of defeat, of losing that which you’ve bled for, that which you’ve given EVERYTHING in your life for, that which you’ve sacrificed EVERYONE you’ve ever cared about for.”
Where did her Terry go? That was the first thought on Maggie’s mind as she looked into the face of this monster dying of starvation with human flesh being the only thing that could sedate his hunger. For a second, she saw a glimpse of the old Terry coming back into the picture and her heart sunk as her hands instinctively went over her round belly as if protecting the child living inside. But then the guilt set in, cause he’d never given her a SINGLE reason to doubt his commitment to her or their family. Still, she was worried.
“So… You’re really doing this then huh?”
Terry either didn’t see the worried look in her eyes, or he didn’t care. He flashed a cocky smile and his eyes lit up.
“God Damn right I am. But more than that, I’m fucking doing this right. They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone… And now that I’m without that undisputed title I feel naked, I feel empty. A week ago I was ready to walk away from APW, but I wanted to do it on my terms, with my head held high, and one last massive hurrah. I wanted to make a big statement, come out there and lay the title in the middle of the ring in some sort of huge metaphorical, symbolic gesture before walking back down that ramp one last time, waving my hand at all the fans who have FINALLY accepted me. But now, now all of that has been clouded by the visual of God’s Gift to Wrestling being wheeled out on a stretcher, unresponsive and unconscious. I REFUSE to let that be my lasting memory. No… my swan song with APW is going to go a bit differently, and the abusive scheduling of the powers that be give me that opportunity.”
Terry walks over to Maggie and takes both of her hands into his. She smiles at him, but fears the next words coming out of his mouth. She was ready for this all to be over, for it all to be done. But right now, he’s contemplating one more big run at things. She’ll stand behind him of course, like she’s always promised. She just wonders when the last time will be the last time.
“And I’m going to take full advantage of it. That Title is as good as mine once again. And then One Night in Hell happens and I get my hero’s sendoff.”
“What about AJP? You think she’s just gonna let you waltz in there and let you have your happy ending?”
It’s not like Maggie’s stupid. She knows Terry had a plan, but she just wanted to bring a little bit of reality to his fantasy and day dreaming. He smiled at her and laughed a bit. He kisses her on the forehead and shakes his head.
“Of course not. AJP is a warrior, she proved that last week. She’s gonna fight me back tooth and nail. That’s just what she does. She’s proven to the most important person in the world that she can accomplish the biggest of all hopes and dreams. Not to me, not to the people….she’s proven it to herself, and that kind of confidence in a girl like AJP is a nuclear level kind of dangerous. No No, this will surely be our hardest fought battle yet. I get that… I understand that, and I damn sure know the type of person I’m going against. She suddenly has something to lose, something to fight for, and like a lioness will rip the throat out of ANYTHING that comes within striking distance of her baby. That Undisputed title is her new baby and this fight will be just that. It will be hard, it will be vicious, it will be violent.”
Maggie couldn’t stop cringing. Imagining her husband in that kind of war yet again wasn’t how she wanted to spend her first few months as a newlywed. Terry sees the concern in her face and uses his hand to brush back her hair, trying everything he can to comfort her. He smiles.
“However, Aubrey is about to step in the ring with something she’s never EVER seen before, something APW hasn’t seen in a long time. The Terry Marvin who beat her at Test for the best, who she defeated just several days ago, that man was a different animal all together. He was comfortable. He was satisfied. He didn’t give a shit if he won or lost, if he held that title nor not. He had all the fight tortured out of him and he was nothing more than a condemned man walking into the gas chamber after making peace with the events that were about to transpire. Our match last week wasn’t a normal fight for a piece of leather attached with gold plating and an engraved nameplate. It was an execution. She walked into that ring and she put the gun against the head of a beaten and battered old man who was just begging to be put out of his misery and she pulled the trigger. I was sacrificed… martyred for the entire world to see. That version of Terry Marvin is dead and gone.”
Again Maggie feels sick with the imagery running through her head. But Terry has turned around and is completely lost in his own thoughts.
“But just like the God’s Gift of Wrestling that I am, I have risen up once again in a new form… a deadlier form. I no longer have anything left to lose. I’m hungry for that title, hungry to replace the limb that I feel has been forcefully removed from my body. And I am at my most desperate moment of my career! Aubrey J. Parker isn’t ready for that version of Terry Marvin. She’s not ready for the man who tortured Kurt Noble to the brink of insanity and then maniacally pushed him right over the edge. She’s not ready for the man who knows no boundaries, no limits and would stop at nothing to get what he feels is rightfully his. The Real Show era is over. The Summer of Showtime was over. As glorious as they were, they had to be dismantled for something new to take their place… something stronger, something unknown… something to make even the bravest man on the planet quiver in fear. That’s what Aubrey has to look forward to Sunday Night!”
Maggie couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t recognize this man, didn’t want him to change, didn’t want him to become the monster that he once was, that she knew that he’d never want to be again. She couldn’t let him lose himself like this.
But she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t say a word. She didn’t know if it was out of fear… or if she was remembering every bad thing AJP put him through for the last few months. Pretending to be his friend… trying to end his career and endanger his life. Suddenly, something snapped inside of Maggie and she wanted to see just a small bit of revenge enacted on the woman who caused ALL of this. After all, didn’t AJP deserve it?
“It is time for AJP to learn what it’s like to have a bulls eye on her back to have somebody vicious and without remorse trying to rip your livelihood right out of your body. Because that’s exactly what I’ll be trying to do. I want to make her feel every single thing I felt when she was the hunter and continuously had me in her sights trying to put that deadly bullet right in between my eyes. Now she gets to live with the paranoia that I’m out to get her, that I’m always one step behind her. She gets to live with the fear of being a failure as a champion. Only, I plan to make that fear a reality. I plan to make the world see that as good as AJP is, putting a title around her waist is like giving Hitler the keys to every Synagogue on the planet with a loaded flame thrower. I get to make the world see that for all her acting and all her philandering, that she is not on the same plan of reality as the rest of the human population.”
Terry shakes his head and looks up for a second at Maggie.
“Make no mistake about it… That bitch is crazy. We see it every day on Twitter with her passive aggressive bullshit until she undoubtedly snaps on someone fifty times a day. We see it when she completely changes direction and becomes the sad little depressed girl who everybody hates. BOO FUCKING HOO! And for someone with a fragile mindset as her who has a thousand different triggers that could detonate at any given second, the pressure of being the champion, of holding on to the belt that you’ve begged for and desired your entire life is insurmountable. She’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and her psyche is as fragile as a Jenga tower in the middle of an hour long marathon game. One little piece shifts and the whole fucking thing comes crashing down. And I can do that better than anyone in the universe. I can find your deepest darkest insecurities and drill into them until you’re nothing more than a sniveling pile of tears and broken dreams laying in the corner catatonic with drool coming out of your mouth. That’s what I’m going to do to Aubrey at Asylum. I’m going to attack, and put on the pressure, and keep coming and coming and coming until she breaks in half, until she snaps. And when that moment comes, I’ll be laying in wait, playing opossum and ready to capitalize.”
Terry turns back to a weary Maggie, now sitting down listening to her husband’s extensive tirade.
“Aubrey opened my eyes to a lot of things when she snapped my head into that turnbuckle and crashed her knee down across my head. She let me know that a soft man with too much damn pride cannot succeed in this world, not forever. So now, now I must devolve back into the hard, uncaring son of a bitch who puts everything else aside. Then and only then will I be unable to walk out of China as the Undisputed Champion once again.
And this is something I have to do. As much as I have soured on APW recently, they’re still my one true home. It’s the one place that I’ve felt the most like myself at. So when I see someone about to destroy it, somebody who endangers everything it’s stood for, there’s a piece of myself that cannot let it go, that cannot let it be devoured. So I will save APW from the Tyranny of AJP, and not allow her to continue her reign of evil upon them all. I will make it stop. I will make it all stop.”
He pauses for a second quickly before continuing.
“Tomorrow night is for more than just the Undisputed championship. It’s for my legacy. It’s for my chance to end things how I WANT to end them. I deserve that much. I owe myself that much. And I owe APW that much!
Sunday Night, I will make history and make Aubrey J. Parker the SHORTEST LIVED Undisputed Champion EVER!”
Terry pauses and looks up. Not at Maggie, but past her, seemingly right into the camera as his eyes are fixed and determined.
“ITS SHOWTIME!”
Terry smiles quickly then turns back toward the television and continues to relive the scene from Asylum over and over and over again.
Maggie stands up and looks at her husband. In the back of her mind, she knows that he will come back to her once this is all said and done, once he’s got this out of her system.
At least… she hopes so.
“I can’t believe you’re still watching that thing.”
Maggie had snuck into the home theatre room and nearly scared Terry straight out of the chair as she did. He smiled a bit and pushed pause on the scene just as his head was snapping back from hitting that exposed turnbuckle. Maggie shudders a bit and has to turn away.
“If you celebrate only the successes and deny the failures in life, you are doomed to repeat them. I want this feeling, this image burned into my brain, etched into my soul so that I will never EVER want it repeated. Next time, I’ll step in that ring, and I’ll know exactly what to avoid, what waits for me if I should fail. And it’ll drive me that much harder.”
Maggie catches something in his eyes. Something that he’s only shown glimmers of since they’ve been together. Something that burns so bright that it actually scares her. While trying to figure this out, she realizes something like a light bulb going off inside her head.
”Next Time? I thought you were done with APW… that losing that title was your out, your chance to get away from the hell that they’ve put you through.”
Terry stares at her intensely. The look on her face told of one of worry. APW had been nothing but bad for him lately, what with the concussion and the thousand other attacks that he’d suffered. She was concerned about his body. He, however, was concerned about his legacy.
“That was the plan. But they booked an instant rematch this week on Asylum, a move we all should have expected. I was gonna blow it off, call up Jeff and tell him to take the opportunity and shove it. But, the second I reached for that phone, something clicked….or likely something snapped inside of me.”
He paused for a second and stood up. He strolled over to the window and gazed out of it absent mindedly.
“I realized that I had the chance to be someone that I haven’t been since August 26th 2012… I had a chance to be the chaser, to be the one who’s on the bottom who had to climb that ladder all over again, to feel the glory of capturing the prize all over again. I could feel something dance in the pit of my stomach, Maggie, something that had been lost for FAR too long. I felt that excitement I felt the very first time I stepped into the ring, that I felt the very first time I won a title, that I felt when I put Kurt Noble down and won the Undisputed Championship. It was the same feeling I had when I stood there after the most brutal match of my life, after I claimed the Survive and Conquer Crown. I felt that same spirit, that same enraging flame come rolling through my body and engulfed me.”
Terry pauses for a second before turning around and looking back at Maggie and leaning against the wall.
“Something happened to me in the 408 days that I held this title. I became complacent. I got this thought in my head that I was invincible and couldn’t be beaten. Everything after that just sort of lost meaning for me. Everything after that didn’t really feel like a challenge anymore. I lost my passion. I lost my drive. I lost my desire. I still went out there week in and week out and gave it everything I possibly could, but I didn’t feel like myself. It didn’t feel like I really had anything to fight for. I was going through the motions, mentally exhausted, physically exhausted, and unable to find any kind of real motivation. But now, that’s all changed!”
He passes her a small smile as he shakes his head.
“Aubrey did something that 10 other APW superstars failed miserably at. She managed somehow to humble the Greatest Thing to Ever Happen to wrestling. But at the same time, she did something that I’m sure she never intended. She let a tiger out of his cage. She took one of the most powerful forces in this sport and gave him a reason to get off his lazy ass and WANT to do something again. She motivated me. She made me hungry. And now, all I can think about, all I can dream about is grabbing on to that pretty little face of hers and drive it into the canvas so hard that her children will have inverted cheekbones. All I can fantasize about is making her feel exactly the way I did less than one week ago and make her feel the AGONY of defeat, of losing that which you’ve bled for, that which you’ve given EVERYTHING in your life for, that which you’ve sacrificed EVERYONE you’ve ever cared about for.”
Where did her Terry go? That was the first thought on Maggie’s mind as she looked into the face of this monster dying of starvation with human flesh being the only thing that could sedate his hunger. For a second, she saw a glimpse of the old Terry coming back into the picture and her heart sunk as her hands instinctively went over her round belly as if protecting the child living inside. But then the guilt set in, cause he’d never given her a SINGLE reason to doubt his commitment to her or their family. Still, she was worried.
“So… You’re really doing this then huh?”
Terry either didn’t see the worried look in her eyes, or he didn’t care. He flashed a cocky smile and his eyes lit up.
“God Damn right I am. But more than that, I’m fucking doing this right. They say you don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone… And now that I’m without that undisputed title I feel naked, I feel empty. A week ago I was ready to walk away from APW, but I wanted to do it on my terms, with my head held high, and one last massive hurrah. I wanted to make a big statement, come out there and lay the title in the middle of the ring in some sort of huge metaphorical, symbolic gesture before walking back down that ramp one last time, waving my hand at all the fans who have FINALLY accepted me. But now, now all of that has been clouded by the visual of God’s Gift to Wrestling being wheeled out on a stretcher, unresponsive and unconscious. I REFUSE to let that be my lasting memory. No… my swan song with APW is going to go a bit differently, and the abusive scheduling of the powers that be give me that opportunity.”
Terry walks over to Maggie and takes both of her hands into his. She smiles at him, but fears the next words coming out of his mouth. She was ready for this all to be over, for it all to be done. But right now, he’s contemplating one more big run at things. She’ll stand behind him of course, like she’s always promised. She just wonders when the last time will be the last time.
“And I’m going to take full advantage of it. That Title is as good as mine once again. And then One Night in Hell happens and I get my hero’s sendoff.”
“What about AJP? You think she’s just gonna let you waltz in there and let you have your happy ending?”
It’s not like Maggie’s stupid. She knows Terry had a plan, but she just wanted to bring a little bit of reality to his fantasy and day dreaming. He smiled at her and laughed a bit. He kisses her on the forehead and shakes his head.
“Of course not. AJP is a warrior, she proved that last week. She’s gonna fight me back tooth and nail. That’s just what she does. She’s proven to the most important person in the world that she can accomplish the biggest of all hopes and dreams. Not to me, not to the people….she’s proven it to herself, and that kind of confidence in a girl like AJP is a nuclear level kind of dangerous. No No, this will surely be our hardest fought battle yet. I get that… I understand that, and I damn sure know the type of person I’m going against. She suddenly has something to lose, something to fight for, and like a lioness will rip the throat out of ANYTHING that comes within striking distance of her baby. That Undisputed title is her new baby and this fight will be just that. It will be hard, it will be vicious, it will be violent.”
Maggie couldn’t stop cringing. Imagining her husband in that kind of war yet again wasn’t how she wanted to spend her first few months as a newlywed. Terry sees the concern in her face and uses his hand to brush back her hair, trying everything he can to comfort her. He smiles.
“However, Aubrey is about to step in the ring with something she’s never EVER seen before, something APW hasn’t seen in a long time. The Terry Marvin who beat her at Test for the best, who she defeated just several days ago, that man was a different animal all together. He was comfortable. He was satisfied. He didn’t give a shit if he won or lost, if he held that title nor not. He had all the fight tortured out of him and he was nothing more than a condemned man walking into the gas chamber after making peace with the events that were about to transpire. Our match last week wasn’t a normal fight for a piece of leather attached with gold plating and an engraved nameplate. It was an execution. She walked into that ring and she put the gun against the head of a beaten and battered old man who was just begging to be put out of his misery and she pulled the trigger. I was sacrificed… martyred for the entire world to see. That version of Terry Marvin is dead and gone.”
Again Maggie feels sick with the imagery running through her head. But Terry has turned around and is completely lost in his own thoughts.
“But just like the God’s Gift of Wrestling that I am, I have risen up once again in a new form… a deadlier form. I no longer have anything left to lose. I’m hungry for that title, hungry to replace the limb that I feel has been forcefully removed from my body. And I am at my most desperate moment of my career! Aubrey J. Parker isn’t ready for that version of Terry Marvin. She’s not ready for the man who tortured Kurt Noble to the brink of insanity and then maniacally pushed him right over the edge. She’s not ready for the man who knows no boundaries, no limits and would stop at nothing to get what he feels is rightfully his. The Real Show era is over. The Summer of Showtime was over. As glorious as they were, they had to be dismantled for something new to take their place… something stronger, something unknown… something to make even the bravest man on the planet quiver in fear. That’s what Aubrey has to look forward to Sunday Night!”
Maggie couldn’t take it anymore. She didn’t recognize this man, didn’t want him to change, didn’t want him to become the monster that he once was, that she knew that he’d never want to be again. She couldn’t let him lose himself like this.
But she couldn’t speak. She couldn’t say a word. She didn’t know if it was out of fear… or if she was remembering every bad thing AJP put him through for the last few months. Pretending to be his friend… trying to end his career and endanger his life. Suddenly, something snapped inside of Maggie and she wanted to see just a small bit of revenge enacted on the woman who caused ALL of this. After all, didn’t AJP deserve it?
“It is time for AJP to learn what it’s like to have a bulls eye on her back to have somebody vicious and without remorse trying to rip your livelihood right out of your body. Because that’s exactly what I’ll be trying to do. I want to make her feel every single thing I felt when she was the hunter and continuously had me in her sights trying to put that deadly bullet right in between my eyes. Now she gets to live with the paranoia that I’m out to get her, that I’m always one step behind her. She gets to live with the fear of being a failure as a champion. Only, I plan to make that fear a reality. I plan to make the world see that as good as AJP is, putting a title around her waist is like giving Hitler the keys to every Synagogue on the planet with a loaded flame thrower. I get to make the world see that for all her acting and all her philandering, that she is not on the same plan of reality as the rest of the human population.”
Terry shakes his head and looks up for a second at Maggie.
“Make no mistake about it… That bitch is crazy. We see it every day on Twitter with her passive aggressive bullshit until she undoubtedly snaps on someone fifty times a day. We see it when she completely changes direction and becomes the sad little depressed girl who everybody hates. BOO FUCKING HOO! And for someone with a fragile mindset as her who has a thousand different triggers that could detonate at any given second, the pressure of being the champion, of holding on to the belt that you’ve begged for and desired your entire life is insurmountable. She’s carrying the weight of the world on her shoulders and her psyche is as fragile as a Jenga tower in the middle of an hour long marathon game. One little piece shifts and the whole fucking thing comes crashing down. And I can do that better than anyone in the universe. I can find your deepest darkest insecurities and drill into them until you’re nothing more than a sniveling pile of tears and broken dreams laying in the corner catatonic with drool coming out of your mouth. That’s what I’m going to do to Aubrey at Asylum. I’m going to attack, and put on the pressure, and keep coming and coming and coming until she breaks in half, until she snaps. And when that moment comes, I’ll be laying in wait, playing opossum and ready to capitalize.”
Terry turns back to a weary Maggie, now sitting down listening to her husband’s extensive tirade.
“Aubrey opened my eyes to a lot of things when she snapped my head into that turnbuckle and crashed her knee down across my head. She let me know that a soft man with too much damn pride cannot succeed in this world, not forever. So now, now I must devolve back into the hard, uncaring son of a bitch who puts everything else aside. Then and only then will I be unable to walk out of China as the Undisputed Champion once again.
And this is something I have to do. As much as I have soured on APW recently, they’re still my one true home. It’s the one place that I’ve felt the most like myself at. So when I see someone about to destroy it, somebody who endangers everything it’s stood for, there’s a piece of myself that cannot let it go, that cannot let it be devoured. So I will save APW from the Tyranny of AJP, and not allow her to continue her reign of evil upon them all. I will make it stop. I will make it all stop.”
He pauses for a second quickly before continuing.
“Tomorrow night is for more than just the Undisputed championship. It’s for my legacy. It’s for my chance to end things how I WANT to end them. I deserve that much. I owe myself that much. And I owe APW that much!
Sunday Night, I will make history and make Aubrey J. Parker the SHORTEST LIVED Undisputed Champion EVER!”
Terry pauses and looks up. Not at Maggie, but past her, seemingly right into the camera as his eyes are fixed and determined.
“ITS SHOWTIME!”
Terry smiles quickly then turns back toward the television and continues to relive the scene from Asylum over and over and over again.
Maggie stands up and looks at her husband. In the back of her mind, she knows that he will come back to her once this is all said and done, once he’s got this out of her system.
At least… she hopes so.
