OOC: This was a rough go for a while, but I finally managed to get out of being buried in my own head long enough to find the motivation to do something that I'm actually happy with. It might not seem like much after my PPV effort, but this kind of goes a long way in something I kind of want to consider doing with Aaron a little more while also kind of reassuring myself of what I'm capable of. The guest in this piece appears with permission. Best of luck!
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Failure…
As Taking Hold of the Flame was drawing to a close, that was the one word that Aaron Blackbourne could not stop thinking about.
He had walked out to that ring, indulging in his usual creative freedom along the way, but when the bell rang he was all business. He threw everything he had at Bree Lancaster, kept her off-balance and came close to winning on several occasions. He fought through whatever she threw at him, including kicking out of the Classifier. But when all was set and done… Bree’s reign continued, and once again Aaron found himself hitting that proverbial glass ceiling like a bird flying into a window.
After the match had ended, Aaron slowly trekked through the backstage area until he finally returned to his locker room, where he sat down on the bench and basically zoned out. He knew the battle royal was going on right now and he should be watching to show his support for his friends, but it was hard for his mind to process anything else at that point in time beyond this latest setback. Even the aftermath, the spotlight shining down upon him that he knew was a ‘gift’ from Shilo Valiant, was forgotten about. He simply sat there, not even bothering to change out of his wrestling gear or prepare for a shower so he could wash away the body paint for tonight, staring blankly at the floor. He didn’t know how much time passed by or what was happening around him, he was solely transfixed on his thoughts and nothing else.
It was hard not to think about that one word because in one form or another it always seemed to be lingering over his shoulder throughout his life. Failure to accomplish much as a pro wrestler, failure to make any lasting impact all on his own in a world stubborn and resistant to the idea of change, failure to get his brother out of a relationship that ultimately cost him his life, failure to reconcile with his family until a tragedy finally necessitated the rebuilding of that bridge, failure to figure out how he could fix the family of the love of his life so there was no fear of any problems when they finally married, failure, failure, failure, failure, failure-
“Aaron?”
Aaron heard the voice, but he didn’t lift his gaze to meet it. His eyes remained fixated on the tiles beneath his feet, echoing that word in his thoughts over and over again. He could practically feel his body being enveloped by a cocoon of self-loathing as he reflected back on the past few years since he joined SCW, his rattled mind omitting any of the happier moments or times that countered the argument that this one word was the only thing he could associate with his life. It was becoming harder and harder for him to try and see beyond the haze that was beginning to blind him to why he always chose to keep on fighting and what kept him pushing forward.
When he felt a hand place itself on his shoulder, his body jumped a bit in response, his mind briefly snapping out of it as he fully registered that he wasn’t alone anymore finally. Slowly turning his head, Aaron met the concerned gaze of Owen Cruze, and in doing so he could almost feel his heart sink even further than it had already gone. His mind tried to latch itself onto pondering if there was anything lower than rock bottom to hit, but now that Owen had his attention he wasn’t going to lose it that easily.
“You alright?”
“What are you doing here? What about the battle royal?”
“Dude, the show’s been over for like an hour now. Dave won the whole thing and has his Rise to Greatness main event set. I saw Liane out in the parking lot and she said you hadn’t come out yet, so I came looking since she was getting worried.”
Aaron let out a sigh, not realizing he’d wasted so much time sitting here beating himself up over tonight that he’d completely missed a roughly hour-long match in its entirety and still somehow hadn’t budged for an extra hour on top of that. Hearing that he’d worried his fiancée wasn’t helping either… just something else he could add to the list at this point.
“Come on man, you should be proud of yourself. You gave Bree all that she could handle. Heck, you even kicked out of the Classifier! I can’t remember the last time anybody did that.”
“I didn’t win, though…”
“And I didn’t win the battle royal. Neither did Ali or Pey. It just wasn’t our night, so let’s pick ourselves up and start-”
“I let you guys down… after all of that, I just hit that Godforsaken glass ceiling again. Maybe Bree was right… maybe I’m just not meant to achieve anything aside from constantly letting you guys down…”
“Whoa, whoa, whoa… dude, don’t let Bree get to you. Yeah, she managed to win tonight, but even if she’ll never admit it out loud there’s no way she’s walking out of here knowing she just barely got away. Her time will come-”
Aaron suddenly shot up to a stand, almost like he was fired out of a cannon, before violently whipping around to stare at Owen as though he were questioning his friend’s sanity, which took the young man aback as he looked into the artist’s eyes and started to realize just how deeply he’s been thinking about this, to his own detriment.
“You don’t understand! This isn’t about Bree! This is about me! God, I’m going to sound like a selfish asshole about this, I just know I am, but I hate the fact that no matter what I do, I just can’t join you guys on the other side! You and Alistaire are former World Champs, Peyton’s currently the Adrenaline Champ… and then there’s me, dragging you all down because I just can’t keep up no matter how hard I try.”
“Come on bro, you know that’s not true. You have the most TV Title reigns-”
“A record that came at the expense of Peyton breaking a record herself. The title match I had tonight? If Ali had won that triple threat instead of me, he probably would’ve been able to dethrone Bree, but I denied him that chance. All I’ve ever contributed to this group is robbing everyone else of their moments just so I could have mine, even when that’s not what I ever want to do! I try to be a good friend, throwing myself into helping you guys with your battles when I need to without a second thought, only to turn around and ask you all not to get involved in my battles because it’s my fight and I should be the one to finish it so you can keep focused on your own trials. I keep trying to prove I belong and push myself farther and farther only to run into that brick wall every single time!”
Aaron slams his palm against the locker behind where Owen’s sitting, causing him to jump a bit. The creative soul’s breathing is heavy and ragged, though whether it’s because he’s still exhausted even hours later from the war with Bree or simply a sign of his growing frustration with himself was hard to tell. Owen slowly stood up, watching his friend carefully as Aaron closed his eyes tightly, tears slowly starting to form now.
“I’m so tired of falling short at the finish line… I’m so tired of trying to push myself farther than everyone else just to keep up… I want to just keep being me, but all that’s ever done is hurt everyone around me and let them down time and time again…”
Aaron feels a hand on his shoulder again, but before he can acknowledge it he finds himself being turned around as Owen locks eyes with him, trying to be nice but making it clear he’s had enough of hearing Aaron vent about himself the way he has been.
“Dude, you are not a burden on us, and you never will be. I get it… you really want to prove yourself and reach the same heights as others, but you should be worrying more about accomplishing what YOU want to accomplish. Nobody’s perfect… we’ve all got our faults and problems, but that’s why you, me, Pey and Ali have each other as well as Kelcey. We help one another because that’s what friends do. Yeah, there might be times where we end up getting in each other’s way because that’s just how this sport works sometimes, but we’ve always faced each other in the way that things should be done around here, and it always works out when all is set and done. As for that glass ceiling?”
Owen grins a bit and slaps Aaron’s chest a few times.
“With your heart and creativity, if anyone thinks you aren’t going to break through that thing, they clearly haven’t been paying attention to this business. We’ve all had setbacks… I’d have loved to win the battle royal tonight or had a longer reign as Tag Champ or even when I was World Champ, but it happens. What really matters is how you respond, and whatever awaits us on Breakdown, that’s when we get back to work on showing everyone why, no matter how many times we fall, we get right back up and aren’t going anywhere, no matter how much people like Bree and her friends wished we would just go away. Tell me, bro… when’s the last time you ever gave up on anything?”
“N-Never…”
“So why start now?”
The more Aaron stared at Owen, the harder it was for those dark clouds plaguing his mind to keep hold of it. His friend had a point… no matter how many setbacks he’s faced throughout his life, no matter how frustrated he got whenever he hit that brick wall, he just pulled himself back to his feet and tried again. He always told himself there was a way to get past it and he just hadn’t found it yet, but it gave him a reason to keep pursuing it. Life wasn’t meant to be easy, and if he had everything handed to him on a silver platter because he was always where he was trying to get to? That would just make the fall much harder and the recovery a lot more difficult. This? He was used to it, more than he’d like to admit, but the more he made this climb the easier it got, and eventually, fate would be out of excuses to keep him from reaching the summit. When he’d addressed Bree leading up to tonight, he brought up how many times it had taken her to finally reach this point… no matter how much she thought she could just forget about it, if she could finally prevail after so many attempts, then why should he feel so torn up about what was, in reality, only his second shot at the World Title?
“Thanks Owen, I needed that.”
“It’s what friends are for. So… I know Liane’s waiting for you, but are you going to wash that off before we get out of here?”
Owen motions to the body paint and Aaron’s eyes widen in realization that he’d still been wearing it this entire time. After a moment of looking it over, though, his lips finally curl into a faint smile as he shakes his head.
“I think I’ll keep it on for now. Just as a reminder to myself of everyone who believes in me. Hopefully, it keeps me from relapsing back into… that, because I really don’t want to feel like that again.”
Owen nods in understanding as Aaron grabs his things, deciding to at least throw on a shirt for when the two of them finally left the locker room and made their way out to the parking lot as Owen filled Aaron in on some of the happenings of the battle royal. It was moments like this that reminded Aaron that he wasn’t as alone in his struggles as he thought he was… real friendship wasn’t something he really had too much of growing up, which is why he’d taken some of the paths that he did. But now, he had real friends and people who cared about him that would always have his back and vice versa.
As long as he had them to help keep him grounded in reality and realize he wasn’t alone, he would always have a way to make sure his mind stayed clear when it needed to most.
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Before we get started, let’s go ahead and just get this out of the way right now…
I am not standing before you as World Champion right now. I fell short of defeating Bree Lancaster at taking Hold of the Flame.
And you know what? As much as I know it’s probably going to set Bree off, it doesn’t bother me as much as she probably hopes it would.
You see, failure is a part of life, no matter how much we all wished it wasn’t at times. Facing your failures and setbacks is how you get better, and the more you hear people like the Beauty Factory try to tell you that just not failing is the solution, the harder you see people like them fall when it finally does happen. Bree may be on cloud nine right now, but can you honestly tell me that Sienna and Chris are really in stable frames of mind at the moment because they aren’t where they think they should be?
I may not have won last night, but the same can be said of thirty-nine other men and women who weren’t the last one standing when the dust settled from the battle royal. When you really think about it, most of the roster is in the same boat right now, knowing that the road to Rise to Greatness is about to begin and trying to figure out how to rebound from that setback to start off on the right foot in traversing it. Only two people really have a head start and already know what’s waiting for them, but that just means they now have to figure out both how they approach facing one another and whether or not they have to worry about their party being crashed by some of the Trios contracts that are floating around out there.
Now, with all of that said… I think I have a pretty good idea of what might be waiting for me, but I know if I address the issue I’ll just be giving a certain someone what they want. So let’s starve them of the attention they crave for a little longer while I shift gears towards something that I’m surprised hasn’t happened sooner in some fashion.
Teaming up with one of my best friends.
I’ll admit: it feels odd that Owen and I standing side by side in action together hasn’t happened sooner, but it’s easy to understand why. For as long as we’ve been friends and watching each others’ backs, we’ve also had our own respective challenges to overcome and goals we were aiming to achieve. Very rarely have they ever overlapped, no matter how much we’ve run out to even the odds the other may be facing without a second thought. I’m not going to stand here and say that this is a sign we’re suddenly going to be hunting for tag team gold together, but you never know what the future holds. Maybe if we do this enough times it’ll be hard to argue against that idea.
I’m sure that very thought is getting under the fur of Las Bandidas de Gata Negra right about now.
I wouldn’t put it past Valeria and Maria to believe they have some kind of advantage going into this match. After all, they’re the ‘actual’ team here while Owen and I are, somehow, tagging together for the very first time. I’m half-expecting them to waste little time trying to shove my result from Taking Hold of the Flame down my throat while trying to ignore the fact that they were the first two eliminated from the battle royal. After all, Valeria certainly likes to act as though she’s this master manipulator who’s able to puppeteer her way to whatever she wants. Did you really think I’d forgotten the whole mess with Scarlet you had a hand in that easily, Ruby? Those are a few emotional scars I’ll have to bear for the rest of my life whether I like it or not, and you’ve made it clear that changing your name hasn’t exactly changed the game you prefer to play. Of course, the last time we were on opposite sides of the ring in a situation like this, the story wasn’t that different, now was it? You were part of the established team facing a tandem that was tagging together in the ring for the very first time, and you even had the additional benefit of me teaming with someone who’s not an active wrestler. And yet, I recall Liane and I still prevailing on that night.
I hate to break it to you, but just because we’re both doing this dance with different partners, it doesn’t mean falling back on that argument’s suddenly going to hold weight this time.
I will say this Valeria: at least this time you have a partner who’s more focused on actually competing alongside you rather than getting sidetracked easily by something that has nothing to do with the business. Maria’s fast and hard to pin down, and your chemistry with her seems to be better than what you had going with Scarlet. That said, for as much as the two of you can probably shrug off the fact that you went out so early in the battle royal because you’re trying to keep your focus on the Tag Titles, you need to understand how hungry Owen and I are for this win. Owen and I would’ve loved to be in the position where we could be facing each other in the main event of Rise to Greatness, and sadly it wasn’t meant to be. All that’s done is just make us hungrier to fight our way towards the biggest show of the year to see what IS waiting there for us, knowing that each win we’ll fight to earn along the way is a huge step towards where we want to be.
Make no mistake about it: Owen and I, as well as Peyton and Alistaire, are determined to make our own collective statement in this business, and so long as we have each other, we’ll be able to pick ourselves up after any setback and just try again, because sooner or later we’re all going to find the success we’re hunting. We’re able to do this not just because of the faith we have in one another, but also because wrestling means something to all of us. To the two of you, if your name is to be taken in any literal sense, this is just a way for you to steal the limelight from someone more deserving with the least amount of effort possible. To all of us, this is validation for all the time and effort we put in each and every week to earn our keep and prove that when people call us the future of SCW, it’s not just hollow words to try and put us on a pedestal. It’s something with meaning behind it that we can back up every single time we set foot in that ring, win or lose.
And right now? I hate to break it to the two of you, but Owen and I are starving for a win to turn things around. And if that has to come at the expense of someone who’s conspired in the past to try and ruin my life and her new partner in crime? Then so be it.