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Thaddeus Duke · (01-28-2021)

The Vacation Home || Portree, Isle of Skye, Scotland || 7:48 AM

While things certainly haven’t been perfect by any means, things have been… pretty good. Thaddeus has been a perfect gentleman since I’ve been back home, and to be honest he almost always has been. He treats me like a queen and he has only amplified that. Those watching this may wonder if I made the right decision by coming home, by coming back to Thaddeus. I did. What he did fucking sucks and nothing he does for the rest of his life will ever change that. Some may look at this situation and think ‘well that was resolved quickly’ and tune out and move on to the next promo, or the next twitter feed.

I’m human too, just as he is, just as we all are. I do and say things that hurt those I love and care about, just as he did, just as we all do. When you love someone, when you truly care about another person, it becomes almost impossible to not forgive a mistake. I can’t expect him to forgive me for things I’ve done if I’m not willing to do the same for him and it’s not like this is a pattern of his normal behavior. It isn’t. It’s easy to sit in your glass house and judge him for what he did, it’s easy to sit and throw stones at me for forgiving him. The fact is, I know Thaddeus better than anyone on the planet. He’s a man driven almost entirely by his emotions and I’m not sure I’d want to change that despite his egregious error. I love him the way he is. Good, bad, or indifferent. While he certainly betrayed my trust, I’m willing to give him the benefit of the doubt and suggest that perhaps after his session with his therapist, he was so engulfed by those emotions that he lives in, that he was drawn toward Garrett out of guilt and shame for what he did to him.

Some of that blame falls on Garrett too. He’s not stupid. He was aware of Thaddeus’s mental state and took full advantage of it. It takes two to tango, and as much as Thaddeus is at fault for what happened, Garrett is too and sooner or later, he and I may have to have it out again because I’m not at all satisfied by my confrontation with him at his Starbucks back home.

Today is a very special day for me, for Thaddeus, for us- and I want to put the past behind us, but what happened brings us to where we are now. We don’t get a ton of time to just be a family without the pressures of his every day life hanging over us like a storm cloud. No governing or ruling, that can wait. No wrestling, having just soundly defeated Chris Chaos to retain his championship. No scheduled public appearances until after the new year. In a last minute decision, just the day before Christmas Eve, Thaddeus decided we’d spend the holidays in Scotland. Even Thad’s father is here, having flown us to Scotland on his own plane to meet Thaddeus who hopped up from Italy after Warfare. Unfortunately, with my father being sick my parents couldn’t make it but hopefully next year that can be rectified.

It might be our last chance for awhile considering once 2020 rolls over to 2021, Thad will be all over the place between scheduled press junkets and fan access events in an effort to build hype for Snow Job. Matches on Warfare and defending his title against Barney Green on Savage. To top that off, he starts filming for ‘Department 17’ on the second, we’ll be lucky to see him once a week for all of January.

But today is Christmas.

And it’s also Thaddeus’s 22nd birthday.

That really does beg the question: what do you get for holidays and birthdays, for a man that has everything he wants? What do you get a man that can buy anything he decides he wants later? It’s a simple question, but a complicated answer. You get him something he can’t buy, something he can’t find in any catalog or at any store online. I got just the thing and it will absolutely blow his mind.

“Oh my God!” Thad shouts out excitedly as he watches Frankie open the last of his gifts.

“Hell yeah!” Frankie exclaims as he eyeballs the pair of drones.

”Frankie, language baby boy,” I remind him nicely. I hate that he cusses, but it’s Christmas.

”Sorry Liz,” he says sweetly.

“Dude, open that up and get your coat,” Thad says as he stands up. He’s such a kid sometimes but I honestly wouldn’t have it any other way.

“Baby,” I say with a smile from the sofa. “You picked those out,” I remind him.

“Yeah I know,” he retorts quickly. “But I forgot about them and now I wanna go play with them.”

“You’re not even dressed, Baby, you’re still in your jammies,” I say, pointing at his pants.

He looks down at his Hello Kitty pajama bottoms and back up at me.

“...So?”

“You’d think a grown man wouldn’t be caught dead in Hello Kitty pajamas,” his father says from a chair across the room. The remark causes a glare from Thad and Sebastian smiles. “What are you gonna do, hit me with your purse?” Sebastian’s joke causes Thad to stifle his laughter.

Thad stares at his father silently for a moment.

"It's..." he pauses and Sebastian throws his arms up in victory. "A satchel!"

”I finally fuckin’ got you,” he celebrates.

”Well don’t start crying, wouldn’t want your guyliner to run,” Thad laughs at his own joke.

Sebastian shakes his head. ”You couldn’t let me have it, could you?” Sebastian asks, feigning hurt. ”It’s Christmas,” he says with a sigh.

“You’d think my dad would have brought his favorite son something priceless on his birthday,” Thad fires back with a smile. “Yet here we are and I have nothing.”

“You’re my only son,” Sebastian reminds him.

Thad stops in his tracks. “I know dude, that’s kind of the point.”

“Here,” Sebastian says as he pulls a small wrapped gift from behind his back and tosses it to his son. “It’s nothing much, but I know how sentimental you get.”

“You really got me something?” Thad asks his father with a smile. “What is it?”

“Thad, you’re supposed to open it to find out,” Sebastian informs him.

Like a child on… well… Christmas, he tears open the wrapped package and tosses the paper aside revealing the box beneath. Sliding the top of the box off, Thad smiles immediately.

“This was your idea?” Thad asks his father. To which, his dad nods his head.

”Janet picked out the frame though,” Sebastian replies. Janet is his ‘gatekeeper’ at his business in Virginia. She’s a secretary that cares deeply for Sebastian and his family. She’s become family herself.

“What is it? Lemme see,” Frankie says as he tugs at Thad’s arm. Thad lifts the contents from the box and shows it to Frankie. A framed picture from Thad’s victory speech on Savage a couple weeks back. At the end, Frankie, Thad, his father and his uncle Theo posed in the ring for a photo-op with all of their Universal titles. Frankie of course, sat on Thad’s shoulders.

“I love it man,” he says with a huge, killer smile. “This is the best thing I’ve ever got.”

Just you wait, killer.

“Thank you so much dad,” Thad says as Frankie hands him the picture back. ”This really means a lot.”

”Enough with this B.S.,” Frankie yells out excitedly as he frees the drones from their cardboard prisons. ”Let’s go mess with the Scots!”

”Maybe we’ll wait until later,” Thad says, disappointing Frankie immediately. The young boy throws himself on the floor with a thud all dramatic like.

”How dare you sir?” he jokes as he lies on the floor, sprawled out amid the shreds and balls of wrapping paper. ”You got me all excited to go play with them, and now here I lay, a shell of a boy, staring into the abyss of nothing.”

We fall silent, staring at the ten year old. He lifts his head from the floor after a few moments, sensing the many eyes on him. ”What?”

”You’re such a drama queen,” Thad tells him as he throws a decorative sofa pillow onto Frankie’s face.

”Yeah well,” he says as he sits up on the floor, then whips the pillow back at Thad. ”Chalk that up to something else I learned from you, Thad,” he says, causing Sebastian to uncharacteristically laugh out loud.

”Baby,” I say as I stand from my seat and venture across the room.

”Yes my queen?” he says back to me with a tip of his figurative hat.

Sliding open the drawer of a table resting beneath the large picture window overlooking the harbor and Loch Portree, I retrieve one last package with Thaddeus’s name on it. Granted, there’s only been three, but he never cared about, and further, even dislikes receiving gifts anyway. While the package is rather small, it’s maybe the biggest gift he’ll ever receive. One that couldn’t possibly be duplicated and certainly one that’ll never be topped.

Sitting down on the sofa beside him and leaning my head against his arm, I hand him the small gift. ”Before you open it,” I say, refusing to unhand it. ”You know that night in Maui after High Stakes?”

He says nothing, but I can feel him take a deep breath and he nods.

”When I was encouraging you to come to the room that night, it wasn’t for...” I cut myself off, remembering I’m in a room with Frankie and his all too wise ten year old sense of humor. ”It wasn’t for fun,” I conclude, lifting my head from his arm to look him in the face with a smile. He sweetly smiles back.

”That would’ve been disappointing,” he jokes, causing me to laugh a little bit.

”Gross,” Frankie quips, causing even more laughter.

”I had something I wanted to tell you that night, and that’s what’s in the box.”

He flashes his sweet smile again and gives me a kiss.

”I love you so much,” he readily admits.

Finally releasing my grip from the gift, my heart pounds with anxiousness and anticipation as he looks at the wrapped package.

”This better not have been expensive, Liz,” he says as he gently tears open a flap.

”Well,” I say to him with a smile. ”That is yet to be determined.”

He smiles back and tears off the rest of the paper. All eyes are on him. Neither he nor Frankie know what’s inside the box. This gift is the reason Sebastian even wanted to come along. Opening the box, he’s stunned silent and motionless at what he sees.

”It’s two gifts, really,” I say to him as his eyes start to well up. ”One for Christmas, one for your birthday.”

Thaddeus tries and fails to hold back tears.

”What is it!?” Frankie asks with excitement.

”Is this real?” Thad asks as he can’t stop smiling at his gift.

”The genuine article,” I reply to him.

”Show me what it is!” Frankie cries out, eagerly anticipating what’s inside. No longer being able to contain himself and disliking being entirely ignored, he leaps from his position on the floor and runs over to peek inside the box. ”What the hell is that!?”

Thad lifts it from the box and shows it to Frankie.

[Image: eWXHvhE.jpg]

”Buddy that’s a sonogram,” Thad finally answers his young protege. ”Liz is pregnant. So Frankie, that means you’re gonna be a big brother.”

”God dammit,” Frankie mutters under his breath before he falls silent as he stares at the picture. Slowly, he raises his head to look at me. ”You made him make his own gift!?” he asks, causing quite a bit of laughter. ”I gave my mom a card once made of macaroni that’s better than this!”

”Did you ever think starting out with a puppy would be better?” he asks. He’s hilarious this morning. ”It’s like what you did to me when I wanted a dirt bike! You made me ride that stupid mini-bike until you thought I was ready to step up!

“What if he sucks at having babies, Liz!? Did you think of that!?”

The boy is on a roll this morning. Francis is typically a pleasant child. He’s not without his own set of problems but when your mother was murdered by your father and your father sits in prison, it’s to be expected. Though I do worry about how he will adjust to this turn of events. The one thing I fear is that the amount of time its taking for his adoption to go through is for him to feel like he’s being replaced by “natural born” children. I hope we’ll be able to see him through this and get him right on the other side of it because I know how Thad feels about him and I know that I love this boy as if he were my own biological son. He isn’t being replaced. The one day Francis Robert Duke is entirely irreplaceable.

Suddenly overcome with emotion, Thad buries his crying face in my shoulder and holds me tight. For what its worth, he may be the best hugger I ever met in my life and this one is no different.

”Congratulations,” Sebastian mutters aloud from across the room. ”Though I’m not too thrilled with you making me a grandfather before I’m even 40.”

”Thanks dad,” Thad says with his face still buried. ”If it makes you feel any better, you look closer to sixty.”

”Gahh, screw you,” Sebastian jokes.

”C’mon Frankie, get your coat,” he says as he gets to his feet. ”Let’s let these two have time alone. You can play with your drones.”

Excitedly, Frankie rushes from the living room.

”How far along?” Thad asks me.

”I was twelve weeks just before Arizona,” I answer him. ”I knew at about six weeks but I wanted to wait a bit. I’m not superstitious or anything but I wasn’t playing any games with our babies lives.”

”Babies!?” Frankie says, stunned in the doorway he drops his coat to the floor. ”As in plural?”

”Yes baby,” I say to him with a smile. ”We’re having twins.”

Frankie scoffs and dramatically falls to the floor again.

”So that’s what? 15 weeks now?”

”16. I had another ultrasound scheduled this week, but I rescheduled because you wanted to do the holiday here instead of at home.”

”Had I known, we’d have stayed at home,” he says with a saddened look on his face.

”Don’t be sad baby, this is exactly what we needed,” I say in an effort to reassure him. ”We’re due on June 3rd and the next ultrasound we should find out what we’re having.”

Standing beside the sofa, Sebastian nudges his son causing Thad to look over his shoulder and up at him. ”I know I’m not that good at this,” he begins as he stifles a hint of emotion. ”I just wanted to tell you that I know that as happy as you are right now, there’s gonna come a time when you doubt yourself, when you get scared to death. I wasn’t the best role model father and I know that, but don’t ever be afraid that you’ll be the same kind of father I was.

“You won’t be. Thaddeus, you’re a great dad to that kid over there still waiting for us to react to his overacting. He believes in you. Elizabeth believes in you. I believe in you.

“You’re gonna do great.”

Somewhat stunned by Sebastian’s genuine words of advice, Thaddeus can’t find any words to respond. No longer lying on the floor, Frankie stands in front of both Thad and I.

”What’s up Bub?” Thad asks and Frankie leaps up into his lap, inadvertently driving his knee into Thad’s groin, causing him to grunt.

”Sorry!” Frankie exclaims wide eyed, knowing exactly what he did.

In his own moment of overacting, Thad slumps to his right, leaning his head on my shoulder. Frankie wraps his arms around us both.

”Babies huh?” he asks quietly.

”Yes Frankie,” I answer him as Thad and I both wrap an arm around him.

”I’m gonna be a big brother to two babies?”

”Yes baby boy,” I say to him, sensing his apprehension. ”And you’ll be an awesome big brother, too.”

”Is it okay that I don’t know how I feel about it yet?” he asks with a little bit of hesitation.

”Of course,” Thad interjects. ”When you figure out how you feel Bub, you come talk to me about it okay? If I’m not home, you call me right away and we’ll talk it through.”

”Okay,” says the sweet boy as he nods. ”Liz?”

”Hmmm?”

”I still think Pokemon cards would have been a better gift,” he says causing both Thad and I to laugh quite loudly. ”But it would be kind of nice to not be the smallest person in the house.”

This is the gift Thaddeus, and by default me too, has given to Frankie. Not the part about being a big brother, though that is a gift in and of itself that even if not right now, Frankie will grow to appreciate as time goes on. The gift I’m talking about is openness and love. We both love Frankie and we won’t lie to him or do things to hurt him. He knows we’re a safe zone for him. Thaddeus has drilled it into his head that there is nothing he can’t talk to us about. Whether his feelings and thoughts are misplaced or not doesn’t make a difference. All that matters, is that he can come to us and feel safe and free of judgment or anger and we’ll do whatever we can to help him through whatever problems he has.

Rabbit Hole. Noun. Used to refer to a bizarre, confusing, or nonsensical situation or environment, typically one from which it is difficult to extricate oneself.

In Chris Page’s efforts to suggest that I’ve already gone down a rabbit hole, he went and did it himself. Not only has he repeated things he’s already said a hundred times, he’s also taking Chris Chaos’s game plan of criticizing my win of the High Stakes battle royal and the fact that Doc grabbed my leg. I don’t care honestly, that people want to point out the facts. They’re right there on video in the archives if people want to take a look back and see it for themselves.

This is the last time I’m going to talk about it so I hope you’re listening.

What neither of the Chris’s took into account was that while my back was against the ropes and I was hanging onto it for dear life as Witness and Page tried desperately to dump me over the top, I was planning. There’s really not much to do when all you’re doing is hanging on, so I was thinking about the moment Corey Smith collides with the two trying to oust me and I came to the conclusion, that if I hook my arms while the three of them have forward momentum, that gives me the best chance to either land on the floor last, or what I was trying to make happen by having my arms hooked around the top: I land on the apron.

D’Ville though had other ideas and grabbed my leg.

That’s fact.

I can’t dispute it.

Chaos called me a master of spin, and while that may or may not be true, I do have a pretty mean slider. It’s nasty. It’s filthy. It stays in the zone just long enough to make you think you got a shot at smacking that one into the alley, then as soon as its too late to check, that bitch dives off to the left and you come up with nothing.

But if you think that that somehow invalidates everything I went through to climb to the top of the mountain, then you’re sadly mistaken. If you or anyone else is seeking some kind of apology for winning then you’ve come to the wrong god damn place, Chris. The XWF is a place where victories, especially those in the ‘major’ category are almost always tainted in some form or fashion. I’m not going out on a limb by saying that winning the Universal Championship is a major victory. Of course, you wouldn’t know what that feels like, would you?

If you want to make excuses as to why you, facing the outside of the ring, facing D’Ville didn’t stop trying to oust me for a second and instead break his old man grip, then by all means Chris, be my fuckin guest. If you want to make excuses for why a 5’9” 160 pound twink like Corey Smith was just too much of a weight for your 6-4 or 5, 250 plus pound frame to handle, then by all means, make your excuses. But don’t sit there and preach from the pulpit that your failure to win somehow invalidates my ability to the exact opposite.

You lost.

I won.

It’s time you get over it.

That’s been your thing, making excuses as to why I keep beating you. In our first match, you know the one, that single event you beat me at. The ladder match for the TV title. I owned that loss. It was on me. I took my eye off the ball and you took advantage. Since that time we’ve been on opposite sides three times and each and every time, I have ended the match with my hand raised in victory and you feeling that bittersweet sting of defeat.

“Yeah well, you never pinned me or tapped me out.”

That’s all well and good Chris, but here’s the thing: you haven’t been able to do the same and you somehow think that makes me look weak and you look strong. I’ve won our matches within the parameters set by forces outside of either of our control. So it’s almost like, no matter the circumstances, I just keep beating you.

Chris, you can come out here and call me a placeholder. You can come out here and call me an undeserving champion. You can even come out here and call me a weak champion. But the facts just don’t support your claims.

When is the last time the new Universal Champion come out of the gates facing not one but two former world champions? That was Thaddeus Duke. Say what you want about their current ring quality or lack thereof, but both Chaos and Barney Green are former top dogs and I was eager to beat Chaos and I was honored to face Barney Green. I was honored even further to beat him in that particular match type.

When is the last time a bitter rival came out and bent the knee and extended his hand out of respect for the new champion? That was you Chris. On December 12. The new champion was me. If you didn’t think I deserved to be the champion, that I didn’t deserve to be at the top of the mountain, then there’s no way the heel, since you want to throw that term around, comes out and shows me respect without doing shit to legitimately earn it. I earned it, but beating you over and over. I earned it by winning the title. So, good job not falling down your own proverbial rabbit hole.

Chris, you can say what you want about my alliance with Paul Heyman. The ‘Friday night heel manager’ as you call him. He’s a villain… on Friday nights. In some place on cable that is scripted and predetermined. This isn’t that and you know it. The XWF is neither scripted nor predetermined and no one here plays a role given to them by upper management.

I know his reputation in the industry. I know all about his willingness to stab his clients in the back. I know all about his failures in running wrestling companies from two decades ago. I also know all about his success in taking people to the next level. When I accepted his services, I’d lost my focus. I was becoming a bit of a pushover and that’s why he now works for me. Despite your claims that his contract is up, which you couldn’t possibly know, Paul Heyman stays by my side as long as I want him to.

Maybe the fact that he exists in the XWF at all is a problem for you, but I don’t care. The problem, as I see it, is that you know that my alliance with Paul has been beneficial. How is that exactly? Because since I’ve taken his services Chris, no one has been able to shake my focus, to shake my confidence, and better still… Chris Page, since taking his services, not a god damn person has been able to defeat me.

You would know, you’ve tried.

And you’ve failed.

Say what you want about Heyman. Say what you want about the amount of fans that hate him. Say what you want about you beating him up… gee… must’ve been hard… Say what you want about his heel leaning, but that man does what I tell him to. If you feel that his presence has made me cocky, or arrogant, or seems as though I have a blue chip on my shoulder, then that’s your right to think it.

The fact is though, I’ve always been cocky. I’ve always been arrogant. I’ve always been blue chip. While the Universe has mixed feelings about Paul Heyman, they’ve never questioned their love and loyalty to me despite his heelish nature, despite my cockiness and arrogance. Why is that?

Because I know where my bread is buttered.

They know that everything I do in front of XWF cameras is for them. For their pleasure. For their entertainment. To send them home happy. To send them home talking to their friends and family about Thaddeus fucking Duke, about the Xtreme Wrestling Federation. Nothing about Paul Heyman’s presence, changes any of that.

Despite your claims of my cowardice, which isn’t a thing nor has it ever been, Paul Heyman handles my business affairs when I’m busy doing other things. Now, I know its hard for you to imagine having any kind of life outside the squared circle, but some of us operate a little different. Some of us don’t eat, sleep and breathe professional wrestling 24/7. It’s fine if you do, but that’s not me. Of course, knowing things about your opponents isn’t your forte.

I run a nation at war with people that want me dead. I have a family that I love very much. I have an acting career that’s starting to take off. And in my role as Universal Champion, I’ve been all over the world promoting the hell out of Snow Job, so you’ll have to forgive me if I couldn’t make it to Italy just to sign a piece of paper.

You have your chance now to prove that I really am just a placeholder. You know, the same argument Chris Chaos made. That’s certainly not the path I’d choose, but there’s a reason I’m the champion and keep retaining and you have both never been the champion and you just keep finding new and exciting ways to lose to me. There will be no interference. So when you lose again, you won’t have D’Ville’s old man grip to fall back on. There is no disqualification. So when you lose again, you won’t have a stupid little kiss to fall back on. There are no ladders, so when you lose again you won’t have the fact that I’m more athletic and can climb better than you to fall back on.

When you lose to me Chris, when I’ve pinned you to the mat for three or I’ve made you tap out, I won’t even make you admit that I’m better than you, because I’ve been proving it since almost the beginning. This is it. Chris Page versus Thaddeus Duke for the final time.

When you lose again and this time for all the marbles Chris, the only question that you need to ask and answer for yourself is: can you live with it?

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