OOC: Formatting later tonight.

Not gonna sit up and beg
Not gonna do tricks
Not gonna stand here on a soundstage
Tethered to a crucifix


The Avalanche HQ Gym
2021

Eobard spotted for Cooper as Steven lifted a bar with 200 pounds above his chest. They had been at this all morning, Stone being far more active than Steven just due to his better health and age. Reality was beginning to set in for them both. Regardless of the views of many, including their opponents, they had a chance to make history, to validate the decision they had made years ago to be a team. The world had presumed that they were lost causes long before they had met and the more they wrestled together and gelled as a team, the more it seemed like they could prove that uncaring world wrong. The clanking weights had hit some kind of rhythm as the morning dragged on, the two men putting the entirety of themselves into the workout routine. Still, it took a far larger margin out of Cooper. There was an unsettling thought buzzing in the back of his mind as the 200 pounds made his arms give out during the set.

What if I lose this for Eobard?

The pressure of the falling bar knocked the wind out of Coop, Stone quickly assisted him in recovering and getting the bar where it could rest on steel as opposed to flesh. Steven sat up, shaking his head, aggravated with the limits of his own strength, that buzzing thought growing more piercing.

“Maybe we pushed it a little hard this morning,” Eobard said, noticing Steven’s frustration and eager to calm him down, “we can always take a break.”

“Just say what you’re thinking,” Steven spat out through gritted teeth.

“What do you mean?”

Steve got to his feet, lobbing a dumbbell into one of the mirrors in the room in pure frustration, shattering it completely.

“You’re worried this bag of fuckin’ bones is going to ruin your one big moment!”

Grabbing a hold of his shoulder, Eobard shouted in Steven’s face, not one to put up with his rage at this moment.

“What the HELL is your problem?!”

“My problem?!” Steven yelled back, “You want to know what my goddamn problem is?! Maybe, just maybe, I’m feeling weaker and weaker by the goddamn day and I just agreed to potentially become a fuckin’ husk after the most important match of your life!”

“It’s the most important match of your life, too, Steve!” Eobard shook his trainer, trying to talk some sense into him.

“My life? My life is at best gonna be some retired old man who never made it at this rate! If I take that treatment, I could wake up one morning and find out that I’m nothing and I-”

A sense of desperation overtook Steve as he called out!

“I don’t wanna die not being able to even lift myself to the goddamn bathroom! I don’t want to be remembered like that! I don’t want you to see me like that, kid!”

Eobard, losing his patience in a moment, slapped Cooper across the face before looking into his eyes, an angered plea leaving his lips.

“Then let me worry about that! You don’t have to worry about ME! Or how I see you! You gave me the tools for success in wrestling, you brought me back into sports after I thought I was LOOOONG done! Please, just please, focus! Even if your arms can’t lift a single Swamp, you’ll still be the strongest person I know!”

“I just…” Steven exhaled the poison that had been stuck in his chest for weeks, “I haven’t been strong enough for years, kid. I gotta make that different for this. This is too important. And I can’t shake the feeling that I’m just gonna let you down and ruin your chances at being someone better than me. I’ve let down too many people who looked up to me to do it again.”

“Then DON’T, Mr. Cooper. Fight. It’s what you do best.” Stone patted his shoulders before stepping back into position to spot.

Steven sat back down on the bench. As he did, the muscles in his chest felt as though they were burning, the sensation of a constant singe covering a large portion of him. It compelled him to cough a bit before he got a word out.

“250.”

Eobard shook his head, disapproving of the request. “I don’t think that’s a good id-”

“You want me to fight?” Steven sharply interrupted Stone, not intending to sound as rude as he did initially, “Then let me fight my way.”

Stone considered the request, the consequences bouncing back and forth in his mind.

“Go for it,” he finally let out. He put the weights on the bar before returning to position, his hands shaking a tiny bit with adrenaline.

Cooper lifted the bar up, the extra weight turning the light burning in his flesh into a raging fire. It was almost enough to plummet it back onto his chest, but he managed to keep his arms outstretched, the bar trying to fall under the pull of gravity with the pained will of The Trooper preventing its succumb to the forces of nature. Eobard had reminded him of a fact that felt all too easy to let fade from memory: it was up to him when he would finally fall. Not nature, not cancer, not a bastard or two. He allowed the bar to descend, his arm gently bringing it down in a controlled fashion. And with a breath, a single thought filled Cooper’s mind.

I might get pinned, but I’ll be damned if I let him down.

Steven pushed the bar back up, to the surprise of himself and his student alike. His arms were outstretched once again. After nine more presses in the set and four more sets after that, Steven had decided it was time for a break, which Eobard enthusiastically agreed. The Trooper’s body hurt like hell, but it was worth every ounce of pain to see that kid light up. Just two more hunks of metal left to lift and then the pain would be entirely worth it.

--------

The ride’s over
I know
But I’m not ready to go

Steve Sayors stands in front of a large XWF banner. He takes his sweet time before announcing himself and his position.

“Hello everyone, Steve Sayors here with the XWF! I’ve been asked to interview Steven Cooper again and for once-!”

Sayors carefully inspects his immediate area, including behind the promotional banner.

“It’s looking like the “so-called” Trooper isn’t going to get the drop on m-”

“SAYOOOOORSSSSSSS!”

“Gah!” Sayors nearly falls over as Steven Cooper descends from a ladder extended downwards as he climbs down into the camera’s frame.

“Wh-why do you keep doing that?”

“Gotta keep you on your toes, buddy! Makin’ ya do your job doesn’t just mean standing there all blank-eyed with a microphone, no sir! You better be using those lips for somethin’ that ain’t sucking this company off!”

Sayors frustratedly wags a finger in Cooper’s face, “Well, I can do a lot more than just stand here!”

“Oh, yeah?”

“Yes, indeed, I can!”

“Like what?”

“I can ask you questions!”

“Then ask away, big man!”

“I will!” Sayors readjusts his tie and places the microphone to his lips, “So, Mr. Cooper, how are you and your protege going to feel when BOB stands tall above Avalanche again?”

“Again? Can you point out a first time?”

“Well, uh… I know they put you on your asses before!”

“Yeah, but with their whole little entourage! Martini Man and Monty Burns didn’t add much in the way of firepower unless you consider stinkin’ up the ring a valuable offensive tactic!”

“How can you say that about the Tag Team Champions?!”

“How can I? How can I? Well, I’ll tell ya how! These two corpses have been rotting up the tag division here! How do I know this? Well, if EXP were holding those belts, I assure you no carnie with a tennis racket would come in here insulting our grounds without a thoroughly beaten ass, but these two wimps will just keep on ripping off SNL every week for a cheap buck instead of doing anything really worth a damn? You ever see a No Good Bastard promo where they don’t dedicate an hour worth of talk to their opponent’s, Sayors?”

“That’s a tad hyperbolic, but yes, they talk a great deal about their opponents, Mr. Cooper! Everyone does, in fact!”

“Ah, but not to the level of the Ass-turds! They gotta spend an eternity talking about anybody else but themselves because there is not a damn thing to them at the end of the day. They are all flash in the pan and liquid in the pot, if you catch my drift.”

“That’s… a foul description, Mr. Cooper.”

“It’s very fitting for a duo that’s more iconic for diarrhea of the mouth than it is for match wins! You ever try to break these boys down, Sayors? It’s too damn easy! That’s the problem, everybody already knows everything about the Ass-Turds ten seconds into hearing about them. Sure, they’re not going to get a lot of in the way of verbal dissection, but that’s only because dissecting air is fuckin’ pointless! They’re funny guys, don’t get me wrong, but what else? They just go home and stand like statues for 20 hours a day because men like them can’t have a home life or a world outside of work. Why do you think every time we see them it’s another scheme or goofy situation? Without that you just have two idiots picking their asses in a void! I had a pretty goofy experience this past week, hell, you were there for Eobard’s game, Sayors, and I heard that was pretty wacky, too! Thing is that Eobard and I still make our beds and have lives, believe it or not, even if the life of yours truly probably ain’t lastin’ for too much longer! Burns and Martini can’t manage half of that, it’s just not on brand enough! Hell, I can see more humanity in a goddamn Disney princess and those are creatures of pure marketing! It’s just like I told that psychopath on that kid’s show: they make folks laugh, myself included, but that’s all they have!”

“That’s not true! They also have the tag titles!”

“Not for fuckin’ long! They had a nice time with the titles, they gave us a few giggles, but these fellas are as one dimensional as they come and they still have more dimensions than brain cells! And when they’re gone and out of the scene? People will remember the backdrop, not the men in front of it! That’s what they get for putting being a product over being men! That’s as pathetic as if EXP won the tag titles and as soon as we lost it, people started talking about this XWF banner behind us! But that’s the one dimension these jackasses leaped into with unbelievable enthusiasm.”

“There’s more to Bourbon and Thunder Knuckles than that!”

“Really, huh? Can you name something?”

“Well, Bobby’s cruel and… TK likes money.”

“See what I mean?! It’s all Looney Tunes BS! Except Bugs Bunny would have the decency to give me a kiss for God’s sake!”

“You’d accept a kiss from a-”

“A cartoon? You betcha, though I’d prefer Jessica Rabbit. And even she doesn’t have two boobs bigger than the ones EXP is facing Wednesday night!”

“But aren’t you uncertain, Mr. Cooper? Don’t you think you and Stone can lose?”

“Sure, we could! But we win and lose on our terms as us! We’re not somebody’s goofball comedy act! We’re not dogs yipping on behalf of Christerhood of the Travelling Page! We’ll have ourselves after this match when or lose, but that will never be true of the Two Lousy Sins we’re facing! They have to win or it all goes downhill, it all crumbles apart and it never returns! The magic is hanging on a thread and it’s the same one holding the necks of the Ass-turds! Way I see it, there’ll be three dead men in that ring at Warfare and Eobard leading the charge as the future of this business! As the future of EXP!”

“But, Steven, do you really want to be remembered as just a step on Stone’s way to the top?”

“Nothing would make me happier! If Stone were winning the Universal Championship and people said, “Look there, that’s Cooper’s kid!” I could die happy!” And that’s the difference between EXP and TNGB: If you made them choose between bein’ a champ on their own or being just a team together, they wouldn’t hesitate to start throwing each other under the bus! Hell, they’d get in the goddamn driver’s seat! And in case you think this whole cancer thing is an excuse for me to be alright with losing, I want to assure you otherwise! I would fuckin’ dance in chemo if I had just whooped the asses of the worst tag team in BOBERT! I might hurt myself in the process, but a jig would be inevitable!”

“Well, any final words before going off to train further for the match?”

“Only a couple. You thought you could handwave us away with your same old, same old. But that ain’t working this time, boys. You gotta want this victory on a deeper level than filling your pockets with the scraps from Derrick Diamond’s lunchbox! You gotta be an actual fuckin’ team instead of Key and Peele! You gotta put your whole back into it if you even have one spine left between the two of ya! EXP isn’t just some silly name, it’s about the experience! The once of a lifetime experience of The Trooper and The Game Master! And it might not last forever, but goddammit, it might as well with how people will speak of it! So keep your Carrot Top crap at home and say “What’s up” to your docs, because you’re gonna need ‘em! I’m Steven Cooper, damn it, and I might be on death’s door, but it ain’t opening until I say so and the magic words are “AND NEEEEEEEWWWWWW TAG TEAM CHAMPIONS!” So you best bring that bus to toss each other under because otherwise you’re in EXP’s wheelhouse. Specifically, six feet under it!”

The Trooper stomps off, energy brimming for his upcoming match as Sayors signs off.

“Steven Cooper looking to show peak boldness during this fateful match up, but whether they’re capable of the upset is yet to be seen! I suppose we’ll have to see this Wednesday!”

As he begins to put the microphone up, he remarks, “Seriously?! He got a ladder? How did he even get cleared for it?”