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X-treme Wrestling Federation »   » Archives » Bad Medicine 2021
Father
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Matt Knox
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#1
11-17-2021, 04:06 PM

To a father growing old nothing is dearer than a daughter. - Euripides

At some point, everything breaks.

….Right?

His body ached as he slipped past the threshold of his home. The sun wasn’t up, but the skies had started to gray, announcing it’s imminent arrival. A small smile cracked his face as he fell into the chair by the door with a groan. Waiting on a sunrise. They’d be waiting until April. Maybe March, if he got impatient..

He stayed slumped in that chair, shedding little more than his leather jacket as soon the sun rose to kiss his tired face with its warmth. He felt stiff, like maybe he’d never leave that chair. Even as his mind wandered in the million different directions it did. He had more fights, and soon. He had to be ready. He wanted to give up…

He really did, for a minute there but...he couldn’t. He couldn’t let Cam win. He couldn’t let himself be ran out by the ego of a young man who spent his time flaunting the carnal pursuits he took part in with his daughter. Driven by some unknown vitriolic hatred. One he cared little to understand, only to mock, undermine and destroy.

It was as shallow but more complicated than the situation with Jason Cashe. Someone he found entertaining at first. Maybe even worthy of friendship. But a man who couldn’;t decide whether he was a chameleon or a snake. Doing all he could to be laughed with,to disarm the room. Until he found his own pit of vipers and then? Then he’d lash out, inject some poison of his own. That would get the laughs going, right?

And really, what else mattered?

But he’d gone too far. Through a long, drawn out sophomoric saga that took a back seat to more damning predicaments on a personal and professional level he held a hand to the til that plowed the field the would bare the crop of bullshit that made his oldest daughter cry. Sure, he barely found out this person was his daughter...Barely knew Victoria was a Knox.

But she had mattered since he met her in February. She mattered a whole helluva lot. Their blood ties were more an explanation than anything. Validation for how deep the feelings ran. He chuckled...it was like getting to open that one gift on Christmas Eve, finding Victoria while Kamari carried his newest child.

So how the fuck else could he react? When the childish jabs became constant? Was Victoria innocent in the exchange? No.

Did it matter?

Not to him.

So, he did what he did better than just about anyone.

He picked a fight.

The sound of her footsteps coming down the stairs rouse him from his hunched position in the chair, glasz eyes rising to meet her own dark ones. Silence reigned between them before a tired smile cracked his features “I’m tired, Mari.”

As the slowly spoken words reached her, a smile similar in kind met his. “I know. You have been for some time, Matthew.” She took a step closer before reaching out with a gentle caress along his cheek. He leaned into her touch like it was the only thing that could save him, because it was. He let out a sigh, shoulders slacking before a self deprecating chuckle escapes him.

“How long did you watch before nodding off? I almost asked for a power nap myself…” he paused “Could have tricked him. Got the pin while he sawed logs….hindsight, I guess..” Levity. The greatest deflection from the gaping wound in your soul. A soft laugh to indulge, but also to show her support, escaped just then. “He took me away a few times, but I actually managed the whole thing aside from that. Had to calm the cherries, and strawberries were not amused. You know what happened did so in the way it did for good reason. To teach a lesson you’ll never grasp, dear. A nap was tempting my tired eyes though.”

He chuckled. Code names...they’d been given code names. He slinked one long arm out, gently shifting her to be right in front of him, his forehead resting on her belly “Did he wake you up, or were my pathetic cries of agony louder than I thought?” he paid her stomach a gentle kiss “You should keep her on this schedule. Being an early bird suits your mother..” he looked up, that boyish smirk.

Time for brownie points.

“She’s gorgeous in the morning sun, you know.” If it wasn’t for the fact that she knew he meant it, she’d let out a scoff. Instead she simply smirked herself, taking her time in petting him now. “You both did. Already working together behind my back. Two terrible boys.. you’re lucky I feel what I do.” The pet gave way to a tender tug. “Now do you have the energy for food or did you want your safer cocktail first? I can feel the agony from here and when I do, he does as well.”

“I’d like to just bitch and moan with you and the boy for awhile longer…” he quipped, closing his eyes and breathing in her scent. Raspberries...his favorite. He let out a sigh, leaning back with his eyes cast somewhere beyond the window. Maybe back to Boston, maybe to this next fight.

“I wanted to quit, you know..” he admitted out loud to the space around him, to the only two people who mattered “I’ve never wanted to do it before...but I couldn’t. I couldn’t let Sebastian give Cam the satisfaction….I couldn’t let Cashe get away with his rotten mouth I couldn’t…” he paused, a far away, detached chuckle “I couldn’t die…”

A scoff as he shook his head, leaning back into her while he stood up, his hand coming to rest on her stomach as he found her gaze once more “May he be blessed with his mother’s good sense…” now she had it in her to scoff herself. “Any sense of mine is the last thing this child needs considering the truth of what I am.”

Still, she couldn’t help smiling at the sentiments. “You are too kind, Matthew. Too much..” now came the tired sigh. “I saw it. The desire. I also saw that it wasn’t time, not yet. For Sebastian, his foundation will be further built in a better way than the shadow of the little weasel’s machinations. You both deserve better. With the jest of Cashe.. well I personally feel like either way you would’ve made sure this whole thing came into being, it’s in your nature. I know you’re tired, and soon you will rest. Then once everything is done, we’ll both get to. Considering the fight we started, it’ll probably be just in time for the literal idea of it being a joke.”

He laughed at this, throwing his head back and immediately killing it with a wince. “Right. Forgot...beaten to hell…” he groaned, smiling “Someday I hope to have the faith you do in me in anything...as far as the fight we started? There is always peace in everything...and as soon as he’s in this world?” he shook his head “All the fights end...I won’t make the same mistake twice..he’s going to know me so much he gets sick of me..”

To his shake, she gave a nod. “All of those fights will end, a better one beginning. He’ll be sick of us both within a year I’m sure. I.. admittedly look forward to such things.” There was a small laugh, a slight turn of the head. She didn’t let that out often.

He would spend most of his morning basking in the healing of her warmth, trading wistful notions about the life coming to fruition within her. Fatherhood changed a man. Or, rather, it added to the man. A dormant instinct that would rumble to life in passing until the moment they looked into the eyes of their own child. How it manifested? Told a lot about the innermost workings of a man’s heart.

For Matthew? It amplified his natural protectiveness to a thousand. Hope was his first..god, he’d remember her forever. Going to the orphanage he grew up in, dropping off a donation to make up for his shortcomings as a youth. He saw her there, Ice blue eyes and a mess of blonde hair. Detached from the children around her, that ‘lonely’ look. He knew she needed him, he knew he wanted to help her like his own foster father helped him.

And so he did. And they bonded, in the most perfect of ways. She was every bit of his best self, despite not sharing one drop of blood. When they reconnected, after he lost his damn mind and soul to heroin and left her with his ex wife? She became his best friend, and he became the thing he said he was trying to save her from when he intervened in business with her grandfather, his ex father in law.

Made her a target, a weak spot to be exploited. She became a tool to be used against him and became tired of being little more than a weak spot to hurt other people and get hurt in the process….and now, she hated him and was in bed with a man who wanted nothing more than his cosmic demise.

So, when Cashe began to tear into Victoria? He clung to defending her...because she loved him unconditionally still. There was the awkwardness of the new label, sure But they were friends long before the truth came out. He had earned himself a beating for the lip, despite being afforded an incredible amount of slack by Matthew.

Then, he had to begin encouraging Roth’s disrespectful statements about Hope.

A chameleon changing his colors once more..

When he finally did lay his head down to rest, really rest? It was consuming. One thought, one sentiment, one desire..

He was going to fuck him up.

[O Rec]


The camera opens up to an empty lecture hall. The walls are a sterile white, reflecting the fluorescent bulbs in an almost sickening hue. Rows upon rows of desks stood empty, at the bottom of this coliseum seating was a desk, a chalkboard…

And a Raven.

“The class clown is really just a crybaby looking for a way to cope, but doesn’t care to fix himself.”

He was seated upon the desk in the lotus position, the camera slowly zooms in until he fills the frame. His glasz eyes are tired, but burning with a desire familiar to his opponents. A simple desire.

To hurt them.

“As long as he has the validation of others, he doesn’t need to worry about how lonely it gets when they stop laughing. Because they;ll laugh again. They’ll love him again..”

He clicks his tongue, making a poor attempt at expressing concern across his face, the slight tilt and shake of the head. The kind of look you give a toddler who was screaming and wailing over a broken toy they’d spent the last hour bashing against the wall.

‘Man, it sucks you did that to you.’

“Until they don’t...well fuck these boring clowns, right?” a chuckle “Those guys, they’ll dig the hell out of me. See, look at them laugh!! HA! HA! HA! HA! A slap on the knee to accompany each ‘HA’ his face going manic “Oh...oh shit. This guy didn’t like my joke what the fuck oh no, hey circle that ain’t sick of me yet heeelllp!!”

He waves his arms to embellish the point, mocking the sophomoric drama of it all further.

“Such is the cycle of Jason Cashe. Do anything for love, and barely liked for it.” he shakes his head “It’d be hilarious, if it weren’t so pathetic.”

His svelte form slides off the desk, standing on his own two feet now as he begins pacing along the first row of seats, hands clasped firmly behind his back. As if he were lecturing a full hall of young, eager minds on the topic of bitch made loud mouthed insecure little boys.

“See, I fell for it...i’m a big, broody motherfucker. But I like to laugh. I like to drink...well, liked to. I enjoy hanging out...watching people. Seeing what I can learn about them…” he chuckled “You..you were as educational as the toaster.”

“Not near as useful though, see..aToaster? Toaster serves purpose. You get something good out of the toaster, consistently even. Set it once, forget about it. Perfect toast until it stops working.” a pivot on his heel, he heads toward the opposite end of the row “Whereas...you’re pretty much good for nothing. Can’t even stand on your own two feet and take what's coming for you. No, you had to bring in Cyrus, a man I beat in Carnage who was as much a factor there as you are in an Academic Decathlon.”

“But I digress,,,maybe I ramble.. But it’s only because you’ve pissed me all the way off, Cashe. And that sucks..because I did start to like you. But just because your temporary bed warmer left my daughter to go back to you, you decided it was appropriate to get involved in their mess and speak ill of her...and then you double down over, and over, and over until I intervene..” a pause, a bemused look as he finds the camera.

“And then, you’re surprised and wounded when I start treating you like the worm you’ve become..” he shakes his head “Problem with chameleons, man..you can’t trust them worth a shit. Leopards, Zebras...they never change their spots or stripes. You can expect consistency out of them, if it was a leopard yesterday? Leopard today. Sandy with black spots. 24/7...you? You can be green and scaly for a hundred days, then suddenly you’re blue and scaly and act like you were never green..”

He begins ascending the steps now.

“Blue, green, purple? Doesn’t matter though. I’m just being creative and long-form calling you a fucking fake, Jason. A fake and a coward with a big mouth. Too chickenshit to fight me like a man, so you bring your friend. Probably confident that no one would team with the angry old guy from your other gig…” a smirk “But lo and behold, to the surprise of none? You pissed off a lot of people, Jason..”

“So now, it’s you and Cy. Tag champions of a place that closed down because it hated money, against a pair of world champions with more talent in the tip of their pinky fingers than you two possess in your entire being...Might want to fall in with a tougher crowd next time, Jason. Bring some real backup for yourself instead of someone who got picked during kickball because the PE teacher said you had to..”

He stops at the top of the steps, staring point blank into the camera now as he lets out a long sigh, eyes casting off to the side. He lets out a bemused chuckle, shaking his head before returning his gaze to the viewer.

“You’ll learn from this, Cashe.I’m confident in this. Sure you’ll puff your chest, tout your past successes, call my children names...but it’ll just be hot air, useless bullshit that will do nothing to stop a fist but plenty to fuel it. And when you’re bloody, dazed, staring up at the lights? Formulating that apology i’m going to make you give..? You’ll realize the answer to the same question i’ve been asking, and have yet to get a positive answer from…”

“So, let me ask it here and now...Cy, Cashe? With the indignant rage of fatherhood bearing down upon you in the form of a man who could beat you unmotivated, when he is joined by a man who does nothing but dominate everywhere he ends up? When you are faced with these insurmountable odds, I ask..”

“Can you stop me?”

A smirk, a light flick upon the lens and Matthew walks out of the shot, which slowly begins to fade to black.
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[-] The following 3 users Like Matt Knox's post:
Atara Raven (11-17-2021), Robert "The Omega" Main (11-20-2021), Theo Pryce (11-18-2021)




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