Bzzzzt.

The whir of an air conditioner filled the empty space in the room, its muted tones almost abrasive to the senses after a decent amount of time in the thick of it. AA was never an easy experience, but it was a habit. A routine. A constant in a world of uncertainty and isolation. The introductions and updates could be a little repetitive and stressful at points, but it was a place that didn’t see him for who he was in the ring, but simply himself. Pressing the cardboard rim of the cup he had grasped in his right hand, Ned gulped down the last bit of water. He looked towards the group as he finished a thought.

“...I’m not going to lie and act like it hasn’t been difficult to stay sober, even though I’ve made it to 465 days. I still remember walking in here and taking a chance on myself. But a lot of that is support from the people around me. From my partner at the time. From the people who worked the gym before the property got swept away from underneath me. I keep trying to solve these huge issues with the people closest to me, but I’m barely keeping myself above water somedays. And I almost want to believe that the worlds is actively working against me. Like there’s some big plot when it’s all mere circumstance. I guess… I’m hoping. For order. For myself. For just another chance to feel like my two feet are steady on the ground.”

His mind drifted to the past. To his alcohol fueled meltdown in as “The Nefarious One,” an abusive, pent up psychosis that drew in a handful of people. One of his greatest failures. It was Steven Cooper, a beat-up wrestling veteran with cancer eating him inside and out that had dragged Ned’s near lifeless body to rehab. It was him who helped someone else despite his misgivings of other people. It was him who died consumed in his craft, away from his family, lacking almost any fanfare or friends, barely even apart of the life he saved. He wouldn’t be here without people like Steve who lifted him up when his body went limp.

So why did he get to be here and Steve occupied a lonesome grave?

Bzzzzt.

Ned forced a smile through the thoughts, hearing the group clapping. He provided a sort of strength to every room he entered, it felt like. People looked to Ned to see him pushing forward despite everything. To be a role-model 24/7. In pursuit of being other people’s strength, he had deprived himself of the simple ability to fail. To hit the ground and feel the concrete for a while. Never allowed to stop. Never allowed to breathe. A slow asphyxiation by his own hands.

Bzzzzt.

The hum of the lights seemed to sharpen against Ned’s ears as he stood up to go grab another cup of water. Kelly, the woman who typically stepped in to lead meetings whenever anyone else wasn’t available, walked up to him, giving a slight smile.

“Hey,” She said, giving his shoulder a gentle tap, “proud of you.”

“For what?” He asked, almost chuckling at the comment, “I just did what I normally do.”

“Well, I don’t know how better to put this, but your life can be kind of morbid. Tragedy nips on your heels, Ned,” She shrugged, still giving a bright smile despite Kaye’s mild confusion.

“...Thanks?”

She let out a small, stifled laugh, flapping a hand to downplay her earlier statement, “I just mean that you’re really good at handling everything for the sake of others. So many people, though they mean well, just love to make their problems other people’s. You try to make yours solutions for everybody else. It’s admirable.”

It was also a lonely way to live. He left that bit unspoken.

Bzzzzt.

Ned softly scowled as the buzzing got louder, shaking it off quickly.

“Everything good?” Kelly asked, her face contorting in a display of concern.

“Yeah, yeah. Is that all you wanted to talk about?” Ned asked, rubbing his left temple with a few fingers, feeling a slight slickness from sweat adorning his head.

“There was one other thing,” She admitted, clearing her throat slightly as she began to whisper, “We recently had someone come in for help and… they’ve been relapsing pretty badly and I think you might be a good fit to try and help them.”

Ned’s ears perked along with a hint of sadness. He hadn’t done much to help his fellow addicts despite his best efforts to be a guiding torch. He thought towards Steven pulling his body into a car, the sights from outside the windshield a blur of colors he couldn’t make out, let alone recall. He had never been that for another. Now was as good a time as any to start.

“Where can I find them?”

“There’s a bar downtown called The Golden Goose. It’s unfortunately pretty popular for the people who end up here. Cheap drinks, cheap place,” she explained avoidantly.

“I know you’ve been struggling recently, so I get if you can’t and I don’t want you to feel pressured to… you would just be… well suited to helping him out.”

Bzzzzzzzzzt.

The silence in-between the speaking became louder, the world beginning to blur slightly. Like all the revolutions of the planet underneath were focusing entirely on Ned’s location, flaying his brain on hum at a time.

Kelly spoke, yet none of it registered. Movements without words, her concern growing. And then everything turned still. A moment of peace in the cacophony of sensation berating Ned. Peace.

Then he hit the ground.

---

Ned despised hospitals. Not for their purpose or lack of merit. It was a dislike born of association. Of a thousand bad experiences in their walls. Perhaps it was a part of being a professional wrestler. Perhaps just a part of growing older.

A doctor walked in, sighing a bit as he held a large stack of papers, nearly dropping them as he sat down. He sat, smiling but not speaking as he motioned for a nurse to walk in. The nurse quickly stepped to his side, adding another stack of papers nearly as large as the first before departing.

“So,” the doctor began, “you’re a wrestler?”

“...Yeah.”

“I don’t know exactly how to say this,” the doctor rubbed his hands together, “however I would recommend that you seek other forms of employment, Mr. Kaye.”

“Wait,” Ned spoke, his voice nearly breaking, “is something seriously wrong with me?”

“Thankfully, no,” the doctor clarified, “we’ve run a lot of tests and you’ve managed to come up clear. But looking through your record, I noticed that you began to experience intense vertigo more frequently last year.”

“I… rested.”

“-Yes, after overexerting yourself for months prior to that. Did you think you could just will it away? You can’t think yourself out of a medical problem, Mr. Kaye.”

“So, you’re just telling me I need to drop the thing I love most for- for what? So I don’t get dizzy sometimes? I didn’t pass out, I was fine!” Ned defensively asserted.

“I’m telling you that you need to reconsider how you’re living so you have a chance of seeing 40. Maybe even just 35.”

Ned’s head sagged forward, his breaths heavy as he processed the information. Everything that he had loved and fought for seemed to be slipping away from him bit by bit. Like his life was sand and the fistfuls were falling out more rapidly by the day.

“If you’re not going to stop, then you need to start seriously limiting your activity until… until you are ready to take a serious break. We’re talking about your life. Isn’t that worth more than a wrestling company?”

The walk home from the hospital was lonelier than most. New York managed to be a ghost town even as Ned brushed shoulders with countless others. And the hum of silence dragged through his mind, a quiet reminder of the last bit of normality slipping from him. The final grains of sand trying to slip from his grasp. He gazed upward, breaking through the trance that hypnotized him towards his apartment and saw three words atop a dingy looking doorway.

The Golden Goose.

He thought to the doc’s advice earlier. To prioritize himself. Even his greatest accomplishments were made with other people in mind. 

No one would blame him for walking home. 

But his mind drifted to his own life. The one so many had saved.

His fists clenched, he walked inside. 

His senses were immediately assaulted with the stench of liquor, a musty swirl of intoxicants filling the air like foam to a clean glass. He looked around, trying to find someone who might’ve fit Kelly’s description. Except he hadn’t heard it.

His head had bounced against the tile before he could.

Reluctantly, he walked up to the bar, hailing the bartender, who gave a nod before approaching.

“What can I get for ya?” She asked, preemptively reaching underneath the bar.

“Just a water,” Ned spoke, feeling the itch of addiction layer itself upon the humming in his head. She quickly filled a glass, ready to retreat and serve other customers, forcing Ned to respond quickly.

“’Scuse me. I know this is silly, but… is there anyone here who looks like they’ve been drinking too much?”

She raised a deadpan eyebrow.

“...Impressively too much.”

Almost immediately understanding, she gestured to the far part of the bar, leaving Ned to make the long walk through the narrow sinkhole they called a bar. The flooring stuck to the bottom of his shoes, each step sounding like ripping paper in two. Eventually, past the sea of bodies in this claustrophobic box, Ned saw his target. And he immediately understood why Kelly asked him to come.



“Pip?” Ned asked, almost in disbelief of the former XWF announcer perched atop a barstool, his hair unruly and demeanor as sour as ever. The small man’s eyes adjusted as he tried to place exactly who he was looking at. His expression turned to a grimace upon realizing.

“You look like shit,” Pip Collins mumbled out, ale dribbling from his half-opened maw.

Ned took a seat next to Collins, saddened at the state of his former coworker.

“Hey,” he said, attempting to slide one of the many half-drunken glasses away from Pip, “it’s time you got out of here.”

“Oh, spare me the afterschool special, Nedward!” Pip shouted with slurred consonants, yoinking a margarita and downing it, “I’m exactly where I ought to be.”

“Pip… this isn’t okay. You need help. I know you think I’m some goody-two-shoes loser, but this isn’t a way to live,” Ned pleaded quietly, watching as Collins seemed to stare off into a flickering television screen.

“Help..?” Pip nearly laughed at the notion, “Where was all that help when they were kicking me out of my job, huh?”

“There wasn’t anything I could do-”

“Oh really? You’re so buddy-buddy with Theo Pryce and you couldn’t put in one good word for ol’ PC, huh?! You know what the past six years of my life were, Ned?! “Pip we need you in Peru and Japan within the same week to do 6 hours of commentary!” Or- or “Hey, Collins! Yeah, little dude, let’s get you on three shows a week and pay you nothing extra! Make sure to keep up with the thousands of names and stories that we don’t give you a single pointer on!” They had me work my ass off, flying around the world with no time to sit or breathe and then I get to watch a bunch of entitled “fans” give me shit for doing my job!”

Pip slapped his palm against the bartop, causing the glasses to jingle gently, giving Ned an opportunity to subtly sequester them again. Still, being supportive didn’t mean Kaye felt the need to lie.

“To be fair, you were pretty against the fans yourself. Hell, you hated on me for a good long while. You’re a bit of an ass when you want to be.”

“AH!” He shoved his finger in Ned’s face, enjoying his brief moment of gotcha, “I became a bit of an ass! When I showed up in November 2017, I tried to be the good boy they wanted. To spout all the shit they wanted to hear while Luca sprayed more shit than a garden hose connected to an outhouse! And they still ended up hating me… because the fans are just like the company… they don’t give a fuck about you. They take and sap and suck all your best years out of you and then fill your spot within a week. And the “XWF Universe” is happy to watch the new toys get played with while you rot in the corner.”

“That’s not true,” Ned responded a bit defensively, “they care about people. Yeah, it’s easy to get bitter, but they’re not some fickle group of idiots looking for a bigger fish. They care.”

Collins’s lips curled into a snarled sort of smirk, shaking his head, “Then explain Denver.”

Ned paused. It wasn’t something he had given much thought to. Despite his place as one of the striving forces of good in the XWF, the fans in Denver happily booed him and Isaiah in support of Razor Blade, happy to turn against him for the span of a promo.

“So, I got booed. It’s not the end of the world, it just happens. I don’t need everyone to like me to not be an asshole,” Ned rebutted.

“No, but it makes it easier. And it must be just your favorite thing in the whole world to watch Thad and his little new squad slob on SEB’s knob, happy to let the door hit your perfect little butt on the way out of your Uni run. Money talks and says horrible shit about us.”

Ned’s body weight leaned into the bar, sinking somewhat with Pip’s. He stayed quiet.

“Face it, kid. They’re moving on from us. They got their big money draws and grabbed about as much from us as they want or they can’t get and now their little friends get to come in and enjoy the party we set the table for.”

Pip’s bitter words ceased to slur and in a moment of vile clarity, he used his skills as a commentator to sum the feeling up.

”One day, you’re one of the golden geese… and the next, you’re foie gras.”

Ned stood up, offering a hand to the disheveled man at his side. The bar rumbled, unaware of their existence, the rest of the world moving on around and despite them. Still, Ned offered a quiet hand of help.

“Like I said,” Pip reiterated, “I’m not buying whatever you’re selling.”

“You’re right to doubt me.”

Pip’s eyes shot open, perhaps merely by the novelty of someone saying that he was right, in disbelief that someone like Ned would agree with him.

“I keep talking about doing the right thing for the people around me. About standing up for them no matter the cost to myself, but I sat by when I lost that belt to a man who thinks he’s more than this place. Who doesn’t want to be a part of our home, but to rule it. While people like you and Big D and countless others got tossed to the wayside. Leap of Faith is a chance to right those wrongs. You just have to trust me. To believe in me.”

Pip seemed comforted by Ned’s word, but only for a moment. He grabbed his coat, dismounted the barstool he sat upon shakily, before nudging Kaye with his elbow on his way out, his words reserved for once in his career.

“I’ll believe it when I see it.”

He disappeared into the crowd of people, once more leaving Ned alone despite the company. But the hum at the back of his mind faded to a whisper. He got up on his own two unsteady feet and walked forth from the smell of liquor and rot and into the cold eve.

There was work to do.

---

“They say never to meet your heroes.”

“For a long time my response to that old bit of wisdom was: “Well, then you’ve never met Centurion.” I watched him as I was growing up, tuned into episodes of Thursday Night Anarchy captivated by the kinds of feats he could preform. He was my Dad and I’s favorite wrestler and I was so lucky as I got older to have my first stable be APEX Prophecy and to stand side-by-side with my childhood hero. Cent welcomed me to this fed with open arms. He was there at my father’s funeral. He was an ally and a friend.”

“He was.”

“A lot of that changed the second he started talking the lead up to War Games 2023. Talked about how I wasn’t someone Mark Flynn could ever respect. Talked about how I was a solid hand, but wasn’t a superstar. Scoffed at the notion that I could be Universal Champion material.”

“One of us has held that brilliant piece of gold, Cent. And it sure as Hell wasn’t you.”

“I witnessed my hero dismiss me outright. And while I stood, vindicated in the aftermath, I’d be lying if I said it didn’t sting afterwards. If I pretended it was left in the ring. Fact is that Centurion never even faced my team and he still pissed away the majority of good will he had with me for a chance to perch over me. This man who had been so happy to prop me up when I was new blood tossed me aside when there were new opportunities to be had. New money to be made.”

“A person is only as strong as their convictions, Centurion, and yours fold like the dollars in your pockets.”

“And that, for a lot of people, would be enough reason to dislike you. To label you as phony, someone who only likes those he can benefit from. But I can’t. I cheered when you secured your career from the clutches of Madison Dyson. Because I don’t hate you, Centurion, despite your attempts to gain my ire. But I met my hero and he’s content to give up his heroics to wade in the status quo. To taste luxury at the cost of dignity.”

“You know, I had a friend once. Steven “The Trooper” Cooper. An old man you handwaved away as readily as you did myself. His last match was against you, Cent. And with his body failing him, his age and ailments dragging him a step closer to death with every movement, he beat you. His last act in the XWF was putting the righteous fury of every wrestler you had let wither away whilst drinking in opulence. That was a man who hated you. And he’s the man who kept me alive. And after all this time, I see what he saw. I see the vein human being who only uses words he thinks will get under his opponents’ skins. I see someone who latched himself to one of the rising stars of the new XWF while he career was red hot and reaped the benefits of her efforts. I see Andy. Not a hero, but a man desperate for relevance. At any cost.”

“But it’s always someone else who foots the bill, eh?”

“You don’t have the strength to be the person who can keep your era of the XWF alive and breathing in this company. You’re only in it for yourself. Not for what it means to the people coming next. Not to what the world needs now. You are an ambassador for a group you share no love for. The face of a generation that never thinks about his contemporaries. If you walk into that Leap of Faith match, you’ll do so only to suit your own ends. Without a second thought to those around you. And you’ll fail.”

“You fail for the same reasons that Madison Dyson failed against you. Because she couldn’t stop underestimating the person sharing the ring with her. It was more important to belittle and tear you down and make you seem like an afterthought. That’s what she reserves for her enemies.”

“It’s what you reserve for your “friends.””

“I have to beat you, Cent. And that tears me up inside. I do so much because someone needs to. I make the tough decisions and that’s put you in my path. To shatter the altar of a false god, I have to break the pedestal I placed you on. I have to bring you crashing back down to Earth. You want to know a stat? I held the record for Anarchy submission victories for a while before both you and Mastermind surpassed that metric. I haven’t been on Anarchy since 2021 and I held that record for nearly three years. My presence is felt even in my absence. You have the most wins in the history of this company and barely anyone even notices. People are desperate to find inspiration. To find belief.”

“I don’t hate you, Centurion. But I don’t believe in you.

“The XWF is changing. Potentially passing us by and you’re only concerned with keeping your head above water even if those you claim to care about drown. You’d place the raft over your ears if it meant you didn’t have to hear them gurgling.”

“Out of sight. Out of mind.”

“You look at people and you see peons; competitors to place in boxes that can never improve or change. You gravitate towards people like Ruby because they validate your static worldview. You saw the burgeoning Crucible and your first impressions of us all took precedent. Isaiah was just some kid, I was a good hand, but no star, Mark was an irredeemable bastard. You judged me and my friends and expected nothing more than what you first saw.”

“And you lost.”

“Because the XWF doesn’t need to trade one rich insider for another, regardless of how enfranchised one of them is. Because it needs someone who will see more and give more. You can say a lot about me, Cent, you can undermine my skills and my beliefs and my friends, but you can never doubt that I give everything to the XWF. I pour my being into this company like few ever have or ever will! I fight for those you’ve forgotten and those you’ve yet to forget! And when you see me surpass you yet again to fight for a cause, I want you to think about your house and the dollars upon dollars you get to live your cushy life and I want you to stare in that pool and reflect for once. Because for every bathroom in that temple to your ego, there’s ten friendships you’ve strained. For every window, a broken promise. For every staircase, a cause discarded. Because despite you being my hero, we are not alike. You look at me and see only what you saw on the first day we met. Unchanging. Ungrowing. But I see you as you are. What you could be again. The man who stood up to the powers that be instead of happily phasing into the status quo. When I grew up, I watched a man who fought and when he won, it meant everyone had a better XWF to be in.”

“Now, you only fight for your own career.”

“On Monday, I give you something a thousand square acres never could. A new perspective. The reality of the kid you think so dismissively of.”

“I give you something to believe in."

"You can't run from yourself."