Santos: You know, I was thinking, what is love? Really, what is it?

Shannon: That's obvious, don't you think, Tone? It's pretty darn obvious to me, if you don't mind me saying so.

Santos: I do mind.

Shannon, in her usual, albeit recent, mode of not caring what Tony has to say, had actually continued talking over those three, surprisingly non-curse words that Tony had spouted.

Shannon: Love... is the convergence of two hearts and two minds. Not necessarily similar or alike, they share a bond. They connect like pieces to a puzzle, filling each other's holes and inadequacies, making one another whole. A loving relationship is a rocky road, of course, but that underlying bond never breaks. It's like... well, like...

...a key and its key hole. One needs the other in order to really mean anything; to have a purpose, a reason for existing. They may be apart now and again, but they always find each other; always realizing that one can't be without the other.

That's what we have, Tony. An unbreakable bond. Sure, now and again you're off on the road, losing matches and failing to really make yourself in to anything special, while I'm off, trying to make ends meet, allowing you to live the jet-setting lifestyle that you live, to give you the ability to support your bastard child, but at the end of the day, we always find one another. We realize how much we need one another. We realize that neither of us has any meaning without the other. You're the key, and I'm the key hole, and we're back together.

Shannon, looking straight ahead, her short, dark hair with purple highlights sitting in stark contrast to the white interior of their U-Haul truck, as well as the bright, sunny day enveloping them from the outside, smiles a stare of one thousand miles as she contemplates what she has (or what she thinks she has). Shannon, while being a bit of a whacked out kook with control freak tendencies, as well as the need to date someone who was obviously inferior to her, was a hopeless romantic. She wanted to find true, everlasting, love. She wanted to come home to a husband that only wished to whisper sweet nothings to her while they watched a romantic comedy or a drama on television, followed by a romantic, candlelight dinner, and cuddling before bed. The sex part? Yeah, she certainly dreamed of stunning, breathtaking sex, but she was more for the other, less superficial and animalistic aspects of love. She dreamed of it. She prayed for it.

And in return she got Tony.

Tony takes turns between watching the road ahead of him (the lovely state of Maryland) and glaring at Shannon. Is he confused? Angry? Uncertain? He hasn't trusted the woman since he started making decent sums of money and actually becoming somewhat successful. For all he knew, her words were just her way of fooling Tony in to thinking that she was in this relationship for anything more than the money and attention. Tony wasn't liking where these two were going, and she needed to embed herself deeper in to Tony's life (and pockets). How would Tony respond? What could he possibly say to this love of his without offending her? Without crushing her perceptions about love and its underlying value as a human being?

Santos: That's about the dumbest fucking thing I've heard in quite a god damn while.

He's not one for tact.

Santos: You must be a damn fool to actually believe all of that bullshit, Shannon. Really, do you?

Shannon nods her head, the thousand mile stare gone, the hope in her eyes disappearing.

Santos: You want to know what I've learned about love during this short life of mine, sweetie pie? Do ya?

It's a whole bunch o' shit, that's what it is. You want to throw a "key and key hole" metaphor at me, do ya? First of all, that's incredibly sexual. I'm not necessarily opposed to it, but, well...

Not the point! The point is, these bonds that we create, they're fake and not in any way permanent. We fall in to certain situations by chance. Two people meet at a bar and BAM!, they fall in love. Another two meet by chance at a baseball game and the guy acts all cute and buys the woman a hot dog, they start up conversation, and fucking shit, they're married with three kids in a ranch house somewhere in Suburb Town, Where Everyone Makes Enough to Send Their Kids to Fucking Karate Class and Support Their Emerging Drug Habits, USA.

Then! Then some other sons of bitches get paired together for some "project" or "event," and next thing you know, they're in godforsaken love too!

Then what happens, huh, Shannon? The key and the key hole screw one another enough times that the key becomes dull and tired. The key hole is bored. The key ain't cutting it anymore. It has no motivation to protect what it seemingly values so greatly, so what does it do? It finds a new, fresh, fitted key, and it does the rusty tango with its new partner, while the other one gets discarded, thrown on a dresser somewhere, hidden beneath a bunch of loose change.

Sure, that old key might find its way back every now and then, and it may be completely and utterly oblivious to the strangers that are making their way in to Ms. Key Hole, but the damage has been done. The bond is broken, and there is no way to fully repair the damage. The relationship will continue on and on until the fucking key breaks, and, *SNAP*, game over.

That is love, Shannon, not your fairy tale shit that you get from Chicken Soup for the Soul. And that is what you see,,,

Tony coughs, the packs of Marlboro blacks that he's been inhaling like a perverted chimney sweep apparently getting to him. He looks at Shannon, who, despite her best efforts and, as mentioned previously, natural tendency to block Tony out, is feeling more and more hopeless from listening to her boyfriend; the man who was taking her to Miami, a trip that she devised on her own, tear apart the only thing that she felt was whole. Tony smiles, happy to inject some of his poison in to the woman who had been breaking down his mental faculties slowly over time.

Santos: And this love, babe, is something that isn't confined to the likes of a man and a woman, or a man and a man, or a woman and a woman, or a man and a woman and a woman (in Utah), or a man and an underage sex slave, as in Bangladesh and seemingly every other developed country under this sun of ours, which should just fucking kill us all and end our stupidity...

I digress! This faulty construct of "love" exists in that little line of work that I do, lovey bear. It's true, babe, it really is! See, you know that I have a match in San Diego coming up, right?

Shannon nods her head, beginning to sulk as she considers jumping out of the car.

Santos: And, you know that I'm facing some fine young wrestlers in a four-man tag match as well, correct?

Shannon once again nods.

Santos: Well, here's the thing, babe. My opponents, Cam Lang, Egyptian Snow Pharaoh, Theo Pryce, and Dr. Zero, they think that they have a bond. They think that they have something remotely resembling your idea of "love," albeit in its most basic and platonic form, but you wanna know what they have?

Tony smiles and nods his head... up and down, up and down, looking at the black 2008 Ford Explorer plodding along in front of him.

Santos: They have the real version of "love." The superficial bond that every team in this round of the tournament shares. The same bond that every faction in this company has, made obvious by the fact that members leave and groups are broken seemingly every other week. It's what The Brotherhood has.

Egyptian can talk all she wants about team unity. She can talk about how they're confident and ready to win, while our group is divided, trying to tear each other down, but, well, here's the thing. When the moment comes, Cam Lang and company will do whatever they can, to one another, to bring each other down. That may not be in the middle of our match, but, I'd say it's pretty god damn likely.

When you're as weak as Cam Lang, you do whatever's necessary to ensure that, a) you walk out victorious and move on to the next round, and b) you weaken your unsuspecting partners while they're your partners, knowing full well that this loose bond will break soon, and it's best to capitalize now and get them while they're still healthy, before they get the chance to face you.

When you're Theo Pryce, you'll probably manage to run in to an outside barrier and concuss yourself anyway, so no real need for treachery there.

When you're Dr. Zero, you were thrown in to this situation; you have no bond with these folks. You're a god damn lunatic. You'll probably roofie at least one of their Gatorades pre-match, followed by a sneaky number or two after the opening bell. Hell, you wouldn't even disguise it as anything other than such. Your partners might just trust that it was the best thing for the partnership... the best thing for the match.

And when you're Ms. Egyptian? You quickly realize that you're just as much of a vile bastard as our king, as back-stabbing as the rest of this god damn organization, and you take out your teammates at the first opportunity. Maybe an accidental elbow to the face here, making a "mistaken" chair shot to the head there. Hit the head, and do what you need to to make your future opponents hurt, while doing enough in your own self interest to still get the victory.

Tony wipes some dust off of the clock in front of him, then checks on Shannon to see if she's potentially taken her own life in depression. Seeing that she still has a pulse, and that she still seems to be coherent and paying attention to what is going on (since Bon Jovi's been playing acoustic numbers on a loop for seemingly the last hour), he continues, but only after slightly caressing her left cheek with his finger.

Santos: On Wednesday, babe, everyone's true colors will show. Every team, every person. We're all a bunch of opportunistic assholes, and we'll do whatever it takes to make it to the end of this fucking pony show. Nothing more, nothing less. Factions may very well fall apart, and teams will most certainly betray each other, certainly as quickly as Rebel betrayed the group that he doesn't belong in. But one thing is for certain, honey bee. Do you know what that is?

Shannon shakes her head meekly, in a semi-trance, but also just wanting Tony to stop talking so she could consider the mistakes that she's made to get to this point.

Santos: It ain't that I'll be smiling, Shannon. No, no, not at all...

It's that the other bastards won't either once they've burned their own fragile bridges and still found themselves with a big ol' L to add to their records.

The scene fades to black.

September 2013 and May 2019 Star of the Month
1x Hart Champion
1x Television Champion
1x Xtreme Champion