Post by PH RECORDS on Nov 29, 2020 12:30:33 GMT -5
THE DIMITRI CHRONICLES: 4.1 // SUCCEED
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“It’s easy to try to place the blame on your failure on someone else. So easy to say, yeah, but.”
His legs swung over the side of an egg-shaped swivel chair, Dickie reclined comfortably. Unperturbed. Unfazed. He clasped his fingers over the screen-printed Studio Ghibli No-Face on his oversized muscle shirt, his foot bouncing with whatever elevator music played in the background. The room he draped himself over seemed to be modern in appeal, with white blocked furniture and a television set flashing images over his face. He lifted his hand and scratched his head underneath his maroon beanie, sniffing in slightly as he focused his attention on the screen.
“So easy to say that there wasn’t really a match, it was just a positioning of weight. So easy to say that it was a fluke, the luck of the draw, that the greasy kid really didn’t have any ability to wrestle and just weaseled his way into a win.”
He turned his head, staring into the camera with a deadpan expression, his eyebrow raised.
“I’ll have you know I shower every fuckin’ day, Kimberly Chase.”
Dickie swung his feet from the side of the chair to the floor, slamming his military boots into the ground and letting the torn knees of his denim jeans separate more. He narrowed his eyes while smiling, an expression of glee.
“Forgive me if this is how I start this, but I take offense to the fact that my opponents refuse to take one on the chin. But what else should I have expected? I told you what would happen. You can call it whatever you want, Saint, but it still remains that I have a one in my bracket and you are sitting at a very oval-esque zero in a company you claimed you were going to dominate. Sure, you got in a few lucky shots, but not only did you get choked out twice, you weren’t able to put me down after thirty seconds like you boasted about. We all say and do things, Colton, but some of us actually hold true to what we say we’re going to do. I didn’t see myself all rolled up and hurting after the match, unable to fight again. I didn’t see myself with my head up my ass like yours seems to be all the fuckin’ time. No. I said what I was going to do and I did it. The journey wasn’t important this time, the destination was.”
The television screen behind him lights up with the previous Proving Ground and the picture of the timeclock as Dickie reversed Colton’s pin. Nine minutes, fifty-six seconds. He paused the screen, pointing at it with his finger and tapping the numbers.
“Less than ten minutes. It took less than ten minutes to roll up and defeat you, Colton, no matter how much you decided to posture and primp yourself. No matter how much Kimberly could put me down, could attempt lame ass insults about my appearance and my stature -- what, are you still in high school? Do you still walk down the hallways of your local prison-like schools thinking that you’re top shit because you’re the jock and the cheerleader? Physique and popularity don’t mean a damn thing when it comes to intelligence and skill. Call it what you want, but knowing how to reverse a pin on someone who outweighs you and still come out the winner? That’s a feat you can’t just brush aside."
He lifted his head inquisitively, tilting it slightly while lifting an eyebrow upwards. “Jason Terrance: ten minutes and one second. Kasey Winterborn and Phoenix Lestrange: ten minutes and thirty-nine seconds. Myojin: eleven minutes and twenty-seven seconds. The matches were about how quickly you won, not decimating your opponent. Less than ten minutes to remind you that it ain’t about the bulk but about the skill. While I’m walking ahead, looking towards the Grand Championship as my ultimate goal, you’re settling for the X-Factor Championship. You were the quickest to lose, and that...well…”
He shrugged his shoulders, leaning back into the chair, before laughing to himself and shaking his head.
“...that’s gotta hurt like fucking hell.”
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“It looks good there.” Hannah murmured, her arm crossed over her body, supporting her opposite elbow as she lifted her index finger to her lips. She clutched the sleeve of her cashmere sweater, smiling. “We’ve got a collection already.”
Dimitri landed deftly on the ground, though the drop wasn’t more than two feet from the top of the stepstool to the bottom. He looked up at the wall. Of course, they hadn’t been given their championships to keep between the two of them, but ever since Elena had so quickly bought the replica version of Dimitri’s first championship like an extremely proud mother, they’d been buying them and putting them up like a kid displays their trophies. Of course, the plates that said their names were in the replicas now. Four championships for Dimitri, one of the same for Hannah (that she’d won three times though). A champion family of their own.
The silver and gold that adorned their hallway was never something that he would have expected to have on his own. Of course, his siblings had their championships decorating their houses as well. If you asked Finn, who had a significantly less amount of championships than his (deceased) wife, they were something to be proud of. If you talked to Elena, whose championships were decorating her very own gym, they told the story of her rise to success. But for Dimitri, they were a badge -- a badge of accomplishment. Of individual success.
His life prior to wrestling, prior to Hannah...it was all like a distant memory that he almost couldn’t remember. He was six, almost seven years younger than Elena, and that alone left him a terrified child in a dark, dank orphanage when she moved on to live out her own life. She never forgot him. When he could get away, he’d steal out into the night and meet up with her, where she’d make sure he was doing okay, and she would promise him all of it would end. She was sixteen. He was ten. But that action made his resolve that much stronger as he grew up.
Every kid wanted to be adopted. Dimitri made straight As in school. He was quiet. He was smart. But none of that seemed to matter to the people that came through, and that was probably because the Orphanage wasn’t one of the better ones. He’d get adopted, realize he was in a difficult situation, and he would do everything in his power to end up being returned. For six years, it was the same thing over and over again. He’d come back with bruises, both from his adoptive parents and from the Director herself. But it only made him stronger.
University came and went, he got a job as a sports writer. He moved to America. He met Hannah. He followed his siblings around. Life was good. But there was always an itch. He’d watched Finn and Elena with their successes and wondered if it was a possibility for him too.
Four championships on his wall proved to him that yes, it was a possibility. He was, most successfully, building his own identity. Now he had the opportunity to push forward and gain another championship, another inaugural championship. He had the ability to carry the company if he could reach Hell on Earth and defeat Jason Terrance and whoever succeeded between Lestrange and Winterborn. He’d take on whomever, facing them all head-on like the headstrong person he knew he was. He could do this. He could meet success.
Without his siblings, might he add.
“Yeah. And it’ll just keep building if we stay in business.”
“I don’t think I’m going to go back to wrestling,” Hannah dropped her arms, her eyes following her husband as he went to put the stepstool away in the closet. “It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, because I absolutely did. But I think I’m better as a consultant...maybe a manager…”
Her eyes looked hopeful as he returned. Dimitri lifted his hands and pressed his fingers to his wife’s cheeks, holding her face softly. “Whatever you want to do, Love, you know I’ll support.” He stated, tucking her hair behind her ear.
She smiled brightly, lifting her lashes up to look at him. “Anything?”
“Well, I mean, I’ll have to take the fuckin’ arms off dudes if you choose to be a stripper or some shit, but I don’t think that’ll be one of your options.” Dimitri looked upwards over her head, making a face as his harsh cockney accent made some of his consonants disappear. Hannah giggled and slid her arms around his waist, pressing the side of her face against his shoulder.
“I was thinking maybe I could well, you know...manage you?” She posed the question softly.
Dimitri pulled back slightly, looking down at Hannah with a grin. “Is this because Heather Haze was tweeting me?”
Hannah’s nose flared and a light pink color settled across her nose. “No! There’s going to be girls in every business and that cheap trash everywhere. I’m not worried. And I don’t appreciate yo--” She was cut off by his laughter and again, she smacked him. “I just want to be useful, Dimitri. I’m not someone that can just sit and home and do nothing. You know that. I’ll go insane. Batshit. I’ll start getting cats.”
“No more animals, Hannah.”
“Two cats to start with, and then--”
“Hannah!”
She giggled. If there was anything Hannah was, it was silly at times. But that’s why he loved her. There was nothing in the world that he couldn’t accomplish without her, whether it was at home or elsewhere. He couldn’t imagine a life without her. Dimitri leaned down and pressed his lips to the top of Hannah’s head. “If that’s what you want to do -- I’d be happy to have you by my side.”
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Dickie shoved his hands in his pockets as he moved throughout the store, the IKEA logo prominent in the background. “You know, I sat there and I tried to figure out why the higher-ups even booked this match. Myojin, Terrance and I, we all succeeded in our matches. Albeit that Myo had the longest time and thus got put out of the running, but I’m not about to discredit him that. He still succeeded. The only unfortunate piece is that he has to share the ring with you, Saint. You’re his partner.”
Stopping at one of the kitchen displays, Dickie leaned his weight onto the white countertop, tilting his head to the side.
“It’s typical to want to see how the dominant figures emerge and face off against one another. I guess this time during the second episode of Proving Ground, they want to see what that looks like when we’re forced into a situation we don’t know with people we don’t know, nor do we trust. Jason Terrance and I are forced to work together when in a couple of weeks, we’re going to be forced to face one another in a bitter battle for the Grand Championship. That’s fine. I have to say I respect his audacity to do the wrong thing in order to secure his trophy. It isn’t how I’d want to win a match, but you know what, we each have our own ideas of what’s best. What I’m going to have to deal with here isn’t so much that Jason may have his own win schemes but that I’m going to have to be okay with whatever outcome.
“I’m a current Tag Team Champion right now, so I know something about teaming up, but Terrance ain’t Aiden.” He tapped his fingers into the glossy top of the counter, glancing off to the side for a second before refocusing himself. “Jason may feel it’s okay to win the match by some cheap tactic and if he does...then it’s what he does. But I know that between the two of us, we’re going to be stronger than even Colton or Myojin. Colton seems to be lost in two different personalities where he wants to be this ruthless son of a bitch, but can’t quite bring himself to do it. Myself? I’ll do what it takes, no matter what it takes, within legal confines.”
“And Myojin? A loose cannon, one that defies the odds and wrecks opportunities. He probably had the most difficult match of the night, and it was one that I truly enjoyed watching. I’m excited to be facing him this time. He’s like me in the sense that he’s a man who’s misunderstood, and underrepresented in the wrestling world. He takes risks, and that’s what makes people like us survive in the world. I know that if I can complete that risk, if I’ve entertained the people, if I’ve done well...then I’ve succeeded. And that’s something I want to do. More and more. Succeed.”
Dickie pushed himself backward, smiling as widely. Confident as ever.
“In the end of it all, I want to be able to say I did everything in my power to succeed. When it takes place down in Texas--”
He paused and then snorted.
“God, Colton’s going to hate it when he fucking fails in his home state. Whatever,” he lifts his hand and waves for a moment, “see you at the finish line.”