Tick

Henry wasn’t sure how much Pequod’s he ate that night after the Wrigleyville Pub Crawl, but he did know that he woke up in the AirBNB the next morning with a box containing a half-eaten room-temperature Italian sausage stuffed pizza in his bed. Many tubes of Liquid IV had been emptied into many plastic water bottles that are now empty. 

Let it never be said that Henry Keyes is a coward, and let it never be said that Henry Keyes is a lightweight – but the man is north of 40 and he started his night pounding shots of Malort, a night that never slowed down. 

He had never not once gotten sick off of alcohol that was willingly consumed, but that event really pushed the limits, and were it not for the urgent preventative measures he had taken in the aftermath, we may have seen a first.

It was as hard as he had pushed himself in this competition, even physically harder than the Aggro Crag – and as he packed his things, hopped on a plane, landed in Kansas City, was delivered to the new AirBNB, found his bedroom, and collapsed on the floor in head-splitting exhaustion, he had a lot of time to think about why oh why he was doing this to himself.

“A shot at the gold,” Henry kept coming back to. “A shot at GOLLLLLLLD,” it sounded, when his imagination decided it was time to be a little extra pirate jaunty.

Was that all? There are plenty of belts in the sea, many of which he’d held himself – hell, it wasn’t long ago that he had defined an era of DEFIANCE Wrestling alongside Vae Victis as Massively Dominant Belt-Holders, capped off by a nearly year-long reign with their top title, the FIST. Henry could go to any number of places and would be sure to win championships, make money, sell blue eyepatches and pink shirts.

He wouldn’t send his liver through a shock test like this for just any title, though, would he? 

As time progressed and as his mind began to see more clearly through the fog of war brought on by hard liquor and karaoke, he kept returning to Kerry and Scott, The VVingmen.

While Henry Keyes and Lindsay Troy had been running roughshod over the DEFIANCE roster to the point where their dominance had turned Vae Victis into an empire of terror, Kerry and Scott (along with Clay Byrd, of course) showed a different side of VV to the world of PRIME. They built their own empire here, they carved their own paths to stardom, and they were both absolutely on the cusp of breaking through whatever ceiling the wrestling pundits may have thought was above them heading into Survivor.

But now they’re gone, and Henry’s still here. Henry, a man who broke through that ceiling himself years ago when he first threw in with Vae Victis. 

During his travels to Kansas City, he heard the news about the main event – how Daytona Diamonds, desperate to hang onto his newly-won championship, happily accepted a DQ loss by braining Kerry with the belt in front of the ref. Fucking charlatan, that man. After the run Kerry has been on, burning the candle at both ends by running a full time schedule in two companies at once, racking up impressive win after impressive win, and in many ways shaping Vae Victis in his image within PRIME, he deserves every accolade he can carry. 

Cheated off the Aggro Crag mountain, cheated out of the gold. Henry was cheated out of the Five Star, he remembered.

Meanwhile, no one has turned more heads from where they started to where they are now than Scott Hunter has. Survivor was one of the first times Scott and Henry got to spend significant stretches of time together, just the two of them, and Henry had absolutely begun to take on this mantle of Cool Uncle or Protective Older Cousin. The first plan was for all three of them – Henry, Kerry, and Scott – to reach the final. Now, the two that had defined Vae Victis in PRIME all this time, and all that’s left was the one that still, in some ways, feels like an outsider here. A monster from a far-off mythology, a story that gets bigger and weirder with each retelling that has been shared across the PRIME locker room in so many different branches that almost no one can really say the understand exactly what it is that makes Henry Keyes tick.

Face-down in his bed in Kansas City, he could tell you what makes him tick.

It’s Lindsay Troy and gold.

This is Lindsay Troy’s company. The Universal Title is Lindsay Troy’s company’s brightest gold.

Cheats lie in wait around every corner here, and while it’s one thing to know this going in, it’s another thing to live it and to see your friends live it over and over again. 

Henry Keyes is no fucking stranger to fighting dirty, and make no mistake about it – Survivor, for all its friendly banter, and for all the fun themes and fun competitions, is cut throat. No one wants to say it out loud, because no one wants to put their neck out, but every single wrestler who started this journey has a whole heap of ambition in their tummies about challenging for the Universal Championship at Colossus, and it’s only going to grow and grow as the numbers dwindle. They’ll lie to get it, they’ll cheat to get it – and even the honest ones, or at least the ones who would have you believe they try to be honest, they’ll fight tooth and nail to the very end before this opportunity slips by.

That’s why he went 12 rounds with his liver all down Wrigleyville, and that’s why he’s going to figure out how to do whatever the hell else it is he has to do each and every round until he wins or he drowns.

For Scott. For Kerry. For Lindsay Troy. For gold.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was Henry’s first night in the Kansas City house. Pleasantries were a little harder to come by, but no one seemed to think much of it – it’s already not easy to maintain a professional wrestler’s travel schedule, and it’s even harder when alcohol is involved. Even the teetotallers weren’t making much conversation with the Kraken that day.

All Henry wanted to do was get a good, long sleep in before thinking about the next round, and to that end, he was in bed by 8, a time of night usually reserved for toddler parents and workers with 5am shifts the next day, but in this case also a time for a world class athlete who was recently shattered by every drink in Chicago with a heavy mind.

Sleep wouldn’t come. 8 became 8:30, which became 9. He just couldn’t turn his mind off.

He realized what he needed to do, and he unplugged his phone from the wall.

After a few clicks and a few seconds, the call was picked up.

“Hey,” said Scott Hunter. He sounded peaceful and relaxed, a completely different Scott than the bacon-throwing face-painting Scott that Henry had gotten to know in the houses. 

It caught Henry so off-guard, in fact, that he forgot how he was going to start this conversation. He had maybe half-hoped that Scott wouldn’t have picked up at all and that this could have gone to voicemail.

“Heyyyy,” said Henry, and he immediately winced and held a reflexive palm to his forehead. Perhaps this had been a mistake.

“How’re you doing?” Again, Henry winced, even harder than the first time. People have called Henry Keyes many things – and the list will continue to grow with time, to be sure – but it’s not very often that he’s been called Naturally Warm And Comforting outside of maybe Helen, Miss Troy, and the one or two Plague Doctors who have ridden with him for over a decade. This sort of thing doesn’t come very naturally to him, and ESPECIALLY not to men.

Scott sounded like he was ok, at least. Henry needed to hear that, but as the conversation went on, Henry began to realize more and more that this weight he’s been carrying throughout Survivor – this heavy burden of trying to will Vae Victis towards ultimate victory and seeing his long-considered hopes and plans slowly crumbling one week at a time – was largely in his head and not shared so strongly with everyone in this competition, least of all Scott. 

“You’re gonna win the whole thing,” Scott said. It was strange – roles felt reversed from the day when Scott mistakenly downed an entire bottle of absinthe at once and spent the rest of the day riding a green wave of delirium. Now it was Scott’s turn to be there for Henry, even as Scott was the one whose heart might have been more justified in being broken.

“That’s the plan,” Henry said, unhelpfully. Maybe all he needed was just to hear Scott’s voice again after having it around him every day for the last several weeks. He’s certainly not being a great conversationalist.

“I know it is. I’ve always known it was.”

That hit him in the chest harder than he expected – in Henry’s mind, the “always” plan was VV Final Three more so than him individually winning. Maybe Scott was more insightful than Henry gave him credit for.

“Listen,” Scott continued, “I have a match with Rezin this week.”

Oh lord, Henry thought to himself – the stories he could tell. The wisdom of experience he could relay about the massive rivalry between Keyes and Rezin that has quite literally carried an entire wrestling promotion for over five years. Wars over championship belts and black leather studded belts; mechanical spiders and punk rawk; pancakes and fire and blood and old-timey hats and musical numbers and serum warfare and main event after main event of the biggest PPVs in a company’s history.

Yes, Henry Keyes knows Erik Black. Quite well.

“Yeah, I saw.” Henry was ready for the ask, and was honestly proud of Scott for knowing to talk to Henry about this particular topic.

“I’ve been doing some reading on him.”

Henry’s jaw dropped. He had the ultimate guidebook to Professionally Wrestling Against Rezin on the phone, and instead he was on Bing.

Scott relayed that he read about Rezin’s Trojan Owl and that he once talked about blowing up the Federal Reserve. It took everything in Henry’s power not to yell into the phone – and had they been in person, there may have been some violent shoulder shaking. “Yeah?” he remembers getting out, though there may have been more.

He couldn’t focus on the conversation any more beyond that point. Scott was going to march to the beat of Scott’s drum, come hell or high water, and that’s what makes Scott Hunter fucking great. After they hung up the phone, each wishing the other good fortune in the ReVival to come, it dawned on Henry why he had found himself taking such a protective role over Scott during their time in Survivor.

Scott’s a young Henry. Completely different, living life in his own personal language, tough as nails but loyal to the end, ready for a fight but also ready to ask you the strangest question you’ve ever heard in your life because he’s genuinely curious – swap the mullet for a bright red mustache and some goggles and you might see an alternate universe young up-and-comer wired exactly the same way.

“Yeah,” Henry thought to himself. “That’s what I’ve gotta do.”

He fell back down to his pillow and closed his eyes, waiting for sleep to come. Before he knew it, it was the next morning.

~~~~~~~~~~

Henry woke up to learn what he was up against in Kansas City – something called a Kansas City BBQ Cook-Off. He wondered if this particular designation was like a Chicago Street Fight that required blue jeans or something; what could possibly be unique about Kansas City barbecue?

After all, Henry’s cooked plenty of meat in his life – though, as he thought more and more, he realized that almost all of his meat-cooking expertise is related to cooking very rare steaks for a very hungry tiger who can’t give verbal feedback to the quality of his cooking. Pork, poultry, other cuts of beef, ribs, rubs, sauces – none of this was in his bag.

He took a mental tally of the competitors left in the house – something about Coltrane told Henry that he knew how to cook, though he wasn’t sure if BBQ was his style or not. He figured Rob could fire up some burgers and dogs on a cheap-ass kettle grill with some beers pretty well, and that Lake may be a vegetarian or some shit and would be unreliable.

TAL was a dad, wasn’t he? Henry thinks he’s a dad, but he’s not sure, and so decides that whether or not TAL is a dad he would mentally force those white New Balances on his feet and trust his instincts above the others – surely he could work a grill. 

He forgot Kenny Freeman was in the house – but upon remembering, completely dismissed his ability to do anything related to fire or cooking or succeeding, and moved on from him.

Someone brought in a Green Egg to the house that was smoking – and a lot of meat. Henry surreptitiously stepped outside and tried staying out of line of sight – but ah, yep, there’s Tom at the helm. Henry knew it – of course this dad could barbecue. 

He figured all he needed to do was come in the top four of Least Bad Meats; if there was a steak round, he’d be golden already, and so he just needed one or two more tips and tricks. He looked at how TAL set the temperature, the color of the dry rubs, the positioning of the meat, and ah shit – Tom caught him.

Henry stepped out and engaged him in conversation. Tom insisted that he would’ve been happy to just show Henry the ropes. Henry played it off as best he could, joking that it would be like cheating on Helen, which he knew was always an “in” with the luchador. 

Eventually, the lid of the Green Egg closed, and Henry learned that it would remain closed for hours and hours.

Ah, so this is a waiting game. A patience thing.

Henry knows a bit about lurking beneath the waves and letting a meal prepare itself, figuratively speaking.

He looked over, hoping to find Rob wearing the pink tuxedo shirt he got him – or to see Scott, his face painted like Simba or something, before remembering that it was just him now.

Him, a luchador, an egg, and some smoke.

There are worse ways to spend a day.

As Henry stared at the wisps of smoke, commenting on how peaceful they were to behold, it occurred to him that this whole, months-long build to Colossus is exactly the same as Kansas City BBQ.

Low, and slow. Every minute worth the wait, no step to be skipped.

And by the end – magic.