Brother

“So...it’s finally you and Snow.” Legacy Emmanuel Medical Center was the last place Jake Colton wanted to be; if he had his way, he'd be standing over Ivan Stanislav, his hands wrapped around the monster's throat, choking away the final beats of warmth the Russian Bear mustered, all while savoring the sensation filling his palms.

More than malice for Stanislav bound he and Brandon Youngblood together, but all the same, few could share such zeal. “Looks like. At least until Lindsay hears what I spouted off to Angie.” His eyes scanned out from their atrium picnic table.

No waiting rooms were open this late into the night; instead, the wrestling congregation made their vigil under fluorescence, gathered like park goers in the open space underneath walls of glass. Jake shook his head. “Think there’s bigger fish to fry than some hurt feelings.” Such a somber tone. A miracle given the circumstances. “Then again, the kids took away my phone...”

As sterile as their trappings were, even this place was subject to Portland's ‘keep it weird’ ethos; the hospital's original tan brick facade rested against their backs, housed inside the building, the whole thing reminiscent of a snow globe. To the north, Dennis stood, still in his satin jacket, his attention focused on Tom Battaglia and the ramblings about spinach fueled goat shits and upholstery. The Luchador knew his audience, worked hard to keep Denny’s mind occupied. It seemed to be working. Yet, was this the time and the place? Brandon's brow furrowed, his eyes stabbing out at The Shogun. This man had defeated Snow? No. He’d survived him. There was no other explanation...right? "Don't want to say too much. Or the wrong thing. But someone else, they can do the wrong thing. Just how it is."

“What are you on about?”

“I’m pissed, Jake.” he snarled.

“Clearly.” The patriarch of the Colton’s couldn’t stop himself from trying to help, regardless of the hurt welling within his own heart. “So spill it out. Give a man something to occupy his mind. Maybe we can solve the world’s problems. Get someone to get us a decent cup of coffee while we drone on.”

Brandon’s face was a bruised and swollen mess. Wade Elliott was a brawler. Sloppy. Punches and kicks and little else. He wanted a fight. Put it a cage. Somewhere else. Anywhere else. That’s where their business belonged. And if what happened to Blake right before they got in the ring hadn’t happened... “Nothing’s safe. Nothing’s off limits. It just keeps going on and on and on and–”

Jake couldn’t contain the bitterness seeping through his countenance. “It has no place–”

“–it’s horseshit.” Contempt. “It’s your kid. It’s my kid–”

“–but if good people do nothing–”

“–your family. My family–”

“Look.” Rising intonation to cut through the spiral, guided by experience as father to a daughter and four sons. “What is really going on?”

Even when stern, it shocked Brandon how little force Jake needed to draw his attention. Such a departure from what he’d known; after all, it wasn’t his choice he never had a father worth a damn. “Look around. How many times this happened? Hospital visits. It’s routine, so much so that people don’t feel the need to come around because they’ll just make the next one...”

Jake sighed, watching as Jenny and Kohime gently rocked back and forth together, arms draped over the other’s shoulders. A respite while in the atrium; Jenny had tended to her mother, Kohime doing the same for Nate because they had yet to leave Blake's side. “I appreciate the people who are here just as much as I appreciate the prayers and wishes of those that aren’t. More than I can express, truly.”

How was he so collected after experiencing every parent’s nightmare? Max Kael had done less and the result turned a backstage door to splinters, the sting only now radiating through his knuckles. Yet there was Jake Colton, despite what Ivan and the Red Army had done, acting as his therapist. ”We shouldn’t be here. No one should be here.”

A breakthrough. “But we are. And we’ll get through this. Blake will get through this.” Jake was so certain, so hopeful, at least on the surface. Maybe he was just tired.

Brandon could relate so much, beyond the match, beyond the outburst, beyond...everything. Rage let rest the bellows of his heart, his body slackening, and as it did, a disgust seeped throughout him. He needed to focus blame somewhere. Since others wouldn’t suffice… “If I had done what I should've a year ago, tonight wouldn’t have happened. There’d be no Red Army. No Ivan. I’d have put an end to him. To everything. That’s on me. And I’m sorry for that, Mister Colton, I really am–.”

“Tonight was the fault of one man–”

“And you’re looking at him.”

“Don’t.”

“What? Had I just done my duty–”

“There’s things we can’t control, no matter how hard we try. No matter our wishes. But if we fight against that meanness in the world, that sadism, if we try our best–”

From the distance, Brandon heard flats squeaking across the waxed herringbone parquetry. From observation, the shutting and latching of metal double doors. Seeing the culprit reignited the furnace within his chest; Lindsay Troy paced into the atrium, phone pressed to her ear. The concern on her face, the faint rivulets of mascara around her tired eyes...she's making a show of herself! The Queen had come down from the gilded throne paid for by his blood and his suffering and his life’s work–Kaz. She was asking Ami about Kaz. Making sure he was okay? Wade strode behind her, hands reaching to comfort his fiance. To give her a hug. That Drifter. That piece of shit. If he’d done his job years ago...their match wasn’t enough. Nothing was settled. Nothing was settled and Wade had failed to keep people safe because he ran away from his duty just like he ran away from PRIME when he was needed over and over and over and OVER AND–

How could he let Wade win? How could he?

Had Troy just told Brandon about Jason…

Why didn’t she tell him? She could trust him, couldn’t she? Weren’t they friends? Weren’t they...family?

Brandon rose from his seat, nearly falling back as he did so. Jake grasped the hand clasping his shoulder blade, looking up to him, nodding, hoping he’d gotten through. Youngblood stared through the two of them as he spoke. “I’ll be back. Just...going to go check on Nate.”

His reach wasn't to engender comfort; it was used only to prop him up.

He couldn’t be here right now.

Not with them around.

YEAHI’LLTAKEANICOTINECAFFEINESUGARFIX–

The route before production was nothing but whites and grays. Cement and cinder blocks. Unassuming for such hallowed halls. What would take place would only add to Wembley's legend. “I just want you to listen to me for a second, alright?” Jason's tone was desperate. “This is very important. Alright? I need something from you tonight.”

Amongst the tens of thousands surrounding the ring, The Bastards stood center, they the focus of all fervor. Brandon's ears rang from the din, finding himself unable to peel his eyes away from the living summit glowering in his direction. Unrepentant and unconquerable. For over four hundred days, Snow had reigned Universal,  surmounting all comers, swallowing whole challengers and careers. To face such a standard, to not be swept under its tide, Youngblood funneled all his emotion to a singular focus; breathing. Not his own. Jason's. If his opponent drew breath, then he wasn't God; he was man, and the Diamond could smother man, could push his lungs to hypoxia and drain him of the will to continue. Small mental comforts unfurled, settling the nervous tension bubbling underneath his molting stoicism. All he had wanted was so close.

So very close.

Brandon sensed something askew. Snow gazed outward as he continued. “I need the match of your life.” Not toward him, but through. “I need the Brandon Youngblood I face tonight to be the best Brandon Youngblood there’s ever been. I want you to give me a beating I’ll never forget, and I want you to take the beating I’m going to give you, and I want you to push past every limit in your body.” This was no taunt. No beckoning.

A demand of ruin by the hand of fellow sovereign.

This was their moment in time and they were made for each other. PRIME would live beyond this night, would stand for years until it would finally bow with grace and say goodbye, but here, now, its forever standard was still to be decided. The Diamond in the Crown, and PRIME's true Killer of Dreams.

The very notion pimpled gooseflesh across Youngblood’s shoulders and arms, his mouth watering. He'd suffered his whole life for this.

“Tonight, I need you to be a legend...”

How could one demand so much of a man, knowing the fullness of what that charge meant?

Brandon was flesh. Blood. Imperfect. And that mantle, it needed perfection. Demanded it. Results were final. Nonnegotiable. He couldn’t stand the sight of Wade. Of Lindsay. But were they the only ones under his spiteful gaze? Had he not just spent his time grousing and bitching to a father fraught with his own worries? Tom and his silly little stories. Everyone just standing there or sitting, waiting, time ticking away, the ebb of what happened to their friend, their brother, their child meandering into the numbing norm.

Emmanuel Hospital’s edifice hid its interior’s retrofitting. An architectural marvel, the past repurposed and built upon for modern use. The halls were vacant save the support staff of nurses and specialists who called the night shift their own. To let these visitors move so freely came with it some expense. With that in mind, Brandon was glad Lindsay was footing a bill he felt was rightly deserved. Floor 3, room 2A. Recovery Wing. Jake had spoken of possible broken ribs and maybe a shoulder. The condition of Blake’s neck, though, was unknown. Hopefully, it was only a stinger. One of the ring crew thought the sound they heard before the collapse reminded them of Paxton Ray and Jonathan Rhine from UltraViolence two years prior.

...please…

He stood in the doorway, looking inside, the light within mercifully soft. Past the restroom, a wide entrance for the mobile bed Blake rested on. No movement. He was unconscious, the only sound within room coming from Blake's heart rate and the rising and falling purr of the ventilator. Mallory sat next to her baby boy, her hand grasping his, the pulse oximeter cord wrapping up and around to a monitor up above, the static readings etched across the EKG dry as a stock exchange.

Mother and brother made for vigilant investors.

Nate slumped in his chair, his phone shaking from silent alerts, the vibrations drawing it closer and closer to the ceramic floor. So big and powerful in the ring, but here, now, he shrunk. Anywhere but here. How could he have let this happen? If only he’d been better...been stronger...he could’ve stopped this. Let the phone fall; he didn’t care. If he couldn’t protect his baby brother, what use was there–

It wasn’t Nate’s fault. He didn’t see this coming. The escalation. It wasn’t right to spiral just because he felt responsible because he wasn’t. Brandon needed to tell him to stop, to not beat himself up. He needed to channel these feelings and remember them and the next time he was across from Ivan Stanislav–

His hand reached for Nate, for reassurance. Diamond to Diamond. And how dare he? Do as I say, not as I do? “He’s going to be okay”

Nate’s croak was but a wisp. “You don’t know that.”

“He’s got you. He’ll be okay.”

“He had me before. And look where he ended up.”

The brace holding Blake’s neck was gray, the tube for intubation connected at its base. Brandon’s eyes scanned the poor boy’s face, over the blotches of black surrounding his, the jaundiced purple blushing his cheeks.

–aaaaaaaaaaa– 

From the distance, a train, chugging, approaching its station. A few rapid blinks of his eyes, to focus through a growing, pulsing haze. Like a migraine, starting at the back of the skull. When his eyes cleared, what he saw had changed. Not much.

Just enough.

–aaaahaaahaaa–

Flecks of wild, unkempt dirty blonde hair. The world hadn’t see what happened, but the monitors in Argyle caught it. Reaching out from the crowd, toward the Red Army.

–yaaaahaaahaaa–

Three years. That’s the difference. That’s the difference in age between Blake and Cody. 

–DYAAAAAA-HAAAAAAA-HAAAAAAAA!–

His family was there, Jason! They were there for him! And it happened anyway! A year ago, they found my sister. They tracked my sister down in the Pacific Northwest when all she wanted was to be left alone and yet they still came for her! They’re ALL coming for my family. Even you yourselves! Lindsay! YOU! A fucking GHOST and you LIE about coming for me? The little ‘audio glitch’. The...the...

The ringing in his ears grew dormant. He focused on those sunken features, on the visage transposed upon another. Stanislav had found success by attacking Youngblood's family, never even realizing he had help from within Brandon’s own house.

Another rising assault. What blurted from the ether didn’t rattle the walls. No. This laugh wasn’t revelatory. It was sinister. Cruel. Culled from the depths of Arkham.

MMMwahahahaha...

Stanislav and Ruslan had made mere threat. But Max Kael? His legacy was filled with ample examples of destroyed rivals, their children collected as trophies.

They, too, weren't there to protect them.

Saint Ambrose was a lark.

Eight years ago and the licks of Karachi were fresh. Lindsay had offered Brandon what she knew of Jason’s last whereabouts, but she, like all others, were left with only questions. ‘Ariel’ was direct, better equipped to deal with sensitive matters across national borders.

Even ‘they’ had nothing definitive to offer.

The snow had melted in the blooming of spring, yet the sky mocked its encroach with slate gray ambivalence. Roads and turns, away from all, into the quiet, a tiny Catholic church, and at its back, a small cemetery. Brandon closed the door to his sedan, burying a hand in his peacoat while his other nursed a saddle of blue roses and lilies. He shivered against the cold, his form spectral compared to that of the coming Tower, of even The Pariah. Sunken cheeks. Over forty pounds lost. Hookworm and giardia, and if the physician in Klamath Falls was to be believed, the infection had been going on for nearly two years. Albendazole and iron supplements, paid with cash only.

Jason was a private man, letting few bask in the greatness of his presence. Most within the sport had heard about what had happened to his wife, but no one dared turning it into a cudgel. But to be in The Standard of Bastards, one needed to share with their kin something personal and private. They knew their hearts; there had to be a contingency for betrayal. What better safeguard than being armed with weapons promising mutually assured destruction? Across the table, Boda shared the rigors and the darkness deep within his journey toward sobriety. Brandon, how he protected his sister by staging the cleansing fire which claimed their family home, all because their mother, her mind rotted from dementia, threatened to kill her youngest daughter because her homosexuality was a sin. That the threat came with the brandishing of the same gun her husband used to kill himself...

And Jason...

Raven Snow: Wife, Mother, Sister, Daughter. Forever With Love.

Whoever had chosen the words had done so beautifully.

There was no way Snow would disappear only to return to a place he once made his home. He was known the world over, was too recognizable. Brandon knew what it was to lose a wife; regardless of their differing circumstances, he, like Jason, punished himself for the absence every day. At least Snow had a chance to hold his own child, hadn’t lost the right before they were even born.

He had witnessed Melissa and Cody with surveillance and photographs. He’d stopped the practice, feeling shame from stooping to such lows. But through it, he knew they were alive.

Raven was a monument.

Monuments, over time, needed to be tended to.

Maybe such tending would draw him here.

Raven had passed before Brandon ever had a chance to know her. Any statement he'd offer her would've been in bad taste. She wasn't why he was here in the first place. Still, as he knelt at the base of her headstone, nestling the saddle into place, he offered her an apology. Resting at the stems of the flowers was a postcard sized envelope coated in wax.

That was why he was here.

Brandon had just reentered the western world after failing to die as intended, and along the way, had found reasons to keep on living. Even still, being solitary, especially as one of the old world's weapons of war stuck living in the postscript, was rough. Lonely. Maybe Jason Snow was still out there. Maybe he needed someone, anyone, to lend him a hand. An ear.

And if he did?

Maybe Brandon could finally follow through on the demand made of him in the bowels of Wembley.

One year.

It took one year for the rage engine in Brandon's heart to fail, it's chambers filled with the toxic sludge he’d used to fuel it. Failure. Fear. Uncertainty. He sat parked on the outskirts of the Medical Center, pulled to the curb the moment it all came to a head. What was the final sputter? The thought of his own son in Blake’s place. Now, his entire body was racked with wet, shaking sobs. “OhnoohnopleasenoIhatethiswhatswrongwithmewhatswrongwithmeIhavetogetawaywhatswrongpleaseIjustHMMMMMMMMMMMMMM!” His fist pounded against the rental truck’s ceiling. Again and again.

The panic attack was here.

Flick through his phone. Names. Amy. Melissa. They're asleep. Cody...no. His son wanted nothing to do with him. But he wanted to talk to him. Needed to talk to him. Tell him he loved him. Tell him no matter what...he loved him...

Lindsay...

For one year, he’d shouted that Lindsay had let the animals overrun PRIME. For all they’d been through, their relationship was forged on a bedrock of forgiveness offered before others would have. She saw something inside him, believed he was earnest and truthful in trying to redeem himself. Yet there he was, attacking her for all the ills and evils of the world she had no way of stopping. He droned on about how he was merely a pawn for her to profiteer from, a name to be tossed into the heap after he was used up. How blind was he? Did he not see the checks she deposited? Had she not given him chance after chance after chance despite what others might call her out for as showing favoritism? For all his talk about what was earned, it was she who thought he backed it up. And how did he repay her? Where was her friend? Where was the man who texted her pugs when she was having a rough day? That was there just to talk, to laugh, to listen? There he was, incredulous, like she hadn’t fought for PRIME as both standard and executive.

Like she hadn’t done so when he would ran away.

He didn’t hate Wade, no matter what revisionist history he concocted. The Bad Dog was someone he respected, that he thought earned his place in the Hall of Fame and would’ve become Universal Champion had PRIME continued to operate. How could he blame him for seeing what was happening to Lindsay and putting a stop to it? How could security be everywhere and omniscient and able to stop everything? Thought crime, armed with hindsight, all while throwing his own hands up as if it wasn't his problem. And what an example he was setting; Adam Ellis, naming him specifically, thinking the way forward was not in standing against the darkness, but rather, to turn inward against your peers, further dividing those who might have offered help.

Did any of them demand to know why he wasn’t talking about Cody making it to near the top of the amateur wrestling Nationals? Did they pry and invade and push? They didn’t. They respected his privacy. They trusted and respected him enough to offer such without question. Did he not respect them? Were they not his family? Maybe Jason had good reason to keep secret he'd risen resurrected.

If he’d called him his brother...why, rather than wallowing in temper tantrums, did he not just go to him and ask?

If PRIME’s standard meant so much, why, then, when it needed him, was he nowhere to be found?

Alone at the bottom.

He had nobody to blame but himself.