Like the Brutal Morning Sun, It Dawns On Me; What Have I Done?

It’s back. It’s back, it’s back, and it’s here to fight. To reclaim what was taken from it by Julien Lavigne - which, of course, was “control over Julien Lavigne”.

It’s the intrusive beast, the thought monster - so unbearably loud that no Hum can drown it out, it can only fight for attention.

But even for how ice cold and sharply scary it feels to know that it’s returned, that terrorizing voice that loves to push every button in FLAMBERGE’s brain is so familiar and easy to return to. For better and worse, there’s a comfort there - a familiarity, with memories of how powerful it made Julien feel for months and years. Sort of like His Spot On The Couch, only now that he’s had some time and space away from it, when it’s encountered again, the blunt realization that “oh THIS is why my entire body has been in agony” crashes over him like a wave.

The knee-jerk rationality to take from this first return encounter might be to believe “it’s different now”, or perhaps even more foolishly “I bet I can control it now”, like it’s some sort of switch FLAMBO could try turning on or off as he sees fit. Worth a try, right? How powerful might a person become if they had real control over the evil within themselves and the menace that tries to hijack the ship at every opportunity?

Like a Hate Gun.

While testing out the kickback on that Hate Gun, might as well see if there’s a tornado or a hurricane nearby - maybe he can try telling them where to go, too. Maybe Julien could see about making sure that pesky moon doesn’t come up tonight while he’s at it. Man can conquer and control nature, humankind is the absolute master of its domain, and there is no reason to believe that horrifying personal outcomes that spiral out of generational trauma would be any more difficult to master.

…

Of course not. When the storm comes, you figure out shelter or you become consumed by it. When That voice comes, it will latch onto anything it can, it will bristle and poke and stick and clamp and never let go again if given the opportunity.

…

…………

FLAMBERGE was already prepared for a strange day. It was an early morning coffee talk with his new acquaintance Rose, and almost as quickly as they became friends, he was dumping her at his mother’s house so they could discuss spooky cemetery dream business for a while until he could come back for lunch. He was prepared to deal with that weird and socially awkward ball of anxiety later, especially because he knew he would at least have new stories to share with his mother Julia for years after that day.

He imagined how it might go:

“Hey, remember that time I said hi, introduced you to a girl I just became friends with, and then bailed for a couple hours?” 

“Yes, it reminded me of those times you would come home from practice and tell me that Jordan was coming over, all while Jordan was already on my couch eating the bag of Brets I had picked up for you!”

And then they could pour some more pink bubbly wine and laugh and reminisce some more, and then mom would probably gush about how her son should bring over his friends more, how she likes getting to see little peeks of how her only son is doing through the lens of the company he keeps.

That whole weird encounter would just be a fun memory in the end, he hoped, which is why he had two feet out the door of his mother’s house so quickly. He had his own places to be, and it was a tight schedule after all - autographs, they don’t sign themselves, and we all know how very important Signatures On Profitable Items are.

But then, it happened, and it reverberates in his skull like Hell’s morning bells:

Henri Lavigne: C’était Julien? C’est sa petite amie ou quoi?

What in the Jesus Fuck Almighty was his father doing there??

…

…

His Fight Or Flight button was broken.

He learned this about himself through some of his recent talks at Wellmind. It’s not his fault for the button being broken - it was just smashed so hard and so often when he was young, and no one called a repairman, and more life events came along looking to press this shattered and wholly short-circuited thing. Sometimes it wouldn’t fire at all. Other times it would spike so harshly and so quickly that FLAMBERGE found himself brawling with Brandon Youngblood at a press conference, or flying down a hallway at Nate Colton while he was having a theoretically-positive conversation with Sage Pontiff and Paxton Ray - and on the flip side, it could fire so powerfully the other way that he becomes a lump, stuck on the floor of his flat in Vegas, frozen to the spot, running through every worst possible thing that could happen and unable to cope.

Two years ago, it fired lightning bolts of violence down his spine and through to his fingertips. It hurt Julien so badly that it caused him to break Henri Lavigne’s nose with the first punch, and then proceed to leap upon him and rain down what he believed at the time to be vengeance.

He hasn’t talked much about this incident. Certainly never with his parents. It’s only recently come up at Wellmind, and it’s been a puzzle box that seems to keep changing the more he looks at it.

Was he right to do what he did? Maybe, but it also should never have come to that. How many steps did it take to get that far - a lifetime’s worth? There was never a moment where one or both of them could have taken a moment to try to do something, anything, to break the cycle? The torment? Years of grinding through the combat sports equivalent of battlefield training and the kind of disconnect that might make two adult men believe that this is surely an acceptable way to live, that everyone who works hard goes to bed hurting this badly, that the neverending frustration that sucked the joy out of FLAMBERGE’s effort was just “proof he wanted it more than anyone else”, which, “come on - everyone wants it, it’s PRIME” was the Wellmind response that led to a solid 10 minutes of laughing about how exhausting it all was. What an absurd and tragic way to grow up, what a horrible way to go about everything, and of course Child Soldier Julien would probably think that assaulting a parent was, like, good.

That last part - that actually helped him work through some lingering doubts he felt about Cecilworth Farthington. It wasn’t long ago that he heard all about the great Forking of Phil Atken by his fellow Crown Prince of Glue; but for some reason he could never pull the trigger about confronting him, and he couldn’t figure out why.

That conversation at Wellmind, though - about how painfully easy and sad it might be for someone to end up in the mindset of “If I bloody you up in a fight I spring on you, I will be proven correct” - it led him to understand that Cecilworth has his own demons. They may not be the same as FLAMBERGE’s - in fact, they almost surely are not, because no one on the roster has come back to life and then actively called for FLAMBERGE’s murder - but problems are problems and it’s not a competition to see whose are bigger or worse.

Cecilworth made peace with Phil. That was good enough to allow for some grace. The Glueminati aren’t victims, especially when they move in the same direction. The European tour solidified that these special lads are a unified force, even if the cheers are new and there will be a solid ten hours of discussion to help process the loss of Sid after Tropical Turmoil.

(which…we’re getting to Tropical Turmoil. Eventually. If we can leave this spot.)

(Remember where we are - we’re witnessing Julien experience one of the wild and random outcomes that happens when his Fight Or Flight button gets pressed.)

(He’s in danger of the Frozen To The Spot outcome.)

…

—-- —-- It’s June 19. It’ll be close to 24 hours of train hopping from here to get to Lisbon…don’t want it to be public that I’m coming, especially not that I’m coming early. I’ve had enough ambushes lately. My turn. Bandage over my knuckles is drawing some attention - just cross your arms, maybe they’ll look away. . They looked away. Now find a corner, scary man. Strasbourg. Didn’t go well, did it? I knew it was a mistake going back to the old house. I just…keep finding myself being called to Julia’s. I don’t know what it is - nostalgia? Regret? Stubbornness? You gain something when you get older, the optimists call it wisdom. The real ones call it perspective. The world looks a lot different from the peak of your ego than it does when you’re on the ground, your ass beat. History looks different, because you look different to yourself. The context warps. Sometimes it’s right - often, it’s right, and there’s that stubbornness coming back to try to say that sometimes that changed perspective is unjustified. It was hard living through those years, I’m ready to admit it openly. I never stopped feeling like a disappointment - to myself, to my family. And then, the whole father-son thing - new perspective tells me things went too far, and they had been too far for a long time.  But what if they weren’t? Were things really that bad? You look at the PRIME website and you see the rotating rankings, and when there is a 1 next to FLAMBERGE - ahead of every current champion and every former champion - surely there’s some testament to be made about how well our time together worked. Even if it did end in a broken nose, a concussion, and a retina thing. No way to know for sure, not the way we left it, because we never touched it after it happened.  Sure, some people may have talked about some public news posts about attempts to gain entry into arenas, but those never really amounted to anything. He and I haven’t talked since it happened. It’s been two years now, and the ice is only growing thicker between us. Someone has to break it, since we didn’t do it at Julia’s. I hope she gives him my note.  And I overheard his itinerary for the day. If he’s as busy in Portugal as he’s been in France and Spain…I can show up. I can make this happen. . Julien, I know I can make this right. I’m just a man, my son. I don’t always think before I do. —-- —-- Something about the heat of Rose and Julia’s eyes on the back of FLAMBERGE’s head unfroze his systems. He avoided complete lockdown and made a choice.

If he was going to speak to his father, he would make sure that he had a say in the terms of engagement. He’s not going to have this sprung on him.

It’s still possible to pretend he didn’t hear the absolute foreboding of Henri Lavigne’s voice and make his way back to the taxi. The engine’s still running, because as everyone here knows, he is on a tight schedule. Sharpies to use on items. Overflowing items. Noble work of a man succeeding in his career.

Those power walking strides to the taxi, though…those are very fast.

Risk aversion is the name of the game. Do not allow Henri Lavigne to distort the safest space you know, do not allow his presence to warp your perspective of how mom may be doing and assume something is wrong, do not engage with him in trepidation and then look back on this moment to say “that’s just the way it went”.

If you can’t stop the message, let it through. Process it in the background while you’re scribbling on posters. Imagine the possibility that he will still be there when you return for lunch, and look - it’s a couple hours, it won’t take that long to rehearse some of the discussion points you’ve been preparing.

Julien Lavigne is not running away. Julien Lavigne is declining some bullshit terms of engagement, and keeping the boss happy to boot.

And who knows - maybe Rose will spook him away.

…

FLAMBERGE arrives at the “autograph thing”. No one else is here - and soon it’s clear why.

It’s all just so. Much. FLAMBERGE stuff.

FLAMBeanie Babies are the newest additions, and holy hell do they come in every color. There’s a mountain of them to sign in-box.

Then, the stacks of posters. It’s not uncommon for PRIME wrestlers to show up early backstage to a ReVival and set up shop on a folding table, knocking out a hundred signatures and shooting the shit with whoever else has been assigned “signing duty”. FLAMBERGE had done this before, Hayes Hanlon has, Chandler Tsonda has, Joe Fontaine has - everyone has.

This isn’t a little stack of posters like everyone signs every now and then. This is a fucking pallet. That’s a few hours in itself.

Sorry, hang on - these all have to be signed today?? Today. Great.

Didn’t the marketing people say this would be done in a couple hours?

Yes, they did - before they got some feedback on their market research, and realized that FLAMBERGE in Strasbourg prints money for PRIME.

Cool. Coolcoolcoolcoolcool.

FLAMBERGE looks at his watch - 9:02am. He was planning on being done at 11, maybe 12 at the latest - now it was looking like lunch might turn to linner (dînerjeuner? The French do not have a word for this Americanization of smashing meals together, because the French would never bastardize meals like that.)

He sets a timer for 11:00am on his phone so he remembers to check in with his mom and keep her updated. What a saint she is - Rose might like the opportunity to dig into endroits minces for a few extra hours, but she’d only get that opportunity because Julia Lavigne believes in making her house a home for anyone who stops by, whether it’s for a minute or a month - it’s hard to imagine anyone else tolerating this situation that’s been thrust upon her.

What is FLAMBERGE going to say to his father if he’s still there when he gets back?

“Salut. Je vois que ton visage est toujours là. Comment te sens tu à propos de ça?”

Seems aggressive. Is that the path forward? What does he actually want from this interaction? It felt like, at least in the short term, FLAMBO was prepared to consider his father as “dead to him”, and then more months passed, leading to Henri Lavigne falling out of the forefront of his mind. Other concerns took over. The win streak, the Voice, their intermingling; Glue things, workshopping things; championship things. War things. The bird forgets the egg shell it escapes.

…

After spending a few moments lost in thought, FLAMBERGE looks over at the last few posters he’s signed and tossed into a Signed stack - whew, they still look alright. He read something recently that happened with American football and the uproar that happened when a superduperstar’s autographs were shit.

Can’t let that happen here. Good to know the hand can autopilot a little bit.

…

Julien doesn’t think he’ll punch him again, at least not right away. He will give his father an opportunity, because they both know it could all happen again. A gross thought, but, well. That’s real life.

Maybe the Hum could show up - is it there? Is the Monster he’s so afraid of there? Hm. Hard to say, isn’t it?

…

At what point is your life “yours”? What is the age limit for taking ownership of everything you do, and not pointing to factors you allege are outside of your control? Does “Hurt People hurt people” come with a lifetime pass?

…

FLAMBERGE slips into other thoughts.

—-- ----- Nate Colton has to go down in flames, because if he doesn’t, too much of my life is a lie for me to reconcile. I don’t want to start from scratch. I’ve been doing better lately. People see Nate Colton and me, and they think of pennies in a car…they think of wars fought with each other in and around the Five Star Championship, Colton coming out on top every time. Wrestlers look at me and they see the creature. Good. I say it is about collecting specific necks and it is a face value that many accept. Good. It’s a face value that’s mostly true, anyway. Collecting the neck of every member of Team Sykes proves who I am to the entire world. Wrestlers who play pretend hero, charlatan scum who see morality as a performative game, they get their necks collected and put on display for the entire fucking world to see. “Aw shucks”ing motherfuckers. Just look at these “sorry ol’ me” stories you hear from some of the finest professional combat sports athletes of a generation when they get on a microphone. Nate Colton is the most physically gifted of them all, and comes from the most well-meaning and supportive upbringing of them all; he’s the handsomest of them all, he’s the one who’s found new budding love with a person who’s both very hot and actually very wholesome; he’s got everything in his life lined up in a way that a 5 year old might write in his dream journal about what life will be like when he grows up, and it makes the “aw shucks” of it all even more infuriating. I was taught by my father, for better and worse, to understand war. PRIME is war, every week, every match, every moment, and the thick-headed Team Call-Themselves-Good Guys are big believers in the “moral victory” of it all.  You would take everything from me if you could present it to the world as a heroic act, Nate Colton. You would take everything from me with cheers at your back, and you would hoard everything about your absolute domination of the Lizard King next to your perfect life with your perfect family and your perfect upbringing and your awesome bone structure. Nate Colton won at Ultraviolence 2022. Nate Colton won at Colossus 2022. Nate Colton took those results and is perfectly fine with his mostly-successful, fairly inoffensive place in the pecking order. FLAMBERGE took those results and became the most dominant wrestler in PRIME’s modern era.  I have a history of obsessing over my contempt of Nate Colton, to the point where all the “FLAMBOlton should kiss” jokes sound an awful lot like “I would pay good money to watch these two men hatefuck”. And my hatred is fucking justified, and I will not tolerate a soul in the world who would say “well maybe this shouldn’t be about hate”. It is about hate. It SHOULD BE about hate. This is war, and Nate Colton won’t find me the way that he left me, that’s for fucking sure. If the gears of the universe clinked together in a different way, and I had even a little bit of what he got… … Maybe my life wouldn’t be too different than it is now. But maybe I would have had a shot at being loved for my choices earlier in my life. And this Colton is content where he is, with the unpunished privilege of going with the flow. —-- —-- 4:06pm - shit, shit, shit. He texted his mom five hours ago that he thought he would be done by 2, but then someone else stopped by, and there were shirts, and Lindsay Troy’s name was thrown around. Too late for lunch, but he’s finally made it home.

Rose left hours ago, he learns. So did Henri. Julien breathes a sigh of relief at this - his favorite plans, sometimes, are canceled plans.

He left a letter behind. Julia hands it to Julien, and he reads it while she fixes a bowl of soup from the pot she’s been keeping warm since midday.

… “Bonjour, mon fils. Je sais que cela peut être surprenant d'avoir de mes nouvelles après si longtemps, mais il se trouve que je me trouvais dans le quartier de ta mère... Je la surveille parfois ces jours-ci, et croyez-le ou non, elle me le permet. Cela me fait penser au bon vieux temps. Je suis un homme. Je veux parler. Je pense que nous nous sommes perdus en cours de route et je pense que nous avons tous les deux des regrets à propos du passé. Je suis prêt à être l'homme le plus grand et à m'excuser d'abord pour tout ce que j'ai pu faire pour-” FLAMBERGE crumples the note.

Half-assing motherfucker.

…

……..

…so. Julien.

Have I won?

Would you like me back? For this?

Because if anyone deserves to be on the business end of what I bring out of you…

It’s him.