An Acquired Skill

LAX.

The gateway to nothing good.

Hayes had frequented the notorious Los Angeles airport so many times at this point; it was a travel hub taking him to so many PRIME locations since 2022. Quite a scene, culturally, and he appreciated the variety.

He loved a good airport, and like everybody’s dad, insisted on arriving early. Nothing felt better than knowing you had plenty of time for a couple cocktails before boarding. Or to get your shoes shined. Because reasons.

But not this time.

Normally, a trip to Acapulco would be right up his alley. But at the request of fEaRlEsS lEaDeR, Brandon Youngblood?

No. He didn’t relish the idea.

So no airport bar. No shoe shine; he opted for shorts and sandals. Just a seat in the rows by the gate, and a phone to flip through.

He still didn’t understand it. Why “Squad Goals” had to be a thing at all.

The losses to start the year had disconnected him entirely. He was all but absent in anything to do with PRIME. He barely knew the team tournament was happening at all until he saw he’d been selected to Team Youngblood.

So. Many. Questions.

But before he could really dig into them, a certain black-and-purple-haired warrior decided to strut all 5’6” of her right up to his toes.

“Hayes fuckin' Hanlon… They get you a first class ticket or did you have to fly with the rest of us common peons in commercial?”

Hayes furrowed his brow, looking up from his phone to see RIA Lockhart; ripped up black skinny jeans and Chucks, hand on hip, clearly with a bone or two to pick.

“I buy my own first class tickets,” he said, eyes drawing back to his phone screen. “I'm too big for coach. But hey, if you ‘peons’ are happy with it, then go to town.”

“Too big, huh? You talking physically? Cuz I'm like a fuckin’ foot shorter than you, so I'd have to take your word for it. Or are you talking your ego? Cuz I dunno if there's a plane that could fit the damn thing.”

Another rack of confusion spread across his face. What was her deal? They’d barely interacted at all in the four years they’d been in PRIME together, save a jabber spat here and there.

“Jesus,” he sighed, setting his phone to the side. “Hi. Nice to see you, too.”

She scoffed, curling a lip.

“Uh huh. Cuz you and I see each other that often, yeah? We've never exactly ran in the same circles. Even before the Glue, you were the golden boy while I was dicking around in the gutter.”

“Is this how you greet everyone you see in the airport?” he asked, throwing up a hand. “Shit, RIA, it's not show night. Or is it Lockhart? Or RIA? Or Nightshade? I can't keep up.”

“Well you ask Anna Daniels, Nightshade has been dead a long time ,” she said, rolling her eyes. “Call me whatever you want, dude. I've heard that joke enough that it doesn't bug me at this point. Anyway, I guess I'm supposed to be all respectful and shit just cuz we somehow ended up on the same team?”

Trapped in his seat, Hayes rolled his eyes in kind, at a loss from this sudden attack from the Toxic Queen.

“Respectful of who?” he asked, pointing a finger at his own broad chest. “Me? Whatever-the-fuck for? I didn't ask for that shit.”

“Kinda makes a team run better when there's some amount of it. What? You think we're just gonna stumble around like a buncha morons and back into a win? Or do you even care about that?”

Did he?

At this point, no. He probably didn’t. He didn’t want to be a part of it all.

“Can't seem to buy a win these days anyway,” he replied, turning smug. “So maybe not. But hey, we can stumble around each other all we like, in the ring or at the after-party. I won't give a fuck either way.”

“YOU can't buy a win?!”

That one hit a nerve. She snorted incredulously.

“Dude, I'm to the point where I'm starting to think I'm gainfully employed cuz people have fun kicking the shit outta me. Also, I'm taken, so I ain't looking to stumble around anyone else at the moment.”

He shrugged in his seat. “Don't let me tell you how to have a good time. Did you have a point to make or something?”

“Okay, listen… We're both clearly not happy with recent results, yeah? Now we're on a team where you hate at least one member of said team, if not more. So, what? We just gonna let whatever be? Potentially get ourselves embarrassed? Regardless of how I feel about you, I don't need to get humiliated in the first fuckin' main event I've been in since I joined PRIME!”

Hayes cocked an eyebrow, and let his arms hang over the back of his chair.

“And how do you feel about me, exactly? You still holding a grudge about something I said on Jabber three years ago?”

“How do I feel about you? You have everything I never had! Size. Natural talent. A cool charisma without any other kind of hang-up. You're practically the polar opposite of me! (Just above a whisper)

And then, RIA paused, tapping a Chuck Taylor on the floor, arms hugging herself. A softness took her over, along with a glisten in her eyes before speaking just above a whisper.

“And it makes me feel inadequate as fuck.”

Well, he didn’t see that coming. But fuck did it hit home.

And just like that, he saw a lot of himself in RIA. Someone who had been there from the beginning of PRIME’s ReVival, just like him. Someone who had given everything to the business, just like him.

Someone who had just kept coming up short. Just like him.

And someone feeling small. And inadequate. Just like him.

He stood from his chair slowly, and without anything else to offer, opened up his big arms, looking for an invitation. When she nodded quickly, he leaned down and wrapped her up in a long hug while LAX bustled by.

“You’re anything but inadequate,” he said, giving her a squeeze.

He broke the hug, holding her at arms length by the shoulders, and gestured his chin toward her New World Trash shirt.

“Just wish you didn't get so far up my ass about Angel.”

“Yeah, well, now I'm up my own ass about her. I wanted the best for her… and honestly? I wanted the best for you at one point. I'm starting to think I'm getting bitter and jaded. I'm fighting through it as best I can, but shit… Maybe I kinda get your detachment, to a degree.”

Hayes chuckled.

“It's an acquired skill.”

A more comfortable pause at the boarding gate.

“I didn't want to be a part of this Squad shit.” He said, shaking his head. “At all. But if you try, then I guess I can try.”

“Well… We're up against a group of some of the scummiest motherfuckers in PRIME. They ain't gonna take it easy on us. So you got my back? I got yours. Cuz we ain't gonna survive otherwise.”

Hayes snorted. “I’ve beaten half of them, and I’m not worried about the other half. But yeah…”

He pulled her in for another hug, resting his chin on the top of her head.

“...I got your back.”

The resort was nice. Couldn’t blame Youngblood for that. Hooking up private rooms didn’t hurt, either.

The ocean lapped at the shore outside as night took over, yet Hayes remained glued to his bed. Shirtless and sockless, with shorts remaining, he thumbed through his phone.

Despite his tender moment with RIA at LAX, he still didn’t want to be there.

Between sending GIFs back and forth to Joe and doomscrolling through Instagram, he could do anything but turn his brain off; he questioned everything.

His place on the roster.

His entire family, no longer in the picture.

And of course, why it had to be Brandon fucking Youngblood to pull him into this Squad Goals bullshit. The man he once held on some sort of pedestal. The man he targeted to get him over the hump. The man he just couldn’t beat.

The man he had grown to hate. Or at least thought he did.

Dropping his arm with a sigh into his chest, Hayes dragged a hand across his face. He felt the stubble growing on his jaw, almost creeping into his mustache. He wished he was with the Boys in Glue, having drug-induced nonsense conversations with Joe, at a karaoke bar with Julien. Hell, he’d rather be doomscrolling next to Cecilworth in silence or something.

He lolled his head to the glass doors. The stars were coming out. And hey.

The resort was nice.

He forced himself to his feet and snagged a glass from the kitchenette, fixing up a quick gin and tonic before lumbering toward the glass doors, sliding them open and stepping into the dark.

An acceptable quiet as he took a sip. He could hear a few faint voices in the distance, but otherwise, a silent resort. That was nice.

Leaning on the railing, he watched the waves as he nursed his drink, and continued to question.

At the end of 2025, he’d defeated Nate Colton, and found himself in the Hall of Fame.

To start 2026, two straight losses. Some Hall of Famer.

For years now, Hayes couldn’t find a groove. So why on Earth would the Diamond pick the Event Horizon?

The distinct smell of a burning cigar hit his nose, and he pinched his eyes shut.

“Of fucking course he did.”

He shot air through his nose and turned his head to the right. A broad silhouette in a chair, with the lit end of a cigar doing little to provide any light. But it was him. That hulking frame couldn’t belong to anyone else.

Hayes tried to ignore him. He couldn’t just, walk back inside. That would be giving up ground, right? You can’t do that with the Pariah.

He stayed, sipping his gin, glancing to the right to see if Youngblood would be the first to flinch.

Wishful thinking.

“How long you going to keep side eyeing me, Horizon?”

But he was the first to speak.

Hayes paused after a sip, eyes drawn to the waves below.

“As long as I have to,” he replied.

“Jesus Christ...always with the anger- ”

That was rich coming from Brandon. “

"-You want to start throwing bombs like two years ago? Throw some shit talk back and forth? Send me over this railing ass over tea kettle?”

Hayes scoffed, shaking his head. God he hated that son of a bitch.

But no. No he did not.

“Why’d you pull me into this…thing,” he asked, swirling the ice in his glass. “I’m a has-been, right? You could’ve picked anybody else, man.”

A snort from the former Tower of Babel. Even in the dark, Hayes could see him shake that bald head of his.

Hayes replied with a snort of his own. “Figured that’s all I’d get.

“Four fucking years,” Brandon spat, suddenly. “That’s how long you’ve been in PRIME. And the way you’re talking...you’re even more wet behind the ears than you were at the goddamn start.”

Okay. Maybe he did after all.

But instead of igniting that particular flame, he opted for the diplomatic approach.

“Enlighten me, then.”

“Every bit of your reason for hating me has to do with the fact that I beat you for the Universal Championship. Or at least that’s my initial read on it-”

A long drag from his cigar.

“-but there’s deeper shit there. You remember what you were asking me about before we went to the ring in Oklahoma City?”

Even in the darkness, his eyes carried with them a trained bead.

“You were asking me about why I didn’t bestow you with ‘The Next Diamond’ platitudes. Right before the biggest match of your entire career...you were the goddamn MAN, Hayes...and you were worried about what was on someone else’s plate.”

He ashed the cigar’s long tail. “You shouldn’t have done that.”

“I didn’t care about Nate,” Hayes replied, with certainty. “What I cared about, was…”

He wasn’t given the opportunity to finish the thought.

“Was I supposed to lay down for you, Hayes?” Youngblood interrupted, incredulous. “Is that what you want? For me to lay down for you? You know me better than a lot of people ever have. I fought you with everything I had. You did too. You lost. And that sticks in your craw, and the way that shit sticks...I get it. Believe me. But had I just let you win?”

This pause? Quite pregnant. Left to linger. Youngblood himself fought for the words in his bald head.

“You might loathe me now,” he said, breaking the pause. “But you and I both know...if that had been how it went down...you’d never be able to look yourself right in the mirror.”

“I didn’t hate you for beating me, Brandon,” Hayes stated, flatly.

Another long wait.

“I…don’t even know if I ever hated you. I think…what I hate…is that they didn’t hesitate to throw a fucking nuclear bomb at me the moment I won the thing back. A nuke in the form of you. I could barely catch my breath before I had to fight for my fucking life again.”

Hayes chucked the ice from his glass over the railing, and curled his lip.

“So, uh, sorry if I took that out on you. I guess.”

Hayes could hear him growl, and could see him turn his head away. He knew Brandon wanted to address that. Instead, he turned the discussion back to Nate. Either he hadn’t made his point, or he was deflecting.

“Four years, Hayes,” he finally said. “And let’s do the brass tax; when it comes to opportunities, when it comes to the road opening up...who has had more chances to take and make PRIME their own than Nate Colton? Huh? Think about it-”

His tone trailed off, but then, suddenly;

“-and think about how we’re all still fucking waiting.”

A long silence. Hayes gave him the time.

“You won the Intense Title on a ‘down’ year. You are in the PRIME Hall of Fame, alongside the other of the triumvirate with FLAMBERGE. But Next Diamond? Well...”

The cherry of the cigar swirled about. “You’re a self starter. You are. You made the choices you felt were best at the time, and to advance. And I am not going to fault you there...”

“They don’t seem like very good choices,” Hayes admitted, eyes drawing down.

“But at least you’re willing to own it. Whatever it is, whatever the moment...you own it. You never needed a little moniker to sell some t-shirts. And given how blinded his old man is with picking...inferior talent...and kneecapping someone because of nepotism...maybe I was wrong.”

The ember died as he stabbed it into the railing.

“I can own that,” he continued. “You were the golden goose...and you’ve been buried for dead how many times over?”

He stood up from his seated position in the darkness, approaching into the light.

“Yet here you are...surviving...being a pain in the ass to everyone who ever doubted you.”

Not a conversation Hayes expected.

But that was Brandon Youngblood, wasn’t it. Fire and brimstone. Brick wall and wisdom. Matter of fact. And more often than not…

…right.

However he felt about Youngblood’s words, Hayes was still going to need a little bit of help to get through this…outing.

“Fuck it,” he grumbled, digging into his pocket and pulling out a small baggy of yellowish crystal substance, flicking it a few times to help it settle.

“What, you gonna rip a line off the railing after all that?” Youngblood guffed.

“It’s molly. MDMA. A little after your time I think, you’ve probably never messed with it. Don’t call the Cartel on me.”

He poked a finger into the bag, then stuck it under his lip rubbing it back and forth.

“Prick. I know all about that shit. Pass it over.”

Hayes perked up, eyes widening. No fucking way he just heard that. Did Brandon Youngblood just ask to…partake?

Impossible.

Hayes looked over his shoulder. Youngblood was leaning over the railing that protected him from the gap in their balconies.

“Actually?” asked Hayes.

Youngblood’s big hand beckoned him over. Cautiously, Hanlon stepped to the edge, reaching the bag across.

“Don’t drop this shit,” said Hayes, cautiously.

Brandon snorted, and nipped the bag into his hand.

“Just dab your finger in there, or you can put a little in some water…”

“I know what I’m doin’.” A moment. Then… “mind if I see if the others want a taste?”

And for the first time all year, Hayes flashed a genuine smile beneath that stash, and his dark eyes lit up.

“Fuck yeah you can.”

Clay clasped his hands over his big chest, eyes pinched shut. His third bottle of water sat in his lap where the prior two lay in the sand next to his beach chair. The Behemoth was holding on for dear life, just trying to survive the journey.

Youngblood was the chattiest of Cathys, sitting next to RIA in the sand. One hand gripped and played with the sand’s texture, while the other waved as wildly as he spoke. His eyes like two pennies, talking about life, and how fantastic the journey is, and how amazing it could be, and how much he appreciated everyone that sat around the fire.

Nobody seemed to care that Clay had started a fire. They’d deal with a resort fine later.

And Hayes? He sat, and watched. The flames illuminated the faces of his team. He had danced with Molly a few more times than Clay and Brandon, and was more than happy to watch the results unfold.

He still didn’t have any answers. Youngblood never gave them.

The answers would have to wait.

For now, drug induced or not, he had decided to appreciate the moment.

RIA sat patiently with Brandon as he ranted on, excitedly and intently. She had opted not to partake. In the middle of a discussion about friendship and camaraderie, she pulled her gaze away.

And found his.

Hayes lifted his chin, and smiled behind his mustache.

RIA lifted her chin back, with a soft smile of her own.

Survival is about adapting.

This wasn’t the team he wanted.

But it was the team he had.

That would have to do.