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Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2017 14:23:58 GMT -5
4.2 // NEW DISEASE: FAULT
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♫: “Fault” - Taproot 6:16 a.m. // Denver International Airport July 19th, 2017
For some people, the worst part about flying was the unnecessary invasion of privacy that the Transportation Security Administration put the general public through every day. Between having to be shoved into body scanners to make sure there were no bombs on a person, and (if something went off on said body scanner) having to be pat down by an old woman with the ugliest pug face you’d ever seen, flying just wasn’t the greatest fun. But tell that to the millions of people who flew every day out of the thousands of airports across the world.
Being one of Elena’s family meant that Finn could sometimes use the Wolfpack Management jet, but he usually, if not always, opted out of it. There were many things in the luxury department that Elena had married into and was growing accustomed to that he never would, no matter what familial tie. It was mostly a joke between them that he’d paid a dollar for the “deed” to the guest house, but that was the type of person he was. He had a real issue with taking things offered to him, and he wasn’t going to accept altruistic handouts, no matter if they were from his sister or not.
Honestly, Finn cared very little about airport security. To him, they were just doing their job to ensure the safety of “Murca” (as Dickie called it), so he rarely caused a fuss like the people around him. His number one priority, right now, was to get his now awake and moving sister to Seattle instead of Denver. This would, in the end, accomplish two things: get his parents off his back, and get Addisyn to a place where she was safe.
The younger woman stood in front of him, chewing on her lip and staring at the large body scanner that she was going to have to go into. “I wish we got Pre-Checked . . .” she muttered, grasping her ticket in her hand tightly.
“Well, if you worked for say, NASA, like you always said you wanted to . . .”
Addisyn turned around and popped him in the shoulder. “I was five when I said I wanted to be an astronaut.”
“Such high aspirations you had then, too.” He snorted. “Now you work for the Mouse.”
Although the O’Hanlon family had it’s share of issues, one thing remained: all of them were fairly intelligent individuals. Roinn, their father, built his brewing company from the ground up, ran all the books himself, and rarely ever employed someone else to do it for him. His mother, Meara, had once been a psychiatrist before they’d immigrated to America. And it fit: psychs never saw the problems in their own family. Addisyn’s brain worked so quickly when it came to mathematics and schematics that it probably wasn’t a far cry from her actually working for NASA. But she’d chosen a different path: she was an Imagineer at Disney, a childhood dream that came from one vacation when she was seven.
In truth, Finn was the black sheep of the family. It wasn’t that he wasn’t smart, because he was. It was just that at fifteen, he decided he didn’t want to do things the normal way. Go to college. Own the company his father had built. Live a normal life, marry a blonde chick that would ultimately divorce him when they were older because she’d gotten all she wanted from his money. Nah. That wasn’t in his cards. So he’d promptly given a rather definitive “fuck you” to his “family” and left.
And made ninety-nine mistakes afterwards.
“The ‘Mouse’ pays me more than you’ll ever make working a match.” She snickered.
“It’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all . . .” Finn sang the most-known (and probably most annoying) Disney song in the most annoying voice.
“Oh my god, shut up.” She laughed. They both did.
Airport security was always easier on the North side of Denver International. They were through it without much incident, and headed for the tram, hopping in it almost immediately once the jingle echoed through the hall. Finn looked up at the picture of the Rocky Mountains above the tram -- it was the first thing that people new to Colorado saw, and the mural was beautiful. It captured the wondrous mountains with ease. Addisyn sat on the back, her carry-on next to her feet.
“Do you miss it?” She questioned. When he looked at her curiously, she smiled slightly. “Colorado. Do you miss it?”
“It’s not the mountains I miss.”
“Then what is it?”
Finn didn’t respond. At least, not immediately. The train lurched forward, speeding sixty miles down the underground passageways of the airport. Addisyn kicked him in the calf.
“Come on, Callien,” she knew he preferred Finn, but twenty-four year old habits died hard. “I know you miss something. You get the same look on your face that Dad does when he’s thinking about home.” To the rest of the family, home was America. Or at least, an idea of home. But to their father, the green landscapes of Killarney would always be his home. “Or is it someone?”
Addisyn knew him well.
“I miss the way things used to be, to be honest.” He admitted, as the tram doors slid open. The sibling pair made their way up the elevators into the United terminal, finding themselves standing in a gigantic mall-like structure. The way they were laid out, the international flights went down one way of the horizontal terminal, and the domestics the other. He would be flying to Japan, while she went on her way to Seattle. They would be separating soon, but Finn wasn’t about to let his sister out of his sight. Not just yet. “What time's your flight?”
“I’ve got about a half hour until boarding begins.” She replied, but she didn’t let him off the hook. “How things were?”
“Yeah,” he confirmed, pointing towards the Starbucks. Surprisingly, there weren't that many people. “Let’s get coffee.” And when they had that in front of their faces, they sat down in the benches around the center. Finn looked at her, and she was still as expectant as ever. “Fine. When I first started wrestling, everything was fine. Dandy. Great. I had Aaron and she always had my back. Sure, she was pregnant, but we both agreed that I would continue. But I wanted to be a part of Elena and Isabella’s life too. And she didn’t like it. No idea why in particular. But she hated it.”
“If I may be frank, bro . . .” Addisyn tucked her hair behind her ear, “Aaron thought you were replacing her with Elena.”
Finn’s eyebrows skyrocketed upwards. “What?!”
How oblivious was he? Aaron had been saying it for months. But some guys -- mostly Finn -- needed to be told directly.
“Completely. Why do you think she hates her so much, Callien?” Addisyn questioned, sipping her coffee from her straw and shrugging. “And she has every right, too. She brought you out of a crapbucket of a life, built you up, and you leave her -- pregnant -- to go hang with your sister. Aaron was your wife. You should have been there for her.”
“I was.”
“No, Cae, you weren’t.” She shook her head. “She understood your schedule, but what she didn’t understand was the fact that you were gone so much more than just your schedule. Don’t get me wrong, I know you love Elena and Isabella, and I know you love Aaron. But who did you swear to comfort and honor for better or for worse? Not Elena. Not the little girl.”
Finn sat back in his chair, slumping in it slightly. “So basically, you’re telling me this whole thing is my fault?”
“Not the whole thing. Everyone’s made mistakes, I think. You all are just too stupid to see it.” She informed him quite brightly.
“Thanks.”
“Really. Let me inform you what I see, and keep in mind I’m totally looking at this from an outsider perspective. In Aaron’s case, she sees you going to Elena and because she thinks Elena hates her, she’s under the impression that Elena is trying to pull you from her. Whether it’s true or not,” she raised a hand to Finn’s protest, “it’s still how she feels. And she’s felt it for so long, whatever you tell her isn’t heard. She’s not going to stop until Elena shows some form of remorse.”
“Elena doesn’t need to though.”
“But she does. As much as she’s stayed out of it as much as she could, did she do anything to reassure Aaron that you weren’t replacing her? Not really. Girls need reassurance from each other, and I know Elena doesn’t roll that way, but in ways, it looks like she thinks she’s better than Aaron, and that’s what makes her mad too. It’s not just a ‘I’m better than you’, but it’s like on a ‘I’m more superior’ level. And even if she’s not meaning to, that’s how it appears. How are you not seeing this, though?”
“What do you mean?”
“It’s laced in their on-camera work. I love Elena, but she’s acting like a holier-than-thou fool. Aaron’s acting out of resentment and insecurity. And what are you doing about it, Cae? Nothing.”
“What am I supposed to do? Neither one of them will listen to me at this point. I’m not anyone’s keeper. I don’t go off and make decisions for them.”
“No, but you do have a say in how they react with one another. Have you even told Elena you’re planning on going back to Aaron?”
“I mean, sort of . . .”
“And that’s where you’ve dropped the ball, Finn.” Addisyn shook her head. “You don’t communicate to either of them what’s going on. You expect them to just know what’s going on. I know you think we’re all omniscient, Callien, but we’re not. We’re not gods, and we don’t know everything. If you just opened your mouth for three seconds and told everyone what was going on, it would work.” She leaned forward. “They wouldn’t be fighting, or trying to spill blood.”
Finn’d had it at this point. He leaned forward too, meeting his sister on her level, and speaking quietly. “I’m not their goddamn parent. It’s not my fault that they can’t sit down and have a conversation like adults. I know I had a hand in this, but at the end of the day, I know my sister and I know my wife. If there’s anything in the world that I could do to stop this, I would have.”
“I would assume so,” she replied with a grin, “because I can’t imagine what’ll be going through your head when they have to break each other open to even get the opportunity to pin.”
“They’re both wrestlers, Addi. They can handle it.”
“Mmmmm . . .” Addisyn leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms on her lap. “Handling it is one thing. Big kids know how to handle themselves. I don’t know about Elena, but I know Aaron, and I know she’s going to want you to be in her corner. Can you do that?”
He thought about it, but he didn’t open his mouth. His answer was clear as day, though, to his sister. She snorted.
“I didn’t think so.”
Finn ran a hand through his short hair and shook his head then. He was honestly slightly aggravated at this point. “Any other time of the day, the year, the month, whatever, I would be in Aaron’s corner one hundred percent. I get what I signed up for when I married her, but believe me . . . she’s not been an altruistic individual as of late. I love her. I do. But she’s not acting like the woman I married four years ago. She’s acting like a spoiled rotten little bitch about this shit, and I honestly cannot support that. Do I want her to win? Yes. Do I want her safe? Yes. But I can’t just sit back and forsake Elena either. She’s my sister. My best friend. My tag partner. I don’t want her in that match as much as I don’t want Aaron in it.”
“But you need to pick a side.”
“No. I don’t.” He shook his head again, quite adamant. “I can’t pick a side, and I won’t pick a side. They’re both important to me, and that’s what’s gotten me into this mess. I refuse to drop my relationship with Elena because Aaron feels slightly put out, but I also won’t stop at least trying to fix my marriage. But this isn’t the only shit I’ve got on my plate, Addisyn. I wish it were. Kei’s gotten me into a fucking bind too. Crosslin’s going to be coming at me for blood, and I can’t be sitting there in the back, worried that they’re going to break each other because both of them are blindsided by the fact that this match is ridiculous and unnecessary.”
“To you. But to them . . .”
“No, it’s fucking ridiculous. Elena is tired of Aaron’s bullshit, Aaron is tired of Elena’s presence. Both of them need to get over it.” He tapped his heel against the floor, bouncing his leg up and down, the only sign he’d ever given he was nervous or agitated. “If they’re both going to be a part of my life again, they need to get along. I don’t care if they’re not best friends who go on shopping trips to all the little fancy ass boutiques in NYC, but I care that they can at least act civilly to one another for my sake. No shutting down when one is around, or one acting like the other person isn’t there. It’s childish, and I have no time for games.”
Addisyn reached over and grabbed his hand. “Then talk to them. Tell them.”
He exhaled through his nose heavily, and looked out at the mall-esque area of the airport terminal. “There’s something I’ve been wondering, though.” He said, changing the subject almost abruptly. “I mean, besides the obvious injuries . . .”
“Me?” She cocked her head to the side. “What happened?”
“Yeah. What happened?”
A smile rose to her face -- an odd expression. “Well, it’s a really strange story. I think I was in Panama the whole time, actually. I mean, I wasn’t under lock and key either. The house . . . man, it was beautiful. It was bright and white, right on the coast. I mean, I wasn’t there because I wanted to be, but I wasn’t treated badly. Not until the end anyway.” She continued, ignoring Finn’s eyes narrowing. “They said I’d be helping you.” She shrugged her shoulders. “That’s the original reason I even went anywhere with them. They didn’t tell me where I was, or what I was doing, but that I would be helping you in the long run.”
“Who is them?”
“Well. I mean, it was someone who said she knew you fairly well. I didn’t think to question it.” She tapped her finger against the table. “She was very pretty, in that . . . well, I mean, I could liken her to a black widow. Shiny. Pretty. But a poisonous woman. She was hispanic, had lots of tattoos. I think she said her name was Alejandra?”
It couldn’t be ascertained if Finn could actually see through his eyes as they closed almost completely when he narrowed them further. While he’d known that Kei was behind it, the fact that she confirmed it made it all the more worse. Perhaps he was trying to give his mentor one last shot. One more time to redeem himself. But no. He hadn’t.
And if he saw Kei Hideshima one more time, there weren’t going to be words. It was going to be driving his fucking mask-ridden face into the fucking floor until all that was left was something you’d see in fucking Mortal Kombat.
Fuck him.
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