Post by Leese on May 25, 2024 1:21:15 GMT
21st May, 2024
9:45pm
Wildfire Wrestling Academy
Irvine, California
The final Critical Acclaim rehearsal before their international stint finished 15 minutes ago and Mark Chapman and Revvy King are finishing clearing up the space that had been used inside the currently empty Wildfire Wrestling Academy.
"So, who's this Chelsea chick you all keep whispering about and why are you all so afraid of her?" Revvy asks as she winds the microphone wire around the stand and then sets it into a corner.
"She's Kam's half-sister," Mark says as he zips up his backpack. "It's a long story."
Revvy shrugs. "I've got all night."
"Trust me," Mark says with a laugh. "You don't wanna know."
"No, I do." She shrugs. "If I'm being dragged into whatever this is then I wanna know what happened and why she's so hell bent on destroying your life, or Kam's life, or whoever she's going after."
"Alright. Sit down." He gestures to the chair that he'd been using during the rehearsal but instead of sitting down on it, Revvy hops up onto the equipment box behind them.
"You too," she says as she pats the space next to her and he nods.
"Alright, so… Full disclosure, you're gonna hear a lot of shit that almost nobody else knows. There's gonna be some stuff Kam doesn't know about, stuff even Damo doesn't know about." He pauses for a second and looks at her. "If you wanna walk away after hearing everything I'm about to tell you, then I wouldn't blame you one bit."
"I'm not gonna do that, Mark," Revvy says with a small frown. "I'm your friend."
"Well," he lets out a shaky breath. "We'll see."
She nods.
"Years ago, she saved my life and got me out of a lot of trouble," he says simply while looking down. "She's never let me forget about it and basically, I'm in debt to her for as long as she sees fit. I got jumped after a show last year just because I hadn't lived up to her expectations."
Revvy tilts her head. "And you think she's the one who had me attacked?"
Mark shrugs. "I don't know if it was her order, but I'm pretty sure she had a hand in it. Kam thinks it was Serena, but that doesn't make sense to me. She's never done it behind closed doors. She doesn't hide when she attacks. I think it was something to do with Ryan, with Chelsea backing him up."
Revvy nods, but then steers the conversation back to the original topic. "So, go on," she prompts, "why do you owe her so much?"
"Right," Mark says and then blows out a breath. "Years ago, I was driving in the middle of winter, in rural Pennsylvania… road conditions aren't the best, visibility is poor… I was high, I was speeding…"
Revvy watches him intently, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.
"I hit another car, flipped, rolled a few times, landed upside down." He keeps his gaze directed at the floor. "Felt like forever, but I guess it was over really in a few seconds. I was dazed, felt like I couldn't move, didn't even know what had happened at first. There wasn't any pain, I felt fine, just trapped. I don't know if that was like shock or something, or if I was genuinely stuck there because it's all pretty much a blur."
He stops for a few seconds, recalling it, but doesn't look up. Revvy, however, keeps her eyes on him. "Jesus…"
"Next thing I know, someone is screaming my name and banging on the window. Then the window shatters and it's freezing. Felt like an ice blast, like someone had just turned on a snow machine or something. She crawled into the car and I felt her touch me. It was Chelsea. Once she realised that I was alive and awake, she called out to some guy she was with and was telling him to help her get me out of the car."
"Why would she…" Revvy frowns and doesn't finish her question. "You're not supposed to move someone…"
"She must have known I was high and wanted to get me out of there before the cops showed up," Mark reasons. "Stupid, but I was fine. The person in the other car wasn't."
"Oh…"
"We didn't know that at the time of course," Mark continues. "They got me out, took me to my mom's house. She went insane, talking about how I was gonna get in trouble for leaving the scene, how I needed to go to the hospital and then turn myself in. Chelsea said that I'd get less for fleeing than a drug DUI, otherwise she wouldn't have risked getting me out since I could have been hurt." He heaves his shoulders. "That was before we found out she'd died."
A silence falls between them before Mark sucks in a breath. "I slept with Chelsea that night. One of the stupidest things I've ever done."
He sighs.
"When I got arrested the next day, my mom lost it. We found out that nobody called the emergency services; it was hours until the crash was discovered. I guess we thought Chelsea had called them since she'd seen it happen, you know?" He shakes his head. "An accident involving death and failure to stop is a second degree felony in Pennsylvania. Minimum of three years, maximum of fifteen. Chelsea assured her it would be fine. She'd get the best lawyers on it, and I'd do next to no time. Her dad - Kam's real dad - was some big shot lawyer in Atlanta before he died, so we figured she'd be able to take care of it."
Revvy raises her brows. "So you went to prison?"
Mark nods. "Not for as long as I should have, though," he admits. "Somehow she managed to get the whole failure to stop, leaving the scene thing thrown out. I didn't leave the scene purposefully, or willingly, so it became homicide by vehicle."
Revvy's eyes widen and she blurts out, "murder?!"
He ignores it.
"Third degree felony, maximum of seven years with no minimum." He finally turns his head to look at her. "I got 16 months. I killed someone, and I spent 16 months in jail. How fucked up is that?"
Revvy doesn't say anything. This time it's her eyes that fall to the floor.
"She even managed to get it reduced to a misdemeanor. It wasn't homicide, it was an accident through negligence because I was speeding. They failed to prove I was high at the time. They failed to prove that I fled the scene. The road conditions played a part, I was concussed…"
He glances at her.
"You can leave if you want to. I'll stop there."
"No…" She shakes her head. "Go on…"
"Her name was Sandra. 48 year old mother of two grown up kids. She was on her way home to her husband." He closes his eyes and inhales sharply. "I think about her all the time."
"Mark…" Revvy scoots a little closer and wraps an arm around him, but he shakes his head.
"Don't hug me," he says. "I don't deserve that."
"Yes you do," she says quietly, giving him a gentle squeeze.
"When I became a grandparent, it was incredible," he recalls, lowering his head again, "but I thought about her… how she's never gonna get to experience that feeling because of me."
He swallows the lump in his throat before continuing. "You'd think that would be enough to get me clean, right?" He gives a dry laugh and shakes his head. "It wasn't. You can get anything you want inside if you know the right people. It was Chelsea, again, who got me clean after I got out."
"How?"
"Forced me into rehab after about a year, because she could see I was on a downward spiral again after fucking up my voice," he says. "Told me that I wasn't gonna ruin everything again when she'd worked so hard to get my charges down from a felony, so that I could keep touring and still have a career. She'd managed to keep it out of the press to protect me and the band. We weren't huge back then. We did alright, but nothing like today, so it was easier to kinda keep things under wraps. That whole thing and losing my voice made me realise that I wasn't taking care of my body and I had no control over my life. The idea of losing all of it I guess eventually scared me straight, a lot of years too late."
"Well at least you're better now," Revvy says softly with a smile.
Mark nods. "She paid for the rehab, she took care of my family when I was in jail, so as much as I hate her and would love to see her fall off of a cliff, I owe her a lot. I owe her my life. So it's like, this fucked up situation where I absolutely can't stand her, but I wouldn't still be here without her."
Revvy nods her understanding. "A lot of contrasting emotions, huh?"
"Yeah," he admits. "To this day I still don't know why she was following me that night or what her intentions were. She's never told me, or even admitted it. She just says I'm lucky that she was there that night or I'd either still be locked up or dead, and she's right."
"Seems like she's the one obsessed with you, not me," Revvy says with a chuckle, nudging him playfully.
He cracks a smile. "You know I didn't mean that in a bad way when I said it."
"No, I know. It's not like it's a lie," she concedes. "My whole life revolves around your stupid band now." She laughs. "I still don't know where I come into all of this, though. Is she targeting me just because we're friends?"
Mark shrugs. "Nah, I think it's because Ryan has a crush on you… And Ryan thinks that I'm the reason that he doesn't have a chance with you. I'm not sure what he thinks attacking you will achieve, but, he's got someone poisoning his brain, so…"
"He doesn't take rejection well, huh?"
"The thing with Ryan is… and this is gonna sound stupid because I'm so close to ripping his face off, but he's a good kid. Deep down, he really is. He's just… naive and misguided and, well, he's Kam's kid." He shrugs. "That's why when he was starting out I took an interest in him and tried to guide him down the right path and keep his ego in check. Kam is Kam… and Kam's gonna do what Kam does. I love him like a brother but he's always gonna put himself first and Ryan is too much like him. That's why I dragged him away on tour to try to keep him out of trouble. Didn't achieve anything other than bringing more trouble upon myself, though, so… that was a waste of time, huh?"
"Does Ryan know about all…" She trails off, searching for the right words. "The stuff you just told me…"
"No," Mark shakes his head. "No. He knows I got locked up, but I think he assumes it was just on drug charges. Unless Chelsea told him everything, but I doubt it, or I'd have heard about it by now. "
Revvy's lips twist in contemplation. "Do you think I should try talking to him?" she asks.
Mark shakes his head. "It won't work. He's too far gone to be talked back around now. He's just gonna have to wait until he inevitably gets burned by her and see if there's anyone there for him when he comes crawling back."
Revvy looks at him with a soft smile. "You'll be there for him, won't you?"
He nods. "Stupidly, yeah, because I know how manipulative she can be, and I know how much he's been hurt by Kam not being there for him when he's needed him the most. I may have to beat some sense into him first, but I'm not gonna turn my back on the kid."
"You're a good person, Mark," Revvy says as she jumps down from the box they're sitting on. "Everybody has a past, and yours is very, very fucked up and you've done some awful shit, but you've turned your life around and that's what matters now."
Mark hops down too and smiles at her. "Thanks… You still coming with us on tour after all of that?"
She laughs. "Stupid question. I didn't get my passport for nothing."
9:45pm
Wildfire Wrestling Academy
Irvine, California
TW: Death, drugs
The final Critical Acclaim rehearsal before their international stint finished 15 minutes ago and Mark Chapman and Revvy King are finishing clearing up the space that had been used inside the currently empty Wildfire Wrestling Academy.
"So, who's this Chelsea chick you all keep whispering about and why are you all so afraid of her?" Revvy asks as she winds the microphone wire around the stand and then sets it into a corner.
"She's Kam's half-sister," Mark says as he zips up his backpack. "It's a long story."
Revvy shrugs. "I've got all night."
"Trust me," Mark says with a laugh. "You don't wanna know."
"No, I do." She shrugs. "If I'm being dragged into whatever this is then I wanna know what happened and why she's so hell bent on destroying your life, or Kam's life, or whoever she's going after."
"Alright. Sit down." He gestures to the chair that he'd been using during the rehearsal but instead of sitting down on it, Revvy hops up onto the equipment box behind them.
"You too," she says as she pats the space next to her and he nods.
"Alright, so… Full disclosure, you're gonna hear a lot of shit that almost nobody else knows. There's gonna be some stuff Kam doesn't know about, stuff even Damo doesn't know about." He pauses for a second and looks at her. "If you wanna walk away after hearing everything I'm about to tell you, then I wouldn't blame you one bit."
"I'm not gonna do that, Mark," Revvy says with a small frown. "I'm your friend."
"Well," he lets out a shaky breath. "We'll see."
She nods.
"Years ago, she saved my life and got me out of a lot of trouble," he says simply while looking down. "She's never let me forget about it and basically, I'm in debt to her for as long as she sees fit. I got jumped after a show last year just because I hadn't lived up to her expectations."
Revvy tilts her head. "And you think she's the one who had me attacked?"
Mark shrugs. "I don't know if it was her order, but I'm pretty sure she had a hand in it. Kam thinks it was Serena, but that doesn't make sense to me. She's never done it behind closed doors. She doesn't hide when she attacks. I think it was something to do with Ryan, with Chelsea backing him up."
Revvy nods, but then steers the conversation back to the original topic. "So, go on," she prompts, "why do you owe her so much?"
"Right," Mark says and then blows out a breath. "Years ago, I was driving in the middle of winter, in rural Pennsylvania… road conditions aren't the best, visibility is poor… I was high, I was speeding…"
Revvy watches him intently, her bottom lip tucked between her teeth.
"I hit another car, flipped, rolled a few times, landed upside down." He keeps his gaze directed at the floor. "Felt like forever, but I guess it was over really in a few seconds. I was dazed, felt like I couldn't move, didn't even know what had happened at first. There wasn't any pain, I felt fine, just trapped. I don't know if that was like shock or something, or if I was genuinely stuck there because it's all pretty much a blur."
He stops for a few seconds, recalling it, but doesn't look up. Revvy, however, keeps her eyes on him. "Jesus…"
"Next thing I know, someone is screaming my name and banging on the window. Then the window shatters and it's freezing. Felt like an ice blast, like someone had just turned on a snow machine or something. She crawled into the car and I felt her touch me. It was Chelsea. Once she realised that I was alive and awake, she called out to some guy she was with and was telling him to help her get me out of the car."
"Why would she…" Revvy frowns and doesn't finish her question. "You're not supposed to move someone…"
"She must have known I was high and wanted to get me out of there before the cops showed up," Mark reasons. "Stupid, but I was fine. The person in the other car wasn't."
"Oh…"
"We didn't know that at the time of course," Mark continues. "They got me out, took me to my mom's house. She went insane, talking about how I was gonna get in trouble for leaving the scene, how I needed to go to the hospital and then turn myself in. Chelsea said that I'd get less for fleeing than a drug DUI, otherwise she wouldn't have risked getting me out since I could have been hurt." He heaves his shoulders. "That was before we found out she'd died."
A silence falls between them before Mark sucks in a breath. "I slept with Chelsea that night. One of the stupidest things I've ever done."
He sighs.
"When I got arrested the next day, my mom lost it. We found out that nobody called the emergency services; it was hours until the crash was discovered. I guess we thought Chelsea had called them since she'd seen it happen, you know?" He shakes his head. "An accident involving death and failure to stop is a second degree felony in Pennsylvania. Minimum of three years, maximum of fifteen. Chelsea assured her it would be fine. She'd get the best lawyers on it, and I'd do next to no time. Her dad - Kam's real dad - was some big shot lawyer in Atlanta before he died, so we figured she'd be able to take care of it."
Revvy raises her brows. "So you went to prison?"
Mark nods. "Not for as long as I should have, though," he admits. "Somehow she managed to get the whole failure to stop, leaving the scene thing thrown out. I didn't leave the scene purposefully, or willingly, so it became homicide by vehicle."
Revvy's eyes widen and she blurts out, "murder?!"
He ignores it.
"Third degree felony, maximum of seven years with no minimum." He finally turns his head to look at her. "I got 16 months. I killed someone, and I spent 16 months in jail. How fucked up is that?"
Revvy doesn't say anything. This time it's her eyes that fall to the floor.
"She even managed to get it reduced to a misdemeanor. It wasn't homicide, it was an accident through negligence because I was speeding. They failed to prove I was high at the time. They failed to prove that I fled the scene. The road conditions played a part, I was concussed…"
He glances at her.
"You can leave if you want to. I'll stop there."
"No…" She shakes her head. "Go on…"
"Her name was Sandra. 48 year old mother of two grown up kids. She was on her way home to her husband." He closes his eyes and inhales sharply. "I think about her all the time."
"Mark…" Revvy scoots a little closer and wraps an arm around him, but he shakes his head.
"Don't hug me," he says. "I don't deserve that."
"Yes you do," she says quietly, giving him a gentle squeeze.
"When I became a grandparent, it was incredible," he recalls, lowering his head again, "but I thought about her… how she's never gonna get to experience that feeling because of me."
He swallows the lump in his throat before continuing. "You'd think that would be enough to get me clean, right?" He gives a dry laugh and shakes his head. "It wasn't. You can get anything you want inside if you know the right people. It was Chelsea, again, who got me clean after I got out."
"How?"
"Forced me into rehab after about a year, because she could see I was on a downward spiral again after fucking up my voice," he says. "Told me that I wasn't gonna ruin everything again when she'd worked so hard to get my charges down from a felony, so that I could keep touring and still have a career. She'd managed to keep it out of the press to protect me and the band. We weren't huge back then. We did alright, but nothing like today, so it was easier to kinda keep things under wraps. That whole thing and losing my voice made me realise that I wasn't taking care of my body and I had no control over my life. The idea of losing all of it I guess eventually scared me straight, a lot of years too late."
"Well at least you're better now," Revvy says softly with a smile.
Mark nods. "She paid for the rehab, she took care of my family when I was in jail, so as much as I hate her and would love to see her fall off of a cliff, I owe her a lot. I owe her my life. So it's like, this fucked up situation where I absolutely can't stand her, but I wouldn't still be here without her."
Revvy nods her understanding. "A lot of contrasting emotions, huh?"
"Yeah," he admits. "To this day I still don't know why she was following me that night or what her intentions were. She's never told me, or even admitted it. She just says I'm lucky that she was there that night or I'd either still be locked up or dead, and she's right."
"Seems like she's the one obsessed with you, not me," Revvy says with a chuckle, nudging him playfully.
He cracks a smile. "You know I didn't mean that in a bad way when I said it."
"No, I know. It's not like it's a lie," she concedes. "My whole life revolves around your stupid band now." She laughs. "I still don't know where I come into all of this, though. Is she targeting me just because we're friends?"
Mark shrugs. "Nah, I think it's because Ryan has a crush on you… And Ryan thinks that I'm the reason that he doesn't have a chance with you. I'm not sure what he thinks attacking you will achieve, but, he's got someone poisoning his brain, so…"
"He doesn't take rejection well, huh?"
"The thing with Ryan is… and this is gonna sound stupid because I'm so close to ripping his face off, but he's a good kid. Deep down, he really is. He's just… naive and misguided and, well, he's Kam's kid." He shrugs. "That's why when he was starting out I took an interest in him and tried to guide him down the right path and keep his ego in check. Kam is Kam… and Kam's gonna do what Kam does. I love him like a brother but he's always gonna put himself first and Ryan is too much like him. That's why I dragged him away on tour to try to keep him out of trouble. Didn't achieve anything other than bringing more trouble upon myself, though, so… that was a waste of time, huh?"
"Does Ryan know about all…" She trails off, searching for the right words. "The stuff you just told me…"
"No," Mark shakes his head. "No. He knows I got locked up, but I think he assumes it was just on drug charges. Unless Chelsea told him everything, but I doubt it, or I'd have heard about it by now. "
Revvy's lips twist in contemplation. "Do you think I should try talking to him?" she asks.
Mark shakes his head. "It won't work. He's too far gone to be talked back around now. He's just gonna have to wait until he inevitably gets burned by her and see if there's anyone there for him when he comes crawling back."
Revvy looks at him with a soft smile. "You'll be there for him, won't you?"
He nods. "Stupidly, yeah, because I know how manipulative she can be, and I know how much he's been hurt by Kam not being there for him when he's needed him the most. I may have to beat some sense into him first, but I'm not gonna turn my back on the kid."
"You're a good person, Mark," Revvy says as she jumps down from the box they're sitting on. "Everybody has a past, and yours is very, very fucked up and you've done some awful shit, but you've turned your life around and that's what matters now."
Mark hops down too and smiles at her. "Thanks… You still coming with us on tour after all of that?"
She laughs. "Stupid question. I didn't get my passport for nothing."