Post by Dom Strife on Apr 17, 2021 22:49:54 GMT -5
"Are you sure that this is what you want?"
It was a phrase that Dominick Strife had heard more than once over the past couple of weeks. Things in the various parts of his life were changing, sure, but he wasn't afraid.
Dominick was still young. Hope and the intoxicating promise of a better future were still out there, alive and well.
He had a rocky start—a tumultuous relationship with his father. Bad decisions were made along the way. It was difficult growing up under the roof of a man who had made a career out of the military's strict disciplinary standards. In the purest sense of himself, Dom never could agree with the concept of subjecting himself to any authority.
Jobs that should have been easy, like being a server at McDonald's, were jobs he got fired from. Ever got eleven or twelve nuggets in a ten-piece box at the golden arches in White Marsh, Maryland? Dom was probably your guy.
Dom always followed a simple philosophy in life: treat people how you would want to be treated. Sure, he broke the rules. Sure, he talked back to the boss a time or two. Sure, his idea of what was best for everyone was the idea that he governed his own life with, always assuming that he was right. By the time he had saved up enough cash to get his grandfather's old truck running, it was already so much more to him than just a vital connection to a piece of his past. It was also a key to that better future... a future where he didn't have to have any more bosses because he would be his own boss.
By the time Dom got his grandfather's old truck running and in his name, he needed it to move his belongings out of his parent's house. Dom had lost so many entry-level jobs that his father had lost faith in him. Actually, his father was so angry and disappointed that he wanted nothing more to do with his son.
...and while the story had already been told in Carnage Wrestling that Dom had been using his old truck to start his own business, a "delivery service" of sorts, for the UGWC crowd, the tl;dr version is that the truck would frequently break down. One day, Dom needed his father's truck to do a delivery. Without asking permission, he "borrowed" it hoping to get the job done and have the brand new Dodge Ram back in the driveway before his Dad could notice.
Dom ended up flat on his back on the asphalt of Interstate 695. What was left of his father's Dodge Ram ended up burning in a ditch.
Dom, ever since "last straw day," never feared change.
Because mostly, any change had to be better than this.
So when Isla Burke, Dom's Sister's childhood friend, turned smoking hotty, turned into the secretary at Strife Delivery Service, turned the girlfriend that made Dom feel like the luckiest man in the world, asked him if he was sure that this is what he wanted, Dom had no hesitation in nodding his head.
Before them was a brand new box truck, pure white on the cab and box, it was a massive step up from trying to stuff old crap and trash into the back of a pickup; with a truck like this, the Delivery Service could finally get off of the ground. The only problem was a truck like this came with a massive price tag, and that didn't include the extensive price of upkeep on a brand new diesel. Everything was going to be more expensive just to own this damn thing, much less run it. That all came down to the one word that had been on Isla's mind since Dom asked her to date him a few months back.
That word?
Commitment.
Dom stepped forward and ran his hand across the panel on the driver's side door. He was already picturing how the Delivery Service decals would look on it, a step-up from the spray paint that was on the rear-quarters of his grandfather's old pickup before it, too, burnt to the ground last Valentine's day. (True story.)
"Yeah," he said, eyeing up the distorted reflection of his face in the shiny new paint that showed at the very least a half-smile. "Air-ride suspension, computer-guided smooth pneumatic braking system, spacious thirty-two-foot box. It's last year's model, but they bumped ten grand off of the sticker price. I don't even care that it's not a twenty-twenty-two. Like people are really gonna be able to tell the difference anyway."
Isla bit her lip, her eyes flickering upwards at the truck in all its glory. As much as she tried, she couldn’t stop her eyebrows from furrowing as she let out a sigh.
“Dom..” She started, turning towards him, “That’s not what I’m talking about. The truck.. It’s amazing. It’s everything we could’ve dreamed of for the delivery service. I’m talking about Carnage.. I just, I don’t want you to give up on your dream because..”
Her voice trailed off, and she looked away, placing her hand on the mirror, pretending to be examining it extensively.
"I'm not giving up on my dream." He turned to her, raising his smile from a half to a full one, if only for her sake. "Wrestling was just a way to make ends meet for a little while. Besides, If Miss Von Allen wants to offer me a buy-out, she's gotta be doing it for a reason, and I should take it."
Isla thought about his words for a few moments, finally nodding her head.
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s just, it was fun while it lasted, you know? There’s something really… sexy about watching you fight. But I guess I’ll just have to settle for one last match and go back to watching you carry heavy shit.” She finished with a sly smile.
Dom smirked. "Sexy, hmm?" He couldn't recall a time where she ever told him that watching him fight was attractive. More like watching him lose every big match he had ever been in since Carnage took a chance on him. What was sexy to him was when Isla finally agreed to come out as his valet in tight leather pants. Seeing her like that made his pants tight- er, I digress. "Well, that's the plan, for now. But with a new, bigger truck I can take on some bigger jobs which probably means we won't be the only two employees at Strife Delivery much longer."
“Well that’ll be great for the business… and not so great for all the alone time I’m gonna miss while we were the only two.” She replied, moving her hand from the mirror to the door of the truck. “But whatever you want, I’m all in Dom. Always have been.”
He did like fighting. In truth, it was bittersweet to be accepting the deal that would effectively put an end to his professional wrestling career. It would mean no more Entourage... no more being a member of professional wrestling's hot young supergroup lead by Sebastian Hawke and inspired by the multi-talented lead singer of the Broken Brash Axton Gunn. But it also meant that he could walk out with his health and what little bit of sanity he had left after a multitude of ordeals in such a short period of time. It meant no more letting down himself, Isla, or the fans after going 0-3 in CW championship match opportunities.
A part of him felt like he was quitting out, or otherwise walking away too soon. But he had to try to squash those feelings. Clearly, Carnage itself was going through its own changes. The offer had to mean the writing was on the wall for his departure anyway.
"I know you are, babe." He said as he ran his hand along the soft skin of her cheek. "The plan is to hire one new employee, and then maybe two."
He couldn't help but feel optimistic even though Baltimore was already filled with several start-up companies just like his.
"Eventually we'll hire a whole crew. Make enough money off of jobs to buy a second truck and hire a second crew." He continued. "I'll back myself out of the labor part so I can focus on running the company, hopefully, with you by my side. That's my real dream."
A smile crossed Isla’s lips as she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Dom leaned forward and kissed her. He was happy, but for the first time in a while he was content. Or at least he thought he would be once this Carnage deal was finally put behind him.
She kissed back and looked deeply into his eyes.
"So, did you tell Seb (Hawke) yet that you're done after this show?"
Dom's expression changed, almost like a bit of a cringe. Isla saw his reaction and pulled away, just enough to smack him on the chest with both of her open palms.
"Dom... Seb is your friend, you can't do him like that."
Strife's contorted facial expressions made for a terrible smile.
"When were you planning on telling him?"
"...at the show, maybe?" Dom shook his head. "I dunno. I just kind of figured that he'd be better off without me. All I ever did was hold him down."
Isla put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips.
"Oh yeah? Really? Was that Sebastian saying that or is that you saying that?"
Dom shrugged.
"What can I say? I don't think I was ever really cut out for it."
"You have got to be kidding me." Isla sighed as she threw her arms up. "I knew there was something off. Why didn't you say anything to me?"
Dom shrugged again, harder as if to emphasize the fact that he didn't know why he felt the way he felt half the time.
"Dom, you know I hate it when you don't talk to me about what's really bothering you."
"It was the last title match..." Dom said as he looked back towards the truck. "The one with Avenger... y'know... for the Baltimore City championship. I guess, I really thought that I wasn't just fighting for myself but I was fighting for my city. I thought I could be a champion for Baltimore, but it turns out what they really needed was a guy in green spandex."
Dom shook his head dismissively. For all of the money that professional wrestling brought, for all of the exposure it has brought for his business and for the friends he had made along the way... there were moments that were equally just as bad, if not worse. The bad ones seemed to happen a lot more often too.
Isla watched as Dom stared up at the truck. Now this idea didn't feel as much of a step forward for them as it was a cop-out. No wonder he hadn't been fighting lately. He probably asked Carnage to keep him off of the card.
She pieced together that maybe Dom was being offered his release because it was clear that his heart wasn't in it anymore. Dom was always the type that took failure hard and personal. She wasn't going to accept him putting up a front just for her sake.
"Look, forget about him," she said in reference to the Avenger. "That guy had years of experience. You had just come out of a smaller place, one you didn't spend a lot of time in. Just the fact that you could hang with the Carnage people was a big deal."
"Yeah, well, hanging only ever got me mixed up with the wrong crowds, getting my ass kicked when it mattered, and I did it all having to learn every lesson the hard way."
"Maybe," she said having moved back up to him to place a hand on his shoulder, "but you did learn them. Now are you sure this is what you really want?"
Dom looked over at her, then back at the truck, and back at her again.
"Let's just get through Incursion and see what happens," he replied with a pause in between, "but whatever happens, I just want you to know that my real dream is being with you. Everything else is just icing on the cake."
It was a phrase that Dominick Strife had heard more than once over the past couple of weeks. Things in the various parts of his life were changing, sure, but he wasn't afraid.
Dominick was still young. Hope and the intoxicating promise of a better future were still out there, alive and well.
He had a rocky start—a tumultuous relationship with his father. Bad decisions were made along the way. It was difficult growing up under the roof of a man who had made a career out of the military's strict disciplinary standards. In the purest sense of himself, Dom never could agree with the concept of subjecting himself to any authority.
Jobs that should have been easy, like being a server at McDonald's, were jobs he got fired from. Ever got eleven or twelve nuggets in a ten-piece box at the golden arches in White Marsh, Maryland? Dom was probably your guy.
Dom always followed a simple philosophy in life: treat people how you would want to be treated. Sure, he broke the rules. Sure, he talked back to the boss a time or two. Sure, his idea of what was best for everyone was the idea that he governed his own life with, always assuming that he was right. By the time he had saved up enough cash to get his grandfather's old truck running, it was already so much more to him than just a vital connection to a piece of his past. It was also a key to that better future... a future where he didn't have to have any more bosses because he would be his own boss.
By the time Dom got his grandfather's old truck running and in his name, he needed it to move his belongings out of his parent's house. Dom had lost so many entry-level jobs that his father had lost faith in him. Actually, his father was so angry and disappointed that he wanted nothing more to do with his son.
...and while the story had already been told in Carnage Wrestling that Dom had been using his old truck to start his own business, a "delivery service" of sorts, for the UGWC crowd, the tl;dr version is that the truck would frequently break down. One day, Dom needed his father's truck to do a delivery. Without asking permission, he "borrowed" it hoping to get the job done and have the brand new Dodge Ram back in the driveway before his Dad could notice.
Dom ended up flat on his back on the asphalt of Interstate 695. What was left of his father's Dodge Ram ended up burning in a ditch.
Dom, ever since "last straw day," never feared change.
Because mostly, any change had to be better than this.
So when Isla Burke, Dom's Sister's childhood friend, turned smoking hotty, turned into the secretary at Strife Delivery Service, turned the girlfriend that made Dom feel like the luckiest man in the world, asked him if he was sure that this is what he wanted, Dom had no hesitation in nodding his head.
Before them was a brand new box truck, pure white on the cab and box, it was a massive step up from trying to stuff old crap and trash into the back of a pickup; with a truck like this, the Delivery Service could finally get off of the ground. The only problem was a truck like this came with a massive price tag, and that didn't include the extensive price of upkeep on a brand new diesel. Everything was going to be more expensive just to own this damn thing, much less run it. That all came down to the one word that had been on Isla's mind since Dom asked her to date him a few months back.
That word?
Commitment.
Dom stepped forward and ran his hand across the panel on the driver's side door. He was already picturing how the Delivery Service decals would look on it, a step-up from the spray paint that was on the rear-quarters of his grandfather's old pickup before it, too, burnt to the ground last Valentine's day. (True story.)
"Yeah," he said, eyeing up the distorted reflection of his face in the shiny new paint that showed at the very least a half-smile. "Air-ride suspension, computer-guided smooth pneumatic braking system, spacious thirty-two-foot box. It's last year's model, but they bumped ten grand off of the sticker price. I don't even care that it's not a twenty-twenty-two. Like people are really gonna be able to tell the difference anyway."
Isla bit her lip, her eyes flickering upwards at the truck in all its glory. As much as she tried, she couldn’t stop her eyebrows from furrowing as she let out a sigh.
“Dom..” She started, turning towards him, “That’s not what I’m talking about. The truck.. It’s amazing. It’s everything we could’ve dreamed of for the delivery service. I’m talking about Carnage.. I just, I don’t want you to give up on your dream because..”
Her voice trailed off, and she looked away, placing her hand on the mirror, pretending to be examining it extensively.
"I'm not giving up on my dream." He turned to her, raising his smile from a half to a full one, if only for her sake. "Wrestling was just a way to make ends meet for a little while. Besides, If Miss Von Allen wants to offer me a buy-out, she's gotta be doing it for a reason, and I should take it."
Isla thought about his words for a few moments, finally nodding her head.
“Yeah, you’re right. It’s just, it was fun while it lasted, you know? There’s something really… sexy about watching you fight. But I guess I’ll just have to settle for one last match and go back to watching you carry heavy shit.” She finished with a sly smile.
Dom smirked. "Sexy, hmm?" He couldn't recall a time where she ever told him that watching him fight was attractive. More like watching him lose every big match he had ever been in since Carnage took a chance on him. What was sexy to him was when Isla finally agreed to come out as his valet in tight leather pants. Seeing her like that made his pants tight- er, I digress. "Well, that's the plan, for now. But with a new, bigger truck I can take on some bigger jobs which probably means we won't be the only two employees at Strife Delivery much longer."
“Well that’ll be great for the business… and not so great for all the alone time I’m gonna miss while we were the only two.” She replied, moving her hand from the mirror to the door of the truck. “But whatever you want, I’m all in Dom. Always have been.”
He did like fighting. In truth, it was bittersweet to be accepting the deal that would effectively put an end to his professional wrestling career. It would mean no more Entourage... no more being a member of professional wrestling's hot young supergroup lead by Sebastian Hawke and inspired by the multi-talented lead singer of the Broken Brash Axton Gunn. But it also meant that he could walk out with his health and what little bit of sanity he had left after a multitude of ordeals in such a short period of time. It meant no more letting down himself, Isla, or the fans after going 0-3 in CW championship match opportunities.
A part of him felt like he was quitting out, or otherwise walking away too soon. But he had to try to squash those feelings. Clearly, Carnage itself was going through its own changes. The offer had to mean the writing was on the wall for his departure anyway.
"I know you are, babe." He said as he ran his hand along the soft skin of her cheek. "The plan is to hire one new employee, and then maybe two."
He couldn't help but feel optimistic even though Baltimore was already filled with several start-up companies just like his.
"Eventually we'll hire a whole crew. Make enough money off of jobs to buy a second truck and hire a second crew." He continued. "I'll back myself out of the labor part so I can focus on running the company, hopefully, with you by my side. That's my real dream."
A smile crossed Isla’s lips as she wrapped her arms around him. “I’m not going anywhere.”
Dom leaned forward and kissed her. He was happy, but for the first time in a while he was content. Or at least he thought he would be once this Carnage deal was finally put behind him.
She kissed back and looked deeply into his eyes.
"So, did you tell Seb (Hawke) yet that you're done after this show?"
Dom's expression changed, almost like a bit of a cringe. Isla saw his reaction and pulled away, just enough to smack him on the chest with both of her open palms.
"Dom... Seb is your friend, you can't do him like that."
Strife's contorted facial expressions made for a terrible smile.
"When were you planning on telling him?"
"...at the show, maybe?" Dom shook his head. "I dunno. I just kind of figured that he'd be better off without me. All I ever did was hold him down."
Isla put her hands on her hips and pursed her lips.
"Oh yeah? Really? Was that Sebastian saying that or is that you saying that?"
Dom shrugged.
"What can I say? I don't think I was ever really cut out for it."
"You have got to be kidding me." Isla sighed as she threw her arms up. "I knew there was something off. Why didn't you say anything to me?"
Dom shrugged again, harder as if to emphasize the fact that he didn't know why he felt the way he felt half the time.
"Dom, you know I hate it when you don't talk to me about what's really bothering you."
"It was the last title match..." Dom said as he looked back towards the truck. "The one with Avenger... y'know... for the Baltimore City championship. I guess, I really thought that I wasn't just fighting for myself but I was fighting for my city. I thought I could be a champion for Baltimore, but it turns out what they really needed was a guy in green spandex."
Dom shook his head dismissively. For all of the money that professional wrestling brought, for all of the exposure it has brought for his business and for the friends he had made along the way... there were moments that were equally just as bad, if not worse. The bad ones seemed to happen a lot more often too.
Isla watched as Dom stared up at the truck. Now this idea didn't feel as much of a step forward for them as it was a cop-out. No wonder he hadn't been fighting lately. He probably asked Carnage to keep him off of the card.
She pieced together that maybe Dom was being offered his release because it was clear that his heart wasn't in it anymore. Dom was always the type that took failure hard and personal. She wasn't going to accept him putting up a front just for her sake.
"Look, forget about him," she said in reference to the Avenger. "That guy had years of experience. You had just come out of a smaller place, one you didn't spend a lot of time in. Just the fact that you could hang with the Carnage people was a big deal."
"Yeah, well, hanging only ever got me mixed up with the wrong crowds, getting my ass kicked when it mattered, and I did it all having to learn every lesson the hard way."
"Maybe," she said having moved back up to him to place a hand on his shoulder, "but you did learn them. Now are you sure this is what you really want?"
Dom looked over at her, then back at the truck, and back at her again.
"Let's just get through Incursion and see what happens," he replied with a pause in between, "but whatever happens, I just want you to know that my real dream is being with you. Everything else is just icing on the cake."