Jonathan-Christopher Hall
PRIME Wrestling @NumberOnePRIME
Jonathan-Christopher Hall & Darin Zion, aka 2Become1 are the first team voted off the Survivor Tag Team Invitational! #PRIMESurvivor #NumberOneByDefintion #CultureShock2022
That Guy Craig @ThatGuyCraig56
Replying to @NumberOnePRIME
Can we cut them from PRIME? Seriously tho
Impartial Wrestling Fan @bestwrestlingsource
Replying to @NumberOnePRIME
GOOD RIDDANCE 2 GARBAGE
Yannick Fillimore @yannickfillimore
Replying to @NumberOnePRIME
Shouldn’t have been there from the start
TXSportsXXXtreme69 @TXSportsXXXtreme69
Replying to @NumberOnePRIME
Thought JCH was a top prospect, thought Darin Zion was a draw? Guess not.
Jake @istripnaked247
Replying to @NumberOnePRIME
If Vickie can’t take the heat, none of them will last long
Mike Wrenner @indrlightsdefence
Replying to @NumberOnePRIME
Fucking bums
NAECO EHT YB EKAC
A true love story
An honest friendship
Don’t worry, nobody holds a grudge like Vickie
— — — — —
PRIME Headquarters
Boardroom
Las Vegas, NV
This isn’t gonna happen EVERY time
December 27, 2021
February 22, 2022
April 9, 2022
14:00
Jonathan-Christopher paces wildly. He’s the only person in the boardroom, the same room he was in when he signed a PRIME contract. The same boardroom he was in when Vickie and The Timid Tiger returned a month later, pretending they were never there before, wanting to run it back, fix their journey and start anew. Is this what he’s doing, again? Culture Shock couldn’t be real. And yet, losing the 5-Star Championship match was real. Voted out of Survivor first was…
Well…
Jonathan-Christopher paces wildly.
There’s a slight knock on the door before a man with blonde hair enters. These past two boardroom interactions, a couple of men had come to know the Hall’s rather well. Devin and Calvin, representatives from the talent relation team. Devin Stern, brown hair, wiry frame. He was a former amateur wrestler but making it to the pros was never going to happen due to a knee injury. Calvin Harris (no relation), however, had no interest in wrestling as a child. He still doesn’t. This was merely a job he could attach himself to for the time being. Calvin is six foot, twenty-two years old, muscular but always wears a suit one size too big so nobody would ever approach the topic of suggesting he becomes a professional athlete. Calvin enters the room, finding Jonathan-Christopher a nervous wreck, shaking profusely upon sight.
“Jonathan-Christopher, hi, uhhh…” Calvin catches on rather quickly, regarding the last time the Amazing Life Partner’s were in this very same room, they acted as though it was the first time they met. Vickie Hall hatched a plan to ignore Jonathan-Christopher’s first loss at the hands of now World Champion, Brandon Youngblood (Unfair! The Hall’s should receive their World Title match immediately). Calvin is unsure if this is a similar angle the Hall’s want to play. He tilts his head and narrows his eyes, trying to look at Jonathan-Christopher’s face. Eventually, the Forever Man sees Calvin.
“Nice to… meet… you…” Jonathan-Christopher’s body language begs Calvin to play along. “My name is Jonathan-Christopher.”
Long pause as the PRIME wrestler attempts to collect himself but can’t seem to do so.
“And you are?”
Calvin is already thinking about another job he can find but nevertheless, he answers in a friendly tone. “Calvin. Calvin Harris.”
Jonathan-Christopher’s ears perk. “Oh, any relation to the-”
Calvin cuts him off like he’s heard this a million times. “No. None.”
JC laughs awkwardly and tries to make small talk. “So it’s like an Office Space thing, then?”
The PRIME rep is twenty-two years old. He doesn’t understand the reference. The only reason Hall knows? Vic loves Jennifer Aniston. “Sorry?”
The Timid Tiger is worked into even more of a frenzy. The joke was ruined. This whole situation has already blown up in his face. What an embarrassment Hall is.
Jonathan-Christopher smiles. Giggles. Licks the palm of his hand and slicks back his hair. Yeah, it’s really uncomfortable behaviour.
“I’m just gonna go…” Calvin states, attempting to figure out whatever the hell is going on. “Unless there’s something I can do for you, sir? Would you like to sign a contract? A match? Uhhh…”
Jonathan-Christopher marches around the boardroom table, past the promotional images of previous PRIME events. Past the Brandon Youngblood poster which JCH views out of the corner of his eye for a split millisecond. It gives the Vow of Virtue a RUSH of anxiety. So much anxiety, he almost blacks out. But he powers through. He’s tougher than he thinks. He powers through for her. For them.
And he grabs Calvin by the collar, dragging the rep directly in front of him. They stare each other down, nearly nose-to-nose as Jonathan-Christopher continues to tremble. Calvin feels concern for the ALP. He has the sense Jonathan-Christopher is here against his will. Out of some sheer force, demanding he step foot inside the same boardroom he’s been in two times already, going through the motions, trying to right wrongs he can’t rewrite. Instead of accepting his fate, the reality is Jonathan-Christopher isn’t a very good wrestler and doesn’t have a lot, if any, social support inside the PRIME organization, so he’s here to beg, plead and “begin” his journey again.
“You have… to… help me,” JC croaks the words forward. But as he stares into Calvin, he finally realizes how foolish he’s being. His hands shake as he releases the man by his dress shirt and proceeds to dust the rep off.
This time, Jonathan-Christopher speaks much more succinctly.
“I need a contract. I need a match. And I need a bottle of water,” his eyes, however, are still as desperate as ever. “Please.”
Calvin smiles politely. “You got it.”
He turns to exit the room, placing a hand on the doorknob.
“Wait,” Jonathan-Christopher stops him. “This is stupid; I’m being a fool.”
Hall laughs VERY uncomfortably and then starts to slam his right arm against the side of his skull… a little too forcefully if you ask Calvin.
“You shouldn’t have to do anything for me, Calvin Harris,” the Forever Man is trying to be presentable and calm, although calling the PRIME rep by his full name is rather socially odd. “I don’t need a contract. I know I’m scheduled with Darin Zion to wrestle against The Hollywood Bruvs. I’m wasting your time and I’m sorry. I know who you are. You know who I am.”
Jonathan-Christopher’s eyes dart around the room. It’s like he thinks there are hidden cameras or a sniper rifle and the end is moments away.
“This whole thing was…” Hall puts his right palm over his face and slowly pulls his hand down, his fingertips dragging against whatever skin it catches. The man is an absolute disaster. Calvin’s about to give him a toll free number for the local crisis call line he’s so worried. “I need to leave. Now. I- I have to get back to her. She doesn’t like it when I don’t reply fast enough. In fact, OH MY GOD it’s been more than ten minutes!”
Jonathan-Christopher shrieks the final sentence from his mouth. He furiously digs into his pocket. Because he’s so distraught, this takes him twice, if not three times as long to properly find his phone, go through facial recognition and see the little red dot with the number of missed messages beside the green and white blurb logo. His eyes go wide. They bug out so far, it’s practically cartoonish. Calvin’s already into his own phone looking for a crisis call number when Jonathan-Christopher pushes his screen into Harris’ face.
“Three-hundred,” Hall cackles, working into his mental breakdown further. “Oh, wait, three-hundred-and-one. Three-hundred-and-two. And-three. Four. Five. Six. Se-Ei-Nin-Ten.”
Jonathan-Christopher can’t keep pace with the messages rolling in.
“All this because I LOST A COUPLE MATCHES AND WAS VOTED OUT OF SURVIVOR!”
The meltdown rolls on. Jonathan-Christopher nervously pulls at his hair. He doesn’t have a clue what to do next. All he can do is stare at the little red notification dot count upwards rapidly.
Calvin places a hand on Hall’s shoulders.
“Listen, I’m going to get you that water, okay? You can relax here. Take all the time you want. If your wife-” Harris catches himself. “Amazing Life Partner wants to give me a call after, too. You steer me in the right direction, I’ll tell her whatever she needs to hear, okay?”
Jonathan-Christopher doesn’t respond. Instead, Calvin leans his head down in an attempt to find Hall’s attention.
“Does this sound like a plan?” Calvin asks.
“I know-” The Timid Tiger tries to pull it together, for his own sanity. However, he continues to sniffle and sob throughout. “I know she’ll want reassurance this is your first time talking to her.”
“No problem.”
“I know she would like more television time allocated to our family friend, Darin Zion.”
“I’ll speak to production.”
“I know she would want me placed in easier matches.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
“I know she would really like to occupy the atrium of the MGM Grand Arena on ReVival six and likely beyond this to display our true love since we no longer have the Almasy Tournament or SurViVor as a platform to display such a romantic partnership.”
A mouthful but bless JC’s heart he did it.
“I’ll grab a water for you and come back with a few solutions, okay?”
Jonathan-Christopher nods yes while brushing away a remaining teardrop.
“Take it easy, Mr. Hall,” Calvin says warmly as he walks to the entrance. “I’ll be back when I can.”
The Folsom native nods again and mouths a “thank you” to Calvin, before the staff member exits the door and it closes behind him. Outside in the hallway, Calvin takes a moment to close his eyes and take a deep breath of his own.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, the woman has destroyed him.”
Calvin flees. Meanwhile, inside the boardroom.
“Psst. Psst.” A voice is heard flowing through the room. “He’s gone, right?”
JC leans back in his chair and smiles. “He’s gone.”
Vickie removes herself from underneath the boardroom table. She wraps her arms around Jonathan-Christopher.
“I love you so much, baby,” she reminds as they rub their noses together. “You’re quite the little actor. And I would know, with all the role playing we’ve done lately.”
No one else is around so this comment is definitely not too cringe.
“He’ll be a while, baby,” Jonathan-Christopher says. The two embrace in a hug, standing and swaying from side to side. “Nobody ruins your dreams. Our Hallmark journey will happen.”
“Oh it will,” Vickie pronounces. “Brandon Youngblood has a bullet. Our former SurViVor team has a bomb coming their way. And PRIME, baby, is going down harder than you on a Friday night.”
She howls manically before dropping down to her knees…
…and finding her place underneath the boardroom table again.
“Won’t say a peep, baby,” she winks at her ALP. “You’re doing great.”
“We’re gonna burn this place down, honey,” Jonathan-Christopher exclaims. “Not literally.”
Vickie concurs. “Oh no, we’ll burn it down for real, if we so desire.”
“I love you.”
“And I love you.”
— — — — —
PRIME Headquarters
Staff Parking Lot
Las Vegas, NV
April 9, 2022
19:10
Devin Stern was always the arrive early, stay late type of employee. It’s easy to do when your first love is wrestling. Even easier to do when he has a job like PRIME. They treat him excellently. He spent a few months over in [REDACTED] but their organization was poorly managed. He was overworked, underpaid and never acknowledged.
It’s two hours and ten minutes past checkout time but Devin worked on some additional details for ReVival #6. PRIME has taken off and their first rebooted pay-per-view was a massive success. Feeling positive about the effort he put in today, Stern arrives at his blue Civic Sedan. He opens the car door and slips inside.
“Hey there.”
“HOLY FUCK!”
Devin spins around and sees a man sitting in the back seat of his car. He immediately reaches forward and begins wrangling the intruder’s neck.
“Easy, easy,” the man is not putting up much of a fight. “It’s me, your new buddy…”
Devin slowly lets go of the hold.
“Darin Zion.”
Stern removes his hands. He recognizes Zion from High Octane Wrestling and knows he has recently signed to PRIME, too.
“Dude,” Devin states in a tone of voice conveying he was extremely rattled and now has talked himself down. “What are you doing in my car?”
Zion laughs. “Is this your car? Dude, Where’s My Car?”
Another pop culture reference likely lost on someone else who is also twenty-two years old and never seen the Ashton Kutcher movie. After worrying for his life, the staffer has understood the context better and grows rather annoyed by Zion, who took the time to break into his vehicle. He stares a hole into DZ’s forehead. Eventually, the man with the moniker ‘REAL LOVE’ takes the hint.
“No need to be defensive, guy,” Zion says, raising his hands slowly as if being held at gunpoint. “Darin Zion’s not here to be annoying. Darin Zion’s never annoying.”
Devin turns to face the front. He eyes the wrestler through his rearview mirror.
“What do you want?”
Zion shrugs.
“Wasn’t my idea to break in,” REAL LOVE pauses and looks around the back seat. “You could really use a clean up. Lots of fast food wrappers. You used to be an amateur wrestler, no? Eating like this isn’t good for your physique. Or the ladies. Zion would know. Zion’s all about the love.”
Devin’s a few more sentences away from putting his own face through the windshield. Or Zion’s. Win either way.
“I was gonna wait outside the car, you know,” Darin continues. “But you sure take your sweet ass time leaving work. REAL LOVE does not wait!”
Devin doesn’t know why he’s going to humour DZ but he’s gonna. “I enjoy working for PRIME, it’s my dream job since…” Devin raises his right knee and points to the brace underneath it. “Complete tear, three years ago. Really wiped away any chance I could at competing inside the ring.”
Devin turns to look at the fast food bags in his backseat.
“So this doesn’t matter.”
Zion smiles politely. Darin’s trying to be genuine. “Sucks man, sorry. I didn’t mean the low blow.”
“Don’t worry about it,” Devin responds. The two sit in silence for about a minute. It’s not an awkward silence so much as there may not be anything left to say, on Devin’s end at least. Finally, Zion opens the side door and smacks Stern on the shoulder.
“I’m gonna leave, okay?” Darin remarks and Devin, who seems to be falling into a mild depression, is mute. But before REAL LOVE can place a foot outside the car, Stern’s eyes meet the wrestler through the mirror.
“Honestly, though, what did you want?”
“Naaa, no big deal, buddy,” Zion replies.
“No, really.”
“No. I’m sorry I broke in.”
“It’ll help me take my mind off things-”
“Okay, okay, okay,” Zion says with a friendly wink. “Vickie asked me to wait by your car. She knows you deal with the public relations team.”
Devin tries to battle the dark thoughts about no longer being able to wrestle. “Yeah, I do. Half my work is in the PRIME PR. We’ve been pushing Culture Shock hard, I think it was really successful. Now we’ve got our work cut out for us because over the summer, interest in programming across the board can waiver. But we’re determined to-”
“Awesome, really, really cool man,” Zion can’t help but interject. “So Vickie was worried about my image. You know it’s not a good look for Darin Zion to have been voted out of SurViVor so quickly…”
Devin continues nodding. It’s likely Zion could say anything and Stern would seemingly agree.
“I was only planning to ask you if Zion could have a little more promotional appeal. I’m not on a lot of PRIME posters. My mug shot isn’t even on the PRIME website right now. This makes Zion a sad Zion.”
Darin frowns. Devin, of course, nods.
“No problem, I’ll see what I can do,” Stern replies.
DZ finally places his first foot out of the car door. “Wicked!”
The Love Monster smacks Devin in the arm for a second time. He smiles a toothy grin in the rearview mirror before exiting.
“Now that’s REAL LOVE,” Zion says to Stern through the driver’s window. He blows Devin a kiss and walks away from the car… with a clever grin across his face, as if he knew every button to hit on the PRIME representative and premeditated the entire interaction.
— — — — —
Hall Condo
Las Vegas, NV
April 14, 2022
09:05
Darin Zion sits beside Jonathan-Christopher Hall at the Hall’s dining room table.
“Does she typically take this long?” Zion asks while looking through apps on his phone. The Timid Tiger doesn’t reply. Vickie has scheduled 2Become1’s week. Knowing they are no longer in the tag team “gauntlet”, knowing Jonathan-Christopher lost the 5-Star Championship match, there wasn’t a lot of good to be had. Vickie’s lifelong dream, her wonderful, magical journey was a nightmare.
WAS a nightmare.
But this can all change after next week.
“There she is,” Jonathan-Christopher announces with bated breath. He is absolutely beside himself. Pretty Pink looks so stunning, so amazing, so beautiful. He watches her every move as she makes her way from the bedroom. Hot pink tights, tiny light pink top, it’s her favourite colour. She wears shades of it wherever they go. Vickie approaches the desk with notes in hand. Two hot pink folders. She hands one to her ALP, she hands the other to Darin Zion… if Zion could take his eyes off his phone.
Jonathan-Christopher nudges his tag partner. REAL LOVE looks up and places the phone on the table.
“Sorry,” he says.
Vickie blushes. “Oh look at you two, bonding already,” she claims, seeing how Jonathan-Christopher helped his teammate. “You two are such good friends.”
Zion’s indifferent and Jonathan-Christopher agrees with whatever his woman would say.
“Now, I’ve prepared the scouting reports, with minor involvement from the Nathan Filmix fellow,” she adds as the Vow of Virtue double takes her. “He’s a strange fellow, Nathan is. Real loner. Not attractive in the slightest.”
Jonathan-Christopher’s mind is put at ease. Both he and Zion open the scouting reports.
“So you’ll be facing The Hollywood Bruvs. Originally became household draws in DEFIANCE.”
“Fuck DEFIANCE!” Zion can’t help but shout as he flips through the material.
“Attaboy, Darin,” Vic proudly responds. “Love the fire, great work. Fuck DEFIANCE!”
“Yes, fuck DEFIANCE!” Jonathan-Christopher also chimes, not wanting to be left out.
“Mikey Unlikely and Jesse Kendrix. They are interesting chaps, let me tell you,” Vickie rambles on. Zion finds a picture with Mikey and Kendrix holding belts above their heads.
“Are they…” Zion scratches the back of his neck. “In love?”
She laughs. “They might be, I’m not sure.”
The two wrestlers continue to sort through documents.
“They are quite silly?” Jonathan-Christopher provides a statement but turns it into a question at the last second with a higher pitch.
“They are formidable,” Vic rebuts. “They know each other very well. Might as well be married. In wrestling terms, they are married. They go everywhere together. It’s kinda gross.”
Pretty Pink walks around the table and places a hand on Zion’s back and the other hand on Jonathan-Christopher’s.
“But we are going to build something special,” Vickie’s voice turns sour as she runs through the most recent events. “Voted out of SurViVor because of BOULDER pushing!?”
From zero to one-hundred, the Woman of Wonder has worked herself into a legitimate crisis. Her face is pure red, her arms tremble. The Timid Tiger hugs her woman tightly and Zion tries to provide encouraging body language.
“It’s okay, baby,” Jonathan-Christopher reassures. “Zion and I did what you asked. The plan is in motion.”
Tears fall from her face. She’s heavily congested. This is no act, not like Jonathan-Christopher’s in front of Calvin Harris. Not even Zion’s coy behaviour to Devin Stern. This response is TRUE.
Hurt.
Anger.
Disgust.
It’s hard to feel anything positive when you are so unwelcomed in the promotion.
But she does have a plan.
And they are going to implement it.
“We’re gonna get those fuckers,” Zion affirms. “Every last one of them.”
“And it starts with the Bruvs, right?” Vickie needs reassurance.
“Oh, it starts with them,” Zion balls both hands into fists. He fist bumps Jonathan-Christopher with one of them. “Darin Zion’s PR goes up. You two receive your Hallmark movie.”
Vickie takes a moment to soak in those comments. She’s feeling a little more comfortable. After another minute in her ALP’s arms, as if she deleted the past entirely, a devious smile crosses her face. They will get their Hallmark Journey but now it comes with a caveat.
At everyone else’s expense.