Hi. This is my new story, I guess. Confusing? Yes. Clarified later? Yes.
Blame It On the Rain
Prologue
What a splitting day.
Had he wanted the Battle Royal? No. Had he wanted the night off? Yes, and he believed he deserved it. The cage match had its repercussions, and they lasted days. A week ago he had defeated Christian inside a steel cage, and a week ago he had injured himself, both in body and spirit. Tired and weary, he had requested the day off. He had taken the house shows off, but there was still the fact that televised shows were more stressful than most house shows. He had requested, and his request had been denied. Astoundingly denied, in fact.
And her.
Her name was venom. It hissed and crackled and snapped in the air, a snake that had been dormant for a long while and then resurfaced. Couldn't he just forget her, forget the way her hair hung long and silky from her head, the way her eyes sparkled in delight, or melted in anger, forget the way that she moved when she was happy, and sulked when she was sad?
Couldn't he just forget her?
It had been so long ago. And she was gone forever, had to be. No more playful advances, no more. There couldn't be, couldn't be at all. There could be nothing threatening, didn't he know it? The top in the in the company would seek him out, and having the prize threaten and acknowledge him was too tiring. Too tiring for any real thought, didn't he know? He had enough to deal with, had enough to stress with.
He thought that Trish would distract him. The blonde giggly girl had, for awhile, for a few blissful days. Days full of a cuddling little body, days full of blonde with blonde, having been stared at in the street. He thought it would distract him, take his mind from what he couldn't have. Had it? For a few happy hours, he had. He could lie in bed with another woman and not dream and wish for another, and he could sit during hours alone and not have his mind tormented by thoughts of what could have been. For a few days, the hair and sparkling blue eyes had captivated him, had held him and comforted him.
After they had been stolen away, there was nothing to distract him from the ache inside that never filled. Nothing to take away the pain. He could sleep, take the pills that the doctor prescribed, and he would still never be filled. He doubted that he ever would be filled, doubted it with such certainty that there were days in which the knife glistened on the counter and the pill bottles gleamed from the shelf. He would look at them, look at both of them, consider the dosage of the pills, consider how much force into the knife would cut through the tendons and muscle, and then the phone would ring, or he would remember something he hadn't done. Remembering thing not done usually sent his mind away from the glistening metal and the instructions on the bottles.
Nothing took away the pain, not anymore. Nothing retained his attention. Nothing took it away and he doubted anything ever would. The doctor told him that he was losing weight, losing weight and sleeping increasingly little. The doctor had recommended a psychiatrist, a highly prestigious and thousands of dollars an hour psychiatrist. He had taken the suggestion and not tuned an ear to anything else his doctor said. He didn't need a psychiatrist to tell him what was wrong with him. He knew well what was wrong with him and he didn't need any reminding.
The Battle Royal was just a meaningless distraction, a meaningless distraction that lasted for a few hours, the pain in his body just enough to dull the pain in his mind, and then he returned to the darkness that seemed eternally attached to his life. The pills returned to his mind, and the steel with the black handle, lying haphazardly within his reach. Sometimes he put it away, mindlessly, trying to make his mind forget about it. He hid the pills and then chanted another place, to try and hide the real place that the pills were hidden in. It never worked.
He found the pills in odd places, stuffed inside a bag of apples sometimes, or underneath his computer stand, tangled in the wires and cords. Sometimes he found the knife underneath the mattress, or underneath his stereo system, tucked securely away, but sometimes not enough. He'd sit alone in his house for days and hours and sometimes he thought he heard voices calling him from where the knife and pills hid.
The voice was sly and cunning, radiating through the air, whispers sailing past his ears. He sometimes thought that the voices were the ones telling him to do it, but that was stupid, didn't he know it? That was only in movies. And if it was true, it was the loneliness affecting him. It was the pain and the suffering that made him hear the voices. Nothing to worry about, ever.
He worried about her, worried about her brown eyes and sleek hair, and about the prize, the top, the one with the hair and the eyes and the nose, a nameless face, a face that had stolen her from him, a face whose name only came when he cared for it, a name that taunted him in his sleep, that usually prevented him from sleep for days and nights and hours, that kept him up until his throat burned, until his arms grew rubbery and clumsy, and his eyes grew blurry and he could never keep his head up. He fell into sleep then, and the nameless face came to mock him, with its laughing blue eyes and leering mouth. He would sleep and wake to find the sheets twisted around him, pillows tossed on the floor, his arms hanging off the bed in awkward positions.
He had sleepless nights and sometimes barely made it to work because of it. They asked him questions, questioned how he was, the ones who were truly his friends. They asked him questions, asked him what he was doing to himself, and he answered that his nights were troubled by nameless demons and they laughed at him, clapped his back, and went away chortling.
He could find nothing in himself that proved otherwise, for the demons. He was sleepless, his days were horrors, and the Battle Royal was the time for an end, he decided. He'd quit the next day, or take a leave. See the psychiatrist, chase the pills and knife away from his mind long enough to do so.
He dreamed of her most often, dreamed of her sleek hair and sprightly skin, when he did sleep. His thoughts came confused and stupid and slow, and he wandered the day with others dictating his actions and throwing his clothes. He was in some sort of labyrinth, a labyrinth with spiked walls, and he could never escape.
The day of the Battle Royal, he stayed sleepless and taunt and the demon face laughed at him in the waking hours this time. He pawed at it, tried to remove it, and failed miserably.
He thought of her as the demon face attacked him, thought of her endlessly, and it was all he could to not take the pills. To stay the knife. It was everything. Her face, her flawless, perfect face, mixing with the nameless demon's, mixing, a mix of pain and horror. The demon had become her, turned into her.
The Battle Royal was supposed to be his last battle, the last testament to what he loved and held dear. It was supposed to be the last, drive away a ping of darkness, so that he could fill his blackened hole with some light.
The Battle Royal became the fight that he never knew he could fight.