Title: Pretend
Rating: PG13 for a little bit of swearing
Content: slash, angst, briefest mentions of sex
Disclaimer: you know the drill, don't own, don't sue.
Pairing: Orton/Cena
Summary: They could never be what they wanted.
A/N: no idea where this angsty little piece came from.
He saw John reach out to touch him and tensed, cursing inside as he saw his lover realise where he was and snatch his hand back as if burned by a fire. He knew even after all this time John found it hard not to be able to touch and show his feelings the way he wanted to. Affection between them had to remain in private moments, and for someone who wore his heart on his sleeve, keeping his feelings secret was one of the hardest things in the world.
Randy wished he could make it easier. He knew it was killing his lover. He knew he was partly to blame for that.. He had it easy – the gorgeous wife, the daughter. It was all a great cover. And he knew that John worried that Randy saw him as something to keep him entertained on the road. Nothing he could say to John would remove the worry and fear from his mind. And god knows he'd tried. A hundred 'I Love You's' hadn't reassured the older man. Randy wasn't sure there was anything that would.
Back at their room Randy waited patiently for John to return: as always he'd had more media commitments and charity signings and appearances to do. Randy knew John did them because the busier he was the less time he had to worry and stress about things that might never happen. It kept up the façade. A façade that was becoming more and more precarious.
Finally he heard the click of a key card and the door was flung open, a bag carelessly thrown across the room. Randy looked up.
"Hey you."
John didn't respond, instead throwing himself face down on the bed, resting his forehead on his arms, exhaustion radiating from every part of him. He tried to calm the voices screaming in his head, the fear and anger in his muscles, the pain that shot through his heart. There was too much. It was all too much.
Randy could see his lover trying to hold it all together, struggling to keep some semblance of composure. John hated appearing weak, appearing human. He was a superhero to kids, never say die, never give up. That was why they'd ended up in this mess.
The viper sighed and walked over to the bed: sitting next to John, his back to the headboard, legs stretched out in front of him. .He knew better than to try and comfort the man lying on the bed, because to offer him comfort would be to suggest that John wasn't invincible, and this was something that Cena wasn't ready to acknowledge yet. So he sat,and waited.
This wasn't the first time Randy had seen his lover this way, but he worried because it was becoming more and more frequent. At first, the secrecy of their relationship had added spice and intrigue to their developing feelings, but as they became more comfortable with each other and their feelings intensified, the secrecy became a burden.
John didn't handle secrecy well. He was honest and wore his feelings like a badge of honour. To not be able to touch the one he loved in public was hard. To not even be able to acknowledge that he even existed was harder.
Slowly, John lifted his head, looking up at the one constant, sure thing in his life. The concern and worry in Randy's stormy grey eyes broke him a little more inside. He didn't want Randy to be worrying about him. He'd be ok. He'd pretend that he was ok.
Randy knew that John couldn't pretend to be ok for much longer. It killed him a little more each time, because he knew that he would never be able to give John what he wanted. They would never be able to be lovers outside of their hotel room liaisons. They had never been on a date, and would never be able to. But in the few illicit hours they shared together each night, he could give John everything in his being, and just hope to god that it would be enough.
"Come here," Randy's voice was gruff, choked with emotion, but he forced a smile to reassure his lover.
John nodded and sat up, straddling Randy's legs but not yet seeking an embrace. He tried to avoid the intense gaze that had settled on him as the viper tried to convey how he felt without speaking out loud. Unperturbed, Randy gently caressed John's cheeks, large hands carefully forcing their eyes to meet.
"I'm sorry, I'm exhausted, the interviewer from hell just collared me," John whispered, biting his lower lip.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, but you do work too hard." Randy forced a smile, relieved at the twitching of the corners of John's lips.
"I have to keep busy, you know that."
"I could keep you busy," Randy grinned suggestively.
"I'd end up never leaving the hotel room," John tried to look scandalised and failed.
"I know," Randy laughed, "I'm irresistible, what can I say?"
"Fucker."
"You love it."
"Yeah, I do," John smiled fondly and finally moved closer to his lover, capturing his lips in a soft but needy kiss. Randy put every feeling, every emotion he had into the kiss, trying to convey exactly how much the man in his arms meant to him. Their conversation would never touch on the subjects they really needed to talk about. They just pretended that everything was fine. They blocked out the rest of the world and for those few hours, everything was ok.
They would both lie awake at night, wondering how to raise the subjects that needed to be raised, and instead taking comfort on the fact that they were together. It wouldn't be forever, it wouldn't be perfect, and it would hurt more and more. So they carried on, taking comfort where it could be found, in each other. One day, it would all fall apart. Until then, they both carried on pretending. What else could they do?