NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: This one-shot completely blindsided me! Main pair is Jay(Christian)/Luke, created by the awesome theytalktome on FFDN, AKA valiumforaviper on Deviant Art. She has a series of stories featuring Jay and Luke as a pair. In her series, Luke is fixated on Jay, and the Wyatt's kidnap him in an effort to make him Luke's lover. I got permission to use her series as a backstory, and this is an offshoot of one of her works called In The Beginning, and I plan on this being part of a longer piece if I receive enough feedback.

Rated T for language (a few f-words sprinkled here and there).

I don't own any of the characters. They belong to the WWE (World Wrestling Entertainment).

Broken Angel

Luke shuddered as he remembered the last time he saw Jay standing in a doorway.

Bray and Erick had seen fit to beat the older blonde into submission after he'd sassed them during a lesson. The patience of the man known as the Eater of Worlds had been finite, especially with this captive, and after Jay had called him a "fucking psycho," one time too many, what was left of his patience evaporated.

After their session of "discipline," which had lasted several days, Bray had dragged Jay upstairs into the room he forcibly shared with Luke. He'd stood there, unshaven, his face bruised, his lips split, chains dangling from his wrists and ankles. His once bright blue eyes were dull and colorless, and his tousled blonde hair was a greasy mess.

Jay slowly lifted his head to meet Luke's gaze, and Luke shuddered at the lack of depth in his lover-to-be's eyes.

"I love you, Luke Harper," he said, his words flat and emotionless.

And that's when Jay collapsed. He'd barely been able to hold himself upright against the door frame; the chains dangling from his limbs dragged him down, and too weak to support himself, he slumped against the doorjamb and slid to the floor, his body becoming deadweight as he struck the hardwood with a sickening thud. The chains attached to him clattered to the floor as well, jangling like a disjointed chorus of bells.

Bray quietly removed a key from the pocket of his pants and unlocked the chains binding the unconscious blonde. He smiled up at his First Son. "You won't have to worry about him running off now. He's all yours."

Luke climbed off the bed and fell to his knees in front of the broken man he'd wanted as his own from the moment he'd first saw him. Jay managed to rouse himself, twitching visibly. He didn't even flinch as Luke placed a big hand under his chin to lift his head. Jay was so out of it that he didn't register the look of horror on the face of Bray's First Son.

"What have you done to him?!" Luke demanded, the softness in his voice a stark contrast to the rage and shock that was cascading through him.

"He needed to learn that disrespect is not tolerated," Bray explained, simply. "It took some time, and some effort, but now he knows never to talk back. He knows now that this is his home. He knows to listen now, he knows to understand what I teach, and he knows to respect and obey me."

Luke studied Jay's blank expression, desperate to find a spark of life, of charisma, of anything that reminded him why he was drawn to the blonde in the first place. "You promised me that you'd help me win him over and make him love me."

"And I did, Luke. You now have his undying affection and love." Bray smiled. "Finally, you have what you wanted. He's your reward for your loyalty and hard work." He paused thoughtfully and clapped a big hand on Luke's shoulder. "I'll leave now. The two of you need some privacy so you can reconnect." With that, Bray turned and slipped quietly out of Luke's room, closing the door behind him.

Luke waited until Bray's footsteps clomped downstairs before he picked his broken angel up bridal style and carried him to his bed. His heart was an aching wasteland as he surveyed the damage that Bray and Erick had inflicted on Jay's body.

The First Son sat down, with Jay cradled in his lap, and he brushed a stray lock of hair from Jay's forehead. That seemed to rouse the fallen blonde a little more, and his pale lips quivered. "I'm so sorry," Luke whispered, his voice thick with emotion. "I promised you that they wouldn't harm you, and..." A lump rose in Luke's throat, and he forced himself to swallow it down. "I fucking failed you, Jay. I just wanted someone who'd love me. The last thing I wanted was Bray and Erick breaking you like this. You didn't deserve this, you don't deserve this, no matter what you did."

Finally, Jay's eyes focused on Luke's face. His lips parted, and he spoke:

"Obey...obey...obey...obey..."

The words, spoken so often at the compound that they were almost background noise, sent a chill through Luke's body like a skewer. In this context, in this moment, they were horrifying. "No, no," Luke shhhh'ed Jay, placing a couple of large fingers against the cracked and pale lips to quiet him. "Listen to me, Jay," he said, gently but firmly, forcing the broken man to follow his gaze. "Listen to me. I don't wanna hear you say those words to me again. I know that's what Bray wants, but I don't wanna hear you say those words to me."

Jay nodded, almost imperceptibly. He was about to utter something else, but Luke shhhh'ed him once more. He'd anticipated this. "Jay, I love you, but I don't want to hear you say I love you, unless you absolutely want to say it, and unless you absolutely mean it. I don't wanna hear I love you because someone beat it into you. Promise me that. Do you promise me?"

The silence that followed was excruciating, and for a moment, Luke thought that Jay had slipped back into the unresponsive state he'd been in when he fell to the floor. But then, Jay nodded. His voice was barely above a whisper. "I promise."

Luke dared to smile at his fallen angel as he climbed off the bed, Jay in his arms. Jay sighed and rested his head on Luke's massive chest. "Alright. Let's get you washed up. You'll feel a thousand times better once we get that dirt and grime and whatever off of you."

In the bathroom, Jay sat passively on the closed toilet seat as Luke drew a bath for him. He didn't fight or struggle as Luke helped him undress. As he removed Jay's clothing—first his pants, then his shirt, then his unmentionables—Luke took a visual inventory of the damage inflicted on the shattered man. Bruises on his legs and ribcage, choke marks on his throat. Cuts and abrasions on Jay's wrists and ankles from where he was chained. Lash marks on his back...Luke was going to find Erick and Bray and pummel them both into bloody smears on the wall after he was finished taking care of Jay.

He added a nice sized amount of body wash to the bathwater—it was dollar store stuff, but it would do nicely—and then lifted and placed Jay into the hot soapy water like he was a small child.

It took the better part of an hour, but Luke managed to wash away all of the dirt and grime from wherever Jay had been "disciplined" (he suspected he'd been locked downstairs in the cellar or in the shed where Bray conducted his lessons) from hair and skin. Luke found a razor and shaved Jay's face as best he could. If he was bothered by the fact that he was naked and being bathed by one of his captors, Jay didn't seem to let on. He just blankly accepted it as just another event in the insanity his life had spiraled into.

All the while, Luke kept up a steady stream of soft talk, speaking about anything that came to mind. It seemed to comfort Jay, and he relaxed slightly.

Once Jay was out of the tub and dried off, Luke helped him into one of his shirts. It was a black t-shirt, old and faded but clean; on Jay it was enormous. It came down to his knees and hung on him like a trash bag, but at least he was covered. Then, Luke picked him up again and carried him back into his bedroom. Already, Jay was nodding off; his head lolled forward and his eyelids drooped from fatigue. With a tremendous amount of tenderness, Luke set him on the bed and pulled the covers up around his shoulders.

"Rest," Luke told his angel gently, ruffling his now clean hair.

"...Luke..." Jay's voice was a whisper. "...Thank you," he managed, before he fell into a dreamless sleep.

Luke nodded, the lump in his throat coming back a thousand fold. He watched Jay sleep for a while, wondering what to do next. The shattered wreck in his bed was not how he'd pictured things. But there was no way in Hell he was going to cast Jay aside, not after all the effort that he and Bray and Erick had put forth to capture him. And he certainly wasn't going to cast him aside now.

He pondered for a while as he carded his big fingers through Jay's hair (it was longer now, and somehow it suited him better). The fact that Jay had thanked Luke for his kindness, and the unconscious gesture of curling up in his arms told Luke that the Jay he'd fallen for-the charming, charismatic, sharp-tongued one-was still there, buried under the wreckage that slept deeply on the bed.

As he kept watch, Luke had a sudden moment of clarity. How much do you love him? he asked himself. Do you only love the man you saw, the one that everyone else sees? Or do you love the man that he truly is? Are you going to throw him away if he's not perfect, or if he's broken? Or are you willing to love him with all his imperfections and heal him when he's broken? If you love him, then you'd better be in it for the long haul and be willing to put him back together.

If you aren't willing to accept anything less than perfection, well...maybe you never loved him in the first place.

Luke rarely cried. This was one of those rare occasions. Tears prickled his eyes as he bent down to kiss Jay on the forehead, the way a father would kiss his little boy at night. "I love you, Jay," he whispered, his decision made. "And I'm gonna fix you and bring you back. I won't let you down again. I promise."

And with that, Luke covered his face with his hands and wept silently.

NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Kinda of an abrupt stopping point, but like I said, I plan on making this part of a longer story. I know Jay/Luke is a rare-pair, and Jay works best as a top (my opinion), but the idea of these two together was quite intriguing.

BTW, anyone wanting Taker/Stephanie, well...the muses decided to go on vacation for a while, and they're rather quiet right now. I will get back to them (I owe people a few one-shots!), but Jay muse and Luke muse demanded my attention, and I'm not going to deny them.

Again, credit to theytalktome for her series of stories, and for In The Beginning, the one-shot upon which this story was based.

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