I. /Visions/
Rated T for language, violence and sexually suggestive themes.
a/n: This personally has been a dream story arc of mine for the wrestling universe in general, for those of you that love Decay/Wyatts (two of the best modern stables IMO along with the Bullet Club, Shield and New Day) and delving into the background of those types of characters, hopefully you'll enjoy this! Basically this chapter alone is just an introduction to the story and will give you an idea of where it's going!
let me show you
you have to see
you have to know
It happened again, stronger than ever before.
It was the third time over the past few weeks she managed to lose control.
She had clumsily sank into the folds of her bed sheets when her eyes fluttered shut like an indigo curtain over daylight and swept her far beyond any conscious thought that reality was her home, somewhere quiet, where the wind weightless and feather-like glided into the brittle leaves of an oak and rustled through her soul as the stench of death pinched the air with the unapologetic astuteness of a tress-passing stranger.
He took her there again. He wanted her there.
He needed her to see. This time. Just this once.
She again was standing in the middle of a grassy pasture that shamelessly slithered through her bare toes, soaked in the luminescence of twilight skittering above her, before her a wooden shack charred beyond recognition, behind her a boundless cloak of looming darkness within the woods.
She heard all the noises in the distance, every single one of them, close and intimate like a wounded animal crackling branches in search of a safe haven, loud and reverberating enough to make her think a relentless beast of feral proportions was determined to finish the job.
And for whatever reason, this time her paralysis was entirely nonexistent.
She wasn't quite sure if this excited her or terrified her.
Maybe both.
A familiar force she couldn't quite make sense of, couldn't understand, guided her along to the blackened moderately sized deteriorating shed as if a terrible spell had been dropped over her being with the flick of an invisible wrist, and she stumbled forward to close the distance between it and her, fully relinquishing her control.
"As I went down to the river to pray...studying about that good old way...and who shall wear the starry crown...Good Lord...show me the way..."
An angelic voice from the wooden compound started to stream through the silence as she inched closer, cutting through the croaking and chipping of life from the damp soil beneath her feet, needlessly stunning the air,
"Ohh sister...let's go down...let's go down...come on down..."
It startled her, beginning to rebound off the walls of her psyche as well, almost piercing through her heart as if to signal the close proximity of her destination.
She could feel him beacon to her in the distance, call to her as at last she came face to face with the entry way to the tunnel of darkness, daring her to enter.
Demanding her.
Begging her.
Crying for her.
"Come on sister...let's go down...down in the river...to pray..."
Further.
Deeper.
Closer.
And...
...there he was.
Barely illuminated by the faint glow of his oil lantern in the middle of the cold moist soil on which withering wooden creaky boards once blanketed, he sat crisscrossed not too far away with his back facing her, visibly shaking. His long straggly dark brown hair hung unkempt down his back, wet. His head was down, his attention undoubtedly focused on what was currently in his hands, clutched as though his life depended on it. Grasped as though it was the only thing keeping the last remnants of his sanity in tact.
She hadn't even realized the lullaby had ceased to carry on.
Within the dead silence the sound of their breath circulating in and out of their lungs permeated the air with an eerie tension, a deep anticipation that brought shivers down her arms.
"I had...to release you..." he choked out, a voice that barely yielded from breaking. "I sent you somewhere safe. Somewhere warm. Where no one could touch you. No one could bother you."
She could smell the blood boiling in his veins. She could taste the poison in his heart, swallowing his soul. She could feel his mind clawing to hang on to the ledge.
"It's okay..." she broke into the quiet that followed after what felt like an eternity of their shallow breath penetrating the air. After she found the ability to produce a coherent thought. After her heart stopped beating well beyond 100 a minute. After it started to come back to her. After she had allowed him to choke down the sobs threatening to spill from his throat...
"I'm coming home...brother..."
Steve peered up at her with his twinkly smile, on his knees hugging her lap with the tingling warmth only an old camaraderie could share as the whispers made her spine curve forward with ease, made sure she dipped forward to rest her forehead against his so all his secrets were only hers to devour.
"We'll go farther without him, Rosie..." he swore as she exhaled against his warm exterior, "We'll go places we've never gone before. See things we've never even dreamed of."
"Most importantly," she added as he leaned further even more, as if he couldn't get enough of her, "We'll harness the power we always deserved."
Her giggles were muffled as a streak of the white paint on her cheek rubbed off on his neck and colored him faintly amused.
She was fond of his intensity more than words could express. It melted her insides when he held her like this, made these ambitious assurances with the passionate fever of a starving dreamer and she admired how he looked straight into her eyes, deep into her at times and could locate the bank of her thoughts when it constantly swam in a sea of buried memories. Lost moments.
Abyss had fallen out with them in the worst way possible. Had been the source of their waists being bare of gold. Had completely betrayed them and might as well have taken two daggers and twisted them square in their backs from the way he tried to batter Steve with Janice and publicly denounce ever being associated with them. Going solo again and letting accusations swarm and spin tales of manipulation and mind control like the self-involved, mindless approval-seeking schmuck he was, the large man proved to be nothing but a huge pain in their ass. Nothing but a joke. A disappointment.
Leaving the company together was their ultimate decision after realizing greater things...bigger opportunities...were out there.
"Strong are only those who succumb to what eats at them from within," she mumbled, completely and utterly out of the realm of realization that her body was in the repetitive swing of rocking back and forth crookedly like the chair of that broken man on TV with the smoky oil lantern and boundless fireflies roped around him.
"Nothing but human baggage," Steve responded through clenched teeth, hands wrapping around her arms to steady her. "Stupid son-of-a-bitch doesn't mean anything to us. Can never touch us. All this time and still doesn't understand what it takes...what it means to actually..."
"...decay," She finished breathlessly with a hungry glint in her eyes, a restlessness beyond satisfying. A delightful calm found it's way back into her heart. He pressed his face against hers again as a wicked smile curved his mouth.
"...Decay..."
She pressed her hand against his stubble-heavy cheek and pulled him in even closer, her lips teasingly sliding down his left ear as she whispered so low he would have to block out every other sound around them and focus the entirety of his attention on her to catch it.
"I know someone who does."