Title: Choices (1/1)
Rating: NC-13
Content: Slash, slight angst
Disclaimer: Don't own any of the characters mentioned herein and make no profit from this.
Distribution: my site, ffn, my lj, Camelot if they want it, others please ask before taking
Characters: Randy Orton, Shawn Michaels, Batista
Spoilers: set after Raw 1/3/2005 with mention of Raw 21/2/2005
Summary: When Batista made the thumbs down sign, who was he making a signal to? Although Randy has found someone else, does he still yearn for the Animal?
(shitty summary I know, but I can't think of any other way of describing it)

"You OK?"

Shawn looked up, his face still a mask of blood, "yeah, I'll live. Bladed just a little too deep." He forced a smile to reassure his young lover.

"Yeah?" Randy's face was the picture of concern. "You'll have to get stitches then. Want me to come with you to the hospital?"

"It's OK, the trainer can patch me up here. It's just a few stitches, no point going to hospital over it."

"If you're sure." Randy's voice softened. He didn't like to admit it, but he worried about his lover. "Shall I wait, or meet you back at the hotel?"

"Meet me back there. I've got a few people to see before I go anyway. Get that bed warm for me, yeah?"

Randy smiled, but there was a nagging doubt at the back of his mind. He couldn't escape the feeling that Shawn was trying to get rid of him.

Shawn washed all the blood off his face, and stared at his reflection in the mirror above the sink. He didn't like hiding things from Randy but he felt like he had no choice in this. After what he'd heard last week, he needed to speak to someone and make it clear that Randy was his and his alone. He tried to pretend to himself that he was hiding this from Randy for the young man's benefit, but he knew the real reason.

He was afraid that if he told Randy that Batista wanted him back, he'd lose the younger man.

"Michaels, I want a word." The man's gruff voice stopped Shawn in his tracks. "Where's Randy?"

"Gone back to our hotel," Shawn grimaced, "why?"

"I want to talk to him. Look," Batista took a deep breath, wanting to choose his words carefully, "I know I hurt him. I never got the chance to explain… I just want him back."

"He's with me now. He's happy. Leave him be."

"Is he happy Shawn?"

The question cut through Shawn's heart, as he'd been asking himself the very same thing over the last few weeks. Ever since Batista had made that gesture, the thumbs down. Shawn had instantly known that the gesture was for Randy. Randy had known too. He'd gone very quiet as he'd watched with Shawn, and had been reluctant to talk about it afterwards.

The silence was enough of an answer for Batista. "At least give him the choice. At least give me a chance to explain to him. If he loves you, he'll stay with you. But if he still has feelings for me… he deserves to be happy."

Shawn knew it made sense, even though it hurt. "OK. But… if he chooses you… and if you hurt him, I swear to God I will kill you."

Batista nodded. "I understand."

Shawn bit his lip before asking the next question. "Dave? Will you give me tonight? Talk to him tomorrow, please? If he's still in love with you, at least give me one last night with him. Give me something to remember him by."

Batista couldn't turn that request down.

Shawn silently let himself into the room he shared with Randy. He expected the young man to be asleep, but all the lights were on and Randy was sat on the bed, alert and worried.

"Hey," Shawn was tired now, the brutal match with Edge really beginning to tell on him. "I thought you'd be asleep by now."

"Wanted to wait up for you. We need to talk."

Shawn flinched, a thousand scenarios going through his head, none of them good. He kicked off his shoes and socks, threw his jacket over a chair and sat down on the bed opposite the young man. "It sounds like you have something on your mind." He tried to keep his voice level, trying not to betray the fear coursing through his veins.

"Are you cheating on me?" The question was blunt, but the emotion behind it was unmistakeable. Randy attempted to hold in his feelings, attempted to keep his defiant, 'you can't hurt me no matter what you tell me' air, but he failed. Shawn could read him like a book.

"God no." Shawn was sent reeling by the question. He didn't know where it had come from, what could make Randy suspect such a thing. "Randy, I love you. I wouldn't do that."

"So what's going on?" Randy's pretence at control broke and pain flashed across his face. "You've been preoccupied, secretive, and I'm worried. Have I done something wrong?"

"No, no." It hurt Shawn to see Randy blaming himself for this. "Darlin', you've done nothing wrong. But, this is something about you."

"Batista?"

Shawn nodded in surprise, and then cursed himself for being so naïve. Randy was an intelligent and perceptive young man, he was bound to guess. He'd seen Batista's message to him, and had interpreted it correctly.

"He's sorry? He wants me back?" There was a trace of Randy's brash cockiness in those statements, as if it was inevitable.

"Yeah. I spoke to him today. He wants you back… he's sorry for what he did. Tomorrow, he's going to talk with you and tell you."

"How do you know?"

"I spoke to him. He was looking for you."

"So where is he? Why hasn't he called to meet up with me?" Randy was still suspicious. He knew Dave well. He knew that it often took him a long time to make his mind up about something, but once he did, he didn't wait.

"I asked him to wait till tomorrow." Shawn stared at the floor, refusing to look into Randy's eyes.

"Why?" There was a hint of anger in Randy's voice, but something else too, that Shawn couldn't quite place. Then he worked out what it was. Fear.

"Because…" Shawn's voice was weak, he felt wrong for admitting this, "because I wanted one last night with you… because if you went back to him, I wanted something to remember you by."

"You'd let me go?" As perceptive as he was, Randy was struggling with this. "I thought you loved me."

"I do." Shawn knew that words wouldn't be enough to convince his young lover, so he moved closer to him, sitting right in front of him and taking his head in his hands, brushing his cheeks with his thumbs. "I do love you Randy, I love you so much that I'd let you go, if it would make you happy."

"And you think that being with Dave would make me happy?" Randy was motionless, he could feel Shawn's hands caressing him but couldn't react to it.

"I saw how hurt you were. When they betrayed you, when they threw you out of Evolution, when he put his career before his relationship with you… I saw all that. I saw the hurt in your eyes, I saw the pain you felt… you tried to hide it but the façade soon broke." The older man stared into Randy's eyes. "When we got together, I watched you as you tried to hide your pain from me but I knew that you still loved him. I knew I'd always be second best, but I knew that this was my only chance to be with you." Shawn laughed, mirthlessly. "I always knew that one day you'd wake up and want to be with someone young, with him. I'm old and jaded and I'll taint you if you stay with me. You're young, you don't need to spend your life worrying about a man who struggles to get out of bed on a morning cos his back's so agonising. I admit, I never expected to fall in love. The Heartbreak Kid doesn't fall in love, he loves and he leaves. But you, I couldn't leave. You got under my skin like no one else ever could."

Randy finally found the strength to react and pulled Shawn close. He was shocked, and didn't really know what to say, the only thing he was sure of was that he needed Shawn close to him right now.

"Shawn… why didn't you ever tell me any of this?" he murmured.

"I didn't want it to end."

"It's not going to Shawn, at least not right now." Randy let go of Shawn for a moment, and then kissed him. "Darlin', I wouldn't go back to him. Yes, I still love him, but it's over. You're the one I love… I love you differently to the way I love him. With Dave… the sex was hot, and we had fun, but that was all. With you, it's a whole other world. It's like every emotion and feeling I ever had with Dave, but magnified, and on a deeper level. I'll confess, I didn't expect to fall in love either. When we got together all I wanted was to be loved and wanted… but the more I got to know you the more I needed you and the more I fell in love with you."

"So… no matter what he says tomorrow…"

"No matter what he says, nothing will change how I feel about you." Randy grinned, feeling like a massive weight had been lifted from him. When Batista had made that sign to him, Randy had been forced to assess where he stood with Shawn, and when the older man had been acting strangely he had been afraid that Shawn had tired of him. Now he knew. And he'd heard something from the older man that he'd never had any inkling of. The Heartbreak Kid wasn't as confident as he appeared. "I love you Shawn. Even though you think you're old and jaded. As far as I'm concerned, you're everything I've ever wanted."