He was scared of dying - but he didn't want to live.
His knees are pressed deep into his chest, tightly smothering his own body against it's self, against the corner of the walls furthest from the door. His crisp, white teeth gnawing down into his own lips despite the copper taste of the blood trickling into his mouth with each bite. Inadvertently mutilating himself was becoming as passive as breathing, though the simple task of inhaling was becoming harder to do each day with the feeling of his rib cage against his upper thigh, or any other surface he chosen for the hard act of sleep.
His blue eyes fix on the floor boards, each separation, the details that had been visible in the darkness his eyes had long since adjusted to, there had not been much light in the compound - even in the daylight. He couldn't bare to even stare out of the window covered with thick, dull colored shades - life was too pointless to count the days; he hardly remembers a time when he was counting them. Sitting alone in darkness, clawing at his own body and just crying was not worth counting.
Christian Cage woke up every morning afraid he was going to live.
His hands slide up his cold arms, bones cracking as he adjusts, unwrapping them from around his knees and failing at generating any of his own body heat to warm his frozen body in the humid, hot room. He winces as his bruised palms brush against the tattered skin of his forearms, lacerations healing themselves from an attempt at release that wasn't worth trying for. He takes a shaky breath, hardly being able to exhale from his nose stuffed up with the mucus and snot that had not run down his face while he cried the remaining bits of his soul to an empty bedroom. The only bit of cloth to wipe anything on had been a dingy old t-shirt, stained with something that left a lingering smell behind each time he attempted at wiping his face. He was so fucking tired.
He had already disappeared - and no one had started to look for him. Had they even found him, it would have been too late. He was pushing everyone away on the nights he was released from this hell. He doesn't know what consumes him or the words used to do it, although they're so simple. He had no contact with the world outside of this darkness, no phone, no computer, he had not been home in roughly three months - where had his supposed friends thought he had gone? Did even his closest friends, Edge, Jericho - anybody - really think he had up and abandoned his home, his things, his beloved cats, all on some whim?
In a room lit only by candlelight, where he had been forced to kneel down at the feet of a leader and savior; he was instructed to give up on his best friends. His blue eyes glared hard into the floor as the words radiate over him, floating without sinking. His entire body snaps to attention when it had all made so much sense: he had not needed to give up on them because he had not cared; he loved them, he did - he had. Christian had to give up on Edge, on Jericho, on everyone right then and there because they had not cared for him. They truly had not cared, and suddenly everything Bray Wyatt had said, had been preaching all along, was pure, unmarred truth. He's standing in front of the larger, taller man who has a smile spreading across his face. His First and Second Son slowly rise beside the captive blonde. The veteran wrestler shook; body trembling as he stared at the face of a savior before collapsing.
Bray Wyatt needed no drugs, no outside influence, only his voice.
No one seemed to notice, at least not at first. He was under a power that seemed other-worldly; as if he had been drugged or hypnotized. He was broken to conform to words and he knows it. Christian was unconscious, walking and acting like a zombie until he was at the guerrilla position, snapped out of it and overzealous, charismatic and high on the world, feeding from the energy of a crowd so excited, cheering and bathing in the love, the adoration, everything they offered. He was Captain Charisma again for a total of five minutes, he would make his way to the back, and into the waiting trap that engulfed him. He fell into it like he didn't know it was there waiting, like every other night.
So many times had he been conscious enough to run, though he had simply stopped when it became a useless effort - succumbing to defeat was harder than fighting. Christian had still been allowed to pursue some no longer relevant, or worth it, childhood dream. He was alive, regardless had it been on some type of autopilot or not. He was seeing everything through his eyes as if he had been watching it on a screen; unable to react.
Another truth was being revealed to him as he lost match, after match, after match, suffering so many defeats. He had finally lost it - everything, including the control.
The fear of returning to the back had broken any type of witchcraft cast over his being, he was afraid to even exit the ring. He was carried away through the arena by the referees and security - screaming. Names were being thrown at him - they all thought this was his fault. He was being carried off, kicking and fighting to the back… alone. No one was going to come to his rescue; no one was running down the ramp, following the procession of both security, referee and the few medics that had joined in just to rip him away and take him back home. There was no way to win this battle.
Going to work every Friday and Monday night ended abruptly. Now, he was simply gone - maybe they made some excuse for him, a simple pass over the situation by Michael Cole or JBL, and a dumb joke by Lawler interjected somewhere in there: a mental breakdown from suffering so many subsequent loses as every World Title match slipped through his grasp, or something simple as another shoulder injury, or something of the sort - he had been through so many it was a surprise they kept inviting him back.
Christian has already been told he will be irrelevant in a few years. He has no choice but to believe it.
The blonde doesn't flinch as a thumb runs from the corner of his mouth to the bottom of his jaw, he had completely shut down, lost in the depth of his sadness. He didn't exist anymore. It had not mattered what the man sitting beside him now was doing, his attention comes to fruition so slowly, his face cupped ever so gently - as if he was made of fine china. He studies the face of Wyatt's First Son, it was so close to his, anxiety taking hold of his depression. The direct, masculine voice softening and the question he brings forth is formed as a statement that begins to close Christian off once again: "You want to kill somebody."
The blonde turns his eyes away, rejecting his face from the touch of another human being. He lets the quiet consume them until he feels the apprehension filling the air he doesn't want to breathe, the brown eyes that study and observe him, making him feel obligated to answer, be it with one word or not. He looks up from his face that subconsciously hid it's self against his bruised knees and buried under torn arms and metal burnt wrists; "Myself…"
Christian used to think that one day, released from all of this, that somehow he would be able to put his life back together and move on, somehow. He would be able to go home, look out his window, stare into his plain yard and think it's beautiful again. He could go back in the ring, hold his head high, somehow. He could stare into a crowd of adoring fans and never have to remember the hell he had endured after the lights in the arena had gone out and The Wyatt Family had taken his life from him.
None of this was supposed to have happened to him.
He was so tired of trying to fight. He decides easily that he was not much of a person anymore, and doesn't try to flinch or run when the large hand of Luke Harper's comes to rest on his jaw, thumb brushing against his cheek.
The First Son studies his captive, knowing that he did not belong in Christian's life, and that the older man did not belong in his. He had decided, somehow, that Christian was the one for him. He succeeded in getting, trapping, taking control of the man's life for his own need and desire. He feels the hot tears that stream down the veteran's face as he wipes them away with the pad of his thumb. He thinks that where he had screwed up the most was the picture he had in his head, how he wanted everything to be - how it was supposed to be. The reality was nothing like the dream. Luke Harper was so in love - the kind of love where you did not care if the other person was hurting or not. The kind of love that made you want to do anything to have that person. He wanted to look into those beautiful blue eyes and see love, happiness and devotion staring back into his own muddy brown ones. He tilts Christian's face up. He tries to smile in the darkness but the other man pulls away… full of hurt and pain. The damage was proof enough on the outside that he had not truly wanted to look into his captive's eyes any longer: just seeing the pain on the inside, the hurt that matched what the damage looked like on the outside. He was destroying everything he loved about the once charismatic blonde.
Christian whispers so softly that Harper doesn't realize he's speaking at first. The voice takes time to register in his mind, and when he finally puts the almost silent words together it makes him wish his heart wasn't beating, maybe that would have soften the all too obvious blow. "I want to go," Luke repeats Christian's words over and over in his mind. Luke sighs heavily, shaking his head. They weren't dating - not even close, but Christian was still his. He knows he has failed, but he knows that he will never give up, that it is not an option. Bray Wyatt had rewarded him with the love of his life, it would have been a sin to let him walk out the door after the work they had done to capture him.
It was hard to watch Christian change these past months. He wanted the handsome blonde to stay the same, but fall in love. He wanted him in his life so bad. Christian slumps against the wall, unable to sit upright as he had. He was weak mentally and physically, having gone through too much, maximizing the limits of what he could take in any aspect. Harper kneels at his side, his muscular arms gentle as they work their way between his knees and secure around his arms, lifting him off the ground as gentle as possible. Every day the older man was getting lighter and lighter. He lays him down on the bed, jealous of the sheets as he watches him grab onto them, turning away from seeing his towering figure and trying to warm his frail body.
The blonde had known by now that Luke would not have made any attempt on him as he laid on the man's mattress; but the thought was still eating him alive, his eyes frozen open as he listened to every sound in the room, waiting. He listens to the footsteps as they leave, but they only make him sit back up in the bed; calling out to the man who made him his. He breathes and swallows hard before speaking, calling out to the man who hung on every word of Wyatt's. He stares at the sheets while he speaks, quietly asking where the man had been during today's sermon - Luke Harper had never missed one.
"Where were you?" Christian's words mean more than that, it would have taken an idiot not to realize it, Harper decides as he turns around. There was so much wrapped up in it. So much that implied that he was genuinely upset that he had not been there - moreover, that he had begun to realize that he, Luke Harper, was the man protecting and loving him. His voice tells Luke that he had been hurt. The words repeat over, and over, as if they turned from question to accusation in his mind. He walks toward the bed slowly. Christian was weak, he was tired and had nothing to lose anymore - he couldn't see why Bray would have done anything to him… but the man had his reasons, he trusts Wyatt. Christian shakes his head as he studies the wrinkles in the unwashed sheets, wishing he had said nothing, though he had not dared to speak again, Harper could tell that the man he loved thought he had not cared anymore.
He takes every step closer to the bed with the utmost caution until he can reassure himself that Christian is not frightened - it was the last thing he had intended, especially now, when he was given such a small grain of hope that something inside the blonde had awoken. He sits down slowly in the middle of the bed, mattress caving around his weight as he leans to grab Christian's cold hand.
"I love you," he starts, his demanding voice soft and careful, his eyes watchful of any expression that might have been made at him. Christian does not try to rip his hand away from him, and he thinks it might be a start; though he can feel how stiff he had become, and his own heart was racing. "I've always been in love with you," it's not much of a confession as it is a reassurance. He had said it from the very first day he had Christian in his arms, when he was waking up from being handcuffed and tied up and captured, the very first thing he had even said to the man… it might have been too much, too fast, but it was truth.
Christian needed a reason to not want to kill himself. To not just fall asleep to get away from the pain, and wake back into it. It was not as if he had the opportunity to do so, but the desire, the need and the ache for everything to turn black was there. He had tried before, but the watchful eyes of The Wyatt Family had kept him going. He wished it did not have to end like this, but he knew it had to. He was trapped, not knowing how things would end was worse than deciding it for himself. He knew he was not going to be rescued, not going to come out of this as a new, grateful person. He was tired of being strong after the first few weeks, until he had been preached the truth from Bray Wyatt, and then being strong seemed laughable.
He knows that Luke Harper is the cause for his hurt. He does not see how he, destroyed and battered, could still make someone so happy. It makes him feel guilty, hating someone who was so in love with him. The warm hand leaves his, and for the fleeting moment before the warm skin is pressed to his face again, he's struck with fear, with worry, having so many things to just tear into him about, and so many things to break down from - had he not already hit the bottom. He couldn't look back at everything, at his old life, between the lack of a family, and the one being promised to him right here.
Luke wipes the tears from Christian's face, moving himself closer as he swings his legs up onto the mattress. The veteran wrestler couldn't even think to react, just listening to every word he's being told; it's not just a declaration of love anymore, but the enormous, intimidating Harper is trying to put everything he has ever felt for him into some structured formation as he speaks, everything is laced with the routine of "I love you," in between, that he would do anything to make Christian happy. Christian doesn't even know what's going on in his own mind anymore. He had always wanted to hear someone say these things - and his friends had promised him that he would: that he would find somebody - but maybe, he was the one who was found himself. Luke had always promised to take care of him, from the very first day he woke up to find himself entrapped in the Wyatt compound.
He had sat at home, alone, for so long; wondering if he was to spend his entire life not knowing how his friends around him had felt; happy, in love, a family spreading around them. Everyone seemed to have something going on. He was in the kitchen drinking, spending his time counting all of his flaws, feeling ugly all the time, not being able to stop crying. Luke was here, holding him in his arms now, promising him all of these things. He couldn't explain anything, not even to himself.
He had pined for home for so long - but Bray Wyatt was his usual, very right, very truthful self. He was not some kind of monster, but a man who spoke the truth, and sought to enlighten others to it. Luke Harper had already been saved. Christian wanted to go home… Home to nothing. There was no one waiting for him; no one was there for him, no one had time for him anymore. There was nothing to look forward to when he went back. He could stand there, drinking in every room of the house, feeling ugly and alone.
Harper promises to be there by his side; that he wants to sleep next to him, and not just on the hard floor anymore, but there, next to him, wrapped around each other with the smell of his blonde hair in his face and the sheets tangled around them. He says that maybe Christian would hold onto him while he was sleeping, and finally feel safe.
His blue eyes shift, staring at the floor. He realizes now that he did not deserve this love, these feelings. The ones that his captor could not express to him with out doing exactly that - kidnapping him and forcing him into all of this. He knows that he would not have given the younger man any time of day had he not done what he did here. He's undeserving, and comprehends that maybe going home is a punishment waiting. He had something here, at the very least. There had been some type of control over him when he was at Harper's knees, telling him he loved him. He was trapped in his own mind and body, screaming out for someone to help when all that would come out was the same, stupid love-phrase. He was made to obey. Now he didn't have to be forced into it.
The worst part was knowing that he was not good enough for this man who wanted him to be there, to fall in love with him on his own terms. He gives up his defensive position and simply lets himself be held.