To begin with, Chris only stayed one night in Orlando because it was cheaper that way. He would fly in on Monday, work Monday night, share a room with Alex, work Tuesday night and then fly home and collapse into bed. Plenty of the boys only stayed one night, and they saved a fortune in comparison to the few guys who stayed a second night and went home on Wednesday. He still only stayed one night, but for entirely different reasons.
Chris smiled warmly as he bid various co-workers goodnight. Alex was already gone, taking the keycard with him. Despite sharing a room, they never made their way to the hotel together. Alex always walked with someone, often a group; tonight he was walking with AJ. Chris always walked back to the hotel alone. He liked the night air and the solitude, and he took the opportunity to enjoy a cigarette along the way. He liked to have a clear division between his evening at work and his night at the hotel, and he needed the time away from Alex.
When all this began, Chris had needed this time to try to process things. He'd spent these late night walks arguing with himself, trying to bolster his resolve, determined every time that tonight would be different. It had never worked. His resolve was shaken loose the moment he walked into the room he and Alex shared, and his determination crumbled as soon as Alex turned those intense eyes on him. He'd stopped arguing with himself in the end, instead using the time to try to make some sense of his life.
When Chris entered the hotel, he found several of his fellow wrestlers in the lobby, much to the consternation of the long-suffering reception staff. Wrestlers were not a quiet bunch, but given the volume of money TNA wrestlers spent there, the staff were loathe to tell them to shut the hell up or get the hell out.
Chris exchanged pleasantries with his friends, although he didn't really want to talk to any of them. His mind was already wandering up to his room, painting pictures of the things that would transpire when he got there. He deflected all the various invitations to bars and parties and weed sessions, and stepped into the elevator, where he pressed the button for the fifth floor.
The elevator took forever, although Chris accepted that its slowness was probably due to his perception rather than its actual velocity. He wondered what his girlfriend was doing right now - probably lying in his bed, in his house, wishing he was home. He couldn't stand the thought, because when he was at home with her asleep next to him, he was still haunted by memories of Orlando. Holding her and thinking of nothing but what the last trip had brought, and longing for the next tapings, he always felt like a traitor.
The elevator finally stopped and the doors opened. Chris strode into the hallway, but his pace slowed as he walked down the empty corridor to his room. He always found himself losing momentum here, because he knew these were the last moments of the night he'd be able to process his thoughts properly, and he feared the loss of control that waited for him behind that bland hotel door. Devoting one last wistful thought to the woman waiting for him at home, Chris reached out and opened the door.
Alex was on him before it had even fully closed again, pushing him up against the wall. The kiss Alex unleashed was hard and uncompromising, with a hunger that made it seem almost angry. Two weeks' worth of pent up passion and desire, of shame and guilt, and years' worth of unspoken emotion were all poured into that kiss, and Chris felt like he was drowning in the sea of Alex's need. He bit down on Alex's lower lip spitefully, resentful not only that Alex could make him feel this way, but also that he could still do it after all this time.
It was always like this, each of them taking out their frustration on the other. Alex pulled back, glaring, but Chris barely let him get a foot away before yanking him back, still aggressive, but making an effort to restrain his malice. After all, his ire wasn't really directed at Alex; the only person he was pissed at was himself. Alex wasn't to blame for his decision to risk the devastation they'd leave in their wake if their women ever found out, just as Chris wasn't to blame for Alex's. The slight softening of the kiss when Chris resumed it was the closest thing to an apology Alex was going to get, but Alex accepted it. He understood every frantic emotion rushing through Chris' veins, because he faced exactly the same struggle.
Alex's girlfriend was a lovely woman. Chris liked her a lot, just as he'd liked the last one, and the one before that. He almost felt more guilty about the fact that he was fucking her boyfriend than he did about cheating on his own girlfriend. He knew Alex was every bit as torn up about what they were doing to their women, but none of it came close to dissipating the heat between them.
Chris knew the encounter would ease away from the hostile onslaught it began with, just like every other time. It would move from this selfish, belligerent battle into a shared lust, Alex's every movement, his scent, his taste, all conspiring to leave Chris helpless in the face of his desire. They would be quiet - they were always quiet, out of fear that the people in the neighbouring rooms would hear them, and out of shame.
Chris didn't know how this had started. They'd been drunk out of their minds, and neither one of them remembered a single thing about it. As far as Chris was concerned, one minute he'd been stealing a street sign with Jay, while Petey demanded to know how the hell they thought they were going to sneak it into the hotel, and the next he was waking up with Alex's growing morning erection lazily prodding at the crack of his ass. Alex had been just as confused to discover he was molesting his best friend, and yet rather than leaping away from each other, they'd found themselves having wonderfully dirty, sweaty sex, silent but for their uneven panting and the ring of skin on skin.
By the time Chris backed Alex up to one of the beds, their ferocity was all but spent, leaving only the aching need and arousal. They were half naked already, shirts gone and shoes kicked off, and Chris' hoody flung across the room where it landed on the lamp. Chris could hear Petey's voice in his head nagging that they were going to start a fire, but he didn't much care if the hotel burned down around them so long as he didn't have to stop touching Alex.
The only things better than tapings, Chris thought as Alex fought with his belt, were pay per view weekends. With two nights together, the atmosphere changed dramatically. Their greedy lust for each other was sated on the Sunday night, and Monday was a much calmer affair, on the surface at least. Chris wasn't assaulted by Alex's sexuality the moment he got into the room; rather, Alex would let him come in and sit on his bed, and then sit next to him. He would just look at Chris, visibly fighting his urge to reach out, the mixture of adoration and misery in his eyes weighting Chris' heart until he felt he couldn't breathe. Chris would lean in to kiss him and chase the misery away, and the tenderness they shared for the rest of the night was a memory Chris cherished for the following month. Those nights - along with the occasions they spent two nights together on the road - were the only times they slept in the same bed, and Chris was afraid to even consider what might happen if they spent a third night together. Now that he came to think about it, pay per view weekends were also the only thing worse than tapings.
When they were naked, Alex managed to manoeuvre himself beneath Chris. There was never a conversation about it; they simply fell into the appropriate roles instinctively, so in tune with each other that they were both intimidated by their connection. Tonight, Chris desperately needed to be inside Alex, needed to lose himself within an embrace that felt almost sacred despite its obscenity. He was grateful that Alex knew that, because he couldn't have made himself say so. Looking down at the agonised vulnerability on Alex's face, he understood this was the way Alex wanted it tonight too. Alex needed to be taken, to know that Chris wanted him in the most selfish way possible, that he was desired without restraint and wouldn't be rejected.
They had stopped, once. When they had finally both been single at the same time, Chris had spent the whole week before the tapings jittery with anticipation, barely able to sleep because he couldn't stop thinking about what might happen in Orlando. He'd never been so excited in his entire life - and then when Monday night rolled around, he'd chickened out. He'd spent the better part of the night smoking weed with Joe and then crashed on his floor, sickened by the thought of how awful Alex must be feeling, waiting for him in their room. On Tuesday he'd discovered Alex had chickened out as well, and had stayed in Petey's room where he'd annoyed the everloving crap out of him until Petey had locked him on the balcony. At the next taping they'd booked separate rooms. And yet, when Chris had started dating someone two weeks after that, they'd both known without discussing it that they were rooming together again and would be picking up exactly where they'd left off. Occasionally a voice in the back of Chris' mind unkindly suggested he'd deliberately acquired the first woman who'd come along just so he could get his hands on Alex again, but Chris always hushed that voice sharply.
He began to sink into Alex's welcoming body, and the guilt pounded so hard in his head Chris thought it might fracture his skull, as he once again betrayed the woman who gave him everything she was, the woman he lied to on a daily basis when he said those three little words. He couldn't regret it though, not when Alex's hands clamped on his ass that way, silently pleading with him for more and more. Alex's desire for him made him dizzy, and his chest tightened at the pain on Alex's face. Not a physical pain - Chris always made damn sure not to hurt him that way. Regardless of the hostile way their encounters started, Chris couldn't bear the thought that while he was inside him, Alex might feel anything other than... well, Chris wasn't prepared to admit even to himself what he wanted Alex to feel, but he sure as hell didn't want him hurting. No, Alex's pain was a combination of the guilt he shared with Chris and the weight of the things he couldn't ask for, and Chris knew exactly how to drive those things from his mind.
They were slaves to their greed for each other, and that was why they made sure it never had the chance to get a fiercer grip on them than it already had. Night three was out of the question. When they were on the road for live events or indy shows, they made sure night three never happened. After two nights they'd room with someone else, or have their own rooms, or by unspoken agreement one of them would stay out for the night. They'd each spent their fair share of nights sat in diners or seedy bars, tired and sore, thinking of the warm bed in their room and the warmer body that wouldn't turn them away if they just reached out for it. The knowledge that their overtures would be accepted kept them glued to the sticky seats in those grimy, dingy establishments, pretending their refusal to return to the other was some kind of victory for their battered loyalty to their girlfriends rather than a submission to cowardice.
The silence in the room was heavy and almost tangible, marred by occasional quiet grunts and gasps, and the crude noises of Chris' body making forceful contact with Alex's. Chris watched the anguish fade from Alex's face, replaced by his carnal hunger and something else Chris wasn't willing to put a name to. His own guilt dissolved as Alex pushed back against him, and suddenly all that baggage was gone. For a brief moment, they were simply two people taking pleasure in each other, wrapped in a bundle of emotion and sexuality, both firmly convinced that this communion would never be over.
And then, just as suddenly, it was over, and the guilt and shame was pressing in on them again. Chris smiled down at Alex, meeting his lips one last time before pulling away and clambering from the bed. He strode to the other bed and slid beneath its covers, turning his back and pretending he couldn't hear how ragged Alex's breath still was from their exertions. He clenched his jaw as his thoughts skittered from the sex he'd just had to the sex he'd have when he got home, and back to the man he'd still be thinking of when he was inside his girlfriend. There was no payoff, no reward for his years of treachery and dishonour and the harsh reality that he had sacrificed his principles; no recompense for the daily burden of deceit, only that implacable hunger for Alex still gnawing at his gut and the bitter knowledge that sex did nothing to appease it. His lust was sated, but his need was as desperate as ever.
Chris knew there was a good chance that when he awoke, it would be because Alex was easing into him. He would acquiesce immediately, opening himself to Alex in a way that he knew aroused Alex more than anything else he could ever do and revelling in the urgency of Alex's appetite for him. When they were done Alex would return to his own bed, and Chris would feel exactly the same sense of loss that Alex felt now, and that would be the last expression of their compulsion towards each other for the week. Next week they had live events, and they'd make the most of each other for the first two nights. Chris didn't know yet how he'd be spending the third night, but it wouldn't be with Alex.
Listening to Alex's breathing levelling out and eventually becoming so light it failed to disturb the deafening silence, Chris wondered for the millionth time whether that third night was inevitable, or whether they were doomed to repeat this pattern for the rest of their professional lives. He wasn't sure which possibility he feared more, but he knew that either way, he couldn't resist the wordless siren song of Alex's guilty touch.