He couldn't let himself close his eyes. Not this time. He knew what would become of the situation if he closed his eyes.
So there he lay; stomach to the mattress, hands gripped tight into the bed-sheets and teeth latched onto the pillow beneath his face. Eyes wide, burning and filled to the brim with unshed tears. His blurry gaze locked onto the edge of the mattress, watching as it would pull back just slightly before slamming back against the headboard with a thud with every deep and excruciating thrust inside of him. Since the attack, Jon had put himself through a countless amount of nights of getting men to fuck him. He would always demand it harsh and relentless. And it would feel good. That was what Jon had needed - he had needed those nights and those men to feel good. At least it's what he had thought he'd needed; some kind of twisted logic telling him that if he could reconnect to the pleasure of it, that the nightmares wouldn't hurt so bad. But he'd been wrong. The nightmares still hurt. They actually hurt more than they used to, if he was being honest. But it would seem that was all life was for the Shield member; pain. Whether it be the physical pain of his body being ripped and torn apart from the insides now; or the emotional and mental torment that would be sure to come if he closed his eyes. Both forms being pain he would suffer alone; the voices in his mind his only company. Unfortunately, Jon had grown used to that now. Sometimes he would even relish in the fact. But most times, it would haunt him. Sending him spiraling backwards into the state of lost and abandoned confusion that he had felt when losing Chris what felt like a life-time ago. He would feel buried and forgotten; like anything could happen to him, and it simply wouldn't matter. No one would care. Fans might grieve the loss of their favorite wrestler; Dean Ambrose or Jon Moxley. But who was going to care about Jonathan Good? Nobody. Nobody ever really had, and it was likely that nobody ever would. Not that it mattered who would care enough, really; because Jon had resided in his mind that his time to be taken within the relieving grips of Death simply wouldn't come. He'd be left to suffer through the agony every other night for the rest of what he knew would feel like eternity. He would fall asleep and the images would always come; images that had shifted from the fear of the entire ordeal he endured with Roman, to the simple pain of a faceless figure ripping and tearing at his body from the inside, night after night. The pain would always come. He would always feel the same large and strong hands gripping so tightly into his hips that he was amazed to wake every morning without the prints to accompany it. He would always feel thickness inside of him; so large, so harsh, so deep that he always felt as though his insides were literally tearing with every action. He could always feel it all; every slight movement or shift of the figure of his nightmare; the hot breath on the back of his neck; the breaking of skin as nails dug in harsher; the give of the mattress beneath him. He could always feel it all; and each second the pain would grow, seemingly ten-fold. Every night he would hold out longer; reach a new of torturous agony as the voices would entice him. He would reach the point of tears; sobs racketing through his body as the vision of the mattress slamming against the headboard grew faster and stronger - the mattress pulling back more and more as the thrusts within him grew more and more violent. Vicious. Relentless. Much like the voices swimming in his mind - tendrils of black and suffocating smoke snaking their way into the contours of his mind as they did right now; telling him that all he had to do, to make the pain go away? Was close his eyes.
So he did.
The shift in the situation was immediate. Jon had known it would be. It always was. Ever since his sobriety had allowed the demons in his psyche to locate fears and feelings that the alcohol had previously kept distorted in the blur of his mind, things would always go the same. He would close his eyes when the pain grew too much, and everything would change. There was no faceless being present inside of him. There was no pillow below his face to bite into and muffle his screams. The shift always had him laying on his back, hands still clutching at the bed sheets below him. He would always be laying naked on the bed; vulnerable and unable to move for the weight of his already heavy heart. Jon had knows this was how it would be once he had closed his eyes. And the knowledge of what came next always left him lying in that raw and exposed state, wanting to keep his eyes closed for eternity. The next stage of his nightmare wouldn't start until he opened his eyes, he knew. And it was a stage he wished would never come. He always willed it never would. Through all the times this nightmare had come, he had tried time and time again to escape; to pull himself from the mattress and run in any direction he could; to lash out at the person he knew awaited him; to scream; to cry; to just keep his eyes closed. But his body would never work to move him in any way; his screams and his cries would go unheard in the nothingness surrounding him; and he would always open his eyes. It wasn't exactly as if he had a choice. Once he had kept his eyes closed - had suffered and endured the deafening silence fallen over him now. Once he had defied what he knew the voices were willing him to do, even in the silence. Once he had just kept his eyes closed. But it hadn't served him favorably. He had suffered the silence until the demons had become impatient - throwing him back to the start of the nightmare, left to suffer through the pain he had only just escaped. Like some twisted games; levels needing to be completed in order to wake from the torture. And keeping his eyes closed? That was breaking the rules.
So he opened his eyes. Like he always did. And the air caught in the back of his throat at the vision that awaited him. Like it always did. The warming blue of eyes that had pulled him from the darkness time and time again kept his gaze steady. Chris' head tilting to the side slightly with a seemingly worried curiosity drove a disgusted feeling into the pit of his stomach. Jon felt like a lab-rat or some kind of cadaver - laid out for any who wanted to study carelessly. It was an exhibition of himself; Jonathan Good: Naked. Raw. Vulnerable. Real. It was an exhibition only ever put on for the one man. The man that stood in front of him now. The man that could drive the voices away. The man he once loved in ways that he never thought possible. The only person to truly know who 'Jonathan Good' even was. His best friend. Chris would study Jon; ill feelings growing within him by the moment as, every time, the older man seemed to be much less than pleased with what he would see. But that wasn't ever much of a surprise, Jon never expected anyone to enjoy the view when they saw who he really was. That was the point in the masks he too often wore. But there was no mask; not right now. Jon was forced to lie there, exposed, as everything he was and ever could be was judged. Chris would lean the slightest bit towards him, a familiar hand extending to caress the Shield members cheek in such an adoring fashion; but his eyes spoke differently. Chris looked confused. As if he could no longer understand the person that Jon had become. Chris looked disappointed. He looked as if he pitied Jon for the way he looked now - the weakness Jon held in his own eyes; the despair; the loneliness. Chris would caress his face like now, every judgement of the younger man reflected clear as day in his eyes - stabbing like shards of broken glass into any corner of comfort that Jon held in his mind until the demons would seep from the wounds and invade there too. And then he would drop his hand, shake his head, and leave. Abandoning him like all eventually did. That was how it always went. Chris would leave, disappearing into the darkness surrounding the eerie scene, and Jon would sit - unable to move or scream as the silence would follow along the older man in his departure. He would lay there as the voices tormented him; picking at his every flaw. Only allowed the bliss of waking when the voices would grow so loud that Jon's mind would feel as if it was exploding.
But this time was different.
Still with a hand cradled against Jon's cheek, Chris' figure moved to lean forward towards the younger man; lips capturing Jon's own. A kiss. It was light and still. Resemblance of the kiss they had shared in Jon's hotel room less than twenty-four hours ago. It was innocent. It was friendly. It was apologetic.
And it was over.
The connection was broken; all contact removed from his frame. Chris stood a moment longer, eyes reflecting all that would make Jon's heart shatter. And then he turned. And he left.
But the silence didn't.
It was deafening. Crushing. A weight on his chest that wouldn't budge; suffocating him slowly. Chris was gone. There was nothing. He was all alone.
Even the voices had abandoned him.