WARNING! This contains a mention, just a mention, of slash/rape before the end. You can read on or you can leave the page. Your option. Don't blame me if you start throwing up.

Chapter 1

Playground of Nightmares

Crazy but that's how it goes
Millions of people living as foes

Remember, Dustin?

The playground that was made of dreams

Is now made of nightmares

Of black and blue

Of bruises and shame

The playground that once struck happiness

Is now striking pain

And fear

And c-c-coldness

A storm of Goldust

Ripped the swings

Of Cody's little fragile heart

Links and chains broke

Nothing left anymore

But rusted links

On the floor of blood

A storm of Goldust

Made green leaves

Shake red

Blood red

A storm of Goldust

Made the painted white seesaw

Chip from its original color

Until there was nothing left

A storm of Goldust

Made the monkey bars

Break down

A storm of Goldust

Rips the grass out

Makes it gray

Ashes and ashes

And nothing's left

The playground that once struck happiness

Is now a nightmare

And it resides

In Cody Rhodes' heart.


Cody's body lay limp on the bed.

He looked like he was in a casket, gripping onto a razor, refusing to let go. His mouth was slit, cut, ripped and his body lacked color—perfectly pale, perfectly rigid, perfectly freezing to death. Eyes shut tight, motionless then slowly, his body shook, his eyes slowly fluttered open, his feet shuffled in pain.

He rolled to his side but felt as if a sharp spear had stabbed him in the stomach. He shook uncontrollably, from cold, fear, confusion. His hands gripped onto the dulled bloodied razor and his turquoise eyes scanned the room. He knew this room—the Legacy's locker room.

Suddenly, a surge of music shot Cody upwards, made him jump in complete awareness and alertness and watchfulness at the sound of the rhythmic beat to "Voices". He was breathing, short and sharp breaths. Oxygen scuffled in Cody's lungs.

One hand tentatively let go of the razor while the other gripped on it tighter, making his flesh cut at one of the tiny blades and making more blood soak his body but Cody couldn't feel the pain at all. He stepped backwards as Randy's theme continued, wanting to get as far away from the banging sound of music.

It banged his head. Ate him up. Pounded him into a black out world of exhaustion but Cody stayed unconscious no matter how much the pain in his head had banged, again and again—pain swirled through his head, steady to the beat of his so fragile heart.

Already bleeding heart.

Cody's body slid down to the floor. Eyes scanned the locker room again, and then his eyes went to the razor in his hands—

Ripped at his skin, made blood flow out from his stomach from his head, from his shoulder and laughter fills and fills and fills the air as the razor hits the skin all over again

—Cody remembered his suicide attempt.

His body continued to shake. Over the past few weeks…

Dustin!

Cody had to get out of here before Dustin showed up, before his father showed up, before Randy and Ted came to the locker room to face the boy after what he tried to do. Cody put his hands on the floor and felt a surge of pain pierce and stab him through the gut and on his left shoulder, burning up, acidic in his throat.

He screamed. His throat only got drier and drier. He hit his head to the wall, hard and painful and agonizing, feeling his stomach's veins threaten to pop and his arteries pulse and pound and throb all the way from his stomach to his left shoulder. A feeling of condensing pain stirred into his stomach. His breaths were still short and sharp.

Randy's voice, dipped with sarcasm, ripped through the air. "DiBiase, great job with Hunter. We almost got killed out there when Shane came up there with Hunter's hammer. You know how much of an idiot you are?"

"Yeah, yeah," Ted responded, snickering to himself.

Their footsteps got closer. Cody could hear and feel it pound through his exploding inside out head.

Their footsteps stop.

Ted's eyes turned crazed when he had seen Cody. He rushed over to him and Cody took one deep breath before looking up to Ted DiBiase. "Randy, I got this," Ted said to him. Ted's eyes were swirling with guilt but anger and concern blazed right through that guilt. Randy opened his mouth to protest but said nothing.

"W-what were you thinking?" Ted's voice was a mixture of concern and anger. He grabbed onto Cody's hand and pulled him up. His eyes meeting the razor—the dull object that could've taken his friend's life away forever—was clasped tight into Cody's hand. "Give me the razor."

Cody shook his head. "No, Ted." His voice twisted pain, a strain of certainty bit his words.

"Give me the razor, Cody!" Ted said, trying to rip it out of his hand but Cody made a fist with his other hand and punched Ted in the stomach, hard and firm. The pain inside of his head made him do the thing he did, he watched as Ted clutched onto his stomach and he watched as Randy's eyes widened.

Cody was just so dazed, so dizzy, so confused, so angry and hurt. He didn't know what to do but he knew that the razor in his hands would be the doorway to freedom. He didn't need anyone to like him, to care about him, to think about him, because he didn't want to hurt them when he died. He didn't want to hurt them when he did something moronic.

He didn't want them in pain.

"Ted—"

Ted DiBiase stared into Cody's face and clutched his hand tight, making a fist. Ted's eyes stared at Cody's face and as he grabbed onto Cody's left arm, he threw him on the other side of the wall. The wall met Cody's back and pain engulfed him all over again. He breathed, short and sharp breaths all over again, having difficulty constructing a thought.

Dust—

Ted—

Dustin…

"Cody, I—" Ted shook his head, slowly walking to him, passing Randy and stood beside him, looking into the fearful eyes of Cody Rhodes. He had never had his best friend fear him before.

It made Ted feel like such a bad guy.

Dark.

Evil.

Manipulative.

Abusive.

Ted licked his lower lip and looked down at the floor before looking back at Cody's scared little eyes. He didn't want to face it. He had hit his partner Cody, hard, after he tried to kill himself. "Oh, God, Cody, I'm sorry…"

Randy's face hardened. "Ted, step back."

"N-no, 'Ted said, 'I-Cody-"he just didn't know how he could hit his own tag team partner, buddy, friend—he couldn't imagine it at all.

"Step back, Ted!" Randy exclaimed. The look in his eyes blazed the words 'I'll give you an RKO if you don't' so Ted slowly stepped back and Randy stepped towards the tattered and shattered and ragged Rhodes in front of him.

Cody looked at the dull object in his hands and then his eyes looked back at Ted. "Ted, I…" he started then stopped himself. He reluctantly, so very reluctantly, let the razor fall to the ground.

"Why'd you do it, Cody?" Randy's voice was soft.

Soft, but his words pierced through Cody like a knife.

"I-I-"Cody looked down at his feet. Dustin. Dustin. My brother, Dustin. But he didn't let anything roll off his tongue.

"This is serious, man," Ted told him, still in his frozen position but his voice was loud, his voice thick and dim. "You have to have a reason. Did Randy do something?"

Randy's eyes hardened as he smacked the back of Ted DiBiase's neck. "Did DiBiase do something?" Randy asked and Ted's heart ripped from its place, thinking that he might've provoked Cody enough to kill himself…

Cody shook his head. "I-I-"he tried but he couldn't let the words roll out of his tongue.

Dustin…Dustin!


DUST – IN

The wind

Impulsive, with no goals, mysterious,

DUST – IN

Cody's heart,

Rips it, tears it, makes it bleed

Until nothing's left

But pictures and memories of

Dustin Rhodes

That seem to tear all by themselves

"Cody…"

"Dustin?"

Pictures and memories of

What Dustin used to be

To what he turned into

Now

"Dustin, what the hell—? Oh my God! STOP!"


You see the walls bleeding…/


The road was all clear.

Emptiness filled the road and Cody Rhodes stared at the vast emptiness of the road, feeling that nothing could fill up Cody as he choked and suffocated and drowned into his own bleeding heart.

Ted broke the silence.

"Cody, I'm sorry that I'm doing this."

Cody stayed silent, listening but not saying anything. That was the way it was always; he'd listen as Ted and Randy fought and he'd break as they fought and he'd cry inside as they fought.

Everyone's problems were better than Cody's before.

"I'm just scared of what you'd do to yourself, man. People don't kill yourself just like that."

He pretends to care, Cody. He pretends to care.

The voices—they-they were back. Cody's little blue eyes widened with fear. He bit his lower lip and a bomb blew off in his heart. He was panting softly and he looked at Ted, who drove in silence, not noticing anything.

Who cares about you? You're nothing, boy!

Cody gripped onto the car's handle as his breathing turned normal and he looked at himself in the mirror.

Is there a little boy, staring back at you, Rhodes?

There was a little boy, visible in his eyes, fearful of nightmares of monsters. The little body that used to wait for Dusty to return, that envied his bigger brother that was annoyed by his sister—that boy was in the mirror right now.

Cody had sweat running down the short spikes of his hair, sweat bleeding out of his face and he looked down at his feet. The clustered dry blood was hidden by Randy Orton's t-shirt and Ted DiBiase's jeans. The boots were still his, always his personality.

But the cut on the left side of his face was still there, the first cut of the razor as he ran it through his head.

"Cody?"

"Ted, it-it's back!"

"C-Cody?!"

Cody opened the door while Ted drove and the sudden action made Ted hit the brakes. Cody fell out of the door, hitting his body hard to the road and ran and ran and ran as fast as possible. Ted stared, shocked, confused, concerned, trying to figure out what could be 'back'. He watched as Cody ran, ran and ran away.

Until he was out of view.


And the blood pouring like Hell


Cody slid down onto the floor of the alley.

He wanted to be alone. Ted would never understand it but the voices that kept swirling and screaming and snapping at him in Cody's head was too much for the boy to handle.

Too freaking much.

He stayed, nauseous, blood rising up in his throat and confusion slurred through his body. Dizziness hit Cody's head, pounded it with a loud bang of darkness. "Cody!" he heard Ted's muffled voice.

He shifted slightly from his place, but the nausea that rolled through his stomach, the acid knots that had burned inside of his stomach, was too much for him. Suddenly, he heard another set of voices, close by. Dustin…Dustin's…

"Well, well," Todd Lynn said, eying Cody Rhodes.

Cody felt as if though he'd get a heart attack, he didn't want this. He didn't want this at all. He knew Todd too well. He was one of Dustin's friends. Todd leaned down. "Hey, Dustin!" Todd's voice pierced through the air, and fear collided, clustered and gathered, through Cody's body.

Suddenly, the dizziness rose down from his head to his throat, he could taste his sweat in his mouth and he thought that his heart may stop beating any second. He wanted to run but couldn't. He wanted to hide but there was no way he could even move to begin to hide.

"What is it, Todd, you id—?" Dustin's head poked through the alley.

Cody's lymph nodes felt swollen. His heart was pounding and threatening to burst through his chest any minute. His feet felt as if two jagged knives had pierced right through them so that the blood could seep out. His skin paled, bone pale, dead pale skin, and his thoughts swallowed him into a second.

Dustin laughed, leaning towards his brother. His hands pushing Cody's shoulders to the wall, preventing him from escaping. Not that he could've. Not that he didn't try. Cody's throat went completely dry and his body felt completely brittle, breakable and already damaged.

Todd's fist collided with Cody's stomach. Dustin's eyes swelled with glee and amusement. Cody wanted to throw up and crawl into a bed and die there. He tried not to. He didn't want Dustin any closer—his brother twisted one of Cody's arms behind his back.

Cody wanted to yell but his mouth was too dry.

Ted! Randy! PLEASE!

No one was here to save him now. Todd stared at Cody, with eyes that went up and down and he began undressing the young Rhodes boy. Dustin just watched, holding Cody in place while Todd worked on him, sweated over Cody, watched him as he shook and trembled, afraid and broken inside. Dustin stared at the cuts on Cody's chest, two big ones that extended from his stomach to his left shoulder, and one on his face.

You deserve this, Cody. You know you do…


Where everything's sticky black and red


Hours later, a blaze of light struck a cord in Cody's brain.

Cody Rhodes stared at the stream of light and realized that it was a flash light as his head swirled with dizziness and darkness and nausea. "Cody!" It was Randy Orton's concerned, loud voice. Randy walked over to Cody, leaned down to him and stared at him. His blue eyes hardened and turned and hard-edged when he saw the bruises that settled on his face, throbbing pain and pouring red hot blood from the cuts and cuts of the little capillaries of his face inside.

"Cody, what the hell happened? Did you do this?" Randy asked, touching Cody's face but the Rhodes boy grunted and moaned in pain, pushing and hitting himself harder to the wall of the alley.

"DiBiase was supposed to take care of you. Where's Ted?" his voice was filled with rage.

Cody didn't say anything. The horror of the last few hours burned inside of his brain. He didn't know what to do. He should've died. If Ted and Randy cared about him, they should've let him died before this could happen again. Cody's mouth opened up but all he could do was let out the sound of the horror he'd been through…

He screamed. A high-pitched, piercing scream.

Randy's hands protectively held onto Cody's arms as Cody took short and sharp breaths. Oxygen battled to get into Cody's little lungs. He stared into Randy's eyes, finding only a stranger of concern, not the same hard Randy he saw usually. "Cody, man, breathe."

Cody took the deepest breath he could've then laughed. His laugh was that of a maniac. "Cody, Cody, breathe," Randy instructed, demanded almost. Cody took another deep breath, followed by short ones. He slyly touched Cody's face to feel the coldness that rose up inside of Cody's body.

"I swear Rhodes if you ever get out of our sight again and scare me like that again…" Randy started but the pain in Cody's eyes made him release Cody's arms and watch as he looked down at the floor. "Look. I'll take you back at the hotel room and you can talk to me and Ted about what happened. Who did this to you?"

Cody didn't say anything for a while. "No."

"No?" Randy repeated.

"I'm not telling you what happened." Cody's voice stirred certainty and determination. "Nothing happened."

"Then who did this to you?" he pointed to Cody's face, afraid that if he touched it, Cody will recoil again.

"No one," Cody replied. His voice as dull as copper. Cody's voice went softer to the last part. "I did this."


/…then you're drowning my forever broken heart.

You're drowning in my playground

Of nightmares

Of bruises

Of sweat

Of you, Dustin


Well, how was that? REVIEW. REVIEW. REVIEW!

Reviews make me update faster…

Man, I hated this chapter. There was something about it that made me feel unsatisfied but…I might not like it, but you might. Okay, first of all, if you're grossed out by the entire rape/slash thing then you put yourself on the line. I WARNED YOU!

Please??

- Sam