Warnings: Slash (Ambrose/Punk), Smut, Profanity. A sequel to In Bloom

Thanksgiving is when whatever the podcast Jon had walked in on is dropped, but he doesn't have time to listen to it as soon as it's uploaded. In fact, he actually forgets about it in favour of panicking over spending time with Punk's family. They're a loud boisterous group of people who descend on Punk's home like a plague of laughing happy locusts. They cook, they laugh, and they each corner Jon at various times throughout the morning questioning him. He actually thinks Punk's not-quite-sisters know more about the past of Jon Good than Punk himself by the time lunch rolls around. At the dining table, he's told a million stories about Punk's youth, a million stories that have Punk squawking, looking at Jon with pleading in his eyes, begging Jon to not believe the tales of his many failed relationships, and many slightly sketchy doings. These stories Jon had wanted to hear from Punk himself, but hearing them from his family is okay.

Conspicuous in his absence is Cabana, Punk's sisters had each mentioned his not being there, and Punk had shrugged, not offering an explanation as to where Colt is. They'd looked at Jon for answers, but had none, and Punk had said nothing. Jon wasn't sure what to make of it, but he thinks it's related to what he'd seen the other day, the silent exchange between the Sphinx bastard and the Chicago bred bastard best friend. The Saints are fighting, disagreeing, with each other, and it seems that everyone who knows them knows to be concerned. Punk is acting like it doesn't bother him, but more than once Jon has seen him glance down at his cell phone, a pensive look on his face. Its clear Punk doesn't like fighting with Cabana, and Jon feels impossibly sad for his Punkin Pie, fighting with his bastard best friend can't be any fun for him.

Later in the evening, Cabana shows face, and is passed around the sisters, getting hugged, before Jon is dragged to the kitchen by them, leaving Punk and Colt to talk. He feels strangely like a little kid being ushered out of the room by older siblings when their parents are going to have a fight. There's no raised voices though, no angry words to be heard, and Jon's mildly confused by the pensive expressions the sisters are wearing. They're worried, and Jon's reluctant to be anything but worried too in the face of their concern.

"Ladies... I'd appreciate it if Jon and I could have a minute." Cabana appears at the kitchen door, wearing a smile on his lips, and a scowl in his eyes.

"You're staying for pie?" One of the sisters asks, and Cabana shakes his head.

"I've prior engagements... I'll take one home though." He grins, and the women file out past him, one of them pointing to a pie in a box for him to take home. "Sit." Cabana points to a stool, and Jon takes a seat on it. He sets a USB stick down on the counter in front of Jon, and sighs. "I fucking told him to talk to you. I want to make that clear. I fucking told him a thousand times that relationships are built on actually fucking talking to the person you're in love with, rather than gleefully pretending nothing shitty has ever happened to you and saying nothing." Cabana looks pissed, and Jon stares at the little USB stick. "We're doing two." He says awkwardly, and Jon nods. Two podcasts, whatever Punk said it's big. "Jon... He loves you, and he's trying... But he's scared." Cabana pats Jon shoulder, and he turns to look at the tense expression on Cabana's face. "You fucking terrify him." Colt sighs again, and Jon just stares. He's no idea what the Chicago bred bastard cupid wants him to say. "You're a lot more mature than I give you credit for... Or I just don't know you well enough, and I'm not sure which it is, Jon. This." He taps the USB stick. "This is the first part... Listen to it away from him, think about it... Take your time, but please don't use it to justify doing something stupid. He was tired, he was hurt, he was scared... He's still scared, and Punkers doesn't deal with being scared well." Cabana stands, and Jon stares at him some more.

"Scott?" Jon calls out to him, and Cabana turns, his eyebrow raised. "You do a lot for him... He loves me, but he needs you." Jon mutters, and Cabana laughs shaking his head.

"We're friends, Gerbil Cheeks. Sometimes friends get pissed with each other." A grin settles on the Chicago bred bastard best friend's face. "I'm team Punk, doesn't mean I'm president of his fan club though." Cabana snags the pie, and leaves through the back door. Jon stares down at the little USB stick, and pockets it, hearing Punk come into the kitchen.

"Bana left?" He asks, and Jon nods. "Jon... I..." Punk sighs, and leans against the counter staring at Jon. His expression changing from confused to concerned to angry and back again. "I've... Fuck." Punk sighs, and leaves through the backdoor, leaving Jon staring at it. He's no idea what to do but keep the sisters entertained, and hope that Punk comes back.

The rest of Thanksgiving, Jon spends getting told more young Punk stories from the sisters. He likes them, they're gregarious and bubbly, a fun way to distract him from whatever is going on with Punk and Colt, from whatever is going on with the Saints that he's in the middle of, because Jon knows this is related to him. There's something going on, and there's something on this USB stick that Jon needs to hear.

Once the sisters clear out, Jon takes the USB, and plugs it into the first laptop he finds, and he listens to Punk talk. For nearly two hours Punk talks, and Jon listens, for nearly two hours everything that was going on with Punk during the entire time they'd been fucking backstage is laid forth. As Punk talks, Jon can feel something inside him curl up and will the World away. Three years of frustration, three years of annoyance, three years of Punk hating something he's supposed to love.

"I guess the black and the white of it, when you just boil it all down, the essence of it was I was miserable; I was unhappy, fuck it! I made myself happy; I left."

Jon stares up at the ceiling, his mind carefully blank. Punk was miserable, Punk was unhappy, he made himself happy, he left. He made himself happy by leaving the WWE, leaving wrestling, leaving Jon. To make himself happy, Punk left him without a word, he'd been prepared to draw a line under their thing, and move on for the sake of his happiness.

"I have a very strong philosophy about the business, and I don't think a guy like Seth Rollins or Dean Ambrose, I don't think they do."

It's a phrase that's stuck out to Jon, a little throw away phrase, but it burns. Punk doesn't think Jon has a philosophy about wrestling, he doesn't think Jon cares as much as he did. It's bitterly offensive, and it hurts to hear him say that. It hurts to not have Punk say that he's proud, or that he believes in Jon, rather he thinks Jon just goes with the flow, that he doesn't fight for what he thinks is right. There might be a little truth in that statement, but Jon's no push over, he's not one to just stay in the rut he's put in.

"Well, I think those guys might..."

Cabana's words took a little of the sting out, but his focus was on Colby, and Jon was swept neatly under the rug. He wasn't important enough to really be worth a mention. He's Punk's lover and there's no mention of him in this damn thing anywhere, there's another fleeting blip of his name in the Z-Pac story, but other than that, nothing. Punk mentions being in love, having found the person he's convinced he's going to be with for a long time, if not forever, but Jon's name isn't brought up, there's nothing but silence on the who this love in Punk's life is. The staph infection, the MRSA, that terrified him, because he could have lost Punk, and he didn't know it. He vaguely remembers the lump on Punk's back, and now that he thinks on it, he can see the ugly purplish scar on Punk's lower back from where it was in his mind, but Punk didn't trust him, didn't believe in him enough to tell him about it face to face. Punk could have died, and he's never thought that was something he should mention to the person that he's supposed to be in love with. Jon knew there was plenty they weren't telling each other, but he'd thought it was all in the past. He'd thought it was all stuff that was from long ago, not from just a year ago. It burns, it burns bright and bitter in heart, it burns the worms in his stomach to ashes.

He's scared. Cabana had stressed that to him in the kitchen, and as Jon lies on the couch listening to the podcast, he thinks Colt's wrong. Punk doesn't sound scared, he sounds relieved, he sounds happy. He'd recorded that podcast lying in Colt's arms, and he sounds far happier there than he ever does with Jon. The worms, like a phoenix, rise from the ashes in his stomach, and Jon closes his eyes. Cabana knows everything about Punk, Punk tells him everything. They'd be perfect for each other, only Punk's in love with Jon, and Cabana isn't interested in Punk.

I love you... I'm sorry Punk's words to him last night, the words that had revived the worms in the first place. Sorry for what? Sorry not telling him, sorry for leading him on, sorry for not being honest, or open, or trusting Jon enough to let Jon try to help him. Sorry for ever getting involved with him in the first place. He needs answers; he needs Punk back here so he can get them.

Get here - sent

A text tone comes from the kitchen, and Punk walks in looking pensive. His face is pale, but his cheeks are blotchy, his eyes rimmed with red, his hair a mess as if he'd run his hands through it a thousand times.

"Sit." Jon points to the couch he's not lying on, and Punk sits down, his eyes focussed on Jon's face. "Fucking talk to me." He snarls, and Punk sighs, looking away, turning to stare out of the window.

"What about?" His voice is croaky, a little broken, and as much as Jon wants to go over to him, and comfort him, he wants answers more.

"Why the fuck didn't you tell me any of this?" He sits up, and Punk turns to him, his eyes still down cast. "Punk, you're supposed to be in love with me, but I don't know fucking shit all about you."

"You know enough..." Punk sighs, and Jon runs a hand through his hair, tugging on the strands in frustration.

"I know fucking nothing!" He knows he should be calm about this, but the calm maturity he'd felt earlier is slipping from him in the face of Punk's apparent apathy. "I know the same bullshit anyone who's watched your DVD or listened to an interview knows... I know what your sisters fucking told me today, but I know nothing from you." He growls, and Punk sighs.

"You know I love you." Punk says coolly, looking at Jon with that insufferable Sphinx expression on his face. "I know you love me, that's plenty isn't it?"

"For an infatuation, Phil." Jon sneers, and Punk's eyes narrow. "I don't want to be infatuated with you, you bastard. I want to be in love with you, I want to know every single little fucking stupid thing that goes on inside your pretty little fucking head! But you're clearly too much of a fucking pussy to let me close enough. Obviously, you're not as in love as you say, because for every time I think about how much I love what I know about you, I'm ten times as desperate to know what I don't." Jon stalks closer, standing in front of Punk, staring down at him, and Punk snorts, looking away.

"Don't fucking think about touching me." He sneers, and Jon clenches his fists, feeling something inside himself, some emotion he can't feel well enough to explain to himself. "You ever think, Jon, that the reason I don't tell you things is because they're not important. The past is the past, leave it be." He fidgets on the couch, and Jon sighs sitting on the table, staring at Punk's face.

"Your past made you who you are, Punkin... I want to know what made you, what formed you into you." Jon makes a grab for Punk's hands, but he crosses his arms over his chest.

"I didn't tell you anything that was on that podcast because at the time, you were my fuck-buddy, and then it wasn't fucking important because it's over with. There's no point in clinging to what's already happened." Punk sounds so final, and Jon isn't sure how to explain himself, isn't sure how to make Punk understand that his past is something Jon covets because it's a part of Punk. There's nothing about Punk Jon doesn't want, but it seems there's plenty about himself that Punk would like to be rid of.

"Cabana said you're scared-"

"Fuck Cabana!" Punk stands with a vicious hiss. "Fuck that meddling fucking bastard. He can keep his fucking nose out of my fucking business. I didn't ask him to get involved. I didn't ask him to get you to come to me. I didn't ask him to have you on his fucking podcast. I didn't ask him if I could sit and listen to what you said. I didn't ask him to get you to come over. I didn't ask him to fucking fix this when it was broken. I asked that motherfucker for nothing." Punk's pacing, his voice harsh, and heavy with fury. "Fuck him! Fuck him and his fucking inability to leave me the fuck alone." Punk storms over to the stairs. "I didn't ask him for this. I didn't ask him... I didn't ask you for any of this either." Punk clomps up the stairs, and Jon sits on the couch quietly. He's not sure what to do. There's a part of him that wants to chase Punk upstairs, to scream and shout, demand answers, demand explanations, but he can't listen to that part of him, because in this case it's wrong. Instead, he takes the USB from the laptop, and puts it in his pocket, before going to the front door, and pulling on his shoes and coat, leaving Punk's apartment. The best thing to do here is to take some time to consider this, to give Punk some time to cool down, and think about what he wants. Jon knows what he wants; he knows that he wants to talk to Punk, but Punk's not in the mood for that, so this is the only thing he can do.

"Hello, hi... Yeah... I'm sorry it's short notice, but when's the next flight from O'Hare to McCarran?"

Many thanks to the ladies and gentlemen who reviewed:

AshJovillette, VKxXx92, littleone1389, and Brokenspell77.

A touch of drama... But really they do need to converse to really be in a relationship, infatuation wears off rather quickly after all. :3

Reviews, comments, concerns and asides are always welcomed.

So I have assumed control of the Tumblr account in my name, and joined twitter in a out of hungoveredness... if you'd like to follow me, I guess , it's following on these social media thingies isn't it?