Rating: Teen, there's a few swear words; Christian won't stop swearing, the potty mouth. Also pre-slash eventually turning into slash.
Summary: Jay's struggling with losing his belt and a Viper he cannot shake. Eventual Randy/Jay, Jay POV.
Warning(s): This is a blend of kayfabe and (totally make-believe) real life. I use the wrestlers' real names and the character names when appropriate, like during ring segments. This is about Christian and Randy's current dance-around. Honestly, with all the eyesex they do, they should just get a room already. Trufax. Unbeta'd.
Disclaimer: I do not own any rights to the WWE or the wrestlers mentioned in the story. This is a story of fiction and I make no money from it.
Author's Note: Listening to "Landing in London" by 3 Doors Down really helped with the Jay angst. I highly suggest it for either of the boys, really :) I just noticed that most of my chapters deal with exercise and eating. Wtf, self? Also, American Independence day weekend was a blast, this chapter has too much talking, and I don't know German, ta! I want to give a big thank you to all my reviewers and potential Christian/Randy writers out there!

Room to Breathe, Chapter Four

He spent the next few days in a stupor. He couldn't sleep, he barely ate, and he refused to leave his room. He exercised until he passed out and when he woke up, he exercised again all in the futile effort not to think about Denise. His impending divorce haunted him at all moments. Stiff, he crawled out of bed and clutched his screaming back. He checked his phone for messages—four voice mails from Adam, one from Charissa, and several texts from his friends—and erased them all, frowning. The last thing he wanted to do was talk to someone.

He limped to the bathroom and had to brace himself on the lip on the tub to edge into the damn thing. Standing up for a shower became too much of a Herculean task and, defeated, he crumbled into a heap. God dammit, he thought as the back of his head thudded against the wall. Water continued to pelt him, plastering his hair to his skull. He couldn't even muster the strength to soap up or crawl out the tub and just stayed there until the water cooled, and he was forced to get out or face hypothermia.

Wrapping a towel around his waist, he grabbed another to wipe down his hair and stepped into his cool room. He shivered, water and goose bumps beading down his torso in equal measure. His phone rang, and he picked it up out of long ingrained habit, cursing himself when Charissa's voice carried over the line.

"Jay, where have you been? We've been trying to get in touch with you for days! Is everything all right? Are you and Denise getting a divorce? For real? I thought you guys were just separating for now."

"Charissa," he shouted, holding his phone away to get away from her rapid questions. When the woman got on a roll, she got on a roll. Hol-ee shit.

"Yeah?" She sounded startled and for good reason. Jay rarely raised his voice outside of the ring.

"I have a headache."

"Sorry. How are you taking it?" Her voice gentled. Sympathy, was there anything worse in the world?

"Not too good," he admitted, "It's a big shock to me, and I'm still processing it." He couldn't even say 'divorce' to his best friend's girl. No, he wasn't taking it well at all.

"Can't you go and talk to her? I'm sure they'll let you go if it's a family issue, right?"

"Not for pay-per-views. They'd fire me on the spot or sue me under breach of contract."

"They can dothat? For real?" Through the white noise, he could hear her voice and a deeper one, probably Adam, before she came back to the mouth piece with an incredulous "holy shit". "Adam wants to talk to you, hun," she said regretfully and there was more static as the phone exchanged hands.

"Jay, man, this sucks." Adam always had a talent for understatement. What Jay wanted to know was how Adam found out about his divorce, so he asked him and the answer wasn't that surprising. "From Denise. We called her when you didn't answer our texts for a day."

"Did…did she tell you why?" His voice was quiet and he was ashamed to admit that his voice cracked.

"No," Adam replied, knowing just what Jay wanted answered, his voice just as subdued. "There's still hope, Jay. She hasn't filed and you didn't sign any papers yet, right?" Hope fluttered in Jay's chest, beating incessantly against his breast bone. He was almost too afraid to answer the question for fear that the fragile hope would shatter. "How are you doing, though?"

"'M fine."

"You're not."

"I'm not." Jay rubbed at the pink, puckered flesh near his armpit—his pectoral surgery scar. He overdid it with the exercising again, and his pectoral muscles ached.

"Over-exercising again?" Jay held out the phone in disbelief. How in the hell did Adam know that? "You always do whenever you're stressed. I know because I had to lug your ass around the next day."

Adam was apparently a mind reader. "I'm fine, Mom." He grimaced at his reflection in the mirror, the toll of his sleepless nights splashed across the reflective surface. His bags had bags, and the lines around his mouth and eyes could best be described as furrows.

"Speaking of moms, did you tell your parents about this?"

"Hell no. And I'm not going to until we fix this or I have to sign the papers. No telling Judy either, Adam, or I'm kicking your ass."

"You do realize that when my mother finds out we held this from her, an ass-kicking would be the least of our worries, right?" Jay shuddered; for such a gentle-mannered woman, Judy could put the fear of God into an ex-convict. He did not envy whoever got to tell her about him and Denise.

"How was your match?" Adam continued.

"You know I can't tell you what went on." Truth be told, it didn't really matter what Jay refused to say. If Adam really wanted to know what happened, he could just go online. SmackDown was notorious for spoilers since it wasn't live like Raw.

"Okay, okay. Tell me this—did you lock yourself in your room?"

"How the helldid you know that?" Jay had been kidding when he thought Adam was a mind reader, but that was ridiculously close to the truth.

"Randy told me. Something about you shutting yourself up for days."

Jay's hands curled into a tight fist, skin stretching bloodlessly over his knuckles. "I'm going to kill him."

"Dude, chill, willya? It's no big deal, I texted him because someone wouldn't answer his damn phone."

Adam couldn't reach him and the man's first instinct was to call Randy? He bit his lip to stem his rising anger. Adam didn't know about Randy, he kept reminding himself and took a deep breath to calm himself down. Adam would never know if Jay could help it. They continued the conversation with Jay skillfully redirecting any and all questions dealing with his divorce or the clusterfuck with Randy. He asked about Sam, his black and white Angora cat he had to leave behind while he was touring, and Charissa filled him in. Apparently, Sam was not happy with Adam's dogs and would incite fights with the smaller ones. And, yes, a cat rugby-tackling a dog was a must-see, once-in-a-lifetime experience. He talked to the both of them as he pulled up his pants, but he had to say goodbye when someone knocked on his door.

Grabbing a tee-shirt, he tugged it over his head and made sure he looked through the fisheye before he opened the door. He grinned tiredly. "Hey, Bryan, come on in." He surveyed his room, wishing he had some time to clean or something. He cleared off one of the beds. "What brings you here?"

The American lifted up a four-pack of beer, a brand of which Jay wasn't familiar but accepted anyway. Beer was beer in his opinion, and alcohol was too great a temptation to resist. He rarely got to indulge after all. They sat, him drinking the beers, Bryan his water, and shooting the breeze. Bryan asked superficial questions, didn't get annoyed if Jay didn't answer, and had some interesting stories—it was awesome and just what Jay needed to calm down after his emotional wringer. To work off the beer, they wrestled at a nearby gym. No submissions, no finishers, no real competition. It was great.

Jay found him smiling for the first time in days as he bounced off the ropes and charged at Bryan who just vaulted over him. They grappled for a bit—Jay winning the first one, Bryan the second—before Jay laid Bryan flat on his back. Pumping his fists in the air, he jogged around the ring celebrating his 'victory'. His body was still so sore from the abuse he had put it through, and after a while, he had to beg off wrestling. He sat on the sidelines, icing up his pec while Bryan jumped rope.

When both of their stomachs started rumbling, Bryan dragged him to this little vegan bistro hole-in-the-wall. Jay didn't know what he was more surprised about: a vegan café in Texas or the fact that Bryan apparently had a vegan GPS somewhere in that mop of hair. He had no idea what was good, so he let Bryan order for the both of them. They made a little deal. If Jay didn't like whatever Bryan ordered, Bryan would have to eat it while Jay grabbed a juicy hamburger guilt-free. Surprisingly, it didn't come to that; Jay actually liked his food.

Bryan was unbearably smug when they left the restaurant. Jay made a face at him and jostled the other man's shoulder. Hanging out with Bryan was a saving grace; he could effectively not think about Denise for the first time in days. He still felt the pain beating a constant tattoo against his ribcage, but the urge to crawl into a corner and wait for the end was less immediate.

"Are you looking forward to this Sunday?"

With all the personal drama he was going through at the moment, Jay had almost forgotten that he only had a few days to hook up with Creative and get his sorry ass ready for his PPV rematch with Orton. He rubbed his neck and shrugged in answer to Bryan's question. Right now, in the state he was in, he couldn't tell his ass from his elbow. How in the hell was he going to beat the Viper?

"Should be an interesting match," Bryan continued. "Can't wait to see it."

For all his doubts, Jay couldn't wait to see how the match played out either. Randy was an impressive wrestler, and PPVs were notoriously under-scripted. The only thing actually scripted was who won and how. Jay already knew how his match was going to play out. Orton was going to win with an RKO; he was the company's golden boy after all. Even though he knew that, Jay would do everything in his power to make this match spectacular and stay high on the Contenders list. That belt was his, and he refused to drop to mid-card.

When did wrestling become his whole life again? He sat there, scrambling to remember when he last had a heart-to-heart talk with Denise. He came up empty. Stunned at his revelation, he didn't hear Bryan's speak until the man poked him in the arm.

"Your phone's ringing," Bryan pointed out with a concerned look on his face. "Is everything all right?"

Jay reached into his pocket and waved away Bryan's concern as he answered his phone. "Hello, this is Jay."

"Hey, Jason," the chipper voice of his writer unnerved him. Marc Phelps was a good guy and fun to work with, but Jay didn't fancy talking business with the man right now. "I was goin' through all this feud stuff between Christian and Randy with Rich, and we were wondering if you'd mind coming to meet us before 'Over the Limit'. When are you coming up to Seattle?"

"Tomorrow. My flight leaves…mid-afternoon? I'll have to check my ticket. I'll get back to you on it though, okay Marc?"

"That's fine, Jason. Call me as soon as you know. The faster we get everything squared away, the better. Creative's been riding me for the past day to get a hold of you." Jay felt a small pang of irrational guilt, as if he were a scolded child instead of a grown man going through a divorce. He picked at his pinky nail as Marc babbled on and on about how great the feud was shaping up to be.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jay could see the sympathetic looks Bryan was shooting him. He quickly ended the conversation with Marc and put his phone back, slapping his knees and getting up. "Well, that was fun."

Bryan scooted off the bench as well. "Creative's bothering you too?" He clapped Jay on the shoulder. "Could be worse, I guess." They started off for the hotel, side by side.

Jay shoved his hands into his pockets. "How'dya figure?"

Bryan pursed his lips in thought. "They could be in town and hunting you down as we speak. Or a meteor could come crashing to Earth, destroying all life in a fiery explosion. There's always that." Startled at Bryan's strangeness, Jay burst into laughter. They joked some more about what could be worse than the WWE's creative team until they stopped at Jay's doorstep.

He grabbed Bryan's shoulder and shook it. "Look, I've been having a shitty couple of days and I just…Thanks, man."

"No problem. Any time." Bryan shot him a smile and left.

Jay stared at the phone clenched in his fist. He knew what he had to do, but he was dreading it. Naturally, he procrastinated—checked his tickets, called Marc back, picked up his room for tomorrow; combed the web for weird pictures with which to spam Adam—but soon he ran out of things to do. Once again, he was left staring at his phone. He quickly dialed before he lost his nerve and put the phone to his ear.

"You're actually calling me?"

What was I thinking? he berated himself for contacting the asshole. "Yes, I am. Did you text Adam?"

"He texted me. He was worried—"

"Don't feed me that bullshit, Orton. Just stay out of my personal life from now on."

"So this is why you decided to waste my time? You couldn't even talk to me face-to-face, Reso?"

"Do I need to? Back off, Randy. I can do this on my own."

"You shouldn't have to!"

Jay froze. Just what in the hell was Randy playing at? Emotion battering him from all sides, he ended the phone call. His phone slipped from nerveless fingers.

He didn't sleep a wink that night.

/

As soon as he stepped off the plane, bleary-eyed and scowling at the sun's glare, he called Marc and set up the meeting with him and Randy's writer. He had no doubts that Randy would be there, and that was just something the former Heavyweight champion would have to face.

He tried to call Denise and didn't receive an answer. He left a carefully-worded message on their home answering machine, asking her to please call him back. He kept his tone warm, refrained from any personal attacks, and ended the message before he could break down pleading. The Business was full of those who botched up their relationships and went through about it the wrong way: threatening their significant others, cheating, being hostile to press; breaking down. It came with the territory of such a high-pressure lifestyle.

Denise didn't deserve to have people in her face bothering her, or a husband who would turn on her in a blink of an eye. He still loved her, would always love her, and because of that, he respected her decision. If she wanted to go through the divorce, he would gladly sign the papers. He just wanted to know why. He deserved that at least.

He picked up his rental car and decided to go to the stadium early. The receptionists helped him find the exact conference room. He settled down and waited for the others, more high strung than he'd like to admit. Marc and Rich arrived at the same time, both carrying briefcases and laptops. Marc, stout with perpetually red cheeks, walrus-like whiskers, and a permanent smile, was one of the best feud writers the WWE had. Jay grinned him in return. If he was going to turn Heel, he definitely wanted Marc by his side.

His smile, brought on by his writer's cheeriness, slipped the moment Randy Orton stepped through the door looking well-rested in his casual slacks and button down. Almost reflexively, Jay glanced down at his own rumpled tee-shirt and jeans before starting a staring contest with the shiny conference table.

He felt more than saw the Viper sit down next to him. Jay stiffened; out of all the empty seats available, Randy decided to plop his ass next to him?

"Okay, cats, let's get this party started," Rich said, rubbing his dry hands together. He was Randy's assigned writer, a tall, gawky middle-aged man with long brown hair slightly thinning at the top. Despite his awkward appearance, Richard Gold had a knack for keeping to a wrestler's character. "Now, at 'Over the Limit', as soon as Randy-boy here drops the RKO, Christian will be out for the count. Sorry, Jay-Jay, but that's just how it rolls. Now, the guys upstairs want to bring in a few elements, specifically Christian's spear and Randy's punt."

"But he's still a Face," Randy protested, taking the words right out of Jay's mouth.

"Exactly, exactly," Mike continued the conversation, "We want to bring both of your popular Heel moves back to SmackDown. Christian's going to have more backroom segments that we will hammer out as well as the spear he adopted from Edge. Randy will have more inner ring segments and we're bringing back the punt. We just need to establish them during 'OtL', boys. Randy will counter Christian's spear and land his punt. The crowd will love it."

Rich adjusted the small, rose-tinted glasses perched on his wide, beaky nose. "How we see it is like this—Christian is in a transitional period, yeah? He's a Face, but the corruption at WWE is slowly turning him Heel, man. Now, it's not gonna be like R-Truth and Cena's feud or anything. Don't worry. Mark Henry and Sheamus will play a big part of this feud as well, Sheamus specifically. We have a different storyline brewing for the World's Strongest Man." He went on to cover a good chunk of their feud and even though Rich's Californian drawl was a bit much at times, Jay listened carefully.

It all boiled down to this: he was losing his Number One Contender spot to Sheamus. In a lovely little twist, he was going to referee Sheamus and Randy's fight and turn completely Heel in the process. Rich and Marc were hammering out the scripts, nasally Californian and molasses-sweet Southern drawls clamoring over each other inharmoniously, as Jay numbly sat there.

A light touch on the small of his back shocked him at the intimacy, and he jumped, glaring at the man beside him. "What are you doing, you ass?" He asked in a low growl, speaking out of the corner of his mouth.

Randy didn't say anything, just leaned back into his chair and refused to pull his hand away. The heat from the light touch had burned a proprietary brand into Jay's skin, and he was not having it. Licking his lips in frustration, Jay scooted away like a shy virgin on prom night.

"Something the matter, Jay-Jay?" Jay had to force himself from leaping over the table. No matter how PR spun it, strangling a prime writer with his own Day-Glo orange tie was never a good thing. Even so, he refused to be held accountable for his actions if Rich kept using that ridiculous nickname.

"No. It's just jet lag. I'm fine."

Marc and Rich shared a look. "Well, if you need time to recuperate, Jason, you can leave. In fact, you both can leave. We don't need you boys anymore. We'll just send you the tentative scripts via email and just email us back if you want to make a suggestion and we'll take it into consideration," Marc offered diplomatically.

He could see an out when it was presented to him. Saying his goodbyes, Jay left the building and slid on his sunglasses in defensive of the dying sun. He just opened the door to his Hybrid when a shadow fell over him and he paused.

"I meant what I said about you going through this alone," Randy spoke up from behind. Squaring his shoulders, Jay turned to face him. Randy was too fucking close, effectively trapping Jay between his body and the car.

Jay crossed his arms, muscles bunching in flight-or-fight mode. "I'm not alone, Randy. I actually have friends. Crazy, I know. But, I have them."

"Do they know about us?"

"No one knows about us…and no one ever will. Ever. Go back to your wife and kid, Randy, and leave my life alone."

They stood there for who-knows-how long, stone-faced and unflappable until Randy's heavy, scrutinizing stare had Jay fidgeting. With an infuriatingly haughty smirk, Randy left. Jay rolled his eyes at the melodrama his life had become and tried to reach Denise again, this time on her cell phone.

"Denise, it's me, Jay. I…call me when you get this. I just want to talk, okay? Ich liebe dich. Ich vermisse dich." He mumbled through unsure German as if he had rocks in his mouth, but he wanted to prove to her that he was trying. With a gusty sigh, he disconnected the call and took a moment to collect himself before he got into his car and sped away.