Author: Snarkcasm
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.
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: My reviewers and readers are amazing and I cherish each and every one of you :). I would like to give a shout out to darlingharbour who, aside from being a constant help and source of ideas when I'm slamming my forehead into the keyboard at three in the morning, is also a great Christian/Randy writer and lovely person in general. I also changed the name of Sin Cara. His real name is Luis Ignascio, so even though my computer loves auto-correcting Ignascio to Ignacio, I will be diligent!
Room to Breathe, Chapter Seven
The next day blurred by in a daze of whispers and Tylenol PM; too little sleep and too strong coffee from the greasy spoon downtown. Jay was still no closer to understanding the awkwardness with some of the Superstars backstage than he was to understanding Denise's decision. While the diner wasn't that busy, it was still criminally short-staffed with only one waitress doing the job of at least three with a smile on her worn face.
He needed the time to think anyway.
"…do you want?" Startled like a naughty child, he stopped chewing on his thumb cuticle. The matronly waitress repeated the question with a snap of her bubblegum. "Hon, what do you want?"
He apologized for wasting her time and ordered a BLT on wheat while she topped up his coffee and made idle restaurant chatter. He responded the best he could, but he mostly let her faint, raspy voice wash over him. She plonked down some ice water and a straw, and Jay grabbed the straw, fiddling with it.
"Smoker?"
Startled, he put down the straw, more aware of his fingers than ever before. "Uh, no, no. I used to be, but I quit." He had no idea why he was so chatty today; normally he was reluctant to discuss himself, even in interviews. He curled his fingers around the ceramic coffee cup for the wont of something better to do, the considerable heat leeching into his palms.
With a conspiratorial wink, she rolled up her uniform sleeve to reveal a round Nicotine patch. "I know the feeling, sugar. The hardest thing is finding something to do with fidget fingers." With that, she left, making Jay wonder about old habits dying hard. In retrospect, giving up cigarettes was damn easy considering what he had to deal with now.
A gasp; a whispered 'I love you' in the hollow of a collarbone. A sweet swipe of tongue, the barest touches that sent shivers up and down his spine. The soft swell of breast underneath his calloused palms, the rush of a hard body caging his within powerful, tattooed arms—
No!
He squeezed his eyes shut. He had been a saint for all the months they had been legally separated. Even though seeing other people was recommended by their marriage counselor, he wasn't comfortable in seeing others, even as one-night stands. It was the least he could do for Denise knowing that they both had awful reactions when it came to cheating. Now that the divorce was pending, he had been having urges. Urges that left him bolting up from his bed, sweaty, achy, and wholly unfulfilled.
He missed the sex—he wasn't ashamed to admit it, but most of all he missed waking up to another person in the morning. He missed reaching over to gingerly kiss his wife good morning before morning breath forced them both to the bathroom. And, thinking about it obsessively wasn't helping. His thoughts were blessedly interrupted by the arrival of his food.
He stared at his plate, half-heartedly pushing his fries around, appetite completely gone. A pity, really; the BLT sounded so good. He signaled for his check, pushing the plate away and cradling his face in his palms. He was royally screwed and not in a good way.
"Do you want a box for that, hon?"
"Yeah, thanks."
"Be right back with that and your check." True to her word, she was rather quick, setting down his bill and scooping the BLT and fries into the Styrofoam box. He took out his wallet and was in the middle of taking out some money when she remarked, "You're such a nice young man. I hope your relationship troubles iron themselves out soon."
He freaked, grabbing his leftovers, throwing down money, and left as fast as his legs could carry him. He was still freaked a few blocks down when he passed a convenience store, swore, and bought a pack of cigarettes.
The first buzz of nicotine took him back to the summer where Adam and he snuck a battered, nicked-from-the-'rents pack behind the old school and tried their first cigarettes together. Adam immediately retched, swearing them off forever, but Jay was hooked. Maybe it was because he was weaker, but when the nicotine hit his bloodstream, the euphoria blanketed him in a haze of calm. He had a hard time giving it up, in all honesty.
He took one last drag off the cigarette and grounded the butt against his boot heel. If he knew better, he would have thrown away the entire pack, but like a coward, he stowed it away in his back jean pocket.
/
Jay stopped at the hotel's service desk. The clerk working looked him up in the system and announced that he had a package. Tapping nervously on the faux marble receptionist desk, he only prayed that whatever it was wasn't divorce papers. The pimply-faced clerk pushed a plain, medium-sized, brown package towards him and handed him a mail log. Jay signed mechanically, focused on the random box. Every Superstar had a WWE-maintained P.O. Box for fan mail, so Jay knew it wasn't from a fan. Then again, no one outside knew where he was staying. As a precaution, he opened the package at the desk.
He slid a finger underneath the brown paper, carefully dislodging the packing tape, and peeled it back to reveal a shoe box. Thoroughly puzzled, Jay lifted up the cover and burst out laughing. There, nestled between several wadded Sunday comics was a lime-green kazoo.
The clerk gave him a strange look. "Is everything all right, sir?" he inquired in a professional tone far older than his gangly appearance allowed.
Jay nodded, still speechless. When he grabbed the kazoo, a post-it-note underneath it grabbed his attention. His grin grew as he read it.
'2 PM, be there. Long live the stream.'
/
"Hey, Reekazoid, did you like my present?"
He should have said something sarcastic or witty, but Jay was too busy laughing at Adam's mug splashed across his computer screen. Just looking at his best friend's face brightened the hell out of his day. He waggled his fingers at the camera and made small talk. Something was off, though, and it took a while into their conversation for Jay to figure it out. "Wait—why are you in Canada?"
"I wrapped up shooting for a cameo for a SyFy series, Sanctuary, three weeks—no five weeks—ago. It's been an interesting experience. Completely different from under stadium lights."
"Getting your ass kicked less?"
"Got it in one. It was a good gig. I got to be menacing and manipulative, and I had to wear extremely itchy eye contacts. I'll never make fun of Glenn for bitching about them again, I swear. I've also been in negotiations for another SyFy production. It's looking good, so far, so I might have a semi-permanent guest spot instead of the original cameo or two. It's a great cast."
"Do they want to keep you in the family or what?"
Adam shrugged and adjusted his webcam. "Probably. It's no big deal. The pay's good and I get to go to hockey games again." Jay was jealous, having only enough time to catch one or two games and check stats frantically between flights, and it showed. Adam was doing that stupid gloating expression where he pursed his lips and tried to look innocent. It didn't work in detention—which was usually Adam's fault anyway—and it sure as hell didn't work now.
They talked for a while, carefully tiptoeing around Jay's pending divorce and his feud, and as always, Jay didn't want it to end. Adam asked how he was holding up, and Jay lied through his teeth, dismissing his feelings of anxiety and worry over Denise. Out of the two of them, he was known not to hold a long grudge—which was why his thing with Randy was so frustrating—so he knew that his dismissive answer would be taken at face value, even with a damnably perceptive Adam. The conversation wrapped up quickly after Adam threatened to release baby photos all over the internet if Jay didn't text regularly.
Jay powered down his laptop and shook his head; with Adam's constant hovering, he really didn't need the relationship component of a relationship. He pulled on some comfortable sweats and did some stretches and light exercise, focusing especially on his right arm. Later on today, he'd go down to a gym and lift weights, but for now, he needed the distraction from thinking about relationships.
/
Sweating underneath stadium lights in a leather jacket and whining to Michael Cole wasn't the greatest start to a Tuesday night, but since Jay was on contract, he didn't have a choice. Then again, it was miles better than the silence in the back.
Cole went along with it, catering to him as planned. No one could pull off sycophantic ass-wipe quite like the Heel commentator. And while he didn't necessary like Cole, he was a professional veteran in the biz, so if anyone could understand jumping through hoops, it'd be him.
The crowd wasn't working for him (there were still too many cheers for a Heel), so he had to resort to cheap heat for boos and catcalls. He called them and the viewers at home "clueless" and every under the sun short of "yo momma" jokes. He wasn't sure why he was trying so hard to get boos; most likely, the production team would add canned heat before the Friday night showing. He ended his little spiel by predicting getting his Belt back and not sharing the victory with the Universe and shook Cole's hand, leaving the ring and hoping his delivery didn't sound as forced as it did to him.
Why was he having a hard time with the mic in this feud? True, Jay was a true introvert, but he never had this tough of a time pushing an audience or adopting a character, whether it was being a lovable Beavis-and-Butthead archetype with Edge in the nineties or the Heel, Captain Charisma, with Tomoko (and everything in-between).
He headed down to Catering, positive that his head would explode if he thought about it anymore. He almost bumped into the Usos, but they had stopped. Jay never really talked to Josh or John Fatu, but he drummed up a conversation.
"Good luck, guys."
John, who portrayed Jimmy Uso, inclined his dark head. "Thanks. We caught the end of your promo just now."
Wonderful. Jay rubbed the back of his neck. "Yeah, well—"
"Jobbing must suck for a veteran," the younger Fatu brother spoke up suddenly.
John put his hand on Josh's shoulder and the twins held a conversation that Jay could not follow. The elder's eyes turned cold before he turned to Jay with a smile. Josh wisely kept his mouth shut and stared off into the distance, jaw clenched and expression wild and stormy. "Sorry about my brother. He's edgy about the match."
"Happens to the best of us." He watched them go, puzzled about Josh's outburst. By no means was he offended; Josh just stated an opinion, and Jay wasn't so petty that he'd call out the Samoan-American on it. Now, if Cody or Heath or any other upstart said that, things would be decidedly different, and Jay would probably be on probation for hitting another Superstar.
A PA flagged him down, informing him that he had ten minutes to get to his promo spot. The hair stylist, Rita, wouldn't let him leave the room without fixing his hair. When he was finally free of her gelled clutches, he rushed to the car bay outside and taken aback at just where they were filming. Randy's trailer, seriously?
The Powers that Be had set up a little TV outside for cue synchronization or some fancy word, but Jay couldn't help but stare as the Viper strutted down the ramp in his ring gear.
"So, Christian," came his voice through the tinny speakers. Jay had jumped, startled out of his thoughts. "I heard you were out here earlier tonight running your mouth before I arrived. So what I would like for you to do is to come down to this ring and—"
"Mr. Reso? We're about to go live soon."
Right. Back to business. Jay nodded and moved to his marker, shaking out his limbs as if he was going out for a fight. Which, truth be told, this segment was. He stood there nervously cracking his knuckles (this was practically live, he didn't know his all his lines, don't screw up, don't screw up) and the camera coordinator lifted three, two, one fingers in the air, pointing him to his cue.
Christian smirked. "Randy, Randy," he admonished, "you want me to come out right now? Do me a favor…why don't you ask the people what they want? Actually, why don't we do what Teddy Long does?" There was no way he was pulling this off. Widening his stance, he hunched over and threw up his arms, mimicking Teddy. "Hey playahs, who wants to see Christian come out there and confront Randy Orton? Holla, holla, holla." He danced around, too white for this shit, and struggled to keep a straight face with the fans' reactions streaming through the weak audio.
He dropped the dancing and his smirk. "Forget it, Randy. I know you want to do more than just talk. I'm not coming out there."
"You're right, Christian. I want you to be a man, come out here and deal with this, man to man. Face to face. And let me tell you something—let me tell you something, Christian. Beating the hell out of you was only going to be an added bonus."
Christian's smirk nearly slipped off his face completely as Randy adlibbed. Jay wasn't sure, but there was something dark in the other man's voice, even more so than what his character called for. Out of his peripheral, he could see the camera coordinator shrugging. "One more match for the World Heavyweight Championship, Randy." He held out a finger, chanting, "One. More. Match."
"I do not care what you want!" The other man exploded, and for once, Jay was glad he wasn't in the ring. Randy sounded (and looked) like he was ready to do business, and Jay wasn't having any part of that shit-storm.
"Well you should care, Randy, you should!" he shot back, wondering how in the hell did this turn pear-shaped. "Because, you see, before I smashed you in the face with the World Heavyweight Championship last week, I was the Special Guest Referee and I could have counted your shoulders to the mat, but, I didn't. Because I didn't want to beat Sheamus for the WHC, I wanna beat you. I know I can beat you, Randy. I know I can beat you. You should be thanking me; you should be thanking me right now."
"Thanking you?" Randy went on to say his lines, but Jay was still focused on those two little words. What was wrong with Randy tonight? He wasn't one to really care about his feuds or put much effort into the mic, but tonight…tonight almost seemed personal.
"Randy, I'm finished doing things on your terms. I'm finished with doing things on Teddy Long's terms. I'm finished doing things on the 'peeps'' terms. From now on, we do things on Christian's terms. And, my terms are this: Christian versus Randy Orton for the World Heavyweight Championship at Capitol Punishment."
"Christian…you're on. But it doesn't matter where we meet next, the result will be the same. I will beat you, like I always do. And I will remain the World Heavyweight Champion."
"I'll see you at D.C., Randy," and as a parting shot, he sped away in his rental SUV. He was only supposed to go to the end of the driveway and stop, but he couldn't. He needed to clear his head. He only went around the block, but when he pulled back into the parking lot, it was like he decided to go on a cross-country road trip by how much the backstage manager was screaming at him.
The manager was threatening fines when Jay just snapped. "I just went around the block. I came back. Get off my back."
"Hey, Jim, do you mind if I steal him for a moment?" Ted DiBiase looped an arm around Jay's shoulder. At that moment, Jay ran out of synonyms to describe how damned confused he was as Ted led him away from the irate manager.
"Thank you?"
"No problem. The yelling was getting pretty loud, and I thought you might need a hand."
"Again, thanks, man." Even though his gut wouldn't stop telling him how bad this idea was, ingrained politeness and gratitude had him going along with the situation.
"I've been meaning to ask you, how's the head?" What the fuck was Ted talking about? "Your concussion? You hit your head on some exercise equipment a while back?"
Oh. He had almost forgotten that incident. "I'm fine. I've always had a hard head. I don't think it was a concussion, though. They would have never cleared me if it was." Or, at least, he hoped. The arm still around his shoulders squeezed, bringing Jay's attention to it and the man to whom it belonged. He excused himself and discreetly moved out of the loose embrace, running smack dab into the last person he wanted to see tonight.
"Randy."
Randy Orton, out of his t-shirt and, by the looks of it, oiled up and raring to go, looked down at Jay and then to Ted, a sneer forming on his thin lips as he fixated his dark blue eyes back on Jay. "Jay, Ted."
"Hey, Randy," Ted said with an ease of which Jay was a little envious. "Nice segment tonight, really worked that mic." Silence. Absolute fucking silence. There wasn't even background noise to punctuate the awkwardness. Ted, the coward, said his goodbyes and high-tailed it out of there.
He moved to the left. Randy moved to the right, blocking his path. Sighing, Jay moved to the right. Randy followed in a perverse, mirrored game of "Follow the Leader". There was only so much Jay's inbred politeness could take, but he calmed down before he did something he would definitely regret.
"Something the matter?" He kept his voice free of anger, not willing to provoke a fight.
"How's Stephen?"
What?
"Uh," Jay had no way to respond to that non sequitur aside from: "I don't know. The last time I saw him, he was getting ready for his match. You can ask him yourself. I'm busy."
He brushed past the hulking mass of muscle, insides twisting at the subtle waft of spicy cologne. Jay needed to get a fucking grip. He shook his head and headed outside for a breath of fresh air.
/
Another sharp blow to the stomach with a kendo stick had Jay wincing at both the impact and the red bruise blossoming on Stephen's lily-white belly. Just what the hell was Randy doing? The myth of Sheamus was that he was the Celtic Warrior, and Celtic Warriors did not bruise. He watched Stephen flailing, trapped in the top and middle ropes. Randy was literally beating his friend like a red-headed stepchild, and Jay couldn't take much more of it.
"I'm going down there."
"No, not yet." Screw that. He rushed past the poor PA and towards the ramp's archway to the screams of the crowd.
Randy was in the middle of what Jay 'affectionately' called his "pouting gorilla-man pose" when Jay dove under the bottom rope and hooked Randy's elbows for his signature. Hard hands pushed him away and he could feel harder muscle surrounding his head. He wiggled out of the RKO and rolled out of the ring, hoping his early distraction gave Stephen a little more time to breathe. The Irishman looked terrible.
Jay staggered to the table near the announcers, back in the back corner, where the dummy Championship belt laid. "…bitter Christian is as well. He's bitter. He's like an ex-girlfriend who won't stop calling." Jay froze, eyes wide and fingers nerveless around the belt. Heat and ice rushed simultaneously through his veins as he could feel the tips of his ears go red in embarrassment.
Ex-girlfriend? Him? His heartbeat triple-timed, his limbs were both heavy and jittery, and he felt as if he was going to puke. What did Booker know? Better yet: what did the WWE Management know? Stephen's body slamming into the mat broke through his panic, and he scrambled to hit Randy upside the head with the Championship title. Randy fell with all the grace of a tranquilized bull elephant, head nearly clipping the steel steps.
He stepped out of the way for Sheamus to get the pin, Christian's smirk firmly in place as his emotions stormed and raged underneath the villainous expression. He glared down at Randy. A small part of him relaxed at the slight movement of Randy's chest and fingers, and he quickly buried that underneath Christian's righteous anger. He stared at Randy's name branded at the bottom of the Championship during Sheamus's theme and the poor man rolling out of the ring, visibly exhausted.
Jay did not envy Stephen's morning.
Stepping over the prostrate man's head, he unbuckled the belt and knelt down. His thoughts were a blur about Randy, about Capitol Punishment, about his wife—he was starting to get fucking motion sickness from it all. He played it up for the camera, especially lifting up the title to an emptying crowd, but all he wanted to do was head backstage and back to his hotel. He had a fan obligation to go to. Make no mistake, he loved his fans—every last one of his peeps—and getting to interact with them face-to-face was a highlight of his career. He was just tired: mentally, emotionally…surprisingly not physically, but then again, he didn't fight tonight.
The cameras cut, and Jay held out his hand for Randy to take—he wasn't heartless, even he could see the No Disqualification match took a lot out of the Viper—but the man just stared at his hand before getting up on his own. Fine.
"Don't forget your title," Jay reminded the other wrestler. Without looking at Jay, Randy grabbed the fake title from his hands and strapped it around his waist, leaving the blond out on the mat alone.
What the hell was wrong with everyone tonight?
