Fourteen!

Title: Could Have
Prompt: Sadness
Medium: fic
Rating: PG-13/T
Warnings: Mentions of violence, supernatural elements
Summary: AU, Nightstalkers!Universe, post Just Close Your Eyes. Christian wasn't supposed to make connections. His brother was his first mistake. Matt Hardy was his second. Christian, Matt Hardy, Edge (Adam). Mentions of Shawn Michaels, Triple H (Hunter Helmsley), and Gangrel (David Heath).
A/N: Nightstalkers are demon hunters. David Heath (Gangrel) became a vampire when Adam and Christian were ten. Shawn and Hunter trained the two to hunt demons after rescuing them.

Giving your life to demon hunting is a huge decision to make at ten years.

But at the time, it was the best decision Christian could make. For one thing, it meant him and Adam could stay together. They would never see Shannon, Ian, or Shelley again—they would never see their home again—but they would be able to stay together. And it would also be a chance to help their father, save him from the monster that had taken over him. For a chance to destroy whatever had it's hold over David Heath, and to at least remain together, Christian and Adam would give anything.

It was Christian's family that kept him going. For every drop of sweat, every tear spilled, every time Shawn or Hunter made him bleed, Christian thought of Adam, of his father. He wasn't going to leave Adam behind, and he wasn't going to give up on his Dad.

He had to carry on. For Adam. For his father. And for a sense of peace that could only come from putting a bullet through the head of the fucking monsters that existed in the world.

But sometimes, it wasn't enough. Shawn had trained him against making long lasting connections; the only person he had any true alliance to was Adam. And it wasn't enough. As he grew older, the times that he craved more than just a brother and a grudge grew more often. People around him were living life in ways he couldn't; he would never experience high school, college. They would be able to hang out with best friends or take someone they liked on a date. He wasn't supposed to care about anyone like that; those kind of connections just made the job harder.

When his thoughts went down that path, inevitably, he thought about the time he cut his hair. Once upon a time, he had hair like Adam's. It was one of the reasons people thought they were blood brothers; they'd somehow grown up looking similar, as if living under the same household, learning from the same Nighstalkers, and toiling together rubbed off on one another until they were more than foster brothers.

Shawn and Hunter also had long blonde hair. In some ways, it connected the four Nightstalkers, mentors and students. They looked more like a family than they had the right to. He couldn't love Shawn or Hunter, not ever after everything they'd put him and Adam through. He wasn't supposed to love them, either.

His father also had blonde hair. He'd never be able to call David Heath father again… he was something dark now, something that had tried to kill him. That hurt Adam and nearly killed him. And David Heath loved Christian's hair.

If he was going to be denied his family, well, he'd be denied it as fully as possible.

He could still remember chopping off his hair, cropping it short. Once he was done, he couldn't recognize himself. But that's what he wanted. This person had no family, no connection to David Heath, Shawn Michaels, Hunter Helmsley… anyone.

He didn't even want Adam to be his brother at the moment. If he wasn't supposed to care for anyone, then he didn't want a brother. He didn't want a single person he could love and lose.

If a family was going to be denied him, he wanted it denied all the way.

It was Adam who found Christian in the bathroom, long strands of golden hair on the tile, staring at the scissors in his hands.

"Christian," Adam whispered, grabbing hold of the scissors. He slowly pulled them away, watching as Christian's gaze met his. Could Adam see everything Christian was thinking? Did he know what kind of pain Christian was feeling?

"I needed a change," he said simply. And Adam moved closer, wrapping his arms around Christian's body. Christian laid his head against Adam's chest, and he knew that there was no way he'd ever stop loving Adam. His brother meant too much to him. It was a mistake, to be so attached, but it was one Christian couldn't stop himself from making. Adam was what got him through the roughest patches of his life; how could such a bond be anything but good?

And it was that he wondered then, laying his head against Matt Hardy's shoulder as Adam filled the tank of the car. But it wasn't about his brother this time; it was his partner, it was everything Matt had ever been to him. He wasn't supposed to love Matt. Vickie told him as much, and Vickie was never wrong. There was also the fact that Matt was straight, and this could ruin everything they'd worked for the past year.

But sometimes, it was Matt who got him through. Where Adam couldn't help him, when brotherly love wasn't enough, it was his love for Matt that got him through.

These bonds couldn't be wrong, if they did such good things. But apparently hell lay before him should he act on these feelings.

He needed Matt. He couldn't have Matt in the way he needed him.

"Hey." Christian looked up, at Matt's face. Matt had lost family the way Christian lost family, but where Christian had Adam, Matt only had a ghost of a brother he wasn't able to save. Matt had nobody, and Christian liked to believe it was the little family they made for themselves that helped Matt.

These bonds couldn't be wrong. Not when they did so much. But the warnings still hung over Christian's head, making him wonder if there was more than he knew. "Yeah?"

"Is it worth it?" And Christian knew what he was asking. Was life, hunting, the people… was everything worth it?

Christian grabbed Matt's hand, picking it up to his mouth and pressing his lips to it in a quiet kiss, with every bit of reassurance he could afford. He wanted to do so much more, but there was only so much he could do without letting Matt know he was in love with him.

"I hope so." He couldn't say yes, but God, did he hope so.