TITLE: Breaking It Slowly (1/1)

AUTHOR: Bellerophon

EMAIL: bellerophon_666@hotmail.com

CATEGORY: WWE

DISCLAIMER: I don't own these characters. Don't sue me. The song (The Damn at Otter Creek) belongs to Live.

DISTRIBUTION: If you want it, just ask.

RATING: PG15 some language

SUMMARY: Edge finds Matt Hardy drowning his misery at a bar.

AUTHOR'S NOTE: I brought Edge to behind the scenes at Raw, it's set after the Raw when Matt Hardy cost Jeff his Intercontinental title shot against RVD.

When all that's left to do

Is reflect on what's been done

This is where sadness breathes

The sadness of everyone

Edge slammed the door as he left the rental car he hired. He had one night off before he had to fly to where Smackdown was being filmed. Stupid Vinnie Mac had made him fly down to Raw to meet with some interested advertisers. Apparently he was good eye-meat for female executives with nails that resembled claws.

Shuddering, Edge walked into the bar he'd heard was pretty good and ordered a beer at the bar. Turning around as he waited, Edge almost didn't recognise the hunched over figure knocking back a shot of some sort of alcohol.

He thought firstly he was mistaken, that it couldn't be who he thought it was. Matt Hardy didn't drink. But as he looked again more carefully, he acknowledged that yes, it was Matt Hardy sitting by the bar drinking what looked to be Tequila.

Edge had seen what happened on RAW. He knew what Matt had done, turning on Jeff again and costing him his title shot. It had been one of the big shocks of the night, although after seeing Matt's face after Heyman awarded the shot to Jeff, it wasn't that surprising in hindsight.

Picking up his beer, Edge walked over to Matt and sat down next to him. "I thought you didn't drink."

Matt jumped and turned. "Jesus, Edge. You scared the crap out of me."

Edge smirked despite himself. "Then my work here is done."

"Asshole."

"Country bumpkin."

Matt glared at Edge and pushed the shot glass to the bar keeper. "Another one."

"Like I said, I thought you didn't drink." Edge gestured to the newly filled shot glass, which Matt picked up and swigged down in one swift movement. He winced and coughed as the alcohol went down.

"Tonight's a special occasion." Matt muttered. "Did you catch RAW?"

"I saw it, man." Edge drank some more beer. "What happened out there?"

Matt smiled humourlessly. "I turned on Jeff. Again."

"Yeah, everyone knows that." Edge pushed. "But what happened?"

"I was sick of being the one people looked past to see him." Matt breathed out heavily. "I'm tired of being part of a team but not doing anything. The tagging in the WWE is for shit at the moment and I didn't see the point of being in a tag team."

"That's bullshit, Matt." Edge shook his head. "You could've just gone for single's titles without screwing over Jeff."

"Yeah, I tried." Matt spoke bitterly. "Except my title shot got given to Jeff anyway. I guess it's not enough to give him a WWE Champion title match."

Edge would've argued more except he was interrupted by Matt's phone ringing. Matt pulled it out of his pocket, looked at the caller and ignored it til it stopped ringing.

"Who was that?"

"Lita." Matt turned his phone off. "She keeps calling."

"Why don't you answer?" Edge had a sip of his beer.

Matt, his eyes shining and sad for the first time, shook his head. "What am I supposd to say? She wouldn't understand. She loves Team Extreme." He looked down, saw the shot glass before him was empty and signalled to the bar keeper for another. "Lita's gonna hate me, you know. Same as Jeff. But they don't understand."

"Understand what?" Edge frowned. Matt hadn't said anything about that before.

But Matt had drifted away from the subject. He was occupied by the next shot of Tequila put in front of him. He picked it up and swallowed the alcohol quickly once again.

Edge sighed. He'd only seen Matt drunk once. It had been an interesting night, to say the least. And that had only happened because Christian and himself had slipped Matt a mickey once, when the two teams had been still been fueding. Matt had been like a cat, pouncing on anything that moved and basically acting like a schizophrenic two year old. But tonight was obviously going to be a bit different.

"Matt, maybe you should slow down a bit."

'Maybe you should fuck off." Matt sat back and wobbled in his seat. The Tequila was starting to take effect.

"Just trying to help." Edge was beginning to realise that Matt was becoming his responsibility, the more drunk he got. Just great.

"I don't need your help. I don't need anyone's help." Matt muttered. "I can do it all by myself. Don't need Jeff and Lita. They can be all individual and extreme without me."

"But that's part of you too. Being extreme." Edge thought out loud.

"I just, I couldn't stay that way anymore." Matt wiped his face. "I was suffocating there. And I'm not like Jeff and Lita. I don't belong in Team Extreme."

"Sure you do." Edge had never seen Matt like this. He'd never seen him get this emotional before.

"Live for the moment, extreme moves, death defying leaps, it's all Jeff." Matt gestured wildly, and Edge saw that the Tequila was now beginning to hit Matt. Things were going to go downhill pretty soon. "It's never been me, never ever. But Jeff thought it was cool and people liked it."

"So you went along?"

"It's never been me!" Matt snapped. Ah, now it was time for unexplained outbursts of anger. "All this time, I pretended I was supposed to be with them. But not anymore. I couldn't stay that way anymore."

Edge frowned. "You pretended?"

"Lita an' Jeff wanted to be a team again. I thought, hey, why not? Bein' in a team's better than bein' b'myself, right? But when we came back, I hated it. Y'not a whole person when y'in a team. Juss part of th'whole thing."

"So you wanted out." Edge nodded, piecing things together.

"What iff ah can't do it by m'self?" Matt's words were beginning to slur. "I'ff been pretendin' so long, what iff ah can't be me anymore? Wha' iff ah'm afraid to try?"

"Fear's only a four letter word," Edge reminded Matt of his well known words.

"Thass stupid. What sort of idiot would say somethin' like tha'?"

"Uh, I think you would, Matt."

"Well, ah wass wrong. Fear iss cold and rotten and makes me wanna puke."

"No, Matt, that would be the Tequila." Edge sighed when he saw Matt ask for yet another shot. "I think that's enough. Why don't you give the guy a rest."

"Leave me alone," Matt shoved Edge half-heartedly and turned away. Edge decided enough was enough.

"Come on, Matt. Let's get you back to your room." Edge hauled Matt off his stool and outof the door. Matt was either too tired, too sad or too drunk to put up any sort of fight. Edge was guessing it was the last one.

"I can't g'back." Matt mumbled as he stumbled to Edge's rental car. "Iss Jeffie's room."

"Of course." Edge shook his head. At least Christian had had the decency to plan ahead and book another room for himself for after he whacked Edge over the head with a chair. "You can stay in my room."

Matt didn't say anything, just let Edge lead him to the car and drive him to Edge's hotel. Edge supported Matt as he stumbled around, up the elevator and along the corridor to his room. It was tricky getting the door open while holding Matt up but Edge managed it.

Matt stumbled onto a chair and closed his eyes. Edge closed the door and went to get some water for Matt. He filled a glass quickly and came back into the room, looked at Matt and swore profusely.

Matt was turning slightly green.

Edge jumped up quickly and led him to the toilet.There was no way he was going to explain about there being vomit on the carpet the next day.

Doubling over, Matt threw up all the Tequila he'd drunk too quickly. Edge held his hair back and waited until he sat back up.

Matt winced and leant against the wall. "I hate Tequila."

"I don't think it likes you either," Edge helped Matt to his feet. "You're going to bed now and sleeping it off."

Matt didn't respond, just stumbled into the bedroom and fell onto the bed. Edge could feel a headache coming in. He reached over and pulled Matt's shoes off before throwing a blanket over the dark haired southerner.

Looking down at Matt, Edge sighed and ran a hand through his hair. Looked like he was going to be spending the night on the couch. He left the bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Pulling out a few spare blankets from a cupboard, Edge threw them onto the couch. He was about to start making up a haphazard bed when someone knocked on his door. Edge huffed and walked over the door and yanked it open.

It was Jeff Hardy standing in the door way.

"Edge, hey man. Sorry if I woke you up or anything." He spoke hesitantly. "But, uh, Matt hasn't come back to our room, and some of the guys told me they'd seen him with you."

Edge opened the door wider. "You better come in."

"Is he here?" Jeff looked around the room as he came in.

"Matt's in the bedroom sleeping." Edge shut the door. "He had a bit to drink. Well, a lot, really."

"Matt was drinking?" Jeff looked terrible too. Edge figured under the circumstances it was understandable.

"He had some Tequila." Edge bit his lip before continuing. "He thinks you're going to hate him. That you won't understand why he did it."

"I don't understand!" Jeff snapped. "He would've got another chance."

"Jeff, I don't think that's what it's really about." Edge spoke tentatively, not sure if it was his place to exlain Matt's actions to Jeff. Hell, he wasn't sure if he understood them himself.

"Yeah? What's it about then?" Jeff began pacing across the floor in front of Edge. "Tell me, Edge. You seem to know what's going on?"

"You know Matt's the only one who can tell you why he did it." Edge said gently.

"Alright then. He can tell me now." Jeff walked over to the bedroom door. "Is he in here?"

"I don't know if you seeing him is a good idea." Edge said, quickly jumping in front of the door. He wasn't keen to have to explain why he let Jeff attack his drunken brother in his hotel room.

"Let me see him, Edge. Let me see my brother." Jeff pushed past Edge and into the room. "I want to know why he turned on me, for the second time."

He walked in, followed closely by Edge, and stopped short when he saw his older brother on the bed. "Shit. How much did he drink?"

"Too much." Edge sighed. "Straight Tequila shots."

"Christ," Jeff muttered dispiritedly. His prior anger forgotten, he watched Matt without speaking.

"Have you spoken to Lita?" Edge questioned to break the uncomfortable silence.

"No. I haven't been answering my phone." Jeff looked slightly guilty. "I just couldn't..."

"It's alright, man." Edge didn't blame him. "But I don't think things are good with Lita and Matt."

"What?" Jeff was obviously shocked. "Did they break up?"

"Well, Matt said he hasn't spoken to her yet. He hasn't been answering his phone either."

Jeff swallowed as he looked down at his brother sleeping the sleep of the drunk and depressed. Tears were evident on Matt's face as he murmured unhappily in his sleep.

"I don't hate him." Jeff didn't looked away from Matt when he finally spoke. "I don't think I could ever really hate him."

Edge blocked out the thoughts of Christian that had been haunting him since he had seen Matt at the bar. His younger brother was just something he refused to think about.

"Y'know, he's the reason I'm in the WWE. I wouldn't have made it, none of us would've if it weren't for Matt pushing us the whole way." Jeff walked quietly over to stand next to his older brother. "It was always his dream for us to be here."

"You deserve to be here, Jeff."

"Yeah, I know." Jeff sighed. "Matt always wanted it a hell of a lot more than me though. Don't get me wrong, I love wrestling. But Matt, he lives for it. And I knew he was pissed about being stuck on Heat, but I didn't think he would..."

"No one ever expects a family member to turn on them." Edge couldn't keep the bitter tone out of his voice. "Trust me, I know."

"Could you get me a drink of water, please."

Edge nodded even though Jeff wouldn't see him and left the room. He filled up a glass with water, but hung back from going into the bedroom again.

Instead, he wondered if Christian had ever cried about what he did. He wondered if Christian was sorry about turning on his unsuspecting brother. Probably not. Christian didn't have an ounce of a guilty conscience in him. Christian was a jealous, bitter, angry, twisted bastard, Edge reminded himself. He wasn't his cherished younger brother anymore.

He came back into the room to give Jeff his drink, but stopped at the door when he looked in.

Jeff had crawled into bed next to Matt and had his arms wrapped around Matt's comatose body. He had his eyes closed while tears slipped down his face.

Edge backed away from the door and into the bathroom. He ran some water and splashed it on his face before sliding down the wall. Unbidden memories washed over him, memories of him and Christian hanging out, having fun, growing up together.

Curled on the cold bathroom floor, Edge swallowed back his own tears to the sound of water flowing down a drain.

*********

Okay, I realise that I'm biased towards Matt Hardy, considering I seriously dislike Lita and Jeff Hardy, but once again I was provoked to write this because of the multitude of fics written that make Matt look like the antichrist. It was originally planned to be pretty different, but hey, muses work in mysterious ways (looks suspiciously at underused Jeff Hardy muse who holds up a sign saying 'Will strip for parts in fics').