So, there are some vague descriptions of abuse in this chapter, as a warning…

Xxxxxxx

Randy was comfortable but not sleeping. He hadn't slept at all. John had finally closed his eyes several hours after Randy had shown up at the hotel and Randy had been watching him sleep since.

He was simply too terrified to fall asleep after his encounter with Hunter. The memories were still pressing in on him and he knew that if he slept, he'd have nightmares. He always did. He hated it, hated thinking of Hunter when he was in bed with John, hated thinking of that man when John had his arms wrapped around him.

He could never seem to stop.

He hated that Hunter had gotten a happy ending when he could never seem to. He'd been so enraged about that that he'd gone after Stephanie last year. Hunter was right about her. He seriously doubted that she knew about what had happened. Stephanie could be a manipulative bitch when she wanted to be but even she had her limits.

At the time, though, it hadn't mattered if she'd known or not. It had only mattered that she was with Hunter, that they were happy and making Hunter pay for even daring to have that kind of happiness was the only thing that he had been able to think about.

He pressed himself closer to John and made an effort to banish the memories. Sometimes, when he was with John, when John was so close, it would work.

Xxxxxxxx

John watched Randy out of the corner of his eye as he pulled a shirt from his bag. He hadn't been surprised that Randy had up for hours by the time John woke up. Randy had been quiet. John still wasn't going to press him. Not yet.

He stood from the bed, held out a hand. "Ready?"

Randy forced a smile, nodded. "Yeah."

Xxxxxxxx

Hunter found John in the locker room. He leaned against the doorway for a minute, watched the other man prepare for the show. He knew Randy hadn't told John exactly what had gone down between them. He was sure that if Randy had, John would have already come looking for him.

"I've been thinking about a retirement," he spoke up finally, startling John, who jerked his head up and stared.

"What?"

"For me," Hunter clarified. "I've been thinking about retirement."

John blinked, confused. He looked like someone who had walked in on the middle of a conversation which, really, he had. This particular one had started nearly eight years ago, when Hunter had first formed Evolution.

"You're going to retire?" John asked, confused and just a little incredulous.

Hunter grabbed one of the chairs in the room, pulled it over so that he could sit in front of John. "Thinking about it." He sat down, leaned back and watched John.

"Why?"

Hunter shrugged. "Got kids now, a wife, and I've pretty much done everything there is to do here." He paused. "And then there's Randy."

John tensed visibly. "Something happened between you and Randy." There was no question in his voice. He knew something had happened, he just didn't know what.

"I've always been an asshole, Cena," Hunter stated. "I was when I married Stephanie the first time. But I was at my worst when I formed Evolution. Steph and I were on the outs then. Shawn hated me. Everyone hated me…"

"For good reason," John pointed out.

Hunter shrugged. That didn't really matter, not now. "I did a lot of bad things before forming Evolution but none of that came close to the things I did after."

"What'd you do?" John asked, eyes wide and waiting.

"Don't think I should be the one to tell you about that." And he just couldn't. Couldn't even think about it. When he did, it was like watching a movie on a person who looked like him, had the same voice, but wasn't.

It was him, though. And when he thought about those times, he knew with sickeningly awful clarity just what he was capable of. Nobody knew about it. He knew Randy wouldn't tell anyone. He'd known that back then.

"I'm not justifying the things I did back then…the person I was." He frowned a moment, trying to put his thoughts into words. "Shawn, Steph…my kids. They changed everything for me."

John rested his elbows on his knees, ran a hand over his mouth. "Why are you telling me all this?"

"Because when he finally tells you everything, I'm pretty sure you're going to want to kill me." Hunter stood. He was telling the truth. Seeing his daughter being born, Stephanie, Shawn they had changed him but he doubted that would matter when John found out what he'd done to Randy.

John froze at the words. He kind of wanted to kill Hunter then, just for the vagueness. For Randy's nightmares, that he was now sure came from Hunter. But Hunter was out the door a few seconds later and the urge passed. Suddenly, all he wanted to do was find Randy.

Xxxxxxxx

Randy's nerves were absolutely fried. He hadn't slept since his encounter with Hunter. He'd seen the worry in John's eyes countless times and he didn't know if he could answer it. He'd tried to start that talk several times but had ended up chickening out.

That kind of pissed him off too. You're a fucking coward. The vicious, bitter thought was directed inward, at himself. He couldn't even say it, couldn't admit what had happened to him to John. Didn't want to see the pity in John's eyes, didn't want to pull all those memories further to the surface than they already were.

But they were there anyway and he had to do something about it. He needed to before they consumed him again, before he ended up right back to where he'd been before he and John had gotten together.

Xxxxxxxx

The hotel room was completely dark when Randy spoke up finally. The only light in the room filtered in through the gap in the curtains, coming from the lights of the city and the moon. He could barely see Randy's face and he had been about to try to sleep.

"I loved him." The words were quiet, quiet enough that John almost missed them. He sucked in a breath, the idea of sleep completely abandoned.

"I loved him," Randy repeated. "We were together for a year…"

John said nothing. He was too afraid to, afraid that if he did Randy would stop. Instead, he intertwined his fingers with Randy's and squeezed, let Randy know he was listening.

"It took a while to figure out that he would never feel the same way. All he cared about was the title back then, about his career. He hated everyone back then." Randy paused and began playing with John's fingers. "He did things…knocked me around, stuff like that. I hated myself for staying, always thought I'd be stronger than that. But I was so…isolated. The entire locker room hated Evolution and I didn't have any friends outside. I was stuck and the longer I stayed, the worse it got."

John squeezed his hand and tried to push aside the rising anger towards Hunter.

Randy paused again, let out a breath, and this time, when he spoke, his voice came out shaky. "After I won the title and he kicked me out of Evolution…publicly, I thought it was over but he came and found me. He was so pissed off about it, even more so after Shawn and Jericho and some of the other guys helped me go after them. He found me…" Randy trailed off, closed his eyes. "Guess he'd thought I'd still want him even after all of it…that I'd still…But I said no, tried to fight him off." Randy squeezed John's hand tightly and when he opened his eyes, John could see the tears shining there even in the darkness.

"I said no but it didn't matter, he didn't listen."

It took a moment for those words to sink in, for what they meant to sink in. John's first reaction was anger, rage even, all directed at Hunter. The very idea made him sick and he wished that he had smashed Hunter's face in when they'd spoken earlier.

His second reaction came when Randy started to pull away and he realized that maybe he had been silent for a little bit too long. He gripped Randy's hand tighter, pulled him back.

"I'm so sorry," he managed to choke out and then he wrapped his arms tightly around Randy. Randy was tense for a few moments before he relaxed into the embrace, his whole body trembling.

Randy clung to him, buried his head John's shoulder and, for the first time, let himself cry. John never let him go.