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000

Jeff Hardy was out of control.

He was spiraling down a dark tunnel with no one to pull him back and everything he'd worked for, everything he loved seemed to be slipping away.

He had been fired from WWE the goal that he and his brother had worked so hard with blood sweat and tears to attain. The last straw had been finding several painkillers in his blood that had not been prescribed, plus a few other more recreational drugs that would send any employer into a conniption.

Now even wrestling fans were through with him. During his match at Ring of Honor that night he had been booed and jeered at before during and after the match. It wasn't the kind of jeering and booing a storyline heel gets when he enters the ring, no it had been very personal. There were shouts of "You suck hardy." "You got Fired!" and "We want Matt!" It was horrible.

But the problem had been long before that. He'd lost interest in everything he cared about; Trish, Matt, the WWE, his fans, his career, his art, everything. It was as if he had gone completely numb to the world around him.

Worst of all he knew it was happening. No matter how hard he tried, he just couldn't feel anything. And he hated it. This made him spiral even further to the point where he was looking for anything, ANYTHING that would give him some kind of stimulation.

The recreational drugs he got his hands on gave him that stimulation he so sought, even if it was only for a brief time. He knew he shouldn't have taken them, he knew they would get him into trouble, but it didn't matter, nothing mattered except getting that high and feeling something again.

Then it all fell apart. They found out.

Between WWE and ROH, his wrestling career was over. He would never again stand in front of thousands of people chanting his name, he would never know the honor and pride of being a world champion, and he would never have Trish by his side again.

Since his problems began, he could feel her growing more and more distant from him as if fearing he would drag her down the spiral as well. Of course he couldn't blame her for that, he scared himself sometimes, but that didn't make it any easier for him to accept. In fact it only made it worse, since he couldn't even be mad at her.

He felt so empty, so horribly empty as if his soul had become a bottomless pit that could never be full again.

The WWE executives tried to convince him to go to rehab, but that was no good. They could fix the physical addiction, but they couldn't fix what made him turn to the drugs in the first place. They couldn't fix his soul.

Jeff sat in the corner of his room, shivering with dry sobs choking his throat. Right now, not even his trusty drugs seemed to lift him up. He didn't want to keep living from high to high anymore, but if he didn't get his high the emptiness would consume him.

He was trapped, like a soul caught between heaven and hell, merely floating and feeling nothing at all, neither pain nor happiness. Perhaps just simple oblivion would be the better choice…

Jeff slowly got to his feet and staggered over to the glass door that led to his hotel room balcony. He opened the door and stepped out into the warm twilight air of April just as the sun ended its descent. Not so long ago such a night would have made Jeff smile as he snuggled with Trish watching the sunset from the balcony. Now it only made his already weak heart sink farther into the darkness of his empty soul.

On the balcony was a small table and chair. He climbed up on to the table and then up on to the railing, balancing gingerly on the narrow perch. He looked down at the busy street twenty-two stories below. He was staring into his own oblivion.

He took a deep breath and jumped…

000

Jeff woke up with a start, his hair and skin dampened by sheen of sweat, his fingers clenched tightly around the fabric of the sheets beneath him. He lay still for a few seconds as his shocked mind collected itself before finally sitting up.

To his right he saw the sleeping form of Triple H. Never before was he so happy to have the larger man next to him. It reminded him that he was here in the present and that the horrible things in the dream were images of dark days long past. Days Jeff always feared he might have to relive again.

He smiled a little as he stared down at Hunter who was snoring softly still fast asleep. After Wrestlemania, Hunter decided to join Jeff and his crew for some celebratory drinks, which ended up with the two of them completely plastered. At the end of the evening they staggered back to Hunter's room, cracking dirty jokes about which divas had fake boobs and which ones had real and how they had managed to ditch Matt and Kennedy. They rounded out the evening with some alcohol aided passion most which was a fiery blur in Jeff's memory.

Jeff slowly reached down and gently brushed some loose strands of hair out of Hunter's face with the back of his hand. He felt a lump rise in his throat as he remembered he used to do the same thing to Trish. A part of him missed her still, even though he knew she had long since moved on and married someone else. He missed what could have been, more than anything else.

Sniffing back a sob he checked the clock on the nightstand and saw the time was 11:00 am. He gawked a little as he remembered that he was supposed to meet Matt for lunch at noon.

He slipped out of bed and began putting on his clothes. Just after he threw on his shirt and pants and was beginning to tie back his hair, a pair of strong arms wrapped around his waist.

"Where do you think you're going?" Hunter purred and nuzzled Jeff's neck.

"I promised Matt I'd meet him for lunch," Jeff murmured as he finished with his hair.

"Hmm, how about you call in sick and stay with me?" Hunter kissed the back of his neck and gently tightened his hold on Jeff's waist.

Jeff brought his hands down and slid them across the top of Hunter's. "Hmm, tempting…" He murmured, but then moved Hunter's hands away from his waist. "But blood is thicker than water…" He smirked and added. "Or cum."

Hunter laughed before grabbing Jeff's arm. "What time do you have to be there?"

"Noon," Jeff answered, trying to pull his arm away.

"Well that's in an hour, you could stay with me for a little while longer," Hunter said, as he nuzzled Jeff's neck and raised his hands up to massage the younger man's shoulders.

"All right," Jeff breathed and melted back against Hunter.

Despite Jeff's calm and joking demeanor, his body seemed tense and shaky. "You okay?"

"Yeah," Jeff answered quietly, but worried that Hunter knew something. "Why do you ask?"

"Well let's just say if you don't relax the tenseness in your shoulders, I'm going to break my fingers over them." Hunter chuckled as he sat down on the bed, pulling Jeff down with him. "Come on, what's wrong?"

"I'm fine," Jeff murmured, his voice still quiet, but insistent.

"Did you have a bad dream?" Hunter continued to probe for information, knowing full well that Jeff was hiding something. To help coax such information out of Jeff he slowly slid his hands down to Jeff's lower back and began messaging in small circles, carefully kneading the knots out of the muscles.

The coaxing worked as Jeff let out a soft moan and answered the question. "Sort of…"

"Sort of? What was it about?" Hunter prodded further.

"It was about me. Me a long time ago." Jeff murmured.

Hunter stopped his massage and lay down on the bed along side Jeff. He propped himself up on his elbow with his head resting in his hand, while his other hand reached over to continue rubbing Jeff's lower back. "What happened to you?"

"No, Hunter," Jeff said getting up. "I don't want to talk about it."

However, Hunter lashed out and grabbed Jeff's arm, and pulled him back so he landed flat on his back on the bed. In the blink of an eye Hunter crawled on top of the younger man, straddling his waist and pinning his wrists to the mattress above his head.

"You're not going anywhere until you tell me," Hunter stated seriously, but not menacing.

"Hunter, please don't," Jeff said softly, all the while struggling to at least free his wrists from the larger man's grasp.

"Come on I want to know, I promise nothing you say will leave this room. I want to know what makes you so upset, so I can help you." Hunter said gently. As if to prove he meant what he said, he released one of Jeff's wrists and moved his own hand to caress the younger man's cheek.

Jeff placed his now freed hand on top of Hunter's, and him a somewhat sorrowful look. "I don't know Hunter," He sighed wearily. "There are enough people how think low of me in this company, I don't want to put back on that list."

"I don't think less of you now." Hunter smiled. "And I won't think less of you no matter what you have to say."

Hunter released Jeff's other wrist and moved to remove the band holding the younger man's purple-blue hair in a ponytail. Once freed Hunter ran his fingers carefully through the purple-blue hair, admiring the neon stands as he did so.

"Well…" Jeff began after taking a deep breath. "I know you've heard that before and after I was fired from the WWE back in '03, I went through some dark days."

"Yeah?" Hunter remembered the last time he'd seen Jeff before he was fired. The dead eyes, the melancholy monotone of his voice all a sharp contrast to his rainbow hair and intricate designs painted on his body. It seemed the more Jeff deteriorated, the more paint was on his face and dye in his hair, as if showing on his skin the vibrancy he lacked in his soul.

"I didn't know what was wrong with me, it just seemed like I was just going through the motions of life without actually feeling anything, nothing touched me, and nothing interested me, not the WWE, not my music, my art, Trish..."

Jeff swallowed a lump in his throat at the mention of his lost love, before continuing soberly.

The only time I did feel something was when my brain was warped by medications or being high off a more recreational drug, but even then it felt forced. The feelings didn't feel real. It was like it was simulated feelings, even when I was high I still felt empty."

Hunter shook his head slowly, and swallowed hard as the story sounded all too familiar. Shawn had had similar problems before and shared them with Hunter as well. "And the more drugs you took, the more empty you were..."

Suddenly Jeff laughed, but it was a hollow sound with not a touch of humor or joy in it. "No there wasn't even a change. No matter how many drugs I took I felt the same. The same emptiness no matter what…"

"Then one night I was so sick in my soul. The drugs weren't helping, I couldn't reach Trish or Matt, and I felt like I was in a dark tunnel with no light at the end. I couldn't go back or forward. And then outside my room there was this balcony…"

"Jeff…" Hunter murmured his eyes widening in shock as he realized where this was going. He was shocked at how deep Jeff's problems were, not even Shawn had gone that far over the edge. "You tried to…jump…?"

Hunter instantly regretted his words as Jeff took on the expression of a kicked puppy, he swallowed hard and rolled away from Hunter, turned his face towards the mattress.

"Yeah," finally came the muffled answer from the Rainbow-Haired Warrior.

"What made you feel that was your only way out?" Hunter asked softly.

"I don't know, I only remember that all I could think about was just ending it all."

"I see," Hunter patted Jeff's hip. "I guess you kind of changed your mind huh?"

"Kind of," Jeff whispered as he turned his head to look at Hunter again, now that they had gotten past the hump of the story.

"So what happened exactly?" Hunter prompted.

Jeff took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I stood up on the railing, and I was about to jump when some one knocked on my hotel room door, I lost my balance and fell over the side. Even through the drugs my survival instincts must have caught on because I grabbed one of the bars and stopped my fall. I could've let go, but I found I didn't want to. Through all of the abuse and pain I put my body through, it still wanted to live. I managed to pull myself back over the railing. I was scared, terrified, my adrenaline was pumping at a million miles per hour; I was crying my eyes out. And you know what? It was the most wonderful feeling in the world."

"It was?" Hunter raised an eyebrow at the slight smile that appeared on Jeff's face.

"There was hope man. I felt something, for the first time in almost a year I felt a real true emotion, not just drifting through life feeling neither high nor low. And I found out I really wasn't ready to die yet." Jeff explained as best he could.

Triple H nodded and after a few seconds of silence, Jeff sat up and let out a weary sigh. "It's like the old expression, to really live, you gotta almost die first." He let a soft snort of morbid amusement before turning his head back to look at Hunter. "So now you know the rumors were true, your Rainbow-haired Warrior used to be a suicidal drug addict." He said dryly.

"You fought your demons and that's what matters now." Hunter said firmly, sitting up next to Jeff. "You're clean and it wouldn't be fair to hold you to your past mistakes when you're trying so hard to get past them." He smiled at the younger man and patted him on the shoulder. "You know it does take a strong man to resist temptation, but I think it takes a stronger one to turn their life around after going down the wrong path."

Jeff's face softened into a smile and he leaned forward and gave Hunter a soft kiss on the lips. "I didn't know you could be that nice." Jeff whispered. "Why do you hide it all the time?"

"Because if I didn't everyone would want me to be nice to them," Hunter smirked.

"Yeah, true. Too many would take advantage of it. I guess you only reserve it for your inner circle, huh?" Jeff mused.

"Yup. And right now you're one of them." Hunter gently nudged the younger man's back with his fist.

"Thanks." Jeff murmured and sighed again as he gazed out the window. "I wish it could always be like this…"

"You do?" Triple H raised an uneasy eyebrow. Did Jeff mean what he thought he meant? In truth, Hunter hadn't intended any long term relationship with Jeff, and he thought the younger Hardy understood that already.

"Yeah," Jeff breathed. "I just worry someday it's going to happen again. I mean it just sort of came on before. One day I was happy, living my dreams, and suddenly it all started to slip away. Before I knew it I was standing on that balcony railing." He closed his eyes, trying to blink away tears before they fully formed. "I'm just afraid that if it happens again, no one is going to knock on my door =and no one's going to pull me back from the edge."

Hunter breathed a sigh of relief that Jeff hadn't been thinking about a long term relationship, however at the same time he felt his heart sink a little in sympathy at Jeff's worried soul.

After a few moments of thick melancholy silence, Triple H suddenly smiled and lightly yanked on Jeff's hair, pulling the younger man back on to the bed.

"I'll pull you back." Hunter grinned.

Jeff managed a weak smile. "Really? You'd do that?"

Hunter shrugged, as if it were the most obvious thing in the world. "Yeah."

Jeff sat up, and smirked. "We'll see..."

"You don't believe me?" Hunter frowned.

"I believe right now you pity me and you're just saying that because it's the easiest thing to say right now," Jeff eyed him thoughtfully. "I'm not sure though if it would stick."

"Why not…?"

Jeff sat back up. "Well, you said yourself this was a business relationship." He said matter-of-factly. "So we're not exactly friends."

Hunter dropped his eyes as he felt the sting of Jeff's comment. He had meant what he said. After hearing Jeff's story, he certainly did not want a person who had given him such pleasure over the past few weeks to spiral down an abyss. Even after the sexual exchange ended that didn't mean he wouldn't still keep an eye on Jeff.

"What does it take to be your friend?"

"I'm only friends with people I trust," Jeff said simply. "Those people are people that have shown me that they'll still be in my corner when the road gets rough. Like, Matt and Shane and Ken and Shannon and of course Trish at one point. Just 'cause I'm nice to you doesn't mean you're a friend to me."

"Huh," Hunter chuckled thoughtfully. "Nice defense mechanism."

"Huh?"

"You distance yourself from people by making them think you let them in when you haven't at all." Triple H smirked. "That's an even better tactic than being outright cold or tough."

Jeff shrugged. "I only let people in who really make an effort to get to know me."

"Have you let me in at all?" Hunter asked softly, even though he was just busting to know.

"Well physically all the way. But emotionally, after this morning's talk I'd say the door's been opened a crack." Jeff smirked and winked at him.

"Ah, so I've got my foot in there, huh?" Hunter grinned

The younger man shook his head. "Nah, not that much yet. More like a peep hole."

"Oh come on!" Hunter snapped, not really angry, but a little offended. "It's got to be more than that! That was some personal stuff you just shared with me."

Jeff rolled his eyes and shook his head again. "Hunter, the drug addict shit doesn't even scratch the surface of who I am."

"Who are you then?" Hunter challenged.

"Uh-uh, it's not about telling, it's about finding out." Jeff grinned and wagged his index finger at Hunter as if the older man were child trying to find out what his Christmas presents were. "To discover who Jeff Hardy is, you gotta open your mind and watch and listen for yourself who Jeff Hardy is. Cause if Jeff Hardy has to tell you, then you'll never know who Jeff Hardy is. And that's the real question, how much do you care about finding out who Jeff Hardy is…" He looked directly into Hunter's eyes for a few seconds as if trying to burn his words into the other man's brain. Then he glanced at the clock and jumped up from the bed. "Aw man, I gotta run, later Hunter!"

As the younger Hardy left, Hunter just sat there in silence for a moment, allowing Jeff's riddle-like words to sink in…

000

NOTE: I am taking some artistic license here, I don't think Things got that extreme for the real Jeff Hardy, but for the sake of the story I wanted to portray the Jeff Hardy character as a generally good, who spiraled, but is getting back on the right path and trying to stay there. However, there is an element of dread that he could be triggered to spiral out of control again. We'll just see what happens…