Fuck it.

["Kronus"]

I watch the smoke curl and billow up towards the dark night sky, the biting early spring air nips at my bare arms, the pre-summer warmth disappeared with the sun and yet here I stay, standing in the shadows of an unnamed street, an unnamed man smoking a cigarette and waiting for the day to end, for the world to keep turning and for things to change. 

Fuck, I hate change. 

I hear the click of her heels on the sidewalk, she passes me at first, not recognizing the man she loves with my hood pulled over my face and the shadows of the wall doing the rest of the work. She pauses, turning back to look at me and her perfect porcelain skin is lit by a street lamp. 

A worry line replaces her mouth and several more scratch into her forehead, spoiling her usually perfect skin, aging her face with a tinge of pain behind her eyes, she parts her lips and takes a breath but I shake my head and the words she had been building up to die on her tongue. 

I drop the cigarette to the floor and my boot extinguishes the dying light of it's stip, the smoke clears and the cool night air becomes the only thing between us, she doesn't step closer and I do not reach for her, instead I stand and study her face, a thousand questions running through my mind... 

A hundred hurtful words I'll never say. 

I drag my boot back to press it against the wall and the loose gravel on the sidewalk crunches beneath the movement. Her white teeth glimmer as she chews on her lip and her breathing quickens... I can feel her anxiety build like a choking fear but still I don't move, don't speak... I make no attempts to console or question her, my eyes steer away from hers and count the stars above our heads... 

"Alastair..." she starts and I turn away, a cold laugh passing my lips as I shake my head.... 

"So, here we are again... A handful of pointless and worthless opponents thrown at us in some random attempt to offer us competition. Tell me lads, why do you really think you are here? I mean... Kyle, baby you promised to hurt me, remember? I got so very excited at the prospect... It's been such a long... Long time since someone succeeded..." 

"And you were just another disappointment. What makes things any different this time? Because Nightingale is there to hold your hand? massage the tension out of those broad, muscular shoulders? ....Perhaps you'd both like to share, I can be VERY comforting and heaven knows you'll both need some comfort...." 

"After my brother and I turn you into the sniveling little weasels the world knows you to be." 

"...Sure, I could claim to be above name-calling and remind you both that, as much as you believe yourselves to be technically sound and superior fighters, yet my mat skills alone drove Mason to a loss everyone predicted... Everyone but you two anyway. Because, you see boys... Where you sit there and claim to be the best..." 

"I go out there and prove it." 

"And what for your precious egos then? When you fail to capture title belts never meant for you... When you are beaten by the olde football player and the fag? Two men who are an affront to everything Nightwing thinks wrestling should be. You wanna give the people a show boys?" 

"Then cut the shit, show up, take your beating and thank us..." 

"Thank us for the opportunity to LEARN something. Thank us for the shot... Thank us for being big enough men to not humiliate you beyond defeat..." 

"But you won't do that, will you kiddies? No... You will strut out here like peacocks in heat and wave your feathers for the camera. Mason will talk about how he can hurt me, about how it was a fluke and I won't beat him again... And Nighthawk will drone on and on, endlessly (or so it will seem) about his history... About how he will be the one teaching us a lesson..." 

"About how he will end us... do us the 'favour' of showing us that we aren't "real" wrestlers...." 

"Don't you get tired of boring predictability? Of pretending to have a life outside the old squared circle, yet being completely unable to in any way understand any of your opponents, because all you see if moves... Wins and losses... Divisions and title opportunities... Neither of you are capable of one very important aspect of this business...." 

"The human touch." 

"You can be the greatest technical wrestlers of all time... You can have all the training and talent in the world... But without that, without the competency of empathy, without the crowd cheering because they want you, know you... Not the name, not the over-used overplayed gimmick you think you have become... No..." 

"When they cheer you because they want you, who you are, all you stand for, to succeed... Then and only then, are you a Real Champion." 

"Then and only then, have you become something more than just another warm body in this business.... And though you can claim tough breaks and the greatest training a man can have. Though your skill in the ring cannot be questioned and your desire to succeed is strong.... You don't have it boys..." 

"You don't have them behind you, you don't have the love - or even the hate - of the people who come here week after week, who buy tickets and shirts and scream and cry... They don't sing when you sing or cry when you hurt... And without that, sure... Maybe you can wear the belts... But without that..." 

"You will never truly, be a Champion to them." 

Tears spill down her cheeks, they leave wet tracks like scars on her skin as they drip away and are replaced by the next. Her green eyes swell with pain and heartache as I stand facing her, but not really seeing her... Her hand touches mine and she flinches, pulling back as the cool marble of my skin matches all the emotion left in my heart... 

I should feel pain to see her like this, I should reach for her and offer comfort but I have nothing...  

She trembles and with all that is within her she pleads for me, she cares not if my words cut her like knives, it's the silence she can't stand... But I can't do it. I want to love her, but fear stands hard like a giant wall between us and I grit my teeth, grinding them until pain shoots through my jaw. 

She sighs, turns away and I hear the click of her heels against the sidewalk once more. And it is not me, but instinct that reaches out and grabs her... It is not my will that my hand wraps around her arm and pulls her close to me... It is not my lungs that shake out a breath as she gasps and leans into me, wetting my shirt with those same scarring tears... 

I want to tell her I love her... 

But the words stick to my throat as though lies are honey and so my arms wrap around her and the long dead words become empty whispers into her hair as she stands in silence enveloped in me... And we cannot stay like this forever, the night turns colder and so does our touch... We cannot be like this forever, one of us will have to talk.. 

A hundred hurtful words... I have to say. 

"You call yourselves jobbers and do not question being a firing line... A couple of bodies to make up numbers and yet they expect me to sit here and tear you down, talk shit about the men who are paid to take a hit..." 

"What a worthless existence and yet.. How calming it must be... No expectations, no debt... Just show up and get paid, smile for the cameras, fall when it gets too much and stand again on another day, for another opponent... We must all look the same to you now boys..." 

"If I sound a little jealous perhaps I am; No one expects you to have witty remarks to sell yourselves like cattle at an auction.. My career hinges on my ability to talk as much shit as I can beat out of someone - I get paid to win, to be a Champion... I get paid to be a fighter..." 

"If I were to simply show up... I would fail... Be nothing." 

"And that is what you are to most, nothing... People like Mason and NightWhore belittle you with empty words and idle threats, if we are mere opponents to them, then the likes of you are dust... Gibberg, a man too old to continue, a man I pity for obviously, you do not know when to quit, when to stop..." 

"Aren't you tired old man? Why keep doing this to yourself?" 

"And Soloman... a broken empty shell of someone who maybe once hoped to be great... Is the money really worth it guys? How deep does the pain run at the end of the night? How many more fights before you simply can't get up and do it all again..." 

"All you have to do it show up... Much like Kyle and Hawkster, no one expects you to win... And you will not exceed expectations..." 

"I am proud to be a Champion. Proud to be a Titan and proud, to finally, give these fans something to cheer about." 

She steps back and releases that final breath, all warmth has left the streets now and that breath rises like my smoke earlier... It seems like a lifetime since I saw her smile and somewhere, deep inside there is a flicker of hope... Of desire, to see that smile again... But to bring it back I have to break all the rules... I have to trust her again... 

"I'm afraid." I half whispers, my eyes still not meeting hers as she remains silent, more tears threatening to fall from her eyes at any moment.... "That I am a shallow, selfish fool who won't..." I sigh and pull my head up to meet her eyes, to remind me of the very moment I knew I loved her... "Won't love you the same if you go through with this." 

She doesn't respond, she simply watches me with a quiet contemplation, as though all the questions that plagued me before had somehow seeped through my skin to drown her brain, to haunt her as they had been haunting me and in that moment, I feel guilt for sharing... And yet, a relief so welcoming and great that a smile pulls at my lips... 

"I'm gay, Bailey." she half laughs at the obviousness of the statement, but the laugh is forced and broken... More of the hurtful words fall out from my lips faster than I can stop them... "I won't... I can't..." I sigh and screw my eyes tightly shut, looking at her makes it hurt and I am not brave enough to take the pain "I can't be with you anymore, if that is what you want..." 

Her hand touches my face, I flinch because my expectation is a strike and my mind reels in confusion as her touch is soft, stroking and comforting and I fall against her, as though in speaking the words that locked me in a prison of my own creation, had sucked the very life from my form... 

"I want you." she says quietly, simply... 

And in that moment it seems like the most obvious thing in the world, my lips touch her and I forget that there was pain and fear - I forget that for weeks I have been plagued with the thought of losing the only person to ever see me... To ever know me... There is just her and me - and the shadows that nip like cold fangs at the bare skin shimmering in the lamp light... 

"I love you." she whispers  

And it's as though her voice changes to mine and we smile, SHE smiles and every tiny cold touch is gone, burned away by a warmth spreading through my being as her voice carries to my ears and whispers of foolish fears and ideas, of circumstances already pushed away and forgotten and why, she wonders... Why did I not just ask... And Colton.. And Kaci... and all that my pain has done. 

And I am sorry... I am so sorry.