Chapter Text
There’s a thick cloying taste of blood behind his teeth. It sticks to the ridged roof of his mouth, burrowing into the crevices of his tongue. He grimaces at his reflection in the sharp edges of the mirror behind the bar. He can see the sanguine streaks on the outsides of his canines when he bares his teeth; a wild animal, a feral creature.
He feels like all he has done recently is bleed. The skin beneath his hairline is struggling to scar over, anticipating the pain of being ripped open the next time he treads softly into the four-cornered ring. Whether it be from fists or steel, whether it be his head or his nose or the soft gums behind his teeth.
There’s something different this time, something haunted in the backs of his eyes, that have made the hotel bartender abandon the bottle and leave. The lights behind him are all shut off for the night, the hotel bar closed for the night. There’s one flickering, fluorescent light above Adam’s head, a final shimmering spotlight. The belt is long tucked away into his bag upstairs, nestled amongst sweat and blood stained clothes, Cole’s handprints still stuck to it like abandoned bubblegum.
Bleeding is nothing new for Adam; but there’s something exquisitely torturous, something horrifically painful, about bleeding at the hands of his former friend. His former brother. And hell, it’s happened enough times to him that it shouldn’t hurt anymore, happened enough that the scar tissue around his heart has surely built up resistance.
Maybe it was the hope that wore it down, the signs of respect and kindness, the fleeting thought in Adam’s mind that not everything from his past would come back to stab him in the gut, not everything was shrouded in betrayal and heartbreak. But Adam had always been a fool- he’d been a fool when he took Matt Jackson’s outstretched hand in Ring of Honor at the fresh-faced age of 24, and he was a fool now at 30 and stretched thin beyond his years, looking into a long-dead friend’s eyes and feeling hope squeeze at his chest like a vice. Because if Adam Cole wasn’t lost, then neither was The Elite, neither was the Bullet Club, neither was…
It doesn’t matter, does it? It never does. Because Adam can still feel Cole’s bootprint traced along the ridges of his ribs, hear ReDragon’s cruel laughs in his ear while O’Reilly tugged at his hair, while Bobby Fish gnashed at his face with pointed teeth, can hear--
They haven’t said your name in weeks.
You haven’t been near the Dark Order in months.
He is a selfish, grotesque caricature of a person. He uses and uses people to get to the top of the mountain and then he leaves them to die. He lets people bleed out for him and doesn’t do more than a half-hearted press against the wound. He drinks and drinks until the alcohol burns and bubbles at the back of his throat and doesn’t think for a moment about people who care about him, who’d go into bat for him. He lives and dies by the wrong tunnel entrance. The Dark Order let him into their lives so easily, so eagerly, and he lets them run out to save him and he lets them rally around him, but he always keeps one eye on that tunnel and imagines hearing someone else’s music play. His hands always wanting to twist into the familiar devil’s horns, a muscle memory, a cruel laugh in the night.
He’s in love with a man who’ll never, ever, no matter how much Adam pines and begs and claws with two bloodied fists, love him the same way. And sure, Matt can say he loves him, is in love with him, has been in love with him, presses it to the corner of Adam’s mouth at the tail-end of the best-worst day of Adam’s life, but it’s not the same. Adam is not Kenny Omega. Will never be Kenny Omega. Will never be what Matt truly wants, deep in the raw bleeding flesh of his heart.
“Fancy finding you here,” and there’s a warm presence at Adam’s elbow, an angel summoned from Adam’s worst thoughts like he knew Adam was thinking about him. Maybe he did.
Adam pushes the whiskey glass away from himself and bares his teeth in a bloodied grin over his shoulder. Matt smiles back, gentle. He looks good. He always looks so fucking good.
“Hey, darlin’,” Adam says softly, and Matt laughs. They don’t do this. They don’t talk often and they don’t sit in comfortable silence and they don’t have pet names. They’re not dating, after all. They can’t, they’ve made that clear, they’ve established that. It’s practically carved into the jagged pieces of Adam’s heart.
But he’s the champion and he went to war with Bryan fucking Danielson, he got his scalp ripped open by Lance Archer, and Adam Cole just curbstomped his head in. He’s allowing himself this indulgence.
“Hi,” Matt says. He’s sweet tonight. He’s so often angry and prickly, full of knives and hurt, “What’re you drinking?”
Adam sighs, runs his finger over the rim of the glass. It’s still full, amber liquid glistening in the darkened bar lights. “It was going to be whiskey.”
“Was?”
“Haven’t drunk it.”
“Ah,” Matt says, “Why not?”
Adam shrugs, and turns on his stool to face Matt completely. His knees bump into the hard line of Matt’s thigh. “It’s not going to make me feel better.”
Matt raises an eyebrow, quirks a smile from the corner of his lips, “You feel bad?”
“I—” Adam starts, then frowns. He looks at the curve of Matt’s jaw, the groomed edges of his stubble. It’s easier to stare just below Matt’s eyes. “I… missed him, you know. Cole. I was hoping— anyway. Doesn’t matter.”
Matt’s face drops, slightly, the mask of blank indifference that he wears like an armor slipping back into place. “No, I get you. I— yeah.”
“I don’t know what I expected,” Adam says, and runs his hand over his face. It comes back with flecks of dried blood.
Matt reaches up, slowly, giving Adam an out, and when he doesn’t move away, gently holds Adam’s chin. He moves Adam’s face this way and that, taking in the bruising over his eye, the smear of red on his cheek, the mottling around his nose. He sucks his breath in through his teeth.
“They sure did a number on you,” Matt says, and traces his thumb over Adam’s mouth. There’s a split on his bottom lip that stings. Adam smiles grimly.
“Shoulda seen it coming,” Adam says, “Surprised you didn’t come out there.”
“To save you? The Dark Order had that on lock.”
“No,” Adam admits, and watches Matt’s eyes shutter for a moment, the twist of his mouth. His hand drops back into his lap, and Adam’s face feels cold without it. There’s a beat, one, two, then Matt smiles at him. It feels forced.
“Have you iced that?” he says, gesturing to the wicked bruise beginning to paint the side of Adam’s face. He huffs a sound of strained laughter when Adam shakes his head. “Come on, then.”
It’s instinct, really, to follow Matt when he stands to leave. An innate part of him, that’s always been a part of him. Matt is such a natural-born leader, forever the older brother, so willing to command those around him like puppets. Like he has strings attached to every single one of them. It’s a shame, really, that he’s always been the attack dog and never really the one holding the leash. Adam notices, out of the corner of his eye, Matt slide some bills under the not-touched bottle of whiskey. He doesn’t comment on it.
They stand on opposite sides of the elevator, a far cry from the last time they’d taken one together. Matt stares at a spot on the ground, eyes unreadable, and Adam studies the lines of his face, the curling of dark hair along his shoulders, the softness of his eyelashes, the bow of his red-bitten upper lip, the bridge of his nose. Matt has a dusting of freckles across his cheeks, light enough that people never notice it- but Adam does. He knows that those same freckles stretch along his back, along the sweep of his collarbone. He’s so quiet and calculating, talks with a cruel twist in his words to most people, but softness to a handful he loves. That list is getting shorter and shorter, Adam knows.
He glances up at Adam, meets his eyes, and it’s so cautious that it makes Adam’s heart clench in his chest. Adam grins at him, blinding, and Matt looks down again. The elevator dings, the doors shuffle open.
“Adam asked me, you know,” Matt says, just as Adam goes to step out of the elevator. He stops, slaps a hand across the edge of the door, and looks back at Matt. “He asked me why we didn’t come out. Tonight.”
Adam quirks an eyebrow, “To save me or hurt me?”
Matt scrunches up his nose, “I said I wouldn’t do it again.”
It’s not an answer to the question. Adam isn’t entirely sure he wants one- he knows what he thinks, what he thought when he half-expected the Bucks’ music to start playing as soon as he got jumped by O’Reilly and Fish. Or- not even their music. He expected an extra set of punches, he expected Matt to grab his wrist and pull him to his knees, lining him up for the trigger. But that didn’t happen. He’s grateful it didn’t- having his once-dead friend’s kicks tattooed into his ribs hurt enough.
Matt pushes himself away from the elevator wall and moves past Adam, catching his wrist on the way through. Like he could read Adam’s thoughts, like he knew he was thinking about the BTE trigger. He tugs, softly, far too softly for the memories it brings back. Adam lets him.
“Come on,” he says, “I’ve got a first aid kit in my room.”
Adam trails after him because— because of course he does. He always will. Even when it makes him want to tear all his organs out.
“What about Nick?” he asks, not unreasonably. The Bucks always room together. It had made for a very uncomfortable time a few years ago- a lifetime ago, now- where Nick had walked in and— yeah.
It had taken a few weeks before Adam could look Nick in the eye after that one. He’s surprised, now, with the state of things, that Nick hasn’t ever brought it up, hasn’t ever used it against him, not even off-camera. Protecting Matt, maybe. Or maybe there’s no good way to say hey remember that time I walked in on you mid-fucking-sex with my brother? Yeah, that’s probably it.
“Nick’s out,” Matt says, and offers nothing more.
He looks contemplative, so hidden, and when he finally stops in front of a door, digging around in his jean pockets for the keycard, Adam grabs his shoulder, spinning him around gently to face him.
Matt looks confused for a second, a small furrow creasing between his brows, and it’s so fucking adorable that Adam smiles before pulling him in by the scruff of his neck.
“I’ve missed you,” he says, into the minuscule space between their mouths, and something flashes in Matt’s eyes before he closes the distance.
It’s just a press of lips, sweet and chaste, and it makes Adam’s heart sing, before Matt grabs onto Adam’s shoulders and opens his mouth under Adam’s lips. Then, it’s like a fire has been lit, a clashing of tongues and teeth and desperate, hot, kisses, because it’s been months and months since the last time they were like this and god, fuck, Adam has missed him so much.
He grabs at Matt’s waist, digging his fingers into the soft flesh, and pushes him backwards until he hits the wall with a gentle oomph. Adam knows his mouth must taste like blood, staining his teeth, but Matt doesn’t seem to care. In fact, he bites gently at Adam’s split lip, making him hiss with the fresh bloom of copper in his mouth, and Matt makes a pleased groaning noise into the kiss. Kinky bastard.
It’s such a macabre swapping of spit and blood, messy and so fucking hot, and Adam feels like he could burn alive with it, but he never wants to stop. Matt’s fingers dig into the meat of his shoulders, into bruises already there, and it makes him want to drop to his knees, force Matt to his knees, hell, anything. Matt whimpers under him, and Adam feels fucking alive.
There’s a sound near them, down the hall, someone— someone clearing their throat pointedly, and Adam goes to jump back like he’s been scalded. Matt holds tight, though, only breaking the kiss far enough to roll his head around to look at the source of the sound. His fingers relax on Adam’s shoulders, but he doesn’t let go. Like he’s scared Adam will run.
“Well, don’t stop on my account,” the voice is so disingenuously friendly, steeped in fakeness, and Adam squeezes his eyes shut. He pulls out of Matt’s grip, only going far enough so that there’s room between them, and ducks his head.
“Kyle,” Matt replies, breathless and dripping in sardonic sweetness, “What are you doing here?”
Kyle O’Reilly laughs, and it makes Adam’s teeth hurt, the hairs on the back of his head stand up. He angles himself, slightly, so that some of his body is in front of Matt— shielding him from the potential threat. No way is he letting Matt get jumped by ReDragon on his watch.
Kyle must notice, because when Adam looks up, face stony, he’s wearing the world’s biggest shiteating grin.
“Down, boy,” his voice is condescending, and Adam suppresses a growl, “Just came to talk to Matt.”
Adam wants to tell him, in no uncertain terms, to fuck the hell off, but Matt beats him to it.
“We don’t talk, Kyle,” he says, “I don’t think we’ve ever really talked. Cut the shit.”
Kyle places a sarcastic hand over his heart, “And here I thought we were friends, Matthew.”
Matt rolls his eyes, “Tell me what you want and fuck off.”
Kyle laughs again, “Oh, sorry, is this not a hotel? Maybe my room is up here.”
“I know it’s not. What do you want? You wanted to talk? Talk.”
Kyle shrugs, his eyes amused as he looks back and forth between Adam and Matt, “Cole wants to see you. Said you weren’t answering your phone. But I can see you’re, ah, busy.”
“I’m not at his beck and call,” Matt spits, “I’ll talk to him later.”
“Oh, sure,” Kyle says, his shark grin getting wider, “I’ll just tell him you’re…occupied. I’m sure he’ll be real happy to hear exactly why.”
Matt snarls at him, a feral creature, “Tell him whatever you want.”
Kyle tilts his head, assessing, and Adam feels wildly uncomfortable. He moves further in front of Matt, ready for a fight. There’s a beat, a tense pause, then Kyle steps back, hands out in front of him.
“As you were, gentlemen,” he says, and it sounds like a threat, “I’ll see you later, Matt.”
“Whatever,” Matt hisses, and Kyle just smirks as he turns back down the hallway.
There’s a weighted silence as they watch him walk away, and Matt sighs when he finally disappears, shoulders dropping. Adam just looks at him, looks at the tense tremor of his muscles, the hunted look in his eyes.
“Should I—” he begins, feeling awkward, and Matt just looks at him. He seems, well, sad as he lifts his hand up to Adam’s face, running his palm along the side of his cheekbones, down his jaw through blonde stubble. Adam turns his face slightly into the warmth of his hand.
“Come on,” Matt says, “I’ve got ice.”
They don’t say another thing as Matt finally opens the hotel room door, O’Reilly’s appearance and his words like a suffocating fog surrounding them.
-
The room is shrouded in dark, and rather chaotic, which tracks with what Adam knows about the Bucks. Kenny was always the messiest of them, but Matt is a close second behind him; Adam knows it’ll tend to drive Nick up the wall some days. Matt’s bed, the closest to the window, has the duvet crumpled and kicked at the foot, excess gear and clothes scattered around the place. Adam sits down on the rumpled sheets, absentmindedly picking up a grey sleep-shirt that was tossed near the pillows. It’s soft, worn, and familiar, and when he holds it up to his face, it smells like nothing but Matt.
Matt is digging around in one of the suitcases, and when he turns back to Adam, his face betrays nothing. Adam feels his heart clench in sadness, like he’s watching Matt build up the wall that constantly surrounds him brick by brick. Adam wants to tear it all down, shred the cement and limestone that holds it together, but his hands are bleeding and raw and he is only a man, after all.
Matt places the first aid kit on the mattress next to him, and leans over to flick on the bedside lamp. Adam blinks in the sudden brightness. There’s a snapping sound, an ice pack being activated, and then Matt presses it against the side of Adam’s face; so gentle that it makes Adam want to cry, makes his eyes go misty. He just looks at Matt, at the tension around his eyes, at the dark expression in his eyes, and he wants to fucking sob his heart out.
“You cut anywhere?” Matt asks, voice a murmur.
“Forehead,” Adam says, “Just… on the hairline. Never gets a chance to heal.”
Matt runs a soft thumb over the area in question, and Adam hisses as it comes away bloody.
“Hold this,” Matt commands, and Adam holds the cold pack to his face as Matt searches for something in the kit. He comes back with gauze strips, skinny pieces of bandage designed to hold skin together as wounds heal.
“Extensive first aid you got there,” Adam says, and Matt shrugs as he starts peeling the bandages.
“We get hurt a lot,” his voice is flippant, casual as he says it, “And it sometimes feels like staying in medical is just being a sitting duck. Most of the roster would love to take a chunk out of us so it’s— it’s just not worth the stress some days.”
He presses the bandages to Adam’s hairline as he speaks, gentle strokes of tacky gauze across the deepest parts of the reopened wound. It makes Adam wince, and Matt runs a soothing hand over his forehead when he’s done, replacing Adam’s hand on the ice pack. Adam let’s his hands drop back to his lap.
“What about you?” Matt asks, “You probably should’ve gone to medical for this.”
Adam grimaces, and avoids his eyes. There’s no easy answer to it: on most days, at most times, Adam would’ve gone straight backstage to the doctor’s and let them bandage him, ice him, before rolling straight back out into the fight. But this— this felt so personal. Adam wanted to feel the throbbing hurt in his face, the trickle of blood down his nose. Remember who put it there— who always puts it there.
It always comes back to the Bullet Club.
It’s always the Elite, or the Superkliq, and now Jay White was around and Adam was constantly looking over his shoulder. Cody had fucked off, that was new, and that stung more than Adam thought it would.
You’re the best of us, Hangman. Cody was a fucking liar. Adam was just the easiest target of all of them. Easy to hurt, easy to manipulate, easy to betray. Easy to leave.
“You know O’Reilly will tell Cole, right?” Adam croaks, avoiding Matt’s question entirely. Matt’s face twists, and his hand clenches on the side of Adam’s face for just a moment.
“Yeah, he will,” Matt says, “Let him. Adam won’t… he won’t care.”
Adam scoffs, “He’s gunning for me, for the title. He’ll care.”
“He shouldn’t. He’s stuck halfway between us and fuckin… the leftovers from NXT. He’s got no leg to stand on.”
He can’t help it— he laughs; a cruel cold noise, “Well, Bullet Club have always been a tad hypocritical, sugar. We both know it.”
Matt frowns, “This isn’t Bullet Club.”
Adam reaches up, suddenly, wrapping his fingers around Matt’s wrist. The ice pack drips cold rivulets down his face, and Matt stands stock still. There must be something on Adam’s face, something in his expression that betrays the swirling darkness in his chest.
“Yes it is,” Adam say, and Matt’s eyes darken, “It’s always the fucking Bullet Club.”
There’s a pause, a moment of stretched out silence, then Matt pulls back. The cold pack drops to the bed as Matt spins around, his back to Adam, as he stalks away across the room. Adam watches him, detached, as he paces back and forth, hands clenching into fists at his sides.
“Jay’s back,” Adam says, conversationally, and Matt glances at him.
“Thanks,” Matt snarls, “I noticed.”
“What does he want?”
“I don’t effin’ know.” Matt looks like he’s about to kick something. Adam reaches for the pack and holds it back on his face, and just watches Matt stalk up and down the room like a caged animal, “Adam just. Invited him.”
“Kenny will be pissed,” Adam points out, because he knows where to press, knows which pressure points hurt the most, and Kenny Omega is Matt’s number one. It’s like pressing on an open wound, on a fresh burn. Sure enough, Matt snarls at him.
“I don’t care— he’s— he’s not here.”
Adam snorts, because that’s a fucking lie, and then he realizes it’s a tad unfair on Matt’s end. It’s not like Kenny chose to be injured. His face must betray his skepticism, because Matt’s hands curl into fists.
“He doesn’t call, he doesn’t check in, he doesn’t— he just tossed us the keys to the kingdom and left.”
Which— okay.
“Kenny or Cody?”
“Both!” Matt yells, and he kicks the edge of the bed. The frame rattles under Adam. “But Kenny… Cody— he basically left ages ago. Kenny— Kenny is meant to give a shit.”
And, well. Adam could’ve saved Matt that particular disappointment. As if Matt would ever listen to him when it comes to Kenny fucking Omega.
“And now-- fuckin, the undisputed dipshits are back and Adam can’t look away from them and then he brings Jay White in like, like, like a consolation prize or something. And I’m tired! I’m--”
He stops, like he realizes he’s said too much, and stares wide-eyed at Adam, chest heaving. Adam stares back. Matt never talks to him, never tells anybody how he’s feeling, never--
“Matt,” Adam says, “It’s okay.”
All the strings holding Matt up get cut, and he slumps down onto the bed next to Adam. His hands are still clenching and unclenching in his lap, his hair falling in a curtain around his face, and Adam can’t breathe.
“It’s not,” Matt’s voice is so quiet, “I never-- I don’t want the Bullet Club. I don’t want the Good Brothers, or Jay White, or effin’ Tama Tonga. I don’t want-- I just wanted the Elite. That’s--”
Adam grimaces, the ice-cold numbing the side of his face, the wound on his head still burning, and the pain somewhere deep in his chest thuds against him, “I mean-- for life, right? Hell, I left everything and the Bullet Club always finds me somehow.”
“It’s an effin poison,” Matt spits, “Just constantly-- eating away at us. It’s not enough to fly to another country it still, it still follows us.”
The demon of Bullet Club, the eternal ghost, haunting all it’s members past and present until it eats them alive. For life and for death. Adam always did wonder if Prince Devitt had put some sort of curse on them, on the Bucks, as soon as they betrayed him. Written into the constitution, into their bones. This constant back and forth melodrama, betray or be betrayed, maybe that was just the Bullet Club in their blood. Fated to forever be knifed and holding the knife.
“Ibushi was right to stay away,” Adam says, unthinking, the words catapulted from his throat before he can even register them. Matt makes a low wounded noise, “Right to-- stay away from this mess.”
“Right? Was he right to abandon Kenny?” Matt snarls.
“Did he though?”
Matt is silent, his face still obscured, and Adam can see his mind churning. Kota had to have abandoned Kenny, in Matt’s mind, because— if it’s the other way around, if Matt faces reality then— then if Kenny abandoned Kota, then that makes it easier for him to abandon everyone else too. Abandon Matt. And fuck if that doesn’t hurt.
Adam tosses the ice pack onto the adjoining bed. He reaches over to brush at the hair tumbling down around Matt’s jaw, tucks it back behind Matt’s ear, and runs his thumb over the ridge of his cheekbone. Matt looks sideways at him, eyes so dark and haunted.
“Hey, darlin’,” he murmurs, and Matt’s eyes close, briefly.
“Hey,” Matt replies, eyes still closed. Adam stokes his cheek, feeling the soft skin under the pad of his thumb. “Sometimes… sometimes you’re the only person who makes sense to me.”
And isn’t that just a bit fucked up-- because Adam doesn’t even make sense to himself on a good day. Matt doesn’t make sense to him. People haven’t- not for a long time. But Matt’s voice is low and hurt in a way that Adam hasn’t heard in a long time, hurt like you’re nothing but a drunk and you abandoned us, words thrown at Adam because Matt knew they would burrow deep like knives. Matt is so good at pretending, but Adam knows every line of his face and freckle on his skin like a well-read book, and he can always see the deep cracks in his eyes, the faultlines awaiting to erupt.
Right now, he’s waiting for-- absolution? Meaning? Reassurance? He opens his dark brown eyes and gazes at Adam, begging for something, anything. Waiting for Adam to say the words that will make this all okay, that will make it make sense. Bullet Club is fine, the Elite is fine, we’re fine, Matt, I promise. Adam has said those words before, a million times over, in his head and to Matt’s face, but he likes to think he’s no longer a liar, and he can’t lie, not now.
He could speak aloud all of the things swirling in Matt’s eyes, bring them to life; Cody is never coming back. Kenny’s gone. Nick can’t tell friend from foe anymore. Adam Cole is going to betray you. The Elite is dead.
Adam can’t even remain for Matt. He knows the ultimatum life has presented him with: lose yourself or lose Matt. And he can’t lose himself, not again, not now, and so he watches Matt walk away.
Watches Matt cling to the Elite with every last rattling breath, watches as Matt knows the building is burning to the ground, but he’s sure as hell going down with it. Kenny’s not calling, Nick is angry, and Adam Cole is going to break Matt’s heart into a thousand more splinters. And Adam can’t tell him. Can’t tell Matt--
This will kill you if you stay.
Matt’s eyes are still searching his face, darting around like he’s trying to find something amongst the bruises and three day stubble. Adam runs his thumb under the shadows of Matt’s eyes, down to the corner of his mouth, and Matt’s lips part.
He’s expecting it when Matt pitches forward, knocking Adam’s hands away, crushing their lips together. He prods at Adam’s lips, and when Adam exhales shakily, Matt takes full advantage to stick his tongue inside. Adam can still taste the copper of blood against his teeth, the cut on his lip reopening with every move of Matt’s mouth. It stings, but Adam doesn’t care-- because Matt is half-crawling into his lap, hands grabbing at Adam’s shoulders, like he’s trying to climb inside of him and it’s-- it’s the best Adam has felt in so long. It’s like bleeding out in the ring, it’s like hoisting the belt over his head- painful success.
Matt scrapes his mouth over the side of Adam’s jaw, down his neck, tracing saliva over his throat. It makes Adam gasp, clench his fingers in Matt’s hair, and Matt muffles a groan into the skin at the base of Adam’s neck.
“Baby,” he grunts, and pulls Matt off with a swift tug, smashing their mouths back together. In between kisses, small gasps of air, “God.”
Matt grins into the side of his face, “Don’t take the Lord’s name in vain, Hangman.”
Adam rolls his eyes, tugs Matt up by the thick strands of his hair, “You make that joke every time.”
“It makes you so annoyed.”
“Because you’re annoying,” Adam says, fondly, and Matt just grins at him.
“Sure about that?” he asks, and punctuates it with a slow roll of his hips down into Adam’s. Adam clutches at his hips, the tips of his thumbs pressing into the soft skin just above the cut of Matt’s absurdly skin-tight jeans. He grunts and Matt grins down at him as he leans back, getting his hands under Adam’s shirt and tugging up. When Adam finally pull the cotton off of his head, Matt ducks to press a kiss to the side of his jaw. His hand trails up to rub against Adam’s pectorals.
“You are--” Matt says, and rubs the pad of his thumb across Adam’s nipple. Adam rolls his hips up on instinct, Matt wobbling in his lap, “You are so-- hot, you know that? Like- look at you.”
Adam thinks, that’s a bit rich coming from Matt Jackson- maybe the hottest man fucking alive in his eyes. Adam has been daydreaming about Matt’s soft tanned skin and long hair and utterly indecent mouth for years now. And now- with his dark stubbled beard and black leather jackets, his bratty fucking attitude? Adam is absolutely gone. His baby is fucking gorgeous.
Matt pushes at his shoulders until he lays back down on the bed, fingers pressing into the skin until red prints are left on Adam’s skin, and slides down Adam’s thighs until he’s kneeling. Adam mourns the loss of Matt under his hands, but it’s hard to be too upset when Matt is unbuttoning the top of his jeans.
He jerks when Matt leans up to bite a kiss to the softness of Adam’s stomach, trailing his tongue along a bruise at the side of his hipbone. His forehead is pressed to Adam’s skin, and his beard raises goosebumps in the path it traces. Then, he pauses, breathing open-mouthed onto Adam’s stomach. Adam makes a questioning noise at the stop.
“Do you know,” Matt says, his voice so quiet and fragile, like cracking glass, “What I said? When Adam asked me why we didn’t come out to the ring to-- to help him? To hurt you?”
Adam stares at the top of Matt’s head, at the curtains of dark hair that fall around his face. Matt raises his head until he’s balancing his chin on Adam’s abs, and his eyes are-- sad. Lost. Adam reaches down for him without thinking, until he can fit his palm along the curve of Matt’s cheek. Matt turns his face into it, eyelashes fluttering. Adam sits up and tugs at him until he climbs back onto the bed, knees knocking into his ribs, and Adam brings their heads together until their foreheads are touching. They do it so often, in love and lust and anger and sadness, that it’s become their language of sorts. Pressed together, noses just barely touching, like Adam can drive himself into Matt’s brain.
“What?” Adam breathes, onto the bow of Matt’s lip, into his body; a prayer, “What did you say?”
Matt squeezes his eyes shut, fits his hands over Adam’s on his own face, the tips of his fingers curling between Adam’s knuckles.
“Anybody but him,” he says, like a damnation, and Adam--
Can hear Kenny, so many years ago, spitting at Cody across a table, heartbroken and furious, and--
I told you, specifically, Cody. Anyone but him.
The realization hits Adam like a collapsing building, cracking his chest wide open. He can feel Matt’s nose bumping against his, their foreheads pressed together so tightly, the soft touch of his fingerpads, his breaths against Adam’s mouth, so close that they’re breathing in each other’s oxygen, and it’s the closest he’s ever felt to another human being.
I’m your Kota Ibushi he thinks, like he can push the thought into Matt’s mind, doesn’t want to speak it aloud. And it’s strange, because he knows Kota- not well, not like the others- and it’s bizarre to compare himself to someone he’s fought against and, technically, alongside, in this manner. A ghost that’s haunted the Elite for as long as it’s been around; Kenny’s lost and greatest love, flitting around the shadows and in the sad creases around Kenny’s eyes.
It had been hard not to compare himself to Ibushi during his tag run with Kenny- and it was something he had failed at, constantly. He’d lived in the shadow of the ghost of Kota Ibushi the entire time, knowing that he paled in comparison in every way. So he’d stopped, because they were different- so different- and if Kenny couldn’t see that then that wasn’t Adam’s problem, and freeing himself of that comparison finally allowed him to throw it back in Kenny’s face the week before the pay per view, so he could crack open Kenny’s chest and find his heart and fucking squeeze it.
But now, he can hear Matt’s words and Kenny’s words (Anybody but him) and he-- if he looked at Kota right now, saw him face to face, he’d find understanding and kinship. He’d say we’re the same, you and I, in ways we both don’t really understand. Because Kota left, and so did Adam. They both walked away, time and time again, from Kenny and Matt and Bullet Club and the Elite, and all the tangled webs it weaves across countries and years, because it would inevitably kill them if they didn’t.
Both him and Kota- they both love someone, someone full of darkness and venom, enough to try. Enough to try and break pieces of themselves off in order to fit into this group, just to be there, but it hadn’t been enough because it’s never enough. Bullet Club-The Elite-Kenny-Matt, all of it, takes and takes and takes until you can’t leave. So they walked away, and maybe it’ll never fully leave them, bits of poison and heartbreak still in their veins, but they left.
Matt shifts under Adam’s hands, his arms interlocked around Adam’s ribs, fists clenched at the small of his back and Adam-- he thinks--
Can they ever really leave?
Because Adam, he knows enough of what’s happening in Japan to know that Ibushi is losing it. Before he was injured, before he lost the title, he was proclaiming himself a God and becoming harsher, vicious. And here Adam is, Matt Jackson pressed against him (Anybody but him), and he knows he’s doing the same thing. The same kind of sick divine pleasure that he felt when he sliced open Bryan Danielson’s head and star-jumped covered in his blood. He hadn’t been lying to Matt when he said that Bullet Club doesn’t go away. You can leave it, but it will never leave you.
Him and Kota- forever trapped in the gravitational pull of Matt-and-Kenny, not just two sides of it but the entire same damn coin. And so, yeah, maybe he is Matt’s Kota Ibushi. Maybe Kota is Kenny’s Adam Page.
“I just-” Matt says, startling Adam, his eyes still closed and his breaths still slow and even against Adam’s face, “I couldn’t-- I couldn’t do it again.”
“For how long?” Adam asks, and Matt’s eyes flutter open, “Do you think you can keep that promise?”
And it’s a serious question because-- Matt is Matt. And Adam has long stopped asking Matt to choose him over The Elite, or Kenny, or even Adam Cole. It won’t work.
“I chose you,” Matt says, his brow furrowing as he pulls back slightly. His hands creep up Adam’s back to fall on his shoulders, thumbs pressing into Adam’s collarbones. Adam wants to chase his warmth, like a moth seeking light, but he keeps his hands on Matt’s hips and looks up at him. “I don’t-- I chose you.”
Adam feels his heart break, just slightly, which it always does whenever he is within Matt’s radius. He never leaves Matt’s presence whole and happy. He always breaks off just a bit of himself every time. He wonders when there will be nothing left of him.
“For now,” Adam says, and he feels so old, so tired, way beyond his thirty years, “Until he asks again and you can’t say no. Or until-- until Kenny asks.”
And Matt is silent, his hands clutching so tight to Adam’s shoulders he knows there will be marks left on the skin when he leaves.
“But I chose you,” Matt repeats, and his voice is low, dark, “I’m choosing you. Right now. Isn’t that enough?”
And-- no, it’s not. Not really. Because Matt, Matt is saying--
I love you. I love you, right now. Isn’t that enough?
Love is not enough.
And Adam opens his mouth to respond, wondering if he should answer or just kiss at Matt’s neck until he’s panting and whining and they don’t have to talk about it anymore. His hands clutch at Matt’s hips, trying to drag him closer, tuck himself into his body, and Matt moves forward until their foreheads are pressed together again, hair tickling the sides of Adam’s face, waiting for an answer or a movement or absolution and--
The hotel room door opens with a soft click, breaking the hushed silence, followed by a muffled thump of a bag being thrown casually onto the floor, and a resigned sigh. Adam closes his eyes, biting his lip so he doesn’t curse at Nick to fuck off and get out.
“Matt,” Nick’s voice sounds exasperated, slightly judgemental, but not surprised.
Matt’s face twists in annoyance, and he pulls away from Adam to stare up at the ceiling like it personally offended him.
“Nicholas,” he says to the white plaster. Adam just keeps his eyes on the angles of Matt’s jaw, feeling his cheeks burn, “I’m kind of busy right now.”
“I can see that,” Nick says dryly, “Spoke to O’Reilly earlier. Said he ran into you.”
Adam is still gripping Matt’s hips for dear life, not wanting to let go because he doesn’t want Matt to fall backwards with the way he’s perched on his lap, but he’s also pressed right up against Adam in all the worst-best places and it’s getting a tad uncomfortable with the younger Jackson brother right in the room.
It’s horrific that this isn’t even the first time Adam has had to deal with this situation. He quietly prays to whatever God the Bucks believe in to strike him down where he sits.
“Did he?” Matt says, “I assume he ran and told Adam all about it like the good little dog he is.”
“You know he was going to.”
Matt finally slides off Adam’s lap, thank the Lord and Saviour, and Adam takes the moment to surreptitiously adjust his pants, where his half-hard cock mourns the loss of the heavy warmth.
Matt moving, however, leaves him with a straight eye line to Nick across the room. He’s leaning against the wall, beard and hair looking ridiculous, dressed in, well, actually semi-normal looking clothes for once, and fixing Adam with a glare that could kill a man dead.
“Yeah, I know,” Matt says, and Nick’s eyes soften as they flicker over to him, “But I don’t really give a shit what he or Fish think, actually.”
“And Adam?”
“Him either. He’s the one who brought them here as soon as Kenny left, like, like we could all play big happy families.”
“Matt, he’s just trying to—”
“He’s trying to take Kenny’s spot and you know it!”
“I thought you— it’s Adam! We’ve been missing him for years.”
“I know, and I love him, but he’s gotta know his place—”
“So you’re going to— what, Matt? Play games and screw around with his opponent to get in his head? Like you did to—”
And something sick and insecure twists in Adam’s chest because oh. Oh no. He can’t be stupid enough to fall for this again, he can’t be. Not again. God, he can’t do it again, he can’t, he can’t—
He stands, abruptly enough that it breaks the argument between the two brothers, and his palms are damp as he rubs them against his jeans. He can feel his chest squeezing, the familiar anxiety tapping at his heart like an old friend. An old, horrible, cruel friend.
Matt’s eyes are wide, “Page— I wasn’t, that’s not what this—”
“I’m gonna go,” Adam says, quietly, because he doesn’t want to be in the middle of this. Again. God he always finds himself in the middle of this bullshit Elite drama, every time, without failing. He’s a masochist, through and through. “This… this isn’t my business.”
Nick scoffs, “It kinda is, Hangman.”
“No,” Adam says, and is surprised by the strength of his voice; it feels like it’s going to break apart and shatter into a million pieces onto the floor, right on top of Matt’s discarded sneakers, “Not this. Not anymore.”
Nick doesn’t say anything, just keeps looking at him with a shrewd gaze, and Adam is torn between taking a swing at him and just leaving with his tail between his legs. He decides on the latter, and as he shucks on his discarded shirt and gets up to head for the door, Matt’s hand darts out to grab onto his wrist on the way through. Adam looks at him, trying to figure out what he’s feeling through the carefully constructed mask Matt donned as soon as Nick came into the room. He comes up empty.
“Hey,” Matt says, and it’s a question, a demand for answers. An answer. Adam isn’t sure he can give it.
He tries, anyway. He owes himself that much. He’s not sure what he owes Matt.
“It’s not,” he says, and his voice is finally, finally breaking, because he’s always worn his heart so obvious and bloody on his sleeve, enough that anyone can just take it and tear it to shreds, “It’s not enough.”
I chose you. Isn’t that enough?
Matt lets go of his wrist.
Adam leaves.
At least he’s the one doing the leaving. But-- hasn’t it always been him?