On Opposite Sides of the Bed
"I like the way you play with your knob."
Chris barely rose an eyebrow as he fiddled with the volume controls on his amp. Randy had a naughty habit of making the most innocent of phrases sound filthy, but Chris was used to such attempts at shock and titillation, especially from Randy. That same sense of joyful impropriety seemed to drive him through the door and encourage him to sit at the edge of the bed.
"This sound okay to you, Junior?" Chris asked, somewhat sarcastically, as he strummed an open a chord. Randy listened, head tilted, expression arrogant.
"Sounds all right to me." He shrugged. Randy didn't know much beyond what he liked, and how it made him feel. Musical intricacies were not his forte.
Chris laid the guitar across his lap, tracing over the tensile strings with the tip of his index finger. "Everything always sounds just fine to you, doesn't it?"
For Chris, his words contained a sense of menace. For Randy, it seemed, everything really was fine, no matter how backwards and strange the world seemed to Chris. The boy was terminally self-possessed and confident.
Which made Chris feel sick.
"What?"
Randy's perplexed expression snapped Chris out of his doldrums.
"Forget it. How was Ric?"
"The same. Thinks he knows how I should run my life."
"He's only looking out for you." Randy hated being dominated, in any field, in any way. Chris understood that part of his psyche too well. It was like looking at some amputated part of himself.
"I'm not a little kid anymore, though you won't know from listening to Ric!" Randy snapped. "He thinks he can pull the old age card out on me every time we have an argument!"
"Well, wisdom before youth. That IS the way the business works." Chris said smartly. Randy rolled his eyes before continuing to explain just how 'stupid' Ric had been today.
Whenever Randy rolled his eyes that way, Chris wondered how he'd gotten himself into this relationship.
Basically, he understood himself; how he had allowed a passionate shouting match by the lockers over who really was the number one contender to mutate into a live-in love affair, his first as a bottom. He supposed there was something about being shoved against a bench and French kissed that changed a man's perspective. Going into the union, Chris understood that Randy was dominant by nature. While Chris had gradually become a bottom to Trish in his previous relationship, he wasn't entirely agreeable to becoming one for Randy from the start.
But the tantalizing appeal of his kiss seemed to seal out anything but an enthusiastic yes, the one word still ringing in his mind. The physicality of his relationship with Randy freed him, made him feel like an active participant in his own passion. His most recent experience in loving Trish had been one-sided, and only resulted in the sensation of being quietly and thoroughly gelded in public.
But gradually, love seeped in, like water through a leaky roof. Gradually, he came to find affection in the small things Randy did; the way he tossed his head in an assured, arrogant way on a laugh. His habit of trying to enrich a flat spinach salad with maple syrup. The little details made his attraction stronger, deeper.
It seemed to be fortune's way of playing with him when he discovered that Randy had been seeing a woman in Malone, Alberta, every time the Raw crew swept through Canada.
It helped to have friends on the heel bus.
Chris couldn't properly call the ball of pain, which had been gathering in his gut since that afternoon, a feeling of betrayal. God knew, they weren't exclusive item. He didn't want to admit that the idea of Randy being with someone else -especially a woman- seemed to dig a burning crater inside of his heart.
Randy continued explaining to Chris that Ric didn't know his damn spot anymore, was acting like a goddamned prima donna...the words flew over Chris' head, refusing to attach themselves to his mind. He set the guitar aside and sprawled across his hotel bed.
"I though you were gonna play me something." Randy frowned.
"Changed my mind." Chris said casually, watching Randy as he sat down at the edge of the bed.
Randy turned from Chris, his shoulders rising and then gradually falling.
"I thought we said that whatever happened in the ring would stay in the ring."
Chris' tone sent alarm through Randy's face. "I am. You aren't."
"Really? You're not pissed off at me?"
"No!"
"How was Malone, Randy? Still cool? Still friendly?"
Randy's mouth dropped open, his upper lip trembling slightly. He licked his upper lip, swallowed harshly, and pasted a weak smile across his mouth. "Laura doesn't mean anything to me. She's just a rat. It had nothing to do with you and..."
"I know, brother, I know. Hell, I even had Laura when I was around your age."
Randy's eyelid twitched as he turned to face Chris. "Why the hell did you bring it up, then?"
"Because it's not the fucking around that bothers me. What bothers me is the lying, Randy. I'm ten years too old to be involved in a bulshit kiddie relationship based on stupidity. Understand?"
Randy's shoulders slumped, tension draining out of his face. Suddenly, he seemed twenty-four again. "Yeah, yeah." Randy's smile weakened all the more. "You know I love you."
Chris' heart leapt at the word, but no crack appeared in his thinning armor. "Yep."
"So we'll forget this happened."
"Laura who?"
Randy's breathing evened. "Great! So everything's fine now..." He babbled, as he pulled off his tee shirt.
"Right. Now, lie down. I have to do all the driving tomorrow, and we need to be in by three." He proceeded to make room for his lover in a bed far too small.
Randy Orton hated being ordered around. He hated being told what to do at any time of the day, especially by someone whom he outranked.
The sheets felt like ice against Chris' burning shoulders, his trembling chest, as Randy joined him.