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Title: Forever
Author: Lizzie
E-Mail: [email protected]
Rating: R
Content: m/m, language, angst, kinda mention of incest, a little discussion of religious views on the afterlife and sin and all that but nothing too controversial. And I don�t know why I�m bothering to write this because I still don�t believe anyone reads these content warnings so someone prove me wrong.
Disclaimer: Don't own them, and unless by some bizarre accident of nature I suddenly become Vince McMahon, I never will. Not saying this happened in any way, shape or form.
Distribution: I have a very simple philosophy - want, take, have. Just let me know where it is.
Summary: I suck at summaries, so it�s better you just read it. It�s kinda Matt/Jeff and kinda Jeff/Hunter just so you know. And it�s kinda weird. Just to warn you.
Notes: This was originally gonna be a Qui-Gon/Obi-Wan fic, �cos I�m a complete Star Wars freak. I might still rewrite it in that fandom. But it totally screamed Matt/Jeff to me when I came to write it, so here it is. Oh, and this in no way reflects my views on death, religion or anything else. It�s pure fiction.

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Forever
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I don�t understand. But at the same time I do. It�s so strange. It�s perfectly clear and it seems perfectly reasonable, but, but, this can�t be right. This *can�t* be right. I want to reach over to the other side of the bed and feel my lover�s sleeping body lying there, wake him and have him make it okay. I want to know this isn�t real. I want to close my eyes and open them again to find this is all a dream.

There�s just one problem with that. I don�t have eyes anymore. Because I�m dead. I�m dead and now I have to make a choice that�ll live with me through the rest of time.

***

I died. I don�t know whether it was three seconds or three minutes or hours or days or� I could�ve been here an eternity already and I wouldn�t know it. But I know I died. I remember the moment completely. I�m dead. I don�t even have a body anymore and I can�t understand how I can be thinking and feeling like this when I don�t have a body.

And I can�t see. There�s either nothing here to see or I just can�t see, and I don�t know which would be worst. I�m just here and it feels so strange. I want to rub my eyes and my temples and feel my hair on my cheeks and the burn in my muscles as I run, cool air on my skin, anything. But I can�t. It�s kinda like drowning without drowning, like when you lie in bed and close your eyes and almost stop feeling anything except warm and safe. But it�s suffocating, like any second I�m gonna break into a panic attack, but I can�t even do that. I�m just disembodied consciousness and pure feeling, and I can�t even make a face to express how weird it is. I don�t have a face. I used to but I don�t anymore. I could do again.

Because, though I don�t know how I know it, I know I have a choice to make. I don�t even think I want to know how I know � it�s just one of those things you know at a point in your, uh, life. Like you don�t play with matches and driving a car into a tree is a bad idea. Still, it doesn�t seem right that the most important choice of my life will be made in death, even if that�s the way it has to be. And while I can take as long as I want, forever if I need to, I have to choose. I have to choose one moment from my life to live forever, over and over. One moment out of millions. One moment I want to exist in for all time.

But how do I choose? How the fuck do you choose one single event in your whole life to live out forever? It�s insane. No one should be expected to be able to do this. Maybe this is what hell is, being forced to examine your life for one perfect moment. Or maybe this is just the way the afterlife has to be; some people would know in an instant what their moment would be, like the birth of a child or the first time they met their husband or wife, or their wedding, or their son�s first baseball game or something. Children would be able to play forever. I could play forever. I could be a child again for the rest of eternity and forget the rest of my life even happened. I guess that�s the cool thing about this, because I could just forget everything I ever wanted to forget. If I went back far enough I could be happy forever and never know how my life turned out. God, death is so forgiving.

***

Maybe I could live my fifth birthday forever. I remember being happy then. I barely even knew anyone else existed. I�d just play out in the yard with Matt and get sunburnt and spend the afternoon falling asleep and rubbing my grazed knees. Birthday cake and friends for the rest of time doesn�t sound like a bad thing.

Or the first time I rode a dirt bike. Or the first time I wrestled. Or the first time I had sex or told someone I loved them, the moment I found out I�d got a job with the World Wrestling Federation, our first match, crowds screaming our names, my first Swanton, TLC matches, meeting Hunter.

Meeting Hunter. That�s a great memory. Because even though I was absolutely petrified and completely intimidated, it was just something I�ll never forget. He�s huge and he�s got this incredible presence, and God I was drawn to him like I just wanted to jump him right then and there and to hell with everyone who was there and what they would�ve thought. I�d never met anyone quite like him. And within twenty minutes of meeting him, he�d asked me out.

That first date�s a great memory too. Sitting in a restaurant opposite him, trying to pretend like I wasn�t staring at him when really that was all I was doing. There was something about the way he was holding his wine glass that fascinated me, or maybe it was just the fact he was drinking wine. It was staining his lips wine-red and shimmering in the glass like blood or something. And he ate self-consciously, looking up at me between bites, trying to time them so I wouldn�t be looking at him. But I was, because the soft light was shining in his hair and in his eyes and I couldn�t stop looking. Every second I just wanted to lean across the table and kiss the wine from his lips. Eventually, I did. He was shocked but he didn�t even try to stop me. He just tangled his fingers in my hair and drew me in closer. I think it was in that moment that I fell in love.

Three nights later we slept together for the first time and that�s a great memory. That was when I knew he loved me too, because no one could do the things he did and make me feel that way without loving me. He never told me but he didn�t need to. I felt loved that night like I�d never felt before. So maybe that�s what I should choose, lying in bed with the man I loved, feeling him above me and inside me and touching me like no one ever had. I could live the moment he looked into my eyes and whispered my name forever. And I�d be happy, in the heat and the passion and the love, in his arms, because right then I had no idea how wrong things would go.

***

I didn�t realise then that there was a glitch in the relationship. And it wasn�t even the fact that he was supposed to be dating Kurt Angle, even if that was a pretty damn big glitch in itself. He left Kurt two weeks after he met me. Kurt wasn�t the problem. It wasn�t even anything to do with Hunter. It wasn�t that I felt completely insecure and every time he left me for the first month and a half I�d be sure he was going to meet Kurt or even someone else behind my back. It wasn�t that he still intimidated the hell out of me sometimes. It wasn�t that I didn�t believe he loved me, because I absolutely believed he did. It was me.

And it wasn�t even something I did. If I�d gone out and had an affair that would�ve explained it, but it was something I realised, something that just hit me one day and completely destroyed me. Something I�d never even imagined could be true.

I looked across the dining room one morning and saw my brother with Amy. And I felt jealous. Not of Matt but jealous of Amy. Because she was the one sitting there with him, the one who was always with him, who slept in the same bed as him, who shared his life. She was right where I wanted to be, and it wasn�t because I felt like she was taking my place. She was his girlfriend, his partner, the person he loved, not his brother. It wasn�t that she�d taken my place and I wanted it back. I wanted hers. I wanted Matt.

I felt sick. I actually had to excuse myself from the table where I was sitting with Hunter and Steve Austin and Debra and people I can�t even remember anymore and practically fucking run back to our room because I couldn�t stand to be there knowing what I knew. It wasn�t right. I knew there had to be something wrong with me. Normal people don�t fall in love with their brother. Normal people aren�t jealous of their brother�s girlfriend. Normal people don�t start wondering what it�d be like if their brother felt the same way. It wasn�t right and I couldn�t believe I was feeling that way.

Except it kinda made sense. Everything made sense after that. When I knew I loved Matt suddenly everything dropped into place. That was why I couldn�t tell Hunter I loved him. That was why I wasn�t willing to commit. That was why I�d distanced myself from him and Amy. In fact, that was probably why I was with Hunter in the first place, because really he�s about as far removed from Matt as you could possibly get.

Not that I�m saying I didn�t love him, �cause I did. I still do, weird as that sounds. Maybe love really can live forever. Except I don�t think I�m ever really going to see Hunter again, because he�s still alive. Maybe. I don�t know how long it�s been. Maybe he�s dead now and I just don�t know it. But I�m never going to see him again. I�m never going to see anyone again. It�s just me and my memory for whatever�s left, and that doesn�t seem right. The afterlife is false. It�s like a dream you can never wake up from, that you don�t know is a dream, that you�re living over and over without even knowing it�s stuck on this permanent loop. I don�t want that. I guess it�s nice to live your one fondest memory forever, to think you�re with your loved ones and really believe you�re there, but it�s false. If I really had a choice, I wouldn�t want it.

Except I know that if choose not to choose, I�ll lose everything. I�ll be blank for all eternity and that scares me more than living a lie. So really I have to choose, even if it�s just because it�s the lesser of two evils. And besides, once I�m there in the moment I won�t know the difference between fantasy and reality. It won�t matter anymore that it�s not real. It won�t matter that I�m really all alone and there�s no one there with me. It won�t matter that I�ll never really see them ever again.

I loved Hunter and I still do. But that wasn�t enough to keep us together. I wanted something, someone, else and wanting that someone else was driving me out of my mind. I became impossible to be with �til Hunter must have wanted to leave, but for some reason he never did. He just tried harder and harder to please me and make me love him, never quite realising that I already did love him and nothing was his fault. He tried so hard. I wanted to leave him but he was all that was keeping me sane. I couldn�t leave and neither could he. We were stuck together and becoming more miserable by the second.

And I started to hate myself. I mean really loathe myself, everything I was. And all because of how I felt about Matt. I couldn�t even explain why I felt that way, when it had started, how it could be, because well, for the most part I was trying so hard to push it aside and pretend it wasn�t there, but it was, all the time. When I saw him I just felt so ashamed. There was something wrong with me and I didn�t even know how it had started. There was nothing I could do about it because even being with Hunter didn�t help. Really I think it made it worse because then I felt guilty for what I was doing to him, too. And it just kept on getting worse and worse until every waking moment of every single day I was thinking about him. I was useless and guilty and shameful and I couldn�t even look at myself in the mirror. The last time I did was the moment I decided to kill myself.

***

This isn�t how I imagined the afterlife to be. I wasn�t even sure it existed, but what I had in my head was so different. I was pretty sure I�d be going to hell if I was going anywhere, and the way I died I�d end up as a human tree being torn at by banshees in the Wood of the Suicides or something. I think I read too much Dante. I think he was a little too hard on the suicides anyway. Okay so it�s a sin to kill yourself just like it�s a sin to murder, but I think living out eternity as a motionless, wailing, bleeding tree unable to move or protect yourself from creatures constantly ripping you to shreds is a little excessive. It�s almost better to be a murderer actually, according to Dante. So much for the great Italian poet. I think he just had something against self-injurers.

So I�m not in hell, unless this is what hell�s like. It�s just that I think maybe this is what you make it. This could be heaven or hell depending on the way you look at it. This place gives you the opportunity to forget or the opportunity to remember. Depending on your choice you could be happy or tortured forever. Or you could agonise in your choice for all eternity. Or you could just simply choose oblivion. This really is what you make it. And I�m making it hard on myself.

It�s just that I don�t think I led a particularly good life. I wasn�t a bad person but I wasn�t a terrifically good person. Okay so I didn�t rape and plunder or anything, I didn�t commit genocide or mass-murder or even good old-fashioned murder in the first degree. I didn�t torture small animals. But according to Christianity animals don�t have souls anyway so would that have been morally wrong? Maybe, and maybe it�s just mean. Anyway, I didn�t do it. And I didn�t flatter or lie or lust excessively, I didn�t cheat and steal and I didn�t otherwise intentionally hurt people. Yeah so I hurt people unintentionally, like Hunter, but that was totally unintentional. But I�m not trying to dodge responsibility �cause I know I hurt him and I know it was my fault. I wasn�t a good person. A good person would�ve given to charity and helped out in homeless shelters and fostered children. Oh, and I was homosexual, I killed myself and at the end I was seriously thinking about committing incest. By Christian standards I might as well�ve been Hitler.

So really, I deserve to punish myself. For a while at least, even if I don�t choose something deliberately horrible from my past to live forever. I don�t think I�m quite that masochistic. Besides, I�ve been given the choice so you�d think I�d be allowed to choose whatever I want to choose without having to beat myself up about it. And after I�ve chosen I won�t remember anyway so why am I even thinking about this? This is so dumb. I should just choose my happiest moment and get on with reliving it. Over and over until the end of time.

There�s just one problem with that. I don�t know what my happiest memory is.

***

I wish I knew how long ago I died. I don�t know the process here. Maybe I died just now or maybe I died a hundred years ago. Maybe it�s intentionally this was so we�re all disorientated and haven�t got a clue what�s going on. Maybe we�re supposed to feel disconnected and alone. But I really wish I knew when it is. Maybe then I could understand a little better. Did I hang around just not feeling or whatever for a while before suddenly I woke up after the shock of my death knowing all this and having to choose? Was it something I knew the second I died? And I want to know because I want to know if I have to grieve for the people I loved. I don�t know how long I�ve been here or even what or where here is.

But I know I died. I remember the moment completely. I don�t think I could ever forget. At least not without choosing a moment.

I did it in a hotel room. Hunter had just made love to me and I think he was asleep then. I was aching all over, outside and in, and I didn�t know what I could do to make it stop. Until I walked into the bathroom and looked up into the mirror. Because right then I knew what I had to do. There was only one way to make it stop.

Up until that moment I�d never believed I could kill myself. I�d always known � not just believed or thought or whatever but honest to God *known* - that I couldn�t kill myself. Even when I loathed myself I knew I couldn�t do it, because well, I don�t know how to explain it really. I can�t say I didn�t understand why people did it because I did, I just didn�t think I could ever feel low enough to need to end things that way. Because in spite of everything I was always scared of dying, of not existing anymore. I hated to think that one day I wouldn�t be there and the world would carry on regardless. But right then it didn�t matter. Suddenly everything changed for me because I knew I was going to do it.

I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror, under the harsh white lights, all the colour washed out of my face, so miserable and desperate and hurting. It was one of those moments when you look at your reflection and don�t feel like it�s you even though you know it is, like there�s something not quite you about the way you look. But that passed. I looked down and saw a packet of razorblades. I�ll never understand how they came to be there because neither of us had any particular use for a packet of razorblades, but they were there, and I picked them up, took one out. And I stood at the sink as I did it, drew the blade across my left wrist, winced at the pain. You hear people say you�re numb when you do it but that�s such unbelievable bullshit �cause it hurts like hell. Then I somehow managed to swap hands and slash the other wrist, nowhere near as neatly. I�d done it.

I watched the blood drip away from my wrists and onto the white surfaces for a second, then I thought I�d probably pass out if I stood up any longer and the sound as I hit the floor would�ve woken Hunter. So I sat down, leant back against the bathtub and closed my eyes. Everything was spinning and I kinda felt sick. But it didn�t bother me that I knew I was dying. After all, that was the point.

But the next thing I knew someone was knocking on the door. It wasn�t the bathroom door because even if everything sounded really far away I still knew it was the door to the bedroom. And I heard Hunter getting out of bed, pulling on his jeans, answering the door. I couldn�t tell who it was because they were talking so softly, but there was someone there. I didn�t even know if the person had come into the room or not because after the door closed I couldn�t hear any talking.

But then someone was knocking on the bathroom door. It scared me into opening my eyes and my head lolled to the side as the door opened. It was Matt.

For a second I just stared at him and he stared at me. It must�ve been a terrible shock to him, walking in and finding me like that. Some things he�d been prepared for, like finding me passed out on the floor or naked in the shower, but sitting in a pool of my own blood obviously wasn�t on the list.

Then he turned and as he did I could see Hunter standing behind him. He yelled at him to go dial 911 or something and Hunter stood there �til Matt shook him then bolted.

Then Matt was kneeling by me, ripping up a towel, wrapping it around my wrists and my arms and almost sobbing at me, pawing at me, kneeling in my blood and wiping it across his forehead as he swiped his hair back. He was such a mess and I just wanted to clean it all off and tidy him up, but I couldn�t even move. All I could do was stare at him with tears in my eyes.

He was hugging me. I wanted to hug him back, I remember that, and I remember trying to pull my arms around him but I didn�t have the strength. My face was buried in his neck and I was breathing him in with every laboured breath. And he was holding me so tight I almost couldn�t breathe.

�What the fuck did you think you were doing?� he was saying, sobbing. I couldn�t think of an answer and I�m not sure I could even have mimed it even if I�d had one. �Christ Jeff, you�re dying. You can�t die. You fucking can�t. What the fuck did you think you were doing?�

He leaned back slightly, tucking my hair back behind my ears, looking at me so sadly. All I could do was look back.

�You shouldn�t have done this�. I nodded but I didn�t believe it. And then he said something that made me change my mind completely. �I love you, Jeff. I don�t want you to die. You can�t die. I don�t know what I�ll do without you. I love you too much�.

The tears in my eyes spilled over and I think my heart actually broke. Because I knew I was going to die and I knew he loved me too. All I could do was summon every shred of strength I had in me to mouth the words �I love you too�.

Then he held me. He just held me. Well, held me and kissed me, just once, soft, his warm lips against my cold ones. Because I was so close to gone then that it almost made no difference.

The ambulance came too late. I died in his arms.

***

I don�t know what would�ve happened between us if I hadn�t died that night. I�d like to think we would�ve been together for the rest of our lives, perfect together, happy. And maybe we would�ve been, but I�ll never know. Neither will he, and that�s the tragedy. I did this to get away from it all and spare everyone the pain I was causing them. But I killed all my brother�s hopes. I killed his passion. I saw it in his eyes the moment I died, mingled with the love and complete devotion.

Oh God, that�s it. That�s the moment.

I don�t need any more time. I have it now. I�ve made my choice.

Give me the moment I died forever. Let me live in that moment looking into Matt�s eyes, feeling the pain and seeing that look. I might as well have killed him then and taken him with me, that�s what that look told me. And it hurt. It hurt so much. My wrists hurt and my heart hurt and everything was aching as I lay there staring into his eyes. It was pain beyond anything I�d ever felt because it wasn�t just my body, it was cutting into my soul. I�d hurt him. I�d hurt him so deep I don�t know if he could ever have forgiven me, and that�s the worst thing.

But it was then that I could finally feel how he felt. He loved me. And he didn�t think it was wrong or sick or perverted. And when I saw that, I couldn�t think it either. Suddenly I couldn�t understand how I�d ever thought it was wrong. He just loved me. And I loved him.

So give me that moment forever, until the end of time. Give me the moment I knew we were in love. Give me the moment I died.

***
End
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