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~~~~
At first it had been no problem, a few hours drive, what was that to
them. They could make it between shows with time to spare, even with the detour to a little cafe here and there. Sometimes
they would even find the time to spend an hour or two in a cheap motel.
Soon, whether because of the increased distance
between them, or the lack of time, their time together became a series of short, rushed encounters; heated, passionate but
ultimately transient. Rene's body, his firm muscles, his great big, strong, careful hands, not that it didn't hold many attractions,
was always secondary to his words, his interest in everything, his sense of fun.
Even these short bursts became threatened.
Their time was shortened by the schedules, Sylvan had to be back in time for Heat and Rene had to wait around after Smackdown
while people explained his future to him.
And then their meetings stopped. Not altogether, but sometimes Rene had to
skip a week because, as US title holder, he was needed for interviews and promotion. Sylvan had been so proud when Rene won,
his Rene, the US champion, but now he wished Rene would lose it. Then came the guilt and the shame, how could he wish
that for his darling. He hated that belt and all the things it made him feel.
Sometimes Rene would be so tired that
he couldn't come, couldn't stand the extra travelling. He would always try and ring before Sylvan set off and now Sylvan finished
packing an hour early and sat waiting for the phone to ring, expecting it to.
But this week, this week he knew they
would both be there. He would finally be able to end this mockery of what once was.
Rene burst through the door, fifteen
minutes late. His stream of conversation started the second he crossed the threshold and didn't stop for five minutes, when
he eventually noticed that Sylvan wasn't responding.
"What's wrong?"
"Rene, there's something I need to tell you. You might want to sit down." Rene sat down. Sylvan sat down next to
him, and held his hands. "This can't carry on. Us. All this travelling, because of the distance between us, we barely see
each other any more. I can't keep doing this. For love must have some future and for us there were only moments."
"You forget another quote, 'absence is to love what fire is to wind, it extinguishes the small, it inflames the great'."
"But is our love great?" There was a time, not long ago, when Sylvan wouldn't have had to ask, he would have known
it was. Now he was not sure, not sure of it now, and not sure if it had ever been as good as he remembered it. Could something
great really have been so easily reduced to this?
"Our love is as great as we allow it to be."
"It's not just us any more. It's the business, it's having to
wake up at six o'clock with a stiff neck to see each other. If you crashed coming to see me because you were not wide awake,
I'd never forgive myself."
"I promise I won't crash."
"Don't make promises you can't keep. You will find another, find someone worthier of your love than me."
"You seem so determined to be rid of me. Who is it? Who have you taken in my stead? Who has taken my place in your
heart? Is it Robert?"
"There is no one else. How could there be?"
"And yet you expect me to find someone else.
Someone else who I wouldn't have to travel to see, which means someone on Smackdown. Look at Smackdown. Who is there? No one
except Rico, and really I've never been a fan of pink and frills and animal print." Sylvan laughed, or tried to, but his chest
felt heavy and his throat burned.
"I love you Sylvan. We can get past this, it's just a minor, temporary problem."
"It's the rest of our working lives." Sylvan didn't doubt that, Rene would be a success wherever he was, so what
reason would there ever be to move him back to RAW.
"Not necessarily. They might move me back on a whim, or they might move you and Rob onto Smackdown. Anything could
happen."
"But it won't."
"You're always so pessimistic."
"No, you just expect too much from the world."
"And you won't take what the world is willing to give you, what I am willing to give you."
"The only thing I ask of you is that you be fit and well and happy, and you are more likely to achieve all three
if you are not having to come and see me every week."
"Seeing you makes me happy." And seeing Rene meant the world
to Sylvan but he knew he didn't see him, they didn't have the chance to talk together and what was the point without that.
"Being with you makes me happy too, but the constant parting makes us both miserable." Well it made *him* miserable,
each and every time, even if it was only for a week. He sat there, as silent as only misery can be, for an age every time
Rene left. Because Rene always left first, normally he had to be somewhere else, urgently.
Oh for the days when they
didn't have to part, when they were both together on RAW.
"All I'm doing," Sylvan continued, "is foreshortening that
misery, our sadness will be acute, sharp, painful for a day or two, but surely that is better that short agony, than the listing
sadness we must keep feeling. Go Rene, go with my blessing," he kissed Rene's forehead, "and my hope that you can find someone
more suitable."
Rene didn't want to go. He stood up and looked as though he was going to argue, but Sylvan put his
hand over Rene's mouth and put the suitcase, left at their feet at the bedside, in his hand and wouldn't release the hand
over Rene's mouth until he was firmly pushed out of the door.
Sylvan heard Rene's steps, heavier than before, move
down the corridor.
What had he done? That was his Rene, his beloved Rene, walking out of his life, possibly forever,
definitely forever from the way they had been. It took all his strength and willpower not to race down the corridor after
him, crawl to Rene on his knees if he had to, beg his forgiveness and ask to be taken back.
Just one more moment in
his arms, to bask in his smile.
Sylvan knew he was sliding down the wall into a crumpled heap on the floor, he knew
he looked an undignified sight, bawling his eyes out. But he couldn't stop. It had been a miracle that he hadn't started while
Rene had been here, but he'd been determined not to. If he'd cried while Rene was here then Rene would never have left, he
would have felt tied to the room, that he had to stay to make sure Sylvan was okay, and Sylvan hadn't wanted that. He'd wanted
this, and he'd got it. He deserved every miserable moment.
His heart's desire was never to be parted from Rene, but
he was willing to sacrifice that rather than watch the gradual diminution of what they had had. Better to cut it off just
past it's prime rather than wait until Rene viewed him as an obligation. He always wanted to bring the same joy to Rene's
heart that Rene brought to his.
Sylvan felt familiar arms around him. "Shh, shh, shh. Je t'aime. Je t'aime toujours."
Sylvan cried himself out against Rene.
"Why did you come back?"
"I would love to say that I couldn't leave you like that, but in truth, I'd forgotten my car keys. I was going to
call you tomorrow, you weren't in a mood to be reasoned with." Rene knew Sylvan could be as stubborn as a mule when he wanted
to be. Sylvan meanwhile looked like he'd just won the lottery, and sat halfway between joy and bursting into tears again.
"Why
are you doing this? And don't give me the, 'it's to keep me safe' line, there is something in particular bothering you."
"Are you satisfied with what we have?"
"I've got you, what's not to be satisfied with?"
"But we don't, you haven't got me, I haven't got you, we have each other's bodies, and once a week we screw," Rene
flinched, Sylvan just had to use his least favourite word for that activity, "but there's nothing more than that."
Rene
was confused. "But I thought that was what you wanted. You didn't tell me that there was something wrong. You never tell me
anything." It was an old argument, one he probably shouldn't have brought up, but it was true. Sylvan really never told him
anything, especially if it was anything important to do with Sylvan's health and well-being. When Sylvan was out with his
injured neck Rene had to get updates from Jim Ross because, if he asked Sylvan, Sylvan always insisted he was fine. It made
it hard to know what to do to support him. He always bottled everything up and then everything frothed up and exploded like
champagne bottles on a hot day. "Sorry, I didn't mean to shout." Shouting wouldn't help this problem. "That's the thing, look
at me, I can't even find the right words for now, I never thought you'd want to talk. I'm not a great raconteur. I'm not even
a decent one." Exactly what did he have to tell Sylvan, Sylvan who'd been to so many places and done so many more things that
Rene had done. "There's nothing I could really tell you that you don't already know."
"You could tell me how you are
and what's been going on."
"But you know all that, I call you to tell you how I am, you see what goes on at the shows on the television - I
wrestle and sometimes I win, most of the time I don't. There's nothing much else to it."
"That's not half of what goes on, and you know it. Talk to me about, I don't know, about John Cena." Rene quirked
an eyebrow at him. "I've never met the man, except for five minutes here and there."
"He's loud and he's annoying,"
Sylvan clearly wanted more details so Rene continued, "actually he's not that bad, nothing like as bad as he appears on television.
He'd be okay really if he didn't put the volume up on his CD player. I don't know what it is, but it isn't music, and I can't
understand a word they say on his CDs. I've got enough trouble following him when he's rapping." Rene settled into his story.
"I drive with him sometimes between shows, when I'm not coming to see you, and he's not got Rey Mysterio with him. So I really
shouldn't complain. He's got no dreadfully bad personal habits, unless you count walking about in nothing but his thong half
the time, and I can't say I particularly object to that." Rene gave Sylvan what he hoped was a reassuring peck on the cheek.
"Neither does Rico, but John might well flip out if we told him that. I don't know though, he'd probably enjoy the attention."
Rene laughed a little at that, and so did Sylvan.
"You've spoken for longer about Cena today than you've spoken to
me for the past four weeks." A tear trickled its way down Sylvan's cheek, Rene wiped it away with his thumb. "Sex with you
is incredible, but I want to have so more with you."
"Why didn't you tell me?" Now Rene said it much more gently than he had before.
"Because I thought that what we had was enough to keep you. And then I realised it wasn't."
"I don't need to be kept, I'd come anyway because I love you."
"Do you think that's enough in this world?"
"I don't think there's enough of it in this world. Loving you is enough for me. I hope it's enough for us."
"Don't let's ask for the moon. We have the stars."
"Something like that." And Sylvan could cope with that, he'd let Rene go, only to have him come back. And maybe he
understood. Sylvan hoped he did, hoped that it wouldn't go back to just sex.
"What do you think the chances are that that's on one of the movie channels?" It
was always on. "If this hotel does popcorn, we could watch it, if you wanted."
They'd watch and even though it was the five hundredth time Sylvan would cry at
the end and Rene would get through it on a popcorn-based sugar high and make stupid comments throughout.
"That would
be nice."
Rene raced downstairs and found a shop selling popcorn. It was the dreadful foil bagged stuff, but it would
do. Sylvan had been channel-flicking while he was gone and had indeed managed to find 'Now Voyager'.
Sylvan settled
himself against Rene's chest and they watched the film. It was the same as usual, Sylvan watching intensely and Rene making
smart-alec comments and getting popcorn thrown at him in response. It was really near the end of the film, the point where
she's running about the ballroom looking for him, and Sylvan turned to half face Rene, "My moon would be you and me in thirty
years time with you running that wrestling school you've always dreamed of, but us as we are here and now, that's all the
stars I could ever wish for."
Sylvan never saw the end of the film, Rene's kiss saw to that. It wasn't passionate or
lusty, all the things their kisses normally were. It said words unspoken about understanding. Rene didn't understand why but
Sylvan did want him for something other than sex. Actually that was unfair, that much had always been obvious, Sylvan wouldn't
ever be 'wham, bam, thank you ma'am', but Rene had just assumed that if they only saw each other once a week, he'd want to
do the only thing they couldn't do while separated. It was only when they talked that it became obvious how much older Sylvan
was than him, six years didn't sound like much but it was, it was a whole different attitude. He said things sometimes, and
they made Sylvan smile, not in the nice way, but the way he smiled at Rob's French, which was abysmal, but Rene didn't like
seeing that smirk directed at him. But Sylvan didn't seem to mind the absolutely idiotic things he said sometimes, so
Rene might as well inflicted them on him.
"I've got to go." Rene started to move out from underneath Sylvan.
"I'm trying to forget that."
"Don't forget that I will be wherever we're meeting up next week."
Which really meant 'don't worry your head about it, I'll be there' because Sylvan
was bound to worry, especially with the way Rene's manic schedule made him miss these meet-ups occasionally. He'd thought
that Sylvan understood that he would have been wherever if he could have been but he couldn't. There was only one of him and
that could only be in one place at any one time and he had to travel between places as well. He thought that Sylvan would
have understood because he had the same problem himself - he'd forgotten that Sylvan was so organised he probably could work
out a way to be in three places at once if he needed to be, or at least convince Robert that he should do one of the things.
Handy talent that. "Au revior mon petit chou." He bent over and kissed Sylvan on the cheek.
Sylvan was definitely better
now, looking at him with amused contempt. It was something Rene could never fathom, how Sylvan could like something quite
as cheesy as 'Now Voyager' but not like something as reasonably cheesy as 'petit chou'. Rene left, confused as ever and hoping
that Sylvan would be okay.
Sylvan heard the door shut behind Rene, for the first time in six months it didn't feel
like it could be the last time that he ever saw Rene on the other side of the door. He still felt miserable, that was never
going to change, the stupid damned draft saw to that, but for what seemed like the first time in forever he felt some hope
too, that in a week's time the door, or one horribly similar to it in an identikit hotel half the way across this godforsaken
country, the door would open and Rene would walk through it, smiling and talking, and it would all be okay. Rene always seemed
to think that he was never happy because he couldn't look at the upside of things, but that wasn't it, the problem was that
it took so little to make him happy, waking up without his neck hurting, seeing Rene's smile on a daily basis, beating Robert
in some form of athletic competition just once, but life never seemed to give him those things, or not for a very long time
anyway. But for once life was giving him what he wanted and he wasn't going to complain. Or not much anyway.
~~~~
The
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