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Drew watches as the water swirls down into the drain between his feet. It sinks in a spiral, an ever-tightening circle choking inside itself, like a star consumed by gravity.
Like Drew himself, these days. Funny.
He’d lost again, of course. No matter what he’d told himself earlier, he knew it was going to happen. Drew knew he was going to fuck this up, from the second he dragged himself out of bed to the final check he took of himself before the bagpipes struck. Smirking at the idiot in the mirror, trying to adjust his hair in just the right way that people might not notice that it’s thinning, that he’s older than he was yesterday and that he’ll be even older tomorrow.
“You can do this,” he said out loud to himself, after ensuring that no one who might notice was in gorilla with him.
The fuck you can, the voice that lived at the back of his head replied.
That voice was right, of course. And now Drew’s standing with his head hung down in a shower stall as the water cascades over him. It’s shitty, hard as pebbles and mostly cold; he’s probably been clean enough for about 15 minutes now. He doesn’t give a damn. He can’t move, or doesn’t want to.
There are other voices, too, in the hallway outside, which sets Drew’s teeth on edge. The problem with closing is that you’re never alone. The atmosphere backstage after the end of a show is snappy, producers and referees and talent and catering and oh-who-the-fuck-cares-else all conmingling and chatting. It’s basically a party. And when you’re the loser - the main event loser, the final failure of the night - it’s a party you aren’t really invited to. Cody had tried, of course; he’d waited by the production door for Drew to limp by and offered his hand and gratitude for being a worthy opponent. Drew just stared at him as though he were a rat wearing a necktie and walked on.
Something alights in Drew’s memory for a moment, of two young boys in a tag team more than a decade ago. They barely had anything to do with each other, but they were both the blooms on nepotism’s rose, in their own way: Cody, a privileged son of a plumber’s son; Drew, handpicked for stardom by the powers that made that sort of decision. At that time they didn’t have a lot to show for their ascribed greatness. But now they’re standing in 2025. Cody is the champion, the inheritor of his kingdom and a throne he once sought to destroy. And Drew is idle in a shower stall, waiting to see if he’ll melt if he stands there long enough.
Drew wonders if Cody remembers that at all, too, or if he only offered thanks out of that affected chivalry he insists on maintaining.
(Oh, hell. He knows it’s the latter.)
Outside, there’s another voice. It’s familiar and raw, out of breath; more importantly, it’s approaching the showers.
“Fuck, I love you. I just gotta get cleaned up and we’ll be ready to go, okay?”
Drew slams a hand against the wall, his heart dropping to his feet.
Of course. Him. That voice had been present over a decade ago, as well; one of the main voices people tuned into RAW to hear, and even back then, one that wouldn’t shut the fuck up. As a young man Drew’d found him offputting, intimidating. He’d heard he was a cult leader, an idol, a piece of fly paper that would tear off his wings if he weren’t careful.
For a while, he disappeared. Now CM Punk is back again, and Drew hates him. Sees red every time he passes by.
But the rest of Drew’s world is black and white.
Drew stands still as he hears feet padding over, echoing against the tiled walls. He doesn’t even turn around when that voice speaks in dismayed recognition.
“McIntyre? You’re still here?”
Drew inhales, holds the flame in his chest for a moment, then exhales. Punk stands behind him, watching his muscular shoulders flex above the edge of the stall. There’s no answer, just silence hanging in the wet air. Punk waits for a second, then shrugs dismissively, stepping into the last shower in the row. He’s just about to turn on the faucet when Drew suddenly speaks, nearly making him leap out of his skin.
“You won tonight, yeah?” Drew asks.
“Huh? Oh, right…” Punk smirks as he twists the dial, showerhead creaking and spraying. “So you do watch me, do you?”
Through the haze of water, Drew turns his eyes to meet Punk’s. Blue as ever, but cold. Devoid of everything, even the disdain that usually colors them every time Punk enters his field of vision. It’s enough to shock Punk out of his smarminess.
“Yeah, I…” Punk swallows, regathering himself. “We won. Yeah.”
Something casts a shadow over Drew’s expression for a split second, threatening to rise up to the surface before being quickly pushed back to the pit of his stomach. We.
“AJ…your wife.”
Punk squints suspiciously. Once again, he can’t gauge what Drew’s tone is supposed to be. “What about her?”
Drew’s mouth twitches, as though he thought about smiling but gave up. “She’s pretty. Wonder if she’s nice.”
Punk frowns. Now he’s totally lost as to what game Drew’s attempting to play. “What are you talking about? You were in WWE last time she was, you know her.”
Now Drew does smile, but joylessly. He turns the water off, leaving himself dripping, wet strings of hair clinging to his face, neck and chest. Punk consciously tears himself away when he hears the door unlatch.
“I’ve never known anyone, Punk,” Drew says. “Not in my whole damn life.”
Punk snaps his head back in Drew’s direction - thankfully, he’s tied a towel around his waist. “What the hell does that mean?”
Drew looks at Punk again. His eyes are still blank, hooded by dark lashes.
“Do I know you, Punk?”
Punk groans, pivoting away in frustration. “Fuck it, man. I give up. I’m in too good a mood right now to get pissed off with you.”
With that Punk lathers his arms and chest with soap, scrubbing a bit too fiercely. He waits to hear the sound of Drew’s footsteps growing quieter in the distance - but instead there’s nothing. He cranes over his shoulder to see Drew sitting with his back pressed to the opposite wall, head hanging down. His legs are crossed, the towel just barely slack enough to conceal…Punk is angry with himself for even noticing.
He powers through the rest of his shower at double-speed. Drew isn’t staring at him now, but his presence is still an uneasy one, like a ghost hovering around the Gainbridge locker room. It doesn’t help at all that Drew is sitting as motionless as if in repose. When Punk is finished he keeps his gaze on Drew, creeping out of his stall and wrapping his own towel around his hips. He thinks if he moves too suddenly the bomb might go off.
Punk treks slowly toward the lockers. He’s almost made it when he feels a hand latch onto his ankle, causing him to nearly trip. Punk sighs.
“What now?”
Drew lifts his face. At last, something is alive in his eyes, albeit buried deep and difficult for Punk to define.
“What did I spend all of last year doing?”
Punk snorts as he jerks his ankle free from Drew’s grasp. “Getting your ass beat by me, mostly. I know you haven’t forgotten that.”
The light in Drew’s eyes burns hotter. “Why did you do it? What was it for? What did you get out of it?”
“What’d I get out of it?” Punk repeats incredulously. “I shut you up for a fuckin’ second. I wish I could do it right now.”
Punk is disturbed to hear Drew chuckle. It’s a mirthless and low sound, like cracks spreading beneath the crust of the earth.
“That’s not all, though, is it?” Drew asks.
Punk halts as visions rush back to him. Encounters so late at night that the sun seeped through the windows before they were even finished. Drew seemed bigger, then; big enough to draw Punk into his fucked-up orbit through sheer power of gravity. Usually, he was above Punk, though sometimes he’d lie down for him as well. No matter where Drew was Punk hated him, hated him so much he couldn’t get enough of him.
But that was then.
“McIntyre…” Punk slowly squats down to meet Drew’s eye level. He’s careful to shove his towel down between his legs. “You gotta go home. I gotta go home.”
Drew doesn’t respond. Punk pushes further, making sure his point is heard. “AJ is waiting for me out there.”
Drew takes a quivering breath. Punk watches as his hands tremble in his lap.
“She doesn’t know you, does she?” Drew murmurs in a chuckle. “That’s fine. I guess I don’t, either.”
Punk’s glare hardens. “I haven’t kept anything from AJ. Ever. Not even this shit with you. And I better not hear you speak about her or what I tell her - “
Drew lazily swipes his hand through the air. His head lolls against the tile.
“It’s not about her. It’s just typical, isn’t it?” Drew laughs again, softly. “Slips through my fingers again. Everything does. Everything…everything will.”
Drew cards a hand through his wet hair, exhaling tiredly; Punk’s brow creases with worry. He reaches out to push one sopping strand from Drew’s face.
“Drew,” Punk asks gently, “do you need someone to take you to the hotel…?”
Drew recoils from Punk’s view, and from the tide he feels threatening to crash over him. “I’ll be fine,” he says. “I can take care of myself.” Punk scowls.
“The fuck you can.”
A pang rolls through Drew at the words he hears, the voice that says them. That voice, in the back of his head.
Punk scarcely waits a second for Drew to respond before he starts to push himself up again. “Obviously, I’m wasting my time with - ”
Punk freezes as he looks down. Drew has pulled his towel open. Between his legs sits his cock, flushed and more than a little hard. On display, begging to be seen.
“…you.” Punk swallows.
Drew lifts his face to Punk, a mourner at a church. “I do need something,” he murmurs in confession. “I need you to use me.”
Punk staggers back. He’s unable to look away from the sight before him no matter how he wishes he could. “Drew, stop this. You…you don’t mean that.”
Drew shakes his head. His blue eyes grow vivid as his hand lands on Punk’s calf, crawling upward.
“I do. I need it…I need to feel something. I need to be useful. This…” Drew closes his eyes and bites his lip, pinning something back before it breaks loose. “This is the one thing I can do.”
Punk gazes at Drew in disbelief. He sits below him, still massive, still broad-shouldered, still all testosterone and fire - but at this moment, there’s a frailty Punk has never seen before. He feels Drew’s palm tracing up the sensitive skin inside his thigh. Punk shivers, but doesn’t move to stop him.
“Please, Drew,” Punk begs. It’s a plea he’s made many times before, in different contexts. “I love AJ.”
Drew smiles emptily. His thumb brushes lightly against Punk’s balls, forcing him to swallow a gasp.
“That’s fine. This isn’t about love.”
Drew’s hand suddenly climbs higher up to Punk’s stomach. From within he pushes out the loose knot of his towel, allowing it to fall unbidden from Punk’s waist to his ankles. He lets it happen, just as he lets Drew lean forward and begin pressing kisses wherever he can reach: his stomach, his thighs, the divots of his hips, the soft hair on the mound just above his cock. He looks up, just to make sure that Punk is still watching as his lips trace down his shaft, encouraging it to stiffen.
And Punk is watching; he’s staring at Drew with a sort of wonder as his mouth dances over his length, every kiss making the blood rush and fill out his dick more and more. They’re not strangers to this sort of thing. Drew’s sucked Punk off a hundred different times in at least as many places, hotel rooms and bathroom stalls and once beneath a desk they thought they could get away with. But this is different. Drew has never debased himself for it this way, not without Punk harassing him, pulling the roots of his hair, saying whatever he could think of to try to drag his ego down several pegs.
Instead, that ego is on the floor and so is Drew, who switches to sitting upon his knees as his plush tongue caresses Punk’s now-pulsing cock. This time Punk can’t stop it; he moans deeply, a hand falling onto Drew’s head and tightening in his hair. Drew purrs encouragingly, tilting into his grip. His lips latch softly around Punk’s tip, drawing it into the wet heat of his mouth.
“Fuck,” Punk gasps, hips bucking forward almost reflexively. His shaft sinks down into Drew’s throat. “This…”
Drew exhales, focusing on relaxing, on allowing Punk’s cock to glide into him fully. He already knows. This feels just like before.
Punk starts to rock shallowly, fucking Drew’s throat as gently as if he were a virgin. Like they haven’t already done this and Drew doesn’t know what he’s doing. He slips one hand up the back of Punk’s thigh, finding his ass and squeezing roughly. Punk bites down on a curse as he slams forward; the sound of Drew gagging around him stirs up something he sealed away, makes his heart skip beats.
“Goddammit,” Punk breathes through his teeth. He tugs painfully on Drew’s roots, guiding him back and forth over his length. His restraint is falling away, thrusting faster, drilling deeper. Drew is starting to choke; it makes Punk’s blood simmer. “Why the fuck do you do this to me…?”
Drew can’t answer. He gropes at Punk’s ass, spreading his cheeks as if to tease something that he knows won’t happen tonight, or possibly ever again. Drew knows he probably shouldn’t even press his luck that Punk’s even allowing him to do this much, to sit on the floor and offer up the soft, wet inside of his mouth to fuck.
Still, Drew’s always had a weakness for this particular part of Punk’s body - the way it quivers and bounces when his hips collide against it, the way its flesh turns deep pink after every strike of his palm or every deeply-traced scratch of his nails. It’s almost criminal he keeps it wrapped up in those little trunks. Drew brings one hand down hard against Punk’s cheek just to savor it - the softness bouncing again into his grasp, the almost shrill cry it wrenches from deep in Punk’s lungs.
“Y-you…you fucking bitch…” Punk laughs, smirking despite the pain. He twists a measure of Drew’s hair around his fist and yanks until he hears a whimper, sees tears like drops of glycerine dribble over eyelashes and flushed cheeks. Punk handles Drew by this grip like reins on a horse, dragging his cock in and out of his throat until Punk’s hips grow sore, then numb. His vision starts to smear, and soon Punk feels the pressure sizzling desperately in the pit of his stomach.
“Look at me,” Punk says, voice dancing on the borderline between a command and a plea. “Fuck, Drew, look at me.”
His fingers dig down beneath Drew’s jaw, jabbing into his chin and drawing out a whine. Drew tilts his face up just slightly, lids lifting to reveal his eyes, blue and bottomless and more alive than Punk has seen them all night; more than Punk has seen them through his TV screen in months.
Punk shudders; his hips stutter only a couple more times against Drew’s face before he goes rigid and floods his mouth with hot cum. His strength withers, his hold on the back of Drew’s head weakens. Drew refuses to move himself, still so deep that his nose is pressed into Punk’s pelvis and every pulse of his cock stretches the walls of his throat. The taste of his seed spreading over his tongue is more divine than anything.
For a moment in time Drew is suspended, not the failure, not the disappointment that he knew he would still be as soon as they parted and shattered the illusion. The feel of his lips around Punk casts him back to nights of adrenaline, power, an irresistible sensation of being propelled into the sky. For a moment Drew is unstoppable again.
Then, with a breathy groan, Punk withdraws his softening length from Drew’s lips, and it all fades. His forehead falls to rest upon the smooth white tile of the showers as he struggles to catch his breath. The entire room is tilted, spinning around Punk, and his knees are only barely up to the task of holding his weight up against the wall. Maybe it’s due to the receding waves of post-orgasmic shock, but Punk knows what a bigger part of it likely is.
Guilt. Shame. Letting those crystal blues trap him again, tug him back down to the same level as Drew, wallowing in past history. Unable, or unwilling, to free himself from the tangle of selfish needs and wants. You swore you’d stop doing this. You swore it was over.
“Jesus Christ,” Punk gasps out, barely able to make out the blurry shape of Drew beneath him. “Okay. God. Fuck. Are you…”
Punk isn’t able to force out the rest of the question. The room pitches just slightly too much, and he finds himself sagging, forehead squeaking down the tiles as he starts to fall. Drew is already standing up to grab him, steadying Punk onto his feet.
They meet each other’s gaze. Drew, once again, is placid, but eerie and distant. His eyes are hooded as he checks Punk up and down.
“Was it good?” Drew asks. It’s simple, like he’s asking about the weather. Punk hesitates for just a moment, but gives Drew a short, jerky nod.
“Y-yeah, it…” Punk swallows. “We…uh…”
Static blares through his thoughts as he lingers between Drew’s legs. He’s even harder than before; his tip is flushed and lightly glistening with drops of precum that fall heavily from his leaking slit. Drew doesn’t seem to notice it. He’s instead focused on Punk, smiling faintly and strangely as he reaches out to cup his cheek.
“Thanks. For letting me do what I needed to do.”
Then, without even as much as stealing a kiss, Drew turns and walks off toward the lockers. Punk blinks, still half-dizzy.
“Wait a minute! Where the hell are you going?”
Drew doesn’t look back or break his stride. “I did what I needed. Head home.”
Punk gawks, staring at that muscled back as Drew walks away. This motherfucker, his nerve, his persecution complex. What a hero for not always getting what he wants, what a martyr.
Punk knows that he shouldn’t stay. It’s past time to go back to his home, to his real life, to AJ. And it’s certainly past time for Drew to be alone, stew in his isolation and obsessions. Punk knows this.
Punk also knows what he’s always known.
“Wait.”
Drew turns over his shoulder, looking down at Punk’s hand cinched around his wrist.
“Punk…” Drew sighs, as though weary. “I don’t want anything else from you.”
“Bullshit,” Punk huffs, tugging Drew back to stand before him. He’s still towering, still as threatening as ever. Punk feels his breath catch in his throat, but swallows it down as he splays one hand against the man’s chest. He feels for Drew’s heartbeat, the slow, centering rhythm he remembers. He finds its pulse beneath his fingertips, and breathes in with it. His other hand slides down the inside of his own thigh, reaching back. Drew stares.
“What are you doing?” He asks tersely. Punk huffs out a laugh, smirking. Drew’s heart rate is already rapidly fluttering beneath his touch.
“Come on…like you’re gonna be okay, driving to the hotel with your dick raging. Then you’ll sit on the couch and mope about it all night…” Punk makes himself gasp as he sinks a finger down past his entrance, flexing it slowly. “I know you.”
Drew looks into Punk’s hazel eyes, recognizing something wicked in them, something that he still doesn’t quite trust. “You think so, huh?”
“Of course I do…” A shaky moan escapes Punk as he thrusts a second finger into himself. “If there’s anyone on this fuckin’ planet who knows you, Drew…it’s me.”
Drew’s eyes are drawn to Punk’s fingers vanishing down to the knuckle into his hot, twitching entrance. Memories of the last year flash across his brain, moments that look exactly like this: Punk smirking, tempting Drew as he laid spread out beneath him or on his knees above him. He’d whine gorgeously as he worked his fingers into himself - often three, sometimes up to four if he was really dragging it out - daring Drew to decide whether to wait, to let Punk take control and make this easy for both of them, or to seize his hips and do it the hard (and thrilling) way.
This time, Drew settles upon the former, pressing his back to the tile and slipping down until he’s seated on the cold floor. Punk follows him down to squat over his lap, suspended above the delicious heat of Drew’s tip. With a hum, Punk withdraws his fingers from his entrance and wraps them around Drew’s cock, stroking it quick and rough.
“Fuuuh-uck…” Drew’s head knocks back against the wall as he sobs, precum leaking heavily over Punk’s calloused hand.
“There…” Punk purrs, pulling back. He positions himself over Drew with his knees and thighs spread wide, forcing him to watch as Punk hungrily thrusts three soaked fingers into his pink hole. “Good boy.”
Drew beholds Punk with a starving glare as he fucks himself, makes himself whimper and shudder over his lap. Despite knowing that they have to be quick, that AJ is waiting for him - Punk still puts on a beautiful show.
“Punk…” Drew speaks softly below, almost a whisper. Punk’s eyes, mostly closed, crack open to look at him.
“Mm?”
Drew’s tongue probes his lips.
I don’t know how to live without you.
“Try four.”
Punk rolls his eyes in mock exasperation, but takes Drew’s advice and plunges a fourth finger into himself. “Fuck, you’re arrogant.”
The sound of Punk’s moaning fills the air, ringing off the tiles and shower stalls and Drew’s mind. His hands twitch incessantly at his sides as every instinct screams for him to reach up and move this along already, grab Punk by his waist and spear him sitting upright on his dick. His palm rises up and tentatively caresses the back of Punk’s thigh, as if he wouldn’t be noticed if he did it slowly enough.
But Punk catches him out - he withdraws his fingers from his entrance and clasps Drew’s wrist, slamming it against the wall next to his head. Drew goes still as he stares at Punk, who smirks, breathing wildly.
“Nuh-uh…I got it,” Punk says. His other hand still rests above Drew’s chest, and his fingers curl over his heart like he could clutch it in his fist. “Fuck, you’re all shook up.”
Without even looking, Punk guides his hole to the tip of Drew’s dick by muscle memory. The sound of Drew shouting out as he throws his head back, the feel of his wrists spasming as they try to break free, sends Punk’s blood rushing. His cock, a minute ago softened, is stirring again.
“Ready?” Punk asks against the warmth of Drew’s lips. The man beneath him, so much larger, so much more powerful, seems like he’s about to cry.
“Please…”
Punk drops, and the room echoes with the sound of their mutual sob. It’s been a minute, but Punk hasn’t forgotten the thickness of Drew’s cock, how it stretched him from the inside and almost broke that borderline between eroticism and pain. But now, somehow, it feels even bigger.
It only makes Punk want more.
Without hesitation, he increases his speed, ignoring his own sore knees as he pushes himself up and down the length of Drew’s dick. With every stroke Punk swallows him, engulfs him in his heat, pushes himself back up and then goes again like he’ll die without it, like he needs Drew inside of him just to breathe.
Drew can only sit and observe. His hands are desperate, hungry for the way Punk’s muscles ripple and contract beneath the confines of tattooed flesh; he longs to touch him, as though doing so could make this moment more real, more permanent. Instead, his wrists are pinned to the wall, trapped there by the same man sitting in his lap and making his vision grow hazy with pleasure. Maybe he could break free, if he tried - if he really wanted to. Drew can’t remember feeling such perfection in helplessness since almost a year ago, when he sat before Punk with his skull split open and officially became a worshipper.
Above, Punk’s face slackens, eyelids fluttering with a bliss he’d tried to forget. His own cock is full again, bouncing with every motion of his hips and smacking obscenely against his stomach. Precum flies off from his leaking slit, leaving a mess on both his and Drew’s abs. Drew watches him; his mouth drops open and he breathes when Punk breathes, gasps when he gasps. Finally, he’s where he was meant to be. One with Punk, again.
“You feel perfect,” Drew manages to speak. “Y-you’re…perfect. I…I almost forgot.”
Punk’s hazel glare seizes him. That familiar look is there, the cruel mischief that he missed. “You’d never forget this,” Punk says. And Drew nods, because he’s right.
“Yes…yes, yes-yes - ” Drew bites hard on his lip as something heavenly pulses through his spine. He struggles for a moment to regather his thoughts. “Y-yes…and neither would you.”
That makes Punk’s mind wander off, again. He thinks of it, all the nights he spent thrashing in this man’s embrace, only to return home to AJ. AJ, with her deep brown eyes and perfect hips and unending patience for all Punk’s countless flaws. AJ, who helped him through the long rehab for his arm injury, the same one Drew had told him he prayed he’d get. AJ who dressed the welts and scratches Punk received from the strap match, after Drew spent an hour dragging his tongue over them while fucking him raw in his own tour bus. AJ who told Punk that Drew couldn’t bring him down, that he would always be better in every way, not knowing that when the two men boarded their flight for Bad Blood the next day they’d lock themselves up in the plane’s restroom, licking into each other’s mouths until they landed in Atlanta. AJ who deserved more.
It had been hard to tell her the truth, just as it had been hard to vow that he and Drew were history. And it was too easy for Punk to sit here in his lap, grinding on his cock like he would die without it.
Drew watches as Punk recedes, his grip on his wrists fading. His hands immediately find bristled cheeks, guiding those hazel eyes to look into his own before the light in them dies entirely.
“Look at me,” Drew says, half-pleading, half-commanding. “I need to watch you, I need to see…”
Punk looks at Drew, feeling cold. His hips barely move.
“I’m addicted to you.”
It’s not a compliment or lament, but a statement of fact. Drew swallows, nods.
“Me, too.”
Now his hands trail down from Punk’s face, tracing over his chest, his taut abdomen until landing around his hips. He grasps them tightly, slowly lifting Punk up his length.
“And…” he pauses only to gaze at Punk one last time. “I think I always will be.”
Drew plunges Punk over his cock again, jerking his hips up to meet him. Punk chokes as he is instantly thrown back into the depths, relief crashing over him in waves. He feels himself unraveling too quickly, claws at Drew’s shoulders as the fire spreads through his stomach.
“D-Drew, Drew, I need it,” Punk babbles brokenly. “I need you, need you to come…”
Drew’s jaw is clenched, the tendons in his neck strained like rope. “You too,” he gasps. “With me. Please.”
Godfuckingdammit, Punk wants to say. Let this be about you, just you. He doesn’t get the chance as Drew’s lips crush his own, kissing him powerfully, feverishly. It’s finally enough. Punk cries into Drew’s throat and convulses, drenching his abs and lap with his cum. Drew only thrusts a few more times before his pelvis screws up and his cock pulses, filling Punk up with his seed until it’s dripping down his length.
The aftershocks that roll through them are so intense that their legs are instantly inert. Drew falls onto his side, taking Punk down with him, and they lie in a puddle of sweat and locker room damp and sated lust. They’re still locked together, Drew rapidly softening in Punk’s trembling heat. For a moment they say nothing, only staring, breathing each other’s breath.
Punk finally speaks first, swallowing hard. “Well…”
Drew nods, like he understood perfectly. “Well,” he answers.
Neither of them want to get up, but they have to. They help each other to stand on their wobbling limbs, arms around shoulders as they stumble into a shower stall. They stand under a stream of water (still cold, still hard as rocks) and scrub themselves until they’re something close to clean. They dry off with their backs to each other, not even so much as sharing a glance as they hurry into their clothes.
“She’s waiting,” Punk says. Drew hums in agreement.
“Yeah, she is.”
“I took too long. She’ll know.”
Another hum. “I bet you’re right.”
“Fuck.” Punk’s hands rake through his hair. “I can’t face her. Holy shit, I can’t. Not again, not after…”
A palm on Punk’s shoulder spins him around; two fingers below his chin guide him to meet Drew’s eyes. For once in his life, they seem peaceful.
“Punk,” Drew says, calm and measured, “AJ’s in love with you.”
Punk huffs, anxiously scratching up and down his arm. “I know. I know she is. I don’t know why but she is.”
“And you’re in love with her.”
Punk swallows hard. He feels as though he’s about to be sick.
“Yes. So much.”
There’s a quiet moment. Punk looks at Drew, expecting him to say a third thing, something about someone else. He doesn’t. Instead he reaches down and pulls Punk’s hand from his own wrist, where his nails have clawed his skin red and stinging.
“I do know you, Punk,” Drew says quietly, clasping both of Punk’s hands in his own. “And you’ll figure out what you’re going to do about it. And…” A pause. Drew takes a slow breath in. “I’ll be around. No matter what.”
Punk frowns, searching Drew’s eyes. “But you…earlier, you were…”
The sentence trails off as Punk realizes that whatever he’s saying, whatever he’s feeling is impossible to put into words. Drew only shrugs.
“I'll figure out something too, then.”
Bullshit. Let me help you. Let us help. The words never make it to Punk’s tongue as he just stares at Drew, who presses a final, chaste kiss onto his forehead. Without another word he turns, slings his bag over his shoulder and walks away. Punk watches until he vanishes, until the sound of his footsteps dissipate into nothing.
He stands alone in the silence, feeling the blood rushing past his ears, and looks down the opposite end of the corridor. His feet feel too heavy to move; the night feels too late to endure.
Somehow, Punk forces himself into his jacket, zipping it all the way up his throat. He hopes vaguely that it might strangle him. He takes one last look at himself in the mirror: he’s clean. His clothes are all zipped, buttoned, tucked. His flesh still smells faintly of Irish Spring, fresh from the shower. It would be the easiest thing in the world for Punk to lie, say the doors were locked and he had to bargain with a janitor to let him in.
No, of course not. Punk knows there isn’t a world out there where he would tell that lie to AJ.
Punk settles onto a bench, fingers digging into his scalp. He feels his heart throbbing, aching in his chest, and wonders who the hell it’s for. He squeezes both eyes shut. Behind each, he sees a different vision.
In one, AJ. Her brown eyes, smiling and vibrant. Their home, surrounded by all the lights of Chicago. Larry on the couch. Long nights spent in her arms, laughing, knowing each layer of each other down to the very core. The closest Punk has ever been to understanding himself.
In the other, Drew. His blue eyes, tempestuous and uninhibited. The best matches Punk has had in years, possibly in his life. Long nights out on the road, cities vanishing past the window of a tour bus. Giving and taking without remorse or hesitation. An exhilarating sense of uncertainty, improvisation. The closest Punk has ever come to believing in prayer.
Punk opens both eyes, and the visions converge into one. He sits up and inhales.
Now he knows the answer - or, anyway, he knows an answer.
And not a moment too soon, as his phone buzzes in his back pocket. Punk slips it out and checks the screen, where a smiling image of AJ cradling Larry lights up the phone, along with the name “Queen of Badasses”.
Punk takes one last, steadying breath, then slides his thumb across to unlock. Time to answer.
“Hey, babe…yeah, sorry. I just showered. I know, it took a little while. Yes…yeah, I’m coming. And…”
Punk surveys the surrounding locker room, echoing, empty. One showerhead can be heard, still dripping.
“I need to talk to you. About something important.”