Work Text:
The first time he touches him is gentle, careful almost. As if Adam could fall apart simply between his stained fingertips. His hands map slowly over his shoulders, careful over the slope of his collarbone and Adam stands between his hands, letting himself be stained gold. "The Bucks have taken quite a shine to you." Kenny tells him lightly, his breath still minty and it stings the corner of Adam's eyes just a little when he leans in to brush a short curl around his fingertips. "I can understand why."
Kenny's hands fall to the side of his face, tilting it up and Adam lets him move him and his muscles soften under tight skin as Kenny parades him a little like a show pony; tilts his head back against Kenny's gentle fingertips, lets him gaze at him under the spotlight of the locker room lights and Adam can't help the soft smile that glows on his face by the time Kenny holds his hand out, hand gripping at a Bullet Club shirt. "What do you think?" He asks and Adam isn't sure what he's thinking.
The lockerroom feels bigger than the one Adam has to share with the other wrestlers or maybe he simply feels remarkably small under Kenny's blue eyes. He isn't sure. He stares at the shirt that rests in the middle of Kenny's palm and he wonders how the cotton must catch against the round bitten ends of his blunt nails or how the printing must itch against his rough palms. He flickers around the locker room, lets his eyes rest on anywhere other than Kenny's hands and he only stares back when Kenny coughs into the circle of his hand. "We won't bite ya know. Not unless you want us too." Kenny winks at him and a nervous laugh hums its way out of Adam's lips.
He takes the shirt softly, flinches inwards when Kenny's rough fingertips catch against the curve of his palm and Adam holds it out at arms length. It looks slightly too small for Adam's frame, it'll squeeze uncomfortably at his biceps and when he raises his arms, the fabric will rub against his stomach. "You..You really want me?" Adam asks because the silence is starting to make his ears ring and its the first time that Kenny has slid his aviators down to the tip of his nose and his eyes, blue and glowing are studying Adam's confused face and his lips press into a thin line.
"The Bucks believe you'd be a good fit." Kenny tells Adam that as if its the most understandable thing in the world and Adam nods, thumb stroking over the letters and he swallows. "You're strong, fast, cute. A good fit with the Bullet Club."
"And you..always do what the Bucks say? I thought you were the leader." Adam means it as a joke but his voice squashes the comedy out of it. His head shoots up, lips in a small circle of shock and he laughs a little when Kenny's face cracks into a brighter smile.
"Only when they find the cute ones." Kenny's hand is back on Adam's shoulder and his fingertips are resting so heavy that Adam is sure when he strips tonight, round bruises will purple against his skin, perfectly outlining the whirls of Kenny's fingerprints. He studies the way that Kenny's eyes glimmer in the low lights backstage, his hand extended, his crooked teeth bright against the backdrop of his tired face and Adam reaches out and slides their palms together.
Kenny squeezes Adam's hand so tight and under the hood of his hair, Kenny's eyes gleam a little like a predator and Adam, the willing prey, stands and lets him sink his teeth into his jugular.
He remembers that touch now, as he lays against a stained ring mat. They're older now, bones aching and skin worn down, littered with scars and marks. Each one a story that they can no longer remember how it starts. But as Kenny stands over him, a small table gripped to his chest, Adam knows this is how it ends.
Kenny doesn't hit him with the table, doesn't even look at him and for some reason that makes the inside of Adam's ribs sting against his lungs. He begs silently for Kenny to touch him, to feel the curve of his fingertips digging into his rest but Kenny stands, watches when Adam pulls himself up using the ropes and maybe this is the time when he strikes because Adam reaches out, grips at nothingness and Kenny doesn't move, doesn't try to grab him and its only when Adam feels himself freefalling, stumbling through the air does he focus on the heaviness of Kenny's hand shoving him down. Fingertips itch at a small scar on Adam's shoulder almost like he's trying to rip him open and Adam lays at his face, face in the ground knowing that he would let him.
He's a mess of alcohol drenched skin and failure and Kenny leaves him behind.
And a small part of Adam's brain, still focused on the gentle pink glow of rose coloured glasses, understands. He isn't sure how long he stays, face down in the middle of the ring, an icarus drowning in the seas of his own failure, permanently imprinted with the scars of his own fuck ups.
His shoulder aches.
Years pass and Adam changes. Stains his hands with blood and violence and soot. He still smells like whiskey and smoke and failure still brings an ache to his chest and its only when he spots Kenny backstage after he wins the title does his shoulder start to burn. An itch of an old scar and Adam settles the title against his stained skin and watches, follows Kenny's lips as he talks. It feels a little like seeing an old friend or maybe a ghost, Adam isn't sure but as he sways unsteadily he can't help but feel like he's stuck in the same stage of grief.
He's sitting in medical, one arm slung tiredly over his eyes when he feels someone staring at him. "I'm fine." The words merge together in the tiredness of his accent and the laugh that carries through the small room feels painfully familiar and meant for someone different to the Adam that sits in front of him.
"You looked it." Kenny smiles at him, large hands stuffed into the front pockets of his shorts and Adam wonders if he's trying to make himself smaller; his shoulders are hunched and he steps a little from foot to foot. Its familiar in a way that hurts and Adam sits up slowly. "So..you won."
Kenny points a thumb over to the title and Adam nods, whines when his head spins. "I did." He stares at the title, watches how Kenny stops looking at it and he wonders just how long Kenny is going to stand there, gazing at Adam as if there's something untouched between them. He watches how he turns back to Adam.
"I lost a few pints of blood though." It's a pathetic attempt at a laugh, one that fails because Kenny doesn't laugh along with Adam's awkward laugh, he simply stares at him and nods once.
"You've been...busy, since our fri-.." The words seems to stick in the back of Kenny's throat because he coughs into his hand. "Matthew and Nicholas sent me to the hospital."
Adam knows what he means, he still sees the flames and the man anger made him when he closes his eyes. "Yeah." Adam's voice feels flat and his body feels tired, almost as if his joints are locking, sticking together and maybe he is finally falling apart.
"It was..."
"Yeah."
Silence sticks between the two of them and Kenny is the first one to break it. He sits next to Adam, shoulders pressed together and he stares at their feet. "I thought I was gonna die. Months ago." His hand comes to rest against his stomach and Adam wonders if it still aches when he thinks about it. "I had nobody..Neither really did you." It is a shocking amount of understanding from Kenny and Adam blinks a little surprised by the tenderness of his voice.
Kenny swings his feet a little bit, slow and disjointed. "Your house must feel kinda empty now." Adam tilts his head, pretending that he isn't following what Kenny is talking about. "You pushed everyone away."
"I needed to...." Adam stares at the floor, following the way that Kenny's untied laces knock against his ring boots. "Protect them?" He says, quieter than before.
"From what?" Kenny asks, hand coming up to itch at his jaw and Adam stares at his own reflection in the blues of Kenny's eyes. They no longer glow, sometimes they barely sparkle and Adam mourns the men they used to be.
Adam's voice is barely above a whisper when he stumbles out "Swerve...Mox..The Death Riders.."
"Yourself." Kenny answers the question for him. Slices through the embarrassment in Adam's voice. He's not small anymore at Adam's side, his shoulders are back and his eyes are distant and there's a sadness that hums like desert heat between the two of them. Adam gives him a weak shrug and Kenny sighs. "You did a really bad job at that. You hurt a lot of people Adam, Uno and Jeff Jerrett...CD. Hell, Will. His neck is all kinds of screwed up and really the person who really has blood on their hands. It's you."
Adam stares down at his palms, picks a blister open and the sting makes him feel sick and its the realest he's felt in months. Pain floods him like Kenny's words and by the time that Adam realizes its tears and not blood that is starting to decorate the curve of his nose, he is powerless to stop it. Kenny wraps an arm around his shoulder, lets Adam lean against his side and almost like the end of a song, Adam's heavy breathing rattles away to nothingness.
"You were a good person." Kenny mumbles, lips brushing against the curve of Adam's head and Adam nods in understanding. "We all were once."
Adam's quiet for a long moment after that, eyes unfocused on the tiled floor and Kenny strokes a hand across his face and it takes Adam moments to recognise that he's wiping away his tears, chuckling when he uses his shirt sleeve to wipe at snot drying against Adam's nostrils and for the first time in a while, Adam feels like something good enough to be worshiped. "There." Kenny holds his face in both of his hands, palms worn and softer from his time out the ring and Adam smiles a little weakly when Kenny strokes a thumb just under his eye.
"Do you think..I can change. Again?" Adam asks, voice rough and it sounds to anyone else like he's begging but Kenny smiles wider, presses their foreheads together and searches the greens of Adam's red rimmed eyes.
"Always."