~He'd thrown it all away for nothing~

Matt thought back to the day that Jeff stood in front of him and tearfully told him that he couldn't take it anymore. He couldn't take everyone always assuming that he was the backstage slut. He couldn't take the way he was treated because he didn't think like the rest of them. The thing that had pushed him over the edge though, the thing that made up his mind was the fact that he couldn't stand watching him with HER anymore.

He was about to throw away everything he had worked for, everything THEY had worked for… for nothing. They had sacrificed and bled and busted their asses and several times various other parts of their bodies just to have Jeff throw it all away because he couldn't 'take it' any more. Matt had been furious, but then it got worse.

~He'd asked him to choose~

Jeff had never done anything like that before. Matt thought that he'd always accepted the women in his life as something his brother needed. So when he'd asked Jeff to reconsider and Jeff's condition had been that he get rid of Amy forever he'd been more than upset he'd been furious. He'd screamed and ranted and made every threat he could think of. He'd called Jeff names and admonished him even going as far as telling him that he was ungrateful. The he'd told him little brother, the one person that had always been there, the person that listened to him in the early hours of the morning when he couldn't sleep, the person that had always loved him unconditionally, the one person that he'd sworn to always love more than anyone else in the world to go to hell. Jeff's response had been immediate and intense. He hadn't spoken, throwing out angry words that he would later regret; instead he'd simply turned and walked away.

~He should have known he'd regret it~

She was too smug when he told her about it. He'd always thought that she liked his brother, until she found out that she wouldn't have to deal with him anymore on a daily basis then she let her true feelings be known. Looking back on the whole situation he could see that he'd handled it wrong. He should have told her to step off and get the fuck outta his life right then… but he hadn't. He thought he was in love then… hell he HAD been in love then. He thought that nothing would ever come between them. He thought he had made the correct decision. Publicly he'd supported his brother while in private he was calling him a fool not letting even himself know the truth.

~He'd been hurt~

He and Jeff had always been together. Their whole lives it had been nothing more than the two of them battling the world. Somewhere along the line they had lost focus. At the time he blamed Jeff saying he was the one that had taken his eye off the ball, but now… now he recognized the fact that it was probably him that had lost sight of what was really important… THEM… and finally Jeff had simply gotten tired of waiting for him to remember. He'd been hurt by the way Jeff just so easily walked away, but his next action hurt him even more.

~He'd always been intrigued by him~

Since the first time they had met the man known as Raven, Jeff had been fascinated by him. When Scott was still with the WWE Jeff would watch him almost shyly from a corner somewhere as if he was studying him. When finally the older man had noticed and decided to take his brother under his wing, Matt had been leery of the idea. Neither the man nor the character he played had the best of reputations and Matt didn't want his brother going down the wrong path, but now he supposed he should have seen that might have been inevitable. Everyone in the WWE travels down the wrong path at some point or another it's just a matter of time.

When he heard that after Jeff left WWE, Scott was the first person he went to, Matt had not been shocked and when Jeff turned up in TNA Matt had been even less shocked but more hurt because he knew chances were Jeff was never coming back. It was like he was in some foreign land and Matt knew that he wouldn't be able to do anything to save Jeff if something went wrong. He'd blamed Scott for playing with his head. He'd insisted that the older man only wanted to manipulate his latest boy toy play thing. He should have seen the truth though because it had been right in front of his eyes his whole life.

~They were like two halves of one whole~

They had enough alike and at the same time enough differences that they were almost the perfect couple. Their fights and their arguments were brutal. Sometimes when one went down they both went down in this blazing hot explosion that took out everything around them. But usually one was there to lift the other up when he fell understanding the way other people simply can't. It was like they were truly made for each other and that was probably what upset Matt the most, because he was the one that was supposed to be made for Jeff. He was the one that was supposed to be the forever after. He was supposed to have been the "it all", but if he wasn't… if it was Scott… then what did that leave Matt?

~He'd ignored his own heart~

If he was truthful with himself, he would admit that Jeff wasn't the only one who was in love with someone else, but honesty wasn't something he shared with himself a lot lately. It let to things that he wasn't sure that he was ready to face. If he was maybe he would fact the fact that he and Jeff weren't some mythical soul torn in two and destined to be together forever… they were just brothers that had a shitty childhood and misinterpreted love. If he was going to admit that he would have to admit that he'd had no right to feel wounded over his brother and Raven, but he had and there was no way to go back and change that now. There was no way he could go back and admit that Scott Levy aka Raven was probably the best thing that ever happened to his brother. There was no way he could go back and admit that he like Jeff was intensely and passionately in love with another man. There was no way that he could admit it because now… now that too was all blown to shit.

~He'd ruined the only thing he ever wanted~

When he realized that Amy was cheating on him with Adam, when he realized that Jeff had probably known that Amy hadn't really changed her past ways, when he realized that his life had gone under by his own hand he lost his mind. He'd refused to see the truth. He'd refused to sit down and look at what had really upset him, to see that he hadn't had to lose Jeff or that she had now taken away from him both of the men he had always loved. She took Jeff without a care and she took Adam with even less of one. Adam, Adam, tall beautiful Adam. His best friend and the man of his dreams had become the wrongful target of his anger because he couldn't admit the truth to himself. In reality it wasn't really Amy that took Adam away from him, he had done it to himself.

~He had nothing left~

Jeff was gone forever. Scott had a hold on him that he was never going to loosen and was too smart to give Matt a chance to fuck with his baby. Matt was now the enemy, the poison, the betrayer because the reality was he'd betrayed almost everyone.

Adam was gone forever. Any possibility of finding his true love with him was destroyed in his campaign to keep from having to admit the truth to himself.

Amy had never been his. Probably not from the very start had their love ever been real… looking back now it was probably just something she'd used to get ahead.

His career was destroyed. Going back to Vince had ruined any chance he'd ever had of having the career he'd always wanted. Vince was and always would be a vengeful bastard taking the "it's either me or nothing" way of thought. When he'd been fired for the second time even he had been able to see it coming. The problem was that he had no where to go. It'd burnt any bridge he could have had with any fed other than WWE and Vince made it painfully obvious that he wanted nothing to do with V-1. He couldn't restart OMEGA because the others wouldn't go along with it. He was a traitor in their eyes by not only hurting Jeff but turning his back on Shannon and had been banished from his own kingdom.

If he could go back in time…

Who was he kidding… he probably wouldn't do anything different so what would be the point?

He needed to go on, he needed to start new to build something positive from himself, but he couldn't do that either. He was too trapped in the imagined betrayals to think about what the future may hold for him if only he'd let go of the past.

So there he sat, on his porch of his empty house, pretending that it was all ok, pretending that the past didn't matter wrapping himself up in pretty girls, loyal fans, and his own ego so that he didn't have to see the truth, so that he didn't have to admit that he'd thrown it all away for nothing.

The End