AEW / WWE IMAGINES: Wrestling With Your Dreams ✨ (request closed)

christian cage request // old flames

"I told you to be ready, we're shuffling the card for the debut, go go go." I swear to god. I love having these younger guys here, but not running bigger indies or having any live TV experience kills them.
"Shelly, count us down."
"10,9,8,7....." and fade to commercial. "What do we need to do to get ready for the next segment?" I turned to Tony.
"We just need Christian."
"Okay, so where's," my breath got in my throat. "Wait, who?"
"Surprise. It's Christian Cage." Tony looked so excited and I tried to match his energy, but that name meant something else to me. 15 years ago, that name was everything to me. That name was my first taste of what love really looked like, what it felt like and nothing had compared since. But he chose his path, and I chose mine. He chose her and I chose to fight for everything and making a name for myself in the business where women rarely make it on their own.
He turned the corner, shaking hands and laughing, smiling in a way only he could. He filled a room with his smile, his energy filled a room. "Pan to Schiavone," the sound in my headset broke my focus on this beautiful smile.
"Cage to guerrilla." I said, trying to keep my voice neutral. I didn't even know if he's recognize me.
"Hey, how are you?" He kept his eyes down, getting ready for what was to come.
"Good, thanks. Ready? Sixty seconds."
"Same old, same old, huh Shels?"
"Not quite, knock em dead Champ." Hearing him say my name sent chills up and down my body. I watched as he walked out into his favorite place after so long away from home. I felt tears in the corner of my eyes. We hadn't talked in so long, but of course I had followed along with everything he had done since the day he left. He had been given the world, just to have it ripped away from him again.
He bounced back down the stairs with this new energy about him, he was charged and fully himself again. He shook Tony's hand and thanked him again for the opportunity. Then, he made his way over to me. "I didn't know you worked here, now."
"Oh yeah, since day one...I was working for Ring of Honor, then Cody called and asked if I'd come help with a new project, and here I am." I threw my hands up.
"You look amazing." He said out of nowhere, running his hands through his hair.
"You think so? Yanno, I also thought black was truly my color." I gave a quick twirl in our shared moment.
    "I think I have to go do the interview stuff now, but...it's so so good to see you. We should catch up soon." That smirk was infamous for the way it made me feel. He turned, made his way down to Alex and I was left in a puddle of feelings.

Wednesday call times are always reasonable, but this week I found myself at the venue hours before I needed to be. I didn't know if it was to work out, the prep the cameras or in hopes of seeing him. I wound and rewound wires, put out all the notes on the commentary table, did everything I would normally do an hour before a show by 4. "You've always been an early person." He smiled.
    "Oh, hi. I didn't see you."
"Yanno, it's been a long time,"
"15 years," I said without thinking about it.
"A lot has happened since then..."
"The world's changed since then."
"But you haven't." He took a step closer to me. This felt wrong to be doing in the open like this, to be talking this way.

My brain wandered to the first night I had ever met him. I was running wires and he had just joined the TNA roster. He was so handsome then, even more so now. He had the world at his fingertips, really one of the first person to do what he was doing. Put all his charm, his beautiful smile and captivating eyes, all that charisma aside and he was still genuinely one of the most amazing wrestlers of a generation.

We fell in love quick and hard. It was the kind of love that just kept spiraling. What he didn't tell me is that he had already given his heart to someone else. She got the ring, the house, the consistency and when he left TNA, he left me too.

"You know I'd give the world to go back and try this again..." he whispered.
"You can't go back. All we have is now. There's no point in focusing on what we can't change." I sighed, starring into the floor.
"You're right...what happened before, happened...all we have is now." He leaned in and kissed me. Without thinking, I wrapped my arms around his shoulders and into his hair. Anything to press his body closer to me. His hands slid down and one snaked around my back as the other held my hip.
"We can't do this...." I pulled away breathless, making sure no one else was around, that no one else had saw.
"Why not?" He smirked at me.
"Because you have a wife, Jay." His eyebrows furrowed and he looked down at me.
"No, I don't Shelly. You can't act like you know everything when it's been this long. I lost EVERYTHING, and I have had YEARS to think about nothing besides the perfect life I would build for myself if I could go back and be the man I should have been. And do you know what that life starts with? It starts with you. You were the first thing that could have changed my life from head to toe. I didn't love her. I chose the stability, I chose to run away. I chose to not fight for what I wanted and I CHOSE to cut it off then and there so you didn't have to deal with watching the injuries, watching me get fired, watching me lose everything because I never wanted to hurt you. Being a road wife is-,"
    "You think I couldn't have handled it? I've done NOTHING besides work my ass off in the industry I loved way before I ever loved you. I have helped some of the best wrestlers in the world succeed. I've been in the board meetings, I've never ran from anything in my life, Jay. That's where we are different. That's where I draw the line. I never stopped loving you and I never left. I was right here the whole time! I've waited so long for you, and you're going to come back in here and say it's MY FAULT I had to wait in the first place? It's MY weakness that cost me the love of my life? It's MY fault you didn't get everything you should have gotten the first go around? Don't come in here and blame me for the things you fucked up. That's not me, that's you." I pulled my hair quickly into a bun. "You piss me off so bad sometimes. I have work to do. Goodbye."
      "Let's go somewhere." His voice was almost a whisper.
"Where? I have work to do?"
      "You literally have three hours and everything is already done? Don't you have an intern or something, whatever it doesn't matter. Come on."
"Where are we going?"
     "Doesn't  matter."
"That's Christian Cage for 'I don't know'," I giggled. "Come on." I led him away from the hustle and bustle of everything and up the rafters of the venue. "I like it best up here. It's nice to see all my work coming together." I smiled.
     "I'm proud of you," he sighed, "for never leaving. For staying in the business, for pushing so hard for everything you have. You genuinely deserve it."
"So what happened? How did you end up here?" With that, he spent the next 2 hours telling me about everything that had happened in the last couple years, and it was the best hero story I have ever heard. "Yanno, I've always thought you make a better face than a heel. You're just such a natural good guy, always so fun to cheer for." I laid my head on his shoulder. "I've missed you so much. There's not a day I have ever stopped thinking about you."
    "I want you to know that I felt the exact same way. Not a day ever went by that I stopped thinking about you. I just, I didn't know how to apologize for everything. I didn't know how to pick up from where we had left off."
"All that matters is you're here now." I climbed into his lap and kissed him softly. His hands wrapped around the small of my back, pushing me closer to him. Once our kiss broke, I laid with my head on his shoulder. "If we're going to do this, I need to know you're not leaving again."
    "Not ever again, baby." He kissed the side of my head and ran his fingers through my hair. "I've got everything I could ever want right here."