Work Text:
Before he does anything more, William thinks he should probably get Moxley’s blood off of his face. For politeness, if nothing else.
Unfortunately, taking the thirty seconds to duck into the washroom and tidy up means losing track of those two tearaways and he’s not done with them yet. It’s highly doubtful that they’d take themselves to the training room on their own, but Tony runs a tighter ship than he’d been expecting and he can think of a few folks who would have corralled them that way whether they liked it or not, so it’s the first place he checks anyway.
The training room is crowded and chaotic, the air so thick with Punk’s and Maxwell’s blood that William can nearly taste it. From what he can tell, Danhausen appears to be more of a handful for the trainers than anyone who needs patching up, fretting over Orange Cassidy chiefly by threatening anyone who gets near him with curses and detailed descriptions of potential dental harm. William still wasn’t quite sure what to make of either of them, but he couldn’t deny the young man’s spirit. He gets the attention of one of the trainers fishing through a modality cart for gauze with a slight wave and a terse half-smile. “I’m looking for Moxley and Danielson,” he tells her.
“Bryan popped in for like two seconds and left,” she says, focus primarily on the unenviable task of stemming the arterial spray from Punk’s wound from Wednesday, reopened before it had half a chance to heal. “If Jon had shown his face, he’d still be in here.”
“Try Hangman’s locker room,” Punk suggests, peeking up past her hands at him. “Cowboy gets too lonesome by himself, so he usually gives it to Mox and hangs out with the boys.”
It doesn’t take long for him to find them, in part because Page’s name is taped to the door and in part because that door is wide open and spilling their bickering into the hallway. He pulls the angriest face he can muster, since it’s the only thing that’s gotten through to them short of another slap to the head, but he’s halfway round the door when the scene comes into view and it stops him short.
Mox’s eyes are closed, head lolling to and fro against the concrete wall he’d been propped up on at the head of a treatment table. Bryan’s sitting cross-legged in front of him, back to the doorway, dipping a flannel in a shallow dish of sudsy water and gently wiping the blood off of Mox’s furrowed brow. William doesn’t know what compels him to do it, but he steps back behind the door and listens to the familiar click of a first aid kit unlatching.
“I don't need a fucking Band-Aid,” Mox starts to argue, but Bryan cuts him off with a quick ah, mm-mm, and William hears him swat Mox’s hand away.
“You're right,” he says, a softness in his voice new to William. “Your forehead’s split open. Don’t think a Band-Aid would be much help. Relax.” Mox sucks in a sharp breath as - at least presumably, William doesn’t want to risk taking a look and getting spotted - Bryan gets to cleaning the wound directly. “Sorry.”
"Not your fault," Mox grits out.
Bryan chuckles a little at that, and William grins, because this is the one time where it most definitely is. “You already forget who you were fighting out there? Do I need to get Sampson to put you in protocol?”
“You're the concussion expert here, you tell me.”
William tenses. He knows how sensitive a topic that is, and he knows that Moxley knows that better than most around here. He braces for a repeat of the post-match brawl he’d interrupted earlier, but there wasn’t really any bite to Mox’s bark and Bryan just responds with “skin glue or Steri-Strips?” Mox groans, and William doesn’t blame him - he’d rather keep bleeding than deal with any of that sticky shit on his face for a week. “I know, but you gotta pick one.”
“How bad is it?”
“It's not too deep, but it is still going and it is like, half of your head, so I’d maybe go with glue.”
Mox curses under his breath. “Let’s go with glue, then.”
Silence falls between them, broken only by an occasional hiss of pain and apology, and William thinks he’ll just leave them to it and find them at the hotel later when Mox breaks it. “Regal was pretty pissed.”
Bryan sighs. “He sure was, wasn’t he?”
“Should we, ah, talk to him?” Mox asks, and William doesn’t think he’s ever heard him sound unsure of anything before. “Should we tell him?”
William is vaguely aware of how shallow his own breathing has become as he shifts closer to the doorway to try and catch their quieting conversation. “Do you want to?” Bryan asks.
“It's not about if I want to, it’s about if we should.”
“But what if I only think that we should if you want to?"
There’s another pause, heavier this time, and when Mox speaks his voice is rough and low. “I’m not... I’m not embarrassed, or anything like that.”
“I know,” Bryan says, sounding like he’s trying to kennel a spooked dog.
“We haven’t even talked about what this is.”
“That's true.”
“I don't think he’d give a shit either way.”
“Probably not.”
A watery little laugh bubbles out of Mox, just this side of hysterical, and his words shake enough for William to register that he's crying. “I don't know why I'm being such a freak about this.”
“Hey.” The table creaks under shifting weight, followed by the unmistakable sound of a kiss and, oh. Well then. While William hadn’t expected it, he realizes almost immediately that he probably ought to have. “You're not being a freak.” Bryan soothes. “About anything.”
Mox draws a handful of shaky breaths. “I'm sorry. I'm all over the place right now,” he admits.
“We just went twenty minutes in the ring and you were bleeding all over everything for most of it. Come here.” The table creaks again and there’s a slide of skin on skin and a soft hum that has William wondering if he’s about to inadvertently cross the line from eavesdropper to voyeur. “I know you do that more than most people, but you’re still allowed to be a little all over the place right now. I’d be more worried if you weren’t.”
This chuckle is stronger, and it makes William smile because he can practically hear Mox’s dimples in it. “Probably shouldn't make any decisions tonight, huh?” Mox asks.
“How about we hold off until breakfast. There’s no rush. I’m not going anywhere. Regal’s not going anywhere. Hell, we might not even need to say anything to him, he’s an observant man.”
“Maybe a little too observant.”
William hadn’t noticed how far he’d drifted back round into the doorframe, but he locks eyes with Mox and the jig is clearly up. For all of the fuss he’d just put up, Mox is wrapped around Bryan like a koala with no intention on moving, even when Bryan scoots around to face him. “Look at that,” Bryan says, patting Mox on the thigh. “Problem solved.”
“Seems you boys are quite finished with your tomfoolery,” William says after a beat, and he’s trying to keep his voice stern because he’s still irritated with the way they behaved out there, truly - half the reason he’d come to Orlando was because Tony knew he was the only one who’d be able to reason with them if their tacit we bleed together, we fight together agreement didn’t hold - but it’s hard to keep that energy now faced with how... sweet they look together, Mox with his chin tucked into the crook of Bryan's neck, Bryan absently stroking the back of Mox’s hand with his thumb.
“Guess so,” Bryan says, somehow managing to look both sheepish and mischievous at the same time.
Mox’s head bobs with Bryan’s shrug but he’s otherwise deadpan. "For now," he adds.
He just stares at them both, the wind knocked out of his sails, because what could he say to that? All of the admonition he’d planned feel unnecessary and unimportant now, all of the questions ill-advised given Bryan’s well-reasoned argument against the timing, so he’s left to trying to wrap his head around the whiplash of the past half hour in facie ecclesiæ. Bryan's got that shit-eating grin on (the grin that he got from him, the cheeky bastard) and Mox arches his uninjured brow at him and he realizes that he may in fact be the one, to borrow the phrase, being a freak about this at the moment. He clears his throat and gives them a curt nod. “Right. Well. I’ll see you boys on Wednesday then, yeah?”
Mox rolls his eyes. “I’m 36 years old, Regal, I’m not your boy anymore.”
“I was marrying my wife while your mum was changing your diapers,” William says, and they’re all smirking at each other again. “I’ve got pants older than you.”
“We’ll see you on Wednesday,” Bryan says. “Close the door behind you?”
Later on, when William bumps into Punk in catering, he lies when he’s asked if he found them because it just seems easier. “I knocked on the door, but nobody answered.”
“Huh.” Punk shrugs. “Oh well. They were probably fucking again or something,” he says, and William hopes that Punk misses the sound of him choking on his pasta as he walks away.
Wednesdays sure are about to get interesting for him again.