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Randy Orton was… pining.
A sentence that felt like a slap to the face yet, tragically accurate.
He’d taken steel chairs to the skull with less impact than being around Cody Rhodes. Which was saying something, considering one of those chairs once knocked him into a 3-day nap.
It was pathetic, honestly. He was Randy Orton. Apex Predator. Multi-time world champion. Future Hall-of-Famer. A cold-blooded legend. And yet one dumb smile from Cody had him dropping his fork mid-catering like an absolute chump. He told himself nobody saw.
Seth definitely saw that one time. Seth would never shut up about it.
The weird part? Randy had known Cody back when he was just a snot-nosed brat in Legacy. No bleach-blond hero hair, or neck tattoo, no angelic glow. Just some kid with dusty boots and something to prove. He’d had plenty of chances to make a move back then, they had a fooled around a couple of times. But no, he saw Cody as something even lesser than a teammate, a punk.
And then Cody had the audacity to glow up, swagger back into his life like a real life… Captain America, all dazzling smiles and that damned righteous glint in his eye. Like justice doused in cologne and sunshine, that made him want to do stupid shit.
Case in point, him lurking creepily by the door, hand fisted in the gym bag over his shoulder, watching Cody laugh at something probably idiotic with Sami Zayn and the Bloodline twins.
Jimmy or Jey, Randy didn't care for either, was flailing his arms around explaining… the art of plate portioning? Or food symmetry? Randy didn't care, Cody was laughing again, his cadence brighter than the sun, and that was ultimately more worthy of his focus.
Also torture.
“My my,” Seth Rollins' voice cut into his brooding like a meat cleaver, "How the poisonous have been defanged.”
Randy didn’t dignify him with eye contact. “Get lost, clown.”
"Aw, come on, don't be like that," Seth cackled, sidling into the spot beside him, all odd colors and crazy sunglasses, like a glitter-coated vulture. "I'm trying to help." He grinned that infuriating, greasy grin. "Dr. Love in the house. First consultation free.”
"You're the last person I want advice from," Randy muttered, gaze locked on Cody, who was now dramatically reenacting something with jazz hands and entirely too much adorability.
"And yet," Seth said smugly, "here I am. Destiny, baby."
Across the room, Cody tried to lean casually against a table, missed by a mile, and almost wiped out an entire tray of chicken tenders. Sami lunged to save it, while Cody looked scandalized, like he couldn’t believe the tenders had betrayed him.
Randy shot halfway into the room before he realized what he was doing. Seth, being the professional menace that he was, caught it instantly.
"Pathetic," Seth said, clicking his tongue. "Absolutely tragic.”
Randy returned back to his original position with a grunt that sounded suspiciously like a death threat.
He exhaled hard, clenching the gym bag like it was responsible for inviting Seth over. “I’m not doing this with you.”
“Oh, my sweet summer psychopath. You are doing this,” Seth said, unwrapping a protein bar from God knows where. "You’re doing it with style. You’re doing it with yearning eyes and sad sighs and—"
"I will punt you into the sun."
"Not before you ask your little crush out first," Seth sing-songed, waggling the nut flavored bar at him. "Come on, Viper. Nut up.”
That irritating obnoxious laugh followed closely behind, Seth laughing at his own idiotic joke.
Randy exhaled slowly, like he was about to pull a sniper trigger. Torn between RKO-ing the clown right there on the tiled floor and listening to his advice no matter how derisively it was delivered.
Maybe Seth had a point. God help him.
With a grunt, Randy squared his shoulders and stalked across the room, tuning out Seth’s gleeful snickering like it was background static.
The moment the twins saw Seth trailing behind him, they tensed, snarls barely restrained. Jey looked ready to throw down then and there. Sami, ever the peacekeeper, held out a hand to play human barrier.
Seth gave a little finger-wave over Randy’s shoulder, because the little shit was determined to die.
Cody turned at the tension, bright-eyed and unfairly handsome, brushing invisible crumbs off his perfect suit. “Hey, man! What’s up?”
Randy shoved one hand in his pocket and said, with all the casual indifference he could fake, “Let’s have lunch.”
Behind him, Seth choked on air, Randy resisted the urge to turn around and smack the teeth out his mouth.
Cody blinked. Then glanced at the table overflowing with fried food, raising an amused brow. “Uh…”
Randy rolled his eyes.
“Real lunch,” he clarified, “Something that doesn’t come with a side of cardiac arrest.”
Cody blinked at him. Then grinned, all sunlight and idiocy incarnate.
"Hell yeah!" Cody said. "We can make it a whole thing!"
Randy’s heart jumped in his throat.
"You and me—" he said, trying to spell it out without spelling it out.
Cody, beautiful dumbass that he was, nodded enthusiastically. “Yeah! Lemme just—”
He turned to the guard dog twins and Sami behind him in question, the three fuckers nodding their assent. Samoans and food. Randy couldn't have timed this any poorer.
Randy opened his mouth to protest, but Cody was already asking over Randy's shoulder. "Seth, care to join us?”
The answering growls from the twins behind Cody was confirmation enough that Seth would in fact not be joining them.
Seth, who had a functioning brain cell when convenient, wisely raised his hands and backed off slowly, – Like there was any other option when you were outnumbered – that lecherous grin on his face, eyes hidden behind asymmetrical sunglasses.
“Nah, I’m cool, man,” Seth said, eyes cutting to Randy with a smirk. “My job here's just about wrapped up.”
Randy closed his eyes briefly. Kill me now.
The Usos immediately got hyped. Jey slapped Jimmy on the back so hard he nearly dropped his phone. Sami just looked mildly resigned, like a man who had once been kidnapped by friends for a 'fun' weekend and now had a permanent thousand-yard stare.
And Seth?
Seth drifted up beside Randy, clapping a hand to his back like a proud pageant mom.
“Look at you,” he crooned. “Asking out the entire family. How romantic.”
He leaned in, whispered just loud enough for Randy to hear: “I’ll save you a seat at the wedding.”
Then he vanished, glitter and evil trailing behind him.
Randy fantasized about putting Seth through a wall. It helped. A little.