Work Text:
Down in the basement, everything is always cold.
Takes longer to warm anything up: Bodies, machines, sensibilities. Renee brings down a cup of coffee and it’s luke warm in minutes. Marina commented on it a lifetime ago, feeling the cold seep through the concrete, through the gym mat, into her cheek as Callihan curbstomped her shoulder. ’Forget about warmth,’ Moxley suggested, ’forget about comfort. All that’s down here is honest work.’
Yuta didn’t take advantage of the free-use all-expenses-paid gym nearly as much as the rest of them, not even during the Blackpool Combat Club days. In winter, if he swung by alone or with only Claudio, Renee jacked up the heat. Sometimes Claudio tagged along and stayed upstairs, loaded the dishwasher, kept an eye on the thermostat. To his credit, Moxley couldn’t care less - it was a Yuta thing, the way he pathologized himself. As if he was jumping the gun, doing it before anyone else could.
Cincinnati felt sub-arctic. When Marina wrapped her arm around Renee and let her loll her head onto her shoulder, she glanced at the thermostat. It was cozy, but not Wheeler Yuta cozy, despite Mox braving the ice and snow to run errands. Marina’s nose was cold from chaining up the truck for him, Renee peeling layers off her with more delight than was wholly necessary.
The usual frigidity beneath the house greeted her as she came down the stairs heavily, bouncing foot to foot to encourage circulation. Rhythmic grunts grew louder as she approached, bare-fisted impacts sounding in time. Sounded wet. Sweaty, probably. By the time Yuta came into view, she could hear just how hard his blows were landing; hoodie up, drawn close around his face, elbows followed by jabs by crosses by hooks by elbows. Marina wound the tape around her wrist, crossed over the back of her hand, around her middle finger, sniffled, smelled blood, across her hand in the opposite-
Congestion starting to clear up, the metallic tang came through. Another wet strike, sound of splatter nearly lost in the creak of hook and groan of leather. Winding the tape around her wrist twice to secure it, she tore the end between her teeth and tossed aside the roll, stalked towards Yuta with purpose. He pivoted, swinging for her when she touched his shoulder, and she ducked instead of blocking. She could barely feel her face still, but her cheek was wet. Recovering instantly, Yuta fully turned, backed up, held up both hands palms-forward. Didn’t smile. Blood under his fingernails, in the creases of his fingers, the cuffs of his sleeves. The sight of it rose her body temp, cleared her upper sinuses. He stuffed his hands in his hoodie pocket, scowled at her, eyes unobscured, beard trimmed more tightly to his face than usual. She’d watched Danny corner him, ’intricate ritual’ him into cleaning up a little. He looked good. Fresh.
“What do you want?” Still sounded like a whiny brat, though. Untaped hand darting out, Marina flicked his hood back, grinned when he smacked her arm away, smeared blood over her inner forearm. “Cut it out.”
She wanted to call him cute. Bother him, get him in a headlock, but now the blood was in the back of her throat, cloyingly snaking between her teeth, blood warm on cold skin. One smear blended into the blue line of her radial artery and she crowded him, prey drive activated, hand wrapping around Yuta’s wrist until it creaked.
“What’re you doing.” It isn’t a question. He answered anyway.
“Working out. Is that suddenly an issue?” His mouth twisted down when she raised her eyebrows. She could feel how sharp her eyes are on him. “It’s nothing, okay? Can you just-”
“I can smell the blood,” she interrupted, shaking the arm holding Yuta’s wrist minutely. “I’m fucking covered in it, Yuta. Having fun all by yourself?”
There it is. The fear; Yuta realising what’s happening, seeing the teeth poised above his head. Something shifted in his face - feeling the hot breath of the predator, the saliva sliding down the back of his neck. This is the Yuta that Marina likes, the prey animal successfully calculating how to survive in the wolf den over and over until his luck runs out. He tried to back away, blocked by the punching bag and, without releasing him, Marina brought her arm to her face and drew her tongue up the full length of it.
Predictably, he freaked out, shoved her, noises of repulsion, cursing at her when she laughed. She couldn’t stop pushing, splitting his knuckles open further, holding her hand over his lower lip and shoving it between his teeth and making him bite.
For once, Yuta’s salvation comes in the form of Jon Moxley, clomping down the stairs rubbing his arms and summoning them for dinner. Renee sticks a straw in Yuta’s glass of water, asks her husband to give him extra ice.