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Of all the places, the underbelly of Daily's Place is the last Darby would have expected to hear that fucking screaming. He came there to get some peace and quiet before his match, his boiler room compromised from at least five loud arguments in as many days, yet they seem to have followed him. It makes him want to tear his hair out and just slap them both if only to get them to shut the fuck up and leave him be.
He never understood the appeal of constant arguments, sure he's volatile and never turns down a good fight, but not with the same person and not days in a row where there's nothing really to fight over (as far as he can hear). It's just a lot of yelling followed by the sound of physically fighting. That's when Darby usually makes himself scarce so neither of them set their eyes on him with any left over rage.
It took him a while to figure out who the yelling was from - he doesn't talk to many people so he can't recognize a lot of voices - but eventually he figured it out. Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston. They always punched or slapped each other and constantly glared at the other, and now that he thinks about it he's fairly confident he recognized Jon's growls coming from the room.
A part of him wants to grab them by the ears and get them to shut up, but it's probably a lost cause. They're both so strong willed it wouldn't do anything and may even turn their attention towards him. And he definitely doesn't need that sort of thing directed at him, he has enough issues to deal with without two large men hunting him down. Maybe he can get someone else to do it for him…
Unfortunately he doesn't know enough people well enough to get one of them to shut Jon and Eddie up, so either he needs to manipulate someone into doing it or just deal with it. Neither idea, yet the second looks a lot more pleasant than the first. So with a sigh he forces himself to endure the screaming until it goes quiet. A small part of him wants to go make sure they didn't kill each other, but they're adults, he doesn't need to do that. Now he can savor the silence.
A few hours later, Darby walks through the halls once more with his dinner, going to his boiler room to eat and get ready for the show. But voices stop him in his tracks, coming from a room nearby his one. Normally he would just move on, yet curiosity gets the better of him. Jon and Eddie's voices come from the room again, but this time it's different. Darby almost wants to say tender, but that can't be, they hate each other. When he gets close enough to hear what they're saying, it makes more sense to him, they're just not screaming this time.
"You bitch, I didn't say you could take my fries. You got your own."
"Shut the fuck up prick, I do what I want."
"You can do what you want, just don't steal my fries asshole. They aint for you."
Darby shakes his head, retreating to his boiler room with food in hand. He can't believe they're that childish, still bickering and over something so small. Were it anyone else he would think it's domestic, but not with mortal enemies like them. It's not his problem though, they can sort it out themselves, and soon it leaves his mind in favor of thinking up new promo ideas.
It's a shock to him when he doesn't hear their signature yelling after a little while, but he's not complaining. That means he can work in peace for once, not chasing the silence around the building. Maybe they went straight to physical fighting; the sounds of skin on skin and groaning too quiet to hear through the walls.
A few days pass before Darby hears their yelling again, loud as ever though the words are too muffled for him to understand what they're fighting over. He peeks into the locker room where they're shouting in the middle of everyone, catching the tail end of the fight, something about broken sunglasses, before they start to brawl. Everyone in the room retreats to the corners as Jon and Eddie go at it, punching each other and slapping until Eddie grabs Jon's wrist, dragging him out and away.
Darby shakes his head and spots Butcher across the room, motioning for him to come over and walk out with him so they can discuss their match. They have the added oddity of it being a house show, but that doesn't stop them from putting together a good match. It doesn't take long before they have a general idea of what to do, the rest they can fill in on the fly, but they keep walking together in silence. Until Butcher breaks it.
"You're friends with Mox, right?"
Well that's not what Darby was expecting. He doesn't even know how to answer it, are they friends? Sure they talk a little, and Jon's the most tolerable of most of the roster to be around, but are they friends . "Umm…"
"You know him well enough to care about him."
Ah, that clears things up. Is that what friends are? Then maybe they are friends. Though he hasn't gotten between Jon and Eddie, Jon wouldn't appreciate that. He likes to fight his own battles, something Darby can definitely respect. "In that case yes."
"So you've heard the arguments between him and Eddie. We've gotta stop this, they're driving everyone insane. But they're so stubborn I don't think it'll be easy, you got any ideas?"
So this is what this is about. Getting them to finally shut up. Well Darby can't complain about it, at least he's not going to do it alone. "Keep them away from each other at all costs?"
A beat of consideration, "yeah, that may work at least for now. Until we can figure out what their problem is. I'll take Eddie?"
Darby nods in agreement and they shake on it, leaving the more specific bits of the plan to the person who knows the most about the person in question. He's not exactly looking forward to it, certainly it's going to be a pain with someone else around, but if it can stop all the fucking screaming he'll endure anything. Now the most challenging part, coming up with reasons to keep Jon around and busy.
The next day as soon as Darby sees Jon come into the building, he runs through what he wants to say before heading over to him. Luckily Eddie's nowhere in sight, so he may not be ignored this time. "Hey, you mind helping me out?"
Jon just looks at him for a second before shrugging, "sure. What's it you need?"
"I've been working on a new finisher, know how to lock it in on guys my size but could use some help working it out on bigger ones. And naming it."
"Alright, let's go."
A small smile, that was a bit easier than he thought it might be. And he didn't even have to lie about it, he had been struggling with that for a little while and wasn't friendly enough with any other big wrestler to try it out on. It's better to know whether or not he can actually use the move on them before the match rather than it not working while they're performing. Plus Butcher and Jon are sort of similar, both a lot bigger and stronger than him, it'll work for now.
Once in the ring, they get to work. Darby positioning Jon in the way he's used to then trying to secure his legs around one of his before flipping over him. Unfortunately it doesn't work like he thought it would, instead he collapses onto his chest and the hold on his legs breaks. With a sigh Darby gets up and tries to do it again, this time with a better idea of how to adjust his hold for someone bigger.
"Here, try this." Jon moves his hands and adjusts his position on the mat so there's less distance Darby has to fall before he hits the mat above his head. Darby nods and follows the suggestions, only letting go when he hears a wince of pain.
"Shit- I'm sorry-" He rolls through and turns around, looking down at the ginger who waves him off.
"It's nothing, didn't stretch enough before coming down."
Darby relaxes a little and sits back, waiting for Jon to stretch out and hoping he didn't hurt him too badly. Looking around, he glances Butcher and Eddie walking around the stands, though they hadn't noticed them yet. But it's only a matter of time, so he has to act now. "Let's get you some ice or something and work on a name."
Luckily, Jon agrees and Darby helps him up, walking somewhat slowly backstage and getting some ice for him as they sit in the boiler room. Maybe not the best idea Darby realises in hindsight for ice, but it's what they've got and he's going to work with it. "What ideas do you have for it?" Jon presses the ice against his thigh and looks over at him.
"I was thinking 'Purgatory' or something along those lines. I don't know, wanted to keep a similar theme to the 'Coffin Drop' though."
"Hmm…" They fall silent for a few minutes until Jon speaks up, "what about 'The Last Supper'?"
Darby thinks for a moment, it's not a bad name, definitely better than anything he's come up with for it. And he can always revise it later on, but it'll do for now and may end up sticking. "Yeah, I like it. Thanks."
"No problem," Jon smiles and rubs his leg, working out the rest of the stiffness in it. Darby still feels a bit bad about that, he probably should've warned him about the move, but in his defence he didn't think the stretch was that bad. Maybe he's just more flexible.
A few more moments pass until Jon gets up to leave, it's not the plan but Darby doesn't know what to ask to make him stay. Asking him for lunch just sounds… weird, and there's probably other things he needs to do. With a sigh he lets him go, just hoping Butcher had more luck keeping Eddie around and away from Jon.
Much to his luck, he can distantly hear the yelling between Jon and Eddie start up. He groans, Butcher must not have been as successful as he hoped for. With a sigh he gets up, too fed up with their shit to care anymore about them getting mad at him, he just needs to have some quiet for once.
The yells die down before he can pinpoint exactly where they came from, but he's pretty sure he's in the right hallway. While it's not ideal for him to go up to them when they're not actually fighting, he doesn't know when he'll have this wave of no-fucks-to-give again so it has to be now.
Looking at the rooms, most have their doors open and no one in sight, but Darby knows they haven't left since he didn't hear any footsteps coming from this direction. So with a sigh he starts opening the doors that aren't locked in search of them. But when he opens the right door, it's the furthest thing from what he imagined.
In the half second before he closes his eyes and slams the door shut, Darby sees way more than he ever wanted to see. Jon on his knees with Eddie's fingers tangled in his short hair, head thrown back against the wall of the closet with a blissful look on his face. Darby rubs his eyes and screams internally, he did not want to see that, then flees to his boiler room.
It doesn't make any sense to him, Jon and Eddie hate each other, everyone knows it. They're constantly fighting, whether it be hurling insults (the most creative he heard was fuckwad shitstain egg) or throwing punches- wait. What if their physical fighting wasn't- Darby shakes his head and does his best to think of anything else. Anything but what he really really hopes everyone wasn't hearing after each fight.
A few minutes later when he's safely distracting himself from the trauma of earlier, Jon and Eddie walk in. Darby hisses and glares at them, at least they have the self-awareness to be sheepish.
"Sorry bout that-" Eddie mumbles, "didn't hear you outside."
"You two are a thing? Since when- or is this just a hate sex arrangement." Darby runs a hand through his hair, a lot of him doesn't want to know but he can't help the curiosity.
"I've been dating this fucker for the past five years." Jon admits, "we just bicker a lot."
That hits him like a brick wall, five fucking years of this?? No wonder they're able to argue so much, not even sworn enemies could be this angry at each other all the time. "And every time we hear fighting-"
"Yup." Eddie smirks and Jon punches his shoulder, "well not every time. But a good chunk."
Jon just sighs and rolls his eyes, "stop making it sound like we're rabbits, jerk. No, it's not that much."
Darby just stares blankly, he's fairly sure Eddie's the one that's telling the truth there from what he's heard. And he'd pay any amount of money to forget everything he's heard because eww they've been doing that for how long??????
But the worst part of that was he didn't win the betting pool of why they were fighting, he assumed an old grudge from when they worked the indies. At least none of them did so he doesn't lose his money. "Just- stop- you know- doing it- where we can all hear, okay?"
Eddie just looks at him with a shiteatting grin, "no promises."