#HangMox high school AU | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

banannabethchase · 11 months

Note

Hello!! It’s me again. Would you write (even) more for the Fragile Invincibility au? I’d accept anything but specifically love to read the first time hangman takes the baller club boys to watch a match!! Thank you so much for every fic ✨

Backyard Wrasslin' - also on AO3

A "The Fragile Invincibility of Youth" story

Adam invites Matt, Kenny, and Nick to one of his wrestling shows. Mox is baffled.

Note: Teenagers are referenced having sex. They are both 18, committed relationship, nothing onscreen, all fade to black YA type vibes.

I...maybe have gone overboard on this prompt fill. I hope you enjoy!.

"You invited the Baller Club to a match?!" Mox asks. He's got his shirt off and belt undone. "And you decided to mention this right before we have sex?"

Adam, who's brain is decidedly not working right, nods. "Uh. Yeah?"

"They're gonna freak out," Mox says. "They're gonna think I'm actually trying to kill you."

"They won't - come back!" Adam grabs at Mox's belt loops. "I don't know why I brought it up. Take your pants off, I don't - come back."

Mox rolls his eyes. "Okay, yes, because I can't say no to you, but you'll explain yourself later."

"Explain myself la- what am I, your student?"

Mox grins at him. "I mean. We could play that."

"I'm going to kiss you so you shut up," Adam deadpans.

They're making their way into the kitchen when Mox grabs Adam's arm and pushes him against the wall. "Wait a second."

"Again?!" Adam giggles. "My parents are going to be home in, like, five minutes."

"Your hair's all messed up," Mox says, fiddling with Adam's hair.

Adam slaps his fingers away. "I - let me fix it. Get off."

"Already did that!"

Adam laughs as he steps into the bathroom. He ties his hair back in a quick bun, adjusts his shirt, and steps back out. "So - "

"So you invited your ex and your annoying friends to our match tonight," Mox says. He doesn't look angry, at least, so Adam thinks that's a small win.

"I can tell them no if you don't want them there," Adam says. He drops onto the couch, pulling his backpack toward him with his foot. He briefly worries Mox won't join him, but then he's there, snuggled up next to Adam like a puppy. “Seriously.”

“No, I just want to make sure they know I’m not actually hurting you.” He looks up at Adam, frowning. “As much as I’m glad you’re all friends again, I’m still a little worried they’re looking for an excuse to kill me.”

“They won’t kill you,” Adam says, running his fingers through Mox’s hair. He’d grown it out over the winter, bringing back the soft locks Adam had originally fallen in love with. The blue was new, though. He and Willow match now. “And if they do, I’ll kill them back so I can use their blood to resurrect you.”

“I need you to stop watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer,” Mox laughs, but he curls into Adam’s lap and falls asleep while Adam completes his Chemistry homework.

“Okay, I know I haven’t called you in, like, years, but I have no idea where to go, and I think I’m being followed by a white van, and I’m pretty sure I’m about to kill Nick and Kenny, so where the hell am I supposed to go?!”

Adam pulls the phone away from his face as Matt rants. “Um,” he says. “Are you – where are you?!”

“I don’t know!” Matt wails. “There’s a blue house with, like, pride flags everywhere?”

“Okay, you’re close!” Adam jogs past the ring and parking lot, then dashes out to the road. “Do you see me?” He waves his free hand. “I’m waving. Do you see me?”

Making what is probably a highly illegal u-turn in the middle of the road, a car that is highly familiar zooms toward him and slows only to turn into the dirt road. Matt, looking haggard and confused, is behind the wheel.

“When I tell you these two can’t even read an effing GPS, I’m not kidding.” Matt exhales, blowing his hair out of his eyes. “Where do I go next?”

“Follow me.”

Adam jogs as Matt follows him, and guides Matt into a parking space he’s pretty sure Matt won’t be able to back out of on his own. He waits a little awkwardly as Matt picks his way around the puddles of mud.

“This place is a mess,” he says, grabbing Adam’s arm as he leaps over a puddle.

Adam shrugs as Kenny and Nick, a little less delicately, make their way around the puddles and follow Adam toward the ring and chairs. “It’s a backyard wrestling group. Nothing’s particularly well made here.” He gestures to the seats he saved for the three of them. “Except for the matches. Those are pretty cool.”

Matt primly sits into a chair. “When do you go on?”

“Well, me and Mox have a match first,” Adam says, “but you’ll get to see some cool stuff, too. Eddie is in the main event, so he’ll be on last. He’s going up against the Bryan guy Mox wrestled a while back.”

“Are there any other matches?” Nick asks. He’s looking around eagerly, like he’s more comfortable here than he expected.

Adam nods. “I think three others? Willow’s going up against Ruby – they’re doing a feud because Ruby hit her with a chair a while back – and I think this kid Wheeler Yuta is going up against somebody. He’s a sophomore.”

Matt’s eyes widen. “He’s here? Really?”

Adam states at Matt. “Oh, god.”

“I –”

“I can’t believe you have a crush on him,” Nick chuckles.

“I don’t!” Matt says. Adam, Nick, and Kenny stare at him. Adam thinks it’ll be seconds to wait him out. “…I do. Don’t tell him.”

Adam grins. “I won’t.” He bumps Matt’s shoulder with his. “I gotta go get ready for my match, though, so I’ll see you later.” Adam looks at Kenny. At Nick. At Matt. “Um. Thanks for coming, guys. It means a lot.”

“Of course, Adam,” Kenny says. His smile is genuine when he looks at Adam, and it doesn’t ache like it used to. It’s nice. But nothing more. “Go out there and kill it.”

Adam smiles back. “I will.” He makes his way to the tent where the other wrestlers are getting ready. Ruby is doing Willow’s hair as Willow plays some song game on her phone. Eddie and Mox are trading headlocks in the corner. Wheeler Yuta is stretching on his own, though, so Adam walks over to him.

“Hey, dude,” he says, settling in the chair by Yuta’s bag. “How are you holding up?

“Good,” Yuta says, smile a little weak. “Nervous. Claudio’s huge. I’m pretty sure he’s going to kill me.”

“He won’t kill you,” Adam says, waving it off. “He’s good. And he’s safe.” Adam doesn’t mention the time he almost broke his arm last week after taking an elbow drop wrong, since that was more his fault. “You’ll do great.”

“That’s not how Eddie sees it,” Yuta says, chancing a glance over at Eddie, who is now sitting on Mox’s butt and poking him in the ribs to make him laugh. “He really hates Claudio.”

Adam knows Eddie’s disdain for Claudio, knows of the hatred, but doesn’t know why. He doesn’t feel like he’s ready to ask about it, though. “Eddie hates a lot of things,” he decides on. “Doesn’t make them bad.”

Yuta nods slowly. “Yeah.” They’re quiet for a moment, and Adam’s about to leave when Yuta says, “Um, actually, I have a question.” When he looks up, his cheeks are just this side of pink. “Mox told me you were, um, inviting the Jacksons?”

Adam hesitates. “Yeah?”

“Is, um,” Yuta folds himself into a weird shape. Adam assumes it’s a stretch, but he’s upside down and standing on his head, so he’s not sure. “Is Matt going to be here?”

“Oh, god.”

“No!” Yuta says, scrambling to his feet. “It’s – okay, don’t say anything.”

“I promise,” Adam deadpans, “if you go out there and wrestle like you’ve been, Matt will fall in love with you before you know it.”

Yuta lights up. “Really?”

Adam sighs. “Yes.”

He shoves Eddie off of Mox, getting a smack on the ass for his troubles and grinning about it. “Come on,” he says, dragging Mox to the back. “Let’s go over the match, one more time.”

They run the match, throwing each other around, and it ends with Mox pinning Adam. It doesn’t quite feel like Adam’s the one losing, though, with the way Mox’s legs straddle Adam’s hips and his arms loop around Adam’s legs. Mox called it a rollup. Adam asked him if it was secretly a new position Mox wanted to try.

“Oh, god, go be pervs somewhere else,” Ruby says, nudging Mox’s leg with her boot. “Tony wanted me to get you two idiots up so you can get to the stage.”

Mox swings his leg over, spins to his feet, and sticks out his arm. “C’mon, baby, let’s get out there so I can kick your ass.”

“You don’t have to be so annoying about it,” Adam giggles as he leaps to his feet. “I’ve won in other –”

“Nope!” Ruby yells. “Still in earshot! Shut up!”

They get behind the curtain ready for the ring, and Mox starts bouncing. Since Adam’s the newbie, he goes out first to his edit of Bronco, throwing the curtain open at the first, ‘Bronco, runnin’ wild,’ to cheers. He glances over to see Matt, Nick, and Kenny cheering like they’ve been here a million times, like they know exactly what to do. He’s excited to be the face in this match – it’s the first time he’s gotten a real character for himself. The jeans and old cowboy boots work almost too well.

“And coming in next,” comes the announcer’s voice, “Jon Moxley!”

Mox comes out to Wild Thing, a sneer on his face that almost makes Adam giggle. The boos are loud, almost deafening. Matt and Nick look bewildered, but Kenny leans over and says something to them and they boo as well.

The match goes by in a whirlwind, and Adam almost forgets at the end that he’s not supposed to kick out.

When the referee, one of Eddie’s friends from work, Aubrey, counts to three, Adam’s pretty sure he can hear Nick booing the loudest.

“Good job,” Mox says, beaming at Adam. “You killed it.”

“You too.” Adam has to remember to look disappointed as he rolls out of the ring. When he gets backstage, Eddie practically mauls him.

“You did fuckin’ great, baby!” he yells, clapping Adam on the shoulder.

Adam grins at him. “Thanks. It felt really good.”

Mox comes in after him and pretty much does maul Adam, sending him careening to the floor in a way reminiscent of the pin from earlier.

“Hi,” Adam says.

“Hi,” Mox says. “You did so good.” He leans down and kisses Adam hard and fast.

“Gross!” yells Ruby from somewhere in the back of the tent.

Mox helps the other wrestlers prepare while Adam sneaks out to watch the rest of the matches next to Matt.

“You did awesome!” Nick says. “That was so cool.”

Matt’s face is a little pinched. “Mox was kind of mean to you.”

“He’s supposed to be mean, Matt,” Kenny eyes, rolling his eyes. “He’s the heel. That’s the bad guy.” He glances over to Adam for confirmation. He nods. It’s kind of nice to be the one they check in with. “It’s all pretend, right?”

“It’s all pretend,” Adam confirms. “Well, except for the getting an arm across the chest. That kind of hurt.” He rubs at it, the ache blooming as he mentions it.

Matt turns into a googly eyed disaster when Yuta gets in the ring. He enters to American Idiot and Matt claps like a maniac.

“Nick,” Adam says, leaning behind Adam. “Do we need to sedate Matt or something?”

Nick laughs. “Nah, just let him be in love. He’s being super weird about Yuta.”

“Am not!” Matt snaps. “He’s so smart. He’s in tenth grade and he’s in my senior level Calculus class. It’s…” He trails off. “Oh. Oh and he’s got abs.” He pauses. “Maybe I do need to be sedated.”

Adam laughs as the music changed to Do Ya Think I’m Sexy? That entrance music is one among many reasons Eddie hates Claudio, but Adam thinks it’s hilarious.

The match is quick, as expected, as it’s Yuta’s first, but Yuta does great and sells like a champ.

Matt audibly gasps as Claudio hauls Yuta up in his signature swing, spinning Yuta until he taps out and collapses to the floor.

“Should I go check on him?” Matt asks, looking over at Adam. “He looks hurt.”

“He’s fine,” Adam says. “But I’m sure Yuta would be very pleased if you ran ringside and got all concerned about him.”

Matt nods and leaps out of his chair, running over to the ring. “Wheeler!” he calls. “Are you alright?”

Adam, Nick, and Kenny laughs at Yuta’s bewildered face. “Uh, yeah,” he says. He glances at Adam, who shrugs and grins.

“Go for it,” Adam mouths.

“I, uh, could use some help getting to the back,” Yuta says, doing his best to look miserable and hurt. It doesn’t quite work on the rest of the crowd, Adam thinks, but it sure as hell works on Matt.

“Of course!” Matt helps Yuta out of the ring and bats his eyelashes as they go back to the tent.

“I can’t believe Matt got a boyfriend at your wrestling thing,” Nick grumbles, folding his arms over his chest. “I have got to get out there.”

“You will, champ,” Adam says, clapping Nick on the shoulder. “You will.”

Matt and Yuta come back holding hands and chatting with stars in their eyes, and the rest of the show goes off without a hitch. Bryan and Eddie may literally be trying to kill each other during their match, but Eddie wins and it’s an overall success.

“We usually head to Willow’s house after matches,” Adam says as Mox comes up behind him and curls around him. “If you three wanted to come?”

“Yeah, sure!” Matt says. “Wheeler, do you need a ride?”

Wheeler looks shocked, as he’d ridden with Mox and Adam to the show. Adam stares at him, hoping Yuta gets the hint. “Uh. Sure! Sure, I could need a ride.”

“And Kenny and Nick, if you want to hop in my truck,” Adam says insistently.

Nick nods. “Yeah, I don’t want to be anywhere near whatever the two of them are doing.”

As Adam watches Matt smoothly pull out of the parking spot like it’s nothing, clearly chattering nonstop to Yuta, he takes the lead and drives the short distance to Willow’s house.

“Hey, Mox,” Nick says. “So, if you and I were in the ring, which of us would win?”

“Oh, I’d fuckin’ flatten you in seconds.”

“Would not!”

Adam laughs, and thinks that, maybe, he’s got it figured out. At least for now.

Mini Playlist: Bronco - Orville Peck Wild Thing - The Troggs American Idiot - Green Day Do Ya Think I'm Sexy? - Rod Stewart

#HangMox High School AU #FIOY #in which Sara writes #LOOK I DID IT #Why was this prompt so hard to fill? I have no clue #But it was #But it's done!#wtf i like wrestling now???#HangMox #MattYuta #anxious millennial dreamboat #madly in love with leather daddy jon moxley

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Note

Hi! Hello! A prompt if you’re taking them: hangmox dnd au! 🐉🏰 I can send a more detailed prompt if you want it. Sorry for asking for hangmox again but you’re my absolute favorite hangmox writer!! Thank you!!!!

I just reread that second to last sentence and almost imploded. Please never apologize for sending a HangMox fic as I adore them and also fghdfuighfduisdfdfhidsug

Critical Hit

A post-fic scene from The Fragile Invincibility of Youth, because any time I think of HangMox and DnD I think of that end scene I wrote where everybody mediocres a DnD game for Silver.

Rating: T

"That's not - Jesus, Moxley, you're going to get our entire party killed!"

"It's stealth! My character has good stealth stuff!"

"Stealth stuff?!" Silver drops his head in his hands, and Adam does his best not to give it away that Mox is doing it on purpose. He rests his hand on Mox's leg, because that's a thing he can do now.

Mox nods. "Yeah, if I roll. I'm gonna roll."

"Mox, if you roll, you could get all of us killed and end the entire campaign," Alex says through gritted teeth.

"No, I got this."

And he rolls.

Even Adam's a little worried as Mox does this weird little shake as the dice flies out of his hand. As funny as it is, Mox really could fuck up the entire game. Kenny's face is downright murderous as the dice skitters across the table, bumps into his figurine, and knocks it over.

"Critical hit," Matt says as he leans over and peers at it. He looks up. "How the heck did you manage that?"

"Wait, really?" John asks, half leaping across the table. He jostles everybody's characters and almost kicks Adam in the face. "That's not possible. The House of Black was supposed to be the entire plotline for the trek through Harbinger Valley. They were the main thing standing in the way of the jewel." He looks up, miserable. "I had a whole thing where you were gonna have to sacrifice someone to appease their goddess the Hart!"

Mox shrugs and leans back in his chair, hands folded behind his head with the kind of grin on his face that makes Adam want to drag him out of there and make out with him in his truck for, like, an hour. "Should'a planned better, Johnny."

Adam giggles and leans into Mox's chest, because that's a thing he can do now.

"No!" John says. "No! Absolutely not!" Adam looks up to see him throw his papers in the air and they float around him. His face is bright red. "Adam, take your boyfriend and teach him some manners."

Adam raises an eyebrow. "I mean. If you insist." He leans in and kisses Mox.

"Oh, my god, Silver, this is your fault," Matt groans.

Adam flips them all off behind his back and grins against Mox's lips. Because it's a thing he can do now.

#HangMox #The Fragile Invincibility of Youth #HangMox high school AU #in which SAra writes #Lookit me wriitng outtakes #wtf i like wrestling now???#anxious millennial dreamboat #madly in love with leather daddy jon moxley

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

I barely slept last night and I woke up with multiple fic ideas, including one where AEW goes to a theme park and shenanigans ensue so WISH ME LUCK!!!!

#i also accidentally further solidified the HangMox college au and the moxmatt high school au #IT WOULD BE GREAT IF I COULD ACTUALLY WRITE #...also hangmatt carpooling because Matt missed his flight back and them falling in love again set to Cowboy Take Me Away #OKAY IM DONE I WILL NOT SURVIVE THIS DAY

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banannabethchase · 1 year

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Adam finally takes that damned Chemistry midterm, and he finds himself in an unexpected conversation. Twice.

The final chapter! This fic ended up being surprisingly close to my heart and I am sending hugs to everybody who reads, kudos'd, and commented.

Thank you for reading this story and enjoying it with me. For some reason, this iteration of Mox and Hangman really got to me and compelled me to write them. I'm glad I did.

Mini playlist: Happier - Bastille All I Need Is You - The Click Five Paint You Wings - All Time Low Trouble - Twice I'm Only Me When I'm With You - Taylor Swift

Here's the Spotify playlist link if you would like to listen! Love, hugs, and HangMox!

Midterms, Adam thinks, are designed by the devil. Tomorrow is Thursday, the Chemistry test, and he’s less anxious than he was before the weekend spent wrestling and studying. Now, though, he has to force Mox and Eddie to go to a different end of the school to make sure he can get some final cramming in.

“But we had so much fun studying last night,” Mox had said, turning those puppy dog eyes on him.

“That was not studying,” Adam insisted. “That was blowjobs on the couch next to the study guide.”

Mox shrugged, grinning a little dirty. “And I’m down to study with you any time you want.”

Adam shakes his head, taking himself back to the present. He passed his AP Human Geography test despite him and Mox spending much of their study time naked, and his AP English in class essay. Now he’s face down in his Chemistry and French reviews during his lunch block, shoveling a mediocre sandwich in his face while he practices balancing equations and conjugating irregular verbs in French copies of Chronicles of Narnia.

He almost doesn’t notice it when somebody walks up to his table.

“Hi.”

Adam raises his head slowly. He’s still not used to lacking the curtain of hair he’s used as a shield for the past few years, so he meets the speaker’s eyes sooner than he expects.

“Um,” he says, locking eyes with Kenny. “Yeah. Hi.”

“Can I sit?” He looks nervous. Kenny look nervous.

Adam decides to be nice, and nods. “Yeah, course.”

Kenny settles fidgeting with his necklace. “I, uh, I wanted to apologize.”

“What?” He doesn’t mean to be rude. He really doesn’t. But he can’t stop. Kenny Omega doesn't apologize. The Kenny he knew always took on any moment and tossed it to the side, went silent when asked a question he wasn't willing to address.

Kenny, to his credit, nods and smiles tightly. “That’s the response I deserve, I think. I’m sorry, specifically for being such a piece of shit after that one championship game, but also for, well. For not paying attention when you needed help.” He inches his hand near to where Adam’s rests on the table. But he doesn’t touch. “Adam, you didn’t deserve what I did to you.”

His first instinct, Adam realizes, is to lash out. To tell Kenny all the horrible things he’s thought about him in the past few months, make Kenny feel some of the shame that had been sitting in Adam’s belly since they lost that game, but it’s not there anymore. It’s transformed, settling in his stomach as something else. “I – I’m not sure what to say,” is what he settles for. “For what it’s worth, though, I wasn’t peaches and cream either.”

Kenny’s face crumples into something desperate. “God, I missed those weird things you’d say.” It’s kind. It’s not mockery – it’s memory.

“Unfortunately, you’d been right,” Adam says, and he edges his own hand, a little closer to Kenny’s. But still not touching. “I’d been drinking, hiding stuff in my water bottles.” He takes a deep breath, and confesses what he’d been holding for so long. That’s what the shame had turned into: accountability. “I was drunk for that game. That’s why we lost.”

Kenny, to his shock, shakes his head. “We lost because we, as a team, stopped communicating. I was the captain, and, god, your boyfriend" He pauses, squeezing his eyes shut. "I should – I should have seen all the problems, and I didn’t.” He runs one hand through his hair, but the other doesn’t move from its space devastatingly close to Adam’s. “I think we all fucked up, and I took it out on you." He's quiet for a moment. It reminds Adam, strangely, of his horses right before he opens the gate. Ready to rush out, let go, open the stride and run free. "And I was a coward, and didn’t tell Nick or Matt the truth, even when it hurt you.” He looks Adam dead in the eye. “I’m sorry.”

Adam sits with it, the apology and the truth that’s haunted him for months now. “Thank you,” he almost whispers. “And I’m sorry.”

Kenny’s fingertips close the gap, and something in Adam’s body sparks. Kenny is familiar, but so different than he used to be. It’s tantalizing, intimidating, impossible to ignore. He’d forgotten what being so close to Kenny felt like. And it’s so, so different from Mox. “I’m sorry, too.”

“You already said that.”

Kenny shrugs, his smile growing earnest, honest. Open. It’s the most beautiful Adam’s seen him in over a year. “I thought I might owe you more than one.” He looks down at their hands, and his eyes widen. “Oh. Um.”

“No, it’s okay!” Adam says. “You’re good.”

“I don’t,” Kenny says, “I, um, know you’re dating Jon Moxley –”

“It’s not exclusive,” Adam blurts out. He freezes. “I mean, not that -”

“I get – no, I understand, right?” Kenny laughs, a little panicked. “Yeah. I don’t – I’m not here to, like, get in your way or anything. I just know you need – deserved – an apology.” He pats the back of Adam’s hand gently, then moves away, rubbing at the top of his legs. “Blaming you was easy. But it was also wrong.”

Adam nods, wondering how to say everything else, how to apologize for not talking to Kenny. For not knowing how to ask for help. For letting the team down. He doesn’t know. He really, really doesn’t know.

Kenny gives him a strange little smile, then pushes his chair back. “I, uh, I’m currently skipping AP English, which is a felony, if you ask Mrs. Nguyen, so I better get going.” He stands, and shoots Adam another one of those devastating smiles. “I’ll see you around, okay?”

Adam nods, smiling back. “Yeah. See you around.”

He can’t get his face back to normal until after his study block and midway through his Chemistry review class, where Alex keeps kicking him under the table whenever he zones out. He does not know what he did to earn the love of these DND nerds, but he’ll do anything to keep it.

While balancing equations, Alex leans over. “What’s got you so zoned out?”

“Nothing,” Adam lies, unable to contain his smile through it.

“You have sex with Moxley in the wings of the theater again?” he whisper.

“No, dumbass.”

“Didn’t think so,” Alex says, nodding knowingly. “You look different when you have a Moxley moment. Last time I saw this…” His eyes widen. “Oh, shit.”

“Shut up,” Adam says, wishing again he had his long hair to hid the way his entire head turns red, “shut up. Do your stupid Chemistry practice.”

“If he hurts you, Silver and I will kill him,” Alex says earnestly.

His French test goes well, and he, finally, feels like he may be able to pull off a passing grade on the Chemistry test tomorrow. He lets himself think about just how he may celebrate tomorrow afternoon with Mox, when he sees him waiting at his truck. “Hi.”

“Hi,” Adam says. “You – is everything okay?”

Mox nods. “Yeah. I’m good.” He eyes Adam. “Are you?”

Adam nods, slowly. “Yeah. What’s wrong? You look weird.”

“I heard you ran into Kenny,” Mox says. He’s scuffing the bottom of his shoe against the ground.

Ah. That. “Yeah,” Adam says. “I did.”

Mox lifts his head. His eyes, to Adam’s shock, are red. “You guys getting back together, then?”

Immediately, Adam shakes his head. “No. Why – did somebody say we were?”

“Rumors,” Mox says.

Adam steps closer to him. “Are – are you freaking out about it or something?”

“I just don’t want to lose you!” Mox practically yells. Adam only flinches a little bit. Mox’s hands are shaking as he shoves them back in his pockets. “He’s your Eddie, and you’ve never done the whole more than one person, and that’s fine, but if you’re gonna go back to him, I need…I need to know, okay, because I think I can survive losing you, but…” He trails off, and when he looks back to Adam, he’s crying. Jon Moxley is crying. “But I gotta know, Cowboy. I gotta know if you’re choosing him.”

Adam feels the pieces of Mox shatter and collapse around him. To his surprise, the words come easily. He doesn't even have to pause to unscramble them from his mind; they're just there. “I’m choosing you,” Adam says, and he puts his hand under Mox’s chin, lifting it gently. “Hey. Even if he and I get back together, which isn’t even in the plan right now, I still choose you.” He smiles as hard, as meaningful, as he can. He doesn’t want to be the reason Mox looks like this. “Hey. Come on.” He waits until Mox looks up, meets his eyes. “I’m gonna keep you, okay?”

Mox is shaking a little bit, won’t meet Adam’s eyes. “You might not.”

“I will,” Adam promises. It might be too big, to earnest, too much for high school. But he shuts up that part of his mind. He’s not worried about what happens next. He only cares about who he has right now. “Mox, I want you.” Mox clenches his fists so tightly it looks like it hurts until Adam grabs them in his hands. “That’s not gonna change.”

Mox rests his forehead against Adam’s, but his eyes are still closed. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” Adam insists. “Kenny doesn’t – he doesn’t get to have all of me anymore. If he wants me back, he’s gonna have to learn to share.” He lets out a little laugh. “To be honest, I don’t know if he’d be able to.”

Mox nods, then leans in, burying his face into Adam’s shoulder, wrapping his arms around Adam like a lifeline. Adam’s not used to being the strong one, not used to being the anchor for somebody else. But he holds Mox, and he feels right.

“You guys okay?” Eddie pops up over Mox’s shoulder. He’s covered in wood shavings – he must have had his Woodworking final today.

Adam smiles, as gently as he can. “Yeah. I ran into Kenny today and…” He shrugs.

Eddie’s eyes immediately go hard. “Did you break his heart?” Adam wants to pretend he isn’t flooded with fear. “I swear, if you –”

“No, Eddie,” Mox says, lifting his head up. “I panicked.”

Eddie relaxes, and a knowing smile spreads across his face. “Oh, sweetheart,” he says, voice a little teasing, “you thought he was gonna leave you.”

“Shut up,” Mox says, diving back into Adam’s shoulder.

“He done this before?” Adam asks, running his hand up and down Mox’s back as he sighs against Adam’s shirt.

Eddie nods. “Sometimes he forgets he’s stuck with me forever.”

“Not stuck,” Mox mumbles into Adam’s shoulder.

“What’d he say?”

“He said he’s not stuck,” Adam translates. “So, probably, he’s being sappy.”

“I’m not being sappy.” Mox pulls himself to standing, changes his posture. His eyes are still red, though. He rolls his shoulders. “I’m fine.”

“You’re a sap,” Eddie corrects, pulling him in for a rough kiss to the side of the head. Adam realizes that there’s so much of Eddie in Mox – in the mannerisms, in the word choice, in everything. He likes it that way. “Alright, Cowboy, where are we headed?”

“I have to pass my chem test tomorrow, so I can drop you both off at home and then I’m off.”

Mox shrugs. “I mean,” he says, “I could help you study.”

“Oh, god, no,” Eddie groans. “He tries that on you, too?”

“Yep,” Adam says. “Does he do the thing where he tries to look over your shoulder and,” he throws up finger quotes, “accidentally gives you a hickey?”

Eddie barks out a laugh, and Mox yells, “Stop talking about me like I’m not right here!”

The conversation lasts the whole drive.

Adam wakes up half an hour before his alarm from a bad dream, hands shaking and cold. He’d dreamt he failed the chemistry test so badly he got kicked out of school and became professional clown.

He’s afraid of clowns.

Fumbling, he reaches for his phone in the dark and checks to see Mox’s late night text. you got this cowboy.

He relaxes, and falls back against the pillows. He’s too wired to sleep, but he mentally reviews the material, to the point where he gives up on resting and jumps in the shower.

He probably shouldn’t, but, when he’s on his way out the door, he calls Mox.

“Zup?” comes Mox’s gravely sleep voice. It sends something fizzy through Adam. “You ‘kay?”

“Yeah! I’m good. I just, uh, I woke up early. I was wondering if you would want me to pick you up?”

There’s some rustling. “Yeah, I can – yeah. You feeling okay?” Something thuds. “Ow. Are you stressing out about your test?”

“Had a bad dream,” Adam says, grabbing a muffin before he puts on his jacket. “Freaked out. Saw your text and I was cool.”

“Aw,” Mox says, “you love me.”

“You love me too, asshole,” Adam says into the phone, grinning. “I’ll be by your place around fifteen, twenty minutes. Sound good?”

“Yup,” Mox says, “see you soon.”

And, because as much as he doesn’t want to admit it, Adam’s a sap, he hangs up with a, “Love you.”

Adam bops along to something saccharine sweet from a Happy playlist on Spotify, and sings along to all the songs, even the ones he doesn’t know.

He pulls into Mox’s driveway, where he’s leaning against the house with a cigarette in his mouth, looking exhausted. “Hey, stranger.”

“No,” Mox says, opening the car door. “Too tired. Can’t appreciate you being cute.” He exhales away from the door and throws the cigarette to the ground, stomping it out with his boot. “Give me, like, five minutes.”

“That’s fine,” Adam says. He just turns the music up louder, laughing as Mox whines. He stops at the Dunkin’ near the school as an apology, though, and gets Mox the sweetest, grossest latte ever, so he thinks he’s in the clear.

“You ready for that Chem test?” Mox asks, going for another sip of his monstrosity.

“I think so.” He pauses. “I hope so.” He fidgets with his seatbelt, suddenly too tight.

“Well, I have that block off, since it’s my free period. So text me when you’re done and I’ll meet up with you.” He shoots Adam the biggest smile he’s seen, and Adam thinks he may be able to pull this off.

He strides into school, Mox by his side, and gives him a kiss in front of the door to the testing room.

“You got this, Cowboy,” Mox says, half smile on his lips. “Go lasso that test or whatever.”

“I’m – I live on a farm, not a ranch!”

“Same difference!” Mox calls over his shoulder, but he blows Adam a kiss, and that does more than enough.

He hands in the test and practically bolts out of the testing room. Adam walks down the hallway, feeling lighter than air, the weight on his shoulders gone. He passed it. He knows he passed it. Somehow, he’s figured out how this stupid subject works, how to balance equations and when to use Avogadro’s number. He’s going to pass this stupid class.

The excitement deflates a little when he turns a corner, and there is Matt Jackson. He's standing, arms crossed, at Adam’s locker, alone.

“Oh,” Adam says. “Hi.”

Matt offers him a strained little smile. “Hey,” he says, voice soft. “I – are you busy?”

Adam shakes his head. He wants to say something, find the words to make this moment feel less like nails on chalkboard, but nothing's there.

Matt’s gaze skips over his face, like he’s trying to meet his eyes and can’t. “Can we talk?”

Adam nods, and the two of them make their way down the stairs and out the door. Adam notices that Matt deliberately does not stop at the soccer championship memorial bench from their freshman year of high school, and continues to the one in memory of a girl who died of cancer a few years ago. “So,” Matt says, “I assume you’ve heard the news about playoffs.”

Adam nods, finding himself strongly involved in the goings on of his hands. “Yeah. Um. Mox, actually told me.”

“About Mox,” Matt says, “are you, like, serious with him?”

“I’d say so.” They’re quiet again. Adam doesn’t like it. “Any reason you’re asking about him?”

Matt nods. “I talked to Kenny. About the last time we – you and me, I mean – ran into each other.” Adam risks a glance toward Matt, to see him head down, pulling at the ends of his hair. “He kind of, well, he didn’t lie, exactly. But he kind of skipped around the truth and let me make my assumptions.” He finally lifts his gaze. “I always thought you left us – him. Um, left Kenny. After the game.” He scuffs his shoes on the ground, something Adam’s never seen him do. “He never corrected me.”

Adam lets it sink in. Kenny, heartbroken in two ways, unsure of how to hold onto the last pieces of the Elite and Baller Club he has. Matt, unwilling to see Kenny in anything other than the glow of victory. Nick, frantically trying to hold together the last of the Baller Club that still lived.

And Adam, crying alone in his bedroom with a beer in his hand and an ache in his heart.

“Is he mad?” Adam asks. “He didn’t – doesn’t seem mad.”

“He’s not,” Matt answers. “He’s happy for you, I think. He doesn’t really talk about it.” He looks up. “We, actually, don’t talk like we used to. Like we did with you.” It feels like Adam's been hit by a train, but Matt keeps going. “I think you were what made us work, Adam,” Matt says. He doesn’t look up. “Our team – the whole Baller Club – when the pressure was on, we sort of fell apart without you.” He rubs at his eyes. Adam can’t see if he’s crying. “It shouldn’t have taken until you were gone to realize you meant that much to us.” He looks up at Adam, and they're quiet for a moment. Adam still doesn't look directly at Matt, settling for studying the strange pattern on the shoulder of his shirt. “We messed up pretty big, didn’t we?”

Adam nods, slowly. “I think we all messed up.” He finally meets Matt’s bright, brown eyes. Neither of them break eye contact this time. “I’m sorry.”

A little tear builds in Matt’s eye and slides down his cheek. “I’m sorry, too. I should – I knew something was wrong, that day, but I was so focused on winning I just…” He trails off, squeezing his eyes shut, the tears following tracks down his face. “I forgot that you guys are what mattered.”

Adam makes a judgement call and leans in, pulling Matt in for a hug. He feels the tears he’s been trying to ignore for months build and fall, build and fall. Matt holds him back, tightly, and buries his face in Adam’s shoulder. He can feel the tears soak into his shirt, can feel Matt’s little gasps against shirt as he pretends he’s not crying.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says, gripping Matt harder. His hair still smells the same, and feels the same, still soft and silky.

“I’m sorry,” Matt mumbles against Adam’s shirt. He pulls away, wiping at his face. “I was so effing awful to you.”

Adam shrugs. “You thought I’d abandoned you guys. I get it.” And, because he can be a dick, too, he has to add, "But screaming that at me in the middle of the parking lot when I had a concussion did feel a little much."

Matt winces. “I can’t believe I did that, now. I really made a scene that day.”

“You did,” Adam says, gently. “But, I guess, I understand why you did it now. I get it.”

Matt nods. “Well,” he kicks at the ground again. His Jordans are messed up as hell – it’s unlike Matt Jackson to allow his shoes to look rough. “Since our season’s over, you want to, I don’t know, hang out sometime? All of us, like we used to?”

“Not like we used to,” Adam says, but he keeps talking before Matt’s face can fall, “but I actually have an idea.”

“What the fuck is a Beholder and how is it killing me this fast?!” Kenny yells. He’s looking back and forth between Uno and Adam. “How do I kill it?”

“Gotta ask nicely to see if we can defeat it,” Adam says. “Also, roll.”

Kenny gets a four. “Am I dead?”

“That depends,” John says, turning to Mox. “This Beholder is weak against the powers of the unicorn you rescued, but the unicorn will have to willingly give its tears." He raises an eyebrow. "And it can only do that with the permission of its master. Will you give it permission?”

Adam feels prickly as he watches Mox and Kenny lock eyes. Kenny, throwing his hair over his shoulder, trying to make himself admit he needs help. Mox, grinning, unwilling to give it without being asked. It’s the past and the present colliding, and it’s weird.

“What do you think, Halfling Cowboy?” Mox asks, nudging Adam’s shoulder. “You think we should save the human wizard?”

“You’re a human, too!” Nick says. He ka-caws again.

“Yes, Nicholas, we all know you’re a bird man, can you shut up so we can see if our only wizard is going to live?” Matt says. He’s practically bouncing on his toes, standing at the edge of the table. “C’mon, Mox, we can all survive if you let us use your unicorn.”

“It’s all up to my boyfriend, here,” Mox says, wrapping an arm around Adam’s shoulders. “Come on, halfling, what do you say?”

“Stop making me make decisions,” Adam says, “you possessive assholes. Of course we’re using the unicorn tears to destroy the Beholder and save Kenny, what kind of dickwad do you think I am?”

The game continues with this same energy, devolving into Nick exclusively communicating with various bird noises. Matt resorts to tackling him behind the table after he ka-caws while Matt is rolling and gets a three. Adam laughs harder than he remembers doing in a while, burying his face in Mox’s chest while John and Eddie berate them all for behaving like children. Even Stu and Uno, who have managed to break away and go on their own little quest involving saving the town, are having fun. At least, Adam thinks so. Neither of them have spoken outside of their characters the whole time.

“Can I use my connection with the fey kingdom to invade a different supernatural world?” Alan asks, frowning at the board. “Because I think we could get the giants on our side if we can get close enough and let Kenny’s mind control powers work.”

“I like the way you think,” Kenny says, leaning in closer. "That would give us enough power against the incoming Beholders."

“You can’t recruit another race to mind control giants,” John says, shaking his head. He pulls in Alex, and they whisper.

“Absolutely not,” Alex says. "That goes against the rules."

Mox scoffs. “You can’t talk. You’re dead.”

Alex glares at Mox. “And you’re a mediocre healer. Bite me.”

Adam snickers into his hand, and, when he turns his head, he locks eyes with Kenny. His smile is soft and kind, and Adam returns it. It doesn’t ache. Not anymore.

“Get in the car,” Adam says, grabbing Mox by the waist and shoving him. “Eddie, help me with your boyfriend.”

“Oh, he’s my boyfriend when he’s being a little shit,” Eddie says, rolling his eyes. “Typical.”

“He’s both of your boyfriend, and also right here,” Mox says. He shoves his hand in Adam’s back pocket, squeezing.

“Quit getting handsy and get your ass in my truck,” Adam says, and he pretends the way Mox’s hands find their way up under his shirt doesn’t make him shiver and hope for what happens next.

Mox shoots him a grin as he tries to slide into the front seat, but Eddie grabs him around the waist and pulls him out. “Not this time, Moxie,” Eddie says. “Backseat, bitch.”

Adam ignores the whining from Mox and slides into the driver’s seat. Eddie is laughing about something Mox is saying, head thrown back.

“I’m just saying, you’re not the one dating Adam, so I should get to sit next to him.”

“How about you get behind him,” Eddie says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Oh, god,” Adam says, and he feels the blush hit him.

Eddie and Mox laugh at him as he buckles, and it feels warm and safe, like sunshine on a Saturday morning. “You two are the fucking worst,” Adam grumbles, grinning.

“You love me,” Mox says, pressing a kiss to Adam’s head. The hair is slowly growing back in, with the littlest curl at the end of each strand. “Admit it.”

“I do,” Adam says. “I really, really do.”

#This is me GIVING A FUCK #for real though #I am so like weird about the fic being all done I don't even know how to react #HangMox #Hangman Adam Page #Jon Moxley #wtf i like wrestling now???#in which Sara writes #Wrestling High School AU #My babies #Also i'm in like extreme pain right now so hopefully I edited everything right

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

Adam has a run in with someone from his past, and forgets something very important.

Warnings for: underage drinking, Hangst (Hangman Angst tm tm tm), and a lot of misery on the parts of all our boys.

Mini Playlist: Passion for Publication - Anarbor My Own Medicine - The Summer Set Push - Marianas Trench Heart to Break - Kim Petras

Matt Jackson is staring daggers.

“Um,” Adam says, trying to force the bile back down his throat. “That’s my locker.”

“I know it’s your locker,” Matt practically spits. “That’s why I’m here.”

Adam feels himself shrink away from the gaze.

“I want to know what you’re doing,” Matt says. “If you’ve got some plan here or something.”

“Plan – what do you even mean?” Adam sighs. “Look, can I just get my stuff? I don’t want any problems here, Matt. Just let me live.”

Matt steps to the side, but he doesn’t leave. He just keeps looking at Adam, for some god forsaken reason. As Adam grabs his Chemistry book, Matt makes a weird, frustrated noise. “Why are you hanging out with Moxley?” Matt asks. It’s harsh, but there’s something in it. It makes Adam look up at him. Those big, brown eyes look hurt.

“He’s – we’re – he’s my boyfriend,” Adam says. He shuts his locker, a little too hard, and turns. He wants to make his stare make Matt feel just as awful as Matt’s makes him feel. “Why do you even care?”

“Because you’re killing Kenny and it’s wrong!” Matt yells.

Adam glances around, but the hallway is moving along like his world isn’t screeching to a halt. “Why the hell does Kenny care?”

Matt comes at him, too close for Adam to be able to breathe right. “Because he still loves you.”

Adam stumbles backward. “He what?”

“You knew that,” Matt says, sounding almost more like he’s trying to convince himself. “He’s miserable, Adam, and you’re just showing off your new toy like it’s nothing.”

“He broke up with me!” Adam yells. “Why the hell does he get to be upset?”

Matt blinks. “What?”

Adam searches his face for some sort of answer. “Kenny dumped me,” Adam continues. “Told me he didn’t associate with losers, and said we were done.”

“No,” Matt says, shaking his head. “He. He told me…” He trails off, meeting Adam’s eyes. “I gotta go.”

“You – really?” Adam asks, but Matt’s already darting off, running in the opposite direction. Adam steps to his locker to find himself shaking as he tries to pull his phone out of his pocket. He wants to text Mox, maybe Anna. Somebody who can get his head on straight.

“That seemed messy,” comes a voice.

Adam looks up, and there’s Sammy…Guevara? He isn’t sure. He’s never associated much with people on the football team. “I really don’t want to do this right now.”

“Nah, man, it’s cool.” Sammy claps him on the shoulder. “Those soccer kids are dicks, aren’t they. You glad to be away from them?”

Adam can’t help himself from glancing over to the doorway Matt disappeared into. “Uh. Yeah. I guess.”

Sammy eyes him. “You good?”

“No, actually,” Adam says, trying to do his breathing. Four, seven, eight. Four, seven, eight.

Adam doesn’t like the way Sammy studies him, sizes him up, stares into him. “You need something to take the edge off?” he asks.

“Not at school, I don’t,” Adam scoffs, wishing he were at home with a couple cans of beer and his cozy bed.

“You doing anything tonight?” Sammy asks.

Adam shakes his head. “Uh. No.” Mox and Eddie have a match, and he still hasn’t gathered the courage to go watch, doesn’t know what he’d do with himself. He doesn’t even realize he’s about to fall deeper into a habit when he says, “No, I’m not.”

He reflects on that conversation hours later, while he’s in the former football captain’s frat house, surrounded by varying levels of debauchery and chaos. He won’t even consider going into the kitchen, where the older college students are doing various unspeakable things to themselves and each other. He realizes, draining his glass of jungle juice, that it’s not the kind of debauchery and chaos he’d come to love from Mox and Eddie.

“Page, you made it!” Sammy says, clapping him on the shoulder. “You having a good time?” He clacks his plastic cup against Adam’s and the alcoholic sludge splashes all over both of them. “Oops.”

“Uh, yeah,” Adam says, nodding a little absently.

“Wanna chug with me?” Sammy asks. He’s really close to Adam. It makes him feel a little queasy. “Come on, the first glass always sucks. Chris says it gets better the more you drink.”

With a shrug, Adam throws back the concoction and does his best not to gag, swallowing it with only a bit of a fight from his stomach. “That is so gross.”

“That’s how you know it works,” Sammy says with a wink. “Come on. Let me introduce you to people.”

Sammy introduces Adam as “The Big Bitch” from the soccer team to everybody, and Adam hates it enough that he drinks another cup of sludge about it. He loses track of names and faces, getting shuffled around to more people than he’s even met in his life, let alone in one night.

“Yeah, you should’a seen it!” Chris Jericho says, clapping Adam on the back so hard he stumbles. “This guy here runs so fast for a tall guy. Slide tackles like a motherfucker.”

“I didn’t slide tackle!” Adam says, horrified. “That’s against the rules.”

“So’s drinking underage, but you don’t see me judging you for it.” Chris is smiling when he says it, but it makes Adam want to throw up. He throws back his drink again, and things go blurry.

Adam finds himself, cup in hand, sitting at a table with his head spinning. He sits up, a little confused, and looks around.

“He’s awake!” Chris says. “Hey, you know Moxley, right?”

Mox. His Mox. “Yeah! Is he coming?”

“Why don’t you invite him?” There’s something strange in Chris’ voice. It doesn’t – he doesn’t sound very nice right now. Adam can’t quite understand it. “We used to hang with him, ‘til he got all boring.” His smile bites Adam, somehow. “You gonna make him fun again, Big Guy?”

Adam doesn’t want to do anything Chris recommends, but he does want Mox. Mox might help him understand what’s going on here. “’m gonna call him,” Adam says. His mouth feels like it’s full of dust. “I miss him.”

Chris laughs like needles into skin, throwing his head back. “Have fun with that.”

Adam pulls his phone out and pulls up Mox’s phone number, calling.

“Hey, Cowboy – whoa, where are you? I can barely hear you.”

“Mox!” Adam says. He already feels better. “Hi, Mox!”

“Where are you?” Mox’s voice asks.

“I’m at a frat house,” Adam says. “At a party.” He frowns, knowing Mox can’t see him. “It’s a party, but I’m not having fun.”

There’s a pause on the end of the line. “A frat house?”

Adam nods, then realizes there’s no way Mox can see it. “Yeah and I miss you.” He grins. “You could come to the party, too! We can hang out!”

“Give me the address.” Mox’s voice sounds different than Adam is used to hearing. Gruff. He has the strangest feeling he’s forgetting something.

Adam texts Mox the address. “I’ll see you soon?”

“Yeah,” Mox says, and his voice sounds even stranger now. Maybe it’s just the phone. “I’ll be there soon.”

Adam loses track of time and tries to have fun, but he can’t. He just wants to be close to Mox again, and he feels like time is making fun of him for how long it takes.

When he hears that voice, his Mox’s voice, he feels something inside him light up. He stands, and the room wobbles a little.

“Cowboy!” he hears Mox call across the house. He struggles to stand, but stumbles back onto the chair. “Where are ya? I ain’t waiting all night?”

“Here!” Adam says, and he stumbles again, falling back into the chair in a clump. “Uh. In the living room.”

Mox comes over, and is face is wrong. Adam thinks he sees a frown. “Adam?”

“Hi, babe, glad you made it!” He holds up his glass. “Cheers!”

Mox blinks. “Um. What is that?”

Adam shrugs. “Think it’s – think it’s vodka? I dunno. I think Sammy gave it to me. Or maybe Chris. He’s throwing this party.”

“I know,” Mox says, and he’s not touching Adam. Why’s he not touching Adam? “Are you, like…are you good?” He frowns. “I thought you – I thought maybe you needed help or something.”

“I’m totally good,” Adam says, but the word is interrupted with a hiccup.

Mox’s eyes dart around the room. Good. He’ll see that Adam definitely isn’t the drunkest one here. He’ll know this is normal. “Why’re you even here, Adam?”

“It’s a party!” Adam replies, throwing his hands in the air. The drink only splashes on him a little bit, on his sleeve. “See?” He points. “Those guys were on the football team, couple years ago.” Adam points to Chris. “It’s Chris Jericho, you know that?”

“Oh, I know him,” Mox says. He looks angry. “Wish I didn’t.”

Adam nods. “Yeah! And, like, they invited me at school, today. I figured, hey, why not?” He leans in and begins to whisper conspiratorially. “They always said they liked me better than Kenny and Matt and – and Nick.”

“Do you want them to like you?” Mox asks in disbelief. He gestures to the room.

Sammy and Tay are on the couch, making out, which Adam doesn’t think is so bad until he realizes they’re squishing up against two girls who clearly don’t want to be there. Chris is chugging from a funnel in a shirt that says, “Fuck Everybody,” and the funnel’s held by Jake, who Adam, legitimately, has never heard say a word about anything other than Chris Jericho or his hat. Two other guys, who Adam knows vaguely from school but isn’t aware of their names, are shouting at a couple of people about how much they love their son. He’s not positive, but he thinks they’re making some sort of joke.

“It’s a college party,” Adam says, trying to feel worldly, like he understands what’s going on. “Come on, Mox. It’s fun.”

Chris looks over at them. Adam’s about to wave him over, when something strange happens. Chris points to Mox and Adam, then throws his head back, laughing. Adam feels something twist in his chest, something sour like shame.

“You remember I don’t drink, right?” Mox says. He sounds strained. It’s weird. “Why’d you even – why did you want me to come here?”

“To see you!” Adam says. “I always wanna see you. You’re,” he hiccups again, “you’re my favorite, of everybody.”

Mox looks confused and uncomfortable and. And wrong. Something’s wrong. “Adam,” a voice that’s not quite Mox’s says, “I can’t do this. I can’t…I can’t be here.”

“Why not?” Adam asks, standing up and walking toward Mox. He trips over his feet, half stumbles into him.

“Sit down,” Mox says. “Adam, you realize Daniel is over there doing lines off of Chris’ stomach, right?”

Adam looks over. “Yeah! You like cocaine! You like to go to the library and take a cocaine and read!”

“I used to do that,” Mox hisses. “I stopped doing it because it was fucking me up.” He points to the room. “All of this was fucking me up!”

Adam frowns. “I didn’t know they were part of it. Did you do parties like these?” He runs the words through his mind again. Nothing’s coming out right. “Did you have party time – like here?”

“Yes!” Mox says. “With these people. I don’t drink because of shit like this!” He runs his hands over his head, begins pacing. “We talked about this, Adam, I – I promised Eddie I was done with all of this.” He rubs his hand against his jaw. “I don’t want to have to walk away,” His voice is small, his face broken. He looks nothing more than his seventeen years, young for the first time Adam’s been able to see him.

Adam does his best to steady, himself, but he sways when he stands. “I’m fine,” he slurs, and he’s doing what he can, he is, but he’s never had this much vodka at once and it’s making his head feel like slime. “You don’t gotta walk away.”

Mox starts walking backwards away from him, and it fills Adam with a cold dread. This is wrong. Something is so wrong. “Wait, where are you going?”

“I don’t want to be here,” Mox says, and he’s shaking his head. He looks wrong.

“But I – I thought you want to be with me,” Adam says. He can’t move. “I thought you wanted me.”

Mox wipes at his cheek. His eyes are shiny. “I want everything about you,” he says, and it’s so quiet that Adam can barely hear it over the music. “But I don’t want any of this.”

Adam doesn’t know how long it is before Mox – his Jon – leaves, and he’s confused. He’s so confused.

“Hey, saw that Killjoy left,” somebody says, clapping Adam’s shoulder. “Whoa, dude, are you crying?” Daniel Garcia pokes at his face. “Want to do a line of blow? That always makes me feel better when me and my boyfriend are fighting.”

Adam blinks, and Daniel is right, his face is wet. “I don’t – I wanna go home.”

“Party pooper,” Daniel says, and it’s weird to Adam that a freshman is so cool with all of this.

It’s weird, he realizes, that he would be cool with this.

Adam grabs his jacket, checks for his phone and wallet in his pockets, and stumbles out the front door. Nearly sobbing with relief, he fumbles his way down the porch steps without saying goodbye. He wants to find Jon. He wants to find his Mox. He also wants to stop crying.

“My Moxie,” he mumbles, tripping over uneven concrete, vision blurry, “Eddie’s gotta share the name.”

He follows the ice-damaged road until he hits the turn, and he sees somebody at the end on a bike, walking it over the stretch of potholes Adam remembers his truck bouncing on. Adam doesn’t call out to him. He doesn’t say anything. It’s not fair to ask this of Mox.

And then he’s the one who catches on a pothole, and goes down with a yell so loud he’s pretty sure it echoed.

The person on the bike stops, looks behind them, then makes their way toward him, calling, “Are you okay?”

Adam doesn’t respond. He doesn’t move. He doesn’t want to make Mox cry again. He’ll be okay. He wants Mox to get home safe.

“Adam?” Mox asks, dropping his bike and rushing to him. Adam dimly notes that Mox doesn’t trip on any of the potholes, and he’s a little bit envious. “What the fuck are you doing?”

“I had to leave,” Adam mumbles, and he feels a little like he’s choking. He touches his face – the crying is probably doing that. “You weren’t happy I was there. I was doing – I wasn’t being who I need to be. Not for you. Had to go.”

“By yourself?!” Mox grabs him by the armpits and hauls him up, and Adam is mildly proud of himself for being able to stand. “Adam, you could have gotten hurt!” He looks down. “Fuck. You did get hurt.”

“M okay,” Adam says.

“No,” Mox says, “you’ve got blood all on your pants.”

Adam looks down and, yeah, Mox is right. His favorite jeans have a massive tear and a bloodstain. “Oh.”

“We’ll walk to the end of the road,” Mox says. He grabs Adam’s hand. It feels like a lifeline. “When we get to a normal, paved road again, you’ll get on my handlebars, if you can stay there.”

“Going home?” Adam asks, blinking slowly.

Mox nods, one hand on Adam and the other on the bike. “We’re going back your house. Get you settled in.”

“Parents are gone,” Adam mumbles. “Did so good last time they gone they took a weekend trip.”

Mox grumbles something like, “Can’t leave your dumb ass alone.”

Adam manages to stay balanced all the way home, doesn’t fall over back onto Mox more than once, and they reach Adam’s house. Adam doesn’t even almost throw up. Though he does want to, at one point. He pulls his key out from the necklace under his shirt. “Key.”

“Give me that,” Mox says, and he grabs it from Adam and shoves it in the lock. “Come on, Cowboy, let’s get you cleaned up.”

Mox does a fantastic job, even helping Adam gently work his jeans down so it’s easier to take care of the bloody mess that used to be his knee. Adam barely feels anything but shame as Mox meticulously cleans the scrape. He watches with a detached interest as the hydrogen peroxide bubbles and fizzes.

Mox looks up at him, big blue eyes kind but tired. “You scared the shit out of me tonight.”

Adam nods, but the motion makes his stomach do something funny. Mox leans to the side. “You gotta throw up?”

Adam shakes his head. “I’m okay.”

“Don’t –“ He stops himself. “Baby, you are so far from okay.”

Adam shrugs. He could have told Moxley that. They’re silent for a while, Mox checking Adam’s leg for any further injury.

“You fix up Eddie’s scratches after matches?” Adam asks.

“Yeah,” Mox says. “All of us wrestlers, we gotta take care of ourselves, you know?” He looks up at Adam again. “Are you okay if I stay over?”

Adam blinks. “Why do you want to?”

Mox’s face crumples, but he’s still, somehow, smiling. Adam’s pretty sure he’s still too drunk to understand what’s happening. “God, you beautiful idiot,” he sighs. “Because I think I love you, and you left the party for me, and I’m worried you’ll bleed out or choke on your vomit if you stay here alone, okay?”

Adam loses his grip on the side of the bathtub and almost slides in. “You love me?”

“Kinda wish I didn’t, right now,” Mox says, sitting next to Adam, “but, yeah. You reckless dumbass. I love you. It’s why I had to walk away earlier.” He turns to Adam, those blue eyes honest and kind and…and all Mox.

“I’m sorry,” Adam says, voice as small as he feels. “I forgot – I forgot that part.” He kicks at the trash can.

“Water under the bridge,” Mox says, resting his hand on top of Adam’s leg. “You left. That means something.”

“You mean something,” Adam says, and he stops. That’s not what he meant. “I mean, to me. And I did a bad job of showing you that today.” He grabs at Mox’s face and turns it to his own. “Mox. I love you, too.” He tries to remember how eye contact works. “I’m so bad at it and I want you to know I am going to try better – do better. I want you to know I love you right.”

Mox laughs. “I know,” he says, and leans in, pressing a gentle kiss to Adam’s lips. “I want you to take a shower.”

Adam wiggles his eyebrows. “Try’na get me outta my pants?”

“You’re already out of your pants, dumbass,” Mox says. “But, no. It’ll help you sober up. You don’t want to go to bed hammered.”

“Done it before,” Adam says, shrugging. “But beer’s different?”

Mox studies him. “You – you’ve been drunk before?”

Adam nods, and a voice in the back of his head tells him to stop. He ignores it. “Drink some beers in the shower sometimes. ‘sno big deal.”

“Hey,” Mox says, “we’re gonna talk about this in the morning. You don’t need to talk about it now, okay? We’re gonna get you cleaned up a little more and then go to bed.”

Adam nods, and, later, when he feels clean and soft and warm, he curls against Mox in the bed, and wishes this could last forever.

“Rise and shine, fuckhead.”

Adam wants to die. Just a little bit. “Why?”

“Gotta make sure you feel the hangover,” Mox says, and he sounds way too happy about it. “Vodka’s a bitch, baby.”

“So are you,” Adam grumbles, rolling over. “Let me sleep.”

“Later,” Mox says. “Drink the Gatorade.”

Adam blindly reaches out for it, and wraps his hand around a glass. “Thanks.” He sips slowly, and, to be fair, it does make his mouth feel better. “You mad at me?”

“A little,” Mox says, and Adam appreciates the honest. “You were pretty fucked up last night.”

Adam feels his face burn red. “Yeah. I – yeah. I really am sorry.” He forces himself to look at Mox. “You were amazing last night. I didn’t deserve it.” He fidgets with the Gatorade label. “You shouldn’t have wasted your time on me.”

“You don’t get to decide that,” Mox says. “I chose to help you, because you’re cute and funny and, most of the time, you take care of me the way I need it.” He smiles, but it quickly fades. “But last night you were kind of scary and I almost was ready to end it. So we need to talk about this.”

Adam forces himself not to squirm. He doesn’t want to talk about it. “Okay,” he says, against every instinct in his body.

“I told you last night, I love you,” Mox says, putting a hand on Adam’s where it rests on top of the blanket, “but I’m not willing to self-destruct for anybody else. I’ve tried that before.”

“Me too,” Adam says, with a sigh. “So – are you…” He swallows, taking a deep breath. “Are you breaking up with me?”

Mox startles. “What? No. I mean, not unless you aren’t willing to work on this.” He laces his fingers with Adam’s. “I said I’m not willing to self-destruct. That means I’m not going to be around somebody who’s going to party and drink all the time,” he stares Adam straight in the eye, “even if I love them. So I need you to – and I hate the way I have to say this – decide. Do you want to keep partying, or do you want to keep this up?” He won’t look at Adam now, his eyes down at their intertwined fingers. “I’m not going to beg you either way. I want you to decide for yourself.”

“You,” Adam says, immediately. “I – you, obviously. Come on.”

Mox raises an eyebrow. “That was fast.”

Adam shrugs. “If I’m being honest, I don’t exactly like the parties or anything.”

“What about those shower beers you mentioned last night?”

Adam gets hot all over, throws off the comforter, leans his back up against the wall. It makes his head pound, but he needs some space right now, from the world and from Mox. “I forgot I told you about that.”

“But ya did,” Mox says, patting his thigh. “And that’s part of it. You know that’s, like, a terrible coping mechanism, right? It’s called a maladaptive behavior.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “Not to be a dick, but is that something you learned on one of your cocaine fueled library escapades?”

“No,” Mox says, “that was afterwards, when I was in Psychology class last year. But, seriously, if you’re having issues, talk to your parents. Or to me. Or, hell, your guidance counselor.”

“Not my guidance counselor,” Adam insists, “I have Ms. Green.”

Mox wrinkles his nose. “Okay, not Green. But Mr. Pham or somebody.”

Adam considers it, and nods, almost automatically. “I know.”

Mox stares him down. “And if you do it again, and I find out, I’m telling your parents.”

“What?!”

“Jennifer loves me, what can I say?”

Adam falls back against the pillows, ignoring the headache. “Please don’t call my mom by her first name.”

“Oh, can I call Paul by his?”

“No!”

Head screaming, Adam grabs his dad’s old bike from the garage and he and Mox ride to pick up his car from Chris’ house. They manage to get in and out without consequence – it seems like the entire place is asleep.

“How early is it?” Adam grumbles. He pulls his phone from his pocket and glances down. “Oh. You woke me up at, like, seven on a Saturday morning.”

Mox shrugs. “I told you. I needed to make sure you felt the hangover.”

“I could leave you here to bike home,” Adam says, threat empty. “I could take off.”

Mox throws his bike up into the bed of the truck, then Adam’s. Like it’s nothing. Adam gets a little hot about it. Mox looks up at him grinning. “I really don’t think you could.”

#HangMox #Wrestling High School AU #in which Sara writes #wtf i like wrestling now???#SO MANY TAGS goddamnit #Hangman Adam Page #Jon Moxley #I'm tired

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

Adam runs into Kenny. Literally. And it leads him to make a conclusion he didn't expect.

Happy new year! I hope 2023 gives you all the great things you deserve. There's a shoutout in here to my favorite Texas wrestler. High fives if you catch it!

Mini Playlist: Fallout - Marianas Trench Hair - Little Mix Where I Wanna Be - Arizona Rock to My Roll - Anarbor

Adam is very, very late. Well, for him. His mom always told him: fifteen minutes early is on time, on time is late, and late is fired. And Adam would be fired this morning.

He parks and dives out the truck with the seatbelt still on, practically hanging himself before he manages to get it off.

“Fuck,” he grumbles, throwing his backpack over his shoulder. He sprints toward the building as he checks the time. Seven thirty five. He’s only missed five minutes. This isn’t terribly late. He can get the day back.

He crashes into somebody, and the two of them flail over each other onto the floor.

“Adam, what the fuck?”

The sound of his name, from those lips, drags ice from somewhere deep he’d kept hidden. He lifts his head to confirm the worst. Kenny is sprawled out under him. It brings back some memories that are wildly inappropriate for this, and Adam wants to punch his own lights out, just for a way to get out of this situation. “Sorry,” Adam blurts out.

“You should – should really watch where you’re going,” Kenny says. His eyes are the same. His face is the same. How is everything the same when everything is so different?

Kenny locks eyes with him, and they’re so still and silent, Adam doesn’t know what’s coming. They both move at once: Kenny reaching for a rogue curl that Adam missed in his haste to make his hair manageable this morning, Adam pushing off of him.

Adam flinches at the way Kenny’s fingers curl around his hair, rolling off of the mess. Kenny pushes himself up. He looks startled, taken off guard. Adam’s never seen that in Kenny’s eyes. It makes him feel itchy. It makes him feel like this is wrong.

“I hope you, uh,” Adam doesn’t even know what he’s saying, “have a good day. Other than this, I mean.” He scrambles to his feet and makes sure to grab all of his stuff, not to touch anything of Kenny’s.

“You too,” Kenny calls after him, but, when Adam glances back against his better judgement, Kenny is still sitting on the floor.

“Whoa, slugger, what’s the deal?” Jon asks. He’s stretched out on his chair, feet up on his desk and arm around the back of Adam’s chair. His hair is gone. All the pink, it’s gone. It’s not quite buzzed, longer, but it’s brown and short and different.

It proves it for Adam. If Jon can do it, he can do it, too.

“I think I wanna cut my hair,” Adam blurts out, practically falling into his chair so he can bury his face into Jon’s chest.

“Uh, not to seem like an idiot,” Jon says, patting Adam gently on shoulder, nudging him so Jon can see his face. “But what?”

“My hair,” Adam says. “I want to cut it off. It’s in my way, I’m sick of it.” He yanks out the elastic.

Jon looks at him, head tilting to the side. “I mean, sure, you do you, but what’s with the urgency?”

“I - I,” Adam pauses. He feels breathless, off kilter. Almost scared. “I don’t know.”

“Hey,” Jon says, gently. “Hey, talk to me.”

Adam looks around the room. A junior, Raychell Rose, is at her desk next to him writing god knew what in that journal of hers, but everybody else is talking amongst themselves. Mr. Pham isn’t even here yet. Maybe Adam really did overreact about being late. “I ran into Kenny.”

Jon’s eyebrows shoot up. “Like…?”

“Like literally,” Adam says. His heart isn’t racing as much. Jon’s got a hand on his knee, brushing it, anchoring Adam. “Like I’m late and I crashed into him. Literally.”

Jon’s face goes hard. “Did he do something to you?” His eyes are intense, firm, almost fiery. “Do I need to kick his ass?”

“No, oh my god, no,” Adam says. “I just – it freaked me out. I need – I need to do something.” Adam touches his hair, the same curl Kenny’s fingers had brushed earlier. And it hits him. “I had this hair when he – when we were together. I want to get rid of it.”

Jon relaxes a little. “I get that.” He rubs at his newly shorn head. “Did this when I was given shitty booking to lose a wrestling match, so I get it.”

“I do miss the pink, but,” Adam tilts his head. “Wrestling match? You’re not on the wrestling team.”

Jon barks out a laugh. “Oh, baby, no. I mean back yard wrestling. Where you beat the shit out of your friends and your enemies, but it’s planned, so nobody gets mad about it.” He pauses. “I told you about this. Didn’t I?”

Adam shakes his head. “Wrestling like – like they do on TV?”

Jon steps closer, crowding into Adam’s space like he likes. “We got a lot more blood than TV.”

“Well mark me down as scared and horny,” Adam quotes, and he laughs when Jon gets a handful of his ass, and hauls him in for a kiss. Adam forgets to freak out that he’s doing this in a classroom, and they only break apart when Mr. Pham says, “Y’all, keep it in your pants, we’ve got global inequity to discuss!”

“Oh my god!” says the girl with purple, bouncing hair. “Jonny, you didn’t tell me he was so cute!”

“Jonny?!” Adam says, looking at Jon with glee.

“I told you not to call me, that, Wills,” Jon grumbles. “Quit that.”

“Oh, like you can get Willow to stop a nickname,” another girl, this one with green hair, says. “Yo, Eddie, Jon’s whining.”

Eddie comes in with his usual swagger, drawing all attention to him. “I gotta shut you up or something, Moxie?”

“Oh, god, this is my hell,” Jon whines, dropping his head in his hands.

“I’m having a great time,” Adam says. He sticks out his hand. “Hi. I’m Adam. Page. Adam Page. I’m Jon’s – ” He pauses.

“He’s Moxie’s other boyfriend,” Eddie says, clapping a heavy hand on Adam’s shoulder. “Prettier’n me, but a more sappy fuck, from what I can understand. Whatcha here for, Pagey?”

Jon snorts.

“Oh, no,” Adam says. “Please don’t call me Pagey.”

“Too late,” Eddie says, and the grin on his face would be infuriating if it wasn’t so joyful. “What’re you here for?”

“He wants to cut his hair,” Jon says. “He’s having emotions or whatever about his breakup.”

“Ooh!” Willow says, clapping her hands. “Let me see. Straight?”

Adam blinks. “Um. No. I’m with Jon, remember?”

The other girl practically falls on the floor laughing. “Oh, fuck, Mox. He’s so fucking cute.”

“Shut up, Ruby,” Jon says, poking at her with the toe of his boot. He turns to Adam. “She means your hair. And it’s curly, for the record.”

Willow nods. With the most delicate hands, she reaches up to pull the hair tie from Adam’s hair. It falls down his shoulders. He can’t remember the last time he cut it, and he’s pretty sure he’s never had it this long. “It’s lovely,” she says, gentle fingers separating the curls. Adam’s pretty sure he’s never seen kinder eyes. “You know why you want to cut it?”

Adam nods. “My ex was kind of, I don’t know, obsessed with it? I want to have hair he hasn’t touched.”

She cups his cheeks. “You want ownership of your whole self,” she says gently. He doesn't know how someone he's just met understands him this well. But he's glad for it. “Come on. I’m trash at cutting hair, but, if you want to dye it, I can help with that.”

Adam shakes his head. “I, uh, I don’t think I want to dye it.”

“That’s fine,” Ruby says, grabbing his hand. “Come on, sit.”

Adam follows her lead, and is glad to see Jon following behind. “You like being called Moxie?”

“Not Jonny, not Moxie,” Jon says firmly. “But I do like going by Mox. I like my last name best.”

“Mox,” Adam tries, tasting it on his tongue. “I like that.”

Jon, or Mox, he supposes, positively beams. “I like how it sounds when you say it.”

“Okay, you two, quit flirting,” Willow says. “If you keep up those heart eyes Ruby’ll stab you in them.”

“Will not!” Ruby argues, but her point is weakened by the way she’s wielding her scissors. She adjusts him in the chair about six times, because she’s really quite tiny, but when she gets him where she wants him she smooths her hands over his hair. “It really is lovely,” she says. “You want to buzz it, go bald? Do a fade type thing?”

“Buzz it,” Adam says automatically. “It’s just hair, it’ll grow back.” He doesn't want the curls right now. He doesn't want something Kenny could reach out and touch like he had that morning.

“You sure?” Mox asks, reaching out to twist a curl around his finger. It's different from Kenny's touch.

Adam nods, resolute. “I want it short, like yours.” His smile grows gentle. “Make it so nobody’s touched it other than you.”

“Damn it, you sweet talk better than I do, too,” Eddie grumbles. He nudges Mox with his shoulder. “You’re still gonna keep me, right?”

Mox pulls him in, presses a firm kiss to the side of his head. “Always.”

Adam is surprised to find it charming, to find it adorable. He’s not jealous or upset this time. He’s happy for them.

“Gross,” Ruby says, but she’s smiling as she dances around Adam’s face. “Alright, let’s get you started.”

The buzzing sound of the clippers makes him flinch, but, before he can panic, Mox takes his hand. “Jumpy,” he teases. “I’m right here.”

Eddie starts talking about the matches from the past weekend, and Adam is enthralled as he feels the clippers gently pass over his head. Ruby and Willow wrestle, too, and apparently they pretend to hate each other during it.

“I’m a heel,” Ruby explains.

“I wanted to be, but nobody believes it when I try,” Willow says. She’s got a bit of a pout when she does.

“That’s because you’re a right fuckin’ ray of sunshine,” Eddie says, leaning in to kiss her cheek. She beams, and Adam can tell right then and there that Willow will be one of his favorite people. Possibly forever.

“Okay,” Ruby says, after longer than he expected, “all done.”

Adam reaches up to touch his head, and is startled to find…nothing.

“Oh, I’m bald,” he says. “Like, legit bald.”

“Yep,” Ruby says. “But, if you’re freaking out, it will grow back. Probably curlier than before.”

“That sounds good to me,” Mox says, grinning.

Adam stands as Willow and Ruby guide him to a mirror, with Eddie behind them saying, “Not the one in the bedroom! Don’t let him see my bedroom!”

“It’s messy,” Mox says in Adam’s ear, sending shivers down his spine, “it’s not for any, like murdery reason.”

“I hate that you felt you needed to clarify that,” Adam mutters back, but any further comments are silenced by the man looking back at him in the mirror. It hits him that the person, the man, is himself. “Whoa.”

His eyes are the focus now. Blues and greens in his eyes stand out when he looks at his face, the red of his lips, and it’s almost too much.

“You look great,” Ruby says, patting his shoulder. “Not to toot my own horn, but the buzz cut ended up being nice and even.” She rubs his head. “Plus, your head feels nice.”

Mox looks at him, expectantly.

“Yes,” Adam says, grumbling as he leans down a little, “you can all pet my head.”

There’s murmurs of delight as everybody rubs at his newly shaved head, but he can’t stop looking at himself. He looks different. Older. But mostly different. Mox rests his hands on Adam's shoulders, gentle.

“I’m ordering pizza,” Willow announces, grabbing at Eddie’s and Ruby’s hands. She gives Adam a knowing look, like she knows what he thought of before it even fully formed in his mind. “Come on, we need to pool our cash to make sure we have enough money.”

Eddie opens his mouth to say something, but Ruby, who apparently caught on, slaps her hand over his mouth. “Dude, they’re having a moment, give them a second.”

Adam grins, ducking his head as they walk away. He wonders for the first time if the blush that so often paints his cheeks will spread to his scalp, if his emotions will be even more apparent now.

He wonders if he’s worn his hair as a shield for all this time.

“You look great, if that’s what you’re freaking out about,” Mox murmurs, pressing a kiss to the side of Adam’s neck. He slides his hands down Adam's arms. “I like it.”

Adam leans back into him, reaching behind for his hands and pulling them around himself. Mox gets the hint and hugs him tight, resting his chin on Adam’s shoulder. “I wish so much of me wasn’t him,” Adam says, and it’s half to himself in the mirror and half to the boy who’s held him up.

“It’s not,” Mox says, so firm it makes Adam meet his eyes in the mirror. “You’re Adam. You’re the dorky ass cowboy who looks good when he laughs and better when he’s naked.” He spins Adam so there’s no more mirror warring for his attention. “I like you because you, Adam Page, are a goddamn dream, okay?” He cups Adam’s face in his hands, grabbing with a little more intent than Adam’s used to. “Stop comparing yourself to who you were when he thought he owned you.”

Adam swallows. He knows this moment means a lot, he knows he should be taking it to heart, but Mox’s lips look soft and pretty, and Adam’s never been the best at willpower. He leans in, diving so he can maybe taste a few of those words before they fall away into the air, and Mox grabs him with such tenacity that Adam feels like, maybe, he’ll be anchored here as long as he needs to be.

He walks Mox backward until his back hits the door and Adam can line his body up against Mox’s. He knows there’s people on the other side of the door, but he’s seventeen and stupid and so into this guy that he doesn’t care.

Mox presses right back against him, giving as good as he’s getting, and Adam thinks he could get drunk on this better than on anything else.

“No having sex on my bed!” Eddie yells.

Adam pulls away, grinning. “Eddie has spoken.”

#HangMox #Hangman Adam Page #Jon Moxley #wtf i like wrestling now???#tumblr has been a fucking mess with posting this jesus #in which Sara writes #Wrestling High school AU

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

Life is a little easier, somehow, with Jon around. It's weirder, it's pinker, but it's better. Until other people are involved.

For reference, Mox's hair is neon pink circa his CZW days. The ponytail and the pink screamed High School AU Mox.

This is his first time getting enough sleep his first few weeks of school, probably since sixth grade. Without soccer practice and Baller Club nonsense in the afternoons, he’s able to relax with Jon and get homework done without having to constantly perform or get distracted by Kenny. Nobody is dragging him away from his bed to do unexpected drills in the middle of the night or throwing parties where he’s the only one wishing there was alcohol. Where he pours a bottle of beer or two into a water bottle and drinks it before the night starts, just to survive it.

It's just him, and Jon, and sometimes Eddie, getting homework done in the library or at somebody’s kitchen table. Eddie’s parents are never around, Jon’s flit in and out between jobs, but Adam’s mom has told him she likes “those two boys” and Adam feels. Well, he feels safe.

“Just read it out loud to me,” Adam whines. He’s upside down on the couch, feet up on the wall like his mom hates. “The words get fuzzy after too long.”

“You’re the worst,” Jon says from the floor. He’s sitting at the coffee table, cross legged on the floor. “Your mother has asked you a million times not to do that, and I’ve only been over here four times.”

“Please?” Adam asks. He does his best to turn on the puppy eye pout, but it’s difficult from this angle.

Jon groans. “God, you’re lucky you’re pretty.” He reads aloud from the text, and they work together to answer the questions. The first in class essay is next week, and Adam is determined to get it all right. Adam shifts, rolling back to the floor in a graceless flop, so he can grab his journal and get going. Jon watches him with mild interest as he scribbles across the page. “You got dyslexia, right?”

Adam pauses. “No. What? No.”

Jon scoots closer to him, peering over Adam’s shoulder in a way that is a little too close for Adam to be breathing steady about it. “Your handwriting’s, like, inconsistent in a consistent way. And you slant in a weird way, like that.” He points to the word ‘economical’ which, okay, Adam only knows is economical because he’s the one who wrote it. But bad handwritings normal, right?

“It’s just like Eddie does it,” Jon muses. “Here, wait.” He holds up his hands like two thumbs up. “Which one is a b and which is a d?”

“Both of those are hands and I’ve got the d right here,” Adam says, not quite getting the joke but knowing when to ‘yes and’ when the moment calls for it.

Jon shakes his head. “Keep it in your pants, Cowboy, stay focused.” He thinks for a moment, leaving Adam intrigued. “Okay, let me try something.” He grabs Adam’s computer and pulls something up. Within a few moments of Jon typing like a madman, the whole screen changes, and the words seem…clearer.

He grabs the computer from Jon, and finds it easier than ever to read the paragraph on the page. “How’d you do that?”

“It’s a font that helps people read when they have issues with it,” Jon says. “A couple years back, Eddie was in my freshman English class when he was a junior, he was having a bunch of issues. I basically bullied him into asking for help and, lo and behold, he’s dyslexic.” Jon shrugs.

“I can’t be dyslexic,” Adam says, feeling his world rock just a little bit. “I’m in AP classes.”

“Dyslexia doesn’t mean, like, you can’t be smart,” Jon says. “It just means that the way your brain processes things visually doesn’t always match the words in front of you. Some people theorize it’s three dimensional thinking forced to view the word in two dimensions, and that’s why reading’s so hard.”

Adam just blinks at him, suddenly very aware that his pants are too tight. “How do you know all that?”

Jon shrugs. “I told you. Cocaine and the library.”

“I thought that was a joke.”

Jon shakes his head. “Not at all. I got an A in Jefferson’s history class because I got stupid high and read every primary source on African colonization, just to spite the asshole.”

Adam fidgets. He doesn’t want Jon to stop talking, and he’s not sure why. “Really.”

Jon grins. “Did I tell you about the time I learned all about medieval –“

He stops talking, because Adam has always been so, so weak for nerds and Jon Moxley, somehow, is a big fucking nerd. Adam gets lost in it, the way they get a little too bold, the way their hands travel with a little more confidence. Adam finds himself swinging legs over to straddle Jon’s hips.

“I want,” Adam breathes, shivering as Jon’s mouth moves down his neck, “I want…”

“Yeah?” Jon asks, hands brushing them of Adam’s shirt, skirting along Adam’s skin, burning along the way. “What do you want, Cowboy?”

Adam doesn’t have the words for it, but the answer is yes and everything and all of you.

That’s when the car door slams.

Flailing, Adam practically launches off of Jon’s lap, loses his balance, and falls backwards into the table, his head landing with a sickening crack.

“Oh, jeez,” he hears from Jon. “Adam, are you okay?”

Adam blinks and sits up. The world is spinning a little, but he can see Jon, and he smiles. “I’m fine. And you’re fine. Because you’re pretty.”

Jon rolls his eyes. “Oh, god, he’s dying.” He adjusts his pants, which makes Adam giggle a little deliriously, then walks to the door.

“Mr. and Mrs. Page, um, Adam hit his head kind of hard, and I think he has a concussion.”

“My brain is fine!” Adam yells, but he sits up and throws up on the floor, so he might be wrong.

“Addy?” It’s his mom’s voice. “Oh, baby, not again.”

“I heard the door close and I jumped,” Adam mumbles. “Not in the same spot as third grade.”

“That’s when he hit his head trying to do a backflip off a slide,” Adam’s dad explains. It takes Adam a second to realize he’s speaking to Jon, because he was so focused on watching his mom get towels from the linen closet and spread it all over what used to be his dinner. “Smacked the top of his head on the underside because he didn’t jump out far enough.” His voice pauses. “Adam, how’d you get on the floor?”

“Kissin’ Jonny,” he mumbles, feeling more dazed than he should. Then he processes what he just said. He opens his eyes and clears them a little bit to see Jon standing there, trying to look less terrified than he clearly feels. “Um,” Jon says, glancing down at Adam. “Mr. Page, I, uh. I swear I did not cause that.”

“He was just being – being – ow.” Adam has to stop talking, because he thinks if he stops talking than the bells in his head will stop slamming. “Oh, kinda like the first one.”

“Jon, bud, will you help me haul this dumbass I call my kid up on the couch?” His dad says. Adam feels arms at his armpits and under his legs.

“Thanks,” Adam mumbles, stomach roiling again. “Oh, god, this is just like third grade.”

“Anything I can do?” Jon asks. His eyes keep darting between Adam and Adam’s dad, looking panicked still.

“He didn’t cause it,” Adam groans, and nothing is funny at all anymore. Not even a little bit. “I got startled and fell backwards.”

“You’ve got a helluva knot in the back of your head,” Adam’s dad says, eyeing it. “Bleeding like a bitch, but that’s head wounds for ya.”

“I’ve got the ice,” says his mother.

The next few hours are blurry, but Jon’s voice is there at the beginning.

“I’ve got to get home,” he says, pressing a kiss to Adam’s forehead. “But you’re the biggest idiot on the planet and I’m glad I get to put my tongue in your mouth.”

“Romantic,” Adam mutters, half asleep. “Kiss me for real?” Adam opens his eyes to see Jon rolling his eyes.

“Fuckin’ fine, you little whiner,” he says, but he kisses Adam like he means it, and that’s worth the pain.

He goes to the doctor a little while after that, his father babbling on about the logistics of solar vs. other methods energy for god knows what reason, and the doctor diagnoses him with -

“Concussion,” Dr. Wimblay says. “Just like the one all those years back, actually. Same spot, too.”

His dad sighs. “I wish I could say that’s unexpected, but our boy here’s never been careful with himself.”

Adam doesn’t want to think about how real that is.

He’s stuck at home, doing nothing in a dark room, for Saturday and Sunday, but the doctor allows him to return to school on Monday as long as he wears sunglasses and doesn’t look too much into the light, along with some other specifics his mother had emailed to his teachers.

“And no technology,” his mother says, like he hasn’t heard this a hundred times. “Even if they try to insist, no technology. You have a note.”

“A note on my phone, which may be a bit difficult to get if I’m not allowed to touch technology.”

There’s footsteps, then the light goes off, and his mom lifts up his sunglasses. “No sass, Mr. Concussion.”

He’s able to handle the ride to school, with only a bit of discomfort, but he’s glad he was able to call John and Anna and have them guide him from his mother’s car.

“We could walk you right into traffic,” Anna says, cheerily. “Let you crash into a wall. Push you down the stairs.”

“We would never do that,” John says firmly, his hands tight around Adam’s shoulder and waist.

“We could,” Anna singsongs. “It would be so easy.”

“You’re absolutely terrifying, you know that?” Adam mutters, and he’s glad for the ability to see basic outlines of things around him, because he can’t exactly guarantee Anna isn’t slowly poisoning everyone on campus and doesn’t want to trigger her murder response to a more immediate method.

Anna hums happily. “I do. And I love it.”

They get to AP Human Geography, where Jon is waiting. He thinks. It’s the general, vague, shape of Jon.

“Hey, Mr. Brain Injury, how ya doing?”

“Oh, shut up,” Adam grumbles, but he reaches out and pulls Jon to him for a quick, graceless kiss.

Somebody pulls on the sleeve of his shirt. “You’re aware you just kissed Jon Moxley, right?”

“Yes, John.”

“I thought you said I’m the only John you’d be willing to kiss.” Adam can hear the pout in John’s voice, and also the actual laugh from Jon.

“That was an actual conversation?!” Anna asks. “Oh, you’re on your own, blind cowboy. I’ve got shit to do.”

“If it makes you feel better,” Adam says, patting John on what he thinks is his shoulder, “his name doesn’t have an H, so it’s technically a different name.”

“Acceptable,” John says. He pats Adam on the butt, because John, and Adam feels him walk away.

An arm is thrown around his shoulders. “Your friends are weird.”

“My friends are either weird or bitchy.” He considers it. “Or both, if it’s Anna.”

“Or Matt,” Jon says, but it’s under his breath. “Let’s get you in here,” Jon says, shaking him a bit as they go through the door. “I’ll keep an eye on you, make sure you don’t get your ass flattened by a deadly chair or something.”

Adam berates him for that until Mr. Pham comes over.

“So I got your mother’s email,” he says by way of a greeting. “And, apparently, it’s real.”

Adam nods. “I’d show you the medical note on my end, but I’m not supposed to use technology.”

Mr. Pham tilts his head. “So, the typed essay? The chapter review today?”

“Oh, uh,” says Adam, “I’m not supposed to be looking at lights. Doctor says no because of my brain.”

Jon snort laughs next to him, and pats his arm. Adam rather blindly waves around and slaps Jon in the chest. “Shut up.”

Mr. Pham raises an eyebrow (Adam thinks) and looks between the two of them. “Fine. If you are concussed, I believe you, but you need to get this essay prep done somehow.”

“I can handwrite it,” Adam offers.

“And the reading?” Pham asks. “We don’t have any paper copies or audiotexts of the textbook.”

“That’s ableist,” Jon grumbles.

“Putting a pin in that for now, because you’re right, but we need to figure out the plan for right now.” Mr. Pham eyes the two of them.

Jon’s shoulder moves against Adam’s. “I’ll read it for him.”

Mr. Pham sighs. “Well, I wish I had a reason to tell you no. As long as the two of you get the practice essay and the reading completed, I’m fine with that.” He taps on Adam’s desk. “You. No more concussions this year. We have too much work to get done.”

Adam nods, and tries to look up at Mr. Pham, but the sunglasses make it almost impossible. “Yes, definitely, we can make that happen.”

Technically, it does happen. Adam’s messy handwriting gets even worse than it usually is, and the summary he writes is barely legible even by himself, but it gets done.

“I want to be nice to you,” Pham says when Adam hands him the paper. “But this is around what I get from my four year old on birthday cards.”

Adam smiles apologetically. “I couldn’t really see.”

“Alright,” Pham says, with a sigh. “Talk to me.” Adam decides he might be his favorite teacher ever, because Pham gives him the chance to explain his thought process out loud instead of just failing him on the spot. “I wanted to be nice, but that handwriting was bad enough that I think my brain was dying,” Pham sighs.

Adam rattles off what he and Jon determined to be the most important details of the chapter and its impacts on the greater global stage, and Pham nods, round blob through the sunglasses.

“Jon, I assume you’ll be writing your review, not just taking credit for Adam’s work?” Pham asks.

Jon gives him a piece of paper. “Done.”

Pham exhales. “Damn it. I was hoping to get out of grading two responses. Fine.” He takes it, then claps Adam on the shoulder. “Good work, kid. Please never make me read handwriting that bad outside of my own home again.”

Jon walks Adam to his next class, which is almost cute, but the Dark Order takes over from there. At lunch, Eddie makes no fewer than seven jokes about Adam’s concussion, but Adam decides it’s a friendly tease as opposed to actual malice. Based on what he’s seen of Eddie in the past, mockery is kind of his love language. That and punching.

“Seriously, man, Moxie told me all about it. It’s adorable. It’s fuckin’ embarrassing, but it’s adorable.” Eddie claps him on the shoulder, and Adam chokes on the school mac and cheese.

“I’m beginning to regret sitting at this table,” Adam grumbles. He misses the garlic bread when he reaches for it the first time. Figures.

“No, you’re not,” Jon says, and he leans close enough that Adam can see his big grin. “After school me and Eddie’ll drive you home. Sound good?”

Adam nods, doing his best to eat like a normal person. “Just don’t let me get lost.”

After Chemistry class, Alex finds John and they insist on going out of their way to walk Adam to French class. Nyla greets him at the door, which seems nice, until she makes fun of him for his sunglasses for three straight minutes.

“Hey, at least you’re not stuck in the barns today,” she says, patting him on the arm. “Imagine how much cow shit you’d step in.”

Adam snorts. “Fair.” The double block is longer than Adam likes, with a headache slowly creeping in that starts pounding halfway through, and begins to scream when the bell goes off.

“You good?” Nyla asks. He can’t see her face, but she sounds less mocking than usual. It’s weird. He must really look rough. “You need me to call somebody?”

Adam shakes his head, immediately regretting it. The bells are screaming again, this time internally. “Actually, yeah.” He fumbles in his pocket, unlocks his phone by muscle memory.

“Ooh, 1234, clever password,” Nyla says as she takes it from him. “Anyway, who do I text?”

“Jon Moxley,” Adam says.

Nyla makes a little impressed sound. “Look at you, rolling with the bad boys.”

“I’m not – they’re – ” Adam splutters, unsure of how to proceed. “They’re not bad.”

“It was a compliment,” Nyla clarifies. “You need a little rough around the edges.” She puts on a weird voice and sings, “Country boy, I love you.”

“Please never do that again,” Adam says.

Nyla sighs. “Not the first time you’ve heard that, huh?”

“No, first time,” he says. “Still annoying.”

“Well, I just texted your boy toy. He’ll be here soon.” She’s quiet. “Wait. I forgot you can’t see. I just winked. And I specifically texted Jon, ‘Hey baby boy I’m all done in French but I can’t leave without help from my big, strong, hunk of man.’ And then I sent about forty peach and eggplant emojis.”

“I may need to reconsider our friendship,” Adam says, snatching his phone back from Nyla.

“I doubt it,” Nyla says. “I bring a little spice to the lives of mayonnaise American cowboys.”

Adam is saved soon after by Jon swinging by. “Hey, Ny,” he says. “I assume you’re the one who texted me from Adam’s phone.”

“I told you he wouldn’t think it was me,” Adam says.

“Worth a shot.” Nyla grabs Adam’s arm and squeezes it a little. “I smiled at you, but you couldn’t see it, so that’s my attempt at communicating.”

“O – kay?” Adam says.

She flounces off, and Adam is left in the capable – he thinks – arms of Jon, who brings him to the parking lot. “Eddie’s mom was off of work today, so he was able to bring the car. You got lucky.”

“Oh, because that’s the way I want to get lucky,” Adam says, grinning. Mox grabs his waist, pulling him around, making him stumble a little. Adam likes it.

“You wait until your brain gets better and maybe you will.” Mox presses a kiss behind Adam’s ear, and Adam is expecting this to get good, when Mox freezes. “Aw, shit.”

“Page!” shouts an unfortunately familiar voice. “What the fuck are you doing with those glasses? Hungover again?”

Adam wants to crawl inside of himself. “Leave me alone, Matt.”

“Oh, abandoning your friends, again?” Matt asks. He’s a shaded form in front of Adam through the sunglasses, but he’s able to see the absolute fury on Matt’s face. “Nice.”

“You all wouldn’t talk to me all summer,” Adam says. “Sorry for not throwing myself to my knees and begging you to like me.” He would have, though. If he’d known it would work, he would have.

Matt scoffs, twirling around the sidewalk like it’s his own personal stage. “Right. Because Adam Page would never put himself on the line for the team, right?” His stare is venom, and Adam’s headache has increased tenfold.

“You got a problem, Jackson?” Jon asks. “Because Adam here has a concussion, but I’d be happy to second for him if your pretty boy ass wants to go.” He swaggers up to Matt, who, Adam is pleased to see, takes a step back.

“I’m fine,” Matt snaps. “Just keep an eye out, Adam, because you never know when you’re guard dog won’t be around.”

He turns and flips his hair over his shoulder, which feels excessive, but Adam still can’t move.

“Fuckin’ prick,” Jon grumbles. “What the hell did you ever do to him to get that treatment?”

Adam mumbles the response, as quietly as possible.

“Come again?”

“I was drunk for our championship game, missed a pass, got the other team a corner kick, and lost the game,” Adam repeats. He says it as fast as he can, desperate not to let the shame well up in him again.

Jon lets out a low whistle. “That’s a lot of information real fast, Cowboy.”

“Yeah,” Adam says, “can we move on? Which is Eddie’s car?”

“The one he’s leaning against,” Jon says, pointing. After following his finger, Adam sees the form of Eddie fidgeting.

“Mox!” Eddie yells. “Get your Cowboy over here. I wanna go home.”

The conversation fades to Eddie’s math class, and Adam lets himself close his eyes until he gets home, desperate to sleep.

When he gets home, he waves to his parents and uses a headache as an excuse to be quiet. He sneaks a beer from the fridge and chugs it in the shower. It must be the concussion, because it works, and he’s out when his head hits the pillow.

Mini Playlist: Promise - Eve 6 Haven't Had Enough - Marianas Trench Afterglow - All Time Low Good to You - Marianas Trench

Bonus, because I'm a dick: Don't Lose Your Heart - Six the Musical Soundtrack

#Wrestling High School AU #HangMox #Hangman Adam Page #Jon Moxley #in which Sara writes #This one is a chapter that started giggly and got Sad #anyway #wtf i like wrestling now???

4 notes · View notes

banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

Adam has a a break down, a break through, and a break out moment. Net positive.

Penultimate chapter, and this is one of my favorites. I hope you enjoy!

Mini playlist: King of My Heart - Sub-Radio Rhythm of Your Heart - Marianas Trench I Think I'm in Love - Kat Dahlia Let My Love Open the Door - Luminate

It’s too soon before the problem shows up again. He fails the Chemistry practice test, absolutely bombs it with a 48%, and Mr. Pace doesn’t even have pointers for him. Just shakes his head and asks him to do an error analysis.

Even Dalton can’t pull him out of his funk with his wildly inappropriate questions about animal mating habits to throw off the teacher. He keeps trying to push at Adam’s leg, jostle him, get some sort of reaction, but Adam’s just numb. He’s too focused on how much he fucked up, how badly he did.

He leaves the barns, and nearly slams into Jon, who’s standing there, looking confused. “Hey, Cowboy. Heard you’re being weird.”

“I’m not being weird,” he says. His tone says he is definitely being weird.

Mox wiggles his phone. “Dalton texted me. Said you didn’t laugh at a single one of his plastic cow dildo jokes. That’s unlike you.”

“How do you know?” Adam folds his arms across his chest, suddenly too cold and too seen. “Maybe I find cow dildo jokes crass.”

Mox throws an arm around his shoulder and Adam, almost automatically, leans into him, relaxing into the warmth. “Talk to me, baby,” he murmurs. “Something’s wrong.”

Adam doesn’t want to. He’s afraid that, if he says it, if he admits it, he’ll collapse into the words.

“Please,” Jon says, voice strained, “let me help.”

Before he can stop himself, Adam speaks. “I want to drink. All I want to do is go home and pound a couple beers and just – black out. Forget it all.” All of a sudden, like a broken damn, he’s crying. He can’t stop it. “I’m so sorry, Mox. I don’t want to want it.”

Mox shushes him, leading him somewhere and sitting him down, pulling him close and holding Adam tight. Adam sobs into his chest, feeling the guilt and the regret pour out of him. He can’t stop apologizing, can’t stop gripping onto Mox’s jacket just in case it’s the last time he gets to do it.

When he starts to breathe a little more steadily, Mox says, “Feeling any better?”

Adam sits up a little, wiping the tears and snot off his face. “I’m sorry.”

“You’ve said that a lot.” Mox’s voice is calm, quiet. “What’s going on?”

“I failed my Chemistry practice test,” Adam admits. “Even with all your help. I completely tanked it. And all I could think of is how much I want to just – stop feeling. I want to go home and get blackout drunk, and…” He trails off, trying to hold off sobbing again. He forces himself to meet Mox’s eyes. “I’m so sorry. I let you down.”

“You absolutely did not,” Mox says. “Hey. Stop. You didn’t.”

“But I wanted –”

“You wanted to,” Mox says, “but did you push me away and go home and do it? Did you skip school and get a forty and get hammered? No.”

“But I wanted to,” Adam practically wails. “I wanted to do it.”

“But you didn’t actually do it,” Mox insists. “You know how many times I want to go do some speed and see what happens? How many times I want to pound a bottle of vodka, just to shut off my brain?” He shakes his head. “Baby, this shit happens. And, honestly, there’s no way this is the last time it’s gonna happen. And that’s okay.” He cradles Adam’s face in his hands. “Christ, you’re pretty when you cry. Fuck you.”

Adam laughs, and, just for that, wipes his nose on Mox’s sleeve.

“Ew!”

Adam lets himself smile, hesitant. “You’re not mad at me?”

“I’m not,” Mox says. “When this happens, though, talk to someone. Any time you feel that way, talk to someone. Anybody. Don’t, like, shove it down or whatever. That’s when it gets bad.”

Adam wipes his eyes and finally has the wherewithal to look around, and he makes a strangled little laugh. “You brought me to the soccer fields?!”

“Nobody’s out here ‘cause they have a game today,” Mox says. “Apparently, playoffs aren’t going the way the regular season was going, so they keep getting stuck going to the other schools.” Adam doesn’t miss the way he forces away a smile. “Figured this would be a safe place to go, until you were good to drive.”

Adam nods, and they sit quietly for a minute. Adam lets it sink in: for the first time since he’s been at this school, their team isn’t guaranteed to make the finals. Part of him wants to feel mean about it, be a little bitchy about the fact that they really did need him. But that part is small, and overtaken by feeling genuinely sad for the boys he used to call his friends, and the one he called his love, He looks over at Jon. “Want to come over tonight? Maybe – maybe you could help me with my test?”

Mox grins, rolling his eyes. “You convinced Eddie to tell you I got a hundred on the midterm last year, didn’t he.”

Adam shrugs. “I like getting information on you. You’re not exactly an open book.”

“I’m open!” Mox says, opening his arms. “I’m so open.”

Adam tilts his head. “You kind of aren’t. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Mox kicks his feet at the bleachers, considering. “Oh, here’s one. My parents found me high out of my mind two summers ago and sent me to a psych ward thing for rehab for two weeks.”

Adam almost falls off the bench. “Oh, damn we’re opening right to the middle of the book I see.”

“Yeah,” Mox says. “That was before Eddie gave me his little speech. Clearly, Eddie was more persuasive.”

Adam gets comfortable. “Tell me something else.”

Mox considers. “First time I had sex was with this girl on the cheerleading team. End of freshman year of high school, when I was doing football conditioning camp.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “You had sex with a girl?”

“Why’s everybody always assume I’m gay?” he mutters. “Yes, I’ve had sex with four girls, two guys, and one dumbass, who is sitting in front of me.”

Adam pushes him a little bit, and Mox slides off the bench onto the ground.

“You’re still the dumbass.”

“I’m not too sure about that.”

They talk for ages, Adam sharing fears he hasn’t told anyone, not even Kenny, and Mox casually mentioning the time he got a staph infection from a shitty doctor and spent the entire summer before freshman year of high school in the hospital. Adam stays close to him the whole time, because he thinks, maybe, Mox needs this just as much as he does. Mox doesn’t move him away, holds him close unless he’s telling a story that requires wild gesticulation.

“Thanks for finding me,” Mox says, his arms around Adam’s shoulders as the sun sets and the chill of a fall evening wraps around them.

“Me?” Adam asks. “Find you?”

“Dumbass,” Mox says fondly. “Yes. You ran into me that first day of school and I literally fell for you.” He presses a gruff kiss to the side of Adam’s head. “I dunno. You make me happy. I’m glad you found me.”

Adam doesn’t really know what to say. He doesn’t want to think about where he might be right now, what he might be doing, if Mox hadn’t helped him figure himself out. He doesn’t know who he would be if he hadn’t met Mox on that first day of senior year. “I’m glad we found each other,” is what he settles on, and they soon stand, and make their way to Adam’s truck, hand in hand.

That weekend, Mox calls him at eight in the morning on a Saturday demanding a ride.

“I’m barely awake,” Adam whines, rolling over. “Leave me alone.”

“Nope,” Mox says. “I’ve decided. You’re coming to my match today. You’re going to see me and Eddie and Willow wrestle. Oh, and Ruby’ll be there. She doesn’t have a match, but she’s doing a run-in for Willow’s and she’s going to do some really cool heel shit.”

“I think I understood about a third of that last bit,” Adam grumbles, but he’s already out of bed and reaching for a pair of pants. “What do, uh, what do I wear?”

Mox laughs on the other end of the line, and Adam feels something bloom inside his chest. “Anything you want, baby. I wouldn’t be opposed to you showing up in your best farm boy gear. Maybe you can even come in and make the save.” Adam can practically see the smile in Mox’s voice. “Please?”

Adam yanks his jeans on and throws on his favorite Dolly Parton shirt, the pink one. And, because he can’t resist Mox, “Yeah, I’ll be there.”

Thirty minutes later, he parks his truck in a dilapidated parking lot of some sort and immediately wonders if he’s in the wrong place. There’s only eight or ten cars here, and he was pretty sure that’s around how many people were wrestling today. He parks, grabs his keys, and slides out of the front seat. He brushes his hair out of his face as he walks down a hidden path, and briefly wonders if today is the day he gets murdered.

“Hello?” he calls, against his better judgement. “Mox? Eddie? Anybody?”

Something jumps at him from the woods, and Adam moves on instinct. He ducks their arm, throws them to the ground, and gets his knee on their chest. And looks into blue eyes of none other than Mox. “Oh,” Mox says, a light in his eyes, “ooh, that was good. Can you do that to me, like, all the time?” He visibly swallows, eyes darting from Adam’s leg to his crotch, then moving up his body. “You know, you look really good from this angle.”

“Okay, calm down, you weirdo.” Adam stands, and refuses to start preening. He holds out and hand and Mox takes it, pulling himself to stand. He presses himself up against Adam, hands on his waist.

“Hey there, Cowboy.”

“Keep it in your pants,” Adam laughs, and he draws Mox in. When they kiss, Adam thinks this may be worth the early phone call and the cold October dew soaking into his pants.

“Come on,” Mox says, after longer than they probably should have taken. “Let me show you what this place looks like. It’s so cool.”

It’s a glamorized back yard with metal chairs, a cobbled together ring, and a little shack labeled “Bathrooms” that looks like it odor lines coming off of it.

It really is cool.

“This is where you and Eddie, like, beat each other up all the time?”

“Not all the time,” Mox says. “Sometimes it’s other people. Sometimes I even win!” He grabs Adam’s hand, pulling him toward the ring. “We just got the ring set up, but I want to show you how it works.” His grin grows a little dirty. “I mean, since I already know you can take somebody down.”

“Okay, well, that was only because I thought I was in a murder forest,” Adam counters. “I doubt I can do that kind of thing again.”

“We’ll see.”

Mox, to Adam’s mild annoyance, is right more times than he’s wrong. He teaches Adam how to fall, how to land on his back and roll, and it’s strangely like soccer. His speed impresses Mox, as does his ability to take a hit to the stomach.

“You really are built like a brick shithouse,” Mox says, a little awed. He pokes at Adam’s stomach, then shakes his head. “How the fuck did I pull you, again?”

“You’re charming and I have a thing for nerds,” Adam replies. “Come on, let me do that thing where I throw you over my shoulder again.”

Mox lights up. “Gladly!”

They practice moves that Adam can’t quite keep track of until the person who runs the place, an early twenty-something guy who looks like he’s a little hyped up on more than coffee, tells them it’s time to get ready.

“Who the fuck are you?” He points at Adam. “You’re not one of my guys. Are you?”

“Nah, this is my boyfriend,” Mox says. “Tony, Adam. Adam, Tony.”

“Isn’t Eddie your boyfriend?” Tony asks. “Wait, never mind. I don’t want to get involved.” He points to Mox. “You. Your match, are you pulling weapons out?”

“Yes.”

“Stop it!” Tony says, “Stop – you are seventeen! You are not allowed to be using weapons! My dad and I do not have the ability to, like, make things legal for minors, you know.”

“But what if you don’t know I’m pulling out weapons?” Mox asks. He’s got this mild expression on his face, but Adam is fairly certain he’s about to pull some shit.

“You just told me!”

Mox’s expression turns moony-eyed and innocent. “What if I was pretending?”

“I hate you,” Tony says. “I wish you weren’t one of the most reliable people I’ve worked with. Go away.”

“Oh, you want me to leave?” A smile breaks through, and Adam can’t help but giggle.

Tony makes a frustrated sort of noise and stalks off, flipping them off.

“Man, I love him,” Mox says, sighing. “He does his best work when he’s a miserable bitch. I’m doing him a favor.”

“I don’t see how any of that was a favor, but okay.”

Adam gets dragged around the place to meet at least a dozen people, from wrestlers to managers to crew, and he tries to memorize every name. He fails, but he figures Mox’ll be able to fill in any blanks. He finds himself shaking hands with a guy Mox introduces as Bryan. “This is my opponent tonight. I’m going to kick his ass.”

“Only because it’s the booking,” Bryan argues. “Hi.”

Adam waves. “So – everything is preplanned?”

“Yep,” Mox says. “I have been contracted to beat the shit out of this guy and then choke him out during…” He trails out, eyes focused somewhere else. “Oh, shit, I have the best idea.” He looks at Bryan. “You up for doing something stupid?”

Bryan shrugs. “Do I have a choice?”

“Not really,” Mox says. “We’re going to bring my boyfriend into our match.”

“Eddie?” Bryan asks. “Isn’t that kind of expected at this point?”

“Not that boyfriend,” Mox says, and he turns his grin to Adam. “How you feel about making your wrestling debut, Cowboy?”

Mox plops him in a front row seat right before the show starts. “Watch until I give you the cue. It’s fun. You’ll love this.”

“I – okay,” Adam says, blinking. “Do you need help or anything? You know, before your match?”

Mox presses a kiss to the top of his head, ruffling his hair enough that Adam knows it’s about to frizz out. “Nah. Just remember: when I wink at you, you run into the ring.”

Adam laughs. “Yeah. Sure.”

He gets to see what it really means to ‘run into the ring’ when he watches Ruby do it midway through the show – Willow’s getting whacked with a chair by her opponent after winning, and Ruby sneaks in behind and takes the chair from her.

Adam exhales, slumping against the chair. The guy next to him, familiar in the way a person a few years below you in high school is familiar, turns and laughs. “Oh, you think this is over?”

Adam opens his mouth to respond, and watches Ruby rear back and smack Willow on the back with the chair. And he freezes. “Holy shit!”

“Holy shit is right!” the guy says. But his is less worried than Adam’s, more delighted.

Adam fidgets, a little concerned, but then Willow gets up and throws Ruby across the ring, and he feels a little better. And, somehow, worse. There’s more emotions in this than he expected for something scripted.

Mox goes on next, and, unfortunately, he does bring out a weapon. Technically. The sound a whiffle bat makes when it cracks across somebody’s back is a little louder than Adam had expected, and he winces.

“Get fucked!” Mox yells, and he smacks Bryan over the head with it. Bryan crumples, landing on his stomach, not moving. Adam stares, a little confused. It seems a little too real.

Mox comes over to pin him, hand on his chest, when the guy reaches up and grabs his neck, throwing him down, pulling tight. A chokehold.

“Uh,” Adam says, looking around. Nobody else looks as concerned as he feels, and, honestly, they’re all cheering. He’s probably the one who isn’t getting it.

Mox is crawling toward Adam’s side of the ring, winking wildly. “Oh!” Adam exclaims. “Right!” He scrambles to his feet and gets into the ring, remembering what Mox told him to do. He stands on the ring and pushes Bryan off of Mox with his boot. Bryan stands up and pretends to kick him, and Adam ducks. He jumps over the ropes, pulls back, and flips over them, ramming into Bryan with the inside of his arm. It’s kind of like the elbow jabs he used to get called on for doing during soccer games, only this time the crowd cheers, and Bryan crashes to the ground. Mox stands and grins at Adam. With Mox’s smile directed at him, it feels like the world has steadied underneath his feet. He hasn’t felt this particular exhilaration in a long time.

Bryan gets up quickly and pretends to kick Adam in the face. He goes down hard, rolling out of the ring like Mox taught him how. The referee conveniently only turns around at that point, when Mox has Bryan in a headlock and squeezes. Adam shuffles back to his seat. People are staring at him.

“Are – are you new or something?” the guy next to him asks. “I’ve never seen you here before.”

Adam nods. “I’m Mox’s boyfriend.”

He opens his mouth, closes it, opens it again, then blinks. “I’m Wheeler,” he says, reaching out hand to shake it, but his eyes are still on the match.

“Adam.”

Bryan passes out and collapses, the ref calls it, and Mox raises his fists, victorious. Then he finds Adam and beckons him up into the ring. He hesitates, for a brief second, then runs back in, standing next to Mox. Mox shoots him the prettiest smile Adam’s ever seen, grabs his hand, and raises it. He drinks in the cheers, and wonders if, maybe, soccer wasn’t the only sport he’d like.

Mox pulls him to the “back”, also known as a shitty tent behind the bathrooms, and kisses him in front of the rest of the wrestlers, like it’s nothing. Adam feels a little dizzy with it, the high of performing for the first time in so long, when it’s something he didn’t realized he’d missed.

“That was so fun,” Adam says, when they break away. He ignores the way people are looking. He doesn’t want to knows if those eyes are kind or judgmental. He also finds he doesn’t really care. “Like, really fun.”

“Want to come next time, too?” Mox looks like an eager puppy, practically bouncing on his toes. “I have a match with this guy, Claudio, Eddie hates him but we could do some really cool stuff.”

“Maybe after midterms,” Adam says. “But, yeah. I want to do this again.”

“Cool,” Mox says, grabbing his hand. “Come on, Eddie’s on in a few, and I want to make sure he’s ready.”

They shuffle to the back of the tent, where Eddie is tying up his boots, looking incredibly angry.

“Is he okay?” Adam mutters as they approach him.

“Oh, totally,” Mox says. “I mean, he gets kind of mean before a match, so don’t piss him off. But he’s fine.”

Adam takes that to mean he shouldn’t talk, so he just smiles while Mox claps Eddie on the shoulder. “You doing okay, King?”

Eddie nods, rolling his shoulders as he stands up again. “I’m fine.” He taps his cheek. “Kiss for luck?” Mox rolls his eyes, but he does it.

Then Eddie looks at Adam. “What about you, Pagey? Kiss for the King?”

Adam feels his entire body flush red, but he leans in, pressing his lips gently to Eddie’s cheek. “Good luck,” he says, feeling shy all of a sudden. He’s never had Eddie’s focus on him like this. He’s not sure how Mox handles it.

Eddie grins, throws his head back, laughs like sunshine. “Good luck. God, you’re adorable.” He pats Adam’s cheek, then, to Adam’s shocked delight, his ass. While Adam stands there, baffled, Eddie gives Mox a firm, if a little aggressive, kiss, and swaggers off to the ring.

“We’ll watch from back here,” Mox says, “I’ve got a raging boner and I don’t want anybody else to see it.”

Adam refuses to dignify that with a response.

Eddie wasn’t kidding when he said he gets covered in blood, Adam realizes. His match has him covered in thumbtacks, hit with brooms, and, at one point, his opponent shoves Legos in his mouth and then kicks him.

And then Eddie somehow wins with a pin on top of a barbed wire-coated baseball bat, and Adam is baffled.

“I do not want to do that,” he says, turning to Mox. “I don’t wanna bleed. Like, ever.”

“Sometimes you don’t got a choice, Cowboy,” Mox says, clapping him on the shoulder. “But I’ll do my best to protect you.” He pulls Adam toward him, gives him a rough kiss on the side of the head. “Now I’ve got to go out there and give Eddie a big ol’ kiss to scare off any homophobes that stumbled in here.”

#Hangman Adam Page #The HANGST IS REAL at the start of this chapter #It's not too bad #Jon Moxley #HangMox #Wrestling High school AU #in which Sara writes #wtf i like wrestling now???

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

Adam decides to invite Jon and Eddie to play Dungeons and Dragons with the Dark Order, among other things.

Heads up for: having The Talk, badly described D&D campaigns, and relationship insecurity.

On Friday, Adam slides on the blue tint sunglasses, and it’s weird to be able to see things but see them slightly Wrong. It’s bad enough the whole world has been dark for few days, but now…The world looks orange, like the filter people use whenever they try to make a movie seem like Mexico. “Your hair looks red,” he says to Jon, tilting his head.

“It’s pink,” Jon clarifies, then turns to Adam’s mom. “Is he supposed to be going color blind?”

“It’s the tint, asshole.”

His mom pokes him in the arm. “Language! I’m so sorry, Jon, I certainly raised him better than that.”

Jon grins, and Adam finds he’d missed seeing it this clearly, like his own personal sunlight. “I’m sure you did, Mrs. Page. Adam, what a mouth on you.”

Adam has to bite the inside of his cheek to keep from retorting what he’d like to do with his mouth, and Jon’s grin says he knows it.

“Anyway,” Adam says, “we’ve got to get started on homework, Mom. Talk to you later?”

“You two have fun,” she says. “But the door stays open! No more concussions from either of you.”

Adam rolls his eyes. “Yes, Mom.”

Homework goes by quickly, because Adam can actually see for once, and they only break to make out furiously on Adam’s bed eight times today, which is a record. Jon’s hair is messy and all over the place by the time dinner is ready.

“You look like Kirby blew up on your head,” Adam says, trying to smooth the pink mess a little frantically. “They’re gonna know.”

Jon laughs, being so obvious about the way he keeps looking down at Adam’s lips that Adam wants to kiss him about it. “What do you think they think we do in here?”

Adam pulls it back in a messy braid, throws his own into a messy bun, and they walk out to dinner. His mother raises an eyebrow, and Adam decides not to acknowledge it. eat with Adam’s parents, kicking each other gently under the table and sharing smiles.

Adam’s mom watches, knowing.

“Hope to see you soon, Jon,” she calls out the door as Adam walks him outside to his car.

Adam makes it to the seat before Jon’s grabbing his face and pulling him close, kissing him hard.

“Hello,” Adam mumbles against Jon’s lips.

“Shut up,” Jon says. “You had your hair in that stupid little bun again and it’s so annoyingly hot.”

Adam would reply, but Jon is kissing the breath out of him, and words can wait.

He gets home from dropping Jon off, a little ruffled but pleased, when he notices his mom is standing with a mildly amused smile on her lips.

“Everything okay?” Adam asks.

“We need to have a bit of a talk,” she says. She has her Doctor Face on. Adam hates her Doctor Face.

Adam feels his blood go cold. “Oh, god, no.”

His mother has diagrams this time. When he started dating Kenny, she didn’t whip out diagrams. Adam tries his best to stay focused, pretend he’s paying attention, but his fight or flight reflex has kicked in and he wants a one way ticket into Antarctica.

“And that’s why, even though there’s no chance of pregnancy, a condom is still necessary every time.” She flips her little booklet closed. “Alright. You okay?”

“I’m traumatized,” Adam says. “I need to go to bed.”

“Okay, well, you don’t have that look where you’re going to throw up, and your eyes aren’t crossed, so I don’t think the concussion has created any further problems.” She opens her arms. “Want a hug before bed?”

He leans in and hugs her, noticing for the first time that he’s practically towering over her.

“When’d you get so tall, Addy?” she mutters into his shoulder. “Quit growing.”

“Would if I could, Mom,” he says.

He tries to scrub the memory of The Talk from his mind in the shower, and walks back to his bedroom to find a message from Jon on his phone.

Goodnight, Cowboy. Think of me when you shower.

Adam laughs, because, for once, Jon is a step behind. Caught me after the shower. Too bad. Night.

He goes to bed smiling, and dreams of driving a Trans Am down the highway, holding Jon’s hand.

“Those glasses are stupid,” John Silver says as a greeting on Monday morning. He’s grinning.

“Gotta wear them since I got that concussion,” Adam explains. “And you’re stupid.”

“Yeah, I know,” John says. His smile hasn’t faded. “So, Uno and Stu were gonna have a D and D party Friday after school. You want to come?”

“Yeah!” Adam says. And then he has an idea. “Can I invite Jon Moxley? And maybe Eddie Kingston too?”

John shrugs. “Don’t see why not. They know how to play?”

“Don’t know. I can ask. They can watch, if they want, right?”

John nods. “That’s what we did for your sorry ass last year, and look at you know! A halfling bard with the voice of an angel.”

Adam brings it up to Jon when he gets to class.

“Oh, I love D and D!” he says. “Yeah, it’s like role playing, but without the sex part. Well,” he grins at Adam, a little dirty, “it could be with the sex part, if you want it.”

“Okay, cool it, we’re at school,” Adam hisses. He’s feeling warm, and not because it’s 90 degrees outside.

Jon’s grin just gets more devastating. “What, you don’t think about it?”

“I do,” Adam says, a little too fast, “I just don’t want to think about it at school.”

Jon opens his mouth to respond, but Mr. Pham comes in, and, with only one mildly weird comment about Adam’s blue light filtering glasses, begins class.

Jon’s still buzzing about it when Adam meets them at lunch.

“D and D?” Eddie asks. “Oh, god, Mox, not again.”

“It’ll be fun!” Jon says. “And it’s not with my cousins this time, so no one’s gonna ask you if you’re gonna marry me or anything.”

“It’s just the Dark Order kids,” Adam adds. “John Silver’s the DM and he does a really good job.”

Eddie sighs. “Fine. But I’m just watching. I’ll be the second for Mox.”

“How many times do I need to tell you,” Jon groans, “you don’t need a second for a board game!”

Adam is giddy and excited the whole week, even when he gets his first Chemistry test back that’s a lower grade than he’d wanted. He’d been looking forward to the Dark Order club meeting all week, and now that Eddie and Jon are walking to the club room in the freshman wing of the high school, he’s practically skipping.

“You’re so weird,” Eddie says. “Mox, why’s he so weird?”

“I’m not weird,” Adam argues. “I’m excited. This is fun. We’re starting a brand new campaign for the school year. John’s iced everybody out as he’s planned for this campaign.”

Eddie raises an eyebrow. “I always forget how,” he pauses, “enthusiastic you nerds are.”

“You like it when I’m enthusiastic,” Jon says, wiggling his eyebrows.

“Okay, no fucking mid meeting. We have things to do.” Adam opens the door. “In you go.”

The campaign is…chaotic, Adam realizes, and that’s the most normal thing he can say about it. Brodie, the previous DM and club president, had a dark, serious, almost terror-based approach to the game.

John, on the other hand.

“Okay, Anna, your dragon born runs into a unicorn,” he says, bouncing, “roll to see if it accepts you as its friend or skewers you with its horn.”

Anna stares at him. “A unicorn, John?”

John nods. “Yeah. Unicorn.”

Eddie leans over to Adam. “Your friends are weird.”

Adam shrugs. “And?”

“Okay, what if I,” Jon says, leaning in and checking his character sheet, “okay, since I’m a human lady, do you think the unicorn might be more open to talking to me?”

By the end of the meeting, Anna’s dragonborn had to be saved twice by Jon’s healing character, Adam’s halfling rolled a nat 20 and a nat 2, leading him to defeat an entire town of vampires and then get near death from drinking from a river. Halfway through it Eddie, begins narrating everything with an even more extreme New York accent than he usually has. Stu and Uno don’t seem particularly cool with it, but they have a pretty good day for their characters, so neither of them really complain.

Alex, on the other hand, is miserable.

“How did I die on the first day?” he complains, packing up his stuff. “I made my half-orc so cool! He was so powerful!”

“That’s the luck of the draw, buddy,” Alan says, clapping his shoulder.

“Says the guy who was able to seduce a fairy for information and gain access to the fey world,” Alex grumbles.

“I thought it was great!” Jon says. “I feel like I really know my character, right? Like, I love that she’s a healer. I think that adds a little pizazz, gets us ready for the devastating backstory I’m gonna drop next time I swing by.”

“None of this, and I need you to hear me on this one, Mox, is cool,” Eddie says. “Drop me off at home before the two of you start making out, okay? I’m exhausted and I have a match tomorrow at, like, the ass crack of dawn.”

“Your match is at one in the afternoon,” Jon retorts.

Eddie shrugs. “Same difference.”

When they drop Eddie off, he kisses Jon so gently that Adam has to look away. It’s a softness that he’s not sure he’s earned the right to see, at least not yet, and he wants the two of them to have as much of their time as they need.

It takes longer than he expects, though. They’re muttering to each other quietly, and laughing a little, and Adam feels like he shouldn’t be here.

“Alright, Cowboy, let’s go,” Jon says, sliding back into the car. “What’s wrong? Your head hurt?”

Adam shakes his head. “I’m good.”

“You look weird,” Jon says. He stares at Adam. “You wanna talk about it?”

Adam shakes his head. “No. Not right now.”

But it builds in him as they drive to Jon’s house, only a few minutes from Eddie’s.

“Seriously, I can, like, feel the weird coming off of you,” Jon insists. “Talk to me. Come on.” He pokes Adam’s arm. “Are you having a headache? Is it driving?”

“I’m fine!” Adam snaps, and it’s too much for the moment, too mean. He immediately regrets it. He glances over at a stop sign to see Jon looking shattered. “God, Jon, I’m sorry. I – I’m fine.” He fights the frustration, the tears welling in his eyes from just how often he manages to hurt people by accident. He remembers the times he lashed out at Kenny, the way Kenny had been kind and gentle at first and slowly grew calloused and angry in response. The way Adam fears he’s going to do to Jon.

Jon reaches out and touches Adam’s hand. “Hey,” he says gently. “What’s going on? Seriously.”

Adam pulls into the Walmart parking lot, throws the car in park, and collapses against the steering wheel. He doesn’t even know why he’s crying. He doesn’t know why he hurts, why something is wrong, why he snapped at Jon. He doesn’t know why all he wants to do is go home and drink as much as he can as fast as he can until it takes him out, makes it all go away.

Jon’s whispering something gentle, rubbing his back, as Adam’s sobs relax. “Adam,” Jon says, and the sounds become words, “come on, breathe for me.”

Breathing. Adam can do breathing. Four, seven, eight. Four, seven, eight.

“See? Breathing was easy. Now you gotta talk to me.”

Adam lifts his head to see Jon, small smile on his face. “I don’t want to make you hear all the shit I don’t even understand in my own head.”

“That’s not really the point, is it?” Jon asks. “Something wrong. I’m your boyfriend. Part of this whole boyfriend thing is we talk.”

Adam bites the inside of his cheek. “That’s the first time you’ve said that.”

“Said what?”

“That I’m,” Adam feels the word catch in his throat, “that you’re my boyfriend.”

Jon frowns. “It is? I coulda sworn…” He trails off. “Oh, shit, is that what it’s about?” He grabs Adam’s hand. “Man, just because I love Eddie doesn’t mean I can’t want you. I like you and I like him.” He smiles. “There aren’t, like, tiers here.”

“You said I was good for fun,” Adam says, and he didn’t realize until now, not until Jon said it, that this is what’s been aching at him. “I didn’t realize you thought about me more than just fun.”

“Fuck,” Jon says, and he yanks on the ends of his ponytail, “fuck, I did it again.”

Adam raises an eyebrow. “Again?”

“I did this to Eddie, too,” Jon says, gritting his teeth. “I forgot to make it – I forgot to tell him – ” He turns to Adam, takes his face in his hands. “Adam, I’m picking you. I can’t believe I never told you. But I want you and I like you and this isn’t just fun.” He exhales, looking a little worried. “I want you to be my boyfriend. Do you want me to be yours?”

Adam sighs, the tension draining out of him so fast it’s almost dizzying. “Yeah,” he says, as Jon brushes a tear from his cheek with his thumb. “Yeah, I do.”

Jon leans in and kisses Adam with such fervor that one of them hits the car horn. The two of them jump about a foot.

“Fuck!” Jon shouts, and Adam is briefly tempted to ask him if he remembers any other words after they start kissing.

“Calm down,” Adam laughs. “God, you’re as much of a wreck as me.”

“Yeah, well, you and your stupid face makes me stupid,” Jon says. “It’s your fault.”

Adam gets them both home safely, dropping Jon off with a kiss to make him remember. “I’ll see you Monday?” he asks.

Jon nods, grinning. “I got a match tomorrow, so yeah. Maybe soon you can come see me?”

Adam nods. “Yeah. Yeah, soon.”

He practically floats home, into the door, and past his parents.

“You look happy,” his mom says.

Adam shrugs. “I really like Jon. And he, uh, asked me to be his boyfriend today. Like, officially.”

“Oh, thank god,” his dad groans. “You were getting so anxious about that, I could tell.”

“You could?”

His dad nods. “Kid, you forget I’ve known you since the moment you entered the world. It’s taken everything in me not to tell you how you’re feeling every time I know you feel it.” He smiles. “You reached the age where I gotta let you figure it out.”

He watches TV with his parents for a few hours, texting Jon the whole time, and falls asleep without remembering that he’d earlier planned to drink himself into oblivion.

Mini playlist:

Love Like This - The Summer Set Never Enough - One Direction Dark Side of Your Room - All Time Low 1900something - Sub-Radio

#Wrestling High School AU #in which Sara writes #HangMox #god my hands are cold #Hangman Adam Page #Jon Moxley #wtf i like wrestling now???

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banannabethchase · 1 year

Text

Adam's parents are gone for the weekend, and invites Jon over to stay.

NOTE: As indicated by the rating and content warnings, there are no depictions of anybody having sex. There are conversations about wants and interests, but there's no written acts or anything. It's all implied like a YA novel.

The chapter contains some of my favorite lines I've ever written and I hope you enjoy this <3

Mini playlist: Heaven's Gate - Fall Out Boy Truly Madly Deeply - Savage Garden Lightning in a Bottle - The Summer Set Moon - The Cab

Adam manages to avoid Kenny and the Jacksons enough the first month of the school year, other than that moment with Matt when he had the sunglasses. He ticks off every day he makes it without an incident, until, suddenly, it’s been days since he thought about it.

He’s actually enjoying the classes and the non-Baller Club people for the first time since middle school. He aces the first AP Human Geography test, nails the in class essay on Beowulf for AP English, and does okay on the first Chemistry test. He and Alex study with Jon, who gives them tricks and strategies to survive. He makes it to October in one piece, and wonders, a little bit, if this is what people mean when they say high school is the best years of their life.

Having Jon in his corner, too, is different. He knows Adam’s tells, the name of all of Adam’s animals, all the mistakes Adam’s made, and he likes him no matter what.

It’s more like home than a person’s ever felt.

On a chilly early October afternoon, Adam’s chatting with Dalton about the cows they plan on showing, when Jon, all swagger and neon hair, swings up next to him outside of the ag barn, yells, "Boo!", and Adam nearly jumps out of his shoes.

“Is this the guy?” Dalton asks. He makes a show of looking Jon up and down. “Good look. Weird hair.”

“That’s why I do it,” Jon says, nodding to Dalton. He turns to Adam. “Hey, so, wanna hang out tonight?”

Adam nods. “Yeah,” he gives Dalton a look. “That sounds great.”

Dalton does not react.

“Dalton,” Adam says, “can we, uh, get a moment?”

“Ugh, fine,” Dalton says, “deny me my in person real life fanfiction bullshit.”

“Don’t you have, like, two boyfriends?” Jon asks.

Dalton shrugs. “Yeah, but this is different. Sometimes you want some strange, you know?”

Adam shoves him toward the path back to school. “Okay, bye, love you, get out.” He turns back to Jon. “Hi.”

“Hi.”

“So, I was thinking,” Adam says. “I have an idea.”

“Two very shocking turns of events, based on how this conversation is going,” Jon pulls a cigarette out of his pocket and lights it. “Tell me your thoughts and ideas, Cowboy.”

Adam wants to smoke just to put his lips where Jon’s have been. “You, uh,” Adam is suddenly nervous, “you wanna stay over tonight?”

Jon blinks. “Tonight?”

Adam nods. “My parents are out, they’ve got a wedding that didn’t invite anybody under twenty-one, and I’ve, uh,” he rubs the back of his neck. “I’ve never been alone overnight before.”

“You want a buddy?” Jon asks, gently teasing. “Yeah, I’ll stay over. But don’t expect me to put out or anything. I’m not that kind of girl.”

Adam stares at him. “Put – put out? Are you kidding me, is this 1974?” He bonks Jon over the head with his agenda.

Jon shrugs, that little smile on his lips. “You’re right. I’ll probably put out if you ask nice.” His eyes go suddenly soft and serious. “I mean, if you want to.”

Adam swallows and hides his hands, because they’ve started shaking just a little bit. This is what he’d hoped for, but things are going far more according to plan than even his best scheming could have suggested. “I think so. Yeah, I think – I think it’d be nice.”

Jon smiles, a little wider, then leans in and presses a gruff kiss to Adam’s temple. “Okay, cool. I gotta go home real quick and get some stuff, okay?” He starts to pull away, but then he leans back in and kisses Adam on the mouth, hard like a promise. “See you soon.”

“Want me to drive you?” Adam calls as Jon walks away.

“I’ll bike over later.”

Adam gets a little hot all over. “Like – motorcycle?”

Jon throws his head back when he laughs, hair going everywhere. Adam wants to paint the moment, but settles for memorizing it. “Yeah, you wish, hot shot. No, I got an old ten speed.”

Adam blinks. “You dumbass. You’re coming with me.” He strides over and grabs Jon’s arm.

“I can bike!” Jon complains as Adam drags him across the campus toward the lot. “Oh, my god, you’re strong. This is so annoying. Get off.”

Adam drops him and settles for guiding him – Jon calls it shoving – by the shoulders. “Get in the car. You’re not biking, like, twelve miles.”

Jon pouts. “But it’s fast!”

Adam groans. “It’s not faster than – get in my truck, you dumbass. I’ll drive you and then we’ll go back to mine.” He opens the door and slides into the driver’s seat.

Jon, teasingly, begins stepping backwards. “I could just leave.”

“Get in the truck!” Adam can’t stop laughing, can’t hold back the glee. Jon is now weaving between other people trying to leave the parking lot.

“Can’t hear you!” he yells.

Adam groans and moves to turn his car around so he can go meet Jon from behind, but then he sees that he’s blocked in. By Matt Jackson.

“Oh, Jesus Christ McFuck,” he whines. The impulse to go home and get trashed hits him like a train. He rips his eyes away from the rear view mirror, grip now iron on the steering wheel, and does everything he can not to look in the rearview mirror. It’s too scary to think that Matt’s eyes may be looking back.

The door clicks open, and Jon jumps into the passenger seat, energy still floating around him. “You were supposed to chase me!”

“Was gonna,” Adam mutters, and immediately Jon’s tone shifts.

“What? What happened?”

Adam jerks his head behind him. “Jacksons. Behind us.”

Jon makes a weird face. “You – you wanna, like, reverse into them or something?”

“Why do you look mildly turned on by vehicular damage?” Adam asks, decidedly going forward in the line.

“It’s you doing the vehicular damage,” Jon replies, “so, like, kind of always turned on.”

“Even when Mr. Pham is talking about inequity of wealth in global communities?” Adam asks, making it to the first of three stop signs in the line. “That seems irresponsible.” He glances in the rearview mirror out of habit, and immediately wants to throw up. Matt was looking at him. “What are the odds of them behind right me in the line?!”

“Breathe, Cowboy,” Jon says gently. He rests a hand on Adam’s arm, and Adam drops it from the wheel, grabbing him.

“I am breathing,” he says. “All I want to do is slide tackle the two of them. And then, like, punch them in the throat.”

“Charming,” Jon says. “Talk more violence. This is fun.”

“You’re gonna get me in trouble with Scotty if you don’t put on your seat belt." He doesn’t look in the rear view mirror this time, just uses the ones on the side. It loosens the vice crushing his chest, if he just pretends they aren’t there. But that can only go so far.

“Scotty and his little parking lot police golf cart can’t even outrun me on foot,” Jon says, buckling anyway and throwing his feet up on the dash. “Let’s focus on tonight and the way I’m gonna make you forget about those Elite assholes.” Jon begins to rant about how mediocre they are, how lame their name is, and it sounds like he’s reading out of a book. It gives Adam the room to breathe, the opportunity to laugh. The vice falls away. “And tonight,” Jon says, “we’re gonna make it so the only thing you remember about Kenny Omega is that his dick is weird and he fucks like trash compared to me.”

Adam finds himself giggling. “Thought you said you wouldn’t put out?”

“That was before I had the image of you punching someone in the throat and the way you, ooh, stop fully at every single stop sign.” He fans himself. “The dichotomy of man.”

Adam gets him in a headlock once they’re off school property and holds him like that until they get to Jon’s house.

He runs in and gets whatever the hell from his house, then leaps back out through a window of all things.

“Why – there is a door!” Adam sputters.

“Gotta keep ‘em on their toes,” Jon says, sliding in.

“Who’s them?!”

Jon grins, then leans in to kiss Adam gently. “You, baby.”

They get to Adam’s and the tone changes. Seeing the backpack a little more filled with stuff, and knowing it’s clothes, maybe a toothbrush, makes Adam’s body feel too small, like there’s so much willing to burst out of him.

“Um,” Adam says, going for the fridge. “I, uh, since we’re alone tonight. You want a drink?” He pulls out two beers.

“Oh, no,” Jon says, stepping backward. It’s the first time Adam’s seen panic in his eyes. “Um. I don’t – I don’t drink.” He rubs anxiously at his jaw, where the stubble is the thickest. It’s where Adam finds his hand often, too. “I can’t.”

“Oh.” Adam looks down at the beers in his hands, then back to Jon. “Um. Sorry. I’ll just put them…” He trails off, and shoves them into the fridge. “Sorry.”

“Nah, it’s – it’s cool. Had an issue a bit ago, sophomore year.” He frowns. “Eddie and I were fighting.”

Adam nods. He thinks he remembers rumors of that. He was so wrapped up in Baller Club back then – the problems of other people were small compared to the way Cody and Kenny were fighting. “About what?”

“I was, uh, getting a little too into football,” he ruffles his hand through his pink streaked hair, “focused on the wrong things, you know? Going to the parties. Sophomore year, the seniors were all obsessed with drinking." Adam remembers that - Chris Jericho, soccer captain, spent hours talking about how good the parties were. It was the first time the Elite started a war against other people on the soccer team. "So I was, too.” He kicks at the bottom of the chair. “Got a little too into it. Eddie was worried. He was right to be.” He finally looks up into Adam’s eyes. “One night, after a party, I went to pick up Eddie to hang out. And I, uh, almost wrecked my car. Eddie was riding shotgun. He said,” his voice catches. He clears it, and starts again. “He said if I kept it up, the drinking all the time, that is, he was leaving. We yelled. He walked away. And I realized nothing was worth seeing him leave.”

Adam sits down in his mom’s chair at the table, and Jon follows, sitting in the chair Adam usually chooses. “That’s a lot,” Adam says. “I’m sorry I brought the beers out.”

“Nah, don’t be, Cowboy,” Jon says, smiling with a little sadness behind it. “Sometimes I need to talk about it. Remind myself why I don’t.”

“Speaking of Eddie,” Adam says, because it’s been bothering him, “does he know about us?” He pauses. “Like, that we’re boyfriends like – like you two are?”

“Oh, yeah,” Jon says, like it’s normal. “Yeah, he does. He’s been with Miguel for a little while too.” He shrugs. “Eddie’s my endgame, but we don’t think it makes sense to get stuck in that, you know? I’m gonna marry Eddie one day, live in some shitty little apartment happily ever after with taxes and bills fucking it up, but that doesn’t mean we can’t, I don’t know, find connections with others.” Jon’s smile goes soft, gentle. “And I like our connection.”

Adam grins. “Glad to hear it.

Jon scuffs his shoe on the ground. “Uh, so,” he clears his throat, “I got a question.”

“Yeah?”

“Have you ever, um, have you actually done anything before?” Jon asks. “I know I was talking shit earlier, but I honestly don’t know what to expect from Kenny Omega and his sexual attraction to soccer cleats.”

Adam nods. “I had, uh, sex. With Kenny. A lot.”

Jon raises an eyebrow. “A lot, he clarifies?”

“Shut up,” Adam says, burning pink. “Just with him, though.”

“Nobody else?” Jon asks, and it’s more gentle than Adam expects.

Adam shakes his head. “I, uh, I gotta be honest with you. I don’t think I’ve gotten over Kenny.” He doesn’t know why he says it.

Jon is quiet for a moment. “That’s okay. I’ve got Eddie, so maybe we’re kinda in the same boat there.” He meets Adam’s eyes. “You think he might be your Eddie?”

“I don’t know,” Adam says, and he really doesn’t. “If we don’t iron everything out, I hope not. But if we do.” He lets it hang in the air. He doesn’t want to admit it, doesn’t want to allow hope to seep in through the cracks of his own insecurities. And, he realizes, doesn’t want to let latent feelings for someone who won’t speak to him get in his and Jon's way.

“You don’t have to make any decisions about that,” Jon says, and he stands, offering out a hand. “Just – live the moment. If you two get back together, awesome. If you don’t, that’s the way it goes. But right now,” he’s pulls Adam’s hand, walking backwards, “it’s whatever you want.”

Adam follows him. “Whatever I want?”

Jon grins. “You know what I mean.”

They give up on words for a while, lazily making out on the couch, when Jon’s hands find themselves crawling up the front of Hangman’s shirt. And he pauses.

“Wait.” He pulls back, and yanks Adam’s shirt off.

“Um.”

“You have legit abs." He sounds reverent, astonished. "You – what do you do, paint those on?” Jon reaches out and touches Adam’s chest. “Fuck, you’re the painting.”

Adam stares. “You’ve seen me shirtless!”

“Yeah, like, for a second, but now I get to look, and I’m looking.” He looks a little dazed. “How do you even get those?” He looks up, dead into Adam’s eyes. “Is this what all hot cowboys look like?”

Adam fights the urge to cover up. He’s never had this before – someone staring at him like this, saying all these complimentary things. With Kenny, it was the norm. All of them had abs, unless they’d just loaded up on a pasta party, and even then they’d pull the joke they’d call ‘fat abs’, which, looking back, really wasn’t funny at all.

Jon’s looking at him like he’s a masterpiece, and he’s used to feeling like a factory model. “Here, don’t look too close at me or whatever, but I’m getting my shirt off and just, yeah. Don’t,” he looks shy, suddenly. “Don’t judge me, okay?”

Adam helps him take off his shirt, and finds himself looking for flaws, interest piqued by Jon’s request, but he finds nothing to startle him. Some scars around the top of his chest, something maybe surgery related around his stomach, but Jon’s beautiful and tantalizing and he has chest hair, which is the first time he’s seen it on a kid his age. Adam decides, in that moment, to shut out the memory he has of Kenny, naked and glowing under sunlight.

“You’re beautiful,” he mumbles, and his mouth doesn’t feel like it’s working for words. So he decides not to worry about them, letting his actions speak for him.

They fumble, of course. Adam’s not sure why they thought they’d both be superstars at this, but it feels like safety and joy, like learning more about yourself through the touch of another. He laughs – more than once.

When they collapse onto Adam’s bed, foreheads sweaty and Adam finding pink hair in his face at every turn, Adam’s heart feels full. He feels calm.

“Your hair is in my face,” Adam mutters, because it’s getting ridiculous enough that he’s about to sneeze with all this pink under his nose.

“Deal with it,” Jon replies, and he snuggles up against Adam, his face buried into Adam’s neck. Almost automatically, Adam reaches around Jon and pulls him in close.

It’s soft and quiet for a moment, Adam sure he could fall asleep, when he gets walloped in the face. “What – why are you ruining the moment?”

“You’re breathing loud.”

Adam opens his eyes to a curtain of pink hair across his face. He spits it out, shifting so Jon flops onto the bed. “What, I’m not allowed to breathe?”

“You,” Jon says, putting himself back onto Adam’s chest, throwing his pink hair over Adam’s eyes, “aren’t allowed to kill my afterglow.”

It strikes Adam as devastatingly funny, somehow, and he laughs so hard his stomach hurts. But Jon’s laughing with him, and they curl around each other like puppies, and Adam wants this forever.

The weekend passes with strange domesticity. Adam’s never woken up without his parents like this before, or with Jon, but it, somehow, feels right.

They kiss goodbye Sunday evening, with Jon grabbing Adam’s bicep like a lifeline as he draws the breath out of him. Adam lingers on the goodbye, even though he doesn’t have to.

“We’ll see each other tomorrow,” Jon says, tucking a rogue curl behind Adam’s ear. “Besides. Check your texts. I sent you something.”

Adam blushes the whole car ride home.

For a Monday, things go pretty well. Until he crosses the building to get to Chemistry class. As he passes the gym and locker rooms, an arm grabs him, and he’s yanked into a room. His fists are up, and he’s ready to swing, when he sees Anna.

“What – why are you in the boy’s locker room?”

“Don’t worry about that,” she says. “Why are you hanging out with Jon Moxley so much?”

Adam feels his face burn. “I’m – we’re, it’s like, it’s just…” He trails off. “Why do you want to know?”

“Because I’m your friend, and I’m the only one with a brain cell in the Dark Order. All of them think it’s cute you moved on.” She folds her arms in front of herself. “I'm concerned for your wellbeing.”

“I'm not gonna get weird about him or anything,” Adam says. Anna raises an eyebrow. “No, seriously! I won’t.”

“Yeah,” she deadpans, “because you’re great with regulating your emotions.”

“I won’t!” Adam repeats. “I swear. I mean, he’s my boyfriend. But I’m good. I swear. I’m not gonna get hurt or anything.”

“You sound like a dumbass in a romcom,” Anna says. “You really believe you, of all people, can keep yourself from getting hurt.”

Adam don’t answer right away. He knows he’s a romantic; he’s fallen in love about four times a day since he learned to appreciate a nice ass. But this, with Jon? It feels like friendship with a fire underneath it. It feels safe. It doesn’t feel like he used to with Kenny. “I do,” Adam says. “I really do.”

Anna studies him for long enough that he starts to feel ants crawl up his spine. She makes eye contact like other people make war. “I’m keeping an eye on you,” she finally says. “If he hurts you, I’m going to choke him out. I want to make sure you know that. And then I’ll probably choke you out, too.”

Adam nods. “Fair. Just – have a little faith, okay?” He smiles. “This time, I think I’m on the right track.”

“You better be,” Anna says with a sigh. “John is a little pissed that he’s not the Jon you’re getting into bed with. If you mess it up, he might confront you about it.”

Adam laughs, ducking his head. “Well, I’ll tell him he’s pretty next time I see him, how about that?”

“If you go that far, he might cream his pants.” She wrinkles her nose. “Anyway, you leave first. I’ll go out the back way.”

Adam blinks. “There’s a back way?”

With a sigh, like this is the final straw of her dealing with his shit, she nods. “Yes, dumbass, the window. There’s always a back way if there’s a window.”

He opens his mouth to respond that they are, indeed, on the second floor, and he’s pretty sure it opens out to the courtyard, but Anna’s gone and he’s speaking to air.

He shakes his head and pulls his hair off of his face, and makes his way out of the locker room. And the day only gets weirder. “Oh, for fuck’s sake,” he grumbles. It’s not as bad as seeing Kenny, at least, and Nick at least looks a little hesitant as they pass in the hallway.

“Hi, Adam.”

It’s enough to stop him in his tracks. “Are you actually talking to me?” He doesn't say it mean, he thinks. It's truly just disbelief.

“I’m sorry,” Nick says, so fast it’s like he didn’t mean to speak. “Um, that my brother and Kenny are being such jerks.” He rubs his hand at his neck. He’s cut his hair a little shorter. Trying to grow a beard. None of it masks how young those bright blue eyes are. “I just wanted to, uh. I wanted to make sure you know I’ve still got your back. And I’m sorry it took me so long to say it.”

Adam just blinks at him. Nick’s always been the gentlest of them all, he knows it, and Adam’s sorry to say he’s been on the rough end of Adam’s own anger. “You do?”

Nick nods. “I,” he pauses, drawing his eyes up to meet Adam’s. It feels safe. “I don’t think any of us did a good job of being friends to you. We didn’t help you.” He furrows his brow. “I could tell something is wrong and I just…I’ve been talking to my pastor about it, and he thinks an apology is only the first step. So, I’m sorry. For not doing something when I could tell you weren’t – that something wasn’t right.”

Adam wants to say something, but no words come, so he settles for a smile until his brain reconnects. “How’s the season going?”

Nick lights up. “Oh, so good!” His eyes go somewhere else for a second. “Well, sort of. Matt and I have that stopper/sweeper routine down pat. We’re letting in, like, no offensive players. It’s great.” He turns his eyes back to Adam’s. “And yesterday’s game - you should have seen the way we left the other team – we’re ten and oh, so we’re doing so much better than we exp…” He trails off. “Um. Well, we’re doing better than I expected we’d be doing without you.” His smile turns sheepish. “You always were always our best striker. Even though Kenny never wanted to admit it.”

“Oh. Thanks. That’s, uh. That’s high praise, from you.” He nods. “A good defender can always tell the good strikers.”

“And this one does,” Nick says. “Hey, I gotta get to my next class before the bell. I have Herrington and she’s like – ”

“Oh, definitely, run,” Adam laughs. “She’s the worst when it comes to late students.”

Nick nods. He steps backwards, pauses, then runs at Adam, wrapping him in a quick, tight hug. “I’ve missed you,” he says. “I’ll text you sometime, okay?”

The bell goes off, and Adam is left, a little baffled but content, standing in the hallway.

#HangMox #Wrestling High School AU #Hangman Adam Page #Jon Moxley #wtf i like wrestling now???#in which Sara writes #This chapter caused me Emotional Distress for no reason

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banannabethchase · 11 months

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Hi, hello! Prompt: 7. “Is this sexy? I feel like this is somehow sexy”, with c) Locked/trapped in a room together and/or d) Teachers AU, for hangmox? Thank you so much!!

Hangmox!

Rivals of the Year

Content warning: In this fic, there is a lockdown drill, but both characters are aware it is a lockdown. A character does exhibit anxiety around this, but it's not extreme and there's no anxiety attack. Read safely loves <3

...here have a preview of the Teachers AU Sarah put in my head that I now have to write At Some Point (it will not be actually started until Set the World Alight is completed as it is going to be Long. Hopefully no more than 25k but we all know how bad I am at estimating these things.)

Adam enjoys being one of the elective teachers. He usually only gets kids in his journalism class who actually want to be there, running the school newspaper is a hoot and a half, and, well, his hallmates don't suck, either.

His lunch time, absurdly early at 10:45, hits, and he makes his way down the hallway to grab his lunch from the teacher's lounge.

"Cowboy!" yells the man who is somehow both his favorite and least favorite. "How's my fellow teacher-of-the-year candidate?"

"On my way to schmooze more of the study body to vote for me," Adam shoots over his shoulder.

Jon Moxley, or Mox as all the kids and teachers call him, bumps Adam's shoulder with his. "You wish," he scoffs. "Like, fifteen kids take your classes altogether. I'm sure you'll win those fifteen votes, buddy." He claps Adam's shoulder, fingers lingering just a little longer.

Adam hasn't not noticed Mox. He hasn't missed the way Mox's eyes linger a little longer than professional, how his fingertips brush against Adam's hand when they sit next to each other to bitch through passed notes during staff meetings.

He's not willing to risk it, though. First, the union would have his head if he was wrong. And second...well, he's not sure it's possible. "Oh, fuck off. You and your forty-something students have nothing on Matt's kids who love me too."

"Ugh, the fucking drama teacher," Mox groans. "The only reason a Jackson didn't win again is because they were each Teacher of the Year the last two years." He rolls his eyes. "Anyway, we're scheduled for a lockdown drill today. Overheard Jackie in the main office mentioning it to Carla."

Adam goes slightly cold. "Oh."

Mox's eyes go kind and gentle. "Yeah, I mean - I know we're not supposed to know, but I remember what you said last time? About how they make you super anxious." He reaches out and bumps the back of his hand against Adam's. "I didn't want you to be scared."

"That's - that's incredibly sweet, Mox," Adam says.

"Yeah, I told some of my kids I know have similar reactions." Mox says, shrugging.

"I gotta go let Hailey and Jasmine know," Adam mutters. "And Logan. God, I hope Jacob's hear aids are charged..."

"Hey, breathe," Mox says, resting his hands on Adam's shoulders. "I'll go with you, check in on some of my kids who have me in the afternoon."

Adam nods. The two of them make their way down the hallway before the announcements click on, and Adam fills with dread. "Attention, Carter High School," comes the voice of the assistant principal, "we after in lockdown. Shelter, lock, windows."

Adam's about to freeze, but Mox grabs his arm and pulls him into the nearby photography room. Adam's about to mention to Mox that Hook's probably at lunch right now when Mox checks the warnings on the door, sees it green, throws the door open, and then yanks Adam in after him. Almost automatically, Adam pulls the door closed and falls against it.

"Okay," Mox whispers, face impossibly close to Adam's. "This is probably the safest place in the building. You okay?"

Adam blinks. "It's a drill, Mox."

"Yeah, but after the last drill I saw you paler than you usually are. This way, you know where to go if you ever find yourself on your own." As Adam's eyes adjust, he thinks he can see a smile on Mox's lips. "You okay?"

Adam takes inventory of his body. No shaking, no cold fingertips. His heart rate hasn't shot up, his thoughts aren't racing. "I'm okay," he says, sighing with relief. "Seriously, thanks for the heads up." He can't stop his eyes flickering from Mox's eyes, glowing lightly in the red light, and his lips. He thinks the way his heartbeat sped up is completely unrelated to the drill.

"Um," Adam says. He's not sure what he wants to say next. He's not sure what he's about to do.

"Okay, this is gonna be weird," Mox says. Adam can feel Mox's breath on his cheek. "But, like, is this sexy? I feel like this is somehow sexy."

Adam giggles. "Really?"

"I dunno," Mox says. Adam doesn't miss the way his eyes flicker down to Adam's lips. "Just. Dark room, we're alone, we've had that tension since, like, the beginning of the year."

Adam knows exactly what Mox is talking about. The teacher-themed Twister game. The first time Adam had ever really noticed how well Mox fills out a pair of jeans. "Alright," Adam concedes, still in a whisper. "Yeah, I could see how this could be sexy."

"And we're not even in our own classrooms," Mox says. "That would feel a little weird."

"Oh?" Adam says. "What could be weird?"

"I mean, if I kissed you in one of our classrooms, that would probably be pretty weird." He grins.

"Oh, definitely weird." Adam nods. "It's a really good thing we're not in one of our classrooms then."

Mox leans in so slowly it's like he expects Adam to lean away. Adam stays right there.

When Mox kisses him, Adam thinks he's seeing stars, and it's not just the red lights from the dark room behind his eyelids. The weight of it crashes on him like a wave and he can't help but settles his hands on Mox's hips. Mox pulls away, a tiny little smile on his lips. "God, you're cute," Mox laughs quietly. "Is it weird I'm kind of happy about the lockdown? I mean, terrible, reflection of the state this fucked up country is in, but for our personal needs it's not too bad, yeah?"

Adam nods. "I've definitely passed a lockdown in worse settings." He reaches up and adjusts his glasses on his nose. "So would you, um. Do you want to get coffee or something today? After work?"

"I don't know, Cowboy. Think that might be crossing a line."

Adam feels himself blush as red as the lights. "Oh, my god. Right. Sorry. I-"

"Oh, god, breathe," Mox says, settling his hands on Adam's shoulders. "That was a joke. I just kissed you. You asking me out is not over the line." He stares into Adam's eyes, and the urgency with which he whispers is almost comical. "I need to make sure you know it's a joke."

Adam chuckles, quiet. "Okay, yeah. So is that a yes?"

"I'll see you after school, Cowboy." He leans in and kisses Adam again, and Adam settles his hands on Mox's waist. He doesn't know how much time passes, but it's enough for him to jump when the principal's voice comes on the announcements saying, "All clear, Carter High. You may resume the normal schedule."

"You good, Adam?" Mox asks.

Adam nods. "Yeah. Just thinking about how we get out of here looking not like we've been making out in a closet the whole lockdown."

Mox snorts. "I was clearly being an upstanding citizen, and helped you to safety when I saw you were panicking." He grins. "Perfect addition to my teacher of the year pitch."

"Hey!" Adam says. He stumbles a little as Mox pushes the door open. "You can't use this to, like, pad your resume!"

"Why not?" Mox asks, shooting him a grin. "You were in need and, even though you're my rival for the position, I still helped you." He puts his hand over his heart as he opens the door to the photography classroom. "God, I'm such a humanitarian."

"I fuckin' hate you," Adam laughs as they make their way into the hallway.

Mox claps him on the back, hand lingering just a touch longer than it needs to. "No, ya don't."

#HangMox #AEW Teachers AU #Yes it gets a tag #It's literally my next big writing project #*sighs* Why can't I stop #wtf i like wrestling now???#in which sara writes #anxious millennial dreamboat #madly in love with leather daddy jon moxley #driadorim

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