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dunkzillla · 2 years ago

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A Place to Call Home (3/4)

It’s finally here! This mammoth of a chapter took a couple of weeks because it’s a. mammoth sized and b. I’ve had some personal stuff going on. but it’s here and it’s long so grab your snacks and drinks and settle in! This is dedicated to @whorehausen and @shes-a-voodoo-child because without them this wouldn’t be finished. thank you for your endless support, and well, being pretty much the only two reading this self indulgent little thing.

Title: A Place to Call Home

Pairings: Bryan Danielson/Nigel McGuinness, Bryan Danielson/William Regal, Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Claudio Castagnoli/Wheeler Yuta

Ratings/Warnings: Mature, Language, Sex

Summary: “I wouldn’t stop you, prinzli. I just hope you know what you’re doing. You remember what it used to be like, yes?” “Yeah. They were the happiest years of my life.”

Word Count: 14,288

Parts: ONE | TWO

AO3

The love that I was giving you was never in doubt. — Babylon, David Gray

They don’t talk about what happened when they got back from the pub the next morning. Bryan wants to, but he can’t seem to make the words come out of his mouth. He wants to ask Nigel why he put himself into the situation of sleeping with that woman and Bryan if he wasn’t into women. He wants to know what Nigel meant when he put his hands in his beard and said he had a cute little chin. Nigel always used to make fun of his hair, or lack of it when he shaved it, saying that he looked like a British skinhead and did he want his bomber jacket and a pair of docs to complete the look?

Half the time Bryan shaved his hair just to piss Nigel off, to have him keep picking fun at him because at least it kept his attention on him whenever it threatened to wander elsewhere. It was ironic that in their last months together, Nigel had shaved his hair and Bryan’s was grown out. Bryan guesses it started the shift in them, Nigel losing himself as he got tangled up in injuries and illnesses in TNA, and Bryan found himself being bounced around by WWE and the independent circuit.

He’s not about to shave his head to get a rise out of Nigel, but he does wonder what it would do.

Over the next couple of days they fall into an easy routine. Bryan gets up, has coffee in the garden before starting on making Nigel breakfast. Bryan keeps wearing Nigel’s robe, and relishes in how Nigel always comes down the stairs wearing only his shorts, with messy hair and sleepy eyes, thanking Bryan for coffee and breakfast and they enjoy it together, sitting at the table and talking about things they used to do, some of the matches Bryan’s had since they’ve been apart.

Then Nigel goes away to work, and Bryan cleans up breakfast and then tries to find things to do while Nigel’s not there. He goes for runs, explores the shops, he even plants a few things in Nigel’s garden, even though he’s hoping that when it’s finally time to ask Nigel to come home, it won’t be Nigel’s garden anymore.

He cooks dinner when Nigel gets back from work, and then they sit watching old matches together, shooting on all the dumb stuff they and other people did.

On Friday afternoon Nigel comes back a few hours early, says he always does on a Friday, and he sets his laptop bag down and comes into the garden where Bryan’s organising Nigel’s disaster of a shed.

“How do you feel about going away for a few days?”

Bryan feels his heart sink a little bit. “You have someone coming over?”

Nigel looks at him confused before shaking his head, “No you bloody idiot, how do you feel about us going away for the weekend. I want to take you somewhere.”

Oh. Oh well that’s. That’s something.

“You want to take me somewhere? Where?”

“That’s a secret. You just gotta’ say you’ll come with me.”

Anywhere, Bryan wants to say. I’ll come with you anywhere. But that’s — so he doesn’t, he just smiles and says,

“You’re not going to kidnap me and murder me, are you? Get me out of your hair?”

“Course not, I’ve had more than enough chances to do that, don’t need to take you away to murder you, Dragon. How many people know you’re here?”

Bryan wipes his dusty hands on his sweats, looking up at Nigel and squinting as the afternoon sun starts to dip behind the house. “None.”

“None? You didn’t tell anyone you were coming here?”

“Well. Doug knows, because I asked him for your information. And any of the other people I asked for your information could hazard a guess if someone asked them but. I just came straight here. Regal asked me the other day but I… didn’t tell him where I was.” Bryan explains, and he does feel bad about that, because Regal might start worrying about him if he doesn’t get back to him. He just doesn’t want anyone to know where he is yet. He doesn’t need them trying to get involved. Claudio knows the complexities of his and Nigel’s relationship better than most, having spent the most of his ROH time around them, Mox has always said they’re no good for each other, and poor Yuta hasn’t ever had to deal with the level of messed up Bryan is over Nigel, and he might not understand.

“Well aren’t you just full of surprises? Come on, get inside and clean up. I wanna miss the rush hour traffic.”

Bryan shuts the shed door. “We’re going now?”

“Yeah. I have work Monday, want to make the most of the weekend. That is unless you’re going back to the States.”

“No, I haven’t made any plans to go back yet.” And he’s not going to, not until he’s convinced Nigel to come back with him.

“Then pack your bag, Dragon. And make sure you put my robe in there, yeah?”

Bryan doesn’t blush, because he’s a grown man, but he does feel his body warm at the indirect call out.

“It’s mine now. You gave it to me.”

“Yeah, cos’ you were being a bloody idiot and sitting out in the cold without anything on. I didn’t give it to you to keep.”

“Well that was your mistake wasn't it, should have just let me be cold.”

“Now why would I ever do that?” Nigel says, and he puts his arm around Bryan’s shoulder and walks him back to the house and through the kitchen.

“Because apparently we’re not friends and you don’t like me?” Bryan deadpans.

Nigel stiffens a little bit beside him, and Bryan seizes the opportunity to wrap his hand in the tie around Nigel’s neck, pulling them closer together.

“I’ve changed my mind, I am going to murder you and dispose of the body where nobody will ever find you.” Nigel says, but his voice has dropped quieter, and he’s looking down at Bryan, looking at his mouth as she swipes a tongue over his lips.

“You wouldn’t. You couldn’t. You couldn’t even leave me knocked out in the ring, you got back in and made sure I didn’t freak out. You took me to the hospital and waited with me. You could try and kill me and leave my body somewhere, but you’d come back and get me, you’d revive me.” And Bryan says it like it’s an accusation and a fact all at once.

Something passes over Nigel’s face, and he clenches and unclenches his jaw. He could easily step away, he could easily get out of the hold Bryan has on his tie, but he doesn’t.

“Admit it.”

“Admit what, Bryan?”

“That we’re friends. That we’re more than friends, and we always have been. Admit that we’ve always been something more.”

Nigel’s hands come up, they turn up the collar of his white shirt, and then they tug the loop of the tie over his head, leaving it still tied in Bryan’s hands.

“Hurry up, I want to beat the traffic.” Is all he says before he’s turning and taking the stairs two steps at a time.

Bryan watches him go, and for a moment he just holds the tie in his hands and watches the empty staircase. Nigel’s always been good at pulling away at the last minute, at building and building the tension until he would just leave you high and dry at the last moment. It’s okay, Bryan can deal with that, he’s had fourteen years of not having it, of building his Nigel-centric patience back up. So he’ll deal with it for now, he’ll slowly work him down, just like he used to in the ring. He can out wrestle Nigel and he can also out whit him when it comes to emotions and feelings.

Bryan goes into his room, keeping the tie and stuffing it to the bottom of his bag, because if Nigel didn’t want him to have it then he shouldn’t have left it in his hands, and packs his clothes on top of it. Nigel said they were going for the weekend so he doesn’t need much, not that he has much anyway, but he also doesn’t know where they’re going, so he packs most of it so that he’s not caught out.

He can’t think of where Nigel wants to take him, why he wants to take him at all. But then Bryan doesn’t know the UK very well and Nigel’s always been unpredictable, so he shouldn’t be surprised at all.

He meets Nigel back downstairs, who’s putting his laptop away in a locked cupboard, his duffel bag sitting on the couch.

“You ready Dragon?”

“Ready,” Bryan confirms. “Are you going to tell me where we’re going now?”

“Nah,” Nigel says as he picks up his bag. “You’ll know when we get there.”

Nigel ushers him out of the door and Bryan tries to think what this is all about, what any of this could mean. They’ve kind of been on road trips together before, if you count all the riding together for wrestling, and that time they got lost, but they’ve never done it for the sole purpose of just going somewhere. Nigel’s never taken him anywhere but the hospital and Waffle House.

They get in Nigel’s car, Bryan’s rental sat in the same space on the road that it was the day he got here, unused and unneeded.

It’s a quiet journey for the most part, there isn’t much traffic on the roads like Nigel was hoping for, and the sun is just starting to set, casting everything in warm yellow tones. Nigel puts the car stereo on half an hour in, playing all the same music he always used to in his beat up little car, Oasis and Blur and other British groups that Bryan doesn’t remember the name of. Some of them are familiar and Bryan’s foot taps along with them, feeling like they’re on their way to the next ROH show, getting ready to fight each other for a belt or for the right to fight for a belt.

An hour in, Bryan looks out of the window to see a sign that says, Welcome to Blackpool. And he turns his head to Nigel, who’s got a smile playing on his face like he was waiting for Bryan to see that sign and realise where they were going.

“This is where you’re taking me? To Blackpool?”

“Well, you are part of the Blackpool Combat Club, and I couldn’t remember if you’d ever wrestled here, and seeing as you know, it’s literally your club's name and it’s not far from home, I thought I’d bring you.”

Bryan has wrestled here, just once. “James Mason, 2008. I lost.” He says remembering instantly. He hadn’t stayed for very long, Regal had hoped to be there but had been caught up with something, so Bryan had left the next day. He doesn’t remember much of it, just that it was in the ballroom at the big tower they have, and he’d been bored and lonely without Colt, Sal or Nigel around. He’d have even taken Eddie Kingston, if only for a familiar face to have been with him in a strange place.

“Really? Blimey.”

“You?”

“No, actually. Which feels weird now I know you have. You come here with Regal much?”

Bryan shakes his head. “He wanted to be here for that match, but he couldn’t make it. I don’t think I’ve ever been here outside of that.”

“What about the others?”

Bryan thinks about it. He can’t be certain, because he barely remembers all of the matches he’s had, let alone anyone else, but nothing jumps out at him. “I don’t know. I don’t think so? I don’t think I’ve ever heard Mox or Claudio mention it, and I doubt Yuta has.”

Nigel huffs out a laugh and turns down the stereo as they park up. “The Blackpool Combat Club and only one of its current members has ever wrestled in Blackpool, bloody typical.”

Bryan shrugs, he guesses it’s kind of weird, but it was an homage to the place Regal billed himself from, rather than a place special to all of them.

They’re on the seafront, and Bryan stares out the window at the view in front of him. The sea is crashing against the shore, frothy white foam reaching high up the beach before retreating. There’s lights strung up high on every single streetlight, wrapped around railings and twinkling along the pier in the distance.

“So what’s the big plan?” Bryan asks, and Nigel just grins.

“Find a place to stay. Have a look around.

Maybe we could catch a show.”

“Find a place — you mean we don’t already have a place? What if there isn’t one?” Bryan says, and he quickly gets out of the car when Nigel does too.

“It’s March in Blackpool, there’ll be somewhere. Though hopefully Regal didn’t spoil you too much while he was around, might have to slum it in a two or three star hotel.” The grin on Nigel��s face is a mile wide, like this is the funniest thing in the world. And Bryan doesn’t care what star rating the hotel has, he just cares that there is a hotel to stay in. They might not be far from Nigel’s place in the grand scheme of things, but Nigel is clearly up to something.

“You’re infuriating, Nigel.”

“And yet, here you are.”

Yeah, here he is indeed.

He follows Nigel up onto the sidewalk, the two of them walking side by side along the long strip. There aren’t too many people around, but it has dropped dark now, and the lights make everything look pretty and festive.

It’s pretty cold, and Bryan wishes he’d maybe brought a hat or something to keep his head warm. Nigel doesn’t seem bothered, which is weird, because normally it’s the other way around, with Nigel always cold and Bryan barely feeling it. It’s why he has his robe, after all.

They walk for a while before Nigel nudges him to cross the road, towards a little bed and breakfast place that has a wooden sign in the window that says Vacancies.

He follows him inside, instantly feeling the warmth of the place hit him in the face when he steps through the door. It smells like wood and furniture polish, and home cooked food that makes Bryan a little bit hungry. It’s a nice enough place, a little old fashioned, more to Regal’s taste than Bryan’s but it will do on short notice. Nigel goes up to the front desk and Bryan hangs around by the staircase. There’s picture frames lining the walls, all of them with a picture and a description of the picture underneath inside. They’re little pieces of history, and Bryan reads through them, trying to file them all away so that he can tell Regal about them later and watch his face light up as he does so. Regal hasn’t had much to be happy about lately.

“Anything interesting?” Nigel comes up behind him, a room key in his hand. And it’s an actual key, with a piece of string and a big thick piece of card tied on to it, the number written in scruffy black marker pen.

“Blackpool has the oldest amusement park ride in all of Europe.” Bryan recites, pointing at the picture of an old ride in black and white on the wall. It’s just a tall structure with spaceships on the end of wires, so when it spins, they fly.

“If I’d have known that I wouldn’t have gone on it.”

“Maybe you should do some reading up on the places you visit before you visit them.” Bryan jabs, and Nigel just rolls his eyes at him, pushing him towards the stairs.

Their room is on the top floor, and it’s a bit of a work out to get to it, the stairs are steep and twisting, but he guesses that’s normal for a place that is as old as this looks.

The first thing that strikes Bryan when Nigel opens the door is that the bed has hideous frilly, floral bed covers on and looks like his grandma picked them out in 1934. Then belatedly, as he’s about to say how hideous the covers are, he realises that it’s, that there’s only one bed.

“Before you say anything, this is all they had. And I didn’t think you’d appreciate leaving and finding anything else.” Nigel says before Bryan can say anything, dumping his bag on the bed and immediately going over to the window to look out at the view.

Bryan thinks about asking why they wouldn’t just look for something else, he wouldn’t have minded, but he doesn’t, because Nigel made this decision and he’s not about to argue about sharing a bed with him.

“Not like we haven’t shared a bed before.” Bryan says, putting his bag next to Nigel’s on the bed. He finds the bathroom, and when he switches the light on he finds that everything — the toilet, the bath and shower, the sink and the tiles — is pink. An old fashioned shade of floral pink, with gold accents that have seen better days. It’s the most hideous old fashioned bathroom Bryan has ever seen, but it’s clean and he supposes that that’s the main thing.

“I feel like I’ve stepped into the 1940s.” Nigel says behind him, and he hadn’t heard him coming up behind him and he jumps a little.

“It’s old fashioned but better than some of the stuff we used to end up in back in the day. Remember when that cockroach—“

“Do not bring up the cockroach on my face. I’ve blocked it out.”

“It was literally about to crawl in your mouth—“

“Dragon I swear to god we’re not talking about it, I have blocked it out.”

Bryan grins, because he hasn’t blocked it out, not at all, the memory of Nigel waking up in a panic slapping his face over and over again as he all but screamed about something crawling on him is one Bryan won’t ever forget. Not the way Nigel sat shaking afterwards in the shitty little chair next to the window refusing to go back to bed.

“Fine, we won’t talk about that.”

“The things we used to deal with. Bet it’s paid for 5 star hotels now, ain't it Dragon?”

“I mean it’s not 5 stars, but it’s paid for. Tony takes care of everything. Though, there’s nostalgia in the shittier hotels, don’t you think?”

“For you, maybe. I never got the luxury of paid expenses. I had to work at a grocery store while at TNA.”

“What?”

“When I wasn’t getting used and when I had the Hep I wasn’t getting paid, Bryan. Think I could survive without another job?”

“No I just — I didn’t know that.”

“You were lucky. WWE found you something to do when you had to retire,” Nigel says, and he’s looking out of the window and not at Bryan as he talks. “When I found out that you were forced to retire, I kept wondering what you were going to do. Surely your success couldn’t dwindle the same way mine did? Of course, it didn’t. I remember feeling relieved and angry all at the same time.”

“Nigel…”

“I am glad you got cleared again. There’s not a lot better in the world to me than watching Bryan Danielson at the top of his game.”

“You could get cleared again. You could be at the top of your game too, Nigel.”

“We should go and find some food, you’re talking rubbish.”

“I’m serious Nigel.”

“And so am I. We’ve had this conversation already, I have no business being this old and broken and getting back in the ring.” Nigel says, and he scoops the room key back up ushers Bryan back out of the room.

“And anyway, that head doc of yours. Sampson. He’s the bloody arsehole who wouldn’t clear me back in 2009. He certainly wouldn’t clear me now.”

“He was?”

“Mhm. There was nothing wrong with me back then, I got multiple letters from my doctor that my arm was fine, didn’t need surgery, and he still wouldn’t clear me. I’m nearly fifty now, I’m not in any better shape.”

“He cleared me to come to AEW and I’d argue I’m in worse shape than you.”

“You are in worse shape than me, you bloody lunatic. I’ve had twelve years without taking kicks to the head. You’ve never really stopped, have you? I have no idea how he cleared you. Or why. But he has.”

They make it back out onto the seafront, and this time it’s much busier, with people walking in big groups around them, little kids zig zagging through their legs and screaming in delight.

“I think you probably are in better shape. You proved in TNA you didn’t need the bicep surgery. You came back from Hep B. And you’ve clearly been taking care of yourself since then, you’ve had time to heal. You’ve got more chances of being cleared than you did back then.”

The way that Nigel doesn’t respond right away with a comment to shut him down, and instead keeps his eyes looking forward with a haunted look on his face shows Bryan that slowly he’s cracking that defence Nigel’s had up about returning to wrestling ever since he retired.

“How about Italian for dinner? That place looks nice.” Nigel changes the subject and points to a restaurant on the corner of a street up ahead.

Inside it’s not particularly busy, and they get seated right at the back in their corner, so they’re graced with obscurity and privacy that they luckily didn’t have to ask for.

They eat nice food and talk about wrestling matters that don’t involve Nigel making a comeback, and when they’re both stuffed full they take a walk across the beach. Bryan can feel the sand getting into his shoes, and it’s cold, but the lights are all lit up and there’s music playing somewhere and it’s nice. It’s different and it’s nice and he’s with Nigel. That’s what really makes it.

When Bryan’s got enough sand in his shoes to start his own beach, they head over to a convenience store on the corner of the street and buy snacks just like they always used to. Nigel was always hungry back when he was wrestling, and they always had to make sure there were chips, sweets and chocolate on them at all times. Old habits die hard, Bryan guesses.

Back at the bed and breakfast they both lay out on the bed sharing a bag of chips, watching a weird British game show that Nigel gets annoyed at and shouts you bloody idiots at all the contestants who get questions wrong. It’s nice to just lay next to Nigel and not have to think about anything. Not have to think about work, or Regal and the BCC, or winning and losing titles. To listen to Nigel shouting the answer to the question at the TV screen like they’re going to be able to hear him and give the host the right answer. But it makes him want to roll over and punch him right in the face, too. Because if Nigel had just lied, if he’d not told the WWE about that bicep injury they’d have cleared him, and they’d have wrestled there together, Nigel would have been woven into his story in the most wonderful and infuriating way. They wouldn’t be here now, Nigel a car salesman and Bryan a wrestler just looking for his heart to finally come home. Bryan wouldn’t be here figuring out how to get Nigel to come home. They’d probably both be scrapping it out in the ring and on the mics in AEW and ROH, just like they always have. Like they always should have been.

When he’s ready to turn in, Bryan doesn’t bother getting his sleep pants out of his bag, he simply strips down to his boxers and folds his clothes up before slipping under the covers. Nigel tries to make it look like he’s not watching as he scrolls on his phone, but Bryan can feel his eyes on him the whole time.

Nigel stays up longer than Bryan, though he switches the TV off and scrolls on his phone without making any noise. Eventually he does the same as Bryan and strips down and gets into the bed. It’s been over a decade since they shared a bed, but Nigel still smells the same, still makes Bryan’s heart flutter like he’s twenty four and crazy for him.

Bryan gets a few hours sleep before he’s woken up by his phone blaring on the bedside table. He scrambles to find it in his bleary state, and Nigel rouses beside him, their feet tangled together as he gets the phone and answers it without even looking at the caller ID that’s so bright it feels like it would have blinded him anyway.

“Hello?” Bryan says, untangling his feet from Nigel and getting out of the bed. He goes into the bathroom so he doesn’t wake Nigel up anymore than he already has.

“Honigbienli, tell me why I have just heard the international dial tone when calling you?”

Claudio.

“Uh,” Bryan says dumbly as he sits down on the closed toilet lid, tucking his feet up so they don’t get cold on the tiles. “Because I’m… not at home.”

“Then where are you? William has been calling us telling us he can’t get hold of you. That you haven’t been at your place since the pay per view. I have texted you a dozen times. You have fallen off the face of the earth!”

Bryan winces a little bit, hearing both the anger and concern in Claudio’s voice. He should have responded to them all. It’s not like he hasn’t had the time, he’s had all the time in the world while waiting for Nigel to come back from work, but he just hasn't. He hasn’t wanted anyone to know where he is, to tell him what he’s doing is stupid. And with everything they’ve been going through, maybe he’d forgotten that they’d still be worried about him if they didn’t hear from him.

“I’m in Blackpool.”

“Blackpool?!”

“I was in Liverpool, but I just got into Blackpool a little while ago.”

“Bryan what are you — is this what you meant when you said you were ‘going home?’ Are you trying to… find yourself?”

“No, no I’m — well. Yes. It is about home, but it’s not — I’m not trying to find myself. I’m, I’m with Nigel.”

“Nigel… Oh goodness… You found him?”

Bryan scratches the top of his foot and rests his chin on his knee. “He wasn’t that hard to find once I looked in the right place.”

“Prinzli, what are you doing?”

“I’m going to get him to come home.”

There is silence at the end of the line, and Bryan almost checks to see whether Claudio has ended the call before he hears a soft sigh.

“And how is that going?”

“I don’t know. I think I’m doing alright. I’ll do what it takes, for as long as it takes.”

“You’ve been without him for so long, Bryan. I thought that was a healed wound.”

“It was never a wound. He has never been a wound. He’s been… something special that I left behind when I moved house and thought I’d never get back but I have a chance to and now I want to make sure I come home with it. That he comes home where he belongs.”

“I never thought we would be here again, talking about Nigel McGuinness.”

“Yeah, me neither. But I need this, Claudio. I don’t think I’ve really been me for a long time. To be me I need him to come home. Please let me do this.”

“I wouldn’t stop you, prinzli. I just hope you know what you’re doing. You remember what it used to be like, yes?”

“Yeah. They were the happiest years of my life.”

Claudio sighs softly, and he hears him moving around. “I would never. The American Dragon doesn’t let anything get in between him and Nigel McGuinness. I learnt that a long time ago.” He says, and Bryan wants to protest because he did. He let his own path to success leave Nigel behind. But he doesn’t. Because what’s the point? It’s all happened. He can’t change it.

“Make sure you call William, or just let him know you’re okay. Mox has threatened to change all our numbers if he calls us again.”

“I will. How are they? Mox and Yuta?”

“Good, they’re good. They were worried about you, of course. They’ll be happy to know you’re okay.”

“Good. Tell them I miss them, and that I love them.”

“I will, but you should call them too. Especially Yuta. He’s trying his hardest not to get ‘all in his feelings’ as you say, but he would like things to go back to normal.”

“I will, I will I promise I’ll get everything sorted out. I just need to do this.”

“Okay. I will let you go, it must be late there?”

“Yeah. Middle of the night or something. Nigel’s gonna’ hate that you woke him up.”

“Sharing a room?”

Bryan feels his cheeks warm, feels far too old to be blushing but he can’t stop it. “Maybe.”

“It feels like 2007 all over again. Be careful, prinzli. And good luck.”

“Thank you Claudio. I love you.”

“I love you too, Bryan.”

The line drops, and Bryan pulls the phone away from his ear again to lock it. His ear is warm and a little sweaty from holding the phone against it, and he rubs at it with the palm of his hand. He washes his hands just because he’s been in the bathroom and touched the lid of the toilet seat before he steps back into the bedroom. Nigel is wrapped up in the blankets, having pulled them all on him while Bryan was in the bathroom. He’s always been a blanket hog.

“Who the fuck was that?” Nigel mumbles sleepily when Bryan gets back into the bed, turning to face him and actually letting him have some of the blankets back. Nigel never used to let him have the blankets back.

“Claudio. He didn’t know I was here so he didn’t know it was the middle of the night.”

“Castagnoli. Should have known. Nothing but a worry wart.”

“A what?”

“A worry wart. Always worrying. You tell him you’re here?”

“Yeah. Regal called them because he hadn’t heard back from me, so I’ll have to tell him tomorrow too.”

“As long as it doesn’t put you in a mood, I don’t want to be dragging a grumpy Dragon around all day.”

“I’ll just text him. By the time we wake up they’ll be asleep anyway.”

“Mmhm.”

Nigel’s already falling back to sleep, and Bryan slides down further into the covers. He wants to reach out and touch Nigel’s cheek. To feel the age lines across his skin, to feel that scar above his eye, to run his hands through his hair that hasn’t been spiked or bleached in years. But he doesn’t. Because he doesn’t have any more nerve than he did back then. Maybe less, actually, because back then, when they were under the covers and Nigel would kiss him out of the blue before going to sleep, Bryan had the nerve to kiss back, to lean into him as they slept. He doesn’t have the nerve to touch him now. But back then he didn’t have the nerve to bring it up in the morning, to talk about why Nigel kissed him, why it never led to anything. Now he’s been confronting Nigel, trying to get him to admit to them always being more than friends. Maybe he does have the nerve, just a different kind.

Bryan watches Nigel until he falls asleep, hoping and praying that he can convince Nigel to come home soon.

Breakfast is kind of a sorry affair, at least for Bryan anyway. They don’t have any vegetarian or vegan options, beside dry toast and fruit, because there’s no dairy free milk for the cereal or dairy free butter for toast or meat free options on the English breakfast. Which. Fine. It’s whatever. He makes do with some runny jam on the now cold toast while Nigel happily scarfs down his sausages, bacon and egg.

It’s still early when they head out, and thankfully it’s a pretty nice day, not particularly warm but the sun is shining bright in the sky and it makes everything just feel so much nicer.

They make their way along the seafront, reading all of the plaques and signs which talk about the history of Blackpool and significant events. Bryan takes a couple of pictures and sends them to Regal, with a very brief explanation of I’m in Blackpool with Nigel. Call soon. Hoping that it’s enough to tide him over until Bryan can sit down and talk to him properly. The message gets read but he doesn’t get a response, so it must be.

They pay the admission fee into the amusement park, which is rather weirdly called ‘Blackpool Pleasure Beach’, like it’s some sort of weird sex beach even though it’s not actually on the beach or about sex at all. They don’t go on any of the rides, because neither of them care for roller coasters, but they find the one that is mentioned at the B&B in the frame, looking up at it and watching it as it spins, kids sitting in the little spaceships and screaming in delight. They watch the log flume soak it’s passengers, and Bryan questions the safety and structural integrity of the coaster that has a 213ft peak and looks like it’s one big gust of wind away from falling down.

They get coffee and Bryan lets himself have one of the donuts Nigel buys even though they’re covered in sugar, greasy with oil and definitely aren’t vegetarian or vegan. He lets himself go sometimes, and now is definitely the time he’s allowed.

They check out the tower after lunch, and Bryan realises it hasn’t really changed since he was here over a decade ago. It’s busier this time, a good crowd of tourists in front of them in the queue to get in, and this time he’s got Nigel with him rather than being on his own.

He feels a bit sick when they get to the top, because the glass floor shows nothing but the drop below them, and it’s a long way down and he doesn’t know if he trusts how thick the floor is to hold all of them that are standing on it. There’s a kid who keeps jumping up and down like nothing about what he’s doing scares him and Nigel pulls him as far away from the child as possible. Not that it would make any difference, but still.

It’s late afternoon by the time they come out of the tower, and they have another coffee sitting in one of the little sheltered benches watching a group of kids making sandcastles.

There’s a mom with two kids next to them, and they’re happily eating their ice creams until the little girl’s scoop drops off of her cone and onto the floor. She immediately starts crying, and the mom starts to fluster, trying to get her brother to share his cone with her, because she can’t leave them to get another one, and she can’t drag a screaming child, a child eating an ice cream and push a stroller all the way back to the ice cream shop. Bryan is about to offer to go for her, when Nigel just gets up and disappears.

When he comes back, he’s got a small tub of ice cream in one hand, and the other curled into a fist, concealing something. The mom thanks him profusely as the little girl stops crying, and she scrambles around for her purse which Nigel tells her to put away. The little girl is beaming from ear to ear, thanking him sweetly for the ice cream, and Nigel gets down on his hunches and from behind her ear, he ‘finds’ a thick coin, Bryan’s not good with British currency so he doesn’t know how much it’s worth, but her eyes light up at the magic trick. Not to leave her brother out, who’s been staring at Nigel the whole interaction, he finds a coin behind his ear, too, grinning when he gets wow! That’s so cool! From the kid with ice cream all around his mouth.

The kids demand another magic trick, so Nigel, who actually carries a deck of cards on him at all times apparently, shows them a few card tricks, entertaining them long enough for their mom to feed and change the baby, and Bryan can see how grateful she is that Nigel is performing an impromptu magic show for her children. Bryan watches with a small smile on his face, like he used to when he’d stand in the back watching Nigel wrestle. Watching Nigel is always an experience, but there’s something about watching Nigel do something he loves, watching him perform that is so beautiful. Nigel doing magic is similar to Nigel wrestling, you can see it in his face how much he loves it, you can see his brain working behind his eyes as he thinks about his next move, his next trick, what he’s going to say to pop you for what he’s just done. The kids ask for the next trick over and over again, and Nigel has so many that Bryan can’t even keep up.

The sun has started to set by the time the children’s mom finally manages to wrangle them away from Nigel, but not before he produces candy from behind their ear as they’re leaving. They squeal with delight, showing their mom the little candies in their hands as they walk away, and Nigel sits himself back down on the bench next to Bryan.

“You’ve never, ever found candy behind my ear.” Bryan says, smiling out towards the sea. The coffee in his hand is cold now, but he still holds it against his chest.

Nigel’s hand snakes out and strokes through his beard, and before Bryan can even react, he’s holding up a piece of candy, and the smile on his face is blinding.

“Not quite your ear, but impressive, yeah?”

“God, you’re so—“

“Magical?”

“Annoying.”

Nigel’s still grinning, and he doesn’t even give Bryan the piece of candy, he just tucks it back into his pocket.

“That was nice, what you did just then.” Bryan says quietly.

“I’m a nice person, Bryan.”

Bryan goes to argue immediately, and wants to say that no, Nigel isn’t a nice person. Nigel locked him in a store cupboard, knocked him out, spat on him, bit him, disappeared from his life and left him suffering for over a decade without him. But just because all of that is true doesn’t mean that Nigel isn’t also a nice person. Nigel who helped him up when he knocked him out, who took him to the hospital, who offered to drive him to be there for the birth of his nephew.

“Yeah, I guess you are sometimes.” He admits quietly.

They sit in silence for a moment before Nigel nudges Bryan’s knee with his own. “Let’s get something to eat.”

They end up getting fish and chips, and Bryan has to remember that chips are fries here, and not chips like back home. He doesn’t have the fish, instead opting for the veggie burger they offer, and they take them actually onto the beach, sitting down on the dry sand at the top near the wall.

They’re pretty nice, if not a little greasy, and the burgers quite spicy which is nice, and sitting arm to arm with Nigel as they eat is even nicer. It’s dark now, but everything is illuminated by the lights running along the seafront, and the clear night sky means that the moon is reflecting on the ocean, and it’s beautiful. He feels at peace here, and Bryan realises Claudio might have been onto something when he asked if he was in Blackpool to find himself. He knows he’s not finding himself here, but maybe it’s something akin to it. He’s finding something here. He realises he hasn’t properly stopped in a while, stopped and appreciated himself, his family, his life. It’s been go go go since he joined AEW, even when he was sidelined for that little while to be on the safe side with his head, he was training, he was keeping up with everything he could so he didn’t get left behind. He’s been chasing the title and chasing the top spot right from the very beginning, and after losing to MJF, he knew he had to change things, knew he had to go back to the drawing board if he wanted to keep doing this. And that plan had been getting Nigel back into wrestling, somehow. Because no matter what he does, Nigel being there means Bryan is better. Bryan is always at his best when Nigel is around, and that was the whole reason for coming here, or at least to Liverpool to find him. Because Bryan wants to be the best and he needs Nigel there with him.

But maybe this has more than opened his eyes to how good just stopping for a while can be. He’s enjoyed these few days with Nigel, not thinking of work much at all. Maybe he needs to do this more often. Maybe now he knows why Claudio sets aside time when he can to play Uno with Breeze, Creed and Cole, why Mox still drives his truck out to forests and wooded areas to go for a run where he can completely be alone, why Yuta sits and plays his steel pan for hours, learning new rhythms until he’s memorised them. Maybe Bryan needs to just stop more, focus on his garden again like he has in the past. Maybe Nigel could help him.

Maybe, if he can get Nigel to come home, Nigel could do a lot of things with him.

They finish their food and Bryan gets up to walk over to the trash can to throw away their rubbish before sitting back next to Nigel. There’s sand in his shoes again, and it’s all over the backs of his legs but he doesn’t really care, because he’s pressed against Nigel, and he can feel his warmth, smell his cologne.

It feels a bit like when it was just them in the car on the way to the next show, when they didn’t bum a lift off Colt, or Sal wasn’t jumping into the back at the last minute begging for a ride, or Nigel offering Roddy the back seat without consulting him. It’s just the two of them, no one else around them, just the expanse of the sand and sea, the moon above and the cold snap of the wind around them as the waves crash against the shoreline.

“Headlock takeover.” Nigel says suddenly, quiet, and laughing a little.

“What?”

“You said the other day, about how people took little parts of me and made them their own. But that kid, MJF, he told that other guy, what’s his name… Darby. He told Darby he could beat him with a headlock takeover. And he pretty much did. You remember the two out of three falls match, you did nothing but put me in a headlock for the first twenty minutes of the match. He was taking little bits of you, in that one.”

Bryan has to admit, he doesn’t remember that between MJF and Darby, but it sounds like something that Max would say. And that he would do. He also doesn’t remember a hell of a lot of the two out of three falls match either, but he does remember the headlocks, and how much he knew it was pissing Nigel off.

“Yeah but I didn’t beat you with it.”

“No, but you could have. You got the first fall. A regular match you would have won.”

“You only took that pin because it was that type of match, you’d have kicked out if it was a regular match.”

Nigel huffs, “And how’d you know that, eh?”

“Because I know you. And every other match we’ve had. Takes me a lot more than that to beat you.”

“Doesn’t take you a lot, Dragon. You beat me more than I beat you.”

“Are you sure about that?”

“What do you mean, am I sure? We’ve had about forty matches in total, give or take, and about thirteen of those were one on one singles. I took you to a time limit draw on two occasions. So out of the remaining eleven matches, I only beat you three times, so you’re up by eight to three.”

Huh. Bryan didn’t know that. All the different matches he’s had with Nigel have all melded together, he remembers bleeding and being in pain in most of them, but he can’t remember all of them or who won or lost which. He just remembers moments, like the ending of that two out of three falls match, the blood at Unified. The blood in their last match. There were tag matches too, he can remember those. Especially the ones in which he got to tag with Nigel, they were always the best. He loved wrestling Nigel, getting to tear and claw at him, but he loved wrestling with Nigel too. They were a good team, and he remembers teaming up with him to take on Naomichi Marafuji and Takeshi Morishima, both of them wanting to prove they were good enough to pin the champ and get a shot at Morishima’s World title. Which, if he remembers rightly, Nigel got the pin that night. And he went on to beat Morishima for the title, which Bryan ruined the celebration by coming out to him and trying to pick a fight.

Of course he tried to pick a fight. If anyone was going to fight Nigel for the title it was going to be him—

Bryan suddenly feels an arm behind his back, and then it’s around his neck, Nigel catching him in a headlock.

“You think I’ve got it in me to get my score up to make us even, Dragon?” Nigel says, and like he’s not missed a day in the ring, he wrestles Bryan down onto the sand, and Bryan can feel it grazing his hands as he scrambles to push himself off, can feel it getting in every single crack and crevice of his clothes and body, but he can also feel the electricity of Nigel touching him, of Nigel wrestling him. It’s not in the ring, and it’s just a headlock, but it feels like everything slots into place, like that tiny piece of the puzzle that you dropped on the floor and could never find just magically slots in, and the whole picture is complete.

Bryan grips at Nigel’s arm, still just as strong as it ever was, even if it’s not as big, and he tries his hardest to wrench himself out of the hold, but with the sand he can’t get his footing, sneakers in the sand is not the same as boots in the ring. It takes a little bit of tussling before Bryan finally manages to flip them over, slipping out of the headlock. He pushes Nigel down onto the sand, gripping his wrists and pinning them down.

“It’s like riding a bike. You never forget how to do it.” Bryan says, and he’s straddling Nigel’s waist now, sitting triumphant on top of him.

“Maybe you never forget how to do it, but you can get too old too.”

“You’re not. You’re just making excuses.”

“You really are still an insufferable little brat, aren't you?”

And Bryan feels that all over his body, always felt it when Nigel called him an annoying little brat, always wanted to kiss him or punch him, do something to show just how much of a brat he could be but he never did. He never had the nerve.

Bryan leans down and kisses him before he can talk himself out of it, or before Nigel can push him off.

The minute his lips touch Nigel’s, for the first time in over a decade, Bryan feels like a firework goes off inside him, lighting up every single vein and nerve with pure magic. Nigel is warm and solid beneath him, and his lips are soft, their combined stubble and beard scratch together, and Bryan feels like he’s flying. Nigel’s kissing him back, and it’s not just one of the soft, scared, barely there kisses they used to have under the covers, it’s a kiss that Bryan’s pouring everything into, let’s go of Nigel’s hands and can’t help but let slip a moan when they come up to settle on his hips.

The kiss is only broken when Bryan feels like his lungs are going to explode from lack of oxygen and he has to take a breath. Nigel stares up at him, dazed, and his fingers are stroking just under the hem of his shirt, against the soft skin of his belly and making him shiver.

“That was…” Nigel says sitting up, pressing the two of them flush together, and leaving him with a lap full of Bryan.

“Long overdue.” Bryan finishes for him, pressing their foreheads together, because now he’s this close to Nigel he doesn’t want to stop, not until he’s pushed off and told no.

Bryan kisses him again, just because he can, and this time he gets fistfuls of Nigel’s jacket to keep him close, and he shamelessly grinds down into his lap. He doesn’t even care that they’re out in the open, because it’s dark, and it’s Nigel, and he didn’t think he’d ever be this close to him ever again.

“You get turned on when I call you a brat, Dragon?”

“You’ve never noticed?” Bryan answers against his mouth, and when Nigel huffs against his lips Bryan swallows it greedily, because he doesn’t know when he’ll get this again, whether Nigel will clam up or start teasing him again, pretending they’re nothing but people who used to wrestle together, not even friends, not even something.

“You never said.”

Bryan ignores Nigel in favour of kissing him, because that’s the better option, and Nigel lets it happen for a while before he’s pulling away, and dodging Bryan when he tries to chase his lips.

“Let’s go back. We can’t do this here.”

Bryan makes a noise, but Nigel’s right, they can’t spend all night here, and Bryan, well, he wants more than a kiss, if Nigel will give it to him. And they can’t do that here.

He gets up, offering a hand to Nigel to help him. A wave crashes loudly behind them, and Bryan feels like it’s as loud as his heartbeat right now, thumping against his chest as he looks up at Nigel.

There’s a moment where Nigel looks like he’s going to push Bryan out of his space, just turn away from him like he’s done so many times already this past week, but then he gets a hand around the back of Bryan’s neck and pulls him in, kissing him deep and hard like he’s always wanted Nigel to. And it’s everything he’s dreamed of, everything he’s ever pictured. Nigel’s hand is strong on his neck, and his mouth is hot and heavy and it makes Bryan sway on his feet.

“Nigel…”

“Come on, let's get back.” Nigel moves him by the hand on the back of his neck, before sliding it down to the small of his back as they make their way up the beach and back onto the sidewalk. The B&B isn’t too far away, but Bryan’s fizzing inside of his bones by the time they get there, feels like he’s having an outer body experience as they ascend the stairs, Nigel hot on his heels as they go.

He stumbles a little trying to unlock the room, the old key getting jammed in the door more than once, and it’s embarrassing that he’s in his forties and fumbling like a teenager, but that’s just how Nigel makes him feel, how long he’s been waiting to have this kind of moment with Nigel.

“Nervous?” Nigel rumbles behind him as they get into the room, and Bryan hates how small and inexperienced Nigel can make him feel. He’s old and he’s done this dance so many times that he can’t keep track, but Nigel makes him feel like a Virgin on prom night.

“Shut the fuck up.” He half growls half whines, slipping out of his jacket. Nigel does the same, and he’s barely got it off his shoulders before Bryan’s sinking to his knees in front of him. The carpet of the room is thin and he knows his knees are going to kill him after this, but God, if he hasn’t thought about this since he was in his early twenties, hasn’t wanted to suck Nigel’s dick for nearly two decades. Right now he doesn’t care if they both pop out and crack to pieces, as long as he gets his mouth on Nigel.

“Oh bloody hell, Bryan.” Nigel grits out when Bryan gets his cock out of his jeans, thick, hard and heavy in his hand. He’s seen Nigel’s dick before, in that woman’s mouth, in the locker room showers when he didn’t care who saw him naked, but he’s never been this close. Never held it in his hand, but he’s imagined it, dreamt about it and got himself off to it.

Bryan feels himself make an embarrassing noise when he slips his mouth down over him. He’s not been touched, or touched anyone, in months. Regal’s been busy, and before that he was too unwell with what MJF did to him, and the others, well he hasn’t been around to touch them. He’s touch starved and only noticing it now he’s finally getting to touch Nigel.

Nigel’s fingers find the back of his head, and tug at the hair tie, letting his hair down so he can get a grip on it.

“Always fucking knew you’d be good at this. Used to run your mouth so much, all I’d think about was stuffing you full and shutting you up.”

Bryan makes another noise at that, sliding his tongue along the underside of his cock. And if he could bear to take his mouth off of him Bryan would ask why he never did, because he’d have let him, it’s all he thought about too. He looks up at Nigel and grips his hip with the hand he’s not working his cock with, feels the dip that never used to be there, the slimness of his figure something that Bryan never expected to feel but it still feels right, like his fingers are meant to be there, mapping out every single line and muscle of Nigel’s body. Nigel’s face is slack with pleasure, eyes a little glazed over already, and Bryan thinks, wonders, how long it’s been for him. How long since someone touched him like this?

“Bry — get, get on the bed. I won’t last, and I can’t —“

Bryan doesn’t need to be told twice. He knows, they’re not young anymore, and they don’t have the refractory period they used to have, and Bryan really, really doesn’t want this to end with just a blow job, either.

He gets on the bed and pulls at his clothes, throwing them haphazardly off the other side of the bed. Nigel crawls on after him, a condom and lube in his hand, and Bryan can’t help but raise his eyebrows at him.

“Were you hoping to get lucky?”

Nigel smirks and bullies his way between Bryan’s legs, dropping them onto Bryan’s chest as he kisses him. “I don’t go anywhere without a condom, Dragon, safety first.” He says, and Bryan realises why just a little too late, but his apology is swallowed by Nigel’s mouth, and the strong hands that slide down his side to his ass short circuit his brain until he’s not thinking about anything but Nigel’s touch, and the heat from his skin, and the way he sucks and bites at Bryan’s throat like a starving man.

When Nigel gets his fingers into him, Bryan’s chest is bitten raw and his hair is sweaty and matted against the pillow from where Nigel’s been keeping him down with a hand to his throat as he chews at him like he’s a dog toy. And maybe he is, maybe he’s always been Nigel’s toy. It doesn’t matter that this is the first time they’ve ever been like this, he’s always been Nigel’s. Nigel’s the same way he’s Regal’s. The same way he’s Mox’s, Claudio’s, Yuta’s.

“I dreamt about you once, on the road,” Nigel murmurs against his mouth, and he’s got three fingers in him, and Bryan’s arching and squirming as he tries to get more, take more. “Dreamt about ripping those stupid trunks off you in the ring, pushing you down and making you mine, putting new trunks on you. Black ones, with a Union Jack across the arse. You know how much I hated seeing you in his gear?”

Bryan stutters out a breath. He didn’t know that. “You never said.” He gasps, and he grips at Nigel’s bicep, the bad one, but it’s not anymore, Bryan can feel the strength in it, how it’s holding him down, and in his head he can hear the thumpthumpthump of Todd Sinclaire’s hand on the mat, counting the three count.

“Nearly did, a few times. But your old man had his claws deep in you, always has, always will. Wouldn’t matter what I said, what I did.” Nigel’s teeth snag on his lip in a biting kiss, and Bryan feels his cock jump at the slight rush of pain.

Bryan feels like he’s floating, hands skimming over Nigel’s skin as he slips on a condom and lubes himself up. He thinks, as Nigel’s cock nudges into him, that at the time, if Nigel had asked him to stop wearing Regal’s trunks, he would have. At least, he wouldn’t have worn them all the time. He’d have worn black, or any other colour that Nigel wanted. Blue, maybe, just like Nigel used to wear in his early ROH years.

Fully seated inside of him, Nigel puts a hand around his throat, and he looks so beautiful on top of him. Just like he always did in the ring, just older now, a sharper jaw, softer eyes. Bryan pushes into his hand, hooks his legs around Nigel’s thighs, hands on his arms and pushes, flips them over to the middle of the bed.

Nigel looks just as good under him as he does on top of him, and he relishes in the hint of fear that crosses his face, that fighting spirit that Nigel’s so famous for starting to bubble to the surface.

Bryan rolls his hips, that first stroke of Nigel’s cock inside him making every single nerve inside of him sing, and he grips Nigel’s wrist around his throat, keeps it there like a pretty collar, and gives Nigel a matching one with his own hand.

“What, you thought I’d just lay down for you, Nigel? When have I ever done that?” Bryan grins at him, taking in Nigel’s shocked face.

“You always did come out on top.” Nigel says, but his free hand circles Bryan’s waist, and he plants his feet, pushing up into Bryan in slow, hard thrusts. It’s mind blowing, every thrust sending fireworks up Bryan’s spine, and his head tips back into the hand on his throat. It doesn’t cut off his air supply, but the pressure there, like Nigel could just choke him at any second, makes Bryan feel hot all over. It’s always will he won’t he with Nigel. Will he kiss him, will he punch him, will he beat him, will he take the title from him.

“I would have.” Bryan says, tipping his face back down, looking Nigel right in the eye as he rolls himself down, meeting the slow hard drag of Nigel’s dick.

“Would have what, Dragon?”

“Worn your trunks. You should have asked.”

“You wouldn’t—“

Bryan leans down, squeezing Nigel’s throat in warning, the same way he does to Yuta when he’s acting too much like a brat, and he kisses the corner of Nigel’s mouth, feeling the way he sucks in a breath, the way his dick twitches inside of him. “I would. I was his — am his, but I was just as much yours, always was, from the moment we met. Still am, after all this time.”

Nigel shakes a little below him, and Bryan pins both his arms down, taking what he’s wanted for so long now.

“Shit, Bry, I’m gonna—“

Bryan rides him through it, keeping Nigel’s arms pinned against the pillows. The way Nigel’s face contorts with his orgasm, the same way it did that night they slept with the woman from the bar, and Bryan’s been so desperate to see it ever since, to be the reason he’s seeing it, that it drives him a little crazy, and he only needs to stroke himself a couple of times before he’s coming all over Nigel’s stomach and chest, which is heaving with the orgasm and effort.

Bryan slumps down against Nigel, tucking his face into his neck and linking their fingers as they come down together. It’s funny, how long Bryan’s yearned for this, for Nigel, and that all the years he’s wanted it, the one thing that made him come and get it, get him, was losing to MJF. MJF doesn’t mean anything to him, other than being someone who hurt Regal, he’s no one to him, just a blip on the radar of people in his life. He’s no one. Yet somehow that loss, it rankled him enough to get on a plane all the way to England.

Was it really about the loss? The straw that broke the camel's back, or was it something else? Something subconscious, something deep within that Bryan hasn’t even begun to process yet? He doesn’t know. He just knows that he woke up the day after losing that match and he just — knew that this was where he needed to be. What was going to make Bryan happy, what was going to help him finally find his footing in the title picture. It’s not like he hasn’t thought about Nigel all these years, or not wanted him, but whenever he thought about him, it always ended with he’s gone, he doesn’t want to be found. But that morning, he woke up and said no, no more hiding, I need him.

“That woman from the bar, I couldn’t believe she was chatting you up. That you might have taken her back to the hotel. I kept thinking about it. About you touching her. I’d never seen you pull before, I couldn’t watch it.” Nigel says, breaking the silence that has fallen over them. His hand is on Bryan’s back, tracing the ridges of his spine with the pad of his finger.

“So you got involved?”

“I had hoped she would disappear, or I’d be able to get her to come with me to the bathroom or something and I could lose her. But she was relentless, she wanted your dick so bloody badly.” Nigel huffs out a laugh.

“Why didn’t you just tell her to leave?”

“Dunno, thought that would make it too obvious.”

“You should have made it obvious. It wasn’t her that I wanted. I was being polite, I wouldn’t have gone back to the hotel with her if you hadn’t come back too. I only managed to come because you did, I was watching you the whole time.” Bryan admits, and from where his cheek is pressed against Nigel’s shoulder he feels him let out a breath.

“I was imagining you were the one sucking me off, not her.” Nigel admits, and Bryan sighs. There was a middle woman that night, figuratively and literally, getting in the way of what they both wanted, because they were both too stubborn and too scared to admit how they really felt, who they really wanted.

“It could have been so different.” Bryan says.

“No,” Nigel says after a while. “It wouldn’t have been different. Even if we’d fucked, or been something, that wouldn’t have changed anything. WWE would have still rescinded my contract, I’d have still gotten Hepatitis. I’d have still come here, still done all this. Who I was getting my dick wet with would have never changed that.”

“You don’t know that, you don’t know how you—“

“I do know that, Bryan, I do know. I can’t tell you exactly when and where I got the hep, but I do know I’ve never had unprotected sex, so it came from wrestling. Whether we had been something I’d have still gotten it, still lost my contract, and still retired. What, you think that if we’d have had a thing back then that everything would have turned out perfectly? That I’d have come to the WWE with you, won the title a bunch of times and still been there now? Come on, Dragon, you’re smarter than that. You know that’s not how the world works.”

“Maybe,” Bryan says, resigned. He wishes it could have been like that. Forever entangled together. The only thing that would have made winning that first world title in WWE would have been Nigel being there with him, or being an insufferable prick and interrupting him, ruining the celebration, just like Bryan did to him in ROH. “But it’s hard not to think about what could have been.”

Nigel falls silent, and Bryan knows he’s thinking about it. What could have been. About a world where Nigel was never a retired pro wrestler turned car salesman, where he went ahead and became one of the most decorated wrestlers the WWE has ever seen. Because Bryan knows that given the chance, Nigel would have been bigger than he ever was. Everything that Bryan got, Nigel would have gotten double, he just knows it. Nigel connected with the crowd in a way very few others ever have. Maybe Bryan’s got the upper hand when it comes to wins, but he knows that if Nigel had managed to come with him, that tally would look a lot different now.

“The night you won the title, that World Heavyweight title, was the day after I retired.”

Bryan nods, because he remembers. “I text you.”

“You did. I didn’t get back to you. I was going to, but that night I couldn’t. And then the next morning, I was nothing but an angry shell of a person. You didn’t deserve what I would have said to you, so I didn’t.”

Bryan feels his stomach twist. He knows how it feels to know that your world as you know it is coming to an end. The world of professional wrestling is like no other, and when it gets ripped away from you, it’s like being sucked into a black hole. Bryan knows that if someone had been texting him about winning titles the day he was forced to retire, he wouldn’t have been in a good frame of mind either. He shouldn’t have done that to Nigel.

The words slip out of Bryan’s mouth before he can stop them.

“Come back with me. Come to AEW.”

Nigel stiffens underneath him, and then he untangles himself from Bryan, tying off the condom and throwing it away in silence.

“We’re going to Wembley in the summer, Nigel. We haven’t announced it yet, but Tony Khan is going to soon. We could be at Wembley, me and you. He brought ROH, we could go back to running it, the Pure title is back, just waiting for you to put it around your waist again, you could —“

“No.”

The word is vicious and angry, as Nigel finds a pair of boxers out of his bag and slides them on. Bryan gets out of the bed, finds Nigel’s robe and ties it around him.

“Nigel—“

“Fuck you, Bryan. Why are you here? What are you trying to achieve? Is this some fucking recruitment mission from your boss and the old man? Thought if you could fuck me and get me all buttered up that I’d agree to come back?”

“No, that’s not — I told you, no one knew I was coming here. Not Tony, not Regal, no one. I woke up on Monday morning and the only thing I could think about was finding you.”

“Right, because after a decade you suddenly decided I was important again?” Nigel sits down on the bed and buries his head in his hands. Bryan stares at the expanse of his back, the resigned and exhausted drop of his shoulders.

“You’ve always been important Nigel, I’ve not been the best at being around, but—“

“The day after I retired, after you won the title, I sat in my car and all the anger, the rage, the sadness, it just exploded out of me. I screamed and I cried, I shouted and I swore,” Nigel’s voice starts to shake, the tell tale sign that he’s about to cry.

“It wasn’t fucking fair, Dragon. There was nothing wrong with me, I’d passed every fucking physical I could, every medical, every blood test and drug test and piss test. There was no fucking reason for him not to clear my arm. I had multiple letters from my doctors, there was nothing wrong with it, I wasn’t at risk of injuring myself without surgery. I was fucking fine, Bryan.” Nigel shouts, and there’s tears running down his face.

Bryan’s never been good with people who cry, whenever Yuta cries he hands him a tissue and lets Claudio deal with it because he’s better at it. He used to stare at his sister, not knowing what to say when she cried after a break up, waiting for her to stop crying. When his mom used to cry about his dad before they divorced, he’d lock himself in his room and wait for it to stop.

But this is Nigel. He’s never seen Nigel cry.

“I couldn’t afford the surgery they wanted, but I could have sorted something, if I really wanted it. But they wouldn’t even return my calls. I wanted it written that I’d be signed if I had the surgery. They wouldn’t even call me back, Bryan.”

Bryan gets on the bed and kneels behind Nigel, placing a hand on his shoulder.

“I took the TNA call, and it was good, to start with. But then it started going tits up. Bad booking, getting Hepatitis. They said they’d pay me while not working but they didn’t, that’s why I worked at the grocery store. I could barely afford my fucking rent,” Nigel says, and he drives the heels of his palms into his eyes, his voice thick and claggy with sadness and tears, anger lacing it like venom.

“When they fired me, I knew that was it. I called WWE, but they didn’t want me anymore, even though I proved that my arm didn’t need surgery. I was too old, too broken. A walking fucking disaster. So I thought let’s give it one last fucking run, go out on a high note. Lost most of the matches, didn’t get to wrestle any one I wanted because you were all fucking off being big stars elsewhere. And just like that, life was over.” He says, sniffing away some of the tears. Bryan squeezes his shoulder, because he doesn’t know what to say. His heart hurts, because he knows that everyone was either at WWE, him, Claudio, Mox, or Joe, Doug, Aries still being in TNA, Colt was on the indies and couldn’t make it. Nigel’s last matches were with only a handful of people that meant anything to him.

“And I was angry, Bryan. I was angry and I was upset and I was fucking broke. My own fucking mother paid for my flight home for Christmas. There was a couple of times where I wanted to drive my car right into the fucking Thames, go down with it.” Nigel says, and his shoulders shake with the emotion of it all, and Bryan lays his forehead against the back of his neck, winds his arms around his waist and just holds him.

“But I’ve had nearly fourteen years to come to terms with it, to make peace with it, to finally let go of all of that hurt and anger and be at peace with the fact that it wasn’t supposed to happen for me. What I got was what I got, the ROH stuff, everything with us, it was enough in the end, I made it enough Bryan. And I told Regal no, and I’m telling you, no. Because I’m old, I’m old and I’m tired and I have no business getting back in a ring. Even for Wembley, even for Ring of Honor. Which, by the way, your boy is the Pure champ, you telling me I should take the title from him in this return you’re booking in your head? Want me to beat him up?”

Bryan can’t help but let out a puff of breath against the back of Nigel’s neck, thinking about Nigel and Yuta in the ring together. It’s never been lost on Bryan how much Yuta looks up to him, and Nigel, because a lot of Yuta’s style and techniques are uncanny. But Nigel and Yuta, grappling down on the mat, well, it’s a thought that could certainly keep Bryan warm at night.

“If there’s one thing about Yuta, it's that he doesn’t back down from a challenge. If you were back in the ring you’d probably not have time to even announce it before he’d challenge you. You’re the longest Pure champ, he’s got the most reigns. It would be a match to prove who’s the best Pure champ.”

“And who’ve you got your money on, Dragon?”

“You, always you.” Bryan says, and he presses a kiss to the back of Nigel’s neck, runs his fingers over the skin of his stomach, it used to be softer, Nigel always had a little belly, and Bryan used to stare at it when it just softly pudged out over the top of his trunks.

“So. Wembley, huh?” Nigel says, and the hint of wonder in his voice makes Bryan feel like hope is not lost. He’s not going to push now, Nigel can tell him he’s blue in the face that he’s made peace with never wrestling again, but Bryan knows that you don’t cry over something you’ve made peace with. You don’t have shrines and sit and stare at old belts if you’ve made peace with it. So maybe this is going to take longer than he thought, but it’s okay, he’s got time, he hasn’t got any plans, and Tony told him to take as much time as he wanted before coming back to work.

“Yeah. Tony’s gonna announce it soon.” He says, and it’s almost like he can see what Nigel’s thinking about. Nigel coming out, two fingers raised in the air, iron in one hand, the Pure title around his waist, to eighty odd thousand people screaming his name. The way it always should have been.

“You know,” Bryan says, because apparently he can’t let sleeping dogs lie and even if he tells himself not to push he just can’t stop, “making a return doesn’t mean you have to get back in the ring.”

Nigel’s body doesn’t freeze this time, nor does he push Bryan away.

“Oh yeah, what should I do, become a ref?”

“You could commentate, or be a manager. Regal called you for Blackpool Combat Club for a reason. He knew he was coming in and he was gonna’ mentor me and Mox again. He wanted you by his side, I know how he thinks. There’d be no one better to head hunt for talent than you. People like Yuta, Lee Moriarty, Daniel Garcia, they’ve watched and learned from you all their lives and who better to come back and teach them in person? If I’d have had you next to me, I might have done a better job at showing Daniel he was a wrestler, not a sports entertainer.”

“Jericho’s done good with him so far, you can see that.”

“But with us he’d be better. Look at Yuta. He gets better every single match, he’s meaner and he’s sharper. One day he’s going to be better than me. I often think that he and Daniel are going to be the new me and you.”

Nigel snorts, “They fucked yet?”

“Yes, so they’re already doing better than we did.”

Bryan can feel the smile break out on Nigel’s face even though he’s not looking at him, his face still pressed into the back of his neck.

“You know everything there is to know about wrestling Nigel, you can talk the talk and walk the walk, you could be dumped on a commentary table tomorrow and you’d do a better job than half the comentators out there.”

Nigel doesn’t say anything, and Bryan doesn’t push, at least anymore than he already has, and just strokes his fingers over the skin of his tummy, and then gently coaxes him back into bed. His eyes are red and puffy, and Bryan just wants to make it go away. To show Nigel that he can come home, that he doesn’t have to stay away anymore, there’s a Nigel McGuinness sized crater in wrestling just waiting to be filled back up. It’s not too late, he’s not too old.

Bryan sits up against the headboard and gets his arms around Nigel’s shoulders, bringing him down against him. These old fashioned B&B bedsheets are scratchy against his bare skin, but somehow he’s in his fourties and in bed with Nigel McGuinness, in a place that looks like they got the last room for a last minute booking. It’s like nothing has changed and everything has changed all at once.

“You don’t even know that Tony Khan would want me.”

Bryan smoothes his hand down between Nigel’s shoulder blades. “If you don’t think Regal hadn’t already talked about you to him at length then you’re crazy. And if you haven’t noticed, he’s a massive mark. He’d flip his little fan boy heart out if he got Nigel McGuinness back in ROH.”

“You’ve said mark to many times since I’ve seen you for my liking.”

“I’ve said it like twice.”

“Too many times, Dragon.”

“Point still stands. If he knew I was here I’d have had to turn my phone off by now.”

There’s a long silence, and has already started falling asleep when Nigel speaks.

“It’s still a no.”

Bryan sighs, a little deflated, and he scoots down the bed so he can curl under the covers against Nigel’s side. They’ll be leaving tomorrow, because it will be Sunday and Nigel has work on Monday morning. But Bryan doesn’t have anywhere to be, he can wait, as long as it takes, for Nigel’s answer to turn into a yes.

“Goodnight, Nigel.”

The journey back to Liverpool is wet and windy, with big fat raindrops thrashing against the windows and the wipers going at a million miles an hour as Nigel drives. They’d gotten up that morning and had breakfast, took another short walk on the beach before the weather turned bad, before checking out of the B&B and getting in the car to come home. They’d hit Sunday traffic, and then the weather really picked up making it worse, and they’ve been slowly crawling back to Nigel’s the past couple of hours.

The rain soaks them when they finally run into the house, and it feels cold and unlived in when Nigel finally manages to unlock the door. He’s immediately shoved up the stairs, and Bryan goes easily, letting Nigel bully him all the way into Nigel’s bedroom.

Finally seeing the inside of the room is like seeing into Nigel’s mind. It’s nicely furnished, with a big fancy bed, a couple of bedside tables and lamps, plush carpet and a wardrobe and a dresser. But above the dresser are two shelves, one with the Pure title on, and above it, one with a replica of the ROH World title on. They both sit proudly, and two photographs are framed on the wall either side of them. One, a picture of Nigel with his classic look, the bomber jacket, the sunglasses, the blonde spiked hair, and the title is backwards around his waist, so you can’t see the design but you can see the straps. The other, a picture of them, and Bryan thinks it might be from the night Nigel lost the Pure title to him, they’re shaking hands, and Bryan’s got the World title around his waist, Nigel’s got the Pure title on his shoulder.

He realises he’s been staring at it too long when Nigel shoves him down onto the bed face first, hands threading into his bun and pulling it out, letting his hair splay out so he can pull at it.

He lets out a broken noise, but he goes down easily for Nigel, letting him strip him down and bend him like a pretzel, putting him in god damn submission moves as he fingers him, eats him out, fucks him into oblivion. Bryan’s thoroughly worked out by the time it’s dinner time, and his body aches like he’s been through a match or been running the ropes for hours.

It’s good, though, it’s fucking wonderful, actually, because Nigel doesn’t seem to want to put him down now that they’ve open the gates on an intimate relationship. He doesn’t want Nigel to put him down, and he doesn’t want to put Nigel down, so he doesn’t, and they stay holed up in his bedroom for the rest of the night, even eating dinner curled up between the sheets, which Bryan would yell at anyone else for. But Nigel kisses him like he’s the very best dessert he’s ever had, so Bryan is not going to complain at all.

He doesn’t mention the belts on the wall, or the picture of them, because he’s done enough pushing.

Bryan sleeps next to Nigel that night, and they stay in bed right up until Nigel has to drag himself out and shower before he ends up late for work the next morning.

They fall back into their routine, Nigel goes to work and Bryan finds himself things to do, gardening mostly, if it’s not pouring down with rain or too cold. They spend their spare moments making up for lost time, and Bryan feels like his brain and body go through a hard reset. He’s always known that he needs Nigel, he’s felt the absence of him like a missing tooth at the back of his mouth for years now. Its not always felt, but when you do, the size of the gap is a shock. And now Bryan’s realising just how big that gap has been for so long. Reminds him that when he’s successful here, he’s got to fix what’s going on at home.

They go to the pub on Wednesday night, and Jenny squeals in delight when she sees him, pulling him down into the same seat as last time, telling him all about the week she’s had at work — she’s a teacher, which Bryan can see how she’d fit in that environment —, and Robbie, Tom and George fill him in on all the soccer scores like they’re the most important things in the world. Bryan likes Nigel’s friends, and he happily helps Jen beat them all at poker, and he laughs at her flirting when they drop her home, drunker than she was last week.

They fuck and they watch wrestling and eat dinner together, Nigel works and Bryan keeps himself busy. It’s a kind of domestic bliss that Bryan hasn’t had in a long time. Maybe ever.

A week after they get back from Blackpool, nearly two weeks after Bryan showed up at Nigel’s workplace with just a bag and a mission, Nigel comes back from work, Bryan’s washing the dishes after he’d baked banana bread, and Nigel looks at him. He looks scared, nervous, but there’s a sparkle in his eye, that fight and determination that Bryan remembers so well dancing around in his pretty eyes.

“Nigel?” Bryan says, drying his hands on the dish towel.

“Do it.”

“Do what?”

Nigel bites at his lip, runs a hand over his face and lets out a nervous breath and says,

“Call Tony. Tell him I want to talk.”

#writing #bryan danielson x nigel mcguinness #bryan danielson #nigel mcguinness #blackpool combat club

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dunkzillla · 2 years ago

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A Place to Call Home (1/3)

Still on my Nigel/Bryan brain rot so we’re back again. This was an excuse to write a UK centred fic that I haven’t been able to do in so long! PSA: In this universe, Nigel retired in 2011 and that was it. No return to ROH and no WWE commentary. Everything else is compliant in that this starts following Revolution 2023 and Bryan’s loss to MJF, and includes all of the background to BCC. Enjoy!

Title: A Place to Call Home

Pairings: Nigel McGuinness/Bryan Danielson, mentions and implied — Bryan Danielson/William Regal, Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Claudio Castagnoli/Wheeler Yuta

Ratings: Mature — Language

Word Count: 6,237

Summary: Bryan’s always considered Nigel more than a friend to him. They’ve shared beds, food, they even shared a woman once, they’ve shared late night talks, their hopes and dreams. They were companions outside of the ring the way they were enemies inside of it. Bryan remembers every single stolen kiss underneath the covers. He remembers every single touch that Nigel thought Bryan was asleep through. Maybe they had a complex relationship, where they made each other bleed more than smile, but Nigel was — he was something to him. Everything, at one point.

AO3

I’m 5 years ago, and 3,000 miles away — The Bones of You, Elbow

Bryan knows where he’s going exactly twelve hours after he loses the title match against MJF. He goes to bed bloodied and bruised, his broken heart still barely beating in his chest, and he wakes up knowing exactly what he needs to do next.

He touches down in England, flying straight from San Fran, the day after that.

It hadn’t taken all that much to get the information he was looking for. He’s Bryan Danielson, after all, and people know they can trust him. Still, it’s surprising how many people didn’t actually have the information Bryan wanted. He wonders if it’s really that easy to just disappear.

Bryan rents a car and drives straight to the address Doug Williams had texted to him.

It’s funny, that this is where Bryan has ended up. He’s been a World Champion in different companies, he’s training the younger generation, he’s really done it all, he shouldn’t be this, this desperate for the World title in AEW. But he is. He can feel it fizzing inside of his bones, right inside of the core, the desire, the need to become champ again. And nothing — nothing he’s doing is working. He couldn’t beat Mox when they were apart, couldn’t beat Mox as a team, couldn’t get that title when he focused only on himself and not the group. Nothing is working. There’s only one thing left that Bryan can think of, to get him that big one.

Liverpool is cold and wet, and Bryan cranks the heating up in the rental car. He hates driving on the other side of the road. He hasn’t had to do it in a long time, can’t remember the last time he came over here, and normally when he was, someone else always took over the driving.

He focuses on the task at hand so he doesn’t think about where he’s going, what he’s going to do, and what he’s going to say when he gets there. He focuses on not crashing the car, because he doesn’t want to have to explain why a day after a brutal match he’s in Liverpool.

Thanks to the totally useless navigation in the rental car, Bryan pulls up to the car dealership half an hour before it’s due to close. Cars on the forecourt are being cleaned, pulled into the back of the building, and the ones doing it stare at him like they’d wish he hadn’t pulled up. That’s okay, because Bryan isn’t here to buy a car.

He heads inside the showroom, his shoes scuff against the shiny white floor, and he can smell leather polish and coffee. There’s a few cars inside, all gleaming and sparkling new. Desks are dotted around, all of them deserted as the showroom starts to close down for the evening. Bryan’s never been one to really care about cars. The only reason he spent any kind of money on the one he has now is because it’s more eco friendly. Yuta had been more excited about it than him, wanting first dibs on being a passenger in Bryan’s Tesla.

There’s the scuffing of shoes and the closing of a door, and Bryan looks up, eyes instantly falling on the man he’d come to see.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t realise—“

Nigel McGuinness’ words are cut off when he looks up from his clipboard. He’s still so handsome, rakishly so, his hair’s grown back but he’s lost that all too familiar bulk. Somehow, he looks like Nigel without looking like Nigel at all.

“Bryan.”

There’s shock written all over Nigel’s face, like he’s seen a ghost. And Bryan guesses he has, really. A ghost from his past that he never expected to see again, one that he hasn’t seen in over a decade.

“Surprise,” Bryan says, giving Nigel a small smile and stepping closer to him. “You know, when Regal told you you could sell ice to an Eskimo, I didn’t expect you to, you know, actually start selling things.” Bryan remembers when Regal said it. It had been a rare occasion that Regal had come to see him, and Nigel had been on one of his tangents, Bryan doesn’t remember what it was about, he just remembers the way Regal had looked at him in awe and had said ‘Dear boy, you could sell ice to an Eskimo.’ Nigel would always deny it, but he’d gone red, all flushed and embarrassed, at what Bryan knew was a compliment. Nigel’s a talker, he’s always been good at talking. Whether he’s buttering you up or cutting you down to size. Nigel’s the guy to do it. So it doesn’t actually surprise him that he’s found Nigel all these years later, working as a car salesman.

“Yeah, well,” Nigel says, clearing his throat, “Stick to what you’re good at, right?” He turns away from Bryan and walks over to one of the desks. It must be his own, because he picks up a mug and takes a long drink from it.

“What are you — how did you find me?”

Bryan takes more steps to get back close to Nigel.

“Doug told me.”

“Fucking bastard.” Nigel mumbles, going around the other side of the desk and sitting in the chair. He looks at home here, while also looking terribly out of place. He looks handsome in a suit, smart, distinguished. But he shouldn’t be here. He should never have been here.

“What do you want? We close soon.”

“Not here to buy a car, Nigel.”

“Then I doubt there’s anything I can do for you.”

“Is there somewhere we can talk, please?” Please isn’t a word Bryan’s much used with Nigel. They never used to say please and thank you to each other, Bryan wasn’t a beggar and Nigel didn’t care to make him one.

Nigel looks at him, his face still pale with shock, but resignation takes over. “I have to lock up. Just — wait here.” Nigel picks up his mug and downs the rest of the contents before standing up. He disappears behind a door, leaving Bryan to walk around the showroom.

There’s a board on the wall with what must be all the salespeople’s names on. It’s an intricate table with words that Bryan understands but not in this context, and Nigel’s name is at the top of the board, with numbers bigger than everyone else. Bryan suspects that’s a good thing.

Nigel is gone for a while, so long that other workers come in to collect their things and ask him if he’s okay, or telling him that he needs to leave. He tells each of them that he’s waiting for Nigel, that really, he’s okay. Bryan half thinks that Nigel’s done a runner out the back it takes him so long to come back, but he eventually does, carrying a backpack, and wearing a zip up jacket that looks so much like the ones Mox, Claudio and Yuta wear to the ring. Except Nigel’s is navy blue and has the showroom’s logo on, rather than the BCC lettering. It occurs to Bryan that Nigel would look at home wearing one of those jackets. Claudio tells him they’re from Lululemon, the good stuff, according to him and Yuta. Mox doesn’t know what Lululemon is, but he said he likes the way it makes his arms look when he wears it so he lets Claudio buy them and get them printed. There is one for Bryan, but he’s just, never felt like putting it on. He felt less like wearing one when Regal did what he did, but he thinks maybe now, if Nigel was wearing one with him, he’d like it a little more.

Nigel’s got a black laptop bag hooked over his shoulder, and a folder tucked under his arm. He ushers Bryan out of the showroom, flicks off the lights, locks the door, presses buttons on the security alarm and brings the shutters down. It’s so… mundane that Bryan hates it. Before now, the only Nigel that Bryan ever thought of was wrestling Nigel. Who came down to the ring with his Pure title backwards, wielding an iron with his stupid Union Jack on. Who went through too many tubs of hair gel to be healthy, who beat him bloody in the ring but sat with him while he cried after his grandfather passed away. This is not a Nigel he’s ever thought of. Nigel with a normal man’s job. Nigel with responsibilities that don’t include ordering merch for shows or sorting out visas.

“Where are we going?” Bryan asks.

“I don’t live far. Just follow me.” Nigel gets into his car, a flashy thing. It’s so unlike Nigel that Bryan wants to cringe. Back when they were wrestling together, sharing rooms and driving everywhere together, Nigel hated flashy. Couple of the guys used to use their first big paycheck to get themselves flashy watches, expensive shoes, designer clothes. Nigel wasn’t like that. Nigel saved money, Nigel was smart and cautious, and half his clothes were from Goodwill because he couldn’t give a fuck what they looked like as long as they fit.

Bryan guesses the car is one from the dealership, that he gets it cheaper considering it’s where he works, but it’s still no unlike Nigel. Or maybe it’s not. Maybe thirteen years can change a person. Maybe now Nigel does like flashy. He’s wearing a fancy suit, driving an expensive car. Maybe this is Nigel, just a new version of him. There’s been many versions of Bryan, after all, and he knows that. There was the very first version, then came Dragon, the one that Nigel knows the best, then he was Daniel Bryan, and there’s been numerous versions of him, only some of which Bryan even liked, and now, now he’s back to being Bryan, with hints of Dragon thrown in there. But maybe it’s time to bring back Dragon, the real one. And to do that he needs the real Nigel.

He follows Nigel’s car for around five minutes before they pull up to a row of houses. They’re pretty, all in a line and connected together, with sandy coloured bricks and white trims. Each one has stairs leading up to the coloured doors. It’s so… cute and quaint.

Nigel gets out of his car, pulling the laptop bag and folder with him, looking like your average salesman. Nigel’s never been average at anything and Bryan hates so much that that word is rattling around in his brain when he thinks of Nigel. Nigel who’s explosive and full of fiery rage, who swears like a trooper and makes him bleed like no one else can. Nigel who stuck to his guns and spiked and bleached his hair no matter how many times he told him how stupid he looked, Nigel who never did anything the way anyone else did. Nigel who was so far from your average person that he may as well have had his own category. But now Nigel looks like every other man. Bryan probably wouldn’t be able to pick him out of a crowd. And maybe that’s fine for himself, or for other people, but it’s not okay for Nigel.

Bryan follows Nigel wordlessly up the steps to the front door, carrying his own duffel bag over his shoulder. There’s not a lot in it, he hadn't planned on sticking around in San Francisco after Revolution, so he’d packed lightly. He’s got a couple of changes of clothes, his bloody gear, and his wash bag. He doesn’t know how long he’s going to stay here in Liverpool, as long as it takes to get what he wants, he guesses, so unless that takes less than a day, Bryan’s going to need to buy some clothes.

Nigel’s house is nice. The front entryway is warm and inviting, the walls painted magnolia, with a shoe rack and a coat hanger that Nigel hangs his zip up on. He dumps his laptop bag, keys and folder on the entry table, and kicks off his shiny shoes. The living room is much the same, magnolia walls, a small amount of furniture but the most inviting looking couch Bryan’s ever seen, and by the TV, there’s a bookcase. It’s full, from top to bottom, with wrestling DVD’s. There’s some photos in frames on the little bits of the shelves that stick out, and Bryan sees himself, bloodied and in pain, locked on a submission by Nigel. Bryan recognises it instantly as their last match. Glory By Honor VIII, the Final Countdown. Nigel’s hair is shaved, and Bryan’s is longer. He beat Nigel that night. The last time he’s ever stepped foot in a ring with the man he’s wrestled thirty seven times. That night he’d known it was the last time he was wrestling Nigel in Ring of Honor, he just wishes he’d known that it was the last time he was ever going to be in a ring with him. The last time he was ever going to punch his stupid, beautiful face until it bled. The last time he was going to feel the pain of his muscles being worked by someone who didn’t care whether they tore right off the bone.

“Coffee, tea, water, beer?” Nigel calls from the kitchen.

Bryan steps away from the bookcase, remembering that he’s in Nigel’s house and Nigel is in the kitchen, and not just staring back at him from an old photograph.

“Coffee, thanks. Black, no sugar.”

“Creature of habit.” Nigel mutters, taking out two mugs from the cupboard and setting them down. He puts coffee in one and a tea bag in the other. The kettle boils next to him.

For a man who used to sit and talk to him for hours about just about anything, Nigel is silent now. It’s not exactly an awkward silence, Bryan knows there’s a million things they could say to each other, and he’s not scared to say them. He just. Doesn’t know how. Doesn’t want to, right now.

Nigel hands him the coffee when it’s done, and then steps past him into the front room. He sets his own mug down on the coffee table, and strips off his suit jacket, loosens his tie and undoes a couple of buttons. That looks a bit more like the Nigel that Bryan knows. Loose. Undone. Free.

Bryan takes a seat, sipping on the hot, bitter coffee. It’s good, he hasn’t had anything since being on the plane, he’d focused so much on just getting out of the airport and driving to the dealership that he hadn’t even had a drink or eaten anything. This was more important. But everything’s slow and syrupy now, not an anti-climax, because seeing Nigel feels as good as Bryan knew it would, but it’s not — it’s not going the way he thought it would. He wasn’t expecting to find a shell of the old Nigel, he wasn’t expecting a nine to five man with a house and flashy car. He doesn’t know what he was expecting really, because god knows he didn’t think Nigel would be still running the British independent circuit, but he thought maybe he’d be doing something… different.

“So,” Nigel says, breaking the silence. “Why are you here? I’m sure you didn’t come all this way just to see what I was up to. Doug has my number, too.”

“Can’t old friends visit each other?”

“Sure. But that would require us being friends.”

Bryan frowns. ��You don’t think we’re friends?”

“No, I don’t. It’s been bloody fourteen years, Bryan. We weren’t even friends before, but now?”

They weren’t — Bryan’s always considered Nigel more than a friend to him. They’ve shared beds, food, they even shared a woman once, they’ve shared late night talks, their hopes and dreams. They were companions outside of the ring the way they were enemies inside of it. Bryan remembers every single stolen kiss underneath the covers. He remembers every single touch that Nigel thought Bryan was asleep through. Maybe they had a complex relationship, where they made each other bleed more than smile, but Nigel was — he was something to him. Everything, at one point.

“You’re such a liar.” Bryan says. He doesn’t know what else to say. He can’t exactly refute the knowledge that he hasn’t been around the last decade and a half. But Nigel disappeared, Nigel left and he didn’t want to be found. Sure it was easy to find him when he wanted him, and it was only now that he thought to look for him, but Nigel didn’t want to be found. Should Nigel be mad at him for letting him stay hidden?

“Look, I’ll say the same thing to you that I said to your old man, I’ve no business getting in a ring again. Whatever he’s told you — no, thank you.”

Bryan looks up from his mug. His old man?

“Regal called you?”

“Yeah. Start of last year. Wanted me to come back to the ring. It was after WWE let him go, said he wanted to start something new and he wanted me to do it with him.”

That. Bryan didn’t know that. Regal never, ever told him that he’d approached Nigel to come to AEW. If he’d have known that, he’d have never texted a bunch of people to find out if they knew where Nigel was. He’d have just asked Regal.

“He wanted you for BCC?”

“Guess so. That isn’t what he called it at the time. Just that he was going to where you were, and so should I. I said no, he called me a coward and he put the phone down. Don’t know who he’s calling the fucking coward.” Nigel mutters the last part over the rim of his mug, and he slurps at it noisily. That’s Nigel. Nigel never had any manners when it came to eating or drinking. He was loud and annoying and messy.

“You watch the shows, then?”

Nigel pauses for a moment, realising he’s been caught out. He doesn’t try and lie his way out of it though.

“Yeah. Haven’t had a chance to watch your match from the weekend yet,” Nigel says. “Though I’m guessing because you’re here, you didn’t win. Thanks for the spoiler.”

“He cheated.”

Nigel hums. Nigel knows a lot about cheating. The first time they fought for a title, the Pure title, Nigel won by count out, making sure Bryan couldn’t get back in the ring. He’s done it a few times, Bryan remembers how Nigel threw that unsuspecting woman into Christopher Daniels, keeping him outside of the ring until he was counted out. MJF might have used different tactics. The ring, a fire extinguisher, but regardless they’re shades of Nigel McGuinness. Doing anything and everything to win, even though deep down, they’re good enough to win on their own.

“What did you expect? You get in the ring with a snake and you expect not to get bitten?”

Bryan shakes his head. Because yeah, he knew the risks. He knew that he wasn’t going into a clean match. He knew that he was going to overcome adversity. It’s just. He’s done it before. He’s beaten Nigel, a slippery, slippery snake, he’s beaten him. So why couldn’t he beat MJF?

“I’ve been bitten plenty of times before, and usually I have the anti-venom.”

“You’re forty years old. That shit doesn’t work anymore.”

Nigel’s right, in a way. The anti-venom doesn’t work anymore. Because these days he’s been going up against a different kind of snake. These younger wrestlers aren’t of the same species as they are, they’re different, and so Bryan needs a different type of anti-venom. He needs a snake to beat a snake.

“What do you suggest?”

Nigel scoffs. “You didn’t come all this way for advice on how to beat MJF.”

Well, he did, actually. But he didn’t come just for advice. He came for Nigel. To be the best he needs Nigel.

“I didn’t know where else to go, what else to do.”

“The only thing you could think to do was come and see me? Did they check you for concussions after the match?”

“Why are you pretending?”

“Pretending—“

“Pretending that this,” Bryan motions between them, nearly spilling his coffee over Nigel’s nice couch, “Was nothing. That we were nothing. Is it easier that way? Is it easier to sit here thousands of miles from where you belong, pretending that — that you’re not Nigel fucking McGuinness?”

Anger twists on Nigel’s face. That’s the Nigel Bryan knows. He knows angry Nigel, he knows the snarl of his upper lip into his nose, he knows those imperfect teeth bared at him like he’s ready to rip his throat out. He knows that — him, and he feels comfort rather than fear, when he points an accusatory finger at him.

“Who the bloody hell do you think you are? You don’t say a word to me after all this time, you didn’t even try to find me. Not until you wanted something, and you want me to, what, welcome you with open arms and tell you how much I’ve missed you? There might have been something before, but if it wasn’t enough for you to pick up the phone when you found out I was retiring then why is it enough now? You fucking selfish prick.” Nigel spits at him, slamming the mug down on the coffee table, and it does slosh a little over the side. Nigel doesn’t seem to care.

“You didn’t want to be found.”

“No I didn’t, not by people like Ares or Castagnoli or Roddy. But Doug knows the people he can give my information to. There’s a small, and I mean small, handful of people he’s allowed to do that for. And in the space of a year, one of them called, and the other one, well he fucking turns up at my work unannounced.”

“I can’t believe you’re a salesman. A car salesman.”

“You do what you have to do to pay the bills.”

“Why Liverpool, and not London?”

Nigel shrugs. “I tried London for a bit, but it was too… It felt too much like defeat. Having to move back there. So I came here instead.”

“Where you lost the Pure title.”

“That’s not—“

“I know.”

They fall silent. Bryan’s not ready to tell him really why he’s here, maybe if he hadn't dropped that bomb on him that Regal already asked for him to come back to wrestling and he said no. He’s got to approach it differently now, he’s got to make Nigel see that what this is — where he is right now, it’s not home. This has never been Nigel’s home. Home is back in the US, wrestling or wrestling adjacent, training or commentating or something, with Bryan. Home is Nigel complaining about not being able to get a decent cup of tea or constantly arguing with people over the use of U in words like honor and favor. Nigel’s home is alongside Bryan, bringing out the Dragon.

“Hungry?” Nigel asks after a while. The anger seems to have gone now, just as quick as it always would back in the day. Nigel could call him an insufferable asshole and push him into some stage boxes one moment and then the next he’d be asking what they were getting for dinner, or hauling him into the locker room to ask him for help lacing his boots. Bryan got so used to it that he wouldn’t even flinch when Nigel shouted or swore at him, while everyone else would.

“I could eat.”

Nigel reaches under the coffee table and grabs a handful of take out menus. He hands them to Bryan, “Take your pick. Not sure which ones are vegan friendly.”

“I’m not — I eat eggs and fish sometimes.”

“What?”

“I got a soy allergy, and I struggled to eat enough protein on the road. I’m still mostly vegan but. I indulge, sometimes.”

Nigel raises an eyebrow. “But what about the — liver stuff, and the staph?”

“All in check. Like I said, mostly vegan, and we’ve come a long way from only having soy proteins as an option but. I’m not as serious about it as I was before.”

“You, not serious about something? Give me a break, you’d be serious in an argument about Santa Claus coming down the chimney.” Nigel says, but he picks up a Chinese menu and starts going through it. Bryan doesn’t argue, because that would prove Nigel right and Bryan hates doing that, he can be such a smug bastard when he knows he’s right.

Seemingly haven chosen what he wants, he passes the menu to Bryan, and then opens up his phone. Bryan doesn’t ask why Nigel doesn’t just use Uber Eats or whatever the delivery service is called here in the UK, because he knows Nigel likes to do things the old fashioned way, even after all these years. He remembers once, when a booker was trying to tell Nigel how to do something, how he should do it a different way to how he was doing it because it was better, more modern, and Nigel had taken the booker by the collar of his shirt and spat in his face ‘There’s no school like the old school and I’m the fucking headmaster, alright?’ The booker had nodded and barely refrained from pissing his pants. Bryan had admittedly swooned a little bit. He was pretty young when it happened, and Nigel was big and imposing and Bryan liked when he threw his weight around. He liked when Nigel showed that feral side of himself, even when he showed it against Bryan. It was like seeing the real Nigel.

When the food comes, after pathetic small talk about the weather and football, Nigel puts on the TV and says, “You okay watching yourself? Because I already paid for it.” He loads up the PPV and looks at Bryan. He’s not, he’s not really ready to watch the match back, but he’s going to have to at some point. With Nigel might be the best option.

“Sure.” He says, and Nigel presses play.

It’s shocking to him, that Nigel fucking McGuinness, one of, if not the best Pure wrestler, lives in Liverpool, working as a car salesman, buying fucking PPV’s to watch when he’s finished work. He should be where he is now, a decorated wrestler, still at the top of his game, training the younger generation. He could have been, Bryan knows that, he could have been had he just lied to the WWE. All the times that Nigel has been a snake, and the one time it truly would have mattered, he covered up his fangs. If Nigel had just lied, just, hadn't told them about his arms that weren’t even a big deal to begin with, well maybe they would have ruled the WWE together. Maybe they’d have been able to go to AEW as a team, recruiting Mox and Yuta and Claudio. It’s what Regal clearly wanted. They could have had it.

They’ve long finished their food by the time Bryan’s match comes on, and he’s glad because he feels a little sick when it starts. It was only just over a day ago, and it’s still raw. Bryan’s lost before. He can deal with it, it’s just — it’s another big one. He loves them, dearly, but his boys, they’ve all held titles since being in AEW, Yuta the Pure title twice, Mox the World title three times, and Claudio the Ring of Honor World title twice. It’s just him who has nothing to show for his time in the company and it’s — it's hard. Regal calls him the perfect wrestler, but right now he has nothing to show for it.

Nigel doesn’t talk at all through the match, he watches intently as each time Bryan almost wins only to have it cruelly ripped away from him happens, and then when it’s all over, and he’s covered in Max’s blood that he swears he can still feel on his skin, and he’s lost and there’s no one there to help him.

“Where were the others?”

“You saw. Mox was all banged up, they were busy.”

Nigel shifts from where he’s sat on his couch. He’d never bothered to get changed out of his suit, and Bryan wonders if that’s something he normally does or whether he just didn’t want to while Bryan was here. The Nigel Bryan knew was always more than happy to walk around in his boxers. He would answer the door to the delivery guy wearing them, and if he could, he’d have probably turned up to interviews wearing them.

“You aren’t really running with them anymore though, are you? After what the old man did?”

“No. I want to — I want to again, though. Being away from them for these last few months, watching them together. Only made me realise that I’m better when I’m with them. Even when I don’t win.”

Nigel hums, his mouth set in a thin line, and his fingers scratch over the short stubble on his jaw. “So, why aren’t you? Why are you here instead? You could be with them, but you’re not, you’re with me.”

“Because they’re — it’s Mox and Claudio. It doesn’t need to be a big thing, going back to what it was before. Maybe with Yuta, he's sensitive, but we’re a family. I don’t need to go back to them on my hands and knees. I’ll just — go back.” Bryan says. And maybe that sounds flippant, maybe to other people that would sound like Bryan’s walking all over the people he loves, but it’s not, he’s not, that’s just how they are. It’s now they’ve always been. And Bryan’s, Bryan’s hoping that it’s the same with Nigel.

“What did Regal tell Mox? About what he did?”

Of course Nigel would want to know that. While always chasing the man’s approval, Nigel never fully trusted Regal. Sometimes he’d get in Bryan’s ear about it, how eventually the old man would do him over. Regal’s never done anything to Bryan, but he guesses that Nigel was right, in a way, because he did screw Mox over. Bryan doesn’t know why he did it, the only man who knows is Regal and he keeps everything close to his chest, storing it away even if letting it out would calm the hurt of others, the ones he loves.

“Nothing. Just what you saw — They won’t talk to him.”

“Are you talking to him?”

“Yeah. I stayed with him at the hospital when MJF hit him from behind. He’s… off doing other stuff right now.”

“Course he is, he always did like making a mess and then walking away from it.”

Bryan wants to protest, something inside of him always wanting to uphold the honor of the man who built him, but he holds back, because Nigel is right and Bryan’s known that for a long time. But he’ll always love him. No matter what he does.

“Well, as fun as this is, I’ve got work in the morning. You’re welcome to stay up and watch anything, there’s Netflix and everything. I have a guest room, top of the stairs and the first door facing you. Fresh sheets and all that.” Nigel says, and he gets up, clearing away the take out menus and boxes and drinks.

“Thanks, what time do you—“

“I’ll be out of here at 7:30. I’ll leave you the spare key, if you want to go out, or leave, or whatever. Just make sure you post it back through the letterbox if you do.”

“What, I can’t keep it?” Bryan says, quirking his mouth up with a smile.

For a brief second, Nigel almost smiles. He schools it pretty quickly, and sticks his fingers up at him. “Not a chance, Dragon. I don’t need you turning up at my doorstep every time you lose, you’ll be here every sodding week.”

Bryan feels himself warm all over when Nigel calls him Dragon. To hear it coming out of his mouth, god it sounds so good.

“Well that’s not very nice.”

Nigel doesn’t bother to answer him, he just gives him the finger again before disappearing up the stairs. Bryan’s plunged into the quietness of the room, the TV’s still on low, playing the last episode of Rampage. Bryan switches it off and heads into the kitchen, getting himself a glass of water.

It’s easy to be in Nigel’s house, even though he’s never been here before and hasn’t been around the man in fourteen years. It’s just, it’s easy. Nigel’s gone to bed, he doesn’t need to be worried about anything. He’s just. He’s at Nigel’s house. He’s not going to call it Nigel’s home, because Nigel’s home is not here, doing this. This is just a house, just a place he can lie to himself and call home because it’s easier than facing the truth.

Bryan sips on the glass of water, one hand gripped on the counter behind him. There’s not much in Nigel’s kitchen, a stand mixer that doesn’t look like it’s ever been used, the kettle and toaster which have definitely been used, books are stacked on top of the fridge, mugs hanging on a mug tree, coffee pots and sugar pots and some plates sitting on the draining board. There’s a painting of a seaside town on the back wall and below it a little bistro table with two chairs.

Above him Bryan hears Nigel moving around. The shower turns on and Bryan finishes the rest of his water, rinsing out the glass in the sink. He grabs his bag from the bottom of the stairs where he’d dumped it and makes his way up them.

The guest room is pretty bare. There’s a bed, a bedside table with a lamp, and a chest of drawers. But it’s clean and pretty spacious. He can still hear Nigel in the shower, so he slips out of his clothes and lays down on the bed, booting and charging his phone up after it had died sometime this evening.

He’s got a message from Regal. Where are you? It says. He must have gone to his place or something. He doesn’t want anyone to know where he is yet, just in case he or anyone else tries to tell him not to do this, to come home. He’s doing this, no matter how long it takes.

The other messages aren’t important, one from Tony telling him to take his time coming back to work, but to make sure he gets himself checked over if he feels anything out of the ordinary. One from his sister, asking if he’s okay.

There’s one from Doug, asking if he made it. To that he replies with a thumbs up. Doug never asked what he needed Nigel’s information for. He’s always been good like that. He always let Bryan switch rooms with him when he wanted to be with Nigel, always dealt with Colt’s snoring and never ever, ever said anything about his and Nigel’s complicated relationship. It doesn’t matter to Doug what it’s about — just that Dragon’s asking for Nigel.

He aimlessly scrolls on Twitter until he hears the shower turn off. He listens as Nigel finishes up in the bathroom and goes back into his room, the door closing with an audible thud. Bryan wonders what it’s like inside. Is it simple like the rest of this house, or is the bedroom more personalised? Nigel always liked to sleep cocooned in more blankets than were necessary, does he still do that, does he need more blankets now he’s in the colder climate, or does he have a heater on? Bryan wants to know. He wants to know this Nigel the same way he knows his Nigel. He wants them to become one again.

Bryan heads out into the hall and into the bathroom, needing to shower off the plane sweat and air from his body before he goes to bed. He can hear what sounds like chattering and laughing from the other side of the wall, so unless Nigel’s hiding a gaggle of people in his room he must be watching TV.

It’s a tribute to their relationship that Nigel just offered up his guest bedroom rather than asking him if he’d booked a hotel. Bryan would have, if Nigel had asked, he might have turned up unannounced and used the element of surprise to actually find him, but he wouldn’t do that to him. He might break his nose and wrench his arm out of the socket inside of the ring — but that’s them. Where he’s reckless with Nigel’s body he’s careful with his heart. Or at least, he tries to be. Maybe not talking for over a decade isn’t being very careful at all.

He showers quickly, listening to the sound of the TV in Nigel’s room as he dries himself off and brushes his teeth.

Bryan gets into bed and shuts the lamp off. Across the hall, he hears a loud snore. That’s new. Nigel’s never been a snorer.

He falls asleep like that, listening to Nigel snore. He’s in Nigel’s house, but hopefully, he’ll be able to take Nigel home.

#writing #nigel mcguinness x bryan danielson #bcc polycule #blackpool combat club #nigel mcguiness #bryan danielson

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dunkzillla · 2 years ago

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A Place to Call Home (4/4)

woof. we are finally here at the end! this chapter actually kicked my ass. the way it was in my head just did not translate on paper, so I rewrote it a million times. it’s still not 100% but I just had to finally make myself happy with this. thank you to KG and Drea for not only the support and the heartwarming comments, but also for joining me along on the NigelBryan obsession that shows no signs of sloshing. You’re both the best!!! I hope you all enjoy, and let me know if you love them like I do.

Title: A Place to Call Home

Pairings: Nigel McGuinness/Bryan Danielson, Bryan Danielson/William Regal, Bryan Danielson/Wheeler Yuta/Claudio Castagnoli/Jon Moxley

Ratings/Warnings: Language

Summary: And Bryan knows what he means. Because as they’d pulled away from Nigel’s little house on the quaint little street, he realised that his heart ached just a little bit. It had, in two weeks, become a home away from home. Because it was Nigel’s, and even though he had never been there, there were traces of Bryan throughout. Bryan felt at peace there, at home, even though he’d gone there specifically to tell Nigel that he wasn’t where he should be, that he wasn’t home. It’s how Bryan knows he’s right, that home isn’t a fixed place, home is a feeling. Home is here in Ring of Honor, by each other's side, causing and creating chaos. But home is also back in Liverpool, in that little house, at the pub with Jenny, Robbie, Tom and George. It’s in Blackpool in that old fashioned B&B. It’s in all the places they’ve travelled across the country, across England and Japan. Home is Nigel, home is wrestling. Home is places you feel just right, with the people that make you feel just right.

Word Count: 7,464

Parts: ONE | TWO | THREE

AO3

I love the bones of you and that I will never escape. — The Bones of You, Elbow.

The first few days back in the States are a blur of meetings, sleeping and eating. Nigel gets all fucked up by jetlag, and Bryan has to be the one to get him up in time for said meetings, and deal with his insessant pawing in the middle of the night when he can’t sleep. They stop in a little Air B&B in Jacksonville, and Tony sends cars to pick them up when they need to have meetings in person, but most of the time it’s done via Zoom, because Tony doesn’t want his latest signing getting spoiled.

Bryan had called Tony right away, scared that Nigel would change his mind if he waited, and they’d had a long conversation about what Nigel wanted to do, and what it would take for him to come back. Which, once Tony started telling him the finer details of the Wembley stadium show, and how he could already picture Nigel being an important part of the show, wrestling or not, seemed to get the itch well and truly under Nigel’s skin, and by the end of that conversation, a verbal contract had been signed, and Nigel was officially going to be All Elite, starting off with Ring of Honor commentary, but could progress to literally anything else, providing Nigel wanted it enough and he passed physicals.

At the end of that call Nigel had shut the laptop closed and then looked at the wall for a good five minutes before he said, “Fuck, I’m really doing this, arent I?” Then he’d realised that he’d just told Tony he’d work for him while still actually having an actual real life job. He had a breakdown upon realising he had to quit his job, saying that he’d rushed into this and he shouldn’t have done it, and maybe he should call Tony back and tell him he was being stupid.

Bryan slapped him and told him to pull himself together. They had a small fight, nothing too crazy, but Nigel accused him of selling him a pipe dream and Bryan called him a coward. It ended with Nigel calling his boss and telling him the news that he was quitting, effective immediately. It didn’t go down well, and Bryan almost felt like taking the phone from Nigel and hanging up when he heard the way the man talked to him, even from his position on the couch next to him.

After that it had all been go go go. Tony got them on a private flight and they were taken to where they were staying. Then all the meetings. And Bryan had had to do his own kind of housekeeping, and he’d called Claudio and told him he was back, but he was going to be busy for a little bit. He didn’t explicitly tell him that Nigel was with him, or what was happening, because even though he knew Claudio wouldn’t tell anyone and ruin the big surprise, Bryan wasn’t going to ruin it either. But he promised that once everything settled down, he’d come home.

He called Regal too, and the call was a car crash from start to finish.

“Darling,” He’d said, tone firm and a little cold, despite the pet name. “Nice to finally hear that you’re alive.”

“I’m sorry, I took the loss harder than I thought.” Bryan had responded. Nigel was across from him, looking at him curiously, but half asleep too.

“Yes, well, must have been some loss if you ended up halfway across the world in bed with Nigel McGuinness.” The words were spiteful and almost bitter. Bryan’s never really spoken to Regal about Nigel, not about him as a wrestler and not about their relationship. Back when they were young he didn’t get to see Regal as often as he liked because of how much he was on the road, and when they were together there was never really much talking about other people, so he never really discussed his relationship with Nigel with Regal. But the man knows how he feels about him, it’s abundantly clear, it always has been. So to hear him sound so cold about him, them, after finding out he’d called Nigel last year, was something that Bryan hadn’t expected.

“You called him.” Bryan had said back, because he couldn’t deny that he had been in Nigel’s bed, that it was like that between them, because it was.

“Yes, last year. I should have known that if I wanted Nigel to do anything I should have gotten you involved first. Seems you have done the impossible, Bryan. The great Nigel McGuinness, back in the business. Congratulations.”

Bryan had felt his skin prickle. It had been a while since Regal had been like this with him, more than a while, quite a long time actually, probably since the last time they wrestled and he’d worked his way into Bryan’s head.

“Who said he’s back in the business?” Because they hadn’t told anyone, and he was sure Claudio wouldn’t have told him.

“As soon as I knew you were over there darling I knew what you were doing. Doesn’t take much to find out what Mr Khan is up to, either. Tell me darling, just how did you convince him to get back into the ring? Your hand in marriage? A couple of children and a white picket fence home?” The sneer at the end of the words had made Bryan feel cold. Regal was jealous. But that didn’t make sense — they’d never, ever been jealous of the other’s separate relationships. Not when Regal got every sweet young wrestler he could into his bed to test them, and not when Bryan had multiple other relationships at the time. So why now?

“Why are you doing this?” Bryan asked him, and Nigel had started looking at him with more interest then, like he realised that Regal was being difficult on the phone.

“I just don’t understand why you went to him, of all people.”

“You know why.”

Regal had been silent for a while, and then said, “Yes, well after how long it’s been I would have thought those silly little feelings would have disappeared.”

Bryan had bristled, because those words were full of misplaced jealousy. Regal has never been a one man type of guy, and neither has Bryan, and that’s always been okay. But when it comes to Nigel, it seems like it’s not okay.

So, rather cruelly, Bryan had responded with, “And after everything you’ve done you’d have thought that our feelings for you would have disappeared.”

Regal responded with silence, like he’d realised what he’d been saying.

“Where are you?” Regal had said in the end.

“Not at home, that’s all I can say.”

“Oh darling, it’s not like—“

“Don’t say anything, don’t ruin this for him. For me. Please?” Bryan had begged. He’s not a begging person, really, but he is when it comes to Regal. He knows that sometimes the man’s cruelty knows no bounds, and that he wouldn’t think twice about lifting the lid on Nigel’s return before it happened and ruining the whole thing, just to spite the man.

“You’re assuming people are going to care, Bryan.”

It was another cruel, knife twisting remark. And the way Nigel had stiffened beside him told Bryan that Nigel had heard every single word.

“They will. Otherwise you wouldn’t have called him last year. You know just as well as I do the asset he can be.”

Regal had said, “You don’t need him. This isn’t what was supposed to happen when I left.”

And Bryan had just shrugged even though Regal couldn’t see him. “Then maybe you’re losing your touch.” Bryan said, and a sick feeling had washed over him as he remembered getting on his knees in front of Mox, begging him not to hit him for what he did. Slapping Mox. Distancing himself from them all as he took Regal’s side.

“Tell Nigel to keep an eye on his phone calls in the next few days.” Regal had said, and Bryan’s body had washed cold, and he’d gripped the phone so hard that he feared it could break.

“William don’t, please don’t—“ but Bryan hadn’t been able to finish his sentence before the phone was put down on him. No goodbye, no I love you. Just the vicious beep of the call disconnecting.

“He hasn’t changed, has he?” Nigel had said, breaking the silence after the call. And Bryan had wanted to scream, because he’s always known what Regal was like. He’s the Gentleman Villain, after all, and he’s as mean as he is handsome. But with Bryan he’s always been softer, and this time, this run they had together, the Blackpool Combat Club, he was different. Different with Mox, different with Claudio, different with Yuta. He was a softer, gentler man when they weren’t in the ring or training. But no, Nigel was right. He hasn’t changed, and he never ever will, and Bryan is stupid for thinking otherwise.

Bryan travels to Dynamite alone. They’d flirted with the idea that Nigel could come, they’d hide him, but ultimately it’s not worth the risk of the surprise getting out, and there’s only a few days until Supercard of Honor, where Nigel’s making his big return, so he stays home. Bryan had thought about not coming too, but then when they’d caught up on everything, Bryan found out that Yuta has called out fucking Shibata, and he needs to talk to the little shit before Friday.

He doesn’t tell the others he’s coming. And when he gets to the arena, he goes to see Tony first, gets checked over by medical to make sure he’s clear to return, and then hides himself away.

If his time with Nigel has reminded Bryan of anything, it’s that he’s not very good at talking about how he feels, or saying the right things, and sometimes it’s just best to show up and prove that you’re here. That you’re here to stay.

So when he’s watching the monitors, and the guys are out, circling Kenny Omega, Mox getting ready to squash him like he’s an annoying bug, Bryan runs out.

The feeling of finally going back out to a crowd, of hearing the roar of your name, the booming base of your music hitting, it’s electric, and Bryan feels it all the way to his bones when he finally makes it into the ring. The last time he was inside the ropes, he’d just lost to MJF, and his heart was broken and it felt like nothing could fix it.

The next day, he was in England, in Nigel’s house.

Nearly three weeks later he’s back home, in the ring with his boys, he’s got Kenny on the mat and Yuta is screaming with feral rage in his face and its wonderful. It’s fucking wonderful because his heart is healed, Nigel is back in Jacksonville, watching this all transpire on TV, going over the notes Tony sent him to prepare for Supercard. He’s back, and so is Bryan, and it doesn’t matter that he lost his last shot at the title because he’s back renewed, he’s got his family back and the little piece of his heart that’s been somewhere else for the last decade is finally back. The little missing piece of his soul is home and he can finally, finally focus on becoming the best version of Bryan Danielson he’s been since 2009.

“You little shit,” Bryan says immediately when they get behind the curtain, slapping Yuta upside the head. “You called out Shibata?”

“Ow! Hello, Bryan, nice to see you too, yes, I did miss you, you fucking prick.” Yuta complains, rubbing his hand over the back of his head where Bryan hit him.

“Now now, Yuta, language,” Claudio admonishes softly, but he’s smiling, all soft and dopey like Claudio gets sometimes. “Prinzli, you didn’t tell us you were coming back.”

“Surprise?” Bryan says, not too dissimilar to the way he did when he first turned up at the car dealership to see Nigel.

“A nice surprise, at that. Come on, let’s not talk here.” Claudio says, and he gets an arm around Bryan’s shoulders as they walk back towards their locker room. Mox is ahead of them, having not said anything yet, all bouncing energy, shoulders rolling as he jumps and bounces his way into the room.

“So, what the fuck you got to say for yourself, Danielson?” He says once the door is closed. Mox is on the offensive, his shoulders hunched and his fists clenching. Bryan doesn’t blame him, not one bit, after how they left things.

“I’m sorry,” Bryan says, realising that there’s not a lot he can say beside that. “I know I can’t take anything back. I know can’t change what he’s done—“

“Ain't talkin’ bout’ him, where you been? Claudio said you were finding yourself in fucking Blackpool.” Mox grumbles.

“Oh. Did you…” Bryan looks to Claudio, because he doesn’t know if he mentioned Nigel’s name.

“No, I didn’t. I figured that’s something you’d have to explain for yourself.”

“Fuckin, enough with the secrets, what the fuck is going on?”

Bryan lets out a breath. “I went to see Nigel. I found him, and I went to see him.”

“Nigel as in, Nigel McGuinness?”

Bryan nods, and he watches as Mox works it all out in his head, lets the information roll around in his head for a moment before he says,

“He alright?”

“Oh, yeah. He’s. Good. He’s a car salesman.” Bryan says, and he says he is one rather than was one because, well if he can keep this a surprise for just another two days, the look on everyone’s faces when Nigel walks out at Supercard is going to make Bryan’s heart burst.

“A fucking car salesman? That’s fucked. We got him to thank for setting your head straight? You speak to the traitor?”

Mox’s questions are quick fire as he unrolls the ring tape from around his wrists. Claudio’s undoing his boots, and Yuta is watching them quietly.

“Yes, and yes. But we’re not — he isn’t important right now, Regal, I mean. He’s gone. We’re still here, and Yuta is calling out people like Shibata. How could you let him do that?”

“Don’t put that on me, I don’t go to ROH.” Mox says, pointedly looking at Claudio.

“I had no idea he was going to do that! He just did it!”

Yuta tries to make himself small in the corner, like they’re not talking about him.

“Yuta?”

“I don’t know what you want me to say! You want me to keep pushing and keep challenging and who better than to challenge than The Wrestler, Katsuyori Shibata?”

“I admire your spirit, Yuta, but we could have had a conversation about this, got you ready. We’ve got like, two days.”

“No offence, Bry, but you weren’t here to have a conversation with.”

Bryan deserves that, he really, really does. Because he wasn’t there. And even if Yuta had called him, he might not have answered, not with how he’s been wrapped up in Nigel these past few weeks.

“Yeah. Yeah, I wasn’t. Have you been studying?”

“Yeah, with my notebook and everything. I’m ready, Bry. I’m gonna’ do you proud.”

Bryan goes up to Yuta, runs his fingers through his hair and smiles. He hasn’t been good to Yuta, not for quite a while, and it’s time to start showing the guy he handpicked for Blackpool Combat Club that he is proud of him, that he can be the mentor that he was looking for.

“I’m always proud of you. You’ve been doing great, Yuta. Just keep studying, Shibata is gonna’ come at you hard, you need to be prepared.”

“I will be. I’m prepared.”

Bryan ruffles his hair. Bryan doesn’t think you can ever be prepared for a wrestler like Shibata, but having the confidence to call him out and say you’re ready to face him, well it’s half the battle won in his eyes.

“So, what are we doing for dinner? I’m fucking starving, and I’m not having catering.” Mox says, and he’s leaning back against the lockers now, hoodie off, sweats low and inviting on his hips.

Bryan bites his lip. “I’m gonna’ be cutting it pretty close with my flight, so I’ll just be grabbing something at the airport.”

“You’re leaving? Are you not coming to Supercard?” Yuta worries, and Bryan cups his hand to the back of his neck.

“I am, but I have some things I need to take care of at home. I’ll meet you there, okay?” Bryan’s not letting Nigel turn up to Supercard on his own. When they’re there and it’s started, Bryan will have all the time in the world to fuss over Yuta before he goes out for his match. But up until then, he’s got to see this through with Nigel. He started it, after all.

“Better not be him.” Mox says, suddenly looking more alert, more uncomfortable.

“Depends who you mean by him.”

“His Lordship.”

“No, Mox. It’s not. Told you, he’s gone.”

Mox rolls his chewing gum around in his mouth, like he’s trying to work out whether he should believe him or not. In the end, Mox gets to his feet and comes up to him, pokes him in the chest.

“You mean that?”

“I mean it in the way we’ve both always meant it. I’m here, Mox.”

Mox gives him a nod. Regal is never gone forever, no matter what he does, he can never leave the two of them forever, the same way Nigel has never left him, never will leave him, no matter what happens between them. The same way Mox, Claudio and Yuta will always be a part of him no matter what. It’s just a waiting game to see when he will pop back up in their lives and weave himself back in with ease. But for now, Bryan is here, with Mox.

“Yeah. Alright. Do what you gotta’ do,” He says, and he drops a kiss to Bryan’s mouth. “Love you.”

Bryan wants to latch onto him and never let go, show Mox how sorry he is for how everything has played out these last few months, for not being there for him, for choosing Regal again. But that’s not them, and even though there’s more to say it won’t get said for a while, it will get said on a random night when neither of them can sleep and Mox is chain smoking and Bryan makes them herbal tea. So it’s enough for now. Just like there’s more to say to Nigel, for now it is enough.

“Love you too.” Bryan says, and he knows he doesn’t say it enough. He’ll be better, from now on. Better for all of them. For Claudio, for Mox, for Yuta, and for Nigel.

The flight from St Louis to Jacksonville is only a couple of hours, so when he makes it back to the Air B&B, Nigel is still awake. He’s got his laptop open in front of him, papers spread out around him. It’s like he’s learning lines for a play. He’s making sure he knows everything he can about every wrestler on the card, and he can see Yuta’s page front and centre.

“Hey, didn’t expect you to still be up.”

Nigel pauses whatever he’s watching on the laptop and rubs at his eyes. “I was going to go to bed, but then I got an angry message from Jen. I forgot it was Wednesday.”

It’s Wednesday, and normally Nigel would go to the pub with his friends. But instead, he’s halfway across the world getting ready to debut in Ring of Honor as a commentator. A life none of them know Nigel has or has had.

“What did you tell them?”

“That I didn’t feel well. I’m not gonna’ tell them about all this until you know, it’s actually happened.”

Bryan comes and sits next to him on the couch, one of Yuta’s old matches is paused on YouTube on the screen of Nigel’s laptop, and there’s multiple tabs open at the top.

“They’re probably bullying her because we’re not there to save her.”

Nigel huffs, “Probably. She’s gonna’ hate me for leaving.”

“She’ll be proud of you.”

Nigel makes a noise, like he doesn’t want to talk about telling his friends about his old life, and his old life starting again. Bryan’s definitely pushed enough, so he doesn’t push with this.

Nigel presses play on the YouTube video again, picks up his pen and continues making notes. Bryan watches with him for a little bit, because this is one of Yuta’s matches he hasn’t seen, and he gets lost in watching how much Yuta has changed, how much different he’s become under the Blackpool Combat Club, even under Chuck and Orange.

“I’m worried about him going up against Shibata.” Bryan says quietly when the match ends with Yuta’s hand raised in victory. He’s clean shaven there, looks so young that it makes Bryan feel a bit weird for being his boyfriend.

“Why?”

“It’s Shibata, Nigel.”

“Yeah, but your boy’s good. He’ll give it to him good, and if he loses, well, you pick him up and you go again. He’s already done what no man has done before, and that’s become a two time Pure champion. If the kid loses, then he loses. Lesson learnt. He’ll go on and do even more great things.” Nigel says, like it’s that easy.

And well, maybe it is. Maybe he’s getting too focused on titles again, and not focusing enough on everything else. Yuta will be okay.

“Come on, let's go to bed. We have a busy travel day tomorrow.”

“I haven’t travelled this much since I retired. I forgot how big the US is.”

“Well you’re gonna’ get used to it again. Because on Friday, you’re officially out of retirement.”

Nigel shuts the laptop closed and scoops up all his papers. There’s a warm smile on his face when he says,

“Yeah, yeah I am.”

Luckily, they get Nigel into the arena and into a private locker room without being spotted.

Yuta keeps texting him, asking him if he’s arrived yet, and what room he’s in, and Bryan has to tell him that he’ll be there soon, because he’s just got to get Nigel out in front of all the people getting into their seats, get him out on that commentary table and then he can focus on Yuta and his match.

Nigel’s pacing the room, reading over his notes half dressed, worrying his lip over his teeth.

“Maybe this was a bad idea. What if nobody remembers who I am?” Nigel asks very quietly, and he’s still staring at the papers.

“I get why you’re nervous, but Nigel, there’s not going to be a soul in the building who doesn’t know who you are.” Bryan promises, and he stands up from his chair, digging into Nigel’s bag to get his tie out so he can put it on him. There isn’t much time left till showtime, but they don’t have to be at guerilla until after it’s started, because Tony wants Nigel to have a proper entrance, not just a quick mention that he’s in the booth.

“That sounds like a massive lie, but alright.” Nigel sighs, and he lets Bryan snake the tie around his neck and do the loops until a perfect knot is formed.

“You’re gonna’ go out there and there’s gonna be so much noise. Biggest pop of the night. Just enjoy this night. You’re back. You’re home.” Bryan says as he does the top button of Nigel’s shirt up, and tightens the knot of the tie, so that it sits perfectly around his neck. He picks up the waist coat that they’d picked out, the whole suit a dark blue, cut just right against Nigel’s figure.

“You talk about home a lot for someone who hasn’t actually been home in almost a month.” Nigel says to him, letting Bryan slip the waist coat on and start doing it up.

“Home isn’t a fixed place. Home isn’t a roof and four walls. Home is a feeling. It’s when you know where you belong, when it doesn’t matter where you go, or what you do, home is where you feel just right,” Bryan says, smoothing his hands down Nigel’s chest, pushing out any creases in his clothes. “Did you feel just right in Liverpool?”

Nigel shrugs a little. “Sometimes.” He admits quietly.

And Bryan knows what he means. Because as they’d pulled away from Nigel’s little house on the quaint little street, he realised that his heart ached just a little bit. It had, in two weeks, become a home away from home. Because it was Nigel’s, and even though he had never been there, there were traces of Bryan throughout. Bryan felt at peace there, at home, even though he’d gone there specifically to tell Nigel that he wasn’t where he should be, that he wasn’t home. It’s how Bryan knows he’s right, that home isn’t a fixed place, home is a feeling. Home is here in Ring of Honor, by each other's side, causing and creating chaos. But home is also back in Liverpool, in that little house, at the pub with Jenny, Robbie, Tom and George. It’s in Blackpool in that old fashioned B&B. It’s in all the places they’ve travelled across the country, across England and Japan. Home is Nigel, home is wrestling. Home is places you feel just right, with the people that make you feel just right.

“You feel at home here?” Bryan asks.

“It’s like moving back to your mum's place. Always feels like home.”

“Ring of Honor will always be a place you call home. We can have an array of homes.” Bryan says, and from underneath his t shirt he untucks Nigel’s spare key that’s hanging on a frayed little rope chain. Nigel hadn’t asked for it back since they left England, and Bryan isn’t giving it back. He needs to be prepared in case Nigel ever tries to disappear out of his life again.

“Is that my key?”

“The spare one you gave me. It’s mine now, by the way.”

“Just like my dressing robe? And the tie you stole?”

“You gave me all of them, there was no stealing involved.”

“And just why do you need my key?”

“Jenny is going to need someone to back her up when she beats your ass for lying about your past.” Bryan says easily, and it makes Bryan’s heart beat incredibly fast, the way the grin spreads across Nigel’s face when he says it. Bryan doesn’t know what’s going to happen after tonight, they’re going to be busy again, making towns, tapings, whatever happens with Yuta’s match tonight. But what he does know is that he’s going to be with Nigel through it all, and no matter where they go, back to Bryan’s home, back to Liverpool, or somewhere new. It will be home.

“She’s going to kick your arse too, you told her you were a personal trainer.”

“Then we will lock ourselves away. That’s why I have the key.”

Bryan shakes his head and puts the key back under his shirt. He picks up Nigel’s suit jacket and steps behind him to slide it over his shoulders.

There’s a knock on the locker room door, “Nigel? You’re needed at guerilla.”

“Coming, thanks.” Nigel calls back, and he turns to Bryan, smoothing down his suit and rolling his shoulders.

“Showtime.” He says, and Bryan nods. There’s a ball of excitement in the pit of his belly. It’s not nerves, he knows that there’s only one way this is going to go, and that’s fucking fantastic, because it’s Nigel. Nigel did commentary a lot when he was a wrestler, and it was effortless, it’s going to be the same tonight. Effortless, like riding a bike, talking, and sleeping.

“Just have fun. You’re going to be great.”

Nigel makes a face, but it turns soft quickly, and his long fingers reach out to run through Bryan’s beard, a habit he’s seemed to pick up lately.

“Bry?”

“Yeah?”

Nigel leans in and kisses him, just a soft sweet kiss, but it makes Bryan’s head spin nonetheless.

“I love you too.” He says, and then he’s turning and leaving, out of the locker room door and following the assistant who’d come to get him towards guerilla.

Bryan hadn’t actually gotten to properly say it. He’d tried, that first morning at Nigel’s place, tried to tell him that just because they’d clashed in the ring, beaten the hell out of each other, it didn’t mean that Bryan didn’t love him. But Nigel had cut him off before he could finish the words, and then Bryan hadn’t tried to tell him again. Showed him, maybe, but he hasn’t said the words. And now Nigel is telling him he loves him. Words he longed to hear for so long, finally, finally he’s hearing them. And he can’t even say it back because he’s about to go out in front of a live crowd for the first time in over a decade, and there’s going to be hours and hours before Nigel comes back behind the curtain and he can tell him.

Nigel’s music is hitting before he even gets to guerilla, and he just catches him stepping through the curtain when he does. The music is so very similar to his old theme, and nostalgia hits Bryan hard and heavy in the heart. The crowd reaction can be heard through the curtain, no need for Bryan to be at the monitor, but he does anyway, because he needs to see it. There’s a Union Jack behind Nigel’s name on the screen, loud and proud along with the music.

Nigel looks like he never left. The crowd is cheering and he’s soaking it up, two fingers in the air, just like he always did. There’s a buzz backstage as people walking past catch his face on the monitors, his name being uttered in shock and disbelief as Ian and Caprice go crazy waiting for him to join the table. Nigel does a lap around the ring, and Bryan can see the look on his face, that age old I love this face.

He looks right, he looks perfect out there, he looks like he’s stepping through the doors of his parents home, being welcomed back with open arms and a feast of his favourite food on the table.

The first words out of his mouth when he gets to the commentary table are did you hear that reaction? And Bryan feels like his heart might burst.

Regal tried to twist the knife the other day, planting the seed that they were banking on people caring that Nigel was coming back. Nigel had worried not twenty minutes ago that people wouldn’t remember who he was. But he sees it now, Nigel sees just how much people have missed him, how much people have been wondering where he went after his retirement, how much they wished he’d come back. The crowd went crazy, and he’ll see later, when Bryan makes him watch it back, just how at home he was making an entrance in Ring of Honor again.

“That’s where you’ve been, isn’t it?” A voice comes from behind Bryan, and he turns from the monitors to see Yuta. He’s got his ring tights on, and a Blackpool Combat Club hoodie, and there’s a smile on his face, he’s not accusing Bryan of anything.

“Yeah, I’m sorry I didn’t—“

“Don’t. I get it. There’s just some things you have to do,” Yuta says coming to stand next to him. His hands are tucked into the pocket of his hoodie and he’s watching the screens. “I can’t believe he’s really back, that Nigel McGuinness is really here. Is he going to wrestle?”

Bryan shrugs with a smile. “Was hard enough convincing him to come back and do this, I think we’ve got a ways to go before we get him in some boots again but, keep your title tonight and Shibata might be the least of your worries.”

“He can just have my title, it’s fine. I like my head attached to my neck, thanks.” But Yuta is grinning, and Bryan can practically see the match playing out in his head. He knows kids like Yuta and Daniel have learnt a lot of their techniques and styles from the wrestling they watched growing up, and the idea of being able to get into the ring with another one of their heros is crazy and exciting.

Bryan smiles, “How are you feeling?” He says, and it’s time to switch over to focusing on Yuta now. Nigel is out there on commentary, clearly already killing it as he gels instantly with Ian and Caprice, Bryan can focus on his protege now.

“A mixture of everything. Scared, excited, nervous.”

“Where’s Claudio? How’s he doing?” He hasn’t even stopped to ask how Claudio’s been during everything happening with Eddie. He’s such a bad boyfriend. But he’s going to be better, he really is.

“Locker room. Mox is here, we were gonna’ do some stretches and stuff, told them I wanted to find you first.”

“I’m sorry. I just needed to see him through to the end, I started it.”

“And I’m glad you did. I’m glad you got him here Bryan.”

Bryan looks back at the monitor, there’s a match on the kickoff now, and he can hear Nigel’s voice loud and excited about the moves he’s calling.

“Me too. Now let’s go and get you ready for your match.”

Yuta loses his title. Bryan is heartbroken when the streamers fly out over Shibata, and Yuta is laying there just getting covered in them. He, Mox and Claudio collect him from guerilla, letting him fall into their arms when he comes back through the curtain. It’s the first time Yuta’s lost a title without Regal there, so the usual post match breakdown goes a little different. There’s no watching the match back immediately, no trying to learn from your mistakes immediately. Mox bundles him up in a hoodie, feeds him a protein bar and makes him drink a bottle of water.

By the time Claudio goes out for his match, he’s feeling better. Bryan sits with him and gives him a little shoulder massage because he feels a pull in it, and they discuss how they’re going to go forward. That Yuta will get the title back one day, or a different one, there’s so many, and Yuta’s good enough to go for whatever he wants. He tells Yuta he’s proud of him, and that he loves him, and it feels like home when Yuta smiles and tells him he loves him back.

Claudio wins his match, and Yuta decides he’s going to do a run in, even though Mox grumbles about it because he knows he’ll get shit from Eddie about it later.

Bryan follows him to guerilla, watching the show wind down and go off air on the monitors. He watches as Nigel shakes Ian and Caprice’s hands, and through the curtains he can hear the fans shouting his name. Nigel does a circle around the ring, shaking peoples hands, signing posters and tickets and leaflets. When he’s on the stage again, he lifts both hands up into the air and sticks his fingers up at them, and everyone cheers. The grin that splits across Nigel’s face is enough to power Bryan through the next million years. He can see the happiness there, the pride. All the worries he’d had about not being remembered, nobody wanting him back, the doubt that Regal had put in his mind without even talking to him. It’s all gone now, people are chanting his name, begging for an autograph, no doubt asking him about returning to the ring.

When Nigel finally steps back through the curtains, a loud cheer erupts from everyone backstage, and Bryan can see that there’s a little tear in his eye. Bryan steps back, there’s so many people here that want to talk to him, and Bryan’s more than happy to let them. After all, they haven’t seen him for over a decade either.

Claudio’s off doing media, and Yuta’s tucked under his arm as they watch the swarm of people surround Nigel. There’s Joe, Eddie, Christoper Daniels, BJ Whitmer, Colt. And every time someone walks past they realise the circle has Nigel in the middle, and they end up joining. Every so often, Nigel points over to Bryan, and everyone turns to look at them before turning back to Nigel.

“Is Nigel coming home with us?” Yuta asks, exhausted now the day’s over, leaning into Bryan’s side.

“For the time being, at least. I kind of dragged him over here without a plan in place, so you know, unless he’s running back and forth from England to here every week, he can stay with us until he’s got something more permanent in place. Is that okay? We’ll have to talk to Claudio and Mox too, of course.”

“S’okay with me. Want him to teach me how to do the Tower of London.”

“If you ask nicely I’m sure he’ll be happy to. He thinks you’re cute, you know.”

“He what?” Yuta perks up a little then, and Bryan laughs at him.

Nigel manages to pull himself away from the group and comes over to them, and Bryan can see the little flush of colour that settles on Yuta’s cheeks.

“So, I take it no one knew who you were?” Bryan says, but he’s smiling up at Nigel. There’s a soft, warm look on his face, a bright light in his eyes, and that smile, god it’s beautiful. He hasn’t seen Nigel smile like this in forever.

“Oh bugger off. I hate admitting when you’re right, but I’ll give credit where credit is due.” He says, like he’s not even a little bit mad about being wrong.

“Sorry about your title kid, you did good though. I really enjoyed your match.” He says to Yuta, who’s just staring at Nigel with a type of fanboy wonder that Bryan knows he used to look at Nigel with.

“Thank you. It’s nice to meet you.”

“You too, Yuta. I’m looking forward to calling your matches. You have a nice bridge, you learn that from Dragon?”

Yuta gives a little nod. “Can you teach me the Tower of London?”

Nigel laughs, “Not sure I even remember how to do it myself, but I’ll give it a bloody good go.”

Yuta beams, “Thanks Nigel.”

“Come on, Claudio should be back soon, and Mox will be wondering where we are. They’ll be happy to see you.” Bryan says to Nigel, and he takes Yuta’s hand, because he knows he needs that right now. An anchor, some TLC. Bryan’s more than happy to give it to him tonight, after losing his title, and everything that’s happened these last few months.

They walk back to the locker room together, and Nigel talks through the match with Yuta, giving him tips on what he could do next time, how he could have beaten Shibata. Yuta listens intently, not looking away from Nigel even when people stop Nigel to shake his hand and welcome him back.

Claudio and Mox are in the locker room when they step inside, Claudio’s packing the belt away in his case, and Mox is a ball of frantic energy, pacing the room. Probably worried about where Yuta got too, worried that he was in a bad head space and ran off.

“Nigel fucking McGuinness.” He says, instantly holding his hand out to bring Nigel into him.

“Moxie.”

“Bryan says you’re a car salesman. What the fuck?”

“Yeah well, not anymore. I’ve officially signed here.”

“As you fucking should, Nigel McGuinness has no business fucking business being anywhere but here. You getting back in the ring?”

“You sound entirely too much like Dragon,” Nigel shakes his head. “Haven’t decided on that. Probably not, though. Pushing fifty, Moxie.”

“Stings in his sixties and man can still kick ass, age is just a number, Nigel. And anyway, we need another match. One you don’t let me win because you wanna’ be in Bryan’s pants.”

Nigel splutters, and Bryan’s own eyebrows shoot up into his hairline. Yuta and Claudio snicker between themselves.

“That’s not what bloody happened! You beat me fair and square.”

“Of course you did.” Mox is smirking, seemingly ending the conversation there and going to sit next to Yuta, throwing an arm around his shoulders and planting a large, loud kiss against his temple.

“Nigel, my old friend, ignore Moxley, as you know his favourite pastime is winding everyone up. I have missed you.” Claudio stands up and embraces Nigel, their too tall figures melding together. Nigel is visibly smaller than Claudio now, a switch from before, when Nigel was pretty much always the biggest man in the room.

“Castagnoli, fucking finally a ROH World Champion. You were great out there.” Nigel says, and he’s got a hand on the back of Claudio’s neck.

Bryan remembers a time when he got insanely jealous of Claudio. He and Nigel had tagged together against Chris Hero and Jigsaw, and Claudio got busted open at the end of the match, right around his eye. Nigel had cupped his face so tenderly, told him it was going to be okay, and helped him to the back. He fussed over him the whole time he got medical attention, stayed with him once he got his stitches, and switched rooms with the random guy that Claudio was rooming with so he could keep an eye on him, in case he had a concussion or suddenly lost his vision. Bryan was not a rational guy back then, and he didn’t like that Nigel was doing all the things he did with Bryan with Claudio. He’s not that way inclined anymore, he knows it’s just a testament to the man he’s always loved, that he cares so wholly and deeply about his friends and loved ones, but seeing the two of them together again does bring back memories.

Nigel and Claudio talk quietly for a while and Bryan just watches them, watches old friends get reacquainted, his family licking wounds from a loss. He feels a peace settle over him. All those missing pieces that have slotted together start to glow inside of him, welding themselves together and making him whole again.

A few weeks ago, Bryan was lonely. Regal was busy, and Bryan was too busy chasing down MJF and the World title to worry about where his family were and what they were doing. He was lonely and he knew, deep down, that there was something missing inside of him. It took him the loss to realise what he needed to do, to finally go and find the man that’s been missing from his life for so long.

And now, Bryan is once again in a ROH locker room with Nigel McGuinness. He’s not lonely, he’s got his family, and they’re all on the same page, fighting to good fight against the Elite.

Nigel’s key is warm against his chest under his shirt, and his voice is loud and warm in the room as he talks with Claudio. Mox is making Yuta laugh, and every so often, someone knocks on the door to come in and say welcome back to Nigel.

A few weeks ago, Bryan got on a flight to bring Nigel McGuinness back home. To bring him back to wrestling so that Bryan could be the best version of himself, because without Nigel Bryan has felt lost for the last decade.

Nigel McGuinness is home, and Bryan Danielson no longer feels lost.

Bryan stands up and steps over to Nigel, nudges his shoulder against him to get his attention. Claudio goes to sit down next to Yuta and starts packing up his bag.

“Hey,” Bryan says. “You wanna go home?”

“Home where?”

“Home with us, for now. Until you decide where you want this home to be.”

Nigel lets a smile spread across his face, and Bryan thinks it’s the most beautiful thing in the world.

“Yeah, home sounds good.” Nigel says, and he turns, probably to get his bag, but Bryan catches his wrist and entwines their fingers together.

“Love you, Nigel.” He says, and Nigel smiles, bright and wide, and squeezes Bryan’s fingers.

“Let’s go home, Dragon.”

#writing #nigel mcguinness x bryan danielson #blackpool combat club #final part!#I hope you all enjoy!

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dunkzillla · 2 years ago

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A Place to Call Home (2/4)

Honestly I can’t tell you what happened here. I had this whole thing planned out and then I just kinda word vommed onto the document and this ended up being this long. I am completely rotted in my brain about these two, so strap in!

Title: A Place to Call Home

Pairings: Nigel McGuinness/Bryan Danielson, mentioned and implied — Bryan Danielson/William Regal, Bryan Danielson/Jon Moxley/Claudio Castagnoli/Wheeler Yuta

Ratings: Mature — Language, Mentions of Sex.

Word Count: 10,027

Summary: It’s been a decade and a half of nothing, of burying what could have been, and now suddenly Bryan’s here again, his heart deciding it’s had enough, bringing him back to what could have been to give it one last shot. Losing to MJF was the switch, the igniter of an old flame. He went to bed that night broken-hearted and he woke up knowing who could fix it.

Parts: ONE

AO3

Feels like we buried alive something that never died. — The Exit, Conan Gray

Bryan wakes up way earlier than he normally likes to, thanks to jet lag and his out of whack body clock. The sun isn’t even up, and the house is silent, so Bryan knows that Nigel isn’t up yet.

He checks the time. 4:30am. An ungodly hour, even for him, but his eyes are wide open and sleep feels like the last thing he wants to do. He creeps to the bathroom to pee, not wanting to wake Nigel up before he needs to be for work. Then, in just his sleep pants, Bryan makes his way downstairs and into the kitchen. He makes himself a coffee, staring out of the kitchen window into the backyard. It’s dark so Bryan can’t see everything, but it looks decently sized, with a nice patch of grass that looks like it’s well maintained, and there’s a bench against the side fence. One look at the back door tells Bryan that he doesn’t need a key to unlock it, it’s one of those latches where you pull the handle up and twist the little knob. So he unlocks it and steps out onto the cold, damp concrete slabs. His feet are bare and the cold seeps into his skin, but it’s nice.

It’s that type of cold that Bryan likes, a crisp, clean cold, the air getting right deep down into your lungs every time you take a breath. He makes sure to shut the back door behind him so that he doesn’t make the kitchen cold, and cradles the coffee mug in his hands. Steam rises from the mug, warming the tip of his nose as he holds it close to his face.

Birds chirp, and Bryan swears he sees a fox stick it’s head through a hole in the fence before ducking away upon seeing Bryan. He’s always liked the UK, he’s enjoyed every time he’s ever come over here, it’s just, it’s not home.

The sky starts to lighten, just slightly, and Bryan’s almost finished his coffee when the back door swings open.

“Are you bloody mental? You’ll catch your death sitting out there like that.” Nigel quiet-shouts to him. He’s — Nigel’s got on a dressing robe on, one like Regal always likes to wear because no one needs to see all my lumps and bumps in a morning, darling, and a pair of slippers. His hair is a mess on top of his head and he looks, he looks tired. Bryan can see the age lines in his face from the warm glow of the kitchen light behind him. He looks so much older now, but Bryan knows he does too, and it only highlights the length of time they’ve been apart.

“Come inside, if I have to come out there and get you I won’t be happy.” He grumbles, before turning back inside.

Bryan has almost finished the coffee, and it is cold, and he doesn’t want to make Nigel mad by being stubborn, even though Nigel’s the most stubborn man he knows, so he stands up from the bench and heads inside, feeling the warmth instantly hit him as he steps back into the kitchen.

The kettles boiling again, and there’s bread on the counter, ready to be put in the toaster.

Nigel’s hand touches his shoulder and he makes a disgruntled noise. “You’re bloody freezing, god you’re just as annoying as you were before.” He says, and he slips the robe off of his shoulders — his bare shoulders — and puts it around Bryan.

“I’m fine—“

“You’re not going back to Tony Khan with pneumonia and blaming me for it, Dragon,” He says, voice still a little thick with sleep. “You want toast?”

“Thanks.” Bryan says, both to the robe around his shoulders that smells of Nigel and is soft like a cloud and to the offer of the toast. He sits down on one of the bistro chairs and watches Nigel.

He puts four slices of bread in the big toaster he’s got, and starts to walk around the kitchen, collecting butter and jam for the toast, milk for his tea. Now that he’s ditched the robe and given it to Bryan, he’s wearing nothing but a pair of well worn shorts, and they’re sitting low on his hips, showing the dips and lines down to his groin, and the expanse of his shoulders and back. Bryan feels a little bit like a deer in headlights, like he did the first time Yuta had a sleepwalking episode and ended up in Bryan’s room stark naked before they’d become a thing. He was all long limbs and soft skin — it was mouth watering. And right now, it’s the same. All of Nigel is on show to him, and Bryan’s barely resisting reaching out to touch him.

The bulk Nigel’s lost is significant, though it’s not bad, it’s just different. The way Nigel carries himself is different, before he was always high shoulders, puffed out chest. Now he’s relaxed. There’s no puffing of the chest, no dangerous smirk on his face. He’s just, Nigel, with the volume turned all the way down to zero.

Bryan wonders whether that disappeared all at once or whether it was slow. Did he start out in the dealership as the Nigel he knew? Did he walk around with that arrogant step to his walk, that hard sneer at the people below him? Or did he just turn it off as soon as he retired? Bryan wants to know, he wishes he had a tape he could play of everything that Nigel’s done since retiring. He wants to dissect it, he wants to see how Nigel turned into the Nigel he is today.

Bryan wraps the robe tighter around him, taking in the scent and letting it rub across his beard. If Bryan didn’t know any better, if he was looking through that back kitchen window at the two of them, he’d think that they were a couple, enjoying breakfast together before the day starts.

Lately Bryan’s been alone when having breakfast, because Regal’s been busy and he hasn’t been with Mox, Claudio and Yuta overnight for… a long time. And he misses it, Bryan is lonely, he likes to have people around even if they’re not talking. He likes how Yuta will shuffle into the kitchen still half asleep, slump into the chair next to Bryan making little grumbling noises about being tired and needing coffee, and how that coffee will materialise in front of him thanks to Claudio and Yuta’s favourite pastry set down in front of him by Mox. He likes how Claudio puts the little stereo that they’ve got on and tunes it to a station that plays nothing but slow, smooth music.

And right now, he likes the quiet. He likes that all he can hear is Nigel’s slow breathing, the clinking of plates and spoons and the murmur of the kettle and toaster.

Nigel comes over, impressively carrying two mugs and two plates of toast, and sits in the chair opposite him.

“So,” Nigel says, voice still a little gravelly, “What’s next? You done wrestling, or?”

Bryan shrugs. “Not done, there’s still so much for me to do. But I need to… switch gears. So what happens next, well, it all depends.”

Nigel spreads far too much butter onto a slice of toast and looks at him with a raised brow, “On?”

On you, and whether you come home with me. But Bryan doesn’t say that yet. He hasn’t — they’re nowhere near that. Bryan can’t ask yet.

“On what the others say,” Bryan says instead. “We might be a family but they’re doing pretty good with what they’ve got right now, so maybe they’ll just want to keep on doing what they’re doing. We’ll see.”

Nigel takes a bite of the now soggy toast. “I still don’t get why you’re here instead of there. If I had three guys who looked like that at home, especially that little Wheeler Yuta, I wouldn’t be thousands of miles away in sodding Liverpool with a washed up retired wrestler who I don’t even like.”

Bryan stops spreading marmalade on his own toast to look at Nigel for any hint of a joke, or sarcastic self depreciation. He’s serious, mouth chewing and fixing Bryan with a questioning.

“Firstly, don’t hit on my young boy when I’m right in front of you,”

“Why does—“

“Secondly,” Bryan interrupts a little harshly, “Is that what you really think? That you’re washed up and I don’t like you?”

Nigel looks away, and he chews almost angrily, like he thinks he’s said too much already, like he’s opened a can of worms and now they won’t stop crawling out. But Bryan’s glad. Whatever idea Nigel’s got inside of him that they’re not, something, anything, to each other, just because knocking seven bells out of each other was their favourite thing to do, he wants it gone. If Nigel really has thought for all these years that Bryan didn’t even like him, then what did the years they had together even mean? We’re they even real? They clearly didn’t live the same years.

“I am washed up,” Nigel says, picking up his tea. “And you don’t like me, you can’t, not after everything you’ve done to me over the years.”

“You — you know I hate using this word but stop being a fucking mark for one second, and use the brain I know you have to think about what you’re saying.”

“I am not a mark!”

“You're acting like one! You’re saying because we got into it in the ring and didn’t always agree on everything that we just don’t like each other? Colt kicked you in the nuts a dozen times, Aries split your fucking head open by being a dangerous prick, you called Joe fat so many times that I think anymore and he was going to murder you, you’ve ripped muscles off bones and popped shoulders out and spilled enough blood to fill a fucking pool, and you think no one can like you because of that? Do you not like any of them, because of that?”

Nigel looks down at the mug in his hand, and he mumbles something that’s most likely a smart retort.

“You’ve been watching haven't you? All these years? Seen Mox doing your rebound lariat as a tribute to you? Seen everyone who’s come after you taking little pieces of you and making them their own because not only do they miss you but because you’re one of the best pure professional wrestlers there’s ever been?”

Nigel shifts in his seat, but he still doesn’t say anything.

“And how, after everything between us, you could think that I don’t like you.” Bryan says. There’s too much of the everything to get out. Too much to say. But Bryan knows Nigel knows deep down, that they’re not just acquaintances, not just friends, that they’ve always been something more.

“You should know… you’ve seen the battles I’ve had with Mox, even most recently, I’ll beat him until he’s unconscious but I still love him. He’s still everything to me. I’d do the same to Claudio, and to Yuta. I put Yuta through hell when we’re training, and I’d put him through hell in the ring. But that doesn’t mean I don’t love him. You think just because we make great enemies that I don’t—“

“I have to get ready for work.” Nigel says suddenly, cutting off Bryan before he can finish. And Bryan was going to say it, he was, he was going to say that he loves Nigel. That he always has.

Nigel walks past him, leaving his half eaten breakfast and barely finished tea on the table as he heads upstairs. Bryan sighs, setting down his own barely eaten breakfast and running a hand through his hair that’s wild from sleeping. Bryan knew this wasn’t going to be easy because of how stubborn Nigel is, how set in his ways he can be. He just didn’t think the first hurdle he’d encounter would be Nigel not even thinking that they’re even friends. How is he going to convince Nigel to come back to wrestling if he doesn’t even think they’re friends?

Bryan clears up from breakfast, hearing Nigel walking around upstairs, and he tries to pretend like that went well, that Nigel’s just Nigel getting ready for work, and not that the Nigel that got up and left before Bryan could tell him he loves him. That he knew it was coming and avoided it.

He rinses the plates and cups and watches out the kitchen window as the sun starts peeking up over the fence line, the garden bathed in that early dawn light that he finds so beautiful.

He’s still staring out into the backyard by the time he hears Nigel stepping back into the kitchen, and when he turns he sees a much more put together man than the one that left the kitchen. He’s back in a suit, navy blue with a white shirt and blue tie, the zip up jacket is over the top and again, there’s a laptop bag hooked over his shoulder. His hair’s been styled and he looks awake now.

“Here, spare key. If you leave and don’t plan on coming back, post it through the letterbox.”

“I’ll be here when you get back.” Bryan says.

Nigel raises his eyebrows, like he’s not sure whether to believe him, like he doesn’t know what to say to that. “Alright, guess I’ll see you later, then. Try not to get lost if you do go out.”

“That was one time.”

“And it was a day of my life I’ll never get back, Bryan. Don’t get lost.”

“Asshole.”

“Bye honey!” Nigel sings as he leaves the kitchen and heads out of the front door to work. Bryan’s left standing in the kitchen holding the spare key, wrapped up in Nigel’s dressing robe, feeling like the stay at home wife waiting for her husband to come home.

He turns the key over in his palm, and lets his mind wander back to what Nigel was referring to, that time they got lost on the way to a show. It was his fault, though he didn’t want to admit it for a long time. He was reading the map and he told Nigel the wrong exit, which meant they ended in some town buttfuck nowhere that didn’t appear on the map, that didn’t have phone reception or seemingly even a gas station to ask for directions, or anyone even around to help them. It had taken Nigel’s sense of direction and a good few hours to get them back on to a main highway that Bryan could find on the map. Nigel’s never let him live it down.

Bryan remembers it, because even though Nigel had been effing and blinding at him for managing to get them lost, they’d come up with a whole new life together. Every single town they passed through as they tried to find their way onto the highway again they picked out a house they’d move into if they never found their way out. They picked out their dog and its name, he got Nigel to agree to let him keep chickens and ducks and they’d argued about carpet or hardwood floors in the bedroom.

Bryan remembers it all so clearly, he remembers how much he’d been grinning as Nigel vehemently argued that hardwood floor in the bedroom was an abomination and carpet was the only right answer, because when Nigel was worked up about something so trivial it was the most beautiful thing to see. His accent came out so much stronger, his hands waving around him as he gesticulated his points. Nigel was the single most argumentative person Bryan had ever met but it made him want to kiss him just as much as it made him want to punch him.

Which is why Bryan can’t understand how Nigel can think they weren’t friends, that because he’d retired they were no longer friends, that they weren’t anything to each other. It was all a silly joke, a way to pass the time, but Bryan wouldn’t have minded all that much if they’d have never made it out of that town they got lost in. He would have missed wrestling, and the modern world, but living with Nigel, a dog and some chickens and ducks wouldn’t have been the worst thing in the world — far from it. And maybe he’s not expecting Nigel to feel the same, to want to run away with him and the hoard of animals they’d made up, but to not even believe that anything they ever shared with each other was real, all became when it came to wrestling they preferred to tear each other limb from limb. He just can’t believe that. Nigel isn’t stupid. Nigel’s never mixed the ring with outside relationships, so why with Bryan? What’s different with them?

Bryan sets the key on the table and heads upstairs to shower and change. He needs to get out for a bit, he can’t sit in Nigel’s house for hours until the man gets back.

The sun is fully up by the time Bryan leaves, and it’s cold and raining again but Bryan leaves the car where it is and uses the maps on his phone to direct him to the nearest shops. He doesn’t get lost, thankfully, and the place isn’t too far from Nigel’s house, so he doesn’t get too wet walking there.

He picks up some sweats and t-shirts and some pullovers, boxers and some jeans to see him through, and some oat milk and some dinner ingredients because the grocery store is right next door.

It’s late in the afternoon when Bryan finally makes it back to Nigel’s place, and he takes a bit of time to put what he’d brought into the chest drawers that are in the room he’s staying in. He puts the groceries away, and then after half an hour of sitting and staring at the wall wondering what to do, he goes out for a run. He puts the tracker on his phone so he knows which way to come back, because he’s not going to give Nigel the satisfaction of getting lost and having to call him.

It’s pouring with rain by the time Bryan finishes his run and finds his way back to Nigel’s, and he tries to shake off most of the water from himself before he lets himself back into the house.

It’s a little bit of a selfish, indulgent thing, when he gets out of the shower and puts on the robe that Nigel had given him this morning. It smells like him, and he likes the way it feels against his skin, and for a moment he’s transported back to the times when he’d steal a shirt from Nigel’s bag and hope that he wouldn’t notice.

It’s funny, Bryan thinks, that the minute he’s back around Nigel he starts acting like he’s twenty four again, young and dumb and in love. Acting like a kid with a crush that isn’t reciprocated but is desperately trying to make the other person see. He hasn’t been like this since then. With Regal it’s easy, they’ve always just been and they’ve never done this dance. With Mox it’s easy too, they’ve always just fallen in and out of each other, friends to lovers to friends and enemies and back to lovers. He and Claudio might not have had that type of relationship before, but it was just as easy to fall into it with him as it was breathing. And Yuta, well Yuta took him by surprise. He was never looking to be involved with a young man, but Yuta had the ability to get inside his heart, make himself a place there.

But with Nigel, it’s never been easy with Nigel. Nigel who’s held him at arms length while simultaneously holding him tight against him. It’s like he’s always been trying, trying to get Nigel to see how he feels without ruining what they have, and Nigel’s been purposely looking the other way so as not to see any of it.

It’s been a decade and a half of nothing, of burying what could have been, and now suddenly Bryan’s here again, his heart deciding it’s had enough, bringing him back to what could have been to give it one last shot. Losing to MJF was the switch, the igniter of an old flame. He went to bed that night broken-hearted and he woke up knowing who could fix it.

“Dragon! You still here? I don’t see a key on my floor!” Bryan hadn’t noticed the front door opening, and he sticks his head out of the bedroom door to see Nigel sliding off his shoes and hanging up his jacket.

“I told you I would be.” He says, stepping out of the room. Nigel looks up the stairs at him, fingers going to his tie to loosen it and undo the top couple of buttons on his shirt.

“Yeah, well, forgive me for not believing you— wait, have you even left the house today?”

Bryan glares at him. “Yes, I went—“

“Then why are you wearing what I left you in?”

Bryan looks down. He’s still wearing the robe, and he’s naked save for his boxers underneath. That’s not embarrassing at all.

“I went exploring and then for a run and it rained so I had to change.” Bryan says, like it explains why he’s wearing the robe and not his own clothes. He really is twenty four again.

“Un-be-bloody-lievable. You’ve always been a thief.”

“I have not! I have never stolen in my life.”

“So where is my Oasis shirt from the gig I went to in 2005 that I wore about three times before it disappeared? Where is my black McGuinness shirt? Why do I not have a full selection of shirts that I remember making?” Nigel says, and Bryan feels himself freeze. He didn’t think that Nigel noticed that any of those had gone missing all those years ago.

“Why didn’t you ask for them back if you knew where they were?”

Nigel scoffs at him and dumps the laptop bag at the bottom of the stairs. “Because they always looked better on you, Dragon.” He says, voice trailing away as he disappears into the front room.

Oh. Well that’s, that’s not what Bryan was expecting Nigel to say. He wasn’t expecting to be called out for stealing his shirts and he wasn’t expecting to find out that the reason he never asked for them back was because he thought Bryan looked good in his clothes.

Was that why he gave him the robe this morning? Was it truly because he was worried about Bryan being cold or was it because he wanted to see it on him? Either way, both of those options directly counter his whole idea that they’re not friends. Either Nigel cares about him enough to stop him from being cold, or he likes him enough to want him to see him in his clothes.

A little flustered, Bryan ducks back into the guest bedroom and changes into some actual clothes, and pulls his still damp hair back into a bun. He leaves the robe on his bed, because if Nigel wants it back, well he’s going to have to come and get it.

When he gets downstairs Nigel’s in the kitchen, boiling the kettle and putting a tea bag into his mug. He’d forgotten just how much tea Nigel actually drinks. The stash of tea bags that Nigel always had on him was a running joke in the Ring of Honor locker room, when he’d produce them out of the stupid little Union Jack tin he kept in his bag, everyone would laugh and say that one day he was going to be stopped by the TSA.

“How was work?”

Nigel looks at him, like he can’t believe that Bryan’s asking him that question, before he shrugs. “Alright. Sold a few cars, chased a few late payments. Nothing special.”

“I don’t know, not every day you get a call from Nigel McGuinness because you haven’t paid for your car.”

“Some of these people I do have to call every day. My useless coworkers are not checking credit properly before signing people up for finance.”

Nigel gets a mug out for Bryan, holding up the coffee in a silent you want one? To him. Bryan gives a nod, and leans against the kitchen counter watching him.

“Sounds boring.”

“It’s no championship win but, pays the bills.”

He hands Bryan the coffee before stepping over to the fridge and opening it.

“Did you go shopping?”

“Mhm. I’m gonna make us dinner.”

“You are?”

“Yeah. I noticed your fridge is full of meals you heat up in the microwave. You know how bad for you those are? They’re full of chemicals.”

“You really haven’t changed a bit, have you?”

“Nope. Still your Dragon.”

Something passes over Nigel’s face, but it’s gone in an instant.

“Well, as long as I’m not eating fermented tofu or some shit, go ahead, cook your little heart out.”

“I’m allergic to soy.”

Nigel looks at him blank.

“Never mind. Go change, I’ll get started.”

Nigel shuts the fridge and makes a little humming noise before striding past him to go and do what he said, squeezing Bryan’s shoulder as he does. It leaves a warm tingle down Bryan’s arm, but he tries to shake himself into focusing on what he’s doing.

He takes the ingredients he’d bought at the grocery store earlier out and lines them all up on the counter, and starts opening cupboards and looking for what he needs. It’s not the most stocked kitchen in the world, there’s only a couple of pots and pans and the knives are blunt and useless, but Bryan makes do. He can tell Nigel doesn’t cook much, and there’s something about being able to hear Nigel upstairs, taking off the layers of his work day while Bryan cooks for him downstairs. Claudio likes to do this for all of them, always turning down Bryan’s offers to help, not letting Yuta clean up afterwards. He likes to take care of them at least one night a week, and Bryan can see why.

“Smells good,” Nigel’s voice comes from the doorway, and Bryan looks over to see that he’s changed into a pair of jeans and a polo shirt. “What is it?”

“Stir fry, Yuta’s family recipe.”

“Swapping family recipes so soon? My my it must be serious.” Nigel says, and he slumps himself down into the chair, and rests his head against the wall, getting comfortable enough to watch him.

“It’s not really a secret, how to make a good stir fry. It’s not like he’s broken a family code by giving it to me.”

Nigel smirks, “Good, young lad like him shouldn’t be giving any secrets to you, you can’t be trusted.”

“Hey,” Bryan says as he plates up. “I’m cooking you dinner and you’re being rude.”

“It’s the truth, though. Never trust a dragon.”

“Because you’re so trustworthy.” Bryan jabs back, setting a plate down in front of Nigel and sitting opposite him.

“Never said I was.” And Nigel grins, like all of a sudden he’s having the best time in the world picking fun at Bryan. He tucks into the food despite the fact that it’s steaming in his face, and makes an appreciative noise while chewing.

“That’s good.” He says around a mouthful.

“You still have no manners.”

Nigel sticks a finger up at him and shovels another forkful of the food into his mouth. It’s disgusting but it’s Nigel and it makes Bryan so insanely happy and nostalgic that he has to hide his own smile behind a fork of buckwheat noodles and veggies.

“How’s your sister? And the sprog?” Nigel suddenly asks, thankfully having swallowed the mouthful of food he was chewing.

“She’s great, actually, and so is my nephew. He’s fourteen and taller than me.”

“Well that’s not hard.”

“Fuck you, Nigel.” Bryan says as a shit eating grin spreads it’s way across Nigel’s face, the same one that always did when Nigel was ribbing and making fun of him.

“Is he really fourteen?” Nigel asks then.

Bryan nods. It is hard to believe, really. He was born in 2009, the last year he and Nigel were in the same company. They’d all visited her one night that year when they were passing through his hometown, and she was heavily pregnant, but still insisting on cooking them all a huge dinner. His nephew had been born not long after, he and Nigel being together the moment he got the text from her that just said IM IN LABOR. Nigel had offered to drive him home to be there but it was something he didn’t need to see, so they took a detour on their way to the next town a day later to see him.

And that was really one of the last things they did together, other than being each other's last match in Ring of Honor. Nigel went to TNA and Bryan went to WWE, then back to the independent circuit before going back to WWE. There was no more travelling together, no more rooming together. They both got caught up in what life was giving them that what they had together just got buried underneath it all. Bryan did text him when he found out through the grapevine that Nigel had gotten Hep B, asked how he was doing and offered help if he needed it. Nigel had never gotten back to him, and then he’d returned to the ring, and Bryan thought that seeing as he was wrestling again, he was okay. He should have been more stubborn.

“Yeah. Fourteen. I thought he’d get a kick out of telling all his friends who his uncle is but he prefers football and thinks I’m lame.”

“You are.”

“I walked into that one.”

Nigel grins again and keeps eating. It’s comfortable between them as they do so, Bryan doesn’t feel the need to fill the silence, doesn’t need to do anything but enjoy his food and watch Nigel enjoy it.

“I usually go to the pub on Wednesdays, meet up with some friends. You wanna tag along?”

Bryan looks up in surprise. He wasn’t expecting to be invited out with Nigel and his friends.

“Yeah, sure.” Bryan says, because he might not be all that into going out to bars, or pubs or whatever they’re called, and he doesn’t drink, but he’s not going to sit here while Nigel goes out, he’s not going to pass up the opportunity to go out with him.

“It’s low key, so you don’t have to worry about getting recognised. And none of my friends even know that I was a wrestler.”

“Why not?”

“Well it’s weird, innit? Introducing yourself as a retired pro wrestler. It’s not like I made it to the top of the mountain. None of them knew who I was when we met, why tell them?”

“Because you were the longest Pure champion in Ring of Honor history? You were World champion for over a year? You’ve wrestled all over the world?”

“And what does that mean to any of them? Absolutely fucking nothing, Bryan. In my old world, yeah, that meant something, but in this world, the outside world, it doesn’t mean anything.”

“I just don’t know why you’d hide that part of you from people you call friends. What about when they come over and they see that bookcase?”

Nigel huffs, “I forgot you were a snooper,” He says, setting his knife and fork down. Bryan had hoped Nigel had at least a couple of pairs of chopsticks, but he barely even had a full set of cutlery, so knives and forks it was. “They don’t really come over. And anyone who does come over, well they don't look closely at that kind of stuff.”

“So you’ve really just… thrown everything you did in the ring for twelve years away?”

“No, it still exists, I just don’t tell anyone about it. Life’s easier that way. I never wanted to be that guy that clung on to what he used to be. I retired because I just knew that it wasn’t ever going to happen for me the way I wanted it to. My arms, the Hep B, the concussions. All of it just — I wasn’t ever going to be you, Dragon. Not all of us can make come back after come back and be the poster child for every company he works for.”

“No, but you could.”

Nigel scoffs. “Fuck off Bryan, no one wants to see me anywhere near a ring.”

“You’re joking, right?”

“No, I’m not joking. And even if I was, even if people did want me back, I’m forty seven years old. I had my time, it passed, here we are. Sometimes you just have to let sleeping dogs lie, Dragon.” Nigel stands up and collects both of their plates, throwing away the scraps left on the plate and starting to swill them in the sink.

“Sting is sixty four!”

“Yeah, and he’s fucking Sting, Bryan. I’m not Sting.”

“No, you’re Nigel McGuinness, one of the most stubborn men I’ve ever met. So I don’t understand why you just gave up, why you didn’t lie like we all did?”

“Because I thought it would be better, alright? I thought they’d fucking help me fix my arms because they wanted to sign me. I didn’t expect them to pull it unless I got surgery.” Nigel raises his voice, the plates clattering together as he washes them. Bryan doesn’t flinch. This is when they’re at their most honest with each other, when they’re screaming and angry. When he pushes Nigel he gets the best Nigel. The real Nigel.

“Why didn’t you ever—“

“Try again? The door was closed, Bryan. They didn’t want me anymore. After the hepatitis and everything, they never offered me anything else. I was thirty five and falling to pieces, why would they?”

Because you’re Nigel McGuinness, Bryan wants to say, but he doesn’t, because he’s said it so many times already and Nigel seems to have lost that self assured cocky attitude that he always had. He doesn’t want to hear what Bryan’s got to say about the man he was, because he doesn’t believe he’s that man anymore.

Bryan stands up and nudges Nigel out of the way, taking a towel to the dishes that he’s already washed.

“Why are you here, Bryan?”

Bryan doesn’t answer, he just looks at Nigel as he dries the plate with the towel, because Nigel’s not ready to hear what he has to say, yet.

Nigel looks down at him with an expectant look on his face, waiting for Bryan to answer. And there was a time when Nigel would get in his face, press their foreheads together and drop his voice low, repeating what he’d said, and Bryan would stare right on back refusing to answer, and they’d be locked in that exchange until Nigel would laugh in his face and saunter away, muttering about how Bryan was an annoying little brat. And Bryan would squeeze his thighs together and try and pretend like he wasn’t screaming inside of his head for Nigel to kiss him or punch him.

But Nigel’s not doing that now, Nigel’s got his hip resting against the counter and his arms crossed over his chest, looking like a school teacher telling off a naughty child. Because Nigel’s not home, Nigel isn’t Nigel here.

In the end, Nigel breaks first, letting out a sigh before saying, “Gonna leave soon, be ready to go in half an hour.” He says, and then he’s gone, out of the kitchen and his feet thumping up the stairs.

Bryan puts the dried up dishes away and follows Nigel up the stairs, ducking into his bedroom to grab his wash bag before going for the bathroom.

Nigel’s door is open just slightly, and Bryan’s eyes can’t help but look through the gap, where he can see Nigel sitting on his bed.

In his hands is the Pure championship, the retired belt that Bryan gave to him when they had their two out of three falls match the night it was being retired. That night is hazy, Nigel knocked him out just as the bell rang to signal time on the match, and he doesn’t remember much from it at all, other than feeling like he wanted to puke his guts up right onto the mat, Nigel cradling him and telling him to just be sick, and the hours they spent in the emergency room afterwards because Nigel refused to let Bryan leave until they got the all clear. But he does remember picking the Pure title back up, and a microphone, and telling the room that the title should stay with the man who made it. Remembers handing it over to Nigel, and his own arm being raised. Nigel spoke and it made no sense because Bryan’s head was swimming and he could barely remember what day it was, what city he was in.

And now Nigel’s holding that very title again. Bryan watches through the gap in the door, and he swears he sees Nigel transform in front of his eyes. Swears he sees bright blonde spikes sprout from the top of his head, Union Jack knee pads curling over his knees. Holding the Pure title in his hands turns whatever Nigel this is, car salesman Nigel, into the Nigel that he’s always known. Nigel McGuinness, greatest enemy, soulmate, and one of the best wrestlers he’s ever known. The real Nigel. Nigel’s at home with the Pure title in his hands.

So as not to get caught, Bryan steps into the bathroom and closes the door. He doesn’t need Nigel knowing that he was watching him, that he’s seen him starting to remember what it was like. He’s just happy to know that he’s thinking about it, remembering what it was like to be Nigel McGuinness.

He brushes his teeth and splashes water on his face, and hears Nigel moving around the bedroom again, putting the Pure title back wherever it sits. He wonders how Nigel’s sat and watched wrestling, the creation of AEW, and not gotten that feeling in his gut, that desperate itch inside of you to get back into the ring. Every single time Bryan’s been sidelined, or put in retirement he’s gone stir crazy. How Nigel could walk away and then torture himself watching the product baffles him, really. Because as much as he’d loved his time in WWE, watching some of his best friends having the time of their life in a new company, it got that itch going inside of him. He was wrestling but he felt it, the burning itch to go and do something different. To go back to being the man he was when he was having the most fun. When he was the happiest. And that was being the real Bryan Danielson.

Nigel’s back downstairs when Bryan gets out of the bathroom and he quickly throws his wash bag in his room and makes his way down to him. He’s putting on a leather jacket that’s actually not too dissimilar to the one Mox loves to wear, except Nigel’s is in much better condition.

“Ready?” Nigel asks, and it’s like their conversation not ten minutes ago didn’t happen, like he wasn’t just sat up stairs on his bed staring at the old Pure title belt.

“Ready.” Bryan agrees, picking his own coat off the coat rack.

Nigel leads him out of the door and lets Bryan pass him as he locks up, stuffing his hands in his pockets. They walk past both of their cars, so Bryan guesses it’s not far away, and falls into an easy pace next to Nigel.

“So, are these friends from work, or people you’ve met since living here?”

“People I met through living here. Wouldn’t want to drink with the people I work with, bunch of snobby pricks.”

“You don’t like them? Your coworkers?”

“Like them? I’d sooner have Aries knock me clean out three times on that guard rail than be friends with those tossers. I work with them, that’s enough.”

Bryan’s eyebrows raise a little at that. He won’t claim to like every single person he’s ever worked with, but he’s never had that kind of disdain for such a large group of people. To have to go to work every day with people that you’d rather get knocked out than be around is… sad and depressing.

Instead of commenting on the relationships with his coworkers Bryan says, “I still remember watching it happen in the back. Watching your head bounce off that guardrail. And then when you came behind the curtain, and you looked at me like you didn’t know who I was or where you were. It was horrible at the time but finding out it broke your nose on top of the concussion that you continued wrestling with for like, twenty minutes?”

“Yeah well, I’m a tough old bastard, aren't I?”

“Tough and stupid.”

“You can hardly talk, you smacked your head off a table and knocked yourself out cold and you carried on against Aries.”

Guilty as charged. Bryan did that. He’s done it so many times he can’t even count them all.

“And, if we’re gonna’ talk about stupid, wrestling with more concussions than I’ve got fingers and giving yourself seizures and a fucking lesion to the brain, that’s stupid.”

Bryan shudders at the reminder of where he was when he had to retire. The numbness in his arm, the seizures, not knowing if he’d ever wrestle again.

“I didn’t know I’d had that many concussions,” Bryan says weakly, because he didn’t, not really. He’d never counted them, they all kind of blur into one after a while. “And anyway, if you know all that you know that I fought and fought and fought to get better and I did and I’ve been clear of that since I returned. By literally every doctor and neurologist I could find. I’m more careful now, that’s why I didn’t wrestle Zack at Forbidden Door.”

Nigel looks at him like he wants to argue, but doesn’t, because he knows Bryan’s right. Because he’s been keeping up with the product and has watched it all and taken an interest in Bryan’s health, Nigel who drove him to the hospital and stayed with him for hours after knocking him out in the ring, taking care of him the following days because Bryan was seeing double for a week. But they’re not even friends. Never were, according to Nigel.

Nigel’s shoulder bumps into his as they turn the corner, and he looks back at him as they get onto a street that’s lined with shops and takeaways. Sometimes, back when they were wrestling together, Bryan would forget just how handsome Nigel was, and then it would hit him all at once, and it would only take one look, taking the air out of his lungs as he looked at him. It’s happening now, as Nigel steers him up some steps and through the door of the pub, his hand grazing the small of his back as he follows behind him. He’s realising just how handsome he is, the stubble gracing his jaw is something Nigel only ever used to grow when he couldn’t be bothered to shave, and the style of his hair, shaved at the sides and longer on top, similar to before but without the dodgy blonde or spikes. It suits him. He looks good. He looks so good it keeps making Bryan’s belly flip.

A warm rush of air hits Bryan in the face, and the thick smell of beer soaked wood seeps into his nose. Bryan hates the smell of beer, of alcohol, too many bad childhood memories associated with the it, but Nigel’s steering him towards a group of people surrounding a table.

“Nigel! You brought a friend!”

“Yeah, this is Bryan, he’s my—“ and then Nigel pauses for a brief moment, looking at him and Bryan wonders what he’s going to say before he smiles, “An old family friend from America. He’s over to visit for a bit. Bryan, this is George, Robbie, Tom and Jenny.”

Nigel introduces him to his friends, and each of them shaking his head, Jenny, the only woman in the group, engulfs him in a hug, her hands squeezing at his arms. “Trust Nigel to hide his handsome friend from me for all this time.” She says, not letting him go and tugging him down to sit next to her on the bench seat.

“Down Jen, he’s got someone at home.” Nigel says, and he’s hovering instead of sitting down. And then he’s disappearing off to the bar, leaving Bryan alone with four people he’s never met that are looking at him like he’s a piece of meat, especially Jenny, who’s so close to him she may as well just sit in his lap, for all the subtlety she’s showing.

“So Bryan,” She says, “What brings you over here?”

“I haven’t been over to the UK in a while so I thought I’d make the trip, dropped in on Nigel on my way through.” Only half a lie, really. He hasn’t been to the UK in quite a few years, and he did just drop in on Nigel unannounced.

“What do you do?”

It takes Bryan a split second to decide what he’s doing, “I’m a personal trainer.” He lies. He’s not about to out himself as a wrestler, or bring anything on Nigel as his friends ask how he knows him, so he lies, because Nigel is right, annoyingly. It’s easier.

“That explains these, then.” Jenny says, and her delicate hand squeezes his thigh. Bryan laughs awkwardly, about to politely decline her advances when Nigel comes back, two drinks in hand.

“Jesus Christ Jen, he’s spoken for, take your hands off him, he’s too nice to tell you to fuck off.”

Jenny all but pouts, removing her hand from Bryan’s thigh. “You’re such an arsehole Nigel.”

“Not news to you, is it sweetheart?” He says, placing a drink down in front of Bryan. Nigel hadn’t bothered to ask him what he wanted, but the soda water with lime, ice and a straw because of his sensitive teeth shows him that Nigel still knows him as good as he did back then.

“Thanks.” Bryan says as Nigel sits opposite him in a chair. He’s got his own drink in front of him, a pint of some ale if Bryan’s guessing correctly, and he’s slipping the leather jacket off and hanging it on the back of the chair, leaning back and stretching himself out.

After a few more probing questions from Nigel’s friends, the conversation turns to soccer, and though Bryan doesn’t know anything about soccer, he listens along, hums and laughs in all the right places, knocking his foot into Nigel’s for something to do every so often.

Eventually, after more drinks have been brought, someone produces a pack of cards, and they end up playing a few rounds of poker, which thankfully Bryan knows how to play.

Bryan wins a round, then George, and then Nigel wins two consecutive games and Jenny slams her card down in a huff when he wins the third.

“He’s cheating, I just know he’s cheating.”

“How? How am I cheating Jen?”

“You and your stupid magic tricks!”

“Oh come off it, you’re just a sore loser darlin’.”

“Whatever, I’m going to the loo.” She says, and Bryan has exactly two seconds to sit backwards as she climbs over him, her ass nearly brushing his face as she slides past him. She’s a beautiful woman, and she’s clearly very sweet, but she’s not very good at picking up on cues of when to stop flirting with a man that isn’t interested in her.

“Show Bryan your magic tricks, Nigel.” Tom says, scooping up all the cards from the table and handing them to him. They’re a little damp from beer that’s spilled on the table, and the middles are bent from how they’ve been held.

“He’s already—“

“Show me. It’s been a while.” Bryan says when Nigel starts to protest. He hasn’t seen Nigel perform a magic trick in years. Not since around 2009 when they both had their last matches with Ring of Honor. Nigel used to practise for hours in their downtime, making Bryan and anyone who was around pick cards out of his hand, working at the trick until he got it right. If he couldn’t sleep he’d be reading a book he’d picked up about different tricks, highlighting the important bits with a crappy hotel pen he’d found in the drawer. He loved watching the smile spread across Nigel’s face when he realised he’d mastered something, and he loved pretending that the trick had failed to watch Nigel stutter and grab his card only to realise Bryan was lying, grabbing him in a headlock and wrestling him around until Bryan begged him to stop.

Nigel fans the deck out a little bit and holds them out to Bryan, motioning for him to take a card. Bryan takes one, pulls it close to his chest and looks at it. It’s an ace of spades, and nods at Nigel, letting him know what it is.

He lets Nigel walk him through the trick, moving the cards and listening to him talk, and he watches Nigel’s face. He can see the scar above his eyebrow, the one that came from hitting his face on the guard rail, and the slope of his nose where it’s been broken a couple of times.

“This your card?” Nigel says, holding up the ace of spades, and when Bryan nods, the others whoop and cheer like it’s the best thing in the world.

Bryan can’t help but smile along with them. There’s something about Nigel McGuinness, something about him that means that no matter what they do to each other, what happens to either of them, that makes him the only person that Bryan truly feels himself around.

“Doing your silly little tricks again, Nigel?” Jenny says as she comes back from the bathroom, and Bryan’s more ready this time, shifting himself fully to the side to let her squeeze past him, so that he doesn’t get a face full of ass as she goes to her seat.

“You’re just jealous you don’t know how to do it.” Robbie says to her, and she sticks her finger up at him as she sucks down the rest of her drink through her straw.

Nigel gets up and gets her another one, bringing back himself and Bryan one too, and that makes her happy, apparently, so Bryan adds a cherry on top by showing her a way to beat Nigel at poker. They play another game, and she puts his teachings to the test, and when she finally wins a game she flings her arms around him.

“You should come over here more often, I’ve spent far too long being bullied by these four. I need you to look after me.”

“Oh good grief.” Nigel mutters, and Bryan smiles politely at her, trying to untangle himself from her arms.

“I’ll keep that in mind, but I think you’re doing alright by yourself, Jen.” Bryan says, and she shakes her head, launching into a story about how one time they left her stranded at a soccer stadium because she was taking too long in the toilet, and George jumps in to add that that’s not how the story goes, telling Bryan the real story of how they’d all separately texted her where they were going and to meet them there, that they were only a few doors down, in line for food, and it wasn’t their fault that she didn’t check her phone to see if they’d text her.

The story prompts Jenny to find another instance of where they’ve bullied her, only to have George, Robbie and Tom set the record straight that they have in fact, not bullied her. Nigel stays quiet, sipping on his drink and laughing at all the right moments. Bryan wonders if he’s thinking what Bryan’s thinking.

That Bryan can’t tell a single one of his stories about the times that Nigel had indeed bullied him, because how would they explain Nigel locking him in a closet at a ROH taping and telling everyone that no, he hadn’t seen Bryan, are you sure he turned up? And not letting him out until Colt started threatening to report Bryan missing. How would they explain Nigel writing Bryan’s phone number on a gas station bathroom stall wall with the message ‘call for a sexy wrestler blowjob’ underneath, and Bryan was getting calls and texts for months until he finally bothered to change his number. They can’t explain their stories because none of these people know who they are, who they really are, and the life they’ve had together.

Jenny talks the others into buying her another drink to say sorry for everything they’ve put her through, and that seems to get her to stop bringing up any little thing they’ve done that she doesn’t like, and the guys go back to talking about soccer.

It’s pretty late when George and the others decide to call it a night, even though Jenny — who’s started slurring her words — doesn’t want to.

“Come on you lightweight, let's get you home.” Nigel says, and he helps her put her jacket on before he puts his own on.

The guys offer their help, but Nigel waves them off, and recruits Bryan to help him steer Jenny out of the door and onto the street. She’s not super drunk, just heavily tipsy, but she decides that she needs to hold onto both of them as they walk her home. She’s the only one that talks the whole way there, Nigel humming along and Bryan doing he’s best just to understand her accent now that she’s slurring.

Her house isn’t far from the pub, and isn’t that far from Nigel’s either, so it doesn’t take that long to get there, and they stand next to her, making sure that she doesn’t topple over as she searches for her keys in her bag.

“Coming in for a night cap?” Jenny says when she finally gets the keys out of her bag and the door open.

“No, Jen. Go to bed.” Nigel says, but Jenny doesn’t take no for an answer, wrapping her arms around Nigel’s neck and clinging onto him.

“Come on Nigel, just one! It’s a special occasion, Bryan’s here and everything, please?”

Nigel pries himself out of her grasp and steps away from her, getting a hand in the back of Bryan’s jacket and pulling him with him. “Go to bed, Jen, or you’re gonna’ regret this in the morning.”

Bryan follows Nigel easily, stepping back onto the sidewalk away from the house. Jenny doesn’t take too kindly to the rejection, and she steps into the house and slams the door shut behind her.

“She seems… mature.” Bryan says as they start walking away.

Nigel huffs out a laugh, “She’s harmless, really. A handful but harmless.”

“Does she always get like that?”

“By that do you mean drunk, or trying to get men she’s just met to sleep with her?”

“Both?”

Nigel shakes his head, “Yeah. She’s a lightweight and she’s been trying to get me to sleep with her since we met.”

Bryan’s eyes shoot up as they round the corner, walking past the pub they’ve just come out of and back towards Nigel’s house.

“And you haven’t?” Because Bryan’s not blind, or stupid, Jenny is a beautiful woman, and from what he can remember about the couple hook ups Nigel used to have when they were on the road, she seems like his type.

“God no.”

Bryan’s not sure what makes him say “Why not?” Because he’s not really sure he wants to know about why Nigel hasn’t slept with her.

“Because I don’t like women.”

They get to the steps of Nigel’s house, and Bryan stops dead in his tracks at the information that has just tumbled out of Nigel’s mouth like he was asking him what he wanted for breakfast.

“But you… we, even, we slept—“

“I did that because you were nervous and if I hadn’t stepped in you weren’t going to pull.” Nigel says, unlocking the door. He’s smirking, and Bryan feels himself get irritated and confused all in one second, as he rushes up the steps to follow him into the house.

“I was not nervous! I was just talking to her until you came and inserted yourself into our conversation. I wasn’t even planning on sleeping with her!”

He follows Nigel through to the kitchen, where he fills himself a glass with water. He can remember the night they both slept with the same woman much, much clearer than he can remember any of their other memories. He remembers Nigel coming over to him and the girl that had been talking to him all night, using that British charm to get her to swoon. It had gone from the three of them stood in a bar to suddenly being back at their hotel, in Nigel’s room, Nigel getting head from her while Bryan fucked her from behind. He’d been looking at Nigel the whole time, the way his face contorted in pleasure, how his fingers curled in her hair and controlled the pace. Bryan doesn’t really have much of a preference, and he doesn’t put any labels on his sexuality, but he knows that on that night, the only reason he came was because Nigel did, cursing in that deep, accented growl of his. The woman thankfully didn’t try and overstay her welcome, and when she’d cleaned up she left the room to go and rejoin her friends at the bar, and Bryan had laid in bed next to Nigel who had fallen asleep, and wished that he could pluck up the courage to say how much he wanted to suck Nigel’s dick just like she did.

“Then why did you? Hm? Why did you sleep with her if you weren’t trying to before I came along?”

Bryan steps closer to Nigel, who stays backed up against the kitchen sink, sipping his water.

“It wasn’t her I wanted to sleep with.”

“No?”

“Why did you sleep with her, if you didn’t like women? You seemed to have a nice time.”

“Heads head, Dragon.” He says, but his voice seems to waver as Bryan steps closer to him again, their chests almost touching. He can smell Nigel’s cologne, and the faint hint of alcohol on his breath.

“Nigel.” Bryan says, because he can tell, he can tell that Nigel’s not telling him something about that night, about why he stepped in, and it’s not because he was trying to help Bryan sleep with a girl.

“You know,” Nigel says as he swallows a mouthful of water, “I can’t believe you grew a beard like this. It covers up your cute little chin.” He says, and then he sets the half full glass of water down on the counter, and he runs his fingers through Bryan’s beard, a quick little tug before his fingers vanish, and he steps past him.

“Night, Bryan.”

“Nigel, you can’t just—“ But Nigel isn’t listening, he’s just walking up the stairs, ignoring every attempt of Bryan trying to get him to stop and talk to him. The conversation is completely over when Nigel shuts his bedroom door in Bryan’s face.

That — that is the Nigel Bryan knows. Evasive. Annoying. Beautiful. Infuriating.

That is Bryan Danielson’s Nigel McGuinness.

#writing #nigel mcguinness x bryan danielson #nigel mcguinness #bryan danielson #blackpool combat club

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