Perspective and Parallax - also on AO3
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During the Dynamite after Blood and Guts 2024, Matt walks in on Nick and Mox.
~
A continuation and reworking of my tumblr ficlet the original of which can be found here from July 2023, because sometimes I make weird choices. Title from Death of Me by PVRIS.
~
“I’m sorry!” Nick isn’t sure what he’s apologizing for exactly, but Matt’s stumbling is enough to tell him that, at the very least, he should be.
“I don’t want to look at you right now!” Matt’s got both hands covering his eyes like he’s a little kid as he backs out of the room. He crashes into a wall and keeps walking, making a weird little whimpering sound. Nick has never felt so weird as when he’s hopping to pull his sweatpants back on while he brother storms out of the room. Mox is in the corner, buttoning up his jeans and chuckling.
“What’s so funny?!”
“Matt’s fuckin’ face,” Mox says, easy as anything. He does up his belt, and Nick feels even worse than he had when he’d accosted Mox and asked for a quickie in the janitor’s closet at the end of Blood and Guts. “I’ve never seen a man look that old-conservative-lady-seeing-an-interracial-gay-couple in my life.”
“I - Matt’s not racist or homophobic,” Nick says, stomping through the door. He can tell Mox is following him by the thunking of his boots on the hallway tile. “That’s not it.”
“No, I know he’s not - it was a metaphor, Nick, fuck.” Mox takes a few big steps to get up next to Nick. “I’m joking. I’m trying to make it light.”
“We don’t need to make it light, we need to fix it,” Nick huffs. “Last week we, along with our friends, were beating the shit out of each other. Now, he walks in on us having sex?” Nick shakes his head. “This was a bad idea.”
“Hey.”
Mox’s hands on Nick’s shoulders are weirdly grounding, and Nick finds himself breathing again. “Matt’ll live, Nick. You’re allowed to get yours when you want to. Plus.” He offers a smirk. “Y'all won, didn’t you? Maybe this is just you taking your prize.”
Nick wrinkles his nose. “That doesn’t sound right.”
“Yeah, I heard it as I said it.” He sighs. “Whatever. BCC, Elite, we should all get dinner and make up, you know?”
Nick considers it, rolling the idea around in his head. “That could work,” he says carefully.
“And I can feel you up under the table,” Mox continues. “Hey, you like edging? This is kinda like edging.” He wiggles in his jeans. “Maybe we tease each other at dinner and then fuck like crazy back at the hotel.”
Nick considers it. “Yeah. Yeah, I like that plan.”
Mox’s grin goes predatory. “I’m gonna wreck you tonight, Young Buck.”
Nick blushes for a full ten minutes.
~
He has to wait until Kota, Kenny, and Adam have already left the room before talking to Matt.
“What?” Matt asks in what Nick considers an unnecessarily bitchy tone.
“Be nice for once,” Nick snaps.
“Why, so you can go off and get laid at work again?” Matt folds his arms over his chest.
Nick rolls his eyes. “I wanna see if you want to get dinner. I mean, we. All of us. BCC and Elite.”
“You want to do dinner?” Matt asks, frowning. “Really? Now?”
“Of course now,” Nick says, unable to meet Matt’s eyes. “When else do you eat dinner?”
“That is not what I mean,” Matt says, planting his hands on his hips. “Are you going to explain why you were getting your brain effed out by Moxley during drinks or dessert?”
“I’m not – shut up!” Nick throws a book at Matt, who aptly deflects it. Jerk. “It’s over, right? We won? So BCC and Elite dinner. To, I don’t know, bury the hatchet.”
“I’d like to buy the hatchet in Mox’s brain.” Matt picks at his shirt. “I don’t like the idea of him effing my younger brother.”
Nick thinks his eyes are going to roll out of his head if Matt keeps this up “Like you’re the person who would be asked for permission to do anything ever.”
“Hey!”
“You aren’t even taller than me,” Nick says. He stands to enforce the point. “Come on, you got back with Adam and nobody complained about that.”
“Adam and I,” Matt says, beginning to pack furiously, “did not try to kill each other.”
Nick stares. “You called him the next great wrestling tragedy.”
“I was emotional, and he forgave me,” Matt says, throwing his hair over his shoulder. “I haven’t decided if I’m going to forgive you.”
“For what?” Nick asks. He’s got the last few things in the room in his arms and throws them toward his luggage. “Getting laid?”
“For effing the enemy,” Matt says. He looks disgusted, but that kind of makes this more fun, in Nick’s opinion. “It’s going to take some time for me to get over this.”
Nick resists the urge to strangle Matt, and instead settles for saying, “Sure it will.”
~
Matt’s acting like he has completely forgotten all of his negativity by the time they’re halfway through dinner. He and Bryan are sharing old Ring of Honor stories while Claudio pipes in from time to him, his hand folded over Yuta’s. Adam and Yuta are discussing the merits of some German philosopher from the 1800s while Mox interjects from time to time to make sex jokes. Kenny, sitting next to Nick, is interpreting the conversations at lightning speed for Kota, the two of them comfortably touching and cozy to watch.
Nick, on the other hand, is not part of the conversations. He’s trying to be, but he can’t.
Because Mox’s hand has been in his lap since the first round of drinks and sodas came out, and he’s doing everything he can not to blow at the table.
“Nick, you can’t let him get away with this,” Yuta says, looking exasperated. “Do you know who Kant is?”
“Uh,” Nick says, searching his mind, “is his name a hint?”
Mox snorts so hard he starts coughing. “No,” he chokes out, “no, not in the way I think you’re thinking.”
Yuta rolls his eyes. “Mox is plagued by dumbass brain. Anybody who says Kant is the king of Enlightenment philosophy needs to get their head shoved into a toilet.”
“Are we doing that again?” Claudio asks, frowning. “I was assured the Ring of Honor nonsense hazing practices were long gone.”
“Nah, it’s because Mox is being a dick,” Adam says cheerfully. He’s being a gentleman – his hand is on top of Matt’s on the table. Not slowly, rhythmically, rubbing, changing up the patterns right when Nick starts feeling like he’s hurtling toward the point of no return. It’s a nice restaurant, close enough to fancy that he wore the spare jacket he keeps in his luggage, and coming in his pants before dessert feels like something that would get him, at the very least, in trouble with Matt.
“Oh!” Claudio says. “Then I’d be delighted to harass him.”
Nick laughs, but then Mox squeaks and he cuts into a gasp.
Adam eyes Nick, head tilted to the side, brow furrowed. “Are you feeling okay, Nick?”
“Yeah,” he says. He clears his throat. “Yeah, I’m good. Why?”
“Your face is all red,” Matt pops in. “Are you alright?”
That’s when he realizes: Adam knows. Matt told Adam, and Adam knows, and this is a cruel joke to ruin his life.
“I hate both of you,” Nick says, as firmly as he can get, and then he turns to Yuta. “Tell me more about how Mox is stupid.”
Yuta lights up. “Oh, god, last week in the gym he fell off the treadmill, and –”
The conversation shifts, Mox starts using both of his hands because he needs to emphatically defend himself, and Nick, briefly, has some relief. But he’s still painfully hard.
Dinner is great, which is annoying because it means Matt was right again, and now Nick is sharing crème brulee with Mox, who won’t stop looking at him.
“You know what this looks like?” Mox says, taking a spoonful.
“No,” Claudio says, firm in a way that makes Nick’s whole deal even more difficult to manage, “none of that. This is a nice restaurant.”
Nick giggles.
“I was going to say it looks like glass on the top,” Mox says, rolling his eyes. He turns a burning gaze onto Nick. “What did you think I was going to say?”
“Nothing,” Nick says. His mother didn’t raise a man who backs down. “What did you think I thought you were going to say?”
“Can you two flirt somewhere else?” Kenny asks.
“That’s hilarious, coming from you,” Bryan says, but Nick doesn’t feel like he needs to bite back. It doesn’t sound as cruel as he would have predicted just a few weeks before.
“Sorry for being happy.” Kenny interprets and Kota beams.
“Bryan,” Kota says, “you are hilarious.” He presses his lips together, the smile in his eyes, and it’s clear there’s a joke in the back of it. Kenny laughs, then Kota, and with Bryan it’s a domino where they’re all laughing and smiling. It feels strange. But it works.
Nick’s finishing up his last bite, and Mox’s hand slides back into his lap. He can’t survive it again. He really can’t.
“I have to go to the restroom,” he says, putting his napkin on his chair. He tries to angle his hips away from everyone else at the table, because he knows it’s obvious. He also intentionally doesn’t look at Mox.
Yuta, though. Yuta’s looking at him a little too knowingly and he tears his gaze away. He gets to the restroom and checks the stalls. Empty.
He whimpers and leans against the wall, trying his best to will his boner away. Every brush of fabric is torment.
The door swings open and Nick, panicked, almost shoves the door closed.
“Really worked up, huh?” Mox asks, grinning. He pulls something out of his pocket.
“Presumptuous,” Nick grumbles, but he’s already bending over the sink and pushing his jeans down. “I hate you. I need you to know I hate you.”
Mox shrugs, winking at him in the mirror. “However you like to say it, baby.”
“You suck,” Nick grumbles, but when Mox’s fingers find his hole, he relaxes almost immediately.
“You like the edging?” Mox ask, and his fingers glide easily. Nick’s pretty sure he’s still a bit open from earlier.
“No,” Nick says, hesitant to touch his dick. If he does, this might be over far too quickly. “I hated it. Get in me.”
“I think you had fun.” Mox meets Nick’s eyes in the mirror, and then Nick glances to the main door. “Don’t worry about it, Nicky. Locked it already.” Mox winks at him when their eyes meet again. “Now, what did you want again?”
“Get in me,” Nick repeats. “I hate waiting. I don’t like edging, I barely like you, and I, like, really want to come.”
“You barely like me?” Nick almost falls over as Mox’s hand wraps around his cock.
“Shut up,” Nick demands. “Stop – just – now.”
“You used to be so well spoken,” Mox says, but he finally gives up the fight and pushes into Nick, who slumps against the sink.
“This isn’t gonna last long,” he whimpers, circling his hips. It gives him friction in every place he wants it. “Just – please?”
“Course,” Mox says, and he grins at Nick in the mirror. “Ruined your night enough. Now I get to ruin you.”
Nick scoffs, blowing his hair out of his eyes. “Yeah, right. I’ll walk out of here looking better than I came in.”
“That’d only be true if you let me come on your face.”
Nick groans, and it’s only mostly from the stupid joke. “If you stop talking, this will be better.”
“Will it?” Mox asks, and he picks up the pace. He leans in, meeting Nick’s eyes again, hips moving rapidly and Nick’s resolve failing, “I think you like it when I’m messing with you.”
Nick comes with a weird little hiccup, the knowledge of them still being in public strong enough to keep him from getting loud, and he feels Mox pull him close, a hand on his lower belly, as he groans and grunts. He whimpers, trying to both pull away from and move closer to Mox.
“So – fast,” Nick mumbles. He’s not sure how to convey what he actually means with that. There’s nothing left in his brain.
Mox chuckles, nuzzling into Nick’s neck. It’s oddly sweet. “You think you were the only one worked up out there?” he murmurs. “I’ve been hard since I touched your leg, baby. This wasn’t all for you.”
Nick sighs, adjusting his pants and trying to maintain an ounce of dignity as he mops up his mess under the sink with paper towels. “Okay,” he says. He’s still trying to get his head on straight. “Maybe I do like edging.”
He’s grinning at Mox, about to lean in for a kiss, when the door swings open.
“God, you – not again,” Matt slaps his hands over his eyes. “Are you two in the middle of – why didn’t you lock the door?!”
“Yeah, Mox?” Nick says, too dopey to be annoyed. “I thought you locked the door.”
“I thought I did too,” Mox frowns. “Either way, Matt, we’re done, so you can stop with the dramatics.”
“Stop with the – I am not being dramatic!” Matt throws his hands in the air, pauses, then pulls his hands to his hips. “I just think that it’s really weird to be forced to walk in on your brother getting railed twice in one day, is all.” He wrinkles his nose. “Did you plan this? Was this planned?”
“Not the parts involving you,” Mox says. He’s washing his hands, and Nick fights the urge to laugh. “Though it added some flavor.”
“Ew,” Matt says. Nick’s never seen him this prissy before. He didn’t realize Matt could get worse. “I don’t want to know about – ew.”
“You have a dirty mind, pretty boy Buck,” Mox says.
Nick kicks at Mox’s shins. “Hey!”
“You’re pretty bird Buck,” Mox says, like it makes any sense. “Don’t get jealous. I like you better.”
“Hey!”
“Can you leave?” Nick asks. He levels his best glare at Matt. “Like, now?”
“I have to pee,” Matt says. “Which is what this place is for, if you didn’t know.”
Nick rolls his eyes. “Come on, Mox.”
Nick reaches the table first, with Mox hanging around the bar drinking a water to kill some time. Adam eyes him.
“What did you do?”
“What? Nothing.” Nick tries to blink innocently. “Me?”
“You,” Kenny says, and his high horse happens to be Kota’s lap, “are a terrible liar.”
~
Mini Playlist:
HATEFUCK - Pussy Riot, Slayyyter
WET DREAM - SNOW WIFE
Don't Blame Me - Taylor Swift
Death of Me - PVRIS
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