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Despite upcoming bookings, Darby operates largely alone these days, which is why he spends the hours pre-broadcast in his tiny closet of a locker room mostly settling his thoughts and goading his headspace into the right spot for pulling out a victory. He doesn't anticipate getting much by way of visitors, so it's something of a surprise when he, rather abruptly, does, and it isn't even Orange or one of the Conglomeration delegates to run through Blood & Guts strategies, but… Jack Perry, standing outside his door sans tag partner in that ridiculous Crocodile Dundee vest he's so fond of wearing lately.
"You get lost?" Darby asks, because he can't find a single goddamn reason Jack would be standing outside his door given the very mutual, very violent beatdowns they delivered onto each other last summer.
"No." Jack nods to the mildew-scented space beyond Darby's shoulder. "Can I come in?"
"Depends how many knives you've currently got strapped to you."
Jack's eyebrows hike, distinctly amused. "Funny. Just the one, in the sheath, and you can see it, so if I reach for it, you've got time to pop me in the nose."
"I don't trust you at all," Darby says, but, despite that, he steps aside to let Jack in. Something about Jack's weird little change of heart has intrigued him; last year, the guy was all doom and gloom, woe is me, taking all his aggression out on others, but nowadays, it seems like he's found a better outlet that includes some incredibly fucked up— but impressive— necromancy. Or, whatever that shit is. Bringing people back from the dead. Shit, that's kinda cool, and Darby wants to hate it.
"Probably smart," Jack tells him, breezing past him through the open doorway and allowing Darby to shut the door behind him. He gives the room a single, uninterested glance, and then turns, shoving his hands down into the pockets of his jeans. The combination of the short-sleeves and the vest makes him appear smaller, somehow, than he did last year; or maybe that's just the attitude adjustment. "You're up against Danny tonight, in the Blood & Guts advantage match."
"Thank you for this brand new information."
Jack rolls his eyes a little, but lets it go. "I need you to win."
A beat of pause, while Darby rolls that one around in his head. "Why would I not want to win? Why do you care?"
"Danny took my damn belt last year. I need you to beat the shit out of him."
Darby has to laugh, only because shit, last year was a trip. "Dude, you still pissed about that?"
"Oh, I hold grudges until I die." Jack snaps his teeth a little, which flash beneath the harsh fluorescents. "And in this case, it's delightful to do so. I need you to beat him, for me, and if you do, there's something in it for you."
"What the fuck is in it for me besides the obvious victory?"
Jack smiles. He's still very good at that— the bullshit little smile that makes him look like a damn emoji, a cat that caught the canary. It should not work as well as it does. "Yes or no?"
"You've told me absolutely nothing," Darby says. "For all I know, you're gonna stab me when I win 'cause you, as you said, hold grudges so well."
"You'll enjoy it," Jack replies.
"What, the hypothetical stabbing? Dude, no."
Jack rolls his eyes again, more pronounced this time. "What I'm offering, you dumbshit. Yes or no?"
Okay, but there's nothing he could offer that would be enjoyable unless he's… hold up. Darby narrows his eyes at Jack, who, for his infuriatingly inscrutable part, just blinks innocently back. There's no way Darby's got the right line on this. He waits for something more to come that explains things, and when nothing does, has to assume either he's gone monumentally insane, or Jack is really standing in front of him looking like he's about to embark on some kind of rain forest safari and… being serious about this.
Darby taps his tongue against his teeth, curious despite his better judgment. Ain't that the story of his life. "Okay. So let's say I pull it off tonight. Let's say I knock Danny sideways and win. How soon do I get to collect this… thing you haven't gone into detail about?"
"As soon as I can find you backstage," comes the cryptic, delightful response.
Huh. This is a surprise, and the thing is, Darby's having trouble deciding it's a bad one. Unless him failing to score the victory comes with some kinda reverse-reward to it, there's not really any downside in attempting to win in a match he was, quite obviously, already going to try and win. This is merely an added bonus, the cherry on an ice cream sundae. Sweet, and delicious, and… okay, yeah, why not?
"Sure," he says, dragging the syllable long. "Okay. I'll go beat him, and I'll throw an extra kick or two in there for you, and then you… pay that back."
Jack's mouth quirks again, beneath the beard bristles. How does he manage to get his face to look like that, so pleased with himself? "The more pissed off he is when you beat him, the better the reward."
"Jesus, I better be reading this situation right," Darby mutters, an explosive sort of exhale as his lungs shudder out the gathered oxygen. It's not, strictly speaking, a question, but he's curious to see if he'll get an answer, and, because Jack's still a douchebag despite the shiny new rebranding and dinosaur pal, Jack says nothing. That smile returns, dancing across his face.
Christ.
"Fine," Darby says, with more strength. He was gonna go try his damnedest to win anyway, so… what does he have to lose? "Deal."
"Deal," Jack repeats. He steps back towards the dingy door with the squeaky hinges, and his eyebrows arch again, hiked up closer to his hairline. "Then maybe I'll see you later tonight."
"I guess I'm looking forward to it," Darby says, as Jack turns to leave and offers one final, unreadable glance over his shoulder. Truth be told, Darby has no fucking clue if he's walking into some kind of psychosexual assault or a weirdly charged sexual encounter, and oddly enough, he's not entirely sure he cares which one. Jack's one of those… blips in his history— a bitter rivalry that got heated in places it shouldn't have, and bizarrely over-familiar in areas it had no real right to be. Darby's never quite been able to put his finger on what, exactly, sparked the two of them trying to beat the shit out of each other last year, but this might be the end of the thread he's been searching for, subconsciously, since they walked away from each other in London.
Part of him wonders if Jack will come back, though Jack never does, and Darby's left to spend the last hour or so before filming begins caught between strategy and a swell of disbelief that this situation has landed so squarely at his feet.
Darby ends up winning.
Obviously, that was his intent without this co-claimed "reward" attached, but he's still got it in the back of his mind as he heads through the tunnels and into gorilla, accepting fist bumps from Orange and the Conglomeration as he tied up the advantage 1-1. Yeah, they want more time in those cages to wreck absolute havoc on the Death Riders. Yeah, Darby wants to jam screwdrivers into the skulls of every person he'll be squaring off with in there. And yeah, he also wants to figure out what, exactly, Jack had put onto the table here. He's multifaceted like that.
Turns out? He doesn't have to wait long to find out what it is. Darby isn't even back to his closet locker room before Jack comes barreling around the corner, grabs hold of Darby's bicep so hard he's gonna leave five bruises along Darby's skin, and slams the both of them in through the doorway.
"Hey, so I w—" is as far as Darby gets before Jack's mouth is on his, stealing the rest of that particular statement away. And oh, yeah, this is pretty much where Darby had figured that whole interaction was going, though he clearly hadn't grasped how intensely Jack would be coaxing his lips apart or stealing inside to swipe along against Darby's teeth. There's sort of a take-no-prisoners approach to these kisses, as Jack chases Darby's tongue with his own with a heap of confidence and very little finesse; very much the embodiment of how Darby will submit to this, whether he wants to or not, so it's a good thing Darby's game for however this goes down. Jack kisses in exactly the way Darby had always sort of guessed: aggressively, like he does everything else, with just enough coyness to the sweeps of his mouth against Darby's own to match that damn emoji-ass smile he's so proud of.
His hands find Darby's shoulders to shove him against the wall, and Darby's so thrown by the suddenness of this— he hadn't even gotten into his locker room to strip his gear off, he's pretty sure he's still bleeding— that he's behind a few seconds when he hears the click of the door lock. Well, at least one of them is thinking straight.
Jack moves from Darby's mouth to his jaw, teeth scraping against the jut of bone when Darby tips his skull back against the bricks, and yeah, okay, this is a lot. "Jack," Darby groans.
"God, he looked so fucking pissed off when you made him tap out," Jack breathes against the line of Darby's neck; his hands have found purchase on Darby's waist, Jack's fingers pressing into the curve of the sides before his thumbs settle onto the knobs of Darby's hipbones. Then they slip beneath the waistband, twin curls of warmth. "I loved it."
Darby opens his eyes to fixate on the ceiling, vision swimming as Jack keeps nipping at his neck. This is one of those things where Darby ought to correct the vulnerability in baring that patch of skin, and instead, does the exact opposite in tilting his head to the side to open up more. "Is this the reward?"
"Yeah." Jack pulls back, enough so Darby can see the Cheshire Cat grin on his face, as his fingers find the button on Darby's shorts. "Yeah, this is exactly that."
"Holy shit," Darby says, which is somehow taken as both agreement— which it is— and the sign to get moving along with things— which it also is— because Jack uses his grip on the unfurling folds of Darby's gear to haul him away from the wall and spin him on his heels. Darby's damn lucky he doesn't start to topple 'til he's right where Jack seems to want him, next to the single metal folding chair some member of staff was nice enough to drop into the space by way of sprucing it up.
The iron joints squeak and protest when Darby's weight is rather unceremoniously heaved onto them, and Jack hadn't gotten his shorts worked any further down, so he has to tug twice on the denim, insistent. "Hips up."
Darby hasn't showered, hasn't had even the faintest chance, but Jack does not seem to care about that fact as Darby pushes up with his heels digging into the ground so Jack can shimmy his shorts and his leggings down. Jesus Christ.
"Jack," he tries, though he isn't sure what he meant to follow.
Jack sinks to the floor, knees making enough of an impact that Darby clocks it, and then he looks up. His eyes gleam. "I wanted you to break his fucking arm when you shoved his hand into the hollow post."
"Almost did," Darby chokes out, and oh, he can't tear his gaze away from the sheen on Jack's lips left behind from the kisses near the door and the twin flushes on the apples of his cheeks.
Jack's mouth splits into a wide, feral smile. "Good."
Darby gets no further warning before Jack's leaning in to take Darby's cock between his lips. God, his mouth is hot when it envelops Darby whole like this— hot and slick, and it's been awhile, and Darby makes an absurdly needy noise somewhere in his throat he has no hope of fighting back. He's sort of at a loss here, at the mercy of the man kneeling between his thighs like this; Darby parts his knees, hoping to give Jack more room to work, while he grapples one hand out to the side so his palm can smack against the wall. Somehow, it's steadying. These damn chairs don't have arm rests.
Jack's tongue makes a slow pass around the underside, then the head. One of his hands has curled around the base while the other has found Darby's thigh, exposed given how far Jack peeled the leggings back— his nails sink into Darby's skin there, tiny bursts of stinging that only make the sliding of his mouth all the better. There's a ridiculous undercurrent to this, despite Darby being the one already trembling beneath these ministrations, like Jack is fully in charge of the situation and they both know it.
Fuck, who cares. "Oh my god," Darby groans, before he slaps his free hand over his mouth. These locker rooms won't do shit for noise muffling; he's gonna have to do it himself here, as Jack starts going the faintest bit quicker and then sucks on the tip, which makes both of Darby's thighs jump. "Oh my god."
This is, objectively speaking, probably one of the least sexy places to ever get head, but damn if something about the rough edges, the desperation to it, isn't working. The legs of the metal folding chair squeal against the tiles in time with Jack's drags and Darby's resulting shakes. He might rattle all the way off the thing if Jack keeps this up, keeps working him with deft pulls of his obnoxiously talented mouth. Oh, if Darby had known this could have been at the end of their feud, last summer might have gone very different.
He reaches for Jack's hair before he stops to think if he's allowed to do that, and once he's tangled his fingers through the curls tucked into the elastic, Darby realizes he doesn't care— Jack's spit is running down the sides of his dick, he's pretty sure it doesn't matter if he cards his grip in through those strands. And Darby's trying to be quiet, he really is, but there's only so much he can do when Jack's mouth is so good, and he's moving faster, lifting his hand to meet his lips on the way down in a delirious-making heat.
Darby's getting those tendril pulls in his abdomen when the fucking knock sounds at the door. "Darby?"
Darby's hand grabs for all those curls at the back of Jack's head and yanks, harder than he'd meant to, as the surprise might as well push an electrical current through his veins. Oh, holy shit, that's Orange. At least Jack gets the hint, pulls off Darby's cock with his eyebrows high.
"Gimme ten," Darby calls; his voice sounds like his vocal cords have gone through a fuckin' sander.
"We wanna talk about next week," Orange says from the other side.
Darby doesn't break the staring contest he's having with Jack on the floor, even as Jack's mouth slides up into an amused grin. "Ten minutes, Orange," he barks.
A pause. "You okay in there?"
Jack's tongue darts out, sly as everything, to lick a stripe up Darby's dick, and Darby is gonna fucking kill him. "Yeah," he tries. Well, that sounded terrible, so he pushes his voice louder to repeat: "Yeah. I'm fine."
Jack mouths a sarcastic-looking fine? while Darby tries not to let one of the humiliating moans caught at the back of his mouth escape. On the other side of the door, there's a scuffle, and then Orange mumbles something. Footsteps, which quickly fade. Thank fuck.
"You're not gonna last ten more minutes," Jack murmurs, against the side of Darby's cock so his beard brushes against that oh-so-sensitive skin.
"Fuck you," Darby pants. "Asshole. Oh my god."
Jack is, naturally, right about that. As soon as he gets his mouth back where it belongs, he wastes no time— drives a relentless pace, and Darby's got nothing to do but buck into the heat. He's pretty sure he pushes hard enough to trigger Jack's gag reflex at least once, because Jack sort of chokes around him. That's just hotter, somehow, and Darby warbles out the most embarrassing sound, rumbling all the way up through his chest.
He taps his thumb a bit frantically against the Jack's scalp when those toe-curls start, and that's about it; Darby's thoughts go white when his muscles clench, euphoria bright and hot blossoming up through his chest. Fuck. Fuck, Jack keeps his mouth steady around him through it, but he quickly pushes up— faster than Darby can react, anyway, with the aftershocks sending pinpricks of delight down to his fingertips.
Jack mashes their mouths together, and Jesus fucking Christ, he kept all of it between his teeth, swiping the aftermath across Darby's tongue. Darby did not have tasting himself on his fucking bingo card for today, that's for sure. He sputters out an absurd-sounding moan into Jack's lips, unable to do anything in the post-orgasm glow aside from allow Jack to paint the inside of his cheeks with his own release. Jesus.
Darby's wheezing out a whole mish-mash of disagreements by the time Jack pulls away; he's got that fucking smile on his face again. "You dirty fucker," Darby gasps. "What the hell was that?"
"You're welcome," Jack says. He's stayed close enough their noses are brushing, crouched on his heels with one palm jammed into the seat of the chair for leverage.
"Thought this was a deal."
"Mm." Jack's thumb sweeps down along Darby's jaw. At this angle, they're so close Darby can watch Jack's eyes trace the lines of his face, like he's taking stock in everything. "Might be more of that deal, depending on how next week goes."
"What do I get if I make him bleed?" Darby asks. His legs are still trembling.
Jack's eyes snap to Darby's, big and dark and threatening to tip Darby right over into the depths of them. "Anything you want."
"That's a dangerous thing to offer."
The edges of Jack's lips stretch wider as his tongue follows the curve of his bottom lip, pink in the overhead lights. "That's kind of the idea."
Darby groans, head falling back. There's nothing to stop the arc of it save his spine, already protesting everything from the past hour, even the decidedly great parts. "Oh my god." He drags his palms down his face. "I can't believe I've gotta go talk to the fuckin' Conglomeration."
"Have fun with that." Jack pats Darby's bare thighs, then stands. "Might wanna wait til the pink on your collarbone fades." When Darby lifts his head, staring blearily at him, Jack gestures towards Darby's bare chest. "Your skin gets all red before you come."
Darby scoffs, sharp. "Don't you know all kinds of fun things now."
Jack just laughs, leaning in for one final kiss against Darby's mouth that Darby really ought to refuse, considering all of this was… well. "See you next week. Give him hell."
Darby was already planning on it, but Jack sure has sweetened the deal here. He watches Jack unlock the door and leave with a probably deserved swagger, and then remains where he is, on the chair, pinching his lip between two fingers while he can't do anything but laugh about the burst of bitterness left behind from Jack giving all of that right back to him. And isn't that just what Jack is these days: the sort of person who can tease the consequence of a win to linger, biting, on the victor's tongue.