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banannabethchase · 10 months

Text

Secrets to Hide - also on AO3

"Be very careful who you lie to" is advice Claudio Castagnoli should have taken before he married Jon Moxley, and before he started sleeping with Wheeler Yuta on the side.

Warnings: Major character death, infidelity, murder, graphic depictions of violence (see AO3 for more details)

This is very loosely inspired by Two Black Cadillacs and Sarah's prompt, but I went the Sara route and Schrodinger's Prompt-ed this bitch. Tis a dark one, folks!

+6 months, 12 hours, 24 minutes, 5 seconds

Mox slings his arms around Wheeler’s shoulders. “I mean, it’s one of those things you can’t explain, right?” He gazes at Wheeler, feeling something too close to love bloom in his chest. “Sometimes people are brought together by grief. Memory of the loved ones lost, you know.”

Wheeler beams at Mox. “It’s weird, but it works for us.”

Eddie snickers from where he’s head first in a bowl of soup.

“What?” Wheeler asks. “Not a fan of love?”

“You guys are terrible,” Eddie laughs. “Jesus.”

Mox and Wheeler share a knowing glance, then turn back to the group.

Ruby laughs into her soda. “Eddie’s just jealous because Mox promoted Wheeler over him.”

“He wasn’t even working there at the time,” Mox says, taking his arm back. He turns to Wheeler. “And Claudio, rest his soul, rated you highly in your performance reviews. You were the only reasonable person to become the gym manager.”

Eddie shrugs. “He’s right, Roo. I’m just glad I got a steady job again. Beauty in tragedy, right?”

Mox nods. “Beauty in tragedy.”

Wheeler leans over and kisses Mox’s cheek. “I gotta get home, baby, but I’ll see you tomorrow at work.”

Mox kisses Wheeler gently, still reeling from how different this is from before. From who he used to kiss. “Okay,” he murmurs against Wheeler’s lips. “I’ll see you later.”

He watches Wheeler walk off and turns to Eddie, who has the most knowing of smiles. “You two sure are a picture,” he says.

Mox shrugs. “You find love in the weirdest ways.”

+7 days

Mox gets home from the service past midnight to see the door cracked open, just the slightest. He pulls out his pocket knife, wishing he’d listened to Eddie years back telling him to grab something bigger, and slowly walks into the house, locking the door behind him. There was no car out front, no bike, nothing.

“Hello?” he calls. “I just came home from my fuckin’ husband’s funeral, so if you wanna die, now’s a good time to show yourself.”

He recognizes the chuckle as the figure slides out from behind the door. “Hey,” Wheeler says, smiling. “I had the Uber drop me off at Kroger, then walked here.”

Mox freezes. “Shit, did I awaken some sort of serial killer shit in you?” He holds out the pocket knife. “It’d be great if you didn’t kill me.”

Wheeler laughs a little as he shakes his head, a glint in his eye that intrigues and worries Mox. “Not my plan,” he says. His steps are slow and deliberate as he comes up to Mox. “What do you say to a little celebration?”

Mox raises an eyebrow. “That’s – that is not where I saw you going with this.”

Wheeler drops to his knees in front of Mox, and his brain starts to scream in a combination of his blood zooming southward and the alarm bells of fucking the guy who just helped kill your husband. “Come on,” Wheeler says, and he begins to see how easily Claudio was seduced by those eyes and that smile. “I can’t be the only one who felt it.”

His hands settle on Mox’s belt buckle.

Mox should refuse. Mox should kick him out, not even pay for the cab, and send this kid packing. He should go back on the promise, should make sure Wheeler Yuta can’t set foot in this town again without getting his ass beat.

“Fuck, yeah,” Mox says, and Wheeler’s hands undo his belt.

Wheeler’s smile feels like heaven around his cock, and it’s only a few moments before he’s in this, fully. Good decisions be damned. He’s at worst a murderer – this doesn’t even make the list of bad things he’s done.

“Get up,” Mox says. “Gotta – there’s no bed in the main bedroom, obviously, but the guest –”

Wheeler stands and wipes his mouth, nodding. “I, uh. I know where that is.” He shrugs, apologetic eyes. “Sorry.”

“Don’t be sorry,” Mox says. “It’s all mine now.” He grins at Wheeler. “Including you, I guess.”

Wheeler laughs as they tug each other into the guest bedroom, bite marks and scratches blooming as Wheeler fucks him into the mattress without a care in the world.

“Surprised,” Mox gasps, scrabbling for purchase against the cheap mattress and bedspread. “When I walked in on you and Claudio, you were bent over for him.”

Wheeler laughs, hands gripping Mox’s hips tighter to drive into him. Mox whimpers. “Yeah, well, Claudio always liked to be on top, didn’t he?”

“He always did.” Mox groans as Wheeler wraps a hand around his cock, unrelenting thrusts meeting focused, concentrated strokes. It’s strangely easy to speak of Claudio in the past tense. He’d expected it to take longer. “Liked his – oh, god – liked his men on his knees for him.”

“Now you’re on your knees for me,” Wheeler growls, and Mox comes without warning.

+6 days

The funniest thing about how the memorial service was set up, Mox thinks, is that there’s a massive area specifically for former colleagues. There’s about a dozen of them, and Mox has only met around half. He wonders if Claudio was fucking anybody else in this group, if anyone else should have been in on the plan.

If Claudio lied to everybody about who Mox was.

“Mox?” says a small, blonde woman. “Are you – you were Claudio’s husband right?”

Mox nods. “I was.”

She takes his hands and smiles at him. “He was a wonderful man,” she says gently. “I’m sure you miss him dearly.” Mox tries his best to smile back at her. “It’s nice to finally meet you.”

“Did everyone know about me?” he asks.

“Some, yes,” she says. “But we were all quite focused on the work. You know how it is.”

Mox doesn’t. In his line of work, you often learn who people are before you join them in the ring. “I know,” he lies. “Thank you.”

The line of people stretches far, and Mox is wondering if he should have just had Claudio be cremated with how long this is taking.

And then a familiar pair of eyes meet his further down the line, and he nods once.

He braces himself to meet Wheeler for the first time officially, talking aimlessly for a moment with one of Claudio’s aunts, who weeps into his shoulder until she moves down to Claudio’s mother.

“Hi,” says Wheeler, smiling sadly. “I’m Wheeler Yuta – I worked with Claudio.”

Mox nods, holding his hand out to shake. Wheeler does, and it’s a completely different shake than the first one: meek, gentle. As much as a show as everything else the two of them are doing. “Oh?”

Wheeler nods. “He was a good man.”

“Yes,” Mox says, the lie sparkling between the two of them like a firework, “he was.”

Wheeler joins Claudio’s work friends in throwing roses into the casket, bumping the back of Mox’s hand with his as they pass wordlessly on the path. Mox knees in front of the casket, hearing the weeping of Claudio’s family behind him. His eyes are dry but red.

“Good riddance,” he murmurs, so quiet he can barely hear himself. “Until we meet on the other side.”

He exhales and stands, and meets Wheeler’s eyes one last time.

“Babe?” Mox yells, throwing open the door. He drops the groceries on the ground. He hopes it’s not suspicious he only got things that don’t need the freezer.

His heart is already racing, expecting to see Claudio tidying the bathroom or making dinner. Maybe half alive on the floor of the bathroom, puking up every last ounce of life in his body. “Claudio, where are you?”

His hands shake as he walks through the rooms of their house. The kitchen, where they’d cooked countless meals: empty. The living room, where Claudio had fallen asleep in Mox’s lap more times than any one man could count: empty. The bathroom: empty. The guest room: empty.

Mox takes a deep breath before pushing open the door to their bedroom.

Claudio lay in the bed, color wrong, completely still.

“Claudio?!” Mox shrieks. He runs to him. Despite how much he wanted this, despite the fact that this was the ultimate outcome, the panic of a dead body in front of him, of his husband’s dead body in front of him, sends shocks of adrenaline and fear through him. He shakes Claudio’s shoulders, frantic, trying to see if there’s anything left in him. His head shakes around violently, and Mox realizes the chill against his fingers is Claudio’s skin.

He makes the strangest wailing noise as he fumbles in his pocket for his phone, dialing 9-1-1 with shaking hands. “9-1-1, what’s your emergency?”

“I – I came home, and he was in bed – he’s so cold.”

“Who is, sir?”

Mox takes a deep breath, voice shaking. He’d thought he’d have to act this part. He didn’t think his reaction would be genuine. “My husband.”

The next hours are a blur – police officers, EMTs, the phrase, “Dead on arrival,” the bedroom blocked off. He doesn’t stop shaking the whole time.

“Sir, is there anyone you can call?” The police officer – Mox thinks her name was Grant – asks gently.

He nods. “I – my friend Eddie.” He fumbles for his phone. “I – I’ll stay with him.”

She slides him her card. “If you need anything, or have an idea of who may have done this.”

Mox nods absently, putting his phone to his ear as it rings. “Eddie,” he says. “Claudio’s gone.”

-5 days

“Alright,” Eddie says. “I got the stuff. All I gotta do is get Ruby to give it to her friend Toni, Toni drops it off for the DoorDash order, and we’re in the clear.”

Mox fidgets, glancing down to the phone, where Wheeler is on the other line. “Are you sure we can pull this off? If they can trace it back to us, we’re all fucked.”

Eddie shakes his head. “This shit’s fast acting and it can’t be detected after four hours, so, as long as you’re out of the house while it takes effect…”

“I’ll be out of there,” Mox assures him. “I’ll run errands or something, be somewhere with lots of cameras.” He turns to the phone on the table and leans in. “Wheeler, your job is to make sure he takes his ass home the second he starts showing symptoms. If he doesn’t get home, the plan doesn’t work.”

“I can make that happen,” Wheeler says through gritted teeth. “He…he listens to me. Trusts me with the gym.”

Mox holds back a laugh. “Course he does. But, Wheeler. You have to make sure he drinks that specific coffee,” Mox says in a low voice over the phone. “If he doesn’t, or if it gets into somebody else’s hands…”

“He’ll drink it,” Wheeler assures Mox. “He always chugs the coffee when Door Dash brings it at 9:45. Like clockwork.”

“Is it the same person every time?” Mox asks. “Because if it is…”

Wheeler shakes his head. “Different people, and he never interacts with them.”

“Okay,” Mox says, exhaling. “Okay, this is gonna work. It’ll work.”

-10 days

“You want to what?!”

Mox glances around the sports bar. He’d never be caught dead in here, is the thing, which is why it works so well for cover. People all around them are screaming about some hockey game. They’re completely drowned out, and no security cameras in the place makes for the perfect hidden spot. “He’s gonna keep doing this shit if we don’t stop him,” he says quietly. “And if I leave him, I’m left with nothing, and so are you.” He glances around again. “The only way out of this is killing him.”

“That seems extreme,” Wheeler says, dark eyes panicked. “Mox, I know we both hate him, but – is murder the answer?”

“Legally?” Mox says, stretching out. Wheeler’s eyes slide to his tattoos, and Mox decides not to be too much of a dick about that. “No. Logically? Rationally? Hell, morally? Yeah. Yeah it fucking is.” He focuses his eyes on Wheeler’s. “You’ll lose your job at the gym if you tell him. His next of kin might promote you to manager if you kill him.”

Wheeler’s eyes widen. “You – really?”

Mox nods. “And nobody would suspect it. Not for a fuckin’ second. If I knew about you, I’d hate you, right? That’s what everybody would think. But if it’s you and me behind the scenes and everybody else thinks I’m just a grieving husband promoting my late husband’s best reviewed employee, nobody’ll look twice.”

Wheeler stares at a knot on the sticky wood table for a few minutes. “Okay.” He lifts his head, finally, to meet Mox’s eyes. “If you take care of the – of the logistics, I’ll do what I need to do to help.” He nods. “You swear I get the gym after this?”

“I’ll be owner in name only,” Mox says, sticking out his hand. “I mean, I need a little cash flow to pay the bills, but, other than that? It’s all you.”

Wheeler nods, shaking Mox’s hand without an ounce of hesitance. His grip is strong, which Mox should have expected, but then there’s a fascinating fire in his eyes that Mox wants to get to know better. “Okay,” Wheeler decides, nodding. “Okay.”

-12 days

The text comes at 7:30 before his match, when Mox is backstage smoking a cigarette.

“The fuck is that?” Eddie asks, leaning over to check his phone. “Everybody you know is either here or – well, wherever the fuck Claudio’s at.” He shakes his head and scoffs as he takes another drag of his cigarette. “Not here, I’m guessing.”

Mox exhales. “If I tell you something, your ass better shut the fuck up for the rest of your life about it, you hear?”

Eddie pauses. “Oh. That sounds interesting. Lay it on me.”

“He’s been fucking one of his employees. Told the kid I was dead.”

Eddie’s jaw drops, and Mox allows himself a moment to be pleased, because it’s hard to rattle Eddie with something as simple as words. “No fuckin’ shit.”

“None,” Mox replies. “You were right about him.”

“Yeah, but I’m not happy about it!” Eddie says. He chucks his cigarette to the ground and stops on it with the heel of his boots. “The fuck you gonna do about it?”

Mox wiggles his phone. “Answer this text, first.”

“You gonna give me, like, an ounce of detail for what that’s about?”

“This is Wheeler Yuta,” Mox says, shoving the phone to Eddie. “The sidepiece. The other man. The –”

“Fuck, I get it,” Eddie grumbles. He scans the text. “You guys are gonna meet up?”

Mox takes the phone back and nods. “Kid seemed pretty pissed about the whole thing. Didn’t like how he was sympathetic for a widower who was actually a sleazebag.” He looks at Eddie. “What’s with that look?”

“Just,” Eddie exhales and drops his head against the wall. “He fucked me around at the gym, then he cheats on you and pretends you’re dead?” He looks at Mox, eyes bright with anger. “This fucker deserves more than just a consequence.”

“What are you saying?”

“I’m saying,” Eddie says, “that you have a decision to make.”

-13 days

Mox is fidgety and panicked outside the Starbucks. It’s probably a terrible decision, harassing this kid at work. But a more terrible decision was fucking his husband, and the kid did that first. So.

He shoves open the door once the rest of the customers have left and the kid, Wheeler Yuta, looks up at him, almost bored.

“Are you here to rob us?” he asks cooly. “We’ve been watching you pace back and forth outside for, like, an hour.”

“Actually I’m here to ask why you’re fucking my husband.”

Dead silence.

The girl behind Yuta, one with brown and blue hair and admittedly impressive galaxy makeup on her face, steps away. “I’m gonna make the guess this doesn’t have to do with me,” she says, backing out of the situation, “but yell cantaloupe if you need help, Wheels.”

“It’s not me either,” Wheeler says. “I’m not fucking anybody married.”

Mox boils with rage.

“Oh, really?” Mox asks. He whips out the framed photo of he and Claudio kissing at their wedding in navy suits with matching floral patterned ties, then the one of the two of them showing off their rings in front of the courthouse. “You didn’t have this guy’s dick in your ass yesterday?”

Mox watches the kid – confusion, recognition, horror. He’s either the actor of a generation, or something far more insidious is happening here. “You’re – Claudio’s still married?” he asks, voice pinched. He braces himself on the counter. “This – no. He said he – he said…” He trails off. “Are you Jon?”

Mox nods slowly, unsure of where this is going. “Uh. Yeah. Jon Moxley. Formally Jon Castagnoli.”

Wheeler shakes his head, then barks out the coldest laugh Mox has ever heard. “He told me you died,” Wheeler mutters. He finally looks up at Mox. “He said he was a widower, that you died in some weird – I think he said incident with a table?”

Mox exhales long at that. “Of course. I’m a wrestler – I had a rough table spot a few years back, but it sure as shit didn’t kill me.” He clenches his fists, then realizes he’s mirroring the kid in front of him. Hunched over the counter, bearing the weight of life changing news.

“We should meet up and – and go over this more,” Mox says. He scrawls his number on a napkin and shoves it across to Wheeler. “A place you’re not at work.”

Wheeler nods, holding the paper in his hands. “Yeah. I’ll, uh. I’ll text you.”

“Hold that thought.” Mox pulls out his phone and changes his Pin number. Now it’s the date Claudio has been claiming Mox had “died.” “Alright. Text me any time. And please don’t fuck my husband again.”

Wheeler laughs, a little panicked. “I don’t plan on it.”

-14 days

“How was work?”

Mox does his best to keep a mild, disinterested look on his face as Claudio saunters into their kitchen. He’s covered in a sheen of sweat. Mox doesn’t want to know from what.

“Lovely, darling.” He leans in to kiss Mox, who makes the mistake of flinching. “Everything alright?”

“You’re sweaty,” Mox says, forcing a laugh. “As hot as you are, armpits are armpits.”

Claudio laughs, easy and jovial, and Mox wonders if this is how he feels after nailing the client. “Alright, alright, I’ll take a shower. Then dinner?”

Mox nods. “Was thinking we could order in – I’m feeling something Italian.”

“Hmm,” Claudio says. “I was thinking sushi.”

Mox refuses to let out the scathing remark that pops into his mind. “We could do sushi.”

Claudio empties his pockets onto the kitchen table, as always, and Mox does everything he can not to snap up the phone right now and demand an explanation. Claudio leans in and kisses his forehead. “After my shower, we’ll order.”

Mox nods and follows Claudio with his eyes until the water starts. He takes note of where everything on the table sits, then snatches the phone up. Long ago Claudio had admitted to using his birthday for every four-digit password, and it works in Mox’s favor. He scrolls through the messages as quickly as he can – everything is innocuous, other than his communications with Claudio, of course. Nothing’s in the texts, in the phone log.

At every noise, Mox’s head snaps up and he checks the hallway, ensures he can still hear the water running and Claudio’s warble of whatever pop song is popular right now.

Mox is taken back to a few weeks ago, when the gym had shifted from an 80s playlist to something more modern, and he’s horrified to realize it’s probably on the recommendation of Claudio’s boy toy.

His entire body goes cold.

“Playlists,” he mutters, opening Claudio’s Spotify app. He checks – and there it is. His heart races as he pulls up a playlist called Gym Songs. There’s only one collaborator, and Mox can’t help himself from smiling cruelly. These stupid Gen Zers not knowing basic internet safety. His entire name is there.

Wheeler Yuta.

“Stupid fuckin’ name,” Mox mutters. He opens the Facebook profile attached to the Spotify account and memorizes every detail he can. The kid is 26, works at the gym and a Starbucks around the corner from where Mox and Claudio live. Mox is disgusted even further – Claudio should know better than to fuck a employee. The kid’s got a degree in kinesiology, which Mox will have to google later, from some fancy private school. It stings.

He sets Claudio’s phone down after deleting the search history from Claudio’s Facebook and clearing the Spotify screen back to the home page.

He grabs his own phone, scrolling through random car videos on Instagram just for something to do.

“There we are,” Claudio says, beaming as he saunters back into the kitchen. He smells like the body wash Mox bought him for their anniversary a few weeks before, smoky sweet. Mox wants to squirt it into Claudio’s eyes. “Sushi, yes?”

Mox nods, holding up his phone. “Already got DoorDash ready.”

-14 days, 19 hours, 42 minutes, 8 seconds

Mox had expected this to be a sweet little surprise – grab the Swiss chocolates, put the pretty flowers in a vase, hold the card awkwardly so he can push open the door to his husband’s gym. It should have been flawless.

So why the fuck is Claudio bent over a twink-adjacent, too hot for his own good client in the owner’s office, railing him into oblivion?

Both grateful and infuriated by the small door window, Mox hightails it out of there and chucks the gifts in the trash.

“On our fuckin’ anniversary,” Mox grumbles, slamming the car door shut. He can’t decide if he wants Claudio to know he walked in on him, and instead drives himself home to stare at the bed he’s shared with a man he thought he knew.

#wtf i like wrestling now???#What even did I do here #madly in love with leather daddy jon moxley #in which sara writes #sarahcakes613 #is getting tagged because it was her idea and her fault

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