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crimsonmasks · 2 years

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(Call Me) Little Sunshine 1/?

BCC polycule monster AU where kayfabe is real and AEW is home to demons, sirens, werewolves, an alien, the undead, and in the case of the BCC, vampires.

“You don’t ever think about getting a leg up sometimes?” Yuta asks. “It’s a big decision, but–”

Danny straightens and grunts, putting the bar back into place. “Never. You think Jericho and his boys aren’t just beggin’ to get their teeth into all this?” He gestures to himself and Yuta snickers.

“I’ve told him no every single time. I ain’t like them. And neither are you.”

“I just think,” Yuta starts. “This isn’t, like, a bad offer.”

Yuta knows, logically, his job is weird.

Sometimes he tries to explain it to people, long winded explanations about how he arrived at the point of being in a televised fighting tournament meant for only the most gifted and exceptional athletes, and how some of them (most of them, he thinks, at least the more popular ones) have what Yuta might call an unfair advantage. He doesn’t hold it against them–far from it, Yuta takes pride in being one of the only regular, average humans in his line of work–but he does know, in the part of his brain that comes home at night to Chuck’s pull out sofa that’s long since stopped actually folding into a bed, that yes, his job is weird.

“This is so weird,” he murmurs, mostly to himself. He’s certainly not talking to anyone else in the room, Mox and Bryan and Regal staring at him with unreadable expressions.

They’ve sequestered him in one of the conference rooms the executives keep for meetings, Yuta situated in one of the seats at the middle of the table. He wonders what it says about his confidence that he didn’t pick a chair at the head of the table even in a meeting solely about himself.

“You don’t have to say yes,” Bryan huffs. Mox rolls his eyes at the comment, seemingly hearing it before.

“Yeah, you do; come on, Wheeler, think about it,” Mox begs, his voice strained like he can make Yuta decide if only he’s passionate enough. “Just a couple of test matches, I know you’re gonna get over anyway, and that’s it, you’re in.” He stalks around the room like his legs won’t let him stop, veering to clap Bryan on the back.

“You trust us, don’t you? Two of the best guys in the business, we can make you so good, Wheeler, all you gotta do is say the word.”

Yuta wants to squeak, ‘am I not already good?’ but Regal speaks before he can, commanding the room with the accent light on Yuta’s ears.

“What my protégées are trying to say, dear boy, is that you don’t get opportunities like this often. Once, if ever, in a lifetime.”

“Several fuckin’ lifetimes, even…” Mox says under his breath. He continues to pace, occasionally crowding around Yuta like a shark might circle a seal.

“Take some time and consider it, Sunshine.” Regal squeezes Yuta’s shoulder and his breath hitches. Then they’re gone, all of them falling into step and leaving Yuta alone in an empty room with just his thoughts to keep him company, the sound of the door echoing through the empty hall.

Yuta lies awake that night turning over the ideas in his head. He likes being with the Best Friends–loves them, each and every one of them. However, he can’t help but wonder what it would be like to be at the same level as his friends without having to fight tooth and nail for it.

Kris isn’t normally allowed to use all her powers in the ring out of fairness, but even without the weird alien telekinesis she’s strong, so much stronger than any of the others and certainly stronger than Yuta. Yuta thinks about Danhausen, who’s only recently taken to following Chuck and Orange around, and how even as a bumbling, weird little freak he still has the kind of strength and power that leaves opponents quaking. Yuta walked in on him once accidentally, saw him talking in the mirror to some distorted version of himself, bigger and scarier and decidedly non-human, and promptly turned tail and left.

He thinks about Chuck and Trent and Rocky, the way they throw each other around when they train, too much for Yuta on certain days close to the full moon. Is that what Mox is like with every stable he’s been in? Too powerful for anyone else to handle?

If he took them up on their offer, what would he become? His entire persona would have to change, from Yuta-The-Human to… would he even call himself a vampire?

Mox doesn’t ever use that word. Yuta knows, watching Mox’s old matches from his couch-bed in Chuck and Orange’s living room, even back when he was a wiry little fledgling doing death matches in backyards, that Mox has never used the V Word. Sure, he’s played it up a little, his long hair falling in his eyes as he carves up another wrestler with a glass tube, licks the blood from his hands and smiles at the camera–Yuta’s dick gets hard and he tries desperately to ignore it, playing the next match on the laptop he got from Chuck as a hand-me-down.

It’s from a little later in Mox’s career, but still before he hit it big. He sways into the ring with the same signature gait he’s always had, each step powerful if not a little meandering. When he gets on the mic, the crowd boos; Yuta huffs a small bit of laughter at the incredible change in his popularity in just a few years.

His opponent blindsides him with a leap off the balcony before Mox can react, hitting him hard against the mat. Yuta groans as the man takes a belt to Mox’s back, the anguished, “ah, ah!” noises rising above the cheers of the audience. He whips him again, once, twice, before wrapping the belt against Mox’s neck, choking him against the ropes, and Yuta closes the laptop with a sharp crack.

He’s thinking about it. Just going over his options. That’s all this is.

There are a lot of regular people in the company, but they’re vastly outnumbered by everyone else, the real veterans of the scene, the inhumans. That’s why Yuta seeks out Danny for advice, rather than someone like Chuck or Orange: they don’t really know what he’s going through, not really. Danny would understand being a regular person, and what this offer meant, and give Yuta his no-bullshit opinion.

“Why would you wanna be one of those bloodsuckers anyway?”

He’s spotting Danny as he lowers three hundred pounds into a squat, his thighs flexing. Yuta hovers but doesn’t touch the bar.

“You don’t ever think about getting a leg up sometimes?” Yuta asks. “It’s a big decision, but–”

“I’ve told him no every single time. I ain’t like them. And neither are you.”

“I just think,” Yuta starts. “This isn’t, like, a bad offer.”

“Nah, none of that. That’s how they fuckin’ get you, man. You’re gonna be chained to them for life if you let one of ‘em bite you. No identity of your own; just another bloodthirsty little monster that’s riding a bigger guy’s coattails.”

Yuta lets the words wash over him and finds that they settle warm in his chest. “Just because you wanna be on your own doesn’t mean it’s a bad thing. I don’t know how the blood-bonds work but–”

“But what?” Danny laughs. “You think you’re not good enough on your own? You gotta be someone’s little pet to make it big?”

“Come on, man–”

“I’d never roll over for one of them like that. Not any of ‘em, no matter what they promise; not the vamps, or the demons, or the undead, none of ‘em.”

Yuta can’t help the snort that forces its way out of his nose. “Then why does Chuck say you smell like another wolf all the time? I think you have been rolling over–”

“Oh, fuck off, Wheeler.” Danny snarls, his face burning red. He leaves the gym so fast that Yuta worries he doesn’t catch the echoing, “Tell whoever is giving you that beard burn that Rocky’s told the whole roster you’re spoken for!”

Yuta turns over the pros and cons in his head for days before he finally gets the courage to text the group chat a simple, [can we talk soon?]

Trent responds first. [No.]

His phone luckily lights up with a text from Chuck right after.

[Yeah I’m almost done]

[Got steak for dinner]

[Is everything okay?]

[:((((((]

Yuta doesn’t answer. His phone buzzes again when Orange hearts the message about steak and the sound makes him anxious. He groans.

[yeah everything’s fine]

Trent dislikes the message and Yuta throws his phone into the couch.

“You guys know that I love you, right?” Yuta asks over dinner. There’s a basketball game on the TV that Trent and Orange are watching from the couch while the rest of them sit at the dining room table. Yuta stares at the steak on his plate, jabbing at it.

His appetite leaves him.

“‘Course we do,” Chuck says, cutting his own piece of meat into pieces. It bleeds a considerable amount more than Yuta’s does.

“And I appreciate all you guys have done for me.”

“We love having you,” Chuck says, beaming. “Best friends, right?” His smile is so earnest that Yuta feels sick.

“Fuck, okay, I’m just gonna–I’m just gonna say it. I got an offer from Mox to do a try out with his new faction, and nothing’s set in stone, but. But I just wanted to tell you.”

The sounds in the room grind to a halt. Yuta hears a fork clatter to a plate. Kris stops with a bite of food halfway to her mouth. Chuck stares.

Yuta watches in silence as Chuck’s face contorts, emotions leaving his features just as quickly as they come. He settles on a grimace, a pained attempt at a smile.

“You’re really thinking about leaving?”

Yuta wants to jump off a bridge. “Not, I mean, not right now–and I won’t, there’s like, a big chance they don’t like me. Or I’m not good enough, I won’t get in, or they decide not to–”

“But you want to?” Chuck asks softly.

“It’s–” Yuta pauses. Yes, he wants to. No, he doesn’t. He has to do this. He won’t leave his only friends. Yes, no. Yes, no. “It’s a good opportunity.”

“Oh, bullshit!” Trent says from across the room. “Are you fucking kidding me, Wheeler? Really? We take you in, put you up, teach you fuckin’ everything you know and what, the minute you get a better offer you fuckin’ pack up?”

“Hey!” Chuck tries, his pack leader voice, which Trent has evidently gotten very good at ignoring.

“No, you’re gonna let me fuckin’ talk. You gave the kid all your goddamn time and attention and this is how he repays you?”

“Trent, come on, let’s simmer down a little,” Rocky soothes.

“God, you all baby him because he’s young and breakable and he totally takes advantage of it and I’m the only one who saw it from the fucking beginning.”

“You never mentioned wanting to change,” Chuck murmurs, his voice measured amongst the raw emotion. “We could have helped you, you could have been pack–”

“I didn’t want to be anything, before this!” Yuta chokes. “I didn’t want a set path, I didn’t want to change, I didn’t want to be the third wheel while you and Orange tag. I wanted to–to win on my own.”

“Oh, boo fuckin’ hoo.” Within moments, Trent crosses the room to shove Yuta up against the table. “You know, Wheeler, you belong with those guys; they probably won’t even change you. You can be their pathetic little bloodbag fucktoy, whining about not being strong enough while they take turns–”

“Trent, that’s enough!” Chuck slams his hands down on the table as he rises to his feet. His lips are pulled back in a deep snarl and his face is red. Yuta eyes Kris for support but she resolvedly doesn’t meet his gaze, her hands raised in a clear approximation of “not my business.”

Orange makes his way around to Chuck’s side while he postures, his glare still pointed at Trent, who won’t take his hands away from where they’re knotted in Yuta’s shirt. “You’re just gonna let him betray us, then? Aren’t you mad?”

Chuck makes a noise that would be a sob if it wasn’t so choked down. “I’m fucking gutted, Trent. I know you are too, but this isn’t–”

“He doesn’t mean anything to me; I was just looking out for you fucking idiots.” Trent releases his shirt then, stepping back. He makes a show of placing his hands up and Yuta wonders why before Trent is very slowly letting his claws out. He takes a few more steps back and drops to the couch, running the very tip of the points over the cushions. With a sheer rip Trent claws through the fabric, the stuffing pouring through the gashes.

“Oops,” he whines, “now where will your little pet sleep?”

Yuta finally gets his senses back to him and turns on his heel, ignoring the overlapping concerned calls of his name.

“Don’t go,” he hears Orange say, as close to begging as the man can get. He doesn’t stop until the door is slammed behind him and he’s alone in his car.

No one walks out of the house to follow him.

Yuta doesn’t ask how or why Danny Garcia has Bryan’s address and is thankful he doesn’t feel the need to explain. He doesn’t want to text before showing up, a stupid, prideful part of him deciding that if Bryan turned him away he would just get a hotel and never show his face around work again.

The sun sets on his drive over, and Yuta worries briefly if he might be gone. He parks outside the modest place, a regular house in a regular neighborhood, turns off his car, and allows himself one small breakdown.

His hands hit the steering wheel and his head dips.

This was stupid. He’s stupid. He left the one stable thing in his life, people that love and care about him, on the single conditional offer of three inhumans he barely knows. He has to prove himself to them, has to impress them, show them he’s worthy of being their equal. Christ, they hadn’t even promised to bite him, he just assumed that was where this was headed–

He doesn’t cry, doesn’t let himself yell, just stares at his knees and whispers, “fuck, fuck,” as his head swims with dread. Yuta can feel it bubbling in his chest, his throat, curling around all his organs like smoke and taking form and strangling–

Someone taps on the window. His head snaps up.

“You okay, Wheeler?”

Yuta doesn’t expect genuine concern on Mox’s features but relishes it anyway. He scrubs a hand down his face and finally steps out of the car. “Yeah, man, doing great. My whole faction wants me gone and I have nothing but a single bag and I’m here to beg for a place to stay, so it’s going pretty good for me right now.”

“Oh, Bry’s gonna love that, he’s a sucker for strays.” Mox snorts, one hand coming to rest on Yuta’s back. “Bring your stuff inside and stop bein’ fuckin’ weird; sitting in your car skulking outside Bryan’s fuckin’ house, thought you were some kinda creep.”

Yuta laughs at that, a smile splitting his lips before he can remember all the things he should be upset about. By the time he’s settled on Bryan’s couch, the lights off as the other two men retire to some other part of the house, blanket draped over him and pillow borrowed from Bryan’s bed beneath his head, Yuta can almost pretend he’s at home.

#alright first fic for wrestling let's pull the trigger on this very long very meticulous au #bcc polycule #title is from the ghost song #(Call Me) Little Sunshine #<<<< fic tag

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