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It’s stupid, really, how quiet a hotel can feel when everyone in the building is supposed to be sleeping and resting and being normal about tomorrow.
Will should be doing the same—knock out early, get some sleep, prep his head for WrestleDream—but his brain hasn’t shut up once since Wednesday.
This week’s Dynamite was… tense didn’t even begin to cover it. Tense was when you misplaced your phone in a rush. Tense was when travel ran late. What happened Wednesday was something else.
The Don Callis Family had officially cut him loose. Not the polite way, not the slow fade-out way. No, Takeshita laid him out in the middle of that ring, and Will got the memo loud and clear: he wasn’t one of them anymore.
But Kyle was there. That part kept looping in Will’s head like a song he couldn’t turn off.
Kyle in the ring, eyes wide, caught between two storms. Don handing him that screwdriver like a poisoned gift. The crowd roaring. Will on his knees wondering if this was it—if he’d lose Kyle the exact same minute he lost everything else.
But... Kyle refused. He didn’t take the shot, didn’t stab him in the back, didn’t become the villain.
Will should’ve felt good about that—should’ve felt relieved or grateful or something normal people feel when the person they love doesn’t, you know… murder them with a screwdriver on live TV.
But the thing was… Kyle didn’t look relieved. He didn’t look sure. He didn’t look at Will at all.
Maybe that’s why Will didn’t fall asleep tonight, even when he tried. Maybe that’s why he wandered out into the hallway like a ghost, hoodie half-zipped, hair uncombed, a weird cold feeling crawling up his spine.
Because normally—always—Will and Kyle shared a hotel room during shows. Even when they weren’t teamed up, even when their schedules got weird, even when Don was micromanaging both of their lives, they always ended the night brushing teeth at the same sink, fighting over who used the last towel, and climbing into the same bed together to spoon the night away.
But tonight…
Kyle said he wasn’t in Will’s room. Some “scheduling thing,” apparently.
Will didn’t buy it. Not for a second.
And okay, maybe Will wasn’t exactly a genius, but he wasn’t stupid either. He knew Kyle was caught between a rock and a Callis-sized manipulation campaign.
Will had heard Don in Kyle’s ear for months—You could be the future of this company, kid, you’re too talented to stay a tag-team wrestler, you’re a once-in-a-generation star—and yeah, Will agreed with all of those things.
He wasn’t blind; Kyle was going to be a megastar.
But Don kept saying one line like syrup over poison:
You can’t be a shadow anymore, Kyle. Especially not his.
Thus, that brought Will here. The night before WrestleDream. International title defense in less than 24 hours. A blue hotel hallway lit like something out of a backrooms-coded dream he didn’t want to wake up from. Carpet soft under his socks, the hum of the ice machine at the end of the hall, the quiet kind of silence that makes you hear your own heartbeat.
Then—because of course—
Someone else turned the corner.
Kyle.
He was alone. Hoodie on, hair mussed like he’d been pulling at it, head down, moving slow, like someone walking with too many thoughts stacked on top of each other.
Will felt his chest twist. Felt it hard.
He didn’t want these feelings. They stayed anyway.
Kyle lifted his head and Will stopped breathing. Just that—chin lifting, blond hair falling back into place, those electric blue eyes catching the hallway glow—and a soft smile bloomed across his sweet face. Too soft. Too sweet. Too much like home.
God, Kyle was so, so beautiful it almost hurt. And that tiny smile punched a breath right out of Will’s chest, easing a tension he didn’t realize he’d been clenching all day.
Kyle. His best friend. His little brother in spirit. His loudmouthed Aussie protégé. His… whatever he was. Something warmer than he had a right to be. Something that made tomorrow’s storm feel impossibly close.
“What’re you doing out here at this time?” Kyle asked, stepping forward and wrapping an arm around Will without hesitation, pulling him into that easy, natural hug they always did. No thought behind it.
Will melted. He tried not to, but it happened anyway, muscles softening under Kyle’s hands.
He always did this. Kyle always did this. Made him feel wanted, tethered in some quiet way that normal friends don’t talk about. Will had long stopped pretending it didn’t pull something deeper out of him.
Kyle was his best mate, yeah—but he was also his sweetheart in that messy, complicated way that wasn’t allowed to be anything more. His valentine, the person he kept choosing even when the universe felt hell-bent on stealing him away.
For one impossible second, all the chaos of this week—Takeshita blindsiding him again, Don’s screwdriver glinting in Kyle’s shaking hand, the crowd roaring like everything was about to fall apart—melted out of Will’s head.
Just Kyle. Just this.
I’m falling over and over and over.
The thought slipped through him, stupidly poetic and way too honest, but it was the only thing that made sense.
“Couldn’t sleep,” Will murmured.
Kyle huffed, nudging him lightly with his shoulder. “Why? Nervous for tomorrow? C’mon, mate, you’ve beat both of them before. Should be a walk in the park for you.”
But that wasn’t it.
Will didn’t give a damn about Ricochet or Takeshita. He’d fought monsters in every corner of every promotion in the world. Titles came and went. Pain came and went.
What scared him—what hollowed out his chest—was this gnawing feeling that something… was about to go wrong. That this week had been Kyle’s turning point. That Don Callis had carved open some shiny new future in Kyle’s ear—
A future where Will didn’t fit. A future where Kyle wasn’t his anymore.
Will swallowed.
Suddenly these stupid blue hotel hallway lights—cold and humming and way too bright—felt like the only physical translation of that dread curling in his gut.
God, why were they blue? Why did everything feel like… a warning?
Will’s heart felt heavier than it should’ve, like something was pressing down on it from the outside, slow and chilly and creeping. He didn’t know if it was the anxiety curling up his spine or if the hallway was actually getting colder. Maybe both. Maybe neither. Maybe it was just him breaking a little.
God, that wasn’t helping.
Small talk wasn’t going to work. Not tonight. Not with the way his chest felt like it kept dipping lower. Not with the anxiety chewing at the edge of every thought. Not with this blue hotel hallway making everything feel like a bruise.
Love is like a bruise. I hope it won’t heal ‘cause it’s you.
So Will cut straight to it.
“Is something gonna happen tomorrow?”
Kyle blinked, then let out this soft, awkward chuckle that didn’t land right. “Uh, yeah? You retaining your belt, obviously.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
Kyle’s smile faltered. Not a lot, but enough for Will to see the crack.
“Things were… weird this week, bruv,” Will uttered. “I know you’re gonna be there again.”
“Well yeah, I’m gonna be there. Gotta support Takeshita… and you, of course.”
It was tiny. Barely a slip, but Will heard it clear as day.
Takeshita’s name first. Will as an afterthought. Kyle catching the mask halfway down and shoving it back on before it could hit the floor.
Something inside Will twisted—sharp, sour, just a little scared. Because it wasn’t wrong for Kyle to support Takeshita, not when he was still in the Don Callis Family, not when tomorrow could shift everything in ways no one wanted to admit.
But it hurt anyway, more than it should.
“You’re not gonna… do anything, are you?” Will asked quietly.
Kyle rubbed the back of his neck. That tiny gesture made the hallway dim even more like someone turned the blue lights down another notch and the cold seeped deeper into Will’s ribs.
“What? No, dude, no,” Kyle replied quickly. “Just gonna be backstage and come out when either of you win. ‘Cause let’s be serious, Ricochet doesn’t stand a chance against you two.”
You two.
Either of you.
Will felt it like a punch to the gut.
Kyle used to root only for him. Always him. He used to say things like “you’re winning this, mate” or “I’ll be there when you hold that belt up again.”
There was no shared spotlight. No divided allegiance. No careful diplomacy.
It used to be Will standing in Kyle’s world like the sun. Now it was you two. Now it was either of you.
For some reason that small shift—barely even a shift—made his gut sink straight to the floor.
Broken up forever, I can see it now. Can you see it now?
“I know Don’s been in your ear lately.” Will kept his voice steady, even though something in him was tightening. “I know he doesn’t want you, like, associated with me anymore.”
Kyle’s brows dipped, but only for a second.
“You’re my best friend, mate,” he assured, light, almost dismissive. “Nothing’s gonna get between us.”
But something already was. Don Callis and his silver tongue. Don Callis and his promises. Don Callis and his talent for sniffing out young, hungry wrestlers desperate for more—desperate to matter, to be seen, to finally step into their own spotlight.
Kyle, with all that heart and fire and the kind of ambition that could burn a man alive, was exactly the type Don loved to mold.
Maybe Kyle didn’t see it, or maybe he did and didn’t want to admit it, but the way he kept answering like this—vague, easy outs tossed like crumbs—felt wrong.
Kyle had never not wanted to talk to Will before.
Weird. Too weird.
So Will stopped dancing around it, stopped protecting his own feelings, stopped pretending this wasn’t eating him alive.
“You…you wouldn’t betray me, right?”
Silence cracked over the hallway.
Kyle’s eyes—those stupid, beautiful, electric blue eyes—dropped to the ground.
Not a flinch. Not a glance. Not even the decency to look at him while denying it.
Will felt something inside him tilt, then slowly cave in. He didn’t want to accuse Kyle of anything. God, he didn’t. But he’d seen too many versions of this story with other wrestlers, seen loyalty turn into opportunity, seen bonds break under brighter lights.
He just prayed—begged—that Kyle, his Kyle, was smarter than that, that he loved Will enough not to be swallowed whole by Don’s empty promises.
But Kyle wasn’t looking at him. Wouldn’t look at him.
That was fucking Will up in ways he didn’t have the words for.
Your heart’s getting colder. I’ll keep the fire lit in mine.
“’Course not, man.” Kyle muttered.
And Will… God, Will wanted to tell him to look at him. If he was going to lie—if he was going to pretend nothing was happening—the least he could do was look Will in the goddamn eyes.
What had started as unnecessary suspicions, probably born out of Dynamite's chaos and Will’s ADHD spiraling past bedtime, were suddenly… less irrational. A little too sharp around the edges.
A little too… possible.
Too blue.
All it would take to ease Will’s nerves was for Kyle to be, well, Kyle and laugh and say “fuck no, why would you think that, you idiot. What’re you spiraling again?”
But he didn’t.
Will wasn’t the slightest bit convinced otherwise.
“I love you, y'know,” Will spoke, voice barely above a breath.
He didn’t even know what he expected, maybe that saying it out loud would crack something open inside Kyle. Maybe Kyle would confess everything, if there was anything. Maybe he’d love Will back just enough to trust him with the truth.
But Kyle just nodded.
“I know.”
No I love you too. No soft forehead touch. No lingering smile.
Nothing.
Just a blue hallway. Just silence. Just the love of Will’s life refusing to look at him at all.
Will wasn’t jumping to conclusions. Trust, he was trying not to. He didn’t want something to happen tomorrow.
He could give Kyle the benefit of the doubt—that at least wasn’t outruled. Perhaps Don had told Kyle some shit. Maybe Kyle was conflicted. Maybe the choice was eating at him inside and he didn’t know what to do.
Will could live with that. He wouldn’t even be mad.
But Kyle could at least tell him.
And he wasn’t.
“Um…” Kyle shifted, voice small, clipped. He’d run out of excuses. “Long day tomorrow. I’m gonna head to bed.”
Will froze. He didn’t know what to say, didn’t know how to stop anything.
Kyle’s demeanor had shifted so quickly—too quickly—and it was like watching a door close quietly in front of him. A tiny confirmation, just enough to make Will’s stomach dip, that he should… kinda prepare for the worst tomorrow.
And that fucking sucked.
It crushed him that the boy he’d poured years of love and patience and late-night pep talks into—this kid he’d mentored from a lanky sprout to a bright, burning protostar—might choose the spotlight over him. Might choose a future without him. For good. On purpose. And not even have enough love left for Will anymore to do it to his face.
Anticipating a blindside was a sickening feeling.
Kyle took a step back.
Then another.
Then he turned.
No goodnight. No hair ruffle. No sleepy hug. No gentle kiss to the temple like they sometimes exchanged when one of them was too tired to pretend they weren’t soft.
Nothing.
Kyle just walked away—down the too-blue hallway—still not looking at Will.
Will didn’t know what he was supposed to feel. Sidelined? Or the kind of hurt that didn’t demand tears but demanded silence.
He stood there long after Kyle disappeared around the corner. Cold, hollow, heart-sunken in a way he’d never been before.
He’d watched Kyle grow from a bright kid all limbs and enthusiasm into a future main-event star.
His baby. His sidekick. His best mate. His world.
His valentine.
Will loved Kyle.
Kyle loved opportunity.
With no closure and a heart pulled low like an anchor, Will turned back toward his room.
The hallway felt longer than before, emptier, like something important had already slipped away, even though nothing had technically happened yet.
He shut the door behind him, leaned his head against it, and let out a breath that shook too much for someone who didn’t cry.
Kyle had never felt so far away before.
You’re getting colder and colder and colder.