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Eddie knew that Davey's ribs were still killing him. He was wincing with every step and couldn't even properly hold onto his tag team championship belt because it hurt too much to do so. Eddie dropped the belts onto a locker room bench and watched as Davey sat down, grimacing and holding his ribs steady. Eddie had helped create that pain.
He uncapped a water bottle and handed it over without a word. Davey drank half of it and dumped the rest over his own head. His pain was visible through the cascading droplets, his striking gaze still intense. It still made Eddie's own gaze heat up in response.
“How bad?” he asked simply.
“You've given me worse.” Davey winced before continuing. “But not by much.”
Eddie cracked a bitter laugh at that and raised a hand, silently offering to start testing Davey's ribs. It wasn't that they didn't trust the medical staff, it was just that they'd been working together for years now. They knew each other's bodies, they knew how much the other could take and how long it would take for them to get back to full strength. They knew themselves and each other better than the medical staff ever would. The medics could give them supplies and a professional opinion, but that wasn't nearly as essential as getting each other's prognosis.
Davey nodded and shifted his position, trying to find a pain-free way to sit. Eddie leaned in and began gently testing along Davey's ribs. He noted every hiss of intaken breath and the places when Davey was almost trembling through clenched teeth. Eddie's touches became caresses, trying to soothe away the pain that he could see Davey was carrying. Davey leaned into his touch, Eddie kissed his partner's damp forehead and didn't stop touching him.
“Stop thinking about that,” Davey muttered out. “If you're gonna blame anybody, it'd better be MVP.”
“Fucking MVP,” Eddie bit out.
They'd come to TNA because of MVP, he'd offered them great contracts and even better words about how he was going to clean up the rotten TNA management, he was going to sideline Ms Dixie Carter and her cronies and take control of things in the kind of kickass way that both the audience and the roster would appreciate.
He'd started off that way, sure, but in the end, he'd turned out to be just like every other TNA management official – a real disappointment.
Now Davey had crappy ribs because he'd been beaten sideways and put through a table by MVP's henchmen and then Eddie had had to face him in the ring and hadn't gone easy on him. It was what they'd decided on years ago - that whenever they had to fight each other, they'd go full bore, all respect for each other's abilities and passion for wrestling, no concessions for friendship. Still now Eddie felt more than touched by guilt. This was his best friend, the man who fucking wrenched his heart, and he was in serious pain because of Eddie.
Davey reached up to clamp his fingers around the back of Eddie's skull, dragging him down for the kind of biting bloody kiss that always kicked Eddie's heartbeat up a notch. He moaned and laved his tongue against Davey's, his lust for this tough-boned, insanely-intense man still unquenchable. Davey had a sense of humor to go with his focused determination, a seam of dark fratboy jokes that few people actually got to hear. But Eddie did, he'd more than earned all sides of Davey.
Davey broke out of the kiss with a curse, his free hand going back to his ribs. Of course. And a good fuck was what they both needed as well. Davey kept hold of Eddie though and tugged his hair to the point of pain, to the point of sending a shudder through Eddie. He took a seat beside Davey on the bench.
“We always said it was gonna be us against the world,” Davey reminded him “We took on a backer and look where it got us.”
Yeah, fair point. Eddie growled and Davey's eyes darkened. He pulled Eddie close again so that he could smudge kisses along Eddie's sweaty jaw. Fuck, Eddie was going to find a way to give Davey pleasure tonight. Where there was a will, there was a way. They'd worked around worse pain than this before, he was sure of it.
This closeness, these kisses, was Davey telling him again that it wasn't Eddie's fault. Eddie spoke fluent Davey after all, especially when Davey was communicating silently. That was always the kicker, the stuff that meant the most. Davey's free hand traced patterns across Eddie's back. The gentleness said it all, Eddie felt just as much in return.
Maybe it didn't matter that he'd stretched Davey in the middle of the ring, Davey hadn't held back when it'd come to giving out punishment to Eddie either. He never did. They'd been respectful in that they hadn't set out to cause any major damage but they''d still given the match their all. MVP was the one who'd made it personal and painful by first ordering for Davey to be launched off the stage and through a table.
Eddie turned his head to guide Davey into a kiss, a gentler one for Davey's sake. It felt like a thousand words had been crammed into it, it felt like pain relief.
A knock on the door interrupted them and Davey shook his head as he pulled back, keeping his hand tight at Eddie's neck. The possessiveness worked for Eddie, he kept a hand on Davey's knee, both of them turning as the locker room door opened and a staffer called in.
“The medical team are free now. You guys good?”
Eddie and Davey looked at each other. Davey was grinning, there was blood on his chin and he'd never looked hotter. Eddie was starting to feel every single knock he'd gotten that night. He was grinning too.
Davey got to his feet first and offered a hand to Eddie even though it'd kill his ribs to lever Eddie up. Eddie took Davey's hand but didn't give over his weight as he stood.
They'd always find a way.
-the end