"Pro-wrestling is a physical art!"

The match was in less than five minutes. Roddy was more than prepared, for once.

The nerves he was expecting to have were nowhere near him, as long as he kept moving around and stretching out legs that still felt a bit tight. The bag next to him brushed with every movement, the weight that was zipped up also bouncing against his back with a unsteady rhythm.

A year ago, he imagined himself with belts but with different people. He didn't imagine being in a whole other group that accepted him with no problems while he pulled up every wall imaginable around him, trying to deny a new reality. Roddy should have known that the walls he had were thinner than he remembered and that cracks were starting to show. By the time he realized he needed to repair it, The Conglomeration broke right through, marching right in with Kyle and made themselves at home.

Now he was here preparing to defend with two people, one that he already knew about and another that he was trying to learn because every moment in this new little group, some new fact shows up that he has to pocket it in the back of his mind to know what's good or bad or in between enough to not hurt people he's willing to protect.

Like how he sees a shade of blue coming to the left of him and he looks over to see said newest partner with his shades halfway down his face, picking at the metal buttons on his jacket and his feet slowly tapping to a rhythm that Roddy has heard on tile floors many times before.

His usually greeting was held back by the gentle bite of his teeth holding his tongue back. Instead, a softer call of 'Orange!' came from his mouth. It still made shoulders tense up and the usual hidden blue eyes now frown up.

Lord, does he have many things to learn about.

Fact #1: Orange Cassidy isn't as chill as he tries to be. Or, like he used to be.

It was still there, in his dragged out voice and movements in and out the ring they share. When they were fighting against each other, he still gave all kinds of hell for a chip of something on Roddy's shoulders to appear. But there were moments where the same cracks that was in Roddy's walls showed through that 'whatever' style that followed Orange, like in his half covered up shoulders that were still squeezing together, or how his "mhhm?' sounded a bit shorter to Roddy's ears.

He wish he didn't have a slight clue on what caused them to appear. "You ready?" Roddy asks, just to have a calm start.

"Umm…yeah?" It felt more like a question. His fingers never left his jacket.

"This match is about to be easy on us for once," Roddy stretched out with a groan, trying to get whatever was seeping through Orange away, "which would be a blessing today." It was a group they've all faced individually and beaten, so all the confidence he had for a win was at an sky high.

And, thankfully, he was right. 15 minutes later, their backpacks were still heavy with the belts and the coolness of the lockers was against Roddy's back. Kyle went to get something out of the arena and left him and Orange back in the now empty locker room. Orange was already lying down, his legs propped up on the flat floor like it always was and was already falling asleep. His fingers were the only thing that ratted him out, slowly circling the buttons on his jacket.

Fact(?) 2: Orange messes with his jacket on big event days.

Pockets were his thing, his safety net. Roddy knew that much, at least up until now.

Did he always do that? Was this another thing to file off as just an Orange Cassidy ritual? Did he always think this hard when it comes to finding out stuff about friends?

(He still has the memory of Adam with the biggest bowl of bread pudding at a random table and rambling to Roddy like he didn't drag him to a random bakery that had it in the first place with wrestling strength he shouldn't have been using.

He attempted to make some—key word attempted—and burned it. Roddy still pushes Adam away whenever he tries to tell the story to someone else.)

Roddy decides to look right up at the ceiling to try and find an answer through the popcorn patterns he never liked. He hears shifting metal where Orange was, scrapping the floor and making his teeth itch. He licked his teeth to bring the nerves away.

"Orange." Again, not as loud as he usually is. He unfortunately can still see tense shoulders in the walls. "Are you good, man?" He waits for a response, like last time.

The air conditioning finally kicks in harder, filling in instead. That coolness that he was stealing from the lockers was coming back.

"Um…" He hears Orange starts off, the denim jacket dragging a bit more and Roddy takes his eyes off the ceiling to see Orange now trying to sit up against the same lockers. "What if we…would have lost?"

That sent a lick of something hot through. "What do you mean by that?"

"I mean…would you still be here? Or—" He accidently interrupts himself by pushing himself a bit too hard against the lockers—and making a curse come out of the both of them— finally being almost close to Roddy, "—or would I be like,on my back busted open or something?"

That hot lick was still swirling around.

Fact #2.5: Orange has a lot more damage than he lets on.

That's the wrestler hidden secret unfortunately. Unless it's keeping you from wrestling, keep your mouth shut and keep going. It's being broken the longer he wrestles, quicker than he realized, but the ones that were trained by the veterans still carry it until the cameras go away and they are sitting far from the ring. He can't even count the number of times he done this himself.

He knows about the end of Orange's title runs. He's been the cause of the last and seen how battered Orange was and was still giving him strikes. Roddy only heard of what happened to him weeks later, and floating bouts of his remaining friend that was more of a dick than he's seen. Then the rest came tumbling out around him and suddenly that match that he had the year before wasn't enough.

He should have kicked that friend harder. "I would have just left the ring."

"And?"

"And, that's it." There's still moments where he could still feel the burn around his neck, of metal dog tags being whipped from the way it broke off of his neck. "I don't like losing, but I'm not gonna risk what I've been building with you over that." That lick was right there aggravating it, leading him through this conversation to make something right.

"Oh." It sounded like a surprise. Another clank near the lockers. Orange had his eyes closed now, looking more like he should. "Ok." That sounded a lot more certain, more…Orange. His hands were still on his buttons, though it was calmer than he's seen.

Fact(?) 2: Orange messes with his jacket on big event days. out of nerves?

"You always mess with your jacket like that?" Smooth.

It didn't stop the movement though. "It um…helps with not overthinking, sometimes."

Fact (!)#2: Orange messes with his jacket like how he messes with his glasses or his ring or his wife's hair. Another outlet of some sort.