Joe watched, from the sidelines, of course, as the love of his life bounced around the other three men backstage with an excess of energy that reminded him a little too much of the character he had played in WWE for six years.
His lips tightened just a bit when Jon draped himself over Jericho's back, still speaking animatedly to Cody, the both of them shooting back, the flow of ideas steady. He couldn't help the spark of jealousy at how close Jericho had gotten lately to his boy, although he squashed it rather harshly.
He wasn't really worried that they would do anything that just friends wouldn't; the jealousy was really born from other things. Honestly, his biggest problem with it was the same problem he had with Cody, or Omega or any of the other men he had seen Jon talking to as of late.
There had been this thought, when he'd been watching Jon invade Jericho and Omega's match, watched him lay everyone out, that from then on, they would be seeing more of Jon than he would. Everything was different now.
He couldn't do anything other than smile, however, when the group dispersed and Jon bounced back over to him, those blue eyes still lit up from excitement. Joe circled an arm around Jon's waist, smiling a bit wider when he felt Jon practically vibrating in his arms. He hardly noticed it when Cody came over as well.
"You can go out that way," Cody said, pointing off towards the back. "I can't imagine the shit storm that would come down if someone saw you here."
"Thanks," Joe said with a grimace. The shit storm would come down on him, solely; if Vince found out he was here. It wouldn't matter that Vince knew he and Jon had been together for years.
In fact, Joe was pretty sure he was lucky Vince was so firmly behind him because the old man had not been happy about Jon leaving and he was sure he was going to be called in for a meeting, maybe asked if he'd known Jon was going to show up at Double or Nothing.
There were a lot of things that a part of him wanted to be angry about, even wanted to feel abandoned over. This show was the final nail, really, that Jon would be in a completely different company from now on, that they wouldn't get to see each other much anymore.
They'd have to find time in between their schedules. Jon had already signed on to do some New Japan shows until AEW started their TV deal. Joe had been asked to do both RAW and Smackdown as a part of that new wild card rule Vince wanted, which was really just a way that he could keep his top stars on both shows.
Joe squeezed Jon a little tighter as he thought about it, about how his relationship had just turned into a long distance one, about how this was probably going to make things harder for him because Vince could be a petty bastard when he wanted to be. And that part of him wanted to be angry, definitely.
"What'd you think?" Jon's voice broke through his thoughts, and he opened his mouth, unsure of what he was going to say with those thoughts going through his head but then he stopped and really looked, and he was struck by different things.
Jon's eyes still shone with how excited he was and his smile was wide enough to show off his dimples, even with through the scruff. And he thought about how miserable Jon had been lately in WWE, how unhappy he had been with his career and how he'd hidden that from Joe for the most part in the last months of it because Joe had been out getting treatment but they'd been together far too long for him to not see it.
He'd gotten stories, mostly from Seth, about how unhappy Jon had been with how the heel run had gone, about one particular instance when Jon had come back to the locker room in a rage because Vince had wanted him to use Joe's cancer diagnoses to get heat.
There was a lot, and Joe had known Jon hadn't been happy for a while, but he looked happy now, right then, in that moment. Did he really want Jon to stay if it made him so unhappy? Did he want Jon to end up like CM Punk had? Bitter and hating wrestling, something he used to love, because he'd stuck around an environment that he hated? So, he smiled again, pulled the other man closer.
"I think it was great. I'm happy for you."
Jon's grin widened and he draped himself over Joe this time. He pulled Jon until he was practically in his lap. Yeah, he could deal with the long distance relationship, as long as his boy was happy.