"Earth to Jeff! Earth to Jeff! Dude, don't make me smack you dude."
Jeff looked up at Matt, who was waving his hand in front of his eyes. The show was over and the two of them were gathering their stuff together. It had been about an hour since his very weird and creepy confrontation with Randy, and he had been thinking about it ever since. "Matt I need to talk to you."
"About what?"
Jeff told Matt about the entire confrontation, wincing at the shade of red his brother was starting to turn. "Okay, let's not do anything hasty Matty," he said slowly, hoping to diffuse the situation a little bit.
"Oh I'm not going to do something hasty; I'm going to do something violent. I'm going to hit him in the head with my cast so hard that he's going to forget his damn name."
"Okay, did you miss the part where he said he was going to break your good hand?"
"I don't give a shit what he thinks he's going to break! I'm the only Hardy going to his hotel room tonight and I am to make sure he doesn't lay a damn finger on you ever again."
Jeff sighed. He knew he wasn't going to talk Matt out of this. "Well what am I supposed to do while your out doing that? And how are you going to find out what room Randy's staying in anyway? I don't even know that and I'm the one who's supposed to be going there."
"Don't worry about that. I'll find him. And as to where you should go tonight…"
There was a knock on the door and Jay came in a moment later. "Jesus Matt, how long does it take for the two of you to get ready?" he asked. "I can't get drunk if we don't go where the booze is."
Matt grinned at Jeff. "I was planning on us and Jay going out to get drinks." He looked at Jay. "We have a slight change of plans. I have to go kick Randy's ass, so I think you and Jeff should go out and have drinks tonight by yourselves."
Jeff almost killed Matt right then and there. His bastard older brother knew about his long time crush on Jay. And now look what he was doing! Note to self: strangle Matt later if Randy doesn't kill him.
"Why do you have to kick Randy's ass?" Jay asked.
"He threatened Jeff earlier."
"Why?"
"He's a fucking moron who doesn't know how to keep his hands to himself," Matt answered. He looked at both Jeff and Jay. "You two going to be okay by yourselves?"
Jay nodded and put his arm around Jeff. "Of course we will. We're going to have a great time, aren't we Jeff?"
Jeff nodded, hoping to hide the blush that was starting to form on his face. "You shouldn't go alone Matty," he said. "Rhodes and DiBiase could be there."
"I can handle Thing One and Thing Two," Matt said with a growl.
Jay looked skeptical. "Okay, now I don't know everything that went down between Jeff and Randy tonight, but I don't think you should go alone. Not with that broken hand at least."
Matt sighed. "Well who damn it? Who should I possibly take with me?"
Jay bit his lip. "I have someone who owes me a favor, but I'm not sure you're going to like it."
Jeff frowned. "Who is it?"
XXXXXXXXXXXXX
"You cannot seriously be asking me to do this," Adam said in disbelief. "You want me to help Matt intimidate Randy into leaving Jeff alone?"
Jay nodded. "Pretty much."
Adam shook his head. He knew he owed Jay some favors and he was usually willing to do anything to help his best friend, but this wasn't one of those times. "Come on man, why me? Why out of everyone you know, did you have to pick me?"
"Because you know Randy better than anyone else," Jay reminded him. "You and him used to be really close."
"Used to be is the key phrase there buddy. I haven't spoken to him for months and I'm not looking to start now." Adam was hoping Jay would just drop the damn subject, but he had a feeling that his stubborn friend wouldn't.
As it turned out, he was completely right about that. "Adam please," Jay said. "Do this for me. I'd go with Matt myself but he wants me to take care of Jeff tonight. I want someone to go with him just to make sure nothing goes wrong."
Adam sighed. He hated that Jay was doing this to him. Of course he knew that if Jay knew that he had been once on the wrong end of Randy's affections, there would be no way that he would be asked to do this. But nobody knew about that because Adam hadn't wanted to tell anyone about it. Randy's obsessive nature was actually really scary, which Adam had learned the hard way back in their days as Rated RKO. Their on screen partnership had only lasted about six months or so, but their volatile relationship off screen had not been stopped until a year and a half after that. And if Jeff was Randy's next target, then Adam pitied him. He really, really did.
Jay could sense Adam was wavering a little bit. "Come on man, please do this for me? You know how I feel about Jeff."
Adam did know all about that, which was making it all the harder to say no. He knew Jay had liked Jeff for a really long time and the whole Randy thing could definitely throw in some kinks into Jay and Jeff's potential happiness. "I want you to know right now that I am only doing this for you," he said. "And I have two conditions to me helping you: you're telling Matt and if Randy attacks me, I'm kicking your ass."
Jay nodded. "Okay. I can live with that." He went off to go fulfill the first condition Adam had made.
Adam sighed and leaned back against the wall. Damn it, he felt stupid now. Why did he have to agree to this? Why had he just agreed to put himself near the clutches of Randy? Was his best friend's happiness worth endangering himself over? And would it do any good? What if Randy didn't want to leave Jeff alone? Shit, it took two years for him to finally let go of Adam. Adam doubted Jeff was strong enough mentally to handle Orton's mind games. I guess we'll find out won't we? he thought as he left the room to go find Jay, Matt and Jeff. Oh God, this is going to be a disaster, I can feel it in my gut already. This is going to be bona fide disaster.
