He didn't know why he had humored Tyler when the blond announced they would be spending the evening after their taping with the rest of the roster in the common room.
Tyler couldn't stand their co-workers a majority of the time, whipping out insults to their looks or intelligence whenever he was especially irate over something. He had a tendency to stick to only those he deemed worthy of himself, which were too few to want to attend any party being hosted in the dull common room. From what little he had heard of the guest list, Woods wouldn't even be in attendance.
"Who's birthday are we celebrating?" Fandango asked, spearing another forkful of the vegan pasta his partner had served.
Fandango had never imagined Tyler could cook. The taste of garlic exploded on his tongue. Roasted tomato caused his mouth to water with pure bliss. He had been shocked when Tyler text him to come over (because Prince Pretty wasn't one for asking), but now the brunet simply thanked whatever act he had done to deserve the gift of his partner's cuisine. His appetite had never been as healthy as now, devouring the plate of creamy white garlic pasta with it's little roasted tomatoes, tiny bits of broccoli, and side of mushroom while biting back delighted moans.
"Nobody's. Everybody's. I'm not sure, but I don't think anybody will be paying any attention to that when we walk in."
Tyler tossed his fine blond hair back with a flick of the chin.
"Two beautiful men fresh from another win! I think we should wear our new vests for the occasion."
Fandango looked over at the articles of clothing. They had arrived just the day before, crafted from fine fur with traces of occasional gold tastefully splashed among the maroon sea. Their pants were gold, he knew, for he had been the one to suggest them as enhancers for two delectable derrières. The vests looked good enough just hung on the mannequins. On them, they would be irresistible.
"Good idea, Breezy. You should wear your hair down."
He was too focused on his severely diminished plate of pasta to notice the silence that followed his comment. A leg made it's way into the dancer's peripheral vision, and he looked up to see his tag team partner looking down at him.
"What did you just say?" Tyler said in an odd tone of voice.
He could have choked on his own foolishness. Had he just given Tyler beauty advice? On his hair?
Good job, Curtis. Now he thinks you're a freak.
"Nothing," he said quickly, as though scolded. "It was just a joke. But if you do, I'll try to wear mine up." He chuckled, as though the mental image of his pathetic tiny man-tail were that funny.
But Tyler continued to frown, shaking his head with impatience. "No, not that. It's actually a good idea for me to leave my hair down. I think having it up while wearing that color will make me look like a matador. A gorgeous matador, but that's not the point. What did you call me?"
Fandango was stunned his suggestion could be taken with such grace, grateful more that it seemed to be appreciated and heeded. Maybe he should offer his vain partner more advice? Like his green bottle of cologne was better than the small pink one, and the smell of his aftershave was a bit strong when he wiped instead of rinsed, and sending your supposed enemies selfies of yourself wasn't exactly enemy behavior.
"Breezy. Is that okay?" he asked, letting the question fade off awkwardly. "I just thought since we're tag team partners-" And Owens had used it recently without consequence.
"No, it's fine," Tyler interrupted in his usual clipped tone. "Breezy. I don't know what to call you, but I'll think of something." His light eyes traveled down to the plate still in front of Fandango. "We leave for our manicures in twenty minutes. You can leave the plate in the sink, I'll have somebody clean it later." Then he left, presumably to finish packing his bag for their taping later that evening.
Fandango finished his plate with praise-worthy suggestions still floating through his mind.
Walking into the common room with Tyler Breeze at his side felt like a strange dream.
Not that the blond ever went out of his way to avoid him outside of the ring. They spent a decent amount of time with one another now that they were partners, each with a strangely compatible adoration for video games. They had visited spas with one another no less than a dozen times. Their hotel rooms were often booked together. Hell, Tyler had asked his best friend to have Fandango on his show for video games, an experience that felt strangely intimate with Woods poking around and asking him questions.
But people looked up when they walked in, and not everybody's gazes dropped.
Fandango knew what they were looking at. They were looking at Tyler, Tyler Breeze with his blond hair down and tight black trousers and of course his open maroon vest. Though everybody saw one another's flesh in the ring, to see it outside was another experience.
"Hey, Breeze, Fandango," Zayn said, leaning back in his chair near the entrance way. He and Cesaro seemed to be in a game of cards. "Decided to finally grace us with your presence?"
"Exactly," Tyler agreed as they strut in with well timed efficiency. "I thought a band of uggos this big only had one cure. The King of Cuteville himself, come to grace the less fortunate with a look!"
"But our payment is liquor," Fandango said, looking with interest at the cup in Zayn's hand.
The man laughed, rising up from his seat to pull two more chairs to their table. "Help yourselves," he said, nodding toward the refreshment table. "I don't know how to mix anything fancy, but Crews might. And Neville should be around somewhere if our little pretty prince wants his special diet drink."
Tyler looked sharply at Zayn, but rather than cow him the act caused him to laugh as he returned to his cards.
"Are you getting a drink?" the blond asked Fandango, arms crossed over his fit chest.
Fandango looked out over the others in the room, seeing while most eyes had returned to their conversation partners, enough peeked at the new arrivals that he couldn't do anything without being noted.
"I think I'll get a quick starter," he told the shorter man.
Tyler nodded, sitting beside Zayn and swinging his legs up so that they were crossed over the empty chair at his side.
"Bring me something with vodka."
Taking that as a dismissal, but also an assurance he would have a seat upon return, Fandango left to retrieve himself and his partner cups.
Ziggler had pulled up another chair at their table by the time Fandango returned.
"Hey, Ziggler," the dancer greeted, waiting for Tyler to move his legs before handing him his drink. The blond accepted the cup graciously, but the moment Fandango sat, his legs were swung up again to rest on his lap.
"'Dango," said Ziggler with a smile. "Good match you two had out there tonight. I don't think English ever saw that kick coming."
He nodded, remembering how the hideous man had jerked on Tyler's hair and used it as leverage to bring the blond's face into his knee. Then the man was out with a powerful kick from Fandango as he jumped in to help his partner. Tyler had saved him after that, tripping English' partner as he tried to have at Fandango while his back was turned.
"Two on one isn't my style," Tyler said as he pompously drank from the cup Fandango delivered him.
Ziggler smirked, leaning forward so that his elbows were on his knees and his face looming just above Tyler's.
"No two on one? Even if you're the focused-on one? But that seems just your style."
Rage flared hot and ugly in Fandango's chest. He snapped his head toward Cesaro and Zayn, both of them laughing into their weak cards because of the innuendo. Tyler shifted on his lap, unknowingly the only reason the brunet was still sitting instead of glaring down at the bold man next to them.
"Well, when you put it that way.. I'm more of an eight-on-one man."
His rage disappeared painfully, to be replaced with a gutted feeling.
"But you wouldn't know that, would you? When you stop responding to my selfies, I stop sending them."
"Then why the hell do I get stuck with them?" Zayn muttered to himself.
"Is that why you haven't been sending me pictures?" Ziggler said in disbelief. "I used to get two or three a day from you! I didn't know you wanted me to reply to them."
"I don't take pictures for no comments to be made about them," the blond scoffed. He worked himself into a proper sitting position, drinking from Fandango's offer. "It's like cooking supper and having nobody eat it."
Tyler's strange use of simile made Fandango think back to the food he had shared earlier that day. How many others had Tyler cooked for? As many as he sent his narcissistic selfies to? Not many spoke to him about his tag team partner other than to comment about their looks or movements in the ring.
"If it's that easy, cancel my subscription," Cesaro said to the amusement of the table. "I don't mind you sending me pictures, but I hate the group chats."
"They are pretty annoying," agreed Ziggler. "Especially after Rusev learnt how to use emojis."
"Just because some fans are more dedicated than others-"
"Fans! He's practically a worshipper. But I think a Bulgarian brute's a bit much for Prince Pretty, don't you?"
Tyler sniffed indignantly, but he didn't offer further argument. Instead, the slightly miffed Canadian turned his attentions toward Fandango.
"Are you doing anything Wednesday?" he asked. "We're going to be in Los Angeles for Smackdown. I was planning to go for a hike at Redwoods."
The brunet visibly mulled it over, though he already knew he would clear his schedule to join Tyler at Redwoods on Wednesday. It was a long drive from Los Angeles. Although their time together had increased dramatically the past month or so, they didn't often commute with one another over long stretches of time. Fandango wondered who Tyler usually brought hiking with him.
"That sounds nice," he finally commented, and his reward was a small smile from the blond before him. "We can finally be in a setting good looking enough to almost deserve us."
Tyler laughed, his stomach moving in that oddly charming way that Fandango had never witnessed anybody else's doing before. It was his genuine laughter. The dancer knew it from experience, the few times he had witnessed it himself usually in the company of Xavier Woods. It made the blond's eyes gleam brighter, his lips stretch wider, and his volume wasn't nearly as controlled as when he scoffed.
"Now those are pictures I wouldn't mind receiving," Ziggler said as he interjected himself into the conversation, chair scraping the floor as it moved closer to Tyler. "If you're not still mad at me."
But Tyler simply sneered at the man, batting away the offending arm that had reached out to wrap around his shoulders.
"Don't touch me," he snapped in a tense tone of voice, one which had Fandango internally raving about how he wouldn't receive such a negative reaction for the same act.
"Yeah, Ziggler. You touch, you buy, and Breeze isn't for sale."
"Is he for rent?"
The new voice startled them all. Everybody looked up to see Seth Rollins standing behind Fandango, his smile as malevolent and foreboding as always.
"Breeze," the newcomer said, inclining his head toward Tyler.
Fandango looked toward his partner and knew this wasn't an expected address. Tyler looked slightly shaken as he looked the other man over, one eyebrow cocked in an attempt to seem cool in the situation.
"I am. Rollins, isn't it?"
A ridiculous question, really. Everybody knew who Seth Rollins was.
But the black haired man simply smiled and nodded in confirmation. "That's right, Seth Rollins. Former, and soon to be third time, WWE World Heavyweight Champion." He was deaf to the various scoffs and jeers that sounded throughout the room.
Tyler wasn't.
"You think you're ready to take the belt?" he challenged the other, finishing off the cup he had been nursing patiently since Fandango brought it around.
White teeth, too white to be natural, flashed.
"I'm an impressive man," Rollins said, his eyes looking for a moment at the four men sat around Tyler. "Would it be alright if I stole you away for just a second? It looks like you could use another drink."
The dancer watched anxiously as his partner mulled over the offer, grey eyes meeting brown. Fandango couldn't read the unspoken words in Tyler's eyes. But he curved his lips into a small smile on reflex, and the blond's lips twitched before he stood up to join Rollins toward the refreshment table. Watching them go, he had to wonder again whose birthday they were celebrating.
"You okay?"
He turned from watching Tyler's retreating back to face Cesaro.
"Yeah, yeah, man. I'm cool," Fandango said with a grin, shifting slightly in his seat. "But it's not much of a party without music, is it?"
Apparently it didn't satisfy the Swiss man, who tossed his cards in for Zayn to shuffle.
"Why did you two come tonight? We usually don't see you unless it's a big occasion."
Fandango rolled his shoulders, not bothering to mention when they did attend large roster events, they tended to mock others and stick to their VIP table/company for the most part.
"It was Breezy's idea, really. He didn't tell me we were coming when he first text me."
Zayn shook his head with good humor. "Sounds like him, alright. Neville always complained about him being a bit of a bossy pillow princess."
"'Pillow princess'?" Ziggler laughed in response. "As pretty and petty as he is, I've only heard the opposite about that.. What do you know about it, 'Dango?" The man's eyes focused on him with a strange sort of intensity. Fandango met his eyes with a hard gaze in turn, though he didn't know what they were competing over. At the same time, he knew they were.
"I know it's nobody's business," Fandango said in a clear tone of voice. "Why do you care about Tyler's personal life anyway? Huh?"
The dancer stared at Ziggler until he looked away. Before Cesaro or Zayn could come up with a buffer, Fandango stood up and made his own way toward the refreshment table.
He didn't like what he saw.
Rollins had his hand on Tyler's shoulder, and while his partner's back was tense, he wasn't moving away from the other. They were speaking in voice too low for Fandango to hear. He approached them casually in an attempt to not startle the conversation before he could catch wind of it.
"... the real problem is the servers freeze so often, by the time I throw my ball it can really go anywhere. So catching anything with wings is impossible!"
Wings? Catching? Tyler absolutely loathed hunting. He would never willingly catch anything with wings. The brunet grasped a bottle at random and slowly filled his cup with it.
"I know what you mean. My phone usually overheats when it's in it's case, but I take it out the moment I launch the app. Most things with wings aren't honestly worth the hassle of catching. Unless it's especially powerful, CP 500 or above."
"Right, right. Do you go out hunting a lot?"
"Every day, especially when I know Xavier is in town. Every gym of his I ta- What are you doing?"
Fandango continued rolling his hips in a dance, even as he looked the attractive blond in the eye. Rollins edged back as the dancer moved to join the conversation.
"What's a party if there's no dancing involved?" he said in light-hearted challenge, adding an extra swivel to his hips much to the amusement of his partner. "Come on, Breezy, dance with me."
"I don't dance. You know this."
"Hey, don't say that," coaxed the unrelenting presence of Rollins as he moved his hand in a gentle rubbing motion before giving Tyler's shoulder a small squeeze. "If I put some music on, won't you dance with me? I can teach you how."
His partner stepped to the side, away from Rollins, but the grasp on his shoulder didn't let up. From either ignorance or intention, he didn't know nor care. Hot coal erupted in Fandango's chest. He danced forward, grasping Tyler by the side and tugging him out of Rollins' hold.
"Keep the teaching to the professional," Fandango said, and he whisked a somewhat unwilling Tyler closer to the center of the room.
"What are you doing," the model hissed between his teeth. "I. Don't. Dance."
Surprised by the unexpected reaction, Fandango released his damsel and eased his hips into a very simple swaying motion. Had he misread the situation? Had Tyler wanted to be taught by Rollins? Maybe the brunet had interrupted something that his partner had been enjoying.
Weeks of partnership and Fandango still wasn't sure where he stood with Tyler Breeze.
"Sorry, man," the dancer said, moving his gaze to the side to avoid whatever angry glare he was sure those grey eyes would be directing toward him. What if Tyler decided he wanted a new partner after this fiasco? He was the best partner Fandango had ever had, their movements complimenting one another with a chemistry before unknown to him. Breezango was just getting started. "I thought he was bothering you. I mean, if you want to go talk to him." He nodded toward the general air of the exit. "I think I'll go. There's nobody here I want to talk to."
There was no answer.
He still didn't want to risk looking up at a possibly irate Tyler; the dancer turned to leave without further comment.
Ambrose bumped into him at the door, aimed one of those goofy grins in his direction. "Hey, man! Leaving so early? We haven't even started the music yet! We could use more dancers!"
Fandango worked up a smile in turn. "Yeah, wish I could stay, man. Maybe next time."
He made it out to his car before being interrupted again. The front door slammed closed just after he had managed to open it. Tired brown eyes lifted up to meet clear grey ones, and his anxious heart blew up with hot air.
"Where are you going?" Tyler said in that crisp voice of his that would have sounded cruel from anybody else. "We weren't supposed to leave that early."
"I was going out to find a hotel room for the night."
Those lips so often pursed for pictures were now pursed with displeasure.
"Drive us to my house," the blond said in a tone that suggested it was obvious as breathing. "If we're going to leave early, we should at least make something for supper instead of going out to order. You never know what brand of uggo has been touching your food."