It's an unusually quiet weekend. Orange is in England doing promotion for All In, and Collision is canceled for the week because of struggles with the schedule, thanks to basketball. So there's no show for Hook to drop in on and demand a match from Tony Khan, and there's no significant other to watch movies with, or find other ways to pass his weekend.
Hook finds himself half watching Rampage late Friday night while thumbing through his phone, trying to ignore the various pictures of Orange and Swerve Strickland together that keep appearing on social media sites. It's not Orange's choice who he gets paired off with during media responsibilities, of course, and Hook doesn't really care that Swerve is an opponent of his on Wednesday- he's more interested in Cage, and in getting his hands on Joe again, but the fact remains it's his boyfriend in England with someone he'll be wrestling in less than a week, and it's kind of annoying.
But not as annoying as looking up to find Brian Cage on TV, rambling on something about how Hook doesn't really want to be in AEW, but the crowd still prefers him for some unknown reason, and... It's a lot of words with very little substance and Hook finds his annoyance levels tipping over into anger. Cage's jealousy's been tiresome for ages, but to say Hook doesn't want to be where he's at? Then why would he bother shooting his shot against the world champion to start the year off? Why would he waste his time with anything that would potentially prove his worth to the company?
If he hadn't wanted what he has, and tried so hard to work towards more, he would've seen the general reaction to his challenging Joe in the first place and been done with it, moved on to something else where he'd be properly appreciated, but no, he'd stayed, he'd fought, he'd proved doubters wrong even in that loss. Some, anyway. Now he has to do the same with Cage, apparently. And he will, but first he has to make it to Wednesday, which seems more and more daunting a prospect the longer the weekend drags on, his temper growing more volatile the more he thinks about Cage's comments, Orange being so far away, everything.
He tries to distract himself on Saturday. Puts his phone on airplane mode, goes for a long, meandering walk around New York. Reacquaints himself with sights he hasn't seen in a long time because of his mess of a schedule. It helps to an extent, but he's still off. Mind racing in ways he hates, but can barely control. It's about 10 PM by the time he wanders back home, grimacing at how chilled his bare skin is, rubbed raw by the winter elements. Sighing, he tugs his gloves and coat off, shaking his hair out as he stomps through the apartment, mood not much brightened now that he's back at his empty, quiet apartment.
Sleep doesn't come easily, and he spends most of the night staring at the wall, at the ceiling. Tossing and turning, replaying Cage's words again and again. it does nothing but serves to piss him off, leaves him gritting his teeth, digging his fingers into his pillows, trying his hardest not to just completely melt down in the middle of the night and risk complaints from the neighbors. "Fuck," he groans, tempted to knock himself out just to shut his brain up for awhile. But he doesn't think Orange would appreciate either the head injury or the hole in the wall, so he buries his face under the sheets and tries just to breathe as his eyes ache tiredly. There's also the match to consider Wednesday, he can't leave Rob or Page in the lurch like that.
Grumbling to himself, he closes his eyes and tries, tries so hard to fall asleep that when he wakes up, he's shocked to find it's mid-afternoon and he'd actually gotten a decent amount of sleep, although his head still feels foggy and a little achy, his eyes glued shut as he struggles to find what's the cause of the noise that woke him up. Finally he finds it and groans, answering it. "lo?" he mumbles.
The noise persists, however, and he finally forces his eyes open, squinting at it. It's not a phone call, but is a video chat request and he groans, accepting that with an impatient swipe of his finger.
"Whoa," Orange's voice greets him and he groans. "You look like crap, are you ok?"
"Not really," he grumbles, forcing himself upright, leaning against the pillows as he scrubs at his face, brushes his hair back. "Couldn't sleep." He squints at his phone and yawns. "Are you dressed in your wrestling gear?"
"Yeah, decided to make a surprise appearance at RevPro. Defend the title, you know."
Hook stares. "Why?"
Orange shrugs. "Sounded like fun, I guess."
"You're ridiculous," Hook huffs, rolling over and exhaling. "How're your stitches?"
"Still there," Orange says, shifting the phone around to show them. "See?"
"Yep." Hook squints harder at the screen, thinking he can kind of see them in this lighting. "Well, glad you're having a good time."
"Today was better than yesterday," Orange shrugs. "My flight's in the morning, so I'll see you tomorrow."
"Alright," Hook mumbles. "See you then." He's reluctant to hang up, just looking at Orange's face even on this small screen enough to ease some of his tension, but his eyes are killing him, and in general he just feels rough, so he puts the phone aside and buries his face in the pillows once more.
Time passes sluggishly, Hook dozes in and out for the next few hours, but it doesn't help him feel that much better whenever he stirs, his eyes stinging and his body just feeling rough. The bed's cold next to him, and he just kinda hates everything right now.
By Monday morning, he forces himself out of bed and grumbles at the loss of a full Sunday- not that he does a lot on Sundays usually, but he tries- laundry and whatever else might need caught up on after traveling for AEW through the week. But that's not even something he can fix right now, so he tries nourishment instead, tackling breakfast- even if it's little more than a bowl of cereal and a banana from the large bowl of fruit and vegetables his mother always tries to push him to eat more of.
He fumbles through the week's mail, handles whatever business is lurking within junk mail in there, and then slumps on his couch and tries to focus on some TV. His phone isn't as murder to his eyes now so he texts Orange. When's your flight in? Want me to pick u up?
Orange's response is slow, but eventually comes during the third episode Hook's watching. Couple of hours yet. No, TK paid for a car. I'm good. See you soon.
Two hours still feels like an eternity. Hook makes it through the rest of the episode before giving up on being vertical, feeling sleepy and chilly in his hoodie, so he trudges back through the apartment, collapses into bed and tucks himself in to the blankets, his phone still in hand. He finds the video of Cage running his mouth and plays it, lips twisting in disgust as his voice echoes back, again and again, with each press of Hook's finger.
He's not sure when he drifts off, but it's dark in the room when he's awakened by the bed shifting, Orange scooting in behind him with a bone-deep groan. "Mm," he mumbles, rolling over and tucking himself in against Orange. "You're home."
"Connecting flight got delayed for almost two hours," Orange sighs. "Then Tony had to call for a new car, and... it was annoying. Glad you didn't come and try to surprise me."
"Would've if I thought you wanted me to," Hook murmurs into his skin, free hand restlessly trailing up to brush against his hairline, gingerly checking his stitches.
"Hm," Orange mumbles, knocking into Hook's phone when he tries to lace the fingers of their other hands together. "What's this?" He squints at it, then looks at Hook. "What're you watching?"
Hook grimaces. "Nothing important," he huffs, resting his fingers against the back of the phone, trying to reclaim it. "Just stupid shit said on Rampage."
Orange glances at him before tapping the video, Brian Cage's voice startling him at first before he settles and frowns at the video, eyes dark and focused. "You know he's full of shit, right?" he asks, leaning up to look properly at Hook in the faint glow of the phone. "Anyone who pays attention knows how hard you work, all of the training you put in. Don't let anything he said there eat at you."
Hook grimaces, lets out a strained breath. "I guess," he mumbles. "Just feels like... it's another thing, you know? All the bullshit said when I first challenged Joe, and how that snowballed, and now..." He lays flat on his back and stares up at the ceiling. "Now this. If people keep saying it..."
"What?" Orange asks, leaning into him, careful to keep from starting that video playing again.
"Maybe they're seeing something I'm missing. Maybe..."
"Hook," Orange says quietly. "Are you really going to start doubting yourself just because of this? Because Brian Cage is jealous that you're more popular than him? That people want to see you every week, instead of him?"
Hook huffs. "No," he mumbles. "But it's not just Cage saying these kinds of things. I don't know."
Orange taps his fingers lazily against Hook's forearm, lost in thought. "You know how many people say shit about me? And not just recently, I mean pretty much since I dared to take a glance in wrestling's direction? I wasn't serious enough, I was too small, I wasn't strong enough, I was boring. I leaned too much into comedy, whatever the hell that means." He wraps an arm around Hook and pulls him closer, tucks him in tighter, rests his chin against Hook's head. "You can't listen to the naysayers," he murmurs into Hook's hair. "You'd never get anywhere then. And Hook, you are impressive. Inside of the ring and out. I hope when the negativity gets to be too much for you, you remember that. And the fact that it's coming from someone who knows you, much better than 90% of those people who spend their time and energy looking for things to nitpick, to insult."
Hook presses in closer against Orange and nods. "Alright," he sighs. "I'll... I'll do my best."
Orange nods back, smiling a little as he presses a kiss to Hook's forehead. "Now, do you want to hear about England? More particularly the hours TK made all of us sit in the rain to watch futball?"
Hook's eyes widen. "Oh my god, yes," he says with more energy than Orange's heard from him since returning home.
Orange chuckles, settles them both down more comfortably into the mass of pillows and blankets. "Alright, well..."