Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

our saint of switchblades

There’s nothing quite like getting punched in the face to make you feel alive.

For some strange reason, that’s the way Darby’s mind has always worked – it’s how most of the guys here have always thought. It’s not like he’s a glutton for punishment or something, though there’s absolutely nothing wrong with getting a little excited when pain comes in to play. Not like he doesn’t mind getting rough either. He’s getting off topic, look, the point is, he feels…something when he’s in the ring.

Feels whole and fulfilled or some shit like that.

He loves the feeling of muscles burning, of bones rattling, of his heart beating double-time in his chest, pumping adrenaline through every vein in his body. He loves the ache in his arms and legs after a good hard bout, loves the tingle in his toes when he’s starting to come down off the high of a fight. When the blood comes dribbling down his nose, dripping fat wet drops of red onto the white tile in the locker room, he’s never seen something so captivating. He’s not a glutton for punishment, no, but he lives for the fight. Wears his bruises like a badge of honor, and the sound of his ragged breathing is music to his ears.

He guesses that makes him crazy, but to be fair, you probably had to be a little crazy to be a wrestler. You had to be absolutely insane to be any kind of good at it anyway, if not the best.

Darby’s sitting in the locker room after Dark, staring down at the blood smearing his tape-wrapped palm. He’s got one boot on, one boot off, having been in the middle of taking the other one off, the laces half done, before he’d snapped out of his post-match daze long enough to notice that he was still bleeding. It’s bright red, reminds him of poppies, of bruised knuckles, the fast red car his uncle had when he was a kid, of the lipstick a girl he was sweet on once used to wear. Lots of things that have since faded out of his life. It reminds him of a lot of things, some good, some bad. All these memories are coming back to him for some reason, with such an intensity and so quickly, he almost thinks it’s something ominous, something curious. He’s never been very superstitious anyway, but he can’t seem to shake the feeling of foreboding. He frowns lightly, wondering where all this is coming from. It’s not the first time he’s seen blood, definitely not the first time he’s seen his own, and it definitely won’t be the last time.

It feels like something is lurking over him, just over his shoulder, a thought maybe, or a secret the blood on his palm is trying to tell him.

But sometimes blood is just blood. Darby wraps his palm around it and goes back to taking off his boots.

When Darby wakes up, he almost immediately feels like he wants to go back to sleep for fifty years, or at least until the pounding headache that woke him up in the first place dies down into something more manageable. Wincing at the sunlight streaming in through the slats of the blinds, he rolls over onto his back and drags a hand down his face. There’s something on his face, scratchy and flaking. When he draws his hand away, he finds dark blood there under his nails and flaked across his fingers. He glances over at his pillow – where he’d been lying on his face – and swears in one long suffering sigh at the thick smears of dried blood splashed across the white fabric of the pillowcase. First of all, how much blood did he lose? Fuck’s sake, it looks like someone had brained him in his sleep with the lamp on the bedside table. And second, he’s probably going to have to pay for this; the hotel will probably think he’s some kind of murderer with all this blood on their nice white linens.

His body is too hot, his eyes feel like two heavy concrete marbles in their sockets and he’s sweating like crazy. He doesn’t even know what happened. He remembers grabbing food after Dark, something fast and greasy, bringing it back to the hotel and tearing into it while something pointless and noisy droned on the tv in the background. This doesn’t quite feel like food poisoning though, leaving him sick and nauseous. He feels like a rag that’s been wrung out too tightly: exhausted, slightly damp and achy. He’s pale and sweaty, but too hot and too cold at the same time. His mouth feels like a desert and his body is sore in a way that feels like his bones and muscles are chaffing against his skin. It’s much different than the welcome, burning ache after a match. This is more like the flu.

He groans inwardly. Definitely not what he needs.

Still, he’s got stuff to do today, and he’s never let feeling like shit stop him from taking care of business. He does lay in bed, swimming in the sheets tangled around his legs, and tries to get the room to stop spinning for a few minutes before he gets up. He’ll take some DayQuil if it gets to be too much of an annoyance and keep going. By Rampage on Friday, he’ll be fine.

Darby is not fine.

He hasn’t ever been fine. He has never known what it’s like to feel fine. Which is just himself being overdramatic, but god, if he didn’t feel like death warmed over. He’s not the kind of person to complain about being in pain or uncomfortable, but he’s had two more insane nosebleeds since he woke up the day after Dark (and was begrudgingly grateful that he wasn’t on the card for Dynamite this week) and he’s been so dizzy that he can’t even see straight at times. He remembers drinking hot sauce out of a cup once – the hottest hot sauce that had been offered at the time – and the aftermath of that wild – and admittedly piss poor - decision. This was about as fun as that had been, which was to say, not at all. A headache that hadn’t seemed to let up not once, like one long continuous stream of pain, a long railroad spike that had been lodged in his brain and left there. Fatigue so thorough and deeply embedded in his bones that he’d taken a seat on the edge of his bed on Wednesday afternoon – just to rest his eyes for a second – and had woken up again on top of his sheets on Thursday fifteen minutes to midnight. Chills that remind him of the time he’d been locked in the freezer at one of his old jobs. Fevers that make him feel like his skin is boiling immediately after. He’s never been this sick before, and he can’t help but wonder if this is what takes him out. What a way to go though; he’s not sure how he wanted to die, but it wasn’t by sweating himself to death with a fever.

Much as he loves being in the ring, Darby’s beyond thankful that he’s doing promos tonight. At least when he’s menacing the camera backstage he doesn’t have to pretend that he’s not moments away falling on his face. He doesn’t quite remember walking into the arena, or even really getting there (dangerous, yes, but as stated earlier, Darby is nothing if not stubborn and he will not let feeling like he’s been dead for twenty years get in the way of him doing his job). The arena buzzes around him in a haze. He’s probably so pale that it looks like he’s already wearing his face paint. He floats through catering, already sweating like crazy just from the walk from the parking lot, and isn’t quite aware enough to move out of the way when someone accidentally takes a step back into him by the sandwich table. He almost faceplants right then and there, nearly knocked completely off his own unsteady feet, but whoever is there grabs him by the shoulder to catch him.

It’s Brandon Cutler, sans his ridiculous face mask (Darby figured he probably only wore it because the Young Bucks made him, surely his nose had to be healed by now). He smiles apologetically at Darby as he rights him on his feet.

“Oh, hey,” says Brandon, cheerful as usual. His smile falters a little when he actually gets a look at Darby, a touch of concern lingering behind it, like he’s not sure how worried he’s allowed to be considering they don’t really know each other. “You good?”

“Been better,” grunts Darby, making his way to the locker room without stopping. It’s probably rude, sure, but he’s not really in the mood to talk, and it’s not like he was ever very amicable and approachable anyway. He really just needs to sit for a moment and probably get a drink for his throat. His voice sounds raspy and quiet, which is not going to be good for promo work.

“Darby,” comes Brandon’s voice behind him. He almost doesn’t stop, because if he turns too quickly, he’s going to hit the floor he feels so dizzy. Thankfully, Brandon comes to him, and a water battle appears over his right shoulder. He blinks at it for a second, then at Brandon, who has also sidled into his immediate view.

“You look like you need it,” he says by way of explanation. He really must look like garbage if Brandon is offering him water. Hardly anyone ever spoke to Darby, and he hardly ever spoke to anyone else in turn. It wasn’t like Brandon had to be cordial, especially with the company that he was currently keeping. But a drink is a drink and Darby desperately needs one. It’s still sweating condensation when he takes the bottle from Brandon and feels blessedly cold against his skin.

“Thanks,” mutters Darby and begins the trudge to the locker room again.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Brandon calls after him.

Darby raises the water bottle in answer.

The locker room is already occupied when Darby gets there. There’s a couple of guys milling about getting ready, pulling on gear, warming up. He usually makes it a point to locate the arena’s boiler room or some other dark secluded area to change in, but the locker room is closer and he can’t be bothered to go looking anyway. He drags himself to the darkest, most secluded corner he can find and takes a seat on the floor, gulping down water. He needs to do things. Needs to put on his face paint. Needs to go find Sting soon so that they can do the promo and then haunt the rafters as usual. But for now, he just needs a second to down the water and stop feeling like he’s spinning in circles even though he’s not moving.

“You look like hell,” Sting says, leaning against the balcony rail. They’re lurking in the nosebleed section. The promo had been blessedly quick and now Darby is slumped in one of the seats, feeling like a small child’s scratchy blanket: hot, damp, itchy and gross. He’s glad it’s so dark and cool up here at least. He’s not sure he could stay upright under all the lights down in the ring. Too hot and stuffy.

“Feel like it,” he agrees gruffly.

Sting glances back at him, the lights below illuminating his profile like some sort of macabre god. “You gonna be good to wrestle next week?”

No, says Darby’s body as a particularly rough shudder rolls through the center of him. “Yeah,” says Darby, ignoring it valiantly.

Sting snorts, murmurs something under his breath that’s too quiet for Darby to pick up, but he thinks it sounds suspiciously like, “Yeah right.”

“I’m not gonna kick out on you before we finish kicking some ass. I can still give ‘em hell,” says Darby. “Even if I look like death.”

Sting laughs like he’s said something funny, which startles Darby a bit. He’s never actually heard him laugh before. Despite working together, they don’t actually talk very much for being in the same headspace almost all of the time, and neither of them are very talkative people anyway.

“You look like a lot of things,” says Sting, shaking his head, “but death is not one of them.”

It’s Saturday afternoon when Darby finally feels somewhat like a human being again. His fever is completely gone, his headache little more than a dull echo in the back of his skull, leaving only the residual fatigue left behind after a rough bout of sickness. He still has no idea what brought that nightmare of an illness around to his doorstep, but he immediately swears off of ever eating at that last shitty restaurant again, and drags himself to the bathroom. He needs a shower like he’s never needed one before and many, many cups of coffee; maybe then he’ll be able to do more than grunt and shuffle around like a zombie.

Darby’s got a match tonight, which he is more than ready for. After a week of feeling like hell, he’s practically vibrating with energy and the very real need to work off some steam. It’s later on in the night though, so he can take his time getting ready in the locker room once it empties out. He likes getting ready alone, likes to get in the proper headspace in his own time, in his own world, without hearing people chattering about this and that, without all the noise of people moving around him. It’s not so much that it calms him, it’s more like he’s allowed to psyche himself up, get his thoughts under control so that he can focus, without everyone else’s stuff filtering in and throwing him off.

Or it should be.

Despite there being nobody in the locker room, Darby can feel someone nearby, like the atmosphere has suddenly shifted around him.

When he goes to the door, flinging it open, he finds one Brandon Cutler standing on the other side, hand raised as if to knock. He blinks at Darby in surprise, then lowers his fist.

“Uh,” says Darby, “hey?”

“Hey,” says Brandon.

He looks almost as awkward as Darby feels. Darby knows who Brandon is, sure, but they’ve never really spoken, never really interacted much anyway. He’s got absolutely no idea why he’s standing here outside the locker room door.

“You need something in here?” he tries, which is fair because it’s not actually his locker room, he’s just haunting it like some kind of ghost while everyone else is out finishing their warmups in the halls or out in the ring or in catering.

But Brandon shakes his head. “No, no, I-“ He grins sheepishly, scrubbing at the back of his head. “I was actually looking for you.”

“Yeah?” says Darby. Brandon’s a good guy as far as he can tell, but they’re not exactly friends, not even acquaintances really. Darby can’t think of a single reason why he’d be looking for him.

“Yeah,” echoes Brandon. “Is it cool if I come in?”

Darby regards him for a moment longer, then steps back and lets Brandon in, who ducks inside the room gratefully. They stand in silence for a moment, Darby still by the locker room door, Brandon taking up the middle of the room.

“So…” Darby coaxes slowly. He’s not sure where this is going to go. “What’s up?”

“Have you noticed anything weird about yourself lately?”

Darby blinks. That’s…not what he expected to hear at all.

“Uh…what?”

Brandon smiles awkwardly. “Sorry, that’s weird. I guess, let me rephrase that.” He visibly carefully selects his next words in his head, then tries again with, “These past few days, have you felt really off? Like really, really sick? Headaches and nosebleeds and just generally feeling like you want to die?”

Something cold and prickly creeps up Darby’s spine. That was oddly specific. And uncomfortably true. How did Brandon know any of that?

“I mean…yeah, I guess.”

“And then after a few days, it was like nothing had ever happened?”

“Yeah…”

“Well, you’re not the only one.”

What is that supposed to mean? Was there a bug going around or something? Even if there was, it wasn’t like he and Brandon were particularly close, only clinically cordial, exchanging nods in the hallways for the most part; why would he come in to check up on Darby of all people? The confusion must show plainly on Darby’s face, because Brandon continues, “There’s a lot of people who’ve gone through that before. I’ve been through it myself. You probably thought you’d caught something, right?”

“Is it not a bug or something?” Darby’s brow furrows in frustration. “Look, what’s going on?”

“It’s not a virus or anything like that,” says Brandon, sounding oddly calm despite Darby’s obvious irritation. “It’s a sign.”

“A sign of what?”

“A sign that you’re one of us. You’ve been picked. By who or what, I don’t really know, but you’re an advocate now.”

Darby is beyond tired of this cryptic bullshit. “What are you talking about? An advocate of what?”

“You know,” says Brandon, looking the most nervous he’s been since he got here, and Darby wants to point out that no, he does not know, please get to the point, “sacred stuff. Divine beings.”

Darby squints at him, completely lost, letting the words roll around in his head for a few tense minutes, wherein Brandon is shifting from foot to foot anxiously awaiting the moment he makes sense of things, before it finally clicks.

It must be broadcasted clearly on his face when he figures out what Brandon’s talking about because Brandon holds up his hands placatingly. “Hear me out-“ he begins.

“Gods,” Darby simplifies flatly. It sounded weird in his own head, sounds even crazier out loud. “You’re talking about gods.”

“It sounds weird, I know,” says Brandon quickly, like he has to get it out before Darby just up and walks out of the room, “but hear me out. I mean, is it really that weird? We’re wrestlers, we’ve been associated with gods and deities for ages.”

Darby thinks back to what he knows of wrestling history, old wrestling history. In some weird way, it does make sense. Back then, people used to call them gods, a sort of subset of Olympic deities among mortals, beautiful and strong and awe-inspiring, capable of amazing feats of speed, strength and might. That makes sense too, as many of the old, old wrestlers – strongmen, they were sometimes called, he thinks – were huge, muscled mountains of men, something that the rest of humanity could only dream of becoming. They’d been crafted by the gods themselves it seemed, and really, not much has changed these days, what with people falling all over themselves for people like Brian Cage and Will Hobbs, even John fucking Cena. Chiseled, bronze gods walking among them. Yeah, it makes sense, in a metaphorical sort of way. But that still doesn’t make it any less absurd in a literal sense.

Brandon hums. “Well, technically we’re not actually gods though”, he says, making a so-so gesture with his hands. “Though most guys here wouldn’t deny it if you called them so. We’re more like patron saints if anything.”

Darby’s never been the most religious guy, so he wasn’t even aware that there was a difference between the two. “What’s the difference?”

“We’re not immortal, mostly. We don’t have any world-shattering powers, no followers praying to us for anything, though even if we did, we wouldn’t be able to make much of a difference anyway.” Brandon shrugs. “Most importantly, we’re chosen to be the saint of something, we’re not born into it. But that’s getting a little ahead of ourselves. It’s best not to think about it too hard.”

Easier said than done. Darby’s head is spinning. He knows Brandon’s thing is that he’s super into tabletop games, all that fantastical and imaginary stuff, and you know, head injuries are nothing to scoff at, especially in their line of work, but he’s seriously starting to wonder if Brandon’s been hit in the head a few too many times, because this is…this is wild.

“I know it sounds crazy,” says Brandon, and props to him for realizing that on his own, “but I wouldn’t have believed it myself if I wasn’t already one.”

There are so many things he wants to say to that, but Darby just shakes his head. He needs to get out of here. This is just a little too weird. “Okay, man,” he says, running a hand through his hair. “I’m the last person who should be saying this, but do you realize how crazy you sound?”

The look on Brandon’s face says that he does. Darby shakes his head. “Never mind. Look, take care, okay?”

He makes to open the locker room door and get the hell out of there, but then Brandon says, “The door is locked,” which is wrong, because you need a key to lock it from the outside, and the arena is still being used, so there’s no reason for the crew to lock the door anyway. But when he tries to wrench the door open, it sticks. He yanks on the handle. The door doesn’t budge.

“What the hell?”

This doesn’t make sense; the locks on the door are fucking huge, there’s no way Darby wouldn’t have heard someone sticking the key in there.

“Sorry,” says Brandon, holding up his hands in the universal sign of ‘don’t kill me’, “I just…can you please just hear me out?”

Darby really wants to ask what’s going on here, and he’s a little annoyed that he’s just a little freaked out at being trapped in a room with a man who may or may not be clinically insane, but the sooner Brandon tells him what he needs to tell him, the sooner Darby can leave this room and this conversation behind. He takes a breath, holds it, lets it out slowly.

“Okay,” he says. “So, let me get this straight. I’m some kind of god-“

“A saint.”

“-hardly, but whatever. Why? Why me? Why haven’t I noticed anything until now?”

“Like I said, we’re chosen. Don’t know when or why, but we are. Once we’re chosen, our bodies have to acclimate. That’s where the sickness comes from; it’s us getting used to our…abilities.”

“So, what? What does that even mean? Do I get some kind of…superpowers or something?”

Brandon relaxes a little, some of the tension in his shoulders evaporating; after all, at least Darby’s not outright rejecting him anymore. “Not like you’re about to start flying or shooting fire from your eyes, but there are some perks.”

Looks like he’s in this for the long haul then. Darby sighs, makes a hand motion for Brandon to continue and takes a seat in one of the folding chairs scattered around the room. Brandon follows suit, taking a random chair across from him.

“Most of us heal pretty quickly, for one. Like, freak quick. Some of us have a crazy high pain tolerance. Knowing you, you’ve probably got both. And I’m not gonna name any names, but there are a couple of people here who can even manipulate people’s thoughts. To an extent, at least,” says Brandon. “It varies from person to person.”

Darby shakes his head again. “This is batshit.”

“That’s fair,” agrees Brandon easily.

“What about you?”

“Hm?”

“Any cool powers? Can you, like, turn into a dragon or something?”

Brandon laughs, relaxing a little more in his chair. “No, no I can’t. That’d be pretty cool though. I’ve got a couple of tricks up my sleeve. Speed. I’m pretty good at healing. I’ve got some reality-warping thing going on, some pretty awesome agility-“

“Wait, no, back up a second,” interrupts Darby, raising an incredulous eyebrow, because seriously – what the fuck? “Reality-warping thing? What the hell?”

Brandon grins. “Yeah, but only a little. I can only speak small scenarios into existence.”

This is so weird, echoes Darby’s brain like he wasn’t already acutely aware of that. “If you can do that, why haven’t you made yourself AEW champion or something already?”

“That’s too big. It’s usually something really small. Like if I say ‘I am going to get a phone call right now that tells me that I’ve just won one million dollars’-“

They wait expectantly for the phone in Brandon’s hand to light up with an incoming call, a text, even a notification, but it remains stubbornly dark and silent.

“-nothing happens. But, if I say ‘Darby’s going to find a shiny, 2021 minted penny under his chair-“

Brandon nods eagerly towards him and Darby reluctantly reaches under his chair, fingers brushing against the tile until they find a tiny piece of cool metal, and fishes it up. It’s a penny, shiny and newly minted just like Brandon said. He glances accusingly up at the man in question to find him grinning happily, looking so pleased with himself.

“Couldn’t make it a quarter at least?” Darby says, just to be pedantic.

Brandon shrugs, taking it in stride. “I’m working on that. Point is, it’s something small and insignificant. That’s how it works.”

For the umpteenth time tonight, Darby’s brain reminds him how crazy this is. He forces himself to ignore it, no use in pointing out the obvious anymore. “How do you know all of this?”

“It’s kind of my job. I bring stories into the world and record the history of the ‘pantheon’. I’m called the Historia, the saint of stories, so it’s my job to know what’s going on.”

Well, no sense in pretending that this wasn’t happening. It makes absolutely no sense and Darby’s pretty sure he’s got a headache coming on with all the shit he’s got to process, but he’s nothing if not determined (stubborn). He’ll make it make sense somehow, eventually, even if he has to force the pieces to fit together.

“So what does that make me then?” he asks wearily. Besides confused, his brain helpfully adds. He’s a little remiss to admit that he’s actually curious to hear the answer.

Brandon looks thoughtful. “I’d have to do a little more research, but right now, all the signs are pointing to the Sanguine."

Darby’s mind finally, completely, blanks. “The what?”

“Blood,” says Brandon. “The patron saint of blood.”

Chapter Text

part ii (divination)

Darby does not want to admit that this is kind of badass.

After Brandon had unlocked the door (using his weird reality-warping powers of course), he’d run off saying something about needing to consult the ‘doctrine of patronage’ - whatever that was supposed to be: a website or some magical tome, for all Darby knew - leaving Darby to come to terms with what he’d just been told. He’s not sure what kind of powers he’s got or what a saint of blood is supposed to be or what it’s supposed to do, but from the sounds of it, it sounds like a really cool title to have. That does leave a lot of questions though, more questions than he’d had at the beginning of all this. Like, what were the qualifications for being called up? Were they supposed to belong to a specific religion? Who else was a saint?  Was Darby really falling for this?

As much as he wanted to say that he most definitely wasn’t falling for it, it was kind of hard to deny that this was happening whether he wanted it or not. Unless Brandon had staged the whole thing – placed the penny under the chair beforehand, got someone to hold the door closed when Darby tried to leave, and Darby isn’t quite sure why he’d do that in the first place - it was all a little too… deliberate to be a hoax. Brandon’s not the type to play mind games, as far as Darby knows (he’s been hanging around the Young Bucks a lot, who have done some pretty heinous things to get in someone’s head, if not directly then by association), and it’s not like they have any reason to be fighting right now, Cutler and him. Darby’s not currently holding gold and neither is Brandon, and Darby can’t think of anyone he’s pissed off recently that Brandon or the Bucks might have allied themselves with, so they wouldn’t come after him for that. Is this what paranoia feels like?

Darby shakes his head. He can think in circles until he’s dizzy, but he can’t come up with any reason why Brandon wouldn’t be telling the truth, other than the fact that this is physically, realistically, not possible. He goes back to the mirror and paints on his grinning skull, briefly wonders: why blood? Why was he picked as the saint of blood of all things? His trademark is the skull on his face. Why not death or something slightly more fitting?

He pulls on his boots. Maybe there’s already a saint of death? How many others are there? If there is a saint of death, he wonders who they are, wonders if they wrestle. It’d probably be someone like the Undertaker or something, one of the oldheads who’ve got the whole dark aura going on. Isn’t he supposed to be undead anyway? It would make sense.

Darby shakes his head, glares at his reflection in the mirror.

He’s thinking about this too hard, and anyway, he’s got a match to finish getting ready for still.

‘I found out what your powers are,’ Brandon texts him at the next Dark.

Darby's in the boiler room as usual (now that he was over the god-awful sickness, he could retreat back into the boiler room to get dressed without having to worry about passing out in the back of the arena and never being found) and opens up the messaging app to find the ‘typing’ bubble still blinking. It still feels a little weird to have Brandon’s number saved in his phone. Save for some friends outside of the roster, he’s got hardly anyone else’s contacts in there. Brandon had put it in his phone after the last show, telling him that he'd get back to him when he found more information on his specific patronage, and then had raced off again, looking like a kid on Christmas morning. Darby was coming around to the idea, bit by minuscule bit ( though some of it without his knowledge) and he knew that Cutler was doing his best not to weird him out so much that he completely shut down on the idea, but this was Cutler's thing. He was all about the swords and sorcery and high fantastical stuff. Hell, it had been his thing before the Bucks got their claws in his him.

Or their hooves. Hooks.

Whatever.

Brandon would be a liar if he told Darby he wasn't geeking out at least a little bit about the whole 'patron saint of this and that' thing. Before tonight, he'd gotten a smattering of messages from Brandon throughout the week, little things here and there: 'I've almost figured it out' on Saturday, an 'up to my eyeballs in Shakespearean English, but I think I've got it' sent to him on Monday. There's even a photo Brandon had sent him of a detail of an old medieval painting he'd found while searching around of what looked like some sort of four-legged animal, but was painted with the most horrific human-looking face Darby had ever seen; 'this is supposed to be a cat btw', Brandon had helpfully supplied. 'truly cursed.'

It had made Darby snort at least. 

‘I still don't have a ton of info about where the saints come from or why they're chosen, but I did find some stuff about what your miracles are. As the saint of blood, you possess a high pain tolerance, supernatural healing factor, influence over the darker impulse of man,’ comes Brandon’s next message.

Darby stares down at the text printed across his screen, paying special attention to the last part of the list.

Influence over the dark impulses of man.

‘Scary,’ Brandon has helpfully added in another text, complete with a spooked emoji face. ‘Remember to use your powers for good.’

Darby raises an eyebrow. Was that a thing? It made sense; they were supposed to be saints after all.

Brandon adds a second later: ‘Or don’t! It’s up to you. Just don’t use them on me!’

Darby frowns. ‘What does that last one mean?’

Brandon replies while Darby’s lacing up his other boot. ‘Exactly what it sounds like. Haven’t you noticed that people tend to get a little crazy around you?’

“Crazy,” Darby echoes aloud to an empty boiler room.

Brandon helpfully elaborates a moment later. ‘A lot of guys here are all about posturing and bravado and all that macho bullshit. They’re good at what they do, they know their worth and all, and they’ve earned it. Most of them. They fight like they have something to prove. But with you, they tend to get violent.’

‘Sounds dumb, I know. We’re wrestlers, we’re supposed to be violent. But with you, it’s different. They fight like animals. All the bravado and masculine prowess completely flies out the window. They’re not fighting for sport or to prove they can go; they’re fighting to maim. Scratching, biting, tearing. That’s not wrestling.’

‘Sure it’s not because I just piss them off?’ replies Darby. Because being half their size and a couple dozen pounds lighter, but still able to hand them their asses on a platter, that had to sting after all.

His phone buzzes later with an incoming text while he’s putting away the face paint. ‘You certainly do, not taking anything away from you there. But it’s uncanny, you know? I like you, but sometimes when I’m standing next to you, I want to scratch your eyes out.’

That startles a laugh out of Darby.

‘Haven’t you noticed people around you getting tense or angry and ready to deck somebody randomly? And I don’t mean other wrestlers. I mean like the barista at Starbucks or something,’ says Brandon.

‘They probably hate their job. I’d deck somebody too if I worked at Starbucks.’

‘Regardless, it’s one of the miracles of the saint of blood. You might not be aware that you’re doing it, but it’s there.’

Darby wouldn’t exactly call getting decked in the face a miracle, but he lets it slide. It does make him curious though. Brandon said he’d been unaware all this time that he was able to do it. Did that mean he could do it on command then?

Someone knocks on the door. They've found him, then. “Tv time in five,” comes the hurried, slightly spooked voice of a production crew member. Their quick footsteps disappear again as quickly as they'd come, escaping the boiler room with a quickness.

Darby gives himself a once over in the mirror. The grinning skull half of his face seems to smile harder, a smile made of switchblades, wicked and cruel.

Well, he supposes he’ll just have to find out.

It’s Homecoming night and Darby’s on the card for a tag match.

It’s him, Jon Moxley and Eddie Kingston against 2point0 (what a stupid name) and Daniel Garcia. He’s doesn’t really know Eddie, but he knows that he’s close to Mox, so he can probably trust him. He trusts Jon well enough anyway.

When the match starts in earnest, Darby filters out the rest of his thoughts - the whole patron saint thing, this, that and the other; all of it - until he’s only focusing on the match. Eddie kicks it off first and, as usual, begins to stomp mudholes in Garcia’s ass. It’s pretty great; Darby’s always thought it was a good time watching guys like Mox and Eddie square up. His body is already vibrating with electricity, giddy to get in the ring himself, and when Garcia starts taking shots at Eddie’s kneecap, Darby feels the adrenaline spike through him like a knife to the heart.

It’s not that he’s getting excited because there’s an injured man in front of him, but it’s just that – that feeling. The feeling of a fight, the anticipation. He’s practically salivating at the thought of getting to smash his knuckles against someone’s face, to scratch up their skin and feel the splash of sweat and blood. He’s hyper-focusing on the match, on every sensation that Eddie and Garcia must be experiencing. It’s almost like he can feel every crack against the kneecap, every heavy chop to the chest, every clothesline to the throat, like it’s all happening to him too.

In the middle of this, he gets the tag, and gets into the ring in a blur. Garcia goes at him and they lock up, something black coiling in Darby’s chest at the contact. He can feel it in his bones, thrumming through the core of him like lightning. Or maybe warm blood is the proper metaphor, languid and hot and smooth. His heart beats doubletime, heat building behind his eyes. He can hear himself snarling almost, eyes blown wide. On the ring apron, he can hear Eddie psyching him up. Mox calls his name. He ignores both of them.

He can feel whatever this is building up inside of him, pushing past his heart and spilling out through the spaces between his ribs, waterfalling down his chest, bubbling up from his throat and crashing through his teeth. It’s black and viscous, shiny in the bright lights of the arena.

It washes over Garcia’s boots, and he blinks and shakes his head like he can’t see straight all of a sudden. He looks at Darby. Then, the line of energy pulled taut between them snaps.

When they go at each other, it’s a like a storm at sea. Darby and Garcia are lightning striking against the water, the waves reaching up to scratch the sky. Darby thinks its fucking beautiful. Garcia’s on top of him, punching and punching, scratching in places where his fists don’t quite close all the way. Then Darby rolls and he’s on top, feels his lips straining against his bloody teeth in a wild grin. There’s blood on the mat beneath Garcia, Darby’s blood at first and then Garcia’s once Darby starts raining punches down across his face. It splashes across Darby’s knuckles, his wrists, even speckles up against his chest. He can vaguely hear people shouting in the background, though it doesn’t sound as clear and excited as usual. It sounds frantic and shocked, but he can’t bring himself to care. He leans down and bites Garcia’s cheek, listens to him howl as he digs his teeth into the meat. He feels it when the blood spurts past his teeth and into his mouth like a ripe cherry.

Then someone’s grabbing at him, yanking him off of Garcia and hauling him away. Garcia shrugs off the injury, probably didn’t even feel it anymore, scrabbling to his feet looking wild, and launches himself at Darby before he’s caught by the ring security that have suddenly swarmed the mat. He’s snarling and spitting and Darby laughs, throwing his head back and letting it course out of him like water. He lets himself be dragged out of the ring and up the stage, catches sight of 2point0 (stupid, stupid name, still) looking horrified. To the right, at the other end of the ring, he sees Eddie and Jon staring after him: Eddie mouths something that looks like ‘what the fuck just happened?’ and Jon looks like he’s seen a ghost. Huh, thinks Darby distantly. He’s never seen that expression on his face before.

He thrashes, trying to yank himself out of the hands of security. He can hear them shouting at him as they hold him down and wrestle him the rest of the way backstage. He sees them pass some of the other wrestlers on the roster who had been watching from the wings. They look terrified. Darby screams. Roars suddenly and loudly just to spook them. It works. Jungle Boy jumps a foot in the air. Chuck Taylor skitters back into Orange. Darby laughs.

He makes one last attempt to fight his way out of the hands of security. Someone loses their grip on him. He feels their hand slip in the blood across his chest. That’s all he needs to wriggle the rest of the way free and book it down the hallway at top speed. Security shouts for someone to stop him. Nobody does. Darby runs and runs until he ends up in a part of the arena that he doesn’t recognize, quiet and secluded and dark, and collapses on the floor in what he thinks is a storage room. There are boxes piled up in the corners and a lot of dust in the air. Darby chokes on said dust in between hysteric giggles. He rolls onto his back and holds his hands up, looking at the blood coating them. He can barely see it in the poor lighting, but it’s there, he knows it is. He can feel it. Smell it.

He scrubs his wrist over his mouth, takes in the blood staining the skin crimson. There’s nothing black mixed in like he thought. It must have been in his head then. Darby lets his hands fall to his sides and stares up at the ceiling, his body trembling with adrenaline and the last traces of hysteria.

Sting finds him after, which is unexpected. Darby’s not even certain where he ended up, so he’s not sure how Sting found him. Unless he’d been tearing up the arena looking for him or something, which seems like a likely possibility judging by how he slams the storage room door shut behind him when he finds Darby. Darby doubts he’s here to check up on him after the match. He’s had worse and Sting’s not his keeper, it’s not like he would be worried about him. He towers over Darby, who has calmed down considerably and is still on the ground, but sitting up, propped against one of the boxes.

“What was that?”

Sting sounds upset. Angry is more like it. Darby can tell how tense he is just from the way he’s standing.

“What was what?” sighs Darby, moving to stand. He doesn’t like being on the ground while Sting’s talking. Makes him feel like he’s being talked down to, reprimanded.

Sting’s eyes narrow. “Don’t play dumb. You know what I’m talking about. That shitshow out there in the ring.”

“Ask Garcia,” says Darby, finally relenting, but only slightly. “He’s the one who started freaking out.”

“Darby, I’m warning you.” Sting’s voice has suddenly turned dark and low.

Something black coils around Darby’s brain. “Oh yeah?”

He feels it, feels it like he felt it out in the ring. The pressure building behind his eyes, the hard staccato of his heartbeat, the thrum of energy in his bones. He tugs on it again, experimentally, wonders what would happen if he just pulled it a little, rather than yanking it all out like he did during the match.

Sting blinks. “What are you-“

Darby tugs a little harder. He can feel the intensity burning behind his eyes, wonders distantly if they’re doing something weird like glowing, they feel so hot. He can feel himself baring his teeth a little, clenching them so hard that they almost hurt. He shouldn't be doing this. He knows he shouldn't be doing this. Of the guys that he interacts with throughout the entire roster, he respects Sting the most. But he'd be lying if he said he wasn't at least a little curious about what he could do with this...whatever it was. And felt so good: the rush of adrenaline through his veins, fogging his head up for a few terrifying moments before everything sharpened all at once, his heart pumping hard, his lungs starting to burn.

Sting blinks again, harder this time, and shakes his head like he’s trying to clear it. It’s a mirror image of Daniel Garcia back in the ring.

Darby wonders if Sting can see the black miasma leaking from his eyes, his nose, his mouth, threatening to choke himself with that dark blood.

Sting’s face darkens so fast it gives Darby whiplash – switching lightning quick from confusion to thunderous, black fury – and the temperature in the room plummets immediately. Sting moves like a coiled snake – or maybe a scorpion – grabbing the front of the chain around Darby’s neck and slamming him back against the wall with so much force that it briefly knocks the air out of him. It hadn’t been particularly dark when he’d come here, but now it’s pitch black, as if the world around them had suddenly shuttered closed. It’s so dark that it looks like Sting’s white face paint is glowing against the sheer blackness of it. Or maybe it is.

“Do not,” growls Sting, “play those games with me, kid.”

Some part of Darby is completely bewildered. Other parts are still convincing him it’s a good idea to tug on that power of his. Other even smaller parts are telling him to stop whatever he’s doing completely. And a very small, almost miniscule part of him is very, very concerned because this shouldn’t be happening. Never mind the fact that Darby is somehow able to turn people into bloodthirsty animals with his mind, and had just done so not fifteen minutes ago, but this should not be a thing that is happening. Since when could Sting turn the world into some dark, icy hellhole? The air around them was stifling, not with fire and heat, but cold enough that it constricted your chest, that it burned your lungs when you tried to breathe in. The dark around them was endless, despairing, as though there had never been any light in the world before it. Darby doesn't quite know what happens after you take your last breath, but he imagines that some people think it feels a lot like whatever the hell is going on right now in the storage room.

It clicks pretty quickly after that. “You’re…”

“I don’t know who you’re supposed to be, but I can take a couple of guesses,” says Sting. “It doesn’t really matter who you are though. All I know is if you ever pull a stunt like that again, I’m going to personally drag your ass into hell and flay you alive.”

Darby blinks. Then he laughs.

It’s not what Sting was expecting, judging by the way he narrows his eyes in confusion, so points for that at least. Darby’s not sure why he started laughing either, but it just seemed like the right thing to do. After all, if Sting is who Darby thinks he is, then this is just too great. It’s rich. And so fucking cool.

“I can’t believe it,” he says, still grinning. “I can’t believe you’re…”

Sting rolls his eyes and lets him go. Darby sags against the wall and tries to bite down on his lip to keep from laughing again. He really is crazy, he thinks. The darkness begins to recede from the room and the chill gradually fades away.

“All these years facing people down and I’ve never had anyone laugh staring down the barrel of the gun like that,” grumbles Sting. “Figures it’d be you.”

Darby pushes off the wall and runs a hand through his hair, trying not to lose his mind in all of this. This has been such a weird day. A weird few weeks actually, if he's being completely honest.

“Patron saint of blood,” says Darby a little awkwardly by way of introduction. He’s still getting used to the way his title sounds on his tongue.

His title. That's going to take some getting used to as well, having a title.

“Patron saint of getting on my nerves,” mutters Sting. But when he looks back at Darby, he looks a little fond, there’s no heat in his eyes. Or rather ice, Darby supposes, still aware of the receding chill in the room. “I’d introduce myself, but I think you already know who I am.”

Darby grins pointedly. Yeah, he can guess.

“I guess it was only a matter of time then,” says Sting. “The Sanguine…I figured it’d be you, but…” He shook his head. “Look, just don’t do that again. You don’t even know what you’re doing, and you don’t know to reign it in yet. If something goes horribly wrong, it’ll be your fault.” He fixes Darby with a firm glare and says rather ominously, “You don’t even know how powerful you are yet.”

Well, that’s spooky. And insanely tempting and endlessly cool.

“And I’m going to kill Cutler for telling you about your powers so soon,” Sting says mostly to himself. Darby giggles a little hysterically. God, this is so wild.

“Don’t be dumb, kid. You don’t need me to tell you how dangerous a power like that is. Hell, you saw it firsthand in the ring out there. If you push it too hard, you’re going to end up doing something you regret,” says Sting. He lets that hang in the air between them.

“And I, for one, am not going to clean up that mess. Watch yourself, got it?”

Darby shoves one hand in his shorts pocket and uses the other to give Sting a two-fingered salute. “Don’t call me ‘kid’. But I hear you.”

Sting smiles a smile that reminds Darby of skulls and knives. “As much as I’ve seen and done, I've earned the right to call any one of you kids ‘kid’.” The double meaning was not lost on Darby, and he fought off the shiver that threatened to creep up his spine.

Sting turned and opened the door, calling over his shoulder, “Stay out of trouble.”

The door swung shut behind him, like the lid of a coffin being closed, echoing throughout the storage room. Darby fell back against one of the storage boxes, exhaustion threatening to kneecap him right then and there. The adrenaline from the match was completely gone, leaving him shaking slightly and ready for a shower, some food and some sleep.

At least he can say that he stared Death in the face and laughed.

That was pretty badass.