After Shine [despues de brillar]

Dominik September 26 - Edmonton

The longer they spent on the road the more Dominik would swear Danika got caught up in 'jobs' for AEW. He was casually scrolling TikTok - with it mirrored to the television - when he came across a video with Danika in it, instantly the others gathered around to sneak a peek. She was in the middle of a ring with a couple up and rising AEW stars around her - Hook being the only one Dominik recognized instantly. The boy (man?) had his hands on Danika's waist, and was apparently stablazing her, Paige (no, she didn't go by that anymore she went by her actual name Saraya), had the camera in hand, and was switching between selfie mode and forward facing mode with the mocking question of, "How long until Chris yells at us?"

Each time she flipped back to the ring, the group of stars, and now Dominik could see his kids were hidden amoung them, had moved positions, Danika was standing on Hook's shoulders, cleary about to do a moonsault into another man's waiting arms when Chris Jericho's voice boomed, "YOU WOKE UP THE BABY WITH YOU'RE GIGGLING AND YOU RUINED MY PODCAST, GET FUCKED CHILDREN." Saraya's face when it flipped back around was terrified, as the whole group - Dominik noticed Buddy scooping up the twins, and Hook hauling Lainey over his shoulder - all seemed to hide behind Danika, who just flipped Jericho off.

"She's at AEW." Damian sounded a bit irritated, "That's why she won't answer my calls during the day." He looked pissed, actually, as he grabbed Dominik's phone, and clicked on Saraya's image on the side to pull up more of her TikTok's, there wasn't another one specifically with Danika, but there were several with her in the background, one of which tagged her, so he clicked into that one, on screen Danika was standing in Aalyah's kitchen, covered in flour, while Hook was standing next to her looking completely confused as to what had gone wrong, the caption only read great with his hands was a lie. "What the fuck." Damian snapped, his voice promised violence. He scrolled through her TikTok, obviously irritated, but it took Dominik a while to sort out why, but then it clicked. Hook and another of the AEW roster, a young man who was tagged Guevara, always seemed to have a hand on Danika. With Hook it looked more like he was guiding her but it looked more... flirtatious with Guevara somehow. Damian shoved Dominik's phone back into his hands, and stood to pace.

"Priest, mate, what's wrong?" Rhea asked, looking worried.

"Did you know Hook is her age?" Damian asked, a little sour, "And that punk, Guevara, they call him the Spanish God down there, he's close to your age..." His voice turned dark again, "They aren't old news like me, and she lets them touch her..." His voice had a possessive lit, "Like it's fine, like she's not... like she's not mine..."

Dominik saw Finn's face twist behind them, "Maybe if you told her she could comment on your relationship, Priest this wouldn't be a problem. Those boys don't know she has a boyfriend, and she can't very well tell them she's with Dom because the whole world thinks Dom and Rhea are together. You won't let her tell people she's with you, you hide her-" Finn's lecture was cut off when Damian fully socked him in the jaw.

"It's to protect her." Damian shouted, which was enough to get Rhea up, and tackling him from behind, it took all three of them to get him to the floor of the bus' living area, him still panting and angry, "So they would stop telling her I groomed her, so they'd stop thinking I'm taking advantage, so they'd stop pushing our ages down her throat." His voice broke, and tears started, and Dominik wasn't sure what to do other than hug him tight, "So she could pretend she wasn't with some forty year old Superstar who's going to fall from fame a lot faster than she's going to grow old." His self-doubts had been eating at him for a while Dominik would wager. Finn, to his credit, was rubbing his jaw, which was definitely going to bruise, but snuggled into the trio.

"She's proud of you." Dominik countered, "She's always really careful about what she tells people about you, but she brags on you, she talks you up every chance she gets, all she wants is the world to know that you're hers, and she's yours, I understand you're jealous. But this problem isn't going to just fix itself, you're going to have to talk to her. Not yell at her, not bottle it up, but talk to her."