Alright so the story:
Me and my cousin have been working at this one store for a long while now and there's this one stupid little shit of a merchandiser who feels like he has manager authority despite being at the store for less then a year, he is constantly pestering us as if he was a manager and he has finally got my cousin upset enough for him to speak to a real manager about this kid's attitude, the manager spoke to the little shit but he wasn't listening so my cousin and the manager both confronted him. After the confrontation this little shit has the audacity to say to my cousin “7 years working here and you can't even be on time”. My cousin works harder then any of the other merchandisers and has more authority then some of the other managers, he comes late but he doesn't take break, so obviously this was quite a nerve stroke. My cousin began approaching the little shit but he wasn't going to hit him, he only wanted to get close to dare the little shit to say it to his face but our manager was behind him and held him back. The situation de-escalated and the little shit moped around for the remainder of the shift HOWEVER suddenly we get call from one of the managers, Trev, who are semi-close with the shit head and we have a conversation (Trev is the name I'll use for the rumor spreading manager), I know Trev is most likely the source of the rumors as certain things have been said to him in private that are also now part of the rumors. Anyways fast forward a few days things seem okay.. But then I get a call from the manager who held my cousin and she's telling me that two merchandisers approached her are claiming I told them “me and my cousin both took off our shirts and were ready to beat this kid and quit.” The part about taking off the shirt was only ever mentioned to Trev, my cousin told him “if things continue like this and you wont step up to the plate to fix it I wont mind taking off my shirt and quitting” but now the rumor goes “we took off our shirts and were ready to beat this kid's ass” so we know he and the little shit twisted the story and started spreading rumors and somehow has these two merchandisers claiming I personally told them.
I don't know what to do, I know my cousin is on the verge of exploding at these people and I don't want anything bad to happen, we work with one of the rumor spreading merchandisers tmr 4-10 and I don't want my cousin to blow up on him, there are cameras so I know if head manager wanted to investigate he could easily check the cameras and clear our names but the rumors being spread and the fact that now I am a bigger target because they claimed I personally told them makes this a lot harder to deal with, at least for me, if a fight breaks out I don't mind holding my ground but I am horrible with confrontation.
Worst case scenario me and my cousin are both willing to walk out, quit without a 2 week notice, we haven't told anyone this but we don't plan on giving them courtesy if they believe the rumors.