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He wakes up alone in a hospital bed, aching in parts of his body he can’t even name, and his first thought is What if I can't wrestle again?
He doesn’t know where that came from, who he is, or what happened to put him here. Car accident? Mugging? Plane crash? A fall from a four story window? He's relieved to find that he can move, at least. The pain is familiar, like he’s been hurt before in much the same way, and right now he’ll take any familiarity he can get.
When the nurse comes, she calls him Seth and asks how he's doing. Tells him he's still under observation but should be released soon. She’s cheerful and unconcerned, and the only time her composure cracks is when she asks if there’s someone who can come pick him up.
"It's fine, I'll just take a cab,” he lies, surprised at how smoothly it passes over his lips. “My brother will be home later tonight.” Lying feels like second nature and he adds it to the short list of things he knows about himself: Seth. Wrestler. Liar.
He doesn’t tell her about the memory loss. There’s something he needs to do and that’s not going to happen trapped in a hospital bed racking up bills he might not have the means to pay. In his wallet, he finds a driver’s license. Seth Rollins. He's 29 years old, has a set of car keys, melon-flavored gum, and apparently works somewhere with a dresscode. He seems to prefer skinny jeans and band tees in his downtime. He clearly works out. There’s lube in his bag and sweaty, shiny latex gear that makes him a little concerned about his personal life.
His phone is locked. There are no missed calls, no messages. Who wakes up alone in a hospital with two broken ribs, a minor concussion and enough bruises to last them a lifetime, and no one around who cares?
It’s a few hours before he’s released. Reading gives him a headache and can’t get into his phone to listen to music. That leaves him sitting on the bed, watching the sky outside of the window and struggling to piece together what he knows. He's still in Pittsburgh, but according to a scrawled note in his calendar he was supposed to go to Detroit yesterday. Did he lose his job for not showing up? Before Pittsburgh was Allentown, Brooklyn, Washington, Newark, Buffalo… He flips back through the pages and it just goes on like that, city after city, week after week, rarely staying more than one night before moving on. He’s even been overseas. What is he, a rockstar? A traveling salesman? An escort?
Seth worries about the hospital bills until he finds out that they’ve already been taken care of. The receptionist looks at him as if he ought to know and he can’t bring himself to ask for details. He just grabs his bag and heads off to the elevator, like he has any idea where the hell he’s going and how he’s going to get there.
The phone. If he can just get past the lock screen he’ll have access to his contacts, e-mail, social media accounts. Maybe there’s photos. Probably someone he can call. Family members, friends, a boss. Something. He steps out of the elevator on the ground floor, lost in thought, and it takes him a moment to realize that someone is saying his name.
He looks up, catches a glimpse of messy hair, blue eyes, jeans and boots and a leather jacket and the recognition goes through him like a jolt.
”…Dean?”
The relief makes him lightheaded. It doesn’t matter that the name is all he knows. He would kill for a hug, for a chance to bury his face in the crook of that neck and breathe in the scent of something familiar, but the man takes a step back, lips tightening.
”Where’s mom and dad?” he says, voice sharp with contempt.
Are they family? It feels right and wrong at the same time. Seth remembers a kiss, or he thinks he does, skin against skin and a hand tangled in his hair, but maybe that’s just wishful thinking. He hopes Dean’s not his brother. Hopes that whatever else is wrong with him, that one isn’t on the list.
”I... don't know?” Dean glares and it makes Seth's guts twist. He's the only familiar thing in a sea of strange and Seth feels like his life depends on his ability to appease him. "I'm sure they'd be here if they could."
It's apparently the wrong thing to say, because Dean gives a harsh, mocking laugh. "Sure they would."
It hits Seth that Dean doesn't like him and doesn't think that his - their? - parents do either. They’re not on good terms, and judging by the way Dean looks at him, he thinks it’s Seth’s fault.
A man pushes past them to get into the elevator. They’re blocking the way and when Seth starts walking Dean doesn’t follow. He panics but is too proud to turn back and ask for help from someone who doesn’t like him, and look at that, another item for his list: Seth. Wrestler. Liar. Proud. Possibly stupid, too, because it’s not like he’s failed to grasp that getting himself checked out of a hospital with no memories and nowhere to go is nothing short of a trainwreck, but the decision’s already made and he’ll be damned if he’s going to go back on it now.
It’s a cold, windy day. He pulls his coat tighter as he exits the hospital, pausing on the curb to take stock of his surroundings. His head hurts. His ribs hurt. He stares at the traffic, hugging the handle of his bag, trying to think of something to do. Hail a cab, probably. Ask the driver to take him… where?
"Hey." Dean grabs his arm from behind, pressing down on a fresh set of bruises. Seth hisses between his teeth and Dean lets go as if it burns. There is a strange look on his face, wary and exasperated and worried all at the same time. "You all right?"
Seth almost laughs at that. He’s so far from alright that he can’t even see it from where he’s standing. He gives a tight little nod, not trusting his voice to carry.
”What did the doctor say?”
”Bruised mostly. Mild concussion. I just have to-”
”-yeah, not my first rodeo.” Dean rolls his shoulders, cracks his neck, and stares at Seth until Seth starts looking for an escape route just in case his first instinct was wrong and Dean is less about safety and more about skinning him alive and wearing him like a coat. Finally Dean gestures towards the parking lot. ”Come on. I’ll give you a ride.”
Seth can’t remember his mom, but he bets she taught him to never get in the car with a stranger. He knows weird things about the man in front of him, like the way his eyes light up when he smiles or how he looks with his hair plastered against his head after a shower or the fact that he can’t carry a tune in a bucket, but that doesn’t mean he knows him.
”Look, asshole,” Dean snaps. "You can’t drive, you can’t stay here, and the Authority clearly doesn’t give a fuck. You’d really rather try to get a cab than spend ten minutes in a car with me? Seriously?”
”All right. Yeah. Thank you."
Dean gives him that weird look again. ”Whatever. Don’t make me regret it.” He turns and strides away, leaving Seth to trail behind him, hoping that wherever Dean takes him will be somewhere that feels at least vaguely like home.
It’s a hotel. It’s a goddamned hotel and Dean leaves him standing right there in the lobby with a gruff ”better go call daddy, huh?” as a parting shot. Seth grits his teeth and walks up to the counter, where the clerk glances at his driver’s license, frowns at his screen and informs him that he checked out early yesterday morning. Seth doesn’t like the way the clerk is looking at him, so he laughs it off and escapes as smoothly as he can.
There's a bench right outside of the entrance, and Seths sits down to figure out what to do next. His head is pounding. There are no messages on his phone, no missed calls. He rubs his cold nose with the back of his hand and tries to think, but his thoughts are all muddled. He hears someone approaching and glances up to see Dean again, cigarette in hand.
”What is it with you and sidewalks these days? Pretty sure the hospital didn't release you just so you could freeze your ass off." He digs out a lighter from his pocket and cups his hand around the flame for a moment. He's got beautiful hands.
”I checked out yesterday.”
”Shit. You guys like to travel right after the show, don’t you? Probably had fucking plane tickets booked and everything.” Dean takes a deep drag of the cigarette and is courteous enough to blow the smoke the other way. ”Why didn’t you tell me?”
”Forgot." It occurs to Seth that it’s the most honest thing he’s said since waking up.
”Huh.” Dean nods at the phone Seth’s still clutching like a lifeline. "You talk to Hunter yet?”
The name ought to mean something to him, but it doesn’t. This place ought to mean something, but the more he struggles to remember, the worse it gets. He needs to keep it together, to act like someone who knows who he is and what he’s doing. ”I can't remember my pin code.”
Dean holds out his hand, snapping his fingers. ”Gimme.” Seth hands over the phone and Dean unlocks it on the first try. ”1965. Come on, you knew that.” He tosses the phone back to Seth, who struggles to catch it with fingers already numb from the cold. Dean’s eyebrows draw together. "You sure you’re alright?"
”How did you-?"
”You think just because you walked away I forgot everything I ever knew about you?” Dean leans his head back against the wall and breathes out, watching the smoke rise against the gray sky.
Seth scrolls through his call history. There's only a few people that he’s in regular contact with. Dean isn’t among them. Hunter is, but those calls only ever go one way. Their talks are short, rarely more than a couple of minutes, and the texts are all business.
Here goes nothing, Seth thinks, and calls. He leans back against the stone wall, closes his eyes and listens as the signals go through, one after the other. Finally the call goes to voicemail. He hangs up, disappointed and relieved. Out of the corner of his eye he can see Dean watching him. "We're not friends, are we?"
Dean laughs, harsh and sudden. "I wouldn't spit on you if you were on fire."
The wind is so cold it hurts. He tries to pull his sleeves over his fingers. "Do I have any friends?”
”Why the hell are you asking me?”
Seth sniffs, rubbing his hands together. ”You’re here. Hunter’s not picking up. I guess I could call whoever but I don’t know who any of these people are. I don’t know who Hunter is or why you want me to talk to him. I can’t tell the goddamned pizza delivery guy from my own father. It’s just names. It doesn’t - I can’t- I don’t know who I am!”
He throws the phone against the pavement, watching it shatter. It’s satisfying for exactly two seconds before he realizes what he’s done. Then he’s down on the ground, picking at the pieces of plastic and glass.
”Shit,” Dean says.
Seth laughs brokenly, cradling the pieces of his broken phone in his hands. His head is pounding like it’s about to split right open. ”Yeah. Shit."
”Do the doctors know-?”
”No. They’d have kept me there and I couldn’t-” The cold from the ground is seeping into his jeans, gravel cutting into his knees. He stares at the broken phone for a while, then drops it and climbs to his feet, feeling far, far older than his twenty-nine years. He can’t look at Dean but hears him shift.
”I hear you. Fucking awful places, hospitals.”
”You’re not gonna tell me I’m an idiot?”
”Like I wouldn’t have done the same thing.” He takes the last drag of his cigarette and tosses it. ”Honestly? I don’t know if you have any friends. I mean, back in Iowa probably, but on the roster? Dunno, man. Think it's all about work for you.”
Seth stands up slowly, grimacing at the wave of nausea that rolls through him. What kind of a person doesn’t have any friends? The insistent pounding in his head is getting worse. ”What do I do?”
”Shit, I don’t know."
”No, I mean for a living. I've got this crazy itinerary I can't make sense of, city to city, and it's Tuesday, I should probably be at work but no one's missed me, no one's wondered where the fuck I am, and my hospital bills were all taken care of and I've got weird shit in my bag and if I'm some high-end escort or a stripper or errand boy for the mob--"
Dean stares at him. Then, slowly, as if talking to a particularly stupid child, he says: "You're a wrestler."
"Yeah, I knew that, but what's my real..." Seth trails off and thinks about the bruises littering his body. He thinks of the contents of his bag, protein shakes, towel and compression shorts and kneepads and tape and boots and- "Holy shit. I'm a wrestler. Professionally.” He pauses, looks at Dean. "Am I any good?"
He sits on the bed in Dean’s hotel room with a borrowed iPad, watching himself wrestle on Youtube. He's found his Wikipedia page, but the names and dates, factions and promotions makes his head ache. Easier to stick to Youtube. There's a rightness to every fluid move and every traded blow, proof that there is something in this world that he loves, something that loves him back.
Dean's on the phone in the bathroom, and Seth's trying hard not to listen even when he hears his own name. He turns up the sound, hitting the next video, then the next. There’s no way to piece together a whole life from random bits and pieces of wrestling matches, but he does the best he can. Roman Reigns is familiar in the same way Dean is, a sense of happiness and home, but there are screenshots and thumbnails of him taking a chair to Roman’s back and he can’t watch that, not yet. He's still busy trying to wrap his head around the rest of it.
When Dean finally comes out, Seth’s watching highlights from their Hell in a Cell-match a couple of months ago, the two of them full-on brawling while hanging off the side of the steel cage. Just when it looks like they’re both about to fall Dean shuts the video down. He takes the iPad out of Seth's hands and shoves it into the bag. "C'mon. We're going."
"Where?"
"I'm taking you back to the hospital."
Seth plants his feet and refuses to move. "No."
"What are you, three?" Dean glares, exasperated. ”Look, I talked to Roman. He’s smarter than both of us combined, so we’re doing this his way. You don't know who you are. I've got a show to do and a four hour drive, I can't be here babysitting your ass. I may be one crazy son of a bitch, but you’re not, and when Hunter sticks you in a hospital bed and tells you to stay put you stay put , because you love wrestling more than you’ve ever loved anything else and you’d die before you risked your career on a stupid, ill-advised scheme like this.”
”You don’t get to make decisions for me,” Seth says. “You got to go, you go. I’ll be fine.”
”You don’t know who you are, you don’t know where you’re going, hell, you don’t even have a phone anymore. How will you be fine?”
”I have a car somewhere.” Seth raises his chin, staring at Dean. ”I’ll drive to Detroit. Find Hunter. If I recognized you, I bet I’ll recognize him too.”
Dean laughs darkly. ”Oh, he’d love that, wouldn’t he? A blank slate, a vulnerable, impressionable Seth Rollins, ready to have his entire past rewritten, to believe every little lie he tells. He’s such a good liar. He’ll have you eating out of the palm of his hand.”
”If he’s so bad, why were you so insistent I call him?”
”Because I didn’t know you’d forgotten!” Dean practically screams in his face. ”Because calling Daddy when the going gets rough is what you do, you pathetic cowardly son of a bitch!”
Seth blinks. It should be scary, a guy of Dean's size getting all up in his space like that, but his body’s reacting with a surge of adrenaline that has very little to do with fear, and he’s suddenly aware of how close they are and how little it would take to bridge that distance. He breathes in; takes a step back.
”I don’t actually remember why you hate me,” he says quietly, even as his mind is busy adding more items to the mental tally.
Seth. Wrestler. Liar. Proud. Coward.
Something complicated is there and gone on Dean’s face and he lets out a ragged breath, lowering his shoulders. ”Which is why you should go to the hospital. Goddammit, Seth.”
Seth pulls on his coat, but pauses halfway to the door. “Just tell me one thing, and I’ll get out of your hair. How’d I get injured?"
”They didn’t tell you?”
”They might have. But I’ve got nothing.”
”Does the name Randy Orton ring any bells?”
It’s not a memory, exactly. It’s just that the air in the room suddenly gets thinner, the walls closer, and he can feel his heart racing, pulse pounding in his ears. There’s a roar in his head, a taste of blood in his mouth, and for a moment he thinks of concrete and feet all around him and bright, glaring lights in his eyes. He swallows thickly. ”He’s… vaguely familiar.”
Dean looks at him for a long while, then sighs. ”What the hell, Roman can only kill me once. You can ride with me to Detroit. I’m pretty sure they’ve got hospitals and doctors there too.”
”I’m pretty sure I won’t need them. But thanks.”
”I’m so fucking dead,” Dean mutters as he grabs his bag and heads for the door. ”So. Fucking. Dead."
Seth doesn't know if the real Seth Rollins enjoys long car rides. But even concussed and nauseated he finds that he does. Dean is right there, close enough to touch, and as long as the car is moving there is no way for him to get up and walk away. He’s going to have to figure something out that doesn’t rely on him trailing after Dean like a lovesick puppy. But for now he’s fine, because the arena is hours away and there’s nothing he can do about anything at the moment.
His head hurts, so he closes his eyes and listens to the hum of the engine. He should have filled his prescriptions before getting in the car, but it's too late for that now. Maybe he can persuade Dean to stop and get a coffee or a coke or something. He opens his eyes, blinks against the sharp brightness of the overcast sky. ”So, what did Roman say?”
”You mean apart from making me promise I’d take you to a hospital ASAP?” Dean glances at him. ”He’s worried. About both of us, I think. A little concerned that this amnesia is just some fucked up way to get under my skin.”
Seth thinks about that for a while. ”Would I?”
”Wouldn’t even be the worst thing you’ve pulled." Dean shrugs, unconcerned, like Seth's past transgressions are water under the bridge, but there's a tightness to his jaw that wasn't there before.
What is the worst thing I've pulled, he wants to ask, but he's not sure he's ready for the answer. The real Seth Rollins seems to have a capacity for cruelty that he’s not convinced that he shares. It's no wonder Dean doesn't particularly like him. Seth's not entirely sure he likes himself, based on the glimpses he's seen so far.
"What did you say?"
"Told him he didn't see the look in your eyes. No way could you ever fake that kind of panic.” He shifts his grip on the wheel. ”You remember Roman?”
”Kind of. Not really.”
”Which one is it?”
”As much as I remember you, I guess. I wouldn’t say I know him, I just know… things.”
”Things,” Dean echoes. ”Like?”
”Like he carries a ten center in his pocket for luck. He likes his coffee black with a little sugar. He snores when he sleeps on his back, and his spear feels like being hit by a truck."
"All right, so what do you know about me?"
To Seth's horror all his fragmented memories vanish, leaving only one that stands out in high definition. His hand tangled in Dean’s hair, Dean’s mouth against his, a hand splayed at the back of his neck.
"Are you blushing?"
"What?” Seth presses his hands to his burning cheeks. “No!"
"You are!" Dean crows, delighted. "What, is it embarrassing? Is it filthy? Aww, princess, have you been having dirty thoughts about me?"
“I don’t-” Seth stares at Dean, trying to reconcile his glimpses of memory with the man sitting right next to him. “Did we ever … uh …?”
"What, you and me?" Dean glances at him. "No."
"Oh." It feels like the air's been punched out of his lungs. "Right."
He has so few memories and that kiss is the most vivid one. He knows exactly how Dean's lips feels against his, how he tilts his head, a little to the left, the playful nip of his teeth at odds with the urgency of their bodies pressed together. Did he make it up? Is Dean lying? He can either trust blindly or doubt everything and he doesn’t know which is worse.
Seth stares down at his hands and tries to add up what he knows. He's a wrestler. He's a coward, according to Dean, and a pretty shitty person all around, but not so bad that Dean's willing to leave him stranded. He's from Iowa. He has no friends. He's pretty sure he’s into women, but then he thinks of Dean, the angular planes of his body, broad shoulders, narrow waist, five o'clock shadow rasping against his skin when they kiss, his smoky, irreverent laughter and the weight of his body pinning him down... He clears his throat uncomfortably, turning his head to stare out through the window.
Does Dean know? Maybe the kiss is just an old, favored fantasy, one that he's entertained so often that he can't help but look at Dean and remember. Is his bisexuality an open secret or the kind he's supposed to take to his grave? He needs to talk to someone who likes him. Someone he can be honest with, who can help him figure out who he's supposed to be.
“Hey, can I ask you something? When you mentioned mom and dad at the hospital, you weren't talking about my actual parents, were you?"
”No, ew." Dean grimaces. "Hunter is... your boss, I guess. Your mentor. If you ask me, he's a lying sack of shit, but." Dean falls silent, clearly struggling with something he’s not sure how to say. "I don't know, man. You seem to like him."
"And mom?"
"Stephanie McMahon. Hunter's wife, owner's daughter, pretty much runs the place. Coldest, most ruthless person you'll ever meet."
”I assume I get along with her too?"
Dean shrugs. "Like calls to like, I guess."
There's no particular malice there, but it still stings. Seth. Wrestler. Liar. Proud. Coward. Cold. Ruthless. Hopelessly attracted to Dean Ambrose, who may or may not be an honest man, who may or may not loathe him as much as he claims.
”They’re the Authority?” he guesses.
"Seth, don't do this." There's a tense, unhappy slant to Dean's mouth. His fingers are tapping restlessly against the wheel. "You probably have brain damage, you get that, right? I'm scared for you. I can't let you walk around and pretend like nothing's wrong when for all we know, you might be one step away from dying."
"You're not letting me do anything. If I have an aneurysm and drop down dead two minutes after entering the arena-"
"Don't joke about it."
"-that's on me, not you."
Dean shakes his head, thin-lipped.
"Look, I'm an asshole, right? So if it all goes to hell I probably had it coming anyway. I-"
"Just- shut up," Dean says. "Stop talking." He looks ragged, more pained than angry.
Seth draws a breath to apologize.
"Don't.” Dean rubs a hand across his face. “Just. Shut up, Seth."
Seth turns away, wincing as a sharp pain lances through his temple. It’s impossible not to see Dean in the corner of his eyes, the tension in his arms and shoulders, white-knuckled grip around the wheel.
If he could just get back in the ring. Things will make sense there. If he can just feel the ropes against his back and the give of the mat under his feet the missing pieces will fall into place. He’s sure of it.
It's several minutes before either one of them speak again.
"You hate me," Dean says, voice weary.
Seth glances at him. “I don’t, actually.”
"Not you. You . You look at me like something vile stuck under your shoe. They say I’m good on the mike, but you - damn , Seth. You take cutting vicious, nasty promos to the next level." Dean’s gaze is firmly locked ahead, but his shoulders are coming down, inch by inch, hands relaxing on the wheel. His lips quirk in something that's not exactly a smile. "Roman wanted to give you the benefit of a doubt when you left. Said you had a plan, because you always had a plan. Said you'd come back. You'd explain. You'd have your reasons. I knew, though. Been in this fucking business long enough to know there's no such thing as loyalty. What's friendship compared to a title shot, right?”
"I don't-"
"- remember, yeah, I know." Dean does that little almost-smile again, hands stroking the wheel. "It's funny, everyone thought I'd be the one to break up the Shield. Shows what they know. I was in, man. I trusted you. Pretty fucking hilarious, right? God, you must have been so proud of yourself. I wonder if you ever hesitated. If there was ever any doubt, or if you knew from the moment you approached us how it was all going to go down. That's one hell of a long game."
In the pause that follows, Seth stares out through the window and wonders what the real Seth would have said, if he’d have been here. There must have been easier ways to get a shot at the title than this. Did he hate Dean? Or was it the messy, one-sided crush that became too much to handle?
"Guess what I'm trying to say is that you're right. You want to walk right up to Hunter and tell him 'help me daddy, I don't remember who I am', go right ahead. I can't wait to see how that turns out for you."
It shouldn't sting. Regardless of what Dean thinks, he needs to see the people he betrayed the Shield for, if only to figure out if he was running towards something or just running away.
Another half dozen miles pass in silence, before Seth asks for a bathroom break and Dean pulls over at the next truck stop they find. When they get back on the road the mood's lighter. Dean turns on the radio, and two pain killers and half a bottle of coke later Seth's head feels better. Dean has enough wrestling stories to last a lifetime, especially now that Seth gets to hear them all for the first time. He’s a great storyteller, and some of the anecdotes from CZW would have Seth in stitches, if his broken ribs didn’t turn laugher into agony.
As the Detroit skyline draws closer, Seth falls quiet, watching the traffic pick up, the buildings gain in size. Dean navigates the city traffic with the casual ease of someone who does it all the time. He finds the arena without problems, flashes his ID at a bored security guard who waves them through without a second glance and for a brief, desperate moment Seth wishes they could turn the car around and keep driving.
The underground garage is dark and dank, with yellow lights flickering overhead. Seth stares out over the rows and rows of cars as Dean’s searching for a free spot, worrying at his bottom lip with his teeth. "You never told me about Randy Orton."
Dean parks the car and turns off the engine before he answers. ”You sure you want to know?”
He’s not sure of anything. But better now, from Dean, than later from someone who’ll use his ignorance against him. ”I think I probably should.”
”All right.” Dean drags a hand through his hair and leans back in his seat. ”Okay. Well, long story short, Randy turned on you during a match. After the bell rang, he got back into the ring and proceeded to beat you senseless.”
Seth recalls flashes of a frantic scramble, feet everywhere, sharp lights, and a metallic taste in his mouth, mixed with the salty tang of blood. He remembers - he thinks he remembers - pleading. A relentless, contextless vortex of fury. He feels a fresh wave of nausea and presses his lips into a thin line to swallow it back until it passes.
"We were teaming together?" His voice sounds strained even to his own ears.
"Yeah."
"Why did he-?"
"Look." Dean removes his seat belt and gathers up the keys in his hand. "I'm not trying to sound victim blamey here. There's a reason they call Orton the Viper. But you - you got this talent for making enemies, you know? Antagonizing people. So let's just say he had his reasons for being pissed at you."
"Then why did I team with him?"
"Fuck do I know? We haven't talked in months. Maybe you trusted him. Maybe Daddy told you to play nice. Maybe you saw it coming. Maybe it's part of some long game you're playing. You haven't exactly made good choices lately." Dean nods towards the entrance. "You should go first. You don’t want to be seen arriving with me."
"What if I do?"
Dean huffs out a weary laugh. "You really don't. C'mon, princess, don't argue. I'm running late as it is. Gotta hit up catering and get a workout in before the show.”
Seth hasn’t eaten anything since leaving the hospital and the mention of food makes his stomach rumble. What does the real Seth usually eat? Will it be noticeable if he picks all the wrong things? How is he going to pull this off if something as simple as getting food feels fraught? He reaches for the door, distracted, but stops when Dean catches his wrist.
“Hey, Seth? Don't trust them. Randy was all smiles until he wasn't and the rest of the Authority's no different. If they cared about you at all, you wouldn't have been alone at the hospital."
Seth feels nauseated again and can't tell if it's nerves or just the concussion. "All right. Thank you."
The real Seth apparently doesn't do thanks, because Dean gives him that strange look again. Seth opens the door and steps out into the garage, smelling of motor oil, asphalt and exhaust fumes.
"Hey." Dean leans over, and there’s something in his voice Seth can’t identify. "Good luck. If you need a ride after the show, you know where the car is."
Backstage seems chaotic until he realizes that everyone has a place and a purpose. Seth walks around at random, heart in his throat, trying to look like he belongs. This is the complete opposite of the blankness of the hospital. Everything is familiar. Every scent, every sound, every voice resonates with him, a constant jarring déjà vu, but he can’t place anyone or figure out what to do with the remorseless onslaught of impressions. He’s a familiar face here, he can tell. There’s a lot of looks, some curt nods, a fair number of turned backs, but no one talks to him until--
"Seth?"
Seth closes his eyes briefly, then turns around. Roman’s there in sweats and a hoodie, hair pulled back, looking paradoxically both smaller and bigger in real life than he did on Youtube. Seth's heart stutters in his chest and he’s floored by how desperately he wants Roman Reigns to like him. Has that always been a thing, or if it's just a symptom of the memory loss, latching on to anything known like a drowning man clutching at straws?
"Hi," he manages, and is mortified about feeling starstruck. That’s what you get from seeing someone on the screen, larger than life and showered in light, before you get a chance to meet them in real life.
Roman's eyes narrow and he takes a step closer. "Amnesia, huh?"
"Uh..." Seth fights the urge to back away. No way in hell is he going to be scared of his former teammate, even if the man is built like a brick wall in a bad mood. ”Right. Dean told you."
"You know who I am?"
Seth nods.
"You know what you've done?"
“I don’t--” he begins, then changes his mind. “Yeah.” He’s got the gist of it by now: a sudden, shocking betrayal, compounded by months of casual cruelty. It’s weird not to remember an act that so obviously shapes his life and the lives of the people around him, but it is what it is.
Roman's face darkens. He takes another step, bringing him close enough that Seth has to look up at him to meet his gaze. Seth's heart is hammering in his chest and there's a disconnect there, because none of his memories of Roman are fearful. There are glimpses of car rides and shared meals, hugs and mock fighting and glittering titles raised above their heads. None of... well, this.
"I'll make it simple for you. Hurt Dean again and I will end you." He looks Seth up and down, gaze lingering on the bruises on his cheek and arms. "I'll finish what Orton started and make what he did to you seem fun."
Seth raises his chin, forces himself to hold his gaze. "Fair enough."
"That's it?" Roman says incredulously. "No threats? No insults?"
Seth gives a one-shouldered shrug, forcing a smile that feels more like a grimace. ”I don’t remember anything about you worth insulting.” He takes a step back. ”I’ve gotta - I’ve gotta go.” He can feel Roman’s eyes burning into his back as he hurries off, desperately hoping that there will actually be something at the end of the hallway, rather than a dead end or a locked supply closet. It would be mortifying to have to turn around and slink past Roman in his attempt to escape. Luck is with him, for once, and he manages to lose Roman in the bustle. Manages to get himself lost too. The frustrating feeling of familiar-but-not-quite makes his headache worse, and he keeps flinching whenever someone gets too close. He can't tell who's safe and who's out to get him, and he's not up for another confrontation.
He can’t blame Roman for not liking him. But he woke up in a hospital less than twelve hours ago, alone and in pain, trapped in a life that’s not his own, and the only two people he sort of remembers thinks he's scum. It's not fair, it hurts, and it pisses him off, and he doesn’t know what to do with it, much like he doesn’t know what to do with the persistent headache or the discomfort swimming right under his skin. He’s given up on looking like he knows where he’s going and has moved on to looking for someplace to sit down and be alone for a while when he hears the sound of stiletto heels against the concrete.
There's a woman coming towards him down the hallway, talking animatedly on the phone. Even without context, Seth can tell that someone has fucked up and is sorry about it, but not nearly sorry enough. She’s striking, severe, dressed in strappy heels and a black dress with gray details that is flattering without being revealing. The smooth brown hair that falls over her shoulders should soften her appearance, but doesn’t. Their eyes meet, and Seth feels that sharp jolt of recognition. Stephanie McMahon ( cold, ruthless , Dean echoes in his head) slows her steps as she wraps up the call.
”Look,” she says sharply to whoever’s on the phone. ”I. Don’t. Care. Just get it right.” She hangs up with an irritated sigh. ”Jesus. I swear, Seth, half of these people should never have been hired to begin with.” She pushes her hair back over her shoulder and looks at him properly for the first time. A warm smile transforms her face. ”You wouldn’t believe how glad I am to see you! Come here.” She closes the distance between them and pulls him into a hug. He's not prepared for that, but hugging her is pretty much muscle memory. His body knows exactly what to do and how to fold himself in, make himself smaller for her. The relief of meeting someone who likes him makes him lightheaded. He closes his eyes for a moment, breathing in the scent of her shampoo blending with the fragrance she wears. Of all the meaningless information to retain, he finds that he knows exactly what the bottle of fragrance looks like, small and square with cursive lettering and a gold-tinted cap.
”Hi, Steph,” he murmurs in her hair.
She pulls back but holds on to his hands as gives him a scrutinizing look. ”Are you alright? I'm surprised the hospital released you already. Are you cleared to compete?”
There’s a spike of pain through his temple as he tries to shake his head. ”Nah. Concussion."
”You should be resting. We need you back in shape, honey.”
”I know. I just had to be here. I-” He doesn’t know how to explain the urge to come here, to see this for himself. He’s trying to think of a way to tell her about the amnesia, but she gives him no time.
”I get it. You wanted to show everyone that you’re not beaten. That’s good thinking, I respect that. Hunter will too.” Steph's smile turns soft, wistful. ”You know, Hunter’s exactly the same way. What does it say that all the men in my life are too damn stubborn for their own good?” She reaches up and brushes her knuckles against the bruise on his face. ”You should let our medical staff take a look at you, though. Then come find us and we’ll talk strategy. All right?"
A stage hand comes up and clears his throat. ”Excuse me, Ms McMahon, you’re needed in conference room B.”
She smiles at Seth and pats his arm. ”It’s good to see you, Seth. We’re all proud of you.”
Those words echo in his head long after the sound of her heels has faded, continuing to work their magic on his frazzled nerves and aching heart as he finds his way to the medical staff and lets the company doctors push and prod and look him over. Like calls to like, Dean said. Maybe he is everything Dean and Roman thinks he is. It feels good to know that someone is proud of him. That there might be somewhere he belongs, something he can do that goes beyond atoning for sins he can’t remember.
When the doctors are done with him, his concussion has been downgraded to a headache, but his ribs remain broken and no amount of wishful thinking can change that. They put him on four to six weeks of rehab, with plenty of non-strenuous activity for the first two weeks and absolutely no weights or real exercise.
”And no wrestling. I don’t want you to even think about stepping foot in a ring until you’re cleared."
”Four to six weeks?” Seth echoes. ”What the hell am I supposed to be doing for four to six weeks?"
”Minimum,” the doctor says, unimpressed. ”Go home, Seth. See your family. Play with your dog. Enjoy your time off, god knows you haven’t had a proper vacation in years.”
It takes all of Seth’s self-control to keep from blurting out: ”I have a dog?"
There is something sharp-edged about Hunter, raw power coiled under a polished surface. He's massive, grizzled and handsome in a way that makes Seth feel lanky and awkward in comparison. Seth wouldn't have been able to identify him in the crowd milling about gorilla, waiting for the show to start, but now that he knows who it is, he’s finding it difficult to look away. He carries himself with the quiet confidence of a man who knows his worth and his place in the world. He's attractive. Not in the immediate and personal way that Dean is, but having seen it Seth can’t unsee it. Is this the story of his life? Improper, unrequited crushes on coworkers?
He stays back for a while, watching Hunter lean over the mixing table to talk to the sound technician, studying Hunter's gestures like they might tell him something about this man, whose name keeps coming up. The only thing it does is make him nervous. When Hunter wraps up the conversation Seth steps forward and pitches his voice to carry.
"Hey, Hunter?"
Hunter looks up and smiles, the deep lines at the corner of his eyes crinkling. It’s not a kind smile, exactly, but it is pleased. Seth likes that. It gives him the courage to step forward and meet Hunter halfway, accepting a friendly slap to the shoulder that is just on the wrong side of painful. Seth manages not to wince.
"Steph told me you were around. How are you feeling?”
”I’m good,” Seth says. ”I mean, I’m not, but-”
”I hear you.” Hunter pulls Seth close with a hand on the back of his neck, touching their foreheads together. The firm, possessive grip makes everything anxious and jittery in him settle. ”Listen. Orton will pay. No one lays a hand on Mr Money in the Bank and gets away with it. We’ve got your back.” There is cold fury in his voice and it feels good to imagine it's on his behalf. When Hunter lets him go, Seth's skin is still tingling from the touch. " When can you wrestle again?"
"Doctor says four to six weeks."
Hunter looks grimly thoughtful. "Better make it four."
"It will be," Seth says, not caring if it's a hope, a threat or an order.
"That's what I like to hear." Hunter's approval fills him with a warm glow and a sudden unexpected urge to do whatever it takes to earn it again. "I didn't think you'd be here, so I gave Joey and Jamie some time off. They were distraught about what happened."
The names mean nothing to him. He nods.
"All right, Seth? You're a little quiet."
"Actually," Seth begins, then hesitates. Hunter’s looking at him like there's a right and a wrong answer and Seth's about to give him the wrong one. "I'm fine. Just tired, sorry."
It's not lying. He’ll tell him, later, when they’re not surrounded by people and Hunter has more than a moment to spare. The fewer people who know about the amnesia, the better. He needs to get back in the ring. That’s all that matters.
"Well, there's no point in you sticking around, is there? You did good showing up. We'll make sure Randy knows you're far from beaten. Now go home, get some rest. We'll be in touch."
"I was thinking--" Seth tries, but Hunter’s done listening. He leaves him standing there in the hallway, the rest of the sentence dying on his tongue.
Go home.
Like he has any fucking idea where home is.
Dismissed or not, Seth wants to see the show. It's easy enough to find a crew member willing to guide him away from the labyrinthine backstage area and help him find a secluded spot where he can stand against the wall and watch without being noticed. Looking down over the noisy crowd and the ring flooded in warm light, so small from a distance, the persistent déjà vu returns with vengeance. He's done this before. Not just watched the show, but watched it from here, shrouded in shadows. His hands are itching for the ropes and he knows with certainty that if he weren't a wrestler, he'd still be a fan. Then Roman's music hits. There’s a solid wall of noise from the crowd, and Seth has to grab the railing to steady himself. He knows that music. He knows the gear, the entrance through the crowd. Fist bumps and high fives and slaps to the back, hands on his arms, a rolling jump over the barricade, the electricity of the crowd, all eyes on them.
"Seth?" The crew member leans in close to shout in his ear. "Are you all right?"
He manages a nod, watching as Roman makes his way through the crowd.
"There's always a plan B," Hunter says at the back of his mind, and he remembers steel and plastic in sweaty hands, heart racing, arms pulled back to lift the chair and slam it right across Roman's back, the weight of the impact, seeing him go down. Cold. Ruthless. Dean turning, jaw falling open, the look on his face, one of uncomprehending shock, and Seth turns on the one brother still standing, lifts the chair again-
He's out of there before Roman's reached the ring.
Seth waits by the car for what feels like hours before Dean comes sauntering across the lot, bag slung over his shoulder. He doesn't break his stride when he sees Seth.
Seth pushes himself up from the hood. "I-"
"I'm starving." Dean opens the trunk and tosses his bag in. "Let's get food."
Caught off guard, Seth nods. Dean stops at a fast food place a short drive from the arena. Stepping through the doors, they’re greeted by blaring music, sharp fluorescent lights and hard bright plastic decor. This probably isn’t the kind of place Seth would choose on his own. His stomach rumbles painfully, but the overpowering smell of grease makes him queasy.
"I'm gonna get the biggest cheeseburger they've got," Dean says. "You?"
"Just a coke." Seth's lips feels dry and chapped. He licks them, shifting his weight around. Standing up hurts. "I'm not hungry."
"Uh huh,” Dean says, unimpressed. "Find a seat. I'll order for us."
Seth's not surprised, exactly, when Dean joins him with enough food for a football team. Two cheeseburgers, two large fries, onion rings, a salad, two cokes, one large, one small, and a can of mineral water. He sits down and starts splitting the food between them with the casual grace of a blackjack croupier.
"This-" Dean indicates the burger and fries, "-is for the headache. Two bites minimum. Down the coke. And this-" he taps the plastic salad container with the little fork that came along, "-is the kind of crap you'd normally order in a place like this. Whatever you can't finish, we'll take with us."
"And the water?"
"After the coke, or you'll be pissy about having the taste of sugar stuck in your mouth." Dean's already unwrapping his burger. The groan he makes at the first bite is obscene. Seth doesn't think he'll be able to eat, but as soon as the melted cheese hits his tongue the queasiness gives way to a ravenous hunger. He consumes the burger in two seconds flat and reaches for the fries.
Dean's grinning at him, the unspoken I told you so written all over his face.
"It's good," Seth admits. "Thank you."
"I'm never going to get used to that.”
”What, I don’t say thank you?”
"I'm pretty sure they bleached those words out of your brain when you turned evil.”
Seth thinks of chairs, cold steel and black plastic, of tactical gear and a steady hand at the back of his neck and takes a sip of his sickly sweet coke. ”Well, fuck you too, asshole."
Dean flashes him a dimpled smile, the one that makes Seth feel like he’s lost his footing. "Now that's the Seth we all know and love."
Guilt twists uncomfortably in the pit of his stomach. Every second that he doesn’t tell Dean what he remembered at the arena is a betrayal, but it would change the way Dean looks at him. Without memories, he can be someone Dean smiles at. A version of Seth that’s never hurt anyone. Selfish , now there’s another word to add to the list, because he wants this too much to give it up.
Dean was right about the water, to wash away the sticky sugar coating the inside of his mouth. Right about the headache too. Seth picks at his salad, hunger already sated, and thinks about what it means that Dean knows him well enough to choose his food and boss him around. He stabs an olive with the small plastic fork and sticks it in his mouth. ”Hey, did you know I have a dog?”
Dean finishes the last of his fries and licks the salt from his fingers. ”Kevin, right? Yappy little thing, just like you.”
Seth scoffs.
Dean swirls his coke around and grins at Seth over the rim of the cup. "God's honest truth. You should see yourself in the ring, facing off against some bigger guy. All bark, no bite, always running off with the tail between your legs when they call your bluff."
He feels less prickly now that he has eaten, and it's hard to get offended in the face of Dean's unabashed glee. He sounds like giving Seth crap is his favorite thing in the world. God, it must have hurt to be around Dean and feel like this all the time. This constant pull, the reckless desire to reach out, to touch, to trace the line of his jaw and capture his lower lip between his teeth. Share the same car, the same room, the same gym, getting dressed and undressed together, always wanting just that little bit more. Did Stephanie and Hunter feel like solace after this, their approval a fair substitute for what he wanted and couldn’t get with Dean?
"So,” Dean says, “what are you gonna do now?"
Suddenly done with the meal, Seth drops his fork in the container and closes the lid. He wipes his mouth and his fingers, the weight of having to choose settling on him like a thousand pounds. "Hunter said go home. So I guess that. Once I've figured out where home is."
For a long while, Dean just looks at him, another of those long, unreadable gazes that make Seth feel like he’s being dissected. ”You shop at Amazon, right?”
"Maybe?"
Dean pulls out his phone, goes to the website and attempts to sign in with what seems to be Seth's e-mail address. Seth feels briefly validated when the password's denied, but Dean's not fazed. He proceeds to reset the password, then logs into Seth's e-mail to retrieve the verification code needed to change it. It's so fast that Seth's left staring, dumbfounded.
”Did you just change my Amazon password to Dickhead1?”
”Figured we’d better make it something you could remember.” Dean flashes him a smile and pulls up Seth’s address on the screen. He slides the phone over to Seth. ”This is you. Want to write it down?"
Seth looks between Dean and the phone. ”I honestly don’t know whether I’m more creeped out or impressed.”
”Change your damn passwords before someone hacks all your accounts," Dean says, but he sounds more smug than put out. "You don't want any more dick pics on Twitter.”
Some things he doesn't need to know. He scribbles down the address in his calendar, wishing he could remember what it looks like or the name of the nearest airport. With a stab of panic he remembers the car keys still in his pocket, belonging to a rental car parked somewhere in Pittsburgh.
”Hey, you all right?”
”What?” Seth looks up, blinks. ”No, yeah, I’m fine.” He hands back Dean’s phone, closes his calendar. ”Thank you.”
Dean considers him, like he’s trying to decide whether or not to say what’s on his mind. He huffs out a breath and shakes his head, reaching for his jacket. ”Want a ride?”
”What, home?”
Seth means it as a joke, but Dean shrugs.
”Yeah. It’s, what, six hours? We’ll get a room tonight, drive tomorrow. You’re in no condition to be behind the wheel anyway.”
Dean has better things to do with his days off than to play chauffeur, but hope flares in Seth’s chest, bright and irresponsible. He should turn it down, but the temptation of delaying the vast nothingness of his life and the blank spaces in his head for another couple of days is too great.
”Yeah, I’d like that.”
Dean looks surprised.
”I mean, if you’re sure?” Seth hurries to add. ”I don’t want to be a hassle or- hell, you’ve probably got plans already-”
”Nah. Wouldn’t have offered it if I didn’t mean it. I was gonna go home, do some laundry, repack my bags. Nothing I can’t do at your place. Give me a couch to crash on and I’ll consider it a fair trade.”
They gather their things and get up, Seth feeling almost weightless until he shoves his hand into his pocket and feels the keys waiting there. “Um, hypothetically speaking? How serious is it to misplace a rental car?”
Sharing a hotel room with Dean is easy. They must have done it a thousand times before, even if Seth can’t remember it. It’s not that Dean’s a considerate roommate. He kicks off his shoes right in front of the door, drops his bag where he stands, tosses his jacket and car keys on the table and sprawls over the double bed with a satisfied groan, like his head hitting the pillows is the best thing he’s felt all day. Seth kicks aside Dean’s shoes, moves his bag against the wall, hangs his jacket across the back of the chair, scoops up the car keys that fell on the floor and slips them into Dean’s pocket, then smacks Dean across the head when he rolls his eyes and calls Seth ”mom”.
”I’m going to bed,” Seth says. ”You can move or I can fall asleep on top of you. Your choice.”
When he comes back from the bathroom, teeth brushed and ready for bed, Dean has changed into sweatpants and a washed-out t-shirt. He's moved to the right side of the bed, away from the door, and is leaning against the headboard, one leg pulled up, a thick paperback cracked open in his hands.
“I fixed the car thing, by the way,” Dean says as Seth crawls into the bed next to him.
“You did? How?”
“Made a call, pretended I was you. Said that I've had a medical emergency and won’t be able to return the car in person. We’ll drop the key off at their Detroit-office in the morning and they’ll take it from there.”
“It can't have been that easy.”
Dean shrugs, turning back to the book. “Apparently they like you. You’re a frequent customer. And here I thought it’d be all limos and private jets for you these days.”
There’s an argument lurking at the edge of those words and Seth has the dizzying feeling that he knows exactly what to say to get it started, but he’s so fucking tired. He sits down at the edge of the bed, rubbing a hand across his face. “You’ve got to stop doing me these favors, or I’m going to start thinking you care.”
“Nah.” Dean shoots him a lopsided smile. “I’m just keeping you around for your pretty face, you know that.”
Seth climbs into the already warm bed, pulling up the covers. ”Weirdo,” he mutters underneath his breath.
"Jackass," Dean retorts, flipping him off without looking.
Seth dozes off to the sound of Dean slowly turning the pages beside him, only to wake hours later with a strangled scream. There's a weight over his legs he can't kick free from. He twists around, elbow crashing into the bedside table. Pain shoots up his arm. He tumbles to the floor with his legs all tangled up in the blankets. The dream is slipping away from him but the terror lingers, breath coming harsh and shallow as he struggles to free himself.
A hand grabs his shoulder. He takes a swing, fist connecting with a thud. Dean’s ”ow, fuck!” brings him fully back to reality.
”Oh god. I’m sorry.”
”You’re so fucking lucky you’re injured,” Dean grumbles, turning on the bedside lamp.
Seth squints against the sharp light. A wave of nausea rolls through him and he barely makes it to the bathroom. He’s surprised when gentle hands pull back the hair from his face. This isn’t how he wants Dean to see him, but every breath he draws to speak comes out again in a helpless, keening sob. He leans forward, sucking in air in shaky gasps, the porcelain cool against his forehead.
”Hey, shh,” Dean murmurs, fingers warm and steady as they circle the back of his neck. ”It’s all right. Just let it happen. You’ll feel better.”
They return to bed afterwards, lights turned off. Seth downs two painkillers with a sip of water and lies back, eyes closed, breathing shallowly as he fights to keep the pills down. Dean’s fingers are running through his hair, over and over, spreading it over the pillow like a halo. It’s quiet. Seth trembles, even with the blankets pulled up to his chin.
”I’m not always this pathetic, am I?” He keeps his eyes closed, even though it’s dark enough that he probably wouldn’t be able to see anything more than Dean’s silhouette where he’s sitting, leaning against the headboard.
Dean’s laugh is almost soundless, just a huff of breath, fingers curling in Seth's hair. ”Nah. You're okay.”
During the six-hour drive from Detroit to Davenport Seth’s thoroughly punished for all his sins. Crawling discomfort, low-grade nausea, a headache, sore muscles and aching ribs - none of it will kill him, but all of it together kind of makes him wish it would. Dean, meanwhile, is in a weirdly good mood, humming along to the radio and giving Seth the occasional glance, more amused than concerned.
It’s late afternoon by the time they roll into Davenport. This is where he grew up, but Seth can’t see anything familiar until the GPS directs them into the suburbs, past an elementary school, and the recognition hits. He grabs the side of the door. ”I know this place."
”Yeah?” Dean glances at him. ”Good or bad?”
”That’s my - I went to school there. The window over there, that was my classroom. And there’s- pull over, stop the car.” He’s out before the wheels have stopped rolling, stumbling on the cracked sidewalk. The school is small, a red brick building, unchanged over the past twenty years, although the garish monkey bars and swing sets must be new.
Behind him, the car door slams. "You know, they're not usually fond of random men loitering outside of school property."
Seth stares at the open stretch of grass behind the old oak tree. "I know this. There used to be a jungle gym there, me and Marek, we'd climb it, do all sorts of crazy shit, practice moonsaults during recess. The teachers went nuts, called my m-” Seth breaks off and reaches out blindly, grabbing Dean’s arm. ”Dean. I remember my mom. She was so mad. Grounded me, made me swear to never do anything like that ever again. Then she put me in wrestling school.” He laughs, then swallows against a sudden surge of emotion, voice turning rough. ”Said that if she couldn’t stop me, she’d at least make sure I knew how to do it right.”
”Good for you, man." There’s something off in Dean’s voice. "Guess it's all coming back, huh?"
"I mean, this place, yeah, and my mom and dad and brother and- shit, I've got a brother." Seth laughs, elated. He turns to Dean to share the moment and is brought up short by the stricken look on Dean’s face.
Shit. He’s not supposed to remember. Not when every moment he recalls is one moment closer to becoming someone Dean wouldn’t spit on if he was on fire. He clears his throat. ”We should probably get going. My place can’t be far now."
”You don’t know?” Dean says, skeptical.
He remembers his childhood, his family, his parents’ house, but doesn’t know if he ever went to college or when he left Davenport or how he went from backyard wrestling to getting paid for it. He doesn’t remember meeting Dean. He still doesn’t know why he broke up the Shield. ”Too recent. I don’t even remember my high school.”
He doesn’t think he's imagining the relief on Dean's face.
It’s a nice house and his keys fit in the lock. Dean tosses his bag in what must be the guest room and heads for the bathroom like he knows where it is, but Seth feels like a burglar as he creeps from room to room, unable to shake the feeling that he doesn’t belong here, that the real Seth’s going to show up and call the cops on him. He’s stolen some poor bastard’s body, and now he’s busy stealing the man’s house.
Nothing about the place feels like home. There are two bedrooms, a small kitchen that gets sunlight in the morning, a living room with a couch, a large, wall-mounted TV, a stereo and an enormous CD collection. The bookshelf holds more video games and wrestling DVDs than actual books. There are no potted plants, which makes sense, given how little time he probably spends here. His mail is in a neat pile on the kitchen counter, so someone's clearly looking after the place in his absence. There’s some dog toys in a box on the floor in the living room, a leash hanging on the coat rack by the door, and a large bag of dog food in the kitchen, on top of the refrigerator. It’s all very neat. It even smells clean.
He’s still standing there, staring blankly at the pile of mail when Dean emerges from the bathroom. ”So, you wanna pick up your dog tonight or tomorrow? Also, I bet your refrigerator’s empty and I’m starving. Takeout?”
Kevin is probably at his parents’ place and Seth's not sure he's up to that. They never called him after he got beaten up on live television. Did they not watch? Or do they feel - like Dean, like Roman, like just about everyone else - that he had it coming?
”Takeout’s fine.”
They spend the evening playing video games. Seth defeats Dean at three different fighting games and Dean retaliates by destroying Seth at Mario Kart.
”How the fuck,” Seth says grimly, eyes locked on the screen as he tries to get close enough to Dean’s stupid car to hit him with a green shell- ”are you so good at this game when you suck at everything else?”
Dean laughs. ”We’ve played it before."
”We, as in…?”
”You, me, Rome. You invited us over. Early Shield days, some teambuilding thing. There was vodka involved.”
Seth pauses the game and turns to Dean. ”You’ve been here before?”
”Well, yeah.” Dean shrugs and sets aside his controller. He grabs his beer from the table, cracking it open and taking a sip. ”Been a couple of years, though. Wouldn’t have found my way here without the GPS. You’ve been to my place too."
”And Roman's?”
”Sure. We did Thanksgiving there one time. Met his whole family. Wife, kid, parents, uncles, gradmas, an endless line of cousins and nephews and nieces.” Dean leans back and gives Seth an inscrutable look. ”The kid adored you. You taught her headlocks to use on her dad and Roman threatened to teach all your kids how to spear you.”
He tries to imagine it, an alternate universe where Roman Reigns likes him enough to trust him with his child. "Do I want kids?"
“I'd have said so, yeah. You're great with them. But I'd also have said you'd never stab your brothers in the back.” Dean leans back and puts his feet up on the table, looking at Seth like he’s daring him to object. He probably should, but he can’t find his voice. Dean tosses his controller to Seth. ”This is getting boring. Let’s watch a movie instead."
Early in the morning Dean goes for a run early while Seth seethes with envy and lifts his arms above his head exactly the way the doctors told him not to, just to see how much it hurts. They eat a slow breakfast that gradually turns into lunch. Dean does laundry. Seth bites the bullet and visits his parents, Dean refusing to come along.
”I’m probably the last person they want under their roof.”
”I thought I was the bad guy in our breakup,” Seth says, only half-joking.
Dean looks at him for a long time. ”They love you, idiot," he finally says. "Go home, have fun. I’ve got some errands to run anyway."
They do love him. He wasn't sure, hadn't dared to hope, but his father's firm hug makes his knees buckle. By the time his parents learned what had happened his phone was already broken. They're furious with him for not getting in touch and delighted to have him home, and between the scolding and the fussing over his injuries he can't bring himself to mention the amnesia.
The Seth his parents know is different from the one he's seen on TV. Easier to live up to. They never look at him weird or do a double take when he veers off-script the way everyone else does. Maybe it’s common to regress to your teenage self when you’re back with your parents in your childhood home, and a childhood’s worth of memories and habits makes it easy to fake the rest. In the afternoon he leaves with Kevin in his arms and a promise to be back on Friday, when Brandon and his girlfriend Ashley are coming for dinner.
Back at his place, Dean is doing yoga in the living room. He's dressed in gym shorts and nothing else, barefooted, skin glistening with sweat. He’s beautiful. It shouldn’t come as a surprise by now, but it still does: the flex of his muscles as he pushes up from the floor, his strong calves, the line of his back, the curve of his ass. He flows through the stances like water, his breathing deep and rhythmic and in sync with his movements. There's a grace to him that Seth would never have expected of a brawler, and for some reason his gaze is drawn to the nape of Dean's neck and the way his hair curls there, damp with sweat.
Kevin squirms in his lap. As Seth sets him down he runs over to Dean, claws making a rapid pat-pat-pat against the hardwood floor. Dean lowers himself to the floor in a slow, controlled push-up, then rolls over to his back and scoops up the dog, laughing as Kevin tries to cover his face and throat in sloppy wet kisses. ”Hey there, buddy. Yeah, I’ve missed you too. Too bad you’re daddy’s a dickhead, huh? Who’s a good boy? Who’s a good boy?”
The afternoon sun shines in through the window, falling over Dean’s face and arms like melted gold. Kevin is basking in the attention, tail wagging.
”Traitor,” Seth grumbles. "See if I let you sleep in my bed tonight.”
”Me or the dog?” Dean’s voice is rough with exertion and the room feels instantly warmer. Seth takes Kevin back, feeling a jolt as their fingers brush together.
”You’re both in the doghouse, far as I’m concerned.”
Dean gets to his feet, brushing sweaty hair from his forehead. ”You need me to woo you? Pretty flowers for a pretty princess? Maybe buy you dinner?”
”Are you flirting with me, Ambrose?”
”Only if it makes you uncomfortable.” Dean blows Seth a kiss as he walks past. ”I’ll be in the shower.”
It’s not an invitation, but it sounds like one. Seth digs through the kitchen cabinets for something to make a meal of, and pictures Dean leaning back against the cool tiles in the shower in a cloud of steam, hot water streaming over his chest, head laid back, eyes closed, one hand around his dick, the other running over his abs, teasing his nipples, maybe even covering his mouth to muffle the sound he makes when he comes. When Dean comes out, hair dripping wet, towel slung low around his waist, Seth is still standing there, staring into the open cupboard. Dean snorts. ”Pizza?”
”Yeah.” Seth sighs. ”I’ll order.”
Once he hangs up the phone, Dean nudges his shoulder. ”Here, I got you something.” It’s black a plastic bag that he shoves into Seth’s hands.
Seth opens the bag. It’s an iPhone, brand new. ”No, Dean, I can’t. It’s too much."
”Don’t worry about it. You can pay me back later if it really bugs you.” Dean jumps up to sit on the counter, skin still radiating heat from the shower, and Seth is distracted for a moment by how good he smells. ”I thought about getting you an Android and then setting it up all wrong so it would drive you nuts when you remember what you like, but apparently I’m getting soft.” He watches as Seth opens the box and takes out the phone, turning it over. ”There’s no SIM-card. I figured you’ll probably want to keep your old number, so you’ll have to call your service provider and have them send you a new one. But get the wifi set up and you can get online at least. Check your e-mail and stuff.”
It strikes Seth again what an unfair advantage Dean has, knowing them both, while Seth is still trying to solve them like the plot of a mystery novel. He turns on the phone and swipes to get past the welcoming message, then gets stuck. There’s a million choices and he doesn’t know what the real Seth would want. When he glances up, Dean is watching him.
”What?”
He didn’t mean to snap, and Dean looks hurt.
”If you really don’t want it-”
As Dean makes a grab for the phone, Seth moves it out of his reach. ”No, it’s great. Hands off.” He hesitates, thinks of lying and decides not to. ”You ever get the feeling that you might have lost your mind a little?”
Dean laughs, and yeah, that’s probably all the response that question deserves.
”I have this persistent feeling that none of this is real. You know? That I’m stuck in this body that isn’t mine, living on borrowed time, and the moment the real Seth comes back I’ll be gone. I remember so little, and half of it seems to be things I made up and I can’t tell what’s what. The only thing that makes absolute sense is wrestling, and that I’m not allowed.”
”You remember your family.”
”From my childhood.” Seth turns over the phone in his hands. ”I have no idea how to interact with them as an adult. What do we talk about? I’m afraid to open my mouth because I don’t know my own opinions on anything. Half of the time you look at me like I’m crazy, and if I keep fucking up with you, how am I going to convince anyone that I am who I say I am?”
”Seth. You don’t gotta-” Dean breaks off and shakes his head. ”Look. Speaking as someone with a head full of actual crazy, you’re making this more difficult than it is. There's no real Seth waiting to take his life back. There’s just you.
”What if…” Seth takes a deep breath. His heart is pounding so hard that he’s sure Dean can hear it. ”What if I don’t like the person I’m supposed to be?”
Dean watches him keenly. ”I guess you try to become someone else.”
He makes it sound so simple, but Seth can’t shake the memory of Hunter’s hand around his neck and Dean's look of betrayal. How can something feel so good and so horrible at the same time? He hurt Roman, hurt Dean, made Hunter proud. The last is worth very little here, in Davenport, Iowa, weeks away from the ring, but he remembers the warm glow of being chosen, the way he seemed to grow solid and real under Hunter’s possessive touch. What if all it comes down to whose approval he craves the most? What if there is no more substance to him than that? What then?
They eat their pizza in front of the tv, watching some dumb action flick that Seth keeps losing the plot of. Dean's dressed now, thankfully, but no less gorgeous, and Seth can’t stop sneaking glances over at him. They’re side by side on the couch with Kevin curled up between them like he’s guarding their virtue, and it’d be funny if it weren’t so close to the truth.
Their time is running out. Dean’s got a house show tomorrow and no reason to come back here again. It’s frightening to imagine this place without him, too much space and not enough people to fill it. Four weeks is a long time. Dean will go back to Roman, who will remind him of all the reasons why Seth can't be trusted. Whatever positive feelings he has now will be long gone by the time Seth’s cleared to wrestle again.
Halfway through the movie, Dean gets up to get another beer. ”You want anything?”
”Nah, I’m fine.” Seth hits pause and stares at the frozen screen as he listens to Dean rummaging through the fridge. He stands, and it feels less like making a decision and more like giving in.
Dean closes the door to the refrigerator, beer in hand, and raises his eyebrows as he spots Seth in the doorway. ”Changed your mind?”
Seth nods and closes the distance between them, heart racing. The mood shifts. Not trusting himself to go through with this if he hesitates, he hooks his fingers in the pockets of Dean's jeans and pulls him closer. Dean lets himself be moved.
"I want you." Seth keeps his voice low, even though there's no one around to overhear. ”I don’t know if this is new. I don’t care. I want to take the memories of things you say never happened and make it real."
Dean lets out a ragged breath. "You can’t say shit like that to me."
”I know I’m not making this up. There’s something between us. But if you don't want it, tell me, and I'll stop."
"You're not yourself." Dean puts his beer down on the counter and puts his palm on Seth’s chest. "You're going to get your memories back and you'll remember why you left."
"Or maybe I won’t. From the first moment I saw you all I've wanted to do is this." He kisses Dean, gentle and chaste, and Dean makes a pained sound. He grabs Seth's shoulders and pushes him back, gently but firmly.
"Don't. I can't."
Seth's fingertips slip out of Dean's front pockets, just a whisper of denim on skin. The space between them is as wide as an ocean. Seth swallows. Steps back. ”All right.” The shame of rejection sits heavy in his gut. ”I’m taking a shower."
When he comes out of the shower the living room is empty. The tv is turned off and the door to the guest room closed. For a moment, Seth is sure Dean has left. At the sight of his leather jacket by the door he sags in relief. There’s an anxious knot in his stomach. He rehearses his apologies, over and over, but the door to the guest room remains shut. Seth plays video games for almost two hours with Kevin in his lap but Dean doesn't come out, not even to brush his teeth or say goodnight. It’s near midnight when Seth finally gives up and goes to bed, the unsaid words like ash in his mouth.
Maybe Dean's right. Maybe he is exactly where he always wanted to be and leaving Roman and Dean behind to align himself with the Authority was the best decision he ever made.
Maybe.
Dean leaves early the next morning. Seth watches through the kitchen window as the car pulls out of the driveway and thinks of steel chairs and kisses and the kind of things that might make a man betray everyone he loves to get ahead.
Over the next couple of days Seth develops an intense love-hate relationship with the phone Dean bought him. Dean gave it to him, and that means something. But his contacts are gone. The gallery is empty. Seth takes a couple of snapshots of Kevin napping just to make it seem like it belongs to a real person and not a placeholder, but nothing can change the fact that it never buzzes or lights up with new notifications. Even when he gets his old number back, no one calls.
The first week home passes excruciatingly slowly. Nothing feels real. He spends an afternoon resetting the passwords to every social media account he can think of and browses through his profiles. Instagram is photos of Kevin, photos of food, of crossfit boxes around the world, cities, strangers, workout selfies, and one single heavily filtered snapshot of the Shield making their way to the ring. It’s taken from behind, him and Dean in the centre of the picture in their black riot gear, surrounded by fans and security and glowing lights. Roman is nowhere to be seen. Seth's eyes are drawn to the ring in the far right corner and the blurry wrestlers waiting there, bathed in red light, facing the camera with the ref behind them. The photo was taken over a year before he broke up the Shield, and he can’t stop staring at it. Did he know back then how he was going to end it?
On Monday night he watches Raw. They’re on the road to Wrestlemania and it feels like everything is happening too fast. Matches are being set up, alliances growing stronger, rivalries intensifying. Randy Orton does a taped interview with Michael Cole where he sits down, all smiles and faux congeniality, and explains why he did what he did. His eyes are splinters of ice, and Seth watches him talk and wonders how he ever trusted the man. He mutes the tv when they show the footage of the beating he took but doesn’t allow himself to look away. He watches it again on Youtube four more times that evening. And several timed again on Tuesday until all fear is gone and all he feels is cold determination. Randy Orton wants a match against him at Wrestlemania? Fine. He will tear the man apart.
Five days after Dean left, Seth comes home from dinner with his parents to a text from an unknown number.
roman thinks I drink too much
It’s ridiculous how happy those six words make him. He saves Dean’s number before answering.
Well, do you?
nah
he’s just in dad mode
thinks your bad for me too
Is he wrong?
what is this, talking in questions day?
idk. you tell me.
Seth thinks Dean might be bad for him , with the neck-breaking yo-yo effect he has on Seth’s emotions. Kevin’s begging by the door, so Seth clips the leash on him and takes him out, mulling it over. When they come back in the text is still there, staring at him.
idk. you tell me.
I don’t mean to be, he types, then deletes it. I'm not trying to hurt you, he tries, and deletes that too. Then he groans and tosses aside the phone, leaving the text unanswered.
Over the next couple of days, Dean keeps texting him. It's very random. There's a frog staring at me or the rental smells like spunk . It worries Seth how happy it makes him, and that he can't tell how much of it is Dean and how much is him being lonely and desperate for conversation with anyone at all. Hunter and Stephanie keep their distance. He tells himself that a couple of weeks pass in the blink of an eye when you're as busy as they're bound to be and that they'd pick up if he called. With no way to reach them, he can't really test that theory.
Two weeks into his medical leave someone from the production finally gets in touch to discuss his return and what kind of exams he needs to pass to get cleared to compete. They want him on the card two weeks before Mania, but on tv in a non-wrestling capacity before that. Apparently what Orton did to him is broadcasting gold and they want to milk it for all it's worth. It's cynical but Seth agrees without reservations. Anything, to get him out of this exile and back to where his real life is.
Getting back to the gym is a victory in itself. It's sooner than the doctors would have liked and later than he wanted, which makes it a fair compromise. His ribs ache when he lifts his arms above his head or breathes too deeply and there are some moves that will probably hurt like a bitch in the ring, but it doesn't feel like injury, just pain. Pain he can deal with.
He and Dean have texted back and forth for days when Dean calls. Seth is surprised enough to stare at the phone before he picks up, halfway convinced it's a mistake.
"...yes?" he says, a little wary.
Dean's easy laugh warms him from within.
"Yes? That's how you answer these days? What happened to Fuck off, Ambrose?"
"I think you've got me confused with some guy who hates you."
"Yeah." Dean sounds wry. "Probably. So, what's up? You rehabbing? Climbing the walls yet?"
"Oh god," Seth groans. "I'm going crazy. Yesterday I cleaned the space behind the owen out of sheer boredom. My bathtub is sparkling. I've changed the sheets four times since coming home."
Dean snickers, and belatedly Seth realizes what he implied.
"I just meant-- I haven't--"
Dean laughs and for one reckless moment Seth thinks he doesn't need anything else if he can just make Dean laugh like that.
"Where are you?" he asks, only partly to change the subject.
"On the way to Portland. We got a late start, so Roman's driving like a madman." Now that he knows what to listen to, it’s easy to make out the sound of the car in the background.
"Roman's there?"
"Yeah, you wanna say hi?"
"No, I'm-" Seth begins, but hears the phone being moved, followed by silence and Roman's gruff "hey."
"Hi," Seth manages and then can't think of anything else to say. Apparently, neither can Roman.
"All right, chatterboxes. Don't talk each other's ears off." Dean sounds amused as he takes back the phone. "You two really are the life of the party, huh? So when you're coming back?"
”Des Moines. Not wrestling until Phoenix, though."
"Mom and dad finally remembered your existence, huh?"
Seth hates that. He doesn't want Dean to know that he's the only one who's contacted him during his time off, because Dean would make a thing out of it and it's not a thing. Besides, he doesn't like the way Dean's voice grows barbs whenever the Authority comes up, or the way he himself gets defensive and resentful. To avoid the topic he asks questions. They talk about Dean's day for a bit, the match he's got coming up, and when they hang it feels better.
It's not a one-time thing, that phone call. On nights when the insomnia gets bad Dean calls, and Seth takes to sleeping with the phone in his hand. He’ll take Dean’s voice, rough with sleep-deprivation, over rest any night of the week.
The production eventually gets in touch to iron out the specifics of his return. Seth is moments away from asking for Hunter’s number, but the words get stuck in his throat. It’s not that he thinks they might not give it to him, or that Hunter would mind him calling. It's just, well. Hunter’s busy. There's no reason to disturb him just to say hi, and it’s not like Seth needs his attention or reassurance. He’ll be back on the road soon enough. Things are fine.
They are.
He's sure of it.
”Sometimes I get the feeling that Hunter's only interested in me when I’m winning.”
It’s a grey Saturday afternoon, the heavy clouds hanging low over Davenport and snow mixed with rain hitting his window and running in tendrils over the glass. He’s been anxious all day, rattled and lonely, and when Dean called and asked what was up, the words just fell out of his mouth before he had a chance to consider.
There’s a stunned silence before Dean laughs. ”Jesus, Seth. You say stuff like that, and I gotta wonder. Did you always know? Or did you need a blow to the head just to figure out what everyone else saw from day one?”
”Does it matter?” Seth doesn't like the defensive tone in his own voice.
”Course it matters. I mean, it’s the difference between you being a cold-hearted opportunist and a sad, deluded bastard. Pretty big deal, right?"
Dean's tone is cheerful, like it's just some gentle ribbing between friends, but Seth thinks he can hear something else underneath, an underlying tension betraying all the things they work so hard to pretend isn't there. It's been a pattern since they started talking. They're doing great and then the Authority comes up, or the briefcase, or choices the other Seth has made or even something unpredictable and innocuous that serves as a reminder, and an edge creeps into Dean's words and Seth loses his footing. There’s a voice in the background, Roman probably, asking a question. Dean covers the receiver and says, voice muffled, ”Seth worries that daddy doesn't love him."
Seth closes his eyes and contemplates hanging up. He shouldn't have brought up Hunter, that was stupid. It's just that Dean's the only person he ever talks to, besides his parents, and in weak moments he tends to forget that whatever they have is heavily conditional.
”What,” Dean says, when Seth stays silent. ”You thought they liked you?"
Seth’s taken aback by the malice in Dean’s voice. There's a difference, he thinks, between being cruel out of thoughtlessness or in the heat of the moment, and being cruel on purpose, intending to hurt. He stares at the sleet falling against the window and is ashamed of his own surprise. They're not friends. Dean said it himself, back at the hospital, and it’s all on Seth that he chose not to hear it.
”Yeah,” Seth says hoarsely, and wonders if Dean knows that he’s not talking about just the Authority. "I did.”
In the background Roman says something, dry and sarcastic by the sound of it, and they both laugh. It hits him like a brick wall - what the hell is he doing here? Risking everything the other him has worked and sacrificed for on a wild goose chase, spurred on by nothing but a pathetic crush and a vague hope? They’re never going to be there for him. They don’t like him. He knew that, he just let himself forget, lonely and willing to get conned. Because it was easy and comforting. Because everything about Dean feels like home.
Just like that, he knows that he can't do this anymore. Not because of Dean's words or the fact that he wants to hurt Seth or even that he thinks that Seth deserves to be hurt. Hell, maybe he does. But it's a distraction, and it pulls his time and attention away from what he should be focusing on. Getting well. Getting back in the ring. Getting his life back. It feels like heartbreak as he hangs up without a word. He blocks Dean's number before he can change his mind. He doesn’t need to know if Dean calls, or worse, if he doesn’t. He's too weak. Better to eliminate all temptation.
Over the next couple of days, Seth practically moves into the gym. In the beginning it’s just a distraction from his empty house and silent phone, but slowly it turns into a strategy, a plan. He pushes himself, sweat running down his face and back and dripping on the free weights as he crouches down to change them, and while he’s busy learning the limits of his body, he thinks.
It’s possible, maybe even probable, that all of Dean’s mixed signals have been deliberate. It’s crueler and more calculated than anything he would have thought Dean capable of, but there’s a lot he doesn’t know. Why else would he have done it? Why would someone who hates him help him out like that, convince him to rely on him, make him dependent? He has to work on the assumption that whatever choices he made before, he made for a good reason. That means no more Dean. No more phone calls. No more texts or speculations or fantasies. The real Seth was loyal to the Authority, so he will be too. And if Hunter and Steph only like him when he’s earning his keep, well, that was probably the deal to begin with. So he'll remind the Authority why they chose him and at the same time, he’ll remind himself. He’ll become World Heavyweight Champion, and Dean and Roman will be nothing more than footnotes in the history books, losses cut along the way just like he always intended.
When he’s not in the gym, he tries to reconstruct his life to the best of his ability. He goes through his house, pleased to find he’s kept a journal but disappointed by the scarce, scattered entries. There’s some notes from FCW and NXT but not a word from his Shield days. When his journal picks up again after he joined the Authority there's no mention of Roman or Dean. Almost as if they ceased to exist the moment he walked out on them.
When he’s discovered as much as he can from his house and his belongings, he turns to the work he’s done in the ring. He doesn’t have the time to sit through several years worth of matches on the Network, so he does it the quick and ugly way, pulls up Youtube in his browser and types in Seth Rollins in the search bar and takes it from there. Little by little, it comes together. Who he is. What he’s done. It’s strange to see it from the outside, just a random assortment of clips and matches with no memories attached, just that persistent, dizzying sense of déjà vu.
He watches himself betray the Shield and drive Dean’s head through cinderblocks. He watches some of their post-Shield matches, intense, electric and charged with raw, naked emotion. It’s not easy to tell from the outside, but he thinks that maybe the Seth he sees on the screen is not as over his former brothers as he would like to appear. He watches the Hell in a Cell-match he started back at Dean’s hotel room, before Dean shut off the iPad and took it out of his hands, and he thinks he knows why Dean interrupted it right when he did. It would have been harder to believe in Dean's good samaritan-act if he’d seen the lengths Dean’s willing to go just to hurt him.
Even knowing he’s made the right call, he misses Dean. It’s not so bad at the gym, with the pain of his ribs and his aching, trembling limbs and thoughts of wrestling and triumph and a title around his waist to distract him, but there’s only so many hours a day he can spend working out or playing with Kevin or talking to his parents, and the rest of the time it’s just him and the quiet phone and an ache so sharp it eclipses anything else.
He had it the wrong way around, he thinks. He’s not weak. Because if it hurts this much when it’s just leftover feelings from a different life, how goddamn strong did he have to be to walk away in the first place? He must have been so certain, because if there had been the slightest doubt in his mind he can’t see how he could have done it.
The last week goes by like time holds a grudge. Seth books a rental and a hotel room, packs his bag and makes arrangements with his parents to look after Kevin while he’s gone. The headaches have faded, and the light ache in his ribs is nothing like before. He’ll be cleared to compete several weeks ahead of schedule. Hunter will be pleased.
It’s mid-morning and he’s mopping the kitchen floor when there’s an unexpected knock on the door. Kevin wakes up from his nap and darts over, all sharp barks and bad attitude.
”Yeah, yeah, I’m coming.” Seth scoops up Kevin, shushes him, and opens the door.
It’s Roman Reigns. On his front porch. In Iowa.
Seth blinks and looks again, half-expecting him to be a mirage. Roman raises an expressive eyebrow. ”Gonna let us in?”
That’s when he sees Dean, lounging right behind, hair tousled, hands stuck in his pockets, chewing gum and looking everywhere except at Seth’s face. Kevin barks once, sharp and joyful, and tries to wriggle out of Seth’s arms. When Seth puts him down, he runs over to Dean who crouches down, his sullen face breaking up in a soft grin. ”Hey, buddy. Who’s a good boy?”
Seth has to look away. He steps aside, lets them enter. Dean fits like he never left, sitting down on the mat to play with Kevin, while Roman looks around curiously, maybe comparing the place to what it looked like the last time he was here. There’s a presence to him that makes him hard to look at and hard to ignore. The shine probably wears off once you know him but Seth has never been more aware that he doesn’t. All he has is a smattering of outdated emotions and hours of watching him wrestle on TV. It feels, absurdly, like a celebrity just stepped into his living room and onto his freshly mopped floor.
”What’s this?” Seth says.
Roman shrugs. "We can't just pay an old friend a visit?"
Seth doesn't know Roman well enough to tell sincerity from mockery. His living room feels crowded with both of them there, taking up space that hasn't been filled since Dean left. "We're not friends."
"Ouch," Roman says, deadpan. "Harsh, man."
Dean looks up. "You stopped taking my calls."
"And it never occurred to you to take a hint?”
”You fucking asshole." Dean gets to his feet, brushing off his jeans like Seth’s floor isn't ten times cleaner than anything he's ever worn. "I don't know if you remember, but a couple of weeks ago Orton beat you badly enough to make you forget your own name. Excuse me if I get anxious when you suddenly drop off the face of the earth.”
"Oh, you get anxious?" Seth snaps. "You keep calling me just to, just to laugh at me for having feelings, and you get anxious? You show up here with someone who fucking hates my guts and you get anxious? You can take your goddamn anxiety and shove it up your fucking ass!"
The color drains from Dean’s face. "You remember."
"I don't remember shit. But I've done my homework. I know what I am to you. Do you?"
Kevin whines, agitated. He doesn't know what's wrong, just that everyone's unhappy. Seth scoops him up and ruffles his ears. "It's all right, Kev. I'm not mad at you. How about you go outside while we finish up here, hmm?"
When he returns to the living room, Dean and Roman are arguing in harsh whispers. They fall quiet when Seth enters the room. Dean opens his mouth to speak and Seth cuts him off.
"You should go."
"Seth-" Roman says, and it's weird how he doesn't sound angry. He could have liked Roman, he thinks. He did, before.
"No. I can't do this. Dean, I love you." His voice cracks at the word. It was never supposed to be spoken like that, sharp and angry and wielded like a weapon. "It's like a goddamn sickness in me. You've got to stop showing up here, messing with my head. There's no happy ending here, all right? There is no way this can lead anywhere good. I know what I did, but I’m not going to go around apologizing for shit I don’t remember. As far as I’m concerned, that guy? He doesn’t exist. Maybe he will, maybe he won’t, but right now it's just me. And the only thing I've got going in my life is that title shot. That’s the only thing that makes sense and the only choice I know I won’t regret, and if the Authority can get me there, then the Authority’s where I’m at.”
The silence is deafening.
"Time to hit the road,” Seth says, when it's clear the conversation has reached a dead end. But for all that Seth's the one kicking them out, he can't stand to watch them leave. He heads into the kitchen, busying himself with refilling Kevin's water and emptying the dishwasher, waiting for the slam of the car doors and the sound of a vehicle pulling out of the driveway.
"He loves you too, you know."
Seth turns around. Roman's standing there in the doorway, face unreadable.
"Yeah?" Seth says, and it tastes like ashes in his mouth. "What am I supposed to do with that?"
Roman smiles wryly. "What do you want to do with it?"
Seth shakes his head and turns back to the dishwasher. "I already tried to do something. He couldn't get out of here fast enough."
"You think this is easy for him?" Roman sounds more curious than angry. "You think it's not killing him to know that one of these days you’re going to remember who you are, and he'll lose you all over again?"
Seth carefully sets down a stack of plates on the counter and takes a breath. Turns to face Roman. "What do you want from me?"
”We came to offer you a ride.”
"Thanks, but I don’t think so.”
”Because you don’t want to be around us, or because you want it too much?”
It feels like a slap in the face. He hates Roman, just a little, for laying him bare like that, forcing him to either commit to a lie or admit to being pathetic. "Why?"
"You fucked us over bad last time around. Burned it all to the ground and just walked away, no warnings, no explanations, no goodbyes. So give us this. One last ride. One last chance to spend some time with our baby brother before you remember you hate us. Call it masochism, call it closure, I don’t care. Give us the farewell we never got last time around."
Seth thinks of the real Seth Rollins. Where he is in life, what he's earned, who he'll be again when he remembers. He tries to imagine three hours in a car with the two of them, all it could cost him, every way it could go wrong. The offer is tempting. A couple of hours of make-believe, and then he can get back in the ring where he belongs. Once he gets something tangible to fight for this murky confusion will fade and he'll be able to see clearly again. Focus on what matters. The briefcase. The contract. The title.
Not Dean. Never Dean.
"And you agreed to that?" he asks. "After you've been trying to keep Dean away from me for weeks?"
Roman looks at him like he’s being an ass. ”You walked out on me too."
They're asking for roughly two hours of his life. Three, if the traffic's bad. He'd have to pay a cancellation fee for the rental, but he can take that. The real issue would be if Hunter or Stephanie found out. He's not certain where they stand on him spending time with his former brothers, but he's pretty sure it wouldn't look good. Seth thinks of Dean's face when he said "I love you". He sighs and lets his shoulders fall. "All right, whatever. As long as the Authority never finds out. Just give me a couple of hours to get ready."
"We'll go grab a coffee or something. Just text us when you're ready to go."
Seth watches him leave, unsure if he's made the right choice. When he unblocks Dean's number and sends him a text three hours later, he's still not sure, but by then it's too late to back out. It's just for a couple of hours. What could go wrong?
”Dean’s called shotgun." Roman pushes up his sunglasses and gives Seth a once-over as he locks up the house. "You wanna drive or sit in the back?”
Seth glances at the car, a black Toyota. ”Automatic?”
”Yeah, like I’m letting you behind the wheel of a manual after last time.” He grabs Seth's bag and drops the keys in his hand without waiting for an answer. ”All yours.”
Seth closes his hand around the keys. ”You know I don’t remember last time."
The scent of new car fills Seth's nostrils as he opens the door and gets inside. Dean's slouched in the passenger seat, hoodie pulled up over his head. He’s chewing gum, hands hidden in his pockets.
”Hiya,” he says, with a nod.
Seth nods back, adjusts the seat and the mirrors, then turns to look at Roman over his shoulder as he climbs into the backseat. ”Honestly. What happened last time?”
”Left turn, you forgot you were driving stick, nearly took the back of a blue Sedan.” Roman settles in the middle and buckles up. "Mom with kids. Could have been ugly.”
”Yeah,” Dean says. "Like when you totaled the car five minutes after leaving the rental place.”
”That was one time,” Roman growls like someone who’s had the same argument countless times before. Dean snorts. " One time! I’d been up for 48 hours. Give me a fucking break.”
Seth turns the ignition and backs out of the driveway, his attention mostly on the mirrors. There’s a reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. ”So we’re all shit behind the wheel, that’s what you’re saying?”
They drive out of Davenport mostly in silence. Dean is in a weird mood. Roman seems content to fiddle with his phone in the back seat, but Seth still catches him throwing occasional amused glances at him and Dean. It feels like he's being set up, but he's not sure what for.
"So, how did we meet?" Seth says, pulling out on the highway. He throws a glance at the rearview mirror, trying to catch Roman’s gaze. "Indies? After? You guys know everything about me, and all I know about you is what I’ve seen on tv.”
”Never did the whole indie scene,” Roman says with a studied nonchalance that makes Seth suspect that he’s been given a hard time about it. ”You signed on a couple of months after me. It was a big deal. I hadn't kept up with Ring of Honor, but everybody was talking about it. Apparently they'd been trying to get you for a while. You thought you were too good for a developmental deal, so I guess we all expected some entitled bastard with a chip on his shoulder."
”And?"
Roman shrugs. "You were less of an ass than we expected. Really determined to make it to the main roster, but who isn’t? At least you seemed to want to do it the honest way. Never took a day off, never cut any corners.” He pauses, then adds, a little caustic: ”Saved that for when it really mattered, I guess.”
Seth grimaces. He runs his hands along the wheel, careful not to look at either of them. ”Did I ever- I mean, do you know why I did it?”
He tries to keep his tone light, like he’s just making conversation, but he knows he’s failed when Dean pulls his hood back and looks at him. Just looks.
”You’ve given reasons,” Roman says. ”Mostly bullshit. You lie a lot.”
Another couple of miles pass, before Seth braves a glance at Dean. ”So how did we meet?"
"FCW," Dean says. "I challenged you for your title."
"Did you take it?"
”Nah. Got distracted, then kicked out. Some time later you approached us about the Shield, and, well." Dean makes a gesture as if to say here we are, and Seth grits his teeth as another conversational gambit screeches to a halt.
He drums his fingers against the wheel, impatient. It's probably his fault for choosing all the thorniest topics to engage in, but he's been angry since they showed up unannounced on his doorstep and fuck it if he's going to make this road trip any easier on them.
Roman shifts and leans forward. "Hey, pull over."
"Now?" Seth glances at the dashboard clock. "If we want to get there before dinner--"
"Need to make a phone call."
"And you can't do that in the car?"
"It's urgent.” Roman raises his phone. "And private."
Dean huffs an amused breath. And the thing is - Seth knows he's lying, Roman knows he knows. But they're not actually in a hurry and Seth is smart enough to realize that this little gambit is what the whole car ride has been leading up to. He still sighs like it's a big fucking chore. ”Fine. Rest stop coming up in a couple of miles, that ok?"
"Perfect." Roman sits back and begins to type on his phone. "Thanks, Seth."
"You didn't used to be this much of a pushover,” Dean says.
"Might as well grab a coffee while we're at it," Seth says. This is his last chance at some alone time with Dean, and he's not about to let that slip through his fingers no matter how blatant Roman's maneuvering.
The rest stop is exactly like Seth remembered it. His family used to come here all the time when they needed a change of scenery. Ice cream for the kids, coffee for the adults, and playtime in the little jungle gym behind the service station. He parks in the same spot his mom used to choose whenever it was free. His childhood memories are solid compared to the blankness that is everything afterwards. He doesn't know what the coffee here tastes like, but can vividly recall the sugary sweetness of ice cream melting in his mouth and him and Brandon fighting for first ride on the swing.
"All right, y'all, be back in ten,” Roman says and slams the car door behind him. With the engine turned off, the car seems very quiet all of a sudden.
"I'm getting a coffee," Seth says. "Did you want something?"
"I'm good. I've had enough coffee to last me a month."
The coffee is bad, but at least it's hot. When he returns Dean’s got his feet propped up against the dashboard, hair falling in his eyes as he watches a family making their way across the parking lot. Seth gets in and buckles his belt, then cradles his coffee with both hands.
"Dean, I--"
"You're not--"
They both break off.
"You go first," Seth says.
Dean's mouth quirks and he turns his gaze back to the parking lot. "You're not wrong to expect people to like you. Probably healthier than the opposite. I shouldn't have made it into a joke."
Seth shifts and sighs. "Well, I probably shouldn't have blocked your number without telling you."
”Nah, I get it." Dean shrugs. "You don't have to put up with people treating you like crap. Even if it's me, and even if you kinda had it coming." He fiddles with the air vent, moving the little lever that controls the air flow back and forth. "You're not going to want to hear this, but let me say it once and I promise to never bring it up again."
Seth steels himself and nods.
”You can’t trust the Authority.”
"Okay."
”I know you like Hunter, or respect him or whatever, but I’ve been watching you ever since you turned on us. You’re not happy. And you're a worse wrestler now than you were before. You're scared to use half of your move set, like you're making yourself smaller to fit their mold. You had all this fire and will and ambition, but they’re chipping away at it. They’re making you weak. Telling you you’re nothing without them, that you wouldn’t last a day without them at your back, they hand you easy wins then set you up to fail just to teach you that you need them to keep winning. It’s ugly. You need to step away from it.”
”You don’t even know them.”
”Don’t need to,” Dean says. ”I know you. And I know that whatever you’re playing in the ring, whatever you’re promising them behind closed doors, whatever you think you need to be to be on top - that’s not you. And the sooner you figure it out, the better, because they will chew you up and spit you out. They're not your friends and they're making you paranoid, unhappy and ashamed."
Seth takes a sip of coffee, trying to wrestle his anger into submission. He hates this. Feeling defensive about choices he can't remember making and protective about people he doesn't know. "I don't remember enough to tell you why you're wrong."
"I'm not," Dean says. "I know you."
He sounds so fucking sure, enough to make Seth's crack at the edges. It's scary that the only time Seth can manage to not believe in Dean is when they're not talking. Because face to face or with Dean’s voice in his ear Seth forgets that people lie , and that they're on opposing sides for a reason. But people do lie. And if push comes to shove, he'd rather be lied to and manipulated by Hunter and Stephanie than by Roman and Dean. Both would hurt, but only one would break his heart.
”All right,” Seth says, voice rough.
”All right?”
”Yeah. I'm not saying you're right. But I’ll think about it.”
Dean’s smile is small, unexpected, and brings a light to his eyes. By the time Roman returns from his fictional phone call, they’re back to staring quietly out through the window but the silence between them is different. Not comfortable, exactly, but maybe just a little less tense.
Once they reach Des Moines, Seth stops at the first gas station he sees. "I'll take a cab from here. We shouldn't be seen riding together.” He unbuckles his belt and is out of the car before either of them can argue.
Roman steps out and joins him behind the car. "Hey. Thanks for coming.” Roman grabs his bag and slams the trunk closed. "For hearing Dean out."
"Thanks for asking me, I guess." Seth takes the bad and hesitates. His muscle memory is screaming at him to go in for a hug, but he barely knows Roman and he can’t tell if touching is still a thing they do. "I’ll see you around."
Roman nods. "Yeah, man. Take care."
Like that, he's back at work and expected to step right into the polished shoes of Seth Rollins, the Authority’s champion. His memories of Hunter and Stephanie are those of an adolescent fan. He worries at first, but it’s easy to be what they want him to be. They don't hint, they tell him. Where to go, what to say, how to dress, who to wrestle. It doesn’t even chafe. He suspects that Dean would never let him live it down if he could see just how easily Seth defaults to obedience.
They’re all backstage, getting ready for the show. Since it’s his first appearance after the injury, he’ll be opening Raw with a promo. It terrifies and thrills him in equal measure. What if his inexperience shows? What if he’ll bumble through his promo like an idiot, stumble over his words, fall flat on his face on his way down the ramp or get blinded by the lights and fail to locate the cameras? What if he’ll go out there and act nothing at all like the real Seth Rollins would? Hunter hands him his script and he takes it gratefully, relieved to not have to figure it out himself. As he skims through it, relief turns to apprehension.
"I can't say this." The words fall from his lips without thought. All conversation ceases. They stare at him like he suddenly grew a second head. Kane rolls his eyes.
Stephanie places a hand on his arm and leads him a few steps aside. "Is something wrong, Seth?” she asks in an undertone, and he’s not entirely sure he’s allowed to say yes.
”I just thought – Isn't it a little hypocritical of me to speak of betrayal, after, you know..." Stephanie looks at him blankly. "The Shield?"
”Seth. You can't betray someone who doesn't matter. Leaving the Shield was a sound business decision to secure your future. You know that.” She seems surprised that she has to remind him. "You trusted Randy. You vouched for him, and he stalked you around the ring like an animal, mocked you while you were suffering. That's betrayal. No one turns on the Authority. We're a family and he spat on that.”
Seth nods, trying to look convinced.
Stephanie tilts her head. ”You know you can talk to me if there’s something you think I should know. Even about things you wouldn’t be comfortable going to Hunter with. If you’re having second thoughts about, well, anything really. I’m here for you. We’re a family, and we look after one another. You understand that, right?”
Dean would swear she’s lying, but there is nothing insincere in her face or her voice, none of that usual core of steel he’s learning to associate her with. Maybe she means it. It’s nice to think that he might have someone in his corner. ”Yeah. Thank you."
”Besides,” Stephanie says, raising her voice to include the rest of the group in the conversation, ”you’re not going out there alone. We’re all behind you."
Hunter looks up from his phone call long enough to give Seth an encouraging nod. Seth smiles gratefully, trying to ignore the way his stomach is churning at the kind of lies they want him to tell in front of a sold out arena. But even if he can’t make himself believe it, he can damn well make sure everyone else does.
The crowd hates him. He knew that, of course, he’s watched enough of his own matches to get up to date, but he’s still taken aback by the strength of it. It’s one thing to see on the screen and another to be right in the middle of. The lights glare, sharp and bright and hot, and the shirt is sticking to his back underneath the black suit. He wishes Hunter hadn’t insisted he’d wear a tie. He can’t wrestle in this, and he feels very much under attack as he breathes in the scent of sweat, wood, canvas and rope and raises the mike.
Talking, though? That's easy. Even with the adrenaline surging through him his voice remains steady as he parrots back the Authority’s words almost verbatim, telling the crowd that none of them knows what betrayal feels like, because to be betrayed, you have to be somebody who matters. It's all bullshit, and he can't stop wondering. Does the real Seth believe this? Or is he faking it too? He feels like a fraud, and hopes to God that the other Seth has a plan and an endgame, something brilliant and worthwhile, something that transcends Hunter's approval and his own loneliness and abject fear of failure.
Back in gorilla, he's rewarded by smiles and high fives, a kiss on the cheek from Stephanie and Hunter's arm across his shoulders, and it's almost worth it until he catches Dean's steady gaze from across the room and the guilt twists in his gut. He looks away, pretends not to see, but he can feel Dean's gaze burn against his face long after he's finally made his escape.
That night he sends two identical text messages.
I'm sorry. They told me what to say. That was shitty, I didn't mean it.
He gets no answer. He figures he deserves their silent treatment. A bullshit promo is hardly the worst thing he'll have to do to keep the Authority on his side.
”Some time off has really improved your attitude,” Hunter tells him next morning in the car on the way to the airport. He's flying down to Orlando for a couple of days at the Performance Center, working off the ring rust and getting cleared to compete, and Hunter's got an exec meeting and new talent to evaluate. Hunter's compliments often fall right in the maddening spot between patronizing and genuine, leaving Seth pleased, annoyed, and weirdly vaguely aroused. He doesn't know what it is about that gentle condescension that gets to him, makes him want to simultaneously snap back and duck his head and try harder, be better, earn more of it.
Does Hunter know? Can he tell the way Seth's breath catches, his heart rate spikes? That's a horrifying thought. He doesn't remember his interactions with Dean or even Roman being this fraught and loaded with unresolved tension.
"I had some time to think, I guess. Figure out what's important."
”Good,” Hunter says, and Seth fights against the pleased smile that tugs at his lips. "Keep this up and you'll have that championship in no time."
At the Performance Center Seth has the opportunity to work out who he’s supposed to be among people who know him without knowing him well. It helps. He feels settled in his skin again, focused and certain, and when he flies in for the next Raw he feels certain that nothing will be able to shake him.
His first match back is a three-on-one handicap match against Randy Orton. It’s not a surprise, but he hates looking like he’s too weak to fight his own battles. Playing the numbers game seems to have been all the Shield ever did. Isn’t this supposed to be different? He spends a fruitless afternoon trying to reason with Hunter and Stephanie, but he doesn’t know them enough to guess how to win them over. Asking nicely doesn't work, demanding pisses them off. He retreats, regroups, and comes back with a solid strategy, emphasizing what it would mean for the Authority if he came out looking like a goddamn hero for once.
”That’s enough, Seth,” Hunter finally snaps. ”We know you can take him. It’s not about that. Randy needs to see what happens when you turn your back on the Authority. There was nothing fair about what he did to you. Why should he expect a fair fight in return?”
”It’s my first match back,” Seth says stubbornly. ”I want it to matter.”
Hunter looks at him like he’s being ridiculous. ”It’s just Raw. With Wrestlemania this close around the corner - trust me, kid, nothing that happens tonight will matter in the long run. You go out there, you let Joey and Jamie take most of the bumps, and you focus on doing as much damage as you can. Stay off the top rope. No suicide dives. Go for the knees. He can’t hit you with an RKO if he can’t stand.”
The finality in Hunter’s voice leaves no room for objections, and Seth reluctantly surrenders. As he stalks out of the conference room Dean’s words about him making himself smaller to fit their mold comes to mind. Is that what this is? He can’t shake the feeling that Hunter and Stephanie don't see him as much as they see the person they want him to be. He thinks of all the times the Seth he’s only seen on tv started fights that made no sense, made enemies he had no business making. The sharp turns between doing exactly what Hunter wanted, basking in his addictive approval, and being an obnoxious little shit dead set on alienating everyone around him.
What if the real Seth has no plan? What if joining the Authority was all there ever was, and now it’s just a scramble to keep Hunter and Stephanie happy and hang on to the briefcase until he can cash it in for a title opportunity, and then—
Then what ?
Does the real Seth know that once you reach the top there’s nowhere to go but down?
Seth’s music hits, and he feels it in his chest, more vibration than sound. He starts forward. Jamie’s hand shoots out and grabs his wrist. “Wait for it.”
Seth's too keyed up, scared shitless and so excited he's practically vibrating with it. He's waited for weeks. It doesn't even matter that the man he's facing is Randy Orton, who cost him all his memories and nearly ended his career. Even from his position in Gorilla he can feel the crowd like a heavy pressure behind the curtain. He can't tell from the noise if they're with or against him but it doesn't matter. Their energy is everything he's ever wanted.
There's a beat of silence, like an indrawn breath. Jamie nods at him. He takes a split second to steady himself and adjust his grip on the briefcase before he walks out. At the top of the ramp he pauses, raising the briefcase over his head while he takes it in. The flare of the lights, the sea of faces, screaming, clapping, cheering, booing. There are signs in the crowd, he catches glimpses of his own name, his own merch.
Randy Orton waits for him in the ring. Seth ignores him and lets Joey go first, like they agreed. Hunter’s directions had been very clear. Let Orton wear himself out on Joey and Jamie, tag in only to finish it. Seth’s hugging the rope, breathing in all the scents of the ring, of sweat and burnt dust, scorched by the sharp lights. The roar of the crowd pulls at him like a surge of water. He stands there, watching Orton destroy first Joey, then Jamie, all the while keeping his eyes locked on Seth. He wonders what he did to earn this level of hatred.
Stay out of it, Hunter had told him. Wait for it.
Orton wrenches Jamie’s arm back and Jamie’s face twists in agony.
Seth. Wrestler. Liar. Proud.
Coward.
He gets up on the top rope and launches himself at Orton. Jamie scrambles away. Orton goes down, curling on the ground to protect his head. Hunter wants them to state an example. Three on one. Seth kicks Orton in the ribs, hard. The ref is shouting about DQs and Hunter wouldn’t mind, but Seth would rather win this clean. They pull back, make a proper tag.
”You get him, Seth!” Jamie shouts, shrill and excited. ”You show him!”
Orton begins to rise. Seth lunges, going for the curbstomp. Three and a half steps. The crowd carries him. Then, mid-step, he falters.
He remembers. All of it.
The rest of the match is a blur. There’s a slap on his back, hands pulling him out of the ring, someone screaming in his ear. He turns his attention back to the ring just in time to see Orton pin Jamie and the referee’s three count. It feels like there are two different people inside of Seth’s head and he can’t tell which one of them is real.
Orton gets up and kicks Jamie aside. The look he gives Seth is full of disdain. This is the man Seth handed a steel chair, then stepped aside to watch him finish what Seth had started. This is the man who stalked Seth around the arena and beat him within an inch of his life. This is the man Hunter pitted him against just waiting to see which one of his investments would come out on top.
Hunter never called him at the hospital.
Randy Orton put him there, but Hunter never bothered to check in, to see if he was fine.
Dean did.
You love wrestling more than you’ve ever loved anyone or anything
Because calling Daddy when the going gets rough is what you do
Hurt Dean again and I will end you
You're going to get your memories back and you'll remember why you left
Hurt Dean again and I will end you
You’ll remember
It wasn’t any one thing. That’s the horror of it. He didn’t wake up one morning knowing that Roman had to be taken out first, that Dean would be too shocked to fight back, that he’d only need a few well-placed chair shots to render them harmless.
It was Hunter, making him a one time offer he couldn’t refuse.
It was Roman, coming in from the NFL and learning more about wrestling in a few short years than most men did in a decade, taking to the trade like he was born for it. Roman, with the presence and the aura and the promise written in his blood, threatening to eclipse them all.
It was Dean and the way he pressed his lips to the nape of Seth’s neck when he thought Seth was sleeping, whispering secrets in his ear, dangerous, volatile confessions like I always thought I was gonna die before making it here and you make me feel like I exist and I’d rather take a bottle to the face than fall in love but here we fucking are .
It was getting lost in the fray, when the only thing he’d ever wanted was to be the best.
It was Stephanie, with a kiss on the cheek and a promise: We will make you great, Seth. You will headline Wrestlemania, not just once, but over and over again. There will be nothing holding you back from reaching your true potential. All you have to do is-
It was being comfortable. Complacent. Safe.
It was kissing Dean, desperately and with an urgency he couldn’t put into words, knowing that if he didn’t walk out now he’d stay forever.
Seth laughs, because if he doesn't, he'll cry. Roman was right. Every reason he’s ever had was bullshit. There is no master plan. There never was. What is he supposed to do with the knowledge that he stabbed his brothers in the back because he was scared and felt like time was running out?
Hunter and Kane are waiting for him in gorilla. Seth catches a glimpse of Dean, still sweaty and disheveled from his earlier gauntlet match as he disappears around the corner.
"Seth." Hunter reaches out, grabs his arm.
Seth twists free. "Not now."
“Seth!” Hunter calls in a tone that has never failed to make Seth fall in line, but that was before. When he needed Hunter's validation only slightly less than he needed air to breathe. When he didn’t know that he’d wake up alone in a hospital bed, and the only person in the world who’d give a damn would be the scruffy, sweaty, obnoxious, vindictive asshole who’s walking away from him as they speak.
There's people everywhere, blocking his path. He shoves them aside, hurries down the hallway and finally spots Dean near the locker rooms, leaning against the wall with a water bottle in his hand. He looks exhausted. Seth slows his steps.
“Hey,” he says, out of breath.
”Rollins." Dean’s voice is flat, as if the last couple of weeks never happened. "You look like you saw a ghost. Orton scare you that bad?"
Someone snickers. Seth ignores it. "We need to talk."
"The hell we do.”
Seth grabs his arm and hauls him down the corridor. The first door on their right is locked, but the second opens to a small storage room with boxes and garbage bags and cleaning utensils standing against the wall. He shoves Dean in and pulls the door closed behind them, muffling the sound of wolf-whistles and cheers in the hallway. It’s dark and crowded, smelling strongly of soap and antiseptics. Seth fumbles and finds the light switch. The fluorescent lamp flickers before it steadies. Seth’s heart is in his throat. ”I remember.”
”No.” Dean reaches for the door. “I’m not doing this. No.”
If he leaves now, it's all for nothing. Seth pushes him back against the shelves. A mop topples over and hits the floor.
”No, wait, listen. I’d heard of you, Jimmy’d told me about you, but I’d never seen you wrestle and after that first match I went home and I googled the shit out of you, and I swear to god, I could not stop. You had this- the way you move, that reckless energy, all attitude and bad judgement, and I didn't fall in love with you then but I couldn't stop thinking about you. I came back to the next match and I couldn't tell where Jon Moxley stopped and Dean Ambrose began and it drove me crazy that I couldn’t beat you.
”And that time in Flagstaff when you told me to kiss you or punch you or get out of your face, and I kissed you? I'd wanted to do it for months. I didn't think you'd kiss me back, and then when you did, I was so sure it was just another mind game, you trying to rattle me, playing gay chicken or something. But I meant what I said. I did. Only then I got scared and I fucked it up and god, Dean, I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. Turning on you was the worst mistake I ever made and I'd do anything to make it right."
Dean is unnaturally still, face closed off and unreadable. ”Okay.”
"Okay?"
Dean shakes his head, and the bright, sharp hope that drove Seth here starts fraying at the edges. He fucked it up. Again. Of course it’s not alright. The version of Seth with no memories never betrayed anyone, but now that he does remember, there is no way Dean will ever want to get within spitting distance again. He should have lied, he thinks. He could have faked it indefinitely. But now the cat’s out of the bag and it’s probably better this way. The urge to lie about something this big only serves to prove that he hasn’t changed at all. And Dean knows him well enough to see it.
“Okay.” He fumbles behind him for the door handle, unable to look Dean in the eyes. “I’ll just- I’ll leave you alone.”
“You goddamn coward !” Dean snarls, grabbing him by the shoulders and shoving him back. “You asshole. Don’t you fucking walk away from me. Don’t you fucking tell me you remember just to run right back to mommy and daddy like it’s nothing to you." He shoves Seth again. "Fuck you. Fuck you!”
A sharp edge is digging into his back, just below the shoulder blade. Dean’s right in his face, all rage and hurt, and Seth would back away but he’s trapped between a cleaning cart and piles of junk. “I’m not running back to anyone! I’m sorry, all right? I was wrong. I fucked up. I knew I fucked up the moment Roman went down and I saw the look on your face but by then it was too late. So I just kept going, telling myself it was worth it, that I didn’t need you, that you’d have done the same to me-”
”Like fuck I would have!”
”I know !” Seth draws a ragged breath. "I’ve known for a while. Hunter once said it was only a question of who would break first, but it wasn’t, was it? It could only ever have been me.” He tries to smile, to diffuse the tension. It feels wobbly and wrong. “I don't expect you to- I mean...”
Dean looks at him like he's the stupidest man alive. “I’m not here for your guilt trip. Either ask for forgiveness or get lost."
It can't possibly be that easy. Can it? He tries to speak, but the words get caught in his throat. He coughs, tries again. "Forgive me?"
Dean huffs a laugh under his breath. “You fucking suck. You might want to work on your delivery before you try it on Roman. Maybe make it a whole sentence or something.”
”Does that mean… yes?”
Dean crosses his arms over his chest, tilts his head to the side and eyes Seth for a long time. ”I don’t know,” he finally says. "Yeah, I guess. Not because you deserve it, because you don’t. And if you’d tried that before the whole amnesia thing I’d have punched you in the face. But I guess I got used to having you around again. So, yeah.” He pauses. ”There are conditions, though.”
”Of course there are,” Seth says drily, but he doesn’t think there’s anything Dean could ask for that he wouldn’t happily give.
”No more Authority.”
”Done.”
Dean’s eyebrows rise at the easy agreement. ”Whenever we split a pizza, I choose the toppings.”
”Fair enough. Though if you get anchovies, I won’t eat it.”
”More for me.” Dean considers for a moment. ”I ride shotgun whenever Roman’s driving.”
”Now you’re just being petty,” Seth bitches, but he can’t seem to bite back a goofy smile. ”What else? Do I carry your bag? Buy your beers? Fluff your pillows?”
"Nah." Dean shrugs, all feigned nonchalance. ”You could kiss me, though.”
Seth closes the few inches between them and leans in. Dean tastes like menthol and cigarettes, soft lips parting. Seth keeps it gentle, careful. Questioning.
”Not gonna break, Rollins,” Dean grumbles into his mouth.
That’s all the permission he needs to put his hands on Dean, pulling him closer. This is a ridiculous place to be making out like teenagers, but Seth doesn’t care. It’s too much and not enough. Dean hair is damp with sweat, his jeans rough under Seth’s hand, and Dean grunts as he strokes his half-hard cock through the thick fabric.
"I want-” Dean gasps. “Not here.”
Seth wants to argue, to point out that Dean’s never minded semi-public sex before and there’s no reason they can’t do this twice, here and wherever else Dean wants to, but the thought of a room and a bed and a shower is tempting. ”Yeah, okay.”
”And not tonight.” Dean kisses Seth’s jaw, the side of his throat and his collarbone, light little touches as if to soften the sting of rejection. ”I’ve gotta- I’ve got to think about this. And you’ve got to talk to Rome. He’s got to be on board or it’s not happening.”
Seth groans and leans his head back, shivering when Dean’s teeth graze the sensitive skin above his collarbone. ”All right. Yeah.”
Someone pounds on the door. ”Break it up in there! You’ve got ten seconds or I’m coming in with the hose.”
Dean snorts a laugh, hiding his face in the crook of Seth’s neck. ”Jesus.”
“Shit,” Seth says. ”Hunter’s going to kill me.”
”Well, then.” Dean takes his hand, braiding their fingers together. ”Let’s give him a good reason.”
There’s a crowd gathered outside when they step out, hand in hand. Seth’s mouth tastes like iron and rust and his heart is pounding in his ears. The whistles and jeers die down as Hunter and Stephanie round the corner and the roster parts for them like the red sea.
Seth looks at Hunter and wills himself not to flinch at the cold fury on his face. ”We need to talk.”
Forty-five minutes later, Seth’s not sure he’d describe what just happened as ’talking’. He finds Dean waiting for him in the deserted parking lot, leaning against the car and fiddling with an empty cigarette packet.
”You okay?”
”Still alive,” Seth says hoarsely. Alive, but also guilty, disloyal, ungrateful, undeserving. They had talked of stripping him of the briefcase on some bullshit stipulation and burying him in the midcard for the rest of his career.
”We put you where you are,” Hunter had said. ”If you want to find out what you can do on your own, be my guest. Let’s see how long your friends will have your back when they remember what you’re really like.”
He’d counted on them to be angry, but it was the disappointment that got to him. They’d expected more from him. They’d trusted him and he let them down. Because that’s what he does. He uses people, he lies to them, and when he’s done with them he drops them like they’re dead weight.
In the passenger seat he leans back, eyes closed, as Dean buckles up and starts the car. The air conditioning is at full force, despite the chill in the air, and the radio automatically starts up at some classic rock station. Dean turns it off and backs out of their spot. He waits until they’re clear of the arena before he speaks again. ”Do we need to worry?”
Seth shakes his head. ”I’ll handle it.”
”Not on your own, you’re not.”
Dean and Roman aren’t scared of the Authority, but that’s just because they don’t know them like Seth does. He’s pretty sure he’s just ended his career. He’s terrified he might have ended theirs. Seth turns his head, looking at Dean’s profile, illuminated by the street lights and passing cars. ”You shouldn’t be seen with me. If you stay away, you’ll be fine. Cut a couple of promos, tell the world you were just messing with me, let me take my beatings. They’ll leave you be.”
Dean glances at him. ”So what, you’re just going to roll over and play dead?”
”I’ll fight. And if I can’t, I guess- well, there are other promotions.” The words taste like lead in his mouth. He did well for himself in Ring of Honor, and he could probably go to Japan if he wanted to, but the WWE was always the endgame. Shawn Michaels was a four-time world champion and the first ever grand slam champion, he won the Royal Rumble twice, and that’s still just scratching the surface of everything he did. Seth has never been World Heavyweight Champion, and what felt like a sure thing when he got his hand on the Money in the Bank briefcase now seems precariously up in the air.
Dean says nothing. It’s a relief. It’s too late to do the five hour drive to San Diego, so they head to a small hotel in the outskirts of town where Roman’s got them a room. Dean showered at the arena, but Seth feels sticky and gross. He escapes into the shower as soon as they reach the hotel, leans his forehead against the cool tiles as the water washes over him.
Seth. Wrestler. Liar. Proud. Coward. Traitor. That’s what Stephanie called him, looking furious enough to cry. Roman and Dean would agree. He takes a deep breath and reaches for the shampoo, pours it into his hand and starts working it into his hair before he recognizes the scent. It’s Roman’s, the scented mineral stuff he likes, and Seth blinks against the memories.
When he comes out of the bathroom, wrapped in a towel, Dean and Roman are sprawled on one of the beds, talking quietly. Seth hesitates, and Roman shifts to make space for him. ”Hey. Dean told me what you did.”
Seth turns his back on them to pull on a pair of clean boxers and his favorite black jeans, then sits down at the edge of the bed to dry his hair. ”They’ll come after you too.”
”They can try,” Roman says with a shrug, unconcerned.
Seth lowers the towel. ”You should jump me. Backstage, in San Diego. Just make sure there are cameras around to catch it.”
Dean and Roman exchange a look and it’s not the one he expected. Less concern, more exasperation.
”Are you done with the Authority?” Roman asks. ”No running back to them when the going gets rough or Hunter sweetens the deal?”
”I can’t.” Seth’s pretty sure there’s regret in his voice, even though he wants there not to be. He looks down on his hands. ”I really did think they cared about me. I know they’re ruthless and vicious and corrupt, that they use people and spit them out, but I thought-”
”You thought you were the exception.”
”I really did.” Seth folds the towel and lays it aside next to him. ”But without my memories, it was like I could see things without hope and loyalty and pride and fear getting in the way. I didn’t know them well enough to make excuses for them. All I had was facts and the fact is, I’m nothing to them. They would cut me loose as easy as they did Orton.” He’s not sure it’s true. He’s not sure it’s not. He looks up, meeting Roman’s gaze. ”I’m not going back. Not ever.”
“Then stop being a fucking martyr.” Roman reaches over and smacks the top of his head. “This self-sacrificing penitent shit you’re doing stops right here. The next time you feel the urge to propose a plan that involves us ditching you and watching from the sidelines while you get the crap beaten out of you, just go lift some weights until it’s gone. You’re better than that and you know it.”
”You know what I’m like,” Seth says. ”What if I can’t change?”
”What if you can?”
Seth lets out a long breath, shoulders slumping. He glances at the briefcase, incongruous under the coat rack by the door.
We put you where you are
”I’m sorry,” Seth says, because Roman deserves to hear it too.
”Yeah, I figured.” Roman ruffles Seth’s hair like he hasn’t in well over a year, rough and affectionate, and stands up. ”Gotta call home before JoJo goes to bed. Ya’ll had better not be fucking when I come back. Left bed’s mine, stay out of it.”
Dean throws a crumbled receipt at his head, and Roman ducks it easily, flipping him off over his shoulder.
After he’s gone, Seth shifts on the bed and looks at Dean. ”So…”
”No more talking.” Dean grabs the remote and tosses it to Seth. ”Pick a channel, then come here and shut up.”
They end up watching the last third of some Star Trek movie. Seth’s got his head on Dean’s shoulder while Dean’s playing with his hair, mindlessly separating the blonde strands from the brown, then mixing them up just to start over again. Roman comes back in time for the epic final battle. Seth is too comfortable to keep his eyes open. He hears Roman crack open a beer and hand it to Dean before settling on the other bed. The credits roll, commercials giving way to some nineties sitcom, and Dean’s voice is a low rumble in his chest as he and Roman talk about the drive tomorrow, the hum of their voices interspersed with the laugh track on the tv. Dean’s fingers never stop moving and Seth’s last thought before falling asleep is that this is what it must feel like to be home.