Whiskey Lullaby

The whiskey burned when it went down his throat, but it was the best kind of burn, the kind that came from the forgetting of bad memories and the gain of that blessed numbness that only alcohol brought. Dean Ambrose studied the caramel-colored liquid that filled the bottle he held, wondering how something that tasted so horrible could bring such relief. He had heard that alcohol was an acquired taste, but it was never one that he had grown to like. Still he shoved it down his throat, craving the blankness that it granted, the incredible ability to not have to think.

When they had tried to load him into that ambulance, he had shoved them all away and ripped the straps off that had tied him to the stretcher. He wasn't weak, he had taken worse back in CZW. He didn't need a goddamn ambulance after face-planting into a pile of cinderblocks.

They had looked everywhere for him, but he was well-rehearsed in the art of disappearing, and he was on the road faster than they could blink. He had stumbled through the door of his home in Las Vegas, his head pounding, and seized the closest thing he could find, which turned out to be the bottle of whiskey.

Dean took another long swig as he pondered how much Seth Rollins would bleed if he smashed this bottle over his head. He would probably bleed a lot, but that was what he wanted. He leaned his head back against the couch and closed his eyes as he pictured the canvas smeared with crimson. God, that would be beautiful.

Half an hour later, he was well and truly drunk. He had drained the whole bottle, and after throwing everything out of the kitchen cabinets, discovered that there was no more alcohol in the house. That made him angry all over again, but it was too exhausting to be angry, so he just sank into the couch and tried to make his mind blank. Unfortunately, this time the alcohol didn't seem to be doing its job. He kept thinking about Seth, and the painful things he had said. It seemed like he was doomed to be forever alone, to always have the people he loved abandon him.

Dean's hand lashed out and smacked into the bottle, causing it to fly off of the coffee table and shatter against the wall. He stared at the broken pieces of glass, and a small part of him said that he should probably clean that up or he would step on it later. Another larger part simply just didn't give a fuck.

The anger deep inside of him grew and grew until he couldn't handle it anymore, and he dug his phone out of his pocket and scrolled through the contacts until he remembered that he didn't have the number he was looking for anymore. He had deleted it months ago, after his heart had been ripped out of his chest and stomped into the mat. It didn't matter, though; he had the number memorized.

He listened to it ring three times before Seth finally picked up, mumbling a groggy hello. He must have been so exhausted that he didn't notice the caller ID. "Wake the fuck up, asshole," Dean growled into the phone, slurring quite a bit. It was odd, he didn't feel drunk, but he knew he was.

"Ambrose?" Seth suddenly sounded wide awake, and the sleepiness in his voice turned into disgust and annoyance. "Why the fuck would you call me? Did I not make myself clear by now?"

"Oh you made yourself very clear." Dean got up and wandered back into the kitchen, deciding to search for some more alcohol. He wanted to be so wasted that he wouldn't remember any of this conversation in the morning. "What's wrong, Sethy? You used to let me call you whenever I wanted."

"That was different." Seth's words might as well have been little knives, plunging into Dean's chest. "That was when I was naive enough to believe you were my friend. My-what do you like to say all the time? Oh yeah. Brother. Here's a friendly little reminder in case you're too shit-faced to remember, Ambrose. We are not brothers. We are not friends. We never were, and we never will be."

Dean stumbled, his hand shooting out to steady himself. He leaned against the wall, his hands trembling a little, and not just from the whiskey. He was still so fucking angry, but there was another emotion mixed in there too, one that he wasn't used to feeling. "Why do you have to say those things?" he asked, a little crack appearing in his gruff voice. "Why do you have to hurt me like that?"

"I didn't give a fuck about hurting you months ago, why the fuck would I care now?"

"Because you know what I've been through."

Silence.

"You know how afraid I am of people leaving me," Dean continued, sliding down the wall until he was sitting, his knees drawn up to his chest in a defensive position. "You know how important you were to me. But you hurt me. Why?"

Seth paused, and then he let out a long, drawn-out sigh. "What do you want from me?"

"I just want an explanation, motherfucker."

"I don't have to explain myself to you."

"Actually you do. In case you forgot, you hit me with a goddamn chair."

On the other end of the line, Seth ran a weary hand over his face. Dean was flip-flopping between hellacious rage and uncharacteristic vulnerability, which could only mean one thing. "Are you drunk?"

"Yep."

"Why?"

"Because you're a piece of fucking shit and I hate you, that's why."

Seth took a long time to answer, and Dean took the opportunity to pick up one of the glass shards from the whiskey bottle, turning it over in his hands while he held the phone to his ear with his shoulder. He ran his thumb along the jagged edge, feeling a little thrill when the sensitive skin split open and blood began to trickle down his hand and wrist.

"How's your head?" Seth finally asked, keeping his voice as flat and uninterested as possible. He had said it to get under Dean's skin and remind him what he had done to him earlier in the night, but it came out a little more concerned than he had intended.

"It hurts like a bitch, thanks to another bitch."

"If you would have just learned your lesson when I beat your ass at SummerSlam, this never would have happened."

"Fuck you," Dean said angrily, digging the glass shard harder into his thumb, causing more blood to gush out. "You didn't beat my ass, you used that dumbass lunch box to knock me out. Do you have a thing for lunch boxes, Seth? Did you have one when you were little? Did your mommy pack your lunch for you and put it in that stupid fucking metal box?"

"At least my mother loves me."

The little hitch in Dean's breathing let Seth know that he had cut deep, and he instantly regretted what he had said. He and Dean may not be on the best of terms at the moment, but that was the shittiest thing he could have possibly done, especially when Dean was drunk and not in his right mind. "Dean…"

"Go to hell."

Click.

Dean threw the phone across the room after hanging up, and then he just sat on the floor for the next fifteen minutes or so, watching the blood run down his hand and drip onto the carpet. That numb feeling he had been so desperately searching for had finally arrived, but not in the way he had expected it to. He considered calling Roman, but he didn't want to dump his problems on anyone, and Roman had more important things to attend to.

He just wanted the pain to stop. He was so, so tired.

He must have passed out, because the next thing he knew someone was pounding on his front door. He was still sitting on the floor, rust-colored stains in the carpet around him. He looked down at his hand and saw that the blood had dried and was starting to flake off. He got up and walked slowly over to the door, trying to ignore the pounding in his head. He wasn't sure if it was from getting curb-stomped or the whiskey, or both.

A loud clap of thunder drew his attention to the window, and he noticed that it was pouring outside. The weather seemed to be reflecting his mood. He pulled the deadbolt back on the door and opened it, squinting to see who was there.

"Well, I guess you're sober enough to answer the door."

Dean went to slam the door shut, but Seth stuck out his foot, stopping the heavy piece of wood before it connected with the doorjamb. "Hey, hang on one second."

"Fuck off," Dean spat, trying to force the door shut. "You've done enough damage already!"

"I came here to talk, dipshit!" Seth snapped, shoving the door open wide enough to slip inside. He barely managed to get his fingers out of the way before the door slammed shut.

"Get the hell out of my house," Dean hissed, snatching his phone up off of the floor. "I'm calling the police." He pressed the power button, but his phone didn't turn on, likely because he had chucked it at the wall as hard as he could. Frustrated, he threw the phone back to the floor. "Fuck the police, you're trespassing. I'll just shoot your ass."

"You don't have a gun, Dean," Seth said, annoyed.

"Really? You wanna bet your life on that, Rollins?"

"Look, I know you're pissed," Seth said, trying to calm him down. "But shooting me won't solve anything. I came here to apologize for what I said. That was a low blow."

"Is that the only thing you're apologizing for?" Dean growled, his fingers curling into fists. "'Cause you have a lot to be sorry for."

Seth looked away from him. "I did what I had to do. I'm not going to apologize for that."

"Then why the fuck did you come here?" Dean demanded, getting pissed off all over again. "If you wanted to say sorry for bringing up my whore of a mother, then you could have just called me again. You didn't have to come over here."

"Well, one, no I couldn't have because you demolished your phone. And two, I wanted to say it in person."

"Bullshit. You just got finished telling me how I never meant shit to you, so why would you want to apologize to me to my face?" Dean looked around for some more whiskey, and then remembered that there wasn't any and sighed heavily.

"I lied, alright?" Seth admitted, crossing his arms over his chest. "I didn't mean any of that. I came here because I know how you get when you're drunk, and I was worried that you'd do something you might regret. And I guess my instincts were correct." He pointed at Dean's blood-encrusted hand to prove his point.

"I don't regret that though," Dean responded flatly.

"Whatever," Seth said, exasperated. "My point is, I was a selfish bastard and I deserve every curse that you threw at me. And I'm sorry."

Dean scraped some dried blood off of his hand with his thumbnail, ignoring the burning pain in his thumb that came from the deep cut being stretched. "You're still a dick."

Seth couldn't stop the grin that stretched across his face. "You're still a psychopath."

"If you really want to make it up to me, go buy me some more whiskey," Dean drawled, still focused on his hand.

"Are you sure that's a good idea?"

"I could still shoot you."

Seth held up his hands in surrender. "Alright, alright. I'll get you your damn alcohol." He turned around and headed for the front door, wincing at the rain coming down hard outside. He had been in such a hurry that he had forgotten to put a jacket on.

"Seth?"

Dean's voice was so small and quiet that Seth barely heard him. He turned around and saw that Dean had finally looked away from his hand, and his electric blue eyes were now fixed on him. "Yeah?"

"I missed you."

"I missed you too."