AN: Ummmm... this is my first attempt at writing in this fandom so pretty please be nice about letting me know if anybody is too off from their characters. I'm not really confident in my ability to write Sami in particular but I had this need to hurt him and have Dean come to the rescue since I read a few stories that made Sami the bad guy. Then I found out that Sami is actually a year younger than Seth, and the idea of the two starting to bond got mixed in too while Roman is ever the protective oldest brother. So please be patient with me, I'm a slow writer. Thank you and please R&R!

Will start out as friends but may progress to Dean/Sami in future chapters...

Learning to Live Twice:

Chapter One:

Seth couldn't sleep. He guessed he was still too pumped with adrenaline after the day's unexpected events and finally gave up after lying there wide awake for two hours. Rolling onto his side, careful not to wake Roman since they were sharing the larger bed in the room, he glanced over at the far bed and couldn't resist the small smile that tugged at his lips.

Dean and Sami were completely curled around each other, both fast asleep with Dean's arms wrapped snug around the smaller man and Sami's head tucked under his chin. The fact that they were sharing the singles bed didn't seem to bother either one. Seth supposed they were used to sharing small spaces given their respective backgrounds, both growing up and when they were on the indie circuit.

He frowned as his gaze fell on the large vivid purple bruise marring Sami's left cheekbone and the swollen gashed lip. His black hair had been spiked up in crazy directions for his match but now hung in limp strands around his face. Dean had mentioned that Sami had been seeing a new wrestler on the CZW roster but had decided he didn't like the guy, citing that he gave him a bad feeling which only got him teased about "being jealous".

Both of his brothers knew that Dean cared a great deal about them but his relationship with Sami was on another level altogether. Seth wondered when Dean would start clueing in but decided not to push it. Too much. Dean didn't mention any of this to Sami although he spoke about it several times to both Seth and Roman. He only grew more anxious when Sami started not answering his calls and started avoiding him to the point where the blonde had to know what was going on and proceeded to drag both his friends along with him.

flashback:

"Will you calm the hell down?!" Seth snapped at Dean when the blonde's constant shuffling around finally got to the point where ignoring him was pretty much impossible. "Don't tell me to calm down!" Dean snapped back. "I want to know what the fuck is going on!" "Guys!" Roman interrupted quickly before the argument could escalate further. "Don't antagonize him." he directed at Seth before turning to Dean. "I'm sure he's fine. You said if there was anything, that he could handle himself, right?" The younger man nodded, "Fuck yeah, he can. Sami's stronger than most people give him credit for." "Then lets just watch the show and see what happens."

They were sitting in the audience for one of CZW's house shows and frankly, Seth was kinda surprised that they hadn't been swamped the moment they arrived. Dean had shrugged it off. "They're just as civilized here as anywhere else despite the tag on this place. Just want to get what they pay for." Sitting near the barricade, they had a good view of the ring and both Seth and Roman eventually relaxed enough to really enjoy the matches and even compare views on each match. Dean however, was silent the whole time, not listening to either of their attempts to draw him in.

He started and probably would have jumped up and over the barricade into ringside when Sami's match was finally announced if Roman hadn't caught his arm and dragged him back down. "Relax." Dean glowered at him but didn't move again and Roman let him go. First thing he noticed upon laying eyes on Sami was that he had lost weight in the time since Dean left and that he had continued to grow his hair out. It was still its usual black but now had almost reached his chin. Oddly enough, it still suited him.

They watched as the fight started before Roman noticed something. "He's favoring his ribs." Seth shrugged, "Well aren't these matches hardcore?" Roman supposed Seth had a very valid point but something was telling him different. A glance at Dean out of the corner of his eye told him the blonde agreed. He was tense as a coiled spring as he followed each move closely.

The match was solid and they could see how good the dark haired man really was in the ring. But things went south fast however when Sami glanced in their direction and, catching sight of Dean, froze. The distraction cost him and his opponent got him down for the pin. Dean frowned as Sami looked over once more before abruptly getting up and clearing the ring, hurrying backstage as fast as he could short of running, without another glance. They watched him go, confused. "I definitely think he's avoiding you." Seth quipped. Dean snorted. "No shit." He glanced again in the direction that his best friend had fled in and shook his head slowly. "Something's really not right here." He jumped to his feet and ran after Sami before Roman could grab him again. "Dammit." the Samoan muttered and he and Seth both got up and followed.

Roman was surprised when security didn't stop their progress backstage but eventually chalked it up to some of them having been around working for the promotion when Dean was still here under his old ring name and let him sweet talk them into letting him through(and by extension Roman and Seth too).

Finding Dean was easy, they followed the yelling until they came across their faction mate in a smaller locker room that was empty aside from Dean, Sami and a larger man that must have been his boyfriend. The guy and Dean were all but snarling at each other while Sami tried to calm them both down. "Mox," he was pleading, trying to push Dean back toward the door, "just go. You don't need to be here." "No way in hell!" his friend snapped angrily, "I knew something was wrong! I fucking knew it! It's all his doing isn't it?!"

Roman guessed immediately what had the younger man so incensed. Sami must have been wearing some type of concealer during his match but now it was partially smudged over his cheek, clearly showing healing bruises that hadn't been visible before. The guy(what was his name? Bryan?) growled in anger as he tightened his clenched fists before grabbing Sami and dragging him away from Dean. "Fucking slut! You went running to him, didn't you?! I told you never to see him or talk to him again!" Before any of them can react, he swung his fist and caught Sami across the face. The smaller man staggered backward with the force of the blow before hitting the wall back first.

Dean was beyond shocked that Sami had just taken that without fighting back. That wasn't his Sami. Bryan growled again as he stormed over, grabbed Sami by the throat and drove a fist into his stomach, dropping him to his knees. "Looks like we need another lesson!" He got in another kick, aiming at the smaller man's head before Dean's yell interrupted him and he was tackled to the floor by an absolutely furious lunatic.

Roman and Seth both executed near perfect "oh shit" motions before they jumped into the fray, trying to grab Dean's flying fists and pull him off the other man. Dean's rage lent him strength though and even Roman, who outweighed him, had a hell of a time restraining him. Seth grunted as a flying elbow caught him in the chest and backed off, leaving Roman to it before moving over to Sami who was still crumpled against the wall, staring at the fight with a blank expression. Seth moved into his line of vision and cursed softly as Sami's gaze didn't focus on him. The younger man probably had a concussion or the start of a nasty one. Who knew how long he'd been dealing with this.

Security was suddenly swarming the room, most of them ignoring the two men by the wall and converging on the three-for-all brawl in the middle of the room, before successfully pulling the three men apart. As he was finally dragged away from Bryan, Dean angrily wiped away a trail of blood from a split lip after Bryan had landed a lucky hit and shrugged the restraining hands off. The promotion manager came rushing in at this point and his jaw dropped as he took in the room, to the three WWE stars to his own wrestlers as Roman calmed the guards and got them off Dean's back. "What the hell is going on in here?!"

Pointing a shaking finger at where Bryan was kneeling still surrounded and restrained by guards, Dean's voice was dark and filled with ice, "You get the cops here and have that piece of shit removed from my sight right now and I may not kill him where he sits. He comes near Sami again and I make no promises." He shrugged Roman's hand off his arm and stiffly marched over to where Seth was trying to coax Sami onto his feet and gently helped his friend up, pulling his arm around his neck to keep the other man there, only tightening his grip as he started to sag again. Roman didn't take offense. He knew how the blonde was with people he cared about.

Bryan was fighting the restraints on him, swearing the whole time, "The psycho fucking attacked me! Arrest him! It was all him! You heard it, he just threatened me!" he continued till Roman turned on him and took a single step forward. Getting loomed over by a 6-foot odd angry Samoan was enough to shut him up in a hurry. Roman stopped as some of the guards slid between them, but he sneered at the other man. "That's my brother you're talking about. I'd fucking watch my mouth if I were you."

Sami finally seemed to regain his awareness of the situation and started to try and pull away from Dean's grip on him, "I can stand up by myself. 'm fine." he muttered but Dean only scoffed. "You're going to the hospital. Don't make me carry you because you know I can and will." The two had a brief stare down before Sami decided to let the blonde win this one. The older man would definitely make good on his threat and Sami wanted to walk out of here with some of his dignity intact. He was really happy to see Mox again but a larger part of him wanted to go hide, ashamed of letting the other see all this. He also avoided looking at Bryan, he'd deal with those emotions later.

His head was killing him and he was already fighting not to get sick all over the floor. Leaning more into the other's hold, he closed his eyes and dropped his head lightly onto Dean's shoulder with a sigh, an easy feat considering his friend was almost a half head taller than he was, "Fine. But this isn't over just so you know." Dean didn't bother to hide the fond smile that formed at the hint of the other's usual bravado and he couldn't resist dropping a light kiss on the top of Sami's head, the messy black hair giving off the always familiar scent. Sami didn't react although Seth, who had been watching the whole exchange, hid his own smile. These two...

Dean caught Roman's eye and the older man nodded, seeing the unspoken plea in the blue gaze to explain what had happened. They would answer any and all questions afterward.

Hours later, after everything had been explained, Bryan hauled off to get his face looked at then to jail, Roman and Seth took care of the police statements at the hospital while Dean was in with Sami. The two cops agreed to come back the following day for the remaining statements after assuring the two men that Bryan would remain in lockup till this whole thing was cleared up.

The four men were back at the Shield's hotel room after leaving the hospital. Sami did indeed have a concussion, though luckily it was only a minor one, along with contusions to his face and three fractured ribs. Dean wasn't letting him out of his sight. While Sami had been in the shower, Dean had told them that Sami had blown up at him in the examination room, swearing and calling him every name under the sun which Dean had known not to take personally before crumpling as the true weight of the events finally caught up with him. Sami had stayed awake long enough to finish getting cleaned up which was somewhat worse since him being clean only made the damage to his face stand out starkly against his pale skin, before he all but passed out on one of the beds, Dean curling up around him, taking care to brace his injured ribs.

Roman simply set the alarm on his phone to when the doctor told them that they had to wake Sami up in order to check his concussion, but otherwise let the younger men get some rest. Seth was sitting at the small table, fiddling with his own phone. "Y'know what's strange?" he finally spoke up and Roman shot him a questioning glance, "I actually want to march back to the station and beat the hell out of the asshole for what we saw him do. And it's weird because I don't actually even know Sami that well to get this worked up over it."

Roman simply gave one of his knowing smiles. "Well, I guess he is our little brother now." That gave Seth pause as he thought it over. Almost in unison, they both looked over to the room's other occupants and Seth finally sighed and smirked a little as well. "He is, isn't he? We both know he's not going anywhere after what we found out today anyway. Hope he knows what he's getting into." He dodged the playful punch that Roman aimed at him and grabbed some clean clothes before heading for his own shower.

end flashback

He knew that things wouldn't be as easy as that if Sami was really anything like Dean had been when they all first met. He didn't figure so but still... Not to mention all the issues that would probably come dealing with the fact that they had just rescued him from his abusive boyfriend. A crooked grin tugged at his lips. He wasn't the little brother of their bunch anymore but that fact didn't bother him really. "Fuck, when did I become such a damn sap?" he wondered quietly before he rolled over again, finally managing to fall asleep.

To Be Continued...

AN: Okay, quick question for a future idea with this story; most of the WWE wrestlers all have either brown or blue eyes. Does anybody on the roster have green eyes?