A/N: I should have known it would only be a matter of time before Muse inspired a fic in me. This is based on the recent developments in WWE-land, thoughts on the impending and inevitable Ambreigns breakup, and listening to The Globalist from the Drones album on loop. Also, I've kinda tweaked events to suit my narrative needs-in this story, I pretend Smackdown and social media don't exist and that we just zoomed straight from WWE Dublin to the November 9th Raw.
Disclaimer: I don't own anyone or WWE's lawyers might get me.
He whistled quietly to himself as he entered the arena, shifting the weight of his bag to his free shoulder.
The place was abuzz with whispering. Some people looked distressed, while others were gleeful. The second group seemed to be bigger the first, and he wondered why.
His brother parted the crowd effortlessly like Moses and made a beeline for him. "It was serious."
He sucked in his breath. "How long?"
"They're saying six to nine months."
He pondered it. "Bluff?"
"No idea. Could be, but he'll never tell us, will he?"
"What happens to the title?" Anticipation was beginning to curl in his belly as the fact started to sink in.
"Vacant's champ again. And they're holding a tournament, I think. Best way to do it."
He snorted. "Boss man ought to love that." The head honcho's intense dislike for tournaments was practically an urban legend. His brother chuckled.
"Is he here? Gonna make it all formal and crap and maybe cry?"
"Nah. They're shipping him off to surgery before he tries to convince anyone he can stand long enough to take me on…probably by jumping off the damn ceiling. His daddy's here, though. Not looking too upset, considering."
He wasn't surprised. The COO wasn't known for being particularly sentimental. And speaking of the grizzled devil, here he was.
"Ambrose! Roman! Knew I'd find you two together!" Triple H called out jovially as he strode over and patted them both on the back. "Always joined at the hip, aren't you?"
Dean wriggled out from under Triple H's palm. It was like being touched by a snake, and he wasn't even the one with the Viper moniker.
Triple H held his hands up, eyes narrowed in evident displeasure at the brush-off but not willing to push the issue. "Relax. I thought I'd come here to personally let the two of you know we're putting Seth's—the World Heavyweight Championship—on the line in a tournament, and we've handpicked you to be two of the participants."
He was looking right at Dean's brother as he said this, the hint of the familiar smug, calculating smile on his face. Giving himself away.
Roman didn't respond, but kept his stony poker face locked on.
"Well, you better go get ready, big man. I got a 20-minute speech to prepare, and you're up first. See you soon." And the COO sauntered off, just like that.
Roman turned back to Dean, exhaling and looking relaxed once more. Dean studied his expression carefully. "Too bad about that #1 Contendership, huh?"
There was nothing to find but warmth, openness, and eagerness at the prospect of a new challenge as Roman shrugged. "I'll take it back. This way, no one will anything against me."
He said that a lot. Always trying and hoping to win that elusive approval.
Dean cleared his throat. "You should take his advice. Get ready." Companionship was starting to feel a bit oppressive—there was too much stirring up in him, and he needed to process it.
"Nah, nah. Let's find out when your match is."
A few minutes later, Roman's mouth turned downward when he saw who he was up against. "They really need to get me some new opponents," he remarked. "How many times have I kicked his ass?"
He beamed, though, when they found Dean's name and that of his adversary tonight. "Breeze? Yeah, you've got this." Which of course caused Tyler Breeze to scowl at them from where he was standing nearby, checking his hair via his phone.
"Who knows, I might get myself electrocuted by selfie stick," Dean quipped.
Roman rolled his eyes at the reference. "See you later?"
"Yeah." They did their handshake—a sight that, like always, made the nearby guys groan but smile. Roman headed to his locker room, while Dean went the opposite direction to find someplace quiet. He had some thinking to do.
He finally found a corner that was unpopulated by a single Wyatt or space-age cultist Starduscension member. He tossed his bag down at his feet, sat down on the nearest steel beam, and steepled his fingers on his nose.
So it had come to this.
Nature had done him a favour by putting Seth down. Obviously, he would have greatly preferred the honor to be his instead of connected to Kane, but it was one less person's blood on his hands.
Seriously? The voice inside his head grumbled. Geez, look at us still having a conscience.
Some things were part of evolving, he mused in response. It helped him pick his battles a little better, rein in the loose cannon some.
The truth was that it had been a while since he'd let that voice speak again. For the longest time, he had been happy with the simple things in life. Friendship. Brotherhood. Family. Acceptance. He had taken every bit of embarrassment, every hint of criticism that he was letting his potential go to waste. Because even at the end of all things, he still believed Seth. That it was all about the brotherhood, that they were strongest only when they were together. After all, it had been true for him to a certain extent—it was by Roman's side that he'd understood, however briefly, what it felt like to be the champion, even if it wasn't on the books.
But alongside that, another thing he would never forget was that Roman hadn't been by his side all that much before then. Even though Dean rarely showed it.
They were supposed to fight together—divide and conquer at the start, but united in the end. He still wasn't sure what really happened. Just that even when he was pouring his heart into exacting tearful revenge on their beloved betrayer for them both, he was doing it alone. On a good day, he justified it to himself with the reminder of Roman's hernia that took him out for the rest of the year—his brother couldn't help that, could he? But that argument always came back to one niggling thing, and the silky voice in his mind was saying it again for him.
No one saved your neck from those cinderblocks.
Roman had had his reasons for not charging out then, and his apologies had been made and Dean came back quickly no worse for wear. But every single time he revisited that moment, he always knew what he saw, what Seth saw, and what everyone else saw: he was alone. And he remembered how he felt then: lonely. Unprotected.
The loud sound of pyro startled him. The show was about to start. Slowly, he picked himself up and came out of his hiding place to find the nearest screen. He paid Motorhead's wailing no mind—naturally, Daddy had to tell everyone about his bouncing baby boy's knee problems. He settled into a comfortable spot and waited for his brother's inevitable interruption of tonight's smugfest.
But no…Triple H was calling Roman out himself. Roman made his entrance in the crowd, looking slightly confused.
Dean almost snorted as the smooth-talking began. The COO was really laying the cheese on thick. The only thing missing from his freaking marriage proposal was getting down on one knee and presenting a ring, though his wife would probably have a problem with that.
But there it was. The "ring," now being placed onto Roman's shoulder. And even though his brother's face was mostly shadowed at the beginning, Dean knew him well enough to make out the immediate gleam in his eye.
To say that Dean's stomach dropped would be totally wrong. No, it wasn't that shocking. More like, something settled inside him, because one thing had become clear in that one glimpse of Roman and the title, even as his brother told Triple H to shove it to defend his honor.
One day, it wouldn't be enough.
None of them had ever kidded themselves with the idea that they were Sami Zayn, with his morals and integrity and honorability. Paul Heyman hadn't picked that guy out of the lineup three years ago—he had chosen three hunters who practically salivated at the thought of power and dominance. Roman was high on rebelliousness and the desire to be loved and accepted now, but Dean had seen too much of the world to think that this was a lasting commitment. And when that day came, there would be no apologies made, just the camera zooming in yet again on a broken man.
No, you won't be that guy again, will you? Jon Moxley crooned in his ear.
Roman's match wasn't over yet, but Dean stood up abruptly, surprising the people near him. He ignored them to stomp into the nearest empty locker room…which was, of course, Roman's.
He shut the door and gazed into the mirror.
Look at you. The voice of his past self dripped with disdain. King of your own universe, huh?
Physically, he looked good. Healthy. Thinner since that breakup. But Dean knew that wasn't what Moxley meant.
Hear your own name anywhere in that speech, tiger? Because all I heard was Seth and Roman. Over and over. I thought you were supposed to be the baddest.
Dean gritted his teeth. He was past this. He was supposed to be past this. Except that he wasn't.
You had a fire in your eyes, Seth interjected in Dean's head in an almost-singsong, mocking parody of the way he had first said those words over three years ago. You wanted to beat me, so you could be the BEST. How's that working out for you?
Dean hated Seth. Hated that annoying voice that made sporadic appearances in his mind. But Moxley was calling Seth over, asking him to make himself comfortable and nodding sanctimoniously in agreement.
Raw material's still there if he's letting us talk this much. We can still work with this.
Yes…if there was one thing everyone had seen over the past year, it was that Dean was strong. Barely missed a month after having his head put through construction stuff. Fell ten feet off a cage and still fought. Broke ladders in half with his own body and still walked. An obvious inability to stay down, no matter how much living Seth yelled at him to.
Yeah, yeah, all great. If you could just keep that up for when it actually matters so we can start winning. We were dangerous. We ARE dangerous.
Dutifully, his memory center played back the hidden clips in his mind of darker, rougher days, when he struck fear into hearts and inspired awe. When he stained himself with blood—both his own and others—because he desired things.
"Dean?"
He tore his eyes away from the mirror and himself around at the sound of Roman's deep voice. His brother's brow was furrowed, and his eyes were wary.
"Done?" Dean asked him.
"Yeah." The wariness was still there. "I didn't see you out there."
Dean thought about being honest with Roman for a second, to get that reassurance he was positive his brother would give. But Roman didn't like Moxley—bristled whenever Dean or anyone else mentioned him. That guy wasn't Roman's brother. And he had once admitted to Dean over a few cold ones that he was afraid of that guy on some level.
Dean just shrugged as his past self preened over that memory. "Knew you had him."
Roman grasped his shoulder with a sweat-dampened hand. "You OK?"
"Yeah, fine." Dean cleared his throat again. "Just, uh, first time in a long time, right?"
Roman's grip relaxed, and he smiled. "Yeah. For once, he's not even involved. Could be you and me again, and they can't stop us this time."
His brother probably wouldn't have found Dean's original plan for that so much fun—the plan Dean had idly dreamed up in the back when he'd let Moxley be a little free as Roman went out to fight for his #1 Contendership. He'd thought about sneaking out there while Roman was preoccupied with Seth and giving one or both of them a proper little greeting. Affection and a refusal to do it in front of their dear traitor had stopped him—he owed Roman that much for sticking to him for most part this year, since the business with Lesnar ended and Dean finally beat Seth properly for the first time and he was reunited with his brothers at Payback.
But Seth wasn't here anymore—another testament to Dean's strength. Both of his brothers had been bested by nature—the same nature that didn't seem to want to touch him except for tweaking his shoulder that tiny bit. The realization filled him with a sense of power. He'd said it before: not even a nuclear explosion would destroy him, and Dublin provided the final proof.
Only the strong survived.
The feel of Roman ruffling his hair brought Dean back to the real world. His brother didn't seem to have noticed the lapse in Dean's attention span—he'd just sat down to remove his boots, done for the night. As was the standard these days, Dean would sit and wait for Roman to finish with his ablutions, then they would play their favorite game of Name the Stupidest Thing that Can Happen in This Segment, and Roman would do his motivational speaking thing while Dean got ready for his match. Motivational because…maybe he thought the guy with the losing record needed it.
It was easy to forget that there was a time when he and Roman had been clashing as rival alphas. Now, who the alpha was was painfully obvious, as was who the meek little sucker of the team was. The one who had looked at his betrayer and joyfully welcomed him back into the fold only a short time ago.
You thought that was all you wanted. All you needed. Now you're standing in a shadow. Does anyone even take you seriously anymore?
Seth chuckled in Dean's head. You wanna remind him? Remind everyone?
Dean's mind flashed back to the past few months of being…Roman Reigns's best friend. Roman Reigns's partner when he needed one. What had he done since losing his grip on the title to Seth on that ladder in June? He gave pep talks to his sulking brother, and took it when Roman snapped at him. The eternal second fiddle, when everyone who came up after him was blazing paths of glory and his only claim to fame was an apparent insanity, because he couldn't give up love even when it was thrown back in his face.
Dean buried his head in his hands, feeling pinpricks of wet on his fingers as his body told him the answer his heart still wasn't willing to accept.
Minutes later, Roman returned from the showers to rejoin his brother, who greeted him with a bright smile.
Dean had scared everyone the first night of the tournament when he seemed to have hurt his shoulder. Roman had fussed over him like a mother hen. But it had been nothing, of course. Dean was too good for that. And they all saw it and commented on it as he ran through everyone on his side of the bracket—those who came before him and after him. Owens had tried, but he couldn't best a rejuvenated Dean. They would meet again in the future, that was for sure. But for now, the stage looked to be set the way everyone, except probably the Authority, wanted it: Roman Reigns versus Dean Ambrose for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
Dean looked his brother in the eye and thought back to the night they promised to fight like rivals but end it as family. Roman quirked a smirk that couldn't quite hide his genuine excitement.
Dean grinned back, because he had one thing on his mind.
Destruction.
The week after Seth had put an emphatic end to the Shield with a chair, Dean and Roman had clung to each other in the middle of the ring and called themselves survivors. Survivors of what had been a great institution, an almost-unstoppable force. Each of them held onto the memories as well as they could, whether it was shown in the gear they wore and the entrance they used or in the fact that their most significant moments were always with each other, good and bad.
When Dean grasped the heavy belt in his hands and looked down, he knew he had survived them all.
The greatest hunter.
When he reached the back, the eyes that followed him were fearful and wary. No one approached him, not even an interviewer.
At the door of the locker room that had seen so much laughter and love, his "cousins" were staring at him, mouths agape. One yanked hard on the sleeve of the other—he couldn't tell which one—and they both hurried away, throwing dirty looks at him over their shoulders.
Guess he was no longer invited to the next family barbecue. He swallowed against the unexpected lump in his throat. Those had always been so much fun too.
The next time he saw Roman, the other wasn't smiling anymore. Instead, he turned away, fading into the crowd, and the weight on Dean's shoulder got just a little bit heavier. Especially when he caught a side view of Roman in his peripheral vision and Roman was smiling at someone else.
When he rode alone, even Moxley was silent. The spectre of Seth had sighed.
It's human nature. And with that, he had departed, probably back to his actual living self.
Dean sat on the roof of the rental car in the midnight breeze, trying not to remember how Roman would tell him off for it. He looked down at the belt on one side of him, and at the phone showing Roman's number on the other. The number he knew he couldn't press "call" on again, not for a long time. The price paid for his desire.
I just wanted
I just needed to be loved.