Disclaimer: Dean Ambrose, Roman Reigns, and Seth Rollins are the property of the WWE and/or the actors / sports entertainers that portray them. I have no legal rights to them at all. This story is a tribute only and not intended to infringe on any copyrights.
Original characters mentioned here are creations from my own head only and any resemblance to any real people, living or dead is purely coincidental.
Dreamer of Pictures
Chapter 2
Cinnamon shut the door after Neil and returned to the living room. Roman and Seth meanwhile, had helped themselves to the iced tea. "Sorry about that," she said, sitting down. "But I figured whatever you want to discuss with me would be much easier without Neil here." She helped herself to her own glass of iced tea and sat back on the sofa. "And let's just get the awkward out of the way. I know you suspect who Neil's father is, and you're absolutely right. He's Mo-Dean's son. It's a little hard to hide."
Well, she comes right to the point, Seth thought. He looked over at Roman to see what his reaction was.
Roman nodded. "You never made any effort to contact him, did you?"
Cinnamon's nostrils flared for a brief second, but she kept her composure. "No, I didn't. He walked out of my life, remember?"
"Uh," Roman looked uncomfortable, but plunged into the heart of the matter. "The way we heard it, you told him to leave and not come back."
"Yeah, because he shot my dog," Cinnamon countered. "And claimed it was just because the dog barked a lot. Which, he did, I admit it, but something was going on."
Roman sighed. This was not going as well as he hoped, and he knew finding out about Neil was at the root of it. It was one thing when it was just finding Cinnamon, the kid added a whole new layer to things. He looked over at Seth, hoping his friend would have a flash of inspiration. He looked back at him and shrugged. Then Seth looked over at Cinnamon.
"Uh... what do you mean by something was going on?" Seth asked.
Cinnamon was holding her glass of iced tea and staring into it as if it might be the mystical waters that would tell her the right things to say. After a few seconds of this, she finally sighed and looked at the two men. "I know things were not what they seemed. I have no clue what they actually were, but I know something strange was going on."
"What do you mean?" Seth asked carefully. Let her tell what she knows first, Seth thought, let's see if she knows more than Dean thought she knew.
Cinnamon went back to staring at her beverage. "After Mo-Dean left, I finished burying Rocky. He had pretty much done all the work for me, I just had to fill in the hole. So, I did. But then I noticed something in the yard. Bits of the quilt Rocky was wrapped in. Some-" she hesitated before continuing, "other things, parts of Rocky, I'd rather not go into that, but the quilt bits were interesting. And I found a hole in the ground where the bullet had lodged. I-I was pretty distraught, so I wasn't thinking straight, but later, I realized," she swallowed, "I realized that he had shot Rocky on the quilt."
"Yeah, that's how we heard it," Roman said, keeping his voice soft, letting his words encourage her to speak.
"You didn't know Rocky, of course. And I don't know what- Dean has told you, but Rocky was a mess. I eventually came to realize that I did everything wrong with that dog I possibly could. He was a rescue dog, a breeder dog for a puppy mill, and I let his rough past excuse every poor bit of behavior he showed. I wasn't firm with him and he had no sense of being a dog. I let him stay a neurotic mess and that I blame entirely on me. But, Rocky wasn't too fond of Mo-Dean. And, Rocky was hyper. There is no way that dog would have laid down on a quilt so Dean could have shot him. No way in the world. And even if he would have fallen asleep on that quilt, what planning would Dean have had to do to bring the quilt outside, let Rocky outside, get Rocky to lie down and fall asleep, or at least lie down and be quiet enough so he could shoot Rocky in the head?"
Dean said she was smart, Roman thought. She's proving it now. He nodded encouragingly.
"And there were other things too," she said. "I was studying for exams at the time. I'm not a slob, but I had been neglecting the housework. Mo-Dean had been leaving me alone at my request, which didn't help. Believe it or not, he used to help me with the cleaning."
Seth almost didn't believe it. The idea of Dean going about Cinnamon's house with a duster crept into his mind and he almost chuckled, because his brain also put Dean in the male version of a Cinderella outfit and tiny cartoon bluebirds following along with him, twittering happily. Fortunately, at the last moment, he was able to stop himself and instead took a page from Roman's book and merely nodded to let her continue.
"But, I did notice my kitchen was clean. A little too clean. I mean, it was spit and polish clean, like someone had done the spring cleaning. The cabinets were all washed down, the floor was practically sparkling, the appliances and counter tops gleaming. I don't think that kitchen had ever looked so clean. Nothing was adding up. Why would Mo-Dean take my dog outside, get him to lie down and be quiet enough to shoot him, and then come in the house and clean the kitchen from top to bottom? I mean, we all know Mox," she paused and sighed. "I'm sorry, I know he's Dean...but when all this went down, he was Mox to me. My Mox. So it's hard on me."
"It's all right," Roman said. "We know who you mean."
"I know it's wrong to call him by his old ring name," she continued as if Roman hadn't spoken. "But... god, he's Mox to me. But I'll try. It's funny, I've never called him Mox when I've seen him on TV, never said to my son, 'So, you're going out as Mox for Halloween.' I'm able to keep that straight, it's just when I talk about the past..." She let her voice trail off and shrugged, looking almost helpless.
"It's okay," Seth assured her too. "He was Jon Moxley then, so it's natural when you think back, he'd be Jon Moxley."
"He was never Jon to me," she admitted. "He was Mox. My Mox. Just like I was his Cinnamon Girl. We weren't trying to be possessive of each other, that's just the way it was." She looked around as if she had fallen into a memory and was having trouble leaving it. "Where was I?"
"You were telling us how everything wasn't making sense, that your kitchen was clean." Roman prompted her.
"Oh yes." She nodded. "The kitchen was spotless. It just didn't add up. I wasn't sure what was going on...but..." She paused and looked pained. "I think, I mean, I wasn't thinking much of anything right after it happened. I was too upset, too confused. I had just finished my exams and I was exhausted and burnt out. After Mox left, I finished burying Rocky and went to sleep. Then, I just got depressed. I functioned, but I was depressed. I'd lost my dog, lost my Mox, and I was pregnant."
"Did you know you were pregnant?" Roman asked realizing the answer to this was a lot more important than he had realized when he first saw Neil.
She nodded. "I knew the night before, the night I fell asleep in the library. I came home with the test and took it. I was-" she paused and started again, "I should have told Mox that night. But I -" She paused again and sighed. "No matter what I say, I'm going to sound like a bitch or an idiot, so here it goes. I think, with the exams and all, I just had a sort-of functioning breakdown, one where I was able to do what I felt I had to do, but beyond that, I was blank. I remember realizing the test was positive and thinking, I just cannot handle this now, therefore, I'm not pregnant. I will be after exams are over, but right now, I'm not. Then I remembered and reminded myself, No, Mox has to wrestle Saturday and you'll be driving him there and you don't want to give him any distractions. So, I am not pregnant yet. I will be pregnant Sunday morning. I'll make breakfast for Mox and I, and tell him then. But until then, I am not pregnant. Then, I threw the test away and totally blocked it out." She looked up at the two men. "Listen to me rattle. God, I'm sure you didn't come her to play shrink with Dean Abrose's ex girlfriend."
"It's okay," Roman said. But she was right, it was a little strange, but then again, this whole thing was completely unexpected. They had only planned to stop by and tell her that Dean needed- needed- What? he thought. What were you hoping to do with this? Did you think time would freeze and she would be exactly the same as she'd been when Dean and her split? Sure, you weren't expecting the kid, but what if she'd been happily married with a bunch of kids, younger than Neil? Or what if she was living with someone in a committed relationship? What were you going to do then? Tell her, 'We think if Dean doesn't still love you, he at least has strong feelings for you.' Dean needs closure? What would that have accomplished if she were with someone else? He looked at her. "Maybe it was a mistake coming here."
"A little late for that, isn't it?" Cinnamon said, with a snort of laughter. "You know, that puts a big ball in your court. Are you going to be able to face him knowing that out there, less than twenty five miles away, is his nine year old son? Can you just shrug and pretend Neil doesn't exist?"
"Apparently, you had no problem pretending to Neil that Dean didn't exist," Roman snapped before he could think, realizing this was bothering him more than he thought. "What does he know about his father?" He knew, deep down, that he was being a jerk, but part of him was thinking how he would have felt if Jessica had not told him she was pregnant, but instead just left him. He tried to picture life without her or Leah and it was a bleak picture.
"He knows his father is a wrestler," Cinnamon snapped right back. "And that I thought he wasn't ready to be a father. Neil doesn't know that he shot my dog. Neil doesn't know that his father is Dean Ambrose. I figured that was too much for him to handle at his age. I did my best to make this my problem, so that if the day ever comes that they meet, Neil won't see M-Dean as the bad guy. That he knows the truth, that I kept him from Dean, no one else."
"Whoa!" Seth put his glass on the coffee table, put the palm of his left hand on the tips of his right fingers, making the universal Time out signal. "Look," he said, his gaze fixing on Cinnamon, "We didn't come her to cause trouble. Seriously, we came here because...well because we found out the story, the full story about you and Dean. And we felt you should know the truth. We had no idea that you had Dean's kid."
"That's true, I didn't hang a banner on the door," Cinnamon said with a wry grin. "Some of my friends in the WVW suspect who Neil's father is, but we don't talk about it. And, since you brought it up, what is the truth? My theory? Something happened with Rocky and he was dead when Dean got to the house."
"You've known that?" Roman asked. He wasn't completely calmed down, but he was getting a grip. She didn't break up with him, he reminded himself. Dean is the one who ended it. He ended it with a lie to save her feelings, but still he ended it, or maybe he forced her to end it. It's not Cinnamon's fault.
"Well, Dean said you were smart," Seth said with a shrug and a grin.
Cinnamon looked at Seth, a faint grin on her face, but it didn't quite match her eyes. "I don't know what Mox-I mean, Dean, told you about me, to be honest. I know I said some pretty hateful things that day, but he said some very cruel ones to me, too. I think I know why he said them now, but I didn't then. He just kept saying that he shot the dog so I could study and how I should be grateful to him for doing it, so on and so forth. It wasn't until later that I started putting together that something was really wrong with the whole thing, the blanket, the clean kitchen, so on and so forth."
"If you pretty much figured out that Dean hadn't deliberately killed the dog," Roman asked, "then why didn't you try to get in touch with him?"
She stared at him. "It took me awhile to put it together and even then I still wasn't sure. But I knew one thing; Mox took out the trash. I had thrown the positive pregnancy test on the top of the kitchen trash. I know I did, because the bathroom in that place was right off the kitchen, so I didn't have a trashcan in the bathroom, because it was easy enough to just use the kitchen one."
And the final pieces seemed to click into place. Cinnamon must have wondered if "her Mox" had lied about the dog so he wouldn't have to deal with a pregnant girlfriend. "He never saw the test, I'm positive of that. He did what he did because-" Roman began, then stopped.
Seth knew someone had to say it. "You had KFC for dinner that night," he said, his voice softer than it's usual tone.
"I might have," Cinnamon said, looking puzzled. "I love KFC, and there was one on the way home from school, but how would you-" she pause, turning pale and whispered, "The bones, chicken bones."
"Yeah," Seth nodded. "Dean said he was sure you were really tired and just forgot to put them someplace where Rocky couldn't find them. But when he came that next morning, he found Rocky bleeding on the floor and...a bone stuck in his throat. There was nothing he could do, Rocky was dying. So, he...did what he did and cleaned up the kitchen and probably took the trash away so you wouldn't see the evidence."
"And he took the fall so I'd never blame myself," Cinnamon was still whispering. "Yeah, that sounds like Mox." She looked down at her hands for a moment, then up at the two men. There were tears in her eyes, but she wasn't shedding them. "Chip, this is one huge mess, isn't it?"
"You can't change the past," Roman said, wondering why she used the word "Chip" when there were better substitutes for "shit," but deciding now was not the time to ask her about it. "But, well, I don't know what your life is like now, if you're involved with anyone-"
"No," she interrupted. "I'm not involved with anyone. I put my efforts into raising my son instead." Her words rang true, but there was something in her expression that spoke that it was more than that. Dedication to raising Neil was the main reason, but not the only reason.
"Look," Seth said, realizing that he and Roman had interfered enough, they were not the people who Cinnamon should be talking with this about, not anymore. "We did what we came here to do. You know the truth. I'm sorry you have to deal with knowing the bones killed Rocky, that sucks but-"
"-but it sucks even worse to think that Neil's father and the guy I love is someone who would just kill a dog for barking too much," Cinnamon interrupted to finish.
Love, Roman thought. She said love, not loved.
"-Yeah," Seth agreed. "But what you do with that knowledge is up to you, now. We're in town for the next two nights, RAW tonight and Main Event/Smackdown taping tomorrow. If you and your boy want to come to the show tonight, Roman and I will make sure there are tickets in the box office. VIP, front area, awesome seats, the whole bit. If you want to come, come. They included backstage passes so, you're likely to see Dean."
"I know Neil would give his eye teeth to go," Cinnamon said. "Me? I'm torn."
"Yeah, but he's not here, we need to get going, and we're not going to tell him," Seth continued. "The tickets will be at the box office, it's up to you what you do about it and what you tell Neil." He started rising to his feet, Roman doing the same.
As she was showing them out, Roman turned to her and sighed. "Sorry if I came across like an ass in there," he said, motioning to the living room. "It's just... I've got a little girl, her name is Leah, and she's my world. I can't imagine not being part of her life. I can't imagine how I would have felt if I only found out she existed when she was Neil's age. I'm on the road a lot, but I do my best to stay in contact with her."
"I know what you're saying," Cinnamon said, her voice softer than normal, her expression sincere. "And it's okay. Let me guess, you think I need to tell him, don't you?"
Roman nodded. "Again, this is a father talking, but also, Dean's friend. I-I can understand why you erred on the side of caution before; you're a mother and your first concern is to protect your son. But, now that you know that Dean didn't kill your dog and didn't know you were pregnant, I think you owe it to him to let him know about Neil. I-I won't tell him, even though I want to, but I hope you'll tell him instead. Dean is good with kids. My daughter adores him, calls him 'Unca Dean.' He's got the right to know he's a father."
She nodded. "I'll keep that in mind. And thank you for telling me everything, especially that your daughter adores him. It's giving me a lot to think about."
End of Chapter Two
Author's Notes: Dean will be finding out soon enough, I promise.
Nancy: Thank you. I hope you continue to enjoy the story and I hope you enjoy Chasing the Moonlight.
Beadsoap: Thank you, I'm glad you like the curve ball and I hope you keep liking him as the story progresses.
totaldramfan123 : Wow, thank you! I'm glad you're enjoying my writing, that means a lot to me. And thank you for taking the time to let me know you like it!
Just A Reader: Yep, they found her. Soon enough we'll know how Dean feels about this as well. Thank for the review, I appreciate it. And if you're the same "Just a reader" that left the review for the last part of "Road Trip," I'm sorry you had the flu and I'm glad you're on the mend. Also, you're never too old for a Nerf war.
To everyone else who reviewed? Thank you! Even though I thank you in PM's, I like to thank you all here too. Because really, you are the inspiration that keeps me going!
