I'm a little stumped on my other two multi-chapter fics at the moment, and I got a load of wonderful reviews for this asking me to continue and I've had a fair few ideas I'd like to play with so I figured I'd make something of them. I'm going to have it loosely follow real-life on-screen happenings in terms of wider context, although obviously the Dean-Alicia stuff will be all of my own making. This chapter takes place following last week's Raw (1/12/2015)
"I'm telling you, man, it's him!"
"Come on, do you really think Dean Ambrose has nothing better to do than play pool by himself in a place like this?"
Dean wheeled round in the direction of the two slurred voices, a perturbed look on his face.
"No, I don't have anything better to do. Care to join me?" he drawled sardonically.
"...I warn you now, though; the last guy who dared beat me at pool ended up with my cue halfway down his throat."
"See, bro, I told you it was him!" one of the boys, neither of whom looked a day over 21, exclaimed gratingly.
"No fucking way, I fucking love you man!" his companion chimed in, even louder and bringing Dean even closer to cracking the blunt instrument in his hand across the younger man's shaven head.
"...C-can we take a picture with you, dude?"
"Unless it's of me stuffing pool balls into ever conceivable orifice on both of your bodies, then no," Dean snapped. Even in their intoxicated state, the two boys knew not to press the issue any further. If they were the ardent followers of his career that they claimed to be, then they would be well aware that the look he was giving them at this moment spelled disaster for anyone foolish enough to stick around.
Dean was ending the evening the way he so often did: In the dingiest bar in town, with a double whiskey and coke in hand, and a mind fixated solely upon securing himself at least one of two things; a fight and a fuck.
Suddenly, some commotion in the far corner of the room had Dean's sixth sense for chaos and violence tingling. A small crowd had gathered there, exhibiting the combination of worry, amusement and curiosity that only unsanctioned, unexpected public violence brought out in people. A woman was screaming, not in terror, but in blind, unabashed fury. This he had to see.
He moved furtively closer to the action, his features twitching with eagerness to see what part he could play in exacerbating the situation. As he neared the danger zone, the screams and shouts became intelligible, and oddly familiar.
"You think just cos I'm drunk I'm legally obliged to fuck you?! Have you seen yourself? You've got more limbs than teeth!" Alicia. No possible doubt. Suddenly, Dean's eagerness to intervene faded.
He'd successfully given her the slip any time their paths had crossed since his urges had gotten the better of him in the training room a few months ago. Flat refusing to acknowledge someone's existence was a surprisingly effective tactic; all it took was to be tactless enough to do it, and Dean had never had trouble being tactless. Eventually, just as he'd predicted, she'd grown bored and sought more interactive and easily-manipulated targets for her amusement.
He couldn't deny that he'd had a lot of fun with her that night, or that certain fantasies had been dancing around his head ever since, but it wasn't worth the risk of getting dragged into her warped little world. Dealing with one deluded halfwit was enough. Heck, keeping his own impulsive, destructive mind in check was a full-time job.
Nonetheless, he couldn't deny being rather morbidlly curious as to see where Alicia's latest meltdown was about to take her. He'd always found them rather compelling viewing.
After delivering a firm backhanded slap to the face to the toothless wonder, which had his friends whooping and gasping in astonishment, Alicia rounded on the next one, throwing her arms over his shoulders and eliciting an 'oooh' from the gathered crowd.
"You're actually kinda cute, in a sort of... pet monkey kind of way... I might let you off," she cooed, looking him up and down and ruffling his hair. All of a sudden her gaze hardened and she moved her hands from his shoulders to the collar of his shirt.
"...Wait a second... were you just looking down my top?! YOU WERE, WEREN'T YOU?!"
She headbutted him; full-on, unflinchingly nutted him right between the eyes. Dean had to stop himself audibly cheering her on. She was a hell-raiser, a pain-giver... a lunatic. She loved wreaking havoc on complete strangers at the slightest provocation following a tough day at the office just as much as he did.
Using the agility she regularly demonstrated between the ropes, she leapt atop the bar and stood upright.
"Just to make things perfectly clear; nobody in this room has a chance in hell of taking me home tonight," she proclaimed loudly.
"Shut up, you crazy bitch!" a paunchy middle-aged man stood immediately to Dean's left slurred out of nowhere.
"Don't you fucking talk to her like that!" Dean snapped. Much as he tried to tell himself he was merely seizing on an excuse to start a ruckus, he genuinely felt obliged to defend Alicia's honour.
"That psycho broad's yours? Geez, you need to learn to control your woman," the man slurred condescendingly.
"Control her? She's not a fucking labrador, you misogynist fuck!" Dean scolded, not waiting for a reply before jamming his pool cue into his ample gut.
"Dean! Deany!" Alicia bounced up and down on the bar in delight. Such was he expecting the inevitable consequence of this, Dean was in position to catch her when she lost her footing and tumbled backward toward the floor to much cheers and laughter from the assembled throng.
"Woah, thanks," she breathed in bewilderment as she lay bridal-style in his arms.
"No problem, darling. Now, let's blow this inbred convention before they call the cops on us," he implored, carrying her apace through the corridor of aghast onlookers toward the door.
"You've been a wonderful audience, folks! Catch us on your televisions ever Monday and Thursday night!" he bellowed theatrically as they made it over the threshold without any of their victims' friends daring to attempt any retribution.
As soon as they were a safe distance away, Dean let Alicia down to her feet, noting her lack of equilibrium and maintaining a grip at her sides.
"What the hell were you doing in a dump like that? It's no place for a lady," he chided in disbelief rather than disappointment.
"Do I look like a lady to you?" Alicia snapped.
"Is there powder on my nose? Am I wearing a parasol?"
"That doesn't make any sense; a parasol's an umbrella. You'd be holding it, not wearing it," Dean countered plaintively. He felt rather ashamed at possessing that particular bit of knowledge.
"The point is, I can handle myself and I can drink wherever I want," Alicia asserted.
"And is drinking alone something you make a habit of?" Dean enquired.
"Seems like I don't really have much choice these days..." Alicia sighed wearily with a pout.
"...Paige beat the crap out of me and then decided she'd rather hang out with Nattie of all people. Guess she likes hearing the same five stories about the Dungeon on loop and pretending to be amused by cat videos."
"Well, Naomi seemed perfectly cool with being your friend. Right up until you decided to beat the crap out of her. Surely I'm not the only one who can see a teensy bit of hypocrisy there," Dean fired back smugly.
"Naomi was jealous of me! Everyone could see that. If I didn't beat her to the punch, literally, she would've been the one blindsiding me before long. She'd been so bitter ever since they told her she was too boring for Total Divas," Alicia ranted, pacing up and down the pavement as Dean looked on unimpressed.
"Well, boring certainly isn't a criticism that can be aimed at you," he quipped. Big mistake.
"And you! Why am I telling you all this?" Alicia thundered.
"You're the worst friend I've ever had! You pretended to be my friend to get me to fuck you and then laughed in my face about it. I'm just one big joke to everybody, aren't I? Let's just laugh at 'crazy Alicia,' she won't notice, she's nuts. Ha ha ha HA HA HA HA!"
After she ceased yelling mimicked laughter in his face, she abruptly broke down in tears, just as she had that day in the trainer's room. And yet again, Dean couldn't help but be moved, this time even more so knowing he really had treated her like dirt. He'd done exactly what she just described; thought she was just some peculiar nuisance, some clueless fruitcake who he could deceive and deride at his leisure. She didn't deserve that. She deserved it less than most of the people he knew.
He didn't comfort girls. The idea was as foreign to him as Cantonese. He avoided emotional attachments to the opposite sex for this precise reason. If Roman was sad he just bought him a beer or told him a joke, and that was the end of that. Women were different. And this particular woman was very, very different.
"Hey, come on, don't cry..." he murmured gingerly, placing an arm tentatively around her back as if expecting her to explode into another fit of rage at any moment.
"...I was a prick, I admit it. But I had a lot on my plate at the time with that backstabbing weasel Rollins..."
"Who beat you," Alicia sniffed spitefully.
"Only because the Disney reimagining of Jim Jones decided to get involved, so then I had to go after him..."
"And you lost," Alicia added, managing a vindictive smirk through her tears.
"...Then I think I can finally put it all behind me and focus on the Rumble and BAM! Knee injury. KABOOM! Fucking psych evaluation!"
"Karma's a wonderful thing," Alicia chuckled. At least he'd cheered her up, even if it was through mocking his recent poor fortunes.
"We've both had a pretty shitty time of it since we last spoke, huh?" Dean smiled wryly.
"We've been exploited. People know we're not the calmest, most conventional people around and they've taken advantage of it. Maybe if we'd had each other we could have given each other a heads up when we were being screwed with," Alicia said in an unusually calm and thoughtful tone.
"Maybe," Dean repeated in surprised agreement. She was making a disturbing amount of sense.
"So we had amazing sex, we understand each other when just about nobody else does, yet you don't think we could have something together?" she probed, her tone becoming more urgent and focused, her face hardening in conviction. Dean rolled his eyes, though he had to try a lot harder to muster his despair this time. But he couldn't. He didn't. He was Dean Ambrose. He removed his arm from her shoulders and took a symbolic step back from her.
"Look..." he began firmly, looking deep into her eyes. Her gorgeous brown eyes. No, Dean, stop that! Instantly they began to widen and a quizzical frown etched her face. Her beautiful face. For fuck's sake, Dean, get a grip!
"...I am not gonna be your boyfriend. Don't take it personally, I've not been anyone's boyfriend for about three years. I don't do relationships. We had fun that night. A lot of fun. But that's all, and I never gave you any hint I was looking for anything more. Believe me, you don't want what you think you want, I'm a goddamn trainwreck. By all means, we can hang out from time to time, but if you're angling for anything more, then please, let me get on with my lonely, messed up life that consists entirely of beating up people and getting beaten up, punctuated by the odd meaningless fuck session, OK?"
Her watched her face fall; she grimaced in sullen concentration as she processed his words.
"Meaningless fuck session," she repeated softly to herself, staring at the ground. All of a sudden, she was staring right back at him, her eyes firing up with indignation and fury.
"I see what's happening here..." she began, still gentle and quiet in her tone, but Dean could see the storm clouds gathering a mile off. Sure enough...
Alicia then broke into wild, uncontrolled giggles inches from Dean's face, before abruptly ceasing her laughter and staring meaningfully at him with tears running down her face. He really had opened himself quite the can of worms here.
"I thought you were different. I thought you were..."
"Your friend?" Dean finished.
"...That's what you said. Friends. We were friends, having fun, no strings attached, what happens in Chicago stays in Chicago and all that stuff. I'm not being a jackass here... well, no more than normal anyway."
"You find me attractive, right?" she demanded, grabbing him by the drawstrings of his hoodie.
"Hell yeah," he grinned sleazily through instinct, before realising that he was hardly helping the situation.
"You think I'm a good person?" she went on.
"Of course. Listen, it isn't you. It's having my head messed up with all this mushy crap when I'm in the business I'm in. Falling in love is fatal. That's if I'm even capable of it. I'm not a normal guy, Alicia. There's something very wrong with the way I think, and you don't want none of it, trust me," Dean gulped nervously, realising he'd shown a little more of his inner turmoil to her than he was planning to.
"So what, you're never gonna try? You're just gonna write it off as something you just can't have? I don't think there's anything wrong with you, or if there is, then it's wrong with me as well. People like us have got to stick together, even if it's the only 'normal' and 'sensible' thing we ever do," upon seeing the concern and desperation on her face, Dean's heart did something he didn't like it doing.
He turned and walked away, he didn't look back at her, he didn't respond to her, no matter how loud she shrieked at him. She was a crazy bitch, she didn't know what she was talking about. She was fooling herself, and in turn it was confusing him, that was all. Nothing but a trick of the mind, a glitch in the system. That was all.