It's been two weeks.
Seth hasn't talked to Dean or Roman for the entirety of that time, hasn't really seen them either. Admittedly, that was part because Seth was avoiding them. Perhaps rightfully so, because every time he spots Dean, Roman isn't too far behind him.
Giving him death glares from over Dean's shoulder.
And Seth is so miserable now that he kind of wishes that looks could kill.
That was so fast. Seth is kind of surprised that it took that long for him to sink as low as he has. Its amazing how Roman not even bothering to hear him out has royally fucked up his life to this extent. Seth Rollins was by no means a weak man, but damn if he'd been broken to pieces by the way Roman had brushed him off. The weight of self-loathing was straining on his shoulders.
"You look like Lesnar beat you up in the parking lot."
Seth grimaces at the voice behind him and tiredly shuffles around to come face to face with one Randy Orton, smirking like a blue-eyed devil.
"You look like something Hunter bought from an antique store," Seth retorts grumpily. It's not his usual brand of sass and scathing comeback material, but he can't really blame himself too much; he hasn't been sleeping well lately.
Still, Orton's lip curls back dangerously over his teeth in a violent grin. "Ha," he murmurs humorlessly. "Funny. Y'know, just because you're the new blood under his wing, don't think he won't get tired of you just as quick as he let you in. You're nothing but a shiny toy to the Authority. An' seeing as how Steph's the Million Dollar Princess, they can easily afford more of you."
Seth really doesn't need to hear this. Is everyone trying to fuck with his head?
"Like you?" he hisses. "You used to be me, Hunter's favorite kid. Now he doesn't even like you, can't stand you. I will never end up like you, a washed up old has-been still trying to make waves in a company that doesn't even want him anymore. I will always be in the spotlight, Orton, Triple H and Stephanie be damned. I can do this by myself."
It takes quite a bit of strength for Seth to say that, knowing full well that 'by himself' was probably a death sentence. Once he betrayed the Authority, chances were he would have no one to go back to, no one to build him back up. Not Dean, especially not with Roman by his side all the time. No one else would have him, in-ring or not.
Orton sneers. "Sounds a bit like mutiny, don't you think?"
Seth narrows his eyes. "Don't get any bright ideas. You should get your hearing checked; and maybe a walker for when your hip gives out."
Seth is backing away down the hall after he says this, painting an arrogant smirk on his face and a wink for the Viper to play up his insufferable, big-shot image to the man. He's not afraid. He's not exhausted. He's not paranoid. He's Seth Rollins, damn it.
At least until he gets to the locker room and locks the door, checks to make sure Roman or Dean isn't hiding out inside, and huddles against the benches.
When Seth was a kid, he'd dreamed of being the World Heavyweight champion. He'd spent afternoons lying on the living room floor of his parent's home, coloring in championship belts he'd drawn with his crayons, and parading around in the backyard with them taped around his tiny waist. He'd seen the Ultimate Warrior do it, Hulk Hogan, Stone Cold Steve Austin, even his boss Triple H wearing the belt like he was, holding it up in the ring for the fans to eat up. Seth had tried that in his neighbor's trampoline in the backyard –the neighborhood kid's wrestling ring of makeshift sorts- and had been dreaming of the day he would hold the gold in his hands for real.
He'd never dreamed that it would drive him crazy. How had they done it? How had the champions of old done it, bearing the power that came with the belt without losing their minds? The pressure was crushing. Sometimes, when he wore it out to the ring, it felt like an iron band wrapped around his waist, severing his circulation, suffocating him. Seth had since quit wearing it like a belt.
Sometimes, when he couldn't sleep, he thought about why the belt had made him this way. The ideas ranged from insane to beyond ridiculous. Maybe the belt was laced with some kind of fear toxin, like in the comic books he'd read as a kid. Or maybe Stephanie and Hunter had brainwashed him before, and he just couldn't remember it, and this was his brain trying to reject it. Maybe the entrance music they'd provided him with contained subliminal messages. Maybe it was mind control. Or maybe Kane had hexed him with some fucking devil magic.
Okay, that one was a little far-fetched.
There just had to be a reason why Seth was on autopilot right now. Why was he so paranoid? He wasn't like this. He glances over at the golden belt poking halfway out of his gym bag with a wince. Why had it made him this way?
The next thing he knows, Seth's jerking awake to the sound of pounding on the door and the wiggling of the doorknob. Whoever it is sounds like they're trying to knock the door off its hinges, and it's giving Seth a headache.
"Seth," comes a voice from the other side of the door, yet the pounding still persists. "You're on in five minutes! Get out here now!"
Seth vaguely recalls who the voice belongs to, but he can't quite put his finger on the speaker's name or face. They go away soon after without even hearing Seth's reply of acknowledgement, leaving Seth to groggily search around the room like a blind man. For what, he didn't know. How had he fallen asleep? How long had he been out? Where the fuck was he?
It takes an astounding amount of time for him to locate his phone and check the digital clock on the screen, and even longer for him to actually rouse himself enough to get up from the floor. He has no idea what he's supposed to be doing once he gets out of the locker room. God forbid he no-show; Trips and Steph would burst a collective blood vessel.
Seth begins a search for a stage hand who can point him in the right direction, but he must look like death warmed over, because everyone keeps avoiding him. He's about to give up and just hang around in the guerilla position until someone comes to find him and guide him to where he needs to be, but from the corner of his eye, he catches movement.
A flash of gaudy neon orange disappearing around the corner.
Seth immediately chases after the walking traffic cone, completely forgetting that he wasn't even supposed to be talking to the fucker, let alone be chasing after him like a lost little kid in the mall, and the fact that John Cena didn't like him anyway.
He forgets that tiny detail the moment he catches up with the guy, breathlessly panting out his name –first name, what the hell- and grabbing hold of one broad shoulder. He also realizes that, whoa, he's made a terrible mistake, when he feels John tense under his hand and whirl around so quickly that Seth gets whiplash.
Groggy and not even half of the healthy condition he's used to being in, Seth can't manage to move fast enough to get out of John's reach, and takes a fist to his chest that knocks the air out of him and the floor from underneath him.
"You couldn't just wait for me to kick your ass until we got to the ring, man?" John says, looming over Seth's boneless body. Seth grunts and rolls over on his back. "God, no," he wheezes, and then realizes what a bad answer that was. "I mean, I wasn't-"
"Whoa, kid, you look awful," John interrupts, raising an eyebrow. Seth finally hoists himself into a sitting position. "Tell me something I don't know. I wasn't trying to sneak up on you, by the way, so thanks for that."
John shrugs. "Coulda fooled me. Not the first time some guy's tried to jump me in a hallway, and I certainly wouldn't put it past a dirtball like you." He says it like he's just having a normal conversation with him, no real venom in his voice at all.
"Someone hit you?" the superman continues. "You look like you've got two black eyes."
Seth huffs and pulls himself to his feet. "No. Look, can we talk? Like, someplace…quiet?"
John gives him an incredulous look that somehow manages to be suspicious at the same time. "What's wrong with out here? You'll forgive me if I don't exactly trust you."
"I know, I know," Seth sighs, running his hand over his hair. "But I'm being serious. I have to keep up the image; at least until I figure out what I'm going to do."
John looks skeptical, and Seth almost wants to scream. But then Cena nods and jerks his head towards an unused company room, silently gesturing for Seth to follow. Seth allows his feet to move him along without him really thinking about it. He just wants to go back to sleep.
"What are we talking about?" John asks once they've been hidden from view. His voice is surprisingly quiet, as opposed to how loud it is in the ring. He crosses his arms over his chest and looks at Seth with scrutiny. "I'm guessing it has something to do with why you look like roadkill?"
Seth knows he looks awful, but he doesn't need everyone and their mother telling him so. He frowns.
"Kinda." He hates how small he sounds. He hates how tired he sounds too. Seth drags his hands over his face and sighs, hopping up onto a table pushed against the wall with little grace. Both of them sit in silence for a long moment before Seth starts up with the sudden question, "How do you do it?"
John furrows his brow in confusion. "Excuse me? How do I do what?"
Seth turns tired dull eyes to him and repeats, "How do you do it? How could you hold that belt for so long and not…" he tries to choose his words carefully. "Not let it crush you?"
Cena had held the belt longer than anyone. Twelve times he'd tangoed with the title, twelve times more than Seth, and twelve times stronger than the younger champions own will. It was like the belt chose who it wanted to eat alive and who it didn't. And right now, it probably thought that Seth was the tastiest morsel it ever had.
John shrugs. "Take it one day at a time. Don't run headfirst into it, or it'll overwhelm you." He pauses and regards Seth with a look that turns suspicious, then knowing, then concerned in under point two seconds. "And I'm gonna take a wild guess and say that's already happened to you."
"I don't know what else to do," Seth murmured half to himself, rubbing his hands over his face. "I thought…I didn't…" he sighs, and suddenly, slumping with his back against the wall, he looks much older than twenty-nine. John watches him curiously, then takes a cautionary step towards him. "What did you think?"
"I –what?"
"You said 'I thought.' What did you think? That it would be easy being champ?"
Seth actually looks offended.
"No! I knew that it was gonna work me to death to get that belt. That's not…I just didn't think it would be like this."
"Miserable and lonely?" John oh-so-helpfully fills in.
"And cold."
John looks thoughtful at that. "You know, I don't think your issue is with the belt, Seth," he says after a long moment of thin silence between them. Seth raises an eyebrow in question.
"Well, not completely. Yeah, it has something to do with it, but I think your problem is deeper than that." John waits, looks expectant like Seth could read his mind and figure out the answer from that. When he doesn't, John answers for him.
"Your problem is guilt."
Seth has a match later that night.
It's terrible.
He thinks that he probably should have talked to John after the match, because during, all he can think about is the other man's words, rattling around in his head like rattlesnake tails everytime he gets punched in the head. And of course, he forgot to eat something to at least have a little energy to move around quicker. He'd moved slower than Mae Young in that ring, god rest her soul.
Guilt.
Fucking guilt.
Seth scowled in the empty hallway. This wasn't a little girl's fairy tale, where the hero finds out that all he needs to succeed is to believe in himself. Let Bo Dallas handle that kiddie shit. How could guilt be the reason why Seth was so twitchy and crazy-looking? John had so kindly explained it to him earlier in the room; it still makes him grimace.
Seth looks unimpressed. "What?" he asks with a voice so flat that John could probably lay a rug on it.
"You heard me. The reason why it feels like the world is against you, why it feels like you're suffocating in that thing," John gestures at the belt like it's a panicky wild animal, "is because you feel guilty about the way you got it."
Seth just stares at him. John takes that as his cue to continue.
"I know you loved those boys. Reigns and Ambrose; everyone and their blind grandmothers could see that. And when you broke them –and you did, believe me- it didn't feel so bad. You rode your adrenaline high for as long as it would take you, and then you woke up and saw the blood on the floor."
Seth tries his hardest not to let the panic show, and John tells him, "I'll be honest with you, when you started coming out week after week, talking about how you hated their guts and all that complete and utter bullshit-"
Seth tries to interject here, but John's voice bulldozes right over him.
"It really got under my skin. I think it did for a lot of other people, too." And there, he actually looked disappointed.
"You were such a team-player. You were a bright kid who worked hard, blazed through the indies to FCW, then raised some hell on the main roster. You worked hard, you lived for those two; hell, you guys were closer than brothers. I'd hear people say that you guys were so in sync with each other that it was like you all shared one mind in three bodies. You weren't…" John reaches out, and it startles Seth to near cardiac arrest when he suddenly feels the pads of John's fingertips against his left eye, brushing against the dark circles. "You weren't this."
Seth holds absolutely still while John has his hands on him, staring at him like a deer in headlights. John sighs, deep and slow, and retracts his hand, carrying what little warmth and closure Seth had found in the little touch with him.
"You need to come clean, kid," rumbles John. He shakes his head. "You need to do whatever you need to do to make things right with your boys and get rid of this guilt. I've seen what happens to people who get caught up and crushed under that stuff; you look like you're on the fast track towards it."
Seth blinks. John is suddenly patting him on his shoulder, and then heading for the door, and Seth can only register it all in slow motion.
John, one hand on the door, turns back to him, a hint of concern in the old champ's eyes. He says, "Take care of yourself, Seth," and then he's gone.
For the third time since he'd stepped out of the ring, Seth prods around his mouth with his tongue, searching for any loose teeth and thankfully finding none. In hindsight –there it was again- some people might say that mouthing off to the man you were supposed to face later on in the night was a bad fucking idea. Seth didn't regret doing his best to shut Orton up in the hallway before their match. It only stood to make the night a little bit sweeter that at least something went right.
He all but falls through the door of his locker room, catching himself before he not-so-elegantly faceplants on the tiled linoleum floor, and shuffles towards the shower. Normally, a shower would've come after he arrived at the hotel, but since the hot water was available here and now and Seth was honestly to stiff and sore to even try to drive himself anywhere, the groudy shower stall at the arena would have to do.
Seth turns the hot water knob as far as it will go and wanders back out into the main area, rolling his shoulder the whole way. He'd landed on it weird when he'd suicide-dived at Randy through the ropes, and now, man, did it hurt like a bitch.
Seth grabs his bag with his clothes and catapults himself back into the shower, scrubs himself pink in the hot water. His fingertips have turned wrinkly and pruny by the time he decides he should leave, and steam rises like ghostly tendrils from his skin. He dries off and throws on some jeans –he frowns at how loose the jeans feel around his legs- the last few drops of hot water from the shower dribble down his back from the ends of his hair, tiny bubbles of warm comfort to-go.
He's pretty sure his heart has stopped when he finds Dean sitting on the bench in the middle of the room, suddenly screaming, what look like potato chips flying up from the plate in his hands.
"Jesus," he says quieter now, ignoring Seth panting in the doorway, one hand pressed over his chest, "you look like a train wreck."
Seth wonders if it's possible to scare someone dizzy. The room is moving when it shouldn't be.
Dean doesn't seem to notice. He offers the plate to Seth, holding it forward like he's attempting to feed a wild animal. "Got you a sandwich; you look like you need it," he says. Seth is pretty sure he does; he probably looks like a monster with his raccoon eyes and dark hair hanging in his eyes like black vines. It's kind of sad that his stomach has since stopped growling at the scent of food. It was probably after the first week that Seth had succumbed to…whatever this was. A guilt-trip, according to John Cena.
"Thanks. Why?" Seth asks. He doesn't make a move to get the plate of chips and sandwich. Dean rolls his eyes.
"I just told you why, you ungrateful fuck."
Seth stares at him, at a loss for how to respond. In the end, he shakes his head. "Thanks, but no thanks. I'm fine."
Dean doesn't look the least bit convinced. He doesn't even have the decency to hide how unconvinced he is. He just looks at Seth like he's the dumbest man on the planet. Maybe he is.
"You look like a skinned cat," Dean deadpans. "It doesn't even look like your jeans are painted on anymore."
Seth rolls his eyes, immediately regrets it.
"If you don't come over here and eat and pass out on the floor, I'm not dragging your ass home. I'll leave you here for the janitors to find," Dean says, completely monotone so that it actually occurs to Seth that he very well might.
Seth snorts and runs the towel over his wet hair quickly. "I won't pass out. It's not like I've been starving in a hole for three weeks."
"May as well have been," Dean chirps. "I haven't seen you this small since we were in FCW. You're what, thirty pounds lighter? You're like a little eighty pound girl."
Seth subconsciously brings his hand up to his left arm and squeezes. It wasn't like he hadn't seen himself in the mirror lately. He knew he had lost some weight; if the week of Battleground hadn't been an easy week as far as diet was concerned, the weeks after were hell on earth. But the only thing he can force himself to say is, "I'm not a fucking eighty pound chick. I just haven't been all that hungry lately."
Half-truth, but Dean didn't need to know that. It felt as though there was a giant leech on his back, eating away at his health and livelihood, but Dean didn't need to know that. He hadn't had a full eight hours sleep since Hunter and Stephanie had revealed who Seth's Battleground opponent would be, but Dean didn't need to know that.
It just didn't make sense. Seth had asked if Dean would be there with him almost three weeks ago, yet here he was pushing him away, struggling to find a way out. Roman had been the last piece of the puzzle. If he had been on Seth's side as well, maybe he wouldn't be running around in circles trying to come up with a different way to get out of this chasm he'd dug himself into.
A Shield revival just wasn't in the cards. And Seth was out of time.
He was never getting out of there. He was going to stay like this, a dead man walking, forever because he couldn't make things right. The Architect couldn't fix things this time.
And it was staggering.
"Please just eat the sandwich," Dean sighs, shaking the plate at Seth. "I already went through the trouble of making it for you, the least you could do is take a few bites of it."
"Those sandwiches are premade, Dean," Seth replies tiredly. "They come from catering like that."
"Yeah, well, it was the last one and I had to fight Big Show for it, so you're swallowing this fucking thing even if I have to cram it down your throat by myself."
Seth gives him a sidelong glare, slips a shirt over his head, and eventually comes to sit beside Dean on the bench.
Dean hands him the plate with a smirk that makes Seth want to tip the plate over his blonde head, and asks, "Thirsty?"
"No."
"Have fun today at work?"
"Been better."
"Make any new friends."
"No, mom."
Dean just laughs at that and stops asking questions. Seth just kind of stares at his sandwich, pokes at a chip with his forefinger hard enough to crack it in half.
"Talk to Roman lately?"
Any appetite that Seth might've had from interrogating the ham sandwich on his plate is now gone. He shakes his head. "Nope. He doesn't come around me much. He's always lurking behind you like a shadow."
Dean scratches his jaw. "Huh. Hadn't noticed."
Seth raises an eyebrow. "Really?" Dean wasn't exactly oblivious; he noticed a lot of things. "How did you not realize a six-foot-six giant was following you around twenty-four seven?"
"Better things to do, I guess."
Seth stares at his plate again. Dean sinks back into another round of awkward silence, lets Seth watch his food like it might do tricks and flips across the plate.
"He really hates me, huh?"
Dean quirks an eyebrow, but otherwise his expression doesn't change. Seth doesn't look at him. "Really hates my guts."
"Who, Rome?" Dean says idly, scratching at his jaw again. He has stubble, Seth notices for some reason. He needs to shave. "Nah, he's just sore about the whole 'you betrayed us for a belt' thing. He'll warm up eventually."
"That's not how that works!"
Dean finally turns to looks at Seth, who has almost no flame in his eyes. "You don't just get over something like that. How the hell did you do it so easily? You don't trust anyone as far as you can throw them, yet here you are trying to make sure I eat and not punching me in my throat or something! Why are you even here? Why do you keep taunting me?"
Dean actually looks confused. "What the hell are you talking about? Taunting you? What?"
"Why aren't you on Roman's side?" Seth asks, sounding tired and almost like he's begging Dean to tell him the truth. He should have known.
"Why are you here reminding me of how I screwed up? So close, but so fucking far away?"
"I told you why I'm here," Dean says simply. He shrugs. "You're blood. You're the little brother. You'll be the little brother even when you're sixty and gray, whether you like it or not. You're in this for life."
Seth stares at him for a long time. Dean nods once. Twice. Trying to put some reassurance behind it. Seth sighs and buries his face in his hands.
"I'm tired," he mumbles. He shakes his head. "He's never gonna believe me."
There's a beat of silence that passes. Dean almost thinks that Seth has fallen asleep, and Seth wonders if Dean has up and gone, silent like a ghost.
"And why is that?"
Seth doesn't raise his head, but he answers almost immediately. "Why is what?"
He feels Dean's hand around his neck, not menacing or threatening. Friendly.
"Rome's not a hateful guy," he says. "He's the big brother. He's biologically incapable of hating his little brothers. How do you think I got away with so much of the shit I pulled without so much as a few days of silent treatment?"
Seth snorts. "You probably threatened him with thumbtacks and drunken escapades."
"Because we're brothers, smartass. And brothers don't hate brothers" corrects Dean.
They fall back into the increasingly familiar silence, and then Seth says, "He told me he loved me." After a moment, he adds, "Past tense, though."
Maybe it's just him slipping into sleep, but he feels Dean shift next to him and a hand on his ribcage, pulling.
"Did he now?"
"Used to," Seth mumbles. "Not anymore."
Dean says something quiet, something in reply to Seth's prior statement, but it falls on deaf ears. When he wakes up again, he doesn't even realize that he'd passed out on the bench next to Dean, who was trying to tell him something he probably should've kept to himself.
Dean waits for a response.
He waits four minutes. It's five minutes now, when he finally realizes that Seth isn't even awake anymore. He sighs, slightly annoyed with him.
"Told you," he grumbles to no one in particular. "Dumb kid."
Seth hadn't touched his sandwich. He'd probably watched it long enough to make friends with it, so Dean takes a napkin and wraps it up inside, sticks it in a vacant pocket in Seth's bag. He'll leave it for him to eat later, when he wakes up again.
Maybe it's the big brother in him that makes him sorta sad to see his little brother so low that he wasn't even taking care of himself like he used to. Seth used to treat his body like something worthwhile. So it was a jarring sight to see him almost as thin as he was when he was first starting to wrestle, and having him black out from not even bothering to eat. Dean was almost scared to think that the last time Seth had eaten had been the night of Summerslam.
The fucking fruit cup.
Had he been eating before then? He had been pretty jittery through the entire week leading up to Summerslam. Probably hadn't been sleeping well either. He was a wreck.
Dean manages –with little effort with Seth being so much lighter now- to haul Seth up and onto his shoulders, then grabs his bag in one hand, and shuffles them both out into the hallway.
He makes it all the way to the parking lot before Seth wakes up. He moves a little in his sleep, making a small sound that sounds like confusion, and grunts what sounds vaguely like Dean's name.
"Yeah, it's me. Shut the hell up and go back to sleep," Dean snaps at him, though there's hardly any bite to it. He dumps Seth in the passenger seat of his rental and tosses his stuff in the back, wincing at how the lights in the lot shine down on Seth's pallid face and illuminate the dark circles under his eyes. Dean sits in the drivers' seat and watches him.
Then he shakes his head and starts the engine. Why was he doing this to himself? Dean was there for him; he knew that. He'd told him that. He had been giving it his all to bring the Seth he knew back, trying to stop the light in his eyes from going out. Lately it seemed like he was failing. Seth was still falling hard.
Seth's groggy voice startles Dean when it suddenly pipes up in the darkness. "Thought you said you'd leave me for th'janitors t'find?"
His voice is slurry and tired and weak; three words that should never be used to describe Seth Rollins. Dean shakes his head.
"Changed my mind."
Seth's eyes haven't opened. He gives a slight incline of his head, which may have just been a result of the car bumping across the road and not a real nod, and murmurs, "yeah."
Dean doesn't hear anything else from him. Glancing over, he sees Seth leaning his head against the window, breathing evenly and looking like death warmed over. His wrist is turned up –even in the dark Dean knows the trail of the ink in his skin better than anything. A piece of a burning page, 'forever' marked across it. It was so…Seth. The old Seth. The Seth he was giving it his last to rediscover.
Falling hard for.
Maybe.
(Past tense)
Dean totes Seth up to his room like a koala on his back and doesn't even mind how cold Seth's hands are when he finally crawls into bed and finds ten freezing fingers pressed almost immediately against his bare back.
Dean wakes up and Seth is gone.
He checks the bathroom. No one.
He checks the refrigerator- he'd left Seth's uneaten sandwich inside the night before. Still wrapped in the napkin, it's the only thing of Seth's left in the room. Dean lets the door slam shut, cursing inwardly. Well.
It's only now that he notices the second bed is empty and, when he wanders over to investigate, cold. Roman's been gone for a while now too. Dean screws his eyes shut so tightly that he sees stars on the backs of his eyelids, and falls back into bed.
Seth wakes up next to Dean, which is…odd.
He doesn't remember falling asleep, and he doesn't quite understand why he feels so much like a dead leaf: lifeless, tired and…crinkly. Like the slightest sudden movement would snap off pieces of him, breaking off and being carried away by the wind.
Without his usual grace, it's a risky struggle to wiggle his way out of bed without waking Dean up. There's not too much to worry about; Dean slept like the dead usually. But on the off chance that Seth fucked up monumentally and Dean woke up, he took his time, moving in small increments. He manages to shimmy awkwardly off the bed and onto the floor where he immediately regrets standing upright, nearly falling backwards as his head spins like top.
Vertigo aside, he stumbles like a drunken elephant towards the direction of the door, trying his best to tiptoe across the carpet, hip checks the table on one side of the room and swears in a whisper scream. Seth freezes for a moment, his heartbeat loud in his ears. No noise. He hadn't made that much noise, right?
"Seth?"
Seth trips and falls over something heavy in the middle of the floor. Graceful.
"Oh," comes the voice from the darkness again, sounding more sleepy than annoyed, "it's you." Seth recognizes Roman's deep timbre and immediately knows he has achieved maximum fuck up.
"What are you doing here?"
Seth can't seem to find his voice. "I, um…I…"
He hears the rustle of sheets and the sound of a body moving, and almost instantly the words are forced out of him.
"I was leaving."
He hears footsteps now and is kind of freaking out, but doesn't have the energy to really do so. So he just stays rooted to the spot and waits until he feels Roman sidle right up next to him. "How'd you get in?" Roman asks. He's really close; Seth can feel the vibrations from his voice in his chest.
"I, um…I think…Dean?"
Roman makes an affirmative noise and remains quiet. He's still next to Seth, and Seth wonders if he can see him in the dark, if he's looking at him with sleepy disdain on his face. Maybe.
Roman grabs Seth's arm, careful but firm this time, and walks him in the right direction to the door. Seth expects him to throw him out into the hallway and slam the door closed again, but Roman slips out with him, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palm.
He jerks his head further down the hall and starts down it silently. Seth follows behind like a quiet, clumsy shadow.
Roman doesn't speak to him.
Is it just Seth or are the hallways in this hotel really labyrinthian? Like, he might get lost in here if he didn't have someone to follow. It felt like they had been walking for almost ten minutes already with no sign of the destination, but maybe that was just Seth running on a few hours' sleep and his sense of direction was still foggy.
Eventually, a little beacon of light shines from a dim alcove further down the hall.
A vending machine.
Roman approaches it and looks at its sides, left and right, up, down. He catches Seth watching, curious and half-awake, gives him what looks like a smirk. "Check this out," he rumbles, and Seth blinks, like he can't believe Roman was actually addressing him.
Roman moves to one side of the drink machine, which looks decrepit and like it hadn't seen a replacement since the 90s, and pauses, legs braced like he might take off sprinting. And he does, but he doesn't get very far. He rams his shoulder into the side of the big machine, startles Seth half to death with the loud noise, and goes for one more time.
"Are you crazy?" Seth whispers, arms still drawn up in protective instinct. Roman nods towards the machine's trough. There's a thumping noise, a shudder from the machine, a heavy sounding thunk, and suddenly Roman is leaning down and pulling a pair of coke bottles out from the little door. He tosses one to Seth and cracks open the other, taking a long sip while Seth stares at him wide eyed.
"Cesaro and Dean showed me," Roman explains with an easy shrug. "The machine ate Ziggler's dollar, so while they were shaking the machine around to get it loose, they figured out that if you hit it hard enough it gives you free cokes."
Seth grins softly at that. "Of course Dean would know how to steal shit from a vending machine."
"I think the dispenser's broken in there," Roman adds idly. Seth nods and rakes his fingers across the grooves in the bottle cap.
Roman takes another sip, but Seth can feel him watching him. "Thanks for the drink," he says quietly.
"How'd Dean find you?"
Seth looks up. "He just walked into my locker room and…" Seth shrugged. Roman nods, understanding the silent gesture. Sometimes, with Dean, you could only shrug. It was a whole lot easier than trying to explain. "What'd he want?"
What was this, an interrogation?
"He brought me a sandwich."
Roman nods again. "You look like you needed it." When he looks back at Seth, his grey eyes seem softer. Maybe it's from sleep.
His gaze feels tangible, poking at Seth's ribs and prodding at the circles under his eyes. Seth almost brings up his arm to cover himself up, but forces himself to stop.
"You look like you're nineteen again."
Wow, that was unexpected. Seth raises an eyebrow.
"Young and handsome as fuck?" he asks, totally kidding. Roman gives him an 'oh, please' kind of look.
"Skinny and like a raccoon," he corrects. "Didn't you wear eyeliner for a bit in the indies? You were a pale, skinny kid with raccoon eyes and none of those struggling blonde strands in your hair. No beard either," Roman reminisces. He looks thoughtful, wandering down memory lane it seems. "Total baby face. At least then you looked like you were actually healthy and working your way up to being a great athlete instead of a starving artist."
The softness in his eyes looks a lot like concern, and Seth pretends that it isn't and it doesn't hurt.
"When was the last time you ate?" Roman asks him. Seth was already tired of hearing that question.
"I saw you," says Roman, "out in the ring. You looked like you were gonna throw up all over the mat. When was the last time you ate? Hell, when was the last time you slept?"
Seth doesn't know the exact date. He does know that it's been so long that he doesn't dare tell Roman.
"The locker room, I guess?" he replies slowly. "I remember talking to Dean and then I woke up and I was in your room."
Roman rolls his eyes. "Unbelievable."
And then they're stomping back down the hall, Seth's arm back in Roman's clutches. Maybe he isn't intentionally trying to hurt him, but he's pretty sure the big Samoan is leaving more bruises. They backtrack through the labyrinth and end up back at the room, sneaking in with a little less curtesy and quiet than remotely polite. Roman sits Seth down on the floor and bustles around the room.
Seth listens to him moving, and his still groggy mind entertains the thought that Roman is actually part bat. That's the only way he's able to maneuver around the completely dark room without tripping over Seth or knocking something over, because Seth sure as hell can't see anything.
The light from the refrigerator lights up a small corner of the darkness, and Seth can see the illuminated outline of Roman's face as he squints into the icebox. Then he reaches in and grabs something and the light is gone. A second passes and something is dropped in front of Seth.
He guesses Roman has taken up the position of sentinel right in front of him too, because his voice is very close when he says, "eat."
Seth waits a moment, then feels around the floor for whatever it was Roman had thrown at him. It's cold. Feels like a napkin. Unwrapping it as best he can in pitch black, Seth discovers a ham sandwich inside. It's the same one from the locker room. Dean must have wrapped it up for him to eat later.
Even though he can't see him, Seth is pretty sure that the heavy feeling burning holes into his forehead is Roman watching him expectantly, so to appease him, he takes a tentative bite of the sandwich and stupidly looks up to see if Roman is still eyeing him like a hawk.
He doesn't stop feeling like there's a burning sensation between his eyes until he finishes the first half of the sandwich and says, "I ate half."
"You can't eat the rest?"
"Nope."
"Okay."
"I'm tired."
"Okay."
Roman grabs his arm (again) and helps Seth to his feet. Wraps the other half of the sandwich up and replaces it in the fridge. Offers to walk him to his hotel room, since the kid is already swaying on his own two feet.
They manage their way down the hall and up to the next floor. Seth gets his key in the door, turns on a lamp, and almost slips on the rug in the bathroom when he runs inside and pukes into the toilet.
Roman swears somewhere behind him, muttering something about how he should've given Seth something lighter than a sandwich, like toast or something, wraps an arm around Seth's ribs while he empties what little he had in his stomach into the toilet.
He helps Seth clean up afterwords, and by that time, Dean has already woken up and is confused downstairs, and Roman is wondering why Seth let himself rot away like this, and if its right for him to feel guilty about being the reason why the champion is wasting away on the bathroom floor.
When Seth wakes up sometime later that week, he decides, at eight o'clock in the morning that it's a good idea to poke the beast. God knows why; that catastrophic chat in the locker room the other day should've been enough to scare him straight, and why ruin the progress he'd made Monday night after Raw?
Well, Seth isn't stupid. He knows that Roman would probably eat him whole if he so much as glances at him from across the hotel lobby; at least he can't serve himself up as breakfast to the huge Samoan if he talks to him via text messaging. If Roman wants to rip him a new one, he'll have to find Seth first.
'Looking for a title shot?' he types.
Seth barely even locks his phone before a reply comes shooting back full force.
'No.'
'Ryback is easy-picking. go for the left leg; he had staph infection in that one. bet it still stings like a bitch.'
It's only now occurred to Seth that he still has Roman's number saved inside his contact list. Of course, he knew the digits by heart, but still. He wonders if Roman still has his number saved too. Does he know that its Seth texting him? Or is he just answering in general, doesn't care who's asking?
'you're low.'
Seth persists. 'it's the intercontinental belt. you could make it relevant again; evryone likes u.'
The reply returns much slower this time, and when it arrives, Seth can sense the hesitation.
'fuck off seth.'
Oh.
So he does know who it is.
Against his better judgement, Seth types back, 'you still have my number?'
There's no hesitation this time around when Roman snaps back, all venom and sick self-pride at his own smart-aleckyness, 'not anymore.'
NUMBER BLOCKED
Seth rolls his eyes.
Either fucking way, come Monday, Roman challenges Ryback on Raw in an open challenge for the Intercontinental championship. Goades him into it really –such an underhanded tactic to compare his bravery to John Cena's willingness to offer the open challenges week after week.
Left leg down (just like Seth said), right hand raised.
Roman takes the win.
Hunter is livid.
His wife is a dragon.
Seth just watches it like a cloud in the breeze.
Mom and dad are pissed because Roman stole the title from Ryback. They don't want him gaining any momentum, and a belt around his waist would give him that, enough to thrust him a little higher up the escheladder, and now they're worried.
Worried that he'll blaze through the ranks and come after the company title. Because if he's got it, he could wreck everything the Authority had worked for up until this point, and that was not best for business.
While Stephanie spews fire and Hunter shoots lightning from his eyes, Seth spends their little tirade pondering what else he can mess up. He had the company belt, Roman had the Intercontinental…the tag team belts were always open. Granted it might be awkward for any one of them to team up long enough to win the belts, but it would a lot less awkward to have Dean and Roman pair up than either of them with Seth. Come Summerslam, he'd get a chance for the United States belt as well; was it weird to take a belt from a man he'd just had a heart-to-heart with a week ago?
Sacrifices had to be made; John could thank him later when the Authority was knocked down and out of power anyway.
And well now, that only left the one thing.
"What are you doing up there?"
Seth looked up from his little plastic cup of ranch and took the half-nibbled carrot stick out from between his teeth. "Snackin'."
Roman looked vaguely impressed. "So I see you're eating now. That's all fine and good, but you and I need to talk."
Seth hummed low in his chest and eventually eased his way down from the stack of equipment boxes with a bit of his old grace, only to be met with an arm wrapped around his neck and an impressively tight headlock.
"What are you playing at?" Roman asks calmly, like Seth isn't freaking out right next to him. Seth slaps at Roman's forearm. "Nothing; tap out, tap out!"
"Why'd you tell me to challenge Ryback?" continues Roman with his impromptu interrogation. Some passing stage hands have started to slow down and stare, only to speed up again and pretend they didn't see anything. "You trying to set me up?"
"Fuck, no," Seth grunts trying to twist his way out of Roman's grip. "What sense would having you winning the title and double-crossing you again make?"
"Triple-crossing."
"Rome, tap out. I give," Seth has started digging his elbow into Roman's side, "I promise, I'm not lying. Why are you so violent all of a sudden?"
Roman loosens his grip and shakes out his arms. "You could've broken that hold if you weren't a stringbean now. And I figure the only way to make sure you don't lie again is to make you squirm."
Seth rubs at his neck gingerly. "I'm not a stringbean. And terrorizing the innocent isn't going to get you any answers."
"I wasn't terrorizing the innocent. I was terrorizing you."
"And I'm not being shady," Seth adds, smoothing his t-shirt back down. "I'm not with them anymore."
Roman glances down the hall, then looks back at Seth. He nods at a quiet corner away from view and moves there. "What do you mean?"
A tiny spark of hope ignites in Seth, and he prays that he can choose his words correctly and make Roman see the truth. He couldn't help the overwhelming sense that this was his last shot.
"I'm trying to destroy the Authority." It sounds so strange to hear it being said out loud. It's…liberating. "I'm trying to get out and bring it down from the inside. I," Seth pauses and takes a breath. Here we go. "You know whoever holds the WWE heavyweight belt has a tight grip on the way things turn out here; almost as tight as the Authority. I could leave them as is now, but if I do, they'll just pass it on to someone in their circle- I'm thinking Owens since he's Hunter's newest pet project."
"What does me holding the Intercontinental belt have to do with it," Roman asks.
"I'm getting to that. I, um…let's say I'm a double-agent. I only actually came up with the idea after Dean…talked me into it. He gave me the basis of the idea, and I built on it. He's in on it too, obviously, but the plan is…" Seth hums and searches for words like he has a thesaurus stored away in his head. "Not to reform the Shield per say-" he winces when Roman's eye twitches.
"But I wanted you guys by my side for this. We don't have to be a group if you don't trust me enough to be that close again, but I…there's no one else I'd have asked."
Roman's steely grey eyes slide over Seth's face, and he nods slowly. "And the belts?"
"I've got the company title. Automatically that gives us some ground to work on. And you've got the intercontinental now, which means we're two titles in the running. If we can get all five belts between us –you, me and Dean- then we've got all the cards. We've got the same amount of power as Stephanie and Trips."
Roman raises a skeptical eyebrow. "And you're sure this'll work?"
Seth nods. "When you won the Intercontinental title, they were pissed. Didn't you ever wonder why they stopped putting you in the title picture?"
"I thought it was because of you."
Seth makes a noise in the back of his throat, like disgust. "No. You're one of the most over guys in the company. If you get even a little momentum behind you with the fans and the titles, you're the best candidate for a total annihilation of the title belts. You could destroy the Authority's pull. You proved to be the biggest threat, not me. Now that you've gone and fucked up their plans, they're bound to trip up at some point. And if we can get Dean in the title picture too, that'll really ruffle some feathers."
Roman nods thoughtfully, seeming to mull the plan over. "They know what hurts us most. They could just use that against us and take the titles back. We're only human," he settles on eventually.
Seth sighs and runs his hand through his hair. "Yeah, I know that part. I was working on that. I think it's just a risk in the scheme of things. That's their bargaining chip, but the belts are ours. Besides, you and Dean can watch each other's backs well enough; they can't kill both of you with one bullet."
"And what about you?"
Seth shrugs. "Don't worry about me. They can't hurt me."
Roman doesn't look impressed. "You aren't invincible, Seth."
Seth shakes his head, and for a moment, Roman swears he sees his eyes turn dull. "I didn't say that. I just said that they can't hurt me."
Roman narrows his eyes, like he might be on the brink of understanding a deeper meaning in Seth's words, but Seth's already begun speaking again.
"The only thing that's left is you."
Roman raises an eyebrow.
"I need to know if I have you on this. If you don't want to do it for me, okay. Do it for everyone else the Authority has fucked over. Do it for your best friend," Seth insists.
Roman can't really bring himself to look Seth in the eye, even though he knows that if he did, he would find them searching his own, looking for an answer. He wonders if he's holding his breath too.
He sighs. "Alright. I'm in."
But not because of you.
"So what's next?"
Seth looks almost like a kid in a candy store, all too excited to answer him.
"Summerslam."
hi. send me prompts and stuff so that im not bored when im supposed to be listening to my english lit lectures.
pls help me stave off boredom at:
and let me know if you want to keep going. its literally all up to you guys if this keeps going. i could leave it anywhere.