Conjured up in a far off, and rather unseen distance (unless the prying eyes belonged to the lenses of a multi-million dollar machine perched high atop a mountain or rooftop) a thin wave of early autumn wind crashed against the pores of his face – rustling through the mess of blonde sat atop his head and gathered around his jaw and chin. To the unexpected chill of the early morning breeze, he grabbed hold of the edges of the large plaid sweater, and bundled it around his neck – taking care to hold it in place with his free left hand. As for his right, the slender roll of calming nicotine sat kingly between the crevices of his dominant fingers, with the charred end briefly glowing a bright orange to the feel of a strong intake of nurturing oxygen. Comforted by the warmth of the oversized sweater, he took the moment to take another lengthy drag of his cigarette, before placing the hilt of his wrist atop the board edge of the steel railing. Caged safely behind the vertically blessed row of bars, he leaned forward a bit over the railing, allowing his head to extend a bit atop his covered neck, and focusing his eyes on the struggling sunlight that rose at a snail's pace. With nothing but flat lined greenery, random speckles of trees, near lavender skies littered with striking rays of bold yellowed orange, and a low-lying sheet of fog originated from a heavy morning dew – the countryside beyond this small plot of concrete legally noted as a 'town' held the greatest view of day break. Even after nine years of traveling to places he'd rather forget, with a gentle smile on his face, his mind easily succumbed to the realization that heaven had been right here all along.
As his cigarette came back to his lips for another long drag, blue eyes began to focus more intensely on a distance not easily measured by worldly instruments. Once at that distance, his mind took a lazy turn towards the jumbled mess of thoughts that had been rendered as such as a result of what transpired last night. In that moment, his face lit a fire with a shade of red normally found on harvest-ready raspberries, as he toiled mentally over every inch of his rejoining with Roman Reigns. At one point in his life, back when he pined for age eighteen, the impact Roman Reigns had on him was so detrimental that there were times when normal body functions – functions like breathing – became a very real, and true challenge to accomplish. Nine years later had only worsened his condition, as no sooner did Roman strip himself half-naked, did he find himself unable to recall how to keep his heart beating. Time had been kind to the large Samoan – evident in his chiseled body and wonderfully baby-soft skin – whilst to his own team, time merely bestowed him with nineteen-eighty body hair, a scruffy voice and equally scruffy look that would have been considered amatory if not placed so close to Roman Reigns.
With cigarette placed firmly between his lips, he successfully ridded his mind of the road it was trying to travel by bringing back to memory the sound of Roman's voice as it rumbled in the deepest corners of his ears, words like 'sexy' and 'love'. Words he truly believed he would never have heard the older man speak to him again.
Words, which once he got here on that fateful evening, he believed Roman had long since reserved for Seth Rollins.
The name fell hard atop his brain – carrying as much weight as the anchor of a warship – and forced his vision to retract from the sweet memories of the rekindling of his relationship status with Roman Reigns. Safe to say, he thought, their relationship was now back on the path it needed to be on if he could easily shout from this very balcony the words 'He's mine world! Roman is mine!' The very thought put a smile on his face, only to find itself crashing to a rather saddened expression the moment he recalled the name Seth Rollins, and brought back to memory the young man's existence.
For whatever the two men were, Roman very clearly cared deeply about Seth Rollins (he could not bring himself to state that the older man loved Rollins, as he felt betrayed even thinking it), and for that, he knew – with cigarette in mouth – that the blonde-brunette would always be around to remind him that those nine years he wanted to forget would never go away. With blue eyes staring at the ground below the two-story balcony, he thought deeply on how much he regretted leaving behind the only person who mattered – and how much he hated returning to find someone else residing in that person's heart and world. A world he had tried all his teenage life to get to rotate around him and him alone. They were selfish thoughts, which he once believed to be a part of his young adulthood life, only to discover now that they had not changed in the least. Despite seeing Rollins, and being forced to watch Roman pander to the younger man's cutesy plays, he found it slightly shocking that what truly ate at him was not the guilt of leaving all those years ago. What ate at him was a thick muck of jealously. He was quite simply jealous because where Rollins was, he used to be, and where he was now – standing on Roman's balcony, wearing Roman's shirt, Roman's sweater, and a fresh pair of his own underwear, having been ravaged countless times the night before by Roman Reigns – was still not enough. Somewhere inside him, beyond the burning feeling of carbon monoxide, he could not help but wonder on what kind of hold he now had on Roman. The older man had proclaimed his love for him even though nine years had kept them apart. However, even with the reaffirmation of those feelings last night, he could not shake away the idea that what should have been a victory was likely to be a crushing defeat. It was a truth he knew could be proven if Roman ever knew of Seth's midnight visit and subsequent disappearance.
"You look sexy in my clothes, Dean." The husky tone – still plagued by sleep – startled Dean to the point where he lost hold of his cigarette. Still lit, the thin stick of lung cancer fell down rapidly, and hit the ground with a silent thud.
The blonde began to turn, only to feel the heavy weight of a half-naked body press against his back – watching as large, muscular arms slid around the lower half of his waist.
"Although," A light kiss came to the back of his neck – sending his heart rate into a short-circuiting frenzy. "I prefer you without the clothes."
"Roman." He called in a low voice, smiling as he did. "What are you doing up so early?"
"My bed was cold." Reigns replied with his chin resting on Dean's shoulder. "And I smelt breakfast cooking." A heated breath slipped out of Roman's nostrils as he cleared his airways to fully inhale the skin lining the small of Ambrose's neck. "Thanks for saving me the trouble, otherwise I'd have to cook for Mr. Pouty Pants, and I don't think you left me with much strength to do that after last night."
A rush of residual heat erupted from the pores of his neck as he felt Roman's lips pressing into them. Nevertheless, what felt warm immediately iced over the moment Dean's soul sunk to the sudden realization of who Roman was referring to. To the knowledge, the deafening sound of his conscience rang throughout the cavity of his brain, sing-songing as it did the words 'tell him' over and over again. Instinctively, he placed his hand back and gently ran his fingers through Roman's silky hair. The older man buried his face in the small of Dean's shoulder, allowing for the peaceful moment to claw from beneath the light frost, and steady on them a while longer. With each light breath coming from Roman, Dean felt himself less and less inclined to speak what he had known for the most of their precious night.
Seth had gone.
So easy were the words, however not so easy was the means and courage needed to say them. Such was the dilemma that had Ambrose staying mum past the expiration date because his mind desperately wanted him to think on the very fact that he was sharing a dawn he never thought he'd see again, with a man he never thought he'd see again. To add, the blonde kept silently running mindless fingertips through Roman's hair as a way to ward off the sickly bit of knowledge he held when it came to Roman's reaction to such words. Even based far from Randy Orton's cold-cut analogies of despondent correlations stemmed from mere happenstance, Dean knew for a certainty that had he stated those very words – had he taken this second to relay Seth's current whereabouts – Roman would let go and become completely occupied with thoughts of Seth Rollins.
Selfishly, he remained silent.
"Dean." Roman spoke with his lips very much embedded in Dean's shoulder. Ambrose held his breath in anticipation of the curveball he hadn't prepared for. The possibility that Roman would choose now to inquire about Seth, and proclaim his worry over the younger man. "Why did you leave?"
Four equally unexpected words, forged into a steely yet sorrowful question, put Dean at a momentary standstill as he began to untangle himself from the answers he had planned to give to any inquiry about Seth Rollins.
"I…" He stopped for a moment in thought. His fingers followed suit and soon he pulled them back and clenched all ten over the flat surface of the railing. "Your family has always been prefect, Roman. You might not consider it like that, but to someone like me, your family was prefect." He sighed heavily – feeling as he did the weight of Roman's head on his shoulder pulling away. "I watched it fall apart, and I watched your father desperately try to keep you on the straight and narrow. He wanted the best life for you Roman, and with your talents, it would have been a cinch to accomplish all the goals he wanted for you. All the fame and fortune of the NFL. All the cherished moments of marriage and children. The house on the hill, the lavish vacations, the beautiful wife. He wanted it all for you, and you made every effort to build yourself to his liking." Dean's head hung slightly lower than it once was – allowing him to see Roman's arms wrapped around his waist. "I always knew there would come a time when I'd have to leave, because I knew that if anything, if anyone, would stand in your way, it would be me. And I loved you too much to let that happen."
"So you left." Clambered over the bumpy hills of a hurt tone.
"No." Dean replied much to the surprise of the man holding onto him. "I spent nine years convincing myself that I left for that reason, and you probably did the same, but it's not why I left at all." He gently placed his hand over Roman's – picking idly at the corners of the older man's fingers. "I realized yesterday that the real reason I left was because I was afraid."
"Afraid?" Roman spoke with eyes focused on the visible side of Dean's face. "Afraid of what?"
As a prelude to his response, Dean heaved another sigh – shakily, as the lump in his throat formed upon his embarking of the truth. "My family got evicted from their home while I was staying here with you." Shock set quickly on Roman's face, but went unnoticed by Dean – who had now taken to staring ahead, back into the distance not seen by the human eye. "No one came to look for me. No one cared to do even that. I walked into that broken house and I found that everything and everyone had abandoned me. And not just me. They abandoned even the traces of me. My cat…" His jaw clenched to ward off the oncoming tears, "Moxley. She was left to die on my bedroom floor. She depended on me, and I depended on them, and we had all left her. And then they turned around and abandoned me. It made me realize that no matter how long you know someone, and no matter what the bond between me and that person, I was so easily forgotten. I was something people could just leave behind. And it made me think about you." The lump rattled heavily down his throat, "You have this life just waiting for you. A life of normalcy and pride and joy. A life I couldn't even begin to offer to you. Looking at my abandoned home, I knew the time would come when you'd leave me for that life, and I knew I wouldn't be able to survive something like that. No matter what I told myself, I knew I could never bear a life where you'd just forget everything about me." He held on tightly to Roman's clutching hands, "So I left. I ran away, and I told myself that you wouldn't even care that I was gone. I told myself that you'd be glad that I was gone, and that you'd live your life happily and carefree and—"
"Dean." Roman cut in sharply, before slipping his hands away from Dean's, and using them to force the blonde to face him. With frighteningly sorrowful blue eyes staring up at the calm lake swimming beneath Roman's own orbs, the older man felt his heart break to the sound of how little Dean thought of him, and his feelings. Anger coursed through him to the very thought that the man he loved – and still loved – could truly believe that he could so easily cast him aside. However, upon recalling the troubled childhood Dean Ambrose suffered through, it became a lost easier to swallow the brutal comparison, and subsequently the need grew more in Roman to put to rest all the fears of abandonment that plagued Dean Ambrose – even though nine years had passed, and the older man was still very much here. "I love you." He spoke in a low tone as his forehead rested gently onto Dean's – mixing in stray strands of black and blonde hair that had managed to breach their respective brows. "Ever since I first met you, I've been in love with you. Nine years doesn't change that. Decades later won't either." With a gentle peck placed on Dean's forehead, Reigns pulled back a bit so as to allow himself room to lift Dean's chin upward – subsequently bringing the younger man's face to his. Deep azure eyes stared sweetly at the saddened expression set on Ambrose's face. "I'm sorry I let you leave before. I'm sorry I was a kid who didn't realize how much you were hurting. And I know now that my words probably won't be enough for you, but know that I only want you. I'll only ever want you. I will never abandon you Dean." He smiled tenderly, "Never."
Somewhere inside the caverns of his elaborate heart, Dean felt a sharp pain shoot through each intricate chamber until it dissipated with the onslaught of rapid fire beats that had set in as a consequence. Something inside the younger blonde had broken free of a lifetime's worth of chains, and had now took hold of his entire being. The sudden rush of warmth that flooded his body could be measured as something close to a summer's day, but still near enough to the kind of heat Roman's touch brought to the table. Unknown was this feeling, but it was not unwanted. As such, Ambrose found himself relaxing in Roman's grasp, only to quickly throw his arms around the older man, and just as quickly lock the surprised Reigns in a deep kiss. Not one to argue the moment, Roman quickly returned the favor and tightened his grip on Dean's body. The kiss lasted for the briefest of minutes, but its impact was clearly written on both men's faces.
"You're hurting me Dean." Roman spoke with a large smile on his face.
"How so, Roman?" Dean asked with a sly grin on his face, as he lessened the already close distance stood between them.
Reigns chuckled lightly as he peered at the coy blonde, watching as Dean walked his fingers down his bare chest. "At least let me eat your cooking," His voice deepened as he leaned in towards Dean's ear, "And then I can show you my appreciation."
Ambrose chuckled light-heartedly as he softly replied, "I thought you said you were too tired."
"To cook." He smirked, "Not for you." The sentence ended with a deep devour of Dean's neck – which the older man broke hold of once he was certain he had left a visible mark – and had Roman pulling back from Dean entirely as he headed towards the kitchen.
Dean smiled as he watched Roman coolly saunter over to the kitchen area, only to dish himself a plate of eggs and bacon, pour a cup of freshly brewed coffee, and take a seat at the table. With the sun now risen above the coldness of a near-forgotten night, Ambrose took up his ashtray and emptied it into the bin nearby – heading back inside once he did. The sound of the balcony door closing brought Roman's attention up from the nearly polished off plate of food. His eyes caught Dean walking to the kitchen, and watched happily as the younger man plated his own breakfast and took a seat in front of him.
Dean picked idly at the crisp edges of his egg, "It's not as good as your cooking, but—"
"It's good." Roman cut in lightly as he chomped down the reminder of his bacon (Force of habit had him leave the meat for last). "Better than I ever dreamed."
Ambrose smiled shyly at the pointed flattery – a stark difference from his confident attitude mere moments ago – as he too joined in eating his own breakfast. The saltiness of the egg had him reeling, but the true knockout came from the oily bacon. The black coffee was the only saving grace.
After the warm liquid had traveled the entire length of his esophagus, Dean spoke up in a rushed tone. "You lied! This tastes like crap!"
Roman laughed loudly at Dean's desperate antics to rid the varying tastes from his tongue. "I didn't lie. I just happen to like my eggs burnt and salty, and oil dripping from my bacon." Ambrose shot him a hard stare, causing Roman to poorly hide his own amusement. "How about tomorrow you wake me up to help you cook?"
"Tomorrow?" Dean asked in a low voice – his expression shifting as the words set in.
"Yeah." Roman spoke confidently, "Tomorrow. Next week. Next year." He leaned on the table, "The rest of our lives."
The words put a heavy beating on Dean's heart in a far better way than a few more strips of his kind of bacon would have. Words like tomorrow or next week were simple in such a way that people who heard or spoke them merely did so without much thought of their impact, and their subsequent uncertainty. Tomorrow for Dean Ambrose never truly existed. For the majority of his life, the blonde had thought of tomorrow to be nothing more than something you either woke up to or you didn't. On the other hand, however, the blonde was never so enigmatic as to believe in the mantra of living in the moment – that kind of thinking warranted a free spirit, something he was not. Rather, for Dean, life was simply the movement of different gears and parts that pushed along the machine called the world. At any moment the gears and parts he controlled could cease to exist, and such cessation was more than likely to happen in the day he stood in, rather than the day yet to come.
Hearing those words from Roman Reigns made Dean as uncomfortable as sitting on a bed of nails, but at the same time, the blonde felt himself be uplifted by their warmth and overall security. Tomorrow truly existed for him, and for what he and Roman had. However, in the same breath, it also did for one Seth Rollins.
And what Seth Rollins shared with Roman.
"Roman" Dean called out, regardless of his logic screaming emphatically at him to keep silent on the issue.
To his name, Roman perked up a bit – having been subject to watching Dean stare blankly at the food set before him, "What is it?" He asked with a small smile.
Dean clenched his fists on the edges of his thighs, as his steely gaze intensified the longer it stared upon his breakfast. "I…" He froze in hesitation, only to drink back the heaviness of his logic-minded chokehold, and bring forth a bolder face. "Who is Seth Rollins?"
For a long moment, Roman stared at Dean's troubled expression as it focused intensely on his rather bewildered one. A few thoughts crash landed inside his mind. A lot of them carried cargo labelled why. Why would he choose now, of all moments, to ask about the one person he tried not to think about? This day was supposed to be about them. Yes, he would eventually go back to thinking about Seth Rollins, however, right now, on the heels of their rekindled love for one another, he wanted nothing more than to pretend that the rest of the world did not exist – because if he did, then it only reminded him of the nine years they had wasted running from each other.
"Why did you…" Dean's expression tightened in a light glaze of fear. Roman took the reaction as is, and noted to himself the need to tread gently on this issue. Clearly, Dean wanted answers. After all, the blonde had said it once before. If it were him in Seth's position, he would have been just as angry. Therefore, it was only right that he come clean with Dean in much the same fashion that he had with Seth. To take one step forward and two steps back would only end them both in the same place they had started – a place where neither wanted to delve too deep into the feelings of the other because of their erroneous belief that what showed on the surface meant more than what crawled beneath. "The day after you left, I didn't know it would have been the last time I saw you. I just thought you had gone back home for a while, and sooner or later you'd show up back on my doorstep. It wasn't until my Dad passed away that I realized that it had been two years, and you probably weren't coming back." He drew in a heavy breath, exhaling just as profoundly. "After my Dad's funeral, I came back to this place, and suddenly it seemed so hollow and broken. I had lost my entire family in this place, and I had lost you. I had lost everything that ever mattered to me, and I hated this place for it. So, before sunset, I jumped in my truck, and I drove as fast as I could out of this town." Large hands slipped over the lukewarm porcelain of his coffee mug, "While I was driving, I cried my heart out. I cursed everything I ever did in my life, I cursed God, I cursed school… I cursed it all. The whole drive, all I kept thinking was why had I even been put on this Earth if all that would become of my life was emptiness and loss? If all I lived for was to experience this kind of hellish pain, then it was only fitting that I end my life here since it was all I had left to lose." He scoffed lightly as his eyes focused intently on the rim of the cup. Dean continued to look on – more observantly than beleaguered. "I stepped on the gas and felt the wheels chew up the asphalt and gravel, and slowly I began to take my hands off the wheel. Then" He paused before inhaling to a relieved smile, "I saw ten year old Seth walking on the other side of the road. I pulled the brakes on my truck, and flew out of the cabin towards him. He looked right at me with his sunken brown eyes, and just kept on walking. He was rail thin, injured –his leg was bleeding – and he was covered in soot and limestone. I grabbed him, and he didn't even make a sound or react. He just looked up at me with a coldness I can't even to describe, and something inside me clicked. It was like I was looking at an Angel." He smiled lightly once more, before looking up at Dean. "I didn't even think twice when I packed him up in my truck and drove back to town. I hadn't gone grocery shopping that week of my father's funeral, so I brought him over to Randy's diner where he had his first meal. Afterwards, I brought him back here and washed him up, gave him a change of clothes, and tucked him into my childhood bed." Blue orbs shifted a bit around the small space, before looking back at Dean. "It's been seven years since then, and no matter how crazy he makes me sometimes, I've never once regretted picking him up."
Ambrose thought on Roman's tale – finding it a heart-wrenching and extraordinary all at once – only to settle down on the more rational parts of his brain. "Hasn't his parents ever come by to look for him?"
"He has no parents. He told me that they died long before I found him on the roadside." Roman spoke dryly, as his eyes slipped away beneath the low overhang of heavy eyelids and long eyelashes, "I'm the closest thing he's got to family, and he's the only family I have."
"Family?" Dean enunciated as a sign of his own disbelief to the term Roman used as a label of his relationship with Rollins. "But…I thought…"
Roman peered at him curiously, "What?" Dean tensed to the inquiry – successfully peaking Roman's intrigue. "You thought what, Dean?" He asked far less openly as he had before – a sign that he had already figured out what sat on Ambrose's mind. After a long moment of stagnant silence had passed over their heads, Roman let out a long, and exasperated sigh to break the hold. "I didn't stay here in this town only because I believed you'd come back, Dean. Seth is one of the reasons I've stayed here. Every time I went to the city to look for you, and every time I thought about not coming back, I remembered Seth and found myself unable to leave. Even though I never forgot you, or stopped wishing you'd come back, Seth…he gave me a different purpose in life. He gave me a reason to wake up on those days when I missed you so much I thought I'd die." He leaned forward with hands resting calmly on the table, "I care for and love Seth, but he is my brother. You are my lover, Dean. That will never change."
Dean nodded gently in unrequested agreement to Roman's generalization of what separated him from Seth Rollins, allowing the older man to freely leave the table and busy himself with clearing the sink of dirty dishes. The moment in itself turned out to be bittersweet the longer Dean found himself looking at Roman stood in the kitchen with his board back turned to the table and rest of the room. On one hand, the blonde was utterly ecstatic to hear that no matter what, the relationship part of Roman Reigns belonged to him and him alone. However, there was the brotherly side that Seth Rollins held claim to, and in Roman's own words, that was not subject to change. Knowing that there would always been someone else present on Roman's mind, and residing in a part of Roman's heart put a stake in Dean's emotions – forcing him to feverously fend off the creeping muck of jealously that tried to siege his entire being. The efforts paid off in their own way as Dean managed to keep his expression majorly unchanged in face of a truth he wasn't expecting, however it did little to rid his mind of the memory of Seth Rollins' silhouette slipping away into the night.
A memory he knew he had to share now with Roman.
"Roman" He called stiffly – altering the tempo of his voice as he did. The older man raised his brow as he looked at Dean from over the rise of his shoulder. Having Roman's momentary attention dampened his fiery attempt at confession, only to watch that attention slip mercifully back to the kitchen sink. "About Seth…he—"
"Mr. Reigns!" The entrance of a foreign voice belonging to neither man quickly hijacked their attentions, and forced it to the open window at the face of the room. "Mr. Reigns are you up there?" Roman looked to Dean, to find that the man had already beaten him to the course, before rapidly wiping his hands off on a nearby small towel, and heading over to the window – pushing it up further so as to look outside. Dean followed aimlessly, choosing to stand a bit beside the window so as to remain unseen by the person stood on the sidewalk.
"Bo!" Roman shouted with his body halfway out the window, "I told you to stop calling me that!" He smiled lightly, "What are you doing here?"
"I'm picking up Seth for school, Sir." The long-haired teenager replied whilst standing outside of his running truck. "I told him I would when I dropped him off yesterday."
Roman stood back a bit perplexed. Dean watched as all sorts of short-lived and sporadic emotions hot-flashed across Roman's face – draining the blood from it as they did.
"He went to your house yesterday!" Roman shouted back with nerves raw and stinging. "Why are you coming here to pick him up when he's supposed to already be with you?"
"He never came to me, Sir." Bo answered, only to quickly side-step his confusion for true worry, "I left him here. He should be here."
A state of indescribable shock set on Roman's face – now paled by the life-threatening loss of blood – the longer his mind perched blankly on the starkness of a most dreaded reality. Sensing Roman's heart rate exceeding its own limitations, Dean stepped closer and placed a gentle hand on the tense triceps muscle bulging from Roman's board shoulder. To the cool feel of fingertips grazing the heat of his skin, Roman looked over his shoulder with wide blue eyes – unsure of what to make of the face now in his line of sight.
"Come on." Dean spoke as he pulled down the window – shutting it in the process. "Let's go find Seth."