Chapter 21

All-in-all, Roman and Dean had been lucky in their encounter. A few bandages and stitches were all they needed to get back on their feet. Seth, on the other hand, had slept through the first two days of his hospital stay...at least, he finally slept after his fight with the hospital staff...

On that first night, exhausted and hungry, Roman and Dean had decided to change out of their ring gear. Roman had to admit that he was impressed by Dean's foresight, that he'd thought ahead to put their stuff in the car before the show started taping. Roman wouldn't have thought of that. Once changed, both men decided to grab food and coffee before hunkering down to spend the night at Seth's bedside. They'd expected the mediocre food and bitter black coffee. What they hadn't expected was to come back to find Seth restrained to his bed and looking around like a scared, feral cat.

Leaving Dean to try to calm Seth down, Roman stormed off to ring the neck of the closest hospital personnel he could get his hands on. Charging down the hallway, Roman vaguely recognized Seth's doctor, the man having only come in once or twice to check on his patient. Spotting the livid man, the doctor was already backing up from the wave of rage coming straight at him.

"Sir, I can explain," the doctor started lamely.

"Well it'd better be good," the Samoan said darkly, leaving no doubt what would happen if it wasn't.

"When you two left, your friend woke up. He looked for you, and when he couldn't find you, he flipped and started ripping out needles and taking off wires. We couldn't calm him, so we had to use bed restraints to keep him from hurting himself," the doctor rushed to explain nervously, leaving the, or anyone else, hanging in the air unsaid.

Roman glared at the skinny man who he could break in half without effort, and lowered his voice to a deep, threatening growl, "Don't ever do that to him again, are we clear?"

Unable to speak, the doctor simply shook his head before scurrying away.

Reigns reentered Seth's room to see Dean hunched over the bed, talking softly to his friend, the restraints removed. "Dean?" Roman called out cautiously. Dean turned to his friend, worry clouding his face. Reigns motioned for him to come closer. In the doorway, Reigns asked for an update, "What happened?"

"He woke up and we weren't there. He thought we'd been taken, so he tried to get out to save us," Dean answered back, matching Roman's whisper, as they both kept an eye on Seth, who was looking at them with drug-hazed eyes.

"Is it the meds?" Roman asked.

"I don't think so. Whatever Evolution and their new goons did to Seth, it shook him up pretty good Rome. We may be dealing with a different Seth for a while."

Roman nodded his understanding. He trusted Dean's opinion. Roman had no doubt that Seth was one of his best friends, and the feeling was mutual, but he also knew that Dean had spent more time with Seth than Roman had. This was a fact that Reigns tried his best not to be jealous of. Therefore, if Dean had an opinion about Seth, Roman trusted that the twitchy man before him knew best.

Dean had been right, of course. Throughout the stay, every time that Seth finally fought his way out of his drug-induced sleep, the same horror always filled his eyes as he desperately scanned the room for his brothers. The two had learned not to leave Seth by himself. When one man left to go get food or coffee, the other stayed to explain to Seth that everything was alright.

After four days of this, the boys felt that Seth would do better in their care than at the hospital, especially since he had no health issues that demanded special medical treatment. To accomplish their goal, Seth had, during one of his short bouts of consciousness, been able to discharge himself, much to the protest of the doctors. Only because Roman and Dean made such an appealing case for his release–not to mention the staff being tired of Seth's sleepy outbursts–were the two allowed to take their youngest member out of the hospital.

That had all been a few days ago. Now, all three sat in a hotel room, relieved that the heavy drugs were finally out of Seth's system. Maybe tonight they could all sleep without one of Seth's nightmares, of losing Dean and Roman, waking up half of their floor in the hotel.

Finally beginning to feel safe in the hotel room with his friends, Seth began to regain enough strength to put his walls back up again–to be the peacekeeper who always acted like nothing bothered him. Seeing this small change in Seth gave Roman hope that they'd get their friend back after all...that Seth wouldn't always be the fragile man he'd been for the past week. In fact, feeling so confident in his friend's full recovery, Roman gently approached the topic that had been on both his and Dean's mind since they'd approached the ring with Seth standing next to Triple H: what had happened?