"You are such a fucking asshole!"

"Me? I was DEFENDING you!"

"I didn't fucking ask you to Dean! I told you that I wanted to handle this! I'm a grown man! I can fucking take care of myself!"

"And I told you that I wanted to handle that asshole! I'm the fucking Intercontinental champion. You're in a fucking slump. I'm -"

"Ohhhh, so that's how it is? That suddenly makes you so much better than me?"

"I didn't say that!"

"But you just fucking did!"

"Maybe one of us should go in there."

Neville's statement was met with incredulous looks. He, Roman, the Usos and Naomi were standing outside Roman's locker room, trying to wait out the screaming match between Dean and Seth. Roman was the one who had told them to give them the space. He knew better than any of them how the two of them got. He knew Seth and Dean had to get at least some of this out of their systems. They were both stubborn hotheads, and sometimes there was just no containing them.

"You can go in there if you want Legolas," Jimmy said. "But I'm not coming near them with a fifty foot pole."

Neville made a face. "Do you have to call me that? I don't even look like him."

"You got elf ears don't you?"

"I -"

"Then you're Legolas."

"I do not have elf ears!"

Roman let out a long sigh. Great. There really was no escaping the fighting around here.

"How about I shove that Intercontinental title up your ass?" Seth's voice kept getting louder, which was making it more and more awful to listen to. The sound of it alone should have made Dean give up the fight, but he was a more stubborn man than Roman was. "How the fuck does that sound?"

"Seth -"

"No! Fuck you Dean! I'm not a fucking damsel in distress. I can fucking take care of myself."

"And I don't need you going around and giving Hunter what he wants again by letting you walk into his fucking little trap!" Dean shot back. "Owens is here to fucking hurt you."

"I don't give a shit if he wants to hurt me! Fucking let him. Just fucking stay the fuck out of it. This is my fucking mess and I don't need you getting hurt trying to get me out of it."

"Well I'm already in it, so fucking get over it."

"Think they're almost done?" Naomi took a glance at her watch. "The show's gonna start soon. They can't keep this up all night."

"Fuck you Dean." Seth's statement was followed by the sound of something crashing into the wall. "I fucking told you why I didn't want you to fight him, and you didn't even have enough respect for me to at least try to contain yourself for five fucking seconds."

"I - wait, where are you going?"

"Out."

"Out where?"

"None of your business."

"The hell it ain't."

"Ow! Let go of me!"

"I'm not even -"

"ROMAN!"

"Oh fuck me." Roman had to go in now. He opened the door, not caring if the others followed him in or not. He found that Dean had a hold of Seth's arm to keep him from storming out. Seth was squirming and yelling, though Roman was pretty sure that Dean wasn't holding as tightly as Seth was trying to pretend he was. Seth just had a flair for the dramatics when he got super pissed.

"Roman talk to him!" Dean pleaded. "Just fucking tell him that I need to handle this shit."

Seth glared at him before looking at Roman. "No, you tell him that he's a fucking idiot and to let me the fuck go before I fucking bite his ass."

"Wouldn't be the first time, so..."

Seth let out a frustrated growl before ripping himself out of Dean's grip and bolting. Dean tried to grab him again, but Roman got in between them to stop him.

"Roman what the hell?" Dean tried to get around him, but Roman didn't allow it. "Dude! Fucking move!"

"You need to let him calm down," Roman said sternly. "Jimmy and Jey will go watch his back. Just give him some space."

"Wait, we're gonna go do that?" Jimmy threw his hands up in exasperation. "Dude! We have better things to do than..." his voice trailed off at the look he got from Roman. "Okay. You know what? We'll just go watch his back. We got him uce."

Roman nodded curtly before looking at Dean again. The younger man didn't look the least bit put at ease "They're not going to let anything happen to him. He'll be easier to stop than you."

"That's not the point," Dean snapped. He tried to go out the door like the others did (Naomi and Neville decided to leave Dean to Roman and help go after Seth as well), but Roman didn't let him get away. "You know I'm right on this Roman. You fucking know I am."

"I'm not touching that one." Roman didn't want to go there. Not if it could be absolutely helped. He could see it going both ways. Dean was on a better roll than Seth was. He had always been better at straight up fighting. But Seth had fought Kevin before. He knew how to beat him. And not only that, his emotions were a lot less likely to get in his way than Dean's. "I know you just want to protect him. I get it, alright? But you'd be just as pissed as he is if you asked him not to do some shit and he went and did it anyway. You know that."

Dean did, but he didn't actually want to admit it. "Whatever," he grumbled. He walked over to the bench and sat down. "If he wants to be mad at me then he can be fucking mad. I don't care."

Roman knew that wasn't true. He didn't bother to argue with him though. Instead he shook his head and took a glance at the clock. "You got a match to get ready for tonight. Just sit here and cool off and get ready for it, alright?"

"Who the fuck am I even facing?"

"Stardust."

Dean made a face. "Why can't I fight Owens instead?"

Roman let out a long sigh. "Can you let that go? Just so Seth's not totally unpleasant in the car tonight?"

Dean just grunted unhappily.

Roman sighed. He supposed that was at least better than more arguing.

Seth wasn't the type to like wrestling angry. He liked going in with a plan. He liked to pride himself in being meticulous in exploiting his opponent's weakness and using it to his advantage. But now he had no choice but to wrestle angry. He was far, far too pissed off to go into his tag match with a level head. He was angry at Hunter for coming back into all their lives like a cancer. He was angry at Kevin Owens for just existing. He was absolutely furious with Dean for being so god damn stubborn. But above all else, he was angry with himself. He had not only let himself be weak and give into Hunter in the first place, but once that fell apart he let his career go with it. He had let himself become some loser. He had let himself become someone that Dean didn't even have enough faith in to protect himself. Maybe Dean didn't mean it that way, but that was the way Seth kept taking it. That was how it felt to him. And he couldn't let that stand. Fuck that. He was going to show him. He was going to show all of them.

The others all tried to talk to him as he got ready. Tried to calm him down. Turning down Hunter on Raw had instilled a little bit of their faith back. Whether he was going to get the rest of it back remained to be seen. It would also be something he cared about later. For now he tuned them out, He focused on his anger, letting it build and carry him out to that ring. Fuck a game plan. He was fighting alongside Bray Wyatt anyway. Talking strategy with him was the last thing he wanted to do.

The match itself felt like a giant blur. Seth just attacked, nearly getting him and Bray disqualified on more than one occasion. Not that Bray even cared. He just laughed, watching Seth go off like it was the most amusing thing in the world. Seth was sure that he didn't want to know what Wyatt found to be so damn funny. It would probably only piss him off even more.

Seth reversed an RKO into getting Randy up and powerbombing him against the turnbuckles. Without wasting a second, Seth hit the ropes and came down with the hardest curbstomp he could muster. He went for the cover, at least getting the satisfaction of actually winning the match. The referee tried to raise his hand, but he didn't let it happen. He just slid out of the ring and left through the crowd, wanting to avoid the others by the curtain. Fans yelled at him, but they didn't try to shove him down the stairs as he moved. That was a good thing. As pissed off as he still was, he probably would have knocked them out for it.

With nobody around to stop him, Seth retreated to the nearest restroom. It was mercifully empty, so he could go to the sink and rinse off his face. His adrenaline was starting to wear of, leaving him to feel all the aches and pains that came with being in the business for so long. He was still pissed, but at this point, with his aggression all taken out, he just felt physically and emotionally drained from it. He had just wanted to handle this shit with Hunter and Kevin by himself. He didn't want Dean to get hurt because of him. It had happened enough times over the past year. And it wasn't like Seth had ever liked seeing it before that all went down. Trouble sometimes followed them when they went out to certain places, and with Dean's temper, things always escalated even more than they should have.

"Dean! Oh god oh god oh god." Seth could barely keep Dean on his feet as they slipped out of the bar. They had gone out for drinks, wanting to blow off some steam after the Smackdown taping. Roman hadn't gone with them, saying he was too tired. Seth wished they had either tried harder to convince him or just stayed at the hotel as well. The bar trip had ended in disaster. Seth had gone to get them more drinks and had gotten harassed by three drunk assholes. They had seen him and Dean kissing and had decided to pick a fight with him about it. Seth wasn't sure if it was because they thought he was weaker, or just because he had been the first one they could get alone. Regardless, he had tried to just ignore them and go back to Dean. They had surrounded him though, trapping him and shoving him all around. Dean had noticed, and in true Dean fashion, came and started swinging. The fight had sort of gone okay, but a broken bottle being smashed against the side of Dean's face had ruined what advantage they had gotten.

"S'not that bad," Dean mumbled.

The hell it wasn't. Blood was pouring down the side of Dean's face. The glass had cut him right above the eye, which was scaring the shit out of Seth. What if there was glass in his eye? What if he was too out of it to say that and he went blind? Seth tried to shake off those thoughts, but he couldn't. This was his fault. It had been his idea to go out this time. He had asked Dean to go and now this had happened. Dean was hurt, and they were possibly going to get arrested if they didn't get out of there before the cops showed up.

"No hospital," Dean tried to argue as Seth helped him get into the car. "M'fine."

"You're not fine," Seth snapped. He tried not to look at how much blood had already gone from Dean's face to his shirt. He was going to throw up if he focused on it too much. "You need to go to a hospital."

"Dean mumbled something incoherent before closing his eyes and slumping over."

"Dean?" Pure panic shot through Seth as he tried to shake Dean back away. What if he had a concussion? There had been so much blood that he hadn't thought about that. "Dean wake up." He tried lightly slapping the older man, but Dean didn't respond. "Dean? DEAN!"

"Seth?"

Seth jumped as he turned around. He hadn't heard AJ come in. "What?" The word came out harsher than he intended it to. He winced and looked away, still too irritated to really apologize. "This is the men's room dude. You shouldn't be in here."

She rolled her eyes. "Don't really care right now." She stepped closer, limping as she did so. "I heard about what happened."

"You and the rest of the world I'm sure," he muttered.

"Did you hear that Regal made the match? He told Hunter to have Owens make the challenge in a promo."

Seth just scowled.

"And if they touch each other again before Monday then they're both suspended without pay."

That didn't make Seth feel any better. "He shouldn't be fucking fighting Owens at all. This is my fucking fight."

"Sure it is," AJ agreed. "But here's the thing - and take it from someone who's dating someone who has a protective streak that can match Dean's - your fight isn't just your fight. Your fight is his fight, just like mine is Paige's." She grabbed his arm and turned him so he was fully facing her. "And you know what? If Paige had been attacked by Charlotte, I'd be jumping into the mess." She tapped his chest lightly with a single finger. "If Owens had struck Dean first, wouldn't you be sticking your nose into it?"

"That's different," Seth said immediately.

"Why is it different?"

He struggled to answer that one. "...Because I said so."

She just gave him a look.

"Okay fine," he admitted. "I'd be doing the same thing. I just...I just got him back." His voice cracked and he hated it. He hated how pathetic he sounded right now. "I just fucking got him back, and now he's gonna be in this mess because of me. And if something happens to him -"

"You don't know that it's going to."

"It's Kevin Owens. He's hurt about everyone he's stepped in the ring with since getting here. Don't tell me that I don't know what's going to happen."

AJ sighed. "Good point, but maybe it'll be different. Dean's...well, he's Dean. He's fought bigger and scarier than Kevin Owens." She tapped his chest again, shaking her head when he tried to speak. "And look dude, if the worst does happen, you probably shouldn't go into the whole thing fighting with him. You know, because there's like movies and books and all this shit of the couple who fight about something and then tragedy strikes and one gets hurt or killed and then the other gets steamrolled by guilt. And there's drug use and alcoholism and maybe they find someone else, but then other times they just like completely die from the angst."

Seth blinked, not even sure what to say. "Um..."

She frowned. "That wasn't helpful was it?"

"Not in the very fucking least," he informed her.

"Damn." She wrapped her arms around his waist and hugged him tight. "Just make sure you make nice with him. That way he won't die or get paralyzed."

Seth smacked a hand over his face. He didn't see how that would actually stop anything, but he wasn't going to keep arguing. It really wasn't worth it.

Between being preoccupied with the fight with Seth and wanting to kill Kevin Owens, the title defense against Stardust suffered greatly. Dean tried to get into it, but his head was so messed up that he kept making mistakes left and right. Pure resilience kept him from getting put down for the three count, but the freak was absolutely handing him an ass whipping. The title was slipping away from him. He could feel it. Everyone could feel it. It seemed to be only a matter of time.

The loss never came though. Not by pinfall at least. One moment Stardust was circling him, ready to finish him off. The next the referee was calling for the bell. Dean forced himself to sit up, blinking in surprise as he found Kevin Owens taking out Stardust. Confusion reigned until he figued that Kevin probably just wanted to be the one to get it from him. Anger spiked through him and he pushed himself up to his feet so he could charge the larger man. He wanted to hurt him. He wanted to tear him apart. He got within striking distance, but his fists didn't connect. Large hands grabbed him by the waist and tossed him up in the air. He heard the fans crying out, heard Michael Cole yelling, and then there was nothing but a ringing in his ears as he was powerbombed into the mat.

Fuck...

He didn't know how long he laid there like that. By the time he came out of his daze, there was all kinds of yelling going on. He blinked several times, rolling over a bit so he could see what was going on. Seth was out there now, he and Stardust both fighting Owens. Stardust was the worse for wear, getting taken down by a mere right hand. Seth wasn't one to go down that easy though. He kept coming in a fury, eventually blasting Kevin in the face with his own NXT title and sending him out of the ring.

"SETH!" The crowd was going absolutely crazy. They probably weren't sure if Seth had meant to help Dean or just wanted his own revenge on Owens, but they were happy to see him nonetheless. "SETH! SETH SETH SETH!"

Dean grinned, not giving a shit if the cameras caught him or not. They could edit it out later if they didn't like it. "That's my boy," he muttered as he let out a short laugh. "Fucking god damn right."