Choose

by corneroffandom

Seth had to make a choice the night that he betrayed Dean and Roman and sided with The Authority, but he had no idea that an even harder choice was waiting just around the corner for him to notice it.

It hadn't been an impromptu idea. Seth had thought about it for months after leaving Roman and Dean to kill each other while facing off against the Wyatts. Had sat and stared into the dark of night, realizing that it's the first time he'd felt peaceful in a long time. He had returned, sure, but the idea of a singles career, without being held accountable to anyone in particular, sounded better and better as time went by. Even when Roman and Dean tried to get their shit together and they all gelled better as a unit. His leaving had been good for something after all. But it was too little, too late. The seed's already been planted.

By the time June comes, he thinks it's time. They show their dominance against Evolution- one last 'See what I can do' to HHH before he aligns with him, taking out both Dean and Roman with chair shots.

The memory of Dean's face afterwards does haunt Seth, his nightmares full of that shocked look after he took Roman out, but he's finally got what he wanted. A singles career, of a sort, while wrapped up in the Authority so he has power and protection and anything else a star of his caliber could ask for. His hotel room that night is quiet as he lays down on the king-sized bed and stares at the ceiling. It's weird. He's not sure he likes it, but it's what he's wanted for months, not having to listen to Dean and Roman arguing every time they bump into each other or dare to say the wrong thing at the wrong time. He sighs and rolls over, stretching out and taking up most of the bed. Punching a pillow, he smirks and shrugs. "Who knows, with me out of the equation, they could actually start to get along now. And if they don't, well, not much will have changed..."

He yawns and closes his eyes, preparing to enjoy the next two days before Smackdown, when he may have to do something, address his actions, explain his viewpoint on the whole situation. He's not sure how it'll go, aware that the crowd will hate him. HHH, thankfully, probably won't push him to explain himself much so he decides not to. Everything that led up to this moment, the constant push and pull while trapped in the middle of Roman and Dean, how tired he is down to his marrow... all of it. No one deserves to hear his reasoning just yet, especially when he figures that Dean will still be watching the footage over and over again, falling back into obsessive habits now that he has a new target.

So Thursday, he keeps it short. Simple. Tells everyone who's listening they don't deserve to know, only he needs to know. Ziggler interrupts and HHH puts them in a match, which Seth wins, staring down at his Shield gear one last time before he leaves with HHH. Stripping out of it slowly once he escapes back to the hotel, he exhales and carefully folds it, placing it in his bag. He'll stuff it in some unexplored corner of his closet at home, leave the smell of months of fighting alongside Dean and Roman to fade away and hopefully when he comes upon it again some time in the future, the memories he'll be besieged with won't be ones full of shame or regret.

He hesitates under the hot water streaming down his back and squints. Neither had been at Smackdown, not a huge surprise, but something of a relief. Pillowing his face in his arms, he exhales and shivers under the water as it slowly turns cold. Shaking himself free of dark, depressing, lonely thoughts, he grabs his shampoo and blindly rubs it in. Sometimes, like now, he thinks he can hear their voices in the other room, the TV droning on, plastic crinkling.

But no, he reminds himself as he wraps a towel around his body and walks out into the main room. He's all alone. And that's ok. It's what he wanted, after all. He sinks into the bed and trades the towel for the sheets, nuzzling deeper down and staring up at the ceiling. Sleep isn't easy any more, hasn't been for awhile, but he endures because he's Seth Rollins and that's what he's supposed to do. He's the architect, after all. He dozes, drifting into a blanket of darkness... just for a voice to echo back at him, refute what he'd been thinking. The men in this ring are brothers... It had been Roman speaking, but Dean's slap against his back had startled him, reinforced in him every conflict he'd been nursing, every destructive thought he'd had the last few months. From there, yeah, it'd been kind of easy to turn his spite onto them. Something about being labeled brother had just set his teeth on edge, left him tense and frustrated.

Breathing heavily through his nose, Seth buries his face in his pillows and tries not to lose it at this memory. Career is more important, he reminds himself. Tries to sound like HHH's commanding tone. Now get some sleep, Seth. You don't need them. You have the Authority.

Despite his being slightly more rested by Monday, Raw is worse than Smackdown. Raw is watching Dean go with personal attacks and Roman stick with professional threats- one vowing to wreck his facial features, and the other determined to destroy the Authority. Seth wavers for a moment, pondering the two vastly different reactions to what he'd done, but shakes it off. It means nothing. They mean nothing. He says as much, watching their faces with a kind of smug detachment that doesn't fit the swirling emotions he's ignoring deep down inside.

Seth doesn't have a match that night but Stephanie and HHH are busy so he sits and he watches the show passively, analyzing various things that might come into play later in his career when things get moving, between Money in the Bank and whatever else down the pike. It doesn't hurt, after all, to know your possible opponents. He smirks bitterly when Roman and Dean team up with Cena later on against the Wyatts, gnawing at his bottom lip. It's nothing, really, the three of them have beat that family many a times in the past, but still. It's weird watching his brothers- a painful twinge at the thought, which he shakes off and ignores- team with someone else. Especially when that someone else is Cena, for God's sake. All in all he thinks the match goes ok, Dean and Roman walking out victorious with Cena by their side, but when he makes it to the door and listens to the post-show nonsense going on outside, he knows something's wrong.

Blood. Dean's bleeding, and all Seth can do is stare from a distance as the trainers convince him to let them work on him, patting the blood off of his chin and disinfecting it before leading him into the medical office down the hall from where he's standing. Roman is lurking nearby, Seth's sure, but it doesn't stop him, doesn't keep every nerve ending in his body from firing anxiously until he finds himself in the doorway of the trainer's office, peering in wide eyed and somewhat worried. Of course, of course Dean would push too hard, get himself injured, and need stitches the first match where Seth's not there to watch out for him.

It takes some intense focus to pull him away from the room before Dean looks up and sees him or Roman approaches to check in on Dean, whichever comes first, and Seth pushes with a little more force than necessary when entering The Authority's office, nodding at HHH and Stephanie as they look up at him with smirks, HHH's eyes lighting up at his latest pet project. What they're talking about washes over him, Seth unable to shake the image of Dean bleeding from his mind. "So, any thoughts?" HHH finally asks and Seth snaps back into reality, looking from him to Stephanie and back.

"Yeah, it sounds great. Whatever you think we should do," Seth flubs, clapping his hands together briskly. "I'm ready to do whatever I need to do to be The Man."

"Exactly what I wanted to hear," HHH says, smug grin only growing as Stephanie steps out from behind the desk and laces an arm over HHH's shoulder, also beaming at Seth. He tolerates their lovey dovey crap for as long as he can, walking with them to the car that's waiting, and closes his eyes as he sinks inside, relaxing into the leather seats while the door shuts behind him.

They are in a different vehicle, which is a relief, Seth needing a minute to get his head on straight. Fans are scattered all around the hotel, waiting for autographs or photos, and Seth keeps his eyes straight ahead, ignoring the jeers and insults spat at him from fangirls and Shield obsessives alike, relieved when the elevator blocks him in away from the gaggle of people in the lobby. The quiet is nice, except for the racing thoughts he's now trapped with. It had shaken him more than he'd expected, being in the building with both Dean and Roman but being unable to fall into old habits.

You wanted this, he reminds himself again. You needed this. He stares at his reflection in the elevator door and grits his teeth.

He'd needed a lot of things, most of which evaded him until he had stood up and decided he'd had enough of waiting.

"You're fine," he tells himself, brushing his hair back out of his eyes and tugging a little crueler than necessary. "You're fine. It's fine. Everything's fine." He leaves the elevator once the doors open and walks down the hall to his room, tapping his knuckle with the keycard before unlocking the door and entering his quiet, dark room. He casts a quick glance around it and smirks, as empty and half-hearted as the room itself.

-x

Smackdown. Seth's watching backstage while Dean wrestles Bray Wyatt for the chance to compete in the Money in the Bank match. He's gotten better at forcing his emotions and feelings down, which is good because every moment of time he has at an event is now spent surrounded by one member of the Authority or another, which means he has no privacy and very little time to properly think through things, which considering how last week's adjustment period went for him isn't a bad thing. So when HHH suggests in a not-so-subtle way that Dean shouldn't win this match by any means necessary, Seth finds himself heading out towards the audience. Step faltering just a bit, Seth watches the match carry on and can spot it immediately- Dean's done something to his shoulder, of course. The arm he always has trouble with after years of injuring it repeatedly on the indys.

Hell, I'm almost doing him a favor at this point, Seth thinks, hopping up onto the commentary table and gaining Dean's attention almost immediately, Dean turning to him as though attracted to a magnet. It's enough for Bray to rally, grab him and successfully get the pin. Seth escapes quickly, not wanting to be within range of Dean's wrath... bad arm or no. He slips into the Authority's locker room, laughing to himself and accepting HHH's praise with a nod and smirk. Feelings are itching at the edge of his consciousness but he shakes them off, standing tall and smug as Stephanie and HHH discuss how perfectly the plan is shaking out. Without Ambrose in the match, Seth can move on, claim that briefcase as his own.

That night, Seth shifts, rolls from left to right. Weighed down by exhaustion but unable to sink completely into sleep, wondering if Dean is allowing Roman to handle his shoulder. As soon as the thought comes, he scoffs and punches his pillow. "Yeah right," he mumbles, buries his face into the wedge his fist had made in the fabric. "Freakin' lunatic..."

-x

Raw that week sees Seth have a rematch against Ziggler and he almost has it in the bag again when Dean runs out, attacks him. He tries to defend himself, get the upperhand, but there's no chance of that happening. Seth only just barely manages to get away, stumbling up the ramp to safety as Dean yells at him, not even dissuaded by the ref. Seth goes backstage before he can chase him, quickly escaping into the Authority's locker room. Stephanie is there and pats him soothingly on the back, only just hiding her grimace at how sweaty he is. "Don't worry, Hunter will handle him. Go shower."

Seth goes to do that and by the time he's out and dressed, Dean's in a match against Bad News Barrett. He's not thrilled that Dean's doing fairly well, about to cinch the win so he runs out again, not terribly surprised when Dean once more focuses on him, chasing him around the ring, into the crowd. Seth's agenda is successful when Dean loses again by countout, the sharp sting of defeat in such a dumb way slowing Dean enough that Seth races away, manages to escape entirely... so Dean goes back and pummels Wade a bit more.

Seth is a little breathless, but pleased with his accomplishment. As much as he thought he'd wanted a clean break from his former Shield mates, something about still being in contact with Dean- even if it's just to run for his life, or disrupt his matches for a brief moment here and there- feels good. He leans against the Authority door and breathes in deeply, chuckling to himself. "Idiot, thinking he could defeat me," he mumbles, brushing his hair out of his eyes as he enters the room and finds HHH inside, busy on the phone but offering him a quick nod and smile.

"Ready to announce the next stage in your career on Main Event?" HHH wonders after putting the cordless phone down and facing his protege.

"Yes. I can't wait." Main Event had been suggested and accepted as the perfect place, less people around to disrupt it but with enough buzz behind it to really get the word out in a hurry about Seth's place in the Money in the Bank match. Should be a foregone conclusion anyway, he thinks, but it'll feel good to say it. To absorb the fans' disdain towards what he's doing, how successful he's proving to be post-Shield.

Of course, nothing can be simple. All of the Authority's careful plans go to hell when Seth is in the middle of his announcement, enjoying the hate and venom being thrown his way from the crowd when... Dean. He thinks he's hallucinating before Dean's on top of him, a mess of offense that leaves Seth little to no way to defend... until Kane arrives and saves the day, drags Dean off of him but Dean gets the upperhand on him, however his presence is just enough to give Seth time to run, recover. He coughs and scrubs at his face in disgust and disbelief, storming backstage and glowering at every snickering person he comes across.

He wishes he could yell at Stephanie, at HHH, demand answers as to why things went so badly on his big night, why security screwed this up so damn thoroughly but of course Main Event isn't good enough for the bosses to be on so the best he can do is kick fruitlessly at crates and snap at his driver once he's finally ready to leave, his anger ebbing and flowing until finally he's back at his hotel, ignoring everyone as he goes to his room and puts on every possible lock, finally pushing one of the dressers in front of the door as he's not sure what will succeed at keeping Dean out if he really wanted in. He paces, scrapes his fingernails through his hair, and grits his teeth. He doesn't feel safe anywhere anymore. "Son of a bitch," he breathes, closing his eyes.

By Smackdown, Seth's anger has only grown, simmering under the surface due to having to wait to have his issues addressed. "This can't continue to happen!" he tells HHH and Stephanie as soon as he sees them. "I'm sick of Ambrose wrecking my moment every time I turn around! What are you two going to do about it?"

They exchange glances. Turn back to him. "Don't worry about it, we have a plan. Right now, you have a match. Go get ready."

Seth's jaw works as he gets into his gear, still getting used to moving in something that's not his Shield stuff, something more form fitting, more complimentary, designed the way he wants it to be... Tugs at the fabric and takes in a deep breath, stretching his arms out to the sides before relaxing, stuffing his feet into his boots and lacing them with snapping, angry motions. He almost feels bad for Kofi, but not quite. The match goes as he figures it will, Kofi losing quickly to Seth's anger, but he's barely gotten back to his feet after the three count when Dean's face appears on the titantron and Seth turns to look at him, wavering towards him with an angry, tense expression as he tears at his wrist tape, wishing that it was Dean's throat instead.

"Maybe tonight will be the night he gets revenge on me?!" Seth snaps at Kane as he storms into the locker room, so spastic that he'd not even bothered to change out of his gear. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?" Stephanie-" he stops short, seeing that she's on the phone, holding a finger up to him.

"Understood. I'll talk to you later." She hangs up and turns to Seth, patiently listening as he lays out his worries and demands to her. Eventually she holds a hand out to him and rests it on his shoulder. "Calm down, Seth. We have this handled. You'll see."

He wants to continue venting at her but he knows her well enough to see that it wouldn't be taken well so he falls quiet, nods when she urges him to go get cleaned up and they'd talk more, brushing past Kane with all of the anger he can muster before going to do to just that. Once cleaned up, dressed, and feeling a bit more human, he returns to her and is pleasantly surprised to find that the plan for the rest of the night actually makes some sort of sense.

Kane has a match against Dean to get back at him for his actions on Main Event, and Seth is on commentary. During which Seth does his level best to distract Dean until finally Kane gets the upperhand, and the win. While Kane restrains him, Seth gets up and smugly enters the ring, standing over Dean. He hesitates only a moment, taking in the hatred and bitterness in Dean's blue eyes and swallows hard, closing his eyes against the sight, before putting a few feet between them, running forward and curb stomping Dean into the mat, laughing almost maniacally as he and Kane regroup, leave the ring to the chorus of referees and medical staff yelling at them, the crowd's disdain.

It's not until later, when he's alone in his hotel room, that he realizes how hard his hands are shaking, this the first time he's been willingly close to Dean since the night he'd betrayed him. The first time he'd really gotten to look into his eyes and seen the depth of his actions. "Shit," he mumbles, digging his nails into his sides and trying to still his tremors. The fading adrenaline rush does nothing for his sleep this night.

Seth is bored waiting for his cue to make his entrance during the following week's Raw. HHH is announcing the entrants to Money in the Bank, none of the names interesting to him. Just more obstacles for him to easily jump over or through to get what he wants, what he deserves. Finally HHH calls him out and he makes his way to the ring, mocking the crowd for their lingering hatred towards him for what he did to the Shield. His words get cut off when RVD interrupts, Seth and he exchanging words until HHH makes a match between them. They go back and forth, Seth struggling to keep momentum up since he wasn't expecting a match this close to the Money in the Bank, when Dean- of course- runs out and brings the match to an end via DQ, continuing to beat Seth down all around the ring. He's still laying on the floor, listening to Dean promise that, whether he's put in the Money in the Bank match or not, he'll be there to screw the entire PPV up. Collapsing back against the table pieces, he grimaces and tries to think of a way out of this mess. There's really only one answer that he can think of.

Once he's back on his feet and staggered backstage, HHH is waiting for him with an annoyed, concerned look on his face. "I'm fine, I'm fine," he insists, brushing his hair out of his face. "Listen to me." It takes some fast talking, Seth's not even sure what he's saying some of the time, but he can tell when he's convinced HHH- "I can control Dean as long as I can see him, I did the entire time we were in the Shield. You have to put him in the match. It's the only way this is going to work."

HHH's warning that it's on Seth should this backfire doesn't concern him. He feels it deep in his gut that this is the right path, the only way for anything to work out the way they want it to. His gaze shifts up to the briefcase still hanging over the ring, a tingling kind of anxiety sweeping through him.

Although things are moving so quickly, there's still tension in the Authority. Seth has never gotten along well with Orton, and the Smackdown before the PPV, he finds himself arguing with the man, falling just short of actually brawling with him when HHH intercedes and makes them go to their separate corners. Seth isn't booked in a match, HHH wanting him to rest, so he watches the show in the luxury of the locker room, trying not to let his nerves get to him. He's the chosen one, the golden son. Everything's working according to plan.

But still, the opportunity is too good to pass up when Dean wrestles Bad News Barrett and defeats him later in the night, the other Money in the Bank competitors coming out to get one last bit of offense in on their opponents. Seth oversees everything before Dean is clear- and then he's out, running to the ring and taking advantage, curbstomping Dean into the mat once more, posing smugly over him to end the night right. Two days to go...

That Sunday, Seth is sitting backstage, keeping his expression as blase as possible while Orton and HHH lurk around, talking under their breaths to each other. Dean is on the screen, talking about how he's going to grab Seth by the lapels of his fancy suit and... Seth's mind wanders for a moment, weird thoughts running through his head before he gives himself a quick shake, forcing himself to listen to the rest of Dean's declaration of how he's going to pound Seth's face in. He laughs, a dry cackle, before standing up to get ready for the match. There's going to be no fancy suits here tonight, he thinks, ghosting a hand down his gear and trying to get his game face on.

Money in the Bank is a mess. Of course it is, when you get so many guys and so many ladders all with one goal in mind, well, it's a hot bed of destruction and pain. There's nothing else for it to be. Seth breathes heavily, trying to survive the melee, when he sees Dean land wrong, immediately grab for his arm. He blanches, not liking the look of it- but there's nothing he can do. Not if he wants to win. Stretching out, he reaches up and fumbles, his fingers just gripping the briefcase and tugging... He holds his breath, spots dancing before his eyes, and then he has it, he's off the ladder, he's standing in the ring, surrounded by limp bodies and broken ladders, and he's never felt this good before in his whole life, raising the briefcase above his head in shaking hands as he stares out at the booing crowd. A smirk crosses his face as he prepares to leave with his prize, having to fight with everything in him to not look over, check on Dean on the way out.

The best part of his night, by far, is seeing the angry squint on Orton's face when they meet backstage, HHH patting Seth on the arm enthusiastically and talking hurriedly about all of the things they'll have to do before Raw the following night. The work never ends, he reminds himself, expecting maybe a celebration of some sort but understanding there's no time, there's too much going on between Ambrose and just general Authority responsibilities.

So when Seth's told that he has a rematch against RVD the next night, he nods and goes along with it, holding his briefcase proudly as he heads out to the ring. The match is easy, barely a warm up for his plans later that evening, so he goes back to the locker room and waits, watches for an opportunity. It's later, Cena is all but unconscious in the ring thanks to Kane when Seth runs down, trying to get the referee to fall in line and confirm his cashing in- but the ref won't budge while Cena's so lifeless, HHH's commands even not working enough to sway the man. Seth's every thought is wiped clean when Dean interferes, chases him from the ring and into the crowd to get away. His chance bleeding through his finger, Seth runs through the halls and checks behind him every few steps before pounding through the exit doors, ducking through the too open parking garage, hovering behind the Authority's vehicle and motioning to the driver to stay where he's at, an angry desperation to his moves.

He can hear Dean's sloping gait now, clearly knowing Seth's nearby. "I can smell ya, Seth," he drawls. "Why not come out and just get it over with? The longer you make me wait, the worse it's going to be."

Still crouching by the tires, Seth holds his breath, waiting to be discovered, to feel Dean slamming his face into the concrete floor... but then Dean looks up as voices, loud and angry, echo through the entrance to the parking garage. Seth sags in relief as Stephanie and HHH arrive hurriedly, Dean smirking at them before looking around once more. "Tell your golden boy once he's done hiding, I'll be waiting to give him what he's deserved." Before Kane and Orton can join the fun, he slips out of the arena and walks through the brisk evening air, hands in his pockets as he disappears from sight.

Seth shakes his head, hating himself for letting Dean get the upperhand like this yet again.

His continuing lack of sleep isn't helping things, leaving his rare dream even weirder and more intense. Weird kaleidoscopes of memories and thoughts buried deep in his subconscious haunt him whenever he does doze for longer than a few minutes, Dean's wild joy after each title win, the deep pain etched there after some of the matches they'd experienced together, how blue his eyes looked the last time Seth had gazed into them. The confused annoyance when Dean had talked about grabbing him by the lapel of his suit, and...

After the latest of these, he wakes up gasping, sweat soaking through the sheets and making them cling to him in the most uncomfortable way. Throwing the sheets off, he gets up and paces around his hotel room, relieved that The Authority gives him space when not at the arena, not forcing him to share with Kane or, even worse, Orton, or something as painful as that. He leans against the window, letting the cool pane of glass sooth him, and stares out at the world as it creeps awake in the early morning. He still can't make sense of Dean's promos half the time, but that one was beyond anything Seth's seen from him before, his sleep deprived mind running in circles over it.

It almost hurts when he realizes what he's doing and shakes himself awake, tearing himself away from the window. "Get your head back in the game, Rollins. Stop obsessing over Ambrose so damn much. He's irrelevant." He scuffs his feet against the carpet. "Ambrose only wants to destroy you now." This thought is so deflating that he feels like creeping back into bed, but he keeps the tangled, sweat-soaked sheets on the floor and crawls back into bed, searching for a dry portion of the mattress big enough to be comfortable before burying his face in the pillows and laying there stubbornly until he falls asleep once more.

It's July 4th and Seth is trying to ignore how he's missing fireworks to stand in this ring and talk to the unimpressed Raw crowd around him when Dean interrupts and they brawl, Seth barely able to keep his head above water as Dean finally lands some punches on him. He's drowning until Orton of all people pulls the save, quickly followed by Roman, the fight turning into a 2 on 2 rampage. HHH interrupts eventually, thankfully, and, once everyone has stopped, declares that Ambrose will wrestle Orton. Seth begrudgingly takes a seat at the commentary table again and watches the match... until Ambrose escapes the ring and tackles Seth, punching him wildly. Seth is dazed, gripping his briefcase, and then as soon as he sees his best opportunity, takes it, swinging and clipping Dean with it, ending the match just like that. Things then return to the way they were before, Orton and Seth double teaming Dean until Roman runs out in defense of his Shield brother again, Seth's eyes narrowed into an angry glower as Roman kneels by Dean, checking on him once he and Orton escape the ring.

All he can do is observe, ignoring the tension in his chest, how tight his throat feels, as Roman helps Dean to his feet and stares out at him, a searching gravity to his gaze as Seth backtracks, leaving with Orton. He has everything that he's ever wanted in this briefcase, in all of this power at his fingers and being untouchable, but Roman coming to Dean's assistance was not supposed to be part of the package. It's not until he's alone once more, standing under the shower spray and trying not to scream that it clicks with him why he's feeling like this.

He's jealous. Getting out of the shower, he stares at himself in the mirror and shakes his head, barely able to believe it. "Why?" he asks himself. "For what purpose?" He wants to punch the mirror, he wants to ignore anything that doesn't have to do with his career and achieving everything he's wanted since he was a little boy, but he doesn't know how. "Come on, Rollins, get it together,," he mumbles, turning to walk to his bed to try to get some sleep. He's not surprised when he spends the bulk of the night tossing and turning, even more bizarre, hard to grasp nightmares haunting him every time he does doze off.

A few days pass and he only gets a handful of hours of sleep between Smackdown and Raw, leaving him antsy and annoyed, but he bites it down, keeps it to himself, especially whenever he's talking to HHH. Tries to play it off like everything's fine, like he's purely confident and smug, not the bundle of nerves that he actually is deep down. HHH books a rematch between Orton and Dean again, so Seth watches with a low, frantic kind of anxiety, unsure which way he wants the match to go. It's almost a relief when Orton wins, but Seth's night is not finished yet. He wrestles Cena to a non-finish when Kane and Orton interrupt, leaving Cena and an interfering Roman down on the mat. He looks around wildly and things click in his mind, as he sees his opportunity and tries to take it, knuckles white around his briefcase while he yells for a referee, shaking it at the man who eventually runs down and yelling about cashing in.

He can taste it, this is his night, he's going to do it- when something rams into him brutally and he hits the ground hard, air rushing out of him. He blinks and realizes he's looking at Dean Ambrose, who is snarling down at him before punching him solidly. Seth struggles to get free and finally, thankfully, breaks away, running backstage just for Dean to chase him all the way through the halls. Realizing that Dean isn't going to stop, he turns and knees Dean hard in the face before swinging his briefcase, this time knocking him hard to the floor. He wants to leave but something stops him, not liking how still Dean is after that wild blow, so he watches him with a frown, fingers trembling against the handle of his case as he waits.

Dean groans and forces himself forward, scratching at the ground as he stares up at Seth, anger and desperation bleeding out of his eyes. Seth stumbles back, reaching blindly for the exit, when Dean forces himself upright and looks him right in the eye, twitching too hard to get his feet under him properly. "Every time I see you in that ugly, tight shirt of yours," he says shakily, "I want to shred it right off of you." His eyes are glazed, he looks truly deranged, his words not really making sense.

Seth stares down at his bare chest and closes his eyes, looking away. He can't even think of what to say to that so he continues to stumble backwards to get away, feeling unsettled and a little bit breathless the entire way back to his hotel room once he does. The room's nice, luxurious and comfortable, but he can't focus on anything past tonight. Dean's words play in a loop in his mind. The look in his eyes haunt Seth's memories. He sits up for awhile, staring out of the window, scratching uncomfortably at his forearm. "Dammit," he groans, digging his fingers into his eyes. "I was supposed to leave all of this behind that night..."

He has everything he could've ever wanted, but he can't help it. He hasn't been this alone in a long, long time. And he knows he has no one to blame but himself.

-x

A week passes and Seth is still unsettled, anxiety growing the closer to Raw they get. Things go ok for the most part- he, Kane and Orton work together against Dean but even that's not enough to make him stay down and be quiet, the lunatic forcing himself up and daring them to attack him further, his eyes dark and fixed as he goads them on. So they give him what he wants. Seth's sleepless nights continue.

Seth's not looking forward to Smackdown tonight. To continue being the Authority's puppet while watching Dean and Roman reunite. Always enough to make him want to scream, then drown it away with more of that bitter determination.

It's this that inspires him to curb stomp Dean onto a crate, leaving him sprawled out while Kane and Orton wander around, watching the scene with smirks on their faces and keeping Roman occupied. It's not really a surprise when a match is made- two on three, pitting them against Roman and Cena, and Seth exhales through his nose tiredly. He's not ready for this, but he fights as hard as he can, trying to shake off the distraction of his memories- haunted by Dean laying there in the wreckage, motionless and pale- until Roman tags in after Cena's been in the ring for awhile, taking all kinds of offense and leaving Roman agitated and frustrated on the corner. Seth thinks this is why he barely can manage anything against Roman, feeling a sudden, sharp pain down his leg as he lands awkwardly following a springboard, immediately rolling away and holding his knee. Referees and trainers come down and help him backstage, where he sits with his head lowered while they manipulate his leg, icing it and talking to him about getting x-rays in the morning.

"Right," he says quietly, unable to wrap his mind around any of this. He has it all right now- the Authority's attention, the briefcase, so damn much... the very thought of having to relinquish it all because of a fluke knee injury eats him up inside. "Karma," he scoffs to himself, laughing brokenly. He buries his face in his hands, feeling so alone, nauseous and weak. "What am I supposed to do now..."

Something about the hospital seems off as soon as Seth arrives in the morning, leaning against the nurse's desk as he glares down at the crutch holding him up, keeping weight off of his knee just in case. Nurses are whispering, glancing over at him, and it clicks with him as soon as he hears Ambrose. Of course. He almost wants to laugh, or cry, or both. Because life likes to fuck with him, he's at the hospital his Shield brethren is at, still recovering from the night before, he supposes. Finally a nurse comes to him and takes him to a room, but Seth is too impatient, too itchy, to wait. The awareness that Dean is nearby creeps over him like a wave of insects and he grits his teeth, grabbing his crutch and leaving his room. Something seems to be calling him and he follows the urge, not terribly surprised to only peek into a couple of rooms before he sees Dean's ugly, telltale jacket hanging over a chair poking out of the privacy curtain.

He squares his shoulders (as best as one can while clinging to a crutch, anyway) and limps inside, standing over his former friend's bed, trying to ignore the cascade of emotions that threaten to drag him down even after all of this time. "Why couldn't you just stay down, Ambrose, you idiot?" he hisses, feeling almost guilty as he gazes upon him. There's a dark bruise along Dean's jaw, where his face impacted, and Seth closes his eyes, shaking his head. "It doesn't have to be like this, if you would just stop fighting me so damn hard. What do you get out of it, really? It's not going to change anything." Not the Authority's influence over Seth, nor Seth's feelings of inadequacy, how exhausted he still feels from all of the drama between the Shield for all of those years. How muddled his feelings still are, no matter how much it frustrates him. He groans and turns to leave when something grips his wrist and drags him back, Seth's balance failing him and sending him sprawling out over the hospital bed, everything short circuiting as he finds himself straddling Dean, his eyes wide and breathing going rough and shallow as he feels the ridges of Dean's body underneath his own.

Dean looks startled, then pissed off, until he sees the crutch hanging awkwardly from Seth's fingers and he lets him go sharply, jaw loose as Seth stumbles upright, leaning heavily on the crutch. "Roman do that?" he asks, lips twitching in an almost ugly sneer as Seth closes his eyes, trying not to see the hint of pleasure on Dean's face at his suffering.

"Did it to myself," he grunts out, stepping back away from the bed in case Dean should try to grab him again. "Fucked up a springboard."

Dean shakes his head. "Knew your stupid risktaking would bite you in the ass at some point."

Seth's eyes flash with the kind of anger and hurt that only Dean can make him feel, even after all of this time. "Oh yeah, lunatic?" he snaps. "And how are you doing, constantly targeting the Authority? Oh right, you're in a hospital bed for observation for head trauma. What a shock." He turns again to the door.

"Did you just come to mock me, Seth?" Dean calls out, stopping him before he's completely out of sight. He watches, perplexed, as Seth turns to look at him from where he's standing out in the hall, such a strange look on his face that Dean just cannot get a good read on it, despite knowing Seth like the back of his own hand after all of these years.

Once Seth limps out of sight without giving a verbal response, Dean drops back against his bed, shaking his head in confusion. "Freakin' guy," he grouses, angry and feeling his headache make an unwanted return. "Never did make any sense..."

By the time Raw rolls back around, Seth's knee feels better but HHH agrees to let him sit out, swapping out Kane in his match against Ambrose. It's with a certain smugness that Seth announces the change over the titantron, biting down the myriad of emotions he's feeling at the look on Dean's face as he realizes he's been had yet again. He flexes his hands and closes his eyes as Kane makes his way down to the ring, adjusting his glove and sneering up at Dean as he pulls himself up onto the apron and gets into the ring. Once the bell rings, Seth counts slowly to a hundred in his head and then gets up, making his way to gorilla to go and involve himself.

Dean was supposed to be his opponent first, after all.

It's fast, it's rough, the match is all but forgotten as Seth and Kane take their turns in beating Dean down further, a maddened little laugh breaking through as Seth stares down at his former friend, former brother, former... He shrugs away that thought, unsure where it was going anyway, before kneeling down so he could look Dean in the eye. instead of feeling satisfaction or even justified rage, he realizes he just feels... empty, like part of him is missing, and has been for quite awhile. Quickly getting up, he slaps Kane across the chest. "C'mon, let's get outta here," he snaps, not wanting to linger, risk his emotions showing on his face.

He breathes a little easier backstage, but not by much, thankful when he's finally able to leave the arena entirely, go back to his hotel room and stare at nothing there while he tries not to dwell on everything going on. How it makes him feel.

They're scheduled to wrestle Monday to make up for the week prior. Seth is not thrilled with it, not wanting to put himself in harm's way because Ambrose has entirely lost it, he thinks, but he has no choice. This is just the way things are right now, if he wants to be champion. He has to get his hands dirty sometimes. But Dean never plays by the book, and he catches Seth backstage, he beats him down, and Seth gasps for air as it goes on and on and on, seemingly forever, though Seth's sure it probably only feels that way.

HHH eventually intervenes, with security, and kicks Ambrose out of the building entirely. Where he belongs, nose pressed against the window, unable to get in like the bad little child that he is deep down inside. Seth laughs through the pain at the thought and makes it to his feet gingerly, eyeing HHH appreciatively. "Thanks," he breathes in and out raspily. "But... what about the match?"

HHH smirks at him. "Well, clearly there's only one thing to do, huh?"

Seth takes a few seconds, but recognition crosses his face and he smirks. "Right..."

He makes his way to the ring a little later, staring the referee down, intimidating as best as he can with the full weight of the Authority behind him. "I demand a forfeit," he says. "Ring the bell, do whatever you have to, he ain't coming."

The ref quells under his stare but does his duty, 'starting' the match just to count to ten, slow and measured, making Seth's skin crawl until finally he makes it, the bell rings again and the ring announcer declares Seth the winner via forfeit. Seth grins, cackling under his breath, and takes in the crowd's generally negative response to this decision. It's perfect, he's marveling in making them so angry, so easily, and- why are they cheering...? Then the world turns topsy turvy and there's someone hitting him, and oh. Yeah, of course, it's fuckin' Dean Ambrose, back again, even though he has no right to be and Seth isn't even sure where he came from.

He fights back, he does, but those conflicting feelings are still swirling around inside of him, and all he can do is stare up at Dean, take in the frustration, anger in his gaze, and yearn for something he doesn't even fully understand. Finally, finally, security comes, forcefully separates them, and when Ambrose refuses to cooperate, carries him bodily out of the arena. Seth stands, a little shaky, and struggles to catch his breath.

It's the most interaction he's had with Dean in days, and it's making his head spin.

He only feels a little more collected later, when he's packing his car up and preparing to leave. Then he hears a shout, and there's Dean again, colliding with him, slamming him into the car, throwing desperate, angry blows that send Sam into the frame of the vehicle again and again, until finally he fights him off, takes the brief interlude to dive into the car, slam the door, and tear out of there as quickly as he can, breathing heavily as his eyes burn with frustration.

Every time, every damn time he starts to feel a little more normal, there Ambrose is once again, determined to beat him up, tear him down, remind him again and again how, despite the anger and the pain, he yearns for something, as fucked up as it all is.

Seth lets out a strange, aching noise, and punches the steering wheel. Again and again and again. Parts of him wishes it was Ambrose's face, parts of him wishes it would be that easy to attack these swirling, confused feelings still haunting him.

-x

He's around at Smackdown, but things just shake out that, while Ambrose faces off against Cesaro, Seth doesn't go much further than the locker room. He wants to, even tries half-heartedly to convince HHH to let him wrestle Cena, but it's a hard no, so he just... stays. Hangs out. Watches the match with a grimace on his face. It leaves him antsy, almost willing to risk further issues with his knee just to get a hand on the man. Work out some of this frustration that's been building under the surface.

And isn't that just a pain in the ass, that no matter what happens, Seth doesn't fully want this to end? Never fully wants to give Dean up, because if he does that... if there's an end in sight to his feud, to the Authority needing to deal with one Dean Ambrose, then that means Seth has to find something new to occupy his time with, and god, it all feels so unbelievable. Life after. He can't fathom it.

"Oh, come on, Seth," HHH says, misreading the dazed look on Seth's face. "Not tonight, but I'm sure you'll get your hands on Cena before too long. Just be patient, there's a lot of irons in the fire lately and we don't want anything to go wrong. Again."

He forces himself to nod, still lost in thought. Despite his every attempt, life just keeps conspiring to make himself face Dean. To figure out all of the conflicting feeling he's been dealing with since before he gave up on the Shield. Loyalty, anger, hope, frustration, dedication, it all blends together when it comes to the Shield, despite the three of them never fully on the same page for the majority of their run. There were moments, yes, but so much of the time, it was like tiptoeing through a minefield, never knowing what might set someone off.

He doesn't miss it. But still. Somewhere deep inside. He realizes. He misses them.

-x

Raw is short, simple that week, at least for Seth. Ambrose wrestles Kane. Seth interferes. Doesn't allow himself to dwell on the tired, pained look on Dean's face afterwards, or the lingering sensation creeping from his fingers down into his wrists from where he'd touched him.

Not at all.

-x

They continue not seeing each other, which should be a good thing, but really just puts Seth's teeth on edge as he waits, and waits, and waits, and nothing happens. His entire match against Chris Jericho is spent with him distracted, waiting for Ambrose to do something, just to be left hanging. He scoffs at his reflection in the mirror later. "That's the best outcome," he tells himself, ignoring how deeply he frowns as he says it, or how badly something squirms deep down in his gut. "If only all matches could go that way."

Despite his claims, he finds himself back at the arena for Ambrose's match against Del Rio. Where he's been, what's going on, Seth isn't sure, but he almost can't stand how his eyes stay locked on Ambrose's form. He looks as ruffled as ever, hair wet and sticking unevenly to his forehead, eyes blazing with intensity, and clothes this side of stained. Seth has to fight himself to stay backstage as long as he does, until he finds himself rushing, lunging, and quickly dispatched when he tries to get into the ring. He huffs and paces from the ramp, watching closely as Ambrose makes quick work of Del Rio from there, claiming the win. Seth can't tell from this distance, but he swears Dean's eyes are on him the entire time he pins Del Rio to the mat. As if to say... as if he's implying that Seth... one day... will be under Ambrose like that.

A brutal, heated flush creeps up Seth's face, into his neck, down his throat, and Seth gapes like a fish out of water before taking his leave, horrified and more than a little frustrated. This time, when he looks at himself in the mirror, he know exactly what he's looking at. "You're not weak. That will never be you," he tells his reflection before turning his back and going to get some sleep. Or tries to, anyway.

He tosses and turns the full rest of the night, unable to stop thinking about how he wishes he could touch Ambrose when he's not just beating him up, and not only watch his successes from afar. Unfortunately, Seth is too far in now to try to fix things, and he doubts Ambrose would want him to, so there's little he can do but drive himself insane thinking about the same things, the same moments, over and over again, lingering slivers of hope slowly growing more and more bitter as time ticks past.

-x

Seth isn't thrilled. He has to partner with Kane against Ambrose later, and all he can focus on is once more being in contact with him, fighting him, taking him apart piece by piece until there's very little, if anything left. He exhales and leans against the wall, watching Kane prepare for the match with a grimace. He's already in his gear, too antsy to sit still, to do nothing while he waits for the match time to roll around. He looks at the clock to find there's still about ten minutes to go.

Hearing his huffing, Kane looks up and frowns at him. "What's your problem? I'd have thought you'd be as eager to get your hands on Ambrose as the rest of us. Teach him some respect, force him to fall in line."

There's no way to do that,Seth thinks. Never has been, never will be. But he keeps these thoughts to himself, instead choosing to frown back at Kane. "Of course I am," he says. "Just feels like we're poking a sleeping bear sometimes. The Authority is so strong, and he's just... a desperate person incapable of any real harm. I'm tired of seeing his face, honestly." He bites down his feelings on what Kane says, knowing that deep down seeing Dean has never been the problem. He just wants, he needs it all to end. To move on with his career and leave this all behind him.

But he keeps all of this locked away tight, obligingly follows Kane out to ringside, and fights alongside him in the match. They're doing ok- Seth's trying his hardest to keep his head in the game, anyway, but then Dean gets chairs, and the match ends in DQ and Dean is still swinging these damn chairs, almost clocking Seth hard, and he drops back in a hurry, escapes as smoothly as possible, watching from the ramp as Ambrose hits Kane solidly with the steel again, and again, and again, a rage in his deep blue eyes that Seth can almost taste even from this distance.

Seth used to hunger to be in the middle of Ambrose's wild recklessness back in the Shield days, those rare times when everything was good and he and Roman and Dean could do no wrong, had the world at their feet and championships draped all over their shoulders and around their waists. Now that's all aimed at him, and just leaves him cold and yearning for something else entirely.

He barely recognizes himself sometimes.

-x

It should be a simple match. It's Heath Slater, for god's sake. Seth will have him beat easily within the first thirty seconds on the clock. But then there's Ambrose, hanging out by, no wait, on, the commentary table, and he has popcorn, and shit- he... he's at ease, and he's smug, and he's laughing, and then he grabs the briefcase, the one thing Seth has left in this world that's untainted, and Seth can't see straight? He's at the ropes, ignoring Heath, because god, all it'll take is turning around, pressing his boot to the back of the man's neck, and it'll be done in seconds, so his focus is on Ambrose, he's yelling at him as he pours soda and popcorn into the briefcase- oh my GOD, Seth can't see straight- his contract is in there, and it has to be destroyed by now, absolutely goddammed ruined- and he doesn't think about anything else, then- then he's suddenly grabbed, everything around him twists, and shifts on its axis, and the next thing he knows, the bell is ringing and Heath Slater is being declared the winner of the match.

He can't fathom anything, scrambling to the ropes to sit up, to stand, to try to make things make sense. He gapes, up at Heath, over at an ecstatic looking Ambrose, and he focuses on the disgusting, syrupy drip drip drip that keeps coming from his briefcase.

In one go, Ambrose has successfully ruined the two most precious things in Seth's life- his contract, and his career. Seth will never live this night down, ever.

-x

"It will be... a lumberjack match!"

Seth flinches. It's not bad enough he's going to struggle to concentrate just to fight off Ambrose, but now he's also going to have to focus on the locker room, the majority of which despise him as well. That's fine, he thinks. Not like I'm still trying to get over last week or anything... He grits his teeth, tries to ignore what the loss to Heath had done to him, how he'd spent the last few days waiting. Hoping to get his revenge on Dean at some point, some way.

As it stands, he gets to choose Dean's opponent for the night, and Seth knows just the right man for the job. Or at least HHH had said he did, and Seth just went along with it because, eh hell, why not. "Randy Orton!" he declares with a smug little cackle.

Dean doesn't look overly surprised, which only serves to rankle at Seth even more. "I know you inside and out," he informs him with a smirk, Seth only bristling more. "There ain't much you can do to shock me. Definitely not this."

It stops Seth short, the certainty in his voice, how after all of this time, everything he's done, Dean still thinks he knows him on some deep level? It leaves him feeling raw, frustrated. Close to snapping, but he takes a deep breath, keeps the smirk on his face, and makes a quick get-a-way. Uses the anger as fuel to defeat Ziggler later, but vows he's the only one who will be walking out with a win this evening.

He watches closely as soon as the match begins, waiting, expecting the perfect moment to come out. He refuses to let Ambrose have the same success he'd had this day, so at the best opportunity he thinks he's going to get, he hits the ring, starts attacking Ambrose. By the end of it, he and Orton have worked together to leave Dean curled up, vulnerable and unable to really move, on the mat, match all but forgotten in the aftermath of their beat down. His smirk grows as Orton nods discreetly at him, both leaving the ring to head backstage.

Seth turns and watches him as he walks backwards up the ramp, Dean struggling to make it to the ropes, drag himself up and glower as best as he can at the two of them. Even though he feels pleased, it's a visual that sticks with him for awhile, Dean's fiery blue eyes, how twisted his lips are as he snarls and tries to stand while in so much pain. It's just old Shield loyalties the entirely faulty wrestling soulmates thing, he tells himself, ignoring everything going on around him as he stares back at Ambrose. It means nothing, you gave that up a long time ago.

So he turns back around and continues up the rest of the way, Orton nudging him as they make their way backstage. "Nice job back there, don't appreciate the interruption to my match, but hey. Least you got what you wanted, right?"

"Right," Seth says, his smirk dropping as soon as Orton had pushed past. Of course he had, what else was the point of all this if ultimately Seth doesn't get what he wants? The problem is, he wants so many different things, in so many different ways, that there's just no chance for him to get all of it. He closes his eyes and exhales before escaping into his locker room, relieved to have a few minutes by himself to decompress following all of that.

His next match is against RVD on Raw. He wins, despite a very obvious distraction, keeping an eye out for Ambrose, which has become second nature for him by now. There are gifts and other excessive things scattered around for Hogan's birthday, and it makes him paranoid. People could be hiding anywhere, especially one certain lunatic. He's juuuuust let his guard down while leaving after winning his match when he barely registers a gift crumbling to pieces from his left, and then he's being tackled, punched, beat down right there on the ramp. He escapes eventually, but it angers him, frustrates him that somehow, despite how well he knows him, Dean continues getting the upperhand. "UGH!" he yells, kicking the wall.

Grits his teeth against the thrumming pain up his toes to his shin now, and limps back to his locker room, all but vibrating in rage. "Dammit, when will this end?!"

Despite his frustration and anger, when he wrestles Kofi a couple days later, and wins, just for Dean not to show up for any of it, he can't help feeling a little empty even as he celebrates unhindered afterwards, his tension having nowhere to go when Dean stays away.

I don't understand any of this, he thinks, keeping his face blank as he walks into the locker room he shares with the rest of the Authority. The way he's been feeling lately are a nuisance, Ambrose proving time and again he feels nothing for Seth but contempt, and yet. And yet, part of Seth still clings to the familiarity they'd had in The Shield, always living out of each other's back pockets, them against the world when it came to the WWE. He rolls his shoulders in aggravation, staring at his hands. Things just aren't that way anymore, probably never legitimately were. Give it up, Rollins.

He's still lost in his own thoughts when HHH snaps at him and he shoots his eyes up, muttering a quick apology. He forces himself to focus on what the Authority are saying from then on.

These thoughts, these feelings, are still fresh on his mind when he makes his way onto the ramp that Monday, after Ambrose wrestles Cesaro. Schooling his face once more to an emotionless mask, he informs him of the things he's been thinking about the last few days, about how none of it was real, just fabricated by a lonely, paranoid mind, that Ambrose never felt similar about him, that it was all just one sided attraction where there never should've been any. He's careful not to look too closely at Ambrose's expression as he tells him everything. How he was never Dean's friend, he was never his brother, and this Sunday, he will destroy him. No matter who or what tries to get in his way.

He makes his way backstage and nods, even grins a little, when HHH congratulates him on getting his message across so succinctly. It's not until he's alone again, which takes what feels like forever, that his expression crumbles and he buries his face in his hands, minute trembling creeping along his muscles, leaving him feeling weak. Almost nauseous. It may been the truth, but it hurts, and he's not sure how he's going to make it through the match Sunday.

Honestly, the lumberjack match isn't the massive torment he had been building up in his mind. Yes, there are a lot of people in one area who hate him, but they hate themselves more and the match is a foregone conclusion once the competitors outside of the ring all start brawling amongst themselves. All Seth can really do is smirk at Ambrose as he finishes him off, pinning him in the middle of the ring, the lumberjacks truly doing very little to hinder him in the end. Not bad, Rollins, he thinks. Not bad at all.

Considering how shaky he had been earlier in the week at the mere prospect of facing Ambrose, he's very proud of himself for coming this far, ending up this successful.

But it all crumbles to pieces at his feet, again and again and again, the very next night, when he is informed he's going to compete against Ambrose- again- in a falls count anywhere match. No matter what he does, no matter what he says, apparently last night's win wasn't convincing enough for those in charge, so his hands are tied and he grits out, "Fine!" while ignoring the smug look in HHH's eyes at finally getting his way. As always.

The match is... brutal. All of the months of pent up emotions and anger boil to the surface for both of them, and they go all out in beating each other down, moves gaining in brutality the longer the match carries on. Seth feels on the brink of losing, both the match and his sanity, when Kane comes out. From there, everything's a blur until Seth comes to, Ambrose sprawled out over cinderblocks, and Seth posed to stomp his face into them. He gasps for air, faltering, looking around a bit, then turning back to Dean. I... I'm tired of feeling this way... you... you need to... YOU NEED TO GO! and with this loud, insistent thought, Seth lunges forward, plants his foot and puts all his weight down on Dean's neck, stomping him right in.

He doesn't move. Seth gapes from where he'd fallen with absolutely no grace. Dean Ambrose is still. Dean Ambrose is never still. There's something wrong, he knows it, but he can't... he can't help, he can't check, he can't rest his hand on Dean's back and cry apologies into his shoulder, like part of Seth wants to do for some odd reason. Kane, however, remains nearby, and Seth knows he has to look smug, he has to stand, and he has to turn his back on Dean while medical staff rush around him, frantic and uncertain what exactly to do. It hurts, it sucks, but it's survival so Seth hesitantly does just that and heads backstage where the Authority is wating to celebrate life without Dean Ambrose on their shoulders.

For one wild, disoriented moment, Seth takes in how Dean still isn't moving, and thinks wildly, Holy shit, I killed him. I... I did that...

He's restless backstage, scraping his fingers through his hair, barely listening to HHH, or Kane, or Orton, fiddling with the label on the bottle they'd thrust into his hands while staring distantly at the TV monitor before him, playing Raw as it happens in ring. They replay what happened a time or two, but there are no updates, and commentary promises later, perhaps, on , they would have something on Dean's condition.

Later, once he escapes the Authority, he's holding onto his phone, ignoring how warm the device is getting, or the creases it's digging into his palm as he grips it tightly, relentlessly refreshing the page. "C'mon," he mumbles. Finally, something appears.

Dean Ambrose has refused treatment and disappeared... hasn't been seen since...

Seth stares at the words, everything fading away to those two sentences. Static echoes in his ears, and he can't breathe, everything feels faded and muffled. "No," he mumbles. "NO!" He barely remembers throwing the phone, not even fully registering the noise it makes as it cracks into the hotel room wall, shattering into pieces on the floor. Looking as stable as Seth himself feels this moment, his heart racing, his head spinning, nausea taunting him as he envisions Dean somewhere, stumbling around with a head injury- or worse- collapsing somewhere, getting accosted by someone looking for a quick buck, or...

"You fucking idiot, why do you have to make everything so difficult!" Seth cries out, all but tearing his own hair out as he kicks at everything in reach- furniture, his duffel, the bed. Eventually he tires and collapses to the floor, gasping and painting.

His words repeat over and over again in his head and he's still not sure if he meant himself or Dean.

-x

He needs a fresh start. A palette cleanser, if you will. So it's almost a relief when Jack Swagger starts a fight with him on Main Event, the tension building up within Seth during their exchange of words, nearly coming to blows right then, right there. But Seth is an adult, a professional, and he ultimately stays his hand, gritting his teeth and counting down the hours until Smackdown, until he'll be able to ease some of the itch under his skin. This match means nothing to him, just a stop gap of pettiness that will rid him of some of the stress he's been under since... well, since.

But it's hard to focus, Seth keeps going in circles. Is he in the mountains? Trying to recover by being one with nature or whatever the hell it is he does up there all the time? What if he passes out and is just... out there, in the elements, and a wild animal... NO! He forces himself to stop, snags Swagger, snaps him back in a rough suplex, then kicks him hard in the face, trying anything he can think of to get his head back in it. It works, briefly. Long enough for him to defeat Swagger, at least. But at soon as he's away from the lights and the crowd, back in the silence of his locker room and, ultimately, the hotel that's been booked for him a few blocks away, it all comes back with a vengeance, leaving him with worst case scenarios and a mounting frustration that he thinks only one thing can fix this, although he knows deeply that it's something he shouldn't ever want.

But it doesn't change the fact. He needs to see that Ambrose is ok with his own two eyes, or nothing will ever feel right again. He pauses at this realization and looks at himself in the full body mirror across from the bed he's supposed to be sleeping in, not pacing anxiously around the room at nearly 3 AM. "You are weak," he tells himself, hands clenching at his side. "You are broken. Let Ambrose go, he let you go a looooong time ago."

The thing is, although the part of him that doubts everything good ever said about himself believes this, a quieter part of him, the part that will probably always believe in The Shield just can't buy into that. Knows better on a fundamental level. The true facts are he is a part of Ambrose, and Ambrose is a part of him, and nothing will ever fully change that. No matter how much he wishes something could.

-x

"We should do something special tonight," Kane suggests on Monday, a demented glint in his eye. Seth is wary, but agrees without really knowing what the man means. Until it's too late, anyway, and the next thing he knows, he's standing behind a podium in the middle of the ring, surrounded by a wreath and a blown up picture of Ambrose. Mocking him. Insulting him and his fans. A eulogy, Kane had explained in his solemn, disturbing way. Seth tries to focus on it, but even as he speaks, and reacts along with Kane as he thinks is expected, everything feels blurred, kind of like it's a bad dream. It was never supposed to end this way, he thinks numbly, wondering for perhaps the hundredth time where Ambrose disappeared off to..

It's almost a relief that they're forced to stop when Roman interrupts, takes them both out. Kane only just pulls Seth to safety, and then they have a handicap match, which starts going poorly early. They win by disqualification when Seth feels he has no choice but to bring his briefcase into matters, taking Roman out with it. It's a sick kind of deja vu when they try to follow up the cinderblock thing by doing it to Roman too- and Seth really has to wonder what's going on with the Authority that they just have a surplus of these things hanging around by now- but Roman escapes it, fights back... and Seth's life flashes before his eyes when Roman hoists up one of the cinderblocks and tries to slam it into his head, only just missing as Seth ducks away and the thing hits the turnbuckle post instead, making a truly horrible noise that haunts Seth for days, weeks, afterwards.

He tried to kill me! Seth thinks in shock as he stumbles up the ramp, suddenly feeling clammy, nauseous. It had been so, so close. He closes his eyes once he's back in the relative safety of the Authority locker room, Stephanie clucking over him, HHH pacing around angry, declaring to anyone who will listen all of the things they will do to Roman for once more ignoring their power and control over lesser people like him.

Seth barely listens to any of it, however, his thoughts still spiraling with the sound of the impact of the cinderblock that had been meant for his skull, thinking about how it must have felt for Ambrose all of those weeks ago, caused by his hands. He can barely look at himself in the mirror right now.

-x

He has a subdued, quiet few days. Keeps to himself, as best as he can, and then Main Event happens. He wrestles RVD, and it all goes pear shaped. He can't keep focus, he gets an errant leg to the face, and immediately gets busted open. He tries to fight back but between the blood dripping down his lips, and just his mental health in general leads him to dropping out of the ring entirely, heading for the back in anger. He barely registers the countout loss, just storms right to the trainer's office and grits his teeth while they poke and prod his wound, and eventually put in a few stitches once they determine it needs it.

So now he has stitches in his face, unending swirling thoughts about Ambrose and Roman and everything in between, and now a score to settle with RVD. It's not fantastic, everyone knows the legend is on his way out the door, but still, curbstomping RVD into the mat that Friday and making up for that countout loss, at least a little, feels damn good.

His cheek is throbbing, but still, he makes his way backstage with something of a satisfied grin. In his opinion, it's the exact send off RVD deserves.

-x

That Monday, Seth feels in his element. Yeah, there's still been no word on Ambrose, and the guilt and fear eats at him late at night when he has no distractions around, but for now, for now! They're in Iowa, and it's home, and he just wants to make an impression on his people. So he doesn't even complain- much- when the Authority decides to interrupt the Highlight Reel, giving him an opportunity he's been looking for for quite awhile. The chance to declare to the world his intentions to officially join the World Heavyweight title scene. He barely gets the words out, however, when Cena makes his presence known- closely followed by Roman.

The six man tag that follows- pitting him, Kane and Orton against Cena, Roman and Jericho-is far from welcome, but he tries to get them off an a good foot, taking a wild swing at Roman- but Roman barely flinches and ultimately sends him careening outside, Seth's focus immediately fixating on how Roman is now holding his briefcase, examining it and mocking Seth as he pointedly swings it, a smirk on his face. Seth demands it back, sounding too desperate to really be feared, and Roman responds in kind- throwing the briefcase right at him, hitting him in the face. This sends Seth into even more of a tear, and with him off centered and his face aching even more than usual, and Kane and Orton unable to tag in and get off the apron long enough to get any significant offense in, they lose relatively quickly.

Cena ends the night off by putting Seth through a table, knocking him into a near unconscious daze. Not at all the appearance Seth had wanted to put on for Iowa. He wince as referees and the trainer poke and prod him, asking questions and trying to help him out of the wreckage. Only then does Kane bother showing up, a grimace on his face. No one is happy once Seth is free to go, the rest of the night spent in awkward silence as Seth pokes despondently at the bruise forming on his face from where the briefcase hit. Dammit, Roman, someday, I'll make you pay for all of this, he thinks. Seethes.

Smackdown doesn't get any better. He, the Wyatt family, and Kane end up in a ten man tag match against Cena, Roman, Jericho, Big Show, Mark Henry. They all try, yeah, even the Wyatts, but there's just no way to permanently regain traction against those five once they've lost it, and it's only a matter of time before Seth is floundering against their offense, and he can't even act surprised, really, when they lose. Again. As much as he hates it, curling his hands into fists and trying not to look back as he trudges his way up the ramp to the backstage area. The only positive it has, he thinks, is he doesn't need to do anything else for the rest of the night now. Except sit in his dark hotel room and stare at his lifeless, darkened phone. Where he still doesn't hear from people, and no one still has any news on Ambrose's whereabouts. Not that he'd go out of his way to call anyone to find out, but whatever.

Monday is something of a distraction of his spiraling thoughts, at least. He wrestles Sheamus and wins after Cesaro gets involved, then they try to trap Roman in a steel cage and Seth, in a foolish attempt to enter, nearly impales himself on a spike hanging at the side of the cage that he hadn't noticed. He breathes heavily afterwards, once they've handled Roman for the night, breaching the cage finally and leaving him laying after a curbstomp to a chair, realizing just what a close call it truly was, digging the palms of his hands into his eyes. "Christ," he mumbles. He doesn't really believe in such things, but he almost can't help feeling like it was some sort of near brush with karma. He sits there and watches the video again, feeling a little bit shaky, trepidation deep in his bones as he leans forward, slides the video bar back, and pauses it in that split second before he'd moved, analyzing the moment his life hangs in the balance. Ambrose, he thinks, exhausted but too shaky to attempt to go to bed. You probably would've liked that, wouldn't you? Or, well, would've if it had been at your hands, and not just some random close call.

The rest of the week is kind of a blur, especially after it's officially announced that he will be wrestling Roman at Night of Champions in a couple of weeks. He tries to keep his focus where it belongs, wrestles and beats Swagger on Main Event, he tags with Orton against Roman and Jericho when Roman chases him out into the crowd, trying and failing to get payback for Monday, and Jericho defeats Orton. Seth isn't thrilled with any of it, still struggling with this itch beneath his skin whenever he thinks about how there's still be no word from Ambrose. He'd thought- maybe- something, especially after his near miss on Monday, even a belittling text or something, but no. The silence lingers on, and he wonders if Roman has heard from him. Not that he'd ever ask that man anything.

His anger spirals over the weekend, leads him to the ring on Monday, babbling on about how Roman is little more than a mix of an orangutan and a rhinoceros. Somehow one thing leads to another and he finds himself in a match against the man himself, and before he can even really get into gear, Roman has ahold of him, Roman's not letting go, and... it's over, just like that. Seth's flat on his back, staring up at the lights, and he's lost so quickly that his head spins. It hurts, in a way, to be so distant from both of his brothers, but this is the reality he chose for himself, so he tries not to let the hurt show as he trudges backstage, yet again wondering. Where are you, lunatic? Did I break you that badly?

He's frustrated and he's aching in a multitude of ways, so after he defeats Big E on Main Event, he moves on to Smackdown, still not quite done picking at Roman in the lead in to their match Sunday. Interrupts Roman's match against Rusev, causes him to lose. Goes from smug and amused to trying to escape when Roman chases after him, and fails. Gets his ass handed to him a little bit for his troubles. Afterwards, he lays in his hotel bed and stares at the ceiling, exhaling and inhaling. I bet you were real amused by all of that, weren't ya, Dean? You always did like when I got put in my place a little bit. He sighs, rolls over, tries desperately to find some rest, and ultimately fails as the night drifts on, taunts him as the sun slowly begins to rise, lighting up his room and underlining how sleep deprived he feels from thinking, thinking, always thinking.

-x

Breaking news, Roman Reigns off of PPV, needs emergency surgery

It's a headline that stops Seth short, he's in the gym, breathless, sweaty after a work out, towel around his shoulders, hair dripping lazily with sweat and the remnants of a bottle of water he'd just poured over his head and shoulders to try to cool off sooner, when he'd taken a second to check his phone, just to see this alert. For a wild, helpless moment, he panics, feels like something is sitting on his chest. Replays everything he'd done the night before, if he had done anything to seriously injure Roman- and comes up blank, biting his lip. "What the hell even is this?" He accesses the web, scrolls through articles, even checks Twitter, then decides just to go to the top. He calls Hunter.

"Hey, what the hell gives?" he asks, trying desperately to keep up his disinterested act when it comes to Roman and this entire situation, despite how dry his throat feels and how quickly his heart is racing. "My match tomorrow is canceled? What the fuck did Roman do?"

HHH sounds about as done with everything when he responds. "Yeah, well. He had a hernia that required immediate attention. I don't know, I don't care. Issue an open challenge or something tomorrow, you'll get time, we just don't have anything concrete scheduled for you right now."

It's not the best solution, there's a myriad of ways it could go poorly, but Seth eventually takes it. "Alright, fine," he says, hanging up once he's sure HHH has no actual news past what he'd read in the article. He can make an open challenge work easily. No big deal, whatever.

The day of the PPV creeps by. Seth has lots to do, of course, media and random other little things HHH and the Authority find for him to do, but still. There's a lot of time to sit and think once the show begins, and he does so, ignoring the chaos going on around him. He wants to wrestle, he wants to ease the itch under his skin that restlessness and uncertainty brings him. He wants to stop thinking about Roman, in the hospital, and Dean god knows where, possibly still suffering the after effects of the cinder block attack. His fingers itch, he dreads everything that's going to come out of his mouth when he eventually makes his way to the ring.

But when the time comes, it actually goes ok. The crowd is loud and drowns out his lingering guilt and frustration, and he is declared the winner via forfeit. Simple as that. No big deal. But Seth still has that itch under his skin, that need, and he probably shouldn't do this, he should just be glad today's gone as smoothly as it has, but underneath it all, dammit, he does love wrestling, so he issues an open challenge. It doesn't matter who, or how, or what, he just really wants to stomp some faces right now, try to ease the boiling in his veins.

Then a familiar music hits and he looks up, slowly, gapes as Dean Ambrose marches down to the ring, anger and determination on his face and- oh shit, he looks... he looks good, the same mess he usually is in jeans and a kind of stained tanktop, but- jesus. Seth can barely think straight, relying on muscle memory as soon as Ambrose hits the ring, immediately lunging at him. They brawl, it's bad, Seth's overwhelmed in so many different ways, he can barely catch his breath, struggling to make sense of anything- especially Dean's eyes, how angry and bitter they look- and then security is there, security is pulling Dean away, and a part of Seth wants to yell at them to stop, to leave him be, to let this continue, but the smarter, self-preserving side of him stays his own hand, watches as the multitude of people all but tie Dean down, force him out of the arena.

Seth struggles to regroup once he makes it backstage, still trying to make sense of it all, when HHH steps in front of him, forces the briefcase into his hands and pushes him out of the locker room. "Now's your chance, go!"

He has little clue what's going on, just that it's the main event, and Cena is wrestling Brock right now. So he runs out, intercedes, causes it to end via DQ. He's close, he's so close to cashing in, taking advantage of Brock being weakened by Cena, but Cena is angry now, Cena hinders Seth's chances, and Seth has no chance but to run, lest he ruin the best opportunity he has at a worthwhile title run.

It's a lot, his mind is racing, he spends the night sitting up in his hotel room, watching the city skyline, and wishing, not for the first time, that he could talk with Roman, who always listened, always had some sort of advice for moments like these. Hell, he could even make do with talking with Dean, maybe, even. But they are the chief cause of his turmoil right now, and so he can't. He knuckles his forehead and sighs heavily, forcing himself, in the dead of night, to face the truth. No matter how good the Authority has been and will continue to be for his career, no matter how proud he is to be Money in the Bank, no matter whatever happens from here with Brock, and Roman, and the world championship, he misses his Shield teammates. Something deep, something fierce, but also sad and tired, because he knows he deserves this isolation, this loneliness.

In the end, Seth's own self-destructive attributes had defeated everything, including The Shield, and there's no going back now, just forward. He looks himself in the mirror, a pointed look in his eye, and he slumps forward, digging his fingers in his hair. "Son of a bitch," he breathes out.

Monday dawns bright and early. Seth is exhausted, but he has a busy day ahead with Raw, so he tries to drown it out with coffee and some protein bars before leaving for the arena. He mostly sits around and tries not to doze, but HHH and the others are loudly discussing plans for the evening, HHH seeming oddly proud of this box of cinderblocks he has ordered for the evening. "Gonna teach 'em all for messing with the Authority," he declares, looking around for support. He finds it, until his eyes rest on Seth, who nods forward at that precise moment. "Seth!" he barks, and the younger man leaps nearly out of his seat, looking around wildly.

"Sorry, sorry," he stammers. "What?"

HHH simply sighs. "Man, are you ok? You've been spacing out all day, it's not like you. The pressure's a lot, I know, but we need you to keep it together."

Seth nods vehemently. "Trust me, Hunter, I know. I'm fine, just a long night after the PPV yesterday. I'll have my head back in the game later."

HHH's lips quirk a little at the term, but he simply nods and resumes discsusing what he wants done with the box later that evening.

The Authority confront Dean and Cena as soon as they can that night, but things go south in a hurry, and Seth runs. Again. All the way to the parking lot, where he steals some rando's car and peels out of there, not wanting to be at the receiving end of more of Ambrose's offense, not after the day he's had. He follows along with the show in real time as best as he can on Twitter, only daring to return when he knows Dean is wrestling Kane, but apparently cameras catch him on the titantron because the next thing he knows, Ambrose is barreling right at him, swinging wildly, yelling indescribably, and somehow, someway, the group of them succeed at locking him in a room.

Seth leans over, gasping for breath, feeling the stinging pain of the impacts where Dean had landed blows on his face and upperbody, but slowly feels his heart rate calm, even as he's forced to listen to Ambrose's frenzied pounding on the door, yelling muffled through the barrier. He's relieved when HHH takes over, guides him away from the scene for more, last minute planning before Orton's match against Cena.

Well, it's mostly going to plan. Orton has the upperhand, Ambrose is still locked in the room, and Cena has no hope. They're dragging him over to the box that HHH had brought out to ringside for this purpose. Seth wonders how it'll feel to stomp Cena's face into the cinder, if it will haunt him the same way doing it to Dean has these past few months. He suspects, with some trepidation, that it will not, but forces those thoughts from his mind and carries on.

Until the box is pulled up- and revealed is... decidedly not a stack of cinderblocks, but one spitting angry Dean Ambrose, who had- somehow, someway- freed himself from the room they'd locked him in, and replaced the blocks with... himself. Seth is still staring in horrified awe when he goes crazy on them all, Cena eventually recovering enough to help. They have no chance now, and the Authority is angry as they retreat back up the ramp, bracing and supporting each other, frustrated at how they keep getting thwarted at every turn.

Seth, however, realizes he doesn't feel much of anything. Putting Cena through the cinderblocks hadn't meant anything- not like the last few weeks where he'd wondered where Ambrose had disappeared to, paranoid and creeped out that he could just reappear at any time... and partially a little disappointed when he never did. Until the PPV, when he finally had, and Seth was reminded once more of the saying Be careful what you wish for.

What is wrong with me? he thinks, staring at himself in the mirror. Why... why does this keep happening?

He goes home for a couple of days. Idly turns on Main Event and watches Ambrose on MizTV. Stares, taking in his expression, the typical stilted movements, the way he grows more and more frustrated the more Miz talks, the more Mizdow mimics him. He's not surprised at all when something in Dean snaps and he eventually attacks both men, leaving them laying in a confused heap as he slopes his way back up the ramp and out of sight of the cameras. Seth shakes his head, an almost... fond? slope to his lips as he turns the TV off and begins his nightly rituals before heading to bed.

It's when he's in the bathroom, about to wash his face, that he notices the lingering expression on his face, how amused he looks. He stares at himself, not used to seeing this version of his reflection in the mirror. It... it's the kind of expression he'd have on his face after a conversation with Ambrose when things were still good while the Shield was still a unit. After they'd wrestled and defeated someone, or during a phone call where Ambrose had, between bursts of silence because he hates technology that much and prefers to talk face to face, said something so absolutely preposterous that it'd made Seth's day feel lighter, more humorous.

He shakes his head, closes his eyes. "You don't have time for this," he tells himself. "And it's pointless anyway. He hates you, and you hate him. So stop... just stop." He ducks then, splashes his face, almost angrily scrubs soap into it, then splashes it clean and scrubs viciously with a towel before taking his leave of the bathroom, not looking in the mirror again the entire time.

He's back on the road Friday, ignoring Kane and Orton's questions and only halfheartedly answering HHH or Stephanie when they ask. Due to what happened on Main Event, Dean has a match against Miz and they only let it go on long enough to give Dean a false sense of security before making it out to ringside upon his win, trying to formulate an attack against him... but he's quick, and he takes them both out, and the next thing Seth knows, he's looking up from the mat and his hands are empty, and... and...

Dean is towards the top of the ramp, laughing at them, briefcase in hand.

Seth's mind stutters as his hand clenches emptily around where the handle of his briefcase should be. "HEY!" He immediately lunges for the ropes, staring out at Dean like a snarling animal. "You bitch! THAT'S MINE!" He tries to scramble out of the ring, but ropes are suddenly too much for his brain to fathom and he just keeps getting tangled and pushed back into the ring, and... and... all he can do is watch, wide eyed and in horror, as Dean blows him a kiss and leaves backstage with the formulation of all of Seth's hopes and dreams since he was a little boy. "NO!"

He's breathless, almost blind with rage, spitting out all sorts of threats, promising to do so many horrible things to him, enough to make the cinderblocks look like little more than a scratch, when Kane ventures forward and nudges him. A silent command for them to go, which Seth hesitantly abides by, not surprised to find Dean has peeled out of the building as soon as he made it past those curtains. Seth curses, kicks things, and generally makes himself a nuisance until the show ends and he could leave, wanting nothing more than to collapse into his uncomfortable hotel bed and try to ignore the world around him until everything makes sense again.

He finds himself staring at his reflection once more in the mirror, this time taking in how dead his eyes look, the angry twist to his lips. It's a sharp shift from the last time he stood here and examined his face, but it's warranted. This is what I get for falling in love with a no good, betraying bitch of a thief.

It's not until later, when he's tossing and turning and trying to sleep between thoughts of how best to get vengeance in the quest to get possession of his briefcase once more, that the realization slaps into him with the force of a speeding train. Love? I... In love with...

He's pale. Shaking, knuckles white where he's grasping the bedding. "I'm in love with Dean Ambrose," he whispers to the room, blinking owlishly out into the darkness.

Something deep within him settles, pain and yearning and guilt and hate and adoration and pure affection finally finding their places, their reason for co-existing deep within his psyche like they have for the last few months, and he suddenly understands himself better than he has in what feels like months. He closes his eyes, burying his face in his hands. "Shit."

-x

Being at Raw the following week feels weird. He's had all weekend to sit with his feelings, slowly nitpicking them one by one, trying to narrow it, redefine it, and every time coming back to that one simple fact. Somewhere between forming the Shield and curbstomping the man into cement blocks, he'd fallen irreparably into love with the lunatic. He pinches his nose, exhales hard, and wishes for something else. Anything else.

Obsession he can handle, unhealthy bonds are standard in the business, but... but this... no, not so much. He breathes heavily, looking for any sort of a distraction, and then he finds it.

Makes his way to the ring and starts off risky- mentions Heyman, and even apologizes for attacking Lesnar. Like he really expects that to be the end of this. He slowly turns his focus onto what's really important right now- his briefcase. And how Ambrose still has ahold of it. He's in the middle of demanding it back, anger and frustration underlying the other, deeper emotions he's still trying to make sense of, when Ambrose appears on the titantron and Seth struggles just to breathe, looking at him a whole new gutpunch sensation that, if he hadn't figured it out before, would have probably forced him to face it for real this go-around.

He can barely hear what Dean's saying, too lost in staring at him, his angry blue eyes, the set to his jaw, but he gets the gist of it. Ambrose taunting him with the briefcase, making fun of his turmoil from the last week. He wants to be angry, but he really just feels tired in a number of ways, so he waits and he watches and he listens. Until Cena comes out and runs him off, something different about listening to Ambrose speaking after this past weekend.

They all only just make it back to the Authority locker room in one piece, and Seth barely listens to what's going on around him, HHH and Jamie Noble arguing and whatever else. He's too lost in thought about his briefcase, and Ambrose, and everything else in between. Then HHH nudges him and he looks up to find Ambrose in the ring, but with not only just his briefcase but a gym bag of his? And he's throwing his clothes around, giving stuff away, and ok, yeah, that's a pain in the ass, Serh loved some of that stuff, but he grits his teeth and focuses on the briefcase, storms to the ring and faces off with Dean, and yeah, finally. Finally he has his briefcase back, and Ambrose even has left without much drama, but he's hovering around on the outside, and Seth's paranoia is creeping up, but he needs to know, so he pops the clasps on the briefcase, relieved just to feel it under his fingers again. To be able to examine the contract once more.

The solid weight of it, how durable it feels, and- he freezes, stares ahead blankly as slime explodes from the depths of his briefcase, coats his face in garish green, ruins his suit, leaves him looking like a reject from Nickelodeon. His face feels funny, his eyes are stinging, and as soon as he makes it backstage, the Authority immediately sends him to get his eyes washed out by the trainer staff. He's barely listening as HHH puts Ambrose and Cena in a tag match against Orton and Kane. He leaves the briefcase behind, only just remembering it in time to return to find it vibrating, Orton and Stephanie looking on in confusion. "It's an electric razor," he insists, grabbing it and bolting again, ignoring them, and the hot flush creeping down his chest at the implications.

People have done worse, especially in this business, he consoles himself, reaching into the briefcase and clicking a button to silence the device within. You have no reason to feel shame. Come on, you're Seth freakin' Rollins! This is nothing.

Bolstered by his own thoughts, he makes his way to the ring during the tag match, beats Dean down, then succeeds in curbstomping both him and Cena against the briefcase to end his night. For the first time in a week, he feels good. Light even.

His overwhelming feelings are, for now, quiet.

Kane and Orton decide they want a rematch on Friday, and Seth stands there silently, tightlipped as he imagines the crowd once more focusing on the last time they'd seen him, despite his best efforts not to dwell on it. The slime, the ... implications of what was in his briefcase. Everything in between. He grits his teeth and he watches, and he waits. He bides his time, a bit, during the rematch, watching for a golden opportunity, and when it comes, he goes. Tries to get at Dean, but Cena thwarts him, chases him clear out of the arena, and although it frustrates him, he catches glimpses of Orton and Kane making quick work of Ambrose, beating him down viciously to end the night.

He's breathless, still making his way through the arena to avoid Cena, and he shakes his head, partly relieved that Orton and Kane are making the most of this opportunity, and partly frustrated because if it was him, he could... He bites his lips, the conflicting swell of emotions warping his thoughts, leaving him uncertain as he slips into the shadows, hoping it's enough to avoid Cena's tenacious search at least a while longer. "Please," he mumbles.

It's all just a lot. His realized feelings, still being wrapped up in this Authority drama, and wanting nothing more than just to move on, cash in, become champion. He rests his head against the cool wall and thinks about if he had realized just a little sooner. Why things with Dean had always felt more personal than with Roman, why he'd never just been able to let it go. Why when he turned, the chair cracked across Roman's back first and not Dean's. A little part of him hoping- and somehow continuing to hope- since that night that Dean would want to join him, but knowing it was fruitless ever since the horrified look on his face after he'd taken Roman out to prove his loyalty to HHH. Which wasn't fair because Roman and Dean very rarely ever got along without Seth in the middle mediating. So why did it matter?

"You're an idiot, Rollins," he grumbles to himself, tired of these thoughts. "In a number of ways." Sighing, he pulls away and listens. Finding things still quiet, no sign of Cena anywhere nearby, he sneaks back through the arena to once more find the relative safety of the Authority locker room.

Monday, he decides to start the show off alone against the Authority's wishes. He talks for awhile, about Cena, about what he's angry about in general. He avoids talking about everything, but still finds an impressive laundry list of things for the crowd to disagree and boo him over. It's not a surprise, he's expecting it after Mercury and Noble try to get him to leave when Cena rushes out to attack, but he's not as prepared to come face to face with Ambrose in the crowd as he tries to escape, freezing. Ambrose takes out both he and Cena, and Seth sees his opportunity and takes it, running wildly up the ramp to escape both of them.

HHH and Stephanie come out then, however, to inform Ambrose and Cena that they know they both want a piece of Seth, teasing a handicapped match that makes Seth's jaw drop in shock from where he's standing backstage, just for the clarification that follows to leave him cackling. Himself, Kane and Orton partnering up against Cena and Ambrose. It's perfect, the wording was deliberate and had made him momentarily want to be ill, but now he gets it and he's envious of the ease they both have in making the crowd eat out of the palm of their hands.

Then it gets even better. Ambrose, in all of his lunatic glory, decides he's not interested in teaming with Cena, so he leaves, and goes to Coney Island right in the middle of Raw. Seth thinks he could have a mental breakdown just at the level of hilarity at this stage, but he refrains, tries his best to hold it together to strategize with Orton and Kane. Even if it is three on one, Cena is unfathomable sometimes, and there's no point in getting caught unaware.

Their plan works well enough, they get the upperhand, and they maintain it until the referee tires of struggling to get them to listen and throws the match by disqualification, but that's fine, they were never interested in winning, it was always about weakening Cena, making it easier in the long run for Seth's future prospects. It only lasts for so long, however, before Rollins hears something... and then he sees it, Ambrose pushing a Coney Island hot dog cart into the arena. His jaw drops and all he can do is watch as Kane and Orton go after him, and get drenched in condiments and hot dogs. Seth's fate isn't much better, his attempt to either fight or escape- he's never really sure what his own intentions were in the aftermath of having to shower that green crap out of his hair for the second week in a row- leaving him struggling to regain his footing on the ramp as he cringes away from the ketchup and mustard creeping down his skin, staining his abs this ugly orange shade.

They finally get away from all of this and Seth half watches from a backstage monitor as Ambrose gets ahold of Cena, still recovering from the three on one beatdown that had only just been interrupted, and Dirty Deeds him apropos of nothing in the middle of the ring. Seth can't help but be amused by it, the crowd and commentary both annoyed and confused by Ambrose's actions.

His humor wavers, a little, when HHH announces that Ambrose and Cena will compete at Hell in a Cell and the winner will get to face Seth in a Cell match later that same night.

Once more, he finds himself speechless.

He's starting to wonder if he'll ever have another good night again, these frustrations and feelings haunting him, HHH not helping in the slightest with his match making, but Smackdown comes the closest in a long time. First, he defeats Kofi Kingston without too much trouble, and then he sits backstage and watches, chortling to himself, as Cena and Ambrose guest on MizTV, ultimately working together against Miz... just for Cena to twist around and hit the Attitude Adjustment on Ambrose. If not for the fact that he has to wrestle one of them at the PPV, he'd feel a lot more relieved at the clear showing that neither man, no matter what, will never fully be able to work together, especially against a force like The Authority.

Seth finds a lot to do that Raw to keep his mind off of... things. He observes Orton wrestling Ziggler closely, and there's no true challenge in the match for Orton, Ziggler gets a little offense in, but ultimately nothing too concerning for The Viper, so it doesn't seem like a big deal when Seth decides to take things into his own hands and curbstomps Ziggler, putting a period on all of what had came before. He simply smirks as Orton glowers at him, not appreciating his match getting taken over like this.

Seth's match for the night is as unimpressive, if not more, against Jack Swagger. Working around the man's strength and size, Seth defeats him before too long, the sense of satisfaction growing deeper within his veins. He's content to stay backstage and observe bits and pieces of the show from the Authority locker room...

until Cena vs Ambrose begins to determine who will wrestle him at Hell in a Cell. He's moving before he fully realizes it then, at ringside when his thoughts suddenly catch up, fully align in his head. He's barely made his presence felt when he finds himself overwhelmed by both men fighting him, forcing him to retreat as quickly as he'd come. He slumps against a wall and listens to the match from deep within the building, how the crowd boos and cheers at regularly timed intervals... and then the bell rings and Ambrose's music hits and Seth listens to the muffled voice of the ring announcer as he closes his eyes against the reality of what's to come.

"Shit," he breathes, all that he's been trying to push aside and ignore coming back with a vengeance, all of the bittersweet frustration of his affections for Dean, how deep in his veins he longs for the man as much as he kind of almost hates him sometimes. Any other competitor, any other time, a cage match would be no big deal. But this...

Right here, right now, the thoughts of being locked in a cage with Dean freakin' Ambrose has Seth feeling like he should scratch his way out of his skin, find somewhere to hide where no one would recognize him, and couldn't force him into this. But the briefcase is grounding, he grips it, reminds himself if he stays the course, if he does as the Authority says, he'll be champion sooner rather than later. It's a goal, there's a true chance for it, unlike these feelings for Ambrose which can go nowhere, will lead to nothing but heartache and shame.

He finds himself back at his hotel room, staring into a mirror, examining his eyes, the expression on his face. He feels empty inside, rubbed raw of everything he'd ever experienced, had ever felt. "You'll make it," he tells himself, voice as dull as his gaze. "You've made it this far, ignoring these feelings, pushing them aside, not even aware of their existence for so long. What's a little longer? Huh?"

He wants to fall asleep clinging to the briefcase, he wants to toss it out of the window of his hotel room and never see it again, he wants, he wants, ... Ultimately, with careful, measured movements, he lays it on the dresser, loosens his grip on it one finger at a time and turns away, collapsing into bed and staring up at the shadowed ceiling for the rest of the night, sleep evading him until it's time for his flight.

He's sleep deprived and more irritable than usual by Smackdown, and he takes it out on Ziggler when he wrestles him that night. He wins quickly enough, just to look up and freeze when he sees Ambrose coming. It takes a few moments for his brain to rewire itself, the subject of his sleepless nights and agonized days now right in front of his eyes. He swallows hard and- somehow- wills his body to respond as he turns and dives out of the ring, only just managing to escape before Ambrose can really lay a hand on him. I can't interact with him, he thinks. Not now. I need to get my head on straight, especially before Hell in a Cell. But... he looks up, for a moment, from where he stands just out of sight from the cameras at the very top of the arena, close to an exit, feels that old strangled sensation again when he spots Dean on one of the monitors. "Why are things like this?" he mumbles to himself. "How?"

After he's once more safe in the Authority locker room, he listens absently to Kane's challenge to Ambrose and ponders it. Maybe... Maybe I should watch that. Maybe it'll help. Maybe I can desensitize myself. He knows it's a stupid thought, but really, by now, he's not sure what else he can do, just wanting a distraction from his swirling thoughts.

So when it's time for the match, he comes to ringside and he watches, careful to keep enough distance that Dean can't easily get ahold of him, especially with Kane constantly breathing down his neck, still difficult to keep ahead of, to outsmart and overpower. Despite all of that, Dean starts doing better than Seth can really handle, itching beneath his skin as he thinks about Hell in a Cell and how this was meant to soften him up before the match, so hopefully it wouldn't be as risky for Seth to be in the ring with him. On a number of fronts. Seth's fingers twitch, his breath catches and before his mind can even catch up with what he's doing, he's inside the ring, attacking Ambrose, and ok, this he can do- the adrenaline rush is distracting him from whatever else he might be feeling, and he barely registers the match getting called via disqualification, the two of them working in tandem against Dean for a bit longer before they take their leave.

Seth breathes deep, his heart racing, as he finds himself once more in the Authority locker room, Kane looking as pleased as he ever gets, HHH and Stephanie talking quietly in the corner. Orton is lurking, quietly observing, and Seth straightens up, catching HHH's eye. He thinks HHH looks proud of him. He smirks a little, then heads for the showers just off of the locker room, needing to soak his head for a minute, try to hold off the whispers he can sense already forming in his mind.

"At least I know now," he mumbles to himself, allowing the sound of water pouring down against the walls and floor to drown out his words. "Despite... this... I can still do it." He looks at the wall, breathing a little easier. "I love him, but I can still kick his ass when I need to." He clenches his hand into a fist, trepidation and guilt still warring inside of him. "It'll have to do."

All in all, Raw that week sucks. Seth's still knocked off-kilter because of everything, then he says the wrong thing and angers Orton, like suggesting Orton should become #1 contender for the WWE title so Seth could go on to beat him for it after Orton defeats Lesnar is a bad thing. Orton didn't even stop to think that meant Seth thought he could destroy Lesnar.

Then things go from bad to worse, with Ambrose coming to the ring with a doll he says is meant to be Seth, demonstrating all of the things he'd like to do to Seth on it. Then Foley gets involved and Seth only just escapes when Dean tries to go after him with a steel chair. Things do turn around a little, when Orton, Seth and Kane work together long enough later on to defeat Cena and Ambrose in a handicapped match, but still, that old familiar itch is under Seth's skin as he poses to end the night of after curb stomping Ambrose post-match.

Things were always tense with the Shield, but this is... something he's never experienced before. The need to survive, frustration over Dean just not understanding anything Seth says or does, his obligation to the Authority, and... these annoying feelings that somehow, despite everything Dean and Seth have done and keep doing to each other, persist. If he could cut them out of himself as easily as he had the bundle of nerves causing him neck issues all of those years ago, he absolutely would.

After barely a challenge of a match against Swagger on Main event, Seth holding his breath the entire time for some sort of interruption, be it Cena or Ambrose, that never comes, he finds himself at Smackdown, listening numbly as Ambrose calls him out as soon as TV starts.

Frustrated, Seth finds a cameraman and orders him to put him on the titantron, telling Dean no one tells him what to do. "I'll call you out later," he says, before disappearing from the screen, leaving Dean annoyed and bitter. He makes sure to ignore what Dean says and does from that point on, determined to handle things his way, and not fall into more of Dean's traps.

Instead, he has a lazy kind of trap of his own prepared just for this, a table full of weapons waiting for him as he makes his way to the ring, Noble and Mercury as always by his side. He grins and examines the weapons strewn around, thinking out loud about everything he's going to do to Dean Sunday with the various items, taking his time. Stalling until, sure enough, Dean attacks from behind, almost gets his hands on Seth but only just fails, thankfully, because of Jamie and Joey. Seth escapes, runs like his life depends on it- who knows, at this point, it may. He makes it through the crowd and then stops to watch when he feels he's high enough to be safe, biting his lip as Dean successfully puts both Jamie and Joey through tables. "Son of a bitch," he groans, frustrated that this keeps happening, that no matter what he does, Dean still manages to come out on top.

His dread for Sunday keeps growing and growing, but he's Seth freakin' Rollins. He's far from giving up. Somehow, someway, he will walk out the ultimate victor in this feud.

He has to.

-x

It's time. The night of the PPV. Seth feels... capable. He feels like he's dying. His thoughts, his feelings are all over the place. This will be the first time he's been in the ring with Ambrose for a lengthy amount of time without any of the Authority members able to intercede and distract on his behalf in a long time. Yeah, JnJ will be out there, but they're barely effective during regular matches, much less something like this. He paces, he tugs his hair, he ignores everyone. Just dwells on the last few months, how Dean had constantly targeted him in exceedingly ridiculous ways- Coney Island hot dog carts, sabotaged briefcases, stupid doll segments meant to humiliate him. And then the beatdowns, which were more expected.

He breathes heavily, shuts his eyes, knuckles at his mouth. Needs time to pass a little quicker, needs the PPV to start already so HHH, Kane, Orton, all of them would just stop staring at him already. "I'm fine," he grouses when HHH grabs him and forces him to stop for a minute.

"Sure ya are," he says sarcastically. "Look, let's get you something to eat, or something to drink. Anything to settle your nerves. Gonna be a long night until your match if you keep this up."

He's closer to nausea than hunger but ultimately nods, watching with some frustration as Joey and Jamie rushes out of the room to scrounge him up a plate from catering. "Should we discuss strategy for tonight?" he asks, hating having to ask but not really sure where to even turn if he thinks too hard about the match. How much is riding on it. In so many different ways.

HHH shrugs. "Sure, if you think it'll help, but you know Ambrose better than anyone. Figured if anyone could make it through without being handheld, it'd be you."

And yeah, it's probably just an innocent, off-the-cuff remark, but it still winds Seth just a little, leaving him struggling to catch his breath."Yeah," he finally manages to say, hoping his voice doesn't sound too shaky. When HHH doesn't react, he guesses he passed it off fine.

While Seth picks at his plate once Jamie and Joey return, the group of them sit and discuss strategy up until the PPV starts, then HHH takes his leave to oversee things with Stephanie and Seth resumes pacing and ignoring his other Authority teammates until his cue to go echoes through the locker room door. Before he goes, he digs his nails into his palm, trying to focus himself. "Alright," he mumbles. "Here we go."

J&J Security follow him outside of the locker room, and they exchange tense little nods before heading towards the entrance ramp. Ambrose is cued up first and they watch from a distance on a monitor as he makes his way out with a kendo stick, climbing the cage nonchalantly like it's no big deal that his whole career will be decided in this very structure within the next half an hour. Seth swallows, watching him pace the cage so similarly to how he himself was pacing the locker room not that long ago.

Seth comes out after a minute of collecting himself and orders Noble and Mercury to go get Ambrose down no matter what. They try, they at least climb the cage and approach him, but there's no making Ambrose do what he doesn't want to do, ever, so Seth reluctantly starts to climb as well, holding his breath part of the way up, unsure how he'll actually react once he comes face to face with the man. Thankfully, he has no time to truly consider it because Jimmy and Joey regroup and the three of them begin attacking Ambrose together, but it only lasts a brief while before Dean regains control, attacking viciously, and Seth immediately scrambles for the ledge, trying to climb back down, desperate to avoid this. This moment, where the guy he realized he's been in love with for months, maybe longer, gets his hands on him and...

His thoughts derail when Dean chases him, though, and the next thing he knows, they're falling, together, from the side of the cage, after a headbutt so forceful that Seth thinks his ears are ringing, though he doesn't have time to catalogue his various issues before they slam hard into the commentary table below. Dean gets the worse of it, Dean is still down as Seth struggles into the ring, referees even call for a gurney for him, and they're trying to load him up on it, get him out of the arena to check him out, when he struggles free from their grips and moves to continue fighting Seth. Seth is hurting, yeah, Seth could go, but still. Still. Seeing Dean keep struggling to return to the ring, to see this through, makes Seth groan. Can't he ever just let things go? EVER?

But he can't, and he won't, so all Seth can do is brace himself as Dean gets in, and the match finally, officially begins. Seth has control for awhile, but it's tenuous, Dean's anger and frustration, the ability to finally get his hands on Seth, gives him the strength for an eventual advantage and all Seth can do is try to hold on, outlast Dean as his energy begins to waver. It's been going on long enough, and they'd already put their bodies through a lot, so it's no true surprise when Dean begins to wan, but he's still fighting, determined to defeat Seth, make him pay for everything he's done to them since dissolving the Shield.

Seth's starting to think Dean might accomplish it, that this isn't his night, isn't his fight to win, overwhelmed and fighting darkness at the edges of his vision as Dean continues to whale on him, when everything goes pitch dark. It takes a Seth a minute to realize he hadn't passed out, that it was the lights going out. Dean's attacks stop as he too freezes, confused, and all Seth can do is hold his breath and wait, and when the lights come back on, they're both blinded and dazed- barely noticing they're not alone in the ring.

Bray Wyatt is there, Bray Wyatt laughs and then he has ahold of Ambrose, and he's planting him into the mat with Sister Abigail, and he's laughing, and then things go dark again and he's gone. Seth blinks, and blinks again, but it's not a hallucination, all of that had truly happened. What the fuck? Seth thinks over and over again even as he scrambles over, forcing his aching body just to move one more time, until he reaches Dean's side, drapes an arm over him, and breathes through the pin, until finally... finally, he gets the three and the victory.

For a second, he rests his forehead against Dean's side. For a moment, he breathes him in, committing this moment to memory. It feels like the end of something, if only for now. Like, one final sentence in another chapter that is the story of Dean Ambrose and Seth Rollins. It'll probably be revisited later, things like this usually are, but Seth is content to let things lay for now, to settle. For him to perhaps find a way to move on, compartmentalize these feelings that had no way to settle when he was constantly in Dean's path, forced to acknowledge him, to communicate with him, to touch him. "Goodbye for now," he mumbles into Dean's shoulder, before allowing J&J security to manhandle him upright, to lead him cheerfully backstage, talking all the while about the celebration they must have.

If Seth is a little quiet, fighting every urge to look back, one more time, at Dean's prone body, neither man seem to notice or care. He catches a glimpse of Dean on a monitor a minute later on his way to the Authority locker room, the disgusted, wide eyed look on his face as he sits up. I love you, he thinks to the screen, feeling helpless and a little weak. I really do.

He laughs soundlessly as he realizes tomorrow, he will find someone new to target to propel himself one step closer to the World title, Dean will probably be on the warpath against Wyatt, and neither of them will have anything to say about each other, or to each other, and life will just move on like it's no big deal. Like the last few years of his life, of their time together, means nothing. Closure like this, so sudden, so thorough, leaves Seth feeling, somehow, empty and relieved all at once.

-x

It goes as he figures the next night. Seth makes it to the ring, declares to the world that he's done with Ambrose. All of these months later, after all of the pain, the embarrassment and shame, he's washing his hands of it. Moving on to focus on his own career, his title aspirations, maybe... who knows what all could be on the horizon.

After, he sits backstage and watches as Dean targets Bray Wyatt. It feels weird, not being Dean's only focus anymore, but he thinks it's a good thing. They both deserve something else other than this nonstop merry go round of drama and pain, trapping both of them in the guilt and pain of everything Seth did when he took out both Roman and Dean that night all of those months ago.

And if it helps Seth to fully move on from these twisted, confusing feelings he has for Dean, then all of the better for it.

After the show, Noble and Mercury see Seth to his hotel room, quickly taking their leave as they always do, going into their neighboring room to give Seth some privacy. Seth sighs and unlocks the door with no lack of relief. It's not until the door clicks shut heavily behind him that he flicks the light on and immediately tenses up. He's not alone.

Dean Ambrose slinks up to a standing position, staring back at him, and Seth licks his lips anxiously. "Wha- what are you doing here, Ambrose?" he says, voice shaky but attempting to sound like his usual, abrasive self. "How the hell did you get in my room?"

Ambrose smirks. "You should know better than to have a room with a balcony by now, Seth," he chides him. "The view ain't worth it when you're trying to keep... riffraff out, is it?"

Seth huffs, feeling the beginning stabs of a tension headache form. "Get out," he mumbles, turning to drop his gear bag on the floor by his bed.

"Ordinarily I'd be glad to, but I think we need to talk."

"What could we possibly have to talk about? Keep your focus on Wyatt, and leave me alone," Seth says, suddenly falling quiet when he turns and- comes nose to nose with the other man. "Ambrose, what the fu-"

"I couldn't sleep so I watched back the last few months last night. This morning," Dean says simply. "Everything I could get my hands on. Tried to figure out where I went wrong, what I did to lead to losin' like I did. And I didn't really get an answer, because Bray Wyatt, what the fuck, you know? But I did notice somethin' about you."

Seth pales. Looks away. Scoffs Dean's words away as best as he can. "What could you possibly have to notice about me?"

"You acted different after the cinderblock thing," Dean says quietly. "It was real subtle, most probably wouldn't have noticed. But signs were there. Then I stole your briefcase." He flicks the thing, eyes glinting with almost mean humor when Seth holds it closer to him protectively. "And it all just went nuclear. Something deep inside of ya shifted. You couldn't get away from me fast enough. And not just because of the Authority being in your head, telling you all of these dumb things. Because you needed to get away for yourself." His dark blue eyes are suddenly piercing into Seth's soul and he can barely breathe, staggering back until he hits the wall, forcing a few deep breaths. "Yeah. Like that."

"I don't know what you're implying," Seth says desperately. "But you need to leave-"

"Eh," Dean says, brushing away his words. "I think you know exactly what I mean." He moves forward again, suddenly once more in Seth's personal space, and Seth's brain whites out, realizing he's pinned against the wall, Dean's warmth blanketing him, and if Seth lets out a desperate noise when he sighs, Seth will never be able to remember fully. "I think what you're feelin' is pretty simple, even if you refuse to face it just because of the complexity of this bullshit you've buried yourself in the last few months."

"No idea what you mean," Seth tells him breathlessly. "But you've gotta go. Now. J&J Security are next door and I can get 'em in here with just a..." He lifts his hand like he's about to bang it against the wall separating their rooms, when Dean scoffs and rolls his eyes.

"Oh please," he says. "A: I'm not scared of them, and B: I doubt you'd want them to see their precious golden boy in this position. Now would you?" He shifts, bracing himself against the wall with one hand, and suddenly he's leaning in, pressing closer, examining Seth with an oddly hungry gaze. "And you can deny it however many times you want, I know you feel this." He's close, his breath ghosting against Seth's lips, and oh shit, it's doing things to Seth he'd never want to admit, not here, not ever.

"Ambrose," Seth says, head spinning too much to care how highpitched, desperate his voice is. "You need to go. Now. Or I swear..."

"You swear what?" he breathes out, now only a couple inches between their lips. "Whatcha going to do, Seth?"

Seth wants to push him away. He wants to grab him by the straps of his grungy ass wifebeater and pull him in, devour him in ways he couldn't during their feud, sprawl him out on the king sized bed behind them and leave him wrecked in totally new, fascinating ways, but he doesn't have the opportunity- there is a hand in his hair, another on his hip, and it takes all it can in him to keep his knees from buckling beneath him as Dean presses him further into the wall, their teeth clashing and biting as they kiss. It's a side effect, he thinks, of their match that had ended so suddenly and left their feud hanging unfinished between them, their focuses suddenly forced in other directions.

But if Seth had ever doubted that he and Dean were far from done with each other, this confirms it, Dean's hands twisted in his hair, their teeth, lips, tongue fighting for dominance as Seth bites back moans and gasps, unable to fathom that after all of this, Dean had seen through him and called him out on his bullshit in the most mindmelting way possible. Seth's not sure he'll be able to recover from this, much less keep it from the Authority.

Dean must sense Seth's distraction because he slowly, painstakingly lets him go, the two of them hovering scarce inches apart. Examining each other. Seth is flushed, trembling, barely able to stand, and Dean looks... satisfied. Calm. Like he had known how this was going to go before he'd climbed onto Seth's balcony to wait for him. "Somewhere along the line, you realized this between us..." Dean lazily flexes a hand between them and examines Seth quietly. "...was always more personal than anything with Roman because you fell in love with me."

Seth wants to argue it, deny it, kick Dean's ass for even suggesting it, but his brain still feels like jello after that kiss, so instead he exhales and lets the tension drain slowly out of his body. "Not that-"

Dean cuts in, digs his fingers in his hair again, and tugs his head back until their eyes lock. :"It took you fucking long enough to catch up, asshole."

Seth is still deciphering that during the next kiss, which is not gentle, it's not calm, it's messy and borderline painful, but there's a desperation, a hunger, a yearning behind Dean's movements that tells Seth so much more than Dean's own cryptic words ever could. There's no gentleness or romance behind their movements, just hunger and frustration, Dean's hands rough and grasping as he explores Seth's body, Seth responding in kind as he digs his nails in to Dean's scalp, down his spine, needing something, anything to hold onto.

If something had clicked for them the first time they interacted all of those years ago in FCW that had led Seth, to this day, to declare to anyone that would listen that he and Ambrose were wrestling soulmates, it has nothing on this night. The overwhelming feeling of right and clarity and home leaving them both panting for air, fingerprints already darkening their skin, the slight burn of possession lingering as Dean pulls back and examines Seth's face, thumbing at his closed eyes.

"What do we do now?" Seth breathes out, his brain slowly coming back online after a few minutes, trying to reclaim himself.

Dean hums, looking about as wrecked as Seth feels. His tank top is twisted from where Seth's fingers had gripped, his hair is all over the place, and his eyes are narrowed as he thinks, tracing his knuckles over Seth's bare skin and making him shiver all over again. "I guess we just see where things go."

It's such an Ambrose answer, frustrating and vague, Seth almost wants to kick him, knock that sated, smug look off of his face, but he takes one look at the deep hunger still lurking in Dean's deep blue eyes, and he gives in. Gives up. For once, lets Dean take the wheel in this. "Alright," he says faintly. "Guess that works for me." He then twists Dean's tank top once more in his hand and uses that to propel them to the bed, where Dean drops unceremoniously and Seth joins him, hovering just inches from his face.

There's still too much to talk about, to think about, but for now. For this moment. Seth lets himself have this, lets himself feel something other than anger and frustration, guilt and fear, when he looks down at the man he's inexplicably falling deeply in love with. He thinks he should say something, but he has no idea what, so he keeps it to himself, dives back in and allows himself to be distracted by Dean's easy mastery of his body.

For at least a little while longer, before it all inevitably crashes down around his head yet again.