ROUGH NIGHT

Set after the March 12, 2018 RAW. Kayfabe compliant.

"Uce?" Seth called out as he opened the door to the darkened hotel room he was supposed to be sharing with Roman. "You here?"

"Physically, yeah." the dark-haired man sighed heavily, sitting on his bed in the moonlight with his back towards Seth and staring out the window. "Sorry but they wouldn't let me stick around for your match. How'd it go?"

"I lost." Seth shook his head, deciding against turning the lights on and tossing his jacket onto his suitcase. On the nearby table, he could see that Roman had stopped somewhere on the way back to the hotel and bought a six pack of beer, a couple of which were standing empty nearby and a third clutched tightly in Roman's hand. "Mind if I grab one?"

"Thought you didn't drink." Roman replied, glancing over his shoulder at Seth. A sympathetic smile worked its way onto his face as he noticed the younger man was sulking slightly. "Go ahead, bro. Looks like you need it as much as I do."

"Yeah, been a rough night for both of us." Seth nodded, letting out a deep breath before sitting down next to the man who had become like an older brother to him. The view out the window was nothing but that of the hotel parking lot, but something about it made both men stare directly ahead. "What's the latest on your suspension?"

"Vince said he'd reevaluate everything after next week's Raw." Roman shrugged, "Got an early flight home tomorrow, but still on the hook for any media obligations this week and the house shows this weekend." He scoffed and shook his head. "Can't be on TV because I tell the goddamned truth, but God forbid they have people asking for refunds for their big Madison Square Garden show because the face of the company isn't there."

"Oh, that really is some bullshit." Seth rolled his eyes before shaking his head. Roman just quietly took a drink of his beer. "I was in the locker room when Vince announced your suspension. A LOT of the boys were pissed!"

"Yeah, a lot of people are." Roman said, looking at the almost empty can in his hand. "I mean, obviously not the crowd tonight. Got a pretty good pop for getting suspended."

"Yeah, you…" Seth started to say, looking down himself and seeing the multiple, fresh looking bruises and cuts on his friend's hands; the right one bandaged up completely. "Roman? What in the hell did you do?"

"Ah, yeah, that probably should have been the first thing I said to you." Roman chuckled sheepishly in response, "May have punched a few lockers and broken a mirror or two while I was packing my shit up in the arena. Hunter wasn't exactly pleased about it when he found me. Told me to use this time off to focus on reigning in my temper."

"Well, he's not wrong." Seth pointed out, feeling his cellphone vibrate in his pocket for at least the 20th time that night. "Goddamn! Who in the hell is trying to get a hold of me so badly?"

"You really have to ask?" Roman laughed, getting up and grabbing another beer.

"I guess not." Seth grinned, pulling the phone out and putting on speaker as he answered. "Hey, Deano!"

"FINALLY!" an irate Dean exclaimed, sitting up from where he had been laying on his couch in Las Vegas. "Why can't you motherfuckers pick up your phones the first time I call? I get that Uce is probably ignoring his phone right now, but I've called you at least 100 times, Princess!"

"Actually, it was only twenty." Seth teased, prompting a snicker from Roman, who sat back down next to him. "I counted."

"NOT THE FRIGGING POINT, SMARTASS!" Dean growled, prompting his bulldog, Blue, to jump down from where he had been lying next to his owner and hide under a nearby chair.

"I should probably tell you that you're on speaker." Seth smiled, "Hanging out back in the room with the Big Dog and we're working our way through a six pack."

"What's up, D?" Roman greeted, raising his beer towards the phone, even though Dean couldn't see it. "You sound cheerful as ever!"

"Uh oh! I know that tone!" Dean said, frustrated that he was stuck clear across the country from his friends. "Going to have to cut him off pretty soon here, Sethie! I can tell just from his voice that he's in the buzzed zone and heading for the border with actually drunk pretty quickly."

"He's on like his fourth beer." Seth nodded, remembering to hide the remaining one.

"Border's looking mighty fine." Roman smiled before taking another drink.

"Anyway, this suspension is BULLSHIT!" Dean shook his head, "Renee doesn't think it's a good idea, but I'm seriously looking at flights out to Raw next week so I can show up and tear the old man a new one! Then again, maybe, I should just drop in on him at headquarters tomorrow! Beat his ass with that fake-ass dinosaur skull he has on his wall, and take it with me when I leave! I've always liked that thing."

"All right. Calm down, D." Roman urged as Seth opened the last beer. "Don't need you reinjuring yourself while doling out your righteous vengeance on my behalf. Your wife would hunt me down and beat the crap out of me!"

"Renee can be dangerous when she wants." Dean agreed, "No one ever believes me about that, but it's true! Oh, hey, Princess! Caught your match tonight with Too-Skinny Balor! It was awesome!"

"Thanks, but I should have won." Seth frowned, the temporary distraction of Roman's situation fading away and leaving his mind to dwell on the doubt in himself. He had left an opening in his attack for Balor to capitalize on.

"Eh, can't win them all." Dean shrugged, scratching Blue's ear as he jumped up back onto the couch next to him. "Not even you. Balor got that famous Irish luck this time!"

"It wasn't luck." Seth shook his head, replaying the match's closing moments in his mind. "Finn knew exactly what he was doing. How could I have not noticed that I left myself wide open? I feel like he's been studying my matches, looking for anything he can use against me."

"Like you haven't been doing the same to him?" Dean scoffed, knowing his so-called wrestling soulmate too well. "Come on, man! We all do it…well, I mean, people like you do."

"Deano and I work a completely different style." Roman shrugged, smiling at Seth. "We just punch something and, if that doesn't work, we punch it again until it does work."

"I haven't been doing enough." Seth replied, clenching and unclenching his fist that wasn't currently holding his phone, trying to sort out the thoughts racing through his brain. "What in the hell is wrong with me? WrestleMania is only about a month away now! I need to start seriously training for it!"

"Seth?" Roman said, worrying about the way the younger man was frantically breathing and the blank look in his eyes. Frowning, he rested a gentle hand on Seth's shoulder, prompting him to look at Roman. "Calm down, man! You HAVE been training for Mania. You have been all year! It's just another match."

"No." Seth shook his head, "Again, apparently I haven't been doing enough if tonight is any indication. I can't lose at WrestleMania, Uce!" He stroked his beard thoughtfully. "I need to watch every Finn Balor and Miz match that I can get my hands on. Maybe I should also spend more time at the gym than I have been?"

"Seth." Roman started to say, but unsure of how to follow up.

"Oh, my God." Dean groaned, putting a hand to his forehead. He had a renewed desire to somehow crawl through the phone and join his friends after what seemed to have been a long night. "Seth, listen, man. If that's what you think you need to do, then I'm not going to stop you. I personally think that you're more than ready to take on fake-ass Miz and Mr. Doesn't Eat Carbs, but that's just me."

"Believe that." Roman interrupted with a nod, getting Seth to look at him. "And, even if you do lose at the big show, it's not like the end of the world or anything. Just means that it wasn't your night."

"I just feel like I haven't had a lot of my nights lately." Seth replied, "I mean, just look at what's happened since we brought the Shield back! Uce, you went down with the mumps days before our big return match. Dean and I lost the tag team belts, and then Dean got injured. I got stuck with Jason, won the tag belts and lost them again due to him getting injured. I didn't win the Rumble or Elimination Chamber, which I practically had to beg Angle to put me in." He sighed heavily, shaking his head. "I'm just a fucking dark cloud of bad luck these days!"

"Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and take responsibility for at least two of those." Roman said with a small smile. "I mean, I did toss you out of the Rumble and you got eliminated at the Chamber because I couldn't get rid of Strowman fast enough."

"I swear that man has some sort of Beat Up Roman fetish." Dean shook his head.

"Ok." Roman made a face of disgust, "I never want to hear you say the words: Braun, Roman and fetish in the same sentence ever again!"

"There's probably some fanfiction on the internet involving just that." Dean teased, "I'll have to look it up later and send you the links!"

"You do that," Roman rolled his eyes, "And I swear to God, Ambrose! I WILL show up on your doorstep and Superman punch you in the face!"

Unable to help himself, Seth let out a loud, long laugh at his friends' antics. It didn't take long for Roman and Dean to be infected by the same laughter. It was something that, even though he wasn't physically with the other two, Ambrose could tell that they needed after a very long night.

"Ah, man." Seth said after a few minutes, holding his stomach. "I needed that."

"I think we all did." Roman agreed, happy to see a smile on Seth's face. "Unfortunately, should be wrapping this up. Got an early flight home tomorrow morning."

"Yeah." Dean replied, "By the way, Rome, if you need my help sneaking into the arena next week, let me know, all right? I may know a guy."

"Thanks, bro." Roman nodded, "Tell you the truth, not sure what I'm going to do yet. Will let you know when I figure it out."

"And as for you, Sethie Poo." Dean said, "As much as it pains me to say it, you may just be the best wrestler in the world right now…I mean, except for me of course."

"And just where in the hell do I fit in in that?" Roman interrupted, raising an eyebrow.

"Oh my God! It's not always about you, Big Dog!" Dean rolled his eyes, "Ok, ok, you're the number one Samoan Badass, all right? Now, let me get back to Seth!" He paused momentarily, shaking his head and trying to remember where he was going with this. "So what if you've had shitty luck recently? There's no way in hell that it can last forever, right? I mean it could possibly if you bulldozed a mirror factory or something, but as far as I know, you haven't done that."

"No, can't say that I have." Seth said with a slight smile, amused at Dean's randomness.

"At any rate, you've beaten Miz and Balor before." Dean continued, "And you will do it again!"

"Believe that." Roman nodded as a thought struck him, "Hey! You win the title at WrestleMania, and you'll be in the Grand Slam club with me and Deano!"

"Yeah." Seth replied, "I know, but I didn't want to say anything about that."

"You don't get a free Grand Slam breakfast at Denny's if you win though." Dean pointed out, "Nobody told me that, so that was kind of a buzzkill when the waitress didn't know what I was talking about. Good thing Uce was feeling generous that day and paid for it."

"Why did you think…" Seth started to ask, before putting a hand up. "You know what? Never mind. Feeling a bit more confident now, knowing that you guys believe in me."

"Should have known that all along." Dean replied as Blue jumped down from the couch and started walking in circles by the door. "Should probably let you two go. Blue's doing his potty dance. Catch you boys later! Have a safe trip home!"

"Night, Deano!" Roman said.

"Goodnight, man!" Seth said, hanging up the phone.