Chapter 19
The next several weeks were very hectic, to say the least.
WWE had their annual European tour throughout most of November. Since Dean went, so did Macaria and Aya. It was interesting being in Europe, touring the different cities, even though there wasn't a lot of time to do it. There was a show in EVERY town, city, whatever one wanted to call it. The schedule was insane, not to mention all the media appearances and signings, charity events, and anything else the Authority could squeeze in. Macaria was worried Dean would drop dead from exhaustion, but he kept trucking along and assured her this was a cakewalk. Because of how busy he was, there was no time for them to really talk about what Bray Wyatt kept spewing about his past…his imprisoned father. Dean had done a promo on Raw backstage, talking about Bray Wyatt and hoped the man was right when he said there was a special place in hell for both of them.
This situation really bothered Dean, though he tried hiding it. Macaria hadn't asked about it because, honestly, it wasn't her business, but since they were sleeping together, albeit secretly, she wanted to help him through it somehow. It didn't help Aya had been a shark smelling blood with this new turn of events, trying to delve into Dean's past as deep as he'd allow. It wasn't far. Dean shut her down at every turn by either changing the subject or making an excuse to walk away from the questions. It broke Macaria's heart and she wanted to tell Aya to stop, but she was a journalist and this was her job. She couldn't very well tell Aya NOT to do her job since the woman was her boss. Besides, she didn't need Aya suspecting anything besides friendship was going on between her and Dean.
Luckily, coming up after Survivor Series, Raw and Smackdown!, the Superstars were all off for 5 glorious days to enjoy Thanksgiving with their families. Macaria had no idea what she would do for Thanksgiving, not thinking much of it. She had contemplated asking Dean what he was doing for the holiday, but didn't want to destroy any plans he had. Hell, maybe he wanted to spend Thanksgiving alone or he had a loving family member he always went to. Macaria was on the outs with her own family, so it would be spent alone with a meal from a restaurant or something. Technically, all her and Dean did was have sex, they had never established what they were and something told her that was all he wanted. There was nothing wrong with that; Macaria knew that was a risk going into this and had to push her feelings on the backburner.
It was the Smackdown! before Survivor Series.
Everybody was exhausted in every way from the European tour, but they had to keep trucking. At the very least, they would get 2 days off prior to Survivor Series, having a ton of a media to do during the weekend to promote the pay-per-view event. Macaria planned on sleeping for her 2 days off and something told her Dean would do the same thing. She still didn't know where he lived, again not asking anything personal because of how much Aya had been drilling Dean thus far.
"Ugh! Why won't he talk to me?!" Aya complained, tossing her hands in the air and felt like pulling her platinum blonde hair out of her head. "Getting SOME kind of background on him would be nice for the article, you know?!"
"Maybe you should back off of him and let him come to you. You're pushing him too hard, Aya. He's going to end up clamming up completely…" Macaria cautioned, raising a brow at Aya's curious expression and felt her stomach tighten suddenly. "No…no, don't even think about asking me what I KNOW you're going to."
"You ARE close to him…" More so than her, Aya admitted grudgingly as she folded her arms in front of her chest. "I'm sure if you ask him some questions, he'll answer them with no problems…"
Of course, he would, considering they were screwing each other nearly every night they were together, sharing rooms had become second nature. Aya was eyeballing her with a perfectly shaped brow, which was probably stenciled on. She didn't say a word for 5 straight minutes, the silence deafening and Macaria felt as though she was being suffocated. The tension was thick in the air between boss and employee while Dean was in a private meeting with the writers to talk about his segment tonight.
"Okay – okay FINE…" Macaria buried her face in her hands, hoping she wasn't making a mistake by agreeing to get some kind of information for Aya. "I am making NO promises though."
"All you can do is try your best." Aya smiled with her perfectly white, polished teeth and clamped a hand on her photographer's shoulder. "I really appreciate any help, Macaria."
At least she said her name right instead of the ridiculous Mac nickname. "Uh huh…"
Just then, Dean stormed into his dressing room, a pissed off expression on his face and began rolling his shoulders, trying to calm down. He had certain quirks and ticks nobody else did and Macaria frowned, wondering what had him so upset. It must've had to do with his segment. Dean had been demanding answers from the Authority about Bray using his personal past in their feud, on camera, and basically ignored him.
"Dean…"
"Aya, if you even THINK about asking me about my past again, I'll shove this whole fucking article or whatever it's called up your ass!" Dean snapped, not pulling punches or beating around the bush, his temper already on the fritz. "It's NOBODY'S business what my past is like and I don't WANT any of it in the fucking article! I don't give a fuck what the WWE wants, what the Authority wants…I won't give you ANY information about my past, so you might as well give it up and stick to the now or my Indy days."
Macaria swallowed hard at the amount of anger lacing his tone, not sure it was a good idea to ask Dean about his past after all. The last thing she wanted was to tick him off and it was obvious he wasn't happy about this upcoming segment or Bray Wyatt, in general. Bray had really gotten under his skin lately and Dean wanted to rip him apart limb by limb.
"Maca, you're out there tonight since it's a promo I'm cutting." Dean informed her evenly, not wanting to take his anger out on the honey blonde he'd spent what little free time he had with lately.
"O-Okay…"
Aya had snapped her mouth shut, grabbed her things and rushed out of the dressing room, tears in her eyes. Macaria didn't like or respect the woman, but she also didn't deserve to be snapped on for simply saying the man's name. "Dean…" She placed a hand on his tense shoulder and felt him cover it with his own, but didn't turn to face her. "You have to calm down…"
"She needs to back the fuck off, then." Dean shot back gruffly, twitching for a cigarette and knew he'd picked a horrible time to try to quit smoking, chewing gum like crazy. "You know as well as I do what she was about to say, Maca."
"No, actually I don't. And you don't either because you're not a mind reader." Macaria remarked, folding her arms in front of her chest when he turned his head to face her, his hands splayed against the lockers.
"Why the fuck are you defending that Virago, suddenly?" Dean demanded, pushing away from the lockers to fully face her and squared his shoulders. "Did you forget what she's been doing since coming here? And WHO she's been with?"
Macaria knew his anger wasn't directed at her or even Aya, but she also wouldn't allow him to talk down to her either. "No, I haven't. And that's not what this is about. You had no right snapping at her for NO REASON. She didn't give you any reason to snap and you were just looking for someone to take your frustration out on. She's here to do a job, even if she's not very good at it. And she's my boss and you just made her cry."
She was the LAST person Dean wanted to fight with. With Roman gone, Dean didn't have a lot of people to rely on or converse with and Macaria covered both those areas well. "Okay…okay…" He held his taped hands up, conceding for the moment. "I'm sorry…" Those words felt like nails digging into his tongue. Dean did not apologize often, but Macaria did deserve it since he had somewhat snapped at her.
"I'm not the one you need to apologize to. You need to tell Aya, if she comes back tonight." Something told Macaria the woman would stay scarce until Survivor Series since they were all heading home tomorrow morning for their 2 days off. "What's got you so wound up anyway? I know it has something to do with Bray Wyatt and mentioning your Dad in prison…" Those were the WRONG words to say to a man already on the verge of erupting.
Dean's guard instantly went up, his figurative feathers ruffled. "My past is MY PAST. Nobody else needs to know what the fuck I went through or what kinda fucked up childhood I had. They need to just know I was raised by wolves and leave it at that." He was NOT comfortable talking about his personal life, not even to the woman he shared his bed with lately.
"But you're letting it eat you alive from the inside out, Dean! Don't you see that? You're going to wind up making a mistake in the ring and getting seriously hurt if you don't talk about what's going on in your head. You can't keep this shit bottled up, it's not healthy!" Macaria tried to reason with him and frowned at how stubborn he was being, wishing he would confide in her. "Why won't you talk to me? Why won't you open up to me? I've opened up to you…"
"No, you've opened your legs for me to fuck you." Dean regretted the words as soon as they left his mouth and somehow, it kept running away with him. "That's it. That's as far as you've 'opened up', Macaria. And something tells me you only did it for the fucking job anyway, so don't pretend like you care about me! NOBODY CARES ABOUT ME!"
Tears instantly filled her eyes as Macaria stared back at him, feeling her heart hardening at his cold words. Was that how he really viewed her? Did he actually believe she had slept with him because of her job?
"For all I fucking know, you've been telling Aya all the shit I've already told you! I don't know you! Why the fuck would I open up to a complete stranger?!" Dean kept ranting, not thinking about the consequences at the moment and tossed a steel chair against the lockers, the veins in his neck and arms popping out from how tense he was.
Granted, Aya had asked her to find out information about Dean TONIGHT, but that was it. Anything and everything Dean had told her about himself stayed between them. Macaria was hurt because she promised him she wouldn't say anything to Aya or anyone about whatever they said to each other. She backed up toward the door, grabbing her camera bag in the process and cleared her throat, willing the tears not to fall from her eyes. She would cry later in her own hotel room, already planning on getting her own, even if she had to go to the next town over to find a vacancy.
"Okay, you're right. You're absolutely right. I overstepped my boundaries and made a huge mistake with this." How could Macaria be so stupid to jump into bed with this mongrel? "I actually thought you were a decent guy, but color me shocked, you're not. You're just another asshole I let worm his way into my panties and fuck me. Don't worry, I won't disappear like Aya did because, unlike her, I actually DO love my job. And don't worry, I won't be bothering you any more or asking personal questions. You made it perfectly clear what we were and it's over now. I'll see you out there, Ambrose." Before Dean could stop her, Macaria was gone and didn't see the fallen expression on his face or the angry tears in his eyes.
If only she knew the horrors he'd gone through.
Dean Ambrose's Survival Kit.
What the hell was that? Macaria tilted her head as Dean came down to the ring, wearing his patent leather jacket, one of his t-shirts and skintight jeans, his hair wet to hang just a little in his eyes. He grabbed the microphone as the crowd hushed and went on a tangent about not being an average, run of the mill, WWE Superstar and he didn't care what people thought or said about him. He was a survivor. He survived and thrived in the WWE, no matter who or what got in his way. The crowd absolutely loved him as Macaria took her pictures, trying not to think about his poisonous words, but they kept echoing in her head during his promo.
"Let me tell you a little story. Story about when I was a young boy."
That got Macaria's attention, her eyes widening and had a feeling what he was about to say was true. Why wouldn't it be?
"My mother hands me a $20 dollar bill. She says, 'Walk down to the store, get me a pack of cigarettes and some scratch-off lottery tickets'. So I'm walking down the street. I run into a group of older guys and they wanna know what I got on me. And they rough me up pretty good. And they take my $20 dollar bill. I go home to my Mom, empty-handed. I tell her what happened. She opens up a drawer, she pulls out a pair of brass knuckles. She hands them to me and she says, 'Well don't ever let it happen again. These brass knuckles are your survival kit'. And I carry a survival kit with me everywhere I go. To this day, my hands, my feet, my knees, my elbows, my head, my teeth. I'm a walking, talking survival kit and I will bite, scratch, claw, punch and kick, whatever it takes. At Survivor Series, I'm gonna break Bray Wyatt's nose and his teeth – he's never gonna wanna open his mouth again. I'm gonna take this fist," Dean clenched his hand together in a fist and began bouncing it off the microphone. "And I'm gonna bounce it off his skull over and over and over and I'm not gonna stop until both of his eyes are swollen shut and my knuckles are bleeding. If Bray Wyatt wants to survive, all he needs in his survival kit is the ability to run – run and hide. Hide in the shadows. Run back to the woods or wherever it is you say you came from! Bray Wyatt said a lot about me, about my Dad, about my past and a lot of its true, so what? Yeah, he got under my skin just a little bit and that's only bad for him because Bray Wyatt you're not talking to some scared, lonely child, you're talking to a grown man." Now he was staring directly into the camera facing him, his eyes nothing more than blue fire. "Now I am the hunter and you are the prey. At Survivor Series, you will be stalked, tormented, and ultimately, you will be PUT DOWN." His voice had dropped an octave and became grittier and raspy, his anger showing through his words.
Suddenly, the lights went out and Bray was shown on the Titan tron, behind bars of what looked to be a jail cell. He had a cup and was running it along the bars, making a clinking noise and Macaria's heart shattered for Dean having to go through this. What the hell?! Weren't there boundaries within the WWE not to do this? This was uncalled for and it was getting way too personal now!
"Hi Dean, it's Dad, remember me?!" Bray's eyes were wide and crazed, a sick smile on his face. "I'm the one who gave you life and then left you alone to rot in it!" He began laughing sadistically, gripping the bars. "And I came here, Dean, today, behind these bars, to remind you the apple does not fall far from the tree. This – this is your future. Forever trapped inside a prison of your own design. Raging against these bars, begging for freedom! That you will not receive."
Dean looked ready to explode as Macaria stopped taking pictures, not wanting to capture this moment for the article. Aya would be angry with her, but she didn't care. Maybe it wasn't professional of her to stop snapping pictures. Macaria would deal with the consequences or simply lie to Aya and say she ran out of film. There was no way she could snap pictures of him, not now.
"I'm going to leave this cell, and then I'm going to leave you drowning inside a pool of your own filth." Bray lowered himself again, pressing his face against the bars. "Just like Daddy did."
The segment ended shortly after that, the lights coming back up and Dean could only leave the ring, scowling his way up the ramp to the back.
