Requested by LeahMarie: I don't know if you've seen the vid yet of Roman getting his stitches but you can hear Seth talking in the background, could you add that part into your story? Just a little scene of Seth checking on Roman and making sure he's ok and feeling all guilty and Roman being the big brother he is and telling him he's fine and doesn't blame him.
Obviously, I had to change reality a bit to give Seth a reason to be there at all. I'm super happy that the three of them still care for each other like in the old times but it didn't fit into the story, so actually, I just took the whole Roman gets staples and Dean is there thing and changed the whole rest. Hope you like it, honey.
Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
This whole damn night is already one of the worst he has had in a long time and the show has just started. Why did Roman have to come down and challenge Randy with the whole Authority standing in that ring?
No, scratch that. He knows why.
But still, why? And what the heck was Hunter thinking, setting up an impromptu Last Man Standing match between his brother and the Demon, without giving him a chance to talk to Kane about it first, so they can make a plan.
And now, Kane is walking up to him backstage, shrugging apologetically when Seth throws up his hands angrily. 'He got busted open,' Seth accuses his ally of hurting his brother but his anger doesn't seem to faze Kane at all.
'That is part of the business, kid. Go after him, if you are so worried.' Oh, ha ha. Very funny. He'd love to storm into the medical staff room and check on Roman, because that is still etched in his muscle memory but he can't just waltz in there. He can't afford to be seen with his brother and blow his cover.
Or can he?
'You're right,' he whispers slowly, already coming up with a valid reason to be there at the same time as his family.
He is about to turn around and run to his injured friend when Kane holds him back and inches closer, asking in a low voice, 'Are we still executing the original plan?' Of course they are. Seth has no idea where that will get them or if it'll have the desired effect but they have nothing to lose.
And Kane said he needed a break from professional wrestling to recharge his batteries. Who is Seth to deny that wish? Having someone in charge who is secretly working with him can never hurt. It's not what Seth had originally wanted – he didn't plan for the return of Corporate Kane so soon or at all –, but if he's learned one thing it's to roll with the flow.
'Yup,' he confirms and dashes through the arena, coming to a halt in front of the medics room to inhale deeply, so he doesn't appear out of breath. His idea won't work if they think he ran here.
Seth throws the door open like he owns this place and has to suppress an amused smile when everyone in the room jerks in surprise. Even Roman. Ha.
Dean looks at him like he just sprouted a second head, eyes going a bit wider as if he's not sure if he should attack him now to keep up the facade. Seth shakes his head minutely, so no one else will notice and grabs one of the medics by the shirt, snarling into the poor man's face, 'He's fine, it's just a tiny cut. What you really should take a look at is my knee.'
It's kind of ironic that he behaves like Dean right now, but he has no time to dwell on it. Every second is important; perfect timing is vital.
He has to get rid of Dean somehow, because it's impossible for them to be in the same room without jumping at each other's throats. But it's not only Dean who has to go. All the medics need to be on the other side of this door too, so Seth can have a minute alone with Roman.
'Seth, I'm sure it can wait,' a bearded man tries to calm him down but Seth won't have any of it. He hates that this guy forces him act like an asshole, but that's the role he has chosen to play, so he can't back down.
'Oh, I don't think so. You know, either you take a look at my knee right now or I will go back to Hunter and Steph and tell them how you refused to tend to my needs.' Dean scoffs disdainfully behind him, making everyone in the room squirm uncomfortably.
They can feel the tension rising and share more than one concerned look. After a few seconds of hesitation, one of them walks up to Dean and begs him politely to leave the room. Seth knows it's a lot to ask of him because they never leave each other's side when one of them is getting treated in here, but he prays to God that his brother knows what he has to do to buy Seth some time.
'I'm the one who has to go? Are you fucking kidding me? He's just bullshitting you, playing the scary pimp card and you guys fall for it,' Dean complains, stepping forward to stand his ground. Oh thank God. It's so relieving to know that they still share a blind understanding.
'Oh yeah? What are you doing here anyway, you filthy street dog? Shouldn't you be pulling your head out of his ass and prepare for your match with Del Rio?' he shoots back, fake-limping towards Dean to further intimidate the medical staff. They start to get in the middle of them, ready to intervene if things get out of hand.
Such well-behaved little puppets.
'I am ready for the match, Seth, my brother,' Dean retorts, hissing his name and clenching his fingers into fists. Roman is lying there, watching the scene unfold with his natural calmness, playing his own part in this charade. Seth just rolls his eyes, pushing one of the medics around to force him to look at his totally fine knee, when Dean acts purely on instinct, playing into Seth's hands just fine.
His friend dashes forward, punching everyone out of his way to get his hands on Seth. He backs away, using one of the guys as his shield. There's a small turmoil, people are screaming and trying to tug Dean away from him.
'Get him out of here,' a bald guy yells, face an ugly shade of red, and together they lead his brother away from him. Even after all these weeks it still feels horrible to watch Dean go, so Seth has to force himself to wave and smile arrogantly after him, riling Dean up even more.
'Why the fuck does he get to stay?' Dean roars, trashing and kicking, getting everyone's attention as if he knows instinctively that that was Seth's plan all along. Get Dean to explode, so he will be banned from the room and let him cause a ruckus, so everyone will only look at him while Seth sneaks to the door, closes it and locks it behind all of them.
As long as Dean keeps making a scene, no one will realize that Seth is alone with Roman. He has a minute, two if Dean is good, which means he probably has even three.
Roman flashes him a toothy grin that makes him look so much younger. 'Smart,' his brother comments on the perfect implementation of his improvised plan and gets up to watch the six staples on his forehead in the mirror. Seth just stands there awkwardly, listening to Dean rebelling on the other side of the door, just so he can check on his friend and apologize for yet another thing.
He is so tired of saying he's sorry. It's entirely his fault, he knows. He wouldn't have to play so many games – dragging Dean, Kane and even the Undertaker into it without ever asking them for their permission – if he'd stayed with his brothers all along, if he hadn't turned on them because he was, and apparently still is, scared of being Dean's chosen one.
He cannot be held responsible for everything that goes wrong, for every cut or lost match. But he still feels like it's his fault, whenever something doesn't go according to plan.
So Seth does what he does best, the only thing he seems to be doing these days. 'I'm really sorry he busted you open. I didn't know anything about the match, I don't even think it was planned at all. You interrupted Hunter's little advertisement speech, so he punished you and I couldn't do something about it. I've told Kane to be gentle with my family and not hurt you two if he can avoid it. This is all my fault and–'
'Seth,' Roman cuts him off with a jovial grin and walks up to him, wrapping Seth in a tight, brotherly hug before he can ramble some more nonsense. 'It's just a, what did you say, tiny cut, right?'
He huffs against Roman's collarbone, gripping his friend's waist tightly to make sure he won't let go of him ever again.
'You can't control everything, Seth,' Roman eases his worries, stroking his hair just like in the old times. 'Seriously, you need to let go sometimes. Dean and I, we're old enough to look out for ourselves. And we're willing to help you carry the weight of all of this, if you let us.'
His eyes start to burn, so he squeezes them shut and buries his face in Roman's oiled up chest. For the past nine weeks he was trying to fix everything on his own, thought that ultimately, the entire mission stands and falls with him. He knows his brothers are there to support him but he never realized that they're also willing to go through hell. Not to help him bring down the Authority. No. They do this to not leave him alone.
Because no matter how much he hurt them, they still love him.
He has never really questioned it – though he has had his moments of doubt too – but hearing it is like getting absolved from all his past sins. Seth is not alone in this, no matter how lonely he might feel all of the time. Seems like he just needed a reminder.
He can always count on Roman to make him feel like he belongs, like he's still a part of their little family. Dean on the other hand feels like home, no matter how far they're away or how horribly they have been fighting.
He was the biggest idiot on earth to leave all of that behind.
'I'll be fine,' Roman whispers, now rubbing huge circles on his back, as if Seth was down with the flu again and all three of them are lying in bed together, trying to make him feel better. 'And you'll be fine.'
'What about Dean?' Seth murmurs into Roman's black vest, reluctant to let go even though his brother's yelling outside quiets down with each passing second. They don't have much time left and he wants to make the most of it.
Roman chuckles, hugging Seth once more before he breaks the embrace. A disappointed sigh leaves Seth's lips, so he gets another quick but loving cuddle as well as a tender kiss on top of his head. 'Dean's gonna kick your ass.'
Seth scoffs and shakes his head, smiling warmly. That's not what he wanted to know but if it's concerning Dean, both Roman and Seth don't have a clue what's gonna happen next. It's frightening but also thrilling. They both love some unpredictable chaos in their lives.
Speaking of the devil, Dean's voice soars again, guiding everyone's attention to the closed door. 'If you lay a finger on Ro, I'm gonna tear you apart. You hear me, you piece of shit?' Look at that, their brother has bought them four minutes and twenty-six seconds. Dean is amazing.
'Time to open up,' Seth says sadly, gaze flying down to the ground. Somehow he had hoped this moment would last forever because he can never tell when he's able to share some quality time with his family again. But the show has to go on and sadly, he's a part of it.
'Time to let him in,' Roman corrects and Seth has a feeling that his brothers means so much more than just unlocking the door.
People start banging on it now, so Seth waves at Roman to sit back down and look like he just got hit with the briefcase, but his brother shakes his head and takes the case out of his hands. 'Makes more sense this way,' he explains and Seth just nods, not even bothering to think this through.
Roman knows what he's doing and Seth trusts him, so he cowers down in the corner and pinches himself really hard to make his hurt expression more believable.
'What did you do?' one of the medics accuses Roman as soon as a handful of them burst through the door, immediately rushing towards him. Roman just shrugs and waits for Dean to follow everyone into the tiny room. Seth sees some striped shirts in the crowd, shielding him from his brothers. Seems like Dean caused quite the uproar outside that even brought some officials to the scene.
He has gotten what he came here for, so there's no need for him to stay, even though that's all he wants. But all these people are potential witnesses that could rat him out and he's not letting them ruin everything he has worked for so hard these past two months.
So Seth gets up, snorting angrily and yanks his briefcase out of someone's hands, storming his way to the exit. 'I thought you wanted your knee examined?' one of the medics has the nerve to ask him perplexed, reminding him that he originally faked a knee injury.
'You're just a bunch of incompetent idiots anyway. I wouldn't even let you touch me if you'd paid me money,' he barks, pushing his way through the crowd, bumping with his shoulder against Dean's good one to silently thank him for doing him this favor.
The medics look kinda shocked and Seth feels like the biggest asshole on the planet but he's part of the Authority and he has to act a certain way to not raise any suspicion. Dean helps him out, making one of these totally not funny jokes that started earlier because of Triple H.
'Don't worry guys, Seth is a cheap whore. You don't have to give him more than $9.99.' That... actually hurts. Dean just used the w-word. Again. Tonight it might be to help him get the heck out of here, but Dean meant it the first time he'd screamed that word at him.
It's not nice to get dubbed a whore. But then again, so called fans have thrown worse than that at him since June. Dean better apologizes to him this time though.
'You think you're so funny, Ambrose,' he retorts, trying to ignore the boisterous laughter of his brothers while he leaves those dorks behind.
Three hours later he stands in front of the shower and tries to wash out the sticky soda stains when something vibrates in his back pocket. He dumps the case – that smells awfully good like cinema and reminds him of movie nights with his brothers – and fishes out his phone.
I won't apologize for Heath. You could have lost honorably to RVD, but daddy ruined that one for you.
What I do wanna take back is calling you a whore when you don't deserve it.
So, sorry. But it was good joke.
Seth smiles tiredly, leaving the soiled briefcase in the bathroom for the time being, and crawls into his bed to send Dean a dozen messages that range from furious yelling to complimenting him for looking sexy as fuck with JBL's hat. He doesn't get any responses which worries him more than anything else, because right now, Dean is probably thinking about a million ways to torture Seth at SummerSlam.
But Seth has promised his brother to make it up to him tonight on Raw and he did exactly that by making Hunter liking the Beat the Clock challenge so Dean could win it and pick the stipulation for their match.
The longer his friend won't write back, the more nervous Seth gets. He's picturing all the things Dean could choose – I Quit, Buried Alive, No Holds Barred, Iron Man, Casket, Inferno or TLC – but for some reason he knows instinctively what the other has in mind.
Hell in a Cell. A cage match. Because that's the only way Seth won't be able to run away from the punishment and pain Dean wants to inflict. He hadn't thought about this particular stipulation when he came up with this idea last week.
God fucking dammit.