A/N: Thank you to everyone for the kind reviews. More backstory threaded in with this. Ambregal heavy. I'm on one of those kicks right now. Also, because this chapter is running long as it is, I'm splitting it up and will be posting the other half here in a few days, hopefully. 'Til then, enjoy.
xXx
III. Marking Territory
May 2011
During the morning hours, the FCW facility was actually tolerable, the sticky heat of day not yet having had time to settle in and turn the building into a sauna.
It was only May, was the worst part, William Regal thought idly as he sat ringside studying the latest additions to the FCW roster.
By July, this place would become utterly insufferable, the damp summer heat like a stifling blanket that no air conditioner could quite penetrate.
Regal supposed he was glad he didn't have to train in this.
The three in-ring trainers beside him chatted quietly amongst themselves while Dusty Rhodes stood in the center of the ring, watching the new wrestlers do likewise between themselves.
A dozen or so in all this time, from all walks of life and in all manner of shapes and sizes - ranging from the small but powerfully built to tall and quite scrawny, and all kitted out in everything from fitted workout gear to ratty-looking oversized tee shirts and shorts - all on their very first day of evaluation and training, and all but one clearly excited to have the opportunity to try their hand at becoming a WWE Superstar or Diva.
That exception was the scrawny lad in the back, and it was him Regal found himself watching just a bit more than the others.
The lad didn't look like he belonged here: while he was decently tall (as much as Regal could tell, anyway, given he was slouched against the wall behind him), and had a broad frame, he was flat-bodied and untoned. His hair was a shaggy brown curtain framing an unremarkable face. Not ugly, certainly, but nowhere near as sigh-inducing as the Leakees and Seth Rollinses of the company.
Everything about him in the looks department screamed 'average bloke off the street.'
Wasn't doing much to disguise his boredom and impatience, either, standing there yawning down at the floor, and not paying a scrap of attention to his fellow wrestlers or the trainers.
The lad's attention shifted to the ring as Dusty finally got things rolling, but the bored expression never changed a hair. It remained in place as Dusty gave his traditional welcome speech; it didn't waver a scrap as Dusty introduced Regal and the other trainers; it actually intensified when Dusty began running through the day's schedule.
He didn't even try to hide it.
He yawned in the middle of Dusty's talk - twice - and didn't have the grace to cover his mouth.
Regal found that rather infuriating.
Dusty must have seen it, too, because as soon as he was done with his spiel, he announced he wanted each of them to come up to the ring and "tell us who you think y'all are."
"Ambrose!" he barked, pointing at the scrawny lad. "You're up first, boy."
The lad smiled like those were just the words he was waiting for, and pushed away from the wall, ambling up to the ring like he had nothing but time - all cocksure swagger and a sly, sharp little smirk.
Regal's dislike ratcheted up another notch.
But something in him took notice the same: whereas the other eleven wrestlers-in-training were nothing but blank canvases at this point, Ambrose had already thrown heel coloring all over his, bright and bold and vivid. It was in everything he did, from the way he sauntered up to Dusty and plucked the microphone out of his hand, the way his smirk widened as he took in his fellow aspiring Superstars and Divas, the defiant gleam when he glanced over at the trainers.
And then he began speaking.
After no more than a few seconds, as everyone else leaned forward like they were caught in some spell, Regal jotted two words next to Ambrose's name on his notepad.
Circled them.
Underlined them.
Then he settled back to watch a skinny, uninteresting-looking young man become the single-most interesting thing he'd seen in years - articulate, wildly animated, full of raw animal anger and unabashed the-world-is-mine-for-the-taking wickedness, and bloody sure of himself.
He was a young man who already knew what he wanted and wasn't afraid to come straight out and say it.
Regal forgot all about his dislike.
Afterward, Ambrose chucked the microphone back to Dusty and had dropped down out of the ring into a kind of stunned, roaring silence.
As he'd done so, though, he'd turned and caught Regal's eye, just for a second, and the corner of his mouth quirked up.
Regal inclined his head in acknowledgment.
The smirk twisted up, and then Ambrose swanned off to the back of the room.
While the other trainers leaned in to make quiet conversation - already making plans to get the boy on the next television taping whether he could wrestle or not - Regal picked up his pen and underlined the first word again. Double-underlined the second.
Star, the first read.
Trouble, was the second.
At a few other points during the others' in-ring introductions, Regal found himself glancing across the room.
Each time, Ambrose caught him looking, and each time, Ambrose's mouth curled up.
Regal mentally underlined 'trouble' again.
Triple-underlined it.
xXx
"Well?" Regal asked, tossing his bag down on his bed. "Any luck?"
Ambrose nodded. He'd gotten himself dressed in the same black tee shirt and trousers he'd had on last night, and now sat on the end of his own bed, engrossed in some sports programme on the television. Regal's phone lay on the the bed beside him, a bit of black amid a sea of white.
Regal hung his suit coat over the back of the desk chair. "And?"
"They'll be at the arena by two," came the short answer. "They stayed in Minneapolis last night."
"Hmm." Regal leaned back against the edge of the desk. "What happened? Did they say?"
"Wyatt." It sounded like a curse. He didn't look away from the television. "Told 'em I ran off like a little bitch. Guess he took my shit, too, 'cuz supposedly they got a text from me saying the same thing. That's why they left."
"I see." And Regal did see, he supposed, and he furthered supposed that explained why Ambrose looked like he was on the brink of murdering someone. "D'you have a plan, then?"
"No."
Regal started to ask why, but aborted the question in favor of a noncommittal hum.
Ambrose glanced over quickly, and then just as quickly looked away. "What would you do? Like if it was you he screwed with. How would you get back at him?"
"I wouldn't," Regal said, after a moment's honest reflection. "Well. I'd make him suffer a bit, but in the end I'd just take him out and have done with it. He's not the sort you'd really want to leave hanging about."
"Yeah," Ambrose said, nodding, "yeah, that's what I said - the taking him out thing, anyway."
"Oh?" Regal asked casually. "Something your teammates disagreed with?"
Ambrose flicked his hair off his forehead. "Roman wants another match. Us against them. Or maybe him against Wyatt. I don't know. He just wants to do it in the ring."
"Makes sense, I suppose," he allowed, "but still not what I'd do." He pulled his coat off the chair and shrugged into it. "It isn't my fight, though, so it doesn't really matter what I think, does it?"
Ambrose mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, "Yeah, it does," as he stood up and made like he was headed to the bathroom. He frowned when Regal held out a hand to stop him, light fingers landing in the middle of Ambrose's chest.
"What?"
Regal reached up to gently move Ambrose's chin to one side, fingers rasping soft through the stubble there. The marks - Regal refused to think of them as lovebites - Wyatt had left on Ambrose's neck stood out angry red against the pale of Ambrose's skin. "Did you tell them what he did to you?"
Predictably, Ambrose said, "No."
"How will you explain these?" He brushed a finger over one of the marks and refused to let himself notice Ambrose's quiet inhale, the way he shuddered a bit. "They'll wonder."
Ambrose's Adam's apple bobbed. "Fucked if I know." He laughed suddenly, the sound jagged and startling. "Maybe I'll tell 'em it was you."
"I'm sure that'll go a long way toward defusing the tension between you three," Regal said dryly. He frowned, though, because the more he studied those damned marks, the less he liked them.
He kept running his thumb over the ones on the left side of Ambrose's neck, thinking - thinking...no.
Don't.
No, no, he wasn't seriously thinking about-
Bloody hell, he was, wasn't he?
Ambrose was very still, just watching.
Before he could talk himself out of it, and without asking for permission, Regal stood up and moved in close to suck a mark of his own right over Wyatt's, ignoring the rough scrape of stubble against his chin and lips as he took that bit of skin between his teeth. His other hand found its way up to cup Ambrose's chin - kept him from jerking away.
Ambrose's back went stiff like someone'd jammed a steel rod up his spine, and Regal was close enough to feel the sharp breath Ambrose took, a heavy vibration that rumbled through them both.
"Jesus fuck," Ambrose gasped. "The fuck are you doing?"
Regal pulled back so his lips were mere centimeters away from Ambrose's throat. "Well," he said, "if you're going to tell your mates it was me, I wouldn't want that to be a lie, would I? Now either tell me to stop, or hush."
He felt Ambrose's hands on his shoulders, but they didn't push or pull, and Ambrose never said a word.
Didn't look properly capable of it all of a sudden, the way his eyes had gone a bit cloudy.
Regal shrugged to himself and went back to it, working his way down and then across, and again tried to ignore the sharp inhales and bitten-back noises the boy made.
Tried to ignore the rough warmth under his hands and the twitching he felt below his own belt.
And most definitely did not let himself imagine himself doing this while they were both as unclothed as they'd been in bed this morning.
When he was done, he stepped back and admired his handiwork, and nodded in satisfaction. "There we are."
Ambrose's eyelids fluttered, and it was a full three seconds before he managed to pull himself out of wherever he'd gone in his head and focus his eyes again. His face was a bit flushed and the hand that drifted to his neck seemed almost tentative.
Regal turned to pick his coat up off the chair. Mostly to give his hands something to do. Otherwise he had a hunch they were going to do something naughty. "I'd, ah, I'd like to get going as soon as we can," he said, shrugging the coat on. "I've a meeting with Vince and Hunter around one, but I'd like to have a chance to stop by catering before that."
"You...I mean…" Ambrose's tongue darted out to his lower lip. "You can't just...you can't…"
"Can't what?" Regal prompted. "You might want to try actually finishing a sentence."
Ambrose suddenly spun away and kicked one of the beds hard enough to shift the mattress. "Fuck, Regal. You don't want me anywhere near you, but yeah, hey, it's cool for to go to town on me some dog pissin' on his territory to mark it. Oh, yeah," he added, turning a twisted-looking smirk Regal's way, "I know exactly what that was, and you're a fuckin liar if you say otherwise. What the fuck, man?"
Because he had no good answer for that, Regal made a show of checking his watch. "We do need to get going, actually, so kindly run along and get yourself cleaned up."
"What? No. Fuck you. Fucking answer me."
"I've nothing to say other than don't read anything into it. Now go."
Ambrose stared at him, all burning eyes and mouth a thin line, and Regal merely stared back, calm and implacable, and it was Ambrose who finally gave - as he always did - and stomped away.
Regal winced when the bathroom door slammed shut.
Sometimes, he thought, sagging back against the edge of the desk, sometimes he was a very stupid man.
xXx
"Well, now," Bray Wyatt murmured, half to himself, "looks like the little rabbit escaped the snare."
Beside him, Harper and Rowan both turned to look.
Down on the far end of the long hallway, well away from the madding crowd drifting in and out of the catering area - a place Bray and his boys avoided themselves - Dean Ambrose paced back and forth like something caged.
"Go on and see if his brothers-in-arms are anywhere around," Bray instructed Luke and Erick. "If they are, keep 'em busy a while. Oh, and if not, go and get the rabbit's things out of the truck. Leave 'em somewhere he can find 'em. I'm gonna go say hello."
"Sure that's a good idea?" Luke drawled. His eyes were narrowed beneath his bushy dark eyebrows, and Bray knew him well enough to read the disquiet there.
Goin on a vencher, Abigail suddenly whispered in the back of his mind. She sounded happy. Gonna have some more fun with the bunny rabbit.
Bray smiled. "I'll be fine."
xXx
Fuc-king Re-gal.
Fuc-king Wy-att.
Fuc-king Rol-lins.
Fuc-king Ro-man.
Four steps, four syllables, turn.
Four steps, four syllables, turn.
Over and over in Dean's head like some little kid's fucking nursery rhyme or some shit, but fuck, it was all he could think, like these giant letters in his head blazing like words thrown up on the world's biggest billboard.
He really just wanted Seth to get here so they could fix things.
Because he and Seth, they could. Roman - well, fuck, Roman too, he guessed, but that guy lately…
And Regal.
Yeah, that was one fucking Pandora's box that could fucking stay closed.
He didn't even know what the fuck he was thinking, climbing into bed with the asshole this morning. Just - after that dream, that fucked up fucking dream where he'd been running from those hillbilly motherfuckers while Wyatt yelled after him he was alone and would always be alone-
"You seem a little agitated, little rabbit," a voice drawled from behind him. "You all right?"
Dean spun on his heel. His fucking heart slammed against his ribcage so hard he suddenly felt like he'd sprinted a hundred yards.
Bray Wyatt, dressed in his usual Hawaiian shirt and spotless white pants, leaned casually against a stack of equipment crates.
He grinned. "Well, well, well. Look at us. We're here."
xXx
Early September 2011
He wasn't quite sure how it happened, but somehow Regal found himself leaning against the doorframe to the FCW arena's dark and cramped little back locker room, studying its lone occupant.
Ambrose was fresh-showered, stretched out on room's only bench, a white towel under him and another wrapped around his waist. He had his head propped on his bag, arm flung over his forehead and the other over his stomach, bare feet crossed at the ankle.
To look at him, you'd never know he'd just lost his biggest match to date at FCW; his face was smooth and calm, seemed more lost in thought, really, than anything.
Seth Rollins, who'd finally earned his victory after three matches and almost an hour of even-steven wrestling, had been exuberant as he'd led his merry band of revelers out to go celebrate.
Regal, meanwhile, finally pushed away from the doorframe and wandered in. He nudged Ambrose's bare feet off the end of the bench and sat down.
Ambrose merely tucked his arm behind his head.
If he was surprised to see Regal there, it didn't show.
"By my count," Regal said at last, "you should have won that match five falls to two."
Ambrose shook his head. "Four-two, I think. Pretty sure I didn't have time for a third pinfall after I nut-shotted him."
"Mm, we'll have to agree to disagree about that," Regal said, folding his hands in his lap. "What happened?"
"I wanna beat Rollins, but I don't wanna have to defend some stupid medal after I do."
"It's not stupid. It's got-"
"History. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Whatever. I just don't want another target on my back. Leave the defending to people like Rollins who're stupid enough to like that shit. I'll settle for kicking his ass."
"Which you didn't do."
"Tonight."
"Why not ask Maxine to make it a non-title match, then?"
Ambrose's mouth twisted like he'd bitten something sour. "I did. She said no. So I'm like, well, I really, really don't want that medal, and I got a hunch me and Rollins are gonna keep bumping into each other after this, so I'll give him the worst fight of his life and let 'im walk away with one. I'll win the first match we have that doesn't involve a title. Or maybe I'll wait 'til we're on a bigger stage. 'Cuz that's where we're going. And I'll have so much fun cutting his fuckin' legs out from under him."
"That's…" Insane or ridiculous, possibly just crap, or any one of a hundred things Regal could have said but didn't.
All he did was shake his head and huff a disbelieving laugh.
Ambrose grinned. "Think I'm full of shit, right? That's cool. You'll see." He said it easily, with no hint of offense or outrage, like it was a fact.
It probably was, in his mind.
A bare foot suddenly nudged Regal's calf. "So, like, you ever gonna make a move or what?"
Regal blinked at him, caught wrong. "What?"
"Well, y'know, you don't have to just sit there jerking off to my matches." Ambrose's drew his hand back and forth across the taut line of his stomach, just above the edge of his towel. "Get what I'm saying?"
"Ah." Regal cleared his throat. It felt rather dry all of a sudden.
Ambrose remained where he was, unmoving and watchful, one corner of his mouth pulled up into a smirk that looked lazy and just a little sharp.
His cheeks were ruddy, his hair was drying in messy waves, and his eyes were very, very blue.
"Do something about it," Ambrose said then, his voice gone low and rough, consonants scraping like sandpaper on wood, "is what I'm saying. You know, in case that wasn't clear. I want you to."
"You want me to," Regal mused. He rolled the words around in his head, and decided he liked them very much. Four very small, very powerful words. Smiling a bit himself, he ghosted the backs of his fingers along the bottom edge of the towel, midway up Ambrose's thigh. "Is that so."
"Yeah." Ambrose shuddered just a bit. "Yeah, just - you sit there, like, looking at me like you wanna choke me with your dick, or, whatever, fuck me through a wall, and it's like, why don't you?"
"Hmm." With that, Regal withdrew his hand and stood. "S'pose that's the question, isn't it?"
He thought he pulled off nonchalant well enough, for all that he honestly wanted to yank the boy's towel away and do one of the two things he'd just suggested.
Possibly both.
This grubby little locker room, though, was hardly the appropriate venue, and the old villain in Regal couldn't - quite - resist the temptation to have a bit of fun with this.
I want you to.
That sounded like an open invitation to...well, anything, really, and that meant he'd have time to work Ambrose into a complete frothing lather.
Bit of a dangerous game, given Ambrose's volatile nature, but Regal was hardly a stranger to that sort of thing.
He slipped his hands into his pockets and smiled again. "I've got to be on my way."
"You know I could blow your mind," Ambrose said. It didn't sound like he was bragging. Or begging. Merely stating a fact. "Bet I'd be the best you ever had."
Regal laughed quietly. Oh, this was going to be fun. "Bold statement to make, isn't it?"
"'Cuz I know I can back it up." His eyes had gone half-lidded. He caught his lower lip between his teeth. "But whatever. Your loss. G'night, Regal."
"Good night, Mr. Ambrose."
xXx
"Walk away, Wyatt," Ambrose said quietly. A dull red flush had begun to creep up his neck, and his knuckles had gone white at his sides. "Walk away and maybe I let you keep all your fuckin teeth. This time."
Bray propped an arm on the crate beside him, and reached up to take his hat off. "No need for violence, little rabbit. I'm only here to talk."
"I don't give a shit if you're here to hand me the keys to a new fuckin' Jaguar or my own private jet," Ambrose said. "If you don't turn the fuck around and get out of here - now - I'll put you in the fuckin' ground."
"No, you won't," Wyatt said. "What do you think'll happen to your boys if something happens to me?"
To his surprise, Ambrose smiled. It was a flat thing, hard and a little unnerving. Ambrose looked like a man contemplating the best way to carve up a steak. "Not a fuckin' thing, actually," he said, "'cuz once I get done with you, I'll hunt down those two inbred motherfuckers and I'll plant them, too. You think I'm scared of you three and all your monsters and haunted rocking chairs and whatever, you got another thing coming."
All at once, he surged forward like something straight out of a slasher movie, like a bullet shot out of a gun, coming straight at Bray and not stopping until he stood close enough to kiss. He snapped his teeth shut a bare inch in front of Bray's nose, the sound like a couple of pool balls whacking together. It came in a wash of mint from the gum he was chewing.
Before Bray could do much more than blink, Ambrose leaned in real close. "You got one over on me last night," he said, breath hot against Bray's ear. "Well done. Well done. You fucked up, though. You knocked me down, but you didn't put me down. Takes a hell of a lot more than that to keep me from getting back up - to scare me off getting some of my own back."
He seized Bray's beard in a fist used it to yank Bray's head to one side. Teeth sank into the side of his neck hard enough to break the skin, hard enough to pull an involuntary, startled yelp right out of Bray. Reflexively, like a man swatting at a stinging wasp, he slapped at Ambrose's head and shoved.
Ambrose backed away, but not before his sharp teeth tore a little more skin open.
Bray felt blood, hot and wet, trickle down the side of his neck.
Ambrose's mouth was dark red with it. His eyes were fever-bright and he was grinning, grinning, grinning as he reared back, hawked, and spat - not at Bray's face, but at his pants.
Bloody phlegm splattered against the pristine white one one thigh, and Bray saw red - a genuine red haze like a filter over his vision - in a way he hadn't since he was a teenager.
He twitched forward, hands clenched, but drew up short when he heard Abigail whisper at him, No, no, not now, Bray, don't hurt him. He don't know any better. Just a dog kicked too many times, that's all. Don't hurt him.
His neck began to throb, dull and low like the onset of a migraine headache, and he made himself pull in a breath and smile. "Got some fight in you, after all," he said. "I like that. 'Course, you wouldn't know it, tight a leash as your boys keep you on. Why do you let 'em do that to you? Keep you leashed up like that? Gotta feel like it's strangling you sometimes."
Ambrose wiped his mouth on the back of one hand, and wiped that hand on his pants, a slow, deliberate gesture. He wasn't even looking at Bray now, glare aimed off at something at the end of the hallway as he wedged a thumbnail between his teeth and bit down. "I want my shit back," he said quietly. "My phone and my bags - all of it. I want it back right the fuck now."
"Oh, it's around somewhere," Bray said vaguely. "Does it bother you, little rabbit? That they're holding you back? That's it, isn't it? Maybe you're not better than them, but you're better than they're letting you be. All that ugly you got in you, you could do something with it. And I think you know it. Maybe that's why the crack in the Shield everyone's always talking about is between you and those two. What are you gonna do when the day comes and they kick you out of the car like some unwanted dog and leave you on your own?"
"I think I'm more like a duck than a rabbit," Ambrose said abruptly. "Like Daffy. You know? Yeah. Yeah, I think that's closer. I think Seth's more like Bugs Bunny than I am. Or maybe Pepe LePew, but that's kinda - well, no, when he farts…" He wrinkled his nose. "Who's Roman, though? Like Elmer Fudd, maybe? 'Be vewy vewy quiet. I'm hunting Wyatts.' Hey, yeah. Yeah, that's good."
Nonplussed, but more amused than he probably should have been, Bray smiled indulgently. "I always pictured you more as the Tasmanian Devil, myself."
Ambrose glanced over, eyes narrowing. Then shrugged. "That's fair. Guess that makes you, like, Sylvester or something. And, like, all three of us together, we're like Tweety or something."
"Birds in a cage," Bray said mildly, "that's more appropriate than you realize, considering who you work for. But I'm the big bad wolf, darlin. Don't ever forget that."
"Well, you smell like a wolf, that's for sure." With that, Ambrose headed off down the hall. "You should probably head up to the trainers, man. You're bleeding all over the fucking place."
"This isn't over," Bray said to his back. "You and me, we're just gettin' started."
Ambrose hitched a shrug and kept right on walking, easy, now, like he hadn't a care in the world. "Your funeral, puddy tat."
Bray remained where he was, hand over bite on his neck. It throbbed sharply at him, but, in spite of Ambrose's insistence to the contrary, didn't feel like it was bleeding anymore.
"Interesting creature," he murmured, half to himself. "I'm gonna enjoy you, darlin.
"I'm gonna enjoy you very much."
Abigail hummed happily in agreement.
xXx
Roman was quiet, and Seth didn't like that.
Dean was pacing the locker room, fuming silent, and Seth didn't like that either.
Roman sat quiet on the locker room's back bench, jaw to tight the muscles were ticking, and his big hands were opening and closing in a way that made his forearms ripple and his tattoo move in a way that was kinda weirdly hypnotic, which - okay, no, not something Seth needed to be noticing right now. But still.
A big hand on his knee made him look down.
He realized he'd been bouncing his heel on the floor, a manic tap-tap-tap that he stopped immediately, because it was fucking annoying.
But man, the silence in the locker room right now felt like a lead weight, pressing down on them, just such a complete absence of anything like sound that Seth wanted to fucking scream to make sure he hadn't gone deaf.
So maybe they didn't believe Dean's story, after all.
He didn't want to say that, but he knew Roman was thinking it and he knew he was thinking it.
When they got up here, they'd found Dean digging through his suitcases, calm as you please, and covered in hickeys. He'd blown the hickeys off as Wyatt "mindfucking us," and had shrugged the suitcases off as he'd just found them in another locker room.
Convenient.
It was really convenient.
Plus, he wouldn't say who it was who'd found him.
All as he'd say as the three of them changed into their ring gear was that it was "one of the guys," and that it wasn't important.
Roman shot Seth a look, and the two of them pressed two or three more times, but Dean avoided the question, pacing the narrow aisle between the bench and the lockers while Seth and Roman sat together watching.
When he was a kid, Seth liked to shoot rubber bands at his sister - had this awesome rubber band gun that shot 'em perfect, drawing 'em back just until they were about to snap and then firing 'em off.
The tension in the room felt like that, like a rubber band about to snap, and Seth pushed his hair back off his face, sighing. "Run us through it one more time, Dean," he said. "And if it's not important, then why won't you tell us who found you?"
Dean was halfway down the aisle, most off to the side where all the showers were, and now he stopped. "Why does it fucking matter? Mean, what, what are you gonna do? Go ask 'em? What, do you not trust me all of a sudden? Wyatt attacked me and left me locked up. One of the guys found me and gave me a ride. Doesn't fucking matter who it was, all right? It doesn't. So fucking let it go. What are we doing about the Wyatts?"
The look Roman gave Seth was pretty tight with his obvious skepticism, his dark eyebrows pulled down and his mouth a line. Seth just shrugged, like, What are you gonna do? Roman finally shook his head, just a little, and said, "Well, as far as Wyatt goes, I'm gonna deal him tonight myself. I'll challenge him for a match and I'm gonna put his creepy ass down for good. Just me and no one else."
Dean took a few steps closer, and then spun and jerked the other way. "Right. Big, bad Roman. Running off to slay the dragon again, all by himself."
Seth played with one of the buckles on his vest, and counted to ten in his head.
Twice.
"I got beat last night, in case you missed that part," Roman pointed out. Tense and relax went his fists.
There was some metaphor to be made there about Roman not having his shield, or maybe the shield breaking last night, but Seth found he didn't have the energy to pin it down. He just settled a hand on Roman's forearm while Dean stalked back and forth. "Rome, we got beat last night. We. The team. Not just you. We all lost, and we all want revenge on the Wyatts."
"Yeah, but it was me they pinned."
Dean mumbled something that sounded an awful lot like, "Not just you got pinned last night."
Seth looked up sharply at that, and for one awful second, just one, he took in the hickeys and what Dean had said about Wyatt handcuffing him, and had this really, really sick image of -
No.
He blinked it away.
Dean's blunt, bitten fingernails dug lines in his bare shoulder. "I just meant you get pinned, we all do. The, y'know, team thing or whatever."
"Cut that out," Seth told him. "You're gonna make yourself bleed."
"Don't tell me what to do," Dean said, but he pulled the hand away and started sucking on its fingernails - a bad habit they couldn't seem to break him of.
"I want Wyatt," Roman rumbled. He picked up one of his gauntlets off the bench beside him and began turning it over in his hands. "I want him tonight, and I want to be the one who takes him down. After last night, I think I earned that. I'll get revenge for all of us. That is justice."
Even bent forward with his hair back in a ponytail and staring down at his gauntlet, there was just something about the guy - something Seth couldn't identify.
Like an aura.
He was so assured, even though he'd been around the block less times than Seth and Dean.
And Seth guessed it was that, and the the belief Roman could absolutely handle it, that led Seth to look over at Dean and say, "Okay, so maybe this one time we let him. He took the pin. Let him challenge Wyatt. We watch out for Rowan and Harper. Cut the head off, the body dies, right? So then we take our yard back - together. Like we do."
"That's right, baby," Roman said, clapping Seth's shoulder. "That's damn right."
Dean gave them a jaundiced look, and continued pacing.
But he didn't say anything, and Seth guessed that counted.
A quiet throat clearing from behind them had them all turning around.
William Regal, in head to toe black, stood with a knee leaned against the far end of the bench.
Seth's back snapped straight, and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Roman doing likewise.
"Sorry to interrupt," Regal said quietly, hands in his pockets. "I was just - ah, I was looking for him, actually." He jerked his chin at Dean. "You've still got my phone. I need to make a few calls here this afternoon."
Seth and Roman both turned to stare at Dean, whose confused frown gave away to chagrinned look. "Yeah, shit, sorry. Um. Yeah. Here it is." He pulled out a slim black cell phone and walked it over to Regal, who took it with a murmur of thanks.
Regal slipped the phone inside his coat pocket. Then he reached over to tip Dean's chin to one side, mouth twitching. Seth bristled at sight because Dean didn't even try to pull away. He just stood there as Regal ran two fingers over a couple of the marks, all casual-like, and said, "You'll probably want to have the makeup people do something about these before showtime."
Now Dean pushed him away and took two steps back, face all knotted up. "Yeah, I already talked to 'em about it. Now do you mind? We're kind of busy here."
"Of course." Regal slid his hands back into his pockets, and began to turn away, then paused. "Oh, but by the way, Did any of you happen to hear why Bray Wyatt needed a few stitches in his neck this afternoon? I hadn't heard."
Seth forgot about his irritation as he exchanged blank looks with Roman. "No," Seth said, as Roman murmured, "Huh-uh. Didn't even know he was hurt."
Dean, examining his fingernails, said, "Nope."
Seth swore to God he saw a tiny look go between those two, though, and he definitely saw Regal's mouth twitch again. "I see," Regal said. "Well, I won't waste any more of your time, then. Good luck with the Wyatts, lads."
And just like Keyser fuckin' Soze, he was gone, disappearing around the corner and leaving the room without a sound.
Seth stood up, turned to look at Dean, and folded his arms over his chest. "What. The fuck. Was that?"
Dean's head snapped up. "Don't get pissy with me, Seth. It's not like I had a whole lot of choice. You were already gone and your fucking phones were off. I did try to call you to come get me, but, hey, gotta get that Seth-and-Roman time, right? Fuck everything else."
"Hey!" Roman said, surging to his feet. One big hand fell on Seth's shoulder. "We didn't do it on purpose, man. We thought you texted us."
"You thought I fucking bailed on you!" Dean snapped at him. "You thought I fucking cut and run like some fucking chickenshit and - Jesus fuck, man. What the fuck?"
"Dean, calm down," Seth said quietly. Suddenly he was grateful for Roman's solid weight beside him. The hand on his shoulder. It was grounding. "Seriously. Chill out."
"Quit fucking telling me what to do!" Dean stalked off a few steps, spun, and walked back, all jerky-limbed and kind of reminding Seth of a can of soda shaken to the point it was about to blow up everywhere. "I'm not some fucking kid you gotta tell what to do all the time. I hate when you do that." He pulled to a sudden stop. "You know what? Fine. You two figure out what you wanna do about the Wyatts. I'm gonna go for a walk."
He jerked around again and stalked off.
"Dude, we didn't believe Wyatt when he said you ran," Seth called after him. "Just when we saw the texts."
But of course Dean didn't come back.
Seth punched his palm and twisted away from Roman, who frowned at him and sat back down.
"Dammit." Seth jerked his hair back out of his face, irritably, and shook his head. "It's like the three of us are speaking three different languages lately, man. How the fuck are we - am I - supposed to keep this shit together if we can't even understand each other anymore?"
He saw Roman opening his mouth to say something, but cut him off by slicing a hand through the air. "And don't even fuckin' start with that whole 'You and me understand each other just fine, Seth' crap. 'Cuz we don't, man. I agree with you that Dean's a pain in the ass, but, man, pain the ass or not, I want him on this team. He's just as much a part of it as we are."
"i know," Roman said. "I know, but things change and-"
"Not for the team, man. All for one. Remember?" He felt hot as he stood there watching the muscles in Roman's jaw work like he was chewing ice. "In the team - for the team - it's all three of us. You still need us both, like it or not."
"Seth-"
"But outside the team," Seth said over him, heart suddenly racing, " we can talk. Okay? Because I'm kinda - I mean, things could change there, maybe. That's what this is really about, right? Me and you apart from the team?"
"Could be," Roman allowed. "What kind of change?"
"We could, uh, talk to Dean, I guess. Tell him you and I want to, you know, just be you and I now."
Roman lifted his head and slow smile broke across his face like sunrise, gradually lighting his eyes. "Oh yeah?"
Seth had to swallow a couple times before he could answer. "Yeah. Mean, you and me, we've got something great going, right?"
"Yeah, man. Yeah, we do."
"And Dean, he's not the settling down type, so…" Seth walked back over to the bench and sat down, trying to gather the thoughts slipping against each other like soap bubbles in his head. "But we don't just kick him to the curb, all right? We gotta do this right. He deserves better than that." Deserved a lot better, actually, but that was a thought for another day. "And just because we're together, don't expect me to back you more on the team. We're equals on the team."
"That's fair."
"I kind of want to wait until we're past all this Wyatt crap before we do this, too. That okay?"
"Yeah, it'll be fine, as long as you let me challenge Wyatt tonight. I'll put him down and that'll be that." He reached up to pull his hair out of its ponytail. "And I really want to hear Dean tell us the whole story from last night. The whole thing. I don't know if I like Regal being involved."
"Makes two of us. Did you see that shit? Regal was, like, all over him."
"I saw. We need to ask."
Seth nodded. "When we see him."
"Okay," Roman said. He looked at Seth thoughtfully. "Wonder what happened to Wyatt."
"Who cares, man? That asshole deserves everything he gets. And, anyway, you take him out, Dean and I'll deal with the other two, and then you can I figure out-" he made some vague gesture all around them "-the rest of this shit."
Roman nodded and covered Seth's knee, squeezed it. "Good plan, man."
"My plans always are," Seth said, dropping hand over Roman's.
"That they are."
Silence fell again, but this time, Seth didn't mind.
He looked at Roman, whose hand flipped over to curl around his fingers, and he didn't mind a bit.
xXx
Late September 2011
"That was childish," Regal said. He folded his arms over his chest. "What you did to Rollins."
Ambrose slouched back against the wall and chewed a thumbnail. "He'll thank me for it later."
Thanks to Ambrose, Seth Rollins had lost his FCW 15 title to Damien Sandow. "How d'you reckon that?"
"He will," Ambrose insisted with an enigmatic smile. "You'll see."
Regal frowned. "What are you planning?"
"For me to know." He made a show of looking around the empty little cinderblock hallway in which they'd found themselves. "So you finally clawed your way out from under Maxine's desk, huh?"
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"'Course you don't. Then again, if I was rolling around in that filth, I wouldn't talk about it either." His eyes narrowed. "Figured you'd have better taste."
"There's nothing wrong with my taste," Regal replied, chuckling. "I know what I want and what I don't."
"You're full of shit, Regal," Ambrose replied, teeth clicking around his nail. "You want me and you know it."
"Do I, now? And yet..." He moved until he had Ambrose backed against the wall. "I'm disappointed, actually. I was rather hoping you'd be a challenge. I wasn't expecting you to throw yourself at me like some common ring rat." He ghosted a finger along the line of Ambrose's stubbled jaw. "Eager young thing, aren't you?"
"Not a fuckin' rat," Ambrose said. "Mean, I got respect or whatever for all the shit you've done in your career, but, like, that ain't why. And besides which, you're the one having fucking orgasms on the air every time you talk about me. You're really my groupie, if you think about it." He smiled suddenly. "Bet you jerk off thinking about me. Bet that gets you off real good."
Regal snorted. "Silly little boy with his delusions of grandeur. I don't, actually. I don't think about you at all once I leave this place." He lowered his hand and stepped back. "You're fascinating to me, Mr. Ambrose, in the same way a hurricane is - something that's interesting to watch from a distance, but not something I'm terribly interested in getting close to and something I'm glad to see gone. Now, if you'll excuse me, I've got to get back."
"Back under that filthy bitch's desk, right?"
"Careful. I think your jealousy's showing."
"I'm not jealous," Ambrose snapped after him. "Why would I be jealous? I can fuck whoever I want."
Regal tossed him a look over his shoulder. "Clearly not everyone."
x
He supposed it shouldn't have come as much of a surprise that Ambrose attacked him, but it did.
As they rolled around backstage, Ambrose got close enough to whisper, "Either fuck me or fight me, Regal. but you're not fucking walking away from me again."
Regal'd punched him right in the mouth.
Somehow it was less satisfying than he thought it'd be.
xXx
When he could avoid it no longer, Dean slipped his Shield hoodie on and made his way to the little area backstage where one of the production guys told him Seth and Roman were waiting for him.
All around, the place was buzzing as Monday Night RAW had been rolling for almost an hour now. He could feel the fucking YES chants reverberating all around him, buzzing under his skin like bugs, while the other wrestlers and PAs raced around like headless chickens.
Nearly three hours of pacing on the concrete concourse hadn't done much but make his feet ache, and he felt edgy, like he was about to step onto fucking minefield, which he fucking shouldn't have to because weren't these his fucking friends?
He shoved his hands deep into his hoodie's pocket.
Weird day.
Good as it had felt to finally get one over on Wyatt - on my own, and fuck you very much, Rome - he kind of felt like the rest of the day had been a neverending string of low-blows.
He'd tried to find Regal to give that asshole a piece of his mind for pulling that stunt in the locker room, but of course Regal was suddenly nowhere to be found.
Neither was Wyatt, but Wyatt usually did that - disappeared somewhere to brood or whatever cult leader hillbilly assholes did when they were, like, plotting or whatever.
(Which was probably a good thing because the mood he was in, he'd probably start something with those three that would've gotten his ass kicked. Probably .)
He kind of found himself picturing, like, Sylvester sitting underneath Tweety' birdcage, staring up at him, but Wyatt's comments about birds in cages and dogs on leashes kinda sucked all the humor out of that.
And now, here were Seth and Roman, standing side by side, Roman with his thumbs hooked into his belt and staring down at the floor while Seth stood on tiptoes and craned around like he was looking for someone.
It was kind of a dumb thing to notice, and Dean didn't know why he did, but their hair was still dry.
That made him feel a little better - like they were waiting for him and not on him.
He deliberately scuffed his boot against the floor so they heard him coming.
"Hey, there you are," Seth said, and he sounded tentative but hopeful, and it always made Dean feel kind of like an asshole when Seth sounded like that.
More than anybody Dean had met, Seth tried, and that counted.
Not many people ever did, not for Dean, so he took a calming breath as he paused near them. Tried to work something other than anger into his voice. "Yeah. So what are we doing? What we talked about earlier?"
Seth's head bobbed as he nodded. "We're gonna hit the ring here in a few minutes and throw out the challenge. Roman'll do his thing, you and I'll hang out back here to keep an eye out for Rowan and Harper, and then we take our yard back. Another night at the office, right?"
Dean nodded jerkily, and bit the inside of his lip to keep himself from saying anything else.
He still didn't know why the hell he was so mad, anyway.
He stood fidgeting, fingers up near his shoulders - don't scratch; they'll just yell at you - while he stared at the floor while he tried to figure it out.
Seth cleared his throat. "Will you walk us through it one more time? What happened last night? The whole thing. Start to finish."
"What?" Dean asked. Then thought, That's why.
Because they already fucking knew, but they were asking again anyway.
"Walk us through it one more time," Seth said again, a little more forcefully. "Tell-"
Temper flaring all over again, Dean snapped, "I already explained-"
"-us what went down last night."
"I already explained this to you like five times." He looked up. Seth and Roman were standing close together like some kind of solid human wall. So much for trying. "I'm get a little sick, quite frankly, of you two ganging up on me," he said.
Seth blinked. "We're not ganging up on-"
"And I'm getting a little sick of explainin myself. But if that's not good enough for you, and you don't trust me-"
"That's not it-"
"-then whatever. Whatever." That quick, he was done again. They knew. They fucking knew, but it was like even that wasn't good enough. "I'm outta here."
For like the fifth time today, he stalked off.
If there was like an Olympics for dramatic exits, he would have gotten the gold fucking medal, but fucking really. After everything they'd been through today, after they fucking knew Wyatt had attacked him, for them to actually fucking question him again like they didn't fucking believe him…
He shot one last glance over his shoulder, just in time to catch sight of Wyatt - bandage and all - and his boys slithering up toward Seth and Roman.
And he shoved his hands back into his pockets and kept right on walking.
xXx
He wanted to leave the arena, wanted to just go, but lacking a car of his own kind of put a damper on that.
After he snagged his coat - glad to have that shit back - from his bag, he threw it on over his hoodie and walked around in the hopes he'd find Cesaro or somebody he could bum a ride with.
Regal? his mind supplied.
"Fuck that," he muttered to himself, and shot one of the poor divas - one of the Bellas - a glare when she whipped around to look at him.
She scurried away, eyes wide with something like terror.
He was an asshole, sometimes.
Eventually, he shoved the exit doors open and headed outside into the frosty February night. And, fuck, it was cold, but to skin that felt like it was going to melt right the fuck off his bones, it felt like fucking heaven.
He leaned back against the bumper of one of the big production semis and just breathed out.
It was cold enough he could see it, the vapor in the air.
Made him miss smoking.
He was cracking the fuck up, wasn't he?
And then, because the universe just hated him that fucking much tonight, he heard a door close behind him, heard what sounded like several sets of heavy footsteps approaching, and heard, "Well, now, isn't this interestin. The little dog slipped his leash. But he's wandered off all by his lonesome again. How about that?"
Dean looked around for an escape route, but some crazy fucking freight train slammed into his stomach – a freight train attached to a big pasty arm, which itself attached to a big dude wearing a fucking camel mask – and he folded up like a cheap paper towel, wheezing, his eyes watering, and all the fight gone out of him.
Wyatt moved in fast, hooking hands under Dean's arms and spinning him around crazily, like they were a couple of drunks ballroom dancing, but suddenly he felt himself bent over backward.
Felt the scratching brush of hair and the soft kiss.
Heard, "She likes you, you know. She wants me to try and save you," just before he felt himself twisting toward the pavement.
The dark rose up and swallowed him whole, and he let it.
Gladly.
xXx
A/N: To be continued. Thanks for reading.