A/N: And we're back. Thanks again and eternally to everyone for all the kind notes and for reading. Warnings for this one – pinch of dark. Jumpy. Jarring. Everything happens for a reason - even the bad stuff. Enjoy.
XII. Schism
Cold silence has
A tendency to atrophy any
Sense of compassion
Between supposed loves
Between supposed brothers
-Tool, "Schism"
xXx
They caught the rabbit nibblin on some vegetables in the garden.
Little fuzzy gray thing with a cottonball of a white tail, just small enough to fit into both of Bray's cupped hands.
'Course, it was Abigail's rabbit.
Georgie, she said its name was.
Big gap-toothed grin and big bright eyes, and she said, "He whispered it to me in my ear. Me an' Georgie are gonna have all kinds of 'venchers!"
Bray didn't mind that so much, not at first, 'cuz it meant she was out from underfoot, and it was nice, Daddy not whippin' or yellin' at him when Ab come in all dirty and scuffy from her 'vencherin.
(Daddy didn't whip her, of course, but he cussed up a blue streak at her every time she ran inside in with the hem of her little dress dusty and her little legs bramble-scratched and the bottoms of her feet muddy.)
But then one day she came in with her knee bleedin', just a little, and Daddy bawled Bray out for it.
From that point on, Ab wasn't allowed to go out unless her big brother Bray was with her.
All he ever heard was, "C'mon Bray! Me an' Georgie wanna go 'vencherin!"
Which meant no time to go throw rocks at the wasps nests with the new Harper boy or to take the family's old brown hound dog Blue out fishing with him.
It wasn't even fun, goin' 'vencherin with Abigail and Georgie because Abigail only ever paid attention to the dumb rabbit. She didn't wanna take the rabbit to the fishing hole 'cuz she was afraid he'd get eaten, so they usually wound up in one of the little clearings - one of the boring places between the trees - and she'd sit and make stupid little 'bunny courses' or make up little games that were for just her and Georgie.
Bray might as have been invisible, and he hated that.
'Least before Georgie, she'd let Bray pick the games sometimes and they'd go play by the fishin' hole.
One day, Bray was mad about it, so he brought Blue along to play with at the far end of the clearing.
Every time Blue ran on by to go chase his stick, Abigail would shriek at Bray to get Blue away 'cuz Blue would come too close and growl at Georgie.
Bray thought it was funny and kept right on tossing Blue the old chewed up chunk of wood.
'Til Ab threw a rock at him and hit him right above his eye.
She was little, but she threw and hit hard as most of the other boys her age, so when the rock hit him he fell into the dirt, blood oozing down into his eye.
He saw red.
Mad red.
The red he saw sometimes when Daddy lit into him too hard with the belt.
He pushed to his feet - a husky boy of eight-and-a-half - and bore down on her, not thinking anything but gettin' back at her for throwing rocks.
His head was a misery to him, but he ignored it for now and crossed the short distance between where he'd fallen and where Ab had thrown the rock from.
Fear in her eyes, she got up and scrambled away, leaving Georgie nibblin' on the handful of leaves she'd set him.
Bray picked up the rabbit - stupid thing - by its gray ears and carried it over to where Blue was gnawing on the old stick. "Here, Blue." The bony old hound's ears pricked up and he hauled himself up to his feet.
"No!" Ab screamed. "Bray, no! You leave Georgie alone! I'll tell! I swear I'll tell! Don't hurt him!"
Too late, though, because even if Blue was pretty old, he was still quick - reached out and snapped that rabbit right out of Bray's outstretched hands.
Abigail shrieked. "No! No, no, no! Make him stop! Make him stop! He's hurting Georgie! Bad dog! Bad dog! Stop!" She grabbed hold of Bray's arm and shook it urgently, her tiny little fingernails cutting right into his arm. He'd find four little bloody crescents there later. Right then, though, he barely noticed. "Make him stop, Bray! Make him stop!"
"Teach you to throw rocks," Bray muttered, watching, fascinated, as Blue grabbed the rabbit by the neck and shook and shook and shook. The rabbit struggled, eyes wide and rolling, feet flailing, mouth open and teeth biting desperately at nothing. Blood flew.
One more vicious shake and there was this horrible snap as Georgie's neck broke.
He went limp in Blue's mouth.
"I'm tellin' Daddy!" Abigail screamed. Her big blue eyes were shiny with tears. "I'll make him whip you good, Bray! I'll make him whip you good for what you done! Georgie! Georgie!"
The threat of Daddy was enough to shake Bray out of his trance. "Don't tell Daddy, Ab," he said, looking at her wide-eyed. Daddy would probably skin him. He'd be lucky if he'd be able to sit down for a year. "Ab, don't tell. I'll get you another rabbit. I swear, Ab. I swear. Please don't tell Daddy. It was an accident. I didn't mean to!"
"Yes, you did!"
"No, Ab, I swear, Blue just - he was too quick. I didn't mean to. I'll get you another rabbit, I promise."
Abigail's little nails dug into his arm again. "I don't want another rabbit. I want Georgie! Bad dog!" she shouted at Blue.
She sounded like she was about to have another of her fits.
Stupid little brat - throwing rocks.
She shouldn't have done that.
Bray, young and suddenly scared out of his mind of what Daddy would do to him, grabbed her by the shoulders and forced her chin up. "I'll get you another rabbit. Another Georgie. There's lot of 'em around here. I catch you one. Maybe a momma Georgie who can have little baby Georgies. Or a big Georgie who could bite that old Blue back. Just - don't tell Daddy what I done, Ab. Don't you tell."
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Blue lie down with what was left of Georgie and begin tearing into it.
He turned Abigail so she couldn't see.
Abigail felt like her whole body was heaving, hard as she was breathing, but she managed to say, "Juh-Georgies can't have buh-babies. Juh-Georgies are boys."
"Then I'll get ya a Mary," Bray said. Mary was their Mama's name, but Abigail didn't know that. Mama had died from some kind of fever when Ab was three. "Marys can have bunnies."
"I want lots of rabbits," Abigail said, More tears swam out of her eyes. "Georgies and Marys and baby bunnies. I want rabbits. You promised."
"You won't tell Daddy? And you won't throw rocks at me ever again?"
"No more rocks, and I won't tell."
Bray took hold of her arm. "Promise me you won't tell. I promised you I'd get you a rabbit. Now you promise me you won't tell Daddy."
Fear all over her face again, but she whispered, "I pruh-promise."
She didn't tell, either; when Daddy asked where was, she hung her head and said he ran away.
Bray began hunting rabbits the very next day.
Funny, though, all of a sudden he didn't see a lot of rabbits around.
And she died-
(-you killed her, you know you did-)
-before he ever had a chance to find her one.
xXx
Luke Harper had been worried once Bray made it back to the home place on Friday.
Bray had been quiet.
Spoke in denser-than-usual riddles about needing to break the bonds between snakes and rabbits, about burning bad men, about dogs and sisters.
He'd spent the entire night Friday out on the porch, staring up into a clear night as he'd rocked and rocked and rocked in his old chair.
The rabbit - Ambrose, Luke reminded himself - had been with Regal in Orlando.
Bray had gotten away unscathed, but didn't seem himself.
The obsession over Ambrose was...bothersome.
It wasn't Ambrose himself; the man was an flea, half-crazy at best and a rabid dog needing to be put down at worst, but Bray clearly saw something in him. Bray had seen something in Erick and in Luke himself, too, once upon a time, so Luke didn't doubt it was there. It just needed Bray to bring it out and pull the curtains back.
What troubled him was how Bray was going about it.
He wasn't one to question Bray, not usually, but seemed to him Bray was needlessly complicating everything by dragging Regal, Reigns, and Rollins into it.
What they needed to do was real simple.
Why Bray felt he had to spin webs of near-untruths and not-quite-half-truths, Luke wasn't sure.
Luke spent most of Friday night awake himself, out walking the paths behind the compound.
He made his way back early on Saturday to find Bray still up and still rocking away.
No one else was up yet.
Early morning smell of vegetation and swamp in the air - a smell that, to this day, Luke missed if he was away from it too long.
He approached the porch, the weight of Bray's eyes on him.
"Heavy thoughts make for heavy shoulders," Bray said, voice quiet and disused-sounding. "My mama always used to say that. Said a man with a lot on his mind tends to be weighed down. Tell me, my friend, what's kept you out all night?"
Luke perched on the low rail beside Bray's rocker, a place he'd spent many an hour listening to sermons and looking out on the compound. "You, Bray," he said bluntly. "You've been strange lately. Haven't been as attentive to the folk here. Like your mind isn't here, even when you are."
"On the rabbit," Bray mused. He swept his hat off and hung it on his knee.
"Yeah."
"What do we think about that rabbit, Brother Luke?" Bray asked, eyes narrowing. "It'd be better if we dropped the chase altogether, wouldn't it? He's apt to self-destruct anyway. Wind up facedown in a gutter somewhere like his mother."
"I think," Luke said carefully, watching a bird fly low through the trees, "she wants him for a reason."
Bray nodded. "His salvation lies with us."
"Then why not just go and take him? Like were gonna? Why all this other - why are you gettin' Regal and those Shield boys involved?"
"So they know," Bray said. "So they understand they're responsible. So they see that their actions have consequences." The old boards squeaked and creaked under him. "But I won't say you're wrong. She's been givin' me what-for for the same reason. I've been tryin' to get fancy, wastin' time better spent on him. They'll be no greater testament to their failures than having him at our feet, ready to fight for us. It's gonna take time to get him there - that much I know for a fact - but I have no doubt we will."
"How?" Luke couldn't help asking, the quiet morning giving him the courage to ask the one question that had been lingering in the back of his mind like a shadow.
Bray's very blue eyes harpooned through him. "It may require something even stricter than I used on Erick, but before we can even have that conversation, we've got to get him away from the snake. They looked joined at the hip. Unholy union." One hand went up to rub at the cut lines still visible on the side of his neck. "I don't want witnesses when we take him. So the first thing I want to do is talk to them again. I never did tell the rabbit the truth about what the snake said about the ox and the skunk. It may not matter now - might have done too much damage trying to play games with them - but before we try anything more drastic, we'll start there. Best case, we do that, we'll be ready to grab him Tuesday."
Luke shifted. "And worse case?"
"Let's just wait and see how this goes."
"What about the match Monday?"
"It's interestin', isn't it," Bray said, gaze shifting out to the horizon, "that the rabbit chose to burrow down in Orlando this week instead of staying with his team. They're already divided where he's standin, and you know he'll be out for blood. We can use that like we did last match. Twist him up. Use him to spread the crack even further. Divide and conquer. Those little boys think they know anythin' about war. We'll show 'em how little they know. And after we get done with them, we'll go pay Mr. Cena a visit. Reiterate our message and remind him we know exactly how false he is under all that cheap rainbow-colored advertising nonsense."
Something like relief had Luke breathing out a quiet sigh.
That sounded reasonable and right; Luke had seen himself how easy it was to wind Ambrose up, and it wouldn't be that hard to use that to throw the Shield boys off their strategy.
Maybe Bray wasn't as far gone down in his obsession as Luke had thought.
As if guessing at this thought, Bray chuckled. "Ye of little faith."
"I don't doubt you, Bray-"
"Yes, you do," Bray said, settling his hat back on his head. "You always have, but that's all right. If I can convince you, Doubting Thomas, I can convince anyone. But." He rose and stretched. "Let's leave all this behind for now. New day today, and I've got a family I haven't properly seen in a week. So. Why don't you run along and find your bed? Roust Erick on your way. Tell him I want a quick word."
Luke nodded pushed away from the railing. "Welcome home, Bray."
Bray reached over and clapped his shoulder. "Thank you, brother.
"Thank you very much."
xXx
Everything went to hell Monday.
William Regal supposed he should have seen it coming.
Dean had woken up quiet Sunday morning, and he'd remained that way all day, withdrawn somewhere deep in his own head. He hadn't been rude or hostile, nor had he acted particularly grumpy; he'd just clearly not been up for talking or joking about as they'd been.
Early Sunday afternoon, he grew restless and took himself out for a walk.
When he came back a few hours later, he had his phone on speaker and was listening to Rollins yatter on about the plans he'd come up with for dealing with the Wyatts - most of which appeared to come down to 'get them in our corner one at a time and beat them until they can't stand. And then we beat them some more.'
Their usual strategy, in other words.
William tuned him out after about the fourth repetition of "we just gotta do what we do - together - and we'll win."
By that point, Dean was stretched out on the couch with both hands tucked behind his head, gaze unfocused on the ceiling.
Gone back into his head to fantasize about ripping Wyatt apart bare-handed, no doubt, and William, busy watching scouting videos of several South American wrestlers he'd be off soon to see in person, left him to it.
Left him alone for the remainder of the day, in fact, and that night.
Monday morning dawned gray and Dean, who had the kind of dark circles under his eyes that indicated a sleepless night, rose tense and moody with it.
Ready, clearly, to end this war.
Mindful of the still-fragile state of the truce between them, WIlliam again chose to leave him be.
There was nothing worse than someone fussing at you or pushing unasked-for advice when you were that deep in mentally preparing for the fight of your life.
The flight up to Chicago was no more or less stressful than any other - just a flight, really, from a temperate but dreary early Orlando morning to a frozen gray Chicago one.
If William had known the drive to the arena would be the last time he talked to Dean for nearly a month, he probably would have made an effort to say something. But the reality was that he was busy running through what he needed to talk to Hunter about during their meeting early this afternoon and thinking about what he wanted to run through with Xavier Woods before the Superstars taping tonight.
Meanwhile, Dean was still a thousand miles away.
He still hadn't really come back by the time William finally parked the rental car at the arena, just quietly walked 'round to gather his bags and backpack out of the trunk, head down and eyes hidden behind crooked sunglasses.
Right then, everything fell apart.
William had just reached down to pull out his own bag when he heard, "Well, well, well, if it ain't Daddy Regal and his little boy lookin' just as cozy as a couple of fleas on a dog's backside."
Before he could even blink, Dean's face twisted and he spun on his heel, fist balled up and already flying.
Luke Harper stepped forward and caught the punch in one of his massive hands just before it reached Bray Wyatt's face, the sound the flat slap of a fist hitting a leather punching bag.
Dean immediately kicked at Harper's knee, causing the much larger Harper to let go of Dean's fist and stagger away.
Quick as a striking snake, Dean pivoted and launched himself at Wyatt, who'd been standing between Harper and Rowan in his patchy down winter coat.
Rowan - lamb's mask in place - intercepted Dean this time, shoving him back into William and sending the pair of them staggering backward against the rear corner of the car.
William very nearly ended up in the trunk, but managed to catch himself.
"Enough!" Wyatt said, stepping around Rowan. "Enough, boys! I ain't here to fight."
Dean straightened away from William and appeared to gather himself for another attack. "Think I give a fuck what you want, Wyatt?" he snarled.
Wyatt's sudden grin was all mania, wild and unchecked. "All that fire, all that blind hate - and why? Why does the blind man hate that which he can't see? Why does the drowning man refuse to accept the hand of salvation being offered to him? Why, oh why, can't the little rabbit stop running long enough to see he belongs here with all these other lost little souls?" He threw up a hand. "Don't, little rabbit. You'll get your chance to lay hands on me soon enough - if you must-"
"You're fucking right I must!" Dean swiped his sunglasses off, revealing eyes that were fatigue-ringed and burning with the fires of his rage. "I'm sick to fuckin' death of hearing you run your lyin' fuckin' mouth."
He twitched forward; William moved with him, coolly furious.
Harper and Rowan both moved between them.
"It's not lies, little rabbit," Wyatt said, easing Harper and Rowan aside. "There was an incident in Tampa last year that necessitated Daddy Regal's intervention. My boys were...a bit taken by a particular young Diva. She didn't appreciate them lookin' in on her. Your daddy there intervened. He threatened to have us all sent home. It was Miss Summer Rae, for the record, and you can ask her yourself. I'm sure she remembers it." William froze as Wyatt's grin widened. "Look at his face, little rabbit, and tell me I'm lying."
Dean looked over. Did a double-take.
William swore he saw the blue in Dean's eyes go gray. A muscle in his unshaven cheek flexed, relaxed.
"It isn't - no," William said, swallowing. "There - yes, yes, there was an incident, and I did threaten that, but there was no deal-"
"Yeah, I don't care," Dean cut him off. He turned back to Wyatt. "I don't care, Wyatt. I don't give a shit about any of this. Deal, no deal - fuck off. I don't care. This has nothing to do with me wanting to tear you apart. You got to the count of five to-"
"Did he tell you what he said to us about your little boyfriends the other night, Ambrose?" Harper suddenly asked. The same wild glee that was in Wyatt's eyes seemed to have wormed its way into his. He might have been grinning, too, but it was hard to tell beneath the layers of beard. "When he came down to see us? Did he tell you?"
Rowan, voice muffled behind that blank mask he wore, said, "I 'member exactly what he said. I got a good memory for words. He said: 'Just Ambrose. Can't say as I much care what happens to the other two.'"
William swallowed. "No, I-"
"We were there, Ambrose," Harper said over him. "We were standing right there. My hand on the Good Book, that's exactly what he said. What we did to the rat and the ox we did because of him." He pointed a big, blunt finger right at Regal. "You don't trust Bray. We know that. But you should. He's not lying to you. He-" again that finger stabbed at Regal "-is. Has been all along."
"It has everything to do with you wanting to tear me apart, little rabbit," Wyatt said, voice raised to the bloody heavens. "Everything. You're trying to burn the hands that want to pull you into the light of salvation. That man there - that snake - he wants to keep you down in the pits with him. He wants you slithering through the dark with him. To be a bad man like him forever. We don't want that. We want to set you free so you can help us bulldoze through the lies and hypocrisy men like him and the Authority have spread. It's what I've been saying all along."
Harper folded his plaid-covered arms over his barrel of a chest. "You're one of us, boy."
"Lost like us," Rowan put in, breath puffing out white from behind the mask. "Follow us. Bray will show you."
"He told us he didn't care what happened to your friends," Wyatt said again. "Because he doesn't."
"Shut up!" Dean suddenly snarled. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
"Dean-" William tried.
Dean spun suddenly and shoved William against the side of the car. "Is it true? Huh? Is that true?"
"I…"
"Is it true? Did you say that?" Dean's hand balled up in William's coat. "Did you?"
There was nothing sane in his eyes.
William put his hands over Dean's fists. "Lad-"
Dean pulled him forward and shoved him back. "Yes or no?"
"I - yes," William admitted. "But I didn't tell them to-"
"I don't care!" Dean shouted, spittle flying from mouth. "What the fuck is wrong with you? You fucking lied to me!"
"I didn't tell them to hurt your mates!" William shouted back at him, rattled.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the Wyatts lined up like school children watching a fight.
"You as good as did!" Dean snapped. Wild-eyed, feral. It was pure reaction, like a mindless powderkeg blowing itself up. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" He didn't give William a chance to answer; instead, he tugged him forward and shoved him back again by his lapels, slamming him hard against the side of the car. "They're my friends, goddammit! My team! You got them fucking hurt. You lied to me. You fucking-" Abruptly, he let go and spun away. "Fuck!"
"Dean-"
"Shut up, you lying sack of shit." Wintry, flinty cold eyes swept over him. "I'm done. You're done. This - un-fucking-believable." He pivoted to glare at the Wyatts. "You three better fucking disappear now or you're gonna be dead right here."
Wyatt's smile was so smug it made William want to slit his bloody throat. "You won't kill us, little rabbit. You're starting to see the light already. Congratulations. You've just taken your first step toward freedom."
"Fuck off," Dean said, reaching down to snatch up his backpack. "And you better fuckin' leave this piece of shit-" he jerked his thumb back at William "-to me. I'm gonna make him fuckin' pay for every goddamn thing he did to my boys. Any of you get in my fuckin' way, you're dead. Got it?"
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of gettin' in the way of your wrath, Dean," Wyatt said, laughing. "It'll be our pleasure to watch you burn the bad man down. Come on, boys," he said to Harper and Rowan. "We got ourselves a war to get ready for."
While William slowly straightened away from the car, Wyatt led his boys away.
Dean shot William an unreadable look over his shoulder. "You see me comin', you better turn and walk away. Best I don't see you around."
"Lad," William tried. "I didn't-"
"Yeah, I don't care right now," Dean cut him off. More warmth in the air than in his voice at the moment. "I really don't. I'll deal with you when I'm done with this Wyatt shit. For right now, just stay away."
"You'll deal with me."
By way of answer, Dean merely hoisted his backpack and reached for the pull handle of his suitcase.
William stood watching him go, feeling rather as though he'd just been backed over by a bus, and wondering, really wondering, what had just happened.
xXx
More than anything, what helped Seth was keeping busy over the weekend.
He wasn't a complete hard-ass about setting and keeping schedules, but having some routine helped.
Just to keep moving, to keep going, to keep pushing.
It helped him really think things through, and it finally dawned on him Friday during his workout that he'd probably take a bullet for Roman, when it came down to it, and, in a way, that was kind of what happened Tuesday night: as sick as it was, he'd done it to keep Roman safe.
He never should've had to make that choice - that was on the sicko Wyatts - but since he had to make the choice, he did what he had to.
That was all.
Being able to think about it that way, it got a hell of a lot easier to just get on with things - to put that shit out of mind once and for all, and enjoy his first weekend alone, officially, with Roman.
They had.
Oh man, had they ever.
By Sunday afternoon, though, he could feel it settling on him, like smoke rolling over from an approaching bonfire.
Armies gearing up for a damn war.
He and Roman spent most of Sunday talking it through, and then they'd roped Dean in.
Dean hadn't been a lot of help - was in one of those one grunt for yes, two grunts for no kind of moods - but he'd at least listened, so Seth was hopeful something had sunk in.
(If.)
What it came down to was the Shield putting aside everything that had gotten so fucked since last fall and coming together as the cohesive unit that had stomped its bootprint right on the face of WWE itself.
Egos checked. Bullshit put aside. All three focused on the same goal.
When it was three against the whole goddamn world, they were unstoppable.
(If.)
Monday was a hard workout and a short flight to a raw Chicago morning.
The sky was the sullen gray of a fresh bruise, punched-in and clouds hung low.
Seth tried hard not to find it ominous, but as he paced the tiny little office he and Roman commandeered for a locker room, man, everything felt like like it had slid a quarter-bubble off level, and for the life of him he couldn't understand why.
They were ready.
(If.)
Roman sat up on the desk, still in jeans and a long-sleeved tee shirt, headphones on and his phone in his hands, off wherever he went in his own head when he was hyping himself up.
Dean walked in mid-afternoon looking like he'd just woken up on the wrong side of a bender: unshaven, rumpled, tired-eyed, quiet. He walked into the little office, bypassing the desk and not saying a word to Seth and Roman as he tossed his shit into the corner.
From the desk, Roman shot Seth a cool deal with this look.
Seth rolled his eyes and paused in his pacing to go close the door. "Well, hi to you too, Dean."
"Yeah, hey," Dean muttered, hunkering down over his bag and yanking off his shades. "Just ran into Wyatts outside."
"Fuck, already?" Seth asked, looking over in alarm. "What'd they want?"
Dean shot him an irritated look over the top edge of his shades. "Blah blah blah, little rabbit, follow the buzzards. Usual bullshit. I don't wanna just fucking beat them tonight. You get that, right? I want this done."
Roman blew out a sigh. "We all want this done, Ambrose."
"I'm just saying," Dean said, shrugging out of his jacket. "So we're clear."
"It's been from the damn beginning."
Seth folded his arms over his chest. He felt frayed suddenly, like the edges of his nerves had been rubbed raw with steel wool. "Yeah, yeah, it has been. Just - Dean, if you're getting some stupid-ass idea of going rogue or anything, fucking don't."
Dean glanced over. "Long as we're all on the same page, I won't have to." He shook his hair out of his eyes. "Guys doin' all right?"
"Fine," Seth said shortly. "You look like crap."
That earned him a glare. "What are you implying, Seth?"
"Nothing, Dean," Seth shot back. "Just want to make sure your head's in the game today. There's too much at stake for any of us to be distracted."
"I didn't sleep for shit last night 'cuz I was thinking about Wyatts. That sound distracted to you? Jesus. Stop tryin' to pick a fight."
"I'm not," Seth snapped. But he was, and he knew he was, so he pulled down a ragged breath. "I'm not. Sorry. I just - fuck, I wanna get out there. You know?"
"Yeah, I know," Dean said as he pawed through his bag for his gear. "Me too."
Roman nodded. "Same here. I want this done - no excuses, nothing less than a hundred percent. We go out and we do this The Shield way. We'll do that, we got this - like you said. So take a breath. We got this." He caught and held Seth's eyes. "We're ready."
(If.)
Seth, leaning back against the closed door of a cramped little office, nodded.
As he looked past Roman to Dean, who already looked like he'd retreated into his own head, Seth really, desperately hoped so.
(If.)
xXx
They weren't.
Not even close.
xXx
But never in a million years would Seth have guessed he'd be the one to snap.
xXx
Jesus fuck, though.
Fucking electric crowd out there.
"This is awesome!" chants blowing the goddamn roof off the place.
Bray Wyatt's mad jester's grin across the ring, eyes gleaming with some fucking unholy fire as he hurled taunts across the ring.
Dean's foaming-at-the-mouth rage, a chaotic tempest in his eyes, screaming back.
For an awful second, it was like looking into a distorted funhouse mirror.
Seth pushed that thought aside (they're not the same, they're not the same, they're not the same) and homed in on Harper and Rowan - big and huge and filthy and looking like they'd hit every branch on the goddamn ugly tree when their parents threw them out of it.
The knowing leers those two sent him - the tiny gesture Harper made toward his crotch - made Seth's blood boil and made his fucking skin want to crawl off his bones.
Roman beside him like a dog pulling at its chian, just waiting to be let off for the hunt.
The noise.
Thunder shaking to the rafters, and Seth felt it all the way into his fucking soul.
And he knew it was gonna be a war.
xXx
But Seth still had no idea he'd be the one to snap.
xXx
Jesus fuck, though.
Two armies colliding with enough nuclear hatred to rip the goddamn world apart.
Spurred on by a mad crowd that didn't give a shit about anything except watching the goddamn world burn.
Seth started out flying high, the moves and hits stringing together in the seamless way they tended to when he was the man in charge.
Every goddamn punch and kick he landed to the Wyatts was vindication.
A kick to Harper's temple:
Suck your dick? How does my fucking boot taste, you piece of shit?
A punch across in Rowan's mouth:
Eat my fist, cocksucker.
But he crashed and burned - too overzealous, and a boot the size of a goddamn truck caught him hard enough to make him see stars.
The thing about the Wyatts was, yeah, he was quick, but they were all fucking huge and they were all strong, and it took a lot more than even his lightning-quick CrossFit-honed punches and kicks to keep them down long.
They were like fucking psycho killers out of a slasher movie: every time you thought you had them down, they came back, laughing all the way, and ready to turn you into a pile of goo on the canvas.
They brought him back to Earth, and holy fuck, did they beat him down hard.
And Bray Wyatt fucking laughed about it, wild and uninhibited.
"Oh, my my my," he said between kicks as Seth lay trapped in the corner. The most galling irony was it was the Shield's old corner - the same corner Seth and Dean and Roman had inflicted their most brutal worst on the opponents for eighteen fucking months. "Your little dogs of war have been neutered, haven't they? Yes, indeed. You talk of brotherhood and teamwork and unity, but you're all alone in the corner. You think they'll be there to save you?"
Words that barely penetrated over the crowd's restless rumbling.
Groundswell of support.
Hold on.
Just hold on.
Look for an opening.
They'll save you.
"Hold on, Seth!" he heard Roman shout.
He did.
xXx
Caught a break - an instinctive, diving kick.
The crowd was on its feet about something.
He dove for the tag.
The corner was empty.
No one was there.
xXx
A desperate look around: Dean was over rabid-dog barking at Wyatt and Roman, while Wyatt hurled insults Seth was too far away to hear, and while Roman stood clearly to hold himself back from hauling off and punching Dean in the face.
Roman got Dean away from Wyatt.
But they bickered all the way back to the corner, all pretense of showing a united fucking front - of being The Shield - thrown right out the goddamn window.
"Nowhere to run, skunky," Seth heard behind him as a goddamn freight train ran him the fuck over.
xXx
He needed them.
And they.
Weren't.
There.
xXx
Snap.
xXx
"You're all alone again, little rat."
Distant echo of laughter in his ears, buried under the crowd's frenetic attempts to get him back into the match, but fuck, he felt like a goddamn wrung-out washrag, boneless and spineless, unable to gather his wits about him much less find the muscle coordination he'd need to actually fire off a move that would get him out of this fucking mess.
Where are they, they weren't there, where are they, they weren't there.
"You're all alone, little rat."
Seth was punched and kicked and tossed and stomped and flung.
He saw stars.
He tasted blood.
He hurt everywhere.
"You're all alone, little rat."
xXx
Another desperate kick snapped out with the last of his adrenaline connected.
Shakily, he crawled to his corner.
They were there this time.
He tagged Ambrose harder than he needed to - you fucker - and collapsed outside the ring, shaking and aching and fucking livid, breath coming in hitching steamshovel gasps, the sweat soaked into every inch of his clothes making even his gloves feel like they weighed a hundred pounds.
Roman dropped down off the apron to crouch near him, expression all worried concern. "You okay?"
Seth glared at him. "I'm fine."
A complete fucking lie: there wasn't an inch of him that wasn't throbbing.
No thanks to you.
A big hand reached out to probe at what felt like the mother of all goose eggs on the side of Seth's head. Seth batted it away. "Don't touch me. Focus on the match. Stick with the fucking plan."
Because somebody has to.
Roman winced. "I'm sorry, baby. Dean was-"
"I don't care," Seth cut him off. "The match, Rome. Get it done."
Eventually, Seth dragged himself up to stand beside Roman on the apron.
Dean had lost control of the match, and the Wyatts were currently steamrolling him.
Seth, standing on shaky legs, couldn't find it in himself to feel much sympathy.
xXx
Thing was, Dean had every right to be out-of-his-mind angry at Bray Wyatt.
For what Wyatt had done to him, yeah, Dean had every right to want to burn that motherfucker down.
Seth got that.
He felt the same fucking thing.
But for Dean to throw the team's plan aside and just go running pell-mell after Wyatt on his own right when Seth needed him the most?
No, no, no - no way was that ever okay.
It was the Regal thing all over again:
Dean chucking everything aside to go chasing the goddamn monsters in his head, not caring about the destruction he caused or the people he hurt.
Not caring he was leaving Seth behind again.
Not caring he'd abandoned Seth to get stomped on again.
(Physically, this time; it had been his heart that had gotten stomped last time. But still.)
Roman should have known better, though, and that part hurt, too - that Roman had abandoned his post to go chase Dean down instead of leaving the crazy idiot to go take his lumps (sometimes Seth thought it would be better to let Dean take the ass-kicking in the hopes it'd teach him a lesson about running off on his own).
Mr. Overprotective Boyfriend there had let him down in a big way.
Nothing about anything was okay.
xXx
"You're all alone, little rat."
When it hit him he was really thinking about doing what he was thinking about doing, Seth wanted to punch himself in the face.
Because he wasn't that guy.
He didn't do shit like that to people - didn't just abandon them in the middle of a fucking fight, no matter how much he wanted to.
Especially people he cared about.
"You're all alone, little rat."
Especially not in the middle of a fight he was trying to end against people he not only genuinely hated, but people who were genuinely fucking with the people he cared about.
Now was not the time.
Was it?
Everything he'd tried - talking, yelling, screaming, planning - had fucking failed.
"You're all alone, little rat."
Sometimes, Seth thought sickly, sometimes you had to be cruel to be kind.
Dean in no way deserved what Seth was thinking about doing, and Seth felt genuinely sick to his stomach that he was actually thinking about it right now, but nothing about anything right now was okay.
In order to win this war, they needed to be one cohesive unit.
They weren't that.
They hadn't been that in a long time.
They'd signed up to fight a war, and instead of coming in like the army they'd trained themselves to be, they'd come in like a bunch of ADD-riddled little kids who were now in the process of letting themselves be destroyed.
They'd already lost this fucking battle - no matter what.
They'd already lost.
"You're all alone, little rat."
xXx
He had to do something.
Because if he didn't, they weren't just gonna lose this battle.
He had to do something.
But, oh God, he didn't want to.
xXx
Wyatt knocked Roman out and was running his mouth to Dean about rabbits and lost souls again.
Seth's heart was hammering so hard he couldn't even hear the crowd.
It was screaming its head off - he could feel it vibrating under his boots - but his entire world had narrowed down to the two men in the ring and the one horrible decision he was about to make.
He knew Dean better than anyone, and could see by the spark that lit Dean's eyes, that Dean was getting ready to come alive.
Dean snapped off a gorgeous DDT, planting Wyatt headfirst into the canvas.
The crowd lost its shit, thousands of people leaping to their feet and stomping to urge Dean to the corner.
Roman was still out cold at ringside.
Seth stood there conflicted, memories of all the times Dean had let him down lately - and in the past - swirling around his head while Dean, beaten down but determined as hell, crawled over to tag out.
xXx
Dean reached for him.
Seth dropped off the apron.
He wanted to vomit.
xXx
Boos rained down on him.
Dean, draped over the rope, had this look on his face like his whole fucking world had come crashing down.
Seth, heart completely just ripped out, backed away.
(Now you know how I felt when you left me behind to go chase Regal.)
(Now you know how I felt just now.)
(I'm sorry. I love you, and I'm fucking sorry.)
He lowered his head and made his way up the ramp.
Couldn't even bring himself to look up at the image on the big screen because he knew those huge, betrayed blue eyes - and fuck, that was gonna haunt his dreams for months - would be staring after him.
xXx
He wasn't abandoning Dean to the Wyatts, though.
That wasn't the point.
Roman was the point.
xXx
Roman caught up to him halfway up the ramp.
Big hand clamped painfully onto his shoulder, stopping him. "Seth, what the hell are you doing?"
Seth turned and said, "I reached for you guys for a tag, and you weren't there. I can't be the glue that holds this together. You two need to figure this out."
"What are you talking about?" Roman asked.
But Seth pulled away.
Go save him, Roman.
It's you two where the problem is, and only you two can fix it.
Go save him.
Don't leave him alone.
xXx
He heard the crowd explode behind him, and turned at the top of the ramp - right near Wyatt's rocking chair - in time to watch Roman being Roman.
Roman being amazing.
One-man cavalry, going to town on the Wyatts in a furious flurry of punches and dropkicks and spears (oh my), and as miserable as Seth was right then, he still felt his heart skip a beat at the fearless way Roman ran in to pull Dean out of the fire, the way he fought like his life depended on it, the way he slotted right into a groove with Dean and managed to fight seamlessly side-by-side with him for that one brief, desperate moment.
No, they wouldn't win the war.
But for that one moment, when those two finally clicked - when Dean set up Rowan so Roman could nail him with the jumping dropkick, Seth was half-convinced those two might actually manage to win the match.
xXx
They didn't.
xXx
Numbers, the very things that had helped the Shield over the past eighteen months, now caught up to them.
In the end, Wyatt nailed Dean with Sister Abigail and pinned him.
Talking the whole time.
Seth stood rooted to the spot, torn between running down to the ring and just fleeing the arena.
Wyatt knelt over Dean and spread both arms wide, yelling about buzzards.
But then one of Wyatt's hands drifted down to touch the side of Dean's face.
Before Seth could so much as twitch toward the ring, though, Roman charged in and shoved Wyatt off. Wyatt, on his ass, laughed up at him, cheerful and vicious, and gestured for Roman to "by all means" take Dean away.
Wyatt looked Seth's way, still grinning that horrible grin.
Seth's nerve broke.
He turned and walked out, fast, like the soles of his boots were on fire.
Boos followed him all the way out.
xXx
What did I just do?
xXx
Most of the roster - including a rather tense William Regal - had gathered around a pair of monitors set up in the catering area to watch the match.
There wasn't much love for either faction among those with whom William ended up watching (most everyone had been victims of The Shield at some point, and the Wyatts hadn't exactly endeared themselves to anyone with their creepy rhetoric ), but he sensed early on that most in the room considered The Shield the lesser of two evils.
No one overtly cheered them, but William heard even Dolph Ziggler muttering, "C'mon, Ambrose - get your shit together. You guys are better 'n this."
But William had known almost from the outset that tonight wasn't The Shield's night.
Their body language when they came down to the ring spoke volumes:
Stiff, no one looking at each other, Reigns and Ambrose pacing like something caged, Rollins giving both men a quick, irritated look.
Mouthing, "Stick to the gameplan."
Which they didn't.
It was almost embarrassing how quickly things fell apart.
They held their own in the beginning, yes, but things broke down once the Wyatts subdued Rollins.
It was, naturally, Ambrose who abandoned the gameplan.
William was not even a little surprised by that.
As quiet as Ambrose had been Sunday and Monday, as tense and withdrawn, William knew it was more a question of when would he than if he would.
Ambrose spun off to go chase Wyatt, and Reigns thundered off after them both, leaving poor Rollins alone to take even more of a beating than he already had - just when Rollins had finally managed to break free - and any chance of the Shield winning even the match was already gone.
Forget the war.
He could see how just done Rollins was - something in the downcast way the man stood ringside, not really even paying attention to the way the Wyatts were destroying Ambrose, not even able to look at Reigns.
Still, it was shocking when Rollins actually did drop down off the apron and walk away from his mates.
The catering hall fell dead silent at that, as if the air had been sucked out of the room.
Ambrose looked horribly like an injured dog watching his beloved owner - his only source of help - walking away and leaving him to die, all wide-eyed and lost.
Even to someone not terribly sympathetic or emotional like William, it was a rather wrenching sight.
Rollins, meanwhile, was all miserable anger, clenched up and unable to even look his mate in the eye.
William, stood at the back of the catering hall, watched it all rather numbly.
Down deep in the tiny part of him that remembered his concussion and the nightmares from two years ago, in the part of him that remembered waking up with Ambrose's hand clamped around his throat, that remembered fear as he'd watched Ambrose walk away today, down there, he smiled.
Mostly, though, there was fury.
Cold, coiled fury because how dare Rollins pull a stunt like this now?
Rollins knew it was Ambrose that Wyatt was after, and even if this was meant to teach Ambrose and Reigns a lesson and to get back at them for momentarily abandoning their post, bloody hell, it was the most stupidly disastrous time to do it.
He'd just handed Wyatt a bloody loaded gun and an entire box full of ammunition.
Any other time, against any other opponent, William would have been the first person to stand up and applaud Rollins for having the spine to do something like this. Clearly there was more to the man than even William realized, and it said a lot for his future that he was willing to let himself become a villain for the sake of taking control of a situation.
Any other time, this would have been bloody admirable.
But with Wyatt mid-ring gloating over a prone and just-pinned Dean Ambrose (and the air once again gone out of the catering hall), William found himself reaching for the straight razor that wasn't in his pocket and wishing Rollins was within reach.
After what they did to you, after what you know they did to him, you just let them have him?
As much as he tried to tell himself he didn't care what happened to Ambrose, that it didn't matter now, to hell with that ungrateful brat anyway, nothing about what he just saw sat right with him.
Deflated, he made his way out of the quiet catering room and out the main hall, trailing behind Dolph Ziggler and Zack Ryder, neither of whom were saying much.
There was quite a stir out in the hall, people buzzing amongst themselves, and when William looked off to his left, toward the hall that lead off to the ramp, he heard Bray Wyatt singing at the top of his voice:
"He's got the whooooooole world in his hands, he's got the whoooooooole world in his hands…"
The Wyatts rounded the corner, Rowan and Harper both clearly grinning under the layers of beard, and Wyatt walking with his arms outstretched and his head back as he sang.
When he saw William, though, Wyatt abruptly stopped. "Well now!" he called over. "That was quite a spectacle, wasn't it, Daddy Regal? The skunk leaving your boy - oops, guess he ain't yours anymore - leaving the little rabbit for me to pin this time. Even I wouldn't have expected that."
Both Ryder and Ziggler, a few steps ahead, paused and looked around. So did most of the others in the hallway. William tried to affect boredom. "Quite a match, yes, and no, I certainly didn't see that coming."
"I see why you were always so eager to crawl on top of him," Wyatt said. "He's pretty on his back, isn't he? Almost like he belongs there."
"Yes, well," William said, making a show of examining his fingernails, of straightening his suit coat's cuffs, "the one thing you'll find about him - and this is the voice of experience, mind you - is he you can put him there, but you can't keep him there. Gloat now, if you must, but don't say I didn't warn you when it's you on your back looking up at him and wondering where it's all gone wrong."
"Oh, I think that'll be you before it's me," Wyatt laughed. "He'll be your undoin' yet."
William huffed a humorless laugh of his own. That was true. "Not before he's yours, lad. As those three would say, believe that."
Something dangerous flickered through the blue of Wyatt's eyes. "Those three. Children playing like they know how to make war. I don't know if you observed or not, Regal, but tonight me and my boys broke their so-called bond of brotherhood. Showed the world it doesn't run as deep as they liked to pretend. We exposed them for the liars they were. I exposed you for the liar you were. Showed him how alone and lost he really is. He knows now. He saw. He'll make you pay. He'll make you all pay."
Palpable tension lay over the little hallway, choking thick, and the half-dozen witnesses stood 'round shifted and shared looks - Ziggler turning to mutter something to Ryder, a pair of divas frozen fearfully near where Harper and Rowan flanked Wyatt.
William, meanwhile, merely shrugged. "Bad men always pay, is that it? I suppose we'll see about that."
"We will," Wyatt said, his smile now gone curiously gentle. "But if you'll excuse us, we've got one more surprise to plan for this evening."
"Going to torment John Cena again?" William asked, not even having to try to affect boredom.
"Going to show the world the consequences of believing in false idols."
"How very Biblical of you," William said. He turned away.
"It'll be a pleasure to watch you burn, Regal," Wyatt called after him.
William didn't answer. Wasn't worth it, really.
He walked away quickly, not even sure where he was going, only aware he wanted to get away, to have a chance to bloody think.
At no point today, even after Ambrose had walked away from him, did he ever think this was over for him.
Now he knew.
This wasn't over.
Far from it.
And deep down, the old villain in him - the part that still craved cruelty and pain - rejoiced.
xXx
Seth took off with the car and refused to answer any of Roman's texts, so Roman and Dean were forced to bum a ride up to Detroit.
It was silent in the car - Cesaro's - with both Dean and Roman retreating to lick their wounds.
Not wanting to air their dirty laundry in front of Cesaro, who Roman never had any trouble with, but who wasn't involved.
Roman offered to drive partway, wanting the distraction to keep him from dwelling too much on how bad he hurt and how messed up everything had just gotten, but Cesaro shook his head and said he didn't mind.
About halfway, Roman's phone vibrated with a text from Seth.
We all need to talk. Tomorrow at SmackDown. We'll have a summit in the ring. Try to fix this. See you there.
Roman nudged Dean's shoulder.
Dean, earbuds in and staring out at the night with absolutely no expression on his face, took the phone and squinted down at the text.
As he passed the phone back over, he tugged his earbuds out. "He wants to do it on SmackDown?"
"That's what I'm getting," Roman said, tucking his phone in his jacket pocket without bothering to answer. "I don't get it, though. Airing this all in public? What's that gonna prove?"
"Probably wants to stop us from just cornering him backstage and kicking his ass," Dean muttered. He sounded more tired than mad now, the rage that had driven him to kick a whole stack of crates over seemingly snuffed out.
"I'm sure he had a reason," Roman offered, pitching his voice low, his own anger long-since swapped out for fatigue. Seth was a lot of things, but he wasn't somebody who turned his back on his boys.
Didn't make what he did right, didn't make Roman any less angry, but still - there had to have been a reason.
"Yeah, I don't wanna talk about it right now," Dean said. His leather jacket creaked quietly as he popped his earbuds back in and folded his arms over his chest.
Silence closed back around them, deep and brooding as the night sky beyond the windows.
Roman fell asleep at some point, and didn't wake up again until a hand shook his shoulder.
"Rise and shine," Dean said, voice raspy and rough. "We're there."
Roman nodded and stretched out stiff muscles, still mostly asleep, not really needing to wake up to know 'there' was a hotel and hotel meant there'd be a bed soon. He zombie-walked his way around to get his shit out of the trunk of the car, then mechanically turned to follow Dean and Cesaro into the hotel.
He caught himself looking around in confusion for Seth, but realized belatedly, stupidly Seth wasn't there.
Who the hell knew where Seth was?
It was just Dean there right now.
Dean, the one who'd caused problems early-going in the match, but had been there to get Roman's back when push came to shove at the end.
Dean had stayed glued to Roman's side backstage while Seth pulled one of the disappearing acts Dean himself was so famous for.
The hell kind of Bizarro-world did I wake up in?
He got a double room, though, and dragged Dean up behind him, ignoring Dean's protests he wanted to be by himself tonight.
But Roman had already lost track of one member of his team tonight; he was damned if he was going to lose the other one.
Seth walking away had hit Roman like a grenade in the chest.
He hadn't been there when Seth needed him - hadn't protected him or been there with a hand out to get him out of harm's way - and Seth had repaid him by leaving him and Dean to the wolves.
Roman, now sitting on the edge of one of the two hotel beds in his tee shirt and underwear, lowered his head into his hands, hair falling down over his face like a dark curtain. His body was crying out with the need to sleep, but his brain just refused to shut up now that it remembered Seth wasn't there.
How the hell he was going to sleep in an empty bed tonight, he had no idea.
It'd been a long time since he'd had to.
"I can't believe we did that, man," he said.
Dean was off by the chair in the corner, still stripping out of his jacket and jeans. "Yeah, well," he said, "maybe we fucked up, that don't excuse what he did. I'm sorry, Rome, but fuck Seth. You don't walk out on your fucking team in the middle of war."
"If you'd stuck to the goddamn gameplan, Ambrose-"
"Gameplan, gameplan, gameplan." Dean threw his jacket at the chair. "Are you seriously defending him right now? Really?"
Roman looked up. "You were in there for you, Ambrose, and you left Seth - your friend, your brother - behind to get his butt kicked. You did what you always do - got in your own damn head, and screw the rest of us. He needed us, and because I had to go save you from your damn selfishness, we we weren't there. Yeah, he was completely wrong to walk out on us like that, and believe me, I wanna kick his ass as much as you do, but let's not sit here and act like we're not responsible. If we hadn't been out fighting, we would've been there to catch the tag, and none of this would have happened."
Dean gave him a flat look. "Nobody made you come get me. I could've handled myself."
"Like hell you could have, and you would've gotten us disqualified in the-"
"Who the fuck cares? Jesus, Rome, it wasn't about winning a fucking match. It was about winning the fucking war. Stopping that creepy motherfucker from stalking me. Getting back at them all for what they did to Seth and me. Who. The fuck. Cares. About the fucking match?" Barefoot, but still in his jeans and tee shirt, he started pacing in front of the beds, moving jerkily back and forth. "You think this fucking shit is over? Seth just made it a hundred times fucking worse. Pretty much guaranteed I'm gonna have that psycho on my ass until one of us really does end up dead. But, yeah, by all means, Rome, bitch at me about a stupid match."
Roman sat up straight, irritation all but forgotten. "Shit."
He'd been so focused on being mad at Seth and worried about and irritated with Dean that he'd clean forgotten about the Wyatts.
"Believe me," Dean said, "I wanna kick Seth's ass from here 'til next fucking Tuesday for that stunt, but right now, the Wyatts are still a huge fucking problem."
"Fuck, Seth's out there by himself somewhere," Roman said, stomach dropping. He scrambled up and went to grab his phone. "I never texted him back. What if the Wyatts got to him?"
"How could they?" Dean asked, not pausing in his pacing. "He left right after the match. Wyatts stuck around to fuck with Cena - so they didn't even leave until like two hours later. He texted you way after that. Pretty sure he's fine."
Something hard in his voice said he wouldn't have cared even if Seth wasn't fine.
Which brought Roman's irritation right back. "I still want to know."
"Whatever."
Roman carried his phone back over to the bed and sat back down. He tapped out a quick reply to Seth's text: Fine. When? and sent it.
Not too desperate.
That done, he tossed the phone on the nightstand and looked back over at Dean. "We all messed up tonight. Every damn one of us. So what do we do to fix this?"
"I don't know," Dean said, shaking his head. "Fixing shit, gluing it back together, that's always been Mr. Architect's thing. I'm sure you probably want to go hear him out tomorrow, but, man, I don't give a shit. I can't fucking believe he just left me there."
"I know," Roman said, hunching forward again. "He didn't look happy about it."
"I don't care if he was dancing the fucking Macarena," Dean snapped. "He left, Rome. Yeah, maybe it was us - me - that threw the straw that broke the camel's back, but the bottom line is, that fucker left us behind. After everything Wyatt's done to us, after all that shit about 'we're a team and we just gotta do what we do,' for him to just fucking walk off like that, man…" He threw a wild roundhouse into the air. "You tell me how fuck you fix that."
He left, Rome.
There it was in a nutshell.
Seth left.
Now Dean was fuming and probably hurt like hell, and Roman was pretty hurt and angry himself and lost as to what he was supposed to do about any of this - especially with the Wyatts being the big old cherry on top of this shit sundae.
He couldn't pretend it hadn't felt like a bomb went off in his chest when he'd watched Seth walk off.
He'd spent half of every night last week awake holding Seth after nightmares had him waking up shaken.
Seth was a tough cat and a go-getter, but he'd needed Roman this weekend and Roman had been there every damn time.
For him to just turn away like that against the damn Wyatts of all people, there was no excuse.
Turn and pace, turn and pace - Roman wondered how the hell Dean wasn't getting dizzy, as fast as he was moving in this little space.
"I don't know," Roman finally admitted, fingers absently tracing a tattoo line on his forearm. "I think we need to hear him out. We don't like what he says, we kick his ass and I guess that's it. Either that, or we regroup. Take it back to the drawing board and start over. See where we all went wrong. Go after the Wyatts once we're really all right and not just saying we are."
Dean actually stopped, blue eyes flicking across his own bed over to Roman's. "Which one do you want to do?"
"Fix this," Roman said without hesitation. He shifted around so he was sitting more fully on his bed. "I want The Shield to be The Shield again. We've gotten pretty far up the mountain, but we haven't reached the top yet. You know? I want us all back on the same page and being the asskickers we used to be. It's gotta be all of us, though, or it won't work." He paused and gave Dean a pointed look. "That's me saying we need your crazy butt, too. I want you around. I know you think this thing with me and Seth means I don't, but you're wrong. I still want you to hang with us. So does Seth. It wouldn't be The Shield and we wouldn't be here without you. How you talk and how you come at people in ways they don't see coming - we need that just as much as we need Seth's planning and me to bring the big artillery. You get that?"
"...yeah," Dean said roughly, hand up to massage the back of his neck. "But what he did, Rome, I just - I don't know if 'I'm sorry' is gonna cut it. Like, I might need to kick his ass a couple times, and you might need to let me. Even then I don't know if that's gonna be enough. 'Cuz him piling onto this Wyatt thing…"
"I know," Roman said. "Believe me, I'm right with you. But one thing at a time, huh?"
Dean nodded and turned away to peel his shirt off. "All right."
"That's what you want, too, then? To fix it?"
There was long silence - long enough for Dean to finish swapping his jeans for a pair of shorts and to crawl onto the second bed - before he finally answered, "Right now, I don't know. Guess that's gonna depend on Seth and what he has to say."
"But do you want to?" Roman pressed, turning to peel back his own covers.
"I don't know," Dean said again. "How do you trust somebody who'll walk out and leave you in the middle of that fight like he did? I don't care if he thought he was justified. That somebody you really wanna make a team with?"
"I still love him, Dean," Roman pointed out. "I'm mad at him. I want to kick his butt. But I still love him. So if he's got enough 'I'm sorry' and a good enough explanation, I'll forgive him. That's what you do when you love somebody." He reached over and flicked off the lamp, plunging the room in pre-dawn darkness.
Things were quiet for a few seconds, and then Dean said, "When you love somebody, Rome, you don't do shit like this to them in the first place. We screwed up, but we went back for him. Because you love him. Because he's my friend. When you love somebody, that's what you do. You don't do what he did."
By the time Roman actually thought of an answer that wasn't cruel (The hell do you know about love, anyway, Ambrose?) or a pathetic denial (He probably did it because he loves us both, you know.), Dean was already sound asleep, thin, quiet snores filling his side of the room.
When you love somebody, Dean, you don't put them in a position where they feel like they have to.
It was a long time before Roman managed to fall asleep.
xXx
A/N: Remember - everything, and I do mean everything, in this story happens for a reason. (Even things that seem to happen very suddenly. Patience, dear readers.) About four chapters left to go. Shield Summit next. Thanks for reading.