Snake in the Grass

So after all that murderous rage, after all those fiery monologues, after being this close to really getting their hands on Seth, the Shield up and decided to back off. And not just a little bit, either. They didn't so much as try to jump him during his match with RVD. They just watched. What the hell was that supposed to be?

Seth should know by now – never ask questions you don't want the answers to. Not that he was surprised Dean intended to take his time with the revenge business. Dean liked to get creative (Seth shuddered at the thought). But Roman's whole "gonna take that black heart of his and we're gonna carve it out" thing? When Roman broke out the imagery, that's when you knew things were getting serious.

Well, fine. If it's a long game they're playing, then Seth'd be ready for it. He could outlast anything, especially if it involved a slower escalation of hostilities. It was better than legitimately fearing for his life every day of the week, at least.

And then Carly had to turn up and interrupt him. Well, it'd only been a matter of time before she had to get personally involved in this. Just like with Dean, Seth had a point of reference, an old mindset to relapse into for being at odds with Carly. He hadn't always been friends with her, either. True, Seth never hated her quite as much as Dean had, back in the day. In some ways, they were right back where they started from. He could do this, right? They'd been through this song and dance dozens of times before. Carly was back to being an obstacle for him to get past. An obnoxious, irremovable little obstacle.

But Seth would never admit that Carly had been able to get into his head. That ridiculous display of paint-by-numbers strategy caught his attention completely, like dangling a string in front of a cat, and he'd paid for it. He was so distracted trying to figure out just what in the hell she was doing that he let himself get jumped, like a freakin' amateur.

Okay, lesson learned. Don't underestimate anybody.

xXx

There was a second of extremely tense silence after the first match of the night. It'd been Paige and two of her cronies against what Seth had started referring to as "Caden's Heroes." (Yeah, he went and watched the reruns. It was a surprisingly accurate comparison, up to and including the tyrannical dictatorship in power being a total farce.) Emma pinned Paige for the win, and when Natalya and Naomi joined her in the ring to celebrate, the three women struck a painfully familiar pose, holding their fists out together over what was left of Paige.

And suddenly, all eyes were on Seth. What, like he could explain this? Like he was responsible for it somehow? Okay, fine, maybe he was responsible. Sorta. Fact was, everything was spiraling in a very unexpected direction. Cats and dogs living together, mass hysteria, and it'd all started after he turned on the Shield. Seth was gonna have to do some quick talking to keep on top of this one, like always.

"Seth," Stephanie said slowly, folding her arms and raising an eyebrow, "Is this something we could be concerned about?"

Really? She's really gonna use the mom voice on him, like he wasn't just ten years younger than she was? And yes, Seth was aware that people said his own voice made him sound like a whiny teenager. It wasn't like he could help what he sounded like in the first place.

"What, that?" Seth gestured to the monitor with an incredulous snort, "That was just people making a racket because they know they don't have the power to actually do anything, and they're too scared to try in the first place. It's the equivalent of an angry YouTube comment."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Hunter, "Because at this point, I'm starting to wonder if this isn't all part of somebody's plan."

He gave Seth a pointed look, and for a split second, Seth's pretty sure his heart stopped. But Hunter's expression wasn't accusing, just frustrated. Seth was starting to recognize that look, and he knew who was responsible for it.

"You don't think that-" said Seth, "Hunter, you've gotta be kidding. You think Carly's behind this?"

Hunter shrugged.

"You tell me," he said.

"I know Carly well enough to know she doesn't have the clout or the brains to put something like this together," said Seth.

"You sure about that?" said Randy.

Oh, so the great Apex Predator finally decided to grace the rest of them with his opinion! The posturing douchebag…

"Because this whole business is starting to remind me of something," Randy went on, "Maybe you remember it, Hunter. It's starting to look like we've got another Daniel Bryan on our hands."

"It's worse," said Stephanie, "Daniel Bryan just had the WWE Universe on his side. If our suspicions are right, Carly's got them and half our employees! And you don't think this is something to worry about, Seth?"

"Carly's not some great inspiring leader," said Seth, "I mean, come on, remember what she was like when she first got here? She was a doormat. And do you know why? Because that's all Carly is: a people-pleaser. All she really did was shift from trying to make the Authority happy to trying to keep the WWE Universe happy. And that? That's unsustainable. The fans are a bunch of fickle, entitled malcontents, and we all know it. Once they get tired of her, she won't know what to do with herself. Problem solved all on its own."

Stephanie looked back at Hunter, raising her eyebrows and shrugging slightly. They could see the logic, but they weren't quite convinced. Seth sighed forcefully.

"Look," he said, "If you wanna settle this question once and for all, why don't we just ask Carly about it? I've known her long enough; I can tell when she's lying."

"And how exactly do you expect to get anywhere near her, Seth?" Randy scoffed, "You're not gonna be able to get her away from your two former buddies when they'll happily beat your ass on sight."

"I'm sure Seth would never suggest something unless he already had it planned out," said Hunter.

"Thank you, Hunter. As I was going to say, we don't have to worry about getting Carly away from Reigns and Ambrose. I know just how to get her to come to us."

And it worked like a charm. Carly was in full Colonel Hogan mode, deflecting their questions with a mix of jokes and feigned ignorance. Well, not completely feigned. As far as Seth could tell, she wasn't lying about not being behind everything that was going on. Unfortunately for Carly, Hunter was less Colonel Klink and more Emperor Palpatine. He'd instructed Seth to see if he couldn't coerce a little compliance from her.

It almost wasn't fair, really. Seth could – with surgical precision – apply pressure in just the right places to hurt Carly most, and she'd never see it coming. She was that oblivious. If Seth had any sort of conscience, he'd feel bad about doing this to her. But it was an established fact that Seth Rollins had no heart, so he worked her over mercilessly.

Seth could practically feel the approval radiating from Triple H as he did. As a man with a pronounced ruthless streak, Hunter appreciated Seth's knack for cruelty. Seth wanted to make the most of this opportunity to impress him, and Carly was a very obliging subject for it.

A few well-chosen words were all it took to set her off. If Seth hadn't been anticipating it, he probably wouldn't have been fast enough to block that slap. Funny. Even with all that anger, Seth could see in her eyes that Carly still didn't understand how he'd been able to get past her defenses like that. It was almost too easy.

Still… Looking her dead in the eyes right then, it almost threw him. Her eyes really were the exact same color as his, weren't they? In some kinda weird melodramatic, metaphorical way it was like looking in a mirror. A warped mirror. One that he was on the wrong side of. There Carly stood, all fiery and fearless and idealistic – everything Seth used to be.

No. No. Everything that he was. Seth was still the same guy, right? Going through with this plan didn't change a thing. It's just the way people see him that changed, that's all. Hell, he knew that. It's just getting reminded of it that rattled him.

And, of course, Seth couldn't enjoy his success for long, since apparently the little révolutionnaire had seen the trap coming and set up a counter-offensive. But that was only a minor setback. Randy didn't take too much of a beating, and Seth got the chance to show Hunter that he was, in fact, more than capable of dealing with Carly. He owed her for that.

xXx

The next week, Hunter approached Seth about the possibility of psychologically dismantling the remnants of the Shield, since he'd done so well with their manager. Seth, playing the good little sadist in training, was happy to oblige. He was gonna have to move beyond just threats this time, of course. And make it a more public display. And, since Randy was still sulking over getting jumped, the target should probably be Roman.

Carly wasn't the only one who could learn from her mistakes. Seth made sure there wouldn't be any indications that something was up until Roman was on his way to the ring, and by then it'd be too late for him or Dean or Carly to do anything about it. Along with knowing Roman's strengths, Seth knew his weaknesses. The big man was blindsided, outnumbered, and ultimately subdued. As soon as he, y'know, regained enough consciousness to realize what was happening, Roman was gonna be furious.

At least Randy seemed to be enjoying himself. The whole I'm-gonna-hurt-your-friends-and-force-you-to-watch thing? Right up his alley.

"Come on, pretty boy," he laughed, slapping the side of Roman's head, "Wake up!"

And there it was. Confusion, horror, and red-hot rage. Roman struggled to free himself, pointless as it was. Didn't matter how strong a guy was. Nobody's gonna be able to escape once their arms are trussed up in the ropes like that. Seth glanced at Dean and Carly, both mad as hornets and fighting to get loose. All he had to do was give the goons a nod, but…

Dean could take it. No matter what'd happen to him in the WWE, Dean Ambrose had almost certainly had worse. The man came from a world of barbed wire and broken glass and a goddamn Sawzall to the forehead that one time, for crying out loud. A standard mugging was kid stuff for him.

But Carly? Up until recently, she'd been a glorified secretary. She was a civilian. Sure, she was tough and scrappy and whatever, but she wasn't a wrestler. The things that would only hurt a trained athlete could seriously injure her, y'know? Especially if Hunter's true apprentice, Paige, had anything to say about it.

So, knowing that he was rationalizing, knowing that he was just prolonging the inevitable, hating himself for being the one to order a beat-down on the guy he considered a brother, Seth pointed at Dean and ordered the goons to start with him.

"Now, you just wait your turn, Carly," Randy called, grinning as he watched Carly's desperate efforts to free herself.

Deep down, Seth kinda hoped Carly's sporadic luck would turn in her favor today, and he wouldn't have to see that. A furious growl caught Seth's attention. Latching onto any excuse not to watch Dean get beaten to a pulp, Seth looked down at Roman, who was straining against the ropes.

"You bastards! Let them go!" Roman bellowed.

"Don't hurt yourself, Roman," said Seth, giving him a condescending pat on the head.

Roman jerked away, shooting Seth a baleful glare, and kept struggling. Seth sighed inwardly, biting his tongue to keep from saying 'Seriously, don't hurt yourself. You could dislocate a shoulder doing that.'

And now he didn't have a reason not to watch the proceedings. Dean was barely fighting back anymore. Even he couldn't last forever with the goons all lining up to take potshots at him. It made Seth sick to his stomach to see Dean like this, knowing that it was all on him. Any minute now, Seth was gonna have to switch over to Carly. Just another test of his poker face, that's what he was gonna have to think of it as. At least everything was going according to plan, right? It'd be good for everyone in the long run. Seth motioned for the guys to stop, and they looked a little disappointed as they obeyed. He turned to look at Paige, and –

Everything went dark.

Seth bolted the instant the lights cut out. He narrowly avoided getting grabbed by somebody before he made it to the safety of the ramp. The whole place'd devolved into chaos. The audience was split between annoyance and panic, Paige was over there screeching orders that nobody could understand, the rest of the goon squad was scuffling blindly with whoever they could get their hands on, and then – the distinctive sound of two chairshots cut through the din.

Right on cue, the lights suddenly came back up. And what a sorry mess things were. The goon squad stared at each other like idiots as they realized they'd been attacking their own in the ruckus. But the cherry on top of this fail sundae was Carly, chair in hand, standing over what was left of Kane and Randy. God damn it.

Seth honestly thought they were right behind him when he booked it out of there. Why the hell would they stay right where anybody could find them? And deck them with a chair, apparently. Seth shouted for the goons to make themselves useful for a change and pull Randy and Kane out of there before something else stupid happened.

He ushered Tweedledee and Tweedledum back to the Authority's office, where Hunter was chewing out one of the senior techs about the blackout. Said it was "unsafe," and "inexcusable," and that it'd cost her her job if it ever happened again. But Hunter was talking around the issue. Any idiot could tell that blackout was no coincidence. Somebody was trying to buy the Shield time. Or, more likely, to buy Carly time. Seth got the sinking feeling he was gonna have more to worry about this month than just dodging beatdowns.

xXx

The slime incident was bad enough. Seth didn't know how in the hell they managed to pull that off without anybody reporting them to the Authority. To be completely honest, he almost admired the ingenuity and flat-out audacity of it. Sure, the blond side of his hair was tinted green for a couple days afterward, but at least it happened to all of the Authority at once. If you gotta look stupid, might as well not do it alone, right?

But this? This was a whole new level of humiliating. He should've bolted the second Dean followed him onto the stage. He knew he should've. It wasn't like he hadn't been running like a coward every other time his ex-friends turned up. Maybe he was just thrown off by the fact that Dean wasn't trying to beat him into a pulp, for once. And that was a damning mistake.

The sleeve coming off could've been an accident. Wrestlers get their street clothes ripped all the time. The rest of the jacket, on the other hand. That's when Seth realized that he vastly underestimated Carly's capacity for spite. He knew what was coming next. He should've gotten out of there after the first seam ripped. Seth knew exactly how screwed he was the second Dean made a grab for his pants. (God, that's not a sentence Seth thought would ever be used in real life. It sounded like something out of one of those creepy fanfics.)

Seth holed himself up in his dressing room, stewing in mortification. He knew it was kinda irrational to get embarrassed over it, seeing as he'd ended up more fully clothed than he was while wrestling. And, yeah, he definitely deserved it.

He ended up changing into his workout clothes, which made him feel woefully underdressed when Hunter and Stephanie turned up. Both of them had put on their best airs of parental sympathy. It was pretty damned condescending, if you asked Seth, but he was obligated to appear grateful for it.

"Now, don't worry about a thing," Stephanie was saying, "We took care of Dean."

Well, that was… ominous.

"'Took care of,' how?" Seth asked slowly.

Stephanie turned to share a sickeningly sweet smile with Hunter.

"Well, at first we were going to have him thrown out of the arena," said Stephanie, "But really, when has that ever stopped anybody from coming back in? So I decided to do one better. We found an empty storage room and locked him in there to cool his heels for the remainder of the broadcast."

She finished with a bright, self-satisfied smile, so proud of her own ingenuity, but it was all Seth could do to maintain his poker face. Everything else was being shoved from his mind by memories of finding Dean on the floor of that motel room - white as a sheet, practically catatonic. And now it was happening again, and there was nothing Seth could do about it.

He forced his expression into an appropriate response – raised eyebrows, an open-mouthed smile – and exhaled a laugh, like he was impressed by Stephanie's creative solution. Underneath it all, Seth felt like he'd been mule kicked in the gut. Nobody questioned his silence as time went by. He'd been sulking since his involuntary strip-tease, anyway. But while the rest of the Authority went about business as usual, Seth was scrambling wildly for ideas.

Stephanie hadn't mentioned where exactly they'd put Dean. Could he give the Authority the slip? Would he be able to find the room on his own? If he bribed somebody to tell him, would they rat him out? Or maybe he could just ask which room it was. Would they buy that he just wanted to go and get a little revenge? Would they let him go alone? How suspicious will they be when he ends up calling for the medics to take care of Dean?

He didn't even notice that Stephanie'd left the room until she rushed back in, pressing one hand to the side of her face and looking furious.

"Steph, what's wrong? What happened?" said Hunter, hurrying to her side.

"Carly happened." Stephanie spat the name, as usual, before spiraling into flustered fretting, "I don't know how it happened. I saw her looking for Dean, and when I told her what we'd done with him, she just snapped! She grabbed me and threw me against the wall and then she demanded that I tell her where he was, and when I did, she… She backhanded me across the face, that little bitch!"

She'd risen back to outrage by the end of it. The Queen was not used to getting a taste of her own medicine, that's for sure. But if Carly found out where Dean was, then she and Roman could bust him out, and Seth wouldn't have to get involved and potentially blow his cover, thank God.

Although, maybe he gave thanks too soon. Hunter was suddenly staring at him, eyes narrowed, damn near suspicious. Not good.

"Seth," he said, "Do you have any idea why the hell Carly would go off on my wife like that?"

Seth shrugged and hesitated under the pretense of considering the question. Of course he was gonna lie. Aside from himself and Roman - and Carly, apparently - nobody knew about Dean's issue with locked rooms. Now, Seth didn't understand the reason behind it (his guess was PTSD or something similar) but he's damn sure he's not gonna give the Authority the power to exploit it. That'd be crossing a line that he couldn't uncross. Even after all the awful things he already did, Seth couldn't do that to Dean.

"Carly's always been kinda dramatic," said Seth, "And she thought she was completely in control of the situation. When she found out she wasn't, she panicked."

"Hunter, we're not just going to let her get away with this, are we?" Stephanie asked pointedly, drawing her husband's full attention back to her.

"Of course not," said Hunter, "We'll deal with Carly later. For now, you two go make sure Carly and Roman don't try to break Dean out or anything."

He gestured vaguely at Randy and Kane, who looked seriously nonplussed.

"Us two?" Randy demanded, "Why us two? This is Seth's problem, not ours. Let him deal with it."

"It's the Authority's problem," Hunter said firmly, "Seth would do the same for either of you. Are we clear?"

Randy and Kane side-eyed each other for a moment, but headed off with no further complaints. And when they came back not ten minutes later nursing a new collection of bruises and a grudge against Roman Reigns, Seth knew he was gonna have to walk on eggshells around them for a while. And it was a foregone conclusion that his former friends were gonna be out for blood over this. But that'd keep.

At the moment, Seth was beyond relieved that Roman and Carly were able to get Dean out of there. A part of him desperately wanted to drop the whole act right now and run off to find them, to see if there was anything he could do to help, but he knew that wasn't possible. Even if he tried, it'd only make things worse. One of them would kill him before he got a chance to explain, and…

Seth's stomach dropped. They were going to think that this was his idea. He was the only member of the Authority who knew about Dean, and he did have a motive for taking some horribly spiteful revenge. Seth casually moved to lean against the wall, just to keep himself from falling over.

Every time Seth thought that nothing could possibly make things worse for himself when things were all said and done, something came along to prove him wrong. They were never gonna believe that this was a coincidence, that he'd had absolutely nothing to do with it. And there were never gonna forgive him for it.

Seth was overwhelmed with the strange feeling that everyone in the room was miles away, that there was some invisible barrier closing in on him. There was no future for him here, and no safe place for him to go home to when it was all over. He was alone. He was trapped. He'd done this to himself.

His head jerked up when he realized that somebody'd said his name. Judging by the looks on everyone's faces, he'd taken a little too long to respond. Shit.

"Sorry, lost in thought," Seth said with a mollifying smile, "What were you saying?"

"I was just wondering," said Hunter, "If you'd be able to think up some appropriate or, should I say, effective punishment for Carly. Nobody puts their hands on my wife and gets away with it, you understand."

"Hmm, 'effective,' is it," Seth chuckled, "Oh, I think I can manage that."

There was nothing else for it now. Nothing else for him. He had to see the game through to the end. What else could he do?

It was simple enough coming up with a way to put Carly through the wringer, but the girl didn't make it easy for him. Between the snark and the casual unconcern, Seth could only guess that Dean was finally rubbing off on her. Still, Seth knew the embarrassment of being dragged out there in handcuffs was gonna sting. Carly didn't like being made to look like a fool any more than he did.

By the time Seth finally called them out, Dean and Roman were already righteously pissed off. It only took a few well-placed taunts about Carly to push Dean over the edge. Let's be real here, he wasn't fooling anybody at that point. Except for Carly, somehow.

And Roman, well… It was easy to see that Roman blamed him one hundred percent for what'd happened to Dean. Even with Carly's outburst, Seth was just about able to get them riled up enough to charge down to the ring, regardless of the presence of the goon squad. But, to the surprise of absolutely no one, they never got quite that far.

Seth really wasn't surprised when Ziggler and the rest of his crew turned up. What Seth didn't anticipate was that the sneaky little shit had taught herself how to slip out of handcuffs. For a panicked few seconds while chaos reigned outside the ring, Seth desperately tried to free himself from Carly's sleeper hold. She had it locked in good, he'd give her that much, but Seth had some pretty good motivation to get out of it. Namely, being as far away as possible by the time Dean and Roman hit the ring. With a well-timed yank on the handcuffs, Seth was able to loosen her grip enough to throw her off his back.

It was instinct, really, seeing an opponent on their hands and knees in the center of the ring like that, right in position for a Curb Stomp. Seth had already rebounded off the ropes before alarms started going off in his head. What the hell was he doing? He couldn't curb stomp Carly! What kind of a bastard would hit his finisher on a civilian girl? Oh, that's right. Randy would.

Nobody could fault him for stumbling a little, right? He'd just been nearly choked out of consciousness. But damned if it didn't give Carly enough time to recover and make another grab for him. She latched onto him, apparently as determined to keep him here as he was to get the hell away. Seth glanced past her to the brawl at ringside. Those idiots couldn't even manage to hold their position. Every second, Dean and Roman inched closer to breaking through the line. Shit, shit, shit-!

Going for a pressure point was what the commentators would call a "desperation move," but Seth couldn't bring himself to actually hurt Carly, not even for the sake of keeping up appearances. As he hit the side of her neck, Carly's grip on him was broken instantly, and she dropped like a sack of potatoes. Seth darted through the ropes and bolted into the crowd without looking back.

This wasn't something he could've seen coming, was it? Seth couldn't have possibly known that turning on Dean and Roman would have these kinda consequences. Half the roster took it as their cue to rally around the remnants of the Shield and finally stand up to the Authority. Well… Maybe it was a little more complicated than that. But at least Hunter seemed to understand that this was something they couldn't have foreseen. Open rebellion among the ranks was the Authority's jurisdiction. Seth had other things to worry about.

Because now Dean was becoming a problem. Seth couldn't go anywhere without constantly looking over his shoulder, expecting Dean to leap out of the shadows and attack. At first, Seth found it weird that Dean's ambushes weren't nearly as murderous as he'd expected they'd be. Dean had every reason to believe that Seth did something unforgivably cruel, didn't he? Things like dumping buckets of ice water over him were pretty tame retaliation for that. But then again, Dean and Roman did say they were in this for the long haul. Dean wasn't gonna be satisfied with just beating the hell out of him. No, Dean was gonna wear him down until he turned into a paranoid wreck, Seth was sure of it. He wasn't sure which option he'd prefer, honestly.

It was interesting, though. Seth could tell that, whatever Dean was up to, he wasn't acting on Carly's orders. This sort of thing wasn't her style. In theory, the idea of Dean Ambrose going rogue didn't surprise Seth at all. It was in the man's nature. But Roman was usually able to keep him in check. If Dean was going off on his own... well, Seth wasn't sure what that meant.

The rest of the Authority didn't notice anything out of the ordinary, so Seth wasn't about to bring it up. He was smart enough not to tell everything he knew. A guy had to make sure he stayed useful, after all. Stayed necessary. Anybody who intentionally made themselves expendable was an idiot.

Still, something had to be done about Ambrose. He was becoming a real pain in the neck, and the Authority wanted him off Seth's back in the lead-up to Money in the Bank. A conference was held to decide the best way to shut him down.

Seth only just managed to convince them notto go with Kane's plan of having Seth curbstomp Dean through a pile of cinderblocks. (Because, really? Cinderblocks? You could kill somebody doing that. Beating the daylights out of somebody was one thing; having a murder on his conscience was another matter entirely.) Seth made the point that it'd be difficult to set up a pile of cinderblocks, and more difficult to keep the plot under wraps. You never knew which employees might be willing to rat them out to the rebels, right?

And besides, if they were going to make an example out of Ambrose, wouldn't it make more sense to do it somewhere with better visibility? The steel steps would be enough to put a dent in Ambrose's enthusiasm for causing trouble, and they could be easily pulled into the center of the ring, where Seth could curbstomp that lunatic in plain view of the entire audience.

It was easy enough to set the trap. Dean was clever, Seth wasn't gonna deny it, but he'd always been a little slow to change tactics. Jumping Seth on his way to and from the ring had worked like a charm so far, so in Dean's thinking there was no reason to try something different. Or more importantly, at least as far as Seth was concerned, there was no reason to anticipate something going wrong.

Seth was taking no such chances. He had Kane and half the goon squad on hand to make sure things went off without a hitch. Not Randy, though. Every time Hunter ordered him to be Seth's backup, he inched closer and closer to throwing an honest-to-God temper tantrum. And as funny as that'd be to watch, Seth still needed ol' Tattoo Sleeves on his side for the time being.

It wouldn't be that bad for Dean, physically, right? Barbed wire and broken glass and all that. And the guy was practically Wolverine with how damn resilient he was. But up until now, it'd been the goons handling this sorta thing. Seth hadn't had to do any of the dirty work. Not since the night after Extreme Rules, anyway.

He couldn't stop thinking about all the times he had to drag Dean to the trainers' room after the Shield took a beatdown, or the times he wound up patching Dean up himself. The thought of potentially being the direct cause of an injury tied Seth's stomach in knots. He tried to recapture the way he'd felt when he turned on the Shield – that weird, detached, zen kinda thing – but he couldn't quite do it. Especially not when he put his boot on the back of Dean's head and heard the bizarrely distinctive thud of somebody's skull colliding with steel.

Fortunately - or maybe unfortunately - Seth wasn't given a chance to dwell on what he'd just done. A sudden roar from the crowd was swiftly followed by a roar from an angry Samoan, and Seth turned around just in time to see Kane eat one hell of a Superman punch. Without missing a beat, Roman whirled around to come after Seth.

For the next minute or so, Seth was only able to focus on one thing: fighting for his freakin' life. It became instantly clear to him that Roman had actually been holding back up until now. But he wasn't pulling any punches anymore. Not after what'd happened to Dean. It was all Seth could do to try to scramble towards the ropes, to get himself in a position to run like hell and not look back. Roman, however, wasn't gonna let him get off that easily. He hit like a goddamn freight train, and every time Seth saw an opportunity to escape, Roman just latched onto him and dragged him back.

Roman grabbed hold of Seth's head with both hands and hauled him to his feet. Seth couldn't struggle his way loose, couldn't look anywhere but straight into Roman's eyes. Seth could now say he knew what the literal wrath of God looked like. Suddenly, Seth found himself stammering incoherently, unable to shut himself up.

"Please… R-Roman, please, you gotta listen to me, I… I d-didin't… I-it's not…"

A subtle shift in Roman's expression, and the rage turned to a look of complete disdain.

"Stop it, Seth," Roman said firmly, "That's enough."

Seth kept stammering, begging even, not sure what he was even saying anymore. But for a fraction of a second, he could've sworn that Roman actually looked sad. Maybe Seth was just imagining things. Because the next thing he knew, Seth found himself being hoisted up by the goddamn neck and tossed out of the ring. Hell, not even the Architect himself had the presence of mind to keep analyzing the situation after having his entire spinal column jarred by a hard landing on the floor.

Deep down, Seth knew that wasn't gonna be enough to stop Dean. Tenacity was one of his best – and most annoying – qualities. Dean was more than capable of hounding him to death if he didn't think of something, fast.

He'd been doing his best to convince Hunter and Stephanie that the Shield's little pranks were nothing to worry about. They were irritating as hell, sure, but they weren't doing any real harm to the Authority. Besides, it kept them busy, didn't it? They wouldn't be able to keep it up forever. Dean was bound to get bored, and Roman wouldn't have any real clout on his own, and Carly's pretty much nothing without them, right?

Well, it sounded true, and that was all that mattered. Keep the Authority appeased, keep the Shield off his back, keep up the pretense – lather, rinse, repeat.

He wasn't surprised when Carly came bursting into Hunter's office later. What surprised him was the way she straight-up demanded a match between himself and Dean, like she actually thought that was going to work. Hunter clearly didn't take it seriously, and Seth was sure he had no intention of ever making the match.

But as Carly went on about consequences and unleashing hell on this company, that's when it hit him. She was bluffing. She knew she had no way of threatening or bribing the Authority into complying, so she went right for the bluff. Seth had to admire that kinda audacity. Of course, it was never gonna work, unless-

"You wouldn't."

Without even really stopping to think, Seth played along. Carly eyed him evenly.

"Wouldn't I?" she said.

It was the perfect opportunity. Take Dean down in a one-on-one match and keep him away from the MITB match. Dean was good – great, even – Seth wouldn't deny it, but Seth also knew he could win that match. Hey, nobody got this far in this business without confidence, right?

Still, as good of an actress as Carly was, Hunter wasn't gonna take the bait on her word alone. Seth had to convince him that she was on the level. He didn't know what Carly was thinking at that moment, but she never even batted an eye, just took the unexpected opportunity in stride. Smart girl.

"I can handle Dean Ambrose," Seth said in response to Hunter's unvoiced question, "If anything, putting him down once and for all will keep him from sabotaging any more of my matches."

Now that was an uncomfortable place to be: standing between Hunter and Carly, both of them just smiling at each other like that, thinking they'd gotten the upper hand on the other one. And Seth, the guy who's supposed to have the upper hand on everybody, was starting to feel even more uncertain.

But the second Carly flounced, Hunter's expression hardened into a frown.

"Seth, what the hell was she talking about?"

Ah, crap. Time to lie like a rug.

"I… I can't say for sure," Seth began carefully, "She never actually came out and told any of us, but… Well, she's been talking with Mr. McMahon a lot lately. I overheard one of their phone calls once, and it sounded like they were discussing a… a change in leadership."

No such conversation had happened, of course, but Seth knew he wasn't imagining the flicker of fear in Hunter's eyes. Vince was the only one in the company with more power than him and Stephanie, and therefore was the only thing Hunter truly feared. Unless Seth missed his guess, that'd be enough convince him to make this match official.

"Well," said Hunter, nodding, "I'm confident you won't have any trouble defeating Dean Ambrose, so that won't be an issue, will it?"

"Absolutely not," said Seth.

But he wasn't sure he liked the edge in Hunter's tone when he said that.

(Note: I'm sure it'll come as a surprise to no one that the working title of this was 'The Chapter That's Gonna Kill Me,' haha. You know how it is when life happens. I lost a lot of the writing momentum I'd built up, and I'm still working on getting it back. But I'm making progress, and I'm determined to keep it up. Once again, thank you all so much for sticking with this story and giving feedback when you can!)